GIFT OF PAPIAS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES A STUDY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN THE SECOND CENTURY BY EDWARD H. HALL BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cbe iiitirwi&e pre#, Cambnbgc 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY EDWARD H. HALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS :HAP. PACK I. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR i II. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE . . 21 III. Two LEARNED DOCTORS 63 IV. THE MILLENNIAL REIGN . 106 V. THEOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS .... 138 VI. THE MYSTIC GOSPEL 199 VII. APPENDIX 241 INDEX 315 411470 PAPIAS CHAPTER I AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR THE reader of the Christian Scriptures finds many unsolved problems still remaining to per- plex him. Even the unpracticed eye detects in them tokens of varied sources and successive stages of growth. Not only are they confess- edly by different authors and written at differ- ent periods, but each book by itself often shows sighs of a composite character. Whence came these several layers ; when and how ? The easiest questions to ask are sometimes the hardest to answer, especially where reli- gions are concerned, whose infancy is so sure to be obscure and unrecorded, and which conceal so carefully the secrets of their early growth, not intentionally, of course, but of necessity. Before the world has awoke to their signifi- cance, or the actors themselves become aware of the r61e they are filling, the incidents that attended their birth have already been lost, and ; tt < A ',' PAPIAS it is impossible to recover them. In the case of Christianity, more than a century passed before it gained that consciousness of itself or sense of individuality which made its early hours sacred to its thought, or bade it treasure its primitive records, or even the story of its founders. Then it was too late ; too late, that is, to recall with any vividness such far-away occurrences, or the personalities engaged in them. Even the twelve Apostles, with two or three exceptions, are mere names to us; still more the obscure chroniclers who so labori- ously gathered for us, here and there, whatever had survived from distant and half-forgotten times. To trace these several compilations back, one by one, to their original sources is an endless and dispiriting task, as the mass of scholarly commentaries, with their conflicting hypothe- ses, abundantly show. But suppose we try a more modest experiment : place ourselves mid- way in the process, and see what story that single moment tells. Let us take the first writer of distinction after the apostolic times, and learn from him what we can of the state of the Christian Scriptures, and the attitude of Christian thought, with which he and his con- temporaries were familiar. There are so few AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 3 living personalities emerging from those event- ful hours that we are in duty bound to make the most of any who can be found. Such a character was Papias, bishop of Hie- rapolis in Phrygia ; not indeed the very first of whom we hear, but the first after the death of the Apostle Paul to present any marked individ- uality. With our modern associations, we might not look for such a personage in Phrygia. Christianity has so entirely lost its hold upon Asia Minor that it requires some mental effort to remember that it was in that direction that Paul first turned as the best field for his mis- sionary effort; or that before the end of the first century a more numerous circle of Christian churches had appeared in the western section of Asia Minor than in any other region of equal size. 1 In point of fact, for two centuries at least Ephesus, with its neighboring communi- ties, held its own with Jerusalem, Rome, and Alexandria, as an important Christian centre, with more individuality of its own than either. 1 Rev. i. ii ; ii.; iii. Hierapolis does not appear among the " seven churches," but it lay within a few miles of Colosse and Laodicea, and evidently stood in some personal relations with the Apostle Paul. (Col. iv. 13.) For full accounts of this interesting region, see Lightfoot's Introduc. to Sf. Paul's Epis. to Col. andPhilem., pp. 1-72; Renan's Hist, des Origines,\&.. 126-130, 351-360 ; Ramsay's Cities of Phrygia, i. ch. iii., xii. 4 PAPIAS Hardly one of the great movements which agitated the life and thought of Christendom during that period had not intimate relations with Asia Minor, even if it did not find its birth there. 1 To study the life of a Phrygian bishop of the second century, therefore, is to get an inner view, in so far as the annals of the time can be recovered at all, of whatever was most important or serious in the early growth of our faith. Papias was born probably towards the end of the first century of our era, and lived far into the second. If we think of him as in advan- cing years but full activity about the middle of the century, we shall come as near to chro- nological accuracy as the misty data of that epoch allow. 2 We must not attempt to extort from the meagre records at our disposal too realistic details of the life of a bishop at a time when that title had assumed so little of its later dignity, but the few facts that are given have a peculiar interest for us. He was almost the first church official, apparently, to occupy him- self in studying or collecting the records of the 1 Euseb., Hist. Ecc., iv. n, 2; iv. 14, 3; iv. 26, i ; v. 3, 4; v. 14; v. i6> v. 18. Comp. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age of Chris. Church, ii. 169. 2 Appendix, Note A. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 5 past. He shows himself an indefatigable inves- tigator, letting no chance go by which would acquaint him with the sacred hours when Jesus himself was still walking with his disciples, or the hours only less sacred when those disciples were yet living to repeat the sayings of the Master. The result of these inquiries seems to have been a work in five volumes, entitled "Interpretations of the Lord's Sayings." 1 It is difficult to estimate the help we should have towards an understanding of our Gospels and the conditions of their composition, if this treatise still survived. Unfortunately, it has been lost, but the few extracts from it which later writers and historians have preserved are of quite incomparable interest. In his search for materials Papias seems to have found no written documents which covered the ground, or none at least that carried official weight ; and he turns accordingly to such living men as could still recall, even at second hand, any reminis- cences of the Lord or his disciples. How he went to work for this purpose he tells us with delightful simplicity. He addresses his work to some unknown friend, and in his Preface, apparently after some account of the sources from which he has gath- i Note B. 6 PAPIAS ered his information, he adds : " Nor shall I hesitate to relate to you, in addition to my expositions, whatever I have at any tiihe learned from the Presbyters, having intrusted it care- fully to my memory, and vouching for its truth. For I did not care, as many do, for those who have much to say, but rather for such as have actual facts to give us ; nor yet for the retailers of strange doctrines, but for those precepts only which the Lord has committed to believ- ers, and which emanate therefore from the truth itself. So whenever any follower of the Presbyters came along, I got from him the very words of the Presbyters ; what Andrew or Peter said, what Philip or Thomas said, or James or John or Matthew, or any other disciple of the Lord; or what Aristion and John the Presbyter, disciples of the Lord, have to say. For I never felt that I got so much from the written page as from the living and unforgotten voice." 1 Now could there be a healthier breeze over the dry wastes of church history than reaches us through these old-time sentences? They breathe of fresh woods and pastures, where the garnering has till now been slight, and the laborers are still but few. We are in the i Euseb., Hist. Ecc., iii. 39, 3, 4. See Note C. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 7 creative epoch, it seems, within the echo of living voices ; standing at the beginning of things, when the Christian Scriptures are not made but making. The first generations have gone, it is true, but their followers are still lin- gering on the stage, and have many things to tell which no written document has yet reported. Here is one reverent inquirer at least who knows their worth, and is determined that these precious memories shall not be lost. He did not succeed as he would have wished. The church in later times showed slight appreciation of his work, or at least took little pains to pre- serve it. All the more gratitude is due, then, for these scanty fragments which have defied neglect and found their way into our hands. They give a vivid idea of the perils through which all the memorials and records of those unlettered days must have passed. 1 1 This naive delight in the spoken as distinct from the written word is an attractive characteristic of a primitive epoch. Even to-day, no doubt, could we hear from some wide-awake narrator of good memory tales of the French Revolution or the Napoleonic wars told him by his grand- father, we should listen more eagerly than to our Carlyles or our Taines ; but Papias had smaller choice, and so was the more keen for oral reminiscences. This reliance upon verbal tradition lasted long after Papias. At the end of the century Clement of Alexandria gives us " memoranda of brilliant and vivid discourses which he had been privileged 8 PAPIAS It is not to be understood, of course, that Papias found no Christian literature of impor- tance at his disposal. A full century had passed since the death of Jesus ; a very marked century in Roman annals, which must certainly have left some trace in Christian annals as well. 1 Indeed, a familiar passage, written per- haps about this time, assures us that "Many have taken in hand to set forth in order a decla- ration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye- witnesses, and ministers of the word." 2 As it to hear," from men who " had handed down the genuine tradition of the blessed doctrine straight from Peter and James, John and Paul, the son receiving it from the father." (Strom., i. i, 1 1.) He declares that Paul wrote his Epis*tle to the Hebrews in Hebrew, and states the order of the four Gospels, wholly on the authority of " the ancient Presbyters." (Euseb. vi. 14, 2, 5.) In an extraordinary passage from Ire- naeus we find that eminent church Father, who wrote about A. D. 1 80, with all the four Gospels before him, insisting that Jesus lived into old age, because certain elders who had known the Apostle John in Asia Minor had so assured him. (ffcer., ii. 22, 5.) An interesting parallel to the Papias passage is found in Arrian's Dedication of the Discourses of Epictetus, who was also a native of Hierapolis not far from this time. (Higginson's Works of Epictetus, p. i.) 1 Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius were all writing during this period. 2 Luke i. i, 2. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 9 happens, we have two or three faint but sugges- tive clues to the materials which Papias had at his command. " Papias," so Eusebius tells us, " introduced evidence from the First Epistle of John, as well as from that of Peter. He also relates a story found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews of a woman accused before the Lord of many sins." 1 Here is a Gospel, then, and two Epistles. Apparently he made use also of our Revelation or Apocalypse, borrowing from it its predictions of the coming kingdom of Christ. 2 Here also is an instance of the personal traditions which he gathered from apostolic circles, showing that in those uncriti- cal hours credible reports and incredible passed 1 Hist. Ecc., iii. 39, 1 7. This story of the woman, which is probably the same which has come down to us as part of the Fourth Gospel (John viii. 3-11), Eusebius seems to have known as part of the ancient Gospel of the Hebrews. In those days quotations were made with such singular loose- ness that it is impossible to say in this case whether Papias himself quotes from the Gospel of Hebrews or Eusebius simply infers that he does ; or whether in the case of I John and i Peter it is Papias or only Eusebius who mentions those Epistles by name. Eusebius, like many a more modern commentator, may have accepted the vaguest resemblance in an ancient writing to a New Testament passage as proof positive that the writer had the New Testament in full before him. For Gospel according to Hebrews, see Note D. 2 See Note E. io PAPIAS current together. Our chronicler would have been inconceivably in advance of his age had he turned a deaf ear to the supernatural. In those times, it seems, the Apostle Philip, or his surviving daughters, lived in Hierapolis, and Papias got from them many extraordinary tales of that Apostle's experiences. Eusebius records one or two of them. " Papias tells us how, in Philip's time (evidently by Philip's miraculous power), a man was raised from the dead. And another marvelous thing, too, that happened to Justus surnamed Barsabas : how, having drunk a poisonous drug, he experienced no harm from it, through the grace of the Lord." 1 The Gospel according to the Hebrews, famil- iar as it seems to have been to both Papias and Eusebius, has long ago disappeared ; but two other early Gospels mentioned by Papias have fortunately survived, and any descriptions of them at this formative period are of the highest value. No more instructive passage has come down to us than that in which Papias gives us his impressions of Mark and Matthew. He 1 Hist. Ecc.) iii. 39, 9. The inference of course is that these miracles were performed by the Apostle Philip, though this is not directly asserted. A preceding chapter shows that there was some confusion at this time between the Apostle and the Evangelist Philip. (Euseb., Hist. Ecc., iii. 31, 2, 5.) Comp. Renan, Hist,, ii. 151 n. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR n speaks first of Mark, repeating what had been told him on this subject by the Presbyter John. " This, too," writes Papias, " the Presbyter said : Mark, acting as interpreter of Peter, wrote down carefully whatever he remembered of the say- ings or doings of Christ, yet not with any sys- tem. 1 For he had never heard the Lord himself, nor was he even his follower, but became later, as I have said, a follower of Peter; and as Peter was in the habit of discoursing as occasion arose with no view to orderly arrangement 2 of the Lord's words, Mark cannot well be blamed for simply recording what things he remem- bered, however few. For his one care was, not to omit anything he had heard, and to falsify nothing." 3 Once more we seem to stand on the very 8 Euseb., Hist. Ecc., iii. 39, 15. We have here the source of the popular notion that Mark, in writing his Gospel, acted as Peter's " amanuensis." Papias is the first to give the tradition, but it is repeated by various early writers, with many modifications. According to one account Mark wrote during Peter's lifetime and at his dictation; according to another after Peter's death ; according to one Peter was wholly indifferent in the matter ; according to another he learned through supernatural means what Mark had done, and was well pleased, and gave the work his official sanction. (Irenaeus, iii. i, i ; Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iv. 5; Euseb., Hist. Ecc., ii. 15; vi. 14, 6, 7 ; vi. 25, 5.) 12 PAPIAS threshold of Christian literature, watching its earliest stages of growth. Papias is evidently defending Mark against certain charges. 1 The critics of the day find his narrative ill arranged and fragmentary. But why should Mark be blamed for this ? asks Papias ; Peter followed no methodical plan, why then should Mark, who was simply reporting from memory the occa- sional discourses of the Apostle? Mark was careful and honest ; what more could be asked ? But what is it that Papias is describing? we cannot help asking ourselves. The Gospel of Mark, as we have it to-day, certainly does not read like a collection of discourses by Peter; nor is it noticeably lacking in " orderly arrange- ment." On the contrary, it gives all the method or system that we have in these early records, and, though shorter than the other narratives, is no less chronological or consecutive than they. Indeed, it has become the fashion among the latest biblical critics to regard Mark as afford- ing on the whole, in its very simplicity and clearness, the most intelligible account of the Lord's ministry that has come down to us. No doubt if we were bound to prove, or chose to assume beforehand, that Papias had Mark's 1 It is not quite clear whether Papias is speaking for him- self here, or quoting his Presbyter. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 13 Gospel in its present form before him, it would be possible, by a little straining of language, to make this appear. As we feel no such neces- sity, however, but are only trying to put our- selves in our author's place, let us pause and look a little farther into the matter. Can it be that the document of which Papias speaks, though already bearing the name of Mark, is simply the first rude collection out of which in due time the completed Gospel is to grow ? Nothing is said of a Gospel, it must be noticed. It is not even an arrangement. It is a memo- riter report of fragmentary conversations or ad- dresses of the Apostle Peter. As an account of such a primitive document Papias' s descrip- tion would be perfect, and we should then have the supreme satisfaction of catching a furtive glimpse of the hidden processes of Scripture composition. This would be one of the layers for which we are searching. 1 It is not worth 1 Compare Schleiermacher's Werke, ii. 361-393. An early work called the K-fipvypa Tlerpov, or Preaching of Peter, is quoted by second century writers as of equal authority with the canonical Scriptures, and is held by some critics to have been in Papias's hands. (Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 29 ; vi. 5, 6, 1 5.) Eusebius, in the fourth century, finds it still in use, but ranks it with the Second Epistle of Peter as of doubtful genuine- ness. (Hist. Etc., iii. 3, 2.) See Schwegler, Nachap. Zeit., i. 54, 459; ii. 30; Weiffenbach, Die Papias-Fragmente, 46, 107. 14 PAPIAS our while to pass any hasty judgment on this point ; for the extract which Eusebius gives is short and enigmatic at best, and it is important for us to lose no early confirmation of our New Testament Scriptures. At the same time, it is more important still for us to get at the true spirit of these creative hours, and see things as they really were. In any other case, where an ordinary historic question was at issue, we should certainly suspend our judgment on such evidence till further testimony was found. Let us do so now. As it happens, the testimony accumulates at once. Papias, as I have said, has information to give also regarding the Gospel of Matthew, which, though much less detailed than his ac- count of Mark, is none the less interesting. We must remember that these are the earliest tra- ditions known to history concerning the origin of our Gospels, and the first allusions to either Matthew or Mark as a Gospel writer ; they are therefore of importance far beyond their actual length. "Matthew," says Papias, "transcribed the Sayings J in the Hebrew dialect, and each one interpreted 2 them as best he could." This is all ; but how curious a situation this brief passage suggests. Again Papias says no- 1 See Note B. a Qr perhaps " translated." AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 15 thing of a Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew, as we know it, is by no means a mere collection of the Lord's Sayings, although possibly based on such collections ; l but is a methodical composi- tion, fashioned on a more artistic scheme than either Mark or Luke. It is not written in He- brew ; it is written in Greek. It cannot even be considered a translation from a Hebrew original, as it shows none of the usual characteristics of a translation, and makes its Old Testament cita- tions as a rule from the Greek rather than the Hebrew versions. 2 In a word, the description before us bears even less resemblance to our Matthew than the previous description to our Mark. No doubt if we were obliged to assume that the Gospel of Matthew existed in its pre- sent form in the time of Papias, we might ex- plain his silence by saying that he did not think it worth while to mention a fact so familiar. As we are under no such obligation, however, it is far more to the purpose to take the words in their obvious meaning and let them tell their own story. 1 Matt. v. i-vii. 29 ; xiii. 1-53 ; xviii. i-xix. 2 xxiv. ; xxv. 2 This is a nice point to decide, and one on which the verdict of trained philologists is alone of value ; but critics of all the schools seem to be singularly in accord in pro- nouncing our Greek Matthew, whenever written, an original work rather than a translation. For the authorities on this point, see Holtzmann, Einleit. in das N. Test., 376-378. 16 PAPIAS We seem to be standing midway between a primitive collection of the Lord's Sayings, in their original tongue, for use in Hebrew churches, and the Greek Gospel of Matthew composed for Greek - speaking communities. Whether Papias 1 had ever seen the Hebrew document of which he speaks does not appear. Possibly he knew of it only by hearsay, or at best only in the form of various independent translations, such as he here seems to speak of, for the service of non-Jewish congregations. Had there been an authorized translation, such varieties would certainly not have been in vogue ; but our author's expression, " each one interpreted as best he could," puts the primi- tive condition of things very naturally before us. It opens the way for countless surmises. Were there, then, a Hebrew and a Greek Mat- thew in use at the same time in different Chris- tian churches, quite independent of each other, and both original documents ? And if so, what became of the Hebrew Gospel ? Or was the primitive Hebrew primer to be absorbed finally into an elaborated Gospel, losing its original identity, but leaving behind the tradition of its source ? But this is sheer conjecture, as neither Papias, 1 Or John the Presbyter, as the case may be. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 17 nor Eusebius his historian, gives us the infor- mation needed to connect these earlier records positively with the later Gospels with which we are familiar. We must be content with what we have, not pretending to certainty where there is none. All we can say with confidence is that at the time of which we are speaking, so far as Papias informs us, the only writings directly ascribed to Matthew are certain dis- courses of Jesus in the Hebrew tongue ; the only ones ascribed to Mark are certain informal discourses of Peter concerning the life of Jesus ; while Luke and John are not mentioned at all. I have no desire whatever to force these facts into undue prominence, or to base exaggerated conclusions upon them. It must not be forgot- ten, in the case of Papias, that the description of him in Eusebius is brief at best, and that our knowledge of his writings from other sources is of the scantiest kind. 1 Three or four pages out of five books might not seem enough to warrant even the guarded inferences ventured upon above, as Papias may have made allusions elsewhere to Matthew or Mark which Euse- bius overlooked or thought unimportant. Papias 1 See Routh's Reliquia Sacra, i. 1-16. Compare Harnack, Altchristliche Literatur> i. 65. i8 PAPIAS does not mention Paul's Epistles, which he must have known something about ; l why then, it will be asked, deduce more from his silence about the Gospels than from his silence about Paul? All this must be taken into account, and it would be foolish to disparage it. At the same time it must be borne in mind that Eu- sebius, writing at a time when the Christian annals have assumed suddenly a world-wide im- portance, makes it a point to gather from earlier writers all the testimony he can on this very point of the composition and genuineness of the Christian Scriptures. He devotes various chapters to this all - important question. 2 He also says quite explicitly, as he takes up the 1 The fact that Papias makes no mention of the Epistles of Paul, which were written long before his time, has led to many curious conjectures. Perhaps he found no material in such didactic writings available for his undidactic purposes. Perhaps he shared in the suspicions of Paul so common in the early church, or thought the Epistles too anti-Jewish in their tone. One critic imagines that the allusion to those who " have much to say " (p. 5) is a hit at the loquacious Paulites. (Hilgenfeld, EinL, 57.) Possibly the simple reason may be that Paul's Epistles, though of course existing at that time, had a limited circulation, were not collected, and were in vogue only in special communities. Zahn, however, thinks there is evidence of a collection of the Epistles during the first century. (Kanon-Gesch., i. 811, etc.) 2 Euseb., Hist.Ecc., ii. 15; iii. 24, 25; iv. 26 ; v. 8 ; vi. 25. AN EARLY INVESTIGATOR 19 apostolic writings : " As my history progresses, I shall take pains to show what disputed books have been used from time to time by ecclesias- tical writers, and what opinions they have ex- pressed either upon the canonical and genuine Scriptures, or upon those not so regarded." l It seems altogether unlikely, therefore, that if Papias had made any more specific statements about Matthew and Mark, or had mentioned the other two Evangelists at all, Eusebius would have overlooked such important testimony, or failed to emphasize it. However this may be, there is no question that the language of Papias, on its face, applies far better to floating Gospel traditions in early process of formation, than to authenticated records, already sifted and edited. This sifting process is the very work in which our bishop is engaged ; and there is no good reason why we should deny ourselves this picturesque glimpse of himself which he gives us. The value of an ancient story for Papias is not that it is contained in official records, but that it comes to him from the lips of venerable men. Whatever documents he has before him, he takes the liberty to prefer his oral reminiscences to them all. We may 1 Hist. Ecc., iii. 3, 3. Compare Holtzmann, Einleitung in das N. Test., 468. 20 PAPIAS wish that he told us more, or had been quoted more fully ; but, meantime, it is certainly no loss to stand for a moment where this constructive process is going on, and to catch this passing view of the literary methods of the time. 1 i Note F. CHAPTER II PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE IF our brief account of Papias seems too slight a basis for any serious theory of the formation of the Christian Scriptures, let us see how far this first impression is borne out by other writings of the same period. Although Papias was the first to undertake anything like Scripture research, yet other authors there were who will help us in picturing to ourselves these early processes of growth. In any case, an examination of their works is sure to throw some light upon our problem, and cannot be wholly out of place even in so unprofessional a treatise as the present volume. Let us turn for a moment to the church at Rome. One of the earliest leaders of that church was a certain Clement, who was for a long time considered the same as the Clement mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the Philip- pians, 1 but of whom we really know nothing beside the writings he has left. In later chron- 1 Phil. iv. 3 ; Iren., ffcer., iii. 3, 3. 22 PAPIAS icles, when ecclesiastical organizations became more complete, he figured as third or fourth in the list of bishops of Rome, 1 and was, in any case, a man of marked influence, whose name was honorably remembered, and whose personal authority seems to have been felt in the sur- rounding churches. An anonymous Epistle from " the Church of God which is at Rome to the Church of God which is at Corinth " has come down to us, which was ascribed to Clement from very early times, and may with good rea- son be considered genuine. 2 If so, it must have been written about A. D. 95, and is, therefore, the first document that has survived from the times immediately following the apostolic age. 3 Violent strife had arisen at Corinth, it seems, in the course of which certain priests had been forcibly ejected from office by an opposing fac- tion in the church. 4 Whether this was a later outbreak there of the same sort of jealousies 1 Iren. iii. 3, 3 ; Euseb., Hist. Ecc. t iii. 4, 9 ; Harnack, Chron., i. 191. 2 Note G. 8 Euseb., Hist. Ecc., iii. 15; iii. 34. Harnack, who has subjected these dates to rigid inspection, places Clement's bishopric at 88-97, and the Epistle at 93-95 or possibly 97. (Chron., i. 201, 251.) Passages in the Epistle like vi. I point to a date as far as possible from the apostolic period. * i Clement, i. i ; xliv. 3-6 ; iii. 3. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 23 which Paul had himself had occasion to rep- rimand so sharply, 1 or some uprising of the laity against the growing claims of the clergy, 2 or simply a revolt of the younger and more heady members of the community against their elders, we can only guess, but in any case it was a serious affair, which revealed plainly the loose organization of Christian communities at that formative epoch. It should be noted that the Roman church addresses that at Corinth in this instance, not at all as a superior, but merely as a counselor, with such authority only as was given it by the personal dignity of its bishop. 3 Clement insists, indeed, upon submis- sion to the elders, 4 but not in the tone of the later church, rather in fatherly exhortation, giv- ing the best of advice and recognizing frankly the ultimate authority of the community. 6 " It 1 I Cor. xii. ; xiv. 2 i Clem. xl. 5. Comp. J. Reville, Orig. de Vtipiscopat, 404; Renan, Hist., v. 317. 8 i. i. It is not quite clear whether the questions here alluded to had been referred by the Corinthians to the Roman church, or merely discussed among themselves. In any case Clement simply offers his advice, (vii. i.) * Ivii. i. 5 xliv. 3. The Epistle shows a primitive condition of things in the Corinthian church, where bishops and deacons appear together as the highest functionaries (xlii. 4), yet where there is evidently no single-headed episcopate (xliv. 24 PAPIAS is a shame, my beloved," he writes, "an ex- ceeding shame, unworthy the Christian call- ing, this report that the most steadfast and ancient church of Corinth has been led, by two or three men, into revolt against its elders." " Who is high-minded among you, who is com- passionate, who abounding in love ? Let him say ; if this sedition, this strife, these schisms be on my account, I will depart, I will do what- soever is commanded me by the people : only let the flock of Christ, with the elders that are over it, be at peace." l Questioning this Epistle for its acquaintance with the New Testament, we find it abounding in Scripture quotations from beginning to end. Its precepts, exhortations, examples, are all in the language of Holy Writ, and enforced as the teachings of the divine spirit. To our surprise, however, they are from the Old Testament ex- clusively. " Let us take Enoch for our exam- ple; " " Noah, being proved to be faithful, did by his ministry preach regeneration to the world;" " Abraham, called the friend, was found f aith- 6), and where the Presbyters are an august body in highest authority (i. 3 ; xxi. 6 ; liv. 2 ; Ivii. l), constituting apparently the circle from which the governing officials are drawn (xliv. i, 2, 5). Comp. J. Reville, Orig. de Vjfrpiscopat, 413, 418; Weizsacker, ii. 327. 1 i Clem, xlvii. 6; liv. i, 2. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 25 ful in that he was obedient to the words of God ; " " Let us be followers of those who went about in goatskins and sheepskins, teaching the coming of Christ ; we mean Elijah and Elisha and Ezekiel the prophets." 1 Indeed, as we read these pages we become aware that the Old Testament is the only book which our au- thor accepts, or is accustomed to think of, as " Scripture." Once or twice, indeed, Christ is introduced as speaking, but singularly enough it is always Old Testament language that he uses. It is through the Psalms or Pentateuch that Christ is regarded as addressing his church. " All these things faith in Christ doth confirm ; for he himself, through the Holy Spirit, doth thus invite us : Come, ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord." "Again, he himself (Christ) saith :