Primitive and Catholic Christianity BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT r i Primitive and Catholic Christianity AN ADDRESS DELIVERED UPON THE OCCASION OF HIS INDUCTION INTO THE WASHBURN PROFESSORSHIP OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. NEW YORK, BV THE REV. ARTHUR CUSHMAN iVlcGlFFERT, Ph.D., D. D. TOGETHER WITH THE CHARGE ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS REV. JAMES M. LUDLOW, D. D., L.H.D. September 28th, 1893. New York : John C. Rankin Co., Printers, 34 cortlandt street. ie93- CHARGE TO PROF. McGIFFERT BY JAMES M. LUDLOW, D. D., L H. D. My dear Brother: — It does not seem to be according to the fitness of things that I should charge you regarding the duties of a Professor of Church History. The Directors of the Seminary have called you to this chair because they believe that, from your eminent attainments in this study and your suc- cessful career as a teacher of it, you yourself, perhaps, know more about such duties than any one else. A distinguished jurist, when asked why he seemed to enjoy the sermons of a certain illiterate preacher, replied that the preacher did not know enough to say anything beyond the commonplace, and he had observed that commonplace ideas were the most important. Now, my brother, if you will assume the attitude of that distinguished listener, we shall be on excellent terms, and I will speak freely. I charge you to remember that you are to instruct in Church History bands of young men who are preparing them- selves for the duties of the active ministry. A Seminary professor is sometimes looked upon by the unknowing as a typical Protestant recluse. But I am sure that these hundreds of quick-brained young men, impatient of what- ever does not help them on to their work, your associates in the Faculty, who are leaders in the highest and most practical religious movements of our day, and, most of all, your own consecrated activity of mind and heart, will prevent your ever being regarded as such. I can imagine that such a position as you will occupy here might suggest ambition to make for yourself a great repute for historical scholarship. Lay aside all anxiety about that. Your acquirements already, your ability, your habit of looking far beneath the surface of ordinary historical reading, will keep your light from under the bushel. I imagine also that with your scholarly disposition you might be tempted to dive where your classes, who are only learning to swim, may be unable to follow. If so, please reserve your deep sea soundings for report in published volumes, and the archives of the learned societies, unless you can have a select class of those whom you are to make future professors. The ordinary student is not qualified for heavy research ; but he is prepared to receive from such an instructor as you a fund of usable information, and a fascination with the study which will make the field of Church History a life-long delight and profit. We install you to-day to be a practical trainer of these young men who are to go out to the common people and instruct them in the doctrine and precepts of Christ ; and we commit to you particularly the duty of furnishing them that information which shall be most helpful to them, so far as it can be gathered from the history of the Church of Christ. What is Church History ? Luke says, at the opening of the Book ot Acts, that his former treatise, covering the life-time of our Lord in the fiesh, was of that ** which Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up." Church History, then, is the continuation of that life of Christ as he is resident in his people through the Holy Ghost. Yet the study of Church History necessarily involves a great deal more than this. Though Christ's kingdom is not of the world, it has had continual relation with the secular powers. Though it is "the pillar and ground of the truth," it has had to deal with errorists. Though it is pervaded with his Spirit, it has been tainted with much that is not of his Spirit, that is utterly human, not to say devihsh. The Mississippi is mingled Avith waters which are not supplied from its springs; but the skillful pilot follows the channel: so it is the part of the wise student of Church History to mark the true course of that river of salvation as it flows, ever widening and deepening down through the ages. Church History will exhibit the development of true Christian doctrine, the Christ thought ; not the growth of its revelation, for that we believe was made complete in the New Testament, but its development in the conception of men. Christ's truth, as expressed in the Bible, is too great and subtle for any single generation, or any one stage of human education, to understand. The promise to "guide into all truth" has had, and is having, a progressive fulfillment. The grand theologians of the past, Augustine and the men of Nicasa, Calvin and the men of West- minster, were illumined, it may be, to the utmost of their capacity with the Light of the World, but their thoughts did not globe and bound that light; nor can this generation, with all the help it receives from the past, appreciate its full beauty and power. As a good instructor in Church History you will, then, not only enrich the minds of your students with the marvels of Christian thought gathered from the ages ; you will, at the same time, impress them with the duty of great humility in their inheritance of the truth, since it can be but partial. Teach them, in the words of Jeremy Taylor, that " anything that is proud is against the form of sound words." Let them understand that the very essence of heresy is theological conceit. Church History will not only show the development of the truth in the apprehension of the Church, it will furnish warning of the many ways through which good men have slipped into error. For instance, instead of the Spirit's guidance, as men have diligently compared Scripture with Scripture, there has at times floated before their ardent vision some spiritualistic fancy, some ignis fatiiiis of the soul-land, which has flashed its light upon detached portions of Scripture, leaving the rest in dark- ness. The readiness with which whole communities in dif- ferent ages have followed such illusions will suggest to the student that the cause lies in human nature itself, and will put him on guard against the possibility of even Nineteenth Cen- tury superstition. You will also show from abundant illustrations drawn from your field how easy it is for even wise men to adopt very illogical inferences, where prejudice, self-interest, the enthusiasm of controversy, the pride of partisanship, indeed any feeling that is not in keeping with that honesty of humility which befits the religious inquirer, prompts the argument. You will also be able to convince your students that there is a limit to the use of even good logic in forming one's faith. Many mistakes have been made by projecting the conclusions of the reason — I use the word in its narrow sense — into realms where they may not apply. Engineers la}^ on the great plains of the West what they call bee-line railroads between towns ; but if we should take such a line for astronomical direction, we would make a mistake, because the line has been gradually bending with the curve of the earth. It would not make a bee-line between the stars, but would complete a circle, and return to just where it started. So, much of the logic that is sufficient for earthly problems fails when applied to celestial truths. John Stuart Mill was not inclined to underrate the reason, but he confesses the danger of depending upon it alone, ''without its natural complements and correctives," the feel- ings and experiences. Fichte said that God was too great for the mind to comprehend, we must therefore receive Him with the heart. Herbert Spencer, however much he may err in some respects, is impregnable in his proof that the problems relating to the infinite cannot be handled with logical certitude. When men who make the most of reason as their dependence confess its insufficiency, it would be well for the men of faith if they depended less upon it. Church History is the great field for illustration of the limit of the use of logic in dealing with the problems that relate to God and the soul. How many plausible systems have come up, variant, even contradic- tory, which cannot be punctured with a syllogism ! Within our own Calvinism, how logic — at least that which professional logicians insist is infallible logic — has dwarfed the electing love of God into a semi-fatalistic dogma of Reprobation ! Your students will be shown many men, of splendid intellect, who thought that they were weighing the verities of God, but who were really only like children tilting the end of a stone whose whole bulk is so great that no human enginery can lift it. They will learn to suspect all merely inferential the- ology, where it is not confirmed by indubitable Scripture, by sanctified experience, or by the consensus of the best of men. The student of Church History will learn how easily Christ's truth may become adulterated with the notions of men that already prevail in a community or age ; how hard it is to overcome the persistence of the cult. When the Jews were forced to recognize the truth of Christ they Judaized it, and put the new wine into their old bottles. When the Pagans were convinced by Christianity, they at once proceeded to Paganize it. The ancient schools of philosophy each tried to shape the new doctrine according to their preconceived principles, often almost destroying the diamond in making the facets. When they set the statue of St. Paul on the pedestal which had been used for the statue of Marcus Aurelius, the}^ did a sym- bolical thing. But, as it was hard to keep the age thought 8 separate from the Christ thought, so it is difficult in reading- Church History, especially of the great symbols, to separate from essential Christianity what the ages have contributed. This, it seems to me, is the most pressing demand upon histori- cal criticism ; for what the truth receives in the way of admix- ture from the passing ages it is apt to retain ; it becomes sacred in the e3^es of the unlearned as Tradition. But I judge, my brother, from an incident which you will pardon me if I relate, that you will be a wise teacher in this respect. Some time ago I was conversing with a learned pro- fessor in one of our neighboring institutions. We were discuss- ing professors — a very proper and profitable subject for free handling, you will admit. I inquired if there was in the coun- try a man under fifty years of age who was qualified for the chair of Church History. He replied instantly and enthusiast- ically. Yes. But after a brief rhapsody on the scholarship and rare teaching ability of the man he had in mind, he quali- fied his praise by remarking that perhaps this professor had imbibed too much from his old preceptor, Harnack ; that in studying the Creeds he made a great deal of the times in which they were written ; that, for instance, instead of taking the Nicene Creed as a pure and simple deduction from Scripture, he would be apt to see the marks of the fourth century all over it, etc. I made a note of that young man, who, in the estimate of my friend, stood foremost as a scholar and teacher of Church History, and who insisted upon reading historical documents in the light of the history of their making ; and when the occasion arrived I cast for him a hearty vote to fill this chair in Union Seminary. But the study of Church History will not only suggest to the student the safe methods of dealing with religious truth, guarding him from the methods which have proved to be unsafe in the past ; it will also enrich him with a knowledge of Christian character. It has been said that it would take all the virtues of all the Christians that have ever lived, eliminating all their defects, to even approximate the character of the Lord himself. Each consecrated man can only exhibit the glory of the Spirit as it shines through the little rift of his peculiar life and circum- stances. That is true ; but through some of these little rifts have poured marvelous illuminations upon the dark Avays of men. A distinguished painter recently sold, at a great price, a port- folio of his studies — mere studies, patches of color that he had caught from a sunset, trial groupings, experiments in form and vista. Art students knew their value ; they could learn so much from the way the artist tried to perfect his art. Church History is a portfolio, filled with the finest attempts to express the beauty of the Christ character. What if none of them is perfect ! What if some of them are very crude in respect to virtues for which their circumstances provided no training ! That they were overtempted by the excitements, the follies, the superstitions of their age ! What sweetness, what courage, what self-denial, what spiritual longing, what communings with the Master, had some men and women, thinking of whom in other respects we thank God that we are not such as they ! Do you refuse to admire the cartoons of Raphael because they lack perspective ? or Titian's coloring because he was deficient in anatomy ? I cannot comprehend the state of mind that led a clergyman to say — if he has been rightly reported — that in drawing pulpit illustrations of character from Church History he never went back of the Reformation, unless he went to the times of the Apostles. This is to deprive our congregations of their inheritance in the lives and virtues of the saints of all ages. If any of the graduates of this Seminary have that pur- pose, I charge you, my brother, to see to it that the blame does not rest with you, in that you have not brought them into intellectual contact with the great hearts and pure souls of those, who, if they were not so wise as we in some matters of lO modern discovery, yet adorned the Christianity of their age as, perhaps, we are not adorning ours, and have been received into heaven. I have not time to speak, as I would like, of what may be learned from Church History of the best methods of Christian work. We need to learn from every possible field on this sub- ject ; for we are not doing Christ's work efficiently. We are not reaching the masses for whom He died. Indeed, are we intelligently trying to do so ? The grand method is, of course, Christ's own method — life on life, and life for life. But that method is far from being common even with us ministers. ' We Protestants can go back even to Medieval times, and there learn much of how to work for Christ. Asia Minor, North Africa, the continent of Europe, were not won for Him through stupidity, through mistakes, through lethargy such as binds most of our communities. Surely no man Js qualified for leadership in Christian work to-day who ignores the knowledge of the statecraft of the kingdom in the past. My dear brother, 1 charge you to send these young men out from your room, and out into the world, feeling that they are not going alone ; and that their comradeship is not limited to those who stand by their side in their own genera- tion ; but that they are the fighting line in a grand host that has conquered its way down through the centuries. But I must not take time that belongs to you. I congratulate you, my brother, upon your election as Professor in Union Semi- nary. The air here is charged with stimulant to the highest scholarship and the deepest consecration. You will find here no restriction to the freedom of your study and speech, but such as you willingly put upon yourself when you took the oath of your office ; an oath to be interpreted by no narrow ecclesias- tical dehverance, but in the broad and catholic spirit with which the founders of the Presbyterian Church in the United States were accustomed to write and read such covenants. II I can wish you nothing better than that your labors in this chair may be as long continued, that you may have as much joy in your work, and win as much love and reverence from your students and the Church, as the Great Head of the Church has permitted to your honored predecessor — Dr. Philip Schaff. Primitive and Catholic Christianity, Primitive and Catholic Christianity. Gentlemen of the Board of Directors: It is with a deep sense of responsibility that I enter to-day upon the work to which you have called me, but it is with no feeling of sadness. I delight to be here at your bidding, and my mind dwells with eager anticipation upon the days of service which are now at hand. I have been long enough in my chosen work to realize all too well m}^ own deficiencies, but I do not love that work the less ; indeed, as the sense of its vastness has grown upon me I have given myself to it with an increasing joy of consecration ; and that joy to-day is greatly enhanced, for I love and honor Union Seminary with the affec- tionate loyalty of a devoted son, and I know of no grander privilege than has now become mine. I do not enter lightly upon her service, for I know her high ideals and the degree to which those ideals have been realized, not only in other departments, but also in that in which it is to be my privilege to labor. The memory of Dr. Hitchcock and the living pres- ence of Dr. Schaff almost overwhelm me as I think of all that that department has been in their hands. None can more fully realize it than those (and how many there were of us I ) whose training in Church History began under the influence of Dr. Hitchcock's lectures and of Dr. Schaff's books. Were it the duty of the new incumbent of the chair of Church History to do what they have done he could not have summoned sufficient boldness to accept your call. But it is the privilege of those of us who are young to enter into the heritage of the fathers, i6 and it is our filial joy to carry on their work, even though we know all too well the imperfections that must attend our -efforts. But I have to-day a peculiar reason for gratitude, for it is my privilege to enjoy the welcome and to receive the benedic- tion of my honored predecessor, Avho is at the same time my beloved teacher and friend. His untiring energy, his amazing acquisitions, his unswerving loyalty to truth, his broad sym- pathies, his quickness to appreciate the Christian spirit wher- ever found, will always be an incentive and an inspiration to his successor. It adds not a little to my sense of responsibility, but it is a source of profound satisfaction, to find myself to-day asso- ciated as a colleague with so many of the honored instructors at whose feet I sat a learner, during three rich and memorable years. The confidence they have shown in me and the kind welcome they have accorded me are deeply appreciated. Re- lying upon their friendly sympathy and upon your kind indul- gence I enter upon my work with a prayer for the blessing of Almighty God. It becomes my duty at this time to address you upon some theme connected with the department of instruction to which I have been called. The theme that I have chosen may be styled " Primitive and Catholic Christianity." The subject of study in Church History, as in all the theo- logical sciences, is Christianity itself. To contribute to a clearer and fuller understanding of Christianity I apprehend to be their common object, and the object is the same whether our purpose be scientific or practical ; for an adequate knowledge of Christianity, of its nature, its spirit, its aims; the ability to distinguish between its essential and non-essential elements, between that in it which is of permanent and universal worth, and that which is of only temporary and local significance — all 17 this is of scientific interest and at the same time of the utmost practical importance. We study Christian History then — whether in the university or in the theological sem.inary, whether for purely scientific or for purely practical purposes — we study Christian History in order better to understand Christianity. This purpose we keep constantly in view ; in it we find our controlling principle, and we shape our method accordingly. But the Christian Church, like every other organism, exists and has existed from the beginning, not in solitary isola- tion, but in the midst of an environment. It must, therefore, be an important part of the historian's task to study this environ- ment and to determine its effect upon the organism — to determine in what respects and to what extent, if at all, it has affected or modified the Christian Church. It is conceivably possible, indeed, that the development which Christianity has undergone since the days of Christ has been the independent and exclusive unfolding of the original germ, and that the en- vironment has meant nothing more than room to live and grow ; or it is possible, on the other hand, that in its growth it has assimilated and thus made its own many elements from without ; while it is still farther possible that Christianity in its present form contains foreign substances, which have never been and cannot be assimilated, which can never form a part of its life, but lie embedded in its structure or constitute excrescences upon its surface. It is the special task of the historian to dis- cover by a careful study of Christianity at successive stages of its career whether it has undergone any transformations, and, if so, what those transformations are. It is his duty, if Christianity has assimilated any elements from without, or if it has received any artificial accretions, to trace those elements or accretions to their sources, to show when and how they be- came grafted upon or attached to the original stock. But thej historian's work is not final. He is not called upon to pass' i8 judgment upon those assimilations or accretions. He is not called upon to defend or to condemn them as consonant or dis- sonant with the essential character of Christianity. That is the theologian's work. The fact that any element of our system is of later growth than Christianity itself does not necessarily condemn it, nor even the fact that it is of foreign growth ; but the discovery of the fact is sufficient to put such an element on trial. It must be required to vindicate its right to a place within the Christian system, and that it can do, not by appeal- ing to its antiquity or to the universal favor which it has enjoyed — neither age nor general prevalence constitutes a guarantee of truth — but only by showing its vital relation to, or at least its harmony with, Christianity itself. It has seemed to me not inappropriate that I should discuss on this occasion what I believe to be the most vital and far- reaching transformation that Christianity has ever undergone — a transformation, the effects of which the entire Christian Church still feels, and which has in my opinion done more than anything else to conceal Christianity's original form and to obscure its true character. I refer to the transformation of the primitive into the Catholic Church — a transformation which was practically complete before the end of the second century of the Church's life. The significance of this transformation has not been always and everywhere realized. There are other and later changes, indeed, which impress the casual observer more forcibly, and seem to him more worthy of notice : the cessation of persecu- tion with the accession of Constantine, and the subsequent union of Church and State ; the preaching of Christianity to the bar- barians of western and northern Europe ; the development of the Greek patriarchate and of the Roman papacy ; the formation of the elaborate liturgies of the Eastern and Western Churches ; the rise of saint and image worship, of the confessional and of the mass ; the growth of monasticism, which began with 19 renouncing the world and ended with subjugating it ; the development of Nicene trinitarianism, of the Chalcedonian Christology, of the Augustinian anthropology and of the An- selmic theory of the atonement ; many of these might seem at first sight of greater historical significance than any changes which took place during the first two centuries, and at least some of them have been apparently so regarded by Church historians, for they have supplied them with their principles of division, while the transformation to which I have referred — the transformation of the primitive into the Catholic Church, of the Church of the Apostles into that of the old Catholic fathers — has never been thought worthy of such special prominence. It is not my purpose in this address to trace that momentous transformation in all its features. I desire simply to point out and to explain, as fully as time will permit, the change of spirit which constitutes its essence. The spirit of primitive Christianity is the spirit of religious individualism, based upon the felt presence of the Holy Ghost. It was the universal conviction of the primitive Church that every Christian believer enjoys the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit, through whom he communes with God, and receives illumination, inspiration and strength sufficient for his daily needs. The presence of the Spirit was realized by these primitive Christians in a most vivid way. It meant the power to work miracles, to speak with tongues, to utter proph- ecies (Cf. Mark xvi., 17-18, and Acts ii., 16, seq.). Their belief in it influenced all their living and thinking. They felt them- selves to be sons of God, strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, citizens of a heavenly kingdom, Avhich was soon to be revealed, and they lived accordingly ; lived lives whose purity and holiness should befit their heavenly calling and destiny. The heavenliness, divineness, supernaturalness of the Christian life — the fact that it was lived with God and under his direct control — was to them its essential and distinctive feature. They 20 were bound to their Christian brethren by their common con- sciousness of the presence of the Divine, and by their posses- sion of a common ideal and of a common hope. But there was no external bond of unity — except such as was supplied by their common forms of worship and by their meetings for mutual edification and comfort. The Church was not a visible institu- tion of which the local congregations formed a part and to which all believers belonged. It was simply the '' communion of saints," holy because they were holy, enjoying the presence of the Spirit because composed of men in whom the Spirit dwelt. The Church had, in fact, no institutional character ; it possessed nothing apart from its members. It did not constitute in any sense a channel of divine grace, nor was it, independently of them, a recipient or custodian of divine revelations. The only channel of divine grace was the Holy Spirit, and the only recipients and custodians of divine revelations were Christian believers. The phrase '' Catholic Church," which occurs very rarely in the period with which we are dealing, never in that period means what it came to mean before the close of the second century. It was used, if used at all, in early generations, only to express the unorganized sum of believers scattered over the whole earth. It gives utterance to the conception of their ideal unity, which was to be visibly realized only at the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord. '' As this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and gathered together became one, so let thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom " runs the Eucharistic prayer in the Didache. By the opening of the third century, all these conceptions had practically disappeared. The Church was no longer the mere totality of believers. It was the visible Kingdom of God — a concrete external organism, with a recognized constitution, and under the control of and dependent upon duly appointed and ordained officers, who were supposed to have received 21 from God in ordination a special official grace. As a divinel institution, it was possessed of divine grace and empowered toj dispense that grace to its members ; as the exclusive custodian' of divine revelation, it was its duty to declare God's will to them. Christians could no longer approach God directly and commune with him through the Holy Spirit ; they could no longer receive revelations immediately from him, but they must look to the divinely appointed institution for guidance, for instruction, for all their spiritual blessings. Outside of it, indeed, salvation itself was impossible, for it was the exclusive channel of divine grace. It would be interesting to note the various doctrines that are implicitly involved, if not expressly avowed, in this theory of the Church : the nature of grace, the work of Christ, the conditions of salvation, the character and place of faith ; but this is aside from my purpose. I desire I simply to call attention to the new spirit Avhich has taken the I place of the old — the spirit of Catholicism, which means sub-l mission to an external authority in matters both of faith and of practice, and dependence upon an external source for all needed spiritual supplies. To what was this change of spirit due? Under what con- ditions did the momentous transformation, which has been described, take place ? It is noticeable, first of all, that it did not synchronize with the passage of Christianity from the Jewish to the Gentile world. That change of environment, which Christianity underwent so early in its history, was, indeed, of vast consequence. In natural- izing itself on Gentile soil, the Christianity of the early Jewish disciples underwent certain modifications, which were of permanent significance. But with these modifications, im- portant as they are for an understanding of the history of doctrine and of ethics, we are not here concerned. It is enough to point out the fact, that the spirit of religious in- dividualism — the spirit, that is, of primitive Christianity — was as 22 marked a feature of early Gentile as of early Jewish Christian- ity. We have only to read Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians to form an idea of the extent to which it controlled the thought and life of that important Church. Moreover, the change of spirit, with which we are con- cerned, did not come with the death of the Apostles and the close of the apostolic age. The Church of the first half of the second century believed ■ itself to be just as truly under the immediate control of the Spirit as the Apostolic Church. There was the same consciousness of the possession of super- natural gifts, especially of the gift of prophecy ; there was the same sense of heavenly citizenship ; the same dependence upon divine guidance, and the same independence of an external organism. No line, in fact, was drawn between their own age and that of the Apostles by the Christians of the early second centur3\ They were conscious of no loss, either of light or of power. Nothing is more surprising, to one who has been ac- customed to think of the apostolic age as distinguished from all other ages by the evident presence of the Holy Spirit, than to read certain works of the fathers of the second cen- tury which take for granted the continued manifestations of that Spirit and speak familiarly of his revelation of himself in the words and deeds of the disciples. The names of many second century prophets have been handed down to us, and the author of the Didache has much to say about such prophets, who were evidently numerous in his day, while the Shepherd of Hermas claims to be itself a prophetic work, and its claims were recognized for some generations by the Church at large. If we to-day draw a line between the apostolic and post-apostolic ages, and emphasize the supernatural character of the former as distinguished from the latter, we do it solely on dogmatic, not on historical grounds. We may have a priori reasons — and they may be very good ones — for making such a distinc- tion, but we can find no confirmation of it in our sources. 23 The change of spirit, then, which marks the rise of the Catholic Church took place not in the first but in the second century. What were its causes ? In general terms it may be said that it was the result at once of the secularization of the Church and of the effort of the Church itself to avoid such secularization. The immediate danger confronting the Church upon its entrance into the world was that of absorption in the world, the loss of its distinctive character — of its spiritual and ethical power, — the disappearance of the broad line which separated it from the world and all its interests. This danger was keenly felt by many of the early Christians, and they struggled manfully against it. The believer's heavenly citizenship and destiny were constantly emphasized, and they daily reminded themselves and their brethren of the vanity of the present world and of the speedy coming of the Kingdom of the Lord. Thus the eschatological element is very prominent in the litera- ture of the period. " Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and honestly desiring the coming of the day of God, b}^ reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ? " are the words of II. Peter (iii., 1 1, 12) ; and the Didache is equally strenuous, beginning a long eschato- logical passage with the admonition : " Watch over 3'our life. Let not your lamps be quenched, and let not your loins be unloosed, but be ye ready ; for ye know not the hour in which our Lord comes " (xvi., i). The Church felt, moreover, that it had especial reason to fear ethical deterioration and cor- ruption, under the influence of the careless, pleasure-loving spirit and of the licentious habits of the communities in which it had its home. The duty of strict moral purity, and of serious attention to the higher interests of the soul, was there- fore earnestly enforced, and the infant society felt itself obliged 24 to exercise watchful care over the manners and morals of its members. A peculiarly serious and earnest tone pervades all the early Christian documents that have come down to us, and in them all the ethical element is very marked. In thus emphasizing that element Christianity was true to its founder, for the preaching of Christ was, above all, ethical ; the Sermon on the Mount strikes its key-note." But in the early second century danger began to threaten the Church from another quarter. Up to that time, though Christianity had secured some converts of considerable wealth and social distinction in Rome and doubtless elsewhere, it had succeeded in making little impression upon the more distinctly educated classes of society. But now it began to win its way gradually even among them, and the natural consequence was that its intellectual elements were emphasized as they had not been before. Attention has been called in this connection to the spec- ulative character of the Greek mind and to its contrast in that respect with the practical Hebrew mind, and it has been claimed that the speculative tendency which later controlled Christian theology was due to the conversion of the Greek world, was the result of the entrance into the Church of the Greek spirit. There is much truth in this claim, but dis- crimination is necessary. It is a fact that at the opening of the Christian era the Greek world was peculiarly, and to a degree not witnessed before or since, a philosophical world ; not in the sense that there were great creative philosophers then at work as there had been in earlier centuries, but in the sense * A difference, however, is to be noticed between the ethical ideal of Christ and that of many in the early Gentile Church. The active principle of love for God and man, which constituted the sum of all religion according to Christ, was still taught indeed, but in consequence of the conception of the immediate and con- stant presence of the Holy Spirit, and in opposition to the moral corruptness of the ao^e, the element of personal holiness or purity naturally came more and more to the front, and increasingly obscured the fundamental principle of Christ. But this change of emphasis does not concern us here. 25 that all the educated world philosophized. But it is to be noticed that this was true only of the educated world, not of the common people, and thus we find that early Gentile Christianity is no more speculative in its character than early Jewish Christianity. Moreover, it is to be noticed that in the educated Greek world of the period with which we are dealing, two distinct philosophical tendencies may be clearly traced — the one ethical and practical, the other religious and speculative. All the philosophy of the age was, indeed, largely religious in its character. But where the influence of Stoicism pre- dominated the ethical element came to the front, and religion lost its independent significance, having no other value than to promote virtue by supplying it with a divine basis and sanction. Philosophers of this class were attracted by the lofty ethical ideals of Christianity and by the striking realization of those ideals in the lives of the Christians, and they came into the Church in large numbers during the second century. The tendency which they represented was in entire harmony with that of the Hebrew mind and of early Christianity in general. Their entrance into the Church did not mean at all the trans- formation of Christianity into a system of speculative philos- ophy. It meant continued and equally forceful emphasis upon the moral element in the Gospel, and the employment of philosophy in its service and for its sake alone. Justin Martyr is a case in point. His aim as a Christian philosopher was not speculative, but practical. He was attracted by the moral power of Christianity, and its religious character interested him only because it formed the basis of that power. Its superiority to all other systems of philosophy lay chiefly in the fact that it could appeal to a divine revelation for its moral sanctions. The influence of such philosophers tended, indeed, to obscure the peculiar features of the Christian ethical ideal, to substitute the Stoic conception of rights and duties for the Christian 26 conception of self-denying love, but it did not tend to make Christianity less ethical. With such philosophers believers in general could have no quarrel ; they found in them, indeed, their most powerful allies. But there was another tendency which was growing ever stronger, and during the second century was more and more overshadowing the prevailingly ethical tendency which has been described. This growing tendency was distinctly religious in its character. It had its roots in Platonism, and was fostered by the increasing sense of moral evil and by the influence of the various Oriental cults which began to be widely felt at this time. It was based upon an essential dualism between spirit and matter, between God and the world ; and its great religious aim was the release of the spirit of man from the thraldom of the things of sense and his restoration to communion with the Divine ; in other words, his redemption. Stress was laid, of course, upon conduct — but only as a means to an end. By asceticism — which constituted its sum — a man was to free himself as far as possible from the dominion of the physical, and thus contribute to his own redemption. The dualistic principles and the redemptive interest of this philosophy opened many cosmological and soteriological questions, and thus promoted speculation. Indeed, knowledge — the communion of the finite spirit with the infinite, through an acquaintance with his character and purposes — was universally regarded by thinkers of this school as a chief means of redemption. The speculative interest thus became very marked and in many cases seemed to overshadow the more immediately religious interest. The general tendency which has been described bore fruit ultimately in Neo-Platonism ; but before the rise of the eclectic system to which that name is given it had quite a history within the Christian Church. During the early second century many representatives of it, recognizing the redemptive element 27 in the Christian system, as preached by the Apostles, were attracted to Christianity, and finding in it, as they thought, the solution of all their cosmological and soteriological problems, they regarded it as the supreme revelation of God, and embraced it with eagerness and devoted themselves to its investigation and elucidation. By the application to the simple facts of Christian tradition of the allegorical method of interpretation, which was commonly in vogue in the philosophical schools of the day, they worked out an elaborate and profound system, in some respects the most remarkable the world has ever seen. These Gnostics, as they were commonly called, were the first Christian theologians in the strict sense — the first Christians to treat Christianity as a system of philosophical truth, and to make it as such the subject of special study. With their assumption that Christianity is a revelation from God, and hence contains truth which may properly be made the object of investigation, no Christian of that day would have quarreled. But with their emphasis of the intellectual at the expense of the ethical element little sympathy could be felt by the mass of Christians; and their theory that knowledge is a condition of salvation, upon which they based their claim to constitute a spiritual aristocracy among believers, and which logically leads to the exclusion of the ignorant and simple-minded from the number of the elect, of course must be repulsive to the common sentiment of the Church at large. Moreover, their treatment of Christianity gave rise to the fear that its distinctive features — its ethical and spiritual power — would be lost sight of in a maze of seemingly profitless speculations. (Cf. I. Tim., vi., 20.) But the final rejection of Gnosticism by the Christian Church was not due to any of these considerations. The Church might ultimately have forgiven the Gnostics their peculiar methods, and might have compromised with their theory of the relation of knowledge to salvation. Indeed, this is practically what the Church did, when, later, it approved and adopted the specula- 28 tiv^e theology of the great fathers and doctors. But the Church could not accept- the Gnostics' dualism, which involved the impossibility of an immediate contact between God and matter, and hence meant a denial of the identity of the creating God — the God of the Jewish Scriptures — with the redeeming God — the Father of Jesus Christ — and the consequent rejection of those Scriptures and the destruction of the doctrine of Divine providence. From the very beginning, the Jewish Scriptures, to which Christ and his Apostles had so frequently appealed, had been appropriated by the Christian Church — the true Israel of God — and, interpreted in a Christian sense, had become to Gentile as well as to Jewish Christians the great apologetic weapon with which they were able to establish, at least to their own satisfaction, the divine origin of their religion, supernaturally prophesied and prefigured therein so long before the coming of the Christ. It is not surprising that the common Christian sentiment of the Church at large, of the educated as well as of the uneducated portion of it, should take offence at doctrines which involved the repudiation of those Scriptures, and which, moreover, made impossible a belief in Divine Providence, in a God ruling the kingdoms and peoples of this world for the advantage of the Church, with the purpose of bringing them all, sooner or later, into subjection to the visible kingdom of the Christ. The spirit of Gnosticism, it is true, lived on and finally won a permanent place within the Church ; but the historic form in which it clothed itself in the early second century, the form to which we commonly confine the name, could not and did not find acceptance. The com- mon instinct, if I may so call it, of the Church at large rebelled against it, and it was very widely felt that it must be distinctly and definitely repudiated. It was in the effort to repudiate it that steps were taken which resulted in the Catholic Church and in the permanent disappearance of the spirit of primitive Christianity. 29 These steps were three : first, the recognition of the teach- ing of the Apostles as the exclusive standard and norm of Chris- tmn truth ; second, the confinement to a specific office (viz., the Catholic office of bishop) of the power to determine what is the teaching of the Apostles ; and third, the designation of a specific institution (viz., the Catholic Church) as the sole channel of divine grace. These three steps need brief examination. And first the recognition of the teaching of the Apostles as the exclusive standard and norm of Christian truth. The Gnostics claimed apostolic authority for their doctrines, appealing not only to private and unrecorded traditions handed down from mouth to mouth, but also to writings of alleged apostolic origin. No one, of course, could question the truth of apostolic teach- ing, for the Apostles were universally recognized as the divinely commissioned and inspired founders of the Church. But, if this were the case, the Gnostics, whose theology was certainly false, must be in error in appealing to their authority. But how were they to be shown to be in error? In other words, how was the apostolic to be authoritativel}^ determined, and determined so clearly and comprehensively as definitely to exclude the false doctrines of the Gnostics at every point? It was in seeking an answer to this question that the Church reached the conception of an authoritative apostolic Scripture canon and of an authoritative apostolic rule of faith. The Gnostics were the first Christians to have a New ^ Testament. The early Church needed no New Testament, for it had the Old which it interpreted in a Christian sense, and which, together with the commonly known facts of Christ's life, was sufficient for all purposes ; especially since the Holy Spirit was in the Church imparting all needed truth and light. But the Gnostics repudiated the Jewish Scriptures and regarded Christianity as an entirely new and independent reve- lation, and hence they felt themselves impelled at an early date 30 to form a canon of their own, which should contain the teach- ing of Christ through his Apostles, which should, in other words, be apostolic. In opposition to them it was, of course, necessary for the Church to ask whether all that the Gnostics accepted was really apostolic, and thus it was led to gather into one whole all those writings which were commonly regarded as of apostolic origin ; in other words, to form an authoritative and exclusive apostolic Scripture canon, which all who wished to be regarded as Christian disciples must acknowledge, and whose teachings they must accept. The exact extent of the canon, it is true, was not determined at once ; uncertainty as to some books continued for many generations. But the concep- tion of an apostolic Scripture canon had arisen, and the appeal to that canon had been widely made before the close of the second century. But this apostolic canon lacked definiteness as a stand- ard of doctrine, for, though it presented with great fullness the teaching of the Apostles, it was quite possible for the Gnostics, if they wished, to accept its statements and yet to read into them by the allegorical method of interpretation their own elaborate systems. Moreover, the books of the canon contained no concrete and explicit statement of the com- mon faith of the Church which could be set over against the speculations of the Gnostics, and which they could be clearly seen to have contravened. Something still more definite was plainly needed, and that was found in the apostolic rule of faith. Already, as early as the middle of the second century, the Church of Rome had a baptismal confession, related to and resembling, though not identical with, our so-called Apostles' Creed. Two things are noticeable in connection with this Roman confession. In the first place, it is clearly an anti- Gnostic enlargement of the formula of baptism, into the names of the Father, Son and Spirit, which was in general, though not in universal, use in the early second century. Its evident anti- 31 Gnostic interest makes it plain that it was not formed until after the opening of the great conflict, that it was, in fact, one of the fruits of that conflict. In the second place, it contains no ethical element, but is a statement of belief pure and simple. This feature of it is a very striking one, for we know from; other sources that during the early second century the instruct tion given to candidates for baptism and the conditions required of them were largely, if not exclusively, ethical. The Roman confession thus marks a change of emphasis which was due chiefly, no doubt, to the Gnostic conflict. The Didache is very instructive in this connection. Though it gives explicit direc- tions in regard to the administration of baptism, it has nothing to say about a confession of faith, but requires the candidate to be instructed in the principles of Christian ethics and in the duties of the Christian life before receiving baptism. In fact, the word diSax^h or teaching, as originally used, signified ethi- cal, not doctrinal, instruction. It is true that, from the beginning, belief in one God and in Jesus Christ was demanded of all converts, but such belief was commonly taken for granted — the formula of baptism itself implied it — and all the emphasis was laid upon the ethical element."^ But in opposition to Gnosti- cism the Christian congregations instinctively formulated those beliefs which had hitherto been taken for granted, and de- manded of their converts explicit assent to them. Various local confessions thus grew up, but, based upon the common * It is interesting to notice that Pliny, in his epistle to Trajan concerning the Christians, says nothing of a confession of faith, but that he speaks of the oath with which they bound themselves, '• not with a view to the commission of some crime, but, on the contrary, that they would not commit theft, nor robbery, nor adultery, that they would not break faith, nor refuse to restore a dej)Osit when asked for it." Compare also the Elkesaites' formula of baptism as reported by Ilippolytus : ♦'Behold, I call to witness the heaven and the water, and the holy spirits, and the angels of prayer, and the oil and the salt and the earth. I testify by these seven witnesses that I will no more sin, nor commit adulter}', nor steal, nor be guilty of injustice, nor be covetous, nor be actuated by hatred, nor be »-cornful, nor will I take pleasure in any wicked deeds. Having uttered these words, let him be baptized in the name of the Mighty and Most High God." 32 baptismal formula and animated by a common anti-Gnostic interest, as they all were, they naturally resembled each other in their main features, however widely they differed in details. Before the end of the second century we find, for instance, in Irenasus and Tertullian, a distinct recognition of the existence of a rule of faith and emphasis upon its apostolic character. It is an authoritative standard, because it con- tains the teachings of the Apostles, and by it therefore all would-be Christian doctrines are to be tested. The con- ception of such an official standard, expressing the faith of the Catholic Church as distinguished from all heretical bodies, was practically universal soon after the opening of the third century ; though it Avas only at a later period that any particular creed or confession gained oecumenical authority, only later that the Church at large had a defi- nite rule of faith which was everywhere the same. When the apostolic Scripture canon had arisen, this rule of faith became, of course, a guide to its interpretation, but it is to be observed that the rule of faith was not derived from the New Testament. In fact, in form and substance it is older than the New Testament, though the conception of it as an official apostolic standard doubtless had its rise at about the same time as the latter, or even a little later. With the recognition of these two official standards — Scripture canon and rule of faith — the first step referred to above, the treatment of the teaching of the Apostles as the exclusive standard and norm of Christian truth, was complete. But it will be evident at a glance that the step which was thus taken was of stupendous significance. Christians had, of course, always reverenced the Apostles and had looked upon them as divinely guided and inspired, and their teaching was consequently everywhere regarded as a source from which might be gained a knowledge of divine truth. But that is a very different thing from making the teaching of the Apostles 33 the sole standard oi truth, a very different thing from ascribing \ to their teaching exclusive normative authority. The only authority which was recognized was the Holy Spirit, and he was supposed to speak to Christians of the second century as truly as he had ever spoken through the Apostles. Christian believers had, in fact, from the beginning— as has been already said— believed themselves in immediate contact with the Holy Spirit and had looked chiefly and directly to him for revela- tions of truth, as such truth might be needed. Now, under the stress of conflict, they resigned their lofty privileges and made the Apostles the sole recipients (under the new dispensation) of divine communications, and thus their teaching the only source (the Old Testament, of course, excepted) for a knowledge of Christian truth, and the sole standard and norm of such truth. The consequences of the step which has been described were many and momentous. • It is enough here to call attention to the fact that to it is due the pernicious notion that apostolic authority is necessary for every element of the Christian system, and the consequent practice — which was for centuries universal and is still too widely prevalent— of carrying back all the doctrines, in- stitutions and usages, which we ourselves accept, into the apos- tolic age in order to find confirmation of them there. To it is also due the fusion of the Apostles into one composite whole, and the consequent loss of a sense of their individuality, which has lasted so long that even to-day the scholar becomes an object of suspicion in many quarters, who ventures to treat I hem as historic figures and to exhibit their teachings in historic relation to their characters and lives. To it is largely due, on the other hand, much of the knowledge of the apostolic age which we possess, for had the original conception of continuing divine revelations been retained, there would have seemed little reason for preserving apostolic writings and traditions. The rise of the apostolic Scripture canon and of the apos- tolic rule of faith has been traced, but the process did not stop 34 here. It was soon seen that even the rule of faith — definite as it is— was inadequate to the emergency in which Christians found themselves. For it was possible, as it transpired, to interpret even this brief and seemingly explicit confession in more than one way. Moreover, the Gnostics could and did question its apostolic origin, calling attention to the fact that it was nowhere to be found in the extant writings of the Apostles, and that the Church possessed no guarantee of its correct transmission. In reply to this objection it was claimed that the Apostles had founded certain churches and that in them their teaching must be preserved in its purest form. But such an assumption was of little value, until a dogmatic basis was found for it in the theory that the bishops of such churches had received from God through the agency of the Apostles — Avho had appointed and ordained them — an official grace which enabled them to preserve and to" transmit without error the teaching of the Apostles committed to them. They thus became vouchers for the genuineness of the Church's creed and for its correct transmission. Moreover, since the teaching of the Apostles handed down to them must include also the Apostles' interpretation of that teaching, they became at the same time the authoritative expounders of the Church's creed. The extension of the prerogatives of the bishops of certain churches to the bishops of all churches, followed very speedily and as a matter of course. The great oecumenical councils, in which speaks the voice of the collective episcopate, were one of its results. But that is a matter of minor concern. I am interested here only to call attention to the fact that the Church was now in possession not only of an authoritative apostolic doctrine, but also of a permanent apostolic office, whose existence insures at all times the accurate transmission and the infallible interpretation of that doctrine. It will be noticed that the decisive quality of this office, as of the New Testament canon and the rule of faith, is its apostolicity. The 35 episcopate is not a channel for the reception of new revela- tions from God, but only for the transmission of revelations re- ceived by the Apostles. The first step was to recognize the exclusive authority of apostolic teaching, the next was to con- fine to a particular ofBce the power to transmit and to interpret that teaching. The believer was thus permanently denied not only the privilege of receiving divine revelations, but also the right to interpret for himself the revelations received jind transmitted by the Apostles. But there remained to be taken a final step. In order to be saved it was already necessary to accept and. to recognize the normative authority of the doctrines of the Apostles, as con- tained in the New Testament canon and in the rule of faith, and as interpreted by the Catholic Church through her bishops. But one might do this — might be in his beliefs entirely in accord with the doctrinal position of the Church as thus defined — and yet remain without the Catholic Church, yet receive saving grace directly from God, and thus, at least, his ultimate spiritual right as a child of God be preserved. But in the end the Catholic Church denied him even that. In the end membership in that Church was insisted upon as essential to salvation. The grounds of this final step may be very briefly stated. In the beginning, the basis of the unity of the Church was found in the possession of the Holy Spirit. The Church was one because all its members possessed one Spirit. The Church, as distinct from its members, did not possess the Spirit ; indeed, the Church possessed nothing independently of them. But, in con- nection with the process which has been described, the idea gained prevalence that the special work of the Apostles, as the founders of the Church, had been to transmit a deposit of truth which they had received from Christ, and in the possession of that truth consequently the unity of the Church was increasingly thought to consist. But that truth had been transmitted, not to individual believers, but only to the official successors of the 36 Apostles — to the bishops of a particular institution. The unity of the Church was therefore realized, not in the possession of the transmitted deposit of truth by its members in general, or by any particular class of them as such, but in the possession of that truth by its officers as officers. Their official character, of course, necessarily involved the Church's institutional character; and thus the Church, as an institution, possessed something- which it did not owe to its members. As an institu- tion, with an apostolic office, it now had an independent value of its own. As its bishops constituted the sole depositary of apostolic truth, without which truth there is no Church, it must be the only Church. A person outside of its communion, therefore, could not be a member of the Church of Christ. But from the beginning the Church of Christ, i. e., Christian believers, had been regarded as the exclusive sphere of the Spirit's action; only to that Church, i. e., only to Christian believers, had the Spirit's presence been promised by Christ. Now that the visible institution, as an institution, had taken the place of believers as such, the Spirit acted only in that institu- tion ; and hence solvation, which, of course, depends upon the possession of the Spirit, was possible only within the Catholic Church. But this means that the Church which has hitherto been a community of saints, all of whose members are holy, must now become an ark of salvation — a corpus permixtum — containing both saints and sinners ; for to exclude from its privileges any one who may desire to enjoy them is to deprive him not of the certainty, as heretofore, but of the possibility of salvation. The result must, of course, be a relaxation of the Church's principles and methods of discipline — a relaxation which was first distinctly avowed by Bishop Callixtus, of Rome (217-222). The process I have been tracing — the process which led to the belief that there is no salvation without the Catholic Church — is a purely logical one. But it was promoted by the natural 37 and increasing tendency toward consolidation, which was especially marked in the late second century, the tendency, that is, to lay emphasis upon the external and visible unity of believers. A unity of spirit naturally strives to express itself in the form of a visible bond, and in the case of the Christian Church the tendency toward such expression was enhanced by constant intercourse between distant churches, by the pressure of the state and by the desire to withstand the disintegrating effects of heresy. When the last of the three steps described had been taken — when a visible institution had become the exclusive channel of divine grace — the Catholic Church was complete. But it must be remarked that none of the steps which we have traced could have been taken, had not the conflict which resulted in them been preceded by a partial loss of the original consciousness of the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit. The assumption by the Church of spiritual privileges which had originally belonged to all believers, took place only when the consciousness of possessing those privileges had become less general than it had once been. It is not surprising that it should have grown less general, for as time passed the number became constantly greater of those who were Christians chiefly because they were born of Christian parents, and as the Church grew stronger and more conspicuous, half-hearted and worldly-minded converts were increasingly attracted to it. But the primitive spirit continued fresh and vivid in many quarters, and finally asserted itself, though in perverted form and not without the admixture of fanaticism, in the movement known as Montanism. That movement was in essence simply the endeavor of Christians who believed themselves to be still in possession of the Holy Spirit, to resist the spoliation of their spiritual rights. The vigor of the movement and the wide favor with which it met prove incontrovertibly that the spirit of primitive Christianity was by no means extinct. But the 38 Church at large had too widely lost that spirit and had felt too keenly in its strife with Gnosticism the need of definite standards and of a compact organization, to be able to accept the Montanists' doctrine of continuing divine revelations, and to be willing to recognize the authority and to follow the guidance of their alleged God-inspired prophets. The result was the final exclusion of the Montanists from the Catholic Church, and in opposition to them increasing emphasis upon the very process against which they had rebelled. The final victory of the spirit of Catholicism over the primitive spirit, which in Montanism had made a last desperate effort to avoid annihi- lation, marks the secularization of the Christian Church. That secularization was not due, as has been so widely thought, to the favors shown the Church by the Emperor Constantine, or to the ultimate union of Church and state. The Church was in principle secularized as completely as it ever was long before the birth of Constantine. The union of Church and state was but a ratification of a process already complete, and is itself of minor significance. At the close of the conflict with Montanism, the Church, instead of being an ideal unity of saints, whose citizenship is in heaven alone, had become a visible institution, embracing both saints and sinners, both the heavenly and worldly-minded ; had become^ in fact, an institution not only in but largely