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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092341076 
 
COHNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 341 076 
 
EARLY CHURCH HISTORY 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON ■ CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA ■ SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
EARLY 
 CHURCH HISTORY 
 
 to A.D. 313 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY MELVILL GWATKIN 
 
 DIXIE PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, CAMBRIDGE J LATE GIFFORD LECTURER, EDINBURGH 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' SELECTIONS FROM EARLY WRITERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY TO THE TIME OF CONSTANTINE ' 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1909 
 
TO 
 
 m^ mate 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the present work the writer's aim is to trace 
 the growth of Christianity in its connexion with 
 the general history of the time, indicating the lines 
 of thought, and noting the forces that made for 
 change, but without any attempt to give an ex- 
 haustive account. For this reason the subjects are 
 taken in a roughly chronological order ; and since 
 the history concerns the general reader as well as 
 the student of Theology, the original languages are 
 almost entirely excluded from the text, and only a 
 few books are named after each chapter for further 
 study. In a word, the work is a narrative, not a 
 repertory of facts and writers on the facts like von 
 Schubert's excellent Kirchengeschichte. 
 
 No attempt has been made to conceal personal 
 opinions. The mere annalist may be able to do it, 
 but the historian cannot, unless he accepts theories 
 of determinism which turn Universal Law into 
 universal nonsense by refusing to recognize the 
 plainest facts of universal experience. Lord Acton 
 himself — and we have seen no more impartial man 
 
viii CHURCH HISTORY 
 
 in our time — very plainly shewed his personal 
 opinions. Events, and still more men, cannot 
 be understood without imagination and sympathy ; 
 and imagination and sympathy involve opinions 
 which (whether true or false) can always be dis- 
 puted. Since then such opinions must of necessity 
 colour the narrative, they are better frankly stated 
 than silently taken for granted. Impartiality does 
 not consist in a refusal to form opinions, or in a 
 futile concealment of them under a lofty affectation 
 of treating history scientifically, but in forming them 
 by a single-hearted efi'ort to realize the lives of men 
 and think their thoughts again, and understand their 
 whole environment. Our power is strictly measured 
 by our sympathy. The demand of some that personal 
 opinions should not be discoverable means the aboli- 
 tion of everything that can reasonably be called 
 history ; or else it is the suppression of some other 
 men's opinions — for these writers are often far from 
 reticent about their own. 
 
 The writer has not hesitated to repeat certain 
 passages of his earlier works, though never without 
 careful revision. In this connexion he has to acknow- 
 ledge the courtesy of the Syndics of the University 
 Press, in allowing him to take for the basis of Ch. 
 III. an article he wrote for them on the Eoman 
 Empire as far back as 1889. Other obligations are 
 too numerous and too intricate to be enumerated : 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 but all books mentioned have been found useful, 
 and many others also. 
 
 It remains for him to give his best thanks to 
 his wife and to Mr. H. F. Stewart of St. John's 
 College for their care in looking over the proofs, 
 and to Mr. T. K. Glover of St. John's College for 
 many valuable suggestions in addition. 
 
 Grange over Sands, 
 June 28, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chuech History in General . . . .1 
 
 QHAPTER II 
 
 The Decay of Ancient Relimon . . 13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Roman Empire . . . 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Apostolic Age ..... .51 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Neronian Persecution . . 73 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Flavian Period . . . . 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Trajan . .115 
 
xii CHURCH HISTORY 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 H ADRIAN AND AnTONINUS PiUS ... . 135 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Marcus Aurblids Antoninus . . . 150 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 COMMODDS 165 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Apologists . . ..... 174 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Christian Life 212 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Churches and the Church . . . .277 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL 
 
 The history of the Church of God is in its widest 
 compass coextensive with the history of the universe 
 itself. It reaches backward to the timeless state 
 before the dawn of life, and forward to the timeless 
 state where there shall be no more death. The 
 foundations and the completion of the City of God 
 are not of this creation. From a far past on which 
 the astronomer himself must speak with bated breath, 
 and onward to a future far beyond the brightest 
 visions of apocalyptic trance, the vast evolution 
 forms a single and organic whole, and every part of 
 it is meaningless without the rest. If it was not 
 fitting that the Son of God should come on earth and 
 dwell among us till the work of all but everlasting 
 ages had prepared the earth for man, and man 
 himself had learned his weakness in centuries of 
 waning hope and conscious failure, neither was it 
 fitting that the earth should be so prepared for man, 
 and man himself condemned to restlessness and 
 inward strife by the instinct for things divine im- 
 planted in him, if his noblest aspirations were never 
 to be consecrated and fulfilled by the incarnate Lord 
 of all. 
 
 VOL. I I B 
 
2 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Even in a narrower sense than this, Church 
 History is still a subject of gigantic range. It is 
 the spiritual side of universal history since man's 
 appearance on the earth. It is not to be limited to 
 the outward fortunes of sects and churches, or to the 
 growth of institutions and forms of thought. It 
 must rise above the disputes of parties, churches, 
 and religions, and look beyond the broadest differ- 
 ences of race and civilization to the spiritual life of 
 mankind, for it is the working-out in time of God's 
 eternal thought of mercy. We cannot set aside the 
 pagan and the heretic, for he that knows not God is 
 known of God, and the Spirit of God strives with 
 him as with ourselves. 
 
 It is more than the history of religion. The Lord 
 came not to found a religion, but to be Himself the 
 revelation. Two simple rites excepted, we cannot 
 trace to Him any ceremony of worship, or even any 
 definite command to hold common worship at all. 
 He did not even come to teach morality, but to 
 reveal the love of God by words and deeds and loving 
 signs, and to give His life in life and death for every 
 man. So the Person of the Lord is itself the revela- 
 tion, and the historic facts through which we know 
 Him constitute the Gospel. The dogmas of churches 
 are their interpretations by men, representing all 
 degrees of certainty from the Lord's divinity down 
 to transubstantiation. Thus all specifically Christian 
 theology is an expansion of " He that hath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father," and all purely Christian ethics 
 can be reduced to an argument from Christ's example. 
 If our Lord was pure and true, what manner of men 
 ought we to be ? If then the Gospel is a revelation 
 of the eternal through facts of time, it cannot be 
 
I CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL 3 
 
 treated simply as one religion among others. Given 
 the revelation of God, comparative religion may help 
 to shew us how the forces of human nature clothed 
 it with religions of men ; but the application of 
 comparative religion to the revelation itself is a 
 fundamental error. 
 
 We therefore start from the position that Church 
 history is simply the spiritual side of universal 
 history, just as Economic History is its economic 
 side. Everything belongs to it which has ever 
 influenced the development of the spiritual life of 
 men. Some ages or some countries may seem as 
 remote from the central revelation as they are from 
 the general course of history ; yet even these must 
 have their bearing on it if history is, as it must 
 be, one organic whole. Christianity is an aggressive 
 faith, whatever else it be ; and the power which long 
 ago subdued Greece and Rome and England is not 
 likely to be finally defeated in India or China, or 
 even by the stubborn unbelief of Israel. To the 
 student who is willing to remember that men are 
 men, and that even the revelation through the Christ 
 must work on men through men, the advance of 
 Christianity in our own time by settlements, by 
 missions, and by general influence is even more im- 
 pressive and suggestive of living power than the 
 conversion of the Eoman Empire. Truly very much 
 remains to be done, even among Christian peoples. 
 A world of armed peace and tariff wars, of brutal 
 militarism and godless competition, of cruel selfishness 
 and recrudescent superstition, is not yet become the 
 kingdom of our God. Yet for all this, the Gospel 
 has tightened its hold on each successive age of the 
 world, and most of all on our own age. There is not 
 
4 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the smallest sign that its ancient might is failing, or 
 that the unrest and blatant unbelief around us are 
 anything more than the unsettlement we see in every 
 age of change. Sooner or later the ends of the earth 
 will surely blend their history with ours, and have 
 churches of their own as richly gifted as any of their 
 teachers. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is usually convenient to narrow 
 again the meaning of Church history by leaving out 
 of its direct purview everything that took place 
 before the coming of the Lord, or outside the visible 
 societies which trace their origin to him ; and this is 
 the common use of the term. By thus limiting the 
 subject we give it more unity, and cut off some of 
 the isolated matters which few students can discuss 
 at first hand. Yet even so, it is the spiritual side of 
 the history of civilized peoples ever since our Master's 
 coming. Whatever was carried over from the past 
 of Greece and Eome, it is abundantly clear that 
 modern civilization owes everything to Christianity, 
 which delayed the fall of the Empire and saved 
 whatever was saved from the wreck of ancient 
 culture, trained the northern nations for the work 
 of a new age, gave the guiding thoughts to science, 
 and in the Reformation put new life into the 
 conscience of the Western nations. 
 
 Our own purpose, however, is subject to a still 
 further limitation. Of the three great periods of 
 Church history — the early, the mediaeval, and the 
 modern — we are concerned only with the first, and 
 only with the earlier part of that. We have to do 
 with still earlier times only so far as they may help 
 to explain our own period, with later times only sa 
 far as we may find it useful to mention the results 
 
I CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL 5 
 
 of causes which lie before us. Our proper subject 
 belongs to the history of the Church in the ancient 
 world before it passed into the mediaeval. Now, 
 though we get a fairly clear break at the Edict of 
 Milan in 313, we have no sharp division there. Even 
 the persecutions are not quite ended, and Julian is 
 still unborn. The struggle with heathenism went on 
 for another century ; and when the victory seemed 
 finally won, the contest was renewed inside the 
 Church. The christening of the Palace and the 
 Empire, the splendour of the churches, the noise of 
 councils, and the change from an age of martyrs to 
 an age of martyr - worshippers, blind us to the 
 continuity of common Christian thought and life 
 between the third and fifth centuries. The un- 
 dogmatic, almost Deist Christianity so common in 
 the Nicene age is deeply rooted in the time before 
 it ; and the growing superstition of the declining 
 Empire is due to heathen conceptions of religion 
 which are almost as clear in Cyprian as in Gregory 
 the Great. Victi victores, as of old. Upon the 
 whole, however, the Edict of Milan is the most 
 convenient landmark we can find. The defeat of 
 heathenism was undeniable ; and though some hoped 
 or feared that victory might still come round again 
 to the side of the immortal gods, each passing year 
 seemed to seal afresh the triumph of the Gospel. So 
 when the last imperial champion of the gods lay 
 dying in his tent, far out beyond the Eastern frontier 
 of the Empire, the romancers were not far wrong 
 who placed on his lips the cry Vicisti Galilaee ! 
 
 So if we take the Edict of Milan for our Terminus, 
 we shall do so under no delusion that it marks a rigid 
 separation from later times. We draw no hard and 
 
6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 fast line. We are not bound to do more than sketch 
 such beginnings of later developments as we can find 
 before 312, and we are not prevented from glancing 
 at survivals of earlier history as late as we can find 
 them. 
 
 We shall begin with the destruction of Jerusalem 
 in 70, or perhaps rather with the Neronian persecution 
 of 64, which first brought Christianity prominently 
 before the world. We cannot of course omit the 
 preparation for the Gospel and its early spread ; but 
 it will be more convenient to leave the detailed 
 treatment of them to New Testament scholars. In 
 these pages nothing more than the barest outline 
 is attempted. 
 
 Church history has not always had a bad name in 
 England. It was as respectable as any other till it 
 was covered with reproach by the partizanship and 
 credulity of the Tractarians. Whatever service they 
 did by calling attention to the subject was far out- 
 weighed by the scandal of their uncritical methods 
 and unhistorical dogmas. The reproach is not 
 yet done away, for the literature with which the 
 successors of that school have flooded the country is 
 little better than a dream. Its writers often have 
 their merit ; but their fundamental dogmas compel 
 them systematically to set aside the plainest facts of 
 history and human nature. So the outsiders who 
 take their ideas of the subject from its professed 
 experts are still too much inclined either to set it aside 
 with sarcastic politeness, or by way of reaction to 
 rush into excesses of scepticism. In truth, the Church 
 historian is like any other historian. His material 
 is the same, for all the facts of universal history 
 
> CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL 7 
 
 concern him. His purpose is the same, for he has to 
 sift out those facts and trace a certain line of growth, 
 like the political, the constitutional, or the economic 
 historian. The facts are the same for all of them, 
 and only their points of view are different, so that 
 what occupies the foreground for one may be less 
 conspicuous to another. Above all, his methods are 
 the same. He has to decipher his authorities, to com- 
 pare them and estimate their value for the question 
 in hand, and to study their thoughts and feelings in 
 the same way as other historians. He has no special 
 calculus of his own distinct from the usual methods 
 of historical criticism, for the divine guidance we 
 are bound to confess in all history does not make 
 that of the visible Church an enchanted ground on 
 which we are dispensed from the laws of evidence 
 and common sense. On the other hand, belief in the 
 Gospel is no more a prejudice than unbelief The 
 most complete devotion to Christ our Saviour as the 
 supreme and final guide of life, the deepest conviction 
 of the transcendent importance of the Gospel as the 
 clue to all history, need not hinder our confession that 
 its working in the world is subject to the common 
 laws of God in history and nature. And if some 
 historians in all ages are unworthy of their high call- 
 ing, it does not follow that Church history is made up 
 of idle tales. If the Lives of the saints are not pure 
 truth, neither are the letters of the diplomatists ; 
 yet political history is not therefore summarily con- 
 demned by reasonable men. 
 
 The (ifficulties of the subject are the usual 
 difficulties of historical study. The materials are 
 often scanty or of bad quality. For example, 
 Christian literature before the Nicene age belongs 
 
8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 chiefly to the period 180-260, so that contemporary 
 information is scanty for the subapostolic age and for 
 the last forty years of the third century. Many men 
 have to be judged like Marcion from the accounts of 
 their enemies ; and great subjects are often obscure, 
 like the common life of common Christians in the 
 second century, or the early history of the Churches 
 in Spain and Britain, or even in Rome and Africa. 
 In general, however, the materials of ecclesiastical 
 history compare fairly well with those of secular. Of 
 course their quality varies. One writer is inaccurate, 
 another is too fond of gossip, another is full of pre- 
 judice. Church writers diflfer in value much like 
 others ; and if none of them in the early period come 
 up to the high level of Tacitus or Ammianus, there is 
 still a vast range downward from the impartial good 
 sense of Socrates and the accurate learning of 
 Eusebius and Irenseus to the romances of the 
 Clementines and the stupid blundering of Epiphanius. 
 But we shall not ourselves meet the worst of these 
 difficulties, for every Christian writer of the first three 
 centuries appears to be quite truthful and at least 
 fairly intelligent. At worst, the difficulties are those 
 familiar to the secular historian. The Christians had 
 no monopoly of credulity and prejudice, nor were 
 they the only exhibitors of relics and purveyors of 
 romance and superstition. If Clement believes in the 
 Phoenix, so does Tacitus ; and the romance of 
 Leucius Charinus, discipulus diaboli, is equal to that 
 of Philostratus. Eelic for relic, the true cross is as 
 good as the staff of Agamemnon, and the bones of 
 a saint may be as authentic as the bones of Pelops 
 which Pausanias found at Olympia. Eusebius is 
 vastly better than the writers of the Historia 
 
I CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL 9 
 
 Augusta, and even the lives of the hermits are quite 
 as edifying as the Golden Ass of Apuleius, besides 
 being rather more decent. The superiority, both 
 literary and critical, is altogether on the Christian 
 side when the age of Tacitus is past, and the standard 
 remains at a fairly high level for the next three 
 centuries. The Christians wrote not for the drawing- 
 room cliques, but because they had something to say. 
 Not one of them piles up blunders like Solinus, or 
 catalogues omens with the omnivorous credulity of 
 the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. It is mere 
 prejudice if we let a few bad mistakes conceal from 
 us the generally sound criticism of men like Irenseus 
 and Eusebius. When Irenseus is discussing the 
 origin of the Gospels, he sees exactly what he has to 
 prove, and goes to work in the right way to prove it. 
 Origen in his reply to Celsus throws out modem 
 thoughts, and brings us into the thick of modem 
 objections to the Resurrection. Eusebius has a 
 broader conception of history than Polybius, and all 
 antiquity can shew no finer piece of criticism than 
 the discussion of the authorship of the Apocalypse 
 by Dionysius of Alexandria. The charge of stupid 
 uncriticism against such writers as these only recoils 
 on its authors. However, the historian knows how 
 to deal with unsatisfactory authorities. He can 
 detect forgery, allow for prejudice, and trace out 
 inaccuracy by comparison, and in this way generally 
 comes to a fairly certain conclusion. If the Church 
 historian is willing to use the same method with the 
 same diligence and impartiality, there is no reason 
 why his results should not be equally definite and 
 certain. 
 
 But the Catholic (Roman and Anglo-) writers are 
 
lo CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 not the only sinners against history, though they are 
 much the worst. The perversions of the Protestants 
 were less serious, and we are now in more danger of 
 slighting the truth they stand for than of being led 
 away by them. The other main attack is from the 
 side of scepticism. By far the strongest blow yet 
 struck at Christianity is Lessing's dictum, that 
 events of time cannot prove eternal truth. Its tone 
 of reverence for the eternal contrasts well with the 
 vulgar clap-trap of, Miracles do not happen now, 
 and attracts a more serious class of thinkers ; yet it 
 is at bottom no better logic than the other. It of 
 course carries a direct denial of the claim which the 
 Gospel makes to be a revelation of eternal truth 
 through certain events of time ; but its own validity 
 depends on the substantially atheistic assumption 
 that there is no God who guides the course of such 
 events. Without this assumption the dictum falls 
 to the ground at once, for if such a God exists, this 
 guidance must reflect his character, so that events of 
 time cannot but reveal eternal truth ; and if the 
 existence of such a God is uncertain, the dictum, will 
 be uncertain too. And if we make the atheistic 
 assumption, the Gospel will not be an alleged fact 
 disproved by the dictum,, but an idea ruled out in 
 limine as unlawful, so that any attempt to disprove 
 it by the dictum, is an argument in a circle. 
 
 It would be absurd to say that all who accept 
 Lessing's dictum deliberately make this assumption ;. 
 but they deal with history in a way which cannot 
 be justified without it, and in a way which leads to 
 no little misunderstanding. True, it is not a 
 systematic endeavour to force facts into accordance 
 with a false theory — to make "history give place to 
 
I CHURCH HISTORY IN GENERAL ii 
 
 dogma." Put in its broadest, and what we may ask 
 leave to call its most insolent form, Lessing's 
 dictum becomes. Philosophy ignores history. The 
 philosopher, that is to say, will not distort history 
 like the dogmatist, but simply set it aside. Qua 
 philosopher, it is quite true, he has nothing to do 
 with it. Unfortunately, philosophers cannot always 
 limit themselves to the study of philosophy ; and, 
 when they come down to mere events of time, this 
 maxim brings them into difficulties at once. If there 
 be such a thing as divine guidance in history its 
 traces may be obscure, but we shall be on safe ground 
 so far as we are able to follow them. We may make 
 mistakes, but we shall do no worse, whereas, if we 
 ignore such guidance, we shall be working on a false 
 principle. No order will then be possible but a 
 logical development working by necessity, and we 
 shall be tempted to undervalue the decisive action of 
 personal character in history, from Jesus of Nazareth 
 downward, to force on its events a meaning pre- 
 determined by our logical theory, and to see in its 
 documents no more than a series of literary problems 
 to be discussed with little or no regard to the 
 probabilities of human nature. These temptations 
 may be studied at large in many schools of history, 
 and most conveniently in some of those which are 
 most anxious to claim for themselves the name of 
 Critical. 
 
 1. Authorities 
 (as) Collections : Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers ; Otto, Corpus Apologetarum ; 
 Vienna Corpus for Latin Writers ; Berlin Corpus for Greek Writers ; Ante- 
 Niosne Christian Library for English translations. (&) Selections : Gwatkin, 
 Selections ; Preuschen, Analecta ; Gebhardt, Acta Martyrum Selecta ; 
 Lietzmann's Materials (English Editions of most), (c) Dictionaries : Diet, 
 of Chr. Biography ; Diet, of Chr. Antiquities ; EeaUneyclopddie fur prot. 
 Theologie. 
 
12 CHURCH HISTORY chap, i 
 
 2. Books coveking the Whole Pkkiod, or a Large Part of It 
 (* is prefixed to foreign works which have been translated. ) 
 
 (a) General Histories : Tillemont, Gibbon (Bury's Edition), Schiller, 
 Kaisergeschichte ; *Neander, Miiller, Rainy, Mbller, (by v. Schubert, 
 Tiibingen, 1902 — much the best), *Sohm, KG. im Orundriss — brilliant sketch. 
 (6) Literature : Harnack, Altchr. Lilteratur (much the fullest) ; *Kriiger, 
 *Bardenhewer, Patrologie ; Cruttwell (excellent) ; Ebert and *Teuflfel (Schwabe) 
 (Latin writers only) ; Swete (introductory handbook), (c) Doctrine : *Dorner, 
 Person of Christ ; *Harnack, Bogmengeschichte ; Loofs, Leitfaden ; Bethune 
 Baker, {d) Chronology : Clinton, Haenel, Corpus Legum : also Weingarten, 
 Zeittafeln, and Goyau, Ohronologie de V empire romain, Paris 1891, will be 
 found useful. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 
 
 Christ our Saviour did not come down from heaven 
 suddenly. Ages of ages were needed to make ready 
 for the Gospel, and the slow course of centuries is 
 only now beginning to reveal the unimagined fulness 
 of its meaning. Obscure as its beginnings were, it 
 soon became the guiding force in history. It overcame 
 the Empire, it subdued the northern nations, and its 
 present supremacy in the civilized world is hardly 
 questioned. Of serious men who reject its claims, 
 few dispute the surpassing excellence of its moral 
 teaching, and fewer still deny that it has been and 
 still remains by far the mightiest of historic' influences 
 on the thoughts and acts of men. Somehow or other, 
 modern history radiates as visibly from Jesus of 
 Nazareth as ancient history converges on Him. 
 Explain it as we may, something came into the 
 world with Him which has caused a revolution of a 
 higher order than the migrations of the nations and 
 the rise and fall of empires. The systems of men 
 may have their day, but the majestic course of ages 
 gathers round that Son of Man who claimed to be 
 Himself the final truth of earth and heaven. Now 
 that the unreasoning assent of past time has given 
 place to noisy questioning, we see that the doubt is 
 
 13 
 
14 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 not so much of historical or moral difficulties in the 
 Gospel, as whether it must not be summarily rejected 
 for claiming to be a revelation. But if the powers 
 of unbelief speak louder than they used to do, there 
 is no reason to think them any stronger than they 
 were, and there is no sign yet that they will ever 
 win the battle ; and till they have won it, Jesus of 
 Nazareth remains the natural centre of the spiritual 
 development of mankind. Be he the Son of God, or 
 be he " that deceiver," it is hardly possible to deny 
 that He is more and more the Light of the World, 
 and more and more draws all men to Himself 
 
 So far as regards the purely natural circumstances 
 which favoured the spread of Christianity, there is 
 not much room for controversy. The dispersion of 
 the Jews, the decay of ancient worship, and the 
 establishment of the Empire are matters of history. 
 But whatever weight we give to those and such-like 
 facts, it is also matter of history that Christianity was 
 not set on the throne of the world as a matter of 
 course, but had formidable powers arrayed against it, 
 and fought its way through conflicts as arduous as 
 any that history records. It must, therefore, have 
 had some internal source of strength. Some will find 
 this, and not without reason, in its lofty moral 
 teaching, and in the enthusiastic purity and self- 
 devotion of the Christians. True, their purity and 
 self-devotion do explain the matter ; but they do not 
 explain it finally. They must have some historic 
 cause themselves, and only one such cause is 
 imaginable. The work of disciples cannot be more 
 than secondary ; only personal influence is immediate. 
 It would be a new thing on the face of the earth 
 if mere disciples could have put together in their 
 
n THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 15 
 
 massive unity the boldest words that ever fell from 
 human lips, or if Saul of Tarsus could have diverted 
 the enthusiasm of his converts from his own living 
 self to one Jesus who was dead forsooth. This 
 teaching and this self-devotion cannot be anything 
 else than the impress of the Founder's personality. 
 As soon as the Gospel is fairly started, it works under 
 natural law, so that " natural causes " will explain 
 the rest. But " natural causes " will not explain its 
 origin. We believe it is historically certain that 
 Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be in the fullest sense 
 the Son of God ; and we accept that claim as true 
 because we cannot refuse it without raising moral 
 dilemmas before which the physical difficulties of the 
 Incarnation and the Eesurrection sink to insignifi- 
 cance. 
 
 But if the Son of Man came down from heaven, 
 and indeed is ever coming down and ever giving 
 life to the world,^ He is also the culmination of a long 
 development upon the earth. Two great lines of 
 evolution stand out clear in history. The Jew was 
 trained by a special and progressive revelation 
 through men, while the Gentile was left to work out 
 the general revelation through Nature. In one case 
 as it were, God was seeking man ; in the other, man 
 was feeling after God. While the Jew was slowly 
 turned from idols to the God of Israel, and then 
 guided on from the limitations of a nation towards 
 the unity of mankind, the Gentile was led by the 
 majestic order of Nature towards the unity of God : 
 and then in the fulness of time came the Incarnation 
 to consecrate and complete the work of both by re- 
 vealing the higher unity of God and man in Christ. 
 
 1 John vi. 33. 
 
i6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 If neither the one training nor the other was a 
 success in the sense of compelling the unwilling to 
 acknowledge him, each of them did its proper work 
 of enabling true-hearted men to see in him something 
 that more than fulfilled the noblest aspirations of both 
 Jew and Gentile. There is nothing in history more 
 suggestive than the convergence of the best ideals 
 of all nations on that which was real in Jesus of 
 Nazareth. 
 
 Beginning with the Jew, we notice that the broad 
 outline of his history is not greatly changed by any 
 serious criticism. First a clan is called out from the 
 idol-worships of Ur of the Chaldees, and flourishes in 
 the midst of the tribes of Canaan. Then the main 
 part of it goes down into Egypt ; and when it comes 
 up again a nation is formed on the hills of Canaan, 
 just above and just aside from the great commercial 
 route between Egypt and Assyria which ran along the 
 Philistrue coast. Henceforth Israel's history is one 
 long prophecy of a Messiah. It may be that very little 
 of the Law can be traced back to Moses ; but even so, 
 he still stands out as the first and greatest of the 
 prophets. The glory of the monarchy, and still more 
 its shortcomings, pointed to a nobler king than David. 
 The fall of Solomon's dominion and the subjection to 
 Assyria opened out a higher mission than that of 
 worldly empire. The hollow prosperity of Jehu's 
 dynasty led the prophets to exchange the violent 
 methods and more than half political leadership of 
 Elijah and Elisha for the spiritual work of teaching a 
 rebellious people : and the opposition they met with 
 gradually brought out the idea of a sufi'ering servant 
 of the Lord. Then the moral gains of the captivity 
 were immense. The destruction of the Temple, the 
 
II THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 17 
 
 exile from Jerusalem, the reaction from Babylonish 
 immorality, the purer influence of Persia — all con- 
 tributed new life and spirituality to the old religion ; 
 and the rise of synagogues gave permanence to the 
 result. During the obscure Persian period the idols 
 were forgotten, and the cessation of prophecy left the 
 scribes supreme as teachers of the people. Indeed the 
 Law which they interpreted was the only centre left 
 for the nation's life now that the dispersion had 
 broken up its political unity. Thus the tendency was 
 in Judaea to a stricter and minuter observance of it ; 
 in the dispersion to a looser one, and to modes of life 
 much influenced by the ideas of the surrounding 
 heathen. These tendencies were both intensified by 
 the Greek domination. Alexander's conquests and 
 the policy of his successors threw open the Greek 
 world to Jewish settlement, and further scattered the 
 dispersion over all the East. Henceforth Greece began 
 to act on Israel. The Alexandrian translation intro- 
 duced the Jewish sacred books to the Greek Uterary 
 world, while the Maccabsean war was needed to check 
 the spread of heathen fashions in Judaea, and further 
 to confirm the supremacy of the Law. Thus Jewish 
 piety was degenerating at home into Pharisaism, and 
 evaporating abroad into a vague monotheism deeply 
 coloured by Greek philosophy. Then came the 
 Komans. If they destroyed the independence of 
 Judaea, they opened the West to Jewish trade, and 
 put an end to the wars of nations which interrupted 
 it. This was the great age of Jewish missionary work, 
 when the church of Israel seemed becoming a light to 
 lighten the Gentiles. But the hard government of 
 Eome and the misconduct of her ofiicials embittered 
 the spirit of the nation. The Pharisee who cased 
 VOL. I c 
 
1 8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 himself in pride and hatred of the Gentile was the 
 holy man of Israel, and the Barabbas who made 
 insurrection was the idol of the people. Even the 
 Messianic hope became a curse when Israel's mission 
 to be the light of the world was forgotten in fierce 
 longings to see confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured 
 out upon the heathen. 
 
 Thus the Jew renounced his duty to the world just 
 when his training for it was completed. The dispersion 
 had antiquated the Law, while the Empire had levelled 
 a clear space for the universalism that was to follow : 
 and this was the time he chose for proclaiming the 
 eternity of the Law, and of the Jewish privilege that 
 was to pass away in its fulfilment. The Gospel was 
 not rejected because Jesus of Nazareth made himself 
 the Messiah — hardly even because he made God His 
 Father. It was not the shock of blasphemy which 
 stirred the deepest hatred of the Pharisee, but his 
 shuddering fear that this strange teaching was no 
 narrow Judaism, but merged the privilege of Israel in 
 the higher revelation of one Father of all men. His 
 choice was made, as soon as the secret which malice 
 had divined within the Saviour's lifetime ^ was pro- 
 claimed by Stephen and adopted by St. Paul. 
 
 The preparation of the Gentile world was of 
 another sort. The primaeval worship of the powers 
 of Nature was expressed in myths whose meaning was 
 half forgotten in very early times. When these 
 personifications were mixed up with various family or 
 tribal worships of ancestors, and the whole was em- 
 bodied in a rigid system of observances, the result 
 was not such as could permanently satisfy either 
 the reason or the conscience of men. As plays of 
 
 1 John vii. 35. Will he . . . teach the Gentiles ? 
 
11 THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 19 
 
 imagination, the gods of the Vedas or of Homer 
 might be sublime ; but Olympus does not overshadow 
 Greece, or even the Himalayas India. Changes came 
 with lapse of time, and were especially promoted by 
 the deepening sense of evil in the East, and by the 
 growth of commerce in the West. 
 
 The heathenism then of Greece and Eome was an 
 elaborate system of social observances enforced by the 
 state on grounds of custom or policy, so that it stood 
 outside and above the conscience of individuals. 
 Neither truth and falsehood nor virtue and vice had 
 anything to do with the worship of the gods. It was 
 a mere affair of custom and tradition. To give the 
 gods their due was piety, and knowledge of the ritual 
 was holiness.^ Public duty or philosophical study 
 might be a school of virtue ; but religion was rather 
 the reverse. The gods were of the earth, earthy, and 
 could not raise their worshippers above the earthly 
 passions which enslaved themselves. Their mere 
 number forbade all thought of unity or deeper mean- 
 ing, whether in nature, in history, or in human life ; 
 and no advance was possible till this authoritative 
 polytheism was undermined. For one thing, because 
 the gods were gods of nations and not of mankind, the 
 Greeks laid it down that war is the natural state and 
 noblest work of men : and to the Romans every 
 foreigner was an enemy to whom no duty was owing. 
 Right to the end polytheism caused nothing but 
 hatred for 
 
 Men whom untravelled regions breed, 
 
 And gods unknown uphold ; 
 
 ' Cicero de nat. dear. i. § 116 eat enim pietas justitia adversum deos 
 . . . sanctitas autem scieiitia colendorum deorum. The context is 
 significant. 
 
20 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 till at last the ancient world went down in ruin 
 because the old heathen scorn of the barbarian re- 
 mained unconquered in the Christian Empire. Again, 
 because the gods were gods of nations and not of men, 
 there was no individual relation to them and no 
 liberty of conscience. If the welfare of the state 
 required the due performance of ancient rites, every 
 individual who chose gods for himself was not only a 
 criminal but a public danger, and no mercy could be 
 shewn him. There was no advance in toleration 
 when Kome identified the gods of Greece with her 
 own, or even when she gradually received the gods of 
 all the conquered nations in her vast pantheon. The 
 state might authorize new worships, but the in- 
 dividual was as much as ever forbidden to go outside 
 the legal list. Besides this, religion was in no sense 
 a moral power. It was not in his own right that a 
 man addressed the gods, but only as a member of the 
 nation or the family ; and if the ceremonies he used 
 came down from a hoary antiquity, they had 
 commonly lost their meaning on the way. At any 
 rate, his duty ended with the requirements of the 
 state, and his rehgion supplied nothing to check 
 the vilest passions. Augustus, Domitian and El 
 Gabal were genuinely religious men, and Tacitus 
 would have forgiven almost anything to Nero sooner 
 than his fiddling. 
 
 Undermined the old religion was, and deeply, long 
 before the Christian era, by the influences of Greek 
 philosophy and Eoman law. Unhke the hetero- 
 geneous kingdoms of Asia, which were only held 
 together by the brute force of a Sennacherib or a 
 Xerxes, the empire of Athens consisted of Greek 
 cities drawn together by a common danger, and 
 
n THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 21 
 
 largely kept in union by their own interests. The 
 growth of commerce broke down the isolation of local 
 religions, for the "heroes of Marathon" were out of 
 date when men from the ends of the earth were 
 jostUng their beliefs together in the streets of Athens. 
 The irreverence of Sophists and comedians and the 
 deification of living men from Lysander onward shew 
 the unsettlement of old opinions, and the increasing 
 confusion of the Hellenic state-system after the 
 Peloponnesian War loosened the connection of re- 
 ligion with politics. Plato's dreams of a God and 
 Father of this universe, of a future life, and of a 
 republic of wise men gathered from every nation 
 under heaven rise far above the narrowness of ancient 
 custom ; and if Aristotle's cold logic was able to 
 shew that they were no more than dreams, it was too 
 late for him to fall back upon the belief of Euripides, 
 that the Greek has a natural right to rule the 
 barbarian. When Alexander pushed forward the 
 frontier of Greek civilization from the Bosphorus to 
 the edge of the Indian desert, he also laid open 
 Greece itself to the influence of the unchanging East, 
 where " Amurath an Amurath succeeds," and man 
 seems lost between a sky of brass above his head, and 
 boundless plains beneath his feet. With Alexander's 
 retreat from the Sutlej began the long two thousand 
 years of the advance of Asia, checked indeed for 
 centuries, first by the old Rome at the Euphrates, 
 then by the new Eome at Mount Taurus, but never 
 stopped till John Sobieski delivered Vienna from the 
 Turks in 1683. The hopefulness of our own time 
 makes it hard for us to understand the hopeless 
 weariness of the East, where tyrants rise and fall, 
 but tyranny and wrong remain the order of the 
 
22 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 world, and to contend with them is to contend 
 with fate. Only Islam in its heroic ages breaks 
 the long monotonous history, for Islam has a 
 Uving power in its preaching of a God who is at 
 least a God of righteousness. Conquered Persia 
 reacted on Greece as strongly as Greece herself on 
 Rome a couple of centuries later ; and the reaction 
 was disastrous in the age of confusion which followed 
 Alexander's death. The Oriental dualism of good 
 and evil is a confession of failure and despair, which 
 renounces as insoluble the moral'problem of the uni- 
 verse, and gives this world over to the powers of evil 
 as their rightful prey. It quenched at once the hope- 
 fulness of Greece, it poisoned centuries of Christian 
 life with contempt of God's creation, and even now 
 we have enough of it to make us blind to the glory 
 which fills earth as well as heaven. As the older 
 systems died away, the Stoics and the Epicureans 
 divided the schools between them, for Sceptics were 
 few. Of these the Epicureans endeavoured to keep up 
 in evil times the old Greek search for pleasure, while 
 Stoic morality is deeply marked by Eastern influences. 
 The spirit of the age reveals itself in their agreement, 
 which shews how far the world had drifted since 
 Herodotus had told his pleasant stories. Their 
 thought was not now of nations and their gods, but 
 of human duty. Even physical speculation yielded 
 more and more to the paramount claim of ethics. 
 The gods were not denied or insulted, but respectfully 
 moved out of the way to a mysterious region of 
 serenity beyond the reach of prayer. If there be a 
 God who is not asleep, he must be far away from the 
 miseries of the earth. The Stoic indeed made the 
 divine the immanent principle of reason in the world ; 
 
u THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 23 
 
 but then he identified it with Fate, and he so utterly 
 failed to shew the reasonableness of the things in 
 the world that his doctrine seemed a reductio ad 
 absurdum of divine immanence. 
 
 Meanwhile, the one pressing question was of 
 human duty ; and its answer was found in " con- 
 formity to nature," as explained by the general 
 agreement of men. In thus appealing from nations 
 to mankind, the Stoic was as much a citizen of the 
 world as the Epicurean. But along with the despair 
 of the East he had a stern and mournful earnestness 
 which bade him fight the good fight of virtue in an 
 evil world, without the Christian's sure and certain 
 hope of victory. No grace from heaven could be 
 looked for if the contest grew too hard for him, but 
 he might quit the stage of life with dignity. " The 
 door was open." So Stoicism had a natural attraction 
 for the nobler spirits of Roman society in an age of 
 revolution, whose sickness was beyond the power of 
 Divus Julius himself to cure. It might in Cato resist 
 the Empire to the death, or it might redeem the 
 weakness of an imperial minister like Seneca ; it 
 might in Epictetus preach the quiet life of a contented 
 philosopher, or it might wear for once the purple of 
 its last and perhaps its noblest representative, the 
 Emperor Marcus. But in every case its animating 
 spirit was a calm unbending pride of duty, hardly 
 more contrary to lawless vice than to that loving 
 humility of the Christians which even Marcus 
 mentions but once, and then only to dismiss it as 
 unworthy " obstinacy." If the Stoic had a good deal 
 in common with the Christian, he was not likely to 
 find it out. 
 
 With all its grandeur, Stoicism was full of weak- 
 
24 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 ness. Whatever it might be to the chosen few, there 
 was no help for the world in a morality of detachment 
 from the world and denial of human feeling. The 
 Stoic knew nothing of a Father in heaven who guides 
 the merciless laws of Fate in mercy, nothing of a 
 guilt of sin for ever done away, nothing of a family 
 of God to hallow human fellowship, and therefore 
 nothing of a gift in Christ of life eternal for wise and 
 unwise. All these ideas were meaningless to him. 
 Worst of all, Stoicism had no sanction. ^It was 
 hardly more than " Zeno thought on this wise," for 
 no philosophy can make the authoritative appeal of 
 the historic revelation to the example and command 
 of one who is both Son of God and Son of Man. It 
 was not the mission of Greek philosophy to give new 
 life to the world, but to weaken the old national 
 polytheisms by declaring the sovereign claim of 
 universal duty ; and it is the glory of the Stoics that 
 they recognized in the service of duty the royal 
 dignity of man. 
 
 Roman jurisprudence was another great influence 
 which helped to weaken the old national religions. 
 Though the old Quiritarian law was as narrow and 
 as formal as the old Quiritarian religion, the jus 
 gentium administered to strangers by the praetor 
 peregrinus was devised for practical purposes, and 
 therefore freer from the bondage of unreasoned 
 custom. It was not the law of any particular 
 nation, but a rough average of the customs of all the 
 neighbouring nations ; and the process of striking off 
 the peculiarities of each of them was denoted by 
 the word aequitas — levelling. As province after 
 province was added to the republic, the domain of 
 the jus gentium was extended further and further. 
 
II THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 25 
 
 Meanwhile Eome came in contact with Greece, and 
 found the philosophers preaching a Law of Nature, 
 and seeking it in a rough average of the moral beliefs 
 of many peoples, made without regard to the 
 peculiarities of any of them. The two processes were 
 similar, and their results were easily identified. So 
 the jus gentium became the Law of Nature, and from 
 the mere levelling of aequitas was developed the 
 idea of equity — a higher right to which the enactment 
 and interpretation of positive law must be as nearly 
 as possible conformed. No man conceived more 
 worthUy than the Eoman lawyer the grandeur of the 
 work which the Empire was doing for the world ; 
 yet for that very reason he was in alliance with 
 the Stoic against its arbitrary tendencies, while his 
 veneration for equity gave him a point of contact 
 even with the Christians. It was not his mission to 
 give new hfe to the world, but to loosen the tyranny 
 of national religions by proclaiming an empire of 
 right and equity above them all ; and it is the glory 
 of the Eoman lawyers that they did so much to 
 reform the iniquities that had come down from the 
 immemorial past. 
 
 Alongside of Greek philosophy and Eoman law 
 there was a third influence already working in the 
 time of Augustus, but not fully developed till the 
 second and third centuries. What was lost to the 
 old gods was not all of it lost to religion, for some 
 earnest men and women (and many runners after 
 spiritual excitement) sought consolation in the warmer 
 worships of the East, and became votaries of Isis, 
 Mithras, and the rest. These worships were sundry ; 
 but they have a common element which makes them 
 a sort of bridge from the old religions to Christianity. 
 
26 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 In the first place, they were universal religions which 
 received all comers, though without requiring them 
 like Israel to renounce their idols. Mithras was not 
 a jealous god. They were also priestly religions with 
 a regular clergy, and contrast well even with Judaism 
 in making spiritual counsel a part of the priest's 
 proper duty. For they had in them a true moral 
 element — a thing in which the old Roman religion 
 was as utterly wanting as the lowest fetishism. They 
 spoke as no Western worships did speak, of a holi- 
 ness that was not formal, of a purity that was not 
 ceremonial, of a contest with sin in this world, of a 
 life after death which might be won by all that strove 
 worthily to win it, and of a reward for the righteous, 
 not down among the Elysian shades, but aloft in the 
 empyrean with the gods. True it is that these 
 Eastern worships were deeply stained with super- 
 stition and frivolity, with impostures and revolting 
 rites, and sometimes with the vilest immoralities ; 
 and even where they rose highest they fell infinitely 
 short of Christianity. But all this notwithstanding, 
 they did give some satisfaction to the deep religious 
 cravings of human nature which the old worships 
 ignored ; and we cannot doubt that some found in 
 them a real help to a truer and purer life. 
 
 To sum up generally. At first view, the ancient 
 world was a failure. As St. Paul tells us, Jew and 
 Gentile had both been tried, and both had fallen short. 
 Neither revelation nor philosophy had been able to 
 cleanse the hearts of men and overcome their hatred 
 of their fellow-men ; and all the glory of Augustus 
 cannot hide his utter failure to find a cure for the 
 evils under which society was slowly perishing. Yet 
 in a deeper sense God's training of the ancient nations 
 
II THE DECAY OF ANCIENT RELIGION 27 
 
 was not a failure. As St. Paul tells us again, Christ 
 came in the fulness of time. The passing of the 
 Empires had brought a great advance in the con- 
 ception of holiness, the idea of duty, the claim of 
 equity, the model of worship ; and the Empire itself, 
 the pis aller of the ancient world, had many a germ 
 of better things which it was too weak to ripen 
 without help more potent than the old society could 
 give. The children were come to the birth, but there 
 was not strength to bring forth. As Greek philosophy 
 worked out the universality of duty, and Roman 
 jurisprudence that of equity, so the political and 
 economic changes of the last two or three centuries 
 before Christ had swept away the old barriers which 
 kept the nations apart. Materially as well as morally, 
 the Empire prepared the way for the G-ospel. Even 
 the worship of the emperor, which proved the chief 
 hindrance to the spread of Christianity, was itself a 
 chief expression of the craving for something higher 
 than customary and national worships. Now that 
 the revelation to the Jews had shewn that God is 
 holy, and the searching of the Gentiles had shewn 
 that man is made for holiness, the time was come for 
 the incarnate Word to realize on earth something 
 still higher than holiness, and round himself to gather 
 into unity the scattered children of God. 
 
 But our Lord's was not the only effort to heal the 
 sickness of society. The statesmen, too, had seen the 
 problem, and were endeavouring to solve it in another 
 way. Side by side with the Universal Family rose 
 the imposing structure of the Universal Empire, the 
 last and mightiest effort of the ancient world. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 In early Christian times the Roman Empire was the 
 one great power of the world. It included every- 
 thing between the Euphrates, the Danube, the Ehine, 
 the Atlantic, and the northern edge of the African 
 desert. The Mediterranean was a Roman lake. 
 Athens and Alexandria, Marseille and Carthage, 
 Jerusalem and Cordova lay far inside this vast 
 expanse of country. The Roman eagles glittered on 
 the walls of Trebizond, by the cataracts of the Nile, 
 and on the shores of Boulogne, and a few years later 
 in the defiles of the Carpathians and on the towers of 
 Carlisle ; and a victorious campaign might carry them 
 to Inverness or Dongola, to the banks of the Elbe, or 
 the mouth of the Tigris. It was no vain boast of 
 Roman pride, that the Empire was the world. 
 "There went forth a degree from Caesar Augustus, 
 that all the world should be taxed." The wild tribes of 
 Germany were no more rivals to the Empire than the 
 Afghans are to England. Even Parthia was no 
 match for Rome, though the King of Kings could 
 muster horsemen from the Euphrates to the Indus. 
 She might snatch a victory when the Roman army 
 of Syria was demoralized with luxury ; but a little 
 help from the legions of the Danube was always 
 
 28 
 
CHAP. Ill THE ROMAN EMPIRE 29 
 
 enough to check her. Still further eastward, 
 belonging almost to another world, was the great and 
 conquering power of China. But Rome and China 
 never came in contact, though for a moment (a.d. 94) 
 they stood face to face across the Caspian. 
 
 Eome was not built in a day, nor her Empire 
 in a generation. In remote ages the stern discipline 
 and skilful policy of the old republic laid a solid 
 foundation for her power. The Etruscan and the 
 Latin, the Samnite and the Gaul went down before 
 her ; and when her last great enemy was overcome in 
 Hannibal (202 B.C.), the world was at her feet. City 
 by city, province by province, kingdom by kingdom 
 she gathered in her spoil. Her allies sank into clients 
 and her clients into subjects. Thus Israel was made 
 an ally of Rome by Judas Maccabaeus (162 B.C.), and 
 became a client state when Pompeius took Jerusalem 
 (63 B.C.). Eome gave her Herod for a king (37 B.C.), 
 and subjected Judsea to a Roman governor at the 
 exile of Archelaus (a.d. 6). And now, though free 
 cities like Athens might survive, though client 
 princes like the Herods might be suffered to remain, 
 Roman influence was everywhere supreme. The 
 world had settled down to its subjection, and the 
 Empire already seemed an ordinance of nature. 
 Rome never feared provincial disaffection. She 
 massed her legions on the frontiers, and whole 
 provinces were bared of soldiers. The Gauls 
 " obeyed twelve hundred soldiers," and a few lictors 
 were enough to keep the peace of Asia. If the riot 
 at Ephesus (Acts xix.) had become serious, there were 
 no regular troops worth mention much nearer than 
 the Euphrates and the Danube. The Roman peace 
 replaced the wars of nations, and revolt was some- 
 
30 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 thing unimagined in the Gentile world. Israel was the 
 only rebel. No ambition, no resentment of oppression 
 — nothing but the glowing Messianic hope of Israel 
 had power to overcome the spell of the everlasting 
 Empire. 
 
 To the emperor's constitutional power there were 
 hardly any hmits beyond the understanding that 
 he was to govern by law, and that he was not to be 
 called a king in Rome or to wear the diadem of an 
 eastern sultan. His ensigns were the sword of a 
 Roman general, the lictors of a Roman consul. 
 Augustus maintained the forms of the republic, and 
 affected to live as a simple senator among his equals. 
 But he was none the less their master. He sat 
 between the consuls in the senate, and the opinion he 
 gave before the rest was seldom disputed, unless it 
 were by some skilful flatterer. He recommended 
 candidates to the people and practically appointed 
 all officials. He was commander of the army and 
 head of the state religion. He could obtain from 
 the senate what laws he pleased, or (in most cases) 
 issue orders of his own. Above all he held the powers 
 of a tribune, which not only made his person sacred, 
 but enabled him to forbid any official act at his 
 discretion. The forms of monarchy soon gathered 
 round its substance. Tiberius reduced the popular 
 elections to a form, and established a camp of praetorian 
 guards just outside the city. Caesar's household was 
 counted by thousands of all ranks, scattered through 
 the Empire. His tribunician veto was exercised in 
 a regular court, and every Roman citizen might 
 appeal unto Caesar. His tribunician sacredness was 
 lost in a halo of divinity, for the emperor was a god 
 on earth, and his worship the most real part of the 
 
Ill THE ROMAN EMPIRE 31 
 
 state religion, notwithstanding ridiculous deifications 
 like those of Claudius and of Poppsea's infant. It 
 was organized all over the Empire, and the oath by 
 Csesar's Genius was the test of true allegiance. 
 Altars were built to Augustus in his lifetime, and 
 most of his successors till past the time of Constantine 
 were formally enrolled among the gods at death. 
 
 Augustus and the senate professed to divide 
 between them the care of the Empire. Provinces 
 like Syria, which needed a military force, were 
 governed by Csesar's legates ; while quiet countries 
 like Cyprus and Achaia, where no legions were 
 stationed, would be left to the administration of 
 proconsuls. All, however, took their instructions from 
 the emperor, and were equally controlled by him. 
 Csesar had also procurators or financial agents in 
 all the provinces, and in some unsettled districts 
 like Judaea these procurators had the full power of 
 legates, subject to some check from the next governor 
 of a province — in this case Syria. These powers 
 included civil and military jurisdiction. Pilate for 
 example had "power to crucify, and power to 
 release," and the Jews could not carry out a capital 
 sentence without his permission. Unlike proconsuls 
 and legates, who were always senators, the procurators 
 were men of lower rank. Felix was the brother of 
 Pallas, the freedman and favourite of Claudius. 
 " Husband of three queens," he " used the power of a 
 king in the spirit of a slave." 
 
 The Empire was defended by five -and -twenty 
 legions soon increased to thirty, each consisting of 
 nearly 7000 men (cavalry included), with an equal 
 number of auxiliaries. The Praetorian Guards were 
 10,000, and there were some unattached cohorts. 
 
32 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Thus the regular army of Augustus was about 350,000 
 men — a small force for a population of perhaps eighty 
 or ninety millions. The legion was divided into 
 ten cohorts, each under its military tribune, and in 
 most cases about 500 strong. One such cohort was 
 stationed in Jerusalem at the Tower of Antonia, from 
 which a flight of steps commanded the temple area. 
 From these steps the tribune, Claudius Lysias, allowed 
 St. Paul to address the multitude after his arrest. 
 The whole cohort was employed to seize our Lord 
 in order to make resistance hopeless. Under each 
 tribune were six centurions so that each centurion 
 had under him nearly 100 soldiers. All the 
 centurions mentioned in the New Testament are 
 favourable specimens of Roman military virtue. It 
 will be enough to name Cornelius, Julius, and the 
 nameless officer who watched by the cross. Yet 
 another (Lu. vii. 9) won from the Lord a warm 
 approval by his soldierly conception of him as the 
 imperator of the host of heaven. 
 
 The colonies of Rome did nearly as much as the 
 legions to secure her dominion. They were not 
 countries like modern colonies, but cities. Many of 
 them were founded for military purposes, to command 
 an important road or overawe a disaff"ected population. 
 Among these were Carthage, founded by Caius 
 Gracchus (122 B.C.), Corinth by Julius Caesar 
 (46 B.C.), Philippi by Augustus, Csesarea by 
 Vespasian. These three were old cities, though 
 Corinth and Carthage had lain in ruins since their 
 destruction by Mummius and Scipio (146 B.C.), and 
 their " foundation " means no more than the despatch 
 of a number of Roman veterans with a new constitu- 
 tion. The colonies were miniatures of Rome herself 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 33 
 
 They had their prsetors {duoviri juri dicundo) like 
 the Roman consuls, and attended like them by 
 lictors. Municipal aflfairs were managed by these 
 prsetors and the curiales, who answered to the Eoman 
 senators. The two prsetors at Philippi (Acts xvi.) 
 contrast strongly with the seven politarchs (Acts 
 xvii. 6) of the Greek city of Thessalonica. 
 
 As the Empire was built on the ruins of many 
 nations, there was a great variety of peoples within 
 its limits. Broadly speaking, the eastern half was 
 Greek, the western Latin. Italy and Carthage lie on 
 one side of the dividing line, Greece and Gyrene on 
 the other. But this is only a rough statement. In 
 the first place, Greek was known to every educated 
 person in the Empire, and far eastward too towards 
 Babylon, whereas Latin outside its proper region was 
 only the language of ofiicials and soldiers. Moreover, 
 Greek was spread over some parts even of the West. 
 Sicily and southern Italy were full of Greek settle- 
 ments, and the great colony of Massilia had largely 
 Hellenized the valley of the Rhone. Greek was indeed 
 the language of commerce everywhere. In the third 
 place, Greek was more fully dominant in the East 
 than Latin in the "West. No other language was 
 spoken in Greece itself and Macedonia, on the islands 
 and round the coast of Asia inside Taurus. It was 
 only among the Lycaonian mountains that St. Paul's 
 Greek was not enough. A Gaulish language was 
 spoken in Galatia, but even the Galatian gave his 
 sons Greek names. They did not always speak Greek, 
 any more than Williams the Welshman always speaks 
 English ; but the Greek language was fast supplanting 
 the Gaulish, though there was a strong provincial 
 spirit in these regions, as we see from the history of 
 
 VOL. I D 
 
34 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Montanus and Marcellus. And if Greek civilization 
 was not quite supreme even in Asia, it had tougher 
 rivals in Egypt and Syria. Alexandria indeed was 
 mostly Greek, but the common people of Egypt held 
 to their Coptic. Syriac also shewed few signs of 
 disappearance. In Palestine the Greek element was 
 mostly along the coast and in the Decapolis, though 
 it was also strong in Galilee. Now Latin in the West 
 had scarcely yet supplanted the rustic languages. 
 Phoenician still flourished in the streets of Carthage ; 
 and though Latin culture had made a good beginning 
 in Gaul and Spain, there was still much work to be 
 done. The conquest of Britain was not seriously 
 attempted till the time of Claudius (a.d. 43), and the 
 country was never fully Latinized. 
 
 The Greeks were the intellectual masters of the 
 Empire, and divided much of its trade with the Jews. 
 Greece itself indeed was in a deplorable state. Its 
 population had been declining for the last five 
 centuries, and was now a very thin one. Archidamus 
 (431 B.C.) led nearly 100,000 Peloponnesians into 
 Attica, but all Greece (280 B.C.) could muster only 
 20,000 men to hold Thermopylae against the Gauls, 
 and in the second century a.d. Plutarch doubts 
 whether even 3000 heavy-armed citizen soldiers could 
 be assembled from Peloponnesus. There were no 
 cities of any size but the Eoman colonies of Corinth 
 and Nicopolis. Sparta and Thebes were insignificant, 
 and even Athens was only a venerable shadow of her 
 former self. In some respects, indeed, she was little 
 changed. She still had her Acropohs as full of statues 
 as it could hold (Acts xvii. 16). Her gods were more 
 in number than her men. Pallas Athene still watched, 
 lance in hand, over her beloved city, and her colossal 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 35 
 
 figure was a landmark for miles out at sea. The 
 venerable court of Areopagus still met on Mars' Hill 
 to watch over the religion of the citizens, and the 
 mysteries of Eleusis were the most respected in the 
 Empire. The people seemed to govern Athens as of 
 old, for she was still in name a free city. She had 
 usually joined the losing side in war, and suffered 
 heavily in the siege by Sulla, when the groves of the 
 Academy were cut down. Yet Rome always treated 
 her with studious respect, and on a formal footing of 
 alliance and equality. But the old spirit of freedom 
 was utterly extinct. The Athenians had sunk into a 
 people of gossips and flatterers, whose chief political 
 activity was in erecting statues to their benefactors. 
 
 Philosophy, however, still flourished at Athens. If 
 she was no longer the one great light of the Greek 
 world, she was quite equal to Rhodes or Tarsus, and 
 in the first century superior to Alexandria. The 
 Lyceum and the Academy still recalled the memory 
 of Aristotle and Plato. But Stoics and Epicureans 
 were now the chief schools. They both sprang up in 
 the iron age of Alexander's successors, and bear the 
 mark of its despair. They contrast as we have seen 
 with earlier Greek thought : but to the Gospel they were 
 equally opposed. They resented its lofty claim to be 
 the revelation of the truth which they were wrangling 
 over. But their criticism of its doctrines came from 
 different points of view. The ideas, for example, of 
 a God and Father in heaven and of the personal 
 action of a Son of God among men were equally 
 off"ensive to the Stoic with his pantheistic fatalism, 
 and to the Epicurean who saw no need of gods at all, 
 or in any case of gods who meddle with the world. 
 The humility and tenderness of Christianity was 
 
36 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 equally opposed to the self-sufficing pride of the Stoic, 
 and to the Epicurean's ideal of refined and tranquil 
 pleasure. The resurrection of the dead is equally 
 absurd, whether the soul is corporeal as the Stoics 
 held, or whether it is nothing without the body — 
 which was the Epicurean theory. The schools were 
 not at their best in the apostolic age, for Athens was 
 rather under a cloud. But such as they were, they 
 fairly represent the best heathen thought of the time. 
 Greece itself, however, formed but a small part of 
 the Greek world. Even in the sixth century before 
 Christ her colonies bade fair to establish her 
 supremacy in Asia and Italy : and though their 
 growth was checked by Persia and Carthage, they still 
 commanded a vast extent of coast. They covered 
 the entire shore of the ^Egean and the islands as far 
 as Cyprus, fringed the Black Sea more than half- 
 way round, and even touched the coast of Africa. 
 Sebastopol is on the site of one colony ; Cyrene was 
 another. The larger part of Sicily was Greek ; so 
 also much of the coast of Italy south of Naples. 
 Further west was the great colony of Marseille, which 
 became a centre of Greek influence along the eastern 
 coast of Spain and up the valley of the Khone. But 
 the greatest victories of Greece (like those of Rome) 
 were won in the age of her decay. Macedonia was 
 her conqueror indeed, but the disciple and protector 
 of Greek culture. The main results of Alexander's 
 conquests was the spread of Greek civilization in three 
 successive regions outward into Asia. The country 
 inside Mount Taurus became in course of time 
 thoroughly Greek, and remained so till the eleventh 
 century. In Syria and Egypt Greek influences 
 became dominant, but the native forces were never 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 37 
 
 fully overcome. They survived the overthrow of the 
 Greek power by the Saracens. Further Asia was 
 never seriously Hellenized; yet the Greeks were 
 strong in Mesopotamia till Julian's time (a.d. 363), 
 and Greek kings reigned on the edge of the Indian 
 desert for two hundred years. But Greek influence 
 beyond the Tigris was mostly destroyed in the third 
 century B.C. by the rise of Parthia. 
 
 Eome was another disciple of Greece, and an 
 even mightier protector of Greek civilization than 
 Macedonia. In the West she destroyed the old enemy 
 Carthage, in the East she checked the advance of 
 Parthia at the Euphrates, so that Greek influences 
 had free scope in all the space between. Eome and 
 Greece never were rivals. Each was supreme in its 
 own sphere. Greece obeyed the government of Eome, 
 while Eome looked up to Greek philosophy. She 
 looked down, it is true, on Greek trade ; but for that 
 very reason she let it alone. The two civilizations 
 were in close alliance. Greek literary fashions were 
 so eagerly taken up at Eome in the second century 
 B.C. that the native growth was quite obscured. 
 Eoman literature imitates Greek models, Eoman 
 philosophy echoes the Greek. Only law was purely 
 Eoman. The educated Eoman wrote and talked and 
 laughed in Greek as freely as in Latin. Nor is this 
 surprising, for he learned Greek in early youth, and 
 studied under Greek teachers till he could attend the 
 schools of Ehodes or Athens. It is needless to add 
 that Eoman literature was not similarly studied by 
 the Greeks. Yet they tacitly recognized the equality 
 of Eome when they abstained from calling her 
 barbarian. 
 
 Scattered through the Empire and far beyond its 
 
38 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 eastern frontier were the Jews. Their dispersion was 
 already old, for the successive deportations of Tiglath- 
 Pileser and Sargon, of Sennacherib and Nebuchad- 
 nezzar had removed the larger part of the nation to 
 Assyria and Babylon. And though many of these 
 eastern Jews may have been lost among the heathens 
 round them, there were still great numbers living 
 among the Parthians and Medes and Elamites. But 
 the great dispersion still further eastward was of later 
 date, when Alexander's conquests had opened Asia 
 almost as much to Jewish as to Greek influences. In 
 Christian times they were counted by myriads in the 
 Euphrates valley, grouped round the strongholds of 
 Nisibis and Nehardea. They abounded in Babylonia, 
 and fought with the Greeks in bloody riots in the 
 streets of Seleucia, almost in the presence of the King 
 of kings. Henceforth Jewish settlements were free 
 to follow the lines of trade, and the commercial genius 
 of Israel found scope abroad instead of struggling with 
 the Law at home. 
 
 They were naturally most numerous in Syria, 
 where they formed a large element of the population, 
 especially in cities like Damascus, Antioch, or Tarsus. 
 They were hardly less at home beyond Mount Taurus, 
 from Lycaonia and Galatia to Pontus. Their in- 
 scriptions are found even in the Crimea. Further 
 west they had stronger rivals, for the Greeks were a 
 commercial people too, and better sailors than the 
 Jews. Yet St. Paul goes from synagogue to synagogue 
 at Ephesus, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, and Corinth, 
 and Philo speaks of Jews in all parts of Greece, 
 including the islands. Cyprus was the home of 
 Barnabas, and Titus had to deal with Jews in Crete. 
 Cyrene was another great resort of theirs. Simon of 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 39 
 
 Cyrene carried the cross, and Lucius was among the 
 prophets and teachers at Antioch. 
 
 But the most important Jewish colony in the 
 Greek world was at Alexandria, with offshoots in 
 Egypt generally. Alexander himself brought them to 
 the city, and the earlier Ptolemies encouraged them 
 to settle in it. Two of its wards were chiefly peopled 
 by Jews, and they were not wanting in the other 
 three. They contributed much to the trade, and 
 something to the disorders of the city. Some of them 
 rose to the highest offices in the state. Philo 
 estimates the whole number of Jews in Egypt at not 
 less than a million. At Leontopolis (somewhere 
 between Memphis and Pelusium) they had a small 
 temple of their own in imitation of Jerusalem, built 
 about 160 B.C. by Onias, a son of one of the last high 
 priests of the older line of Aaron before the Maccabees. 
 It had a local reputation till its closure by the 
 Komans (a.d. 73). 
 
 Though the Jews were less at home in the Latin 
 half of the Empire, they were not wanting even there. 
 They were especially numerous in Rome itself The 
 prisoners brought to the city by Pompeius (63 B.C.) 
 were very unprofitable servants, so that they soon 
 obtained their liberty, and formed a Jewish quarter in 
 the unfashionable district beyond the Tiber. Julius 
 Caesar treated them with special favour, and by the 
 time of Augustus they were counted in Eome by 
 thousands. They were far from welcome settlers. 
 Jewish beggars and noisy costermongers were the 
 plague of the streets, and even the temples were not 
 sacred from their pilferings. As money-changers and 
 shopkeepers they throve unpleasantly well, and in 
 every occupation they ran the Gentiles close. The 
 
40 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Jew was even better than the Greek at fortune-telling 
 and imposture generally. So, between disgust and 
 fear and envy, the populace of Rome was as ready as 
 any Vienna mob to hunt out the Jews. The emperors 
 more than once expelled them from the city, but they 
 always returned. One of these expulsions was by 
 Claudius {cir. a.d. 53) ; and Suetonius tells us that 
 it was on account of " their repeated riots at the 
 instigation of Chrestus " — which may be a confused 
 way of saying that they had troubles either with the 
 Christians or about some false Messiah. However, 
 the edict came to nothing. In the next reign they 
 found a steady friend in Nero's wife Poppsea. Even 
 the destruction of Jerusalem scarcely endangered the 
 toleration of the Jews at Eome. Josephus and 
 Agrippa II. lived in favour with Vespasian, and 
 Agrippa's sister Berenice won the heart of the 
 destroyer Titus, though Roman pride forbade him to 
 give the world a Jewish empress. 
 
 The outward and visible sign of a Jewish com- 
 munity was the synagogue. The Law made little 
 provision for religious instruction, and none at all for 
 public worship elsewhere than at the Temple. Some- 
 thing was done by the prophets to supply the need ; 
 but after the captivity it was more effectually dealt 
 with by the synagogue. The new system was already 
 old in the apostolic age, and the dispersion carried it 
 everywhere. The synagogues were numerous. Though 
 we need not believe the Rabbinic story that there 
 were 480 in Jerusalem, there were certainly a good 
 many. The later rule for smaller places required a 
 synagogue to be built wherever there were ten Jews 
 who could attend it. The general government of the 
 community was vested in a court of elders, who seem 
 
ni THE ROMAN EMPIRE 41 
 
 to have had the power of exclusion from the society, 
 and certainly inflicted minor punishments on their 
 countrymen for breaches of Jewish order. The 
 synagogue, however, was not subject to them, but 
 had its own officials — the ruler or rulers, for there 
 were sometimes more than one who had the general 
 oversight of the services ; the collectors of the alms ; 
 the " minister," ^ or verger. It must be noted that 
 there was neither priest nor minister in the proper 
 sense attached to the synagogue. The rulers were more 
 like the kirk elders in Scotland. The service began 
 with the Shema, which consisted of the three para- 
 graphs, Deut. vi. 4-9 {Hear, Israel), xi. 13-21, and 
 Num. XV. 37-41, with certain benedictions before and 
 after it. This confession of faith was followed by 
 the Shemoneh Esreli, or Eighteen prayers and thank- 
 givings. Next came a lesson from the Law, which for 
 this purpose was divided into 154 sections, that it might 
 be read through in three years. The modern Jews have 
 fifty-four sections, and read it in one year. Then 
 came a lesson from the Prophets, who in the Hebrew 
 Canon include Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, 
 but not Daniel. These portions, however, were not 
 continuous like those of the Law. They were 
 commonly selected with some reference to what had 
 been read before. Thus Gen. i. is now followed by 
 Isa. xlii., Deut. i. by Isa. i. Next followed the sermon, 
 on the passages just read. Last of all came the 
 Blessing. If a priest happened to be present, he 
 pronounced it, as the bishop does with us ; if not, 
 it was turned into a prayer. With this honorary 
 exception, the entire service was performed by 
 ordinary members of the congregation, called up for 
 
 1 Luke iv. 20. 
 
42 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the purpose at the ruler's discretion. Thus our Lord 
 stands up to read the lesson in the synagogue at 
 Nazareth, and sits down to preach on it ; and at 
 Antioch in Pisidia the rulers send to Paul and 
 Barnabas as distinguished strangers to ask them for 
 a sermon. 
 
 The synagogue was not confined to native Israel- 
 ites. Judaism was an aggressive faith. Even in 
 Palestine the Pharisees " compassed sea and land to 
 make a single proselyte " ; and the foreign Jews 
 were still more zealous missionaries. The Jews were 
 an enigma to the world, with their clannish ways, 
 their unaccountable quarrels, their circumcision, their 
 " lazy " sabbath, their clean and unclean meats, their 
 dirty habits and finical attention to ceremonial purity, 
 and (strangest of all) their worship of a God without 
 an image. Though it was well known that Pompeius 
 found no image in the Holy of Holies, rumour placed 
 there a donkey's head, and Tacitus is not ashamed 
 to repeat the lie. But however the Jews might be 
 slandered, they could never be ignored. So much the 
 stronger was the attraction of their lofty monotheism 
 for serious men who felt the emptiness of heathenism. 
 Even Judaism was a light to lighten the Gentiles, 
 revealing in its measure the unknown Supreme, and 
 promising deliverance from sin and sorrow. Thus it 
 had something of the power of the Gospel. There 
 were Gentile proselytes as well as men of Israel in 
 every synagogue. These proselytes were of all ranks 
 upward to the great Roman ladies, the Empress 
 Poppsea, and King Izates of Adiabene beyond the 
 Tigris, who was almost a kingmaker in Parthia. In 
 the New Testament we find among others the 
 treasurer of Queen Candace, Cornelius of Csesarea, 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 43 
 
 another centurion at Capernaum and Nicolas of 
 Antioch, who was one of the seven. They were 
 received on easy terms. For the " devout," or " men 
 who feared God," it was enough to renounce idolatry, 
 attend the synagogue, and observe a few conspicuous 
 practices like the sabbath or abstinence from swine's 
 flesh. They were welcome even on this footing. The 
 full observance of the Law was required only from 
 those who asked for full admission to the Church of 
 Israel by the threefold ordinance of circumcision, 
 baptism, and sacrifice. After this they were counted 
 " Israelites in all things." 
 
 The rabbis were half proud of their numerous 
 proselytes, half ashamed of " the leprosy of Israel." 
 Indeed the Jews of the dispersion were not strict 
 observers of the Law. Pharisaic precision was less 
 attractive at a distance from Jerusalem, and in fact 
 the Law could not be kept in foreign countries. The 
 Jews of Eome or Babylon could not offer their paschal 
 lambs in the temple, or appear before Jehovah three 
 times in the year. The dispersion was in itself a 
 plain sign that the Law was waxing old and ready to 
 vanish away. The spirit of the foreign Jews was not 
 that of the pedants at Jerusalem, though it varied 
 much in different places. Even Galilee was less 
 narrowly Jewish than Judsea ; and further off the 
 Jews were Greeks as well as Jews, speaking Greek 
 and living in the midst of Greek civilization. They 
 read the Law in Greek, and visited the temple as 
 Mohammedans visit the Kaaba, perhaps once or twice 
 in their lives. Jerusalem might be the holy city, but 
 it was not their home. The Law might be ordained of 
 angels, but the worship of the one true God was after 
 all the main thing. Thus the Judaism of the dis- 
 
44 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 persion was quite open to the influences of Greek 
 philosophy. They are visible in the Book of Wisdom, 
 and pervade the writings of Philo. Living as he did 
 in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, it was natural 
 for him to read the Law in the light of an eclectic 
 philosophy. Absolute submission to its authority 
 was quite consistent with allegorical methods of 
 interpretation which enabled him to find in it what- 
 ever he wanted. Thus he makes the just and holy 
 God of Israel into a Supreme like that of the philo- 
 sophers — pure Being above all attributes and far 
 removed from contact with the world. The Word 
 (Memra) of the Palestinian Jews, through which 
 Jehovah speaks to men, becomes the Logos of Philo 
 — an impersonal and yet personal summing-up of the 
 divine powers, viewed sometimes in the Stoic way as 
 the active reason of the world, sometimes after the 
 Platonic fashion as the archetypal idea which shapes 
 all things, and sometimes again as the creative 
 Wisdom. Jewish privilege is almost explained away. 
 The Law is binding because it is pure and good — the 
 original and still the best philosophy. Messiah's 
 reign is an age of virtue, and the believer (or philo- 
 sopher) of every nation will share the reward of Israel. 
 Such a citizen of the world is Philo, with all his zeal 
 for the Law. 
 
 Judsea itself lay well within the sphere of Gentile 
 influences. In three directions it touched the Greek 
 cities of Phoenicia, the Decapolis, and the Philistine 
 coast. But the direct danger from Greek idolatry 
 was averted by the Maccabsean struggle, and its pre- 
 sent influence on Israel was rather one of repulsion. 
 Rome and the Herods did the fatal mischief. Herod 
 the Great was indeed a splendid king. With all his 
 
Ill THE ROMAN EMPIRE 45 
 
 crimes, he rises far above the common type of Eastern 
 sultans. He brought Judaea safely through the 
 dangers of Roman civil war. He watched over the 
 interests of his subjects, made Jerusalem the finest 
 city in the East, and was a tower of strength to the 
 Jews in all countries. The glory of Herod yields 
 only to that of Solomon. Yet the Jews hated him, 
 and with good reason. His policy was heathen 
 throughout his reign. He looked on Israel as one 
 of the nations of the world and nothing more, so that 
 his government was one long defiance of his people. 
 Their pride was trampled down, their deepest convic- 
 tions outraged by this cursed Edomite, this hideous 
 caricature of the King that was to reign in righteous- 
 ness. Only the Roman power kept him on the throne. 
 So every discord in the state was inflamed to 
 fever heat. Such Herodian party as existed was 
 drawn from the Sadducees, and headed by the great 
 priestly families like those of Boethus and Annas. 
 The priests were guardians of the Law, and therefore 
 rivals of the scribes, whose traditions were making 
 the Law of none effect. But when they took their 
 stand upon that Law they seemed no better than free- 
 thinkers to a people who cared so much for later 
 growths of doctrine. The Messianic hope, for example, 
 was a subject best avoided at the court of Herod ; 
 and the Law has few traces of angels or of personal 
 immortality. Here is one more sign that it was 
 waxing old. Thus the Sadducees were little better 
 than a wealthy and unpopular clique : the nation was 
 divided. Though the Pharisees were rebels in theory, 
 they shrank from the fearful danger of setting the 
 Empire at defiance. Some were timid, some saw in 
 foreicn rule the punishment of national sin. Even 
 
46 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 an Edomite for king was one step better than a 
 procurator from Rome. As a party, therefore, they 
 preferred the schools to politics. If they could not 
 hope to deliver Israel, they were free to study the 
 Law and the traditions. So they, too, lost influence. 
 The zealots were the men of action. Their sentence 
 was for open war. They kept the nation in a growing 
 ferment with their risings, and ended by drawing it 
 into a struggle of life and death with Rome. 
 
 It cannot be said that Rome was a deliberate 
 oppressor. Heavy taxation and bad finance were 
 the faults of her general government, and so far 
 Judsea was not worse off than other provinces. Nor 
 was it her policy to insult the national worship. She 
 treated it with official respect just because it was a 
 national worship, and interfered more than once to 
 protect it in the Greek cities. The cohort in the 
 Tower of Antonia was only there to guard the peace. 
 The sanctity of the Temple was fully recognized. 
 The emperor made regular offerings, and no G-entUe 
 was allowed to set foot in the Court of Israel. The 
 Jews had express permission to put to death even a 
 Roman citizen, if he was found inside the " middle 
 wall of partition." Neither was Rome jealous of local 
 freedom. The country was governed as before by 
 the high priest and Sanhedrin, except that capital 
 sentences needed the procurator's confirmation, and 
 every synagogue throughout the Empire retained its 
 private jurisdiction. The procurator could no doubt 
 act for himself when he chose ; but without this 
 power he could not be responsible for order. The 
 Jews, moreover, had exceptional privileges like freedom 
 from military service, and from legal business on the 
 sabbath. The high priest could even send Saul of 
 
ni THE ROMAN EMPIRE 47 
 
 Tarsus to bring the Christians of Damascus to 
 Jerusalem for punishment. So careful was the 
 Koman government to avoid offence to religion. 
 
 It was all in vain. Rome and Israel could never 
 understand each other. What was to be done with 
 a people who were constantly raising wars of religion 
 over the commonest acts of government? Even a 
 census could not be taken without a dangerous 
 rising. Nor was this the worst. Officials are seldom 
 gracious when they have to live among a people they 
 despise and hate. The publicani especially, who 
 farmed the taxes, had a direct interest in extortion. 
 Thus, whatever the government might do, the 
 officials were constantly allowing their contempt for 
 the Jews to break out in lawless violence. Pilate's 
 slaughter of the Galileans at their sacrifices is a fair 
 sample of their conduct. Thus Judsea was most un- 
 fortunate in its procurators. Few provinces were 
 afflicted with such a series of oppressors as Pilate, 
 Felix, Albinus, and Gessius Floras, the last and worst 
 of the series. Only Festus was a better sort of man. 
 
 Even the Empire could not safely oppress the Jews 
 — far less despise them. Israel was as proud as 
 Rome herself. However this world's tyrants might 
 boast, the Jew knew well that God's covenant was 
 with his fathers. The obstinacy which had so long 
 opposed the Law was now enlisted in its defence. 
 Sooner would the whole nation perish than let Pilate 
 bring the idolatrous ensigns of the legions into the 
 city, or allow Caius to place his image in the temple. 
 But it was intolerable that God's own people should 
 be trodden underfoot by " dogs " and " sinners of the 
 Gentiles." Hatred of the Gentiles grew more and 
 more intense. The bitterest taunt against our Lord 
 
48 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 was tlie question whether he meant to go and teach 
 the Gentiles, and the unpardonable sin of his followers 
 was their preaching to the Gentiles. Other nations 
 feared Eome, and admired the universal conqueror : 
 Israel feared too, and hated her the more. And side 
 by side with Pharisaic pride was the Messianic hope : 
 and the Messianic hope was even stronger than the 
 fear of Rome. The old prophets had pointed to 
 the future, to a king of David's hne, to the glory 
 of Jehovah resting on him, and to a never-ending 
 reign of peace and righteousness. In some happier 
 times, peradventure those of John Hyrcanus, the 
 writer of the Apocalypse of Enoch had drawn a 
 picture of Messiah not unworthy of his prophetic 
 teachers. But now the nation was thoroughly 
 embittered. Oppression brought the Messianic hope 
 to the front of thought and action. It was not 
 cherished by the zealots only, but by the peasants of 
 Galilee, the. scribes at Jerusalem, and the heretics of 
 Sychar — even the Sadducees could not quite renounce 
 it. Philo himself, whose hopes of a reign of virtue 
 are really independent of Messiah, was obliged to give 
 them something of a Messianic form. But oppression 
 also debased the character of the Messianic hope. 
 Some of the simpler minds, especially in Galilee, 
 were still true to the spirit of prophecy. With them 
 the intervention from on high and the salvation from 
 their enemies is only that they may serve the Lord 
 without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, 
 all the days of their life. Messiah may even be a 
 light to lighten the Gentiles. But at Jerusalem men 
 hoped rather that when the blow from heaven came, 
 it would give them a vulgar conqueror to break the 
 yoke of Rome and pour out wrath upon the heathen. 
 
in THE ROMAN EMPIRE 49 
 
 Such a perversion of God's crowning promise to mere 
 revenge on men of yesterday simply renounced the 
 call of Israel to be the servant of the Lord, whose 
 sufferings were for the healing of the nations. It was 
 an apostate nation long before the decisive morning 
 of the cry, "We have no king but Caesar. 
 
 Though Judaea was a tiny province, the Jews were 
 the greatest people of the East, and no unequal 
 match for Rome herself. The Zealots were right so 
 far. The Law, the temple, and the Messianic hope 
 kept Israel a living nation — the only living nation 
 left inside the Empire. Had the nation been sound, 
 there would have been no need for a miracle to 
 give them the victory. But however the stubborn 
 courage of the Zealots amazed the Roman legions, 
 their savage fanaticism was no bond of union for a 
 nation. All through the apostolic age the storm was 
 gathering which broke in seventy years of internecine 
 struggle between Rome and Israel for the dominion 
 of the East. Our Lord's whole ministry was a 
 warning that there could be no blessing on the 
 violence of the Zealots. No prophet was needed to 
 foresee that the hatred of the Gentile which led them 
 to desecrate the temple needs must also bring the 
 Gentile to destroy it. A nation which is consumed 
 with hatred of its neighbours is ready for destruction. 
 And when the storm had spent its force, and Israel 
 was uprooted from among the nations, then it was 
 seen how truly the Lord had accused the scribes of 
 replacing the Law with a tradition of their own. 
 The obsoleteness of the Law was not a recondite 
 doctrine of the Christians, but a plain fact which 
 any one with eyes could see for himself Atonement 
 was the very essence of the Law, and atonement 
 
 VOL. I E 
 
so CHURCH HISTORY chap, m 
 
 ceased when sacrifice became impossible : yet the 
 religious life of Israel went on almost unchanged. 
 But there were no more Sadducees and no more 
 Zealots ; no more proselytes and no more freethinkers. 
 Servility to Eome and armed resistance were alike 
 impossible. Pharisaism remained supreme from the 
 time when Israel went out to his long home of exile. 
 
 Books 
 
 *Mommsen, Rom, Gesch. v. ; Bury, Student's Roman Empire ; Wendland, 
 Bellen-RSm. Kultur, Tiibingen, 1907 ; also most of the Introductions to N.T. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC AGE 
 
 Such was the world into which our Saviour came. 
 It was a brilliant world, in the full splendour of the 
 Augustan age of literature and civilization. The 
 wars of nations were at an end, and civil wars were 
 ended too. Commerce flourished in the quiet of the 
 Eoman peace as it had never flourished before, and 
 seemed to gain new life from the treasures of darkness 
 and the hidden wealth of past ages which the Eoman 
 wars of conquest had scattered through the world. 
 Never were such splendid shows as those of the 
 Roman amphitheatre, where whole fleets and armies 
 fought before the Roman people. Never had so 
 many subtle brains and skilful fingers ministered to 
 luxury and elegance. Above all, peace and order were 
 guarded by the strong hand of Caesar and his seven- 
 and- twenty legions. It was strong government to 
 some purpose. No outside enemy could shake the solid 
 might of Rome, and rebellion from within was hardly 
 thought of. The very buildings of " the Romans of 
 old," as after-ages marvelled, seemed built for eternity 
 — often not a stone was displaced for centuries.-' 
 
 ^ Procopius, passim : e.g. B.O. ii. 27, the attempt to destroy the cistern 
 in the siege of Auximum. 
 
 51 
 
52 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Even in the third century, when the decline was 
 well advanced, TertuUian could draw a splendid 
 picture. " Certainly the world is more cultivated 
 and better stocked than it was. All places are now 
 accessible, all are known, all are full of trade. 
 Pleasant estates have done away with solitudes that 
 had once an evil fame, fields have conquered forests, 
 cattle have put to flight wild beasts, sands are sown, 
 rocks are planted with vines, marshes are drained, 
 and there are more cities now than houses formerly. 
 Islands have ceased to be waste, and rocks to frighten 
 us : everywhere are houses, everywhere people, every- 
 where the state, everywhere life. ... In very truth 
 pestilence and famine and wars and earthquakes that 
 swallow cities must be counted remedies, as pruning 
 down the excess of mankind." ^ 
 
 Nor was material prosperity the highest glory of 
 Eome. Her rule was not a rule of naked force like 
 that of a Sennacherib or a Nebuchadnezzar, only 
 held together by the terror of wholesale slaughter 
 and captivity. The old republic, indeed, was not 
 much better ; but Rome was now beginning to learn 
 that she had duties to the world she had conquered. 
 She was the first of the great empires, and almost the 
 only one till our own time, which turned subjects 
 into citizens, and ruled them for their own good, and 
 not for selfish gain. In the years men count as her 
 decline she was doing a nobler work than that of 
 conquest — the work summed up in Claudian's glorious 
 words : — 
 
 Lo Rome ! imperial Rome alone is she 
 Who conquered foemen to her bosom took, 
 
 ' Tert. de Anima 30. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 53 
 
 And cherished mankind with her queenly name — 
 No mistress she, but mother dear of all — 
 And children called them all, in holy bonds 
 Of kinship linking nations far and near.^ 
 
 It was Rome, and Eome alone, who saved tlie nations 
 from anarchy, and stayed the tide of northern war, 
 and checked the ever-threatening advance of Asia. 
 So she rested for centuries on the steady loyalty of a 
 conquered world ; and when she fell at last, it was 
 not that nations revolted from her, but because she 
 had grown too weak to keep in hand her northern 
 mercenaries. 
 
 Yet it was a cankered world withal. Its elegance 
 was largely the vulgar ostentation of a pampered and 
 frivolous class, its splendour a glittering pageant 
 which scarcely hid the abyss of social misery caused 
 by slavery, and even its peace was paid for by a 
 taxation which gradually ruined its industrial pros- 
 perity. Above all, the ideals of the ancient world 
 had perished with its freedom. The old civic virtues 
 were extinct, the old religions were dissolving, and 
 there was nothing that could take their place. The 
 Empire itself on one side, philosophy and superstition 
 on the other, were only makeshifts that could do no 
 more than stave off the catastrophe. Custom was 
 weakened ; force and selfishness remained. Family 
 life was poisoned at its source, and even population 
 dwindled. In a word, Society was no organic whole, 
 but a bundle of interests held together by mere 
 
 ^ Claudian, de consnlatu Stilichonis, iii. 150-53. 
 
 Haec est, in gremium victos quae sola recepit, 
 Humanumque genus communi nomine fovit 
 Matris, Don dominae ritu, civesque vocavit, 
 Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua revinxit. 
 The whole passage from v. 130 should be studied. 
 
54 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 human feeling, by the industry of certain classes, 
 and by the laws and arms of Eome. 
 
 It was quite possible to break the yoke of Eome, 
 if Jesus of Nazareth had cared to do it. Israel fought 
 more than once on equal terms with Rome for the 
 dominion of the East, and could scarcely have failed 
 to win it under better leaders than Bar-Cochab and 
 John of Gischala. But if these bad leaders represented 
 worthily the savage fanaticism of their followers, 
 their badness was itself the outcome of a deeper evil. 
 A victory over Rome would only have subjected a 
 rotten Gentile world to a rotten Jewish nation. 
 Below political questions lie the economic, below the 
 economic lie the moral, and below the moral lies the 
 curse of selfishness, which was desolating the Jewish 
 nation and the Gentile world alike. Every sentence, 
 therefore, of our Saviour's teaching looks through the 
 special trials of Israel to the general problem of the 
 sin of the world, and prepares for its removal by one 
 sacrifice for sin made once for all. 
 
 It is a complete misunderstanding of the Gospel 
 if we find the substance of it in the moral teaching 
 of the Sermon on the Mount. Lofty as that teaching 
 is, the speaker's claims are still more commanding. 
 Who is this that says, Ye have heard what Jehovah 
 said to them of old ; but I tell you something better ? 
 It is but a step from words like these to the most 
 mysterious recorded by St. John. Christ's Person, 
 not his teaching, is the message of the Gospel. If 
 we know anything for certain about Jesus of Nazareth, 
 it is that he steadily claimed to be the Son of God, 
 the redeemer of mankind, and the ruler of the world 
 to come, and by that claim the Gospel stands or falls. 
 Therefore, the Lord's disciples went not forth as 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 55 
 
 preachers of morality, but as witnesses of his life, and 
 of the historic resurrection which proved his mightiest 
 claims. Their morality is always an inference from 
 these, never the forefront of their teaching. They 
 seem to think that if they can only fill men with 
 true thankfulness for the gift of life in Christ, 
 morality will take care of itself 
 
 Little could they see how their message was to 
 develop out its power in the long course of ages 
 needed to construct even the show of a Christian 
 world. The first disciples were devout Jews who 
 worshipped in the temple, and lived in favour with 
 Pharisees and people. They were not the less true 
 Israelites but the more so for their obedience to the 
 Son of David as the Son of God, and for seeing in 
 His Person a revelation higher than the Law. True, 
 there was already a social revolution implied by the 
 spiritual equality of women, by the voluntary com- 
 munism, and by the regular organization of charity 
 by the hand of the Seven. But if the apostles 
 themselves hardly saw the full meaning of these 
 changes, much less did others. However, it was not 
 long before they went far beyond the bounds of 
 orthodox Judaism. If the Law was not the final 
 revelation, neither could it be eternal. Stephen's 
 declaration that Jewish privilege was not to last for 
 ever drew down instant persecution, and Israel never 
 forgave it. 
 
 Stephen's teaching was soon put in practice. 
 Hitherto the Churches were composed entirely of 
 Jews and proselytes ; and so far there was no 
 difficulty, for even the Pharisees allowed that the full 
 proselyte was " an Israelite in all things." But when 
 the Churches were scattered abroad by persecution, 
 
$6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 a wider preaching followed. The first step forward 
 was an invitation to the heretics of Samaria. The 
 conversion of Cornelius might pass as an isolated 
 case, and because he was already a good deal of a 
 proselyte : but the Jews in the Church took alarm 
 when some of the Hellenistic Christians who came to 
 Antioch began to speak to heathen Gentiles/ and to 
 bring them into the Church in such numbers as bade 
 fair to swamp the old disciples. If this was only the 
 fulfilment of the Lord's commission, and the natural 
 result of all that had gone before, it was none the 
 less a momentous and irregular step. Christian Jews 
 could hardly bring themselves to welcome Gentile 
 Christians, so that the wavering of Peter at Joppa 
 and Barnabas at Antioch was natural. But when 
 they looked back to the words of the Lord and the 
 witness of the prophets, and saw that Christ avouched 
 the Gentiles also by gifts of grace, they felt that 
 they could do no less than bid them welcome to the 
 Christian fold. 
 
 Of course an advance like this led to a great 
 reaction. There were many who shared Peter's 
 Jewish prejudices, but few his willingness to follow 
 the Master's leading. Men of this sort might be as 
 ready as any Pharisee to make a proselyte : hut must 
 he not first become a Jew and keep the Law ? 
 Would not the mere discipline be good for him ? 
 After awhile the question came to a crisis cit Antioch 
 about A.D. 50. The Jewish party might fairly look 
 for support in the Church at Jerusalem as guided 
 by James the brother of the Lord ; for James was 
 
 ' Acts xi. 20, "EWrivas. The MS. evidence leans to 'EXXTjuo-riis, but 
 preaching to Hellenists would be no novelty. The sense of the passage 
 seems to require "BXXT/^'as. Yet see Hort, Judaistic Christianity, p. 59. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 57 
 
 outwardly a strict Jew, and conservative feeling was 
 strong in the mother Church where men stood face to 
 face with the ancient and majestic ceremonial of the 
 temple, from which, forsooth, these ungrateful Gentiles 
 wished to cut the churches loose. But the Judaizers 
 found an overmatch in Saul of Tarsus, who had come 
 up with Barnabas to the apostolic conference. Paul 
 was already a Christian of at least fourteen years' 
 standing, with a commission independent of the 
 Twelve, and ideas of his own about the weakness of 
 all law, although it were divine law. Barnabas had 
 sought him out long ago as a pillar of the Gentile 
 cause, and shared with him since then an important 
 missionary journey to the heathens of Pisidia and 
 Lycaonia. Now it was Paul's clear insight and force 
 of character which kept firm the wavering apostles, 
 and guided the deliberations of the conference. Even 
 James gave his sentence according to the witness of 
 prophecy. The principle was fully settled in favour 
 of the Gentiles, that they were not bound to keep 
 the Law ; so that it was chiefly ^ in the interests of 
 peace that the churches of Syria and Cilicia were 
 directed to abstain from certain practices which gave 
 special offence to the Jewish party. Either then or 
 earlier, Paul and Barnabas came to an understanding 
 with the apostles at Jerusalem. Their commission 
 was fuUy recognized as independent of the Twelve, 
 and the Gentile world was acknowledged as their 
 sphere of labour. 
 
 St. Paul's great work now lay clear before him. 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews though he was, he was also 
 a cultured Greek and a citizen of Rome, and the 
 training of his life enabled him to see through the 
 
 ' See Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 68-73. 
 
58 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Mosaic Law the powerlessness of any law whatever 
 to overcome the carnal nature. Faith is the only- 
 means of salvation ; and whoso looks to law is none 
 of Christ's. Now faith, which is a living union with 
 Christ, has nothing to do with race or sex or worldly 
 calling. It was not enough to secure the consent of 
 the apostles, that a man was not bound to become a 
 Jew. When Peter played the hypocrite at Antioch, 
 and carried away with him even Barnabas, the first 
 chief of the Gentile party, he was refuted on first 
 principles, and not by any appeal to authority. 
 When the question came to another crisis a few years 
 later in Galatia, St. Paul again ignored the conference. 
 His argument is that grace and faith on one side, 
 works and law on the other, are mutually exclusive, 
 so that a man must choose between them. Thus he 
 not only need not but must not become a Jew — he 
 separates himself from Christ if he does. 
 
 The Christian churches, therefore, founded by 
 St. Paul were essentially Gentile churches, established 
 in the face of bitter and persistent opposition from 
 Jews and Judaizers. In his second great missionary 
 journey he traversed Asia and entered Europe, 
 skirted the Aegean and visited Athens, settling down 
 for a year and a half at Corinth, and returning by 
 way of Ephesus to Syria. His third journey took 
 him again through Asia ; but this time he made 
 Ephesus his headquarters for two years ; after which 
 he went over the inland of Macedonia to the borders 
 of lUyricum, and so to Corinth, returning along the 
 Macedonian and Asiatic coasts to Jerusalem. In 
 three journeys, therefore, he had traversed the larger 
 part of the Greek world, and planted churches in 
 wide tracts of country round Antioch, Ephesus, and 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 59 
 
 Corinth. Those on the Lycus, for example, who had 
 not seen his face, must have been founded by some 
 of his missionary staff. But Antioch, Ephesus, and 
 Corinth were only stages on the way from Jerusalem 
 to Rome. A true instinct told him that the obedience 
 of faith was incomplete till the Gospel had been 
 preached in Eome ; and a true instinct broke off the 
 narrative of the Acts with the apostle's arrival at 
 Eome. Though his trial would be the natural end 
 of the two years in his own hired house, we are not 
 told its result. If he was released, as he seems ^ to 
 have been, the last few years of his life were only an 
 epilogue to the labours of the past. First an obscure 
 journey to Spain, then a visit to the East as far as 
 Crete and Ephesus, then he is brought again to Rome 
 to perish in the Neronian persecution. 
 
 Meanwhile, others were preaching too. The dis- 
 persion of the Twelve is implied by their commission, 
 and by the absence of most or all of them from 
 Jerusalem at St. Paul's visits. But it was not 
 immediate, and may have been gradual. If St. John, 
 for instance, is the writer of the Apocalypse, it is 
 more likely than not that he remained at Jerusalem 
 for nearly thirty years, so that 64, the legendary 
 
 ^ St. Paul's release from Rome is anticipated by himself (Phil. ii. 24, 
 Philem. 22), and seems proved by (1) the Pastoral Epistles, which are 
 decisive if genuine (which to myself does not seem seriously doubtful) and 
 not far from decisive even if spurious ; (2) the direct statement of Clement, 
 Ep. 5 iirl t6 ripfxa ttjs Stjcreas i\6<iv, which ought to mean Spain, and 
 cannot well mean Rome in a letter written at Rome ; (3) the allusion of the 
 Muratorian fragment to his departure for Spain, though some will set this 
 down as a guess from Rom. xv. 21 ; (4) Prof. Ramsay's argument, that if he 
 had not been acquitted, the Christians in Nero's time would have been 
 punished summarily for the Name, and not for theflagitia cohaerentia nomini. 
 To these we must add for what they are worth ; (5) the connexion of his death 
 with Peter's ; (6) Roman tradition of the tombs, which carries more weight 
 for the fact of the execution than for the site of the tombs. 
 
 The silence of later writers is of small importance. 
 
6o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 date of tlie Virgin's departure, may not be far wrong. 
 The direction also of their travels is unknown, though 
 we have some fancy distributions of them over the 
 ends of the earth in the legends of the second, or 
 more likely the third, century.^ Our best guide to it 
 is the arrangement at the Conference, that the Three 
 were to go to the circumcision. This would specially 
 direct them to the great Jewish dispersions of 
 Chaldsea, Syria, Alexandria, and Eome, but would 
 leave them free to go almost anywhere. Beyond 
 this we know almost nothing till after the fall of 
 Jerusalem. We lose sight even of Peter after the 
 scene at Antioch. It is certain that he travelled, and 
 took his wife with him, and nearly certain that he 
 had been at Corinth before 56 ; ^ but the silence of 
 St. Paul and of the Acts is decisive proof that he had 
 not visited Rome before 61. Thus the story of his 
 episcopate of twenty-five years is legendary for this 
 reason as well as others. That he was put to death 
 is shown by the evidence of Clement and the Fourth 
 Gospel, and that he was put to death at Rome seems 
 proved ; but his stay in the capital must have been 
 a short one, unless he survived St. Paul. But of this 
 presently. 
 
 ^ Summed up by Eus. iii. 1. Dr. Grierson tells me that there is Indian 
 evidence which ought not to be ignored in favour of a visit of Thomas to 
 India. On the value of that evidence I am not competent to speak ; but 
 thus much seems fairly proved: (1) that if the apostle came to India at all, 
 he would come to the north-west and not to the Malabar coast, and would 
 there meet the king actually named in the legend; (2) that Christianity may 
 have touched India from the side of Baotria in the third century ; (3) that 
 Christianity, and in particular its doctrine of the Incarnation, may very 
 well have been one of the factors which shaped the later growth of Brahminism. 
 In this case Brahminism will be akin to Gnosticism, though with the 
 important differences that incarnation, not salvation, is the idea taken up, 
 that it is more subordinate, and that it is quite separated from the historical 
 Christ. 
 
 2 1 Cor. ix. 5. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 6i 
 
 Of other apostles the only certain traces are in 
 Asia — John at Ephesus, Philip^ at Hierapolis. To 
 these we may perhaps add Andrew. The special 
 interest he has for the writer of the Fourth Gospel 
 seems to imply that he too ended his days in Asia ; 
 and the Muratorian Fragment makes him present 
 when that Gospel was written. 
 
 In truth, our knowledge of the apostolic age is in 
 the highest degree scanty and imperfect. We see 
 the grand figure of St. Paul, but the background is 
 very dim. We have the course of the Gospel traced 
 by a master's hand from Jerusalem to Antioch, 
 Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome ; but that is all. It is 
 hardly even the outline of a history. Two or three 
 samples of our ignorance may be given. One is the 
 rise of a church at Alexandria, which must have been 
 very early. Its own tradition claimed St. Mark for 
 its founder ; but however this may be, it is a striking 
 fact that no writer of this age or the next age has 
 left us a word of information about the origin of 
 this great church. We know very little more about 
 the beginnings of the Gospel in Rome. We can only 
 say that it was not brought there by St. Paul or by 
 one of the Twelve, and that in 58 the two " notable 
 apostles " Andronicus and Junias were living there. 
 But there were already Christians in Rome half a 
 score of years before, if we can refer the expulsion 
 of the Jews by Claudius to their disputes with the 
 Christians. At best, we know next to nothing till we 
 come to the Epistle of St. Paul. 
 
 As a third sample we take the Epistle to the 
 
 1 So Polycrates ap. Eus. v. 24. There is no reason to suspect any con- 
 fusion with Philip the Evangelist, whose daughters are very differently 
 described. 
 
62 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Hebrews. The writer is not a blunderer like 
 Barnabas, but a thinker of the first order. He seems 
 as conscious of weight and authority in the churches 
 as St. Paul himself, and discusses the whole problem 
 of Law and Gospel with an insight worthy of St. Paul, 
 though in a more fashionable style and from another 
 point of view. Yet his name is lost. Clement of 
 Eome is out of the question, Luke's power seems to 
 have been of a different sort, ApoUos is at best a lucky 
 guess, and the trifling evidence for Barnabas is 
 balanced by the impression we get from Scripture, 
 that he had not force of mind for such a work as this. 
 We can only sum up for a Great Unknown. 
 
 Behind St. Paul, behind the Twelve, was a crowd 
 of obscure missionaries. Some of them might devote 
 themselves to the work, and wander like apostles ; 
 but every Christian was a missionary in his place and 
 measure, and the common intercourse of trade and 
 life spread the Gospel far and wide. Even women 
 took their share of the work, as we see in Priscilla's 
 case ; and from slaves and freedmen it reached slaves 
 and freedmen, and not uncommonly their masters 
 also. Every church was in a real sense a missionary 
 society. 
 
 II 
 
 The general result of the labours of the apostolic 
 age was the formation of a number of Christian 
 communities scattered over the country from Spain 
 to the Euphrates valley. These communities all 
 looked to Jesus of Nazareth as their Lord, and as the 
 author of their spiritual unity, all observed his 
 ordinances of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, 
 and all confessed the duty of individual obedience to 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 63 
 
 his commands, and corporate submission to one form 
 or another of apostolic influence. Beyond these 
 limits we find a great variety. Some even of the 
 Pauline churches, like those in Galatia, were 
 influenced by Jewish teachers ; while Corinth is 
 mostly Gentile, and the churches of the Lycus show 
 traces of " oriental " ^ leanings very different from 
 the usual lines of either Greek or Jewish thought. 
 Thus in Galatia the old circumcision question is 
 revived, while Corinth is occupied with practical 
 missionary difficulties of marriage and fornication, 
 heathen society, and the meaning of the resurrection. 
 At Colossse the trouble is with ascetic teaching, while 
 in Rome the doubts are about the vegetarians. 
 Altogether the churches shew as much variety in the 
 apostolic age as at any later time. 
 
 How, then, did the apostles treat this variety ? 
 We know something of St. Paul's action in the 
 matter, and we may safely assume that the others 
 treated it in much the same way. Now, St. Paul's 
 general rule was to let it alone. He was sent to 
 preach ; and though this implied the founding and 
 general care of churches, it had not necessarily much 
 to do with their ordinary government. He was 
 bound to check on one side errors which stultified 
 his preaching, like circumcision, the denial of the 
 resurrection, or the ideas which underlay the 
 confusion at the Lord's Supper; on the other, 
 corporate disorder or immoraUty, as when the 
 Corinthians preached confusedly or saw no great 
 harm in fornication. If he is also willing to advise 
 on further questions, he always decides them on first 
 
 1 Hort, Judaistic Christianity, pp. 117-29, denies that the influences were 
 specifically Essene. 
 
64 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 principles, and often plainly hints that the Church 
 ought to have settled the matter for itself without con- 
 sulting him. To variety as such he shews no dislike.^ 
 
 The organization of these churches is imperfectly 
 known to us. Besides the general scantiness of our 
 information on the apostolic age, we have here the 
 special difficulty that things were in a fluid and 
 transitional state. They were complicated on one 
 side by the indefinite influence which the apostles 
 held in reserve ; on the other by the ministry of 
 gifts which the ministry of office crossed without yet 
 displacing it. Nor shall we find it altogether an 
 advantage that the question is a battlefield of 
 controversy. If partisan zeal has helped to collect 
 evidence, it has also done much harm — never more 
 than in our own time — by its appeals to other 
 motives than the love of truth. Our best course for 
 the present will be to sum up the statements of the 
 New Testament itself, reserving disputed questions 
 as much as possible till we are able freely to use 
 later evidence. 
 
 In 1 Cor. xii. 28 St. Paul instances "first apostles, 
 second prophets, third teachers, then powers, then 
 gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of 
 tongues." In Eph. iv. 11 the risen Lord "Himself 
 gave some as apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, 
 some pastors and teachers " for the work of service 
 (SiuKovla). At the head of both lists are the Apostles, 
 for Christ sent envoys into the world as well as 
 Caiaphas.^ The Eleven had a position of their own, 
 
 ' With Hort, EccUsia, 84, I see no trace of any commission to the 
 apostles to govern the churches they founded. So Sanday, Priesthood, 42 sq. 
 
 ^ On the Jewish 6.-n-bcrToKoi, Harnack, Ausbreitung, 237-40. He raises the 
 question whether St. Paul was not a Jewish apostle before he became an 
 apostle of Christ. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 65 
 
 though other apostles were not inferior to them. 
 Though twelve was always the ideal number/ it was 
 perhaps never more than ideal, for it is an open 
 question whether the Lord ever recognized Matthias 
 in the place of Judas. Paul and Barnabas were 
 certainly apostles, and so was James the Lord's 
 brother, and so were others. Even " notable 
 apostles " like Andronicus and Junias are only 
 mentioned casually.^ But the number cannot have 
 been very large, for we certainly know that Timothy 
 was not included. 
 
 If the privilege of an apostle was a lofty one, to 
 have seen the Lord and to bear a testimony confirmed 
 with signs and wonders, his worldly lot was a hard 
 one. He had authority, indeed, to live of the Gospel 
 and to take a Christian woman ' with him as a wife ; 
 but that was all. St. Paul himself did not use even 
 this liberty. Unlike the apostles of the Jews, whose 
 chief function was to collect money,^ he laboured 
 with his own hands that he might make the Gospel 
 free of charge. Because the apostle's message was 
 universal, he was attached to no local Church, but 
 wandered from city to city, and had no certain 
 dwelling-place. If St. Paul sometimes worked for 
 awhile from a centre like Ephesus or Corinth, he 
 never made himself a home. First in labours, first in 
 hardships, first in dangers, the apostle stood out like 
 a doomed bestiarius of the amphitheatre — morituri 
 te salutant, Caesar — in the sight of the world and 
 
 ' 1 Cor. XV. 5, Apoc. xxi. 14. 
 
 ^ Rom. xvi. 7. 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. ix. 5. Was there a case or two of an apostle's wife remaining an 
 unbeliever ? 
 
 ■* I think we may read this between the lines of passages like 1 Cor. iv. 12, 
 ix. 15, Acts XX. Zi. The abuse of this liberty by false prophets would seem 
 to have brought the apostolate into discredit at the end of the century. 
 
 VOL. I F 
 
66 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 angels and men.^ Next to the apostle in both 
 passages comes the shadowy figure of the prophet, 
 whom we shall reserve for the present. Suffice it 
 that he seems to have been more or less like the 
 apostle, but with the important difference that he 
 was not required to be a personal witness of the 
 Resurrection. After him we find a group of 
 preachers — the evangelist is even more obscure than 
 the prophet — followed in 1 Cor. xii. 28 by special 
 " gifts of healings, helps, governments, kinds of 
 tongues." 
 
 It will be seen that these lists are concerned with 
 a ministry of special gifts, and that there is no place 
 in them for local officials of the Churches, unless they 
 come in under helps and governments, or pastors 
 and teachers. Yet such officials there must have 
 been at an early time, and such we know there were, 
 though their traces are not very clear in the earlier 
 writings of St. Paul. Setting aside the Pastoral 
 Epistles for a moment, we have (l) the appointment 
 of the Seven at Jerusalem ; (2) elders at Jerusalem 
 in 44, mentioned by James and by Peter, appointed 
 by Paul and Barnabas in every Church in South 
 Galatia about 48, at Ephesus in 58 ; (3) bishops 
 and deacons at Philippi in 63. To these we may 
 add (4) "rulers" (Heb. xiii. 7, 17), in an unknown 
 Church of Hebrew Christians not long before 70, 
 and (5) the " angels " of the seven Churches in Asia 
 a little later, if we take the Neronian date of the 
 Apocalypse. But in the Pastoral Epistles Timothy 
 
 ' 1 Cor. V. 9. Tradition will have it that all the apostles but St. John 
 were put to death. This is true of James the son of Zebedee, of James the 
 Lord's brother, and of Peter and Paul. But if Andrew and Philip retired to 
 Asia, they most likely died in peace, like St. John, of whom there is no 
 serious reason for doubt. Of the rest we have nothing but idle tales. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 67 
 
 and Titus are vicars -apostolic in command of five 
 classes (better not call them orders) of ofl&cials. They 
 have bishops, (or elders^), deacons, widows, and 
 deaconesses.^ This great advance, which some think 
 fatal to their genuineness, may fairly be accounted 
 for by the vigorous growth of Church life, and by the 
 efforts at organization which cannot but have marked 
 the close of the Apostolic age. 
 
 The questions before us may conveniently be 
 grouped round the later ofl&ces of bishops, elders, and 
 deacons, which, however, we shall take in the reverse 
 order. In the first place then ; was the appointment 
 of the Seven (Acts vi.) the formal institution of an 
 order of deacons ? This is the traditional view ; 
 and it is doubtful at best, quite apart from the fact 
 that the conception of an order is of later growth. 
 The opinions of Cyprian and later writers, and even 
 that of Irenseus, ought not to count for much on a 
 question of this kind. We must go back to the New 
 Testament ; and there the vague word ZiaKovLa (used 
 directly after of the apostles themselves) is balanced 
 by the avoidance of the word deacon throughout the 
 Acts. When we meet Philip again, he is " one of 
 the Seven." ^ Some will note that the Seven rank 
 next to the apostles, and find in them the elders who 
 receive the offerings from Barnabas and Saul at 
 Jerusalem a few years later.* This, however, is 
 unlikely, for the functions of the Seven are clearly 
 subordinate. In any case we are thrown back upon 
 the Philippian Church in 63 for the first express 
 
 ^ Timothy appoints bishops and deacons, Titus elders and deacons. But 
 (1 Tim. V. 17) Timothy is not without elders under him. 
 
 ^ 1 Tim. iii. 11 yvvainas (not ras 71;;'.) Ciaairai cannot be the wives of 
 deacons. 
 
 2 Acts xxi. 8. * Acts xi. 30. 
 
68 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 mention of deacons, though the office must have 
 originated some time before, for Phoebe is a deaconess 
 at Cenchrese in 58. 
 
 But was it a definite office at all ? Perhaps the 
 best solution of this difficulty as well as others is 
 Hort's theory that it was not a definite office, but a 
 function of ministration corresponding to liriffKoiz-r], a 
 function of oversight, so that bishops and deacons 
 are not two definite orders of officials, but simply 
 such as oversee and such as serve, whatever offices 
 they may hold.^ 
 
 Concerning elders. Of course the word often 
 means nothing more than the older members of the 
 Churches, and in the next age the survivors of 
 apostolic times, like those from whom Papias got 
 his information. There is no more than a contrast 
 of age when Ananias is carried out by the younger 
 men who chance to be present, or where Peter tells 
 them to be subject to older men, and perhaps when 
 Timothy is directed not to rebuke an elder. ^ But 
 
 ^ Hort, J7s«C?iraWa?i£c(;fesia, esp. 190. He takes ^irio-xoiros in all places as 
 descriptive of function, not of office : thus Tit. i. 5 Trpea-pvT^pov!, et tU iariv 
 iviyKkriTO^ . . Set yip rbv (Tta-KOTroi' (him that hath oversight) df^yKXTiToy 
 e&ai, or Phili. i. tois aylois rots oUtnv {v ^Mttttois aiv iincrKdiroiS Kal SiaKbvoa 
 (such as oversee and such as minister) where the two descriptions together 
 include whatever officials there may have been in the Church. So Robinson 
 in Encycl. Bihl. Art. " Bishop. " 
 
 This theory, that iirL<rKoiros did not yet denote a definite office at all, 
 fairly explains the identification {e.g. Tit. i. 5, 7) of bishop and elder 
 alternating with their separation (Tit. i. 7, ii. 2) and their co-existence at 
 Ephesus and Crete, while yet they are never joined together. 
 
 Hatch (Bampton Led. 1880) assigned the care of public worship and the 
 poor to the bishops and deacons, while elders (like the Jewish) formed a 
 court attached to the Church, so that they were concerned rather with 
 government and discipline. But (a) the evidence for the existence of such a 
 court is not strong ; (6) it is not likely that offices were so sharply separated ; 
 (c)'in any case the Pastoral Epistles do not separate them in this way. 
 
 ^ Acts V. 6 (the change to veavlo-Koi v. 10 In Sapphira's case negatives the 
 official sense) : 1 Peter v. 5 : 1 Tim. iv. 1. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 6g 
 
 the contrast of age shades into that of office, and 
 the distinction between them is not always clear ; 
 and even when the reference is undoubtedly to office, 
 the nature of the office may be far from certain. 
 Elders, and deacons perhaps in a less degree, would 
 commonly be older men, so that there might even 
 be a tendency to class together all the officials as irpea- 
 ^vrepoi — reverend gentlemen — in contrast to the 
 Church generally.^ 
 
 That the " bishops " in the New Testament were 
 not what we call bishops is proved at once by the 
 single fact that there were sundry of them at Philippi. 
 They evidently stand in some close relation to the 
 elders. Thus the elders of Ephesus are reminded^ 
 that they are bishops, and the qualifications of the 
 bishops and elders as described to Timothy and 
 Titus are nearly the same, and point to oversight 
 certainly, and to the same sort of oversight, but 
 to oversight which is pastoral, not what we should 
 call episcopal. Again, St. Paul's argument from the 
 bishop to the elder would be no argument at all, if the 
 bishops were already no more than a small class 
 among the elders.' The rough general equivalence of 
 bishops and elders in the New Testament has very 
 seldom been disputed since the controversies of the 
 seventeenth century.* Upon the whole their position 
 and duties (apart from the question of a possible 
 superior) are not unlike those of the priest as described 
 in the English Ordinal. 
 
 1 This is actually Wrede's theory for Corinth in Clement's time, that 
 vpfcrp. = itriiTK. + SlAk. = ' ' reverend gentlemen. " 
 
 ' Acts XX. 28. 
 
 ^ Tit. i. 5, 7 'iva KaraaTrjffrjs wpeff^vT^povi . , Set yhp rbv iirlffKoirov, This 
 seems to dispose of Dean Robinson's ingenious endeavour {Encycl. Sibl. Art. 
 "Bishop") to find a bishop in the later sense in t6v iinaK. of 1 Tim. iii. 1. 
 
 * Lightfoot, Philippians. Note on the Synn. bishop and presbyter. 
 
70 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Leaving in abeyance the question of their exact 
 equivalence, we have now to ask whether in the New 
 Testament there are any traces of bishops in the later 
 sense. Do we find a class of permanent local ofl&cials, 
 each standing singly at the head of the elders of a 
 single city ? ^ Whatever name they bear, these will 
 be the bishops we are looking for. The instances 
 commonly given are James the Lord's brother at 
 Jerusalem, Timothy and Titus in Ephesus and Crete, 
 and the " angels " of the Apocalypse in Asia. Now 
 James was no doubt the chief man at Jerusalem, 
 especially after the removal of the other " pillars." 
 His strictness of life and relation to the Lord (a more 
 important matter to Easterns than to us) must have 
 given him enormous influence ; and he was, moreover, 
 an apostle, though not one of the Twelve. But for 
 the catastrophe of the Eoman war, there might, in 
 another generation, have been an attempt to govern 
 the Churches by some sort of an Abbasside Khalifate 
 of the Lord's relations at Jerusalem. But influence 
 is one thing, ofiice is another, and there is no serious 
 evidence that he held the oflice of Bishop of Jerusalem. 
 
 ^ This is the definition of the Bishop, when we first find him. Country 
 bishops governing villages cannot be more than a secondary growth of the 
 office, for the Gospel spread from city to city, and more slowly to the country. 
 So far as I am aware, there is no early instance of a bishop not holding his 
 oflice for life. Even translations cannot be traced before the third century, 
 and were forbidden at Niceea. Neither do we find two bishops governing one 
 Church, for Narcissus of Jerusalem at the age of 116 is hardly a real exception 
 either to this or to the life tenure ; or with two bishops governing distinct 
 Churches in one city, unless Hippolytus at Portus be an exception ; and least 
 of all do we find one bishop governing several cities. It is not till Teutonic 
 times that we have bishops of tribes, like the Goths or the Kentishmen ; and 
 the modern territorial bishop is a still later development. 
 
 Of course the city bishop, the village bishop, the tribal bishop, and the 
 territorial bishop are equally legitimate forms of the office. The point is that 
 the city bishop was its original form. The early Church was necessarily 
 governed by city bishops, because the ancient world was as definitely made up 
 of cities as the modern world is made up of territorial states. 
 
IV THE APOSTOLIC AGE 71 
 
 The story was an old one in the time of Eusebius, for 
 we find it in the Clementine romances ; but there is 
 no sign that Eusebius knew anything definite about 
 the matter, for we cannot take seriously the episcopal 
 chair which was shewn in his time as that of James.^ 
 It is possible, however, that other Churches may have 
 taken a hint from the success of James, though his 
 own did not, if we may judge by the unnaturally 
 rapid succession of bishops in the next century at 
 jElia Capitolina. 
 
 The case of Timothy and Titus is a stronger one, 
 for their work of appointing and governing elders is 
 plainly that which is now done by the bishop. But 
 this is work which must be done under any form of 
 government ; and even if it is done by a single man, 
 we still need the permanent tenure and the local 
 position to make him a bishop. We must not turn 
 the moderator of the Scotch Assembly into a bishop 
 in spite of himself. In the case of Timothy and Titus, 
 the permanent office is wanting, and Titus is, more- 
 over, not connected with any particular city. They 
 seem rather to have been vicars-apostolic, sent on 
 temporary missions in the apostle's place. Ephesus 
 and the Cretan Churches were in a bad state, and 
 needed attention. The letters from which we get 
 our information are actually letters of recall,^ and there 
 is no evidence worth mention that they ever saw 
 Ephesus and Crete again. Titus is last heard of 
 as gone to Dalmatia,^ while Timothy appears in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews,* a work which there is no 
 reason to connect in any way with Ephesus. 
 
 There remain the " angels " of the seven Churches 
 
 ' Eus. vii. ]9, 29. ^ 1 Tim. iv. 9. ; Tit. iii. 12. 
 
 3 2 Tim. iv. 10. * Hebr. xiii. 23. 
 
72 CHURCH HISTORY chap, iv 
 
 of Asia. It would be rash to take these for literal 
 bishops, especially if we accept the Neronian date. 
 Besides the strong general presumption from the 
 symbolic structure of the Apocalypse, there is the 
 particular argument that it is almost impossible to 
 take literally " the woman Jezebel " connected with 
 the angel of Thyatira.^ Moreover, these angels are 
 identified with their Churches in praise and blame, 
 and made responsible for them to an extent no literal 
 bishop justly can be. They seem rather personifica- 
 tions or spiritual doubles ^ of their Churches. Of the 
 " rulers " in the Epistle to the Hebrews ^ it is enough 
 to say that the plural rulers of a Church cannot be a 
 single bishop. 
 
 Upon the whole we meet with elders quite early 
 in the apostolic age, and deacons rather later, but we 
 find no trace of bishops in the New Testament. 
 
 ^ Apoc. ii. 20. The reading tjjx yvvaiKd aov would even make her the 
 angel's wife. 
 
 '•* As in Acts. xii. 15. ; Mt. xviii. 10. 
 3 Hebr. xiii. 7, 17. 
 
 Books 
 
 N.T. literature generally. On Chnroh GoTernment : Lightfoot, Exj:. on the 
 Christian Ministry in Ep. Phil. ; Gore, The Church and the Ministry 
 (practically a reply to Lightfoot) ; Hort, The Christian Ecclesia ; Allen, 
 Christian Institutions ; Hatch, Bampton Lectures ; Sohm, Kirchenrecht. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NBRONIAN PERSECUTION 
 
 In the whole range of history there is no more 
 striking contrast than that of the Apostolic Churches 
 with the heathenism round them. They had short- 
 comings enough, it is true, and divisions and scandals 
 not a few, for even apostolic times were no golden age 
 of purity and primitive simplicity. Yet we can see 
 that their fulness of Hfe, and hope, and promise for 
 the future was a new sort of power in the world. 
 Within their own limits they had solved almost by 
 the way the social problem which baffled Rome, and 
 baffles Europe still. They had lifted woman to her 
 rightful place, restored the dignity of labour, abolished 
 beggary, and drawn the sting of slavery. The secret 
 of the revolution is that the selfishness of race and 
 class was forgotten in the Supper of the Lord, and a 
 new basis for society found in love of the visible 
 image of God in men ^ for whom Christ died. Their 
 mere extension outward from Jerusalem was amazing, 
 for, within a single generation, the name of Christ was 
 named from the far West of Spain and Gaul ^ to the 
 far East of Babylon and Parthia. Yet they cherished 
 no illusions of peaceful progress, but looked forward 
 to increasing tribulation. The time of mercy was 
 
 1 1 Jno. iv. 12 ; t. 1. 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. 10, Oresoens to Gaul. 
 
 73 
 
74 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 passing away, the last days were drawing to an end, 
 the, coming of the Lord was hastening on. Year by 
 year the clouds of wrath seemed gathering, the signs 
 of judgment growing plainer ; and when the tempest 
 burst, its fury shook the world, and made the ever- 
 lasting Empire reel. The firea of the Neronian 
 persecution shone out in lurid horror like the dawning 
 of the day of doom. Then came Israel's mighty 
 challenge for the empire of the Bast. The zealots 
 were a grimmer foe than Eome had met since 
 Hannibal turned his back on Italy. It was long 
 before the legions were able to encompass Jerusalem 
 like the army of the Chaldees of old, and the Holy 
 City and the temple were burnt again with fire, and 
 two years longer still before the last desperate 
 resistance was overcome, and there was silence on 
 the stubbornly defended clifi' of Masada. The Jewish 
 state was at an end, and with it the Law of Moses as 
 a living code. In the midst of this great struggle 
 the Empire itself was convulsed with shocks which 
 seemed to break its solid base in pieces. There was 
 hard fighting on the Ehine as well as in Judaea, and 
 civil wars of phantom emperors revealed the fatal 
 power of the legions to make and unmake the masters 
 of the world. Small marvel if many a Christian 
 heart was fluttered with eager hope, to see in the 
 clouds of heaven him come that was to come, to 
 avenge his slaughtered saints and rescue his elect. 
 
 Though the apostles had to suffer much from the 
 hatred of Jews and Greeks, they were shielded from a 
 good deal more by the protection of the Empire. 
 So long as the Christians were regarded as a sect of 
 Jews, they might be hated as Jews, but they had a 
 right to toleration as Jews. Because they were 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 75 
 
 subject to the discipline of the synagogue, they 
 escaped the sword of the Roman governor. Upon 
 the whole the Empire was a protecting power. The 
 lawless cowardice^ of the praetors at Philippi was 
 exceptional. Gallio refuses to hear questions of 
 Jewish law, and Festus does his best to avoid them. 
 The Asiarchs are willing to hinder violence at Ephesus, 
 and the Recorder invokes the fear of Rome to put an 
 end to the tumult.^ Even with a charge of treason 
 before them, the Greek magistrates of Thessalonica 
 think it enough to take bail of Jason and the rest. 
 So far, then, we have a clear policy of toleration. 
 Much of the deep impression made by the Neronian 
 persecution was caused by the sudden reversal of this 
 toleration, which brought the Christians face to face 
 with the appalling prospect of seeing the whole power 
 of the Empire put forth to crush them. Roman 
 toleration had been challenged by the settlement of 
 the circumcision question ; for without circumcision 
 they could not claim to be Jews, and if they were not 
 Jews they fell at once under the penalties of the 
 law against unauthorized societies. But the Neronian 
 persecution was not a measure of reasoned policy ; 
 it had other and baser causes.' 
 
 Christianity was fast becoming notorious in Rome. 
 
 1 Acts xvi. 37. ^ Acts xix. 31, 40. 
 
 ' The numerous questions connected with the Neronian persecution cannot 
 be fully examined here. It may be enough to state my belief (1) that the 
 Church in Rome was mainly Gentile. I cannot follow Hausrath, New Testament 
 Times, iv. 156 sg. E.Tr, in setting it down as little better than a synagogue of 
 zealots. (2) That Tacitus is fully aware of the distinction between Jews and 
 Christians, and alludes to the foul charges against the Christians. (3) That 
 the mob of Nero's time knew the distinction, and spread the foul charges. 
 (4) That the persecution was aimed at Christians, not at Jews. 
 
 So far the arguments of Franklin Arnold (amongst others) seem decisive ; 
 but there is no reason to suppose that the persecution was limited to Rome, 
 and the Apocalypse does seem to be its Christian counterblast. 
 
76 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Its presence may have led to the repeated riots which 
 caused the expulsion of the Jews by Claudius/ and 
 made them cautious in their dealings with St. Paul.^ 
 It seems from the first to have had its centre in the 
 palace, and soon counted converts of every rank in 
 Caesar's household. As early as 57 it reached the 
 highest circles in the person of Pomponia Grsecina, 
 the wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain. 
 As the " foreign superstition " of which she was 
 accused cannot well have been Judaism, it can hardly 
 have been anything else than Christianity.^ She was 
 sent for trial to her husband and relations, by whom 
 she was acquitted. 
 
 But if the sword of persecution was not yet ready, 
 there were other means of hindering the Gospel. 
 Foul charges of immoraUty seem the perennial inter- 
 pretation of hated worships by the vulgar. The Jews 
 had already had some experience of them, and are not 
 quite rid of them yet in Hungary. Scarcely a heretic 
 escapes them from the Gnostics to quite modern 
 times, and they are rife against ourselves in China to 
 this day. Their currency even before the Neronian 
 persecution seems proved by Tacitus.* In truth, the 
 worst charges were only reasonable inferences, when 
 lewd fellows of the baser sort were judging the 
 Christians by themselves. If the Lord's supper was 
 
 ' Sueton. Claudiiis 25. 
 
 " Acts xxviii. 21, 22. The answer must be diplomatic, for it is impossible 
 to suppose them really ignorant that there were Christians in Eome. Yet 
 they are polite enough to give him a hearing. 
 
 ^ This seems settled now by de Kossi's discovery of the Crypt of Luoina. 
 On Pomponia, Lightfoot, Clement i. 30 sq. 
 
 * The allusion seems beyond mistake in Tac. xv. 44, flagitiis invisoa . . . 
 atrocia aut pudenda ; and very likely in Sueton. Nero 16 superstitio malejka, 
 and in 1 Peter ii. 11-15. There is nothing so clear as this in the Apocalypse, 
 which was not written at Rome. 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 77 
 
 held in secret, what could be more natural than to 
 put out the lights and wallow in sin ? So, too, their 
 claims to miraculous gifts and cures looked like magic, 
 and went well with their denunciations of the end of the 
 world by fire. Miscreants like these must be capable 
 any day of a little fire-raising on their own account. 
 
 Thickly as the clouds of scandal rest on parts of 
 Nero's life, it seems clear that he had the tastes of a 
 disreputable tavern musician, and the temper of a 
 vicious boy. Mere cruelty and general filthiness of 
 life were very mildly judged at Eome ; but an emperor 
 without the smallest sense of dignity was a new 
 phenomenon. Yet the vulgarity which society hated 
 was precisely what made him a man after the mob's 
 own heart. Only the aristocracy hated him, for the 
 provinces were not oppressed even in his worst years, 
 so that better men than the lazzaroni of the circus 
 regretted Nero's death, and wished him back again 
 when they felt the pressure of Vespasian's taxes. Yet 
 even the mob could have no respect for him ; and 
 though common murders were hardly noticed, that of 
 his mother in 59 made a deep impression. So there 
 were strange rumours in the streets when a great fire 
 broke out in Eome (July 64), and made thousands 
 homeless. It was said that Nero was himself the 
 author of the calamity, and that he had been heartless 
 enough to accompany it with his fiddle to the tune 
 of the burning of Troy. The first charge at any rate 
 may be false, for the danger of popular discontent is 
 much more evident than any object which Nero could 
 have had in lighting the fire.^ However, as he 
 
 ' Though the story is given by Pliny and Suetonius as -well as Tacitus, it 
 can hardly be true. Schiller, K.G. i. 359. The arson was more in Caligula's 
 vein thon Nero's. The fresh outbreak of the fire in the house of Tigellinus 
 does not prove much. 
 
78 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 depended on the mob for bare life, he had to take 
 vigorous measures to recover their favour. If 
 largesses and expiations were not enough, why not 
 charge it on the Christians ? The idea came from 
 false brethren, if this is the meaning of Clement's 
 repeated hints,' though the Jews may have done a 
 good deal to stir up the popular hatred which made 
 the charge so dangerous. The rest may be told in 
 the words of Tacitus, to whom Nero and the Christians 
 were equally hateful. 
 
 " To get rid of the rumour, Nero put in his own 
 place as culprits and subjected to the most refined 
 punishments the men whom the common people 
 hated for their secret crimes, and called Christians. 
 Christ, from whom they had that name, had been 
 put to death in the reign of Tiberius by the pro- 
 curator, Pontius Pilate, and the pestiferous super- 
 stition was checked for awhile. Afterwards it began 
 to break out afresh, not only in Judaea, where the 
 mischief had its rise, but in Rome also, where all 
 sorts of murder and filthy shame from all quarters 
 meet together and become the fashion. In the first 
 place then some were seized and made to confess (the 
 arson) : then on their information a vast multitude 
 was convicted on charges not so much of arson as of 
 hatred for the human race. And they were not only 
 put to death but put to death with insult, in that 
 they were dressed up in the skins of beasts to perish 
 either by the worrying of dogs or on crosses or by 
 fire, or when the daylight failed, they were burnt to 
 serve as lights by night. Nero had thrown open his 
 gardens for that spectacle, and was giving a circus 
 performance, joining the rabble in a jockey's dress, 
 
 ' Clement, Ep. 6, 6 5id ^riKov five times. 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 79 
 
 or driving a chariot. Hence commiseration arose, 
 though it was for men that were criminals and 
 deserved the severest penalties, on the ground that 
 they were not destroyed for the good of the state, 
 but to satisfy the cruelty of an individual." ^ 
 
 The investigation changed its character as it went 
 on, as roving commissions in quest of evidence are 
 apt to do. Tacitus clearly distinguishes two stages 
 of the proceedings. First, individuals are charged 
 with arson, and a few confessions obtained by the 
 usual tortures.^ Next, the charge of fire-raising is 
 resolved into one of " hatred of the human race " ; 
 and this became the staple charge in a second stage 
 of wider persecution. Tacitus means by it dis- 
 affection to the Empire and to society in general ; 
 and the evidence of it would be found in the practice 
 of magic and secret crimes. But there would always 
 be a strong temptation to cut short the trials by 
 taking the avowal of Christianity as a confession of 
 the abominations connected with it. The churches 
 were at best unlawful assemblies ; and if a man was 
 disloyal enough to belong to them, he must take the 
 risk. Nor can it have been long before a ready test 
 of Christianity was found in the worship of the 
 emperor. In any case, an administrative order 
 seems to have been made against Christians as such.^ 
 So far well. It was very right in the eyes of Tacitus 
 and of society in general, to put to death miscreants 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. xv. 44. 
 
 ^ So Franklin Arnold, distinguishing fatebantur frova confitehanhir (willing 
 confession) 3,n& profiiehaTiiur (avowal). Hardy's reply {Chr. aiul the Roman 
 Gov. 66) does not seem convincing, even if correpti means put on their trial. 
 In any case qui fatehantur need not be "the cream of the Christian 
 community." 
 
 ^ Prof. Ramsay notes that Nero punished avowed Christians only after 
 proof (such as it was) of ordinary crimes, whereas Pliny ordered them without 
 
8o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 like these, and that by the sword, the cross, and the 
 fire, which were the penalties of law for magic and 
 arson. But this turning of a public execution into 
 one of Nero's vulgar pantomimes was demoralizing, 
 for it had the deplorable result of exciting pity for 
 criminals who thoroughly deserved their punishment. 
 Tacitus, however, is too busy blackening Nero to go 
 far out of his way for the Christians. He leaves 
 Clement to tell us, what, indeed, was not the finishing 
 touch to a heathen, that even women were not spared 
 the worst horrors of Nero's gardens.^ 
 
 Did the persecution extend to the provinces ? 
 The investigation of the fire may have been limited 
 to Rome ; but the matter would naturally spread 
 farther when the wider charges were introduced. 
 The scenes in Nero's gardens must have stirred 
 up the baser enemies of the Christians all over the 
 
 further questions to execution. The change was not of law but of adminis- 
 trative procedure ; but I cannot follow him in ascribing it to Vespasian 
 rather than to the later stages of the Neronian persecution. 
 
 First, " the development was easy " and saved so much trouble that Nero 
 (or somebody else in his absence) had time enough to make it in the four 
 years which followed the fire of Rome. I cannot see that the persecution 
 (for the odium humani generis) " was obviously at an end when Nero left 
 Rome towards the end of 66 " : but even if this were the case, the "sporadic 
 executions " always going on would give occasion enough for so easy a change. 
 As regards positive evidence, it is likely enough that Sulpicius Severus is 
 loosely following Tacitus : but in any case liis posted is utterly vague as a 
 date. Suetonius, however, plainly tells us that Nero punished the Christians 
 by a new and "permanent police regulation," which cannot well have been 
 required except to make a new crime of Christianity itself. The evidence 
 which connects the change with Vespasian is on Prof. Ramsay's own showing 
 very trifling, and can hardly be reconciled with "the strong and early 
 tradition which constitutes Domitian the second great peraecutor. " 
 
 1 Clement, Ep. 6 ywcuKes fAavatd^s Kal Afprait. Upon the whole, we must 
 give up Wordsworth's ingenious conjecture yvfoiKes veivides iraiUaKai "still 
 favoured" by Lightfoot in 1889. The evidence (A.C.S. Lat.) against it 
 seems now too strong. Either reading, however, shews that women were not 
 spared. If the actual legends of the Danaids and Dirce did not quite suit, 
 they could be " handled freely," as when Orpheus was devoured by a bear. 
 The difference of Clement's tone from that of Tacitus is characteristic. 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 8i 
 
 Empire, and the governors could not shield them 
 from imperial instructions to punish them as 
 Christians. They could not now dismiss the charge 
 like Gallio ; and, when once it was before them, the 
 accused had no escape but by first denying his faith 
 and then proving his innocence of any further 
 charges. But (so scanty is our information) we 
 know nothing of what was going on outside Eome 
 except from the Apocalypse. There we find persecu- 
 tion rampant in Asia. There is " patience " at 
 Ephesus, " tribulation " at Smyrna, and Antipas was 
 a martyr at Pergamus. The saints are slain with the 
 axe for refusing to worship the emperor, and Eome 
 is drunk with their blood. The strife between the 
 Empire and the Church is internecine. The answer 
 to persecution speaks no longer of appealing to the 
 justice of the state or hving down the slanders, only 
 of judgment and avenging. "How long, Lord?" 
 
 With two exceptions,^ the victims of the persecu- 
 tion are nameless ; but the two exceptions are the 
 two great apostles. The fact seems clear, even if 
 we disregard the evidence of the New Testament. 
 Clement joins their fates in his account of the 
 persecution, and Dionysius of Corinth adds that they 
 were both put to death at Eome about the same 
 time.^ Early in the third century Caius of Eome 
 gives the local tradition thus : " But I can shew the 
 trophies of the apostles. For if thou wilt go to 
 the Vatican, or to the Ostian road, thou wilt find 
 the trophies of those who founded this church." ^ As 
 regards Peter, however, the date is not quite clear, 
 so that he may not have perished till the worst of 
 
 ' Antipas at Pergamus (Apoc. ii. 13) may be a third, and St, John himself 
 a fourth as an exile. ^ Eus. ii. 25. 
 
 VOL. I Q 
 
82 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the persecution was over, or may even have survived 
 Nero for a few years/ 
 
 ^ The current story as regards Peter consists of the three items : (A) that 
 he went to Rome; (B) that he was put to death ; (C) that he suffered under 
 Nero. The evidence may be summed up thus : — 
 
 For (A) : (a) 1 Peter v. 13, if Babylon be Rome ; (6) Papias, ap. Eus. iii. 39 
 (Mark the ipfi.ripevT'fis of Peter, which must be for Latin followers) ; (c) Irenseus, 
 Haer. iii. 1. 1 (perhaps only following Papias) ; (d) Clement of Alexandria, op. 
 Eus. TJ. 14 (a distinct tradition of Peter at Rome). 
 
 For (B) : (a) John xxi. 18, 19 confirmed by the allusion of 2 Peter, i. 14 
 can scarcely mean anything but crucifixion. In this connection it matters 
 little whether the writings are genuine ; (6) Clement, supra, expressly records 
 it ; (c) Fragm. Muraiori explains why it is not mentioned in the Acts. 
 
 For (A) and (B) together, and by more or less clear inference for (C) : (a) 
 Clement, supra, writing from Rome, and (6) Ignatius, Rom. 4, writing to 
 Rome, significantly join the two apostles, and may imply that they were 
 put to death together ; (c) Dionysius of Corinth, supra, and [d) Caius of 
 Rome, supra, say that they were both put to death at Rome ; and the former 
 adds Kara rbv airiv xaipdv. 
 
 The evidence, then (later writers need not detain us) seems clear for (A), 
 and also for (B) ; while for (C) we have a general impression, and the loose 
 words of Dionysius, but no definite statement before the third century. If 
 Peter survived a few years longer, and perished when the worst of the storm 
 was over, his name would naturally be added to the list of Nero's victims, as 
 that of Peter of Alexandria is added to Diocletian's. Several difficulties are 
 lightened if this was actually the case. Thus the accounts of his preaching 
 in Rome imply a longer stay than the N.T. narrative or Porphyry {/xtiS' dXiyovs 
 /j-TJia!) seems to leave room for. Again, the influence of St. Paul's later writings 
 on his First Epistle is better explained by putting it a little later than by 
 rejecting the strong attestation of its genuineness. On the other hand the 
 developed persecution rightly recognized by Prof. Ramsay {Church in the Roman 
 Empire, esp. p. 292) does not compel us to bring down the Epistle beyond 
 the later stages of the Neronian persecution. The final decision is a balance 
 of difficulties. It is unlikely (Ramsay, p. 285) that there were churches in 
 Pontus much before 80 ; unlikely also that Peter's life was prolonged much 
 beyond 70. The second difficulty seems the weightier ; so the date must be 
 put at 70, or not much later. 
 
 It may be added that if the episcopates of Linus and Anencletus followed 
 entire, and lasted twenty-four years according to the Eusebian list, then 
 71 is the latest date possible, so as to leave room for Clement in 95. 
 
 The Apocalypse describes a still more developed persecution than the First 
 Epistle of Peter. The Christians are punished as such, and the v^orship of 
 the emperor is already made a test. But these developments, as we have 
 seen, are not necessarily post-Neronian. The persecution may have been 
 systematic and long continued in Asia without compelling us to date the 
 Apocalypse later than Peter's Epistle. We must allow for the difference 
 of locality, and also for the action of persecution on so stern a temper as 
 St. John's. 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 83 
 
 The Neronian persecution was not begun with 
 any deliberate policy, however it may have led to 
 one. It was so to speak an accident that the 
 Christians were the most convenient victims after 
 the fire ; and if that had been all, the executions 
 would soon have been like the fire itself, a ghastly 
 memory and nothing more. But the popular hatred 
 which made them the most convenient victims was 
 not an accident. It was the natural answer of the 
 world to the claims of Christ, and was to his followers 
 a permanent danger which nothing could remove but 
 the conquest of the world. Henceforth, the Christian 
 must put his life in his hand. However long he 
 might be left in quiet, he might be arrested any 
 day ; and then there was no escape but through 
 apostasy. He could never know for certain that 
 the sword or the cross would not be his doom before 
 the day was ended. The world had at last thrown 
 down its challenge, and there was no more hope of 
 peace. St. John returned the world's defiance with 
 his vision of judgment and vengeance, and with the 
 still more lofty scorn of his Epistle, as though the 
 Empire in the fulness of Satanic power was but a 
 passing show,^ like one of Nero's hideous games. 
 But we cannot reach the full meaning of the Neronian 
 crisis till we have seen what was going on in Judaea. 
 
 Jesus or Barabbas ? The choice remained open 
 for nearly forty years. Would Israel receive the 
 liberty of Christ, or fight with Eome for such liberty 
 as a Barabbas might give ? The Christians had one 
 clear policy, the Zealots had another, and in the long- 
 
 ^ 1 Jno. ii. 17 K6<riJ.os irapdyerai.. Nearly the same thought in St. Paul, 
 1 Cor. ii. 6 roiv Kwrapyov^vuiv, 
 
84 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 run no third was possible. The Sadducee was full of 
 covetousness and oppression, and aimed only at keep- 
 ing things quiet. Little could be hoped for from the 
 vain and timid Pharisee, who was hardly better than 
 a Zealot without the courage of his convictions, and 
 even less from the selfish and cowardly pietism of 
 the Essene, who watched from the desert the progress 
 of his country's ruin. The times of Zedekiah had 
 returned, with their lawless violence and hatred of 
 the Gentile conqueror, and blind reliance on a 
 temple they were profaning with treachery and 
 murder. It was not even a house of merchandise, 
 but a den of brigands. Meanwhile, after Herod 
 Agrippa's death in 44, the country was governed 
 again by Koman procurators in the old brutal way. 
 Cuspius Fadus indeed, and even the renegade Jew 
 Tiberius Alexander, kept the country tolerably quiet, 
 though it was seething with discontent and brigandage 
 and false Messiahs. In the time of Cumanus the dis- 
 orders increased, and under the government of Felix the 
 condition of the province became alarming. Common 
 brigandage developed into political assassination, and 
 the Roman governors began to make an alliance 
 with the assassins. Felix employed them to kill the 
 high priest Jonathan, to whom he owed his office. 
 Albinus allowed rival high priests to fight out their 
 quarrel in the streets, and let out of prison every 
 murderer who had the means to bribe him. Gessius 
 Florus went shares with the robbers for the plunder 
 of whole cities. It was as if Eome was tired of the 
 confusion, and wished to end it by provoking a 
 revolt. Society was held together by the fear of 
 Rome ; and when the governors went over to the 
 forces of anarchy, the catastrophe could not be long 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 85 
 
 delayed. Jewish lawlessness and Koman insolence 
 together had made it unavoidable. 
 
 The Christians in Judaea were between the hammer 
 and the anvil. They were Jews, not Gentiles, yet 
 Israel would have none of them. Sadducees and 
 Zealots were for once agreed in hating the Christians, 
 and even the Pharisees were not their friends. They 
 might be called in question for the hope and 
 resurrection of the dead ; but no orthodoxy 
 could atone for their connection with men who 
 walked disorderly and did not keep the Law. So, 
 though their lives were fairly safe, they had much 
 trial of spoilings and synagogue punishments,^ and 
 no doubt their full share of suffering from the 
 disorders of the time. 
 
 After the dispersion of the apostles the post of 
 danger at Jerusalem was held by James, the brother 
 of the Lord. We find him there at the apostolic 
 conference, and again at St. Paul's return in 57. 
 James was not a Judaizer. We see him at the 
 conference freeing the Gentiles from circumcision, 
 and in his Epistle alluding to the Lord in tones of 
 deeper and more distant reverence than is due from 
 man to man.^ Yet he was a strict Jew, whose 
 blameless life commanded general admiration. If 
 any man could win the people to the Gospel, it was 
 James. So the crisis was decisive, when the high 
 priest An anus took advantage of the death of Festus 
 in 62 to get him stoned by the sentence of an 
 irregular court. Josephus blames it as an act of 
 
 ^ Heb. xii. 4, x. 34 : Luke xxi. 12. 
 
 ^ James i. 1 Kvplov, 'I. X. SoDXos, ii. 1 KvpLov 'I.X. tt]s S6(tjs (whether in 
 apposition or not), iv. 12 ds ^(Ttlv vQfiod^Ttjs Kal Kpir^s, v. 6 ^<l>ove6ffa.T€ rhv 
 SUaiov (even if generic). The Epistle seems to be genuine and of early date, 
 and is evidently full of the Lord's words. 
 
86 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Sadducean cruelty, and we may well believe that 
 some even of the Pharisees looked on the calamities 
 which followed as a judgment for the killing of the 
 Just.^ 
 
 The murder of James was a horror even for those 
 times of lawless outrage ; and it was a proclamation 
 of war to the death against the Christians. The 
 breach made by Stephen was not final while a brother 
 of the Lord was counted by the people for a saint ; 
 but now there was a great gulf fixed between " the 
 nation " ^ and the churches. In the later Apostolic 
 age, the enemy of the Gospel is no longer the scribes 
 and Pharisees, or the chief priests, but "the Jews."^ 
 The time was come when even born Jews must choose 
 between the Gospel and the Law. Yet there were 
 still some forlorn souls who strove to obey both at 
 once ; and theirs was the bitterest of all the dis- 
 appointments. They had left all to follow Christ ; 
 but where was the hundredfold reward ? The Jews 
 hated them for confessing Christ, while the churches 
 more and more rejected them for not truly confessing 
 him as Lord of all. This was the fact : they had not 
 
 ^ Jos. Ant. XX. 1. I see no ground for Sohiirer's suspicions {Hist. § 19, 
 p. 187, E.Tr.) of Christian interpolation. The phrase toC Xeyo/xivov Xpi,(TToO 
 differs entirely from 6 Xpio-rJs oOros iyv in AiU. xviii. 3. 3, and is no more 
 than Ananus himself might have written. The statements of Origen may be 
 his own inferences, or even a confusion with Hegesippus. 
 
 In strong contrast to the sober story of Josephus is the account of 
 Hegesippus. Eusebius quotes both in H.K ii. 23. The touch of legend is 
 beyond mistake, though it may contain much that is true. 
 
 As regards the date, the definite account of Josephus connecting it with 
 the death of Festus is to be preferred to the vague expression of Hegesippus 
 that " straightway Vespasian besieged them. " Ananus was killed in the 
 winter of 67-68, more than two years before Titus began the siege at the 
 passover of 70. 
 
 ^ This ia the point of St. John's comment xi. 52 on the "prophecy" of 
 Caiaphas. Israel is now no more than one of the nations. 
 
 ' Matt, xxviii. 15, John, passim. Very naturally St. Paul already comes 
 near it in 1 Thess. ii. 15, Col. iii. 2. 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 87 
 
 left all for Christ. They still clung to the memories 
 of Sinai and the glories of the temple service, and 
 therefore they could not win Christ. It was a hard 
 saying, that they must give up all these things ; yet 
 it was the only safe course for them. On the edge 
 of the storm that was visibly gathering over the 
 nation a nameless Christian teacher writes to a 
 nameless church of Hebrew Christians, that the 
 stately ceremonial of the temple was merely a type 
 of something better, the Law itself no more than a 
 shadow of the good things which had come to pass.^ 
 Christ was higher than Moses, higher than Aaron, 
 for he has the timeless priesthood of the order of 
 Melchizedek. The vail of the temple shews that if 
 the Law partly revealed God, it also partly concealed 
 him ; but now the vail is done away, and we all have 
 free access to God through Christ our one high priest, 
 who by the one sacrifice of Himself has done away 
 our sins and won for us an everlasting redemption. 
 So there is no more offering for sin : the only sacrifice 
 left is that of thanksgiving. It is the Jews who have 
 the shadow ; we have the reality. They have the 
 perishing temple ; we have the everlasting priest. 
 So far from Israel's rejection of us being strange, it 
 is the very sign of victory. As the Jews cast out 
 Christ to sufier outside the city, so must we go out 
 to Him, and renounce the Law at its Master's bidding. 
 At last the outrages of Floras provoked a dreadful 
 rising in Jerusalem (May 66). King Agrippa stiUed 
 the tumult for a moment, but only for a moment. 
 The Zealots were bent on war, and Sadducees and 
 Pharisees together could not stop them now. War 
 was proclaimed by the refusal of the emperor's 
 
 ^ Hebr. ix. 11 tC>v yevofjtAviav dyadQv. 
 
88 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 offerings, and made internecine by the butchery of 
 the Roman garrison. In October the army of Cestius 
 Gallus was repulsed from the city, and routed near 
 Beth-horon in its retreat. Here was the signal which 
 the Lord had given, of Jerusalem compassed with 
 armies, and the Christians "fled to the mountains," 
 to Pella beyond Jordan. They had clung to their 
 own people hitherto ; but now that a final choice 
 had to be made, they could only leave the city of 
 rebels to the evil which the Lord was bringing 
 upon it. 
 
 The defeat of Cestius committed the nation to a 
 struggle of life and death with Rome. Even the 
 moderates, who had neither wish for war nor hope of 
 success, were forced to join a government of national 
 defence, and organize the country for resistance. But 
 half-hearted Sadducees and Pharisees like Ananus 
 and Josephus were not the men for that desperate 
 work. Vespasian's conquest of Galilee in the summer 
 of 67 was answered by the Zealots with frightful 
 massacres in Jerusalem, and thenceforth they held a 
 reign of terror. In the midst of this Vespasian was 
 saluted emperor and called away to Italy, so that the 
 army under Titus could not finally enclose the city 
 till near the passover of 70. The Zealots had wasted 
 their strength in murderous faction fights ; but now 
 their civil strife was stilled in furious resistance to 
 the Gentile. The walls were manned with desperate 
 enthusiasts, but the misery within was horrible. He 
 that remained in the city was devoured by the famine, 
 the sword, and the pestilence, and he that fell away 
 to the Romans was crucified, or at the least reduced 
 to slavery. Step by step the obstinate resistance 
 was overcome, though each successive post was 
 
V THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION 89 
 
 defended week by week with stubborn courage and 
 increasing desperation. Early in August the temple 
 itself was reached. Its outer colonnades were lines 
 of smoking ruins when the Romans pushed on to the 
 assault of the Sanctuary, and were presently fighting 
 their way through piles of corpses towards the Holy 
 Place. Surely now the long -delayed deliverance 
 could be delayed no longer. But heaven was sHent 
 on that day of horror. No angel came to rescue the 
 helpless crowd which cowered round the altar of 
 burnt-offering. The flames swept onward, and the 
 Romans in their fury did the rest. "With the capture 
 of the Upper City in September the destruction of 
 Jerusalem was completed. A band of Zealots still 
 held the fortress of Masada by the Dead Sea for more 
 than two years, and slew each other and their families 
 by common consent when they could hold it no 
 longer. Two women crept out of their hiding-places 
 as the Romans entered ; the last sad tale of Jewish 
 desperation was told, and the war was at an end. 
 
 Vespasian and Titus held a splendid triumph in 
 71. The vessels of the temple figured in the pro- 
 cession, and there was a grand show of beasts, and of 
 Jews for them to devour. Meanwhile, Judaea lay 
 desolate — Galilee had suffered less — and was thinly 
 repeopled with colonies of veterans. To mark the 
 complete subjection of Israel, it was ordered that the 
 half- shekel which every Jew paid to the temple 
 should now be paid to Jupiter Capitolinus. But 
 there was no attempt to stamp out the religion. 
 Riots there were, and many Jews were slaughtered 
 in sundry cities, and the schismatic temple at 
 Leontopolis was destroyed; but there was no per- 
 secution. Jews like Josephus or Agrippa, who 
 
90 CHURCH HISTORY chap, v 
 
 frankly accepted the Koman supremacy, lived in 
 favour with the court, and Titus himself would 
 gladly have given the world a Jewish empress in 
 Agrippa's sister Berenice. 
 
 There is no more marked pause in history than at 
 the convulsions which ended the Apostolic age. Even 
 the Empire emerges from them greatly changed, and 
 society was never again quite what it had been. In 
 a few short years the churches had been separated 
 from the shelter of Judaism, from the toleration of 
 the Empire, and from the guidance of apostles. It 
 was rather a pause than a break, for the separation 
 was in no case quite complete. Judaizers remained 
 to connect the Church with the synagogue, the 
 Empire wavered in its action, and two or three of 
 the apostles lingered on for thirty years. Still the 
 day of the Lord had come, the judgment was fulfilled, 
 the older age of the world was ended, and the new 
 was hardly yet begun. " Little children, it is the 
 last time." Perad venture Nero might return as 
 Antichrist. 
 
 Books 
 
 Ramaay, Church in the Roman Empire ; Franklin Arnold, Neronische 
 Christenverfolgung, Leipzig, 1888 ; Hardy, Studies in Rcmian History, \st 
 Series ; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers ; Workman, Persecution in the Early 
 Church ; Mommseu, Religions/revel nach romischen Recht. The latest work 
 ig Klette, Die Christenkatastrophe unter Nero, Tiibingen. 1907. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 
 
 The reigns of the three Flavii — Vespasian, Titus, and 
 Domitian (69-96) — may be grouped together as a first 
 section of the larger period which goes down to the 
 murder of Commodus in 192. They have a strong 
 family likeness, notwithstanding the personal contrast 
 of Domitian with the others, and form as clear a time 
 of transition in the Empire as in the Church. 
 
 The elevation of Vespasian was of itself a serious 
 breach in the system of Augustus. Whatever service 
 the Julian legend might have done in the early days 
 of the Empire, it could give no divinity to the prosaic 
 soldier who was now to wear the purple. Vespasian 
 came of an obscure family in the Sabine country, and 
 never got rid of his rustic speech and penurious 
 habits. He was simply a tough old general, who had 
 driven the Britons from the wastes of Dartmoor and 
 the Zealots from the hills of Galilee ; and there was 
 not a touch of romance or genius about him. He 
 died with a scoff on his lips at the deification to 
 come. Yet was he the chosen of the legions, the 
 accepted of the senate, the undisputed master of the 
 Empire, the impersonation of the glory of the world 
 and Eome. Therefore, he too must be divine. Only 
 the divinity of the emperors henceforth must rest on 
 the naked fact of power, without support from any 
 
 91 
 
92 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 courtly tales of their descent from antiquated gods. 
 Indeed, the Apologists were not far wrong in rank- 
 ing them above the gods. " Our Lord and God 
 Domitian " was a truer and more present deity than 
 Jupiter, and more dangerous to his blasphemers than 
 all the gods together. ■• 
 
 Vespasian's reign (69-79) was quiet, and needs 
 little notice. His government was marked by sober 
 common sense and strict economy. It was neither 
 brilliant nor enterprising (a few great buildings 
 excepted), but it gave the Empire its needed rest. 
 In all directions the hard realities of fact were 
 displacing the graceful fictions of Augustus. Client 
 states were rapidly disappearing. Thrace and the 
 Lycian confederation had been annexed by Claudius ; 
 Vespasian annexed Commagene, and King Agrippa's 
 death in 100 (just beyond the Flavian period) placed 
 nearly the last of them in Trajan's hands. The 
 Greek cities retained a good deal of independence, 
 and Athens and others were still in theory the equal 
 allies of Eome. Once the Athenians complimented 
 Domitian with the archonship ; Hadrian held the 
 office twice, and even Constantine was a strategos of 
 Athens in the direct succession of Themistocles and 
 Phocion. But these were only survivals : the Empire 
 as a whole was rapidly coming under the direct 
 control of a single vast administration. The need of 
 economy and firmer government was urgent. The 
 squanderings of Nero and the damages of civil war 
 had to be repaired by financial reforms and heavy 
 taxation ; for no emperor could venture on the 
 radical cure of abolishing the largesses at Eome. 
 
 ' Tert. Apol. 28 Citius denique apud vos per omnes deos,;quam per unum 
 genium Caesaris pejeratur. Cf. Martial viii. 2. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 93 
 
 Vespasian's "avarice" disgusted even Alexandria, 
 which had hailed him emperor. Nor was he more in 
 favour with the senate. He treated it with formal 
 respect, and stopped the informations ; but he con- 
 trolled it more than ever by systematically naming 
 consuls for short periods, and freely using the powers 
 of the censorship he undertook in 73 to fill up the 
 Curia with Itahans and provincials. Society was 
 even more offended by his refusal to punish the 
 informers. The philosophers played with treason as 
 usual ; so Stoics and Cynics were banished the city. 
 Helvidius Priscus was put to death for his seditious 
 discourses; the Cynic Demetrius was exiled, but his 
 further provocations were overlooked. Vespasian 
 " would not kill a dog for barking." ^ The Empire 
 was not yet firm enough entirely to ignore the 
 republican reactionists. 
 
 Titus (79-81) will not detain us long. He 
 reversed his father's policy by heaping favour on the 
 senators, and giving up the informers to their 
 revenge. But whether policy or weakness made 
 him turn his back on his past life, he had neither 
 time nor health to make any lasting impression. It 
 was otherwise with his successor. Domitian (81-96) 
 commonly ranks with Nero as a pure and simple 
 tyrant; but he comes nearer to his model Tiberius 
 as an able administrator and a deep dissembler. 
 Domitian's also was a leaden reign ; and it was his 
 own work, for there was no Sejanus. He had hard 
 fighting on the Danube, and met with some serious 
 reverses ; but upon the whole he dealt successfully 
 with Dacians and Marcomanni. Greedy as he was 
 of military glory, his policy was not aggressive. He 
 
 1 Dio Levi. 13. 
 
94 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 made a treaty with Decebalus, and recalled Agricola 
 from his barren victories and dreams of conquest in 
 Britain. Domitian was also a genuinely religious 
 man — in the heathen sense, not in ours — and for a 
 long time the last imperial champion of the good old 
 Roman discipline. He firmly refused the un-Roman 
 offer of his niece in marriage, though he had no 
 scruple in seducing her from her husband. But the 
 special feature of Domitian is his pride of power. 
 He had stood next the throne for years in vain ; and 
 now that power was his, he meant to use it to the 
 full. He set himself systematically to abase the 
 senate, settling important affairs without consulting 
 it, taking knights into his council, and assuming the 
 censorship for life. His manner was proud and 
 distant — here again he is like Tiberius — and his 
 procurators were allowed to speak of him as dominus 
 ac deus. Even the mob had no enthusiasm for an 
 emperor so unlike Nero, so that he was forced to lean 
 on the army. At last he could trust nobody, and 
 only maintained himself by a reign of terror, 
 striking down capriciously first one and then another. 
 The highest nobles were the likeliest victims, and 
 never so likely as when Domitian seemed most 
 friendly. In the end his wife Domitia turned against 
 him, and got him assassinated (September 96). 
 
 As regards the Christians, Domitian's policy was 
 a continuation of his father's. Hostile as he must 
 have been, he does not seem for a long time to have 
 troubled himself much about them. The Christian 
 question was not even yet entirely disentangled from 
 the Jewish. When the grandsons of Jude, the Lord's 
 brother, were brought before him as descendants of 
 David, he asked them what property they had. Only 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 95 
 
 a small farm of 7 acres worth 9000 drachmas, 
 which they worked themselves, shewing him their 
 horny hands. And about the kingdom ? It was not 
 worldly and earthly, but spiritual and future. 
 Domitian scornfully dismissed them.-' It was not till 
 near the end of his reign that he took active steps ; 
 and these were rather incidents of the general terror 
 than a persecution of Christians as such like Nero's. 
 Indeed a less suspicious temper than Domitian's 
 might have taken alarm at the appearance of 
 " Jewish superstition " in high society, and close to 
 the throne. Domitian's own niece Domitilla was a 
 Christian, and so was her husband Flavins Clemens, 
 his cousin and colleague in the consulship of 95. 
 Domitian put him to death as soon as he was out of 
 his consulship, and tried to make Domitilla marry 
 again, but finally banished her to Pandateria.^ But 
 there is no trace of meaner victims, or of any unusual 
 persecution outside Eome. 
 
 The Church was changing even faster than the 
 Empire. Persecution was now the policy of the 
 state ; yet it was not thoroughly worked. If the 
 churches were unlawful societies, the officials were 
 
 ' Hegesippus, ap. Eus. iii. 20. 
 
 ^ His wife Domitilla was undoubtedly a Christian. For Clement himself 
 we have ; (1) Die 67, 14 executed for dSeiTTjs and Jewish practices, which 
 would he Dio's phrase for Christianity ; (2) Sueton. Dom. 15 hominetn contemtis- 
 simae inertias, which is no description of a Jewish proselyte, but exactly 
 suits a Christian in the impossible position he would have held. So Bruttius 
 the Christian chronicler [quoted by Eus. iii. 18, though not by name. 
 
 For the date of Ms execution ; Dio puts it in 95, Suetonius says tantum, non 
 in ipso ejus consulatu. That Domitian waited for the Kalends of January 
 seems proved by the scandal caused even in Julian's time (Ammianus xxii. 
 3, 4) by the prosecution of Taurus during his own consulship. Consulatu 
 Tauri et Florentii indudo suh praeconibus Tauro was too outrageous, and the 
 trial had to be put off. 
 
 Glabrio, who was also put to death by Domitian, may have been a Christian 
 likewise ; but his case is less certain. 
 
96 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 not therefore bound to hunt them out ; and if 
 individuals were sometimes molested as Jews, they 
 might also sometimes escape as Jews. The reaction 
 from Nero's cruelties might even dispose officials to 
 connivance, for all had not a Tacitean gluttony of 
 slander. It is likely enough that Vespasian was no 
 friend of the Christians, if they came in his way ; 
 but we cannot charge him with active persecution on 
 the sole autho:rity of Hilary of Poitiers.^ Local 
 persecution there must have been, for it never 
 entirely ceased ; but our scanty information shews 
 no trace of anything like a deliberate and general 
 policy. Even when Domitian took the sword in 
 hand again, his work was more capricious terrorism 
 than systematic persecution. 
 
 In other respects also the Flavian period is one 
 of rapid change. We see in it the old age of the 
 last apostles, the close of the New Testament writings, 
 and the beginnings of Christian literature. It was 
 no time of quiet or uniformity. The tendencies 
 which issued in the multifarious heresies of the next 
 century were already working in the churches. One 
 stage indeed of the Jewish controversy was ended ; 
 but the Jewish spirit was as active as ever. The 
 circumcision question was settled, and sacrifice was 
 now impossible. St. John could speak of them 
 " which say they are Jews and are not," and in his 
 Gospel he steadily treats " the Jews " as outsiders 
 and enemies. But the Jewish spirit shewed itself in 
 fables and endless genealogies, in legal ways of think- 
 ing and legal observances, which often passed into 
 asceticism, and generally in that effort to separate 
 the power of the Gospel from its historic facts which 
 
 ' Contra Auxent. 3. It Ttiay be true ; but it is doubtful at best. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 97 
 
 issued on another side in Gnosticism. False apostles 
 and false prophets had gone forth into the world 
 unsent, and wandered among the churches, taking 
 money for themselves and ordering agapae for their 
 own satisfaction/ So deeply was the apostolic name 
 discredited that the Teaching actually lays down 
 the rule that an " apostle" who stays more than two 
 days is a false prophet. This may be the reason why 
 St. John never calls himself an apostle, and is never 
 so called in the second century, when mentioned 
 alone. ^ The impostors naturally fared differently in 
 different churches. At Ephesus for example false 
 apostles had been tried and found liars ; but other 
 bad characters were allowed at Pergamus, and more 
 than tolerated at Thyatira. 
 
 Long steps must also have been taken towards the 
 settling of church order. We trace Christian hymns 
 even in the New Testament, and a nascent liturgy in 
 Clement of Kome ; and the beginnings of episcopacy 
 cannot reasonably be put later than the end of the 
 century. Something also must have been done 
 towards harmonizing the various forms of apostolic 
 teaching into the general resultant we meet in the 
 next century. St. Paul is so conspicuous in the 
 New Testament that we are apt to take for granted 
 that his teaching remained supreme, at least in the 
 churches he founded. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 
 -' The picture implied by the Teaching 11 is fully confirmed by the hints 
 of Jude and 2 Job. 
 
 ^ This hint I owe to Mr. H. T. Purchas Johannine Probleins — a most 
 suggestive work, though far from wholly sound. I cannot e.g. identify 
 Nathanael with John, or believe that episcopacy spread in spite of the 
 apostle's disapproval. The statement in the text seems true for what we know 
 of Papias, Irenseus, Polycrates, Theophilus, and the Muratorian Fragment. 
 Theophilus, however, is writing to a heathen, so may have had another reason. 
 It has been denied that Polycrates means the apostle : but surely he meant 
 6 iirl t6 a-rijBos tou Kvpiov avaireaiSiv for one of the Twelve. 
 
 VOL. I H 
 
98 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 might have warned us of the error ; but the literature 
 of the next generation shews it in glaring colours. 
 The Teaching is Judaistic in its legalism ; and if 
 Barnabas is no Judaizer, neither is he Pauline. Even 
 Clement has not caught the apostle's spirit, though 
 he is full of the apostle's language. Perhaps his 
 very moderation led him to tone down such daring 
 thoughts. Certain it is that many of them were lost 
 at the outset, or rather never truly understood. They 
 are the thoughts of a mystic ; and the writers of the 
 next age are not mystics. They are the thoughts of 
 a Jew ; and even the Greeks who 'sought for wisdom 
 could not quite get hold of them — far less the Latins 
 who went back to law. Thus his vision of a Christian 
 Empire vanished till it was seen again by Origen, and 
 his confidence in the power of faith remained almost 
 unechoed till the Eeformation. Upon the whole, the 
 Christianity of the next age was Petrine and dis- 
 ciplinarian,-^ though it had Pauline and Johannic 
 touches. But it was Petrine Christianity diluted. 
 
 There is no more striking contrast in the whole 
 range of literature than that between the creative 
 energy of the apostolic writers and the imitative 
 poverty of the subapostolic. Contrast St. Paul's 
 Epistle to the Corinthians with that of Clement, or 
 even better, the Epistle to the Hebrews with that of 
 Barnabas. They set before us the same question 
 about the relation of the Law to the Gospel, and 
 give the same general answer to it : but while the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews is a masterpiece, Barnabas is 
 a sad bungler. The remains of the subapostolic age 
 are mostly the occasional writings of busy men, and 
 
 ^ The phrase, and some of the thought, is due to Dr. Bigg, 1 Peter 
 p. 37, etc. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 99 
 
 in language and purely religious interest they are near 
 akin to the New Testament ; but there the likeness 
 ends. The difference of canonical and uncanonical, so 
 studiously ignored by some of the literary critics, is 
 not a fiction of some church authority, but a fact 
 which no serious reader can fail to notice. True, the 
 simple earnestness of the uncanonical writers often 
 gives them a strange force and beauty ; but we miss 
 the spiritual depth and the intellectual force and 
 clearness of the New Testament. If Ignatius is a 
 partial exception, his words are rather sparkles of 
 intense conviction than utterances of any profound 
 thought. In general these writers are not more 
 uncritical than the heathens of their time ; and they 
 shew much less leaning to superstition. For example, 
 they have no belief in the omens and astrology so 
 conspicuous with the heathens. But they are neither 
 historians nor philosophers nor rhetoricians. They 
 write without an eye to effect, and without a thought 
 of the future, but simply because they have something 
 to say for the present ; and their earnest and simple 
 faith contrasts well with the mannerism of Seneca, 
 the malice of Tacitus, the cynicism of Lucian. It has 
 a beauty of its own, and is no unworthy afterglow of 
 apostolic times. 
 
 The subapostolic age is upon the whole the obscurest 
 period of Church History. Its remains are not only 
 scanty, but tell us singularly little of what was going 
 on ; and even if the whole of its literature had come 
 down to us, we have no reason to suppose that it was 
 extensive. Later writers know strangely little of it, 
 and in their ignorance readily transfer to the sub- 
 apostolic age the ideas of their own times. Thus 
 Irenseus falls into some bad mistakes, and even 
 
loo CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Eusebius gets his knowledge as often as not from 
 writings which are still in our hands, so that there are 
 many subjects on which he evidently knows no more 
 than he tells us, and therefore no more than we know 
 — and sometimes it may be rather less than we know. 
 
 Not more than three of the subapostolic writers 
 can be placed in the Flavian period. Clement 
 certainly falls inside it, and perhaps also the 
 Teaching and Barnabas : but Ignatius and Polycarp, 
 the writer to Diognetus, Hermas, Papias, and the 
 Second Epistle of Clement belong to the second 
 century, and forgeries bearing the names of Clement, 
 of Ignatius, and of Dionysius the Areopagite cover 
 the whole space of time from the second or third 
 century to the ninth. 
 
 To complete our view of subapostolic literature, 
 we must add a crowd of apocryphal Gospels, Acts, 
 Epistles and Apocalypses. In most cases they are 
 lost, or only fragments are preserved, and some of 
 them never were more than fragments. Though some 
 were forged in support of particular doctrines, chiefly 
 Gnostic or otherwise ascetic, the more part seem to 
 have been written as pure and simple novels. They 
 delight in descriptions of the things which Scripture 
 has left untold, like the events of our Lord's infancy 
 or of his descent into Hades, the adventures of the 
 apostles who were not pillars, or the torments of 
 damnation. Only a few belong to the second century, 
 and some even of these have only reached us in later 
 forms, purged of heresy and adorned with fresh in- 
 ventions. The taste for fiction was as strong in those 
 days as in our own, and we can trace it in some of 
 the Western readings of our Gospels. In any case, a 
 large amount of legend would naturally have been 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD loi 
 
 current in very early times. Thus the Acts of Paul 
 and Thecla shew so minute and accurate a knowledge 
 of Lycaonia in St. Paul's time as compels us to bring 
 back the kernel of the story to the first century.^ 
 Some too of the Logia lately found in Egypt may be 
 early ; but all the apocryphal Gospels known to us 
 belong to a later stage than the canonical. 
 
 If "The Teaching of the Lord by the Twelve 
 Apostles to the Gentiles " is not the very earliest work 
 of Christian literature, it is at any rate one of the 
 earliest.^ It is quoted as scripture by Clement of 
 Alexandria, and by the Latin writer de aleatoribus : 
 and though Eusebius rejects it from the canon, he 
 implies (what Athanasius expressly states) that it was 
 read in some churches for the benefit of catechumens. 
 It must therefore have had a fair circulation in early 
 times ; yet all traces of it vanished till a copy was 
 discovered by Philotheus Bryennius, then metropolitan 
 of Serrse, in 1875, and published in 1883. 
 
 ' Ramsay Ch. and Umpire 375-428. 
 
 " Dr. Bigg in his translation (1898) makes the Teaching a romance of the 
 fourth century, and ingeniously suggests a Montanist origin, perhaps in Phrygia. 
 
 Whatever be the explanation of the Teaching's stringent rules for apostles, 
 I must doubt whether a fourth century romancer would not have diverged 
 much more widely from facts otherwise known. Even Eusebius could scarcely 
 have passed this ordeal, though a Montanist might have been helped by his 
 conservatism. But is it true that "among Sozomen's Moutanists we find 
 no presbyters"? The Pepuzians of Epiphanius {Haer. xlix. 2) had women 
 parallel to men in all offices, including the presbyter's. I cannot accept 
 Dr. Bigg's "absolute demonstration " that the Teaching borrows from Hermas 
 or from the Didascalia. Does " Confess ev iKKK-qtrlq. " imply a church building 
 any more than "coming together iv iKKk-qalq," (1 Cor. xi. 18)? May not the 
 baptism by affusion and the absence of reserve consist with a very early as well 
 as a very late date ? May not the relation of the Teaching to Barnabas and the 
 Church Order be cleared up by the theory that the Two Ways was an earlier 
 manual ? Dr. Bigg does not mention an apparent quotation of the Teaching 
 by the de aleatoribus 4, and sets aside a little too summarily the references of 
 Eusebius and Athanasius. He urges that the Teething is not a book Athanasius 
 would have recommended for instruction. Perhaps not : but if "the fathers " 
 recommended it for use, Athanasius miglit not have felt bound to abolish it. 
 
I02 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 The Teaching naturally falls into two sections — 
 one on the Two Ways, the other of directions on 
 church order. The account of the Way of Life is in 
 the main modelled on the Sermon on the Mount ; but 
 it contains plain traces of Jewish thought, like the 
 stress laid on reverence for teachers, which reminds 
 us of Ecclesiasticus, and the curious theory that 
 falsehood leads to theft — both commonplaces of the 
 Talmud — and touches of a legal and unspiritual 
 character, like directions to fast for the persecutors, 
 or to abstain from bodily (not only carnal) desires,^ 
 and the importance attached to almsgiving, and the 
 twice-repeated command — Bear what thou canst, but 
 at any rate abstain from things offered to idols. It 
 reminds us of Akiba's permission to forbear the law 
 in time of persecution, if only idolatry, fornication, 
 and things offered to idols were avoided. Upon the 
 whole the tone is essentially Christian, though deeply 
 influenced by Jewish thought. Yet the Jews them- 
 selves are denounced as hypocrites who offer wrong 
 prayers, and fast on Monday and Thursday instead 
 of Wednesday and Friday. The Way of Death 
 follows with a black list of vices in St. Paul's style. 
 " From all these, children, may ye be delivered." 
 Then come the directions on church order. Baptism 
 is to be administered in flowing water by preference, 
 though triple affusion will suffice ; but always in the 
 name of the Trinity. The parties shall fast before 
 the ceremony. Fast twice in the week (not on the 
 hypocrites' days) and use the Lord's Prayer thrice 
 daily. Then come forms of blessing for the cup and 
 the bread in the Lord's Supper, and a command that 
 none but the baptized are to partake, " for concerning 
 
 ' Contrast 1 Pet. ii. 11 aapmKwv. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 103 
 
 these things the Lord has said, Give not that which 
 is holy to dogs." Then a form of thanks " after ye 
 are filled," which shews that the Lord's Supper was 
 not yet separated from the evening Agape. But the 
 prophet is not tied to any form. Concerning apostles 
 and prophets, receive an apostle as the Lord : but if 
 he stay a third day or ask for money, he is a false 
 prophet. A prophet who speaks in the spirit is not to 
 be tempted, for this is an unpardonable sin ; the only 
 question is whether he has the manner of the Lord. 
 An approved prophet is not to be judged if (without 
 teaching others to do the like) he does something 
 strange as a worldly mystery typical of the church. 
 " With God he has his judgment ; for even thus the 
 old prophets did." But if he orders a special aga/pe 
 and eats of it himself, or if he asks for money (unless 
 to give to others) he is a false prophet. If a true 
 prophet desire to settle among you, he is worthy of his 
 meat. Firstfruits, then, of wine-vat and threshing- 
 floor should be given to the prophets, " for they are 
 your high priests " ; and to the poor if there are no 
 prophets. So too receive every Christian who comes 
 to you ; but see that he is not an idler. Every 
 "Lord's day of the Lord" assemble to break bread, 
 first confessing your sins, that your offering may be 
 pure — and shut out them that are at variance with 
 each other — for this is Malachi's prophecy of a pure 
 offering.^ Appoint for yourselves worthy men as 
 bishops and deacons, for they also serve you with the 
 service of prophets and teachers. Take heed for one 
 another, and be watchful for the deceiver of the world 
 and for the coming of the Lord. 
 
 The Teaching must be dated early, if we may 
 
 ' Mai. i. 11 ; similarly misused by Justin, Irenaus, etc. 
 
104 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 judge by its simple tone, its curious mixture of 
 Judaism with opposition to Judaism, and by the 
 absence of any clear quotations from the New Testa- 
 ment. There are parallels to the first and third 
 Gospels, as in Clement, and there are echoes of St. 
 John in the Eucharistic Prayer, but there is no trace 
 of St. Paul's influence. Baptism is very simple, with 
 no fixed times, no elaborate catechumenate, no official 
 performer, no trace of a creed, and no mention of 
 infants. Church government also is in a primitive 
 stage. Apostles are discredited and nearly extinct, 
 as we see from the stringent and unpractical rules 
 about them. Even prophets are dying out, and 
 bishops and deacons are taking their place. Presbyters 
 are not mentioned, at least under that name, and 
 there is no sign of a monarchical bishop. There is 
 no allusion to Gnosticism, or for that matter, to 
 Chiliasm; and though we see the sort of soil on 
 which Montanism arose, there seems to be no trace 
 of Montanism itself. All this points to a very early 
 stage of church history, though the date may be later 
 in so rustic a district as is implied. It must be 
 earlier than Clement of Alexandria, and is most 
 likely very much earlier. The crucial question is 
 its relation to the Epistle of Barnabas, which Light- 
 foot dates in the reign of Vespasian. We have the 
 Two Ways in Barnabas as well as in the Teaching, 
 and the indications of relative date seem conflicting 
 and obscure. Perhaps both texts rest on some earlier 
 Jewish manual ; and in that case we can draw no 
 conclusion. 
 
 For the locality, it was certainly written for some 
 simple country-side, most likely in a mountainous 
 district. This is all that we can say ; and it leaves 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 105 
 
 open the back parts of Syria and Asia Minor, and 
 perhaps Upper (not Lower) Egypt. 
 
 The Epistle ascribed to Barnabas does not seem 
 genuine. It is accepted indeed as scripture by 
 Clement of Alexandria and Origen, though Eusebius 
 counts it uncanonical.-' Nor can we be sure that its 
 trifling allegorism and cabbalistic use of numbers is 
 fatal. But his discussion of the Greek letters for 
 the number 318 (nrj — the cross) is suspicious; and 
 it is hard to see how a Levite like Barnabas could 
 make serious mistakes about the ceremonial of the 
 Law, or how St. Paul's companion could suppose 
 that the apostles were " lawless above all sin," or so 
 far contradict him as to say that the Law was never 
 meant to be outwardly observed at all. Its date lies 
 between the two Jewish wars (70-131), and has to 
 be found from its mention of the " three kings in 
 one " destroyed by the Little Horn. Lightfoot refers 
 this to Vespasian and his two sons associated with 
 him, who were to be overthrown by Nero returning 
 as Antichrist. The date will then be 70-79. Its 
 chief interest is the view taken of the meaning of the 
 Law. According to St. Paul, the Law was temporary, 
 while the writer to the Hebrews makes it symbolical ; 
 but they agree that it was a stage of preparation for 
 the Gospel, imperfect indeed, but none the less divine. 
 Barnabas however has no such historical perspective. 
 The diviae law was purely spiritual from the very 
 first. External rites like circumcision or sacrifice are 
 no part of it, but suggestions of an evil angel. So 
 of the sabbath or distinction of meats. They were 
 never meant for literal observance, only as allegories 
 of moral duty. 
 
 ^ Eus. iii. 25 ii> TOis pddois. 
 
io6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Clement of Eome is a miglity figure in legend, 
 from the novels of the third century to the Decretals of 
 the ninth. His connexion indeed with the " Second 
 Epistle" is accidental/ and the Clementine Liturgy 
 does not bear his name ; but the Eecognitions, the 
 Homilies, the Apostolical Constitutions, and the 
 Epistles to Virgins all profess to come from Clement's 
 hand. But the only genuine work remaining to us 
 is the Epistle of the church of Eome to the church 
 of Corinth. This may pretty safely be dated within 
 the year 96,^ for the persecution to which it alludes 
 can hardly be any other than that of Domitian. Of 
 its author we know next to nothing, for we can hardly 
 identify him like Origen with the Clement mentioned 
 by St. Paul.' Some see in him Domitian's cousin 
 Flavins Clemens, who, as we have seen, was certainly 
 a Christian ; but if the bishop of Eome had been so 
 great a personage, we should have heard a good deal 
 more about the matter. We may therefore set down 
 our author as some freedman of Flavins Clemens, and 
 as of Jewish birth, if we may judge from his knowledge 
 of the Old Testament. We are also told by Irenseus 
 that he was the third bishop of Eome ; and this may 
 be true, though he was in any case no bishop of the 
 Ignatian type, — much less of the papal sort. It is the 
 church of Eome which speaks throughout the letter, 
 
 1 In words I hare heard from Lightfoot's lips, "It is not an Epistle, and 
 it is not by Clement ; but it is to the Corinthians." It seems to be a sermon 
 preached at Corinth about the middle of the second century. Harnack 
 A.G.L. i. 438 takes it for the letter of Soter from Rome dr. 170. This 
 seems too late : nor does the " Epistle " correspond to the account given by 
 Dionysius ap. Eus. iv. 23. 
 
 ^ I cannot follow Harnack, A.C.L. i. 254 in dating the letter at the 
 beginning of the persecution. His own quotations, cf. rds yefofiivai avii,<j>op6,i 
 and 59 XiirpoKrai roiis Seaixlovi (if it be safe to press them), point the other 
 way. But in no case can it be pushed far into the reign of Nerva. 
 
 3 Phil. iv. 3. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 107 
 
 for Clement never names himself. Nor does even 
 the church claim any sort of jurisdiction over Corinth. 
 Earnest and urgent as its exhortations are, they are 
 no more than might in reversed circumstances have 
 been addressed from Corinth to Eome. 
 
 Clement is no genius. His power lies not in grasp 
 of mind, but in quiet moderation and self-respect. 
 His letter owes not a little of its impressiveness to 
 his dignified reticence. Even the persecution is barely 
 alluded to as " the sudden and repeated calamities 
 that overtook us," and in the significant warning 
 that " we too are in the same lists " with " the good 
 apostles " who perished before. The keynote of the 
 letter is harmony, for Clement is continually repeating 
 the word and illustrating it.^ The Corinthians had 
 gone after faction, and turned certain presbyters out 
 of ofiice. The whole is an expansion of St. Paul's, 
 Now I beseech you, brethren, that ye all say the 
 same thing, and that there be no divisions among 
 you.^ He directly appeals to St. Paul's Epistle, 
 and works out in his own way several of its leading 
 thoughts, especially charity, the body and members, 
 and the resurrection. From another point of view, 
 the Epistle is visibly modelled on the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and may be viewed as an expansion of the 
 
 ^ Our authorities for the text of Clement are 
 
 A (v.) Codax Alexandrinus of N.T. Containing nine leaves out of ten, 
 the ninth being lost : published 1633. Text good. 
 
 C (1056) Codex Constantinopolitanus. Complete. Discovered by Bryennius, 
 and published 1875. Text inferior. 
 
 S {dr. 1170) — a Syriac translation. Complete : published 1876. Text 
 good : better than C. 
 
 L (ssec. xi.)— a Latin translation. Complete : published 1894 {Anecdota 
 Maredzoliana). The translation itself dates back (Harnack Th.L.Z. 1894, 
 159) to about 150. Text good. 
 
 The four MSS. seem quite independent. We have also now a Coptic 
 version, not yet published. 
 
 3 1 Cor. i. 10. 
 
io8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 chapter on tlie heroes of faith. Traces of the Gospels 
 are not clear. His quotations remind us of the First 
 and Third alternately, and may be either from them 
 or from oral sources. The Old Testament is still his 
 Bible, and he quotes it freely. It is significant that 
 he uses the Proverbs much more than do the canonical 
 writers. The only feature of Clement's mind which 
 can be called original is his deep sense of the order 
 and beauty of Nature : and in describing this he 
 often rises into real eloquence. Such a sense is not 
 common in early Christian writers, who were more 
 occupied with the divine than the natural side of 
 things. It is no doubt allied to the Eoman sense of 
 law ; yet it may be one more reminder that in 
 character as well as language, modern Italy repre- 
 sents rather the lower than the higher classes of the 
 Empire. Otherwise Clement's doctrine is a colourless 
 mixture of all the New Testament types except 
 St. John's. St. Paul is the master he has set himself 
 to follow, and, so far as language goes, he is 
 very Pauline : but he plainly does not understand 
 St. Paul's deeper thoughts. For example, Justifica- 
 tion by faith is much too bold a doctrine for Clement.^ 
 The age of the apostles was not yet quite ended. 
 The Lord had promised that some of them should not 
 taste of death till they had seen the coming of the 
 Son of Man ; and some of them did survive the 
 judgment of Jerusalem, though not in Palestine. 
 Now that the temple was destroyed, the Gentile 
 churches took the lead in Christendom, and its centre 
 was shifted to Asia. Thither came Philip of Bethsaida, 
 with his three daughters, to end his days at Hierapolis 
 
 ' Clement Ep. 10, 11, 12 5ta itI(tti.v Kal ^iCKo^erlav of Abraham and Rahab, 
 Sick (piXo^cvlav Kal evai^uav of Lot. This differs entirely from St. Paul's 
 5tA irlcTTGws. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 109 
 
 on the Lycus ; and with him perhaps his old com- 
 panion Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Somewhere 
 near them may have been Aristion and the elder John, 
 and peradventure others of the Lord's disciples, who 
 could still tell of the things they had seen and heard 
 some fifty years and more ago. But Ephesus was 
 the home of the apostle John. He was still at 
 Jerusalem when the apostolic conference was held, 
 and may not have left the city till shortly before the 
 Eoman war — perhaps as late as 64, which chances to 
 be the legendary date of the Virgin's departure from 
 this life. Though we cannot trace him in Asia during 
 St. Paul's lifetime, he must have come shortly after- 
 wards, for exile at Patmos probably means relegatio 
 by the proconsul of Asia. He was then released after 
 Nero's death ; and henceforth Ephesus was the centre 
 from which he surveyed the churches, and pondered 
 that which he had seen and heard and handled of the 
 word of life. 
 
 It was not for nothing that the Lord had loved 
 him. Year by year the old words were ripening in 
 that stern and thoughtful mind, as one dark saying 
 after another shone out before him in the mystic light 
 of truth. In the Apocalypse his images are still 
 carnal. The judgment he looks for comes from with- 
 out, and is a future fact of history which all the world 
 wiU see. In the Gospel it cometh not with observa- 
 tion. It is a self- executing spiritual judgment, a 
 present fact of the eternal world. In the Apocalypse 
 Christianity is the fulfilment of Judaism, so that the 
 contrast is with false religions : in the Gospel it is the 
 eternal truth, so that the contrast is the timeless one 
 of light and darkness. The Apocalypse has visions of 
 Christ's future coming with the clouds of heaven : the 
 
no CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Gospel shews the everlasting meaning of his one 
 historic coming by throwing history — the record of 
 his many comings — on a background of eternity/ 
 So boo the contrast of the Gospel with the Synoptists 
 is not merely of authorship, of form, of substance, or 
 of standpoint. It is the contrast of one age of the 
 world with another.^ The Old Testament gathered 
 Egypt and Assyria round Israel, the New brought 
 Israel itself and Greece and Eome before the cross of 
 Christ ; 'and now Jerusalem had ceased to be the 
 centre of God's deaUngs with the world. St. Paul 
 could look through Israel to the great evolution 
 beyond and around Israel ; but he never forgot that 
 he was an Israelite himself. But St. John in his later 
 
 ' Westcott St. John's Oos23el Ixxxiv. 
 
 '^ The evidence for St. John's authorship seems strong for the Apocalypse, 
 and even stronger for the Fourth Gospel. Polycarp and Papias used the 
 Epistle, which cannot be separated from the Gospel by any serious criticism ; 
 and I see no reason to suppose Irenseus mistaken, either in his memory of 
 Polycarp or in his knowledge of general Christian belief. Of this however 
 presently. The internal evidence (and there is a good deal of a very cogent 
 sort) points clearly to a Palestinian Jew who had lived before the fall of 
 Jerusalem. There is very little Greek in it beyond the actual language, for 
 the incarnate Logos differs toto caelo from the idealizing Logos of Philo. I 
 find in it neither a thought nor an allusion which calls for a second-century 
 date, but many things which could not have been written in the second 
 century. There is no insuperable difficulty, unless we assume that whatever 
 seems miraculous must be explained away at any cost. The difference from 
 the Synoptists is partly «- personal difference of presentation, partly a real 
 difference of teaching corresponding to the difference of scene, of hearers, and 
 of readers. 
 
 The Apocalypse is a harder question. But we may safely say that its 
 difference from the Gospel is very much what we should expect if it was 
 written soon after St. John's arrival in Asia, while the Gospel dates from 
 quieter times, perhaps twenty years later, when his thoughts were ripened 
 and his Greek was improved. But if the apostolic authorship and the 
 Domitianio date are incompatible, Hegesippus and Irenaeus are much more 
 likely to be mistaken on the date than on the author. But see on Hegesippus 
 (ap. Eus.) Lawlor Journ. Sacred Studies viii. 436, and on Irenseus, Bishop 
 Chase, ditto p. 431, who maintains (after Hort) that it is not the vision but 
 St. John himself that "was seen" near the end of Domitian's reign (Irenseus 
 ap. Eus. V. 8) before he was too feeble to go about. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD iii 
 
 years has ceased to be a Jew. Israel is to him no 
 more than an incident in the revelation of the Word 
 made flesh which culminated in the glory of the 
 Saviour's cross and resurrection. Israel belongs to 
 history ; and history is only the manifestation of the 
 eternal on the field of time. 
 
 The fact of St. John's residence at Bphesus is 
 attested by four writers of the second century — 
 Irenseus, Clement, Polycrates,^ and the author of the 
 
 ^ There seem to have been two Johns in Asia. Some of the "conservative" 
 critics merge the elder in the apostle ; but the distinction inferred by 
 Eusebius from Papias is accepted by writers as widely separated as Lightfoot, 
 Westcott, Harnack, Schmiedel, Bousset, and E. A. Abbott. All parties 
 agree that one John was the centre of Christian life at Ephesus about the 
 end of the iirst century, that he was the teacher of Polycarp, and that the 
 Fourth Gospel originated at no great distance from Ephesus. But was this 
 John the apostle or the elder ? 
 
 For the apostle : plain statements of (1) Irenaeus, who {pace Harnack) 
 heard a good deal about him from Polycarp (2) Polycrates, whose seven 
 kinsmen bishops before him must have reached back for many years (3) 
 Clement of Alexandria, whose story of St. John and the brigand is perfectly 
 credible. From Papias we have nothing explicit — which means that he said 
 nothing to the contrary, for Eusebius neither could nor would have passed 
 over a statement so opposed to the accepted belief of his own time. Nor is 
 there anything to the contrary in Acts xx. 29, unless St. John be taken 
 for one of the grievous wolves ; nor in the silence of the Pastoral and Petrine 
 Epistles, of Ignatius, Justin and others. 1 Tim. (even if spurious) may 
 deal with a time before the apostle's coming ; and the others had no particular 
 occasion to mention the fact. 
 
 For the elder. Harnack, A.C.L. i. 651 sq., Schmiedel (John in E.B.) 
 Bousset (Apocalypse in do.), and E. A. Abbott (Gospels in do.). The only 
 argument of weight on this side is the marked avoidance of the apostolic 
 title ; and we have seen that this can be accounted for. Even Peter calls 
 himself crvfnrpe^r^&repos k. f^Ldprvs, though he does use the title airdaToXos, 
 The ninth-century quotation from Papias, that John was killed by Jews, 
 would be decisive if it were not a gross and obvious blunder. After its 
 demolition by Lightfoot and Harnack, its revival by Schmiedel and Burkitt 
 is astonishing. 
 
 Amongst the difficulties of this theory : — 
 
 (1) As it can hardly be supposed that John the elder lay on the Lord's breast 
 or stood by the cross, the eyewitness declarations of 1 Joh. i. 1, and Ev. i. 
 14, xix. 35 have to be got rid of. Harnack explains them away as 
 " mysticism," taking xix. 35 as denying the eyewitness, while Schmiedel makes 
 it an " intentional vagueness" which most people will think worse than a 
 direct lie. Westcott's argument (Introd. xxv. sq. ) holds the field, for neither 
 
112 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Muratorian Fragment ; and to these we must now add 
 Hegesippus.' There is no reason to doubt it, for the 
 silence of Ignatius is no objection. But they tell 
 us very little of his work. We get a general 
 impression of apostolic superintendence, of fatherly 
 guidance, and of settling of churches ; and that is all. 
 His connexion with the growth of episcopacy is best 
 discussed elsewhere : but of stories told of him on 
 good authority, that of his jumping out of the bath 
 to escape Cerinthus quite suits his character, and 
 may very well be true.^ Again, there is nothing 
 unlikely in Clement of Alexandria's fivdo<; ov /j,vdo<; of 
 St. John and the robber.^ Even more in character, 
 
 Harnaok nor Schmiedel has attempted to answer it. It is strange for example 
 that neither of them notices the change from dXridipis to dXrjS-^s. (2) It also 
 becomes necessary to suppose that Irenseus was mistaken in thinking that his 
 master Polycarp was the apostle's disciple. Schmiedel simply argues that if 
 Irenseus was mistaken about Papias (of whom we have no reason to suppose he 
 had any personal knowledge) he must have been equally mistaken about his 
 own master Polycarp, whom he describes so carefully ; while Harnack (with a 
 more logical mind) is obliged also to make Irenaeus a mere child who saw 
 practically nothing of Polycarp, and to explain away a thoroughly lifelike 
 picture as a play of fancy. Yet even Bousset "refuses to suppose that 
 Irenaeus had already confounded the elder with the apostle." 
 
 Some of Schmiedel's oversights are very strange. He finds in Irenaeus a 
 tradition of the elders that the Lord lived to be fifty years old, and derives 
 it very reasonably from a misunderstanding of Joh. viii. 57 without seeing 
 the inference, that the Gospel must at all events be older than that tradition. 
 He ridicules the argument that there must be four Gospels because there are 
 four winds of heaven without seeing the fixed belief of the churches behind 
 the personal opinion of Irenaeus. True, the argument is "verbal trifling" : 
 but no sane man could have used it if the authority of the Fourth Gospel 
 had been seriously disputed in the churches at a time well within his own 
 memory. And the truth of that matter must have been familiar to Irenaeus. 
 Why then does he tell us (Haer. iii. 11) that some nameless persons (the 
 Alogi probably) denied it, and suppress the very much more important fact 
 (if fact it be) that Papias and Polycarp (who must have known the truth) 
 agreed with them ? 
 
 1 Lawlor, supra. 
 
 ^ Irenaeus Haer. iii. 3, 4. It need not be discredited because Irenaeus did 
 not himself hear it from Polycarp. Epiphanius tells it of Ebion instead of 
 Cerinthus : but Epiphanius can blunder sadly. 
 
 3 Clem. Al. Quis Dives 42. 
 
VI THE FLAVIAN PERIOD 113 
 
 though much later in date, is Jerome's tale that in 
 his extreme old age when he had to be carried to the 
 meetings, he said only. Little children, love one 
 another, on the ground that this was the Lord's 
 command, and if this alone were done, it was 
 enough.^ 
 
 Now that we have come to the end of the first 
 century, we may ask how far Christianity is known to 
 have spread by that time. Of course the Christians 
 were still comparatively few, even where they 
 were most numerous ; but they were more numerous 
 in some places than in others. The mother church 
 of Jerusalem never recovered from the effects of the 
 Jewish war ; but the Gospel had made good its 
 footing on the coast, and especially in the great city 
 of Antioch, from which it spread eastward over the 
 whole area of the Dispersion and into Parthia. It 
 was firmly settled in the south of Asia Minor, and 
 had reached the north, as we see from Pliny's letter 
 and the Epistle of Peter. But its centre was now 
 proconsular Asia. In Greece it made little progress, 
 except perhaps at Corinth, and the next flourishing 
 community we find is at Eome. But so far both at 
 Eome and in Italy it seems not to have spread far 
 beyond the Greek element of the population. From 
 Rome however it had already reached Gaul and 
 Spain. Of Carthage and Alexandria we hear nothing 
 
 ' Jer. Comm. in Gal. vi. 10. 
 
 The statement of Polyerates (ap. Eus. H.E. v. 24) about St. John 8s iyevriBri 
 Upeis rb irdraXoy Tre^oprjKtis is an enigma. We may however safely say (1) 
 that Polyerates is a good authority (2) that St. John was not a priest in the 
 later catholic sense. Polyerates is a strange writer, who may be using a 
 strange hyperbole. May it not be like the DidacAe 13, where the prophets 
 are "your high priests" or Justin Dial. 116 where Christians generally are 
 apxiepanKiy rb dXridivbv yivos ? Then the Tr^raXoy will be no more than a 
 rhetorical flourish. 
 
 VOL. I I 
 
114 CHURCH HISTORY chap, vi 
 
 yet ; but they cannot have been without Christians. 
 In fact, it is not too much to say that Christian 
 traders and Christian soldiers must already have 
 made the Gospel known in every province of the 
 Empire, though it is very likely that no churches 
 had yet been organized beyond the Balkans and the 
 Alps. 
 
 Books 
 
 See on ch. V. ; also Wrede VrUersuchungen zu I. Clem. Gbtt. 1891 ; 
 Harnack Lehre der IS Apostel. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TRAJAN 
 
 At first sight there is no very evident reason for the 
 enmity between the Empire and the Church. The 
 Gospel is spiritual, and its Author wrecked his 
 temporal success by refusing to be a rebel. He told 
 the Jews to pay back Caesar's money into Caesar's 
 treasury, and satisfied Pilate that his kingdom was 
 not of this world. His disciples taught men to 
 honour the emperor, to obey the powers that be, and 
 to submit themselves for his sake to every ordinance 
 of man ; and their followers were a quiet sort of 
 people who kept out of politics and seemed to ask for 
 nothing better than to pay their taxes and be left to 
 themselves. Yet the emperors must have had serious 
 reasons for their enmity. They were certainly not 
 random persecutors. As a rule, they respected the 
 worships of the nations. Even the Druids were not 
 put down systematically, though some of their 
 practices were forbidden by Tiberius and Claudius. 
 Israel again was so dangerous a rival in the East that 
 we can hardly wonder at Hadrian's endeavour to 
 stamp out Judaism. The shortness of the persecu- 
 tion rather speaks for Eoman moderation. With 
 these exceptions,^ only the Christians were seriously 
 
 ^ The destruction of the temple of Isis by Tiberius was not so much 
 persecution as the punishment of a gross scandal. 
 
ii6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 molested before the Manichsean edict of Diocletian in 
 296 : but the Christians were more or less persecuted 
 by most of the emperors, and with especial cruelty by 
 some of the best of them.^ How are we to account 
 for this ? 
 
 No doubt the victims were sometimes themselves 
 much to blame. No government could overlook 
 lawless acts of violence like upsetting of altars and 
 tearing down of proclamations, or allow such zealots 
 as Tertullian to seduce its soldiers from their service. 
 Nor could it overlook men who shouted wanton 
 defiance, or leave unpunished the outrageous insults 
 it sometimes met with in its own courts of justice. 
 Judges were not always brutes. If some were lovers 
 of cruelty, others did everything they could to save 
 misguided men from their folly. Nor was the martyr 
 always very saintly. It is a long step from the 
 perfect courtesy of Polycarp to the coarseness ascribed 
 to Eulalia. 
 
 Much of this offensive conduct was the natural 
 reply of the natural man to the atrocious wrongs of 
 persecution, but some of it must have been without 
 
 ' Melito {ap. Bus. iv. 26) tells the emperor Marcus that even Nero and 
 Domltian had only been seduced into persecution by evil counsel, whereas 
 their successors, and Hadrian in particular, had repeatedly checked mob 
 violence. Tertullian Apol. 5 develops this into a theory that only the bad 
 emperors were persecutors. He does not pretend that the persecuting laws 
 were ever repealed ; only Trajan " partly defeated them by forbidding search 
 for Christians," and Marcus " openly annulled their penalties" by imposing 
 severer ones on accusers, while the rest were content to leave them unen- 
 forced. 
 
 The theory was fairly reasonable for Melito, for the Christians were slow 
 to believe that respected emperors like Trajan or Pius were really their 
 enemies. By TertuUian's time its difficulties were greater, for he had Trajan's 
 rescript before him, and could only explain away the persecutions of Marcus 
 by ascribing to him a change of policy. 
 
 All along we see the pathetic anxiety of the Christians to make out every 
 decent emperor their friend, and to throw the blame of every persecution, 
 on bad counsellors. 
 
vn TRAJAN 117 
 
 excuse. It was not confined to Montanists/ but 
 found approval in many quarters. But after all, it 
 was the exception, not the rule, and far too much has 
 been made of it by some writers. In general, the 
 martyr is as innocent of railing as the Lord himself 
 No unseemly word escapes from Polycarp, or Justin, 
 or Cyprian, and in many other cases we have no 
 reason to think that any such language has been 
 suppressed. Their defence is the single word Non 
 facio, or its equivalent ; and then comes the Deo 
 gratias when the sentence is read to them. Fanatics 
 would seem to have been few, especially in the early 
 stages of the persecutions, and were almost always 
 discouraged by the authorities of the church. Ignatius 
 and TertuUian do not represent the general feeling of 
 Christians, which is better given when the church 
 of Smyrna gravely condemns " such acts of rash and 
 impious daring," ^ or the Council of Elvira orders that 
 those who provoke the authorities shall not be counted 
 martyrs.^ 
 
 But however fanatics may have helped to embitter 
 the contest, they had very little to do with its origin. 
 Persecution was the natural outcome of a deeply 
 rooted enmity between the Empire and the church, 
 and the best men on both sides were generally the 
 most convinced that the struggle was one of life and 
 death. 
 
 There was very little fanaticism on the heathen 
 side. The Empire had no established church, no 
 priestly class, no religious orders, and the priests were 
 very seldom active persecutors, except in the legends. 
 More trouble arose from trade jealousy, like that of 
 
 ' For instance, there is no sign that Agathonice was a Montanist. 
 ^ Eus. iv. 15 (Mart. Polycarpi). ^ Can. 60. 
 
ii8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the Epliesian silversmitlis or the Bithynian graziers. 
 The procurers, the poisoners, the fortune-tellers and 
 the like unholy folk had good reason to complain 
 of the Christians.' Much of the persecution arose 
 from the family dissensions which the Lord foretold, 
 and we can understand the hatred of men like 
 Herminianus ^ for the teachers who had stolen away 
 the hearts of their wives. Much again arose from the 
 blind rage of savage mobs against men they hated, 
 though the more part knew not why they hated them. 
 But of genuine fanatical enthusiasm for the gods we 
 hardly find a trace. Julian is the exception which 
 proves the rule, for his fanaticism was a riddle to the 
 heathens themselves.' 
 
 Yet the murderous instinct of the mobs was not 
 untrue. Harmless as the Christians may seem to us, 
 they were undermining religion, and society with it. 
 The age of nations was at an end only in a political 
 sense. Kome had national gods of her own, and 
 welcomed to her Pantheon all the gods of the nations ; 
 and the grateful provinces added the worships of 
 Rome and Augustus, and of the living emperor. 
 Thus the Empire was itself a nation so far, and 
 Caesar was pledged to maintain the old ideas of 
 society and religion, including the ancient system of 
 national worships enforced by the state. So Maecenas 
 advises Augustus* to hate and suppress innovations 
 in religion as unsuited to a monarchy : and even if 
 
 > Tert. Apol. 43. 
 
 ■^ Tert. ad Scap. 3. 
 
 "' Renan compares the early Christians to "a Protestant missionary in a 
 very catholic Spanish town, preaching against the saints, the Virgin, and the 
 processions." He forgets that few cities of the Empire were in that sense 
 very pagan — least of all the priests. The offence which the Christian gave 
 was very much more political than religious. 
 
 •* Dio Cassius Hi. 36. 
 
VII TRAJAN 119 
 
 Dio has invented the words for him, they express 
 truly the ideas of the Empire and Society. 
 
 These ideas the Gospel contradicted at every 
 point. In the first place, it was new. Instead of 
 coming down from time immemorial, it had a well- 
 known origin in the prosaic times of Tiberius 
 Caesar. This alone was enough to condemn it, for 
 in Diocletian's phrase, a new religion ought not to 
 reproach an old one. Then again it was not of 
 civilized origin. It came from the barbarians, and 
 from the worst of all barbarians, those filthy Jews. 
 No wonder that educated men would have nothing 
 to do with it. Jewish monotheism was revolting 
 enough to polite society, but the Jews had somehow 
 got a footing as licensed nonconformists. Moreover, 
 even Judaism was at any rate a national worship, 
 and so far deserved respect, whereas Christianity was 
 mere private self-will and perversity — pure heresy. 
 The Twelve Tables had long ago forbidden Roman 
 citizens to have gods in private, or to worship new 
 or foreign gods unauthorized by the state. ^ That 
 law might be partly obsolete ; but the Empire still 
 enforced the substance of it. On one side, all 
 national worships were now authorized — but Jesus 
 was not a national god. On the other, even those 
 who were not Roman citizens were required to shew 
 due respect to the gods of Rome by conforming to 
 the ceremonies of the Roman people — which only the 
 Christians refused to do. Beside this, the churches 
 were secret societies of the lowest of the people, who 
 gave their allegiance to one Jesus as emperor forsooth.^ 
 
 1 Separatim nemo habessit decs neque noTOS sire advenaa nisi publice 
 adscito3 privatim colunto. 
 
 ^ Westcott Epp. of St. John. Exc. on The Church and the World. 
 
I20 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 This was plain treason, however they might gloss it 
 over ; and if there were any doubt, it was set at rest 
 by their refusal of the ordinary worship paid by 
 every good citizen to the gods and the emperor. 
 Had their numbers been trifling, they might have 
 been ignored ; but even in Trajan's time there were 
 Christians enough in Bithynia to give serious trouble. 
 This was a growing danger, especially in the East, 
 and it was increased by every lull of persecution 
 which gave them leisure to seduce their neighbours 
 and develop their disloyal aims. The worst of all 
 was their aggressive temper. Even if the Galilean 
 had been a passable god of his kind, it would still 
 have been a crime to despise the worship of his 
 betters. It was intolerable that these miscreants 
 should endeavour to destroy it. The Jews were 
 disrespectful enough to the gods of the civilized 
 world, but even they had the decency to keep their 
 vulgarity to themselves, whereas the Christians could 
 not be satisfied without perverting others, and 
 seducing silly women. They poisoned domestic life, 
 molested trade, and deliberately set themselves to 
 destroy the good old customs on which the Empire 
 and civilization rested. In mere self-defence there 
 was no choice but to put them down. With all 
 their meekness they were the anarchists of their time, 
 and the first duty of the government was to protect 
 society. 
 
 The rulers of the Empire would have been more 
 than men if they had risen above these fixed ideas of 
 the ancient world ; yet had they only realized the 
 mighty change in history implied by their own 
 universal sovereignty, they would have seen long 
 before the time of Constantine that Christianity 
 
VII TRAJAN 121 
 
 was in truth their best ally. The old republic 
 overcame the nations because they could not govern 
 themselves, and the rise of the Empire was a plain 
 confession that neither could the Eoman senate and 
 people govern them. The old political ideals of 
 Rome were for ever shattered when the Italians won 
 their franchise at the sword's point, and the enduring 
 terror of the proscriptions completed their destruction. 
 Liberty was sacrificed to security, and Augustus was 
 welcomed as a Saviour of Society. Thus the Empire 
 was from the first in a false position. It was pledged 
 to maintain the old order of things ; yet the necessities 
 of universal power were themselves the greatest of 
 novelties. In spite of republican disguises and con- 
 servative reactions the Empire tended steadily and 
 of necessity, in one direction to level the distinctions 
 of society by taking its officials from every rank of 
 life, in another to break down the barriers of nations 
 by receiving all as Eoman citizens, in another to 
 obliterate the variety of laws and customs by reasoned 
 principles and uniform administration, and in yet 
 another to supersede local religions by grafting on 
 them the universal worship of the emperor himself. 
 Thus while it belonged historically to the age of 
 nations, its ideals were more akin to the universalism 
 of Christianity. Its efibrts to realize them were 
 hampered by the surviving nationalism of the 
 republic, and perverted by the false universalism of 
 its own Caesar-worship. It was never able to abolish 
 slavery or class legislation, or to weld its heterogeneous 
 peoples into a solid nation. Yet when Diocletian had 
 broken the connexion of the Empire with the city, 
 and reduced the worship of the emperor to a 
 ceremonial of the palace, Constantine was only 
 
122 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 completing his work by the adoption of Christianity, 
 and the true affinity of the ancient rivals was shewn 
 by a firm alliance of a thousand years. 
 
 There does not seem to have been any special law 
 against the Christians generally before the times of 
 Decius and Valerian. Persecution was a matter of 
 administration and of summary jurisdiction,^ though 
 forms might be observed when the accused was a 
 senator like ApoUonius. There was no need of any 
 special law, for Christianity as a disturbance of the 
 peace was already an offence against the common law 
 of the Empire, and the punishment of Christians was 
 as much a matter of course as the punishment of 
 brigands. It was but a part of the magistrate's 
 ordinary duty to put down summarily^ these and 
 other forms of disorder. Meanwhile, if the Christians 
 were to be tried in form, there was ample choice of 
 legal charges against them. In the first place, they 
 practised a new and unlawful worship,^ so that they 
 had none but themselves to thank for any trouble it 
 might bring upon them. Then they were " atheists " * 
 for denying the gods of the state. This meant behead- 
 ing for men of rank, while meaner men were burned 
 or given to the beasts : and it also made free men liable 
 to the rack, the fire and the cross like slaves. Their 
 secret rites were also suggestive of a further charge 
 of magic,^ for which they could be burned under the 
 Lex Cornelia. But the most convenient course was 
 to try them for treason.* Men who belonged to un- 
 lawful societies '^ were prima facie traitors ; and they 
 were certainly traitors if they refused the ready test 
 
 ' Cognilio. " Coercitio. ^ Beligio nova et illieita. 
 
 * iffeoi., sacrilegi. ^ MaUfid. ' Majestas. 
 
 ' Hetaeriae, collegia illieita. 
 
VII TRAJAN 123 
 
 of swearing by Caesar's Genius and doing him loyal 
 worship. In that case they committed treason^ in 
 open court, and could be sent straight to execution. 
 
 From the heathen point of view, the process was 
 quite fair. It was only tendering an oath of allegiance 
 to persons reasonably suspected of treason. It never 
 did practical injustice to the occasional enthusiasts 
 who counted every oath unlawful, because they were 
 always men who had further objections to the parti- 
 cular oath by Csesar's Genius. Other Christians were 
 sometimes allowed to escape with an oath by Csesar's 
 safety, which was usually considered harmless.^ Nor 
 do the Apologists in general complain of it. They 
 complain indeed of the substantial injustice of the 
 persecution, but not of any particular injustice in the 
 test chosen. Only TertuUian* raises the captious 
 difficulty that while other malefactors are pressed to 
 confess crime, the Christians are pressed to deny it. 
 He chooses to forget that the object of the court is 
 to make a grievously suspected person disavow secret 
 treason, so that it was not unjust to punish him if he 
 replied with open treason. If that oath was a proper 
 test of loyalty, there is no more to be said. 
 
 This was the full process, chiefly used for Eoman 
 citizens. But as we have seen, Christians were most 
 commonly dealt with summarily : and then the exact 
 course taken was very much at the magistrate's dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 Our next duty is to map out the age of persecution 
 begun by Nero. There is no difficulty in marking 
 for it a natural end at the Edict of Milan in 313 ; 
 
 1 aa-ipeia, impietas circa principes was a form of majestas. 
 
 ^ Tert. Apol. 32 Sed et juramus, sicut non per genios Caesaruni, ita per 
 salutem eoram, quae est augustior omnibus geniis. 
 
 2 Supra, V. 2. 
 
124 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 but its division into periods is not so easy. The old 
 calculation of ten persecutions was suggested ^ by the 
 analogy of the plagues of Egypt, and is in every way 
 uncritical. The general persecutions were not so 
 many as ten ; the local were many more.^ What is 
 worse, it refers everything to the will of individual 
 emperors, instead of connecting general changes with 
 general causes. Neither can we take the rescript of 
 Trajan in 112 as the beginning of any new policy, 
 though there are landmarks of importance at the 
 persecution of Decius and the rescript of Valerian. 
 According to Prof. Ramsay, the internecine strife 
 of Church and Empire at the end of the apostolic age 
 was softened by Trajan, and still more by Hadrian, 
 but " after Hadrian the development of the imperial 
 idea ended, until he found a successor in Constantine."* 
 Thus the main division would fall in the middle of 
 the second century, and the later period would in 
 general be one of reaction, though he has no occasion 
 to discuss it closely beyond the reign of Marcus. 
 
 Without disputing the general truth of this view, 
 we may answer that the history of persecution is best 
 connected as closely as possible with the general 
 history of the time, so that the line is most con- 
 veniently drawn at the murder of Commodus in 192. 
 In any case we get a good division here ; for if the 
 natural development of the Empire came to a political 
 standstill after Hadrian, the religious part of it was 
 vigorously pushed forward by the house of Julia 
 
 1 Orosius Hist. vii. 27. He enumerates Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus, 
 Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian. 
 
 '' For example, scores at least must have perished in Bithynia about 112: 
 yet no Christian writer knows anything of the persecution but what we find 
 in Pliny's letter. There may have been similar persecutions almost anywhere 
 at any time before 180 without any trace of them being left to us. 
 
 ^ Ramsay Church in the Roman Empire, p. 192. 
 
VII TRAJAN 125 
 
 Domna. The earlier Emperors shew no sympathy at 
 all with Christianity, so that they check mob violence 
 only from regard to humanity and good order. 
 Commodus on one side, Severus on the other, form 
 a transition. The later period is chequered. The 
 emperors are sometimes led by eclectic ideas to shew 
 more or less favour to the Christians, sometimes 
 driven violently the other way by a Koman reaction. 
 Syrian influences became dominant under Severus, 
 and remained so (except in the short reigns of 
 Macrinus and Maximin) till the defeat of Philip in 
 249. The next ten or twelve years are covered by 
 the violent reactions of Decius and Valerian, with an 
 interval of quiet between them. Then comes a long 
 peace of more than forty years (260-303), scarcely 
 broken by the hostility of Aurelian at the end of his 
 reign. There remains but one more fearful struggle 
 in the last great persecution (303-313) begun by 
 Diocletian, which brought the long '.contest to an 
 issue. 
 
 Roughly summing up our results, we find two 
 nearly equal periods (70-192, and 192-313) of rather 
 more than a century each — one of constant hostility, 
 the other of persecution alternating with precarious 
 quiet. As regards the first period, the internecine 
 strife which Nero left to his successors was first 
 softened by the humanity of Trajan and Hadrian, 
 then sharpened again by Marcus, and finally allowed 
 to rest by Commodus. Then in the second, we find 
 peace maintained upon the whole for half a century 
 (192-249) by Syrian influences, then ten years of 
 sharp conflict ; peace again for half a century 
 (260-303) while the Empire is fighting for its 
 existence, and then another ten years' period of 
 
126 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 desperate struggle which brings us down to the 
 Edict of Milan. Only it must be borne in mind that 
 there is a broad diflFerence between the two half- 
 centuries of peace. In the first, the emperors were 
 generally willing to tolerate ; in the second, they 
 were generally too busy to persecute. The peace too 
 was at the best of times precarious ; for persecution 
 never wholly ceased, and might break out almost 
 anywhere at a moment's notice. 
 
 The change in the Empire at the end of the first 
 century is more easily felt than described. Domitian 
 came to his end in a mere conspiracy ; yet we feel 
 that something perished with him. If Nerva and 
 Trajan seemed to restore the republican freedom 
 Domitian had trampled down, they dropped the 
 republican religion which Domitian had endeavoured 
 to maintain. It was easier to pay the senate formal 
 or even real deference than to restore the buried past. 
 Domitian was for a long time the last of the emperors 
 who strove to reform the corruption of society by 
 returning to the manners and traditions of antiquity. 
 Such a policy was antiquated even for him, ridiculous 
 when taken up by Decius or Valerian. His successors 
 faced the facts of universal empire, and did their duty 
 not to Eome alone, but to the world they ruled. 
 Even the real reaction marked by Pius was overborne 
 by the onward march of history ; and the sober 
 Marcus among the legions of the Danube is further 
 from the ideals of Augustus than the cosmopolitan 
 Hadrian on his restless tours. Yet they were not 
 out of touch with Kome like Maximin or Diocletian. 
 From Nerva to Marcus there was peace between the 
 Empire and society, except for the short time when 
 
VII TRAJAN 127 
 
 Hadrian came back to end his days in Italy. By 
 Commodus that peace was broken. He reminds us 
 of Nero by his weakness and vulgarity, of Domitian 
 by his hatred of the senate ; while his taste for 
 Eastern worships points forward to the eclecticism 
 of the next century. Upon the whole however his 
 reign is better treated as an unworthy sequel of his 
 father's than connected with that of Severus. 
 
 Nerva is a venerable name, and little more. For 
 a reign of sixteen months (96-98) it was work enough 
 to establish good relations with the senate, put an 
 end to Domitian's prosecutions for treason and 
 " Jewish living," and safely pass on the Empire to 
 the stronger hands of Trajan. With the Christians he 
 had no special concern, though Flavia Domitilla must 
 have returned to Eome with the rest of the exiles. 
 
 Though Trajan (98-117) was not a man of genius, 
 he ranks by common consent among the greatest of 
 the emperors. In the coarse inventions of a later 
 age he is represented as a brutal persecutor : but the 
 Christians of the third century strove hard to make 
 him out less hostile to them than he really was. In 
 history we see the conqueror of Decebalus, the great 
 emperor who humbled Parthia as she never was 
 humbled before, and carried the victorious eagles 
 through regions whose very names were half unknown 
 to his wondering senate. It was a doubtful policy 
 to push his conquests so far beyond the limits of 
 Augustus at the Danube and the Euphrates ; but 
 there can be no question that Trajan was an 
 administrator of the highest order. If his letters 
 shew few signs of far-seeing statesmanship, they are 
 models of practical good sense and clear-headed 
 prudence. Trajan is a splendid specimen of a 
 
128 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Roman governor at his best. Such a man was too 
 much of a Eoman and too much of a soldier to be 
 other than hostile to the Christians, yet too humane 
 and too practical to take pleasure in persecuting 
 them, and rather disposed to leave them alone as 
 much as he safely could. This is what we see in his 
 correspondence with Pliny, which contains all that 
 we know of his personal action against them. 
 
 Soon after the middle of his reign, the province of 
 Bithynia needed serious attention. The cities had 
 got into financial straits by excess of public buildings 
 and general rivalry with each other. They were 
 also full of clubs of all sorts, which had already 
 caused much disorder, and were likely to give rise to 
 more. So Trajan chose the younger Pliny as his 
 legate for Bithynia. Sixty questions referred to the 
 emperor in eighteen months (111-112) betray a 
 certain weakness in Pliny : ^ yet he was upright and 
 humane, a good man of business, and well acquainted 
 with the province. He began in his edict by for- 
 bidding the existence of clubs. After this he examined 
 the finances of the cities, and went on a tour of 
 inspection. At Amastris he found that the river 
 which ran through the town was an open sewer, 
 and asked permission to cover it up. At Amisus 
 he referred to Trajan the question of a new benefit 
 society : and the answer was that it could not be 
 forbidden in a free city, but must be strictly limited 
 to charitable purposes. The Christians were as open 
 law-breakers as the brigands, and his course was clear 
 enough. Without troubling himself about any special 
 
 I The tone of Trajan's answers shews that his close supervision of Bithynia 
 must not be taken as a fair sample of the regulation of provinces in general 
 by the emperors. 
 
VII TRAJAN 129 
 
 charges against them, he executed summarily those 
 who persistently avowed themselves to be Christians — 
 of course reserving Roman citizens for trial at Rome. 
 So far well : but he came to a difficulty when further 
 anonymous charges were laid before him. They 
 implicated numbers of all ranks and ages in town 
 and country, for the unlawful worship was so widely 
 spread that the temples were almost deserted ; and 
 there was no knowing how many more would prove 
 to be involved in it. Moreover, the case was not so 
 simple as it was at first. Some denied the charge 
 entirely, and made good their denial by proper 
 worship of the gods and the emperor's image, and by 
 further cursing Christ. These could safely be set 
 free : but what was to be done with Christians who 
 had given up their Christianity for three, ten or even 
 twenty years ? They were sound heathens now, and 
 proved it by the same tests as the others ; and when 
 their past life was examined, their Christianity did 
 not appear ever to have been grossly immoral. They 
 used to meet before daylight on a fixed day, and sing 
 by turns a hymn to Christ as a god ; and if they 
 bound themselves by an oath, it was not to commit 
 any crime, but to abstain from theft, adultery and 
 the like. In the evening they met again, but their 
 food was quite harmless ; and even from this they 
 had absented themselves ^ since Pliny's edict. This, 
 they said, was all. Upon this two women of low 
 rank who bore the honourable name of deaconesses 
 were examined by torture, but no further discovery 
 was made. No abominations came to light, only 
 a perverse and arrogant superstition. So Pliny 
 
 ' In quod ipsum facere desisse surely the renegades are only speaking of 
 themselves. 
 
 VOL. I K 
 
130 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 adjourned the case, and hastened to consult the 
 emperor. The question was not what the law meant 
 or whether he was to carry it out, for he was not 
 acting on any special law, nor yet about his com- 
 petence to punish Christians at his discretion like 
 other disturbers of the peace, but whether it was 
 good policy to go on putting to death as many of them 
 as might be discovered. No monstrous crimes had 
 been found out ; and many of them could plead sex or 
 youth, or had long ago repented of their offence. At all 
 events, a milder policy might be worth trial, especially 
 in consideration of the numbers of all ranks implicated. 
 
 Trajan answers shortly that Pliny has done well. 
 No general rule can be laid down, so that he must 
 use his discretion. They are not to be sought out ; 
 but if they are accused and found guilty, they must 
 be punished. Yet if a man says that he is no longer 
 a Christian, and shews his repentance by worshipping 
 the gods, he is to be pardoned. Anonymous charges 
 however are in no case to be received. 
 
 This may be humanity : but it is not toleration. 
 Trajan's care is not for the Christian, though he 
 plainly acquits him of the abominable crimes, but for 
 the heathen who has gone wrong in the past, or is in 
 danger from informers. The Christian remains an 
 outlaw ; but the officials are not bound to notice 
 him till some informer brings him into court. Thus 
 he gained a measure of security, for though his life 
 was always at the mercy of an informer, the informer 
 was not always quite free to take it. The heathens 
 themselves in ordinary times had no great liking for 
 the man who brought decent neighbours into trouble ; 
 and even where the Christians were few, their bitter 
 hatred was a thing to be considered. Much however 
 
VII TRAJAN 131 
 
 would depend on the temper of provincial governors. 
 If they could not refuse to punish convicted 
 Christians, they could do a good deal to discourage 
 accusers. Tertullian is not wholly wrong when he 
 says that Trajan " partly frustrated "the persecution. 
 
 Two martyrs stand out from the nameless crowd 
 who must have perished under Trajan. One of these 
 was Symeon the son of Clopas, whom the apostles had 
 set in the place of James, and who now ruled the 
 church that sojourned in the ruins of Jerusalem. 
 Hegesippus ^ tells us that the Judsean churches had 
 peace under Trajan till some heretics accused Symeon 
 before the consular Atticus. His descent from David 
 was not a very serious charge : but Christianity could 
 not be overlooked, so he was tormented for many 
 days, and finally crucified. 
 
 With the other — Ignatius of Antioch — we reach 
 one of the great battles of ecclesiastical controversy. 
 Of late years however it seems settling down into a 
 general acceptance of the seven letters ascribed to him 
 by Eusebius.^ But we are not here concerned with 
 
 ^ Cp. Eus. iii. 32. He regards Symeon as the last of the eyewitnesses and 
 hearers of the Lord : but we need not therefore believe that he was quite 
 120 years old. The date of the consular Atticus is unknown. 
 
 ^ The letters of Ignatius are extant in three forms : — 
 
 (1) Loiig Recension. Thirteen letters, including one from Mary of Casso- 
 bola to Ignatius. Printed in Latin 1498, in Greek 1557. 
 
 (2) Middle (or Vossian) Receiision. The seven letters named by Eusebius 
 H.E. iii. 36. Pnblished in Latin by Ussher 1644, the Greek text of six by 
 Isaac Voss 1646, and Ep. Rom. by Ruinart 1689. 
 
 (3) Short (or Curetonian) Recension. Three letters. Published in Syriac 
 by Cureton 1845. 
 
 The Long Recension was proved by Ussher to be a forgery, and has found 
 few defeuiiers since his time. It is the Vossian with interpolations and six 
 additional letters, and dates (Lightfoot) from the second half of the fourth 
 century. 
 
 But were even the Vossian letters genuine ? Daill^ (1666) attacked them, 
 Pearson (1672) replied ; and thenceforth commonly episcopalians defended 
 them, while others held them spurious or interpolated. 
 
132 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Ignatius as tlie first great champion of episcopacy ; 
 only with the light he throws on the policy of Trajan. 
 The contrast is a striking one, between the calm 
 dignity and lofty reticence of the Roman Clement 
 and the passionate broken sentences of the Syrian 
 martyr on his way to death. Ignatius was a 
 thorough Eastern, despite the Samnite name he bears. 
 Of his life we know next to nothing, though he 
 seems to hint that his conversion was a violent 
 change in full manhood. If he is called an apostolic 
 man, it is not implied that he conversed with apostles, 
 though he may have been old enough to do so ; and 
 there is no evidence that he did.^ He was bishop of 
 Antioch, but we have no authentic accounts of his 
 
 The question was coraplioated by the discovery of the Curetonian letters. 
 Were these the genuine Ignatius, or at least the earlier recension ; or were 
 they extracts from the Vossian ? On one side stood Cureton himself, Bunsen, 
 Lipsius (1859) etc. : on the other Baur, Hilgenfeld, Lipsius (1873) etc., and 
 especially Zahn and Lightfoot (1885). 
 
 It is needless to give more than the shortest outline of the argument for 
 the priority and genuineness of the Vossian Letters. We have (A) External 
 Evidence (1) Direct reference by Polycarp, decisive if genuine; quotations in 
 Irenseus and Oi'igen ; allusions elsewhere ; but no clear trace anywhere of the 
 Curetonian recension. (2) Unquestioned references to the Vossian from 
 Eusebius onward. (B) Internal Evidence. It must have been much easier 
 to abridge the Vossian than to expand the Curetonian. (1) If the Vossian 
 letters are earlier, they will be homogeneous : if they are an expansion of the 
 Curetonian, the added matter can be distinguished from the rest. Now (a) 
 they are homogeneous in words and language, (b) they keep the sequence of 
 thought much better than the Curetonian, (c) the doctrine is the same 
 throughout. Add to this (2) the early type of the doctrine, and of the 
 heresies alluded to, (3) a remarkable series of undesigned coincidences in 
 connexion with the journey, (4) the difficulty of accounting for the letters as a 
 later forgery. 
 
 This is fairly decisive, for there is nothing much in the doubts whether 
 episcopacy could have been so well developed in the time of Ignatius, or 
 whether he would have been allowed to write letters on his journey. 
 Harnaok's attempt to shift his date to the time of Hadrian was not success- 
 ful : indeed, he has now himself abandoned it. 
 
 ' We need not notice the legend derived from his second name Theophorus, 
 that Ignatius was the child whom the Lord took in his arms. It has not 
 been traced beyond the end of the ninth century. 
 
vn TRAJAN 133 
 
 episcopate. Even of his trial we know only that he 
 was condemned to be devoured of beasts, and sent to 
 Rome for the purpose. He cannot therefore have 
 been a Roman citizen like St. Paul. Presently a 
 company is made up, and he starts on his long 
 journey in charge of ten " leopards," so that the 
 whole distance from Syria to Rome was itself " a 
 beast-fight." At Smyrna he receives deputies from 
 the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles, and 
 sends back letters to them ; also a letter forward to 
 prepare his friends at Rome for the scene in the 
 amphitheatre. From Smyrna he goes on his way to 
 Troas, whence he writes three more letters to the 
 churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Poly- 
 carp the bishop of Smyrna, on the eve of crossing to 
 Neapolis. Thence to Philippi, where we first find 
 other Christians in his company, doubtless on their 
 way with him to death ; and after this we hear no 
 more. 
 
 Ignatius is in strong contrast even with his 
 Christian surroundings. His temper is utterly un- 
 like that of Clement, or even of Polycarp. He looks 
 on the Empire in something of St. John's way : but 
 the Evangelist's lofty scorn is turned into a shout of 
 defiance. " Nothing visible is good." The work is 
 not of persuasion, but Christianity must act with a 
 strong hand. As for himself, he is going of his own 
 free will to die for God. May he have joy of the 
 beasts that are prepared for him ; and if they will 
 not eat him, he will make them do it. The one fear 
 which torments him is that his Roman friends may 
 try to rescue him from the death he has set his heart 
 upon. Yet these very letters are enough to shew 
 that others thought differently. In the first place. 
 
134 CHURCH HISTORY chap, vn 
 
 we have no reason to suppose that there was any such 
 persecution at Antioch, as Pliny records for Bithynia. 
 Again, there cannot have been anything like active 
 persecution at Eome, if he had influential friends who 
 might be able to get his sentence altered. Above all, 
 the exaggerated tone of his letters is evidence enough 
 that his general attitude of defiance to the Empire 
 would not have been everywhere approved. Far be 
 it from us coldly to condemn the fiery words of one 
 who was giving his life for Christ : yet from many 
 signs it is clear that Ignatius is the very last man 
 to be taken as a sample of Christian opinion in his 
 own time. 
 
 Books 
 See V. ; also : Franklin Arnold Zur plinian. Christenverfasswng. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 
 
 In a few years we look again. The martyr has 
 received his crown ; the great emperor too has passed 
 away, and Hadrian reigns in his stead. Trajan's 
 glory was clouded by his repulse from Hatra, and his 
 last days were disturbed by the revolt of Parthia, 
 and by Jewish risings all over the East. The Empire 
 was overstrained by Trajan's wars, and needed rest. 
 So Hadrian made peace with Parthia by drawing 
 back the frontier to the Euphrates, suppressed the 
 risings, and settled down to a life of busy travel and 
 administration. There was peace in the Roman world 
 for forty years, all through the reigns of Hadrian and 
 Pius, till trouble began again on the Euphrates and 
 the Danube in the days of Marcus. 
 
 There was just one great break in the long peace. 
 Israel had not been crushed by Titus. If Judaea was 
 ruined, the mass of the nation belonged to the 
 dispersion. The Jews of Galilee had suffered less in 
 the war, those of distant countries very little. Nor 
 was Rome a persecutor. Vespasian had to put down 
 some troubles in Egypt and Cyrene, and closed the 
 schismatic temple of Leontopolis. Insulting as was 
 the payment of the half shekel as a tax for Jupiter 
 Capitolinus he had no plan of persecution. The Jews 
 
 135 
 
136 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 were not otherwise molested. Even the Sanhedrin 
 was allowed to meet again in Jamnia, and its 
 president Johanan ben Zaccai kept the peace with 
 Rome. But in the next generation the Jews re- 
 covered confidence. The great rabbi Akiba was now 
 the teacher of Israel ; and he set himself to stir up 
 all the enemies of Eome, and raise the fires of war 
 all over the East. Trajan's campaigns were watched 
 with malicious interest. The opportunity came in 
 116, when he was pushing down the Tigris to the 
 Persian Gulf The Jews rose behind him in Egypt 
 and Cyrene, Cyprus and Osrhoene, and slaughtered 
 Gentiles wholesale. Some 240,000 Greeks are said 
 to have been killed in Cyprus alone. But Eome was 
 still too strong for them. The revolts were crushed 
 out in still huger butcheries of Jews, though they 
 succeeded in shattering Trajan's plans before the 
 walls of Hatra. If Hadrian began with mildness, he 
 soon changed his policy, and set himself to crush out 
 Judaism by persecution. Circumcision was forbidden, 
 Jerusalem turned into a colony of heathen soldiers. 
 The second Jewish war broke out about 132. Bar 
 Cochab ' was hailed King of the Jews — the last and 
 greatest of the false Messiahs — and soon mastered 
 the chief part of Palestine. Only the Christians 
 refused to help him, and were bitterly persecuted for 
 their loyalty to the Empire. Once again Jewish 
 fanaticism was an overmatch for the legions. First 
 the governor Tineius Rufus was defeated, then two 
 proconsuls of Syria ; and Hadrian himself could not 
 check them till he sent to Britain for Julius Severus, 
 and even he was forced to deal with the Jews as 
 
 ^ The Son of a Star (Num. xxiv. 17). After his defeat he was called 
 Bar Cozib, the Son of a Lie. 
 
VIII HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 137 
 
 Fabius dealt with Hannibal. Step by step lie dis- 
 lodged them from their lines in Galilee, forced them 
 back on Mount Ephraim without a battle, and finished 
 the war by the capture of Bethar. Bar Cochab 
 perished in the slaughter, and a hideous persecution 
 followed. Akiba was put to death, and Jewish 
 observances were forbidden. So extreme was the 
 danger that the rabbis issued a dispensation from all 
 things but fornication, idolatry, and meats offered to 
 idols. The mere approach of a Jew to the heathen 
 Jerusalem was made a capital crime. The copies of 
 the law were burnt with those who studied them ; 
 and the rabbinic succession was only kept up with 
 the utmost difficulty. 
 
 The strain did not last long. Though the Jews 
 were anything but loyal subjects, they could not help 
 seeing that there was nothing to be gained by revolt. 
 Rome on her side stopped the persecution after 
 Hadrian's death in 138. The new emperor Titus 
 Antoninus could afford to drop it. So things settled 
 down again, with contemptuous toleration on one 
 side, sullen quiet on the other. Though there were 
 still some Jewish troubles, the great strife of Israel 
 and Rome for the empire of the East was at an end. 
 
 If Trajan was the first emperor who came from 
 the provinces, Hadrian (117-138) was the first who 
 devoted himself to the provinces, and was hardly 
 more than a visitor at Rome. Domitian stood for 
 the old religion of Rome, Trajan for her old ambition : 
 Hadrian cared little for either. He was a man of his 
 own age, who preferred peace and literature to war 
 and Roman austerity. He was more Greek than 
 Roman, more cosmopolitan than either, for his restless 
 curiosity embraced all the creeds and cultures and 
 
138 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 antiquities of all the peoples of the Empire. He 
 discussed literature and philosophy with the pro- 
 fessors, bandied verses with the wits, climbed Etna 
 to see the sunrise, and visited the pyramids like a 
 modern tourist. He was a master of the arts of peace 
 and war, and had the accomplishments of a ruler and 
 a private man. For many-sided culture there was 
 none like Hadrian but Divus Julius before him, 
 and Gallienus after him. But if Hadrian was no 
 such trifler as Gallienus, neither had he Csesar's 
 genius. As a general, he was familiar with military 
 science in all its range ; as a ruler, he inspected every 
 province of the Empire and mastered every detail of 
 the administration ; ^ as a man, he misses greatness. 
 With all his brilliant gifts of cleverness and versatility, 
 there is a fatal want of balance in his uncertain 
 temper, his vanity and jealousy, in his dilettantism, 
 and in the contemptuous shallowness which pervades 
 his letter to Servianus,^ and had long ago brought on 
 him a galling rebuke from Trajan. 
 
 ^ While emperor he was prsetor in Etruria, held magistracies in sundry 
 Latin towns, was demarch at Naples, quinquennalis at Italioa and Hadria, 
 archon at Athens. 
 
 ^ Vopiscus V. Saturnini 8. There is no special reason to doubt its 
 genuineness. Literary shallowness and scornful scepticism go very well 
 together and with Hadrian. Nor does Diirr Reisen Hadr. 88 make out a 
 plausible purpose for the interpolations he suggests. 
 
 As regards the one serious difficulty — Serviaiio CmisuH (134) in contrast 
 with filiu7ii meum Verum (136) — something may be added to Lightfoot's 
 argument Ignatius i. 481. He distinguishes the title of Cissar conferred in 
 136 from a designation ("some sort of adoption . . . some steps . . . some 
 intentions ") which may have been made long before. The two were separ- 
 ated in the case of Pius, who was designated Jan. 24, 138 {V. Hadr. 26) 
 though the adrogatio and Caesarship date from Feb. 25 {V. Pii 4). The 
 interval may have been much greater in the case of Verus, for the need was 
 less urgent in an earlier stage of Hadrian's illness, and Verus was a young 
 and untried man. His designation must be placed in 134 at latest, to leave 
 room for the prastorship before his two consulships of 136, 137. Julius 
 Capitolinus {V. Veri 1) puts the birth of the younger Verus, which seems 
 fixed for 130 or 131, m prcKtura patris sui. Tillemont Empereurs, ii. 529, 
 
VIII HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 139 
 
 In spite of his soldierly virtues and care for the 
 Roman ceremonies, Hadrian was less Roman than 
 any emperor before him ; so it was as well for him 
 that he spent most of his time in the provinces. 
 The executions which cost him his popularity were 
 near the opposite ends of his reign. In 118 came 
 the conspiracy of the four consulars, including Lusius 
 Quietus and Cornelius Palma, the conquerors of 
 Atropatene and Arabia. This time the Senate was 
 loyal, and hurriedly put the conspirators to death 
 while Hadrian was on the Danube. If the conspiracy 
 was real, it marked the discontent of Trajan's generals 
 at the abandonment of Trajan's characteristically 
 Roman policy of conquest. Though Hadrian was 
 very respectful to the Senate — he gave them after 
 the conspiracy the coveted oath to put to death no 
 senator but on the Senate's own sentence — he did 
 not a little to increase the emperor's power at their 
 expense by subjecting Italy like a province to four 
 consular judges, and by organizing a permanent civil 
 service of equites on lines which even Constantine 
 did not greatly change. The latent antagonism 
 came out in 134, when Hadrian returned in broken 
 health to die in Italy. His last illness was a reign of 
 terror for the Senate; and only the piety of his 
 successor and the fear of the army saved his memory 
 
 proposes quaestura : and in any case Verus cannot well have been praetor then, 
 if he was with Hadrian in Egypt. 
 
 Perhaps Gregorovius {Kaiser Hadrian 164) does best by reminding us 
 that filium need not be taken in a legal sense. The position of Veius may 
 have resembled Hadrian's own after his marriage with Sabina, as a practically 
 though not formally or irrevocably designated successor. A further suggestion 
 to read Sergiano for Serviano throws back the date to 132, and is tempting : 
 against it however is the familiar character of the letter. 
 
 The general doubts about the documents in Vopiscus do not seem specially 
 to affect this letter. 
 
I40 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 from the condemnation meted out to tyrants like 
 Nero and Domitian. 
 
 That successor was himself a senator of mature 
 age, and represents a senatorial reaction. Titus 
 Aurelius Antoninus came of a Gaulish family long 
 settled in Italy. Of his grandfathers, T. Aurelius 
 Fulvus was consul twice, and Prsefect of the City ; 
 Axrius Antoninus was also consul twice, and a famous 
 proconsul of Asia. Under their training (his father 
 died young) Antoninus grew up a blameless model of 
 Roman virtue, passing through the usual ofl&cial 
 course, till he too reached the proconsulship of Asia, 
 and thence the emperor's inner council. A few years 
 later, when Hadrian was dying, and his designated 
 successor L. Aelius Verus was dead, his second and 
 happier choice fell on Antoninus. In the long line 
 of emperors there are few so amiable as the grave 
 and gentle Antoninus Pius, yet few so free from 
 weakness. He was an old official who knew when 
 severity was needed, and could hold firmly to a 
 carefully formed opinion, yet was always willing to 
 learn — a man of simple habits and simple sense of 
 duty, who cared as little for the pomp of state as for 
 the clamours of the populace. Antoninus was a 
 Roman noble of the best sort, without Hadrian's 
 brilliancy, but also free from Hadrian's vanity. His 
 real regard too for religion and quiet following of 
 ancient custom contrasted well with Hadrian's bitter 
 scepticism. But Antoninus " was no reformer." 
 Instead of looking forward like Hadrian to the real 
 mission of the Empire in the world, he was quite 
 satisfied to keep things nearly as he found them. 
 He came in as a stop-gap, because Annius Verus was 
 not old enough to govern ; and he scarcely attempted 
 
vni HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 141 
 
 to be mucli more than an administrator. The few 
 changes he made were mostly backward moves, as 
 when he restored to the Senate its jurisdiction over 
 Italy. His reign was peaceful — a second Numa's 
 reign, for he left the Parthian War to his successor — 
 and stagnant, for the Koman world was too well 
 pleased with itself, and too contemptuous of barbarian 
 migrations, to notice the first stirrings of the whirl- 
 wind from the north. 
 
 As regards the Christians, the reigns of Hadrian 
 and Titus Antoninus (117-161) may be taken 
 together. Things generally followed the lines laid 
 down by Trajan. Rulers are few whose personal 
 character counts for more than the permanent policy 
 of the state and the influence of their surroundings ; 
 and even Hadrian was not one of those few — far less 
 Antoninus. The permanent policy of the Empire had 
 been well stated by Trajan ; and the Christians could 
 not hope for much from the men who advised his 
 successors. The jurists had no liking for " people 
 who troubled men's minds with new worships " ; ^ 
 philosophers and rhetoricians like Rusticus and 
 Fronto were bitter enemies ; and the great praetorian 
 prsefects, Marcius Turbo (119-135) and Gavius 
 Maximus (140-157) were stern soldiers, not likely 
 to deal more gently with them than Lollius Urbicus 
 dealt with Ptolemseus and the rest.^ 
 
 There might seem to be a minor hope in Hadrian's 
 personal character, for he must have had a sort of 
 interest in Christianity as in everything else. On 
 the strength of this Quadratus, and perhaps Aristides, 
 
 1 PauUus Sent. v. 21. He writes dr. 220, and liis phrase would at least 
 include the Christians. 
 - Justin Ax>ol. ii. 2. 
 
142 CHURCH HISTORY 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 ventured to present an Apology to him. As to its 
 influence on him, we can only say that he was not 
 the man to take it seriously. However, Justin and 
 Melito praise him for his justice and for checking 
 lawless assaults, while the legends make him a brutal 
 persecutor. A single rescript survives in which 
 Hadrian speaks for himself 
 
 The informers had not been slow to find a use for 
 Christianity. If it was not always a safe charge to 
 make, it had the advantage of exposing even the 
 soundest heathen to serious dangers of lawless violence 
 before the trial, and of slanders that were likely to 
 stick to him after it. So Licinius Silvanus Granianus, 
 proconsul of Asia cir. 123, 124, referred the matter 
 to Hadrian, who thought it too important to be 
 dropped when Granianus went out of office. His 
 answer is addressed to Minucius Fundanus, the 
 successor of Granianus. He writes, he says, in order 
 that innocent persons may not be molested, and that 
 informers may not get the chance of levying black- 
 mail. If then provincials wish to appear against 
 Christians and prove some crime against them in 
 open court, they may do so : only they must not try 
 to force a condemnation by mere prayers and outcries. 
 The right course is for an accuser to make his charge, 
 and the magistrate to try it summarily (cognoscere). 
 If then any one accuses them and proves some act 
 contrary to law, Fundanus will punish the offenders 
 as they deserve ; but he will take particular care that 
 if the charge turns out vexatious [calumniae gratia) 
 the accuser shall be severely punished {suppliciis 
 severioribus). 
 
 This is no edict of toleration. Its purport is not 
 that the Christian has ceased to be a criminal, but 
 
VIII HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 143 
 
 that the heathen must be protected from false 
 charges. As Trajan forbade Pliny to act on anony- 
 mous letters, so Hadrian forbids Fundanus to act on 
 the outcries of mobs : and Melito tells us that others 
 of his rescripts were to the same effect.^ But in 
 protecting the heathen, he gives a good deal of 
 shelter to the Christian. He forces the accuser to 
 come out from the crowd and take his personal re- 
 sponsibility. If he made good his charge, he was a 
 marked man to even the better sort of heathens : if 
 he failed, severe punishment awaited him. Nor 
 could he be sure what he had to prove, for Hadrian 
 leaves the question open. Some governors would 
 interpret him as meaning that it was enough 
 to prove the accused a Christian, while others 
 would punish the accuser if he failed to prove some 
 further breach of law. The risk of this uncertainty 
 must have gone a long way to discourage perse- 
 cutions : and this no doubt Hadrian intended. The 
 Christians could fairly say that he was so far their 
 friend as to consider them less dangerous than the 
 informers.^ 
 
 Telesphorus of Rome is the only martyr known 
 by name from Hadrian's time ; and it is not quite 
 clear whether he belongs to the last months of 
 
 ' ap. Eus. iv. 26. 
 
 ^ Keim, Baur, v. Schubert (MoUer, K.G.- i. 185-6) count the rescript a 
 forgery, but for no very good reasons. The mistake in the proconsul's name 
 (Serenius for Silvanus) is a trifle ; and so is Justin's awkward way of tacking 
 it on to his Apology. The genuineness of the Latin in Rufinus is irrelevant. 
 The silence of Tatian, Atbenagoras, and Tertullian is outweighed by the direct 
 reference of Melito {ap. Eus. iv. 26). Nor is the policy of the rescript out of 
 character with Hadrian. If even Trajan did not want the Christians hunted 
 out, the cosmopolitan Hadrian may have gone a step further, and discouraged 
 prosecutions. Christianity was a, crime, of course ; but it was rather a folly 
 than d, danger, and more harm than good was done by a pedantical 
 observance of the law. 
 
 The rescript is accepted by Lightfoot, Mommsen, and Harnack. 
 
144 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Hadrian or to the first of Antoninus/ Yet we must 
 not assume that there were no martyrs because we 
 hear of none. The mobs must have had victims, 
 whatever the emperor might do ; and governors who 
 disliked the Christians could still do a good deal 
 to make accusations easy. The rescript was not 
 illogical ; but it was a half measure which pleased 
 neither side, and of necessity was gradually forgotten 
 — at least by the officials. 
 
 Antoninus was more dangerous than Hadrian to 
 the Christians. His genuine religion and his friendly 
 relation to the Senate both made him hostile to them ; 
 the only thiug in their favour was the want of 
 initiative which in the main kept him on the lines 
 of his predecessors. Thus we hear of a persecution 
 at Athens, which carried off Publius the bishop and 
 scattered his flock ; but we also hear that Antoninus 
 wrote to " Larissa and Thessalonica and Athens and 
 all the Greeks " to forbid riots. ^ Hadrian's system 
 continued, but it must have been worked less favour- 
 ably to the Christians. Accordingly, we find not 
 only more actual persecution than in Hadrian's time, 
 but more traces of unrecorded persecution. Hermas 
 and Justin are full of memories and forebodings of 
 persecution. The case of Ptolemseus and two others 
 recorded by Justin^ belongs to the later years of 
 Antoninus, or more precisely dr. 152 ; and it shews 
 how summarily a hostile Prsefect like LoUius Urbicus 
 might deal with Christians. A heathen complained 
 that Ptolemseus had taught his wife Christianity. 
 
 ^ IreiiEEua iii. 3 answers for the fact. Eus. iv. 10 puts it in tlie first year 
 of Antoninus ; but the chronology of the Roman bishops rather points to the 
 time of Hadrian's illness. So Lightfoot and Hamack. 
 
 2 Melito supra. 
 
 ' Justin Apol. ii. 2. Harnack A.C.L. i. 274 for the date. 
 
VIII HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 145 
 
 When the case comes on, Ptolemseus is only asked 
 whether he is a Christian, and ordered straight to 
 execution. Urbicus does not waste a word on him. 
 A bystander who remonstrates is asked the same 
 question, and ordered at once to execution : then 
 another is dealt with in the same way. There is no 
 sign of any regular persecution going on ; yet here 
 are three death sentences in three minutes. They 
 are not even asked to swear or sacrifice, but summarily 
 condemned on confession of the Name. 
 
 But Asia was still the centre of Christendom, and 
 from Asia came the most illustrious victim of the 
 reign of Antoninus. 
 
 As the apostles passed away, so did their disciples 
 after them. Fewer and fewer year by year survived 
 of the elders who had seen St. John, and Polycarp 
 of Smyrna must have been nearly the last of them.^ 
 
 ' Hamack's attempt to throw doubt on this fact (A.C'.L. i. 657) seems a 
 complete failure. 
 
 It is agreed (at least by Harnack) — 1, that Ireneeus and Florinus were 
 disciples of Polycarp. 2, that Polycarp was a disciple of one John in Asia. 
 3, that Irenseus believed this John to have been the apostle, and not an elder 
 named John. In this Harnack thinks he was mistaken — that he was quite 
 a small boy when he heard Polycarp, and heard nothing from him but a few 
 sermons. 
 
 Well, Irenseus may have been a boy, though ev rrj wpiirrxi rjXiKic/. points 
 rather to early manhood ; but in any case he must have been a large boy to 
 draw such a picture of Polycarp as he does. He also carefully and expressly 
 tells us that he heard a good deal more than ' ' a few sermons " from Polycarp ; 
 and indeed Polycarp's habit of " stopping his ears and running away with his 
 wonted exclamation " is not a natural ending for a sermon. Harnack airily 
 dismisses the whole picture as a play of fancy, forgetting that there was no 
 sense in drawing it, unless Florinus was certain to recognize the likeness. 
 
 If human nature is not to count for nothing, Irensus can hardly be mis- 
 taken. Consider what a boy's memory is of a teacher he knows and venerates 
 as Irenaeus knows and venerates Polycarp. No memory of my own early life 
 is more indelible than that Dr. Butler and not another was the teacher of 
 my own old master Kennedy. Yet it was not the work of Kennedy's life to 
 deliver faithfully a particular narrative once delivered to him. Many of 
 Polycarp's " stories about the Lord " must have made it plain enough which 
 John was his teacher. Did he never tell them how the Baptist pointed 
 VOL. I L 
 
146 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 If he " had served his Lord fourscore years and six " 
 at his death in 155-6, he must have been bom in the 
 years of confusion 68-70 ; and of Christian parents, 
 for if we take account of his recent journey to Rome, 
 his age cannot much have exceeded 86/ 
 
 Apostles (we do not know who) made him bishop 
 in Smyrna, and Ignatius may have recognized in him 
 the bulwark of the faith in Asia. " Stand like an 
 anvil," he says to him ; and it was the very work 
 for such a man. Polycarp is no genius, but a 
 faithful soldier at his post. His only thought is to 
 keep safe the faith delivered to him, and hand it 
 on to a new circle of disciples. One of these was 
 Irenseus ; another Florinus, who fell away to 
 Gnosticism. 
 
 At only three points of his long life does 
 Polycarp come clear before us. The first of these is 
 in Trajan's time, when he receives his letter from 
 Ignatius, and soon after writes himself to the church 
 at Philippi, to ask in particular for the last news 
 of the martyr, who had passed them on his way to 
 Eome. 
 
 After a space of forty years or so Polycarp is 
 himself in Rome. We are not told what brought him 
 
 out the Lamb of God ? Did he leave out the Crucifixion from his 
 teaching ? Had Polycarp no younger friends to tell their stories about him ? 
 Had Irenseus no older friends to set him right ? Did all the churches go 
 wrong about "the Father of the Christians," as the very heathens called 
 him? 
 
 I have discussed this question more fully in the ConteTnporary Review 
 (February 1897). It does not seem much affected by anything published 
 since. 
 
 ' It is a nice question whether his death was in 155 (Waddington, 
 Lightfoot) or 156 (Turner) but the old date 166 is certainly wrong. 
 
 The 86 years are probably to be reckoned from his birth. If from his 
 baptism, we may be certain that he must have had Christian parents or 
 guardians, for the rite must have been performed in infancy, or at any rate 
 in the next few years. 
 
vm HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 147 
 
 there, or whether this was the visit on which he 
 answered Marcion's request to be recognized with, 
 " I recognize — the firstborn of Satan." Poly carp was 
 not the man to see that even Marcion had got hold 
 of some truths the churches were in danger of forget- 
 ting. However, he discussed the Easter question with 
 Anicetus of Rome ; and if they came to no agreement, 
 they parted friends. 
 
 A little later came the end. It is told in the 
 pathetic letter of the church of Smyrna to the 
 church of Philomelium, written shortly after. ^ A 
 persecution was raging, and eleven Christians had 
 been tortured and given to the beasts at Smyrna. 
 The only recreant we read of is Quintus a Phrygian 
 who came forward of himself, but was brought to 
 reason by a view of the beasts. As a Phrygian, he is 
 likely enough to have been a Montanist ; but in any 
 case, such conduct was not approved by the church of 
 
 ^ The authenticity of the Epistle is established by the evidence of Eusebius, 
 who quotes the chief part of it in H.E. iv. 16, by its own truthful ring, and 
 by various coincidences. The objections to it, with one exception, may fairly 
 be pronounced frivolous. 
 
 It is no doubt a Teiidenzschrift which forces the circumstances of 
 Polycarp's passion into a parallel with our Lord's. But this is common in 
 such narratives from the second century onward, and need throw no doubt 
 on its historical character. The very clumsiness of the parallels fairly 
 guarantees the facts. Polycarp's dream of the burning pillow is natural 
 enough in a time of persecution ; and it was very naturally hailed as a 
 prophecy when it came true. If again we consider the intense excitement 
 of -the scene to the Christians who risked their lives to witness it (and 
 escaped, 4TrjpTiSriiJ.ev) the miraculous element will not seem unlikely. The 
 voice was assumed to be from heaven, for "no man saw the speaker." The 
 iire curved, as it did e.g. with Hooper and Savonarola. The sweet smell 
 may have come from the wood, or even been purely imaginary, as in the 
 case of some of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne (Eus. v. 1) where there 
 was neither wood nor fire. The one serious difficulty is the dove, and this is 
 either a false reading {e.g. yrepl (rrvpaKa, conj. Wordsworth for xepicn-epa) or a 
 very natural gloss, or (Lightfoot) a deliberate forgery of the fourth century. 
 
 See Lightfoot, Ign, i. 615 sg. -. and on the sweet smell Harnack, Z.K.O, 
 ii. 291. 
 
148 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Smyrna. " We praise not such as give themselves 
 up to the authorities, for not so the Gospel teaches." 
 Presently a cry was raised for Polycarp, who had retired 
 to a farm, seemingly one of his own. " God's will 
 be done," when he was discovered, refusing to escape 
 to another estate. Then he ordered food to be set 
 before his captors while he prayed, and was in due 
 course brought to the amphitheatre, where the popu- 
 lace was waiting for him. The din was awful ; but 
 over it rang out the words, " Be strong, Polycarp, 
 and play the man." They must have come from 
 heaven, for no man saw the speaker, though many 
 of us heard the voice. The proconsul bade him 
 swear by Caesar's Genius, and cry " Away with the 
 atheists." The latter he did, but with his eyes to 
 heaven and his hand waving to the crowd. " Curse 
 Christ." " Fourscore years and six have I served 
 him, and he never did me wrong : how then can I 
 revile my King, my Saviour ? " When the herald 
 proclaimed that Polycarp had confessed himself a 
 Christian, the whole multitude cried out against him, 
 This is the Teacher of Asia, the Father of the 
 Christians, the destroyer of our gods, the teacher 
 of many to cease from sacrifice and worship. They 
 shouted to Philip the Asiarch to try a beast on him ; 
 but this, he said, was not lawful, because the games 
 were over. So they decided to have Polycarp burned 
 — fulfilling his dream of his pillow on fire, and his 
 prophecy upon it. No sooner said than done. The 
 Jews (as usual) helped them eagerly to collect the 
 fuel, forgetting a great sabbath in their zeal for so 
 good a work. The old man could hardly loose his 
 shoes, for the reverence of the faithful had always 
 done it for him. He was not nailed in the usual way 
 
viii HADRIAN AND ANTONINUS PIUS 149 
 
 — only tied. At last he stood ready, and offered up a 
 prayer whose echoes we hear ourselves in our Gloria 
 in excelsis. But the flames arched round instead of 
 touching him, and a sweet smell came forth from the 
 pyre. So the miscreants called for the confector or 
 beast-finisher to put his knife into him. And there 
 came forth [a dove and] a quantity of blood, which 
 put out the fire, to the astonishment of all the crowd. 
 This was the end of the glorious Polycarp, the apos- 
 tolic and prophetic teacher of our own time, who was 
 bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna. As the 
 Jews were urgent that the body should not be given 
 up to us, lest forsooth we should leave the Crucified 
 and worship this ofi"ender, the centurion burned it in 
 the middle of the amphitheatre. So afterwards we 
 took up the bones, more valuable than precious 
 stones and more refined than gold, and laid them 
 up in a fitting place. 
 
 Books. — See V. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MARCUS ATJBELItrS ANTONINUS 
 
 The succession question was always a difficulty in 
 the Empire. The choice was commonly between a 
 civil war and a weak reign, for a man brought up 
 to arbitrary power usually turns out badly. All the 
 worst emperors (till Phocas) came in by way of 
 inheritance. No emperor ever passed over a son old 
 enough to reign ; but if he had no son, he might 
 escape from the dilemma by adopting some approved 
 person. Galba tried the plan without success, but 
 the quiet of the second century was largely due to 
 the use of it. Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian at first, 
 simply designated their own successors by adoption ; 
 but when L. Verus died (Jan. 1, 138) Hadrian settled 
 the succession for two generations at once. As M. 
 Annius Verus was only seventeen, and rather weakly, 
 he adopted Antoninus instead, but required him in his 
 turn to adopt not only Annius Verus, but Lucius 
 Verus the son of his former choice, who was only a 
 boy. After Hadrian's death, Antoninus gave his 
 daughter Faustina to Marcus (146) and designated 
 him alone as his successor, treating Verus rather as 
 a reserve in case Marcus should be laid aside by his 
 weak health. It was a dangerous piece of generosity 
 when Marcus took him for his colleague on the death 
 
 150 
 
CH. IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 151 
 
 of Antoninus in 161. Fortunately Verus proved 
 insignificant, and died in 169. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — to give him his 
 imperial name — was neither a genius nor a statesman 
 nor a general. He had nothing but a rare kindliness 
 and a lofty sense of duty to bring the Empire through 
 the greatest dangers that had yet assailed it. Sweet- 
 ness of character is rare among the emperors ; we 
 scarcely meet it again except in Severus Alexander 
 and John Comnenus : but in his lofty sense of duty 
 Marcus stands alone among them. Julian is most 
 like him ; but Julian was bitter, and his conscience 
 was not so searching. Marcus was no rhetorician, but 
 a philosopher from the age of twelve, and regulated 
 every act and word and thought by the strictest rule 
 of Stoic discipline. No Christian saint could surpass 
 him in severity to his own failings and charity to 
 those of others. Yet there is nothing Christian in his 
 scanty creed. He believes firmly in a Power behind 
 the world : but of what sort is it ? He speaks of the 
 gods, and that their concern in human affairs is beyond 
 dispute. He was diligent in attending the public 
 ceremonies, and his sacrifices were a proverb, like 
 Julian's. But he also uses pantheistic and mono- 
 theistic language, and seems practically certain only 
 of Fate, and of the wise man's independence. He is 
 quite doubtful even of a future life. Hence his 
 severity is neither the Christian's hatred of sin nor 
 the ascetic's hatred of pleasure, but the Stoic's 
 contempt of outward things as indifferent. Similarly, 
 his charity to others is largely due to the fatalistic 
 belief that fools will be fools, and it is folly to complain. 
 Marcus has no thought of appealing to the fool's better 
 nature ; for on Stoic principles the fool is altogether 
 
152 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 born in folly, so that there is no better nature to 
 appeal to. So Marcus might be a saint himself, but 
 he never strove like the Christians to turn common 
 men into saints. 
 
 Yet his charity was real, and so real that some set 
 it down for his worst fault as a ruler. He could see 
 merit in any one, and gave great offence to Society 
 by choosing the illiterate Bassseus Eufus for his 
 Praetorian Prsefect; but he could scarcely believe 
 evil of any one. His noble charity must often have 
 drawn out the better self of men ; and even if it was 
 abused, he may not have been more deceived than 
 meaner men. No doubt his heart was in a Stoic's 
 dream-world, but he was not unpractical for this 
 world also, and his patient labour was rewarded by 
 some of the greatest successes in Eoman history. 
 There was hard fighting on the Euphrates and the 
 Danube, and a pestilence at home which must have 
 swept away more than half the population of the 
 Empire. Marcus never wavered. The Parthian war 
 began with a legion destroyed at Elegeia, but it 
 ended in conquests which rivalled those of Trajan ; 
 the Germans forced their way into Italy and slew a 
 Praetorian Prsefect, but no emperor came so near as 
 Marcus to the conquest of Germany. Little as he 
 liked war, that side of his work was thoroughly done. 
 His administration also was laborious and humane. 
 The great jurists under Stoic inspiration had long been 
 endeavouring to soften the worst harshnesses of Roman 
 law ; and the work went on the quicker with a Stoic 
 on the throne. Taxation was adjusted, the patria 
 potestas was limited, the charities of Nerva and 
 Trajan were extended, the position of women was 
 improved, and some of the worst abuses of slavery 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 153 
 
 were forbidden. It is true that all this good work 
 was destroyed in the next century ; but the mortal 
 sickness of the ancient world was far beyond the skill 
 of Marcus, or indeed of Divus Julius himself. The 
 Empire itself, with all its grandeur, was no more than 
 a palliative which delayed the ruin for five hundred 
 years. It was but of the KaTap<yovfxevoi} Meanwhile 
 the services of Marcus were real, and they were not 
 unrecognized by his subjects. Society might look 
 askance on his carelessness of class pride, and generals 
 like Avidius Cassius might take for granted that a 
 philosopher must be a weakling : but Augustus him- 
 self in his old age was not more loved than Marcus, 
 though like a true Stoic, he cared nothing for 
 popularity. Even the Christians were overawed by 
 his saintly fame. And it was enduring. Courtiers 
 may first have placed his image among their house- 
 hold gods ; but it was not courtiers who still kept it 
 there in Constantine's time. 
 
 The Christians are the one exception to the all- 
 embracing charity of Marcus. He never mentions 
 them but once, where he says that the wise man will 
 face death deliberately and gravely, " not in sheer 
 obstinacy like the Christians," or with any bravado.^ 
 It would be rash to conclude from this that he knew 
 very little about them ; but we do not find that he 
 had any personal acquaintance with them, and there 
 is no reason to think it would have improved his 
 opinion of them. His teachers the philosophers 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. ii. 6 — a keen touch of historic insight. 
 
 ^ Med. xi. 3 Kara. fiXr/j- irapdra^iv, which perhaps goes best into American, 
 as "pure cussedness. " 
 
 He may have met a Christian in his youth. Med. i. 17 he thanks the 
 gods, "that I never touched Benedicta." The name sounds Christian, and 
 the context shews that (whether by her own fault or not) she was a temptation 
 to him. 
 
1 54 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 must have been very hostile to them : Fronto certainly 
 believed the worst stories told of them. Marcus 
 probably did not ; ^ but in any case he agreed with 
 Pliny and Urbicus, that a firm avowal of Christianity 
 was of itself obstinacy worthy of death. They were 
 rebels to begin with, and that was enough. Marcus 
 had nothing of Hadrian's curiosity, and indeed there 
 was not much in the Gospel that he would have 
 found attractive. Christ was very unlike a philo- 
 sopher, and the sin and the atonement of which 
 He spoke were meaningless to a Stoic. Faith was 
 base and hope was vain and love was weak, when 
 viewed from the Stoic's pedestal of haughty in- 
 dependence. It was an absurd fanaticism, and the 
 courage it inspired was mere perverseness and 
 bravado. Other emperors might share his Eoman 
 feeling, his regard for the state religion, his love of 
 order, his dislike of show : but it was the pride of 
 philosophy that made him one of the most determined 
 enemies of the Christians, and the most conscientious 
 of them all. In some ways he was more dangerous 
 to them than Decius or Diocletian, for they had to be 
 careful how they charged him with injustice. Com- 
 plaints against a Nero might be readily received, and 
 even Decius or Valerian was no more than a fine 
 sample of Eoman virtue : but all men counted Marcus 
 for a saint. Surely such a man would not have 
 persecuted them without good reason. 
 
 The persecution went on with increased severity 
 throughout the reign of Marcus. The Christians 
 were more in number, and therefore more conspicuous, 
 
 ^ Eus. V. 1 el S^ Tives 6,pvoivTo roirovs dirciXuS^^'ai seems to mean what 
 Trajan meant. If they were set free the moment they were cleared of 
 Christianity, they cannot have been supposed guilty of any very atrocious 
 further crimes. 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 155 
 
 ■while the calamities of the Empire caused savage 
 outbreaks of panic against such miscreants. The 
 evil was all their work, of course. So henceforth, as 
 TertuUian puts it, If the Tiber rises too high, or the 
 Nile does not rise high enough, or if there be drought 
 or earthquake, or famine, or pestilence, then straight- 
 way, The Christians to the beasts.-' But it was more 
 than a parrot cry of the thoughtless populace. Serious 
 heathens also felt more and more that if the favour 
 of the gods had built up the Empire, the long 
 succession of calamities which assailed it shewed that 
 these impious traitors were bringing down the wrath 
 of heaven on a state which did not set itself in grim 
 earnestness to root them out. 
 
 The first conspicuous case is that of Justin and his 
 companions about 165,^ before the Praef. Urhi Junius 
 Eusticus. They had no kindly judge, for Rusticus was 
 a philosopher, and one of the emperor's most respected 
 teachers. Still, Rusticus was not quite so summary 
 as LoUius Urbicus. He asks them a few questions, 
 and tries to frighten them. "Where do you hold 
 your meetings ? Do you suppose that you will rise 
 again, and live for ever?" I do not suppose it, 
 because I know it, was the answer. In due course, 
 they were scourged and beheaded as men who " would 
 neither sacrifice to the gods nor obey the emperor's 
 command." 
 
 There were victims of higher rank in the church. 
 Polycrates of Ephesus names as martyrs after Polycarp 
 the bishops, Thraseas of Eumenea and Sagaris of 
 Laodicea. It may be that Eumenea already bade 
 fair to become the almost Christian city it, was in 
 the third century. But the most remarkable incident 
 
 ^ Apol, 40. ^ More accurately, between 163 and 167. 
 
156 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 was at Pergamus, where Carpus and Papylus were 
 crucified. When a woman in the crowd, named 
 Agathonice, saw it, she cried out, " That dinner is 
 prepared for me too," tore off her clothes, and laid 
 herself down on a cross to be nailed after them.^ 
 
 Presently came a change for the worse. Marcus 
 was too conscientious— too much of a philosopher and 
 too little of a statesman — to let ungodliness lie quiet 
 like Trajan's. So he issued an edict against " those 
 who caused tumults by introducing new worships " — 
 of whom the Christians were the chief offenders, for 
 Isis and Mithras were by this time pretty well settled 
 in the Empire. The more effectually to hunt them 
 down, informers were invited, and received their 
 reward in confiscated goods. Thus the philosopher 
 does the very thing which Trajan had denounced as 
 altogether bad, " and unworthy of my times." 
 
 The story of the Thundering Legion {legio 
 fulminea) is not easily dated, but perhaps it may 
 come in cir. 17 i. The tale is that Marcus in his 
 German wars was once surrounded by enemies and 
 perishing of thirst, when the prayers of the Christian 
 soldiers brought down a storm of rain and lightning 
 which relieved the Romans, and dismayed the enemy. 
 Now the storm is a fact. Marcus pictures it on his 
 column, as sent down by Jupiter Pluvius. And the 
 prayers of the Christian soldiers may be taken for 
 another fact. The legio fulminata " was recruited in 
 the district of Melitene, where the Christians were 
 
 ' Mart. Carpi Papyli, etc. The nan'ative has every mark of authenticity. 
 
 ^ Fulminata, not fulminea — thunderstruck, not thundering : and it had 
 borne the name since the time of Augustus. Troops were mucli more often 
 moved on temporary service from the Danube to the Euphrates than the 
 other way : but after 167 the Danube region was disturbed, while the 
 Euphrates was quiet. 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 157 
 
 strong, and may just then have been serving on the 
 Danube : but at all events, there must have been 
 Christians in the army, and no doubt they made their 
 prayers. It was very natural that the Christians 
 should put the two facts together, and claim the 
 storm as an answer of their own God to their own 
 prayers. Marcus, as we have seen, had another 
 theory of the miracle ; and the heathen populace had 
 yet a third, for they ascribed it to the emperor's own 
 prayers. But the matter seemed so plain to the 
 Christians that they could not imagine a saint like 
 Marcus unconvinced. Whatever officials might do, 
 the good emperor (they thought) must himself have 
 relented. They actually forged for him a report of 
 the miracle, to the Senate which gave the Christian 
 version of it, and seems to have deceived Tertullian. 
 It did not free them from punishment, but it effect- 
 ually protected them by laying a very severe penalty 
 on accusers.^ 
 
 So the Christians dreamed a dream of that which 
 ought to have been, and therefore must have been. 
 The reality was the storm which burst on the churches 
 of Lyons and Vienne in 177. 
 
 Marseille was an old Greek colony from Phocgea 
 in Asia, and its commerce had long spread up the 
 Ehone Valley and over Gaul and across to Britain. 
 With commerce came Christianity, as usual ; and by 
 this time there were churches at Lyons and Vienne, 
 and perhaps further up the country, and scattered 
 Christians in very remote parts. The churches were 
 Greek, and kept up an active intercourse with Asia. 
 Thence came some of their chief men, like Alexander 
 the physician, and Alcibiades the vegetarian, who 
 
 1 Tert. Apol 5. 
 
iS8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 were Phrygians. Attalus was of Pergamus, the old 
 home of Caesar-worship, the presbyter Irenseus came 
 from Smyrna, and the letter in which they tell their 
 story is addressed " to the brethren in Asia and 
 Phrygia." From Asia too came Gnostics and 
 Montanists ; and Judaizers like Blastus were not 
 wanting. Valentinianism was rife in Gaul, and 
 Marcus the charlatan and his disciples seduced women 
 wholesale. Still the churches were sound in the main, 
 as they were soon abundantly to shew. 
 
 The Christians were mobbed and plundered for 
 some time before the city magistrates took action by 
 arresting a number of them. On their avowal of 
 Christianity, they were thrown into prison to await 
 the governor's arrival. It was not simply a question 
 of religion, for the old slanders were rife in Lyons 
 just then, and were backed up with some evidence 
 extracted from slaves. So the preliminary tortures 
 went far beyond the usual cruelty of Eoman law ; and 
 even those who renounced Christianity were not 
 set free as in Trajan's time, but tortured again on 
 the further charge of abominable crimes. Vettius 
 Epagathus was a man of rank ; but when he offered 
 to be their advocate in open court, he too was shouted 
 down. Upon his bold avowal of Christianity " he was 
 straightway added to the number of the martyrs." ^ 
 The mob was furious, especially against the ring- 
 
 ' The fate of Vettius is indicated by the phrase "was and is a genuine 
 disciple of Christ, following the lamb whithersoever he goeth. " Reuan under- 
 stands, " Was and is still among us." But the probability is all the other 
 way, for (a) the example of Urbious was only too likely to be followed in a 
 time of panic, as it was in Alexander's case a little later (b) the reference to 
 Apoc. xiv. 4 points to martyrdom, though the word /lapTiipuy is not of itself 
 conclusive (c) the parallel of Biblias, who revoked her recantation, "and was 
 added to the number of the martyrs " would seem decisive. Vettius is not 
 mentioned again ; but he may have died in prison. 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 159 
 
 leaders, Sanctus a deacon of Vienne, Maturus a recent 
 convert, Attains of Pergamus, and the slave-girl 
 Blandina. Sanctus underwent every torment which 
 could be devised for him ; but when his inflamed 
 wounds were reopened a few days later, the second 
 torture proved rather cure than further punishment. 
 Blandina was an insignificant creature — only a slave 
 — and they were all in fear that she would yield : but 
 she tired out the relays of men who tortured her from 
 early morning till night : at last they confessed that 
 they could think of nothing more that they could 
 do to her. Her whole body was so broken and torn 
 open that they only wondered she was not dead long 
 ago. They got nothing from her but, I am a Christian, 
 and there is nothing evil done among us. Even 
 Biblias, " whom the devil thought he had already 
 swallowed up," because she had denied Christ before, 
 seemed in her second torture to wake up as out of a 
 deep sleep — " How can we devour children, who are 
 not allowed even to eat the blood of animals ? " ^ — 
 and thenceforth she took her place again with the 
 rest. After the tortures they were thrown into a 
 dark and stifling prison, where they often lay with 
 their legs forced wide apart in the stocks for days 
 together, and exposed to all the cruelty of savage 
 jailers. 
 
 Among the prisoners was the bishop Pothinus, 
 a disciple of apostles, and now a man of ninety, 
 and nearly worn out with age and sickness when he 
 was brought into court. There he made the good 
 confession. Who is the god of the Christians ? If 
 you are worthy, you shall know. On his way back 
 the whole multitude set upon him with cuffs and kicks, 
 
 ^ An interesting survival of the apostolic letter (Acts xv. ). 
 
i6o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 and every missile that came to hand, for that was 
 the right way to avenge their gods. He survived 
 two days. Many others died in prison, but those 
 who had been tortured held out wonderfully. They 
 had a good deal of leisure ; and the management of 
 Roman prisons was what in our time would be 
 considered scandalously lax. If the jailers had small 
 regard for humanity, they were all the more open to 
 more solid arguments. One way or the other, the 
 confessors got every relief or comfort which the care 
 of the church and the brethren could obtain for them. 
 They wrote letters,^ and received sometimes quite a 
 number of visitors. They conversed freely, and 
 practised the forbidden worship without concealment. 
 Nobody ran any risk, for the authorities were quite 
 satisfied if the prisoners were forthcoming when 
 wanted. In the company at Lyons there was little 
 fanaticism and still less quarrelling, but much sober 
 charity and earnest devotion. When Alcibiades 
 tried to keep up his vegetarian diet in prison, " it 
 was revealed to Attains that Alcibiades was not 
 doing well in refusing to use the creatures of God 
 and causing a scandal." After that he ate meat and 
 gave thanks. Alcibiades was also a prophet of the 
 Montanists ; and this was enough to raise the whole 
 question of Montanism. So the confessors wrote 
 sundry letters to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, 
 and one to Eleutherus bishop of Rome " on behalf of 
 peace," which they sent by the hand of Irenseus. A 
 later letter of the Gaulish brethren founded on these 
 is described by Eusebius as " most orthodox," so that 
 the confessors must have leaned against Montanism. 
 
 ' It has been seriously argued by one of the literary critics that the 
 Epistles of Ignatius must be spurious, because a condemned criminal would 
 not have been allowed to write letters. 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS i6i 
 
 But their chief concern was with their fallen brethren 
 still in prison with them, most of whom they were 
 able to bring back to the faith. Their devotion was 
 of necessity high-strung, but there was neither pride 
 nor harshness in it. Even after many sufferings, 
 they sharply refused the name of martyrs, because 
 that honour belonged only to Christ and to them 
 that had gone before. " They made excuse for all 
 and condemned none, freed all and bound none, and 
 prayed like Stephen for them that evil entreated 
 them." 
 
 Some grim devilries awaited them. Special 
 games were given ; but there were no gladiators this 
 time — only the Christians. Maturus and Sanctus went 
 through the whole round of tortures as if they had 
 suffered nothing before, in the gauntlet, the beasts 
 and the burning chair. Blandina was crucified — 
 hung on a stake all day for the beasts to tear her 
 down ; but as they would not touch her, she was 
 taken back to prison. The populace cried out for 
 Attains, and he was brought into the arena ; but at 
 the last moment the governor heard that he was a 
 Eoman citizen, and referred the whole case to the 
 emperor. 
 
 In due course Marcus gave his answer. Eoman 
 citizens to be beheaded, renegades to be set free, the 
 rest to be given to the beasts. They were now 
 nearing the great festival of the first of August, 
 when the threescore states and five of Gaul came 
 year by year to the sanctuary at the meeting of 
 the Ehone and the Saone, to pay their worship to 
 Eome and Augustus, and to render thanks to heaven 
 for the blessings of the Eoman peace. It was a 
 magnificent assembly from all quarters that gathered 
 
 VOL. I M 
 
i62 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 round the high priest of Gaul and a worthy show was 
 provided for their entertainment in the amphitheatre 
 below the height of Fourviferes. The prisoners were 
 brought up for sentence before the vast assembly. 
 Roman citizens were beheaded at once, and the 
 renegades were questioned separately. This time 
 they all stood firm except a few " sons of perdition," 
 who had always been a scandal to the church. But 
 one of the bystanders, a physician named Alexander, 
 a Phrygian long resident in Gaul, gave them 
 such open encouragement that he was challenged by 
 the people, and on his confession of Christianity 
 summarily condemned to the beasts like the rest. 
 Next morning they began with Attains and Alexander 
 (for Attains seems not to have been a Roman citizen 
 after all) and put them through the whole round 
 of tortures till the final butchery. Alexander made 
 no sound ; but when Attalus was roasted in the burn- 
 ing chair he said in Latin, Lo, this that you are 
 doing is eating men ; but we neither eat men nor 
 do any other wickedness. The others were similarly 
 exhibited, a few every day, as the best part of the 
 entertainment, till none were left but Blandina and 
 a boy named Ponticus. They had been brought in 
 day by day to see the sight ; and now the crowd was 
 furious at their constancy, and subjected them with- 
 out mercy to the whole series of tortures. Ponticus 
 endured them all unshaken, and then Blandina 
 remained alone, rejoicing to go home as though it were 
 a wedding feast. She was first scourged, most likely 
 with the full severity of a Roman scourging over a 
 pillar, then torn and dragged about by the beasts, 
 then roasted in the iron chair, then put in a net and 
 tossed by a bull to the satisfaction of the crowd, and 
 
IX MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 163 
 
 finally butchered by the beast -finisher. Even that 
 brutal populace, which had been watching bloodshed 
 for days together with frantic joy, could not refuse 
 its admiration. "Never woman in our time sufiered 
 so much as this one." 
 
 The abomination was not yet quite finished. 
 With all her cruelty, Rome held inviolate the solemn 
 peace of death. The grave was sacred, and the 
 bodies even of the crucified were seldom refused for 
 burial to their friends. But this time they made war 
 upon the dead. Those who died in prison were 
 cast out to the dogs, and guarded that none might 
 bury them ; and now the torn and charred remains 
 were watched for days by soldiers. Bribes were 
 useless, prayers availed nothing, and no dark night 
 enabled the Christians to steal the precious relics. 
 After six days of exposure, they were collected and 
 burned, and the ashes were swept into the Ehone. 
 " Where is now their god, and what have they 
 gained by the worship they preferred to life itself? 
 They trusted in a resurrection when they faced death 
 so boldly : now we have made sure that they shall 
 never have a resurrection." 
 
 It is not good to dwell too long on scenes like 
 these, for there is a sensuous, a voluptuous joy well 
 known to the ascetics in suffering and tales of suffer- 
 ing. But the scenes at Lyons are a fair sample of 
 what was continually done in other persecutions ; 
 and it is right and needful to face their horrors once 
 for all, that we may not forget the things which 
 charity and decency compel us to leave unsaid else- 
 where. It is good to see the full splendour of 
 Christian courage in its best and purest form, as clear 
 of pride and fanaticism as anywhere in history : and 
 
i64 CHURCH HISTORY chap, ix 
 
 it is good to see the very worst of heathenism in the 
 hideous games of the amphitheatre. Yet after all, 
 it might have been worse. Atrocious as the persecu- 
 tion was, and full of cruelty and malice, it has no 
 trace of treachery or wilful falsehood. In its own 
 way, it is quite straightforward. The panic was 
 real, and the governor who condemned the Christians 
 to the beasts or the fire would have scorned to entrap 
 them with deceitful promises. It is not in pagan 
 Eome that we find the lowest deeps of human 
 wickedness. 
 
 Marcus died at Carnuntum, March 17, 180, worn 
 out with the fatigues of the war he had so nearly 
 completed. We cannot greatly blame him for re- 
 fusing to disinherit his unworthy son. Commodus 
 was at any rate sure of the succession without a 
 civil war ; and even if he had shewn signs of an evil 
 disposition, he was still too young to be finally 
 condemned. Perhaps Marcus did the right thing, 
 even if it turned out badly. But the noblest of the 
 ancients died in sadness. If he had brought the 
 Empire safely through its trials, he had utterly failed 
 to check its decay. He had done his duty " as a 
 Roman and a man " ; and here was the end of all. 
 
 Books 
 
 See V ; also *Renan Marc-Aunle (perverse but brilliant) ; Neumanii 
 Jimnische Staat Leipz. 1891 (only Vol. I. publ.). 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 COMMODTJS 
 
 CoMMODTJS, says Dio,^ was not naturally evil-disposed 
 — quite the reverse — but simplicity and still more 
 timidity put him at the mercy of those about him. 
 Inexperience first led him astray, and in course of 
 time he became thoroughly wanton and cruel. In 
 vulgarity, in neglect of duty and in general enerva- 
 tion of character, he reminds us of Nero ; but 
 Commodus was the more brutal of the two. His 
 taste was more for gladiators and comedians than 
 for jockeys and singers. Hercules was his model, 
 not Apollo ; and many were the beasts he slew with 
 his own hand in the amphitheatre like any vulgar 
 gladiator. The laborious campaigns of Marcus had 
 brought the Germans lower than they had ever been 
 since the defeat of Varus ; and his generals urged 
 Commodus to complete what seemed an easy conquest. 
 It was dangerous, said Pompeianus,^ as well as un- 
 seemly, to leave his father's work unfinished. 
 Commodus cared little for that. In the course of 
 the summer he patched up a peace, and hurried back 
 to enjoy the pleasures of Rome. For a time the old 
 counsellors of Marcus kept him fairly straight ; and 
 
 ^ Dio Epit. 72. 1. This, from a hostile and ungenial writer, is enough to 
 shew that we need caution in dealing with the scandals told by Lampridius. 
 ^ Herodian i. 6 puts the words in his mouth. 
 
 165 
 
1 66 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 his own first prsefect Perennis (180-185) was a 
 soldier and a capable man, though he oflfended society 
 by turning senators out of commands to make room 
 for mere knights. The worthless young emperor was 
 already reopening the strife between the senate and 
 the army. The crisis of his reign was in a conspiracy 
 (183) of his equally worthless sister Lucilla, the wife 
 of Pompeianus. Commodus had a narrow escape of 
 assassination ; and henceforth hatred of the senate 
 became part of his nature. He sacrificed Perennis to 
 the officers of Britain in 185, and his next favourite, 
 the freedman Oleander, to the populace of Eome in 
 189. By this time things were in a whirl. Oleander's 
 camarilla sold anything and killed any one for money. 
 Prsefeets and consuls were made and unmade at a 
 bewildering rate, whUe Oommodus was wholly given 
 up to beast -fights and debaucheries, varied with 
 capricious cruelties and un-Eoman superstitions. The 
 hatred of the senate was thinly veiled by the basest 
 flattery, while the reckless pampering which kept 
 the praetorian guards to their duty undermined their 
 discipline and exhausted the treasury. Assassination 
 was plainly not far ofi". Meanwhile the great 
 machine of government went on almost of itself, 
 and shewed few signs of injury. Only Rome was in 
 confusion. The frontiers were guarded, the mutinies 
 put down, the provinces not misgoverned. The great 
 generals honourably upheld the Empire for the 
 present : but what were they likely to do when the 
 inevitable assassination made it the prize of civil war ? 
 Here again the position reminds us of Nero's time. 
 
 Thus the death of Marcus made no great change 
 for some time. The persecution of the Ohristians, in 
 particular, went on as before. We have already seen 
 
X COMMODUS i6; 
 
 what Arrius Antoninus was doing in Asia ; and the 
 cruelties of Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappa- 
 docia may belong to this time.^ Now however, in 
 the first months of Commodus, a new view opens on 
 us, for Christianity in Africa first comes into the light 
 of history. As we have no information how or when 
 it got there, we need for the moment only to notice 
 that it was already well established, and often bore a 
 strong mark of Montanist enthusiasm. 
 
 Our first trace of it is July 17, 180, when six 
 Christians from Scili were brought up for trial at 
 Carthage.^ The proconsul Vigellius Saturninus did 
 the best he could for the accused. He had not 
 sought them out, and would gladly have let them go. 
 Only they must swear by the emperor's genius, and 
 make their prayers for him to the gods. This was 
 the least which the law required. But Speratus took 
 a high tone for them. " We ask no favour. We are 
 not criminals. I allow not this world's rule, but pay 
 my taxes because God is a king of kings." The pro- 
 consul would not let him preach, but offered them 
 time for consideration. " We do not want it, in so 
 plain a case." " What have you got in your chest ? " 
 " Books, and letters of Paul, a just man." ^ " Take a 
 
 ^ Tert. ad Scap. 3. The name may be corrupt. He stands between 
 Vigellius Saturninus (180) and Cseoilius Capella, who held Byzantium after 
 Niger's death till 196. If this be the order of time, he is best placed early in 
 the reign of Commodus. 
 
 ^ The Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs are found (a) in a later Latin text 
 (b) in a later Greek text (c) in the original Latin text published by Prof, 
 (now Dean) Kobinson in 1891 (Texts and Studies L ii. 112). 
 
 This text will therefore be our earliest piece of Christian Latin. 
 
 The date is corrupt in all the texts ; but the consulship must be that of 
 Prsesens IL and Condianus, which is 180. 
 
 ^ The question may have been meant as a hint that a worse thing might 
 befall them, if the books were of magic. The answer can hardly mean that 
 the Epistles were not yet placed on a level with the Gospels. We are in the 
 time of Irenaeus, a full generation after Marcion. The idea is an anachronism. 
 
1 68 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 thirty days' remand, and bethink yourselves." " No, 
 we are all Christians." Saturninus had no choice 
 left. He made no attempt to shake them by torture, 
 but condemned them straight to the sword : upon 
 which they all give thanks to God. 
 
 As Saturninus " was the first who turned the 
 sword against us here " ^ in Carthage, we may set 
 down the Scillitans as the first Afi:ican martyrs. 
 They are fair samples also of African Christianity in 
 its intensity and enthusiasm. We do not know that 
 they rushed to meet their fate : at all events they 
 accept it with defiant pride, and shew no sort of 
 willingness to help the proconsul in his efi'orts to 
 save them. We know less of Namphamo, the first 
 martyr of Madaura, who was condemned a few 
 months later by the legate of Numidia, and of 
 others whose names only have come down to us. 
 Our heathen informant speaks of endless names 
 hateful to gods and men, of miscreants who added 
 crime to crime by the false pretence of a glorious 
 death. They got their deserts : and these be the 
 gods of the Christians.^ 
 
 Eome could shew a more distinguished victim 
 than these obscure Africans. The Gospel had long 
 since gained a footing in the highest circles, among 
 the Flavii, the Pomponii, the Bruttii, and perhaps the 
 Acilti Glabriones ; and of late whole households had 
 gone over to Christianity.^ Even the empress Bruttia 
 Crispina may well have counted Christian relatives. 
 Early in the reign of Commodus an informer (at 
 the instigation of the devil) accused the senator 
 
 1 Tert. ad Scap. 3. 
 
 ^ Maximus of Madaura, ap. Augustine E2X 16 — a little too muoli in the 
 tone of Harding the Jesuit's " Your stinking martyrs." 
 ^ Eus. V. 21 : perhaps exaggerated. 
 
X COMMODUS 169 
 
 ApoUonius, and was promptly put to death — his 
 legs were broken. But the charge was not thereby 
 disposed of. ApoUonius was not a vulgar criminal 
 to be tried summarily like Justin by the City Prsefect. 
 The senate was jealous of its own dignity, however 
 little it might wish to shelter Christians. So the 
 Praefectus Praetorio Perennis took the case instead 
 of the emperor, who had no mind for serious business, 
 and began by requesting ApoUonius to give account 
 of himself in the presence of the senate ; no doubt in 
 order to obtain their sanction for extreme measures, 
 if such should be required against one of their own 
 order. The second hearing was in the Prsefect's own 
 court ; and as ApoUonius repeated his refusal to 
 sacrifice, Perennis condemned him straight to the 
 sword. ^ 
 
 ' Our authorities for the case of ApoUonius are (a) Eus. v. 21, who refers 
 us for a fuller account to his Collection of Martyrdoms. Eus. rests on 
 the Acta, which we have in two forms, (b) The Armenian Acta, publ. 
 by the Mechitarists of Venice, 1874 (transl. Conybeare, 1893, and later 
 edition 1906, Burchardi, 1893). These begin abruptly. (0) The Greek Acta 
 (publ. in Analecta BollandiarM xiv. in 1895). These give the best text of 
 the original Acta : but the editor makes gross blunders. Thus Perennis is 
 turned into a proconsul of Asia, and finally orders the legs of ApoUonius 
 (not of the informer) to be broken. 
 
 The accuser's punishment is likely enough, if he was a slave (so Jerome 
 inferred) perhaps of ApoUonius himself. In fact, Eus. seems to have 
 turned a servant of Ap. into a servant of the devil ; and made his 
 ofl'ence consist in accusing a Christian, instead of accusing his master. He 
 is misled by th« belief of the apologists that Hadrian at any rate forbade 
 the accusations of Christiinity. The other difficulties of the story seem fairly 
 met by the view I have given. It must be remembered that the Senate 
 strove earnestly even to the time of Theodahad (535) to keep in its own 
 hands the power of life and death over its own members. Nerva and Trajan at 
 their accession, and Hadrian after the conspiracy of the four eonsulars, swore 
 to put no senator to death. It is not clear whether Pius and Marcus followed 
 their example ; but as a matter of fact they did put none to death. Thus we 
 see reason for the procedure of Perennis. 
 
 The latest work on ApoUonius is Klette, Acta S. Apollonii {Texts u. 
 Untersuchungen) 1897. 
 
 As regards other possibly Christian senators, the Acilius Glabrio of that 
 generation may have been as sound a heathen as Claudius Pompeianus 
 
I70 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 ApoUonius was a man of mark ; but there was no 
 lack of humbler confessors. Even in bishop Soter's 
 time, before the persecution reached its hottest, we 
 get a glimpse of Christians in the mines, who got 
 some relief from the wide-reaching charity of the 
 Eoman church.^ It was a severe punishment — penal 
 servitude for life, ranking next to death ; and only 
 the lower classes were exposed to it, and to the hard- 
 ships which went with it.^ Quite late in the reign 
 of Commodus, long after the persecution had spent 
 itself, we still find a number of Christians in the 
 unhealthy lead mines of Sardinia. Some time after 
 189, "the emperor's devout concubine Marcia" was 
 minded to do the Christians a service. So she asked 
 bishop Victor for their names, obtained their pardon 
 from Commodus, and set them free. With them 
 escaped by fraud the future pope Callistus, for he 
 was not on Victor's list. He was no confessor — only 
 a brawler in a Jewish synagogue. So says Hippolytus. 
 
 Marcia was the daughter of a freedman, a man 
 of substance at Anagnia. She was brought up by 
 the Roman presbyter Hyacinthus, and became the 
 concubine of Ummidius Quadratus. Presently 
 Quadratus was involved in Lucilla's plot and put 
 to death, and his household incorporated in the 
 emperor's. When Commodus had got rid of his 
 wife Crispina, Marcia became his concubine, and 
 
 himself. Yet if he was a Christian, as others of his family may have been, 
 we get another reason why he recovered his sight and hearing as by magic 
 the moment Commodus was dead (Dio Epit. 73. 3). 
 
 1 Eus. H.E. iv. 24. 
 
 ^ Cyprian, Ep. 76 (to the bishops condemned under Valerian) fustibus caesi 
 prius graviter . . . imposuerunt qnoque conpedes pedibus vestris et membra 
 infamibus vinculis ligaverunt . . . pedes conpedibus et traversariis cuncta- 
 bundi . . . humi jacent fessa laboribus viscera . . . squalent sine balneis 
 membra situ et sorde deforraia . . . panis illic exiguus . . . vestis algentibus 
 deest . . . semitonsi capitis capillus horrescit. 
 
X COMMODUS 171 
 
 very nearly reached the dignity of a regular empress. 
 It was a strange position for a " devout woman," to 
 be the morganatic wife of Commodus, who loved to 
 shew her to the soldiers in Amazonian dress. We 
 cannot count her as a Christian, though she was a 
 friend of the Christians, and under her influence the 
 persecution died away. We hear little of its ending. 
 It was still raging when Theophilus of Antioch wrote,^ 
 but no martyrs can be traced beyond 185. Commodus 
 had neither policy nor philosophy to urge him on ; 
 and his devotion to Eastern superstitions must have 
 checked the provincial governors. So we may set 
 down his last seven years as a time of peace. 
 
 Meanwhile Commodus went on from bad to worse 
 — even his countenance shews it — and at last his 
 murderous freaks had to be stopped. When he 
 turned on Marcia, she turned on him, and proved 
 the more skilful conspirator. At daybreak Jan. 1, 
 193 it was announced in Eome that the last of the 
 Antonines was dead, and that Helvius Pertinax 
 reigned in his stead. The senate was wild with joy, 
 and only the guards and the populace regretted him. 
 But we are in more prosaic times than those of Nero. 
 We hear no rumours that Commodus would some day 
 return, though after many days the image on his coins 
 did return, with the superscription of Karl the Great. 
 
 Here we may sum up what is known of the spread 
 of Christianity about the end of the second century. 
 It falls into three main divisions, speakirig Syriac, 
 Greek, and Latin. Syrian Christianity had now 
 passed from Antioch and the coast-liue across the 
 Euphrates to Edessa. The correspondence of Abgar 
 Uchomo (or Uchama) with Christ himself is legendary ; 
 
 J Theoph. Apol. iii. 30. 
 
172 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 but we hear of a bishop there in 190, and a council 
 on the Easter question about 197. Abgar bar Manu 
 (179-216) seems to have been the first Christian 
 king, and to have issued coins with the sign of the 
 cross. Christianity ceased to be the state religion 
 when Caracalla annexed Edessa to the Empire : but 
 the city remained a stronghold of the Christians. 
 Tatian preached beyond the Tigris, and Syrian 
 merchants found their way into very distant countries. 
 In the next generation we hear of Christians in 
 Bactria, which is far on the way to India, though 
 Bardaisan's mission in Armenia seems to have been 
 a failure. Syrian Christianity was much influenced 
 by Gnosticism, and heterodox writings were read, 
 like the Diatessaron of Tatian and the hymns of 
 Bardaisan. The copies of Tatian — some two hundred 
 in number — in the diocese of Cyrrhus were only put 
 out of use by Theodoret about 453. 
 
 Turning now to the Greek world, which gave the 
 tone to all the rest, Greece proper is represented 
 by churches at Corinth, Athens and Lacedsemon, 
 Christians at Larissa, and sundry churches in Crete. 
 The Macedonian churches were still flourishing. In 
 Thrace we find Christians at Byzantium in 196, and 
 a bishop at Debeltus on the Black Sea coast, but no 
 trace of Christians in any part of the basin of the 
 Danube, though there must have been some in the 
 camps of the legions. We see bishops all over Asia 
 within Mount Taurus, and Ephesus rather than Rome 
 is still the central church of Christendom. Zoticus 
 of Comana takes part in the Montanist controversy. 
 Palmas is bishop of Amastris in 173, and holds a 
 synod of Pontic bishops in 197. Alexandria was of 
 course a great church ; and its influence was felt 
 
X COMMODUS 173 
 
 among the Copts as far as the Thebaic!, and perhaps 
 even in the " India " to which Pantsenus went. Yet 
 Christianity so far was rather Greek than native in 
 Egypt, whereas in Syria beyond the Euphrates it 
 was rather native than G-reek. There were also 
 Christians in Cyrene, and in the Eoman province of 
 Arabia. 
 
 In the West, we begin with Eome, where Greek 
 
 was still the language of the Latin church. There 
 
 must have been other churches in Italy, though we 
 
 hear of none, and there is no trace of Christianity in 
 
 Noricum. In Africa however Christians were very 
 
 numerous, and chiefly Latin, though some spoke 
 
 Phoenician or Berber. Agrippinus of Carthage (dr. 
 
 213) could hold a council of seventy bishops from the 
 
 three provinces of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. 
 
 On the other hand, the churches of the Ehone Valley 
 
 were rather Greek,^ and looked as much to Asia as 
 
 to Eome. Of Christianity in Spain, Atlantic Gaul, 
 
 and Britain we have no definite accounts. Spain 
 
 however was in too close relation to Eome to be 
 
 wanting in Christians. Irenaeus speaks of Christians 
 
 among the Celts and Germans (? inside the Ehine) 
 
 and also of barbarians who hold the faith in their 
 
 hearts unwritten. TertuUian also says that " parts 
 
 of Britain inaccessible to the Eomans are subject to 
 
 Christ." This can hardly mean organized churches, 
 
 but Christian traders must have reached Ireland and 
 
 Caledonia before TertuUian's time.^ 
 
 ' Kobinson Texts and Studies I. ii. 97 n. sees traces of a Latin version of 
 N.T. at Lyons in 177. 
 
 ^ On the whole subject, Harnaok Ausbreitung 411-413. 
 
 Books 
 See Chs. V. XHII. XXL XXII. also: Conybeare Apology and Acts 
 of ApoUonius. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 THE APOLOGISTS 
 
 " Let no man come to us who is learned or wise or 
 prudent ; but whoso is stupid or ignorant or babyish, 
 he may come with confidence. The only converts 
 we care to have (or indeed can get) are the silly, the 
 ignoble, and the senseless, the slaves, the women, and 
 the children " — in a word, the contemptible of every 
 sort. 
 
 This is the summons of the Christians to the 
 world, as given by Celsus ; '^ and if we allow for a 
 little scornful blundering, it is not untruly given. 
 It is but a heathen echo of the Saviour's thanks that 
 the Father " had hidden these things from the wise 
 and prudent, and revealed them to babes," ^ and of 
 St. Paul's avowal that " not many wise men after the 
 flesh, not many mighty, not many noble " ^ had yet 
 been chosen. It is the glory of the Gospel that it 
 overlooks all differences of birth and wealth and 
 learning in its direct appeal to the image of God in 
 fallen man. He that came to save the world was 
 bound to gather in its outcasts ; and he would only 
 have convicted himself of falsehood if he had brought 
 no call of love divine to the weary and heavy-laden, 
 the oppressed and despised of every sort. 
 
 Celsus is right so far ; but he goes wrong when he 
 
 ' ap. Origen c. Celsum iii. 44. ' Lu. x. 21. ' 1 Cor. i. 26. 
 
 174 
 
CHAP. XI THE APOLOGISTS 175 
 
 catches up (perhaps from the Epistle of Barnabas) 
 the idea that the Lord chose bad characters for his 
 apostles, and says that the Christians counted rank and 
 learning evil, and required a blind obedience. " Do 
 not examine ; only believe," is the maxim he ascribes 
 to them. The churches had not yet come down to 
 preaching that poverty is in itself meritorious, or 
 that ignorance is the mother of devotion. It was 
 natural that the Christians should belong chiefly to 
 the lower classes of society ; but if the exceptions 
 were " not many," some of them (as Origen reminds 
 us) were eminent like St. Paul himself, " whom 
 somehow Celsus has forgotten to mention." Even 
 in the New Testament we find men of rank like 
 Mcodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea and Manaen, 
 the proconsul Sergius Paulus and Dionysius the 
 Areopagite. Within thirty years of the Saviour's 
 resurrection his name was made known to the 
 highest society of Rome by Pomponia Grsecina ; 
 before the end of the first century it was confessed 
 by the second man in the Empire, Flavins Clemens ; 
 and after this we have reason to believe that 
 Christian senators were never wanting. 
 
 Had the Gospel been only a philosophy for the 
 learned or an enthusiasm for the devout, it might 
 have gone its way without regard to the questions of 
 the time. But no such isolation is possible for 
 the historic revelation which claims to light up the 
 mysteries of life and satisfy every lofty aspiration 
 which has ever stirred the hearts of men. There was 
 no such opposition of Christianity to reason and 
 learning as Celsus imagined. The Christians, as we 
 shall see, had much the same education as their 
 neighbours ; and the chief difference was in their 
 
176 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 favour, for the value they attached to their sacred 
 books made it difficult for any earnest Christian to 
 be without a touch of culture. Christian life has 
 never reached a high level without a widespread 
 knowledge of the Bible. And if their writings 
 lacked the polish of the drawing-room, they were 
 also free from its vitiated taste. It is a sorry 
 affectation to despise the New Testament and admire 
 an Apuleius. There is already a breath of new life 
 in the pathetic earnestness of Clement and the 
 simplicity of Justin ; and the literary hope of the 
 future was surely with men who were not writing 
 to win the applause of the fashionable chques, but 
 because they had a message to deliver. 
 
 The Apologists naturally fall into two classes 
 according to language. Taking the Greeks first, we 
 find Quadratus and Aristides placed by Eusebius in 
 the reign of Hadrian (117-138) though the latter 
 seems to belong to the time of Pius. Justin Martyr 
 seems at last securely dated shortly after 150, and 
 the nameless writer to Diognetus may be of the same 
 date or a little earlier, though some place it in the 
 third century, and a few count it a forgery of the 
 fifteenth. In the next generation come Tatian, 
 Athenagoras, and Theophilus of Antioch, while 
 Clement of Alexandria belongs to the end of the 
 second century, and the great work of Origen 
 against Celsus brings us nearly to the middle of the 
 third. 
 
 The Latin Apologists from TertuUian to Augustine 
 form a striking series. They are all Africans, all 
 rhetoricians or lawyers, all converts at a mature age. 
 Tertullian's Apology dates from 197, in the reign of 
 Severus, and his de Corona militis and ad Scapulam 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 177 
 
 appear to be as late as that of Caracalla (211-217'). 
 The elegant Octavius of Minucius Felix is much 
 disputed : but it is best placed in the quieter times 
 of Severus Alexander (222-235). Passing over 
 Cyprian, who is not great as an Apologist, we stop 
 with Arnobius and Lactantius, who lived under the 
 persecution of Diocletian (303-313). The defence of 
 Christianity took another form after its decisive 
 victory, so that even Eusebius is perhaps best left 
 to the historian of the Mcene age. 
 
 The Apologists may be grouped again by their 
 views of heathenism. As educated men, as converts 
 (Origen excepted) and as professed defenders of the 
 Grospel, they were bound to give a clear account of 
 their relation to heathen thought. As regards 
 idolatry, there was not much difference among them. 
 They were agreed (as against St. Paul ^) that the 
 gods were not empty names, but in one way or 
 another corresponded each to each with real powers 
 of hell. In whatever way idolatry arose, evil spirits 
 inspired it, and fashioned it with more or less success 
 into a diabolical caricature of the truth, as for 
 instance the Communion of the Mithraists. Yet 
 however false and brutish the error might be, there 
 still remained the question whether it was falsehood 
 pure and simple ; and even if it were, there might 
 still be more or less of truth in philosophy. Justin 
 and Clement had been philosophers in the days of 
 their ignorance, and they did not cease to be 
 philosophers when they became Christians. Justin 
 did not even throw off the philosopher's cloak. So 
 they treat heathenism with a certain respect. They 
 are willing to trace God's teaching even in the errors 
 
 1 1 Cor. viii. 4. 
 VOL. I N 
 
178 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 of the nations, and anxious to gather up every 
 fragment of truth revealed through philosophy to 
 them of old. On the other side, TertuUian delivers 
 his testimony with Puritan decision. Heathenism is 
 from the devils, devilish ; and the philosophers are 
 only a little more devil-possessed than their dupes. 
 We who have renounced Satan have escaped his 
 tyranny ; but if we tamper with the accursed thing, 
 we shall fall into his hands again. If he finds us on 
 his own ground — at the games for example — he has 
 a right to seize us. So TertuUian (and Arnobius, 
 Tatian and Theophilus are more or less like him) 
 keeps no terms with heathenism, but denounces 
 and ridicules idolatry and philosophy alike. The 
 abominations of the one are hardly more oifensive 
 to him than the presumption of the other. If the 
 Gospel is true, they were inclined to think there 
 could be no truth elsewhere. 
 
 There can be no doubt which is the deeper and 
 truer of these views. It was rightly felt indeed by 
 every serious thinker that the power and persistency 
 of " the lie " of idolatry could only be accounted 
 for by a delusion so senseless and so ruinous that 
 it might well be called Satanic. But was it there- 
 fore all delusion ? Here Clement and TertuUian 
 part company. TertuUian is a philosopher in spite 
 of himself, and often an acute philosopher ; but he 
 has no philosophy of history. He can indeed look 
 forward with fierce exultation to the glorious games 
 of the day of judgment, when we shall see (and 
 that full soon) gods and deified emperors, philosophers 
 and poets, actors and jockeys, all burning together 
 in the fires of hell at Christ's triumphant coming. 
 These are our games : where is the praetor that can 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 179 
 
 shew us their like ? ^ But as for a meaning in the 
 history of heathenism, it never seems to cross his 
 mind that — " So God loved the world." He leaves it 
 for others to see that if the Incarnation is true at all, 
 its divine purpose must cover the entire history of 
 mankind. The idea of universal history was beyond 
 the reach of men who were encumbered with poly- 
 theism and blinded by pride of race and class and 
 learning : but from the Incarnation it follows at 
 once, and to this day there is no nobler outline of 
 it than in St. Paul's Epistle to the Eomans. The 
 Gnostics caught something of the universal meaning 
 of the Incarnation, and Melito of Sardis notes the 
 parallel rise of the Empire and the Church ; ^ but 
 Justin and the Alexandrians were the first to work 
 out a regular theory of universal history as the 
 •education of the human race. Lessing's great 
 thought is already in the Bible. 
 
 But they worked it out in characteristically 
 different ways. Justin represents the older and more 
 conservative university of Athens, and endeavours to 
 stand in the old paths. To the mediating Word of 
 the Targums and St. John he joins the Eeason- 
 Word of Philo, transferred from the mists of Platonic 
 idealism to the ground of history. The Word which 
 was made flesh in order to save the world was also 
 the Word which taught the world in former ages. 
 The Word which spoke to the Jews in the Law spoke 
 also to the Gentiles by philosophy. Many a philo- 
 sopher like Socrates or Heraclitus was a true Christian 
 before Christ, and a witness for God against idolatry ; ^ 
 and now Christianity is itself philosophy divine and 
 perfect. Clement is bolder still. He represents the 
 
 1 Tert. de Spect. 30. ^ ap. Eus, iv. 26. ' Justin Apol. i. 46. 
 
i8o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 newer university of Alexandria, which was more open 
 than Athens to barbarian influences. His view 
 embraces idolatry and philosophy at once as parts 
 of the training of the nations. God gave them star- 
 worship as a step to something better, and they 
 debased it with the worship of dead men and 
 abominations. Yet however man may sin, however 
 blindly he may grope in darkness, God is seeking 
 after him, and will one day bring him home through 
 all his maze of error. 
 
 But whether the Apologists write in Greek or 
 Latin, and whether they like philosophy or not, they 
 are all disciples of Greek culture, and in the main 
 defenders of it. The one exception is Tatian the 
 Assyrian — the barbarian, as he is proud to count 
 himself The pride and class-feeling of the Greeks 
 blinded him to the value of their work. Yet the 
 mere fact that he looked at things from another 
 point of view enabled him to see some things more 
 clearly than other Apologists. Thus the variety 
 of laws and customs strikes him as absurd : there 
 ought to be one ruler and one law for the world. 
 Thus he is the first herald — even before Melito — of the 
 Holy Roman Empire. Again, his belief in Christian 
 equality enabled him to insist more strongly than 
 others on the education of women. These merits 
 are not very much to set against his general narrow- 
 ness, but still they are something. 
 
 Yet again, the Apologists may be grouped in 
 a third way, according as their writings reflect the 
 acute persecution of the second century, or the 
 quieter times of the Syrian emperors. The earlier 
 Apologies are occasional writings called forth by the 
 stress of actual persecution, addressed to the rulers. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS i8i 
 
 and chiefly intent on refuting scandalous charges, 
 and proving the right of the Christians to toleration. 
 The later are literary works written in times of 
 comparative peace, and under the feeling that 
 Christianity has got beyond the mere needs of 
 self-defence. They can make a wider appeal now to 
 the reason and conscience of the heathens, by setting 
 forth the good tidings of the Gospel and exposing 
 the absurdities and immoralities of polytheism. To 
 the first class belong the earlier Greek writers. 
 Theophilus from one point of view, TertuUian from 
 another, form a transition to the second, which is 
 represented by Clement, Minucius Felix, and Origen. 
 Arnobius and Lactantius belong mainly to this class, 
 but as especially Arnobius has some characters of the 
 first, they will form a distinct section of it. 
 
 Before we come to the defence of Christianity by 
 the Apologists, it will be useful to see how the attack 
 was conducted by educated and thoughtful heathens. 
 The Octavius of Minucius Felix is a story founded 
 on fact, and the speech ascribed in it to Csecilius 
 appears to sum up an oration of Fronto of Cirta, 
 the teacher of the emperor Marcus. 
 
 Minucius and his two friends are walking on the 
 sands at Ostia, one morning in the summer vacation, 
 enjoying the soft air and the rippling waves at their 
 feet, and watching the boys playing ducks and drakes 
 with shells. Presently they pass an image of Serapis, 
 and Csecilius kisses his hand to it. Octavius blames 
 Minucius for allowing his friend to remain in heathen 
 blindness. Csecilius takes the matter up, and they 
 adjourn to a breakwater of stones to rest and 
 discuss it. Then Csecilius : — " It is deplorable that 
 ignorant men should pretend to certainty, when the 
 
1 82 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 philosophers have never been able to agree on the 
 existence of a God at all. Nature is blind and 
 works by fixed laws without regard to the good- 
 ness or badness of men. It is therefore best to 
 worship the gods of our ancestors. Every nation 
 has its gods, and Eome has won the empire of the 
 world by paying due respect to all of them. The 
 only exception to the fixed belief of all nations 
 (beyond an atheist or two like Diagoras) is this gang 
 of skulking desperadoes. They collect men of the 
 scum of the earth and silly women, and cement 
 their conspiracy with nocturnal abominations. It 
 flourishes as wickedness does flourish, and ought to 
 be thoroughly rooted out. They know each other 
 by secret marks ; and promiscuous fornication is a 
 positive religion with these ' brothers and sisters.' 
 I hear that they worship a donkey's head ; and that is 
 not the worst that is told of them. Some of it may 
 be exaggerated, but they would not be so mysterious 
 if it were not mostly true. Why have they no 
 altars ? no temples ? no images ? no open meetings ? 
 For some shameful reason, doubtless. But where did 
 they get that forlorn god of theirs ? No civilized 
 nation knows him ; only those wretched Jews, who 
 at least worshipped him with a decent ceremonial — 
 and were conquered after all ! But what bugbears 
 these Christians invent ! The enduring earth is to 
 be burnt up : yet they fancy they will live again 
 themselves, and that for ever ! Your god will raise 
 you from the dead forsooth, when he cannot even 
 protect you from cold and hunger while you dream 
 of immortality, from drudgery and sickness, from the 
 cross and death of fire. Rome rules the world and 
 you without your God's help. Meanwhile your life 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 183 
 
 is miserable. For your fancied resurrection you 
 renounce all lawful pleasures. You abstain from tbe 
 games, and social meetings, the holy meals — such is 
 your dread of the gods you deny. Give up philo- 
 sophizing, if you have any decency left. Boors like 
 you cannot understand affairs of state, much less things 
 divine. If you really must speculate, the least you 
 can do is to leave doubtful things in doubt." ^ 
 
 Fronto was a vain old man, but ' upright and 
 honourable, and not unworthy of the respect he won 
 from the emperor Marcus. He is unjust to the 
 Christians only ; but in them he can see no good at 
 all. They are knaves as well as fools. He devours 
 every scandal greedily, and never stops to ask what 
 they really mean. In striking contrast to him is the 
 Platonist Celsus, who seems to have written his True 
 Word about 178.^ If he is not behind in hatred of 
 
 ' Minucius Felix Oclavius 5-13 (condensed). 
 
 ^ On the date of Celsus. Origen tells us (c. Oels. Praef.) that Celsus was long 
 ago dead, and that the only Celsus he knows, beside one in Nero's time, was 
 an Epicurean who lived under Hadrian and later. This cannot well be our 
 Celsus, who writes as a Platonist, and cannot have merely feigned Platonism. 
 
 The passages for consideration are (a) Or. c. Gels. -vin. 71 ol vvv fiauCKeiovTes, 
 which points to a joint rule of the emperor Marcus, either with L. Verus 161- 
 169 or with Commodus 177-180. (jS) c. 73 dp-qyeip T(f fSainXet. This points 
 to an undivided rule, and more decided in the same direction is (7) do. c. 68, 
 where Celsus quotes the Homeric eh Kolpavos isTU, d$ fiacriKeis kt\., and 
 adds hv tovto Xi^ciys rd d6y]j.a, eUdro}^ d/xwelral tre 6 /SacriXei^s. Lightfoot 
 Ignatius i. 531, 593 n. takes this as practically decisive that there were not 
 then two joint sovereigns, and probably had not been for some time. So he 
 places Celsus before 161. 
 
 Against this there are three considerations. (1) ol vvv PacriXeiovre^ is too 
 deiinite to be a plural of category like 1 Tim. ii. 2 vvkp jSacrlXcuv. (2) The 
 imity of the Empire was never supposed to be broken by the existence of 
 joint sovereigns ; and in this case it is the unity of rightful power rather than 
 that of the person holding it, which Celsus is urging against Christian self- 
 will. Writers of this period vary a good deal (Ramsay p. 249) between the 
 singular and the plural, and slip for slip, it was easier in the time of joint 
 emperors to slip into the ordinary singular than in the time of one emperor to 
 slip into the definite plural. (3) Besides, (5) c. 69 vpUiiv di kclv TrXavdral ns In 
 \aii8dvb>v, aWb, f»)T«Tai ir/jis $av&Tov SiK-qv seems decisive for a later date than 
 
1 84 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the Gospel, he is quite as learned as Fronto, and far 
 above him in controversial acuteness. In addition to 
 this, he had studied the Christian writings, and got 
 some knowledge of Christian divisions. Nor does he 
 conduct his case unworthily. However hostile he 
 may be, he seems nowhere consciously unfair. Gutter 
 stories, for instance, he passes by. Altogether, Celsus 
 can be trusted to shew us the strongest case that 
 could be made against the Gospel by the ablest and 
 the most cultured of its enemies. We pass over the 
 arguments he puts into the mouth of a Jew, and limit 
 ourselves to some of those he uses himself. 
 
 Celsus begins as a Platonist should, with a lofty 
 conception of God as good and self-contained, as 
 passionless and far above the world. Indeed, his 
 chief objection to the Gospel is the gross materialism 
 of the Incarnation. To begin with, it implies change : 
 and surely God is unchangeable. Why should he 
 come on earth ? Belike, he did not know what was 
 going on, or wanted to get a little applause. To 
 redeem men forsooth (and only some men) as if the 
 world was made for men ! So they flatter themselves, 
 as the ants might, or the frogs of the marsh. Beasts 
 are better than men, and birds know more than we 
 know of the will of heaven. And if he must 
 come, why should he defile himself with a body, or 
 hide himself in a corner of the earth, among those 
 ignoble Jews ? Had he appeared like a decent 
 philosopher in civilized countries, there might have 
 
 161. Trajan and Hadrian had forbidden t^'/jT-qais, and there is no trace of it 
 under Pius : but under Marcus it is usual, (c) The urgent appeal of Celsus to 
 the Christians to help the emperor points to the calamities of Marcus rather 
 than to the quiet times of Pius. 
 
 So Ramsay I.e. and Neumann 58, though he maintains that ^r/TTim was 
 first ordered by the rescript of 176-7. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 185 
 
 been some sense in the matter. Besides, redemption 
 is impossible. A man cannot change his nature ; and 
 evil is inherent in matter, and therefore a fixed 
 quantity which cannot be diminished. Jesus was a 
 braggart and a sorcerer, who learned his art in Egypt ; 
 and his fate is enough to prove his infamy. He could 
 not even discover the treachery of Judas. His 
 miracles are only what the quacks do in the market- 
 place ; and as for the prophecies, they will suit almost 
 any one better than such a pest as Jesus. Of his 
 resurrection, the only witnesses are " a frantic woman, 
 and a few more of his accomplices." Yet they have 
 actually made a god of him ! Well, turn to their 
 teaching. So far as it is true, they have stolen it 
 from the G-reeks, and marred it in the stealing. Plato 
 says things much more elegantly than Jesus. They 
 invent bugbears of Satan and hell-fire, and expect 
 a blind belief Wisdom and virtue are bad things 
 — only the fools and the scoundrels go down with 
 Christians. Nor can they escape the natural mean- 
 ing of their own scriptures under cover of allegorical 
 methods of interpretation, which they have no right 
 to use. Their worship too is barbarous — worse than 
 Scythian — for they have no altars or images. 
 Christianity originated in a spirit of sedition, and has 
 naturally split into endless sects. Their martyrs are 
 few ; their anathemas are many. Do they fancy 
 they can ever conquer the civilized world ? Now 
 contrast with all this fanaticism the reasonable and 
 decent worship of the demons. These are the gods 
 of our ancestors and of the civilized world ; and the 
 Supreme is not a jealous god — the more masters the 
 better, and they cannot be insulted with impunity. 
 Eeturn then to your obedience to the gods, and to 
 
1 86 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 your duties towards the emperor and towards your 
 own country. 
 
 The offence of the cross is one thing, but the 
 unbeliever's arguments may be quite another. Some- 
 times they touch only surface difficulties whose 
 removal would not seriously influence him. The 
 ultimate offence of the Gospel has always been its 
 lofty tone of authority. Such a claim cannot be 
 ignored, but must either strongly attract or strongly 
 repel. In early times the difficulty was not so much 
 in the evidence of the Lord's divinity, as in the 
 logical inference of exclusive worship and obedience. 
 Rather than face this, men harped on difficulties of 
 which they made no difficulty at all in other cases. 
 They were willing enough to accept the Galilean as 
 a philosopher, a hero or a wonderworker, or as one 
 god out of many ; but they would not give them- 
 selves wholly to him. Cases of this sort are the 
 apologist's difficulty. Questions of evidence he may 
 be able to deal with, but he can do very little if 
 the real objection is to a practical inference which 
 no human skill can make clearer than it is already. 
 
 Many of the objections he had to meet were 
 utterances of vague race or class prejudice — that 
 the Gospel was not of civilized origin, that the Lord 
 came to a shameful death, or that his followers were 
 men of low birth or wanted literary culture. Passing 
 these over, the definite charges against Christian 
 morals may be grouped under three heads. 
 
 Immorality and nameless orgies, as we have seen, 
 are vulgar slanders against unpopular sects in all 
 ages ; and as against the Christians in general, they 
 never were much more than vulgar slanders. Yet 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 187 
 
 they had a colour of truth, for some of the Gnostics 
 were immoral, like the Carpocratians and the Cainites, 
 of whom the former are said (this too may be a 
 slander) to have recognized each other by a mark 
 behind the ear. Reports however which we have 
 traced back into the apostolic age cannot have 
 sprung from Gnostic licentiousness. It may be 
 doubted how far they were deliberately believed 
 by educated men. Tacitus {sane ille mendaciorum 
 loquacissimus^) and Fronto are plainly picking up 
 their stories from the gutter, and officials like those 
 of Lyons and Vienne may have shared the panic of 
 the mob or been glad of an excuse for yielding to 
 it. But Lucian and Celsus are honourable enough 
 to ignore them, and by the third century they seem 
 to have died away. The later Apologists hardly 
 mention them, and their revival by Theotecnus in 
 the last great persecution was purely artificial. By 
 that time even the mob had ceased to believe them. 
 
 The answer of the Apologists is of course an 
 indignant denial. Abominations like these, says 
 TertuUian, are a defiance of the Gospel and an 
 outrage on human nature, though they are not 
 unknown to our accusers. Let them by all means 
 be punished with severity ; but let them first be 
 proved, and not taken for granted against any one 
 who confesses himself a Christian. It is quite 
 possible to convict such criminals. There must be 
 accomplices in every case, and cooks present, and 
 dogs. Let us hear something more of them. What 
 a grand success it would be for a governor if he could 
 unearth some miscreant of a Christian who had 
 already devoured a hundred infants ! This is a 
 
 1 Tert. ad Nat. i. 11. 
 
1 88 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 sound reply ; but lie rather damages it by arguing ^ 
 that there cannot be any evidence, because Christians 
 will not reveal the mystery of the Lord's Supper, 
 and heathens are not admitted to it — one of the 
 earliest traces of the disciplina arcani. 
 
 The charge of atheism (so far as it answered to 
 our use of the word) is a strange one. It might 
 have been retorted on the heathens, as in fact it 
 was by Polycarp and Origen,^ for their " godless 
 multitude of gods" was enough to shew that they 
 were " without a God in the world." ^ Nevertheless, 
 there was a reason for the charge. The heathens, 
 or at any rate the vulgar, honestly did not under- 
 stand how it was possible to worship a god without 
 an image. The Jews were puzzling enough, though 
 they had at least a splendid temple and a regular 
 service; but the Christians? " Shew us your God," 
 is the perpetual demand. The answer of the 
 Apologists is simple. " Our worship is spiritual, and 
 therefore we have no images to shew you. If we 
 had, we should be idolaters like you." It was 
 not art they objected to, but idolatry. They had 
 symbolic pictures, and were not free from super- 
 stition in the matter of relics and amulets ; but 
 there is no trace of any veneration of pictures 
 or images before the fourth century, and then it 
 first appears as a superstition condemned by the 
 authorities of the church, as at Elvira in 306. 
 When it became official, the Christian reply had to 
 be exchanged for futile and irrelevant distinctions 
 
 1 Tert. ad Nat. i. 7. Apol. 7. 
 
 ''■ Eus. iv. 15 alpe Toiis adiovs to the crowd. Origen c. Cels. i. 1 rrji ■koKvB4ov 
 aSebniToi. So Ignatius and Clem. Al. 
 
 " Eph. ii. 12 MioL iv tijj Kbafiif. So the contrast of 1 Thess. i. 9 debi 
 iX-qeivb^. So 1 Joh. y. 20. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 189 
 
 between different sorts of worship — futile because 
 nobody ever regarded them in practice, and irrelevant 
 because no scholastic definitions can undo the fact 
 that the saints are worshipped in the same way and 
 under the same beliefs as the gods had been. 
 
 But atheism in Eoman law was not what we mean 
 by atheism. It was a refusal to worship the gods 
 of the state. The Christian might occasionally be 
 required to worship Jupiter and the rest of " our 
 gods," as by Pliny, but far more commonly the test 
 chosen for him was the worship of the emperor. 
 This was as it should be. Not Jupiter but Csesar 
 was the link of religion which held the Eoman 
 world altogether ; and no men knew this better than 
 the great administrators who ruled in Caesar's courts 
 of justice. Thus the test concerned loyalty rather 
 than religion, and the charge of atheism resolves into 
 the next we come to.^ 
 
 Its chief religious importance is the support it 
 gave to the cry "Down with the Christians" at every 
 public calamity. If it was an earthquake or a 
 barbarian inroad, if the Tiber rose too high or if 
 the Nile did not rise high enough, it was all one. 
 The Christians to the beasts ! ^ TertuUian may 
 ridicule the cry as quite irrational ; but there was an 
 element of reason in it. The Christians were the 
 heretics of that age ; and if their refusal of the 
 worship due to the gods brought down the wrath of 
 heaven on the state, reason would that an end be 
 made of them. It was a familiar argument in later 
 'ages. 
 
 There still remains the charge of political disaffec- 
 
 1 On the charge of atheism Harnack T. U. {2^ Ser.) xiii. (1904). 
 ^ Tert. Apol. 40. Arnobius i. 13. 
 
I90 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 tion. Outsiders were really puzzled again by this 
 strange sect of men wtio stood aloof from the business 
 of the world, and refused even to join its pleasures. 
 Men so " morose " as these must have treasonable 
 designs, especially as they would not swear the usual 
 oath by Caesar's genius to purge themselves. In an 
 age when duty to the state was counted the first of 
 all duties, the charge was graver than we can easily 
 realize. Celsus winds up with what seems a genuinely 
 earnest appeal to the Christians to give up their 
 undutiful position, " to support the emperor with all 
 their strength, to share his work of righteousness, to 
 defend him, to join him in his wars and bear office 
 under him, and help to govern their country and 
 maintaia the laws and sound religion." ^ It was no 
 light crime to evade their plain duty to the Empire 
 which the gods had consecrated and the piety of their 
 own ancestors had handed down. 
 
 To a certain distance the answer is triumphant. 
 It is a plain appeal to facts. Are not the Christians 
 loyal subjects ? They pay their taxes and are quiet 
 folk. It is not they who hatch the plots or stir the 
 mutinies. You will hardly find one of them in prison 
 for any other crime than his Christianity. " The 
 Christian is no man's enemy, and least of all the 
 emperor's. He knows that his own God has given 
 him a dominion, and needs must love and honour him, 
 and wish prosperity to him and to the whole Empire 
 to the end of the world — for so long shall it endure." ^ 
 So again, " We pray for the emperor, not to those gods 
 of yours who are beneath him, but to the true and 
 living God who is alone above him. So the apostle 
 
 1 Origen c. Celsmn viii. 73, 76. 
 2 Tert. adv. Scap. 2. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 191 
 
 gave command : but we have a second reason. We 
 know that the convulsions of the end of the world 
 with all their horrors are delayed only by the respite 
 which the Empire gives." ^ 
 
 So far well. But the charge of disloyalty includes 
 neglect of public duty ; and to this there is no sufficient 
 answer. TertuUian avows ^ that the Christians care 
 for any affairs rather than those of the state. Even 
 Origen only quibbles in his answer ' that they do not 
 serve in the army because they support the emperor 
 with their prayers, that they fight for their country 
 by educating their fellow-citizens in true piety, that 
 they help to govern it by devoting themselves to the 
 nobler and more needful service of the church of God. 
 All this evades the point — that men have no right to 
 renounce at pleasure their duties to their country. 
 In truth, the duty of Christian men to the state, and 
 in particular to an essentially heathen state like the 
 Empire, was still an unsettled question. The scruples 
 were not unreasonable which shrank from a public 
 life fenced in at every point with all sorts of heathen 
 observances, from the bowings in the house of Rimmon 
 downward to the foul sacrifices which combined in one 
 supreme abomination the three unpardonable sins of 
 idolatry, adultery and murder.* There was no security 
 for the Christian till the service of the state was 
 separated from the religion of the gods. With public 
 duty and ambition on one side, conscience and 
 cowardice on the other, it is not surprising if opinions 
 wavered. 
 
 1 Tert. Apol. 31, 32. 
 
 ^ Tert. Apol. 38 nee ulla magis res aliena, quam publica. 
 ^ Origen c. Celsuin viii. 73-75. 
 
 * Cone. Elvira, Can. 2 and Dale's comment Syn. Elv. 247. Tert. de 
 Pud. 5 est et mali dignitas. 
 
192 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 But all this was a mere preliminary. However 
 needful it might be to shew that Christians were 
 neither seditious nor immoral, the truth of the Gospel 
 was a further question. If some of the proofs given 
 by the Apologists are strange to us, we must bear in 
 mind that the objections they had to meet are equally 
 foreign to the thoughts of our time. Broadly speak- 
 ing, Christian doctrine consists partly of the historical 
 facts of our Lord's life, partly of inferences from them 
 called dogmas. Broadly speaking again, in our time 
 the facts are disputed, but the inferences might be 
 allowed to pass ; whereas the Apologists found the 
 facts more or less admitted, but the inferences denied. 
 In their time as well as ours there were plenty of idle 
 tales of marvel which made no demand on life and 
 practice ; but we see better than they that such tales 
 are self-condemned. There is no caprice in Nature. 
 Granted the fact of our Lord's resurrection, it cannot 
 be an idle story. If in very truth he broke the never- 
 broken spell of death, few will venture now to dispute 
 his claim to reveal the secrets of another world. 
 
 If then we bear in mind such differences of thought 
 as these, we shall see why the Apologists laid no 
 more stress than they did on the argument from our 
 Lord's miracles. It was not that their opponents 
 were troubled with doubts about the possibility of 
 miracle. If Csecilius (or Fronto)^ says that fate is 
 fixed or law unbroken, he fails to draw the logical 
 inference, that his gods are just as much an idle tale 
 as any miracle. Nor did they seriously dispute the 
 fact of our Lord's miracles ; only they ascribed them 
 to magic. Now the magicians of the second century 
 were no mean performers. There is hardly a spiritual- 
 
 1 Min. Felix Oct. 5. So Celsus (Or. c. Cels. iv. 5). 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 193 
 
 istic trick of our time with which they are not 
 familiar. They could loose bonds and open doors. 
 They could cast out demons, puff away diseases, call 
 up the souls of heroes, exhibit costly dinners with 
 tables and cakes and dainties which did not exist, 
 make lifeless things to move as living animals, and 
 read the thoughts of men ^ — and what can our 
 mediums do more ? 
 
 In an age when the resources of imposture were 
 better cultivated than those of science, it was doubly 
 necessary to clear up the difference between miracle 
 and magic ; and this the Apologists more or less 
 clearly saw. Already Quadratus appears to be con- 
 trasting the permanent results of the one with the 
 evanescence of the other in the single sentence which 
 has been preserved for us by Eusebius. " But the 
 Saviour's works were always present, for they were 
 true — even the men who were healed or rose from 
 the dead ; who were not only seen while healed or 
 rising, but were always present, not merely while 
 the Saviour stayed on earth, but also after his 
 departure they remained for a long time, so that 
 some of them continued even to our own times." ^ 
 Justin ^ puts the question whether the Lord's signs 
 might not have been done by magic, but turns 
 straight to prophecy for his answer. Aristides and 
 others pass over the difl&culty, and we do not get 
 much further till we come to Origen, who puts the 
 matter on the right footing, by refusing to consider 
 them as isolated wonders without regard to their 
 moral purpose. In the light of their spiritual aim 
 and power, the Lord's signs fall into line with his 
 
 ^ Origen c. Cels. ii. 34, i. 68. Eunapius, Vita Aedesii (case of Soaipatra). 
 ^ Eus. iv. 3. ' Justin Apol. i. 30. 
 
 VOL. I 
 
194 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 teaching and his life, and the whole must stand or 
 fall together as a connected and a moral scheme. 
 But the most spirited answer is that of Arnobius, 
 though he scarcely goes so deep as Origen. " Works 
 of magic, were they ? Did ever magician do a 
 thousandth part of these ? Contrast the wicked 
 works that are laboriously done by incantations, and 
 tell us. Was he one of us, who spoke, and it was 
 done ? Was he one of us, whose works were all 
 divine in goodness ? Was he one of us, whose mere 
 word or touch cured every form of sickness ? who 
 made the lame to walk, the blind to see ? who calmed 
 the winds, and trod the stormy waves ? Was he one 
 of us, who read the hearts of men ? Was he one of 
 us, who raised the dead, and rose from the grave 
 himself? Was he one of us, whose word was never 
 vain, whose power still remains with them that love 
 him to do such works as his ? Scoff as you will, and 
 split with laughter if you please, the truth is clear as 
 sunlight. There was neither magic nor fraud in 
 Christ. He is in essence God, sent from realms 
 unknown as God and Saviour by the Lord of all."^ 
 There is a good deal of difference from magic glanced 
 at here, in the merciful character of the Saviour's 
 signs, in their number, variety and publicity, in the 
 absence of human means, in the never-failing efficacy 
 of his power and in its transmission to others. The 
 case could hardly be better put without going further 
 into the spiritual revelation implied in the very name 
 of signs. 
 
 The Apologists relied more on the " everlasting 
 voice of Prophecy." If it is most used by the Greeks, 
 it is found in all of them, with the single exception 
 
 ' Arnobius adv. Genies i. 43-53 (condensed). 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 195 
 
 of Arnobius, whose ignorance of Scripture is amazing. 
 It goes far to confirm the story that they were all 
 afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple, 
 till he had preached Christ in writing. He cannot 
 well have been more than a recent convert, if we 
 may judge by his scanty knowledge even of the New 
 Testament. He never seems to quote it but once, 
 and even then not as scripture, but as " the common 
 saying."^ Arnobius however is the only apologist 
 who is not quite familiar with Scripture. Now, 
 though there was no very definite theory of inspira- 
 tion current in the early churches, they firmly 
 believed that God had spoken through the writers 
 of the Old and New Testament, and possibly through 
 some heathen sages also, like Hystaspes and the 
 Sibyl. Thus the early Christians had a very real 
 sense of the historical continuity of revelation, and 
 a fixed persuasion that even the Old Testament 
 must somehow speak of Christ throughout. And 
 were they not right ? 
 
 Unfortunately, their method was not equal to 
 their thought. Fine and true as the idea was, they 
 had not skill to carry it out worthily. They were 
 wanting in knowledge of Hebrew,^ and had to depend 
 on the Septuagint version. Thus they got entangled 
 in endless mistranslations, and roundly accused the 
 Jews of cutting out Messianic prophecies which to 
 
 ^ Arnobius adv. Nat. iii. 6 illud vulgatum, with a clear ref. to 1 Cor. 
 iii. 19. EeifFerscheid finds in i. 6 malum malo repeTidi non oportere another 
 ref. to passages like Mt. v. 49 : but this again may refer only to a common 
 saying. 
 
 ^ Origen knew a little Hebrew, but Jerome is the only scholar of early 
 times worthy of the name. Others like Epiphanius and Theodoret may 
 have had a smattering, while Ephrem Syrus (and possibly Irenaeus) may have 
 been helped out a little by knowledge of Syriao. The rest shew no trace of 
 Hebrew. Cp. 0. J. Elliott in Zl-Cj?. "Hebrew Learning." 
 
196 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 ourselves seem pure interpolations/ Besides this, 
 both historical criticism and the philosophy of history- 
 were still in much too crude a state for the successful 
 treatment of such a question. The Apologists are 
 all of them sensible men, and their language is often 
 highly striking and suggestive ; but it was inevitable 
 that they should often go astray after the verbal 
 quibbles and allegorical trifling which to heathens as 
 well as Christians represented the spiritual meaning 
 of a sacred text. 
 
 A specially interesting sample of the argument 
 from prophecy is the work of Irenseus In Demonstra- 
 tion of the Apostolical Preaching,^ mentioned by 
 Eusebius,^ but only recently discovered in an 
 Armenian translation. Though it is not an apologetic 
 work, being addressed to a Christian named Marcian, 
 it sets forth the demonstration from prophecy exactly 
 as the Apologists do. Irenseus starts from the rule 
 of Faith and the Trinity, as in his great work, and 
 gives a straightforward narrative of the history 
 of revelation from Adam to Christ, which need not 
 detain us. After further setting forth the Incarna- 
 tion and the redemption, and that we are under 
 
 ' Justin, c. Tryph. 72, 73 gives a few of them. 
 
 ^ Des heiligen Irendvs ds iTvldei^iv toO 6,TrocrTo\iKov Kripiiy/iaTos. Von Dr. 
 Karapet Mekerttschian und Dr. Erwand Minassiantz, mit einem Nachwort 
 etc. von Adolf Hamack — Leipzig 1907. 
 
 Tlie newly discovered Treatise of Irenaeus — F. C. Conybeare in Expositor 
 (July 1907). 
 
 The MS. is (xiii.) probably 1270-1289, and was copied by order of Abp. 
 John, youngest brother of King Hethum of Cilicia (1226-1270 — exactly coeval 
 with St. Louis). It represents an Armenian translation made — Harnack 
 puts it near the end of VIL, Conybeare " as old as 450." He is also clear for 
 translation direct from the Greek, while Harnack leaves it an open question 
 whether it was not made from a Syriac translation. 
 
 For the date of the work, we can only say that it was written after the 
 adv. Maer. — say some time after 190. Of Marcian we only know that he did 
 not then live at Lyons. 
 
 ' Eus. v. 26. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 197 
 
 faith, not under law, he devotes the chief part of 
 the work to the particular prophecies of Christ. 
 He begins at the beginning, with an astonishing 
 misreading of the first verse of Genesis, apparently 
 taking B'reshith in the beginning for Bara the Son. 
 In further proof of the Son's pre-existence he quotes 
 as "Jeremiah," Before the morning star did I beget 
 thee.^ After one or two more obscure quotations 
 come the Three men at Mamre, Jacob's ladder, the 
 burning bush, and the morning star again, but this 
 time as "David." After one or two more, he comes 
 to the prophecy of Immanuel, and Unto us a child is 
 born : but the government which is upon his shoulder 
 means the cross. 
 
 ' Then the special events of our Lord's life were 
 all predicted. For his birth — The sceptre shall not 
 depart from Judah, A star shall arise out of 
 Jacob, There shall come forth a rod out of the 
 root of Jesse, I wUl raise up the tabernacle of David 
 that is fallen, viz. — Christ's body at his resurrec- 
 tion. So too his birth at Bethlehem was predicted 
 by Micah, his entry into Jerusalem by Zechariah, 
 his healings and raisings of the dead by Isaiah.^ 
 Then his sufferings are set forth by Isaiah^ and 
 Jeremiah* — and who shall declare his (divine) 
 generation ? David tells of his death and resurrec- 
 tion — I laid me down and slept ; I awaked ; for 
 
 1 Ps. ex. 3 LXX. 
 
 " Isa. xxvi. 19. 
 
 8 Isa. Hi. 1— liii. 8— Ivii. 1, 2. 
 
 ' Lam. iT. 20. Under his shadow shall we live among the heathen. The 
 shadow is his body, for as the shadow comes from the body, so came his 
 body from his spirit. As a shadow it was despised of men, and as a shadow 
 it was trampled underfoot on the way to Golgotha. So too they brought 
 forth the sick into the streets that his shadow might fall on them. (A con- 
 fusion here with Peter, Acts v. 15.) Or is it a touch of tradition ? 
 
198 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 the Lord sustained me : ^ and again, Why do the 
 heathen rage? for Herod and Pilate, the procurator 
 of Claudius,^ were gathered together against him : ^ 
 and Zechariah says. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep 
 shall be scattered.* The cross itself is prophesied 
 by Isaiah — I have spread out my hands all the day 
 to a rebellious people,^ by David — they pierced my 
 hands and my feet," and by Moses — thy life shall 
 hang in doubt before thee.'' So too David — they 
 part my garments among them, and Jeremiah — 
 they took the thirty pieces of silver,* and David — 
 they gave me also gall for my meat.^ The Resurrec- 
 tion is proved by David — thou hast ascended on 
 high, thou hast led captivity captive,^" and, Lift 
 up your heads, ye gates," for the everlasting doors 
 mean heaven. " If then the prophets foretold that 
 the Son of God should appear on earth (and the 
 circumstances of his life) and the Lord took aU these 
 prophecies as of himself, our belief in him is well- 
 
 ' Ps. iii. 6. 
 
 ^ Ir. is repeating the huge blunder of adv. Baer. ii. 20, no doubt suggested 
 by Joh. viii. 57. But surely Harnack is altogether too spitzfindig in suggest- 
 ing that the writer of the Fourth Gospel made the same blunder. Joh. ii. 
 20 is no help without evidence that Josephus has blundered also about the 
 building of Herod's temple — Conybeare even calls Harnack's "the only 
 straightforward interpretation. " 
 
 3 Ps. u. 1, 2. 
 
 * Zeoh. xiii. 7. Then follows a quotation from " The Twelve Prophets " — 
 And they bound him and brought him as a present to the king. Harnack 
 marks it doubtful : I should see in it a reading of Hos. x. 6. Then comes 
 the apocryphal passage of Jeremiah — And the Lord remembered his dead 
 which slept in the earth, and went down unto them to make known hia 
 salvation, and to deliver them. 
 
 ' Isa. Ixv. 2. 
 
 8 Ps. xxii. 15-21. 
 
 ' Deut. xxviii. 66— thy life meaning Christ. So Athanaaius. 
 
 5 Zeoh. xi. 12 : quoted as Jer. as in Mt. xxvii. 10. 
 
 » Ps. Ixix. 22. 
 
 i» Ps. Ixviii. 18. 
 
 " Ps. xxiv. 7. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 199 
 
 grounded, and the tradition of our preaching, that is, 
 the testimony of the apostles, is true." He goes on 
 speaking of the call of the Gentiles and the new 
 power of faith (not law) by which we live, and 
 finishes with a classification of heretics. Some deny 
 the Father by inventing another Creator ; some deny 
 the Son by despising the story of his incarnation — 
 and these too are men of little faith ; and some deny 
 the Holy Spirit by refusing that prophetic gift of 
 his which makes fruitful our spiritual life. Of all 
 such beware, if you desire to be well-pleasing to 
 God and to receive salvation from him. 
 
 The demonstration was the same for the heathen 
 as for the heretic, for the prophets could be quoted 
 as at all events ancient writers. So all this is quite 
 in the style of the Apologists. Irenseus quotes the 
 same texts with the same peculiar interpretations. 
 It reminds us also of the New Testament, especially 
 of the First Gospel, but with a difference. In the 
 New Testament the use of prophecy floats between 
 spiritual illustration and prediction, and the emphasis 
 is rather on the divine purpose in events (iva ifKTjpoaOfj) 
 than on definite prediction, whereas later writers 
 think only of definite predictions of particular 
 events. 
 
 If they are all borrowing from some very early 
 manual of proof-texts,^ which must be at least earlier 
 than the First Gospel, we may safely say that few 
 books have so deeply influenced Christian thought. 
 After all, these strange interpretations do but express 
 the intense conviction of the first Christians that all 
 things must somehow speak of Christ ; and we shall 
 not despise them if we are willing to see in them the 
 
 ^ Eendel Harris and Prof. Burkitt have this theory. 
 
200 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 first gropings after some sucli a philosophy of history 
 as shall clearly shew the relation every detail must 
 have to the great central fact of the Incarnation. 
 
 A third line of argument struck out by TertuUian -^ 
 is the Testimonium anitnae naturaliter Christianae, 
 which we may paraphrase as the correspondence of 
 the Gospel to the moral nature of man. The principle 
 of course underlies the entire work of the Alexandrians, 
 but they make little direct use of it as an apologetic 
 argument. Here again the thought is excellent, the 
 method crude. TertuUian appeals to instinctive 
 phrases — Good God ! God grant ! — which point to 
 monotheism, and argues from these to the one power 
 which implanted them. This was shallow : but the 
 idea was a fruitful one, and only needed to be worked 
 out on some such deeper lines as were indicated by 
 the Alexandrians. 
 
 So far then the arguments of the Apologists are 
 better than the use they make of them. Miracle is 
 a sound argument ; but not till it is put into its 
 right relation to common events, as rather an assur- 
 ance of goodness than a display of power. Prophecy 
 is a sound argument ; but not when it is reduced 
 from a convergence of old ideals on what was historical 
 in Jesus of Nazareth to a forced correspondence of 
 particular events to predictions. The testimony of 
 the soul is a sound argument, but not till the deepest 
 feelings of human nature are examined, and shewn 
 to call for such a high priest as became us.^ But 
 there was a fourth argument which the Apologists 
 thoroughly understood, and pressed with admirable 
 force — the argument from Christian life : and it had 
 
 ^ Sketched in Apol. 17, and more fully dealt with in his de TesUmonio 
 animae. 
 
 ^ Hebr, vii. 26, where (irpeirci' implies that we can judge of his fitness. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 201 
 
 the advantage of appealing rather to conscience than 
 to logic. They could throw down the challenge, Are 
 not Christians better than heathens ? Are not 
 our common people more virtuous than your 
 philosophers ? Is not conversion morally a change 
 for the better ? Do we not leave behind, the three 
 great sins of idolatry, whoredom and usury, and 
 become sober and peaceable men, fearing God and 
 eschewing evil ? What fault can you find with us, 
 except that we are Christians ? But no human skill 
 can put the full force of this argument. Deeper than 
 we know is the appeal of a saintly life, peradventure 
 sealed with blood : and if many of the Christians fell 
 far short of saintliness, there were saints enough 
 among them to overcome the world. 
 
 Yet another argument was drawn by the later 
 Apologists from the spread of the Gospel. It is 
 essentially the argument of Gamaliel,^ that God will 
 not allow his purpose to be finally stultified by men. 
 The fact of course is already noted in the second 
 century, as when Justin tells us that the Jews have 
 a widespread, the Christians a world-wide one. So 
 too Irenseus and TertuUian. But these writers use 
 it at most as a plea for toleration ; its apologetic use 
 as a proof of Christianity dates from the third century, 
 and is represented by Origen ^ and Arnobius.^ 
 
 As regards the attack on heathenism, it may be 
 said generally that while the apologists upon the 
 whole stand on the defensive in the second century, 
 they take the offensive in the third. The attack 
 naturally falls into two main divisions. The 
 absurdities and immoralities of Polytheism had been 
 
 ' Acts T. 38, referring to the specific promise of the Messiah. 
 2 Origen c. Oelsum i. ^ Arnobius ii. 5. 
 
202 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 for centuries a scandal even to heathens of a decent 
 sort : ^ to TertuUian and Arnobius they are an endless 
 theme of ridicule and satire. The excuse of allegory 
 is as scornfully refused to the heathens by Arnobius ^ 
 as it is to the Christians by Porphyry.^ There were 
 the scandals in black and white, and they must not 
 be explained away. Philosophy was a more serious 
 enemy than these antiquated myths. The Greek 
 apologists treat it with respect, and content them- 
 selves with pointing out its deficiencies, and denounc- 
 ing the rhetoric which was corrupting it. The Latins 
 (except Lactantius) seem to think it enough to reply 
 summarily that the philosophers refute each other. 
 In any case, for both Greeks and Xatins, the Gospel 
 is the truth, the revealed truth, and the sufficient 
 truth. 
 
 We shall best sum up our account of the 
 Apologists if we now turn from their arguments to 
 some of their writings. Our best samples of Greek 
 and Latin thought will be Clement and TertuUian. 
 Justin is less suitable, because he marks an earlier 
 stage than Clement ; and Origen, because he has no 
 plan of his own beyond that of answering Celsus 
 paragraph by paragraph. The diff"erence however 
 between Clement and TertuUian is not entirely that of 
 Greek and Latin thought. Clement is one of the most 
 refined and cultured characters of ancient times. He 
 writes for educated and well-to-do people, and seeks 
 to win them to Christ. So he is scrupulously fair to 
 heathenism, always willing to see its good side, and glad 
 to set down heathens rather as misled than either fools 
 or liars. He can rebuke sin sternly enough, but he 
 
 ' Their demoralizing influences are well summed up by Firmicus 12. 
 "^ Arnobius iv. 34, v. 32. * Eus. vi. 19. 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 203 
 
 rather wonders how the sinners can so forget them- 
 selves. Tertullian is blunt and undiscriminating — a 
 prince among controversialists, for with all his learn- 
 ing and earnestness, his methods are too much those 
 of the vulgar controversialist. If he addresses the 
 " rulers of the Eoman Empire," his real appeal is to 
 plain Christians — to prejudice as well as to piety in 
 those Simpliciores whose narrowness is so troublesome 
 to Clement. He takes for granted what suits him, 
 and puts it in the most telling way. There is neither 
 sympathy nor mercy nor sense of fairness in him. 
 The harder his hits, the greater the fools he makes his 
 enemies, the better he is pleased. Clement's delight 
 is in preaching the Word as the Guide and Teacher, 
 even of the men that walk in darkness : Tertullian 
 jeers at idolatry and philosophy alike. 
 
 Clement's Protrepticus begins with a graceful 
 reference to the legends of Orpheus and Eunomus, who 
 charmed the beasts, and even stocks and stones, with 
 their music. But the new song of Christ has done 
 more than this, for sinners are the worst of beasts, 
 and men sunk in ignorance are more senseless than 
 stocks and stones — and it has charmed them. Christ 
 the Word, both God and man, is our creator and our 
 saviour. He came on earth (such is the new song) to 
 shew God to men, to stay corruption, to conquer 
 death, to reconcile disobedient sons to their Father. 
 Clement then reviews the different forms of 
 heathenism, popular and philosophical. He begins 
 with the strongest elements of popular religion — the 
 oracles, the divinings, the auguries (all pure imposture) 
 and especially the mysteries, all full of outrage and 
 abomination. " Yet there was implanted of old in 
 men a fellowship with heaven, darkened indeed with 
 
204 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 ignorance, but now and again flashing out suddenly 
 from the darkness and shining anew. Ruinous of a 
 truth were the sinful and perverted imaginations 
 which turned away man, the heavenly plant, from the 
 heavenly life, and persuaded him to give heed to 
 earthly inventions." Then he turns to the gods. 
 Some found gods in the host of heaven, others in the 
 fruits of the earth, others in the evil . that hunts the 
 wicked to overthrow him. Some of the philosophers 
 have made gods of human passions ; others have put 
 in bodily form things like justice and fate. Another 
 set like Homer and Hesiod have manufactured whole 
 families of gods, and yet another have deified bene- 
 factors — and forgotten God their true benefactor. 
 The gods of the legends are as immoral as they can 
 be — precious models for your wives and sons. They 
 are dead men and bad men ; and their vile example 
 corrupts your whole life. Really, the beasts the 
 Egyptians worship are better than your gods. The 
 philosophers also have gone sadly wrong. Most of 
 them deify the elements, and some of those who aim 
 higher make gods of abstractions like the infinite. 
 The Stoics make their divinity pervade matter, even 
 the basest — and herein are a downright disgrace to 
 philosophy. Aristotle takes the soul of the world for 
 God ; and of Epicurus the less said the better, for his 
 doctrine of a God who cares for nothing is impious 
 from every point of view. But the philosophers have 
 not all gone wrong, " for in all men without exception, 
 and in students especially, there is instilled a divine 
 effluence." Plato is in touch of the truth (though he 
 falls short of it) when he says that the Father and Maker 
 of this universe is hard to find ; and when found, im- 
 possible to declare to all men. Nor does Plato stand 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 205 
 
 alone, for many others have hinted or like Cleanthes 
 openly confessed the one true God according to his 
 inspiration, by which alone they reached whatever 
 truth they did reach. But if idolatry is untruth, and 
 even philosophy no more than vailed or partial truth, 
 we must go on for pure truth to the prophets — the 
 Sibyl first, then Jeremiah, Moses and the rest. Of 
 their words not a tittle shall pass away without fulfil- 
 ment, for the mouth of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, 
 spoke them ; so that theirs are the holy writings 
 which make us holy and divine. If ye refuse when 
 God calls, what remains for you but judgment and 
 condemnation ? Axe ye not ashamed ? But, say ye, 
 it is not right to unsettle the tradition of our fathers. 
 But if your tradition is wicked and godless, why not 
 reject it as poison, and turn to the truth and to God 
 your true Father ? Look at the miserable creatures 
 who serve the idols — filthy and disgusting creatures, 
 and often mutilated. They seem to me rather to 
 mourn the gods than to worship them, and deserve 
 more pity than reverence. Contrast with these 
 captives the joy and freedom of the Christian who 
 has passed from ignorance to knowledge, from folly 
 to good sense, from unrestraint to self-control, from 
 iniquity to righteousness, from godlessness to God. 
 We look for and hasten to unending salvation as the 
 unending gift of God's unending covenant. " Come 
 to baptism, he says, to salvation, to enlightenment. I 
 give thee earth and heaven, my child, if thou wilt 
 only thirst for thy Father ; and thou shalt rejoice in 
 the kingdom of thy Lord for evermore." God's 
 purpose ever is to save his human flock : therefore the 
 good God sent the good Shepherd, who laid open the 
 truth and taught men the height of their salvation, 
 
2o6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 that such as repented might be saved, and such as 
 obeyed not might be judged. Holy are the mysteries 
 indeed, in which heaven is the scene and God the 
 revelation ; in which the Lord is hierophant, and 
 bears the light, and seals the candidate, and presents 
 to the Father the believer kept safe for ages. These 
 are my mysteries : come thou too and be initiated, 
 and thou shalt dance with angels round the one true 
 God, and the Word of God shall join our song. His 
 yoke is easy, his burden light. Let us hasten, let us 
 run, images of the Word, ye men beloved of God 
 and like to God, let us take his yoke upon us and let 
 him rule us, and be winners of God and life eternal. 
 Aye, the life in Christ is life eternal, turning corruption 
 into incorruption, and earth into heaven. It is not 
 fitting that we who are God's image and likeness should 
 waver in the choice between sense and madness, life 
 and destruction. 
 
 But no fragments can do justice to the intense 
 and joyous earnestness of Clement's words. It is the 
 sunny hopefulness of pagan Greece, dimmed a little by 
 philosophical contempt of matter, and not free from 
 the old pagan confusion of sin with ignorance, but 
 refined and immeasurably deepened by the love of 
 Christ. The Latins could preach righteousness, the 
 mystics peace ; but only the Greeks before the Re- 
 formation fully understood that the kingdom of God 
 is also joy : and of the Greeks none understood it 
 better than Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 With Clement's gentle pleading compare Ter- 
 tuUian's haughty challenge. Rulers of the Roman 
 Empire, if you are afraid or ashamed to do us public 
 justice, at least allow truth to reach you privately by 
 letter. It is not justice to hate us without knowing 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 207 
 
 what we are. Criminals are allowed to defend them- 
 selves in court ; Christians are condemned the 
 moment they declare themselves. Yet if we commit 
 crimes, evidence ought to be forthcoming. Pliny 
 could find none : no more can you. What a muddle 
 Trajan made of it, declaring us criminals, yet for- 
 bidding search for us. You say we break the laws — 
 Non licet esse vos. Well, your laws do not come 
 down from heaven, and they are not too sacred for 
 you to repeal them every day. But these laws ! 
 Nero was their worthy author, and even Domitian 
 grew sick of their cruelty. Marcus protected us, and 
 no good emperor ever put them in force. Now what 
 are your charges ? ( 1 ) Secret crimes ? Eumour is not 
 evidence ; and you have no other. They are absurd, 
 though they are only what you do yourselves, and 
 that not always in secret. You have not quite given 
 up sacrificing men, and you still feed your beasts on 
 men. Why, Jupiter is a real Christian at murder 
 and incest. (2) Impiety ? because we do not worship 
 your gods. What are they but dead men, and 
 precious bad men too ? The mice and the spiders 
 understand them. And worthily you treat them ! 
 you sell your household gods, and think nothing of 
 melting down a Saturn into a saucepan. You worship 
 harlots along with Juno, set up a statue to Simon 
 Magus, and rank some infamous creature of the 
 palace (Antinous) among the highest gods. Nice 
 tales you tell of them, and nicely you mock them on 
 the stage — the Christians could not treat them worse. 
 You say we worship a donkey's head. Tacitus tells 
 that story of the Jews — but perhaps our fault is, that 
 while you worship beasts of all sorts, we worship 
 donkeys only. According to others, we worship 
 
208 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 crosses. Well, half your gods are only crosses, 
 though you are polite enough to dress them up a 
 little. Others make out that we worship the sun 
 like Persians, because we pray towards the East, and 
 keep Sunday. In truth we worship the one true 
 God, the God to whom both Nature and the soul 
 bear witness. The Jewish prophets declared him of 
 old, and afterwards Christ the word, the reason, the 
 power of God, the Son incarnate. Our story is as 
 good as one of yours ; and moreover, we can prove it 
 by the voice of prophecy and by the fact of the 
 resurrection, and by our power over the demons you 
 worship. This is the sum of our offence. The 
 impiety is yours, in that you compel men to worship 
 idols against their will, for your law allows anything 
 whatever to be worshipped, except the true God. 
 (3) You call us disloyal, because we wUl not swear 
 by Caesar's Genius. On the contrary, we rank Caesar 
 above those dead gods of yours, and pray for him 
 (not formal prayers like yours) to the God who made 
 him ruler, and is alone above him. So the apostle 
 gave command : and we further pray for the welfare 
 of the Empire, because we know that its fall will 
 usher in the horrors of the end of the world. We 
 share public joys ; but our rejoicings are not public 
 indecency like yours. You do but flatter Caesar with 
 your lips. You never spare him the abuse you learn 
 in the worthy school of the beast-shows ; and your 
 hearts are always hankering after a new Caesar — and 
 a new largess. You are the true loyalists, no doubt, 
 for it is you, not we, who always hatch the plots. 
 God forbid that we should fight : yet we could fight 
 if we chose. We are men of yesterday, and we fill 
 both town and country — we leave you only your 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 209 
 
 temples. There are more Christians in one province 
 than soldiers in all your army : and we could desolate 
 the Empire without fighting, if we chose to leave it. 
 Our meetings are pious and innocent, our collections 
 of money are given freely and administered as a 
 sacred trust for them that need. Your feasts are 
 luxury and excess ; ours are modest and sober — we 
 call them love feasts. We begin with prayer and 
 end with prayer, and go home quietly, not like 
 Mohocks. You are the rioters, not we. If there be 
 drought or earthquake, pestilence or famine, straight- 
 way The Christians to the lion — as if one lion could 
 eat them all ! Were there no earthquakes before 
 Christ ? Aye, and worse calamities than ever befel 
 you since you had Christians to moderate the world's 
 wickedness. Our prayers and fastings bring down 
 rain from heaven for you ; and you only harden 
 yourselves in the idolatry which brings down your 
 calamities from heaven. You say that we are no 
 good for commerce. How can that be ? We are not 
 Brahmins or hermits, but live among you, and need 
 the market as much as you do. Only, we do not 
 patronize the temples — if Jupiter wants an alms, let 
 him hold out his hand — nor the pandars, the 
 poisoners, the fortune-tellers, and such -like. You 
 furnish the criminals, not we : you will never find 
 one of us in jail, except for being a Christian. The 
 philosophers despise the gods and even bark at the 
 emperor ; and you honour them with statues and 
 stipends, while you give us to the beasts. Quite 
 right too, to make a difference, for philosophers have 
 neither Christian truth nor Christian purity. We 
 are innocent, we are conquerors — the stake is our 
 triumphal chariot — no wonder we do not please our 
 VOL. I P 
 
2IO CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 conquered enemies. You honour classic heroism ; 
 ours you count madness. Go on, your Excellencies, 
 do your worst, and let the rabble applaud you. Your 
 injustice does but prove our innocence. The more of 
 us you kill, the more there are of us : the blood of 
 Christians is a seed that will grow. We thank you 
 for your cruelty, because your condemnation is God's 
 acquittal and forgiveness of all our sins. 
 
 Setting aside a little special pleading, this is in 
 the main a solid and successful defence. As an 
 argument it is magnificent ; and TertuUian's com- 
 mand of sarcasm is unsurpassed in history. But this 
 is defiance, not persuasion ; bitter satire, not the 
 gentle pleading of a Clement. If it ever reached the 
 proconsul of Africa, its audacious language would 
 rather suggest to him that Christians were even more 
 dangerous miscreants than he took them for. 
 
 After all, the conquering power of the Gospel was 
 not in the arguments of Clement or TertuUian, sound 
 as they were, but in the evidence of Christian life and 
 love. Christian purity and patience. If it was not 
 perfect, it was divine enough to overcome the world. 
 If it might not stay the sword of persecution, it 
 could make the blow uncertain. Fiercely as the 
 storm raged at times, there were many intervals of 
 quiet. Ghastly as the records of heathen persecution 
 are, the work of blood was never done with the 
 infernal thoroughness of papal Rome. Heathenism 
 had a conscience which was not always deaf to the 
 voice within which said. These men are better than 
 we. So persecution was hardly ever uniform or 
 systematic. It might do its worst in one province 
 while the next was at peace. Meanwhile, the evidence 
 of Christian life was working steadily. The slanders 
 
XI THE APOLOGISTS 211 
 
 were lived down, the hatred of the mob was over- 
 come, and persecution became more and more a 
 spasmodic eflfbrt of the government. And when the 
 public opinion of heathenism had swung round, the 
 last great struggle of Diocletian was foredoomed to 
 usher in the victory of the Christian church. 
 
 Books 
 
 Works on the Apologists in general are few : the individual writers will 
 be found elsewhere. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 Christians, says the nameless writer to Diognetus, 
 " are not distinguished by country, by language, or by 
 customs from other men. They neither inhabit cities 
 of their own, nor use any uncommon mode of speech, 
 nor practise any peculiar mode of life. Their teaching 
 was not discovered by the research of men, and the 
 philosophy they profess is not of men. Though they 
 inhabit Greek and barbarian cities as their lot is cast, 
 and follow the customs of the country in dress and 
 food and general mode of life, their conduct is admir- 
 able and altogether strange to men. They live in 
 countries of their own, but as sojourners. Every 
 foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every 
 fatherland a foreign country. They are in the flesh, 
 yet live not after the flesh. Their life is spent on 
 earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They love 
 all men, and are persecuted by all. They are ignored 
 and condemned ; put to death — and made alive. They 
 are dishonoured, and in their dishonour glorified. 
 They are reviled — and bless ; outraged — and honour 
 men. Doing good they are punished as evil-doers : 
 when punished they rejoice as being made alive. By 
 the Jews they are warred upon as aliens, and persecuted 
 by the Greeks ; and they that hate them cannot tell the 
 
CHAP, xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 213 
 
 reason of their enmity. In a word, what the soul is 
 in a body, this the Christians are in the world. The 
 soul dwelleth in the body, yet is not of the body : 
 so Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the 
 world. The flesh hateth the soul and warreth on it, 
 because it is hindered of its pleasures ; so the world 
 hateth Christians, because they set themselves against 
 its pleasures. The soul loveth the flesh which hateth 
 it : so Christians love them that hate them. The 
 soul is shut up in the body, yet itself holds the body 
 together : so they are kept in the world as in a prison, 
 yet it is they that hold the world together. The 
 soul though itself immortal dwelleth in a mortal 
 tabernacle : so Christians sojourn among corruptible 
 things while they look for the incorruption that is 
 in heaven." ^ 
 
 This magnificent picture is of course an ideal, 
 in the sense that great mischief has been done by 
 writers who treat it as a matter of fact account 
 of what the Christians actually were. On the other 
 hand, it is a fact precisely because it is an ideal, and 
 we should be deplorably mistaken if we summarily 
 set it aside as " little better than a rhetorical exercise." 
 It is not a play of idle fancy, but an ideal which the 
 Christians were striving to realize, and to a fair 
 distance did realize ; and therefore it is one of the 
 solid facts of history which we are bound to reckon 
 with. 
 
 Before we can fill in its outlines, we must turn 
 aside for awhile from the churches to survey the 
 heathen life around them ; and in doing this we 
 shall need no little caution. First, we are ourselves 
 living in such an atmosphere of Christianity as makes 
 
 ^ Auot. ad Diognetwm 5, 6 (a little condensed). 
 
214 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 it hard to understand the thought and feeling of a 
 world to which Christ was unknown, or known only 
 as a disreputable god worshipped by some obscure 
 fanatics. Even the enemies of the Gospel in our own 
 time cannot reproduce for us that thought and feeling, 
 for they too are rejoicing in light which comes from 
 Christ, and drawing unawares on his living power. 
 So far as concerns difference from ancient ways of 
 thinking, the unbeliever is not much less modern 
 than the Christian. Again, we must beware of 
 taking our estimate of heathen society straight from 
 satirists like Juvenal and Lucian, romancers like 
 Petronius and Apuleius, or ascetics like Jerome, who 
 tell the most piquant of scandals as everyday 
 occurrences ; from reactionists like Tacitus and his 
 admirers (Gibbon in particular) who set down all 
 departure from classical ideals as pure degeneracy, or 
 from apologists like Tertullian, who are more anxious 
 to make the best of their own case than to do their 
 neighbours justice. The worst offenders of all are 
 the modern writers who seem to think that every 
 touch of light in a black picture of the world is a 
 reproach to the church. They have deified the church 
 and diabolized the world with worse than Pharisaic 
 self-righteousness. "We do no honour to the Gospel 
 by refusing to see the working of the Spirit of Christ 
 in the world of heathenism, and counting its noble 
 works of patience and faithfulness as no better than 
 " splendid vices." The facts — hideous as they often 
 are — point much less to any general spread of out- 
 rageous and revolting vice and corruption than to a 
 state of things we find more or less in all ages and 
 in all countries — much selfish luxury and vice among 
 the rich, much flabbiness and indecision of popular 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 215 
 
 religion in all classes ; but in all classes also much 
 sense of duty and sober living, and more striving 
 after better things than in some later ages. 
 Heathenism had a conscience, and its moral sense 
 was commonly true, though often strangely lenient. 
 If it seldom failed to stigmatize wrong as wrong, the 
 very worst of vices were too often condoned by 
 society like trifling faults — as indeed some of them 
 are in our own time. 
 
 The first thing we notice in the heathen society 
 of the Empire is its extraordinary conservatism and 
 strength of class feeling. This was much more 
 marked in Rome than in Greece, where commerce 
 had always ranked higher; but even in Greece it 
 went far. There was reason for it. Where custom 
 fixed a man's place in society, there could be no true 
 regard for man as man, and therefore no real respect 
 for the rights of others, so that if custom was 
 weakened, society was threatened with dissolution. 
 So the Roman Republic, and the Empire after it, was 
 organized in classes. It was aristocratic to the core. 
 The senator looked down on the citizen, the citizen 
 on the freedman, the freedman on the slave ; and 
 each of the four main classes fell into sections divided 
 by the same sort of class pride. It is true that the 
 barriers were not impassable. The slave might 
 become a freedman, the freedman a citizen, the 
 citizen a senator ; but society required that no one 
 man should be allowed to take more than one step 
 upward. His son might take a second, but he might 
 not. So the emperors gave more ofi"ence to society 
 by allowing influence to freedmen than by many of 
 their worst acts of tyranny. It was a standing 
 grievance, mitigated when Hadrian organized a civil 
 
2i6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 service from the equites, and removed when the 
 Christian emperors tacitly reserved high civil office 
 for men of high birth. Pride of class survived the 
 fall of heathenism — it is very marked in Constantine. 
 It survived the Empire itself, as we see in Gregory 
 of Tours, and only vanished when ancient society 
 itself disappeared in the anarchy of the seventh 
 century. 
 
 The next thing to notice is that authority was in 
 principle unlimited. The state was omnipotent, in 
 the sense of claiming full control over every depart- 
 ment of life. The provincial governors had full civil 
 and military authority, except that Eoman citizens 
 might invoke the tribunes, or in later times appeal 
 to the emperor ; and every man was a despot in his 
 own family. Human selfishness was quite free, 
 except where the state restrained it for its own 
 purposes. No doubt philosophy and law were 
 softening the harshness of the old Eoman discipline ; 
 but it long remained an influential ideal. 
 
 Women, to begin with the nearest relation of life, 
 were regarded as inferiors, and kept in life-long 
 tutelage to fathers, husbands, and sons. Marriage 
 was a duty to the state, which in course of time the 
 men found so irksome that Augustus had to encourage 
 it by law. He touched human selfishness at the 
 tenderest point, by allowing childless men to receive 
 only half of a legacy, the unmarried nothing at all — 
 and touched it in vain. The burden was still heavier 
 for the women, whom the old Eoman law set nearly 
 on a level with their own daughters. There was 
 some reason for so doing, when they were very 
 commonly married at the age of twelve : but it was 
 none the less a real grievance, so that their efforts to 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 217 
 
 evade it in the unsettled age of tlie later republic 
 and the early Empire must not be summarily set 
 down to wanton restlessness. They escaped from the 
 control of their husbands by avoiding the ancient 
 forms of marriage which subjected them to it : and 
 when also the tutelage had been placed in friendly 
 hands, or sometimes abolished, they were more free 
 in person and property than they have ever since 
 been (at least till lately) in Christian countries. The 
 great ladies were a power in society, and women like 
 Julia Domna, Julia Mamsea, Victorina and Zenobia 
 are conspicuous even in the brilliant series of emperors 
 who adorn the third century. But if they were free, 
 so was divorce — on both sides, when once the 
 solemn forms were dropped. The old strictness was 
 forgotten, and though we need not believe that it 
 was common for women to count their years by 
 successive husbands, the bond of marriage was with- 
 out question dangerously loosened. 
 
 Children were still more dependent. A father 
 was in no way bound to rear the child that was born 
 to him, but might expose it if he pleased. The 
 mother had no voice in the matter. The power of 
 life and death was complete, even over a son who 
 had held the highest honours of the state : and it 
 included full power of sale or imprisonment at 
 discretion. Under the Empire however it was 
 nearly obsolete, and from Trajan onward its use was 
 more and more severely punished till Constantine 
 declared it murder. Centuries were needed to work 
 out the idea that a father is not the absolute owner 
 but the natural protector of his children; and in 
 Eoman law it was never fully realized at all. 
 
 The slave had no rights against either his master 
 
2i8 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 or any one else. He was a " live tool," " like any 
 other animal." The old law left him absolutely at 
 his master's mercy. He might be crucified for any 
 reason or no reason, till Hadrian commanded that he 
 should not be put to death without cause. ^ If he 
 offended against the laws, his punishment was always 
 heavier than that of the free man. Where one was 
 sent into honourable exile, the other was sent to the 
 mines. Where one was beheaded, the other was 
 burned or given to the beasts in the amphitheatre for 
 the delectation of the Roman people. He was an 
 utter outlaw. He could give no evidence, except 
 under torture. Even his marriage had no force — his 
 wife was only his " companion " or " fellow-servant," ^ 
 and his children belonged to his master. 
 
 The number of the slaves must have been very 
 large, though it has often been overestimated. We 
 shall judge more safely, not from the thousands who 
 belonged to a few rich men, but from the general 
 impression we get, that a man who owned less than 
 perhaps half a score of slaves was very badly off. 
 Upon the whole, we may safely say that the slaves 
 were much more numerous than the free men : and 
 as this is the economic fact which determined the 
 whole character of ancient society, we must look at it 
 more closely. 
 
 It would be a mistake to lay the chief stress on the 
 suflFerings of the slaves themselves. Great as these 
 were, even after the Empire had begun to give them 
 some protection, they were not the worst evils of 
 
 ' Spartian Hadrian 18 servos a dominis occidi vetuit. Gaius Instil, i. 53 
 sed hoc tempore (nou) licet supra iiiodum et sine causa iu servos saevire : 
 nam ex constitutions sacratissimi imperatoris Antonini qui sine causa servum 
 suum Occident, non minus teneri jubetur, quam qui alienum servum Occident. 
 
 - (rifipiot, conserva : frequent in inscriptions. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 219 
 
 slavery. We need not stop to shew how cruelty and 
 fear of cruelty and loss of self-respect drove them to 
 the slavish vices of knavery and falsehood. This 
 was well understood in the market, where a slave 
 sold cheaper when he had been in slavery long enough 
 to learn his tricks. He did not forget them when 
 he gained his liberty. In fact, the freedman was far 
 from fully free. He still owed reverence to his old 
 master, and was bound to conform to his will.^ His 
 patronus had a claim on him for work, or any other 
 condition he had made, and was his heir at last. 
 And if he failed in duty, he could be punished or 
 brought back to slavery. There was reason in the 
 contempt of society for freedmen. It was natural 
 that they should retain the vices of their former 
 state : and whenever there was rascality or crime to 
 be done, a freedman was commonly a ready agent. 
 But the worst effects of slavery are on the masters ; 
 and they extend far beyond the wanton luxury and 
 outrageous cruelty of which only a few, or possibly 
 none of them may be guilty. 
 
 The essence of slavery is not any bad treatment of 
 the slaves, however bad it be, but the selfish thought 
 that we may consider some men not as men with 
 much the same rights and duties as our own, but as 
 " domestic animals " or " animated tools." There was 
 a good deal of it in the old factory system, where 
 men, women and children counted only for so many 
 " hands " ; and there is still something of it in the 
 religious orders of the church of Rome, where a man 
 becomes less than a man by taking a vow of obedience 
 
 ^ In legal language, reverentia and obsequium weie due to the jiatronus. 
 See Fustel de Coulanges L'lnvasimi gerinanique 96-138. How far the 
 obsequium went may be seen from the argument of counsel — Impudicitia in 
 imgenuo crimen est, in servo necessUas, in liberto officium. 
 
220 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 whicli even on its purely economic side is occasionally 
 no better than a contract of slavery. No man can 
 hold a tyrant's power with impunity. In ancient 
 times tyranny began in the nursery. Children were 
 surrounded with slaves, and soon found that they 
 could safely use them with the unthinking cruelty of 
 children, while the slaves on their part were often 
 ready to curry favour with them by base services. 
 Many a time the wrong of slavery avenged itself in 
 the corruption of the children of the house. So the 
 governing class grew up in habits of insolence and 
 disregard of other people's rights which threatened the 
 political security of the state ; in habits of idleness 
 and contempt of honest labour which undermined its 
 economic welfare ; in habits of unbridled lust and 
 carelessness of human life which positively endangered 
 the physical continuance of the race. In this way 
 slavery was the chief cause of the civil strife and 
 internecine wars which ruined Greece and Gaul, and 
 made the ancient world a prey to Eome, and enslaved 
 Rome herself to a Saviour of Society. It was the chief 
 cause of the neglected agriculture and rotten economics 
 which brought the Empire to bankruptcy, and made 
 a desert of rich provinces which the sword of war had 
 spared for centuries. Yet again, slavery more than 
 anything else was the cause of the dwindled population 
 which made the Empire of the world a spoil to scanty 
 hordes of northern barbarians. Rome in former times 
 had triumphed over them and utterly broken them 
 in pieces ; but now the wrecks and remnants of the 
 broken tribes were too strong for the civilized world. 
 Only Israel was free from the curse of slavery. 
 We hear enough and to spare of brigands and zealots 
 and false Messiahs in the last calamitous years before 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 221 
 
 the Eoman war ; but the slaves are not a dangerous 
 class as they were in Greece and Rome. The reason 
 is not that there were no slaves, though there may 
 have been fewer than elsewhere. Nor is it simply 
 that they were better treated. They were better 
 treated because they were respected as men. The 
 Law had once for all drawn the sting of slavery when 
 it secured the spiritual equality of the slave by com- 
 manding that if he was circumcised like his master he 
 should eat the passover like his master. And this 
 lesson at any rate was not thrown away on the 
 Pharisees, for they ordered that every rabbi should 
 have his handicraft. The worst evils of slavery are 
 done away when neither the slave nor his labour is 
 despised. 
 
 But in the Gentile world every relation of life was 
 corrupted by slavery. Marriage was not likely to be 
 pure where men had slave-women and freedwomen at 
 their disposal from their youth. Children were not 
 likely to respect parents who neglected them for 
 pleasure, and left them to the care of slaves. Society 
 was a vast experimentum in corpore vili. The men 
 who destroyed the self-respect of slaves naturally 
 lost their own — and their women likewise. Nothing 
 corrupted society so much as the immoral and 
 abominable games and pantomimes, and the murderous 
 man-fights and beast-fights of the amphitheatre : and 
 these were only made possible by the number of cheap 
 slaves. A Spanish bull-fight is a decent and pious 
 business compared with the great festivals of the 
 amphitheatre, where thousands at once turned down 
 their thumbs and shouted to the gladiator to finish 
 his wounded enemy before their eyes. At times it 
 became a frenzy. Even Rome was shocked when 
 
2 22 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 senators and knights went down into tlie arena, and 
 their women needed to be kept back by law ; when 
 empresses gave themselves to gladiators and comedians, 
 and emperors themselves came out before the people 
 — Nero to fiddle and sing like any vulgar Greek, and 
 Commodus to fight with beasts in guise of Hercules. 
 Of the licentiousness and cruelty which flowed back 
 into private life, the less said the better. The 
 paintings at Pompeii are significant — some of them fit 
 only for the cabinet of a Louis XV. Keligion was no 
 check : the very temples were haunts of vice. It is 
 not for nothing that St. PauP puts idolatry next to 
 sensual sins, for its practice was largely fornication, 
 its worship a Bacchanalia. 
 
 Yet the ancient world was at its worst no more 
 a pandemonium than ours. The standard of conduct 
 may have been lower than with us, and unselfish 
 virtue less common, but human nature was much the 
 same, in most cases rather weak and animal and 
 superstitious than determinately wicked. Slavery 
 was not universal, for there were always many free 
 tradesmen and artizans, who got their living by 
 honest labour. Nor was it always an unhappy 
 relation. There were masters who loved their slaves, 
 though sometimes half ashamed to do so ; and slaves 
 who loved their masters, and gave their lives for 
 them in the head-hunts of Roman civil war.^ Nero 
 himself was buried by his first love, the freedwoman 
 Acte. Some indeed of the most unequal marriages 
 were among the happiest. A freedman lays to rest 
 " his good mistress and wife, with whom he had 
 lived in perfect harmony " for so many years and 
 months and days ; and a woman who had been a 
 
 ' Gal. T. 20. '■* Instances in Macrobius, Sat. i. 11. 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 223 
 
 slave gives humble thanks to the beloved patron she 
 has lost, who had stooped to make her his wife/ The 
 cold stone seems to thrill with feeling when we come 
 to such inscriptions as these. 
 
 Again, if the religion of the state was rather 
 hindrance than help to right living, the state itself 
 was no mean school of virtue. The emperors are a 
 splendid roll of names, for such vile creatures as Nero 
 and El Gabal are no more than breaks in a majestic 
 series of statesmen, philosophers, and generals like 
 Augustus and Diocletian, Marcus and Julian, Severus 
 and Aurelian. By far the larger number of them 
 were men of mark, for they never sank into general 
 mediocrity till the succession became settled in the 
 house of Palseologus. And they were well sup- 
 ported. In the provinces they had a noble series 
 of great administrators, who will bear comparison 
 even with the English rulers of India ; and in the 
 army there was no lack of unselfish and faithful 
 generals like Virginius Eufus and Agricola. The 
 centurions who stand out so brightly from the pages 
 of the New Testament are no more than fair samples 
 of the Eoman officer in his better mind. Even the 
 common soldier (till Severus and Caracalla tampered 
 with his discipline) seemed hfted above himself by 
 the grandeur of Caesar's service. The generals failed 
 more often than the soldiers. 
 
 Nor were virtue and religion without their 
 preachers, albeit churches there were none like ours. 
 The lawyer stood for right and justice, the philosopher 
 for moral teaching and spiritual counsel, and even 
 the wandering priests of Isis and Cybele could preach 
 purity and devotion, however little some of them 
 
 1 Orelli 3024, 3025. 
 
224 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 practised them. Side by side with the old callous 
 cruelty there was growing up beneath the shelter of 
 the Roman peace a new spirit of humanity, as yet 
 weak, but still growing. There is hardly a social 
 reform carried out in the direction of humanity and 
 mercy by Constantine and his successors which had 
 not been called for, and in some cases begun by 
 Seneca and the Antonine jurists, even though the 
 heathen Empire was not strong enough to go through 
 with them. 
 
 After all is done that we can do, it is not easy 
 to get a clear idea of the everyday life of common 
 Christians in the second and third centuries. Our 
 authorities do not lay themselves out for it. They 
 tell us pretty fully the ideals and aspirations, and 
 sometimes the persecutions, the controversies and the 
 scandals, but the picture of common life has to be 
 pieced together chiefly from allusions and inscriptions. 
 Moreover, it must have varied a good deal in 
 difi"erent places, in town and country, according to- 
 the number of the Christians and the temper of the 
 heathen. There was also the broad difference of East 
 and West ; and religious life like secular had a local 
 colouring in every district. An almost Christian 
 city like Eumenea must have differed greatly from 
 such an almost heathen city as Gregory found at 
 Neocsesarea. Moreover, Christian life underwent 
 changes as the churches expanded from obscure 
 gatherings to a great organization with elaborate 
 government and ritual, and increasing numbers forced 
 the Christians to come down more into the world. 
 We are already on the threshold of the Nicene age 
 when we see in the third century a new desire to 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 225 
 
 come to terms with the better sort of heathenism, not 
 by finding Christians before Christ like Justin, or by 
 recognizing the truth in philosophy as Clement had 
 done, but by representing the Gospel as in the main 
 a superior sort of monotheism, and to some extent 
 using vague monotheistic instead of distinctively 
 Christian language. If then we adventure a general 
 picture of Christian life it must be clearly under- 
 stood that we cannot get more than a rough average, 
 subject to many modifications and exceptions which 
 we must pass over for the present. 
 
 The old structure of society was undermined, 
 partly by the disorders which slavery engendered, 
 partly by the growth of commerce and humanity, 
 and partly by the latent universalism of the Empire. 
 The old principle of selfishness was still supreme, but 
 the institutions which embodied it were grievously 
 shaken. Then came the Gospel as a message of love 
 divine revealed in his Person who came down from 
 heaven to minister to men and give his life in fife and 
 death for all, that as one died for all, so all should 
 live to him, and be sons of God in him. Thus " in 
 Christ " there neither is nor can be either Greek or 
 Jew, or bond or free, or male and female. The 
 Gospel takes no account of race or class, or even of 
 sex ; only of the image of God in all men. National 
 worships were swept away by the coming of the Son 
 of Man, class distinctions were levelled by the spiritual 
 equality of the Lord's Supper, and authority was 
 limited by his teaching that privilege is duty, and 
 power only ministration. 
 
 This change from self to unself as the spring of 
 human action is the greatest revolution which the 
 world has seen. To individuals it came as a revela- 
 
 VOL. I Q 
 
2 26 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 tion of life. Christians, says TertuUian, are made, 
 not born ; and the living power might reach them in 
 the reasoning of Christian friends, in the reading of 
 Christian books, or in the sight of Christian purity 
 and courage. Justin and Cyprian illustrate the first 
 way, Tatian and Dionysius of Alexandria the second, 
 and we may pretty safely set down TertuUian for the 
 third, while the conversion of Arnobius is ascribed to 
 a dream. Some came over gently from philosophy, 
 like Justin and Clement ; others, like TertuUian, 
 turned away from sin with an effort which left a 
 strain for life, and seemed to make sweetness and 
 moderation impossible. But by whatever way the 
 convert came, he " was freed from the slavery of the 
 world, and from the rule of tyrants without number."^ 
 Taken simply as a gain for human happiness, no 
 greater work was ever done in history than when 
 Jesus of Nazareth swept away the whole intermediate 
 world of "weak and beggarly"^ gods and demons, 
 and all the slavery of superstition connected with it. 
 Henceforth religion was a personal relation to Christ, 
 and not to lower beings. 
 
 But just because the Gospel was personal, it never 
 stopped at the individual. It was a social power 
 from the very first, for the power which claimed the 
 whole man had to cleanse all the relations of life. 
 Outwardly the Christian churches may have been 
 very like the heathen clubs.^ They had their officials, 
 their meetings, their collections like the rest ; and they 
 were as open as the others to people of all ranks of 
 life. The chief difference which struck the outsider 
 
 1 Tatian Apol. 29. 
 
 ^ Gal. iv. 9. The irroixf 'a came back as saints, worshipped exactly as the 
 gods had been worshipped : but this was not till catholic times. 
 ' Greek dlacrot or (pavoi, Latin collegia or sodalitia. 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 227 
 
 was that they sang hymns to Christ as a god, and 
 not to Cybele or Serapis. All these might be 
 brethren ; but the Christians were not such merely 
 because they all worshipped Christ. It was not a 
 formal unity of worship, but a mystic unity of life 
 " in Christ," where there was no room left for selfish- 
 ness. And if they loved the brotherhood, they could 
 not choose but honour the image of God in all men.^ 
 Far as their practice fell short of this ideal, it rose 
 high enough to make a great contrast with heathenism. 
 In the, first place, though charity was not unknown 
 to the heathen world as some over-zealous apologists 
 would have us think, the Christians were the first 
 who organized it as regular work for the churches all 
 over the world, and the first who made it frankly 
 universal. It was a new thing on the face of the 
 earth when the G-entiles of Macedonia made up a 
 contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem, who 
 were only Jews. The travelling Christian might be 
 asked for his letters of commendation from the church 
 he had left ; but his welcome never depended on his 
 nation or his standing in the world. The gifts of 
 Christians at their meetings were not a mere collection, 
 but an ofi'ertory, made more often in kind than in 
 money, and presented at the Lord's table. From 
 these consecrated gifts the bread and wine were taken 
 for the Supper of the Lord, and the rest became " a 
 pious trust for the poor, for the orphans and the 
 aged, for those in trouble or necessity, and for the 
 confessors in the mines and the prisons." ^ The 
 
 ^ 1 Joh. iv. 12, V. 1. Hatch Bampton, Lectures exaggerated the likeness of 
 the churches to the heathen clubs. They were societies, and societies for the 
 worship of a god, and sometimes followed heathen ways : but broadly, they 
 were of so different a spirit that such likeness of form as we find does not 
 signify much. ^ Tert. Apol. 39. 
 
228 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 church of Eome in particular had in very early times 
 a noble fame for world-wide charity.^ Nor was the 
 help of Christians limited to Christian sick and poor. 
 In the great pestilence for instance of the third century, 
 when the heathens fled from their nearest relations, 
 the streets of Carthage were almost left to the care of 
 the Christians. Yet it was not the reckless charity 
 which only encourages idleness. St. Paul already 
 tells the Thessalonians to admonish the idlers.^ No 
 beggars were allowed. Labour was no longer a mean 
 thing, but the first active duty of life. " If any man 
 will not work, neither let him eat." " If any man 
 provide not for his own, and specially those of his 
 own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse 
 than an unbeliever." ^ If the stranger " have no craft, 
 provide according to your wisdom how he may live 
 as a Christian among you, but not in idleness. If he 
 will not do this, he is trafficking on Christ." ■* The 
 object was not simply to relieve distress, but to help 
 all to help themselves who could. " For those who 
 can work, work ; for those who cannot, compassion." 
 Its inmost meaning is laid before us in the Lord's 
 Supper, at which the offerings were made, and where 
 they formed a chief part of the service. They were 
 not to be given at random, as we so often give merely 
 that we may do like others, or as in later times they 
 were debased into a ransom for sins. They were a 
 gift of thankfulness for the gift of hfe received — this 
 life and the other forming in organic union the one 
 great gift of hfe.^ The poor were the jewels of the 
 
 ' Dion. Cor. aji. Eus. iv. 23 says that it was old in 170. 
 
 ^ 1 Thess. V. 14 vovSerfiTE tous draKTovs (the idle). 
 
 » 2 Thess. iii. 9, 1 Tim. v. 8. 
 
 ^ Didache 12. 
 
 '' Irenseus iv. 18 on this as the central meaning of the Lord's Supper. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 229 
 
 church, as in the legend of St. Lawrence : or by a 
 bolder metaphor they might be the altar — the only 
 earthly altar — and they were the living image of God, 
 so that the fund which fed them was a holy fund, not 
 to be squandered in random charity, but administered 
 with care and discrimination. 
 
 There were officials in the churches, but no orders 
 with an indelible character. In all but purely official 
 work, the layman was as the elder, and the elder 
 as the layman. Women were taught like men, and 
 the slave as carefully instructed as his master. He 
 came with his master to the Lord's table, and any 
 day might have to stand beside him before the beasts 
 and the populace of the amphitheatre. There was 
 nothing to shut him out from the highest offices of 
 the churches, or even from the perilous dignity of 
 the bishop of Eome. Pius was the brother of a slave, 
 and Callistus had been himself a slave. 
 
 No man was counted unworthy of communion but 
 he who made himself unworthy. Baptism, it was 
 agreed, carried full and free forgiveness for sins com- 
 mitted in the times of ignorance : but what of later 
 sins ? Very gross sins entailed exclusion, though St. 
 Paul directed the Corinthians to restore the offender 
 unconditionally if they were satisfied of his penitence. 
 But soon a stricter view than St. Paul's became 
 prevalent, and such sinners were permanently shut 
 out from the churches, though they were not 
 supposed as yet to be for that reason beyond the 
 reach of mercy. Hermas admits the adulterer for 
 once to penance — a second forgiveness after Baptism 
 — only to penance for life, and only as a special 
 measure commanded by a revelation in view of the 
 Lord's return. On the other hand, Dionysius of 
 
230 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Corinth writes to the church of Amastris " enjoining 
 them to receive all that return from any sort of 
 apostasy, from sin, or from heretical error": and 
 the confessors of Lyons and Vienne " loosed all, and 
 bound none." In this unsettled state the question 
 remained till it was forced to the front by the rise 
 of Montanism. 
 
 A cognate question arose on the lawfulness of 
 particular trades. Some were clearly impossible for 
 a Christian. The idol-makers, the pantomimes, the 
 procurers and the beast-fighters were commonly 
 required (and helped) to change their occupation, 
 and shut out if they returned to it ; but others, 
 like the incense-makers, were less directly mixed up 
 with idolatry or sin, so that their case was more 
 doubtful. There was to be no luxurious idleness 
 for the rich, no shirking of work for the poor. 
 Not TertuUian only, even the gentle Clement of 
 Alexandria grows sarcastic on the vulgar luxury of 
 the rich, and the empty frivolity of the great ladies. 
 " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let 
 him labour, working with his hands the thing that 
 is good, that he may have to give to him that 
 needeth." ^ There is no point which the apostle presses 
 more earnestly than the paramount importance of 
 common life and duty. Even his mighty chapter 
 on the resurrection leads up to the sober exhortation 
 to " be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in 
 the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that 
 your labour is not in vain in the Lord." ^ 
 
 Yet again, all authority was limited by the new 
 social life of ministration. Even the oflficials were 
 separated by no sharp line from the people by whom 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 28. 2 1 Cor_ j^_ 5g_ 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 231 
 
 they were chosen and with whom they had to act 
 in concert. They were not a professional class, but 
 men of the world who practised worldly trades like 
 those of physicians, lawyers, farmers, silversmiths, or 
 small shopkeepers. For a time they were checked by 
 confessors and influential laymen ; and in any case 
 they could hardly lord it over the flock till they 
 obtained an independent provision in the course of 
 the Nicene age. 
 
 As regards family life, women were no longer 
 looked down on as toys and nuisances alternately, but 
 honoured as fellow-heirs of the grace of life. Spiritu- 
 ally they were equal to men, and their marriages were 
 protected by the churches. The stricter rule was that 
 they should first be declared to the officials, then 
 blessed by them before the church, lest they should 
 prove to be sinful.^ But the blessing of the church 
 was not essential to their validity, even in Africa. 
 Mixed marriages were inconvenient,^ and there was 
 no blessing for those who contracted them ; but the 
 churches disallowed nothing that Eoman law allowed, 
 except divorce for other causes than adultery. On 
 the other hand, the unions of slaves which the law 
 ignored were fully recognized by the Christians. 
 Society cared little about these, but unequal marriages 
 
 ^ It will be enough to refer to Athenagoras Leg. 33 TOi>s vcj) rifiuv 
 Tcdti^ivovs v6fious. Ign. Fol. 5 Trp^trei . . . fierd, yvLofi-q^ roO iiruxKbirov tt)v 
 ivioaiv TTOiudBai, 'Iva o yd/io; y Kara Kipiov Kal ixt] xar' iiri.6vp.lav. Tert. ad 
 Ux. ii. 9 Unde sufficiamus ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod 
 ecclesia conciliat et oonfirmat oblatio et obsignat benediotio, angeli renuntiant, 
 pater ratum habet. Id. de Pud. 4. Ideo penes nos occultae quoque con- 
 junotiones, id est non prius apud ecclesiam professae, juxta moechiam et 
 fornieationem judicari periclitantur. 
 
 ^ Inconveniences summed up by Tertullian ad Ux. ii 4-6. One of his 
 arguments is an interesting bit of law ih. c. 8 Nonne domini disciplinae tena- 
 cissimi servos suos foras nubere interdicunt ? The Lord's freedman must not 
 marry outside the Lord's familia, lest the Lord lose his services. 
 
232 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 were a great scandal. The law forbade all marriages 
 of slaves and free persons, and of senatorial persons 
 with women of low rank, except in some cases under 
 the slur of concubinage.^ Even the Christians were 
 not free from the class feeling which upheld the law.^ 
 It was a bold step when Callistus of Eome allowed 
 such marriages, and he is bitterly reproached for it by 
 Hippolytus.^ Callistus was before his time : but the 
 general aim of the Christians was to restore the 
 honour of marriage as a spiritual and not a purely 
 sensual union. 
 
 Even the weakness of children was protected by 
 the new reverence for life as the most precious of 
 God's gifts. Exposures and such -like tamperings 
 with life were utterly forbidden among Christians, and 
 fatherhood was changed from a species of property to 
 a holy trust. Children were to be taught like their 
 elders all that Christ had done for them, and to be 
 brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, 
 to take their place in the militia dei vivi. 
 
 The very slaves were no longer despised as base 
 creatures, but honoured as men for whom Christ died 
 the death of a slave. They too were sons of God and 
 
 ' Such marriages were made penal hy the lex Julia et Papia Poppaea, null 
 by Marcus. The law was extended by Constantine, limited to infamous 
 women by Marcian, abolished by Justinian (or Justin — the date is not clear). 
 
 2 Significant distinctions are drawn in Const. Apost. viii. 32 oUirT]! . . . 
 d fi^v o^v ^x" yvvcLiKa, ij ij yvvj] dvdpa, didatTK^ffdojaav dpKelaOaL iavroU ' 
 el 5' &yaiJ.oi elffi, fjLavOav^Twaav fj.^ TopveOeiyj dXXa ya/xeif vd/j-i^j . . . TraXXaK^ 
 TLvos &Tri(TTOv SouXrj, ^Kelvifj fibvip (rxo\d^ov<ra, irpoffSex^tyBta • el 5k Kai trpbi 
 dWovs drreXYaij'ei, avo^aWiaBa. Tnarbi idv Ixv TnXXaKijy, el fih SoiXr/y, 
 ■jravadffSia, Kal vdjjicp yafxetTOj • el 5^ i\ev6^pav, iKyap-ehw aOrijy vd/xip • el Sk 
 li'fj^ dirOjSaXX^cr^w. 
 
 ' Hippolytus, Eef. Omn. Eaer. ix. 12 koX ydp Kal yvvai^lv iirirpefev, el 
 dvavdpos elev Kal 7]\iKlt;t ye ^KKaioivro dva^li^ (text doubtful), -J) eaurcoc d^lay 
 fXT) ^oi\oivTO KaBaipeXv did t6 vofii/xojs yap.tjBTji'aL, ^x^* ^*'ct ^v dv alp-qauvTat 
 aOyKOiTOfj etre olK^rrjy, ehe iXeuBepov, Kal Tovrov Kpivetv dpTl dvdpbs /xij v6fi(fi 
 yeyafnuihrju. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 233 
 
 heirs of life, so that there could be nothing essentially- 
 base in their labour. With all the bitterness of 
 Hippolytus, he never taunts Callistus with having 
 been a slave. Still their lot was a hard one, especially 
 under heathen masters, and St. Paul advised them to 
 change it if they could. ^ But there was no thought 
 yet that it is wrong to own slaves. The fire Christ 
 came to send on the earth was not the fire of servile 
 war. The slave was bidden to serve even a perverse 
 master, and to give him honest work. Meanwhile the 
 spiritual equality of the Gospel cut the roots of 
 slavery, and might be trusted in course of time to 
 clear away the outward wrong. Slavery was hardly 
 slavery when slaves were frankly recognized as fellow- 
 servants with their masters and fellow-soldiers in the 
 war against the world, the flesh and the devil. ^ Nor 
 did they quit themselves less worthily. Euelpistus the 
 slave went to his death as bravely as the philosopher 
 Justin, and Felicitas the slave-woman stood hand in 
 hand with the matron Perpetua before the slaughter. 
 St. John himself never threw down a bolder defiance 
 to the majesty of the world and Rome than the 
 insignificant slave-girl Blandina on the last of her 
 long days of suffering for Christ, when she was 
 brought into the arena naked before the furious crowd, 
 covered with burns and scars from former torments, 
 yet still with a smiling welcome for the crowning 
 
 ^ The opposition of Christianity to slavery is shewn (1) generally from the 
 fact that its promises and blessings have only moral (not social) conditions 
 attached to them : (2) specifically, from its doctrines of the worth of man as 
 man, of the dignity of labour, and the indifference of wordly conditions : (3) 
 directly from (a) 1 Cor. vii. 21 /idWov XP^"""' — ^V ^XfuSepf?, as the tense shews, 
 so that the advice is to take the chance of liberty ; (b) Ep. Philemon, where 
 St. Paul does not seem quite to like the relation ; (c) 1 Tim. i. 10 aySpairoSi- 
 ffrais, where slave-traders are set down as sinners. 
 
 ^ The difference of bond and free seems always ignored in the Christian 
 inscriptions of the catacombs. 
 
234 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 horrors that were facing her. Even the hardened 
 populace of the amphitheatre could not refuse her the 
 admiring epitaph, never woman suflfered such things 
 as this one. 
 
 No wonder if the Christians made an impression 
 out of all proportion to their numbers. Conviction in 
 the midst of waverers, fiery energy in a world of 
 disillusion, purity in an age of easy morals, firm 
 brotherhood in a loose society, heroic courage in time 
 of persecution, formed a problem that could not be set 
 aside, however polite society might afi'ect to ignore it : 
 and the religion of the future turned on the answer 
 to it. Would the world be able to explain it better 
 than the Christians, who said it was the living power 
 of the risen Saviour ? 
 
 But Christian life was not without its shadows. 
 The early Christians were men of their own age and 
 subject to all its influences, with nothing but their 
 faith to make them better than their neighbours. 
 Even the apostolic age was no golden time of purity. 
 There were shortcomings enough, and scandals not a 
 few. There was lying at Jerusalem, fornication at 
 Corinth, backsliding in Galatia, strife and debate 
 everywhere. Schisms and divisions were just as deep 
 as those of later times. It is the familiar picture 
 of recent converts in all ages. The most splendid 
 victories of loving self-denial are found side by side 
 with scandals and disorders almost inconceivable in a 
 more settled community. 
 
 Yet there is one common charge against them on 
 which they must be honourably acquitted. They 
 were neither specially ignorant nor specially super- 
 stitious. They had the same education as their 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 235 
 
 neighbours, and the difference was in their favour, 
 for their doctrine of the unity of God made the unity 
 of Nature more real to them than it was even to the 
 philosophers, and the high value they set on the 
 knowledge of Scripture went far to make sure that 
 serious Christians could not be quite uncultivated. 
 Even a narrow study of Scripture is something of 
 an education, as we see in George Fox and John 
 Bunyan ; and as a matter of fact, scarcely any 
 Christian writers of our period fail to reach a decent 
 level of literary merit. Polycrates of Ephesus may 
 be an exception,^ but Hermas is better than he might 
 have been, and Commodianus (like Gregory of Tours) 
 would seem to use rustic language for a purpose. 
 There is very little genuine rusticity in the literature, 
 though we find it in some of the inscriptions and 
 some of the letters of confessors in Cyprian's 
 time. 
 
 Nor were they more superstitious than their 
 neighbours, but the reverse, though it must be 
 allowed that superstition gained on them in the third 
 century. They shared (and had reasons of their own 
 for sharing) the common belief in relics, amulets, etc. , 
 but they were nearly free from the boundless credulity 
 of the heathens about omens and portents. Their 
 religion at any rate lifted them above the belief in 
 worldly success which is the only thing that gives 
 importance to omens and portents ; and their doctrine 
 of providence greatly mitigated the rest of their 
 superstitions. We must not summarily condemn 
 them for not being altogether men of another age. 
 Joseph Glanvill and John Wesley believed strange 
 
 ' If seven of his relations had been bishops, Polycrates is likely to have 
 been a man of some rank in the world. 
 
236 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 things ; but we do not therefore set them down as 
 fools. 
 
 The militia dei vivi in the midst of a heathen 
 world was full of snares. Christian belief was much 
 easier to settle than Christian conduct. Men had 
 need to walk warily when the pomps and vanities of 
 the world met them at every turn. Some professions 
 were essentially immoral, and on these there could 
 be no doubt. Others were so closely connected in 
 practice with idolatry that no Christians could safely 
 adopt them. The soldier's case was not so clear. 
 The common soldier indeed might have to witness 
 heathen ceremonies, but was not required to take an 
 active part in them ; and such passive presence was 
 counted lawful by all but the zealots.^ But the 
 centurions and higher officers had to perform the 
 rites ; and though they might be excused, as they 
 commonly were in the quiet times after Gallienus, 
 they never could reckon on being excused. Any day 
 might bring them face to face with a duty which all 
 parties understood to be a denial of Christ.^ 
 
 Public life was everywhere fenced with worship 
 of the gods. The Senate began its debates with a 
 libation on the altar of Victory, the general took the 
 auspices before a battle, and the soldier swore his oath 
 of loyalty before the gods. The public games were 
 either murderous or immoral, and almost always 
 consecrated by some foul worship or other.^ Even 
 private life was beset with idolatrous observances. 
 
 ' Const. Apost. viii. 32 only gives the Baptist's charge to the soldiers. 
 The discussion of doubtful occupations represents Christian opinion much 
 better than Tertullian de Idol. 
 
 '^ Calder and Ramsay in Expositor Seventh Ser. vi. 386-419 (Nov. 1908). 
 
 ' Paul Wolf Die Stellung Christen zu den Schaiispielen, Wien 1897, sums 
 up the subject. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 237 
 
 If a man walked on the shore at Ostia, his heathen 
 friend would throw a kiss to an image of Serapis. 
 If he paid him a visit, he would find the household 
 gods beside his hearth ; and if he went to a dinner 
 party, the meal would begin with a libation, and 
 might consist of meals offered to idols, and be 
 enlivened by lascivious dances. Of the pictures 
 which might adorn the room, the less said the better. 
 Real abominations were doubtless the exception rather 
 than the rule : but they were certainly commoner and 
 less seriously blamed than they are now. Ofience 
 was everywhere, and could not always be avoided 
 without complicity in heathen worship or immorality. 
 A mixed marriage was an especially hard case, 
 though TertuUian's picture of it is overcoloured for a 
 purpose. " How can a woman serve two masters, the 
 Lord and a husband — let alone a heathen husband ? 
 If there is a meeting to attend, he gives her an 
 appointment for the baths. If there are fasts to be 
 kept, he chooses the day for a dinner party. If she 
 has a charitable errand, never is household work 
 more in the way. For who would let his wife go 
 round street by street to other men's houses, and 
 indeed to all the poorer cottages, to visit the 
 brethren ? Who will willingly let her be taken from 
 his side for nocturnal meetings, and especially for the 
 all-night service at Easter ? Who will let her go 
 without suspicion of his own to that Lord's Supper 
 which they defame ? Who will let her creep into a 
 prison to kiss a martyr's bonds, or even to give the 
 kiss of peace to one of the brethren ? God's hand- 
 maid is persecuted with the odour of incense at aU 
 the festivals of the demons, and on every day of 
 public rejoicing. She will dine with her husband in 
 
238 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 clubs, often in taverns ; and sometimes she will 
 minister to the unjust — the very men she was to 
 judge hereafter." ^ This, he complains, is the reason 
 why some Christian women followed bad heathen 
 example by marrying slaves or freedmen whom they 
 could keep in entire dependence. 
 
 The hardest case of all was that of the slaves, who 
 had nothing to shield them from the worst caprices 
 of their masters. The most highly placed of them 
 might be sent at a moment's notice any day to the 
 hopeless misery of the field -gang. Yet even here 
 Christian patience and fidelity could sometimes win 
 favour, or at least connivance. We read not un- 
 frequently of Christian slaves and freedmen in 
 positions of trust and consideration ; and every now 
 and then the master may have owed the light of life 
 to the teaching of a slave. 
 
 The question of duty was in any case a hard one, 
 so that it is not surprising that some Christians cut 
 the knot by keeping as far as they could from a 
 world like this. They renounced not only its 
 idolatrous pomps and vanities, but its society and 
 learning, and all the healthy influences of common 
 life among their fellow-citizens, as if they could not 
 serve God except in pietistic coteries of their own. 
 They forgot that the Lord who denounced the 
 pietistic Pharisees had not despised the schismatic 
 woman of Samaria. The plan certainly simplified 
 matters ; but it threw away the witness of Christians 
 as lights in the world, and it gave just ofi"ence to 
 the heathens by treating them as no better than 
 " this people, who knoweth not the law." It turned 
 Christians into Pharisees. 
 
 ^ Tert. ad Uxor. ii. 3-6 (condensed). The last ref. is to 1 Cor. vi. 3. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 239 
 
 But the more common tendency was the other 
 way, especially in later times. The new convert 
 might in good faith renounce idolatry, receive baptism 
 and attend the common worship without at first 
 seeing that these Christian " mysteries " called for a 
 much more serious change of life than others. Thus 
 in St. Paul's time some of the Corinthians saw no 
 harm in fornication, or in attending dinner-parties in 
 an idol's temple. They were used to such things, 
 and slow to see why Christians need give them up. 
 There was good reason for the heavy stress laid on 
 the moral teaching of catechumens. Some of the 
 Gnostics were laxer still, and before the third century 
 the mischief was conspicuous. Vague charges of 
 worldly living need not count for much, and some of 
 the specific charges may be dismissed as exaggerated 
 or over-scrupulous : but after all allowances, facts 
 remain to shew that Christian life was much infected 
 by the low moral tone of its heathen surroundings, 
 and the vulgar luxury of the rich. It was not only 
 that women were frivolous and given to finery, or 
 that men — even bishops — were absorbed in the 
 pursuit of usury and filthy lucre. Christians might 
 be seen in the dress of a heathen priest ; and we hear 
 so much of the foulest imaginable sins that we 
 cannot suppose them very rare. The great decline 
 of Christian life in the fourth century is partly 
 imagiaary, because we compare it with an idealized 
 past ; and though a vast amount of it was real, the 
 change was neither so rapid nor from so high a level 
 as it is often supposed to be. 
 
 Asceticism is a subtler enemy of Christian life 
 than pietism or worldliness. Are not God's gifts 
 almost as dangerous as the devil's ? Is it not safer 
 
240 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 as well as braver to refuse them than to let him 
 tempt us with them ? Worldlings will see the true 
 saint in the ascetic who has courage forsooth to 
 renounce the pleasures which enslave themselves ; 
 and men of a better sort are tempted to admire his 
 unthankful cowardice as the victory of faith, which 
 fleeth from the world. Asceticism is the reaction of 
 the natural man from the grosser sins that shock 
 him, and rests on as low a view of human nature as 
 any sinner's. Thus it is always strongest in times 
 when hope is weakest, and vice most open. It was 
 an element in the wisdom of Egypt and in the Stoic 
 airapKeia ; it balanced after a fashion the worst excesses 
 of Syrian immorality, and it was very generally 
 revered as the higher life, the true philosophy, and 
 the best means of drawing near to the gods. Thus 
 the early Christians found it in the air around them ; 
 and their long resistance to it is one more proof of its 
 essential heathenism. It had to be dealt with from 
 the first. Our Lord himself " cleansed all meats " ; ^ 
 and St. Paul tells the Eomans that vegetarianism is 
 a matter of personal taste, and on no account to be 
 made a question of right and wrong. So he reminds 
 the Colossians that though ascetic timidity — " handle 
 not, nor even taste or touch " — has a repute of 
 wisdom, it is wisdom of a very undesirable sort, and 
 of no value at all, but tends only to glut the carnal 
 nature.^ A few years later he tells Timothy to give 
 
 ^ Mk. vii. 19 Kadapl^iov ircLVTo. rk ^pti/tara. 
 
 "^ Col. ii. 23 oiiK iv Ti/xj rii'i irpis it\t]<tii,ov^v ttjs aapKbs. So Ellicott and 
 Meyer. Lightfoot more smoothly, "not of auy Talue to remedy indulgence 
 of the flesh." But I cannot see that irX. t. aapuSs only "applies to coarse 
 sensual indulgences." If so, where is the contrast to d0£iS/o <rdi/j.aTO! ? St. 
 Paul does not so limit the Ipya rijs crapKds in Gal. v. 19, and is not likely to 
 have forgotten that asceticism tends quite as much to pride and strife as to 
 ' ' coarse sensual indulgences. " 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 241 
 
 up drinking water, and plainly says that hindrance 
 of marriage and commands to abstain from meats are 
 doctrines of demons and deceiving spirits, the work 
 of lying teachers and shameless hypocrites.' The 
 danger was real, and would have made its way 
 quicker if his warnings had been less urgent. Upon 
 the whole, Christian life was for a long time too 
 strong for asceticism. It leaned more to Puritan 
 fear of sin, refusing rather certain pleasures as 
 dangerous than pleasure generally as pure temptation. 
 Indeed, the picture drawn in Clement's Teacher is 
 in this respect very like the best English life among 
 serious men of all parties in the seventeenth century. 
 And this is a much truer view of Christ's teaching 
 than the gloomy pietism of Tertullian, which counts 
 it almost discreditable for a Christian to die otherwise 
 than as a martyr.^ 
 
 Asceticism however shews itself most clearly on 
 questions connected with marriage ; and here the 
 heathen influence first comes out as usual on the 
 heterodox wings of the Church. The apocryphal Acts 
 constantly represent marriage as essentially unclean, 
 and some of the Gnostics either like Marcion made 
 it a bar to baptism, or with Tatian denounced it 
 outright as " defilement and fornication." ^ These 
 last were called Encratites, and abstained also from 
 eating things with life. Small wonder if the churches 
 were slowly infected with the idea that it is inconsistent 
 
 1 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. 
 
 ' Renan is a thorough Romanist in his belief tliat none but the monk 
 takes Christianity seriously. " In reality the Gospel is the essential rule of 
 life for every monastic order. The perfect Christian is a monk, the monk a 
 consistent Christian ; the convent is the place where the Gospel, everywhere 
 else Utopian, becomes a reality." So he makes every repudiation of asceticism 
 a repudiation of Christ's own teaching. 
 
 ^ Irenseus i. 28 ; ipdopd.y Kai Tropveiay, 
 VOL. I R 
 
242 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 with the higher life, and even where allowed (except 
 perhaps strictly for a single purpose) is little better 
 than a licensed sin. Its aspect of " mutual help and 
 comfort," was hard to realize iu "the present 
 necessity " of that evil-minded heathen world.^ It 
 forms the whole ideal of TertuUian's beautiful picture 
 of Christian marriage,^ only because he makes it 
 little more than a partnership of religious observances, 
 and refuses to recognize the care of children as a 
 blessing at all, counting it mere burden and tempta- 
 tion. This means that he is taking the coarse animal 
 view in which the ascetic and the sinner are cordially 
 agreed; and in his Montanist days it comes out 
 without disguise. There he maintains that there is 
 no difference between marriage and fornication but 
 what is made by law, so that it is the desire itself, 
 not any circumstances of sin, which the Lord counts 
 as bad as adultery.^ Asceticism is even more the 
 offspring of impurity than the reaction from it. 
 
 The movement followed three main lines — the 
 objection to second marriage in any one, the objection 
 to any marriage in the clergy, and the gross estimate 
 of virginity. First as regards the objection to second 
 marriage as a lower state for the laity,* and a for- 
 bidden state for the clergy. In point of fact, it is 
 far from certain that St. Paul forbids the ordination 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vii. 26 koKIiv Sia tt}v evcarSiaav d.vdyKT}v is better so explained from 
 ■0. 1 KoXiv . . . 5ia 5^ rds Tropi/da^ (nearly = Trpbs rriv aKKfjpoKapSlav iiiCiv) 
 than referred to expectations of the Lord's immediate return which the 
 writer had ceased to hold, if he ever held them at all. 
 
 2 ad Ux. ii. 9. 
 
 ^ Exh. Cast. 9 Leges videntur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere 
 . . . commixtio carnis, cujus concupiscentiam dominus stupro adaequavit . . . 
 (nuptiae) ex eo constant, quod est stuprum. 
 
 ■• Yet Hermas, Clement, Const. Apost., and even Tertullian ad Ux. i. 7 
 (early work) distinctly admit that it is not unlawful. 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 243 
 
 of a digamist, even for the church of Ephesus ; ^ but 
 his words were very commonly so understood. 
 Hippolytus for example takes it as a matter of 
 course that digamists were not ordained. Montanists 
 and others rested their objection on the " one flesh " 
 argument, that marriage is an eternal relation, as 
 when Athenagoras calls it "a respectable form of 
 adultery." But more commonly it was condemned 
 only as a discreditable concession to the flesh. Yet 
 many of Tertullian's arguments against it even before 
 he was a Montanist, tell equally agaiast a first 
 marriage. Thus, if it is only " better " to marry 
 than to burn, it cannot be good. Why should we 
 seek for the bitter pleasure of children ? When we 
 have them (had he any himself?) the best we can 
 wish for is to see them safely delivered before our- 
 selves out of this present evil world. Are we so sure 
 of our own salvation that we can safely take upon us 
 the burden and temptation of children ? Will it not 
 be shameful if the Lord finds us marrying and giving 
 in marriage ? ' In his Montanist works he goes further. 
 Something like the early Puritans of Hooker's time, 
 he argues that what we do not find permitted by the 
 Lord himself is forbidden. The apostle's permission 
 is not a real permission, for if he had wished it, he 
 would not have permitted, but enjoined it.' But all 
 this is Tertullian : it does not appear that Christian 
 opinion sanctioned this pietistic want of faith much 
 more generally then than it does now. 
 
 ^ 1 Tim. iii. 2 jiuas ywaiKi! dySpa need not mean more than one who has 
 never had unlawful relations. 
 
 ^ ad Ux. I 3-5. 
 
 ' Sxh. Cast, i: forgetting that St. Paul expressly "wishes "the younger 
 widows to marry and bear children (1 Tim. v. 14). He limits 1 Cor. vii. 39 
 to women converted since widowhood, for marriage before Baptism does not 
 count {De Tiumogamia 11). 
 
244 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 The next step was to discourage marriage 
 altogether for the clergy, on pretence of a higher law 
 of purity than the apostles themselves had observed. 
 But no very serious advance in this direction can 
 be traced before the Nicene age. Cyprian, for 
 instance, denounces Novatus not for having married 
 a wife, but for having made her miscarry with a 
 kick.^ It is true that in the third century {e.g. 
 Hippolytus) we find a good deal of dislike to marriage 
 after ordination ; and the Council of Elvira {dr. 306) 
 actually forbids the use of marriage to the clergy.^ 
 But this was only a local council in Spain, and its 
 opposition to the general feeling of the churches is 
 shewn by the rejection of a similar proposal at Nicsea, 
 by the unrebuked prevalence of marriage among the 
 clergy of the next age, and by its actual requirement 
 from the parish priests of the Eastern church to this 
 day. On this question, Rome is the dissenter. 
 
 The Lord spoke to all that bear his name when 
 he said. Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is 
 in heaven is perfect. But we find almost from the 
 beginning an endeavour to make two standards of 
 Christian life — one for saints, the other for common 
 people — and to find the difference, not in any greater 
 holiness, but in a stricter life, and especially in the 
 physical fact of virginity. Even St. Paul finds it 
 needful to remind the Corinthians that while it is 
 a fine thing not to touch a woman, there are very 
 good reasons why marriage should be the rule.' The 
 double standard appears in the Teaching. " If thou 
 canst bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be 
 perfect : but if thou canst not, do what thou canst." * 
 
 1 Ep. 52. "- Can. 33. 
 
 =" 1 Cor. vii. 1. ' c. 6. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 245 
 
 So too Barnabas. Clement and Ignatius find it 
 necessary to warn those who have the gift of 
 continence against boasting of it ; and Hermas 
 speaks of winning higher praise "by doing more 
 than God has commanded." 
 
 Accordingly, we find early traces of those who 
 devoted themselves to virginity, with fastings and 
 prayers and abstinence from flesh and wine : and 
 they were looked up to, not as serving God in a 
 particular calling, but as if this was altogether a 
 higher calling. So the virgins gradually take pre- 
 cedence of the widows in church order. For a long 
 time these ascetics lived in the world an austere hfe, 
 but without taking public or irrevocable vows or 
 trampling down the duties of common life and 
 common work.^ Narcissus of Jerusalem lived for 
 awhile the life of a hermit, though largely in resent- 
 ment of false charges ; but Paul of Thebes is only 
 an invention of Jerome. The story however is so 
 far true, that there were many fugitives from the 
 Decian persecution ; ^ and though most of them 
 returned or perished, it is not impossible that a few 
 remained as hermits. But the first ascetic com- 
 munity of which we have definite knowledge was 
 formed at the end of the third century by Hieracas 
 at Leontopolis in Egypt. It was formed partly for 
 study, but even more for the practice of asceticism.^ 
 
 ' Koch Virgines Christi T.U.' (1907). Before the Nicene age there was no 
 public vow and no formal admission. If vows were taken, they were private 
 affairs : and if they were broken by marriage, the offence was not considered 
 serious. The penance imposed was that of an ordinary second marriage. 
 It contrasts very strongly with those imposed for grave sins, and with the 
 savage punishments inflicted by church and state in later times. 
 
 "^ Dion. Al. ap. Eus. vi. 42. 
 
 2 The corporate monasticism of tlie Nicene age is in the main of Coptic 
 origin — most of the early monks bear Coptic names. It is worth asking 
 
246 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 The whole ascetic tendency in its widest compass 
 depended partly on the legal conception which made 
 it possible to believe that actions as such were 
 meritorious, or that one action is more meritorious 
 than another, partly on the properly ascetic doctrine 
 that it is safer to refuse the gifts of God in this life 
 than to receive them, and partly on the misgiving 
 of the natural man that the good news of free 
 forgiveness is too good to be true. The misgiving 
 is found in all religions.^ The Jews had it, as where 
 the book of Tobit tells us that almsgiving is a 
 release from death, and a release from sin. As the 
 Christians were agreed that all sins are forgiven in 
 Baptism, the tendency was to place there a limit 
 to free forgiveness, leaving sins after Baptism to 
 be atoned for by the merits of such good works as 
 fasting and almsgiving — for there was no idea yet 
 of turning the Lord's Supper into a sacrifice for sin. 
 So TertuUian calls good works a satisf actio for sin, 
 and ascribes to them the power " to appease an 
 angry God " ; and Cyprian goes further still. On 
 similar principles right belief was itself counted as 
 a good work, so that the tendency was more and 
 more to value orthodoxy above piety, and to count 
 wrong belief worse than wrong doing. This was the 
 idea which did so much to embitter the partizanship 
 and persecution of the Nicene age, by giving a sort 
 
 whether some of the earliest Christian monasteries may not have been 
 heathen monasteries converted wholesale to Christianity, but continuing 
 their old rule of life with little or no change. This however is a. question 
 which must be left to Coptic scholars. 
 
 Of course individuals might "renounce the world" anywhere. The last 
 discovery is the case of Eugenius of Laodicea. Ramsay Expositor Seventh 
 Ser. vi. 546 (Dec. 1908). 
 
 ' As a modern writer says, who counts himself a "good churchman," It 
 is absurd to say that Christ died for our sins, for they were not then in 
 existence. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 247 
 
 of consecration to hatred and malice and all un- 
 charitableness. 
 
 Christian life properly began with Baptism, for 
 Baptism was the convert's confession before men, 
 the soldier's oath (sacramentum) which enlisted him 
 in the service of Christ. Till that decisive step was 
 taken, he could not be more than a friendly heathen. 
 Even as a catechumen, he was on one side exposed 
 to little danger before the time of Severus, while on 
 the other he was not fully acknowledged by the 
 Christians as one of the brethren. The primary 
 significance of the rite in early times was confession 
 before men.^ At first it was very simple, and 
 administered with little delay to any one who 
 professed belief and repentance. The danger of the 
 request fairly guaranteed its sincerity. But here 
 we are at the outset of a long development. It 
 was soon found that the convert needed fuller 
 instruction, not only on the facts of the Gospel, but 
 on the moral duties which he undertook in Baptism. 
 The heathen took them too lightly, and even the 
 Jew did not always bring a worthy conception of 
 them. So we find the apostolic letters addressed to 
 men who had been taught the facts of the Saviour's 
 life, and needed chiefly to be shewn how searching 
 are his claims, and yet how ample is the power that 
 comes " in Christ " to satisfy them. Presently it 
 was thought best to put more of this instruction 
 before Baptism, and establish a regular catechumenate, 
 which tended in course of time to become longer. 
 
 ^ It is interesting to compare our Lord's words Mk. xvi. 16 with St. 
 Paul's Rom. x. 10. Faith plus Baptism seems equated to Faith pluj con- 
 fession before men. 
 
248 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 The Clementines mention three months, while the 
 Council of Elvira prescribes two or three years. If 
 however the catechumen was imprisoned for his 
 faith, he might be baptized at once, as Perpetua was ; 
 and if he was put to death while still a catechumen, 
 such confession before men — the so-called baptism 
 of blood — was reasonably deemed equivalent to 
 Baptism. On the other hand, the catechumen was 
 in a state of probation, free to attend the reading 
 and certain of the prayers, but not allowed even to 
 witness the Lord's Supper : and in case of miscon- 
 duct, his full reception might be considerably delayed. 
 
 The rite was very simple, as described by Justin 
 in the second century.^ After more or less of in- 
 struction, the candidate declared " his belief in our 
 teachings, and his willingness to live accordingly." 
 Then he might be directed to fast for a short time by 
 way of preparation. He was then taken " to a place 
 where there was water." Here he made his formal 
 confession, and here he was baptized by immersion in 
 the name of the Trinity. After this he was taken to 
 the meeting, and received by the brethren. 
 
 This order of Baptism seems quite primitive. 
 Some look on the mention of the Trinity as a develop- 
 ment : but there is no need to understand baptism 
 " into Christ " as implying an earlier Formula of 
 baptism into Christ only, and therefore no reason 
 to doubt that the Baptismal Formula of Matt, xxviii. 
 19 is a genuine saying of the Lord, or that it was 
 regularly used from the first. ^ It would be too much 
 to suppose that Justin gives a full description of the 
 
 ' Justin Apol. i. 61. The account in Teaching is very similar. 
 ' To the best of my judgment, Bishop Cliase, Jmtrn. Theol. Stiidies vi. 481 
 holds the field on this question. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 249 
 
 ordinance, and in fact he does not mention its formal 
 completion by the laying-on of hands, which seems to 
 come down from apostolic times. But there cannot 
 have been much further ceremonial at " a place where 
 there is water " ; and the only clear trace of develop- 
 ment is where he tells us that it was called (/>&)Tto-/xo9 
 (illumination) like the heathen mysteries. 
 
 But Justin is describing the usual reception of a 
 convert ; and there must have been more or less 
 exceptional cases from the first. These cases would 
 be baptism of infants, and baptism without immersion. 
 As regards infant baptism, there can be little doubt 
 that it dates back to the apostolic age. The Jewish 
 custom of circumcision was suggestive, and Polycarp 
 was almost certainly baptized in infancy. He " had 
 served Christ fourscore years and six " ; and as he 
 had made a long journey a year or two before, he 
 cannot well have been older. Justin also speaks of 
 men who " had been made disciples from childhood,"^ 
 and this may mean infant baptism ; but the first case 
 we can name for certain is Origen's in 185. In the 
 next century he tells us that the apostles had 
 commanded it, and Cyprian^ has to reprove a 
 Judaizing superstition connected with it, that the 
 new-born infant is unclean for seven days, so that it 
 ought not to be baptized before the eighth. 
 
 On the other hand, we have decisive evidence that 
 infant baptism is no direct institution either of the 
 Lord himself or of his apostles. There is no trace of 
 it in the New Testament. Every discussion of the 
 
 '■ Compare Justin Apol. i. 15 iK iraiSHy iixadrjreiB-riiTav with Mt. xxviii. 19 
 TTopevdivTss odv fiaerjTedaare. Clem. Al. p. 289 Tuy il, ildaros dvadiru/j^i'av 
 wiuSioiv cannot safely be quoted, for he may be thinking here as else- 
 where of Christians generally as children. Irenseus Haer. ii. 22. 4 is clear. 
 
 ^ Cyprian, Ep. 64 ad Fidum. 
 
2 so CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 subject presumes persons old enough to have faith 
 and repentance, and no case of baptism is recorded 
 except of such persons, for the whole " households " 
 mentioned would in that age mean dependants and 
 slaves as naturally as they suggest children to the 
 English reader.^ St Paul's argument — " else were 
 your children unclean, whereas in fact they are holy " ^ 
 — is a two-edged sword. On one side, he could not 
 well put the holiness of the child on the same footing 
 as that of the unbelieving parent, if one was baptized 
 and the other not. But conversely, if the child of 
 even a mixed marriage is holy, surely it is a fit subject 
 for baptism. If St. Paul disproves the institution, he 
 approves its principle.^ In spite of Origen's round 
 assertion, the question remained open for at least 
 another century. Tertullian objects to the practice, 
 on grounds which shew very little trust in Christ, 
 but evidently in the full belief that nobody imagined 
 that there was any apostolic ordinance against him. 
 Even in the fourth century some of the best women 
 of the time, like Anthusa and Monnica, did not feel 
 bound to baptize their children in infancy ; and a 
 writer of no less unquestioned orthodoxy than 
 Gregory of Nazianzus advises that it be put ofi" till 
 the child " can frame to speak the mystical words." 
 This is every way illogical : but at all events it gives 
 up the principle of Infant Baptism, that even the 
 infant of an hour belongs to Christ. 
 
 Immersion was the rule. The Jews were very 
 
 ^ This ia the usual sense of ol/tos in N.T, when it is not a buiUling. lu the 
 same way fainilia does not mean family. 
 
 » 1 Cor. Tii. 14. 
 
 ' Similarly, while it is absurd to quote Mk. x. 14 (of such is the kingdom 
 of God) or Acts ii. 39 (the promise is to you and to your children) to prove 
 that the practice existed, they are very sound arguments that " it is in excellent 
 accordance with Christ's institution." 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 251 
 
 strict, holding that even a ring on a woman's finger 
 prevented complete immersion : and though the 
 Christians were not likely to be so pedantic, the 
 whole symbolism of Baptism requires immersion, and 
 so St. Paul explains it.^ Immersion however might 
 often be inconvenient or even impossible. Perpetua, 
 for example, cannot well have been immersed, for she 
 was baptized in prison. So for reasonable cause the 
 actual immersion might be replaced by pouring or 
 sprinkhng as a symbol of immersion. Pouring is 
 allowed as early as the Teaching, and sprinkling was 
 used for the baptism of the sick. This baptism at 
 the bedside (therefore called clinical baptism) was 
 considered quite valid, but slightly discreditable, as 
 not being a full confession before men. In Cyprian's 
 time we find it made an objection to ordination, 
 though an objection which the bishop might set aside, 
 as Fabian of Eome did in Novatian's case.^ 
 
 In TertuUian's time,^ half a century after Justin, 
 we find a considerable development. The candidate 
 renounces the devil and his pomp and angels before 
 the bishop and the congregation ; and renounces them 
 again (abrenuntiatio) as he enters the water. He 
 makes his confession in a form taught him beforehand 
 {traditio and redditio symboli). This form was 
 " somewhat longer than the Lord laid down in the 
 Gospel," and therefore some such slight expansion of 
 the Baptismal Formula as may have been used at 
 Rome : — 
 
 1 Kom. vi. 3-5. 
 
 ^ So the Council of Neoc^sarea, Can. 12, makes it a bar to ordiuation as 
 presbyter, because it is not a voluntaiy confession ; but it makes an exception 
 for special merit or for scarcity of candidates. 
 
 It is worth notice that immersion is still the rule of the Church of England, 
 and every now and then an adult claims it as a right, though we never hear 
 of an infant who "may well endure it." ^ Tert. de Cor. Mil. 2. 
 
2 52 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 I believe in God the Father, 
 
 the Lord Almighty ; 
 in Christ Jesus his only Son, 
 the Lord our God ; 
 and in the Holy Spirit. 
 
 It varied in different churches : but whatever it was, 
 this was all that the candidate declared with his own 
 lips. Thereupon he was immersed, not once but 
 three times, in the name of the Trinity. On coming 
 up from the water he was given to taste a mixture of 
 milk and honey, and eschewed the bath for a whole 
 week. Elsewhere^ he tells us that Baptism was 
 followed at once by " the blessed unction," and that 
 again by the laying-on of hands, " that by the bless- 
 ing they might call and invite the Holy Spirit." 
 
 In the course of the third century we find other 
 developments, largely due to the growing belief that 
 the sacraments were mysteries. As the Christians 
 were no great lovers of the heathen mysteries, there 
 may not have been much direct imitation : only 
 Christian mysteries could not fail to resemble them. 
 There grew up for instance the exorcism of candidates. 
 The devils of heathenism had to be cast out like any 
 other devils. Then there was the sanctification of 
 the water. This suited well the Stoic conception of 
 TertuUian, that if all things are material, the material 
 element of water will have a direct action on the 
 material soul. The custom also was for the neophyte 
 to wear white linen for a short time. In the Nicene 
 age, when the baptisms of the year were held as much 
 as possible together at Easter, the white robes were 
 worn till the following Saturday inclusive. 
 
 Though the principal change which Baptism has 
 
 ' de Bapt. 7. 8. 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 253 
 
 undergone falls a little beyond our period, we may do 
 well to glance at it, for the early stages of a move- 
 ment are often best understood in the light of its later 
 developments. In the New Testament, as we have 
 seen, adult baptism is the rule, so that infant baptism 
 cannot be more than an adaptation of the ordinance. 
 However good the reasons for the adaptation, an 
 adaptation it is, and it must be explained as an adapta- 
 tion of adult baptism. To reverse the relation, 
 explaining the baptism of adults by that of infants, is 
 a fundamental mistake. Of that however there was 
 little danger in times when the churches increased 
 more by conversions than by births. But when per- 
 secution ceased, early in the Nicene age. Baptism lost 
 much of its primitive character of confession before 
 men ; and the rest of it gradually disappeared as the 
 baptism of infants became the common case, and that 
 of adults the exception. But when the baptism of 
 infants became a rule, as it did after the fourth century, 
 there was no small risk of turning the sacrament into 
 a piece of magic, which works without regard to 
 moral conditions ; and this risk was not entirely 
 removed by the use of sponsors {first found in 
 TertuUian) to connect the infant with the conditions 
 of adult baptism. There was still a temptation to 
 transfer those conditions too summarily to the infant, 
 as if the promises annexed in Scripture to faith and 
 repentance, and to faith and repentance only, must of 
 necessity belong equally to innocence. When once 
 we come to this, we build up the whole theory of 
 Christian life on an assumption we have no right to 
 make. 
 
 The Gospel lays down no distinctions of sacred 
 and profane. Church and State, elder and layman. 
 
2 54 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 holy day and common day, meeting place and market 
 — all are claimed alike for Christ, and therefore all 
 alike are holy. Nothing is profane but sin. But if 
 we express the inward holiness of all things by trying 
 to make them all alike outwardly holy, we shall 
 succeed only in making them all profane. So true 
 religion is agreed with superstition iu making dis- 
 tinctions : the difference is that while superstition 
 invests certain things with various degrees of intrinsic 
 holiness, true religion recognises in them no special 
 holiness at all (if such a phrase has any meaning) but 
 respects them as things which it has been found 
 necessary to use in a special way to help men in 
 their service to God. 
 
 So meetings at fixed times for worship began at 
 once and of necessity, and were gradually shaped by 
 the needs of the time, for there is no reason to 
 suppose that the Lord himself left any regulations for 
 conducting them. At Jerusalem the first Christians 
 went up to the temple to pray, and elsewhere they 
 frequented the synagogues as long as they were 
 allowed. But they had meetings of their own from the 
 first, and developed the service of the synagogue m 
 a very independent way. They had the same general 
 structure of prayer and thanksgiving, reading, and 
 exhortation. But the prayer seems to have been 
 extempore, with (if we may judge from Clement of 
 Rome) a decided touch of the synagogue prayers 
 and a strong tendency to fall into grooves. They 
 must also have had a distinctively Christian element, 
 emphasized by the very early appearance of Christian 
 hymns. Hymns are nearly always the first literary 
 efforts of infant churches ; and the apostolic age was 
 no exception. We find more than traces of them in 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 255 
 
 the New Testament itself,^ and our Gloria in excelsis 
 is so related to Polycarp's last prayer before the fire 
 was lighted that its earliest form may date from long 
 before 155. The reading would at first be of the 
 Old Testament, much in the Jewish way, unless 
 there was an apostolic letter to be read, or some- 
 thing else that was for edification.'' But the reading 
 of the New Testament (Gospels as well as Epistles) 
 must have been introduced quite early in the second 
 century. We find the custom well established in 
 Justin's time at Eome, and so widespread in the 
 next generation that we cannot refuse to carry back 
 its origin some distance before the appearance of 
 Marcion. In Greek countries the Scriptures would 
 of course be read in Greek, the Old Testament in 
 the LXX., the New in the original. But translations 
 were soon required. Syriac and Latin versions go 
 back to the second century, Coptic to the third. 
 
 Then came the sermon, which must have difi'ered 
 greatly from the Jewish. Our first sample of one 
 after New Testament times is the so-caUed Second 
 Epistle of Clement, apparently preached at Corinth 
 in the middle of the second century. It is poor 
 stuff, no doubt ; but it conforms to the rule that 
 every Christian sermon must be directly or indirectly 
 a preaching of Christ. 
 
 After the sermon came the distinctively Christian 
 ordinance of the Lord's Supper. In the New Testa- 
 ment and in the Teaching^ it is the solemn grace 
 
 ^ 1 Ti. iii. 16 certainly : Eph. v. 14 probably, whatever its relation to Isa. 
 Ix. 1. They must have been conspicuous, to attract Pliny's attention. See 
 also Rendel Harris on Odes of Solomon {Contemporary Rev. Apr. 1909). 
 
 ' Soter's letter was so read at Corinth 170, and doubtless Clement's in 96. 
 The distinction between edifying and canonical was not sharply drawn for 
 some time. 
 
 ^ Teaching 10. 
 
2 56 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 which closed an evening meal ; but at Rome in 
 Justin's time it had already been separated from 
 the Agap6 and transferred to the Sunday morning 
 service.^ There is no reason to suppose that the 
 change was made by apostolic order. It was probably 
 made by one church after another from obvious 
 motives of prudence, to avoid slanders ; and motives 
 of convenience, when worshippers were drawn from 
 a wider area, and some of them had to come in from 
 the country.^ There was no question of principle 
 in the matter. We find evening communions as 
 late as the fifth century ; ^ and even then they are 
 rather noticed as unusual than condemned as wrong. 
 
 With this change another may have been con- 
 nected. In the New Testament and the Teaching no 
 distinction seems made among Christians. Even a 
 heathen may come in to the prophesyings,* and there 
 are practically no catechumens to be shut out from 
 the Agap^. But with the transfer of the Lord's 
 Supper to the Sunday morning, it assumed more the 
 character of a mystery which none but the baptized 
 might even see ; and the increasing delay of baptism 
 gave rise to a definite class of catechumens who were 
 not admitted to the later part of the service. This 
 change also seems to have been gradual, and was 
 not recognized by Marcion.* 
 
 So far the service was still open to catechumens, 
 to penitents (except a few of the worst) and to 
 
 ' Ignatius Smyrn. 7. 8 seems to indicate the evening, while Pliny's account 
 leaves the question open. Quod ipsum facere desisse are only the words of 
 the renegades — " and we gave up attendance." 
 
 ^ Justin Apol. i. 67. These at any rate cannot have come fasting, 
 
 = Socr. H.E. v. 23. 
 
 ■• 1 Cor. xiv. 24. 
 
 " Tert. Praescr. 41 where pariter adeunt cannot mean that catechumens — 
 much less heathens— were allowed actually to partake. 
 
xii CHRISTIAN LIFE 257 
 
 heathens. The admission of these last sometimes 
 led to conversions ; and there was no danger in it, 
 for heathen Eome never used spies in matters of 
 religion.^ Apart from foul charges, she put down 
 unlawful worships without caring much to know 
 precisely what they were. But from this point 
 onward the rule was that none but "the faithful" 
 might be present. The only exception is that late 
 in the third century we begin to find a higher class 
 of penitents, who were allowed to witness the com- 
 munion, though not to partake of it. So with this 
 exception, it is always presumed that none is present 
 without partaking of it. 
 
 As no extant Liturgy can safely be referred to 
 our period, we are much in ignorance of the exact 
 form of the service. Its outline however is so 
 obvious that it must have been much the same 
 everywhere, while the details varied from church to 
 church. To judge from Irenseus, it centred quite as 
 much on the offertory as on the actual communion. 
 It began with a confession of sins — " that your 
 offering may be pure," says the Teaching. In the 
 Roman Mass, which contains fragments known to 
 be of extreme antiquity by their utter contradiction 
 of later Eoman doctrine, the priest confesses first to 
 the people and is absolved by them ; ^ then they 
 confess to him, and are absolved by him in the 
 same form of words. This may very well have been 
 the original practice. Then the exhortation to 
 forgive each other, and the kiss of peace. The 
 president (before long the bishop) stood at the far 
 
 1 Tert. Apol. 7, de Fuga, 12 Scap. 5 hardly prove the use of spies by the 
 Government. 
 
 ^ More precisely, by one of the attendants in their name. All in a low 
 voice, so that it is hardly noticed. 
 
 VOL. I S 
 
258 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 side of the table, facing the people across it, as the 
 pope still does when he says mass at his own 
 cathedral of St. John Lateran. The earliest churches, 
 in the third and fourth centuries, were modelled on 
 the Eoman basilicas. They were square buildings, 
 with an apse at the end. The holy table was on 
 the chord of the apse, and the bishop sat in the 
 centre of the curve, with his elders on each side 
 of him, exactly like the Eoman governor and his 
 assessors. 
 
 Then the offerings of the people, mostly in kind, 
 for money grew scarcer as the Empire declined, were 
 presented at the holy table in solemn thankfulness 
 for God's one great gift of life, in this world and the 
 other. From these oiferings was taken bread and 
 wine, and brought to the president. They were the 
 bread and wine of common life, such as was usual to 
 be eaten and drunk, so that the bread would seem 
 to have been leavened, and the wine (as Justin 
 expressly tells us) was mixed with water. Then the 
 Sursum corda, followed by the general prayer of 
 praise and thanksgiving, the special thanksgiving 
 over the elements, the Epiclesis or Invocation of 
 the Holy Spirit, and the Amen of the people. 
 Whether the Words of Institution were always recited 
 is not quite certain. Then came the great prayer 
 for all men — for the congregation, for the dead, and 
 for the givers of the offerings — roughly answering 
 to our Prayer for the Church Militant — ending with 
 the Lord's Prayer. It seems to have been still 
 extempore in Justin's time.^ The communion of the 
 people followed at once, and each as he received 
 
 ■ Justin Apol. i. 67, where Sirij 5i);'ii/iis cannot well mean ' ' at the top of 
 his voice." 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 259 
 
 the bread and wine answered, Amen. At Rome in 
 Justin's time portions were afterwards taken by the 
 deacons to the absent members of the church. These 
 must have been a numerous class, for there were 
 many hindrances in those days ; but how far the 
 practice was general, is more than we can say. 
 
 The service was originally conducted by an apostle 
 or prophet if present, and he would conduct it nearly 
 as he thought fit. He could order a special Agape 
 when he pleased, and was not tied to any form of 
 words in giving thanks.^ But in most cases even 
 in apostolic times the duty would devolve on the 
 local ministry of bishops and deacons ; and as in 
 the Lord's Supper some one person of necessity takes 
 the leading part, this may have contributed a good 
 deal to the emergence of the bishop as the one ruler 
 of the church. 
 
 The meetings were at first held in private houses. 
 Very humble Christians might be able to lend a 
 room ; and if a person of some rank was converted 
 with the whole familia, as sometimes happened, that 
 household would be a centre for all the Christians 
 within reach. Thus we hear of upper rooms at 
 Jerusalem and Troas, of the church which is in the 
 house of Priscilla and Aquila, and of the household 
 of Onesiphorus. A city even of moderate size might 
 contain several small churches meeting in several 
 houses. Such a state of things no doubt contributed 
 a good deal to the disorder of the subapostolic age. 
 Ignatius was a practical man when he insisted on 
 making all these small churches subject to the one 
 bishop of the city. But this meant larger congrega- 
 tions than private rooms could always contain, so 
 
 ^ Teaching 10 : also the Trpofcrds of Justin. 
 
26o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 that special rooms began to be needed, which could 
 be fitted up for the purpose. If any of these were 
 built before the end of the second century, they must 
 have remained in real or nominal private ownership ; 
 but the edict of Severus enabled the churches to hold 
 property. But they cannot have been very common 
 in TertuUian's time — at any rate, the attentions of 
 hostile mobs were directed to the burial-places, not 
 to the churches. The first clear mention of churches 
 we shall find in the reign of Severus Alexander ; 
 there were sundry to be restored after the persecution 
 of Valerian, and in the Long Peace (260-303) they 
 attained something like magnificence. 
 
 But only the outside was magnificent : the inside 
 was plain and unadorned. The Christians had good 
 reason for their distrust of art, on account of its close 
 connexion with idolatry. It was not dislike of art 
 in itself, for they had a little art of their own in the 
 catacombs. These they adorned with frescoes and 
 paintings, not of biblical stories and Christian 
 symbols only, but of animals and plants without 
 regard to their mythological signification. But there 
 were no images in the churches — none are found in 
 the inventories taken at the outbreak of the last 
 persecution in Africa — and paintings appear only at 
 the extreme end of our period, and then only to be 
 condemned by the Council of Elvira, " that what is 
 worshipped and adored be not pictured on the walls." 
 Still the old fear of idolatry. 
 
 Though there is no recorded command of the 
 Lord for the observance of Sunday, we find it settled 
 from the first as the usual day for common worship.^ 
 
 1 1 Cor. xvi. 2, Acts xx. 7 : not Rev. i. 10 in the day of the Lord (Hort). 
 The appearances of the risen Lord ( Joh. xx. 26) are significant. 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 261 
 
 If there were some attempts to keep the sabbath also, 
 making it a day of rest, the practice was soon con- 
 demned as a piece of Judaizing. Sunday was not 
 only not confused with the sabbath, but anxiously 
 distinguished from it. The observance differed both 
 in motive and in character. It commemorated not 
 the seventh day of the creation, but the Saviour's 
 resurrection ; and what marked it out was common 
 worship, not sabbatic rest. In fact, we find few 
 signs before the Nicene age that the observance of 
 the day went much further than common worship. 
 TertuUian is the first and I think the only writer of 
 our period who tells us ^ that they put oS" business on 
 that day, because it ought not to be disturbed with 
 cares, though they could not put off very much in 
 the midst of a heathen world. Constantine's legisla- 
 tion however is good proof that by his time there was 
 a widespread feeling against doing needless worldly 
 business on Sunday. 
 
 There was no great observance of other days of 
 the week, though there may have been thinly attended 
 services on some of them, as now. The stricter sort 
 of Christians fasted (or rather half-fasted till 3 p.m.) 
 twice in the week like the stricter sort of Jews, but 
 they would not keep the same days as "the 
 hypocrites." ^ The Jews fasted on Monday and 
 Thursday ; they chose Wednesday and Friday for the 
 dies stationum, when the Christian soldier stood at 
 
 It has often been pointed out that this silent transfer of worship from the 
 sabbath by born Jews can hardly be accounted for but by the OTerwhelming 
 impression of the resurrection. Similarly the Lord's Supper needs the 
 resurrection to explain its observance. It is hard to see how either the one 
 or the other could have arisen at once, if the horror and infamy of the 
 cracifixion had been the end of all. 
 
 ^ de Oratione 18. 
 
 2 Teaching 7 : also Clem. Al. Tert. (freq. ) Or. 
 
262 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 his post. But fasting generally was rather considered 
 a useful practice than made a matter of law, except 
 by the Montanists. It was naturally taken over 
 from the Jews, though the Lord did not command it, 
 and very likely never practised fasting himself^ We 
 find it in the apostolic age and onward, specially 
 connected with prayer on important occasions, like 
 the sending of Barnabas and Saul, or the baptism of 
 a proselyte.^ Often however it was done rather as a 
 means of raising money for the poor, like the " self- 
 denial weeks " of the Salvation Army. 
 
 As was Sunday to the week, so was Easter to the 
 year. Though the Teaching mentions no feasts, 
 there can be no doubt that the observance of Easter 
 dates back to apostolic times. In the second century 
 it was led up to by the forty hours' fast in memory 
 of the crucifixion (the only fast as yet commonly 
 observed) and by the vigU of the night before, and 
 itself introduced seven weeks of continuous festival 
 tni Pentecost, during which (at least in the third 
 century) it was forbidden to kneel in public worship. 
 But when precisely was the feast to be kept ? The 
 Lord's resurrection took place on Sunday, Nisan 16 ; 
 but in six years out of seven Sunday does not fall on 
 Nisan 16. What was then to be done? In Asia 
 they kept the day of Nisan, whatever might be the 
 day of the week : in the West and in some parts of 
 the East they kept the day of the week, whatever 
 
 ' Mt. vi. 16 is not a command to fast, but a warning against a show of 
 dirty faces when they do fast. It must not be made to contradict the 
 explicit teaching of Mt. ix. that no man may be compelled to fast. 
 
 It cannot be proved that the fasting of the forty days was more than the 
 involuntary hardship of life in the desert. The words iv-qurevtrev proves no 
 more than in Mk. viii. 3, 2 Cor. xi. 27, and St Mark's account Cqv fierh ruv 
 Srjpluv) points rather to hardship tlian to religious observance. 
 
 " Acts xiii. 2. Teaching 7, Justin Apol. i. 61, Tert. de Bapt. 20. 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 263 
 
 might be the day of Nisan. Moreover, in Asia the 
 observance culminated in the paschal Communion of 
 Nisan 14, while in the West ithe most solemn part 
 of it was the festal Communion on the Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 When Poly carp came to Eome cir. 155, he 
 discussed the matter with bishop Anicetus, and 
 came to no agreement with him. But the discussion 
 must have been quite friendly, for Anicetus allowed 
 him to preside in his own place in the Lord's Supper. 
 A few years after this the Quartodecimans, as they 
 were called, came to a dispute among themselves 
 over the meaning of the Communion on Nisan 14. 
 Most of them claimed St. John's authority for placing 
 the crucifixion Nisan 15, and looked on the Com- 
 munion of the night before as a continuation of 
 the Jewish Passover, while Claudius Apollinaris gave 
 it a more decided Christian character. 
 
 The controversy became acute somewhere about 
 191, in the time of the Eoman bishop Victor. 
 Councils were held in Palestine under Theophilus 
 of Csesarea and Narcissus of Jerusalem, at Eome 
 under Victor himself, in Pontus under the senior 
 bishop, Palmas of Amastris, in Gaul under the 
 guidance of Irenseus, in Osrhoene, one held by 
 Bacchylus of Corinth — and there were others. These 
 all declared that they would observe the Eesurrection 
 on the Sunday, and that they would continue the 
 fast till then. Alexandria went the same way : only 
 Asia resisted. So far Victor had found general 
 support ; but when he went on to break off com- 
 munion with the churches of Asia as heterodox, and 
 wrote letters denouncing them to the churches as 
 excommunicate, he was generally blamed for turning 
 
264 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 a matter of custom into a question of faith, summarily 
 settling it by the Roman use, and requiring other 
 churches to do as he had done. Irenseus in particular 
 had actively supported him on the question of 
 practice, and had written Trepl o-;;^to-/iaT09 against 
 Blastus, the Quartodeciman zealot who had stirred 
 up the trouble at Rome. But now he mediated in 
 the interest of peace, appealing to the practice of 
 Victor's own predecessors in proof that these and 
 other differences of custom need not be any hindrance 
 to Christian unity. 
 
 From Polycrates of Ephesus Victor received a 
 defiant answer on behalf of Asia. " Not of self-will 
 do we keep the day, adding nothing and taking 
 nothing away. For indeed in Asia sleep mighty 
 spirits,^ which shall rise again in the day of the 
 Lord's presence, when he shall come with glory from 
 heaven and raise up all the saints — Philip, one of the 
 twelve apostles, who sleeps in Hierapolis, and two of 
 his daughters who grew old in virginity, and his 
 other daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit, who 
 rests in Ephesus. And moreover there was John 
 who leaned on the Lord's breast, who became a priest 
 wearing the breastplate, and martyr and teacher — he 
 sleeps at Ephesus — and Polycarp too in Smyrna 
 bishop and martyr, and Thraseas bishop and martyr 
 of Eumenea, who sleeps in Smyrna. Why need I 
 tell of Sagaris bishop and martyr who sleeps in 
 Laodicea and the blessed Papirius also, and Melito 
 the eunuch, who lived in the Holy Spirit in all 
 things, who lies in Sardis waiting for the visitation 
 from heaven, in which he shall rise again ? All these 
 
 ' With some hesitation I take the obscure word aroixela in its modern Greek 
 sense. Dr. J. H. Moulton (by letter) seems disposed to think it admissible. 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 265 
 
 kept the fourteenth day, the day of the Passover, 
 according to the Gospel, transgressing it in nothing 
 but walking according to the rule of faith ; and so 
 do I Polycrates, who am less than any of you, 
 according to the tradition of my kinsmen, some of 
 whom indeed I myself succeeded. Seven of my 
 kinsmen were bishops, and I am the eighth, and my 
 kinsmen always kept the day when God's people put 
 away the leaven. I then, brethren, who have lived 
 sixty years in the Lord, and conversed with brethren 
 from all parts of the world, and gone through every 
 passage of Scripture — I am not dismayed by your 
 threats, for they that are greater than I have said. 
 We must obey God rather than men." ' 
 
 It is a noble protest and a stately roll of names : 
 and yet Polycrates was wrong. He was right indeed 
 on the immediate question of rebuking Victor's 
 insolence and want of ' charity : but the Easter 
 Question itself was not over trifles, and on this it 
 must be admitted that Anicetus and Victor shewed 
 a truer Christian perception than Polycarp and 
 Polycrates. In the yearly festival as well as in the 
 weekly, it was right and good that Christianity should 
 sooner or later assert its independence of Judaism. 
 
 Before the Nicene age the Roman rule was 
 generally, though not yet universally accepted. This 
 fixed Easter on the Sunday after the full moon 
 following the vernal equinox. But even this in- 
 volved astronomical difficulties. At Eome Mar. 18 
 was the vernal equinox, at Alexandria Mar. 21 ; and 
 the cycles for finding the full moon were defective. 
 Hippolytus had one of 56 years, which soon went 
 wrong ; and it was not till the sixth century that 
 
 ' Ens. V. 24. 
 
266 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 our present cycle of 532 years was introduced. 
 Meanwhile they could think of nothing better than 
 to let the bishop of Alexandria for Egypt and the 
 bishop of Rome in the West give annual notice of 
 the day to be kept. The Roman notices are only 
 mentioned as an old custom by the Council of Aries 
 in 314; but the Alexandrian were pastoral letters, 
 and often documents of great historical value. 
 Eusebius gets a good deal of his information about 
 bishop Dionysius from his Paschal Letters, and those 
 of Athanasius in the next century tell us a good 
 deal of the history of the time. 
 
 The Christian Year was not yet much further 
 developed. In the East we find the Epiphany — 
 (first among the Basilidians) which commemorated 
 the Incarnation in general, with secondary references 
 to the Baptism and Nativity. The Westerns, though 
 not tUl the next century, had Christmas (first in the 
 Chronographer of 354) which replaced the Brumalia 
 and the Birthday of Mithras on Dec. 25, and com- 
 memorated the Nativity only. The difference from 
 the Epiphany is that of the historical from the mystic 
 standpoint. So the Epiphany was continued in the 
 West only as a minor festival, while Christmas met 
 with a good deal of opposition in the East, which has 
 not even yet been quite overcome. It was still 
 denounced as a wicked innovation in the Russia of 
 Alexis Michaelovitch (1645-1678) and even now the 
 chief services of the day commemorate Napoleon's 
 retreat from Moscow. 
 
 There were also the " Birthdays " on which the 
 martyrs entered into everlasting life. These were 
 kept at their tombs with prayers, ofi"erings, and the 
 Lord's Supper. They were still only commemorations. 
 
xn CHRISTIAN LIFE 267 
 
 thougli they paved the way for many abuses and 
 superstitions in the next age. 
 
 Now what was the general relation of the early 
 Christian churches in doctrine and institutions to the 
 world around them ? It was one of strong contrast 
 and originality. Of course likenesses in abundance 
 may be pointed out everywhere. The philosophical 
 questions which underlie all religion must be dealt 
 with by every religion which perceives them, the 
 craving of human nature for communion with the 
 divine will produce habits of prayer and legends of 
 theophany all over the world, and the deep instinct 
 of symbolism may shew itself anywhere in similarities 
 of worship and sacraments. Thus Islam divides like 
 Christendom round the camps of tradition, reason, 
 mysticism. India debates as anxiously as we do 
 whether salvation is by faith, or works, or knowledge, 
 and reproduces the whole controversy between 
 Augustine and Pelagius in the dispute between the 
 " cat " school and the " monkey " school.^ So too 
 there are forms of worship at the ends of the earth, 
 and feasts of communion come down from the dawn 
 of history. Christianity is like the rest, yet markedly 
 unlike them, even where it most resembles them. 
 We have in sundry regions tales of gods coming down 
 among men, living on earth, born of women, slain by 
 evil powers, but nowhere anything like the Christian 
 belief in the one Son of God taking human nature on 
 him for evermore. That belief may be despised as 
 
 ' Grierson J. B. Asiatic Soc. Apr. 1908 p. 338. The question between 
 them is, Does the divine power carry the soul as the cat carries her kitten, 
 without the kitten having a choice in the matter ; or is there a better simile 
 in the young monkey, which clings to its mother ? 
 
 The whole question of grace and freewill could hardly be better put. 
 
268 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 mystic or set aside as false ; but it is undeniably tbe 
 faith in which the Christians lived from the first. And 
 it transfigured everything. Baptism and the Supper 
 and the church may be adapted from Judaism ; but it 
 is as certain as any historical fact can be that they 
 were instituted by the Lord himself, not copied vaguely 
 from the heathen world by the second generation of 
 Christians. This later theory does worse than set 
 aside some exceptionally strong historical evidence, 
 for the whole trend of early Christian thought must 
 be fundamentally mistaken before it can be supposed 
 that the table of the Lord was copied from " the table 
 of devils." Besides, if all the organization was 
 invented by the second generation, what was there 
 in the first ? So everything was markedly different 
 from heathen or even Jewish parallels. Baptism 
 was not simply an initiation, or even a cleansing 
 from sin, but a new birth " into Christ," the Supper 
 of the Lord was not simply a communion with a god, 
 but the solemn thanksgiving of men that were "in 
 Christ " ; and the church itself was not simply an 
 association where hymns were sung to Christ as a 
 god, but the visible expression of a life " in Christ." 
 If we forget the inward working of this " mystic " 
 faith, our result wUl be quite unlike anything that 
 was known as Christian in early times. 
 
 Of course the Christians were not repelled by the 
 mere fact that heathens said or did a thing, but by 
 the contamination of idolatry. Where there was no 
 risk of that, they had sense enough to do as their 
 neighbours did. There might be dangers, but there 
 was nothing essentially unchristian when Christian 
 doctrine was expressed in the current language of 
 Greek philosophy or Eoman law, -vyhen the sacraments 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 269 
 
 were described in the terms of the mysteries, or when 
 the organization of the church was modelled on that 
 of the state. Danger began only when heathen 
 words were used not simply to express Christian 
 conceptions, but to determine and to limit them ; and 
 though there was always something of this, it did not 
 become serious before the third and fourth centuries. 
 Then indeed a more miscellaneous church began to 
 make the change from Christian ideas in heathen 
 language to heathen ideas in Christian language. 
 On the Person of Christ indeed the Eastern councils 
 kept firmly within the sense of Scripture : but other 
 doctrines fared worse. Cyprian's conception of the 
 Christian ministry differs entirely from St. Paul's, 
 and Chrysostom's idea of priesthood is the same as 
 Julian's. The assimilation of Christianity to heathen- 
 ism from the third century is matter of history, and 
 we need not here enquire how far it was due to 
 borrowing on one or both sides, or how far it was a 
 similar growth of the religion of the natural man. 
 The one thing certain is that however historically 
 unavoidable it might be, it was in most respects 
 rather a reversal of Christ's plain teaching than a 
 development of principles laid down by him. 
 
 This may be the place for one more reminder that 
 even as Christian life was at no time the same all 
 over the Empire, so neither did it remain in any one 
 place the same from one generation to another. 
 Beneath the local colouring which varied from 
 province to province, and from city to city, profound 
 changes of general form and spirit were going on, 
 which in the time between the apostolic age and the 
 Nicene amounted almost to a revolution. To begin 
 with, the environment of the churches was greatly 
 
270 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 changed. The world had gone a long way downhill 
 since the Augustan age, receiving strong and subtle 
 influences from the struggle with the barbarians, the 
 great pestilences, the decay of trade, the disorder of 
 the currency, the growth of the barbarian element in 
 the Empire and its reorganization on Eastern lines 
 by Diocletian. Its temper was wholly changed. 
 If heathenism had been in difficulties since Plato's 
 time, it had now come to its last shifts. The old 
 gods were really dead or nearly so by the end of the 
 third century, and the worship of the emperor had 
 lost its reality in the military anarchy, so that 
 Eclecticism was plainly the last possible rival to 
 Christianity. If Mithras failed, Jupiter was past 
 revival ; and if Neoplatonism did not answer, they 
 could not go back to Stoicism. 
 
 The churches themselves had changed even more. 
 In the apostohc age there might be a few scattered 
 converts in a city, meeting in separate groups for a 
 simple worship at the houses of some of their chief 
 men. In the course of the second century the 
 different congregations of a city were brought under 
 the control of a bishop ; and more and more power 
 fell into the bishop's hands as the laity increased in 
 number, till the persecution of Diocletian found the 
 Empire overspread by a vast confederation of strongly 
 organized churches assembling for elaborate services, 
 often in splendid buildings with overflowing congrega- 
 tions. The church underwent something of the same 
 change as the state, and with something like the 
 same result. As the more complicated administration 
 of the Empire impressed itself on the life of the world, 
 so the fuller organization of the visible church loomed 
 larger in Christian life. The change was natural and 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 271 
 
 necessary, for with their increasing numbers the 
 churches needed all the strength which organization 
 could give them : yet it could not fail more or less to 
 throw into the background the spiritual unity of the 
 church in its living Head, and to push forward a 
 secular unity of the church as the one visible institu- 
 tion which dispensed the means of salvation. 
 
 The temper of the Christians was also changed. 
 They were no longer a scanty band of converts with 
 all the world against them, but a great party in the 
 state which might seem well on the way to victory 
 when it was rudely awakened by the persecution of 
 Diocletian. It still made converts, and worthy 
 converts too ; but the fashionable proselytes and the 
 " traffickers on Christ " were more in number, and 
 therefore more openly given to heathen living and 
 heathen ways of thinking, and better able to influence 
 Christian living and Christian ways of thinking. So 
 the churches received an increasing class of men 
 whose general ideas of religion were essentially 
 heathen ; and this class took in Christians of all 
 sorts, from martyrs like Cyprian down to the 
 hangers-on who were frightened away by the first 
 rumours of persecution. 
 
 Meanwhile no men were prouder of their Christian 
 privilege than those who looked on the church as a 
 society of the heathen sort. Christian worship had 
 from the first some real likeness to the heathen 
 mysteries. Those belonged to private societies, often 
 of bad character, which received indeed all comers to 
 their esoteric teaching, but received none without 
 initiation, and not only admitted no strangers to their 
 rites, but made the very nature of them a secret to 
 outsiders. The churches too were private societies 
 
272 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 with a very bad character in the world, which received 
 indeed all comers to their teaching, but received none 
 without baptism, and admitted no strangers to the 
 Lord's Supper, though they made no secret of its 
 nature to outsiders. Why not complete the likeness ? 
 Was not the knowledge of the truth a high privilege ? 
 Were they not casting pearls before swine ^ by giving 
 it to all comers ? Ought it not to be reserved as 
 esoteric teaching for those worthy to receive it ? 
 Then Baptism would become the initiation, and 
 admission to it would have to be fenced with long 
 preparation, while the Lord's Supper would be the 
 mystery, and the knowledge of its ceremonial the 
 highest privilege of the " faithful," so that it must 
 be kept secret from the profane. This sounded well, 
 and might seem no more than reasonable care not to 
 give advanced teaching to beginners who could not 
 profit by it. Yet it sprang from the natural man's 
 belief that truth is not a heavenly ideal, but a private 
 possession of his own. It made its division of 
 elementary and advanced teaching on a false principle, 
 and presumed on the knowledge of truth to set the 
 " faithful " over against the catechumens, and the 
 Christians generally over against the " profane," as 
 a class of favourites of heaven. 
 
 There is no trace of this "reserve" or disciplina 
 arcani in the writers of the New Testament, who 
 never shun to declare unto us the whole counsel of 
 God. We do not find it either in the subapostolic 
 Fathers ; and Justin has no hesitation in fully 
 describing the observance of the Lord's Supper in 
 writing to the heathen emperor. Yet he tells us that 
 Baptism was already called (/xortcr^tio? (illumination) — ■ 
 
 ' Mt. vii. 6 wa3 a favourite argument for the disdiiUna arcani. 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 273 
 
 the technical term for initiation in the mysteries.^ 
 Clement speaks of Christianity as a mystery, and uses 
 freely the language of the mysteries in the invitation 
 to the heathen which is the peroration of his Pro- 
 trepticus. In the Stromateis the influence of the 
 mysteries is less conspicuous, for he compares the 
 more advanced teaching of Christianity rather to 
 the esoteric doctrine of the philosophers than to 
 the guarded secrets of the mysteries. They are the 
 privilege of the enlightened Christian, not conferred 
 on him by Baptism, but needing to be won afterwards 
 by greater purity and more strenuous effort than that 
 of common men. In later writers the influence of 
 the mysteries is greater, especially in the fourth 
 century, and it is greatest in the sixth century 
 writings which bear the name of Dionysius the 
 Areopagite. 
 
 In the West it was not so strong : but the growing 
 tendency of Christians to look on themselves as 
 favourites of heaven took another form. The 
 emphasis was laid less on the doctrine taught, and 
 more on the church which taught it, and the privilege 
 of knowing truth was overshadowed by the belief 
 that the visible church was the one escape from the 
 fire of hell. So though the disciplina arcani was 
 maintained for some time, the special habit of viewing 
 the Gospel as a mystery was soon merged in the 
 general doctrine that there is no salvation outside the 
 visible church. 
 
 The growth then of the belief that Christians are 
 favourites of heaven in the same sense as the Jews 
 had supposed themselves to be, may be taken as the 
 most far-reaching change which affected Christian life 
 
 1 There is no need to take tpwriaBivres in this technical sense in Hebr. vi. 
 VOL. I T 
 
274 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 within our period. We may now return to some 
 general observations. 
 
 Upon the whole, the better sort of Christian 
 life, especially in the East, seems to have been much 
 more cheerful than in later ages. We must not 
 summarily judge of common life by the high-strung 
 ecstasy of martyrs, though that too is often signifi- 
 cant. Some of them do not seem likely to have 
 been amiable in common life : but such high self- 
 control and courtesy as we see in Polycarp tells 
 us another tale of the past. There was struggle 
 in that age, there was failure, there was sadness ; 
 but we cannot mistake the note of thankfulness and 
 joy that runs through its literature from the Gloria 
 in excelsis and the Protrepticus of Clement down- 
 ward. There was more shadow in the Latin West, 
 where the spirit of legalism was stronger ; yet even 
 here there was not much morbid joy in suffering 
 and tales of suffering. The common symbols of 
 devotion pointed to hope, like the palm, the dove 
 with the olive branch, the phoenix, the AD,, and the 
 IX@T!S, though there is a more sombre touch in the 
 ship sailing hence and the T (cross). But the cross 
 was no more than a sign, though the use of it was 
 not free from superstition. It was not pictured or 
 set up in houses ; and crucifixes belong to much later 
 times. The stories of the martyrs are commonly told 
 with quiet dignity, and the scenes are hardly ever 
 pictured. The chief exception is the mosaic of 
 Perpetua trampling down the dragon in her dream. 
 The inscriptions in the catacombs are cheerful all 
 through the years of persecution : not till the times 
 of suffering have passed away do words of Christian 
 hope and joy give place to conventional and heathen 
 
XII CHRISTIAN LIFE 27s 
 
 phrases of lamentation. This was only natural. 
 The trials of persecution may sadden life, but they 
 need not sour it like asceticism. There is one cry in 
 the, How long, Lord ? of the persecuted ; quite 
 another in the ascetic's, I knew that thou wert a 
 hard man. 
 
 Once more, how did the Christians face their per- 
 secutors ? How far did their sufferings make them 
 bitter to their neighbours or disloyal to the state ? In 
 many cases no doubt heathen injustice was fiercely 
 resented. TertuUian as usual is no model of meekness. 
 His de Spectaculis ends with a lurid picture of heathen 
 society from the deified emperors downward rolling in 
 the fires of hell. Even worse is the savage partizan- 
 ship of Lactantius in his de mortibus persecutorum. 
 He twists every act of " the evil beasts " into wicked 
 folly, and gloats over their deaths with demoniac 
 pleasure. But TertuUian and Lactantius are not 
 without the excuse of righteous indignation against 
 atrocious cruelty. They are not liars, and their 
 invectives are exceptional. A few years later 
 TertuUian himself remonstrates calmly with the pro- 
 consul Scapula for burning the Christians instead of 
 beheading them like other governors. The truest 
 utterance of Christian feeling is not to be found in 
 the Apologies addressed to heathens, which may be 
 supposed to disguise resentment, but in the dignified 
 silence of Clement of Rome, or in the calm narrative 
 of the churches of Lyons and Vienne. Even the 
 Martyrium Polycarpi, though it glows throughout 
 with such emotion that it has often been set aside as 
 a Tendenzschrift, is almost as free from railing as the 
 Gospels themselves. Above all, there is no word of 
 bitterness in the catacombs. There is sorrow, there is 
 
276 CHURCH HISTORY chap, xii 
 
 hope, but never a curse for the persecutors. The 
 martyr " rests in peace " ; and his cause is with 
 his God. As regards the emperors in particular, 
 Christian loyalty was not a vain boast. The pro- 
 fessions of apologists might perhaps be made for an 
 occasion ; but we cannot mistake the nervous anxiety 
 of Christians to throw the blame of persecution on 
 subordinates, to make the most of such crumbs of 
 favour or even such relaxations of persecutions as 
 they got, and to claim as a friend every emperor who 
 was not utterly hostile. They could look through the 
 vileness of Domitian or the hatred of Marcus to the 
 power ordained of God. The emperor was more holy 
 to the Christians who could scarcely believe in his 
 enmity than to the heathens who worshipped him as 
 a God on earth. The foundations of the Holy Roman 
 Empire were already laid. 
 
 Books 
 
 On heathen Society — Aust Beligion der Eomer Miinster i. W. 1899 ; 
 Boissier La Religion romaine ; Dill MoTiian Society from Nero to Marcus 
 Aurelius ; Friedlander Sittengeschichte ; Reville La Religion romaine sous les 
 Sivires. — Fustel de Coulanges La Gaule romaine \ Wallon L'Histoire de 
 I'esclavage ; Zahn Skizzen (on slavery etc.) Erlangen 1898 ; The latest work is 
 Buokland Slavery in the Roman Empire ; Dobsohutz Die urchristl. Gemeinden ; 
 Bigg The Ohurch's Task in the Roman Empire ; Glover Conflict of Religions 
 in the Early Roman Empire (publ. too late to be used) ; On Christian 
 "worship Wieland Mensa uiid Confessio Miinchen 1906. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 
 
 Granted that the ancient world needed a searching 
 reform, there can be no question that the Gospel 
 began at the right end, with the individual and the 
 family. Saints may live in a rotten state, but the 
 state cannot be sound if private life is rotten. No 
 other plan was consistent with the transcendent value 
 of the men for whom Christ died. The revelation 
 was neither a philosophical nor a poUtical idea, nor a 
 system of theology or law, but a living Person, whose 
 life individual after individual was to make his own, 
 and pass on to others, so that any direct attempt at 
 social or political reform would have been inconsistent 
 with its first principles. " Thyself keep pure " : the 
 rest would come of itself in course of time from the 
 action of those who strove to purify themselves even 
 as He is pure. 
 
 But the Christians were not therefore a pack of 
 Cynics, every one intent on saving his own soul with- 
 out regard to his neighbour. The new life was a 
 common life in Christ, and therefore social, so that it 
 soon formed institutions. These were at first elastic 
 and provisional, as became men who might any day 
 see their Lord's return ; and they only hardened into 
 definite forms as that hope grew fainter. Freemen of 
 
 277 
 
278 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 heaven could not be more than pilgrims and so- 
 journers on earth. It was the new life, the common 
 life in Christ, which gathered individuals into churches, 
 and pointed forward to the spiritual unity of a uni- 
 versal church, though it was not purely spiritual 
 motives which gathered the churches into a great 
 worldly corporation modelled on the lines of the 
 imperial administration, and confronting it on equal 
 terms. Let us now see what were the forces which 
 brought together Christians of all ranks and races, and 
 formed within the state a power which no persecutions 
 could overcome. 
 
 First, there was the bond of a common hfe. Even 
 in worldly forms, a common life is a strong bond, 
 and a common life in Christ is the strongest bond 
 of all for those that are conscious of it. And that 
 bond was at its strongest in times when Christians 
 were made, not born. With all allowance for natural 
 increase, the churches must have consisted largely 
 of converts, of men and women who claimed to have 
 themselves received the gift of life in riper years : 
 and so long as there was any fear of persecution, 
 that claim was not often lightly made. Upon the 
 whole, a vivid consciousness of life, and therefore 
 of common life, would seem to have been more widely 
 spread than in any great church of later times ; and 
 there were no special conditions of isolation like 
 those of the feudal castles to counteract its social 
 tendency. Even the strong class feeling of Roman 
 society checked it very little, for all classes met 
 together in the churches from the first on terms of 
 spiritual equality, because they all understood that 
 the new life came down to them from a region far 
 above the class distinctions of the world. 
 
xin THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 279 
 
 The common life rested not on the Unity of God, 
 nor even on his Fatherhood, but on faith in Christ 
 as the incarnate Son who died for men. This holds 
 strictly for the first two centuries : only in the 
 third we begin to find the colourless monotheistic 
 Christianity so common in the fourth. Even those 
 sects which did not fully recognize Christ in this 
 way, and therefore cannot be counted fully Christian, 
 still found in Jesus of Nazareth the guide of life 
 and the centre of the world's history, and therefore 
 more or less fully shared the common life of 
 Christendom. The heretics had their martyrs, and 
 (a few extremes excepted) all felt one as against 
 heathenism. 
 
 The Old Testament was the Bible of the apostolic 
 age : but the words of the Lord and the facts of 
 his life were the authoritative declaration of its 
 meaning. "The Gospel," which was the final 
 standard of Christian teaching, was the story of 
 that which the Lord had said and done from the 
 baptism of John till the day when he was taken 
 up from us : and this was diligently taught in the 
 Eastern way by the first generation of evangelists. 
 The master gives out a story — in our time a Sura 
 of the Koran — and repeats it till the scholars have 
 thoroughly learned it before going on to another. 
 Hence the tradition of the apostolic age was not 
 the loose report it is so commonly taken for, but 
 a pretty definite list of selected stories taught as 
 near as might be in fixed words, so that there is no 
 reason to suppose that they underwent any serious 
 change in the course of the apostolic age. Thus 
 Irenseus tells us that the stories he heard from 
 Poly carp were "altogether in accordance with the 
 
28o CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 scriptures," by which Irenseus would mean the 
 written Gospels. Presently the more or less unsatis- 
 factory notes taken by individuals were superseded 
 by the more accurate collections of our first three 
 Gospels/ and these again were followed by sundry 
 apocryphal gospels. Some of the latter, like the 
 Gospel of Peter, seem to have told much the same 
 story as the Three, but less soberly, and with the 
 addition of docetic or ascetic embellishments which 
 plainly shew their later date and secondary character. 
 Others, like the Gospel of the Infancy, are pure and 
 simple novels, and may not have been meant for 
 anything more. 
 
 However, it was not long before the three 
 Synoptists, with the addition of St. John's Gospel, 
 were fully recognized as the authoritative Four. 
 The process was doubtless gradual ; but it must have 
 been completed some time well before the middle 
 of the second century. Clement, Ignatius and 
 Polycarp have coincidences with sayings of the Lord 
 recorded in our Gospels, and certainly accepted the 
 substance of the Synoptic narrative. A creed consider- 
 ably fuller than the Apostles' Creed might be drawn 
 up from their allusions.^ But whether they got it 
 from books or from the traditional teaching is another 
 question, on which no sober critic will care to speak 
 with certainty. Nor can we be sure that the saying, 
 Many are called, but few are chosen, which Barnabas 
 
 ' Of ooiirse the " Oral Gospel " theory is not the one sufficient key to the 
 complicated problem of the Synoptic Gospels : but it stands for the plain 
 fact that systematized oral teaching is an important factor in the case. 
 Knowing what we do of Eastern ways of thinking, and of Christian methods 
 traceable in St. Paul's Epistles, we may safely consign to the limbo of 
 vanity all the literary criticism which attempts to solve the problem by 
 combinations of written sources only. 
 
 ^ As by Westcott Canon 62. 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 281 
 
 introduces with, As it is written/ is quoted from 
 St. Matthew's Gospel, though it seems more likely 
 than not. Papias however, who was a disciple of 
 the Lord's disciple John (whether that John be the 
 apostle or another) and wrote his Commentary on 
 Dominical Oracles^ about 140, had books before him, 
 and shews clear traces of our first, second and fourth 
 Gospels : and we cannot demand to see his Canon 
 complete in the scanty fragments remaining to us. 
 Justin Martyr certainly used our first and third 
 Gospels, though distinctive traces of the second are 
 naturally less clear. Nor does there seem to be any 
 reasonable doubt that he fully recognized the fourth ; 
 and in any case the question is practically settled 
 for him by the Diatessaron of his disciple Tatian, 
 which is a harmony of our Four Gospels and no 
 others. Some time later, Irenseus ^ is as certain that 
 there are four Gospels (confessedly our Four) and no 
 more as that there are four winds of heaven and 
 no more. And what is an axiom to Irenseus cannot 
 be an erratic belief of his own. It must reflect the 
 teaching of his master Polycarp, and the general 
 teaching of the churches for a long time before the 
 date of writing. 
 
 The Epistles obtained a canonical position even 
 earlier than the Gospels. They were read from the 
 first in public meetings like the Old Testament ; and 
 Clement already not only quotes St. Paul as authori- 
 tative, but models his thoughts and language on St. 
 
 1 Barnabas Ep. 4. Cf. Mt. xxii. 14. 
 
 ^ Xoyitijv KvpiaKu>v €^riy7](ns (eis) not tQv \6yiov rod Kvpiov dLTiyfjffLS — a com- 
 mentary, not a narrative, dealing not simply with words spoken by the 
 Lord, bnt with Scriptures concerning him. \6yia Scriptures as Rom. iii. 2, 
 1 Pet. iv. 11. 
 
 ^ It is safer to leave in abeyance the still earlier traces of four acknow- 
 ledged Gospels pointed out in Hermas by Dr. C. Taylor. 
 
282 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Paul's in a way which shews his perfect famiharity 
 with the apostle's words. Before the last quarter of 
 the second century the main lines of our Canon were 
 fixed. The four Gospels, the Acts, thirteen Epistles 
 of St. Paul, one each of Peter and John, and the 
 Apocalypse were accepted by all but Marcion and a 
 very few extreme men. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 was often rejected, especially in the West, as of 
 doubtful authorship ; and in the third century the 
 Apocalypse fell into the same condition in the East, 
 and for the same reason. The other five Epistles were 
 more or less admitted, but scarcely received full 
 recognition till the fourth century. Other books 
 hardly obtained even a doubtful recognition. Clement 
 indeed was publicly read like St. Paul ; but nobody 
 ever quotes him as authoritative like St. Paul. 
 Claims advanced on behalf of other books, like 
 Barnabas, Hermas, the Teaching, or the Gospel 
 according to the Hebrews, are not very serious. They 
 might be read for instruction, and quotations from 
 them might be used as garnish ; but I do not think 
 any serious argument is ever rested on them as on 
 the canonical books. 
 
 As soon as the churches had a New Testament to 
 set alongside of the Old, the two together became 
 the authoritative standard of Christian teaching, and 
 the only such standard. For the common routine 
 church custom or tradition might be sufficient : but 
 such tradition was subject to the commands of the 
 Lord, and had to be defended by them if disputed, 
 checked by them if doubtful : and when once the 
 elders had passed away, the commands of the Lord 
 could only be known from the written word. K 
 Scripture and tradition were not formally arrayed 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 283 
 
 against each other as in the age of the Eeformation , 
 the reason is that nobody yet supposed tradition to 
 be independent of Scripture in the sense of being 
 entitled to revise, or upon occasion to reverse, the 
 commands of Christ. 
 
 But if Scripture is the storehouse of doctrine, it is 
 a very bad manual. The need of short summaries 
 was felt long before there was a Canon formed. The 
 candidate for baptism required instruction before he 
 could profess his belief in the Trinity ; and it was 
 evident that such instruction was most conveniently 
 based on some form short enough to be remembered. 
 Though it was needful to teach one by one the stories 
 of the Saviour's life and works, it was not enough to 
 do so without also summing up the main facts ; and 
 the summaries (or rules of faith) drawn up in their 
 own words by individual teachers had no official 
 character. So in many churches the Baptismal 
 Formula was variously expanded for catechetical use 
 into a summary about the length of our so-called 
 Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Every church seems 
 to have done this in its own way, no doubt often 
 following the example of some other church, but 
 still following independently. Ultimately these 
 catechetical creeds were made the Baptismal Pro- 
 fessions ; but though the change may have been 
 early in the West, it was not made in the East till 
 the Nicene age was well advanced. 
 
 These creeds are all much alike, because they all 
 fill out the Baptismal Formula ^ chiefly with the 
 main historic facts of our Saviour's life. A skeleton 
 creed formed by striking out everything ever 
 deliberately omitted from a creed might run thus : — 
 
 ' The Quicunque is not properly a creed, but " a sermon on the Creed." 
 
284 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 " I believe in God the Father Almighty : And in 
 Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of 
 the Virgin Mary, suflfered, rose again the third day, 
 ascended into heaven, and shall come to judge the 
 quick and the dead : And in the Holy Spirit." The 
 exact wording of these clauses varied a little, and 
 every creed contained something more than this : but 
 these doctrines were always presented as the ir- 
 reducible minimum, and therefore as the unalterable 
 standard, of Christian belief These, says Irenseus, 
 are the doctrines which the churches with one accord 
 preached everywhere as handed down to them by the 
 unbroken succession of elders coming down from the 
 apostles ; and all teaching opposed to these is in- 
 admissible for Christian men. 
 
 Whether such a skeleton creed ever had a real 
 existence must be left in doubt. It is so obvious a 
 summary of the Gospel that apparent allusions to it 
 must be traced with caution. There are certainly 
 none in the New Testament.^ Eastern creeds 
 commonly contained controversial clauses, chiefly 
 aimed at the Gnostics, like the belief in one God, and 
 in one Lord Jesus Christ, the creation of heaven and 
 earth, and the life everlasting. Western creeds never 
 had matter of this kind, for the clause. Maker of 
 heaven and earth, is late. The so-called Apostles' 
 Creed cannot be traced with positive certainty beyond 
 340, when it was presented by Marcellus of Ancyra 
 to Julius of Eome as his own confession. As it is 
 essentially a Western creed, it can hardly be the work 
 of Marcellus himself Upon the whole, it rather seems 
 
 1 There are none in Rom. vi. 17 (the type of doctrine to which you were 
 committed) or 2 Tim. i. 13 (have an outline of the sound words). Timothy 
 is not told to keep an existing creed, but to make an outline for himself. 
 
XIII THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 285 
 
 to be the Roman creed — which helps to account for 
 the prevalance of similar forms in the West. In this 
 case it may be very old indeed. Harnack places it 
 140-150, while others bring it back to the very edge 
 of the apostolic age, before the rise of Gnosticism, 
 and some ^ trace it to a Greek original brought from 
 Asia to Rome. Apostolic authorship is of course out 
 of the question ; but no better summary could have 
 been made of apostolic teaching. 
 
 In this way a ready test of new teaching was 
 established by the time of Irenaeus. Was it con- 
 sistent with the outlines which summed up the main 
 facts of the historic Gospel ? If so, it might be true 
 or false, but at all events it was not disloyal to Christ. 
 If not, it must be forbidden in the churches. This 
 was only reasonable, so long as tradition was limited 
 to those historic facts which cannot be made open 
 questions without entirely changing the message of 
 the Gospel. It became another thing when tradition 
 was used to stereotype a vast variety of beliefs and 
 practices for which no better reason can be given than 
 that they became prevalent in later times. 
 
 But given the test of doctrine, how was it to be 
 applied in practice ? To answer this question, we 
 must return to the growth of church government. 
 
 We have to trace the growth of church government 
 after the Apostolic age, using the evidence of later 
 writers and taking up the questions we adjourned. 
 
 The great change we see before us is the dis- 
 appearance of the ministry of gifts, designated by the 
 Holy Spirit for the service of the church in general, 
 and the permanent organization of a ministry of office, 
 appointed by men for the service of particular 
 
 1 e.g. Caspari Th.L.Z. 1876 p. 11. 
 
286 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 churches. We see the beginnings of the change in 
 the Apostolic age : its completion was the work of the 
 next two generations. Apostles died away by the 
 end of the first century, and the last of the old 
 prophets would seem to have been Quadratus and 
 Ammia at Philadelphia in Hadrian's time. False 
 apostles might still wander among the churches, and 
 individual preachers like Hermas might still claim a 
 prophet's rank ; but the ministry of gifts was at an 
 end. The ministry of ofl&ce was in active working 
 from the first, and rapidly became the only ministry. 
 The further the Gospel spread, the fewer must have 
 been the visits of apostles and prophets to particular 
 churches ; and however respectfully these survivors 
 of the past might be received and listened to, their 
 practical influence must have rapidly declined as 
 compared with that of the local ministers who were 
 always on the spot, so that no serious change was 
 felt when their visits ceased entirely. The great 
 transition was made insensibly. 
 
 The practical advantages of episcopacy in early 
 times are manifest. I have seen indeed a cynical 
 argument that so great a failure admits of no defence 
 but a divine command, which must be presumed if 
 it is not recorded. But it probably worked much 
 better than any other form of government would 
 have done. Strength was its first advantage. Strife 
 and division, such as we see at Corinth, were threaten- 
 ing to throw the subapostolic churches into anarchy ; 
 and though there was no lack of strife and division 
 in later times, the bishop was commonly a strong 
 moderating power. Episcopacy was also the best 
 defence against enemies, and indeed had to be 
 strengthened as the contest with the Empire came to 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 287 
 
 its crisis. A papacy would have been, not only a 
 complete anachronism, but a much weaker govern- 
 ment. The arrest of the pope might paralyse all the 
 churches, whereas that of a bishop need not disturb 
 the next city. Even so, the disorders caused by 
 persecution were bad enough. 
 
 A second advantage of episcopacy is its conserva- 
 tism — a quality perhaps of more importance in the 
 church, which has to bear a definite witness, than 
 in the state. And this again has an inside and 
 an outside aspect. Now that the bishop took the 
 lead in administration and in public worship, he 
 held officially something of the position which the 
 apostles had held in virtue of their calling ; and as 
 the official guardian of doctrine he was counted as 
 their successor in spite of the essential difference of 
 his work from theirs. Here again episcopacy was 
 stronger than a papacy would have been, for bishops 
 could check each other's teaching, whereas a pope is 
 one man who can have no special inerrancy without 
 some sort of personal inspiration. Again, the bishop's 
 public responsibility for order and sound teaching 
 generally inclined him to moderation, good sense, 
 and compromise. If in this period they were not 
 commonly great thinkers,^ they still more seldom led 
 their flocks into great mistakes. All through history, 
 indeed, the bishops have generally set their faces 
 against excess on all sides. Even in the later middle 
 ages, they could never be made to work the In- 
 quisition to the satisfaction of the zealots. 
 
 1 Melito, Irenaeus, the Dionysii and Cyprian are much outweighed as 
 thinkers by nearly the whole of the rest of the literature. 
 
 It is worth note that while the papacy can shew men of the highest 
 eminence in all other directions — statesmen, saints, canonists, and preachers 
 — it has never had a great thinker like Anselm or Bradwardine. 
 
288 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 In its more public aspect, episcopacy bore the 
 same character of practical conservatism. Even more 
 than his presbyters, the bishop needed to have a 
 good report of them which are without. Outsiders 
 like to deal with a responsible person, and that 
 person soon finds the need of being (or making 
 himself) more or less a man of the world. So the 
 bishops commonly strove to maintain friendly 
 relations as far as might be with the world. Ignatius 
 is an exception, for wanton defiance of the Empire 
 seldom came from bishops ; and we do not know 
 that even Ignatius was defiant before his con- 
 demnation. Nor were they necessarily men of the 
 world in a bad sense. A statesmen like Victor or 
 Cyprian could do a good deal by checking fanaticism 
 on his own side and overcoming prejudice on the 
 other. There was plenty of room for tact and 
 conciliation before things came to the point where 
 the only answer a Christian could make was Non 
 facio. 
 
 As regards the relations of presbyters and deacons, 
 not much need here be added to what has been 
 said already. No doubt the difference between them 
 was growing in the second century, the presbyters 
 leaning more to the work of government and pastoral 
 care, the deacons to that of administration and care 
 of the poor, which brought them into closer contact 
 with the bishop. But the distinction was not very 
 sharp ; and could not be, till the churches grew too 
 large to be manageable, so that some of the 
 higher functions of public worship were (in ordinary 
 cases) resigned by the bishop to the presbyters. 
 In other words, the difi"erence was less marked when 
 presbyters and deacons acted in common subordina- 
 
xin THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 289 
 
 tion to the bishop of the city than when in later 
 times the deacon was directly subordinated to the 
 presbyter of a single church, and the bishop was 
 only an occasional visitor. 
 
 But now we come to the disputed question of the 
 origin of episcopacy, as we may call it for shortness. 
 In strictness we here mean by episcopacy the 
 monarchical government of a single bishop as opposed 
 to the collective government of sundry bishops who 
 are not easily distinguished from presbyters. The 
 first broad fact we notice is that though we found 
 no trace of episcopacy in the New Testament, it is 
 universal a century later. By this time every church 
 has its bishop, and Irenseus can speak of episcopacy 
 as " the ancient system of the church." How is the 
 change to be accounted for ? The question, be it 
 noted once for all, is as purely historical as that of 
 the growth of monarchy in England, and no man 
 who cares for truth will attempt to settle it by 
 dogmatic " presuppositions." Any beliefs of later 
 ages, apart from such purely historical evidence as 
 they may contain, are no more to the purpose than 
 the theories of Hanoverian lawyers. True or false, 
 they prove nothing but beliefs of later ages. 
 
 The short answer made by some is that the 
 apostles must have given command for every church 
 to have its bishop. If no such command can be 
 found in the New Testament, it must have been 
 given notwithstanding. Some say that if our Lord 
 " spoke of the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
 God " for forty days after his Eesurrection, he cannot 
 have forgotten to prescribe the government and 
 worship of the church. Be this as it may, the 
 apostles not only ordained episcopacy for the churches 
 
 VOL. I u 
 
290 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 generally, but established it as a binding ordinance 
 for all future ages. These two points, it is important 
 to notice, are historically distinct, and need separate 
 proof, for the apostles must have ordained many 
 things to meet temporary needs. Thus the decisions 
 of the apostolic conference are certainly not binding 
 now. In this case however the second point is fairly 
 clear. If they did give such a command, they must 
 have meant it to endure as long as their reasons 
 for it endured. It would then be a serious question 
 how far modern changes of society would justify a 
 departure from it, though in any case the absence of 
 any record in Scripture is a fact of grave significance. 
 But as a matter of fact, did they give any such 
 command ? There is a good deal to be said for the 
 theory that they did. It explains a whole series of 
 the facts before us, like the early spread of episcopacy 
 in Asia and elsewhere, and the insistence of Ignatius. 
 It gives one reason for the importance attached to 
 the lists or successions of bishops by Hegesippus and 
 Irenseus. It also explains why later ages from 
 Irenseus onward so firmly believed in a divine sanction 
 for episcopacy. So utterly have they forgotten the 
 earher state of things that they read episcopacy 
 without hesitation into the New Testament, calling 
 James bishop of Jerusalem, Timothy of Ephesus, and 
 so on.-^ Putting together these facts, they seem 
 decisive that episcopacy dates back to apostolic times, 
 and is at any rate not contrary to any apostolic 
 ordinance that was meant to be permanent. What- 
 ever the apostles did, we can be certain that they 
 
 ^ Even Irenseus Basr. in. xiv. 2 turns the bishops or presbyters of Ephesus 
 (Acts XX. 17, 28) into the bishops am), presbyters of Ephesus and the 
 neighbouring churches. 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 291 
 
 never gave command that the churches were not to 
 be ruled by bishops. 
 
 But all this falls very far short of proof that 
 episcopacy is itself such an ordinance. The theory 
 accounts for some of the facts, and would be a poor 
 theory if it did not ; but it is not needed to account 
 for them, and it is directly contradicted by another 
 series of facts. If apostles did command that every 
 church should have its bishop, then either we shall 
 find a bishop in every church, or else (if fair occasion 
 arise) we shall get some hint that the disobedient 
 churches are doing wrong. Now it is as certain as 
 any historical fact can well be that there was no 
 bishop in the important church of Corinth at the 
 time of Clement's writing. The trouble had arisen 
 from the deposition of certain presbyters — the very 
 question of all others on which the bishop must have 
 had something to say. Yet from beginning to end 
 of a long letter, Clement not only never mentions a 
 bishop or a vacancy in the see, but never gives the 
 faintest hint that the presbyters of Corinth either 
 had or ought to have had any sort or kind of 
 ecclesiastical superiors : and Clement must have 
 known perfectly well whether the apostles set a 
 bishop over the presbyters they appointed at 
 Corinth.^ Again, though we need not doubt that 
 
 1 Bishop Gore admits that the facts cannot he explained by a vacancy in 
 the see, but finds traces of superior officers in the (plural) i)yo\i/j.evoi or vpori- 
 yoiixaioL of (c. 1, 21) and suggests that Corinth may have been subject to 
 one of the wandering prophets. 
 
 His explanation of TrporiyouiJ.€voi is hazardous as a question of scholarship, 
 and certainly not necessary. The suggestion of a prophet is pure assumption, 
 and as such cannot be disproved : but there are two points to notice. (1) So 
 far as we know, there is nothing to connect prophets with the government of 
 churches. If a prophet settled down at Corinth, his influence might be very 
 great ; but no amount of influence would make him bishop of Corinth. But 
 the decisive point is (2) that the arguments which prove that there was no 
 
292 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna, he addresses simply 
 " the church of God which is at Philippi," and in the 
 course of his letter bids them " submit themselves to 
 the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ."^ 
 Could he have said this if the presbyters and deacons 
 themselves obeyed a bishop ? A still more con- 
 spicuous case is not unlikely. It may be true that 
 Clement was bishop of Rome : but we could not have 
 guessed it from his letter. He never speaks himself : 
 it is the church that speaks from first to last. So 
 too, Ignatius is silent for once about the bishop when 
 he is writing to the church of Eome, and there is no 
 trace of a bishop of Eome even in Hermas. We must 
 not press too far an argument from silence : but at 
 the least, the bishop does not stand out at Eome in 
 the way he does at Ephesus or Magnesia. 
 
 We come now to Ignatius. Whatever may be the 
 truth of the matter, it must have been familiar to 
 him, so that his evidence ought to be decisive. Some 
 facts indeed it settles summarily. Episcopacy has 
 already got a footing in Asia, in Syria, and elsewhere. 
 He names the bishops of Ephesus, Magnesia and 
 Tralles, calls Polycarp a bishop, and mentions a bishop 
 at Philadelphia. He calls himself a bishop, and 
 speaks of bishops near Antioch, and of bishops at the 
 ends of the earth being in the counsels of Jesus Christ : 
 and these are most likely bishops in our sense of the 
 word. This however is a small part of his evidence. 
 He has the strongest possible conviction that episco- 
 
 governing bishop are equally valid to shew that there was no gOTerning 
 prophet either, or any governing authority at all above the presbyters. 
 
 This second point (let alone other arguments) is also fatal to the 
 ingenious theory that Corinth was subject to a non-resident bishop, as 
 Virginia before 1775 was subject to the bishop of London. 
 
 ^ Pol. Phil. 5. It is rather burlesque than argument to say that Polycarp 
 "had far too much respect for the bishop " to treat him with decent civility. 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 293 
 
 pacy is according to God's will, and expresses that 
 conviction in language forcible to the verge of blas- 
 phemy. "We ought to regard the bishop as the 
 Lord himself It is good to know God and the 
 bishop. He that honoureth the bishop is honoured 
 of God. As many as are of God and of Jesus Christ 
 are with the bishop. It is not lawful to baptize or 
 to hold a love-feast without the bishop. The Spirit 
 preached, saying. Do nothing without the bishop " — 
 and much more to the same effect.' 
 
 Can language go further ? Did even the Carolines 
 of the seventeenth century set the bishop on the 
 throne of God in this way ? Ignatius is not a man 
 who measures words ; but even he could scarcely have 
 written thus if there had been no apostolic sanction 
 for episcopacy. St. John in particular must have 
 seen its beginnings in Asia, and his opinion would be 
 well known. We can hardly doubt that he gave it 
 some sort of approval ; and he may actually have 
 appointed some of the bishops, like Polybius and 
 Polycarp in Tralles and Smyrna. But even so, we 
 have no reason to think that he made it a binding 
 order for all churches. In the first place, Ignatius is 
 attacking separatists, not presbyterians — individuals 
 who disobeyed an existing order, not churches which 
 deliberately preferred another order. After all, 
 nothing he says of episcopacy is different in hind 
 from what the apostles say of the Empire : Honour 
 the emperor. The powers that be are ordained of God. 
 As the apostles command obedience to the emperor as 
 the de facto ruler of the world, so Ignatius preaches 
 obedience to the bishop as the de facto ruler of the 
 church to which he is writing. We cannot take for 
 
 1 Collected by Lightfoot Ign. i. 389. 
 
294 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 granted that he would have counted the Corinthians 
 rebels against Christ because they had no bishop, 
 though any man might have been inclined to think 
 that a bishop would be the most convenient remedy 
 for their disorders. But there is more than this in 
 Ignatius. Time after time he insists, Obey the bishop, 
 and presses it in every way he can. His urgency has 
 not been exaggerated ; and indeed it hardly can be 
 exaggerated. So much the more significant is the 
 absence of the one decisive argument which would 
 have made all the rest superfluous. With all his 
 urgency, he never says. Obey the bishop as the Lord 
 ordained, or as the apostles gave command.^ Even if 
 this is not always the first argument of a man who 
 believes it, he cannot get far without using it. The 
 continued silence of so earnest an advocate as Ignatius 
 is a plain confession that he knew of no such com- 
 mand : and the ignorance of one who must have 
 known the truth of the matter would seem decisive 
 that no such command was given. 
 
 The theory of an apostolic command is needless 
 as well as unhistorical. Given that there was no 
 
 1 The only passages I can find which have even been supposed to mean 
 this are : — 
 
 (a) Efh. 3 ol 4TrlffK0i70L ol Kara, rd ir^para optad^vres iv I. X. yvJjfjLTj eiaiv. 
 But this means not that the bishops were appointed by the will of Christ, 
 but that they share the mind of Christ. So Lightfoot. 
 
 (b) Trail. 7 Be dx^ptcTTOt. I. X. Kal toO i-jnuKbtrov Kal tuv BiaTayfidTuv r(hv 
 dTToarliKav, where Lightfoot says, "The reference is doubtless to the institu- 
 tion of episcopacy." But it does not mean that the apostles "instituted 
 episcopacy " on the sense of making it a binding ordinance for all churches. 
 For (1) if Ignatius alluded at all to so decisive a fact, it is inconceivable that 
 he should never mention it again. (2) There is no need to take the Siaray- 
 ixara (plural) more narrowly than the -wapaSbaeis of 2 Thess. ii. 15 or 1 Cor. xi. 
 2. (3) If the apostles appointed Polybius bishop of Tralles, the fact would be 
 alluded to in toO iirurKdirov, and the Siardyfiara would be injunctions to obey 
 him, live soberly, etc., not general commands to other churches to have 
 a bishop. Usage does not require the compound word to be taken as necessarily 
 meaning such general commands. 
 
xiii THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 295 
 
 apostolic command the other way, the spread of 
 episcopacy over the churches in the second century 
 is as easily accounted for as the spread of despotism 
 over Europe in the sixteenth, and by much the same 
 causes. A heavy strain must have come upon the 
 churches when the great apostles were cut off, and 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and the rise of heresies 
 seemed to usher in the last times. They had also 
 their internal dissensions, for we may be sure from 
 what we see in the New Testament that Corinth was 
 not the only church troubled with factions. Now 
 that they could no longer refer their disputes to 
 apostolic authority, the need of bracing up and 
 strengthening the loose government which remained 
 was visible and urgent. In such a case men always 
 turn to monarchy. In the state, they appoint a 
 dictator or invest the government with fuller powers. 
 In this case monarchical bishops were the strongest 
 centres of unity the churches could have, at a time 
 when they evidently needed all the strength they 
 could get. Episcopacy was plainly the strongest 
 form of government ; and if the last survivors of 
 the apostles encouraged the drift in that direction, 
 they did nothing else than what common sense 
 required. It was so clearly the right policy for 
 that time that nothing short of an apostolic pro- 
 hibition would have had any chance of checking it. 
 
 But what was the nature of the process ? Was 
 the bishop developed downward from the apostles, 
 or upward from the presbyters, or did he arise in 
 some third way ? The first theory is quite untenable. 
 The apostle's work, as we have seen, differs entirely 
 from that of the bishop, and there is no evidence that 
 he ever gave up his calling to become a bishop. The 
 
296 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 second will be in the main tlie true account — that 
 one of the bishops became the bishop, while the 
 rest remained simple presbyters. The bishop is as 
 regularly connected with the presbyter -bishops of 
 earlier times as he is sharply separated from the 
 apostles. The change may in some cases have been 
 sudden ; but it was more likely gradual, and we 
 know for certain that one church made it after 
 another, so that it cannot have been made in 
 obedience to any general command. Thus too we 
 can explain the easy transition to the new form of 
 government, and the naive vf&j in which most of 
 the early teachers are called bishops by later writers. 
 Many of them may have been bishops, without being 
 monarchical bishops. Supposing for example that 
 apostles made Polycarp one of the bishops at Smyrna, 
 and that in course of time he attained an undisputed 
 primacy among them, it would be an easy slip, and 
 not altogether a mistake, to say that they made 
 him bishop of Smyrna. And if this is not true of 
 Polycarp, it may be true of others. 
 
 A gradual change is not often easy to trace. All 
 that can be said in this case is that the process is 
 not begun in the Pastoral Epistles, which argue from 
 the bishop to the elder, and that there is no trace 
 of it in the New Testament, in the Teaching, in 
 Clement, and even in Hermas, in all of which the 
 bishop is indistinguishable from the elder. On the 
 other hand, he stands out clear in Ignatius, and 
 seventy years later the new system is so well 
 established that Irenseus can speak of it as ancient. 
 
 There is another way in which episcopacy may 
 sometimes have arisen. The bishop in some cases 
 may have been developed downward from the vicars- 
 
XIII THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 297 
 
 apostolic, though scarcely from the wandering 
 prophets who are more akin to the apostles. 
 Timothy, on the other hand, has very much the 
 position of a bishop at Ephesus, though with ■& 
 temporary commission only. Meanwhile he governs 
 very much as a later bishop would. Now imagine that 
 instead of being recalled, he was left stranded there 
 by St. Paul's death. If such a man remained at 
 his post, as he very likely would, he would at once 
 become a true monarchical bishop. Apostles had 
 entrusted a church to him, and Providence had made 
 him the bishop thereof.^ 
 
 The churches underwent an immense change in 
 the course of the second century. They began it as 
 weak societies with a fading tradition ; they ended as 
 communities with an organization which the state 
 itself soon came to envy. The formation of the 
 Canon supplied them with a written standard of 
 
 ^ Traces of episcopacy near the end of the first century are scanty. 
 Lightfoot Ign. i. 391 finds four allusions : — 
 
 (1) IrenffiUS, Haer. III. iii. 3 Polycarp iivb airosTiXav KaTaaraBeU eis tt);' 
 ^AtTiav iv TQ h lifxipv-r} iKK\r)(Tlq, iiriffKOTOs — hardly before 90. 
 
 (2) Polycrates ap. Eus. v. 23 sayscir. 190 that seven of his relations had 
 been iirlirKOTroi : and as he was himself a man of sixty, some of these may 
 date back to the end of the first century. 
 
 (3) Clem. Al. Quis Dives 42. St. John travelling about, Swov iJtiv i-jri- 
 tr/ciTTOus KaTauT-fiiTiiiv, Utov S^ S\as iKKkqaias apfi^bauv, Swov Si KX-qpiji Sva 
 7^ ri.va Kkrjpihffujv tu>v vtrb roO Trvejjfiaros (nj^aivofxiviav. The date may be 
 in the earlier years of Domitian, when the apostle was not too old for active 
 work. 
 
 (4) Fragm. Mur. tells how St. John cohortantibus coTidiscipidis et episcopis 
 siiis undertook to write his Gospel. 
 
 None of these is a strong case. For (1), no doubt " Irenseus is exact," and 
 no doubt Polycarp became bishop of Smyrna : but he may very well have 
 begun as a vicar-apostolic, or even as one bishop out of several. For (2) 
 Polycrates has just named undoubted bishops like Thraseas and Sagaris, 
 60 that his relatives were probably bishops like them : but they need not 
 date back beyond the ninety years of the second century. In (3) and (4) 
 there is nothing to hinder the word from being taken in the N.T. sense, and 
 we must leave it open whether Ipa 7^ rim in (3) refers to a bishop, a vicar- 
 apostolic, or a presbyter. 
 
298 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 doctrine, the introduction of creeds gave them a 
 ready test of teaching, and the growth of the 
 episcopate gave them the strongest possible form of 
 government. It is true that these processes were 
 not yet completed. The Canon had a fringe of 
 uncertainty, the creeds were plastic in wording, and 
 the bishop's power was limited by the more or less 
 indefinite rights of elders, confessors, and laity. Still 
 the greatness of the change tempts many to describe 
 it as worldly corruption. They may be right, if 
 Christianity is no more than a philosophy discovered 
 by Jesus of Nazareth, or if it is a rigid law of the 
 Jewish sort, but not if it is a revelation through 
 historic facts. In the main the change was not only 
 legitimate but necessary, if the Gospel was not to be 
 lost in the swamps of heathenism and heresy. It was 
 as necessary as the replacement of the Continental 
 Congress by the Constitution of the United States, 
 and for much the same reason. The choice was. 
 This or anarchy. 
 
 The danger was not in the organization of the 
 sundry churches, or even in their closer connexion 
 with each other, but in the conception of the one 
 church. The one holy catholic church in which we 
 believe is neither a visible assemblage of churches, 
 nor an invisible election of individuals. It is heavenly 
 and ideal, and therefore real. It is one, because 
 charity is already unity, whereas a mere unity of 
 earthly government would be a unity in Satan. It 
 is holy — not that it is free from sinners, but because 
 it lives in Christ. It is catholic, not simply because 
 the churches are scattered to the ends of the earth, 
 but because its life is of a higher order than space 
 and time. It bears its witness in earth and heaven 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 299 
 
 that So God loved the world ; but it has no govern- 
 ment or laws of human making, and councils and 
 churches claim in vain its august authority. 
 
 In the second century men found St. Paul's 
 conception of the church as hard to understand as 
 his doctrine of faith. To a certain distance they did 
 understand it. Ignatius already speaks of the church 
 as catholic in virtue of its universal spread, or at any 
 rate its universal mission ; and the Letter of the 
 church of Smyrna (156 or 157) calls it catholic in 
 opposition to the heresies, which were supposed to be 
 no more than local troubles. But the use of the 
 word in any sense is enough to shew their conscious- 
 ness that the visible churches formed an organic 
 whole in Christ. Nor was the church mditant 
 unmindful of its relation to the church triumphant. 
 The dead were commemorated in the Supper of the 
 Lord, and individuals may have prayed for them 
 from the first, though the practice cannot be clearly 
 traced in Scripture,^ and certainly was not enjoined 
 by Christ himself, by his apostles, or by the early 
 churches. Then again, as we have seen at Smyrna 
 and at Lyons, the relics of the martyrs were anxiously 
 collected, and their " birth days " kept with solemn 
 thankfulness. There were dangers in all these 
 practices, but no great abuse was made of them in 
 the first three centuries. The real danger was the 
 other way. After all, the natural man always prefers 
 the concrete and visible to the spiritual — which is 
 invisible. So the common sort of Christians were 
 disposed to find the holy catholic church in the 
 aggregate of the visible churches, and to claim for 
 
 1 The household of Onesiphorus (2 Tim. i. 16) would be dependants, not 
 children— /amj^tos, not family. 
 
300 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 these its attributes. One party wanted to keep it 
 holy by turning out the sinners : but the more part, 
 especially in the West, were chiefly bent on maintain- 
 ing its catholicity by shutting out the heathen and 
 the heretic from all hope of mercy. They were 
 themselves favourites of heaven : the rest were 
 " stubble for eternal fire." ' 
 
 In other words, it was right and good that bishops 
 should be constituted guardians of the tradition : but 
 it was not good that the tradition should be made 
 to cover doctrines and customs indiscriminately, or 
 when it was supposed to need no further verification ; 
 and the conception of the church was fundamentally 
 mistaken when an unbroken succession of bishops 
 was made the guarantee of unity. This false 
 conception underlies the threats of Victor and 
 Stephen to excommunicate churches which did not 
 follow the Roman practice on Easter and rebaptism : 
 and though Firmilian's reply, that other churches had 
 as good a right as Rome to excommunicate, was a 
 sufficient one, it does not go to the root of the 
 matter. In truth, it is one thing to rely on the Holy 
 Spirit's guidance in making such regulations as the 
 churches might require ; quite another to take for 
 granted that such guidance is given to one visible 
 institution and no other. We can already see how 
 it became possible after the age of Athanasius to 
 believe in the inerrancy of general councils, and to 
 persecute those who did not. 
 
 Such then was the organization of the local 
 churches which were scattered through the Empire in 
 the second century. The unity they acknowledged 
 
 ' The phrase is Peter Damiani's, the doctrine Tertullian's aud Cyprian's. 
 
xm THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 301 
 
 was still essentially spiritual — one Lord, one faith, 
 one baptism, one God and Father of all. Unity of 
 government or order there was none yet. Every 
 church was independent of the rest, and free to serve 
 Christ m its own way, if only it did serve Christ. 
 The church of Eome claims no jurisdiction over that 
 of Corinth in Clement's time : it only tenders its 
 good offices for the restoration of order. Yet the 
 churches were not without external bonds, and were 
 gradually drawn together by the logic of events, till 
 their original independence became a thing of the 
 past. 
 
 In the first place, travel was easier under the 
 Empire than in any later time before the spread of 
 railways. The sea was peaceful after the defeat of 
 Sextus Pompeius, and some of the ships which tra- 
 versed it were large. St. Paul had 276 souls on 
 board, Josephus 600. On land, the Eoman peace, 
 the Roman roads, and the comparative scarcity of 
 custom-houses made active intercourse possible. The 
 Jews were very migratory, and there are few writers 
 of the second century who had not seen a good deal 
 of the world. Dio Chrysostom, Lucian and Apuleius 
 were travelled men. Of the Christians, we trace 
 Justin from Samaria to Ephesus, and thence to 
 Rome ; Tatian from Assyria to Rome, and back to 
 the East ; Irenseus from Asia to Rome, and so to 
 Gaul. TertuUian saw Greece and Rome ; Clement 
 wandered from Greece to Italy, and studied in the 
 East before he settled down at Alexandria, while 
 Origen travelled to Palestine, Rome, and Cappadocia. 
 There were few also of the great heretics who did not 
 sooner or later bring their heresies to Rome. 
 
 From this general habit of travel arose the practice 
 
302 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 of giving commendatory letters to the travellers, by 
 way of precaution against bad characters and false 
 brethren. The practice may have been taken over 
 from the Jews, for we find it in full vigour even in 
 the New Testament.^ With these letters, the traveller 
 was sure of a welcome and of any help he needed, 
 either to continue his journey or to settle in the 
 place. The letters were drawn up in a fixed form ; ^ 
 and the Apostolical Constitutions make them a pass- 
 port, excommunicating those who receive strangers 
 who fail to produce them. There was need of caution : 
 else the irapeia-aKroi ■\^evhdheK(f>oi and the ■x^piaTefiTropoL 
 would have been many. 
 
 As the commendatory letters soon came to be 
 addressed by the bishop of one city to the bishop of 
 another, they were the usual means of mutual recogni- 
 tion among bishops. Thus the council at Antioch 
 in 269 which deposed Paul of Samosata requests 
 Dionysius and Maximus to write to the new bishop 
 Domnus : and Athanasius (as we have seen) in the 
 fourth century notifies to the bishops in his Festal 
 Letters the changes in the Egyptian sees, " that they 
 may know to whom they should write." But these 
 were not the only episcopal letters. Every bishop 
 would notify his appointment to his neighbours ; and 
 the older or more conspicuous bishops were in the 
 habit of writing letters of exhortation or advice to 
 other churches. These letters in fact form a large 
 part of the Christian literature of the second century. 
 We have the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, 
 
 ' e.g. 2 Cor. iii. 1, Rom. xyi. 1, Acts xviii. 27. They are not expressly 
 mentioned in the Teaching 12, which orders "every one who comes in the 
 name of the Lord " to he received first, and only tested afterwards. 
 
 ^ Hence the iirujToKal avcrraTiKal become in Latin epistolae formatae, or 
 formatae simply. 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 303 
 
 and the letters of Ignatius. One letter of Polycarp 
 remains, and others are mentioned. But the great 
 letter-writer seems to have been Dionysius of Corinth. 
 Eusebius quotes only a fragment of his answer to 
 Soter of Rome ; but he tells us how Dionysius wrote 
 to the Lacedaemonians, to the Athenians to stir them 
 up to the faith and Christian living, which they had 
 forgotten since the persecution had carried off Publius 
 their bishop. He wrote also to the Nicomedians 
 against Marcion, and to Gortyna and the rest of the 
 churches in Crete. In writing to the church at 
 Amastris in Pontus, 'he names Palmas the bishop, 
 expounds passages of Scripture, exhorts them at 
 length concerning marriage and purity, and bids 
 them restore all that return from sin or heresy. 
 From this it will be seen how much the welfare of 
 every church was understood to concern its neigh- 
 bours. Otherwise Dionysius could not have written 
 in this way without making himself a general 
 nuisance. Once indeed he did get a sharp rebuff. 
 He wrote to the church of Cnossus in Crete, exhort- 
 ing Pinytus the bishop not to lay on the brethren 
 so heavy a burden concerning chastity, but to take 
 into account the weakness of most people. Pinytus 
 replied with courteous irony that he really could not 
 continue to feed his flock on milk when they were 
 able to receive strong meat. But this repulse must 
 have been an exception. The letters of Dionysius 
 must have had great influence, if " apostles of the 
 devil " found it worth their while to " fill them with 
 tares." 
 
 Stronger measures followed. If a church was in 
 an unsatisfactory state, and especially if its bishop 
 taught novelties, its neighbours might confer together 
 
304 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 instead of writing separately. These conferences 
 were at first quite informal. The bishops would 
 usually come ; but they were open even to laymen. 
 No doubt councils were chiefly guided by bishops from 
 the first, so that their meetings are very commonly 
 described as meetings of so many bishops, as if other 
 members were missing or unimportant. But the 
 practice of limiting efi^ective membership to bishops 
 only began to grow up in the East during the fourth 
 century, and the full doctrine implied in Cyprian's 
 theory — that none but bishops can decide questions 
 of doctrine, is hardly even yet quite settled in the 
 Church of Rome.^ In the third century however 
 Origen and Malchion were the chief doers in the 
 councils held against Beryllus of Bostra and Paul of 
 Samosata ; and the latter is expressly named along 
 with the bishops (who do not even distinguish them- 
 selves from him as bishops) in the Letter of the 
 council.^ At Nicsea itself conspicuous parts were 
 taken by Athanasius the deacon and by Constantino 
 the layman, who was not even baptized. 
 
 The churches would naturally confer together 
 from very early times ; but the first councils we hear 
 of were those convened on the Montanist question in 
 Asia,' which we may date dr. 160. After these come 
 councils on the Easter Question ; and thenceforth 
 councils were assembled at every difficulty. They 
 were indeed the only way in which a number of more 
 or less independent churches could come to an agree- 
 
 ^ Abbots and generals of the orders had the votum decisivum at Trent, and 
 the cardinal-deacon Pole was one of the legates. 
 
 ^ Eus. vii. 30. Thei'e is no break from Helenus, who was a bishop, to 
 Malchion, who was a presbyter. Other cases may be given : but on the other 
 hand, bishops only seem to vote in Cyprian's council in 256. There cannot 
 have been much stickling for rights on either side. 
 
 ' Do. V. 16. 
 
xni THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 305 
 
 ment, so that they tended to mcrease in frequency, 
 in numbers, in authority, and in the expanse of 
 country from which their members came. 
 
 But there were two serious weaknesses in the 
 system of government by councils. In the first place, 
 the decisions of councils had no sanction. A bishop 
 might be put to some shame and inconvenience if his 
 commendatory letters were refused : but what was to 
 be done if he would not yield to the opinion of his 
 neighbours? Cyprian refused even to put pressure 
 on the bishops who did not rebaptize heretics, and 
 would probably have answered that any bishop who 
 was not an open heretic must be left to the judg- 
 ment of God. But this refusal arose from an ex- 
 aggeration of the bishop's authority, and did injustice 
 to the faithful of his flock who were not partakers of 
 his sin. So further measures had to be taken. Even 
 Western councils had decided between rival bishops, 
 as in the case of Basilides and Martialis in 254 : and 
 Cyprian was the chief promoter of the council, because 
 Basilides and Martialis had been apostates in the 
 Decian persecution. But Basilides had resigned his 
 office, and the council decided only that he could not 
 reclaim it from a successor lawfully chosen by his 
 church. It was a clear step forward when the bishops 
 at Antioch dr. 267 deposed Paul of Samosata for 
 heresy, and themselves chose Domnus in his place. 
 But after all, they had only the opinion of the 
 churches behind them, so Paul kept the property of 
 the church in spite of them. As only the civil power 
 could turn him out, a second step forward was taken 
 after the defeat of Zenobia in 273. Appeal was laid 
 before the emperor Aurelian. Unfriendly as he was 
 to the Christians, he gave " a very reasonable 
 
 VOL. I X 
 
3o6 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 decision," ' that the church property belonged to the 
 bishop who was recognized by the bishops of Eome 
 and Italy. In this way the church ceased to be a 
 voluntary society. The council enforced its decision 
 by the help of the state ; but the state could not give 
 that help without making its own definition of 
 Christian orthodoxy. 
 
 The other weakness of this form of government 
 was that councils might disagree. Of course the 
 decisions of a council, even on questions of doctrine, 
 might be revised by a later council. Thus Athanasius 
 defends the action of the Nicene council in adopting 
 the word 6//,oovatov, which the council at Antioch in 
 269 had rejected as heretical : and he defends it not 
 on the ground that an oecumenical council can over- 
 rule a local council, but by arguing that the decisions 
 of a council may always be revised, even by a smaller 
 gathering. He protests against setting two councils 
 in opposition on the ground that one is earlier or larger 
 than the other. ^ The Arianizers at Sardica in 343 
 seem first to have maintained that the acts of councils 
 are irreversible. But the weakness we speak of lay not 
 in the changes that every sane government must make 
 in course of time, but in the disagreement of rival 
 councils. The decisions of a council at Alexandria 
 might be rejected in Syria, as the condemnation of 
 Origen was : and if a man's doctrine was pronounced 
 heretical by one council, it might be approved as 
 orthodox by another ; and then the government 
 would be divided against itself The difficulty was 
 manifest long before Constantine endeavoured to 
 remove it by calling an oecumenical council, fondly 
 
 1 Eus. vii. 30. 
 2 Ath. de Syn. 43. pp. 604, 605. 
 
XIII THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 307 
 
 hoping that a decision of the whole episcopate would 
 not be gainsaid, or at any rate that the secular arm 
 would be strong enough to put down the gainsayers. 
 
 Another cause which helped to destroy the in- 
 dependence of churches was the growth of the power 
 afterwards called metropolitan. This growth was 
 fairly begun, though not much more than begun, 
 within our period. It arose naturally, from the 
 inequality of churches. One might be in a large 
 congregation in a great and wealthy city, a 
 commercial centre and a seat of civil government, 
 while another stood for a petty country-town in a 
 poor and mostly heathen district quite out of the 
 way of trade. In the fourth century one bishop's 
 income might be thirty pounds of gold, while another 
 had no more than two. In an age when the welfare 
 of every church was the recognized concern of all 
 its neighbours, the influence of the great churches 
 must have been strong. Their customs would be 
 followed, their help accepted, their wishes deferred to, 
 till influence passed into jurisdiction. Again, there 
 were frequent meetings of bishops, as for holding 
 councils or for witnessing and approving elections, at 
 which some one bishop would necessarily take the 
 lead : and the natural primacy of the chief city would 
 seldom be set aside for any claims of personal eminence.^ 
 This also would emphasize the inequality of churches, 
 and help the growth of jurisdiction. 
 
 The process was gradual, and therefore is not easily 
 traced ; but we can safely say that early in the third 
 century we find few signs (unless in Egypt) of any 
 
 ^ Councils seem always presided over by the bishop of some considerable 
 city, except in Africa, where there was more sense of equality among bishops. 
 In Cyprian's councils they seem to rank by seniority ; and in some parts at 
 some times the chair was taken by the senior bishop present. 
 
308 CHURCH HISTORY chap. 
 
 jurisdiction exercised by one church over another. 
 But we soon observe a growing habit of referring to 
 the bishop of some great city " and his bishops." 
 True, Cyprian's whole theory of the church implied 
 the equality of bishops, and he utterly disavows 
 for himself as well as others any " tyrannical " claim 
 to authority by one bishop over another. But even 
 Cyprian could not stay the drift of the time. The 
 Council of Nicsea recognizes it as " quite clear" that 
 no man can be made a bishop without the consent of 
 the metropolitan, and confirms and regulates " the old 
 customs " which had given a still higher jurisdiction 
 (afterwards called patriarchal) to the bishops of 
 Alexandria, Rome and Antioch. The details of this lie 
 beyond our period : but all through the third century 
 we miss the subordination of the chorepiscopi or 
 country bishops to the bishops of their cities, which we 
 might have expected to be the first step of the process. 
 The reason is that the chorepiscopi are a comparatively 
 late development. Churches were established in cities 
 and grew up as city churches, so that it was some 
 time before bishops were wanted for outlying districts 
 and villages. The first trace of them seems to be the 
 complaint of the bishops at Antioch cir. 267, that Paul 
 of Samosata " induces his creatures the bishops and 
 presbyters of the neighbouring country districts and 
 cities " to preach his own heresy.^ But when we 
 next meet them early in the fourth century, their 
 subordination is clear enough. The council of Ancyra 
 forbids them (except perhaps with the bishop's written 
 permission) to ordain presbyters or deacons.^ So the 
 
 1 Eus. vii. 30. § 10. 
 
 ^ Can. 13 ; but the text is so difficult that we cannot be sure whether the 
 exception applies to this prohibition. 
 
XIII THE CHURCHES AND THE CHURCH 309 
 
 council of Nicsea allowed the bishop to give the title 
 of bishop to a former Meletian bishop ; and in default 
 of this directed him to give him the place of a chor- 
 episcopus or of a presbyter, " that he might not cease 
 to be visibly one of the clergy, and yet that there 
 might not be two bishops in one city." ^ 
 
 The formation of a hierarchy among the churches 
 was also helped by their tendency to imitate the 
 organization of the state. It was natural that Eomans 
 should think in terms of the Eoman Empire, and 
 worship in Christ a heavenly emperor. The centurion 
 at Capernaum, who makes him the imperator of the 
 host of heaven, has already struck out the fruitful 
 thought of the militia dei vivi — that the service of 
 Christ is like the service of Csesar, but in every way 
 still nobler. Church and Empire might be deadly 
 enemies : but they were none the less twin powers in 
 their world-wide range and in their conflicting claims 
 to rule the whole of life. It was natural that the 
 kingdom of Christ on earth should follow the earthly 
 order of Caesar's earthly kingdom ; and it was good 
 that the episcopate which had to deal with the state 
 should be organized on the lines of the state, with a 
 bishop in every city, a metropolitan in every province, 
 and a patriarch in every civil diocese, so that the 
 curia of the city, the governor of the proviace and 
 the vicarius of the diocese might each have at hand 
 a church ofiicial of analogous rank. This is the ideal 
 towards which the church was tending in the fourth 
 century, though its higher stages were never com- 
 pleted. Eome would tolerate no second patriarch in 
 the West, and finally reduced the power of metro- 
 politans to a shadow ; while Constantinople arrogated 
 
 ' Canon 8. 
 
3IO CHURCH HISTORY chap, xm 
 
 three dioceses, and ended by receiving appeals from 
 the other two. In the third century the process is 
 beginning, and is naturally most visible in Cyprian, 
 the most Eoman of the writers of the time. Thus 
 he looks on the bishops as Christ's vicarii, judging 
 vice sacra like the emperor's vicarii. So too the 
 councils tend to become councils of a province or a 
 diocese ; and the election of bishops witnessed and 
 approved by the bishops who chance to be present 
 becomes an appointment by the bishops of the province 
 in their corporate capacity. The council of Nicsea 
 recognizes the change, and completes it by adding 
 that the appointment is not to be valid unless it is 
 ratified by the metropolitan.^ 
 
 ' Canon 4. 
 
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