^ 4 *< *•■•*. *,„^^^ PRINCETON, N. J % BR 145 .C86 1886 ^Cunningham, John, 1819-1893 The growth of the church in Its organization and Ske//.. THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH ITS OEGANISATION AND INSTITUTIONS THE GEOWTH OF THE CHUECH ITS ORGANISATION AND INSTITUTIONS THE CROALL LEC TUBES FOR 1886 / By JOHN CUNNINGHAM, D.D. AUTHOR OF 'CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,' 'THE QUAKER: 'a new THEORY OF KNOWING AND KNOWN,' ETC. Hontion MACMILLAN AND CO. 1886 PKEFACE The following Lectures were delivered in St. Andrew's Church, Edinburgh, in the months of January and February of the present year. They are designed to show how the Christian Church, from a very humble beginning, has grown to its present greatness ; and how the Church of the nineteenth century, though not identical with the Church of the first, is con- tinuous with it. Slow, gradual evolution has been going on everywhere and from the first, but operating in different directions, according to the surround- ings. It is thus we account for the great variety of ecclesiastical forms now existing. It has, indeed, been held that the same laws of evolution which are visible in the animal and vegetable worlds do not hold in reo'ard to institutions. No doubt there is a difference, but there is evolution in both, and environment has even a greater influence upon insti- tutions than upon animal or vegetable organisms ; and hence within a much shorter period there are vi PREFACE. more and greater varieties in the one than in the other. In two thousand years Man himself has not been modified to any very perceptible extent, but his institutions have been modified almost beyond recognition. The Christian Church, possessed of a divine life from its birth, answering to the needs of humanity, continually adapting itself to the social circumstances in which it was cast, or rather, from its plasticity, being moulded by them, not only survives, but flourishes in this age, so different from that in which it arose ; and promises to live on, changed and changing, but still blessing and blessed. It is difii- cult to recognise the oneness of the Church of Ethio|)ia and the Church of England, but they have both issued from the same source, and are both con- tinuous with the Church of the Apostles. The one has had an African environment and the other a European. The lectures are mainly historical and not contro- versial. In a few cases I have come in contact with controversies, some of them happily dead, others unhappily still living; but I have endeavoured to deal with them in a historical spirit, and without asperity. To me their chief interest arose from their being instances of evolution, in some cases curiously abnormal instances. PREFACE. vii Till quite recently ecclesiastical historians began with a perfect Apostolic Church, and traced its decad- ence downwards ; we now start from a Church with a grand faith and noble aspirations, Ijut rudimentary, unorganised, incomplete, and mark with wonder the growth of its organisation and institutions. We thus reverse old-fashioned Church history, and may almost be said to read it backwards ; but, in doing so, we see progress and improvement in the past, and can there- fore legitimately hope for their continuance in the time to come. j ^^ Manse of Crieff, Felruary 1886. CONTENTS LECTURE I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH ORGANISATION. First germ of the Chui'cli found iu the Hebrew idea of a kingdom of God, page 1. John and Jesus looth preached that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, 2. Jesus did not organise a religious societj", 3. Meetings of the Apostles and brethren after the Resurrection, 3. Their consohdation into a society, 4. The Church not perfect at first — it grew, 5-7. Stages of growth, 8. Individualism, 8. Eeligion a personal matter, 9. Congregationalism, 10. Communism, 11. Deacons appointed, 13. The Corinthian Church had no office-bearers, 17. Nor the Galatian, nor the Roman, 20-22. Presbyterianism, 23. Presbyters taken from the Synagogue, 24. Deacons, Presbyters, and Bishops all mentioned in Paul's later Epistles, 28. Presbyters and Bishops identical, 29. Deaconesses, 32. Episcopalianism, 33. Its development from Presbytery, 34. Are Bishops Apostles '? 36. Theo- philus Anglicanus, 36. Bishop Wordsworth of St. Andrews, 39. " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," 44. Canon Liddon, 46. Pres- byters are the successors of the Apostles according to Papias, Ignatius, Irenseus, and others, 50, 51. The modern bishop a development of the Xew Testament bishop, 52. Gap in history, 52. Clement of Rome, 53. Barnabas and Hernias, 54. Polycarp, 55. Ignatius, 56. Origin of Episcopacy, 58. Bishop Lightfoot's theory, 59. Dr. Hatch's theory, 60. Jerome's statement, 63. Ignatian Episcopacy, Scottish Presbyterianism, 66. Three grades but not three orders, 66. Papalism, 70. The ecclesiastical map followed the political divisions of the empire, 70. Survivals, 71. Summary of conclusions, 73-77. X CONTENTS. LECTURE 11. MINISTEi:S AND PEOPLE. Three propositions to be proved, 78. Lessons in humility, 78, 79. The Jerusalem Chm-ch communistic, 79. The early office-bearers of the Church elected by the whole community, 80-86. These office- bearers sometimes dismissed by the people, 86. Some Christian societies changed their office-bearers frequently, 87. The primitive office-bearers of the Church did not form a class by themselves, 88. Like the Synagogue officials, they frequently followed a trade, 89. In early Pauline Churches no regularly ordained officials, 90-92. All Chiu-ch authority came from the Chm-ch, and when a clergyman was not present a layman might baptize and administer the Eucharist, 93. Tertullian's limit, 94. Clergy and laity, 96. Causes of the growing distinction between ministers and jDeople, 99. Montanism, 100. The clergy become a class by themselves, 101-105. Ordination, 106. The presbyter-bishops were not priests, 107. Sacerdotal surround- ings, 109. Converts from the Hebrew and heathen temples and their influence, 110, 111. The sacraments and sacrifices, 113. Tertul- lian's sacerdotal tendencies, 113. CyjDrian's tendencies and vocabu- lary, 114. Explanations, 115. Paganism triumphant, 116. LECTURE IIL THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. The Church officials and their work, 117. Teaching, from the first, a prime part of it, 119. The Temple and the Synagogue, 121. The Greek schools, 125. The Church at Corinth and its free service, 126. Paul as a preacher, 127. Christian meetings in the second century — Justin Martyr's description, Tertullian's, 129, 130. Early Christian literature, 130. Educated converts, 131. Neo-Platonism, 132. Defenders of the Faith, 133. The Homily, 135. The gi-eat homilists, 137. The Roman pulpit, 138. Bingham's classification of homilies, 138, 139. Pulpit usages, 139-141. Decline of preach- ing, 141. Catechetical schools and catechumens, 142. Circum- stances in which they originated, 142-144. The Audientes and CONTENTS. xi Competentes, 145. Origeii and the Alexaudrian school, 147. Tlic iii- structiou given, 149. The canonical and apocryi^hal books, 150. Esoteric and Exoteric doctrines, 152. Words of Jesus and Paul pleaded, 153. Epistle of Peter to James in the Clementines, 154. Sentiments of Clement of Alexandria, 155. Of Origen, 156. Sacramental mystery, 157. Homiletic limitations, 159. Mediieval teaching, 160. Power of the pulpit, 162. The preaching of the present and the future, 162-164. LECTUEE IV. THE SACRAMENTS — BAPTISM. Two sacraments in the Protestant Churches, 165. Baptism the initiatory rite, 165. Bathing and its religious analogies, 166. Mosaic ablutions, 167. Proselytes bathed, 167. The Essenes, 168. John the Baptist, 168. Christ's commission, 169. In ac- cordance with it baptism became the recognised iuitiatiou into the Christian society, 170. Paul's analogy of baptismal burial, 170, 171. Baptismal formulas, 171, 172. Baptism was immersion, 173. Re- ferences to the mode of administration in the Didachd, the Clemen- tines, etc., 173, 174. Simplicity of primitive baptism, 174. Accre- tions, 174. Baptism of the Burguudians, 175. Baptismal regeneration, 176. Baptized jiersons called " fishes," as being born in water, 176. Extravagant language as to power of baptism, 177. The propensities and diseases of the corrupt uatm-e persistent, 178. Postponement of baptism, 178. Ceremonial of Patristic baptism, 179-182. The mystery revealed, 182. Homily of Ambrose, 182. Infant baptism, 184. Influence of Augustine's teaching, 186. Chrysostom's descriptive homily, 186, 187. Logical results of Augustine's doctrine that baptism was essential to salvation, 187. What of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, etc. ? 188. Increase of infant baptisms, 189. Clinical baptism, 190. Different modes of administration in Eastern and Western Churches, 191. Influence of climate, 192. Developments originating in the belief of regenera- tion, 193. Baptism by lay men and women, 193. Baptism of the dead, 194. Of bells, 195. Of domestic animals, 195. Bajitismal beliefs of the modern churches, 196. Liruho Infantum, 197. The continuity of baptism, 198. Its adaptations to changed and chang- ing circumstances, 199. xii CONTENTS. LECTUEE V. THE SACRAMENTS — THE LORD's SUPPER. The Passover, 200-204. Christ's paschal supper and the insti- tutiou of the Lord's Supper, 204-206. Its meaniug, 206. The religion of feasting, 207. The disciples met on the First Day to break bread, 208. The Corinthian scandals, 209. Pliny's mention of the meal, 212. Description of the Supper in the Didachd, 213. Pictures in the Catacombs, 214. Justin Martyr's description, 215. Beginnings of the belief in transubstantiation, 216. Its influence on the Sacrament, 218. Separation of the Sacrament from the Love- feast or Agape, 218. Love-feasts mentioned in 2 Peter and Jude, 218. Tertullian's descriptions of them, 219-221. Chrysostom's, 221. Their abuse and subsequent prohibition, 222. Modern Love-feasts, 224. The Eucharist changes its character, 225. The water-drinkers, 227. Growth of the belief in transubstantiation, 228. Mode of celebration, 231. Miraculous virtues of the consecrated bread and wine, 232. Eucharistia and Eulogia, 234. Mediaeval controversies, 235. The fourth Lateran Council adopts the word Transubstantiation, 236. The Council of Trent, its definitions and canons, 238. Weakness and strength of the hyiDothesis of transubstantiation, 238-243. Luther and consubstantiatiou, 243. Calvin's doctrine, 245-248. Westminster Shorter Catechism, 248. Articles and Offices of the Church of England, 249. Sacramental tendencies of the Churches of Scotland and England, 249. Zwingli and his doctrine, 250. Con- ference of Luther and Zwingli at Marburg, 251. Dififerent efiiects of the doctrine of transubstantiation on different minds, 254. The Mass, 256. The Roman celebration, 257. The Anglican, 258. The Presbyterian, 259. Speculations about identity, 260. Cardinal Newman on development, 263. Preservation of tyi^e, 264. The Sacrament of the Supper in the nineteenth century continuous with that in the first if not identical with it, 264, 265. LECTURE VL SUNDAY AND ITS NON-SACRAMENTAL SERVICES. The Jewish Sabbath, 266. Eest, 267. Fanciful interpretations of the Sabbath law, 267, 268. Sabbath amusements and entertain- CONTENTS. xiii meuts, 269. Legend of the Sabbath Eve, 2G9. Christians blame Jews for loose behaviour on the Sabbath, 270, 271. Ojoinionand practice of Jesus, 272. The Resurrection Day, 273. The Christians hence- forward meet on the evening of the first day of the week, viz. on Saturday evening, 274, 275. Statements of Barnabas, Pliny, the Didachd, Justin, 276, 277. Paul urges mutual toleration in regard to the Sabbath, 279. Both Sunday and Sabbath observed, but not strictly, 280. Constautine's Sunday edict, 282. Constantine's mixed religion, 283. Council of Laodictea forbids Sabbath observ- ance, 285. Nocturnal meetings become morning meetings, and how, 286. Bishop Lightfoot's opinion, 287. Sunday church -going in- sisted on, 288, HapiDy medium of the Council of Orleans, 289. Edict of Leo Philosoiihus, 290. Growing rigidity and the Fourth Commandment, 290. Opinion of Luther, 291. Of Calvin, 291. The Helvetic Confession, 291. Sunday services, 293. Had the primitive church a liturgy? 293. Statements of Justin and Tertul- lian, 295. The Didache, 295. The Shemoneh Esreh, 29G. Liturgies of James and Mark, 297. Liturgies devotional growths, 298. Hymns sometimes impromptu, 30L The Trisagion and its developments, 303. Manner of singing, 305. Musical developments, 306. Order of worship, 307. Liturgical groups, 309. Medieval expedients, 310. Cardinal Newman on the development of doctrine, 311, 312. Herbert Spencer's law of evolution, 313. Growth of the Church's organisa- tion and institutions in accordance with it, 313. Continuity of the Church, 314. Blessings brought by the Clnu'ch, 314, 315. LECTUKE I. DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH ORGANISATION. The first germ of the Church is to be found in the old Hebrew idea of a kingdom of God upon earth, a kingdom that was to absorb all other kingdoms, and endure for ever. Like other nations, the Hebrews, with their high poetic and religious temperament, had their visions and dreams of "a better time to come." Their bards and seers foretold such a time — such a golden age, and spoke of the coming of a Messiah — a God-anointed Eedeemer, who was to bring it about. The idea was cherished by all pious and patriotic Jews through centuries, and in the times of their greatest national degradation it was most intense, for then they longed most earnestly for the coming of the Deliverer. It was especially intense during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. The Jews, notwithstanding repeated con- quests, had never lost their love of religion, liberty, and national independence. They winced under the humiliation of their country ; it was no longer a B > 2 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. theocratic kingdom, but only a Eoman province, governed by a Eoman procurator, taxed by Eoman publicans. Accordingly, as might have been expected, several enthusiasts appeared claiming to be the ex- pected Messiah, and brought terrible disaster upon themselves and their followers. Still the people believed that deliverance was not far off, that their eyes would see the salvation of God. When John the Baptist drew great crowds to see him and hear him, and when, in his wild eloquent way, he called upon the people to repent, as the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, he only gave utterance to the popular belief. When Jesus, after John's imprisonment, ajDpeared in Galilee as a prophet. He took up the same refrain, so well understood, so firmly believed — the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And this formed the main burden of all His preaching. But though Jesus seized upon an old idea. He expanded and elevated it. He raised it above the merely national and patriotic level. The divine kingdom He taught was to be a kingdom — a reign of goodness, righteousness, and truth. It was not to be founded upon force ; it was to have its seat and centre in the heart. It was not to consist in luxury and sensual indulgence, not in eating and drinking, but in the happiness which flows from a mind at peace. In all this Jesus evidently pointed not to an organised kingdom, but to a purified society — a society saved from sin, suffused by religion and morality. That LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 3 was Jesus' conception of a divine kingdom — tlie Kingdom of Heaven brought down to earth. It is remarkable that Jesus never attempted to organise a religious community. He had His inner circle of personal friends, who were held together by their affection for Him and their faith in Him, and His outer circle of believers, who " thought it was He who would redeem Israel," but He never gave them the cohesion of an association. His aim was to leaven all society with His spirit. He constantly spoke of a future in which this should be the case. The little leaven was to leaven the whole lump of dough. The little seed was to become the great tree, and over- shadow all nations. He had unfalterino; confidence in the effect of His teaching. But so long as He lived He let His teaching go forth in its nakedness, without the support of any organisation. Truth was truth, what was right was right, without an organisa- tion as well as with it. And so it ever shall be. On His death, His disciples, utterly disheartened, were dispersed, and it looked as if His whole life and lessons mioht be lost to the w^orld for the w'ant of apostles to publish them. But the rumour that He had risen from the dead — a rumour enthusiastic- ally believed after a momentary doubt — brought the disciples together, and gave them new courage. They instantly declared their belief, proclaimed it everywhere, made it the chief theme of their preach- ing, and the belief spread. In a short time more 4 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. people believed in Christ, the crucified, the risen, the exalted, than had believed in Jesus of Nazareth, the wonder-worker and the prophet. It is at this point we get the first historical notice that the converts were now beginning to consolidate into a society. It is said of them, "They continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers." ^ Here four things are noted. (1) The converts received instruc- tion from the Apostles ; (2) they lived in the Apostles' fellowship {Koivwvia), by which I understand is meant the Apostolic Communism explained in the verses fol- lowing ; (3) they were in the habit of meeting to eat the Lord's Supper, to break bread, as it is expressed ; and (4) at their meetings they had prayers, liturgical or otherwise. This notice, short as it is, lets in a whole flood of light upon the Apostolic Church ; and to some extent I shall follow its leading in my lectures. " Church " it could scarcely yet be properly called, for it had little cohesion, no organisation, and no office-bearers. It will be my aim to show, first of all, how this loose mass by successive developments became a firmly- compacted and highly -organised body, with office-bearers of many grades. The old conception was that the Church sprang into existence full grown and full armed, like the fabled Minerva ; that the Church of the Apostles was perfect in all its parts, and that 1 Acts ii. 42. It will be observed that here and throughout I quote from the Eevised Version. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 5 according as modern churches approximated to this divine model they apj^roached ^^erfection. But the belief is now beginning to dawn upon men's minds that the constitution of the Church, like everything else, has grown, starting from very humble and rude beginnings, and gradually, under the operation of recognisable laws, accommodating itself to the needs of Christendom, acting upon the existing society and being acted upon in return. So it is with all in- stitutions, human and divine. We would not «fo back to the Saxon Heptarchy to find the British Constitution in its completeness, though some of its first principles were already in existence, awaiting the further development of the future ; nor, in like manner, should we go back to the Apostolic or Patristic periods to find the Church in its greatest perfection. Slow growth results in durability, and, generally speaking, the slower the growth the greater the dura- bility. The strength of the British Constitution arises from its being a growth — the growth of twelve hundred years. The strength of the Church's Con- stitution arises in like manner from its beinsf a growth — the growth of eighteen hundred years. Extemporised paper constitutions, like those which France has seen again and again, quickly perish. They cannot have the same adaptability, the same nicety of fit, as a constitution which has been shaped by circumstances, and which has grown with the 6 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. growth of a people. The Apostles, with divine wisdom, did not give the Church a paper constitu- tion ; had they done so it would undoubtedly have perished, and there would have been some danger of the Church perishing with it. They left the Church to frame its own constitution ; to organise itself gradually in accordance with its own life-laws and the influence of its surroundings ; to adapt itself to diff'erent climates and different times ; and hence the Church is world-wide and endures still. It is true the Church has broken up into many sections, and that difference of opinion as to ecclesi- astical organisation has been one of the most common causes of breakage ; but this was to be expected, and can scarcely be regarded as an evil, as it has made the one Church multiform and accommodated it to the differing opinions and tastes of different people. It was the necessary result of there being no authorised constitution. The same thing develops differently in different circumstances. All the variety of organ- ised forms which we see in the world are said by Darwinians to be evolved from one common parent form. In like manner all the Churches of Christen- dom have been evolved from one common parent Church — the Church of the Apostles — a Church almost structureless, but with infinite possibilities, and destined to be the mother of all the Churches of the world. Had the old organisms had no capacity of change and of adapting themselves to new circum- LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 7 stances, they must have died out, and the world been left lifeless ; and had the early Church organisation no power of change, of growth, of development, it must have died too, and the world been left religionless. It is the great law of adaptation which has jorevented both these catastrophes. It will be my endeavour to trace the stages of this process of development and adaptation. It will be found that there have been two factors at work throughout — the one working from within, the other from without. Christianity contains as part of itself certain beliefs which have necessarily influenced the forms and fortunes of the Church. Everything comes after its kind. The acorn becomes the oak and not the birch. The human embryo becomes the man. And so the foetal Christian meetings could develop only into a Christian Church. The teaching of Jesus necessarily continued as a great life-force in the com- munity, shaping to some extent its organisation, its future doctrines, and its destiny. But the full action of this life-force was modified by the changing circumstances in which the Church was first cast, and in which it has continued ever since. " We are all the creatures of circumstances," it has been said. The Church is as much the creature of circumstances as any individual member of it. It could not be other- wise : nor would it be desirable that it should be so. For while unfavourable surroundings have in many cases sadly damaged and degraded the Church, more 8 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. favourable surroundings in other ^^laces or at other times have repaired the evil ; and if it were not for the action and reaction which go on between the Church and the outside world, the harmony between them would be lost and the Church become useless. We shall first of all turn our attention to the organisation of the Church, and see how extensively the laws of development and adaptation have operated in this sphere. The stages which I think may be noted are Indi- vidualism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Epis- copalianism, and Papalism. Individualism may be said to be the protoplastic matter out of which the Church has sprung, and starting from this beginning, it has passed through the different stages of growth which I have here indicated. 1. Individualism. — There is nothing more clear than that our great Teacher makes religion a personal matter. He called men individually to repentance and reformation. Nothing could be done by delega- tion or substitution. Every one must work out his own salvation. During His lifetime, as I have already said. He never attempted to form His followers into a religious society. He was content if they received His maxims into their hearts, and acted them out in their lives. And even in the commission which He gave to His Apostles He instructed them merely to teach and baptize, and said nothing about forming the converts into a distinct community. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 9 The teaching of the Apostles gives the same pro- minence to Individualism. Every man must bear his own burden, feel his own responsibility, and believe in his own heart if he would be saved. The Apostles acknowledge no sacerdotal caste : every Christian man is a priest, privileged to advance into the Holy of Holies. They know nothing of salvation through a Church channel. A man must be a Christian before he enters the Church ; it is not by entering the Church he will be made a Christian. Even in regard to diffi- cult questions, about which there were differences of opinion, Paul only asks that every man should be fully persuaded in his own mind. " To his own master," says he, "he standeth or falleth."^ The first beginnings of the Church agree with these ideas and illustrate them. From the time it was rumoured abroad that Christ had risen from the dead, His friends were accustomed to hold meetings on the first day of the week — probably after sunset on the Sabbath. It was very natural they should. Man is a social animal, and in a time of such intense excitement it was impossible they could refrain from meeting and interchanging their thoughts. They would also remember the promise of their Lord, that wherever two or three happened to meet, there He would be in the midst of them. That promise is, in truth, the Magna Charta of the Church. They had, moreover. His express commandment to meet and ^ Rom. xiv. 4. 10 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. r. partake together of a social supper, and thus keep the memory of Him fresh. But as yet there was no Church organisation, and no Church office-bearers, for even the Apostles could scarcely be regarded in that light. There was no such thing as " dispensing" the Sacrament, according to our mode of speaking. I might say there was no such thing as a Sacrament at all, according to our sense of the term. The disciples simply sat down to a common meal, and talked with one another of all that had been and might be, and mingled prayer with their talk. We are, therefore, entitled to hold that Churchism is not essential to Christianity. There were Christians be- fore there was a Church ; and it was the aggregation of these Christians which constituted the Church. 2. Congregationalism. — In the natural develop- ment of the Church we pass from Individualism to Congregationalism. Individuals, having common be- liefs and hopes and fears, could not meet often to- gether without a tendency to solidify into a society. In all such cases certain individuals, from their social or personal qualities, acquire an influence over the rest, and become their leaders, and soon certain rules are accepted, tacitly or expressly, for the guidance of the whole. In the case before us, the Apostles naturally became the leaders of the company of Christians at Jerusalem, who were now, almost un- consciously to themselves, becoming a separate reli- gious community. I say almost unconsciously, for LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 11 these Christians still frequented the Synagogue — still went up to the Temple to pray, and did not yet dream of forming a Church outside their ancestral one. But there are invisible laws in operation stronger than the intentions of men. For a time this Christian society was very in- choate — almost as structureless as the first forms of animal organism. But it was part of their faith that they should partake of a common meal, and out of this arose the first necessity for organisation. The meal must be provided either by each bringing his contribution, or by the wealthier members furnishing the whole. The Divine Master had more than once recommended voluntary poverty — a doctrine known and practised among the Essenes. " Go," said He to the rich young man, "sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."^ Some of the converts, full of the first enthusiasm of their faith, remembered this, and now acted upon it. " They sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as every man had need."^ " Neither was there among them any that lacked ; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet : and distri- bution was made unto each according as any one had need."^ "And all that believed were together, and had all things common."* There was in fact a species 1 Matt. xix. 21. 2 Acts ii. 45. ^ Acts iv. 34, 35. ^ Acts ii. 44. 12 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. of Communism in the small Christian half-formed society at Jerusalem. Such a thing was possible in a small community — it was impossible in a large one, and accordingly, though carried, in a modified form, with Christianity to both Europe and Africa, it gradually died out. It left its vestige in such alms- giving and consideration for the poor as the world had never seen before.^ But here there was now a common fund, volun- tarily contributed, for a common purpose, and that w^as enough to constitute the individual contributors and receivers into a society. It was entrusted to the Apostles — in Eastern phrase, it was laid at their feet — for other office-bearers the society as yet had none. But the Apostles failed to please all in their management. All who have to do with the care of the poor know the bitter jealousies which arise among them if they fancy their neighbour gets a larger dole than themselves. So it was among these first Chris- tians, some of whom had probably been attracted to ^ Justin, in his "Apology," chap, xiv., writing about 170 a.d., says — "We who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and com- municate to every one in need," This probably refers to the Church at Eome. Tertullian, in his " Apologeticus," 39, writing about the year 200, says — " One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives." The first sentence here is undoubtedly true ; the second is probably a rhetorical exaggeration ; but here, in this African Church, we have a vestige of the primitive Jerusalem Communism, and after an interval of 150 vears. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 13 the society by its community of goods. The Hellen- istic widows grumbled because they thought their Hebrew sisters in misfortune received a larsjer share than they did. Their complaints reached the ears of the Apostles, and led to the election of the seven deacons, as recorded in the 6th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. According to the narrative these seven men were appointed to administer the funds of the Church, and especially to attend to the free tables which were laid out for the poor, that the Apostles, relieved of this burden, might apply themselves to their more proper work — "prayer and the ministry of the word."^ It has been maintained by some that these seven men were the first presbyters and not the first deacons of the Church. But that opinion is in the teeth not only of the historical narrative but of the oldest tradi- tions of the Church. It is true they are never called deacons in the Acts of the Apostles, but the cognate verb and noun BiuKovelv and hiaKovia are used. The com- plaint was, literally, that the Hellenistic widows were neglected in the daily "diaconia," and the Apostles declared that it was not fitting for them to leave the word of God and do the work of deacons or attendants at tables {BcaKovelv rpaTre^at?),'-^ and in this there seems to have been a flash of proper pride, as well as a proper sense of duty. Passing beyond the canonical books, Irenaeus is the first ecclesiastical writer who 1 Acts vi. 4. - Acts vi. 2. 14 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. refers to the subject, and he identifies the deacons of his day with the deacons of the Acts. And the Church of Eome, however numerous its presbyters, has always restricted its deacons to seven, in memory of the original institution.^ These seven deacons, then, were the first office- bearers of the first Christian congregation of which we have any notice, if we regard the office of the Apostles as not local but world-wide. The fact is a staggering one to those who have exalted conceptions of ecclesiastical orders. For the work of these seven men was not to be spiritual but purely secular. It was to be the humble task of waiting at the free tables of the poor, and assigning to every one her mess of food. It was to listen to the murmurings and grumblings of the Hellenistic widows against their more favoured Hebraistic sisters, and if possible to pacify them. But this is not all. It is clear that the election of these deacons was not contemplated till the need for them arose. It was the need for the office that created it. There is nothing inherently good or bad in the Church or out of the Church in havino: a com- 1 This was remarked by the historian Sozomen, book vii. c. xix. "There are but seven deacons at Rome, answering precisely to the number ordained by the Apostles, of whom Stephen was the first martyr ; Avhereas in other churches the number is unlimited." The council of Neo-Csesarea (about 314 a.d.) ordained that there should be but seven deacons in each city (canon 15), but this rule does not seem to have been acted on. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 15 pany of serving -men ; but wliere serving -men are needed, they should certainly be employed. That was the common -sense principle upon which the Apostles acted, when in the circumstances which had arisen, they recommended the Christian converts to elect seven men to minister to the poor. There seems, then, to be no other jus divinum attached to the office of the diaconate than this — that where deacons are wanted they ought to be created, and where they are not wanted they ought to be let alone. The Apostles asked the community to elect the seven, and they did it. It was a concession of the principle that every society should choose its own office-bearers. The respect with which the Apostles were regarded, the influence which they no doubt had, did not prevent the people from exercising their right. But it has been said that though the con- gregation chose its own deacons, the Apostles ordained them. What of that 1 Ordination is simply a cere- mony by which any man may be admitted to any office, civil or sacred. The important point is the election. If the man chosen is bad, no ceremony will make him good ; if the man is good, it wiU hardly make him better. But to what work were these seven men set apart by prayer and the imposition of the Apostles' hands ? Not to high spiritual work, according to our modern conceptions, but to the half- menial work of waiting upon the widows at their 16 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. common meals, and seeing there was no resjoect of persons, — very divine work, no doubt, in a sense, for it implied honesty, impartiality, and loving-kindness. But why prayer and the laying on of hands, it may be asked, if that was really all these deacons had to do ? I reply, Why not ? Prayer and the laying on of hands were not in those days restricted to what is now called the conferring of orders. Since the days of Jacob it was the natural way of conveying a blessing or even a good wish. And so in the case before us, when the seven men were chosen to wait at the free tables and see justice done, the Apostles laid their hands on them and prayed. By doing so they showed they had a true conception of what was right, and of what was needed for the organisation and growth of the Church. But the controversy about these deacons is not yet done. We are reminded that two of them at least are mentioned as preaching and baptizing. Again I ask. Why not? Though the purpose for which they were specially elected and ordained may have been just as I have described it, and just as the author of the Acts has described it, why should they not preach and baptize if they had an opportunity of doing so ? In the embryonic state of things then existing, it was no violation of Church order for any Christian man to preach and baptize. When many of the Christians fled from Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen, we are told "they went everyrvhere LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 17 preaching the word." Philip is merely signalised as having been more successful than the others. And what of baptism ? Was it not merely the form by which any convert might receive any brother convert into the Christian society ? It is ridiculous to think of ecclesiastical discipline and rigid rules in those days, as if oecumenical councils had already sat and framed a code of canon law. How could the Church have flourished as it did, if every man, however zealous, had been tongue-tied and hand-tied, and for- bidden to speak or work for Christ till the Apostles had ordained him ! Thus individualism was still strong in the heart of this primitive Congregationalism. We see the same thing at a later date and in the Corinthian Church, nearly a thousand miles away from Jerusalem, and, if not consisting of Greek converts, surrounded at least by a Greek atmosphere. Both the Ej^istles of Paul are addressed simply to the Church at Corinth, " to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints," and office-bearers of any kind are never once mentioned. This is the more remarkable because there is reference made to the necessity for discipline, but the saints are recommended themselves to cast out the sinner. There is a reference to their weekly meetings, but there is no mention of any one pre- siding at them. On the contrary, all might pro23hesy, all might speak with tongues, any one might propose a hymn or discuss a doctrine. The Apostle only c 18 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. stipulates that they should not all speak at once, but one by one. "Ye may all prophesy," he says, "one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted." There is reference also to collections for the saints, but they are asked to lay by themselves, not to give to the deacons, from which we may infer no deacons existed. " Upon the first day of the week," Paul writes, " let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come. Other allusions bear out the idea that the Church at Corinth was as yet almost structureless — little more than an aggregate of individuals — with no bishop, presbyter, or deacon. Paul, indeed, alludes frequently to the ministers of Christ, but it is to himself or his fellow-apostles he always refers." He tells them he is coming to visit them. In his first Epistle he speaks of having sent Timothy to them to preserve them in their allegiance. " Be ye imitators of me,"^ he says significantly. In the second he speaks of having; sent Titus on a more secular errand, but he is to act as his deputy. It is clear, therefore, the Apostle wished no one to intervene between himself and the Corinthian Christians. It is true he speaks of spiritual gifts existing in the Church ; but they 1 1 Cor. xvi. 2. - " What then is Apollos ? and what is Paul ? Ministers through whom ye believed." — 1 Cor. iii. 5. " Are they ministers of Christ ? I more." — 2 Cor. xi. 23. See also 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; vi. 4. 3 1 Cor. xi. ]. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 19 were such gifts as might be possessed by any one. He only indicates that God did not give the same gifts to all — to one man he gave one special gift, to another a different one. It is true he also speaks of God as having set in the Church apostles, pro- phets, teachers, miracle - workers, healers, helpers, governors, linguists. But he makes it as clear as possible that there was this diversity of offices be- cause there was a corresponding diversity of gifts, and that any one who possessed or thought he possessed the gift might exercise it in the Church, and was indeed bound to do so. ^ The possession of the gift was the only appointment and the only ordination, and beyond this all stood upon the same level. Only one other circumstance besides natural capacity is referred to as giving one man more influence than another in this fraternal church : it was the fact of having rendered some service to the saints. Stephanas and his family are referred to as hav- ing been the first converts, and as having devoted themselves to the ministry (SiaKovia) of the saints ; and Paul beseeches the Corinthians to submit them- selves to such (not to them specially, but to such) and " to every one that helpeth in the work and laboureth."- Now if there were bishops, elders, or deacons in the Corinthian Church, why were the people not asked to submit themselves to them ? Why should they simply be asked, in an indefinite way, to show 1 1 Cor. xii. 2 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16. 20 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. respect to all who worked hard in the common cause ? It is true the word " diaconia" is used with reference to Stephanas, but it is used equally with reference to the members of his household, and it will scarcely be maintained that they were officially the deacons of the Church. How marked the difference between these genuine Epistles of Paul and the epistles of the pseudo-Ignatius, where the one string continually harped upon is subjection to the bishop ! In the Epistle to the Galatians, which is probably of a still earlier date than those to the Corinthians, there is the same rem.arkable absence of any allusion to church organisation or church office-bearers. How are we to account for this ? If office - bearers had existed they must have been referred to. As they are not referred to we must conclude they did not exist. The same fact meets us when we turn to the Komans — another of the undoubted Epistles of the Apostle. From beginning to end there is not the slightest reference to any one who bore office in the Roman Church. He exhorts the Romans to be sub- ject to the civil magistrate — why not to the ecclesi- astical authorities, if ecclesiastical authorities there were ? He refers to differences of individual opinion about meats and sacred days, but he declares that such things must be left to the decision of the indi- vidual conscience. " Who art thou," he exclaims, " that judgest the servant of another ? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Let each man be fully LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 21 assured in his own mind."^ There is mention indeed, in the 16th chapter, of a Phoebe, who is described as a servant or deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea ;- but it is doubtful if " diaconos " is here used in its official meaning. There is mention also of many others who were earnest workers in the good cause. But none of them are spoken of as holding any posi- tion in the Church but what their zeal or success gave them. No doubt the early Apostolic Church abounded with such self-appointed and self-ordained teachers and preachers, each of whom energetically exercised the gift of which he suj)posed himself possessed.^ Paul sjDcaks with dismay as to the opinion an unbeliever would form of them if he came into one of their meetings and found them all speaking with tongues. He tells them frankly the strang;er would think them mad. ■* And with evident sarcasm and a pardonable exaggeration, contrasting himself with the crowd of would-be teachers, he says — " Though ye should have ten thousand tutors 1 Rom. xiv. 4, 5. 2 Rom. xvi. 1. In Ephes. vi. 21, Tycbicus is called a faith- ful diaconos in the Lord, but it does not appear to be meant in an official sense. In Col. iv. 1 7 there is a similar reference to the diaconia of Archippus. ^ James, like Paul, felt it was necessary to repress these rhapsodists : "My brethren, be not many masters, kno^\^ng that we shall receive tbe greater condemnation " (James iii. 1) — not very cheering for those who were ambitious of distinguishing themselves as teachers ; for James' meaning is, that those who set themselves up as teachers in the Church were necessarily subjected to the severest criticism. 4 1 Cor. xiv. 23. 22 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. in Christ, yet have you not many fathers ; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel."^ He wished to put down as far as he could the excessive outburst of spiritual gifts, as every prudent man tried to do in the Puritanic period when every drummer boy thought himself inspired to preach. If, then, we take the Epistles of Paul as let- ting in the truest light on the state of the Pauline Churches, it would appear these churches were still without regularly ordained office-bearers, and almost without any organisation. They were like the Amoeba — they had as much consistency as kept them to- gether, and considerable power of movement, but they had no specialisation of function or structure — the lowest form of organised life. They were behind the Church at Jerusalem, which, not to speak of the Apostles, had at least its deacons, and its daily free table and its weekly commemorative meal. At the time we speak of there was a considerable group of such churches scattered over Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. There were the Churches of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, Thessalonica, Galatia, and many others, most of them small congregations meet- ing in private houses. It is absurd to suppose there 1 1 Cor. iv. 15. This is the text which Canon Liddon has chosen for his recent sermon on " A Father in Christ," in which he insists that bishops have the special power of begetting spiritual children. It is evident, however, that Paul, by his bold figure, refers to the con- version of the Corinthians, and not to the ordination of their clergy, for clergy as yet they had none. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 23 was as yet any polity which linked them to one another, or rendered them subordinate to a governing synod. Each was independent of every other, as, indeed, every member was independent of his neigh- bour, and had no superior to whom he must bow. Their common relationship to Paul was the only cir- cumstance which gave them a kind of unity. He was in some respects their bishop, in the modern sense of that word, and there can be no doubt his letters were almost as valid as laws. Thus, then, in the bosom of this low type of Congregationalism there already ex- isted the germ of a future Episcopacy. Thus the first form of the Church was congrega- tional, for every member took a part in its management, and every congregation was independent of every other, and was a complete Church in itself — the marks of ■Congregationalism at the present day. But we now begin to discern the germs of Presbyterianism. 3. Presbyterianism. — By Presbyterianism I mean simply Church government by presbyters. In tracing the development of species, we do not find that the lower form necessarily disappears as the higher form manifests itself, nor are we able always to show the steps by which the one merged into the other. There are always lost links. The same thing can be said of Church development. The first form of Presbyterianism was congregational. It is curious we have no account of the first insti- tution of presbyters in the Church. We have seen 24 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. the circumstances in which the diaconate arose, but neither in the Acts nor in any of the Epistles of any of the Apostles have we any hint as to how presby- ters came first into the Christian organisation. But it is not difficult to fill up this historical gap. Every Jewish synagogue was managed by a body of pres- byters (or elders). The Christians of Palestine do not seem at first to have contemplated any rupture with Judaism ; and Judaism, notwithstanding its intoler- ance of polytheism, was liberal enough and wise enough to suffer widely-divergent sects within its own bosom. It gave shelter to both Pharisees and Sad- ducees. No Christian Church of the present day stretches its charity so far. Different races and dif- ferent ranks of men, moreover, had each their own synagogue, where they might discuss religious ques- tions from their own standpoint. Thus the Alexan- drian Jews had a synagogue at Jerusalem, and if we may take Philo as a type of the Alexandrian Jew, they differed as widely from old-fashioned Judaism as the Christians did. What was more natural, then, than that the Christians should have their synagogue too ? In Palestine the first Christian congregations were called synagogues,^ and with the synagogue there 1 James ii. 2 ; " Ei^iph." xxx. 18 ; Hier.,Ep. cxii. 13. Lightfoot, "Dissertation on the Christian Ministry," attached to his " Philippians." He quotes the above authorities. " When the majority of the members of a Jewish community," says Dr. Hatch, "were convinced that Jesus was the Christ, there was nothing to interrupt the current of their former common life. There LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 25 would come the synagogue office-bearers — the presby- ters or elders — so intimately connected with the history of Jewish piety. This Hebrew model would naturally be copied by the Greek Christians, though they called their assemblies, not synagogues, but ecclesice. It is quite possible the first presbyters had no formal appointment to their office. We have seen how in the earliest Pauline Churches every man exer- cised his gift as prophet, or teacher, or miracle-worker, or linguist, and received a kind of recognition from his fellow -Christians. The same circumstances would raise some men to the office of the eldership as the Church development went on. First, converts appear to have been held in special honour.^ Those in whose houses the night assemblies were held would, as a matter of course, assume to some extent the manage- ment of these assemblies. Men of hiorher social rank, or more mental power, would assert the same supre- macy then as they do now and always. These would be- come the first presbyters of the Church, perhaps without any formal appointment, for the modern theories of orders were then unknown. Archbishop Whately sup- poses that some of the earliest Christian Churches w^ere converted synagogues, and that the working machinery of rulers and elders went on as before,- was no need for secession, for schism, for a change in the organisation. The old form of worship and the old modes of government could still go on." (" Organisation of the Early Christian Churches," p. 6^) 1 Rom. xvi. 5 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 15 ; Clemens Romanus, Ep., cap. xlii. 2 " On the Kingdom of Christ," Essay ii., p. 113. r'r 26 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. The Jewish elders, we must remember, did not con- stitute a caste ; they followed their usual trades while they bore office in the synagogue. Thus, in these different ways, with the office there came the men. to fill it. But when the office was thus instituted, and when it came to be regarded as a position of some little honour in the community, it would be necessary to have elections, and to designate the men chosen by some simple ceremony. The form then usual, where it was thought a blessing might be conveyed, was, as I have already said, prayer and the imposition of hands. It was imagined that by this form, or by breathing, a saintly spirit was conveyed, but it might be conveyed to the humblest member as well as to the elder. The first mention which we have of presbyters is in the 11th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where we are told the Gentile Churches sent to the presbyters or elders a contribution to the famine fund in Judea. It is curious it should not have been sent to the deacons, but in truth deacons are never more mentioned in the book which records their appointment.^ They do not seem to have ever got beyond settling the quarrels of the irritated widows. The presbyters now come to the front, and are con- stantly alluded to as having a part in the manage- ment of the churches. In the account of the synod held at Jerusalem to settle the disputes between the ^ Philip is mentioned as having been one of the seven (Acts xxi. 8). LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 27 Jewish and Gentile Christians they are always as- sociated with the Apostles. "The apostles and the elders," it is said, "were gathered together to con- sider of this matter." " Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the w^hole church, to choose men out of their company and send them to Antioch." And the sentence of the synod ran in the name of the " apostles and the elder brethren."^ Thus the elders assume importance at once, and the deacons have entirely disappeared. Perhaps their office was regarded as purely secular, and hence they nre not here distinguished from the brethren ; but the most probable explanation is that the synagogue system soon effaced every other in the East. I have already noted that neither presbyters nor deacons are mentioned in the earlier Pauline Epistles ; but in the later Epistles there is frequent reference to them, showing that the Jerusalem type of organisation had spread to the Gentile Churches. As time wore on and the first fever of the Christian enthusiasm abated, and the need for stated office-bearers began to be felt, the self-constituted prophets and linguists and miracle-workers recede into the background, and elders and deacons appear in the foreground. It was a necessary step in the growth of any society that was tending toward a higher organisation by means of greater specialisation of structure and function. ^ Acts XV. 28 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. The Epistle to the Philippiaus is addressed "To the saints, with the bishops and deacons,"^ a circumstance which indicates a higher organisation, and proves that there must have been a considerable interval of time between the date of this Epistle and those 23re- viously referred to. But it is in the Pastoral Epistles that the greatest prominence is given to the new officials. The character of the good bishop and the good deacon is sketched. Titus is reminded that he was left at Crete that he might appoint elders in every city;^ and Timothy is warned not to neglect the gift which was given him " by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery."^ Here then we have a distinctly different state of things from what existed at the date of the first Epistles, when everything was spontaneous, spasmodic, unrestrained, strong individual enthusiasm bursting out in every form, an Apostle striving from a distance to moderate the excesses of the too exuberant spirit, but without any help from subordinate officials. Now all this has been changed, and we have well-ordered congregations, with bishops and deacons managing their afiairs. But here I may be reminded I have introduced a new term. I have spoken of bishops. Whence came they and who were they? It is now admitted on all hands that bishop and presbyter are the two designa- 1 Philip, i. 1. - Titus i. 5. ^ 1 Tim. iv. 14. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 29 tions of the same persons. The bishops were pres- byters and the presbyters were bishops. The terms are used interchangeably in too many j)assages in the New Testament to admit of a doubt. Paul sends for the elders of Ephesus, and when they come he re- minds them they are bishojjs.^ Peter in his First Epistle instructs the elders to exercise their episco- pate ungrudgingly.^ The author of the Epistle to Titus instructs the young evangelist to appoint as elders men of blameless life, "for," says he, "a bishop must be blameless,"^ In both Philippians " and 1 Timothy^ bishops and deacons are mentioned, but not presbyters, and yet it is impossible to conceive that presbyters are omitted, seeing they formed, as Bishop Lightfoot remarks, " the staple of the ministry," and were " absolutely essential to the Church."*^ The only conclusion we can come to is, they are referred to as bishops. In the earliest Patristic document — the Epistle of Clemens Romanus — the terms are still used in the same indiscriminate manner. Clemens knew no distinction between bishop and presbyter. If there was any difference of usage among Apostolic Christians it was simply in this — that "presbyter" was more in use among the Jewish converts as com- ing from the synagogue ; " bishop " among the Greeks, as an appellation already well known to them, and 1 Acts XX. 17, 28. "- 1 Peter v. 1, 2. '^ Titus i. 5-7. ■1 Philip, i. 1. = \ Tim. iii. 1-13. ^ "On the Christian Ministry," ut supra. 30 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. frequently applied to the managers of their confra- ternities, burial societies, and financial associations/ There was no difference then between the bishop and the presbyter. But it has been maintained by many Presbyterian writers that there were two grades of presbyters or elders — the teaching elder and the ruling elder. Calvin held this opinion, and where he led many were sure to follow. The theory rests entirely on 1 Timothy v. 17, "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour (or double pay),"^ especially those who labour in the word and in teaching." But it is clear nothing more is meant by the writer than that some of the primitive elders had no capacity for anything but managing the affairs of the little society over which they were set, while others, from better education or better intellect, were able to help in instructing the prose- lytes. All were to be honoured, but especially the last, as " aptness to teach " was almost a necessary qualification for the presbyterate. He is referring to natural gifts and not to official grades. But here we have probably the first step in the process which led to the separation of the presbyterate into presbyters and bishops. 1 Liglitfoot on " Philippians " and "The Christian Ministry," pp. 94, 192 ; Renan, " Les Apotres," "St. Paul ;" Hatch's "Organisation of the Early Christian Churches," Lecture ii. - TtjLiry — " pay" — seems the more correct translation, or there is no meaning in what follows — '■^ For" the Scripture saith, "thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And the labourer is worthy of his hire." — Verse 18. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 31 We previously saw how seven deacons were chosen at Jerusalem to assist in distributing the funds of the society ; but having been appointed they are never more mentioned in connection with the Jerusalem Church. But now we find deacons in the Gentile Churches — at Philippi and at Ephesus ^ — standing almost side by side with the bishops ; and that though there was no communistic property. How came this about ? Nothing more simple. It was very natural that the Gentile Christians, in their church organisa- tion, should copy as far as possible the mother Church at Jerusalem. We know the deference which Paul paid it, although it was the centre of hostility to his teaching. We can understand, then, how they would reverence the office of the diaconate though there was no longer the same need for it. Its name indicated its flexibility and how it might be turned to any pur- pose in the service of the Church. Though there were no free tables at Philippi, or Colossae, or Thessalonica, there were, no doubt, many poor to provide for in some way, for the Church had become the asylum of the poor and the oppressed. But in addition to this there was the Eucharistic feast to furnish and serve ; and it is probable the j^ortions not eaten were already carried to the sick, as we know they were in the days of Justin the martyr. The deacons had in fact become, in a general way, the assistants of the presbyters. 1 1 Tim. iii. They are not mentioned in Titus as existing iu Crete. 32 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. Working hand in hand with the deacons there were now deaconesses, as we learn from the celebrated letter of Pliny to Trajan. The philosophical proconsul of Bithynia tells us that in order to get at the truth about the Christians he put to the torture ducB ancillcB qucB ministrce dicebantur. But indeed it seems certain that the "widows" of Timothy held some official position in the Church, and were the first deaconesses. The seclusion in which the women of the East lived made the office expedient, if not necessary. At the period at which we have arrived, that is, towards the close of the Apostolic age, every Church had its college of presbyter -bishops, by whom its affairs were managed, and these were frequently assisted by a body of deacons and deaconesses. Com- munism had not died out, but in some places it had merged into a magnificent liberality. Broader views in regard to sacred days and places were becoming more common as the Greek element was becomins^ larger, and the Jews were beginning to rise above their prejudices.^ The spontaneousness of the early societies had abated under official rule, but had not disappeared, and the people still had a voice in the election of their office-bearers and the management of their aff'airs. Every congregation was still inde^jend- ent of every other, and such congregations were now dotted over the map of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. What was the precise amount of authority exercised 1 Col. ii. 16. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 33 by the presbyter -bisliops, and what the precise amount enjoyed by the people, it is impossible now to determine. It prol^ably varied greatly, according as the jDresbyter-bishops were or were not masterful men. So things continued till the second century began. But we are now on the eve of a new develop- ment. 4. Episcopalianism. — We have seen how Congre- gationalism outlived its original form and continued to exist during the whole of the Apostolic age, although the presbyterian development had begun. In like manner, we shall see that presbytery continued in its most essential features during the second cen- tury, though the episcoj^al development was now manifesting itself. At no period do we find any one of the rival polities altogether disentangled from the others. By Episcopacy I do not mean government by bishops, for there were bishops from the beginning ; but a polity which insists upon the necessity of a threefold and three -graded ministry — bishops, pres- byters, and deacons — and which assigns to bishops jurisdiction over presbyters and powers of ordination which presbyters do not possess. With great candour, the BishojD of Durham, in his "Dissertation on the Christian Ministry," acknowledges that while " at the close of the Apostolic age the two lower orders of the threefold ministry were widely and firmly established, the traces of the third and D 34 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. highest order, the episcopate, properly so called, were few and indistinct." ^ Though it is now no longer disputed that the primitive bishop and presbyter were one and the same, it is by no means universally conceded, as it is here by Bishop Lightfoot, that presbytery was prior to episcojDacy, that there was growth in the Church's organisation, as in everything else, and that in the process of this historical development the presbytery of the first century developed into the episcopacy of the second, and the episcopacy of the second into the more perfect episcopacy of the third and succeeding centuries. Unwilling to surrender an apostolic and even divine origin for the episcopal order, it is main- tained by many that the predecessors of the modern prelates were not the apostolic bishops but the Apostles themselves. This opinion, though now more desperately clung to than formerly, as the only remaining plank which can float the jus divinum of episcopacy, is not new. Repudiated by the High Church Ignatius,^ it was held by Theodoret ; '' re- jected by Chillingworth and Stillingfleet, it was 1 Lightfoot, "On the Christian Ministry," p. 193. 2 Ignatius, " Ep. to Trallians," iii. — "Shall I reach such a height of self-esteem that, though being a condemned man, I should issue commands to you as if I were an apostle ?" "Ep. to Romans," iv. — " I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commands to you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man." 3 Theodoret on Philip, ii. 25, where there is an obvious mistake as to the meaning of the passage. LECT. I. CHURCH ORGANISATION. 35 held, in a modified form, by Hooker^ and Bing- ham.^ It is not to l^e denied that the relation of Paul to the churches which he planted was not unlike that of a modern prelate to the churches of his diocese. He visited them as often as he could, he sent them letters giving them his opinion on any matters which were agitating them, he despatched deputies to assist in their management and organisation, and when, in his later years, bishops and deacons were ordained (if we are to maintain the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles) there can be no doubt these would render him a deference amounting to obedience. But if this wide influence was possessed by Paul, it seems to have been the result of his personal ability, his catholic spirit and his ministerial success, rather than of anything else. The same thing happened in the case of the Abbot Columba and the Celtic Churches which he planted in Pictish Scotland. The same thing happens with the modern missionary who is ^ " Such as deny apostles to have any successors at all in the office of their apostleship, may hold that opinion without any contradiction to this of ours, if they will explain themselves in declaring what truly and properly apostleship is. In some things any presbyter, in some things only bishops, in some things neither the one nor the other, are the apostles' successors." (" Eccles. Pol.," vii. § 4.) - " The title of apostles, which, in a large and secondary sense, is thought by many to have been the original name for bishops. . . . Shortly after, the name of apostles was appropriated to such only as were apostles indeed. . . . Afterwards bishops thought it honour enough to be styled the apostles' successors." — Bingham, vol. i. book ii. chap. 2. 36 DEVELOPMENT OF lect. i. successful in establisliing Christian communities in CafFraria or Beno-al. o If the modern bishop is not the lineal descendant of the primitive bishop but of the Apostles, why does he not bear the apostolic name ? The substitution of the lower name for the higher one must be accounted for. Churchmen are not accustomed to come down. The reasoning on this point of the late Bishop of Lincoln, in his " Theophilus Anglicanus," is scarcely worthy of his great name and place. ^ " Q. Whom do Bishops succeed and represent ? A. The Holy Apostles. Q. Why, then, are they not called Apostles? A. Because, in the first age, the name Apostle described one wdio had been 'personally sent {airoaraXels:) by Christ Himself ; it was therefore reser^^ed to the Twelve originally appointed by Him when He was upon earth, and to St. Matthias, St. Paul, and St. Barnabas. . . . Q. The successors of the Apostles could not, then, it seems, take the name of ^ K'ir6(TTo\oyLVOixevoi tov iroifjivlov — " Neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock, "^ Now, here we find the flock, the people, the laity described as the Kkrjpo^, or clergy, to give the ,word its modern meaning. The presbyters are told not to lord it over the "cleros," by which word is undoubtedly meant the laity. It is clear, then, there is no Biblical authority, from the usage of the root words, for the 1 The translation here given is as usual from the Revised Ver- sion, LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 97 distinction between clergy and laity. And yet the dis- tinction, as we shall see, had probably a Biblical origin. The words came into use, and how ? Jerome tells us that the ministers of religion were called clergy because they are the lot and portion of the Lord, or because the Lord is their inheritance.^ If this be the true idea contained in the term, in the assumption of it there is betrayed the seminal feeling out of which grew all the arrogance and exclusiveness of the eccle- siastical order, making the Christian ministry as truly a caste as the priests of Jerusalem or the Brahmins of Bengal. But notwithstanding the ancient and high authority of Jerome, others think that the name arose from the custom — though never very common — of choosing candidates for the sacred office by lot. Bishop Lightfoot, who holds this opinion, points out that in its earliest usage, "cleros " designates the office and not the person chosen to it, and that in the pro- gress of language the transition from the office to the office-holder was natural and easy.'-^ I am inclined to think Bishop Lightfoot is right. Words grow into their meanings, rather than assume them at the bid- ding of any one. It may indeed be said that the lot was so seldom used in ecclesiastical elections at the time when " cleros " was beginning to be used to de- ^ Hieron., " Epist. 2 ad Nepot." — " Cleros grsece, Sors Latine appel- latur ; propteria vocantur clerici, vel quia de Sorte sunt Domini, vel quia ipse Dominus sors, id est pars clericorum." See also Bingham, book i. chap, v., where a great deal of information on the subject will be found. - " The Christian Ministry," pp. 247, 248. H 98 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. signate the clergy, that it could not originate the term ; but there were the tradition and the Biblical references. At this day we speak of our lot and our allotted share, though the lot has really nothing to do with it. So the two terms came into use. When presbyters and deacons were ruling the Church, it was natural there should be a oreneric term to discriminate them from the members. In the ordinary growth of lan- guage, to meet human requirements, it was certain a term would appear. The words clergy and laity are still found convenient, and can hardly be avoided even by those who dislike the distinction they are used to indicate. For convenience sake we some- times speak of laymen, to indicate those who are outside of the other learned professions as well as the theological ; and, more curious still, the artist speaks of a lay-figure — a thing of buckram and wood — in con- tradistinction to a living model. But all the same the constant use of the distinguishing terms helped to widen the distance between the office-bearers and ordinary members of the Church; and when men began to give St. Jerome's derivation to " cleros," we need not wonder that a still more insolent but less eru- dite ecclesiastic, in an after age, derived "laic," not from \a6<;, people, but from \da<;, a stone — as if the laity were but blocks and stones in the presence of the clergy.^ 1 See Campbell's " Lectures on Ecclesiastical History," Lecture ix. With greater philological accuracy the Greek 'ISiwrai, sometimes applied to the laity, or private persons, would be rendered " idiots." LECT. 11. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 99 There were other forces at work widening the dis- tance between the clergy and laity. The increase of the Christian societies increased the power and im- portance of their ministers, while it lessened the influence of the individual members. Moreover, men who would speak in a meeting of fifteen or twenty friends would not open their mouths in a great gathering of two or three hundred people. And the enthusiasm of the first days was gone. The whole service and management of the Church was, therefore, left more and more with the regular officials. We must also remember that the converts would naturally transfer to the ministers of the new faith some of the veneration with which they had regarded the priests, augurs, and haruspices of the old religion. And the bishops and presbyters were now, in some respects at least, more entitled to this honour ; for many of them were now educated men, trained perhaps in some of the catechetical schools which had sprung up in con- nection with the Church, if not proselytes, like Justin Martyr, from the Academy or the Porch. But more powerful than all these causes was the superstitious reverence with which the sacraments were now being regarded. The clergy gradually monopolised the administration of these ; and, as the sole dispensers of the favours of heaven, came to be regarded as a kind of superior beings ; a result which has been realised in the history of all religions. But there came a reaction, as was to be expected. 100 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. it. Montanism arose and spread like a fever. There are always some earnest dreamy souls who rebel against a religion of petrified forms, inventoried dogmas, and stiff-backed priests. Such was the rebellion against the Laudian liturgies and the Westminster dogmatics in the seventeenth century, when the Quakers and other Puritans sprang up like reeds by the river. Such is the rebellion against the dressed-up Eitual- ism and smoke-dried dogmatism of the present day, which we see in the little Plymouth communities scattered over the land, dispensing with creeds, minis- ters, forms, everything. And such was Montanism in the third century — an honest, though fanatical, endea- vour after a simpler and more spiritual religion — a reversion to more primitive times. It had its most illustrious convert in the eloquent and impassioned Tertullian, whose tendency, in some points, to High Churchism melted away under its warm breath, and whose later utterances are therefore sometimes incon- sistent with his earlier ones. One of the greatest of the Fathers, he is not ranked among the saints because of his connection with this reputed heresy. Leaving out of view Montanus and his parasite prophetesses, the movement was in the main good; but it failed; for authority was too strong to be shivered by enthusiasm, and the majority of men, in matters of religion, like to lean upon others ; but it left behind it not only its memory, but some marks of its presence and power. When Christianity became the religion of the LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 101 empire the distance between the clergy and laity was still more increased. Some of the Christian Basilicas now rivalled the Pagan temples. To minister in one of these was different from ministering to a handful of poor people in an upper room in a private house. The clergy began to accumulate property and to enjoy revenues independent of their people. Moreover, cer- tain civil jurisdictions were bestowed upon them by the emperors, with exemptions from some State taxes and State duties. They were a privileged class. Eegarded as the leaders and exemplars of Christian opinion, a higher, or at least more ascetic, rule of life was imposed upon them than upon the laity. They must not be seen in the amphitheatre. A first mar- riage was questionable, a second marriage was horrible. All luxury in living, all ostentation in dress, must be avoided. Thus they became more and more a class by themselves. Many of them, however, still followed secular employments, and they had often influence enough to secure trade privileges or monopolies for themselves from a friendly Government. Engaged as money-changers, physicians, or shipwrights during the week, they discharged the sacred duties of their office on the Sundays, like those Methodist bishops still occa- sionally met with in the United States of America.^ The bishops of the great cities were raised far 1 It was not till the fifth century that it was felt to be incongruous for a man to be at the same time a trader and a bishop, A canon of the Council of Chalcedon forbidding the clergy to engage in farming or trading is sometimes quoted, but it is of doubtful authenticity. 102 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. above the heads of their people by their wealth and influence, and they affected the ways of the Roman proconsuls and grandees. When they showed them- selves in their cathedral churches they sat upon a throne or bench like magistrates dispensing justice. When they walked abroad they were followed by a retinue of attendants. They had great troops of inferior clergy always at their beck. They were styled Most Blessed, Most Reverend, Most Holy. George of Cappadocia, who is thought by some to be the original of St. George of England, is a specimen of the bad, ambitious prelate of the fourth century. The son of a fuller, he made rich by fraud in a con- tract he had for supplying the imperial armies with pork. His wealth procured him friends, and his worldly wisdom made him embrace Arianism, then the religion of the emperor and the court. When Athanasius was driven from Alexandria, the fraudulent army contractor was consecrated its bishop. He entered the city like a conqueror and reigned like a tyrant. The populace could not stand his exactions, and rising in their hot rage massacred him and some of his sycophants. The murdered man at once be- came an Arian martyr, and a hundred years after- wards an orthodox saint ; and in the ignorant myths of the Middle Ages the pork -butcher and bishop was transmuted into the chivalrous St. George — the patron saint of England ; and the dragon he slew was none other than Athanasius and his trinitarian creed. LFXT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 103 By the fifth century the clergy were in every essential respect a caste. They were now beginning to be distinguished by their tonsure and their dress, though their changes of raiment were not so extensive as they afterwards became. They were taken neither from "Aaron's wardrobe nor the Flamens' vestry"^ as many have supposed, but from the everyday clothing of Koman peasants and northern barbarians, retained by the clergy when they had ceased to be worn by the laity. ^ Martin of Tours, however, in his Gallic province, could consecrate the Eucharistic ele- ments in a sheepskin coat and with his bare arms projecting from the fur. It was not till the eighth century that any special dress was prescribed, but the usage was earlier than the legal prescription.^ The majority of the clergy were now celibate — it was hardly decent to be married. Monkish manners and ideas were everywhere prevalent. The increase of ignorance promoted the growth of superstition, and the 1 Milton. - In Stanley's " Christian Institutions," chap, viii., will be found many interesting particulars regarding the origin of ecclesiastical vest- ments. The alb was the camisia or chemise, white then as it is now, and was the dress of the humble deacon who worked in his shirt. The surplice was a long shirt worn over an under garment of fur — super -pellicium, over -fur or surplice. The archbishop's pall is a vestige of the Roman pallium — it was the band which held it to- gether. The stole was an overcoat worn by the Greeks, afterwards a long vest worn by Roman matrons when at home ; and in the ninth century it degenerated into an orarium or handkerchief. See also Smith's " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities." ■^ Stanley, id supra; Hatch's "Organisation," etc., p. 163, note. 104 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. growth of superstition was every day adding to the veneration with which the clergy were regarded ; and the clergy encouraged this by their asceticism and isolation. The piety of Theodosius sanctioned and accelerated the movement. Constantine had recog- nised Christianity, Theodosius destroyed paganism. By the force of these surroundings the bishops acquired an influence which overtopped all secular authority and constituted them a race of beings by themselves. They were spoken of as vicars of Christ, as princes of the people, as patriarchs, as popes. Princes and people alike bowed their heads before them to receive their benediction, and humbly kissed their hand. In some cases the populace went further, and sang hosannas before them, though Jerome modestly thought this was going a little too far.^ The great Theodosius underwent a humiliating penance at the bidding of St. Ambrose. An empress waited upon St. Martin at table. The Emperor Maximus at a banquet handed the wine-cup first to this same bishop, and he, after drinking himself, handed it on to his presbyter as being greater than the greatest of the grandees at the table. ^ The inroads of the barbarians and the breaking up of 1 Hieroii in Matt. 21 ; Bingham, book. ii. cbap. ix. - In the " Ai:>ostolic Constitutions " we have the first develop- ment of this idea. " By how much the soul is more valuable than the body, so much the priestly office is beyond the kingly." If the " Con- stitutions " really belong to the close of the second century this is certainly a very early assertion of clerical pretensions. It looks more like the arrogance and assumption of the fifth and following centuries. LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 105 the empire left tlie clergy as the only representatives of the old civilisation. They remained like islands above the flood when everything else was submerged. They profited immensely by this, for the savages received the faith of the races they had vanquished, mingled it with their northern superstitions, gave great grants of confiscated land to the bishops, and venerated them as demigods. These were changed days from the time when Peter made his living as a fisherman, and Paul worked as a weaver of tent cloth. The bishop of Trimithuntis no longer herded sheep on the hillside ; ^ no more did the bishop of Majuma sit at his loom as a weaver of linen : these types of primitive episcopacy had be- come extinct,^ and in their place had grown up a race of lordly prelates who jostled with emperors for power and place — the true ancestors of the Pope who kept a Kaiser standing for three days as a suppliant at his door. It shows the power of a living idea warmed, fostered, modified by its en- vironment. But were not these artisan-plebeian bishops as truly bishops as any prince-prelate of mediaeval Milan or Cologne ? and were they not, by virtue of their ordination, separated from the people by being put in the possession of apostolic, consecrating grace ? 1 Socrates, "Eccles, Hist." i. 12 ; case of Spyridon in fourth century. 2 Sozomen, "Eccles. Hist." vii. 28 ; case of Zeno in fifth century. See also Hatch's "Organisation," etc., pp. 151, 163. 106 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. Undoubtedly they were as truly bishops as any of their more brilliant successors — in some respects more so ; but it was never supposed that their ordina- tion, if they were ordained, constituted them a caste, with the exclusive power of transmitting the caste character. It was simply the ceremony by which they were admitted to their office. There were such forms for admission to civil as well as ecclesiastical offices, and the same words were often used to indicate both. It was never supposed that any special virtue was thereby instilled into the civil magistrate ; why should it be thought that any such virtue was infused into the ecclesiastical ruler ? The laying-on of hands is the form which has prevailed in the Western Church, but it was not the only form used in primi- tive times. Breathing upon the person was common in the East, as it was supposed that in this way the miraculous gift of the Holy Ghost was conveyed.^ Conducting the bishop-elect to his chair was another method of admission.- Handing to him a crosier was another way practised in the Celtic Churches.^ But ^ Dean Stanley says : "In the Alexandrian and Abyssinian Churclies it was and still is by breathing ; in the Eastern Cburcli generally by lifting up the hands in the ancient Oriental attitude of benediction ; in the Armenian Church, and also at times in the Alexandrian Church, by the dead hand of the predecessor ; in the early Celtic Church by the transmission of relics or pastoral staff ; in the Latin Church by the form of touching the head." (" Institu- tions," chap. X.) - So it was in the case of Bishop Fabianus related above, p. 84. ^ " When Eadmer, a Canterbury monk, was chosen Bishop of St. Andrews, after some dispute with the Scottish king Alexander I. about LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 107 ill some cases there appears to have been no form at all, beyond the election. And what was meant by the imposition of hands in cases where it was used ? Simply the conveying a blessing or a good wish. It was a well-known custom among the Jews, and employed on occasions civil, social, scholastic, and ecclesiastic. When a scholar graduated, to use a modern phrase, the Eabbis laid their hands on his head, as the chancellor of a university now touches the graduate's head with the graduate's cap. When the prophets at Antioch despatched Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary journey they laid their hands on them and prayed. When an elder in the primitive Church visited a sick brother he laid his hands on him and prayed. When a new presbyter, or deacon, or deaconess was admitted to office in the Church his l^rother presbyters laid their hands on his head and prayed. In the age of miracles it was sometimes thought the gift of miracles was conferred in this way, but it was conferred without distinction of classes, and sometimes without any form at all. III. The presbyter-bishops of the Church were in no sense priests. It is true priest is but a contraction of presbyter. But without reference to the origin of the word I take ordination, he took the episcopal ring from the king and the crosier from off the altar, as receiving it from the Lord, and began his work. But he had scruples of conscience about the whole business, and after a time returned to England." — Hailes' " Annals," vol. i. ; Cunningham's "Church History," vol. i. 108 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. it, as it is now generally understood, as indicating one who offers sacrifice — the English equivalent of "sacerdos " and lepev^ ; and it is in that sense I affirm the ministers of the primitive Church were not priests. In not one instance is the term priest (te/aeu?) applied in Gospel, Epistle, or Apocalypse, to an office- bearer of the new church. The Apostles recognised the old hereditary priesthood, and had no idea of setting up a rival one. They were filled with a grander idea — they proclaimed the universal priest- hood of mankind. Every man was a priest in his own family. Every man must individually offer his own sacrifices of prayer, good deeds, and gratitude. In one sense every man was to be raised to the dignity of a priest ; in another sense every priest was to be brought down to the level of the people. Saturated, as the minds of the writers of the New Testament must have been, with ideas taken from the temple service, we need not wonder that their compositions are deeply coloured with these — that references to sacrifice, expiation, altars, priests, victims, are fre- quent — that they express sometimes their new religious doctrines by the use of their old religious terms; but they uniformly declare that all these things belonged to an economy which was doomed to pass away. The words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman are the finest utterance of the new doctrine, and it runs with less or more clearness throuofh the writings of St. Paul. No place was more holy than LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 109 another, no altar or priest was longer necessary. A spiritual worsliijD, without form or ceremony, was the new development in the religious history of man- kind. And a great step it was in human progress. We know the outside world could not understand such a religion — a religion without temple, altar, sacrifice, or priest, and they concluded the Christians were atheists. And many good Christians have since beinsj counted worse than infidels for the same reason. We have already seen that the Church originated in the synagogue, and not in the temple, and that its officials were the synagogue officials. Before the destruction of the temple it would have been re- garded as impious on the part of any lay Jew to pretend he was a priest — one of the hereditary caste. But without presumption any official of any religious sect might assume the name and the duties of an elder of the synagogue. How could the Apostles be priests when they had no altar and no sacrifice ? " In the synagogue," it has been well said, " there was no altar, in the temple there was no pulpit." The function of the Apostles was to preach and not to sacrifice, and so of their successors. Two hundred years required to come and go before the Church was deeply infected by sacerdotalism. But it was sure to come, and symptoms of its coming are visible, though faintly, almost from the first. The whole environment was sacerdotal. There were temples 110 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. and altars everywhere — victims everywhere bleeding, incense everywhere smoking. The whole religious conceptions of mankind were associated with these ; the whole religious vocabulary was formed from these. It was impossible for a small sect living amid such influences to escape their contagion. They might for a time, as the Christians did for nearly two hundred years, but they were sure to absorb some of the subtle poison in the end. The converts, as a matter of course, brought many of their old religious impressions with them. The Jews, it is true, were more familiar with the synagogue than the temple ; but the temple was much more fitted to impress their imagination. When they had made their pilgrimage from one of the remote provinces, and beheld its columned courts, and priests, and levites, and altars, and great crowd of worshippers, it was a scene never to be forgotten. And, besides, all their sacred literature was connected with the temple and not with the synagogue. It was for the service of the temple the Mosaic ritual was given, it was for the music of the temple the psalms were written, it was of the glory of the temple the prophets spoke. Even after the temple was de- stroyed this sacred literature survived, and kept alive in the Hebrew heart an ever -increasing veneration for the ruined fane. Its very dust became dear to them. Everything was now seen through the glorify- ing haze of the sunset, for Israel's sun had indeed LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. Ill gone down. Thinking of the city over the impend- ing fall of which Jesus Himself had wept, poring over the scroll of Deuteronomy, the converted Jew could not but transfer to the Christian presbyter the ideas which he had been taught to associate with the priest, more especially when the presbyter had risen above the level of the mechanic. We know how much of Judaism is still imbedded in the heart of Christianity, and we need not wonder that sacerdotalism should have found a place. After the first century the great mass of converts were gathered in from the Gentile cities. They brought into the Church a still more decided sacer- dotalism. They had no synagogues ; they had only temples. And their temples were everywhere. Even where there was no temple, there were altars in the open air. Their whole religion consisted of sacrifice. Their whole social life was associated with sacrifice. Apart from sacrifice they had no idea of any way in which Deity could be propitiated. Of course, they learned a better way when they accepted the Chris- tian creed. But they could not forget all they had ever learned or heard or seen before. The first con- verts, joining the Church, as they must have done, from sincere conviction, may have shaken ofi" the greater part of their old heathenism. But when Christianity became fashionable, when many joined the Church because others did so, or from motives still more sordid, they must have imported into the 112 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. Chiircli not only the usages of tlie temple, but a lingering love for them. We must look, moreover, to the effect which the surrounclinof sacerdotalism must have had upon the Christian bishops and presbyters. If ambition ever entered their hearts, if they had any love for imposing spectacles, any desire to serve themselves heirs to a race who had so long held in their hands the souls of men, they must sometimes, in their secret hearts, have envied the priests in their temples. Human nature is frail even in its best estate. In such circumstances there was an inevitable action and reaction between heathenism and Chris- tianity. Heathenism was modified by Christianity ; Christianity could not but be modified by the surrounding heathenism. No religion ever alto- gether perishes. It may be absorbed by a more powerful religion, or be purified, and pass away from sight ; but it continues to exist. As vestiges of the lower organism can be traced in the higher ; vestiges of heathenism can still be traced in Christianity. We know how pagan temples became Christian churches, how pagan deities became Christian saints, how pagan festivals became Christian holidays. By the same process, but by reversion rather than progression. Christian presbyters became pagan priests. There was development in worldly status and power ; ' reversion in true religious position. There were some circumstances which specially LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 113 conduced to tins. The sacraments were the chief of these. When baptism was regarded as synonymous with regeneration, and the sacramental bread and wine looked upon as the very body and blood of Christ, it was difficult not to ascribe sacerdotal power to the man who dispensed these heavenly blessings. The sacrament was on the eve of becoming the sacrifice. Tertullian, notwithstanding his Montanism, is the first Christian writer who is fond of speaking of bishops and presbyters as priests.^ The words occur frequently in his writings, even when his Montanism had become pronounced. But it is this same Tertul- lian who held that the ministerial office came from the congregation, and that in the absence of a pres- byter or a bishop any one might baptize or administer the sacrament of the Supper. It is impossible, there- fore, to believe that he thought the clergy possessed any special sacerdotal power. The secret of his fre- quent use of the terms priest and sacrifice seems rather to be that he strongly believed in the priest- hood of all Christians, and that if the priestly function w\as usually performed only by the clergy, that depended entirely on the authority of the Church, and had arisen from the necessity for order and subordination. As a Montanist he believed in ^ In the "Apostolical Constitutions" bishops are styled high priests (book viii. 6). It is doubtful whether the " Constitutions " or the writ- ings of Tertullian are the earlier. The " Constitutions " have certainly interpolations of later date. I 114 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. spiritual gifts and miraculous mental manifestations, in women as well as men, and in fact occupied such a position in the ancient Church as John Wesley and George Whitefield occupied in the Church of the eighteenth century. Such a believer in the free out- pouring of the Holy Spirit could scarcely hold that that same spirit flowed only in a sacerdotal channel. We therefore conclude he was not a sacerdotalist in the usual sense of that word. We have to pass over nearly half a century before we get from Tertullian to Cyprian, who is generally regarded as the chief patron of sacerdotalism in the Ante-Nicene Church. It must be acknowledged that the whole phraseology of the system is to be found in his writings. Priest, altar, sacrifice, are words of fre- quent occurrence. But .this is the same Cyprian who held that the laity should elect their clergy, and might any time degrade them ; and that an election or ordination was not properly conducted unless done in the presence of the people. He does not lay claim to any special sacerdotal grace, but simply speaks of himself as a bishop by the judgment of God and the suffrage of the j)eo2Dle.^ He speaks of election and ordination indiscriminately, though he recognises the imposition of hands. ^ His sacerdotalism seems to be a matter of words rather than of anything else, and is easily explained. His mind was full of the Hebrew' Scriptures, which were, in his day, more the text-books 1 Epist. 39. 2 Epist. 67. LECT. II. MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. 115 of the Chiircli than the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists, which were still struggling for catholic recognition. He quotes them copiously ; and how could he quote them without introducing priests, altars, and sacrifices ? How could he reason from them without applying these terms to the ministers and officers of the new faith ? The writer of the Hebrews had already done the same thing. Paul had done it. It was almost impossible for a writer of that period to avoid it. It was the current vocabulary both in the Jewish and Gentile w^orlds. It has come down to our day, and our religious thinking is more largely tinged with it than we imagine. We show ourselves unable or unwilling to strip off the figure and get at the simple fact which lies beneath it. How, then, could it be otherwise with a North African bishop in the third century, with his imagination inflamed by the sacred traditions of the temple, breathing an atmosphere of sacerdotalism, accustomed from his childhood to its language, and struggling hard to supplant Paganism by a pliant Christianity, which, in the spirit of Paul, did not insist upon anathematising all the previous customs and much less the previous vocabulary of the people ? Under these accommodating influences bishop, patriarch, and pope became the Summus Sacerdos, and even Pontifex-Maximus ; the presbyter became the sacerdos.^ The sacrament of the Eucharist 1 This sacerdotalism croiDS out in tlie " Ajjostolical Constitutions." Thus in book viii. sect. 5, we have the following : — " Being taught 116 MINISTERS AND PEOPLE. lect. ii. was now a sacrifice. But though Cyprian used, to some extent, the language of sacerdotalism, and exhi- bited some of its pretentiousness, he was very far from having fully formulated the doctrine. That was still in the far future. The germ idea had been planted even before his day, and now it was but the slender sapling, though destined to become some centuries afterwards a great tree — unfortunately not a tree bearing fruit for the healing of the nations, but rather a upas-tree, with deadly fragrance and shade. When, within cathedral and parish church, priests in white vestments erected altars and ofi'ered sacrifice and gave absolution, defeated Paganism had, in fact, vanquished victorious Christianity, and under a new form reigned in Christendom.^ by the Lord tlie series of things, we distributed the functions of the high priesthood to the bishops, those of the priesthood to the presby- ters, and the ministration under them both to the deacons ; that the divine worship might be performed in purity." 1 Perhaps the best proofs of this are to be found in Dr. Middle- ton's " Letters from Eome, showing an exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism, or The Religion of the present Romans derived from that of their Heathen Ancestors." In another vein, but containing many striking facts, is a little book entitled, "Modern Christianity a Civilised Heathenism." Baden Powell's " Christianity without Judaism " shows how mucli Judaism still exists in the heai't of our Christianity. LECTUEE III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. We have seen the Primitive Churches gradually assuming a more and more complex organisation, and their first humble officials separating, accord- ing to the exigencies of their work, into deacons, presbyters, and bishops, just as animals and plants, in their ascending types, acquire greater and still greater specialisation and complexity of organ and function. I now wish to discover the work which these officials had to do — not the work of the one order as distinguished from that of the others — but the work which the clergy as a whole had to do, and in which they all took a part. I wish, in fact, having seen the development of the Church's organisation, to look at its institutions, and to trace their gradual growth. In the passage I have already quoted as letting the first ray of light in upon the meetings of the Chris- tians, it is said they remained steadfastly in the 118 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. Apostles' teaching. Here, then, the question presents itself — What is the place which teaching occupies in the Christian Church ? What was its origin and growth as an ecclesiastical institution ? In most of the ancient religions teaching had no place at all. In the temples of Greece and Italy there were sacrifices and ritual, but no instruction : there were crowds of priests, but not one instructor. The whole thing consisted in sheep-killing, entrail- inspecting, incense-burning, and augury. All educa- tion in religion and morals — all speculation about divine things — was relegated to the schools and the sophists who frequented them. A pontifex-maximus, preaching to the people in the porch of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus regarding the nature of the immortal gods or the destiny of the human soul ; a haruspex, speaking to any one but his employers, about a flight of birds or a twist in the viscera of some poor disembowelled beast, was a phenomenon altogether unknown. It was very much the same at Jerusalem. There was the morning and the even- ing sacrifice ; the special offerings for the special occasions ; the great slaughter of the paschal feasts ; and all the ceremonial of an elaborate temple- service, but there was nothing to educate the reli- gious men and women who came up there to worship). They might or they might not interpret to them- selves the symbolism of the pageant they had seen, and in which they had taken a humble part, but in LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 119 this they would heave no help from the priests, for that was not their function. It will not be difficult to show that, in strong contrast to this, the Church was designed from the beginning to be a great educational institute. Jesus, the Master, was above everything else a teacher and preacher of righteousness. The Sermon on the Mount, whether we regard it as one connected dis- course, or as a collection of His more remarkable sayings, is a most perfect and beautiful exposition of His religion. His many parables were all meant to teach some moral or religious truth. He was uni- versally recognised as a prophet — a revealer of new truths- — gifted with deep spiritual insight — greater than Moses, than Elijah, than John. He was never suspected of having anything in common with the priest. In harmony with His own life-work, the commis- sion which He gave to His Apostles was to go and teach all nations — to make disciples of all men — scholars in the highest sense of scholarship, for they were to be taught in His school His religious concep- tions. We know how the Apostles carried out this commission. They did not set about erecting altars, but they went everywhere preaching the Word. In the synagogue on the Sabbath day to sceptical Jews, on Mars Hill to scoffing Greeks, by river-side or sea- shore, in the prsetorium of Sergius Paulus at Paphos, in his own hired lodgings at Kome, the great 120 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. Apostle, whose life and labours we best know, taught all those who came to him " the things con- cerning the Lord Jesus." When this first and chief of missionaries could no longer be present in any of those many churches which he had founded by the persuasive power of his living voice, he wrote letters to them containing expositions of his opinions and advices suited to their circumstances; and it was in this way the Pauline Epistles originated, which still remain and claim our reverence not only as the earliest develop- ment of the Christian faith, but as, in some respects, the best history of the Apostolic Church. I think, then, I am justified in saying that the Apostles were pre-eminently teachers of Christianity. The commission of their Master, as well as the circum- stances in which they were placed, made this im- perative. In accordance with the same dominant idea, when Christian Churches were being organised throughout Asia Minor, and everywhere along the seaboard of the Mediterranean, the men who were placed over them as presbyter-bishops required to have as a quali- fication aptitude in teaching. " A. bishop," wrote Paul to Timothy, "must be apt to teach ;"^ and they who not only ruled well, but who " laboured in the word and in teaching,"^ that is, w^ho employed some of their time in instructing the converts in the new faith, were to be regarded as worthy of double 1 1 Tim. iii. 2. 2 i Tim. v. 17. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 121 honour, or, as I think it shoukl be rendered, double pay. And, addressing Timothy himself, the veteran Apostle said, " Till I come, give heed to reading, to exhortation, to teaching."^ That was the main work which was given him to do. But still more remark- able is the declaration of the same Apostle to the Church at Corinth — " Christ sent me not to baptize, Ijut to preach the gospel."'^ He was content to leave to others the initiatory rite by which converts were received into the Church ; his higher and diviner work was to make converts, and, after they were made, to instruct them still more perfectly in the doctrines and duties of their new life. All this you will say arose from the very necessi- ties of the case, and so no doubt it did ; but, at the same time, it originated in the fact that the Chris- tian Church had, as I have already shown, its tap- root not in the Jewish temple, but in the Jewish synagogue. The relifi^ious life of the Jews in the time of the Apostles was nourished partly by the temple and partly by the synagogue service : I venture to think in much the larger degree by the latter. There was but one temple, situated in their one holy city ; there were synagogues in every town and village of the country, and in every city throughout the world where a colony of Jews existed. It was only at distant intervals that most Jews could visit Jeru- 1 1 Tim, iv. 13 ; also 2 Tim. iv. 2. 2 i Cor. i. 17. 122 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. salem and witness the temple worsMp ; it is certain there must have been thousands of both men and women, who, from infirmity or other causes, were never able to join in the pilgrimages, and who never once beheld the Beautiful Gate ; but the synagogues were at their door, and open not only on the Sabbaths and feast-days, but also on the Mondays and Thurs- days, the two market-days, when the country people brought their fruit to the market and their disputes to the judges. No doubt the Jews were proud of their Holy House ; they delighted in the traditions connected with its ancient sanctities, even when a sceptical Sadduceeism was casting doubt upon their truth ; they gloried in its sacrifices and sacerdotalism, even when many were losing faith in their efficacy, and, like Philo, were seeking for higher religious verities. But this patriotic pride, this love for the legendary, this delight in spectacular pageantry, could be but a poor substitute for piety ; and the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem could do little more than a pilgrimage to Mecca in the month of Dhu'lhajja, or a trip to Rome at the season of the Carnival. The crowds might come and go, and be religiously and morally none the better, but rather the worse for it. But the synagogues were thoroughly popular institutions, and in every way well designed to diffuse religious information and foster everyday piety. When the people were assembled on their LECT. III. THE CHUKCH AS A TEACHER. 123 weekly day of rest (very much as we meet in our churches on a Sunday) the appointed prayers were repeated, the people responding with their Amcns ; the appropriate psalms were sung, the people join- ing in the antiphones ; and the lessons for the day were read from their sacred books ; and in this way a great part of both the law and the prophets was rehearsed in their hearing. But this was not all. The lesson being over, one of the Kabbis made some remarks upon the passage in the way of ex- planation or enforcement, just as is done in many churches to this day. Even yet the meeting did not necessarily come to a close, for any one who was present might now give utterance to any ideas of his own, and thus in any synagogue on any Sabbath one might hear a thoughtful fisherman or herdsman or carpenter discussing religious questions with the Eabbis. And this was done sometimes with con- siderable warmth, sometimes even with noise and confusion, as we might infer from the religious temperament of the Jews, and as we actually know from the violent scenes in the synagogues when Jesus and the Apostles availed themselves of this privilege.^ But still the custom was jealously pre- served, and formed an essential part of the system. A system, at once so popular and so free as this, must have kept religious excitement ever quick and living, and at the same time have acted as a counterpoise 1 See Luke iv. 16-29 : also Acts xiii. 15. 124 THE CHUECH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. to tlie aristocratic and exclusive sacerdotalism of the temple.^ Thus the synagogues were schools of religion for the whole people ; and it is probable the boy Jesus got His human learning there. " Our houses of prayer in the several towns/' says Philo, " are none other but institutions for teaching prudence and bravery, temperance and justice, piety and holiness, in short, every virtue which the human and the divine recognise and enjoin." " The synagogue," says Hausrath, " was a true school for the nation, and Josephus boasts, with justice, that by its means the law was made the common possession of all ; and that while, among the Romans, even procurators and proconsuls had to take those skilled in law with them into their provinces, in the Jewish household every servant-maid knew from the religious service what Moses had ordained in the law."^ Even in Gentile lands the synagogues were gener- ally the first starting-points of the Christian Church, and the customs of the one were naturally transferred to the other. The Greeks and Latins, it is true, knew little of the synagogues beyond what they learned from the Christian Jews with whom they associated, but they would devoutly follow their guidance in a religion which had a Jewish origin. 1 See Prideaux, "The Old and New Testaments Connected;" Hausrath's " New Testament Times ;" and Edersheim's " Life and Times of Jesus." 2 " New Testament Times — The Synagogue," vol. i. p. 86. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 125 Besides, they had their schools of philosophy in which speculation was ever fresh, and the Church might be looked upon as the school of the new Christian philosophy. AVithin it there was free discussion of all moral and religious questions ; there were specula- tions subtle enough for the most subtle Eastern mind, practical enough for the most practical Roman mind ; there was an esoteric and exoteric doctrine. Every- thing suggested the school rather than the fane. The very name ecclesia suggested a meeting for discus- sion rather than for sacrifice. It was therefore the Gnostic followers of Carpocrates placed the bust of Jesus beside the busts of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They ranked them all as great teachers of truth. Thus, then, in the synagogue primarily, and in the Greek schools secondarily, did the Church find its model of an educational institute. Let us shortly trace the history of educa- tion in the Church. I have already quoted the first notice of the Chris- tian meetings in which it is said the converts "con- tinued in the Apostles' teaching."^ To the same eff'ect is the other brief notice — "And every day in the temple, and at home, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus as the Christ."^ From these notices, brief though they be, it is quite clear that instruction formed a considerable part of their business when these primitive Christians held their first meetings ^ Acts ii. 42. 2 ^cts v. 42. 126 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. under some quiet portico of the temple, or in tlie house of some friend in the city. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians there is a passage which throws much more light upon these gatherings. "When ye come together," says Paul, "every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpreta- tion."^ Here is the synagogue over again : its free- ness, its liberty of speech to every one. It was more a meeting for discussing religious questions than for any one, even an apostle, authoritatively imposing his opinion on others. Any one might suggest his favourite psalm, expound his pet doctrine, tell his dream or other revelation, illumine the brethren with his exegetical remarks. That Church at Corinth, though sometimes a little disorderly, as we might expect from its evil surroundings, must have been an excellent school for acquiring religious ideas and the power of expressing them. From the first the Apostles were seized with the conviction that it was only by preaching they could convert the world. Their simple method was to go to the synagogues on the Sabbath, where all their religiously - inclined countrymen were sure to be gathered together, and taking advantage of the liberty of speech allowed, " they reasoned with them out of the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." When a Rabbi, recently come from Jerusalem or even 1 1 Cor. xiv. 26. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 127 any jDart of Juclea, appeared in a synagogue in any Gentile city, there was a general expectation that he would speak and communicate the latest religious intelligence. ^ We have no means of knowing what were the oratorical powers of the Twelve, unless it be the speech delivered by Peter on the first Chris- tian Pentecost, and the form in which w^e have it is obviously imperfect." But Paul, though he some- times speaks depreciatingly of his own powers of speech, was undoubtedly a great orator. And he knew his power. " Christ," said he, "' sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel , . . for the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolish- ness; but unto us that are being saved it is the power of God."^ The Apostle is here evidently referring to his own oratorical triumphs, and there is a strange mixture of humility and of consciousness of power in what he says. Human nature was the same eighteen hundred years ago as it is now, and therefore we may be quite sure it w^as only by powerful and impassioned eloquence that Paul moved the hearts of men where- ever he went. Even the sublime truths of Chris- tianity, though then presented for the first time to a world weary of idolatry, would not have awakened the interest they did, unless spoken by a man whose tongue w^as tipped with fire. There are passages 1 Ederslieim's " Life and Times of Jesus," vol. i, - Acts ii. 14-39. 3 j Qqj.^ i 17^ js. 128 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. both in Komans and Corinthians which rise to the height of genuine eloquence ; and we must remember there is always something in eloquence which cannot be committed to paper and handed down from age to age. Look at the published sermons of White- field. Are these the sermons that moved all England and America ? that were pronounced, by competent judges, to have transcended all ancient and all modern fame ? We read them, and fail to feel their power. The volatile essence which gave them their aroma and their energy has evaporated and left them stale, Hat, and unprofitable. We must, therefore, bear in mind that the grandest passages in the Pauline writings do not give us an adequate idea of Paul the preacher. He must have been a great preacher — his whole history proves it. There would have been no mobbings at Ephesus if the invectives of the Apostle against magic and idolatry had not roused the whole city. The Areopagites at Athens w^ould not have troubled themselves to listen to the obscure preacher of an obscure faith. Agrippa would not have shown such anxiety to hear Paul plead before him unless he had heard he was a great orator. In tracing the causes of the rapid spread of Christianity, Gibbon omits one of the most powerful — an inspired eloquence. But Christianity was not spread so fast and so far by the preaching of any one man, however eloquent. There were many humble imitators of the LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 129 great Apostle not all eloquent, but all earnest. In those stirring times every one who could preach was not only permitted but encouraged to do so, and this freedom continued so long as the Christian enthusiasm was strong. " Many of the Christians," says Celsus, by way of ridicule and reproach, " without any special calling, watch for all oppor- tunities, and both within and without the temples boldly proclaim their faith. They find their way into the cities and armies, and there having called the people together, harangue them with fanatical gestures."^ Let us now take a look at a Christian assembly about the middle of the second century. Justin Martyr enables us to see what is passing there. " On the day called Sunday," says he, " all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writ- ings of the prophets are read so long as time permits ; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things."^ Moral and religious education is still, as it was a century before, one of the main objects of the gathering. Let us go down half a century further, and now Tertullian will be our guide. " We as- semble," he says, " to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful. However it be, in that respect, 1 Origen, "Contra Celsura," vii. 9. ^ "I Apology," 67. K 130 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. in. with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we ani- mate our hopes, we make our confidence more stead- fast, and no less by inculcations of God's precepts we confirm good habits. In the same place also exhorta- tions are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered."^ But the bishops and presbyters did not confine their teaching to the little group of earnest people who met in their first-day assemblies. They wrote apologies for their faith and refutations of the heresies which had cropped up, and notwithstanding the diffi- culty of multiplying MS. copies, they maDaged to make these known far beyond the Christian circle. In a very short time every one, from the Emperor downwards, knew something about the new religion ; and if we could penetrate the inner life of the period, we should certainly find that there were discussions in countless coteries regarding the new theological and moral teaching, and the futurity it opened up to the human family. "Almost the entire world," says Origen, "is better acquainted with what Chris- tians preach than with the favourite opinions of philosophers. For who is ignorant of the statement" that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that He was crucified, and that His resurrection is an article of faith among many, and that a general judgment is announced to come, in which the wicked are to be punished according to their deserts, and the righteous 1 " Apologeticup," 39. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 131 to be duly rewarded?"^ If so it was, less than 200 years after the death of Christ, we can guess how industriously and effectually the Christians had promulgated their tenets, and how largely these were now influencing the thinking of the time. It is beyond all question that the gospel biogra- phies, and the Epistles of the Apostles, and the apologies of the martyrs, and the preaching of the primitive bishops, gave a great impulse to religious speculation. It imported Jewish earnestness into the midst of easy-going paganism. It brought dis- cussions about "the divine" and "the human," and the relation between them, from the Academy and the Porch, and placed them where they should be in the market-place and the church. Christianity was re- cognised to be as much a philosophy as a religion. It had doctrines to be studied, known, developed into all their fulness of meaning. Many philosophers left the schools and joined the Church, dissatisfied with the old philosophical solutions of the problems of life. Justin came still wearing his Stoic's gown. Gnosticism — an aiming at a higher knowledge — sprang up, and though it generated in its hot -bed many most grotesque and fantastic fancies, we must not fororet that it orio^inated in the sublime endeavour to solve such great questions as the origin of evil under the government of an all-oood God, and of ^ Origen, " Contra Celsum," i. 7. 132 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. how the absolute and the infinite can be reconciled with the conditioned and the finite in this gross o material universe. Out of all this fermentation of religious thought arose neo-Platonism. When the priests were unable to save themselves, when their sacrifices and auguries only provoked ridicule, and they were unable to say a word in their defence, the philosophers of Alex- andria came to their rescue. To meet the Christian philosophy they invented a philosophy of heathenism. They endeavoured to show that the traditions about the gods were grand myths, pregnant with meaning ; that the popular worship, absurd in itself, was sym- bolical of high religious verities ; that we must rise from the conditioned to the absolute, from the seeming to the real ; and that it were wrong to abandon an old faith, which, under popular and beautiful forms, contained eternal and immutable truths. Here was the most subtle and skilful defence which paganism had yet thrown up against the assaults of Christianity. It was easy to laugh at the old gods and goddesses — their follies, their amours, their crimes. It was easy to ask if a statue, however cunningly chiselled, could help a man in his time of need. The first apologists of Christianity positively revelled in their ridicule of the popular mythology. But when they were told by Plotinus, Porphyry, lamblicus, and Hypatia that the stories they ridiculed were nothing but myths, but myths LECT. in. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 1.33 with manifold and beautiful meanings, it was not quite so easy to continue the laugh against the worshippers of Athene or Zeus. Happily the Church had now enlisted in its ranks men who were able to meet these pagan philosophers on their own ground — men who had the Alexan- drian speculativeness combined with Christian faith. The greatest of these was Origeu, who, though accused of heresy in his own day, and altogether hete- rodox according to the standard of ours, did more than any other man to stem the current of reviving paganism, and promote a cultured though somewhat dubious Christianity. After him, and at a consider- able distance, Chrysostom and Basil and the two Gregories in the pulpits of the East, and Hippolytus, Ambrose, and Augustine in the Churches of the West, gave the deathblow to the old superstitions, and com- pleted the triumph of the religion of the Nazarene. The ancient religions, so far as they had a system of beliefs, locked it up in the arcana of their temples, or hid it in the bosoms of their priests. They were mysteries, and not for the profane vulgar. When Christianity brought its system of doctrine out to the market - place and the meeting - house, to be known of all and disputed by all, it was a prodigious development in the religious evolution of the world. It was the beginning of the era of free thought. It was the first stroke of doom to priestcraft. For a time the leaders of the Church had to restrain rather 134 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. iii. than excite the crowd of woulcl-be teachers.^ Prob- ably the gospel, as we now have it, was never more effectively preached than it was by Paul ; but there was only one Paul. Eloquence, like poetry and art, is of ancient date, and soon reached its perfection ; and thus it happened that the first preacher of Chris- tianity (after Christ Himself) still occupies the foremost place. But when Paul was martyred he left no one behind him who could fill his place ; and so sacred eloquence declined. Among the enthusiasts who went about teaching and preaching the new doctrines, no doubt there would be some born orators, but the majority must have been men of a different stamp — blind leaders of the blind — and this is probably one of the causes of the almost uni- versal contempt with which Christianity was regarded by the educated classes in Greece and Italy. But there was earnestness, which is very contagious ; and truth, which is very powerful ; and a multitude of quiet workers bringing the outcasts of the world and the labourers and heavy-laden into the Church, that there they might find rest and the hope of a fast-, coming millennium. Gradually the first enthusiasm abated, the num- ber of prophets, apostles, and teachers lessened, and the regular office-bearers of the Church, the presbyter- bishops — men who were mainly elected to their 1 This appears from expressions of both Paul and James already quoted, pp. 21, 22. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 135 offices on account of their educational aptitude — were left to do the teaching and preaching. All exj^erience shows that men trained to a special work, and chosen specially to do it, will do it better than amateurs, unless in a few exceptional cases, where native genius overcomes all difficulties. We may believe, therefore, there would be a gradual development of church education and oratory — in other words, of teaching and preaching — from this time onward. Two things in connection with this are to be specially noted as developments — (1st) The rise of the kind of composition or address called the homily ; (2d) The rise of Catechetical schools and Catechumenism (if I may use such a word). 1. The Homily. — The word comes from the Greek ''O/itXta, which means primarily conversation or familiar intercourse. This indicates what the homily originally was — the easy educational inter- course between the presbyter -bishop and his little flock, in which there was probably a considerable mixture of discussion, with questioning and answer- ing on both sides.^ Gradually the address would 1 To show how the same methods will naturally, almost neces- sarily, be employed in similar circumstances, I give the following short extract from a letter of the Reverend G. Cockburn, Ichang, China, of date 9th July 1884:— "The Catechist and myself have preached daily to the heathen, about fifty being an average attend- ance. In this daily preaching we do not confine ourselves to the delivery of prepared addresses or sermons, but enter freely into con- versation with the people. By question and answer, and allowing the utmost freedom of discussion, we endeavour at once to enlist 136 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. become more formal as the bishop - presbyter rose above his co-religionists, and as the doctrines of the Church took form and hardened. Thus the word came to indicate generally the discourses delivered in the churches by the Greek Fathers. The same dis- courses were called by the Latins " tractatus," from which come our words tracts and treatises. The Latin " sermo " in this sense, from which comes our familiar word sermon, appears to have been of a later usage. But they all indicate the same thing — the expositions of the sacred books, and the discus- sions of moral and religious subjects delivered either to the catechumens or the baptized, as the case mio'ht be.^ The earliest example of a homily we have is the composition usually designated the Second Epistle of Clement, but which is now, from internal evidence, regarded not as an ejDistle but a homily, and not as the composition of Clement, but of some unknown writer in the second century.^ It has no merit, gives one a mean idea of the preacher, and, what is worse, the attention and meet the difBculties of the hearers." (" Church of Scotland Mission Record," Nov. 1, 1884.) ^ " The homilies, which the Latins call treatises, and which we call sermons, were moral instructions upon the Holy Scriptures." — Dupin, " Eccles. Hist. — On Origen." 2 The first complete text of this homily was found by Bryennios (whose learned labours in this field of discovery have been already mentioned), and published in 1875. In the following year a Syriac version of the same text was found by Mr. Bensley. It is given in the second edition of Bishop Lightfoot's " Apostolic Fathers." LECT. III. THE 'CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 137 quotes as the sayings of Jesus words which we feel certain He never could have uttered. There were eminent homilists in the third century, but it is doubtful if Origen, with all his learning, was a great preacher, albeit he left 200 homilies behind him ; and though we cannot doubt but Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian of Carthage were as eloquent in the pulpit as out of it, no proper specimens of their pulpit oratory have come down to our day. The fourth and fifth centuries were the age of the great homilists. The art then reached its highest perfection in the ancient Church ; it was, in some respects, the product of a slow OTOwi;h, but it was then stimulated into unusual luxuriance by its temporary surroundings. Pulpit eloquence was then exerting an enormous influence not only on the Church, but on the Court and the outside world ; it was having at once its proudest triumphs and its most splendid rewards. Among the Greek preachers John of the Golden Mouth un- doubtedly stands first ; Basil is generally placed second ; and after him come the Gregories — Nazianzen and Nyssen. Among the Latins, Augustine and Ambrose are much the most famous. The homilies which they and others have left behind them, and which have been preserved with such pious care, are so numerous that they would form a library by themselves. Notwithstanding an obscure passage in Sozomen, in which it is said that "in the city of Rome the 138 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. people were not taught by the bishop, nor by any one in the Church,"^ we may regard it as a certain fact that homiletic preaching was universal in the early Church both in the East and the West. The bishop preached in the cathedral church, the pres- byter in the suburban church. The Councils of Laodicsea, of Valentia, and of Constantinople 171 Trullo all speak of preaching as an essential part of the epis- copal work ; and in both the Theodosian and Justinian Codes it is declared sacrilege to neglect it. The Church was still an educational institute : the clergy were the teachers of the people. The learned Bingham discriminates four different types of homily: — (l) Expositions of the sacred 1 "In this city (Rome) the people are not tauglit by the bishop, nor by any one in the Church, At Alexandria the bishop alone teaches the people, and it is said that this custom has prevailed there ever since the days of Arius, who, though but a presbyter, broached a new doctrine." Book vii. chap. xix. Sozomen is here speaking of eccle- siastical peculiarities. " Different customs," says he, "prevail in many churches where the same doctrines are received." Here there seems to be a contrast between Rome and Alexandria. In Rome the bishop did not teach ; in Alexandria the bishop only taught. In Alexandria the presbyters were prohibited from preaching since the days of Arius ; in Rome, it may be inferred, the presbj'ters were the onlj^ teachers, and they did not teach in the church. These were the distinctive pecu- liarities of the two cities. Cassiodorus, who was himself a Senator and Consul and Praefectus Prtetorio at Rome, quotes the passage in his " Historia Tripartita," and adds — " That no one can produce any ser- mon preached to the people of Rome before Leo " — that is, before A.D. 440, or thereby. This is rather perplexing ; but it must either mean that the homiletic art had not yet been developed at Rome, and that instruction was there carried on in a more humble way, or that Rome had not yet produced any great preacher whose homilies could be placed beside those of the Eastern fathers. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 139 books ; (2) Panegyrical discourses upon the saints and martyrs ; (3) Sermons on special occasions and festivals, as on the Nativity, the Epiphany, Lent, Easter, etc. ; (4) Sermons on doctrinal or moral sub- jects.^ The division is a judicious one, and examples of each kind may be found in Chrysostom or Ambrose or Auo-ustine. The greater number of the homilies of these celebrated men were carefully prepared before they were preached, but extemporary preaching was not altogether unknown (how could it ?), and in some cases shorthand writers, then as now, caught up the words of the preacher and gave them permanence.'^ In certain circumstances the published homilies of eminent fathers might be used by others, just as the " Book of Homilies " in the Church of England was meant to be used by unpractised preachers. Thus, in the Church of the fifth century, there had grown up almost all the pulpit usages which have again grown up in our own country and time under the pressure of similar circumstances.^ But there were some peculiar developments con- nected with the preaching of the Patristic Church which it is right I should explain. The preacher usually sat, after the manner of the rulers of the synagogue and of Jesus Himself, while the people stood and listened. We have a vestige of this in the open floors of cathedral churches. The sermon was o-enerally prefaced by a Pax Vobis, and sometimes by 1 Bingham, book xiv. chap. iv. - Ibid. ^ Ibid. 140 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. a short prayer for spiritual illumination. It always concluded with a doxology. Sometimes the bishop or presbyter preached without any text, but usually he fixed upon some passage from the psalm or the gospel or epistle for the day, a practice which con- tinues in the Church of England to the present time. The sermons were of all lengths — some would not occupy ten minutes in the delivery, some must have occupied nearly an hour. Two hours was the time usually assigned to the whole service, so that in this respect there is a curious resemblance between the ancient and the modern Church. In all this we see how the free discussions of the Pauline Churches and the conversational style of the first homilies had given way to a stifier and more methodised service.^ The most remarkable usage still remains. The people were accustomed to applaud the preacher by clapping their hands, by stamping their feet, by waving their handkerchiefs, by shouting " Orthodox ! orthodox !" or, if any reference had been made to a heretic, by muttering " Anathema ! anathema ! " Sometimes, when individuals were deeply affected they gave vent to sobbing and groans, while others moved their bodies to and fro, " like the waves of the sea moved by the wind." These penitential demonstra- tions, as we aU know, have not wholly died out. They are repeated at this day in the meetings of the Methodists, at the gatherings of revival preachers, 1 Bingham, book xiv. chap. iv. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 141 and in many Highland congregations. How like is human nature in all a2;es ! It is curious that the very same motion — the swinging of the body to and fro, like a wave of the sea — should sometimes be seen still when Highland women are agitated by the preaching of some favourite minister. Such men as Chrysostom and Augustine ingenuously confess that they did not dislike the applause they received, though they protest they would rather be answered by groans and tears. ^ Others, who were not so con- fident of their pulpit power, hired persons to applaud them, as claquers are now paid to lead the applause in the theatre ; and Paul of Antioch did not hesitate to censure his congregation if they did not applaud him enough.^ After the sixth century preaching began to de- cline. Sacramentalism was choking it out. The darkness of the Dark Ages was coming on. Before the eighth century bishops had almost ceased to preach ; even parish priests preached seldom. On the outskirts of Christendom zealous missionaries were still preaching and driving back paganism ; and in the thirteenth century the Dominicans, or preach- ing friars, were instituted ; it was the first ray of ^ Bingham, book xiv. chap. iv. 2 Eusebius, " Eccles. Hist.," vii. 30. — "Reproving and insulting those that did not applaud nor clap as in the theatres, nor exclaim and leap about at these things with his partisans, the men and women around him who were the indecent listeners to these things ; but I say reproving those that were modestly and orderly hearing as in the house of God." 142 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. returning light ; and it must have been a great day in the parish church when the black-gowned Domini- can took his place in the pulpit and harangued the people on the virtues of indulgences and the merits of the saints. So things continued till the Reformation, when preaching a second time revolutionised the world. 2. The Catechetical School and Catechumen - ISM. — When we now speak of a catechism, we under- stand a book in which instruction is given by way of question and answer. To catechise is to question. But that is not the original meaning of the words, nor is it the meaning they bore in early Christian literature. Catechetical instruction is simply element- ary instruction ; and a catechumen was one who was receiving such instruction in order to being received into the Church by baj)tism. It is more than probable, however, that this instruction was frequently given by question and answer, and that thence came the modern meaning of the words. The whole system connected with catechumenism arose from the circumstances in which the Patristic Church was placed, and is accordingly peculiar to the Patristic period. The Church was then making its most brilliant conquests over the surrounding heathenism. It was acquiring converts in every quarter. But the majority of these converts were profoundly ignorant of the system of religious truth which they had embraced. Some of them had, per- LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 143 haps, determined to join the Christians in a moment of enthusiasm, to which they had been stirred by the appeal of some impassioned preacher ; some had been won by the pure lives of the brethren; some had been touched by the heroic endurance of the martyrs ; some had been allured by the half-sensuous expect- ations of Chiliasm, or the more spiritual hope of heaven. Many of them could know nothing or next to nothing of the speculations of St. Paul, or of the still more mystical theology which was at that very time being developed. You remember those Ephe- sian converts who, when they w^ere questioned regarding the Holy Ghost, replied with surprising ingenuousness and even naivete that they did not so much as know whether there was a Holy Ghost. Shall we believe that proselytes gathered out of the temples of Rome, and Corinth, and Athens knew more of the Christian theology, even though they were willing to assume the Christian name, and were probably to some extent affected by the Christian spirit ? But there were other circumstances which increased the number of the catechumens. Many then regarded baptism with the same superstitious awe with which some people now regard the Last Supper, and refused to be washed in its waters. This feelino; was increased by the belief, already prevalent in the second century, that baptism was tantamount to regeneration — that in its sacred bath all sin was washed away, and that 144 THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. lect. hi. the baptized one emerged from the wonder-working waters a new creature. From this it was inferred by many pious souls that it would be well to defer bap- tism till death was near, that so they might go fresh from the purifying laver to the paradise of God. This belief kept back thousands from the font, and it is known to all the world that the great Constantine obstinately put off his baptism till he was near his death, and that even when he was dictating to the Council of Nicsea, and fixing the faith of the world, he occupied in the Church only the humble position of a catechumen. Let us see, then, what was the place of the cate- chumen, and what were the methods employed for his instruction. All persons within the Church, who were still unbaptized, were ranked as catechumens. In this class were embraced all the converts from heathenism who had not yet received the holy rite, and all those members of Christian families who had not been baptized in their infancy — for infant bap- tism was by no means universal in the third century, and in the second century it was certainly rare, prob- ably unknown.^ These were sometimes called "Novi- tioli," sometimes " Tyrones Dei," and they may be said to correspond, in some respects, to those who in our own day are adherents of the Church but not com- municating members. They were regarded as occupying the lowest grade 1 Tertullian, " De Baptismo," cap, xviii. LECT. III. THE CHURCH AS A TEACHER. 145 in the gospel kingdom — better tlian heathens — better than heretics — but by no means perfect Christians. And the C^hurch in those days delighted to make patent to all the world the difference between the perfect and the imperfect Christian character. But even amons; the catechumens there were at least two grades — the audientes and competentes} The former were admitted to the churches — for the church-doors were open to all, even to the heathens — but it was only to listen to the Scripture lessons and the sermons : it was not permitted to them to join in the prayers, much less to behold the holy mysteries connected with the Sacraments. Before these were begun, they were commanded to withdraw like the profane and the unclean — "Nequis audientium."" The "competentes" or " genuilectentes " (