I Cibrarp of r upon b 3 xxii Synopsis of Contents. their own exertions as traders or artisans : it effected this by twomeans: ....... pp. 150-152 (a) It allowed the Churches to acquire and hold property : and the extent to which this operated is shown by the existence of restraining enactments . . pp. 152-153 (b) It endowed Church officers with money, and the Churches themselves with buildings and lands . . pp. 153-154 II. T/ie influence of Monasticism. Monasticism is the combination of two elements, (1) asceticism, (2) total or partial isolation from the world . . . . p. 155 (1) Asceticism belongs to the beginnings of Christianity: but for three centuries it was exceptional and for the most part dormant pp. 155-156 (2) Isolation, whether total or partial, from society, was already a prevailing tendency in the non-Christian religions of Egypt and India, and its prevalence in the Church has sometimes been as- cribed to a direct influence of one or other of them pp. 156-158 But it is more natural to ascribe that prevalence to causes within Christianity itself which were especially operative in the fourth century pp. 159-16 1 The effect of Monasticism upon Church officers was to compel them to live a more or less ascetic life, and thereby to create for them a code of morals different from that which was allowable to ordinary members pp. 1 61-162 They soon became the objects of exceptional legislation, especially in regard to (1) marriage, (2) social life . . . . p. 162 These two groups of concurrent causes, the influence of the State and of Monasticism, seem adequate to account for the change which passed over the relations of Church officers to the rest of the com- munity : and the operation of these causes was intensified by the decay and fall of the Eoiuan Empire . . . pp. 163-164 In some parts of the West the primitive Church officers had never been known : and the separation of officers of the later type from the rest of the community was further marked by two circum- stances . ........ pp. 164-165 Synopsis of Contents. xxiii (i) The tonsure, the importance of which is shown in the early dis- putes between the Romish and the British Churches pp. 165-166 (2) The practice of living together in clergy-houses, which tended still more to isolate them from ordinary society pp. 166-167 LECTURE VII. COUNCILS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHUKCH. The practice of meeting in representative assemblies which had a semi-religious character, prevailed in most provinces of the Empire . . p. 169 In the course of the second century a similar practice began to prevail among the Christian communities . . . . . p. 170 At first the meetings were held irregularly and informally : the results of their deliberations were expressed in a resolution, or in a letter to another Church, but they had no binding force upon a dissentient minority ........ pp. 170-172 But when Christianity was recognized by the State, it being obviously to the advantage of the State that the Christian societies should be homogeneous, the principle of meeting in common assembly for the framing of common rules was adopted by Constantine, who sum- moned representatives of all the Churches of Christendom to a meet- ing at Aries . . . . . . . . . p. 1 7 2 The resolutions of this meeting, being accepted by the great majority of Churches, became the basis of a confederation . . p. 173 The organization of the confederation followed strictly the organization of the Empire : the Churches of each province formed a unity, with its provincial officers and its regular provincial assemblies : and when from time to time questions were raised which affected the whole body of Churches, there were representative assemblies of the whole body of Churches, whose resolutions affected the entire con- federation ........ pp. 174-175 So far, the confederation was the voluntary 1 ct of the Churches which composed it : its existence strengthened not only the power of the majority of Churches over a minority, but also the power of single xxiv Synopsis of Contents. Churches over recalcitrant members : for it enforced a rule that exclusion from one Church should imply exclusion from all the confederate Churches, and ultimately from all Christian society pp. 1 75-1 7 8 But though this rule was a powerful instrument, it would probably not have been sufficient to ensure uniformity, unless the State had interfered, because the dissentient minorities of single Churches, or a dissentient minority of the Churches of a province, might have formed fresh combinations. In one case this was actually done : the puritan party in Africa, differing from the majority on a point not of belief but of practice, formed an association of their own pp. 178-179 But the State interposed : three measures were sufficient to render the independent existence of minorities impossible : (1) The State recognized the decisions of the representative assemblies of the confederated Churches . . . p. 180 (2) It recognized the validity of deposition from office, or exclu- sion from membership of the confederated Churches . p. 180 (3) It prohibited the formation of new associations outside the confederated Churches . . . . . . p. 180 In this way, by the help of the State, the confederation became a great unity, which survived the power that had welded it together, and which was conceived as being the visible realization of the ideal Church : and to it, accordingly, were applied the metaphors in which the Church of Christ had been pictured . . . pp. 182-184 But it is doubtful whether this assumption of the identity of the con- federation with the Church of which the New Testament had spoken can be justified : (1) From the absence of proof that the unity of organization was ever in fact realized, and from the presumption to the conti'ary which is afforded by the acknowledged independence of certain Churches pp. 185-186 (2) From the absence of proof that the terms of the confederation were ever settled, and that intercommunion ever changed its character of a voluntary and revocable agreement . p. 186 (3) From the absence of proof that the unity of the Church was ever meant to be a unity of organization, and from the pre- Synopsis of Contents. xxv gumption to the contrary which is afforded by the fact that the primitive conceptions of unity were different . . p. 186 la) In the first period the basis of Christian union was a changed life . p. 187 (6) In the second period the basis of Christian union was the acceptance of the Catholic tradition of Apostolic teaching p. 188 (c) In the third period the two former bases were held to be insufficient : a Christian must be a member of one of the confederated societies . . . . . p. 188 The ultimate prevalence of the conception of the identity of the mass of confederated Churches with the Church of Christ was in fact the result of a long struggle, in which the State took part and in which also the defeated party were crushed less by argument than by the operation of penal laws pp. 1 89-1 91 The question must be considered to be still open, At what point, if any, did the original voluntary intercommunion become an indis- soluble bond 1 p. 19 1 And beyond it is the still wider question, How far is external associa- tion necessary 1 pp. 192-193 LECTURE VIII. THE PARISH AND THE CATHEDRAL. The links which connect the primitive with the modern organization of the Christian Churches are mainly the Parish and the Cathedral. I. The Parish. The theory of the primitive organization was that each community was complete in itself: but this theory was modified in various ways by various groups of circumstances . . . . p. 195 (1) In the great cities where a single building was not large enough for the whole community, instead of multiplying organizations, one or more presbyters were detached from the central organization to preside over congregations, meeting separately for purposes of worship. At Rome the theoretical xxvi Synopsis of Contents. unity of organization was still further preserved by having only one consecration of the Eucharistic elements . pp. 195-196 (2) In suburban or rural districts there was the same variety in the ecclesiastical as in the civil organization, (a) Sometimes the communities of such districts had a complete and inde- pendent organization: but the officers of such organizations were regarded as being of lower rank than corresponding officers in the cities. (There was an attempt in the eighth century to revive this system in the West, but it did not long succeed.) (6) Sometimes such communities were regarded as being under the direct control of a city community : an example of this is Alexandria and its dependent district of Mareotis ....... pp. 196-199 (3) In some parts of the East the communities were so small and scattered that, although they had presbyters and deacons of their own, their bishop was itinerant . . . p. 199 (4) In the great estates the free coalescence of Christians into communities was probably rendered difficult by the nature of the relation of the coloni to the owner. The owners probably appointed officers at their own discretion : but the State inter- fered to compel them to require the approval of a neighbouring bishop ........ pp. 200-201 (5) In Spain and Gaul the original Churches were probably con- fined to the Roman municipalities : the greater part of the country was divided into districts of which those municipalities were the administrative centres. When the Celts who occu- pied these districts began to be converted, the primitive or- ganization was not altered : the newly-formed communities were for ecclesiastical purposes, as the districts in which they were formed had been for judicial purposes, regarded as being under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the central municipality ....... pp. 201-202 It is mainly to this last system that the modern parish owes its origin. At first the officers of these outlying communities were only tem- porarily detached, and were liable to recall. Endowments not only made them permanent but also threatened to make them inde- pendent. But the Carolingiau legislation restored the jurisdiction and authority of the bishop ...... 203-205 Synopsis of Contents. xxvii II. The Cathedral. The bishop's church long preserved its original constitution. Its worship was conducted, and its affairs administered, by the bishop, advised by his council of presbyters and assisted by the deacons. This type is still preserved at Rome, although the proper places of the city clergy are occupied by dignitaries from all parts of Christendom ........ pp. 205-206 But the original constitution of the bishop's church was modified by the practice of the clergy living together in the bishop's house. In course of time the clergy so living together, who had been originally dependent on allowances made by the bishop from the ordinary church offerings, came (a) to have funds of their own, and ultimately to form an independent corporation (6) to live under a semi-monastic rule of life ...".. pp. 206-210 The theory that all the presbyters under the bishop's control, whether they ministered in the bishop's church or in detached churches, formed part of his council, still remained : but although the de- tached clergy were still bound at certain periods to take their places in that council, the detachment became so great that at last the ' chapter ' of the cathedral took the place and functions of the original council ....... pp. 210-211 The difference between the parochial and cathedral clergy was still further widened by the separate organization of the former under their own archpresbyters and archdeacons : and the organization which was so formed has lasted until modern times . pp. 2 1 1-2 1 3 The main propositions in which the foregoing Lectures may be summed up are (1) That the development of the organization of the Christian Churches was gradual, (2) That the elements of which that organization was composed were already existing in human society . . . p. 213 In other words, the Lectures tend to establish the view that in the organization of the Christian Church, as in the formation of the natural world, Grod has been pleased to act by an economy of slowly- operating causes. Nor is it legitimate to allow an a priori theory xxviii Synopsis of Contents. of what He was likely to do to override the conclusions which follow from an examination of what He has actually done . pp. 2 1 3-2 1 6 The establishment of this view would diminish the importance of some past and existing controversies respecting ecclesiastical organization. Those controversies have usually turned on the minor premiss of the main argument, i. e. on the question whether this or that insti- tution is or is not primitive. But the point at issue is rather the major premiss, i.e. the question whether all that was primitive was intended to be permanent .... pp. 2 1 6-2 j 7 To this latter question the probahle answer is negative : in ecclesi- astical, as in all organizations whether natural or social, though the type remains, the form changes : fixity of form from age to age is impossible. Form there must be ; but the Christian Church has shown at once its vitality and its divinity by readjusting its form in successive ages ....... pp. 218-219 That form was originally a democracy; circumstances compelled it to become a monarchy : and possibly the limit of its modifications is not yet reached : the circumstances of the present time differ so widely from all that have preceded as to suggest the question whether the constitution which was good for the past will be, without modifica- tion, good also for the future . . . • pp. 219-223 LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY: THE METHOD OF STUDY. I propose in these Lectures to examine the history of the organization of the Christian Churches from the times of the Apostles until the fall of the Western Empire. How that organization began, and what causes gave it shape, are questions of extreme ob- scurity: and in the uncertainty of many of the data upon which the answers have to be based, some of the answers themselves must be more or less problematical. Nor is it easy to enter upon the consideration of these questions with an unbiassed judgment, because the fierce heats of the controversies which once raged round them have not even now sufficiently cooled down to enable the data to be dealt with, as we should deal with data that were wholly new, by the simple canons of either logical inference or literary criticism. Nor should I feel justified in approaching a subject which is in itself so complicated, and which before now has divided kingdoms, and overthrown dynasties, and sent theo- logians to the stake, if it were not for the strong conviction that the time has come at which the area 2 Introductory : [lect. of disputable points may be lessened by the discovery of new facts and the use of a more certain method of enquiry. For we have seen the growth in our own day, and to no slight extent in our own community, of a method of treating historical questions which, if it does not abolish controversy, at least limits it. We have seen the growth of a method which deals with the facts of history by processes analogous to those which have been applied with surpassing success to the phenomena of the phy- sical world, and which have there vindicated their accuracy as methods of research by proving to be methods of discovery. We have seen the growth, in short, of historical science. We have seen the growth, as the result of the pursuit and application of that science, of a habit of mind which stands in the same kind of relation to the facts of history as the habit of mind of a practised judge in relation to evidence in a court of law, and which estimates the several items not by some roughly generalized rule, but in the subtle balances of a matured experience. We have seen the growth, in short, not only of historical science, but also of the historical temper. Hitherto that science and that temper have been applied almost exclusively, in this country at least, to the facts of civil history : but if we assume, as I pro- pose to assume, that — at least for purposes of study — the facts of ecclesiastical history, being recorded in the same language, and in similar documents, and under the same general conditions of authorship, belong to the same category as the facts of civil history, it is I.] The Method of Study. 3 not too much to maintain the existence of a pre- sumption that the application of historical science and the historical temper to a field of historical phenomena which they have hitherto left comparatively unexplored, may be followed by new results. I propose therefore, in dealing with the great ques- tions which I have indicated, to deal with them by the help of modern methods. It is not necessary for me to vindicate those methods. On the comparatively neutral ground of civil history scholars are virtually agreed as to the kind of evidence for which they should look, and as to the manner in which they should deal with it. On the assumption which I have made that the phe- nomena are cognate, the methods will presumably be cognate also. But since every field of research has its special dif- ficulties, and since this particular field has been often traversed, and since, moreover, the chief ground for challenging the verdict which more than one generation has passed upon the facts, is that the method of study has been imperfect, it seems appropriate, before we begin the detailed consideration of the subject, to consider what are the special difficulties which we must expect to encounter, and what have been the chief causes which have led to the existing divergences of opinion. The first step in historical science is the testing of the documents which contain the evidence. In some fields of historical enquiry the difficulty of that step B 2 4 Introductory : [lect. lies in the scantiness of the evidence : in the present enquiry, on the other hand, the difficulty arises from its extent. We find ourselves at the outset face to face with a mass of literature which has come to us in many forms and through many channels, under varying conditions of authentication, and with varying claims to attention. It is as impossible to accept each document for what it purports to be, as it would be impossible to accept en bloc the historical literature of England. There are forgeries and counter-forgeries: there are documents of great value which we can only put together from the chance quotations of an oppo- nent : there are anonymous works which the enthusiasm of a later age has fastened upon some great name : there are books which were the growth of successive generations, and which the last reviser recast and unified, so that the separation of the new from the old is as difficult as it would be to rebuild an ancient tower from its chipped and battered stones after they have been worked into the structure of a modern wall. Upon this vast accumulation of centuries of busy thought and changing circumstances, of vigorous polemic and sometimes blind belief, literary criticism has barely begun its work. There are vast tracts of ecclesiastical literature which are like vast tracts of unexplored morass : because, although patches of solid ground exist here and there, there is hardly a moment of our passage through them at which we may not find ourselves sinking in the mire. And yet there is scarcely a single item in the whole complex mass which we can afford to lose. A document which is i.J The Method of Study. 5 proved to be spurious is not thereby proved to be valueless. That at which a historian has to look is not so much authorship as date. The Apostolical Constitutions, for example, are no more the work of the Apostles than is the Apostles' Creed, and yet they are the most valuable evidence that we possess of the internal life of the Eastern Churches from the third century to the fifth. The Isidorian Decretals are known to be mostly forgeries, and yet they throw a flood of light upon the state of the Church in the Frankish domain in the middle of the ninth century. This testing of evidence is followed by the tveighing of evidence: in other words, assuming that we have found out who the witnesses are, the next point is to estimate the value of what they say. And here we are encircled by a new class of difficulties. The in- ternal evidence for the history of the organization of Christianity ranges itself into two classes — patristic literature and conciliar literature. For some periods, and in some cases, patristic literature is our only guide. The interest of that literature is so great as almost to fascinate us. Much of it was written by men whose saintly lives and spiritual insight seem to place them upon a higher level than that upon which we ordinarily move. We listen to them, as it were, with bated breath, and their words seem almost to fall from the lips of inspired evangelists. But for the purposes of constitutional history, and when investigating ques- tions not of doctrine but of fact, we have to make a clear distinction between their value as theologians and their value as witnesses. We have to scan what 6 Introductory: [lect. they say with a close scrutiny. There is the initial and preliminary difficulty of finding out exactly what they mean. The science of patristic philology has hardly yet begun to exist. The words are for the most part familiar enough to a Greek or Latin student ; but the meaning which attaches to those words is often very remote from that which seems to lie on the surface. And assuming that we understand their meaning, we have to make what scientific ob- servers call the ■ personal equation.' We have to realize to ourselves their personal character, their varying natures — passionate and impressionable, ima- ginative and mystical, cool-headed and practical. We have to place ourselves in the midst of the circum- stances which surrounded them — their struggles for existence or for independence, the rush and storm of their controversies, the flatteries of their friends, and the calumnies of their opponents. We have to re- member that they were all of them advocates, and many of them partizans. And even when, after sub- tracting from what they say that which belongs not to the witness but to the advocate or the partizan, we come upon a statement which cannot reasonably be questioned, we have to consider their nearness in time to the fact which they attest. In ecclesiastical as in civil history the lapse of a generation, though it does not invalidate testimony, compels us to distinguish carefully between what the witnesses know of their own knowledge and what they know only at second- hand. When they state what is clearly not of their own knowledge we have to consider what were their I.] The Method of Study. 7 probable sources of information, or whether what they state is a conjecture. But wherever it is possible, we have to base our inferences not upon the Fathers, but upon the Councils. Just as the historian of the constitution of our own country looks primarily to the Statute-book, so the his- torian of the constitution of the Church looks primarily to the decrees of Councils. But though in passing from patristic to conciliar literature, we pass to firmer ground, we by no means emerge from cloudland into light. We are confronted at the outset by a difficulty which has probably done more to produce erroneous views as to the history of ecclesiastical organization than all other causes put together. Comparatively early in the history of the Church the decrees of Councils were gathered together into collections. Almost every great group of Churches had its own collection of rules. About the beginning of the fifth century in the East, and about the end of the same century in the West, the provincial collections were merged into general codes. In these general codes the decrees of local as well as of oecumenical councils had a place. Side by side with the decrees of the great parliaments of Nicaea and Chalcedon were placed the resolutions of obscure pro- vincial assemblies, which were essentially local and temporary, which had originally no validity outside the limits of their provinces, and which until exhumed by the care of the antiquary were unknown to the greater part of Christendom. In addition to this, almost all the collections were singularly imperfect. From at least the beginning of the fourth century 8 Introductory : [lect. provincial assemblies were held, often year by year, over a large part of the Christian world. A complete collection of the resolutions of such assemblies would have enabled us to frame a complete history of the organization of the several provinces. But when only one assembly in fifty has left a record, a factitious im- portance attaches to those which remain. The pre- valence of the ideas or usages which they adopted tends to be greatly exaggerated. It is as though only a few fossils remained of a great geological epoch: valuable as such fossils would be, they would yet be misleading, because they would tend to be regarded as typical, whereas they might be only unimportant specimens of the fauna and flora of their time. This difficulty of the heterogeneity and imperfection of the collections has been increased to an almost in- calculable degree by the fact that these collections came in time to be regarded as a legal code, and to have the authority of legislative enactments. They constitute the nucleus of what is known as Canon Law. The various items of which they were com- posed were regarded as standing upon the same level. The distinctions of place and time which existed between those items were practically ignored. For having, as they had, the force of law, the duty of a canonist was not to investigate their origin, but to interpret their meaning. And consequently since Canon Law has had, and has still, an important and recognized place in European jurisprudence, there has been a tendency on the part of ecclesiastical historians to regard conciliar enactments as a canonist would I.] The Method of Study. 9 regard them. Since the clauses of the code were of equal, or nearly equal, value as laws, they came to be regarded as being of equal, or nearly equal, value as facts : and hence it has come to pass that over the enormous varieties of constitution which have prevailed in different ages, and in different parts of Christendom, there has been spread the hypothesis of an ideal uni- formity, which covers them as the whitewash covers frescoes of various ages and by various masters upon a cathedral wall. But the virtue of a canonist is the vice of a historian. Historical science, like all science, is the making of distinctions ; and its primary distinctions are those of time and space. These distinctions are even more important in the subject which lies before us than they are in the secular history of either - mediaeval or modern times, on account of the magnitude of the scale upon which Christianity has existed. For the history of Chris- tianity covers more than three-fourths of the whole period of the recorded history of the Western world. It goes back year by year, decade by decade, century by century, for more than fifty generations. If we compare what we are and what we believe, the in- stitutions under which we live, the literature which we prize, the ideas for which we contend, in this present year, with the beliefs, the institutions, the literature, the prevalent ideas, of a hundred years ago, we shall begin to realize the difference between one century and another of these eighteen centuries of Christian history. The special difficulty of studying i o Introductory : [lect. any such period of history arises from the fact that the centuries which are remote from our own seem, in the long perspective, to be almost indistinguishable. It is as though we stood upon some commanding height in a country of mountains and valleys, and as we saw fold over fold of the purple hills recede farther and fainter into the distant haze, failed to realize that between each of those far faint lines were valleys filled with busy industries, or, it might be, breadths of pas- ture land, or, it might be, only the torrent-sounding depths of deep ravines. So the far centuries of Chris- tian history recede until they are lost in the sun-lit haze of its dawn. Between the third century and the fourth, for example, or between the fourth and the fifth, there seems to all but the scholars who have trod the ground to be an hardly appreciable difference. If a writer quotes in the same breath Eusebius and Sozomen, or St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Leo the Great, he seems to many persons to be quoting coeval or nearly coeval authorities. And yet in fact between each of these authorities there is an interval of a hundred years of life and movement, of great religious controversies, of important ecclesiastical changes. The point is not merely one of accuracy of date ; it is rather that usages and events have at one time as compared with another a widely varying significance. For different centuries have been marked in eccle- siastical as in social history by great differences in the drift and tendency of ideas. Our many-sided human nature tends to develop itself by the exag- gerated growth of one side at a time: and this ten- I.] The Method of Study. 1 1 dency exhibits itself in great secular movements — such as were, for example, the great movement of the fourth century in the direction of monasticism, or the great movement of the sixteenth century in the direction of simplicity of worship. Now a usage or an event which is of great significance at one stage of such a movement may be of slight importance at another. In the constitutional history of our own country, for example, no one would fail to see the importance of noting whether the Toleration Act was passed in the reign of William and Mary, or in the reign of Elizabeth : and similarly, in the constitutional history of Chris- tianity, until we are able to see the surroundings of any given fact we may wholly mistake its value. Nor are these distinctions of time the only ones of which we have to take accurate note. We have also to recognize distinctions of place. In the constitu- tional history of our own country we at once recognize the importance of distinguishing between the local usages, for example, of Wales and those of the Scotch Lowlands ; and we should at once reject as absurd any attempt to erect such usages into universal rules of the British constitution. But in the case of the Chris- tian Church, the magnitude of the scale upon which it has existed makes the adequate recognition of the distinction vastly more important. The Church has been spread not only over eighteen centuries of time, but over the greater part of the civilized world, — over countries peopled by different races, with different institutions, varying widely in intellectual and moral force, in the arts of civilized life, and in the institutions 1 2 Introdttctory : [lect. of social order. Even in those early centuries with which alone I propose to deal, it existed among a placid peasantry on the grey slopes of the Batanean hills, in villages which were always scattered, and which, as the great highways of Roman commerce closed, gradually decayed into a silent death. It existed in the thriving municipalities of Gaul, where rhetoric and philosophy flourished, where the civil law was studied and practised by skilled jurists, and where the elaborate framework of the municipal institutions of the Empire was strong enough to withstand the tempest of Teutonic invasion. It existed in the rude septs of Ireland, where Roman organization was prac- tically unknown. It existed also in the busy com- mercial centres of Africa, where the competition of life was keen and the sense of individuality strong. It is obvious that we cannot ignore these distinctions, and regard a rule which was good for and valid in one country as having been equally good for and valid in another country. In other words, what is true of distinctions of time is true also of distinctions of place ; we cannot determine the value of any item of evidence until we have localized it. I have dwelt upon these distinctions at what may have seemed an unnecessary length because, as I ventured to indicate at the outset, no small part of the differences of opinion which have arisen respecting the course of Christian history may be traced to an inadequate appreciation of their importance. There is a kind of glamour attaching to ecclesiastical literature I.] The Method of Study. 13 from the spell of which few of us are wholly eman- cipated. A quotation from an ancient Father, or from an early Council, is to many persons an end of all controversy. But it is a primary duty of the historian to go behind the quotation, to enquire into its precise meaning and its precise value, and to endeavour to fit it into its exact place in the vast mosaic of Chris- tian history. So far as we have yet gone, so far, that is to say, as in any particular case we have tested the evidence and estimated its value, and assigned it to its proper country and its proper time, we are in the position of a palaeontologist who, wishing to study certain fossils, ascertains — which is a comparatively easy task — that they are fossils and not forgeries, and then pro- ceeds to ascertain the precise stratum and the precise locality of each of them. But just as neither a palaeontologist, nor any one else who applies himself to the systematic study of any phenomena, is content with however precise a verification and localization of facts, but is led on by an inevitable bent of his nature to compare one group of facts with another, to find out the law of their sequence, and to reach at length, if he can, the common causes of all of them, so our work is only begun when we have ascertained what the facts are and what is the precise place of each of them in the strata of Christian history. We are impelled to proceed to enquire into the probable causes of these phenomena. There may be those to whom the answer to any such 1 4 Introductory : [lect. enquiry seems easy and obvious. Just as in the early days of the physical science to which I have alluded, there were some pious persons who, not being yet ripe for that larger conception of creation which is gradually opening up to us, explained the appearance of fossils in this place or in that by an inscrutable fiat of the divine will, which had determined that fossils should be and fossils were : so it is possible that there may be persons still living to whom it is a sufficient explanation of the facts of Christian organiza- tion to say that God so willed them. But most of us cannot be so easily satisfied, nor can we believe that enquiry is barred. In this, as in other fields which lie open to our view, we cannot resist, nor do we see any ground of either reason or revelation for attempting to resist, the enquiry into sequences and causes. We go on from the ascertainment of facts to the framing of inductions in reference to those facts. Now there are two, and only two, ways in which any phenomena, which have existed through successive periods of time, can be legitimately viewed for the purposes of such inductions. They may be treated by comparison of the whole of the phenomena which coexist at any one time : and they may be treated by tracing each group through its successive periods of existence. The palaeontologist, for example, makes his inferences partly by putting together all that he can find about the fauna and flora of each stratum, and partly by tracing each type of animal or plant through successive strata, so as to arrive at a conclusion re- specting the order and succession of life upon the earth, i.J The Method of Study. 1 5 It is so in the enquiry which lies before us. In the first place, we have to view the facts in their relation to preceding and succeeding facts of the same kind ; in other words, as constituting a series. We cannot, of course, assume at the outset that that series is progressive ; but neither on the other hand can we assume that the links which compose it are of precisely the same kind throughout. The danger to which in- ferences of this kind are exposed arises more from the latter assumption than from the former. If we deal with an institution or an office which has wholly passed away — like the Athenian f3ov\*j or the Roman praetor- ship — we endeavour to form an idea of the functions of that institution or of that office simply by putting together whatever we can find out from contemporary evidence. But if we are dealing with an institution which, under whatever modifications, has remained to the present day, we tend almost inevitably to carry back with us into past times those conceptions of it which we have derived from our modern experience. The tendency is assisted by a fact of language which cannot be too steadily borne in mind. By the slow and silent alchemy of time institutions change : but, while institutions change, the words which designate them frequently remain permanent. We consequently tend to make the more or less unconscious assumption that the same word designated in past times what it designates now. Whereas what we have in fact to do with every name which we meet with in ancient records, is to treat it altogether independently of the accident that it has remained to our own times. In 1 6 Introductory: [lect. other words, instead of reading the series of historical facts reversely, and interpreting each factor of the series as we go backwards by what we know of its modern use, we have to begin at the beginning, and find out by careful induction what the function of the institution or the office was at the earliest period at which we find it, and, as we trace it through suc- ceeding centuries, add on step by step the new elements which attached themselves to it, until we reach, and so account for, the meaning which it bears now. In the second place, we have to view the facts of ecclesiastical organization at any given time in their relation to all the other ascertainable facts of that time. To a certain extent that comparison is so in- evitable that all writers on the subject of Christian organization have made it. It is inevitable for the reason that, with probably no single exception, the names of Christian institutions and Christian officers are shared by them in common with institutions and officers outside Christianity. It follows, from the mere conditions of the case, that those names were given by virtue of some resemblance in the Christian institutions and officers to institutions and officers which bore the same names already. These resemblances have always been admitted, and have to some extent long been in- vestigated. But evidence which has not been thoroughly investigated until recent years, and evidence which has only within recent years come to light — especially in the unimpeachable form of inscriptions — has shown that the resemblances are not merely general but minute. The points of comparison which have been I.] The Method of Study. 17 hitherto known have to be supplemented by a large number of other points, in which the close relation between Christian and non-Christian organizations has hitherto been hardly suspected. The importance of such a comparison lies in the fact that we cannot avoid going on to the further question, how far the similar phenomena are the product of the same causes. If we find in the Eoman Empire civil societies with organiza- tions analogous to those of the Christian societies, civil officers with the same names and similar functions to those of ecclesiastical officers, the question arises and must be answered, whether the causes which are suf- ficient to account for them in the one case are not equally sufficient to account for them in the other. It has been contended, and it will no doubt continue to be contended, that the phenomena of ecclesiastical history are unique, and that an attempted comparison between them and the phenomena of civil history is vitiated at the outset by the fact that the resemblances are accidental and superficial, and that the two groups of phenomena are in reality incommensurable. And no doubt those phenomena are so transcendent in their interest, and so stupendous in their importance, that few of us can fail to have a profound, if not an absorbing, sympathy with the sublime exaggeration which characterizes many descriptions of them. We, like the inspired dreamer of earlier days, can see the new City of God coming down bodily from the sky, invisible to the carnal sight, but to the eye of faith the only reality in a world of shadows. We can conceive, C 1 8 Introductory : [lect. as ancient lovers of symbols often conceived, that no earthly mother gave birth to the spouse of Christ, but that, as Eve was taken from the side of the First Adam, so from the side of the Second Adam there sprang into instantaneous and immortal life the Virgin 'without spot or blemish ' who should be His mystic Bride l . But when we descend from poetry to fact, from the dreams of inspired and saintly dreamers to the life of incident and circumstance which history records, and in which we ordinarily dwell, then, if the evidence shows, as I believe it to show, that not only did the elements of the Christian societies exist, but that also the forces which welded them together and gave them shape are adequately explained by existing forces of human society, the argument from analogy becomes so strong that, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, it is impossible to resist the inference that in the divine economy which governs human life, as it governs the courses of the stars, by the fewest causes and the simplest means, the Christian societies, and the con- federation of those societies which we commonly speak of in a single phrase as ' the visible Church of Christ,' were formed without any special interposition of that mysterious and extraordinary action of the divine voli- tion, which, for want of a better term, we speak of as 'supernatural.' The inference is a presumption and not a demonstration. It is of the same kind as all inferences except those of the purely ideal sciences. 1 E. g. Tertull. Be Anima, 43 ; Acta Petri et Paali, 29, ap. Teschendorf, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, p. 12. The symbolism probably accounts for the frequency with which the creation of Eve is represented in early Christian art. I.] The Method of Study. 19 But it is strong enough to throw the onus of proof not upon those who make, but upon those who deny it. For those who infer from a group of resembling facts a relation of identity in kind, have a presumption in their favour which is not enjoyed by those who infer from those facts a relation of difference. There are some, no doubt, who will think that to account for the organization of the Church in this way is to detract from the nobility of its birth, or from the divinity of its life. There are some who can see a divinity in the thunder-peal, which they cannot see in the serenity of a summer noon, or in the growth of the flowers of spring. But I would ask those who think so to look for a m ment at that other monument of divine power, and manifestation of divine life, which we bear about with us at every moment. Out of the dust of the earth, if we listen to the Hebrew poet who first sang the inspired song of Genesis ; out of earlier types of organized beings, if we listen to those who tell us — or think that they tell us — the story of the earth from the records which the earth contains : but, in either view, from antecedent and lower forms, came into being these human bodies with their marvellous complexity of structure, with their almost boundless capacity of various effort, with their almost infinitely far-reaching faculty of observation. And so, it may be — nor is it a derogation from its grandeur to say that it was — out of antecedent and, if you will, lower forms, out of existing elements of human institutions, by the action of existing forces of human society, swayed as you will by the breathing of the Divine c 2 20 Introductory : [lect. Breath, controlled as you will by the Providence which holds in its hand the wayward wills of men no less than the courses of the stars, but still out of elements, and by the action of forces, analogous to those which have resulted in other institutions of society, and other forms of government, came into being that widest and strongest and most enduring of institutions which bears the sacred name of the Holy Catholic Church. The divinity which clings to it is the divinity of order. It takes its place in that infinite series of phenomena of which we ourselves are part. It is not outside the universe of Law, but within it. It is divine, as the solar system is divine, because both the one and the other are expressions and results of those vast laws of the divine economy by which the physical and the moral world alike move their movement and live their life. It is by these methods, and with, as I believe, these general results, that I propose to consider the early organization of the visible Church of Christ. I propose to begin at the beginning, and to take into consideration as we go on the conditions of the society in which the Christian communities grew as well as the facts of their growth. But I do not propose to occupy your time by a preliminary discussion of the ecclesiastical polity of the New Testament, because I believe that that polity will be best understood by the light of subsequent history. At the time when the majority of the sacred books were written that polity was in a fluid state. It had I.] The Method of Study. 21 not yet congealed into a fixed form. It seems, as far as can be gathered from the simple interpretation of the text, without the interpretation which history has given it, to have been capable of taking several other forms than that which, in the divine economy, ultimately established itself. It has the elements of an ecclesiastical monarchy in the position which is assigned to the Apostles. It has the elements of an ecclesiastical oligarchy in the fact that the riders of the Church are almost always spoken of in the plural. It has the elements of an ecclesiastical democracy in the fact, among others, that the appeal which St. Paul makes to the Corinthians on a question of ecclesiastical discipline is made neither to bishops nor to presbyters, but to the community at large. It offers a sanction to episcopacy in the fact that bishops are expressly mentioned and their qualifi- cations described : it offers a sanction to presbyterianism in the fact that the mention of bishops is excluded from all but one group of Epistles. It supports the proposi- tion that the Church should have a government in the injunctions which it gives to obey those who rule. It supports on the other hand the claim of the Montanists of early days, and the Puritans of later days, in the preeminence which it assigns to spiritual gifts. Which of these many elements, and what fusion of them, was destined in the divine order to prevail, must be determined, not so much by exegesis, as by history. That history will unfold itself before us in subsequent lectures. We shall see those to whom the Word of Life was preached gradually coalescing into societies. We shall see those societies organizing themselves as 2 2 Introductory : [lect. charitable associations in the midst of great poverty and depression 2 . We shall see them organizing themselves as disciplinary associations, held together by the force of a strong moral law, in the midst of social disorder and laxity 3 . We shall see them passing from a con- dition of oligarchy or democracy to that of virtual monarchy 4 . We shall see the individual communities ultimately confederated together into a world-wide as- sociation 5 . We shall see that world-wide association and its separate components recognized by the State, and trace the effect upon it of the close neighbourhood and the supporting arm of the civil power 6 . We shall see its officers gradually formed into a class standing apart from the mass of the Christian community, invested with attributes of special sanctity, and living, or supposed to live, by a higher rule of life than that of those to whom they ministered 7 . We shall see the heads of the separate organizations exercising juris- diction outside their proper communities over adjacent and outlying communities, so as to establish a relation of subordination between the latter and the former 8 . We shall pause at length upon the threshold of that period, alike of glory and of shame, when this grand confederation of Christian societies, arrogating to itself the name of that Catholic Church the belief in which is part of all Christian creeds, became the greatest corporation upon earth, stronger than the Koman Em- pire itself in its moral influence upon civilized society and hardly inferior to it in political power, sitting like * Lecture II. s Lecture III. * Lecture IV. * Lecture VII. 6 Lecture VI, T Lectures V and VI. * Lecture VIII. I.] The Method of Study. 23 a queen upon her throne, with her feet upon the necks of kings, and using the majesty of her sublime con- solations, and the prestige of her long traditions, and the wealth of her splendid charities, to enslave rather than to free the world. But upon a subject on which misconception is so easy and so prevalent, it seems necessary to add one word more, and to draw your attention explicitly and once for all to that which I have implied throughout, that the subject which lies before us is not the Christian faith, but the organization of the Christian Churches. In whatever I may have to say about the latter, I do not propose to touch the former. With doctrine, and with the beliefs which underlie doctrine, we shall have in these lectures no direct concern. Out of the tangled mass of truths and tendencies, of institutions and practices, which make up what we sometimes speak of collectively as Christianity, I shall endeavour to extricate a single thread, and to deal with it as far as possible in isolation. It is true that, except in the purely ideal sciences of metaphysics and geometry, the perfect isolation of any subject is impossible. It is true that there are many points at which the history of organization links itself almost inextricably with the history of doctrine. But I will ask those who listen to me to put upon themselves the same intellectual self-restraint which 1 endeavour to put upon myself, and to keep a fixed attention upon the immediate point in hand, apart from its innumerable side-issues and its far-reaching relations. 24 Introductory : [lect. No doubt for all our self-restraint there will loom out before us continually as we go on the majestic vision of that stupendous work which these organizations have effected, and are effecting, in the midst of human society. We shall be like a student who makes it his temporary task to explore some great historic cathedral with a view only to its architecture. At every step he treads on hallowed ground. On every side are the memorials of saintly lives, and heroic deeds, and immortal genius. From their silent tombs there seem to rise up the shadows of the holy dead, gazing at him with their beatified faces, and stretching out hands of ghostly fellowship. He is tempted at every moment to throw aside his study, and to yield to the fascination of the place, and to gain some new hope for his own sad life from the weird and whis- pered tale of what they did and suffered for Christ and for the world. But his present concern is with the architecture, and the soft and solemn voices that bid him linger in sympathy or in dream fall upon deafened ears. And so, in the Lectures that will follow, it will not be in forgetfulness, but only because their limits are too brief for even the single subject which they pro- pose to compass, that we shall turn our eyes from the saintly souls of these early centuries, and from the sublime truths they taught, to consider only the framework of that vast society to which they and we alike belong, — that society into which for eighteen centuries have been gathered the holiest and the noblest of our race, — that society which links together I.] The Method of Study. 25 the ages by the mystic tie of spiritual communion, — that society which, though to some men it has seemed a crushing despotism, has been to you and me and the world at large a beneficence and a salvation. LECTURE II. BISHOPS AND DEACONS. Among the many parallels which can be drawn between the first centuries of the Christian era and our own times, there is probably none more striking than that of their common tendency towards the forma- tion of associations. There were then, as now, associa- tions for almost innumerable purposes in almost all parts of the Empire. There were trade guilds and dramatic guilds ; there were athletic clubs, and burial clubs, and dining clubs ; there were friendly societies, and literary societies, and financial societies : if we omit those special products of our own time, natural science and social science, there was scarcely an object for which men combine now for which they did not combine then 1 . 1 Associations occupy a much larger place in epigraphical monuments than in literary history : of the kinds mentioned above, i. trade-guilds are found among almost every kind of workmen and in almost every town of the Empire of which inscriptions remain ; e.g. among the raftsmen at Geneva (Mommsen, Inscriptiones Confoederationia Helvetica*, No. 75), among the wool-carders of Ephesus (Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, Append, viii. No. 4), among the litter-bearers of a remote colony in Wallachia (Corpus Inter. Lat. vol. iii. No. 1438), and among the shoe- makers of a market-town in Spain {ibid. vol. ii. No. 2818) ; ii. dramatic guilds, in Bishops and Deacons. 27 There was more than one attempt at repression. The State feared lest the honeycombing of the Empire by organizations which in their nature were private, and so tended to be secret, might be a source of political danger : but the drift of the great currents of society towards association was too strong for even the Empire to resist 2 . The most important among them were the religious associations. Almost all associations seem to have had a religious element : they were under the protection of e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, Inscriptions Grecques et Latines, vol. iii. Nob. 1336, 1619 (cf. Foucart, De Collegiis scenicorum artificum apud Graecos, Paris, 1873; Liiders, Die dionysiscken Kilnstler, Berlin, 1873): iii. athletic clubs, in e.g. Corpv.it Inscr. Graze. Nob. 349, 5804, Wilmanns, No. 2202 (cf. Herzog, Gallia Narbonensis. p. 247): iv. burial clubs, in e.g. Orelli-Henzen, No. 6086= Wilmanns, No. 319 (cf. Boissier, ittudes sur qiielques colleges funiraires remains in the Revue ArcluSologique, 187a, vol. xxiii, p. 82; De Rossi, I collegii funeraticii famigliari e loro denomina- zioni in the Commentation es philologicae in honorem Th. Mommsenii, p. 705) : v. dining clubs, in e.g. Orelli, No. 4073 ; Tertullian, Apol. 39 : vi. friendly societies, in e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, vol. iii. No. 1687; Plin. Epist. 10. 94; Renier, Inscrip- tions cTJlgerie, No. 60, 70 = Wilmanns, Exempla Inscr. Lat. Nos. 14S1, 1482 : vii. literary societies, in e.g. Orelli, No. 4069= Wilmanns, No. 211 2: viii. financial societies, in e.g. Wilmanns, No. 2 181 (cp. the well-known 'societates publicano- rum'). The ' Ambubaiarum collegia' of Hor. Serm. I. 2. 1, and the * latronis colle- gium' of Apul. Metam. 7. 137 may be caricatures: but the extent of the tendency is shown by the fact that sometimes the slaves on an estate (Corpvs Inscr. Lat. vol. vi. No. 404), or even in a household (Orelli, No. 2414), formed an asso- ciation. 2 The repression began under the Republic, Cic. in Pison. 4 (cf. Asconius ad loc. ap. M. T. Cic. Schol. ed. Orelli, p. 7); Jos. Ant. 14. 10. 8; Suet. Caes. 42, and was continued by Augustus, Suet. Octav. 32, and others, e.g. by Trajan, Plin. Epist. 10. 34 (43). The allegation that they tended to become political clubs is supported by the inscriptions on the walls of Pompeii, Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. ir. N08. 202, 710, 787. For the question of the precise amount of legality which they had under the Empire, see Huschke in the Zeitsohrift f. geschicht. Eechtswissen- schaft, Bd. xii, pp. 207, sqq. ; Mommsen, ibid. Bd. xv, p. 353 sqq. ; Lb'ning, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchcnrechts, Bd. i, pp. 202 sqq. ; and especially Cohn, Zv.m rihnischen Vereinsrecht, Berlin, 1873. Alexander Severus seems to have been the first Emperor who saw in them a conservative rather than a revolutionary force, »nd encouraged instead of repressing them, Lamprid. Alex. Sev. c. 33. 28 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. a tutelary divinity, in the same way as at the present day similar associations on the continent of Europe invoke the name of a patron saint 3 : and their meetings were sometimes called by a name which was afterwards consecrated to Christian uses — that of a 'sacred synod 4 .' But in a considerable proportion of them religion was, beyond this, the basis and bond of union. Inside the religion of the State, and tolerated by it, were many forms of religion and many modes of worship. Then, as now, many men had two religions, that which they professed and that which they believed : for the former there were temples and State officials and public sacri- fices ; for the latter there were associations : and in these associations, as is shown from extant inscriptions, divinities whom the State ignored had their priests, their chapels, and their ritual 5 . 3 Of the Latin associations some were under the protection of one or more of the greater gods : e. g. most of the trades-unions at Rome claimed the patronage of Minerva, Ovid, Fast. iii. 819-832, the physicians of Turin that of Aesculapius and Hygia, Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. v. No. 6970 : others had a ' genius ' of their own, e.g. ibid. vol. iii. 1424, vol. v. No. 7595. Some associations, in even closer correspondence with modern confraternities, had their banners for fete-days and processions, ' Vexilla collegiorum/ Vopisc. Aurel. 36; Gallien. 3; Eumen. in Grat. Act. 8 : and the lodge-room or guild-hall, schola, of almost all associations seems to have had a chapel, templnm, or at least an altar, ara, e.g. Corp. Inscr. Lat. vol. iii. No. 633, vol. v. No. 7906 : the fact is the more noteworthy because De Rossi (Bul- leiino di Arch. Christ. 1864, ann. ii. p. 60, Roma Sotteranea, vol. iii. p. 475) main- tains that some of the primitive churches were scholae. For the Greek associ- ations see e.g. Schbmann, Griech. Alterthumer, Bd. i. 3 te Aufl. pp. 541-6, who rightly says that the religious element was invariable. 4 The expression Upa crvvoSos for an association, or its meeting, is found, e.g. in Le Bas et Waddington, vol. iii. No. 1336, 1619; Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 4315 n. 5 The data for the above statements will be found, for the Greek religious asso- ciations in the inscriptions collected by Foucart, Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, Paris, 1873 : for the Latin associations in Wilmanns, Exempla Inscrip- tionum Latinarum (see the Index in vol. ii. pp. 631 sqq.). Other inscriptions, and further details, will be found in Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sodaliciis So- manorum, Kiel, 1843 ; Wescher, Revue Archiologique, vol. x, 1864, p. 160, vol. ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 29 When the truths of Christianity were first preached, especially in the larger towns of the Koman Empire, the aggregation of those who accepted those truths into societies was thus not an isolated phenomenon. Such an aggregation does not appear to have invariably followed belief. There were many who stood apart : and there were many reasons for their doing so. The rule of Christian life was severe. It involved a sharp se- paration from the common pursuits of ordinary society ; it sometimes involved also a snapping asunder of the ties of family and home. A man might wish to be Christ's disciple, and yet shrink from ' hating father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also.' We consequently find that the union of believers in associations had to be preached, if not as an article of the Christian faith, at least as an element of Christian practice. The Epistle to the Hebrews urges this especially on the ground that the ' day ' was approaching 6 . The Epistle of St. J tide condemns those 'who separate themselves/ and charges them with walking ' after their own ungodly lusts V The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of those who were sound in the faith and yet * lived with the Gentiles and did not cleave to the saints 8 / The Epistle of Barnabas exhorts Christians not to withdraw them- selves and five lives apart, but to meet together and xii, 1865, p. 214, vol. xiii, 1866, p. 345 ; Boissieu, Inscriptions antiques de Lyon, pp. 373 sqq. ; Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. ii, pp. 267 sqq. ; Duruy, Hi*- toire des Romains, vol. v, pp. 149 sqq.; Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung. Bd. iii, pp. 76, 131 sqq. 8 Heb. x. 25. 7 St. Jude 19. * Herni. Sim. 9. 26. 3: so in effect 8. 8. 1 ; 8. 9. 1 ; 9. 20. 2; Vis. 3. 6. 2. 30 Bishops and Deacons. [lectt. consult about common interests 9 . The Epistles of Ignatius make the exhortation to association especially prominent. The chief purpose of those much con- troverted, and most valuable, monuments of early Christianity seems to be not, as has sometimes been supposed, to exalt the episcopate at the expense of the presbyterate, but, accepting the episcopate as an estab- lished institution in the Asiatic Churches, to urge those who called themselves Christians to become, or to con- tinue to be, or to be more zealously than before, mem- bers of the associations of which the bishops were the head 10 . After the sub-apostolic age these exhortations cease. The tendency to association had become a fixed habit. The Christian communities multiplied, and per- secution forged for them a stronger bond of unity. But to the eye of the outside observer they were in the same category as the associations which already existed. They had the same names for their meetings, and some of the same names for their officers n . The basis of association, in the one case as the other, was the profession of a com- ' Barn. 4. 10. 10 It is clear from the letters to the communities at Ephesus (c.5,3), at Magnesia (cc. 4. 7, 1), at Tralles (cc. 2. 7), at Philadelphia (cc. 3. 7), and at Smyrna (c. 7, a), that there were Christians in those cities who did not come to the general assembly or recognize the authority of the bishop, presbyters, and deacons : it is also clear from Eph.es. ao. 2, Philad. 4, Smyrn. 7. 2, that this separation from the assembly and its officers went to the extent of having separate eucharists : it is consequently clear that attachment to the organization of which the bishop was the head was not yet universally recognized as a primary duty of the Christian life. 11 twtXnoia is used of the meeting of an association in e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, vol. iii. No. 1381, 138a ; Le Bas, vol. iv. No. 1915 =Corp. Inscr. Oraec. No. 2271 : so awayory^, Corp. Inscr. Oraec. No. 3448, 3069 ; Wescher, Revue Archiologique, 1865, vol. xii, p. ai6: so otvotios, Corpus. Inscr. Oraec. Nos. 126, 3067, 3069; Le Bas et Waddington, Nos. 1143, 1336, 1619 : so rb tcoivdv, which is in ordinary use for the general body of an association, is used, e.g. in Euseb. H E. 6. 19. 16 ; 7. 32. 27, for the general body of a church. ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 31 mon religion. The members, in the one case as in the other, contributed to or received from a common fund 12 , and in many cases, if not universally, shared in a com- mon meal 13 . Admission was open, in the one case as in the other, not only to free-born citizens, but to women and strangers, to freedmen and slaves M . Consequently when a Eoman governor found the Christian communi- ties existing in his province he brought them under the general law which was applicable to such associa- tions 15 ; and the Greek satirist of the second century 12 The contribution to a common fund was of the essence of a Greek tpavos (cf. Harpocrat. 8. v. tpaviarfji) : it was payable every month, and was strictly exacted (Corpus Inscr. Attic, vol. ii. Nos. 610, 630 : cf. Foucart, pp. 42, 599). In the Roman 'collegia tenuioium' monthly contributions were also of the essence ('sti- pem menstruam conferre,' Digest, xlvii. 22. 1 ; cf. Mommsen, De Collegiis, p. 87 ; Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw. Bd. iii. 139). The fund so formed was the common property of the association, and a member who left under compulsion could claim his share (Digest, ibid.). The funds of both Greek and Eoman associations were frequently increased by benefactions. ,3 The institution of a common meal seems also to have been general : in the Greek associations it is implied in the constant provision for a sacrifice at the stated meetings : in the Latin associations regulations respecting it are given at length in the extant bylaws (which are printed in e.g. Orelli-Henzen, Nos. 4947, 6086; Wil- manns, Nos. 318, 319). Philo says that at Alexandria the associations, under th« pretext of religion, were merely convivial meetings (in Flaccum, ii. pp. 518, 537) : and Varro complains that college-dinners sent up the prices of provisions at Rome (De Be Eustica, iii. 2. 16). Josephus, Ant. 14. 10. 8, describes the exemption of the Jewish communities at Home from the general suppression of unauthorized societies by Julius Caesar, by saying fxSyovs rovrovs ovk tK&/\vatv ovre xpfjpara da6s for dfios). 18 Plin. Epiet. 10. 96 (97). 7. 32 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. invented for their bishop that which would have been an appropriate title for their head 16 . What then, if we look at these Christian communities simply on their human side as organizations in the midst of human society, was their point of peculiarity and difference ? Before I attempt to answer this question I will ask you to consider briefly the circumstances of the society in which those communities existed. The economical condition of the Eoman Empire during the early centuries of the Christian era was for the most part one of intense strain 17 . The great political disruptions which preceded the creation of the Empire, and the great political dissensions which ac- companied its consolidation, left their inevitable result in a disturbance, which proved to be permanent, of the social equilibrium. Hardly any of the elements of an unsound state of society were absent. Large tracts of 16 Lucian, Be Morte Peregrini, II, referring expressly to Christians, though pro- bably not expressly to either Ignatius or Polycarp (cf. Keim, Celsus, p. 145 ; Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, p. 5 1 7), speaks of the head of the community as Oiaadpx^ ml £vva"fouytvs (the former of these words is a substitute, which does not occur elsewhere, for apx^taaiTrji, Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 2271, standing to it in the relation of tricliniarchus, Petron. Satyr. 22, to apxirpluXivos St. John 2. 8 : it implies that the Christian communities, like those of the Jews at Rome, Jos. Ant. 14. 10. 8, and of the Essenes, Philo, ii. 458 ed. Mang., were regarded as Qiaooi). 17 The evidence as to the internal state of the Roman Empire during the second and third centuries has not hitherto been collected, and is too extensive to be com- pressed into a note : some of it, and sufficient to corroborate the statements made above, will be found in Herzberg, Die Geschichte Griechenland unter der Herrsckaft der Rimer, Bd. ii. 189-210; Finlay, History of Greece, ed. Tozer, vol. i. chap. 1 ; Mommsen, TJeber den Verfall des rdmischen Miinzwesens in der Kaiserzeit, in the Berichte der Jconiyl. sachsischen Gesellsch. der Wissenschaft, phil-hist. Classe, 1850, Bd. ii. esp. pp. 229, sqq. ; Bmckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Giossen, Absohn. iii, v, vii; Duruy, Histoire des Romains, vol. vi. pp. 284-317. ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 33 country had gone out of cultivation . The capital which should have rendered them productive was employed to a great extent not in agriculture but in luxury. The absentee landlords of the great estates wasted their substance in the encouragement of a debased Art, in demoralizing largesses, and in the vanishing parade of official rank. The smaller landowners were crushed by the weight of an unequal and oppressive taxation. Wealth tended to accumulate in fewer hands, and the lines which separated the poor from the rich became more and more sharply defined, until the old distinction between citizen and foreigner, or citizen and freedman, was merged in a new distinction between the better classes and the lower classes 18 . The municipalities vied with one another in the erection of the massive build- ings whose ruins survive not only to tell the traveller or the historian of a departed greatness, but also to point the moral of the economist as to the results of wasteful expenditure. In order to pay for them they sometimes ran heavily into debt : sometimes they endeavoured to make the future pay for the present by borrowing at usurious interest : sometimes they debased the coinage. So great was the mischief that the emperors were often obliged to send commissioners with extraordinary powers to rearrange municipal finances, and that at last they asserted the right of veto upon projected public works, and took the coinage into their own hands l!) . 18 ' Honestiores'' and ' kitmiliores :' on this distinction see Duruy, M&mtires de I'Acadimie des Inscriptions, Tom. xxix. pp. 253, sqq. (reprinted as an appendix to vol. v. of his Histoire des Bomains). 18 For the curatores or Koytarai see Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw. Bd. i. 358, 487: for the veto on public works see Macer in the Digest. L. 10. 3, § 1, and D 34 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. But tliis action on the part of the emperors was palliative and not remedial. It may have postponed, but it did not avert, the final decay. In the meantime, in the age which preceded the final decay, the pressure of poverty was severely felt. There was not that kind of distress which is caused by a great famine or a great pestilence : but there was that terrible tension of the fibres of the social organism which many of us can see in our own society. It was the crisis of the economical history of the Western world. There grew and multi- plied a new class in Graeco-Roman society — the class of paupers. And out of the growth of a new class was developed a new virtue — the virtue of active philanthropy, the tendency to help the poor. Large sums were bequeathed to be expended in annual doles of food. The emperor Trajan had established in Italy a great system for the maintenance and education of children 20 . Rich men and municipalities and succeeding emperors followed his example. The instinct of benevo- Ulpian, ibid. I. 16. 7 § I : for the abolition of the local mints see Mommsen, Oeschichte des rbm. Milnzicesens, pp. 728, 831. 20 The institution of * alimenta,' which was begun by Nerva (Aurel. Vict. JSpit. 12), was extended and organized by Trajan. The bronze tablets containing the regulations, and a list of the investments, for two districts of Italy, which were discovered near Piacenza in 1747, and near Benevento in 1831, have been printed, e.g. by Mommsen, Inscr. Begu. Neap. No. 1354; Wilmanns, No. 2844, 2845; Haenel, Corpus Legum, pp. 69-70, (cf. Desjardins, De Tabulis alimenfarris, Paris, 1854; Henzen, Tabula alimentaria Baebianorum, Rome, 1845; Borghesi, CEuvres, vol. iv. 119, 269; and, on the system of administration, Mommsen, Bom. Staatsrecht, Bd. ii. p. 998). The extent to which the example of the Emperors was followed by private persons is shown, not only by numerous extant inscrip- tions, but also by the fact that Severus and Caracalla discontinued the exemp- tion of such endowments from the operations of the Lex Falcidia, and required them to be administered by the provincial governor (Marcian in Digest. Lib. xxxv. 2.89). ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 35 lence was fairly roused 21 . And yet to the mass of men life was hardly worth living. It tended to become a despair. Such was the state of society when those who ac- cepted Christian teaching began to be drawn together into communities. They were so drawn together in the first instance, no doubt, by the force of a great spiritual emotion, the sense of sin, the belief in a Redeemer, the hope of the life to come. But when drawn together they ' had all things common.' The world and all that was in it were destined soon to pass away. ' The Lord was at hand.' In the meantime they were ' members one of another.' The duty of those who had 'this world's goods' to help those who were in need was primary, absolute, incontrovertible. The teaching of our Lord Himself had been a teach- ing of entire self-sacrifice. ' Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven 22 .' And the teaching of the earliest Christian homily which has come down to us elevates almsgiving to the chief place in Christian practice : ' Fasting is better than prayer, almsgiving is better than fasting: blessed is the man who is found perfect therein, for almsgiving lightens the weight of sin 23 .' M Cf. Corpus Inter : Oraec. No. 3545, for the almost Christian sentiment Iv 0i> naKov tpyov tv fxovov tvitoila. a St. Matt. 19. 21. M 2 Clem. Rom. 16, apparently following Tobit xii. 8, 9. Similar sentiments are not infrequent in patristic literature: e.g. Lactant. Inst. 6. 12, 'magna est misen- cordiae merces cui Deus pollicetur peccata se omnia remissuruin ; ' S. Chrys. Horn. 6 in Tit. c. 3, Opp. ed. Migne xi. 698, olvtt) v X et P^> v aov s ^ y '" a s iktrjuoavvi). ii.j Bishops and Deacons. 37 far distant from one another in either form or meaning. The one of these was k-KitxeKtrr^ — which has this ad- ditional interest, that it was the designation of the chief officers of the Essenes 25 : the other was the name which became so strongly impressed on the officers of the Christian societies as to have held its place until modern times, and which in almost all countries of both East and West has preserved its form through all the vicissitudes of its meaning — the Greek e7rtcr/co7ro?, the English lishop 2G . There is this further point to be noted in reference to these names, that they were used not only in private associations, but also in municipalities 27 : 28 'EmfitkT]Tr)s, which has undoubtedly a large contemporary use in the general sense of 'commissioner' or 'superintendent/ is used specially of the administra- tive officers of a religious association; in e.g. Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 119, 120 ( = Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part i. No. 21), 3438, 5892 : and of the officers of the Essenes, Josephus, B.J. 2. 8. 5, 6. It is also used of the officer of a temple, Le Bas et Waddington, Nos. 4596a, 5892 (of the temple of the colony of Gazaeans at Portus Trajani) : of the financial officer of the mysteries at Andania in Messenia. Le Bas, vol. ii. ed. Foucart, No. 326 a : and of the ad- ministrator of charitable funds at Delphi, Bulletin de Correspondance Helleniqite, 1881, pp. 164, 170. 26 'EmoKOTros is used of the financial officer of an association in the Theran in- scription published by Wescher, Revue ArcMoloyique, 1866, vol. 13, p. 246 a\ji6hi\^ayi.ivos rav enayyeXiav to p\jtv ap]yvpiov kySavetaai tos liriaK6\jros\ Aiwva teal MtXi'initov. ' It is resolved that the imoito-noi Dion and Meleippus shall accept the offer and invest the money.' It is used of the financial officers of a temple in several inscriptions which have been found in the Hauran, e. g. in that which was first printed by Mr. Porter in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 2nd Ser. vol. v. p. 248, by Wetzstein in the Abhandl. der Berlin. Ahad. 1863, No. 47, and by Le Bas et Waddington, No. 1 990 (the inscription belongs to Christian times, but its Pagan character is shown by the preliminary formula 'hyaOy T^xtf). 87 'EmfitXrjTTjs is used of a municipal officer, e. g. at Sparta (in the time of Hadrian), Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 1241, at Amyclae, ibid. No. 1338, at Coronea, No. 1258: imaKOTfos at Erythrae, ibid. No. 73; Kirchhoff, Corpus Inscr. Att. vol. i. No. 10. The former was the title of the special officer who was sent by the Spartans to subject states, the latter that of the officer so sent by the Athenians : of. Boeckh, C. I. G., vol. i. p. 611 b. ; Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part i. No. 3. It may be further noted that in the ' Revised Version ' of the Old Testament, which was published by Symmachus at the end of the second 38 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. and that they were there applied not only to permanent or quasi-permanent officers, but also to the governing body, or a committee of the governing body, when entrusted with the administration of funds for any special purpose. The ftovkevrai of a city or a division, or a committee of them, were for the time being, in relation to such administration, evifieK^ral or eirla-Koiroi 28 . Now in the Christian communities there appears to have been from very early times a body of officers : it must be inferred from the identity of the names which were employed that those officers were in relation to the Christian communities what the senate was in relation to a municipality, and what the committee was ill reference to an association. They were known collec- tively by a name which is common in both relations — that of ordo 29 : they were known individually as well century A.D., imaKo^ovs is substituted for the ronapxas of the LXX., in Gen. 41. 34, to designate the special commissioners who were sent to administer that part of the state revenue which consisted in a double tithe of corn : this application of the word coincides with that which i3 mentioned by the Roman jurist Charisius, Dig. 50. 4. 18, 'episcopi qui praesunt pani et caeteris venalibus rebus quae civitatum populis ad quotidianum victum usui sunt.' Both these facts serve to confirm the general view of the functions of the Christian hmanoiroi, as such, which is advanced in the text. M E.g. Le Bas et Waddington, No. ■2309, 2310, at Soada in Batanea, kvioico- irovvTwv 0ov\(vtu)v (pv\fjs BtTcut]i'u/v, ' the councillors of the tribe of the Bitaeeni acting as iniaKoiroi :' ibid. No. 2412 e = Wetzstein, No. 184, at Kanata in the Hauran, ImoKOTrovvTos &ov\ivtov, ' the councillor acting as inioKovos : ' similarly ibid. No. 2072 at Philippopolis in Batanea, ttnp.(\ov pitvojv . . . /3ov\tvru>v, 'the councillors acting as (irifieXrjTai. 1 (A third word of equivalent meaning is some- times found, -npovorjTris, e.g. ibid. No. 24130 = Wetzstein, No. 177, at Agraba in the Hauran: ibid. No. io,84(£ = Wetzstein No. 53, at Ayoun.) " Ordo is of frequent occurrence in inscriptions: (1) for a municipal senate, e.g. Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. No. 11 15 ; Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. ii. No. 1956: (2) for the committee of an association, e.g. Orelli, No. 2417, 4104 = Wilmanns, Nos. 320, 1743. In relation to the Christian communities it is used in contrast, as in the Latin collegia, to plebs, i.e. the mass of ordinary members, sometimes by n.J Bishops and Deacons. 39 as collectively by a name which was common to the members of the Jewish a-weSpia and to the members of the Greek yepovalai of Asia Minor — that of yrpea- fivrepot 30 : they were also known — for I shall here assume what the weight of evidence has rendered practically indisputable — by the name e-jrlcrKoiroi 31 . In their general capacity as a governing body they were known by names which were in current use for a governing body: in their special capacity as adminis- trators of Church funds they were known by a name which was in current use for such administrators. I propose in a future Lecture to enter into the question of the causes which led to that great change in Christian organization by which the functions of this original plurality of probably coordinate officers came practically to pass into the hands of a single officer. I propose now to suggest reasons for the fact that this single officer came in time to monopolize the name which had hitherto been shared by the members of the governing body in common, and which had reference to financial and administrative functions rather than to his position as president : in other words, to answer the question, why was the single head of the Christian communities called, at first com- monly and at last exclusively, by the name bishop ? itself, Tertull. Be Exhort. Castit. c. 7, sometimes with a defining epithet, ' ordo ecclesiasticus? id. Be Monog. c. 11. 80 See below, Lecture III, Note 25. 31 For a clear summary of the evidence, on this point see Bishop Lightfoot, St. PauVs Epistle to the Philippians, ed. 3, pp. 93 sqq., and Gebhardt and Har- nack's note to 1 Clem. Eom. i. 3, in their Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, ed. alt. fasc. 1. p. 5. The admissions of both mediaeval and modern writers of almost all schools of theological opinion have practically removed this from the list of disputed questions. 40 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. The key to the answer to this question seems to be furnished bv the fact, which we learn first from Justin Martyr, that the offerings of Christians were made, not privately but publicly, and not directly to those who had need, but to the presiding officer in the general assembly 32 . The presiding officer who received them solemnlv dedicated them to God, and uttered over them, in the name of the assembly, words of thanksgiving and benediction. Part of them were at once distributed among those who were present, part of them were reserved for distribution afterwards, whether to the Church officers or to the poor. In a significant and graphic phrase some of the sub- apostolic writers call the widows and orphans and yl The offerings were of two kinds, but both were made to the presiding officer, and both solemnly dedicated. I. The offerings which were made by those who were present at the eucharistic service, some of winch were consumed at the time, others carried home, others taken to those who were absent, and others sent in token of goodwill to foreign churches (St. Justin M. A r pol. i. 65. 67 ; St. Iren. ap. Euseb. if. E. 5. 24. 17, cf. Vales, ad loc; Tertull. Apol. 30, ad Uxor. 2. 5, dt Orat. 19; St. Cyprian. De Lapsis, 26, p. 256; Cone. Laod. c. 14). At first these offerings seem to have been of various kinds: but afterwards a rule was made limiting them to bread and wine, or corn and grapes (Can. Apost. 3) : and, still later, those which were not consumed at the time were divided in fixed proportions among the clergy (Const. Apost. 8. 30). The practice of making them personally to the president or bishop lingered longer in the West than in the East, as is shown by the earliest form of the Ordo Romanus (printed in Hittorp, De divinis Catholicat Ecclesiae Officiis, Cologne, 1568, p. 17 ; Mabillon, Mus. Ital. vol. ii. p. 10, cf. ibid, Comm. Praev. pp. xliv-xlvii., and for the probable date, Merkel in the Theolo- gieche Quartahchrift, 1862, vol. xliv. p. 59), in which the bishop goes round the church to receive the offerings, followed by acolytes with a linen sheet for carrying the collected loaves, and by a deacon with a bowl, into which the flasks of wine were emptied. 2. The freewill offerings for the clergy and the poor were, first as a matter of practice (St. Justin M. Apol. 1. 67), and afterwards as a matter of rule (Const. Apost. 2. 25), made not directly to the intended recipients but to the bishop, and by him solemnly offered to God (ibid. 2. 25. 34: cf. Cone. Gangr. c. 7, 8, which anathematizes any one who makes his offerings to any one but the bishop or his commissary). ii. J Bishops and Deacons. 41 poor of the Christian communities a Oua-iaa-rtjpiov — an altar of sacrifice 33 . They were in the new economy what the great altar of the Temple Court had been in the older economy. Just as the new Temple of God was the temple of the regenerate soul, so the new altar of God was the altar of human need. That which was given to ' the least of the little ones' was given also to God. When the president became a single permanent officer he was, as before, the person into whose hands the offerings were committed and who was primarily responsible for their distribution. He thus became the centre round whom the vast system of Christian charity revolved. His functions as supreme almoner tended to overshadow his functions as president of the council. The names which were relative to his func- tions as president, though they never completely passed away, fell gradually into disuse. The title which clung to him was that which was relative to his administration of the funds, eTrlo-KOTros or bishop. In the same way his functions were chiefly known by names which were relative to his administration — oiKovofxla, Siaicovia 3i . They were the analogue in the Church of the administrative services which citizens rendered to the State, and were called by the same name, Xeirovpyla 36 . And sometimes by a metaphor 88 St. Polycarp, ad Phil. 4 ; Const. Apod. 2. 26 ; 4. 3 ; pseudo-Ignat. ad Tars. 9 ; cf. Tertull. ad Uxor. 1.7. 34 O'tKovofiia is used of a bishop's administration, e. g. Euseb. H. E. 4. 4 ; SiaKovia, St. Ignat. ad Philad. 1, Epist. Eccles. Vienn. tt Lwjd. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 1. 29. 35 AeiTovpyia of a bishop's administration, e. g. Euseb. H. E. 3. 22; 5. 28. 7; 6. II- i; 6. 29. I. It was the common word for public duties; e.g. for the duty 42 Bishops and Deacons. [lect which almost startles us by its boldness the bishop is compared to God — the Supreme Administrator, 6 irai-nav eTriaKowos, who gives to every man severally as he has need 36 . If we look at the internal economy of the Christian communities during the earlier centuries of their existence, we shall see that the functions of an ad- ministrator were so various in kind and so considerable in amount as to be not inadequate to account for the importance which was attached to them, and that, as years went on, that importance rather increased than diminished. The Christian communities grew up, as we have seen, in the midst of poverty. They had a special message to the poor, and the poor naturally flowed into them. And the poverty in the midst of which they grew was intensified by the conditions of their existence. Some of their members were outcasts from their homes : others had been compelled by the stern rules of Christian discipline to abandon employments which that discipline forbad 37 . In times of persecution the confessors in prison had to be fed : those whose property had been confiscated had to be supported : those who had been sold into captivity had to be ransomed 38 . Above all there were the widows and which at Rhodes the citizens discharged at their own cost, rather than at the cost of the State, of providing for the needy poor, Strab. 2. 14. 5. 3 * St. Ignat. ad Magnes. 3; cf. Philo. i. 449, 454, 457, varepa tSiv 6\wi> teal eirlfftcoTTov, and the frequent stoical phrase 6 Sioikwv to. oka, e. g. Epict. Diss. I. 12. 7; 2. 16. 33. M. Anton. 6. 42 ; 10. 25. 37 Cyprian, Epist. 2. (61) p. 467, ed. Hartel, says that an actor who has beea forced to abandon his profession is to be placed ' inter ceteros qui ecclesiae alimen- tis sustinentur.' M 1 Clem. Rom. 55. 2; Herm. Mand- 8. 10, Sim. 1. 8 ; Dionys. Corinth. »p. II. J Bishops and Deacons. 43 orphans 39 . In such times as those which we are con- sidering the poverty of widows and orphans is ne- cessarily great, because men have in their lifetime a less than ordinary chance of saving, and after their death their children have a less than ordinary chance of success in the social struggle. But in this respect again the Christian communities tended to intensify the evils which they cured. In the ordinary course of society orphan girls would have married, and many widows would have found for themselves a second home. But there grew up in the Christian communities a tendency, which many of the great preachers fostered, towards perpetual virginity and perpetual widowhood. To marry was indeed not a sin, but it was a confession of weakness : to marry a second time was almost to lapse from grace 40 . The number of virgins and widows for whom the Church had to provide consequently multiplied in an increasing ratio 41 . In addition to these Euseb. E. E. 4. 23. 10 ; Clement. Epist. ad Jacob. 9 ; Tertull. Apol. 39, ad Martyr. 1 ; St. Cyprian. Epist. 7 (36), p. 485, 62 (60), c. 4, p. 700. Const. Apost. 4. 9. 5. 1. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 12, caricatures the practice: cf. Libanius, Orat. 16 in Tisam., Orat. de Vinctis, ii. 258, 445. So much stress was laid upon it that Ambrose (De Offic. 2. 28) defended, and Justinian (Cod. 1. a. 22) legalized, the sale of the eucharistic vessels in order to obtain the necessary funds. 39 Herm. Mand. 8. 10, Sim. 1. 8: 5. 3 : 9. 26, 27; St. Ignat. ad Smym. 6, ad Polyc. 4 ; St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 4 ; St. Justin M. Apol. 1.67; Clement. Epist. ad Jacob. 8; Tertull. ad Uxor. 1. 8 ; St. Cyprian, Epist. 7 (36), p. 485 ; Const. A post. frequently, e.g. 2. 26 : 3, 4, 6, 7, 14; 4, 2, 3, 8 : 8. 29. The claims of women to special provision had been acknowledged by non-Christian communities; e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, Nos. 226, 227, 228 = Corpus Inscr. Graec. Nos. 2S86, 28S3 c, 2885 d, are inscriptions in honour of those who had made distributions rati in vaov yvvai£l /rat rdis rrapOevois. 40 Athenag. Dcprec. 28 6 Sevrepos \_yapoi\ evnpeirris eari /i«x«'« : so ' n effect Origen, Horn. xvii. in Luc. Tom. iii. p. 953 erl. De la Rue. 41 In addition to providing for widows who were in need, the Church officers had frequently to tako charge of the property of those who had it (e.g. St. Ambros. De Officiis Ministr. ii. 29 : cf. 2 Mace. 3. 10, which shows that Jewish widows haui/ rov dfxoipvKov etntu, and Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. 18, p. 473, ed. Pott. : so also in the New Testament, e.g. St. Matth. 5. 47 : 18. 15. For its use of Christians see e.g. St. Justin M. Apol. I. 65 ; Tertull. Apol. 30: Iren. 2. 31. 2 j Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. 9, p. 450: cf. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 13. The word was also used of the fellow-members of non-Christian associations, e. g. Coo-pus Imcr. Lat. vol. iii. No. 2509. (But after the Arian controversy it was superseded in general use by the word ' fidelis.') 43 Rom. 12. 13, 'given to hospitality': Heb. 13. 2, 'Be not forgetful to enter- tain strangers': 1 Pet. 4. 9, 'Use hospitality one to another without grudging' : 3 John 5-7, commends Gaius for his charity to strangers which went forth for His name's sake, 'taking nothing of the Gentiles.' It was a special qualification of a widow, 'if she have lodged strangers,' 1 Tim. 5. 10. So in sub-Apostolic literature: Clement of Rome, i.e. 2, speaks of the splendid hospitality of the Corinthians, and holds up before them, c. 10-12, for their encouragement, the examples of the hospitality of the patriarchs. ii. J Bishops and Deacons. 45 of the eVtV/<:o7ro9. It was for him not so much a merit as a duty 44 . Travelling brethren, no less than the poor of his own community, were entitled to a share in his distribution of the Church funds 45 . It is natural to find that such a system was abused. The common weaknesses of human nature asserted them- selves. Even in Apostolic days there were ' false brethren :' and later on the Apostolical Canons say in reference to the practice that 'many things are done in a spirit of plunder 46 .' But the abuses increased the responsibility and the importance of the bishop. A rule was adopted that although the bodily necessities of travellers might continue to be relieved, no one should be admitted to hospitality, in the fuller sense of earlier times, without a certificate of membership from his own community 47 . The officer who gave this certificate was the eV/o-/co7ro? — who, in all probability, also kept the roll: and his responsibility in relation to it became greater when in course of time it became 44 1 Tim. 3. 2 : Titus r. 8 : cf. the description of a good bishop in Herm. Sim. 9.27: so e. g. St. August. Serm. 355 (Be Divers. 49), Opp. ed. Migne, vol. v. 1570, * vidi necesse esse habere episcopum exhibere humanitatem quiscunque venienti'ms sive transeuntibus.' 45 Can. Apost. 41. Conversely, when one church differed with another, its bishop refused to admit the travelling members of that church to communion, and if the difference were considerable he denied them even 'board and lodging' ('tec- tum et hospitium,') as in the case of the difference between the African churches and Stephen of Home, Epist. Firmil. ap. St. Cyprian. Op. Epist. 75. 25, p. 826. 16 Gal. 2. 4: Can. Apost. 33 iroWci yap kcltcL awafmayty yivtrai : see also c. 5 of the Council of Nlmes in 394, first published from a Cologne MS. by Knust in 1839, afterwards by e.g. Hefele, ii. 57 'quia inuiti sub specie peregrinationis de ecclesiarum conlatione luxoriant.' 47 The system of giving such letters, which seems to have also prevailed in the philosophical Schools, Epict. Diss. 2. 3. 1 ; Diog. Laert. 8. 87, dates from Apostolic times, Acts 18. 27 : 2 Cor. 3. 1 : but it does not seem to have been obligatory earlier than Cone. Antioch. a.d. 341, c. 7, afterwards incorporated in Can. Apost. 12. 33. 46 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. necessary to draw sharper lines of definition round the circle of admissible beliefs. In addition to the poor, the widows and orphans, and the travelling brethren, there was the care of such of the church officers as, not having means of their own, were dependent on the Church funds for their subsistence 48 . The roll of these, as of others, was probably kept by the bishop : and in the great cities the number of those who were entered upon it was large even when mea- sured by a modern standard. We have some indication, though a late one, of those numbers in the regulation of the Emperor Justinian which limited the number of officers for the four great churches of Constantinople to 525, and enacted that if the bishop ordained more he should provide for them at his own expense 49 . Of this vast system of ecclesiastical administration the €7rlaKOTro9 was the pivot and the centre. His func- tions in reference to it were of primary importance. He had no doubt other important functions, of which I propose to speak on a future occasion : he was the depositary of doctrine, and he was the president of the courts of discipline. But the primary character of these functions of administration is shown by the fact that the name which was relative to them thrust out all the other names of his office, and that most of the abstract names for his office are names which directly connote administration. There are two other considerations which so strongly 48 E.g. St. Cyprian. Epid. 41 (108), p. 588: Can. Apost. 4, Const. Apost. 1. 28. 49 Justin. Novell. 3, c. I, 2 : the numbers were to be sixty presbyters, a hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, a hundred and ten readers, twenty- four singers, a hundred doorkeepers. ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 47 confirm this view that I regret that the necessary limits of a lecture prevent me from doing more than indicating them. 1 . In the first place, there is the argument from the abuses of the office. Just as in the science of physiology the nature of the functions of an organ is often shown by its lesions, so the nature of the functions of an office is often shown by its abuses. But the larger proportion of all the abuses of the episcopal office which are provided against in both civil and canon law are relative to the administration of the Church funds 5U . 2. In the second place, there is the argument from current conceptions of the nature of the office. No small part of the eulogies upon bishops, whether by 50 The offerings were in early times at the free disposal of the church officers : and scandals appear very early, e.g. in the case of the presbyter Valens, at Philippi (Polycarp. ad Phil, n), and of the deacons mentioned by Hernias {Sim. 9. 26): cf. Origen, Horn. 16 in Matth. c. 22, vol. iii. p. 752. In the fourth century when administration had come to be centred in the bishops, the Apostolical Con- stitutions remind them that though there is no human check, they are responsible to God {Const. A post. 2. 24) : the Council of Antioch, c. 25, the Apostolical Canons, c. 38-41, the African Code, c. 33, the code known as 'Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua' ( = 4 Cone. Carth.) c. 31, 32, all find it necessary to remind the bishop that he is a trustee for the poor, and that he is not at liberty to enrich himself or his family out of the church funds. In time two checks were devised : (1) the bishop was compelled to appoint a steward {oIkov6/ao$), Cone. Chalc. c. 26, so that the administration of the funds should not be without a witness, and the property of the church be scattered : (2) the offerings were divided in the West according to a recognized scale, which, however, varied in different churches and at different times: Cone. Aurel. a.d. 511, c. 14, 15 ; 2 Cone. Brae. a.d. 563, c. 7 ; St. Greg. M. Epist. 4. 12 ; 12. 31 ; Cone. Emerit. a.d. 666, c. 14; ps-Gelas. Epist. ad Episc. Lucan. c. 27, ap. Hinschius, JJecretales pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 650, which embodied the ultimate rule of the canon law. In the civil law, the chief enactments are those of Justinian, Cod. 1. 2. 14; 1. 3. 4 ; 2. 8. 7, and especially Novell. 3. 69, which requires that none but childless persons shall be appointed, to prevent the alienation of church property in favour of a bishop's children. (For a convenient and trustworthy modern account of the bishop's relation to the administration of Church funds see Loning, Geschichte dee deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. pp. 234251.) 48 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. contemporary writers, or by their biographers, or upon their epitaphs, are relative to their care of the distressed, and to their protectorate of the widow and orphan 51 . They are summed up in the emphatic declaration of St. Jerome : ' The glory of a bishop is to relieve the poverty of the poor 5 V There was probably a time in the history of the Christian Church at which these functions of admin- istration were the functions of a single class of officers. The conception of the nature of Church office which is found in the New Testament is divisible into two parts — that of presidency and that of ministry. But 51 In livea of bishops, e. g. St. Pontii Vita S. Cyprian, c. 6 ; Bymnus in Natalf S. Zenon., Proleg. ad Op. ed. Ball. p. cxciv ; St. Paulin. Vita S. Ambros. c. 30 ; Posaid. Vita S. Augustin. c. 23: Uranii Epist. de obitu, S. Paulin. Nolan, c. 6, 7; te- nant. Fortun. Vit. S. German. Paris, c. 74 ; Joann. Diac. Vita S. Greg. M. ii. 55, 57; Pauli Emerit. De Vita Patrum Emerit. c. 8 (ap. Migne, Patr. Lat. vol. lxxx. 135) ; Anon. Vita S. Desider. Cadure. c. 9 (ap. Migne, vol. Ixxxvii. 227) ; Anon. Vita S. Elig. ii. 25 (ap. Dachery, Spicilegium, vol. ii. 113), where the people are represented as crying out at his funeral, ' Eligi, dulcedo tu pauperum, fortitudo debilium, tu protector et impar egentium consolator : quis post te eleemosynam sicut tu dabit largam : vel quis nostri erit protector sicut tu, bone pastor V On epitaphs, e.g. ap. De Rossi, Bullefino di Arch. Christiana, 1864, p. 55 ' Haec mihi cura fuit nudos vestire petentes, Fundere pauperibus quidquid concesserat annus:' St. Tetricus of Dijon, ap. Le Blant, Inscriptions Chretiennes de la Gaule, No. 3, ' Esca inopum, tutor viduarum, cura minorura, Omnibus officiis omnia pastor eras : ' a bishop of Gaeta, circ. a.D. 529, ap. Mommsen, Insrr. Regni Neapolitani, No. 4138 ' Hospitibus gratus se ipsum donavit egenis, Illosque eloquio hos satiavit ope.' 53 St. Hieron. Epist. 52 (2) ad Nepot. c. 6. vol. i. p. 261, ed. Vail. A third con- sideration may probably be added to the above, viz. that the Gnostics seem to have had no organized system of philanthropy : (as a corollary of this, they, with the exception of the Marcionites, did not apply to their officers the name of either bishop or deacon : cf. (Munter) Versuch uber die kirchl. Allerthumcr der Gnosfi- ker, p. 1 2 : for their actual organization, see a recent treatise by Koffmane, Die Gnosis nach ihrer Tendenz und Organization, Ereslau, 1881). The contrast between orthodox and heterodox teachers in respect of philanthropy is probably made first by St. Ignat. ad Smyrn. 6. 2. II.] Bishops and Deacons. 49 the two parts are not yet divided : the favourite terms by which St. Paul designates himself and his work are those of ' minister ' and ' ministry 5 V But very soon a division of labour became imperative. Early in the history of the community at Jerusalem ' seven men of honest report' had been appointed to relieve the Apostles of the 'business' of serving tables. No title is given to these men : their work, like the work of Matthias, or the work of Archippus, is spoken of as a ' ministry :' but they themselves are only ' the seven 5 V But they served as the prototype of a class of officers who were soon forced into existence, and who have since been permanent in the Christian Churches. For before the Apostolic age had passed we find not one class of officers but two. The one was that of which I have already spoken — the eTrlo-KOTroi : the other was that of the ministers — or Skxkovoi. The two classes are in close relatiou : they are for the most part spoken of together : in the Pastoral Epistles the qualifications of the one are difficult to distinguish from the quali- fications of the other : and it is not until we pass from the Apostolic age to that which succeeded it, that the nature of the division of labour between them becomes clearly defined. The landmarks amid a sea of floating evidence are Justin Martyr and Poly carp in the middle of the second ** Aia/fovoy, Sianovia, Rom. II. 13 ; 1 Cor. 3. 5; 2 Cor. 3. 6; 4. I ; 6. 3, 4 ; II. 8, 33; Ephea. 3. 7; Col. 1. 23, 25. 54 Acts 6. 3, 'seven men of honest report,' ib. 21. 8, 'one of the seven:' Siaicovia is used of ' the daily ministration' ib. 6. 1, and of ' the ministry of the word* ib. 6. 4, cf. SiaKovuv rpanifais, ' to serve tables,' ib. 6. 2 : it is also used, with anoaroXT), of the office of Matthias, ib. 2. 25, and of Archippus, Col. 4. 17. E 50 Bishops and Deacons. [lect. century, and the Clementines at the beginning of the third. i. In the general meetings of the community, as they are described by Justin Martyr, the offerings were received and blessed by one officer, but they were distributed among the people by others 55 . The name which those who distributed bore (Skxkovoi) was not only a common name for those who served at table, but seems to have been specially applied to those who at a religious festival distributed the meat of the sacrifice among the festival company 56 . In this respect the deacons held a place which they have never lost : in all Churches which have been conservative of ritual, those who assist the presiding officer at the Eucharist are known — whatever be their actual status, archbishop, bishop, or presbyter — as deacon and sub-deacon. 2. Outside the general meetings, as we gather from clear statements of the Clementines, the division of labour was closely analogous. The alms for the relief of those who were in distress were in the hands of the bishop : but the officers who actually sought them out and relieved their necessities were the deacons 57 . 3. But both the Clementines and the letter of Poly- carp show, what must also be inferred from the Pastoral Epistles, that the deacons shared with the bishop and 65 Justin M. Apol. 1. 55, 57. 56 An inscription at Anactorium {Corpus Inter. Graec. No. 1793 6. add.) gives a list of the officers of a festival : they are the Upo&vrris, who sacrificed the victims, the fiayapos, who cooked or carried the portions that were to be eaten, the Si&kovos, who distributed the flesh, the apxtoiv6xoos, who distributed the wine. Deacons and deaconesses are also found as officers of a temple at Metropolis, in LviHa, 0. 1. G. No. 3037. 67 Clement, Epist. ad Jacob. 5, Horn. 3. 67 : cf. Const. Apost. 3. 19. II.] Bishops and Deacons. 51 his council the duties not only of administration but of discipline. Of the nature of that discipline something will be said in the succeeding Lecture : the relation of the deacons to it was analogous to their relation to ad- ministration : in the latter sphere of action the bishop was in the position of a chairman and treasurer, the deacons in that of outdoor relieving officers : in the former the bishop and his council were in the position of superintendents and judges, the deacons in that of officers of enquiry 68 . Between these two classes of officers the relation was necessarily one of subordination : though the subor- dination was by no means so great as it afterwards 58 St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 5 ofxoiws Stanovoi dfttfi-irroi Ka.rtvwTtt.ov avrov rrjs oiHaioawrjs, (lis Qeov not Xpiorov Si&kovoi /ecu ovk dv9punwv fi^ otafiuAot, fifj SiKoyoi, axoTp6v inip-ektirai Kal irpoorayparcov dis av iroKirtias ap\cov avrortKovs. (On the title Alabarch, which is sometimes, erroneously, given to the Jewish ethnarch, see Schurer, Die Ala- barchen in Aegypten in the Zeitschrift f. wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1875, Bd. xviii. pp. 13 sqq.) 11 These inscriptions, with some others, have been collected and published (chiefly after Garrucci) by Schurer, Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, Leipsig, 1879. Some of them will also be found in the Corpus Inscr. Qraec. Nos. 9902 9910. 60 Presbyters. [lect. in two capacities and with a double organization. On the sabbath there was an assembly presided over by the apyicrvvayonyos or ap^ta-vvdyioyoi for the purpose of prayer and the reading of the Scriptures and exhorta- tion : on two other days of the week there was an assembly presided over by the yepova-idpx^ or apxovres or TrpeafivTepot for the ordinary purposes of a local court 12 . Each community, whether assembling for the one class of purposes or the other, appears to have been in most cases independent. At Alexandria, where the State gave the Jewish colony exceptional privileges, the separate synagogues seem to have been all subject to the ethnarch : but at Rome and elsewhere there are no signs of their having been linked together by any stronger tie than the fellowship of a common creed and a common isolation from the Gentiles 13 . Consequently, when the majority of the members of a Jewish community were convinced that Jesus was the Christ, there was nothing to interrupt the current of their former common life. There was no need for secession, for schism, for a change in the organization. The old form of worship and the old modes of govern- ment could still go on. The weekly commemoration of the Resurrection supplemented, but did not supersede, the ancient sabbath. The reading of the life of Christ and of the letters of Apostles supplemented, but did 12 'Apxtow&ycuyos (apxoiv tj}s avvayajyrjs St. Luke 8. 41) in the singular, St. Mark 5. 35, 36, 38 ; St. Luke 8. 49 ; 13. 14 ; Acts 18. 8, 17 : in the plural, St. Mark 5. 22; Acts 13. 15; Mischna Joma 7. 1, Sota 7. 7; St. Justin M. Dial. c. Tryph. 137 ; Acta Pilati I. ap. Teschendorf, Ecang. Apocryph. p. 221, 270; St. Epiphan. Uaeres. 30. 11. 18 ; Cod. Theodos. 16. 8. 4, 13, 14. 13 See Schiirer, Die Gemeindeverfassung, etc. pp. 18-24. in.] Presbyters. 6 1 not supersede, the ancient lessons from the prophets, and the ancient singing of the psalms ,4 . The community as a whole was known by the same name which had designated the purely Jewish community. It was still a TrapoiKta — a colony living as strangers and pilgrims in the midst of an alien society : and even when the sense of alienation lessened, the word was retained, though it was used in a new relation to signify that upon earth none of us has an abiding city 16 . The same names were in use for the court of administration and for the members of that court 16 : and even the weekly w The Apostolical Constitutions (2. 57) direct the reading of two lessons from the historical books of the O. T. and from the Prophets, the antiphonal singing of the Psalms of David, and the reading of the Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the Gospels: cf. Justin. M. Apol. 1.67. 15 TlapoiKia, irapoiKos, and napoiKtiv are used in the sense of 'sojourning,' or 'a colony of sojourners ' in the LXX. : e, g. Gen. 37. 1 KaryKti Si 'ItiKwp \v ttj 7;"; ov napcyicTjatv 6 TraTrjp aiirov, ' Jacob dwelt as an inhabitant in the land where his father had dwelt as a sojourner :' Ezra 8. 35 viol 1-77? irapoiKtas, of those who had returned from the captivity. So in the N. T. Act* 7. 29; Ephes. 2. 19 ; Heb. 11. 9, and in early patristic Greek, e. g. 1 Clem. Rom. inscr. ; Polycarp, Epist. ad Phil. inscr., Epist. Eccles. Smyrn. ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 15. 3. The relation to contem- porary and civil society which this implies is important : cf. Origen, c. Cds. 8 fjfAth kv (Kaarv ito\ei d\Ko avcrrrj/ia TrarpiSos ktio~Q\v \6yq> ®eov imarapevoi : and Le Blant, Le Ddtachment de la Patrie in the Comptes rendus de I'Acaddmie dcs Inscrip- tions, 1872, Tom. i. p. 388. In the other sense mentioned above the words are also found in early times, e.g. 2 Clem. R. 5. 1 ; Testam. xii. Patr. Levi 11 ; and in later times they are sometimes found on tombstones, C. I- G. 9474> 9683. 16 Hvvedpiov is used, i. of the Jewish local councils and of the chief council at Jerusalem, St. Matt. 10. 17; 26. 59; St. Mark 13. 9; Joseph. Ant. 14. 9. 3; 15. 6. 2 ; 20. 9. 6 ; Mischna Sanhedrim, 1 : ii. of the Christian councils, St. Ignat. ad Philad. 8. 1 ; ad Magncs. 6. 1 ; ad Trail. 3. 1, and by the Fathers of the fifth and sixth centuries, e.g. St. Greg. Naz. Oral. 42. 11. vol. I. p. 756; St. Basil. M. Epist. 28, vol. iv. p. 107, ed. Ben. TlpeafivTepiov is similarly used, i. of the Jewish councils, St. Luke 22. 26; Acts 22. 5: ii. of the Christian councils, 1 Tim. 4. 14, and frequently in Ignatius and later writers. Tlpeafivrepoi is used of the members of the Jewish councils in e.g. Judith 6. 16, 21 ; 7. 23; 1 Mace. I. 26 : it is not found in the Jewish inscriptions which are collected by Schiirer : but it occurs in those of the catacombs at Venosa which are printed by Ascoli, Iscrizioni di nntichiSepolcri Giudaici, IV. A. No. 17 in the Atti del IVcongresso internazionale degli Orientalisti, vol. i. p. 292, Florence, 1880 (since printed separately). 62 Presbyters. [lect. court-days remained the same 17 . There is no trace of a break in the continuity : and there is consequently a strong presumption, which subsequent history confirms, that the officers who continued to bear the same names in the same community exercised functions closely analogous to those which they had exercised before ; in other words, that the elders of the Jewish commu- nities which had become Christian were, like the elders of the Jewish communities which remained Jewish, officers of administration and of discipline. The origin of the presbyterate in those Christian communities which had been Jewish is thus at once natural and simple : its origin in those communities of which the members or a majority of the members were Gentiles is equally natural, though rather more complex. Two elements have to be accounted for: (i) the fact of government by a council or committee, (2) the fact that the members of such council or committee were known by a name which implies seniority. (1) In regard to the first of these elements, the evidence shows that government by a council or com- mittee was all but universal in the organizations with which Christianity came into contact. The communal idea which underlay the local government of Palestine 17 The weekly court-days of the local synechia were Monday and Thursday (Bab. Talmud, Baba Kamma 82 a, Mischna Kethubuth i. i, Jerue. Talmud, Megilla, iv. 1), which were perhaps chosen as being also the usual market-days. There is a further point of similarity in the fact that the minimum number of presby- ters in a church was originally two, forming with the bishop a court of three: Ambrosiast. in Epid. 1 ad Tim. c. 3, vv. 12, 13, vol. ii. p. 295 ' aliquantos presbyteros (esse oportet) ut bini sint per ecclesias et unus in civitate episcopus.' So also the minimum number of the members of a local syuedrium was three, of whom one was the president (Bab. Talmud, SanJtedrin 1 ). in.] Presbyters. 63 had in fact survived in the Graeco-Boman world. Every municipality of the Empire was managed by its curia or senate 18 . Every one of the associations, political or religious, with which the Empire swarmed had its committee of officers 19 . It was therefore antecedently probable, even apart from Jewish influence, that when the Gentiles who had embraced Christianity began to be sufficiently numerous in a city to require some kind of organization, that organization should take the pre- vailing form ; that it should be not wholly, if at all, monarchical, nor wholly, though essentially, democra- tical, but that there should be a permanent executive consisting of a plurality of persons. It was as natural that this should be so as that the management of a new society in our own day should be entrusted not wholly to an irresponsible chairman or president, nor on the other hand to periodical meetings of the whole body of members, but to a council or committee. And this we find to have been the case. The names of the governing body varied : but they all imply presidency or government, and they are always used in the plural 20 . (2) In regard to the second element, we find the idea of respect for seniority in many places and in many forms. So strong was this idea that the terms which 18 I. e. all provincial municipalities in the West were organized on the model of Rome, and those of the East on that, which in this respect did not differ from Rome, of Athens or of Sparta : for the details see Marquardt, R'&mitche Staatg- werwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 501, 518. 19 This statement is in fact a corollary from the preceding one : the associations were organized on the model of the States within which they existed, 20 See below, Lecture V. 64 Presbyters. [lect. were relative to it were often used as terms of respect without reference to age. In the philosophical schools the professor was sometimes called 6 TrpecrPurepo? 21 . In the ascetic communities of Egypt and Palestine respect for seniority was strongly marked, not only in the common usages of life, but also and especially in the assemblies — where the members sat in ranks, the younger beneath the elder, and where it was the task of the eldest and most experienced to discourse about divine things 22 . Within the Christian communities themselves respect for seniority was preached from the first as an element of Christian order 23 . Both in the Epistles of the New Testament, and in the extra- canonical Epistle of Clement of Rome, the submission of the younger to the elder is enjoined, and the idea of age and the idea of rank so pass into one another as to make it sometimes difficult to determine which of the two was the more prominent in the writer's mind 24 . 11 Schweighauser ad Epictet. Diss. I. 9. 10. M Philo, ii. 458, says of the Essenes that at their weekly meetings they sat according to age, the younger below the elder, and, ii. 476, that the eldest and most experienced discoursed : elsewhere, ii. 481, he explains that the word 'elder' was used in reference not to length of years, but to mental and moral develop- ment. 3J It seems probable that, in at least some Christian communities in the earliest stages of their existence, the word elder was used in its proper rather than in its acquired meaning, and that the governing body, i.e. the elders in the official sense, consisted of a section of the elders in the natural sense. Hence the defining phrases in 1 Tim. 5. 17, 'that rule well,' and in Herm. Vis. 2. 4, 'that preside over the Church,' mark off not so much senior from junior members of the com- munity, as those elders who formed part of the governing body from those who did not. 24 See e.g. 1 Pet. 5.1-4: 1 Clem. Rom. 1.3: 3. 3 : 21.6: so in Clem. Alex. ii. p. 958, ed. Pott, (quoted by Euseb. H. E. 3. 23), npta^vrfpos at the beginning of the narrative is equivalent to npia^vTijs later on, and both are interchanged with iirifficowot. The MSS. sometimes interchange irptofivTtpos and irpeffffvTrjs, e. g. in Theodot ion's text of the story of Susanna. in. J Presbyters. 65 There was thus an antecedent probability, apart from Jewish influence, not only that the Christian com- munities, when organized, would be governed by a council, but also that in the appointment of the members of such a council seniority would be a prime qualification. And this we find to have been in fact the case. Out of the several names which the members of the Christian councils bore one ultimately survived the rest : they continue to be known to modern times as 'presbyters/ There is a remarkable contemporary parallel to this drift of Christian organization, which both confirms the antecedent probability and illustrates the fact. It is well known that the councils or senates of the Greek cities, though they sometimes still retained the name yepova-ia, had come, like other senates, to be councils of 'old men' only in name. But it appears from some inscriptions which have been found within recent years that there was in some states of Asia Minor a tendency to revert to the original theory of a senate. The yepova-ia was distinct from the fiovkrj 25 : the evidence points to the inference that the yepovala was the committee of the fiovkr], standing to it in something like the same relation as that in which the Cabinet stands to the Privy Council in England 26 , and that the members of 85 This is proved by the fact of their being mentioned separately, e.g. at Strato- nicea in Caria, 6 5rjpios nal 97 jSot/A.?) /ecu 17 ftpovaia, Corpus Inscr. Grace. No. 2724, at Aphrodisias, ibid. No. 2775, at Nysa, ibid. No. 2944, at Ephesus, Wood, Dis- coveries at Ephesus, Append, vi. p. 36. The presiding officers are also mentioned separately, e.g. at Branchidae, Pov\apxos nal Trpoarar-qs yepovaias, C. I. G. No. 2881. 26 This is an inference from the fact that at Ephesus the fr}(piop.a of the yepovaia and imKXrjToi was laid before the /801M.17 and passed, in the same way as at Athens the vpo0ovX(vp:a of the @ov\r] itself was laid before the tKK\r]aia: irepl wv oi vtamoiai F 66 Presbyters. [lect. the yepovcrla bore the same name as the members of the committee of the Christian Churches — that of Trpecrfiurepoi 27 . If we put the evidence together, it will appear pro- bable that the presbyterate in the Gentile Churches had a spontaneous and independent origin. This hypothesis accounts for the fact which is not easily explained on the hypothesis of the direct transference of the Jewish office to the Gentile communities, namely, that the members of the governing council were known by various names, and that the names which were in use for the Jewish officers did not at once uniformly teat olitovpf)Tcs KaraajaOivres 5^eAtx0»7 (Ta, ' T V &ov\fj ical to ipi)<\».a \u\ fjvtytiav tjjs yepovaias Hal toiv IttikA.ijtcuj' iintp Eiuppoviov Trokirdas, S(S6x6ai rrj Povkfj . . . Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, Append, ii. p. 29. The existence of such a committee is rendered probable by the unwieldy size of most Eastern councils : e. g. Josephus, Ant. 13. 13. 3, mentions 500 0ov\evrai at Gaza, and, B. J. 2. 21. 9, 600 at Tibe- rias : Libanius, in the fourth century, speaks of the municipal council of Antioch in times before his own as having consisted of 600 members (Op. vol. i. p. 182, ii. pp. 527, 528 ed. Reisk.), and this was also the normal number at Cyzicus (Btickh in Corpus Inscr. Qraec. vol. ii. p. 920). But whether the precise relation of the yepovaia to the @ov\t} be that which is stated above, or not, the general propo- sition, that there was a tendency to give tbe elder members of a community or municipality a separate and integral share in its administration, is sufficiently shown by the fact, which is stated in the preceding note, that the yepovaia is co- ordinated with the PovKrj and the Srj/xos, in certain municipal acts, e.g. C. I. G. Nos. 2814, 2820, 3417, 3462, and also by the distinction which is made between oi yepovTes (17 yepovaia) and ol veoi, e.g. Dio Chrys. Orat. 34, vol. ii. p. 27, ed. Dind., C. I. G. Nos. 2781, 2930. So in Africa the old Roman distinction between 'seniores' and 'juniores ' was retained or revived, Renier, Iuscr. Roma ins d' Algeria, Nos. 91, 1525, 3096, Wilmanns, Nos. 139, 1401. 27 This is an inference from the fact that 7/ yepovaia and ot Trpeafivrepoi are evi- dently used as interchangeable terms, and both distinguished from 17 [iovX-q, at Philadelphia, Corpus Inscr. Graec. Nos. 3417, 3422, and at Ephesus, Wood, Dis- coveries at Ephesus, Append, vi. pp. 10, 24, 66, Append, vii. p. 6. But ot vpeo- [Svrepoi is sometimes used to designate the members of a yepovaia even when there is no evidence of a distinction between it and the Pov\rj : e.g. of the members of the senate at Rome, Sozomen, 27. E. 1. 3, and of the npeafivrticov at Chios, C. I. G. Nos. 2220, 2221. in.j Presbyters. 67 « prevail. But when, in the course of the second cen- tury, the distinction between the Christian communities which had once been Jewish and those which were originally Gentile tended to pass away, the Jewish conception of the nature of the governing council un- doubtedly became dominant. It is clear from the exhortation of Polycarp to the presbyters of Philippi that those presbyters had the supreme oversight of all matters of administration 28 . It was their duty to visit the sick, to provide for the widows and orphans and poor, to turn back those who had gone astray from the error of their ways, to sit in merciful judgment upon those who had com- mitted wrong. Nor does it appear that any of these duties ever wholly ceased to be the duties of the presbyterate. The presbyters were, in theory, the council of the bishop, even after the bishop had as- serted a virtual autocracy 29 . But it is equally clear that out of these varied duties those which came to be in practice the chief or only duties of the Christian councils were those which had been the chief duties of the Jewish synedria. The building in which they assembled came to be called a basilica or court-house : the part of it in which they sat was a tribunal or judgment-seat 30 : they were chiefly courts of discipline. 38 St. Polycarp. ad Plrilipp. 6, ical ol npeo~@vTfpm 8e ivo-nhuyxvoi, eis navrts iXeripoves, lm(TTpi([>ovTis to. (iTroiTeiTXavTjixtva, eniaiceirTufieuot iravras aoOtvus, pv^ apeXowrts X'// 505 V optynvov i) ntvrjTos .... direxopevot irafftjs upyrjs, it poaomoXrppias, Kpiaean aSitcov, pxncpav wm irdarjs , fi vito rbv imaxonov ovaa, fj p. in.] Presbyters. 8 1 present day their share in the complex ceremonies of baptism : no baptism is theoretically complete until a bishop has taken that part in it which once followed immediately upon immersion, but which has now come to have the semblance of a separate rite, and is known as Confirmation 65 . The change has been inevitable. The functions of the primitive presbyters are relative to a state of society which has long since passed away. The peni- tential svstem, which has been sometimes regarded as its modern counterpart, arose out of different circum- stances, and involves a different principle. Between the chiffonnier of the conscience, raking among the garbage of diseased thoughts and despicable actions, and the primitive college of disciplinary officers, there is barely the resemblance of a grotesque caricature. The counterpart, if counterpart be sought, must be found rather in the officers of those smaller bodies which have from time to time sprung up within the wide area of Christianity, and which have failed within even their own narrow limits as soon as the enthusiasm of their first founders has been crystallized into written rules of discipline. For in modern times, though the 65 The separation of the two chief elements of the baptismal rite, immersion and imposition of hands, had already begun to prevail in the West in the time of Jerome ; but the latter was reserved for the bishop as a mark of respect to his dignity, and not as of necessity : ' ad honorem potius sacerdotii quam ad legem necessitatis' (St. Hieron. Dial. c. Lucifer, c. 9, Op. ed. Vail. vol. ii. 181.); when, in the controversy between the Eastern and Western Churches in the ninth cen- tury, the Latin theologians had to defend the separate existence of ' confirmation ' by arguments, they were not able to cite early authorities (see e.g. the treatise of Aeneas of Paris in Dachery, Spicilcgium, vol. i. p. 141). G 82 Presbyters. mainsprings of human conduct may have remained the same, the conception of the nature of morality, and of the forces which act upon conduct, has undergone significant change. We have come again to the con- viction, which is not new but old, that the virtues which can be rewarded, and the vices which can be punished, by external discipline are not, as a rule, the virtues and the vices that make or mar the soul. The inner world of moral action knows no other tribunal than that of the conscience : and the education of the conscience, which is another phrase for moral growth, is the result of many internal forces — and not least of all of that force which the humblest of the Church's ministers may set in motion, when he holds up before the souls of men that ideal of a divine Life which was once an incarnate reality, and which is not now a vanished dream. LECTURE IV. THE SUPREMACY OF THE BISHOP. With the exception — which is probably rather apparent than real — of two passages in the Pastoral Epistles, all general references to Church officers in Apostolic and sub-Apostolic literature speak of them in the plural \ The names by which they are designated are various but interchangeable : and their variety is probably to be explained by the fact that the same officers, or officers having equivalent rank, had various functions. But in the course of the second century, although, for the most part, the same names continue to be used in the plural, one of them is appropriated to a single officer, who evidently stands above the rest, and in any enumeration of Church officers is mentioned separately. I have already suggested reasons for the fact that this single officer had, as his ordinary designation, one rather than another of the names by which Church 1 The exceptions are i Tini. 3. 2 ; Tit. 1. 7 : they are probably apparent rather than real because the article is probably generic : but the question of ite precise significance has an important bearing on the wider question of the date of the Epistles. G 2 84 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [legt. officers had been known. I approach to-day the more difficult question how it was that such a supremacy came to exist. I approach this question with the greater diffidence because a hypothesis has long been current which does not admit of direct refutation, and which assigns the origin of this quasi-monarchical government to an institution of either our Lord Himself or the Apostles acting under His express directions. But in spite of the venerable names by which for many centuries, and in many Churches, this hypothesis has been maintained, and in spite also of the disadvantage under which any one labours who declines the short and easy road which it seems to offer, and winds his way through a dense undergrowth of intricate facts, it is impossible, at least for some of us, to accept the belief that the episcopate forms an exception to the general course of the divine government of the world, and to refrain from proceed- ing to the enquiry whether any causes were in operation which are adequate to account for its supremacy, without resorting to the hypothesis of a special and extraordinary institution. I will ask you to look at two groups of facts : on the one hand the organization of contemporary associa- tions, on the other the internal condition of the Christian communities themselves. 1. If we look at contemporary organizations, we find that the tendency towards the institution of a president was almost, if not altogether, universal. The evidence for the existence of this tendency does not consist of iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 85 a few facts, such as in a large mass of historical records may be collected together in support of almost any hypothesis : it is considerable in amount, it is various in character, it has no important exceptions. Whether we look at the municipal councils, at the private associations, religious and secular, with which the East was honeycombed, at the provincial assem- blies, at the boards of magistrates, at the administra- tive councils of the Jews both in Palestine and in the countries of the dispersion, or at the committees of the municipal councils whose members sometimes bore in common with the Christian and the Jewish councils the name of 'elders' (jpevfivTepoi), we find in every case evidence of the existence of a presiding officer 2 . a The following are instances : i. in the municipal councils there was a @o\j\apxo$ at Termessus, Corpus Inset: Graec. No. 2264, at Branchidae, ibid. No. 2881, at Aphrodisias, ibid. No. 281 1, at Thyatira, ibid. No. 3494: a npeafivs at Sparta, Le Bas, Voyage Archiologigue, 2 raB partie, ed. Foucart, No. 173 a: ii. in the private associations, there was an apxitpaviar-qs at Athens, C. I. G. No. 126 (= Corpus Laser. Att. vol. iii. No. 23), an apxiOmairas at Delos, ibid. No. 2271, a ■npoGTaTrjs rrjs crvvodov, ibid. No. 4S93 in Upper Egypt: iii. in the provincial assem- blies the president took his name from the province, e.g. 'Xvptdpxrjs of the president of the koivov of Syria, Cod. Justin. 5. 27. 1, BiOvvtdpxrjs of that of Bithynia, Le Bas et Waddington, No. 1142 (cf. Marrpiardt, Rijraische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. p. 374, who gives a complete list of such presidents and identifies the office with that of dpxiepevs : so Kuhn, Verfussung d. rom. Lleiehs, i er Th. pp. 106 sqq.) : iv. in boards of magistrates there was a irpeafivs ttjs avvapxias and also a npcafivs twv t6pwv at Sparta, in imperial times, and the board is sometimes spoken of as ol vepl rbv deiva, C. L. G. 1241, 1249, 1268, 1326, 1347, 1375 (cf. BiJckh's note, ibid. vol. i. p. 610) : v. in the Jewish councils there was a yepovffiapxrjs at Rome, C. I. G. 9902, and in Campania, Momrmsen, Laser. Regit. Neap. No. 2555 (cf. Schiirer, Die Geraeindeverfassung d. Juden in Horn, p. 18) : vi. in the committees of municipal councils there was an dpxiirpvravis at Miletus and at Branchidae, C. L. G. Nos. 2878, 2881 : an apxnrpo(iov\os at Termessus, ibid. No. 4364 : and the office is implied in the expression dp^avra tov itpeofivTiKov at Chios and at Sinope, ibid. Nos. 2220, 2221, 4157. It may be added to what is stated above that in Egypt, from the time of the Macedonian kings, every class of functionaries, small and great, seems to have been organized on the basis of subordination to a chief officer : for some instances see Bockh in the Corpus Lnscr. Graec. vol. iii. p. 305. 86 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. Now although the existence of such a general drift in contemporary organizations by no means proves that the Christian communities were borne along with it, still it establishes a basis of probability for the in- ference that communities which were so largely in harmony with those organizations in other respects, were in harmony with them also in this. The in- ference is strengthened by the fact that the localities in which there is the earliest contemporary evidence for the existence of a president, are also the localities in which the evidence for the existence of a president in other organizations is most complete. Both the one and the other are chiefly found in the great cities, and in the East even more than in the West. So strong is the inference when the facts are closely examined, that if we did not know as a matter of history that the Christian Churches did come to have a single head, it would be as necessary to account for the non-existence of such a head, as it would be in modern times to account for the singularity of a newly- formed group of associations which had neither presi- dent, nor governor, nor chairman. 2. If we look at the internal condition of the Christian communities, we shall see that several causes were at work to foster that which, if it be not inherent in all societies, was at any rate the dominant tendency of all societies at the time. Whether we look at them in their eleemosynary character as communities in which the widows and poor were supported from a common fund, or in their disciplinary character as communities which were bound together by the tie of iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 87 a holy life and in which moral offences were strictly judged, or in their character as communities which met together for public worship and required in such public worship some rule and leadership, in any of these characters there would be, as time went on, a convenience which in large communities would almost amount to a necessity, for a centralized administration — for at least a chairman of the governing body. There are, besides these antecedent probabilities, two other groups of causes which operated in the same direction. 1. In the first place, there were some cases in which an Apostle had been supreme during his lifetime, and in which the tradition of personal supremacy may be sup- posed to have lingered after his death : there were others in which the oversight of a community had been specially entrusted by an Apostle to some one officer : there were others in which special powers or special merits gave to some one man a predominant influence. It is, indeed, wholly uncertain how far such cases are typical : and there is a probability that, where such supremacy existed, it was personal rather than official, inasmuch as those who exercised it do not appear to have had as such any distinguishing appellation. In later times they were entitled 'bishops:' the Clementines speak of James, ' the Lord's brother,' as 'archbishop' and 'bishop of bishops 3 :' the sub- scriptions of some versions and late MSS. of the Pas- 3 Clementin. Becog. i. 73 'Jacobus archiepiscopus ' (so in later times, e.g. Cone. Ephes. c. 30 'laiew0ov dnoaToKov koli apxiemoicoTrov) : Epist. Clem, ad Jacob, inscr. K.K'fjfrqs 'laicwficp raj icvpiqi Kal kmaKovoiv kmo/coiry. 88 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. toral Epistles speak of Timothy and Titus as ' bishops ' respectively of Ephesus and Crete 4 : but there is no early evidence of the use of these titles in this relation 5 : and on the other hand Irenaeus calls Polycarp indif- ferently ' bishop ' and ' presbyter 6 : ' and, what is even more significant, in a formal letter to the head of the Roman Church, in which, from the circumstances of the case, he would be least likely to omit any form of either right or courtesy, he speaks of his predecessors by name as ' presbyters V 2. In the second place, there is clear proof of the existence of a theory of the nature of ecclesiastical organization which, from the fact of its persistent survival after a counter-theory had taken its place, may be supposed to have had a strong hold upon the communities among which it existed. To the writer * The earliest MS. which does so is probably the Codex Coislensis of the sixth century : the version which does so is the Peschito : the statement which contains the word is omitted in the greater MSS. and in the early Latin versions. 5 The earliest use of the word with a definite reference to an individual is the inscription of the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp, 'lyvdrtos, u kcli @(o (■niaK6ira> (KKXrjffias 'Sp.vpi/aLav : but the absence of the definite article, aud the inscription of Polycarp's own letter, TloXvieapiros ko.1 oi avv aura rpeofivrepoi, are inconsistent with the hypothesis that the word was already specially appropriated to the head of the community. The next earliest use of the word is probably also in reference to Polycarp in the letter of Polycrates to Victor, ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. i\. It is worthy of note, i. that these earliest uses are in reference to officers of the Asiatic Churches, i. e. in the neighbourhood of communities in which eirioKoiros was already a title of certain secular officers (see Lecture II, notes 26, 28) : ii.that ilegesippus does not give any title to the heads of the Roman church. 6 St. Iren. Epist. ad Florin, ap. Euseb. 77. E. 5. 20. 7 paitapios xal anoOTokiKos ■nptofJvTtpos : adv. Haeies. 3. 3. 4 inro twv a-nooTu\uv KaraaraOth .... ivi- OKOTTOS. 7 St. Iren. Epist. ad Victor, ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 14 oi npo ^ojrrjpos itptotivTtpoi v\ -npoOTavTCs rfjs fKK\r)(Tias fy oi/ vvv axprj-ffj, 'Av'iktjtov \tyop.ty teal Yliov k.t.K. So late as the third century, the extant epitaphs of Roman bishops do not give the title episcopua : De Rossi, Bulletino di Archeologia Christ, anu. ii. 1864, p. 50. iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 89 of the Ignatian Epistles each organized community of Christians is a perfect reflex of the whole Church of God. It is a pure theocracy. In our Lord's own lifetime He Himself had been the visible head of that Kingdom of Heaven which He preached : His Apostles had stood round Him as His ministers — the twelve heads and patriarchs of the tribes of the new Israel : the rest of the disciples — the new people of God — had listened and obeyed. So it was still : the bishop sat in the Lord's place : the presbyters were what the Apostles had been : it was for the rest of the com- munity to listen and to obey 8 . Upon this theory of ecclesiastical organization the existence of a president was a necessity : and the theory seems to go back to the very beginnings of the Christian societies. For in those beginnings the Kingdom of God was realized in a concrete sense as the Kingdom of David. In the infant community at Jerusalem after the Lord had been ' taken up,' James, as being His kinsman and the next earthly representative of the royal house, presided in His stead 9 : on the death of James another ' brother ' was appointed to succeed him 10 : other kinsmen of the Lord, as being His kinsmen, presided in other Churches u : and so the idea that the new Kingdom of David should have at its head one of David's line, until the Messiah should return to reign, remained as a fun- 8 St. Ignat. ad Magn. 6. I. * Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 2. 23. 4 : Clem. Alex. ibid. 2.1.3, P- IO °5» e &- Pott. 10 Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 3. 32 (of Symeon) 'as being a descendant of David and a Christian:' id. ap. Euseb. E. E. 4. 22 'Symeon the son of C'lopas is appointed bishop, whom all proposed as being the next cousin of the Lord : ' so ibid. 3. 11. a Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. 27. E. 3. 20. 32. 90 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. damental idea of Judaeo-Christian organization, until the long-delayed Parousia seemed almost to vanish in the far horizon of the unrealized future, and the de- solation of the royal city began to turn men's thoughts from Jerusalem to Kome 12 . These facts, and these general considerations of pro- bability, seem adequate to account for the fact that the Christian communities were borne along with the general drift of contemporary organizations, and that the council of presbyters had a permanent president 13 . They also seem to account for the fact that the func- tions of that council of presbyters, as described by Clement and Polycarp, are the same in kind as the functions of the bishop as described in the Ignatian Epistles. But they are all compatible with the view 15 The importance to the Christian Church of the fall of Jerusalem (for the com pleteness of which see especially Aristo ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 6. 3, St. Hieron. Coram in Sophon. c. 1. 15, vol. vi. p. 692, ed. Vail., St. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 6, c. 18, vol i. p. 191, ed. Ben.) was to some extent recognized by Jerome (Epist. 120 ad Hedib c. 8, vol. i. p. 27), and has frequently been pointed out by modern writers, e.g Gfrorer, Allgemcine Kirchengeschichte, Bd. i. p. 253, Kothe, Vorlesungen uber Kir chengeschichtc, ed. Weingarten, Bd. i. pp. 75 sqq. 13 It is not meant to be implied that, even after the episcopal system had be- come firmly established, the bishop was himself always a presbyter : it is clear not only that thece was an absence of the later rule which required a bishop to be elected from the body of presbyters (see above, Lecture II, note 59), or to be formally admitted to the presbyterate before being invested with the episcopate, but also that a man might be appointed bishop at an earlier age than was allow- able for a presbyter : this is the point of Jerome's argument against John of Jerusalem {Epist. 82. (62), vol. i. p. 516, ed. Vail.): and there is probably a reference to it in the disputed phrase vtanipav t6.£iv of St. Ignat. nd Magn. 3. 1 (cf. Zahn's philological arguments in his Ignatius von Antiochien, pp. 305 sqq.). The distinction between administrative officers and the members of a deliberative assembly was familiar to the Roman world : in the municipal councils the ad- ministrative officers not only had a seat but presided : but they were only ex officio members of those councils, and at the next revision of the roll, after the expiration of their term of office, they might be excluded (cf. Marquardt, Romische Staatsver- waltung, Bd. i. pp. 503 sqq.). IV.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 91 that the early bishop stood to the presbyters in the relation of a dean to the canons of a cathedral, or of the chairman to the ordinary members of a com- mittee. They do not account for the fact that the bishops of tlie third and subsequent centuries claimed for themselves exceptional powers, and that the rela- tion of primacy ultimately changed into a relation of supremacy. The causes of that important change seem to lie in a wholly different set of facts, into which it is ne- cessary to enter at somewhat greater length. Before the close of the Apostolic age Christianity had come into contact with various large tendencies of contemporary thought. Its first contact was with the great school of fantastic syncretism which had grown up within Judaism itself, and which has left a considerable monument in the works of Philo. To that school all facts past and present were an allegory. Nothing was what it seemed to be, but was the symbol of the unapparent. The history of the Old Testament was sublimated into a history of the emancipation of reason from passion. If Abel was described as a keeper of sheep, the meaning was that moral wisdom keeps the irrational impulses under control 14 . If Israel was described as warring against Amalek, the meaning was that when reason lifts itself up away from earth, as Moses lifted up his hands, it is strengthened by the vision of God 15 . If Abraham was described as migrating from Chaldaea to Canaan, the meaning was that wisdom " Philo, i. p. 1 70, ed. Mang. u Hid. p. 1 24. 92 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. leaves the prejudices and crude ideas of its original state, and seeks a new home among the realities of abstract thought 16 . To those who thought thus, the records of the Gospels were so much new matter for allegorical interpretation. To the lower intelligence, to the eye of sense, Christ was a Person who had lived and died and ascended : and the Christian com- munities were the visible assemblies of His followers : and the Christian virtues were certain habits of mind which showed themselves in deeds. But to the spiritual mind, to the eye of reason, all these things were like the phantasmagoria of the mysteries. The recorded deeds of Christ were the clash and play of mighty spiritual forces : the Christian Church was an emanation from God : the Christian virtues were phases of intellectual enlightenment which had but slender, if auy, links with deeds done in the flesh. Before long the circle widened in which Christian ideas were rationalized. Chris- tianity found itself in contact not merely with mys- teries but with metaphysics. But they were the meta- physics of ' wonderland.' Abstract conceptions seemed to take bodily shape, and to form strange marriages, and to pass in and out of one another like the dissolving scenery of a dream. There grew up a new mythology, in which Zeus and Aphrodite, Isis and Osiris, were replaced by Depth and Silence, Wisdom and Power. Christianity ceased to be a religion and became a theosophy. It ceased to be a doctrine and became ,e Philo, i. pp. 436, 437, ed. Mang. For the best modern accounts of this allegorizing tendency see Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, Jena, 1875, pp. 160 sqq., Gratz, Geschichte tier Juden, Bd. iii., 3 te Aufl., Leipsig, 1878, pp. 406 sqq. iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 93 a Platonic poem. It ceased to be a rule of life and became a system of the universe. It was transferred from the world of human action in which it had seemed to have its birth into a supersensuous world of unim- aginable vastness, and its truths were no longer fixed facts of faith and life, but the gorgeous, and shift- ing, and unsubstantial pageantry of the clouds of an autumn sky 17 . The transfer seems to us as paradoxical as the attempt of some philosophers of our own day to con- struct a Church Catholic, with a priesthood and a ritual, upon the basis of a negation of the religious idea. But it was an age of paradoxes : and for a time the paradox seemed likely to triumph. The contact 17 The evidence for the opinions of the various schools of Gnostics has mostly to be gathered from the quotations of their writings by their opponents, especially Irenaeus and Hippolytus : the only complete Gnostic treatise which has come down to modern times is a late Valentinian work entitled Titans "Sofia, of which the Coptic text, with a Latin translation, was published by Schwartz and Petermann in 1851. The modern literature of the subject is extensive: the first clear view was given by Baur, Die christliche Gnosis, rind Gischichte dcr christlichm Kirche. Bd. i. (Eng. Trans, published in the Theological Translation Fund Library, 1878, pp. 184 sqq.) : the best general view is that of Lipsius in Ersch and Gruber's Allgem. Encyclopddie, s. v. Gnosticismus, vol. lxxi. pp. 230 sqq. (since printed separately) : accurate shorter summaries, with valuable bibliographical references. will be found in Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichle der Philosophic (Eng. Trans, in the Theological and Philosophical Library, vol. i. pp. 280-290), and in Jacobi's revised article, s. v. Gnosis, in the second edition of Herzog's Eeal- Encyclopadie, Bd. v. The general view which is implied above, that a sufficient explanation of Gnosticism is found in the contact of Judaism and Christianity with Greek philosophy, is supported by a recent interesting essay by Joel, Jllicke in die Religionsgeschichtc, Excurs. ii., Die Gnosis, Breslau, 18S0. But two short essays (Weingarten, Die Umwandlung dcr urspriinglichen chrislliclun Gcmeindcorgan isation zur Icatholischni Kirche in von Sybel's IJistorische Zeitschrift,Hd. xlv., 1881, pp.441 sqq., and Koffmane, Die Gnosis, Braslau, 1881), which have appeared since these Lectures were published, promise to give in some respects a new direction to the study of the subject, by connecting Gnosticism with the Greek mysteries, and by showing that the Gnostic, like the Christian societies, had a practical rather than a philosophical aim. 94 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. of Christianity with philosophy raised, in short, a pro- blem which was not less fundamental in its bearing upon Christian organization than it was in its bearing upon Christian teaching. It was admitted on all sides that Christianity had its starting-point in certain facts and certain sayings : but if any and every interpre- tation of those facts and those sayings was possible, if any system of philosophy might be taught into which the words which expressed them could be woven, it is clear that there could be but little cohesion between the members of its communities. It was practically impossible to form, at least on any con- siderable scale, an association which should have for its intellectual basis free speculation about the un- knowable, and for its moral basis a creed which should embrace all possible varieties from the extreme of asceticism to absolute indifference 18 . The problem arose and pressed for an answer — What should be the basis of Christian union \ But the problem was for a time insoluble. For there was no standard and no court of appeal. It was useless to argue from the Scriptures that this or that system of philosophy was inconsistent with them, because one of the chief ques- tions to be determined was whether the Scriptures did or did not admit of allegorical or philosophical interpretation. In our own day, it is true, the answer 18 Gnostic morality, like the morality of all systems which press to an extreme the antithesis between the material and the spiritual elements of human nature, necessarily took a double direction : on the one hand it tended to repress the material element and so became ascetic (an extreme which is found in the Encra- titae), on the other it tended to regard the material element as indifferent and bo became antinomian (an extreme which is found in the Antitactae). iv.] The S2ipremacy of the Bishop. 95 to such a question seems easy : but in those days the temper of many men was towards allegorizing, and mysticism was a prevailing attitude of mind. If Homer could furnish texts and proofs for Platonic lectures, the Gospels could furnish texts and proofs for Gnostic sermons. So hopeless was this kind of controversy that Tertullian deprecates it : ' incerta est victoria aut par incertae 19 .' It was equally useless to appeal to a rule of faith — to the rudimentary form of creed which entered into the ritual of baptism : for those who admitted a rule of faith claimed the same liberty in its interpretation which they claimed in the interpretation of the Scriptures: Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valentinus all traced back their opinions to an esoteric and transmitted teaching, which was both more valuable than any written formula, and more authoritative 20 . 19 Tertull. Be Praescr. Haeret. 19. 20 There were three main points at issue : i. the determination of the canon of the Christian Scriptures : Basilides (Origen, Horn. 1 in Lac. vol. iii. p. 933, ed. De La Rue : Apelles (St. Hieron. Prolog, in Matt. vol. vri. p. 3, ed. Vail.) : Valentinus St. Iren. 3. 11. 9): Marcion (Tertull. adv. Maroion., passim), all admitted some Gospel or other, but not, at least in their integrity, our canonical Gospels : ii. the determination of the terms of the ' regula fidei : ' Marcion (Tertull. adv. Marcion. 1. 1), and other Gnostics (St. Iren. 3. 1 1. 3) had their 'regulae fidei' (that of Apelles ia preserved by Hippolytus, 7. 9), which differed not only from the orthodox rule but from one another (St. Iren. 1. 21. 5, Tert. De Praescr. Haeret. 42) : iii. the de- termination of the true and the false tradition of Apostolic teaching : Carpocrates (St. Iren. 1. 25. 5) : Basilides (St. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. 17, p. 900, ed. Pott.) : the Valentinians (Ptolemaeus, Epist. ad Floram, ap. S. Epiphan. Haeres. 33. 7), and others (St. Iren. 3. 2. 1 : Anon. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 28. 3 : Justin M. c. Tryph. 48 : Tertull. adv. Prax. 3 : see especially Xliaris 2ocj>ia, p. 1, which makes great account of the teaching of Christ after His resurrection), maintained that what they taught had been transmitted to them from the Apostles. The difficulty of this latter controversy was even greater than that of the other two, because the prin- ciple of an esoteric, and therefore unverifiable, fvwcris was admitted by some orthodox writers, especially by Clement of Alexandria (cf. e.g. Dahne, Be ^vuau dementis Alexandrini, Leipsig, 1831). g6 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. The crisis was one the gravity of which it would be difficult to overestimate. There have been crises since in the history of Christianity, but there is none which equals in importance this upon the issue of which it depended, for all time to come, whether Christianity should be regarded as a body of revealed doctrine, or the caput mortuum of a hundred philo- sophies — whether the basis of Christian organization should be a definite and definitely interpreted creed, or a chaos of speculations. But great crises give birth to great conceptions. There is a kind of unconscious logic in the minds of masses of men, when great questions are abroad, which some one thinker throws into form. The form which the ' common sense,' so to speak, of Christendom took upon this great question is one which is so familiar to us that we find it difficult to go back to a time when it was not yet in being. Its first elaboration and setting forth was due to one man's genius. With great rhetorical force and dia- lectical subtlety, Irenaeus, the bishop of the chief Christian Church in Gaul, maintained that the standard of Christian teaching was the teaching of the Churches which the Apostles had founded, — which teaching he held to be on all essential points the same 21 . He main- tained the existence, and he asserted the authority, of a fides catholica — the general belief of the Christian Churches — which was also the fides ajpostolica — the belief which the Apostles had taught 22 . To that fides 21 The argument runs through the whole of the treatise ; reference may be made especially to Bk. 3. 2 : 4. 26. 22 The phrases ' fides catholica ' and ' fides apostolica ' are probably later than Irenaeus : but they came to be adopted as the technical expressions for that for iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 97 catholica et ajpostolica all individual opinions and in- terpretations were to be referred : such as were in conformity with it were to be received as Christian, such as differed from it were alperiKal — not the general or traditional belief of the Christian Churches, but the belief of only a sect or party. In this view, which was already in the air, the Christian world gradually acquiesced : henceforth there was a standard of appeal : henceforth there was a definite basis of union. Thus were the Christian communities saved from disintegration. Upon the basis of a Catholic and Apo- stolic faith was built the sublime superstructure of a Catholic and Apostolic Church 23 . But in the building of that superstructure there arose a concurrent and not less important question, — how was the teaching of the Churches to be known, and who were its conservators t Already in the Eabbinical schools stress had been laid upon the fact that there had been a succession of Eabbis from Moses downwards, who had handed on from generation to generation the sacred deposit of divine truth 24 . It might reasonably be supposed that in the Christian Churches there had been a similar tra- whicli he contended. The former of the two phrases seems to be first used in the martyrologies : 'catholica fides et religio,' Mart. Plon. 18, ap. Ruinart, p, 137 : 'fides catholica,' Mart. Epipod. et Alex. 3, ap. Ruinart, p. 149: cf. Gorres in the Zeilschrift f. wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1S79, Bd. xxii, p. 74 sqq. 23 The phrase r) /«i0o\ik») (KKKrjaia occurs first in St. Ignat. ad Smyrn. %. 2, though probably in a different sense from that which it afterwards acquired ; it is also found in Mart. Polyc. 19. 2, and in the Muratorian Fragment, lines 61, 66. It is not found in Irenaeus, though equivalent phrases are frequent, but it is found in both Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria : see Harnack on the Symbolmn Ecclesiae Romanae in Gebhardt and H.'s Patrum Apost. Op. ed. ii. part i. fane, j, p. 141 : and Keim, Aus dem Urchristenthum, p. 115. 24 Pirqc Abotk, e.g. 1. 1 (ed. Taylor, cf. Excursus, ii. p. 124V H 98 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. dition from one generation of officers to another : that, in other words, the Apostles had definitely taught those whom they had appointed, or recognized, as officers, and what had been so taught had been preserved by those who had succeeded those officers. But those officers were in all, or, if not in all, at least in a great majority of Churches, more than one in number : and it is evident, from the nature of the case, that there was an element of danger in thus entrusting the sacred deposit of Apostolic teaching in each community to a plurality of persons, and that as the number of officers multiplied in a community the danger would be pro- portionately greater. The necessity for unity was supreme : and the unity in each community must be absolute. But such an absolute unity could only be secured when the teacher was a single person. That single person was naturally the president of the com- munity. Consequently in the Clementines, for the first time, the president of the community is regarded in the light of the custodian of the rule of faith — in express distinction from the presbyters who are entrusted only with that which is relative to their main functions — the teaching of the maxims of Chris- tian morality 25 . The point was not at once universally conceded ; but in the course of the third century it seems to have won its way to general recognition. The supremacy of the bishop and unity of doctrine were conceived as going hand in hand : the bishop was conceived as having what Irenaeus calls the ' charisma veritatis 26 ; ' the bishop's seat was conceived as being, 15 Clementin. Recoq. \. 65. M St. Ireo. 4. 26. a. iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 99 what St. Augustine calls it, the ' cathedra unitatis 27 ; ' and round the episcopal office revolved the whole vast, system, not only of Christian administration and Chris- tian organization, but also of Christian doctrine. If I may now recall your attention to the problem which was originally proposed, I venture to think that adequate causes have been found not only for the existence of a president, but also for his supremacy, without resorting to what is not a known fact, but only a counter-hypothesis — the hypothesis of a special insti- tution. The episcopate grew by the force of circum- stances, in the order of Providence, to satisfy a felt need. It is pertinent to add that this view as to the chief cause which operated to produce it has not the merit or demerit of novelty. Although the view must rest upon its own inherent probability as a complete explanation of the known facts of the case, it has the support of the earliest and greatest of ecclesiastical antiquaries. St. Jerome, arguing against the growing tendency to exalt the diaconate at the expense of the presbyterate, maintains that the Churches were origin- ally governed by a plurality of presbyters, but that in course of time one was elected to preside over the rest as a remedy against division, lest different presbyters, having different views of doctrine, should, by each of them drawing a portion of the community to himself, cause divisions in it 28 . 27 St. August. Epist. 105 (166) c. 5, Op. ed. Migne, vol. ii. 403, 'neque enim sua sunt quae dicunt sed Dei qui in cathedra unitatis doctrinam posuit veritatis ; ' bo in the Clementines Peter entrusts to Clement rty tfi^v ruiv \6-ywi> na6£8pav, and afterwards speaks of him as tov a\i)6eias ■npoKaOt^ufxtvov, Epist. Clem, ad Jacob, c. 2. '■* St. Hieron. Epist. 146 (85) ad Bhang, vol. i. p. 1082, ed. Vail. : so also Dial c. H 2 ioo The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. The supremacy of a single officer which was thus forced upon the Churches by the necessity for unity of doctrine, was consolidated by the necessity for unity of discipline. Early in the third century rose the question of re- admission to membership of those who had fallen into grievous sin, or who had shrunk from martyrdom. For many years there had been comparative peace. In those years the gates of the Church had been opened wider than before. The sterner discipline had been relaxed. Christianity was not illegal, and was tending to become fashionable. On a sudden the flames of persecution shot fiercely forth again. The professors of Christian philosophy defended the policy of sub- mission on the theological ground that Christ did not call on all men to be partakers of His sufferings in the flesh 29 . The fashionable church-goers accepted the easy terms which the state offered to those who were willing to acknowledge the state religion. Those who did not actually offer incense on heathen altars made friends with the police, purchased false certificates of having complied with the law, or bribed the officers of the courts to strike their names out of the cause-list 30 . Lua'f. c. 9, vol. ii. p. 181 'Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate pendet, cui si non exsors quaedam et ab omnibus detur potesfcas, tot in ecclesiis efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes :* cf. Comni. in Ep. ad Tit. c. i. vol. vii. p. 694. 29 The Gnostic schools, with the exception of the Marcionites (Euseb. S. E. 4. 15. 46 : 5. 16. 21 : 7. 12 : De Mart. Pal. 10. 2), discouraged martyrdom on both the ground mentioned above and other grounds: see e.g. Heracleon ap. Clem. Al. Strom. 4. 9. p. 595, ed. Pott. : Origen, Horn, in Ezech. 3. vol. iii. p. 366 : St. Iren. 1. 24. 6 : 3. 18. 5 : Tertull. Scorpiace passim. 30 Tertull. De Fuga in Persec. 1 2 ' Tu autem pro eo pacisceris cum delatore vel milite vel furunculo aliquo praeside : ' ibid. 13 'nescio dolendu-m an crubescendum sit cum in matricibus beneficiariorum [i. e. court officers] et curiosioruiu [i. e. detec- iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 101 When the persecution was over, many of the ' lapsed,' as they were called, wished to come back again. The path had become easy : for martyrdom was a new beatitude 31 . The baptism of blood seemed to have vicarious merit : and even those who stood upon the lower steps of that sure stairway into heaven seemed entitled to claim some remission of the sins of a weaker brother 32 . The privilege, like the ' indulgences ' of the Roman Church in later times, was singularly abused. Some of those who had undergone the bare minimum of imprisonment which entitled them to be ranked as confessors gave ' libelli,' or certificates of exemption, by wholesale. At one time, as we learn from Cyprian, the confessors in a body gave them to the whole body of the lapsed 33 . The scandal of the practice was increased by an innovation upon the mode of readmission. In earlier days each separate case came for judgment before the whole Church. The certificate of a confessor was of the nature of an appeal which the Church might tive police] inter tabernarios et lenios et fures balneorum et aleones et lenones, Christiani quoque vectigales continentur.' For the ' libelli,' or false certificates, cf. e.g. St. Cyprian, Epist. 30 (31), c. 3, p. 550 : De Lapsis, 27, p. 256. 31 Cf. e. g. Origen. Exhortatio ad Martyriam, Op. ed. De la Rue, i. 274 sqq. : the treatise De Laude Martyrii, sometimes, erroneously, ascribed to Cyprian and printed with his works (ed. Hartel, Appendix, pp. 26 sqq.) : and the expressions of martyrs themselves in e.g. St. Cyprian. Ejpixt. 31 (26), c. 3, p. 559. It was regarded as cleansing a man from sin (e.g. Clem. Alex. Strom. 4. 9, p. 597), as the true 'cup of salvation' (Origen. Exhort, ad Mart. 28), and as opening heaven ('sanguini nostro patet coelum . . . et inter omnium gloriam pulchrior sanguinis titulus est et integrior corona signatur,' Auct. De Laude Mart. 9). 32 Cf. Origen. Exhort, ad Mart. 30 vol. 1. p. 293 ; 50 vol. 1. p. 309, where the sufferings of martyrs are represented as having, though in a less degree, the same kind of efficacy as the sufferings of Christ : Tertull. De Pudic. 22. represents ' moechi ' and ' fomicatores ' as going to one who has been recently imprisoned, ' ex oonsensione (al. confessione) vincula induit adhuc mollia,' to obtain his intercession. 33 St. Cyprian. Epid. ?$ ( 16), p. 536 : so Epist. 20 (14), p. 528, ' thousands of cer- tificates were given every day.' 102 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [lect. upon occasion reject 34 . But persecution sometimes rendered it impossible for the Church to be gathered together. The Church-officers took it upon themselves to act for the general body. They readmitted the lapsed without consulting the assembly 35 . That which had begun in a time of emergency tended to become a rule in a time of peace. The sterner sort looked on with dismay. The pure spouse of Christ was in peril of her virginity. The Churches for which some of them had sacrificed all they had were beginning to be filled with the weak brethren who had preferred dishonour to death. They were like Noah's ark, into which unclean as well as clean had entered 36 . There was a long and determined controversy. The extreme party maintained that under no circumstances was one who had lapsed to be readmitted 37 . At one time this view tended to prevail : but, as in almost all contro- versies, that which did prevail was the spirit of com- promise. It was agreed on all sides that readmissions must not be indiscriminate : if the earlier usage of 84 This is implied in St. Cyprian. Epist. 36 (30), p. 574: 15 (io\ p. 513: 17 (11), p. 521 : 43 (40). p. 592 : but the form of the appeal which Celerinus makes to Lucianus, ibid. 21 (20), p. 532, implies that there was also a tendency to treat the martyrs' certificate as a final remission. 35 This is shown by the strong remonstrances of Cyprian against the practice : e.g. Epist. 15 (io),p. 514: 16(9). V-W- ] 7 (11), P- 522: 41 (38), p. 588: 59 (55), p. 682 : 61 (58), p. 730. 36 St. Hippol. Refut. omn. Ilacres. 9. 12, p. 460, cd. Dunck. et Schneid. 37 There was at first the compromise that although one who had ' lapsed ' should be excluded from communion during his active lifetime, he might be readmitted at the point of death : but at last the party at Rome, of which Novatian was the head, refused even this concession (St. Cyprian. Epist. 55 (56), 57 (54) : Eu^eb. H. E. 6. 43, and, withdrawing from the main body, formed new societies on a stricter basis, whose members were known as KaOapoi, or 'Puritans : ' (St. Hieron. Comm. in Owe, lib. iii. c. 14, vol. vi. p. 156, ed. Vail. ; see below, note 41.) iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. submitting each case to the tribunal of the Wiioit assembly were impossible, at any rate individual pres- byters and deacons must not act without the knowledge and approval of the president 38 . The rule was in many cases resisted : it frequently required formal reenact- ment 39 : but it ultimately became so general that the bishops came to claim the right of readmitting peni- tents, not in their capacity as presidents of the com- munity, but as an inherent function of the episcopate. In this way it was that the supremacy of the bishops, which had been founded on the necessity for unity of doctrine, was consolidated by the necessity for unity of discipline. It was a natural effect of the same causes, and it forms an additional proof of their existence, that a rule should grow up that there should be only one bishop in a community. The rule was not firmly established until the third century. Its general recog- nition was the outcome of the dispute between Cyprian and Novatian. That dispute was one of the collateral results of the controversy, of which I have just now been speaking, in reference to the readmission of the lapsed. Novatian was the head of the puritan party 38 Not only a uniform tradition of doctrine, but also a uniform tradition of discipline, was better preserved by a single person than by a plurality of persons. The bishop was the depositary of the traditionary rules of discipline : and it is on this fact that the Clementines base his special relation to it : Clementin. Epist. ad Jacob. 3 dr)eSpiov, fiovkr], concilium. The bishop and his council were so far regarded as forming a unity that one of the chief collections of statutes lays down the rule that the judicial action of a bishop without his council was invalid : ' irrita erit sententia episcopi nisi clericorurn praesentia confirmetur 54 .' The early churches were con- structed, as the Jewish synagogues had been constructed, in accordance with this theory of the nature of the governing body. The great division was not between clergy and laity, but between baptized and unbaptized : the place of the baptized was subdivided by a step or dais : on the dais the deacons stood : in the middle of it was the 'holy table:' at the end was a semicircle of seats for the council, with the seat of the bishop slightly raised above the rest 55 . To the dreamy eyes of the mystics of the early centuries these visible churches, dark and small as they were in comparison with the majestic temples of the from their earlier use of the whole council of governing officers : e. g. Origen, Comm. in. Matt. torn. xvi. 22, vol. iii. p. 753, ed. De la Rue, oi Se ras irpairoKaO- o plus itimartvfitvoi rod \aov Iviaicoiroi k al trpta^vTepot: so probably Herm. Vis. 3. 10. 7 : and, as late as the end of the fourth century, St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 26 (28) in Seipsum, vol. i. p. 483.) 54 ittatuta Ecclesiae Antiqua (sometimes known as the fourth Council of Carthage), c. 23. 56 The 6p6vos or cathedra of the bishop was the special symbol of his presidency: e. g. St. Cyprian, Eplst. 3 (65), p. 469 ' pro episcopatus vigore et cathedrae auctori- tate:' so ibid. 17 (n), p. 522 : Euseb. H. E. 2. 23. i: 3. 5. 2 : 4. 33. 1, whereas the presbyters were oi e/e rov Scvripov 6p6vov, id. 10. 5. 23. The epitaphs of bishops sometimes describe their tenure of office by ' sedit,' e.g. the epitaphs of the bishops of Capua, Mommsen, Ltscr. Reyni Neu-polituni, Noe. 3894, 3897. i r 2 The Supremacy of the Bishop. pagan gods, seemed to be full of a divine light, and expanded to the spiritual sense until they were wide as heaven itself. The order of the Church below typified and realized the order of the Church above. The bishop was like the Eternal Father Himself upon His throne : the presbyters were like the ' four and twenty elders : ' the deacons were transfigured into white- winged angels passing to and fro upon the ministry of God 56 . The vision was worthy of poets and of saints. To some of us, in these later days, it seems to belong to that vast cavern of the past which is tenanted by the ghost of many a noble poetry and many an ancient faith. And yet, as we emerge, with the sad eyes of vain regret, from that dim world of shadows into the light of this present noon — though we see around us no galaxy of white-winged angels, but rather what some think to be the ruins of a creed — there is given to us, if only we would know it, a not less divine order and a not less sacred work. 56 Clein. Alex. Strom. 4. 8, p. 593 ukwv Se T»}y obpaviov iKKKrjaias 17 kitiyuos: id. 6. 13, p. 793, the ' elders' of the Apocalypse are the heavenly figures of the ciders of the church below (this is also implied in the difficult passage of the Aiarayal KArj/ievros, c. iS, where Hilgenfeld's reading seems almost certain). So in Gregory Nazianzen's dream of the church Anastasia at Constantinople the bishop is inre'p- Opovos, the presbyters sit on each side of him, the deacons stand ' in shining garments, likenesses of angelic brightness' (St. Greg. Naz. Carm. lib. 2. 1. 16, p. 844). But in later times the vision of Isaiah or of Ezekiel rather than that of the Apocalypse seems to have presented itself as the heavenly counterpart of the church on earth : the presbyters are conceived as the Cherubim, St. Sophron. Hierosol. Comment. Liturg. c. 6, ed. Migne, Patrol. Grace, vol. lxxxvii. 3986 : Eoccerpt. e Const. Apost. ap. Pitra, Juris Eccles. Graec. Mem. vol. i. p. 97. LECTURE V. CLERGY AND LAITY, If we gather together all the words which, during the first two centuries, are used, as collective terms for the officers of the Christian communities, we find that they agree in connoting primarily the idea of* pre- sidency or leadership l . If we further gather together the abstract terms which are used, during the same period, for ecclesias- tical office, we find that — with the exception of ScaKovia — they exhibit the same phenomenon 2 . If we further gather together all the passages which speak of the relations of ordinary members of the communities to the officers, we find that they uniformly imply the correlative idea of subjection, and urge the duty of submission, to constituted authority 3 . 1 The words are oi fiyoipavoi, Heb. 13. 7, 17, 24: 1 Clein. Rom. 1. 3: 01 npn- rjyovptvot, 1 Clem. Rom. 21. 6: Herm. Vis. 2. 2. 6: 3. 9. 7 : ol rrpoiorapuvm, o) 7rpo«TTWT«j, 1 Thess. 5. 12: 1 Tim. 5. 17: Herm. Vis. 2. 4. 3 : Jren. 1. 10. 1 : id. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 14. It has recently been suggested (Holtzmann, Die I'asforalbriefc, p. 201, Weingarten in von Sybel's Historixche Zeitschrifi, Bd. 45, 1881, p. 446), that irpotoTaoBai may imply a relation like that of the Roman 1 patronus' (the Greek equivalent of which word is rrpoaTaTTjs). s The words are irpwroKaOeSpia, Herm. Mand. II. 12 : Clem. Alex. Strom. 6. 13, p. 793 : Trparreia, Herm. Sim. 8. 7. 4 : principalis concessio, St. Iren. 4. 26. 3 : Magisterii locus, id. 3. 3. 1 : ordo, Tertull. De Exhort. Castit. 7, Be Monoyam. 1 r, Dc Jdol. 7. s The passages are Heb. 13. 17: 1 Pet. 5. 5: 1 Clem. Rom. 1. 3 : 57. 1 : 63. 1 : 2 Clem. Rom. 17. 5 : St. Ignat. ad Ephes. 2. 2 : 4. 1 : 20. 2 : ad Magves. 1^. 2 : ad Trail. 2. 1, 2: ad Philad. 7. I. ii4 Clergy and Laity. [lect. If therefore the primitive Christian communities were institutions which had entirely passed away, and we were examining their constitution as a piece of ancient history, in the same manner as we examine the constitution of Athens or of Sparta, we should be led to the conclusion that the relation between the officers and the rest of the community was primarily a relation of priority of order. If we extend the sphere of our induction, and look at not only the collective but also the particular terms for Church officers in the light of their contemporary use, we further find that none of them were peculiar to the Christian communities, but that they were all common to them with contemporary organizations. Some of them were in use in the imperial adminis- tration, some of them in the municipal corporations, some of them in the voluntary associations 4 . The most common, ordo, was in use in all three relations. If, therefore, we could exclude all ideas except those which appear simply upon the evidence, and deal with the facts of Christian organization as we should deal with the facts of any other organization, we should undoubtedly be led to the conclusion that not only was the relation between Church officers and the rest of the community that of presidency or leadership, but that also the presidency or leadership was the same in kind as that of contemporary non-Christian societies. But, even if this conclusion were admitted, it would not immediately follow that there were not other re- * For (itiaKoiroi see Lecture II. notes 36, 37 : for rpcofivrtpos, Lecture III. notes 1 6, 27 : for Zi&hovos, Lecture II. note 56. v.] Clergy and Laity. 115 lations between the officers and the ordinary members of the Christian communities, which, though less appa- rent, were not less important. It might undoubtedly be maintained, at least as a matter of a priori argu- ment, that all this was the shell which enclosed a sacred kernel and kept it safe from profanation, and that underneath the conception of civil government, or side by side with it, there was another conception of the nature of ecclesiastical office which more closely re- sembled the prevalent conception of later times. It is therefore necessary to look not merely at the facts of language, but at the whole available evidence as to the prevailing conception of the nature of Christian organization, and to consider whether upon that evi- dence the argument which must be allowed to be possible a priori is defensible in fact. The question is one of such supreme importance in relation to the Christian ministry not only of the period under investigation but also of later times, as to require more than ordinary care. It is, moreover, 1/ one which has been so frequently discussed, and upon which the different shades of possible opinion have been maintained with so much zeal, as to demand a special effort on the part of those who approach it to rid themselves of preconceived opinions, and to deal with the facts in the temper not of advocates maintaining a thesis, but of judges reviewing evi- dence and weighing probabilities in an even balance of judgment. The question before us may be thus stated : — A pre- 1 2 n6 Clergy and Laity. [lect. sumption having been raised by the terms which were in use for Church office that the conception of such office was one of presidency or leadership, does the existing evidence warrant an inference that Church officers were regarded as possessing other powers than those which naturally attach to presidents and leaders of a community ? It will be convenient to take in detail the several functions which in later times have been regarded as the special and peculiar functions of Church officers, and to enquire how far they were regarded as special and peculiar functions in the first two centuries. i . In regard to the function of teaching or preaching, it is clear from both the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul's Epistles that * liberty of prophesying ' pre- vailed in the Apostolic age 5 . It is equally clear that liberty of prophesying existed after the Apostolic age. In the first place, one of the most interesting monu- ments of the second century consists of a sermon or homily which was preached, probably by a layman at Borne, a fragment of which has long been known as the Second Epistle of Clement, and the remainder of which has come to light in two forms — a Greek MS. and a Syriac translation — within the last five years 6 . 8 Acts 8. 4: II. 19-21 : 13. 1 : 1 Cor. 14, passim : implied also in James 3. r. 8 That it is a homily and not a letter is an inference from its tone and manner of address : e.g. c. 19. 1 'So then, my brethren and sisters, after the God of Truth I am reading to you an entreaty to pay heed to what has been written:' c. 20. % ' so then, my brethren and sisters, let us believe.' That it was written by a layman is an inference from the antithesis which he makes between himself and his hearers on the one hand, and the presbyters on the other, c. 17. 3. 5. That it was preached at Rome is an inference from the general similarity of it, doctrine to that of the Shepherd of Hennas. The mention of it as a letter rather i-hau a homily dates from v.] Clergy and Laity. 117 In the second place, the Apostolical Constitutions, which are of even later date, expressly contemplate the existence of preaching by laymen : ' Even if a teacher be a layman, still if he be skilled in the word and reverent in habit, let him teach : for the Scripture says, " They shall be all taught of God V ' 2. In regard to baptism, there is no positive evidence, but there is the argument a fortiori which arises from the fact that even in later times, when the tendency had become strong to restrict the performance of ec- clesiastical functions to Church officers, baptism by an a treatise of the fifth century, the Quaestiones et Respomione.% ad Orthodoxos, c. 74 (printed in the works of Justin Martyr, vol. ii, p. 104, ed. Otto) ; the reference to a second letter of Clement in Euseb. 3. 38. 4 is vague, nor is there anything in the reference to connect that second letter with the work in question. The complete text was first found by Bryennius in the library of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and published by him at Constantinople in 1875 (since reprinted in the second edition of Gebbardt and Harn.ick's Patres Aposiolici, part 1, fasc. 1, Leipsic, 1876, and by Bp. Lightfoot, The Epistles of Clement of Borne, London, 1876) : and in 1876 a Syriac version of the complete text was discovered by Mr. Bensley, and is now in the University Library at Cambridge. 7 Const. Apost. 8. 31 : cf. Ambrosiast. in Ephes. 4. 11, 12, ap. St. Ambros. Op. vol. ii, p. 241, who says that in early times ' omnes docebant et omnes baptizabant,' but that afterwards ' coepit alio ordine et providentia gubernari ecclesia, quia si omnes omnia possent, irrationabile esset et vulgaris res et vilissima videretur.' This is, no doubt, only secondary evidence : but it is confirmed, i. by the fact that the exhortations of St. Ignatius against the performance by laymen of other oflicial functions do not extend to preaching : ii. by the fact that in later times the gra- vamen against Origen was not that he had preached as a layman, but that he had done so in the presence of bishops and consequently in violation of church order (Euseb. H. E. 6. 19) : iii. by the fact that, even when ecclesiastical regime was of the strictest, monks, who might be laymen, could preach. The earliest positive prohibitions seem to have been made, expressly in the interest of ecclesiastical order, by Leo the Great, Epist. 119 (92) ad Maximum, c. 6, 120 (93) ; ad Theodoret. c. 6, ed. Ballerin. pp. 1217,1227; but the ruling enactments of the Canon Law are much later, see the commentators, e.g. Gonzalez on c. 12, X. Cam ex injuncto (v. 7), and c. 15, X. Inter cetera (i. 31), and Fagnani on c. 43, X. Respomo (v. 39) : these enactments were directed against heretics, and apparently a layman of whom a bishop approved might preach, with his permission, until a contrary decision of the Roman Curia in 1 580. 118 Clergy and Laity. [lect. ordinary member of the Church was held to be valid, although if an officer might have been found it was held to be contrary to Church order 8 . 3. In regard to the Eucharist, the only explicit evi- dence is that of the Ignatian Epistles. The literary questions to which those Epistles have given rise do not affect their value in regard to the question before us. Their evidence remains practically the same whether Ignatius or some one else was their author, and whether the Syriac or the shorter Greek repre- sents the original form. It is clear from them that the Christians of the cities to which they were addressed had held other meetings besides those at which the officers were present : and that in those meetings the bread had been broken and the Eucharist celebrated. The practice is reproved, but the reproof is a gentle one : — ' Break one bread 9 ; ' 'be careful to have only one Eucharist 10 ; ' * let that be deemed a valid Eucha- rist which is under the superintendence of the bishop or of some one commissioned by him l V It appears * The earliest authorities for the validity of lay baptism are Tertullian (see below, note 22), the Council of Elvira in a.d. 305, c. 38, Jerome, Dial. c. Lucif. c. 9: all of which admit, what is sufficient for the question in hand, that there were certain circumstances under which laymen might lawfully baptize. * St. Ignat. ad Ephes. 20. 2 01 uar avdpa koivtj iravrts iv \apiTi i£ ovofiaroi ovvipxtcrOt \v (itlf marei xal kv'lrjaov Xpiarqi .... tva aprov KXutvrts. 10 Id. ad Philad. 4 airovSafcre ovv mq (vxapiffria xpv ff ^ ai - 11 Id. ad Smyrn. 8. 1 kKtivrj (Je0aia tiixapiaria fjytia6 UpaaOat, consecrari, benedici ; for instances of which, and also for instances of the use of the words in relation to civil appoint- ments, see ibid. K 130 Clergy and Laity. [lect. peachable sources 35 . Those sources show that, though election prevailed, it did not of itself constitute an office, that any one who was so elected had to pass a preliminary examination as to his possession of the required qualifications, that the presiding officer might decline to take account of any one who did not possess those qualifications, and that, according to the constitu- tional fiction which we find in Rome itself, especially during the Republican period, the person appointed is said to be appointed, not by the people who elected, but by the officer who presided at the election 36 . These same conditions were ordinarily necessary at the appointment of all but the lowest grades of ecclesias- tical officers : there was a nomination, an election, an examination into the fitness of the candidate, and the action of a presiding officer 37 . 4. In the fourth place, the modes in which these elements of election were combined varied in the 39 In addition to earlier sources, which are best given by Zumpt, Commentat tones Epigrapkicae, vol. i. p. 4 sqq., we have an almost complete account of the municipal laws of the early Empire relative to elections in the bronze tablets containing the laws of two Spanish towns, Salpensa and Malaga, which were discovered in 1851. They will be found in the Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. ii. Nos. 1963, 1964, in Haenel, Corpus Legum ante Justinianum latarum, p. 63 : and with an important commen- tary by Mommsen in his essay, Dei Stadtreckle der lateinischen Gemeinden Sal- pensa und Malaca, printed in the Abkandlungen der konigl. sacks Gesellsckaft der Wissensckaft, Bd. iii (the doubts which were at one time raised as to their genuine- ness have been disposed of by Giraud, Les Tables de Salpensa et de Malaga, Paris, 1856, and La Lex Malacitana, Paris, 1868). For clear summaries of the existing evidence in relation to municipal elections see Duruy, Histoire des Romains, vol. v. pp. 107 sqq.: Marquardt, Romiscke Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 472 sqq. 36 ' Creare ' (consulem, praetorem) is strictly used of the action of the presiding officer : the people are said 'jubere,' i. e. to direct the appointment to be made: cf. Mommsen, Romisckes StaatsrecM, Bd. i. pp. 157 sqq. 37 For the evidence see the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 3. v. Ordination, vol. ii. pp. 1504 sqq. v.] Clergy and Laity \ 131 Church concomitantly with their variation in the State. In the State, first at Rome, and afterwards, though much later, in the municipalities, election by the people, subject only to the veto of the presiding officer, passed into election by the senate, subject only to a formal approval on the part of the people 38 . In the Church it came to pass that the officers nominated and the people approved : and ultimately, by steps which can be definitely traced, the part of the people was limited to the right of objecting to unsuitable candidates 39 . 5. In the fifth place, all the modes of admission to ecclesiastical offices were, with one exception, analogous to the modes of admission to civil office. A Roman consul designates dressed himself in his official dress, went in state to the Capitol, took his seat on the curule chair, and held a formal meeting of the senate : by doing this he became consul de facto. A Roman praetor designates went to the ordinary court-house, took his seat on the tribunal, heard and decided a fictitious case, and became thereby praetor de facto 40 . There was no formal act of admission : what took place was a usurjpatio juris ; a person duly elected simply entered upon his office and was in full possession of it as soon as he had discharged, without let or hindrance, one of its ordinary duties. If we take the earliest ** For the evidence see e. g. Mommsen, Rom. Staatsrecftt, Bd. ii. 860 sqq. : Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. 474. s9 See the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, ut supra. *" See Mommsen, Rom. Staatsrecht, Bd. i. pp. 502 sqq. On the distinction be- tween this and the ' inauguratio' of a priest see Oldenberg, in the Commeittat tones Pkilologae in honor em Th. Mommseni, Berlin, 1877, p. 161. K 2 132 Clergy and Laity. [lect. Eastern form of what in later times would have been called the ritual of ' ordination ' or c consecration,' that which is given in the eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions, it is clear that the same theory of ad- mission to office prevailed in the Church. On the morning after his election the bishop is escorted to his chair by the other bishops who took part in the elec- tion, and at once enters on the active duties of a bishop by preaching a sermon and celebrating the Eucharist 41 That a similar practice prevailed in regard to other Church officers must be inferred from the fact that in some instances it still survives. * In the chief Western rituals the newly ordained deacon performs the deacon's function of reading the Gospel : in the Eoman ritual the presbyter not only takes his place in the presby- tery but is " concelebrant " with the bishop, i. e. he is associated with him in the celebration of the Eucharist: in the Greek ritual the reader performs his proper function of reading, and the subdeacon — who in early times was a kind of under-servant — washes the bishop's hands 42 .' All this, as far as analogy can guide us, is precisely what would have happened if the community, instead of being ecclesiastical, had been civil. The conception of ordination, so far as we can gather either from the words which were used to designate it, or from the elements which entered into it, was that simply of appointment and admission to office. But there is one element, which was not present in ** Const. Apost. 8. 4-14. (The date of this is at present quite uncertain.) ** Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. Ordination, voL ii. pp. 1507 sqq. v.] Clergy and Laity. 133 admissions to civil office, and to which in later times great importance has been attached — the rite of the imposition of hands. It is therefore necessary to con- sider how far the existence of this rite indicates the existence of a different theory. Two points have to be considered : first the existence of the rite, and secondly its significance. In regard to the first of these points, there is the remarkable fact that the passage of the Apostolical Constitutions which describes with elaborate minuteness the other ceremonies with which a bishop was admitted to office, says nothing of this. It is mentioned that during a prayer after the election the deacons hold the open Gospels over the newly-appointed bishop's head : but of imposition of hands the passage makes no men- tion whatever 43 . Nor is the rite mentioned in the enumeration which Cyprian gives of the elements which had combined to make the election of Cornelius valid : it was of importance to show that no essential particular had been omitted, but he enumerates only the votes of the people, the testimony of the clergy, the consent of the bishops 44 . In entire harmony with this 43 Const. Apost. 8. 4. It has been suggested that imposition of hands is implied in the word x (t P 0T0V0V l l * V0V > tut this hypothesis is excluded by the express dis- tinction which is made in the same book, c. 28, between x €l P 0T0Vf ^ v > ' to appoint,' which is stated to be a special function of the bishop, and to \eipo9iTuv, ' to lay hands upon,' which is a function common to the bishop and the presbyters. 14 St. Cyprian. Epist. 55 (52), p. 629 * Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et Christi ejus judicio, de clericorum paene omnium testimonio, de plebis quae tunc adfuit suffragio, et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum virorum collegio, cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus, id est, locus Petri et gradus cathedrae sacerdotalis vacaret.' The small importance which was attached to im- position of hands, when unaccompanied by the other elements of valid appointment, is shown by the manner in which the same persons, Cornelius and Cyprian, speak of a person, Novatian, who had received imposition of hands from three bishops 134 Clergy and Laity. [lect. is the account which Jerome gives of the admission to office of the bishop of Alexandria : after the election the presbyters conduct the elected bishop to his chair : he is thereupon bishop de facto 45 . It follows from tins that the rite was not universal : it is impossible that, if it was not universal, it can have been regarded as essential. In regard to the second point, there are two kinds of without, as was alleged, having been duly elected. Cornelius derides the imposition of hands in such a case as a ' sham : ' elicoviKfj rtvl ical fiorala. x fl P e ' nl ^ ( ' Tia i ap. Euseb. H. E. 6. 43. Cyprian says that Novatian ' in ecclesia non est nee episcopus computari potest,' Epist. 69, c. 3, p. 752, ed. Hart. The belief of a later generation was that there had been no imposition of hands at all : for Pacian of Barcelona (circ. A. D. 370) speaks of Novatian as one who had taken his seat upon the bishop's throne without any ' consecration : ' ' quem consecrante nullo linteata sedes accepit,' Epist. ii, ad Sympronianum, c. 3, ap. Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. xiii. 1059. 45 St. Hieron. Epist. 146 (85), ad Evanyel. vol. i. p. 1082 ed. Vail. ' Alexandriae a Marco evangelista usque ad Heraclam et Dionysium episcopos presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiore gradu collocatum episcopum nominabant, quo- modo si exercitus imperatorem faciat aut diaconi eligant de se quem industrium noverint et archidiaconum vocent :' (in a similar way Synesius, Epist. 67, p. 210, bv his use of the phrase a-rroSeigai rt kcu iirl tov Opovov KaOiaai, appears to consider the announcement of election, followed by enthronization, as the constitutive ele- ments of the ordination of a bishop). Jerome's account of the Alexandrian rite is adopted as giving the normal mode of ordaining a bishop in ancient times by the author of the important treatise De Divinis Officiis, usually, though erroneously, ascribed to Alcuin (Albinus Flaccus), who, after quoting the Roman rite ( = Mabillon's Ordo Romanus viii, in his Mug. Ital. vol. ii. p. 59), in which there is no express mention of imposition of hands, goes on to say of the several ceremonies of holding the Gospels over the ordinand's head, and of the imposition of the hands of the bishops present, ' non reperitur in auctoritate veteri neque nova : sed neque in Romana traditione' (Albin. Flacc. De Div. Offic. c. 37, vol. ii. p. 493, ed. Froben.). The version of the Alexandrian rite, which was given by the patriarch Eutychius in the tenth century, though agreeing in other respects with Jerome, adds that the presbyters laid hands on the newly-elected bishop before conducting him to his chair (the account of Eutychius was first translated from the Arabic in 1642, under the title Eutychii Aegyptii Ecclesiae suae Origines, by Selden, who drew at- tention to it as a clear instance of presbyterian ordination : a better and fuller translation was made afterwards, in 1658, by Pocock : a reply to Selden was made by the learned Maronite, Abraham Ecchellensis, whose treatise, Eutychius Patri- archa Alexandrinus vindicutus, appeared at Rome in 1661, and whose arguments have often reappeared). v.] Clergy and Laity. 135 evidence : that of other applications of the rite, and that of existing statements about it. The rite was Jewish : it was in use among the Jews on various occasions : chiefly in the appointment of members of the local courts, in admitting a scholar to study, and in giving him authority to teach — in the ceremony, in other words, which corresponds to our graduation 46 . It was in use in the Christian Church not only in admission to office, but also in the admission of an ordinary member, and in the readmission of a penitent. It was in all cases when used in the Christian Church accompanied with prayer. St. Augustine resolves it into a prayer. ' Quid aliud est manuum impositio quam oratio super hominem 47 % ' The eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions makes the action which is designated ' imposition of hands' (xeipoOeo-ia) an ordin- ary accompaniment of morning and evening prayer 48 . St. Jerome gives as the reason for its use in ordination simply that if a man were ordained by simple declara- tion of appointment, without any ceremony, he might sometimes be ordained clandestinely without his know- ledge — ' ne scilicet, ut in quibusdam risimus, vocis im- precatio clandestina clericos ordinet nescientes 49 .' It can hardly be maintained upon this evidence that 46 See the rabbinical references in Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et Rabbinicum, p. 1498, ed. 1639 : Morin, Be Sacris Ordinationibus, pars iii. c. 14, p. 141, ed. 1655: Seerup. Dissert, de titulo Rabbi in Ugolini's Thesaurus, vol. xxi. p. 1091 : Wiinsche, Neue Beitrdge zur Hh'lauterung der Evangelien au8 Talmud u. Midrasch, Gottingen, 1878, p. 477. 47 St. Augustin. Be Baptism, c. Bonatist. 3. 16. Op. ed. Migne, vol. ix. p. 149. 48 Const. Apos.t. 8. 36, 38. This use of the word probably refers to the bishop's attitude in praying. 49 St. Hieron. Comm. in Itai. lib. xvi. c. 58, v. 10, vol. iv. p. 694. 1 36 Clergy and Laity. [lect. the ceremony of imposition of hands establishes a pre- sumption, which is clearly not established by the other elements of ordination, that ordination was conceived in early, as it undoubtedly was conceived in later, times as conferring special and exclusive spiritual powers. It may be urged, though this is of course different from maintaining that such a presumption is estab- lished, that there is nothing in all this which is incon- sistent with such a presumption. But in a judicial review of evidence it is necessary to consider not only the abstract possibility of a hypothesis which may be advanced, but also the difficulties in the way of accepting it. It is there- fore necessary to point to two sets of facts which appear to exclude the presumption in question. 1. The first is the fact of silence. The belief in the possession of exceptional spiritual powers is so important a fact that it must needs assert itself. When in later times that belief was undoubtedly en- tertained it shows itself in a great variety of forms: it is frequently stated : it is invariably implied. The fact that the writers of the first two centuries neither state nor imply it seems inexplicable, except upon the supposition that they did not hold it 50 . 60 Stress has sometimes been laid on the fact that in 2 Tim. I. 6 the imposition of hands is mentioned as the means by which Timothy received a x&P'VP"* '■ but it must be noted (1) that in 1 Tim. 4. 14, it i3 spoken of as an accompaniment, not a mean ;, the preposition being fiera, not Sia, (2) that the word xfy t«0>«»; and in the same way to hold office in the Church was a x°-P ta . a (Const. Apost. 8. 2). Its nearest modern equivalent is probably the word ' talent.' v.] Clergy and Laity. 137 2. The second fact is the facility with which ordinations were made and unmade. When, in later times, the belief prevailed that ordination conferred exceptional spiritual powers, it was re- cognized as a necessary corollary of such a belief that the grace of ordination, even if irregularly con- ferred, was inalienable 51 . The non-existence of a belief in the inalienability of orders affords a strong presump- tion that they were not conceived to confer the powers which in later times were believed to attach to them. Besides this, the trifling nature of some of the causes which were regarded as rendering an ordination invalid ah initio, while wholly consistent with the hypothesis that appointment to ecclesiastical office was of the same kind as appointment to civil office, cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that it was regarded as conferring exceptional and inalienable powers. If the person whom a bishop ordained belonged to 81 This idea first appears in the course of the Donatist controversy : St. Augus- tine considered ordination to be in this respect analogous to baptism, De Baptism. e. Donatist. I. i. vol. ix. p. 109 : Contra Ep. Parmen. 2. 28, vol. ix. p. 70: cf. especially De Bono Conjugali, 24, vol. vi. p. 394 ' quemadmodum si fiat ordinatio cleri ad plebem congregandam, etiamsi plebis congregatio non subsequitur, manet tamen in illis ordinatis sacramentum ordinationis : et si aliqua culpa quisquam ab officio reinoveatur sacramento Domini semel imposito non carebit, quamvis ad judi- cium permanente.' But the idea was to a great extent dormant until it reappeared in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in connexion with the Scholastic theories of grace: for a convenient modern account of the various ways in which it was then elaborated see Hahn, Die Lehre von den Salcramenten, pp. 298 sqq. The difficulties of reconciling the theory of the character indelebilis of orders with the ancient theory and practice is well illustrated by Card. Hergenrother's essay, Die Reordinationen der alten Kirche, in the Oesterreichische VierteljahresscJtri/t f. Kath. Theologie, Bd. i, 1862, pp. 207 sqq. No writer seems hitherto to have called attention to the important Galatian inscription of a. D. 461, Corp. Inscr. Graec. No. 9259, which speaks of one who filled the office of presbyter tmce (Sir ytvofifvos irptafivTtpos). 138 Clergy and Laity. [lect another church 52 , or if the person ordained were not designated to some particular church 53 , or if the ordainer and ordained stood in the relation of father and son 54 , the ordination was invalid. These regulations reach a climax in a Gallican council of the fifth century, which enacts that all irregular ordinations are invalid except by arrangement 68 . It is improbable, except upon an extreme theory of the close correspondence between the ' terrestrial and celestial hierarchies/ that the grace of the Holy Spirit should so closely follow the details of ecclesiastical organization as to flow or not to flow, ac- cording as a bishop stood just within or just without the geographical limits of his jurisdiction : it is incon- ceivable, even upon such an extreme theory, that the same mysterious grace should have been supposed to come or go, to remain or to vanish away, according as a person ordained in violation of some local rule did or did not succeed in making his peace with his superiors. The difficulty which these facts present is so obvious that later canonists were compelled to invent a distinc- tion between 'sacramental' and 'canonical' validity: but even those who uphold that distinction admit that there is no trace of its existence in early times 56 . The existing evidence as to the conception which was entertained of the nature of ordination thus con- 52 Cone. Nicaen. c. 16, &itvpos iarai rj \nporovia : so Cone. Antioch. c. 32, Cone. Sardic. c. 15, 1 Cone. Arelat. c. 13. 8 Cone. Chalcedon. c. 6. M Can. Apost. 76. 55 1 Cone. Turon. A.D. 461, c. 10, ' Ordinationes vero illicitas in irritum devoca- inus nisi satisfactione quae ad pacem pertinent componantur.' 56 E.g. Hefele, Concilimgeschichte (Eng. Trans.) vol. ii. p. 359: HergenrOther, ut supra (Note 51), p. 212. v.] Clergy and Laity. 139 firms the inference which follows from the consideration of office in itself. The conception of office was that of order : by virtue of their appointment the officers of the Christian communities were entitled to perform functions which in themselves were the functions of the whole Church or of individual Christians. Ecclesi- astical office existed, no doubt, by divine appointment, but by divine appointment only ' for the edifying and well-governing' of the community. Of the existence of the idea that ecclesiastical office in itself, and not as a matter of ecclesiastical regulation and arrangement, conferred special and exceptional powers, there is neither proof nor reasonable presumption. Upon this earlier conception there supervened — in the order of Providence and in the slow course of years — a most significant change. Into the history of that change it is beyond the plan of these Lectures to enter: but since it has its beginnings even in the period which we are considering, it is necessary briefly to indicate its main causes. 1. The first of these causes was the wide extension of the limits of Church membership which was caused by the prevalence of infant baptism. In the earliest times the rules of morality which were binding on Church officers were binding also on ordinary members : Tertullian, writing as a Montanist, and endeavouring to keep up the earlier standard, makes the fact that a particular rule as to marriage is binding on presbyters an argument for its being binding also on laymen 57 . 57 Tertull. Be Exhort. Cast. 7 ' vani erimus si putaverimus quod aacerdotibus non liceat laicis licere.' 140 Clergy and Laity. [lect. But when infant baptism became general, and men grew up to be Christians as they grew up to be citizens, the maintenance of the earlier standard be- came impossible in the Church at large. Professing Christians adopted the current morality: they were content to be no worse than their neighbours. But the officers of all communities tend to be conservative, and conservatism was expected of them : that which had been the ideal standard of qualifications for baptism became the ideal standard of qualifications for ordination : and there grew up a distinction between clerical morality and lay morality which has never passed away. 2. The second cause was the intensity of the senti- ment of order. The conception of civil order under the Imperial regime was very different from the concep- tion of it in modern times, and in Teutonic societies. The tendency of our own society is to have the greatest amount of freedom that is compatible with order : the tendency of the Empire was to have the greatest amount of order that is compatible with freedom. Civil order was conceived to be almost as divine as physical order is conceived to be in our own day. In the State the head of the State seemed as such by virtue of his elevation to have some of the attributes of a divinity : and in the Church the same Apostolical Constitutions which give as the reason why a layman may not celebrate the Eucharist that he has not the necessary dignity (aj/a), call the officer who has that dignity a ' god upon earth 58 .' When, in the decay of 58 Const. Apost. 3. 10 a\\' ovre \aiicois lviTpiirop.iv itoiuv ti tSiv ItpariKuiv tpytuv. .... Sta yap rfjs imOiattos tCjv \eipStv rod fTnaicSirov SiSorai if rotavrj) afia : ibid. 2. 16 of the bishop, ovros vp-uiv iniytios Otos ptra 0e6v. v.] Clergy and Laity. 141 the Empire, the ecclesiastical organization was left as the only stable institution, it was almost inevita ble that those who preserved the tradition of imperial rule should, by the mere fact of their status, seem to stand upon a platform which was inaccessible to ordinary men. 3. The third cause was the growth of an analogy between the Christian and the Mosaic dispensations. The existence of such an analogy in the earliest limes was precluded by the vividness of the belief in the nearness of the Second Advent. The organization of the Christian churches was a provisional arrangement until 'the Lord should come.' There was a keen controversy whether Christianity was inside or out- side Judaism : but there is no trace of a belief that the ancient organization was to be replaced, through a long vista of centuries to come, by a corresponding organization of the Christian societies. But after the Temple had long been overthrown and its site desecrated — after the immediate return of the Messiah to a temporal reign in Judsea had passed from being a living faith to be a distant hope — after the Chris- tian Churches had ceased to circle round Jerusalem and had begun to take the form of a new spiritual empire wide as the Roman empire itself, there grew up a conception that the new Ecclesia Dei, whose limits were the world, was the exact counterpart, though on a larger scale, of the old Ecclesia Dei whose limits had been Palestine. With an explanation in the one case — which shows that the conception is new, with a hesitating timidity in the other case — which shows 142 Clergy and Laity. that it ' had not yet established itself, Tertullian M and Oiigen 60 speak of Christian ministers as priests. It was a century and a half after the time of Ter- tullian and Origen before the analogy came to be genera ly accepted, or before the corollaries which flowed from it found general expression in literature: but, v r hen once established, it became permanent, and in the course of those weary wastes of years which stretch between the ruins of the Empire and the foundation of the modern kingdoms of the West and N^rth it became not only permanent but universal. But in earlier times there was a grander faith. For the kingdom of God was a kingdom of priests. Not only the 'four and twenty elders 61 ' before the throne, but the innumerable souls of the sanctified upon whom ' the second death had no power 62 ,' were f kings and priests unto God.' Only in that high sense was priest- hood predicable of Christian men. For the shadow had passed : the Reality had come : the one High Priest of Christianity was Christ. M Tertull. Be Baptismo, c. 17 'dandi (sc. baptismum) quidem habet jus summus Bacerdos qui est episcopus : * the explanation of the meaning of ' suinmus eacerdos ' was not needed a century later, e. g. in St. Ambros. Expos, in Psalm, cxviii. c. 23, vol. i. p. 989. 60 Origen, Comment, in Joann. torn. 1. 3. vol. iv. p 3 ol 5* avaicufitvoi r

itai wpus p.6vrj ry OepaiTtiq tov Qeov fivufitvot .... Atvtrat Kal UptTs ovk dro- nws KixOrjoovrat : cf. St. Augustin. De Civit. Dei, 20. 10, Op. ed. Migne, vii. 676, in reference to Eev. 20. 6, ' non utique de solis episcopis et presbyteris dictum eat qui proprie jam vocantur in ecclesia sacerdotes.' 61 Rev. 5. 10. *> Rev. 20. 6. LECTURE VI. THE CLERGY AS A SEPARATE CLASS. The fourth century of our era is not less remarkable in the history of Christian organization than it is in the history of Christian doctrine. At the beginning of that century Christianity was the religion of a persecuted sect : the prisons and the mines were thronged with Christian confessors : the executioner's sword was red with Christian blood ! . In a few years it was tolerated and favoured : its adherents held high places in the Empire : its churches rivalled in splendour the temples of the pagan gods 2 . At the 1 The persecutions of the twelve years immediately preceding the formal tolera- tion of Christianity, A. D. 300-312, were even more severe than those of earlier times : they are described in detail by Eusebius, H. E. Bks. viii. & ix. passim, and by Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, 11-16, 21-32. The modern litera- ture which relates to them is considerable, and there is a still unsettled controversy as to how far they were based on political and how far on religious grounds : see especially Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constant ins des Grossen, 2*° Aufl., Leipzig, 1880 : Hunziker, Zur Regierung u. Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus u. seiner Nachfolger, in Max Budinger's Untersuchungen der romischen Kaisergeschichte, Bd. ii. Leipzig, 1868 : Gbrres in Kraus's Real-Encyclopddie, s. v. Christenverfol- gungen: and Mason, The Persecution of Diocletian, Cambridge, 1876 (on which, however, see Harnack, in the Theologische Liter aturzeitung, 1876, pp. 169 sqq.). 3 For the religious policy of Constantine, and the changes which he effected in the external fortunes of the Christian churches, see Euseb. H. E. 10. 1-6, Vit. Constant. Bks. 2-4 : and, of modern writers, especially Keim, Der Uebertritt Constantins der Grossen zum Christenthum, Zurich, 1862 : Loning, GeschicfUe des deutschen Kirchenrechls, Bd. i., Strassburg, 1878 : Th. Brieger, Constantin der Grosse als Religionspolitiker, in his Zeitschrift f. Kircltengeschichte, Bd. iv. 1 880-1, pp. 163 sqq. : Duruy, La Politique religieuse de Constantin, in the Comptes Rendu* de VAcadtmie des Sciences Morales, 1882, pp. 185 sqq. 144 TA* Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. end of the century it was no longer merely tolerated but dominant: it was the religion of the State: and heresy was a political crime 3 . It was inevitable that so great a change in its external fortunes should be attended witli a great change in its internal organization. The transition from a state of subordination to one of supremacy necessarily affects the conditions under which, in any society, officers hold their office. Their status is altered not only in relation to the world outside but also in relation to their members within. It was so in the Christian societies: at the beginning of the century, in spite of the development of the episcopate, the primitive type still survived : the government of the Churches was in the main a democracy : at the end of the century the primitive type had almost disappeared : the clergy were a separate and governing class. I propose in the present Lecture to analyse the complex and heterogeneous causes which operated to produce a change which, in the great mass of Christian communities, has been permanent from that time until now. i. In the first place, the State conceded to the officers s The following law of Gratian, Valentinian, aud Theodosius, in A. D. 388, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 15, is one of many proofs that heresy was treated as an offence not only against the Church, but against the State : ' omnes diversarum perfidaruraque sectarum quos in Deuni miserae vesania conspirations exercet nullum usquani sinantur habere conventum, non inire tractatus, non coetus agere secretos, non nefariae praevaricationis altaria manus impiae officiis impudenter tollere, et myste- riorum simulationem ad injuriam verae religionis aptare. Quod ut congruum sortiatur effectum in specula sublimitas tua fidissimos quosque constituat, qui et cohibere hos possint et deprehensos offerre judiciis, severissimum secundum praeteritas eanctiones et Deo supplicium daturo3 et legibus.' vl] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 145 of the Christian Churches those immunities which were enjoyed by the heathen priesthood and by some of the liberal professions *. Hitherto Church officers had been liable to the same public burdens as ordinary citizens. They might be called upon to hold office as municipal magistrates or senators, to act as trustees, to serve in the army. Nor is there any ground for assuming that the discharge of such duties, except where it involved the recognition of the State religion, was regarded as incongruous or derogatory. In some parts of the Empire the question in relation to civil office would rather be speculative than practical — the number of Christians who were rich enough to be eligible for office being comparatively few. But in the busy commercial towns of North Africa Christianity gained a hold at a comparatively early stage upon the wealthier as well as upon the poorer classes. The number of Church officers who were liable to public burdens was therefore proportionately larger : and at the same time their duties as Church officers were somewhat greater. It is in North Africa, therefore, that a feeling seems first to have arisen against combining civil with ecclesiastical functions 5 . The ground of objection was not that the two functions were inherently incom- 4 The exempted classes were, with certain limitations as to numbers, chiefly priests, physicians, professors of literature, philosophy, rhetoric, and law : a full account is given by Kuhn, Die stadlische u. bilryerliche Verfassung des romischen Reichs, erster Theil, pp. 83-123. s The first trace is in Tertull. Be Praf script, c. 41 : and in a later treatise, Be Corona Militis, 11, he raises the question 'an in totum Christianis militia con- veniat?' but in the Apology, c. 37, 42, he urges the fact of Christians sharing in the ordinary life of citizens and serving in the army, as part of his plea against their being persecuted. L 146 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. patible, but rather that the proper discharge of the duties of the one did not leave sufficient leisure for the proper discharge of the duties of the other. ' The ministers of the Church/ says Cyprian, ' ought to serve exclusively the altar and sacrifices, and to give their whole time to supplications and prayers.' Conse- quently, since one Geminius Victor had named a presbyter as his executor, he inflicts upon him, as a deterrent to others, the posthumous punishment of excluding his name from the list of those for the repose of whose souls the Church should pray 6 . And hardly had Christianity been put upon the footing of a recognized religion when Constantine addressed a letter to the procoDsul of the African province requiring him to exempt all who were in the ranks of the Chris- tian clergy from the ordinary public burdens 7 . The same exemption was soon granted to the Christians of other provinces 8 . But it was strongly resisted, and required frequent repetition 9 . The opposition to it is not surprising. In our own days, and under our own system * St. Cyprian. Epist. 1 (66), p. 465. 7 Constantin. Epist. ad Anulinum, ap. Euseb, H. E. 10. 7 : Sozom. 1. 9: incor- porated in Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. I. The report of Anulinus, to which Constantine's letter is an answer, is given by St. Augustin. Epist. 88 (68), Op. vol. ii. 302, ed. Migne. 8 Cod. Theodos. 16. 1. 2, a.d. 319. 9 Laws of Constantine in Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 7, a.d. 330 (= Letter quoted from a MS. of P. Pithou in Baronius ad ami. 316, n. 64) : of Constantius, ibid. 16. 2. 8. a.d. 343 (= with the omission of the last clause Cod. Justin. 1. 3. 1, cf. Sozom. H. E. 3. 17): of Constantius and Constans, ibid. 16. 2. 10, a.d. 353 (probably = Auctor Vitae Spiridionis, ap. Hanel, Corp. Leg. ante Justinian, lot. p. 209), and ibid. 16. 2. 11, a.d. 354, ibid. 16. 2. 14, a.d. 357, ibid. 16. 2. 15, a.d. 360 (partly = Cod. Justin. 1. 3. 3) : of Valentin ian .and Valens, ibid. 16. 2. 19, A. D. 370?: of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, ibid. 16. a. 24, A.D. 377 (partly = Cod. Justin. 1. 3- 6). vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 147 of taxation, municipal magistracies and offices are in most instances a coveted honour. They entail upon those who hold them a certain amount of trouble, but not necessarily any considerable expense. But under the vicious system of the later Empire they were an almost intolerable burden. The magistrates were charged with the collection of the revenue, and, the quota of each municipality being fixed, they had to make up the deficit — in days in which deficits were chronic — out of their private resources 10 . The holding of office consequently involved in some cases an almost ruinous expenditure. It was a heavy and unequal tax upon property. An addition to the number of those who were exempt from it added to its oppressiveness and its inequality. It had also another result, it added to the number of claimants for admission to the privi- leged class. When the officers of Christian Churches were exempted, many persons whose fortunes were large enough to render them liable to the burden of muni- cipal offices, sought and obtained admission to the ranks of the clergy, with the view of thereby escaping their liability. The exemption had barely been half- a-dozen years in operation before the Emperor found it necessary to guard it with important limitations u . 10 See e.g. Kuhn, Verfassung etc., i er Theil, p. 245: Walter, Geschlchte des rdmischen Bechts, i er Theil, § 396: and especially Riidiger, I)e Curialibiis Imperii Jiomani post Constantinum M„ Wratislaw, 1838. 11 The exemptions were first granted in a. D. 313 : the first law restricting them is now lost, but it is quoted in a law of a. u. 320, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 3 'cum constitutio emissa praecipiat nullum deinceps decurionem vel ex decurione proge- nitum idoneis facultatibus atque obeundis publicis muneribus opportunum ad cleri corum nomen obsequiumque confugere, sed eos de cetero in defunctorum duntaxat clericorum loca surrogari qui fortuna tenues neque muneribus civilibus teneantur, L 2 148 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. These limitations were, for the most part, in the direction of prohibiting those who were liable to municipal burdens from being appointed to ecclesias- tical office. As the Church grew in power the limitations were evaded, and several times in the course of the fourth century they had to be repeated 12 : but it is important in relation to the point in hand to notice that, in spite of evident abuses, the exemptions them- selves were never repealed : it is equally important to notice that, although no doubt the exemption was claimed in almost all cases in which it could be claimed, the right to exemption did not constitute ineligibility. It was not until the Council of Chalcedon that the holding of civil office by clerks became an offence against ecclesiastical law ls : and it was not until eighty years after that Council that the appointment of a civil officer to ecclesiastical office became an offence against civil law u . 2. In the second place, the State granted to the officers of the Christian Church an exemption from the ordinary jurisdiction of the civil courts. Tt so far recognized the validity of the consensual juris- obstricti ....:' there are similar restrictions in a law of a.d 326 Cod Theod. 16. 2.6. 12 Law of Constantius and Constans, a.d. 360, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 15: of Con- stantius and Julian, a.d. 361, Cod. Theodos. 8. 4. 7 : of Valentinian, Theodosins, and Arcadius, a.d. 398, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 32 : Cod. Justin. 1. 3. 12 : cf. Socrates, E. E 6. 5 : H. E. 8. 7. 13 Cone. Chalced. A.D. 451, c. 7 tovs arra^ iv KkTjpco Knreikiyiihovs fj nal fiovaffav- ras wpiaafuv pyre em frrparday nrjrt im d^iav KocriMiiTjv tpxtaQai under penalty of anathema. 14 Law of Justinian, a.d. 532, Cod. Justin. 1. 3.53 (52) 6eam^ofitv ftr/re /3ou- Xtvrfjv ia\Tt Ta£tu/TT}v inioKonov i\ irpta(lvTepov rod AouroG ylvtaOcu : so Novell. 123. 15, A.D. 546. VI.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 149 diction to which the members of Christian societies submitted themselves. That consensual jurisdiction was to some extent recognized for all members. The civil law which recognized associations recognized also the right of such associations to frame and to enforce their own rules. In the Christian societies matters of religious dispute, or offences against religion, might be decided by the individual societies or by the repre- sentative assembly of a province. The limitation to such matters was, in the case of ordinary members, a strict one 15 . The administration of justice would have come to an end if all those who came soon to constitute a preponderating majority of the citizens of the Empire had been exempted from its ordinary operation. But for Church officers the rule went far beyond this. At first the rule that all causes in which officers of the Churches were concerned should be decided by the Churches themselves was permissive 16 . But at last it became compulsory 17 . The right of appeal to the emperor was reserved on the part of the State 18 , but 15 Law of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian in a. d. 376, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 23 ' Qui mos est causarum civilium idem in negotiis ecclesiasticis obtinendus est : ut si qua sunt ex quibusdam dissentionibua levibusque delictis ad religionis obser- vantiam pertinentia, locis suis et a suae dioeceseos synodis audiantur : exceptis quae actio criminalis ab ordinariis extraordinariisque judicibus aut illustribus potestati- bus audienda constituit.' 16 It is spoken of as a permission and not as an obligation: Sozom. H. E. 1. 9. 15 tuiv 5i IniaKoTtcov kfwcakiiodai rtjv xplcrtv iir £t p «if> « rots Suca^oftevois rjv fiov- Xwvrai roiis tto\itikovs apxovras irapantioOai. " Law of Honorius and Theodosius, a.d. 412, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 41 ' clericos nonnisi apud episcopos accusari convenit: ' ibid. 16. 2. 47: but a law of Leo, A.D. 459, ap. Theodos. Lector. 1. 14 : Niceph. Callist. 15. 22 (Hanel, Corpus Legum, No. 1320, p. 259) makes clerks amenable only to tS> k-napx<*> t& v rrpanwplwv. u That the right of appeal existed is shown by the fact that the Council of Antioch, 0. U, 12, punished with ecclesiastical penalties a clerk who availed bini- 150 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. fenced round with conditions on the part of the Churches : and so began that long struggle between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Church officers, which forms so important an element in mediaeval history, and which has not altogether ceased in our own times 19 . The joint effect of these exemptions from public burdens, and from ordinary courts, was the creation of a class civilly distinct from the rest of the com- munity. This is the first element in the change which we are investigating : the clergy came to have a distinct civil status. From the same general causes flowed another result of not less importance. The funds of the primitive communities had consisted entirely of voluntary offerings. Of these offerings those officers whose circumstances required it were entitled to a share. They received such a share only on the ground of their poverty. They were, so far, in the position of the widows and orphans and helpless poor. self of it : and also b the fact that e. g. Athanasius (Socrat. E. E. 1. 33), and Priscillian (Sulp. Sev. Chron. 49, p. 102, ed. Halm) did actually appeal. But, according to the ordinary law, such a right did not exist where the ecclesiastical judge was in the position of an arbitrator, accepted by both parties to a suit : cf. Hebenstreit, Historic/, Jurisdictions Ecclesiastic a e ex Legibus utriusque Codicis illus- trata, Diss. ii. § 26, iii. § 6, Lips. 1 776 : Bethmann-Hollweg, Der romische Civil- prozess, Bd. 3. p. 114, Bonn, 1866. 19 On the Civil Law in respect of ecclesiastical jurisdiction see Fessler, Der kanonische Process ... in der vorjustinianischen Periode, Wien, i860, and the excellent section of Loning's Geschichte des deutschen KirchenrechU, Bd. i. pp. 253-313, 382-409 ; and for an account of the legislation which served as the basis of the later Canon Law on the subject see Dove, Dc Jurisdictionis Ecclesiastical apud Germanos Gallosque Progressu, Berlin, 1855, and Sohni, Die geisllichc Qrrichtsbarkeit im frdnJcischen Reich in the Zcitachrift fur Eirchmrecht, vol. ix. 1870, pp. 193 sqq. vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 151 Like soldiers in the Koman army, or like slaves in a Roman household, they were entitled to a monthly allow- ance 20 . The amount of that allowance was variable. When the Montanists proposed to pay their clergy a fixed salary the proposal was condemned as a here- tical innovation, alien to Catholic practice 21 . Those who could supplemented their allowances by farming or by trade. There was no sense of incongruity in their doing so. The Apostolical Constitutions repeat with emphasis the apostolical injunction, ' If any would not work, neither should he eat 22 .' There is no early trace of the later idea that buying and selling, handicraft and farming, were in themselves inconsistent with the office of a Christian minister. The bishops and pres- byters of those early days kept banks, practised medi- cine, wrought as silversmiths, tended sheep, or sold their goods in open market 23 . They were like the second 30 ' Divisio mensurna,' St. Cyprian. Epist. 34 (28), p. 570, 39 (34), p. 582. 21 Euseb. H. E. 5. 18. 2: 5. 28. 10: this salary, like the allowances of the Catholic clergy, was to be paid monthly (firjviaia Srjvapia f/tarov ntvTTjKOVTa), the point of objection being apparently that it was fixed, and not dependent on the freewill -offerings of the people. 21 Const. Apost. 2. 62. 33 This is proved by the existence of both general regulations and particular instances : i. among the former are the enactment of the Civil Law exempting clerks from the trading-tax : ' si exiguis admodum mercimoniis tenuem sibi victum vestitumque conquirent' (Law of Constantius andConstans, a.d, 360, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 15), and the enactments of the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, c. 51 'clericus quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus artificio victum quaerat;' c. 52 ' clericus victum et vestimentum sibi artificiolo vel agricultura absque officii sui detrimento paret : ' ii. among the latter are the cases of Spiridion who tended sheep in Cyprus, Socrates, H. E. 1. n, of a bishop who was a weaver at Maiuma, Sozom. H. E. 7. 28, of one who was a shipbuilder in Campania, S. Greg. M. Epist. 13. 26, vol. ii. p. 1235, of one who practised in the law courts, ibid. 10. 10. vol. ii. p. 1048, of a presbyter who was a silversmith at Ancyra, Corp. Inscr. Qraec. No. 9258: Basil, Epitt. 198 (263% vol. iv. p. 290), speaks of the majority of his clergy as earning their livelihood by sedentary handicrafts (rds iSpaias ruiv Ttx v *> v )> an( i Epiphanius, 152 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. generation of non-juring bishops a century and a half ago, or like the early preachers of the Wesleyan Methodists. They were men of the world taking part in the ordinary business of life. The point about which the Christian communities were anxious was, not that their officers should cease to trade, but that, in this as in other respects, they should be ensamples to the flock. The chief existing enactments of early local councils on the point are that bishops are not to huckster their goods from market to market, nor are they to use their position to buy cheaper and sell dearer than other people 24 . Into this primitive state of things the State intro- duced a change. 1. It allowed the Churches to hold property 25 . And Haeres. 80. 6, p. 1072, speaks of others doing it in order to earn money for the poor : so Gennad. Be Script. Eccles. c. 69, of Hilary of Aries. 24 Cone. Illib. c. 19, 'Episcopi, presbyteres, et diacones de locis suis negotiandi causa non discedant, nee circumeuntes provincias quaestuosas nundinas sectentur:' Cone. Tarracon. c. 2 ' Quicumque in clero esse voluerit emendi vilius vel vendendi carius studio non utatur.' 25 Iu several cases the Christian communities had held property before the time of Constantine : but they probably did so rather by concession than of right : at the same time it must be admitted that the question of the legal status of the Christian communities in the first three centuries is one of great difficulty : (most of the elements of the solution of the question will be found in Liming, Bd. i. pp. 195 sqq., who arrives at a different conclusion from that which is here stated : and in the works mentioned in Lecture II, note 2). They had been formally permitted by Gallienus, Euseb. H. E. 7. 13. 3, to have common cemeteries : and De Rossi in the Bulletino di Archeol. Christian. Ann. iii. 1S65, pp. 89 (also in the Eevue Arcktlologique, vol. xiii. 1S66, pp. 225 sqq.), maintains that the right existed in relation to cemeteries from the first. But on the other hand, the pro- ceedings in the case of Paul of Samosata seem to show that, at least in some caseB, the property was held personally by the bishop : since Paul's opponents, not being able to eject him by the ordinary processes of law, as they could have done if the property had belonged to the community, had to seek the extraordinary interven- tion of Aurelian (Euseb. H. E. 7. 30. 19). Lampridius mentions that in a special aase Alexander Severus had allowed the Christians rather than the tavern-keepers vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 153 hardly had the holding of property become possible before the Church became a kind of universal legatee. The merit of bequeathing property to the Church was preached with so much success that restraining enact- ments became necessary. Just as the State did not abolish, though it found it necessary to limit, its concession of exemption to Church officers, so it pur- sued the policy of limiting rather than of abolishing the right to acquire property 26 . ' I do not complain of the law,' says Jerome, writing on this point, 'but of the causes which have rendered the law necessary 2 V 2. The enthusiasm, or the policy, of Constantine went considerably beyond this. He ordered that not only the clergy but also the widows and orphans who were on the Church-roll should receive fixed annual allowances 28 : he endowed some Churches with fixed to occupy a piece of once public land (Lamprid. Vit. Alex. Sen. 49) : and, the year before the Edict of Milan, Maximinus (Euseb. H. E. 9. 10. 1 1) restored the churches and other property of which the Christians had been deprived : but it does not appear that until that Edict the right of holding property was ordinary and incon- testable. Even then the right was probably limited to the occupation of churches, cemeteries, and other buildings used for worship or cognate purposes: the right of receiving property bequeathed by will for the purpose of endowment was not granted until a.d. 321, by a law which is preserved in Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 4. 2i The most stringent enactment was that of Valentinian and Valens in a. D. 370, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 20, to the effect that ' ecclesiastici' are not even to visit the houses of widows and wards : (it was addressed to Bishop Damasus and read in the Roman churches.) 47 St. Hieron. Epist. 52 (2), ad Nepotianum, c. 6 'Pudet dicere sacerdotes idolo- rum, iaiini, et aurigae, et scorta, haereditates capiunt : solis clericis et monachis hac lege [i.e. the law referred to in the preceding note] prohibetur: et prohibetur non a persecutoribus sed a principibus christianis. Nee de lege conqueritur : sed doleo cur mcruerimus hanc legem,' cf. St. Ambros. Epist. 18. 13 : Expos. Evang. sec. Luc. 8. 79, vol. i, p. 1491. 28 Theodoret. H.E.i. 10: Incert. Auct. de Constant, ap. Hanel, Corpus Leyum, p. 196 'literas ad provinciarum praesides dedit quibus imperabat ut per singulis uibe3 virginibus et viduia et aliis qui divino ministerio erant con«ecrati, annuum 154 The Clergy as a Separate Class* [lect. revenues chargeable upon the lands of the munici- palities 29 : in some cases he gave to churches the rich revenues or the splendid buildings of heathen temples 30 . This is the second element in the change : the clergy became not only independent, but in some cases wealthy. In an age of social decay and struggling poverty they had not only enough but to spare. They could afford to lend : and they lent. The frequent repetition in provincial councils of the rule that the clergy should not take interest upon their loans, while it shows that the practice was reprehended, shows also that it existed 31 . The effect of the recognition of Christianity by the State was thus not only to create a class civilly distinct from the rest of the community, but also to give that class social independence. In other words, the Chris- tian clergy, in addition to their original prestige as frumentum suppeditaretur : ' cf. Euseb. H. E. 10, 6. Julian not only withdrew the privilege, but also compelled widows and virgins to repay what they had re- ceived from the public funds, Sozom. H. E. 5. 5 : but the privilege was restored by his successor, Theodoret. H. E. 4. 4. 89 Euseb. Vit. Const. 4. 28 : Sozom. H. E. 1. 8. 10 : 5. 5. 3. 30 Later writers sometimes represented the transfer of temples and their revenues to the Christian churches as having been made on a considerable scale : e. g. Theo- phanes, p. 42, ed. Class. : Niceph. Callist. 7. 46 : Cedren. pp. 478, 498. But al- though instances of such a transfer can be found, e. g. that of the Temple of Mithra at Alexandria, Sozom. H. E. 5. 7, and that which is recorded in an extant inscrip- tion at Zorava in Trachonitis (Qtov yiyovw oikos to tuiv fiai/Aovwv tearayiiyiov, Le Bas et Waddington, No. 2498), yet on the other hand the confiscation of temples and their revenues did not become general until the time of Theodosius, and the funds so realized were applied not to Christian, but to imperial and secular pur- poses: this is shown by Cod. Theodos. 16. 10. 19 (law of A. D. 4o8 = Constit. Sir- mond. 12, p. 466, ed. Hiinel) 'templorum detrahantur annonae et rem annonariam juvent, expensis devotissimoruni militum profuturae : ' so ibid. 16. 10. 20. n Councils of Elvira, c. 20 : Aries, c. 1 2 : Laodicea, c. 4 : Nicaea, c. 1 7 : 1 Tours, c. 13: Tarragon, c. 3: 3 Orleans, c. 27: Trull, c. 10: so also the Cod. Eocles. Afric. c. 16: Can Apost. 44. vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 155 office-bearers, had the privileges of a favoured class, and the power of a moneyed class. In the meantime, cooperating with these causes, though wholly different from them, was another group of causes which operated in the same general direction. The fourth century of our era saw not only the recognition of Christianity by the State as the religion of the State, but also the first great development within Christianity itself of those practices and tendencies which are covered by the general name of Monasticism. Those practices and tendencies consist in the main of two elements — asceticism and isolation from the world. Each of these elements has a separate history: the significance of monasticism lies in their combination. 1. Asceticism belongs to almost the first beginnings of the Christian faith. The teaching of our Lord had been a teaching of self-abnegation : the preaching of more than one Apostle had gone beyond this and had been a preaching of self-mortification. The maxim of the Master had been, ' Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor 32 :' the maxim of the Apostle was, ' Mortify your members which are upon earth 83 / Those who had begun by giving a literal interpretation to the one — ' having all things common 3 V proceeded to give a literal interpretation to the other — 'crucifying the flesh 3 V In other words, the profound reaction against current morality which had already expressed itself in some of the philosophical sects expressed itself within sa S. Matt. 19. 21. w Col. 3. 5. 84 Acta 2. 44. 85 Gal. 5. 34. 156 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. the limits of Christianity. In our own days, in which the social system has become more settled, and in which the divine influence of the Christian faith has raised even the current standard, it is difficult to realize to ourselves the passionate intensity of that striving after the moral ideal. We know of men struggling for freedom : but in those days they struggled less for freedom than for purity. Such struggles admit of no compromise : for compromise, like diplomacy, finds no place in the melee of the battlefield. And this struggle for moral purity be- came a war a outrance against human nature. At first it was confined to a few : it rather hovered on the outskirts of Christianity than found a recognized place within : it was Judseo-Christian or Gnostic rather than Catholic : it was rather discouraged than inculcated — until, with the sudden rush of a great enthusiasm, it became a force which even the whole weight of the confederated Churches could not resist 36 . 2. Side by side with it, but for the first three cen- turies confined to a still smaller number of persons 37 , 38 The tendency towards the laudation of virginity is found in e. g. Herm. Sim. 9. 10. 11 : St. Justin M.Apol. I. 15 : Athenag. Legal. 32 : Origen, e. Ccls. 7. 48 : Tertull. Be V eland. Yirg. 2, Be Exhort. Cast. 21 : St. Cyprian. Be Habitu Virg. c. 3, p. 189: Be Mortalitate, 26, p. 314: Epist. 55 (52), c. 20, p. 63S, 62 (60), c. 3, p. 699 37 There is the instance of Narcissus of Jerusalem.. Euseb. H. E. 6. 9. 6, of the fugitives from the Decian persecution mentioned by Dionysh.s of Alexandria ap. Euseb. H. E. 6. 42. 1, of those with whom ' the great monk' Antony met before he himself founded the later system of Egyptian inonachism, (pseudo-)Athanas.Ftk -S. Anton, c. 3, Op. vol. i, p. 634. The fact that in the middle of the fourth cen- tury there was already a irapaSoffts dypafos (Sozoin. 1 . 13) of monastic rules is a further proof of the existence of monks before that time : on the other hand Ter- tulliau's protest that the Christians were not ' Brachmanae, Gymnosophistae, silvi- colae, exulea vitae' (Apol. 42) shows that the tendency had nut become general. Vl.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 157 was the tendency to live in partial or total isolation from society. This, like the ascetic tendency, was not confined to Christianity. It had already taken an important place in the religions of both Egypt and the East. In Egypt there had been for several centuries a great monastery of those who were devoted to the worship of the deity whom the Greeks called Serapis. The monks, like Christian monks, lived in a vast common building, which they never left : they might retain a limited control over their property, but they were dead to the world 38 . In the greatest of Oriental religions there had also been for many centuries a monastic system, which gained so firm a hold upon the professors of that religion that to the present day, in some countries where Buddhism prevails, every member of the popu- lation, whether he will or no, must at some period of S8 The institution of monachism in Egypt goes back to remote times : a hiero- glyphic inscription in the Louvre, No. 3465, speaks of an abbess of the nuns of Ammon (Bevillout in the Archives des Missions scientifiques et UtUraires, 3 mo se'rie, vol. 4, p. 479) : but our chief knowledge of it is derived from the papyri, which exist in considerable numbers, referring to the Serapeum at Memphis. The most important of them are published by Brunet de Presle, Papyrus Qrecs du Musee du Louvre et de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, in the Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliotheque Impiriale, vol. xviii, pp. 261 sqq., who has also published an excellent Mimoire sur le Sirapeum de Memphis in the Mcmoires presentes par divers savans a VAcadimie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, i re serie, vol. ii, pp. 552 sqq. (see also Leemans, Papyri Graeci Musei Ant. publ. Lugduni-Batavi, pap. B, p. 9, and Mai, Class. Auct. vol. v, pp. 352, 601). The worship of Serapis was widely spread in both Greece and Italy (see e.g. Herzberg, Die Geschichte Ch'iechenlands miter der Herr- schaft der Rbmer, Bd. ii, p. 267 : Preller in the Berichte der konigl. sacks. Gesell- schaft d. Wissenschaft, phil. hist, classe, Bd. vi, 1854, pp. 196 sqq. : Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. i, pp. 400 sqq.), and there were associations of Serapis-wor- shippers (e.g. at Athens, a decree of which is to be found in the Corpus Inter. Ch-aec. No. 120 = Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, part i, No. 21), but there are no traces of religious recluses out of Egypt. 158 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. his life adopt the monastic habit, and live, if only for a month or two, in retreat 39 . The fact that Christian monasticism first appears in Egypt 4 ", where the Serapeum was a familiar object to the inhabitants of Memphis 41 , and also in those extreme parts of Asia Minor which were locally nearest to the Buddhist populations 42 , has led to the supposition that one or other or both of these external causes may account for its introduction into Christianity 43 . 89 R. S. Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 57. 40 The early appearance of Monasticism in Egypt is shown not only by the ' Eremitenroman ' (Weingarten, p. 20), entitled Vita S. Antonii, and ascribed to St. Athanasius (Op. vol. i, pp. 630 sqq.), but also by the more important treatise De Vita Contemplativa, which is printed among the works of Philo (Op. vol. ii. pp. 471 sqq. ed. Mang.). The controversies which have for some time been carried on as to the probable authorship and date of this treatise (of which a short and convenient account will be found in Kuenen, De Qodsdienst van Israel, Eng. Trans, vol. iii, pp. 217 sqq.) seem to have been set at rest by Lucius, Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der Askese, Strassburg, 1879, who maintains that it is really an account, written not long before the time of Eusebius, of the communities of Chris- tian ascetics which had already begun to exist in Egypt : (see Hilgenfeld's pane- gyric upon the work in his Zeitschrift f. wissensch. 1'heologie, Bd. xxiii. 1880, pp. 423 sqq.). 41 The remains of the Serapeum were first explored by Mariette, and have been described in his work entitled Le S&rapeum de Memphis, Paris, 1857. 42 There are some, though not considerable, traces of monasticism in Armenia at the beginning of the fourth century, to which period the foundation of the monas- tery of Etchmiazin is traditionally ascribed : (see the life of St. Gregory the Illumi- nator by Agathangelos, translated in Langlois, Historiens de VArmenie,~Pa.ria, 1867, vol. i, p. 181). There are also some, though not considerable, traces of Buddhism having spread as far as Parthia a century and a half earlier than the above-men- tioned date (Max Miiller, Selected Essays, vol. ii, p. 316). But there is no trace of actual contact between Buddhism and Christianity, nor is there anything in the form of early Armenian monasticism which shows a specially Buddhist impress. 43 Kiiuffer in the Zweite Denkschrift der hiet.-theol. Geselhchaft zu, Leipsig, Leip- sig, 1819: and Weingarten, in his valuable essay Der Ursprungdes Monchtums, in the Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, Bd. i. 1877, pp. 1 sqq. (since published separately), trace Christian monachism to Egyptian influences : Hilgenfeld, in his Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie, Bd. xxi. 1878, pp. 147 sqq., lays great stress on Buddhist influences: the general view, which is given above, that both these in- fluences were subordinate in their effects to causes which existed within Chris- vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 159 But great enthusiasms are never adequately explained by external causes. No torch would have kindled so great a conflagration if the fuel had not been already gathered together for the burning. The causes of the sudden outburst of monasticism in the fourth century must be sought, and can be found, within Christianity itself. They lie in the general conditions of the age. It was an age, in the first place, in which the artificial civilization of the Empire seemed to culminate. That civilization carried in its train a craving for artificial luxuries and artificial excitements. Such a craving is never satisfied. It begets a vague restlessness, which in its turn passes into ennui. There are men who stand on the threshold of life who yet are weary of it. There are those who have passed through life and have found it vanity. There are social ambitions which have been disappointed, and political schemes which have been baffled, and moral reformations which have failed, — and which have resulted in an exodus of despair. Again, it was an age of newly realized religious freedom, in which, after the lapse of half a century, men began to idealize the age which had preceded it. The age of martyrdoms had ceased, but the spirit of the martyrs began to live again. For martyrdom had been in many cases the choice of a sublime enthusiasm. There had been men and women who, so far from shrinking from it, had sought and welcomed the occa- tianity itself, lias been stated with great force by Keim, Ursprung d?x Monehwesens in his collection of essays entitled Aus dem Urchristenthum, pp. 304 sqq., Zurich, 1878 : see also the excellent lecture of Harnack, Das Monchthum seiwi Ideale und seine Geschichte, Giessen, 1881. 160 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. sion of it 4 *. They had ' counted it all joy to suffer for His name's sake.' All this had come to a sudden end. Persecution had ceased. But the idea of the merit of suffering had not ceased. There were those who, if they could not be martyrs in act, would at least be martyrs in will (txaprvpe? Tfj irpoaipecrei) 45 . They sought lives of self-mortification. They would themselves tor- ture the flesh which the licfcors would no longer scourge. They would construct for themselves the prisons which no longer kept Christian confessors for the lions. And again, it was an age in which the antithesis between mind and matter, between the unreal world of sense and the real world of spirit, expressed itself in more than one philosophy and more than one religion. It was the first and fullest bloom in the Western world of that love of haze upon the horizon which, however alien to the modern temper, has almost won its way to a permanent place among human tendencies, and which is known by the name of mysticism. There were men to whom philosophy had ceased to be philosophy, and had become an emotion. There were the pure and passionate souls to whom contact with sin was intolerable, and who fled from a world which they did not know to dream of a world which could be but a dream. There were 41 For instances see Euseb. De Martyr. Pulaestinae, 3. 3: Acta Thcodoii, c. 22 in Ruinart, Acta Marty rum sinccra, p. 346, Tertull. Ad Scapulam, 5 : Le Blant, Sur la Preparation au Martyre dans les premises siecles de I'Eglise, in the Memoires de VAcacUmie des Inscriptions, vol. xxviii, 1 partie, pp. 54 sqq., speaks with both force and truth of ' cette immense soif de mort, cette indomptablc passion de souffrir, ressentie par les ames ardentes ; ' cf. Euseb. H. E. 7. 1 3, of some martyrs at Caesarea, iroOov fXixo/itvois ovpaviov. 45 St. Basil. M. Horn, in XL Martyrcs, Op. ed. Garn. vol. ii, p. 149. vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 161 those to whom life was thought, and thought was the contemplation of God, and the contemplation of God was the love of Him, and the love of Him was absorp- tion in Him — as the morning mist floats upwards from some still mountain tarn, and rests for a while in embodied glory in the sunlight, and is lost in the pure infinity of noon. To those who have studied the history of great social movements it will not be surprising that these various elements should have combined together, in the course of a single generation, to form an enthusiasm or a fanaticism. The movement began in the East, but it spread rapidly to the West: and wherever, in East or West, the stream of life ran strong, there were crowds of men and women who were ready to forsake all, and follow John the Baptist into the desert rather than Christ into the world. Monasticism became henceforward a permanent factor in Christian society. Its first result was to give a new meaning to the antithesis between the Church and the world. That antithesis in its original form was an antithesis between the new chosen people and the Gentiles outside. But monasticism transferred the distinction to the Church itself, between those who stood within the sanctuary and followed 'counsels of perfection,' and those who were content with the average morality of Christian men 46 . The result of ** ' Religion ' came to mean the monastic life and rule : e. g. i Cone. Aurel. A.D. 511, c. 11 ; 5 Cone. Paris, a.d. 615, c. 13; 4 Cone. Tolet. a.d. 633, c. 55; 10 Cone. Tolet. a.d. 656, c. 6. ' Secular ' came to mean whatever was outside the monastic M 1 62 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. this upon ecclesiastical organization was practically to compel the clergy to live what was thought to be the higher — that is, the more ascetic — life. This result was not effected without resistance. For asceticism had in some cases been the protest of heresy against catho- licity 47 : but when the Arians set themselves to perse- cute monasticism, by a remarkable rebound of feeling, monasticism became a protest of catholicity against Arianism 48 . Henceforth there was for the clergy that which is an infallible mark of an exceptional status, exceptional legislation. That legislation affected chiefly marriage and social life. The legislation which affected marriage varied widely, not only from century to century, but between East and West. In the East the ascetic rule prevailed for bishops 49 : in the West it came ultimately to prevail for all the higher orders of clergy. At first they might not marry after ordination, and then ' they that had wives were to be as though they had none,' and lastly, life and rule : and 'conversion' was no longer the turning * from the power of Satan unto God,' but the adoption of the monastic habit: e.g. Cone. Agath. a.d. 506, a 16 ; I Cone. Aurel. A. D. 51 1, c. 21 ; 4 Cone. Arelat. a.d. 524, c. 2 ; 5 Cone. Aurel. a.d. 529, c. 9 ; 2 Cone. Arvern. A.D. 549, c. 9 : also so ' poenitentia : ' e.g. 2 Cone. Arelat. A.D. 451? c. 22. Even Clement of Alexandria had regarded those who lived an ascetic life as raiv iicKtKT&v (fcAfKrorepoi {Quia. Div?s Salv. c. 36, p. 945 ed. Pott.). 47 E.g. in the second century it had prevailed among the Marcionites, who ad- mitted no married person to baptism unless he consented to a divorce, Tertull. Adv. Marc. 1. 29 : 5. 7. 48 The violence of theArian reaction against the Catholic institution of perpetual virginity is shown by e.g. St. Athanas. Epist. Encycl. 3, vol. i. p. 90, ed. Ben.; Socrat. H. E. 2. 28 ; St. Hil. Pictav. Ad Constant. Aug. 1. 6 : Pragm. Hist. 2. 3 ; 3. 9: St. Greg. Naz. Orat. in laud. Basil. M. c. 46, vol. i. p. 805, Orat. c. Avian. c. 3, vol. i. p. 605 : so also against monks, St. Basil M. Epist. 256 (200), vol. iv. P- 39°- * Cone. Trull, c. 48. vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 163 though not until prevalent practice had rendered a law almost needless, they might not marry at all 50 . The legislation which affected social life began by excluding clergy from the amusements of life, and went on gradually to exclude them from its ordinary pursuits, and at last, though not for some centuries, clenched the distinction by requiring them to wear a special dress 61 . If we add these various causes together, we shall see that the isolation of the clergy as a separate class of the community became at length inevitable. They had a separate civil status, they had separate emolu- ments, they were subject to special rules of life. The shepherd bishop driving his cattle to their rude pastur- age among the Cyprian hills, the merchant bishop of North Africa, the physician presbyter of Rome, were vanished types whose living examples could be found no more. 60 The evidence upon which the above paragraph is based ir altogether too exten- sive and intricate to admit of being stated within the limits of a note : it will be found at length in the excellent work of J. A. and A. Theiner, Die Einfiihrung der erzivungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den christlichen Geistlichen und ihre Folgen, Altenburg, 1828: for a more concise, but even more scientific, account see Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht Bd. i, pp. 144-159: a complete account of the literature of the subject will be found in de Roskovany, Coelibatus et Breviarium, Pest, 1861. S1 There are many injunctions to the clergy in earlier centuries to use modest and becoming dress : but there is probably no direct enactment as to the form of dress which the clergy should wear in ordinary life earlier than the Capitulary of Karloman in 742, c. 7 (Pertz, Legum, vol. i, p. 17, = Cone. German, c. 7, Mansi, Concilia, vol. xii, p. 365), which prohibited clerks from wearing the ' sagum,' or short cloak, and required them to wear the ' casula ' (for the meaning of which see the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v.), and the Capitulary of Pippin two years later (Capit. Sucssion. A.D. 744, c. 3, Pertz, Legum, vol. i, p. 21) which enacts that 'omnes clerici fornication era non faciant, et habitu laicorwm non portent nee apud canes venationes non faciant nee acceptores non portent.' For the disputed ques- tions when and whether church officers had a distinctive dress in church in early times, reference may be made to W. B. Marriott, Vestiarium Christ ianum, London, 1868, and for a contrary view Hefele, Die liturgischen Gtwiinder in his Beitriiye zur Kircfiengeschiclde, Arehaologie, u. Liturgik, Bd. ii. Freiburg, 1864. M 2 164 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. All this was intensified by the decay and fall of the Roman Empire. When the surging tides of bar- barian invasion swept over Europe, the Christian organi- zation was almost the only institution of the past which survived the flood. It remained as a visible monument of what had been, and, by so remaining, was of itself an antithesis to the present. The chief town of the Roman province, whatever its status under barbarian rule, was still the bishop's see. The limits of the old 'province/ though the boundary of a new kingdom might bisect them, were still the limits of his diocese. The bishop's tribunal was the only tribunal in which the laws of the Empire could be pleaded in their integrity. The bishop's dress was the ancient robe of a Roman magistrate. The ancient Roman language which was used in the Church services was a standing protest against the growing degeneracy of the ' vulgar tongue.' These survivals of the old world which was passing away gave to the Christian clergy a still more exceptional position when they went as missionaries into the villages which Roman civilization had hardly reached, or into the remote parts of the Empire where Roman organization had been to the masses of the population only what English rule is to the masses of the population of India. To the 'pagani' of Gaul and Spain, to the Celtic inhabitants of our own islands, and, in rather later times, to the Teutonic races of Central Europe, they were probably never known except as a special class, assuming a special status, living a special life, and invested with special powers. VI.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 165 There were two usages which, though they were not without significance even in the seats of the older civilization, became in the great mass of the nations of the West circumstances of great significance. 1 . The first is one which might seem trivial, if we did not bear in mind that a dispute concerning it constituted a principal cause why the British Churches refused to combine with the organization which was introduced into the English kingdoms by Augustine 62 . Part of the protest which had been made by early preachers against the current effeminacy had been a protest against the elaborate fashion of dressing the hair 53 . The first book of the Apostolic Constitutions exhorts all Christians to trim their hair becomingly 5i : Clement of Alexandria lays down minute rules in this respect for both men aud women 65 ; and Chrysostom repeatedly quotes the Apostolic injunction against * broided hair ' in his appeals to the court-ladies of Con- stantinople 56 . But, as in other cases, that which had been a primitive rule for all Christians became in time a special rule for the clergy. They must not either shave their heads like the priests of Isis ", nor let their hair grow long like heathen philosophers. Then came a more exact and stringent rule : they must not only 5i Bede, E. R. 4. 1 ; 5. 21 ; see Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc. vol. i. P 154- 53 Compare the address of Epictetus to the young rhetorician who caine to him Tr(pi(p"f6Ttpov ^(ncrj/iivov rfjv n6p.rjv, Diss. 3. I. I. 84 Const. Apost. I. 3. M Clem. Alex. Paeday. 3. II, p. 290, ed. Pott. 56 St. Chrys. e. g. Horn. ix. in Ep. ad Horn. vol. ix. 742, Horn. xxri. in Ep. i. ad Corinth, vol. x. 235, Horn. viii. in Ep. i. ad 'Tim. vol. xi. 590. n St. Hieron. Coram, in Ezech. lib. 13, c. 44. 1 66 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [lect. trim their hair but trim it in a particular way. The trimming of the hair in this particular way became one of the ceremonies of admission to ecclesiastical office: and, throughout both East and West, clerks became differentiated from laymen by the 'tonsure 68 .' 2. The second usage is one which was partly primi- tive and partly monastic. In the earliest times, the living of all those who shared in the Church offerings at a common table had probably been one of those simple economies by which the resources of the infant Churches had been hus- banded 69 . When, long after this primitive practice had passed away, monasticism asserted its place in Christian life, a pious bishop of the West, Eusebius of Vercelli, began the practice of gathering together his clergy in a common building 60 . St. Augustine followed his example, and instituted in Africa what he calls, by a kind of paronomasia considering the antithesis between monks 8 " The direction of Pope Anicetus {Lib. Pontif. p. a) and of the Statuta Eccletiae Anliqua, c. 44, is simply ' clericus nee comam nutriat nee barbam : ' and it is clear that for some time there was a diversity of usage as to the manner in which the hair was trimmed. The earliest direction on this point which has conciliar authority is probably that of the fourth Council of Toledo, a.d. 633, c. 41, 'omnes clerici vel lectores sicut levitae et sacerdotes detonso superius toto capite inferius .solain circuli coronam relinquant.' This was known as the ■ coronal tonsure : ' its adoption seems to have been at least partly due to mystical reasons, as symbolizing the crown of thorns (see e.g. St. Aldhem. Epist. I, ap. Jaffe\ Monnmenta Moguntina, p. 27, and pseudo-Alcuin, De Divinis Officiis, c. 35) : but when once adopted it became a badge of orthodoxy, and as such became universal. 59 Epist. ad Diognet. 5. 7 rpavt^av koo>j)v irapariOivTai d\\' ov koivtjv. The fourth Apostolical Canon directs those offerings which could not properly be placed upon the altar to be taken tfc olnov for the use of the bishop and clergy. It is conceivable that, this oikos was a kind of clergy-house, or at least a common refectory. 60 St. Maxim. Serm. 23, ap. Muratori, Anecdota Latina, vol. iv. ; St. Ambros. 63, c. 66, 82, vol. ii, p. 1038. vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 167 and clerks, a ' monasterium clericorum 61 . Hence grew the practice, to which I must refer again in a subsequent Lecture 62 , of the clergy living together — a practice which in the country districts of the West became as much a practical necessity as it is for the missionaries of our modern Churches to live by themselves in mission- stations. But the practice served still further to em- phasize, especially in those districts, the difference between clergy and laity : for the former not only had a distinctive personal mark, but also lived an isolated life. So grew the Christian clergy. They came to be what they were by the inevitable force of circumstances, that is to say, by the gradual evolution of the great scheme of God's government of the world which, though present eternally to His sight, is but slowly unfolded before ours. But of what they came to be it is difficult to speak with a calm judgment, because the incalculable good which they have wrought in the midst of human society has been tempered with so much of failure and of sin. One point at least, however, seems evident, that that incalculable good has been achieved rather by the human influence which they have exercised than by the superhuman power which they have sometimes claimed. The place which they have filled in human history has been filled not by the wielding of the thunderbolts of heaven, but by the whispering of the still voice which tells the outcast and the sad of divine mercy and divine * l St. Augustm. Serm. 355 = ^6 Divers. 49, Op. ed. Migne, Patr. Lat. vol. v. p. 1570. w See Lecture VIIT. 1 68 The Clergy as a Separate Class. consolation. And if it be possible to draw from the past an augury of the future, they will have their place in the days that are to come, whether those days be a reign of chaos or a reign of peace, not by living in the isolation which the decay of the Empire forced upon the clergy of the middle ages, but by recurring to the earlier type, by being within society itself a leaven of knowledge and of purity, of temperance and of charity. In this way will their influence be as permanent as human need : in this way will they, and not others in their stead, be the channels and the exponents of those spiritual forces which underlie all faiths and all civilizations, which, whoever be their ministers, live in themselves an ever- lasting life, and of which, as of the deepest of human emotions, though the outward form perishes and the earthly voices die, the * Echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever/ LECTURE VII. COUNCILS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. An important feature of the Koman imperial admin- istration was the respect which it showed to local liberties. For many important purposes a municipality was independent : the reality, as well as the form, of republican government lingered in the towns long after it had become extinct at Eome l . For certain other purposes a province was independent: and the form which its independence assumed anticipated in a re- markable way those representative institutions which have sometimes been regarded as the special product of modern times. Every year deputies from the chief towns of a province met together in a deliberative assembly 2 . This assembly had to some extent a re- 1 This is shown by the general regulations as to municipal administration in the Lex Julia municipalis (Corp. Inscr. Lat. vol. i. No. 206), and in the Lex Malaci- tana (ibid. vol. ii. Nos. 1963, 1964; see supra, Lect. V, note 35). An interesting account of the independent municipal regime of Gaul is given by Fustel de Coulanges, Jlistoire des Institutions politiques de Vancienne France, i re partie, pp. 121 sqq., Paris, 1875. 8 For these provincial councils see Marquardt, Be Proxinciarum Bomanarum Conciliis et Sacerdotibus in the Ephemeris Epigraphica, vol. i. pp. 200-214, and also his Bomische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 365-377, where references will be found to almost all the existing literature on the subject. It is important to note that they are found in full activity during the imperial period in all the provinces in which Christian councils came to exist : viz. Greece (see, in addition to Marquardt, Herzberg, Geschichte Qriechenlands, Bd. ii. 465 ; Dittenberger, Cor put Inscr. A tt. vol. iii. No. 18); Syria (coins of Trajan and Caracalla, Mionet, vol. v. no, 334); 1 70 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. ligious character. Its meeting-place was the altar of Augustus : its deliberations were preceded by a sacrifice : its president was named High Priest 3 . In the course of the second century the custom of meeting in representative assemblies began to prevail among the Christian communities. There were points of practice — for example, the time of keeping Easter — on which it was desirable to adopt a common line of action 4 : there were questions as to Christian teaching — for example, those which grew out of Montanism — on which individual Churches were divided, and on which they consequently desired to consult with their neigh- bours 5 : there were questions of discipline which affected more than one community — especially the question, which for a time assumed a great importance, as to the terms upon which those who had renounced Christianity under pressure of persecution should be received back again 6 . At first these assemblies were more or less informal. Some prominent and influential bishop invited a few neighbouring communities to confer with his own : the Asia Minor (Kulin, Verfassung des rom. Reichs, i. 107 sqq.) ; Africa (Hirschfeld, Annali di instit. Archeol. Rom. vol. xxxviii, 1866, p. 70) ; Spain (Hiibner, Corpus Inter. Lat. vol. ii, p. 540; Hermes, vol. i, p. Ill); and Gaul (Boissieu, Inscrip- tions Antiques de Lyon, p. 84). 3 For this title see the epigraphical evidence collected by Marquardt, Ephem. Epigraph, vol. i, pp. 207-214; Rom. Staatsvrrw. Bd. 1, p. 367. 4 Councils were held on this point in Asia Minor before the close of the second century, Euseb. H. E. 5. 23. 2. 5 Councils were held on this point in Asia Minor about a.d. 160-170, Eimeb. H. E. 5. 16. 10. fi Councils on this point are frequently mentioned in Cyprian : cf. the Sentential Epi*coporum de Hereticis baptizandis ap. St. Cyprian. Op. p. 435, ed. Hartel, and Epist. 17 (n), p. 523; 20 (14), p. 529 ; 32, p. 565 ; 43 (40), p. 59a ; 55 (52), p. 626 ; 56 (53), c. 3, p. 649 ; 70, p. 766 ; 71, c. 1, p. 771 ; 73. c. 1, p. 778. vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 171 result of the deliberations of such a conference was ex- pressed sometimes in a resolution, sometimes in a letter addressed to other Churches 7 . It was the rule for such letters to be received with respect : for the sense of brotherhood was strong, and the causes of alienation were few. But so far from such letters having any binding force on other Churches, not even the resolu- tions of the conference were binding on a dissentient minority of its members. Cyprian, in whose days these conferences first became important, and. who was at the same time the most vigorous of early preachers of catholic unity — both of which circumstances would have made him a supporter of their authoritative character if such authoritative character had existed — claims in emphatic and explicit terms an absolute in- dependence for each community. Within the limits of his own community a bishop has no superior but God. 1 To each shepherd,' he writes, ' a portion of the Lord's flock has been assigned, and his account must be rendered to his own Master.' The fact that some bishops refused to readmit to communion those who had committed adultery is no argument, he contends, for the practice of other bishops ; nor is the fact that a number of bishops meeting in council had agreed to 7 These had been preceded by letters written by one church to another, in its own name and without conference with other churches. That the First Epistle of Clement of Rome is an example of such a letter is shown, chiefly on the evidence afforded by the newly-discovered portion, by Harnack in the Theologizche Lilcratur- zeitung, Bd. i. 1876, p. 102, and in the prolegomena to the letter in his Patrum Apost. Opera, ed. alt. p. lxi. Of letters addressed by more than one church to another church or group of churches, examples will be found in the letters of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, Euseb. H. E. 5. 1. 2, and of the African to the Spanish churches, St. Cyprian. Bpist. 67 (68), p. 736. 172 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. admit the lapsed a reason why a bishop who thought otherwise should admit them against his will 8 . But no sooner had Christianity been recognized by the State than such conferences tended to multiply, to become not occasional but ordinary, and to pass resolutions which were regarded as binding upon the Churches within the district from which representatives had come, and the acceptance of which was regarded as a condition of intercommunion with the Churches of other provinces. There were strong reasons of imperial policy for fostering this tendency. It was clearly advisable that the institutions to which a new status had been given should be homogeneous. It was clearly contrary to public policy that not only status but also funds should be given to a number of com- munities which had no other principle of cohesion than that of a more or less undefined unity of belief 9 . Consequently, when the vexed question of the ordi- nation of Caecilian threatened to divide the African Churches, Constantine summoned all the bishops of Christendom — each with representative presbyters from 8 St. Cyprian. Epist. 59 (55), c. 14, p. 683 'cum . . . singulis pastoribus portio gregis sit adscripta quam regat unusquisque et gubernet, rationem sui actus Domino redditurus : ' id. Epist. 55 (52), c. 21, p. 639 ' non tamen a coepiscoporum suorum collegio recesserunt aut catholicae ecclesiae unitatem vel duritiae vel censurae suae obstinatione ruperunt, ut quia apud alios adulteris pax dabatur, qui non dabat de ecclesia separaretur : manente concordiae vinculo et perseverante catholicae eccle- mae individuo saeramento actum suum disponit et dirigit unusquisque episcopus rationem propositi sui Domino redditurus.' On this point see the important treatise of Keinkens, Die Lehre des heil. Cyprian von der Einheit der Kirche, Wiirzburg, 1873. * A law of Constantine in A.D. 326, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. I, confines the privi- leges and immunities which had been granted to Christians to 'catholicae legis ob- servatoribus.' vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 173 his Church — to a conference or council at Aries 10 . It was an obvious condition of such a conference that its decisions should be binding on those who so far took part in it as to subscribe to its acts. And since those who did so take part in it were the most im- portant bishops in Christendom, a confederation was thereby established, which placed dissentients at a great disadvantage. The main points of agreement which were arrived at in this conference have con- stituted the basis of the confederation of Christian Churches ever since. It was resolved that those who had been appointed to minister in any place should remain in that place and not wander from one place to another u ; that a deacon should not offer the Eucharistic sacrifice 12 ; that bishops should 10 The mandate of Constantine to the bishop of Syracuse is preserved, doubtless as a typical form, by Euseb. JET. E. 10. 5. 21-24: it gives him the right to convey- ance at the public cost (SrjfiScriov oxm*a). There is also a letter of Constantine to Aelafius (or Ablabius) the vicar of Africa (ap. Mansi, Concilia ii. 463, and Migne, Patr. Lat. viii. 483) requiring him to give the bishops of both parties tractoriae, which, from the report of the prefects to the successor of Aelafius, appear to have given the right to provisions as well as to conveyance (' angarialem cum annonaria competentia,' ap. St. Augustin. Op. ed. Migne, vol. ix. append, p. 790). 11 1 Cone. Arelat. c. 21. 12 Ibid. c. 15 ' de diaconibus quos cognovimus multis locis offerre, placuit minima fieri debere :' c. 18 ' de diaconibus urbicis ut non sibi tantum praesumant sed honore presbyteris reservent, ut sine conscientia ipsorum nihil tale faciat.' It may be inferred from the expression of the Council of Elvira, c. 67 'diaconus regens plebem,' that up to this time a deacon might be the chief or sole officer of a parish, in which capacity he would naturally be the bishop's deputy as president at the Eucharist. That a deacon could so act, as the bishop's deputy, is clear from the words of the deacon Laurence to his bishop Sixtus, ' Experire utrum idoneum ministrum elegeris cui commisisti doininici sanguinis consecrationem ' (St. Ambros. De Offic. i. 41 : many attempts have been made to explain away the force of these words, but it is a significant fact that they are the only part of the account which is omitted by writers of the succeeding generation in whom the sacerdotal idea wan stronger, viz. St. Augustin. In Joann. Evang. Tract. 27, c. 12, Op. ed. Migne, vol. iii. 1621, St. Maxim. Taurin. Horn. 74, p. 238). 1 74 Councils and the Unity of tJie Church, [lect. l>e appointed ordinarily by eight, but at least by three bishops, and that one bishop should not have the right of appointing another by himself alone 13 . Henceforward there were two kinds of meetings or councils. For matters which affected the whole body of Christian Churches there were general assemblies of the bishops and other representative members of all the Churches of the world : for minor matters, such as a controversy between one Church and another, or between the majority of the members of a Church and one of its officers, there were provincial assemblies. These latter were held upon a strictly local basis : they followed the lines of the civil assemblies whose ordinary designation they appropriated. They fol- lowed them also in meeting in the metropolis of the province. The bishop of that metropolis was their ordinary president : in this respect there was a differ- ence between the civil and the ecclesiastical assemblies, for in the former the president was elected from year to year. In this way the bishop of the metropolis came to have a preeminence over the other bishops of a province. By a natural process, just as the vote and sanction of a bishop had become necessary to the validity of the election of a presbyter, so the vote and sanction of a metropolitan became necessary to the validity of the election of a bishop 14 . In time a further advance was made. Just as civil provinces were grouped into dioceses, and the governors of a ' province ' were subordinated to the governor of a ,s i Cone. Axelat. c. 20. M Cone. Nicaen. c. 4, 6; Cone. Autiuch. c. 19; Cone. Laud. c. 12. vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 175 'diocese,' so a gradation was recognized between the bishop of the chief city of a province and the bishop of the chief city of a diocese. In both cases the civil names were retained : the former were called metropolitans, the latter exarchs or patriarchs 16 . It was by these gradual steps that the Christian Churches passed from their original state of indepen- dence into a great confederation. It is important to observe not only the closeness with which that confede- ration followed the lines of the imperial government but also the wholly voluntary nature of the process by which it was formed. There was no attempt at coer- cion. The cause which operated to change its volun- tary character is one which flows from the very nature of association, and which existed in the individual com- munities before confederation began. For it is of the essence of an association that it should have power to frame regulations, not only for the admission, but also for the exclusion, of its members. In the Christian as in the Jewish communities an offending member was liable to be expelled. But the utility of excommunica- tion as a deterrent in the primitive Churches had been weakened by the fact that its operation did not neces- 15 The equivalence of the title ' exarch ' and ' patriarch ' is shown by a comparison of Cone. Chalc. c. 9 with Justin. Novell. 123, c. 22, and also by the scholium upon the canon of Chalcedon which is printed in Pitra, Jur. Ecclts. Graee. Mon. vol. ii. p. 645. For an account of the correspondence between the ecclesiastical and civil divisions see my articles in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. vv. Patriarch, Primate : and for the most complete modern accounts of the constitution and func- tions of the provincial and other councils see Liming, Geschichte ilex deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. pp. 362 422, Hinschius, Das Eirohenrecht, Bd. iii. a ,e H&fte (1882), p. 325 sqq. 1 76 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. sarily extend beyond the particular Church of which a man had been a member. If he had been expelled for a moral offence, no doubt the causes which led to his expulsion by one community would prevent his reception into another. But where the ground of expulsion had been the holding of peculiar opinions, or the breach of a local by-law, it might be possible to find some other community which would ignore the one or condone the other. When the Churches of a province, and still more when the Churches of the greater part of the Empire, were linked together by the ties of a con- federation, meeting in common assembly, and agreeing upon a common plan of action, exclusion by a single Church came to mean exclusion from all the confede- rated Churches 16 . This rule was recognised by the Council of Nicaea, Avhich at the same time made pro- vision against an arbitrary exercise of the power of excommunication 17 . But as no penalty was attached to a violation of the rule, it was probably disregarded, for the Council of Antioch, about twenty years later, found it necessary to enact that a church officer who admitted to communion one whom another Church had excluded should himself be cut off from communion 18 . This later form of the enactment was repeated in the 16 The attempt to exclude a group of churches from the general association was first made, but without success, by Victor of Rome in reference to the churches of Asia Minor, on account of the tenacity with which they clung to the Quartode- ciman theory (rfjs 'Atria? irairrj^ ap.a rats 6p.6pois e>ac\T]oiats tcLs Trapoucias aTTOTtpvtiv, waav tTepoSo£ovoas, ttjs Koivfjs evwaKos irtiparai, Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 9 ; cf. Heini- chen's Meletema VIII, in his edition of Eusebius, vol. iii, p. 676, ed. alt.). He suc- ceeded only in that which was within his competence, viz. in excluding them from communion in his own church, Socrat. H. E. 5. 22. 17 Cone. Nicaen. c. 5. ,9 Cone. Antioch. c. a. vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 177 code which is known as the Apostolic Canons' 9 : and ultimately became the standing rule in both East and West. The observance of the rule was fenced round by the further enactment that no one should be re- ceived into another Church without a letter from the bishop of the Church to which he belonged 20 . In primitive days a Christian who travelled, or who changed his residence from one town to another, was received into communion with but little question : but the interests of social order, no less than of faith, com- pelled a change. Henceforth any one who was formally expelled from his Church was cut off also from all the Churches of the association. Nor was he cut off onlv from public worship and from participation in the Church offerings. He was denied social intercourse with those who remained faithful : the rigorous com- mand of the Apostle was applied to him, ' with such an one no not to eat 21 .' Now as long as Christians were in a great minority, a man might be cut off from social intercourse with them without sustaining any serious social loss. But 19 Can. Apost. 10. M Cone. Antioch. c. 7; Can. Apost. 12. 33. ai 2 Cone. Arelat. c. 49, which professes to be based upon earlier regulations, ' si quis a communione sacerdotali fuerit auctoritate suspen.sup, hunc non solum a cle- ricorum sed etiam a totius populi colloquio atque convivio placuit excludi, donee resipiscens ad sanitatem redire festinet :' so 1 Cone. Tolet. c. 15. Under the close union of Church and State in the Frankish domain the law was both more explicit and more effective : ' et ut sciatis qualis sit modus istius excommunicationis, in ecclesiam non debet intrare, nee cum ullo Christiano cibum vel potuni sumere, nee ejus munera quisquam accipere debet vel osculum porrigere, nee in oratione se jungere, nee salutare, antequam ab episcopo suo fuerit reconciliatus ' (Pippin, Capit. Vern. duplex, A.D. 755, ap. Pertz, Legum, vol. i. p. 26 — Cone. Vern. ap. Mansi, vol. * u - P- 577 » C P- Capit. Ticin. A.D. 801, c. 17, ap. Pertz, vol. i. p. 85). N 178 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. when Christians began to be a majority in all the great centres of population, excommunication became a real deterrent, and consequently a powerful instrument in the hands of those who were desirous of tightening the bonds of association. And yet it is doubtful whether it would have been a sufficiently powerful instrument to produce the uni- formity which ultimately prevailed, if the State had not interfered. The associated Churches might have been strong enough to crush isolated individuals, but it may be questioned whether they could have held their ground, without State interference, against whole Churches or a combination of Churches. It might hap- pen that not an individual but a whole community — bishops, presbyters, deacons, and people — declined to accept the resolutions of a provincial council, and that they were consequently cut off from the association. There was nothing to prevent their continuing to be and to do what they had been and done before. Even before Christianity had been recognized by the State, when Paul of Samosata refused to give up possession of the Church-buildings at Antioch, and claimed still to be the bishop of the Church, there were no means of ejecting him except that of an appeal to the Emperor Aurelian 22 . A number of such Churches might join together and form a rival association. In one important case this was actually done. A. number of Churches in Africa held that the associated Churches were too lax in their terms of communion. How far they were right in the particular points which they urged cannot now be a See Lecture VI, note 25. vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 1 79 told 23 . But the contention was for purity. The seceding Churches were rigorists. Their soundness in the faith was unquestionable 24 . They resolved to meet together as a separate confederation, the basis of which should be a greater purity of life ; and but for the interference of the State they might have lasted as a separate con- federation to the present day. The interference of the State was not so much a favour shown to the bishops who asked for it as a necessary continuation of the policy which Constantine had begun. For as, on the one hand, it was necessary to draw a strict line of demar- cation round the persons by whom the privileges of Christians could be claimed, so, on the other hand, it was impossible for the State to assume the office of determining for itself what was and what was not Christian doctrine. It was enough for the State that M The dispute was in the first instance mainly as to a matter of fact, viz. whether Felix of Aptunga was a ' traditor,' i. e. one who in a time of persecution had delivered up the sacred books to be burnt. The Donatists contended that he was so, and that consequently his ordination of Caecilian was invalid. Out of this arose the wider question, on which the controversy chiefly turned, whether ' the unworthiness of the minister hindered the effect of the sacrament ? ' For a clear, though partial, history of the controversy see F. Ribbeck, Donatus mid Augustinus, Elberfeld, 1857. 24 They probably did no more than continue the stricter African discipline, for which Cyprian had in his time strongly contended. There had been, in other words, for some time two parties in the African Church, and the dispute between them was brought to a crisis by the Diocletian persecution and a personal ani- mosity towards Caecilian : (this is the view of Rieck, Ueber Entstehung und Berech- tigung des Donatismus im Hinblick auf vericandte Erscheinungen innerhalb at rots toiv tOvwv apxovcri to fiogavra irapahvtiv. navros yap tlvai SiKaarov tovs itpiis rod Otov SoKipuortpovs : so Sozom. H. E. i . o (in both authovs evvobois probably includes the ordinary council of a bishop and his presbyters as well as provincial or other assemblies : cf. Heinichen ad Euseh., I.e.). A deposed clerk was forthwith made liable to the fiscal burdens from which, as a clerk, he had been exempt (Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 39; Const. Sirmond. c. 6). vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 181 entertains an opinion which the Church has condemned let him keep it to himself and not communicate it to another 2 V 87 The extent to which the State employed coercion to prevent the Christian societies from being' disintegrated by heresy or schism will appear from the fol- lowing summary of the penal enactments against various classes of heretics, and ultimately also of schismatics, during the latter part of the fourth, and the begin- ning of the fifth, century. It must be borne in mind that under the name of heresy was included the least deviation from the doctrine of the associated churches; ' haereticorum vocabulo continentur et latis adversus eos sanctionibus debent succumbere qui vel levi argumento a judicio catholicae religionis et tramite detecti fuerint deviare' (law of Arcadius and Honorius in A.D. 395, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 28). i. The churches and other buildings of heretics were to be confis- cated : laws of Valentinian and Valens, a. D. 372, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 2 : A.D. 376. Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 4: of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, A.D. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 8: A.D. 383, ibid. 16. 5. 12: of Arcadius and Honorius, a.d. 396, ibid. 16. 5. 30: A.D. 397, ibid. 16. 5. 33 : A.D. 398, ibid. 16. 5. 34 : of Honorius and Theodosius, A.D. 408, ibid. 16. 5. 45 : A.D. 415, ibid. 16. 5. 58 : in some cases their private property was also confiscated, law of Arcadius and Honorius, a.d. 408, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 40. ii. They were not allowed to assemble by laws of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, and their successors, in a. d. 376, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 4: A.D. 379, ibid. 16. 5. 5: A.D. 381, ibid. 16. 5. 6 (cf. Theodoiet, 5. 16; Zonaras, 13. 19) : a.d. 383, ibid. 16. 5. 10, II, 12 (cf. Sozom. E. E. 7. 12): A.D. 388, ibid. 16. 5. 14, 15 : a.d. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 19, 20: a.d. 394, ibid. 16. 5. 24: a.d. 395, ibid. 16. 5. 26: A.D. 396, ibid. 16. 5. 30: a.d. 410, ibid. 16. 5. 51, which first prescribed the penalty of proscription and death to those who ventured to assemble, so in a.d. 415, ibid. 16. 5. 56 : A.D. 412, ibid. 16. 5. 53, which punished with ' deportatio' those who availed themselves of the permission which Jovian had given them to hold assemblies outside the walls of a city : a.d. 415, ibid. 16. 5. 57, 58. iii. They were made ' intestabiles,' incapable of bequeathing or receiving money by will, by a law of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius in a.d. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 7 (which is made retrospective), and in a.d. 382, ibid. 16. 5. 9 (which goes so far as to exempt informers from the ordinary penalties of ' delatio') : laws of Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius in a.d. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 17, 18 : of Arcadius and Honorius in a.d. 395, ibid. 16. 5. 25, and in a.d. 407, ibid. 16. 5. 40. iv. They or their teachers were banished from cities by laws of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, and their successors in A.D. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5, 6, 7 (cf. Sulp. Sever. Chron. 2. 47") : a.d. 384, ibid. 16. 5. 13: a.d. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 19: a.d. 396, ibid. 16. 5. 30, 31, 32: A.D. 398, ibid. 16. 5. 34: a.d. 425, ibid. 16. 5. 62 ( = Const. Sirmond. 6), 64. In addition to this they were sometimes branded as ' infames ' (Cod. Theod. if>. 5. 54) : they were liable to fines (ibid. 16. 5. 21, 65), they were excluded from the civil service of the State (ibid. 16. 5. 29, 42), their books were to be sought and burnt (ibid. 16. 5. 34, which makes concealment a capital offence), and provincial judges and governors were fined unless they carried out the above laws rigidly (ibid. 16. 5. 40, 46). 1 82 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. In this way it was that, by the help of the State, the Christian Churches were consolidated into a great confe- deration. Whatever weakness there was in the bond of a common faith was compensated for by the strength of civil coercion. But that civil coercion was not long needed. For the Church outlived the power which had welded it together. As the forces of the Empire be- came less and less, the forces of the Church became more and more. The Churches preserved that which had been from the first the secret of Imperial strength. For underneath the Empire which changed and passed, beneath the shifting pageantry of Emperors who moved across the stage and were seen no more, was the abid- ing empire of law and administration, — which changed only as the deep sea changes beneath the wind-swept waves. That inner empire was continued in the Chris- tian Churches. In the years of transition from the ancient to the modern world, when all civilized society seemed to be disintegrated, the confederation of the Christian Churches, by the very fact of its existence upon the old imperial lines, was not only the most powerful, but the only powerful organization in the civilized world. It was so vast, and so powerful, that it seemed to be, and there were few to question its being, the visible realization of that Kingdom of God which our Lord Himself had preached — of that * Church' which He had purchased with His own blood. There seemed to loom out in all its grandeur before the eyes of men the vision of a vast empire, of which, as of the ancient kingdom of David or of Solomon, the boun- daries could be told and the members enumerated. The vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 183 metaphors in which the Jewish Kabbis had spoken of the ancient Israel, and the metaphors which had been consecrated by inspired writers to the service of the new Israel, were applied to it. This confederation, and no other, was the 'city of God ;' this, and no other, was the ' body of Christ ; ' this, and no other, was the ' Holy Catholic Church.' In it were fulfilled the ancient types. It was the Paradise in which the regenerated souls of the new creation might walk, as Adam walked, and eat without the threatening of a curse the fruit of the tree of knowledge 28 . It was the ark of Noah, floating with its rescued multitude of holy souls over the moving waters of this world's troubled sea 29 . It was Solomon's temple whose golden roofs glistened with a divine splendour through the dark world's mists and storms and whose courts were thronged with the new priests and people of God holding sacred converse, and offering spiritual sacrifices upon its altars 30 . It was the new Jerusalem into which ' the sons of them that had afflicted her' came bending, and whose 'sun could no more go down 31 .' It was the 'fenced garden' of Solo- mon's Song, and in its midst was a well of living water, of which all who drank were healed of sin 32 . It was 28 E.g. St. August. De Genesi, lib. xi. c. 25, Op. ed. Migiie, vol. iii. p. 442, De Civit. Dei, lib.xiii.c. 21, vol. vii. p. 395. Pseudo-Ambros. In Apocal. Expos, dc Vis. tert. c. 6, vol. ii. pars ii. p. 520. n E.g. St. August. In Joann. Trad. 6, c. 1. 19, vol. iii. p. 1434, Epist. 187. (57), vol. ii. p. 847, De Catechiz. Rud. c. 32, vol. vi. p. 334: St. Hilar. Pictav. Tract, in Ps. cxlvi. c. 12, vol. i. p. 638, ed. Ben. : St. Maxim. Taurin. Serin. 1 14, p. 641 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. 35, c. 8, vol. i. p. 1 149, Epist. lib. ii. 46, vol. ii. p. 1 133. 30 E.g. St. Arabros. Expos. Evang. sec. Luc. lib. 2, c. 89, vol. i. p. 1311. 31 E. g. St. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. 1 7, c. 16, vol. vii. p. 549 : Prosper. Aquitan. Expos. Psalm, cxxxi. v. 13, p. 483 : St. Hieron. Comm. inZach. lib. 3, c. 14, vol. vi. p. * 2 E.g. St. Optat. De Schism. Donat. 2. 13: St. August. De Baptism, c. Donat. 184 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. like the widow of Sarepta, whose cruse of oil never failed 33 . It was like the Queen of Sheha, always gather- ing some new knowledge, and marvelling at some new wonder, among the treasures of the distant Lord 34 . There was hardly a hero of Hebrew story whose life did not seem to prefigure the fortunes and the one- ness and the glory of this vast organized aggregate of believing souls 35 . It is impossible not to sympathize with the poetry and with the hope. But if we look more closely at the assumption upon which all this is founded — the assumption that the metaphors in which the Church of Christ is described in Scripture are applicable only to this confederation which the State had recognized and consolidated, that whatever is predicated in the New Testament of the Church of Christ is predicated of it, and it only, that lib. 5. 27, vol. ix. p. 195, Contra Crescon. lib. 2. 13, vol. ix. p. 477, ibid. lib. 4. 63, vol. ix. p. 590: St. Maxim. Taurin. Serm. 15, p. 433. x< E. g. St. Ainbros. De Viduis, c. 3, vol. ii. p. 190 : Csesar. Arelat. Serm. dt Elisaeo in Append, ad. St. August. Op. vol. v. Serm. 42, p. 1828 : St. Greg. M. Horn, in Ezech. lib. 1, hom. 4. 6, vol. i. p. 1194. 34 E.g. St. Hilar. Pictav. Tract, in Psalm, cxxi. c. 9, Pseudo -August. Serm. 231 (253), in Append, ad St. August. Op. vol. v. p. 2172. 35 E. g. the Church is compared to Eve, as being the ' mater vivorum,' St. Augast. De Genesi, 2. 24, vol. ii. p. 215, Enarr. in Psalm, cxxvi. c. 8, vol. iv. p. 1673 : St. Maxim. Taurin. Hom. 55, p. 172, Serm. 34, p. 486 ; to Sarah, St. Atubros. De Abraham, lib. i. c. 4, vol. i. p. 294 : to Rachel, ' diu sterilis, nunc vero fecunda' St. Hilar. Pictav. Comm. in Matt. c. 1.7, vol. i. p. 672 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. xxx. c. 25, vol. i. p. 988 : to Rebecca, St. Ambros. De Jacob, lib. 1, c. 2, vol. i. p. 461 : St. August. Enarr. in Psalm, cxxvi. c. 8, vol. iv. p. 1673 ('quamdiu parturit ecclesia ipsi sunt intus et boni et mali,' as Esau and Jacob struggled in the womb of Rebecca), Serm. 4 (44), c. II, vol. v. p. 39 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. xxxv. c. 16, vol. i. p. 1 1 60: to Jephthah's daughter, St. August. Quaest. in Heptateuch, lib. 7, c. 51 : to Bathsheba, St. August. In Faust. Manich. 23. 87, vol. viii. p. 459, Cassiodor. Expos, in Psalm. I. ed. Garet, vol. ii. p. 169 : to Esther, St. Hieron. Epist. 53 (103), c. 7, vol. i. p. 279 : to Judith, St. Hieron. Epist. 79 (9), vol. i. p. 508. vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 185 this confederation, and no other, is the Church of Christ in its visible and earthly form — we shall find that assumption attended with difficulties which do not readily admit of solution. (1) In the first place, there is no proof that the con- federation was ever complete in the sense of embracing all the communities to which by common consent the name Christian was in its fullest sense applicable. For the most part the Christian Churches associated them- selves together upon the lines of the Roman Empire 36 : and, so far, just as there were gradations of dioceses, provinces, and municipalities in the one, so were there gradations of exarchs or patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops in the other. But some Churches remained independent. They were not subordinate to any other Church. Their bishops had no superior. They were what the Notitiae, or lists of orthodox Churches, call avroKe(pa\ot 3 \ They were in the position which Cyprian 96 It is important to notice, as corroborating this general view, that when the ecclesiastical organization passed outside the network of the imperial organization, it changed its character : in Ireland, for example, ' the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishopB was coextensive with the temporal sway of the chieftain* (Reeves, Ecclesi- astical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore, Append, p. 303) : the limits of both the one and the other were continually shifting, and dioceses in the ordinary sense did not exist until the Synod of Rath Breasail in a.d. 1141 {ibid. pp. 135, 139)- 37 Nilus Doxapatrius, Notitia Patriarchatuum, ed. Parthey, p. 284, tlal Si iirap\icu rives at ov TtKovai bird rcbv pLtyiorcuv Gpovcuv woirtp leal f) vtjoos Kvirpos $ ipnivtv avTOKt tuiv pteyiaraiv vTTOKetpiivrj d\\ avregovoios ovaa Sid. rd (vptOrjvat iv avrrj rbv diroffToXov Bapv&pav l\ovra tmarr]6iov to Kara MapKov aytov EvayytXtov : so also of Cyprus in the Notitia compiled by tho authority of the Emperor Leo Sapiens, ed. Parthey, p. 93: and of Armenia, ibid. p. 90. In the same way, though the fact is not recognised in the Notitiae, there is no proof whatever either that the early British Churches were subordinate as ;v whole to any other church, or that their bishops recognised any gradation of rank among themselves. 1 86 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. had in earlier times asserted to be the true position of all bishops : their responsibility was to God alone. (2) In the second place, there is no proof that the terms of confederation were ever settled. The fact that the State did not tolerate any Churches which were not recognized by the confederation is not pertinent to the purely ecclesiastical question. There is no proof that it was not possible for any Church to refuse to admit to communion the members of other Churches, with as little formality as it had accepted them. There is no proof that intercommunion ever changed its original character of a voluntary contract — a corollary of the goodwill and amity which one Christian community should have towards another — so as to become an in- dissoluble bond. It would be a strong assertion to say that God is always on the side of the majority: and that, when the confederation was once formed, whatever the majority of its members resolved upon was binding de jure divino upon the minority. But this is the only tenable position if it be asserted, as it sometimes is asserted, that individual Churches which at any one time sent deputies to the general council of the con- federation, or admitted an appeal to such an assembly, or admitted the other constituent members of such an assembly to Church privileges, thereby forfeited for all time to come their original right to independent action. (3) In the third place, there is no proof that the words of Holy Scripture in which the unity of the Church is expressed or implied refer exclusively, or at all, to unity of organization. There is, on the other vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 187 hand, clear proof that they were in early times applied to another kind of unity. There have been in fact three forms which the con- ception of unity has taken. In the earliest period the basis of Christian fellowship was a changed life — ' repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ 38 .' It was the unity of a common relation to a common ideal and a common hope. The contention of those who looked upon Chris- tians as a whole was that they were 'not under the law but under grace' — that they were, as one of the earliest Christian writings phrases it, a rplrov yevos — neither Jews nor Gentiles, but a class apart 39 . The word ' Church' is used for the aggregate of Christians, ' the general assembly of the firstborn,' but the hypothesis of its use for that aggregate conceived as a mass of organ- izations seems to be excluded by its having been said to have existed before the world, and to have been 1 manifested in the body of Christ 4 V 38 Acts 20. 31. s!1 Kripvyiia Tlerpov ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. 6. 5, p. 650 ; Hilgenfeld, Novum Te.%- tamentum extra canonem receptum, Fasc. iv. p. 58: so Tertull. Scorpiace to 'usque quo genus tertium.' This separate existence of Christianity is strongly asserted by St. Ignatius, e. g. Ad Magnet. 9. 10, Ad Philad. 6. 8. 40 2 Clem. Rom. 14 'So then, brethren, if we do the will of God our Father, we shall be of the first, the spiritual, Church, which was created before the sun and moon : but if we do not the will of the Lord, we shall fall under the Scripture which says ' ; My house became a den of robbers." So then let us choose to be of the Church of Life, that we may be saved. But I think that ye are not ignorant that the living Church is the Body of Christ : (for the Scripture says, " God made man male and female : " the male is Christ, the female is the Church), and that the Scriptures and the Apostles tell us not only that the Church exists but that it is from above (avwBtv). For it was spiritual, as also was our Jesus, and was mani- fested in the last days to save us. Now the Church, being spiritual, was mani- fested in the flesh of Christ, showing us that if any of us keep it in the flesh and corrupt it not, he will receive it in the Holy Spirit.' Similarly, Herm. Vis. 2. 4. 1 1 88 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. In the second period, the idea of definite belief as a basis of union dominated over that of a holy life 41 . The meshes of the net were found to be too wide. The simple creed of primitive days tended to evaporate into the mists of a speculative theology. It became necessary to define more closely the circle of admissible beliefs. The contention of those who looked upon Christians as a whole was that they were held together by their possession of a true and the only true tradition of Christian teaching. ' There is one body of Christ,' says Origen, ' but it has many members : and those members are individual believers 42 .' Not until the dispute between Cyprian and Novatian does the ques- tion appear to have been raised whether those who held the Catholic faith were bound to be members of particular associations, or whether they had the right to form associations for themselves 43 . In the third period, insistence on Catholic faith had led to the insistence on Catholic order — for without order dogma had no guarantee of permanence. Consequently the idea of unity of organization was superimposed upon that of unity of belief. It was held not to be Bays that the Church ' was created first of all things, and for her sake the world was framed.' 41 The phrase ^ tvoiais ttjs litKXrjaias first appears in Hegesippus : but he uses it in antithesis to alpiatts, and evidently implies that kind of unity which consisted in adherence to the Catholic tradition of ApostoKc teaching : drrd rovraiv [i. e. the heresiarchs whom he had just mentioned] iptv56xpi rrjv tvcoatv t??s (icic\T)aias (pOopifxaiots \6yois KarSi tov Qeov nal /caTcl rod Xpiarov avrov (Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. 12. 4. 22. 5). In the following chapter Eusebius describes the letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the Lacedaemonians as dp0o8o£ias «aT7?x , ? T " f '7> «»/"7 , ' ! ? J Tf " a ' ivwotius vnoBfTtitf]. 12 Origen, c. Cels. 6. 48. 13 See above, Lecture IV, pp. 102-104. vii. j Councils and the Unity of the Church. 189 enough for a man to be living a good life, and to hold the Catholic faith and to belong to a Christian asso- ciation : that association must be part of a larger confederation, and the sum of such confederations constituted the Catholic Church 44 . This last is the form which the conception of unity took in the fourth century, and which to a great extent has been permanent ever since. But both in the fourth century, and afterwards, it did not gain its position of dominance without a struggle. The same difficulty presented itself in early times which has presented itself again and again in modern 41 This view is clearly expressed by the great Latin Fathers : e. g. St. August. De Baptism, c. Donat. lib. 4, c. 18, vol. ix. p. 270 'Constituamusergo aliquem castum, continentem, non avarum, non idolis servientem, hospitalem indigentibus minis- trantem, non cujusquam inimicum, non contentiosum, patientem, quietum, nullum aemulantem, nulli invidentem, sobrium, frugalem, sed haereticum : nulli utique dubium est propter hoc solum quod haereticus est regnum Dei non possessurum:' id. Serm. ad Caesar. Eccles. plehem, c. 6, vol. ix. p. 695 ' extra ecclesiam catholicam totum potest haberi praeter salutem. Potest habere honorem, potest habere aacramentum, potest can tare Alleluia, potest respondere Amen, potest evangeliura tenere, potest in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti fidem et habere et praedicare : sednusquam nisi in ecclesia catholica salutem potest invenire.' St. Leon. M. Serm. 79 (77), c. 2, vol. i. p. 31 7 ' extra ecclesiam catholicam nihil est integrum, nihil castum, dicente Apostolo ' omne quod non est ex fide peccatum est :' cum divisis ab unitate corporis Cbristi nulla similitudine comparamur, nulla conimu- nione miscemur.* St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. 14, c. 5. 5, vol. i. p. 457 'Sancta autem universalis ecclesia praedicat Deum veraciter nisi intra se coli non posse, asserens quod omnes qui extra ipsam sunt minime salvabuntur.' (It is important to note the wide difference of opinion on this point between the third century and the fifth : Cyprian held, see supra, p. 171, the independence of particular churches : Augustine advocated the subordination of particular churches to a confederation. A con- venient modern account of Augustine's theory, which is the more important because it has been the dominant theory on the subject ever since, will be found in two Augustinuche Studien by H. Reuter in the Zeilschrift f. hirchl. Geschichte £d. iv, 1880, (1) Zur Frage nach dem Vcrhallniss der Lehre von der Kirche zu der Lekre von der pradestinutionischen Gnwle, pp. 210 sqq., (a) Die Kirche das Reich Gottes, pp. 506 sqq.) 190 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. times. How can an organization be said to be identical with the Church of Christ when some of both its mem- bers and its officers are in reality living unholy lives ? The difficulty first took form in the time of Cyprian, when the puritan party in the Church of Eome declined to recognize the election of Cornelius. It was renewed with a longer and more important struggle in the fourth century by the great section of the African Churches of which I have already spoken, and who were known as Donatists. 'Above all other things,' said the Donatists, ' the Church of Christ should be pure, and we defend its purity 46 .' Their opponents, chiefly St. Augustine, pointed to the parable of the wheat and the tares. * The field is the world,' they said, 'and the good and the bad grow together until the harvest.' ' The field is the world,' replied the Donatists, 'and not the Church: it is in the world and not in the Church that the good and the bad are to grow together 46 .' ' Your Catholic Church,' they said to their opponents, ' is a geographical expres- sion : it means the union of so many societies in so many provinces or in so many nations : our Catholic Church is the union of all those who are Christians in deed as well as in word : it depends not upon inter- communion, but upon the observance of all the divine commands and Sacraments : it is perfect, and it is immaculate 47 .' 45 Gesta Collationis Carthag. iii. c 258. ed. Dupin, p. 313. 46 Ibid. p. 314. 47 Gaudentius, a Donatist Bishop, says in the Gesta Collat. Carthag. iii. c. 102 ' Catholicum nomen putant [sc. Catholici] ad provincias vel ad gentes referendum, cum hoc sit catholicum nomen quod sacramentis plenum est, quod perfectum, quod immaculatum, non ad gentes,' cf. St. Augustin. Epist. 93 (48), Op. ed. Migne, vol. ii. 333 ' Acutum autem aliquid tibi videris dicere cum Catholicae nomen non ex vil] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 191 The Donatists were crushed : but they were crushed by the State. They had resisted State interference : Quid Imperatori cum ecclesia f they asked 48 . But the Catholic party had already begun its invocation of the secular power: and the secular power made ecclesias- tical puritanism a capital crime 49 . The fame of the great theologian who, with somewhat less of Christian charity than might have been expected from so good a man, opposed the Donatists, and the fact that as a matter of history they ultimately passed out of existence, have caused the name of schism which was given by their opponents to their movement to be unquestioned by most historians. But though they were crushed the question which they raised was not thereby solved — At what point did voluntary intercommunion become an indissoluble bond % In other words, assum- ing that, in the opinion of a Church or group of Churches, the dominant majority of an association to which that Church or group of Churches has hitherto been attached are lax in discipline or unsound in faith, totius orbis communione interpretaris sed ex observatione praeceptorum omnium divinorum atque omnium sacramentorum.' At the same time, although the ac- counts which their opponents have transmitted to us may be exaggerated, there can be little doubt that the Donatists counted among their followers many who were far from realizing the ideal purity of their leaders. 18 The expression is that of the Donatist bishops at the Council of Carthage in a.d. 348 (St. Optat. De Schismat. Donatist. 3.3, p. 55, Monumenta Vetera ad Dona- listarum historiam pertinentia, Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. viii. 776). 49 After the conference between the Catholic and Donatist bishops in ad. 411, Marcellinus, the imperial tribune who presided, pronounced his sentence in which he ordered all persons to join in putting down the Donatist assemblies, and the Donatists themselves to hand over their buildings to the Catholics (Sententia Cog- vitoris in the Append, ad Opp. S. Optati, ed. Dupin, p. 325) : as this did not prove to be sufficient it was enacted three years later that the Donatists should lose the privileges of Christians (Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 54), and in the following year that they should be punished with death (Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 56). IQ2 Councils and the Unity of the Church, [lect. do the dissentients cease to be Catholic, or cease to be Christian, when they decline any longer to be bound by the resolutions of the association \ And there are some no doubt who will think that even this is but part of a larger question, and that the real point at issue is not so much the terms of associa- tion as its necessity. There are some who will look back with lingering eyes at that earlier time in which there was no formal association of Churches, but only what Tertullian calls the ' communication of peace, the appellation of brotherhood, the token of hospitality, and the tradition of a single creed 50 .' There are some who will think that the effect of the enormous power which the Roman Empire in the first instance, and the fall of the Eoman Empire in the second instance, gave to the association has been to exaggerate its importance, and to make men forget that there is a deeper unity than that of external form. For the true communion of Christian men — the 'communion of saints' upon which all Churches are built — is not the common performance of external acts, but a communion of soul with soul and of the soul with Christ. It is a consequence of the nature which God has given us that an external organization should help our communion with one another : it is a consequence both of our twofold nature, and of Christ's appointment that external acts should help our communion with Him. But subtler, deeper, diviner, than anything of which external things can be either the symbol or the 60 Tertull. De Praescr. Haeret. ao. vil] Councils and tfie Unity of the Church. 193 bond is that inner reality and essence of union — that interpenetrating community of thought and character — which St. Paul speaks of as the ' unity of the Spirit,' and which in the sublimest of sublime books, in the most sacred of sacred words, is likened to the oneness* of the Son with the Father and of the Father with the Son 61 . 81 St. John if. 11, n. LECTURE VIII. THE PARISH AND THE CATHEDRAL. In preceding Lectures I have endeavoured to trace the successive steps by which the simple communities of Apostolic times resulted in the vast and complex confederation which we find in existence at the fall of the Western Empire. How that confederation deve- loped into the still more complex system which we find in the Middle Ages, is a problem so intricate, so in- teresting, and in many respects so important, as to deserve more attention than it has hitherto received from those who make historical problems their study. And although the complete solution of that problem is beyond alike my province and my powers, and although in the short compass of a single Lecture I cannot do more than draw the rough outlines of a great picture, yet I cannot so far leave the general subject incomplete as to refrain from pointing out the chief links which connect the organization of the early Churches with the organization of inediseval, and thereby virtually of modern, times. The two chief links are the Parish, and the Cathedral. The Parish, as we see it in Western Christendom, The Parish and the Cathedral. 195 owes its origin to several causes, and is the final result of several earlier forms. The irapoiKla of early days was neither a parish nor a diocese, but the community of Christians living within a city or a district, regarded in relation to the non-Christian population which sur- rounded it ! . Every such community seems to have had a complete organization, and there is no trace of the dependence of any one community upon any other. But, as time went on, there were several groups of circumstances which modified in various ways this original completeness and autonomy. (1) The first of these circumstances were those of the great cities, in which a single building was not large enough to contain the whole assembly of the faithful. In them the tradition of unity, the analogy of the municipal corporations, and possibly also the personal predominance of the bishop, seem to have prevented the multiplication of organizations. The most important instance is that of Home, which in this, as in some other respects, preserved for many centuries an exceptional simplicity. For eleemosynary and disci- plinary purposes that city was divided into districts ('regiones'), each of which was entrusted to a deacon, who reported to the bishop the temporal wants, or the moral delinquencies, of those Christians who resided in them 2 . For purposes of worship congregations seem to have been gathered together wherever convenience 1 See Lecture III, note 15, and my article ' Parish ' in the Dictionary of Chris- tian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1554. 2 Liber Pontificalis, Vit. Gait, p. 29 : Ordo Romanus I, p. 3, ap. Mabillon, Mus. Ttal. vol. ii. Cf. ibid. Comm. praev. in Ord. Rom. p. xvii. See also Gregorovius, Geschichte derStadt Rom. Bd. i. p. 78, 2 te Aufl. : Nardini, Roma Antica, ed. Nibby, vol. i. p. 124 sqq. : De Kossi, Roma Solteraneu, vol. iii. p. 515. O 2 196 The Parish and the Cathedral. [lect. suggested or the law allowed — in public buildings, in private houses, and in the catacombs 3 . When the altered relations of Christianity to the State permitted the same congregation to meet regularly in the same place, one or more presbyters seem to have been temporarily or permanently detached from the bishop's council to preside over it : but the theory that the church of the city was one, though locally divided, was preserved by a practice of which there is no clear trace elsewhere. There continued to be, as there had pro- bably been in the infant community of Apostolic days, only one consecration of the Eucharistic elements. The bishop and his clergy consecrated in one of the churches enough bread and wine for all the faithful in the city, and sent the consecrated elements round by the hands of messengers to the several presbyters and congre- gations 4 . In this way they were all literally ' partakers of that one bread,' and so realized with a vividness which later usage weakened that they were ' one body.' (2) Another group of circumstances was that of suburban or rural districts and their outlying hamlets. In the civil government two systems prevailed in such 3 Cf. De Rossi, Roma Solteranea, vol. i. pp. 199 sqq., vol. ii. pp. 478 sqq., and Kraus's article in his Real-Encyclopddie, s. v. Basiliken. 4 St. Innocent I. Epist. ad Decent, c. 5 ' De fermento [sc. the consecrated elements] vero quod die dominico per titulos [sc. the parishes within the city] mittimus superflue nos consulere voluistis quod omnes ecclesiae vestrae intra civitatem sint constitutae. Quarum presbyteri quia die ipso propter plebem sibi creditam nobis- cum convenire non possunt, idcirco fermentum a nobis confectum per acolythos accipiunt ut se a nostra communione maxime ilia die non judicent separates :' (he goes on to disallow the practice in the case of cemeteries and outlying parishes on the ground that ' non longe portanda sunt sacramenta'). See also Liber Pontif. Vit. Melchiad. p. 33, Vit. Siric. p. 55 : Mabillon, Comm. praev. in Ord. Rom. p. xxxviii. in Mas. Ital. vol. ii: Bona, De Rebus Liturgicis vol. ii. p. 205 : Baronius ad ann. 313, xlix. viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 197 cases : sometimes such districts were within the juris- diction of the magistrates of a neighbouring city 5 , and sometimes they had magistrates of their own 6 . There were, similarly, two systems of ecclesiastical govern- ment. In Syria and some parts of Asia Minor the sub- urban and rural communities seem to have had a com- plete organization : but the bishop of such a community was held not to be of the same rank as the bishop of a city, and had a special name — ex/