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 Addis, William E. 1844-1917 
 Christianity and the Roman 
 empire 
 
 1 
 
MANUALS OF EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY 
 EDITED BY J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 /BY 
 
 W. E. ADDIS, M.A. 
 
 (Of Balliol College, Oxford) 
 
 Xon^on 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION 
 
 EssKx Hall, Essex Street, Strand, W.C. 
 
 i8q5 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 The early history of Christianity cannot be unin- 
 teresting to those who wish to be counted among 
 the disciples of Jesus. During the first three 
 hundred years of its existence, the tendencies which 
 afterwards marked the great Churches of Christen- 
 dom, began clearly to display themselves. And 
 even within this short period the complex move- 
 ment to which we give the name of Christianity, 
 may be treated from several different points of 
 view. It may be regarded as the manifestation of 
 a great moral and religious impulse, and the stress 
 will then fall on its power of quickening the inner 
 forces of character, and transforming the whole 
 standard of feeling and action. It may be con- 
 ceived in its theological aspect, as a doctrine 
 concerning God, Christ, and man, and the signifi- 
 
iv. PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 cance of its development will then lie in the 
 successive forms through which the Christian faith 
 was expressed, the circumstances which influenced 
 them, and the intellectual and spiritual needs which 
 they satisfied. Or again, it may be understood as 
 embodied in the great institution known as the 
 Church, throuorh which the believer was admitted to 
 the mystic fellowship of a divine life. Under this 
 aspect the history of Christianity is the history of 
 its institutions, and the ideas which animated them, 
 its orders, its sacraments, its discipline, its worship 
 and usage. 
 
 Along each of these lines the cause of Chris- 
 tianity was affected at every step by the conditions 
 amid which it had to make its way. The single 
 phrase ' the Roman Empire ' sums up an immense 
 number of elements, political, social, intellectual, 
 moral, which immediately began to influence it, as 
 soon as it travelled with the Apostle Paul beyond 
 the limits of Syria, and sought to address the 
 Gentile as well as the Jew. It is the object of this 
 book to describe these influences, and to sketch 
 their effect upon the general growth of the Church. 
 Successive volumes will deal, it is hoped, with 
 Christian morals. Christian doctrine, and Christian 
 institutions. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE v. 
 
 It is not possible to discuss so intricate a subject 
 without assuming some knowledge on the part of 
 the reader. But it is believed that a very elemen- 
 tary acquaintance with the familiar facts of general 
 history will make this little w^ork intelligible. For 
 the sake of those who may desire some introduction 
 to the early Christian writers^ but may only have 
 access to translations such as are contained in the 
 Ante-Nicene Christian Library, the chief works are 
 cited by their English titles. In the Appendices an 
 attempt has been made to supply such information 
 concerning the principal persons whose names 
 appear in these pages, as will enable the reader to 
 refer them without difficulty to their proper date, 
 locality, and school of thought. 
 
 J. E. C. 
 
 Februar}', 1893. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 PAGE. 
 The Assistance given by the Roman Empire to 
 
 Christianity ...... i 
 
 1. The Geographical Limits of the Empire ... 3 
 
 2. The Unity of the Empire 5 
 
 (i) Unity of Government secured by Imperial 
 
 Rule 5 
 
 (2) The Emperor and the Roman Senate . . 6 
 
 (3) The Roman Peace ...... 8 
 
 (4) The Unity of Law ...... 9 
 
 (5) Unity promoted by Fusion of Language and 
 
 Race II 
 
 3. The Influence of Religion 12 
 
 (1) Vitality of Religion 12 
 
 {a) Decline among the Educated . . 13 
 
 {b) Revival of the Ancient Religions . 13 
 
 (c) Universal Belief in the Marvellous . 14 
 {d) Witness of Sceptical Writers to the 
 
 Supernatural ..... 14 
 
 (2) Developments of the Old Roman Religion . 15 
 
 (3) Blending of New Worships .... 16 
 
 (4) Their Deeper Moral Significance ... 17 
 
 (5) Religious Associations . . . . . 18 
 
§ 5. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS vii. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Influence of Philosophy 20 
 
 (i) Philosophers as Teachers and Preachers . 20 
 
 (2) Their Practical Aims 2i 
 
 (3) Stoicism. ....... 21 
 
 {a) Its Earlier Form in Greece ... 21 
 
 (6) How modified when transplanted to Rome 22 
 
 (c) Its Humanity 24 
 
 (4) Platonism, as represented by Plutarch . . 2$ 
 
 (5) Neo-Platonism 26 
 
 Summary of Results ....... 28 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION. 
 
 1. Why the Christian Mission travelled Westwards 
 
 (i) The Empire lay West of Palestine 
 (2) The Jews had prepared the Way 
 
 2. The Jews in the Dispersion 
 
 (i) Their Social State . . 
 
 (2) Their Legal Position 
 
 (3) Jewish Proselytes . 
 
 3. The Spread of Christianity during the First Century 
 
 (i) Jerusalem and Antioch . 
 
 (2) The New Name 
 
 (3) St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John 
 
 (4) The Apostolic Age 
 
 4. Advance in the next two Centuries . 
 
 (i) In the East .... 
 (2) Asia Minor .... 
 Greece ..... 
 
 (3) 
 
 (4) Egypt 
 
 (5) Rome and Italy 
 
 (6) Africa . . . . 
 
 (7) Gaul . . . . 
 
 (8) Spain, Germany, Britain 
 
 5. How Churches began . 
 
 6. Numbers of the Christians . 
 
 29 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 37 
 
 38 
 
 41 
 
 41 
 
 43 
 
 44 
 
 44 
 
 44 
 
 45 
 
 46 
 
 47 
 
 50 
 
Vlll. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 § 3. 
 
 § 4. 
 § 5. 
 
 § 6. 
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 THE PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 General Antipathy to the Christian Religion 
 (i) In what sense Polytheism is tolerant 
 
 (2) The Charge of Atheism. 
 
 (3) Secrecy of Christian Assemblies . 
 
 (4) Contempt of the Educated 
 Christianity Illegal ...... 
 
 (i) As a new Religion, and a System of Magic 
 
 (2) As Sacrilegious and Treasonable . 
 
 (3) As contravening the Law against Clubs 
 Varying Rigour of the Magistrates 
 
 (i) The Emperors and Christianity 
 
 (2) Peculiarity of the Christian Position 
 
 The Three Periods of Persecution 
 
 The First Period 
 
 (i) The Christians hardly distinguished from the 
 Jews ....... 
 
 (2) Nero : A.D. 64 
 
 (3) Local and Accidental Character of the Perse 
 
 cation ...... 
 
 (4) Domitian and Nerva, a.d. 81-96, 96-98 . 
 The Second Period ...... 
 
 (\) Pliny's Report and Trajan's Answer, a.d. 112 
 (a) Pliny in Bithynia. ... 
 
 {b) Trajan's Rescript ... 
 
 (c) Significance of his Policy 
 
 (2) Hadrian, A.D. 1 17-138 .... 
 
 (3) Martyrdoms under Antoninus Pius, A.D 
 
 138-161 
 
 (4) Marcus Aurelius, a.d. 161 -180 
 
 {a) His Reasons for Persecution 
 {b) Altered Policy under Commodus, a.d 
 180-193 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 53 
 54 
 55 
 56 
 57 
 58 
 58 
 59 
 59 
 60 
 61 
 62 
 
 ^2 
 
 64 
 
 64 
 66 
 
 67 
 68 
 69 
 69 
 69 
 70 
 71 
 71 
 
 72 
 73 
 73 
 
 74 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 § 6. The Second Period [continued) — 
 
 (5) Changed Political System . . . . 
 
 {a) Septimius Severus began a Military 
 
 Despotism, A.D. 193-21 1 . 
 [b) His Treatment of the Christians . 
 
 (6) Friendly Feeling of Emperors of Eastern Origin 
 
 {a) Blending of Religions under Elaga 
 
 balus, A.D. 218-222 , 
 {b) Alexander Severus, a.d. 222-235 
 
 $ 7. The Third Period 
 
 (i) Decius, A.D. 249-251 .... 
 
 [a) His Increased Severity 
 
 (b) Political Reasons for conflict with 
 
 Christians .... 
 
 (2) Effects on the Christians 
 
 (3) The Successors of Decius 
 
 IX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 75 
 
 (4) 
 (5) 
 
 (6) 
 (7) 
 
 (8) 
 
 Forty Years of Peace .... 
 
 The Last Effort to stamp out Christianity 
 (a) Diocletian, a.d. 284 
 {b) Galerius, and the Division of the 
 Administration 
 Beginning of the Persecution, a.d. 303 . 
 Its Duration and Extent 
 
 [a) With the Abdication of Diocletian, 
 A.D. 305, the Unity of the Empire 
 ceased ...... 
 
 {b) Consequent Variations in the Intensity 
 of the Persecution . . . . 
 
 The Edicts of Toleration . . . . 
 
 § 8. The Peace of the Church 
 
 75 
 76 
 
 77 
 
 77 
 78 
 
 79 
 80 
 80 
 
 80 
 81 
 82 
 84 
 85 
 85 
 
 86 
 87 
 
 89 
 
 89 
 90 
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LEARNED DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 1. Changes in the Second Century . • • • • 93 
 
 (i) Growth of External Unity .... 94 
 (2) Contrast with the Spontaneous Unity of the 
 
 Early Church 95 
 
§ 2. 
 
 § 4. 
 
 § 5. 
 
 § 7. 
 
 r^i?Z£" OF CONTENTS 
 
 Influence of Greek Converts .... 
 (i) Fruitfulness of Greek Ideas . 
 
 (2) Translation into Terms of Greek Thought 
 
 (a) The Questions of Educated Converts 
 {b) The Search for Theory and System 
 
 (3) The Passage from Speculation to Orthodoxy 
 Philosophic Treatment of Judaism 
 
 (i) Philo expounds the Old Testament with the 
 Help of Greek Thought 
 
 (2) His Need of a Doctrine of the Origin of the 
 
 World 
 
 [a) The Ancient Hebrews did not discuss 
 
 Philosophical Questions . 
 ib) The 'Words' of God in Nature 
 (c) The Corruptible and the Incorruptible 
 
 Life 
 
 (3) Tne System of Allegorical Interpretation 
 The Apologists as Christian Philosophers . 
 
 (i) Need of Justifying Christianity to the Jews 
 
 (2) Changed Reasoning in addressing the Greeks 
 
 (3) The First Apologists and Philosophy 
 The Chief Apologists . . ... 
 
 (1) Justin the Martyr .... 
 
 (2) Tatian ; Athenagoras ; Minucius Felix 
 Their Attitude to Judaism .... 
 
 . (i) Treatment of the Law . 
 
 (2) They brought Revelation to confirm the Con 
 elusions of Philosophy 
 Justin and the Doctrine of the Logos 
 
 (i) The Logos enlightened Greeks and Hebrews 
 (a) Born into Personal Existence ; identi- 
 fied with Christ . . . . 
 {b) The Organ of Revelation from the 
 Beginning . . . . . 
 
 (2) Advantages of Christianity as a Revealed 
 
 Religion ....... 
 
 (3) The Greeks derived Wisdom from the Jewish 
 
 Scriptures . 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 96 
 96 
 
 97 
 97 
 98 
 98 
 99 
 
 99 
 
 lOI 
 
 101 
 
 lOI 
 
 103 
 103 
 105 
 105 
 106 
 107 
 108 
 109 
 no 
 III 
 
 112 
 
 114 
 
 114 
 
 114 
 
 116 
 117 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 § 7. Justin and the Doctrine of the Logos {continued] — 
 
 (4) How Justin mingled Philosophy with Religion 119 
 
 (5) The Attitude of the other Apologists to Greek 
 
 Philosophy . . . . . .120 
 
 (6) And to Revelation 121 
 
 § 8. Preparation for a Dogmatic System . . . .122 
 
 (i) The Apologists were the Fathers of Theology 122 
 
 (2) Their View of Christian Dogmas . . . 123 
 
 (3) The Dogmatic System still in the Germ . 124 
 
 {a) Subsequent Restriction of the Scope of 
 
 Philosophy 124 
 
 {b) The Apologists erected no Articles of 
 
 Faith 125 
 
 (c) Their Theology Heretical when judged 
 
 by Later Standards .... 125 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 § 1. Twofold Unity of Creed and Organisation. . . 127 
 
 § 2. Altered Relations to Judaism 129 
 
 (i) Debt of the Catholic to the Jewish Church . 129 
 
 (2) Distinction between the Moral and the Cere- 
 
 monial Law ...... 130 
 
 {a) Why the Controversy about the Law 
 
 died away ..... 130 
 {b) Permanent Value of its Rules of 
 
 Morality 131 
 
 (3) Contrast with the Position of St. Paul . .-132 
 § 3. New Prominence of Morality 133 
 
 (i) Morality and Religion : Jesus and Epictetus . 134 
 
 (2) The New Law : Salvation by Works . . 135 
 
 (3) Ascetical Character of Christian Morality 136 
 
 (4) Views of Marriage I37 
 
 (5) Consequent Dangers ..... 139 
 § 4. Decay of the Expectation of Christ's Second Coming 140 
 
 (i) The Belief among the Early Christians . . 140 
 
 (2) Declines underthe Influence of the Greek Spirit 142 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 PAGE. 
 144 
 144 
 
 146 
 147 
 
 147 
 148 
 149 
 
 $ 1. Dangers arising from Contact with Greek Thought 
 (i) Tendencies to Divisions and Sects. 
 (2) How Counteracted by the Rise of the Catholic 
 Church ..... 
 $ 2. The Extreme Intellectualism of the Gnostics 
 
 (i) The Eastern Gnostics: Simon the Samaritan 
 Magician ...... 
 
 (2) The Alexandrian Gnostics 
 
 (3) The Gnostics compared with the Apologists 
 $ 3. General Characteristics of Gnosticism 
 
 (i) Based on the Opposition of Matter and Spirit 
 
 (2) Hostility to Judaism .... 
 
 (3) Attempt to Allegorise the Gospel History 
 
 (4) Transformation of the Theory of Redemption 
 
 (5) Aversion to the Jewish Millenium 
 
 (6) Limited number who could be Saved 
 
 (7) The Threefold Discipline 
 $ 4. Marcion ...... 
 
 (i) His Religious Aim . 
 
 (2) His New Testament 
 
 (3) The Weak Point in his System 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 1 Organisation of the Early Churches .... 160 
 
 (i) No Officials charged with the Duty of Teaching 160 
 
 (2) Bishops and Deacons : Presbyters or ' Elders ' 161 
 
 (3) Concentration of Authority in the Bishops . 162 
 
 (a) The Bishop or Presbyter becomes a 
 
 Teacher . . . . . •162 
 
 {b) One Bishop to one Church . . . 162 
 
 (4) The Bishops as Successors of the Apostles . 163 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 § 2. The World-wide Federation of the Bishops 
 
 (i) Growth of a Politico-Religious Union reflect 
 
 ing the Civil Constitution of the Empire 
 (2) The Foundations of the Primacy of Rome 
 
 § 3. The Work of the New Church .... 
 (i) The Bishops enforce the ' Rule of Faith' 
 
 (2) The Canon of the New Testament. 
 
 (3) The Apostolic Tradition replaced the Sense 
 
 of Present Inspiration 
 § 4. Growth of Speculative Theology 
 
 (i) The Earliest 'Rule of Faith' says nothing of 
 the Deity of Christ .... 
 
 (2) New Doctrinal Questions started . 
 
 (3) Protests in favour of the Sole Godhead of the 
 
 Father ...... 
 
 (4) Identity of Christ with the Father . 
 
 (5) Paul of Samosata ..... 
 
 (6) Change in the Basis of Christian Union. 
 § 5. Christian Mysteries ...... 
 
 (i) Analogies between Catholic Worship and the 
 Mysteries .... 
 
 (a) Baptism ..... 
 {b) The Eucharist .... 
 (2) The Christian Priesthood 
 § 6. The Relaxation of Discipline .... 
 (i) Decline of Rigour: Novatian's Protest . 
 (2) Monachism as a Reaction against the Domin 
 ation of the Priesthood 
 
 xni. 
 
 PAGE. 
 164 
 
 164 
 165 
 168 
 168 
 170 
 
 172 
 
 173 
 
 174 
 175 
 176 
 177 
 178 
 
 178 
 179 
 180 
 180 
 182 
 182 
 
 183 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM. 
 
 Vitality and Growth of the Church 
 1. Foreign Elements brought into Christianity 
 
 (i) Adaptation of Ideas of Morality 
 Philosophy .... 
 
 and 
 
 185 
 187 
 
 187 
 
xiv. TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 f 1. Foreign Elements brought into Christianity {continued) — 
 
 (2) Greek Rhetoric and the Christian Sermon . 187 
 
 (3) Civilisation of the Empire handed on through 
 
 the Church 188 
 
 (4) Compromise with the Polytheism of the 
 
 Empire . . . . . . .189 
 
 § 2. Intrinsic Strength of Christianity . . . .190 
 
 (i) Mere Adaptation insufficient to explain the 
 
 Church's Triumph ..... 190 
 
 (2) Superiority of Historic Fact to Speculation . 191 
 
 (3) The Manifestation of a Divine Life . . 192 
 
 (4) Counter Attempt to produce a Philosophic 
 
 Ideal : Apollonius of Tyana . . .193 
 
 § 3. The Power of Christianity over the Heart . . . 194 
 
 (i) Compared with the Stoic Morality . . 194 
 
 (2) As a Religion for all Classes and Grades of 
 
 Education . . . . . . .195 
 
 (3) As the Religion of the Poor .... 196 
 § 4. Limitations to the Efficacy of Christianity . . . 198 
 
 (i) Defects of Christian Morality . . . 198 
 
 (2) Nevertheless Superior to the Average Morality 199 
 
 (3) Bad Effects of Dogma chiefly confined to its 
 
 Constructors ...... 200 
 
 (4) The Canon of the New Testament preserved 
 
 Christianity from complete Corruption . 200 
 
 Appendix A, Table of Roman Emperors .... 203 
 Appendix B, Chief Points in the Church History of the 
 
 First Three Centuries ..... 206 
 
 First Period 206 
 
 Second Period ....... 208 
 
 Third Period 210 
 
 Appendix C 213 
 
 (i) Heathen Writers 213 
 
 (2) Christian Literature ..... 214 
 
CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Early Christian writers thought, and very naturally^ 
 that the Roman Empire arose in the providence of 
 God in order that the gospel might be preached to 
 all nations. The Apostles, says Origen, would have 
 had much more difficulty in fulfilling this command, 
 if the nations had been subject to many masters 
 and so had lived in mutual enmity and suspicion.^ 
 The fact that the unity of many nations under the 
 Roman government promoted the spread of Christianity 
 is evident enough: indeed it is hard to see how 
 Christianity could have won its signal victory over 
 heathenism, had the political situation been other 
 than it was. There are, however, two other facts 
 which seriously modify the view of the modern historian, 
 and which Origen neither did nor could take into his 
 reckoning. In the first place, the Roman Empire 
 did not, of course, embrace the whole world, but only 
 
 ^ Origen, Against Celsus, ii. 30. Comp. Eusebius, Demonstr. 
 Evang, iii. 6. 
 
2 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 covered a small part of its extent. To this limited area 
 the Christian religion was almost exclusively confined 
 during the first three centuries of its existence. Even 
 now it is not the religion of the world: it is true that 
 it was adopted by the Teutonic races and by some of the 
 Celts and Slavs, who had never fallen under the 
 discipline of Roman rule, but, with these exceptions, 
 Christianity at this day is the religion professed by 
 those who descend from the subjects of Imperial 
 Rome. In the second place the Roman Empire was 
 by no means the passive recipient of Christianity. If 
 on the one hand it accepted Christian ideas, on the 
 other, Christianity, long before it became the religion of 
 the Empire, had incorporated the most important elements 
 of the Graeco-Roman civilisation and was profoundly 
 affected for good and for evil by the change. It was 
 this transformed Christianity which took possession of 
 the Empire, and which was imparted by Roman or 
 Romanised missionaries to the Teutonic and Sclavonic 
 nations. Thus, the Roman Empire never died : it 
 lived on, it lives still in the theology and institutions 
 of the Catholic church which was its heir. The 
 Reformation of the sixteenth century was an attempt 
 to discard these later accretions and to restore primitive 
 Christianity. It was only among the Northern races, 
 which had never been subject to Rome, that this 
 movement had any considerable success. Moreover, 
 the reform was exceedingly imperfect, and the most 
 radical of the Protestant churches retained much which 
 was not Christian but Roman. Hence the importance 
 of our subject : apart from the Roman Empire, its 
 political and social life, we necessarily fail to understand 
 
ITS LIMITS 
 
 the history of Christianity. We must begin then by 
 trying to see what that poHtical and social Ufe was. 
 
 § I. The Geographical limits of the Empire. 
 
 The territory of the Empire, as Augustus left it, 
 extended from the Euphrates on the east to the Atlantic 
 on the west, from the deserts of Arabia and Africa on 
 the south to the Rhine and Danube on the north. In 
 the midst lay the great central basin of the Mediterranean 
 Sea, and the Roman arms had subdued Asia Minor, 
 Syria, Egypt, a narrow strip of coast along the southern 
 side of the Mediterranean from Egypt to the straits of 
 Gibraltar, and, north of the Mediterranean, the countries 
 now known as Turkey in Europe and Greece with 
 Bulgaria, Servia, and Bosnia, Italy and the islands 
 in the Mediterranean, Spain and Portugal, France 
 and Belgium, Germany west of the Rhine, Switzer- 
 land, and Austria south of the Danube. The space 
 given measured something like 2,000 miles from north 
 to south, and 3,000 from east to west. It is supposed 
 to have contained about 100 million inhabitants.^ 
 
 Compared with the extent and population of the globe, 
 these figures may well seem insignificant. The Russian 
 dominion stretches further now than the Roman Empire 
 did of old, and British India surpasses the Roman 
 Empire in population. But such standards of comparison 
 are quite inadequate. All the elements of human 
 progress were found within the limits of the Empire; 
 
 ^ So Hertzberg in Riehm's Bihel Worterbuch, Art. Rom. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 and the civilisations of the far east, those for example 
 of India and China, are of littla account when set side 
 by side with that of Rome. To the subject of the 
 Roman Empire these distant lands were scarcely known. 
 He had indeed good cause to remember the existence 
 of the Parthian Kingdom beyond the Euphrates, for 
 the Parthians were formidable enemies of Rome, and 
 so were the Persians who rose to power on the ruins 
 of the Parthian state in 226 a.d. But the Parthians 
 and Persians were semi-barbarous, and as for the rest 
 of the world with which the Roman had any real 
 acquaintance, it was either sunk in savagery or raised 
 but one step above it. As yet, no one dreamt of the 
 future which was in store for the Teutonic tribes in 
 Northern Europe. The Roman was content to stem 
 the current of barbarian invasion. The successors 
 of Augustus acquiesced in the advice which he had 
 bequeathed them and seldom made any serious attempt 
 to widen the boundaries of the Empire. To this general 
 rule there were however two notable exceptions. During 
 the first century after Christ, Britain so far north as 
 the Tyne and the Solway became a Roman province. 
 At the beginning of the second century Trajan added 
 the great province of Dacia, a vast district some 1,300 
 miles in circumference to the north of the lower Danube. 
 But the important point to remember is that the 
 imagination of a Roman subject travelled little beyond 
 the limits of the Empire. To him the Empire and 
 the world were practically identical. 'The world 
 itself,' so Tertullian writes, ' lies before us. All is now 
 <open, all is known, all is occupied with trade.' ^ 
 ^ Tertullian, On the Soul, 30. 
 
ITS UNITY 
 
 § 2. The Unity of the Empire. 
 
 (i) This unity could not be permanently secured 
 except by the absolute rule of one man. Not that 
 political freedom and democracy were unknown to 
 Greeks and Romans : on the contrary they had attained 
 a very high degree of development among them. But 
 the conception of representative government had not as 
 yet arisen. Democracy was taken in the proper and 
 literal sense: it meant the direct and immediate rule 
 of the people. Questions of peace and war or of 
 internal administration were decided by the public 
 assembly of the people and not by a chamber of their 
 representatives. Such a method of government was 
 possible, so long as the state did not extend beyond a city 
 and its adjacent district, though even then it could 
 not perhaps have been realised, had it not been for 
 the presence of slaves, who had of course no share 
 in public life, and left the free citizens a certain amount 
 of leisure. But when the Roman Empire began to 
 be, democracy was doomed. 'Where the Roman 
 'conquered, he settled. '^ In other words, colonies of 
 Roman citizens were distributed all over the known 
 world. Add to this that all free inhabitants of Italy 
 had been admitted to the Roman franchise, so that 
 a popular assembly could not include more than an 
 insignificant fraction of those who were legally entitled 
 to vote. It was not conceivable, that Romans all over 
 the world would leave the management of their affairs 
 to the mob in the Roman city. Rule might be exercised 
 
 ^ Seneca, Consol. ad Helv. 7. 
 
6 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 by an oligarchy, by the members of wealthy families, or 
 by men whose talents had brought them to the front. 
 And for a long time this method was tried but with 
 disastrous results. The provinces were ruthlessly 
 plundered by Senators who turned their brief lease 
 of power to the best advantage, and made room for 
 successors as unscrupulous as themselves. There was 
 besides the danger of civil war between rival leaders 
 eager for domination, a danger which again and again 
 became a terrible reality. The end of all this was 
 inevitable, though it was long in coming. One supreme 
 head was necessary for the army, and the head of the 
 army must be the head of the State. This change was 
 finally accomplished in 31 B.C., when Augustus became 
 sole and absolute ruler of the Roman world. The new 
 form of government was welcome to the world at large, 
 however much aristocratic dreamers might regret the 
 disappearance of the Republic. The Republic had 
 fallen by its own weight : twenty years of civil war 
 had devastated the Empire, and the new order brought 
 peace and prosperity everywhere, but especially in the 
 provinces. No serious attempt was ever made to revive 
 the Republican constitution. 
 
 (2) In form that constitution was still maintained — 
 and Augustus was much too wise to assume the hated 
 title of King. His private life was that of an ordinary 
 citizen, and his sovereignty was attained by the 
 accumulation of old and legitimate offices in his 
 single person and by their renewal during his life- 
 time. But in reality the Emperor was absolute. Even 
 the pretence of convoking the assembly of the Roman 
 people ceased with the death of Augustus. The 
 
ITS CONSTITUTION 7 
 
 legislative power was transferred to the Senate, an 
 assembly which under Augustus consisted of five or 
 six hundred persons, representing the aristocracy of 
 wealth. Its powers were very great ; not only did 
 it make laws, it also formed the final court of appeal 
 in civil causes and in criminal causes likewise, if they 
 were concerned with crimes dangerous to the public 
 weal. When an Emperor died, the Senate was supposed 
 to choose his successor. Those provinces which did 
 not need military protection from the barbarians, or 
 were not, like Egypt and Judaea, specially impatient 
 of Roman law, were committed to the care "of the Senate 
 and governed by Proconsuls who were chosen annually 
 by lot from the members of that body. In reality, 
 however, the power of the Senate depended on the 
 good-will of the prince. He had power to revise the 
 Senatorial list, and constitutional freedom is impossible 
 when the executive authority nominates the legislative 
 body. The Emperor was assisted by a sort of Privy 
 Council consisting of some twenty members. Gradually 
 the theory of Republican Government was surrendered. 
 Early in the third century a.d. the Praetorian troops 
 (originally the Emperor's body-guard) had grown into 
 a force of 50,000 men, superior in arms and appointments 
 to any force that could be brought against them. The 
 Praetorian Prefect from a simple captain in the guards 
 became the chief administrator of law and finance. 
 Soldiers ceased to be recruited in Italy, and its 
 inhabitants lost all fitness for war. Servile Orientals 
 were promoted to the Senate : Orientals ascended the 
 Imperial throne. The Emperor's power depended upon 
 his success in pleasing the army and it was hardly 
 
8 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 worth while to maintain the empty form of consulting 
 the Senate. In these circumstances we cannot wonder 
 that an elaborate theory of despotism was constructed 
 by the great jurists of the Empire, by Papinian, Paulus, 
 Ulpian. In reality, the old Roman Empire may be 
 said to have expired with M. AureHus in i8o. 
 
 (3) Except among Jews and Egyptians there was 
 no real wish for the recovery of national life and 
 independence. The Roman Imperialism was felt to 
 be a blessing, because it ensured the priceless boon 
 of public peace. In one respect the subjects of Rome 
 were better off than the present inhabitants of European 
 countries. We see around us nations armed to the 
 teeth, and enduring heavy taxation to support immense 
 armaments. Under the Roman Empire no such 
 necessity existed. The whole civiHsed world was one, 
 and although there were masses of barbarians in the 
 unknown lands beyond the Rhine, the Danube, and 
 the Euphrates, these gave comparatively little trouble 
 during the first two and a half centuries. It is true that 
 things changed for the worse under Decius, who in 
 the year 251 fell in battle against the Goths, and his 
 successors had to carry on the same desperate struggle 
 which first exhausted and finally destroyed the fabric 
 of the Empire. Nevertheless, for nearly the whole 
 of the period with which we have to deal, public peace 
 was secured, and this by an army and navy which 
 together did not number more than 450,000 men. 
 On the other hand, the Empire was again and again 
 torn by civil war which was almost inevitable, since 
 the principle of hereditary rule was not recognised. 
 Still this want was to a considerable extent remedied 
 
THE PUBLIC PEACE 9 
 
 by the principle of adoption. In this manner the 
 Emperor with more or less deference to public opinion 
 really nominated his successor. During the two centuries 
 which elapsed between the accession of Augustus and 
 the death of Commodus, there was little blood shed in 
 civil war, the chief exception being the eighteen months 
 which followed Nero's death. After Domitian's death 
 in 96, the Imperial power was held for nearly a century 
 by a line of wise and benevolent rulers. It must be 
 remembered too that bad men like Tiberius did little, 
 if any, harm to the provinces : it was eminent persons 
 in immediate contact with them who suffered from their 
 tyranny. It was, of course, otherwise, during the latter 
 part of our period, when the dangers from barbarians, 
 and, as a consequence of this, the increased power of the 
 army and the weight of taxation, caused severe social 
 strain. 
 
 (4) Further, the unity of the Empire was consolidated 
 by a magnificent system of law, the like of which the 
 world had never seen before, and which is still a main 
 factor in our modern civilisation. It was a great thing 
 to be a Roman citizen. It implied the right of making 
 a will, of inheritance, of marriage protected by public 
 sanction : it carried with it the privilege of appeal to 
 the law courts, and raised the happy possessor of the 
 franchise to a state in which his life and property 
 were guarded from outrage and wrong. ' Often and 
 'in many lands had the mere words, "I am a Roman 
 'citizen," brought help and security among foreigners.' ^ 
 It opened the road to the highest honours in the State. 
 The rights of Roman citizenship were extended by 
 
 ^ Cicero, In Verr. v. S7- 
 
lO THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 degrees, though it was not till the reign of Caracalla 
 in the year 215 a.d. that all free inhabitants of the 
 provinces became Roman citizens. But during the 
 two preceding centuries, the rights of citizenship were 
 within the reach of a very moderate ambition. They 
 might be given as the reward of merit : they might 
 be purchased : they belonged as of right to the 
 magistrates of many provincial cities. It is probable 
 that during the middle of the second century the 
 larger part of the free population possessed the full 
 rights of citizenship. This counts for little, if we 
 regard the franchise from the modern point of view, 
 and consider it as a share in the election of the 
 governing body. The Roman citizen exercised no 
 such right. But he had the inestimable advantage 
 of trial by just laws : he had attained a state of dignity 
 and independence of which Orientals had never dreamt, 
 while they lived under their own kings. Again, though 
 the provincial cities had no voice in the administration 
 of the Empire, they had a large measure of freedom 
 in the administration of their own affairs. It was not 
 till the reign of Diocletian, towards the close of the 
 third century, that the provinces were oppressed by 
 extreme centralisation of government. We can well 
 understand the tone of grateful respect which the 
 New Testament and Christian writers of a later day 
 maintain to the Roman rule. The Roman jurisprudence 
 answered its purpose, because it had been constructed 
 by the genius of great lawyers to meet the necessities of 
 a great Empire, composed of many nationalities. It 
 was based on the general principles found in all existing 
 systems of law : local and arbitrary elements were 
 
UNITY OF LAW 1 1 
 
 gradually eliminated, and the complicated system which 
 had satisfied the wants of the early Romans, because 
 it was endeared to them by use and wont, but which 
 would have been an intolerable burden to foreigners, 
 was replaced by a jus gentium, the common law of 
 nations. Stoic philosophers with their conceptions of 
 human equality and a universal state had their part 
 in this great work, and helped to make the law what 
 it claimed to be, the embodiment of natural reason. It 
 was enforced with discretion and with wise allowance 
 for national customs and prejudice. Slowly, but surely, 
 it made its way, and recommended itself by its intrinsic 
 superiority. 
 
 (5) The Empire was one in virtue of its central 
 authority which controlled it, and the system of law 
 which prevailed throughout its territory. There were other 
 bonds which held it together. Modern nationalities are 
 parted by language, but in the Roman world two 
 languages prevailed nearly everywhere. The Western 
 provinces were Latinised. So completely for example 
 had Spain and Gaul adopted the Latin tongue that the 
 languages originally spoken in these countries have 
 perished : modern French, for instance, is a daughter 
 of Latin, and retains few and doubtful fragments of 
 the old Celtic speech. Spain produced famous ' Latin 
 authors, viz : Columella, Seneca, Lucan, JNIartial, 
 Quintilian, and one of the best of Roman Emperors, 
 viz : Trajan. Greek was the language familiar to the 
 whole East, with the partial exceptions of Syria and 
 Egypt, and it was understood by educated persons 
 all the world over. The Greek literature, and the Latin 
 which had been formed after its model, had no rivals ; 
 
12 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 the Jews alone could be said to possess a literature 
 apart. Further, great lines of road connected the 
 most distant extremities, and public officers could 
 travel by post at the rate of a hundred miles in the 
 day. By land and sea there was constant interchange 
 of commodities, and in its better days the Empire was 
 saved from the famines which had often afflicted the 
 infant Republic. This led naturally to a fusion of 
 all races in the great centres of trade, in cities such 
 as Ephesus, Corinth, Antioch, and above all in Rome. 
 Hence, in the cities, w^here Christianity spread at first, 
 national life was undermined and could offer 
 comparatively little opposition to the new and universal 
 religion. 
 
 § 3. The Influence of Religion. 
 
 It must not, how^ever, be thought that Christianity 
 merely filled a vacuum and met with little resistance. 
 In a subsequent chapter w^e shall consider the legal 
 opposition which crossed its path. Meantime, it is 
 necessary to speak of two great forces, which exercised 
 wide and powerful influence. In part they promoted 
 the progress of Christianity, in part they retarded it 
 very seriously. These forces were heathen religion 
 and philosophy. They intermingled with each other 
 but we shall consider them, so far as that is possible, 
 apart. 
 
 (i) First, then, with regard to heathen religion. It 
 was exceedingly vigorous during the w^hole of our 
 period and beyond it. 
 
INFLUENCE OF RELIGION 
 
 13 
 
 {a) No doubt, the Roman literature at the close of 
 the Republic and during the Augustan age affords 
 some justification for the theory that religious belief 
 was dying out among the educated classes. The 
 Epicurean Lucretius attacked religion fiercely., and 
 Horace, an Epicurean of less serious disposition, was 
 certainly very far from any deep sense of religion. 
 But literary men cannot safely be taken as representatives 
 of the general sentiment, and besides there were other 
 literary men of the same time, Cicero, for example, 
 and Virgil, whose attitude to the traditional religion was 
 much more respectful. Even those who had perhaps 
 little faith of their own, acknowledged the need of religion 
 for the masses, or were disposed to maintain it on 
 grounds of public policy. Women and the common 
 people, says Strabo, cannot be led to piety by philosophic 
 reasoning, 'they need superstition.' 1 Maecenas is 
 said to have advised Augustus to promote religion, 
 because those who despised that, would make light ot 
 all authority. 
 
 {b) But during the first three centuries of the Empire 
 there was a positive revival of the ancient religions. 
 Able and enlightened princes such as Hadrian and 
 the Antonines were conspicuous for their religious 
 zeal. M. Aurelius, the philosophic Emperor, was sedulous 
 in his sacrifices. When he was with the army on the 
 Danube, he flung live lions into the river at the instigation 
 of a famous soothsayer, Alexander of Abonoteichos. A 
 wit of the day made the white cattle which were chosen 
 for sacrifices after victory, address the pious Emperor 
 in the words, 'If thou dost win, we are lost.' The 
 
 ^ Strabo, 1,2, p. 19 c. 
 
14 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 satirical writer Lucian, who wrote in the second century, 
 mocked at religious observances, but he stood nearly 
 alone, and he confesses, that ' most of the Greeks, the 
 rabble and all the barbarians,'^ were on the other side. 
 
 [c] Nor was it the noble only who clung to the old 
 views. In all likelihood the number of educated persons 
 who discarded superstition utterly was very small. Here 
 and there one might have met an Epicurean like Lucian, 
 or a man of dry and rationalistic spirit like the elder 
 Pliny, the natural historian. But there was no reason 
 why an educated man of those times should distrust 
 stories of the marvellous. The conception of natural 
 law with its universal dominion was foreign to the 
 ancient world. The Stoic, the Platonist, the Pythagorean 
 philosophies, accepted the popular myths, only purging 
 them of their grosser and immoral elements. Certainly, 
 tales of prodigies and omens found ready listeners 
 among all classes. Tacitus is the last writer whom 
 one would accuse of weakness or aptitude for supersti- 
 tion : yet he tells with perfect gravity, and with a faith 
 which is evidently sincere, the story of an ominous bird 
 which foreboded the death of the Emperor Otho. 
 Indeed, he says frankly, that he thinks it beneath the 
 dignity of history to search for idle tales, but on the other 
 hand he does not dare to disbelieve marvels, when well 
 attested. - 
 
 {(f) The confident belief of Celsus is still more 
 striking. This well-known opponent of Christianity 
 was a contemporary of M. Aurelius. He was a man 
 
 ^ Lucian, Jup. Tragoed. ad fin. 
 ^ Tacitus, Hist. ii. 50. 
 
INFLUENCE OF RELIGION 15 
 
 of wide culture, of philosophical tastes, experienced in the 
 world, and, though partly inclined to Platonism, a friend 
 of the sceptical Lucian. Nevertheless, he confidently 
 appeals in his attack on Christianity to the innumerable 
 oracles and omens verified by the event, to miraculous 
 cures, divine apparitions, supernatural vengeance meted 
 out to the profane. ' All life,' he cries, ' is full of these 
 ' things.' 1 Very slight evidence or rather no evidence 
 at all, if we judge by modern standards, sufficed as 
 proof of the supernatural. A sudden storm relieved a 
 Roman legion under the command of M. Aurelius, 
 when distressed with thirst. A heathen historian, 
 Dio Cassius, who wrote in the same generation, attributed 
 the storm to the power of an Egyptian sorcerer ; others 
 thought it was given in answer to the prayers of the 
 pious Emperor; while Christians boldly assumed that 
 deliverance was obtained by the supplication of 
 Christian soldiers, and made the story more marvellous 
 by the addition of extraordinary incidents which 
 flagrantly contradict the sober facts of history. For 
 the present, however, our concern is with heathenism. 
 The belief in the Heathen gods must have been strong, 
 when men were so ready to recognise their supernatural 
 power. 
 
 (2) The religion of the day was no longer the old 
 religion of the Roman city. That religion still survived. 
 Importance was still attached to the auguries, and to 
 the sacrifices which the magistrates offered in the name 
 of the State. The Arval brothers still chanted their 
 song in Latin of immemorial antiquity and made their 
 procession through the fields ; the same colleges of 
 
 ^ Origen, Against Celsus, viii. 45. 
 
l6 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 priests performed the same sacred rites for more than 
 a thousand years, till the edict of Theodosius at the 
 end of the fourth century forbade their continuance. 
 Nay, the old religion put forth fresh shoots under the 
 Empire. A new goddess, Annona, presided over the 
 supply of corn which came from the provinces to Rome. 
 The worship of the Emperor's genius or guardian 
 spirit was a genuine development of the old Roman 
 worship. That worship gave little play to mythological 
 fancy. It set up a series of dry abstractions, but 
 it made much of reverence, of order in the family and 
 state : each detail of private and public life had its 
 protecting deity. The ' genius of the Roman people ' 
 had been adored as early at least as the second Punic 
 war (219-202 B.C.). It was, therefore, by a very natural 
 logic that this cult was transferred to the genius of the 
 Emperor, when the powers of the State were united 
 in him. This worship became the central point of the 
 State religion, and, Roman though it was in origin, was 
 promoted by the servile spirit of the east. As a rule, 
 it was after their death that Emperors and their relatives 
 formally obtained divine honours; as many as thirty- 
 seven canonisations of this kind took place during the 
 first four centuries of the Empire. 
 
 (3) There was, however, a vast amount of popular 
 worship practised in all Roman lands, and in Rome 
 itself, which was utterly alien to the spirit of the old 
 Roman religion. Polytheism is tolerant : a man's 
 devotion to the gods of his country did not hinder 
 him from recognising the gods of other countries. 
 When the barriers of national life were broken down, 
 gods of many nationalities were mingled together. The 
 
RELIGION 17 
 
 Roman religion was above all things a State religion : 
 it offered little satisfaction to individual needs. Now, 
 the mixed population of the Empire was too cosmopolitan 
 to be patriotic. Soldiers and merchants who passed 
 from land to land, adopted and spread the worship 
 of foreign deities. It was eastern rites which attracted 
 the most numerous and zealous devotees. It was in vain 
 that Tiberius tried to stem the enthusiasm for the Egyptian 
 goddess Isis at Rome. Inscriptions still bear witness 
 to her universal popularity, in Spain and Gaul, in 
 Germany, in Greece, in Asia Minor. About the year 
 200 A.D., the Persian sun-god Mithra, long known to 
 the Romans, became the most popular deity of all, 
 and held his ground for two centuries. 
 
 (4) For several reasons these later cults have an 
 intense interest for the student of early Christianity. 
 They were often associated with gross sensuality and 
 imposture, with the credulity which M'as, as we have 
 seen, characteristic of the times. But we must not 
 forget that they satisfied real wants, to some extent 
 rational wants of human nature. They were something 
 more than additions to the crowd of deities, numerous 
 enough already. Isis and Serapis were each identified 
 in pantheistic fashion with the one divine principle 
 of which all popular deities were the symbols of the 
 manifestation. Hence the attraction which the worship 
 of Isis exercised over an able statesman like Hadrian 
 or a philosopher like Plutarch. The worship of Mithra 
 was the nearest approach to Monotheism which the 
 Roman Empire made before it adopted Christianity. 
 The old sun-god had become the lord of life and death, 
 the protector and the guide. The Roman State, as 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 has been said, was bound up with an antique worship. 
 But now the claims of individual life were asserting 
 themselves. A desire awoke for forgiveness of sins, 
 for a life beyond the grave. Men craved for a religion 
 which could create enthusiasm and satisfy love. The 
 Roman Empire conferred many benefits, but how could 
 a Greek or Syrian love a government in which he had 
 neither part nor lot ? The new worship promised to 
 fulfil these desires. It had its sacrament of pardon. 
 The worshipper was placed in a pit: an ox or ram 
 was slain over his head : he was bathed in the blood 
 which dropped upon him through perforated beams, 
 and went away purified from sin. It satisfied the craving 
 for sympathy. The worshippers met in small chapels, 
 often underground ; they formed a secret society in which 
 each was bound to each by common faith and hope 
 and discipline : they were subjected to asceticism so 
 severe that some died under it. The initiated were 
 divided into different grades and there was a hierarchy 
 with a ' father of fathers " at the head of it. Painted 
 representations of their common meal were discovered 
 in a crypt near the Porta S. Sebastiano at Rome, and 
 were at first mistaken for Christian love-feasts. The 
 initiated were assured of a happy immortality, ' Be 
 *of good courage,' said the priest, as he anointed them 
 with holy oil : 'Be of good courage, ye that have been 
 * saved by God : after your toils salvation will be yours.' 
 
 (5) The social and voluntary character of this worship 
 strikes us at once : in this respect it offers the most 
 obvious contrast to the old Roman religion in which 
 the consul sacrificed for the State, or the father for the 
 family. Here, however, the worshippers of Mithra 
 
THE WORSHIP OF MITHRA 
 
 19 
 
 were not original ; they were merely touched by the spirit 
 of association which was then in the air. In every part 
 of the Empire people formed clubs or societies. They 
 had their trades unions, their dramatic clubs, their 
 friendly societies, their literary associations. The 
 impulse to association was so strong, that the State 
 felt obliged to regulate and sometimes to repress it. 
 Now it is to be observed that these clubs were in some 
 cases directly religious, in nearly all cases were placed 
 under the sanction of religion. They replaced the cold 
 formalism of the official religion by the fervour which 
 belonged then as now to small assemblies, where every 
 man is bound to his brother, and in that proportion 
 separated from the outer world. Women and slaves 
 were admitted to the worship of the chapel, and met 
 as equals at the fraternal meal. To some extent, at 
 least, the members of these clubs seem to have been 
 bound together by moral aspirations. An extant code 
 of rules which has survived requires the officers to see 
 whether the candidate for admission be 'chaste and 
 'pious and good.' It is a pathetic feature in these 
 associations that many of them were intended to secure 
 decent burial for their members. The ashes of the 
 brethren were set side by side, and there were pious 
 unions in which the bond of brotherhood was believed 
 to continue after death. 
 
 02 
 
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 4. Philosophy. 
 
 While the poorer classes found their comfort in 
 religious association, many of the richer and better 
 educated sought it in philosophy. 
 
 (i) The functions of a philosopher, under the Empire, 
 were strangely unlike all that the name suggests, or chiefly 
 suggests, to us. The philosopher spoke to the public, who 
 gathered in schools which were sometimes, though not 
 always, open without fee. There he did the office of a 
 modern preacher. According to Epictetus a school of 
 philosophy was the consulting room of a physician. 
 Men came to the philosopher with maladies of the 
 soul. It was an abuse to look for fine speeches and 
 sounding phrases, for the real object was to depart 
 cured, or on the way to cure. Philosophers also 
 acted as wandering preachers who went from place 
 to place, and called men from the storm of passion 
 to purity and inward peace. They were the advisers 
 of statesmen ; the best of the Emperors, Nerva, Trajan, 
 Hadrian, the Antonines,were surrounded by philosophers. 
 They were the confessors and directors of the great. 
 Canius Julus went to execution accompanied by 
 his philospher : Rubellius Plautus and Thrasea in 
 their last moments were sustained by the philosophers 
 who were their spiritual guides.^ The philosopher, 
 moreover, figured as a kind of family chaplain, and 
 waited upon some lady of wealth who affected philosophy, 
 because it was in vogue. Such a position, of course, 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 59; Seneca, Tranquill. Anim. 14; Tacitus, 
 Ann. xvi. 34. 
 
PHILOSOPHY 21 
 
 must often have exposed him to a degradation which 
 he had brought upon himself. 
 
 (2) How was it that philosophy came to play such 
 strange parts ? The answer is that philosophy had 
 changed its character and aims. It was no longer 
 a speculative system which strove to account for things 
 by examining ultimate causes. Such was the philosophy 
 of Plato and Aristotle. Such was not the philosophy 
 of Zeno or Epicurus. Greek speculation died out 
 after the death of Greek freedom. Zeno and Epicurus 
 asked how is a man to order his life.? What must 
 he do or not do that he may live well.'' The one 
 put the end of life in virtue, the other in pleasure. But 
 the spirit of each was practical, not speculative. Even 
 the counsel given by the one, resembled that given by 
 the other. Seek freedom from passion, said Zeno. 
 Seek freedom from mental disturbance, said Epicurus. 
 
 (3) We may dismiss Epicureanism, which had no 
 permanent influence in the Empire, and look more 
 closely at Stoicism. 
 
 Zeno, who has been just mentioned, was the founder 
 of the school. He taught at Athens about 300 b.c» 
 in the Sioa Poikile, or frescoed arcade, from which 
 his disciples took their name. His teaching was 
 developed by Chrysippus, who was esteemed the second 
 founder of the school, and who died an old man in 
 206 B.C. It is remarkable that no eminent Stoic was 
 Greek by blood. Zeno and Chrysippus were both 
 Orientals, and lacked that capacity for speculative 
 thought which was proper to the Greeks. Their 
 philosophy was a materialistic Pantheism, borrowed 
 chiefly from Heraclitus; their ethics were taken from 
 
22 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 the Cynics. All knowledge, they held, came from 
 sense : only matter had real existence. God was the 
 soul of the world, in substance an ethereal fire permeating 
 all, directing all for the common good, but doing so in 
 accordance with inexorable fate which took no thought of 
 the individual as such. God was all in all, for from this 
 ethereal fire which they called God, all things had 
 proceeded : it was continually reducing everything to itself. 
 At last came the general conflagration and the cycles of 
 being began over again, for matter was eternal and could 
 change its form only, not its substance. The reason 
 in man, his guiding principle, was part of the world- 
 soul, i.e. of God. Man had one duty, to live according 
 to nature. But what is nature ? It is the reason of 
 the world, the reason which is in each man, the common 
 reason expressed in the moral sentiments of mankind. 
 This virtue or compliance with nature is the only 
 good, while vice is the only evil. Thus the wise man 
 quells his passions and despises alike the pleasure 
 and pain, which are the motives of the uneducated. 
 
 {b) This philosophy was transplanted to Rome long 
 before the Christian era. But it flourished chiefly 
 under the Empire, when Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, 
 M. Aurelius, gave it its greatest names. On Roman 
 soil Stoicism underwent remarkable modifications. The 
 value of the earlier Stoicism lay in its moral earnestness. 
 Yet it had its physics, and above all it cultivated logic 
 with minute and wearisome pedantry. The Roman 
 Stoics frankly declared the small interest they took 
 in any questions, save questions of duty. 'What does 
 * it profit,' asks Seneca, ' to know which line is straight, 
 Mf you don't know what is the straight course in life.?'^ 
 
 ^ Seneca, Ep. Ixxxviii. 
 
STOICISM 
 
 23 
 
 ' These enquiries make us learned, not good : wisdom 
 ' is a more obvious, aye a simpler thing.' 1 Again, 
 Seneca, for all his declamation on the self-sufficiency of 
 the sage, painfully felt that this ideal condition of mind 
 was never realised. His Stoicism too contained elements 
 borrowed from different philosophies. Under the 
 Empire philosophies mingled, as religions mingled — and 
 Seneca, in this more like a Platonist than a Stoic, looks 
 on the body as the prison of the soul, and in his view 
 of human sinfulness and ' the flesh ' ^ his utterances often 
 tally in the most astonishing way with those of St. Paul. 
 The later Stoics did not abandon the materialist 
 Pantheism of their founders — and when Seneca 
 acknowledges the need of divine help, his language 
 is probably much more Christian than his thought. 
 To him the reason of man was part of the universal 
 reason which sustained the universe. Thus, if on 
 the one hand, the sage humbled himself before God, 
 on the other he felt that he was the equal of deity : 
 nay, in one way he was according to Seneca its superior, 
 because he attained virtue by his own effort.^ Again, 
 though the later Stoics use language which sounds 
 like Monotheism, they did not dream of discarding 
 the popular mythology., except where it was immoral. 
 Their system left room for many deities, each of which 
 embodied a portion of the divine spirit. The Stoic 
 did not look upon death as the end of all. The soul 
 still survived and continued its personal life; only, 
 however, till the impending conflagration of the world, 
 when its individuality would be absorbed into that of 
 the universal spirit. For the rest, deliverance from 
 ^ Ep. cvi. " Ep. Ixv. ^ Ep. liii. 
 
24 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 the body was a gain, not a loss, in the eyes of the 
 later Stoics. ' It is but the image of your son which 
 ' has perished,' so Seneca writes to a bereaved parent, 
 
 * he himself is eternal,' (here he goes beyond rigid 
 Stoicism) 'and is in a better condition.' "^ 
 
 But the true beauty of Stoicism, and especially of 
 the later Stoicism, was its humanity. The upright 
 mind, says Seneca, is nothing else than God dwelling 
 in a mortal body, and such a mind may be found 
 alike in a Roman Knight, in a freedman, in a slave.^ 
 
 * Slave,' says Epictetus to the cruel slave-owner, ' wilt 
 
 * thou not bear with thine own brother .? Wilt thou not 
 'remember who thou art and over whom thou hast 
 'power, that they are thy kinsfolk, thy brethren by 
 'nature, the descendants of Zeus.?'^ When scourged 
 the perfect sage will love his tormentors, knowing that 
 he is the 'father and brother of all.'^ These fine sayings 
 on the brotherhood of man are something better than 
 declamatory phrases, though allowance must be made 
 for the rhetorical spirit of the age. The gentle disposition 
 of M. Aurelius was deeply affected by the feeling of 
 human brotherhood. Here are a few of his maxims. 
 ' I cannot find it in my heart to be angry with one 
 'of my own nature or family,' [i.e. with any man) 'for we 
 
 * are all made for mutual help, as the feet, the hands, 
 'the eyelids.' 'A man that has done a kindness never 
 'proclaims it, but does another as soon as he can, 
 'like the vine which bears again the next season.' ' The 
 'best way of revenge is not to imitate the injury.' 
 ' Mankind are under one common law, and, if so, they 
 
 ^ Consol. ad Marc. xxiv. ^ ^p xxxi. ad fin. 
 
 ^ Epictetus, Diss. i. 13. ** Diss. iii. 22, 54. 
 
INFLUENCE OF STOICISM 25 
 
 ' must be fellow-citizens.' ^ Stoic principles, too, had 
 a great influence on public weal. The Roman lawyers 
 eagerly adopted the Stoic idea of a universal State, 
 and gave it expression in the Roman code. Despite 
 its theories of equality, however, Stoicism did not rise 
 to the thought of a world without slaves : it was not 
 till centuries were gone that Christian imagination took 
 so bold a flight. But under Hadrian and the Antonines 
 slaves were for the first time placed under the protection 
 of the law. Their owners lost the power of life and death; 
 they could no longer kill their slaves unchallenged ; the 
 subterraneous dungeons were abolished, and in case 
 of intolerable hardship a slave could obtain his freedom, 
 or at least secure transference to a better master. It is, 
 moreover, to the credit of Stoicism that Seneca is the 
 one Roman writer who expressed disapproval of those 
 gladiatorial shows which Roman ladies witnessed without 
 shame. 
 
 (4) Stoicism in this modified form was for long the 
 chief, though not the only philosophy. The four great 
 philosophies, viz : the Platonic, the Aristotelian, the 
 Stoic, and the Epicurean, were all represented in the 
 chairs which the Antonines founded and endowed 
 at Athens. Of these the Aristotelians and Epicureans 
 need not detain our attention, but of the Platonists 
 something must be said. Their best representative was 
 the famous and voluminous writer Plutarch of Chaeronea, 
 in Boeotia, who died 120 a.d. A Platonist in the 
 true sense he was not. A Platonist was impossible 
 during an age so poor in speculative thought. His 
 
 ^ See the introduction to the English translation of M. Aurelius 
 by Alice Zimmern. 
 
26 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 interest was occupied by morality and religion, and 
 though he borrowed from any philosophy suited to 
 his purpose, his best inspirations were caught from 
 the Platonic philosophy. He developed the Platonic 
 idea of the divine unity : he inherited the Platonic 
 dualism which tended to place the origin of evil in 
 matter, and he found the way to religious contentment 
 in rising to union with God by a moral and ascetic 
 life. His Monotheism, however, allowed him to recognise 
 a vast multitude of gods and demons who were the 
 secondary objects of religious worship. He himself 
 officiated as a heathen priest. 
 
 (5) More than a hundred years after Plutarch's death 
 Platonism entered on another phase and attained a 
 most remarkable degree of popularity. In this new 
 form it is known as Neoplatonism. Ammonius Saccas 
 who died in 245 is generally regarded as the founder of 
 the School. His most famous scholar Plotinus was 
 born in Egypt in the year 205, came to Rome in 244 
 and found numerous disciples there, among whom 
 were the Emperor Gallienus and his wife. He died in 
 270 ; his writings were arranged by his distinguished pupil 
 Porphyry, and in that form still survive. Neoplatonism has 
 really little claim to the name of a philosophy. Yet it 
 arose from the same want which philosophy professes 
 to satisfy ; it endeavoured to supply a basis of certainty. 
 The old beliefs had been shaken by scepticism. Amidst 
 the variety of opinion and usage prevalent in the Empire, 
 how could one be sure of anything ? The Stoics had 
 answered much as the Scotch philosophy answered 
 the scepticism of Berkeley and Hume. They appealed 
 to the ' common conceptions * of mankind. This was 
 
THE NEOPLATONISTS 27 
 
 casting out scepticism by scepticism, for acquiescence 
 in untested opinion is the negation of philosophy. No 
 Plato or Aristotle arose to solve the problem. But the 
 Neoplatonists, despairing of philosophy, took refuge 
 in religion, or rather in revelation. They believed that 
 traces of divine inspiration were to be found among 
 all nations. But the more ancient a worship was, or 
 professed to be, the richer, as the Neoplatonists thought, 
 was its treasure of divine wisdom. They were specially 
 attracted by the ancient worships of the east. But to them 
 every form of polytheism, when an allegorical method 
 of interpretation had refined the grossness of its 
 mythology, was holy and venerable. Their philosophy 
 tended more and more to become not philosophy, but 
 a theosophy. Revelation was the basis of certainty. 
 The philosopher had also to pursue personal holiness. 
 The ethics of the Neoplatonists were borrowed from 
 the Stoics. Besides this the strictest asceticism was 
 enjoined : abstinence from flesh and wine, and a single 
 life, were means of perfection. The philosopher was 
 to withdraw himself from the multiplicity of things to the 
 unity of reason. This, however, was not enough. God 
 is above reason, beyond all thought. The highest bliss 
 was reached, when thought ceased, and the philosopher 
 in ecstatic vision was united to the cause of all being 
 and all good. Plotinus, during the six years that 
 Porphyry spent with him, was rapt into ecstasy four times. 
 
28 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 % 5. Summary of Results. 
 
 To sum up. The age which preceded and 
 accompanied the growth of Christianity was an age 
 in which men, ideas, things, were mingled together. 
 The partition walls between nation and nation were 
 pulled down, and the belief in the unity of mankind 
 was strong. The spirit of genuine speculation was 
 dead : the literary splendour of Greece and Rome was 
 fading away, and sense and taste alike were spoiled by 
 garish rhetoric. But on the other hand, we find philoso- 
 phers of many schools contributing to form an ideal of 
 virtuous life. We find an increased spirit of humanity, 
 which shows itself in the improved condition of slaves, 
 in institutions for destitute children, in benevolent 
 confraternities. We find an intermingling of all 
 religions, and, partly as a result of this, a general 
 tendency to Monotheism : so that men retain the 
 belief in many gods, but regard them more and 
 more as manifestations of one divine spirit. Finally, 
 we see in Neoplatonism an attempt to merge philosophy 
 in religion, and particular religions in one universal 
 religion. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION. 
 
 § I. Why the Christian Mission travelled Westwards. 
 
 In the year 51 a.d., St. Paul had already preached 
 Christ among the Gentiles, and his efforts had met with 
 a success which compelled the older disciples to recognise 
 the spread of the gospel among the heathen as an 
 accomplished fact. From that time onwards the work 
 of conversion advanced, and always or almost always 
 in one direction. The good news travelled from east 
 to west : it travelled along the shores of the Mediterranean 
 sea, and Christianity established its first outposts in 
 the towns which were within a moderate distance of 
 the coast. The reasons for this are not far to seek. 
 
 (i) The Romans had swept away the pirates which had 
 once infested the great inland sea, and had opened 
 an easy and secure passage to the traveller. Again, 
 Christian missionaries journeyed west, because the 
 Roman Empire lay west of Palestine, which had been 
 the birth-place of the new religion. Within the Empire 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 they had all the advantages which were enumerated in 
 the preceding chapter on their side, — unity of government, 
 unity of language, religious, philosophical and social 
 ideas which were permeating the whole Roman world, 
 and adapting the soil for the reception of the new seed. 
 It is significant that the cities which represented best 
 the mixed character of Roman civilisation were just 
 those which supplied the largest number of converts. 
 Such was Antioch, such was Ephesus, such was 
 Alexandria, such was the new city of Corinth, which 
 Julius Csesar had founded and Augustus established, 
 such above all was Rome, the common centre in which 
 all nationalities were at home. Had the missionaries 
 taken the contrary direction and addressed themselves 
 to the natives in the far east, they would have met with 
 insuperable difficulties, and even if they had succeeded 
 in one nation, they would have had to begin their work 
 afresh in the next country to which they went. 
 
 (2) There was another reason which attracted Christian 
 missionaries to the shores of the Mediterranean. The 
 Jews had taken the same road before them, and the 
 Acts of the Apostles inform us that Paul and his fellow- 
 missioners always preached to the Jews first, and only 
 turned in the second resort to the Gentiles. Very likely 
 the Apostle made no formal rule of this kind, but there 
 is every reason to suppose that the book of the Acts 
 correctly states his actual practice. He could not well 
 do otherwise. He argued from the Old Testament, and 
 those who had no acquaintance with it could not possibly 
 understand the reasoning of one who 'through the law 
 * had died to the law.' Indeed, we may assume without 
 fear of serious error, that in Apostolic times even heathen 
 
ADDRESSED FIRST TO THE JEWS 31 
 
 converts had either been formerly Jewish proselytes 
 or had at least some knowledge of the Old Testament 
 in the Greek translation. Thus the Jews of the disper- 
 sion prepared the way for Christianity, and helped to 
 determine its geographical course, though they soon 
 became its bitter enemies. 
 
 § 2. The Jews in the Dispersion. 
 
 The Jews had spread from Palestine to Egypt and 
 further Syria, thence to Asia Minor till they had their 
 settlements in all the lands of the Mediterranean. As 
 early as 140 b.c, the Jewish Sibyl boasts that 'the whole 
 ' earth and sea were full ' of Jews. Here, of course, 
 allowance must be made for patriotic exaggeration, 
 but the allusions in classical writers abundantly prove 
 that the Jews formed an important and conspicuous 
 element in the population of the Roman world. 
 
 (i) The Jews of the early Roman Empire were in 
 one respect quite unlike the Jews of our own day. 
 They had not yet displayed on any large scale their 
 genius for finance. The Jews owed the wealth which 
 they acquired at a later period to the prejudice of 
 Christians; it was at a much later time than that with 
 which we have to deal that the world, having become 
 Christian, looked on loans at interest as criminal, and 
 left open to the Jews a door which the Christians had 
 closed against themselves. But the day of Jewish riches 
 was still distant. Here and there wealthy Jews were 
 to be found. There were princes like Herod Agrippa 
 
32 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 I., who was the favourite of Cahgula, and afterwards of 
 Claudius; and ladies of rank like Berenice the Jewish 
 beauty, whom Titus was on the point of marrying. 
 Generally, however, cultivated society only thought 
 of the Jews as of petty and squalid hucksters, who 
 lived in low parts of the town, as of a hateful and 
 contemptible race who obstinately separated themselves 
 from their fellowmen, and were addicted to a foolish 
 and lazy superstition. Their horror of pork, their 
 Sabbath day, their circumcision, all made them the butt 
 of Roman wit. 
 
 (2) Nevertheless, the Jewish religion was recognised 
 by law, and the Emperors paid it official respect. They 
 did everything to satisfy the Jews, provided that the Jews 
 would show themselves loyal subjects. The Jews were 
 not required to adore the genius of the Emperor. They 
 were excused from appearing in a court of law on the 
 Sabbath : if corn was distributed as a public dole on 
 that day, the Jews could receive it on another day 
 instead. They were not required to serve as soldiers. 
 More than that, the Jewish community in a heathen 
 town had formal authority to exercise civil jurisdiction 
 over its members, and was even permitted to decide 
 criminal cases and inflict corporal punishment within 
 certain limits. Hadrian, for we need not consider 
 the madness of Caligula, furnishes the only exception 
 to this general toleration. After the Jewish rising of 
 133, he forbade the Jews to practise circumcision. 
 However, this prohibition was withdrawn by the next 
 Emperor, Antoninus Pius, so far as it applied to those 
 who were Jews by birth. The law could not always 
 save them from the fury of the people, who were irritated 
 
POSITION OF JUDAISM 33 
 
 by their strict Monotheism. But a Jew, who practised 
 his religion peacefully, always had the Imperial 
 authorities on his side. Christians sometimes protessed 
 the Jewish religion with the express object of securing 
 the protection of the law. 
 
 (3) Judaism, despite the scoffs of literary men and ihe 
 hatred of the people, made many converts during the 
 first century and a half after Christ. Probably every 
 western synagogue had its proselytes, while in great 
 cities, especially in Rome, they were counted by 
 thousands. Josephus tells us that the general public 
 had long shown great interest in the Jewish religion : 
 
 * there is no town,' he adds, ' among Greeks or barbarians 
 ^ or anywhere else and no nation to which the observance 
 
 * of the Sabbath after our way has not penetrated, and 
 ^ in which the kindling of lights and many of our laws 
 'on food are not practised. '^ This propaganda was 
 due partly to that proselytising spirit which is so severely 
 condemned in the gospel according to St. Matthew, and 
 at which Horace laughs. But it was also due to the 
 conditions of a time in quest of new faiths and rites, 
 .and particularly inclined to eastern religions. Judaism 
 also owed much of its success to its intrinsic superiority. 
 It was originally a tribal and afterwards a national 
 religion : and it never ceased to be the religion of a 
 race : it never had the heart to deliver its message to 
 the world at large. Yet for a time it seemed to be 
 ■on the point of doing so. The Jews, exiled in foreign 
 lands, still held to the law. Some parts of the law, 
 however, necessarily fell into disuse. They were far 
 away from the temple, and so could not sacrifice. Most 
 
 ' Josephus, Against Apion, ii. 40. 
 
34 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 of them had no farm-land and no cattle; they could 
 not therefore keep the law of tithes. Accordingly, they 
 tended more and more to lay stress on Monotheism, 
 on the moral parts of the law, on the purity of their 
 family life. They were as yet content to use the Greek 
 version of their Scriptures; even the prayers in the 
 synagogue were said in Greek or Latin : the inscriptions 
 on the tombs in Jewish cemeteries were for centuries 
 after Christ written in Greek or Latin, not as now in 
 Hebrew. They could boast of writers quick to adapt 
 Greek philosophy and literature to the service of Jewish 
 Monotheism. In short, Judaism all but promised to 
 do what Christianity did, i.e. to supply the desideratum 
 of a moral, rational, and universal. Monotheism. But 
 from about the middle of the second century after 
 Christ the legal and exclusive phase of Judaism 
 obtained complete ascendancy. Far from seeking 
 proselytes, the Rabbis declared that a proselyte was 
 not to be trusted till the twenty-fifth generation. 'Day 
 ' and night,' said a great rabbi, ' are required for 
 
 * meditation on the law, that hour which is neither 
 
 * day or night may be given to the profane writings 
 'of the Greeks.' In this way Judaism shrunk into 
 its old limits, and Christianity took up the work which 
 had dropped from the hands of the Jew. Meanwhile 
 Judaism had been preparing the way for a daughter 
 better able than she to conquer and to rule. 
 
IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 
 
 35 
 
 § 3. The Spread of Christianity during the First Century. 
 
 The New Testament, and especially St. Paul's Epistles, 
 supply much authentic and tolerably full information 
 on the spread of Christianity in Apostolic times. 
 
 (i) The earliest evidence we have leads to the belief 
 that the first disciples fled to their native Galilee when 
 the crucifixion of their master plunged them into terror 
 and dismay. It was there apparently that their faith 
 and hope revived, there they were first convinced that 
 Jesus lived, not in the shadowy world of the dead, 
 but in heavenly glory. His spirit, as they thought, 
 had come from heaven and appeared for brief moments 
 to assure them of his victory over death and Hades. 
 Full of this new confidence, they returned to Jerusalem, 
 the holy city. Outwardly they were still Jews, observing 
 the law and worshipping in the temple. But they 
 "Were bound together and separated from other Jews 
 by their common belief that the risen Jesus was the 
 Messiah, that he had redeemed them by his death, and 
 that he would soon come, again in the clouds of heaven 
 to establish the kingdom of God. Even at Jerusalem 
 there was a large admixture of Jews from the other 
 countries of the Roman Empire, and we may well believe 
 that such of them as became Christians promoted a 
 liberal spirit among the disciples at Jerusalem, and 
 had a sense, more or less definite, that the religion 
 of Jesus was meant to be universal. Stephen, one 
 of those Hellenistic or foreign Jews, is represented 
 in the Acts of the Apostles as a champion of this larger 
 and nobler thought, and though the speech attributed 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 to him is evidently the composition of the narrator, 
 it may, and probably does represent Stephen's views. 
 Be that as it may, Stephen's death and the persecution 
 of the Christians which followed it, certainly promoted 
 the spread of the Gospel in a wider area. The new 
 teaching was proclaimed among the Samaritans, some 
 of whom received it. It established itself on the coast 
 of Palestine, not only in Joppa, but also in Caesarea, 
 a heathen town w^hich had its circus and theatre, its 
 temple dedicated to the worship of Caesar and Rome, 
 and in which Jews formed but a fraction of the 
 population. The next stages were Phoenicia, Cyprus, 
 and Antioch, which last was after Rome and Alexandria 
 the most populous and magnificent city in the world. 
 The mission at Antioch was, for more reasons than one, 
 a turning-point in the history of the new church. The 
 church at Antioch was not a colony from the mother 
 church at Jerusalem. It was planted by men from 
 * Cyprus and Cyrene ' on the north-eastern coast of 
 Africa, by men whose names have perished, but who 
 must have been Hellenistic Jews. Converts were made 
 at Antioch from the heathen world, and this rather by 
 force of circumstances than in virtue of any concerted 
 plan. The new doctrine may have spread from the 
 suburbs and poorer quarters of Antioch, till it reached 
 the centre of the city with its Greek civilisation. Thus 
 Christianity which had begun at Jerusalem was born 
 again at Antioch, and for the first time manifested 
 its independence of the Judaism from which it had 
 sprung. 
 
 (2) One consequence of the change was that the outer 
 world now recognised the disciples as a separate sect. 
 
IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 37 
 
 and gave them a name derived from the official title 
 of the leader whom they followed. Just as the followers 
 of Pompey or Herod were known as Pompeians or 
 Herodians, so the followers of Christ were now called 
 Christians. During Apostolic times the title was not, so 
 far as we know, used by the Christians themselves. 
 They spoke of each other as 'brethren/ 'believers,' and 
 the like, while the Jews called them Nazarenes. But 
 during the second century the title was accepted by 
 those on whom it had been imposed, and has been 
 cherished by them ever since. We may be sure that 
 the name Christian was given by persons who did not 
 understand that Christ was the Greek translation of 
 the Hebrew word Messiah. They took the word Christ 
 for a proper name, and when the disciples of the new 
 faith adopted it, they too did so with little thought of 
 their master's claims to be the Jewish Messiah. That 
 point was invested with supreme interest for the first 
 disciples: it held quite a subordinate place in the mind 
 of the later church, recruited as it was from the Graeco- 
 Roman world. 
 
 (3) A passing notice is all that can be given here to 
 the great Apostle who strove to free Christianity from 
 the limits of Judaism and to make it universal. He 
 first attracted attention at Antioch, which was not' far 
 distant from his native Tarsus. Antioch was the 
 starting-point of his first missionary journey. Thence 
 he sailed to Cyprus, landed in Asia Minor and visited 
 the cities of its southern coast. Afterwards he travelled 
 further west, crossed to Europe and established churches 
 at Philippi and Thessalonica, at Corinth, where he spent 
 a year and a half, and perhaps at Athens. Later, 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 Ephesus was the centre of his work, and he died, as 
 we shall see further on, at Rome. We know very 
 little about the work of the earlier disciples who had 
 lived with Jesus. We have the best possible evidence 
 (that of St. Paul) for St. Peter's appearance at Antioch, 
 and the tradition that he, like St. Paul, died at Rome, 
 is accepted by many competent and independent scholars. 
 The same may be said of another early tradition 
 according to which St. John spent the closing years 
 of his long life at Ephesus. The stories told about 
 the rest of the twelve are in part contradictory and vague 
 and are wholly worthless. 
 
 (4) What we know of Christianity during the time when 
 the little band of the original disciples was dying out, is, 
 briefly, this. It had its churches in Palestine, but 
 Palestine a few years after St. Paul's death lost much 
 of its hold on the Christian imagination. In a.d. 70 
 Jerusalem was stormed by Titus, the temple was 
 burnt down, and the city became a heap of ruins. 
 So it continued till in 136 a.d. or perhaps somewhat earlier 
 Hadrian built on its site the new city of ^lia Capitolina, 
 in which Jews were not even permitted to live. Beyond 
 Palestine, Christianity had won firm foothold in Antioch, 
 all along the coast of Asia Minor, and in some of the 
 inland cities, in Macedonia, and in Greece. It had 
 penetrated further south to Alexandria, where Mark the 
 Evangelist is said to have preached, and further west to 
 Rome, which after the fall of Jerusalem contained more 
 Jews than any other city in the world. Antioch, Alex- 
 andria, and Rome, were then, as they continued to be 
 long afterwards, the chief seats of the young church. 
 No authentic tradition survives to tell us how or by whom 
 
IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 39 
 
 the gospel was first brought to the imperial city. It is 
 certain that neither St. Peter or St. Paul can have founded 
 the church, and we must be content with the conjecture 
 that some Jewish proselyte to Christianity travelled to 
 Rome, persuaded a few of his countrymen to believe in 
 Jesus, and so laid the foundations of a church destined to 
 exercise the most momentous influence on the fortunes of 
 the world. St. Paul intended to visit Spain: that he 
 really did so is scarcely possible, though the behef that 
 he landed there can be traced to the latter part of the 
 second century. It must be remembered also that the 
 list of churches contemporary with the Apostles is apt, 
 even when reduced to its real bounds, to convey an 
 exaggerated impression. The churches may have been, 
 and generally were, very small. So long as the presence 
 of Christians did not stir the Jews to riotous assault, it 
 was scarcely felt by the great heathen world. Think for 
 example of the church at Corinth. Apparently all its 
 members were able to meet in a single house, that of 
 Gains {Rom. xvi. 23). We have no statistics of the 
 Pauline churches, and there is little advantage in con- 
 jecture based, e.g., on the number of persons in the 
 Ephesian church, whom St. Paul salutes in the last 
 chapter of the epistle to the Romans. It has been 
 thought that the number of St. Paul's converts in Asia, 
 Macedonia, and Greece, did not exceed a thousand in 
 all, nor is there any objection to this conjecture except 
 that it is mere conjecture. Of these, as St. Paul tells us, 
 not many were wise, not many were noble. Here and 
 there, however, exceptions occurred. At Corinth, St. Paul 
 counted Erastus, the treasurer of the city, among his con- 
 verts. Before the first century ended, the Christian faith 
 
40 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 is said to have had adherents even in the imperial family. 
 The evidence for this assertion does not reach absolute 
 certainty, but it rests on arguments which raise it to a 
 high degree of probability. We know from the historian 
 Suetonius that two near relations of the Emperor Domitian 
 were condemned by him. The one of these, Flavins 
 Clemens, was according to Suetonius a man ' of despic- 
 able inactivity,' and another heathen historian tells us 
 that he was put to death for 'atheism' and inclination 
 to Jewish customs. His wife, Domitilla, also a near 
 relation of the Emperor, was sent into banishment. So 
 far the accounts correspond very well with the idea con- 
 cerning Christians commonly held in the Roman world. 
 A useless life without interest in public affairs, 'atheism,' 
 or refusal to worship the gods of the state, were just the 
 charges made against them, and to the end of the first 
 century they were constantly confused with Jews or Jewish 
 proselytes. Further, Eusebius, quoting a heathen historian 
 who died about 220, expressly affirms that Domitilla was 
 a Christian. Lastly, in modern times a cemetery has 
 been discovered clearly intended for Christian burial, and 
 an inscription bears record that it was given 'by the 
 'kindness of Domitilla, niece of the divine Vespasian.' It 
 is situated near the cemetery in which the Roman bishops 
 of the second and third centuries were buried. ^ 
 
 ^ Sueton. Vit. Domitian. 15. Dio Cassius in the epitome of 
 Xiphilinus, Ixvii. 14. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iii. 18. 
 
ITS PROGRESS 41 
 
 § 4. Advance in the next two Centuries. 
 
 The reader will see that the great centres of Christian 
 influence during the first three centuries were already 
 occupied during Apostolic times; in Antioch, Alexandria, 
 Rome, the Christian cause was advancing and asserting 
 its power beyond the limits of the local church. Further, 
 the line along which Christianity was to travel had been 
 determined, and even the extent of its future conquests 
 was to some extent mapped out. During the remainder 
 of our period, i.e., in the second and third centuries, the 
 church on the one hand enlarged her borders by pressing 
 further west, and on the other occupied the territory 
 in which she had placed her garrisons much more 
 thoroughly. We may now proceed to sketch the geo- 
 graphical distribution of the church at the end of our 
 period, noting the time and manner in which the most 
 signal advances were effected. Once more, we shall 
 follow^ the old route, beginning with the east and ending 
 with the west. 
 
 (i) It has been said that Christianity made little progress 
 in an eastern direction. To this, however, there is one 
 notable exception. The Syrian city of Edessa, north- 
 east of Antioch and east of the Euphrates, became a great 
 seat of Christian teaching and of Christian literature. 
 The legendary account of a correspondence between 
 Jesus and Abgar, king of Edessa, is evidently fabulous, 
 nor can any trust be placed in the story that Addai, said 
 to have been one of the seventy disciples mentioned in 
 the third gospel, laboured in Syria. However, as these 
 legends took form at a very early time, they are proof 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 that the Syrian church had claims to great antiquity. 
 We know that Tatian, a Christian Apologist, who, though 
 a Greek by education, was born in Assyria, and was 
 possibly of Syrian origin, laboured in the Syrian church. 
 Somewhat later, towards the end of the second century, 
 Abgar, prince of Edessa, was a Christian: Edessene coins 
 of that time are stamped with the cross, and the chronicle 
 of the city records the destruction of a Christian church 
 by earthquake in 202. Moreover, about the same time, 
 if not earlier, the greater part of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments were translated by Christian hands into Syriac. 
 This version is substantially the same as that which is 
 used at this day by the Syrian Christians. The churches 
 which now use it are but the shadow of a glory which 
 was ruined by the Mohammedan conquests and has now 
 departed. But the Syriac church was once powerful; it 
 stretched far and wide ; it had a considerable theological 
 literature, and indirectly by the translation of Greek 
 philosophical works rendered great service to the Arabs, 
 and through them to western Europe. This, however, 
 does not concern us here. For our present purpose 
 it is more important to notice that Edessa was conquered 
 by Trajan, so that we can scarcely reckon the church of 
 Edessa an exception to the rule that the limits of the 
 Roman Empire were the limits of Christianity. But there 
 were Christian churches in the new Persian Empire 
 which arose in 226, and the ruler of the greater Armenia 
 (which was also independent of Rome) established Chris- 
 tianity as the national religion. Here the change from 
 heathenism to Christianity began in 286. In that year 
 Gregory, surnamed the Illuminator, returned from 
 Caesarea in Cappadocia. He had been carried thither 
 
EAST AND WEST 43 
 
 by his nurse when his family was massacred.^ He was 
 brought up in the Christian faith and carried it back to 
 his native land. Persuaded by his teaching, Tiridates 
 III. erected churches and schools. The Armenian 
 church had strong national characteristics. It always 
 stood more or less apart, and was soon completely 
 sundered from the church of the Roman Empire. 
 
 (2) Turning westward, we find Christianity pressing 
 from the southern and western coasts into the interior of 
 Asia Minor. Some additions also were made to the 
 Christian congregations on the coast. Smyrna, the 
 most imposing and wealthy town in Asia Minor, is 
 never mentioned in the New Testament, except in the 
 epistles to the seven churches at the beginning of the 
 Apocalypse, which were probably written after the 
 Apostolic age. Nothing, indeed, forbids us to suppose 
 that some disciple of St. Paul, or even St. Paul himself, 
 when Ephesus was his head-quarters, may have founded 
 the church there. Certain it is that the church was well 
 known in the second century, and the venerable form of 
 the martyred Polycarp who presided over it, is among the 
 most familiar in ecclesiastical history. On the north 
 coast Christianity as early as the beginning of the 
 second century threatened to take complete possession 
 of Bithynia. In Pontus, where the coast bends to the 
 north-east, the faith was revived, established, and greatly 
 extended by Gregory the ' Wonder-worker' in the latter 
 half of the third century. No detailed account of his 
 labours can be given, for his life, as the name ' Wonder- 
 worker ' indicates, became the subject of the wildest 
 and most incredible legends. But Gregory himself is 
 ^ It is said that he belonged to the royal house of Parthia. 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 a perfectly historical character, who has left authentic 
 writings. There is no reason to doubt that he gave a 
 Christian character to the country in which he took 
 up his abode ; and Neo-Caesarea, of which he was 
 bishop, became a place of mark in the universal church. 
 
 (3) Corinth continued to be the chief seat of Chris- 
 tianity in Greece, and one well-attested fact conveys 
 some idea of the progress which Christianity had made 
 in Greek lands. Eusebius tells us that Dionysius, who 
 was bishop of Corinth under M. Aurelius, wrote to the 
 churches of Athens and of Lacedaemon, and also to 
 those in the island of Crete. ^ 
 
 (4) From Alexandria the church travelled up the banks 
 of the Nile and permeated Egypt. At first the con- 
 verts were supplied by the Jewish and Greek 
 population, but native Egyptians also were added to 
 them. For the version of the New Testament in the 
 Sahidic dialect, i.e., in the Coptic of Upper Egypt, is 
 supposed to date from the third century after Christ, 
 and we learn that there were Christian confessors in 
 the Thebais during the persecution of Septimius Severus 
 (193-21 1 ). Closely connected with Egypt was the 
 fruitful province of Cyrenaica, which lay to the north- 
 west along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and is now known as Barca. It is not therefore sur- 
 prising to find Christians there as early as the middle 
 of the second century. 
 
 (5) In the west, Rome, the seat of empire, was also the 
 capital of Christianity. We learn from a letter of 
 Cornelius, bishop of Rome in the middle of the third 
 century, that the church of the metropolis had a large 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iv. 23. 
 
EGYPT, ITALY, AFRICA 45 
 
 Staff of clergy, and maintained no less than 1 500 indigent 
 persons from the common funds.^ We know nothing of 
 the way in which Christianity spreads to the other cities 
 of Italy and to those of Sicily. Worthless legends, 
 embodied in the Roman Martyrology, attribute the founda- 
 tion of many churches in these territories to St. Peter and 
 his disciples. We have however authentic information 
 that sixty bishops met at Rome in 251 a.d.,^ though 
 unfortunately we cannot tell the names of their sees. The 
 bishops of Capua, Milan, and Aquileia, attended the 
 council of Aries in 314.^ 
 
 (6) The church in Proconsular Africa was an offshoot 
 from that of Rome. Thence the faith spread along the 
 northern coast of Africa to the adjoining provinces of 
 Numidia and Mauretania. Here, as in so many other 
 places, the precise time and circumstances in which 
 Chrisdanity was planted cannot be ascertained. When 
 we first make acquaintance with the African church, 
 we find it already vigorous and influential. Agrippinus, 
 bishop of Carthage in the first twenty years of the third 
 century, was able to convoke a synod of seventy African 
 and Numidian bishops. ' We are of yesterday,' says 
 TertuUian, not probably without rhetorical exaggeration, 
 ' and we have filled your whole territory, cities and 
 'islands, fortresses and towns.' ^ Converts were made 
 from all classes, even from men in dignified and official 
 position;^ and TertuUian tells Scapula the governor of 
 Proconsular Africa that, if he means to destroy Chris- 
 tianity, he will have to kill every tenth man in Carthage, 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Reel. Hist. vi. 43, 11. ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. vi. 43. 
 
 ^ Hefele's Councils. I. Ch. iii. § 15 
 
 ^ TertuUian, Apologeticus, 37. ^ Apol. i. 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 the capital.! Qne fact, which rests on better evidence 
 than the fiery rhetoric of TertuUian, gives special interest 
 to African Christianity. It was the birth-place of the 
 first Christian literature in the Latin tongue. The 
 Roman church during the first two centuries was much 
 more Greek than Roman. The Roman bishops bear 
 Greek names, the earliest Roman liturgy was Greek, 
 the few remains of Roman Christian literature are Greek. 
 The Christian literature of Africa was written in Latin 
 almost from the first, and in the person of TertuUian, Africa 
 gave to the church of the Empire one of the only two 
 writers of conspicuous genius which it possessed till 
 the close of the third century. Through TertuUian, 
 Africa has left its mark on the popular theology of 
 the present d ay. Again a large majority of the scholars who 
 have devoted themselves to the investigation of the 
 subject believe that the first Latin version of the Bible was 
 made in Africa. If this theory be correct, we have another 
 instance of the way in which African Christianity has 
 affected the modern world. For the Roman Catholic 
 church still uses a version of the Psalms and of the New 
 Testament, which, though subjected to the revision of 
 St. Jerome, is yet identical in substance with that which 
 originated in the early African church. 
 
 (7) The first churches in Gaul were daughters, not of 
 Rome, but of Asia Minor, and maintained ties of close 
 friendship with the east. Lyons and Vienne in Provence 
 were apparently the oldest of the Gallic churches. 
 Pothinus, bishop of Lyons who died a martyr in 177, 
 and his successor Irenaeus, both came from Smyrna. A 
 letter describing the persecution of the Gallic Christians 
 
 ' To Scapula, 5. 
 
GAUL AND SPAIN 
 
 47 
 
 under Marcus Aurelius is addressed by the churches in 
 Vienne and Lyons to 'the brethren in Asia and Phrygia.'i 
 This letter, which is among the most precious remains of 
 Christian antiquity, was written in Greek. Irenaeus, the 
 first of the Gallic Christians who made a name as an 
 author, used the same language. It was slowly and 
 with great difficulty that the church advanced northward 
 and westward in Gaul. We have an authentic record 
 of the martydom of Saturninus, bishop of Toulouse, 
 in 250. According to Gregory of Tours seven mission- 
 aries came about this time from Rome and established 
 the churches of Toulouse, Aries, Paris, &c. There may 
 be some foundation for the story, which is not in itself 
 unlikely. But Gregory of Tours is too late and too 
 credulous an author to inspire much trust. 
 
 (7) Irenaeus and Tertullian testify to the existence of 
 the Spanish church in their own time, and it could 
 hardly fail to arise at an early date, considering the 
 constant intercourse between Spain and Italy. But we 
 have no means of determining the progress which Chris- 
 tianity had made in the Spanish peninsula when they 
 wrote. A council of bishops met at Elvira in Southern 
 Spain at the beginning of the fourth century, and at that 
 time there were Christian churches scattered through- 
 out the whole extent of the country. Seville, Malaga, 
 Cordova, Toledo, Merida, Leon, Saragossa, cities of 
 southern, middle, and northern Spain, were all re- 
 presented in the synod. Christianity had also established 
 itself at the end of the third century in the cities of 
 Romanised Germany, along the banks of the Rhine 
 and the Moselle, e.g., in Mayence and Treves, and 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v. I seq. 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 in the Roman provinces which lay to the south of the 
 Danube. Nowhere are the first beginnings of Chris- 
 tianity more utterly obscure than in the country which 
 has most interest for us, viz., in Britain. In 314 we find 
 the names of three British bishops appended to the acts 
 of the synod of Aries. These were the bishops of York, 
 then the capitalof Britain, of London and of Caerleon. 
 
 It was not, as has been already said, till the latter part of 
 the third century that Christianity struck root beyond the 
 eastern boundaries of the Empire. The conversion of 
 the northern barbarians followed much later, and during 
 the first three centuries the work had not been begun 
 on any great scale. True, if we believe Tertullian, there 
 w^ere places in Britain which had not been touched by 
 the Romans, and which were nevertheless ' subject to 
 Christ,' 1 and Irenseus speaks of 'many barbarous nations 
 ' on whose hearts salvation had been written by the spirit 
 'without paper and ink.' 2 But such vague statements 
 count for httle, though it is credible enough that a few 
 barbarians on the border-line of the Roman provinces 
 were influenced by Christian teaching. But the con- 
 version of a barbarian tribe must have affected its 
 whole manner of life, and raised it to a higher degree 
 of culture. Of any such change in any single case no 
 sign or token appears in the history of the first three 
 centuries. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Against the Jews, 7. 
 2 Against Heresies, iii. 4, 2. 
 
ITS PROPAGATION 49 
 
 § 5. How Churches Began. 
 
 As we review the ground over which we have gone, we 
 are struck by the mist which enshrouds the origin of the 
 early churches. Yet this is only what might have been 
 expected. In the early days of Christianity before the 
 church was organised, it grew and spread on no 
 fixed system, naturally and spontaneously. We are 
 accustomed to think of missionaries as of persons who 
 have been trained for their work, and are then sent forth 
 to a definite sphere with the formal sanction of the church 
 to which they belong. In the early church it was other- 
 wise. Its apostles (and it must not be forgotten that both 
 the name and office of an apostle outlived the times which 
 we call apostolic) were in one sense missionaries. But 
 they had no formal commission; they needed no human 
 education ; they sped hither and thither at the call of 
 some vision of the night or of the spirit which spoke to 
 their hearts. These apostles or wandering missionaries 
 come prominently forward in an early work recently 
 discovered, and known as the 'Teaching of the Apostles.' 
 Much later, Eusebius refers to wandering teachers of the 
 same kind, calling them, however, not apostles, but 
 evangelists. 1 Add to this that Christianity must have 
 been propagated by the brisk intercourse which was 
 constantly bearing merchants, soldiers, slaves, from one 
 part of the Empire to another. The commercial relations, 
 e.g., between Asia Minor and Gaul, Italy and Spain, 
 Italy and Africa, were such that it was impossible for 
 Christianity to exist in one of these countries without 
 
 ^ Teaching of the Apostles, xi. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. ill. 37, 2, 3. 
 
 E 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 crossing the sea and landing in the other. The disciples 
 would meet in a house, or there might at the same time 
 be independent gatherings in several houses of the same 
 city. How impossible to fix the moment when the 
 household meeting grew into a church ! How easy to 
 forget the name of him who first spoke about Jesus, 
 about his teaching, his death and his resurrection, to 
 those who till then had known none of these things. 
 When we enquire about the founder of an early church, 
 we may often be putting a question which is inapplicable. 
 For many of the early churches were not founded, but 
 grew. 
 
 § 6. Numbers of the Christians. 
 
 In what proportion did the number of the Christians 
 stand to the entire population of the Roman Empire ? 
 
 Unhappily we have no means of giving anything like 
 an exact or even an approximate answer to this question. 
 A modern scholar has calculated the proportion of Chris- 
 tians to the entire population, when the last persecution 
 was over and the first Christian Emperor reigned, as 
 about one fifteenth in the west, and perhaps one tenth 
 in the east. We have no data to justify this calculation. 
 But we have abundant proof that heathenism was able to 
 maintain a vigorous life for centuries after Christianity 
 had become the religion of the state. Nor is there the 
 least room for doubt that the Christians at the close of 
 the third century formed no more than a small minority 
 of the population. During the greater part of our period 
 they attracted little attention from the world at large. 
 
NUMBERS OF THE CHRISTIANS 51 
 
 Tacitus and Suetonius show by their brief and con- 
 temptuous notice that they knew little about Christianity, 
 and cared less. Epictetus and M. Aurelius dismiss it 
 with a scornful phrase. A few writers had more to say 
 on the subject; Lucian for example enlarges on Christian 
 credulity, probably because it supplied an easy mark for 
 his wit; and a few philosophic writers such as Celsus 
 and Porphyry thought it worth their while to argue 
 against Christian belief. But it is significant that Dio 
 Cassius who lived under Alexander Severus (222-235 a.d.) 
 and wrote the history of the Empire down to his own time, 
 never once mentions the name of Christian. Of course, 
 Christianity, like all other novelties, first became a power 
 in the great cities. The word Pagan, which meant 
 originally peasant, still testifies to the obstinate vitality 
 of the old religions among the country people. Even 
 here, however, there were exceptions, and that from 
 early times. To this the younger Pliny is a witness 
 beyond suspicion. He writes to Trajan in the year 112 
 that in the province of Pontus and Bithynia where he was 
 governor, or at least in some part of it, the ' infection ' of 
 Christian superstition had invaded not only the cities, but 
 also the small towns and country districts. It had come, 
 he says, to such a pass that the temples were nearly 
 deserted.i In Christian writers of the first, the second, 
 and the third centuries we have passing allusions to the 
 evangelisation of the country districts.^ Moreover, small 
 as the number of Christians may have been, they were 
 constantly increasing in numbers and in confidence. 
 
 ^ Pliny, Epp. x. 96 and 97. 
 
 - Clement of Rome, First Epistle, i. 42 ; Justin^ First Apology, 
 6t, Origen, Against Cdsus, in. g. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
 
 The older writers, indeed, did not think it possible that 
 the Empire would ever become Christian, and looked for 
 victory to the day when Christ would come to judge the 
 world. But about the middle of the third century, Origen 
 was confident that the time would come when of all 
 religions that of Christ 'alone would prevail, since the 
 * Word was ever winning more souls.' ^ This was a bold 
 and original view, first uttered, so far as can be known, by 
 Origen himself. 
 
 A century before Origen' s time the social position of 
 Christian converts had undergone some change. They 
 were no longer taken exclusively, or almost exclusively 
 from the ranks of the poor and simple. Christian monu- 
 ments in the Roman Catacombs confirm Tertullian's 
 boast that men of rank found their way into the church. 
 ' Rich people,' says Origen, ' some of those who hold 
 ' places of dignity, delicate and noble ladies, welome the 
 'followers of the Word.'^ With these came men of 
 philosophic training, who, while they strengthened the 
 Christian cause, profoundly modified the form and sub- 
 stance of Christian teaching. 
 
 ^ Origen, Against Celsus, viii. 68. 
 ^ Against Celsus, iii. 9. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY, AND THE 
 PERSECUTIONS. 
 
 § I. General Antipathy to Christian Religion. 
 
 The Christian church began its career in a world which 
 had been prepared during a long time and in many ways 
 for the reception of Christian teaching. When we con- 
 sider how strong and how numerous these influences 
 were, we naturally wonder that Christianity prevailed so 
 slowly and never did embrace more than a fraction of the 
 population, till it had enlisted the strong arm of Imperial 
 authority on its side. The fact is that this wonder would 
 be inexplicable were it not for our knowledge of counter- 
 acting causes. Christianity answered to many wants of 
 the individual and of society, but it also provoked preju- 
 dice, contempt, and hatred. More than this, it seemed to 
 offend, and to some extent it really did offend, that 
 patriotic passion which burnt in the hearts of noble and 
 enlightened men, during the best ages of the Roman 
 Empire. It was for these reasons that the fate of the 
 
54 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 new religion appeared at first to be desperate and then 
 to tremble in the balance. Looking back, we can see 
 that the final issue was certain from the outset. Yet 
 it was long before Christians dared to hope that the 
 Roman world would submit to the yoke of Christ, long 
 before the heathen adversaries felt any serious alarm. 
 
 (i) In one sense, as has been said, polytheism is 
 tolerant. Neither the Roman public nor the Roman 
 authorities cared to interfere with a man's belief. Nature- 
 worships which have grown up in a dim past, nobody 
 knows how, do not impose a creed, because they have no 
 settled belief which can be stated in a creed. They are 
 not theoretical, but practical. Certain rites are associated 
 by immemorial custom with the welfare of the family, the 
 tribe, the state. Sacrifice must be offered to the guardian 
 divinities; the worship must be paid according to a 
 prescribed ritual and sometimes in certain places and by 
 persons specially qualified. Myths or stories about the 
 gods arise, as attempts, more or less ingenious, to explain 
 why it is that some particular mode of worship must be 
 followed. The myth, however, is not the important point. 
 The myths are later than the rites which they profess to 
 explain ; they varied from time to time and in different 
 places; they had no canonical authority, for the Greeks 
 and Romans had no sacred books. Therefore on the 
 whole a Roman citizen, or the member of a subject state, 
 might think as he pleased. He must not, however, do as 
 he pleased. If he neglected the worship of the local 
 deities, and — much more — if he was disrespectful to them 
 in act or word, the god would be angry, and his curse 
 would strike not only the immediate offender, but also 
 those who tolerated him. Again each member of the 
 
 I ^;^e-^^] 
 
 ^7^ / 
 
CHARGES AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS 
 
 55 
 
 State was bound to promote its welfare by religious 
 observance. He had no more right to abstain from the 
 performance of his religious duties than to decline pay- 
 ing taxes. This was the view generally received in the 
 Roman world and from the polytheistic stand-point no 
 other view was either possible or conceivable. 
 
 (2) We can now understand the first charge popularly 
 made against the Christians, the first reason which ex- 
 posed them to bitter hatred. It was said that they were 
 * atheists,' and, strange as the accusation sounds to us, it 
 was one which the populace could not help making. 
 Here were people who had no altars, no temples, no 
 sacrifice, and who absolutely refused to recognise the 
 gods whom everybody else adored. To the outer world 
 the spiritual worship of the Christians was simply un- 
 intelligible ; their religion was no religion at all. Early 
 Christian literature testifies to the constant repetition of 
 this reproach. ' Away with the atheists,' was the cry of 
 the mob when a Christian martyr was led to execution.^ 
 In public calamities, the people with fanatical fury 
 demanded Christian blood. The Christian 'impiety' 
 had drawn down divine vengeance, and there was 
 no hope of relief till the anger of the gods was 
 appeased by punishment of the malefactors. ' They 
 'think the Christians to blame for every public 
 ' calamity, for every hurt that touches the people. 
 ' If the Tiber rises to the walls, if the Nile does not 
 ' rise over the fields, if the sky stands still [and does not 
 'fall in rain], if the earth moves, if there is famine or 
 'plague, immediately the shout is raised, "To the lions 
 
 ^ Martyrdom of Polycarp, 3. 
 
56 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 'with the Christians." '^ The position of the Christians 
 was unique. Sometimes, indeed, Epicureans and Chris- 
 tians were associated in the popular mind, since both 
 were supposed to contemn religion. But the irreligion 
 of the Epicureans was less guilty and much less offensive. 
 For they at least were ready when occasion offered, to 
 take part in the public rites, and to yield outward respect 
 to opinions which they did not hold. 
 
 (3) People so irreligious were thought capable of any 
 crime, and this suspicion was aggravated by the secrecy 
 of the Christian assemblies. It was reported and gener- 
 ally believed that the Christians availed themselves of the 
 darkness of night to practise the deeds of darkness, to 
 hold cannibal feasts and to indulge in the most horrible 
 immorality. They were a ' sect which fled from the light 
 and hid in holes,' ^ and this for most sufficient reasons. 
 It was also believed that the Christians practised magic, 
 and their faith was often described as a ' magical super- 
 stition,' an accusation which may have partly arisen from 
 the fact that the Christians did claim to cast out demons 
 and to heal diseases miraculously. As for the Christian 
 worship itself, the wildest notions were entertained con- 
 cerning it. Thus it was said that Christians worshipped 
 the head of an ass,^ an absurdity attributed in the first 
 instance to the Jews. Tertullian mentions this strangebelief 
 of his heathen countrymen, and his statement has been 
 confirmed by a discovery made in 1856. Excavations in 
 the Palatine Mount at Rome brought to light a chamber 
 which had been buried underground ; a drawing made 
 with some iron instrument on the stucco of the wall, 
 
 ^ Tertullian, ApoL 40, Against the Nations (i.e. Heathen) i, 9. 
 2 Minucius Felix, Octavius,8. ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 16. 
 
CHARGES AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS 57 
 
 represents a figure with human body and ass's head 
 nailed to a cross, while a man stands below in the 
 attitude of prayer. Still further the Greek inscription 
 in rude but perfectly legible letters runs thus — 'Alex- 
 amenos worships [his] god.' 
 
 (4) The feeling of the populace to the Christian com- 
 munities was a mixture of contempt, horror, and dread. 
 With the more educated classes contempt predominated. 
 ' If a man be educated,' says Celsus, in mockery, ' let 
 ' him keep clear of us Christians ; we want no men of 
 
 * wisdom, no men of sense. We account all such as 
 ' evil. No ; but if there be one who is inexperienced-, 
 ' or stupid, or untaught, let him come with good heart.' 
 ' They are weavers, shoemakers, fullers, illiterate clowns.' 
 'The greater part of you,' says Caecilius, 'are worn with 
 
 * want, cold, toil, and famine ; men collected from 
 'the lowest dregs of the people, ignorant, credulous 
 
 * women. '^ These accounts of the class in society from 
 which converts were made, had ceased to hold good at 
 least as early as the beginning of the third century. 
 But mockery on this score continued to pursue the 
 Christians even after the establishment of the Christian 
 religion by Constantine ; and Julian, his reactionary 
 successor, condescended to use the old weapon of 
 ridicule. Accordingly, since, as was taken for granted, the 
 Christians belonged to the lowest classes, their credulity 
 excited no surprise, and their patient courage in suffering 
 was set down as perverse obstinacy. This obstinacy was 
 their characteristic offence in the eyes of cultivated men, 
 such as the younger Pliny, Epictetus, and M. Aurelius. 
 
 ^ Newman's Grammar of Assent, p. 461, from which the last 
 three translations are taken. 
 
58 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 § 2. Christianity Illegal. 
 
 If the Christians had merely made themselves hateful 
 and contemptible, if they had merely aroused the suspicion 
 of statesmen by the secrecy of their meetings and their 
 withdrawal from public life, they might still have 
 appealed to the protection of the Roman law. They 
 themselves felt that they lived under a system of equal 
 justice and not under the absolute sway of tyrants.^ As 
 it was, however, no appeal could be made to justice, and 
 the only hope of the Christians lay in the mercy and 
 humanity of their rulers. From the outset, Christianity 
 lay under the ban of the Roman law. There was no 
 need of new enactments, it had been condemned by 
 anticipation in the very infancy of the Roman constitution. 
 
 (i) First, Christianity fell under the ban of the law, 
 because it was a new religion. The ancient law of the Ten 
 Tables thus formulated the prohibition of any such in- 
 novation — 'Let no one have gods apart or worship new or 
 'strange gods privately, unless these gods be admitted 
 *by public authority.' This law applied to Roman 
 citizens, for of course foreign subjects of Rome were 
 allowed and expected to worship their national deities, 
 nor was the prohibition in the case of Roman citizens 
 absolute. The state, in time of war, plague, or the 
 Hke, might adopt foreign worships, which were sanc- 
 tioned by the college or board of Pontiffs. But a new 
 worship meant the introduction of an agency too power- 
 ful for committal to private hands. Under the Empire 
 this law became impracticable, but it was never repealed, 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 2. 
 
WHY IT WAS ILLEGAL 59 
 
 and always lay ready for use against the Christians. The 
 penalty, if the criminal belonged to the upper classes, con- 
 sisted in banishment to an island : persons of humble 
 station were liable to death. The practice of magic 
 obviously included all the dangers attendant on the 
 introduction of a new religion in an aggravated form, 
 and was visited with the same penalties. The Romans 
 called the wizard ' maleficus,' that is, ' the evil doer ' by 
 pre-eminence.. On this count also the Christians were 
 liable to prosecution, their religion being constantly asso- 
 ciated with the black art in the public mind. 
 
 (2) Next, and this was a much more serious matter, 
 Christians were liable to the penalties of sacrilege and 
 high treason, of sacrilege for refusing to worship the 
 gods of the state, of high treason for refusing to worship 
 the genius of the Emperor in whom the majesty of the 
 state was embodied, with the customary offerings of wine 
 and incense. For these two kindred crimes the punish- 
 ments were most severe. Persons of condition might 
 be decapitated; the magistrate might sentence those of 
 inferior station to death by burning, or by crucifixion, or 
 he might have them flung to the wild beasts in the 
 amphitheatre. Moreover, a Roman citizen accused of 
 high treason might be put to the torture, a mode of 
 question which in all other charges was reserved for slaves. 
 
 (3) Lastly, a Christian congregation with its frequent 
 meetings, common funds, and social meals, was in the 
 eyes of the law a club. Now clubs were forbidden 
 and rigidly suppressed by the Imperial authorities. In a 
 few cases the law was relaxed, the members of a trade 
 were allowed to form themselves into a guild, and benefit 
 clubs for the interment of the dead were permitted. 
 
6o LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 After a time, Christians availed themselves of the leave 
 given to form burial clubs, and in this way they acquired 
 property in land which they used ostensibly for burial of 
 the dead, but also for secret religious meetings. It is 
 to be observed, however, that the Roman magistrates in 
 their nervous dread lest any club might be perverted for 
 political purposes, required even industrial and burial 
 clubs to ask the approval of government, which was 
 only given on strict conditions. It is obvious that Chris- 
 tians could not justify before the courts associations 
 which on the face of the matter were sacrilegious and 
 treasonable. 
 
 § 3. Varying Rigour of the Magistrates. 
 
 The execution of these laws rested at Rome with the 
 Prefect of the city, and in the provinces with the 
 governors. A good deal depended on the humour of 
 the official in charge, on the temper of the people, and 
 the disposition of the magistrate to pamper or control 
 it. Hence penalties might be inflicted with varying 
 severity in neighbouring provinces, and in the same 
 province one governor might leave the Christians alone, 
 while another might treat them according to the rigour 
 of the law. Thus in Proconsular Africa, Scapula, who 
 administered the government there about 211, persecuted 
 the Christians with appalling barbarity : yet some of his 
 predecessors in the same province had devised pretexts 
 for letting the Christians escape, and at the very time 
 when Scapula was torturing his Christian subjects, and 
 
WHY IT WAS PERSECUTED 6i 
 
 exposing them to horrible deaths, the governors of 
 Mauretania and of Leon in Spain simply beheaded 
 obstinate Christians.^ It must be added that bribery 
 often obtained alleviation of their imprisonment, and 
 even complete exemption for Christians. 
 
 (i) It has been thought strange that some of the best 
 Emperors persecuted the Christians, while it was under 
 some of the worst that the church lived in entire or 
 comparative peace. There is, however, nothing surprising 
 in this. A good Emperor like Trajan, M. Aurelius, or 
 Decius, would feel bound to administer the law. He 
 might wish to do so with all possible humanity : still, 
 he would consider it his duty to see that the law was 
 carried out. Moreover, patriotic Emperors, such as those 
 just named, hated Christianity because they were 
 patriotic. It seemed to undermine, nay, really did 
 undermine, the foundations of the whole social fabric. 
 How could they foresee that new and better order which 
 was to arise under Christian influence from the ruins 
 6i the older civilisation ? The Christians themselves, 
 as we have observed, had no presentiment during the 
 first two centuries and a half of the church's history, 
 that any new social order would arise. They only felt 
 sure that the old order was doomed, and were not slow 
 to express their conviction. On the other hand, a 
 worthless tyrant might indeed glut his thirst for blood 
 by persecuting Christians, but he might favour them 
 from some personal caprice, and he would feel no 
 obligation to execute the laws, unless personally inclined 
 to do so. Thus the cruel and profligate Commodus 
 gave their freedom to the Christian confessors who had 
 
 ^ Tertullian, To Scapula, 4. 
 
62 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 been condemned to work in the Sardinian mines. He 
 did so at the request of Marcia, his Christian mistress ; 
 ' the God-loving Marcia,' a contemporary Christian 
 writer calls her.^ Again, an Emperor whose blood 
 and sympathies were Oriental rather than Roman, would 
 be free from the genuine Roman aversion to the new 
 and barbarous religion. Elagabalus and Philip the 
 Arab are instances of worthless Emperors of eastern 
 proclivities who favoured Christianity : we shall find 
 Severus Alexander pursuing a like course from nobler 
 and more reasonable motives. We must consider further 
 that the disasters of the Empire and the fact that the 
 men in power had their hands full, told in favour of the 
 Christians. An Emperor who was occupied with 
 intestine feuds, or with war against barbarian invaders, 
 was apt to forget the Christians and to leave them alone. 
 (2) Nevertheless, the Christians held an unique position 
 which could not fail to attract the lightning of Imperial 
 vengeance. There were other new religions, and on 
 the whole they were tolerated. Magicians were often 
 tolerated in practice : so were some of the clubs which 
 defied the law and honey-combed the Roman world. 
 The peculiarity of the Christian position was that it 
 united in itself so many different kinds of illegality, 
 so many causes of popular hatred and distrust. The 
 Christians stood alone — if we put aside the Jews, who were 
 excused on hereditary grounds — in their obstinate refusal 
 to recognise the worship of the State, which to the 
 Roman mind was all one with the refusal to acknowledge 
 the State itself. When the Christians were sufficiently 
 numerous, they constrained attention chiefly by 
 
 1 Philosophumena, ix. I2. 
 
WHY IT WAS PERSECUTED 63 
 
 characteristics which were really honourable to them, 
 but which were misunderstood; by that common love 
 which overstepped all division of race and class, by their 
 withdrawal from a world which ' lay in iniquity,' and 
 sometimes also by a fanaticism which cannot be justified, 
 though it admits of easy excuse. The belief that 
 martyrdom gave immediate admission to heavenly 
 glory, caused that feverish thirst for a martyr's death 
 which is so prominent in the Ignatian epistles. The 
 Puritanical rigorism of many Christians condemned 
 even innocent participation in public rejoicings, and 
 a Christian soldier under Septimius Severus died rather 
 than wear a garland on his head, when he went before 
 the tribune with the other soldiers to receive his pay. 
 Some Christians held all flight from persecution to be 
 unlawful, and occasionally fanatics brought death on 
 themselves by a gratuitous profession of their faith before 
 the tribunal of the magistrate, or by violent insults to the 
 idols and the temples. It is only fair to say that the 
 common sense of the Church reprobated these excesses. 
 
 § 4. The Three Periods of Persecution. 
 
 The history of the persecutions falls naturally into 
 three periods. During the first of these Christians were 
 exposed to violence and injustice, but had not, so far as 
 can be ascertained, been brought before the tribunals 
 as the adherents of a new and unlawful religion. It 
 extends from the beginning of Christianity to the reign of 
 Trajan. The second period begins with the edict of 
 
64 LEGAL POSITLON OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Trajan addressed to the younger Pliny in the year 112. 
 That edict regulated the judicial procedure against 
 persons accused of Christian superstition for about 150 
 years. The rule laid down was that Christians were 
 not to be sought out, but that if they were brought 
 before the tribunals and remained obstinate, they were 
 to be punished according to law. A new era began with 
 the reign of Decius (249-251.) This Emperor opened 
 the series of general and systematic persecutions con- 
 ducted by the State, with the deliberate design of 
 exterminating the Christian religion. This third period 
 closes with the year 313, in which the edict of Milan 
 gave the Christians the legal right to exist. Thus, the 
 reigns of Trajan and Decius constitute the great dividing 
 Hues. The characteristics of these eras will be explained 
 further on more accurately and fully. Meantime, it 
 may be well to warn the reader that the popular list 
 of ten great persecutions has no historic worth, and 
 is simply misleading. It first appears in St. Augustine 
 and was probably fixed on some fanciful principle, e.g. 
 that the ten persecutions answered to the ten plagues 
 of Egypt, or the ten horns on the head of the beast in the 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 § 5. The First Period. 
 
 (i) It is plain from St. Paul's epistles, and from the 
 Acts of the Apostles, that the Christians had much to 
 suffer from the first. But it was not the Roman magistrate 
 who was their enemy. He on the whole was their 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 65 
 
 protector : it was their Jewish countrymen who pursued 
 them with implacable hatred, and occasionally contrived 
 to excite the heathen populace. For a time, the Roman 
 authorities, and the public in general, made little or no 
 distinction between the Nazarenes and other Jews. 
 Hence the complaint of the impostors at Philippi when 
 St. Paul had exorcised the hysterical girl, and deprived 
 her masters of the gain they made by her soothsaying : 
 * These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our 
 ' city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for 
 ' us to receive or to observe, being Romans.' Hence 
 Gallio, the Proconsul at Antioch, is said to have treated 
 the question between St. Paul and his opponents as 
 a question of Jewish law, which need not trouble him. 
 Hence, the Jews at Ephesus felt the need of putting 
 forward Alexander as their spokesman, with the view 
 of dissociating their cause from that of the new teaching, 
 and from the odium which it had drawn upon itself. 
 The same confusion underlies the famous but obscure 
 statement of the Roman historian Suetonius. ^ He tells 
 us that the Emperor Claudius ' drove out of Rome the 
 'Jews who were excited to constant riot by Chrestus.' 
 We know from other sources that the heathen sometimes 
 mistook the meaning of the title 'Christus,' {i.e. anointed) 
 and pronounced or wrote it ' Chrestos ' {i.e. 'good'' or 
 'simple.'^) Suetonius had apparently heard some dim 
 and confused rumour of the disputes between the Roman 
 Jews and the Roman Christians on the claims of Jesus 
 to be the Christ or Messiah. It was on account of these 
 riots that Claudius, in the latter part of his reign, expelled 
 or, it may be, only intended to expel the Jews from 
 
 ^ Sueton. Vit. Claud. 25. ^ Tertullian, Apologetuus, 3. 
 
 F 
 
66 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Rome. Clearly, Claudius, to judge from the words 
 of Suetonius, drew no line of demarcation between 
 Jews and Christians. The latter were still 'under the 
 ' protection of a religion which was most distinguished 
 *and undoubtedly lawful.'^ But on the other hand, they 
 had to share in the disrepute and misfortunes of the Jews 
 with whom they were associated. 
 
 (2) Under Nero, the stepson and successor of Claudius, 
 the Christians for the first time take a distinct place 
 in the history of the Roman world. Suetonius simply 
 says, that ' the Christians, a class of people addicted 
 * to a new and magical superstition, were severely 
 'punished. '2 Tacitus, who was eight or ten years old 
 at the time of the persecution, and must therefore have 
 grown up among those who had witnessed it, has left 
 us a much fuller and more striking picture. In the 
 year 64, the greater part of Rome was burnt down, and 
 the suspicion gained ground that Nero himself was the 
 guilty cause of the calamity. He was naturally anxious 
 to divert the odium elsewhere, and he resolved to 
 make the Christians the scape-goat of popular fury. 
 It was necessary that he should make a clear distinction 
 between Christians and Jews, for he was enslaved by 
 the influence of Poppaea, a Jewish proselyte, who had 
 already proved herself ready to protect the religion which 
 she had embraced. Poppaea cannot have failed to know 
 something of the Christians, and it has been conjectured 
 that she actually suggested the accusation which Nero 
 made against them. The course which things took, 
 may be best told in the words of Tacitus. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 21. ^ Sueton. Vit. Neron. 16. 
 
NERO 67 
 
 Nero, to put an end to the common talk, imputed it to others, 
 visiting with a refinement of punishment those detestable criminals 
 who went by the name of Christians. The author of that denom- 
 ination was Christus, who had been executed in Tiberius' time 
 by the procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pestilent superstition, 
 checked for a while, burst out again, not only throughout Judea, 
 the first seat of the evil, but even throughout Rome, the centre 
 both of confluence and outbreak of all that is atrocious and 
 disgraceful from every quarter. First were arrested those who 
 made no secret of their sect; and by this clue a vast multitude 
 of others, convicted, not so much of firing the city, as of hatred 
 to the human race. Mockery was added to death ; clad in 
 skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs ; they were 
 nailed up to crosses ; they were made inflammable, so that when 
 day failed, they might serve as lights. Hence, guilty as they 
 were, and deserving of exemplary punishment, they excited 
 compassion, as being destroyed, not for the public welfare, 
 but from the cruelty of one man. ^ 
 
 (3) From this account it follows that Nero, though he 
 persecuted Christians, made no direct attack on their 
 religion. They were accused of arson in its worse form, 
 but not of breaking the law against the introduction of a 
 new religion. It follows next that the Christians, as 
 early as 64 a.d., were known by ■ that name to the 
 Roman mob: the words of Tacitus are express on 
 this point, and there is no reason to doubt his accuracy. 
 Further, although public opinion did not support Nero 
 in his atrocious accusation, and men even felt some little 
 pity for the sufferers, it was generally believed that 
 the Christians were capable of almost any enormity. 
 They were guilty of 'hatred to the human race.' They 
 did in fact look forward to the conflagration of the 
 world, and by an easy process of reasoning, it was 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Ann. xv. 44. 
 
 F2 
 
€8 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 taken for granted that they wished and were ready 
 to promote the end which they expected. 'They 
 threaten/ said their opponents, ' the whole earth and 
 
 * the universe, stars and all, with conflagration ; they 
 
 * plot ruin.'i Of this general repute Nero took advantage. 
 But the persecution was in the strictest sense local : 
 it is only later legend which extended it beyond the 
 precincts of Rome. It was also accidental : as yet, 
 no general measure arraigned those who confessed 
 the name of Christ. The persecution, however, had 
 one momentous result, if, as is probably the case, St. 
 Paul perished in it. It also served to secure that 
 immortal infamy for the name of Nero which is strongly 
 marked in the veiled and symbolical imagery of the 
 Apocalypse attributed to John. 
 
 (4) The suspicious nature of Domitian led him to 
 banish a certain number of Christians, and we have 
 already discussed the reasons for believing that two 
 members of the Imperial family were implicated in 
 the charges made against the Christians.^ Hegesippus,^ 
 who lived about fifty years after Domitian's death, tells 
 a curious story about the Emperor and two grandsons 
 of Jude the brother of Jesus. He says that Domitian 
 examined two brothers who were descendants of Jude, 
 for fear that their claim to spring from the royal house 
 of Judah might make them dangerous politically. He- 
 found, however, that they were poor and horny-handed 
 peasants, whose hopes of a Davidic kingdom lay in 
 another world, not in this. Accordingly, he let them 
 go in peace, so that they lived till the reign of Trajan 
 
 1 Minucius Felix, Octavius, xi. i. ^ See page 40. 
 3 Quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. ill. 20. 
 
DOM IT I AN 6g 
 
 and ' presided over the churches.' Nothing can be built 
 directly on a story which looks so apocryphal, but it 
 shows that in the belief of Hegesippus, Domitian was 
 little inclined to prosecute Christians as such. This 
 opinion is confirmed by Tertullian; Domitian, he writes, 
 * who had a fraction of Nero's cruelty, had tried [to 
 'persecute] but readily, as accorded with the man's 
 ' character, put a stop to the beginning which he 
 'had made.'i Nobody pretends that the next Emperor, 
 Nerva, did the Christians any harm. Indeed, we learn 
 that he forbade accusations of 'impiety' and 'Jewish 
 ways ' and so shielded Christians from charges which 
 spite or avarice might have brought against them. 
 
 § 6. The Second Period. 
 
 The persecution of Christianity in the proper sense of 
 the word was inaugurated by Trajan, and he settled those 
 legal relations between the new religion and the state 
 which lasted from the beginning of the second century 
 till the year 249. 
 
 (i) Trajan's edict was occasioned by a letter from the 
 younger Pliny, who in 1 12 was administering the provi-nce 
 of Bithynia and Pontus, as pro-praetor. 
 
 (a) He found his province overrun with the new sect. 
 He tells his master Trajan what he had done. If Chris- 
 tians were brought before his tribunal, he required them 
 to offer wine and incense before the image of the 
 Emperor, and to curse Christ. If they complied, as 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 5. 
 
70 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 many did, he did not molest them further. If on the 
 other hand, they confessed themselves Christians and 
 were steadfast in their confession, he questioned them 
 a second or a third time, threatening them with punish- 
 ment : if they still refused to comply, he sent them to 
 immediate execution, deeming that their obstinacy in 
 any case deserved death. He made an exception of 
 Roman citizens tainted with 'the same madness,' send- 
 ing these for trial to Rome. Pliny also says that after 
 putting two female slaves to the question by torture, he 
 could discover no immorality on the part of the Chris- 
 tians; on the contrary, one object of their society seemed 
 to be the promotion of pure and honest life. So far 
 Pliny's measures had been attended with considerable 
 success. The temples which had been all but deserted, 
 were again thronged with worshippers, and the sacrificial 
 victims which had become almost unsaleable, found 
 purchasers. Moreover, Pliny's edict which gave effect 
 to his sovereign's prohibition of clubs or societies, had 
 produced its effect, for the Christians had in consequence 
 desisted from their common meal. So much Pliny had 
 done on his own judgment, for before this time he had 
 never witnessed the trial of Christians.- Considering 
 therefore the number of lives at stake, he desired 
 instructions from Rome. 
 
 {b) Trajan's answer is short and pointed. The Chris- 
 tians are not to be sought out : no anonymous charges 
 against them are to be received, for this would be a 
 'precedent of the worst kind and unsuited to our age.' 
 Even if accused in due order, and suspected of the 
 Christian superstition, they are not to be troubled further 
 if they will supplicate the gods. But in case of obstinate 
 
THE POLICY OF TRAJAN 71 
 
 refusal, punishment was to be inflicted. The Emperor 
 entirely approves of the course which Pliny had taken, so 
 that capital punishment must be meant. 
 
 [c] The rescript was worthy at once of Trajan's humanity 
 and patriotism ; of his humanity, for it avoids hard 
 measures, so far as was possible, and discountenances 
 the odious trade of the informer ; of his patriotism, for 
 Trajan from his point of view could not tolerate a 
 system which would have undermined the whole structure 
 of Roman poHty. It has been said that Trajan's letter 
 inaugurated a new epoch. It was not that he changed 
 the law; Christianity as we have seen, was implicitly con- 
 demned by laws far older than itself. But Trajan realised, 
 and we have at least no record of any prior realisation, the 
 exact relation in which Christianity stood to the law, and 
 clearly laid down the proper method of procedure. The 
 days when Christianity could shelter itself under the wing 
 of Judaism had passed away. The persecution of Chris- 
 tians no longer needed popular misrepresentation or 
 corrupt motives in the magistrate. The clamour against 
 Christians could now take the form familiar in later 
 persecutions, Non licet esse vos, ' the law does not permit 
 'you to exist.' We may be quite sure that Trajan, 
 humane as he was, would have gone to work in sterner 
 fashion, had he lived late enough to witness the alarming 
 increase of the Christians in numbers and influence. 
 
 (2) Trajan died in 117; the reigns of Hadrian, 
 Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius, and Commodus, all of whom 
 followed in peaceful and orderly succession, extend nearly 
 to the end of the second century, viz., to 193. Hadrian 
 shewed himself in the earlier part of his reign a wise 
 and humane ruler, he patronised philosophy and literature, 
 
72 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 though in these respects he was a i^iere dilettante. He 
 was half sceptic, half devotee, and never wholly serious, 
 till the fanciful humours which were characteristic of him 
 changed during the closing years of his hfe into settled 
 gloom. To him the various phases of religion were an 
 object of eager curiosity : in a letter which he wrote after a 
 visit to Egypt he makes casual mention of Christianity, but 
 he put it on the same level with the worship of Serapis, and 
 believed that, for all their sanctimonious pretences, money 
 was the true god, both of Egyptian priests and of Chris- 
 tian presbyters. ' This is the deity whom Christians and 
 'Jews, yes, and all nations worship.' i There is only one 
 case of a well-authenticated martyrdom during his reign, 
 and in a rescript to the proconsul of Asia Hadrian 
 protected the Christians from vexatious charges, and 
 insisted that their prosecution should be conducted in 
 strict accordance with the law. 
 
 (3) We hear more of martyrdoms under Antoninus 
 Pius. Merciful as this Emperor was, he could not always 
 protect the Christians from the popular fury, aggravated 
 as it was by the physical calamities, earthquakes, famines, 
 and pestilence, which beset an Empire preserved by the 
 wisdom of its ruler from the scourges of war and misrule. 
 We have an example of the popular feeling in the martyr- 
 dom of Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, which is 
 now generally thought to have happened in this reign. 
 The federation of Asiatic towns was holding its annual 
 festival at Smyrna, and eleven Christians (we do not 
 know how the persecution began) had been killed by 
 
 ^ The text of the letter is given in Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers, 
 part II., vol. i. p. 464. It has been preserved by Vopiscus, Vita 
 Saturnini, 8. 
 
IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 73 
 
 wild beasts in the amphitheatre, to the dehght of the 
 spectators. Then a cry arose, ' Away with the atheists. 
 *Let search be made for Polycarp.' Mounted police 
 fetched him from his retreat in the country : when he 
 refused to deny Christ, a savage howl arose from Jews 
 and heathens, and as the sports were over, he was burnt 
 alive, instead of being thrown to the lions. Here it is 
 worth notice that Trajan's rules were transgressed. The 
 accused man was sought out, and this, though no accusa- 
 tion had been made in regular and legal form. 
 
 Another story which rests on good evidence, lights up 
 another side of the conflict between Christianity and 
 heathenism. A woman being converted to Christianity 
 refused to gratify her husband in his foul desires ; and after 
 vain endeavours to make him lead a better life, finally 
 separated from him. In revenge, he accused her of 
 being a Christian. The trial was deferred at her petition, 
 in order that she might settle some private affairs. Mean- 
 time her husband turned upon her instructor and brought 
 him before the court. The accused man confessed his 
 faith and was executed. Two other men who remons- 
 trated with the judge and avowed their Christianity, 
 suffered with him. Justin, who tells the story, adds 
 that he too expected a similar fate.^ 
 
 (4) Under the next Emperor, M. Aurelius, Christian 
 blood flowed more freely than at any other time during 
 the whole course of the first two centuries. 
 
 {a) More causes than one predisposed M. Aurelius to 
 severity. As a just ruler, he esteemed himself the minister 
 of the law, which he was bound to execute. His patriot- 
 ism, cast in the antique mould, must have made the new 
 
 ^ Justin, Second Apology, 2, 3. 
 
74 LEGAL POSLTION OF CHRLSTIANITY 
 
 religion hateful to him. Besides this, his tutor Fronto 
 (and never was a more docile and reverent pupil than 
 Marcus) believed and propagated the coarsest scandal 
 against the Christians. Marcus himself could see nothing 
 in the courage of their martyrs except * sheer obstinacy.' 
 Justin and his companions were put to death at Rome by 
 order of the City Prefect, who was the trusted friend of 
 Marcus, and under the very eyes of the Emperor. Again, 
 Marcus was personally responsible for the persecution in 
 the South of Gaul, recorded in a contemporary letter from 
 the churches of Vienne and Lyons to ' the brethren in 
 Asia and Phrygia.'i The persecution in these cities was 
 so severe that no Christian could venture out of doors. 
 No mercy was shown to extreme age, to youth, or to sex. 
 The governor of the province, instead of checking the 
 enraged multitude, commanded the Christians to be 
 sought out, so that here we have another instance of 
 advance beyond the measures enjoined by Trajan. The 
 prisoners were cruelly tortured, and some were exposed 
 to the wild beasts. The governor, however, finding that 
 one of his prisoners was a Roman citizen, thought fit to 
 consult the Emperor on the course to be adopted. Marcus 
 wrote back, telHng him that those who denied their Chris- 
 tianity were to be set free, that the others were to be 
 executed. It is needless to say that the Imperial rescript 
 was readily obeyed. The Christians, if Roman citizens, 
 died by the sword, if not, by the wild beasts in the 
 amphitheatre. 
 
 {b) The persecutions at Madaura and Scillis, or Scillita, 
 in Africa, happened just after the death of M. Aurelius, 
 and must be regarded as the continuation of his policy. 
 ^ The text is given by Eusebius, Ecd. Hist. v. 1,2. 
 
IN THE SECOND CENTURY 75 
 
 But when the cruel and worthless profligate Commodus 
 was established in power, the ' favour of God/ so 
 Eusebius puts it, ' sent peace to all the churches 
 throughout the world/ ^ It was only for a brief space 
 that Commodus endured the virtuous friends bequeathed 
 him by his father. Their virtues would have been 
 dangerous to the Christians; afterwards the influence 
 of Marcia was supreme, and the Church was safe. A 
 Christian presbyter had been her foster-father ; she was 
 in communication with Victor, then bishop of Rome, 
 and powerfully seconded his petitions. It is no doubt of 
 Marcia and her proteges that Iienaeus is thinking, when 
 he speaks of 'the faithful who are in the Imperial court.' 2 
 
 (5) From the death of Commodus in 193 to that of 
 Philip the Arabian in 249, the Roman Empire underwent 
 a change of condition. 
 
 {a) In the first place, whereas till that time the Senate 
 had at least enjoyed great nominal authority, Septimius 
 Severus began a military despotism, which was the rule 
 thenceforth, 'Enrich the army, despise the rest,' are 
 words attributed to him, and which are at any rate a 
 good summary of his policy. Again, although Septimius 
 Severus was himself born in the Latinised province of 
 Africa, belonged to a good family of Roman knights, 
 and had been admitted to the Senate by Marcus Aurelius, 
 he married a Syrian; the political consequences of this 
 marriage were important. The descendants of Septimius 
 Severus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus, were Oriental 
 in their habits and views. So, as his name shows, was 
 Philip the Arab, though he did not belong to the dynasty 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v. 21. 
 
 2 Irenseus, Against Heresies, iv. 30, I. 
 
76 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of Severus. It was a new thing for the Romans to be 
 governed by rulers who were Roman neither by birth 
 or education. A Spaniard or a Gaul could scarcely be 
 distinguished from a native of Rome itself : it was quite 
 otherwise with a Syrian or an Arab. 
 
 {b) Probably both these changes, certainly the latter, 
 affected the fortunes of the Chrisdan church. Under 
 Septimius Severus the Christians suffered more than they 
 had ever suffered before, even under Marcus Aurelius. 
 For a time, Septimius showed no personal hostility to the 
 Christians. On the contrary, Tertullian assures us that, 
 far from harassing ' most illustrious men, and most 
 'illustrious women,' of whose attachment to the Christian 
 religion he was quite aware, he honoured them with his 
 approval and openly withstood the fury of the mob.^ 
 Nevertheless, Septimius was an absolute sovereign, and 
 he had much to do with the labours of the lawyers who 
 elaborated the theory of absolute rule. He made 
 Papinian prefect of the Praetorian guards: Ulpian and 
 Paulus were his intimate friends. Now the fact that 
 Christians stood beyond the protection of the law had 
 been clear, ever since the time of Trajan. It is signifi- 
 cant that Ulpian, in his treatise ' De Proconsule,' 
 ('concerning the [duties of] a Proconsul') collected 
 all the Imperial ordinances relating to the Christians. 
 Under such circumstances we cannot be surprised to 
 learn that the persecution was severe in Egypt and 
 in Africa. Popular violence which appears to have 
 been then at its height, might be disapproved at the 
 court, but a governor was perfectly safe in enforcing 
 the law, which was hard enough. In the tenth year of his 
 
 ^ Tertullian, To Scapula, 4. 
 
IN THE THIRD CENTURY 77 
 
 reign, (the earliest 3'ears had been occupied with civil 
 war) Septimius took a new step. 'He forbade conversion 
 ' to Judaism under heavy penalty, and passed the same 
 ' law concerning Christians.' This enactment in its 
 letter left matters just as they had been since Trajan's 
 reign. The same may be said of an enactment against 
 ' illicit clubs.' But they betray the Emperor's disposition; 
 they deprived the Christians of their best hope, viz., that 
 of escaping attention. Special irritation was caused by 
 the refusal of the Christians to offer sacrifice to the genius 
 of the Emperor, and even to take part in public rejoicings, 
 which might have been thought innocent. Septimius had 
 waded to the throne through blood : he had been engaged 
 in a struggle for power and life, and for the unity of the 
 Empire against two formidable rivals. In a time when 
 great stress was necessarily put upon loyalty, the Christians 
 were conspicuous as ' enemies of the Roman princes.'^ 
 
 (6) Septimius, if he differed at all from his predecessors, 
 only differed in this, that he was somewhat more resolute 
 than any of them in his hostility to the Christian name. 
 But the Emperors of eastern origin, on the contrary, dis- 
 played a friendly feeling to Christianity which was utterly 
 unprecedented. 
 
 {a) Under Caracalla, the son of Septimius, and one of 
 the worst rulers the world ever saw, the Church had 
 peace, at least shortly after he had begun to reign. But 
 Elagabalus, the effeminate fanatic who as Emperor still 
 considered the worship of the sun-god, whose priest he 
 had been at Emesa, the one serious business of his 
 hfe, showed a positive hking to Christianity. For Roman 
 statesmanship and for Roman religion he cared nothing, 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 35. 
 
78 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and he did his utmost to make the worship of the sun- 
 god, to whom he attributed his elevation, dominant at 
 Rome. He wished all the religions of the earth to be 
 absorbed in this one worship, and being most familiar with 
 the cults of western Asia, he wished to treat the Jewish, the 
 Samaritan, and Christian, religions as forms of sun- 
 worship. Elagabalus represented the syncretism or 
 mixture of religions, which had long been fashionable, in 
 its most irrational and degraded form. 
 
 {b) His cousin, Severus Alexander, adopted a nobler 
 type of the same tendency. In the brief but pregnant 
 words of an ancient historian ' he suffered the Christians 
 ' to exist.' He did more than this. He placed the 
 image of Christ in his oratory, along with those of 
 Abraham and Orpheus. When a Christian church 
 disputed the possession of a piece of land with the 
 guild of cooks, he decided in favour of the former. He 
 gave as his reason that 'it was better for God to be 
 ' worshipped, whatever the manner of worship might be, 
 'than that the land should be given to cooks,' a reason 
 which makes his monotheism clear, if it throws some 
 doubt on his sense of law and justice. He was attracted 
 by the ethics of Christianity, and used to quote moral 
 maxims of Jesus. A remarkable passage in Eusebius 
 describes the relations of the Emperor's mother to a 
 great Christian teacher. * The Emperor's mother, whose 
 
 * name was Mammaea, a woman of extraordinary piety 
 
 * and circumspect life, when the fame of Origen had 
 
 * been noised abroad in all directions, till it reached her 
 ' ears too, became very anxious to obtain a sight of the 
 
 * man, and to make proof of that knowledge which he 
 
 * had in divine things and which everybody admired. So 
 
IN THE THIRD CENTURY 79 
 
 * when she was staying at Antioch, she sent a body of 
 
 * guards to invite him to her presence. Having spent 
 
 * some time with her, and having discoursed largely on 
 'the glory of the Lord and the virtue of the divine 
 'teaching, he hastened to his customary pursuits.' ^ 
 Origen was also in correspondence with Philip, the 
 Arab, who was the son of a Bedouin sheikh and became 
 Emperor in 244. Eusebius mentions a letter written by 
 Origen to him and another to his wife Severa.^ An 
 opinion gained ground from very early times that 
 both Alexander and Philip had embraced Christianity, 
 for when Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, their con- 
 temporary, mentions Emperors who ' are said to have 
 ' made open profession of Christianity,' the allusion 
 can only be to them. The report is probably an 
 exaggeration of the truth. Philip, if a convert at all, 
 was one of whom the Christians had little reason to be 
 proud. 
 
 § 7. The Third Period. 
 
 We have found Emperors tolerant and more than 
 tolerant to Christianity, but they left the laws which 
 made it illegal, unchanged. In contrast to them, we 
 have seen Emperors pursuing rigorous measures against 
 their Christian subjects, but the persecutions were local 
 and irregular : a few were put to death here and there, 
 and from time to time, but there was no general persecu- 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. vi. 21. 
 2 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. vi. 36. 
 
8o LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 tion. Origen sums up the results in these words. ' It is 
 'very easy to count those who have died for the Christian 
 'rehgion; they are few and suffered on special occasions.'^ 
 (i) A great change began under Decius (a.d. 249-251). 
 He made the persecution systematic, and so opened a new 
 period in the relations between the Church and the 
 Empire. 
 
 (a) Previously the rule had been that a Christian when 
 accused, should deny his Christianity, or pay the forfeit 
 with his life. But Decius ordained that all Christians 
 should be required to take part in the religious cere- 
 monies of the state, and the magistrates were threatened 
 with heavy penalties if they neglected to enforce the law. 
 This was a formal departure from the course recom- 
 mended by Trajan and followed by his successors. 
 The first step was no longer left to private informers, for 
 the duty of searching for Christians devolved on the officials 
 of the Empire. The regulations were too precise to admit 
 of any evasion. The Christians in each locality were to be 
 summoned and required to sacrifice within stated limits of 
 time. If they fled, they lost their property and their civic 
 rights, and were forbidden, under pain of death, to return to 
 their former home. Those who met the trial were dealt with 
 according to a graduated scale of severity : by imprison- 
 ment, by the rack, by the pains of hunger and thirst, they 
 were tempted to apostasy. Further a distinction was 
 made between laymen and clerics, presbyters and bishops 
 being put to death at once, unless they recanted. 
 
 [b) This change of procedure, striking as it is, is not 
 hard to explain. Decius was a man of lofty virtue : he 
 was a brave soldier, a skilful general, an able statesman, 
 
 1 Origen, Against Celsus, iii. 8. 
 
PERSECUTION BY DECIUS 8i 
 
 and the old religion seldom found a nobler champion 
 than he. Unfortunately, he indulged in romantic delu- 
 sions : he set his heart on restoring the enfeebled State 
 by reviving Roman virtue in its antique severity. Instead 
 of bearing himself as a military despot, he showed the 
 utmost deference to the senate, and invited its members 
 to choose a fit person for the obsolete office of censor. 
 He who was chosen for the office by the acclamation of the 
 senators acknowledged that the corruption of the times was 
 beyond cure by such antiquarian expedients, but the Em- 
 peror persisted in his project. Manifestly, the Christians 
 presented the first and most absolute obstacle to one who 
 would fain have built up the state on its old foundations 
 of Roman virtue and religion. The Christians were hate- 
 ful to Decius for another reason. The barbarians were 
 threatening the Empire, and, in a little, Decius was to 
 die on the battle-field against the Goths. His one hope 
 lay in presenting a united front to the foe, but internal 
 union seemed impossible, if Christianity continued to 
 exist. In this way Decius was forced into conflict with 
 Christianity, and he saw (how could he help seeing .?) 
 that half-hearted measures were out of the question. 
 The notorious increase of Christianity in number of 
 adherents and influence would have made the measures 
 which Trajan thought suitable, simply ludicrous. If 
 Christianity was to die at all, plainly it would die hard. 
 
 (2) The new mode of persecution produced new effects 
 upon the Christians. They had never felt the weight of 
 the Roman power before: their moral strength had been 
 impaired by a long period of peace, and the trial came 
 upon them when they had almost forgotten the sword 
 which hung all the time over their heads. But a year 
 
 G 
 
82 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 before, they had Hved under a ruler who was said to be 
 almost a Christian. Terror induced crowds to forswear 
 Christianity : they pressed forward to the tribunals and 
 purged themselves at once from all suspicion of Chris- 
 tianity. Others, by a strange device, contrived to appease 
 their consciences without endangering their lives. They 
 did not really offer sacrifice, but secured by a bribe an 
 official certificate that they had satisfied the law. The 
 casuistry of the church distinguished different degrees of 
 guilt. There were some who countersigned the certificate 
 with their own hands : others simply received it, while the 
 least culpable merely allowed the statement of their com- 
 pliance to be recorded in their favour by the courts of law. 
 The authorities of the church had to decide in what way 
 those who repented of their complete or partial apostasy 
 were to be received. The problem occasioned much 
 difficulty and dispute. It was a novel and curious 
 spectacle which the world witnessed. Two highly 
 organised powers stood over against each other. Each 
 had its own laws : each enforced these laws by graduated 
 pains and penalties. Between the two, there could be 
 no lasting peace, or even mutual understanding. It was 
 a struggle for life or death. 
 
 (3) Decius only reigned for two years, but the per- 
 secution which he began, was continued by Gallus, his 
 immediate successor, and after a considerable pause by 
 Valerian — from 257 to 260. Valerian, who had been 
 promoted under Decius to the honourable but impossible 
 office of censor, might have been expected to share the 
 prejudices of Decius against the Christians. For a time, 
 however, Valerian is said on very good authority ^ to have 
 
 ^ That of Dionysius of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. 
 Hist. vii. 10. 
 
DECIUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS 83 
 
 been kindly disposed towards them, and he only began the 
 persecution when instigated by his favourite, Macrianus, 
 an enthusiastic devotee of Egyptian sorcery. But, hav- 
 ing put his hand to the work, Valerian followed that 
 systematic method of which Decius had first set the 
 example. Indeed, at the pass to which things had 
 come, no other way could be thought of. In his first 
 edict, he made it a capital offence to attend meetings 
 for Christian worship, and in particular to visit the 
 cemeteries which were habitually used for this purpose. 
 All such places were confiscated by the state, and the 
 Christians were required to 'recognise the Roman 
 ceremonies.' ^ A second edict was issued with the 
 design of separating the clergy from their flocks, and 
 of putting a stop to conversions among the higher 
 classes. ' Valerian wrote to the senate that bishops, 
 'presbyters, and deacons were to be punished in a 
 ' summary manner [possibly by decapitation], that 
 ' senators, persons of rank, and Roman knights, besides 
 ' being degraded, were to forfeit their goods, and if after 
 ' loss of their goods they continued Christians, to suffer 
 * death : matrons, after deprivation of their property, 
 ' were to be driven into exile. Officers of the imperial 
 ' court who had at some former time confessed them- 
 ' selves Christians, or did so now, were to forfeit 
 ' their goods, to be put in chains and sent in detachments 
 ' to the Imperial domains.' ^ The calm tone of this 
 edict gives a very imperfect idea of the suffering 
 inflicted. The Egyptian Christians in particular were 
 sorely tried. ]Men and women, youths and maidens, 
 were put to the proof by the rack and by severe im- 
 
 ^ Act. Proconsulat. Cyprian^ i. - Cyprian, Letters, 80. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 prisonment. Death by decapitation must often have 
 been welcomed as a rehef. 
 
 (4) The systematic persecution which had continued 
 with intervals from 250 to 260 failed, and it was followed 
 by forty years of peace. The peace was not absolute : 
 it is possible, and even probable that an occasional 
 martyrdom occurred, for there was no repeal of the laws. 
 Still, during these forty years there was no general persecu- 
 tion : Aurehan, it is true, intended to follow in the steps 
 of Decius, but he died before he could give effect to his 
 resolution. On the other hand, Gallienus (260-268) 
 practically acknowledged the right of the Christians to 
 form corporations and hold property. He wrote to 
 several bishops, declaring his wish that they should not 
 be disturbed, and restoring to the churches the buildings 
 and lands which had been taken from them. Historians 
 have gone too far when they have attributed to Gallienus 
 the express and public toleration of Christianity. It was 
 one thing to let Christian corporations hold land or 
 buildings : the same privilege had been extended to 
 other guilds, if licensed by the magistrates. It was 
 another thing to annul the laws against Christian Mm- 
 piety,' and this last GaUienus did not do. Nevertheless 
 he made it quite clear that he did not mean to execute 
 these laws. It was no easy matter to interfere with the 
 Christians, and the Emperor, in the disastrous times 
 which followed the death of Aurehan, had quite enough 
 to do without undertaking this troublesome business. A 
 significant change also had taken place in the feelings 
 of the heathen populace. In the early persecutions it 
 was the mob which forced the magistrates to persecute: 
 from the middle of the second century we find indica- 
 tions of popular sympathy with the Christians. Whea 
 
DIOCLETIAN 85 
 
 Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was put to death in 258, 
 the heathen who had witnessed his charity during the 
 plague, mourned for his loss,i and the martyrdom of 
 a Spanish Bishop, Fructuosus, of Tarragona, which 
 happened in the following year, awoke the same general 
 compassion. - 
 
 (5) At the beginning of the fourth century, the Roman 
 state made its last attempt to stamp out Christianity. 
 This final conflict was the most severe of all. 
 
 {a) The Roman Empire had entered on a new lease of 
 life. The long period of civil strife and humiliation at 
 the hands of Persians and Goths was over for a season, 
 and Diocletian, who began to reign in 284, was a vigorous 
 and able statesman. He was the son of Dalmatian slaves, 
 and for the old Roman traditions, or such fragments of 
 them as survived, he had little reverence. He moved the 
 seat of Empire from Rome to Nicomedia, on the shores of 
 the sea of Marmora: he surrounded himself with oriental 
 pomp, and guarded his sacred presence from the vulgar 
 gaze : he took the title of ' dominus ' or ' lord,' one which 
 has descended to modern sovereigns, but which was 
 utterly unknown in the days of the older Empire. But 
 his was no idle ostentation. He set himself the serious 
 task of restoring the Empire to safety and strength, and 
 fell upon the plan of dividing it between several rulers, 
 all, however, subject to his own ascendancy, and bound 
 to act in concert. The scheme was supposed to provide 
 for the defence of an Empire assailed on more than one 
 side, for its diverse interests and for its unity. Diocletian, 
 
 ^ This appears from the Life of Cyprian by his deacon 
 Pontianus, chap. 15. 
 
 ^ Ruinart. Act. Martyrum, Passio Fructuos. Episc. 3. 
 
86 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 who was intensely superstitious, looked devoutly for the 
 help of the gods in his great project. His name, Diodes, 
 afterwards lengthened into Diocletian, was to him an omen 
 that his glory would be under the guardianship of Zeus, 
 and he did not forget that a Druidess had foretold his 
 future greatness. He was also attracted by Neoplatonism, 
 with its endeavours to mould all forms of heathenism 
 into one, and quicken old religion with new life. Yet, 
 notwithstanding the augurs and priests who attended 
 him, Diocletian was for a long time tolerant to Chris- 
 tianity. Many of his courtiers were Christians; even his 
 wife and daughter, it is said, were half inclined to adopt 
 the new faith. 
 
 {b) Several causes contributed to bring on the critical 
 struggle. It seems that he wished to erect a kind of 
 heathen church in which the hierarchy of priests was to 
 support the throne. Here the great Christian body stood 
 in the way, and as the family of Constantius, one of the 
 two Caesars, or subordinate Emperors, already showed 
 dispositions favourable to Christianity, the priests may 
 have felt that their power was in danger, unless they 
 could induce Diocletian to strike the first blow. They 
 found it hard to do so, but in the end Diocletian's 
 hesitation was overcome by Galerius, a rough and 
 ignorant soldier, whose talents had raised him to the 
 position of Caesar. Galerius was as superstitious as 
 Diocletian, his master : his temper was not trained and 
 schooled like Diocletian's by education and political 
 prudence : and he was specially' devoted to the ancient 
 rites of the Roman state. When the persecution broke 
 out in 303, the Empire was divided thus : Diocletian, 
 with the title of Augustus, reserved to himself Thrace, 
 
DIOCLETIAN 87 
 
 Egypt, and the rich countries of Asia. Immediately 
 associated with him was the Caesar Galerius, who was 
 stationed on the banks of the Danube with the care of 
 the Illyrian provinces. Italy and Africa were consigned 
 to Maximian, who, like Diocletian, bore the title of 
 Augustus, while his Caesar, Constantius Chlorus, governed 
 Gaul and Britain. Each Caesar married the daughter of 
 the Emperor under whom he held his power, thus 
 cementing political by domestic union. It was only the 
 administration which was divided, for the ascendancy 
 of Diocletian provided that the general policy of the 
 Empire should be directed in concert. These political 
 arrangements had an important bearing on the extent 
 and relative intensity of the persecution. 
 
 (6) For some time previously, there had been signs 
 of the coming storm. The numerous Christians in the 
 army found themselves in difficulties which were indeed 
 sometimes the result of their own indiscretion, but which 
 were sometimes inevitable. Galerius peremptorily re- 
 quired Christian soldiers who were subject to him to 
 sacrifice or to leave the army, and his power in the 
 Empire and his influence over Diocletian were increased 
 by his brilliant campaign against the Persians in 297. 
 Still Diocletian hesitated. He took for granted that 
 everyone should conform to the established religion, 
 and as early as 296, in a decree against the sect of 
 Manichees, had clearly stated the old principle that it 
 was ' criminal in the highest degree to reopen questions 
 ' settled and defined by the ancients.' But he had no 
 wish to shed blood and begin a contest which must 
 needs be long and difficult. At last, the importunity 
 of Galerius, the counsels of augurs and soothsayers, who 
 
88 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 deprecated the magical influence exercised by the sign 
 of the cross, and Diocletian's own superstition, out- 
 weighed all other considerations. On the twenty-third 
 of February, 303, the signal was given for a general 
 and systematic persecution. It was the feast of the god 
 Terminus, the god, who, as the legend told, had in the 
 infancy of the Roman state refused to allow his removal 
 to a new temple, and had so given the happy omen that 
 no foe would ever move or contract the boundaries 
 of Roman dominion. The Emperors Diocletian and 
 Galerius were both in Nicomedia. Early on the morn- 
 ing of the feast, the chief church of Nicomedia, a 
 magnificent building, was plundered and destroyed. 
 Next day an Imperial edict was posted on the city 
 walls. It comprised the following regulations : 
 
 All churches were to be destroyed, and the sacred 
 books of the Christians burnt. Christians were to forfeit 
 all civil rights. If injured, e.g., by assault or robbery, 
 they could claim no legal redress ; much less could they 
 hold any office under the state. Christians of humble 
 station, if obstinate in their religion, were to be enslaved. 
 Christian slaves were made incapable of freedom. 
 
 The real violence of a Christian who tore down this 
 edict, the false rumours which attributed fires in the 
 palace and petty tumults in Armenia and Syria, to the 
 Christians, irritated Diocletian still further. Accord- 
 ingly, a second edict condemned all Christian bishops, 
 presbyters, and deacons, to imprisonment ; a third edict 
 ordered that the imprisoned clerics should be tortured 
 with the utmost severity, till they consented to sacrifice. 
 In 304, a fourth edict extended this law to all the 
 Christians of the Empire. 
 
PERSECUTION BY DIOCLETIAN 89 
 
 (7) The duration of the persecution has been usually 
 reckoned at ten years, i.e., from 303, when Diocletian 
 published his first edict against the Christians, till 313, 
 when the edict of Milan established religious liberty. 
 
 {a) In fact, however, the general persecution did not 
 last nearly so long. From 303 till the middle of 
 305, the Christians were everywhere persecuted, though 
 even then the persecution was not severe throughout 
 the whole of the west. Constantius, who ruled in 
 Britain, Spain, and Gaul, had no inclination to per- 
 secute. He was obliged to treat Diocletian's edict with 
 outward deference, and he was unable to prevent blood- 
 shed in Spain, but in Gaul and Britain he simply 
 deprived the Christians of their churches, and saved 
 them, with rare exceptions, from further wrong. In 
 305, Diocletian, with his colleague Maximian, retired into 
 private life, the structure contrived by Diocletian's skill 
 fell to pieces, and the Empire was torn by intestine strife. 
 
 {b) The general character of the persecution ceased 
 with the unity of the Empire. Constantius and his son 
 relieved the Christians of all annoyance in Britain, Gaul, 
 and Spain. The tyrant Maxentius, who reigned from 
 306 to 311, did the same good office for the Christians 
 in Italy and (after 307) in Africa. About the same 
 time, Licinius took the reins of government in Pannonia, 
 Dalmatia, and Noricum, and the Christians there escaped 
 further molestation. They fared differently in the East. 
 All the Asiatic provinces besides Moesia, Thrace, Greece 
 in Europe, and Egypt in Africa, were subject to Galerius 
 and his nephew, Maximin Daza. In this vast territory 
 things became worse instead of better. Galerius, who 
 had been the original cause of the persecution, was no 
 
90 LEGAL POSLTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 longer restrained by Diocletian, and went to work with 
 redoubled energy. He inflicted death by slow fire on 
 obstinate Christians, and his nephew, Maximin Daza, 
 was as brutal and bloodthirsty as himself. There was 
 no lack of apostasy, and the discipline of the church 
 had to deal with a new class of delinquents, viz., that 
 of the 'Traditores,' persons who had surrendered the 
 Christian Scriptures to the heathen magistrate. 
 
 (8) But there was no prospect of annihilating Chris- 
 tianity. Galerius and Maximin substituted mutilation 
 and penal servitude for the penalty of death, and at 
 last, in 311, Galerius confessed that his efforts had been 
 useless, and in his ' clemency permitted the obstinate 
 ' Christians to beco-me Christians again, and to build 
 
 * churches, on condition that they respected public 
 
 * order.' 1 Galerius was in the agonies of disease when 
 he dictated this decree, and he died a few days after 
 its publication in Nicomedia. It was signed not only 
 by Galerius, but also by Constantine and Licinius. 
 The persecution was revived and continued, though 
 with intermission and with less severity, by Maximin 
 Daza, who succeeded Galerius in the government o£ the 
 eastern provinces. Maximin died in 313, and the 
 edict of Milan, published earlier in the same year by 
 Constantine and Licinius, obtained the force of law in 
 the east as well as in the west. This second edict of 
 toleration adopted a much more respectful tone to 
 Christianity, and sanctioned religious liberty in the 
 widest sense of the word. ' Christians and all [other] 
 'men were to have free power of following their religion.' 
 
 ^ The text of the edict is given by Lactantius, De Morte 
 Persecutor, 33, 34. 
 
ITS FINAL RECOGNITION 91 
 
 There was no restriction: 'each was to have unrestrained 
 * Hberty in worshipping whatsoever he chose.' Church 
 goods were to be restored to ' the Christian corporation/ 
 i.e., to ecclesiastics, not to private persons.^ Hence- 
 forth, Christianity was secured in its claim to be a 
 ' lawful religion.' Attempts to harass Christians in the 
 exercise of their worship still occurred : even Licinius 
 was tempted by political motives to transgress in an 
 underhand and half-hearted manner the law of tolera- 
 tion which he had signed. But no general or systematic 
 persecution ever occurred again. In 324, Constantine 
 reigned alone over the whole Empire, and Christians 
 found in him not only a protector, but a patron and 
 benefactor. 
 
 § 8. The Peace of the Church. 
 
 The edicts of toleration were welcome to the public 
 as a whole, whether Christian or heathen. People were 
 weary of bloodshed. The sympathy which the heathen 
 had shown with Christian martyrs in the persecution of 
 Decius, was evinced much more decidedly in that of 
 Diocletian. Athanasius^ had heard old men tell how 
 at Alexandria, many heathen had given Christians a 
 refuge in their houses, and had suffered fine and im- 
 prisonment rather than betray them. But welcome as 
 they were, edicts of mere toleration were but for a time. 
 The language of the edict of Milan sounds strangely 
 modern. It might have been written by an English 
 
 ^ Lactantius, 48. - Athanasius, Ad Monachos, 64. 
 
92 LEGAL POSITION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 or French ' philosopher ' during the last century. For 
 this very reason it was a mere makeshift, which had no 
 chance of lasting in the fourth century. It was not 
 possible, as yet, to conceive of a state which took a 
 position of impartial indifference to all religions. How 
 could the Empire prosper, if it was not hallowed and 
 sanctioned by sacred rites 1 How could the magistrate 
 hold himself aloof, when the cause of religion was at 
 stake.? Christians had indeed pleaded without conscious 
 dishonesty for freedom of conscience, when that was the 
 most they could hope for. In reality, nobody believed 
 in the rights of conscience, the Christians least of all. 
 They would have counted it disloyalty to the truth, and 
 we must remember to their credit that they had been the 
 sole champions of truth and adherence to it against 
 custom and outward conformity. Constantine had set 
 the Christians free from a law which required them to 
 sacrifice under pain of death. Constantine's son and 
 successor, Constantius, made heathen sacrifice a capital 
 offence, and thus exactly reversed the positions of the 
 two religions. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LEARNED DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 § I. Changes in the Second Century. 
 
 The title of this chapter might convey the impression 
 that Christianity, or at all events the Christianity of the 
 first three centmies, was a definite system, rejected and 
 attacked by some, embraced and defended by others, 
 a system which during the time mentioned underwent 
 no radical change, and which could be easily understood 
 by friend and foe. if they took the pains to study the 
 question. The same conception may seem to underlie 
 the previous chapters also. We have spoken of the 
 extent to which Christianity spread, and of the persecu- 
 tions which assailed it, as if Christianity had all the 
 time continued one and the same. The language used 
 has its sufficient excuse in convenience and indeed in 
 necessity. Nor is it without adequate justification in the 
 reason of the thing. There is a degree of unity which 
 links together the Christianity of all ages and of all 
 kinds : probably no set of so-called Christians has 
 
94 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 entirely passed beyond the formative power of the few 
 mighty principles which Jesus stated with unique purity 
 and force. So far Christianity is one. 
 
 (i) It is, however, no less true that Christianity has been 
 in constant flux, and never has it changed more rapidly 
 and deeply than in the first three centuries of its existence. 
 So clear is this that even learned Roman Catholics, bound 
 as they are to the theory of an unchangeable church, 
 have practically shifted their ground, and now admit that 
 Catholic doctrine has gradually developed or grown. In 
 fact the change is much more vital. At first there was 
 no Church at all in the modern sense of the term. There 
 were many local churches, and there was one Church 
 throughout the Roman world — because the members of 
 the particular congregations believed in one God — 
 aimed at holy living, acknowledged Jesus as their master, 
 shared the common hope in the coming of the Lord, 
 and so looked forward to a time, and that not far distant, 
 when the kingdom of God founded by Jesus would be 
 set up in power. But if we mean by the universal Church 
 a corporate body with an external government and 
 constitution of its own, then of such a body there is no 
 trace during the first 150 years of the Christian era. 
 After that time the Church was on the way to external 
 unity, attaining it, however, little by little, after many a 
 struggle, not without the loss of principles once held 
 dear. Nor was there in the early days any system of 
 doctrine. This does not, of course, mean that there was 
 no belief. When Christians met to worship God, it is 
 needless to say that they implicitly professed belief in 
 the divine existence and in the divine unity. But they 
 had no articles of faith, no explicit creed, no doctrine 
 
CHANGES IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 95 
 
 reduced to accurate form. When people feel themselves 
 brethren in virtue of a common enthusiasm, they do not 
 pause to speculate on the precise nature of the bond 
 which unites them. Passionate affection precludes the 
 need of theories about affection or of formal contract. 
 
 (2) Such was the case with the first disciples of Jesus, 
 and two facts may help us to realise the contrast between 
 the spontaneous unity of the early and the formal unity 
 of the later church. Let us turn first to the ecclesiastical 
 position of St. Paul. By nature and training he was 
 pre-eminently a theologian. We are all familiar with his 
 theories on the law, on divine election, on the ' Lord 
 from heaven,' the pre-existent man Christ Jesus. Yet 
 what are the conditions of church-membership with this 
 theological apostle .'' He recognises one condition only 
 and with that he is satisfied. ' No man can say Jesus 
 * is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.' It is easy to see what 
 variety of theological view, what absence of any definite 
 theological view, might lurk under the honest and ready 
 utterance of these words. The second fact is taken from 
 literature external to the New Testament. Most Christian 
 churches at the present day retain and use a confession 
 of faith known as the Apostles' creed. It is simple 
 enough, if we compare it with the more elaborate symbols 
 by which it was supplemented afterwards. For the most 
 part it is confined to a confession of the one God, and 
 certain statements about the life, death, and resurrection 
 of Jesus. Nothwithstanding this, every tyro in church 
 history is aware that the creed in question is no composi- 
 tion of the Apostles. In its most rudimentary form it 
 can be traced to the middle of the second century, when 
 it arose in the midst of the strifes which were sundering 
 
g6 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christian from Christian, sect from sect. The developed 
 form in which we now know it, is due to accretions which 
 it received as late as the fifth century. The fact is 
 instructive in several ways. The Apostles formulated no 
 creed: had they done so, the Church would not have 
 been driven to devise a creed of its own and then attribute 
 it to the Apostles. The age of creeds is in important 
 respects diametrically opposed to that of the Apostles. 
 We see that the Church had lost touch with the Apostolic 
 age when it fathered its own rule of faith upon the 
 Apostles. Such an anachronism could not have been 
 committed save in a time which was creative but not 
 critical, which had in other words no sense of historical 
 differences. 
 
 § 2. Influence of Greek Converts. 
 
 (i) Yet it would be pedantic bigotry to quarrel with 
 historical Christianity because it could not escape the 
 laws of growth and change. Great ideas are fruitful 
 just so far as they can adapt themselves to new surround- 
 ings and unite themselves with those other ideas which 
 represent the best moral and intellectual results of the time. 
 The followers of Mohammed repeat with singular fidelity 
 the lessons of their teacher, though on Persian soil 
 Islam assimilated foreign elements and was changed into 
 forms which Mohammed himself would have rejected 
 with horror. But the reason why a large proportion of 
 Moslems stand much where their prophet left them, 
 is that on the one hand their prophet had little or nothing 
 to say which was really new, that he taught an abstract 
 
CHANGES IN THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 97 
 
 monotheism which is exceedingly dry and barren, and 
 on the other hand that Moslem nations, despite their 
 intellectual acquisitiveness, have shewn little originality 
 and have long since been stricken with intellectual 
 barrenness. With the religion of Jesus it was far other- 
 wise. His teaching was simple — but it opened out 
 endless vistas both for thought and practice. When he 
 taught men to trust God as their Father, his words may 
 be described as simple; yet who can ever exhaust their 
 meaning or state the limits of their application to the 
 progress of mankind } 
 
 (2) Again, the religion of Jesus fell on good soil. It 
 soon passed beyond the boundaries of the Jewish 
 population, and after a time educated heathen entered 
 the Christian communities. 
 
 {a) It needs no great imagination to form some notion 
 of the questions which su.ch a person would have to ask 
 himself. Let us suppose that he had studied Greek 
 philosophy and literature. He would be struck by points 
 of similarity and even identity between the lessons he 
 had previously learned and the teaching of Jesus. How 
 was this kinship of thought to be explained .? Had Jesus 
 borrowed from the Greeks .? Or they from Jesus .? Or 
 both from a common source.'' Philosophy, too, had much 
 to say on matters about which Christ and the first disciples 
 said little or nothing. Philosophers had their views about 
 the origin of the world, the relations of matter and spirit, 
 the constituent elements of human nature. Did Chris- 
 tianity throw any light on the disputes concerning these 
 matters which agitated the philosophic schools .? Could 
 the new truth given by Jesus be stated and defended in 
 philosophic language .? 
 
98 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 (d) Above all, an educated convert such as we have 
 been describing, could not help making an enormous 
 change in Christianity, because, however reverent and 
 humble he might be, he would be sure to seek theory and 
 system. That was a want of the Greek mind, and of 
 every mind moulded by Greek education. In the Old 
 Testament generally, and in the first three Gospels 
 which are the comparatively authentic records of Christ's 
 teaching, there is very little formal reasoning. St. Paul 
 does reason constantly and acutely : yet even he reasons 
 very little, at least consciously and in set form, from the 
 nature of things. Generally speaking, he borrows his 
 premises from an authoritative document, viz, : the Old 
 Testament. A philosophic heathen would require some- 
 thing more and something different from anything given 
 by Jesus or Paul. And he would feel the same need with 
 additional force, if he had to recommend his new faith to 
 the educated world around him. Translated into the 
 terms of Greek thought, Christianity underwent an inner 
 change. Words and thoughts are indissolubly connected, 
 so that a man's style is himself and a change in words 
 that are worth anything means a change in ideas. 
 
 (3) Besides, by the process mentioned, Christianity 
 was made to answer questions which had probably never 
 occurred to Jesus and the first generation of his disciples, 
 questions to which assuredly they had left no answer. 
 The answers devised by Christian philosophers might 
 be true, they might even be such as Jesus would have 
 given, had the same problems presented themselves 
 clearly to his mind. This does not alter the fact that the 
 Christian point of view was changed, that a religion of 
 trust and hope was tending to become a speculative 
 
INFLUENCE OF GREEK CONVERTS 99 
 
 system. Great as this change was, it led the way to one 
 much greater. Christian speculation began without 
 pretending to be more than individual opinion. Gradually, 
 however, these speculations, or rather a selection from 
 them, were reduced to more complete order and con- 
 sistency, till at last they won their place as part of the 
 church's faith. Orthodoxy or right opinion became the 
 test of a man's claim to Christian communion and the 
 privileges which it entailed. That was nothing less than 
 a revolution in the history of Christianity, if the name of 
 revolution may be given to a change which was effected 
 by almost imperceptible degrees. Here, however, we are 
 straying beyond the limits of the present chapter. 
 
 § 3. Philosophic Treatment of Judaism. 
 
 The writers who first undertook the task of clothing the 
 Christian religion in philosophic garb had a precedent 
 ready to hand. The same mode of treatment had been 
 applied to Judaism by Jewish authors, of whom Philo is 
 the most famous, and the only one whose works have 
 survived. 
 
 (i) Philo was an Alexandrian Jew of priestly family. 
 His brother held a high position in the management of 
 the Egyptian finance, and was well known at the Imperial 
 court. Philo himself went on an embassy to Rome, 
 to plead the cause of the Alexandrian Jews who were then 
 suffering persecution. This was in the year 39 a.d., and 
 since Philo was already an old man, he must have been 
 born some time before Jesus. It was only exceptional 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 circumstances which drew him from the studies to which 
 his life was devoted. These studies were strangely unlike 
 those of the later Rabbis, or of Jews who were his contem- 
 poraries in Palestine, the land of his fathers. Greek was his 
 mother-tongue, and it is the Greek version of the Old 
 Testament, not the original Hebrew text, on which Philo 
 comments, and which he makes the basis of his reason- 
 ing. To a great extent his ideas as well as his speech 
 were Greek. Not that he was faithless to the Jewish 
 law. Far from that, he had the most slavish belief in its 
 inspiration, he believed in the special providence which 
 had chosen and ever watched over Israel, he had no 
 doubt as to the utter superiority of Jewish religion over 
 heathenism. Nevertheless, he was deeply and widely 
 read in Greek literature. If the Greek philosophy had 
 the strongest attraction for him, he also made free 
 use of the Greek poets, and in philosophy his taste was 
 extremely catholic. Plato and the Stoics have left the 
 deepest impress on his writings, but he was also influenced 
 by the Pythagoreans and by Aristotle ; nor did any form 
 of Greek speculation come amiss to him except the 
 irreligious theor}^ of the Epicureans. It would be much 
 less than the truth to say that he speaks of Greek 
 philosophers with respect. He speaks of Plato as the 
 holy and the great, of Heraclitus as great and celebrated 
 in many a song, of Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno, and 
 Cleanthes as divine men, who form a holy company. ^ 
 In metaphysics Philo was a mere learner : he repeated 
 for the most part what the Greeks had said before. But 
 he had a fine aptitude for psychological enquiry, and in 
 
 ^ Quis. rer. div. haer. 43 ; De Provid. II. 42, 48. 
 
PHILOSOPHIC JUDAISM loi 
 
 this department he made valuable and original con- 
 tributions. 
 
 No man could spend a long life in studies such as 
 these without drifting far from the theology of a Scribe at 
 Jerusalem who devoted himself to the letter of the 
 Pentateuch. Like a true Jew, Philo laid the greatest 
 stress on the unity of God, and abhorred idolatry. But 
 he also held views foreign to true Judaism and indeed 
 opposed to it. And even if no account had to be taken 
 of the foreign matter which Philo united with the religion 
 of the Old Testament, a real change would have been 
 made by the very fact that he strove to reduce its 
 manifold teaching to order and rational system. 
 
 (2) Like the Stoics, and unlike the Hebrew writers, 
 Philo attached great value to cosmology, i.e., to a theory 
 on the origin and constitution of the world. 
 
 {a) It is true that the Hebrew Bible, as it existed in 
 Philo's time and still exists in ours, opens with two 
 accounts of the way in which the world and mankind 
 were created. But in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, 
 nothing is made of these accounts, no inference is drawn 
 from them, no theory is built upon them ; and the fact 
 that the two stories are inconsistent in spirit and in detail 
 is in itself signal proof that the Hebrews, both before the 
 exile and for long after it, gave themselves little trouble 
 about philosophical questions. Philo, on the contrary, 
 felt himself impelled to the study of cosmology. His 
 desire was to Hve in accordance with nature. This was 
 the lesson he had learned from the Stoics. Therefore he 
 must know what nature really was. 
 
 {h) He derived from Plato the conception of the 
 opposition between the intellectual and the material 
 
102 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 world. The two stand over against each other. God 
 is the absolute mind or spirit, and from all eternity the 
 ideal patterns of created things have been present to Him. 
 These ideal patterns cannot be perfectly copied in 
 material objects, for matter is the region of disorder and 
 imperfection, and cannot therefore perfectly reflect the 
 divine idea. God is raised high above all contact with 
 matter. No eye can see Him, no bodily ear catch the 
 sound of His voice : nay, He is above the reach of all 
 created intelligence : it is in ecstacy and mystical con- 
 templation that the spirit of man approaches Him most 
 nearly. Yet, although God be far off in one sense, in 
 another He is very near. He is not only transcendent, 
 i.e., beyond the world : He is also immanent, i.e., within 
 it. He is remote in His essence : He is omnipresent by 
 His ceaseless energy. He does not create matter, which, 
 as destitute of real being, cannot come from Him who is 
 the one true being: but He moulds matter and reduces it 
 to all the order of which it is capable. His goodness 
 brought our world into being : His power orders it. All 
 things are the imperfect likeness of the logoi, the reasons, 
 the ideas, the patterns, which pre-exist in the divine mind. 
 Again these logoi (the term is borrowed from the Stoics) 
 are also creative forces, immanent in things. Sometimes 
 they are described as personal beings and identified with 
 the angels of the Hebrew Bible. Sometimes for the 
 many logoi or reasons we have the one Logos, the reason, 
 the creative energy of God. This Logos is one with that 
 divine Wisdom which is prominent in the first portion of 
 the book oif Proverbs, and which is there described by 
 poetical license, as a personal being. To the Stoics, 
 the Logos was simply the soul of the world, the divine 
 
PHILOSOPHIC JUDAISM 103 
 
 element present in it. But Philo held fast to the Platonic 
 theory that God transcends the world. Hence to him, 
 the Logos is a secondary God. He is not the absolute 
 God, but the connecting link between God and the world. 
 He is the reflection of the divine essence, the idea after 
 which all things have been framed, in whom, as the 
 eternal high-priest, God and the world are for ever 
 reconciled. 
 
 [c] After all, the reconciliation is imperfect, for matter 
 cannot be entirely subdued by spirit. Man imprisoned 
 in his present material body does not correspond to the 
 ideal man, as he pre-existed in the divine mind. The 
 senses are the well-spring of desire and of sin. The 
 wise man must withdraw himself from the world, and 
 follow a life of contemplation. He is to die to the body, 
 that he may partake in the incorruptible life of God. 
 
 (3) In such teaching it is easy to find on the one hand 
 the method and the premises of the Catholic theologian, 
 on the other, those ascetical ideas which had their logical 
 issue in the life of the Catholic monk. But we may be 
 puzzled to undertand how Philo devised a system which 
 at once, in its merits and defects, stands in sharp contrast 
 to the teaching of the Hebrew Bible, and yet remained a 
 sincere and loyal Jew. The answer is that Philo adopted, 
 and could not well help adopting, that allegorical method 
 of interpretation which had long been fashionable in the 
 philosophic schools. He dealt with the Old Testament 
 just as the Stoics dealt with the stories in Homer. The 
 Bible, he thought, must contain an answer to every 
 philosophic question, for with a simplicity wonderful to 
 us, but quite congenial to the uncritical age in which he 
 lived, he assumed that the questions which engrossed his 
 
I04 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 attention also occupied that of the sacred writers. Further, 
 he took for granted that the rudest and simplest narrative 
 was meant to convey some mysterious sense. Hence, in- 
 stead of being shocked at the gross anthropomorphisms 
 and the frequent contradictions which occur in the Bible, 
 Philo welcomed them. They were designed to startle, and 
 so to arouse reflection. Their object was to compel the 
 conviction that the literal sense could not be intended, 
 and that therefore a hidden meaning must be sought 
 beneath the surface. Accordingly, Philo seeks and 
 finds that hidden meaning, not here and there, or now 
 and then, but everywhere and always. This he did on set 
 system, after rules which, fantastic as they are, are never- 
 theless elaborate. For example, in commenting on the 
 story of creation, as told in Genesis, Philo extracts a 
 moral and metaphysical meaning from the minutest and 
 the most unlikely details. The creation of heaven and 
 earth means the creation of intellect and sensuous percep- 
 tion. The four rivers of Paradise indicate the four 
 cardinal virtues. When the sacred writer says, ' The 
 
 * gold of that land is good,' he wishes us to understand 
 that ' there is a twofold kind of intelligence, that which is 
 
 * concerned with the universal, and that which is concerned 
 
 * with the particular. Particular intelligence in me is not 
 ' good, for it perishes with my death. But the divine 
 ' intelligence dealing with the universal, that intelligence 
 ' which dwells in the wisdom of God |and in His house, 
 *is good, for it dwells itself imperishable in an imperish- 
 
 * able house.' And so on ad infinitum. 
 
CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS 105 
 
 § 4. The Apologists as Christian Philosophers. 
 
 In Philo, we see the effect which the Roman Empire 
 produced on Jewish religion and moraHty. Both were 
 changed, not only in form, but also in substance. In 
 Judaism, however, the effect was transient. The Jewish 
 teachers soon returned to the old groove, and Philo had 
 no successors. Philo's real place is not in the synagogue, 
 but in the Christian, or, as we should perhaps rather say, 
 in the Catholic Church. Philo did what he could to fit 
 Judaism to become the religion of the world. He tried 
 and he failed. But the task as it fell from his hands was 
 taken up by Christian teachers. 
 
 (i) Even in portions of the New Testament the influence 
 of Greek philosophy is distinctly visible. But with one 
 or two exceptions the influence of Greek ideas, of Hellen- 
 ism, as it has been called, is not the result of deliberate 
 choice on the part of the New Testament writers. The 
 authors known as Apostolic Fathers keep to the same lines. 
 Their Christianity consists in personal devotion to their 
 master Christ, in the sense of a new life inspired by fresh 
 trust and hope, in the feeling of brotherhood to men, and 
 especially to their fellow-Christians. This happy and natural 
 state of things could not last. Reflection must supervene, 
 when educated men entered the Christian fold, and had 
 to justify their conversion before the heathen world. The 
 need of this justification was all the stronger, because 
 Christianity, once known and seen to be distinct from 
 Judaism, suffered persecution. But how was it to be 
 justified ? Even the simpler and earlier Christians had 
 a controversial reasoning of their own. Only their 
 
io6 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 weapons were insufficient in the new kind of warfare. 
 We may take the arguments said in the Acts of the 
 Apostles to have been used by Stephen, or Peter and 
 Paul, as samples of early controversy. With one notable 
 exception, St. Paul's speech before the Areopagus, they 
 turn on the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah. 
 
 (2) This was suitable enough, so long as the Christian 
 teacher had to. convince Jews or Jewish proselytes. This 
 method, however, was passing out of date in the second 
 century. The stream of Christian thought was parting 
 from that of the synagogue, and henceforth, they were to 
 pursue opposite directions, which led them far asunder. 
 The heathen whom the church was now striving to win, 
 could not be convinced by the sole authority of Hebrew 
 Scriptures, with which they had often no acquaintance. 
 The new religion had to be defended against charges of 
 immorality, of atheism, of disloyalty to the state. It had 
 to be proved consonant with human reason, i.e., with the 
 best reason of the day. Thus it was that Philo's work 
 was begun again, not only with some measure of Philo's 
 spirit, but also to some extent with the ideas which he 
 had bequeathed, and even in his very terms. The men 
 who undertook this learned defence of, or ' apolog}' for ' 
 Christianity are called the Apologists. Their ' Apology,' 
 or defence, is one of the first mile-stones on that long 
 road which Christianity was to travel in the coming ages. 
 One single word expresses the distance to which they had 
 already travelled from the ground occupied by their 
 predecessors, and that word is ' philosophy.' It is a 
 word which occurs once only in the whole range of New 
 Testament literature, and then it does not stand in good 
 company. ' Take heed,' says the author of the epistle to 
 
THE APOLOGISTS 107 
 
 the Colossians, ' lest there be anyone that maketh spoil of 
 
 * you, through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the 
 
 * tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and 
 ' not after Christ.' In like spirit St. Paul had reminded 
 the Corinthians that ' not many wise after the flesh ' were 
 called to faith in Christ. The tone of the Apolgists is 
 wholly different. 
 
 (3) The earliest among them, Quadratus and Aristides, 
 are said by the father of Church History to have written 
 apologies for Christianity, and to have presented them to 
 Hadrian during his visit to Athens in the year 125.1 
 The Apology of Quadratus has perished, but a Syriac 
 translation of that of Aristides has recently been dis- 
 covered in the library of the Convent of St. Catharine 
 upon Mount Sinai. It compares the teachings of the 
 Christians about God with those of tbe Barbarians, 
 Greeks, and Jews, in the spirit of a professed philosopher, 
 and justifies the statement of St. Jerome, that it 'was 
 woven out of the maxims of philosophers.' ^ Aristides 
 was consciously or unconsciously following Philo, who 
 speaks of ' our hereditary philosophy,' ' the Jewish 
 
 ^ Euseb. Eccl. Hist. iv. 3, and Chron. at the year 125 a.d. 
 
 ^ Jerome, Ep. 70, Ad Magn. The title of the Syriac version 
 expressly designates Aristides as ' the Philosopher.' See Texts 
 and Studies, edited by J. Armitage Robinson, M.A., vol. i., No. I ; 
 Cambridge, 1891. Prof. Rendel Harris, the discoverer of the 
 Syriac copy, believes that Eusebius was mistaken in his date, and 
 that the work belongs to the earlier years of Hadrian's successsor, 
 Antoninus Pius. But compare the remarks of Mr. Robinson, 
 p. 75, who cleverly detected a large portion of the original Greek 
 embedded in an early mediaeval romance entitled ' the Life of 
 ^Barlaam and Josaphat.' 
 
io8 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 philosophy,' * the philosophy according to Moses.' ^ A 
 little later, Justin, after he had become a Christian, still 
 professed himself a philosopher, and extolled the rehgion 
 of his choice as the * only safe and helpful philosophy.' ^ 
 Melito, bishop of Sardis, pleading the cause of the 
 Christian religion before M. Aurelius spoke of it, as ' our 
 philosophy.' ^ Thenceforth, among a large section of 
 Christians, philosophy, which represented the greatest 
 intellectual efforts of the Greeks, became an accepted 
 name for Christianity rightly understood. In the end, 
 philosophic theories were made part and parcel of the 
 Christian creed. For many at this day, to whom Plato 
 is a mere name, Platonic speculation lives in the dogmas 
 which they have learnt from their catechism, and their 
 conceptions of life and duty are coloured by the ideas 
 and terminology of the Stoics. 
 
 Before entering on the doctrine of the Apologists, it 
 will be well to say a little by way of preface on their 
 names and lives. Of those whose writings have perished 
 or only survive in fragments quoted by other writers, the 
 briefest notice must suffice. Quadratus and Aristides, 
 both resident at Athens, wrote, as we have seen, one 
 under Hadrian, the other (perhaps) under his successor. 
 Melito, a notable figure in the Church of Asia Minor, 
 
 ^ Leg. ad Cat. 23, 33, de Mut. Norn. 39. 
 
 - Dialogue with Trypho, 8. 
 
 •* Quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iv. 26, 27 
 
JUSTIN MARTYR 109 
 
 and a fruitful writer, Claudius Apollinaris, of Hierapolis, 
 and Miltiades, an Athenian rhetorician, addressed their 
 apologies to M. Aurelius. The little treatise of Aristides, 
 in spite of many features of interest to the student, would 
 give us an extremely meagre view of the nature and 
 grounds of Christian truth. Fortunately, we still possess 
 three writings of Justin Martyr, who more than any other 
 Apologist, forwarded the transformation of Christianity 
 under Greek influences, and laid the foundations of 
 Catholic theology. 
 
 (i) He was born about the year 100, in Flavia Neapolis, 
 the ancient Shechem, the modern Nablus. The city had 
 of course been Samaritan, but Justin's family probably 
 belonged to the number of the Roman colonists settled 
 there, and it is certain that he was brought up in paganism. 
 He has left us an account of his early studies and of his 
 conversion,^ which, whether it be meant for literal fact or 
 not, is at all events interesting, because it conveys an idea 
 of the way in which the educated heathen of Justin's time 
 might be and possibly were drawn to Christianity. If 
 a romance, it is a romance describing contemporary 
 manners. Justin then, according to his own account, 
 came to know different exponents of the chief philo- 
 sophical systems. First he betook himself to a Stoic, 
 but, after studying under him for a considerable 
 time, found that the Stoic had no information to .give 
 about God, and did not even consider such knowledge 
 essential. An Aristotelian to whom he went next, repelled 
 him by clamouring for a fee. A Pythagorean, who was 
 his third instructor, dismissed him because he lacked 
 previous training in music, geometry, and astronomy. 
 
 ^ Dialogue with Trypho, 2-8. 
 
no THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 At last, a Platonist, a wise and worthy man, came to the 
 town, and with him for a time, Justin seemed to fare 
 much better. Every day added to his progress : his mind 
 rose on the wings of contemplation, and he actually 
 hoped that he would soon have that vision of God on 
 which the Platonists discoursed. From these dreams he 
 was awakened by an old man, who led him to the study 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures, and impressed upon him the 
 need of a revelation. He became a Christian, but con- 
 tinued to be a philosopher, and wandering from place to 
 place, like the Sophists of that time, he laboured for the 
 diffusion of the Christian faith. Of his works we still 
 have two apologies written under Marcus Aurelius 
 (between 147 and 160), besides a dialogue with the 
 Jew Trypho, written somewhat later than the apologies. 
 He died a martyr's death at Rome, about 165. 
 
 (2) Justin's pupil, Tatian, has left us an 'Address to 
 ' the Greeks,' and here we may remark once for all that 
 the word Greek as used by writers of this period, con- 
 notes rather what we should call educated heathen, than 
 any special nationality. Tatian was born in Assyria, but, 
 whatever his origin may have been, shared in the training 
 and ideas of the Graeco-Roman world. In time, Tatian 
 struck out a path for himself different from that of his 
 master. He became a rigid ascetic, and attached him- 
 self to a sect which condemned marriage and the use of 
 fiesh-meat and wine as intrinsically evil. 
 
 Of Athenagoras, who is supposed to have been an 
 Athenian, we know scarcely anything, except that his 
 ' Supplication for the Christians ' was directed to Marcus 
 Aurelius about the year 177. He was in the main a 
 Platonist. 
 
THE APOLOGISTS m 
 
 All the writers named wrote in Greek, although Justin 
 and Tatian lived and laboured at Rome. Minucius Felix, 
 on the contrary, wrote in elegant Latin. If recent scholars 
 are correct in placing him under Marcus Aurelius, he is 
 the earliest known author who contributed to Christian 
 literature in that language. 
 
 The list of the Apologists just given has not the least 
 pretension to completeness. It is only meant to afford the 
 reader who is still strange to the subject, that preliminary 
 knowledge which must precede any intelHgent attempt to 
 appreciate the position and teaching of the Apologists. 
 We have now to consider that teaching, to enquire how 
 the Apologists defended Christianity, and what the 
 Christianity which they undertook to defend really was. 
 For we shall find that their work was not only con- 
 servative but creative. The Christianity of which they 
 were the champions, changed much of its character in 
 their hands. 
 
 § 6. Their Attitude to Judaism. 
 
 The Apologists in general boldly advance the claims 
 of the Christian religion to rank as a philosophy. True, 
 we should give the name of religion to much which with 
 them passes for philosophy. So far, however, they- only 
 followed the bent of the time in which they Hved, for all 
 philosophy tended to merge in religion. But just as the 
 philosophical religion of Marcus Aurelius differed widely 
 from the mythology of Paganism, so the religion of the 
 Apologists was separated by a great gulf from Judaism 
 with its local worship and its ceremonial observances. 
 
112 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 (i) St. Paul contended for the kernel of religion 
 against these husks in which it had been enwrapped. 
 The Apologists did not so much contend against them as 
 ignore them. They had no need to struggle against the 
 yoke of Jewish observance. They had never felt its 
 weight, for they had been born and bred in heathenism. 
 They had no great need even to argue with judaising 
 Christians, because in the second century the church 
 drew her converts almost entirely from the pagan world, 
 and it was only ' some few persons ' from the Jews and 
 Samaritans who believed in Christ. ^ For a similar reason 
 the Apologists were able to draw a distinction unknown 
 to St. Paul. He looked upon the law as one, and from 
 an historical point of view he was completely justified. 
 The Pentateuch puts abstinence from forbidden food on 
 the same level as the avoidance of the most appalling 
 immorality. To St. Paul, as a true Jew, the law was one 
 and indivisible. He who was bound by a single precept 
 was bound by all : the modern distinction between moral 
 and ceremonial precepts would have been unintelligible to 
 him. The Apologists by a natural instinct assimilated 
 the moral teaching of the Hebrew Bible, its monotheism, 
 its conception of a divine kingdom, a people or church 
 of God, while, justifying the distinction by various theories 
 which there is no occasion to mention in this place, they 
 rejected the ritual and merely national elements. Thus 
 they were the advocates of monotheism, of belief in God's 
 spiritual nature, and in the immortality of the soul, of a 
 pure morality, higher than that in vogue around them, 
 incomparably higher than that which could be gathered 
 from the popular mythology. We are now in a position 
 
 1 Justin, First Apology, 53. 
 
THE APOLOGISTS 
 
 "3 
 
 to understand why they claimed for Christianity the title 
 of philosophy, why Justin, for example, loves to speak of 
 Christ as ' the teacher.' 
 
 (2) In fact, their philosophical religion presents many 
 points of contact with that advanced about the same time 
 or a little earlier by Plutarch. They were successful, 
 because they supplied that rational religion which was a 
 desideratum of their age. But harmony with the spirit 
 and needs of the age is only one condition of success. 
 Another, and a no less indispensable condition is that he 
 who meets the popular demand should have some 
 advantage over his rivals. Now the Apologists had this 
 advantage and had it clearly. They could invoke religion 
 in aid of philosophy as Plutarch and his fellows could 
 not. Most men, even if educated, would not trust them- 
 selves (how few will trust themselves now!) to reason 
 alone as the basis of religion. They were wearied and 
 perplexed by the disputes of the philosophers. Had God 
 never spoken directly and miraculously to his creatures, 
 so closing the anxious controversy ? The Apologists 
 answered that God had so spoken through the Hebrew 
 law-giver and prophets, and through Jesus His Son. 
 He had set His seal to the best conclusions of human 
 reason and had removed further doubt. It is true that 
 heathen philosophers could and did appeal to Greek 
 myths interpreted on the allegorical method. It is no 
 less true that parts of the Hebrew Bible are anterior to 
 Monotheism, and that frequently both its religion and 
 morality betray a coarseness and narrowness ill suited 
 to the purpose of the Apologists, and sure to give just 
 offence to the best among the heathen. The Apologists 
 could not, any more than the Stoics, do without recourse 
 
 I 
 
1 14 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to allegorical exposition. Still, all this being granted, 
 the advantage which they had, was not seriously 
 diminished. The Hebrew religion had received a 
 large infusion of morality. The law, though by no 
 means wholly, is yet largely moral. Passage after 
 passage might be quoted from the prophets, in which 
 they urge the righteousness of God and the folly of 
 thinking to do him acceptable service by ritual divorced 
 from morality. To this there was no parallel in the 
 Roman Empire. The current religion was a worship 
 of natural forces which are non-moral. The Jew might 
 boast (and with important modifications his boast was 
 justified) that the law of his God was ' pure, converting 
 ' the heart.' It would be ridiculous to say as much of the 
 Greek mythology. The Homeric gods were guilty of 
 deeds which the Homeric heroes would have been 
 ashamed of. The ethics of the Homeric mythology fell 
 short of Homer's own morality, immeasurably short of 
 Plutarch's. 
 
 § 7. Justin and the Doctrine of the Logos. 
 
 We begin with the chief of the early Apologists whose 
 writings have reached us. 
 
 (i) Justin inherited from Philo the notion of the 
 Logos, the inner reason and the outward or spoken word 
 of God. But he expressed much more clearly and 
 emphatically than Philo his behef in the personality of 
 this Word. 
 
 {a) At first, indeed, the Word was latent in the divine 
 nature, as its impersonal reason, but when God intended 
 
JUSTIN AND THE LOGOS 115 
 
 to create, the Word was born into personal existence, and 
 through him all things were made. We have striking 
 proof of the distance to which Justin had travelled from 
 the old Jewish and Christian position in the explana- 
 tion which he gives of the title Christ. It belongs, he 
 says, to the Word, because he was ' anointed and because 
 ' God ordered all things through him.'^ Can we imagine 
 a more extraordinary instance of the action exercised by 
 Greek philosophy on the Christian belief ? Here is a 
 title given first to all the Hebrew kings, who were 
 anointed for their office, then to that ideal King whqm the 
 prophets announced and who was to reign in righteousness, 
 lastly to Jesus because, as it was supposed, he was the 
 fulfilment of the prophetic aspirations. Whereas in 
 Justin's hands the name receives a purely Greek and 
 philosophic application. 
 
 (3) This personal Word is not co-equal with the 
 supreme being. But he is to be ' loved and worshipped 
 ' after the God, who is unbegotten and ineffable.'- He 
 has ever been the organ of revelation in the world which 
 was made through him. The Stoics treated admirably of 
 ethical science. Heraclitus knew what a good life was 
 and led it. Why ? ' By virtue of that seed of the Word 
 ' which is congenital to every race of raen.'^ Hence, ' all 
 'that has been well said among all belongs to us 
 * Christians,'^ the disciples of the Word. Nor does Justin 
 stop here. He maintains that ' those who have lived with 
 ' reason, are Christians, even if they were reputed Atheists, 
 ' such for example as Socrates and Heraclitus and others 
 ' like-minded among the Greeks, and among barbarians, 
 
 ^ Second Apology, 6. ^ Second Apology, 13. 
 
 ^ Second Apology, 8. '^ Second Apology, 13. 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ' Abraham and Ananias and Azarias and Misael and 
 
 * Elias and many others.' ^ Nay, he puts Socrates 
 and Jesus side by side. Idolatry, he says, was 'refuted 
 
 * not only among the Greeks by Socrates with the 
 'help of reason, but also among the barbarians by 
 'the Logos himself, who took [human] form and 
 'was called Christ.' ^ Never were the tables more 
 completely turned. The hand of Marcus Aurelius fell 
 heavily upon the Christian name on the ground that it 
 was a new and therefore an unlawful religion. In reality^ 
 it was, if Justin was to be believed, the religion of 
 Socrates, whose memory the philosopher upon the throne 
 revered, of Socrates, who for its sake had endured the 
 reproach of atheism and the penalty of death. The 
 ' new religion ' was older than Socrates : it was coeval 
 with the world. The ' barbarian ' religion had been 
 defended by the wisest of the Greeks and sealed by the 
 testimony of his blood. 
 
 (2) Were this the whole of Justin's teaching, we might 
 well be at a loss to understand why he faced the trouble 
 and danger of becoming a Christian. His position 
 resembles on one side that of a modern like Lessing, who 
 might have found himself at home in every religion. 
 Only, however, on one side. Justin reckoned philosophy, 
 as the unaided effort of the human reason, insufficient for 
 the search after God. Its weakness and proneness to 
 error were attested by the discord among those who 
 professed to have discovered the truth. Moreover, men 
 were beset by malicious demons ever eager to seduce 
 them into a vicious idolatry, that they might secure divine 
 worship for themselves. The universality of polytheism 
 
 ^ First Apology, 46. ^ First Apology, 5. 
 
JUSTIN AND THE LOGOS 117 
 
 was evidence of the havoc which these demons had 
 wrought. To remedy this defect, the Word who is the 
 angel and minister of the supreme God, had spoken by 
 the prophets and had appeared in bodily form to the 
 Patriarchs. In the last days this Word had taken flesh, 
 had lived upon the earth and instructed men, in the 
 person of Jesus Christ. We may be tempted to regard 
 this part of Justin's theory as a reversion to the mytholo- 
 gical type, and a fall from the liberal and impartial 
 position of philosophy. So it was if we judge it by our 
 modern standard. Further, it must be granted that 
 Justin is inconsistent. We have heard him admitting 
 that Greek philosophers were disciples of the truth, and 
 explaining their agreement with his own conception of the 
 Christian religion on the purely Stoical theory that the 
 Word had scattered everywhere the ' seeds ' of the truth. 
 In some cases these seeds had fallen on barren, in others 
 on rocky soil, for there were false philosophers, just as 
 there were false Christians. 
 
 (3) Side by side with this admission, we find another 
 theory which practically amounts to a total denial of the 
 former view. The second theory is that the wise men 
 among the Greeks derived all the sound knowledge of 
 religion which they had, from, the Hebrews. Justin states 
 this in the plainest and most unqualified manner. 
 * Moses is older than all the writers among the Greeks. 
 ' And in all that philosophers and poets have said about 
 ' the immortality of the soul, punishments after death, the 
 ' contemplation of heavenly things or the like, they have 
 'been enabled to understand [the truth] and have set 
 'it forth, because they got the start from the prophets.'^ 
 
 ^ First Apology, 44. 
 
ii8 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ' Plato borrowed from our teachers, we mean from the 
 ' Word which came through the prophets, when he said 
 ' that God made the world by changing formless matter.'^ 
 It would be a waste of w^ords to enlarge on the radical 
 dissimilarity between Moses and Plato, or the naivete of 
 the supposition that the latter could have borrow^ed from 
 the former. Justin's method is quite as unphilosophical 
 in his elaborate argument that Christ is the very or 
 essential Word of God, so that those who follow him as 
 their guide are better off than Platonists or Stoics can 
 possibly be. Justin's arguments are drawn in the main 
 from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 interpreted on that same arbitrary system in which Philo 
 had led the way, and in which any text could prove any- 
 thing. Christ is shewn to be the Word in human form, 
 because long before his coming the sacred writers had by 
 miraculous inspiration predicted the time of his advent 
 and the minutest details of his life. A single specimen 
 wdll enable the reader to form some conception of the way 
 in which Justin goes to work. In the blessing of Jacob, 
 Judah is portrayed as ' Binding his foal unto the vine, 
 ' and his ass's colt unto the choice vine ; he hath washed 
 ' his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of 
 ' grapes.' This very simple passage which paints in 
 poetical colours the fertility of Judah, is adduced by Justin 
 no less than five times. The ass's colt denotes on the one 
 hand the literal colt which carried Christ into Jerusalem, 
 on the other, the gentile converts whom Christ reduced to 
 the obedience of faith. The washing in wine signifies the 
 blood in which Christ washes his people. The blood is 
 called the blood of the vine, to indicate that the blood of 
 
 ^ First Apology, 59. 
 
JUSTIN AND THE LOGOS 119 
 
 Jesus was drawn from the power of God and not from 
 human generation.! This brief summary spares the 
 reader the tedium of Justin's long exposition. One 
 would have thought that Justin might have been content 
 with the Jewish Scriptures, if permitted to handle them in 
 this free manner. But besides making the Hebrew 
 Bible speak Christian language, he accuses the Jews of 
 wilfully mutilating the text," a charge which Justin, who 
 was himself anything but a model of accuracy in quotation, 
 brings without the least reason. 
 
 (4) We have long outgrown the exegesis of Justin, and 
 it may seem hardly worth while to dwell upon it. But it 
 does deserve attention, because it prevailed for many 
 centuries in the church and is not quite dead even now. 
 And it suited Justin's time, if it does not suit ours. 
 Moreover, in his doctrine of the Word Justin helped to 
 build up that Christian or Catholic theology which 
 ultimately became the religion of the Empire. Partly this 
 theology triumphed, because it adopted and incorporated 
 the philosophy of the Empire. The educated heathen 
 were ready to accept the proposition that the Logos or 
 reason is the Son of God. Partly it triumphed, not 
 because of that which it took from, but because of that 
 which it gave to the Empire, namely, a moral and 
 comparatively rational religion. Despite his oddities, as 
 we, uncritically perhaps, can scarcely help calling them, 
 Justin mingled philosophy and religion with no small 
 skill, and adjusted the proportions to the palate of the 
 Roman world. Let us return for a moment to a saying 
 
 ^ Dial, with Tryph. 53, 54. Comp. 6^, 76. First Apology, 
 32, 54- 
 
 '^ Dial, with Tryph. yi, seq. 
 
I20 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of his which we have quoted already. Idolatry, he says, 
 ' was refuted not only among the Greeks by Socrates, but 
 ' also among the barbarians by the Word himself who 
 'took form and was called Jesus Christ.' Here Socrates 
 and Jesus are united in the interests of philosophy, 
 separated in the interests of religion. 
 
 (5) The Apologists do not all look out on the heathen 
 world in the same mood. Some contemplate it much as 
 Justin did, or go beyond him in the friendliness of their 
 overtures to non-Christian philosophy. Thus Minucius 
 Felix undertakes to prove the truth of Christianity from 
 the Stoic principle of knowledge, and expresses himself in 
 these striking words, ' I have exhibited the opinion of 
 
 * nearly all the philosophers, so that anyone would think, 
 
 * either that Christians are now philosophers or that 
 'philosophers were then Christians.' ^ Christianity is the 
 wisdom which nature has implanted in man:- let a man 
 use his reason in the search for truth and he will find the 
 Christian doctrine in his own soul. He translates Christian 
 ethics into the terminology of the Stoics, and represents 
 the Christian community as a union of philosophers all 
 the world over, of philosophers who are conscious of 
 natural kindred with each other. In like manner, 
 Athenagoras extols Plato, as one who ' contemplated the 
 ' eternal mind and God who is apprehended by reason.' ^ 
 But, all did not hold the same language. Tatian sets 
 Christianity in antagonism to the teaching of the philoso- 
 phers, and condemns its practical results, pride, hypocrisy, 
 sensuality.'* Theophilus went so far as to say that the 
 
 ^ Minucius Felix, Octavius, 20. ^ Octavius, 16. 
 
 3 Athenagoras, Supplication, 23. 
 
 '^ Tatian, Address to the Greeks, 2, and elsewhere. 
 
SUPERIORITY OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 121 
 
 philosophers were ' inspired by demons.' ^ A generation 
 later Tertullian wrote of philosophy and philosophers in 
 the same temper. 2 Yet Tatian often calls Christianity 
 'our philosophy'^ and asserts that it introduces no new 
 doctrine, but only the truths which mankind once had and 
 lost.^ Theophilus is of the same mind, and Tertullian has 
 left us a famous treatise ' on the Testimony of the Soul 
 ' naturally Christian.' 
 
 (6) In general the Apologists who, as has been said, 
 are the advocates not of philosophy pure and simple, 
 but of philosophy attested by revelation, make a point of 
 the way in which poets and philosophers contradict each 
 other, and even sometimes contradict themselves.^ From 
 this inextricable confusion the religion of Christ had in 
 their opinion delivered mankind. They made a second 
 point from the superiority of the Christian Hfe. ' We do 
 ' not speak great things,' says Minucius Felix with excus- 
 able pride, 'but we live them.'^ Thirdly, they felt that 
 Christ had at all events made truth current coin, whereas 
 the philosophers had failed to do so. It was the ' simple 
 * style, the artless form, the comprehensible account of 
 ' creation,' which among other reasons lured Tatian from 
 the doctrines of the Greeks to the ' Scriptures of the 
 'barbarians."^ 
 
 ^ Theophilus, To Autolycus, ii. 8. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 46. On Prescription against Here- 
 tics, 7. 
 
 ^ Tatian, Address, 31, and elsewhere. 
 
 "* Address, 29. 
 
 ^ See e.g. Theophilus, To Autolycus, ii. 4, 5, 8, iii. 7. 
 
 ^ Minucius Felix, Octavius, 38. 
 
 ' Tatian, Address, 29. 
 
122 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 § 8. Preparation for a Dogmatic System. 
 
 We may now sum up the results of the work which the 
 Apologists did. 
 
 (i) They equipped the Christian religion for the 
 conquest of the Roman world by changing it into a 
 philosophy, attested by revelation. They mingled to- 
 gether the metaphysics of Platonism, the doctrine of the 
 Logos, which came from the Stoics, morality partly 
 Platonic, partly Stoic, methods of argument and inter- 
 pretation learnt from Philo, with the pregnant maxims 
 of Jesus and the religious language of the Christian 
 congregations. They were the fathers of theology, and 
 of the dogmatic system, which, in the eyes of many even 
 now, belongs to the essence of Christianity. Yet the 
 word ' dogma ' is not Christian but pagan in its origin, 
 and as with the name, so it is with the thing. ' Dogma ' 
 was the term used for the decisions or conclusions 
 of philosophers. A Stoic, for instance, followed the 
 * dogmas ' of Zeno and his successors. The New Testa- 
 ment knows nothing of Christian dogma : when the 
 Apostolic Fathers use the word, they do not employ 
 it in the modern sense, but mean by it a rule of life, 
 a disposition of providence or the like. ^ But the Apolo- 
 gists in their place as Christian philosophers were forced 
 to answer the question. What are the dogmas of your 
 philosophy ? We are only repeating the same thing in 
 other words when we add that they were the fathers of 
 Christian theology, and it is no cause of surprise to find 
 
 ^ See the references in Lightfoot on Coloss. ii. 14, and on Ignatius, 
 To the Magnesians, 13. 
 
THE DOGMAS OF THE APOLOGISTS 123 
 
 Justin speaking of ' theological enquiry ' in its modern 
 and technical sense.^ 
 
 (2) The dogmas of Christianity then, as maintained by 
 them, were chiefly these three, the unity of God the 
 creator, the necessity of serving God by a holy life, the 
 coming of the day of judgment with its rewards for the 
 virtuous, and penalties for the vicious. Had they nothing 
 to say about the forgiveness of sins and the redemp- 
 tion of the world by Christ ? Justin, indeed, is fond of 
 dilating on such topics, nor would any of the Apologists 
 have denied their importance. But most of them give 
 these subjects a very secondary place, and in fact, when 
 Christianity was regarded from that philosophical point of 
 view which the Apologists took, redemption could not 
 any longer be the central theme. For what man wanted, 
 was, in the eyes of the Apologists, not redemption, but 
 revelation. He required to know the truth about God 
 and about himself. That being given, the rest was in 
 his own power, for the Apologists, like the later Stoics, 
 argued strenuously that man's will was free, that if his 
 outward circumstances were bound fast in fate, he was 
 still master of his thoughts and actions. Thus the 
 
 * dogmas ' of the Apologists were an accommodation to 
 philosophy. Philosophy and religion up to a certain 
 point were merged in each other. Celsus, the heathen 
 opponent of Christianity, was ready to accept the doctrine 
 that the Logos was the Son of God.- Even the 
 idea of inspiration was admitted on both sides. It 
 is not a Christian Apologist, it is Cicero, who wrote, 
 
 * Nobody ever became a great man without some 
 ' divine afflatus.' And before we quit this part of the 
 
 ^ Dialogue with Trypho, 113. ^ Origen, Against Celsus, ii. 31. 
 
124 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 subject, let the reader notice the strange and instruc- 
 tive history of the word dogma. To us it expresses 
 the antagonism, or at least the divergence, between 
 philosophy and religion. But originally the name and 
 the thing were borrowed from philosophy. To us dogma 
 means something which admits of no direct proof from 
 reason. In the hands of the Apologists, Christianity 
 became philosophic and dogmatical at one and the same 
 time, and each dogma was a conclusion of the human 
 reason. A dogmatic faith is a philosophical creed. 
 The real objection to it is, not that it ignores reason 
 and philosophy, but that it stereotypes the philosophy 
 of the Roman world, aud confuses Greek and Roman 
 speculation with the religious intuitions of Jesus. Many 
 a man has been accused of intellectual pride, just because 
 he prefers the simplicity which is after Christ, to in- 
 tellectual theories of which Jesus was wholly ignorant. 
 
 (3) As yet, however, there were but the faint beginnings 
 of that dogmatic system which is embodied in the Catholic 
 creeds. 
 
 {a) The conception of dogma, as given by the Apolo- 
 gists, was on the whole to remain, not, however, without 
 serious modification. This arose from a restriction made 
 in the function of philosophy. With the Apologists, 
 philosophy and religion covered the same ground, and were 
 indeed convertible terms. No doubt they drew largely 
 from the Hebrew Scriptures and the traditions of Christ's 
 life. But these were vital to them, not so much because 
 they formed the actual contents of religion, as because 
 they confirmed it by solid proof. The essence of their 
 religion lay in beliefs, which have a certain resemblance 
 to the deism of the last century. But the fulfilment 
 
THE DOGMAS OF THE APOLOGISTS 125 
 
 of prophecy in Christ raised these beliefs from probability 
 to certainty. This is why Justin puts a stress on the 
 details of Christ's life which seems to us childish. The 
 smallest incident, if miraculously predicted, proved Christ 
 to be the very Logos or reason of God, and therefore the 
 one safe teacher of a heavenly philosophy. In after 
 ages, a distinction was made between natural religion, 
 which embraced the deism of the Apologists, and dogmas 
 such as those of the Trinity and Incarnation. These last 
 were expressed in philosophical language, they were due 
 to the action of philosophy upon the data supplied, as 
 was thought, by the original teaching of Christ and his 
 Apostles, but it was not pretended that they could be 
 proved by mere reason. In the last resort, they were 
 inferences from two premises, of which one at least 
 was revealed. Human reason certainly could not prove 
 dogma, and might be unable to comprehend it. Thus 
 a far more complicated system replaced the simple 
 philosophy of the Apologists. Men were asked to 'believe 
 ' in order that they might understand,' and philosophy, no 
 longer the sister, became the hand-maid of faith. 
 
 {b) Again, the dogmas of the Apologists, unlike the 
 dogmas which were advanced a century later, made no 
 claim to rank as articles of faith. The Apologists had 
 their own theories about the Word of God. But they 
 were mere theories. The CathoHc church was just 
 springing into life, and so far as it existed (in Justin's 
 time it did not exist) it imposed no theory about the 
 Word as a condition of communion. 
 
 {c) Lastly, the Apologists, so far as they were the fathers 
 of dogma, died while dogmas which began with them and 
 afterwards attained gigantic stature, were still in their 
 
126 THE DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 feeble infancy. They had a theology of the Word, but 
 not of the Trinity, though the word Trinity is used for the 
 first time by Theophilus of Antioch.i Their theology, 
 moreover, differed on a point of capital importance from 
 that of later ages. The Catholic church finally acquiesced 
 in the belief that the Word is distinct from, but co-equal 
 with, the Father. Instead of this, the Apologists were 
 impelled to believe in the distinct personality of the Word, 
 just because he was not God co-equal with the Father, 
 but a secondary God subordinate to Him, and for that 
 reason capable at once of manifesting the supreme Being, 
 and coming into immediate contact with the world, as the 
 invisible Creator of all could not do. In the Spirit as a 
 distinct being they had little interest, and Theophilus, 
 though he uses the word Trinity, is much at a loss to dis- 
 tinguish the second Person of his Trinity from the third.^ 
 A few words from Justin exhibit the fluid condition of a 
 theology not yet cast into the moulds of later dogma. 
 ' We worship and adore Him \2)iz. : God], and the Son 
 ' who came from Him and taught us these lessons, and 
 * the host of the other good angels who attend on him and 
 ' are like him, and the prophetic spirit.' '^ Here the Son 
 is placed by implication among the angels, w^hose leader 
 he is ; the name of the ' prophetic spirit ' is mentioned 
 after that of the angels. It is true that this passage may 
 be said to represent the low-water mark in the theology 
 of the Apologists. Not one of them, however, had even 
 dreamt that there was a Trinity of equal Persons in the 
 Godhead. 
 
 ^ To Autolycus, ii. 15. 
 
 2 See To Autolycus, ii. 10, with Otto's notes. 
 
 ^ First Apology, 6. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 § I. Twofold Unity of Creed and Organisation. 
 
 The works of the Apologists exhibit the rise of that 
 theology which afterwards hardened into dogma and 
 thoroughly altered the conception and character of 
 Christianity. This was the most momentous change 
 effected by the place of the Christian church in the 
 midst of the Roman civilisation. 
 
 As yet, however, we have only seen the first signs of 
 the transformation which was at hand. The Apologists 
 had a theology, and one which, in its main lines, finally 
 prevailed ; but they had no dogma in the modern sense 
 of the word, because they did not impose their specula- 
 tions as articles of church communion. It was after their 
 time, in the course of the third century, that the change 
 set in, by which the bond of union between Christian and 
 Christian came to consist in the acceptance of a theo- 
 logical creed. During that period, an intellectual was 
 substituted for a religious and moral bond. The Chris- 
 
128 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 tian brotherhood, once knit together by common hopes 
 and aspirations, by the same childHke trust in God and 
 Christ, by holiness of hfe and charity towards each other, 
 tended more and more to become a body of men who 
 held the same philosophical ideas on the nature of the 
 Godhead. This fundamental alteration was accompanied 
 by many others, some of which were scarcely less im- 
 portant. The congregations had in the early days no 
 officials, and did not need them. They were under the 
 influence of the spirit, or, to put it in modern language, 
 of an enthusiasm which overpowered them. Their 
 teachers were men who spoke as the spirit ' gave them 
 utterance : ' new churches were founded by wandering 
 evangelists, who had been called supernaturally to this 
 special \sork. The churches were one, because they 
 were of one mind, and because they helped each other. 
 Little by little, officials appointed by their fellow-Chris- 
 tians replaced the inspired teachers, and the church 
 throughout the Empire was governed by a federation 
 of bishops. Unity of organisation was combined with 
 unity of creed, each unity being external and formal, 
 whereas the old unity was internal and spontaneous. It 
 would require a complete history of the church during the 
 first three centuries of its existence to trace these changes 
 in detail. But all of them are closely connected with the 
 relations between Christianity and the Empire. For this 
 reason, the chief among them will be briefly noted and 
 described in this chapter, fuller information being re- 
 served for the subsequent manuals of this series. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM 129 
 
 § 2. Altered Relations to Judaism. 
 
 First, the Christian church cut its old moorings and 
 lost touch with Judaism from the very fact that it was 
 launched into the larger world and the wider interests 
 of the Empire. 
 
 (i) Not that the severance was, or is even now, complete. 
 The Christians carried with them valuable possessions, 
 which had originally belonged to Palestine. Like the 
 Jews, they continued to believe in one God : they retained, 
 though not altogether unimpaired, the monotheism, which 
 was the distinctive glory of later Judaism. Heathen 
 philosophers had been in a sense monotheists. Only, 
 however, in a sense. So far as the Christian ideas of the 
 divine unity were clear and free from the taint of com- 
 promise with idolatry, they were not heathen, but Jewish. 
 Nor is it too much to say that the Christian God was to a 
 great extent identified with the God of Israel. The God 
 of philosophy stood apart from the popular religion and 
 easily became a mere abstraction. The Christian God, on 
 the contrary, was a being who had spoken by the 
 prophets, who had guided the destinies of the chosen 
 nation, and educated it, that in the end He might 
 bring the world to a knowledge of Himself. This at 
 least was the view maintained, not indeed, without keen 
 opposition, but still maintained among the vast majority 
 of Christians. Its obvious disadvantages were counter- 
 balanced by far greater gain. Religion was instinct with 
 life, because it was directed to a God, who, from the first 
 had ruled the world for righteous ends. So again, the 
 conception of God as the creator was Jewish. The 
 
 K 
 
I30 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 philosophers of the Empire either identified God with 
 the universe, or represented Him as moulding it from 
 pre-existent matter : they did not reach the thought of 
 creation out of nothing. The Hebrew Scriptures in 
 which these ideas are enunciated with varying degrees 
 of purity, became the authoritative Scriptures, and were 
 till the latter part of the second century the only authori- 
 tative Scriptures, of the Christian church. The name too, 
 and the idea of the church itself were Jewish. As national 
 independence passed away from the Jewish people and 
 its restoration became more and more hopeless, pious 
 souls comforted themselves with the reflection that 
 Israel was a religious community, ' the congregation,' or 
 * assembly of the Lord.' This idea assumed a nobler 
 form in that Kingdom of God which Jesus preached. It 
 was continued among Christians. But just as they ex- 
 plained the Hebrew Bible on the allegorical method in 
 vogue at the time, and found it witnessing everywhere 
 that Jesus was the Messiah, so to them the congregation 
 or ecclesia of the Lord meant no longer the Jewish nation, 
 or the best part of it, but rather those who, whatever 
 their nation might be, believed in Jesus as Christ and Lord. 
 
 (2) Such were the permanent contributions of Judaism 
 to Christian thought. For the rest, Judaism fell almost 
 out of sight. No other result was possible, when the 
 church was almost entirely composed of Gentile converts 
 and their descendants. 
 
 {a) The controversy about the law which so vehemently 
 agitated the minds of men in the Apostolic age settled 
 itself by the irresistible force of circumstances. Outwardly 
 Jesus had lived and died a Jew. No doubt the principles 
 of his spiritual religion once accepted must be fatal to 
 
THE JE WISH LAW 131 
 
 Jewish legalism and ceremonialism. The Jewish law 
 crumbled to pieces for those who were persuaded that 
 ' not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man,' 
 that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the 
 Sabbath,' that the Mosaic law of divorce was a concession 
 to the hardness of the heart, and contradicted the divine 
 institution of marriage. But Jesus had no occasion to 
 develop his principles to their utmost consequence. It 
 was still open for Jewish disciples, so long as they were 
 in a majority, to maintain the binding force of the Jewish 
 law, either for believers of Jewish birth or for all, whether 
 Jew or Gentile, who would enter that ' kingdom of God 
 which Jesus founded. We all know that the attempt was 
 made. When, however, the Jewish Christians became 
 an insignificant minority, any such attempt would have 
 been desperate. The very claims made for Jesus to be 
 the Messiah, as the first Christians understood the term, 
 awoke less and less interest among the mass of Christians. 
 The local ordinances of Judaism had no possible attraction 
 for them. The destruction of the temple put it beyond 
 their power to observe most important parts of the Jewish 
 law. Of that which was left, much was impractical or 
 even unintelligible without Jewish tradition, which had 
 become inaccessible to most Christians. 
 
 {b) But there were parts of the Jewish law which did 
 supply a desideratum among Christians. It gave revealed 
 rules of morality not to be found so clearly and compactly 
 stated, in the literature of Greece and Rome. Hence a 
 distinction was made between the ceremonial and moral 
 parts of the law. Some thought that the ceremonial 
 precepts had been given by God, but only for the time 
 which preceded the death of Jesus, others that they had 
 
 K2 
 
132 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 always been intended to be taken in a purely figurative 
 sense. It came to be generally allowed that in any case 
 they were not binding now. This distinction has, of 
 course, no shadow of justification in the text of the 
 Hebrew law. It could only be made by persons who had 
 a very superficial acquaintance with it. The prohibition 
 of eating unclean meat for example is enforced in 
 Leviticus for no temporary reason, but on the ground 
 that the Israelities are to be holy as their God is holy. 
 Nevertheless, on the part of Gentile Christians the 
 distinction, arbitrary as it is, was inevitable. Even now it 
 is accepted by multitudes without the slightest misgiving. 
 (3) This was a point of view wholly different from that 
 of St. Paul, and in the new order of things, St. Paul's 
 position, his theology and his arguments dropped out of 
 sight almost as completely as that of the judaizing Christians 
 with whom he fought. St. Paul advocated a Christianity 
 which made salvation independent of race or of Jewish 
 observances, and so far the church of later ages was at 
 one with him. But here the agreement was at an end. 
 Theologian as he was, St. Paul did not found the theology 
 of the church. If St. Paul is in principle anti-Jewish, 
 he is in his method of argument the most intensely Jewish 
 among all the writers of the New Testament. He betrays 
 at every turn a rabbinical training, which made him often 
 unintelligible to the church which arose after he was 
 gone. St. Paul knew the law too well to dream of separa- 
 tion between its moral and ceremonial elements. To him 
 the law was one and indivisible. In his youth he had 
 struggled to fulfil it to the least jot and tittle. He groaned 
 under its burden and under the consciousness of sin which 
 it evoked. At last the extremity of the evil worked its 
 
THE JEWISH LAW 133 
 
 own cure. Through ' the law he died to the law ' and 
 rose to a new life of faith or trust, and, being free from all 
 law, passed under the dominion of love in which the law 
 is fulfilled. His religion was in its kernel sublimely 
 reasonable. It is not law but trust which expresses the 
 true and personal relations between the soul and God. 
 Yet this stand-point transcended the common-sense of 
 average men. They want rules of conduct, tangible and 
 definite, by which they may test themselves and others. 
 Besides, Greeks had groaned under no burden of legal 
 ordinances, and the experience of the great Apostle was 
 quite strange to them. St. Paul sighed for deliverance 
 from the law, which was ' the power of sin.' The Greek 
 looked for deliverance from a sensual and self-indulgent 
 life, in which the nature of sin was scarcely felt. Hence 
 an author who writes in the name of Paul but who really 
 lived long after his time and breathed a different air, 
 describes Jesus as ' one who gave himself for us that he 
 ' might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify unto 
 ' himself a people for his own possession zealous of good 
 * works.' 
 
 § 3. New Prominence of Morality. 
 
 In the church which was free from the associations of 
 Judaism on the one hand, and had lost the ability to 
 understand St. Paul upon the other, morality assumed a 
 prominence unknown either to St. Paul or to the first 
 disciples. This statement can hardly fail to seem para- 
 doxical and certainly it needs explanation. 
 
134 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 (i) It may be said that the Sermon on the Mount 
 makes morality all in all, and that the difference between 
 Jesus and the church which was set up in his name lay 
 in this very thing, that, whereas Jesus made goodness the 
 one thing needful, the Catholic church imposed articles 
 of belief and laid the chief stress upon them. This 
 objection is plausible and it contains a certain amount of 
 truth. It is indeed unanswerable, so long as we contrast 
 dogma, or intellectual assent to a series of intellectual 
 propositions, with morality. That, however, is not the 
 real point. The contrast should be made not between 
 morality and dogma but between morality and religion. 
 Religion if it has any value implies morality: the amount 
 and quality of the morality which it implies is the test of 
 its worth. But religion is not a code of ethical rules : it 
 is the communion of person with person, of the soul with 
 God. Now Jesus was not a moralist but a religious 
 teacher. Let anyone read attentively the ' Manual ' of 
 Epictetus and then turn to the ' Sermon on the Mount.' 
 He will feel instinctively that he has passed into a different 
 sphere. Epictetus has something to say about religion, 
 Jesus has a great deal to say^ about morality. But with 
 Epictetus the main thing is self-improvement and religion 
 is secondary. Jesus directs the eyes of his hearers to a 
 God who is their Father. It is from the desire to be like 
 Him, from gratitude and love to Him that all our con- 
 ception of duty is to flow. We are to show kindness to 
 the wicked and the unthankful, because we are the 
 children of Him who makes his sun shine on the just 
 and the unjust : we are to forgive without stint or limit, as 
 He has forgiven us. This is very different from the 
 Greek notion of * virtue,' a word which never occurs in 
 
PROMINENCE OF MORALITY 135 
 
 the gospels and is scarcely found in the whole course of 
 the New Testament. Again Jesus gives no code of rules, 
 though he sets forth principles few in number but capable 
 of infinite application. What code of rules could 
 determine the conduct of those who were to be perfect, 
 as their Father in heaven is perfect? It is only the 
 coarser relations of life which can be fixed by rule : friend- 
 ship and love are dead, or dying, when the need of rule 
 begins to be fell. For the same reason the disciple of 
 Jesus can never be content with himself. When he has 
 done all, he is ' an unprofitable servant.' He has to pray 
 daily for forgiveness. His aim is different from that of a 
 disciple of Epictetus, who strives to live ' according to 
 nature,' and may hope for a fair measure of success. 
 
 (2) Very soon the Christians of the Empire felt that 
 they could not breathe at this height. They came to think 
 of morality and religion as two separate quantities both 
 of which were necessary for the Christian, though of 
 course religion was to promote morality. In the first 
 place the Christian had to believe in God and Christ, in 
 the second place he had to fulfil his moral obligations, 
 and if he satisfied both requirements he would be saved. 
 The change is marked by a significant term. Christianity 
 was described as ' the new law.' The expression first 
 occurs in the early epistle falsely ascribed to Barnabas,^ was 
 soon adopted universally, and is still retained in Roman 
 Catholic theology. Those who introduced it, were far 
 from being judaisers. It was not the old law with its 
 burdensome ceremonial which they advocated, but * the 
 * new law ' which consisted of moral precepts. In some 
 measure these moral precepts were derived from Jesus, 
 
 ^ Epistle of Barnabas, 2. 
 
136 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 but on the whole the morahty which obtained a footing 
 in the church was simply the best morality of the Greek 
 philosophers. In such an author as Clement of Alexandria, 
 the language and the moral rules are to a great extent the 
 reflection of Stoic teaching, and hisP2edagogus,amanualof 
 the ascetic life, is in considerable portions taken verbally 
 from Musonius. This morality of the heathen philosophers 
 was handed down to the middle ages ; it appears in the 
 Summa of Thomas Aquinas : it survives in many a 
 modern treatise of Roman Catholic piety. The change 
 dealt a heavy blow to religion. Religion implies constant 
 dependence on God, and so long as the need of daily 
 help and forgiveness was recognised, there was no danger 
 that the sense of dependence would perish by disuse. 
 But the notion that Christianity was a new law left man 
 to work out his salvation by himself. The Christians 
 came to think like the Stoics that virtue was in a man's 
 own power. True, they could not as Christians ignore 
 the need of forgiveness. But it was the common theory 
 that forgiveness of serious offences was bestowed once 
 for all, when a man entered the church by baptism. 
 After that, no further forgiveness was to be expected. He 
 w^ho had been delivered from heathen error and the 
 power of the demons had no further excuse. He must 
 prepare himself to bear 'the yoke of the Lord.' To this 
 yoke so understood human nature proved in the end 
 inadequate, and a remedy was found in magical means 
 of obtaining divine pardon, a remedy which often proved 
 worse than the disease. 
 
 (3) Nor was the morality taught by any means always 
 rational. It was deeply tinged with the asceticism which 
 shrank from the enjoyments and even the business of life. 
 
MORALITY AND ASCETICISM 137 
 
 It forfeited no small part of that which is the distinctive 
 glory of Christianity, viz. that it counts nothing common 
 or unclean, that it claims every phase of human life as its 
 own, and infuses a divine spirit into all natural relations. 
 From the very earliest times traces of this ascetic spirit 
 appear in the church. Even in St. Paul's time, the 
 Roman church counted among its members men who 
 abstained on ascetic grounds from animal food. The 
 same spirit had been exhibited on a large scale among 
 the Palestinian Jews, by the Essenes, who led a monastic 
 life, abstained from flesh, and deprecated marriage. It 
 is difficult, perhaps impossible, to as^certain the origin of 
 this ascetism. It was not due to the Old Testament or 
 the orthodox Judaism, and Christians could not have learnt 
 it from a master ' who came eating and drinking.' Still, 
 it appears, as has been just said, in the very infancy of 
 the church, and early in the second century it had 
 reached full stature. From whatever source it first found 
 its way into Christian life, it was in harmony with the 
 * askesi's,' the ascetism of bodily training recommended by 
 the Stoic philosophers, and with the persuasion widely 
 spread in the ancient world that matter was the root of 
 evil. 
 
 (4) Its prominent features were rigorous abstinence and 
 the preference of the celibate to the married state. ' If 
 ' thou canst bear the complete yoke of the Lord,' says the 
 'Teaching of the Apostles," 'thou wilt be perfect. But if 
 <thou canst not, do what thou canst. As to food, bear 
 ' what thou art able.' ^ Justin boasts that he can point to 
 Christians of every class who have lived to old age in 
 unmarried purity.- There were considerable bodies of 
 
 ^ Teaching of the Apostles, 6. ^ First Apology, 15. 
 
138 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christians who entirely repudiated marriage. Such were 
 the early sect of Encratites, or continent persons, to whom 
 Tatian the Apologist attached himself. Tatian wrote a 
 treatise ' on Christian perfection,' with the object of 
 propagating his ascetical views, and he treated marriage 
 as a kind of immorality. ^ Many of the Gnostics were 
 forced by their doctrine that matter was evil to the same 
 low estimate of marriage. Others who did not consciously 
 hold the Gnostic principle on the nature of matter, were 
 no less extreme in practice. Thus we learn that Dionysius, 
 of Corinth, in the seventh decade of the second century, 
 expostulated with a Cretan bishop and begged him ' not 
 'to lay on the brethren the heavy yoke of enforced 
 ' chastity, but to accommodate himself to the weakness of 
 * the generality. '2 Of those who tolerated marriage, some 
 limited their approval to marriage once in life. A second 
 union was, as they thought, no better than ' a specious 
 adultery.' ^ The church soon recoiled from extremes on 
 which its future as the church of the Roman world would 
 have suffered utter shipwreck. The repudiation of mar- 
 riage, and even of second marriage, was left to the hereti- 
 cal sects, while the large or Catholic church pursued a 
 more moderate and practical policy. Nevertheless the 
 Catholic church committed itself to the principle that the 
 celibate was holier beyond all comparison than the mar- 
 ried state, and a long succession of fathers and saints have 
 indulged in extravagant laudations of virginity. 
 
 ^ Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, iii. 81. 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iv. 23, 7. 
 
 ^ A.t\\em.gor^s, Stippli cation, 2,2; Theophilus, To Autolycus,\\\. 15. 
 The still harsher view of the Montanists is given by Tertullian, On 
 Monogamy, and Exhortation to Chastity. 
 
MORALITY AND ASCETICISM 139 
 
 (5) The ascetical view of life thus authorised has been 
 fruitful in pernicious results. Morbid attention has been 
 concentrated on matters which have no place in a pure 
 and healthy mind. The persons best fitted to give a 
 pattern of domestic life have been withdrawn from it. 
 By recognising two states, one of which was, though 
 permitted, intrinsically imperfect, the church made a 
 capitulation with human weakness, and exempted the 
 mass of Christians from the perfection to which they are 
 called. The absolute prohibition of marriage by the 
 smaller churches or sects, was not only more consistent, 
 but even in a sense more Christian. Again, the holiest 
 relations of life in which, above all, the Christian spirit 
 should display itself, have been degraded in the eyes of 
 mankind and barely tolerated in concession to human 
 weakness. Lastly, to leave the special subject of ascetism 
 and revert to the general conception of Christianity as a 
 new law, the new Christianity lost that power of inspiring 
 peace and joy which the Christianity of Christ and his 
 apostles had exhibited in an eminent degree. While 
 Christian observance flowed naturally from Christian 
 love, it might well be said that the commandments of 
 Christ 'were not heavy.' The sacrifices of love are not 
 burdensome, but self-discipHne is. ' I do not know,' says 
 a Christian writer of the second century, * if these com- 
 ' mandments can be kept by many, inasmuch as they are 
 ' exceedingly hard.' ^ This is the prevailing tone in 
 Catholic piety, allayed more or less after a time by the 
 comfort which could be afforded by trust in sacraments 
 
 ^ Shepherd of Hermas, 'Commandments/ xii. 3. The author 
 adds the cold assurance that they become easy to those who 
 make up their minds to keep them. 
 
140 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 as channels of mysterious grace. And this comfort was 
 counterbalanced by the growing burden of the new law 
 which came to include ceremonial as well as moral 
 precepts. Beginning as a reaction against the legalism 
 of the Pharisees, Christianity was in its own turn corrupted 
 into legalism and formalism, and Luther could enter into 
 the mind of St. Paul, because his own experience when a 
 monk had been like that of the apostle when a Pharisee. 
 
 § 4. Decay of the Expectation of Christ's Second Coming. 
 
 As Christianity made its power felt in the Empire and 
 became conscious of its strength, a new vista opened out 
 before it, and old hopes once vivid, grew pale and died 
 away. 
 
 (i) The early Christians were ready enough to indulge 
 in fantastic delusions, but they never dreamt that they 
 would convert the world. On the contrary, the hopes 
 which they did cherish were incompatible with any such 
 expectation. They inherited the belief held by Jewish 
 enthusiasts, that in a little, the course of the world would 
 be abruptly ended, and the kingdoms of the heathen be 
 replaced by the kingdom of God and the reign of the 
 Saints. They studied diligently that literature of the 
 Jews which is called apocalyptic, because it professed 
 to lift the veil which hid from view the coming 
 catastrophe and the coming glory. The ' revelations ' of 
 Daniel, of Ezra, of Enoch, of Baruch, of Moses, were 
 favourite books among Christians, and they produced 
 books of their own in imitation of them or gave Jewish 
 
EXPECTATION OF THE END OF THE WORLD 141 
 
 * revelations ' a Christian complexion by interpolating the 
 text. Of course, the Christians modified the hopes which 
 they inherited from the Jews. Believing Jesus to be the 
 Christ, they naturally held that he was to come again and 
 reign over the kingdom of the saints. All beheved that 
 the end was at hand. Even St. Paul, whose spiritual 
 tendencies saved him from dwelling on this seductive 
 theme, still was convinced that Christ was to appear 
 again in his own time, and that many of the generation in 
 which he lived, would never taste death. He had little 
 interest in marriage, and thought slavery a matter of small 
 moment, because no external change seemed worth while, 
 seeing that the end was so near. But most Christians 
 went much further. They were confident that a final 
 struggle between good and evil was at hand, in which 
 evil would for a time prevail, that Christ would reverse 
 the triumph of sinners by suddenly appearing in glory, 
 that the saints \^ould be raised from the dead and would 
 reign with him on earth, after which the general resurrec- 
 tion was to follow. 'I,' says Justin, 'and all Christians 
 ' who are thoroughly right-minded know that the 
 
 * resurrection of the flesh will take place, and that a 
 'thousand years will be spent in -Jerusalem, rebuilt, 
 ' adorned, enlarged, as Ezekiel and Isaiah and the other 
 ' prophets confess.' ^ This view prevailed everywhere in 
 Christianity till it had been permeated and transformed 
 by Greek influences. Papias, of Hierapolis, that zealous 
 collector of apostolic traditions, had a wonderful story to 
 tell of the vines in the millennium. Each plant was to 
 produce ten thousand shoots : each shoot, ten thousand 
 branches : each branch, ten thousand twigs : each twig, 
 
 ^ Dialogue with Trypho, 80. 
 
142 CHANGED ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ten thousand clusters : each cluster, ten thousand grapes: 
 each grape was to yield twenty-five firkins of wine. If a 
 saint put forth his hand to reach a cluster, a neighbouring 
 cluster would cry, ' Take me, for I am better.' This 
 nonsense is gravely repeated by Irenaeus, who tells us 
 that Papias received it from St. John, who heard it from 
 the lips of Jesus.i 
 
 (2) During the whole of the first three centuries, and 
 later, this belief lingered in the east, and it had a much 
 stronger hold in the west. But the Greek spirit was 
 hostile, and in the end fatal to it. It had done its work. 
 The belief in a millenium at Jerusalem often coupled 
 with the idea that the anti-Christian power was embodied 
 in the Roman Empire, was naturally attractive to Jews, 
 and when adapted to Christian forms of thought, it 
 enabled the Christian to rival the Jewish propaganda. 
 It was very far from attractive to philosophic Greeks, 
 who had no desire for the restoration of Jerusalem, and 
 to whom the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh was 
 odious, much more the sensual delights of a Jewish 
 millennium. Such fantastic dreams were also ill suited 
 to a religion in which reason was displacing enthusiasm, 
 which was making its way in the world, and could not 
 therefore be expected to long for the destruction of the 
 world, which from the time of Origen, at least, began to 
 think that the world would be converted, and would 
 protect instead of persecuting the Christian faith. It is 
 well worth noting that the writers who best represent the 
 amalgamation of original Christianity with Greek ideas are 
 indifferent to or opposed to the old belief in a millenium. 
 The Apologists, except Justin, pass it over in silence. It 
 
 ^ Irenaeus, Against Heresies, v. 33, 3. 
 
DECAY OF MILLENARIANISM 
 
 143 
 
 was vigorously attacked in the great Alexandrian school by 
 the philosophic Origen. The new teachers were occupied 
 with the hope of spiritual incorruption and immortality, 
 and with the thought of mystical union with God as a 
 present possession. Their allegorical method of inter- 
 pretation enabled them to neutralise the passages in the 
 prophets, and in the Revelation of St. John, which told 
 for their Millenarian adversaries, though the leaders of 
 the Alexandrian school did not conceal their aversion to 
 the latter book, and for a time openly rejected its 
 authority. The western Christians were less philo- 
 sophical and more conservative, consequently Millen- 
 arianism held its ground there, after it had been driven 
 from the learned churches of the east and only lingered 
 in obscure corners of the eastern world. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE CHRISTIANITY AN 
 INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM. 
 
 Meantime, nothing has been said of the internal diffi- 
 culties which Christianity had to overcome before it 
 could vanquish its external enemies and grow into the 
 church of the Empire. So long as we look simply to 
 the work of the Apologists, to the gradual and natural 
 fusion of Christianity with ideas borrowed from the 
 heathen world, and to the instinct by which Christians 
 allowed reflection to replace enthusiasm, and abandoned 
 hopes once dear to the Christian heart, but unsuitable 
 to the changed position of the church, all seems easy 
 and plain. But much remains to complete the account 
 we have given. 
 
 § I. Dangers arising from Contact with Greek Thought. 
 
 (i) It was impossible that educated Christians should 
 bring the new religion into contact with Greek thought 
 and not expose it to grave peril. What security could 
 
DANGERS THROUGH GREEK THOUGHT 145 
 
 there be that Greek ideas might not mingle with 
 Christianity till the distinctive features of the latter 
 were obliterated ? Christianity might have found its 
 level among the philosophical schools of the time. 
 In this case it might have escaped persecution and 
 perhaps obloquy, but it would have paid dearly for this 
 by losing its hopes of conquest. Again, reasoning and 
 speculation tend to divide men who have been united by 
 community of feeling. It was possible therefore that 
 Christians might be split up into a number of sects, none 
 of which stood out conspicuous by its numbers and 
 influence above the rest. In that case also the Christian 
 religion could scarcely have had any chance of success. 
 For there was yet no great or Catholic church over- 
 shadowing the sects and bound together by an organisa- 
 tion of its own. There was no single body claiming 
 authority to regulate the formation of doctrine, to discrimi- 
 nate between truth and error, and so to secure, at least 
 among the large majority of Christians, unity of belief and 
 of discipline. There was no collection of Christian 
 books separated by common consent from the general 
 mass of Christian literature, and recognised as the au- 
 thentic sources of Christian behef. There was no Catholic 
 church, and no New Testament. Christians reverenced 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, but they had from the first 
 subjected them to an allegorical interpretation by 
 which almost any meaning might be drawn from their 
 pages. They sedulously preserved traditions about 
 the life and sayings of Jesus, but such tradition was 
 necessarily fluid, and was constantly changing as it passed 
 from mouth to mouth, from church to church, from one 
 generation to another. 
 
 L 
 
146 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 (2) The danger of disintegration, which might have 
 been expected, soon became painfully evident. The 
 Apologists availed themselves of Greek ideas, but they 
 did so with moderation. Others, before and after them, 
 did not restrain themselves within the same limits. The 
 old Christianity was transformed in the boldest fashion 
 till hardly one of its original features could be recognised. 
 The extremity of danger called forth the appropriate 
 remedy, which was the Catholic church. That body 
 with its fixed organisation stemmed the flood of extrava- 
 gant speculation. Its officers contrived to unite the great 
 body of Christians. It made a selection from Chrisdan 
 literature and tradition, affixing to each the seal of its 
 authority. It decided with practical tact how far Greek 
 speculation might be safely endured. It won the day 
 because of its genius for prudent compromise. It 
 mingled Christian and heathen elements in the pro- 
 portion suited to the taste of the age. It claimed to 
 be simply conservative. In reality, it was very far from 
 being anything of the kind. Its boasted organisation 
 was a novelty : so was much of its teaching. It crushed 
 out some principles of primitive Chrisdanity, and put 
 down more than one conservative reaction. At the same 
 time it was certainly conservative, if we compare it with 
 the revolutionary movements against which its early 
 energies were in the main directed. Yet no small part 
 of its skill w^as shown in wresting powerful weapons from 
 its revoludonary foes, and turning these against their 
 inventors. 
 
THE GNOSTICS 147 
 
 § 2. The extreme Intellectualism of the Gnostics. 
 
 The movement which, while it professed to turn Chris- 
 tianity into an intellectual system, would in the end have 
 paralysed its strength as a religion, is known in history 
 as Gnosticism. The Greek word gnosis means know- 
 ledge; the Gnostics were the men capable of knowledge, 
 men who really understood divine things. 
 
 (i) The name was given in the first place to sects which 
 arose in the east, and combined in a fanciful manner 
 certain fragments of Judaism and Christianity with 
 oriental forms of heathenism. Amalgamations of a 
 similar character were in fashion before Christianity 
 existed. Samaria with its mixed population and bastard 
 Judaism was a very natural birth-place for religions of 
 this sort, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the 
 early tradition that Simon the Samaritan ]\Iagician intro- 
 duced a hybrid system, in which magical arts, Syrian 
 and Phoenician mythology, were united with his own 
 claims to be the Samaritan Messiah. In the later develop- 
 ments of Simon's doctrine by his disciples advantage was 
 taken of Christian principles and of Christian terminology. 
 Simon represented the supreme God, who under different 
 names appears in all manifestations of the godhead. 
 The divine ' thought ' produced the angels. They in 
 turn made the world, but they w^ere ignorant of the 
 Father and detained his Ennoia or ' thought ' out of envy 
 in the material universe. She underwent repeated incarna- 
 tions, appearing for example as Helen of Troy, and as a 
 woman of the same name who was a companion of Simon. 
 At last the highest power revealed himself in Simon. He 
 
 L2 
 
148 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 came to seek 'the lost sheep/ to free his Ennoia or 
 * thought' from the fetters of matter, and at the same to 
 deliver men by the knowledge which he conferred upon 
 them. Simon had appeared among the Samaritans as 
 the Father, among the Jews as the Son, among other 
 nations as the holy Spirit. Cerinthus, who lived and 
 taught in Asia Minor during the closing years of the first 
 century, mingled Jewish and Christian elements with a 
 theory which is foreign to both, viz. : that the world was 
 not made by God but by inferior powers. Christ, a spirit 
 who came from the supreme God, descended on Jesus at 
 the moment of his baptism in the form of a dove, in 
 order that Jesus who was merely a righteous man, born 
 like his fellows, might be able to work miracles and 
 reveal the unknown Father. Besides the Samaritan 
 school of Simon and the Jewish school of Cerinthus, there 
 was a cluster of oriental sects among whom the Ophites 
 or Serpent-worshippers are conspicuous. They are 
 Christian so far as this, that their mythology is coloured 
 by Christian language and to some extent by a reverence 
 for Jesus and by Christian thought. They are Gnostic 
 inasmuch as their mythology conveyed, under an 
 allegorical form, the knowledge which taught men their 
 state of bondage under matter and the means of deliver- 
 ance from it. 
 
 (2) We have passed lightly over these early and eastern 
 forms of Gnosticism. They had little direct influence on 
 the history of the church, or on the development of its 
 doctrine and institutions. But in the reign of Hadrian 
 Gnosticism was transplanted to Alexandria, and from 
 that moment began to exercise an immense influence, 
 which continued during the whole of the second century. 
 
EARLY GNOSTICISM 
 
 '49 
 
 In its Alexandrian or Greek form (for the culture of 
 Alexandria was thoroughly Greek) Gnosticism is associ- 
 ated with two great names, those of Basilides and 
 Valentinian. Each founded a school which counted 
 numerous disciples in the west as w^ell as in the east, and 
 passed through various phases. 
 
 (3) The Greek Gnostics represent the same tendency 
 which we have already noted in the Apologists. The 
 gnosis or knowledge of which they made so much, was 
 philosophical. The Fathers of the church who were its 
 champions against Gnosticism, were not bhnd to the fact 
 that the system which they opposed was indebted for its 
 doctrines and its whole spirit to the philosophies of 
 Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. It is true 
 that the Gnostics clothed their philosophic speculation in 
 mythological garb, that they borrowed mysterious words 
 from eastern languages, that they professed to purify 
 the souls of their disciples by magical rites akin to 
 those practised in the ancient mysteries, and in the 
 mystical religions which were especially popular during 
 the time of the Antonines. There is, however, clear proof 
 that the Gnostics themselves attached a very subordinate 
 importance to the details of this mythology. If the 
 Gnostic systems appear to us in some respects magical 
 and theosophic rather than philosophic, this only shows 
 that the Gnostics were deeply imbued with the spirit of 
 their age. Philosophy was tending to become theosophy, 
 and so far as the Gnostics w^ent beyond their time, they 
 did but anticipate that fusion of philosophy with theosophy 
 which manifested itself later in Neo-Platonism. Still, if 
 the Apologists and Gnostics were alike philosophic 
 Christians, the difference between them was very great. 
 
1 50 CHRIS TIA NITY A N INTELLECTUA L S \ 'STEM 
 
 The Gnostics carried to its utmost extreme the attempt to 
 make Christianity philosophical. Again, their purpose 
 was different. They were not explaining Christianity 
 to persons who as yet knew little or nothing about it. 
 They wished to make Christians understand their own 
 religion. Philosophical speculation was, as they thought, 
 the key which opened the hidden meaning of Christianity. 
 It was the light which disclosed its true import and 
 worth. It was almost inevitable that they should draw 
 their disciples from the Christian congregations. Their 
 adversaries taunted them with making it ' their whole 
 ' business, not to convert heathen, but to subvert ' ^ 
 Christians. 
 
 § 3. General Characteristics of Gnosticism. 
 
 Their endeavour was to find the deeper meaning of 
 Christianity, its relation to other religions, and to the whole 
 constitution of the universe. Such an attempt must come. 
 But it could only be made by those who were already 
 Christians (for how can a man reflect to any purpose on 
 a religion with which he is not well acquainted ?), by 
 educated Christians, who were able to compare Chris- 
 tianity with the general knowledge of their time. The 
 cause and effect are admirably stated by Origen. 'When 
 ' men, not slaves and mechanics only, but also many from 
 ' the educated classes in Greece, saw something venerable 
 ' in Christianity, sects necessarily arose, not simply from 
 ' love of strife and contradiction, but because many learned 
 * men strove to penetrate more deeply into the truths of 
 
 ^ Tertullian, On Prescription, 42. 
 
THE GNOSTICS 151 
 
 * Christianity.' 1 We have now to enquire what conceptions 
 were common to the different schools of Greek Gnosticism. 
 (i) They started from the Platonic principle of the 
 opposition between matter and spirit. This principle has 
 a superficial resemblance to the contrast between the 
 flesh and the spirit, which is a cardinal point in the 
 theology of St. Paul. The resemblance, however, is only 
 superficial. St. Paul's distinction is chiefly moral. He 
 speaks of a life ' according to the flesh ' and another life 
 ' according to the spirit.' It is the motives of conduct 
 which distinguish the one life from the other. Externally 
 they are the same. To Plato, and still more to the 
 Gnostics, the distinction was metaphysical. The material 
 world and contact with it were evil, or at least the unfailing 
 source of imperfection and ignorance. From this principle 
 the Gnostics inferred that God, i.e, the supreme and 
 spiritual God, had not made the world w^hich we see. 
 From God they deduced a line of powers which emanated 
 from Him, and were less and less perfect, as they were 
 removed further and further from the ultimate source of 
 being. At last one or several of these powers or angels 
 had sunk into the depths of matter, and from this pre- 
 existent matter had fashioned the material universe. In 
 the constitution of human nature there are two elements. 
 There is a spark of light in the human spirit, which has 
 emanated from the spiritual God and been submerged in 
 the gross, material world. And on the other hand this 
 spark of light is confined not only in a material body, but 
 also in a soul darkened by ignorance and error. The 
 souls which are capable of better things beat the bars of 
 the cage, but their struggle is in vain. At last Christ 
 
 ^ Against Celsus, iii. 12. 
 
152 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 came from the sphere of heavenly light. He manifested 
 that true and spiritual God previously unknown. He 
 overcame the powers which ruled the world. By 
 * knowledge,' and by the institution of mystic rites, he 
 freed those who are capable of salvation. 
 
 (2) It is easy to see that this theory involved an utter 
 severance of all connection between Christianity and 
 Judaism. Even allegorical methods of interpretation 
 could hardly conceal the fact that the Hebrew Bible 
 acknowledged one God, the Creator of heaven and earth. 
 There had been a long controversy on the relations of the 
 new religion to the old. The Gnostics settled the matter 
 with relentless logic. They rejected the Jewish God and 
 the Jewish Bible, then, be it remembered, the only Bible 
 known to Christians. This was the way in which they 
 vindicated the claim of Christianity to hold rank as the 
 absolute rehgion. Further, as they continued to identify 
 the Jewish God with the Creator, they really abandoned 
 Monotheism. It is scarcely necessary to say that 
 Monotheism was the tenet common to Judaism and to 
 primitive Christianity, and that the controversy of the 
 Apologists with the heathen turned in great measure on 
 this very point. The Gnostics changed all that. They 
 sacrificed Monotheism itself at the shrine of their 
 Platonising philosophy. 
 
 (3) Having abandoned the Old Testament, the Gnostics 
 sought for some other authority. They professed to find 
 it in gospels, and in writings attributed to the Apostles. 
 To some extent these writings were the same as those 
 which were afterwards collected together and became 
 authoritative among Christians generally, when they 
 were known as the books of the new covenant, or, as we 
 
THE GNOSTICS 153 
 
 now say, the New Testament. It is a significant fact that 
 the interpretation of Christian documents began with the 
 Gnostics. Basilides wrote an explanation of ' the gospel.' 
 Heracleon penned the first commentary on the Gospel of 
 St. John. Thus by their aversion to Judaism they 
 inaugurated a new era, and that era continued long after 
 the movement which gave it birth had perished ; it 
 continues still. They also appealed to the tradition 
 which had been received by Apostolic men from the 
 lips of Jesus, and handed down by them to others. But 
 here, too, the Gnostics betrayed their radical and 
 revolutionary spirit. Other Christians allegorised the 
 Old Testament. But they accepted in their literal sense 
 the facts of Christ's life, so far as they knew them. 
 Nobody doubted that Jesus was really born, really died, 
 really rose from the dead. A gospel or life of Jesus was 
 esteemed for the story which it told. Even if some 
 hidden meaning was found in Christ's actions, at all 
 events the literal truth of the fact was also presupposed. 
 The Gnostics took another line. They applied the same 
 allegorical method which had long been allowed in the 
 case of the Old Testament, to the facts of the Gospel 
 history. These were the facts which had guided Christians 
 in their allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 The Hebrew Scriptures had been tortured indeed, but 
 still tortured according to one rule, definite so far, viz. : 
 that they must be made to predict the facts of Christ's 
 hfe, death, and resurrection. When these facts them- 
 selves were treated as allegories, the last barrier against 
 arbitrary reconstruction was swept away. There was 
 nothing to hinder the most complete transmutation of 
 Christianity in the interests of Greek philosophy. More- 
 
154 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 over, although Christians generally depended on tradition 
 and on a tradition which was often far from trustworthy, 
 they alleged well-known authorities, whose statements had 
 been made publicly, if made at all, and could there- 
 fore be tested. The tradition of the Gnostics was 
 by their own showing secret and esoteric : it had been 
 handed down only to the initiated, and eluded every 
 historical test. 
 
 (4) The Gnostics needed this license of interpretation, 
 for their Platonic aversion to matter which had induced 
 them to renounce belief in the Creator, compelled them 
 also to transform the whole theory of redemption. St. 
 Paul, though he believed Christ to be essentially a 
 heavenly and pre-existent man, did not question the facts 
 that he was ' born of a woman ' and died on the Cross. 
 The Gnostics could make no such admissions. If they 
 were right, it was impossible that a being imprisoned in a 
 material body should redeem others. How could he, 
 seeing that he himself would stand in need of redemption.'* 
 Christ was one of the seons or heavenly powers. He 
 was no man but a spirit, one in his essence or nature with 
 the Father. Either he united himself for a time with 
 a wholly distinct being, the man Jesus, who was born 
 and died, while Christ was incapable of human birth and 
 death : or the body which Christ took was not of the same 
 kind as ours : or finally, Christ's body was a mere 
 phantom which deceived the eyes. Celsus, the heathen 
 opponent of Christianity, tells us how Jesus should have 
 lived and acted, had he been really equal to the claims 
 made for him by his disciples. Some Gnostics altered 
 the gospel history till it might very well satisfy the 
 demands of Celsus. The offefice of the cross was srone. 
 
THE GNOSTICS I5<; 
 
 (5) For the old Christian hopes the Gnostics had no 
 sympathy. We have shov/n above that the hope of a 
 millenium died out, because the new environment was 
 unfit to sustain it. To the Gnostics the thought of a 
 millennial reign on earth would only have implied a 
 prolongation of their imprisonment in matter. The 
 Jewish colouring of the millennial dreams was to them 
 simply contemptible. Not only so ; but the belief in the 
 resurrection of the body, which came from the Jews and 
 which finally established itself in the Christian church, 
 was contrary to the first principle of the Gnostics. Much 
 more energetically than St. Paul did they believe that 
 flesh and blood could not ' inherit the kingdom of God.' 
 
 (6) Gnostic Christianity had ceased to be a religion. It 
 was before all things a theory of the universe, partly 
 theosophical and fantastic, partly philosophical. It was 
 not from sin but from matter and cosmical powers that 
 man had to be delivered. It was not by faith or trust; it 
 was not by good works ; it was by knowledge, that 
 deliverance came. The consequence was that Chris- 
 tianity, instead of being democratic, was dominated by 
 an intellectual aristocracy. This aristocracy was one of 
 birth. Only a limited number of men had within them 
 that principle of light which could assimilate the light of 
 Christ. These were the ' spiritual ' men who alone could 
 be saved in the full sense of the word. 'Hylic' men, i.e., 
 the creatures of matter, were doomed to destruction. 
 ' Psychical ' men, i.e., those who had souls but had no 
 spiritual nature, were capable of an imperfect bliss gained 
 on the lower level of faith and good works. Salvation 
 depended neither on man's free choice, nor on God's 
 predestinating grace, but upon nature. 
 
156 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 (7) At the same time a certain limited choice was open 
 to spiritual natures. They were called upon to undergo 
 a course of training, in order that the spiritual principle 
 in them might be developed. This discipline was three- 
 fold. First it consisted in the acquirement of knowledge, 
 which was taught like any other system of philosophy. 
 Next, it implied ascetic life in the withdrawal, so far as 
 might be, from material things, and in particular from the 
 indulgence of the senses. Thirdly, the Gnostic was 
 initiated in secret mysteries which purified the soul and 
 were the pledge of eternal life. Sometimes these 
 mysteries were no better than conscious jugglery. A 
 Gnostic impostor called Marcus professed to change 
 wine by his blessing into visible blood. The blood, he 
 said, came from an aeon or spiritual being called 'Grace,' 
 and he gave it his disciples to taste. ^ But often, no doubt, 
 these mystic initiations were taken in sober earnest, not 
 only by those who were being initiated, but also by those 
 who conducted the ceremonies. Mystical superstition, 
 as we have had occasion to repeat, was not repulsive, but 
 attractive to many among the educated classes of the day. 
 One remark remains to be made before we dismiss this 
 part of our subject. In describing Gnostic discipline with 
 its philosophy, its asceticism, its mysteries, we have been 
 taking it at the best. For theories on the evil of matter do 
 not necessarily lead to rigorous abstinence. A man may 
 argue that, if all contact with matter be evil, and if 
 contact therewith be, as it is, inevitable, it is of no con- 
 sequence what he does. He may come to think that 
 licentiousness is, after all, no worse than eating and 
 drinking. There were Gnostic sects in which such 
 ^ Irenaeus, Against Heresies, i. 13, 2. 
 
THE GNOSTICS 
 
 157 
 
 inferences were made, and in which the wildest excesses 
 of debauchery were said to be encouraged. 
 
 § 4. Marcion. 
 
 (i) One great and rehgious man, one of the greatest in 
 the whole history of Christianity, is usually associated with 
 Gnosticism. He has, indeed, much in common with it, 
 though in other and most important points he stands 
 apart. We refer to Marcion, who was born at Sinope, 
 on the Black Sea, and, coming to Rome about 140, or 
 a little later, taught and laboured there for many years. 
 In some of his chief conclusions, he was at one with the 
 Gnostics. Like them, he rejected the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 which he interpreted in a Jewish sense, for, unlike most 
 Christians of his time, he only recognised their plain and 
 literal meaning. In true Gnostic fashion, he distinguished 
 between two gods, one of them, the supreme Being, the 
 other, the Creator of the world. He agreed with the most 
 extreme among the Gnostics in contending that Christ's 
 body was a mere phantom. Like many of the Gnostics, 
 he imposed a life of severe mortification on his disciples, 
 and he exhorted them to welcome martyrdom. But 
 whereas the primary interest of the Gnostics was meta- 
 physical, that of Marcion was religious. He was an 
 ardent reformer, and his design was to purify Christianity 
 from its corruptions by a criticism which distinguished its 
 genuine elements from spurious additions. He carried 
 this criticism back to the beginning. He took St. Paul 
 as the standard of primitive purity, and charged the 
 older Apostles with corrupting the gospel. Starting from 
 
158 CHRISTIANITY AN INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM 
 
 St. Paul's opposition between law and grace, he exagger- 
 ated this principle into the doctrine that the Jewish god, 
 the creator, was a being of law and justice, good, but 
 narrow and imperfect. Over against him stood the God 
 of love, the God revealed in Christ. Christ was wholly 
 different from the Jewish Messiah, who was to come from 
 the creator, and had been predicted by his prophets. 
 Marcion was by no means a consistent reasoner. The 
 separation between abstract justice and love was seen to 
 be hollow even by Marcion's opponents, and there is 
 something ludicrous in a i)rofessed disciple of St. Paul's 
 maintaining that there are two gods, and setting the 
 authority of the Old Testament aside. Nevertheless, 
 Marcion's power was great and far-reaching, and de- 
 servedly so. In the genuine spirit of religion he laid 
 stress on faith, not on knowledge. He protested against 
 the tendency which was rapidly spreading among 
 Christians of Gnostic and of Anti-Gnostic opinions, the 
 tendency to make their worship an imitation of heathen 
 mysteries. In the churches which he founded, brotherly 
 love, freedom from all ceremonies, and strict ascetic 
 discipline, were the rule. 
 
 (2) Marcion was in all probability the first clearly to 
 conceive the idea of a list or canon of Christian books, 
 sacred and authoritative. For this purpose he selected 
 the gospel according to St. Luke, purged it of alleged 
 interpolations, and collected ten epistles of St. Paul, i.e., 
 all those which bear his name now, except the three 
 pastoral epistles and the epistle to the Hebrews. His 
 corrections, at least, as regards the gospel, were arbitrary 
 in the extreme. Nevertheless, in his view of the relations 
 between St. Paul and the older Apostles, Marcion laid 
 
MARCION 
 
 159 
 
 hold of a fact which has been the starting-point in the 
 modern criticism of the New Testament. After his 
 death a difference of principle between ' the holy Apostles' 
 became utterly inconceivable to Christians. It is not too 
 much to say that with Marcion, real insight into St. Paul's 
 meaning died out among Christians, and never revived in 
 the Catholic church. It is not without reason that 
 Neander has spoken of Marcion as the Protestant of 
 the ancient world. 
 
 (3) Marcion was at once the most dangerous rival of 
 the older Christianity which he criticised, and of the new 
 or Catholic Christianity which was being formed before 
 his eyes. The weak points in his position were that like 
 the Gnostics, he destroyed belief in one God, and like 
 them, advocated belief in a god who was not the God of 
 providence and of history. The Gnostics suffered from 
 another and a fatal defect. With their exaltation of 
 knowledge, they could found philosophical schools, and 
 of these the world had enough ; they could not found a 
 church capable of uniting the learned and the simple, and 
 that was what the world wanted. In opposition to Gnostic- 
 ism, to supply the want which it failed to supply, to end 
 the intolerable multiplication of sects in which the strength 
 of Christianity spent itself in vain, ' the great church,' as 
 it was sometimes called, the Catholic or Universal Church, 
 as it was generally entitled, rose into being. Towards 
 the close of the second century, the essential part of .its 
 ■construction was already complete. The rise of this 
 great fabric must now be briefly described. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 (i) In the churches of the apostolic and sub-apostoHc 
 age, there were no officials, or at least, no officials to 
 whom the duty of teaching was committed. The con- 
 gregations were composed almost exclusively of simple 
 and unlettered people, who were waiting in eager ex- 
 pectation for the second coming of Christ. There was, 
 indeed, no lack of preaching. There were apostles who 
 wandered from place to place, founded new churches, and 
 exercised a natural authority over their converts. There 
 were prophets to whom the mind and purpose of God was 
 revealed, who anncninced what the Lord of the church 
 demanded in the present, or was shortly to accomplish 
 in his own person. There were teachers in the local 
 congregations. The men, however, who exercised these 
 various ministries, were neither chosen by the people or 
 appointed by any human authority whatsoever. They 
 held their commission directly from the divine spirit 
 who moved them, who spoke in them, who manifested 
 his presence by signs and wonders. Even the works of 
 
EARLY CHURCH GOVERNMENT i6i 
 
 mercy and the government of the flock were exercised 
 spontaneously by persons who possessed the natural or 
 supernatural qualifications, and who did not wait for any 
 regular appointment. St. Paul speaks of 'those who have 
 ' set themselves to minister unto the saints.' He 
 mentions ' helps and governments ' as supernatural gifts, 
 as work for which, as we should now say, persons were 
 marked out by the talents and means which God had 
 given them. 
 
 (2) It was in this department of help and government 
 that the first change occurred. A Christian congregation, 
 viewed from one side, exactly answered to those benefit 
 clubs which were common all over the Roman Empire, 
 Now, a club requires officers to administer its funds, and 
 to see that the rules of the club are kept. Further, a Chris- 
 tian congregation had to correspond at times with sister 
 congregations, and to provide hospitable entertainment for 
 Christians from other places. The early Christians had 
 two patterns to follow. In the benevolent societies of 
 the heathen world there were officers of administration 
 and finance, often called episkopoi or * overseers.' In 
 the life-time of St. Paul, some Christians had adopted 
 both the name and office, for he writes to the saints at 
 Philippi, with the overseers or bishops and the deacons. 
 The bishops administered the alms of the church, by 
 which the love-feasts were provided and the poor relieved. 
 The deacons or ' servants ' assisted in the actual distribu- 
 tion. The other model present to the early Christians, 
 was that of the synagogue, in which discipline was; 
 administered by a council of presbyters or * elders.' If,, 
 as there is some reason to think, the two boards of bishops 
 and elders were originally distinct, they were at all 
 
 M 
 
1 62 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 events soon amalgamated. A board of bishops or elders 
 administered the finance and the discipline of the church, 
 and they were assisted in the latter part of their duties by 
 the deacons. But it must be carefully remembered that 
 originally bishops or elders had, as such, nothing to do 
 with the preaching of the w^ord. 
 
 (3) After a time, two changes occurred which tended 
 to increase the power of the bishops. 
 
 {a) The bishop or presbyter became a teacher. The 
 enthusiasm of the first Christians had spent much of its 
 force, and prophecy became rare. As genuine en- 
 thusiasm dies, hypocrisy is apt to take its place, and 
 the prophetic gifts which still existed fell into discredit. 
 But somebody must teach ; if not an inspired teacher, 
 then an official must instruct the congregation. It was 
 natural to turn to the bishops, ^^ho with the deacons, 
 were the only existing officials. It was also convenient 
 that the same board which had the care of discipline, 
 should also guard the purity of teaching. The two were 
 intimately connected. When Gnostic teachers arose, the 
 behef, the worship, the discipline of the congregation, 
 were all imperilled. The chief care of instruction there- 
 fore fell to the bishops. 
 
 (3) Again, whereas at first the bishops or presbyters had 
 been equal, the power of the whole board was gradually 
 overshadowed by that of a permanent president, to whom 
 the name of bishop or overseer was specially appropriated. 
 He was expected to take advice from the rest of the board. 
 But the president's position became distinctly superior to 
 that of his colleagues. A church was no longer governed 
 by a board of bishops and presbyters. It had one bishop 
 as chief ruler and teacher. Under him stood the presby- 
 
BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS 163 
 
 ters and the deacons. These changes occurred more 
 slowly in some churches, more rapidly in others. The 
 Ignatian epistles prove that they had been effected in the 
 churches of Asia Minor, during the middle of the second 
 century at latest. By the end of that century they had 
 become universal. 
 
 (4) In ages when the creative faculty is strong, the 
 critical faculty weak, people have short memories for the 
 past. The monarchical power of the bishops began in 
 the second century. Before that century was over, the 
 belief prevailed that bishops were the successors of the 
 apostles. Churches actually traced the line of their 
 bishops back to the time of Peter or Paul. This succes- 
 sion of the bishops from the apostles, is the argument 
 which Irenseus reiterates times without number against 
 the Gnostics. ' We must obey ' the bishops * who have 
 'their succession from the apostles.'^ Special importance 
 in the controversy with heresy was given ' to the most 
 ' ancient churches,' ~ which the apostles were said to have 
 founded, and which were supposed to be the repositories 
 of their teaching. Such was the church of Antioch: such 
 was that of Alexandria : such was that of Rome, with its 
 mythical foundation by the two ' most glorious apostles, 
 ' Peter and Paul.' But apart from the supposed advan- 
 tages of this kind, a bishop was supposed to have 'the 
 ' grace of the truth," ^ i.e., a supernatural apprehension of 
 it, which belonged to him by virtue of his office. Such a 
 'grace' was attributed very naturally, and, in a sense, 
 very rightly to the teachers of the apostolic age. They 
 were appointed by a direct call from God, and they spoke 
 
 ' Irenaeus, Against Heresies, iv. 26, 2. 
 
 ^ Iren^us, iii. 4, i. '^ Irenaius, iv. 26, 2 and 5. 
 
i64 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 ' as the spirit gave them utterance.' When the mon- 
 archical bishops became the chief teachers, the charisma 
 or grace proper to the inspired was claimed by the 
 bishop, who, of course, stood on a totally different footing. 
 
 In the Ignatian epistles, much as they exalt the 
 monarchical power of the bishop, attention is chiefly 
 fixed on the local church. It is there that the bishop 
 rules in the place of Christ, and his power does not 
 extend further. But when the episcopate came to be 
 regarded as the continuation of the apostolic college, the 
 bishops were both in thought and in fact associated 
 together. The bishops of neighbouring cities met in 
 council to defend their common interests against 
 doctrines or usages which were prejudicial to them. 
 
 (i) Thus the bishop was no longer merely the officer 
 of a particular congregation. He held office in an aristo- 
 cratic confederation which secured unity of belief 
 throughout the known world, and this confederation of 
 bishops with the inferior clergy and laity was called the 
 Catholic or universal church. A man who chose his 
 own belief was branded as a heretic, and the name 
 of itself implied condemnation. More and more, union 
 with this Catholic church was made the indispensable 
 condition of salvation. Cyprian, who was bishop of 
 Carthage in the middle of the third century, maintains 
 that even agreement with the bishops in the orthodox faith 
 is not enough. In his view it does not matter much what 
 a man teaches, ' so long as he teaches outside of the 
 
CONFEDERATION OF THE BISHOPS 165 
 
 * church : whoever and whatsoever he may be, he is no 
 
 * Christian, who is not in the church of Christ.' ^ 'He 
 
 * cannot have God for his father, who has not the church 
 'for his mother.' 2 The influence of the Roman Empire 
 had completely changed the whole idea of the church. 
 In apostoHc times the church did not pretend to furnish 
 the means of salvation. Salvation came directly from 
 God, and those who were already saved constituted the 
 church. The church, too, was an ideal body, the reflection 
 of 'the church of the first-born who are enrolled in 
 heaven.' It was cemented by invisible forces, by faith, 
 by hope, by love. But the church of the third century 
 was a political confederation, which reflected, not a 
 heavenly ideal, but the civil constitution of the Roman 
 Empire. The bishops were its magistrates : it was an 
 empire within an empire : its officers were elected by 
 ordinary human means, and often rivalled the governors- 
 of provinces in love of power, of pomp, and even of 
 wealth. It only wanted a visible head instead of the 
 invisible Christ, to make the parallel with the Roman 
 Empire perfect. 
 
 (2) This final change was not brought about in the 
 first three centuries of the church, but even then there 
 were premonitory symptoms of it. Although the bishops 
 were all rulers of the church, the bishops of the third 
 century were by no means equal either in law or in fact. 
 The order of their primacy and subordination followed 
 the natural divisions of the Empire. The bishop of the 
 chief town in a province frequently possessed the right of 
 convoking the bishops of the province, and presiding at 
 
 ^ Cyprian, Letters, v. 24. 
 
 ^ On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 6. 
 
1 66 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 their meeting. He had also a voice in the nomination 
 of bishops throughout the province. The power of the 
 bishop of Alexandria, the second city in the Empire, 
 extended, not only over Egypt, bat also over Libya and 
 Pentapolis; the bishop of Carthage exercised a primacy 
 over Numidia and the two Mauretanias, as well as over 
 Proconsular Africa. But the power of the Roman bishop 
 was already beginning to overshadow the Roman world. 
 The Roman church was the church of the metropolis of 
 the world ; its wealth enabled it to relieve poorer churches 
 even in distant regions ; it possessed the Roman tact for 
 government, and anticipated measures of consolidation 
 which other churches adopted more slowly. It boasted 
 of its foundation by the two great Apostles, just as the 
 city traced its origin to the two mythical heroes Romulus and 
 Remus ; and in the west it was the only church surrounded 
 with the halo of apostolic origin. All these circumstances 
 tended to make the vote of the Roman bishop decisive in 
 controversy. ' With this church,' says Irenaeus, ' every 
 ' church must agree because of its more powerful 
 ' j)rincipality.'i The Roman bishop Victor, at the end of 
 the second century, ' tried to cut off the dioceses of all 
 
 * Asia from the common union,*- because they differed 
 from him about the celebration of Easter. A little later 
 we find the Roman bishop Callistus establishing his 
 pretensions on the ground of Christ's promise to Peter, 
 ' On this rock I will build my church ; , . . I will give 
 
 * unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' Tertullian, 
 who had a quarrel with Callistus, calls him mockingly 
 'the bishop of bishops, the chief pontiff,' (a title assumed 
 
 ^ Irenseus, Against Heresies, iii. 3,2. 
 2 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v. 24, 9. 
 
FOUNDATIONS OF THE ROMAN PRIMACY 167 
 
 by the Roman Emperor) and speaks of his ' peremptory- 
 edict.' 1 Cyprian acknowledges in the Roman church 
 ' the chair of Peter,' ' the chief chmxh whence the unity 
 *of the priesthood {i.e. of the episcopate) had its origin.'^ 
 A very uncritical use has been often made of these facts 
 by Roman Catholic controversialists. They fall far short 
 of proof that the Roman primacy was acknowledged 
 definitely and consistently in the church of the third 
 century. Cyprian, for example, had no fixed princples 
 to guide him on the relations of the Roman bishop to the 
 rest of the episcopate. He acknowledged the primacy 
 of Rome, and stoutly maintained the equality of all 
 bishops, just as it suited him. Nevertheless the founda- 
 tions of the Roman primacy were already laid. A new 
 church had arisen which claimed to be the church of 
 Christ and his Apostles, while it had in fact replaced that 
 church by a political organisation. In an age later than 
 that with which we have to deal, the Roman bishop 
 replaced the Roman Emperor. At last, in the middle ages 
 and in the western world, the words ' Roman ' and 
 ' Catholic,' long connected, became identical in mean- 
 ing, and the organisation of the CathoUc church was 
 perfected. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, On Modesty, 1 and 21, 
 2 Cyprian, Letters. Hx. 14. 
 
1 68 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 § 3. The Work of the New Church. 
 
 The organisation which has just been described, was 
 not solely or even chiefly the creation of ambitious or 
 self-seeking men. It succeeded because it answered to a 
 real want, and saved Christianity from a great danger. 
 That danger was, as has been already said, occasioned 
 by the Gnostics. The confederation of bishops stemmed 
 the flood of Greek speculation, when it was on the point 
 of sweeping away those positive beliefs which were the 
 distinctive mark of Christianity. 
 
 (i) The first great work of the new church with its 
 episcopal organisation consisted in establishing and 
 imposing a ' rule of faith.' This ' rule of faith,' this 
 * canon or rule of the truth,' for it was called by various 
 names, was an expansion of the form used in baptism. 
 Not indeed of the oldest form, since at first converts were 
 baptised Mn the name of Jesus Christ.' But from the 
 middle of the second century, and possibly from an 
 earlier date, it was the prevaihng, though not the universal 
 custom to baptise * into the name of the Father and of the 
 ' Son and of the Holy Spirit.' This later form which had 
 arisen from the threefold benediction with which St. 
 Paul closes his second epistle to the Corinthians, was 
 expanded by the Fathers who conducted the controversy 
 with the Gnostics, into a simple and compendious 
 summary of Christian behef. The orthodox Christian 
 was required to profess his belief in the one God who 
 had created all things, in Jesus Christ the Son of God, 
 who had been born miraculously, had suffered and died, 
 risen again and ascended into heaven, whence he would 
 
THE RULE OF FAITH 169 
 
 come to judge mankind, and finally to profess belief in 
 the Holy Spirit. This rule of faith was perpetually in 
 the mouths of orthodox controversialists. It was their 
 boast that they held fast ' the immovable rule of the truth 
 'which they had received through baptism.' ^ They 
 professed to have received it by unbroken tradition from 
 the Apostles, and this rule (with a few later additions) is 
 still familiarly known as the ' Apostles' creed.' The proof 
 of its apostolic origin was furnished by the agreement of 
 the churches all the world over, and above all by the 
 consent of those churches which had been founded by 
 the Apostles themselves, and could trace back the 
 succession of their bishops in unbroken line to them. A 
 public tradition was used to counteract the secret tradition 
 of Gnostic wisdom. Universal consent and unswerving 
 continuance in the truth were contrasted with the many 
 sects and constant flux of Gnostic opinion, and, so 
 contrasted, they overpowered the imagination of ordinary 
 Christians. The fallacy of the Catholic argument lies on 
 the surface. It assumes that the Apostles founded the 
 confederation of bishops, the political organisation which 
 called itself the Catholic church. It assumes that the 
 belief of the churches never changed. It assumes that the 
 Apostles had handed down a formula of faith. All three 
 assumptions were made in the teeth of history. Never- 
 theless, by contrast with the belief of the Gnostics, and of 
 Marcion, that there were two gods, and that there was, no 
 organic connection between the revelation made through 
 the Hebrew prophets and that which was given in Christ, 
 the Catholic ' rule of faith ' was moderate, conservative, 
 and by comparison Apostolic. 
 ^ Irenseus, Against Heresies, i. 9, 4. 
 
1 70 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 (2) In his conflict with the Christians who maintained 
 the ' rule of faith ' Marcion had a powerful weapon in his 
 hands. If the ordinary Christian could appeal to the 
 tradition of the Apostolic churches, Marcion could appeal 
 with better reason to the Apostolic writings, to 'the Gospel' 
 and to 'the Apostle,' i.e. to ten Pauline epistles. The ortho- 
 dox churches had not the same advantage. Marcion 
 rejected the Hebrew Bible and had instead a Bible of his 
 own, which even his opponents could not afford to contemn. 
 Accordingly the churches which were forming themselves 
 into the great Catholic confederation, began to draw up a 
 list of Christian writings which covered Marcion's list 
 and overlapped it. These writings in respect of authority 
 and inspiration were now put on a level with the Old 
 Testament. Here was a change scarcely less remarkable 
 than the rise of the Catholic hierarchy. As late as the 
 middle of the second century a New Testament did not 
 exist. By this we do not of course mean that the 
 documents which form our present New Testament, were 
 written after that time. Most of them are much older, 
 and several of the epistles which bear St. Paul's name are 
 undoubtedly authentic. But these writings were not 
 collected together and put forward as of decisive 
 authority for faith and practice. The early Christians 
 built their faith on the Old Testament with its supposed 
 predictions of Jesus Christ, on the sayings of Jesus as 
 handed down by oral or written tradition, on the sayings 
 or writings of Christian prophets. Written records of the 
 life and sayings of Jesus were highly valued: they were 
 read, as we learn from Justin, in the Christian meetings — 
 but they were valued only so far as they were believed to 
 be accurate reports. It is only the books of the Old 
 
CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 171 
 
 Testament which Justin mentions as inspired, and which 
 he quotes with such formulae as ' The Holy Spirit saith.' 
 Only one exception has to be made. He quotes ' the 
 'revelation made to John/^ for while to him Christian 
 histories and Christian epistles had no definite authority, 
 Christian prophecy had. But within fifty years from 
 Justin's time a notable change had occurred. This 
 change is best expressed in the words of Tertullian, 
 * the church mingles the law and the prophets with the 
 ' evangeHcal and the apostolic literature : thence she 
 ' drinks in her faith.'- Thus while the oldest Christianity 
 canonised the Old Testament, while Marcion canonised 
 a New Testament, the Catholic church canonised both, 
 and at the same time enlarged Marcion 's list. A formal 
 list of New Testament writings is given in a document 
 known as the Muratorian canon, which represents 
 the view of the Roman church in the last part of the 
 second century. A similar list is implied in the writings 
 of Irenasus, who may be taken as the spokesman of Gaul 
 and Asia Minor, and in Tertullian, who testifies to current 
 opinion in Africa and Rome. As yet the list was by no 
 means fixed and closed. Centuries elapsed before all 
 the books of' our modern New Testament were included^ 
 and all the books which form no part of our New Testa- 
 ment excluded. Again, there are indications that the 
 churches of Rome and Asia Minor anticipated the other 
 churches in the formation of the canon. Nevertheless, 
 the divine authority of the four gospels, of thirteen Pauline 
 epistles, of the Acts of the Apostles, of the first epistles 
 of St. Peter and St. John, obtained general recognition 
 during the course of the third centujy\ 
 
 ^ ]viStiv\, Dialogue, 81. ^Tertullian, On Prescription, 36. 
 
172 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 (3) This fundamental change was closely connected 
 with that rise of the hierarchy which was more or less 
 contemporaneous with it. In each case the change was 
 possible because the enthusiasm, the sense of present 
 inspiration, had died out among Christians. When the 
 Montanists of Phrygia tried to revive prophetical gifts, 
 and to settle the discipline of the church by the inspired 
 utterances of their prophets, the spread of the movement 
 in the church at large was checked by the general convic- 
 tion that revelation had been completed once and for all 
 in the Apostolic records. At the same time the germ of 
 the New Testament which had been dangerous in the 
 hands of Marcion became harmless to the Catholic 
 church, when enlarged and linked to the Old Testament. 
 There was no longer any possibility of that ' blasphemy 
 * against the Creator ' which had shocked Christian feeling 
 in Marcion. No doubt, St. Paul's epistles afforded ready 
 means of criticising the hierarchical church, and in ages 
 still far distant they were destined to shake that church to 
 its foundation. But in the meantime their force was 
 neutralised by their juxtaposition with other writings of a 
 different cast, and by the accepted theory that the Apostles 
 and indeed all the scriptural writers were unanimous, 
 because all were alike inspired. Of course it was also 
 taken for granted that ' the rule of faith ' and the Bible 
 were in absolute harmony. Tradition was not supposed 
 to supplement scripture. This is the view taken by 
 Roman Catholics, but it was not the view of the old 
 Catholic church. The old Catholic belief was that 
 Scripture gave at greater length, with greater fulness, but 
 also in a form more liable to misinterpretation, the truth 
 which was stated more briefly and also more clearly in 
 the traditional rule of faith. 
 
THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION 173 
 
 § 4. Growth of Speculative Theology. 
 
 Things, however, could not rest here, and the ' rule of 
 faith ' was in the end deeply affected by the authority of 
 the New Testament. 
 
 (i) Originally, ' the rule of faith ' was a rampart raised 
 against the Gnostics. The candidate for baptism had to 
 profess his belief in ' God the Father Almighty,' to which, 
 for the sake of greater clearness, some churches added 
 the words, * maker of heaven and earth.' This is neither 
 more nor less than monotheism, which, among the 
 Hebrews, at least, had arisen quite independently of 
 philosophy. The rest of the creed is concerned with 
 matters of fact and not of speculation. Jesus is called 
 ' the Son of God,' a title afterwards qualified by the 
 addition of ' only-begotten.' The ' Son of God," how- 
 ever, is a title borrowed by the first Christians from the 
 Hebrew Bible, and it had at first no metaphysical mean- 
 ing. The ' rule of faith ' has nothing to say about the 
 deity of Christ. It does not even speak of him as the 
 Word, or assert his pre-existence before his human birth. 
 But by the acceptance of the gospel and first epistle 
 attributed to St. John, the Catholic church pledged itself 
 to the belief that Christ was the pre-existent Word of God. 
 And not only so. It was obliged to look upon this 
 doctrine as part of the faith handed down by the apostles. 
 
 (2) A new impetus was thus necessarily given to those 
 philosophical speculations which had begun with the 
 Gnostics on the one hand, and with the Apologists on the 
 other. A multitude of difficult questions forced them- 
 selves upon the attention of educated and thoughtful 
 
174 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Christians. If Christ \vas God, and the Father was God 
 the Ahnighty Creator, how was it that the church asserted 
 so strenuously the divine unity ? If Christ was begotten 
 of the Father, and was the instrument of creation, when 
 did this spiritual birth take place ? From eternity, or in 
 the moment which preceded the creation ? In what 
 sense was Christ one with the Father, and in what sense 
 distinct from him ? INIany discordant answers were given 
 to these urgent questions. Not that they were felt to be 
 urgent by all. The bulk of Christians, had they been let 
 alone, would have been satisfied with the old belief in 
 one God the Father, and would have distrusted 'the dis- 
 pensation," as it was called, by which the sole deity of the 
 Father expanded itself into the deity of the Father and 
 the Son. To this aversion TertuUian bears strong, be- 
 cause unwilling witness. ' All simple people,' he writes, 
 ' not to call them ignorant and uneducated, (and these 
 ' always form the greater part of believers) since the rule 
 ' [of faith] itself transfers them from the many gods of the 
 ' world to the only true God, take fright at the dispensa- 
 *tion. They take for granted that the number and 
 * arrangement of the Trinity is a division of the unity. 
 ' They will have it that we are proclaiming two or three 
 ' Gods. We, say they, hold the rule of One.'^ 
 
 (3) It became, however, more and more clear that the 
 old belief in the sole godhead of the Father was no 
 lono-er tenable in the church. There were a certain 
 number of persons in Asia Minor at the close of the 
 second century known as Alogoi, i.e., persons who did 
 not receive the doctrine of a personal Word. But they 
 were of little account, because they consistently rejected 
 
 1 TertuUian, Against Praxeas, 3. 
 
GROWTH OF SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY 175 
 
 the fourth gospel, the authority of which was already 
 beyond question in the church. Theodotus, the Tanner, 
 who came to Rome about 190, met with no better success. 
 He was a man of learning who founded a school in which 
 a dry and rationalistic interpretation of the Scriptures 
 went hand in hand with the study of mathematics and 
 logic, of Euclid and Aristotle. But when he denied that 
 Jesus was anything more than a righteous man under the 
 special influence of the divine Spirit, he found that the 
 general feeling of the Christian world was too strong for 
 him, and the Roman bishop, Victor, drove him from the 
 communion of the church. 
 
 (4) A movement which assumed various phases classified 
 under the general name of Sabellianism, seemed to have 
 a better chance of holding its ground in the church. 
 According to the oldest phase of this doctrine, which was 
 favoured by three successive bishops of Rome, Christ is 
 absolutely identical with the Almighty Father : it is the 
 Father himself who was born and who died. Thus 
 monotheistic belief and the glory due to Christ both 
 remained in their integrity. According to later develop- 
 ments of this theory (and Sabellius himself was one of its 
 latest advocates) God is named Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, in virtue of the three 'masks' or characters under 
 which He is known. But the theology which made a real 
 distinction between the absolute God who transcends all 
 being and all thought, and the Logos or Word through 
 whom He creates and governs the world, and through 
 whom He reveals himself, was too deeply rooted in the 
 philosophical tendencies of the age to suffer displacement. 
 It was upheld by the genius and learning of Origen, who 
 is the father of that theological system which, not indeed 
 
176 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 without serious emendation, became the accepted theolog)' 
 of the church. 
 
 (5) The last desperate effort to render the behef in the 
 divine unity consistent and real was made by Paul of 
 Samosata, who became bishop of Antioch in 260. He 
 admitted that the Logos, by which he understood chiefly 
 the attribute of divine wisdom, dwelt in Christ. The 
 divine wisdom, however, did not become incarnate in 
 Jesus. His personality was human : he was morally, 
 not essentially, one with God. The wisdom which came 
 from God was a quality of his soul, and was imparted 
 to him, as to the prophets and to Moses, but in a higher 
 degree. Three great synods were held to examine the 
 doctrine of the bishop of Antioch, and only in the third, 
 which met in 268, was he formally condemned. The 
 history of the dispute is singularly instructive. Paul 
 practically acknowledged the hold of the Logos doctrine 
 on the church by retaining the term, while he emptied it 
 of its meaning. Next, his chief antagonist was Malchion, 
 a sophist of Antioch, and president of a learned school 
 in that city. Thirdly, Paul exhibits the secular spirit 
 which had invaded the church. He was a kind of 
 viceroy, under Zenobia, the eastern queen, who was 
 for a time mistress of Antioch. It was to her protection 
 that he trusted in his quarrel, and when in 272 Antioch 
 again became part of the empire, Paul of Samosata fell 
 with the queen, whose cause he had espoused. He 
 refused to surrender the ecclesiastical buildings. There- 
 upon his opponents appealed to the Emperor, Aurelian, 
 who decided that they belonged of right to that party 
 * with which the Christian bishops of Italy and of Rome 
 were in correspondence.' 1 The unity of the church 
 ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. vii. 30. 
 
CHANGED BASIS OF CHRISTIAN UNION 177 
 
 depended on the unity of the empire. The church was 
 a pohtical corporation in which the bishops were the 
 magistrates, and among those magistrates a preponderant 
 authority was assigned by the Emperor to the bishops of 
 Italy, and in particular to the bishop of Rome, the 
 metropolis of the world. 
 
 (6) From the time of the controversy with Paul of 
 Samosata the speculative theology of Origen was em- 
 bodied in the chief eastern churches. What had been 
 then theology now ranked as religion, and as a matter of 
 course, the philosophical dogmas identified but yesterday 
 with the Christian faith were said to be apostolic. In the 
 west there was less taste for speculative theology, and the 
 simpler creed which protected Christian monotheism 
 against the Gnostics sufficed. But even in the west 
 the Roman bishop, Dionysius (259-269), could write 
 ' Sabellius blasphemes, alleging the Son himself to be the 
 Father,'^ and Cyprian summarily dismisses the doctrine 
 that it was the Father who suffered, as one of the 
 'heretical plagues.' =^ At the end of our period, the 
 basis of Christian union had been completely changed. 
 It consisted no longer in the same trust, the same hope, 
 the same aspirations after holiness of life, the same 
 allegiance to a common Lord. To be a Christian, a 
 man must give intellectual assent to an elaborate series 
 of philosophical propositions. The new creed was as 
 yet in the germ. In the centuries which follow, chiefly 
 in the fourth and fifth, the church was occupied in 
 perfecting it. Political intrigue and the confusion of 
 political with religious motives, the principle that the 
 
 * Routh, Rell. Sacr. iii. p, 373. 
 2 Cyprian, Letters, Ixxiii. 4. 
 
1 78 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 bishops were to decide the behef of the laity, and that 
 the opinions of individual bishops were to follow 
 the vote of the majority, bodily pains and penalties 
 inflicted in case of resistance, were among the evils 
 which accompanied the new order of things. 
 
 § 5. Christian Mysteries. 
 
 Throughout the course of its development in the second 
 and third centuries, the Catholic church profited by the 
 example of the Gnostics. It arose in opposition to them, 
 but also adopted much that was important from their 
 principles and practice. This is just what might have 
 been expected. The Gnostics devised a mixed system, 
 partly Greek, partly Christian. The Catholic church set 
 itself the same task, but it did slowly, cautiously, and with 
 moderation, that which the Gnostics did recklessly and 
 in haste. Like the Gnostics, the church ended by 
 making philosophic theory and intellectual conviction 
 the basis of union, although the Catholics were much 
 more conservative in their treatment of Christianity as 
 an historical and positive religion, and made philo- 
 sophical speculation safe by committing it to the super- 
 intendence of the bishops, who had the capacity for 
 government and the instinct of the statesman for prac- 
 tical compromise. 
 
 (i) There was another way in which the course taken 
 by the church resembles the example given by the 
 Gnostics. The Catholic worship became more and 
 
BAPTISM 179 
 
 more a close imitation of the mysteries popular in the 
 Roman Empire.^ 
 
 [a) The convert was introduced to the full member- 
 ship of the church by a baptismal rite which was already 
 surrounded with mystery and pomp. He solemnly re- 
 nounced the devil and his works : in some cases he was 
 exorcised : the water was consecrated : the forehead, the 
 ears, the nostrils, and the breast were anointed with 
 oil : the imposition of hands was supposed to convey the 
 Holy Spirit, after the water had washed away sin. Milk 
 and honey were put into the mouth of the new Christian. 
 He was clothed in a white robe, which he continued to 
 wear for some time. Instead of being proclaimed on 
 the house-tops, Christianity came to be regarded as 
 a mysterious system, with secrets which it was sacrilege 
 to reveal, except to the initiated, i.e., the baptised. It 
 was only to the earlier and less solemn part of the 
 worship that the catechumens were admitted. The 
 Greek mysteries culminated in ' the contemplation ' of the 
 
 ' Justin, First Apology, 66 compares the Eucharist with ' the 
 mysteries of Mithra.' Tertullian, Apol. '], Against the Nations, 7, 
 implies that ' silence faithfully maintained is due to all mysteries,' 
 and therefore to the secrets of the Christian assemblies. This is 
 probably the first notice of the ' discipline of the secret,' as it came 
 to be called. In much earlier times {Coloss. i. 26, Ignatius, To the 
 Ephes. 12, comp. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation, 12, Miscel- 
 lanies, iv. 25. vi. 15) 'mystery' and the allied words had .been 
 adopted into the Christian vocabulary. But the notion of secrecy 
 was absent. A mystery meant something once hidden, but now 
 revealed, via. : in Christ. Thus the word ' mystery ' was used 
 first of Christian teaching, then of Christian ceremonies : finally 
 the bond of secrecy was superadded and the knowledge of the 
 mysteries reserved to the initiated, i.e., the baptised. 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 most sacred symbols. The Christian mysteries culmi- 
 nated in the Eucharist. 
 
 {b) Almost from the beginning, a superstitious element 
 intruded itself into the Eucharist rite. In the Ignatian 
 epistles, the Eucharist is said to be ' the antidote against 
 death,' 'the medicine of immortality,' ^ and immortality 
 was the very gift which the Eleusinian mysteries professed 
 to impart. The church of the first three centuries had no 
 fixed doctrine on the Eucharist, but the consecrated 
 elements were believed on all hands to be the channels 
 of mysterious grace. They were sent to the sick and 
 to prisoners, taken in private before other food, even by 
 those who had attended the celebration of the mysteries, 
 given in the eastern and African churches to baptised 
 infants. This last practice of giving communion to 
 infants shows the magical character which the Eucharist 
 had assumed. Like infant baptism, which became 
 customary in the western church during the third 
 century, infant communion was, by the necessity of the 
 case, a magical or mystical rite, which was thought to 
 convey a spiritual blessing in the total absence of moral 
 or intellectual dispositions. 
 
 (2) The institution of the Christian priesthood was the 
 crown of this mystical tendency. In apostolic times, all 
 Christians were priests, and the sacrifices offered were the 
 sacrifices of prayer and of self-surrender to God. After- 
 wards, the gifts furnished by the members of a congrega- 
 tion and consumed partly in the Eucharist, partly in 
 love-feasts, partly in the support of the poor, were viewed 
 as a sacrifice offered to God. This sacrifice, however, 
 was offered by the whole congregation, and the presiding 
 
 ^ Ignatius, To the Ephesians, 20. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD i8i 
 
 officers simply spoke and acted in their name. Later 
 still, when mystical conceptions of the Eucharist were 
 pervading the church, the notion of a Christian priest- 
 hood was still in abeyance. The word ' priest ' is used 
 of Christian officers by Tertullian and Origen, but the 
 former laid no stress on the strict meaning of the word; 
 the latter uses it tentatively and almost with an apology. 
 Cyprian, on the other hand, was quite in earnest about 
 the Christian priesthood, and had the courage of his 
 convictions. According to him, the bishop is God's 
 priest, whose office it was ' to serve the altar and celebrate 
 ' divine sacrifices,' and the sacrifice which he offers is 
 ' the passion of the Lord.' The priesthood, once acknow- 
 ledged, could scarcely fail to become the central point in 
 the functions and dignity of the bishop. It is as priest 
 that the bishop teaches and guards the purity of doctrine: 
 as priest that he exercises the power of the keys and 
 bestows or withholds divine grace. He is not really the 
 successor of Christ and the apostles, or even of the Jewish 
 priest. The analogies of Jewish worship were used to 
 support and extend the power of the Christian priesthood, 
 but the origin of the Christian priesthood was not derived 
 from Judaism. It first appears in Gentile churches and 
 among the Gnostics, who rejected the Old Testament in 
 its entirety. It is an inheritance from the religion of 
 the Empire, and the hierophant in the heathen mysteries 
 is the prototype of the Christian priest. 
 
[82 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 § 6, The Relaxation of Discipline. 
 
 It would be quite unfair to charge the Catholic church 
 in its early days with concentrating the whole of its atten- 
 tion on doctrine and mystical rites. During the whole of 
 our period it maintained what would now be thought an 
 extreme rigour of moral discipline. Nevertheless, the 
 church was already obliged to abate the severity of its 
 rules, and accommodate itself to its environment in the 
 Roman world. 
 
 (i) At first, great sins, such as murder, immorality, and 
 lapse into idolatry, excluded a baptised member of the 
 church from its communion for the rest of his life. In 
 Spain, this discipline, as appears from the acts of the 
 synod of Elvira, continued as late as the beginning of 
 the fourth century. Elsewhere, more consideration was 
 shown to human weakness. The Montanists, who were 
 conservative in their maintenance of the old discipHne, as 
 well as of the ancient prophetical office, protested against 
 the laxity of the Roman bishop (Zephyrinus or Callistus), 
 who readmitted adulterers to the communion of the 
 church. Special difficulties were caused by the un- 
 predecented severity of the Decian persecution. The 
 number of apostates was great. It seemed impossible 
 to leave them all outside the church when persecution 
 was still raging, and the apostates, exposed to the danger 
 of a fresh fall, needed all the strength that could be given 
 them. Cyprian, by nature a rigorist, listened to the sup- 
 plication of the confessors, accepted the 'letters of peace' 
 which they gave to their fallen brethren, and restored the 
 latter, if ready to do penance, to the communion of the 
 
DECLINE OF EARLY RIGOUR 183 
 
 church. Cornelius, the Roman bishop, took the same 
 course, and even communicated with bishops who had 
 offered sacrifice to idols. Again a vigorous protest was 
 made. Novatian, one of the Roman presbyters, argued 
 that the church by professing to forgive deadly sins 
 anticipated the judgment of God, and forfeited its own 
 character, as the ' church of the pure.' Novatian had 
 a strong party with him, and he had powerful adherents, 
 such as Fabian, bishop of Antioch. But time was on 
 the side of the milder practice, and of the hierarchical 
 principles which put the power of absolution in the 
 hands of the bishops. Novatian and his followers were 
 driven out, and formed a Puritan sect. The church 
 which expelled them was on its way to become a mixed 
 body, which by its own confession included the goats as 
 well as the sheep, and shut its doors not against sinners 
 but against heretics. 
 
 (2) Besides these reactions against the increasing and 
 inevitable corruption of a church which aspired to be 
 the church of the whole Empire, there was a reaction 
 which held its place within the church, and which 
 exercised a momentous and enduring influence. As the 
 church in general was sinking to a lower plane of 
 morality, the perfect life, as understood in an age which 
 made a false opposition between matter and spirit, was 
 exhibited in its integrity by the ascetics, who abstained 
 from flesh-meat and wine, and from marriage, and 
 devoted themselves to prayer and contemplation. They 
 were already forming themselves into communities. The 
 time was near when the deserts of Egypt and Syria were 
 to be peopled by solitaries. In a sense, monachism was 
 a reaction against the hierarchy. The dignity of the 
 
1 84 THE RISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 bishop depended on his office and his magical powers. 
 That of the monk, who was at first a layman, depended 
 on the sanctity of his life, Monasticism, with all its 
 faults, saved Christianity from the complete domination 
 of the priesthood, and preserved the memory of a religion 
 which was not of the world. When the two streams of 
 monachism and sacerdotalism flowed together, the monks 
 improved the general tone of the priesthood. But these 
 considerations belong to the history of the middle ages 
 rather than to that of the first three centuries. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM. 
 
 The heading of this chapter will not, it is hoped, need 
 much justification to the reader who has followed us thus 
 far. Christianity, if by Christianity we mean the spiritual 
 religion of Jesus in its unadulterated simplicity, never 
 did triumph over the empire. It is not the religion of 
 the world, or of any part of the world, even now. 
 Constantine is reckoned the first Christian Emperor, and 
 the courtly prelate Eusebius thought no flattery too much 
 for a ruler who had given first peace, and then wealth and 
 power, to the church. When, however, we remember 
 that .the Emperor put the sign of the cross on his banner 
 and bore it on his helmet, we may well ask whether his 
 religious zeal would have satisfied Jesus, as it satisfied 
 Eusebius. To a certain extent the principles of Jesus did 
 enter into the future history of civilization. The world 
 is very different from what it would have been without 
 the life and death of Christ. But the system which 
 became the religion of the empire borrowed one half 
 of its contents from the empire which it overcame. We 
 
1 86 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 have seen how heathen morahty, philosophy, and super- 
 stition, helped to make it what it was and is. Moreover, 
 this mixed system won its way slowly, not without the aid 
 of the secular arm. Two centuries and more had to pass 
 before its victory was complete even in the cities. When 
 Benedict, the father of western monachism, went to Monte 
 Cassino in 529, he found himself in the midst of a popu- 
 lation which worshipped Venus and Apollo. In the same 
 year Justinian was driving the remnant of heathen magis- 
 trates, physicians, and philosophers from Constantinople, 
 and dispatching a bishop to the neighbouring provinces 
 in Asia, where he baptised seventy thousand Pagans. 
 Still, if the full triumph of Christianity was deferred for 
 two hundred years after the close of the third century, 
 that triumph was already assured before Constantine 
 ascended the throne. The members of the church were 
 far outnumbered by the heathen population of the 
 empire. But the church was the one living and growing 
 power in the empire. The persecuting Emperors practi- 
 cally acknowledged their defeat, when, sorely against 
 their will, they laid down the sword. Indeed, Maximin 
 publicly stated that ' nearly everybody had abandoned 
 * the worship of the gods and attached themselves to the 
 'Christian people." ^ This is the language of rhetorical 
 exaggeration. But it proves the Emperor's sense of the 
 power which the church possessed. 
 
 Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. ix. 9. 
 
ADDITIONS TO THE RELIGION OF JESUS 187 
 
 § I. Foreign Elements brought into Christianity. 
 
 In examining the causes which made Christianity the 
 religion of the future, we may begin with those which 
 were due to the accretions foreign to the religion of Jesus. 
 
 (i) The religion of Jesus was, the religion of the 
 Catholic church was not, too lofty for the generality of 
 mankind. The latter accommodated itself to the people 
 with whom it had to deal. Much of the change was made 
 in no ignoble spirit. The theologians adopted the best 
 morality they knew from the philosophers of the time. 
 The Christian ascetics recalled the best features in 
 Stoicism, and Galen, who was moved to special admira- 
 tion, not only by the courage with which Christians met 
 death, but also by the ascetic impulse which induced many 
 of them to lead a single life, was fain to confess that 
 in the government of their passions and in eager pursuit 
 of virtue ' they reached a pitch which true philosophers 
 ' could not out-do.'^ Something has been said above on 
 the mischievous effects of asceticism, but this does not 
 alter the fact that it was attractive to the best spirits of the 
 empire. So too, the metaphysical theorising which repels 
 us, was welcome in the early ages of the church. Theo- 
 logians, of whom Origen is the chief, were occupied 
 partly in translating the original ideas of Christianity 
 into the language of the philosophic schools, partly in 
 appropriating the ideas of Greek philosophy and giving 
 them a place and a home in the belief of the church. 
 
 (2) Again the rhetoric of the Greeks was continued in 
 
 ^ The passage is given at length by Harnack, Dogmenge- 
 schichte, i. p. 170. 
 
1 88 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 the Christian homily. For on that department also, 
 Greek influence told. A studied oration carefully pre- 
 pared beforehand replaced the extempore effusions of 
 the prophets, who spoke in ecstasy. We are apt to find 
 the rhetoric of Christian orators wanting in simplicity 
 and directness, but the tricks of rhetoric were the fashion 
 of the time, which was very unlike the time of Aeschines 
 and Demosthenes. The more enlightened among the 
 Christians had no mind to forego the advantages to be 
 got from a study of classical literature, and Julian well 
 knew that he was aiming a heavy blow at the new 
 religion when he closed the Christian schools of grammar 
 and rhetoric, and confined Christian teachers to the ex- 
 position of the gospels in the churches of the Galileans. 
 (3) Add to this that the Christians were strong because 
 the federation of bishops, which ruled the church, made 
 them one. The empire was divided by faction. After 
 the reign of the Antonines it had no principle of stability. 
 The old Roman state had been protected by religious 
 sanctions. In the mingling of nations, a religion which 
 was either national or else nothing, lost its hold, and the 
 empire was left defenceless. It created no enthusiasm : it 
 was a prey to the violence and greed of the soldiery : it 
 was beginning to fail before the barbarous hordes of the 
 north. In contrast with an empire undermined and 
 tottering, the church was stable, and claimed a divine 
 authority, which gained credence and in which men 
 were to believe for ages to come. The church came 
 to the rescue of the empire which had striven to ex- 
 terminate it. The gain to the empire was not pure 
 gain. After a time, the forces of the eastern empire 
 were drained by the insane fury of dogmatic strife, and 
 
FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN CHRISTIANITY 189 
 
 the Moslem hosts were devastating the fairest provinces 
 of the empire, while its subjects were disputing whether 
 Christ had two wills or one. All this should be frankly 
 acknowledged. But it should also be remembered that 
 in the west the church was the school in which the 
 Teutonic nations learnt the civilisation of ancient Rome, 
 and the blurred traditions of Greek philosophy. When 
 the Renaissance brought the treasures of Greek literature 
 to light, it could do little direct work for religion. The 
 Catholic religion had long ago incorporated, and still 
 preserved, the elements of Greek philosophy and ethics. 
 It has been noticed with surprise that Barberini, an 
 orthodox cardinal of the seventeenth century, warmly 
 appreciated the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. There 
 is no cause for astonishment in this. The morality of the 
 Stoics had been adapted to the use of the church fourteen 
 centuries before by Clement of Alexandria. The ap- 
 parent coincidence of Catholic and Stoic morality simply 
 arises from their identity, from the fact that the morality 
 of Jesus and of Paul had been rejected to make room for 
 the morality of the Porch. 
 
 (4) The church made another concession, which was 
 directly addressed to the weakness of the human mind. 
 It fostered the craving for magical rites, and in the end 
 came to terms with polytheism. This tendency was still 
 in its initial stage. But we have seen the magical virtue 
 attributed almost from the first to baptism and the 
 Eucharist, and the process by which Christian rites were 
 fashioned on the model of the Greek and oriental 
 mysteries. Magical superstition was to attain colossal 
 proportions in the church, In the fourth century relics 
 of the martyrs, the pages of the gospels, the consecrated 
 
190 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 elements of the Eucharist, fragments of the true cross, 
 were highly valued as amulets, which drove off demons, 
 and guarded the wearer from every kind of spiritual and 
 bodily hurt. Not very much later a crowd of martyrs 
 and saints occupied the vacant place which had once 
 been tenanted by gods and heroes. The office of the 
 one and the other was the same. They were the patrons 
 to whom men looked for health, for safety on journeys, 
 for the blessing of children, for the satisfaction, in a word, 
 of all their desires. 
 
 § 2. Intrinsic Strength of Christianity. 
 
 (i) Such were the accommodations, some noble, some 
 ignoble, by which the church adapted itself to circum- 
 stances and was fitted to become the religion of the 
 empire. But accommodation cannot wholly explain the 
 triumph of the Catholic church. If it took very much 
 from the empire, it had also very much to bestow upon 
 the empire. The plant grows by assimilating elements 
 from the soil, but there can be no growth without that 
 principle of Hfe which lies hid within the seed. So it was 
 with the Catholic church. It had a principle of life 
 which did not come from Greek or Roman civilisation, 
 but from the religion of Jesus. It was because of this 
 that it overcame the Roman world. It won the day, not 
 merely because it skilfully turned old elements to its 
 advantage, but also because it introduced new principles. 
 Adaptation was the condition, but its originality was the 
 true cause of its success. With a consideration of this 
 originality we shall conclude this chapter and this book. 
 
ORIGINALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 191 
 
 (2) In the first place Christianity was, and through all 
 its phases remained, much more than a system of specula- 
 tion. The ' Apostles' creed,' which is intended to be a 
 record of fact, never ceased to be valued, and even the 
 longer and later creeds, which go by the names of Nicene 
 and Athanasian, mingle the facts of history with meta- 
 physical dogma. This was the secret of the church's 
 strength. Of mere speculation the world was tired. 
 Philosophy had done its utmost. It had reduced the old 
 belief in gods many and lords many, to belief in one 
 great power which sustains the universe.^ It had given 
 an ethical character to religion: it insisted that a virtuous 
 life was the one thing needful, and relegated sacrifice 
 and ritual to a subordinate place : it had held out the 
 hope of immortality. But only a select number could 
 pretend to follow the philosophical arguments on which 
 these beliefs rested. No authority, except the authority 
 of philosophers, could be alleged in their behalf. The 
 nature-worship of polytheism gave no real support to the 
 ethical monotheism of the philosophers. The Christians 
 on the other hand found the ultimate basis of their 
 teaching in an historical revelation. The God whom 
 they worshipped, was a God who had made Himself 
 
 ^ A compromise between pure Monotheism and popular Mono- 
 theism seems to have been generally accepted throughout the 
 empire in the latter part of the second century. Maximus the 
 Syrian, a rhetorician who lived in the time of the Antonines, says 
 {Diss. xvii. 5) that most people, whether Greeks or barbarians, 
 educated or uneducated, believed that there was one God, the 
 king and father of, all, the other gods being his children and 
 coadjutors. Eusebius {Laud. Constantin. i) gives a similar 
 account of the general sentiment and takes advantage of it in the 
 interests of Christianity. 
 
192 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 known. The philosophers spoke at best of a God whom 
 they had found, the Christians of a God who had found 
 them. He had been with Adam and the Patriarchs, he 
 had made Himself known by name to Moses. He had 
 chosen and directed the Hebrew people, He had spoken 
 through the prophets and declared His holy will. Last 
 of all He had revealed Himself in Jesus, had sealed 
 Christ's teaching by miracles, and given assurance of 
 immortality with its attendant rewards and punishments 
 by raising him from the dead. It is true that this method 
 of proof does not satisfy many of us as it did satisfy the 
 men of the third century. It may be objected, and justly, 
 that the early Christians who had such contempt for the 
 mythology of the Greeks, were advancing myths of their 
 own. Nevertheless, the difference between the position 
 of heathen philosophers and Christians with respect to 
 revelation was immense. The Greek myths are natural, 
 and contain little morality. The Hebrew myths in the 
 oldest form accessible to us have in nearly every case been 
 deeply coloured by the ethical religion of the prophets, 
 and have become the vehicles of moral instruction. 
 
 (3) Again, the history of revelation, from which the 
 Christians drew their authority, was far from being purely 
 mythical. It was undeniable that one prophet after 
 another had professed to speak by divine inspiration, 
 that the Jews were the single instance of a monotheistic 
 nation, that they had reached a level of religious develop- 
 ment which gave them from the religious point of view 
 an incomparable superiority to the more cultivated nations 
 who ruled over them. The grandest utterances of Stoic 
 or Neoplatonist philosophers did not touch the heait like 
 many an oracle of the prophets, many a passionate cry 
 
NEED OF AN HISTORICAL RELIGION 193 
 
 and devout aspiration of the psalmists. Above all, the 
 divine life had really manifested itself in the real man 
 Jesus. Let men think as they would of his miracles and 
 resurrection (and the reader cannot be too often reminded 
 that the canons of historical criticism were much laxer in 
 the third century than in the nineteenth), at least his trust 
 and hope, the love to God and man which penetrated 
 his whole being, were in the strictest sense historical. 
 We may feel constrained to dismiss the accounts of his 
 >^ apparition after death, but no criticism can alter the fact 
 that he was crucified, and, ' being lifted up from the 
 earth ' was ' drawing all men to himself.' 
 
 (4) An historical religion, a religion which could 
 exhibit its utmost ideal realised in human form — that 
 was the want of the time, and the philosophers themselves 
 became conscious of the need, and strove to meet it. 
 They mingled philosophy with religion, and endeavoured 
 to find authority for both in the ancient worships of the 
 east, but they did not stop there. A remarkable work 
 appeared in the early part of the third century. This 
 was the life of Apollonius of Tyana, a famous magician 
 who was a contemporary of Domitian. The life, written 
 by the Neopythagorean philosopher Philostratus, is really 
 not a biography but a romance. Apollonius is an histori- 
 cal name, but in the hands of Philostratus he becomes 
 an imaginary character, the ideal of that mixture of 
 philosophy and religion which was in favour with 
 Julia Domna, wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus. 
 Apollonius is possessed of consummate knowledge of 
 philosophy, he is the pattern of a rigorously ascetic life, 
 all the virtues are perfectly blended in his noble 
 character, he has the gifts of prophecy and miracles. 
 
 o 
 
194 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 But he is no recluse : he is not even a Stoic philosopher 
 who trains a band of disciples, and leaves the crowd to 
 their madness. He is a great religious reformer. He 
 wanders from place to place, and especially from temple 
 to temple. He despises death, and his love to mankind 
 fires him with the one desire to awaken the slumbering 
 forces of religion and morality, and recall men to the per- 
 fect offering of a pious and virtuous life. The resemblance 
 to the life of Jesus cannot be mistaken, though of course 
 it is a resemblance with important differences. Very 
 likely Philostratus, the author of this romance, had no 
 bitter hostility to the Christian religion. His object may 
 have been to show that the light which shone in Jesus, 
 displayed itself elsewhere also, that philosophy, too, had 
 produced its ideal life. Yet what a confession of weak- 
 ness, what a change of front does this imply ! For the 
 well-bred contempt of Lucian and Celsus we have the 
 imitation of Christianity by Philostratus, an imitation 
 which showed that he knew, more or less imperfectly, 
 the real well-spring of Christian strength. 
 
 ^ 3. The Power of Christianity over the Heart. 
 
 (i) For the Christian rehgion was a religion of power. 
 Attempts are often made to question its originality. In 
 our own day, learned Jews have tried to produce a 
 parallel to each maxim of Jesus from the traditional 
 sayings of Jewish Rabbis embalmed in the Talmud. 
 From the other side (and this is the point which con- 
 cerns us here), another set of parallels has been gathered 
 from the Stoic philosphers. It is right that this work 
 
THE POWER OF GOD IN CHRIST 195 
 
 should be done, though instances given require careful 
 sifting, and a resemblance in words may often be 
 mistaken for a resemblance in thought. But the origi- 
 nality, or the want of it, in the precepts, is not the 
 chief question. If in these precepts there were no 
 originality at all, we should still stand face to face with 
 the fact that whereas philosophy did but strengthen the 
 moral resolutions of small circles, and cause a few 
 ameliorations in Roman law, Christianity changed the 
 lives of multitudes. The reason is that the abstract God 
 of philosophy could only with great difficulty and in a 
 few men became an object of love. They might be 
 resigned to the government of the Stoic God : they could 
 hardly regard him as an ever-present Friend. But they 
 could love the God and Father revealed in Christ. It is 
 not too much to say that the fruitfulness of Stoic morality 
 is due in great measure to the strange fortune which 
 grafted it into the Christian church. 
 
 (2) The power which the gospel exercised over the 
 heart, and its character as a revealed religion, made the 
 Christian church possible. The actual form which the 
 Catholic church took, was not Christian, but Roman. 
 But it must be remem.bered that the church in apostolic 
 times had a very remarkable unity of its own, before the 
 Catholic federation of bishops had been so much as 
 dreamt of. Nor could Catholic unity have arisen, had 
 not the bishops been able to avail themselves of another 
 and a nobler unity which already existed, and which was, 
 not indeed without serious detriment, preserved beneath 
 the Catholic organisation. This nobler unity depended 
 on the power which the Christian religion had of providing 
 a common faith, in which men of all nations, of all social 
 
 02 
 
196 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 ranks, of all grades in intellect and education, could 
 meet together. Philosophy, even the Neoplatonist philo- 
 sophy with its tincture of religion and theosophy, utterly 
 failed to found a church. How could it ? Philosophy 
 is not for all, but only for intellectual persons with time 
 at their command. Now Christianity provided matter for 
 the deepest reflection. It enlisted the best philosophy 
 of the day upon its side. At the same time it spoke of 
 facts which were intelligible to the simplest. Rich and 
 poor could believe in the same God and Father, could 
 learn the lessons taught by the life of Jesus, and accept 
 the gospel of divine communion and eternal hope. 
 Christians acknowledged one master under God, one 
 leader and perfect example, and the life which all prized, 
 and which made them all one, was no fiction like that of 
 Apollonius, but a life which was in its essential features 
 historical and real. Thus in an age which was fond of 
 associations, Christianity supplied an association which 
 was world-wide, and compared with which all other 
 associations were insignificant. The brotherhood of man, 
 which was a theory with the Stoics, had become practical. 
 The union of the Jews was the only one which could 
 rival the Christian union, and Judaism suffered from the 
 incurable defects of nationalism and exclusiveness. 
 When Julian headed the heathen reaction against 
 Christianity, he paid the new religion the compliment 
 of imitating its organisation. He might have reproduced 
 the episcopal organisation easily enough, but heathen 
 religion and heathen philosophy lacked that unity of 
 belief and of desire, failing which all outward organisa- 
 tion is useless. 
 
 (3) If, moreover, Christianity gathered men of all 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 197 
 
 classes into its net, it had a special message for the poor, 
 for the outcast and the slave. It is the religion which 
 consecrates sorrow, it is the religion of a crucified master, 
 it is the religion of active benevolence. Its first success 
 was won among the poor and the wretched. Its ultimate 
 success was secured in the main by the same means, because 
 the poor were becoming more and more the overwhelming 
 majority in the Empire. The confiscation of large estates 
 without encouragement of small proprietors, the accumu- 
 lation of capital in a few hands, the absence of the 
 economical conditions which produce wealth, intestine 
 wars, the incursion of barbarians, combined to swell the 
 mass of pauperism. These causes did not operate to 
 their full extent till after the age of the Antonines, but 
 pauperism before their time had assumed alarming 
 proportions, and Trajan had to make provision for 
 pauper children one of the public burdens. Christianity 
 gave the sympathy for which the wretched crave. If it 
 did not for the time make formal objection to slavery, it 
 reminded the master that he too had a master in heaven. 
 Master and slave prayed together, ate together at the 
 love-feast, died together for the Christian name. The 
 poor were rich in faith, and believed that their sufferings 
 would disappear in the glory which was to be revealed. 
 Meantime the church was a vast charitable institution 
 which succoured the poor and the wretched in their 
 present need. The Roman church in the middle of the 
 third century supported fifteen hundred widows and other 
 indigent persons, and sent help to brethren in the far 
 east in Syria and Arabia. Within a few days Cyprian 
 was able to collect a large sum among the Christians of 
 Carthage for the redemption of Christian captives. This 
 
198 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 charity was exercised in the first place in the household 
 of the faith, but it overflowed the bounds of the church 
 and reached the heathen population. We can but too 
 easily understand the social strain of the Roman Empire. 
 But only by a strong effort of imagination can we appre- 
 ciate the effect of a brotherly love which was a new 
 creation. 
 
 § 4. Limitations to the Efficacy of Christianity, 
 
 (i) There was a darker side to the picture. In the 
 apostolic age, Christian communities were stained by the 
 vices of the world around them, and to these they added 
 a controversial rancour which was their own. The 
 Catholic church fell far below the rehgious and moral 
 level of apostolic times, and the history of the church in 
 the early centuries is a history of increasing worldliness. 
 In the first three centuries, the progress of corruption 
 was arrested by the dangers of persecution, which might 
 break out at any moment, and which afforded a certain 
 test of Christian sincerity. Nevertheless, even then, signs 
 of moral decay were not wanting, and the episcopal 
 power was of itself an incentive to ambition. The 
 toleration granted to the church revealed the effect of 
 the deterioration which had taken place, by giving free 
 play to the forces which had long been working within 
 the church. Men were often disposed to regard strict 
 virtue as the business of monks. They led easy lives, 
 took their pleasure in the feasts of Christian martyrs, as 
 their fathers had done in the feasts of the gods, and 
 trusted in amulets and the intercession of the saints with 
 
MORALITY OF THE CHURCH 199 
 
 a devotion which was little better than heathenism. In 
 the fever of metaphysical dispute which spread like a 
 plague over the eastern half of the Empire, the interests 
 of the Christian life fared badly, and an orthodox divine 
 of the fifth century confesses that many acted as if Christ 
 had only left directions about dogma and been altogether 
 silent about moral conduct. There are, however, three 
 considerations which should be taken into account, and 
 which ought to modify the severity of our judgment. 
 
 (2) In the first place, when we would judge the morality 
 of the Catholic church at the end of the third century, 
 we may test it by one or other of tW'O standards. We 
 may compare its morality with the morality of the Sermon 
 on the Mount, and be at no loss to discover the base 
 metal with which the pure gold has been alloyed. Or, 
 on the other hand, we may compare Christian morality 
 with the morahty current in the rest of the Empire. In 
 that case our estimate will be very different. The Empire 
 under Diocletian could make little claim to the patriotism 
 and public spirit which shone forth in the palmy days of 
 Athens and of Rome. In the purity of family life, in all 
 private virtue, the Christians were far ahead of their 
 fellow citizens. A Christian bishop was very unlike an 
 apostle : but his office was in some ways very like that of 
 a Roman magistrate, and it would be an extravagant 
 scepticism to doubt that the bulk of the bishops were 
 better men than the average of Imperial officials. It 
 could not well be otherwise. A bishop might be chosen 
 and enter on his office, knowing that he might be 
 called to face the brunt of persecution. He was elected 
 by the vote of the people, and the judgment of the other 
 bishops in the province. Watchful eyes were upon him, 
 
200 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 and he could not live an immoral life without giving 
 scandal. He was expected to care for the poor. Paul 
 of Samosata was charged by his adversaries with leading 
 an immoral life. Whether the charges were true or false, 
 they are at all events proof that immorality on the part 
 of a bishop was considered to be disreputable and mon- 
 strous, whereas in the case of a Roman magistrate, 
 nobody would have thought such matters worth notice. 
 Further it as least certain that Christianity, when it be- 
 came the religion of the state, did expel the most hideous 
 forms of cruelty and of immorality. Now it is this latter 
 standard of comparison which must be applied, when we 
 inquire into the causes which made Christianity the 
 religion of the Empire. 
 
 (3) Secondly, the bad effects of dogmatic controversy 
 told much more severely on the bishops and theologians 
 than upon ordinary Christians. Dogma avenged itself 
 chiefly on those who busied themselves in its construction. 
 The unlettered had more time to think of practical 
 Christianity, and were far less likely to confuse religion 
 with right opinion on the inscrutable problems of meta- 
 physics. The layman might accept dogma with passive 
 acquiescence. But he did not live in it or on it. Some 
 exception must be made for the popularity of dogmatic 
 dispute in the eastern church. But the western mind 
 was more practical, and when Constantine became the 
 patron of the church, speculative theology had only for 
 a brief space intruded itself into the creed even of the 
 eastern churches. 
 
 (4) Thirdly, the Catholic church qualified the mischief 
 of its dogmas by its creation of the New Testament. A 
 mass of old Christian literature has perished, and even 
 
PRESERVATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 201 
 
 the works of the early and pre-Catholic writers which still 
 survive, have been all but lost. They have only been 
 preserved in one or two MSS. They were no longer 
 suited to the taste of the age : they ceased to be read 
 and were no longer copied : the old copies perished of 
 neglect. It needs no great effort of imagination to see 
 that the same fate might have overtaken the four gospels 
 and the epistles of St. Paul. But the Catholic church 
 took a middle course between the mere conservatism of 
 Christians who simply held to the Old Testament, to the 
 traditional sayings of Jesus, and to the utterances of 
 Christian prophets, and the radicalism of the Gnostics, 
 who were turning Christianity into systems of philosophic 
 speculation. The rulers of the church promoted specu- 
 ladon, but they set limits to it by selecting the writings 
 which form our New Testament, and by making a belief 
 in their final and absolute authority an essential part of 
 the Catholic system. The New Testament became a 
 necessary part in the furniture of every church. Theo- 
 logians commented on it. It was a repertory in which 
 discordant divines sought and found texts for the support 
 of their favourite doctrines, and the church zealously 
 pHomoted the reading of the New Testament by the 
 laity. Hence copies were multiplied, and so many 
 survive, that the textual critic of to-day is perplexed 
 by the abundance of his material. The most precious 
 monuments of early Christianity were saved from destruc- 
 tion. For the time, for a long time, the church triuriiphed 
 by the consummate skill which enabled it thus to mingle 
 the old with the new. Yet the church, and we can never 
 be too thankful that it was so, unwittingly preserved a 
 witness which could testify against the corruptions which 
 
202 IMPENDING TRIUMPH OF THE MIXED SYSTEM 
 
 were setting in. In after ages, the corruptions became so 
 great that the contrast could no longer be ignored, and the 
 later Catholic church was fain to silence the witness which 
 the earlier Catholic church had preserved. The voice of 
 that witness has still much to say, more than any of us 
 can foretell. At the Reformation, justice was done to the 
 theology, and even perhaps to the religion, of St. Paul. 
 Can we say that justice has been done to the religion of 
 Jesus ? Christianity, said Lessing, has existed for many 
 centuries : the relig-ion of Christ still remains to be tried. 
 

 APPENDIX A. 
 
 
 TABLE OF ROMAN EMPERORS. 
 
 A.D. 
 14 
 
 Death of Octavianus Augustus. 
 
 14—37 
 
 Tiberius. 
 
 37—41 
 
 Caius Caesar (Caligula). 
 
 41—54 
 
 Claudius. 
 
 54-68 
 
 Nero. 
 
 68—69 
 
 Galba. 
 
 69 
 
 Otho. Vitellius. 
 
 69—79 
 
 Vespasian. 
 
 79—81 
 
 Titus. 
 
 81—96 
 
 Domitian. 
 
 96—98 
 
 Nerva. 
 
 98—117 
 
 Trajan. 
 
 117 — 138 
 
 Hadrian. 
 
 138 — 161 
 
 Antoninus Pius. 
 
 161 — i8c 
 
 Marcus Antoninus (Marcus Aurelius) 
 
 180 — 193 
 
 Commodus. 
 
 193 
 
 Pertinax. Didius Salvius Julianus. 
 
204 APPENDIX A 
 
 A.D. 
 
 193 — 211 Septimius Severus. 
 
 211 — 217 Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla. 
 
 217 — 218 Macrinus. 
 
 218 — 222 Elagabalus. 
 
 222 — 235 Severus Alexander. 
 
 235 — 238 Maximinus Thrax. 
 
 238 — 244 Gordianus. 
 
 244 — 249 Philippus (Philip the Arab). 
 
 249 — 251 Decius. 
 
 251 — 283" Gallus. 
 
 253 — 268 Valerian and Gallienus. 
 
 268—270 Claudius. 
 
 270 — 275 Aurelian. 
 
 27s — 276 Claudius Tacitus. 
 
 276 — 282 Probus. 
 
 282 — 284 Carus. Carinus. Numerianus. 
 
 284 — 305 Diocletian. He in 285 nominates Maximian 
 co-emperor. In 292 Constantius and 
 Galerius are raised to the dignity of 
 Caesars. 
 
 305 Diocletian and Maximian abdicate. Con- 
 stantius and Galerius Emperors. 
 Maximin Daza and Severus become 
 Caesars. 
 
 306 Death of Constantius. Severus becomes 
 Emperor; Constantine Caesar. Max- 
 entius is proclaimed Emperor, and his 
 father Maximian resumes the purple. 
 
 307 Death of Severus. He is succeeded by 
 Licinius. Constantine declares himself 
 Emperor. So does Maximin in Asia. 
 
TABLE OF ROMAN EMPERORS 
 
 205 
 
 310 
 
 3" 
 312 
 
 313 
 
 314 
 323 
 
 324 
 324—337 
 
 Maximian forced to kill himself at Marseilles. 
 
 Galerius dies. 
 
 Maxentius defeated at the Ponte Molle and 
 
 drowned in the Tiber. 
 Defeat and death of Maximin. Constantine 
 
 and Licinius sole Emperors. 
 War between Constantine and Licinius. 
 Second War between Constantine and 
 
 Licinius. 
 Licinius slain. 
 Constantine sole Emperor. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 CHIEF POINTS IN THE CHURCH HISTORY OF THE 
 FIRST THREE CENTURIES. 
 
 FIRST PERIOD. 
 
 From the death of Jesus in 31 a.d. (?) till the accession 
 of Trajan in 98. 
 
 Characteristics. 
 According to a tradition ancient, general, and still 
 accepted by many scholars, one Apostle, viz., John, sur- 
 vived till about the end of this period, and in any case 
 the main features of the Apostolic age were preserved 
 throughout. There was no persecution of Christians as 
 such by the Roman power. The churches recognised 
 no bond of union except common trust, hope, and 
 sanctity of life. The Church was governed by 'the 
 Spirit ' ; instruction was in the hands of wandering 
 Apostles and Prophets, and of teachers with supernatural 
 gifts. The separate churches had no organization, no 
 officials, except that in most churches, perhaps in all 
 towards the close of the period, a board of overseers 
 
THE FIRST PERIOD 
 
 207 
 
 (episcopoi) or of elders looked to the discipline, and with 
 the help of the deacons distributed the alms of the con- 
 gregation. There was no authoritative Christian literature. 
 The believers accepted the Old Testament, the words of 
 the Lord Jesus, preserved in oral or written tradition, 
 and the revelations made to prophets, etc. The First 
 Epistle of Clement belongs to the close of the period. 
 The epistles of St. Paul, and the Logia or oracles of the 
 Lord, and the Gospel according to St. Mark, fall within 
 its limits, and perhaps also the Gospels according to 
 Matthew and Luke, substantially in their present form. 
 The chief controversy turned on the obligation which the 
 Jewish law possessed for Christians. 
 
 Note the followiiig events. 
 
 Spread of belief in Jesus among the Jews who spoke 
 Greek. Preaching of the Greek Jew Stephen. His 
 death. Persecution by the Jewish authorities at Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 The new faith spreads through Samaria, and along 
 the Phoenician coast to Antioch. 
 
 Conversion of St. Paul about 35. Paul preaches 
 salvation by faith without the law in Asia Minor, Mace- 
 donia, and Greece. Peter confines himself to the 
 Apostolate of the circumcision. 
 
 44. James the son of Zebedee put to death at 
 Jerusalem under Herod Agrippa L 
 
 48-58. Missionary journeys of St. Paul. 
 
 61. Paul a prisoner at Rome. 
 
 64. Great fire at Rome. Nero accuses the Christians 
 of causing it. Paul probably, Peter possibly, executed at 
 Rome on this charge. 
 
2o8 APPENDIX B 
 
 66-70. Jewish revolt ending in fall of Jerusalem. 
 Somewhat earlier, James the brother of Jesus, and the 
 most influential member of the Church at Jerusalem, had 
 been killed by the Jews. 
 
 SECOND PERIOD. 
 
 From the accession of Trajan in 98 till the latter 
 part of the second century. 
 
 Characteristics. 
 The Jewish element in the Church weakened by the 
 fall of Jerusalem, loses power and chiefly survives in 
 sects confined to Palestine. Christians now separated 
 from jews, attract the notice of the Imperial authorities, 
 and their worship is declared to be unlawful. Christianity 
 is subjected to philosophic treatment by the Apologists, 
 and in a more radical spirit by the Gnostics. Their great 
 teachers belong to this period, and the whole future of 
 the church was affected, partly by their influence, partly 
 by the opposition they excited. Unlike them the Mon- 
 tanists vindicated, but without success, the ancient rights 
 of prophecy and enthusiasm. The monarchical episco- 
 pate with presbyters and deacons gradually replaces the 
 board of elders and overseers. The old enthusiasm dies 
 out, and the teaching office falls to the bishop. The 
 New Testament writings begin towards the close of the 
 period to occupy a place of authority. The literature 
 written during this time, and still surviving, comprises 
 some of the New Testament documents, notably the 
 Fourth Gospel, the Apostolic Letters, and some of the 
 works of the Apologists, fragments of Gnostic books, etc. 
 
SECOND PERIOD 209 
 
 Nofe f he /allowing events. 
 
 112. Trajan declares the Christian religion illegal. 
 Persecution of Christians in Bithynia under Pliny. 
 
 115 (?). Martyrdom of Ignatius of Antioch. 
 
 125. Quadratus and Aristides (according to Euse- 
 bius; see, however, p. 107, above) present apologies for 
 the Christian religion to Hadrian. 
 
 132-135- Revolt of Palestinian Jews under Barcochba. 
 M\\2i Capitolina, a heathen city, is built on the site of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 140. Valentinus the Gnostic leaves Alexandria and 
 takes up his abode in Rome. 
 
 140-155. Marcion at Rome. 
 
 147-160. Between these years Justin's two Apologies 
 were written. His Dialogue with the Jew Trypho a little 
 later. 
 
 150-1. Shortly after this time Montanus began to 
 prophesy in Phrygia, and starts a movement which 
 spreads through the Christian world. 
 
 165. Martyrdom of Justin. Then also, or according 
 to another calculation ten years before, the martyrdom of 
 Polycarp. 
 
 177. Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons. In the same 
 year Athenagoras addresses his Supplication for the 
 Christians to M. Aurelius. 
 
 178. About this year Celsus writes his True Dis- 
 course against Christianity. 
 
 180. Theophilus of Antioch publishes his three 
 books To Autolycus. First known use of the word 
 Trinity (in the Greek form 'trias''), and first formal 
 quotation from St. John's Gospel. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 THIRD PERIOD. 
 
 From the consolidation of the CathoHc Church 
 towards the close of the second century to the reunion of 
 the Empire under Constantine in 324. 
 
 Characteristics. 
 
 During this period the old union of religious trust and 
 brotherly love is finally replaced by the Catholic Church, 
 i.e., by a world-wide organisation subject to an aristocratic 
 federation of bishops. The bishops, therefore, are no 
 longer mere presidents of particular congregations, but 
 officials of the church at large and successors of the 
 Apostles, charged with the duty of delivering and main- 
 taining the 'rule of faith.' They are the defenders of the 
 common faith against Gnostic heresy. They are the 
 official teachers. They guarantee the ' canon,' or list of 
 New Testament books, which are authoritative and in- 
 spired. Thus ' prophecy ' as an abiding gift falls into 
 discredit or is confined within narrow bounds, inspiration 
 being now chiefly a thing of the past. Theological 
 speculation, restrained by the * rule of faith,' flourishes in 
 the east, and its results begin to find a place in the formal 
 creeds of the eastern churches. The hostility of the 
 empire to the church, becomes more resolute and 
 systematic. On the other hand, the church looks forward 
 to the conversion of the empire. Hence the hope of 
 Christ's speedy return to establish the Kingdom of God 
 upon earth grows dim and in some quarters fades away 
 altogether. The church, adapting itself to the world, 
 relaxes her moral discipHne. The controversies within 
 the church turned chiefly on the Person of Christ and his 
 
THIRD PERIOD 211 
 
 relations to the Father, the treatment of the ' lapsed ' {i.e. 
 those who had betrayed the faith under persecution), and 
 the validity of baptism by heretics. 
 
 Note the following events. 
 
 190 or thereabouts, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, finishes 
 his Rejutation and Overthrow of Gnosticism falsely so 
 called. 
 
 190-200 (?). Victor, bishop of Rome. He excom- 
 municates Theodotus, who held that Jesus was a ' mere 
 man.' 
 
 193-211. Septimius Severus Emperor. Persecution 
 of the Christians. 
 
 2oo(.?)-223. Zephyrinus and then Callistus bishops of 
 Rome. Literary activity of Hippolytus, the Roman 
 presbyter. He contends against the Roman bishops, 
 making himself the champion of strict discipline and of 
 the doctrine that the Logos or Word is distinct from and 
 subordinate to the Father. About this time the doctrine 
 that Christ is absolutely identical with the Father is 
 maintained at Rome by Sabellius and others, finds favour 
 for a time with the Roman bishops, and enjoys a wide 
 popularity till after the middle of the third century. 
 
 220. Death of Tertullian who is about 60 years of 
 age, and of Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 241. Ammonius Saccas, founder of Neoplatonism 
 and teacher of Origen, dies. 
 
 244-249. Within this lime Origen completes his great 
 work Against Celsus. 
 
 249-258. Cyprian bishop of Carthage. 
 
 250. Persecution under Decius. It is renewed by 
 Valerian 253-260. 
 
 P2 
 
212 APPENDIX B 
 
 251. Cornelius bishop of Rome. Novatian leads a 
 party which refuses to admit repentant sinners, guilty of 
 idolatry and other great crimes. The schism begins at 
 Rome and extends throughout the church. 
 
 253-257 (?). Stephen bishop of Rome. He admits 
 the validity of baptism by heretics, if given m due form. 
 He is resisted by Cyprian of Carthage, Firmilian of 
 Caisarea, and others. The Roman practice, despite its 
 novelty, finally prevails at the beginning of the fourth 
 century. 
 
 261. Gallienus stays the persecution. The church 
 left in peace during forty years. 
 
 268-269. Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch, is 
 excommunicated for holding that Christ is one with God 
 in will but not in essence. Final triumph of the Logos 
 doctrine. 
 
 303. Persecution of Diocletian begins. 
 
 313. Edict of Milan makes Christianity a lawful 
 religion. 
 
 324. Constantine already a Christian, though not yet 
 baptised, becomes sole Emperor. 
 
APPENDIX C. 
 
 1. HEATHEN WRITERS. 
 
 We have brief references to Christianity in Tacitus, 
 who was a child of eight or ten when Nero persecuted 
 the Christians in 64. He was a magistrate under Domitian 
 and wrote his most important works under Trajan. 
 Suetonius, who makes an obscure allusion to Christ in 
 his Lives of the Twelve CcBsars, was a younger contem- 
 porary of Tacitus. He was secretary to the Emperor 
 Hadrian. The correspondence between Pliny the 
 younger and Trajan about the Christians belongs to the 
 year 112. 
 
 We have also references to the Christians in Galen, a 
 famous authority on medicine and logic, who wrote about 
 160, and in the Meditations of M. Aurelius (about 174). 
 Lucian, who was a Syrian by birth, but wrote in elegant 
 Greek, ridicules the Christians in a book on the Death of 
 Peregrinus, written shortly after 165. 
 
 The best known controversial writers against Chris- 
 tianity were Celsus (about 178), Porphyry the Neo- 
 platonist (about 270), and Hierocles, who took an active 
 
214 APPENDIX C 
 
 part in the persecution under Galerius, and wrote about 
 303. All these anti-Christian books have perished and 
 are only known to us by the fragments preserved in the 
 Christian answers to them. 
 
 2. CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 
 
 (i) The Apostolic Fathers. 
 
 The name implies that the authors were in some 
 special way connected with the Apostles, generally as 
 their disciples. The title is justified only so far as this, 
 that the writings of the Apostolic Fathers present a very 
 early and simple form of Christianity, little influenced by 
 philosophical theory. These writings comprise : 
 
 Two Epistles ascribed to Clement. Who this Clement 
 was is quite uncertain. The former epistle was addressed 
 by the Church of Rome to the Church at Corinth, then 
 agitated by discontent with its presbyters, and disputes 
 about the management of the flock. The epistle was 
 written about 98 and Clement may have been a Roman 
 presbyter who had the chief hand in its composition. 
 The second so-called epistle is the most ancient Christian 
 sermon extant. The place of its origin and date are 
 uncertain. It may well belong to the earliest half of the 
 second century. 
 
 The Shepherd of Hermas : an exhortation to penance 
 in the form of visions and prophecies. According to a 
 very old tradition, the author, Hermas, was the brother of 
 Pius, who was said to have been bishop of Rome about 
 the middle of the second century. 
 
 The Epistle of Barnabas. A treatise on the typical 
 sense of the Jewish ceremonial law, followed by a moral 
 discourse on *the Two Ways' of life and death. It can 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 215 
 
 scarcely be later than the early part of Hadrian's reign 
 (117), but is probably a compilation of two documents. 
 
 Closely connected with the epistle of Barnabas is the 
 recently discovered Didache or Teaching of the Apostles. 
 It consists of moral precepts under the heading of 'the 
 Two Ways' and of rules for the worship and discipline of 
 the Christian Churches. It belongs to a transition period, 
 when the old enthusiasm was giving way to the govern- 
 ment of officials, though monarchical episcopacy had not 
 yet arisen. Little more is certain, in the present division 
 of opinion on the date of the book and the documents of 
 which it is composed. 
 
 The Ignatian Epistles. It is said that Ignatius, 
 bishop of Antioch, was condemned to death under Trajan, 
 that he was transported to Rome, and died there a 
 martyr's death in the Amphitheatre. A number of letters 
 which bear his name profess to have been written by him 
 on his journey. Their authenticity has been the subject 
 of controversy which has lasted for three centuries and 
 still continues. They have come down to us in three 
 recensions differing from one another in extent, number, 
 and character. Now, however, the question is practically 
 limited to seven epistles in the 'Shorter Greek Recension' 
 known to Eusebius. These are addressed to the Churches 
 of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, 
 Smyrna, and to Polycarp. They denounce Judaism and 
 the Docetic doctrine that Christ only 'seemed' to be a 
 man. They insist on submission to the bishop, who 
 represents Christ, and to the presbyters, who take the 
 place of the Apostles. Those who deny the authenticity 
 of the epistles, admit that they must have been written as 
 early as 150. Those who contend for their authenticity. 
 
2i6 APPENDIX C 
 
 place them at various dates from the first decade of the 
 second century to about 130. On any theory, they supply 
 evidence of great moment for the rise of the monarchical 
 episcopate in the Churches of Syria and Asia Minor. 
 
 PoLYCARP. We have an Epistle under his name to 
 the Philippians, parts of which only survive in a Latin 
 version. Polycarp is said to have been bishop of Smyrna 
 and disciple of St. John. The authenticity of the epistle 
 stands or falls with that of the Ignatian epistles. If 
 genuine and free from interpolation, it must have been 
 written about the same time. 
 
 Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, wrote five 
 books entitled an Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord. 
 Of this work a few fragments remain which give valuable 
 information on the origin of Mark's Gospel, and the 
 collection of discourses by Jesus which Matthew compiled 
 in Hebrew or Aramaic; they also contain fantastic 
 accounts of the Millennium and a fabulous story about 
 the death of Judas. Papias was a sedulous collector of 
 oral tradition from the mouths of those who had con- 
 versed with the Apostles. His date is uncertain, but he 
 collected the sayings of men who had known the 
 Apostles. 
 
 Hegesippus, a Christian of Jewish origin, visited 
 European Churches, notably Corinth and Rome, and 
 lived till about 189. His Memoirs in five books seem to 
 have been a protest against doctrinal novelties on the 
 historical ground of apostolic tradition. 
 
 An anonymous Epistle to Diognetus is usually printed 
 among the works of the 'Apostolic Fathers.' But it is 
 much more akin to the works of the Apologists. The 
 date is quite uncertain, nor is it known who or what 
 Diognetus was. 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 217 
 
 We have also a contemporary account of the 
 Martyrdoms at Vienne and Lyons in 177; and another 
 of Polycarfs Martyrdom in 165 (?), which professes to 
 come from the members of the Church at Smyrna who 
 witnessed it. It is probably genuine in substance, though 
 this has been doubted. 
 
 (2) The Gnostic Writers. 
 
 (3) The Apologists of the Second Century. 
 
 A sketch of the history with the names and dates of the 
 chief Gnostic writers and apologists has been given above, 
 chaps, iv. and vi. Of the Gnostic literature scarcely 
 anything survives, except fragments preserved in the 
 writings of their Catholic opponents. The only Gnostic 
 book handed down to us entire, has survived in a Coptic 
 translation. It is called Pistis- Sophia, and was written by 
 a disciple of the Gnostic Valentinian in the third century. 
 Some of the Apocryphal Gospels are coloured by Gnostic 
 tendencies. 
 
 (4) The Fathers of the old Catholic Church, 
 TILL THE Reign of .Constantine. 
 
 {a) The School of Asia Minor and Rome. 
 
 Iren^us, knew Polycarp in his youth; went to 
 Lyons, where he was presbyter, and after 177 or 178 bishop. 
 His great work. Refutation and Overthrow of Gnosticism 
 falsely so called, has been preserved chiefly in a Latin 
 translation. This version, generally supposed to be 
 nearly contemporaneous with the original Greek, belongs 
 according to Westcott and Hort to the fourth century (see 
 their edition of the New Testament, vol. ii. p. 160). 
 Irenaeus, though a strenuous advocate of the Catholic 
 system, keeps something of the older and simpler religion. 
 He opposed extreme measures against the Montanists, 
 
2i8 APPENDIX C 
 
 and withstood the attempt of the Roman bishop to enforce 
 uniformity in the observance of Easter. 
 
 HipPOLYTUs, a disciple of Irenaeus. He was presbyter 
 at Rome in the first two or three decades of the second 
 century. He defended the sharp distinction between the 
 Logos or Word and the supreme God, and was the 
 champion of strict discipline against the Roman bishops 
 of his day. For a time he presided over a Schismatical 
 Church at Rome. He was a man of great learning and 
 a prolific writer, though most of his works have perished. 
 His more important extant work is his ' Refutation of all 
 Heresies.' It was printed for the first time in 1851 as the 
 Philosophumena of Origen, and is still usually quoted 
 under that title. 
 
 {h) The Latin Fathers. 
 
 Tertullian {160-220). Born at Carthage, studied law 
 and rhetoric, wrote at first in Greek, then in Latin, though 
 none of his Greek works remain. His extant works, 
 which are numerous, are partly defences of Christianity 
 in general, partly attacks on heresy, especially those of 
 the Gnostics and Sabellians; in a third class he discusses 
 morals and discipline. He was a passionate advocate of 
 the Catholic system, but equally passionate in maintenance 
 of strict discipline, and his moral works exhibit his gradual 
 passage from the Catholic Church to the extreme rigorism 
 of the Montanists. Tertullian is the father of ecclesiastical 
 Latinity and to a great extent of Latin theology. 
 MiNUCius Felix may have written Latin earlier. But 
 it was Tertullian, not Minucius Felix, who first gave a 
 definite character to the Latin of the Church. 
 
 Cyprian, who used to call Tertullian his 'Master,' 
 and studied him diligently, was bishop of Carthage, 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 219 
 
 248-259. He was no theologian, but did much to build up 
 the episcopal system of the Church. His chief works 
 are On the Unity of the Church, On Work and Alms, On 
 the Lapsed {i.e. those who had fallen into idolatry, etc.), 
 besides many Letters, which throw a flood of light on the 
 constitution and internal life of the Church. 
 
 Lactantius. (Lucius Coelius or Caecilius Lactantius 
 Firmianus). A rhetorician at Nicomedia under Diocletian. 
 He became a Christian and laid down his office during 
 the persecution. Afterwards he was tutor to Crispus, son 
 of Constantine, and died about 330. Besides the seven 
 books of Divine Institutions {i.e. of instructions in the 
 divine or Christian religion), a treatise on the Deaths of 
 Persecutors is probably his. 
 
 {c) The Alexandrian School. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavins Clemens), a 
 man of philosophic education who travelled and studied 
 in many lands, being specially attracted by Platonism and 
 by the moral teaching of the Stoics. He became a 
 Christian, and settled at Alexandria, where he presided 
 over the Catechetical School. He died about 220. His 
 chief extant works are an Apology for Christianity, a 
 treatise on Christian asceticism (called Paedagogus) 
 and seven books of Stromaties, i.e. patchwork, or Mis- 
 cellanies, which treat, but without system, of the Christian 
 religion from a philosophic point of view. 
 
 Origen. Born of Christian parents at Alexandria. 
 Studied under Clement and also under Ammonius Saccas 
 the Neoplatonist. Travelled to Rome, where he met 
 Hippolytus, and to Antioch, where (at her own request) 
 he met the mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus. 
 He was asked to preach, and then in 230 ordained 
 
220 APPENDIX C 
 
 presbyter, by the bishops of Jerusalem and Caesarea in 
 Palestine. This bitterly offended Demetrius the bishop 
 of Alexandria, who had not been consulted in the matter. 
 Therefore Origen left Alexandria and established a 
 theological School at Caesarea. He died under Valerian 
 in 254. 
 
 Origen knew nearly all that could be known in his 
 day, and, more than that, is the true founder of Greek 
 Christian theology. From him, as from a centre all sub- 
 sequent developments radiate, sometimes in directions 
 contrary to each other. His numerous works fall chiefly 
 into three classes. In his Hexapla, Origen placed the 
 Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and four Great 
 Versions, in parallel columns, specially marking the 
 relations of the Septuagint text to the Hebrew. He also 
 wrote homilies and commentaries on the books of the 
 Bible. Some of these exegetical works survive in Greek, 
 many more in a Latin translation. Next in his book 
 O71 Principles Origen supplied the first example of 
 dogmatic speculation, reduced to system. This work 
 belongs to the Alexandrian or early period of Origen's 
 activity. It only survives, as a whole, in a Latin version 
 which is not always to be trusted. Thirdly, in his eight 
 books Against Celsus, Origen wrote towards the end of his 
 career the most powerful defence of Christianity known 
 to the ancient world. 
 
 The bishop of Alexandria who opposed Origen was 
 succeeded in 232 or 233 by Heraclas, and he by the 
 celebrated Dionysius who died in 264. Both were disciples 
 of Origen, and the theological School of Alexandria 
 closely adhered to the lines laid down by the great 
 teacher till the close of the third century. 
 
CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 221 
 
 Gregory the wonder-worker (Thaumaturgus) was a 
 pupil of Origen in Palestine. He died bishop of 
 Neocaesarea in Pontus, in 270. He has left a Panegyric 
 on Origen and an Exposition of the faith in his Master's 
 spirit. 
 
 EusEBius, 265-340, bishop of Csesarea in Palestine, 
 was the disciple of Pamphilus the disciple of Origen, and 
 was the chief heir of Origen's learning and theological 
 principles. His history of the Church from the beginning 
 to 324 has a unique value, because of the numerous 
 extracts which it gives from early Aristean works and 
 documents, otherwise inaccessible to us. In his 
 Chronicles, he gave a sketch of the history of the world 
 with chronological tables. His Life of Constantine is 
 written in the spirit of a courtier rather than of an 
 historian. Farther, Eusebius devoted himself to the 
 interpretation of scripture; he superintended the pre- 
 paration of fifty copies of the Greek Bible for the Church 
 of Constantinople; he is the author of works in defence 
 of Christianity against the Heathen {^Preparation for the 
 Gospel), and against the Jews {Demonstration of the 
 Gospel). He also wrote books in theology proper, but 
 these last are connected with the fourth, rather than with 
 the first three centuries of Church history. 
 
 THE END, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Prepared by H. R. APPLETON. 
 
 ABGAR 41, 42 
 Abraham 78 
 Acts of the Apostles (i4, 106 
 Addai 41 
 
 Adoption, under Empire 9 
 M\ia. Capitolina 38 
 Aeschines 188 
 Africa 45, 46, 60, 76 
 Agrippinus 45 
 
 Alexander, of Abonoteichofe 13 
 Alexander, of Ephesus 65 
 Alexander Severus 51, 75 
 Alexandria 30, 38, 41, 44, 79, 143, 163, 219 
 Alogoi 174 
 
 Ammonius Saccas 26 
 Annona 16 
 
 Antioch 12, 30, 36, 37, 38, 41, 65, 79, 163 
 Antonines 13, 20, 25, 149, 188, 197 
 Antoninus Pius 32, 71, 72 
 Apocalypse 43, 68 
 Apologists, The 105, 120, 122, 124, 127, 
 
 142, 144, 146, 149, 173, 217. 
 Apostolic Fathers 105, 214 
 Apostolic Succession 163, 166 
 Apostles, The 39, 43, 49, 95, 96, 141, 
 
 152, 157, 163, 164, 169, 172, 191, 195, 
 
 198, 215 
 Appolonius 193, 196 
 Aquileia 45 
 Aquinas Thomas 136 
 Arabs 42 
 Areopagus 106 
 Aristides 107, 108, 109 
 Aristotle and Aristotelianism 21, 25, 
 
 149 
 Aries 45, 47, 48 
 Armenia 42, 43 
 Army, Roman 7, 75 
 Arval Brothers 15 
 Ascetics and Asceticism 137, 187 
 Asia Minor 38, 43 
 Athanasius 91, 191 
 
 Atheism and Atheists 40, 55, 73, 115 
 
 116 
 Athenagoras 110, 120 
 Athens 37, 44 
 Augurs and Auguries 15 
 Augustine 64 
 
 Augustus 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 30, 86 
 Aurelian 84, 176 
 
 BAPTISM 136, 168, 173, 179, 180, 189 
 Barbarians 81, 107, 115, 116, 120, 
 197 
 Barberini 189 
 Barca 44 
 
 Barnabas 135, 214 
 Basilides 149, 153 
 Benedict 186 
 Berenice 32 
 Berkeley 26 
 Bible, The 46, 103, 170 
 Bishops 40, 161, 164, IS'S, 195, 199 
 Bithynia 43, 51, 69 
 Britain 4, 48 
 British India 3 
 
 C<EC1LIUS57 
 Cjerleon 48 
 
 Caesarea 36 
 
 Caligula 32 
 
 Callistus 166, 182 
 
 Canius Julius 20 
 
 Canon, The 158, 171 
 
 Capua 45 
 
 Caracalla 10, 77 
 
 Carthage 45, 85. 
 
 Catacombs 52 
 
 Catherine 107 
 
 Catholic Church 94, 105, 109, 119, 125 
 126, 134, 137, 138, 145, 146, 159, 160 
 164, 178, 182, 187, 190, 195, 198, 200 
 
^24 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Celsus 14, 51, 57, 123, 154, 194, 213 
 
 Censor 81 
 
 Centralisation of Government under 
 
 Roman Empire 10 
 Cerinthus 148 
 Charity 197 
 China 4 
 Chrestos 65 
 
 Christ : see under Jesus Christ 
 Christianity 16-28, 35-40, 37, 50, 51, 53, 
 56, 58, 65, 90, 98, 115, 152, 168, 185, 
 191, 195, 202 
 Christus 65 
 Chrysippus 21 
 
 Church, The, and Churches 46, 49, 80, 
 88, 90, 94, 127, 145, 160, 162, 163, 
 191, 197, 201, 206 
 
 Cicero 13, 123 
 
 Citizenship (of Rome) 9, 10, 54, 58, 70, 
 74 
 
 Claudius 32, 65 
 
 Claudius Apollinaris 109 
 
 Clement 136, 189, 214, 219 
 
 Clubs 19, 59, 70, 77, 161 
 
 Colonies 5 
 
 Columella 11 
 
 Commentaries 153 
 
 Commerce 49 
 
 Commodus 9, 61, 71, 75 
 
 Communion 180 
 
 Constantine 57, 86,87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 185, 
 186, 200 
 
 Constitution of Church 94 
 
 Convent of St. Catherine 107 
 
 Convoking Assem bly of Roman People 6 
 
 Copts 44 
 
 Cordova 47 
 
 Corinth 12, 30, 37, 39, 44 
 
 Cornelius 44, 183 
 
 Creeds 96, 124, 127, 169, 191 
 
 Crete 44 
 
 Cynics and Cynicism 22 
 
 Cyprian 85, 164, 177, 181, 182, 197, 218 
 
 Cyprus 36, 37 
 
 Cyrenaica 44 
 
 Dionysius 44, 79, 138, 177 
 
 Disciples 36 
 
 Discipline 182 
 
 Dispensation, The 174 
 
 Dogma and Dogmatism 122, 127, 188, 
 
 191, 199, 2UU 
 Domitian 9, 40, 68, 69, 193 
 Domitilla 40 
 
 EARLY Church Government 161 
 Easter 166 
 Edessa 41, 42 
 Egypt 7, 8, 44, 76, 83 
 Elagabalus 62, 75, 77, 78 
 Elders 161 
 
 Eleusinian Mysteries 180 
 Elvira 47, 182 
 Emesa 77 
 
 Emperors, Roman 7, 9, 61, 69, 75, 76, 203 
 Encratites 138 
 Ephesus 12, 30, 38, 39, 65 
 Epictetus 20, 22, 24, 51, 57, 134 
 Epicurus and Epicureanism 21, 25, 56 
 Episcopacy : see under Bishops 
 Episkopoi 161 
 Epistles 35 
 Erastus 39 
 Essenes 137 
 Eucharist 180, 189 
 
 Eusebius 40, 44, 49, 75, 78, 79, 185, 221 
 Evangelists 49 
 
 FABIAN 183 
 Faith, Rule of 168, 173 
 Famines 12 
 
 Fathers, The 149, 214, 217, 218 
 Father of Fathers 18 
 Federation of Bishops 164, 188, 195 
 Flavius Clemens 40 
 Foreign Elements in Christianity 187 
 French Language 11 
 Fronto 74 
 Fructuosus 85 
 
 DEACONS 161 
 Decius 8, 61, 64, 80, 81, 82 
 Defence, Learned, of Christianity 93 
 Deism 124 
 Democracy 5 
 Demosthenes 188 
 Despotism of Roman Empire 8 
 Didache 215 
 Dio Cassius 15, 51 
 Diocletian 10, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 199 
 Diognetus 216 
 
 GAIUS 39 
 Galen 187, 213 
 Galerius 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 
 Gallienus 26, 84 
 Gallio 65 
 Gallus 82 
 Gaul 46, 47, 74 
 
 Geographical limits of Roman Em- 
 pire 3 
 Germany 47 
 
INDEX 
 
 22S 
 
 Gladiators 25 
 
 Gnostics and Gnosticism 138, 147, 162, 
 
 168, 173, 177, 178, 201, 217 
 Gospels 98 
 Goths 8, 81, 85 
 Greece and Greeks 5, 11, 14, 28, 38, 44, 
 
 46, 54, 96, 97, 98, 105, 107, 111, 113, 
 
 114, 115, 117, 131, 133, 141, 142, 144, 
 
 146, 168, 179, 187, 189 
 Gregory 42, 43, 221 
 Gregory, of Tours 47 
 Growth of Speculative Theology 173 
 
 HADRIAN 13, 17, 20, 25, 32, 38, 71, 
 72, 107 
 Heathens and Heathenism 12, 30, 50, 
 
 65, 86, 92, 119, 129, 136, 158, 196, 
 
 213 
 Hebrews and Hebraism 101, 102, 106, 
 
 112, 113, 114, 117, 119, 130, 145, 152, 
 
 170, 173 
 Hegesippus 68, 69, 216 
 Hellenism 105 
 Heracleon 153 
 Heraclitus 21, 115 
 Heresy and Heretics 103, 104, 183 
 Hennas 214 
 Herod 31, 37 
 Hierocles 213 
 High Treason 59 
 Hippolytus 218 
 History, Chief points of lirst three 
 
 centuries of Church 206 
 Homer 103, 114 
 Homily ISS 
 Horace 13, 33 
 Hume 26 
 
 TDOLATRY 116, 120 
 Ignatius 63, 163, 215 
 Incarnation 125 
 India 4 
 Influence of Greece on Christianity 96, 
 
 105 
 Influence of Religion 12 
 Intellectualism in Christianity 144, 147 
 IrenJBUs 46, 47, 48, 75, 142, 163, 166, 171, 
 
 217 
 Isis 17 
 Italy 44, 47 
 
 JACOB 118 
 Jerome 46, 107 
 Jerusalem 35, 36, 38 
 Jesus Christ 35, 37, 41, 50, 54, 68, 69, 78, 
 
 94, 97, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 
 
 125, 130, 134, 140, 173, 185, 192, 194, 
 
 202 
 Jews, Judaea, and Judaism 12, 30, 31, 
 
 40, 56, 62, 65, 66, 67, 77, 78, 97, 99, 
 
 105, 106, 107, 111, 114, 118, 129, 137, 
 
 140, 152, 181, 194, 196 
 John 38, 68, 142, 143 
 Joppa 36 
 Josephus 33 
 Jude 68 
 
 Julia Domma 193 
 Julian 57, 188, 196 
 Julius Cfesar 30 
 Jurisprudence, Roman 10 
 Justin 73, 74, 108, 109, 113, 114, 125, 
 
 137, 141, 142, 170 
 Justinian 186 
 
 LACED.^MON 44 
 Lactantius 219 
 Language, under Roman Empire 11 
 Latin 11, 111, 218 
 Legal Position of Christianity under 
 
 Roman Empire 53 
 Leon 47, 61 
 Lessing 116, 202 
 Licinius 89, 90, 91 
 Literature 13, 28, 41, 46, 47, 54, 55, 71, 
 
 95, 131, 140, 145, 146, 189, 200, 213 
 Logos 102, 114, 119, 125 
 London 48 
 Lucan 11 
 
 Lucian 14, 194, 213 
 Lucretius 13 
 Luke 158 
 
 Luther, Martin 140 
 Lyons 46, 74 
 
 MACEDONIA 38 
 Macrianus 83 
 Madaura 74 
 Maecenas 13 
 Magic 56, 59, 62, 189 
 Magistrates 60, 64 
 Mahommed and Mahommedanism 42, 
 
 Malaga 47 
 
226 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Malchion 176 
 
 Mammsea 78 
 
 Manichees 87 
 
 Marcia 62, 75 
 
 Marcion 157, 169 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 8, 13, 14, 22, 24, 44, 47, 
 
 51, 57, 61, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 108, 111, 
 
 116, 189, 213 
 Marcus 156 
 Mark 38 
 
 Marriage 138, 141 
 Martial 11 
 Martyrs 45, 63 
 Matthew 33 
 Mauretania 45, 61 
 Maxentius 89 
 Maximia Daza 89, 90, 186 
 Maximian 87, 89 
 Mayence 47 
 Melito 108 
 Merida 47 
 
 Messiah 35, 37, 106, 130, 131 
 Metaphysics 187, 191, 199 
 Milan 45, 64, 89, 90, 91 
 Millenium 142, 143 
 Minucius, Felix 111, 120, 121, 218 
 Miracles 192 
 Missionaries 49 
 Mithra 17, 18 
 Monachism 183 
 Monasticism 184, 197 
 Monotheism 17, 23, 129 
 Montanists 172, 182 
 Morality 133, 199 
 Moses 117, 118, 192 
 Moslems 189 
 Mount Palatine 56 
 Muratorian Canon 171 
 Musonius 22, 136 
 Mysteries 178, 189 
 Mythology 54 
 
 NATURE- WORSHIPS 54 
 Nazarenes 37, 65 
 Neander 159 
 
 Need of an Historical Religion 193 
 Neo-Csesarea 44 
 Neoplatonism 26, 86, 149, 196 
 Nero 9, 66, 67, 68 
 Nerva 20, 69 
 New Testament 35, 44, 46, 105, 106, 132, 
 
 135, 145, 153, 170, 200, 201 
 Nicean Creed 191 
 Nicomedia 85 
 Novatian 183 
 
 OFFICERS of Early Church 162 
 Old Roman Worship 15, 16 
 Old Testament 98, 103, 137, 153, 170, 201 
 Ophites 148 
 
 Organisation of Catholic Church 127 
 Orientals as Senators and Emperors 7 
 Origen 1, 52, 78, 79, 80, 142, 150, 175, 177, 
 
 181, 187, 219 
 Originality of Christianity 190 
 Orpheus 78 
 Otho 14 
 Outcasts 197 
 Overseers 161 
 
 P^DAGOGUS of Clement 136 
 Pagans and Paganism 51, 111 
 Palestine 38 
 Papias 141, 216 
 Papinian 8, 76 
 Paris 47 
 Parthia 4 
 
 Paul of Samosata 176, 177, 200 
 Paul 23, 29, 30, 38, 39, 43, 64, 05. 68, 
 
 95, 106, 107, 112, 132, 133, 137, 140, 
 
 141, 151, 157, 159, 168, 202 
 Paulus S, 76 
 Pentateuch 112 
 Persia 4, 42, 85, 87 
 Persecutions 53, 63, 79, 85 
 Peter 38, 39, 45, 106 
 Pharisees 140 
 Philip, the Arab 62. 75, 79 
 Philippi 37, 65 
 
 Philo 99, 105, 106, 107, 114, 118 
 Philosophy 20, 52, 71, 92, 97, 99. 105, 
 
 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 117, 119, 120. 
 
 124, 125, 129, 136, 149, 173, 177, 187, 
 
 192, 195, 196, 201 
 Philostratus 193 
 Phoenicia 36 
 Pirates 29 
 Pistis-Sophia 217 
 Plato and Platonism 21, 23, 25, 108, 118, 
 
 120, 149, 151 
 Pliny, the Elder 14 
 Pliny, the Younger 51, 57, 64, 69, 70, 
 
 71, 213 
 Plotinus 26, 27 
 Plutarch 17, 25, 113, 114 
 Polycarp 43, 72, 73, 216 
 Polytheism 16, 54, 116, 191 
 Pompey 37 
 Pontiffs 58 
 Pontus 43, 51, 69 
 Poor 197, 200 
 
INDEX 
 
 227 
 
 Poppaea 66 
 
 Porphyry 26, 27, 51, 213 
 
 Pothinus 46 
 
 Prsetorians 7, 76 
 
 Prefecture GO 
 
 Presbyters ami Presbyterianism 161 
 
 Priesthood 180, 184 
 
 Proconsuls 7 
 
 Protestant Churches 2 
 
 Psalms 46 
 
 Public rites 54, 56 
 
 Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism 14, 149 
 
 QUADRATUS 107, 108 
 Quintillian 11 
 
 "OEFOUMATION, The 2, 202 
 jQj Remus 166 
 
 Rennaissance 189 
 
 Republic, Roman 6, 7 
 
 Rise of Catholic Church 160 
 
 Roman Catholics 94, 172 
 
 Rome, Romans, and Roman Empire 
 3, 5, 8, 11, 28, 30, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 
 54, 58, 66, 75, 85, 131, 163, 165 
 
 Romulus 166 
 
 Rubellius Plautus 20 
 
 Rule of Faith 168, 173 
 
 Russian Empire 3 
 
 SABELLIUS and Sabellianism 175, 
 177 
 Sacraments 139 
 Sacrifices 13, 15 
 Sacrilege 59 
 
 Sahidic New Testament 44 
 Samaria and Samaritans 36, 147 
 Saragossa 47 
 Sardis 108 
 Saturninus 47 
 Scapula 45, 60 
 Scillis or Scillita 74 
 Scotch Philosophy 26 
 Scripture 130 
 
 Second coming of Jesus Christ 140 
 Secrecy of early Christian Assemblies 56 
 Senate and Senators of Rome 6, 7, 75, 81 
 Seneca 11, 22 
 Septimus Severus 44, 63, 75, 76, 77, 193 
 
 Serapis 17, 72 
 
 Sermon on the Mount 134, 199 
 
 Serpent-worshippers 148 
 
 Severa 79 
 
 Severus Alexander 62, 78, 79 
 
 Seville 47 
 
 Shepherd of Hennas 214 
 
 Sibyl 31 
 
 Sicily 45 
 
 Simon the Magician 147 
 
 Slaves and Slavery 5, 19, 25, 88,141, 197 
 
 Smyrna 43, 72 
 
 Socrates 115, 116, 120 
 
 Sophists 110 
 
 Spain 11, 39, 47 
 
 Speculative Theology 173, 200 
 
 Stephen 35, 106 
 
 Stoics and Stoicism 21, 25, 27, 108, 113, 
 
 115, 149, 187, 189, 195, 196 
 Strabo 13 
 
 Strength of Christianity 190 
 Suetonius 40, 51, 65, 66, 213 
 Summa, The, of Thomas Aquinas 136 
 Sun God 77 
 Supernatural, The 15 
 Superstition 13 
 Synagogue, The 161 
 Syria 42 
 
 TABLE of Roman Emperors 203 
 Tacitus 14, 51, 66, 67, 213 
 Talmud 194 
 Tarragona 85 
 Tarsus 37 
 
 Tatian 110, 120, 121, 138 
 Taxation 8, 9 
 ' Teaching of the Apostles,' The 49, 137, 
 
 215 
 Ten Tables 58 
 Terminus 88 
 Tertullian 4, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 56, 69, 76, 
 
 121, 166, 171, 174, ISO, 218 
 Thebais 44 
 Theodosius 16 
 Theodotus 175 
 Theology and theologians 126, 127, 135, 
 
 173, 187, 200, 201, 202 
 Theophilus 120, 121, 126 
 Theosophy 27, 149 
 Thessalonica 37 
 Thrasea 20 
 Tiberias 9, 17 
 Tiridates 43 
 Titus 32, 38 
 Toledo 47 
 
228 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Toulouse 47 
 
 Tradition 146 
 
 Traditores 90 
 
 Trajan 4, 11, 20, 42, 51, 61, 63, 68, 69, 70, 
 
 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 80, 81, 197, 213 
 Treves 47 
 
 Trinity, The 125, 126, 174 
 Trypho 110 
 Tuetons 4 
 
 ULPIAX 8, 76 
 Unity of Roman Empire 5 
 Unity of the Church 176 
 Universal Church 164 
 
 Virgil 13 
 Virginity 138 
 Virtue 134 
 
 WOMEN 19 
 Word, The 114, 117, 118, 120, 
 125, 126, 173, 174 
 Worship of Old Rome 15, 16 
 Worship of the genius of the Emperor 
 
 16, 59, 69, 77 
 Worship of the State 62 
 Writers, Christian 214 
 Writers, Heathen 213 
 
 "YORK 48 
 
 VALENTINIAN149 
 Valerian 82 
 Vespasian 40 
 Victor 75, 166, 175 
 Vienne 46, 74 
 
 ZENO 21 
 Zenobia 176 
 Zephyrinus 182 
 Zeus 24, 86 
 
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 Christianity and the Roman Empire. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
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