PRESEISTTED TO THE LIBRARY Off PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BY jVIPs. Aie:!i;andei:' Proudfit. HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. HISTORY CHEISTIAI^ CHUKCH. PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., AFTHOE OP THE HI8T0ET OF THE APOSTOLIC OHUECn. FKOM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE REIGN OF CONSTANTIIfE, A. D. 1—311. LIBRARY OF PRINCETON nui r\no THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY NEW YOEK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLIX. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, By CHAELES SCRIBNEK, In the Clerk's OflSce of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. B. OBAIOBEAD, Printer, Siereotyper, ami Klectiocypw Carton lUiiIliing, 81, S3, and iS Centre Utrcct. PREFACE Encouraged by the favorable reception of my History of the Apostolic Church, I now offer to the pubUc a History of the Primitive Church from the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine, as an independent and complete ■work in itself, and at the same time as the first volume of a general history of Christianity, which I promised several years ago, and which I hope, with the help of Grod, to bring down to the present age. The church of the first three centuries, or the ante-Nicene age, possesses a pecuHar interest for Christians of all denominations, and has often been separately treated, by Eusebius, Mosheim, MUman, Kaye, Baur, Hagenbach, and other distinguished historians. It is the daughter of Apostolic Chris- tianity, which itself constitutes the first and by far the most important chapter in its history, and the common mother of CathoHcism and Protestantism, though <^ materially difiering from both. It presents a state of primitive simphcity and purity unsullied by contact with the secular power, but with this also, the fiindamental forms of heresy and corruption, which reappear from time to time under new names and aspects, but must serve, in the overruling providence of God, to promote the cause of truth and righteousness. It is the heroic age of the church, and unfolds before us the sublime spectacle of our holy rehgion in intellectual and moral conflict with the combined supersti- tion, policy, and wisdom of ancient Judaism and Paganism ; yet growing in persecution, conquering in death, and amidst the severest trials giving birth to principles and institutions which, in more matured form, still control the greater part of Christendom. Without the least disposition to detract from the merits of my numerous predecessors, to several of whom I feel deeply indebted, I have reason to hope, that this new attempt at a historical reproduction of ancient Christianity wUl meet a want in our theological literature and commend itself, both by its VI PREFACE. spirit and method, and by presenting with the author's own labors the results of the latest German and English research, to the respectful attention of the American student. Having no sectarian ends to serve, I have confined ^ myself to the duty of a witness — to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; always remembering, however, that history has a soul as well as a body, and that the ruling ideas and general principles must be represented no less than the outward facts and dates. A church history without the life of Christ glovring through its pages could give us at best only the picture of a temple stately and imposing from without, but vacant and dreary within, a mummy in praying posture perhaps and covered with trophies, but withered and unclean : such a history is not worth the trouble of writing or reading. Let the dead bury their dead ; we prefer to live among the Uving, and to record the immortal thoughts and deeds of Christ in and through his people, rather than dwell upon the outer hulls, the trifling acci- dents and temporary scaffolding of liistory, or give too much prominence to Satan and his infernal tribe, whose works Christ came to destroy. The account of the apostohc period, which forms the divine-human basis of the whole structure of history, or the ever living fountain of the unbroken stream of the church, is here necessarily short and not intended to supersede my larger work, although it presents more than a mere summary of it, and "^ views the subject in part under new aspects. For the history of the second period, which constitutes the body of this volume, large use has been made of the new sources of information recently brought to hght, such as the Syriac and Armenian Ignatius, and especially the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus. The bold and searching criticism of modern German historians as apphed to the apostolic and post-apostolic Hterature, though often arbitrary and untenable in its results, has nevertheless done good service by removing old prejudices, placing many things in a new Hght, and conducing to a comprehensive and organic view of the living process and gradual growth of ancient Christianity in its distinctive character, both in its unity with, and difference from, the preceding age of the apostles and the succeeding systems of CathoUcism and Protestantism. In the notes it has been thought preferable to quote sparingly, and only from primary sources, without distracting the attention o? the reader by all sorts of opinions and conjectures of later historians. But at the head of the leading sections he will find a select bibhographical apparatus, in chronological order, directing him to the best original and secondary authorities for more minute information. This apparatus includes many English and American works which have escaped the attention of German scholars, otherwise so famihar with the remotest recesses of ancient literature. Owing to the want of aid in this direction and my distance from large University libraries, I had to col- (. PREFACE. vil lect them with considerable trouble, and must plead the indulgence of the reader if the hst be still defective. It is to be regretted that English scholars are not more careful in referring to authorities, and mostly neglect to men- tion the place and date of pubhcation, as well as the edition made use of, so that it is often impossible to verify their quotations. Bibhography, " the mariner's compass in learning," has been rather neglected in England. Lowndes' Manual, however, as revised and enlarged by Henry G. Bohn, two parts of which have quite recently come to hand, promises when com- pleted and brought down to the present time to remedy this defect, and to be a valuable help to bibUographers. In conclusion I must express, in this pubUc way, my sense of obligation to the Rev. Edward D. Yeomans, for his assistance in the preparation of this work. After I had vrritten a large portion of the present volume and succeeding periods in EngUsh, and submitted several chapters to him for revision, he expressed the wish that I might rewrite the whole in my native German, which I did. The suggestion, I am now convinced, has had a happy effect upon the plan, the contents, and the present form of the work. He has executed the translation from my manuscripts with a rare degree of ability and the most conscientious fideUty, and thus given it a far more genuine English dress than I could have done myself. In the final revision and the numerous additions to his translation I have taken care not to deface the unity of style, although there may be still occasional Germanisms or other defects, for which I beg alone to be held responsible. I sincerely hope that my esteemed friend may be rewarded for his arduous labor by the same unquahfied approval as that bestowed upon his translation of my History of the Apostohc Church, in regard to which a competent critic and dis- tinguished writer remarked, that it has "all the ease and freedom, the organic fitness of the word to the thought, in short, the entire at-homeness of the substance in the form, as if it were the original language of the composition ; insomuch that one would scarcely suspect it of being a translation, unless he were told so." And now I commit this work to the great Head of the church with the prayer that, under his blessing, it may aid in promoting a correct knowledge of his heavenly kingdom on earth, and in setting forth its history as a book of life, a storehouse of wisdom and piety, and the surest test of his own promise to his people •, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." P. a Theological Seminary, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Nov. 8, 1858. TABLE OF CONTENTS. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. § 1 Nature of Church History, 1 § 2 Branches of Church History, 4 § 3 Sources of Church History, 6 § 4 Duty of the Historian, 1 § 5 Division of Church History, 10 § 6 Uses of Church History, 15 § t Literature of Church History, 15 FIRST PERIOD. THE CHURCH UNDER THE APOSTLES, A.D. 1-100. § 8 General Character of the ApostoUc Period, 20 CHAPTER I. PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY. § 9 Central Position of Christ in the History of the World, ... 32 § 10 Judaism, . . . _ 34 § 11 The Law and Prophecy, 38 § 12 Heathenism, 41 § 13 Grecian Literature and the Roman Empire, 45 § 14 Judaism and Heathenism in contact, 49 CHAPTER n. FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. § 15 Jesus Christ, S3 § 16 The Miracle of P«ntecost, and the Birth-day of the Church, • - 59 TABLE OF CONTENTS. § 17 St. Peter, and the Church among the Jews, § 18 Preparation for the Mission to the Gentiles, § 19 St. Paul, and the Church among the Gentiles, § 20 Collision and Reconciliation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, § 21 St. John, and the Last Stadium of the Apostolic Period, FAOB 61 66 67 74 78 CHAPTER III. APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY AXD LITERATURE. §22 Unity of the Apostolic Doctrine, § 23 Different Types of the Apostolic Doctrine, . § 24 Heretical Perversions of the Apostolic Doctrine, § 25 Rise of the ApostoUc Literature, § 26 Character of the New Testament, § 27 The Gospels, § 28 The Acts of the Apostles, § 29 The Catholic Epistles, §30 The Epistles of Paul, . §31 The Revelation of John, 81 84 87 90 92 94 98 99 101 107 CHAPTER IV. CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORSHIP. 32 Christianity and Individual Life, 33 Christianity and Society, 34 The Spiritual Gifts, . 35 Christian "Worship, 36 The Several Parts of "Worship, 37 Baptism, .... 38 The Lord's Supper, 39 Sacred Places and Times, . 109 111 114 118 119 122 125 127 CHAPTER V. ORGANIZATION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. § 40 The Ministry of the Gospel, § 41 Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, . § 42 Presbyters, Deacons, Deaconesses, § 43 The Council at Jerusalem, . § 44 Church Discipline, § 45 The Church, the Body of Christ, 130 132 133 136 136 138 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI SECOND PEEIOD. FROM THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLES TO CONSTANTINE, A.D. 100-3 IL PAG3 § 46 Introductory View, 144 CHAPTER I. SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITT. § 47 Hindrances and Helps, . .148 § 48 Christianity in Asia and Africa, 153 § 49 Oiiristianity in Europe, 164 CHAPTER II. PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM. § 50 Jewish Persecution, 156 § 51 Heathen Persecutions. Its causes and effects, 158 § 53 Condition of the Church from Nero to Nerva, 162 § 53 From Trajan to Antoninus Pius, 163 § 54 Persecutions under Marcus AureUus, WG § 55 From Septimius Severus to Philip the Arabian, 168 § 56 Persecutions under Decius and Valerian, 171 § 57 The Dioclesian Persecution, and the Edict of Toleration, . . , 174 § 58 Christian Martyrdom, 177 §59 Rise of the Worship of Martyrs and Relics, 181 CHAPTER III. LITERARY CONTEST OF CHRISTIANITY WITH JTIDAISM AND HEATHENISM. § 60 Opponents of Christianity. Tacitus, Celsus, Lucian, .... 185 § 61 Neo-Platonism. Porphyry and Hierocles, 190 § 62 Summary of the Objections to Christianity, 195 § 63 The Apologetic Literature of Christianity, 196 § 64 The Argument against Judaism, 198 § 65 The Defence against Heathenism, 200 § 66 The Positive Apology, 205 CHAPTER IV. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH DOCTRINE IN CONFLICT WITH HERESY. § 67 Judaism and Heathenism as Heresy within the Church, . . . 210 § 68 Ebionism, 212 § 69 The Pseudo-Clementine Ebionism, 315 § 70 Gnosticism. Its Name, Origin, and Outward History, . • . . 321 § 71 The System of Gnosticism, 225 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAoa § 72 The Several Schools of Gnosticism, 233 § 73 Manichaeism, 246 § 74 The CathoUc Theology, 251 § 75 The Holy Scripturea and the Canon, 254 § 76 Tradition and the Apostles' Creed, 258 § 77 God and the Creation, 263 § 78 The Logos and the Incarnation, 266 § 79 Christology, continued 274 § 80 Tlie Holy Ghost, 277 § 81 The Holy Trinity, 281 § 82 Anti-Trinitarians. First Class, 287 § 83 Anti-Trinitarians. Second Class, 290 § 84 Redemption, 294 § 85 Chiliaam, 299 CHAPTER V. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IN CONTRAST WITH PAGAN CORRUPTION. § 86 Moral Corruption in the Roman Empire, 302 § 87 The Christian Morality m General, 306 § 88 Opposition to Pagan Amusements and Callings, 310 § 89 The Church and Slavery, "* 315 § 90 Prayer and Fasting, 321 § 91 Marriage and Family Life, 325 § 92 Brotherly Love and Love for Enemies, 336 § 93 Treatment of the Dead. The Church in the Catacombs, . . . 341 § 94 Asceticism, 346 § 95 Voluntary Poverty and CeUbacy, 351 § 96 Celibacy of the Clergy, 358 § 97 Montanism, 361 CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTUN -WORSHIP. § 98 Places of Common Worship, 370 § 99 Weekly and Yearly Festivals, 372 § 100 Christian Symbols, 377 § 101 Public Worship, 881 § 102 The Eucharist, 386 § 103 Baptism and Catechetical Instruction. Confirmation. . . . 895 § 104 Infant Baptism and Heretical Baptism, 401 CHAPTER Vn. ORGANIZATION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. § 105 Clergy and Laity, 407 § 106 New Church Officers, 412 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xlll PAGB § 107 Origin of the Episcopate, 413 §108 Development of the Episcopate, 421 § 109 Beginaings of the Metropolitan and Patriarchal Systems, . . . 425 § 110 Germs of the Papacy, 426 § 111 The Catholic Unity, 432 § 112 Councils, 438 § 113 Collections of Ecclesiastical Laws, 440 § 114 Church DiscipUne, 443 § 116 Church Schisms, ... 447 CHAPTER Vm. THE CHURCH FATHERS AND THEIE WRITINGS. § 116 The Patristic Literature in general, . 452 § 117 The Apostolic Fathers, 456 § 118 Clement of Rome, .458 § 119 Ignatius of Antioch, 463 § 120 Critical Remarks on the Ignatian Controversy, 469 §121 Polycarp of Smyrna, 471 § 122 The other Apostohc Fathers, Barnabas, Hermas, Papias. The Epis- tle to Diognetus, ' . . . 475 § 123 Justin the Philosopher and Martyr, 481 § 124 The other Greek Apologists of the Second Century, .... 485 § 125 Irenaeus, 487 § 126 Hippolytus, 490 § 127 The Alexandrian School, 495 § 128 Clement of Alexandria, 498 § 129 Origen, 501 § 130 The other Greek Theologians of the Third Century, .... 509 §131 TertuUian and the African School, 511 § 132 Cyprian, 519 § 133 The other Latin Divines of the Third Century, 525 GENERAL INTPiODUCTION. LITERATUKE. C. Sagittarius: Introductio in historiam ecclesiasticam. Jen. 1694. F. Walch: Grundsiitze der zur K. Gesch. nothigen Vorbereitungslehren u.. Biicherkenntnisse. 3d ed. Giess. 1793. Flugge: Emleitung in das Studium u. die Liter, der K. G. Gott. 1801. Mohler (R. C.) : Einlei- tung in die K. G. 1839 (Verm. Schriften, ed. Bollinger II. 261 sqq.). Kliefoth : Einleitung in die Dogmengeschichte. Parchim & Ludwigs- lust, 1839. Schaff : What is Church History ? A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development. Philad. 1846. H. B. Smith : Nature and Worth of the Science of Church History. Andover, 1851. E- P. Humphrey: Inaugural Address, delivered at the Danville Tlieol. Seminary. Cincinnati, 1854. E. Turnbull : Christ in History ; or, the Central Povrer among Men. Post. 1854. Shedd : Lectures on the Phi- losophy of History. And. 1856. R. D. Hitchcock : The True Idea and Uses of Ch. History. N. York, 1856, Bunsen : Gott in der Geschichte oder der Fortschritt des Glaubens an eine sittliche Weltordnung. Bd. I. Leipz. 1857 (Erstes Buch. Allg. Einleit. p. 1-134). A. P. Stanley: Three Introductory Lectures on the Study of Eccles. History. Lond. 1857. Compare also the introductory chapters of the general works on church his- tory; especially those of Fleury, Alzog, and Dollinger, on the Roman Catholic side, and, on the Protestant, those of Mosheim, Schroeckh; Gieseler, Hase, NiEDNEif, KuRTZ (Haudbuch. 3d ed. 1853. I. 1-45), and ScHAFF (History of the Apostohc Church ; with a General Introduc- tion to Ch. H. IST. York, 1853. p. 1-134). Neander goes in medias res without any formal introduction. § 1. Nature of Church History. The liistory of tlie cliurcli is tlie unfolding in time of the eternal purpose of redeeming love. It is tlie progressive deve- lopment of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, for the glory of 1 2 § 1. NATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. [gener. God and tlie salvation of the world. It begins witli the creation of Adam, who was himself a type of Christ, the second Adam , and with that j^romise of the serpent-bruiser, which relieved the loss of the paradise of innocence by the hope of future redemp- tion from the curse of sin. It comes down through the prepa- ratory revelations under the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets, to the immediate forerunner of the Saviour, who pointed his followers to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the \ world. But this^ part of its course was only introduction. Its proper starting-jDoint is the incarnation of the Eternal "Word, who dwelt among us and revealed his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth ; and next to this, the miracle of the first pentecost, when the church took her place as a Christian institution, filled with the spirit of the glorified Eedeemer and entrusted with the conversion of all nations. Jesus Christ, the God-man and Saviour of the world, is the author of the new creation, the soul and the head of the church, which is his body and his bride. In his person and work lies all the fulness of the Godhead and of renewed huma- nity, the whole plan of redemption, and the key of all history from the creation of man in the image of God to the resurrection of the body unto everlasting life. In the subjective sense of the word, considered as theological science and art, church history is the faithful and life-like description of the origin and progress of this heavenly kingdom. It aims to reproduce in thought and embody in language its outward and inward development down to the present time. It is a continuous commentary on the Lord's twin parables of the mustard-seed and of the leaven. It shows at once how Chris- tianity spreads over the world, and how it penetrates, transforms, and sanctifies the individual and all the departments and institu- tions of social life. It thus embraces not only the external for- tunes of Christendom, but more especially her inward experi- ence, her religious life, her mental and moral activity, her con- flicts with the ungodly world, her sorrows and sufierings, her joys and her triumphs over sin and error. INTROD.] § 1. . NATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 3 From Jesus Clirist, since his manifestation in the flesli, an unbroken stream of divine light and life has flowed through the waste of our fallen race ; and all that is truly great and good and holy in the annals of church history, is due, ultimately, to the impulse of his spirit. But he works upon the world through sinful and fallible men, who, while as self-conscious and free agents they are accountable for all their actions, must still, will- ing or unwilling, serve the great purpose of God. As Christ, also, in the days of his flesh, was hated, mocked, and crucified, his church likewise is assailed and persecuted by the powers of darkness. The history of Christianity includes therefore a his- tory of antichrist. With an unbroken succession of works of saving power and manifestations of divine truth and holiness, it uncovers also a fearful mass of corruption and error. The church militant must, from its very nature, be at perpetual war- fare with the world, the flesh, and the devil, both without acd even within. For as Judas sat among the apostles, so " the man of sin" sits in the temple of God ; and as even a Peter denied the Lord, though he afterwards wept bitterly and regained his - holy office, so do the disciples to this day deny him in word and deed. But then, church history also shows, that God is ever stronger than Satan, and that his kingdom of light puts the kingdom of . darkness to shame. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has bruised the head of the serpent. "With the crucifixion of Christ his resurrection also is repeated ever anew in the history of his church on earth ; and there has never yet been a day nor an hour without a^witness of his presence and power ordering all things according to his holy will. For he has received all power in heaven and in earth for the good of his people, and from his heavenly throne he rules even his foes. The infallible word of promise, confirmed by all experience, assures us, that all corrup- tions, heresies, and schisms must, under the guidance of divine wisdom and love, subserve the cause of truth, holiness, and unity ; till, at the last judgment, Christ shall make his enemies his footstool, and rule undisputed with the sceptre of righteous- 4 § 2. BRAXCIIES OF CHL'KCH HISTORY. [oEXKR. ness and peace, and his cTiurch shall realize her idea and destiny as " the fullness of him that filleth all in all." Then will history itself, in its present form, as a struggling and changeful development, give place to perfection, and the stream of time come to rest in the ocean of eternity. § 2. BrancJies of Clnircli IlistorTj. The kingdom of Christ, in its principle and aim, is as compre- hensive as humanity. It is truly catholic, designed and adapted for all nations and ages, for all the powers of the soul, and all classes of society. It breathes into the mind, the heart, and the will a higher, supernatural life, and consecrates the family, the state, science, literature, art, and commerce to holy ends, till finally God becomes all in all. Even the body, and the whole ■visible creation, which groans for redemption from its bondage to vanity and for the glorious liberty of the children of God, shall share in this universal transformation ; for we look for the resurrection of the bod}^, and for the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Accordingly church history has various departments, corre- sponding to the different branches of secular history and of natural life. The principal divisions are : 1. The history of missions, or of the spread of Christianity among unconverted nations, whether barbarous or civilized. This work must continue, till the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and Israel shall be saved. Besides foreign missions, there is also an equally important work of domestic missions, or the revival and reformation of lifeless or neglected portions of the church itself. 2. The history of persecution by hostile powers ; as by Juda- ism and Heathenism in the first three centuries, and by Moham- medanism in the middle age. This apparent repression of the church, however, proves a purifying process, brings out the moral heroism of martyrdom, and thus works in the end for the spread and establishment of Christianity. " The blood of mar- tyrs is the seed of the church." INTKOD.] § 2. BRANCHES OF CHURCH HISTORY. 5 Persecution, like missions, is both foreign and domestic. Be- sides being assailed from without, the church suffers also from intestine wars and persecutions. Witness the religious wars in France and Holland, the Thirty Years' War in Germany, the Puritan commotions in England; the crusade against the Albi- genses under Innocent III., the persecution of the Waldenses, and the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. These form the saddest and darkest chapter in the history of the church. But they show also the gradual progress of the truly Christian spirit of religious toleration and freedom. 3. The history of church government and discipline. The church is not only an invisible communion of saints, but at the same time a visible body, needing organs, laws, and forms, to regulate its activity. Into this department of history fall the various forms of church government; the apostolic, the primi- tive episcopal, the patriarchal, the papal, the consistorial, the presbyterial, the congregational, &c. ; and the history of the law and discipline of the church, and her relation to the state, under all these forms. 4. The history of worship or divine service, by which the church celebrates, revives, and strengthens her fellowship with her divine head. This falls into such subdivisions as the history of preaching, of catechisms, of liturgy, of sacred rites, esjoecially the sacraments, and of religious art, particularly sacred poetry and music. ^ The history of church government and the history of worship are often put together under the title of Ecclesiastical Antiqui- ties or Archaeology, and commonly confined to the patristic age, whence most of the catholic institutions and usages of the church date their origin. But they may as well be extended to the formative period of Protestantism. 5. The history of Christian life, or practical morality and religion ; — the exhibition of the distinguishing virtues and vices of different ages, of the development of Christian philanthropy, the regeneration of domestic and social life, the gradual abate- ment of slavery and other social evils, the reform of civil law 6 § 3. SOURCES OF CHURCH HISTORY. [geneb. and of government, the spread of civil and religious liberty, and the whole progress of civilization, under the influence of Chris- tianity. 6. The history of theology, or of Christian science and* literature. Each branch of theology, exegetical, doctrinal, ethical, historical, and practical, has a history of its own. But the history of doctrines is here the most important, and is there- fore frequently treated by itself. Its object is to show how the mind of the church has gradually apprehended and unfolded the divine truth given in the holy scriptures, how the teachings of scripture have come to form the dogmas of the church, and have grown into systems stamped with pubhc authority. This growth of the church in the -knowledge of the infallible word of God is a constant struggle against error and unbelief; and the history of heresies is an essential part of the history of doctrines. These departments of church history have not a merely external and mechanical but an organic relation to each other, and form one living whole ; and this relation the historian must show. Each j)eriod also is entitled to a pecuHar arrangement, according to its character. The number, order, and extent of the different divisions must be determined by their actual import ance at a given time. § 8. Sources of Church History. The sources of church history, the data on which we rely for our knowledge, are partly divine, partly human. For the his- tory of the kingdom of God from the fall to the incarnation and the apostolic age, we have the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments. But after the death of the apostles we have only human authorities, which of course cannot claim to be infal- lible. These human sources are partly written, partly unwritten. I. The written sources include : (a) Ofl&cial documents of ecclesiastical and civil authorities ; — acts of councils, confessions of faith, liturgies, church laws, and the official letters of popes, patriarchs, bishops, and synods. " (b) Private writings of personal actors in the history; — the INTUOD.] § 4. DUTY OF THE HISTORIAN. 7 works of the cliurcli fathers for the first six centuries, of the scholastic and mystic divines for the middle age, and of the reformers and their opponents for the sixteenth century. These documents are the richest mines for the historian. They give his- tory in its birth and actual movement. But they must be care- fully sifted and weighed ; especially the controversial writings, where fact is generally more or less adulterated with party spirit, heretical and orthodox, (c) Accounts of historians, whether friends or enemies, who were eye-witnesses of what they relate. The value of these depends, of course, on the capacity ajid credibility of the authors, to be determined by careful criticism. Subsequent historians can be counted among the direct and immediate sources, only so far as they have drawn from reliable and contemporary docu- ments, which have either been wholly or partially lost, like many of Eusebius' authorities for the period before Constantine, or are inaccessible to historians generally, as are the papal regesta f^ and other documents of the Vatican library. (d) Inscriptions, especially those on tombs and catacombs, revealing the faith and hope of Christians in times of persecu- tion. II. The unwritten sources are far less numerous ; church edi- fices, works of sculpture and painting, and other monuments, very important for the history of worship and ecclesiastical art, and significant of the religious spirit of their age. The Gothic cathedrals, for example, are a most instructive embodiment of mediseval Catholicism. § 4, Dull/ of the Historian. The first duty of the historian, which comprehends all others, is fidelity, the reproduction of the history itself, making it live again in his representation. His highest and only aim should be to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To be thus faithful he needs a threefold qualification, scientific, artistic, and religious, 1, He must master the sources. For this purpose he must bo 8 § -1. DUTY OF THE niSTOIlIAISr, [gener. acquainted with sucli auxiliary sciences as ecclesiastical philology (especially the Greek and Latin languages, in which most of the earlier documents arc written), secular history, geography, and chronology. Then in making use of the sources, he must thoroughly and impartially examine their genuineness and inte- grity, and the credibility and capacity of the witnesses. Thus only can he duly separate fact from fiction, truth from error. 2. Then comes the comjDOsition. This is an art, subject to aes- thetic laws. It must not simply recount events, but reproduce the development of the church in living process. History is not a heap of dry bones, but an. organism filled and ruled by a rea- sonable soul. One of the greatest difficulties here lies in arranging the material. The best method in general is, no doubt, to combine judiciously the chronological and to23ical principles of division ; presenting at once the succession of events and the several parallel (and indeed interwoven) departments of the history in due proportion. Accordingly, we first divide the whole history into periods, not arbitrary, but furnished by the actual course of events ; and then present each of these periods in as many parallel sections or chap- ters as the material itself su2:o"csts. As to the number of the periods and chapters, and as to the arrangement of the chapters, there are indeed conflicting opinions, and in the application of our principle, as indeed in our whole representation, we can only make approaches to perfection. But the principle itself is never, theless the only true one. The ancient classical historians, and most of the English and French, generally present their subject in one homogeneous com- position of successive books or chapters, without rubrical divi- sion. This method might seem to bring out better the living unity and variety of the history at every point. Yet it really does not. Language, unlike the pencil and the chisel, can exhi- bit only the succession in time, not the local concomitance. And then this method, rigidl}' pursued, never gives a complete view of any one subject, of doctrine, worship, or practical lif(\ It con- stantly mixes the various topics, breaking ofi:' from one to bring INTROD.] § 4. DUTY OF THE HISTORIAN. 9 up another, even by tlie most sudden transitions, till tlie alterna- tion is exhausted. The German method of periodical and rubri- cal arrangement has certainly great practical advantages for the student in bringing to view the order of subjects, as well as the order of time. But it should not be made a uniform and mono- tonous mechanism, as is done in the Magdeburg Centuries and many subsequent works. For while history has its order, both of subject and of time, it is yet, like all life, full of variety. The period of the reformation requires a very different arrange- ment from the middle age. And in modern history the rubrical division must be combined with and made subject to a division by confessions and countries, as the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed churches in Grermany, France, England, and America. The best method, then, is that which reproduces both the unity and the variety of history, presenting the different tojoics in their separate completeness, without overlooking their organic connexion. Only the scheme must not be arbitrarily made, and then pedantically applied, as a Procrustean framework, to the history ; but deduced from the history itself, and varied as the facts require. 3. But both scientific research and artistic representation must be guided by a sound moral and religious spirit. The historian must first lay aside all prejudice and party zeal, and proceed in the pure love of truth. Not that he must become a tabula rasa. No man is able, or should attempt, to cast off all the educational influences which have made him what he is. But the historian of the church of Christ must in every thing be as true as possible to the objective fact, sine ira et studio ; do justice to every person and event ; and stand in the centre of Christianity, whence he may see all points in the circumference, all individual persons and events, all confessions, denominations, and sects, in their true relations to each other and to the glorious whole. Then he must be in thorough sympathy with his subject, and enthusiastically devoted thereto. As no one can interpret a poet without poetic feeling and taste, or a philosopher without speculative talent ; so no one can rightly comprehend and exhibit 10 § 5. DIVISIOX OF CnURCII HISTORY. [gexek. the liistorj of Christianity without a Christian spirit. An unbe- liever could produce only a repulsive caricature, or at best a lifeless statue. The higher the historian stands on Christian ground, the larger is his horizon, and the more full and clear his view of single regions below, and of their mutual bearings. Even error can be fairly seen only from the position of truth. "Yerum est index sui et falsi." Christianity is the absolute truth, which, like the sun, both reveals itself and enlightens all that is dark. So far as the historian combines these three qualiiications, he fulfils his office. In this life we can, of course, only approach perfection in this or in any other branch of study. Absolute suc- cess would require infallibility ; and this is denied to mortal man. The full solution of the mysteries of history is reserved for that heavenly state, when we shall see no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face, and shaU survey the developments of time from the heights of eternity. What St. Augustine so aptly says of the mutual relation of the Old and New Testament, " Novum Testamentum m Veie7-e lately Yetus in Novo 'paiet^'' may be applied also to the relation of this world and the world to come. The history of the church militant is, throughout, but a type and a prophecy of the triumphant kingdom of God in heaven — a prophecy which can be perfectly understood only in the glory of its fulfilment. § 5. Division of Church History. The purely chronological or annalistic method, though pur- sued by the learned Baronius and his continuators, is now gene- rally abandoned. It breaks the natural flow of events, separates things which belong together, and degrades history to a mere chronicle. The centurial plan, which prevailed from Flacius to Mosheim, is certainly an improvement. It allows a much better view of the progress and connexion of things. But it still imposes on the history a forced and mechanical arrangement; for the salient points or epochs very seldom coincide with the limits of INTROD.] § 5. DIVISION OF CHURCH HISTORY. 11 our centuries. The rise of Constantine, for example, together with the union of church and state, dates from the year 311 ; that of the absolute paj^acy, in Hildebrand, from 1019 ; the reformation from 1517 ; the peace of "Westphalia took place in 1648 ; the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England in 1620 ; the American emancipation in 1776 ; the French revolu- tion in 1789. The true division must grow out of the actual course of the history itself, and present the diiferent phases of its development or stages of its life. These we call periods or ages. In regard to their number and extent there is, indeed, no unanimity ; the less, on account of the various denominational differences esta- blishing different points of view, especially since the sixteenth century. The reformation, for instance, has less importance for the Eoman church than for the Protestant, and almost none for the Greek ; and while the edict of Nantes forms a resting-place in the history of French Protestantism, and the treaty of West- phalia in that of German, neither of these events had anything to do with English Protestantism, compared with the accession of Elizabeth, the rise of Cromwell, the restoration of the Stuarts, or the revolution of 1688. But, in spite of all confusion and difficulty in regard to details, it is generally agreed to divide the history of the church into three principal parts, ancient, mediee- val, and modern ; though there is not a like agreement as to the dividing epochs, or points of departure and points of termina- tion. 1. The history of the ancient church, from the birth of Christ to Gregory the Great (a.d. 1-590), is the age of the Graeco- Latin primitive Christianity, or of the church fathers. Its field is the countries around the Mediterranean ; western Asia, north- ern Africa, and southern Europe — just the theatre of the old Eoman empire and of classic heathendom. This age lays the foundation, in doctrine, government, and worship, for all the subsequent history. It is the common progenitor of all the various confessions. Among these first six centuries, the first century, or the 12 § 5. DIVISION OF CHURCH HISTORY. [geneh. apostolic period, the regulative and authoritative groundwork of the whole church, requires to be treated by itself. Then, at the beginning of the fourth century, the accession of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, marks a. most important turn ; Christianity rising from a persecuted sect to the prevail- ing religion of the Grasco-Roman empire. In the history of doctrines, the first ecumenical council of Nice, falling in the midst of Constantine's reign, a.d. 325, has the prominence of an epoch. Here, then, are three periods within the first or patristic age. 2. The middle age is variously reckoned — from Constantine, 806 or 311 ; from the fall of the West Roman empire, 476 ; from Gregory the Great, 590 ; from Charlemagne, 800. But it is very generally regarded as closing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and more precisely, at the outbreak of the reformation in 1517. Gregory the Great seems to us to form the most proper ecclesiastical point of division. "With him, the author of the Anglo-Saxon mission, the last of the church fathers, and the first of the proper popes, begins in earnest, and ■with decisive success, the conversion of the Germanic tribes, and, at the same time, the development of absolute papacy and the alienation of the eastern and western churches. This suggests the distinctive character of this middle age, the transition of the church from Asia and Aft-ica to middle and western Europe, from the Gr^co-Roman nationality to that of the Romanic and Germanic tribes, and from the culture of the ancient classic world to the modern civilization of Germanic Christendom. The great work of the church then was the conversion and edu- cation of the heathen barbarians, who conquered and demolished the Roman empire, indeed, but were themselves conquered and transformed by its Christianity. This work w^as performed mainly by the Latin church, under a firm hierarchical constitu- tion, culminating in the bishop of Rome. The Greek church, though she made some conquests among the Slavic tribes of eastern Europe, particularly in the Russian empire, since grown so important, was in turn sorely pressed and reduced by Moham- IXTROD.] § 5. DIVISION OF CHURCH HISTORY. 18 medanism in Asia and Africa, the very seat of primitive Cliris- tianity, and at last in Constantinople itself; and in doctrine, worship, and organization, she stopped at the position of the ( ecumenical councils and the ^patriarchal constitution of the fifth century. In the middle age, where the development of the hierarchy occupies the foreground, three poj^es stand out as representatives of as many epochs. Grregory I., or the Grreat (590), marks the rise of absolute papacy ; Gregory YII,, or Hildebrand (1049), its summit ; and Boniface VIII. (1294), its decline. Here we thus have again three periods in mediaeval church history. 3. Modern church history, from the reformation of the six- teenth century to the present time, moves chiefly among the Grermanic nations of middle and western Europe, and from the seventeenth century finds a vast new theatre in North America. ) Western Christendom now splits into two hostile parts — one holding on the old path, the other striking out a new one ; while the eastern church withdraws still further from the stage of his- tory, and presents a scene of almost undisturbed stagnation. Modern church history is the age of Protestantism in conflict with Eomanism, of religious liberty and independence in conflict with the principle of authority and tutelage, of individual and personal Christianity against an objective church system. Here again two or three different periods appear, which may be denoted briefly by the terms reformation, revolution, and restoration. The sixteenth century, next to the apostolic age the most fruitful and interesting period of church history, is the century of the Protestant renovation of the church, and the Roman coun- ter-reform. The seventeenth century is the period of scholastic orthodoxy, polemic confessionalism, and comparative stagnation. The reformatory motion ceases on the continent, but goes on in the mighty Puritanic struggle in England, which extends even into the primitive forests of the American colonies. Then comes the Pietistic and Methodistic reaction against dead orthodoxy and ( 14 § 5. DIVISION OF CnURCn history. [gexer. stiff formalism. In the Roman cliurcli Jesuitism prevails, but opposed by the half-evangelical Jansenism. In the second half of the eighteenth century begins the vast overturning of traditional ideas and institutions, leading to revo- lution in state and infidelity in church, especially in France and Germany. The nineteenth century presents, in part, the further develop- ment of these negative and destructive tendencies, but with it also the revival of Christian faith and church life, and the begin- nings of a new creation by the everlasting gospel. At the same time North America, full of vigor and promise, English and Protestant in its prevailing character, but presenting an asylum for all the nations, churches, and sects of the old world, with a complete separation of the temporal and the spiritual power, comes upon the stage. Thus we have, in all, nine periods of church history, as fol- lows : — First Period : The apostolic church, a.d. 1-100. Second Period : The church persecuted as a sect ; to Con- stantine, the first Christian emperor, a.d. 100-311. TniRD Period : The church in union with the Greeco-Roman empire and amidst the storms of the great migration ; to pope Gregory I. a.d. 311-590. Fourth Period : The church planted among the Germanic nations ; to Hildebrand. a.d. 590-1049. Fifth Period : The church under the papal hierarchy and the scholastic theology ; to Boniface VIII. a.d. 1049-1294. Sixth Period : The 'decay of mediaeval Catholicism, and the preparatory movements of Protestantism. A.D. 1294-1517. Seventh Period : The evangelical reformation and the Roman Catholic reaction. A D. 1517-1600. Eighth Period : The age of polemic orthodoxy and exclu- sive confessionalism. A.D. 1600-1750. Ninth Period : The spread of infidelity, and the revival of Christianity in Europe and America. From 1750 to the present time. INTROD.] § 6. USES OF CHURCH HISTORY. 15 § 6. Uses of Church Ilistorij. Churcli history is the most extensive, and, inckiding the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments, the most important branch of theology. It has, in the first place, a general interest for every cultivated mind, as showing the moral and religious development of our race, and the gradual execution of the divine plan of Tedemption. It has special value for the theologian and minister of the gos- pel, as the key to the present condition of Christendom and the guide to successful labor in her cause. The present is the fruit of the past and the germ of the future. No work can stand un- less it grow out of the real wants of the. age and strike firm root in the soil of history. No one who tramples on the rights of a past generation, can claim the regard of its posterity. Finally, the history of the church has practical value for every Christian, as a storehouse of warning and encouragement, of consolation and of counsel. It is the philosophy of facts, Chris- tianity in living examples. If history in general be, as Cicero describes it, "testis temporum, lux veritatis, et magistra vitte," or, as Diodorus calls it, "a handmaid of providence, a priestess of truth, and a mother of wisdom," the history of the kingdom of heaven is all these in the highest degree. Next to the holy scriptures, which are themselves, in fact, a history and deposi- tory of divine revelation, there is no stronger proof of the con- tinual presence of Christ with his people, no more thorough vindication of Christianity, no richer source of spiritual wisdom and experience, no deeper incentive to virtue and piety, than the history of the church. § 7. Literature of Church History. Staudlin: Geschichte u. Literatur der K. G. Hann. 1827. F. C. Baur: Die Epochen der kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung. Ttib. 1852. P. Schaff : H. Apost. Church, p. 51-134. Like every other science and art, church historiography has a history, a gradual progress towards its true perfection. This his- tory exhibits not only a continual growth of material, but also a 16 § 7. LITERATUEE OF CllL'llCll lllSTOUY. [ckxer gradual, tliough sometimes long interrupted, improvement of method, from the mere collection of names and dates in a Chris- tian chronicle, to critical research and discrimination, pragmatic reference to causes and motives, scientific command of material, philosophical generalization, and artistic reproduction of the actual history itself In this progress also are marked the vari- ous confessipnal and denominational phases of Christianity, giving different points of view, and consequently different conceptions and representations of the several periods and divisions of Chris- tendom ; so that the development of the church itself is mirrored in the development of church historiography. We can here do no more than mention the leading works which mark the successive epochs in the growth of our science : — 1. In the apostolic church. The first works on church his- tory are the canonical gospels of Matthew, Makk, Luke, and John, the inspired biographies of Jesus Christ, who is the thean- thropic head and the inexhaustible fountain of the whole history of the kingdom of God. These are followed by Luke's Acts of the Apostles, which describes the planting of the church among Jews and Gentiles from Jerusalem to Rome, by the labors of the apostles, especially Peter and Paul. 2. In the Greek church appear the first post-apostolic works on church history, as, indeed, all branches, of theological lite- rature there take their rise. Eusebius, bishop of Cicsarea, in Palestine, and contemporary with Constantine the Great, composed a church history in ten books (ixxXiitfiaCrfjcii itfTopiaj from the incarnation of the Logos to the year 324), by which he has won the title of the Father of church liistory, or the Christian Herodotus. Though by no means very critical and discerning, and fir inferior in literary talent and execution to the works of the great classical histo- rians, this ante-Nicene church history is invaluable for its learn- ing, moderation, and love of truth ; for its use of sources, since totally or partially lost; and for its interesting position of per- sonal observation between the last persecutions of the church and her establishment in the Byzantine empire. INTROD.] § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 17 Tlie work of Eusebius was continued in similar spirit and on the same plan by Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret in the \ fifth century, and Theodorus and Evagrius in the sixth, each taking up the thread of the narrative where his predecessor had dropped it. Of the later Greek historians, from the seventh century to the fifteenth, the Scriptores Byzantini, as they are called, NiCEPHORUS Callisti (about a.d. 1333) deserves special regard. 3. The Latin church, before the reformation, was, in church his- tory, as in all other theological studies, at first wholly dependent on the Greek, and long content with mere translations and extracts from Eusebius and his continuators. The most popular of these was the Historia tripartita^ com- piled by Cassiodorus, who died about a.d. 562. The middle age produced no general church history of conse- quence, but a host of chronicles, and histories of particular nations, monastic orders, eminent popes, bishops, missionaries,, saints, &c. Though rarely worth much as compositions, these are yet of great value as material, which, however, needs to be carefully sifted. 4. The Roman Catholic church was roused by the shock of the reformation, in the sixteenth century, to great activity in this^ and other departments of theology, and produced some works of immense learning and antiquarian research, but generally cha- racterized rather by zeal for the papacy, and against Protestant- ism, than by the purely historical spirit. The greatest Eoman Catholic church historians are either Italians, and ultramontane in spirit, or Frenchmen, mostly on the side of the somewhat more liberal but less consistent Gallicanism. First stands the Cardinal C^sar Baronius (f 1607), with his Annales ecclesiastici (Eom. 1588 sqq.) in twelve folio volumes, on which he spent thirty years of unwearied study. They come down only to the year 1198, but are continued, though with much less ability, by Eaynaldus, Bzovius, Spondanus, and others (complete edition of Lucca in thirty-eight volumes folio), to near the middle of the seventeenth century ; quite recently 2 18 § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. [gener. Theiner lias resumed tlie continuation. This colossal work stands wholly on the ground of absolute ultramontane papacy, and is designed as a positive refutation of the Magdeburg Cen- turies, which, however, it does not condescend directly to notice. But it was severely criticized, and in part refuted, not only by such Protestants as Casaubonus, Spanheim, and Samuel Basnage, but by Catholic scholars also, especially Pagi. Still with all its defects it remains invaluable to the historian, for its use of the many rare and hardly accessible sources in the Vatican library and other archives. Natalis Alexander (tl724) wrote his Historia ecclesiastica Veteris et Kovi Testamenti (Paris, 1699 sqq., 8 vols, fol.) in the spirit of Gallicanism, learnedly, but in dry scholastic style. The abbot Claude Fleury (f 1723), in his Ilistoire ecdesi- asiique (Par. 1691 sqq., 20 vols., down to A. D. 1414, continued by Fabre), furnished a much more popular work, commended by mildness of spirit and fluency of style, and as useful for edifica- tion as for instruction. Jacques Benigne Bossuet, the distinguished bishop of Meaux (f 1704), an advocate of Eomanism on the one hand against Protestantism, but of Gallicanism on the other against Ultramontanism, wrote in brilhant, eloquent style, and in the spirit of the Catholic church, a universal history : Discours sur Vhistoire universelle dci^uis le commencement du m,onde jusqu^d V empire de Charlemagne (Paris, 1681). This was continued in the German language by the Protestant Cramer, with less ele- gance but more thoroughness, and with special reference to the doctrine history of the middle age. Tillemont (f 1698), who sympathized at least partially with Jansenism and Gallicanism, composed a history of the patristic age with great skill and conscientiousness, almost entirely in the words of the original authorities : Memoires pour servir d Vhistoire ecclesiastique des six premieres siecles jusiifiis par les citations des auieurs ortginaux (16 vols. Paris, 1693 sqq.) ; by far the most learned and the most useful of all the French church histories. ^ IKTROD.] § 7. LITEKATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 19 Caspar Sacharelli : Historia ecclesiasiica, Eom. 1772-95. 25 vols, to A.D. 1185. The German poet, Leopold von Stolberg (f 1819), witli the enthusiasm of an honest, noble, and devout, but credulous and uncritical convert, began a very full OescMchte der Religion Jesu Christi (Hamburg, 1806 sqq.), which he brought down in fifteen volumes to the year 430. The continuations by Kertz (vols. 16-32, to A.D. 1300), and Brischar (vols. 33 sqq.) are quite inferior. Eohrbacher's Hisioire universelh de Teglise (Par. 1842-48, vols. 29) is the last great French work in this department. It avails itself of German investigations, but it is more strictly Eoman than its Galhcan predecessors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The best Eoman Catholic manuals of church history are those of DoLLiNGER, EiTTER, and Alzog. 6. The Protestant church historians. The reformation of the sixteenth century is the mother of church history as a science and art in the proper sense of the term. It seemed at first to break off from the past, to depreci- ate church history, by going back directly to the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, and especially to look most unfavorably on the Catholic middle age, as a progressive cor- ruption of the apostolic doctrine and discipHne. But on the other hand it exalted priinitive Christianity, and awakened a new and enthusiastic interest in all the documents of the apos- tolic church, with an energetic effort to reproduce its spirit and institutions. It really repudiated only the later tradition in favor of the older, taking its stand upon the primitive historical basis of Christianity. Then again,* in the course of controversy with Eome, Protestantism found it desirable and necessary to wrest from its opponent not only the scriptural argument, but also the historical, and to turn it as far as possible to the side of the evangelical cause. For the Protestants could never deny that the true church of Christ is built on a rock, and has the promise of indestructible permanence. Finally, the reformation. 20 § 7. LITERATURE OF CnURGH HISTORY. [gexeb. liberating the mind from the yoke of a despotic ecclesiastical authority, gave an entirely new impulse, directly or indirectly, to free investigation in every department, and produced that liistorical criticism, which claims to clear fact from the accretions of fiction, and to bring out the truth, the whole truth, and no- thing but the truth, of history. Of course this criticism may run to the extreme of rationalism and scepticism, which oppose the authority of the apostles and of Christ himself; as it actually did for a time, especially in Germany. But the abuse of free investigation proves nothing against the right use of it ; and is to be regarded only as a temporary aberration, from which all sound minds will return to a due appreciation of history, as a truly rational unfolding of the plan of redemption, and a stand- ing witness for the all -ruling providence of God, and the divine character of the Christian religion. Protestant church historiography has thus far jBourished most on German soil. The following are the principal works: Matthias Flacius (f 1575), surnamed Illyricus, a zealous Lutheran, and an unsparing enemy of Papists, Calvinists, and Melancthonians, heads the list of Protestant historians with his great Ecclesiastica historia Novi Testamenti^ commonly called Cen- turim Magdeburgenses (Basle, 1559-74), covering thirteen cen- turies of the Christian era in as many folio volumes. He began the work in Magdeburg, in connexion with ten other scholars of like spirit and zeal, and in the face of innumerable difficulties, for the purpose of exposing the corruption and errors of the papacy, and of proving the doctrines of the Lutheran reformation orthodox by the " witnesses of the truth " in all ages. The tone is there- fore controversial throughout, and quite as partial as the Annals of Baronius on the papal side. The style is tasteless and repulsive, but the amount of persevering labor, the immense, though ill-digested and unwieldy mass of material, and the bold- ness of the criticism, are imposing and astonishing. The " Cen- turies " broke the path of free historical study, and are the first church history deserving of the name. They introduced also a new method. They divide the material by centuries, and each INTROD.] § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 21 century by a uniform Procrustean scheme of not less than six- teen rubrics : de loco et propagatione ecclesiae ; de persecutione et tranquillitate ecclesiae ; de doctrina ; de baeresibus ; de cere- mo nils ; de politia ; de scbismatibus ; de conciliis ; de vitis episco- porum ; de baereticis ; de martyribus ; de miraculis et prodigiis ; de rebus Judaicis ; de aliis religionibus ; de mutationibus poli- ticis. This plan destroys all symmetry, and occasions wearisome diffuseness and repetition. Yet, in spite of its mechanical uni- formity and stiifness, it is more scientific than the annalistic or chronicle method, and, with material improvements and consider- able curtailment of rubrics, it has been followed to this day. The Swiss, J. H. Hottinger (f 1667), in his Historia ecclesias- tica iV. Testamenti (Zurich, 1655-67, 9 vols, fob), furnished a Reformed counterpart to the Magdeburg Centuries. It is less original and vigorous, but more sober and moderate. It comes down to the sixteenth century, to which alone five volumes are devoted. The Hollander, Fred. Spanheim's (f 1649) Summa historiae ecclesiasticae (Lugd. Bat. 1689), coming down to the sixteenth cen- tury, is based on a thorough and critical knowledge of the sources, and serves at the same time as a refutation of Baronius. A new path was broken by GtOttfried Arnold (f 1714), in his Unpartheiische Kirchen- und Ketzergeschichle (Frankfurt, 1699 sqq., 4 vols, fol.) to a.d. 1688. He is the historian of the pietistic and mystic school. He made subjective piety the test of the true faith, and the persecuted sects the main channel of true Chris- tianity ; while the reigning church from Constantine down, and indeed not the Catholic church only, but the orthodox Lutheran with it, he represented as a progressive apostasy, a Babylon full of corruption and abomination. In this way he boldly and effec- tually broke down the walls of ecclesiastical exclusiveness and bigotry ; but at the same time, without intending or suspecting It, he opened the way to a rationahstic and sceptical treatment of history. "While, in his zeal for impartiality and personal piety, he endeavored to do justice to all possible heretics and sectaries, he did great injustice to the supporters of orthodoxy and eccle- 22 § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCn HISTORY. [gexek. siastical order. Arnold was also the first to use the German lan- guage instead of the Latin in learned history ; but his style is terribly insipid. J. L. MosHEiM (f 1755), Chancellor of Gtittingen, a moderate' and impartial Lutheran, is the father of church historiography as an art^ unless we prefer to concede this merit to Bossuet. In skilful construction, clear, though mechanical and monotonous arrangement, critical sagacit}', pragmatic combination, freedom from passion, almost bordering on cool indifferentism, and in easy elegance of Latin style, he surpasses all his predecessors. His well known Insiitutiones Mstoriae ecdesiasticae aniiquae ei re- centioris (Helmstiidt, 1755) follows the centurial plan of Flacius, but in simpler form, and, as translated by Maclaine, and Murdock, remains to this day the principal test-book of church history in England and America. J. M. ScHRoCKH (flSOS), a pupil of Mosheim, but already touched with the neological spirit which Semler (f 1791) in- troduced into the historical theology of Germany, wrote with unwearied industry the largest Protestant church history after the Magdeburg Centuries. His Chnsiliche Kirchengeschichte (Leip- zig, 1768-1810) comprises forty-five volumes (the last two by Tzschirner), coming down to the end of the eighteenth century. This work, written in diffuse but clear and easy style, with reliable knowledge of sources, and in a mild, impartial spirit, is still a rich storehouse of historical matter. It forsakes the centurial plan and adopts the periodic. The very learned Insiitutiones historiae ecdesiasticae V. et N. Tesiamenti of the Dutch Eeformed divine H. Venema (tl787), contain the history of the Jewish and Christian Church down to the end of the sixteenth century (Lugd. Bat. 1777-83, in seven parts). H. P. C. Henke (f 1809) is the leading representative of the rationalistic church historiography. In his spirited and clever Allgemeine Oeschichte der christliclien Kirche, continued by Vater (Braunschweig, 1788-1820, 9 vols.) the church appears not as the temple of God on earth, but as a great infirmary and bedlam. IXTROD.] § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 23 A. Neander (f 1850), the "father of modern church history," a child in spirit, a man in intellect, a giant in learning, and a saint in piety, led back the study of history from the dry heath of rationalism to the fresh fountain of divine life in Christ and his people, and made it a grand source of edification for readers of every confession and denomination. His Allgemeine GescJiichte der Cliristlichen Religion und Kirche (Hamburg, 1825-52, 11 parts, to the council of Basil, 1430), and numerous monographs, are dis- tinguished by thorough and conscientious use of the sources, ingenious combination, tender love of truth and righteousness, all-embracing liberality, hearty evangelical piety in living union with scientific thought, and by masterly analysis of the doctri- nal systems and the subjective Christian life of men of God in past ages. The aesthetic . and artistic part, and the political machinery of church history were less congenial to the humble, guileless simphcity of the author, and are therefore not treated by him to the satisfliction of the advanced student. His style is monotonous, involved, and diffuse, but unpretending, natural, and warmed by a genial glow of feeling. Torrey's excellent translation (Rose translated only the first three centuries), pub- lished in Boston, Edinburgh, and London, in multiplied editions, has given Neander's immortal work even a larger circulation in England and America than it has in Germany itself. From J. C. L. Gieseler (f 185-4), a profoundly learned, acute, calm, impartial, conscientious, but cold and dry historian, we have a Lehrhuch der Kirchengeschichle (Bonn, 1824-1856), in several volumes, completed posthumously from his manuscripts ; likewise translated into English, first by Cunningham, in Phila- delphia, 1846, then by Davidson and Hull, in England, and now carefully revised and edited by H. B. Smith^ in New York (1857 sqq.). He takes Tillemont's method of giving the history in the very words of the sources ; only he does not form the 1 The author of the best tabular view of church history, which may be profitalily used in connexion witli Gieseler: History of the Christian CMirch in Tabular Form; in 15 Tables. N. York, 1858. 24 § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. [gkner. text from them, but throws them into notes. The chief excel- lence of this invaluable and indispensable work is its very care- fully selected and critically elucidated extracts from the original authorities. The skeleton-like text presents, indeed, the leading facts clearly and concisely, but does not reach the inward life and spiritual marrow of the church of Christ. Neander and Gieseler matured their works in respectful and friendly rivalry, during the same period of thirty years of slow, but sohd and steady growth, without being permitted to finish them. The former is perfectly subjective, and reproduces the original sources in a continuous warm and sympathetic composi- tion, which reflects at the same time the author's own mind and heart ; the latter is purely objective, and speaks with the indif- ference of an outside spectator, through the ipsissima verba of the same sources, arranged as notes, and strung together simply by a slender thread of narrative. The one gives the history ready- made, and full of life and instruction ; the other furnishes the mate- rial and leaves the reader to animate and improve it for himself. "With the one, the text is everything ; with the other, the notes. But both admirably complete each other, and exhibit together the ripest fruit of German scholarship in general church history in the first half of the nineteenth century. Besides these larger works, Protestant Germany has furnished since 1830, a gTcat number of smaller manuals and compends of church history, of which the most valuable and popular are those of NiEDNER (1846), Hase (7th ed. 185-4 ; the same in Enghsh, by "Wing & Blumenthal, New York, 1855), Guericke (8th ed. 1858 ; the 1st vol. translated or rather transfused into English by Shedd, Andover, 1857), Lindner (1848), Jacobi (1850), Fricke (1850), Kurtz (3rd ed. 1853 sqq.). It would be impos- sible here to mention the countless monographs which appeared during the same period, partly from the school of Neander, partly from the more recent one of the equally learned and talented, but sceptical Baur, of Tubingen, partly from the newly revived school of orthodox confessionalism. Among modern English church historians, we may name IXTROD.] § 7. LITERATURE OF CHURCH HISTORY. 25 MiLNER (f 1797), wliose work, continued by Stebbing, agrees most in its spirit with tliat of Arnold ; less learned and original, but far more readable, popular, and edifying ; WADDiKGTOisr, who gives us the ancient and mediasval church in three volumes, and the continental reformation in three more (1835 If.) ; FouLKES, the author of a Manual of Ecclesiastical History, from the first to the twelfth century (1851) ; Eobertson", whose his- tory embraces thus far in two volumes (1851: and '56) the first six centuries, and the middle age, till 1122 ; Milman, who wrote a history of ancient Christianity (1840), and of Latin Christianity to the pontificate of Nicholas Y. (1854 sq. in 6 vols.) ; and Hard- wick, fi:om whom we have a Manual on the middle age (1853), and another on the Keformation (1856), to be followed by a third volume on the first six centuries, and a fourth one on the period since the Reformation. Each one of these works has its peculiar merit ; but none of them can be ranked, either as to original research, or art of composition, or general interest, with the immortal masterpieces of English literature on the history of Rome, Greece, and Great Britain. America is as yet more engaged in making history, than in writing it. Nevertheless it has already cultivated several con- genial portions of secular history, especially that of Spain, Hol- land, and the United States, with eminent talent and success. It has also furnished recently the best translations of the German standard works on church history, and thus seriously commenced to direct its youthful energies to the holy of holies in the history of mankind. This justifies the expectation of original works which in due time shall review and reproduce the entire course of Christ's kingdom in the old world with the faith and freedom of the new. EIRST PERIOD. THE CHURCH UNDER THE APOSTLES: FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE DEATH OF ST. JOHK A. D. 1-100. FIRST PERIOD. THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH: FROM THE BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE DEATH OF ST. JOHN, A.D. 1-100. SOURCES. The canonical books of the New Testament. The writings of the early church. Also some passages of Josephus, the Talmud, and heathen authors. (Comp. N. Lardner : Collection of the Jewish and Heathen Testimonies of the Christian ReUgion. Lond. 1764 sqq. 4 vols.) LITERATURE. F. BuDDEus: Ecclesia apostolica. Jen. 1729. Cave: Lives of the Apostles. 1684 (new ed. Lond. 1841 ; also New York, 1857). Benson : History of the Planting of the Christian Religion. Lond. 1756 (in German by Bam- oerger, Halle, 1768). J. J. Hess : Geschichte der Apostel Jesu. Ziir. 1788 (4th ed. 1820). Neander : Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der Kirche durch die Apostel. Hamb. 1832. 2 vols. (4th ed. 1847). The same in Enghsh by Rylandj Edinb. ; reprinted in Philad. 1§44;,^ — .- H. Thiersch : Die Kirche inoapostoiischien Zeitalter. Frankf. 1852. TKe same in English by Th. Carlyle. Lond. 1852. J. P. Lange : Das apo- stolische Zeitalter. Braunschw. 1854. 2 vols. P. Schaff : Geschichte der /■ apostolischen Kirche (Mercersb. 1851), 2nd ed. Leipz. 1854. The same j in Enghsh by Yeomans, N. York, 1853, and Edinb. 1854 ; also in Dutch \ by Lubhnk Weddik, 1857. Lechler: Das apostohsche und nachapo- stolische Zeitalter. 2nd ed. Stuttg. 1857. Comp. also the critical works on the Acts of Luke, by ScTinecJcenhurger, 1841, Zeller, 1854, and LeTcebusch, 1854 ; and the commentaries on the Acts, by Baumgarien, Halle, 1852, 2 vols., also (in English, Edinb. 1856, f 3 vols.), Jos. Add. Alexander, K York, 1857, 2 vols., and H. B. Hackett, ' 2nd ed. Bost. 1858. On the chronology of the Apostolic age comp. Anger : De temporum in Actis f Apostol. ratione. Lips. 1833. Wieselek : Chronologic des apostohschen Zeitalters. Gott. 1848. § 8. General Character of the Apostolic Period. The apostolic period, including tlie life of Jesus, is the fountain- 80 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. head of tlie history of tlie Christian church. Here springs, in its original freshness and purity, the living water of the new crea- tion. Christianity comes down from heaven as a supernatural fact, yet long predicted and prepared for, and adapted to the deepest wants of human nature. Signs and wonders and extra- ordinary demonstrations of the Spirit, for the conversion of unbelieving Jews and heathens, attend its entrance into the world of sin. It takes up its permanent abode with our fallen race, to transform it gradually, without war or bloodshed, by a quiet, leaven-like process, into a glorious kingdom of truth and right- eousness. Modest and humble, lowly and unseemly in outward appearance, but steadily conscious of its divine origin and its eternal destiny ; without silver or gold, but strong in faith, fer- vent in love, and joyful in hope, full of supernatural gifts and powers ; bearing in earthen vessels the imperishable treasures of heaven, it presents itself upon the stage of history as the only true, the perfect religion, for all the nations of the earth. At first an insignificant and even contemptible sect in the eyes of the carnal mind, hated and persecuted by Jews and heathens, it confounds the wisdom of Greece and the power of Eome, soon plants the standard of the cross in the great cities of Asia, Africa, and Euroj)e, and proves itself the hope of the world. In virtue of this original purity, vigor, and beauty, and the amazing success of primitive Christianity, the canonical authority of the single but inexhaustible volume of its literature, and the infallibility of the apostles, those inspired organs of the Holy Ghost, those untaught teachers of mankind, the apostohc age has an incomparable interest and importance in the history of the church. It is the immovable groundwork of the whole. It has the same regulative force for all the subsequent develop- ments of the church as the inspired writings of "the apostles have for the works of all later Christian authors. Furthermore, the apostolic Christianity is preformative, con- taining the living germs of all the following periods, personages, and tendencies. The whole history of the church, past and future, is only the progressive analysis and application of prin- § 8. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE APOSTOLIC PERIOD. 31 ciples and prototjrpes given in tHe New Testament ; especially of the three leading representatives of the primitive age, Peter, Paul, and Jolm. These apostles mark also the three principal steps in the mis- sionary and doctrinal history of the first period. Peter repre- sents Jewish Christianity ; Paul, Gentile Christianity ; John, the union of the two. But to see clearly the relation of the Christian religion to the preceding history of mankind, and to appreciate its vast influ- ence, we must first glance at the preparation which existed in the moral and religious condition of the world for the incarna- tion of the Son of God. CHAPTEE I. PKEPARATION FOE CHRISTIANITY IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH AND HEATHEN WORLD. MosHEiM : Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity in the first three centuries, 1753, transl. by Vidal and Murdock, vol. i. oh. 1 and 2 (p. 9-82). Neander: AUg. Gesch. der christl Rel. und K. vol. i. 1842. Einl. (p. 1-116). Schaff: Hist, of the Apostolic Ch., p. 137-188 (Engl, trsl.). J. P. Lange: Das Apost. Zeitalter. 1853, I. p. 224-318. Bol- linger (R. C.) : Heidenthum und Judenthum. Vorhalle zur Geschichte des Christenthums. Regensb. 1857. § 9. Central Position of Christ in the History of the World. As religion is the deepest and holiest concern of man, the entrance of the Christian religion into histor}^ is the most mo- mentous of all events. It is the end of the old world and the beginning of the new. It was a great idea of Dionjsius " the Little," to date our era from the birth of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, the God-man, the prophet, priest, and king of mankind, is, in fact, the centre and turning-point not only of chronology, but of all history, and the key to all its mysteries. Around him, as the sun of the moral universe, revolve at their several distances, all nations and all really important events, especially in the religious life of the world ; and all must, directly or indi- rectly, consciously or unconsciously, contribute to glorify his name and advance his cause. All history before his birth must be viewed as a preparation for his coming, and all history after his birth as a gradual diffusion of his Spirit and cstabh.'^hmcnt of his kingdom. "All things were created by him, and for him."^ He is " the desire of all nations."^ He appeared in the * Col. i. 16. • Hag. ii. 7. § 9. CENTRAL rOSITIOX OF CIIPJST IN HISTORY. 33 "fulness of time,"^ wlien tlie process of preparation was finisTied, and the world's need of redemption fully disclosed. This preparation for Christianity began properly with the very creation of man, who was made in the image of Grod, and des- tined for communion with him through the eternal Son ; with those common primordial revelations, which were made even to the antediluvian fathers, and of which some vague memories survive in the heathen religions. With Abraham, some two thousand years before the birth of Christ, the religious development of humanity separates into the two independent, and, in their compass, very unequal branches of Judaism and heathenism. These meet and unite at last in Christ as the common Saviour, the fulfiUer of all the types and prophecies, desires and hopes of the ancient world, while at the same time all the ungodly elements of both league in deadly hostility against him, and thus draw forth the full revelation of' his all-conquering power of truth and love. As Christianity is the reconciliation and union of God and man in and through Jesus Christ, the God-man and Saviour, it must have been preceded by a twofold process of preparation, an approach of God to man, and an approach of man to God. In Judaism the preparation is direct and positive, proceeding from above downwards, and ending with the birth of the Messiah. In heathenism it is indirect and mainly, though not entirely, negative, proceeding from below upwards, and ending, with a helpless cry of mankind for redemption. There we have a spe- cial revelation or self-communication of the only true God by word and deed, ever growing clearer and plainer, till at last the divine nature appears in the human, to raise it to communion with itself; here man, guided indeed by the general providence of God, and lighted by the glimmer of the Logos shining in the darkness,^ yet unaided by direct revelation, and left to his own ways,^ " if haply he might feel after the Lord and find him."* In Judaism the true religion is prepared for man ; in heathenism » Mark i. 15, Gal. iv. 4. = Johu L 5. ' Acts xiv. 16. * Acts xvii 26, 27. 3 34 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. man is prepared for the true religion. There the divine sub- stance is begotten ; here the human forms are moulded to receive it. The former is like the elder son in the parable, who abode in his father's house ; the latter, like the prodigal, who squan- dered his portion, yet at last shuddered, before the gaping abyss of perdition, and penitently returned to the bosom of his father's compassionate love.^ Heathenism is the starry night, full of darkness and fear, but of mysterious presage also, and of anxious waiting for the light of day ; Judaism, the dawn, full of the fresh hope and promise of the rising sun ; both lose themselves in the sunlight of Christianity, and attest its claim to be the only true and the perfect religion for mankind. This process of preparation for redemption in the history of the world, the groping of heathenism after the "unknown God"^ and inward peace, and the legal struggle and comforting hope of Judaism, repeat themselves substantially in every individual believer ; for every man is made for Christ, and his heart is restless, till it rests in him. § 10. Judaism. The canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The Jewish Apocry- pha. The writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, and the Alexandrian, PniLO, and the Talmud. — Of service to illustrate and confirm the Jewisli history before Christ are also heathen remains, especially the monu- ments of ancient Egypt, better known since the French expedition, and elucidated by the researches of Champollion, Rosellini, Wilkinson, Tay- lor, Lepsius, Bunsen, Seyfiarth, and others; and tl>e very remarkable monuments from Assyria, discovered by the excavations of Botta and Layard, and transported to Paris and London. The fragments of Phoe- nician and Chaldaic writers, on the contrary, yield little information ; and the occasional accounts of the later Greek and Roman authors concerning the Jews are full of error and bitter prejudice. Prideaux: Old and New Testaments Connected in the Ilistory of the Jews and neighboring nations, from the decline of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the time of Christ. Lend. 1715, 2 vols. (1858 and many other eds.). The same in French and Grerraan. Hess: Geschichte der Israchtcn vor den Zciten Jesu. Ziir. 17GG sqq. 12 vols. Warburton: Divine Legation of J^Ioscs demonstrated. 6 vols. Lond. 1788; best * Luke XV. 11-32. ' Acts xvii. 23. § 10. JUDAISM. 35 edit, by Rich. Hurd, in 3 vols. Lond. 1856. Jost : Allgem. Geschichte des Israelitischen Volkes bis in die neuste Zeit. Bed. 1832. 2 vols. Milman: History of the Jews. Lond. 1829. 3 vols, republ. N.York, 1831. 3 vols. J. C. K. HoFMANN : Weissagung und Erfiillung. Nordl. 1841. 2 vols. H. EwALD : G-eschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus. Grott. 1843 sqq. 4 vols. J. H. Kurtz : Geschichte des alten Bundes. Berl. 1853 sqq. 2 vols. The same: Lehrbuch der heiL G-eschichte. Konigsb. 6th ed. 1853 ; also in Enghsh, by C. F. Schafler. Phil. 1855. A. Alexander: A History of the IsraeUtish Nation from their origin to their dispersion at the destruction of Jerusalem. Phil. 1853. E. C. Wines : Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews. N. York, 1855. J. M. Jost: Geschichte des Judenthums und semer Serten. Leipz. 1857 sq. 3 vols. " Salvation is of the Jews."^ This wonderfal people was chosen by sovereign grace to stand amidst the surrounding idolatry as the bearer of the knowledge of Jehovah, the only true God, of liis holy law, and of his comforting promise, and thus to become the cradle of the Messiah. It arose with the calling of Abraham, and the covenant of Jehovah with him in Canaan, the land of promise ; grew to a nation in Egypt, the land of bondage ; was delivered and organized into a theocratic state on the basis of the law of Sinai by Moses in the wilderness ; was led back into Palestine by Joshua ; became, after the Judges, a monarchy, reaching the height of its glory in David and Solo- mon, the types of the victorious and peaceful reign of Christ ; split into two hostile kingdoms, and, in punishment of internal discord and growing apostasy to idolatry, was carried captive by heathen conquerors ; was restored after seventy years' humilia- tion to the land of its fathers, but fell again under the yoke of heathen foes ; yet in its deepest abasement fulfilled its highest mission by giving birth to the Saviour of the world. Judaism was amongst the idolatrous nations of antiquity like an oasis in a desert, clearly defined and isolated ; separated and enclosed by a rigid moral and ceremonial law. The holy land itself, though in the midst of the three grand divisions of the ancient world, and surrounded by the great nations of ancient » 1 John iv. 22. 36 FIEST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100, culture, was separated from them by deserts south and east, by sea on the west, and by mountain on the north ; thus securing to the Mosaic religion freedom to unfold itself and to fulfil its gTeat work without disturbing influences from abroad. But Israel carried in its bosom from the first the large promise, that in Abraham's seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Abraham, the father of the faithful, Moses, the lawgiver, David, the victorious king and sacred psalmist, Isaiah, the evangelist of the prophets, and John the Baptist, the impersonation of the whole Old Testament, are the most conspicuous links, in the golden chain of the ancient revelation. The outward circumstances and the moral and religious condi- tion of the Jews at the birth of Christ would indeed seem at first and on the whole to be in glaring contradiction with their divine destiny. But, in the first place, their very degeneracy proved the need of divine help. In the second place, the redemption through Christ appeared by contrast in the greater glor^'-, as a creative act of God. And finally, amidst the mass of con'ujjtion, as a preventive of putrefaction, lived the succession of the true children of Abraham, longing for the salvation of Israel, and ready to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah and the Saviour of the world. Since the battle of Philippi (B. C. 42), the Jews had been sub- ject to the heathen Eomans, who heartlessly governed them by the Idumean Herod and his sons, and afterwards by procura* tors. Under this hated yoke their Messianic hopes were power- fully raised, but carnally distorted. They longed chiefly for a political delivei-cr, who should restore the temporal dominion of David on a still more splendid scale ; and they were offended with the servant form of Jesus, and A\ith his spiritual kingdom. Their morals were outwardly far better than those of the heathen ; but under the garb of strict obedience to their law, they con- cealed great corruption. They are pictured in the New Testa- ment as a stiff-necked, ungrateful, and impenitent race, the seed of the serpent, a generation of vij)crs. Their own priest and his- torian, Josephus, who generally endeavored. to present his coun- § 10. JUDAISM. 37 trymen to the Greeks and Romans in the most favorable light, describes them as at that time a debased and ungodly people, well deserving their fearful punishment in the destruction of Jerusalem. As to religion, the Jews, especially after the Babylonish cap- tivity, adhered most tenaciously to the letter of the law, and to their traditions and ceremonies, but without knowing the spirit and power of the Scriptures. They cherished the most bigoted horror of the heathen, and were therefore despised and hated by them as misanthropic, though by their judgment, industrj^, and tact, they were able to gain wealth and consideration in all the larger cities of the Roman empire. After the time of the Mac- cabees (B. C. 150), they fell into three mutually hostile sects. 1. The Pharisees, the "separate,"^ were, so to speak, the Jewish Stoics. They represented the traditional orthodoxy and stiff formalism, the legal self-righteousness and the fanatical bigotry of Judaism. In the New Testament they bear particu- larly the reproach of hypocrisy; with, of course, illustrious exceptions, like ISTicodemus, Gamaliel, and his disciple, Paul, 2. The less numerous Sadducees^ were sceptical, rationalistic, and worldly-minded, and held about the same position in Judaism as the Epicureans and the followers of the New Academy in Greek and Roman heathendom. 8. The Essenes^ were a mystic, ascetic sect, and lived in monkish seclusion on the coasts of the Dead Sea. With an arbitrary, allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, they combined some foreign theosophic elements, which they borrowed partly from the Pythagorean and the Platonic philosoj)hies, and partly from the eastern religions. The sect of the Essenes comes seldom or never into contact ' From taiS They were separated from ordinary persons by the suppcsed cor- — r * rectness of their creed and the superior hohness of their Hfe. 2 So called either from their supposed founder, Zadoek, or from pi^S "just." 3 From h05^ "physician;" according to some, a corruption of Diiion oVioi, the "holy;" but most probably from the rabbinical >]^)-I) "watchman," "keeper;" T - COmp. ^spanevrai. 38 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. ■vrith Christianitj under the AjDOstles. But tlie Phansces and Sadducees, particularly the former, meet us everywhere in the' Gospels as bitter enemies of Jesus, and hostile as they are to each- other, unite in condemning him to that death of the cross, which ended in the glorious resurrection, and became the foundation of spiritual life to beheving Grentiles as well as Jews. § 11. The Law and Prophecy. Degenerate and corrupt though the mass of Judaism was, yet the Old Testament economy was the divine institution preparatory to the Christian redemption, and as such received deepest reve- rence from Christ and his apostles, while they sought by terrible rebuke to lead its unworthy representatives to repentance. It therefore could not fail of its saving effect on those hearts which 3'ielded to its discipline, and conscientiously searched the Scriptures of Moses and the prophets. Law and prophecy are the two great elements of the Jewish religion, and make it a direct divine introduction to Christianity, " the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prej^are ye the way of the Lord ; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." 1. The law of Moses was the clearest expression of the holy will of God before the advent of Christ. It set forth the ideal of righteousness, and was thus fitted most effectually to awaken the sense of man's great departure from it, the knowledge of sin and guilt.^ It acted as a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ^ that they might be justified by faith.^ The same sense of guilt and of the need of reconciliation was constantly kept alive by daily sacrifices, at first in the tabernacle and afterwards in the temj^le, and by the whole ceremonial law, which, as a wonderful system of types and shadows, perpetually pointed to the realities of the new covenant, especially to the one all-sufficient atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. But now God requires absolute obedience and purity of heart ' Rom. ilL 20: Afi ni^ow c-iyvtoo-ij afiapna;. 2 Ylatijyojyus tij XpicrriJc, ^ Gal. iii. 24. § 11. THE LAW AXD PROPHECY. 39 under promise of life and penalty of death. Yet he cannot cruelly sport with man ; he is the truthful, faithful, and merciful God. In the moral and ritual law, therefore, as in a shell, is hidden the sweet kernel of a promise, that he will one day exhi- bit the ideal of righteousness in living form, and give the mise- rable sinner power to fulfil the law. Without such assurance the law were bitter irony. As regards the law, the Jewish economy was a religion of /. repentance. 2. But it was at the same time, as already hinted, the vehicle f of the divine promise of redemption, and, as such, a religion of ) hope. While the Greeks and Eomans put their golden age in ^ the past, the Jews looked for theirs in the future. Their whole ' history, their religious, political, and social institutions and cus- toms pointed to the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of his kingdom on earth. Prophecy, or the gospel under the covenant of the law, is really older than the law, which " came in between " the promise and its fulfilment.^ It begins with the promise of the serpent-bruiser immediately after the fall. It predominates in the patriarchal age, and Moses, the lawgiver, was at the same time a prophet pointing the people to a greater successor.- Without the comfort of the Messianic promise, the law must have driven the earnest soul to despair. From the time of Samuel, some eleven centuries before Christ, prophecy, hitherto sporadic, took an organized form in a permanent proj)hetical ofiice and order. In this form it accompanied the Levitical priesthood and the Davidic dynasty down to the Babylonish captivity, survived this cata- strophe, and directed the return of the people and the rebuilding of the temple; interpreting and applying the law, reproving abuses in church and state, predicting the terrible judgments and the redeeming grace of God, warning and punishing, comforting and encouraging, with an ever plainer reference to the coming- Messiah, who should redeem Israel and the world from sin and ^ nao£icrfl>^£i/, Rom. V. 20; comp. Gal. iiL 19. -Beiit. xviii. 15. 40 FIRST PERIOD, A.D. 1-100. miseiy, and establish, a kingdom of peace and righteousness on earth. The victorious reign of David and the peaceful reign of Solo- mon furnish, for Isaiah and his successors, the historical ground for a prophetic picture oi" a far more glorious future, which, unless thus attached to living memories and present circumstances, could not have been understood. The subsequent catastrophe and the sufferings of the captivity served to devclope the idea of a Mes- siah atoning for the sins of the people and entering through suf- fering into glory. The prophetic was an extraordinary ofiice, serving partly to complete, partly to correct tke ordinary, hereditary priesthood, to prevent it from stiffening into monotonous formality, and keep it ^ in living flow. The prophets were, so to speak, the Protestants of the ancient covenant, the ministers of the s})irit and of imme- diate communion with God, in distinction from 'the ministers of the letter and of traditional and ceremonial mediation. The flourishing period of our canonical prophecy began with the eighth century before Christ, some seven centuries after Moses, when Israel was suffering under Assyrian oppression. In this period before the captivity, Isaiah ("the salvation of God ")> who appeared in the last years of king Uzziah, about ten years before the founding of Rome, is the leading figure ; and around Hm Micah, Joel, and Obadiah in the kingdom of Judah, and Hosea, Amos, and Jonah in the kingdom of Israel, are grouped. In the period of the Babylonian exile, Jeremiah (i. e. " the Lord casts down") stands chief. He remained in the land of his fathers, and sang his lamentation in holy sorrow on the ruins of Jerusalem ; while Ezekiel warned the exiles on the river Chebar against false prophets and carnal hopes, urged them to repentance, and depicted the new Jerusalem and the revival of the dry bones of the people by the breath of God ; and Daniel at the court of Kebuchadnczzar in Babylon saw in the spirit the succession of the four empires and the final triuin[)h of the eternal kingdom of the Son of Man. Tlic prophets of the restoration are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malaclii. With Malachi, who lived to the time of ^ii^-c Z^/utu ^U^"-^ /^ftAJ^^ § 11. THE LAW AND PROPHECY. 41 Neliemiah, the Old Testament prophecy ceased, and Israel was left to himself four hundred years, to digest during this period of expectation the rich substance of that revelation, and to pre- pare the birth-place for the approaching redemption. 3. But immediately before the advent of the Messiah the whole Old Testament, the law and the prophets, Moses and Isaiah together, reappeared for a moment embodied in John the Baptist, and then in unrivalled humility disappeared as the red dawn in the splendor of the rising sun of the new covenant. This remarkable man, earnestly preaching repentance in the wilderness and laying the axe at the root of the tree, and at the same time comforting with prophecy and pointing to the atoning Lamb of God, was indeed, as the immediate forerunner of the New Testament economy, and the personal friend of the heavenly Bridegroom, the greatest of them that were born of women ; yet in his official character as the representative of the ancient prepa- ratory economy he stands lower than the least in that kingdom of Christ, which is infinitely more glorious than all its types and shadows in the past. This is the Jewish religion, as it flowed from the fountain of divine revelation and lived in the true Israel, the spiritual children of Abraham, in John the Baptist, his parents and disciples, in the mother of Jesus, her kindred and friends, in the venerable Simeon, and the prophetess Anna, in Lazarus and his pious sis- ters, in the apostles and the first disciples, who embraced Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfiUer of the law and the prophets, the Son of Grod and the Saviour of the world, and who were the first fruits of the Christian church. § 12. Heathenism. I. The works of the G-reek and Roman classics. II. St. Augustine : De civitate Dei ; the first ten books. Is. Vossius : De the- ologia gentili et pliysiolo. Christ. Frcf. 1675. 2 vols. Creuzer: Sym- bolik und Mythologie der alten Volker. Leipz. 3rd ed. 1837 sqq. 3 vols. 42 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. 0. MuLLER : Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftl. Mythologie. Giitt. 1825. Hegel : Philosophie der Religion. Bed. 1837. 2 vols. Stuiir : Allgem. Gesch. der Eeligionsformen der heidnischen Yolker. BerL 1836. Hartung : Die Religion der RiJmer. Erl. 1836. 2 vols. Nagels- bach: Homerische Theologie. Niirnb. 1840. The same: Die nacli homerische Theologie des Griechischen Volksglaubens bis auf Alexan- der. Ntirnb. 1857. Sepp (R. C.) : Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeu- tung filr das Christenthum. Regensb. 1853. 3 vols. Wuttke : Ge- schichte des Heidenthums in Beziehung auf Religion, Wissen, Kunst, Sittlichkeit und Staatsleben. Bresl. 1852 sqq. Scuelling: Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie. Stuttg. 1856, and Philosophie der Mythologie. Stuttg. 1857. Maurice: The Religions of the World in their Relations to Christianity. Lond. 1854 (reprinted in Boston). Trench : Hulsean Lectures for 1845-6. No. 2 : Christ the Desire of all Nations, or the Unconscious Prophecies of Heathendom (a commentary on the star of the wise men, Matt. ii.). Cambr. 4th ed. 1854 (also Philad. 1850). Comp. also Niebuhr's Rumische Geschichte, and Grote's His- tory of Greece. Heathenism is religion in its wild growth on the soil of fallen human nature, a darkening of the original consciousness of God, a deification of the rational and irrational creature, and a corresponding corruption of the moral sense, giving the sanction of religion to natural and unnatural vices.^ Even the religion of Greece, which, as an artistic product of the imagination, has been justly styled the religion of beauty, is deformed by this moral distortion. It utterly lacks the true concej^tion of sin, and consequently the true conception of hoh- ness. It regards sin, not as a perverseness of wiU and an offence against the gods, but as a folly of the understanding and an offence against men, often even proceeding from the gods them- selves; for " infiituation " is a ''daughter of Jove." Then these gods themselves are mere men, in whom Homer and the popular faith saw and worshipped the weaknesses and vices of the Gre- cian character, as well as its virtues, in immensely magnified forms. They have bodies and senses, like mortals, only in colossal proportions. They eat and drink, though only nectar and ambrosia. They are limited, like men, to time and '■.pace. Though sometimes honored with the attributes of omnipotence * Comp. Rom. i. 19 sqq. § 12. heathenism:. 43 and omniseience, yet tliey are subject to an iron fate, fall under delusion, and reproacli each other with folly. Their heavenly happiness is disturbed by all the troubles of earthly life. Jupiter threatens his fellows with blows and death, and makes Olympus tremble, when he shakes his locks in anger. The gentle Venus bleeds from a spear- wound on her finger. Mars is felled with a stone by Diomedes. Neptune and Apollo have to serve for hire and are cheated. The gods are involved by their mar- riages in perpetual jealousies and quarrels. Though called holy and just, they are full of envy and wrath, hatred and lust, and provoke each other to lying and cruelty, perjury and adul- tery. Truly we have no cause to long with Schiller for the return of the "gods of Greece," but would rather join the poet in his joyful thanksgiving : " Einen zu bereichern unter alien, Musste diese Gutterwelt vergehn." Notwithstanding this essential apostasy from truth and hoh- " ness, heathenism was religion, a groping after "the unknown Grod."* By its superstition it betrayed the need of faith. Its polytheism rested on a dim monotheistic background; it sub- jected all the gods to Jupiter, and Jupiter himself to a mysteri- ous fate. It had at bottom the feeling of dependence on higher powers and reverence for divine things. It preserved the memory of a golden age and of a fall. It had the voice of con- science, and a sense, obscure though it was, of guilt. It felt the need of reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer, penance, and sacrifice. Many of its religious tradi- tions and usages were faint echoes of the primal religion ; and its mythological dreams of the mingling of the gods with men, of demigods, of Prometheus dehvered by Hercules from his help- less sufferings, were unconscious prophecies and fleshly anticipa- tions of Christian truths. This alone explains the great readiness with -which heathens embraced the gospel, to the shame of the Jews.^ 'Actsxvii. 27 28. " Comp. Matt. viii. 10; xv. 28. Luke vii. 9. Acts x. 35. 44 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. These elements of truth, morahty, and piety in heathenism, may be ascribed to three sources. In the first place, man, even in his fallen state, retains some traces of the divine image, a conscious- ness of God, however weak, conscience, and a deep longing for union with the Godhead, for truth and for righteousness. In this view we may, with Tertullian, call the beautiful and true sentences of the classics, of a Socrates, a Plato, an Aristotle, of Pindar, Sophocles, Plutarch, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, "the testimo- nies of a soul constitutionally Christian,'" of a nature predestined Jo Christianity. Secondly, some account must be made of tradi- tions and recollections, however faint, coming down from the general primal revelations to Adam and Noah. But the third and most important source of the heathen anticipations of truth is the all-ruling providence of God, who has never left himself without a witness. Particularly must we consider the influence / of .the divine Logos before his incarnation,^ the tutor of mankind, the original light of reason, shining in the darkness and lighting every man, the sower scattering in the soil of heathendom the seeds of truth, beauty, and virtue.^ The old oriental forms of heathenism, the religion of the Chinese (Confucius, about 550 B.C.), the Brahminism and the later Buddhaism of the Hindoos (perhaps 1000 B.C.), the religions of the Persians (Zoroaster, 700 B.C.), and of the Egyptians (" the religion of enigma"), have only a remote and indirect concern with the introduction of Christianity. But they form to some extent the historical basis of the western religions, and tlic Per- sian dualism especially was not without influence on the earlier sects (the Gnostic and Manichean) of the Christian church. The flower of jpaganism appears in the two great nations of classic antiquity, Greece an.d Eome, With the language, morality, literature, and religion of these nations, the apostles came directly into contact, and through the whole first age the church moves on the basis of these nationahties. These, together with the Jews, were the chosen nations of the ancient world, and shared * Testimonia animae naturaliter ChristianaD. , ' Atfyos aaapKos, Aoyoj cTrepjiaTiKSi. „ * Comp. Jphn j. 4, 5, 9, 10. § 13. GRECIAN LITERATURE AND THE ROilAN EMPIRE. 45 the eartli among tliem. The Jews were chosen for things eter- nal, to keep the sanctuary of the true rehgion. The Greeks prepared the elements of natural culture, of science and art, for the use of the church. The Romans developed the idea of law, and organized the civilized world in a universal empire, ready to serve the spiritual universality of the gospel. Both Greeks and Romans were unconscious servants of Jesus Christ, "the unknown God." These three nations, by nature at bitter enmity among them- selves, joined hands in the superscription on the cross, where the holy name and the royal title of the Redeemer stood written, by the command of the heathen Pilate, "in Hebrew and Greek and Latin."^ § 13. Grecian Literature and the Roman Empire. The literature of the ancient Greeks and the universal empire of the Romans were, next to the Mosaic religion, the chief agents in preparing the world for Christianity. They famished the human forms, in which the divine substance of the gospel, tho- roughly prepared in the bosom of the Jewish theocracy, was moulded. They laid the natural foundation for the supernatural edifice of the kingdom of heaven. God endowed the Greeks and Romans with the richest natural gifts, that they might reach the highest civilization possible without the aid of Christianity, and thus both provide the instruments of human science, art, and law for the use of the church, and yet at the same time show the utter impotence of these alone to bless and save the world. The Greeks, few in number, like the Jews, but vastly more important in history than the numberless hordes of the Asiatic empires, were called to the noble task of bringing out, under a sunny sky and with a clear mind, the idea of humanity in its natural vigor and beauty, but also in its natural imperfection. They developed the principles of science and art. They liberated ' John xix. 2 a. 46 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. the mind from the dark powers of nature and the gloomy brood- ings of the eastern mysticism. They rose to the clear and free consciousness of manhood, boldly investigated the laws of nature and of spirit, and carried out the idea of beauty in all sorts of artistic forms. In poetry, sculpture, architecture, painting, philo- sophy, rhetoric, historiography, they left true master-pieces, which are to this day admired and studied as models of form and taste. All these works became truly valuable and useful only in the hands of the Christian church, to which they ultimately fell. Greece gave the apostles the most copious and beautiful language to express the divine truth of the Gospel, and Providence had long before so ordered political movements, as to spread that language over all the world. The youthful hero Alexander the Great, a Macedonian indeed by birth, yet an enthusiastic admirer of Homer, an emulator of Achilles, a disciple of the scientific world-conqueror, Aristotle, and thus the truest Greek of his age, conceived the sublime thought of making Babylon the seat of a Grecian empire of the world ; and though his empire fell to pieces at his untimely death, yet it had already carried the Greek lan- guage and literature to the borders of India, and made them a common possession of all civilized nations ; so that the apostles could make themselves understood through that language in every city in the Eoman domain. The Grecian philosophy, ]\ar- ticularl^* the systems of Plato and Aristotle, formed the natural basis for scientific theology ; Grecian eloquence, for sacred ora- tory ; Grecian art, for that of the Christian church. Indeed, not a few ideas and maxims of the classics tread on the threshold of revelation, and sound like prophecies of Christian truth ; especially the spiritual soarings of Plato, the deep religious reflections of Plutarch,' the sometimes almost Pauline moral pre- cepts of Seneca. To many of the greatest church fathers, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and in some m.ea- sure even to Augustine, Greek philosophy was a bridge to Chris- ' As in his excellent treatise : De sera numinis vindicta. § 13. GRECIAN LITERATURE AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 47 tian faith, a scientific sclioolmaster for Clirist. Nay, the whole ancient Greek church rose on the foundation of the Grreek language and nationality, and were inexplicable without them. Here lies the real reason, why the classical literature is to this day made the basis of liberal education throughout the Christian world. Youth are introduced to the elementary forms of science and art, to models of clear, tasteful style, and to self-made humanity at the summit of natural culture, and thus they are at the same time trained to the scientific apprehension of the Chris- tian religion. But aside from this permanent value of the Grecian literature, the glory of its native land had, at the birth of Christ, already irrecoverably departed. Civil liberty and independence had been destroyed by internal discord and corruption. Philosophy had run down into scepticism and refined materialism. Art had been degraded to the service of levity and sensuality. Infidelity or superstition had supplanted sound religious sentiment. Dis- honesty and licentiousness reigned among high and low. This hopeless state of things could not but impress the more earnest and noble souls with the emptiness of all science and art, and the utter insufiiciency of this natural culture to meet the deeper wants of the heart. It must fill them with longings for a , new religion. The EoMANS were the practical and political nation of anti- quity. Their calling was to carry out the idea of the state and of civil law, and to unite the nations of the world in a colossal empire, stretching from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, and from the Lybian desert to the banks of the Ehine. If the Greeks had, of all nations, the deepest mind, and in literature even gave laws to their conquerors, the Komans had the strongest character, and were born to rule the world without. This difference of course reached even into the moral and religious life of the two nations. "Was the Greek mythology the work of artistic fantasy and a religion of poesy ; so was the Eoman the work of cal- culation adapted to state purposes, political and utilitarian, but at the same time solemn, earnest, and energetic. 48 FIKST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. The Romans from the first believed themselves called to govern the world. The "Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento!" had been their motto, in feet, long before Virgil thus gave it form. The very name of the urbs aeterna, and the charac- teristic legend of its founding, prophesied its future. In their greatest straits the Romans never for a moment despaired of the commonwealth. With vast energy, profound policy, unwaver- ing consistency, and wolf-like rapacity, they pursued their ambitious schemes, and became indeed the lords, but also, as their first historian, Tacitus says, the insatiable robbers of the world.^ This immense extension, it is true, brought with it a diminu- tion of those domestic and civil virtues, which at first so highly distinguished the Romans above the Greeks. The race of patriots and deliverers, who came from their ploughs to the public service, and humbly returned again to the plough or the kitchen, was extinct. Their worship of the gods, which was the root of their virtue, had sunk to mere form, running either into the most absurd superstitions, or giving place to unbelief, till the very priests laughed each other in the face when they met in the street. The ancient simplicity and contentment had been ex- changed for boundless avarice and prodigality. Morality and chastity, so beautifully symbolized in the household ministry of the virgin Vesta, had yielded to vice and debauchery. Amuse- ment had come to be sought in barbarous fights of beasts and gladiators, which not rarely consumed twenty thousand human lives in a single month. The lower classes had lost all nobler feeling, cared for nothing but " panem et circenses," and made the proud imperial city on the Tiber a slave of slaves. The huge empire of Tiberius and of Nero was but a giant body without a soul, going, with steps slow but sure, to final dissolution. "We have only to read the testimonies of its greatest authors, of a Tacitus, a Seneca, or a Persius, to find the truth of Paul's dark ' " Raptores orbis, quos non orions, non occidens satiaverit." § 14. JUDAISil A^D HEATHENISM IN" CONTACT. 49 picture of heathendom, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Eomans, fully certified by the heathens themselves, and to see the absolute need of a divine redemption. Thus far the negative. On the other hand the universal empire of Rome was a positive groundwork for the universal empire of the gospel. It served as a crucible, in which all contradictory and irreconcilable peculiarities of the ancient nations and religions were dissolved into the chaos of a new creation. The Roman legions razed the jDartition-walls among the ancient nations, brought the extremes of the civilized world together in free intercourse, and united north and south and east and west in the bonds of a common language and culture, of com- mon laws and customs. Thus they evidently, though uncon- sciouslj^, opened the way for the rapid and general spread of that religion, which unites all nations in one family of God by the spiritual bond of faith and love. The civil laws and institutions, also, and the great administra- tive wisdom of Rome did much for the outward organization of the Christian church. As the Greek church rose on the basis of the Grecian nationality, so the Latin church rose on that of ancient Rome, and reproduced in higher forms both its virtues and its defects. Roman Catholicism is pagan Rome baptized, a Christian reproduction of the universal emj)ire seated of old in the city of the seven hills. § 14. Judaism and Heathenism in Contact The Roman empire, though directly establishing no more than an outward political union, still promoted indirectly a mutual intellectual and moral approach of the hostile j;eligions of the Jews and Gentiles, who were to be reconciled in one divine brotherhood by the supernatural power of the cross of Christ. 1. The Jews, since the Babylonish captivity, had been scat- tered over all the world. In spite of the antipathy of the Gentiles, they had, by talent and industry, risen to wealth, influence, and every privilege, and had built their synagogues in all the commer- cial cities of the Roman empire. They had thus sown the seeds of 4 60 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. y the knowledge of the true God and of Messianic hope in the field /■'^ of the idolatrous world. The Old Testament scriptures were translated into Greek two centui'ies before Christ, and were read and expounded in the public worship of God, which was open to all. Every synagogue was, as it were, a mission-station of mono- theism, and furnished the apostles an admirable place and a most natural introduction for their preaching of Jesus Christ as the J ^ , fulfiller of the law and the prophets. Then, as the heathen religions had been hopelessly undermined by sceptical philosophy and popular infidelity, many earnest Gentiles, especially multitudes of women, came over to Judaism either wholly or in part. The thorough converts called " prose- . ^ v lytes of righteousness,'" were commonly still more bigoted > >^: < and fanatical than the native Jews. The half-converts, " pro- selytes of the gate '"" or " fearers of God,'" who adopted only the ^ monotheism, the princij^al moral laws, and the Messianic hopes •J -."i ^\ of the Jews, without being circumcised, api^ear in the New Tes- tament as the most susceptible hearers of the gospel, and formed the nucleus of many of the first Christian churches. Of this class were the centurion of Capernaum, Cornelius of Cesarea, Lydia of \'' Philippi, Timothy, and many other prominent disciples. ^^^ 2. On the other hand, tlie Grseco-Eoman heathenism, through \r >v^^, ^ \ its language, philosophy, and literature, exerted no inconsiderable "" influence to soften the fanatical bigotry of the higher and more cultivated classes of the Jews. Generally the Jews of the dis- persion, who spoke the Greek language, the Ilellemsts, as they were called, were much more liberal than the proper Hebrews, or Palestinian Jews, who kept their mother tongue. This is evi- dent in the Gentile missionaries, Barnabas of Cyprus and Paul of Tarsus, and in the whole church of Antioch, in contrast with that at Jerusalem. The Hellenistic Jewish form of Christianity was the natural bridge to the Gentile. The most remarkable example of a transitional, though very '^ ny'in "^712 Ex. xx. 10, Deut V. 14. 3 0( ivacStU, ol (p-^PovfiCfoi Tuy Sctfr, Acts X. 2, xiii. IC, &c.. aud Josephus. § 14. JUDAISM AND HEATHEXISil IN CONTACT. 51 fantastic and Gnostic-like combination of Jewisli and heathen elements meets us in the educated circles of the Egyptian metro- polis, Alexandria, and in the system of Philo, who was contem- /i porary with the founding of the Christian church, though he never came in contact with it. This Jewish divine sought to harmonize the religion of Moses with the philosophy of Plato by the help of an ingenious but arbitrary allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament; and from the books of Proverbs and of Wisdom he deduced a doctrine of the Logos so strikingly like that of John's Gospel, that many expositors think it necessary to impute to the apostle an acquaintance with the writings, or at least with the terminology of Philo. But Philo's speculation is to the apostle's " Word made flesh," as a shadow to the body, or a dream to the reality. The Therapeutae, or Worshippers, a mystic, ascetic sect in Egypt, akin to the Essenes in Judea, carried this Platonic \[-v^ o Judaism into jDractical life ; but were, of course, equally unsuc- % 'x: -. cessful in uniting the two religions in a vital and permanent '" " way. Such a union could only be effected by a new religion revealed from heaven. Quite independent of the philosophical Judaism of Alexandria . ^ were the Samaritans, a mixed race, which also combined, though • ' "^l' in a different way, the elements of Jewish and Gentile religion. ,:^ ^ ^ They held to the Pentateuch, to circumcision, and to carnal Mes ' ** sianic hopes ; but they had a temple of their own on Mount I" Gerizim, and mortally hated the proper Jews. Among these \ Christianity, as would apjDcar from the interview of Jesus with ^ s 'x) the woman of Samaria,^ and the preaching of Philip,^ found f ^ ^^' ready access, but, as among the Essenes and Therapeutae, fell < ^ "^ ^ easily into a heretical form. Smion Magus, for example, and z^. \ ^ e some other Samaritan arch-heretics, are represented by the early ->^ )k >" " Christian writers as the principal originators of Gnosticism. , *- C' v* 3. Thus was the way for Christianity prepared on every side, '-' ^^-wj positively and negatively, directly and indirectly, in theory and in practice, by truth and by error, by false belief and by unbelief ' Jno. iv. * Acts viii 52 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. — tliosc hostile brotlicrs, wliicli yet cannot live apart — by Jewish religion, by Grecian cultui'e, and by Eoman conquest ; by the vainly attempted amalgamation of Jewish and heathen thought, by the exposed impotence of natural civilization, philosophy, art, and political power, by the decay of the old religions, by the universal distraction and hopeless misery of the age, and by the yearnings of all earnest and noble souls for the unknown God. " In the fulness of time," when the fiiirest flowers of science and art had withered, and the world was on the verge of despair, the Virgin's Son was born to heal the infirmities of mankind. Christ entered a dying world as the author of a new and imperishable life. § 15. JESUS CHRIST. 53 CHAPTER II. FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. § 15. Jesus Christ. I. The four canonical Gospels and the other writings of the N. T. Jose- PHUS : Antiquit. xviii. 3, 3. In the heathen authors occur only a few passing notices of Christ and his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. See Tacitus : Annal. xv. 44. Suetonius : Vita Claudii, c. 25. Plinius jun. : Epist. X. 97. LuciAN : De morte peregr. c. 11. II, J. J. Hess: Lebensgeschichte Jesu. Ziir. 1781. 8th ed. 1823. 3 vols. F. V. Eeinhard : Versuch iiber den Plan Jesu. 5th ed. by Heubner. Wit- tenb. 1830. 0. Ullmann : Die Siindlosigkeit Jesu. Hamb. 1828. 6th ed. 1853. K. Hase : Das Leben Jesu. Leipz. 1829. 4th ed. 1854. Nean- DER : Das Leben Jesu. Hamb. 1837. 5th ed. 1852. The same in Eng- hsh by McClintock & Blumenthal, N. York, 1848. Sepp (R. C.) : Das Leben Jesu Christi. Regensb. 1843 sqq. 4 vols. J. P. Lange : Das Leben Jesu. Heidelb. 1847 sqq. 3 parts. A. Ebrard : Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangehschen Geschichte. 2d ed. Erl. 1850. J. Young : The Christ of History. Lond. and New York, 1855. Lichtexstein : Lebens- geschichte Jesu in chronolog. Uebersicht. Erl. 1856. Gess : Die Lehre von der Person Christi entwickelt aus dem Selbst-bewusstsein Christi und aus dem Zeugnisse der Apostel. Pas. 1856. (The critical works of Paulus, D. F. Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and to some extent those of Gfrorer, Weisse, and Hase, on the evangelical history, represent the various phases of German rationalism and negative criticism, but especially in the case of Strauss's Leben Jesu, which is translated also into English, have called forth a copious apologetic literature, which we can- not here cite in detaU. Comp. the full hterary apparatus in Hase's Leben Jesu, p. 37 sqq.). On the chronology of the Life of Jesus see K. Wieseler : Chronolog. Syn- opse der 4 Evangelien. Hamb. 1843. Jarvis : A Chronological Introduc- tion to the History of the Church. N. York, 1845. Seyffarth : Chrono- logia s., Untersuchungen iiber das Geburtsjahr des Herrn. Leipzig, 1846. F. Piper : Das Datum der Geburt Christi, in the " Evangel. Kalender " for 1856. p. 41 sqq. When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his only- 54 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. begotten Son, " the Desire of all nations," to redeem tlie -^orld from tlie curse of sin, and to establisli an everlasting kingdom of truth, love, and peace for all who should believe on his name. In Jesus Christ a preparatory history both divine and human comes to its close. In him culminate all the previous revelations of God to Jews and Gentiles ; and in him are fulfilled the deepest desires and efforts of both Gentiles and Jews for redemption. In his divine nature, as Logos, he is the eternal Son of the Father, and the agent in the creation and preservation of the world, and in all those preparatory manifestations of God, which were com- pleted in the incarnation. In his human nature, as Jesus of Nazareth, he is the ripe fruit of the religious growth of humanity^ with an earthly ancestry, which St. Matthew traces to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews, and St. Luke (the evangelist of the Gentiles), to Adam, the father of all men. In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and in him also is realized the ideal of human virtue and piety. He is the eternal Truth, and the divine Life itself, personally joined with our nature, our Lord and our God; yet at the same time flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. In him is solved the problem of religion, the reconciliation and fellowship of man with God; and we must expect no clearer revelation of God, nor any higher religious attainment of man, than is already guaranteed and substantially given in his peison. But as Jesus Christ thus closes all previous history, so, on the other hand, he begins an endless future. He is the author of a new creation, the second Adam, the father of regenerate human- ity, the head of the church, " which is his body, the fulness of him, that filleth all in all." lie is the pure and inexhaustible fountain of that stream of light and life, which has since flowed unbroken through nations and ages, and will continue to flow, till the earth shall be full of his praise, and every tongue shall con- fess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The universal diffusion and absolute dominion of the spirit and life of Christ will be also the completion of the human race, the end of history, and the beginning of a glorious eternity. § 15. JESUS CHRIST. 55 Jesus Christ came into the world under Caesar Augustus, at least four years before our Dionysian era ; for the year of Herod's death was 750, not 754, after the founding of Eome. He was born of the virgin Mary, the bride of the Holy Ghost, at Bethlehem of Judea, in the royal line of David. The world was at peace, and the gates of Janus were closed for only the second time in the history of Rome. Angels from heaven pro- claimed the glad tidings of his birth with songs of praise ; Jewish shepherds from the fields, and heathen sages from the east, greeted the new-born king in the manger with the adoration of believing hearts. He grew up quietly and unnoticed in the despised village of Nazareth in Galilee, under the care of poor but godly parents, and with no source of instruction save the t secret communion of the soul with God, and the religion of the ,' ancient covenant. He began his public ministry in the thirtieth year of his age, and chose from among the unlearned fishermen ^^ of Galilee twelve apostles for the Jews and seventy evangelists for the Gentiles. Three years he went about in Palestine doing good, speaking words of spirit and life, and working miracles of compassion and love. He had no earthly possessions. A few pious women from time to time filled his purse ; and this purse was in the hands of a thief and traitor. He never courted the favor of the great, but was the object of their hatred and persecu- tion. He never flattered the prejudices of the age, but rebuked sin and vice in all circles of societ3^ He was no scholar, in the ordinary sense of the word, nor artist, nor orator ; yet was he wiser than all earthly sages, he spake as never man spake, and he made an impression on his own age and all ages after, such as no man could ever make. He conquered sin and death on their own ground, and thus redeemed and sanctified the nature of man. He exhibited in his private life and public walk the purest and deepest love to God and man ; a peaceful harmony of all the powers and virtues of the soul ; an unexampled union of dignity and humility, of earnestness and love, of strength and meekness, of energy and mildness, of self-control and submission, of great- ness and simplicity ; in short, the ideal of moral perfection. At 6Q FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. last lie completed his active obedience by the passive obedience of suffering in perfect re'signation to the holy ^^^ll of God ; and before ho had reached the j^rime of manhood — the Saviour of the "world a youth! — he died, condemned by the Jewish courts, rejected by the people, denied by Peter, betrayed by Judas, but surrounded by his weeping mother and faithful disciples; he died the shameful death of the cross, the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, a free self-sacrifice of infinite love, to reconcile the world unto God. The third day he rose from the grave the conqueror of death and hell, the j^rince of life and resurrection ; he appeared to his disciples ; he took possession of his heavenly throne, and by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost he established the church, which he has ever since protected, nourished, and comforted, and with which he has promised to abide, till he shall come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead. But a human pen can no more do justice to the life of Jesus' than one, to use the words of the genial and pious Lavater, could " paint the glory of the rising sun with charcoal." The w^hole history of the church, with its countless fruits of the divine life of truth and love, is an imperfect commentary on the sketch drawn by the evangelists with childlike simplicity, yet unfathomable depth, and with such general and lasting effect as could not be produced by the highest arts of historical composition. The complete cata- logue of virtues could give no adequate view of the great pecu- liarity in the character of Jesus, the absolute symmetry of all moral faculties, the perfect inward harmony, unruffled by the slightest passion or selfishness, never a moment withdrawn from the closest communion with the Father in heaven, or from unreserved devotion to the welfare of mankind. Ilerc is truly the fountain of life and peace. Here is the highest union of piety and virtue, of love to God and love to man, ever seen uj)on earth. Here is the " holy of holies" of humanity, before which infidelity itself feels an irresistible awe. Even a Eousscau exclaimed : " Socrates lived and died like a sage, but Jesua Christ lived and died like a God !" ' Conip. Jno. xxi. 25. § 15. JESUS CHRIST. 57 The divinity of Christ, and his whole mission as Redeemer, is an article of faith, and, as such, above logical or mathematical demonstration. Yet it forces itself irresistibly upon the thinking mind. It appears, in the first place, in his own express testimony respecting himself. This must be either true, or else fearfully presumptuous, and indeed downright blasphemy. But how can the latter supposition stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in his every word and work, and acknowledged by the general voice even of Unitarians and Ration- Jilists ? The concession of the human perfection of Jesus involves the truth of his testimony respecting his own divinity, and of all those expressions in which he claims divine names, attributes, and worship. Self-deception, in a matter so momentous, and with a mind in other respects so clear and so sound, is of course equally oat of the question. Thu.s we are shut up to the divinity of Christ ; and reason itself must at last bow in silent awe before the tremendous word ; "I and the Father are one ! " and resjiond witlj sceptical St. Thomas : " My Lord and my God ! " To the same purpose are the immense efiects of the manifesta- tion of Jesus, lying far beyond all human power ; the history of the last eighteen hundred years, which testifies on every page the moral glory and irresistible attraction of his holy name ; and the faith of the church, which is at this day as lively and power- ful as ever, and more widely spread than ever before. The rationalistic and mythical methods of explaining the gospels, really explain nothing at all ; they only substitute for the super- rational and supernatural miracle in which they will not believe, an irrational and unnatural wonder ; they make the great fact of the universal Christian church a stream without a source, a house without a foundation, an effect without a cause, a pure absurdity. Against these we may quote with full right a re markable testimony uttered by Napoleon on the rock of St. Helena, in full view of his own unrivalled career of victoiy and defeat. " I know men," said he to General Bertrand ; " and I tell you, Christ was not a man. * * * Everything about Christ 58 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. astonislies me. His spirit overwlielms and confounds me. There is no comparison between him and any other being. He stands single and alone. Alexander, Ctesar, Charlemagne, and I, have founded empires. But on what rest the creations of our genius ? On force. Jesus alone founded his kingdom on love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him." Yes; millions of the most enlightened, the noblest and the best of men, have freely died, and millions are now ready to die for the name of Jesus, while hardly one would lay down his life for Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon, for Socrates or Plato. In this single thought lies an unanswerable argument for the divinity of Christ. Besides the artless, but for this reason all the more trustworthy and impressive portrait in the gospels, we have from outside the church a striking testimony concerning Christ from the mouth of the learned Jewish historian, Josephus, towards the end of the first century. This testimony, first cited by Eusebius, is so strong, that several critics since the seventeenth century have declared it either in whole or in part an interpolation. But it is found in all the manuscripts of Josephus, who, though no Christian, yet, as the historian of his nation and age, could not have passed over Christ in utter silence ; the less, since he mentions also John the Baptist. The. internal difficulty, that with such a persuasion of the ]\Iessiahship of Jesus he could not have remained a Jew, may possibly be solved by the consideration of his eclecticism and his acknowledged want of consistency and strong character. We here give his testimony, marking in notes the passages most liable to suspicion, from his Antiquities of the Jews, composed about the year 90 : — "jSTow there rose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be law fid to call him a man ; for he was a doer of wonderful works,^ a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He carried away wdth him many of the Jews and also many of the Greeks. He was the Christ.^ And after Pilate, at the sugges- ' irapaSd^cov cpyu)v TTOiijrfis. " o X/iioroj ouruj t)ii. § 16. MIRACLE OF PENTECOST, BIRTH-DAY OF THE CHURCH, 59 tion of the principal men among ns, had condemned him to the cross, his first adherents did not forsake him. For he appeared to them ahve again the third day •,^ the divine prophets having foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concern- ing him. And the tribe of those called Christians, after him, is not extinct to this day." § 16. The Miracle of Pentecost^ and the Birth-day of the Church. • A.D. 30. Compare the commentaries on Acts ii. and 1 Cor. xii. and xiv. ; and several treatises on the speaking with tongues, by Herder, Bleek, Schnecken- BURGER, WiESELER, Baur, Rossteuscher, Hilgenfeld, and others. The Jewish Pentecost, the feast of the first-fruits, and of the giving of the law on Sinai, prefiguring the first spiritual harvest and the establishment of the covenant of gTace, as the passover prefigured the atoning death and the resurrection of Christ, re- ceived in the year of Christ's death (30) an unmeasurable signifi- cance, as the birth-day pfthe Christian church and the beginning "^ of the third era in the revelation of the triune God. On this day / "fL^piyv the Holy Spirit, who had hitherto wrought only sporadically and - tj^X^ transiently, took up his permanent abode in mankind as the Spirit of truth and holiness, with the whole fulness of saving grace, to apply that grace thenceforth to believers by means of the word and the sacraments, and to reveal and glorify Christ in them, as Christ had revealed and glorified the Father. While the apostles and disciples, a hundred and twenty (ten times twelve) in number, were assembled in or near the temple for the morning devotions of the festal day, and were waiting in prayer for the fulfilment of the promise, the exalted Saviour poured down from his heavenly throne the fulness of the Holy Ghost upon them, and founded his church upon earth. Extra- ordinary signs from heaven, symbols of the purifying and quick- ening power of the divine Spirit, attended this new creation, and ' i(paiir! yhp airot; Tpirrjv s^wv rijitpav fuv. 60 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. filled tlic multitude of Jews and their companions, who had come up to the feast from all quarters of the Roman emj^ire, with won- der and fear. By the baptism of the Spirit and of fire, the apos- tles were now formally ordained from on high to the work, to which they had already been called and trained by the Lord. The Holy Ghost gave them a clear and full view of the person and work of Christ, and so took possession of their minds, that they thenceforth proclaimed the gospel by tongue and pen, out of the fulness of the Spirit and with divine authority, and became the pillars of the church. This was the original act of inspiration. It not only enlightened the apostles in knowledge, but trans- jDorted them into the element of a new, supernatural life, into the centre of the Christian truth and salvation, and qualified and solemnly consecrated them to be infallible witnesses of Jesus. The torrent of the new-creating Spirit and life broke through the confines of nature and of everyday speech, and burst forth at first in an act of prayer and self-edification. In an ecstatic ■\' elevation, and in new^ kinds of language corresponding thereto, the disciples praised the wonderful works of divine love. Tliis "speaking with tongues," therefore, concerned primarily only the inspired ones themselves. It was the praise and thanksgiv- ing of their enraptured souls for the gift received, and was intel- ■^ ligible only to hearers similarly wrought upon by the power from on high, w^hile the unbelievers scofiingly ascribed the wonderful effect of the Holy Ghost to excess of wine. But this speaking with tongues was followed by the intcrpre- i^tation of tongues ; the rapturous language of the soul in converse with God, by the sober words of ordinary self-possession for the benefit of the people. "While the assembled multitude wondered at this miracle with widely various emotions, St. Peter, the rock-man, appeared in the name of all the disciples, and in a clear, simple, and most suitable address ex|)laincd the supernatural phenomenon as the work of that Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Jews had crucified, but who was, by word and deed, by his resurrection from the dead, his exaltation to the right hand of God, and this effusion § 17. ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AMOXG THE JEWS, 61 of tlie Holy Ghost, accredited as tlie promised Messiah, according to the express prediction of the Scripture. He at the same time called upon his hearers to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus as the founder and head of the heavenly kingdom, that even they, though they had crucified the Lord of glory, might receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost whose wonderful workings they saw in the disciples. This was the first independent testimony of the apostles, the first Christian sermon. It resulted in the conversion and baptism of three thousand persons, gathered as first-fruits into the garners of the church. In these first-fruits of the glorified Eedeemer, and in this found- ing of the new economy of Spirit and gospel, instead of the old theocracy of letter and law, the typical meaning of the Jewish Pentecost was gloriously fulfilled. But this birth-day of the Christian church is in its turn only the beginning, the type and pledge, of a still greater spiritual harvest and a universal feast of thanksgiving, when, in the full sense of the prophecy, the Holy Ghost shall be poured out on all flesh, all the sons and daughters of men shall walk in its light, and God shall be praised with new tongues of fire for the completion of his wonderful work of redeemino; love. § 17. jSL Peter and the Church among the Jeios. Compare the corresponding portions of the works on the Apostolic age men- tioned in § 8, and the commentaries on Acts iii.-xii. Also Thiersch : De Stephani protomartyris oratione commentatio exegetica. Marb. 1849. Meterhoff: Einleitung in die Petrinischen Schriften. Hamb. 1835. WiNDiscHMANN (R. C.) : Vindiciac Petrinae. Piatisb. 1836. Stexglein (R. C.) : Ueber den 25 jahrigen Aufenthalt des heil. Petrus in Rom (Tiibinger Theol. Quartalschrift, 1840). Weiss: Der Petrinische Lehr- __^.-, begriff. Berl. 1856.^ — Schaff: Jakobus Alphai uncnTakobus der Bruder des Herrn. BerC 1842! ^"^ The church at Jerusalem became the mother of Jewish Chris- tianity, and thus of all Christendom. It grew both inwardly and outwardly under the personal direction of the apostles; 62 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. chiefly of Peter, to whom the Lord had early assigned a j^ecu- liar prominence in the work of building his church on the immov- able foundation of " God manifest in the flesh."^ The aj^ostles were assisted by a number of presbyters, and seven deacons or persons appointed to care for the poor and the sick. But the Spirit moved in the whole congregation ; bound to no particular office. The preaching of the gosjDel, the working of miracles in the name of Jesus, and the attractive power of a holy walk in faith and love, were the instruments of progress. The number of the Christians, or, as they at first called themselves, disciples, believers, brethren, saints, soon rose to five thousand, who con- tinued steadfastly under the instruction and in the fellowship of the apostles, in the daily worship of God and celebration of the holy Supper with their agajoae or love-feasts. They felt them- selves to be one family of God, members of one body under one head, Jesus Christ ; and this fraternal unity expressed itself even in a community of goods and in love-feasts, — an anticipation, as it were, of an ideal state at the end of history. Yet even in this primitive apostolic communitj^ inward cor- ruption early appeared, and with it also the severity of disci- pline and self-purification, in the terrible sentence of Peter on the hypocritical Ananias and Sapphira. At first Christianity found fiivor with the people. Soon, how- ever, it had to encounter the same persecution as its divine founder had undergone, but only, as before, to transform it into a blessing and to grow thereby. The persecution was begun by the sceptical sect of the Sad- ducces, who took offence at the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, the centre of all the apostolic j^reaching. When Stephen, one of the seven deacons of the church at Jerusalem, a man full of faith and zeal, the forerunner of the apostle Paul, boldly assailed the perverse and obstinate spirit of Judaism, and declared the approaching downfall of the Mosaic economy, the Pharisees also made common cause with the Sadducees against » Comp. ilatt. xvi. 10-19. § 17. ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AMOXG THE JEWS. 63 the gospel. Thus began the emancij^ation of Christianity from the temple-worship of Judaism, with which it had till then remained at least outwardly connected. Stephen himself was fidsely accused of blaspheming Moses, and after a remarkable address in his own defence, he was stoned by a mob (a.d. 37), and thus became the worthy leader of the sacred host of martyrs, whose blood was thenceforth to fertilize the soil of the church. Frt>m the blood of his martyrdom soon sprang the great apostle of the Gentiles, now his bitterest persecutor, and an eye-witness of his heroism and of the glory of Christ in his dying face. The stoning of Stephen was the signal for a general persecution, and thus at the same time for the spread of Christianity over all Palestine and the region around. And it was soon followed by the conversion of Cornelius of Cesarea, which opened the door for the mission to the Gentiles. After some seven years of rejDOse the church at Jerusalem suffered a new persecution under king Herod Agrippa (a.d. -i-i). James the elder, the brother of John, was beheaded. Peter was imprisoned and condemned to the same fate ; but he was mira- culously liberated, and then forsook Jerusalem, leaving the church to the care of James the " brother of the Lord." Euse- bius supposed that he went at that early period to Eome. But the book of Acts (xii. 17) says only: "He departed, and went into another place." Afterwards we find this apostle again in Jerusalem at the apostolic council;' then at Antioch, where he came into tempo- rary collision with Paul ;* then upon missionary tours;' perhaps among the dispersed Jews in Asia Minor, to whom he addressed his epistles.* Of a residence of Peter in Eome the New Testa- ment contains no certain trace, unless, as the church fathers and many of the best modern expositors think, Eome is intended by the Babylon mentioned in 1 Pet. v. 13. The entire silence of the Acts of the Apostles, c. 28, respecting Peter, of the epistle of Paul to the Eomans, and the epistles written by that apostle from. ' A.D. 50: Acts xv. ^ Gal. ii. 11 sqq. ^ 1 Cor. ix. 5. " 1 Pet. i. U 64 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. Eorae during his imprisonment tliere, in "whicli Peter is not once named in the salutations, is decisive proof that Peter was not in that city during most of the time between the years 57 and 63. But the uniform tradition of the eastern and western churches is, that he preached the gospel in Eome, and suffered martyrdom there in the Neronian persecution (a.d. 64 ; according to others, 67 or 68). So say Ignatius of Antioch, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus of Lyons, Caius of Rome, in the second century ; Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Hippolytus, Tertullian, in the third ; Lactantius, Eusebius, Jerome, and others in the fourth. However these testimonies from various men and countries may differ in particular circumstances, they can only be accounted for on the supposition of some fact at the bottom ; for they were pre- vious to any use or abuse of this tradition for hierarchical pur- poses. But the time of Peter's arrival in Rome, and the length of his residence there, cannot possibly be ascertained. The above-mentioned dates of the Acts and of Paul's epistles allow him only ji^ short period of labor there ; and the subsequent state- ment of Eusebius and Jerome respecting a twenty or twenty -five years' episcopate of Peter in Rome, rests unquestionably on a great chronological mistake. The cruel persecution, in which Peter was crucified (head down- wards, according to tradition), and Paul was beheaded, broke out soon after the terrible conflagration, which in July, 64, accord- ing to Tacitus, laid half of Rome in ashes. Nero, branded in his- tory as a moral monster, most probably himself produced this horrible spectacle, for his own entertainment, to represent the burning of Troy ; but he charged the incendiarism on the liated Christians, and so freely exposed them to the popular fury, that according to the description of the same heathen historian, some were crucified, others were sewed uji in the skins of wild beasts and thrown to dogs, and others were smeared Avith ])itcli and burnt for torches in the garden of the emperor on the Vatican hill ! The infernal tragedy wound uj^ with a grand military procession, in which Nero fissured as charioteer. After Peter, James, called the brother of the Lonl, also the § 17. ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AMONG THE JEWS. 65 Just, stands most prominent in the cliurcli of the circumcision. After the flight of Peter (a.d. 44), he presided as bishop over the chiirch at Jerusalem until his martyrdom. He was a still more strict Jewish Christian than his predecessor, who, after the con- version of Cornehus and the apostoHc council, leaned towards the Gentile Christian views, and stood between James and Paul. James is described by Hegesippus as the ideal of a Jewish saint, xmiting the most scrupulous observance of the ceremonial and moral law with a decided faith in Christ, " the Lord of glory." Of all the apostles and first disciples, he was best fitted to con- nect the Jewish economy with the Christian in that critical time of the approaching judgment of the holy city, and to lead the disciples of Moses to Christ. But the Pharisees finally threw him down from the pinnacle of the temple and stoned him, after he had prayed, like his Master on the cross : "I pray the Lord, God, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." According to Hegesippus, he died shortly before the destruction of the temple; but according to Josephus, some years earlier,. A.D. 62. Symeon, a cousin of Jesus, was elected successor of James after the destruction of the holy city, and died as a martyr under Trajan, at the great age of a hundred and twenty years. The next thirteen bishops of Jerusalem, who came, however, in rajDid succession, were likewise of Jewish descent. Throughout this period the church at Jerusalem preserved its strongly Israelit- ish type, but joined with it "the genuine knowledge of Christ," and stood in communion with the catholic church, from which the Ebionites, as heretical Jewish Christians, were excluded. After the line of the fifteen circumcised bishops had run out, and Jerusalem was a second time laid waste under Adrian, the mass of the Jewish Christians gradually merged in the Greek church. Most of the twelve apostles, respecting whose lives and for- tunes the book of Acts is silent, labored at first in Palestine, and afterwards probably among the Jews of the dispersion to the utmost limits of the Eoman empire. Thus tradition assigns to 5 66 FIEST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. Thaddeus Edessa, as the field of liis missionary work and martyr- dom ; to Thomas, Parthia ; to Andrew, Scythia ; to Bartholo- mew, India. It is certain that the ancient churches in Syria and Kurdistan, in Egypt and Ethiopia, bear to this day rather the Jewish-Christian stamp, than the Gentile-Christian or Pauline. St. Mark, the evangelist and companion of Peter, is made by a credible tradition the founder of the church of Alexandria, the centre of the christianization of Egypt, § 18. Preparation for the Mission to the Gentiles. The planting of the church among the Gentiles is mainly the work of Paul ; but Providence prepared the way for it by several steps, before this apostle entered upon his sublime mis- sion. 1. By the conversion of those half-Gentiles and bitter enemies of the Jews, the Samaritans, under the preaching and baptism of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven deacons of Jerusalem, and under the confirming instruction of the apostles Peter and John,^ the gospel found ready entrance into Samaria, as had been prophetically hinted by the Lord in the conversation at Jacob's well.^ But there we meet also the first heretical perver- sion of Christianity by Simon Magus, whose hypocrisy and attempt to degrade the gift of the Holy Ghost received from Peter a terrible rebuke. (Hence the term simony for sordid traffic in church offices and dignities.) This encounter of the prince of the apostles with the arch-heretic was regarded in the ancient church, and fancifully represented, as typifying the rela- tion of ecclesiastical orthodoxy to deceptive heresy. 2. Somewhat later (between 37 and 40), occurred the conver- sion of the centurion, Cornelius of Caesarea, a pious proselyte of the gate, whom Peter, in consequence of a special revelation, received into the communion of the Christian church directly by baptism, without circumcision. This bold step the apostle had to vindicate to the strict Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who thought circumcision a condition of salvation, and Judaism the * Acts viii. ' John iv § 19. ST. PAUL AND THE CHURCH AMONG THE GENTILES. 67 only way to Cliristianity.^ Thus Peter laid tlie foundation also of tlie Grentile-Cliristian cliurcli. 3. Still more important was the rise at about the same time of the church at Antioch, the capital of Syria. This congregation, formed under the influence of the Hellenist Barnabas of Cyprus and Paul of Tarsus, seems to have consisted from the first of con- verted heathens and Jews. It thus became the mother of Gentile Christendom, as Jerusalem was the mother and centre of Jewish. In Antioch, too, the name " Christian " first appeared,^ which was soon everywhere adopted by the disciples, as well denoting their nature and mission as the followers of Christ, the divine- human prophet, priest, and king. § 19. St. Paul and the CJiurch among the Gentiles. I. The second part of the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of Paul II. Pearson: Annales Paulini. Lond. 1688. Palet: Horae PauUnae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of Paul evinced by a comparison of the Epistles, which bear his name, with the Acts of the Apostles and with one another. Lond. 1790 (and frequently since). Lord Lyttle- ton: Conversion of St. Paul. Lond. 1790. Hemsen: Der Apostel Paulus. Grott. 1830. Usteri : Entwicklung des PauUnischen LehrbegriflFs. Ziir. 6th ed. 1851. Baur: Paulus. Tiib. 1847. Wieseler: Chrono- logic des Apostol. Zeitalters. Gott. 1848. Contbeare & Howson: The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. Lond. 1853. 2 vols., and N. York, 1854. 2nd ed. Lond. 1856. Ad. Morton: Der Apostel Paulus (five D'scourses from the French). Elberf. 1854. H. Ewald: Die Send- schreiben des Apostels Paulus iibersetzt und erklart. G-ott. 1857. Comp. also the Commentaries on the several Epistles of Paul, especially those of Tholuch, Olsliausen, Fritzschej Be Wette, Meyer, Alforcl, Hodge, the Commentaries on the second part of Acts by Baumgarten, Alexander, Hachett, etc., and the relevant parts of Neander, Thiersch, Lange, Schaff, on the Apost. Age. St. Paul, the great Apostle of the Grentiles, who decided the victory of Christianity as a universal religion, and who labored more, both in word and deed, than all his colleagues, was of strictly Jewish parentage, but was born a Eoman citizen in the renowned Grecian commercial and literary city of Tarsus, in the ' Acts X. and xL ' Acts xi. 26. 6S FIKST TERIOD. A.D. 1-100. province of Cilicia. lie received a learned Jewish education in the school of the Pharisean Rabbi, Gamaliel ; not remaining an entire stranger to Greek literature, as his style, his dialectic method, his allusions to heathen religion and philosophy, and his occa- sional quotations from heathen poets show. Thus, a "Hebrew of the Ilebrews'" yet at the same time a native Hellenist, and a Roman citizen, he combined in himself, so to speak, the three great nationalities of the ancient world, and was endowed with all the natural qualifications for a universal apostleship. He could argue with the Pharisees as a son of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, as a disciple of the renowned Gamaliel, surnamed " the Glory of the Law," and as one of the straitest of their sect. He could address the Greeks in their own beautiful tongue, and with the force of their strong logic. Clothed with the dignity and majesty of the Roman people, he could travel safely over the whole empire with the watchword : Civis Romanus sum. By his extraordinary talents and energy of character Saul of Tarsus soon rose to eminence among the Jewish divines; put himself at the head of the persecution against the Christians, whom he hated as apostates from the divine religion of the Old Testament; and labored in honest and ignorant zeal, yet not without heavy guilt, to root out their name from the earth. But when, not content with the martyrdom of Stephen, he had obtained full power from the Sanhedrim, and " breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Jesus," had started for the Syrian city of Damascus, he was suddenly arrested by the hand of divine grace, and brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gosjjel (a.d. 37). That Jesus, whom, in the persons of the disciples, he fanatically persecuted, appeared from his heavenly glory, and transformed the raging Saul into the praying Paul, the self-righteous Pharisee into the humble Christian, the most dangerous enemy of the church into her most zealous friend. He yielded in true repentance to this over- whelming proof of the Messiahship of Jesus, and in childlike ' Phil, ill 5. § 19. ST. PAUL AND THE CHUECH AMONG THE GENTILES. 69 faith in Mm lie found forgiveness, peace, and tlie power of holi- ness, which he had vainly sought in the way of the law. The divine-human person and the atoning work of Christ became to him " wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemp- tion." Henceforth he devoted his fruitful mind, his zealous heart, and his energetic will wholly to the service of Christ, and in that service he found his freedom, his happiness, and his glory. The conversion of Paul was also his call to the apostolic office ; and the suddenness of his change, the greatness of the divine mercy to him, the bold contrast between his new life and his old, all eminently fitted him to preach the unmerited grace of Grod and justification by faith, and to take the lead in the conversion of the Gentiles. But he did not enter fully on his apostolic work, until, seven years later, he received a still clearer revelation in the temple at Jerusalem.' The intervening time, after a brief intercourse with Ananias and other Christians of Damascus, he spent partl}^ in retired prejjaration in the Arabian desert, partly in subordmate labors as evangelist and assistant to his senior Barnabas in build- ing up the church at Antioch. The Jewish apostles seem to have suspected at first the genuineness of his conversion,'' and not to have put full confidence in him till the fruits of his labors among the heathen placed his divine call and his peculiar mis- sion beyond all doubt. Glance a moment at the general character of his grand labors for the propagation of Christianity. Though endowed with the authority of the Holy Ghost, he still took from the church at Antioch a solemn commission to preach to the Gentiles.^ He made this mother-church of Gentile Christendom the centre of his missionary tours. He followed in general the current of history, of commerce, and of civilization, from east to west, from Syria to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. In the larger and more influential cities,' Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, he resided a considerable time. From these salient points he sent the gospel ' Acts xxii. 17-21 " Actsix. 26. ■" Acts xiii. 2, 3. 70 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. bv liis pupils and fellow-laborers into the surrounding towns and villages. Wliere there was a synagogue, be always addressed bimself first to tbe Jews and proselytes, taking up the regular lessons of tbe Old Testament scriptures, and demonstrating tbeir fulfilment in Jesus of Nazaretb. But almost uniformly be found tbe balf-Jews, or proselytes of tbe gate, and tbe beatben, more open to tbe gospel tban bis own bretbren ; and bis congre- gations were generally a mixture of botb Jews and Gentiles. In noble self-denial be earned bis subsistence witb bis own bands, as a tent-maker, tbat be migbt not be burdensome to bis congre- gations (composed mostly of tbe poorer classes), tbat be migbt preserve bis independence, stop tbe moutbs of bis enemies, and testify bis gratitude to tbe infinite mercy of tbe Lord, wbo bad called bim from bis beadlong, fanatical career of persecution to tbe office of an apostle of free grace. Only as an exception did be receive gifts from tbe Christians at Pbilipj^i, wbo were pecu- liarly dear to bim ; tbougb be repeatedly enjoins upon tbe cburcbes to care for tbe temporal support of tbeir teachers wbo break to them tbe bread of eternal life. Of tbe innumerable difficulties and dangers and sufferings, which be encountered witb Jews, heathens, and false brethren,^ we can hardly form an adequate idea ; for the book of Acts is only a summary record. But by the grace of God, which was sufficient for bim, be more than conquered them, and laid all tbe glory at the foot of the cross. Luke, his faithful companion, mentions three great missionary journeys of tbe Gentile apostle. But Paul must have made many excursions besides ; for he preached tbe gospel in all tbe countries between Jerusalem and Illyria on the coast of the Adriatic, everywhere seeking new fields of labor, where Christ was not yet known, tbat be migbt not build on any other man's foundation." 1. On his first great tour tbe apostle set out, with Barnabas and Mark, in tbe year 45, by tbe special direction of tbe Holy Ghost through the prophets of tbe congregation at Antiocb. He ' Conip. 1 Cor. xi. 23 sqq. ' Rom. xv. 19, 20. § 19. ST. PAUL AND THE CHURCH AMONG THE GENTILES. 71 traversed tlie island of Cyprus and several provinces of Asia Minor. The conversion of the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, at Paphos ; the rebuke and punishment of the Jewish sorcerer, Elymas ; the marked success of the gos|)el in Pisidia, and the bitter opposition of the unbelieving Jews ; the miraculous heal- ing of a cripple at Lystra; the idolatrous worship there offered to Paul and Barnabas by the superstitious heathens, and its sud- den change into hatred against them as enemies of the gods ; the stoning of the missionaries, their escape from death, and their successful return to Antioch, are the leading incidents of this tour. 2. After the apostolic council at Jerusalem and the temporary adjustment of the difference between the Jewish and Grentile branches of the church, Paul undertook, in the year 51, a second great journey, which decided the Christianization of Europe. He took Silas for his companion. Having first visited his old churches, he proceeded, with the help of Silas and the young convert Timothy, to establish new ones through the pro^dnces of Phrygia and Galatia, till, in answer to the Macedonian cry : "Come over and help us!" he crossed from Troas into Greece. In Greece he preached the gospel with great success, first in Philippi, where he converted the purple-dealer, Lydia, and the jailor, and was imprisoned with Silas, but miraculously deli- vered and honorably released; then in Thessalonica, where he was persecuted by the Jews, but left a flourishing church; in Beroea, where the converts show^ed exemplary zeal in searching the Scriptures; in Athens, where he reasoned with the Stoic and Epicurean pliilosophers, and declared on the Areopagus "the unknown God;" and lastly in Corinth. In this city, the commercial centre between east and west, a flourishing seat of wealth and culture, but of corruption too, the apostle spent eighteen months, and under almost insurmountable difficulties he built up a church, which exhibited all the virtues and all the faults of the Grecian character under the influence of the gospel, and which he honored with two of his most important epistles. In the spring of 54 he returned by way of Ephesus, Caesarea, and Jerusalem to Antioch. 72 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. 3. Towards the close of the same year Paul went to Ephesus, and in this renowned capital of proconsular Asia and of the wor- ship of Diana, he fixed for three years the centre of his missionary work ; then visited his churches in Macedonia and Achaia, and remained three months more in Corinth and the vicinity. Dur- ing this period he wrote the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans. 4. In the spring of 58 he journeyed, for the fifth and last time, to Jerusalem, by way of Philippi, Troas, Miletus (where he deli- vered his affecting valedictory to the Ephesian elders). Tyre, and Caesarea, to carry to the poor brethren in Judaea a contribution from the Cliristians of Greece, and by this token of gratitude and love to cement the two branches of the apostolic church more firmly together. But some fanatical Jews, who bitterly hated him as an apostate and a demagogue, raised an uproar against him at Pentecost ; charged him with profaning the temple, be- cause he had taken into it the Greek, Trophimus; dragged him out of the sanctuary, lest they should defile it with blood ; and would undoubtedly have killed him, had not Claudius Lysias, the Eoman tribune, who lived near by, come promptly with his soldiers to the spot. This officer rescued Paul from the mob, set him the next day before the Sanhedrim, and after a tumultu- ous and fruitless session of the council, and the discovery of a plot against his life, sent him, with a strong military guard and a certificate of innocence, to the procurator Felix, in Caesarea. Here the apostle was confined two whole years (58-60), await- ing his trial before the Sanhedrim, uncondemned, occasionally speaking before Felix, apparently treated with comparative mildness, visited by the Christians, and in some way not known to us promoting the kingdom of God. After the accession of the new and better procurator, Festus, Paul, as a Iloman citizen, a])pcaled to the tribunal of Caesar, and thus opened the way to the fulfilment of his long-cherished de- sire to preach the Saviour of the world in the world's metropolis. Ilaving once more testified his innocence, and spoken for Christ in a masterly defence before Festus, King Ilerod Agrippa II., his § 19. ST. PAUL AND THE CHURCH AMONG THE GENTILES. 73 guests, and tlie most distingiiislied men of Caesarea, he was sent in the autumn of the year 60 to the emperor. After a stormy voyage and a shipwreck, which detained the vessel over winter at Malta, the apostle, with a few faithful companions, reached Rome in the spring of the following year. Here he spent at least two years in easy confinement, awaiting the decision of his case, and surrounded by friends and fellow- laborers. He preached the gospel to the soldiers of the imperial body-guard, who attended him ; wrote letters to his distant churches in Asia Minor and Greece; watched over all their s|3iritual affairs ; and completed in bonds and imprisonment his apostolic fidehty to the church. 5. With the second year of Paul's imprisonment in Rome the account of the Acts breaks off. As to the result of the trial and the close of the apostle's life we are in the dark. A subsequent but not sufficiently clear and reliable tradition says, that he was acquitted on the charge of the Sanhedrim, and after travelling again in the East, and also into Spain, was a second time im- prisoned in Rome. This account would relieve many difficulties in his pastoral epistles ; but is on other grounds very improbable. Thus much, however, the unanimous testimony of antiquity makes certain : that Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome (during the Neronian persecution, or shortly before), and that, as a Roman citizen, he was put to death by the sword, not, like Peter, by the cross. His readiness for this sealing act of devotion to Christ he himself expresses in his last epistle^ in the triumphant words : " I have fought the good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but to all them also, that love his appearing." Thus ended the earthly course of this great teacher of nations, this apostle of justifying faith and of evangehcal freedom. But he yet speaks in his wonderful epistles, which far exceed in value all the classical literature put together, and are to this day, as » 2Tim.iv. T, 8. 74 FIRST PERIOD. A.D. 1-100. they have been for eigliteen centuries past, an inexhaustible source of instruction and comfort, the richest mine of the doctrines of free grace, an armory against lifeless formalism and mechanical obedience to the letter, and the mightiest lever of evangelical reform and progress in the church. § 20. Collision and Reconciliation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. All the Christians of the first generation were converts from Judaism or heathenism. It could not be expected that they should suddenly lose the influences of opposite kinds of train- ing and the differences of their religious views, and blend at once in unity. It must take an intercommunion of several gene- rations to accomplish such a union. Hence the difference be- tween Jewish and Gentile Christianity throughout the apostolic age, more or less visible in all departments of ecclesiastical life, in missions, doctrine, worship, and government. At the head of the one division stood Peter, the apostle of the circumcision ; at the head of the other, Paul, to whom was intrusted the apos- tleship of the uncircumcision.^ In another form the same difference even yet appears between the different branches of Christendom. The Catholic church is Jewish-Christian or Petrine in its character ; the evangelical is equally Gentile or Pauline. And the individual members of these bodies lean to one or the other of these leading types. The relation between these two fundamental forms of apostolic Christi^anity is in general that of authority and freedom, law and gospel, the conservative and the progressive, the objective and the subjective. These antithetic elements are not of necessity mutually exclusive. They are mutually complemental, and for perfect life they must exist in union. But in reality they often run to extremes, and then of course fall into irreconcilable con- tradiction. Exclusive Jewish Christianity sinks into Ebionism ; exclusive Gentile Christianity into Gnosticism. The Jewish converts at first very naturally adhered as closely ' Gal. il 7-9. § 20. JEWISH AND GENTILE CHRISTIANITY. 75 as possible to tlie sacred traditions of their fathers. They could not believe that the rehgion of the Old Testament, revealed by God himself, should pass away. They indeed regarded Jesus as the Saviour of Gentiles as well as Jews ; but they thought Juda- ism the necessary introduction to Christianity, circumcision and the observance of the whole Mosaic law the sole condition of an interest in the Messianic salvation. And, offensive as Judaism was, rather than attractive, to the heathen, tliis principle would have utterly precluded the conversion of the mass of the Gentile world. The apostles themselves were at. first trammelled by this Judaistic prejudice, till taught better by the special revelation to Peter before the conversion of Cornelijis.^ But even after the baptism of the uncircumcised centurion, and Peter's defence of it before the church of Jerusalem,^ the old leaven still wrought in many Jewish Christians, especially such as had belonged to the bigoted sect of the Pharisees. These in- sisted on the observance of the whole ceremonial law as necessary to salvation ; while the more liberal Jewish converts, with the Gentile, considered living faith in Jesus Christ sufiicient. This difference of opinion produced a feeling between the two leading churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, which became the more dangerous as the conversion of the Gentiles advanced under Paul, and threatened to cast Jewish Christendom into the shade. Envy and jealousy united with religious prejudice, and the infant church was threatened, in only the second decennary of its exist- ence, with a division into two hostile parties. To avert this calamity, the apostles, elders, and brethren held in Jerusalem, in the year 50, a council, which succeeded in har- monizing the conflicting views.^ At this first ecclesiastical synod, the point in controversy, the import of the Mosaic law, or, in a more general view, the relation of Christianity to Judaism and heathenism, was privately and publicly discussed by the repre- sentatives of both parties in the church. The Jewish apostles, Peter and James, and the Gentile apostles, Paul and Barnabas, agreed that faith in Christ is the sole condition of salvation ; ' Acts X. 9-16. ' Acts xi. ^ Acts xv. and Gal. ii. 76 FIRST PERIOD, A.D. 1-100, acknowledged, cacli party to the other, the peculiar grace and mission intrusted to it by the common Lord; and exchanged the hand of fraternal fellowship. The uncircumcised Gentile Christians, on the motion of James, who, as head of the church of Jerusalem, probably presided in the council, were recognised as full members of tlie Christian church, but on condition of their abstaining from certain practices particularly offensive to pious Jews, from every form of carnal uncleanness, from eating meat offered to idols, and from tasting blood or strangled ani- mals. These three prohibitions occur among the so-called Koa- chian precepts, and were also laid on the proselytes of the gate. The council at the same time published this compromise in a pastoral letter to the churches, composed probably by James ;^ and thus, by moderation and mutual concession m the spirit of peace and brotherly love, the first great controversy of the Chris- tian church was happily settled. Still it must not be supposed, that the difference between the two great divisions of the apostolic church thenceforth entirely disappeared. On the contrary, there was yet a host of Judaizing teachers, who, appealing chiefly, though without sufficient cause, to the authority of James of Jerusalem, continued to overvalue the formal observance of the law, could never rise to the idea of evangelical freedom, hated Paul as a dangerous apostate and revolutionist, and incessantly endeavored to undermine his authority and undo his work in almost all his churches. Nearly every one of his epistles bears witness to this fact, especially the epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians. Against no errorists does he so often and so earnestly contend, as against these narrow- minded pharisaic Christians, these intolerant slaves of the letter, these "false brethren" of the circumcision. The temporary inconsistency even of Peter at Antioch, which occurred after the apostolic council, and for which he was so severely reproved by Paul before the assembled congregation,^ shows how hard it was, under certain circumstances, even for ar * Comp. tlio form of salutation {x