e^

Gift of the Publishers

191^

THE AMERICAN LECTURES
ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS.

I. Buddhism. — The History and Literature of Bud
dhism. By T. W. Rhys-Davids, LL.D., Ph.D.
II. Primitive Religions. — The Religions of Primitive
Peoples. By D. G. Brinton, A.M., M.D., LL.D., Sc.D.
III. Israel. — Jewish Religions. Life after the Exile.
By Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D.
IV. Israel.— Religion of Israel to the Exile. By KARL
BUDDE, D.D.
V. Ancient Egyptians. — The Religion'xif the Ancient
Egyptians; By ti. Steindorf*', Ph.D.
VI. Religion in Japan. — The Development of Re
ligion in Japan. By George W. Knox, D.D.
VII. The Veda.— The Religion of the Veda. By
Maurice Bloomfield, Ph.D., LL.D.
VIII. Babylonia and Assyria. Aspects of Religious
Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria. By Morris
Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D. '
IX. Astrology and Religion among the Greeks
and Romans. By Franz Cumont, Ph.D., LL.D.
X. Religions in China. — Universism: A Key to the
Study of Taoism and Confucianism. By J. J. M. de
Groot, Ph.D.,.LL.D.
XI. Mohammedanism. By C. Snouck Hurgronje
XII. Phases of Early Christianity, loo A.D. — ^250
A.D. By J. EsTLiN Carpenter, D.Litt.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

American Lectures on the History of Religions
Phases of
Early Christianity
Six Lectures by
J. Estlin Carpenter, D.Litt.
Wilde Reader in Natural and Comparative Religion in the
University of Oxford, and Late Principal of
Manchester College

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Zbe IRnfcftetboclftet iPrees
1916

Copyright, 1916
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

IV'

m c 2l4-
C ^^

¦Cbe IRnlcfierBocftec ©teas, Hew IffotJi

announcement;
'X'HE American Lectures on the History of
Religions are delivered under the auspices
of the American Committee for Lectures on the
History of Religions. This Committee was or
ganized in 1892, for the purpose of instituting
"popular courses in the History of Religions,
somewhat after the style of the Hibbert Lectures
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as Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, New
York, Philadelphia."
The terms of association under which the Com
mittee exists are as foUows:
I. — The object of this Committee shall be to
provide courses of lectures on the history of re
ligions, to be delivered in various cities.
2. — The Committee shall be composed of dele
gates from the institutions agreeing to co-operate,

iv Announcement
with such additional members as may be chosen
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3. — These delegates — one from each institution,
with the additional members selected — shall con
stitute themselves a council under the name of
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or on a subject germane to the study of religions,
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represented by this Committee.
7. — The Committee (a) shall be charged with the
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Announcement V
8. — Polemical subjects, as weU as polemics in
the treatment of subjects, shall be positively
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The Committee as now constituted is as follows :
Prof. Crawford H. Toy, Chairman, 7 Lowell St.,
Cambridge, Mass.; Rev. Dr. John P. Peters,
Treasurer, 227 W. 99th St., New York City; Prof.
Morris Jastrow, Jr., Secretary, 248 So. 23d St.,

vi Announcement
Philadelphia, Pa. ; President Francis Brown, Union
Theological Seminary, New York City; Prof.
Richard Gottheil, Columbia University, New
York City; Pres. Harry Pratt Judson, University
of Chicago, Chicago, 111. ; Prof. Paul Haupt, Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. ; Mr. Charles
D. Atkins, Director, Brooklyn Institute of Arts
and Sciences; Prof. E. W. Hopkins, Yale University,
New Haven, Conn. ; Prof. Edward Knox Mitchell,
Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, Conn.;
President F. K. Sanders, Washburn College,
Topeka, Kan.; Prof. H. P. Smith, Meadville Theo
logical Seminary, Meadville, Pa.; Prof. W. J.
Hinke, Aubum Theological Seminary, Auburn,
N. Y.; Prof. Kemper Fullerton, Oberlin Theolo
gical Seminary, Oberlin, N. Y.
The lecturers in the course of American Lec
tures on the History of Religions and the titles of
their volumes are as follows:
1894-1895— Prof. T. W. Rhys-Davids, Ph.D.,—
Buddhism.
1896-1897— Prof. Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., LL.D.
— Religions of Primitive Peoples.

Announcement vii
1897-1898— Rev. Prof. T. K. Cheyne, D.D.—
Jewish Religious Life after the Exile.
1898-1899— Prof. Karl Budde, D.D.— Religion of
Israel to the Exile.
1904-1905— Prof. George Steindorff, Ph.D.— r^e
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians.
1905-1906— Prof. George W. Knox, D.D., LL.D.
— The Development of Religion in
Japan.
1906-1907— Prof. Maurice Bloomfield, Ph.D.,
LL.D. — The Religion of the Veda.
1907-1908— Prof. A. V. W. Jackson, Ph.D., LL.D.
— The Religion of Persia. '
1909-1910 — Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D. —
Aspects of Religious Belief and
Practice in Babylonia and Assyria.
1910-1911- Prof. J. J. M. DeGroot— r/te De
velopment of Religion in China.
' This course was not published by the Committee, but will
form part of Prof. Jackson's volume on the Religion of Persia in
the series of Handbooks on the History of Religions, edited by
Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., and published by Messrs. Ginn &
Company of Boston. Prof. Jastrow's volume is, therefore, the
eighth in the series.

viii Announcement
1911-1912 — Prof. Franz Cumont.' — Astrology and
Religion among the Greeks and
Romans.
19 14 — Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter. — Phases of
Early Christianity.
The lecturer for 1915 was the Unitarian Theo
logian, J. Estlin Carpenter, Principal Emeritus of
Manchester College, Oxford. Born in 1844, Pro
fessor Carpenter served as pastor of the Oakfield
Road Church at Clifton, 1866-69, and of the Mill
Hill Chapel at Leeds, 1869-75. From that date
down to 1906 he held the position at first of lec
turer at Manchester College, London and Oxford,
and then of Principal of Manchester College,
Oxford. Among his more important published
works may be mentioned : Life and Work of Mary
Carpenter, 1879; The First Three Gospels and their
Relations, i8go;The Bible in the Nineteenth Century,
1903; James Martineau, Theologian and Teacher,
1905; The Historical Jesus and the Theological
Christ; Buddhist and Christian Parallels in Studies
' Owing to special circumstances, Prof. Cumont's volume was
published before that of Prof. DeGroot. It is, therefore, the
ninth in the series and that of Prof. DeGroot the tenth.

Announcement ix
in the History of Religions presented to C. H. Toy,
1912; Comparative Religion, 1913. He was joint
editor with Professor Rhys-Davids of the Digha
Nikaya, 1890, 1902, and with G. Harford Bat-
tersby of the Composition of the Hexateuch accord
ing to the Revised Version, 1900, and with P. H.
Wicksted of Studies in Theology.
The series of lectures contained in the present
volume was delivered either wholly or in part
before the following bodies: The Lowell Institute,
Yale University, The First Unitarian Congrega
tional Church of Brooklyn, N. Y., Union Theo
logical Seminary, The First Unitarian Church
of Philadelphia, Rochester Theological Seminary,
Auburn Theological Seminary, Meadville Theo
logical Seminary, Oberlin College, Western Reserve
University (Cleveland).
Richard Gottheil
Crawford H. Toy
Committee on Publication.
April, 1916.

PREFACE
THE period selected for illustration in the
following Lectures extends roughly over a
century and a half, 100-250 a.d. Christianity
had been launched into the Roman Empire; it
was already involved in the conflict with imperial
ism and popular mythology, and exposed to the
various influences of Hellenic philosophy , and
Oriental religions. In the attempt to delineate in
brief the phases of its inner development much
had to be taken for granted and much left unsaid.
Where every step has been the subject of eager
debate among generations of controversialists,
the adequate treatment of disputed issues in a
small space is of course impossible. Students,
however, will be at no loss for guides to supple
ment or correct what is offered here; and if this
book finds any readers unfamiliar with the field
which it traverses so rapidly, the citations from
early Christian literature will provide them with
clues for further enquiry. The central theme is
that of "salvation," and the growth of Christian
Doctrine and the rise of Christian Institutions
are considered in relation to it.
My obligations to the innumerable writers on
this subject — the most important in the whole

Xll

Preface

range of the history of religions save that of
the origins of Christianity itself — will be obvious
on every page; but my special acknowledgments
are due to the Rev. Dr. J. E. Odgers, late Lec
turer on Church History in Manchester College,
Oxford, England, who most kindly read the whole
work in manuscript, and allowed me to profit by
his wide range of knowledge and his literary skiU.
J.E.C.
Philadelphia,
November 8, IQ15.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I

CHRISTIANITY AS PERSONAL SALVATION

Christianity in the Roman
Empire  I
Growth of its Literature. . 4
The Apocalypse and the
Fourth Gospel  6
Ideas of Salvation  10
In Gentile Theology  12
In Jewish Hope  14
Sin, EvU Spirits, and Dis
ease  17
Widespread Belief in De
mons  22
Jesus made Man for their
Destruction  25
Salvation from ' 'the Wrath' ' 26

PACE
The Reign of Believers with
Christ  28
The Resurrection of the
Body  32
The Scope of Salvation  35
The Future Reward of
Righteousness  38
Ascetic Ideals  41
Martyrdom  45
Salvation as already real
ized  47
The Odes of Solomon  48
Becoming theos in Hellenic
Theology  51
In Christian Teaching  56

LECTURE II

THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE SAVIOUR
PAGE PAGE
Jesus as "Lord"  62 Influences on early Christo-
Hellenistic and imperial logy  74
Usage  64 Ignatius of Antioch  77
Significance for the Apostle Dangers of Gnostic Teach-
Paul  66 ing  78
Survivors of the Jerusalem Marcion  79
Community  68 A primitive Roman Con-
Ebionite Christianity  72 f ession  83

xiv

Contents

PAGE
The Apologists and the
Logos  85
Justin, Tatian, Theophilus,
Athenagoras  90
The Argument from Scrip
ture  94
Irenffius and the "Rule of
Truth"  96
Conception of the Incar
nation  lOI
Doctrine of Recapitulatio . . 104
Christianity at Carthage. .106
TertuUian's Christology. . . 108
Conception of the Trinity . . 1 1 1

PAGE
The Work of the Saviour.. 115
Clement of Rome and
Ignatius  116
Significance for Justin  118
Christianity as Revelation. 121
The Drama of Salvation in
Irenseus  123
Note A, the Angelic Pow
ers  129
Note B, the Adoptionist
Christology  130
Note C, the Apologists. ... 131
Note D, Types of Mon-
archianism  133

LECTURE III

THE CHURCH AS THE SPHERE OF SALVATION

PAGE
The local Churches and the
Church of God  138
The Church as a Spiritual
Creation  144
Missionary Preachers or
Apostles  150
The Prophets  154
The Teachers  158
Provision for Business Ad
ministration  159
The Christian Priesthood. 161
Ministry of "Gifts" and of
"Orders"  165
Names of Church Officers. . 167
Bishops and Presbyters.. . . 171
Ignatius and the single
Episcopate  176
Causes leading to its De
velopment  181
Intercourse of the Church
es  185

PAGE
Duties of Leaders  187
Bishops and ritual Tra
dition  189
Bishops and Doctrinal Tra
dition  191
Irenasus on Church and
Scripture  192
Claim to the Apostolic Tra
dition  195
Dangers of growing World-
liness  199
Montanus and the "New
Prophecy"  201
Growth of Catholic Organ
ization  205
The Canons of Hippolytus . .206
Note A, Did Jesus found
an Ecclesia?  209
Note B, TertuUian on Her
esy  210

Contents

XV

LECTURE IV

THE SACRAMENTS AS THE MEANS OF SALVATION

Mystery-Language in Chris
tianity  213
Mysteries at Eleusis  215
Mysteries of Osiris  218
Mysteries of Isis  220
Plutarch's Interpretation. .225
The Rites of Mithra  226
Types of Ethnic Re-birth. .228
Baptism in the early Church.232
Interpretation of the Apos
tle Paul  234
Imparts a Seed of Immor
tality  238
Baptism as Illumination.. .240
Preparation and Ritual.. . .241

Explanations of the Use of
Water  246
Admission to the Eucharist 251
The "Lord's Supper"  259
The AgapS  260
The Eucharist  262
Ideas of Thanksgiving  268
Practice of Commemora
tion.. ¦.  271
Communion through sacred
Food  272
Unity of Believers  279
The Eucharist as a Sacrifice

LECTURE V

SALVATION BY GNOSIS

PAGE
Philosophy in the Roman
Empire  287
Platonism and Pythago-
reanism  289
Plutarch and the Daimons 290
Philo, the Logos, and the
Powers  297
Christianity and Philo
sophy  304
The Gnostics  3°?
Valentinuis and his Dis
ciples  314
Gnostic Conception of Sal
vation  320

The Attitude of the Church.328
Rise of Alexandrian Christ
ianity  330
Clement and the Christian
Tradition  332
The Church and Salvation 335
Significance of Philosophy . 340
Allegorical Treatment of
Scripture  343
Doctrine of God  345
Functions of the Word  349
The Incarnation  351
The true Gnostic  353

xvi

Contents

LECTURE VI

CHRISTIANITY AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

PAGE
Rome, Carthage, and Alex
andria  358
Origen succeeds Clement. .359
His Studies  362
His Teaching  364
Labours on the Scriptures. 365
Settlement at Cassarea  367
Theodicy in the First Prin
ciples  370
The Church and the Scrip
tures  372
Doctrine of God  378
Doctrine of the Son  379
Doctrine of the Spirit  382
The Incarnation  383
The Death of Christ  385
Souls and Salvation  387
The Final Harmony  392
Problem of Post-baptismal
Sin  394
Hermas and Repentance. .397

PAGE
Penitence and "Peace" at
Carthage  399
Origen on Remission of
Sins  401
Cyprian at Carthage  403
Persecution under Decius. .410
Treatment of the Lapsed. . . 412
The great Plague  416
The Re-baptism of Heretics 418
The Church and the Bish
ops  420
The Bishop in the Didas-
calia  425
Treatment of unfaithful
Bishops  426
Christianity and contem
porary Religions  428
Absence of dogmatic Uni
formity  432
Subsequent Developments . 433

Phases of Early Christianity

Phases of Early Christianity
LECTURE I
CHRISTIANITY AS PERSONAL SALVATION
IN September, ill A.D., Gaius Plinius Csecilius
Secundus reached Bithynia with the special
title of "Legate Propraetor with consular power."
He had not been long in of&ce before he found it
necessary to consult his imperial master, Trajan,
on the treatment of the professors of a "wicked
and arrogant superstition" endangering many of
both sexes, of all ages and every rank. ^ Its infec
tion had spread from the cities to the villages and
the country districts. The temples had been almost
deserted ; the ceremonies of religion had been long
neglected; the farmers who brought fodder to feed
victims for the temple sacrifices found the markets
almost without purchasers. What crimes were
alleged against those who had wrought this change ?
They were the followers of a new faith. They met
on a fixed day before the dawn and sang in turn
a hymn to Christ as to a god; and they bound
« Ep., X, xcvi.

2 Phases of Early Christianity
themselves by an oath — not for any deeds of
darkness — but to abstain from theft and robbery
and adultery, and to restore upon demand money
entrusted to their care. At a second meeting they
shared a common meal of harmless food; but in
deference to the imperial prohibition of clubs this
custom had been suspended. Of one grave offence,
however, they were guilty. Confronted in court
with the images of the gods, they declined to repeat
a prayer at Pliny's dictation; when wine and
incense were handed to them with which to invoke
Trajan's name before his statue, they refused.
The Christian movement might be checked by
vigorous repression in Bithynia, but it bore within
itself the impulses of constant expansion. Its
missionaries followed the wide Dispersion of the
Jews which ranged from the highlands east of
Mesopotamia, in Elam and Media and the distant
Parthian kingdom, to the Libyan coast and Rome. '
The Jerusalem community was, indeed, scattered.
Before the city fell under the Roman arms, the
disciples had crossed the Jordan and sought refuge
in Pella. In Ceesarea they still held their own ; at
Antioch Ignatius presided over a thriving church.
Asia Minor had welcomed apostle and evangelist
at one centre of population after another along its
great trade routes, and Ephesus and Smyrna were
the seats of active propaganda. The Pauline
churches in Macedonia still cherished their
founder's memory; and Corinth was in frequent
'Acts ii, 9-11.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 3
communication with Rome. There Christianity
had made its way into high quarters, if the "athe
ism" of which Flavius Clemens was accused be
rightly identified with it. A cousin of the Emperor
Domitian, he served as consul with him in the
year 95, and at the end of his period of office
suffered death. His wife Domitilla, the Emperor's
niece, was banished to one of the islands west of
Italy' where exiles wore out their lives in squalor.
To Rome came the preachers of all faiths and the
teachers of all philosophies; and from Rome,
probably, Christianity was carried at unknown
dates by missionaries whose names have perished,
to Gaul and Spain. Tradition ascribed the intro
duction of Christianity in Alexandria to Mark ; the
famous Codex Bezce describes ApoUos as already
instructed there in the way of the Lord before he
visited Ephesus.^ Along the African coast Jews
had followed the Phcsnician traders, but the origin
of the church at Carthage is obscure. Ignatius
of Antioch on his way to execution at Rome — ¦
perhaps in Pliny's own time — can joyously speak
of "the bishops who have been appointed to the
ends (of the earth) "^; and Justin, a lad at Flavia
Neapolis (the ancient Shechem) when Ignatius
suffered, will plead afterwards for "those of every
' Pontia, say the Christian historians, Eusebius and Jerome;
the Roman historians give Pandeteria. Eusebius does not claim
Flavius Clemens as a Christian, though modern scholars like
Gwatkin and Harnack aflSrm it as certain.
» Acts xviii, 25. D. iv ry irarplSi.; It. Gig. in patria sua.
3 Ephes. iii, 2.

4 Phases of Early Christianity
race who are unjustly hated and abused, " and will
tell the Jew Trypho that there is not a single
people, barbarian or Greek, even to the nomad
Scythians or the pastoral herdsmen, among whom
prayers are not offered through the name of the
crucified Jesus. ' Through that name also did they
cultivate piety and righteousness, faith, hope, and
the love of man ; through that name did the martyr
endure the headsman's axe, the cross, the wild
beast, chains, and fire; persecution generated belief,
and the worshippers of God were multiplied. ^
A religion so widespread had naturally begun to
produce its own literature. From the synagogue
it had inherited a precious group of sacred books,
the fountains of ancient wisdom, and the guarantee
through prophecy and psalm of the claims of
Christ. But beside the authority of the Jewish
Scriptures the Church of the early decades of the
second century was beginning to set the "Word
of the Lord." As Papias tells us, the tradition
that might be gathered from living Hps was still
treasured as more valuable than any book. No
Gospel yet is cited under any name, though our
first three were certainly approaching if they
had not definitely reached their present form in
Pliny's day. The Fourth Gospel had hardly yet
emerged out of the limited circle in which it first
appeared. The churches founded by the Apostle
' I Apol., i; Dial, cxvii, cp. cx, "we who have believed in Jesus
over all the world."
" Dial. cx.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 5
Paul had doubtless preserved the letters addressed
to them, and neighbouring communities would
exchange their possessions. When Clement writes
in the name of the Roman church to Corinth, he
bids the disputants take up the letter of the
blessed Paul the Apostle^; what had been his
advice at the beginning of his preaching? When
the Philippians wrote to Polycarp for copies of the
letters of Ignatius,^ they doubtless had already a
collection of those of Paul. Behind Clement
stands the author of the so-called Epistle to the
Hebrews, a sermon without a name transformed
by some additions into a letter without an address.
A similar homily is probably to be found in the
Epistle of James, fitted with a revered name like
those of Peter. There are other documents belong
ing (within wide limits) to this age, such as the
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the Epistle of
Barnabas, the letters of Ignatius. They all gather
more or less definitely round the person of the
Founder. The initiates into the Mystery-religions
might believe themselves rooted and grounded in
trust begotten of incommunicable personal experi
ences; the followers of Christ could produce the
title-deeds of a historic faith.
Among the works which had been written not
long before Trajan sent Pliny to Bithynia, two
stand out in remarkable elevation above all the
' I Clem., xlvii; usually dated about 96 A.D., though possibly a
little later.
' Polycarp, Ep. Phil., xiii.

6 Phases of Early Christianity
rest. The Church of the second century ascribed
them to the same author, the Book of Revelation
and the Gospel according to John. Each has
exerted a profound and far-reaching influence. The
Apocalypse stimulated the imagination of Christen
dom, the Gospel educated its thought. From the
seer of Patmos came the impulses which Dante
wrought into immortal verse, and Bunyan into an
allegory which still speaks to the conscience and
the heart; in the philosophy of the Logos the
Evangelist provided the Church with a metaphysi
cal foundation for the interpretation of the person
of Christ. Strange indeed is it that tradition
should have identified them, and that the modem
critic relying on scattered fragments of testimony
should uphold the identification in spite of funda
mental differences of conception and aim. How
shall the God who is light, who is love, who is
spirit, be represented in the same mind as a Sover
eign whose person can be compared to flashing
jewels, ' who sits enthroned in a court of four and
twenty elders, with seven burning torches in front
of him and a glassy sea beneath? The mysterious
relationship of the Father and the Son who can
each reside in the other is shattered when the Son
is depicted with eyes of flame and feet like bur
nished brass, with snow-white hair and a two-edged
sword issuing from his mouth. Instead of an
apocalyptic conflict in the skies the opposition of
^ Rev. iv, 3. The jasper (iaspis) is opaque; the Greek word
should probably be equated with the opal or diamond.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 7
the Evil Power is vanquished when the Prince of
this world is cast out, and his condemnation is
effected at the moment when he is confident of
triumph. The cross on which he hangs the Son of
God to die is the scene of the completion of the
work which has been given him to do; and in the
very hour of seeming defeat the Messiah can
announce that the victory over the world is won.
The future then needs no war of angels, no Satan
flung from heaven to earth, to wreak his vengeance
for a short time, till he is chained in the abyss.
The Son who is sent not to judge the world but to
save it, never dons the blood-sprinkled robe or
tramples the wine-press of the fury of God's wrath.
Instead of the rage which flames out against Rome,
the imperial city with her lusts and her cruelties
as she drenched herself in the blood of prophets
and saints, the Evangelist contemplates a world
brought finally to harmony and peace, believing and
knowing the purpose and meaning of the mission of
the Son, ' for faith and knowledge of the only true
God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent are not
merely the conditions but the actual reality of
"eternal life."'
The two books belong in fact to two entirely
different modes of religious thought. The Apoca
lypse describes itself as a Christian prophecy.
Its language is steeped in the speech of the ancient
seers of Israel. Their religion was worked out in
the history of a particular people. It is pervaded
' John xvii, 21. ' John xvii, 3.

8 Phases of Early Christianity
by the element of divine purpose ; it realizes a far-
reaching intention; it fulfils an age-long plan; it
advances steadily towards a goal. Hence it is
essentially moral; its crises are determined by
Israel's character. The conflict of good and evil is
worked out in various forms, but the vicissitudes
of discipline have all one aim; they lead to the
ultimate victory of good. That is the fundamental
postulate of all ethical religion. The will of the
righteous God must be finally achieved. And
when the nation, at last faithful, is still oppressed,
a divine deliverance must set it free. The heavenly
forces of justice must enter the visible scene, must
overthrow the earthly tyranny, and reshape both
the world and its occupants into a veritable
"Realm of God." Of this great hope Christianity
was the heir, and in the Book of Revelation it
received impassioned expression. The great
change is near; a note of urgency and suspense
sounds through warning and vision from end to
end. Watchfulness is the believers' duty; in an
unexpected moment, like a thief in the night, the
Messiah will arrive; "the time is at hand," "I
come quickly."'
From this attitude of breathless expectation
the disciple passes in the Fourth Gospel into a
sanctuary of peace. He is bidden at the outset to
contemplate the eternity of the divine Thought,
the timeless fellowship of the Father and the Son.
The philosophy from which the conception of the
' Rev. iii, 3 ; xxii, 10, 20.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 9
Logos was derived occupied itself with the con
stants of Being that lay behind the ever-shifting
scene of human experience. There was the infinite
Intelligence of which the visible world was the
manifestation. The order of Nature was the
product of a beneficent Mind. But to the Greek,
history presented no such unity as Hebrew pro
phecy discerned. God was apprehended rather as
an immanent principle of Reason than as an ever-
active Will. He did not guide the sequences of
national destiny; he was no continuous presence
presiding over the slow development of a purpose.
That sense of a vast Providence watching over the
progress of Roman fortunes from the adventures of
.(Eneas to the imperial sovereignty of Augustus,
which thrills Virgil with wonder and awe, had no
real counterpart in Hellenism. Still less could
Greek philosophy conceive itself, like prophetic
Israel, as the depositary of truths to be made
known through its teaching to mankind at large.
The intellectual interpretation of the world deals
with its permanences; the dramatic in national
story with its successions. Time is essential to the
steps of change; but thought comprehends all
without moving. The contents and applications
of a single law are viewed simultaneously, and
reality belongs alone to that which is. This is the
order of ideas which lies behind the Fourth Gospel.
It is founded on the contrast between "earthly"
and "heavenly" things, and it presents the Son of
God as working indeed within the sphere of sense.

10 Phases of Early Christianity
but withal as preserving his eternal identity behind
the generations of humanity, "Before Abraham
came,' I AM." In such a world, where life and
light and truth and love dwell in everlasting habita
tions, the convulsions of apocalyptic expectation
have no place. The conventional Martha looks
forward to a resurrection at the last day. She is at
once corrected: "I am the resurrection and the
life," and immortality is the blessed issue of faith.'
The great assize, therefore, is never summoned.
No thrones are set, no trumpet sounds, no books
are opened. Judgment is not an event, it is a
continuous process; the Lord does not descend
from the sky, nor are the living caught up to meet
him in the air 3; the divine fellowship is realized in
no outward form; it is transported into the realm
of spirit ; " If a man love me, he will keep my word ;
and my Father will love him, and we will come
unto him, and make our abode with him," "that
they may all be one, even as thou Father art in me
and I in thee, that they also may be in us. "'' And
thus humanity itself shall become divine.
Under these two powerfully contrasted types of
future expectation was Christianity presented to
the world in the first decade of the second century.
Both were comprised under one idea, viz., salva
tion. The word has only to be named, and a host
of problems rise at once into view. From whom,
from what, were believers supposed to be saved?
' John viii, 58; or ivas born. ' John xi, 24-26.
3 I Thess. iv, 16-17. ^ John xiv, 23; xvii, 21.

Christianity as Personal Salvation ii
Who was the agent of their deliverance? What
were the means by which their rescue was accom
plished? Did their condition then remain secure,
and how could it be restored if it was injured?
What was the ultimate destiny which finally
completed the whole process ? To unravel all these
lines of thought, to exhibit the different types of
religious life created by different answers, to trace
their connections, their antagonisms, their mutual
influences and reactions, till the main lines of
Catholic Christianity had shaped themselves in
the middle of the third century at Carthage and
Rome, is one of the chief objects of the study of
early Christian history. It is apt to be thrown
into the background by the prominence given to
the interpretation of Christianity as a system of
doctrine ultimately embodied in creeds, or a
scheme of ecclesiastical government under the
control of a Church. Beliefs and organizations
both enter into it; they are the products of its
energy, the modes of its self-expression. But
Christianity is first of all a life; it is the life, here
and hereafter, of those who may be designated in
the language of Jesus "sons of God," or, in the
imaginative terminology of the Apostle Paul,
"limbs of Christ." "The wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord."'
'Rom. vi, 23. The social applications of Christianity to
industrial and intemational relations, under the modern interpre
tation of " the kingdom of God, " were of course not then in view.

12 Phases of Early Christianity
When Christianity was carried beyond the
limits of Palestine and planted all the way from
Antioch to Rome, and was confronted with the
various forms of Hellenic religion, it found the
ideas and language of "salvation" already well
established. From Homer onwards it had been
the function of the gods to "save, " to protect and
deliver, to rescue and preserve. The worshipper
prayed for "salvation" from peril by land or sea,
for aid in danger in flood or field, for health in
sickness, for victory over enemies, for escape
from evil fate. A long list of gods may be
easily compiled who bear the title "Saviour"
in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece.' During
the first century of our era the term gained
special significance for Christians in respect of
two prominent figures, the Roman Emperor and
the god Asklepios.
When Demetrius PoliorketSs liberated Athens
from the tyranny of Cassander in 307 B.C., the
grateful citizens awarded to him and his father
Antigonus the title ©eoi Swt^ps?, "divine Saviours."
Altars were erected to them, and a priest was ap
pointed for their worship. With hymns and dances,
garlands and incense and libations, the people went
forth to meet the Deliverer. ' ' All hail ! " they sang :
' Such above all were Apollo, Asklepios, and Zeus; Dionysus
the Dioscuri, Helios, Herakles, Hermes, Pan, Poseidon, Seraois-
Osiris, and in general the Qeol Sur^pes (even Priapus is Sur^p k6(7/xou,
Corp. Inscr. Grcsc, iii, 5961). Goddesses like Aphrodite, Artemis,
Athena, Hera, Hygeia, Isis, Korg, NikS, Themis, TychS, could
all be invoked as 'Sidrreipai.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 13
"The other gods dwell far away, or have no ears.
Or are not, or pay us no heed.
But thee we present see.
No god of wood or stone, but godhead true.
Therefore to thee we pray."'
The style was adopted by the sovereigns of
Egypt and Syria, perpetuating the ancient idea
of the monarch as the impersonation of deity.
The tyrant Antiochus who endeavoured to compel
his Jewish subjects to abandon their religion, took
the name Epiphanes ("God manifest"). A cen
tury later the Athenians once more designated
Julius Cassar "divine Saviour," and at Ephesus
Ares and Aphrodite were assigned to him as
parents, for was he not "God manifest, and the
common Saviour of human life"? In the midst
of the deities of Egypt on the island of Philae
Augustus was honoured as "great Saviour Zeus";
Olympia was proud to call him "Saviour of the
Greeks and of the whole world."' The imperial
birthday (September 23d) was adopted as a general
holiday in Asia Minor, and a group of inscriptions
(discovered by a German archaeological expedition)
in the cities of PriSng, Halicarnassus, Apamea, and
Eumeneia, welcomes it as the inauguration of a
new era like the beginning of all things. He is the
end and Hmit of sorrow that ever man was born;
he^has been filled with virtue by Providence (itpdvota)
for the good service of mankind; he has been sent
' Frazer, Early History of the Kingship (1905). P- 138-
" Wendland, Zeitschr.fiir N. T. Wissenschaft, 1904, p. 335 flf.

14 Phases of Early Christianity
as a Saviour to put an end to war and set all things
in order; earth and sea are at peace; he is the
Saviour of the whole human race; is it surprising,
therefore, that the birthday of the God should be
hailed as "the beginning of glad tidings" (suky-
yeXcuv, ' ' gospels ") for the world ? ' Language of this
kind prepared the way for analogous honours for
the Messiah. The heavenly citizenship (itoXitsJa)
was set over against that of earth.' Upon the
vast variety of nations which Rome gathered
beneath her sway, she so completely stamped her
culture, her law, her trade, her government, that
the genius of her empire could be summed up in
one word, Romanity. ^ At the head of it stood the
Caesar; at the head of Humanity, the Christ.
Augustus and Jesus could both be designated
"Son of God"" and Theos Sotir.
This type of imperial salvation was not without
its place in Jewish hope. It had found expression
for centuries in prophecy and psalm. After the
overthrow of the Syrian tyranny it received fresh
utterance in the "Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs"; when Pompey lay dead on the Egyp
tian shore it broke forth again in the "Psalms of
Solomon." The glory of the past should be re-
' The inscriptions are dated by Mommsen in 1 1 or 9 B.C. Mit-
teilungen des Kaiserl. Deutschen Archaeol. Instituts, Athenische
Abteilung (1899), xxiv, 275 S.
' Philip, iii, 20. ' Romanitas, Tert., De Pallio, iv.
••"Divi Filius, " 6eoO u!6s (in papyri and inscriptions). Cp.
Deissmann, Bible Studies (1902), pp. 131, 167, and Dalman,
Words of Jesus (1901), p. 167.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 15
stored on a more splendid scale. From the ends of
the earth the scattered Israelites should gather
in their ancient land. The tyranny of the oppres
sor should be overthrown; the sovereignty of
David should be re-established, or Levi should be
endowed with a perpetual priesthood till God
himself should come and dwell in the holy city.
The ungodly nations should be destroyed, or (with
a larger charity) should be converted; the divine
salvation should subdue all rivalries and the whole
earth should become one people with one speech.
Out of such visions rose the glowing expecta
tions of the early followers of Jesus, enshrined
in the hymns which celebrated the joy of the
Maiden Mother and the long childless Zacharias.
Had not God "put down princes from their
thrones" and "raised up a horn of salvation in
the house of his servant David" — salvation from
their enemies and from the hand of all that hated
them ? Deliverance from the oppressor had at last
arrived. It was natural for the disciples, gathered
around the risen Christ, to enquire, "Lord, dost
thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"'
These dreams of empire might be national in
form, but they were inspired by a deep ethical and
religious demand. The sovereignty of a righteous
God required a holy service from his subjects.
Under the priesthood of Levi sin should come to an
end, and the lawless should cease to do evil.' The
' Acts i, 6.
»reifoOTen/iof/^Z/7Pa<no«fo,tr.Charles(l9o8),Levi,xviii,9.

i6 Phases of Early Christianity
enmities of race must be subdued; "the spirit of
hatred worketh together with Satan unto men's
death; but the spirit of love worketh together with
the law of God unto men's salvation."' The Son
of David should purge Jerusalem and make it holy,
and tend the Lord's flock with faith and righteous
ness. ' Such deliverance really impHed a change of
heart. Did they desire the salvation which re
sulted when darkness was dispelled, the eyes were
enlightened, and knowledge had been imparted
to the soul? Its first condition was "true repent
ance after a godly sort." ^ The development of an
advanced doctrine of immortality gave added
intensity to such a summons. New influences
played on Israel, and begot new thoughts. The
range of vision expanded from earth to heaven.
The succession of generations was changed into a
multitude of blessed spirits. The great drama of
humanity culminated in scenes of resurrection and
judgment, the passage of an age of evil and dissolu
tion into a new world of incorruption and joy, while
the guilty were dismissed to their merited doom of
pain. In this transcendental sphere salvation
acquired a new meaning. When Enoch had been
translated into the heaven of heavens, and amid
the myriads of angels beheld the Head of Days
with the Son of Man seated at his side, his angel
guide disclosed the secret of eternity :
• Testaments, Gad, iv, 7.
" Psalms of Solomon, xvii, 33, 45.
3 Testaments, Gad, v, 7.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 17
He proclaims unto thee peace in the name of the
world to come;
For from hence has proceeded peace since the crea
tion of the world.
And so shall it be unto thee for ever and for ever and
for ever.
And all shall walk in his ways since righteousness
never forsaketh him;
With him will be their dwelling-places and with him
their heritage.
And they shall not be separated from him for ever
and ever and ever. '
In this faith Joseph might well be bidden to name
the wonder-Child "Jesus, for it is he that shall
save his people from their sins."'
But what, after all, was the cause of sins? It
was a fruitful subject of speculation, and in the
century preceding the birth of Christianity
imagination fixed upon evil spirits, the hideous
progeny of the defiHng unions of the Sons of
God or "Watchers" with the daughters of men. ^
Had not Azazel and Semj^z^ revealed to them
all kinds of sins? And did not the demons
which issued from them perpetually cause
trouble and work destruction, only to be arrested
at the consummation of the age by the great
' I Enoch, Ixxi, 9-16, tr. Charles (1912).
^ Matt, i, 21. "Jesus" is the Greek form of the Hebrew
"Joshua" (later Jeshua), meaning (as usually interpreted)
" Yahweh is salvation."
3 Gen. vi, 1-5.

1 8 Phases of Early Christianity
Judgment ? ' The corruption of their lawlessness ex
tended even to cattle, beasts and birds, and every
thing that walks upon the earth. All crimes of
violence were their work, ' though only a tenth of
them were left after the Flood. ' The whole world
was in fact full of such powers, some good and some
bad. There were spirits of fire and wind, of clouds
and darkness, of snow, hail, and frost, even of cold
and heat and the four seasons, "i These wrought their
daily work in faithfulness; but at the end the
spirits of cloud and mist and dew and rain would
be summoned to testify against the wicked, for
they would be mindful of their sins. ' Man himself
was tenanted by similar agencies. Spirits of life, of
the senses and of sleep, presided over his bodily func
tions. ^ Under the leadership of Beliar ^ the human
person might be infested with seven "spirits of de
ceit, " fornication, insatiableness, fighting, obse
quiousness, pride, lying, injustice * ; there were spirits
of envy and hatred, of jealousy and vainglory, » and
four potent demons lurked in wine, lust, hot desire,
profligacy, and filthy lucre. '° Here was an active
machinery of causation for all evil; and in the
paraUeHsm which was soon established between
' I Enoch, ix, 6-8; xv, 9-xvi, I. For the "consummation of
the age" cp. Matt, xiii, 39, 49.
" Jubiles, V, 1-2; vii, 27. 3 Ibid., x, i. t Ibid., ii, 2.
5 1 Enoch, c, II. <" Testaments, Reuben, ii, 3-iii, i.
' Ibid., Issachar, vii, 7; Dan, i, 7; Benj., iii, 3.
' Ibid., Reuben, iii, 3-6.
9 Ibid., Simeon, iii, i ; Gad, i, 9; iii, I ; Simeon, ii, 7; Dan, i, 6.
'° Ibid., Judah, xvi, I.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 19
maladies of the body and of the soul, a close con
nection was recognized between disease and sin. '
When Jesus instructed his disciples to pray,
"Deliver us from the evil" (axb tou i:ovY]poO), how
are his words to be interpreted? Is the phrase
simply a generalization of the various forms of
"illth"?' Rabbi Judah, we are told, was wont to
pray (a hundred years later) — "Let it be thy good
pleasure to deliver us from an evil man, from an
evil chance, from an evil affection, from an evil
companion, from Satan the destroyer, from a hard
judgment, from a hard adversary. "^ Or does
Jesus point to a Tempter, the active leader of
seduction from the narrow way? Interpreters
have been divided from the third century to the
present day, and the precise application may be
left tmdecided. There is enough evidence else
where that the rule of God was opposed by the rule
of the Adversary, whose demon agents were the
mischief-working causes of sickness and calamity.
Salvation, therefore, had to begin from the phy.si-
cal side. When Jesus straightens the bent form
of the woman in the synagogue, he declares that
' This lies at the foundation of the story of the cure of the
paral3rtic in Mark ii, 1-12.
^Ruskin's counterpart to welfare or "wealth." The neuter
gender is supported by the variant d'lri ttjs iro[p]i//)[/as] in an
amulet containing the Lord's prayer discovered by Wilcken at
Heracleopolis Magna in 1899, reproduced by MiUigan, Selections
from the Greek Papyri (1910), p. 134.
3 Berakhoth, i6 b, cp. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers
(1877), p. 142.

20 Phases of Early Christianity
she had been for eighteen years in Satan's grip;
and the cure is a triumphant instance of the
authority vested in the preacher of the approach
of God's kingdom. ' To the blind man whose sight
he restores at Jericho and to the sinful woman who
had washed his feet with her tears, he uses the
same words, "Thy faith has saved thee,"' as
though physical and moral cure were but corre
sponding rescues from the same hostile power. In
one of the fascinating chapters of his Expansion of
Christianity, ^ Harnack has traced the significance
of the Gospel of Healing. Sicknesses of the body
and of the soul — Jesus carried them both in his
immense love for the sufferers. In the proverb to
which classical wisdom suppUes so many parallels,
"they that are whole have no need of a doctor,
but they that are sick," he ranged his own function
with the art of medicine, just as the Buddha had
been known in a former birth as the "Great
Physician." In this character he was brought into
immediate connection and contrast with Asklepios
whose sanctuaries were estabUshed all round the
eastern Mediterranean. His worship had been
introduced, in Rome as far back as 290 B.C.; a
temple was built for him on the Insula Tiburina.
Coins and inscriptions abundantly attest his title
"Saviour" (Soter). The Centaur Cheiron had
been his teacher, and his skill won back so many
to life that Zeus translated him to the skies lest
' Luke, xiii, 10-17. ' Luke, vii, 50; xviii, 42.
3 Book II, chap. ii.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 21
men should escape death altogether. But from
his seat among the stars he showed himself the
best friend of man'; he healed the sick, he revealed
himself to the beHever, he foretold the future.'
When Celsus, writing in the second century a.d.,
impeached the worship of Jesus, but demanded
belief in the appearances of Asklepios, Origen
replied a hundred years later with an appeal to the
successftil cures wrought by the Christians, who
needed no demonic aid, but simply invoked the
names of the God of the universe and Jesus with
a brief summary of his career. ^ The Stoic and the
Neo-Pythagorean both proposed to treat the
spiritually sick; Porphyry (in the third century)
defined the object of philosophy as the "salvation
of the soul, " '• and pleaded that its teachings should
only be imparted to those who had arranged their
plan of Hfe with a view to that high end. The
double aspect of salvation is clearly indicated in
the pages of the New Testament. ' ' The prayer of
faith," says Jome^v, i5,"shaU save (cure) the sick";
and "whoever converts a sinner from the error of
his ways, shaU save a soul from death" (v, 20). ^
'^iXavSpuirSTaTos, cp. Tit., iii, 4.
= Cp.'the inscriptions at the great sanctuary of Epidaurus in
Frazer's Pausanias, Vol. iii, p. 249; and the oracle's phrase,
."O bom to be the world's great joy, " Book II, xxvi, 6.
3 Origen, Contr. Cels., Ill, xxiv. Asklepios was also designated
."Saviour of the World, " <y<^^p r&v i^H".
4 Ad Marcellam, xxxi; Euseb., PrcBp. Evang., IV, vii, i ; viii, I.
sOn the parallel between bodily and spiritual healing, cp.
Tert., De Baptismo, v.

22 Phases of Early Christianity
But there was another aspect of the heaHng
of disease which acquired great prominence in
connection with the salvation offered by the
primitive Church. The belief had spread far and
wide along the Mediterranean that many forms
of human infirmity were due to possession by
Demons. The ancient magic of Babylonia and
Egypt had been largely concerned with the spells
and exorcisms needed to avert their hateful
influence.' Among the many elements which
met in later Judaism this had taken a deep hold,
and the healing ministry of Jesus is explained
again and again in its language. The true home
of the Demons lay in the "abyss" ; they had their
own ruler, the prince Beelzebub; they were a part
of the great host of evil ranged under the banner
of the Adversary, the S^t^n. Above them stood
yet mightier powers, for the Gods of the nations
belonged to the same order. Those marvellous
forms of strength and grace in which Greek art
had striven to express the glory of the Immortals,
were only the abodes of Demons of higher degree.
To take part in banquets in their temples, to eat
food which had been offered to them, was to enter
their sphere of influence, to be associated with
them in fellowship; their power lurked in the
consecrated meat, and was full of danger to the
' Celsus afi5rmed that the Egyptians divided the human body
into thirty-six parts, each with a special Demon which must be
kept from mischief by appropriate worship. Origen, Contra Cels
VIII, Iviii.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 23
Christian. "You cannot partake of the Lord's
table and of the table of Demons," writes the
Apostle Paul to the Corinthians'; and two cen
turies later Origen meets the arguments of Celsus
with the same plea.'
Philosophy had to make what terms it could
with this belief. Hesiod had long ago recognized
an order of Demons of elevated rank between the
Heroes and the Gods; but experience suggested
that they were of varied character, and Plato and
other teachers had admitted that there were
among them evil as well as good. ^ The pious and
gentle Plutarch, cherishing the rites of his ancestral
priesthood in his native city of Chaeronea, feels
some incongruity between his conception of Deity
and the functions of the altar. For God, he asserts,
as he interprets the mysterious letter carved over
the narrow entrance of the temple at Delphi, —
God is pure Being, he alone absolutely is, immu
table, timeless, eternal.'' How then can it be
supposed that he is present at sacrifices or con
cerned with ceremonies?' The unchanging One
cannot be brought into the scene of human vicissi
tude: the supervision of its events has been en
trusted to his officers, the Demons, who have
prescribed the sacred offerings, and whose varying
characters are refiected in their strange diversity ;
"for there is a difference of virtue between these
" I Cor. X, 21. ' Contra Cels., VIII, xxiv.
'- Plutarch, De Defect. Orac., xvii.
4 De B, XX. " De Defect. Orac, xiii.

24 Phases of Early Christianity
Demons as much as between men." Here was the
explanation at hand of oracles and divination, of
omens and prognostications ; here the source of the
odious fables of mythology, and the stiU more
odious representations of them on the stage. The
philosopher, no less than the Christian, felt himself
environed by Demons ; and the Neo-Platonist Por
phyry, the follower of Plotinus in the third century,
described their activity in the utmost detail.
Every house is full of them, and on this account
when they are going to call down the Gods, they purify
the house first, and cast these Demons out. Our
bodies also are full of them, for they especially delight
in certain kinds of food. So when we are eating,
they approach and sit close to our body; and this is
the reason of the purifications, not chiefly on account
of the Gods, but in order that these evil Demons may
depart. But most of all they delight in blood and in
impure meats, and enjoy these by entering into those
who use them.'
Such was the evil in which the Christian saw the
whole world plunged. The Demons dwelt in the
temple, the theatre, the home. They flitted round
the sacrifices and the blood. They occupied the
statues like the human body. They lurked in
shady springs, in brooks and ponds, in cisterns and
baths.' They passed with food into the person,
' Euseb., Prcep. Evang., IV, xxiii, tr. Gifford.
' Minuc. Fel., Oct., xxvii; Tert., Apol., xxvi; De Baptismo, v;
Orig., Contr. Cels., Ill, xxxvii.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 25
and at death carried away the soul thus brought
within their keeping into whatever place they
pleased. ' But the beHever was not without help.
He had been deHvered out of the power of Dark
ness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son
of God's love.' There was a protection to which
he could always appeal; for Jesus Christ, said
Justin, had been made man for the destruction of
the Demons.^ In his name, therefore, dwelt an
energy for their overthrow. To utter it over a
sufferer, and recite the facts of his life, death, and
ascension, was sttfficient to expel the malignant
enemy. Such exorcisms, it would seem, might be
practised by aU Christians.'' The whole world,
exclaims Origen triumphantly, contains evidence
of the works of Jesus; his name can still remove
distractions from men's minds, and drive out
Demons and take away diseases. "By prayer and
other means which we learn from Scripture, we
expel them from the souls of men, and even some
times from the bodies of animals. " ^ It was natural
that some men should be more successful than
others. To them was given a special "healer's
grace."* Hence in due time arose a definite order
of exorcists, incorporated in the minor ranks of the
clergy. The Church of Rome in the middle of
I Clem. Homil., ix, 9. ° Col. i, 13.
3 2 Apol., vi; this was the significance of his>ame Jesus as Man
and Saviour. Cp., Dial., xh.
4 Justin, Dial., xxx, Ixxvi, Ixxxv; Tert., Apol., xxiii.
3 Contra, Cels., I, Ixvii; VII, Ixvii.
0 Minuc. Fel., Oct., xxvii.

26 Phases of Early Christianity
the third century found employment for a large
number. ' Above the Demons rose the power of the
Ruler (or Prince) of this age, the "Black One" as
Barnabas famiHarly caUed him. ' He was for ever
attempting to effect an entry into the beHever, and
hurl him away from the new life, thrusting him
out of the kingdom of the Lord. ' The Christian's
Hfe, therefore, was a daily warfare with the Devil;
at every turn the mind of man had to meet his
onset. '' But the messenger of God, the Power sent
through Jesus Christ, was ever at hand for rescue
to drag them out of the fiery trial, and guide them
into his eternal kingdom.
Over against this danger stood another graver
still, the Wrath of God. It was an ancient pro
phetic conception, associated with the awful Day
of penal doom upon the guilty Israel. ' It had in
spired the piercing question of the Baptist, "Ye
viper's brood, who warned you to flee from the
coming Wrath?"* The Apostle Paul is driven
from city to city to proclaim a message of rescue,
and preach "Jesus who delivers us from the coming
Wrath. " ^ " Saved from the Wrath " is his promise
to those who have been justified by Christ's death;
in the impending judgment they shall beacquitted. *
As the end draws near the seer of the Apocalypse
' See the letter of Comelius (251-252) in Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI,
xliii, "fifty-two exorcists, readers, and door-keepers."
=¦ Ignat., Eph., xvii, i ; Magn., i, 2; Bam., Ep., iv, 9; xx, i.
3 Bam., Ep., ii, 10; iv, 13. 4 Cypr., De Mortal., v.
s Cp. Zeph. i, 14-15. « Matt, iii, 7; Luke, iii, 7.
' I Thess. i, 10. » Rom. v, 9; cp. i, 18 ; ii, 5.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 27
beholds the dreadful wine-cup of God's Wrath
prepared for the worshippers of the Beast; the
wine-press of the Wrath is trodden till the blood
mounts to" the horses' bridles'; the contents of the
seven deadly bowls of the Wrath are flung on earth
and sea, on sun and air; till at last the leader of the
armies of heaven appears, the white-horsed warrior
"Faithful and True," himself to "tread the wine
press of the fierceness of the Wrath of Almighty
God."' No early Christian teaching could disen
gage itself from this dread expectation. The echo
of it is heard in the fourth Go-spel where the
Wrath of God abides on those who do not obey the
Son. 3 "These are the last times, " urges Ignatius,
"fear the coming Wrath" "or love the present
Grace, one of the two. ' ' '' Shelter from ' ' the coming
judgments," warnings to prepare for the "fiery
trial," predictions of the appearance of the
"signs of the truth," expectation of the kingdom
from hour to hour, reminders that the Day of
judgment is already approaching, and entreaties
to consider it, threats of its fire for the wicked, —
sound with every variety of note from deep under
tones to shriU exhortations through the literature
of the first half of the second century. ' The writer
of 2 Peter has to encounter the doubters, and
'Reu. xiv, 15, cp. Enoch, c. 3, "The horses wiU walk up to
the breast in the blood of sinners."
" Rev. xix, 15. 3 John iii, 36. 4 Ephes. xi, i.
3 For instance, l Clem., ii, 7; DidachS, xvi; 2 Clem., xii, i;
Kvi, 3; Kermas, Shepherd, Vis. Ill, ix, 5; Martyr. Polycarp., xi;
Justin, I Apol., Ixviii.

28 Phases of Early Christianity
invent apologies for the delay; until at length the
Church begins to adjust itself to permanent occu
pation of the world, and TertuUian can actually
attempt to stay the persecutor's hand by pleading
that the Christians pray for the Emperors and the
postponement of the final consummation. '
To this mode of thought belonged certain
concrete hopes which gave definite shape to the
expectation of salvation. Strange words were
incorporated in the traditions of the teaching of
Jesus, promising twelve thrones to the Twelve
Apostles, from which they should judge the Twelve
Tribes of Israel.' The Apostle Paul, extending
the scope of the judgment to the angels, reminds
the Corinthians that they will have their share in
conducting it, and founds on this expectation an
argument against carrying their suits against each
other into secular courts.' Dim hints of their
"reign" drop from his pen, and sound through
later language in his spirit, •• tiU the Apocalypse
presents a picture of the resurrection of the faith
ful who reign with the Messiah for a thousand
years, s Jewish imagination had long been con
cerned with speculations about the duration of the
world.* The end, it might be supposed, must
bear some kind of relation to the beginning. To
' Tert., Apol. (197 A.D.) xxx, xxxii.
" Matt, xix, 28 ; Luke xx, 30. 3i Cor. vi, 1-3.
4 1 Cor. iv, B;Rom. v, 17; 2 Tim. ii, 12; cp. Ep. Polycarp., v, 2.
3 Rev. XX, 4-6.
" The calculations in Dan. ix, founded on the seventy weeks of
Jeremiah, seem to have started these exercises of imagination.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 29
make the world had required six days, and on the
seventh God had taken his rest. So, it was
suggested, the world might last six days, each of
the Psalmist's length, one thousand years, and the
Sabbath, reckoned at the same period, was set
apart for the kingdom of the Christ.' This hope
seized the imagination of whole generations. In
six days, that is six thousand years, Barnabas
affirms, everything will be consummated; the Son
will bring the time of the Lawless One to nought;
the wicked will be judged; the sun, moon, and
stars wiU all be changed; and the true rest on the
seventh day wiU begin. It will be a season of
general renewal and of holy peace.' Justin at
Rome is confident that there will be a resurrection
of believers, and fixes on Jerusalem, rebuilt and
enlarged with every prophetic decoration, as the
scene of the millennial reign. Not till that was
completed would the general resurrection set in,
and the last judgment arrive.' Irenasus carries
the same faith to Gaul. Papias of HierapoHs, who
had a great repute as a collector of traditions about
apostles and elders who had known the Lord,
handed on a prediction of the marvellous fertility
of the coming days (gravely extracted by Irensus
from his fourth book), when vines should have ten
thousand branches, each branch ten thousand twigs,
each twig ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten
'Cp. Jubiles, iv, 30, and the Secrets of Enoch, xxxiii, I, with
Charles's notes.
' Ep. Barn., xv, 4-7. ' Dial., Ixxx, Ixxxi.

30 Phases of Early Christianity
thousand clusters, and each cluster ten thousand
grapes, each one of which should yield twenty-five
metretes of wine. ' Such would be the abundance
of the earth when the kingdom was planted in Jeru
salem, argues Irenseus, rebuilt after the pattern of
the Jerusalem above.' The "New Prophecy"
which marked the enthusiastic movement known
as Montanism' in Asia Minor in the latter part of
the second century, contemporary with Irenaeus at
Lyons, was passionately excited by this prospect.
It spread along the Mediterranean and captured
TertuUian at Carthage. Had not Ezekiel foretold
the glorification of the Holy City, and the Apostle
John beheld it ? Nay, had it not actually appeared
quite recently during an expedition to the East?
For heathen witnesses affirmed that moming by
morning for forty days a city was seen in Judaea
suspended in the sky, its waUs fading as the day
wore on. '• By such reports was the faith of beHev-
ers nourished. The Apocalyptic scheme with its
Antichrist and its millennial kingdom held its own
for a century or two among the Latin writers of the
West whom the Alexandrian culture did not touch.
The combination of literary criticism and spiritual
theology might undermine the authority of the Book
of Revelation in the East. Its apostoHc origin was
never doubted under the influence of Rome.
Such hopes confronted a world where almost
every variety of beHef or disbeHef could find
' Iren., Adv. Hceres., V, xxxiii, 3. ' Ibid., V, xxxv, 2.
3 See Lect. III. 4 Tert., Adv. Marcion., xxiv.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 31
expression. "Snatched away in the bloom of
early years," ran an inscription on the island of
Thasos, "a flower-girl's body herein is entombed.
But her soul is at home in the councils of the Im
mortals among the stars, and dweUeth in the holy
place of the blessed. ' ' ' Hope of reward below with
Queen Persephonfe, — if such there be, — freedom
from hurt by sickness, by summer's heat or winter's
cold, among the flowers on the Elysian plains,
aspirations after the upper realms of the ether and
the home of the gods, are not lacking among the
sepulchral records. In the second century of our
era the wider diffusion of philosophical monotheism,
the spread of the mystery-reHgions, and the in
fluence of higher ethical teaching, aU contributed
to strengthen the longing for assurance conceming
the great secret. The mortal form might be
abandoned, but the spirit soared to another world.
Here is a new note of confidence. "The body kin
with me is in the ground, but the heavenly soul
has come to a home that does not fade. My
corruptible form Hes in the earth, but the soul
which was given me dweUs in the home on high."'
"Wherefore the immortal gods gathered thee to
themselves, for as many souls as have lived rever
ently and well, say not that these die, but caU them
immortal."' The distinction here is complete.
I Boeckh, C. I. G., ii, 2161 b.
"Kaibel, Epigr. Grceca, No. 261; Corcyra, not later than
second century A.d.
3 Ibid., 268; Sicini (in the Egean), second century.

32 Phases of Early Christianity
Pictorial representation in the hands of the great
masters could not indeed avoid investing the souls
of the dead with memories of corporeal form. The
guilty before the judgment-seat in the world below
bear the visible scars of sin, and Plato's flaming
river is an emblem of physical torment. The
criminals in Virgil's Tartams suffer bodily pain;
the heroes of ancient days in the fair bowers of
Elysium rejoice in song and dance and chariot
race. Plutarch can teU (through Thespesius of
Soli)' of lakes of boiHng gold and cold lead and
scaly iron, and anvils where limbs were bruised
and broken and disjointed in preparation for other
lives. Christian imagination employed similar
figures. In the Revelation of Peter, long popular
in the Church, Paradise was depicted fuU of un
fading flowers and incorruptible fruits, where the
blessed were clad in shining raiment, and sang
songs of praise. Lakes of flaming mire, of pitch
and blood, held the condemned ; women were hung
by their hair, men by their tongues; or they were
hurled from a great cliff, and forced to climb and
to be hurled again incessantly.' In what did the
Christian expectation differ from the Greek?
Apart from the question of duration the new
teaching affirmed with the utmost emphasis the
future resurrection of the body.
' De Sera Num. Vindicta, xxii.
' See the fragment discovered by the French Archaeological
Expedition at Akhmim in Upper Egypt (i886), and published in
1892.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 33
This was one of the main themes of the mission
ary, and Scripture and philosophy were aHke
enHsted in its defence. The analogies of nature,
the successions of day and night, the sequences of
seed and fruit, might be invoked to support it;
even the example of the fabled phoenix might be
summoned from Egypt'; but the real emphasis
lay on the example of Christ and the assimilation
of the believer to his risen glory. Ignatius pleads
against the Gnostics that Jesus truly died and was
truly raised, "as in the same manner his Father
shall raise up in Christ Jesus us who believe in him,
without whom we have no true Hfe."' And this
took place in the flesh. Did he not say to Peter
and his companions, "Take, handle me, and see
that I am not a disembodied spirit"?' Did he
not eat and drink with them; did they not touch
him and believe ? Here was the distinction of the
Christian message. There were, indeed, some so-
caUed beHevers (but they were really godless
heretics, says Justin), who denied the resurrection
of the dead, declaring that souls passed straight
to heaven.'' But if so, he plaintively asks, what
new thing did the Saviour bring beyond what they
had learned from Pythagoras and Plato and all
their band?^ The bodies of aU men that have
' I Clem., xxiv-xxvi; Tert., De Resurrectione Carnis, xii-xiii.
" Ignat., Trail, ix.
3 Ignat., Smyrn., iii. Recorded, says Jerome, in the Gospel
according to the Hebrews.
4 Justin, Dial., Ixxx. = De Resurrect., x.
3

34 Phases of Early Christianity
Hved, he assures the Emperor Antoninus, the
Senate, and the whole Roman people, shall be
raised; the righteous for immortality, the wicked
for everlasting flre.'
The grounds of this expectation were various.
Christ became flesh, said the preacher, to bring us
the summons to salvation, and the inference was
that "As you were called in the flesh, so you shaU
also come in the flesh." ' It was for this end that
he had raised the dead, to show what the resurrec
tion would mean.' Man had been made in the
image of God, in his whole person; and it was
absurd, therefore, to declare that the fiesh was
worthless.'' "God forbid [cries TertuUian, with
the shrUl voice of rhetoric] that he should abandon
to everlasting destruction the labour of his own
hands, the care of his own thoughts, the receptacle
of his own spirit, the queen of his creation, the in
heritor of his own Hberality, the priestess of his
rehgion, the champion of his testimony, the sister
of his Christ ! = " Salvation, it was pleaded, must
include the whole man, not merely a part: the
Father's "hands," the Son and Holy Spirit, had
made him in God's likeness, and the perfect man
'I Apol., In. In the prayer ascribed to Polycarp (Martyr. ,idv),
the saint gives thanks for a share in Christ's cup, "unto the
resurrection to everlasting life both of soul and body in the in
corruption of the Holy Spirit."
' 2 Clem., ix, 4, 5. 3 Justin, De Resurr., ix.
4 Ibid., vii. TertuUian emphasizes the argument by referring
the "image" to the coming Christ. De Resurr. Carnis, vi.
3 De Resurr. Carnis, ix.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 35
was more than soul and spirit, for these were
blended with the fleshly nature motdded after the
divine image.' Nay, it was added, the body has
been the occasion of man's sin, it is a partner in
his guUt, must it not also share his punishment?
And are there not moral elements inseparably
bound up with it, courage and fortitude, temper
ance and self-control?' It was unfair, argued
TertuUian, that one should do the work, and
another reap the reward. And so Scripture and
Ethics combined to strengthen Faith: "the Resur
rection of the dead is the Christian's trust."'
The scope of the salvation thus interpreted
might be conceived from different points of view,
the purpose of God in creation, the significance of
the mission and death of Jesus Christ, or the actual
facts of daily experience as Christianity was
accepted by some and rejected by others. The
Fourth Evangelist had presented the Christ as
' Iren., Adv. Har., V, vi, i. So Justin before him, De Resurr.,
viii, and TertuUian after, De Resurr. Carnis, xxxiv and Ivii, "If
God raises not men entire, he raises not the dead."
" Athenag., De Resurr., xviii, xxi. Cp. the argument on the end
of man's creation, ibid., xiii, xxv. The argument for the resurrec
tion of the body founded on its share in good or evil deeds was
also current in Judaism; cp. the parable of the blind man who
carried the lame man to rob an orchard in Midrash on Levit.
iv, I (tr. Wunsche, p. 28).
3 Tert., De Resurr. Carnis, i, Ivi. After the terrible persecution
at Lyons,i77 a.d., the bodies of the martyrs were bumed and their
ashes thrown into the Rhone, expressly to fmstrate the hope of
resurrection which was recognized as the power that enabled them
to face death with joy. See the well-known Church letter, Euseb.,
Hist. Eccl., V, i, 62, 63.

36 Phases of Early Christianity
"the Saviour of the world" ; the Apostles had been
commissioned to go and teach all nations. Hermas
is informed by the Shepherd that "aU the nations
which dwell under heaven, when they heard and
believed, were called after the name of the Son of
God" ; and the apostles and teachers who had thus
been the agents of their conversion had continued
their work after death, and proclaimed the good
news to those who had fallen asleep before them,
and given them the seal of the preaching.' Had
not the Redeemer himself preached to the spirits
in prison (i Pet. iii., 19)? In the "Gospel accord
ing to Peter" three wondrous figures issued from
the tomb on the night in which the Lord's day was
drawing on, the head of the chief reaching beyond
the heavens, and a cross foUowing him. The
guards heard a mysterious voice peaHng from the
sky, "Thou hast preached to them that sleep, " and
the cross answered "Yea."' So firmly fixed was
this belief, so strong also was the assurance of the
prediction of all ftindamental Christian facts in
prophecy, that Justin could accuse the Jews of
having erased from the book of Jeremiah the
announcement that "the holy Lord God remem
bered his dead people of Israel who slept in their
graves, and he descended to them to preach to
them his own salvation." ' This pious faith was to
beget the late narratives of the saints who rose
' Hermas, Simil., IX, xvii, 4; xvi, 5. » Ev. Petri., 9, 10.
3 Justin, Dial., Ixxii. Irenaeus refers to the same passage. Adv.
Hmr., V, xxxi, i, and attributes it to Isaiah, III, xxiv.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 37
and appeared in Jerasalem {Matt, xxvu, 53), and
told how the great light had appeared in Hades. '
The universality of the Gospel was, however,
exposed to severe practical limitation. TertulHan
might indeed boast that the Christians, though but
of yesterday, had filled city and island, the viUage
and the market-place, the camp, the palace, the
Senate, the forum: "We have left you nothing but
the temples of your gods."' In reality, however,
there remained the vast mass of the unconverted.
Out of these the believers had been gathered by no
merit of their own. They could only explain it as
the choice of God. The caU had come to them,
and they could not resist; they were mysteriously
enroUed in the number of the elect. The Christian's
duty was to strive untiringly on behalf of the whole
brotherhood that this number should be saved.'
The blessing of forgiveness was bestowed on those
who had been chosen by God through Jesus Christ;
the believer's prayer was that the Creator of the
imiverse would preserve unhurt the number of his
elect ''; and his obligation was to practise unceasing
vigilance in this high vocation: "Let us never
rest as though we were 'called,' and slumber in our
sins." * The result of such a call might be expressed
as a new birth, effected in baptism,* which secured
' Cp. the liberation of the souls in bonds of darkness. Odes of
Solomon, xiii.
" Apol. xxxvii. 3 1 Clem., ii, 4.
4 I Clem., 1, 6-7 ; lix, 2. s Ep. Barn., iv, 13.
« Justin, I Apol., Ixi, Ixvi; Dial., cxxxviii. Cp. Lect. IV.

38 Phases of Early Christianity
forgiveness for past .sins; or in the figure of renewal
or new creation, when the soul was remade after
another pattern, and shaped afresh like a chUd.^
It was accomplished through the " angel of repent
ance, " and brought life to those who had no hope. '
But its result was to set the disciple under a "new
law," the new law, namely, of Jesus Christ.' So
completely had Christ himself impersonated this
ideal, that it could be identified with "God's
son"''; Christ is "the new law," eternal and final,
whom Justin proclaims to the Jew Trypho. ^
This conception presented salvation as the re
ward of righteousness. It was the divine recom
pense of the faithful life. Clement might indeed
echo the language of the Apostle Paul, and declare
that the "caUed" were not justified by their own
wisdom or piety, or their works wrought in holiness
of heart, but by faith. * Yet but a little before he
had urged the Corinthians to remember that they
were the "portion of a Holy One, " and must do the
deeds of consecration, and be justified by deeds not
words. ' This emphasis upon the Christian charac
ter pervades the literature of the first half of the
second century with ardent iteration. The present
life is the athlete's training that he may win the
crown in that which is to come.^ "Confess the
Lord in your works [urges the same preacher], by
' Ep. Barn., vi, ii. ' Hermas, Shepherd, Simil., IX, xiv, 3.
» Ep. Barn., ii, 6. 1 Hermas, Shepherd, Simil., VIII, iii, 2.
5 Dial., xi, xii, xxiv, xxxiv, xliii. « i Clem., xxxii, 4.
' Ibid., xxxiii, 3. > 2 Clem., xx, 2.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 39
mutual love, by self-control and pitif ulness;
prayer from a good conscience wiU rescue from
death, but fasting is yet better, and almsgiving
best of aU. Keep the flesh pure, and the seal of
baptism undefiled, that you may obtain eternal
life." ' Bamabas traces the "Way of Light," which
demands more than the Gospel in requiring who
ever walks therein to love his neighbour more than
his own Hfe; and bids him seek each day the
society of the saints, striving to save souls by the
ministry of the Word.' The "Way of Life"
enjoined in the ' ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles ' '
enters into fuller detail, but is laid out on the
same Hnes. Here, too, the disciple is instracted
as a member of a community; and the ideal of
generosity and helpfulness is strenuously enforced.
Sometimes an echo of the Stoic morality falls on
the ear: "Receive the accidents that befall thee
as good, knowing that nothing happens without
God." ' So Epictetus might have spoken, when he
pleaded that to have God as our Maker and
Father and Guardian should release us from
sorrows and fears.'' And as he bade masters
remember that their slaves were kinsmen, brethren
by nature, and offspring of Zeus, ' so the Christian
"Teaching" prohibits bitterness towards the
slave who hopes in the same God, for he comes
not to caU men with respect of persons. * The true
' 2 Clem., iv, i ; xvi, 4; viii, 6. ' Ep. Barn., xix, 5, 10.
3 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, iii, 10. ^Arrian, I, ix.
s Jbid., I, xiii. " Teaching, iv, 10.

40 Phases of Early Christianity
athlete, says Epictetus, strives for kingship, for
freedom, for security from perturbation.' And
the goal ? Wait for God's signal to quit this service,
and then go to him.' The wise man must at all
costs preserve his equipoise. Epictetus is the
counsellor of the blameless life, pitched high in
independence, but he does not propose to seek and
save the lost ; and he inspires no martyrs to refuse
to bum incense to the imperial name. It is the con
stancy of the Christian in the face of death which
wins the philosopher Justin to the faith. ' ' ' Do you
not see," writes an unknown correspondent to an
unknown Diognetus, "that the more of them are
punished, the more others midtiply?""
A rehgion of this strong ethical type conceived
future blessedness as something due to the beHever's
merit in accordance with God's promise, rather
than as vouchsafed freely by divine grace. One
consequence of this was seen in the stem repudia
tion of the Stoic doctrine of Fate, and the vigorous
assertion of human liberty. True, Epictetus had
placed the Good in a right determination of the
will 5; but his theory of the dependence of the
moral life on correct or incorrect notions makes it
• Arrian, II, xviii.
= Ibid., I, ix; cp. Ill, xiii. "Whither? — to nothing terrible, but
to the place from which you came, to what is dear and kindred,
to the elements. What there was in you of fire goes to fire, " etc.
3 2 Apol., xii.
4 Ad Diognet., vii, 8. The earliest of the Apologists, Aristides,
gives a fine account of the Christian behaviour.
'Arrian, III, iii.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 41
probable that he did not depart from the fatalism of
his school. ' But Christianity — ' ' our philosophy "
as Melito terms it ' — in the hands of the Apologists
laid great stress on man's power of choice, and con
sequent accountability. What was the meaning of
reason within him and of law without but to make
virtue a reality and vindicate the divine awards on
guUt?' Angels and men, accordingly, were both
created free, so that the bad man might be justly
punished and the good deservedly praised. ''
A second issue followed in the heightened
demand — already rising in the days of Paul — for
ascetic purity. It sprang from a .view of life
already old when Christianity was born. The
body with its wants and passions was a hindrance
to the higher activity of the soul. It must be
tamed and conquered that reason might act freely,
and the vision of the mind's eye be clear. The
disciplines of philosophy had already laid stress
upon that self-control (encrateia) which in Chris
tian preaching was specially appHed to chastity. ^
The Cynics at the end of the first century, accord
ing to the weU-known description of Epictetus, had
neither home nor wife nor slave. His couch was
the ground, his dress only one poor cloak, his food
' ZeUer, Eclectics (1883), p. 267.
" Euseb., Hist. Eccl., IV, xxvi, 7.
3 Justin, I Apol., xxiii, xliii; 2 Apol., vii; Dial., cxli.
4 Tatian, Cohort., vii.
5 Trypho, in Justin's Dialogue, viii, 3, recommends him to
remain in the phUosophy of Plato or some other teacher, cultivat
ing endurance, encrateia, and moderation.

42 Phases of Early Christianity
the most frugal ; but no one saw him with a sorrow
ful countenance. He must endure to be beaten
like an ass, and must love those who beat him as
if he were the father and the brother of aU.' The
ascetic tendency had even invaded Judaism. The
Essenes endeavoured to maintain the strictest
ritual purity; living in community they eschewed
marriage, and their common meals were of the
simplest. In Egypt the Therapeuts reHnquished
all property, ate no meat and drank no wine, and
the relations between the sexes (for there were
men and women members of the order) were
guarded with the strictest moraHty. The Apostle
Paul was unmarried (in contrast to Peter and the
brothers of the Lord), and there were Christians at
Corinth who held that marriage was tindesirable,
while the Apostle "recommended the ascetic Hfe to
those who could endure it, whether married or
unmarried."' Most remarkable of aU was the
arrangement of "spiritual marriage" by which
men and wortien lived together in rigid continence,
now recognized under the counsels conveyed in i
Cor. vii, 25-38. It was well known in the second
and third centuries, and Hngered on in remote
quarters into the Middle Ages.' The language of
' Arrian, III, xxii.
= See the discussion of I Cor. vii, by Prof. Lake, The Earlier
Epistles of St. Paul, 191 1, p. 180 ff.
3 To the references cited by Lake, p. 189, may be added an
article by Prof. JuUcher (Marburg), "Die Geistlichen Ehen in der
Alten Kirche," in the Archiv. fiir Religionswissenschaft, VII
(1904), pp. 373-386.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 43
Jesus had repudiated aU conceptions of physical
union in the resurrection; and it has even been
supposed that Paul, who bade beHevers reaHze
that they were already risen with Christ and sat in
heavenly places, might have conceived that sex
was already transcended even before the Parousia,
and there was neither male nor female in Christ.
Tradition related that on being asked when the
kingdom would come the Lord replied, "When the
two shall be one, and the outside as the inside,
and the male with the female neither male nor
female."' The powerful influence of the ascetic
impulse is reflected in the vision of one hundred
and forty-four thousand virgins who had not
defiled themselves with women, surrounding the
Lamb upon Mount Zion, Rev. xiv, 1-5; and
the hortatory literature of the age following the
Apostles is full of urgent appeals for manly purity.
"Guard the fiesh that you may receive the Spirit "
was the theme of many a sermon.' Among the
wonderful gifts of God is continence in hoHness;
let no one boast of his self-control forgetting who
has bestowed it on him.' Continence is the
daughter of Faith: "whosoever then shall follow
her becomes blessed in his Hfe, because he will
abstain from all evil deeds, beHeving that if he
refrains from every evil lust he will inherit eternal
' 2 Clem., xii, 2. A similar saying is reported from the Gospel of
the Eg3T)tians in Clem. Alex., Strom. Ill, xiii, 92; cp. Preuschen,
AntUegomena (1905), p. 2.
" 2 Clem., xiv, 3. 3 1 Clem., xxxv, 2; xxxviii, 2; Ixiv.

44 Phases of Early Christianity
life."' Salvation is the reward of ewcrofCTO. It is
not surprising that this tendency should have been
widespread among those who looked for the speedy
end of the world and sought to secure themselves in
the hope of future bHss. ' The strange story of Paul
and Thekla, which is believed to contain elements
dating from the first century, turns on Thekla's re
pudiation of her betrothed under the influence of the
Apostle, and the trials and persecution which beset
her. To Paul is ascribed a new set of Beatitudes :
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are they that have kept the flesh chaste, for
they shall become God's temple.
Blessed are they that control themselves, for God
shall speak with them.
Blessed are they that have wives as not having them,
for they shall receive God for their portion.
Blessed are the bodies of virgins, for they shall be
well pleasing to God, and shall not lose the reward
of their chastity.'
In the intimacies of Christian brotherhood the
Logos demanded that the holy kiss should be given
with the utmost care. The entrance of any defiling
thought involved exclusion from eternal Hfe. ¦*
" Hermas, Shepherd, Vis. Ill, viii, 4.
' The so-caUed Encratites were not a sect, they only worked
out in stricter personal practice tendencies which had very early
affected the Christian life.
3 Acts of Paul and Thekla, v.
1 Athenag., Presb. (177 a.d.), xxxii. From what source the
words of the Logos are drawn is unknown.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 45
The supreme sacrifice was that of Hfe. The
martyr passed at once to peace and feHcity.
Stephen had entreated the Lord Jesus to receive
his spirit. The Apostle Paul longs to depart and
be with Christ.' From the rocks of Patmos the
seer beholds the souls of those who had been slain
for their testimony waiting beneath the altar in
the fourth heaven. ' The time of rest wiU be brief ;
soon will they be gathered with the vast number
who are coming out of the great tribulation, and
join in the song of praise before the throne of God
and the Lamb.' Clement can count a great
multitude of the elect who were taken up to be
with Peter and Paul in the Holy Place. '' That was
the way of Christ, and had not he said, "Those
who will see me, and attain to my kingdom, must
lay hold of me through pain and suffering" ? ^ The
prospect fiUs Ignatius with vehement joy. On
the journey from Antioch to Rome he writes to the
church in the imperial city entreating them to do
nothing to hinder his impending death. ' ' Suffer me
to be eaten by the beasts, through whom I can
attain unto God." He is God's wheat, ground by
their teeth that he may be found pure bread of
Christ.* When the Lady Church summons Her
mas to her side, she places him upon the left; the
right is reserved for those who have endured stripes
' Phil, i, 23 ; cp. 2 Tim. ii, 1 1 . ' Rev. vi, 9.
3 Rev. vii, 9-17; cp. Charles, Studies in the Apocalypse (1913)1
P- 139-
4 1 Clem., v-vi. » Ep. Barn., vii, 11. ' Ignat., Rom., iv, I.

46 Phases of Early Christianity -
and imprisonments, crucifixions and wild beasts, for
the sake of the Name.' The enthusiasm of the
Christians did not escape the barbed wit of Lucian.
He made fun of their attentions to the imprisoned
Peregrinus: "You see, these misguided creatures
start with the conviction that they are immortal for
all time, which explains the contempt of death and
voluntary self-devotion which are so common among
them."' The privilege of martyrdom became an
object of eager desire. The contagion of impulse
drove the believers of a whole province before the
judgment seat of Arrius Antoninus, clamouring for
execution: "You wretched fellows," he retorted,
"if you want to die, you have precipices and hal
ters."' Such solicitation drew down the severe
rebuke of Clement of Alexandria. It made the
Christian guilty of his own death, and an accom*
plice in the persecutor's crime.'' But the heroic
endurance of unforeseen attack had its own joy.
The "noble athletes," as the churches of Lyons
and Vienne wrote to the brethren in Asia and
Phrygia, conquered grandly, and it was fitting
that they should receive the incorruptible crown.
As Blandina hung upon the stake exposed to the
beasts, did not her fellow-sufferers see in her
form the very Christ who was crucified for them?s
' Hermas, Shepherd, Vis. Ill, ii, i.
' De Morte Peregrini, xui (tr. W. Warde Fowler).
3 TertuUian, Ad Scapulam (after August 14, 212 a.d.), v.
4 Strom., IV, X, § 77, ed. Stahlin (1906), ii, p. 282.
3 Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, i, 37, 41.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 47
Visions of wondrous beauty were vouchsafed
to Perpetua and Saturus in their imprison
ment.' The martyrs, it was beUeved, were
changed into angels'; and Saturus recorded how
in freedom from their mangled bodies he and
Perpetua were bome by angels into the presence
of their Lord. ' Such were the hopes and comforts
which conquered agony, and opened the way into
eternal peace.
Another aspect of salvation reveals it not as a
future destiny but as a blessing already realized.
Behind the eschatology of the Apostle Paul with its
promises of resurrection and change lies the
conviction of the mystical union of the believer
with his Lord. He is baptized into his death, he
shares his risen life. The spirit has actually
entered into him; it gradually slays the actions of
the body,'' and prepares it to receive the great
quickening which will transmute it into incorrup
tion. Thus renewed the believer has already come
within the Rule of God; the life of righteousness
and peace and joy' is itself salvation. It is the
translation of the soul from gloom to brightness:
"Ye were once darkness, but are now Hght in the
Lord."* In the fourth Gospel these are the terms
of a moral dualism in the field of humanity where
they were engaged in perpetual struggle. The
I Suffered at Carthage, about 202.
' Hermas, Shepherd, Vis. II, ii, 7; Martyr. Polycarp., ii.
'Passio SS. Feliciiatis et Perpetutz (Cambridge Texts and
Studies, 1891), xi. > Rom. viii, 13; cp. Col. iii, 5.
s Rom. xiv, 17. " Eph. v, 8; cp. Rom. xiii, 12; i Pet. ii, 9.

48 Phases of Early Christianity
darkness, indeed, never gained the victory, and
with the advent of the Son it passed as the true
light shone over the world. Salvation consisted
in letting in the light, in opening blind eyes that
they might see: and judgment was the self-acting
test whether men would submit their works to its
iUumination or cover them up from its reproof.
On the one side was the Hfe of truth and righteous
ness, knowledge and Hberty, on the other the
death of falsehood and sin, error and bondage. To
pass from one sphere to the other was to secure a
new quality of being ; it was to be born from above,
to be born out of God, to be assured of Hkeness to
him when he should be seen as he is. '
To this type of Christian thought a remarkable
parallel has been recently discovered in the Odes
of Solomon" known to the Church for several
centuries, but long lost to view. That they were
written originally in Greek is universally conceded,
but when and where? Some of the poems are
obviously Christian, for they speak of the Son, the
Lord, the Word, and the Beloved, though they
never name Jesus, his teaching, or his cross. There
is no reference to Church or Sacraments. Nor are
there, in hymns untinctured by Christian language,
any aUusions to the Mosaic Law or Temple
» John iii, 3 ; I John iii, 9, 2.
' The pubhcation of these poems from a Syxiac text by Dr.
Rendel Harris in 1909 excited immediate interest. See the trans
lations and comments of Flemming and Harnack, Ein Jiidisch-
Christliches Psalmbuch aus dem Ersten Jahrhundert, Leipzig, 1910,
and Labourt and Batiffol, Les Odes de Salomon, Paris, 1911.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 49
ceremonies . If they are of Jewish origin adapted to
Christian use, they reveal the existence of a type of
inward experience in the later Israel unknown
before. If they must be credited wholly to the
new faith, they are no less valuable; the piety
which prompts them is not that of a single mind;
like the Imitatio Christi or the Theologia Germanica
or the fourth Gospel itself, they rest on the
thought and devotion of many hearts. Here are
several of the Johannine terms, light, truth, life,
love; but the Word is not the Johannine Logos.
The imagery is that of Psalm and Prophecy, there
are no echoes of Gospel parable or Apostolic
exhortation. The Kingdom of God is out of sight.
No Gnostic could have written the hymn of
creation (xvi) ; if the collection was designed for the
use of catechumens about to be baptized,' it is
surprising that it is silent conceming sin, repent
ance, and forgiveness.
Many are the notes in the music of devotion
that are heard in these poems, rising above deep
undertones of trust and peace. The wonder of
relationship to the Eternal begets infinite joy,
humiUty, and thankfulness. "Thou hast given us
thy feUowship; not that thou hadst need of us, but
that we had need of thee " (iv, 9). This marvel
of grace is reflected everywhere, in the beauty of
the earth and sky where the eye sees his works and
the ear hears his thought (xvi, 9 ff.) in perpetual
activity. But it is especially manifested in the
' J. H. Bernard, Journal of Theological Studies, October, 1910.

50 Phases of Early Christianity
interior Hfe of the soul. All local and national
associations drop away. ' The believer may almost
be alone in the universe with God or the ' ' Beloved."
In this intense individualism there is hardly room
for any human sympathy ; only rarely do we learn
that there are others also who have passed from
darkness to Hght and belong to a company of
saints (xi, i6). Absorbed in the mystery of open
ings of knowledge and enHghtenment, the simple
heart flnds no way hard; "there is no storm in the
depths of illumined thought ' ' (xxxiv, 1,3); one hour
of faith is more precious than aU days and years,
when God has given his own heart to the faithful
(iv, 3) . For the secret of rehgion is that the Lord
imparts himself to man. ' ' He became Hke me in
order that I might receive him, . . . like my nature
he became that I might learn him ' ' (vii, 5,8). And
this bestowal of himself carried with it the gladness
cf immortality. ' ' He hath opened my heart by his
light, and he hath caused to dwell in me his death
less Hfe" (x, i). In various figures is this union
expressed. "The Lord renewed me in his raiment,
and possessed me by his light, and from above he
gave me rest in incorruption ' ' (xi, 10) . The Virgin
Wisdom enters in to make men wise in the ways of
truth; "they that have put me on shall not suffer
harm, they shall possess the new world that is
' A solitary allusion to a temple in iv is interpreted by WeU-
hausen of the ideal community of believers; by Gunkel of the
heavenly sanctuary; by others of the Montanist temple at Pepuza;
cp. Lect. III.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 51
incorrupt" (xxxiii, 10). "I love the Beloved [here
the tender name for God] and my soul loves him,
and where his rest is, there also am I. . . . I have
been united [literally "mingled"] with him' . . .
for he that is joined to him that is immortal wiU
also himself become immortal" (in, 5, 8, 10). Else
where the faithful are changed into Christ: "I
went to all my prisoners to loose them, that I
might not leave any man bound or binding. And
I imparted my knowledge without grudging, and
my prayer was in my love; and I sowed my fruit
in hearts, and transformed them into myself; and
they received my blessing and lived " (xvii, 11-13).
Such was the unio mystica between the disciples
and their Lord.
This type of mysticism is not without its
analogies elsewhere. The Orphic teachers had
for many centuries held up participation in divine
Hfe as the goal of human endeavour. The way
to it lay through perfect purity. But they did
not so much seek purity, says Miss Harrison,'
that they might become divinely immortal, they
needed immortality that they might become
divinely pure. In the remarkable tablets recently
found in Italy (and ascribed to the fourth and
third centuries B.C.) the soul on its journey to the
higher Hfe is addressed, "Hail thou who hast
suffered the suffering . . . thou hast become god
' Harnack strikes out 9 as a Christian interpolation, "because
I love him, the Son, I shaU be a Son."
» Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 478.

52 Phases of Early Christianity
from man."' From the long process of purifica
tion the disciplined spirit approaches the throne of
Queen Persephone, and announces to her and the
other immortal gods, "I, too, avow me to be of
your happy race," and receives the greeting,
"Happy and blessed one, thou shalt be a god
(divine) instead of a mortal." This was the con
summation of a long ascent through various grades
of being. Clement of Alexandria quotes approv
ingly the lines of Empedocles of Agrigentum':
At last as prophets, singers, and physicians.
And chieftains among men, on earth they live.
Thence grow up to be gods supreme in honours.
Rest in eternity is the reward of the holy life, says
Clement,' citing Empedocles once more; "to share
the hearth and table of the immortals, free from
human iUs." Empedocles himself had cHmbed
the toilsome way, and at the beginning of his
poem on Purifications caUed his feUow-citizens to
witness that he walked among them no longer a
mortal, but an immortal god. "
' Prolegomena to the Sttidy of Greek Religion, p. 663. The
term Beds seems to be used here (as in so many other places) in
the significance of "divine. " In the opening of Plato's Sophistes
Theodoms repudiates the epithet theos applied by Socrates to
the Elean stranger and prefers theios, "divine." On theos iathe
"improper sense" cp. PhUo, on Dreams, i, 39 (Cohn-Wendland,
iii. 253-4)-
' Strom., IV, xxiii, § 150, apropos of the Christian use of Ps.
Ixxxii, 6. (See below.)
3 Strom., V, xiv, § 122 3.
' Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i, p. 205.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 53
In the first century of our era this hope per
vaded the higher spiritual philosophy. Epictetus
longs for his disciples to show him "a human soul
ready to think as God does, . . . desirous from a
man to become a god, and in this poor mortal
body thinking of his fellowship with Zeus."' The
mystical teachings grouped under the name of
Hermes contain more than one answer to this
aspiration. "This is the good end," declares
Poimandres (the "Man-Shepherd"), "for those
who have gained knowledge, to become divine."'
For God was continually offering himself to human
souls: "Holy is God who willeth to be known, and
is known by his own."' Self-communication is a
necessity of the Divine Nature, as the Moham
medan tradition taught: "I was a hidden treasure
and I desired to be known, so I created the creation
in order that I might be known."'' This might be
effected in more than one way. The divine power
might enter the human frame, and possess the
worshipper, just as ancient Hebrew thpught could
describe the Spirit of Yahweh as "putting on " the
person of Gideon like a garment. ^ It was the
condition of "enthusiasm" when the god con
descended actually to dwell in man. With this
« Arrian, II, xix (Long's translation). "FeUowship," Kotvavta,
as in I John, i, 3.
» Poimandres, xxvi. (ascribedby Reitzenstein toabout 100 a.d.).
The word BecoBvvai, "to be made god," denotes the union of the
highest vision of the Father.
3 Ibid., xxxi. 4 SeU, Essays on Islam (1901), p. 5.
s Judges vi, 34; cp. i Chron. xii, 18; 2 Chron. xxiv, 20.

54 Phases of Early Christianity
conception Hellenism was quite famiHar aUke in
its magical and its religious aspect. "Come to
me," runs an invocation to the Spirit, "and enter
into my soul, that it may be moulded into the
immortal form in mighty and incorruptible Hght." '
Or the same idea might be expressed by rebirth.
From torments of ignorance and concupiscence,
error and anger, and their kindred evUs, twelve in
number, must the soul free itself, and then in the
solemn stillness comes the knowledge of God. Ten
new powers of truth and good arrive and take
possession, "the birth in understanding^ is accom
plished, and by this birth we are made divine."'
When the disciple exclaims, "I see the universe
and myself in Mind,"'' Hermes answers, "This,
my son, is rebirth," and to the enquiry whether
the body, composed of such powers, wiU suffer
dissolution, he replies, "Dost thou not know that
thou art divine by nature, and a son of the One,
like me?"s It is the vision of God which thus
imparts new life: "it is possible," says Hermes,
"for the soul to become divine while stUl dwelling
in a human body, by contemplating the beauty of
the Good."* On this vision the soul must fix its
gaze, according to the instructions of the Ritual
pubUshed by Dieterich under the title of a Mithras-
'Kenyon, Greek Pap., I, p. 102, quoted by Reitzenstein, Die
Hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, p. 107. The spirit is
dcpOTTCT-^S. " Corp. Hermet., XIII, x, voepb. yhea-is. 3 leeiiBri/iev.
4 Ibid., xiii. ^ Ibid., xiv, Bebs it^^ukos.
' Corp. Herm., X, vi; dvoBewd^vai.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 55
Liturgy, as it cried to the Deity, "Abide with me,
leave me not." ' This was the moment of the new
birth, and the beHever could pass through death
"grown up" and "delivered" into a realm beyond
both birth and death. So close was the assimUa-
tion with Deity that the initiate could use the most
intimate language of aU identity, "Thou art I and
I am thou."' So had the Hindu mystic hundreds
of years before reached the stage in which he could
say of his relation to the Universal Self, "That art
thou," and declare with humble confidence, "I am
Brahma."' So, hundreds of years later, would the
Sufi reach the stage of Union with God, and declare,
"By the help of God's grace I am now become safe,
because the unseen King says to me, 'Thou art
the soul of the World.'""
The philosophical Jew Hke Philo was not un
affected by this tendency, s His Scriptures were
full of suggestions pointing in the same direction.
Was not the mind of a wise man the house of God,
and when the prophet described the "walk of
God" among his people as in a palace, was it not
of this place of sojourn that he spoke?* And
seeing that God penetrates invisibly in the region
of the soul, ought we not to prepare it to be a
habitation fit for God, lest he depart to some other
' Sine Mithrasliturgie (1903), p. 14. ' Ibid., p. 97.
3 Chandog. Upanishad, vi, 8, 7; Brihaddrany. Up., i, 4, 10.
4 SeU, Essays on Islam (1901), p. 29. Cp. Nicholson, The
Mystics of Islam (1914), p. 59.
s Cp. Lect. V.
« Fragm. Anton., Ixxxii; in Mangey, ii, p. 672; Lev. xxvi, 12.

56 Phases of Early Christianity
abode? He might, indeed, caU his chosen servant
to himself. When the time came for Moses to quit
his people and pass to heaven and become immor
tal, ' the Father transmuted him from the double
state of soul and body into a single nature, trans
forming him completely into most sunlike Mind.
This was the glory of the celestial Hfe, the medium
of the divine being of the Father himself.
To all this religious language Christianity was
the heir. It supplied the forms of imagination, it
provided the instruments of expression. If Plato
had taught that "we ought to fly away from earth
to heaven as quickly as we can ; and to fly away is
to become like God as far as possible; and to
become like him is to become holy, just, and wise " '
— the Johannine teacher could look forward to the
manifestation which would enable those who had
been born of God to be like him, for they would
see him as he is. ' But the conception of Hkeness
might be even transcended. Salvation might
hold out a still higher promise. When Justin read
in Psalm Ixxxii, "God standeth in the congrega
tion of the gods. ... I said. Ye are gods and
are all children of the Most High," he identified
the assembly with the community of believers. "
There, he argued triumphantly, is the proof that
• AvaSavaTl^eirBat, De Vita Mosis, II, 288 (Cohn, iv, p. 267).
Reitzenstein has shown analogies for understanding this in the
sense of fewtf^TOj, Hellen. Mysterien-Religionen, p. 117.
' ThecBtetus, 176 B., tr. Jowett. ' i John iii, 2.
4 Dialogue, cxxiv.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 57
all men are deemed worthy of becoming gods.
In the short "Address to the Greeks" which
appears to belong to the second century, though it
can hardly be the work, of Justin,' the author
declares that the Word by its teaching makes
mortals immortals, makes mortals gods.' The
ophilus, Bishop of Antioch under Marcus AureHus
and Commodus, lays it down that man was made
by nature neither mortal nor immortal. Had the
Creator made him immortal from the beginning,
he would have made him god (divine). Had he
made him mortal, he would have been himself the
cause of man's death. He therefore made him
capable of either. If he kept God's command
ment he should receive immortality and become
theos. ^ To Clement at Alexandria this high de
stiny is the result of the true gnosis or knowledge,
which culminates in the lofty vision of the Eternal. "
Had not Plato already said that he who devotes
himself to the contemplation of ideas will live as a
god among men?^ So Clement teaches that the
soul may be Hfted to heavenly rank and enrolled
already among the gods,* of whom David had
already prophetically sung.'' It was for this end
that the Word became man, that we might learn
' Kruger, Early Christian Literature, p. 113.
= Oral, ad Grcec., v.
i Ad Autol., II, xxvii, koI fiviiTM BeSs.
4 See below, Lect. V. Cp. the language attributed by Hip
polytus to the Phrygians, Refutation, V, iii.
s Strom., IV, xxv, § I55^ « Strom., VII, x, § 56«.
tPs. Ixxxii; Strom., II, xx, § 125 3-s; ly, xxiii, § 149'.

58 Phases of Early Christianity
from man how man may become God. ' The phrase
becomes a watchword. Irenasus repeats it with a
slight modification of its terms, but with none in
its meaning. ' ' The Son of God became Son of Man
that man, by containing (^wpi^aa?) the Word and
receiving the Adoption, might become the Son of
God."' The vast drama of salvation as Irenaeus
conceived it will be described hereafter'; its goal
was the gift of immortahty. Here is the special
quality which makes man theos. It has a sac
ramental aspect through its connection with
Baptism and the new birth and with the Eucharist
as life-giving food.'' It has a Scriptural proof in
the identification of the ' ' congregation of the gods ' '
{Ps. Ixxxii) with the Church, where the Father,
the Son, and those who have received the adop
tion, dwell together. 5 It is reaHzed mystically
through the blessed vision which is God's own
means of quickening the pure and holy soul. A
mighty scheme of progressive development looms
before his thought, * by which man should advance
from his creation, should increase in strength,
should sin and recover, and finaUy should see his
Lord. This brings him to the fulfilment of God's
purpose, for eternal Hfe comes to him who sees
God; to behold him produces immortality; only
' Protrept., i, 8, § 4; perhaps previous to 189 a.d. Kruger, p.
166. " Adv. Har., Ill, xix, I.
3 See below, Lect. II. 4 See Lect. IV.
3 Adv. Hmr., Ill, vi, i. Cp. Clem. Alex., Protrept., xii., § 123'.
^ Ibid., IV, xxxviii., 3.

Christianity as Personal Salvation 59
through being joined to God could he participate
in incorruption. '
Two ways wiU thus be opened to the Church at
the beginning of the third century. The same mind
may sometimes traverse both. Hippolytus' can
lay it down in the baldest terms that the Father
of immortality sent the immortal Son into the
world in order to wash man with water and Spirit,
by which the believer was begotten to incorruption
of soul and body. "If, therefore, man has become
immortal,, he wUl also be God." He is "made God
by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration
of the bath. " ' WeU, therefore, may he summon all
the nations to ' ' the immortality of baptism . " But
in the address to Greeks and barbarians from the
Indians to the Celts with which he concludes his
"Refutation of all Heresies" (X, xxx), he strikes a
different note. "Be instructed," he pleads, "in the
knowledge of the true God, and thou shalt possess
an immortal body just like the soul. Thou shalt
be a companion of Deity and a joint heir with
Christ, for thou hast become God, thou hast been
deified and begotten unto immortality."'' This is
the meaning of the ancient saying, ' ' Know thyself. ' '
"Learn to discover God within, for he has formed
¦¦Adv. Har., IV, xx, 5; xxxviii, 3; III, xviii, 7.
» Presbyter at Rome, student of Irenaus in theology; died
236-7 A.D.
3 On the Holy Theophany, viii. Cp. Lect. IV.
4 The passage is condensed, with some omissions. The con
cluding sentence runs: yiyovas yip Beds . . . Stl ^teiroi^eijj, dBdvaros
yefjnjBets.

6o Phases of Early Christianity
thee after his own image." So do opposite ten
dencies struggle for mastery. It is a symbol of the
whole future history of the Church. Ecclesiastical
order, venerable rites, sacred tradition, fixity of
usage and belief, institutional cohesion, and the
enthusiasm born of corporate action on the one
hand, — liberty of judgment, the free Hfe of the
spirit, development of religious thought in the
light of advancing knowledge, fresh applications
of truth to the needs of a social order that can
never cease to change, upon the other — this is the
choice which is for ever presented to us. You may
take which you please, said Emerson, you never
can have both.

.LECTURE II
THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE SAVIOUR
WHEN PHny described the Christians in
Bithynia as singing hymns to Christ quasi
Deo, ' he fixed on an element in their practice which
was at once the expression and the support of
faith. All over the East there were associations
for special cults, often linked with particular types
of mysteries. Orpheus, for instance, was the
object of worship in numerous guilds, sometimes
in union with the Muses, or with his father ApoUo
(according to one form of the legend) or with
Dionysos and his satyrs. They preserved sacred
traditions of their reputed founder as the author of
poetry and song, and they cherished certain rules
of the devout life. They developed a mystical
theology, partly enshrined in a late collection of
hymns bearing his name; and they sought by holy
rites to lighten the lot of those who had passed
into the world beyond the grave.' In their
common worship they united in sacrifice and
prayer: "Hear me with kindly mind," sang the
I Cp. Lect. I, p. I.
» Cp. Gruppe, in Roscher's Lexikon, III, i, p. 1 107.
61

62 Phases of Early Christianity
ministrant to Apollo, "as I pray for the people
. . . hear me, O Blessed, who savest the my^to."'
Orpheus had gone down into the underworld,
and the story of his Katabasis (descent) was the
forerunner of the long series which culminated in
Dante's Inferno. He was associated, therefore,
with the hope of immortality; he brought peace
and harmony into the strife of beasts; he was the
gouiidXo? or Shepherd of the believers. ' Such affini
ties were discerned by the primitive Christians be
tween Orpheus and their own "Teacher" that
they painted his figure on the waUs of their cata
combs as the musician subduing savage lions, or
carved it on their sarcophagi, in close connection
with the type of the Good Shepherd.
Hellenic theology (as we have seen') readUy
applied the title Theos to those who had attained
immortality: and this was the more natural for
Greek-speaking Christians when the primitive
confession that "Jesus is Lord"" was carried from
Jerusalem throughout the East. The first sermon
attributed to Peter at Pentecost declared that
God had made Jesus both Lord and Messiah by
the resurrection.' Jesus had himself, in accord
ance (it would seem) with current usage, applied
the language of Psalm cx with the same meaning. *
' Hymns, xxxiv, lo, 27; the Xaof are apparently the initiated,
the members of the community.
" On this title cp. Maass, Orpheus (1895), p. 180.
3 Cp. Lect. I, p. 52. 4 Rorri. x, 9; i Cor. xii, 3. ^ Acts ii, 36.
' Mark xii, 35-37. Professor Bousset in his exhaustive work
Kyrios Christos (1913) regards this as a piece of later dogmatics,

The Person and Work of the Saviour 63
The formula Mar an athd, "Our Lord is coming"
(or "Our Lord, come!", i Cor. xvi, 22), points
to a primitive use in the Aramean vernacular of
the early Church; and behind the Church stood
the Jewish piety which had long ceased to use the
ancient divine name Yahweh, and substituted for
it a word represented in the Greek version of the
Scriptures by the term Kyrios, "the Lord."
This enabled the Apostle Paul to apply to Jesus
as the Messiah a number of passages which in their
original context in the Old Testament referred to
the God of Israel. He distinguishes in the most
formal manner between "one God, the Father, of
whom are all things," and "one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things"'; and the
letter to the Ephesians (round . which so many
puzzling problems gather) actually designates
the Father as "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ"
(i, 17). But the term Kyrios carried with it
throughout the East exalted meanings, and was
applied to a wide range of deities.
The correlative of "Lord" was "slave," the
equivalent of the ancient Hebrew term which
described the prophets as the ' ' slaves ' ' of Yahweh. '
It was the current designation for the worshippers
p. 51, and supposes the title to have arisen in the early Hellenist
Christian communities, p. 119, possibly at Antioch. In Preu-
schen's Zeitschr. fur N. T. Wissenschaft, XIV (1913), P- 28,
B6hlig argues for a Syrian origin, against Johannes Weiss who
follows the usual view that the formula Mdrdn atha was Judeo-
Christian. » I Cor. viii, 6; cp. Eph. iv, 5-6. ' Amos iii, 7.

64 Phases of Early Christianity
of Oriental powers, but did not belong to the
religious vocabulary of Greece. Paul does not
hesitate to announce himself as the "slave" of
Jesus Christ, ' but at the same time he is eager to
tell the slave who is called in the Lord that he is
the Lord's freeman.' For Christ brings Hberty
to the slave of sin; he turns the servitude of the
law into the adoption of sonship ; from bondage to
the agents that guide the heavenly bodies but are
no real gods he rescues the believer into the
freedom of true knowledge.' "You were bought
with a price," he tells the Corinthians,'' using the
customary terms of manumission.' One aspect
of redemption was the believer's deliverance from
the control of hostile powers; and this implied
still more exalted might in the Redeemer.
Many were the deities whose worshippers thus
inscribed themselves their "slaves." The title
Kyrios is found all through the East from Egypt
to Syria, Asia Minor, Thrace. It was bestowed
upon the gods of the NUe, like Anubis, Osiris, or
Sarapis*; and the Lady Isis was designated Kyria.
Obscure Semitic forms bore it in the neighbour-
' Rom. i, I. "I Cor. vii, 22. 3 Gal. iv, l-io.
4 1 Cor. vi, 20; vii, 23.
3 Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (1910), p. 328. The
fourth Gospel sets the term aside: "No longer do I caU you
slaves, for the slave knows not what the Kyrios does, but I
have called you friends" (xv, 15).
' The second-century invitations to sup at the table of the
Lord Sarapis are now weU known. Oxyrhynckus Papyri, Nos.
no and 523.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 65
hood of the great HeUenic figures of Apollo, As
klepios, Dionysos, Hermes, Pluto, Zeus, beside the
majestic goddesses Artemis, Athena, Hera, and
the stern Nemesis. The title thus carried impHca-
tions of deity within it, which were enhanced
by its adoption in imperial style. "Dominus et
Deus meus" wrote the secretary of Domitian on
his master's behalf. ' Augustus and Tiberius had
forbidden the use of the term conceming them
selves, but it crept in from the court-homage of the
East; Caligula aUowed it; it was employed for
Claudius ; it became well established under Nero, '
who was caUed "Lord of the whole world." To
this claim Antoninus Pius added the ocean-sover
eignty: "I am Lord of the world and the Law of
the sea."' Such assumption awoke repeated
protest. Soon after the destruction of Jerusalem
in A. D. 70, Jews in Egypt, men and boys, suffered
death, refusing to call Csesar " Lord, " because they
held that title to belong to God alone." To the
deity of Caesar the Christian opposed the heavenly
sovereign whom the seer of the Apocalypse beheld
riding forth to war with the mysterious name upon
his thigh, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords."'
When the martyrs of ScilH in Numidia were
' Suetonius, Domitian, xiii.
' Cp. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 357~8.
3 Lietzmann, Handbuch zum Neuen Test., iii (1906), p. 54, on
Rom. X, 9.
4 Josephus, Wars, VII, x, i, cited by Deissmann, Light, etc.,
P- 359- 3 Rev. xix, 16.
5 ...---

66 Phases of Early Christianity
brought before the proconsul Satuminus, A.D.
180, he bade them "swear by the Genius of our
Lord the Emperor." "The empire of this world
I know not, " replied Speratus; "I know my Lord,
the King of Kings and Emperor of all nations."'
Like the term Sot6r, Kyrios also served to point
the contrast between two powers. What was the
might seated upon the Seven HiUs compared with
the majesty throned at God's right hand, and
invested with the supremacy over the hierarchies
of heaven, the dweUers upon earth, and the de
monic hosts inhabiting the realms beneath!'
i This was the corollary in the Christian's confes
sion according to the Apostle Paul : Jesus was Lord
and God had raised him from the dead. At
Jerusalem the argimient had been reversed. God
had raised Jesus, and thereby made him Lord.
Paul speaks out of an immediate experience which
he could interpret only in one way. He had been
arrested midway in his course; a power from
heaven had laid hold of him; Hght burst upon him,
a voice sounded through the air; henceforth he
belonged no more to himself ; he had been captured
by Christ who had died for him; what could he
do but give his life to him! From day to day he
spoke and wrought and suffered in the strength
of Another who was his real owner. As he carried
the good news from city to city, he saw others
' Cambridge Texts and Studies, ed. J. A. Robinson, Vol. I, no. 2
(1891), p. 112.
'Philipp. ii, 10-11.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 67
transformed after they had heard the word. The
new life was incalculably diffusive, it could not be
confined by race or rank or sex. Christ was the
same to Greek and Jew, to slave and free. This
deathless being shared the immortahty of God.
First-born among many brethren' he stood at the
head of the new spiritual humanity. As Son of
Man aU things were subjected to him. The
mysterious forces of evU in the worlds above, the
PrincipaHties, Authorities, and Powers, ^ should be
brought to nought, and Death himself, last and
worst enemy, at length should die. Then the
victorious Lord would make a second great sur
render. Once he had relinquished his glorious
form, accepted the lot of our mortality, and
condescended to die upon the cross. Now he
would resign the sovereignty conferred upon
him for his strenuous task, would lay aside the
conqueror's majesty, present to God a world
cleared of all enemies, and submit himself once
more to the Father's wUl, that God might be
all in all. '
Into the fellowship of this august Lord the dis
ciple was baptized. His name was invoked on the
beHever who was thus consecrated to him, brought
into the sphere of his influence, and made an actual
sharer in his death and resurrection.'' The
"saints" were crucified to the world; they were
'Rom. viii, 29; Rev. i., 5 more explicitly, "first-bom from
the dead."
' See Note A, p. 129. 3 1 Cor. xv, 24-28. * Cp. Lect. IV.

68 Phases of Early Christianity
risen with Christ; the Spirit which was the pledge
of immortality had been implanted in them.
The whole life of the Church was enveloped in the
age-long purpose of God, and it drew its daily
strength from its heavenly Head. By the identi
fication of "the Lord" with "the Spirit" aU the
new powers and energies developed under its
influence were transformed into personal gifts from
the ascended Christ . ' From him came the wisdom
of the teacher, the vision of the prophet, the
skill of the administrator. His was the force that
healed disease and controUed tormenting demons;
the words of edification and comfort fiowed from
his inspiration. The broken bread, the cup of
wine, eaten and drunk in remembrance of him,
brought the brethren into the most intimate
relation with him.' Prayer rose from the con
gregation in his name; and psalm and hymn were
charged with the intense emotion of those who had
cast off the works of darkness and put on the
armour of Hght. Before them stood the judg
ment-seat of God, but it was Christ who would
test the secrets of their hearts. ' Was it surprising
that "the man whom God had ordained" for that
exalted function" should rise into proportions
no other than divine ?
The heirs of the Jerusalem tradition did not aU,
indeed, share these vivid experiences. In the
ancient capital stood the Temple, the centre of
' 2 Cor. iii, 17; I Cor. xii, 4 ff.; Eph. iv, 7 ff.
' Cp. Lect. IV. 3 Rom. ii, 16; xiv, 10. 4 Acts xvii, 31.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 69
hallowed worship to which the eyes of the Jew
turned with longing from the most distant lands.
There was the home of the Law-, the divine gift
to Israel among all the nations of the earth, its
unique privilege, its most cherished possession.
To this the first believers remained loyal. They
daily thronged the Temple courts; they kept the
Sabbath ; they observed the dietary rules ; and they
expected that their converts would maintain the
usages which separated the Gentile from the Jew.
What difficulties arose when the new faith was
carried beyond the limits of Palestine, the letters
of the Apostle Paul and the narrative of the book
of Acts sufficiently reveal. At the head of the
Jerusalem church was James, the brother of the
Lord, whose strict adhesion to the venerable de
mands of his religion gained for him the designation
of "the Righteous." Shortly after his death' (in
the year 61 or 62 a.d.) came the beginnings of
revolt in the desperate attempt to recover national
independence. Judaea and Galilee were filled with
wild hopes roused by patriots and prophets pre
dicting the advent of a new age. The four years
of the Roman terror (66-70 a.d.) ended in the fall
of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.
The agony of those days is refiected in the dis
course attributed to Jesus on the Mount of OHves. '
The Christians probably took no share in the rebel-
' Mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, Antiquities,
XX, ix.
' Mark xiii, and parallels.

70 Phases of Early Christianity
lion, but as the Roman troops paraded the country
they may have been involved in the fate of the
vanquished. Many local congregations were
broken up, the groups of the faithful were dis
persed, Httle knots of beHevers disappeared, plun
dered, outraged, enslaved. From the doomed city
a devout band made their escape under prophetic
warning. "The people of the church in Jeru
salem," Eusebius relates,' "had been commanded
by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men
before the war, to leave the city and dweU in a
certain town of Perea called Pella." There be
yond the Jordan on the north-east in the territory
of Herod Agrippa II, the fugitives found a home.
The fate of those who remained was involved in
the great tragedy, and only doubtful traditions
show the pathetic anxiety of the survivors to
secure the leadership of relatives of Jesus. One
story ran that after the capture of Jerusalem the
surviving apostles and disciples assembled from
all parts with the kinsmen of the Lord to appoint
a successor to James. The choice fell on Symeon,
son of Clopas, whom Hegesippus identified as
brother of Joseph.' The Jews were stUl numer
ous enough to give anxiety to the Roman govern
ment, and the same collector of anecdotes relates
that the Emperor Domitian gave orders for the
execution of any claimants to descent from David.
Two grandsons of Jude, one of the brothers of
' Hist. Eccl., Ill, V.
' John xix, 25; Euseb., Hist. Eccl., Ill, xi; cp. IV, xxii, 4.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 71
Jesus, were brought before him.' They owned a
little farm out of which they made a scanty living,
and offered their hands, rugged with labour, in
proof of their humble lot. No danger threatened
the imperial throne from such representatives of
ancient royalty. Dismissed with scorn they re
tumed to their poor home, and became rulers
of churches as witnesses and relatives of the
Lord.' Small scattered meetings thus preserved in
remote towns and hamlets the memories of the
early days of the community at Jerusalem.
Their members were the heirs of the situation
indicated in the book of Acts. They maintained
the observance of the Jewish Law; they practised
circumcision and kept the Sabbath. There were
some, however, who did not impose these require
ments on others; and Justin, who had been bom
at Neapolis in Samaria, ' thought that they should
be received in fellowship and treated in all re
spects as brethren. But there were others who
stUl wished to lay on Gentiles the duty of conform
ing to the traditional ordinances, and refused all
intercourse with those who did not adopt the
Mosaic rules. Of such exclusiveness Justin did
not approve, though he would not deny that con-
I Euseb., Hist. Eccl., Ill, xx.
' Symeon was said to have lived to the immense age of 120
years, when he suffered crucifixion under Trajan. Euseb., Hist.
Eccl., Ill, xxxii.
3 The modem Nablous, between the ancient mountains Ebal
and Gerizlm.

^2 Phases of Early Christianity
verts who accepted the Law might stiU be saved.*
Both these types of Jewish Christians cltmg to
humanitarian views of the person of Christ; they
rejected his miraculous conception and his Deity.
To Justin this was no reason for refusing them the
Christian name : differences of practice were then
of more consequence than diversities of belief.
In the next generation, however, Iren^us reck
ons them as heretics,' and he is the first to give
them the well-known name of Ebionites, the "Poor
Men." He probably had no personal acquaint
ance with them, and only knew them by repute.
Against the Gnostics they held the ancient Jewish
doctrine of the creation of the world by God, and
were thus in accord with orthodox faith; but they
persisted in believing that Jesus was born in human
fashion; and they repudiated Paul as an apostate
from the Law. So Judaic were they in style of
life that they even adored Jerusalem as the house
of God. They were known to Origen in the middle
of the third century when he had long been resident
at Caesarea, and he foimd their exemplar in Peter
who was slow in learning to ascend from the Law
according to the letter to that which is interpreted
in the spirit.' Their name he quaintly derives
from the poverty of the Law; others crueUy sug
gested the paucity of their intelligence; Eusebius
explained it by the meanness of their opinions
concerning Christ; some assimUated them with
^ Dial., xlvii. ''Adv. Heeres., I, xxvi, 2.
3 Contra Cels., II, i, I.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 73
the Poor and Meek of the Psalms and Beatitudes;
while it has also been suggested that they may
have been known in Jerusalem as the "Needy"
from the economic circumstances of the early
Church. Small congregations stUl maintained a
precarious existence in the fourth century. They
possessed a Gospel "according to the Hebrews"'
which began, according to Epiphanius (Bishop of
Salamis in Cyprus, d. 403), "It came to pass in
the days of Herod, King of Judaea, John came bap
tizing the baptism of repentance in the river
Jordan." To the heavenly voice recorded in
Matt, iii., 17, a second utterance was added,
"This day have I begotten thee,"' which held its
own for more than three centuries among Greek
and Latin writers both in the East and West.'
But this type of Christianity had no diffusive
power. Its rigid demands met no universal needs.
A Messiah who realized his function through the
perfect fulfilment of the Law" could be no Re
deemer for the human race. Nevertheless there
were elements in the interpretation of the person
' It appears to have existed in more than one form, and
Jerome found a copy in the library founded by the martyr
Pamphilus at Cassarea. He translated it from the vernacular
Aramean into Greek, and records that it was regarded by many
as the original of Matthew.
»An aUusion to Ps. ii, 7. This is the well-known reading
of the Codex Beza in Luke iii, 22. On the so-called "Adop-
tianist" Christology see Note B. See the passages from Jerome
and Epiphanius in Preuschen's AntUegomena'', pp. 3 ff. and 9 ff.
3 Cp. Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest (1889), pp. 40-45.
4 Cp. Justin, Dial., Ixvii.

74 Phases of Early Christianity
of Christ which could not be repressed; and when
the rationalism of later days broke out at Rome or
Antioch, a filiation with a mythical foimder was
established, and Artemas, and Paul were linked in
succession to an imaginary Ebion. '
Many were the currents of thought and feeling
in the wider world, which played on the new faith
as it encountered ancient cults and later-bom
philosophies. Justin did not disdain to commend
it to Emperor and people by comparisons and
analogies with their own sacred figures. Even if
Jesus were a man by ordinary birth, his wisdom
entitled him to be ranked as Son of God'; but
why should those who accepted Perseus as virgin-
born refuse to believe the same of him? The won
drous cures of the lame and blind resembled those
ascribed to ^sculapius, who had been translated
to the skies. Spectators even swore that they
had seen the burning Cssar ascend to heaven
from the funeral pyre. If Hermes was the
messenger Logos from God, interpreter of his ways
to men, why not also Christ?' The missionary
ardour which bore the new teaching from city to
city and land to land naturally magnified its
' Cp. Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VII, xxx, i6. On Artemas, the dis
ciple of Theodotus at Rome, and Paul, Bishop of Antioch and
Viceroy of Queen Zenobia, see Note D, p. 133.
' So Epictetus, of the wise man, iiiv toB 9coS, Arrian, I, ix.
3 I Apol., xxi, xxii. On the application of such terms as "Lord,"
"Messenger of God," "God among men," "bishop" (or "over
seer"), to philosophers, see Harnack, Hist, of Dogma (Engl.
transl.), i, p. 119^, fourth German ed. (1909), i, p. 138.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 75
message. Each fresh church, though it might
gather within it but a dozen famUies, was a little
seed-plot of truth, and extended the reign of the
heavenly Lord. The victory over the Powers of
Evil became day by day more sure as the precious
gift of immortality was conferred upon increasing
multitudes; what a note of triumph sounds again
and again through Christian literature as the
apologists of the faith describe the place of be
lievers in the society around them! The Chris
tians are in the world what the soul is in the body,
says the author of the Letter to Diognetus proudly. '
The soul is diffused through every limb, and
the Christians through every city. Aristides
had ascribed the stabUity of the universe to
their intercession. ' FoUowing the analogy of the
soul which sustains the organism enclosing it,
the teacher of Diognetus declares that though the
world is the Christians' prison, they supply the
energy by which it is upheld. And as the vision
of the seer penetrated the heavens to the throne of
God, he gazed on a great multitude which no
man could number, out of. every nation and tribe
and people and tongue, and knew that believers
had been already bought for God and invested
with a royalty even on earth which no imperial
purple could confer. '
But the language of religion is often inadequate
to its feeling. In the church at Rome at the end
I Ep. ad Diognet., vi, i. " Apology, xvi.
3 Rev. vii, 9; v, 9, 10.

76 Phases of Early Christianity
of the first century Jesus is still the "beloved
Servant,"' and the prayer runs, "Let aU nations
know that thou art God alone, and that Jesus
Christ is thy Servant." The Christian possesses
"one God( one Christ, and one spirit of grace";
God is the "Father and Creator of the whole
world," its "Demiurge and Master," who has
ordained all things in peace and concord, free
from wrath towards all his creatures.' The
Shepherd bids Hermas believe that God is One,
Creator and Perfecter of aU things, who brought
all things into being out of what was not.' This
is in fact the speech of the higher Judaism, in
contact with the philosophy of Greece." The
argument from the order of the universe to the
unity of God was quite famUiar in the schools;
and the wonders of Providence caUed forth from
Epictetus an impassioned summons to join him in
singing hymns of praise.' The place of Christ
in this mode of thought was undefined. He has
been sent forth as Saviour and Prince of incorrup
tion by the "only God invisible, the Father of
truth"*; but just as the Angel of Repentance tells
• I Clem., lix, I, as in Acts iii, 13, 26; iv, 27. The same title
is used in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, ix-x, and in the
Letter to Diognetus, viii-ix.
' I Clem., xix, xx, xxxiii. 3 Shepherd, Mand. i.
4 Cp. Plato in the Timaus, "the Father and Maker of aU this
universe," p. 28, "the Father and Creator," p. 37; Philo, De Vit.
Contempt., xi, "the Father and Creator of the Universe," and so
often. 3 Arrian, I, xvi. ' 2 Clem., xx, 5.

The Person and Work of the Saviour ^^
Hermas that the Holy Spirit is the Son of God,
so does the homiUst (designated as 2 Clement)
declare that the Spirit is Christ.' No such
vagueness marks the thought of Ignatius of
Antioch. He may indeed use salutations of the
Pauline type, and greet the Philadelphians as the
"Church of God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ " ; but more august titles flow naturally from
his thought, and to Rome he writes of "the Most
High Father and of Jesus Christ his only Son . . .
our God." The ardour of faith breaks out in
the contemplation of his wondrous birth, "our
God Jesus the Christ was conceived by Mary";
it is as easy for him to speak of "God's bread"
and "God's blood" as of "God's kingdom" or
"God's wiU."' That he was truly bom, that he
ate and drank, that he was truly crucifled under
Pontius Pilate, that his death was witnessed by
the dwellers in heaven, on earth, and beneath
the earth, and that he was truly raised from the
dead, were the indispensable facts for salva
tion.' The Eternal Father who was invisible
was also unheard; but out of the Silence came
forth his Word, and Christ was the divine Speech
of God to man." So complete was his identi
fication with the historic descendant of David
that he could designate him as "begotten and
• Hermas, Shepherd, Simil. IX, i, i ; 2 Clem., xiv, 4; cp. Lake,
Stewardship of the Faith, p. 145.
= Ephes. xviii, 2; Rom. vii, 3; Ephes. i, i.
3 Trail., ix; cp. Smyrn., i. 4 Magnes., viii, 2.

78 Phases of Early Christianity
unbegotten, God in man, . . . Jesus Christ our
Lord.'" The stress which Ignatius laid on the incidents
of Christ's earthly life was directed against an
early form of heresy which denied that he had come
"in the flesh." It was already denounced in the
letters ascribed in a later generation to "John,"'
and it implied that Jesus had only worn the sem
blance of a human person; his body was an appear
ance, not a reality. This view belonged to a type
of doctrine commonly designated by the epithet
"Gnostic," which spread in numerous sects from
East to West, and gravely threatened the unity of
Church teaching and Hfe. ' They, too, sought the
deliverance of the soul which they saw entangled
in the world of matter; they, too, found in Christ
a Saviour or Redeemer who had descended to
earth to show the initiated the way of salvation.
They had their holy rites, their sacraments, strange
, baptisms and unctions, their bridal chamber,
their consecrated food and drink. They had their
meeting-places and their books, their grades of
spiritual rank, their leaders and teachers, and
they constantly tended to split up into new sects.
' Ephes. vii. On the theological difficulty involved in the
term iyivvriros see Professor Bethune-Baker, Introduction to the
Early History of Christian Doctrine (1903), p. 122'. Ignatius
does not use the Johannine term /Mmyev^s.
' I John iv, 2-3 ; 2 John, 7.
3 See Lect. V. The particular view that Christ only wore a
seeming body is known as Docetism. An analogous belief appears
in Buddhism in the third century B.C.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 79
Among these teachers in the middle of the second
century was Marcion. He did not, indeed, claim
the possession of a secret gnosis or "knowledge,"
for his watchword was faith; and on this ground
Harnack decHnes to reckon him among the
Gnostics, in the strict sense of the term.' He
claimed to be a Christian ; he founded his teaching
upon Christian Scriptures^ without alleging the
support of private tradition. But he is described
as a disciple of the Gnostic Cerdo; he was a
duaUst in his interpretation of the world ; like aU
Gnostics he held the Docetic view of Christ's
body; and the austerities which he practised
himself and demanded of his followers connected
him with the extreme ascetic wing of the general
movement. Marcion was a wealthy shipbuilder of SinopS
on the Black Sea. Sometime after the year
139 A.D. he came to Rome, and joined the Church,
making a generous contribution to its funds. He
did not succeed in winning over the leaders to his
views, and about 144 he either left it or was put
out, the authorities honourably restoring his
donation. Christianity as he saw it in the
imperial city was secularized and corrupted; he
claimed to restore it to its original purity, and
bring it back to the true religion of Jesus and
» History of Dogma, i, p. 266.
' The Gospel according to Luke, and ten Epistles of Paul.
This selection of an authoritative group as a standard of faith
prepared the way for a New Testament "Canon" beside the Old.

8o Phases of Early Christianity
Paul. None of his own works have survived,
but one after another of the great Church writers
strove to meet him in argument. Justin speaks
of him as a contemporary whose teaching has
been spread by demons among every race.' It
proved curiously attractive. He himself traveUed .
widely to diffuse it. The earUest known inscription
on any church-building is found in a Syrian viUage
on a stone bearing the date 318, "Synagogue of
the Marcionists." At the end of the fourth
century his followers were still active in Rome and
Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Arabia, and even
Persia. Unlike the speculative Gnostic metaphysicians
Marcion was not concerned with the transition
from the absolute simpHcity of the Divine Being
to the complex world of our experience. He
interposed no chain of aeons or emanations between
the ultimate Unity and the material scene. He
was a biblical dualist, discovering a series of
contrasts between the God of the Old Testament,
stern, retributive, vengeful, and the God of the
New, revealed by Jesus and taught by Paul, full
of righteousness and love. The former, the
God of the Jews, was also the Creator or Demiurge;
from him came the universe and the Mosaic law;
he was the Deity of a particular people; what his
relation was ontologically to the Father disclosed
by Jesus, the God of all mankind, Marcion seems
never to have explained. He accepted them
' I Apol., xxvi; cp. Iviii.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 8i
both on the authority of Scripture, and in a
famous work entitled the "Antitheses" or "Con
trasts" he arrayed a series of oppositions between
the rehgion of the Law on the one side and that of
the Gospel on the other. ' If the Law demanded
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (which
lawyer TertulHan defended as a provision for
restraining violence rather than a permission for
mutual injury),' the Gospel forbade it; if the
God of the Old Testament rained fire from heaven
on EHjah's foes, Jesus would not suffer his disciples
to invoke such aid. Marcion made no attempt
Hke Philo to save the Hebrew Scriptures for devout
use by allegorical interpretation, still less could
he anticipate Augustine's great conception of the
eruditio of mankind by progressive revelation.
To him the books of the Pentateuch meant just
what they said, and a lofty and earnest moral
sense revolted against it. The good God then
sent down his Son, whom Marcion seems to have
regarded as a manifestation of himself. The only
Gospel which Marcion accepted was that accord
ing to Luke. He excised the birth-stories, the
account of John's ministry and the baptism of
Jesus,' and began abruptly, "In the fifteenth year
of Tiberius God came down [i.e. from heaven]
' It is probable that this work is intended in x Tim. vi, 20
(a possible addition to the main letter), where Timothy is ex
horted to "guard the deposit" and turn away from "the Antithe
ses of the Gnosis falsely so called."
' Adv. Marc, ii, 18.

82 Phases of Early Christianity
to Capernaum."' Christ's whole career was
accordingly conceived upon Docetic Hnes. Such
a being had no need of birth, he appeared when
the time was ripe in fuU-grown manhood. "Who
is my mother?" he asked, proving that he owned
no human origin.' Did the risen Jesus say, "A
spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have, "
the words only meant, "A spirit has no flesh and
bones, and you see that I have them only as a
spirit has."'
Such teaching endangered the whole faith. A
phantom Christ who never reaUy suffered could
be no true Redeemer. The error was deadly;
the entire conception of salvation was under
mined. To guard the historic reaUty became an
urgent necessity, and the Church of Rome began
to organize its defence. The convert at baptism
was "washed," says Justin, "in the name of
God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of
our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit."''
Such was already the expansion of the baptismal
formula from its simplest type, "in the name of
Jesus Christ."' To identify Jesus Christ, it
would seem, the historic detail "crucified under
' Combining Luke iii, I, and iv, 31, Tert., Adv. Marc, iv, 7,
reading Deum for eum; cp. Kruger, Das Dogma der Dreidnigkeit
(1905), p. 36.
» Tert., ibid., iv, 19. 3 Tert., ibid., iv, 43.
4 1 Apol., Ixi.
^ Acts ii, 38; viii, 16; x, 48; xix, 5. The difference compared
with Matt, xxviii, 19, and Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, vii, is
noteworthy.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 83
Pontius Pilate" was added, while the Holy Spirit
was described as having "foretold all things about
Jesus through the prophets. ' ' Here is the tendency
to define in exposition. Justin mentions no creed
demanded from the candidate. But a generation
later Irenaeus knows a "Rule of Truth,"' and
TertulHan can recite a "Rule of Faith,"' and
from their statements a primitive Roman confes
sion may be inferred :
I believe in God the Father Almighty: and in Jesus
Christ his Son, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified
under Pontius Pilate and btu-ied, the third day he
rose from the dead, he ascended into the heavens,
sitteth at the right hand of the Father, whence he
shall come to judge the living and the dead: and in
the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection of the flesh.'
Out of what precise Hturgical formiilae this
Credo was compiled we need not enquire. The
stress faUs on the human life rather than the
divine nature of the Son. He is, indeed, in one
form designated monogenis, "only" or "unique.""
' Adv. Har., I, ix, 4, about 185 a.d. ' De Virg. Velandis, i.
3 Cp. McGiffert, The Apostles' Creed (1902), p. 100, and
Kruger, Das Dogma der Dreieinigkeit, pp. 41-70, who gives the
second article in this form: "and in Jesus Christ, his only
Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and Mary
the Virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, and on the
third day risen from the dead, carried up into heaven and sitting
at the right hand of the Father, from thence he wiU come to
judge the living and the dead" (p. 53).
4 It is used, for instance, of the "only son" of the widow of
Nain, Luke vii, 12. In the Orphic theology the epithet is

84 Phases of Early Christianity
But he is described neither as "Saviour" nor as
"Word"; not even the title "our Lord" is added
to his name; the name "Son" is enough to indi
cate his heavenly rank; was it not to him that
God said, "Let us make man after our image"?'
Then he was spirit, incapable of being seen by
mortal eyes ; only by his coming in the flesh could
men behold him and be saved.' The reality of
his mortal life, therefore, and of his death, attested
by his burial, was of fundamental importance,
just as the resurrection and ascension were needed
to prove his immortality.
The "Rule of Truth," therefore, designed for
the protection of the believer against Gnostic
error, was not concerned with a definition of the
nature of the Son in relation to the Godhead,
whose designation "Father Almighty" indicated
his character as "Father and Creator of the
world." But the exponents of Christian teaching
could not ignore this aspect of the Son's being.
The defence of the faith enHsted many of the
ablest writers in the Church for three hundred
years, down to the noblest of all apologies, the
treatise on the "City of God" by St. Augustine.'
It had, in fact, to meet attacks from many sides.
applied to Athena and Demeter. The second seon in the Ogdoad
of the Valentinian Gnostics also bore the title, derived per
haps from John i, i8. Cp. Wobbermin, Religionsgeschichtliche
Studien (1896), p. 114 ff.
' Ep. Barnab., vi, 12 ; cp. v, 5. ' Ibid., v, 10; 2 Clem., ix, 5.
3 Its composition extended over several years, between 413
and 426.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 85
Ignorance and its offspring ill-wiU exposed it to
base charges of immorality and excess; and the
champion of the faith must vindicate the purity
of beHevers' lives, he must display their character
as good citizens, their readiness to fulfil civic duty,
and discharge the offices of brotherly love. Against
the popular reHgions with their odious tales of the
gods, their shameless displays in the theatres,
their cruel sacrifices and obscene rites, he must
exalt the sublimity of the worship of One God.
To the diversities of philosophy he must present
the unity of revelation from the first days of
creation tUl its culmination in the person of
Christ. The Jew must be convinced that the
predictions of his prophets were fulfilled in Jesus.
The weapons of the heretic must be wrested from
him, and he must be convicted of vain imagi
nations and the mishandUng of the sacred records.
None of these aims could be achieved independ
ently of Christ. His person was, of necessity, the
central theme. But the arguments might be
conducted along different lines, and the group of
Apologists, as modern students have designated
them, ' sought to exhibit Christianity as a rational
scheme of thought and life.
The instrument employed for this purpose
was the philosophical conception of the Logos,
at once the inner Reason and the outer Word
(or utterance) of God. Philo of Alexandria had
applied it in expounding the hidden truths of the
' See Note C, p. 131.

86 Phases of Early Christianity'^
sacred laws of Israel alike to his own co-reH-
gionists and to the cultivated Greek.' Three
centuries before, the Stoic Cleanthes had sung
of Zeus who guided all things by law, and
harmonized good with evil in one whole so
that there was one Logos for all things ever
lastingly. Such Law, such Reason, were uni
versal'; they belonged to the very nature of
God himself, and could not be in any way
detached from his essential Being. Btit in the
first century of our era the conception was
presented in new forms. The older Stoicism
practically identified God, the Logos, and the
world; they were conterminous with each other
and intrinsically the same, viewed under different
aspects. In accommodating itself to the popular
theology Stoic thought made fresh identifications.
Writing on Greek theology [in the reign of Nero]
the philosopher Cornutus' sought to interpret the
old mythology in the light of more spiritual ideas,
and portrayed Hermes, the ancient messenger or
herald of the gods, as the Logos sent from heaven
to man, the agent of revelation, the medium of
intercourse between Deity and the children of
earth. We have already seen how Justin appeals
to this "Son of God" by way of comparison with
the title and function of Christ. In the Hermetic
Hterature, which is now known to have Egyptian
' Cp. Lect. v.
' The epithet Koivds is appUed to both.
3 According to the usual view of the 'EXXijwk^ OeoKoyCa,

The Person and Work of the Saviour 87
theological ideas behind it, ' and emerges into view
about the end of the first century, the radiant
Logos issues out of Mind, as "Son of God."'
"Know," says the Man-Shepherd, "that what
sees and hears in thee is the Lord's Logos, but
Mind is God the Father." When the disciple
enquires, "'Whence have Nature's elements their
being?" the answer is — "From God's will, which
received the Logos, and after contemplating the
beautiful world [i.e. the world of ideal forms]
imitated it."' And the concluding prayer ad
dressed to "God the Father of the universe"
declares him holy "for thou didst by Logos create
the things that are. ' ' " Philosophy could thus unite
the two aspects of the Logos in nature and man,
and in the third century Porphyry could still call
Hermes the representative of the Logos which ' ' both
creates and interprets all things."'
The Christian poet in the Odes of Solomon
touches on the same themes, but with prophecy
and psalm behind him the "Word" has sometimes
the more direct meaning of utterance, which many
critics are now advocating as the true significance
of the Johannine phrase, "In the beginning was
the Logos."* From this side he can say that
"the mouth of the Lord is the true Word, and the
' Cp. Reitzenstein, ZweiReligionsgeschichtlicheFragen(igoi),Tl,
" Schopf ungsmy then und Logoslehre"; and Poimandres (1904).
' Poimandres, § 6. 3 ibid., § 8. 4 ibid., § 31.
3 Euseb. Prap. Evang., Ill, xi.
'Cp. Loofs, What is the Truth about Jesus Christ? (1913)1
p. 188.

88 Phases of Early Christianity
door of his Hght"; and can add that "the Most
High hath given it to his worlds,' which are the
interpreters of his beauty, the narrators of his
glory, the proclaimers of his counsel, and the
heralds of his thought."' It is the moral quahty
of the Word which awakes the poet's especial
reverence, for "from it came love and concord";
that is the secret of the harmony of the worlds
which recognize their Maker's hand; it should be
also the rule of human Hfe, for "the dwelHng-place
of the Word is man, and its truth is love."' But
it is not without cosmic functions also, for it
searches out all things, and while God may rest
from his works, created things know not how
to stand or be idle, for his hosts obey his Word. "
And it is finaUy impersonated in Jesus, though
he is never named, for at last the poet breaks
out: His bounty begat me and the thought of his heart.
And his Word is with us in all our way.
The Saviour who makes alive and rejects not our
souls.
The Man who was humbled, and exalted by his right
eousness;
The Son of the Most High appeared in the perfection
of his Father,
And light dawned from the Word that was before
time in him;
' Possibly "his aeons" originaUy, a semi-Gnostic touch.
' Odes of Solomon, xii, 3-4.
3 Ibid., xii, 9-1 1. 1 1bid., xvi, 8-15.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 89
The Messiah is truly one, and he was known before
the foundation of the world.
That he might save souls for ever by the truth of
his name.'
Such were some of the phases of the Logos
conceived as a principle of Revelation and of
Cosmic Order. Now one aspect is prominent
in the Apologists, and now the other. Against
the popular idolatries their argument is not
without parallel in the higher Judaism and the
best teachings of philosophy. The second century
had its preachers of monotheism, in which the
appeal to the order of Nature and to reason and
conscience in man was vigorously emphasized.
With monotheism came the hope of immortality,
and the yearning for spiritual fellowship with
God. Christianity proposed to define and estab
lish these trusts more firmly by planting them
on the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a religion
historically guaranteed by the appearance of the
Son of God in human form. Here was the future
secured by the promise of the resurrection, which
provided incorruption for the whole being, and
included body as well as soul.' The stress
may vary on different elements of the faith;
in argument with the Jew Trypho Justin
necessarily dwells on what separates the Church
from the Synagogue; to the Roman rulers and
people he offers the completion in Christ of
' Odes of Solomon, xii, 11-15. ' Cp. Lect. I, p. 33.

90 Phases of Early Christianity
what had been only imperfectly reaHzed by
philosophy. The Apologies are not sermons to beHevers,
they are addressed to the common educated
intelligence of the unconverted.' They only
threaten incidentally; their aim is to persuade.
In the background for the most part lie the beUefs
and usages of the Church, warnings of judgment
and torments of hell. Their main purpose is to
supply a rational explanation of the worship of a
crucified man. No mighty spirit reveals the
secrets of impassioned experience like Paul; no
mystical union with a Christ in heaven is presented
as the goal of faith. The idealism with which
Ignatius beheld in the Bishop and his Presbyters
a reproduction of the presidency of God and the
council of the Apostles' never brightens their
descriptions of the Christian Hfe; the bare facts
themselves must suffice. The Gnostic chaUenge
to a fallen nature, to the sense of sin and the need
of a Redeemer, is replaced by assumptions of the
universaUty of reason and vindications of the
freedom of the will. Justin, for instance, was
convinced that he had on his side the supreme
representative of all Hellenic wisdom. Socrates
had striven to bring the truth to Hght, and deUver
men from the demons, who in revenge contrived
to bring about his death. As the Logos availed
among the Greeks to condemn these things through
Socrates, so among the barbarians they were
' Cp. Note C, p. 131. 'Magnes., vi, i.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 91
condemned by the Logos himself, who took shape
and became man, and was called Jesus Christ.'
Hatred and death were, indeed, the lot of all who
strove to Hve reasonably with the aid of the seed
of the Logos implanted in every race of men. Such
was Heracleitus of old, and among Justin's own con
temporaries Musonius. ' But while Socrates could
only exhort men to become acquainted with the
God unknown to them by the investigations of
reason, and alleged that "it is neither easy to find
the Maker and Father of all, nor having found
him is it safe to declare him to all,"' Christ did
both. No one, says Justin shrewdly, trusted Soc
rates enough to die for him, but Christ was accepted
not only by philosophers and scholars but by work
ing folk and common people, who despised alike
glory and fear and death. For Christ was a Power
of the ineffable Father, and not the mere instru
ment of human Reason. " Christianity, then, de
pends directly upon Revelation.
This is its great paradox. The revealing Logos
appeared in Jesus of Nazareth in human form.'
Other men might possess its seed, implanted in
every race of mankind; Christians enjoyed the
knowledge and contemplation of the entire Word,
which is Christ.* This absolute character of the
Logos in Christ is emphasized by Justin again and
again. True, he could affirm that whatever
things had been rightly said among aU men were
' I Apol., v. ' 2 Apol., viii. 3 Timaus, 28 c.
4 2 Apol., X. * I Apol., V, X^Yos iMp<juii6eli. « 2 Apol., viii.

92 Phases of Early Christianity
the property of the Christians.' But the elder
lawgivers and philosophers even in what they
taught aright only beheld some part of the Logos,
they did not know the whole of it, which is Christ.
This was no accidental superiority ; it was a neces
sity of Revelation itself. To be complete it must
be made by one who possessed the entire Logos.
Athenagoras lays down the same rule. Under
the divine afflatus poets and philosophers sought to
discover God. It was a conjectural process, and
it did not succeed because they sought to learn
about God, not from God, but each one from
himself.' Christians had the witness of the
prophets under the guidance of God's Spirit; and
this culminated in Christ who was the Logos of
the Father, and in the capacity of Son is formally
styled God by Athenagoras next to the Father.'
This Logos was of course in existence before
the Incarnation. In general terms he is the
"first-born of God."" As the instrument or
agent of creation he was begotten before it, and
in that function he is not only the antecedent
Reason, he is the actual Power, the living force of
its constitution.' Like Wisdom of whom it was
said "the Lord made me in the beginning of his
ways,"* the Logos issued from the Father to be
the intellectual idea and the working energy
> 2 Apol., xiii. " Legatio, vii.
3 Ibid., x; or perhaps better, "the Divine Son."
4 Justin, I Apol., xlvi. s Ibid., 2 Apol., vi; i Apol., xxiii.
" Prov. viii, 22 ; Athenagoras, Leg., x.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 93
which converted unorganized matter into an
orderly universe. Justin is not afraid to empha
size its distinctness; Tatian knows that it springs
forth "by division"'; and Theophilus expresses
the separation by the coarsest metaphor: —
"God having his own Logos within,' in his own
bowels, begat him, belching him forth along
with his own Wisdom before all things." The
Logos is thus the product of an act of the Father's
wiU, ' just as we beget speech (or Word) by utter
ance, but do not diminish the inner Reason which
prompted it." The Father's Being is thus in no
way divided; the Son is indeed "other" numeri-
caUy but not yvtS^AK], in purpose or will'; fire can
be kindled from fire, and the second is different
from the first which stiU burns and can set yet
more aUght.* Athenagoras is more precise. He
dweUs on the oneness of the Son in the Father
and the Father in the Son; and he contrasts the
life of sense whose motto is, "Let us eat and drink
for tomorrow we die, " with that of the believer
who is guided to the future by the knowledge of
God, his Logos, and the Spirit, the oneness and
the distinction of the Three. ^ It is the first real
assertion of the Unity of the holy Three to which,
under the terms God, Word, and Wisdom, The
ophilus gave the name of Trias. ^
I Tatian, Cohortatio, v, /cari nepurpiv.
2 The \6yos IvSiiBeros, Ad Autolyc, II, x.
3 Justin, I 4:^o/., xxi. * Dial.,hii. s Ibid., hn, ll.
6 Dial., cxxviii. ' Legal., xii. " Ad Autolyc, II, xv.

94 Phases of Early Christianity
The argument is so far ontological. It enters
the field of history with an appeal to the Scriptures
of the Old Testament on the one hand and the
Gospels on the other. Justin does not specify
the latter by name. He describes them as the
"Recollections of the Apostles which we call
Gospels." His quotations include long extracts
from Matthew and Luke; he was apparently
acquainted with Mark; whether he knew the
fourth Gospel has been seriously questioned.
He nowhere expressly cites it in aid of his interpre
tation of the person of Christ, and he invokes
no support from it for his doctrine of the Logos.
One solitary passage points to it, ' and it is difficult
to suppose that the Gospel is not there in the
background; but it is impossible to prove that
the words in question might not have been known
to Justin through some other channel of oral
teaching or communicated anecdote. The events
of the Teacher's life fulfil the predictions of Law
and Prophecy and Psalm. These, it is assumed,
are the work of the prophetic Spirit.' The
inspiration of the Old Testament is taken for
granted. Its superiority is occasionally vindicated
on the ground of its antiquity, and it is even
alleged to be the fountain-head of Greek wisdom.
But in reaUty the claims of the prophets and of
Jesus support each other; on the one hand predic
tion, on the other fulfilment ; and the exactness of
' I Apol., Ixi.
' This is the character of the Spirit in Justin.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 95
the conformity proves both divine. The methods
of historical interpretation were then unknown;
for the modern student Justin's ingenuity is
spent in vain.
'What, then, of the person of Jesus in whom the
Logos thus took human shape? The union of
the divine Word with the Man of Nazareth is
never formally explained ; it was too easy to point
to GentUe analogies among the "sons of Zeus."
The Logos, who is the "only Son,"' is said to
have been begotten in a peculiar manner as Word
and Power by God, and afterwards to have
become man through the "Virgin. On his actual
humanity Justin firmly takes his stand. His
bodily experiences were aU perfectly real. Justin
will yield nothing to the Docetism of the Gnostics.
The prayer "Not as I will but as thou wilt"
showed that Jesus truly suffered. When he
cried, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass, "
we perceive that the Father intended the Son to
meet this trial for our sakes, and we may not
affirm that he did not feel what was happening
to him.' How the two natures were thus com
bined Justin nowhere clearly specifies. The Logos
occupied an actual body which was provided
also with a human soul. ' The two beings inhabit
¦ ^-Monogenis, not on the ground of John i, i8, but of the Greek
of Psalm xxii, 20; Justin, Dial., cv.
" Dial., dii.
3 2 Apol., X. That the term Psych6 is used here in the higher
Greek sense may be inferred from the passage quoted in Lect.
I.P-33*-

96 Phases of Early Christianity
the same physical person; they apparently exist
side by side in simple contiguity, each with its
own capacities and powers. In what sense the
Logos was StiU the Power of cosmic activity,
remains a mystery; the problem has not yet
arisen. It is not solved even at death. Upon
the cross Jesus commended his spirit to God,'
a new term which must be equated with the
"soul." Whither, then, did it depart? When
"the Lord God" descended into the abodes of the
dead Israel to announce salvation to the generations
of the past, ' did the human soul accompany the
divine Son, and, if so, how was their union main
tained when the bond of flesh had been dissolved?
Here is the doctrine of the Two Natures in its most
naked form. It will be the work of three centuries
to embody it in theological terminology as the
deliberate judgment of the Church.
To this process the most important contribu
tions were made as the second century ran out by
Irengeus of Lyons and TertulHan of Carthage.'
The first was the profoundest theologian of his
age; the second coined much of the language in
which the new ideas were expressed.
Irenaeus came to the West from Asia Minor.
The place and date of his birth are alike imknown";
' Dial., Iv, citing Luke xxiii, 46.
' Dial., Ixxii; cp. Lect. I, p. 36.
3 On Clement of Alexandria see Lect. V.
4 He was probably born about 130 a.d., a little before or after;
whether his parents were Christians, or, if not, how he was
brought into the Church, we have no information.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 97
but he was at Smyrna in his boyhood, for in a
letter written in later life to his early friend
Florinus he refers to his vivid impressions of the
aged Bishop Polycarp as he sat in the teacher's
chair, and told how he had known John and the
others who had seen the Lord.' He received the
ordinary training of a Greek youth. He could
cite Homer and Hesiod, Pindar and Plato; he
is imbued with the teachings of the philosophers;
he has shared the mystical aspiration for union
with God. He is in Rome as a young man,
possibly (as has been conjectured') as the com
panion of Polycarp, who made the journey in
his extreme old age to discuss the difficulty which
had arisen between the Asian and the Roman
Churches over the celebration of the Christian
passover and the resurrection festival.' Irenaeus
did not return to the East. He came under the
influence of Justin, either as teacher or writer;
and flnally went on to Southern Gaul, and up the
Rhone Valley past Vienne to Lyons. There he
became presbyter in the Christian church under
Pothinus, which numbered other emigrants from
Asia Minor in its fold." After the martyrdom
of Pothinus (177 a.d.) he was appointed Bishop,
and devoted himself through laborious years to
the extension of the Church and the defence of
' Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, xx, 5.
' By Dr. Hitchcock, Irenaus of Lugdunum (1914), p. 2.
3 Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, xxiii. Probably in 154-5 A.D.
4 In the famous persecution of 177 a.d. Attains of Pergamus,
and Alexander (a doctor) from Phrygia, were among the martyrs.

98 Phases of Early Christianity
the faith. To the GaUic people he preached in
their own Celtic tongue. He met the Gnostics
in personal argument, and was long engaged
(about 180-185 a.d.) in the composition of a
treatise against them in Greek.' It was widely
circulated; a few years later TertulHan used it in
Carthage; in the East it was translated into
Syriac. Most of his other works have perished;
this remains (unfortunately only in an early
Latin translation, with some passages of the
original Greek), an inestimable monument of the
development of Christian theology.
The work is polemical in aim, and its prepara
tion was probably frequently interrupted; it lacks
concentration; it is sometimes needlessly diffuse;
it contains frequent repetitions. But it is per
vaded by an intense conviction of the significance
of Christian salvation. This is the deep under
tone of the whole, the pedal note enduring through
every variation of the great theme of the Incar
nation. "Why did God become man?" is the
question. "That man might become God" is
the answer.' The Apologists had not really
grappled with the conception of redemption.
They had presented Christianity as a kind of
emancipated Judaism, supported on the Old
Testament Scriptures, and universaHzed with the
" Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, vii, "the Refutation and Overturning of
the Gnosis falsely so-called," in five books.
' Cp. Lect. I, p. 58, and below, p. 127. Adv. Hares., V, prsef.
adjin.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 99
help of the Logos. The Gnostics, on the other
hand, had laid stress upon the faU, on the need of
deliverance, on the renewal or restoration of the
soul's true nature. They were the heirs of the
Apostle Paul, but they had transmuted their
inheritance into the most fantastic shapes, whose
kindred with their progenitor was hardly re
cognizable. Irenaeus brings back Paul into the
sphere of Church teaching, but it is Paul with a
difference. There are no traces in his pages of the
profound spiritual conflict which was the founda
tion of Paul's interpretation of Christianity.
He had never served as the bondman of the Law;
he had never been arrested in one course of action,
and started afresh upon another. The type of
his experience approximates rather to the Johan
nine; freedom from sin comes through knowledge
of the truth, and truth is imparted through
Scripture' and the Church.
Beside the First Three Gospels stands the
Fourth; so weU estabUshed are they in general
use' that he can support their exclusive claims
by quaint numerical analogies, four regions of
the world, four winds, four Hving creatures bearing
up the throne of God, four covenants with the
human race.' The EvangeHsts, says Irenaeus,
' Now including our four Gospels and an Apostolic coUection.
' Adv. Hares., Ill, i, i.
3 Ibid., Ill, xi, 8. The Greek of this passage names the Deluge,
Circumcision, the Law, and the Gospel, connected with Noah,
Abraham, Moses, and Christ. The Latin has Adam, Noah,
Moses, and the Gospel.

100 Phases of Early Christianity
have aU taught the same truth: "There is one
God, Creator of heaven and earth, declared by
the Law and the Prophets ; and one Christ, God's
Son.'" The interpretation of this teaching Hes
with the Church; it is summed up, as we have seen,
in the Rule of Truth; it is guaranteed by tradition,
handed on by the successors of the Apostles, the
living witnesses of the truths and blessings of
salvation. ' The Rule of Truth did not, it is true,
describe Christ as Saviour, or define the char
acter of his redeeming work; but it laid the ut
most emphasis upon the Incarnation, and the
reality of his human life ; and this was for Irenaeus
the centre of God's purpose for man. Employing
the Logos Christology, he uses it for much more
than the explanation of Revelation in the prophets.
Christ's function was wider than that of completing
the imperfect witness of earHer days; he was
himself infinitely greater than the fulness of that
which Scripture already contained partially.
Doubtless he disclosed truths about God unreaHzed
before; but his teaching function in no way
exhausted his significance; he stands, as Paul had
placed him, as the head of a new humanity which
is to be made divine; and the presentation of his
nature is really conditioned by the purpose of his
work. The Redeemer cannot confer what he
does not possess. If he is to bestow im
mortahty on others, it must first belong to his
own personahty; he can only help others to
' Adv. Hares, III, i, 2. ' Compare Lect. Ill, p. 195.

The Person and Work of the Saviour loi
"become God" because that is the character of
his own being.
The problem of the Incarnation may really be
approached in two ways. We may start from
the conception of the Divine Nature and enquire
under what conditions it can unite itself with a
human being. Or we may investigate the historic
records, and ask what are the facts to be explained
and what explanation they suggest. Irenasus uses
both methods, but the final stress of his argument
faUs on the bibUcal side. The majority of the
Gnostics — Marcion was an exception — employed
the other and pressed the record into their specu
lative constructions. "One God," says Irenaeus,
"the Creator of heaven and earth." Such was
the subUme teaching of the ancient scriptures.
Against the Gnostics he enforces it in its naked
simplicity. "Uninfluenced by any one, of his
own purpose and free-will he made all things, in
asmuch as he is the only God, the only Lord, the
only Creator, the only Father." ' In such a Being
there can be no change; the Divine immutability
is an axiom of all Greek thinking; the projection
of the Word from within so that he is in some
fashion sent forth externally is inconceivable;
nothing in God is older or younger; he abides for
ever equal and the same; he is wholly Mind and
wholly Logos. ' It is the fundamental static idea
of Greek metaphysics. Hence the Logos is in no
sense a "product,"' he is unmade, he has for ever
' Adv. Hares., II, i, I. ' Ibid., II, xiii, 8. 3 See p. 93.

I02 Phases of Early Christianity
existed with the Father.' Father and Son thus
constitute an eternally related pair; to both the
name Lord {Dominus) is applied, to him who rules
{dominatur) and to him who exercises the rule
{dominium) which has been entrusted to him.'
Each is God, he who is anointed, the Son, and
he who anoints, the Father. The very name,
"Christ," of necessity implies an anointer, an
anointed, and an anointing,' and such lan
guage inevitably carries not only time-distinc
tions, but also some kind of inequality, where
one gives and the other receives. Loyal to
Scripture, Irenseus dwells on the saying, "My
father is greater than I,"" with the devout
remark that the Father has been declared to
be superior (prcBpositus) in respect of know
ledge in order that we might leave such en
quiries to God. Yet so close is their union that
for man Christ is "the visible of the Father,"
just as the Father is "the invisible of the Son,"'
as though the same Deity were apprehended under
different conditions. In this Duality there seems
little room for the Spirit. It is, however, identi
fied with the divine Wisdom, * present with the
Father before creation, and associated in that act
with the instrumental Logos. The distinction is
difficult to grasp; between the Reason which be-
» Adv. Har., II, xxv, 3.
» Ibid., Ill, vi, I, on Ps. cx, i ; on Ps. xiv, 6. 3 Ibid., Ill, xviii, 3.
4 Ibid., II, xxviii, 8; John xiv, 28. s Ibid., IV, vi, 6.
' Ibid., IV, XX, 3. On the famiUar ground of Prov. viii, 22.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 103
comes immanent in the world {inflxus)'^ and the
Wisdom which was created for its preparation, it
is hard to find a difference. Irenaeus compares
them to God's two hands, summoned by him to
assist in the production of humanity with the call,
"Let us make man."' The eternity of the Spirit
is not definitely affirmed; but another step has
been taken towards the doctrine to which Tertul
Han wiU give the name of Trinity.
In Jesus Christ the Son became incarnate.
Against the Ebionites Irenasus emphasizes his
Deity ; against the Gnostics his humanity ; if he was
vere Deus, he was also vere homo. ' This is not af
firmed on the ground of Scripture only. It is an
essential condition of the process of redemption as
Irenseus conceived it. The Gospels show him as a
man, though John only declared that the Logos
hecaxneflesh. Had that been all, there would have
been no true ' ' oneness ' ' ; the deliverance of human
ity required his full union with our whole nature.
Against the notion that his body was only phan
tasmal he pleads that if Christ did not receive the
substance of flesh in actual birth from a human
being, his suffering was, after all, no great thing. "
On the other hand he insists urgently against the
Ebionites' doctrine of Sonship by adoption at the
' Adv., Har., V, xviii, 3. The Word exists in the world, and
at the same time invisibly contains aU created things, with a
kind of "mutual inherence.''
» Ibid., IV, praef. 3 Ibid., V, vi, 7.
4 Ibid., Ill, xxii, i ; cp. xviii, 6.

ip4 Phases of Early Christianity
Baptism, partly on the ground of their false
interpretation of Scripture, but still more be
cause the parallel between Adam and Christ
required that as Adam had been formed by
the "hand" of God {i. e. the Logos), so Christ
also, who (as the beginning of a new humanity)
was to repeat the experience of Adam, must
in like manner have been formed as man by
God.
r This is the doctrine of recapitulatio,^ to which
Irenseus recurs again and again. It is founded
upon the analogy developed by the Apostle Paul
between the First man and the Second. But the
ground of the comparison is quite different. Paul
used it to point the contrast between the earthly
and the heavenly, the man through whom came
Death, and the man through whom came the
Resurrection. It was the Adam made out of the
earth, weak and unstable, succumbing to the first
temptation which came in his way, who floated
before the thought of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Irenaeus fixed his gaze on the humanity which
was made in the image of God, endowed with
great gifts and powers. Had these been main
tained unimpaired, their lofty exercise might have
led to immortality and true union between man
and his Maker. But they were forfeited by sin.
The Logos did not indeed desert his creation. He
remained in permanent fellowship with the human
' Founded on Eph. i, lO, araKeipaXauiffcurBai t4 wdyra iv rifi
"K.purTif.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 105
race,' tiU the time came for the fulfilment of God's
great purpose of salvation. Then the Logos
became man that he might reproduce and com
plete the divine image in humanity. All spiritual
graces and capacities inherent in God's likeness
were realized in him. As in his heavenly life he
summed up in himself all the energies of the uni
verse, controlling and exercising them unceasingly,
so upon earth he gathered the diverse forms of
man's experience and potency into one sinless
whole.' From birth to death he passed through
all the phases of our life, in order to save all, in
fants and children, boys, youths, and old men.
This a priori view is supported by an appeal to the
Jews' estimate of the age of Jesus {John viii, 57),
"Thou art not yet fifty years old," which Irenaeus
interprets to mean that he had nearly reached that
Umit. ' This extension of the ministry over many
years from its beginning when he was about thirty
{Luke in, 23) is justified by the testimony of the
"gospel and all the elders," who are stated to
have derived their information not only from John,
but the other Apostles also ! The Word was thus
made man, the invisible becoming visible, the
incomprehensible comprehensible, the impassible
passible." The adjectives are piled together in a
burst of religious fervour at such condescension.
But a Httle later, calmer reflection resumes control.
' Adv. Har., Ill, xviii, l. ' Ibid., V, xiv, 2.
3 Ibid., II, xxii, 4-6.
* Ibid., II, xvi, 6, "universa in semetipstmi recapitulans."

io6 Phases of Early Christianity
Was the Logos really tempted, did he actuaUy
suffer and die? For that consequence which
later theology might defend tmder the plea of
the communicatio idiomatum — the doctrine that
the Two Natures were so closely united that
whatever might be experienced by one could be
affirmed of the other — Irenaeus was not prepared.
He took refuge in the pious faith that in these
trials of moral steadfastness or physical anguish
the Logos, though not withdrawn, remained
quiescent.' The difficulty of comprehending this
mysterious suspension of its activity is not dimin
ished when a modern student of Irenseus assures
us that Christ's "manhood had no personahty of
its own."' For such an assertion no evidence is
offered. If personality has any sign of its presence
at all, it is in the conquest of Evil. Who or what
was it that rejected Satan's advances whUe the
Logos was ' ' resting ' ' ?
The treatise of Irenaeus was carried to Africa,
and studied by the Carthaginian lawyer Tertul
Han. Of the origin of the Church in the briUiant
and luxurious city nothing is known. Separated
by hundreds of miles of desert from Egypt, but
connected by the closest ties of commerce with
Rome, for which it provided the chief supply of
corn, Carthage most Hkely received the Gospel
' Adv., Har., Ill, xix, 3, Vx<if<"^os /**« toO \6yov.
"Hitchcock, Irenaus of Lugdunum (1914), p. 155. This was
the later doctrine of Cyril of Alexandria, and has been revived
in recent Anglican theology.

The, Person and Work of the Saviour 107
from Italy. No personal traditions Hngered
around it like those which Hnked Alexandria with
the name of Mark. It was the second city of the
West, with a population of perhaps half a million.
A costly harbour provided shelter for the fleets
which bore the grain to the mouth of the Tiber.
Splendid temples adorned its capitol, to Jupiter
Optimus Maximus in the centre, with the "Heav
enly Goddess" Juno, the special patroness of the
city, on one side, and Minerva on the other. The
streets below were full of the extravagances of'
wealth and passion. The coarseness, brutality,
and superstition of popular practice are more
clearly reflected in TertuUian's pages than in any
other writer. His tracts on idolatry, the theatre,
woman's dress, and other social subjects, are full
of the application of Christianity to daily life.
The ancient cults were making desperate efforts
to retain their hold. They had the theatres to
help them as well as the temples. The hot Afri
can blood welcomed such deities as Isis and Sarapis,
the Syrian Goddess, and the Great Mother from
Phrygia. Processions and festivals, the mission
ary priests and the guilds which they founded,
the Galli and the Flamines, display the feverish
violence of the popular religion, and form the
scenic background for TertuUian's scorn. Into
this medley had come the Christian preacher.
He brought the Gospel and the Church. But the
new teaching was cast into fresh moulds, for Greek
was replaced by Latin. The Church was fully

io8 Phases of Early Christianity
organized. At the first Carthaginian councU,
held under Bishop Agrippinus,' seventy bishops
attended from Africa and Numidia.
TertulHan (about 150-225 A.D.) had received
the education of a young man of good position,
destined for the bar. He had studied in Rome
and Athens; he could write in Greek, though his
compositions in that language have been lost.
Fond of history and antiquarian lore, he was inti
mately acquainted with mythology, and he was
distinguished especially for his knowledge of law.
The philosophers did not attract him, though he
was not without sympathy for the lofty ethics of
Seneca. But he had no desire after his conversion
to reconcile philosophy with Christianity. He
saw in it only the progenitor of falsehood; its
teachers were the patriarchs of heretics.' "What
has Athens," he asks indignantly, "to do with
Jerusalem ? What agreement is there between the
Academy and the Church?" He would have
nothing to do with a mottled Christianity, com
pounded of Stoicism, Platonism, and dialectic'
Christianity had brought to him a vehement moral
reaction. He, too, had shared the common
pleasures of young men. He, too, had scoffed at
the ideas of resurrection and judgment. As he
f ' The date is doubtful, but even if it was as late as DoUinger
supposed, 218-222 A.D., it would faU within TertuUian's lifetime.
Older authorities put it 186-7.
" De Anima, iii.
3 De Prascript. Heretic, vii. Contrast the attitude of his
contemporary, Clement of Alexandria, Lect. V.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 109
looked back on the odious sights which he had
witnessed in the theatre, the mutilation of Attis,
the buming alive of Herakles, Mercury testing the
bodies of the dead with his buming iron,' he was
filled with an agony of shame; he could hardly
endure the thought that he had once found enter
tainment in them. Fierce anger rose in his heart
against heathenism, and against the heretics who
enfeebled Christianity and hindered its victories.
It seemed impudent in him to write about patience
which he was not fit to practise, being such a
worthless fellow. Branded with the scars of every
sin, he was born for nothing but repentance. '
Since the execution of the martyrs of ScilH at
Carthage in 180 there had been irregular and in
termittent attacks upon the Christians. Tertul
Han might have seen heathen and Jew unite to
break up Christian meetings, destroy the houses
and churches of the living, and despoil the resting-
places of the dead. Caricatures of the Christians'
God were carried through the streets amid howl
ing crowds; and at last, moved by their constancy,
TertulHan (about 192) cast in his lot with them,
and was subsequently ordained a presbyter. His
pen was soon enHsted in their behalf; and it is
worth noting that though philosophy did not
move him, he could encourage the martyrs by ap
peals to the classic examples of Lucretia and Mu
cins Scsevola, of Dido and the wife of Hasdrabal,
of Regulus in his chest pierced with naUs enduring
' Apologeticus, xv. ' De Patient., i; De Panitent., xii.

no Phases of Early Christianity
so many crucifixions; while the traveller in Greece
recalls that even in his own day Spartan youths
still submitted themselves before the altar to the
scourge.' Who was it, then, for whom it was so
well worth while to die?
The Christology of TertuUian was formed on
the one hand along the lines of Church tradition
and the Rule of Faith with the Scriptures in the
background, ' and on the other by reaction against
various forms of contemporary heresy. He took
the field against Marcion about 200 a.d. With
the help of Irenaeus and others he wrote against the
Valentinian Gnostics.' But he was led to for
mulate his views on the Trinity and the person
of Christ in controversy with Praxeas, formerly a
confessor in Asia Minor, who brought a form of
Monarchianism from Rome to Carthage." At
Rome he had successfully won back the Bishop
from adherence to the New Prophecy of Montan-
ism, ' of which feat TertulHan (himself then an
ardent Montanist) scornfully remarked that he
had done the devil a double service, "he had
driven out prophecy and brought in heresy, he
put the Paraclete to flight, and crucified the
Father."* The pecuHar type of "Monarchy"
'Ad Martyres (about 197), iv. ' See Lect. Ill, p. 195.
3 Adv. Valentin., v. His Ust includes Justin, Miltiades (who
wrote a lost Apology under Marcus Aurelius), and "our own
Proculus, pattern of chaste old age and Christian eloquence."
4 See Note D, p. 133. s Cp. Lect. Ill, p. 201.
^ Adv. Praxeam, i. The book is now usuJly referred to 217
A.D.

The Person and Work of the Saviour in
thus mockingly described was afterwards nick
named Patripassianism, and is said to have been
founded on a view of the unity of God which
affirmed that the Father himself was born of the
Virgin, became Jesus Christ, and suffered on
the cross. To this doctrine TertulHan opposes the
"Economy"' which distributes the Unity into a
Trinity, ' arranging the Three as "Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, not in condition {statu) but in relation
{gradu), not in substance but in mode of existence
{forma), not in power but in special characteristics
{specie); yea rather of one substance and of one
condition and power, inasmuch as it is one God
from whom these relations and modes and special
characteristics are reckoned."'
But these three terms do not apparently take
equal rank in TertuUian's thought. The relation
of the Father and the Son is obviously the most
important. In commenting on the opening clause
of the Lord's Prayer he observes that in the Father
the Son also is invoked, "for I," saith he, "and the
Father are one," and then follows the singular
remark that "our Mother the Church" is not
ignored if in the Father and the Son the Mother
from whom those names arise is recognized."
I Ibid., ii. olKovopla, or dispensation; cp. Ephes. i, lo: iii, 9.
2 The first appearance of the term in this sense. In Adv.
Valent., xvii, its use is different.
3 Cp. Bethune-Baker, Introd. to the Early History of Christian
Doctrine, pp. 138-140, for some explanations of TertuUian's
terminology. 4 De Oral., ii.

112 Phases of Early Christianity
The Church here is included in the statement
Deum cum suis honoramns, in place of the Spirit.
In dealing with the being and function of the Son
TertulHan is embarrassed by the double appHca-
tion of the term Logos as Reason or Utterance
(Speech). The alHance of Logos with Nous might
have suggested an emphasis on the element of
thought, but the Latin ratio could not be employed
for what came forth in actual words. That was
the side on which TertulHan took it. He ren
dered the term by Verbum, "Word," and he knew
the precise moment when the Word was begotten.
Its perfect nativity took place in the first act of
creation when God said, "Let there be Hght."'
At that moment he became Son of God, and was
begotten by issuing forth from him. The Son
then had his own substantia, with its special prop
erties or characteristics. He was a "projection"
from the Father, but no more separate from him
than the tree from the root, the river from the
spring, the ray from the sun. Following, these
analogies TertulHan calls God and his Word, the
Father and the Son, two, ' and the Spirit makes a
' Adv. Praxeam, vii. The Word is identified as usual with
Wisdom {Prov. viii, 22), and is accordingly said to have been
"formed" in the beginning of God's ways to think out the world,
and then "begotten" to carry aU into effect. Even in the char
acter of Wisdom, therefore, the Word, anterior to generation, was
not eternal. StiU he refers sympathetically to Stoic views (Zeno
and Cleanthes), and says that the Word and Reason and Power
have Spirit as their proper and essential substratum {Apologet.,
xxi.) " Ibid., viii.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 113
third like the fruit of a tree from its root. So
does the Trinity "flow down from the Father by
connected steps."'
To these three terms TertulHan gives the name
"persons." Persona is here no actor's mask, no
aspect or assumed character like the Greek
prosdpon. In civil speech and legal language it
had acquired the meaning "personality." It
denoted an individual with rights at law, and Ter
tuUian writes and argues as a lawyer. What re
lation, then, subsisted between them? His answer
was clear, though hardly expressible in English.
The Three were unum not unus.^ The neuter
unum is elsewhere equated with substantia, and
the doctrine emerges in the form "three persons —
one substance," "the Father is God, and the Son
is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and each is
God."' And yet in the same treatise we are
informed that "the Father is the whole substance,
the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole."'
So difficult is consistency on these giddy heights.
The reason apparently lies in TertuUian's iden
tification of the generation of the Son with the
first recorded utterance of God. How could
there be a Father, he asks, before there was a Son ?
No more could he be a Judge before there was any
sin. There was a time, then, when he had no
'Adv. Praxeam, xxv. The neuter and the mascuUne suggest
"one thing" and "one person" to the English reader, which is
of course all wrong. Similarly in John x, 30, both Greek and
Latin have the neuter.
» Ibid., xiii. ' Ibid., ix.

114 Phases of Early Christianity
Son, and though he was God eternally he was not
on that account Father etemally.' Such is the
confiict between the two tendencies of subordina
tion and equality.
In the appHcation of these conceptions to the
person of Christ a difference is at once apparent
in the use of terms compared with the ultimate
decisions of the Church. Christ is indubitably
God and Man, but the Deity and the Humanity
have each its own "substance" with its character
istic properties.' TertulHan does indeed allow
himself to speak of God's awaiting the time of
birth in his mother's womb, and when bom en
during to grow up.' "The Son of God died," he
exclaims triumphantly, "it is to be beheved be
cause it is ineptum; and he was buried and rose
again, it is certain because it is impossible.""
Hence there was some kind of participation by
the divine "substance" in the development and
the suffering of the human. But they were not
blended into one as gold and silver are combined
into electrum, where both substances are changed
and a third is produced.' In writings spread
over many years precise consistency is not to be
expected, and TertulHan sometimes uses the phrase
of Irenasus, "Man mingled with God."* But in his
' Adv. Hermogenem, iii. ' Adv. Praxeam, xxvii.
3 De Patientia, iii.
4 De Came Christi, v; the origin of the apocryphal Credo quia
absurdum. 3 Adv. Praxeam, xxvii.
' Harnack, History of Dogma, ii, p. 280.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 115
latest teaching he repudiated the notion that
the two substances were blended in such a way
as to effect an internal union. The Incarnation
resulted in "a twofold condition, not "con
founded but conjoined in one person, God and
the Man Jesus."' The path to Chalcedon has
been opened.
If such were the conceptions of the Person of
the Saviour, how did they affect the presentation
of his Work? What were the special means which
he employed to fulfil God's saving purpose? Why
was it necessary for him to become man? To
these questions varying answers are given within
the limits of the New Testament itself; it is not
surprising that subsequent writers should seize
different aspects of the Gospel-story. Echoes of
the language of Paul are occasionaUy to be heard.
Clement bids the Corinthians fix their gaze on
Christ's blood, "poured out for our salvation"
and bringing the grace of repentance to all the
world. Rahab's scarlet thread is already a
prophecy of "redemption through the blood of the
Lord." It was the great act of love when by
God's wiU "Jesus Christ our Lord gave his blood
for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his soul (or
life) for our souls."' So had kings and rulers of
old in obedience to oracles deHvered their subjects
» Adv. Praxeam, xxvii.
a I Clem., vii, 4; xii, 7; xlix, 6. The last words may be rendered
."his life for our lives," but Prof. Lake justly remarks that there
seems to be an antithesis between "flesh" and "soul."

ii6 Phases of Early Christianity
through their own blood. So did many among
the Christians, says Clement proudly, surrender
themselves to bondage that they might redeem
others.' There are parallels which must not be
pressed to identities. It suffices for the beHever
that he has been called from darkness to Hght,
from ignorance to the full knowledge of God's
glorious name.' The fact of salvation is too
fresh and overpowering to need any explana
tion of its method. It is enough to rejoice
that the Only God, the Invisible, Father of
truth, sent forth the Saviour and Prince of
Immortality to make manifest the Truth and
the heavenly life. '
Revelation for this world and promise for the
world to come will long be among the chief notes
of Hellenic Christianity. But there were more
impassioned teachers who were conscious of closer
union with the risen Lord. Ignatius, though he
only begins to be a disciple, feels that his Hfe is
inseparable from that of Christ." His birth, his
passion, his resurrection, these are the three instru
ments of God's Providence for the overthrow of
all magic, the removal of ignorance, and the
abolition of death. His birth was the needful
guarantee of his real humanity. On the cross he
suffered for our sins; panting for martyrdom
Ignatius entreats the Roman Christians not to
prevent him from imitating the passion of his
' I Clem., Iv. '' Ibid., Ux; cp. 2 Clem., i, 4; ii, 7.
3 2 Clem., XX, 5. 4 Ephes., iii, 2.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 117
God'; he tells the Magnesians that unless they
die through Christ in his passion of their own free
choice, his life is not in them.' Ignatius does not
use the language of justification or reconcihation
in the PauHne sense; but he shares the Apostle's
identification of the disciple's experience with
that of his Lord. The cross is salvation and eter
nal Hfe; the resurrection is the guarantee that aU
true beHevers shall be raised with him. It was to
inaugurate this wondrous novelty that God was
manifested as man.' That the Lord endured
suffering to bring death to nought and show forth
the resurrection, is the teaching ascribed to Bar
nabas ; he came in the flesh because otherwise men
could not have been saved by beholding him" — a
touch of the Hellenic thought which made vision
the way to spiritual union; his blood was shed
that we might be consecrated through the for
giveness of sins. That consecration is in fact a
fresh creation; we are made new from the begin
ning; God truly dwells in us as he had dwelt
among Israel of old; the covenant is made with us,
for the Father enjoined on him to redeem us from
darkness and prepare a holy people for himself. '
The author of the letter to Diognetus contrasts
the "vain and fooHsh" statements of philosophers
with the revelation made through the beloved
I Romans, vi, 3. So Polycarp longs to share in the cup of
Christ, Martyr. Pol., xiv.
' Magnesians, v. 3 Ephesians v, 3.
lEp. Barn., v, 10. s Ibid., xiv, 5-6.'

ii8 Phases of Early Christianity
Servant. ' What surpassing kindness and love for
God to give his own Son as a ransom for us, the
Holy for the wicked, the Immortal for the mortal!
He gave us a Saviour that we should believe on his
goodness, and regard him as nurse, father, teacher,
counsellor, physician, mind, light, honour, glory,
strength, and life.' What joy and love should
such a gift call forth! Will not man foUow the
example of such kindUness and begin at once the
imitatio Dei ? It is possible, if man wills. Salva
tion is not contingent on some inscrutable election
by God; it is the effect of realizing the wondrous
condescension of the Father and the obedient
self -surrender of the Son. '
Truth, forgiveness, freedom, immortahty are
the watchwords of Justin's Christianity. These
are the gifts of the Logos, to whom in his earthly
manifestation Justin again and again appHes the
endearing term, "our Teacher." Into the confHct
of philosophies he brought the final and perfect
revelation. An Apostle from the Father he came
as a Power from on high, whole and complete,
contrasted with the partial apprehensions of human
reason. " Prophecy guaranteed his teaching ; and
it was justified by its results. In old time God had
given the sun as an object for men's worship,'
' On Ta?s cp. p. Jd.
' It may be noted that this list does not contain the title
"priest" or "high priest," employed elsewhere, i C/em., xxxvi, i;
Ignat., Philad., ix, i; Martyr Polyc, xiv, 3.
3 Ep. ad Diognet., 8-10. 4 i Apol., xii; 2 Apol., x.
3 Cp. Deut. iv, 19; Dial., cxxi.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 119
but who ever died, asks Justin, for his faith in the
sun? But in every nation men have endured aU
sufferings rather than deny the name of Jesus.
The word of his truth and wisdom is more glowing
than the sun, and reaches the very depths of heart
and mind; and in proof of its excellence Justin re
produces large portions of the Synoptic sayings.
Christ is himself the new law and the new cove
nant. . The Hfe of Jesus accordingly assumes a high
value in his eyes, for it was the field for the mani
festation of his truth in action as weU as in speech;
what loyalty of submission was fulfiUed when the
Son of God made ploughs and yokes! Forgive
ness had been prophesied by the Holy Spirit
through the dying Jacob, for the prediction, "he
shaU wash his garments with wine," meant that
he would wash those who received remission of
sins with his own blood.' In baptism, accord
ingly, the convert was bom again; his past sins
were forgiven; light filled his mind as he was
translated out of the kingdom of darkness ; though
sunk in the most grievous offences, he was puri
fied.' The power which effected this lay in the
cross. There was the means which set men free
from the slavery of sin, the attacks of the demons,
and the grip of death. Hung on the tree Christ
came under the curse of the law,' and thus took
on himself the curse that had fallen on aU human-
' Dialogue, liv, the garments are identified with believers,
amongst whom Christ is always present in power.
2 I Apol., Ixi; Dial., Ixxxvi. . 3 Deut. xxi, 23; Dial., xcvi.

120 Phases of Early Christianity
ity.' By this means he broke the power of the
Devil and brought to believers deliverance from
the serpent's fangs. Why otherwise should
Moses have set up the brazen serpent for a sign,
when it had been already announced that no like
ness of any creature should be made?' The per
verse ingenuity displayed by Justin in discovering
types and emblems of the cross all through the
Old Testament, even to the lost axe-head of the
sons of the prophets which Elisha recovered from
the Jordan with a stick, is at least a measure of
the importance which he attached to it. The
method culminates in the charge that the Jews
had mutUated a passage {Ps. xcvi, lo), "Say
among the nations, the Lord reigneth from the
wood" — a clear prophecy of the sovereignty at
tained on the cross — ^by cutting out the last words. '
There he gained the final victory over the DevU
and death. This enabled him to protect his own
from danger and ward off the attacks of hostUe
powers, so that it might even be said that he was
made man for the sake of believers and the de
struction of the demons. To the mysterious
efficacy of his name for this end Justin appeals
again and again as matter of public notoriety."
It is for the faithfvd who have learned of Christ
to use their freedom; in temperance and justice
and the love of man the true purpose of our crea
tion, the imitatio Dei, is achieved.' Such Chris-
' Deut. xxvii, 26; Dial., xcv. ' Dial., xciv. 3 Dial., Ixxui.
4 2 Apol., vi; Dial., xxx, Ixxxiii, etc. s i Apol., x.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 121
tians have been stripped of their sins and vested in
new robes by their Redeemer; they are the true
high-priestly race of God, who offer pure sacrifices
of thanksgiving and prayer. ' The sequel of such
deliverance is immortality. Philosophers and
poets might have received suggestions of future
punishments and the vision of heavenly things
from Moses and the prophets.' But they could
not foresee the conquest of death which began
upon the cross, and was proved by the resurrec
tion. It wUl not be completed tiU Christ's second
coming, when the great judgment wUl take place
and incorruption wiU be conferred on those who
inherit the kingdom and share his reign.' And
so from first to last believers, in Justin's vigorous
metaphor, are hewn out of the belly of Christ. "
This type of Christianity necessarily laid great
stress upon its teaching. It was by instruction
that the Logos made mortals immortal and men
divine. ' The restoration of the knowledge of the
religion of the forefathers, corrupted by the envy
of the DevU, was the purpose of the Incarnation.*
The worship of One God, Lord of heaven and
earth, is again and again the martyr's profession
of faith. ApoUonius, who suffered in Rome, 185
A.D., adds to this declaration that it was taught
by the Saviour Jesus Christ who became man in
I Dial., cxvi, cxvii. For Christian conduct, cp. i Apol., xiv.
' I Apol., xliv. 3 Dial., xiv. 4 Ibid., cxxxv.
s Oratio ad Graces (sometimes printed with Justin's works),
v. Cp. Lect. I, p. 57.
' Cohortatio ad Gentiles (similarly printed), xxxviii.

122 Phases of Early Christianity
Judea, in all respects righteous and fUled with
divine wisdom. From him came the Christian
ethic, to stop anger, to control desire, to chastise
pleasures, and that life of obedience, simplicity,
and brotherly love, which led to immortahty.'
Phocas, who perished in the persecution under
Trajan in Bithynia-Pontus, is charged by the
Eparch Africanus with philosophizing when he
pleads for the One Unseen God of whom he has
learned from the Crucified. He wiU have none
of it, he is a lover of Christ whom he knows to be
his Lord and God and King. Aristotle taught a
new and fallacious phUosophy, but Christ the
true doctrine of God and virtuous life; and he
bestowed temperance and self-control, piety and
immortality on those who believed in one God.'
"When Tatian addresses the Greeks he does not
even name Jesus or Christ from end to end. His
whole appeal rests on the Logos.' Man is the
bondman of sin; misuse of freewUl has enslaved
him. What is the way to regain freedom? "Die
to the world and live to God."" Ignorance is
darkness; the Logos is the light of God; only the
knowledge of the truth gives life; live justly and
the divine Spirit wUl guide you to the home above;
union with God restores man's lost immortality.'
' "Acts of ApoUonius," in Knopf's Ausgewdhlte Martyrerakten
(1913). §§36, 37, p. 39- Cp. Conybeare, The Armenian Apology
and Acts of ApoUonius (1896), p. 45.
" BoUandist Acta Sanctorum, July, Vol. iii, p. 641, cap. i, 6.
3 He once quotes John i, 5, § xiii.
4 Oratio ad Gracos, xi. » Ibid., xiii, xv.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 123
Writing against Marcion in the middle of the
second century, Justin declared:
I would not have beUeved the Lord himself if he
had proclaimed any other God beside our Framer and
Maker and Nourisher. But since the only begotten
Son came to us from the One God, who both made this
world and formed us, and contains and administers
all things, summing up his formation in himself,' my
faith towards him is firm, and my love towards the
Father immovable, both these being God's gifts.
Justin's work has disappeared, but the passage
supplied Irenseus with his famous interpretation of
the PauHne doctrine of the "summing up" of all
things in Christ.'
For Irenaeus the process of salvation formed
itself into an immense drama covering all time,
in which God, Christ, Man, Death, and the DevU,
played the leading parts. The actual situation
was that man had not been created perfect and
immortal all at once. ' He was designed to become
so; he was to progress in goodness and knowledge
through voluntary obedience. Irenaeus, like the
Apologists, held freewUl to be the necessary condi
tion of all moral advance. The human soul had
not (as the Gnostics taught) faUen from a higher
state, nor was it in bondage to demonic powers.
' "Suum plasma in semetipsum recapitulans."
' Ephes. i, 10; cp. ante, p. 104. The Vulgate here uses the word
instaurare. 3 Adv. Hares., IV, xxxviii.

124 Phases of Early Christianity
But though man was created in God's image, the
divine likeness was not actually presented to him
in a visible person. He had no external pattern
which he might reproduce; he failed to preserve
the likeness himself, and lost it by transgression.
Without wholly forfeiting his freedom, he never
theless fell into Sin's power, and passed under the
sway of Death. ' Had he permanently remained
so, God would have been defeated, and the Devil
triumphant.' To restore the victory to God, to
bring humanity to its divine goal, the Son of God
became man, for he who was to be the Mediator
between God and man must possess the nature of
both.' His first function, accordingly, was, for
Irenaeus as for the Apologists, that of Revealer.
"In no way could we have learned the things of
God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had
become man." " No other but the Son could have
made known the Father'; nor could we have pro
fited by his teaching except by seeing the teacher
and hearing him with our own ears. To have
communion with him we must be imitators of his
works and doers of his words. For this end his
Hfe was itself one of the means of salvation.
Two great tasks were then assigned to him, to
set man free from the sway of death, and to effect
a fellowship of union between God and man.*
' Adv. Hares., V, xvi. = Ibid., Ill, xxiii, i.
3 Ibid., Ill, xviii, 7. 4 Ibid., V, i.
3 Ibid., IV, vi, in exposition of Matt, xi, 27.
^Apostolic Preaching (from the Armenian), in Texte und Un-
tersuch, xxxi, i (1907), §6.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 125
The first object implied a victory over sin; in
Scripture language the strong man must be bound.
Conqueror in temptation, Christ was triumphant
over Satan. To be truly tempted it was essential
that he should be truly man. But to vanquish
the Devil he needed the strength of God. ' The
aboHtion of Death's power, however, was not at
once secured. The dominion of the Devil was
founded on violence and deceit; it was not fitting
that it should be wrested from him by correspond
ing force or fraud. If Death's power was to be
taken away, man's debt to Death must first
be paid. If the control of the Apostasy was to be
broken, it must be with consent and for a price.
In that process of "recapitulation" by which
Christ reproduced in himself the experiences of
man, he repeated death, as he had repeated birth
and youth and age. ' By this means the debt of
humanity to Death was discharged. The re
demption from the Apostasy was apparently more
difficult, and needed a God of counsel. For the
Devil had to be persuaded to forgo his prey.
Apparently he was induced {secundum suadelam)
to accept the Lord's death (mystically summing
up the deaths of the whole race) as the equivalent;
soul was given for souls, and flesh for flesh, and
thus God's ancient handiwork was saved from
destruction, and justice as between God and
Satan remained unimpaired.' It is a strange

I Adv. Hares., IV, xxxiii, 4; V, xxii, i.
'Ibid., V, xxiii, 2; cp. ante, p. 105.

3 Ibid., V, i.

126 Phases of Early Christianity
foretaste of the scholastic arguments of Anselm.
There are hints of propitiation to the Father
against whom we had sinned, ' and the total result
is the reconciliation of man to God. That would
have been impossible had not Christ's flesh been of
the same substance as ours. It would have equaUy
been impossible had not the Word of God dwelt
in him that he might accustom man to receive God,
and might accustom God to dweU in man. '
The demands of righteousness were thus ful
filled as regards the past. What, then, of the
future ? A new way for humanity was inaugurated
when the Son of God condescended to become Son
of man. The true image of God must be displayed
that men might know how it would shine through
word and deed. If man's union with God was
the ultimate purpose of the Creator in first making
him, that union must be actuaUy exhibited within
the Hmits of our experience.' Adam had failed
to reaHze it. Christ by becoming incarnate
gathered up into himself the long series of human
ity" and provided us in an epitome {in compendia)
'Adv. Hares., V, xvii, i, apparently by Christ. TertuUian
afterwards uses the term satisfaction for the first time, but in
the sense of amends made by sinners through confession, re
pentance, and good works. Bethune-Baker, Introd. to the Early
History of Christian Doctrine, p. 333.
' Ibid., Ill, XX, 2. 3 Ibid., V, xxxviii, I.
4 Ibid., Ill, xviii, i, "longam hominum expositionem in seipso
recapitulavit.'' The Syriac translation "began afresh" (like the
Vulgate instaurare in Ephes. i, 10) points to the opening of a new
Une rather than the "summing up " of the past. It may perhaps
be suggested that Irenaeus intended to include both.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 127
with salvation, "so that what we had lost in'Adam,
existence according to the image and likeness of
God, we might win back in Christ Jesus." Had
that image been cherished, the progressive advance
of man would have led him into eternal fellowship
with God. The entrance of sin and death frus
trated that purpose, and it was needful that a
fresh power should be introduced, not merely to
overcome the consequences of the past but to
provide for the future. It was for this purpose
that the Word in his boundless love "became
what we are that he might make us what he is
himself."' This opens the way to endless pros
pects of entrance into God: "how should man
enter into God, tinless God had first entered
into man?"' This fellowship, this union (Ivwat?
and xotvtovfa, commixtio and communio), requires
indeed, some actual contact with the vivifying
power. A bond of physical descent connected
the generations of man with Adam. What link
of personal connection could unite him with the
Logos ? The historic example was indeed reflected
in the Gospels, and the imitatio Christi was open
to all beHevers. But by what means could the
benefits of his cross and resurrection be imparted?
To the spirits of the past he might preach in the
world below, and the faithful might foUow him
i Adv. Hares., V, praef., "factus est quod sumus nos, uti nos
perficeret esse quod est ipse." Here is the anticipation of the
daring language of Athanasius "God was made man that man
might be made God."
" Ibid., IV, xxxiii, 4, xiopiiaeL els Beiv.

128^ Phases of Early Christianity
into freedom and light. But death was not abol
ished upon earth. Where was the assurance that
the Christian would live again and share the
eternity of God? The answer is found in the doc
trine of the Holy Spirit, through which the
union would begin at once. Had not the Spirit
descended at the baptism on the Son of God made
Son of man, to become accustomed by feUowship
with him to dwell in humankind, and bring us
out of our old estate into the newness of Christ?'
It is the function of the Church and of the sacra
ments thus to communicate immortahty.' By
their agency Christians are already vivified; the
gift of incorruption has been already bestowed;
even here they have become partakers of the
divine nature. The future glows before them with
transcendent glory. So good a ScripturaHst looks
for the appearance of Antichrist, the victory of the
saints, their reign on earth, the splendour of a new
Jerusalem. But he does not end upon that scenic
note. Behind the jewelled walls and the cluster
ing vines he discerns "many mansions" for differ
ent grades of the saved. He sees them rising from
the city to paradise, from paradise to heaven.
Through the spirit they ascend to the Son, though
indeed the Saviour' shall be seen everywhere in
proportion to their capacity of vision, and through
the Son to the Father, tUl the last enemy is van
quished and Death himself is compelled to die.
' Adv. Hares., III. xvii, I. ' See Lectures III and IV.
3 Or God, according to different texts, Greek and Latin.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 129
Then, when at length God is "aU in aU," shaU his
mysteries be accomplished and his wisdom per
fected. His creature man shaU share the form
and body of his Son; the first begotten Word had
submitted to descend to man and be contained
by him; then shaU man once more contain the
Word; rising above the angels he shaU ascend to
him, and reaHze the image and Hkeness of God.'
Note A, p. 67
THE ANGELIC POWERS
The ordinary reader of the letters of St. Paul prob
ably does not realize the meaning of his allusions to
the Angelic Powers in the worlds above. The later
Jewish Cosmology, following the Babylonian, sup
posed that above the visible sky there rose seven
heavens. This view was widely spread through West
ern Asia (cp. Bousset, "Die Himmel-Reise der Seele,"
Archiv. fUr Religio'Tiswissenschaft, 1901, p. 167). Rab
binical accounts wiU be found in Chagiga, 12''; Bab.
Talmud., ed. Goldschmidt, iii, p. 820; Midrash Bere-
shith Rabba, xix, on Gen. iii, 8 (tr. Wunsche, p. 84).
In the Secrets of Enoch, originally written in Greek
(tr. Morfill and ed. Charles, 1896), Enoch describes
his ascent through the successive spheres, iii-xxi.
These upper worlds were tenanted by numerous ranks
of superhuman powers, of mingled character (cp.
Lect. I, p. 17) ¦ The Apostle Paul calls them ' ' Angels,
Principalities, Powers," Rom. viii, 38; "Principal
ities [R. V. "rule"], Authorities, and Powers," i Cor. xv,
24; "Principalities, Authorities, Powers, Dominions
' Adv. Hares., V, xxxvi, conclusion.

130 Phases of Early Christianity
[lit. Lordships]," Ephes. i, 21, cp. vi, 12; "Thrones,
Dominions [Lordships], Principalities, Powers," Col.
i, 1 6. These names aU occur in the Jewish Apocalyptic
hterature, e. g. Ethiopic Enoch, Ixi, 10; Secrets of Enoch,
XX, i; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, "Levi," iii,
8. Ephes. iii, 12, shows that they occupied "the
heavenlies," and that they wrought wickedness in
the world below, so that the Christian must wage
constant warfare against them. In particular the
Apostle charges the "World-rulers" with having
brought about the death of the Messiah (i Cor. ii, 8);
and predicts that they will in their turn be "brought
to nought" and so rendered powerless (R. V. "abol
ished, " I Cor. XV, 24) by him. At a later date the
Apostle extends to them also the benefits of the great
reconciliation by the cross {Col. i, 20).
Note B, p. 73
THE SO-CALLED ADOPTIANIST CHRISTOLOGY
Two types of Christologic doctrine are already
clearly marked in the New Testament. In Mark i,
10, the best texts represent the Spirit as descending
into Jesus; the divine voice then greets him: "Thou
art my beloved Son, in thee have I made my choice"
(in accordance with the tense of the Greek verb).
The Baptism is the moment at which the Messiah
(or Anointed) receives the unction of the Spirit.
Jesus is thus a man chosen for this high vocation,
and divinely equipped for it by the entry of the Spirit
into him. In Luke iii, 22, D reads, "Thou art my
Son, this day have I begotten thee," and this reading
continued in the Church till the fourth century.
Borrowing the name from a much later controversy

The Person and Work of the Saviour 131
in Spain, Harnack has designated this elementary
Christology "Adoptian." It implies that Jesus was
selected to be the bearer of the Spirit, and that after
being duly tested by temptation and suffering he was
raised to the exalted rank of Lord and Christ in heaven.
Cp. the language ascribed to Peter in Acts ii, 36, and
X, 38. Traces of this view are to be found in Rome
at the end of the second century; "it continued here
and there undisturbed up to the middle of the third
century, and it continued to exercise great influence
even in the fourth and fifth centuries."' In its later
forms it was combined with fresh elements, and lost
its early simplicity. Contrasted with this is the
conception of a spiritual "Son of God" who was sent
forth to be born in Jesus, who occupied his human
person, and returned at Jesus' death to his former
home on high. This conception belongs in different
modes to St. Paul and the author of the fourth Gospel,
and finally established itself in the heart of Christian
orthodoxy. To this type Harnack has given the
name Pneumatic. The conflict between the two,
which begins in the Apostolic age, constitutes the
chief theme of the early history of doctrine.
Note C, pp. 85 and 90
THE APOLOGISTS
The defence of Christianity is already begun in the
literature of the New Testament ; but the writings of
the Apologists of the second century were specially
designed to vindicate it on the one hand before the
authorities of the Roman Empire, the Imperial rulers,
I Harnack, Hist, of Dogma (Eng. trans.). Vol. i, p. 191".

132 Phases of Early Christianity
the Senate and the people, or to the Jews whose
Scriptures the Church had adopted. Much of the
literature thus produced has perished. It begins
formally with the presentation of two Apologies to
Hadrian at Athens (according to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl.,
IV, iii, and Chron.) in the year 125 by Quadratus and
Aristides. The work of Quadratus is no longer
extant. A Syriac version of the Apology of Aristides
was discovered at Mount Sinai by Prof. Rendel Harris,
in 1889, and published in the Cambridge Texts and
Studies, Vol. i. Prof. J. Armitage Robinson then
proved that the original Greek had been incorporated
in the Christian romance (founded on Buddhist legend)
known as The Life of Barlaam and Josaphat (probably
belonging to the eighth century). On grounds of
similarity of style and argumentative purpose it has
been proposed to associate it with the letter to Diogne
tus usually included in the Apostolic Fathers. Diog
netus is then identified with the philosopher of that
name who was tutor to Marcus Aurelius. The second
superscription of the Syriac version mentions Anto
ninus (after specifying Hadrian), and Prof. Harris
prefers the early years of his reign (138-161 A.D.).
Justin, commonly known as the Mart3rr, born at
Flavia Neapolis (modern Nablous) in Samaria about
100 A.D., wrote two Apologies, apparently in the reign
of Antoninus Pius, and the Dialogue with the Jew
Trypho. Tradition relates that he was martjn-ed at
Rome. Various dates from 148 to 163 or even later
have been assigned to his death.
Tatian, of Eastern origin, composed a Aoyo? xpbq
'EXX^va?, probably at Rome, between 152 and
172.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 133
Athenagoras, of Athens, drew up a discourse under
the title npetr^efa xspl XptoTtavwv, addressed to Marcus
Aurelius and Commodus, i.e., after 176 and before 180.
Theophilus (placed by Eusebius at Antioch) wrote
three books addressed to Autolycus, and in the third
mentions the death of Marcus Aurelius (180).
Other writers of this period with the same apologetic
aim were Melito, Bishop of Sardis, Apollinaris, Bishop
of HierapoHs, and a rhetorician named Miltiades.
In Latin the Octavius of Minucius Felix was prob
ably written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Ter
tuUian followed at Carthage at the end of the century
with a series of works of kindred purpose, the Apolo
geticus being addressed to the rulers of the Roman
Empire (197-8).
Note D, p. no
lTYPES of MONARCHIANISM
The term "Monarchy" appears first in theological
literature as the title or subject of a letter written by
Ireneeus to a Roman presbyter named Florinus, who
(like Irenseus himself) had been a disciple of Polycarp.
Eusebius {Hist. Eccl., V, xx, i) appends as an explana
tion "or that God is not the Author of Evil." The
appUcation of the term here is different from its
technical use a little later in the interpretation of the
nature of the Deity. "People are constantly throw
ing out against us," said TertuUian {Adv. Prax., iii)
"that we are preachers of two Gods or three Gods,
whUe they take to themselves pre-eminently the
credit of being worshippers of one God. 'We,' say
they, 'maintain the Monarchy.' " The develop-

134 Phases of Early Christianity
ment of the Logos-Christology in fact awakened con
siderable resistance in the East, and those who did
not receive the doctrine were dubbed Alogi. They
did not constitute a sect, they had no leaders and
were not organized, they represented a more or less
articulate protest on behalf of an older conception
of the person of Christ. In relation to Jesus Monar
chianism took two very different forms: (i) that he
was endowed with a Dynamis or Power of Holy Spirit
which constituted him Son of God; (2) that God him
self was fully present in Christ, which seemed to in
volve the consequence that the Father himself suffered
upon the cross, its supporters being nicknamed Patri-
passians. Loofs has distinguished the first type as
Dynamist Monarchianism, and the second as Medal
ist Monarchianism.'
(i) The first of these two types was immediately
identified with the Ebionite heresy. Its exponent at
Rome towards the end of the second century was a
leather-worker named Theodotus,' who came from
Byzantium, believing himself to be a true Catholic.
Hippolytus regarded him as a remnant of the Alogi.
Whatever his trade, he was highly educated, "su
preme in Greek culture, very learned in science." In
breadth of view and general practice he was wholly
unlike the Ebionites; he accepted the Rule of Faith,
and admitted the Virgin-birth; but he denied that
Jesus was in any way a pre-existent heavenly being;
he was endowed with power by the Spirit at his bap-
' Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte (1906), p. 182 ff.
The "Dynamist Monarchians'' are Hamack's Adoptianists.
"He is designated a-Kvreis, usually rendered "cobbler," but
the description of his learning suggests a man of some means.

The Person and Work of the Saviour 135
tism. Bishop Victor promptly excommunicated him
(before 199 .A..D.) for declaring Christ a mere man
(4)1X0? av6puicoq). He had many followers, who were
strong enough to form a church under Zephyrinus
(Victor's successor), and appointed a bishop at a
monthly salary of 150 denarii (about £5), — the first
recorded instance of episcopal pay. An anonymous
writer (quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V, xx) describes
their procedure with great bitterness. They com
pared copies of the Scriptures and corrected the text
(or, as their critic affirms, corrupted it). They in
sisted on rational exegesis, and set aside allegorical
interpretation. They studied Aristotle and not
Plato, they devoted themselves to geometry and Euclid
{i. e. mathematics and logic), and thought so much of
Galen that some were even said to worship him. Here
was a kind of scientific rationalism. None of their
writings survive, but a few special cases are quoted.
The Church had early seen a prediction of Jesus in the
language of Deut. xviii, 15, "a prophet shall he raise
up like unto me"; Jesus, therefore, like Moses, was
human. ' This type of Monarchianism was continued
a little later by Artemon (or Artemas), who seems
to have been still alive in 270 a.d.' According to
the anonymous author cited by Eusebius, Artemon
boldly affirmed that this was the original apostoHc
doctrine, and had prevailed at Rome itself until the
days of Victor. Such hold did it retain in the West
that Augustine supposed it to be Catholic teaching
before his conversion {Confessions, vii, 19 [25]).
' Epiphanius, Har., liv, 3.
= The bishops who denounce Paul of Samosata, Bishop of
Antioch and minister of Queen Zenobia, suggest that he should
write to Artemas, Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VII, xxx, 17.

136 Phases of Early Christianity
(2) D3mamist Monarchianism was only one aspect of
an attempt to preserve the conception of the unity
of the Godhead in contrast with that of a plurality
of icpdauita or personce within it. Medalist Monarchi
anism sought the same end by another path, first
associated with the names of Praxeas and Noetus,
both of Asia Minor. But its most distinguished re
presentative was Sabellius. Its importance is shown
by the pains taken by Athanasius and other writers
of the fourth century to combat it. Basil of Caesarea
(329-79) put the birthplace of Sabellius in the Penta-
polis on the west of Egypt. What influences helped
to shape his theology we do not know, but he became
a leader among the Monarchians in Rome during the
episcopate of Zeph3n:inus, about 215 a.d. Callistus
after his accession to the bishop's chair (217) excom
municated him. How long he remained in Rome, and
what ultimately befell him, is not known. No writings
bearing his name have survived; his doctrines must
be inferred from the statements of critics and oppo
nents. The central proposition of his teaching was
that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were the same
(Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, iii, p. 84). They were
three names for one and the same Being, three aspects
under which he was apprehended, or manifested him
self. The orthodox conception of three Persons (in
TertuUian's sense) seemed to involve polytheism.
"Have we three Gods, or one?" asked his followers.
To avoid such an inference Sabellius coined the awk
ward word uiiJitOTwp (Son-Father) to prevent the sup
position that these were two distinct beings. God
was not both these characters at once, they represented
a historic development. The Deity put forth three
successive energies. In the Old Testament he appeared

The Person and Work of the Saviour 137
as Creator and Lawgiver, i. e., as Father; in Christ as
Son and Redeemer; in the Church as Spirit, giver and
sustainer of life. The Old Testament contained no
mention of the Son of God; the function of Sonship
was only temporary, lasting from the Incarnation to
the Ascension, after which the manifestation of Deity
assumed the form of Spirit. Here was a Trinity of
Revelation. It doubtless involved all kinds of diffi
culties: did God cease to be Creator and Father when
he took the character of Son? What became of the
humanity of Jesus, united with the Son, when that
manifestation ended? Finally, it would seem, the
divine unity would be re-established, when God as
the ultimate Monad should be aU in aU (cp. Origen,
below, Lect. VI).

LECTURE III
THE CHURCH AS THE SPHERE OF
SALVATION
THE earUest written records of Christianity —
the letters of the Apostle Paid — present it as
reaHzed in certain communities in city and district
from land to land. They bear the name of
churches, and may be described locally as the
churches of Judaea or Galatia, or the church of
the Thessalonians. But they may also be viewed
in relation to a larger whole, the Church of God;
and any specific society may then be designated by
the name of the scene of its activity, such as ' ' the
church of God which is in Corinth. " The Greek
term ecclesia denoted in classical usage the public
assembly of the free city-state, charged with
supreme powers of government. The translators
of the Old Testament had employed it to render
one of the characteristic terms of the Deuteronomic
legislators, qahal, the "assembly" of the people of
Israel in its national or civil aspect,' contrasted
with the religious organization depicted in the
Priestly Code under the title edhah or "congrega
tion" (R. V.).' By what process the Christian
' Deut. V, 22; ix, lo; x, 14; xviii, 16; xxxi, 30.
'Exod. xii, 3; altogether in the Priestly Code 125 times.
138

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 139
associations acquired this title is unknown. ' The
Greek equivalent of the priestly word was syna-
gogi, and as this term had been already ap
propriated to denote the Jewish worshipping
communities and their meeting-houses, the Christ
ian gatherings, anxious to vindicate their claim to
be the true Israel, the heirs of the promises, may
have adopted the other designation sanctioned
by the Law for the past and by Prophecy for
the future.^
The members of these assembhes bore a peculiar
character. They had answered a summons, they
had responded to a great invitation, they were the
"called of Jesus Christ." By this act they had
separated themselves from the world, and become
hallowed in Christ. Consecrated to his service,
they entered a new obedience; endowed with a
fresh being, they were no more their own, they
belonged to a heavenly Lord. That august rela
tionship determined the standard of thought and
feeling and action. All intelligence, all emotion,
all impulse, all endeavour, were pledged to an
unseen Master. It was for this that they had
been foreknown by God, and foreordained to wear
the form of his Son's image ; for this they had been
made righteous, and would be invested hereafter
' For reasons why it is not carried back to Jesus himself see
Note A, p. 209.
' The term is only rarely found in Greek inscriptions, e.g. in
Delos, of the business meeting of the Herakleists; in Samos,
of the iXeuj)6p£voL; and once of a village yepovala. Poland, Gesch.
des Griechischen Vereinswesens (1909), p. 332.

140 Phases of Early Christianity
with a radiant body like their Saviour's.' The
Church, then, was the sphere in which the process
of salvation was accomplished. There was no
other foundation on which any one could build
but Jesus Christ.' It was, indeed, wide enough
for all, for women as for men, for Greek and bar
barian as for the long-descended Jew, for slave as
weU as freeman; God was no respecter of persons.
But over against the Church stood the World,
under the sway of the Prince of the Power of the
Air. ' Either this kingdom or that ! There was no
alternative. Salvation was only possible within
the Church. The principle is already impHcitly
involved. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
To the first beHevers this seemed a self-evident
fact of religious experience. They had heard
the Word, and had received its gifts. The faith
which was born in their hearts had opened to them
a heavenly fellowship. In baptism they had been
mystically identified with the death and resur
rection of the Crucified.'' A new life had been
communicated to them, which bore within it the
promise of immortality. They aU shared the
same spirit; they were all animated by a common
hope ; they obeyed the same Lord ; they looked up
to the same God and Father of all who was over all
and through all and in all. They possessed certain
common traditions; their worship was founded on
the same general elements of praise and prayer, of
' Rom. viii, 29-30; Phil, iii, 21. 3 i Cor. iii, 11.
3 Ephes. ii, 2. 4 Cp. Lect. IV.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 141
prophecy and teaching; they united in the same
meal as a symbol of brotherly love; they broke
the same bread and drank out of the same cup to
"show forth the Lord's death" till he should arrive
from the skies ; they cherished a common standard
of conduct in the "mind of Christ"; they awaited
the same judgment and looked for the same acquit
tal; they anticipated the same privilege of associ
ation in the reign of the triumphant Messiah;
they would have part in the great victory over
corruption and death. All this was involved in
the translation ofjwhich they were immediately
conscious out of the Power of Darkness into the
kingdom of the Son of God's love.
The communities thus planted on the confession
"Jesus is Lord" and the heartfelt belief that God
had raised him from the dead' had no external
bond of union. Each was a centre of independent
activity. No one church possessed rule over
any~other. Paul might counsel and exhort; he
might rebuke and denovince; he might pour out
hot words of wrath and condemnation; but he
claimed no dominion over his converts' faith;
only when he could produce some "word of the
Lord" did he appeal to a final authority in behef
or practice. Yet the churches were not left
wholly to themselves. The Apostle was tenderly
concerned for the welfare of his congregations.
The ties created by his first preaching were main
tained by subsequent visits, by the mission of
' Rom.x, 9.

142 Phases of Early Christianity
confidential disciples, by frequent correspondence,
his letters being sometimes communicated to
adjoining churches. Grateful believers fiUed his
heart with joy by unexpected gifts to relieve his
personal need. TraveUing teachers passed to and
fro receiving an ever-ready hospitality. And one
bond could not remain unrecognized. Achaia
might owe no aUegiance to Judsa; Corinth might
work out its own destiny without yielding to
Jerusalem. But there was the scene in which
the great purpose of God upon the cross had been
actually fulfilled ; there the first witness was borne
to the Messiah's resurrection; there the caU
to repentance had been first sounded by his
chosen Apostles; there his own brother guided
the fortunes of the primitive community; there
Paul himself had been accepted as the preacher
of the Gospel to those outside Israel's limits,
while Peter proclaimed it within their ancient
race. The appeal of such a church for help for
its poor constituted a claim and imposed a duty
which the Apostle to the GentUes was eager
to fulfil. In the stress which he laid on the
collection from the churches in Greece he re
vealed his sense of what they all owed to the
actual source of their being. They might manage
their own affairs imhampered by superior control,
but thankfulness and trust and love made them
aU one.
Above this link of actual circumstance imagi
nation readily soared into an ideal realm. The

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 143
activities by which the churches were founded
and their interior life was supported took many
forms. The missionary preacher, the man of
exalted vision, the teacher who knew the sacred
traditions, the healer who could cast out demons
and work cures, the speaker with tongues and his
interpreter, the administrator who shared in the
practical arrangements of worship, of care for the
poor and sick, or provision for guests, — all wrought
in virtue of a common energy. Their functions
might be different, but the source of their effective
ness was the same. In the language of religion
their various services were the manifestations of
the Spirit, which operated through them and
blended their activities into one harmony. As the
Spirit might be equated with the Lord,' the
believer was thus personaUy identified with Christ,
who lived within him as the inspiring force of his
new life. From church to church this wondrous
experience was repeated. These manifold diver
sities found their unity in the figure of a vast body
of Christ of which individual believers were the
limbs. ' They thus formed an interrelated whole.
There was no separate salvation, no solitary
deliverance; in owning allegiance to Christ they
entered a fellowship where others not only wel
comed but upheld them, and where they, too, in
theu: turn might bring fresh gifts to support and
cheer the common life. To receive and to bestow
was thus a constant privilege and a constant
I 2 Cor. iii, 18. ' I Cor. xii, 27.

144 Phases of Early Christianity
duty.' Every word of truth and every act of
love had more than a personal significance. They
were the signs of the presence of the heavenly Lord.
Each local congregation (to use another image) was
a miniature of the ancient prophetic conception of
the virgin of Israel, to be presented in maiden pur
ity for espousal to Christ.' And the generaliz
ation of the whole suggested the ineffable mystery
of the entire Church united in bridal to the Messiah
on high. *
This conception, however, might be yet further
idealized. An ancient mode of thought (which
may be traced back to Babylonia) conceived the
hallowed things of earth as copies or representa
tions of the reahties of heaven. As King Gudea
had built his sanctuary after the design of a temple
on high, so Moses prepared the sacred DweUing to
match the pattern shown to him on the Mount.''
The worlds above contained the celestial counter-
' On " The Idea of the Universal Community, " see the remark
able lecture of Prof. Royce, in The Problem of Christianity
(19 13), Vol. i, p. 47.
^ 2 Cor. xi, 2.
3 Ephes. vi, 23-32. The prophetic imagery (Hoi. ii, 16;
Is. Ixii, 5) had already suggested the application of the wedding
joy to the Messiah and his disciples in the Gospels; compare
the marriage of the Lamb with the Church in Rev. xix, 7-9.
On the lepbs yd/Ms in Greek theology and elsewhere cp. Parnell,
Cults of Greece, i, pp. 184, 244; for the ancient Babylonian myth
ology cp. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 59, 677;
Zimmern, Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 3rd ed. pp. 371,
394- ¦I Jeremias, The Old Test, in the Light of the Ancient East, i,
58. Cp. Exod. xxv, 40; Hebr. viii, 5.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 145
parts of the visible objects below. As the Greeks
knew an actual Olympus in Macedonia,' and a
heavenly Olympus, home of the gods above, so the
Jew beheved that there was a Mount Zion beyond
the skies, and a Jerusalem waiting for the hour when
it should descend on to a new earth.' In the
fourth heaven stood the temple, where the ark of
the covenant was enshrined, visible to the seer's
eye when the temple doors were opened. Under
the altar in front (where Jewish imagination set
Michael to conduct heavenly sacrifices as High-
Priest 3) the Christian prophet heard the souls
of the martyrs cry from their hallowed refuge
for the avenging of their blood. " To this order of
thought belong the representations in the homily
known to us as the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
Levitical institutions were only a copy and shadow
of "the heavenhes. " No sacrifices by a human
priesthood, even when aU the sacred fumiture
of the DweUing was sprinkled with blood of
calves and goats, could permanently cleanse the
worshipper's conscience. Another sacrifice must
purify the corresponding objects in the sanctuary
above, and the strange picture emerges of the
Messiah at once victim and High-Priest offering
himself once for aU, and passing through the
heavens with his own blood cleansing the celestial
' Cp. Mackrodt in Roscher's Lexikon, s. v.
" Cp. Hebr. xii, 22. For interesting Rabbinical illustrations
of the Jerusalem above cp. Wetstein's note on Gal. iv, 26.
3 Cp. Lueken, Michael (1898), p. 30.
4 Rev. xxi, 2; xi, 19; vi, 9-10.

146 Phases of Early Christianity
patterns on his way, to take his seat at the
right hand of God.' The Church itself might
in this way have its counterpart above in
the General Assembly of the first-born whose
names were inscribed in the heavenly register,
the "book of Hfe from the foundation of the
world.'" For in that realm of the unseen the great drama
of existence was already planned; the stage for its
enactment, the central figure of its plot, the final
scenes of its vast issue, were already prepared.
The Law, also, had its counterpart on high, a kind
of summary of all possible relations, and into its
mysterious contents God had looked, said Jewish
wisdom, when he would create the universe.^
There, too, was the Name of the Messiah, symbol
of his being, secret of his power, the very essence
of the might and majesty hereafter to be revealed.''
There were Paradise and Gehenna, the blessed
ness of the righteous and the torments of the
condemned. ' There was Moses, prepared in readi
ness for his high destiny, reserved tiU the hour
' Hebr. v, 14; ix, 23-28. = Hebr. xii, 23; Rev. xvii, 8.
3 Midrash on Genesis, Bereshith Rabba, p. i, Wunsche.
< In Enoch xlviii, 3, the Messiah appears before the creation
of the sun and stars.
5 Cp. Matt, xxv, 34, 41. How readily Jewish imagination
conceived these pre-existences may be seen by a curious example
in the Targum of Jonathan. When Jacob, assuming the dis
guise of Esau, carried the savoury meat to Isaac, he had no wine.
To complete the meal (Gen. xxvii, 25) an angel brought him
wine which had been kept in its grapes from the days of the
beginning of the world.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 147
for Israel's Hberation needed him.' There were
the Christians chosen in Christ before the world's
foundation'; and the mystery which was hid in
age-long secrecy in God, that Gentile as weU as
Jew should freely share in the benefits of the
Gospel, and that even the PrincipaHties and
Powers "in the heavenhes" — once viewed as
enemies to be subdued — should have their part
in the unsearchable riches of Christ.*
In this realm of spiritual reahties it was not
unnatural that the Church should also have a
place. When Scripture said, "God made man
male and female," the homihst could identify the
male with Christ and the female with the Church.''
Did not "the books and the Apostles declare that
the Church belongs not to the present, but has
existed from the beginning "?« The Church was
spiritual, created before the sun and moon, but
was manifested in the flesh of Christ, that any
believer who preserved her in the flesh without
corruption might receive her back again in the Holy
Spirit. The Church was thus volatiUzed into an
impalpable power whose essence was reaUy identi
cal with the quickening energy known as Spirit.
In more concrete form the Church appears to Her
mas as an aged woman, robed in most radiant
vesture, who tells him that the holy Church was
' Assumption of Moses, i, 14. ' Ephes. i, 4.
3 Ephes. iii, 1-12. ¦• 2 Clem., xiv, 2-5.
5 So Lightfoot and Prof. Lake; but S.vaBev may mean "from
above," as contrasted with the earthly present; cp. Gal. iv, 26.

148 Phases of Early Christianity
created by God's Wisdom and Providence when
the world was made. ' Hermas supposes her to be
the Sibyl for he was on the road to Cumse; but he
subsequently learns by revelation from a very
beautiful young man in his sleep that he was in
error, for she was the Church, — aged because she
was created the first of all things, and for her sake
was the world fabricated.' In a very elaborate
parable near the close of the book the Holy Spirit
which spoke with Hermas in the form of the
Church is definitely identified with the Son of
God,* so fluctuating and interchangeable were
these ideal forms, so Httle had the thought and
language of theology attained clearness and pre
cision. In the latter part of the century the
Christian Gnostic Clement of Alexandria desig
nates her as "the first-born,"" the ideal assembly
of those enrolled in heaven. In the terrible per
secution at Lyons in the year 177, when some
believers who had recanted reaffirmed their faith,
the "virgin mother" was said to experience deep
joy at receiving back ahve those who had been
untimely born as though dead.* In her presence
did TertulHan recommend the candidate for
' Shepherd, Vis. I, ii, 2; iii, 4. The book is commonly placed
about 148 A.D.
= Ibid., Vis. II, iv, I. Later on she appears less venerable,
and finally in a third form young and beautiful; but these trans
formations do not affect the main conception.
3 Ibid., Sim. IX, i, I.
t Cp. Hebr. xii, 23; Clem. Alex., Protrept., ix, § 82«, ed. Stahlin.
5 Euseb., Hist. Eccles., V, i, 45.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 149
baptism when he came up out of the water to ad
dress his prayers for grace to the Father and the
Lord.' The parallel between the earthly and the
heavenly humanity in which Christ appeared
as the second Adam, assigned to the Church the
part of a second Eve, created out of Christ's rib,
without spot or blemish.' The Valentinian
Gnostics set Ecclesia beside Anthropos (man)
as the product of the union of Logos and Z06, the
Word and Life.* Catholic and heretic could thus
express the same essential idea in different ways.
The Church was the "Virgin Daughter of light,"
the Lady that revealed the hidden mysteries, the
Secret Mother, who might be invited to share
the Eucharist and the Love-feast {Agapt) with the
believers who assembled at her call." Just as the
conception of the pre-existence of the Messiah,
when applied to Jesus as the Christ, the Saviour
and the Son of God, exalted his dignity before
creation, so did the ideal of the Church, the pre-
cosmic impersonation of the agency of salvation,
' De Baptismo, xx. In his Address to the Martyrs, i, he calls
her Domina {= Kyria).
2 Acta Petri et Pauli, xxix, ed. Lipsius (1891), p. 192.
siren.. Adv. Hares., I, i, i. See an article by Dr. P. C.
Conybeare in the Archiv. fiir. Relig. Wissenschaft, 1906, p. 73,
translated from an Address privately printed in the Abstract of
Proceedings of the Society of Historical Theology, 1902-3, on
"The Virgin Church and the Virgin Mother, a Study of the Origin
of Mariolatry," where much rare material from later Armenian
sources is collected.
*Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. Bonnet, II, ii (1903)1 §5°,
p. 166.

150 Phases of Early Christianity
enhance the significance of those who came to be
charged with the teaching of its truth and the
application of its sacraments.
The establishment of new churches was the
work of the missionary preachers, who carried
the Gospel from place to place, and gathered the
first converts into smaU congregations of believers.
These missionaries bore the title of Apostles, or
"messengers. " It is applied in the Gospels to the
twelve disciples selected by Jesus to aid him in
preaching the "good news" that the Kingdom of
God had come near. ' The name had been already
in use in a different connection for persons deputed
by the authorities at Jerusalem to carry letters on
matters of Jewish practice to their co-religionists
abroad, or to collect money for the Temple tribute.
The importance attached by the early disciples
to the maintenance of the number Twelve' is
indicated in the story of the election of a fresh
"witness of the resurrection" to take the place of
the traitor Judas when they had reassembled at
Jerusalem. For Paul accordingly they are "the
Twelve,"* and their pre-eminent character is
acknowledged by the inscription of the names of
"the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb" on the foun-
' Mark iii, 14, where later texts add that Jesus himself desig
nated them Apostles. Matt, x, 2, applies that title, but does
not ascribe it to Jesus. They are sometimes described as "the
Twelve," e.g. Mark xiv, 10, 17; cp. "the Ten," x, 41.
» Possibly S3mabolic; cp. Matt, xix, 28; Luke xxii, 30.
3 1 Cor. XV, 5. The subsequent reference to "all the Apostles"
implies that there were more. Cp. Euseb., Hist. Eccl., I, xii.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 151
dations of the wall of the New Jerusalem.' Paul
himself felt that he had been "called to be an
apostle by the wUl of God,"' and vigorously
defended the integrity of his own gospel against
any other preacher though he were sent from
heaven itself.* But he no less recognizes others
as called to the same function. He sends a salu
tation to two converts older than himself, An-
dronicus and Jimias, "who are of note among
the apostles""; he heads the list of those who serve
the Church by their spiritual gifts with apostles
and prophets*; and either he, or a disciple writ
ing in his name, declares that these are the ac
tual foundation on which the great household of
God is built. «
By what process a disciple was converted into
an apostle is not precisely known. The mission
ary impulse in the early communities, when
enthusiasm was fresh and hope was eager, was
undoubtedly strong. The danger at Jerusalem
after the death of Stephen drove away numbers
who had joined the Church, and they carried the
Gospel with them beyond the limits of Palestine
to Antioch, the brilliant capital of Syria, the
cities of Phoenicia, and Cyprus. To Antioch
Barnabas was in due time despatched from
' Reu. xxi, 14. ' I Cor. i, i.
3 Gal. i, 8. Cp. the \pevSax6<rT6\oi, 2 Cor. xi, 13, who doubt
less felt their own claim just as good.
* Rom. xvi, 7. Whether the term "kinsmen" is to be under
stood spiritually or physically is not clear.
s I Cor. xii, 28; cp. Ephes. iv, 11. " Ephes. ii, 20.

152 Phases of Early Christianity
Jerusalem in response to the news of the effective
formation of its church; and there he fetched Paul
from Tarsus to aid him in the service of teaching
the ever-increasing number of believers. When
the church there decided to send forth mission
aries for more extended labour, it was on these that
the choice feU after fasting and prayer out of the
group of prophets and teachers.' Such selection
was regarded as the work of the Spirit under whose
guidance the churches lived and wrought.' They
went forth accordingly as "apostles,"* commis
sioned by an active and energetic body of adher
ents of the new faith. Many another apostle
must have started in the same manner from other
centres, large or small. They probably did not
imdertake such responsibilities without some
sanction. But their duty was of the highest
importance. They were the instruments of the
Spirit in the preaching of the Gospel,, the first
and most immediate agents of salvation. What
burdens fell upon them, what dangers they faced,
what contumely they endured, we know from the
moving testimony of the greatest of them all.
The love of Christ constrained them, and that
love was of the quality which could bear and hope
all things.
The work of the wider Apostolate was not
confined to the first generation of believers, or to
the mission to the Gentiles in which Paul was
' Acts xiii, 1-2. "Cp. the case of Timothy, i Tim. i, l8.
3 Acts xiv, 4, 14.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 153
the protagonist. The "false apostles" whom he
denounced at Corinth' may have been sent by his
opponents with simUar church-credentials; like
the representatives of James by whom he was
confronted at Antioch.' There is no need to
suppose that the champions of the observance of
the Law by Gentile converts were not sincerely
desirous of spreading the Gospel on their own
conditions. Neither party could establish an ex
clusive claim to the dignity or the perUs of apos
tleship. By the opening of the second century
(as the fourth Gospel shows us) the great contro
versy was practically over, and the victory of Pau
line principles was complete. Apostles still travel,
but the test of their sincerity is new. Their
function was in danger of becoming lucrative.
The itinerant missionary may stUl claim one or
two nights' lodging and his food. "Let every
apostle who comes to you, " says the Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles,^ "be received as the Lord, but
let him not stay more than one day, or if need be a
second as well; but if he stay three days he is a
false prophet." When he starts out again he
may accept bread for his day's journey; "but if he
ask for money, he is a false prophet. " He passes
out of view, already exposed to declension from
the purity of the first ideal. But who shaU
estimate the value of his labours ! With no central
direction such as a modern organization like the
Salvation Army can supply, he started forth in
' 2 Cor. xi, 13 ' Gal. ii, 12. 3 xi, 4-6.

154 Phases of Early Christianity
the service of the Word. He bore it over land
and sea, by the great roads and over mountam
paths, on shipboard at the mercy of the winds and
waves, confident that some hearts in city and
village and harbour would welcome the good
news. It has often been said that at its outset
Christianity was an urban religion. It was not a
century old, as Pliny shows us,' before it had
penetrated a whole province. The conversion of
country districts beyond the suburbs of the towns
was no less the work of the wider Apostolate.
Beside the Apostle stood the Prophet. There
was, indeed, no very sharp distinction between
them, for the greedy apostle would betray himself
as a false prophet, and the faithfiU apostle might
see visions and speak "in spirit." They appear
at an early date in the church at Jerusalem; they
are among the promoters of the mission of Bar
nabas and Paul at Antioch; four daughters of
the Evangelist PhUip prophesy at Cassarea';
they are foimd all the way from Asia to Rome.
Their privilege was to receive "visions and reve
lations." Jn the excitement of exalted rapture,
moved perhaps by hymn and prayer amid their
fellow-worshippers, they broke forth suddenly
into speech, sometimes in such swift succesion
and with such tumultuous utterance that Paul
' Cp. Lect. I., p. I.
" Acts xxi, 9; the family afterwards removed to Hierapolis
in Proconsular Asia; cp. Euseb., Hist. .Eccl., Ill, xxxii, with
McGiffert's note on the confusion between the Evangelist and
the Apostle.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 155
found it necessary to suggest that two or three
would suffice for one meeting, and only one should
speak at once ; their inspiration should produce order
not confusion. ' They discoursed doubtless of the
manifold aspects of the Christian's life, of its diffi
culties and joys, its perils and rewards, of God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but especially of
the "promise of his coming. " As one and another
passed away ere his arrival the prophet poured out
words of comfort and hope, and when the Powers of
Evil seemed especially active, it was his function to
exhort to endurance and to give warning against
lapse. The forms which the great struggle might
assume, the tribulations which it would involve, the
triumphant issue which it would secure, were his
chief themes. Of the Pauline prophecy in written
form there are conspicuous examples in the predic
tion of the revelation of ' ' the Lawless One, whom the
Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, "'
or the mystery of the resurrection with the final
victory of the Christ over all his enemies, and his
subsequent subjection to the Father that God may
be aU in all. * From some Jerusalem'prophet there
probably issued the "little Apocalypse" in which
sayings of Jesus have been inwoven, assigned
to the Teacher as the solemn close of his brief
ministry in the capital." On a stUl larger and
' I Cor. xiv, 29-33. ' 2 Thess. ii, 8. ' I Cor. xv, 24-28, 51-54.
4 Mark xiii. Cp. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of
a Future Life (1899), pp. 323-329, and Wellhausen, Das Evangel-
ium Marcd (1903), in loc.

156 Phases of Early Christianity
more splendid scale is the whole book of visions
placed at the close of our New Testament, which
bears pre-eminently the name of "Revelation."
This book announces itself at the opening and the
close as ' ' prophecy. " Its author claims no apostle
ship. He writes of what he has heard and seen "in
spirit," and ranks himself among the prophets.'
When Rome falls he bids the saints, apostles, and
prophets join in heaven's joy; she is judged, for she
has deceived the nations with her sorcery, and in
her was found the blood of prophets and of saints.*
The gift of prophesying was essentially spon
taneous; the suddenness and irregularity of its
operation in the assemblies of worship proved that
its source was not in the human wUl; and the
nature of its announcements implied an origin no
other than divine. Fasting, meditation, prayer,
might prepare the willing mind to receive the
heavenly message*; but the initiative lay with the
Spirit and the first condition of its action was
freedom. But the tendency to imitate prophetic
utterance was a grave danger. Warnings against
false prophets are lodged already in the Gospels."
A long line of apocalyptic books followed the
Johannine Revelation, some of which have sur
vived in fragments to tell us that we need not
lament the disappearance of this form of early
Christian literature, in swift decline from its first
' i, 10; iv, 2; xxii, 9. = xviii, 20, 24: cp. x, 7, xi, 18.
3 So Hermas in the Shepherd, Vis. II, ii, i.
1 Mark xiii, 22; Matt, xxiv, 11.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 157
exaltation. A prophetic ministry, however, con
tinued to exercise its gift. This, too, had its travel
ling representatives, who might yield to temptation
like the itinerant apostle. The prophet might
speak in ecstasy, says our invaluable manual of
Church- Discipline, but unless he has "the ways
of the Lord" he deserves no hearing. Behaviour
is the first mark for distinguishing the true from
the false. To order a meal in a rapture, and to eat
it when the Spirit had departed, was a sure sign of
deception. So was it if the prophet did not prac
tise what he preached, or demanded money or other
gifts for himself. ' But for the true prophet, settled
among his people, no honour or recompense was too
great. He had no other means of livelihood, he must
be maintained by the community. The first fruits
of oxen and sheep, of the wine-press and the thresh
ing-floor, of bread and wine and oU, of money and
clothes, were due to him, just as of old they had
been given to the ' ' high-priest. ' ' ' Here is a glimpse
of a permanent ministry such as might arise under
various conditions of local circumstance and per
sonal attachment. The devotion of Christians to
their prophets was satirized by Lucian, who merci
lessly exposed the trickery and assumption on one
side and the credulity upon the other.* But the
' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, xi, 7-12.
" Ibid., 13; cp. Deut. xxvi, 1-3.
3 DeMortePeregriniiCp.HermaStiatheShepherd, below, p. 200.
Trof. Kirsopp Lake, Harvard Theol. Rev., 1911," The Shepherd oi
Hennas and Christian Life in Rome in the Second Century,' ' p. 45.

158 Phases of Early Christianity
memory of a great and noble function could not
wholly fade. Visions and revelations might be
vouchsafed at rarer intervals, but they still occurred.
When the enthusiasm of early days had waned, and
the organization of office had supplanted the free
movement of the Spirit, the claim to prophecy
was heard again; Montanus and his foUowers
revived a nearly lost activity, and in the face
of the growing stringency of ecclesiastical rule
sought to restore the ancient liberty and purity
of the Church.'
Third in Paul's list (i Cor. xii, 28) stand the
Teachers. They, too, shared in the energy of the
Spirit, and belonged to the ministry which may be
designated in the wider sense prophetic in contrast
to the duties of practical management. Instruc
tion was needed for those who sought to be received
into the Church. They must learn the elements
of the faith, the contents of the sacred traditions,
the significance of the holy rites of baptism, wor
ship, and the Lord's Supper, the meaning of
ancient prophecy,' the words of psalm and hymn,
the challenge of the new ethics, the demands of the
Christian life. In the weekly gatherings also the
teacher would naturally speak. If the Apostle's
enumeration of "psalm, teaching, revelation"
really denotes (as is sometimes supposed) a fixed
' See below, p. 201.
='The application of prophecy by way of Scripture-proof
played a great part in early Christian teaching, as Justin's
Dialogue with TryphosufSciently illustrates.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 159
order (1 Cor. xiv, 26), he followed the "praises"
with which the meeting opened. Many would be
his themes as he applied the great ideas of Chris
tian faith and hope to the problems of conduct
which sprang out of the daUy contact with heathen
usage. In times of anxiety his words might take
the form of exhortation, in trust, encouragement,
or comfort.' He, too, impelled by the Spirit,
might undertake a travelling mission. No less
than a true prophet is the true teacher worthy of
his food, says the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles;
along with the prophets they are the "honoured,"
by whose side the men of practical service, bishops
and deacons, are also to be ranked.' How many
aspects of the ministry of speech might be realized
in the same person is plain from the description
of Polycarp, for so many years the devoted Bishop
of Smyrna, as an apostolic and prophetic teacher. *
Very early in the history of the Jerusalem
church it had been found necessary to divide
the duties of the "service of the word" and the
"service of tables" which provided for the daily
needs of the community. " The teaching function
was not in any way closed to those who were
chosen for business administration. Among "the
Seven," Stephen was conspicuous for the wisdom
and power of his utterance. They have often
' Rom. xii, 7-8, distinguishes between teaching and exhorta
tion, but the same person might give both, just as he might
prophesy or speak in tongues as well as preach.
" xiii, 2; XV, 1-2. 3 Martyr., xvi, 2. < Acts vi, 1-6.

i6o Phases of Early Christianity
been caUed deacons, though the author of Acts
does not so describe them. They are heard of no
more after Stephen's death, and were apparently
dispersed after the persecution, for one of them,
Philip, after preaching in Samaria, settles for a
long residence in Caesarea. Their place seems to
have been suppHed later by "elders,"' of whose
appointment and duties, however, nothing is said.
In the PauHne churches the necessity for some
kind of organization was the more pressing because
the Apostle himself could rarely remain long with
his new converts, and there was no permanent
group of influential persons like the members
of the original Twelve who stiU belonged to the
Mother Church under the presidency of the Lord's
brother James. The formation of a fresh congre
gation involved all kinds of business detaU. A
room must be found for meeting ; hours of worship
must be fixed ; arrangements must be made for the
reception of fresh members, for the accommodation
of travelling missionaries, for communication with
adjoining churches, for the help of the poor and
the visitation of the sick, perhaps the burial of the
dead, and not least for the maintenance of some
kind of discipline among those whose eager hopes
betrayed them into abandonment of ordinary
duties, or whose profession of the new faith was
not proof against the temptation to relapse into old
vices. To the Thessalonians Paul finds it neces
sary to urge due recognition of "them that labour
' Acts XV, 4, 6; xxi, i8; Greek presbyters.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation i6i
among you and rule over you in the Lord, and
admonish you."' Among the gifts of the Spirit
are "helps" and "governments"' and it is in
virtue of the same endowment that "he that
ruleth" is enjoined to do so "with diligence."*
What kind of officers do these terms imply?
Before offering the brief answer which is alone
possible within the limits of these lectures, it may
be worth while to view the general position of
believers as a whole.
It was the peculiar character of Gentile Christi
anity — ^with which the future of the Church was
involved — ^that by its formation out of Judaism
it was provided at once with a literature and a
past. The Hebrew Scriptures became its sacred
books, and it served itself the heir of prophecy.
Like every other religion of antiquity Judaism had
placed sacrifice in the centre of its sacred duties,
and around the altar had set an exclusive priest
hood. The emancipation of Christians from
obedience to the Law effected by the Apostle Paul
liberated them from aUegiance to the Temple at
Jemsalem. But they were surrotmded by cults
of every description in which offerings of all
kinds, from the simple ritual of the domestic
hearth to the complicated ceremonies of an
august festival of the gods, formed the very core.
If the reproach was brought against the spiritual
worship of the synagogues of the Dispersion that
it presented no consecrated gifts to Deity, the
' I Thess. V, 12-13. ' I Cor. xii, 28. 3 Rom. xii, 8.

1 62 Phases of Early Christianity
Jew could at least point to the splendours of the
national sanctuary, renowned through the whole
world. The Christian had no such way of escape.
To the Jewish critic he could plead with the
author of Hebrews that a perfect sacrifice had
been offered once for aU by Christ. But to the
cultivated Gentile that argument was unavaUing.
He was not interested in the Law, and was glad
to be rid of the whole apparatus of sacrificial
formalism. But he might be interested in pro
phecy. It was a new type of literature to him,
and he was wUling to accept the view that the
Christians were the new Israel, and the ancient
promises were to be fulfiUed in them. The Jews
of the Dispersion had seized on the language of
Malachi' to justify the prayers of the faithful
scattered among the GentUes over the sacrifices
at Jerusalem. The words were applied again
and again in defence of Christian worship. When
the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles describes
the Lord's day meeting to "break bread and give
thanks" (in the technical sense of the Eucharist),
all quarrels must first be ended that the sacrifice
may not be defiled, "for this is that which was
spoken by the Lord, 'In every place and time
offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great King,'
saith the Lord, 'and my name is great among
the peoples.'"' "No images, no sacrifices,"
so ran the frequent charge against "the Way."
' Mai. i, 10, II, 14.
' Teaching, 14; Mai. i, II, 14; cp. Justin, Dialogue, xii, cxvii.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 163
The Apologists rebutted it with moral and spiri
tual pleas'; the martyrs refused to burn the grains
of incense proffered by the magistrates before the
statues of the gods; "as to sacrifices," declared
ApoUonius, "I and all Christians offer a bloodless
sacrifice to God, the Lord of heaven and earth
and sea, and of every living being, on behalf of
the spiritual and rational images who have been
appointed by the providence of God to rule over
the earth."'
The imagery of sacrifice, accordingly, frequently
appears in early Christian literature. Christ gives
himself up to God as an offering and a sacrifice for
an odour of a sweet smeU.* He presents the
Church to himself spotless and unblemished like a
consecrated gift." PatU entreats the Romans to
present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept
able to God which is their reasonable service.*
"Peter" sees the believers built up as living stones
into a spiritual house where spiritual sacrifices
may be offered^; the preacher in Hebrews calls for
continual sacrifices of praise, the fruit of lips that
confess God's name, and includes "weU-doing and
sharing" among the sacrifices with which he is
weU pleased.' If these were the offerings, who
' Cp. Athenagoras, Legal., xiii; Minucius Felix, Octav., xxii. •
» Conybeare, Acts of ApoUonius, xxxix.
3 Ephes. V, 2. * Ephes. v, 27.
5 Rom. xii, I. For "Koym^v "Sarpelav cp. S^fot &irh ir&VTuv
XoyiK^iv Bva-lar, Corp. Hermet., xiii (xiv), 19, and Reitzenstein,
Poimandres, p. 347.
6 I Pet. ii, 5. ' Hebr. xiii, 15, 16.

1 64 Phases of Early Christianity
were the priests? In the wUderness of Sinai Moses
had promised Israel that they should be a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation.' Not tUl the new
Israel arose was this promise realized. In break
ing with the Law the claims of a limited priesthood
were annulled, and the approach to God was
thrown open to aU; had he not caUed them out
of darkness into his marvellous Hght?' To the
prophet of the Revelation this is a theme of con
stant joy. The saints already constitute a king
dom, they have been made priests by Christ to his
God and Father (i, 6), even now "they reign upon
the earth" (v, lo) sang the four and twenty Elders
to the Lamb ; after the first resurrection they shall
be priests of Christ as weU, and shaU reign
with him a thousand years (xx, 6); in the New
Jerusalem, where the Lord God the Almighty and
the Lamb are themselves the temple, they shall
still serve, but God will be no more invisible,
"they shall see his face" (xxii, 3, 4). This was in
fact only another way of saying that within the
congregations of the Christians priesthood was
abolished. It was the pectdiar form in which amid
surrounding institutions the central truth of
Christian worship was expressed. For all souls
there is immediate access to the throne of grace,
no human mediator is needed between the spirit
of man and "the Father of all, who is over aU and
through all and in all."* Long after the episco
pate was established this principle is repeatedly
¦ Exod. xix, 6. "I Pet. ii, 9. 3 Ephes. iv, 6.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 165
affirmed. "We are the true high-priestly race of
God," declares Justin.' Irenseus asserts that
"all righteous men have the priestly rank,"' and
"all the disciples of the Lord are Levites and
Priests."* And the sentiment is echoed through
Origen down to Augustine, though on different
grounds. "All Christians are priests because they
are members of one Priest. "
The Church, however, developed in due time an
exclusive priesthood of its own, with the salvation
of believers in its custody. The stages of this
process are involved in some obscurity, and every
step has been surrounded with eager controversy.
Any endeavour to summarize the evidence is in
evitably exposed to the danger of ignoring objec
tions which may be raised from another point
of view, or failing to take note of counter-pleas.
AU that can be attempted here is to Ulustrate the
gradual change from the early type of ministry
of "gifts" {charismata) — hence often called the
"charismatic" ministry — ^to that of regular "or
ders" systematized under fairly uniform prac
tice, to which the sacerdotal character was in due
time attached.
The earHer letters of the Apostle Paul refer, as
we have seen, to certain functions of "rule" or
administration in the congregations formed in
' Dialogue, cxvi.
= Adv. Hares., IV, viii, 3. The Latin omnes enim justi sacerdo-
talem habent ordinem is exposed to some doubt, as two late
Greek writers quote a different phrase.
3 Ibid., V, xxxiv, 3.

1 66 Phases of Early Christianity
Greece or Rome. The abUity of direction and
practical aid is no less a manifestation of the
Spirit than that of prophecy or teaching. But it
had less immediate spontaneity, it was by its
very nature more constant. No titles are at first
mentioned for those who exercised it. Writing
from his imprisonment, however, to the church at
Philippi, the Apostle salutes "the saints which are
in Christ Jesus with the bishops and deacons. " The
first term does not appear anywhere else in the gen
erally recognized letters of the Apostle, the second
is used more vaguely without local reference in the
description of Timothy as a "deacon (minister) of
God," or of Epaphras as a "deacon of Christ."'
Elsewhere we are informed by the author of Acts
(Luke probably wrote near the end of the century,
after the year 94 a.d) that on their first missionary
journey Paul and Barnabas appointed "elders"
at Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia. '
With fasting and prayer the little groups of
believers commended those who were chosen to
the Lord. The choice was no doubt made jointly
by the apostles and the disciples ; no imposition of
hands is specified as in the case of Barnabas and
Paul themselves, but the author may have thought
it needless to mention what was a matter of es
tablished usage. Elders are also officers of the
church at Ephesus,* but none were instaUed in
Philippi, Thessalonica, Ber^a, or Corinth.
' I Thess. iii, 2; Col. i, 7. ' Acts xiv, 23.
3 Acts XX, 17. There is no mention of their appointment by Paul.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 167
In documents that may be placed with most like-
Hhood in their present form in the period following
Paul's activity we hear of "pastors" (shep
herds),' of the "office of a bishop" {episcope, over
sight or supervision), and deacons,' and of ruling
elders*; the elder and the bishop appearing again
in connection with instructions to Titus to appoint
elders in Crete." "Peter," who describes himself
as a "fellow-elder," exhorts the elders of the
churches in Asia Minor to "shepherd the flock of
God" among them.* Hebrews (before 95 a.d.)
alludes to "them that had the rule" or leaders,
who combined that character with the preacher's
work*; "chief men" as Acts entitles Judas and
Silas who were also prophets.' In the letter
assigned to Clement, sent by the church at Rome
to that at Corinth about 95 a.d. and included
in the Codex Alexandrinus of the New Testament
(now in the British Museum), it is laid down
that the apostles after testing their "first fruits"
by the Spirit appointed them to be bishops and
deacons of future believers.* The Corinthian
church had removed from the episcopi certain
officials who had offered the sacred gifts (viz. at
the Eucharist in worship) in blameless holiness.
Their immediate predecessors who had been
released by death from all risk of similar deposi-
' Ephes. iv, il. ' i Tim. iii, 1-13. ' Ibid., v, 17.
4 Tit. i, 5-9. s I Pet. V, 1-2. " Hebr. xiii, 7, riyoifievoi.
lActs XV, 22, 32, also ^oi/jtemi. Cp. irpowT&pxvot, I Thess. v,
12; Rom. xii, 8.
« I Clem., xiii, 4.

1 68 Phases of Early Christianity
tion are then designated "Presbyters" or elders.'
These references to Church officers of various
degrees suggest many difficult questions. Whence
came these various names? What duties do they
severally cover, and what qualifications do they
imply? Above all, what were the precise relations
between bishops and presbyters?
The actual terminology of these offices of course
is Greek, but many circumstances may have
combined to determine their local application.
The first members of churches outside Palestine
were often Jews; the Christian worship — con
trasted with GentUe cults — ^was closely linked
with that of the synagogue; and it might be
expected that the church officers would be desig
nated by corresponding titles. Greeks, on the
other hand, perceiving the resemblance of the
brotherhoods of the new faith to the confraternities
and guilds which played so great a part in their
own life, might employ the titles in common use
among them; while the customary usage of cor
porations of various kinds spread through large
administrative areas might suggest the adoption
of some specific name.
The term episcopos (bishop) had long been
current for high officers of government.' When
the Athenians proceeded to arrange for the
' I Clem., xliv, 4-5.
" See Lightfoot 's famous dissertation on "The Christian Minis
try" in his Commentary on Philippians, and the note on p. 95
on "The synonyms 'bishop' and 'presbyter.'"

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 169
administration of some newly acquired territory,
they sent "bishops" to do it. The inspectors
appointed by Indian kings were designated in
the notes of Greek observers by the same title.
When Antiochus purposed to exterminate the
religion of the Jews, he instituted a commission of
' ' bishops' ' to carry out the abominable work. There
is some evidence that the term was used in Greek
associations of various kinds, and Dr. Hatch
brought instances out of his vast learning which
connected the office specially with the adminis
tration of finance. In the list of qualifications in
I Tim. in, 1-7, which reads like an extract from
some primitive book of church-law, ' it is required
that the bishop shall be " no lover of money. " But
the term had also prophetic warrant. Had not
Scripture declared long before, said the Roman
letter, "I will establish their bishops in righteous
ness, and their deacons in faith"?'
Seniority has often been a ground for trust.
In the ancient organization of Israel the "el
ders" of clan and tribe played an important
social and even religious part (cp. Num. xi). The
members of the supreme council at Jerusalem
(known as the Sanhedrin)* are again and again
I Cp. Harnack, Sources of the Apostolic Canons (tr. Wheatley,
1895). P- 50.
' 1 Clem., xiii, 5, citing Isaiah Ix, 17. The same passage is
quoted by Irenseus, Adv. Har., IV, xxvi, 5, in the form, "I will
give thy rulers in peace and thy bishops in righteousness, " follow
ing the Septuagint.
3 A version of the Greek term Synedrion.

170 Phases of Early Christianity
described in the Gospels as "elders."' But the
name was not in use as an official title in the
Synagogue for some centuries after the foundation
of Christianity. ' Its appearance in the Jerusalem
Church, however, shows that it was naturally
employed by Jews, and Paul and Barnabas (assum
ing the statement of Acts xiv, 23, to be correct)
might have designated the officers whom they
appointed in Asia Minor by a title already familiar
to them. On the other hand Deissmann has
shown that it was freely used elsewhere in different
applications. In Egypt it became the appellation
(under the Ptolemies) of the twenty-five members
of a body which regulated the affairs of the whole
priesthood, while in Asia Minor it was a common
name for the directors of a corporation.*
The verb diakonein, to serve, of which diakonos
(deacon) is the noun, had a wide usC" It repre
sents in the Gospels the word which Jesus em
ployed to describe his own ministry*; and was
specially applied to the service of the table at
meals. * In commenting on the accotmt of the Ther
apeuts of Egypt given by PhUo in his treatise on
' Cp. Mark viii, 31; xiv, 43, 53; the application in vii, 3, is
different. ' Schurer, Gesch. des JUdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi',
Vol. Ill, p. 51.
3 Deissmann, Bible Studies (Engl, transl., 1901), pp. 154 ff.
and 233 ff.
1 1n the Lxx only in Esther, of the court-servants of Artaxerxes,
I, 10, etc.
s Mark X, 45; Luke xxii, 27. « ^^^^ yj_ 3; Luke xvii, 8.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 171
"The Contemplative Life," Eusebius identifies
them with Christians, and observes that they pos
sessed the diaconate and the office of bishop, which
takes precedence of all others.' Philo had de
scribed the young men as "serving at table"
{diakonountes) , and the president (whom Eusebius
equates with a bishop) as leading in the exposition
of the Scriptures.' The word diakonia was not
limited, however, to such attendance. It is used
for the ministry of Timothy when he is bidden to
do the work of an Evangelist.* Phoebe, of the
church of Cenchrese, the port of Corinth, is com
mended as a deaconess to what seems to be the
church of Ephesus, though the salutations are
oddly transferred to Rome." "She has been the
succourer of many," says the Apostle, "and of my
self also." As helpers of the bishops, and (as
will appear) the administrators of church-alms,
the deacons, too, must not be "greedy of filthy
lucre."* The principal problem which these names
suggest lies in the relation of the bishops and the
presbyters (or elders). The preface to the Ordinal
of the Anglican Church affirms that —
It is evident to all men dUigently reading the holy
Scriptures and ancient Authors that from the Apostles'
time there have been three Orders of Ministers in
Christ's Church: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
'- Euseb., Hist. Eccl., II, xvii, 23. ' De Vita Contempt., 8-10.
s 2 Tim. iv, 5. " Rom. xvi, i. C' Tim. iii, 8.

172 Phases of Early Christianity
On the other hand a distinguished American
scholar, Dr. McGiffert, suggested that the term
presbyter was a name for any church officer, lUce
the "leaders" {Hebr. xiu, 17) or the "shepherds"
{Ephes. iv, 11). Bishop and deacon indicated
specific functionaries with corresponding duties;
and there were thus only two sorts of ministers
instead of three.' The same practical result is
reached by the identification in first-century
literature of the bishop with the presbyter, as
argued by Bishop Lightfoot. ' On what evidence
does this rest?
The letter of the Roman church to the Corinth
ians is evoked by a report that one or two disturb
ers of the peace have betrayed the most steadfast
and ancient church into revolt against the pres
byters. * It urges the restoration of unity through
obedience to the "duly appointed presbyters.""
But it affirms that as the apostles who instituted
bishops and deacons knew that there would be
strife for the name and office of the bishop or
supervisor {e-piscopt), they made arrangements for
a succession of properly tested officers, whom
the letter then designates presbyters.* The two
names are employed for the same persons. The
government of the church of Rome Hke that of
' Note to his translation of Euseb., Hist. Eccl., Ill, xxiii, 8. Cp.
his Christianity in the Apostolic Age, pp. 555, 663, where the
position is somewhat modified.
" This is still the view of the Presbyterian Churches.
3 1 Clem., xlvii, 6. t Ibid., liv, 2 ; Ivii, i . s i Clem., xliv, 1-5.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 173
Corinth was thus plainly vested in a group or
board or committee (to use modern terms) of
Seniors, whose number is not stated, and among
whom no one apparently claimed precedence over
the others. Such a group (often called a ' ' coUege ")
was termed a "presbytery. "'
The language of Tit. i, 5-9 impHes the same
identification. Titus is instructed to appoint
elders in every city, who must be blameless,
married but once, with Christian children, for
the bishop must be blameless, etc., where the word
"for" is meaningless if presbyter and bishop are
not the same. '
Granting, however, that some presbyters were
bishops, does it follow that all were? In 1 Tim.
iii. 2, it is required that the bishop shall be "apt
to teach," and one that "rtdeth weU" his house,
as a guarantee of effective management of the
church. This function is afterwards declared
worthy of double honour in the elders that "rule
well" V, 17, especially those who labour in the
word and in teaching. Not all elders, it would
seem, had this particular gift ; ability in adminis
tration might be quite compatible with poverty of
speech. But who are the presbyters who rule
well and distinguish themselves in the minstry
of the word but bishops ?
' I Tim. iv, 14. "College" (bound together) represents the
Greek sundesmon.
2 It is possible (on other grounds) that the description of the
bishop, 7-9, has been inserted later. But the interpolator must
StiU have identified the two officers.

174 Phases of Early Christianity
The argument receives a sHghtly different turn
through the employment of the corresponding
verb episcopein, to exercise the episcopi or over
sight, to supervise. In the exhortation in i
Pet. V, 2, the "fellow-presbyter" bids the elders
shepherd God's flock with wilHng supervision.'
The word suggests the exercise of a function rather
than the title of a class or order, and though its
presence in the text is disputable, yet the fact
of its appearance at all in our manuscripts is a
proof that the copyists felt no incongruity in its
insertion. In the address to the presbyters of Ephesus whom
Paul summoned to meet him at Miletus, he bids
them take heed to the flock in which the Holy
Spirit had made them bishops.' The equation
seems again complete. It is the presbyters who
are charged with the business of supervision. The
speeches in the book are recognized as the author's
compositions, and it is quite possible that the
Apostle did not use these precise words. But
they are at least evidence for the usage of the
writer's own time. The book is probably con
temporary (within a year or two) with the Roman
letter to Corinth. They both imply the same
view, which is carried on into the next century.
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles only names
bishops and deacons,* and ignores elders. Poly-
' Greek episcopountes, the participle. R. V. "exercising the
oversight, not of constraint but willingly."
' Acts XX, 17, 28. 3 XV, I.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 175
carp, on the other hand, writing to Philippi (where
Paul included bishops and deacons in his greeting),
only mentions presbyters and deacons, though he
specially refers to Paul's letter. ' Hermas, record
ing his visions at Rome in the Shepherd, probably
about 148, describes the church as "ruled" by
presbjrters, ' and enumerates its functionaries
elsewhere as "bishops, teachers, and deacons."*
Clement of Alexandria tells a story of the Apostle
John (quoted also by Eusebius from his treatise
"What Rich Man Can be Saved?") in which a
certain bishop is immediately after designated "the
presbyter."" From Gaul in the same generation
Ireneeus addresses a letter to Victor at Rome re
monstrating with him on his harsh conduct in
breaking off communion with the churches of Asia
on the ground of difference in the Easter observ
ance. With historical lore he cites the precedents
of the presbyters who presided over the Church of
Rome before him, and quotes the language of one
of his predecessors, Anicetus, who had in like
manner spoken of the presbyters before him.*
From East and West the testimony is identical.
The Syriac Vulgate of the New Testament known
as the Peshitta sometimes translates the word
episcopos by kashisho or "presbyter."* And the
'V, 3; vi, i; xi, 1,3.
' Vision II, iv, 3, the same word as Paul uses, Rom. xii, 8.
3 Vision, III, V, I. iHist. Eccl., Ill, xxiii, 8.
5 Ibid., V, xxiv, 14.
<> In Phil, i, I ; I Tim. iii, 2 (cp. iii, i), and Titus 17. In
ActsKx, 28, the Greek ^TruntiTTous is transliterated. Kashish raa,y

176 Phases of Early Christianity
great scholar of the Latin Church, in the fourth cen
tury, Jerome, emphatically affirmed that inlthe apos
tolic age presbyters and bishops were the same. '
i Episcope, then, the function of supervision, was
exercised by presbyters, and in that capacity
they were called "bishops" or supervisors. The
word was capable of exalted appHcation. It
served to describe the watchful care of Jesus as
the shepherd and overseer of souls. ' At the sum
mit of existence stands God, the creator and super
visor of every spirit, * who multiplies nations upon
earth and through Jesus Christ chooses out from
them all them that love him. The functions of the
bishop thus corresponded to the loftiest ideal, and
this aspect received remarkable expression in the let
ters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, the most splendid
of Syrian cities, whose surviving correspondence
reveals the development towards the threefold
ministry of a bishop, presbyters, and deacons, in the
churches of the Eastern Mediterranean lands.
Ignatius had been arrested in Antioch in some
outbreak of persecution, and was sent to Rome in
mean elder in age, or in a civil or religious capacity. In i Peter
ii, 25, a third term is used, apparently with the meaning of
"searcher" with the idea of chastisement in the background.
The Rev. D. C. Simpson kindly suggests to me that the different
terms in the Pauline and Pastoral Epistles on the one hand and
Acts on the other may indicate different stages of Church de
velopment, or result from the preferences of different translators.
" Cp. quotations in Lightfoot, Philippians (1903), pp. 98, 229;
Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry, p. 164.
' I Pet., ii, 25.
3 1 Clem., hx, 3; cp.Ignat., ad Magnes.,^, Ad. Po/yc, Salutation.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 177
the care of ten soldiers. ' Instead of sailing direct
to Italy from the port of Antioch at Seleucia, his
guards took him through Asia Minor on the way to
Macedonia. This gave his friends the opportun
ity of 'communicating with some of the churches
along the route, and deputations were sent to
greet him. Thus at Smyrna, where Polycarp
had been appointed Bishop at a relatively early
age, he was met by Onesimus, Bishop of Ephesus,
Damas of Magnesia, and Polybius of Tralles,
who were accompanied by presbyters and deacons,
Ephesus sending the deacon Burrhus, who escorted
Ignatius to Troas (whence he would cross into
Europe), and three church members. Before
leaving Smyrna Ignatius wrote to the congrega
tions which had thus honoured him, as well as to
the distant Rome where he hoped to suffer mar
tyrdom. And by the hand of the deacon Burrhus
he sent back letters from Troas to the churches of
Philadelphia and Smyrna with a separate com
munication to Bishop Polycarp. The situation
was strangely pathetic. The captive Bishop,
yearning to give the supreme proof of his devotion,
feels himself only beginning to be a disciple; in
the severity of a new and unexpected experience
he needs to be anointed Hke an athlete with the
Church's oil of faith and endurance.' When he
' The date is uncertain. Eusebius assigned his martyrdom to
108 A. D. others have placed it later; Harnack even suggests 117-
126 as a possible limit, Chronol. derAltchr. Lit., II, i (1897), p. 406.
'Ephes. iii, I.

178 . Phases of Early Christianity
reaches Rome he will find himself least of the faith
ful there. But in spite of his humility' he cannot
forget that he has been at the head of a great
church. His scribe gives him the title Theophorus,
the "God-bearer." Behind the exaggerated rhet
oric in which his ardent feeUng is sometimes
clothed, lie high claims to the character of a
prophet. Though he is in chains (and he hopes
to rise in them — his spiritual pearls — through the
Ephesian prayers'), he has his understanding of
heavenly things, the places of Angels and the
gatherings of Principalities. * At Philadelphia, as
he reminds the church, he had suddenly spoken
to them with a loud voice — it was the voice of
God — urging'unity with the bishop, the presbytery,
and the deacons. So apposite was the exhortation
in the face of local divisions, that he was suspected
of previous knowledge. It was the Spirit that
was preaching, and in short, sharp, emphatic sen
tences he recalls the admonitions of which he was
only the vehicle or instrument :
Do nothing without the bishop.
Keep your flesh as the temple of God.
Love unity, flee from divisions.
Be imitators of Jesus Christ,
As he was also of his Father."
'He likens himself to a "fellow-servant" with the deacons,
Ephes. ii; Smyrn., xii.
' Ephes. xi, 2. 3 Trail., v, 2.
* Philad., vii; cp. Lindsay, op. cit., 189', "an example of the
prophetic utterances. "

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 179
For Ignatius the world is hastening to its end;
these are the last times; the choice must be made
between the coming wrath or the present grace
embodied in the Church.' Over against the ac
tivity of the Ruler of this world, he sees the vast
immeasurable design of God, working through
Patriarchs and Prophets, the Apostles and the
Church, who all enter into the hidden things of the
Father through the door of Christ. ' The organ
ization of the Church, therefore, is part of the
providential order. It consists in respecting
"the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as the bishop
is also a type of the Father, and the presby
ters as the council of God and the College of
Apostles. Without these there is nothing to call
a Church."* By more frequent meetings for
God's Eucharist and glory the powers of Satan
might be destroyed."
In the great warfare with Evil, therefore, which
every Christian was bound to wage, the first thing
needful was to strengthen the Hfe of the churches.
He denounces the indifference or the pride of those
who neglect the appointed worship, or will not
join in the common assembly. ' ' Come together, "
he cries, "as to one temple of God, one altar, one
Jesus Christ."* With the Judaizers on the one
part and the Docetic heretics on the other he will
make no compromise. As children of the light of
truth the faithful must fiee from division and evil
I Ephes. xi, I. 'Philad., ix, i. 3 Trail., iii, i.
4 Ephes. xiii, I. = Ibid., v, 2; Magnes., vii, 2.

i8o Phases of Early Christianity
teaching. ' To the Smyrneans he recites a kind of
confession of faith, laying emphatic stress upon
Christ's wondrous birth, his baptism, his cruci
fixion and resurrection,' against the unbeHevers
who affirmed that all these events were merely
semblance. These were the real charters of the
faith, guaranteed by prophecy; they were con
firmed by the contrast between the charity of the
believers and the selfishness of the heretics. They
cared nothing for love, nothing for the widow or
orphan ; the afflicted, the prisoner, the htmgry and
thirsty, they left severely alone in their need. It
was a practical test. Did Ignatius apply it without
prejudice?* Against these dangers there was one unfaiHng
remedy, union with the Church, obedience to its
threefold ministry. In these guardians and help
ers of faith and practice the imagination of Igna
tius discerned the most august personaHties. The
meeting of believers united earth and heaven; the
bishop presided in the place of God, and the pres
byters in the place of the council of the Apostles,
and the deacons were entrusted with the ministry
{diaconia) of Jesus Christ, who was from eternity
with the Father, and was made manifest at the
end of time."
In the]|divine household as in the human any one
sent by the householder ought to be received like
the master of the house himself. Clearly, there-
' Philad., ii, 6; Trail., vi, ll. ' Cp. Smyrn., i-vi.
3 Ibid., vi. 1 Magnes., vi, I.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation iSi
fore, the bishop should be regarded as the Lord
himself. ' As many as are of God and Jesus Christ
are with the bishop, and "with him the presbyters
and deacons have been appointed according to the
mind of Christ, and he established them in security
according to his own will by his holy Spirit."'
"FoUow the bishop," is the repeated injunction,
— for there is the loftiest of examples, — "as
Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the pres
bytery as if it were the Apostles, and reverence
the deacons as the command of God."* Only on
such conditions can men be Christians in reality
and not merely in name. Know God and the
bishop and do nothing without him." To his
junior, Polycarp, he sets forth the pattern of the
bishop's duties; in the bishop of Philadelphia he
had seen it realized in the love of God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ; he was ' ' attuned
to the commandment as a harp to its strings."*
Such was the teaching of the Syrian Ignatius.
Apart from its imaginative investiture it reveals
an important fact. In church after church in
Syria and Asia Minor the maintenance of the
faith, the regulation of worship, the control of
conduct — the whole agency of salvation — was
assigned to a single officer, the bishop, with a
group of presbyters and deacons around him.
¦ Ephes., vi, I. ' Philad., Salutation, iii, 2.
3 Smyrn., viii. ^ Magnes., iv; Smyrn., ix, i.
s Philad., i; a favourite metaphor; so should the presbytery
be united with the bishop, Ephes., iv.

1 82 Phases of Early Christianity
In others, such as that at PhiUppi, where Poly
carp afterwards urges obedience to the presbyters
and deacons as to God and Christ, ' this stage of
ecclesiastical evolution had not been reached.
Rome itself, it would seem, had still no bishop.
The causes which had produced this development
we can only surmise; they were no doubt numer
ous and complex, but they operated over a wide
area and tended at different rates to a common
result. The estabUshment of a new church at
once begot a number of questions. Where should
it meet? What provision should be made for its
worship and for its sacred meal? Its works of
healing might be carried on in the sufferer's own
home, ' but exorcisms were probably performed in
the assembly where the prayers of the beHevers
could assist the process.* How should the relief
of its poor be regulated, the maintenance of its
widows upheld, the character of new converts
tested, the candidates for baptism prepared, the
steadfastness of believers ensured? In the im
mense novelties which the preaching of the Gospel
brought with it, the rush of fresh Hfe flowed into
innumerable different channels, and expressed
itself in manifold diversity of forms. Some ele
ments of stabiHty must be found, and the external
management fell to small bodies corresponding
' Ep. Polyc, V, 3. 2 James v, 14.
3 In the Testament of our Lord (fourth century) the church is
to have a house for the catechumens and exorcists, arranged so
that Scripture-readings and hymns could be heard in it. Cooper
and Maclean (1902), p. 63.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation_i83
in secular terms to the modern committee. The
chief duty of superintendence devolved at first
upon the seniors among the first adherents, and
in due time they associated with themselves helpers
from the younger men and occasionally from women,
for purposes of practical service and administra
tion. In any such body some would be naturally
more distinguished above others. One would be
more influential by wealth or position or dignity
of character. Another might be more zealous
and eager; a third more gentle and sympathetic.
The first churches seem to have met in private
houses ; at Ephesus Aquila and Prisca received the
meeting ; so did Philemon at Colossi, and Nymphas
at Laodicea ; Gaius was its host at Corinth. ' Some
pre-eminence would naturally be accorded to such
householders. Their aid would be sought, their
counsel invited. The requirement of a later day
that bishops should be hospitable men, able to
take in the servants of God into their houses and
shelter the widows and the destitute,' points in
the same direction. In church meetings one or
another would at different times and for different
purposes take the leading part. When communi
cations were addressed to adjoining chiuches,
someone must write them; when they were
received, someone must read them to the congre-
''Rom. xvi, 5, 23; Philem. 2; Col. iv, 15. Even in wealthy
Carthage as late as Cyprian's day (250 a.d.) this practice con
tinued. ' Hermas, Shepherd, Sim. IX, xxvii, 2.

1 84 Phases of Early Christianity
gation. Great value was attached to such inter
course. The messenger was the representative
of the whole community. As Ignatius passed
through Asia Minor he learned that his bereaved
flock at Antioch had emerged from its diffi
culties and obtained "peace. " The neighbouring
churches had sent their officers — bishops, presby
ters, deacons — with their congratulations. He
begs the Philadelphians to do the same ; and as he
is bidding Asia fareweU on the shore of Troas he
writes to Polycarp, instructing him to summon a
godly council at Smyrna and appoint someone
dearly beloved and zealous who may be despatched
from the church to Syria as "God's courier"
with assurance of their joy. ' In such deputations
someone must take the lead. Many considera
tions would determine the choice besides abihty
to travel. Age, weight of character, readiness of
speech, would be among the qualifications. In
the church meetings, above all, someone must
preside, just as in the private consultations of
presbyters and deacons. At first the duty might
be shared; but seniority, external position, re
hgious ardour, business skill, aptitude whether for
teaching or management, would tend to concen
trate the direction of church affairs in one person,
who was found most fervent in spirit, ablest in
counsel, most diligent in administration, purest in
heart. In two departments of church Hfe this
tendency operated with the same effect. The rise
' Philad., x; Polyc, vii; Smyrn., xi.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 185
of various attractive forms of heresy early in the
second century laid on the church leaders the
responsibility of safeguarding the faith and pro
tecting believers from error. And the danger of
increasing worldUness. as the expectation of the
immediacy of the great judgment dechned, made
it urgently needful to provide for those who had
failed to maintain the strictness of their first
profession. How was the truth to be guaranteed
in its simplicity? How was the holiness of the
Church to be preserved without corruption? The
answer to these questions Hes in the development
of the power of the bishops, and the growing sense
of the unity of the Church, to which Ignatius had
already appHed the epithet Universal or Catholic. '
Each church was in idea, at least, a miniature
of the heavenly reality, and the whole community
of beHevers was thus bound together into one
"brotherhood." Each fresh convert was wel
comed into a society that spread far beyond the
local congregation. The rapid extension of Chris
tianity both East and West enabled its champions
to declare that it was to be found in every nation;
its foundation on the Law and the Prophets as
weU as "the Lord" brought it into the age-long
purposes of God; the presence of Christ in its
worshipping assembhes and the possession of the
gifts of the Spirit mysteriously united it with the
very being of Deity; and through the passion of
martyrs and the holiness of saints fresh Hnks were
' Smyrn., viii, 2.

1 86 Phases of Early Christianity
perpetually renewed between its earthly sojourn
and its eternal home on high. In the meantime,
as they waited for the coming of the Lord, city
and village were constantly interested in each other.
Even the smallest churches must be duly organ
ized. If the little group of believers could not
muster twelve persons competent to vote for a
bishop, let them communicate with neighbouring
congregations, and one that was well estabUshed
would send over three chosen deputies to examine
the qualifications of the brother whom it was
proposed to elect.' He must be of good report
among those who were not Christians, blameless
in character and conduct, no drunkard or adiUterer,
but once married, incapable of slander or favour
itism, a lover of the poor. Well was it if he were
educated and able to interpret the Scriptures.
If he were illiterate, he must be meek and full of
love to all. Beside him must be two presbyters at
least, who should look after the bishop at the altar
as well as after the congregation. The super
visor must be himself supervised, in the matter
of the gifts brought to the altar in divine service.
The church administration is no autocracy in the
hands of the bishop. A real control is still vested
in the presbyters; the episcopal authority is not
yet complete.
' See the Sources of the Apostolic Canons, translated from Har-
nack's essay, Texte und Untersuch., II, v, i8, by Wheatley (1895).
This fragment of early Church law, disinterred by Hamack's
critical sagacity, is placed by him between 140 and 180 A.D.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 187
Many circumstances, however, tended to con
firm it. In danger and difficulty the chief re-
sponsibUity feU upon the leaders. Against them
were the shafts of persecution first directed. With
them lay the duty of guarding the faithful against
heresy. The inteUectual activity which produced
the various types of Gnostic teaching found in
them its chief opponents. They were invited to
advise on delicate questions such as the treatment
of offenders against the standards of Christian
morals. They directed the fiow of charity, the
contributions made from large centres to poorer
congregations at a distance, or to brethren sen
tenced to the grievous labour of the mines. Local
differences of ritual usage were referred to their
judgment. The outbreak of any spontaneous
movement threatening their authority naturally
closed their ranks in defence.
The abounding Hfe of the Church in the second
century made various calls on its most distinguished
men. The energy of speculation on the one hand,
and the problems arising out of the entrance of
multitudes of converts drawn by various motives
on the other, brought diverse perils and occasioned
manifold anxieties. As the decades ran on, liter
ature, the greater part of which has perished, was
produced in abundance; but the chief external
means for heightening the influence of the bishop
were travel, correspondence, and meetings. On
him it devolved to receive the brethren who came
from abroad with loving words. They brought

i88 Phases of Early Christianity
news of the welfare of other churches, and sought
advice as to the means of meeting heresy, or heal
ing schism. The Jewish convert Hegesippus made
a slow journey to Rome in the middle of the cen
tury, noting the teaching which he heard from
place to place. He sojourned long at Corinth,
where Primus was Bishop, and he and the church
"were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine."
Such conferences enabled him to declare that in
every succession and in every city he had found
faithful adherence to the truths of "the Law, the
Prophets, and the Lord."'
Among the bishops who followed Primus at
Corinth was Dionysius whose "catholic letters"
were widely circulated. He admonished the La
cedaemonians against internal quarrels, and rebuked
the Athenians for almost apostatizing from the
Gospel after the martyrdom of their Bishop
Publius, though he bore witness that through the
zeal of his successor their faith had revived. To
the churches in Bithynia and Pontus on the Black
Sea he sends explanations of Scripture and recom
mendations of clemency in dealing with delin
quents or heretics. He thanks Soter, Bishop of
Rome,' for a letter which had been read that
Lord's day in the church meeting, and would be a
source of advice (like that of Clement) whenever
they read it again. The Bishop of Cnossus in
' Euseb., Hist. Eccl. IV, xxii, 1-3.
' Probable date of his episcopate 166 (i67)-i74 (175) a.d.
(Lipsius).

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 189
Crete, Pinytus, was counseUed not to lay on the
brethren too heavy a burden in the matter of
chastity, but to have regard to human infirmity.
Such concessions might weU seem perilously lax,
and Pinytus recommended his episcopal corre
spondent to impart more solid food next time;
such milky teaching was only fit for children.
This dissemination of general counsel, even when
undertaken by request, was not without its risks,
for Dionysius complains that as his letters were
passed from hand to hand apostles of the DevU
filled them with tares, excising some passages and
inserting others.' Such charges of mishandling
are only too frequent.
The growing sense of interconnection among the
churches finds interesting illustration in the ritual
difference which threatened to produce serious
disunion in the latter part of the second century
between East and West. Somewhere about 154
A.D. the venerable Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp,
then over eighty years of age, visited Rome.
Among the subjects on which he conferred with
the newly elected Bishop, Anicetus, was the time
of the celebration of the Easter festival. The
churches of Asia Minor foUowed what they be
lieved to be the practice of the Apostle John at
Ephesus; the Western usage observed another
rule. Polycarp did not persuade his brother of
Rome, but no constraint was put upon him, and
he was invited to preside at the Eucharistic service
' Euseb., Hist. Eccl., IV, xxiii.

190 Phases of Early Christianity
in token of respect. The divergence subsequently
became more acute. Assemblies of bishops were
summoned, and by synod and letter the question
was eagerly discussed aU the way from Mesopo
tamia to Gaul. On the shores of the Black Sea,
on the hUls of Palestine, at Alexandria and Rome,
the proper date for the festival of the resurrection
became the chief interest. In the last decade of
the century Victor, the Bishop of Rome, suggested
to Polycrates of Ephesus to caU a councU of his
Asian colleagues. A "great multitude " responded,
and authorized Polycrates to defend their ancient
custom. Polycrates supported it with the tradi
tion of eminent saints and martyrs, as weU as of
his own family, seven of whom had been bishops
like himself. He had lived, he wrote, to the age
of sixty-five, he had met the brethren throughout
the world, he had studied every passage in Scrip
ture, and he was not afraid of terrifying words.
A confHct of authorities was threatened. From
Rome Victor took the extreme step of sending out
circular letters announcing that communion with
the Asian churches was entirely cut off. But
Rome did not then wield the terrors of a later day.
Letters poured in rebuking Victor for his harsh
ness, and pleading for unity and peace.' The
attempted suspension of communion had no prac
tical effect, but by degrees the Roman usage
prevailed; and the bishops at Nicsea in 325 a.d.
finally declared it binding on the whole Church.
' The whole story is told by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., V, xxiii-xxv.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 191
While a question of external observance thus
brought the bishops into the field as the representa
tives of ritual tradition, a far more important
place was vindicated for them as the upholders of
doctrinal tradition. By the middle of the second
century the struggle with the various types of
speculation commonly included under the name
of Gnosticism had become acute. The Church
teachers were realizing their danger, and a vigor
ous controversial literature began. To this the
active pen of Irenaeus of Lyons made the most
important surviving contribution. AU the dispu
tants started from a common assumption. The
first condition of salvation was correct behef.
Where, then, was the truth to be found, what was
its source, how had it been transmitted, what was
its guarantee? Against the pretensions of the
numerous founders of sects Irenasus vindicated
the claims of the Church, her Scriptures, and her
Tradition. One path, and one alone, would lead
to heaven; it was that disclosed by the preaching
of the Church maintained in steadfastness through
out the world. To her had been entrusted the
Hght of God, the divine Wisdom by which aU
men might be saved ; the truth was in her keeping,
and she had proclaimed it universally. ' She was
the great bank of the faith, where the precious
deposit had been lodged by the Apostles. Through
her and her alone lay the entrance into life. '
The first significant fact for Irenasus is the wide
« Adv. Har., V, xx, i. ' Ibid., Ill, iv, i.

192 Phases of Early Christianity
diffusion of the Church. She is spread through
the whole world, she touches the ends of the earth.
From East to West she announces the same
creed; from Syria to Spain, from Asia to Gaul,
from Libya to Germany, she believes with one
soul and teaches with one mouth. ' The languages
of the faithful might differ, but their doctrine was
the same. The teachers of heresy might invent
what systems of .^ons they pleased; the makers of
schisms might multiply their separate assemblies;
but they could not deny that the whole Church
through the whole universe cherished one and the
same faith. To this immense extent and splendid
unity of its saving work the experience of every day
bore emphatic witness. It was fitting that the
Church which was to bring redemption within
everyone's reach should be found everywhere.
In every direction it outdistanced its foes.
But, secondly, the Church possesses the Scrip
tures. The centre of its truth is God, the Father
and Creator of all, who by his Word and Wisdom
made heaven and earth and sea and aU things
therein; who formed man, and brought on the
flood, and saved Noah; the God of Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living; whom
the Law announces, whom the Prophets foreteU,
whom Christ reveals, whom the Apostles hand
on, and in whom the Church believes.' On the
demonstration of the adequacy of the Scripture
testimony Irenasus dweUs with much care. He
" Ibid., I, X, 1-2. " Ibid., II, xxx, 9.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 193
vindicates the antiquity of Isaiah's prophecy of the
Parthenos-mother, ' observing that it was trans
lated into Greek by the Jews themselves long be
fore the Lord's birth from the Virgin, so that there
could be no suspicion of humouring the Christians
by their choice of terms ; and he tells the legend of
the miraculous agreement of the Seventy Elders
who made their renderings of the sacred books
independently, and found on comparing them that
they coincided word for word.' Of the Gospel
origins he gathers up a few scattered detaUs, and
after the fashion of the day by a series of numer
ical harmonies justifies their number four. For
as there are four regions of the world which we
inhabit, and four chief winds,* whUe the Church
is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and
ground of the Church are the breath of Hfe, it is
fitting that she should have four piUars breathing
out immortality on every side, and quickening
men anew." Such arguments (and there are
others) are not convincing. Their employment
indicates that the books which stand at the head
of our New Testament had been so long and so
generally estabUshed in supremacy that no further
proofs were required.
Behind Gospel and Prophecy and Law lies the
whole history of humanity. To this great theme
' Isaiah vii, 14. ' Adv. Hares., Ill, xxi, 1-2.
3 KaBoXiKh irveiiMTa. Irenffius does not happen to use the term
"catholic" of the Church.
t Adv. Hares., Ill, xi, 8.

194 Phases of Early Christianity
of the continuity of Providence Irenasus recurs
again and again with a solemn joy. It fills his
imagination and begets a sense of absolute security
which can support the most incongruous appHca-
tions. In the Gospel parable God planted the
vineyard of the human race at the creation ; he let
it out to husbandmen at the giving of the Law;
when he ordained the priestly worship of the sacred
Dwelling he hedged it round about ; iu the choice
of Jerusalem he built a tower; the winepress
hollowed in the rock provided a receptacle for the
Holy Spirit. Vainly did the prophets appeal to an
unbeUeving people; the wicked husbandmen slew
even God's own Son. The vineyard passed to
other cultivators, hedged in no more but thrown
open to the whole world; in every place was the
tower of election raised, the wine-press dug.
From first to last one and the same Father planned
and wrought the great design.' From the call of
Abraham, therefore, at every stage in his posterity,
the Church is in sight. Even Lot's wife in her
pillar becomes a type. Was not the Church the
salt of the earth, and while the martyrs went for
ward to the heavenly life was not she left behind,
exposed to the vicissitudes of human things, yet
standing like a column, the solid foundation of the
faith?' Such vindications of the unity of creation, his
tory, and the Gospel, were directed alike against
Marcion's hypothesis of two Gods, one revealed
• Adv.Hares., IV, xxxvi, 1-2. 'Ibid., IV, xxxi, 3, cp. xxxiii, 9.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 195
in the Old Testament and the other in the New,
and against the various Gnostic schemes of .^Eons
for connecting the ultimate essence of the invisible
God with a world of change and suffering and death.
The argument had then to be carried a further
stage. Against the claim to possess the true inter
pretation of the Gospel by means of a secret tradi
tion, the Church must establish the authority of
its own Rule of Faith. It must prove itself the
trustworthy guardian of the sacred deposit. For
this purpose Irenaeus appeals to the unity of its
teaching from the days of the Apostles throughout
all the world. The fidelity of the first preachers
in proclaiming the peace of heaven to men is
proved by the descent upon them of the Holy
Spirit. ' But the stress of his plea lies on the next
step. He does not really meet the Gnostic objec
tions that the Apostles themselves adulterated the
Saviour's words, and even that the Lord himself
spoke from different points of view, ' he hastens on
to the demonstration that the Church has f aithfuUy
preserved the original teaching, enshrined in the
Scriptures as the basis and support of the faith.
For this purpose he points to the tradition de
rived from the Apostles and guarded by successive
presbyters. It might be seen in every church
throughout the world by those who cared to look
at truth; but it sufficed to present two or three
examples of its maintenance in churches founded
by Apostles. Peter and Paul had planted it in
' Adv. Hares., Ill, i, i. ' Ibid., Ill, i, 2.

196 Phases of Early Christianity
Rome, and the distinguished origin of this church
made it a proper standard for comparison; there
was the norm of truth with which the faithful in
the churches everywhere could not fail to agree.'
Irenaeus then proceeds to enumerate the series of
officers from the days of the blessed Apostles who
had held the episcopi, pausing on Clement, whom
he assumes to have seen the founders, so that their
preaching still sounded in his ears. There, in the
Roman letter to Corinth, was the irrefragable
proof that in proclaiming one Almighty God,
Maker of heaven and earth, the Church had estab
lished the apostoHc tradition before the falsehoods
of heresy had been devised. The same witness was
borne at Ephesus where Paid had laboured and John
had lived so long. At Smyrna Irenaeus could appeal
to the teacher of his own youth, Polycarp, who had
(he says) conversed with many who had seen Christ
himself, and had been appointed Bishop by Apos
tles. With him his successors and all the Asian
churches were in concord. ' Thus was the ' ' plan of
salvation " {dispositio salutis) guaranteed. On this
the many nations of strange speech justly reUed.
They might possess no Scriptures, they might use no
paper or ink, but the Spirit had written salvation
on their hearts, and in righteousness and chastity
they displayed the wisdom of faith. *
' Adv. Hares., Ill, iii. In this paraphrase of the much disputed
description of the Roman Church the words potiorem principalita-
tem are understood to mean the "superior beginning" (Apx^y).
' Ibid., Ill, iii, 3-4. 3 Ibid., Ill, iv, 2.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 197
The bond of unity in the Church was thus
reaHzed in the bishops. They transmitted and
expounded the Scriptures; they preserved the
apostoHc teaching. The charisma veritatis, the gift
of the truth bestowed upon mankind in the Gospel,
was in their charge.' Believers, therefore, must
obey the presbyters who possess the succession
of the Apostles. It was only the heretics, the
schismatics, or the hypocrites, who insisted on
holding private meetings of their own. ' It might
be that Scripture, Hke Creation, still contained
mysteries beyond our power to explain.* "Let
us leave them," said Irenseus reverently, "in the
hand of God, not only in this Hfe but in that which
is to come, that God may for ever teach and man
for ever learn.""
Such a Church, ideally founded before the dawn
of time, spread before human sight from land to
land, possessing the apostoHc doctrine, and bear
ing the essential mark of the body of Christ in each
local church through the sequences of its bishops,
is the home of the true Gnosis (knowledge).
Ancient and universal, it is Scriptural withal,
' This does not mean that they were miraculously guarded
against error, or endowed with any supernatural power of de
fining or developing dogma. It was a historical deposit, not a
transcendental capacity.
' Ibid., IV, xxvi, 2.
3 Por instance, no answer could be given to the question, "What
was Gpd doing before he made the world? ' ' Cp. August., De Civ.
Dei, XI, iv ff.
4 Ibid., II, xxviii, 3.

198 Phases of Early Christianity
needing no forgeries for its defence. ' But it does
not rely only on the testimony and interpretation
of the past. Still does prophecy utter revelations,
as the brethren speak all kinds of languages, bring
to light human things, and declare the mysteries
of God. ' Still do they see visions, drive out devils,
heal the sick, and even (with much fasting and
prayer) raise the dead*; the gift of miracles had
not passed away. StiU among the successors of the
Apostles is behaviour blameless and speech un-
corrupt. " Still does the Church nourish that gift
which was more precious than knowledge and more
glorious than prophecy, the gift of love. Still
in virtue of that love towards God does she send
forward her host of martyrs to the Father, and
bear the reproach of those who suffer persecution
for righteousness' sake. * But stiU does she renew
her youth by the Spirit of God, bestowed on the
first man that he might breathe, but on her that
all those who receive it may be endowed with life.
That is what secures for us a share in Christ. It
is the pledge of incorruption, the power that
strengthens faith, the scala ascensionis ad Deum,
the ladder by which we mount to God. ^
' Ibid., IV, xxxiii, 8. ' Ibid., V, vi, I.
3 Ibid., II, xxxii, 4; cp. xxxi, 2.
¦I Ibid., IV, xxvi. On the holiness of the Church see Lect.
IV. 3 Ibid., IV, xxxiii, 8-9.
^ Ibid., Ill, xxiv, I. For TertulHan 's development of the same
line of argument in his treatise De Prascriptione Hareticorum,
see Note B, p. 210.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 199
It was undoubtedly a great ideal. In defending
it against heresy Irenaeus was not concerned to
point out the failure of the actual Church to
realize it. Warning voices had again and again
protested against its growing worldUness. Old
standards were gradually modified ; the strictness
of early ethical demands was relaxed ; the problem
of how to deal with post-baptismal sin became
acute. When Hermas watched the building of the
great Tower which symbolized the Church, he saw
the various stones of the fabric tested. Some
cracked, some proved rotten, others were all
stained, and some had turned black as pitch.
They were removed and handed to twelve women
clothed in black, whose names were Unbelief, Im
purity, Disobedience, Deceit, Grief, Wickedness,
Licentiousness, Bitterness, Lying, Foolishness, Evil-
speaking, Hate. Double would be their punish
ment compared with those who had never known
God; they should die for ever.' Even church
officers could not always maintain their integrity.
The generosity of believers created perpetual
temptations. Polycarp deplores the fall of Valens,
a presbyter at Philippi, through avarice. ' Hermas
denounces unfaithful deacons who appropriated
to themselves funds entrusted to their administra
tion, and devoured the living of widows and or
phans.* But the gravest danger lies in the false
' Shepherd, Sim. IX, vi, 4; xv, 3; xviii, 2.
' Ad Philipp; xi.
3 Shepherd, Sim. IX, xxvi, 2.

200 Phases of Early Christianity
prophets.' They played the part of heathen
wizards, and professed to foretell the issues of
private affairs; large fees enabled them to Hve in
luxury. Between the earthly spirit which came
from the Devil and the Spirit from God there was
one sure means of judgment: "Test the man who
has the divine Spirit by his life." Meek, gentle,
lowly-minded, poorest among men, he only speaks
when God wishes him to speak. The Angel of the
prophetic Spirit fiUs him, and he addresses the
congregation as the Lord wiUs. Prophecy has
still its spontaneous and ecstatic character.'
But with the changes which have gradually caused
the disappearance of the itinerant apostolate, it
has become less frequent, less enthusiastic. Or
ganization has taken its place. The energy of
belief in the impending return of Christ and the
great conflict with the adversary, which was one
of its early motives, has declined. The Church
has adapted itself more or less comfortably to the
World. We pray, says TertulHan, for the de
lay of the end.* Compromise was endangering
sincerity. The sternness of the primitive mes
sage was softened. Was it possible to reassert
the stringency of its first demands? This was
the endeavour of what was called "the New
Prophecy." ' Shepherd, Mand. XI. Cp. Justin, Dialogue, Ixxxii.
' A little later Clement of Alexandria will fix on this as the mark
of the false prophet, Strom., I, xvii, §853.
3 Apologet., xxxii.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 201
The movement started in a Mysian viUage
named Ardabau, on the borders of Phrygia.' It
was initiated by a convert named Montanus, and
was interpreted by his opponents as a determined
bid for leadership. Disappointed ambition was
often assigned as a cause of heresy, and in the
absence of any statements from his own disciples — •
for all their literature perished — there remain
only the charges of his critics. Seized with
ecstasy, he uttered strange words, and was at
first rebuked as though under the control of a de
mon. But he was not to be repressed, and his
enthusiasm drew to his side some women, among
them Prisca (or Priscilla)' and MaximUla, who
left their husbands to promote the work, and a
third lady named Quintilla. Phrygia had long
been the home of different types of orgiastic cult;
and the "new prophecy" quickly spread. Differ
ent dates are assigned to its rise; it began most
probably about 157 a.d.; in twenty years it is
influential in the West; the Bishop of Rome con
siders it favourably; the martyrs at Lyons com
mend it ; early in the third century it captures the
first great writer of the Latin Church, the learned
and ardent lawyer TertulHan of Carthage.
What, then, was the nature of its message?
I See the quotations from an uimamed writer in Euseb., Hist.
Eccl., V, xvi, 7. Further details, ibid., 17-19- Bonwetsch's
Gesch. des Montanism. (i88i) is still the most useful monograph;
cp. his article in the Prot. Real-Encycl. (1903), xiii, 417.
2 Her prominence led to the designation of her followers as
Priscillianists.

202 Phases of Early Christianity
Its form was primarily a revival of the ecstatic
teaching of the first days. Its content was pri
marily eschatological. The few strange sayings of
Montanus and his prophetesses which later writers
report' provide valuable clues, even if they may
be somewhat distorted from their original form.
Montanus appears to have beheved that the
promise of the Paraclete (the "Advocate" or
"Comforter," John xiv, 16-17) ^^^ fulfilled in
himself. More than the gift of Holy Spirit be
stowed on the Apostles was vouchsafed to him.
As the Gospel announced that the Father would
himself come and Jesus with him to those who
were loving and obedient, Montanus was said to
have declared that the Lord God the Father had
come in his person, and even "I am the Father
and the Son and the Paraclete."' The purpose
of this supreme manifestation was to announce
the approaching end of the world. The expecta
tions of the first days were revived. Maximilla
proclaimed impending wars and revolutions; she
felt herself hunted like a wolf from the flock; "I
am no wolf, " she cried, "I am word and spirit and
power. " Pepuza, in the western part of Phrygia, *
' They are collected by Bonwetsch, op. cit., pp. 197-199.
" Apropos of this dependence on the fourth Gospel Harnack
has remarked that "the first decided opponents of the Montan-
ists in Asia — the so-called Alogi" — rejected the apostolic author
ship of both the Gospel and the Apocalypse. Hist, of Dogma
(Engl, transl.), Vol. ii, p. 99, note 2.
3 ApoUonius, cited by Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, xviii, 2, adds
Tymion.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 203
became the centre of the teaching. PrisciUa had
a strange vision in which Christ appeared to her
in the form of a woman with shining garments,
and revealed to her that it would be a holy place,
and Jerusalem would descend there from the skies.
There, it would seem, Montanus sought to gather
the faithfid out of the temptations of the world,
and estabUsh a community of saints unstained by
its sordidness to await the great event. The right
eous, he promised, should shine a hundred-fold
more than the sun; and even "the little ones"
should be a hundred times brighter than the
moon. Meantime a stricter practice was enforced.
The rule of life was severe. Montanus was
charged with dissolving marriages'; they were
allowed but once. Fasts of a much severer type
were enjoined; they no doubt promoted the con
ditions for seeing visions and receiving revelations.
Missionaries were despatched to win adherents in
other churches, and the movement began to attract
general attention. It coincided with the agitation
about the right time for the Easter celebration.
Synods of bishops were summoned to deal with it.
They attempted to refute Maximilla, but her
followers triumphed; they endeavoured to sup
press Themiso, one of the leaders after Montanus
and a former confessor, but in vain. The disciples
' ApoUonius in Euseb., op. cit. The charge may have been
founded on the fact that Priscilla and MaximiUa did leave their
families.

204 Phases of Early Christianity
were expelled from the churches and refused com
munion. The Bishop of Antioch, Serapion, sent
round a letter against "this lying band of the
New Prophecy,'" which contained testimonies
from several bishops, among them one from the
Bishop of Debeltum in Thrace, who reported that
when PrisciUa had visited that region the Bishop of
Anchialus had sought to cast the demon out of
her, but the hypocrites would not allow him.'
All kinds of malicious accusations were circulated
against the prophets. Montanus had established
a financial organization for the support of the
community and its teachers. The men were
charged with gambling and dyeing their hair, the
women with fondness for expensive dress. Their
martyrs were disparaged, and Catholics in the
same prison refused to have fellowship with them.
Yet they used the same Scriptures and cherished
the same doctrines. In the stress of increasing
pressure from the ecclesiastical organization which
gained strength with every decade, Montanism
failed to establish itself in the West. In Africa*
it maintained a precarious hold for more than two
hundred years, for a tombstone of the fifth century
bore the inscription, "In the name of the Father
' A Syrian bishop had induced some of his flock to march out
with wives and children into the mountains to meet Christ, — an
eastern paraUel to the march of the Doukhobors in Canada a few
years ago.
' Euseb., Hist. Eccl., V, xix, 3.
3 It has often been argued that the famous martyrs Perpetua
and her companions (probably in 203) were Montanists.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 205
and of the Son and of the Lord Montanus."'
In Asia Minor, however, it possessed a more
vigorous life. Its discipline was upheld with
great severity; no open sinners were tolerated;
almost every transgression was punished with
expulsion. Founded on the belief in the impend
ing dissolution of this mortal scene, it had to pay
the price of its own continued existence, and
it developed regular orders, bishops, priests, and
deacons, with a succession of patriarchs at Pepuza.
Ecstatic prophecy could not supply an enduring
basis for Church life. Intermittent and excep
tional in its operation, it gave way before the co
hesion of a wide-spread and permanent ministry.
In the fifth and sixth centuries Montanism came
under the ban of imperial legislation. Justinian
finally resolved on its suppression, and it vanishes
from our view as the devoted leaders gathered
their adherents with their wives and children into
the churches, set fire to the buildings, and died in
the flames. '
In the meantime CathoHc organization became
more and more clearly conscious of its own func
tions. With the continued estabUshment of fresh
congregations new problems of duty arose, and the
mutual relations of Church officials needed further
definition. Of this tendency the Canons attrib
uted to Hippolytus of Rome early in the third
' Corp. Inscrr. LaU, viii, 2272, quoted by AcheUs, Das Christen-
thum in den drei ersten Jahrhunderten, ii, p. 51.
2 Procopius, Historia Arcana, xi, ed. Dindorf, iii, p. 74.

2o6 Phases of Early Christianity
century afford interesting illustration. They
served as the base of later and more elaborate
manuals of Church law. '
An earlier generation had recognized a series
comprising bishop, presbyters, readers, deacons,
and widows.' By the year 200 A. D. the deacons
had acquired greater prominence, and they stand
in the third place, before the readers. Martyrs
and confessors may under certain conditions have
the rank of presbyters without further ordination. *
Beside the widows, engaged in prayer and fasting
and the visitation of the sick, stand certain virgins.
For the laity various duties are prescribed. They,
too, must pray and fast. Daily and weekly they
must be diligent in attendance at the worship of
the community. They must provide the offerings
for the altar and the alms for the poor. They
must not forget that they were once themselves
catechumens, and they must be willing to join
those yet in that lower stage for mutual instruc
tion about the service of God, " a great preservative
•against trouble from demons. But they have one
privilege. They can join in the election of the
bishop. Various are the bishop's functions as he super
intends the entire Hfe of the church. He pre-
" See the edition by Achelis in Texte und Untersuch., vi (1891),
Heft 4, with his supplementary discussion.
' Sources of the Apostolic Canons, ante, p. 186.
3 The presb)rters appear to have been honorary, having the
status but not the function.
¦t Canon xxvii, §246.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 207
sides over the higher solemnities of worship,
though his presence is not required at the early
daily prayer. He makes the oblations, he dis
tributes the Eucharist, he supervises the Agapi
which may follow. The conduct of his flock is
under his constant inspection, and he decides
what catechumens are ready for baptism. He
receives reports from the deacons about the sick,
and goes to pray over the sufferers. And he is the
chief exorcist, for whom the ordaining bishop or
elder entreats power from heaven for loosing aU
bonds of demons' wickedness. The presbyters are
his fellow-workers. They may not indeed sit in
the bishop's chair, or ordain elders and deacons.
But like him they may lead in worship, and cele
brate the Eucharist in his absence. In the cere
mony which follows a bishop's ordination they
lay their hands with his upon the offerings. In
their own ordination (whether after congregational
election, or appointment by the bishop, or co-
optation by the presbytery, is not clear) the same
prayer is recited as for the bishop himself, with the
single substitution of the word "presbyterate" for
"episcopate." For both the whole assembly
prayed that the Spirit bestowed on the holy
Apostles might descend on them.' The presby
ters also visited the sick, and exorcised evil
spirits. To the deacons feU a wide range of duties. Their
attendance was required at the daily prayers at
' Canon iii, §li.

2o8 Phases of Early Christianity
cock-crow. They served bishop or presbyter at
the Eucharist, which they might carry to a pres
byter in sickness. They guarded the behaviour
of the congregation. They noted cases for their
superiors to visit; widows and orphans looked to
them for help ; they were charged to discover and
relieve hidden poverty. For them was implored
a gift of teaching that they might bring many to
salvation in Holy Church. They must instruct
the catechumens, and take care that none sought
admission to the Church out of forbidden occupa
tions without first fuUy renouncing them. They
must see that all heathen usage was abandoned,
and that the candidates for baptism had duly
grasped the principles of Christian truth and
realized the obligations of the Christian life.
By such officers, chosen for sanctity of spirit and
blamelessness of conversation, was the beHever
guided upon the scala ascensionis as he climbed to
heaven. It was a grave and solemn progress, yet
withal full of joy and peace. But if he made a
false step, missed his footing, and fell, — was his
safety all undone? The Church replied by en
treating for bishop and presbyter a new grace —
spiritum clementem et potestatem ad remittenda
peccata^ — a merciftd spirit and power to forgive
sins. How was this power exercised, and what
were its results? The answer to that question
opens a new chapter in the evolution of the Church
as the sphere of salvation.'
' Canon iii, §17. '' " Cp. Lect. VI.

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 209
Note A, p. 139
DID JESUS FOUND AN "ECCLESIA?"
The term Ecclesia is only found in the Gospels in
Matt, xvi, 18, and xviii, 17. What is its meaning
there, and are these original utterances of Jesus? In
xvi, 18, the Evangelist evidently speaks not of any
particular congregation, but of the Church at large,
which sprang originally from the community of dis
ciples at Jerusalem. The significance of the term in
xviii, 17, is more doubtful. Some interpreters sup
pose that it denotes the whole body of the disciples;
Wellhausen suggests the church at Jerusalem; others,
any local congregation. W. H. Lowe {Fragment of
Talmud Babli, 1879, p. 95, note Cc, cited by Drum-
mond, Via, Veritas, Vita, 1894, p. 16) identifies it with
a body of ten persons required by Rabbinic law for
various more solemn religious acts, and known as the
edhah or "congregation" (cp. (T]JJ in L6vy's Neuhebr.
und Chald. Worterb.).
The reasons for doubting that the words in xvi,
18, were actually spoken by Jesus are various, (i)
His preaching was mainly concerned with the speedy
coming of "the Kingdom"; and his outlook on the
future did not contemplate the foundation of a perma
nent community. (Paul, however, with a similar
expectation of the approaching close of the age, does
found churches from place to place.) (2) The Church
is elsewhere represented as founded on Christ, i Cor.
ui, 10, 11; on the Twelve, Rev. xxi, 14; on Apostles
and Prophets, Ephes. ii, 20. (3) The prerogative
here ascribed to Peter is promised elsewhere to the
disciples, xviii, 18. There is no indication of its
14

2IO Phases of Early Christianity
special exercise by Peter, e. g. in Acts, or in the scene
at Antioch described by Paul in Gal. ii, 11-14. (4)
The passage is absent from Mark (founded upon
Peter's reminiscences) and Luke. (5) It belongs to a
group of peculiar insertions in Matt., such as Matt.
xiv, 28-31, xvii, 24-27, xviii, 21 ff. (6) Justin {Dialog.,
c) who knows xvi, 17, does not quote 18. Nor
does Irenasus, who also knows 17, but omits 18-19;
cp. Adv. Hares., Ill, iii, 2; cp. Ill, xviii, 4; xiii, 2; xxi,
8; 'R.esch., Aussercanonische Texte (1893), pp. 185-196.
The first reference to 18-19 is found in Tert., De
PrcBscript. Hceret., xxii (about 199 A. D.); cp. Clem.,
Horn, xvii, 19. (7) There is some possibility that an
early form of the Diatessaron of Tatian made known
through an Armenian version of a Syriac commentary
on Tatian's work did not contain them. (8) On the
general historic conditions when the words are first
clearly traceable, cp. Grill, Der Primal des Petrus
(i904),"^'p. 77. Grill dates them about 190 A. d.
Note B, p. 198
TERTULLIAN ON HERESY AND THE CHURCH
The treatise of TertulHan entitled De Prcescriptione
Hareticorum is usually referred to the year 199 A. D.
The term Prascriptio comes from the language of
law, and indicates the "barring of a claim, " a formal
objection taken to a plea. The claim which TertulHan
proposes to meet, the plea which he will set aside, is
contained in the Gospel words adopted as a kind of
charter by the heretics, "Seek and ye shall find."
After a denunciation of philosophy as the parent of
heresies — "What have Athens and Jerusalem, the

The Church as Sphere of Salvation 211
Academy and the Church, to do with one another? " —
he urges that the words must be interpreted by the
circumstances of their utterance. They belonged to
the beginning of the Lord's ministry, when all were yet
doubtful whether he were the Christ; Peter had not
yet declared him to be the Son of God, and John the
Baptist had ceased to feel assurance about him.
Moreover the words were addressed to Jews who had
received God's promises of which the Gentiles knew
nothing. The Gentiles were to be taught afterwards
by the Apostles, who were in possession of the Paraclete
who would guide them into all the truth. Search was,
however, justifiable provided it was made in the
right place; the old woman in the parable did not go
outside her own house to look for the lost coin; and
the man who wanted bread for his friend did not go
farther than his neighbour's door. Enquiry, there
fore, must not pass beyond the Rule of Faith. But
the heretics claimed the support of the Scriptures.
TertuUian will not argue with them on that ground.
Such a controversy would have no other effect than
to upset either the stomach or the brain! Some of
the sacred books the heretics rejected, others they
mutUated, others they interpreted perversely. The
orthodox disputant would lose his breath and gain
nothing but vexation. Everything which he main
tained would be denied; everything which he denied
would be maintained; ergo non ad Scripturas provo-
candum est. Where, then, should the truth be found?
Christ was its source, the Apostles were its teachers,
the churches which they founded were its witnesses.
The testimonium veritatis, therefore, lay in agreement
with their teaching. This chain consisted of three

212 Phases of Early Christianity
links. Christ was admittedly incapable of error.
What of the Apostles ? Did not Paul's rebuke to Peter
at Antioch show that even Apostles might go astray?
[This was the case on which Porphyry afterwards
laid such stress.] The fault was one of conduct, urges
TertulHan, not of teaching, and Peter was on the same
level with Paul in martyrdom. In the apostolic
preaching there was neither error nor reserve. Had
the faith, then, been corrupted in the third stage?
Look at the number of the churches, it was pleaded
for the defence. Their wide separation rendered it
impossible to suppose that their united agreement
resulted from chance. Let the heretics unfold the
roll of their bishops, and show that the first of them
had received apostolic ordination. This was the way
in which churches like Smyrna and Rome could prove
their apostolic origin. This general argument was a
kind of preface to subsequent treatises directed against
special heresies.

LECTURE IV
THE SACRAMENTS AS THE MEANS OF
SALVATION
"\A/ISDOM," says a Jewish teacher in the
V V name of Solomon, "is initiated into the
knowledge of God"; the mysteries of her origin
and nature are revealed only to those who through
prayer receive her spirit and prepare for them
selves friendship with God.' PhUo declared that
he had been initiated by Moses into the great
mysteries ; Jeremiajh, too, had been his hierophant ;
he is himself ready to act the same part to those
who have been purified, and will guard the secrets
as a sacred treasure in their inmost souls.' For -
the first Christians the kingdom of God was a^
mystery*; so were the great events of the near
future, the working of Lawlessness . and the im
pending revelation of the Lawless One," whose
power would be brought to nought by the Advent
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; the marvel of the instan
taneous change of the living and the resurrection
I Wisdom of Sol. viii, 4, vi, 22, vii, 7, 14.
' De Cherubim, xii-xiv.
3 Mark iv, 11; the explanation by a later day of the rejection
of the Gospel by Jesus' own people.
4 2 Thess. ii, 7-8. 213

214 Phases of Early Christianity
of the dead'; the wonder of God's purpose of sal
vation for the Gentile as well as the Jew.' Paul,
too, had been "initiated" into the mystery of
life, contentment alike with plenty and with want*;
and his apostolic commission lays on him a high
responsibility as "steward of the mysteries of
God."" The seer of the Apocalypse learns that
when the seventh Angel sounds, and the kingdoms
of the world pass to their rightful Lord, the mys
tery of God will be completed.* Ignatius knows
of three "mysteries of a cry wrought in the stillness
of God": the virginity of Mary, the birth of the
holy Child, and the death of the Lord. ^ But there
is a hint of new meanings in another phrase.
When the deacons are said to be the ministers
(Si'axovot) not of food and drink but of the mys
teries of Jesus Christ, ^ the phrase suggests some
thing more than solemnities and secrets of truth,
conceived primasvally in the divine Mind and at
length displayed in actual events, or the marvels
of Nature whose Order is guarded by the Elemen
tal spirits.* Justin can still speak of the mystery
of Christ and of the Cross'; but he can also plead
for "our mysteries," against those of Dionysus,
' I Cor. XV, 51.
' Col. i, 26, ii, 2, iv, 3; Eph. iii, 4, 9, vi, 19; Romans xvi, 25.
3 Philip, iv, 12, iJi.efiir!fmL ("I have learned the secret," R. V.),
the technical word of initiation.
* I Cor. iv, I. s Rev. x, 7: xi, 15.
« Ephes. xix. 7 Trail, ii, 3.
' Ad Diognet. vii, 2, the o-oirx™ of Gal. iv, 9.
» I Apol. xiii, 4, Dial. Ixxiv, 3, cvi, i, cxxxi, 2, cxxxiv, 5.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 215
Adonis, Saturn, the Mother of the Gods, and
Mithras.' What is the meaning of this designa
tion of the Christian rites?
For many centuries Greece had been the home
of certain cults distinguished alike from the domes
tic worship of the private citizen and the public
ceremonies of the State. They were reserved for
those who had been specially admitted after due
preparation. The person of the candidate must
be purified ; he must be pledged to secrecy concern
ing the holy sights and sacred words; disclosure
might involve the penalty of death. Such rituals
of a ruder kind are now known to be wide-spread
among the peoples of the lower culture, and cer
tain elements in Greek practice which had acquired
the sanctity of ancient custom may have been
derived from an earlier and cruder stage of thought
and life. Two great religious ideas emerge out w^
of the obscurity in which these mysteries still
remain in spite of all the labours of recent students
for their elucidation. They were believed to open
a way to direct communion with the Deity, and
— perhaps as a natural consequence — to secure for
the believer the promise of a happy immortality.
Most famous of all were the mysteries of Eleusis.
The town stood on a low rocky height guarding a
bay upon the coast of Attica, opposite the island
of Salamis. Across the hUls and the fertile plain
which separated it from Athens ran the Sacred
' I Apol. xxix, 2; Dial. Ixix, 2; i Apol. xxv, i, xxvii, 4; 2 Apol.
xii, 5; Dial, lxx, i, Ixxviii, 6; i Apol. Ixvi, 4.

2i6 Phases of Early Christianity
Way, twelve miles in length, adorned in the course
of many generations with temples and monuments.
Along this road as early as the seventh century
(perhaps earlier still) passed the processions year
by year in the month of September, to and fro,
bearing the "holy things," or escorting the "fair
young god" lacchos. There were lustrations as
the candidates for initiation {mystce) bathed in
the sea; and they were required to be sexually
pure, and to have abstained from certain forbidden
foods. There was something in the nature of a
religious drama or passion-play, in which Demeter
and the Maid (Kor^, her daughter) and Aidoneus,
lord of the under-world, took part. There was a
display of consecrated objects, and the mystce
partook of some sacred food. There was a dis
course by the presiding officer or hierophant. It
probably explained the meaning of what was of
fered to the wondering gaze of the beholders. The
fame of the Mysteries, the solemnity of the pre
vious preparations, the concentration of thought
and expectation on great themes, the contagion of
numbers, the sympathy of a vast crowd from dis
tant lands, all intensified the impression. The re
sult was, as Aristotle phrased it, that they felt
certain emotions, and were put into a certain
frame of mind.' Writing in the time of Julian
in the fourth century a.d., Themistius compared
the experiences of the initiated with those of the
soul at the point of death; there were glooms and
' Quoted by Famell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. iii, p. 192.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 217
terrors, and then a wondrous light; the initiate
was received into pure regions with holy dance and
song; he joined in the divine communion and com-
panied with the blessed, while those outside were
huddled together in filth and fog. From the
days of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter which
practically threw the mysteries open to all Greece,
it had been believed that they secured for the
initiated a better lot in the world beyond the
grave. ' Women, and even slaves, were admitted,
and finaUy all Hmits of nationality were tran
scended, and the entry was made as wide as Ro
man citizenship. The homicide was rejected, and
Nero suffered the ignominy of exclusion. The
prof essor]of unhaUowed rites might not enter, and
the door was closed against ApoUonius of Tyana
as a wandering magician. Otherwise there seem
to have been no definite moral demands upon the
candidates. They were not redeemed from any
sinful ways. No pattern of conduct was held up
before them ; nor was the nature of the future Hfe
made clear. But they were inspired with faith
in a happy immortality; and the sense of be
longing to a vast community who had marched
together along the Sacred Way, added to the con
viction of a consecrated destiny, may well have
given to many devout spirits an elevation of sen-
' "Happy is he among deathly men who hath beheld these
things! and he that is uninitiate, and hath no lot in them, hath
never equal lot in death beneath the murky gloom": transl.
Andrew Lang.

\J

218 Phases of Early Christianity
timent which dignified and strengthened their
whole character. A decree of the Amphictyonic
Council in the second century B.C. declared it to be
"the tradition of the mysteries that the greatest of
human blessings is fellowship and mutual trust."'
The epitaph on a certain hierophant, who passed
on to the immortals in the tenth year of his office,
affirmed that he found death not an evil but a
blessing. The Eleusinian faith spread far and
wide, and doubtless prompted many a prayer like
that inscribed on Alexandrian grave-rehefs that
the departed "might reach the region of the holy
ones. '
The hope of immortality in Greece, said Hero
dotus, was derived from Egypt. * Apart from the
accuracy of this statement as to the origin of Hel
lenic belief, the place which the doctrine occupied
in the religious interest of the Egyptians is weU
known. The figure of the "Good Being," Osiris,
served as the age-long centre of the visions of the
future. His life of beneficence had ended through
the cruel stratagem of his brother Seth-Typhon,
and legend told of the wanderings of his sister-
wife Isis, of her recovery of the corpse, of its brutal
dismemberment subsequently by the murderer,
and of the quest of the scattered limbs by the
devoted Isis, who with the aid of her son Horus
succeeded in putting them together and effecting
the resurrection of her dead spouse ; or, as Plutarch
' PameU, ibid., pp. 191, 347.
' Ibid., pp. 213, 350. .> Herodot. ii, 123.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 219
has it, "Isis invented the remedy which confers
immortality."' All this was wrought into a
sacred drama of Osiris and his sufferings, which
Herodotus witnessed at its annual performance at
Sais.' Similar representations took place at the
same time in fifteen other cities. Herodotus states
that they were called the "Mysteries." The
term, however, is not employed in the technical
Greek sense. There were no initiations, no vows
imposed on the spectators, nor any special bless
ings secured for them after death. But the cere
monies repeated in the story of the god, on the
most impressive scale, what was supposed to hap
pen to the ordinary man. From very ancient
times the deceased Egyptian was identified with
the Ruler of the land of the departed; he, too,
was symboHcally dismembered, and through mysti
cal assimilation with the resurrection of Osiris by
magic formulas was reconstructed and prepared
for the new Hfe. * Like other deities who perished
and rose again, such as Dionysos or Attis, Osiris
had not died voluntarily, and the ancient myth
cotdd not present him as a Saviour-god. " Yet he
became the type of blessed immortality. In the
' Quoted by Moret, Kings and Gods of Egypt (1912), p. 78.
'Herodot. ii, 171, '^^ deiKTjKa twv iraB^tav airrov.
- For a late representation of this process, founded no doubt on
earlier texts, see Legrain, Livre des Transformations (1890),
from a demotic papyrus B.C. 57-56, where the process by which
the dead man becomes Osiris is described in detail.
4 Cp. Loisy, Revue d'Histoire et de Litterature Religieuses, iv,
1913, p. 402.

220 Phases of Early Christianity
great haU of the twofold Justice he sat as judge;
and century after century, millennium after miUen-
nium, the generations of men prepared themselves
for death, confiding in the hope that when their
deeds were weighed in the balance they would be
pronounced pure, and would pass into the feUow
ship and felicity of the gods.' Still, in the days
of imperial Rome did he vouchsafe to bestow the
cooling water of life, ' which gave rise to the wor
shipper's prayer "Deus te refrigeret," and may not
have been without its influence upon the later
religious language of the Church, where the term
refrigerium came to include the heavenly and
eternal meal of which the saints partook with
Christ and his angels.*
In the early centuries of our era, however, Isis
had acquired a far more prominent place outside
Egypt. Under the Ptolemies her worship had
been carried from city to city along the Mediter
ranean ; and after the fashion of the day she had
been identified with one after another of the great
deities, and exalted into the supreme sovereignty
' See the full treatment of this great scene in Budge, Osiris
and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. i (191 1), chap. x.
^Kaibel, Inscrr. Grac, 1488, cp. 1705, 1782, t4 ^v^piv iSap.
Cp. 1842 (addressed to Aidoneus), and the pathetic touch in
1890, ^vxv Si.\p<i<r-ri ^j/vxpi>v iiSap /teroSis.
3 Cp. Kraus, Realencyclopadie der Christlichen Alterthiimer
(1882), Bd. ii, 685. The verb was already used with reference
to the dead in the Passio S. Perpetua, 8 ; and earlier still (as Dr.
Darwell Stone kindly points out) the noun occurs in a similar
connection, e.g., Wisd. of Sol. iv, 7, "Justus autem si morte
praeoccupatus fuerit, in refrigerio erit."

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 221
of the universe. Merchants and sailors, Hterary
men, slaves, united to support the rites which her
priests planted in port after port; and in spite of
repeated efforts to suppress them at Rome they
won a permanent place in aristocratic favour
through the erection of a great temple in her
honour by Caligula on the Campus Martins prob
ably in the year 38 a.d.' Her votaries claimed
for her creative power over the world, and the
institution of the duties and affections of human
Hfe, in language that repeatedly finds its parallels
in the religious phraseology of the Greek Scriptures
of the Old Testament. Here are a few phrases
from an inscription discovered in the island of los' :
"I am Isis, the mistress of every land, I gave and
ordained laws unto men, which no one is able to
change. I divided the earth from the heaven,. I
showed the paths of the stars, I ordered the course
of the sun and moon. I made strong the right.
I brought together woman and man. I showed
mysteries to men ; I taught them to honour images
of the gods. I broke down the governments of
tyrants. I ordained that the true should be
thought good." When the goddess revealed her
self, it is not surprising that she should declare
herself the object of universal adoration: "The
whole earth worships my godhead, one and indi
vidual, under many a changing shape, with varied
' Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (1911),
p. 84. ' Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (1910), p. 196.

222 Phases of Early Christianity
rites and by many diverse names."' She pre
sented herself to her votaries in dreams, announc
ing that she was "strong to aid"; and to Lucius,
the bewitched hero of the "Golden Ass," she
promises her aid to change him back into human
ity on condition that the rest of his Hfe should be
dedicated to her. He shaU pass his years beneath
her protection, and in the world below he should
see her shining through the darkness of Acheron,
and dwell in the Elysian fields, engaged in continual
worship and blest in the sunlight of her smile.'
Such was salvation through Isis. How was it to
be gained? The description of the Isis mysteries
with which Apuleius concludes his novel (in the
middle of the second century a.d.), is the most
complete account of such rites which has survived
the losses of the past.
When the hour of deUverance arrives, the trans
formation is effected while a great religious pro
cession in honour of the Saviour Goddess passes
by. The priest, who has been divinely warned
at the same time that the goddess appeared to
Lucius, bids him enrol himself in the sacred sol
diery*: "Dedicate thyself to the ministry of our
faith, and take upon thee the voluntary yoke of
'Apuleius, MetamorphoseSiXIjV {transl. Butler). Then follows
a long series of identifications with the Mother of the Gods,
Minerva, Venus, Diana, Juno, BeUona, Hecate, and others.
' Ibid., vi.
3 "Da nomen huic sanctse militias"; in the Latin text after
wards occur the terms sacramentum and jugum, ministerium and
libertas, all familiar words in the Christian sphere.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 223
service. For when thou hast begun to be the
servant of the goddess, then shalt thou perceive
more fully the greatness of thy Hberty."' Such
was the caU of religion, and Lucius hastened to
obey. More than any other of the deities who
were elevated into the sovereignty of the world,
Isis evoked personal devotion, a glowing piety.
Lucius followed the practice of those who vowed
themselves to her worship, and took rooms in the
temple — it was at Cenchreas, the port of Corinth —
to prepare for his initiation. There he lived
among those who sought the service of the god
dess, and spent months, or years, or even their
whole lives awaiting her summons.' The time
passed in intercourse with the priests and the rites
of worship. Night after night the queenly form of
the deity appeared to him and bade him make
ready. But he was held back by a dread of the
severity of her discipline ; the laws of chastity and
abstinence were not easy to obey; and he kept
putting off the completion of his vows. There
were fasts and festivals; sometimes Hturgical
prayers were recited from a book, for the pros
perity of the Emperor, the Senate, and the whole
Roman people. At length the time of fulfilment
arrived. He had been forewarned of its solemnity.
The gates of hell, he was told, and the power of
Hfe were in the hands of the goddess, and the act
of self-dedication was a kind of voluntary death,
• Apuleius, Metam., xv.
" Reitzenstein, Die Hellenistischen Mysterien-Religionen, p. 80.

224 Phases of Early Christianity
foUowed by new birth and the beginning of a new
race of Hfe. After the morning sacrifice certain
books written in strange hieroglyphic characters
were brought forth from the great shrine, and he
was informed of the provisions he must make for
the ceremony. Then he was led to the lavacrum
or font, and after the priest's prayer for the favour
of the gods he was sprinkled with the purest water.
Thus cleansed, he was taken back to the feet of
the goddess herself in the temple; holy secrets were
imparted to him; and he was publicly instructed
to abstain from the pleasures of the table for ten
days, to eat nothing that had life, and drink no
wine. After due compliance when the tenth day
was complete, he received gifts from the holy
initiates, and then towards sunset was led, clothed
in a new linen robe, into the very heart of the
holy place. He seemed to himself to approach
the unseen world and return. "I drew nigh to
the confines of death, I trod the threshold of
Proserpine, I was borne through aU the elements
and returned to earth again. I saw the sun gleam
ing with bright splendour at dead of night, I ap
proached the gods above, and the gods below, and
worshipped them face to face. Behold I have
told thee things of which, though thou hast heard
them, thou must yet know naught."' When the
rites were accomplished the next morning, he
was adorned like the sun and set up like to the
' Apuleius, Metam., xxiii. For a conjectural explanation of
this experience cp. Moret, Kings and Gods of Egypt, p. i8i £E.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 225
image of a god upon a platform veiled by curtains ;
they were suddenly drawn aside, and the wonder
ing crowd thronged in to gaze upon him. He was
mystically identified with the Sun-god whom he
had beheld in midnight vision, the mysterious
Deity for ever dying and for ever reborn, the
source of the energies of the universe; he is endowed
with immortality.
Lofty ideas might gather round these rites.
Truth, says Plutarch to the Lady Clea, priestess
of Isis,' is the greatest good for man to receive,
and the most venerable gift for God to bestow;
for the blessedness of Deity consists in knowledge
and understanding. The happiness of the eternal
life which is the lot of God lies in this, that nothing
that happens escapes his cognizance. Were the
knowledge and understanding of real being with
drawn, immortality would not be life but mere
duration. To desire truth, especially about the
gods, is to reach out after Deity, a more holy work
than aU ritual sanctification and temple-service.
The very name of Isis (as Plutarch interpreted it)
implied her pre-eminent possession of wisdom and
insight, and the title of her temple promised
knowledge and the vision of Reality. Iseion
meant "approach to the knowledge of Being,"'
if with reason and purity we enter the sanctuary
of the Goddess. To those who dwell with her,
and endure her austere service, she vouchsafes
the knowledge {gnosis) of the God who is First
' De Iside, § I. ' elabpsvov rb 6v, § 2.
IS

226 Phases of Early Christianity
and Sovereign and perceived only by the mind.
Such is the holy teaching which she delivers
to those who are initiated for the attainment of
divinity.' The Isiac salvation, philosophically
interpreted, meant participation in the divine
nature.
^^ One other notable religion comes into the view
of Christian writers in the middle of the second
century and in a hundred years of struggle threat
ens the very existence of Christianity itself. Justin
at Rome denounces the initiatory rites of Mithra as
a demonic parody of the true worship. ' Founded
on homage to one of the ancient Aryan gods of
light, the heavenly "Friend," august companion
of the all-seeing Varuna, chief deity of the sky,*
the rites of Mithra had certainly reached Rome
in the latter part of the first century of our era,
if they had not, as Plutarch tells, been introduced
before the end of the Republic, through the captive
Cilician pirates subdued by Pompey. _The j-digion
of Persia out of which they came had already
helped to give to Judaism doctrines of resurrection
and judgment which were planted deep in Christ
ianity. It was not surprising therefore, that both
teaching and practice should show many common
features in the two faiths. The brilliant scholar
whose researches have thrown such a flood of
' Thv lepbv \6yov Sv ij Bebs . . . irapaSiSujffi rots TcXoi/^o^wtj deiiltffetas.
' I Apol. Ixvi, 4.
3 The equation Varuna = Greek Ouranos is still maintained by
competent scholars.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 227
light on the Mithraic monuments, Prof. Franz
Cumont, has thus summed up their parallel
elements': The adepts of both formed secret conventicles,
closely united, the members of which gave themselves
the name of "Brothers." The rites which they
practised offered numerous analogies. The sectaries
of the Persian God, like the Christians, purified
themselves by baptism; received by a species of con
firmation the power necessary to combat the spirits
of evil; and expected from a Lord's Supper salvation
of body and soul. Like the latter, they also held
Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on
December 25th, the same day on which Christmas has
been celebrated since the fourth century at least.
They both preached a categorical system of ethics,
regarded asceticism as meritorious, and counted among
their principal virtues abstinence and continence,
renunciation and self-control. Their conceptions of
the world and of the destiny of man were similar.
They both admitted the existence of a Heaven in
habited by beatified ones, situate in the upper regions,
and of a Hell peopled by demons, situate in the bowels
of the earth. They both placed a Flood at the
beginning of history; they both assigned as the
source of their traditions a primitive revelation; they
both, finaUy, believed in the immortality of the soul,
in a last judgment, and in a resurrection of the
dead consequent upon a final conflagration of the
universe. ' Textes et Monuments de Mithra, i, p. 339: transl. McCormack,
The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago, 1903), p. 190.

228 Phases of Early Christianity
Such were some of the ritual forms created by
different types of religious life. They sought in
various ways to bring the believer into fellowship
with the Powers that ruled the world, and secure
his welfare in the realm beyond the grave. It was
a widespread need; so general was the longing for
help and assurance in the better minds that Athe
nagoras could affirm as a universal fact that mys
teries were celebrated among every nation and
people.' The first requirement always was for
purity of person as an outward symbol of pur
ity of heart, and the entry into a consecrated
community lay through the cleansing bath. It
was with correct feeling that Clement of Alexan
dria recognized an affinity between the Greek
rites of purification and Christian baptism:
"Not without reason is it that in the mys
teries in vogue among the Greeks lustrations
hold the first place, as also the laver among the
barbarians."' AU over the world ceremonies of initiation are
to be found, guarding admission into different
types of community. In the lower ciUture they
introduce youth into the duties and privUeges of
manhood, and the traditions, laws, and customs
of the tribe. Many of these are modelled on a
common idea, a symboUc death and resurrection. *
' Legatio, i. » Strom. V, xi.
3 Cp. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies (1908), p. 38; Frazer,
The Golden Bough, xi {Balder the Beautiful, ii, 1913), p. 225,
"The Ritual of the Resurrection." For a very elaborate ex-

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 229
They may be traced all round the world from
Australia and New Guinea to Fiji, among the
Indians of America and the negroes of West Africa.
In the higher religious communities the more
common figure is that of rebirth. The three up
per castes of ancient India belonged to the ' ' Twice-
born." The youthful Brahman, somewhere
between the ages of eight and sixteen, was led to
his preceptor to be invested with the sacred thread.
Blessings were uttered over it, and holy water
was sprinkled on it'; modern ceremonial is more
compHcated and includes at least two baths.
Sprinkling with water took away evil thoughts,
bad dreams, misfortune, and distress. ' To bathe
in a river and worship king Dharma on the four
teenth of each half of the month was the appointed
way of purification from every sin.* The daily
bath in the prescribed form even secured exemp
tion from the tortures of Yama's hell." The
disciple of the Good Religion (of Zoroaster) must
celebrate the ritual and become navazHd, "newly
bom," bom again, regenerate.* In the Roman
Empire a new rite was brought to Italy from
Phrygia and introduced into the cult of the Great
ample- (though in a different connection) see the account of the
Sed Festival in Egypt, ibid., vi {Adonis, ii, 1914), p. i53. for the
renewal of the King's life, through mystical identification with
the death of Osiris, followed by his rebirth.
' Monier Williams, Religious Thought in India (1883), p. 361.
= Institutes of Vishnu (Sacred Books of the East, VII,) Ixiv, 41.
3 Ibid., xc, 28. " Ibid., Ixiv, 42.
s Sacred Books of the East, XXIV, p. 262.

230 Phases of Early Christianity
Mother, known as the Taurobolium. The first
record of its performance in the West belongs to
the year 134 a.d., but in its Asian home it was
doubtless much older, and represented some cruder
savage practice. A pit was dug and planks were
laid across it. On this rough platform a bull was
slaughtered. In the pit beneath stood the wor
shipper, crowned with gold, who sought the New
Birth. The blood flowed over the planks and
dripped upon him through the chinks between
them; it was charged with quickening energy.
His head and face, his clothes, his body, were aU
drenched. He emerged renatus in eternum, reborn
for ever, purified from sin. He had died to his
old life, he had become the equal of the god, he
was made divine. '
Similar ideas, couched in various forms, meet
us in contemporary cults. In one of the Hermetic
tracts, entitled The Bowl or the Monad, Hermes teUs
his son Tat that the whole world was made by
the Creator with Reason {Logos) not with hands;
he must be conceived, therefore, as ever5rwhere
present and always existing, though his body is
not extended, and cannot be touched or seen or
measured. Men, too, were sharers in reason, but
a yet higher power was set before them as a prize,
viz. participation in the supreme Mind {Nous),
' Among recent descriptions cp. Cumont, Oriental Religions,
p. 66; Frazer, Golden Bough, v, {Adonis, i), p. 274. TertuUian
says De Bapt. v, that those who were bathed in the ludi Apolli-
nares and the Eleusinian mysteries believed themselves regene
rated and relieved of punishment for their perjuries.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 231
God filled a mighty bowl with it, and sent it down
to earth with a herald whom he commanded to
proclaim to human hearts, "Baptize thyself who
canst in this bowl, beHeving that thou mayest
ascend to him who sent down the bowl, acknow
ledging for what thou hast been made."' This is
the way of salvation, which is elsewhere described
as rebirth.' In the discourses which belong to
what we might call the common type or school,
and serve as a kind of scripture* for the disciples,
Tat reminds his father Hermes that it has been
laid down that "no man can be saved before re
birth"; and he enquires what sort of being he wiU
be who is born theos (divine), a child of God.
Hermes repHes in mystical language that he has
passed out of himself into an immortal body, he
is no longer what he was before, he has been born
in Mind. " It is a doctrine analogous to that of
the Isiac mysteries, where the initiates were in a
fashion reborn. * The priest who was the human
"parent " of the new birth of Lucius bore the name
of Mithra^; and in the strange text — whether
liturgy or apocaljrpse — so brilliantly edited by the
lamented scholar Dieterich, the believer closes
with the declaration that he is born again, he has
died and been born with the birth that gives Hfe. ^
' Cap. iv, '0 Kpar^p ij fwvds, § 4.
' In the A6yos i,v6Kpvtj>os irepl iraKiyyevea-las, Cap. xiii (xiv).
3 Aayol yeviKol, x (xi) §§ I, 7; xiii (xiv) § I.
^'Eyevv^Sriv iy NiJi § 3-
s Apuleius, Metam. XI, xxi, guodammodo renatos.
6 Ibid., xxv. ' Eine Mithras liturgie (1903), p. 14, U. 31-34.

232 Phases of Early Christianity
- The precise origin of Christian baptism is ob
scure. How early the rite was applied to converts
from heathenism into the Synagogue is uncertain.
The earUest outside testimony is found curiously
enough in the discourses of Epictetus.' The
purifying bath played a great part in the disci
pline of the Essenes, and the Gospels describe the
baptism of John as designed for the "remission
of sins."' In carrying the message of the desert-
preacher into Galilee, "Repent for the kingdom
of God has come nigh," Jesus did not continue
his practice. Nor did he instruct his missionaries
to revive it. The FourtTi Gospel does indeed
ascribe baptism to the Teacher and his disciples, *
but soon after withdraws the statement concerning
Jesus himself (iv, 2). Cautious scholars agree in
viewing the injunction on the Mount in GaHlee"
as the utterance rather of the Church than of the
Master; for the triple formula "Into the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit "
only superseded at a later time the earlier usage
' A rrian, II, ix, quoted by Brandt, Hastings's Encycl. of Religion
and Ethics, ii, p. 408. Cp. Jewish Encycl., art. "Baptism," and
Kohler, Grundriss einer Systeniatischen Theologie des Judentums
(1910), p. 307.
' Cp. Mark i, 4; Luke iii, 3. The omission of this reference
in Matt, iii, is probably due to reflection on the difficulty in
volved in the implied consequence that the destined Messiah in
submitting himself to such baptism made a confession of sin, cp.
iii, 14-15, and the well-known passage in the Gospel according
to the Hebrews, preserved by Jerome, Contra Pelag., iii, 2, cp.
Preuschen, AntUegomena^, p. 4.
3 John iii, 22. i Matt. xxviii,'l9.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 233
of baptism "in the name of Jesus Christ."' The
scene at Pentecost in Jerusalem closes with the
revival of the appeal of John, "Repent and- be
baptized unto the remission of sins." But it is
with a difference. It has the same outlook to
wards the future, but it sounds a new note, not of
threat but of promise. It is not a warning to pre
pare for impending judgment; it is an invitation
to receive a gift, the quickening energy known
as "Holy Spirit"; and this is bestowed on those
who recognize that Jesus has been indeed "made
Lord and Christ," and are ready to place them
selves under the protection of his name. For
names were powers; and their use by those who
were duly authorized to employ them brought all
kinds of mysterious forces into operation, which
might react dangerously on persons who had no
proper title to wield them.' Baptism thus be
came the means of entry into the community of \.^
the heirs of the Kingdom. It carried within it
the privilege of fellowship with the believers who
waited for their returning Lord, the forgiveness of
past transgression and consequent acquittal at
» Acts ii, 38, viii, l6, x, 48, xix, 5. Modern students have
ceased to distinguish between the prepositions rendered in
English by "in" and "into." On the textual evidence for Matt.
xxviii, 19, see Dr. P. C. Conybeare in the Hibbert Journal
(1903). Vol. i, p. 102, and the reply of Dr. Chase, Journal of
Theological Studies (1905), Vol. vi, p. 483. Cp. Professor Kirsopp
Lake in Hastings's E. R. E., ii, p. 380.
"See the story of the strolling exorcists at Ephesus and the
seven sons of Sceva, Acts xix, 13-17, cp. HeitmuUer, Im Namen
Jesu (1903), p. 266, flf.

234 Phases of Early Christianity
the approaching great assize, and a mystical par
ticipation in a new kind of life known as Spirit.
No special interpretation of the rite is suggested
in the Book of Acts. But the Apostle Paul sup
pUes it with a meaning which is all the more re
markable because of his own apparent indifference
to it : " Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach
the Gospel " ; and at Corinth he could only remem
ber baptizing Crispus and Gaius and the house
hold of Stephanas.' Who initiated the other
converts we are not told. But in the same letter
he reminds them that they had been washed and
consecrated and made righteous in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of God.'
These two agencies, however, were not really
distinct. The equation "The Lord is the spirit"*
enabled the Apostle to use either name in different
connections with practically the same meaning.
To be in Christ or to have Christ formed within
was an experience of like kind with Hfe in the Spirit
or the possession of the indwelHng Spirit. The
attempt to express the sense of union with an un
seen Power in terms of space relations which
could be absolutely inverted, involved no less
confusion than the endeavour to separate ideas
that constantly tended to run together. Just as
at the baptism of Jesus the Spirit was affirmed to
have actually descended into him," so did the
believer receive the sanctifying power into his
' I Cor. i, 14-17. ' I Cor. vi, 11. 3 2 Cor. iii, 17.
^ So all the best texts in Mark i, 10, instead of "upon."

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 235
own person. There it wrought wondrous effects.
By its hallowed might the dominion of sin was
broken, and sin itself was done to death. A fresh
element of being was imparted; a new creation
started into Hfe; the disciple had put on Christ;
the process had been begun which should give him
a form like the image of the Son himself, when
the time should come for the Lord to fashion out
of the body of our humiliation a new shape Hke
that worn by himself in glory. '
With impassioned imagination Paul works out
this conception into a kind of mystical drama.
Analogies and metaphors are rapidly employed
to indicate meanings more poignant than ordinary
words could hold. Israel had received its baptism
into Moses as it journeyed under the guidance of
the sacred cloud, and entered the waters of the
Red Sea.' Thus was it brought within the sphere
of the Providential purpose which culminated at
Sinai in the covenant of the Law. Baptism into
Christ was the miniature representation of a yet
vaster scheme. The redemption of sinners had
required the Messiah's death, but in virtue of his
spirit of holiness Jesus had been raised from the
dead and exalted as Lord to the right hand of God.
Thence he dispensed the gifts and graces of salva
tion, and prepared the great era when the saints
should reign with him, and share in the judgment
destined to overtake the Powers and PrincipaHties
' Gal. iii, 27; Rom. viii, 11, 29; Phil, iii, 21.
' I Cor. X, 1-2.

236 Phases of Early Christianity
which had disputed his sway. What Christ had
done as the Man from heaven for humanity at
large, the believer must repeat within the limits
of his own person. He, too, must die to sin, that
he might live to righteousness. So sharp must
be his separation from all evil that it could only be
described as "crucifixion to the world" (with the
singular consequence that the world was crucified
to him) . ' How could this profound experience be
renewed in the disciple? The process of baptism,
as he was immersed beneath the water, suggested
his deposition in a tomb. There he was buried
with Christ as though dead. When he returned
to the familiar ways, it was to "walk in newness
of life." He was acquitted of his sin by this sym
bolic death; he was alive unto God for he was
risen with Christ. So completely were the con
ditions of the present identified with the destinies
of the future that even in this Hfe the saved were
already in possession of seats "in the heavenhes"
with their Lord on high. '
No second Paid was found to repeat this
language.* It is echoed in the Johannine saying
"we know that we have passed out of death into
life because we love the brethren."" But this
' Gal. vi, 14.
['Rom. vi, 3-1 1 ; Ephes. ii, 6. The part which the water
actually played in this result is not explained. The Apostle's
thought moved in a different sphere.
3 The author of Ephesians, if not Paul himself, is very nearly
his double.
< I John iii, 14.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 237
transition is not effected through any assimUation
of the disciple with the mystery of the Cross.
The death of the Son of God is not a type which
must be reproduced within the sphere of the
Church. The escape from death is not achieved
by passing through it as a single act, but by
emergence out of it as a permanent unspiritual
state. The instruments of this passage are
obedience and faith. "He that heareth my
word, and believeth him that sent me hath
eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but
hath passed out of death into life." ' The Hellenic
mind fixed on new birth as the more natural
emblem of this mighty change.' The believer
must be "begotten of God."* Those who are
"of God" have already shared in the victory of
Christ, they too are conquerors of the Evil One."
This divine generation is already announced in
the Fourth Gospel and connected with baptism:
"Except a man be born of water and spirit he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God." There
is good reason for suspecting that the reference to
water is a later intrusion into the text. * But the
promise of " living water " to the Samaritan woman,
parallel to the promise of the sacred bread,*
' John V, 24. = Cp. ante, p. 229.
3 I John iii, 9, iv, 7 etc. 4 Ibid., ii, 14; John xvi, 33.
s Cp. Wendt, The Gospel according to St. John (1902), p. 120;
Lake, The Influence of Textual Criticism on the Exegesis of the
N. T. (1904), p. 15-
* Cp. John iv, 10, vi, 32; "give me this water," iv, 15; "give
us this bread, " vi, 34.

238 Phases of Early Christianity
points already to the baptism of the GentUes';
and the mysterious issue of blood and water out
of Jesus' side upon the cross is probably cor
rectly interpreted as a symbol of the life-giving
sacraments which flowed from his redeeming
death. Baptism thus became something more than a_
rite of entrance into a holyL-Community; it_jwas
the actual means of imparting a seed of immor-
~tality. As it acquired more and more significance
for placing the believer on the first step of the
scala ascensionis, it was invested with increasing
solemnity. In the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles'
the candidate must first be duly instructed in
the two Paths of Life and Death. Together
with the baptizer (of whose status in the church
nothing is said)* he must fast beforehand, to
secure a purity of person where there is nothing
of which demons can lay hold. It is well if the
fast is shared by others also. The "living water"
of a running stream is preferable. Thrice, it
would seem, should the catechumen be immersed
"in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit""; if immersion was impracti-
' The Evangelist has already given a hint in that direction by
the allusion to baptism and the activity of the disciples, iv, 1-2.
' Chap. vii.
3 Ignatius, Smyrn. viii, 2, declares the presence or at least the
sanction of the bishop necessary.
¦I Cp. Juvenal, Sat. vi, 520-3, ridiculing the Romans who would
break the ice in the Tiber and descend thrice into the sacred
stream.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 239
cable, it would suffice to pour water three times on
the head with the same words. The triple formula
replaces the simpler and more ancient style, "in
the name of Jesus Christ," which long held its
ground in traditional use, and was only finally
set aside in the third century.
The importance attached to baptism to which
the name of "the seal" was applied,' may be
inferred from the Corinthian practice cited by the
Apostle Paul, of baptizing the living on behalf of
the dead.' Even the departed must share the
grace. The great tower of the Church which
Hermas sees in vision with its shining stones is
built on water, for that is the element by which
life is saved.* In a later vision certain stones
are brought up from the deep. They are the men
of past generations to whom "the seal" has been
preached by apostles and teachers who descended
to those who had fallen asleep, and bestowed
on them the baptism which gave them life and
brought them within the Church." Baptism
carried with it the knowledge of the name of the
Son of God. Without this knowledge not even
' Cp. 2 Clem, vi, 9; viii, 6. It corresponded to the Jewish
circumcision, also designated "the seal," Achelis, Das Christen-
thum, i, p. 122. Cp. Rev. vii, 3-4, where the 144,000 are sealed
on their foreheads, ix, 4, contrasted with the mark of the Beast,
xiii, 16. Forthe use of the symbol cp. Odes of Solomon, iv, 8;
viii, 16.
" I Cor. XV, 29. Cp. prayers and sin-offerings for the dead in
later Judaism; 2 Mace xii, 42-45. On analogous Orphic
practice, cp. Rohde, Psyche^, ii, 128.
3 Shepherd, Vis. Ill, ii, 4, iii, 5. ¦• Ibid., Simil. IX, xvi.

240 Phases of Early Christianity
the angels could enter the kingdom of God.'
Must they, also, enter the "laver of regeneration " ?
Baptism was thus the necessary preliminary
to full participation in the privileges of the Church.
Borrowing a term from the Mysteries, Justin
describes it as "illumination."' It is a rebirth,
in which the believer is made anew. He is no
longer a child of necessity and ignorance; he
enters into freedom and enlightenment ; he becomes
a child of choice and knowledge. With prayer
and fasting the company of the faithfiU joined the
candidates in beseeching God for the remission of
their sins. In the water the sacred names are pro-
noimced over them, of "God the Father and Lord
of the imiverse," of "Jesus Christ who was cruci
fied under Pontius Pilate," and "of the holy Spirit
who through the prophets foretold all things about
Jesus." The terms are gaining clearer definition to
ward off heresy. The Father is no ultimate Being,
so ultra-spiritualized that he can have nothing
to do with creation ; he is himself its Author and
Sovereign. Christ is no phantasm who vanished
before the hour of pain and left Jesus to suffer a
cruel death ; he shared the agony of the cross. The
holy Spirit provides the proof of Christ's mission
through the conformity of its incidents with the pro
phetic word. Here are the beginnings of a simple
\ explanation of the Christian's faith, but speciUation
has not yet sought to determine the nature of the
action of the water in the rite.
' Shepherd, Simil. IX, xii, 6-8. ' I Apol. bd.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 241
The growth of the Church and the rising dignity
of its officers naturally enhanced the solemnities
by which entrance into it was guarded. The
Canons of Hippolytus afford us precious insight
into the process of receiving those who sought
salvation within its fold in the beginning of the
third century. ' The first step was to examine the
candidate carefully and obtain satisfactory as
surance of the sincerity of his purpose; why did
he abandon his own previous religious practice?
was he prepared to renounce occupations which the
Church declared unlawful? This might involve
grave sacrifices. No silversmith or wood-carver
or painter engaged in ministering to idolatry
might continue his craft. The actor must leave
the stage, and take no more part in the odious
spectacles of the abominations of the gods. The
gladiator and the fighter with wild beasts must
abandon the arena. The school-master, if he
does not know how to make a living otherwise,
might retain his post ; but on condition of denounc
ing the heathen gods whose hateful stories he
had to teach as demons, and daily proclaiming
to his pupils "There is no God but the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit." The case of the
soldier involved many difficulties. No Christian
might voluntarily take service under the Em
peror; that would involve expulsion from the
' Cp. §§60-140. Cp. the Egjrptian Church Order, and later
manuals in the fourth century, in the Apostolic Constitutions,
book viii, and the Testament of Jesus Christ.
16

242 Phases of Early Christianity
Church. ' Comptdsion might alter the case, but the
sword must not shed blood under pain of the wear
er's exclusion from the mysteries. Every form of
Hvelihood promoting unchastity was of course
prohibited; and no one who practised magic or
astrology or conjuring, or the interpretation of
dreams, could be received except on the condition
of surrendering his art. The maker of amulets
must cease the sale of "phylacteries," and the
usurer must exact interest no more. Three
witnesses must testify that these renunciations
were complete. Holders of office must be clothed
in the ornament of justice, or they may not remain
in church during the bishop's prayers. The
spread of Christianity among the wealthy in
the third century raised many difficulties in the
performance of ceremonial and judicial duties,
which were solved by various compromises.
Members of heathen priesthoods of course resigned
their functions. The slave of an idolatrous master
must not be baptized without his master's consent :
"Let him be content that he is a Christian."
Was faith sufficient, then, to procure salvation?
After all, his eternal safety must not be imperilled.
If he was in danger of death before "admission to
the gift, " let him not be "separated from the rest
of the flock." Ere the last hour arrived the holy
rite might be administered. A catechumen who
suffered martyrdom was baptized in his own blood. *
' Egyptian Church Order, in the Can. Hippol., p. 82.
' Cp. Thecla's baptism of herself in the arena, Acts of Paul

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 243
The period of preparation for baptism when
the candidate was once admitted to instruction,
varied with many circumstances. The teaching
was usually given by a deacon, who required his
catechumens at the end of each lesson to repeat
their renunciation of Satan and all his pompa.
After forty days they might be sufficiently ad
vanced to attend the service of praise and the
sermon in church; and if they were judged worthy
baptism might follow. But some might be kept
back for months or even for years, for baptism
was sometimes delayed until old age. Mean
while the candidate must give proof of the graces
of charity and lowliness; he must visit the sick,
support the weak, refrain from evil speech, sing
in the church psalms, abhor vain glory, despise
pride, and love humility. Thus trained in the
principles and practice of Christian brotherhood,
when he is at length truly pure, let him confess
to the bishop, and seek his sanction to enjoy the
mysteries. The gospel for the season must be read
over him; the last trace of double-mindedness, of
secret shame, must be removed beneath its solemn
utterance ; in the kingdom of heaven none can be
insincere. It was a severe discipHne, designed to
produce a grave and lofty type of character.
and Thecla, xxxiv. In the Acts of Callistratus, §13 (Conybeare,
The Armenian Apology, etc., p. 333), some soldiers are bound and
thrown into the sea, and Callistratus prays that the waters may
be to them for the baptism of regeneration. Such incidents
are frequent.

244 Phases of Early Christianity
On the fifth day of the week before the Sunday
on which the rite was to be performed ' the bapti-
zands bathed and took food. The next day
(Friday) they fasted. On Saturday they were
assembled by the bishop who bade them kneel
facing the east, and spread his hands over them
to expel the evil spirit from their every limb,
warning them against any action that would
bring it back. Breathing on them he made the
sign of the cross on breast and forehead, ears and
mouth. They passed the night in solemn vigU,
aided by holy exhortations and prayers. With
such reverence did they approach the hour when
they should be born again for immortality.
At cockcrow on Sunday morning a Httle com
pany took their stand by running water, or on the
sea-shore. The sponsors removed the clothes of
little children; adults prepared themselves; for
women female aid was at hand to take off their
ornaments and unbind their hair, that nothing
belonging to alien spirits might descend into the
water of regeneration. The bishop then offered
prayer over the oil of exorcism which he handed
to a presbyter upon his left, and the oil of unction
entrusted to one upon his right. Facing the
west the baptizand then renewed his renunciation
of Satan and was anointed with the oil of exorcism.
Turning to the east and bowing himself in the
presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
' Any Sunday apparently. There was a tendency to concen
trate on Easter and Pentecost. .

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 245
and all their pompa, he went down into the water,
where a presbyter laid his hand upon his head and
asked the first solemn question :
Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?
On the affirmative answer "ego credo" the
baptizand was dipped beneath the water: and
similarly after the second and third questions :
Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God,
whom Mary the Virgin bore by the Holy Spirit, who
was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and rose
from the dead on the third day, and ascended to
heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father,
and shall come to judge the living and the dead?
Dost thou believe in the Holy Spirit?
At each immersion the sacred formula was
repeated, "I baptize thee in the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Not yet, however, was the rite complete. On
coming up out of the water the new-born was
anointed with the chrism of thanksgiving over
his whole person, face, and head, with the sign of
the cross on forehead, mouth, and breast. Then
he was dressed and brought into the church.
Laying his hands on each in turn, the bishop
prayed thus :
We bless thee, Almighty Lord God, that thou hast
made these worthy to be born again and dost pour
over them thy Holy Spirit, that they may now be

246 Phases of Early Christianity
united to the body of the Church, never to be sepa
rated from it by unworthy deeds. Grant rather to
those to whom thou hast now granted remission of
sins the further pledge of thy kingdom through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom be glory to thee
with himself and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen. Then each of the baptized was kissed upon the
forehead by the bishop as a mark of love, with
the words "The Lord be with you." They
answered, "And with thy Spirit"; and the
whole ceremony concluded with prayer in which
the entire congregation joined, kissing the newly
born with great rejoicing.' Such was the formal
beginning of "becoming God."
Round such a rite, the culmination of such
strenuous discipline, such earnest prayers, such
solemn ceremonies, with so august a purpose,
emotion quickly gathered. The "water of life"
as Justin called it, the "seal of Christ," became
for TerttUlian the "standard of faith," the
"sacrament of water," the "enrolment of God."'
Later on it is "the beginning and source of Chris
tian graces," the "new creating wave," the
"second birth into a new man, " the "union with
immortality."* But how could immersion in
' In the eucharistic celebration which foUowed, cups of mUk
and honey were brought to remind them that they had just
been bom again as babes in Christ.
' Census Dei, cp. Warren, Liturgy of the Ante-Nicene Church,
p. 62. ^ AUen, Christian Institutions, p. 401.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 247
water accompanied by the utterance of certain
words confer so great a gift, and endue the perish
able soul with everlasting life? Naturally a
manual of Church Order provides no answer to
such a question. To many minds it had perhaps
never occurred. If Justin ever speculated on it
in private, he only offers description to his readers
without explanation. But other writers attempt
some kind of rationale. Barnabas' connects
the water of baptism that brings remission of sins
with the cross, and following the usual identifica
tion of the cross with a tree discovers in the first
Psalm a prophetic forecast of the water and the
cross together. "He who doeth these things
shall be as the tree which is planted at the partings
of the waters" means "Blessed are those who
hoped on the cross and descended into the waters ";
and the "unfading leaf" signifies that "every
word which shall come forth from your mouth in
faith and love shall be for the conversion and hope
of many." ' For this use water had been prepared
by the example of Jesus himself, for "our God,"
says Ignatius,* "Jesus the Christ, was conceived
by Mary, by the dispensation of God both of the
seed of David and of the Holy Spirit. He was
bom and was baptized, that by this experience"
' In the letter contained in the Codex Sinaiticus of the New
Testament, now at Petrograd.
' Ep. Barnab. xi, i. 3 Ephes. xviii, 2.
4 tQ irdBei, i.e., by thus submitting; or perhaps "by his
Buffering."

248 Phases of Early Christianity
he might purify the water." The idea apparently
is that Jesus carried the Spirit into the water, and
thus endowed it with efficacy to purge away sin.
On this theme TertuUian joyfully enlarges in
his tract on Baptism.' He has to meet criticism
founded on the simplicity of the act compared
with the magnitude of the promised effect. There
was no pomp, no special novelty of preparation,
no expense.' A man is dipped in water, a few
words are uttered, he comes forth not much (or
not at all) the cleaner — how can the consecutio
eternitatis be rendered credible under such condi
tions? How impossible, said his opponents, to be
made over again by water! So he points to its
age at the beginning of the world. It was the
oldest element in the universe, and the most digni
fied, as the seat of the spirit brooding over it in
creative purpose. Water, therefore, knows how
to impart life. God has made the material sub
stance which he has disposed throughout all his
works, obey him also in his own peculiar sacra
ments. What governs the earthly life becomes
the agent also of the heavenly; and the nature of
the waters, sanctified by the Holy One, itself con
ceived the power of sanctifying. The attribute
of the genus is of course to be found also in the
species. It makes no difference whether a man be
washed in sea or pool, in stream or spring, in lake
' In the opening chapters, i-vi.
' Contrast Apuleius' account of the costs of his successive
initiations into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 249
or trough; all waters, in virtue of the ancient
privilege of their origin, after invocation of God,
attain the sacramental power of sanctification.
The Spirit immediately supervenes from heaven,
and rests upon them, sanctifying them from him
self, with the result (expressed in violently anti
thetic terms) that the spirit of man is corporeally
washed in the waters, and the flesh is spiritually
cleansed. The guUt being removed, concludes
TertulHan, the penalty vanishes too ; and the way
is open for restoration to the Hkeness of God which
man first lost by sin. That likeness, he affirms, lies
in his eternity. Elsewhere he sums up the whole
matter thus':
The flesh is washed that the soul may be rid of its
stains. The flesh is anointed that the soul may be
consecrated. The flesh is sealed (signed with the
cross) that the soul also may be protected. The'
flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of hands that
the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit. The
flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ that
the sold may be made fat from God.
The gift of the Spirit was not, however, complete
in the water, for after the baptizand had emerged
and been duly anointed, the Holy Spirit was
invoked upon him with the imposition of hands.
Then, over our cleansed and blessed bodies that
Holiest Spirit willingly descends from the Father.
It is like the dove after the waters of the Flood by
' On the Resurrection of the Flesh, viii.

250 Phases of Early Christianity
which the old iniquity was purged, announcing
peace to the earth after the divine wrath. So as -our
flesh issues from the lavacrum after its old sins, the
dove of the Holy Spirit flies to us with the peace of
God sent out from heaven where is the Church typi
fied by the Ark.
There were still objectors who pleaded that
baptism could not be indispensable to salvation
because there is no mention of the baptism of the
Twelve. The plea was evaded, though TertulHan
admits that the answer was forced enough, by the
suggestion that the Apostles were sprinkled when
the spray dashed over the boat in the storm upon
the lake; and Peter was certainly immersed when
he tried to walk upon the waves. The answer of
a good ScripturaHst was plain. Whatever might
have been omitted in the case of men chosen
by Christ himself, the Law of baptism has been
imposed, and the formula prescribed: "Go and
teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. "
The comparison of the definition "Unless a man be
reborn of water and spirit he shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven" with this law has tied
faith to the necessity of baptism. '
^ Baptism, then, was a rebirth, avaylvvYjcti; as
Justin called it'; it was the passage from death
to life in the language of Hermas*: "Before a man
' De Baptism, xiii. ' i Apol. Ixi, Ixv.
3 Shepherd, Sim. IX, xvi, 3.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 251
bears the name of the Son of God he is dead; but
when he receives the seal he puts away mortality
and receives life. The seal, then, is the water.
They go down into the water dead and come up
alive." "When we received the remission of
sins," says Bamabas,' "and put our hope in the
Name, we became new, being created again from
the beginning, wherefore God truly dwells in us
in the habitation which we are." "Being bap
tized," says Clement of Alexandria, "we are
illuminated; being illuminated we become sons;
being made sons, we are made perfect ; being made
perfect, we are made immortal."'
The newly baptized were then led into the
chturch; they entered for the first time into the full
privileges of membership ; they were admitted into
its most sacred rites. The Sunday worship had
long been the chief agency in maintaining and
quickening their religious life; it gained now a
stUl richer significance. They were delivered from
the control of a rigid Fate; they were safe from the
assaults of demons; they were brought into direct
communion through the Eucharist with their
heavenly Lord, present as Spirit even in hymn and
prayer, and mysteriously imparting his own body
and blood in the sacred food.
' xvi, 8.
'Padag., I, xxvi, I (ed. Stahlin); (pari^S/ieBa is, of course,
the mystery-word. The passage closes with the citation, "I have
said that ye are gods and aU sons of the Highest, " Ps. Ixxxii, 6,
cp. ante, p. 56. The process was only completed at the Resur
rection.

252 Phases of Early Christianity
The general features of Christian worship had
been derived from the Jewish synagogue. The
Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures sup
plied the lessons with which the readers opened
the service while the congregation assembled.
By the side of prophecy and psalm the "Recol
lections of the Apostles, " called Gospels, took their
place ; and letters bearing apostolic names, or those
of honoured churches such as the Roman letter
to Corinth, or of eminent personaHties like Igna
tius, — Apocalypses fuU of prophetic fire and
ascribed to companions of the Lord Hke John or
Peter, — were read for instruction, encouragement,
and hope. Psalms and hymns were sung, and
prayers were offered. Hymn and prayer doubt
less belonged also to Gentile worship. Unhappily
none of the stated prayers used in the temple
services of the Greek ritual have been preserved.
But poet and philosopher alike attest the growth
of an elevated spirit in private devotion, and
inscriptional evidence is not wanting for the
demand for purity of heart in the approach to God
through the public sanctuary. The more formal
petitions were directed like those of the Athenian
state "for the health and safety of the Athenians,
their wives and children, and all in the country. "
Socrates commended the Lacedaemonians because
they prayed alike in public and private that the
Gods would give them to: xaX« in addition to
Tot aYo:6a. ' It is the term for the high blessings of
'Plato, 2 Alcibiades, 148c.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 253
noble character, as when Pindar prays: "O God,
grant me to desire things honourable, earnestly
seeking things possible in my life's prime. " ' The
note of tragedy with its passionate oppositions of
grief and suffering and its conviction that the
fundamental justice of the world will secure the
punishment of wrong, reminds us again and again
of the pleadings of the Psalms. The Chorus of the
Medea pray for a pure heart : ' ' May chastity, the
fairest gift of the gods, abide with me."' When
Socrates and Phaedrus rise from the shade of the
plane-tree beneath which they have been convers
ing, Socrates cries, ' ' Beloved Pan, and all ye other
gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in
the inward soul, and may the outward and
the inward man be at one ' ' ; and Phaedrus adds,
"Ask the same for me, for friends should
have all things in common."* So Epictetus
bade the tempted youth resort in his hour of
need to God:
Desire to be in purity with your own pure self and
with God. Then when any such appearance visits
you (the mental picture of a wanton wife), Plato
says. Have recourse to expiations, go a suppliant to
the temples of the Averting Deities . . . Great is the
combat, divine is the work; it is for kingship, for
liberty, for happiness, for freedom from perturba
tion. Remember God, call upon him as a helper and
protector." 'Pyth., xi, 51. 'Medea, 623.
3 Plato, Phadrus, 279. 4 Arrian, II, xviii, 4-5.

254 Phases of Early Christianity
The disciple in the Hermetic community sang:
Ye Powers that are within me, praise the One and
All; sing with my will, O all ye Powers within me.
O holy Knowledge, illumined by thee, praising through
thee the light which Mind discerns, I rejoice in the
joy of Mind. And thou. Self-control, sing praise
with me; 0 my Righteousness, praise the Righteous
through me; 0 my Fellowship, praise the All; 0 Truth
through me praise the Truth ; O Good, praise the Good !
I thank thee. Father, thy Word {Logos) praises thee
through me. Receive from me all reasonable sac
rifice. '
The devotional idiom is not ours; but weU might
lamblichus, the pupil of Porphyry, affirm that the
highest kind of prayer is sealed with that ineffa
ble union which places aU power in the gods, and
enables our souls to rest perfectly in them : ' ' Prayer
nourishes our intellect, gently draws up the man
ners of our mind, implants divine things within
us, awakens an indissoluble communion and
friendship, nourishes the love of God, and kindles
the divine element in the soul. " ' Plutarch might
gently deprecate some of the cruder forms of
Hellenic ritual; TertulHan and Cyprian might
look back with shame and loathing at some of
the baser spectacles into which the stories of the
gods were dramatized; but other tendencies were
powerfully at work in popular rehgion as well as
'KoyLK^v Biirmv, cp. Rom. xii, I. Corp. Hermet., xiii, 18-19
(slightly condensed).
" On the Mysteries, v, 26.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 255
in philosophy. Over the sanctuary of .^Esculapius
at Epidaurus, the Deity whom devout worshippers
addressed as Saviour, Healer, King, and even
identified with Zeus himself, ran the inscription:
"Into an odorous temple he who goes
Should pure and holy be; but to be wise
In what makes holiness is to be pure."'
The Delphic oracle had long discerned the need
ful conditions of spiritual approach to divine
things, and the Pythia uttered her warnings
against reliance on outward rites instead of inward
sanctity:
O stranger, if holy of soul, enter the shrine of the
holy God, having but touched the lustral water;
lustration is an easy matter for the good; but all
ocean with its streams cannot cleanse the evil man.
[And again :] The temples of the gods are open to all
good men, nor is there any need of purification; no
stain can ever cleave to virtue. But depart, whoever
is baneful at heart, for thy soul will never be washed
by the cleansing of the body.'
In North Africa a Numidian sanctuary tersely
summed up its own significance in words addressed
to those who came to pray. Bonus intra, melior exi. *
' Cp. Clem. Alex., Strom., V, i.
'Famell, Cults of the Greek States, iv, p. 212.
3 "Enter good, go forth better." The Roman writers of the
first century a.d. are full of lofty sentiments of a similar kind;
cp. Pliny, Panegyf., 3; Seneca, Ep. xl, xlvii, and a passage quoted
by Lactantius, Div. Inst., VI, xxv; Persius, Sat. ii, ad fin.

256 Phases of Early Christianity
Within the Church the Christian was brought
into immediate fellowship with his heavenly Lord.
There Christ was present in the form of Spirit;
and with him, as later belief testified, was the host
of angels ready to bear the prayers of the faithful
to the throne of grace. ' The first mould of these
prayers was supplied from the synagogue. The
Psalter and the prophetic books of the Old Testa
ment constituted an inexhaustible source of the
language of petition; and Hellenic piety was not
without its own influence from the side of philo
sophy and mystical religion.' Judaism was al
ready engaged in framing its own liturgical forms,
and the first Christian prayers in the GentUe
churches, while employing Greek speech, were
naturally imbued with the motives and senti
ments of the "Praises" of Israel. The brief
utterances reported in the Book of Acts, the
hymns of heavenly worship in the Apocalypse,
are typical representatives of the new devotions.
The invocation, "O Master,* thou that didst make
the heaven and the earth and the sea and aU that
in them is," has its parallels in the later Jewish
' Testament of Jesus Christ, i, 22; they visit the church at
night. ' Cp. for example the hymn of the Stoic Cleanthes, or the
prayer with which the Poimandres closes. On the general
theme see Norden's Agnostos Theos, and Reitzenstein, Hellenist.
Mysterien-Religionen. i Acts iv, 24. The term Sia-irora was in use, though rarely,
in Greek religious language, as an epithet (for instance) of Zeus,
Apollo, Dionysus, Asclepius, etc.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 257
Hterature, such as Judith's entreaty, "Master
of the heavens and of the earth, creator of the
waters, king of every creature,"' or Moses*
prayer to the "Lord of aU that is in heaven and
earth and sea."' Creation itself, throughout the
whole sphere of existence in heaven, on earth,
beneath the earth, and on the sea, joins in a
mighty hymn, ascribing "blessing and honour
and glory and dominion to him that sitteth on the
throne and to the Lamb."* This motive power
fully influenced Christian thought, as the repeated
descriptions of God as "Father of the universe"
suffice to prove: "Let us fix our gaze," says the
Roman letter to the Corinthians, "on the Father
and Creator of the whole world."" It was rein
forced by philosophy: had not Plato described
God as the "Father and Maker of aU this uni
verse,"* and did not Epictetus teach that he was
the Maker and Father and Guardian also of man?
To the troublers of the Corinthian Church Clement
depicts the order of the world designed by its
Creator and Master for peace and concord, in terms
such as Balbus might have used in pleading for
the Stoics in the Ciceronian debate on the "Nature
' Judith ix, 12. cp. 3 Mace, ii, 2, "Lord, King of the heavens,
and Master of aU creation. "
' Josephus, Antiqg., IV, iii, 2.
3 Rev. V, 13; cp. xiv, 7; Acts xiv, 15; Secrets of Enoch, ii, 2.
On the general significance of God as Creator in the Jewish
theology, cp. Bousset,i?e/. desJudenthums', pp. 410-12; Bertholet,
Bibl. Theol. des A. Ts., ii (1911), p. 367.
4 I Clem, xix, 2. s Cp. ante, Epictetus, in Arrian, I, ix.
17

258 Phases of Early Christianity
of the Gods."' So deeply was Epictetus moved
by the spectacle, even to its smallest details, that
he becomes himself almost lyrical, he longs
"to sing hymns and bless the Deity and teU of his
benefits."' For this element of piety Christian worship
provided ample expression. Its most sacred
service bore the name of Eucharist or "Thanks
giving." Scripture, prayers, preaching, all com
bined to prepare for it. After his solemn counsel
to the discontented Corinthians, Clement breaks
into a lofty prayer which may be taken as a typical
Church utterance. * It ranges over many themes,
and may reproduce many current phrases already
cherished through familiar use. But it is in no
sense a compilation from fixed forms; it is stiU
free, as it was half a century later in the days
of Justin. Tenderly are the needs of the sick
and suffering, the wanderers, the hungry, the
prisoners and the weak, presented to the Master
who can help and succour." Gratitude for
creation, humble confession of sin, pass into peti
tions for peace and concord among aU the dweUers
upon earth; and the prayer concludes .with the
entreaty that the counsels of rulers may be
' I Clem, xx; cp. De Natura Deorum, II, v, xix, xxxvi-xl.
Arnold, Roman Stoicism (1911), p. 204.
'Arrian, I, xvi.
3 1 Clem, lix, 3-lxi. The text only came to light in the Codex
discovered by Bryennius in Constantinople, 1875.
1 1 Clem. Hx 4. Phrases from this prayer are found in later
liturgies, cp. Swainson, The Greek Liturgies (1884), p. 40.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 259
directed by the heavenly Master, king of eternity,
to what is fair and pleasing in his sight. When
these prayers ended, the unbaptized (and at a later
day the penitents) were dismissed, while any who
had been newly received into the Church prepared
for the first time to share in what the Apostle
Paul had caUed "the Lord's Supper."'
This was originally the common meal of the
Church. Such celebrations were widely practised.
In recounting the privileges accorded to his
nation Josephus proudly related that Caesar had
granted permission to the Jews of the Dispersion
to meet for this purpose.' Among the papyri
recovered from Oxyrhynchus are two invitations
to dine at the "table of the Lord Serapis, " one in
the Serapeum, the other in a private house, at
three o'clock in the afternoon.* The worship
pers of Mithras followed a similar usage. In
the temple of Isis at Pompeii a large apartment
was discovered where such meals were served;
it was furnished with a marble table; there were
remains of vessels and the bones of fowls. " Beside
the market-hall in the forum stood a chamber
belonging to a College of the Augustales. It held
an altar for offerings to the genius of the Emperor;
remains of sheep and goats were found in a small
pen; the common chest still contained silver and
' I Cor. xi, 20. 'Joseph., Antiqq., XIV, x, 8.
iPap. Oxyrh, i, no, iii, 523.
4Mau, Pompeii, its Life and Art, tr. Kelsey, 2nd ed. (New
York, 1902), p. 180; Fiihrer durch Pompeii' (1898), p. 46.

26o Phases of Early Christianity
copper coins to furnish forth the meal. ' The Thera
peuts of Egypt kept a special festival on the
evening of Pentecost. The members of the com
munity, dressed in white, took their places in
order of seniority, the men on one side, the women
on the other, while the young men served. The
simple food, bread and hyssop seasoned with salt,
and plain water, warm or cold, made an austere
contrast to the elaborate temple banquets which
TertulHan derided in the Gentile cults. The
Scriptures were read and hymns were sung; a
solemn dance diversified the proceedings; at sun
rise a prayer was offered as the worshippers turned
to the east, and the meeting ended. '
At Corinth the brethren brought their own food
to their feast of love,* but it might happen that
the host of the house-church might provide the
meal, or that the wealthier might share their
contributions with the poor. That the gathering
was exposed to occasional disorders is plain from
the severe warnings of the Apostle Paul." Glut
tony and drunkenness disfigured it; the punish
ments of unworthy participation were grave;
sickness and even death had overtaken the guilty.
At what point in the meal the haUowed act of
commemoration took place which proclaimed the
Lord's death tUl his return from heaven, is not
'Mau, Pompeii, p. lOO; Fiihrer, p. 28.
' Philo, The Contemplative Life, viii-xi.
3 As an expression of fraternal "charity"' it bore the name of
Agapi, cp. Jude, ver. 12.
4 1 Cor. xi, 20-34.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 261
clear. The Apostle writes to correct a crying
abuse, not to inform posterity. Who presided,
who broke the bread and gave thanks, who dis
tributed it, what words were said, what prayers
were offered, we know not. The rite looked back
ward to the Cross, it pointed forwards to the
Parousia. It brought the believer into direct
communion with his Lord, a fellowship of life
to the pure, of mortal perU to the unworthy.
The loaf and the cup, therefore, were something
more than bread and wine. Those who had
received Christ into their own persons in the form
of Spirit at their baptism, received him again
through these other physical media in the Thanks
giving; but how the daily food became the vehicle
of such an effect was a sacred mystery.
Little by little, however, the holy Supper took
the central place in the worship of the Church.
The details of usage are obscure ; they varied from
place to place; and the literature of the second
century gives us scanty details till we reach the
writers of its latter decades. For the communi
ties addressed in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
the Thanksgiving was still connected with a meal
of the whole congregation.' Ignatius, also, ap
parently uses the terms Eucharist and Agap^ as
equivalent: "Let that be considered a valid Eucha-
' Teaching, x, l. The prayers that foUow seem to refer to the
general blessings of creation and sustenance and close the Agapg.
The Eucharistic prayers in ix are placed first in dignity, but
probably followed in order of time.

262 Phases of Early Christianity
rist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one
whom he appoints . . . it is not lawful to baptize
or to hold an AgapS without the bishop."' By
the middle of the century, however, there is a
change. Whether in consequence of the Edict of
Trajan, or because the wealthier Christians no
longer cared to sit at the same table with their
humbler brethren, or to avoid the risk of unseemly
conduct such as Paul rebuked, or to rebut the popu
lar charges of "Thyestean banquets" founded on
gross interpretations of ritual language, or to main
tain and enhance the solemnity of the Thanks
giving, it was detached from the AgapS, and
celebrated as the chief function of the Sunday
worship. After the lessons from the Gospels
and the Prophets, the exhortation of the President
and the congregational prayers, bread, wine, and
water, says Justin,' were brought. Over these
simple elements further prayers and thanks
givings were offered by the presiding officer.
There were apparently no fixed forms in obligatory
use; just as the travelling prophets had been
permitted complete freedom of utterance,* the
pastor of the congregation or one of his colleagues
among the presbyters spoke from the fulness of his
heart "according to his abUity," and the people
'Smyrn., viii.
' I Apology, Ixvii. According to the Martyrium Justin did not
attend the church-meetings in Rome, §2; he may, therefore,
be describing the usage of Asia Minor, from which he had
come. 3 Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, x, 6.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 263
responded with Amen.' The bread and wine, no
longer "common," were distributed, as the wor
shippers approached the table and received the ele
ments from the President. Alms were collected
and deposited with him; it was his duty to apply
them to the relief of the poor, the maintenance of
widows and orphans, the succour of prisoners, the
support of strangers from other churches. For
the sick to whom the consecrated food might bring
bodUy health as well as spiritual grace, portions
were reserved and carried away by the deacons.
Around the Thanksgiving, for which the bread
and wine were at first brought by the faithful,
gathered other offerings, sometimes of mUk or even
cheese,' fruits and flowers, possibly also fish for
the AgapS, and oU for the unction at baptism.
Store-chambers were buUt beside the churches,
and rules were made for the appropriation of the
gifts unconsumed in the holy service. In later
usage part was allotted to the clergy, and part was
distributed among the needy. Those who on
baptism had abandoned forbidden trades, the
refugees from persecution, the sufferers in prison
and mine, the captives of pirates or hostile maraud
ers, the stricken with plague, all made large
demands on Christian benevolence; and the
'In I Apol., Ixv, the thanks are offered to "the Father of the
Universe through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. "
•The Montanists were mockingly called Arto-tyrites, "Bread-
and-Cheesers, " Epiphanius, Haer., xUx, 2, quoted by Achelis,
Das Christentum, i, 179.

264 Phases of Early Christianity
Eucharistic service, where the donors' names
were mentioned in. prayer and the appeal of
charity was reinforced by the example of the
Son of God who had given himself for man's
salvation, became the occasion for the continuous
response of brotherly love.
The early frescoes reveal the original simplicity
of the arrangements. In the Greek Chapel at
Santa Priscilla a painting was discovered in 1896
belonging probably to the second century. The
congregation — represented by five men and one
woman — are seated at the table on which are
bread and fish and a cup, and large baskets of
bread are placed on each side. The President
stands on the left and stretches out his hand to
the loaves before him. Bread and fish are repre
sented also in the early catacomb of St. Domitilla.
In the Church of SS. MarcelUno e Pietro the same
offerings are presented, and two women, AgapS
(love) and IrSnS (peace), stand on either side,
ready to mingle the cup of water and wine. '
At the beginning of the third century the usage
is already changing. The congregations, it might
be, were too large to sit around the President's
table. The number of church officers had in-
• creased. But the ancient idea of the last meal of
Christ with his disciples still found expression as
the presbyters were seated round their bishop.
'Cp. Barnes, The Early Church in the Light of the. Monuments
(1913). On the use of water only in the Eucharistic cup see
Hamack's essay, Texte und Untersuch., vii, 2 (1891).

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 265
The service has already gained at Rome the name
of Missa, "mass"'; its secret character is indi
cated in the title ' ' mysteries. " ' It was celebrated
on Sunday by the bishop, apparently in the after
noon,* but custom varied greatly. In Carthage
the celebration took place before dawn"; Alexand
ria maintained the evening hour.* The sacred
food was already guarded with such reverence that
for crumb or drop to touch the ground was a
presage of ill and a cause of pain; and nothing
unclean, such as a fly, must soil the cup. * Those
who intended to communicate must have purified
themselves by previous fast, like the "baptizands;
and the church officers around the bishop, pres
byters, deacons, and even readers, must be
dressed in white as for a festival. ' The offerings
for the actual rite are brought by the deacons from
the store-chamber; the bishop and presbyters lay
their hands on them together, the bishop saying
"The Lord be with (you) all," and the people
responding "And with thy spirit. " » The ' ' Missa "
followed; the people came up to the table, and
received the Eucharist from the bishop (presbyters
' The formula of dismissal for catechumens ran, Ite, missa est,
where "missa" is said to be equivalent to "missio."
' Canons of Hippolytus, 201, 204.
3 An agap6 for widows might follow, which must be over before
sunset, 1 83 ; and the oblations must be distributed before the same
hour, 160.
4 Tert., De Cor., iii.
5 Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (1886), p.103.
<" Canons, 207, 209; Tert., ibid.
1 Canons, 201-3. ' Ibid., 20-22.

266 Phases of Early Christianity
and deacons might assist in the distribution), the
bread being handed to them with the sacred
words Hoc est corpus meum. The offerings of
first-fruits were then presented.' Still were gifts
made from the threshing-floor and the wine-press,
fruits, vegetables, oil, honey, milk, wool, and the
wages of manual labour; and separate thanks
givings, concluding with the Gloria, were uttered
over each. '
That symbolism of various kinds should gather
round such a ritual was perfectly natural, and
inscriptional evidence of high interest came to
Hght in the last century, attesting the character of
the sacred food. In 1881 Professor (now Sir Wil
liam) Ramsay, travelling in Phrygia, discovered
a stone inscribed with some verses, and bearing a
date equivalent to 216 of our era. The poem
proved to be the epitaph of Abercius a priest,
perhaps bishop of Hieropolis, a champion of the
Catholic hierarchy against the Montanists.* In
highly poetic style Abercius described his travels,
in the East through Syria and beyond the Euphra
tes, in the West to Rome. Among the sectaries
of his native hills he announces that he had found
fellow- worshippers everywhere :
In company with Paul I followed, whUe everywhere
Faith led the way, and set before me for food the
Fish from the fountain mighty and stainless (whom
'Canons, i86, 187, 194. 'Ibid., 29.
3 See Lect. Ill, p. 201.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 267
a pure virgin grasped), and gave this to friends to
eat always, having good wine, and giving the mixed
cup with bread.'
With the letters of St. Paul in his hands the
Apostle was his travelling companion, and the
orthodox Faith his guide, and from city to city she
brought to him the sacred food of the mighty and
spotless Fish, once enclosed by a pure virgin, the
mysterious symbol of the Son of God. ' The foun
tain which gushed from the rock in Hebrew story
became the emblem of baptism in the Catacombs,
where the rock was the accepted symbol of Christ.
Only the baptized might eat the bread and drink
the cup, through which they fed upon the person
of their Lord. Similar imagery occurs in an
inscription of slightly later date, found at Autun
in France in 1839, commemorating an unknown
Pectorius.
Celestial offspring of the Divine Fish, fortify thy
heart, since thou hast received in the midst of mortals
the immortal source of divine love. Friend, rejoice
thy soul with the water that ever gushes forth from
'Translation of Bishop Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Vol. I,
part ii, p. 480.
' The origin of this is very obscure. The derivation of it from
the initial letters of the Greek title Jesus Christ, Son of God,
Saviour, is of course only an ingenious device to provide some
sort of explanation. Christ is often represented in the catacombs
as a fisherman, cp. Mark i, 17; but the source of the identification
of him with a Fish has never been satisfactorily traced. Cp.
Tert., De Baptismo, i, "But we little fishes {piscicuU) after the
example of our IX0TS Jesus Christ, are born in water. "

268 Phases of Early Christianity
the wisdom that gives treasures. Receive this sweet
sustenance as the honey of the Saviour of the saints ;
eat with delight, holding the Pish in thy hands.'
What, then, were the ideas which gathered
round this rite? When the believer had been
baptized, had been adopted as a son of God, had
been even born again out of God, had been en
dowed with immortality and had become 6e(5i;,
what significance had it for his salvation, why was
it so carefully guarded from common eyes?
Three ideas may be traced in the scanty remains
of early Hterature conceming it. As its name
impUes, it was primarily an act of thanksgiving.
In accordance with the teaching of the Apostle
Paul, it was also an act of commemoration and
communion. Under the influence of tradition, in
its environment of Gentile cults and with the
background of Jewish analogies, it became a
sacrifice and begot a priesthood.
Thank-offerings were, of course, not unknown
in Greek practice; Hellenic worship had also its
eucharisteria.'' But the Church gave the name
Eucharist to its most sacred function in token of
its gratitude for the twofold blessings of nature
and of grace. The thanksgivings at the close of
the common meal prepared the way for the adminis-
' Barnes, The Early Church in the Light of the Monuments (1913),
P- 133-
' Euxapio-T'^pia, SC iepd, e.g. toTs dmts Biav eixapurr'^pui., Polyb., V,
xiv, 8.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 269
tration of the bread and the cup, in the simple
ritual of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles:
Then, after being filled, thus give ye thanks :
We give thanks to thee, Holy Father, for thy holy
Name, which thou hast caused to dwell in our
hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immor
tality which thou didst make known to us through
Jesus Christ thy Servant'; to thee be the glory for
ever. Thou, Almighty Sovereign, didst create all things for
thy name's sake, and food and drink thou didst give
to men for enjoyment, that they should give thanks
unto thee; but to us thou didst of thy grace give
spiritual food and drink and life eternal through
thy Servant.
Before all things we give thee thanks that thou art
mighty; to thee be the glory for ever.
The actual words of blessing ran thus:
First concerning the cup: We give thanks to thee,
our Father, for the holy vine of David thy Servant,'
which thou didst make known to us through Jesus
thy Servant ; to thee be the glory for ever.
And concerning the broken bread : We give thanks
to thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which
thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy
Servant; to thee be the glory for ever.
Justin explains to Trypho that this element
in Christian devotion was founded on the two-fold
'Cp. Acts iii, 13, 26; iv, 27, 30.
^Cp. Acts, iv, 25; Ps. Ixxx, 8-19.

270 Phases of Early Christianity
manifestation of God's goodness, the creation
of the world with aU things therein for the sake
of man, and our deUverance from the evil in which
we were involved, and the total overthrow of
the hostile PrincipaHties and Powers through the
death of Christ.' Physical and spiritual benefits
were thus set side by side. Grateful acknowledg
ment of the Divine Goodness was the foundation
of the Christian's trust, the temper of his whole
life. "Every moming," says the earUest of the
Apologists, Aristides,' "they give thanks and
praise to God for his loving-kindness towards
them, and for their food and drink they offer
thanksgiving to him. " The same motive appears
again and again in connection especially with the
beHever's redemption in the various Acta of the
Apostles*; and it is elaborated at great length
in the liturgies of the fourth century, such as
the Testament of our Lord,* the prayers in the
Apostolical Constitutions (vii, 25, viii, 12), and
other sources. Around the Eucharist gathered
all the Christian's hopes. Joy in the divine gifts
of earth and heaven, the sense of deliverance, of
rescue from the constraint of Fate, of release from
bondage to evil and the control of demons, of a
passage from great darkness into marvellous light,
'Dialogue, xlvi, cp. i Apol., Ixvi. 'Apol., xv.
» Von der Goltz, Das Gebet in der altesten Christenheit{igoi), p.
300. 4 Cooper and Maclean (1902); ascribed by Maclean to 310
A.D., see the beautiful "Hymn of Praise for the Dawn" with
which the Sunday moming service opened, p. 79, etc.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 271
of freedom and gladness even in the midst of
danger and trial, — are all blended in the mystery
of the Thanksgiving.
The practice of commemoration had long been
famUiar to Greece in the cultus of heroes; and
temples, monuments, and coins, spread through
Asia Minor, the Archipelago, and south Italy,
show how widely it was diffused through the
Eastern Mediterranean. The founders of schools
were the objects of reverent regard to their
disciples. Epicurus provided by his will for
an annual ceremony in commemoration of his
father, mother, and brothers as well as himself
upon his birthday, the loth of Gamelion, and
he further instituted a reunion of his disciples in
honour of Metrodorus and himself on the 20th
of each month.' To a philosopher Hke Justin it
was therefore perfectly natural to quote the
memorial words reported by the Apostle Paul,
' ' Do this in remembrance of me' " ; and to Trypho
he emphasizes the Passion which Christ had
endured on behalf of those who were purified in
soul from aU iniquity. This sentiment is indeed
for the most part in the background in the Htera
ture of the second century, but it re-appears
later, and is vigorous in the liturgies of the fourth. *
It passes, however, into something much more
' Diog. Laert. x, lo. Cp. the arrangements of the lady Epicteta
of Thera, Boeckh, C.I.G., ii, 361, No. 2448.
' I Apol., Ixvi.
3Cp. Testament of our Lord, pp. 73, 172.

272 Phases of Early Christianity
intimate, uniting the believer to his heavenly
Lord in such a way that the disciple who had
already received the pledge of immortahty in
baptism was confirmed in the process of becoming
GeiS? by partaking mystically of Christ's body
and blood, the physical media of his incarnate
Hfe. When the Apostle Paul was urging the Corin
thian converts to flee from idolatry, he reminded
them of the significance of participation in conse
crated food. The pious Israehte of early days
who went to the sanctuary "to see God's face,"
was privileged to share through his sacrifice in
a common meal with Deity.' The worshipper
who sat at the table of Sarapis' was brought into
the sphere of his activity, placed under his pro
tection. "To lay a couch for the god" was the
common Greek phrase, where we should say to
"lay a table."* The ritual was known in Rome
as lectisternia. The old Latins and Italians
believed the deities of the house to be present at
their meals, and Mr. Warde Fowler has shown
that the Penates were the spirits of the food itself. "
Among the most solemn festivals of the Roman
year was the Banquet of Jove, on the Ides of
September, in the temple on the Capitol. Jupiter,
with his face painted red, was present on a couch;
'Cp. W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites (1889), p.
247. = Cp. ante, p. 64. 3 Rohde, Psychic (1903), i, 1293.
4 Religious Experience of the Roman People (191 1), pp. 172, 193,

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 273
Juno and Minerva, each on her own sella, were
on his right and left. The ceremony began with
a sacrifice, probably of a white heifer. It was
attended by the Magistrates and Senate, who thus
entered into communion with the august Deities,
and formed "one of the most singular and striking
scenes of Roman public life."' Not only, how
ever, did the worshipper thus feast with the Deity,
he might even be still more closely united with
him by feeding on him. There were strange rites
in different forms of Dionysus-worship, in which
a sacrificial buU representing the god himself was
torn in pieces and consumed in haste. The
devotees who took part in this Omophagy' re
ceived the deity into themselves. The believer
became entheos, he was so closely identified with
the object of his worship that the god deigned to
enter into him through the consumption of the
divine flesh, and nourish him with a mysterious
supernatural power. Happy is he, says Euripi
des, "who knoweth the mysteries of gods, is
pure in Hfe, and revelling on the mountains hath
the Bacchic communion in his soul!"* Dancing
furiously over the mountain slopes to the wild
' Warde Fowler, i?oMo» Festivals (1899), p. 216. Cp. Ramsay,
Journ. Hellen. Studies, 1912, pt. i. "The Tekmoreian Guest-
Friends." "Literally "raw-eating." See Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to
the Study of Greek Religion (1903), pp. 481-497: FarneU, Cults of
the Greek States, v (1909), pp. 161, 164 ff.; cp. Hibbert Journal,
1904, p. 306.
3 First choral ode in the Bacchae, 75 fi., tr. FarneU.
18

274 Phases of Early Christianity
strains of savage music, the mystic feU on the bull,
tore it asunder, and swallowed the bleeding fiesh.
It was a hideous, ghastly form of purification.
But it produced in the alHed Orphic communities
"a doctrine irrational and uninteUigible, and for
that very reason wrapped in the deepest and most
sacred mystery ; a belief in the sacrifice of Dionysus
himself, and the purification of man by his blood. "
It was the more noteworthy because, "apart from
this sacramental tasting of the blood, the Orphic
worshipper held it an abomination to eat the flesh
of animals at aU. "' AU true worshippers, accord
ingly, became in a mystical sense one with the god,
they bore his name, just as some of the obscurer
communities of Christians have believed that
they have so completely assimUated their Lord
that they have called themselves "Christs."
In the Osiris ritual, as interpreted by M. Moret,
kindred ideas are to be traced. ' In the mystery
by which the dead man is identified with the god,
is dismembered, and renewed, Osiris again imder-
goes his death and reconstruction. After this
sacrifice a supper is served, and the offerings —
bread, fruits, wines, milk, and butter — which are
presented to him bear the curious name of "the
Eye of Horus." This means, says our guide,
that "they are the offspring of the son of Osiris,
his progeny, his flesh, for, according to Egyptian
'Prof. Gilbert Murray in Euripides ("Athenian Drama,"
iii), pp. 167-8.
'Kings and Gods of Egypt (1912), p. 97.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 275
metaphysics, the god brings forth into reality every
thing that he names and that he sees. That which
is offered to Osiris is his own body and blood,
which the god divides among the priests and
relatives, under the appearances of liquid and
solid offerings. This holy food, eaten in common,
this holy communion, makes clergy and wor
shippers together participants in the blessings of
his passion and sacrifice."
Such examples as these made it possible for
believers at a very early date to place a highly
realistic interpretation on the language of Paul
and the Fourth Evangelist.' The Apostle regard
ed the bread and the cup as charged with a mys
terious energy, capable of infUcting even death on
those who did not distinguish their sacred char
acter from common food.' For that reason the
person and the heart must both be prepared to
receive them worthily. To secure purity of body,
the intending communicant must fast beforehand;
to secure purity of spirit, he must confess his sins
and be reconciled with his enemies.* The letters
of Ignatius reveal the importance which he
' The suggestion that Paul owed anything himself to the Mys.,
teries has been discussed recently by Kennedy, St. Paul and the
Mystery Religions (1913), and Clemen, Der Einfluss der Mysterien-
religionen auf das dlteste Christentum (19 13); cp. Lietzmann,
on I Cor. (1907), p. 124 (in Handbuch zum Neuen Testament).
The few affinities of language are sufficiently explained out of
current usage.
' I Cor. xi, 29-30.
^Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, xiv, 1-2.

276 Phases of Early Christianity
attached to the service. Heretics are charged with
abstaining from the Eucharist and prayer, because
they do not confess that the Eucharist is the fiesh
of Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and was
raised by the Father's goodness.' Such is its
intrinsic power that it is the medicine of immortal
ity, the antidote against death, which secures life
for ever in Jesus Christ.' So it holds a central
place in the bishop's exhortations to unity. One
Eucharist must be observed, he tells the Church
at PhUadelphia, because there is one flesh of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup for union with
his blood. *
There is already a suggestion that it is a sacrifice,
for the" ardent writer continues that there is one
altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery
and the deacons his fellow-servants." How far
his language is figurative his enthusiastic style
really prevents us from deciding. The Gospel
is for him a sort of body of Jesus in which he can
take refuge as Christ's flesh*; or faith is the Lord's
flesh, and love his blood.* But these metaphors
cannot outbalance the practical identification of
the "bread of God " with the actual body that was
crucified and afterwards taken to the skies.' In
what sense the two could be regarded as the same,
'Smyrn., vn, I. 'Ephes. xx, 2. ^Philad.,V7.
4 The phrase suggests that Ignatius had been chosen bishop
from his diaconate, and had never been a presbyter, and perhaps
even found them rather in the way (Dr. Odgers).
^Philad., V, I. ^ Trail., viii, i.
1 Ephes. V, 2; Smyrn. vii, i.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 277
or how one was transmuted into the other, we
are not told. The imperative command that no
Eucharist shaU be accounted valid which is not
celebrated by the bishop (or one whom he ap
points)' impHes his possession of some special
authority, but of its method of operation no word
is said. It is no common bread or common drink, pleads
Justin to Emperor, Senate, and people of Rome ; it
has the power to effect a change in our flesh and
blood, and nourish them so as to become incor
ruptible. ' He compares the change to that of the
Logos at the incarnation in assuming both flesh
and blood for our salvation in the person of Jesus
Christ. So does the Logos, when his own prayer
is uttered, unite himself with the elements in loaf
and cup. For Irenaeus also the bread which re
ceives the invocation of God is no longer common
bread. Arguing with heretics who denied the
resurrection of the body, he appeals to the Eucha
rist for confirmation. It consists of two realities,
an earthly and a heavenly, and when our bodies
receive it, they cease to be liable to corruption,
they possess the hope of resurrection to eternity. *
The mode of union of the two %pxyi^ma. is not
explained, nor is the nature of the heavenly energy
which imparts the guarantee of bodily revival
'Smyrn., viii, i.
' I Apol., Ixvi; Loofs, art. Abendmahl, in Hauck's Prot. Real-
Encycl., i, p. 41.
3 Adv. Har., IV, xviii, 5.

278 Phases of Early Christianity
further defined. Irenaeus is content to reason
after the fashion of the Apostle Paul to the Corin
thians. If the flesh does not attain salvation, the
Lord has not redeemed us with his blood ; the cup
and the bread are fruitless, in the Eucharist there
is no communion with him.' The cutting of the
vine when duly planted fructifies in its season, the
grain of wheat cast into the ground bears increase
in the ear, through the agency of God's Spirit;
when they receive the Logos, they become the
Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ. So our
bodies may suffer decomposition in the earth;
but if they have been nourished with the Eucharist,
the Word of God wiU grant them resurrection and
the Father will bestow on them immortahty.'
For those who have become 6eo{ by incorpo
ration into the Church, the Eucharist is thus a
kind of physical insurance that soul and body
shall enjoy together the blessedness of everlasting
life. TertulHan lays it down that while the soul
is chosen for God's service in virtue of its salvation,
it can only render that service through the flesh.
Step by step are they associated, in the water of
baptism, in the holy unction, in the signing with
the cross, in the imposition of hands ; so the flesh
feeds on the body and blood of Christ that the
soul may fatten upon God. They are united in
service, they cannot be separated in their reward. *
Food of such mysterious efficacy must be guarded
' Adv. Har., V, ii, 2. 'Ibid., V, ii, 3.
3 On the Resurrection of the Flesh, viii.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 279
with the utmost care. No fly must pollute the
cup, no crumb fall on the ground. A little later
stories will begin to circulate of its saving power
to blot out transgressions and bring the sinner back
to the fold of Christ.'
There was another aspect of the idea of com
munion which deeply moved the early Christian
imagination, and passed into the cognate idea of
sacrifice. The Apostle Paul had told his converts
at Corinth that by sharing one loaf they all became
one, a mystic unity was created among them, they
were one loaf, one body. ' But of what was a loaf
made? The com that supplied the baker with his
fiour might have grown in distant lands ; how many
grains must have been united to form one loaf!
It was an emblem of a spiritual unity one day
to be reaHzed by the whole body of believers. The
eschatological significance attached to the memo
rial rite when it was designed to '-'show forth the
Lord's death till he come" thus underwent a com
plete transformation. The Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles repeats the prayer Mardn athd, "Our
Lord, come!" When the AgapS was finished
the congregation prayed:
Remember, Lord, thy Church to deliver it from all
evil and to perfect it in thy love, and gather it together
duly hallowed from the four winds into thy kingdom
' See the case of the aged Serapion related by Bishop Dionysius
of Alexandria in the letter quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. VI,
xliv. ' I Cor. X, 17.

28o Phases of Early Christianity
which thou hast prepared for it; for thine is the power
and the glory for ever.
And over the broken bread this petition followed :
As this broken bread was scattered upon the
mountains, and, being brought together, became one,
so let thy Church be brought together from the ends
of the earth into thy kingdom, for thine is the glory
and the power though Jesus Christ for ever.
Cyprian applies the same figure to the cup, in a
wandering argument directed against the temper
ance practice of a water-Eucharist, starting from
the example of Noah wbo is strangely cited —
drunkenness and aU — as expressing the figure
of the passion of the Lord.' The miracle at
Cana showed that at the marriage of Christ and
the Church, as the Jews failed, the peoples of the
Gentiles should flow together, for water was the
Apocalyptic emblem of the nations.' So when
water was mingled in the cup with wine the
congregation of beHevers was joined with the
object of their faith; just as in the bread many
grains are coUected, ground, and mixed to make
one loaf, and the people are thus made one in
Christ.* This sentiment of union deeply affected
'Ep. Ixiii, 3., cp. II; ed. Hartel, ii, p. 702.
'Ibid., 12; Reo. xvii, 15.
3 Ibid., 13. The argument halts a Kttle, for, as Cyprian re
marks, bread cannot be made without water, and the plea that in
the cup without wine the people would have no union with Christ
suggests that in the loaf (where the water symbolizes the people)
the grain ought to represent Christ!

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 281
the later language of devotion. The figure may be
traced through Hturgy after liturgy, and even
found its way into England under the auspices of
the Sovereign who was proud to caU himself Defen
sor Fidei, Defender of the Faith. '
One further element enters at an early date
into the Eucharistic commemoration, destined to
effect a profound change in the whole conception of
the Christian Church. The traditional worship
of Israel, Hke that of all the nations amid which the
new faith made its way, was founded upon rituals
of sacrifice. These covered various ideas, from
simple gifts of homage or thanksgiving to elaborate
ceremonies of purification, propitiation, and atone-
' Cp. Apostolical Constitutions, vii, 25. In the prayer ascribed
to Serapion, bishop of Thmuis in the Delta, about 350 a.d. {Texte
und Untersuch., N.F., ii, 1899, Heft 3b, p. 5, i, 25 ff.), the eschato
logical reference is dropped, and the scattered people are to be
made into "one living Catholic Church." It may be noted
that the prayer entreats the sojourn of the Logos on the bread
that the bread may become the body of the Logos and the cup
the blood of the Truth. The bread is thus only the "likeness" of
the body of the Only-begotten. The influence of Origen seems
traceable here; "the bread which God the Word declared to be
his body is the Word that nourishes souls, " In Matth., ser. 85, ed.
Lommatsch, iv, 416. Origen applies the same interpretation to
the "daUy bread " in the Lord's Prayer, cp. De Oral., §9, ed. Koet-
schau, vol. ii, 1899. The iirutisios Apros in which we participate
by the Word and the Eucharist brings health and strength to the
soul and imparts to the eater of its own immortality (p. 369), so
that he becomes a son of God (p. 170). For Henry VIII, see
the Ten''Articles of 1536 (quoted by Dr. J. E. Odgers, The Teach
ing, etc., for English Readers, 1906), "that aU Christian men be
one Body mystical of Christ, as the bread is made of many
grains, and yet but one loaf."

282 Phases of Early Christianity
ment. When Clement pleads with the disturbers
at Corinth on behalf of the displaced presbyters, he
reminds them of God's commands that offerings
should be made at fixed times and places, as part
of a divine order of worship, and declares that as it
is part of the duty of the episcope^ to offer the gifts,
it is no small sin to eject from office those who
have done so blamelessly.' There are already,
therefore, offerings to be presented, and persons
designated for the service. For the communities
addressed in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
the Eucharist is already identified with the "pure
sacrifice" which Malachi had declared the Lord
had promised to accept not only in Jerusalem
but in every place. * So natural was it to use the
language of , temple-ceremonial that Polycarp
could urge the widows of Philippi to behave
discreetly knowing that they were God's altar,
where everything was open to his view, and none
of the heart's secrets could escape his gaze."
Prayer was one of the Christian sacrifices, and
one of the widows' duties was to be frequent and
earnest in it; moreover they were maintained
out of the alms of the faithful, laid on the table
before the "president" among the offerings in the
weekly worship. Justin emphatically vindicates
the priesthood of all Christians; but he affirms at
'The function of supervision, and so (personaUy) the super
visors. Cp. Lect. Ill, p. 172.
'I Clem, xl, 2, xUv, 4. ^Didachg, xiv, 3; Mai. i, 11.
*Ad Philipp. iv, 3.

Sacraments as Means of Salvation 283
the same time that God only receives sacrifices
through his priests, and the Eucharistic bread and
wine, with the associated prayers and thanksgivings
offered by Christians throughout the world, are at
once true sacrifices which by their wide diffusion
are obviously well pleasing to him. ' The memorial
aspect of the celebration is carefully maintained,
and with it is associated the twofold ground
of thanksgiving for our original creation and our
subsequent deUverance from evil. There is no
hint of any propitiatory character in the offering.
But some one must utter the words which endowed
the simple food with the power to impart or to
sustain the gift of immortality. So great a
treasure could not be left to casual use, or placed
in irresponsible hands. The insistence of Ignatius
that no Eucharist was valid unless celebrated by a
bishop or some person designated by him' points
to the growing sense that safeguards must be
erected to keep the offering pure.
Irenaeus is too good a traditionalist to discard
the application of Malachi's prophecy. The
Eucharist is a real offering to God by which the
worshipper presents the homage of his honour and
affection to his King; it is a gift of gratitude
which a pure conscience hallows, so that God is
moved to accept it as from a friend. Thankful
to our Maker we needs must be, in faith without
hypocrisy, in sure hope, in fervent love.* The
'Dialogue, cxvi-cxvii. 'Smyrn. viii, 1-2.
>Adv. Haer., IV, xvii, 5; xviii, 1-4. .;,'i.a

284 Phases of Early Christianity
beHever's mind is occupied, however, with the
future rather than the past. He does not look
back to the cross but forwards to the life of his
risen Lord. He is not concerned with a redemption
already accompHshed but with an immortahty to
be attained. He has been started on the path of
eternity ; what is significant is not by what process
he was first set there, but by what means his
advance may be assured. The commemoration of
death fades away in the transcendent hope of
becoming divine. The incarnation rather than
the atonement is the centre of the teaching of
Irenaeus, and its extension through aU ranks of
the faithful is the aim of the Church. Baptism
and the Eucharist thus become sacraments for
TertulHan,' and they are part of the functions
or duty of a priesthood.' These terms become
common from the beginning of the third century.
They reach their completest recognition under
Cyprian of Carthage, fifty years later. Latin
theology did not concern itself with the process of
becoming Theos, so dear to Hellenic thought. It
was more occupied in the sphere of salvation with
the conceptions of sin and satisfaction. From the
days of the Flood all history converged upon
the Passion, and to that the Christian's sacrifice
' Adv. Marcion, IV, xxxiv.
' Sacerdotalia munera, sacerdotale officium, sacerdotalis ordo.
Cp. Achelis, Christentum in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, ii,
p. i6. In TertuUian's time, also, the Eucharist was already
celebrated on the " birthdays ' ' of the dead, De Corona, iii, Exhort.
Castitatis, xi.

.Sacraments as Means of Salvation 285
must correspond.' The language of episcopal
letters is not that of theologians framing dog
matic definitions; but in his emphasis on the
Passion of Christ as "the sacrifice which we
offer" Cyprian seems to leave the barer idea
of commemoration a good way behind.' Christ,
he urges, "our Lord and God, " is himself the chief
priest of the Father, and first offered himself
to him as a sacrifice. This he has commanded
to be done in commemoration of himself, and that
priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who
imitates what Christ did. Then only does he
offer a true and full sacrifice to the Father when
he strictly follows the practice of Christ himself. *
The Eucharist is thus on the way to become a
repetition by the priest of the actual Passion of
Christ; and the faithful will be supported on
their path of difficulty and danger by the mystic
renewal from time to time of their Lord's redeem
ing death. Of this the Church will become the
guarantee. Around its members it will fiing
an invisible sanctity. But what if they are
unfaithful to their baptismal vow, and fail to
keep their "seal" undefiled? When enthusiasm
flags, and loyalty is strained to the utmost, when
worldUness corrodes the purity of first intentions
and sudden peril tries the stoutest heart, what
happens to those who have set out to become divine ?
Is the gift of immortahty withdrawn? Can
salvation, once conferred, be lost? The time was
'Cypr., Ep. Ixiii, 9. 'Ibid., 17. ilbid., 14.

286 Phases of Early Christianity
shortly to arrive when these questions would
become urgent. For new evils new remedies
must be devised. The Church would cease to
be an assembly of saints marching side by side to
reach eternity. It would be a Noah's ark where
the clean would be mingled with the unclean. The
sinner should not, indeed, be denied all hope.
A discipline of penance should be organized which
should become another sacrament; the power to
remit or to retain sins should at length be vested
in a consecrated order; and the most powerful
priesthood which the world has ever seen should
day by day reproduce all round the earth the
awful sacrifice of Calvary without its blood, and
claim to keep the keys of heaven and heU.

LECTURE V
SALVATION BY GNOSIS
IF the Law was a tutor to bring the Jews to Christ,
PhUosophy, said Clement of Alexandria, per
formed the same function for the Greeks.' In
the deepening of the religious life of the Roman
Empire which marked the second century of our
era, phUosophy was assuredly not without its
share. Cities like Athens and Alexandria had
long been the seats of teaching analogous to that
of the mediaeval Universities. At Rome the
Emperor Hadrian established public chairs for
philosophy, and Antoninus Pius, extending the
arrangement to the provinces, exempted the
lecturers from taxation. Four schools, Platonic,
Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean, were endowed
at Athens by Marcus Aurelius, each having two
professors, with a yearly salary of 10,000 drach
mas apiece. ' The election was vested in the " best
and oldest and wisest" of the citizens. Through
what body the choice was made is uncertain;
possibly the members of the faculty were associated
with a special board for the purpose; and the im-
' Stromata, I, v, § 28, 3 (ed. StahUn).
" Zeller, A History of Eclecticism (1883), p. 191 f.
287

288 Phases of Early Christianity
perial consent may have been needed for ratifica
tion. Honours and emoluments fell freely to the
teachers' lot. They might openly attack the
popular religion, complains TertulHan, and de
nounce its superstitions, but who compelled them
to sacrifice to the Emperor? For the Christians
who equally taught innocence and justice, patience,
sobriety, chastity, there was the sword or the
wild beast; for the philosophers, statues and
salaries. '
Among these various schools the Platonists had
naturally most affinity with Christian thought.
The disciples of Aristotle were chiefly occupied
with learned literary activity; they produced
elaborate commentaries on their master's writings;
they did not influence spiritual religion. The
day when the philosophy of the Stagirite would
provide an intellectual form for Christian theology
would not arrive for a thousand years. Many
Church-writers felt the influence of the Stoic
ethics, though they repudiated the conception of
Heimarmeni or Fate, and could find nothing in
cosmic pantheism equivalent to the Gospel mes
sage of the "Father who is in heaven." Even
TertuUian, who angrily asked what Athens and
Jerusalem had to do with each other, found sup
port for his rigorism in Seneca. With the Epi
cureans and their fainiant gods the followers of
Jesus could have no sympathy; the sceptics, and
the vulgar materialism into which the popular
' Apologeticus, xlvi.

Salvation by Gnosis 289
mind translated their teaching, were odious to
them. In Platonism, however, especially in its
partial aUiance with the revival of Pythagorean-
ism, the higher minds saw much that was akin to
their own thought and feeling; and when the
Fourth Evangehst introduced the person of the
Son of God under the form of the Hellenic con
ception of the Logos, a deflnite alliance was es
tablished which brought Greek thought into the
closest connection with Christian life.'
The Johannine contrast between "earthly" and
"heavenly" things, like that of the Apostle Paul
(in another connection) between the things of time
and sense and the invisible and enduring, can be
traced ultimately to Platonic idealism. Plato
had himself, of course, a strong sympathy with
many elements in Pythagorean teaching; and his
splendid genius absorbed so much of the elder
master's thought and presented it in such new and
captivating forms, that Pythagoreanism as a
philosophy was unable to hold its own, though
communities which practised the discipline con
tinued to maintain their observance. But in the
first century before our era a revival took place.
Biographies of the Founder were written, in which
he was presented as half divine. Religious con
ceptions of revelation and authority gathered
round him. Pious followers ascribed to him what
they had learned from Plato, Aristotle, or Zeno,
and a flourishing literature sprang up in the second
' Cp. Lect. II, p. 85.
19

290 Phases of Early Christianity
half of the first century of our era. ' It was a tune
when sharp divisions were being broken down;
and schools which cherished common ideas about
human destiny were drawn together. The new
Pythagoreans Platonized; and the Platonists
Pythagorized. Characteristic modes of thought
infiuenced each other, and reason and imagination
sought in numbers and their relations, or in
symbols and half -concrete forms, to express differ
ent aspects of spiritual reaUty. To concUiate
these with traditional rehgion became one of the
tasks of the philosophic theologian. The unity
of the world demanded a single Cause. Behind
all experience of change and succession must lie
permanences of Being which no decay could touch.
Through vicissitudes of life and death, of happiness
or pain, it must be possible to reach a Mind that
comprehended all, and dwelt serenely above
mortal woes, the Absolutely Good. How was
such a conception to be harmonized with the
temple-ritual of the Gods of Greece?
While Christianity was being launched into the
Empire, Plutarch, the gentle and learned priest
of Chaeronea, was wrestling with these problems.
Sprung from an old Boeotian family he had seen
the world, like many another young man of parts.
He had studied at Athens, he had visited Alexan
dria, he had travelled in Italy, he had lectured in
Rome. His life of more than threescore years and
'Cp. Hans von Arnim, Allgemeine Gesch. der Philos. (1913,
Die Kultur der Ccgenwart, Teil I, Abtheil. v,), p. 238 f.

Salvation by Gnosis 291
ten (about 48-120 A. D.) covered the composition
of most of the books of the New Testament, and
much of the literature of the post-apostolic age.
When he retired to his native town he loved to
gather friends around him, or meet them in some
pleasant resort near famous shrines, or by the sea,
and there they discoursed of high themes of morals
and religion. Beside his wonderful gallery of
heroes and statesmen he sets pictures of quiet
talk on a wide range of topics ethical and theo
logical. Literature, history, philosophy, are all
laid under contribution. He has been described
as "the greatest HeUenist of his day."' His
stores of learning, his famUy affection, his deep
attachment to the ancient usages of traditional
piety, shine through debate or discourse; and his
admiration for what was highest in human char
acter and achievement made him a teacher of
righteousness for all who were willing to take on
themselves the solemn responsibUities of self-
direction towards the Good. He was, indeed, no
prophet, crying "Thus saith the Lord"; he was
for his own day the helper of those who sought to
live in the Spirit.
Plutarch was profoundly convinced of the need
of religion. It came to him enveloped in sacred
custom. As priest of Apollo he loved the ritual
which centuries had hallowed; he believed in the
divine inspiration claimed for the oracles; and
' DiU, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904), p.
405-

292 Phases of Early Christianity
though he recognized that there might be aspects
of sacrifice which were savage and unlovely, he
was loyal to the service of the altar, where tradi
tion sanctified ancient practice and new meanings
sprang up in old ceremonies under "the unimagin
able touch of Time." Philosophy, indeed, might
be unable to justify the significance of many a
consecrated act. It proclaimed unhesitatingly
that God was One; and that Unity implied that
it was for ever unchangeably the same. A blank
eternal self-identity, however, was no object of
religious trust. It must needs be inteUigent, and
cognizant of the natural disposition of every
individual man, so as to reward the good and
punish the evil.' The moral government of the
world was essential to Plutarch's notion of the
Deity. God, he argued, is perfectly good; no
virtue is wanting in him, least of all justice and
friendship, which most become the divine nature. '
On the one hand was the conception of the Abso
lute, everlasting, immutable; on the other, the
faith in Providence, the sleepless guardian of the
right, the benevolent administrator of all sorts of
other possible worlds as well as this. "What,
then, is it that really is?"* asks the Athenian pro
fessor, Ammonius, in a discussion at Delphi over
the famous syllable EI inscribed on the narrow
entrance of the Amphictyonic Temple. The
' See the remarkable tract De Sera Numinis Vindicta, xx.
' De Defect. Orac, xxiv.
» 11 oSp oyrais oy i<rTi; De EI apud Delphos, xix.

Salvation by Gnosis 293
answer is, "That which is eternal and unbegotten
and incorruptible, to which time can bring no
change." As the worshipper entered the shrine,
the Deity saluted him through the famous text
upon the waU, "Know thyself" ; "we in our turn, "
says Ammonius, "answering the God, say EI,
thou art, rendering to him the true unfeigned and
sole address of Existence which alone befits him
Alone."' God, it is afterwards laid down, abso
lutely is; and this existence has no reference to
time, it belongs to an immovable timeless eternity,
there is nothing before or after it. With the
Unity in which he exists now he has filled the
Everlasting, and nothing is which does not share
this reality of Being, neither what was originated,
nor what shall come to pass, what began or what
shall end. ' The metaphysical problem is to connect
this changeless Spirit with our world of change;
and the theological to find the relation to it of the
gods of traditional worship, ancient custom, social
law. For this purpose Plutarch calls in the help
of the Daimons.
These were not the hostile and degraded agents
of evil against whose mischievous attacks popular
demonology bid man be for ever on his guard.
In the discussion in the Cnidian Hall at Delphi
on the decline of answers from the Oracles, the
traveller Cleombrotus points to the identification
which Homer had made between Gods and Dai
mons, and the place which Hesiod had assigned
' De EI, xvii. • Ibid., xx.

294 Phases of Early Christianity
them between Gods and men. Clear and ancient
witnesses, he declares, wiU prove that there are
natures thus midway between the divine and
human, subject to mortal passions and necessary
change, and in accordance with the custom of our
fathers we rightly name them Daimons and pay
them reverence. ' It must not be supposed, there
fore, that sacrifices and ceremonies are slighted by
the gods, nor must we imagine that God himself
takes part in them. They are entrusted to the
Daimons as his ministers, supervisors' of sacred
rites and performers of mysteries, while others
move around to punish pride and injustice.* A
complete scheme of subordinate instruments of
varying might and character is thus provided
through which God can act upon the world, and
the whole burden of mythology and cultus is
shifted on to them. For God, thus released from
innumerable odious associations and projected
into immensity, new aspects of being and activity
must be opened. It is not fitting to Hmit his good
ness to the scene we know; his boundless justice
and affection are social virtues, he does not exer
cise them upon himself; it is not likely that he is
without friends and neighbours, or that this
universe floats alone in a void infinitude. " This
multiplication of possibilities enhances the con
ception of the greatness of Deity, but it makes no
difference to his metaphysical relation to the sphere
' De Defect. Orac, x, xii. ' "Bishops," cp. ante, p. i68.
3 Ibid., xiii. 4 Ibid., xxiv.

Salvation by Gnosis 295
of change. Whether there be one world or many
is of no consequence to the difference between the
Eternal and that which has a beginning and an
end. With the help of a World-soul, of numbers
and harmony, ' and the powers lodged in the Dai
mons, a series of intermediate agencies is estab
Ushed by which the Unity of the Absolute can for
ever uphold the ceaseless process of cosmic pro
duction and decay.
How, then, shall this Absolute ever be reached
by human thought? What direct knowledge of
it is possible to man ? To these questions Plutarch
gives no clear answer. They appear, indeed, to
lie beyond his range. He drops, however, some
pregnant hints in the discussion of the great
myth of Isis and Osiris. Study and travel have
convinced him that there is a fundamental unity
of religious experience. Behind varieties of name
lie real identities of belief and worship. There
are no different gods among Greeks and barbarians ;
they are the same as sun and moon are the same,
or land and sea. One Reason arranges these
things, and one Providence administers them;
attendant Powers have been appointed over all,
and laws prescribe the several modes in which they
should be honoured and addressed. The use of
symbols is not without danger, the quagmire of
superstition is on one side, the precipice of atheism
on the other. In the sphere of religion, pleads
Plutarch, we should accept Reason from philo-
' Cp. DiU, Roman Society, etc., p. 419.

296 Phases of Early Christianity
sophy as our Mystagogue.' The different vest
ments of Osiris and Isis provide him with a pretty
allegory. ' That of Osiris has neither shadow nor
variety of colour; it is simple, one, and luminous.
The first principle is uncompounded ; what is
apprehended by thought is unmixed. Once used,
they lay the garment by and preserve it; for the
object of thought is beyond sight and touch.
The vestments of Isis may be used many times.
They are like objects of sense, which we employ
and handle, and in their several changes look at
in many ways. But the apprehension of what
only thought can apprehend *— what is sincere and
holy — flashes like lightning through the soul; to
touch and gaze upon it may be possible but once.
Plato and Aristotle called this the "epoptic" part
of philosophy, as though it were reached only by
the highest initiates in the mystery; who by the
help of Reason leap up to what is primary and
simple and immaterial. Thus to reach pure
Truth is to attain the goal of Philosophy. Yet
how are we hindered from arriving there! The
souls of men here below, Plutarch laments, encom
passed by bodies and their affections, can have no
communion with God, save as they may appre
hend him through philosophy as in a dim dream.
But when they are released and have passed into
the sphere of the unseen and invisible, the passion
less and pure, this God becomes their Guide and
' De Isid. et Osir., Ixvii, Ixviii. ' Ibid., Ixxviii.
' 'H Si TOV vor)TOV rbrja-is.

Salvation by Gnosis 297
King; they hang upon him, gazing and longing
stiU unsatisfied after the beauty which no mortal
tongue can utter.' The philosopher no longer
reasons, he sees. The transient and obscure
moments of earthly Ulumination are converted into
the open vision of heaven.
Two generations before Plutarch Philo had
wrestled with similar problems at Alexandria from
the Jewish side.' But his task was in some re
spects more difficult. Like Plutarch he belonged
to a priestly famUy, but unlike the Greek teacher
he found his religion authoritatively embodied in
a book. HeUenic piety had a long tradition be
hind it, but it had produced no Scripture. The
faith and worship of Israel rested upon Revelation.
It must, therefore, be an epitome of truth so far
as it could be expressed in human speech. All
other truth, accordingly, must be harmonized
with it, and the teachings of philosophy could be
confirmed out of the Mosaic Law. For three
hundred years the Jews at Alexandria had been
confronted on one side with the ancient wisdom
of Egypt, on the other with the representatives of
the schools of Greece. They had translated their
sacred books into the common tongue of the East
ern Mediterranean; their historians sought to
remove the reproach that their people had rendered
no services to learning ; they identified Moses with
' De Isid. et Osir., Ixxviii, Ixxix.
' The limits of his career are not known exactly, but he speaks
of himself as an old man in the year 40 a. d.

298 Phases of Early Christianity
the legendary figure of Musaeus, and derived
HeUenic wisdom from the Hebrew legislator.'
Philo had been brought up under the twofold
influences of the Synagogue and the Museum.
He had passed through the usual course of encyc-
Hcal education; he had heard lectures in the
schools; he had paid his devotions at Jerusalem.
He sought to interpret Greek culture to his own
people, and to commend his national scriptures to
the trained Hellenic intelligence. For him the
Pythagoreans constituted a "most sacred band";
Empedocles, Parmenides, and Xenophanes were
little short of divine; with Zeno and Cleanthes
they made a holy assembly ; Plato is above aU "the
great."' With the aUegorical method by which Philo
sought to accomplish his aim we are not here con
cerned. It was not his invention; it had been
practised before him, and it was freely applied by
the interpreters of Homer no less than by the
expounders of Genesis. Largely through his
writings it passed into the Church, and was des
tined to have a profound influence on Christian
theology. It enabled PhUo to extract Platonism
from the Pentateuch, and to present the patri
arch Abraham as a representative of the "divine
Logos."* The lack of definite principles in his
' Cp. Eupolemos and Artapanos in Euseb., Praep. Evang., IX,
xxvi, xxvii.
' See the passages quoted by Edersheim, Diet. Christ. Biog.,
iv, p. 374; or Schurer, Gesch. des Jiid. Volkes^, iii., p. 544.
3 Legum Alleg., iii, 218, ed. Cohn, i, p. 161.

Salvation by Gnosis 299
treatment of Scripture finds a counterpart in the
loose structure of his phUosophy, where the doc
trines of different. systems sometimes jostle each
other, and incongruities of thought are ignored.
But the lofty elevation of his spirit triumphs over
gaps of construction. His ethical enthusiasm
never flags. At times he reaches the vision of the
mystic, and argument is lost in contemplation.
The two-fold aim of HeUenistic piety is ever before
him, the yearning for knowledge of God {gnosis),
and the desire of incorruption.'
Using the language of Elea, PhUo designates
God as T6 ov, "the Existent.'" Like Plutarch
he conceives the nature of Deity as simple, un
compounded, unmingled with aught else. Behind
all time and number he abides in unity, * immutable,
imperishable, incapable of being reckoned in any
class, for that would imply the possession of
qualities in which others share, and would con
sequently impair his uniqueness." To demon
strate his existence the argument from causality
may suffice. But what his essential nature is
must remain unknown to man who cannot even
tell what he is himself. Contrasted with the world
of our experience he dwells unconfined by space,
unchanged by the succession of created things,
' Cp. Hans Windisch, Die Frommigkeit Philos (1909), 4.
" See references in Br^hier, Les IdSes Philosophiques et Religieuses
de Philo (1908), p. 70 ff.
3 The formula is hardly translatable, Kari, rb iv Kai t^v /MvdSa,
Leg. Alleg., ii, 3.
4 Cp. Drummond, Philo Judaus (1888), ii, p. 25.

300 Phases of Early Christianity
yet he is Maker and Father of the universe. Be'-
tween this lofty abstraction and the plurality to
which our senses testify, what links of connection
can be found? The answer is supplied by the
doctrine of the Logos and the Powers ranged
beneath. The Logos is pure Reason (voO?) ; he is
Son of God, even a second God; he is the image of
God, and the Idea of ideas ; but how he comes into
being, streaming forth from the primeval Light,
and is invested with operative force, is not dis
closed. He stands at the head of a group of
Powers, six altogether in number, allegoricaUy
connected with the Pentateuchal institution of
six Cities of Refuge.' Next to the Logos come
the Creative and the Regal energies ; the Propitious
follows, by which the Artificer compassionates
his own work; and lowest in the descending scale
are the Legislative pair concerned with Precept
and Prohibition. The group, whose procession
from the fount of Being is nowhere described, bears
some resemblance to the emanations which figure
in the genealogies of the Gnostic .^Eons. Last and
most numerous of all are the types or ideas of
classes or genera in the material world; they, too,
suddenly appear endowed with active efficacy;
in Scripture language they may be identified with
the Angels. But how inteUectual conceptions
become dynamic agencies Philo does not seem
to have enquired. He draws the constituents
of his philosophical fabric from various sources,
' See the exposition of Dr. Drummond, Philo, ii, p. 83.

Salvation by Gnosis 301
and it is not surprising that they do not always
fit. Between heaven and earth the air is full of in
corporeal souls. Some of them are of exalted
rank, and can be employed as the Creator's
ministers in human affairs. Others descend into
human bodies,' and in the whirlpool of sense-
experience are swallowed down and engulfed.
Others succeed in swimming on the top, 'and at
length fly back into the upper realm. They have
learned the secret of philosophy, they have prac
tised the life of dying to the body that they may
obtain the life which is incorporeal and incorrupti
ble in the presence of the Uncreate and Eternal.
That is the goal of human endeavour. Had not
Plato taught that "we ought to fly away from
earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to
fly away is to become like God, as far as this is
possible ; and to become like him is to become holy,
just, and wise. " ' For this end, indeed, God deigns
himself to come to our aid. He visits mankind in
his goodness, and what dwelling can be prepared
for him? Though the whole earth were gold, it
were no proper resting-place for his feet, but a
fitting soul is a worthy house. It must, indeed,
be suitably arranged. The foundations must be
laid in right disposition and teaching, the edifice
of the virtues must be reared with noble deeds,
' De Gigant., 12 ff. (ed. Wendland, ii, p. 44).
= Theatet., 176, tr. Jowett, iv, p. 235. PhUo, De Fuga, 63 (ed.
Wendland, iii, p. 123).

302 Phases of Early Christianiiy
for additional ornaments it must receive the dis
cipline of university education, and then the
Powers of God wiU descend. To a soul thus made
ready they wiU bring laws and ordinances from
heaven to hallow and consecrate it with the
encouragement of their Father.' What house,
exclaims the devout phUosopher, can be more
fitting for God than a soul perfectly purified, and
deeming the BeautifiU alone the Good?'
But if God deigns through his Powers to descend
to man and make his abode in the lowly soul, can
man in his turn ascend towards God and rise
into direct communion with him? Like a good
Platonist Philo endows the soul with wings, and
describes the vision that breaks upon her in her
upward fUght. When a man loves God his soul
springs upward towards truth from earth to heaven
and traverses the air on wings, eager to join the
dance with sun and moon and the most holy band
of the stars in harmony, where God is king alone
and unopposed, with just sovereignty over each
and all. * It is, then, possible for the contempla
tive mind with the help not of sense but reason to
reach a fellowship with divine things, and pass
from outward sight to what is incorporeal and
known by thought. Of the high virtue needful
for this vision Abraham was the type. The
reward of such approach to truth was faith; its
' Philo, De Cherub., 29-31 (ed. Cohn, i, p. 194).
" De Sohriet., 62 (ed. Wendland, ii, p. 227).
3 De Spec Leg., i, 207 (ed. Cohn, v, p. 50).

Salvation by Gnosis 303
prize was joy; the crown of tireless toU was the
vision of God. For what can be more gainful or
worshipful than to believe in God, to rejoice ever
more, and unceasingly behold real Being (to 8v).'
If the eyes of the body can reach the topmost
heights of the sky, how vast a course must be open
to the eyes of the soul, when, yearning to gaze
clearly on "What Is," they not only mount on
wings to the furthest ether, but even pass the
boundaries of the world in haste to reach the
Uncreate. '
¦ There is, then, for the pure spirit an immediate
knowledge of God. The common mind may re
spond to the Stoic arguments founded on the
intelligence revealed in the great world-city, the
harmonies of earth and air and sea, the successions
of day and night, the regularity of the seasons, the
order of the stars. * But there is a higher kind of
direct evidence. "See that I am he, " it is said in
the character of God in the great Song {Deut.
xxxii. 39), for Real Being (to ovtw? ov) is ap
prehended by clear insight (IvapYsi'a) rather than
by reasoning." Tru§, this does not pierce to the
ultimate secret of God's essence. The Absolute
alone can understand himself. But it does bring
the human spirit into such close relation to the
Divine that man can become theo-phoros, a verit-
' De Pram, et Poen., 26 f. (ed. Cohn, v, p. 341).
• DePlantat., 22 (ed. Wendland, ii, p. 138).
3 Cp. De Monarch. I, cap. vi.
4 De Poster. Cain., 167 (ed. Wendland, ii, p. 37)-

304 Phases of Early Christianity
able "bearer" of God, for the Ruler of the universe
deigns himself alone and imseen to company
with minds that have reached the highest purity:
was it not promised, "I will walk among you and
will be your God" {Lev. xxvi, 12)?' For such
souls, who offer their reason as a sacred cup, the
Ruler of the feast, the Logos, the cupbearer of God,
pours forth deep draughts of joy.' This is the
path to freedom and to peace, for the true City
of God, Jerusalem, "the vision of peace," lies in
the soul wherein God makes his home.* Lifted
above the strife of the world, and aiming at like
ness to God who is raised above aU need and
perfectly suffices for himself, " he quits the sphere
of corruption and necessity; he wins the unchang
ing mind which draws nigh to the power of God,
he approaches the steadfastness of the Eternal,*
he enters on life and immortality. ^
Such were the possibilities of salvation by philo
sophy. Philo was destined to be one of the pro
genitors of Christian theology; but at its birth
the. Christian Church was occupied with other
things. The language of Jesus was the speech of
the home and the field, the market place and the
vineyard; the insight of the prophet rested on the
' De Somn., i, 148 (ed. Wendland, iii, p. 236). For 6e64>opos
cp. Br^hier, Idees, p. 2oi3.
• De Somn., ii, 249 {ibid., p. 298). s Ibid., 250-1.
4 De Fortitud., 8-9 (ed. Cohn, v, p. 268).
5 De Cherub., 19 (ed. Cohn, i, p. 174).
« De Plantat., 37 (ed. Wendland, ii, p. 141). Cp. Drummond,
Philo, ii, p. 323-4.

Salvation by Gnosis 305
education of life, not of the schools. Paul dis
trusts the world's wisdom, content that the world's
"foolish things " might put its professional teachers
to shame. He must needs use every now and then
some philosophical term, he cannot escape from
his own culture. The author of Acts ascribes to
him the arguments from natural religion in com
mon use in the Stoic schools.' He, too, teaches
the elevation of God above every want in sublime
self-sufficiency.' The same appeals are made by
Clement from Rome. By way of persuading the
Corinthians to concord he dwells on the divine
gifts of peace in the harmony of the universe.
Day and night follow each other without interfer
ence; sun and moon and the unswerving stars
pursue their appointed way; the ocean observes
the bounds prescribed for it; the winds fulfil
their service unopposed.* For Clement, too, the
Sovereign of creation is in need of nothing," but
the doctrine of God receives no elaboration;
Clement's background is that of the Old Testa
ment resting on the common culture of the day.
Ignatius writes as a mystic not a philosopher.
Visions of unity float before his eyes. But it is
not the nature-mysticism of the pantheist; it is
the unity of history, which crowns the series of
Patriarchs and Prophets with the Gospel, and the
' Cp. Acts xiv, 15-17, xvii, 24.
' Ibid., xvii, 25; cp. Norden, Agnostos Theos (1913), p. 14.
3 I Clem. XX.
4 'AirpotrSe^s b Scff-iriTijs, ibid., Iii. The title is frequent in the
LXX.

3o6 Phases of Early Christianity
unity of the Church which mirrors the government
of God.' Hermas is concerned with the sins of
the present and the destinies of the future; his
problems are practical, speculation has no interest
for him.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, however, another
strain enters Christian teaching. The stately
phrases of its opening sentence imply famUiarity
with philosophic thought; and the numerous
parallels of its language with the Wisdom of Solo
mon and the writings of PhUo show the beginnings
of a definite alliance with Hellenistic culture.
Under this influence the Gospel is translated into
new forms. A concept of the schools is employed
by the Fourth Evangelist to interpret the person
of Jesus ; and salvation is placed in a kind of gnosis
or knowledge: "This is life eternal, that they
should know thee the only true God, and him whom
thou didst send, Jesus Christ."' Christianity
was thus brought into the sphere of the intel
lectual problems which occupy the phUosophic
theologian, and the leaven of a fresh interest
began to work in many ways. Justin, wearing
the philosopher's mantle, is accosted in the Xystus
at Ephesus by the Jew Trypho, who defines the
object of philosophy as the investigation of the
Deity. Justin recites the steps of his search, and
' Cp. Philad., ix. Trail., iii, etc.
' John xvii, 3. The term gnosis does not appear in the Gospel,
but the corresponding verb "know" is one of its most important
words.

Salvation by Gnosis 307
traces his pilgrimage from Stoic to Peripatetic,
Pythagorean, and Platonist, tUl finaUy he found
himself a lover of the prophets and the friends of
Christ. Their phUosophy was secure and pro
fitable, and he begins to discuss from the Greek
side some of the difficulties which the application
of the doctrine of the Logos begot. The Christian
missionaries could not evade these difficulties,
and their language indicates their need of harmon
izing the Biblical teaching with the phraseology
of the culture of the day. The Preaching of Peter
in the first part of the second century' defines God
as "the Unseen who sees aU things, the Uncon-
tained who contains aU things, the Unneeding
whom all things need, and through whom they
exist. Incomprehensible, Eternal, Incorruptible,
Unmade, who made all things by the Word of his
Power (the Gnostic "Beginning"), that is his
Son."' What is the meaning of this curious
identification? Who were the Gnostics, and what
was the nature of their gnosis or secret knowledge?
The name "Gnostic" covers a large and com
plicated variety of movements within the field of
Christianity which rose rapidly into importance
in the second century. * The new teaching gravely
' Before 140 a.d., Hennecke, N. T.liche Apokryphen (1904),
p. 169.
' Clem. Alex., Stromal., VI, v, § 39.
3 The name Gnostic seems to have been used by Celsus (about
178 B.C.?), Origen, Contra Cels., V, Ixi. Hippolytus, Refutatio,
V, i, says that the Naassenes were the first so to describe
themselves.

3o8 Phases of Early Christianity
threatened the stabiHty of the Faith. It assumed
widely different forms in the hands of different
leaders, but in spite of the diversity of its sects it
was marked by certain common features which
distinguished it from the growing consciousness
of the Catholic Church. It drew into itself ele
ments from many sources, Babylonian, Persian,
Phrygian, Syrian, Egyptian, Greek. It had affini
ties with the Babylonian dualism of an upper
and a lower world, with the PersianJduaHsm of
Hght and darkness, with the Greek dualism of
matter and spirit. It produced an active litera
ture, but little of the^works of its most thoughtful
writers remains to provide first-hand evidence of
their ideas. It created austere moral disciplines
on the one hand, and it issued in strange forms of
licentiousness upon the other. In the course of
a few generations it reached its ctdmination as the
Church, in the persons of Irenaeus, TertuUian,
Hippolytus, marshalled its arguments against it;
it declined in the third century and faded away
in the fourth when a new type of heresy took its
place under the name of Manichaeism. In self-
defence the Church armed itself with a fresh Canon
and set the Scriptures of the New Testament
beside those of the Old; elaborated its doctrine of
tradition; and provided itself with a guarantee of
unity by formulating a Rule of Faith. '
"Know thyself" was the warning addressed to
the Greek worshipper as he approached the sanc-
' Cp. Lect. IL, p. 83.

Salvation by Gnosis 309
tuary of Apollo at Delphi. "Know the Lord"
was the appeal of the Hebrew prophet to the people
of Israel. One of the Gnostic formulae sought to
link the two orders of knowledge together: "The
beginning of perfection is the knowledge of man, "
ran a saying of the sect known as Naassenes,'
"the end of perfection is the knowledge of God."'
If this was the aim of religion, it was no less that
of phUosophy, and to some of the critics and op
ponents of Gnosticism, notably to TertulHan,
philosophy appeared in the odious light of the
origin of all the heresies.* In reality, however,
it wotUd seem that tendencies analogous to those
which produced the teachers of the second century
had already been at work in Judaism before
Christianity arose." Paul has to contend with
cognate ideas at Colossi.* The first prominent
figure, however, held up for patristic reprobation
is that of Simon the Mage of Samaria who went,
like so many other sectaries, to Rome.* His dis-
' The name is founded on the Hebrew word for snake, and
corresponds to the Greek Ophites, as though they were the
"Serpentines." ' Hippol., Refutatio, V, i, 8.
3 Tert., De Prascript. Heretic, vii. But in the Apol., xvii, and
De Testimon. Anima, he takes a different view.
4 Cp. PhUo, De Poster. Cain., xi, xiv-xv. On the general ques
tion of the origins of Gnosticism see the briUiant treatise of
Bousset, Hauplprobleme der Gnosis (1907), especiaUy p. 54 ff. Cp.
Priedlander, Der Vorchristliche Judische Gnosticismus (1898).
3 Cp. Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon (1904), p. 71 sqq.
" See Hamack's bold and original view of his doctrines. Hist.
of Dogma, i, p. 244.

310 Phases of Early Christianity
ciple, Menander of Capparatea, established himself
at Antioch, the brUliant city of the East, and
there BasUides and Satuminus were said to have
studied under him. BasUides made his home in
Alexandria, whence Cerinthus, another traditional
father of heresy, had already proceeded to Ephesus,
where Church legend represented him as the
adversary of the Apostle John. Egypt was the
home, too, of Valentinus, trained in the school of
Platonism, whose followers were among the most
numerous and wide-spread of all the sects. From
among the Alexandrian Platonists, also, came
Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes, so that the
fundamental Platonic conception of the transcend
ence and spirituality of God was deeply impressed
on much of the Gnostic teaching. The leaders of
the second century boldly attempted on the
philosophical side to do what PhUo had done
before them, viz., to construct a series of links be
tween the Being of God conceived as the ultimate
Monad (a Platonic term) and the world of change
known to our senses. And from this scene of
temptation and suffering they sought to rescue the
soul which had fallen from the realm of light into
the darkness of error and sin, and restore it to its
true home above. It was on this side that the
Gnostic teachers kept close to Christianity as a
religion of salvation and emphasized the function
of Christ as a Saviour.
The founders of different schools, however,
though they might have been students of philo-

Salvation by Gnosis 311
sophy, did not base their gnosis on reasoning.
Their methods were not dialectic. Valentinus,
for example, was poet and mystic, soaring into a
realm of imaginative creation, as if he had dis
carded altogether the discipHne of the schools.
The goal for which he strove was the vision of God.
In a letter quoted by Clement of Alexandria,' he
declares that there is only One who is good, and
through him alone can the heart become pure
when every evil spirit is expelled from it. Like
an inn on which men bestow no care because it
belongs to some one else, the heart which is un-
cared for becomes unclean, the abode of many
demons. "But when the Father who alone is
good, visits it, it is sanctified and shines with
light; and thus he who has such a heart is to be
called blessed, for he shall see God." The type
of gnosis by which this was to be reached might
vary, Hke the mode of its communication. Ulti
mately, of course, it was traced back to Christ,
and depended on a revelation first communicated
by him. A Naassene hymn preserved by Hippo
lytus' contains his promise to unfold all mysteries,
and adds the declaration
"The secrets of the Holy Path
Called Gnosis I'll impart."
For such teaching, hidden from the world and
delivered privately to the disciples, abundant
room was found by extending the period of the
' Stromata, II, xx, § 114. ' Refutatio, V, v.

312 Phases of Early Christianity
Lord's intercourse with the Twelve after the resur
rection. The curious treatise entitled Pistis Sophia
(" Faith- Wisdom ") , belonging probably to the
third century,' allowed eleven years for this pur
pose, during which sacred mysteries were revealed.
Another method was the allegorical interpretation
of Scripture. BasUides wrote explanations of the
Gospels in twenty-four books. Heracleon com
posed the first commentary on the Fourth Gospel,
from which Origen made considerable extracts;
and in the exercise of religious phantasy it would
be difficult sometimes to say which of the two
expositors wandered the farthest from the plain
meaning of the text. The Old Testament might
be absolutely rejected as a religious authority,
after the fashion of Marcion.' There are traces
of strange sects which transformed offenders like
Cain, the men of Sodom, Esau, Korah, Dathan
and Abiram, into elect worthies; while Judas be
came a sort of partner in the redemption by
bringing about the death of Jesus which the
hostile powers desired to prevent lest thereby
humanity should be saved.* From the New
Testament a selection might be made, like Mar
cion's Canon, which consisted of the Gospel
according to Luke with some excisions, and eleven
' Edited from a Coptic translation from the original Greek,
Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, i. (1905), by Carl Schmidt.
' Cp. Lect. II, p. 80.
3 De Faye, Gnostigues et Gnosiicisme (1913), p. 349 f. There
was even a Gospel of Judas.

Salvation by Gnosis 313
letters of the Apostle Paul. But the scanty
references of their opponents make it impossible
to determine in detail the attitude of the different
sects to the several books now included in the
Scriptures. Their fundamental conception of a
faU and a redemption has most affinity with cer
tain elements in the Pauline teaching, however
different might be the mythological forms in
which it was clothed. With the eschatological
outlook of primitive Christianity they had no
sympathy. The doctrine of the resurrection of
the body was altogether alien to their thought.
Divided into a great variety of sects, the Gnos
tics had their meetings for worship, but their
followers formed no united church. Valentinus,
it would seem, had at first no idea of founding a
separate community. Of their organization, their
methods of spreading their teaching, their minis
tries and missionary labours, their critics tell us
little or nothing. They were active in literary
production. They composed psalms and hymns,
they wrote letters, they drew up narratives under
Apostolic names. Deeply conscious of the element
of passion in human nature, the early teachers
like BasUides and Valentinus occupied themselves
with the problem of evil, whence did it come,
and in what did it consist ? ' The Platonic dualism
of matter and spirit led them to find its seat, in
part at any rate, in man's physical constitution.
The body was formed by inferior angels, who em-
' Tert., De Prascript. Heretic, vii, "unde malum."

314 Phases of Early Christianity
ployed matter from this lower world, and mtro-
duced into it the passions which disturbed the
higher nature lodged within it. ' To master these
a strict asceticism was often demanded. There
were obscure sects which claimed a liberty above
all law, though charges of licentiousness must
always be received with caution. But the great
Gnostics, such as Valentinus (whose followers were
the most numerous and the most widely diffused)
and Marcion (who in this respect may be reckoned
with them) , were emphatic rigorists. Marcion even
condemned marriage, and one of the later works
preserved in Coptic translations exalts virginity. '
The disappearance of the best Gnostic literature,
and the confused expositions of their ecclesiastical
opponents, render it extremely difficult to trace
the rise and development of particular schools.
Our fullest information gathers round Valentinus
and his disciples. Valentinus himself taught at
Rome. Heracleon and Ptolemy were connected
with Italy; Irenasus encountered Valentinians in
the valley of the Rhone ; in Asia Minor Theodotus
was at work, and a series of extracts from his writ
ings has been preserved by the pen of Clement of
Alexandria. The main purpose of the gnosis was
deUverance from evU, or redemption; it explained
' This seems to have been the view of Valentinus, De Faye,
Gnostigues et Gnosiicisme, p. 43.
' See the Book of Je{l,, i, 4, in Schmidt's Koptisch-Gnostische
Schriften, i, p. 260, conceming those who bore the virginity of
Jesus.

Salvation by Gnosis 315
"who we were, what we have become, where we
were, whither we have been flung, whither we
hasten, whence we are redeemed, what is birth,
and what is rebirth."' The Valentinian doctrine
of existing mankind distributed them into three
groups. Highest of all were the "pneumatics,"
or "spirituals"; lowest were the "hylics," or
"materials"; between the two extremes were the
"psychics," who might rise into the upper rank
or sink into that which was beneath. The frag
ments of Heracleon's commentary on the Fourth
Gospel preserved by Origen illustrate this division
in connection with the story of the woman of
Samaria.' The spiritual nature is declared to
be homoousios (of the same substance) with the
Unbegotten; such are they who worship God in
spirit*; they are compared with the High Priests
who enter the Holy of Holies. " The mountain of
the Samaritan cultus represents the world over
which the devU presides.* The water in Jacob's
weU is the worldly life; that which the Saviour
gives is eternal. In asking for it the Samaritan
woman reveals herself as a true "pneumatic,"
temporarUy fallen from her proper home and
' Excerpt. Theod., 78, 2, in Clem. Alex. (ed. Stahlin), Vol. iii,
p. 131.
'Heracleon, the most distinguished of the disciples of Valen
tinus according to Clem. Alex., Strom., IV, ix, § 71, was known to
Irenaeus, cp. Brooke, Texts and Studies (Cambridge), i, 4, p. 34,
and may be placed between 155 & 180, De Faye, op. cit., p. 54.
3 Fragm., 24, ed. Brooke, p. 81.
4 Ibid., 13, ibid., p. 68. s Ibid., 20.

3i6 Phases of Early Christianity
seeking for the means of return.' The element
which is related to the Father has been lost in the
deep matter of error, hence it is "sought" that
the Father may be worshipped by his true kin
dred. ' Inasmuch as they are of the same nature
with him, they who worship in truth are spirit.*
Redemption is apparently effected by the awaken
ing of the consciousness of their real character, an
inward enlightenment which brings with it the
saving gnosis. But whether this is the destiny
of all "spirituals," or whether some are lost and
never'found, the surviving fragments do not make
clear. The "psychics" like the "spirituals" are
entangled in matter, but not hopelessly. They,
too, may rise into the higher life ; they are aiTs^oiaiot,
they possess free will." They have at least the
capacity for salvation, the corruptible can put on
incorruption. They are represented by the men
who come forth from the city on the summons
of the woman. On the other hand the lowest
class, the "hylics," the earthy and the carnal, are
incapable of salvation. Emphasizing the dualism
of the Fourth Gospel, "ye are of your father the
devil" {John viii, 44), Heracleon declares that
they are otJiooualot (of the same substance) with him, *
and as such essentially irredeemable. For his
nature is not derived from truth, but from its
contrary, error and ignorance, its characteristic
is 'falsehood, truth is beyond its reach. * For such
' Fragm., 17, 19. ' Ibid., 23. 3 ibid., 24.
4 De Faye, op, cit., p. 67. s Fragm,, 44. « Ibid., 47.

Salvation by Gnosis 317
as inherited being of this quality Jesus might
well say "Whither I go ye cannot come" {John
vin, 21). How could those who exist in ignor
ance and unbelief and sin attain incorruption?'
Doom does indeed lie over the "earthy." But
among the "devil's sons" might be some who were
not his real offspring (fucsi), though they did his
wUl of their own choice (yvw^jLy)).' These were
actually "psychics" who had temporarily lapsed,
and might recover. The number of the hopelessly
lost was thus reduced. Heracleon was evidently
anxious to widen all possible avenues to salvation.
Behind all this process stood the Absolute, the
unchanging God. Stainless and pure and invis
ible, said Heracleon, is his nature as Spirit.* He
is the Father of Truth, " and if ecclesiastical tradi
tion may be trusted, Heracleon applied to him the
Pythagorean term the " Monad. " How far Hera
cleon accepted the poetical construction of Valen
tinus for connecting the Unseen Deity with the
visible world, the surviving fragments are insuf
ficient to prove. Valentinus wrought out his system
by imagination rather than by reason, and boldly
soared into a realm of immensity which he could
people with vast grandiose figures by way of pic
turesque expression of his ideas. He, too, had drunk
deep draughts of the wisdom of Pythagoras and
Plato, * and posited as the ultimate ground of all
existence "a Monad imbegotten, imperishable^
' Fragm., 41. ' Ibid., 46. 3 Ibid., 24.
4 Ibid., 20. * Hippoljrt., Refutatio, VI, xxiv.

3i8 Phases of Early Christianity
incomprehensible," to whom was given the name
of Father. Unhampered by conditions of time
and space, he became the source of a series of beings
from whose lowest term the world and man at last
proceeded. Like other mystics Valentinus could
only conceive the activity of God as love. In
infinite solitude love sought an object of affection.
Whether or not Silence was by his side as a mys
terious consort to break his sublime isolation the
Valentinians were not agreed.' Forth from him
self the Father projected the first pair of energies,
Mind and Truth. From them descended a series
known as .^ons, beginning with Logos (Word)
and Life, and proceeding onwards through Man
and Church. The whole Godhead with these suc
cessive projections constituted the Plerdma or
Fulness, which consisted of thirty terms; and with
the curious numerical symbolism which his critics
attributed to Pythagorean influence Valentinus
found them typified in the thirty years of Christ's
age at baptism. ' Last of these .^ons was Sophia
(Wisdom) , consequently the most remote from the
fountain-head of Deity. In the beginning Mind
only knew the Father. Rejoicing in his immeasur
able majesty he meditated how to reveal him to
the rest of the .(Eons. They in their turn were
' So Hippolytus. Among recent interpreters Profs. Bousset
and De Faye (whom I have followed) also differ. The testi
mony of Hippolytus to the views of Valentinus himself seems
clear. Heracleon says nothing about Silence in the extant frag
ments. " Iren., Adv. Hares., I, i, 3; II, xxii.

Salvation by Gnosis 319
fUled with calm desire to behold the Projector of
their seed, and contemplate their Root without
beginning. But the youngest .^^^on, Wisdom,
greatly daring, and grieved that she could not
share Mind's communion with the perfect Father,
sought to comprehend his greatness. As she
stretched forward and was in danger of being
reabsorbed into his Being, she encountered Horos,
the "Limit." He held her back, persuaded her
of the incomprehensibility of the Father, weaned
her from her passion, and thus restored peace
within the Fulness. '
Such was the beginning of the strange myth of
the fall of Wisdom. It ends with the creation of
the world. Our universe results from the passion
of Sophia. In the incoherence and confusion of
the reports the details of the process are obscure.
But the Demiurge or Creator finally comes into
view in a homUy of Valentinus quoted by Clement
of Alexandria.* Over against the Church teach
ing which declared the identity of the God of the
Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, Valentinus
affirmed that the Creator described in Genesis was
only an "image" or "prophet" of the Trae God.
He might bear the titles God and Father, but he
was only like a "painter" seeking to reproduce in
the visible scene the likeness of Wisdom, to the
glory of the Invisible. Thus the last Hnk was
forged in the long chain uniting the world of time
and change with the Eternal. In the creation of
' Iren., Adv. Hares., I, ii. ' Stromata, IV, xiii, § 90.

320 Phases of Early Christianity
man the Demiurge, it would seem, was assisted
by subordinate Rulers. From him came, at least
into some men (the "spirituals"), the divine seed
which guaranteed their immortality; from them,
the physical elements of coarser matter which
dragged them into sin. "From the beginning,"
said Valentinus, "ye are immortal, and children of
eternal life. ' ' In mysterious words he foretold how
death itself should die in them and through them,
and they should become lords of all creation and
corruption.' How should this hope be achieved?
The cosmic speculations of Gnosticism were
really only the setting for the central theme of the
soul's destiny. The past could not be without its
interest, but it was on the future that attention
was really fixed. If there was a divine element in
humanity, how could it be set free from its en
tanglement in the flesh and restored to its home
on high ? The theme of its descent, its servitude
in the world of pleasure and change, its forget-
fulness of its origin, its awakening to its true nature
and its return to the land of Hght, is expounded
with the adornments of a folk-tale in the famous
hymn put into the mouth of the Apostle Thomas
when he was in prison "in the country of the
Indians."' The poet tells how when he was yet
' Stromata IV, xiii, § 89.
' Cp. Bevan, Texts and Studies (Cambridge), 1897, Vol. v., 3;
Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (1904), pp. 218 ff., and The
Quest, ]\x\-y, 1914, p. 617; Preuschen, Zwei Gnostische Hymnen
(1904) ; Mead, The Hymn of the Robe of Glory (1908), in Echoes
of the Gnosis, Vol. x.

Salvation by Gnosis 321
but a little chUd in the house of his Father, he
was sent by his parents from his hoine in the
Parthian Empire to fetch from Egypt the Pearl
that was guarded by the all-swallowing Serpent.
Gifts were given him for the journey, but his
bright robe was taken from him as he departed,
with the promise of its restoration when he should
return with his prize, and this was engraven on his
heart that he should not forget it. Alone and an
exile in Egypt he watches for the Pearl. He wears
the dress of the country to escape recognition,
but a single confidant, whom he has entrusted
with his secret, betrays him. In their guile the
Egyptians give him to eat of their dainties; he
forgets his race and the Pearl, and serves the king
of the country. But his parents know what has
befallen him, and they send him a letter which
speeds to him with the fiight of an eagle, and
speaks to him in his native tongue. At the sound
of its tones he awakens from his slumber. The
words of the letter were Hke those engraved on his
heart. He remembers his royal race and his
free-born nature, remembers the task which he
had been sent to fulfil. He charms the Serpent to
sleep, seizes the Pearl, and sets his course straight
for his own land, Hghted upon his way by the
letter. On the journey he meets the Robe of his
childhood, now fashioned after his maturer like
ness. Clad in its splendour he reaches the Palace-
gate, and pays homage to his father's Viceroy for
his protection. He is received with favour to be

322 Phases of Early Christianity
with him in his kingdom, and awaits a yet higher
joy: "Now to the King of Kings one day he hath promised
to take me.
There by his side with my gift and my Pearl I shall
stand in the Presence."
The lovely allegory describes the mission of the
soul from heaven, its native sphere, to the life of
earth, represented by the unclean land of Egypt,
full of magic and enchantments. The heavenly
form must be left behind, but it keeps pace with
the growth of its owner who wiU be ' ' clothed upon ' '
with its glory when he retums to his Father's
house, victor over temptation with the prize of
salvation in his hand. Father and Mother, the
King of Kings and the Queen of the East, im
personate the Father and the Spirit. The Viceroy,
who is also Brother of the soul, is Christ.
On this return of the soul to its heavenly home
Gnostic imagination dwelt with insistent emphasis.
It was usually presented under the figure of the
Babylonian cosmology with its seven heavens,'
which had spread all through the East and was
firmly lodged in Judaism and some circles of early
Christianity. Gate after gate must be passed
on the ascent, and the soul must be provided with
the proper formulae by which to secure admission
from the Seven Rulers presiding successively over
' Corresponding to the sun, the moon, and the five planets.
Cp. ante, p. 129. '

Salvation by Gnosis 323
each sphere. ' Instruction in these charms formed
part of the Gnostic mysteries.' The nature and
the names of the Seven must be duly known, but
such knowledge was not by itself sufficient to
unbar the gates. Before the soul could enter on
the upward way, it must have been delivered
from its ignorance and sin.
The need of redemption was generally recog
nized, but Irenaeus laments that each mystagogue
had a different scheme for its achievement. For
those who received the perfect gnosis, rebirth into
the Power which is over all was indispensable. Had
not Jesus himself declared that he had a baptism
to be baptized with, superior to that of John ; had
he not asked the sons of Zebedee if they could share
it; and had not Paul proclaimed the redemption
in Christ Jesus? Many were the modes in which
it was effected, — the celebration of a mystic bridal
after the type of the sacred Pairs above, * — initia
tions with strange words and formula, — unction
with balsam, — baptism "into the name of the
unknown Father of the universe, into Truth the
Mother of all things, into him who came down
into Jesus, into union and redemption and fellow-.
ship with the Powers."" The Valentinian Theo-
' Examples are supplied by Origen, Contra Cels., VI, xxxi.
'Anz, in his Ur sprung des Gnosticismus {Texte und Unter-
suchungen, 1897, xv., 4), trepts this as the central doctrine.
Among the Valentinians, however, the traces of it are slight.
3 There are traces of a strange myth of the union of the Saviour
with the faUen Sophia.
4 Iren., Adv. Hares., I, xxi, 1-3.

324 Phases of Early Christianity
dotus (in Anatolia) taught that whoever was
baptized into God entered into God, and received
authority over evil Powers. Destiny (Heimar
meni) might rule till baptism, but those who were
born again into the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit were lifted above all evil Principalities,
and the predictions of astrologers would be ful
filled no more.' Yet others affirmed that perfect
redemption was independent of all corporeal rites.
It consisted in the recognition {epignosis) of the
unspeakable Majesty. The gnosis was the re
demption of the inner man, and must therefore
be spiritual.' For the PauHne doctrine of the
"redemption of the body" the Gnostic speculators
had no place.
That redemption was the work of Jesus formed
the special contribution of Christianity to Gnosti
cism. * But in what this work consisted remained
obscure and undefined. Theories of sacrifice and
atonement did not flourish in the Gnostic at
mosphere. The Valentinians converted the Cross
into the mysterious "Limit,"" but of the "Messiah
crucified " they could give no account. He imparts
wisdom, he opens the inward eye to behold the
truth, he redeems by revealing the eternal Light,
and enabling the soul to understand itself. The
' Excerpt, ex Theod., 76-78.
" Iren., Adv. Hares., I, xxi, 4.
3 Cp. Bevan, " The Gnostic Redeemer," in The Hibbert Joumal,
Vol. xi (1913), p. 137.
4 Horos, with which the Cross (Stauros) was identified, Iren.,
ibid., I, ii, 4.

Salvation by Gnosis 325
end' will be reached when the whole company of
"Spirituals" is formed and perfected by gnosis.''
To such modes of thought it was intolerable to
suppose that Christ had occupied a material body.
The Johannine letters already denounce those who
denied that Christ had come in the flesh. Cerin
thus is reported to have taught that the Christ
descended on the man Jesus at the baptism, and
withdrew before the crucifixion. A strange med
ley of views appears in the pages of Irensus —
that Christ was without body and was never born
but was only a phantasm — that he was really an
incorporeal Power taking what shape he pleased
without suffering — that he changed places with
Simon of Cyrene who was crucified in his stead —
that his body came from heaven and the Virgin's
womb was only the channel through which it was
.transmitted to the world. In the Acts of John
ascribed to Leucius Charinus (belonging probably
to the second century) the Apostle is said to have
left the scene of the crucifixion and fled to the
Mount of Olives, where he took refuge in a cave.
There the Lord stood in the midst and showed
him a cross of Hght set up, and a great multitude
round about it with divers forms. But the Lord
himself he saw above the cross without a form,
only a voice, sweet and truly divine, which tells
him that the cross wiU sometimes be caUed Logos,
'Or "consummation," as in Matt, xiii, 39, 49, xxiv, 3, but
applied in quite a different connection.
' Iren., ibid., I, vi, I.

326 Phases of Early Christianity
sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus, sometimes
Christ: "I was supposed to be what I am not,
not being what I was for many others." In
riddling words he declares that he has suffered,
yet has not suffered, and when John descends
from the mountain he laughs at what the specta
tors of the crucifixion tell him, holding fast within
himself that the Lord had done aU these things
symboHcaUy for the conversion and salvation of
men.' The work of the Saviour is, however,
conceived on the broadest scale. As the aged
Apostle prepares to descend into the grave which
his disciples have dug by his instructions, he offers
a final prayer:
Thou who hast never rested but from the foundation
of the world art for ever saving those that can be
saved, who hast made thyself known throughout all
nature, and hast proclaimed thyself even among the
animals, who didst make the desolate and hunted
soul calm and peaceful . . . who didst give her pure
knowledge conceming thyself, God Jesus, Father of
those above the heavens. Lord of those in the heavens,
Law of those in the ether and Course of those in the
air. Guardian of those on the earth, and Fear of those
under the earth, and Grace of thine own — receive also
the soul of thy John, if haply it be found worthy by
thee.' -
' Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, II, i (1898), pp. 199-
202. There are interesting affinities between the Light-Cross and
the Valentinian Stauros-Horos, which it is impossible here to work
out in detail.
'Ibid., p. 211.

Salvation by Gnosis 327
Here is an ardent devotion which does not trouble
itself to distinguish theologically between the per
sons of the Godhead, but embraces in one sweep of
thought a purpose pervading all time and all exist
ence. In the shifting multitude of elements which
the ecclesiastical critics of Gnosticism fiung con
fusedly upon their pages, it must not be forgotten
that for many pious souls it provided a real religion.
It might emphasize the ascetic morality which had
been implanted in the Church from the beginning.
It might tend to decline into sacramentalism on the
one hand and grosser forms of magic on the other,
just as it might also profess to place the emanci
pated spirit above the restraints of law. But in
the hands of its best teachers it could nourish a
fruitful piety, just as it could also attempt the solu
tion of difficult problems. While the Apologists
were pleading the cause of Christianity before the
Imperial Government and the educated public,
the Gnostics were busy with the great themes of
the relation of God to the world, the method of his
self -revelation, the origin and destiny of souls, the
function of Christ in the process of salvation, the
divine and human elements in his person, the sig
nificance of the sacraments as hallowed myste
ries. They inaugurated a theological movement
to which the Church could not be indifferent,
and opened the paths along which it should
advance. The Church remained master of the
field, but it was the Gnostics who had helped
to sharpen the weapons by which its victory

328 Phases of Early Christianity :
over Hellenic culture and the Mystery-reHgions
was secured.
In the last quarter of the second century the
crisis became acute. A vigorous opposition was
directed against the perverters of the truth.
Ecclesiastical writers arrayed their arguments, and
the Church armed itself with a Rule of Faith and a
Canon of Scripture. But meanwhile a more subtle
process was begun. Again and again in its history
Christianity has been confronted with powerful
new influences in the field of thought which
threatened its supremacy, if not its very existence.
Again and again it has assimilated them and
survived. The entry of the Aristotehan philosophy
into Europe, after its long pilgrimage from Bagdad
to Cordova, gave to the Church of the thirteenth
century a coherent body of thought which enlisted
the noblest minds in its service. The "new learn
ing" could not be kept out three hundred years
later, and though it rent the Church in twain the
confiict only evoked fresh energies which left
Christendom, even though divided, purer and
stronger than before. In our own time the marvel
lous developments of science were at first viewed
with terror, and the foundations of faith seemed
to rock beneath our feet ; but its great ideas have
been more or less skilfully incorporated in our
theology, and it has become the ally instead of the
enemy of religion. Through some such time of
stress did the Church pass in the latter part of the
second century. It was compelled to take account

Salvation by Gnosis 329
of the great inteUectual forces all around it; its
whole future depended on the terms which it
would make with them. The alHance with Greek
philosophy begun by the Fourth Evangehst
remained for some time quiescent. Justin ap
pealed to the examples of Heracleitus and Socrates,
and claimed that Christians were the real owners
of all the best teachings of the past. But while
writers like Melito of Sardis or Miltiades were by
no means hostile to the culture of their time,
others took up an attitude of uncompromising
opposition. The Assyrian Tatian, who had been a
hearer of Justin in Rome, opened his "Address
to the Greeks" with a vehement attack on the
philosophers. With biting scorn he denounced
their conflicting opinions, their arrogance and
mutual hate, Pythagoras and his imitator Plato
being the special objects of his derision. Theophi
lus, who was bishop of Antioch under the reign of
Marcus Aurelius, was equally impatient, and his
representative position made his language the
more signiflcant. From the vantage ground of the
Church he denounced the discordant notions of
the schools. Those who had blindly wandered
into the chair of philosophy only taught lawlessness
of life; and even Plato, who seemed to have been
the most respectable of them aU, was only too
easily included in the indictment.' But the
increasing number of educated men who enrolled
themselves in the Christian ranks could not be
» Ad Autolycum, I, iv; III, iii, 6.

330 Phases of Early Christianity
thus severed from the best thought around them.
The penetrating criticisms of a philosopher Hke
Celsus, the learning of the Gnostics, the accepted
methods of intellectual training in the universities,
all helped to compel the Church to provide a
higher culture for those who were ready to accept
its faith. Great schools arose where Bibhcal
learning was eagerly pursued, and at Alexandria,
where so many influences met, the task of provid
ing Christianity with a philosophy of religion was
seriously undertaken.
The origin of the Church in the city of the
Ptolemies is unknown. One tradition affirmed
that the Gospel had been first preached there by
Barnabas.' The Egyptian Christians apparently
claimed Mark as their founder.' In later times
the Patriarchs of the see were elected beside the
supposed tomb of the Evangelist in the great
church of Baucalis, the most ancient ecclesiastical
building in the city, close to the wharves and corn-
magazines of the busy harbour.* Two elements
probably subsisted in the community side by side
from very early days. The Jewish colony provided
a large number of converts, and as Christianity
spread through the country it was embraced also
by many native Egyptians. Two corresponding
forms of Gospel were early in circulation, one
"according to the Hebrews," the other "according
to the Egyptians," and these still held their place
' Clem. Hom., i, 8. " Euseb., Hist. Eccl., II, xvi.
3 Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (i886), p. 36.

Salvation by Gnosis 331
in current use at the end of the second century
even when our canonical documents had won
general recognition. ' From the Gnostic teachers,
as we have seen, an active literature proceeded;
and Pantaenus, who became the head of the school
of catechumens about 180 a.d., was copious in
commentaries on the Scriptures. He came into
the Church from Stoicism; and Origen afterwards
justified his own philosophical studies by reference
to the example of his predecessor.' The young
men of that day probably did as Philo had de
scribed them nearly two centuries before. They
frequented the lecture-rooms as they did the
theatres, full of all kinds of secular interests, their
mercantile adventures, their estates and rents,
their professions, their intrigues; they sat on the
benches as deaf as statues; or, if they did attend,
they forgot what they had heard when they went
away. Only a few, lamented the Jewish teacher,
were wise enough like Abraham to listen to the
voice of Sarah, the queenly symbol of philosophy. *
To such, who would study three or four years in
preparation for baptism, the Christian instructor
would unfold with its aid the higher principles of
divine knowledge.
The zeal of Pantaenus led to his despatch as a
' Scott-Moncrieff, Paganism and Christianity in Egypt (1913).
P-55- ' In Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xix, 13. Cp. Lecture VI.
3 Genes, xvi, 3. The whole allegory is worked out by Philo in
the treatise De Congressu Eruditionis Gratia. See xiii. It was
borrowed freely by Clement.

332 Phases of Early Christianity
preacher of the Gospel to India,' and he was
succeeded in the catechetical school by Titus
Flavius Clemens, who had been one of his hearers.
His Roman name suggests some possible connec
tion — perhaps through a freedman — with the
consul Titus Flavius Clemens, cousin of the
Emperor Domitian, who was suddenly executed
in 95 A.D. by imperial order.' His family, his
birthplace, are both unknown. Like many men
of means with intellectual tastes he travelled
widely. He studied at Athens, he sojourned in
Magna Graecia, where he fell in with two mission
aries, a Syrian and an Egyptian; but though he
tells of his residence in South Italy, he does not
rriention Rome. He passed to the East, and
learned from an Assyrian; in Palestine he studied
under a converted Jew. Last of six teachers was
the "Sicilian bee" whom he caught in Alexandria. *
There he was ordained a Presbyter, and after the
departure of Pantsnus he lectured (apparently
in his own house) till the outbreak of persecution
under Severus, when he left to visit an old pupil,
Alexander, bishop of a church in Cappadocia. *
A long list of works is attached to his name, * and
his extant writings contain numerous references
to books which he had written or intended to
' So Eusebius and Jerome. It is uncertain what was the real
field of his activity.
' Cp. Lect. I., p. 3.
3 Supposed to be Pantaenus. Strom., I, i, § 11 ^
4 He was afterwards bishop of Jerusalem, see Lect., VI.
s Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xiii.

Salvation by Gnosis 333
write. Among those which survive three stand out
in pre-eminent importance, the Protrepticus or
"Exhortation to the Greeks," the Pcedagogus or
"Instructor," and the Stromata or "Gnostic Notes
according to the True Philosophy. ' ' ' The first is a
summons or challenge to the unconverted. In
the second he depicts the conduct of the believer.
The third expounds a higher way whereby the soul
may rise from simple faith to the true gnosis which
wUl enable it to become divine. Placed in this
order they correspond with curious analogy to
three stages in the mysteries. Purification, Initia
tion, and Vision (lirouTefa) . ' Clement, it would
seem, had himself been initiated at Eleusis; he
uses the sacred language without hesitation. The
Protrepticus,^ written with concentrated passion,
surveys a vast range of mythologic lore, and in its
place boldly holds up the figure of Christ as "our
Mystagogue." "O truly holy mysteries!" he
cries. ' ' O stainless light ! I am illumined to behold
the heavens and God. I become holy by initiation.
The Lord is the hierophant, and seals the initiate
with his guiding light, and he presents the believer
to the Father to be kept for ever. Such are the
' Strom., Ill, xviii, § no ad fin. For recent discussions about the
order of the composition of these works see De Faye, Clement
d' Alexandrie' (1906), p. 340; Patrick, Clement of Alexandria
(1914), p. 301; ToUinton, Clement of Alexandria (1914)1 Ii P-
204. ' Strom., VII, xi, § 684.
'Protrept., ii, §21'; cp. Miss Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the
Study of Greek Religion, p. 155.

334 Phases of Early Christianity
revelries of my mysteries."' For human salva
tion was the great purpose of the Incarnation.
"The Word of God became man, that thou mayest
learn from man how man may become God."'
To trace this path of leaming is Clement's aim.
He sees himself in the midst of a great variety
of forces. The life of the world around him is
refiected in his pages. The streets of Alexandria
presented a picturesque epitome of many races;
its quays and warehouses gathered the products
of distant lands; its temples were the homes of
native and foreign deities; its library stored up the
wisdom of many centuries. Wealth and luxury
ran riot in the most extravagant forms. A great
lady would give ten thousand talents for a dress*;
mothers who exposed their children would keep
Indian birds and Median pea-fowls"; vast retinues
of slaves were needed for the kitchen and the
toilet, the banquet and the stable; there were
silver footbaths, and gold-plated chairs. The
theatres were thronged for the odious spectacles
of a debasing mythology, against which phUosophy
made its unavaUing protest. Every shade of
opinion was represented in the schools, but there
was no concord amid their differences. Poetry,
indeed, was full of recognition of the solemn truths
of the unity of God and his creative power; yet
the impressiveness of such testimony was lost
when it was overlaid with tales of lewdness and
' Protrept., xii, § 120'. ' Ibid., i, § 84, cp. Lect. I, p. 57.
3 Padagog., II, X, §1154. 4 Ibid., Ill, iv, § 30'.

Salvation by Gnosis 335
brutality. In the midst of this welter of unspirit
ual elements Clement saw the Church advancing
steadUy. The word of the Teacher was spread
over the whole world; in every nation and city
and vUlage alike of the Greeks and the barbarians
it won whole households to the truth.' Here was
a practical test with which to meet the attacks of
the Gnostics. The Catholic Church had long
preceded their heretical assemblies; the true
Church, the really ancient, was one because God
and the Lord were one. The sanie unity marked
the teaching of the Apostles and the tradition
which transmitted it. What claim could BasUides
or Valentinus or Marcion establish against this
massive harmony! The Church stood forth
pre-eminent, and nothing equalled or resembled it. '
The Church on earth, indeed, is but the image
of the heavenly where the wiU of God is done
unhindered.* With an oft-repeated figure she is
depicted as the Mother who draws her chUdren
to herself." The ranks of bishops, priests, and
deacons are imitations of angelic splendour*; with
quaint application of the PauHne description of
the last things he sees those who have Hved in
perfect righteousness according to the gospel
caught up into the air* to serve as deacons, and
then enroUed in a celestial presbyterate, with
advancing glory, untU they grow into a perfect
' Strom., VI, xviii, § 1673. ' Ibid., VII, xii, § 1073-6.
3 Ibid., IV, viii, § 66'. * Padagog., I, v, § 21'.
s Strom., VI, xiii, § lOT- " I Thess. iv, 17.

336 Phases of Early Christianity
man. So did the ideal brood over the real. Among
the treatises which may never have been written
Clement mentions one "On Angels," a second on
"The Unity and ExceUence of the Church," a
third on "The Offices of Bishops, Presbyters,
Deacons, and Widows." The angelic counterparts
to the last-named order are nowhere specified
in his surviving works. The Church provides the
starting-point for the heavenly way; but Clement
is no formalist. When he summons the Greeks
it is to no ecclesiastical fold, but to the open
ranges of the friendship of God.' The Church
is, indeed, the sphere in which salvation is to be
obtained. But it is no rigid organization whose
rulers are concerned to devise short ways with
heretics or unbelievers. She is the genial mother
who calls her children to her and nourishes them
with holy milk, the Word for babes. '
Salvation, in one aspect, is defined as "foUowing
Christ."* But he must be sought along the path
which he was the first to tread. He was perfected
by baptism alone, and sanctified by the descent of
the Spirit. So close is the relation between the
disciple and his Lord that the believer is perfected
in the same manner. Like many mystics Clement
was not afraid of high sacramental doctrine.
"Baptized," he declares, "we are Uluminated;
' Protrept., xii, § 1223. Dr. Patrick remarks that the word
Church only occurs in this Address in a quotation from Hebr.
xii, 23; Clement of Alex., p. 60.
' Padagog., I, vi, § 42'. s Ibid., I, vi, § 27'.

Salvation by Gnosis ' 337
Uluminated, we are made sons; made sons, we are
perfected; perfected, we are made immortal,"
and the oft-quoted text is added, "I said that ye
are gods, and aU sons of the Most High." ' Various
names are given to this operation. It is a washing,
because our sins are cleansed away. It is a gift,
because the penalties of sins are remitted. It is
illumination, by which the holy saving light is
beheld, and we see clearly that which is Divine.
For iUumination has this grace, that we are not
the same after the laver as before.' Repudiating
the Valentinian distinction between "spirit
uals" and "psychics," Clement lays it down
that all who have laid aside the desires of the
flesh are equal and spiritual before the Lord.*
The truly penitent, refined by baptism, speed
back to the Eternal Light, as chUdren to the
Father. The immortahty conferred by baptism is
strengthened by the Eucharist. Whether this
was celebrated in the morning or was stUl con
nected with the evening AgapS, Clement's inter
preters are not agreed. SimUar uncertainty hangs
over his language about the sacred food. He
founds himself on the Johannine discourse con
cerning the bread of life. The heavenly bread, the
flesh of Christ, nourishes the heavenly among men
up to incorruption. As usual the literal and the
symbolic seem to pass in and out of each other.
' Padagog., I, vi, § 26'; cp. Lect. I, p. 57- ' I^-> I. vi, § 30'.
ilbid., I, vi, §31".
22

338 Phases of Early Christianity
"Two-fold," he teUs his converts, "is the blood of
the Lord. There is its fieshly element, by which
we have been redeemed from corruption, and there
is the spiritual by which we have been anointed.
To drink the blood of Jesus is to share in the Lord's
incorruption." This is apparently a physico-
spiritual effect; material food has an immaterial
result in conferring immortality on souls. But we
are told directly after that it is the Spirit which
conducts to incorruption. The Eucharist, it is
affirmed, consists of two things, the mingling of
the drink and the Word. Those who partake of it
in faith are sanctified in body and soul. For man
is himself a divine mixture, and the Father's wiU
mingles it in mystical fashion with the Spirit and
the Word.' From such confused statements no
coherent doctrine can be disentangled. Clement
wrestles with the cruder interpretations often
current round about him. The language of
mystery is heard in the Church, it belongs
naturally to his own modes of thought. For
clearness of definition he is not concerned. The
one thing for which he passionately cares is
immortality. '
This blessed gift must be offered to aU, and
Clement dwells at length upon the theme of the
descent of Christ and the Apostles after him to
' Padagog., II, ii, § 194-20'.
' He borrows the phrase of Ignatius, "the medicine of immor
tality, " but applies it apparently to the "gentle word" which he
offers to the Greeks. Protrept., x, § io6=.

Salvation by Gnosis 339
preach the gospel to those who dwelt in Hades. '
It was part of the Saviour's work to bring Gentiles
as weU as Jews to repentance. Whether they had
practised the Law or Philosophy made no differ
ence. Death could not close the possibilities of
deliverance, for God's punishments are not so
much retributive as disciplinary; and the dis
embodied spirit in Hades may be even more
susceptible to the divine appeal, for when released
from the flesh and its passions the soul has clearer
vision, and can the more quickly repent and be
lieve. ' ' Judgment or grace " is his last word to the
Greeks,' "which will profit you most? There is
no room to doubt which is the better. It is not
fitting to compare Hfe with destruction." That
there should be punishment for sin is only just,
but it is applied Hke the pruning knife to the vine
for purposes of training and correction; had not
Plato (who had learned from Moses) rightly taught
that just punishment made the soul better?* The
Greek poets had announced that there is judgment
in Hades; they, too, had looked for the dissolution
of the world in flame. " It is a hint that the Church
has its terrors in the background, but they do not
loom large in Clement's imagination. Of the
reappearance of Christ in glory, or the solemnities
of the great assize amid angeUc throngs, he never
speaks. With repeated insistence on human free-
' Strom., VI, vi, § 44s ff.; II, ix, § 44.
' Protrept., xii, § 1 23 ^ 3 Pcedagog., I, viii, § 67 '.
* Strom., V, xiv, § 121.

340 Phases of Early Christianity
dom he would seem to leave the way of return
always open.' But there are doubtless various
ranks of blessedness, corresponding to degrees of
worth. Following the accepted interpretation of
the parable of the Sower, he sees in the ascending
figures, thirty, sixty, and a hundred, the promise of
a scale of feHcity hereafter, culminating in the
perfect inheritance of those who reach the image
of the Lord, the adoption and friendship of
God.' For the resurrection of the body there is
here no place. Eternal life means everlasting
communion with infinite Goodness, Love, and
Truth.* Such was in brief the Christian hope as Clement
received it through the Church. It was no light
thing to be a Christian when day after day brought
its tales of martyrs burnt, impaled, beheaded."
The fourth book of the Stromata contains a long
discussion which begins with the praises of those
who make a good confession ; quotes Plato's saying
that the just man will be happy even on the rack;
commends women, children, and slaves, who have
often devoted themselves against the will of
' In Strom., VII, ii, § 12 s, he seems to look forward to a divine
compulsion to repentance "by necessary chastisements inflicted
either through the agency of the attendant angels or through
various preliminary judgments or through the great and final
judgment, by the goodness of the great Judge whose eye is ever
upon us" (tr. Mayor).
'Ibid., VI, xiv, § 114.
3 "The knowledge of God is participation in incorruption. '-
Ibid., IV, vi, § 27=.
4 Ibid., II, XX, § 125".

Salvation by Gnosis 341
husband, father, or master; protests against BasUi
des' explanation that such suffering was the
punishment of sins committed in a previous Hfe;
but at the same time discourages the eagerness
for martyrdom which led men to offer themselves
for capture, trial, and execution. To challenge
the persecutor was to become an accomplice in his
crime. Christ had himself laid down the rule for
his disciples. "When they persecute you in this
city fiee into the next." The shadow of death
does indeed hang over the Christian's course ; but
it serves to encourage a grave and pure simplicity
of life. To delineate this is the object of the
Pcedagogus, on the basis of the Scriptures. But
behind the Scriptures Clement has another mighty
influence in view. How can you love God and
your neighbour, he asks, if you do not philoso
phize?' As Clement looked out on the forces at work in
contemporary society, as he surveyed the long
story of Greek culture and climbed the heights of
thought with poet and teacher, as he realized his
own personal indebtedness to the ancient thinkers
— especially to Pythagoras and Plato — he could
not share the distrast of phUosophy felt by many
simple-minded believers. He must find a place
for it in his scheme of Providence, and vindicate
its significance as a permanent element in the
Christian Hfe. The task was not without difficulty.
The majority of his co-behevers were afraid of it;
'Padagog., Ill, xi, § 78'.

342 Phases of Early Christianity
did not faith suffice?' But the doctor, the athlete,
the mariner, each needed training and experience ;
the husbandman must employ the pruning-knife
upon the vine. The Lord had used that figure of
himself; and so the soul, to which was addressed
the precept "seek and ye shall find," must be
variously exercised if it would reach the highest
goodness. In a world made by the Logos it was
impossible to suppose that the long development
of Hellenic thought was worthless. There must
be a meaning in the words of poet and sage who
had seen visions of the unity and goodness of God.
Here were truths Hke those of Law and Prophecy
and Psalm; whence were they derived, how were
they reached, if there was not some divine power
guiding them to some destined end, and what end
could that be but Christ himself ?
By such pleas as these did Clement justify his
bold declaration that the path of Truth is one.
Like a perennial river it received streams into
itself from every quarter. Side by side with
Israel in the past the Greeks had needed an in
strument of righteousness. They had found it in
philosophy. The Law had been the tutor to
bring the Jews to Christ. Philosophy had fulfilled
the same function for the Hellenic spirit. It
opened the way for being perfected by Christ.'
' "Bare faith," '//Miv Ti\v vlffrtv, Strom., I, ix, § 43'. M. de
Faye remarks that ^iXtJi- means "free from metaphysics."
Clement d'Alexandrie, p. 151.
' Strom., I, V, § 28-29.

Salvation by Gnosis 343
Here was a great historic generaUzation which
lighted up the centuries since Thales and Hera
cleitus, and redeemed Providence from the charge
of partiaUty in the exclusive selection of the
Hebrew race to be the depositaries of the saving
truth. God's beneficence is without beginning, it
is bounded neither by place nor person.' Jews,
Greeks, and Christians are all gathered into one
race of the saved, trained, it is true, by different
covenants. Philosophy fitting the ears of the Greeks
for the gospel as Law and Prophecy had prepared
the barbarians. ' Such an element of divine train
ing could not be Hghtly cast aside. It had not
lost its meaning for the higher life. If Christ
himself was Wisdom, if it was he who had worked
in the prophets and taught the apostles, the tradi
tion of the gnosis which had been transmitted by
them must be cherished as sure and certain. To
the philosopher who aimed at the contempla
tion of reality it brought the priceless privilege of
knowledge; the present, the past, and the future
were laid open to his view; he became the spectator
of eternity. *
Dominating Clement's thought is thus the
conception of the timeless and immutable. It was
as impossible for him as for Philo to read that
into the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures without
the aid of allegory. He borrows from his predeces
sor the interpretation of Sarah's barrenness, for
' Strom., VI, viii, § 64'. ' Ibid., VI, v, § 42, 44. '
ilbid., VI, vii, §61.

344 Phases of Early Christianity
Wisdom dwelling with the man of faith was
fruitless until the way had been prepared by
secular culture in the person of Hagar. Not till
he had learned by instruction to contemplate
heavenly things could Abraham advance to the
faith and righteousness which God required.'
The New Testament taught the same lesson in
another form. When the Lord fed the multitude
with the two fishes and the five barley loaves, he
pointed to the two factors which must be combined
for the higher knowledge. The bread was the food
cultivated under the law, the barley grain ripening
quicker than the wheat. The fishes were the
symbol of philosophy, born in the great ocean of
HeUenic life ; the careful inquirer might see in one
the courses of preliminary study, and in the other
advanced philosophy. They, too, shared the
Lord's blessing, and the power of the Word
breathed into them the divine might of resurrec
tion. ' By such devices did Clement seek to disarm
opposition. The fundamental grandeur of his
thought rose triumphant above this learned trifling.
Clement then draws from the same sources as
Philo, Plutarch, or Valentinus. Behind them all
stands Plato, with his fundamental duaUsm
between the seen and the unseen, the world of the
senses and the world of ideas. It is not, however,
Plato the dialectician who sways Clement's
thought. It is the theologian who teaches the
doctrines of the divine transcendence, of the moral
' Strom., I, V, § 31. ' Ibid., VI, xi, § 94.

Salvation by Gnosis 345
order of the world, the immortahty of the soul,
the correction of the workers of evU that they may
be turned to good. So far as human Hfe and
character are concerned, the ethical type is largely
modeUed upon Stoic teaching infused with a deep
Christian sentiment. But the conception of God
rises far above the materiaUstic pantheism of the
Anima Mundi. It is reached by a process of ab
straction (or, as Clement calls it, "analysis").'
The properties of external objects must be thought
away. Withdraw from any single body its dimen
sions in space, its depth and breadth and length,
there stUl remains a point (or monad) related by
position to other similar points. Abstract the
element of position and the monad alone remains.
Perform the same process on the whole sum of
corporeal and incorporeal existence, cast yourself
into the greatness of Christ, and go forward thence
into immensity, and you may gain some notion
of the Almighty by recognizing not what he is,
but what he is not. The First Cause does not
exist in space. He transcends aU space and time,
all names and understanding.
As Abraham journeyed to the place of which
God had told him, on the third day he looked up
and saw it afar off. So does the mind discern
spiritual things when the eyes of the intellect are
opened by the Teacher who rose on the third day
(a Pythagorean harmony of number). The place
was seen at a distance, for the region of God is
' Strom., V, xi, § 71 '.

346 Phases of Early Christianity
hard to comprehend. Plato called it the region of
ideas, having learned from Moses' that it was a
place which contained the Universe. ' Had not he
taught that it was possible by reasoning to divine
the being of God? "When a person starts on the
discovery of the Absolute by the light of reason
only without any assistance of sense, " and never
quits the existing scene untU — mounting to tran
scendental reality — ' ' by pure inteUigence he arrives
at the perception of the Absolute Good, he at last
finds himself at the end of the intellectual world."*
But how can he describe what he there appre
hends? It is neither genus, nor difference, nor
species, nor individual, nor number. His great
ness makes him Father of the universe, but he has
no parts. His unity is indivisible; it is infinite,
but without dimensions. " God is One ; and with a
final effort to express his sublime transcendence
Clement declares that he is even beyond the One
and above the Monad itself.* Abstraction can
proceed no further.
Philosophy might thus seem to have done its
worst. It can no more call God by the dear name
of Father; he so completely transcends the world
of our experience that he must not be designated
' Clement held that Greek philosophy was really derived from
Hebrew sources.
' In the Rabbinical theology God was sometimes called Magdm,
"place, " inasmuch as he contained the world.
3 Strom., V, xi, § 73-74. The quotation is from the Republic,
532A (Jowett's translation).
* Strom., V, xii, § 81 s. s Pcedagog., I, viii, § 71'.

Salvation by Gnosis 347
its Creator or Lord. As he is not to be reached by
demonstration, he cannot be an object of know
ledge.' He has no wants; he is lifted above all
feeling; neither wrath nor fear nor desire can move
him. But what philosophy takes away, rehgion
restores. Again and again Clement overflows
with holy joy as he contemplates the goodness of
God. He might, indeed, have learned that faith
from his teacher, Plato. But he gives to it fresh
extent and application. Highly significant is his
ascription of it to the divine will. It is more than
the warmth emitted by a fire which cannot choose
but bum.' God is not good involuntarily or by
necessity; his beneficence issues from free self-
determination. Rejecting the Epicurean descrip
tion of God as happy and incorruptible but
removed from all participation in affairs,* he
affirms that he is for ever active in goodness in
his own divine way; it is no static quality, it is
an energy of purpose that operates unceasingly.
This doctrine is in fact closely connected with his
interpretation of man. The freedom which he
recognizes in God he demands also for humanity.
To deny it is to lay on the Deity the whole burden
of the world's sin. The dignity claimed by the
Stoic as son of Zeus, the Gnostic pretension to
community of nature with God, are intolerable to
him. How should we dare to caU ourselves part of
' 'ETTurTij/Moyutis, Strom., IV, xxv, 156'.
' Ibid., VII, vii, § 424.
3 Ibid., VI, xii, § 1043, cp. Stahlin in loc.

348 Phases of Early Christianity
God, or of the same substance with him?' Look
at our life, and see in what evUs we are plunged.
If the parts belong to the whole, God must have
sinned in parts — an impious thought! But he,
being rich in mercy, cares for us in his goodness,
though we are no parts of him, nor his children by
nature. Out of his love to man God comes to his
help as the mother-bird flies to a nestling that has
fallen out of the nest. ' It is God's everlasting aim
to save the human flock.* He cannot hate any
thing that he has made, and he must needs there
fore love man, the fairest of aU his creations, a
being capable of loving God. Again Clement
dwells on the purposive character of God's care.
It is shown through the instruction imparted by
the Word. It is manifest no less in the chastise
ment of sin; for this always has salvation for its
aim. Rebuke is the medicine of the divine love to
man. Each one who sins, sins by his own free will,
and may be said therefore even to choose punish
ment." But Clement cannot rest in visions of
doom, even though it be self -incurred. The sweep
of God's love embraces all. The Lord of the
universe has arranged everything for the salvation
of the whole alike in part and in totality. * Adopt
ing the Philonian interpretation of " today," ^ the
' 'O/MMva-lovs, Strom., II, xvi, § 74', cp. ante, p. 315.
'Protrept., x, § 9I3. 3 Ibid., xi, § I16'.
4 See the long section in the Padagog., I, viii, § 63 ff.; it is a
theme to which Clement often retums.
s Strom., VII, ii, § 12".
^ " Today if ye wUl hear his voice, " Protrept., ix, § 84".

Salvation by Gnosis 349
real today, the unending day of God which lasts
for ever, he opens the way for repentance after
death. He provides for the encompassing of the
wajrward soul with all kinds of divine graces and
invitations, and sooner than risk the sinner's
choice of eternal alienation from his Maker, he
surrenders his fundamental principle of free-wUl
and looks for necessary chastisements by the
goodness of the great aU-seeing Judge which will
constrain the most hardened sinners to repent. '
What, then, is the mediating agency between
the metaphysical Monad, beyond aU space and
time, and the humanity which is the perpetual
object of God's saving love? Between Deity and
the universe Plato coiUd interpose a World-Soul.
Plutarch could call the nobler Daimons to the
service of his Transcendent One. The Gnostics
had traced the gradual descent of divine energies
from the Absolute down to the Creator of this
material scene. For Clement the necessary step
was provided by the Philonic and Johannine Word.
Clement was less concerned, however, to explain
the universe than to provide for man. His interest
is not so much cosmologic as religious. Many
quaint touches from the observation of nature
brighten his pages ; but he can take the world for
granted, if he can estabUsh the true principles of
the divine deaHngs with man. To PhUo's Logos
he therefore adds the Christ of the Gospels, and
the first serious attempt is made from the side of
' Strom., VII, ii, § 12 s, cp. xii, § 76, 783; ante, p. 340.

350 Phases of Early Christianity
phUosophical theology to define the function of
the Word within the Godhead. In Johannine
language the Word is the Son; and whUe the
Absolute is indemonstrable and hence cannot be
the object of knowledge, the Son is capable of
demonstration and definition. All the powers of
the divine Spirit are gathered into him, and as
regards each one he is infinite. He is not indeed
distributed into parts, he is the unity of the whole.
He is the Circle of which God is the Centre, and
aU the powers are orbed and unified in him. ' "He
is the ideal Many, the Mind of which the Father
is the principle of identity. He is, in fact, the
consciousness of God." ' And this has its dynamic
as well as its intellectual side; the Son or Word is
at the same time the Arm of the Lord, the Power
of the worid, the Father's WiU.*
Viewed in relation to humanity the function of
the Word may be summed up in his title "Saviour."
Nearest to him who alone is Almighty, he orders
all things according to the Father's will, needing
not to pass from place to place, for he is always
present everywhere but contained nowhere. He is
' Strom., IV, xxv, 156".
' Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 64. Dr. Bigg thinks that Cle
ment may have drawn the doctrine of the Absolute God through
Basilides or Valentinus from Aristotle. "The conception of the
Son as the Father's complement, the vo-fins which the Father
voet, is not, SO far as I am aware, to be found in any Gnostic
writer." The distinction is analogous to that between Brahma
(neut.) and Brahma (masc.) in Hindu philosophy, which does not,
however, employ the categories of Father and Son.
> Protrept., xii, § I204; cp. ivipyeia, Strom., VII, ii, § 7'.

Salvation by Gnosis 351
thus the great agent of God's purpose of salvation,
and links aU ranks of intelligent beings in the
vast design. Subject to him is the host of angels
and gods, and to him belong aU men also, some by
knowledge but others not yet so, some as friends,
others only as servants. ' Timeless indeed he is in
relation to God, for God cannot be Father without
a Son.' But as the head of the angelic hierarchy
he presides over the course of history, and through
the gradations of rational minds he condescends
to be the instructor of mankind. Like a chain of
iron rings whose farthest particles are held together
by a magnet, so from man up to the great High-
Priest and from him down through angels and
every stage of virtuous attainment back to man,
rims the attraction of the Spirit, uniting in one
process those who are saved and those who save. *
Of aU this the Word was the source. To Israel he
gave the Law; to the Greeks phUosophy by in
ferior angels"; and thus by different paths of
advance led both to the perfection which is won
by faith.* Thus was the education of the world
(as Clement knew it) brought to the point when it
must be completed by the appearance of the Word
in human flesh.
The Incarnation is thus viewed as the supreme
agency of revelation. Christ is pre-eminently the
Teacher, and it is under his instruction that man
' Strom., VII, ii, § 5°- ' I^; V, i, § i'.
^ Ibid., VII, ii, § 9^. " Md; VII, ii, § 64.
sibid., VII, ii, §11".

2

352 Phases of Early Christianity
will reach the goal of his being and become divine.*
In this character it was not needful for him to
imdergo all the distresses of our mortal frame. The
fluctuations of appetite and desire, the vicissitudes
of feeling and emotion — from these he was exempt,
True, he ate and drank, to conform to ordinary
usage; and thus anticipated the Docetic heresy;
but he transcended all movements of pleasure and
pain.* When he rose after his burial, he had not
suffered. " The Passion, therefore, does not fiU the
centre of Clement's thought. It is true that he
describes the faithful as redeemed ("ransomed")
from corruption by the Lord's blood.* Christ
gave himself as a ransom, but to whom the debt
was paid is not clear. ^ He consecrated himself,
and we ought also to consecrate ourselves' by
rising ever higher above material wants and
passions. God has no need of anything, he is
without wants (the Stoic doctrine) , and hence the
Christian offers no sacrifices to him. The work
of Christ is really independent of the cross. In
the midst of a long refutation of the view of BasiU-
des that martyrdom was the penalty of sin
committed in an earlier existence, or else God was
unjust, Clement interjects a parallel in the death
of Christ.^ God does not will the sufferings of the
' Protrept., i, § 84. ' Pcedagog., I, ii, § 4'.
3 Strom.jyi, ix, § 71'-''. ^ Padagog., I, v, § 23".
3 Ibid. ' Quis Dives salvetur, 374, cp. 42 '3.
' Strom., VII, iii, § 145, UpevBivra . . . Upeiovres.
« Ibid., IV, xii, § 86».

Salvation by Gnosis 353
persecuted, any more than he wiUed the cradfixion
of his own Son. Christ was not sent into the world
to die; that was no part of the economy of grace;
it was the act of evil men with which God simply
did not interfere. Judged in the light of human
freedom, the event might not have happened. In
other words it was not essential to salvation. The
true Gnostic might have attained the goal without
it. But who was the true Gnostic and what was
the goal? It was reaUy to answer these questions
that the Stromata were written.
Surrounded by a variety of types of Gnostic
teaching which professed to impart true knowledge
of God and man, Clement sought to establish
that claim for the Church.' With the tempera
ment of a mystic, a profound conviction of the
value of Greek philosophy, and a vivid remem
brance of the rapture of initiation at Eleusis,' he
endeavoured to provide Christianity with a path
of higher wisdom founded on the beHever's faith
and leading to the highest stage of mystic vision
(IxouTsfa). This was the way of Gnosis. It was
the ascent through knowledge and love in fellow
ship with Christ up to the very presence of God
himself. It had a scientific character in the in
vestigation of the First Cause, and the constitution
of the universe. It had an ethical character, for it
' Strom., VII, xvii, § 106-108.
' In the Protrept., ii, § 12 ff., he can denounce the abominations
of the various mysteries; but they left many traces on his lan
guage; cp. Mayor, in Hort and Mayor, Clement of Alexandria,
Miscellanies, VII (1902), p. Iv.
23

354 Phases of Early Christianity
involved the study of man, his nature and powers,
his vices and virtues. But its supreme aim was
religious, for it bore the sotd from stage to stage
of growing Hght tiU it could gaze upon God "face
to face" with understanding and absolute cer
tainty.' Like the leaders of the sects, Clement
professes to receive it as a tradition taught by
Christ to the apostles'; but his repeated defences
of philosophy imply that he is conscious that he is
introducing a new element into Christian teaching,
and reinterpreting its main conceptions. The pro
cess had been begun when the "spiritual gospel"
had been written by John.* Clement is the first
theologian really to secure its development within
the Church.
The power to climb these heights is not, how
ever, given to all. Though humanity is not to be
distributed (with the Valentinians) into groups in
virtue of original differences of constitution,
Clement nevertheless recognizes that there is a
kind of election to knowledge." There are diver
sities of ability to apprehend the truth, and there
are diversities in the will to seek it. The rise of the
soul towards the realms of light may always be
interpreted in two ways. Those who have lived
in purity and reached the conception of the blessed
' Strom., VII, iii, § 1 7 ; x, § 56-57, " and the name of gods is given
to those who shall hereafter be enthroned with the other gods."
"7M(Z., VI, vii, §61', I, i, §113.
3 See the extract from Clement's Hypotyposes in Euseb., Hisl.
Eccl., VI, xiv, 7.
^ Strom., VII, i, §2 3.

Salvation by Gnosis 355
and incorruptible nature, may have been drawn
thither by the Father; on the other hand, the
energy of free-wiU on reaching the knowledge of
the good may (in gymnastic language) have leaped
the barriers. Clement will not definitely decide;
but in his heart he knows that the soul which soars
upward owes its wings to special grace.' That
is the language of religion; it is Clement's form of
St. Paul's warning that man must work out what
God first works within him. It is, accordingly, to
the self-discipline of the true Gnostic that Clement
invites his readers. If he has brought the theology
of Plato into the Church, he will now introduce
the ethics of the Porch. On one side the picture
is not attractive: the Stoic virtues do not har
monize well with the portrait in the Gospels; the
philosopher's "apathy," his elevation above all
vicissitudes of feeUng or desire,' his "ataraxy"
or unshaken calm in the midst of troubles and
dangers,* imply a rigidity of attitude towards
external conditions and events which can only be
attained by the prolonged concentration of the
Gnostic on himself. But there is another aspect
of this strenuous discipline. From faith the seeker
of the truth may rise to knowledge ; from knowledge
he must go on to love. And this will prompt aUke
the service of God and the service of man. The
contemplation which he has attained himself he
must impart to others; he cannot be indifferent
' Strom., V, xiii, § 83'. ' Ibid., VI, ix, § 71 ff.
' Ibid., IV, vii, § 55^-

356 Phases of Early Christianity
to their welfare. Like the presbyters and deacons
in the Church on earth, Hke the ministering angels
and the "gods" in the spiritual Church above, nay
like the Word himself, the constant companion of
the aspiring soul, he must be ever active in the
work of salvation. ' So is the whole world bound
together by one mighty chain of influences for
teaching man how to become divine. '
I "God-borne" and "God-bearing" the Gnostic
untiringly aspires; he is the shrine of his Saviour,
the temple of the Spirit, already holy and divine. *
Diverse are the mansions in the home above, in
threefold order to match the sower's grain." The
Gnostic aims at no special place, he seeks no
recompense for his endeavours. But as he grows
in likeness to his heavenly Lord he wins the name
of friend of God, and is ranked and reckoned as a
Son. Reaching the crowning height of direct
vision (iTcoiruefa) he becomes wholly spiritual,
and departs to his kindred sphere, there, in the
spiritual Church, to rest in God.* So glorious is
this consummation that in a famous passage
Clement ardently declares that "if anyone could
set before the Gnostic the choice between the
knowledge of God or everlasting salvation (as if
they were separable, though of course they are
reaUy the same), without the smallest hesitation
' He wUl even pray to share in the sins {i.e., the punishment)
of the brethren, Strom., VII, xii, § 80'.
»Cp. Strom., VII, i, § 3-5; iii, § 13.
3 Ibid., VII, xiii, § 82"; iii, § l6s.
4 Ibid., VI, xiv, § 1143. s Ibid., VII, xi, § 68s.

Salvation by Gnosis 357
he would choose the knowledge of God, judging
that pecuHar character of faith which ascends
through love to knowledge preferable for its own
sake."' In such vision present, past, and future
are unfolded to him :
"While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, "
He sees " into the life of things."
' Strom., IV, xxii, § 136s.

LECTURE VI
CHRISTIANITY AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
AT the opening of the third century of our era
the future destinies of Christianity in the
basin of the Mediterranean were being shaped in
three great cities, Rome, Alexandria, and Car
thage. The Church in the imperial city was the
heir of the apostoHc traditions of Peter and Paul.
In numbers and wealth it stood pre-eminent, and
its religious practice was naturally an admired
model. So great was its influence that every new
movement must seek its support, and represent
atives of all opinions travelled thither to win a
hearing. It created no great theological school,
but it was again and again to utter the deciding
word in controversy. It entered into an inherit
ance that stretched far beyond its own history.
The Genius of Rome brooded over it, and the vast
multitude of energies which TertulHan summed up
under the one word Romanitas nourished its life
and guided its development.
Christianity at Carthage springs suddenly into
view in the writings of TertulHan. Of its origin
nothing is known, but his pages reflect its struggles
and triumphs in the hot eager atmosphere of trade
358

At the Parting of the Ways 359
and pleasmre which made religion like every other
activity full of passion. Closely connected with
Rome by ties of language and commerce, Car
thage shared the Latin genius for order and law,
rather than the Greek for phUosophic thought and
intellectual freedom. The two great personalities
of its church, TertulHan and Cyprian, had both
been trained as jurists, and carried the conceptions
of legaHsm into the ecclesiastical sphere. Tertul
Han, indeed, was led by personal reaction against
grave moral abuse into a position of solitary with
drawal. But his writings were a store of power.
"Da magistrum," Cyprian would say to his secre
tary, as he sought to reinforce the energy of rule
which lifted the episcopate into the control of the
Church. Alexandria, on the other hand, under the guid
ance of Clement and his successor Origen, became
the chief centre of Christian thought. It has been
said of Origen that he was "the first great scholar,
the first great preacher, the first great devotional
writer, the first great commentator, the first
great dogmatist, but he was nothing else." ' There
is a strange omission in this list of fimctions. Ori
gen was perhaps greatest of all as a teacher. His
career covered a long period, seventy years save
one, says Eusebius,' and Ulustrates many phases
of Church life and activity. Its incidents may be
gathered partly from scattered references in his
'Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (1886), p. 115.
'Hist. Eccl., VII, i. For the chief facts see VI, i-xxxix.

360 Phases of Early Christianity
own works, partly from the narrative of Eusebius,
who coUected more than a hundred of his letters,
with a few additional details in other sources.
Some of the occurrences wiU always remain ob
scure. Nearly aU his correspondence, like much of
his literary work, has perished. He drew to him
self enthusiastic devotion, he also aroused bitter
enmity. He laid the foundation on which Athana
sius might buUd, but he suffered under the impu
tation of heresy. The defences of his friends have
disappeared, but modem theologians have not been
slow to vindicate his memory. "I love the name
of Origen," wrote John Henry Newman, "I wUl
not listen to the notion that so great a soul was
lost."' "His whole life," said Canon Westcott,
"was, according to his own grand ideal, 'one
unbroken prayer' {\).i<x icpoaeuxT) auvExojxIvT)), one
ceaseless effort after close feUowship with the Un
seen and the Eternal."'
Bom in the year 185-6, most probably in
Alexandria, he was the eldest of seven sons. The
Greek name of his father, Leonides, points to
possible Greek descent; whUe the interpretation
of his own name, "ChUd of Hor," the god of
Light, suggests a no less possible Egyptian nation
ality. From his chUdhood he was instructed in
the Scriptures, and his eager questions often
' Quoted by Parrar, Lives of the Fathers (ed. 1907), vol. i, p. 431,
from History of the Arians (i.e., presumably the Arians of the Fourth
Century, 1832). I have been unable to find the passage.
' Contemp. Review, Xxxv (1879), p. 329. Cp. Farrar, op. cit.

At the Parting of the Ways 361
puzzled his father, who would stand by the sleep
ing boy and kiss his breast as a veritable sanctuary
of the Spirit. He passed through the usual
studies preparatory to a university career, gram
mar {i.e., Hterature), mathematics, logic, and
rhetoric, and naturaUy came under the teaching
of Clement, in whose catechetical school he formed
an early friendship with Alexander, afterwards
bishop of Jerusalem.' When the persecution
tmder Severus broke out, Leonides was impris
oned, and his eldest son longed to share his ap
proaching martyrdom. The anxious mother hid
his clothes, and thus compelled him to remain
at home, so that the eager youth was obliged
to confine himself to exhortation. "Hold on,"
he wrote to his father, "on no account change your
mind for our sakes." Leonides was beheaded,
the family property was confiscated, the mother
and brothers were probably assisted from the
Church funds and disappear from the story,
and Origen was received into the house of a
wealthy Christian lady. As soon as he could
he made himself independent by teaching, and
after Clement had withdrawn from risk of
arrest Origen was appointed his successor in
the catechetical school. He was only in his
eighteenth year.
The post was not free from danger. His first
convert Plutarch, and at least five others of his
' Who wrote to him as "the best in everything, my master and
brother," Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xiv, 9.

362 Phases of Early Christianity
pupils, perished. To the martyrs, whether among
his friends or strangers, he devoted himself with
great courage. He visited them in prison, he
stood beside them in court, he kissed them on the
way to execution, and narrowly escaped stoning in
the streets. It is difficult to understand how in
this pubHcity he was himself free from arrest; he
is said to have baffled the police by frequent
changes of lodging. The terror passed, but the
enthusiasm generated by the storm remained.
By way of protest against the extravagant luxury
of the city Origen adopted a life of strenuous self-
denial. He ate no meat and drank no wine; he
fasted by day and watched by night; he walked
barefoot and slept on the floor.' He sold the
library which he had laboriously accumulated for a
small pittance of four obols (about sixpence) a day,
which relieved him of the necessity of taking fees.
Along with his teaching he continued his studies.
He acquired some knowledge of Hebrew from a
Rabbi; he attended the lectures of the Neo-
Platonist Ammonius Sakkas' who was said to have
once carried a porter's knot on the quays in the
harbour; he read widely in philosophy; he was
continually studying Plato, says Porphyry, who
describes his acquaintance with the works of the
' On the much discussed story of his making himself a eunuch
for the kingdom of heaven's sake {Matt, xix, 12), see Farrar,
Lives of the Fathers, i, pp. 398-401.
'This is the statement of Porphyry, a younger contemporary
of Origen, 233-305 a.d., but it has been argued that he confused
the young Christian with some other Origen.

At the Parting of the Ways 363
Platonists, Pythagoreans, and Stoics.' He was
really, according to his critic, Greek in thought;
pity that he was wrecked on the barbarian ven
ture! In after years Origen defended himself by
the example of Pantaenus and that of his own pupil
Heraclas,' who became presbyter at Alexandria
and assistant in the catechetical school, and still
wore the philosopher's cloak.* Yet later in his
treatise on the "True Word" of Celsus, composed
after he was sixty years of age, he referred to his
persistent pursuit of truth; he had visited many
lands, and had everyTvhere sought out those who
professed to have any knowledge."
Origen did, indeed, travel widely, "Longing to
see the most ancient church of Rome, " as he some
where wrote, he visited it during the episcopate of
Zephyrinus.* After his return he was sent into
Arabia in response to a request from the governor
addressed to bishop Demetrius and the prefect
of Egypt. The fury of Caracalla in 2 1 6, in revenge
for some insulting verses on the murder of his
brother Geta, endangered especially the men of
learning and letters, and Origen, who had been
safely escorted back to his own city, withdrew to
'Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xix, 7-8.
"Brother of his first convert Plutarch.
ilbid., VI, xix, 13-14.
'f Contr. Cels., VI, xxiv. The statement primarily concerns
a certain Gnostic diagram, but may certainly be interpreted
in a wider scope.
sThe date is uncertain; probably about 213. Euseb., Hist.
Eccl., VI, xiv, 10.

364 Phases of Early Christianity
Caesarea. There he was welcomed by the bishop
Theoctistus, and his old classmate Alexander,
now installed in Jerusalem. Though he was stiU
a layman they invited him to preach, and he
expounded the Scriptures in the service of the
Church. The incident was reported at Alexandria,
and Demetrius chose to regard it as a violation
of all ecclesiastical propriety. He wrote angrily
to the bishops, and was not to be appeased by
the precedents which they quoted in reply. Ori
gen quietly obeyed the summons to return, and
resumed his place at the head of the catechetical
school. With indefatigable labour he taught to the less
advanced the secular disciplines which he had
himself learned from his father. To those who
sought the higher knowledge he lectured on the
different systems of philosophy. His wide range
of attainment, his sympathetic exposition, his
impartiality and love of truth, drew round him
students who made no profession of Christianity,
and others who belonged to different heretical
schools. Among these latter was a wealthy
Valentinian named Ambrosius,' who became
deeply interested in Origen's expositions of the
Scriptures. He urged the teacher to give to the
world the results of the labours in which he had
been so long engaged. The cost of composition
threatened to prove a serious difficulty; Origen
'So Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xvii. Jerome makes him a
Marcionite.

At the Parting of the Ways 365
was too poor to buy writing materials or employ a
secretary. Ambrose therefore provided a staff
of seven shorthand writers who succeeded each
other at regular intervals, and as many more
copyists, together with young women skUled in
caUigraphy. The labour thus imposed upon him
was severe. Origen playfully called his friend his
"taskmaster,"' and lamented that his toU left
him no time for supper, or after supper for exercise
or rest. Far into the evening they conversed and
he dictated, and in the morning he was at work
betimes. The flrst-fruits of this method was the
commentary on the Gospel according to John, of
which only portions have survived. The quali
fication demanded of the interpreter was stringent.
"No one," he said, "can understand its meaning
unless he has reclined on Jesus' breast and received
from him Mary to be his mother also."^
Origen was thus launched on the long series of
works which he devoted to the exposition of the
Scriptures. The same aid was avaUable for his
critical labours on the Greek text of both Testa
ments,* and for the treatise on "First Principles"
' ''EpyodiiiKTiis, as in the LXX, Exod. iii, 7 (R. V. 8).
'In Joann., i, §23; Werke, iv (ed. Preuschen, 1903), p. 9 ''. ^
3 His famous work on the Greek text of the Old Testament,
known as the Hexapla, occupied him altogether more than twenty
years. Beside the Hebrew text he placed the various Greek ver
sions. Christian and Jewish, in paraUel columns. The work
was enormously bulky; it was long preserved in the library at
Caesarea, and used by scholars, who copied the recension of the
Septuagint in the fifth column, as weU as other passages.

366 Phases of Early Christianity
(xepl 'Apxwv), written whUe he was stUl at
Alexandria, the first great systematic view of
Christian theology. Whether or not his daring
speculations aroused episcopal alarm, it is difficult
to determine. The incidents which led him to
leave his post in Egypt are obscure. In response
to a summons to Greece' on some church business
he tmdertook a journey to Achaia, and on his way
he stopped at C^sarea. There his friends Theoctis
tus and Alexander — perhaps (as has been suggest
ed) to secure him the unchallenged right to preach
— ordained him presbyter. Unconscious of any
violation of ecclesiastical order, he traveUed on,
and fulfilled his mission. ' But the aged Demetrius
was stirred to vehement anger. Clerical suspicion
had been already roused, and Origen's bold high-
soaring thoughts had drawn upon him the repu
tation for heterodoxy. Letters were circulated
with accusations not only against Origen himself
but also against the bishops of Cassarea and
Jerusalem. A synod of suffragan bishops and
presbyters forbade him to teach again in Alex
andria ; and Demetrius, not content with deposing
him from his headship of the catechetical school,
summoned a smaU committee of three suffragans
and excommunicated him. He was of course
' UsuaUy placed in 228 a.d., but see McGiffert's note to his
translation of Euseb., Hist. Eccl., pp. 395-7.
"It was perhaps on this journey that he found part of an
unknown translation of the Old Testament at Nicopolis in
Epirus; just as on another journey he discovered a different
fragment in a jar at Jericho. Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xvi, 2-3.

At the Parting of the Ways 367
never heard in his own defence. Demetrius
obtained the support of Rome, but Arabia, Pales
tine, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Greece, were loyal
to the great teacher on whom was bestowed the
unusual title of "Master of the Churches. " '
Driven from Alexandria Origen made his home
in Caesarea, where his friend Ambrose joined
him, and resumed his former labours. His fame
as a theologian and his skiU as a peacemaker still
brought him earnest calls for help ; he twice visited
Bostra in Arabia, and he made a second journey
to Athens. But Caesarea was the centre of his
teaching, and his fame drew men of distinguished
ability around him. There a young student from
Neo-Caesarea in Pontus, Gregory by name, on his
way to the great school of Roman law at Beyrout,
fell in with Origen accidentally. It was the first
day of a new life to him, he said afterwards. He
coiUd not tear himself away, and stayed five years.
In moving words as he departed he bore witness to
the master's power.' Like a skilled husbandman
taking in hand an unfertile field, or a gardener
training an unproductive tree to bear fruit, Origen
treated his pupils with various disciplines adapted
to their several characters. Then with the aid
of geometry and astronomy he fiUed them with a
rational wonder at the sacred economy of the
universe. The study of the mind came next, and
'Doucin, Hist, de I'Origenisme, I, quoted by Farrar, Lives of
the Fathers, i, 415, 3.
"Greg. Thaumat. Panegyr.

368 Phases of Early Christianity
moral science led to the observation and distinction
of good and evU, and the ripening of the virtues of
Prudence, Self-Control, Justice, and Courage. It
was with no lip-service that Origen commended
them; he strove himself to realize his own ideal,
and led his hearers on to piety, rightly called the
mother of all the virtues. AU poetry and phUo
sophy were thrown open to them (save, indeed, the
writings of the atheists). He prescribed adhesion
to no exclusive school ; with a glorious confidence in
truth he bade his pupUs freely traverse the whole
round of knowledge, crowning their investigations
with the disclosure of the mysteries of Scripture,
where philosophy was Ulumined by religion. For
the end of all moral training was to become Hke
to God with a pure mind, to draw near to him and
abide in him; and the supreme endowment of
reUgion was to be able to interpret the oracles of
God to men, so that they might hear them with
intelligence, and live in the constant inspiration of
things divine.
The literary activity of Origen continued mean
while unabated, save for his frequent travels, and
a sojourn of two years under the shelter of a
learned Christian lady, JuUana, at Caesarea in
Cappadocia, during the persecution instituted by
the brutal Maximin, when Ambrose was impris
oned. On his return he renewed his customary
activities. On the weekly fast-days, Wednesday
and Friday, he preached in the great church at
Caesarea, sometimes even giving daily expositions

At the Parting of the Ways 369
of Scripture. The congregations might be small;
the women might retire for gossip to the back of
the church ; but the unwearied teacher held on his
way, and more series of homilies were gathered
from the reporters' notes. He had entered his
seventh decade when he composed his famous
reply to the Tru^ Word of the philosopher Cel
sus. His active correspondence often involved
the discussion of intricate bibhcal or philo
sophical questions. But danger gathered around
his closing years. After the murder of Philip
in 250 A.D., the Emperor Decius inaugurated
a wide-spread attack on Christianity. It was
aimed especially at the leaders. The bishop of
Jerusalem, Alexander, Origen's early friend, was
tried at C^sarea and died in prison. Babylas
suffered the same fate at Antioch, and Fabian was
martyred at Rome.' Origen was arrested and
confined with great severity. One of his former
pupils, Dionysius, now bishop of Alexandria,
with affection unimpaired by past events or lapse
of time, wrote him a letter on Martyrdom, full of
encouragement.' Released on the death of De
cius in 251, the aged scholar lived to write similar
letters carrying like comfort to other sufferers.*
But his health was shattered and he died in Tyre
in 253, having completed, says Eusebius, seventy
years save one.
Origen stands out as the greatest mind among
'Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xxxix. •' 'Ibid., VI, xlvi.
3 Ibid., VI, xxxix.
24

370 Phases of Early Christianity
the theologians of the East, the most fertile, the
most daring, the most profound. Augustine
might have a deeper knowledge of the secrets
of human passion; none could surpass Origen
in his confidence in the redeeming purpose and
power of God. The theodicy that is sketched
in the treatise on First Principles ranges through
vaster spaces than are contemplated in its coun
terpart in the City of God. The scene which
Augustine surveys is on a petty scale and its
duration is brief and limited, compared with
the countless ages and innumerable worlds that
Origen demands for his bold scheme of univer
sal salvation. Starting from the Rule of Faith
transmitted by the Church, with the help of Scrip
ture in one hand and Philosophy in the other,
Origen constructs a mighty drama of eter
nity, in which the Trinity, and aU created spirits
through every phase of fall and recovery, com
bine to establish throughout all existence the
Sovereignty of the Father, that God may be all in
all. A world in which evil is not eliminated by
destruction but overcome by transmutation into
good, is the goal of all Origen's vision. His
exposition, therefore, involves, first, a doctrine
of God, the metaphysic of his being, and his re
lation to the scene of our activity ; secondly, a doc
trine of souls, their various ranks, powers, and
functions, angelic, human, and demonic, including
in the history of this world the fall of Adam
and its consequences; and thirdly, a doctrine of

At the Parting of the Ways 371
redemption and restoration, making large drafts
on future ages, and culminating in a reign of
righteousness where all opposition is merged in
universal harmony.
For this philosophy was obviously inadequate.
Porphyry might declare that in his thought of
Deity Origen was essentially Greek, and his reply
to Celsus might at times betray the difficulty
which he felt in meeting attack from a standpoint
metaphysically not unlike his own. To the
philosophers he knew himself deeply indebted;
he was a constant student of their writings, and a
no less constant teacher of their truths. But he
could not ignore the fact that though it might
denounce the popular religion, philosophy had not
replaced it. Celsus might not be willing to admit
it, but it was true that the Jews had a higher wisdom
even than professed philosophers; the latter might
proclaim worthy doctrines, but they fell away into
the worship of idols and demons, while the very
lowest Jew looked to God alone.' The philo
sophers' connivance at polytheism was intolerable
to a spirit so sincere and pure. They had no real
sympathy with the common folk; they, did not
care to make truth accessible to all; they were like
doctors — even Plato — who only attended people
supposed to be the more refined, and despised
the great bulk of the lower classes.' Philosophy
consequently, had no expansive force; its range
was limited; Plato was found only in the hands of
' Contra Cels., V, xliii. ' Ibid., VII, Ix.

372 Phases of Early Christianity
Hterary men. In a remarkable passage which
implied that the death of Christ was in no sense
an essential element in redemption, he argued that
if only the Jews had not first slain the prophets
and afterwards plotted against Jesus, men would
have had a pattern of a heavenly city which
even Plato might have sought to describe'; though
it might be doubted whether he could have done as
much as Moses and his successors, who trained
a holy nation with teaching undefUed by super
stition. But the Church was putting an end to
polytheism. The disciples of Jesus, ignorant of
philosophy, were traversing the world, impressing
each one of their hearers according to his deserts,
and improving them in proportion to the incHna-
tion of their will to accept the good. This was
the practical demonstration of the Christian claim.
Origen saw Christianity advancing through the
world, in spite of efforts to suppress it ; its foUowers
might lose their property and even their fives;
its teachers might be few; but nevertheless it was
being preached everywhere and winning acceptance
among wise and foolish, barbarians and Greeks.
Who could refuse to see in this the manifestation of
a power more than human, the fuUUment of the
authoritative words of Jesus himself?'
Origen, therefore, plants himself firmly on the
historic development of the Church. His theology
starts from the teaching which has been handed
down from the apostles and is embodied in ecclesi-
' Ibid., V, xliii. 'De Princip., IV, i, a.J

At the Parting of the Ways 373
astical tradition. ' There is the test among com
peting sects, there is the unity which transcends
the diversities alike of philosophy and heresy.
In the background Origen always discerns the
various types of Gnosticism, the claims of the
Montanist "new prophecy," the Monarchian
interpretations of the Godhead. Against the
first he lays stress on the identity of the Deity
of law and gospel, of justice and goodness, of the
Old Testament and the New. Against the crude
eschatology of the second he develops a vast
and magnificent scheme of spiritual renewal from
world to world and age to age. Against the third
he vindicates the doctrine of the Triad or Trinity.
Above all divisions rises the Universal Church.
It has its three-fold ministry, and its sacraments
of baptism and thanksgiving, though the true
Christian is also a priest, offering to God the
spiritual sacrifice of his own heart. But with his
lofty purity of character Origen was well aware
that the condition of the Church was by no means
ideal. Tares grew beside the wheat, and his
thoughts turned constantly to the Spiritual Church
in the world above where the blessed made a
heavenly temple, a mystic body of the Lord,
"older in the coimsels of God than creation
itself.'" But the real source of Christian truth lay in the
Scriptures of which the Church was the witness
'Cp. De Princip., preface, 2.
"Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 222; cp. ante, p. 147.

374 Phases of Early Christianity
and guardian. Their preservation and trans
mission was due to her watchfulness : but what was
the guarantee of their contents? The knowledge
which led to salvation lay in the teaching of Christ,
but this was not Hmited to the few brief years of his
earthly ministry. The Word dwelt also in Moses
and the prophets, and they wrought and spoke
under the influence of the Spirit of Christ. The
conformity of the Gospels to prophecy was an
argument that could be addressed alike to philo
sophers and Jews. The warrant of prophetic
inspiration lay in the pages of the New Testament
and the experience of believers; the spread of the
Gospel amid difficulty and danger proved that a
divine power had introduced it and carried it
through the world. Thus the doctrines of the
Deity of Christ and the supernatural character of
prophecy supported each other. Before the Ad
vent the true nature of the ancient Scriptures was
known only imperfectly. When the Son of God
appeared, the veil that lay upon the letter of the
past was taken away, and the hidden light shone
forth to view. ' The theology of Origen is in real
ity a philosophical commentary upon the sacred
texts. For him as for Clement and for Philo the
holy words cover sacred mysteries. Written by the
Spirit of God they contain meanings not visible
at first sight ; they are the images of divine things. '
' De Princip., IV, i, 6. IUustrations wUl be found in the pre
ceding sections, and in the treatise Contra Cels., VII.
' Ibid., preface, 8.

At the Parting of the Ways 375
For Origen, as for Clement and Philo before
him, the whole world was full of symbols of invisi
ble reahties. Plato had stamped his idealism on
the higher HeUenic thought, and the Stoics had
appHed it freely to the interpretation of the ancient
myths. Origen had been a student of the work
of Chaeremon, once Hbrarian of the Serapeum in
Alexandria, and afterwards tutor of the Emperor
Nero, and his contemporary Cornutus who taught
at Rome; and Porphyry ascribed Origen's treat
ment of the Hebrew Scriptures to their figurative
explanations of the Greek mysteries.' Jews and
philosophers had thus led the way; the Christians
followed with a difference. The story of Israel
was more than a piece of national history. It
was linked with the wider fortunes of humanity,
and aU the vicissitudes of the entire race were
bound together by one "increasing purpose"
which culminated in Christ. There was a unity,
therefore, in the record which must be sought
beneath the literal meaning. Three-fold were the
aspects or relations of the sacred text, ' correspond
ing to the triple division "body, soul, and spirit. "
The somatic or "bodily" was the plain historic
sense which sometimes involved discrepancies of
fact only to be resolved by some deeper principle,
such as the divergent accounts of the opening of the
ministry of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel compared
"Euseb., Hist. Eccl., VI, xix, 8.
' This was justified out of the Greek translation of Prov. xxii,
20, De Princip., IV, ii, 4.

376 Phases of Early Christianity
with the First Three. ' Other stories, such as the
FaU, the adventures of Lot, or the conveyance of
Jesus on to a high mountain, could not be accepted
as records of actual events. They must have some
other meaning, psychic or moral, embracing all
that touches the soul in this Hfe in its relation to
the law of right and God. Behind the individual
stood the Church, the heir of human history, the
instrument of God's purpose for mankind, the
agency of redemption, possessed of the secrets
of time and of eternity. These are to be dis
covered in the pneumatic or spiritual meaning.
Within the Gospel which aU can understand is the
Eternal Gospel {Rev. xiv, 6), the heavenly wisdom
which reveals the mysteries of the unseen world. '
The method of unfolding this sense was allegory.
The literal meaning must be received by faith,
the act of simple-minded unreasoning behef
(EStuTai], SXoYo?). The last was reached by the
enlightened mind, illumined by the grace of
the Holy Spirit, when ultimate truths became
self-evident, and the Gnostic had no more need of
the ladders by which he had laboriously cHmbed.
It is by this aid that Origen reaches those grand
solutions of the problems of the future which proved
unhappily too daring for the Church. What, then,
was his conception of the person and work of the
' In Joann., x, § 1-2.
'Ibid., i, § 40. For an extravagantly fantastic instance see
the explanation of John i, 27, where one shoe is the assumption
of human flesh by the Son of God, and the other the descent into
Hades, "whatever Hades may be," ibid., vi, § 174.

At the Parting of the Ways 377
Saviour, and the nature and scope of Christian
salvation? No great teacher can be indifferent to the cur
rents of contemporary thought. His conceptions
are largely shaped by reaction against opposing
views; he cannot withdraw into empty space and
think out an interpretation of existence by himself;
he must use the language and ideas of his intellect
ual environment ; he must guard against misunder
standing, and ward off error. The fundamental
purpose of all Origen's speculation was to determine
the method of God's discipline of souls, their origin,
their course, their destiny. The means available
were the Scripture record, the tradition of the
Church, and reason, enhghtened by religion and
philosophy, which could discern mysteries of the
Spirit beneath the obscurities of the letter. One
mighty principle controlled the whole, the sover
eignty of God, the demand that his will should be
fulfiUed, the certainty that all oppositions of Evil
must be overcome, the confidence that the jarring
elements of the world should be brought into har
mony and God himself be "all in all." ' This far-off
vision of the Apostle Paul becomes the postulate
of Origen's whole theology. The nature of the
Deity, the powers and capacities of created spirits,
the processes of redemption and restoration, are all
displayed in their relation to it. Difficulties are
met with fresh suggestions; objections are^quietly
answered; and the majestic thought contemplates
» I Cor. XV, 28.

378 Phases of Early Christianity
vast cycles of time and calls new worlds into being
when the old are worn out, to secure unencumbered
opportunities for struggling souls and lead them up
into the "central Peace. "
The treatise on First Principles opens, ac
cordingly, with an exposition of the doctrine of
God. ' On the lines of Scripture and Church teach
ing the Gnostic separation between the Creator of
the Old Testament and the Father of the New is
repudiated, and the way is open for the delineation
of his intrinsic being. True, his nature passes our
comprehension and cannot be measured ; but in the
language of philosophy God is the ultimate Monad
or Unit.' He is thus intrinsically Mind, the
source and spring of all intelHgence, intettectualis
natura simplex, nothing can be added to him, nor is
there within him any greater or less. As Mind
takes up no room and has neither shape nor size,
it is thus independent of space. Without magni
tude, form, or parts, it is uncompounded, simple.
Labouring to express its elevation into the utmost
spirituality, Origen wrote in later life that as Mind,
or rather as transcending Mind and Being, God is
simple, invisible, and incorporeal.* He cannot,
therefore, be seen, though he may be known.
The Scripture which promises vision to the pure
in heart concedes nothing to outward sight;
' See also the HomUies on John, and the treatise Against Celsus.
'De Princip., I, i, 5-6, " /Mvds et ut ita dicam inds," two
Platonic terms. Cp. Clement, Lect. V, ante, p. 346.
'Contra Cels., VII, xxxviii.

At the Parting of the Ways 379
yet the works of divine Providence and the skUl
which pervades the world are like rays from the
eternal light showing us the true nature of the
Father of the universe.
To God thus abstractly conceived two funda
mental notions are attached. The simplicity of
his nature admits of no change. The immuta
bility of the Monad is an irreducible metaphysical
idea. When he is said to feel wrath or to repent,
the Scripture uses human language, and the Spirit
condescends to our intelligence. But, secondly, he
is essentiaUy good; and divine goodness impHes a
constant activity of love. Love ever seeks to give,
and God's supreme gift is the knowledge of himself;
as the sole cause of aU that is he perpetually com
municates himself to the world, and to created
spirits he reveals himself as the ever-bountiful
author of all existence. This is the meaning of the
doctrine of the Son. The Gospel identifies him with
the Logos or Word ; it designates him the ' ' Only-be
gotten " ; it proclaims him incarnate in Jesus Christ,
whom the Apostle Paul described as God's Power
and Wisdom. Now Solomon had already pictured
Wisdom as created by the Lord in the beginning of
his ways,' and there was consequently a sense in
which the Word was a creation (xTfojAa) , even a pro
duct of his workmanship {^i]\t.ioipyfi\i.a). But over
against this Scriptural argument came the pleas of
ontology and ethics. Who could believe that the
Father wais ever for a moment of time without his
'Prov. viii, 22; De Princip., I, ii, i.

38o Phases of Early Christianity
Wisdom ? Was it affirmed that he caUed into being
what did not exist before? That implied that he
acquired a new capacity which he formerly did not
possess. Or was it aUeged that he did possess it but
concealed it, and postponed its manifestation?
Either alternative was impious and absurd, for
each involved the divine nature in an act of change.
TertuUian's confident assertion that he knew the
moment of the entry of the Son into existence,
when the Word leapt forth "Let there be light,"
cut right athwart Origen's metaphysic. God
must always have possessed his Wisdom ; the Father
can never have been without a Son.' True, he is
Unbegotten, and the Son begotten, and the method
of this august generation lies beyond our power to
conceive. It is no act in time, it is eternal. Like the
brightness for ever streaming from the sun, the Only-
begotten for ever issues from the Unbegotten. Such
generation is not an event, it is an everlasting pro
cess'; the Father did not beget the Son and then let
him go, he is for ever begetting him ; and thus an
eternal relation is expressed in terms of time, and a
changeless state is represented as a perpetual act. *
' De Princip., I, ii, 3.
'"Etema ac sempitema generatio, sicut splendor generatur ex
luce," De Princip., I, ii, 4.
3 'Ael yevvf airrbv, Homil. in Jerem. ix, 4. A curious analogy is
found in Plutarch's explanation of the relation of the sun to
Apollo; "as the body is to the soul, and sight to vision, and light
to truth, so is the power of the sun to the nature of ApoUo, exyovov
iKiimv Kcil t6kov ivroi del yivipxvov, dei toOtoj/ dvoipaivovTos, De DefectU
Orac, ed. Reiske, Vol. vii, p. 706.

At the Parting of the Ways 381
As the image of the invisible God, the Son
may be said to be born of him Hke a volition pro
ceeding from his mind. He is no part of Deity,
cut off or divided from the divine Being; he shares
the substance of the Godhead, he is homo-ousios
with the Father. ' Yet he is different numerically
and as such he can even be called a ' ' second God " ' ;
God is the first cause, and the Son is caused; he
is even other in substance [not in the sense of
nature or essence but of individuality and personal
distinction] and subject to the Father.* In his
remarkable exposition of the opening verse of the
Prologue to the Fourth Gospel Origen shows
himself weU aware of the difference between the
divinity of the Word and the being of the God
head. The Son is not auto-theos "Absolute God."
He can only reveal to others what he has himself
heard from the Father, he can only do what the
Father has shown him. His powers are aU com
municated from him who alone is Unbegotten;
they are gifts from the infinite source, and one
gift is withheld. In supreme measure the Son
may share the Absolute Reason, Wisdom, Right
eousness." But absolutely good {ai'^dyoiBoq, dxXwq
dyaed?) he cannot be. "There is none good save
'See the Fragm. in Ep. ad. Hebr., Lommatsch, v, p. 300; Har
nack, Hist, of Dogma, ii, p. 354; Loofs, Leitfaden, p. 194.
'Contra Cels., V, xxxix.
'De Oral., xv. On the perplexing changes in the use of oiala
and inrdo'Too'is cp. Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 163; Loofs,
Leitfaden, p. 194*.
¦< Contra Cels. V, xxxix.

382 Phases of Early Christianity
one," says the Gospel,' and Origen, loyal to
Scripture, affirms that the Father only is un
changeably good.'
The doctrine of the Spirit is much less developed.
The Word stands between the ultimate Unit of
immutable Deity and the manifoldness of creation.
The Father and the Son work together in sinners
as weU as saints, in dumb animals as weU as in
rational human beings; nay their energy pervades
even the inanimate creation and the whole field of
derived existence. The function of the Spirit is by
no means so extensive. It is confined to the assist
ance of sinners who have already turned to better
things, and walk along the ways of Jesus Christ. *
In a remarkable fragment preserved in Greek,"
a series of gradations is established, the Son is
less than the Father, and the Spirit is lower still.
Against the philosophers and the Jews Origen
has thus vindicated the existence of different
"persons" in the Godhead. The peculiar form
of Monarchian doctrine which Praxeas carried to
Carthage* is driven in the same way off the field.
'Mark X, 1 8.
'De Princip., I, ii, 13. Goodness is apparently here un
derstood of beneficence, and belongs to the Father, in respect
of his activity in creation.
'Ibid., I, iii, 5.
-I Inserted by Koetschau in the chapter just cited, Werke, v,
p. 56. The passage proves that in the subsequent statement,
§7, that in the Trinity nothing can be caUed greater or less, the
language is that of Rufinus, rather than Origen; cp. Loofs,
Leitfaden, p. 196.
sSee Lect. II, p. 1 10.

At the Parting of the Ways 383
And the interpretation of SabeUius who had
established a congregation in Rome and might
have been himself still teaching when Origen visited
the city as a young man, is in like manner set
aside. Sabellius had insisted that Father, Son,
and Spirit were only three names for one and the
same Being, three aspects under which he mani
fested himself. They represented three phases of
his historic operation. In the Old Testament
God was Creator, Legislator, i. e.. Father. In
Christ he appeared as Son and Redeemer; in the
Church he worked as Spirit, imparting and sustain
ing the believer's life. Here was a kind of Trinity
of Revelation. It cotdd not be harmonized either
with Scripture or metaphysics. The Hellenic
ontology which insisted on the immutability of
the ultimate Unit, required a mediator between
the changeless simpHcity of God's nature and the
diversity of the physical world. The function
of creation was handed over to the Son, who
finally deigned to divest himself of his heavenly
glory and become Theanthropos, "God-man. "
This term, first coined by Origen, describes the
incarnation of the Son in Jesus Christ. The con
ception is presented in a novel form. The whole
drama of human existence was projected by
the philosophical theologian on the scale of eter
nity, and at any given moment the world was full
of rational souls in every grade of spiritual excel
lence or impurity, created free in the beginning
and now passing through stage after stage of disci-

384 Phases of Early Christianity
pline in the process of fall and of recovery. Among
these was the human soul of Jesus.' To all
rational creatures did the Only-begotten, the
invisible image of the invisible God, impart invisi
bly a share in himself. The gift was proportioned
to the love which each one bore him. In the
exercise of free-will this varied in different individu
als; but the soul of Jesus chose to cleave indis-
solubly to the Word from the beginning, received
him whoUy, entered into his light, and became
one spirit with him.' Such a soul cotdd serve
as the mediating substance for the union of God's
nature with a human body. The assumption of
this particular soul by the Word for the purpose of
incarnation was no accident, nor was it due to
divine partiality; it was the fit reward of its
virtues as the prophet proclaimed — "Thou hast
loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore
God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of
joy above thy fellows."* It must not, however,
be supposed that in becoming man in Jesus the
divine Word was enclosed completely in him.
The divinity of the Son of God could not be shut
up in any place or bounded by any human form.
If he was afterwards in Paid who said "Christ
liveth in me, " he doubtless also was in Peter and
John, and if in them why not also in Michael and
Gabriel?" The body of Christ was made miracu-
'De Princip., II, vi, 3. »i Cor. vi, 17.
'Psalm xiv, 7. The oU of joy means beingfiUed with Holy Spirit.
'^De Princip., IV, xxix; cp. Contra Cels., VII, xvii.

At the Parting of the Ways 385
lously to contain both the Word and the human
soul, possessing some quaUties common to other
men, but also a certain superiority so that the soul
might remain untainted by sin.' But the Word
underwent no change in becoming "as it were
flesh," ' and suffered none of the vicissitudes which
affect the body and the soul; how absurd to
imagine that one who called himself the Truth,
the Life, and the Resurrection, died!* And yet
the union of the human soul and the divine Logos
was so close that their fusion might be compared
to a mass of molten iron glowing for ever with
white heat." Word, soul, and flesh are together
called the Son of God, and in respect of that
nature which death could affect the Son of God
did die. *
To what end, then, was this death ? Its purpose is
not explained in the treatise on "First Principles."
The later homilies contain various hints which
exhibit it from different points of view. It was a
ransom paid to the devil, who thought by the Cross
to get Christ in his power, prevent the spread of his
teaching, and secure control over men for ever.
The devil, however, was deceived, * for he could not
detain the Son of God, and the whole transaction
'Contra Cels., I, xxxiii. 'Ibid., IV, xv.
'Ibid., II, xvi. *De Princip., II, vi, 6.
sibid., II, vi, 3. Contra Cels. , III, iv, i , the mortal body and the
hmnan soul were so closely united and intermingled with the
Logos that they shared his divinity and were changed into God.
'Origen does not shrink from describing him as dirarijWcTt,
Lommatzsch (1834), Vol. iv, p. 27.
2S

386 Phases of Early Christianity
was a divine device to break his sway.' Using
the language of the second Psalm, Origen describes
the Father dweUing in the heavens as deriding the
prince of this age and his invisible agents
who, contrary to their expectation, found their
own sovereignty destroyed. ' Elsewhere, however,
under Pauline influence, the act of self -surrender
is said to have had for its purpose to make God
propitious to men.* Prophecy had foretold that
Christ's sufferings would be for the benefit of
mankind"; and if he gave by his life a pattern
for men to follow, why should he not by his death
show them how to die for their religion?* So
Socrates had died as a philospher, and Leonidas as
a soldier, and the martyrs as Christians'; and
those who were called to endure trial found
strength in the august Sufferer on the cross.
But this is nowhere the central element in Ori
gen's thought. Behind the closing scene of Christ's
career Hes the wider purpose of the Incarnation,
as a teaching of obedience, ^ a revelation of heavenly
truth, and a gift of heavenly life. What mysteries
of salvation lay in the descent of the Divine into
the human! It pointed the way to a wondrous
'In Matt., tom. xvi, 8. Cp. Bethune-Baker, Introd. to the
Early Hist, of Christ. Doctr., p. 337. Contrast the view of Irenasus.
Lect. II, p. 125.
'In Matt, xiii, 9; Lommatzsch, iii, p. 229.
3 Bethune-Baker, op. cit. , p. 339. On its extension to the world
above cp. Bigg, op. cit., p. 212.
^Contra Cels., I, liv. 'Ibid., II, xvi.
^Ibid., II, xvii. iDe Princip., Ill, v, 6.

At the Parting of the Ways 387
interweaving of the two natures, so that the
human might rise to the divine and enter into
friendship with God.' It was as though Christ
were found in every saint, and thus through the
one Christ arise many Christs, formed after him
who is the image of God. ' Such is the great hope
set before the soul. How and for whom could it
be realized ?
Vast is the prospect which Origen unfolds.
His scheme of existence includes innumerable
ages where worlds succeed each other to provide
the material scene for the discipline of souls in the
long pathway to the victory of good. The principle
of the divine immutability required that God's
omnipotence must always have had subjects be
neath his ride, * just as his goodness must always
have needed objects of his beneficence. " Through
the Word, therefore, in the timeless sphere he
made a fixed number of rational spirits. A
strange reason is given for this Hmitation. A
Greek fragment preserved in a letter of Jus
tinian lays it down that were the divine power
infinite, it would inevitably be unable to un
derstand itself, for the infinite is by nature
incomprehensible.* Number and measure were
the laws imposed by the Eternal on his own
Wisdom.* These beings were all equal in rank,
' Contra Cels., Ill, xxviii. 'In Joann., vi, §42.
'De Princip., I, ii, 10. ^Ibid., IV, xxxv.
'Ibid., II, ix, I. {Werke, v., p. 164.)
•¦ Cp. the remarks of Bigg on the limit as essential to the Greek
idea of perfection, op. cit., p. 159.

388 Phases of Early Christianity
endowed with reason and free will. They were
images of the Word, himself the archetypal image
of the invisible God; they, too, were in a sense
"made God, " though in inferior rank; they formed
the order of which the Psalmist wrote "the God
of Gods, the Lord, hath spoken."' But these
"gods," though possessed of rational powers
through participation in the Logos, were not self-
subsistent; they had begun to be; they were,
therefore, liable to change; their nature bore
the stamp of mutability. Only in the Trinity,
which is the author of all things, does goodness
inhere by intrinsic essence ; in created beings it has
a certain accidental character; it depends on the
maintenance of high energies of mind and wUl. '
The tension thus involved might at any moment
be relaxed; and the problem was complicated by
the necessity that all created spirits should possess
some form of bodily investiture. To the Trinity
alone could incorporeal existence be ascribed;
all derived beings required some kind of organi
zation more or less tenuous or dense according to
their several characters.* But how did such
diversities of character arise?
To this question Origen vouchsafes no answer
beyond the general principle that all dependent
natures were by the very process of their creation
rendered mutable — only the eternal was Hfted
above liability to change — and freedom involved
' Ps. 1. I, In Joann., ii, 2. 'De Princip., I, vi, 2.
3 Ibid., II, ii, 2.

At the Parting of the Ways 389
possibUities of error and fall. The scene suddenly
shifts to the world as we know it, full of varieties
of disposition and lot; where the distribution of
happiness and pain is so uneven as gravely to
threaten the faith in divine justice. Marcion,
Valentinus, Basilides, could easily array a formid
able Hst of inequaUties in the heavens above and
on the earth beneath. Why so many gradations in
the stellar ranks, ' why so many anomalies in human
circumstance? No one is asked to choose where to
be born. What else determines nationality or con
dition but accident or chance ? ' The riddle is solved
on the ground of the moral administration of the
universe. Over and over again it is affirmed that
in the time-process the condition of every created
being is determined by his own conduct. When
they were first produced there was no reason for
not making them all equal and alike. In the exer
cise of their freedom the path of progress was open
to them by imitation of God, while neglect might
drag them into decline.* Different choices in
volved different results. Scripture showed that
there were ranks of angelic and demonic beings. It
could not be supposed that the malignant powers
were created wicked by nature; why then should
it not be admitted that the hosts above were good
by their own wills? Against the Gnostic doctrine
of essential peculiarities of constitution Origen en
forced the lesson — ^which includes human beings also
' The stars were regarded as conscious beings, De Princip., I,
vii., 3. 'Ibid., II, ix, 5. 'Ibid., II, ix, 6.

390 Phases of Early Christianity
— that every creature's place in the whole universe
is the result of his own action'; those who rule on
high and those who serve below owe their allotted
stations to no arbitrary will; they have received
only that which they deserve. It is the function
of divine Providence thus to regulate the outer
circumstance to match the inner spirit. The
world is the scene of continuous adjustment
between the springs of conduct on the one hand
in motive and purpose, and the vicissitudes of each
personal career. The chances and accidents of Hfe
thus take their place in the order that pervades the
whole. Each sufferer has brought his own evil
on himself. Nothing can escape and nothing can
alter the constant operation of the everlasting
justice. This doctrine finds a remarkable paraUel in the
fundamental principle of Indian thought known as
Karma, or the law of the Deed. Like its eastern
counterpart it involves the conception of a suc
cession of existences, but transmigration into
animals or plants does not enter into Origen's
view. He does, however, contemplate vast series
of ages each with its own world, through which
created souls have pursued their course, have
fallen and risen, have advanced and declined,
have struggled, have been defeated, and have
triumphed. Scripture itself speaks of unnumbered
aeons past and yet to come^; and each visible
creation, as it has had a beginning, so it must have
'De Princip., I, v, 3. 'Ibid., II, iii, 5; III, v, 3.

At the Parting of the Ways 391
an end. The very term by which the Gospel
designates the origin of this world, xaTa^oXiQ [R. V.
"foundation of the world"'], really means "cast
ing down " ; in other words there has been a descent
from a higher to a lower state, to provide a fitting
sphere for spirits that had fallen. This is the
explanation of St. Paul's teaching about the sub
jection of creation to vanity, and its subsequent
liberation from the slavery of corruption. In the
immense scheme of the discipline of souls this
world (and in like manner each that has preceded
or will follow) must be deemed to be created of
such a kind and on such a scale as to embrace
not only all beings appointed to be trained within
it, but also the powers prepared for their guidance
and aid. Chance, on the one hand, and fate on the
other, the rival doctrines of philosophy, are thus
dismissed, and the justice and beneficence of God
secured. Was there, then, no limit to this process?
Would the succession continue without end?
What of the Gospel promises of judgment, and
awards of bliss and pain? They are susceptible of
various interpretations, and the crude forms of
apocalyptic materialism are conveniently spiritu
alized. ' As aeon follows aeon successive judg
ments redistribute the evil and the good ; the penal
flame is kindled by each sinner for himself* ; its fuel
' Matt, xxiv, 21 ; Ephes. i, 4; De Princip., Ill, v, 4.
'De Princip., II, xii, 2 ff.
'Ibid., II, X, 4, quoting Isaiah, 1, 11.

392 Phases of Early Christianity
is his own sins, the "wood, hay, stubble" of the
Apostle Paul.' Conscience becomes its own tor
mentor as it beholds the story of its guilty deeds
set forth, before its eyes. But this discipline, if it
bears on one side the aspect of moral retribution,
is, upon the other, emphatically corrective. The
goodness of God may be for a time resisted, it
cannot be ultimately baffled. As creation began
in his love, so must it end. The commencement
and the close must be alike. ^ Declension wiU be
followed by recovery; Scripture declares that at
the last "God shall be all in all. "* The prospect
of the great consummation flUs Origen with hope
and joy. Often as he sends his gaze through the
illimitable future, it rests after all uncertainties
on the assurance of a harmonized world, where aU
resistance is transmuted into submission, and
submisssion is exalted into feUowship. To achieve
this result consistently with human freedom is the
wondrous prerogative of God. He alone knows
what agencies of subjection and instruction wiU be
needed." Origen is even willing to contemplate
the possibility of future falls,* to be balanced by
still more distant restorations; and even at the
summit of attainment concedes that satiety of
blessedness may lead to lapse.* Such allowance
must be made to the logic of liberty. But religion
cannot be permanently satisfied with these perilous
» I Cor. iii, 12. 'De Princip., I, vi, 2.
3 Ibid., Ill, vi, 3. -i Ibid., Ill, v, 7-8.
'Ibid., Ill, vi, 4. ^Ibid., I, iii, 8.

At the Parting of the Ways 393
options. Truth, beauty, goodness, eternally in
God, will finally draw out a glad response — after
punishments that may last for many ages — even
from the devil and his agents'; stage after stage
they, too, will rise through possible posts ofMuty
and of trust into the sphere of the "things that
are not seen." The process may indeed be
imperceptible in individual cases through aeons
beyond number; some souls wiU rise swiftly, others
wiU lag behind. ' But as they ascend new wonders
will for ever break upon their view. Enlarged
in understanding they will discern the disposition
of God's works, the causes of events, the secrets
of Providence, the mysteries of grace. The end,
said Origen, is always like the beginning.* The
note of the commencement was the equality of
souls. WiU that be realized again ? Will those who
have sunk so far and risen so slowly, regain their
lost condition of 6sof? In the final unity will the
bitter experiences of the past be wholly overcome
and leave no trace? Origen was less confident of
that, it wotdd seem, in after years. " But he never
lost the conviction that the true destiny of the soul
was the vision and understanding of God, which
could only be reaHzed through perfect purity of
heart, * and would ultimately be attained, though
' De Princip., I, vi, 3. ' Ibid., Ill, vi, 6. ' Ibid., I, vi, 2.
¦•See the evidence from later homilies in Bigg, op. cit., p. 233.
The interpreter is sometimes in doubt whether the language
refers to the issue of this age or the ultimate "restoration of aU
things, " In Joann., i, 16, § 191.
'De Princip., II, xi, 8.

394 Phases of Early Christianity
it might be in varying measures, by each and
aU. Such were the hopes which Origen boldly pro
jected through the vistas of incalculable time.
But in the meanwhile practical problems of
great urgency were forcing themselves on the
attention of the churches. The first believers
had habitually lived in an exalted moral en
thusiasm. Baptism had relieved them of the
burden of past guilt. They had been "washed"
and "consecrated"; they were consequently
holy; they were at once God's "chosen," his
"servants," and his "sons." In the impas
sioned language of the Apostle Paul they had
stripped off the old man and put on the new;
they had died and even been buried with Christ,
they had been raised with him, he had been formed
in them, and they were already seated with him
' ' in the heavenhes. ' ' Such a transformation must
needs produce vast changes in temper and conduct ;
yet there were some who walked not in Spirit
but "disorderly"'; the trespasser stiU needed
rebuke; temptation might yet claim its victims.
A strange and painful case at Corinth led Paul
to devote the sinner to Satan, ' in hope that by the
infliction of penal death his spirit might be saved
at the great Judgment Day. As the years ran on
and the Lord did not return, men still preserved
' I Thess. V, 14; 2 Thess. iii, 11.
' 1 Cor. V, 5; cp. von Dobschutz, Christian Life in the Primitive
Church, p. 389.

At the Parting of the Ways 395
the form of godliness but denied its power'; even
the presbyters sometimes fell into sin and must
be reproved before the whole congregation';
the sad example of Valens and his wife at Philippi,
whose financial offence Polycarp so deeply de
plored,* throws light on the repeated demand
that elder or bishop shall be free from the love of
money. Pecuniary unfaithfulness might be forgiven ; but
when those who had shared in the Holy Spirit
feU away, they crucified the Son of God in their
own persons, and no repentance could renew their
life." The wilful offender who spurned the Lord
had exhausted the benefits of redemption ; for him
there was no more sacrifice for sins, only "a certain
fearfid expectation of judgment."* This dark
doom brooded over the Church at the beginning of
the second century. The mysterious writer who
bore his testimony to the Word of life, and told the
"children of God" that those who were begotten
of the Father could not sin, for their seed remained
in them,* was weU aware that none could really
make this august claim. Confession, however,
might secure forgiveness, ^ save in the irremediable
case of "sin unto death."* The first period of
spiritual elevation was passing away. When the
' 2 Tim. iii, 1-5. ' i Tim. v, 20.
3 A d Philipp. , xi. '> Hebrews v\, 4-6.
5 Ibid., X, 26-31. ^ I John iii, 1-2, 9; v, 18. ' Ibid., i, 8-9.
' Ibid., V, 16. The variety of the interpretations by the com
mentators shows the difficulty of this phrase. It probably
included loss of all the privUeges of salvation.

396 Phases of Early Christianity
seer of Patmos addresses seven representative
churches, he summons five of them to immediate
repentance.' False teaching, possibly libertinist
morals, spiritual deadness, pride of wealth, rehgious
indifference, are among the counts of the indict
ment . A little later Polycarp warns the Philippians
against covetousness, love of money, evil speaking,
false witness, anger, the spirit of retaliation, unjust
judgment, readiness to beUeve evil.' How were
such offences of sudden temper or habitual dis
position to be met? The worship of the Church
was of course designed to raise the believer above
them, but before he could fitly approach the holi
ness of God in prayer he must at least have sought
the divine forgiveness. * Confession, accordingly,
became the united act of the people. "In the
congregation," it was said in the "Way of Life,"
"thou shalt confess thy transgressions."" That
was essential before the celebration of the Eucha
rist, that the offering might be pure.* Recon
ciliation of the quarrelsome, quiet reproof without
anger, humble acknowledgment of guilt, these
were the needful conditions for effective prayer*;
and following Jewish usage the "Way of Life"
regarded alms as a ransom for sin. The preacher
might declare fasting better than prayer, but
almsgiving was superior to both^; "let us then
'Revel, ii-iii. 'Ad Philipp., ii, 2; vi, i.
3 Cp. I Clem. Ix, 1-2. ^ Teaching of the XII Apostles, iv, 14.
'Ibid., xiv, I. ^Ibid., xv, 2; Ep. Barnab., xix, 12.
'2 Clem, xvi, 4.

At the Parting of the Ways 397
repent with our whole heart that none of us perish
by the way."
Such was the language of Christians to one
another, in view of the austere demands of their
high caUing. On the outside world they often
made a different impression. It can hardly be
doubted that the most powerful of the various
causes which gradually effected the conversion
of the Roman Empire to Christianity was the
behaviour of the Christians. A note of lofty
morality and heroic exultation is heard in one
after another of the Apologists. The philosopher
Aristides appeals to their chastity, their truthful
ness, their beneficence even to their enemies, their
brotherly help to the stranger and the needy, their
readiness to sacrifice their lives for the sake of
Christ.' Justin was convinced of their sincerity
by their bravery in death.' Octavius points to
prisons full of criminals, where no Christian is ever
found save on account of his religion or as a rene
gade.* "Their lot is cast in the fiesh," says
one of their champions, "but they do not live after
the flesh; they pass their time upon earth, but
they have their citizenship in heaven."" Seen
from within, however, this glowing idealism is
marred by ugly facts. Writing near the middle
of the second century Roman Hermas tells how
the angel of Repentance was sent in the guise of an
old shepherd to dwell with him for the rest of his
'Apol., XV. '2 Apol., xii.
3Minuc. Fel., Octav., xxxv. *Ep. ad Diognet., v.

398 Phases of Early Christianity
Hfe.' In spite of his prayers and confessions he
often harboured evU thoughts, he had faded in
parental duty, he had conducted his business by
lies; the Church was invaded by all kinds of gross
iand sordid sin, unchastity, drunkenness, hypo
crisy, malice, theft, covetousness, blasphemy.'
The rich paraded the extravagance of their wealth,
the double-minded became idolaters through
cowardice. The leaders must reform their ways,
there could be no salvation after future sin.
With its visions, its commandments, and its simUi-
tudes or parables, the book is one long summons
to repentance. The elder theory that for grave
post-baptismal sin no atonement was possible,
had broken down. But the Shepherd-angel is
authorized to announce one more opportunity of
repentance. * For blasphemers and apostates, for
betrayers of the servants of God, it was indeed
impossible. " But the divine mercy is extended to a
long list of other offenders provided they repent
quickly; but it must be lasting; the double-minded
who are always repenting after repeated sins have
no stability, and are neither alive nor dead. One
way, indeed, there is for wiping out the guilty past.
The martyr's death is an effective baptism of
blood. *
From different sides arose protests against laxity.
The followers of Marcion on the one hand, the
' Shepherd, Vis. V, u ff. ' Ibid., Mand. VIII.
3 Ibid., Mand. IV, iii, 6. 4 Ibid., SimU. IX, xix, I.
3 Ibid., Simil. IX, x.TOii, 3.

At the Parting of the Ways 399
Montanists on the other, demanded the utmost
purity as an essential condition of salvation.
Bishops corresponded, like Dionysius of Corinth'
and Pinytus of Crete, with recommendations of
mildness or rigour according to their interpretation
of Christian standards in the midst of increasing
wealth and worldUness. At Carthage by the end
of the second century a severe discipline had been
estabUshed. In his treatise on ' ' Penitence, ' ' written
soon after 200 A. D., TertulHan pleads for a second
forgiveness; he quotes the summons addressed to
the churches in the Apocalypse; he applies the
parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Drachma, and
the Prodigal Son. But repentance involves public
confession, known even in Carthage by its Greek
name exomologesis. The sinner must lie in sack
cloth and ashes, he must fast and groan and weep,
he must kneel to the brethren and roll at the feet
of the presbyters. It was a terrible ordeal, and
it is not surprising that men should have shrunk
from it or at least postponed it. TertulHan pours
out his mockery on their reluctance — ' ' Is it better
to be damned in secret than absolved in public? " —
and asks whether they would prefer to see the
dandy with hair duly parted, teeth polished with
powder, and nails cleaned with a Httle fork of brass
or steel, presenting himself in scarlet and purple
for the forgiveness of his sins. ' There was a way,
indeed, of help, which was to grow into a grave
' See Lect. Ill, p. 189.
*De Panitent., ix-xi; cp. De P-udicitia, xiii.

400 Phases of Early Christianity
abuse fifty years later. Those who could not find
"peace" in the Church sometimes resorted to the
imprisoned martyrs, and obtained it from them. '
Adulterers might apparently, be re-admitted to
communion, but homicides and idolaters were
permanently excluded. *
Later in life, after adopting Montanist principles
TertulHan wrote a second tract on "Modesty."
It was evoked by a report that CaUistus of Rome
(218-223 A.D.),* whom he sarcasticaUy describes
as Pontifex Maximus, "Supreme Pontiff and Bishop
of Bishops," had announced his intention — Ter
tulHan calls it "issuing an edict" — of remitting
sins of adultery and fornication after due penance. "
There is some doubt how far this simply sanctioned
former practice, or involved any novelty of treat
ment. Gross sinners might be excluded from
church privileges altogether. Or they might be
admitted to its worship, but denied participation
in the Eucharist, and left to the judgment of God.
A third course was recognized by CalHstus who
allowed them to receive the sacrament, and thus
restored them to full communion; and this must
surely have been the meaning of the Martyrs'
'Ad Martyr., xi. "Peace" meant ecclesiastical forgiveness
and restoration.
' Cp. Vanbeck, Revue d'Histoire et de Litterature Religieuses,
iii, p. 365.
3 This is the usual identification of the unnamed bishop. The
alternative is his predecessor Zephyrinus.
^De Pudicil.,\. Cp. Prof. Swete, Journ. of Theol. Studies,
iv, p. 327: Vanbeck, Revue, p. 367.

At the Parting of the Ways 401
pax which had evoked TertuUian's earHer protest.
TertulHan now drew a clear distinction between
sins to which the Church might extend forgiveness
and those for which there was no remission. The
Christian's daily prayer covered such offences as
anger, evil-speaking, violation of a man's plighted
word, lying from bashf ulness or necessity: how
many were the temptations of business, official
duty, trade, food, the senses! Were there no
pardon for such sins as these, salvation would be
unattainable by any. But for idolatry, adultery,
homicide, the Church could grant no peace';
for fraud, apostasy, blasphemy, Christ would not
intercede; the perpetrator ceased to be a son of
God.' It may seem strange that such offenders could
be found among the "saints. " But the spread of
Christianity had brought men and women of aU
ranks into the fold. In the second century Celsus
had contemptuously described the converts as the
ignorant and uneducated, the silly, mean, and
stupid, women, children, slaves. Two or three
generations later Origen could assert that the rich
and noble, men of rank and office, delicate and
high-born ladies, received the Christians' teach
ing.* As the range of believers widened, super
vision over the lives of church-members, especially
in the great urban congregations, became more
necessary. Those who led dissolute Hves must be
' De Pudicit., xii. ' Ibid., xix.
3 Contra Cels., Ill, ix, xHv, xUx.
26

402 Phases of Early Christianity
excluded. The Pythagoreans, observed Origen,
put up a cenotaph to a disciple who f eU away from
their communion; he was spiritually dead. The
Church received back its transgressors after a time,
but refused to admit them to posts of influence or
office.' On what conditions, then, was such re
ception possible? Replying to an objection that
Christians were worse off than Jews for whom the
Law provided effective sacrifices of atonement,
Origen enumerates seven means of obtaining re
mission of sins, baptism, martyrdom, alms, for
giveness of others' trespasses, the conversion of a
sinner, abundance of charity, and penitence.'
This last method involved confession, and public
confession required humble resolve to face con
tempt and jeers. Origen, therefore, recommended
careful consideration about the mode. Some man
of experience and insight should be consulted
(whether cleric or layman is not specified); if he
decided that the sinner's malady needed to be
exposed and healed before the whole Church, that
course must be adopted ; pubhc confession reUeved
a troubled conscience like sickness from an over
loaded stomach.* Tears and good works might
avail for common faults; but after grave crimes
readmission to communion could only be granted
after due penance. Apostates, indeed, could
never re-enter; and for other sins sentence of
' Contra Cels., Ill, U. ' Homil. in Levit., ii, 4.
'Homil. ii, in Psalm, xxxvii, ii, i, 2, 6; Vanbeck, Revue, vi,
P- 554-

At the Parting of the Ways 403
excommunication should be rare ; extreme severity
might terrorize delinquents. There were, indeed,
grave signs of danger in other directions. Bishops,
especially in the great cities, were apt to be proud
and arrogant like earthly princes; in the exercise
of power they might not be above partiality; and
the claims of confessors to the privilege of granting
absolution tended to increase.' During the half-
century of Origen's labours as teacher these perils
became more definite. The outbreak of persecu
tion under Decius rendered them still more acute.
The decisive direction for the development of the
future was given by the great bishop of Carthage,
Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus (248-258 a.d.).
Nearly fifty years had passed since TertulHan
began to issue his passionate pleas for fiis co-
behevers, and Hfted North African Christianity into
historic significance. Carthage remained gay,
brilliant, dissolute. No voice was raised in warn
ing or rebuke tiU there sat in the bishop's chair a
man of whom it was told long afterwards in Italy
that he used daily to say to his secretary "Da
Magistrum, " and the notary handed him a volume
' Cp. Vanbeck, Revue, iv, p. 119 ff. In the HomUies on Mat
thew xii, 14, Origen lays it down (on Matt, xvi, 19), in contrast
with certain champions of episcopal power that only those can
bind and loose like Peter who have Peter's way of life. Those
who are bound by their own sins cannot loose those of others.
The church officer who unwarrantably assumes such power is
ignorant of the purport of the Scriptures, is puffed up with
pride, and faUs like the devil. Cp. Swete, Journal, iv, p. 332;
Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 215.

404 Phases of Early Christianity
of TertuUian. ' Cyprian, likewise, was an author.
He, too, pleaded for Christianity against the cur
rent idolatries and the perverse Jews. He, too,
was the champion of martyrs and the critic of
society. He, too, wrote on the dress of virgins, on
patience and prayer, on grace and penitence. But
he was neither by training nor by temperament a
theologian or a teacher. His place among the
formative influences in the development of Christ
ianity is that of a great ecclesiastic who framed a
definite conception of the Church and of the rights
and duties of its bishops, and estabhshed the epis
copate as the bond of its unity and the instrument
of its power.' Nearly two hundred years would
pass before the third great African writer, philo
sopher, controversialist, mystic, would arise in
the genius of Augustine, and complete the scheme
of faith, doctrine, and morals which Leo and
Gregory would impose upon the West.
Born probably near the beginning of the
century, Cyprian belonged to one of the high
senatorial families of Carthage. Wealthy, distin
guished, with every advantage of education and
rank, he looked forward naturally to a public
career. He had amused himself like other gilded
youths, but he had friends among the Christians
as well as among the supporters of the popular
' Jerome, De Viris Illustr., lui.
^Of this his letters, 8i in number, and his treatises on "The
Lapsed" and "The Unity of the Church," are the chief expres
sion. See the edition of his works in the Corpus Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, by Hartel, 3 vols., J868-71.

At the Parting of the Ways 405
religion, and in spite of some vehemence of temper,
which could not weU brook opposition, he must
have been attractive and lovable, for his friend
ships outside the Church continued to the end.
He Hved in the whirl of a great city. Dress
and society, wine and dissipation, occupied his
thoughts. A crowd of cHents brought him dignity ;
it was a punishment to be alone. But, as he
teUs his friend Donatus shortly after his conver
sion, other voices kept reaching him with insistent
call. Looking back, he saw himself lying in
darkness, or tossed on the foam of a boastful age,
uncertain of his wandering steps, met again and
again by the demand "Thou must be born again. " '
"Impossible," he argued to himself; "how can I
put off what I have been? How can the laver of
saving water change my heart and soul?" The
world still clung around him, and in his despair
of better things he sinned the more. By what
process his friend Caecilian, a presbyter in the
Church, induced him to prepare for baptism, is not
recorded. It brought peace to his struggles, and
filled him with gratitude for new gifts of innocence
and power. "I came to see that the life which I
had been Hving in the practice of sin, was of the
earth, and that which was quickened by the Holy
Spirit began to be of God. " '
With the promptitude of a passionate nature
eager to pledge itself as fully as possible to a new
' Ad Donat., iii; Hartel, i, p. 5.
'Ibid., iv; Hartel, i, p. 6.

4o6 Phases of Early Christianity
way of Hfe, he sold his estates, and distributed the
proceeds among the poor. ' Friends, it would seem,
afterwards restored some of his possessions, but
in the first glow of renunciation he went to live
with his friend Caecilian, who, on his deathbed,
made him guardian of his wife and chUdren.
Within a year of his baptism he appears to have
been ordained as presbyter. A year later (248-
249 A.D.) the bishop's chair became vacant.
Writing in after years to Spain, ' he laid down "the
practice deHvered from divine tradition and apos
tolic observance." For the proper celebration of
ordination all the neighbouring bishops of the same
province should assemble with the congregation
needing a pastor, and the bishop should be chosen
in the presence of those most fully acquainted
with each man's life and conduct. Clergy and
laity thus joined in the election. Cyprian was no
doubt the most eminent among recent adherents
of the Church in Carthage. His sacrifices of
property and position were known to all. But he
was junior in Christian standing, probably also in
age ; and when he saw that the feeling of the assem
bly was pointing to him, he withdrew from the
meeting in favour of others older and more worthy
than he. * The eager crowd would not be baulked
of their desire. They swept through the streets,
surrounded his house, and refused to depart tiU
' Pontius, Vita Cypr., xii; Hartel, iii, p. xcii.
' Ep. Ixvii, 5; Hartel, ii, p. 739.
3 Pontius, Vita Cypr., v; Hartel, iii, p. xcv.

At the Parting of the Ways 407
he had given his consent. Five presbyters, in
deed, voted against him, and sometimes made his
way difficult afterwards. But as he looked back
after four years he could speak of himself as chosen
in time of peace by the suffrage of an entire people,
and faithfully united with all his colleagues.' It
was not long before the peace was rudely broken,
and a new period of storm and stress began.
Meanwhile Cyprian bade his friend Donatus sit
with him on some mountain top and survey the
world below. What pity would fiU his mind at
the spectacle of human sorrow, suffering, and sin.
The roads were blocked by robbers; the sea was
beset by pirates; wars were scattered everywhere,
and the whole world was wet with blood. The
people were depraved by the gladiatorial shows,
the combats with wild beasts, the shameful dis
plays of the adtdteries of the gods which turned
crimes into religion. What hideous unchastities
were veiled in the chambers of night, what shame
ful maladministration of justice was practised in
the courts, what bribery of judges and perjury
of witnesses, what extravagance of luxury and
contempt of the poor — such were the daily scandals
of the world. And the corruptions of society had ..
infested the Church. Grave is the picture which
he draws in his tract upon ' ' The Lapsed. ' ' ' Among
the priests was no devout rehgion, in their minis
try no sound faith, in their works no mercy, in
' Ep. lix, 6; Hartel, ii, p. 673.
' De Lapsis, vi; Hartel, i, p. 240.

4o8 Phases of Early Christianity
their nianners no discipline. Dyed complexions
and hair stained with falsehood among the women
were matched by fraud and false oaths among the
men. Numbers of bishops forsook their congre
gations to make money. They became agents in
secular business; they travelled into other pro
vinces ; while the brethren were starving in church,
they were trying to lay up wealth. They snatched
estates by trickery, and charged high interest on
loans. "What do not such as we deserve to suffer
for sins of this kind ! ' ' Dissimulanda fratres Veritas
non est.^
Cyprian himself set an example of self-denial,
if not of austerity. He never, like TertuUian,
assumed the philosopher's cloak as the symbol of
plain living and high thinking, nor did he break
off his relations with non-Christians. But while
maintaining simplicity of habit, even after his
beautiful gardens had been restored to him, he
laid a firm hand on Church organization and be
came its inspiring force. He claimed, indeed, no
superior authority over his fellow-bishops. He
anxiously recognized that each was responsible
to his own fiock, and was as it were the embodi
ment by their own choice of their coUective will.
It is in this sense that he writes to an antagonist,
or at least a critic, "You ought to know that the
' De Lapsis, xi; Hartel, i, p. 244. Cp. the case of the "virgines
subintroducta" (ante, p. 42) discussed in. Ep. iv. The practice
seems to have been not uncommon; "corrumpi plurimas virgines
. . . conspicimus, " § 2.

At the Parting of the Ways 409
bishop is in the Church and the Church in the
bishop"'; each is independent, none has authority
over others. He might gather seventy or eighty
together in synods at Carthage, for mutual counsel,
and he naturally presided as chairman; but he
disclaimed all jurisdiction over them. Yet after
all he was bishop of the second city of the West,
a man of rank as well as personal force, and he
could not help expressing his opinion in language of
which moderation was not always the chief char
acteristic, so that he was sometimes rebuked by
correspondents for want of modesty. In his own
church, however, he was always anxious to pre
serve due regard for popular rights. "From the
beginning of my episcopate," he wrote to his
presbyters and deacons, ' " I resolved to do nothing
by my own private opinion without your advice
and the consent of the people. " His early letters
are fUled with allusions to such concert. In the
ordination of clergy, the appointment of readers,
the administration of church funds, he always took
the people into counsel; though in after years,
when events separated him from his fiock for long
periods together, his tone (especially against
opponents) became more peremptory. This tend
ency was heightened by his firm belief in the in
fluence of spiritual powers. In the case of evil
agencies this took the form of demoniacal pos
session. * To the Christian divine intimations were
' Ep. Ixvi, 8; Hartel, ii, p. 733- 'Ep. xiv, 4; Hartel, ii, p. 512.
3 Cp. Ad Demetrianum, xv; Hartel, i, p. 361.

410 Phases of Early Christianity
imparted by vision and dream. Such privileges
were freely accorded to himself; they played a
great part in his later life,. and seemed to arm him
with supernatural authority.
The grave estimate which Cyprian had formed
of the condition of the Church, led him to reaffirm
in his first work, "Testimonies against the Jews, "
the ancient principle that there was no forgiveness
for sins against God. ' It was soon to be severely
tested. The Emperor Decius resolved to suppress
Christianity, and in January, 250 a.d., the per
secution began. To Cyprian the disorders of the
world and the corruptions of the Church had seemed
to call for some penal catastrophe, ' and the out
break bore the character of a divine judgment.
The leaders were the first objects of attack,* and
Bishop Fabian was executed at Rome on January
20th. The imperial edict did not reach Carthage
till February when it at once kindled the popular
anger. The crowds in the circus cried out for
Cyprian. Under the advice of his friends, and
believing himself divinely warned to retire, Cy
prian withdrew." His flight excited much un-
' Testimon., iii, 28. The text-proofs are Matt, xii, 32; Mark
iii, 28; I Sam. ii, 25., What sins were included in this class
Cyprian did not specify.
' The situation was repeated half a century later, under
Diocletian, cp. Euseb., Hist. Eccles., VIII, i-ii.
3 Cp. ante, p. 369.
¦< Cp. the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria (Euseb., Hist. Eccl.,
VI, xl), who remained four days in his house waiting arrest, while
search was made for him elsewhere, and was then commanded
by God to depart.

At the Parting of the Ways 411
favourable comment, the Roman clergy (who did
not venture to elect another bishop for a year and
a half) being especially critical. But his splendid
conduct in the great plague, and the cheerfulness
(as Gibbon notes) with which he met death eight
years later, amply justified him. More than a
year was spent in retreat. It was no time of idle
leisure; he was engaged in incessant activity. On
the church administration he kept a firm hold;
he directed its affairs by constant correspondence ;
he forwarded regular sums of money raised from
his property for the martyrs in prison, the poor
who were thrown out of employment, the widows
and orphans who were left desolate.
A whole generation of Christians had grown up
in peace. They had duly commemorated the
martyrs in church anniversaries, they had no idea
of being caUed to suffer with them. Exceptional
cruelties of imprisonment, severities of torture,
the sword, the wild beasts, the stake and the fire,
involved the loyalty of believers in dreadful strain.
Many of the city clergy fled; country bishops
foUowed Cyprian's example; there was a difficulty
in maintaining the daily ministrations. Others,
including many of the laity, gave way altogether
and feU from the faith. These were the "lapsed, "
in different degrees of guilt. Some consented to
sacrifice before the emperor's statue {sacrificati);
others procured certificates {libelli) from magis
trates by favour or even purchase, exempting
them from this demand or stating that they had

412 Phases of Early Christianity
conformed {libellatici). When the severity of per
secution began to abate, many desired reinstate
ment in their old communion. Bishops sought to
resume their office, clergy claimed to return to their
duties. Difficulties at once arose, for apostasy had
always been counted as a "sin against God."
What possibility, then, was there of forgiveness ?
There were doubtless modifying circumstances.
The older type of apostasy had often arisen from
weariness of the burdens and self-denials which
the Christian life involved. Conversion had been
incomplete; the old Adam had only been tempor
arily expeUed and, like Nature, insisted on return
ing again. But many now were taken unawares.
The two classes of the sacrificati and the libellatici
might be distinguished. Even the graver guilt
of those who had sacrificed admitted of degrees.
One had done so readily, another only after long
struggle and under compulsion ; one had betrayed
his connexions and friends, another had imperilled
himself to protect wife and chUdren and household. '
The- matter was complicated by the action of some
of the imprisoned confessors. They took upon
themselves to issue letters saying that they had
granted "Peace" (ecclesiastical absolution and
the right of communion) to the persons therein
named).' Had there been only a few cases,
' Cp. Ep. Iv, 13; Hartel, ii, p. 633.
' For this practice in TertuUian's day cp. ante, p. 400; at Alex
andria Dionysius had to deal with the same difficulty, Euseb.,
Hist. Eccl., VI, xiii. These letters were also called libelli.

At the Parting of the Ways 413
Cyprian might have let them alone. Their
miUtitude, however, gravely threatened the main
tenance of discipline. In the active correspond
ence carried on with the Roman clergy Cyprian
complained that thousands were being granted
daily. ' The door was opened to all sorts of abuse.
A certain Lucian granted peace in the name of a
dead martyr Paul; certificates were given admit
ting A. B . to communion ' ' along'with his friends " ' ;
and this was extended in a curt notice to ' ' Father
Cyprian" {Cypriano Papati) that "aU the Con
fessors" had granted peace to all the lapsed whose
conduct after their sin might be reckoned satis
factory.* This information Cyprian was com
manded to communicate to the other bishops.
The situation was full of difficulty, and already
threatened to divide the Church. There was a
party of laxity at Carthage, and a party of vigour,
led by Novatian, " at Rome. When Cyprian
retumed from his retreat in the spring of 251, he
made earnest efforts to secure unity of action, and
in accordance with an intention long foreshadowed
in his letters he summoned a council to consider
the proper course.* Bishops, presbyters, and
' Ep. XX, 2; Hartel, ii, p. 528.
'Ep. XV, 4, "communicetille cum suis"; Hartel, ii, p. 516.
' Ep. xxiii; Hartel, ii, p. 536.
iBy birth a Phrygian; before his conversion a philosopher,
probably a Stoic.
' It was said to be the first held for fifty years. Agrippinus,
the last bishop but one before Cyprian, had gathered one early
in the century; its precise date is unknown.

414 Phases of Early Christianity
deacons were assembled. The meetings were
protracted, and Cyprian (who had just issued his
famous essay or oration on "The Unity of the
CathoHc Church") acquiesced in treatment some
what less severe than his early letters had implied. '
Those who had sacrificed and had given evidence
of heartfelt sorrow might be received into com
munion when in danger of death, for there was no
further confession in the grave, but this conces
sion could not be granted to those who remained
impenitent till their last hour. The cases of the
libellatici must be examined individually; the adul
terer in Cyprian's view was guilty of the greater
sin, and he was re-admitted after due penitence;
the libellatici did not deserve severer treatment.'
The various claims of different parties were not,
however, fuUy reconciled. The Roman clergy
had elected Cornelius as their bishop, and the
resolutions adopted at Carthage won the approval
of the older Church.* But a serious schism had
already begun. The supporters of Novatian's
' The matter was complicated by misconduct on the part of
some of the confessors themselves. He actually charges some of
them with frauds and adulteries after their confession, De Unitate,
xx; Hartel, i, p. 228.
' Ep. Iv, 17, 23, 26. On the meaning of libellaticos interim ad-
mitti, 17, see Vanbeck, Revue d'Histoire et de Litterature Religieuses,
iv, p. 428.
3 A letter from Comelius to Fabius of Antioch (preserved by
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., VI, xliii) , reckons 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7
subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists, readers, and janitors, and
over 1500 widows and poor. On the numbers impUed by these
figures see different estimates in Benson's Cyprian, p. 68.

At the Parting of the Ways 415
stricter views disapproved of the restoration of
apostates to the Church on earth. They would
not indeed shut them out from aU hope of salva
tion; that decision lay with God alone; but they
stood for the ancient discipHne, and refused to
aUow them the privileges of communion. They
charged Comelius with laxity, and even with
having protected himself with a certificate';
and after his elevation to the episcopal chair in
March, 251, they proceeded to appoint a rival
bishop in the person of Novatian.' It was the
beginning of a schism that threatened for a time
to rend the Church in twain. The austere views
of Christian purity which had found champions
at Rome in the days of Hermas, which the Phry
gian Montanists had embraced with such enthusi
asm, which the Donatists were to maintain against
Augustine a century and a half later, were em
bodied by Novatian and his followers in a move
ment of far-reaching significance. They called
themselves the Kathari, or "the Pure" ; they were
the first Puritans. Of unquestioned orthodoxy,
they estabUshed their bishops in the chief cities
of the empire; they attended Church councils;
' Ep. Iv, 10; Hartel, ii, p. 631.
•"The bitter feeling engendered by this opposition is painfully
apparent in the story retailed by Comelius to Fabius in the
letter already quoted, about the three bishops who were fetched
from insignificant country churches in Italy to perform the con
secration. It was alleged that they were made drunk and sick,
and in that condition were compelled to confer the episcopal
character by the imposition of hands!

4i6 Phases of Early Christianity
they suffered persecutions, they had their martyrs
and saints. When the Arians were in the ascend
ant in the fourth century, CathoHcs often fre
quented the churches of the Novatians; but in
spite of a common theology no permanent union
could overcome the deep-seated difference of ec
clesiastical theory. From southern Gaul and
Spain they were to be found aU the way to the East,
where their principles won active support in Asia
Minor. Alternately favoured and oppressed by dif-
erent emperors they failed in the long run to main
tain their ground, and disappeared after the seventh
century. But the tendency which evoked Nova-
tian'sprotest against lax interpretations of the terms
of Christian communion, helped to shape more than
one attempt to enforce higher standards of Church
sanctity. The Albigenses and Waldenses of the
Middle Ages espoused kindred conceptions, which
were not without infiuence on later Puritanism.
^/^The Novatianists established a congregation in
Carthage with a bishop of its own, and Cyprian
had to face opposition from yet another group of
dissentients who were in favour of a laxer treat
ment than the Council had adopted. Aided by the
five presbyters who had voted against Cyprian's
election, they led a schism in a counter direction,
and added a third bishop to the distracted Church.
Meanwhile grave danger hung over the city.
While a second council was being held in 252, the
great plague was slowly traveUing thither from the
East. It had invaded Egypt, and in the course of

At the Parting of the Ways 417
fifteen years it reduced the population of Alexan
dria by one-half.' It destroyed the armies of
Valerian before Sapor ; it kept the Goths off Thrace
and ravaged Rome so fiercely that in 262 five
thousand sufferers died in one single day.' The
outbreak in Carthage was severe. Those who
could quitted the city in haste, and left the streets
(says Deacon Pontius) * strewn with bodies which
there was no one to bury. Cyprian gathered his
people, raised a large relief fund, organized a band
of nurses for the sufferers, and another to collect
and inter the dead, and urged the duty of minister
ing to friend and foe alike without religious dis
tinction. In an impassioned tract, De Mortalitate,
he described the crisis as putting every relation
to the test, whether the healthy would tend the
sick, kinsfolk fulfil family duty, masters look after
their stricken slaves. In spite of their beneficent
labours the Christians were still marked men;
they held aloof from the processions and sacrifices
organized for intercession with the tutelary gods
of the city; and the cry rose again, "The Bishop
to the lions ! ' ' The work lasted for five years, and
when Cyprian again withdrew on a further out
break of persecution it seemed to his deacon a
release from a horror like hell. "
' Cp. Gibbon, chap, x, ad fin.
' Benson, Cyprian, p. 242. Gibbon supposes this was the daily
number for some time.
3 Vita Cypr., ix.
4 Cp. Cyprian's prompt measures for the redemption of themem-
bersofeightNumidian churches, carried off inaBerber raid, Ep. Ixii.
27

41 8 Phases of Early Christianity
The plague was already subsiding when a new
controversy broke out. When heretics applied for
admission into the CathoHc Church, should their
previous baptism be reckoned vaUd, or must they
be rebaptized? Founding himself on the concep
tion of CathoHc unity, Cyprian declared aU bap
tism outside it worthless. There could be only
one Baptism because there was only one Faith.
If anyone could be lawfully baptized among here
tics, he could also obtain remission of sins. If his
sins were forgiven, he was also sanctified. If he
was sanctified, he was made the temple of God. ' ' I
ask of what God?" cried Cyprian triumphantly,'
and paraded different types of disqualifying heresy
affecting the Creator and Christ, Marcionite and
Monarchian. Custom was invoked to support
argument. The council under Agrippinus had
affirmed the practice, and thousands of heretics
since had embraced the saving rite. '
The question came up in the shape of an applica
tion from two Numidian bishops for advice.
There was no doubt about the African usage;
it was that of the churches of Asia Minor also.
Two synods at Carthage decided to adhere to
their own tradition, and a letter was addressed to
Rome where Stephen had succeeded Comelius in
the bishop's chair. His action was unexpectedly
domineering. He violently denounced aU who
baptized heretics a second time, declared that he
would hold no communion with the African bishops
' Ep. Ixxiii, 12; Hartel, ii, p. 787. ' Ibid., 3.

At the Parting of the Ways 419
who accepted Cyprian's views, and threatened to
infiict the same penalty on the bishops in the East.
At a third council held at Carthage towards the
close of 256 eighty-seven bishops were present
besides a large number of presbyters, deacons,
and laity. They naturally protested against the
assumption of Stephen, ' and sent a deputation of
bishops to state their views at Rome. Stephen
haughtUy refused to receive them, and issued
orders that they should not be admitted to church-
fellowship, or even entertained with the customary
hospitaUty.' Such conduct naturally caused an
entire rupture. The martyrdom of Stephen in 257
and of Cyprian in 258, removed the principal com
batants from the scene. Little by little the agita
tion subsided, and the Roman usage gradually
prevailed. The merit of breadth has been claimed
for it, but at the cost of throwing into still stronger
relief the element of power in a sacred formula.
It was an English bishop in the last century who
remarked: "The mystical philosophy of secret
agents in nature was Christianized. The general
belief in magic in the early ages of the Church may
sufficiently account for the ready reception of such
a theory of sacramental influence. The maxim
of Augustine, accedit verbum ad elementum et fit
sacramentum, appears to be in fact an adaptation
' Augustine cites the opening words of Cyprian in their Acta,
in his treatise De Baptismo contra Donatistas, III, 4-6.
' Firmilian, in Ep. Ixxv, 2 5 ; Hartel, ii, p. 826. Stephen dubbed
Cyprian a "false Christ."

420 Phases of Early Christianity
of the popular behef in the power of incantations
and charms to the subject of Religion. "'
The conception of the episcopal office which
emerges from these troubled years, is highly sig
nificant. Irenaus and TertulHan had presented it
as the guardian of the truth through the preserva
tion of the apostoHc tradition. Cyprian is not
affected by the problems which had generated the
great Gnostic movement. He is primarily an
administrator, and is concerned with questions of
discipline, government, and authority. In an
early letter he lays it down that the Lord chose
apostles, "that is, bishops,"' and asserts that
"God makes bishops. " In each congregation the
bishop is priest, and as the Aaronic priesthood was
ordained by Christ, * Cyprian can apply the declara
tions of its privileges to the Christian episcopate.
One of his favourite texts is the Deuteronomic
warning, "the man that wiU act in pride so as not
to listen to the priest . . . shaU die "; the rebel
lion of Korah is the type of aU resistance to the
bishop. " To the bishops who have succeeded by
vicarious ordination to the apostles Christ stiU
says "he that heareth you, heareth me."* It
naturally follows that the power of governing is
divine, and there is one person for the time Priest
in the Church and Judge in the place of Christ. *
' Hampden, The Scholastic Theology considered in its Relation
to Christian Theology, the Bampton Lecture, 1832, p. 315.
' Ep. iii, 3 ; Hartel, ii, p. 471. 3 Ep. Ixix, 8 ; Hartel, ii, p. 757.
¦• Both in Ep. iii, i. s Ep. Ixvi, 4; Hartel, ii, p. 729.
' "Vice Christi," Ep.']ix, 5; Hartel, ii, p. 672.

At the Parting of the Ways 421
But, further, each local Church belonged to a
vaster body, not indeed knit into a corporate
whole by external institution, but wrought into
a spiritual unity by divine purpose and gifts. Of
this purpose the bishops were the appointed agents;
of these gifts they were the accredited bearers.
What individual bishops were to their separate
congregations, the totality of the order was to the
Universal Church. Their first duty, therefore, on
this wider field was the maintenance of unity.
This had been laid by the Lord on the Apostles, it
had been transmitted through them to the bishops
their successors.' To enforce this lesson was the
aim of his famous address "On the Unity of the
CathoHc Church," perhaps actually delivered to
the fathers assembled at his first Council in 251.
Novatian had already challenged the whole Order
by foisting himself into the episcopate at Rome.
"Let no one deceive the brotherhood with a lie,"
cries the orator; "the episcopate is one, and each
one holds his part in it for the whole."' The
first promise, indeed, was given to Peter, but after
the resurrection an equal power was bestowed on
all.* With lyric intensity Cyprian celebrates the
consequent unity of the Church:
' Ep. xiv, 3; Hartel, ii, p. 602.
' De Unitate, v; Hartel, i, p. 214.
3 On the interpolations in this famous chapter (iv) see Benson,
Cyprian, p. 200 ff. The relations between Cyprian and the
Roman see have been recently discussed by Koch, "Cyprian j
und der Romische Primat," in Texte und Untersuch., 1910, |
Heft I.

422 Phases of Early Christianity
There is one Church which spreads itself out into a
multitude (of churches), wider and wider in ever in
creasing, fruitf ulness; just as the sun has many rays
but only one light, and a tree many branches yet only
one heart, based in the clinging root; and while many
rills flow off from a single fountain-head, although a
multipUcity of waters is seen streaming away in
diverse directions from the bounty of its abundant
overflow, yet unity is preserved in the head-spring.
Pluck a ray away from the sun's body 1 tmity admits
no division of light. Break a bough off a tree! once
broken it will bud no more. Cut a rill off from the
spring! the rill cut off dries up. So too the Church
flooded with the light of the Lord flings rays over the
whole world. Yet it is one light which diffuses itself
everywhere; the unity of the body knows no partition.
She reaches forth her boughs over the universal earth
in the richness of her fertility, broadens ever more
widely her botmteous flowing rivers, and still there is
one head, one source, one mother, rich in ever suc
ceeding births. Of her we are born; her milk our
ntirture, her breath our life.'
This high-strung plea was supported by Scrip
tural analogies, which illustrate the current
methods of interpretation. The ark of Noah
was a refuge outside which none could escape.
The paschal lamb must be eaten in one house,'
the flesh of Christ could only be eaten in the One
Church. Even the harlot Rahab, whose home
was to be spared at the fall of Jericho, * was pressed
' De Unitate, v; tr. Benson, Cyprian, p. 182.
' Exod. xii, 46. 3 Josh, ii, 19.

At the Parting of the Ways 423
into the service as prefiguring the Church. The
seamless robe of Jesus, the one flock, the dove-
Uke form of the Spirit, were so many parables of
unity and concord. Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit were one; who could beUeve that this unity,
springing from divine strength and cohering in
heavenly sacraments, could be divided by conflict
ing wills!' Life and salvation lay in unity, and
its visible bond was seen in the episcopate.
Obedience to the bishops was the way to heaven. '
The emphasis with which this view was reiter
ated, backed by Cyprian's personal force and ele
vated position, secured for it enormous influence.
It harmonized with the genius of Roman adminis
tration; it provided a remedy for a Church dis
tracted by heresy and threatened with schism. It
enabled Cyprian to conquer the opposition of his
five hostile presbyters and their adherents, and
to control the claims of the confessors. It ex
pressed with the utmost force the result of a long
development since the days of Ignatius, and it
finaUy invested the bishop with the character and
functions of priesthood. But it had its own
dangers. The conception of Church unity had
hardly been elaborated before it was in peril of
being wrecked on the diversity of usage revealed
in the controversy on the rebaptism of heretics.
When bishops disagreed and ancient customs
differed, how should they be reduced to harmony?
' De Unitate, vi-ix.
" Ep. iv, 4, supported again by Deut. xvii, 12-13.

424 Phases of Early Christianity
What would have happened had not Stephen and
Cyprian both suffered martyrdom in the height of
a dispute? The salvation of the believer was thus placed
under the immediate control of the bishop. He
could not indeed guarantee it. But he could frus
trate it. The reconciliation of sinners lay in his
hands. To readmit the offender was not to antici
pate the divine judgment at the last Day; it did
reinstate him in the possibility of future bliss.
The certainty of damnation was lifted off him;
the way was opened for the exercise of divine
mercy. But exclusion from the Church meant
unquestionable doom. The vast far-reaching
prospects opened by Origen were closed in hope
lessness. A terrible list of phrases describing the
penal torments awaiting the unconverted and the
impenitent can be readily compiled from Cyprian's
writings.' No journey of the soul stretched
through the ages to ultimate reunion with its
Maker; the whole everlasting future was deter
mined by the guilty present ; the fate of the wicked
was settled at the moment of departure from this
world; there was no opportunity for subsequent
repentance; death ended all alternatives; the lot
of the sinner whom the bishop had refused to re
ceive back to communion was irreversible.
'See Atzberger, Geschichte der Christlichen Eschatologie (1896),
P-539; "poena perpetua," "tormenta eterna," "gehennseignes,"
"flammse," "ardores," "ardens semper gehenna," etc., make up
the dismal prospect.

At the Parting of the Ways 425
The position thus secured by" the bishop is
clearly iUustrated in the "Didascalia (Teaching)
of the Apostles," recently recovered in a Syriac
version from the lost Greek original. It is as
signed with confidence to the third century, but
its place within that period is uncertain. It
reflects the general movement to which Cyprian
gave the most pointed expression, though its
detaUs do not show any direct influence from his
phraseology. ' With repeated emphasis the bishop
is bidden to remember that he is appointed in the
semblance of God Almighty. "Thus sit in the
Church and teach as one that hath power to judge
those that sin in the place of Almighty God."'
He is to be honoured and ffeared as a Father and
Lord and God next to Almighty God. * His flock
is to regard him as the mouth of God : the king may
wear a crown, but he reigns only over the body and
can bind and loose only in this world. ' ' The bishop
reigns over both soul and body, that he may loose on
the earth and bind in heaven by heavenly power. ' ' "
To raise an evil report against him, therefore, either
by word or deed, is to sin against God Almighty. *
The frequent injunctions to pay the bishop due
respect imply that his rule was not always accept
able, and might provoke resistance :
' Cp. the translation by Mrs. Gibson, Hora Semitica, II (1903) ;
and Achelis and Fleming, " Die altesten Quellen des Orientalischen
Kirchenrechts, " Texte und Untersuch. (1904), Heft 2.
' Didasc. (Gibson), v, p. 28, cp. 48.
3 Achelis and Fleming, Texte und Untersuch., p. 31, i, 12.
* Didasc. (Gibson), ix, p. 51. = Ibid., p. 50.

426 Phases of Early Christianity
Honour ye the Bishops who are able to loose you
from sins, those who have begotten you anew by
means of water, those who have filled you with the
Holy Ghost, those who have nourished you with the
Word as with milk, those who have established you
with the doctrine of life, those who have confirmed
you by admonition, and made you partakers in the
holy Eucharist of God, and made you sharers and
heirs of God's promise.
Grave were the responsibilities that thus lay
upon them. Like the ancient Servant of the
Lord, like Christ himself, they bore the sins of aU
men'; they must, therefore, avoid sin themselves.
Their temptations were many; even warnings
against drunkenness were needful.' Their con
trol of the whole penitential system required that
they should be absolutely impartial, not harsh or
tyrannical on the one hand, nor open to gifts from
the wicked on the other. * Those who sin must be
judged with pity and mercy." Permanent exclu
sion from the Church "kills eviUy and bitterly for
eternity, " and an inconsiderate or unjust sentence
would consign the judge as well as the guilty per
son to "cruel fire for ever."* But what if the
bishop himself were the offender? "Avoid sin,"
runs the exhortation, "lest any man perish because
of thee."* The ministry of an unfaithful repre
sentative of God imperilled others as well as him-
' Didasc (Gibson), viii, p. 44. ' Ibid., viii, p. 43.
3 Ibid., xii, p. 65; V, p. 27; xviii, p. 82. 4 Ibid., vi, p. 32.
5 Ibid., vi, p. 36. 6 Ibid., v, p. 34.

At the Parting of the Ways 427
self. To Cyprian this was as obvious as that the
baptism by heretics could not confer the new birth.
CaUixtus, indeed, had laid it down at Rome that
a bishop's sin "even unto death" was no ground
for his deposition.' But this was by no means
accepted even in his own church. A significant
case arose in Spain.' The bishops of Leon and
Merida, Basilides and Martial, had obtained cer
tificates in the Decian persecution exempting
them from sacrifice : Basilides afterwards repented
and resigned his charge. Martial was guilty also
of association with an idolatrous burial club.*
With the approval of neighbouring bishops their
churches appointed others in their place. The
guilty ministers, however, subsequently went to
Rome, and induced Bishop Stephen to acknow
ledge them as still the lawful occupants of their old
chairs. Upon this the Spanish churches appealed
to Cyprian. The case was considered at his fourth
CouncU, in the autumn of 254. Its decision under
his guidance was unanimous. Not human counsel
so much as divine commands determined the issue :
no one with spot or blemish might approach to
offer gifts to God." The decision of Stephen was
unhesitatingly reversed; his dignity was saved
by the suggestion that he could not have been pro
perly informed about the facts; his predecessor
CorneUus, honoured by the Lord's condescension
with martyrdom, together with absolutely aU the
' Hippolyt., Refutatio, IX, xii. ' Cypr., Ep. kvii.
3 Cypr., Ep. bcvii, 6; Hartel, ii, p. 740. " Levit. xxi, 17.

428 Phases of Early Christianity
bishops throughout the whole world, had agreed
that such men might be admitted to penitence but
must be debarred from the honour of the priest
hood. ' The misconduct of an unworthy minister
thus vitiated all his functions ; it even involved the
people who remained in communion with him in
the contagion of guilt; the children of Israel were
commanded to separate themselves from Korah
and his associates; and in like manner the Lord's
people must separate themselves from a sinful
bishop. ' Between sacramental efficiency and per
sonal character Cyprian has no hesitation which
to choose. The Church cannot see the salvation
of its members endangered by the misconduct of a
priest and judge set over them in the place of God.
The foundations of the Catholic Church were
thus securely laid in sacrament and priesthood.
Not yet, indeed, had it conquered the forces with
which it had waged its long struggle. But the
promise of victory is already in its grasp; its ful
filment will not be long delayed. In the two cen
turies which had elapsed since Christianity was
carried beyond the limits of Palestine by its early
missionaries, it had encountered many adversaries
and assumed many different forms. Like other
contemporary religions it proclaimed a doctrine
of Salvation, and it possessed the immense ad
vantage of being able also to proclaim a Saviour
' Ep. Ixvii, 6; Hartel, ii, p. 741.
' Ep., Ixvii, 3; Hartel, ii, p. 737.

At the Parting of the Ways 429
who had lived on earth, who had been born, had
taught and laboured among men, had died and
passed into the heavenly world. None of its
rivals, though they might moum the death and
celebrate the resurrection of their god, could frame
a creed which contained such words as ' ' crucified
under Pontius PUate. " The foUowers of Jesus
were not ashamed to parade the fact that their
Teacher had been executed as a rebel against
Rome. In the forefront of their message they
placed the greatest obstacle to belief; and uncon
scious of the difficulty faith rose supreme above it.
But in doing so it planted itself securely on historic
fact. With the Gospels in their hands the breth
ren within the Church could point to the actual
source of their new Hfe. There were the words in
which he summoned them to mutual love and help
fulness ; there was the record of his own march along
the via dolorosa that led to the cross ; there was the
pathway opened into the new fellowship with the
Father in heaven. The Church indeed existed be
fore a line of the Gospels was written. But it owed
to them the foundations of its teaching and the guar
antee of its claims. Before the figure of the Cruci
fied, Isis and Mithras, Attis and Adonis, slowly paled.
The haze of myth enveloping them faded, and when
it vanished nothing was left but empty air.
But this historic personality was capable of
very various interpretations. Primitive Chris
tianity, as displayed in the New Testament, ex
hibits no dogmatic uniformity. The reporter of

430 Phases of Early Christianity
Peter in the Book of Acts differs widely from the
Apostle Paul. The Christ of John discoursing at
the last supper concerning the mystic fellowship
of the Father, the Son, and the disciples, is pre
sented on another plane than the Christ of Mat
thew seated on the mount and issuing the charter
of the kingdom of heaven. The heirs of the Jeru
salem community are driven into small and ob
scure groups entangled in the meshes of the ancient
Law; the future Hes with the great adventure
which declares its function ended and its obliga
tions annulled. But in shaking themselves free
from Judaism the preachers of the Gospel carried
with them two of its most important products.
The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, ' repre
senting the three divisions of the Hebrew Scrip
tures, became the authority for their doctrine and
the foundation of their worship. They redeemed
Christianity from the charge of ilHcit novelty, and
brought it into a scheme of time and purpose
embracing the whole history of the world. Philo
sophy might reach the conception of the unity
of man; the Church, in possession of the Scrip
tures, actually showed his origin fresh from his
Maker's hand. And as it could teU the secret of
his creation, so it could also unfold the mystery
of his destiny. Christianity passed into the Em
pire charged with the message of impending doom.
The coming judgment, the disappearance of the
existing scene, the resurrectioa to the joys of
' Luke xxiv, 44.

At the Parting of the Ways 431
heaven or the pains of heU, the reign of the saints
and the victory over the devU, which formed the
immediate outlook of the first generations of
beHevers, were aU derived from the rehgion into
which Jesus was born.
On the other hand Christianity was naturally
obUged to adapt itself to the Hellenic culture into
which it was transplanted. There it was con
fronted with new conceptions of the Deity, new
modes of interpreting his action in the spheres of
nature and of man. When one of the leading ideas
of current philosophy was applied to the person of
Jesus in his character of "the Christ, the Son of
God," the expectations hitherto connected with
the notion of the Messiah were profoundly modi
fied. The presuppositions of the higher Greek
theology combined with the Jewish view of ' ' One
God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ" to
produce a fresh construction of the Godhead, which
culminated in the doctrine of the three Persons
in one Substance. But this found no place in the
early Rule of Faith. Different types of Monar
chian teaching held their ground side by side, and
the succession indicated by the three names,
Ebion, Artemas, and Paul,' proved that for two
' Ebion, supposed to have been the founder of the "Ebionites, "
see p. 74. Artemas, the successor of Theodotus at Rome, p. 133,
Paul (of Samosata) the most famous heretic of the third century,
minister of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, and bishop of Antioch;
deposed after Zenobia 's defeat by Aurelian, 272. These were
designated the Fathers of the Arians; Harnack, History of Dogma,
Vol. iv (Engl, transl.), p. 212.

432 Phases of Early Christianity
hundred years humanitarian views of the nature of
Jesus had claimed the shelter of the Christian
name. With an opposite tendency the Gnostic
sects removed him altogether from the actual
scene, and ascribed to him only a phantom body
which suffering and death could never touch.
The question of the Saviour's person, however, was
less pressing than that of the nature and process
of salvation ; what it effected for the believer, and
by what means. The two great sacraments.
Baptism and the Eucharist, were soon set in the
light of the mystery-cults of Greece, Egypt, and
the East, and the sanctity of an exclusive priest
hood gradually enveloped them. Dogmatic uni
formity, however, there was none. The Canon of
the New Testament was stiU unfixed. Origen was
not afraid to point out grave discrepancies between
the Fourth Gospel and its predecessors. As a
great teacher he could still claim the aid of philo
sophy. With prophetic confidence in the victory
of good he looked forward to the ultimate conver
sion of the powers of evil into servants of God.
Ritual and custom vary from land to land. The
position of sinners who have been unfaithful to
their baptismal vow becomes perilous. Discipline
is stringent in one church, and lax in another.
The privileges claimed by martyrs and the rights
acquired by church-officers are brought at last
into open conflict ; and the salvation of the sinner
is hedged round with the practice of penitence.
But the relation of the sacraments to the faith and

At the Parting of the Ways 433
character of the priest is still undetermined; and
important moral issues as well as significant meta
physical problems still await their settlement.
At the opening of the third century Christianity
stands at the parting of the ways. Not yet is it
converted into a closely knit dogmatic system or a
rigid scheme of ecclesiastical rule. It has pro
duced a wide variety of teaching and usage, will
it insist on reducing them to uniformity, or will it
be able to conciliate freedom and authority, and
recognize beneath external diversity the presence
of a common Spirit through which "God ftdfils
himself in many ways ? ' ' The answer was wrought
out in succeeding centuries by the Catholic Church,
and the genius of Augustine swayed its thought
and inspired its devotion, while it converted to its
own use the organization of the Empire which had
been first its persecutor and then its benefactor.
MarveUous indeed is the story of Latin Christ
ianity. Its thinkers essay the stupendous task
of organizing all human knowledge, as its rulers
attempt to administer human life. It builds the
cathedrals, it creates liturgies of penitence, it
composes hymns of praise. It cultivates waste
places, and plants centres of learning and piety
from land to land. It promotes the ideals of
chivalry, and possesses a unique power of making
saints. It calls art to its aid, and Giotto awakes
the imagination and guides the hand of Italy to
become the teacher of the North. It bids Dante
make the great ascent from heU to heaven, and
zS

434 Phases of Early Christianity
picture in immortal verse the meaning of sin and
recovery and holiness. The new leaming arises
and Erasmus stands on one side and Luther and
Calvin on the other; but Rome does not fall by
her corruption or her losses ; with dauntless vigour
she sends out her missionaries to the East and to
the West, and raises the cross in continent and
island round the globe. She possesses the co
hesion of a mighty fabric of thought and discipline,
within whose bounds inteUect and impulse may
yet find wide ranges of expression and activity.
Her great tradition of doctrine and worship en
shrines the experience of innumerable minds which
have found within its shelter strength and peace.
If she has kindled the hatred of her opponents by
her pretensions and her crimes, she has also gen
erated the undying love of the believers who have
accepted her guidance and found in her their
salvation. The Reformation was rather a moral challenge
than an intellectual revolt. Its causes, as in all
movements that shake existing order, were com
plex, religious, political, economic. It was led by
great personaHties, but it lacked great thinkers.
Their outlook was inevitably bounded by their
time ; they did not realize the fundamental problems
in the philosophy of religion, such as the nature
and scope and method of revelation, the character
and limits of authority, the necessity of co-ordin
ating belief with widening knowledge and clearer
moral insight. In spite of occasional protest the

At the Parting of the Ways 435
dogma of the inerrancy of the Scriptures brooded
for three centuries over popular Protestantism,
and while freedom of enquiry was repressed sects
multiplied, and different types of poHty arose to
give shape to varying conceptions of the Church.
The last century, as we aU know, has witnessed
a mighty change. Fresh influences have modi
fied the traditional theology. The whole inner
history of man, like the story of his physical
frame, has been re-written. Upon the human
nature once deemed hopelessly corrupt arose a
philosophy which discovered the foundations of
religion in the judgments of reason, the witness of
the conscience, the sentiments of the soul. While
science indefinitely enlarged the range of the
universe in space and time beyond the bibhcal
Hmits, the application of the principles of morality
to the Divine government undid the cruder forms
of the doctrine of the Atonement, and dispersed
the dreadful shadow of eternal alienation from
the love of God. The great religions of the East
rose slowly into view, presenting worships of
immemorial antiquity, resting on mighty aggre
gates of sacred books, and exhibiting a whole
series of new answers to the perpetual questions
that emerge out of the relations of God, the world,
and man. Here were subtle philosophies, mis
sionary enthusiasms, ethical teachings, types of
character and devotion, that have ruled empires
for whole millenniums, sometimes bearing sur
prising resemblances to the varied products of

436 Phases of Early Christianity
Christianity. The doctrine of exclusive salvation
could be maintained no more. In the immense
process of human development religion takes its
place all the world over as a guiding power. Its
forms cannot of course be all of equal value, but
in their totality they constitute the witness of
man to his need of God, and the feUowship of God
in the ascent of man.
Over this broad historic field rises, purified and
enlarged, the noble conception of Augustine, the
eruditio or education of the race. In this, among
the Western nations, Christianity, by its unrivalled
capacity for absorbing fresh impulses and thus
renewing its inner life, has played the leading part.
The historical method, which has been appHed by
a succession of laborious scholars ever since the
revival of learning to the great cultures of classical
antiquity, could not be withheld from the Hter
ature and institutions of Israel. It advanced in
due course to the study of the life and work of
Christ. It has sought to reconstruct the religious
and social order in the midst of which he taught,
and determine his relation to the behefs and ex
pectations of his people. It has attempted to
trace the origins of the Gospels, and account for
the different types of experience which the docu
ments of the early Church exhibit. Such investi
gations need the associated endeavours of many
minds. They are rightly pursued from various
points of view, and their issues must be variously
appraised. The one condition is that their

At the Parting of the Ways 437
results shaU not be forced into unreal conformity
with the dogmas of the past. They are already
profoundly transforming ancient modes of thought.
But they are also visibly setting, free for fresh
triumphs those mighty energies of faith and hope
and love which constitute God's great gift to the
world, "the Spirit of Hfe in Jesus Christ."

INDEX

A
Abercius, epitaph of, 266 f.
Acts XX., vv. 17, 28 — , 174
Acts of John, the, 325
Adoptianist Christology, 130
.^bns, in Valentinian teaching,
318
Agapg, the, 260 ff.
Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage,
108
Albigenses, the, 416
Alexander, bishop of Jerusa
lem, 361, 364, 366, 369
Alexandria, Christianity in,
3, 330, 359
Alogi, the, in the East, 134
Altar, the heavenly, 145; one,
like the bishop (Ignatius),
276; widows as God's altar,
282
Ambrosius, convert of Origen,
364 f ., 368
Ammonius Sakkas, 362
Angelic Powers, the, 129
Antioch, 2, 77
Antiochus Epiphanes, 13
Antitheses, the, of Marcion, 81
ApoUinaris, bishop of Hier-
apoUs, 133
ApoUonius, on Christ's teach
ing, 121
ApoUos, at Alexandria (Cod.
D), 3 ^ . .
Apologists, the, their aims,
85; their presentation of
Christianity, 89; their writ
ings, 131 ff.
Apostles, in the early Church,
150 ff., in the Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles, 153

Apuleius, on the mysteries of
Isis, 222
Aristides, on the value of Christ
ians' intercession, 75; his
Apology, 132; on the be
haviour of Christians, 397
Arrius Antoninus, 46
Artemas (Artemon), disciple
of Theodotus, 74, 135, 431
Asceticism, demand for, 41 ff.
Asklepios, as Saviour, 12, 20;
his miracles, 74
Athenagoras, on the Logos in
Christ, 92 f . ; his plea for the
Christians, 133
Augustine, 84, 433, 436
Augustus, as "Son of God,"
and "Divine Saviour," 13 f.
B
Babylas, bishop of Antioch, 369
Baptism, the seal of, 39; im
parts a seed of immortality,
58 f., 238; formula in Jus
tin's time, 82; ethnic ana
logies, 229 ff.; primitive
Christian, 232; according to
St. Paul, 234 ff.; in the
Teaching of the Twelve Apos
tles, 238; on behalf of the
dead, 239; according to
Hermas, 239; Justin, 240;
Canons of Hippolytus, 241
ff. ; its designations, 246;
explanations of use of water,
247; its efficacy, 250 f.;
according to Clement of
Alexandria, 337; contro
versy on rebaptism of here
tics, 418; analogy with mys
tery cults, 432

439

440

Index

Barnabas, Epistle of, 5 ; on the
"Way of Light," 39; on
' baptism, 247, 251
Basilides, bishop of Leon, 427
Basilides, a Gnostic teacher,
310, 312, 389
Beliar, and seven spirits of
deceit, 18
Birth, the new, in the Isiac
mysteries, 224, 231; Zoroas-
trian, 229; in the Tauro
bolium, 230; in the Hermetic
tracts and the Mithras-
liturgy, 231; in Christianity,
119, 237, 245 f.
Bishops, 167 ff. ; relation to
presbyters, 171 ff.; in the
Ignatian letters, 176 ff.;
extension of their authority,
187 ff. ; representatives of
ritual and doctrinal tradi
tion, 191 ff. ; the bond of
Church unity, 197; in the
Canons of Hippolytus, 206
f. ; in the view of Cyprian,
420 ff.; in the Syriac Didas
calia, 425; treatment when
unfaithful, 426 ff.
Blandina, martyred at Lyons, 46
Buddha, the great physician,
20; Buddhist Docetism, 78

CaecUian, presbjrter at Car
thage, 405 f.
CaUistus, bishop of Rome, 136,
400
CaracaUa, the emperor, 363
Carpocrates, a Gnostic teacher,
310
Carthage, the Church in, 106 f .,
359. 403 ff-
Celsus, on Asklepios, 21; on
Christianity, 330; the True
Word, 363, 369, 371, 401
Cerinthus, at Ephesus, 310;
on Jesus and the Christ, 325
Charisma veritatis, in Irenseus,
197

Charismatic Ministry, the, 165
Christ, see Jesus Christ
Christianity, as a new law, 38;
as "our philosophy," 41;
according to the Apologists,
89, 121 ff. ; significance of its
historic character, 428; debt
to Judaism, 430; adaptation
to Hellenic culture, 431;
in the Latin Church, 433
Christians, described by Pliny,
i; diffusion in the Roman
Empire, 2 ff., 37, 75, 92, 335,
372; their conduct, 38, 397;
constancy in face of death,
40, 397; as priests, 164
Christology, Adoptianist, 130;
Pneumatic, 131. See Jesus
Christ.
Church, the, as the sphere of
salvation, 138 ff. ; its name,
138; its members, 139; in
dependence of local churches,
141; spiritual union, 143; its
ideal counterpart above, 146;
created before sun and
moon, 147; identified with
the Son of God, 148; a
second Eve, 149; apostles,
prophets, and teachers, 150
ff . ; organization for practical
needs, 160, 166; imagery
of sacrifice, 163; officers for
"rule" or administration,
165 ff. ; development of
organization, 182 ff.; meet
ings in private houses, 183;
grounds of leadership, 184;
unity and catholicity, 185;
growth of Episcopal author
ity, 186 ff.; its claims against
Gnosticism, 191; diffusion
and unity, 192; possesses
the Scriptures, 192 ff.; and
the apostolic tradition, 195
ff . ; failure to realize its ideal,
199; Montanism and the
"ivfew Prophecy,'' 200 ff.;
officers according to the
Canons of Hippolytus,2o6 ff. ;

Index

441

Church — Continued
in view of Clement of Alex
andria, 148, 335 f.; and of
Origen, 372, 376; its corrup
tions, 398; Cyprian on its
Unity, 421
Cleanthes, on the Logos, 86
Clement of Alexandria, on
martyrdom, 46; on becoming
theos, 57; on the Church,
148, 335; caUs a bishop "the
presbyter," 175; on the
Mysteries, 228; on baptism,
251 ; head of the catechetical
sch/ool, 332; his writings,
333, initiated at Eleusis, 333 ;
his comments on society,
334; definition of salvation,
336; baptism and the Eu
charist, 337; eschatology,
339; significance of philo
sophy, 341 ff.; the divine
transcendence, 345 f.; the
goodness of God, 347 f.;
doctrine of Christ, 349 ff. ;
the true Gnostic, 353
Clement of Rome, 5; on faith
and works, 38; on the blood
of Christ, 115; on Church
oflScers, 172; prayer in wor
ship, 257; his doctrine of
God, 305
Communicatio idiomatum, 106
Confession of sin, 258, 395,
^399 . .
Consecutio eternitatis, m Ter
tuUian, 248
Corinth, the Church in, 2, 5;
revolt against presbyters,
172; Hegesippus at, 188;
Dionysius bishop, 188 ;Lord's
Supper at, 260 f.; sinner
devoted to Satan, 394
CorneUus, bishop of Rome,
414
Cornutus, _pn Hermes and the
Logos, 86 ; studied by Origen,
375
Cumont, on Mithraism, 227
Cynics, the, 41

Csrprian, on the Eucharist,
280, 384; at Carthage, 359,
403 ff. ; to Donatus, 405,
407; on the "Lapsed," 407;
withdraws from the city, 410 ;
on the plague, 417; on re
baptism of heretics, 418; on
bishops, 420; on the Unity
of the Church, 421; on
episcopal offenders, 427
D
Deacons, 167, 171 f.; in the
Canons of Hippolytus, 207 f .
Dead, the gospel preached to
the, 36, 96, 239, 339
Decius, persecution under, 369,
410
Demetrius, bishop of Alexan
dria, 363 f., 366 f.
Demetrius PoliorkfitSs, 12
Demons, in Jewish speculation,
17; widespread beUef in, 22
ff. ; in Plutarch, 23 (cp. 294) ;
Porphyry, 24
Descent into Hades, of Christ,
96, 339; of apostles and
teachers, 239, 339
Devil, the, 26, 106, 120, 123 ff.,
385, 393- See Satan
Didascalia, the, 425
Diognetus, letter to, 40, 75, 117,
132
Dionysius of Alexandria, 369,
410
Dionysius of Corinth, his let
ters, 188
Dionysos and omophagy, 273
Disease and sin, 19
Dispositio salutis, 196
Docetism, 78, 82, 325
Domitian, 3 ; as dominus et deus,
65; story of the grandsons of
Jude, 70
Domitilla, wife of Flavius
Clemens, 3
Donatists, the, 415
Donatus, Cyprian to, 405,
407

442

Index

E
Easter controversy, the, 189
Ebion and Ebionites, 72, 134,
431
Ecclesia, in classical and Old
Testament usage, 138; Did
Jesus found one? 209
"Economy," the, in TertuUian,
III
Egyptians, Gospel according
to the, 330
Elders, at Jerusalem, 160, 170;
cp. Presbyters
Eleusis, mysteries of, 215
Empedocles, on becoming theos,
52
Emperor of Rome, as "Sav
iour," 12
Encratites, the so-called, 44
Ephesus, 2
Epictetus, 39 ff. ; on becoming
theos, 53 ; on Providence, 76 ;
on God's benefits, 257 f.
Epiphanes, son of Carpocrates,
310
Episcopi, function of super
vision, 172 ff., 196
Episcopos, appUcations of the
title, 168 f., in the Syriac
Vulgate, 175. See Bishops.
Eucharist, the, in the Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles, 261,
269, 279, 282 ; separated from
the Agapg, 262 ; according to
Justin, 262, 277; in early
frescoes, 264; increasing im
portance, 264 ff.; in epitaph
of Abercius, 266; ideas of
thanksgiving, 268; of com
memoration and commun
ion, 271 ff.; language of
Paul, 275; Ignatius, 276;
Irenaus, 278, 283; Cyprian,
280, 284; Origen, 281; con
ception of sacrifice, 281 ff.;
Clement of Alexandria, 337;
a mystery, 432
Eusebius, on the Ebionites, 72;
on the Monarchians, 133 ff.;

on the Montanists, 201 ff.;
on Origen, 359 ff.
Exorcism and Exorcists, in the
Church, 25; at baptism, 244;
in the Roman Church under
Cornelius, 414. F
Fabian, bishop of Rome, 369,
410
Flavius Clemens, cousin of
Domitian, 3
Florinus, letter of Irenseus to,
133 G
Gnosis, vouchsafed by Isis,
225; salvation by, 287 ff.;
in the Fourth Gospel, 306;
in Clement of Alexandria,
343
Gnosticism, opposed by the
Church, 191; as a reUgion,
326 ; influence on the Church,
327
Gnostics, the name, 307; sects,
78, 307 ff.; activities, 313;
affinities with Pauline teach
ing, 313; problem of evil,
313; Valentinus and his
disciples, 314 ff.; the person
and work of Christ, 325 f.,
432; the Christian Gnostic,
353 ff-
God, as Father of the universe,
76, 84, 87, 91, 346; according
to Marcion, 80; his immuta
bility, loi; his blessedness,
225; in Plutarch's theology,
291 ff.; in PhUo, 299 ff.;
self-sufficient, 305; in Gnos
tic teaching, 310; a Monad,
317. 345 f-; hi Clement of
Alexandria, 345 ff . ; in Origen,
378 ff.
Gospels, the, 4; in Irenaeus, 99,
193; in Christian worship,
252; value for the Churdi,
429

Index

443

Gospel according to St. John,
4, 6, 8 ff.; salvation in, 47,
306; doctrine of the Word,
87 ; Heracleon 's commentary,
312, 315 ff.
Gospel according to the Egyp
tians, 330
Gospel according to the Hebrews,
73. 330
Gregory Thaumaturgus, 367
Gudea, design of his sanctuary,
144 H
Harnack, on the Gospel of
Healing, 20; on Marcion, 79;
on Simon Magus, 309
Heavens, the seven, 129, 322
Hebrews, Epistle to the, 5, 145,
306
Hebrews, Gospel according to
the, 73, 330
Hegesippus, travels to Rome,
188
Heracleitus, 91, 329, 343
Heracleon, on the Fourth
Gospel, 312, 315 ff.
Hermas, on preaching to the
dead, 36, 239; on the Church,
148; Church officers, 175;
disorders in the Church, 199
f-, 397
Hermes, as the messenger
Logos, 74, 86
Hermetic books, on becoming
theos, 54
Hexapla, the, 365
Hippolytus, on becoming theos,
59; Canons of, 205 ff.; on
baptism, 241 ff.
Homoousios, of the Pneutfiatics,
315; contrast the Hylics,
316; repudiated by Clement
of Alexandria, 348; appUed
to the Son by Origen,
381
Hylics, the, in Valentinian
teaching, 315
Hymn of the Soul, 320 ff.

lambUchus, on prayer, 254
Ignatius, of Antioch, 2 f., 5;
on the resurrection of the
body, 33; longs for martyr
dom, 45; on the person of
Jesus, 77, 116; on bishops,
176 ff.; the three-fold minis
try, 180 f. ; baptism, 247; the
Eucharist, 276; a mystic,
305
Immortality, in Jewish hope,
16; in Hellenism, 31; a seed
imparted in baptism, 58 f.,
238
Incarnation, the, in Justin, 91,
95; in Irenasus, 103 ff.; pur
pose of , according to Clement
of Alexandria, 334, 350 ff.;
Origen, 383 ff.
Irenaus, on the millennial
kingdom, 29; on becoming
son of God, 58; the "Rule of
Faith," 83; origin and train
ing, 96; bishop of Lyons, 97;
treatise against the Gnostics,
98 ; Scripture and the Church,
99; Greek elements in his
theology, loi ; relation of the
Father and the Son, 102 ; the
person of Christ, 103; doc
trine of recapitulatio, 104;
age of Jesus, 105; the two
Natures, 106; the work of
Christ, 123 ff.; presbjrters at
Rome, 175; opposes the
Church and tradition to
Gnosticism, 191 ff.; the
Eucharist, 278
Isis, mysteries of, 220 ff.;
worshippers' common meal,
259; Plutarch oil the name
of Isis, 225; on myth of
Osiris and Isis, 296

James, Epistle of, 5
James, the brother of the Lord,
69

444

Index

Jerusalem, community at, 2,
68; Christians flee from, 70,
430; elders at, 160, 170;
Jersualem above, 145
Jesus Christ, made man for
the destruction of the De
mons, 25; as Lord, 62; the
¦ beloved Servant, 76; identi
fied with the Spirit, 77;
according to Ignatius, 77,
116; Marcion, 80; in the
Roman confession, 83; ac
cording to Justin, 95 f.;
Irenaeus, 103 ff., TertuUian,
114; varying conceptions of
his work, 115 ff.; in Irenaeus,
123 ff.; according to Mon
archianism, 134 f.; Gnostic
views of his redeeming work,
324; his body, 325; in Clem
ent of Alexandria, 349 ff.;
Origen, 383 ff.; significance
of his historic personaUty,
429
Jewish Christians, 71 ff.
Jewish common meals, 259
John, Gospel according to, 4, 6,
8 ff.; salvation in, 47, 306;
doctrine of the Word, 87;
Heracleon's commentary on,
312, 315 ff-
John, First Epistle of, 56, 78
Jove, banquet of, 272
Jude, brother of Jesus, 70
Julius Caesar as "divine Sav
iour," 13
Juliana shelters Origen, 368
Justin (the Martyr), on diffu
sion of the Christians, 3;
why Jesus was made man,
25, 91. 95, 118 ff.; on the
miUennial kingdom, 29; on
Christians who believed that
souls wentstraightto heaven,
33; the resurrection of the
body, 33; the Christians'
constancy, 40, 397; Chris
tians as theoi, 56; Jewish
Christians, 71 ; compares
Gentfle figures with Christ,

74; Hermes as "Sonof God,"
86; the Logos among the
Greeks, 90; in Christ, 91;
the argument from Scripture,
94; his writings, 132; "our
mysteries," 214; denounces
the rites of Mithra, 226;
baptism, 240; the Eucharist,
262, 270 f., 277; as philo
sopher, 306; on Greek philo
sophers, 397 K
Kathari, the, 415
Kiss, the, of brotherhood, 44,
246
Kruger, on the Roman Confes
sion, 83
Kyrios (Lord), as a title of
Christ, 63; and of Oriental
Deities and Roman Emper
ors, 64 f. L
Lapsed, the, Cyprian on, 407;
degrees of guilt, 411; con
troversy about their read-
mission, 413 ff.
Law, pre-existence of the, 146
Lectisternia, the, at Rome, 272
Leonides, father of Origen,
360 f.
Libellatici, the, 412, 414
Libelli, 411
Logos, the, in Hellenist philo
sophy, 85; in the Hermetic
books, 86; worked through
Socrates, 90; in Christ, 91 ff. ;
according to Irenaus, loi ff.;
in Tatian, 122; in Philo, 298
ff . ; in Clement of Alexandria,
340; in Origen, 379, 384
Loofs, on Monarchianism, 134
Lord {Kyrios), as a title of
Christ, 63; and of Oriental
Deities and Roman Emper
ors, 64 f . ; identified with the
Spirit, 68, 234
Lord's supper, the, 259 ff.

Index

445

Lucian, on the Christian's
enthusiasm, 46
M
Macedonia, churches of, 2
Marcion, his teaching, 79 ff.,
389 ; canon of the New Testa
ment, 312
Mark, 3, 330
Martial, bishop of Merida, 427
Martyrdom, desire for, 45 f. ;
constancy of Christians in,
40, 397
Maximilla, a Montanist pro
phetess, 201 ff.
Maximin, persecution under,
368
McGiffert, on the Roman con
fession, 83; on presbyters, 172
Melito, bishop ot Sardis, 133
Menander of Capparatea, 310
Messiah (Christ), Jesus made,
62, 233; as heavenly High-
Priest, 145; name of pre-
existent, 146
Michael as heavenly High-
Priest, 145
Millennarianism, in Justin,
29; in Irenaeus, 29, 128; in
the Apocalypse, 164
Miltiades, an Apologist, 133
Minucius FeUx, his Octaidus,
133, 397
Mithraism, rites of, 226 f.;
common meal in, 259
Mithras-Liturgy, on identity
with Deity, '55 ; thenew birth,
231
Monad applied to God, 317,
345 . „
Monarchianism, in Rome and
Carthage, no; different
types, 133, 382 f., 431
Montanism, origin and signi
ficance, 158, 201 ff., 415;
suppressed by Justinian, 205
Moses, sees the pattern of the
DweUing, 144; prepared in
heaven, 146

Musonius and the Logos, in
Justin, 91
Mysteries, language, and ob
jects of the, 213 ff.; at Eleu
sis, 215; of Osiris, 218; Isis,
220 ff.; interpreted by Plu
tarch, 225; of Mithras, 226;
Gnostic, 323; Christian, in
Clement of Alexandria, 333
N
Name of Christ, the, its power,
21, 25; pre-existent, 146
Noetus, a Monarchian, 136
Novatian, at Rome, 413 ff.
O
Odes of Solomon, the, 48; the
unio mystica, 51; the Word
in, 87
Olympus, earthly and heaven-
ly, 145
Origen, on Christian cures, 21,
25; the Ebionites, 72; the
Eucharistic bread, 281 ; justi
fies the study of philosophy,
331; his career, 359 ff.;
literary labours, 365 ff.; the
Fourth Gospel, 365, 432;
as teacher, 367; his theology,
370 ff.; founded on the
Church, 372; and the Scrip
tures, 373; treatise on First
Principles, 378 ff.; on God,
378; the Son, 379; the In
carnation, 383; the death of
Christ, 385; origin and de
stiny of souls, 387 ff. ; re
mission of sins, 402
Orpheus, affinities with Christ,
61 f.
Orphism and becoming theos,
Osiris, mysteries of, 218; his
body and blood, 274

Pantaenus, at Alexandria, 331

446

Index

Paradise and Gehenna, pre-
existent, 146
Pastors, in the early Church,
167
Patripassianism-, in
Paul, the Apostle, his letters, 5 ;
on the ascetic life, 42; the
believer's union with Christ,
47; designates Christ as
Lord, 63, 66; identifies the
Lord with the Spirit, 68; life
in churches founded by him,
139 ff. ; gifts and functions,
150 ff. ; on baptism, 234
ff., 394; on the Lord's
Supper, 275, 279; warns the
Colossians against Gnostic
ideas, 309
Paul and Thekla, story of, 44
Paul of Samosata, 135, 431
Pella, Christians at, 70
Penitence, TertuUian iSn, 399
Pepuza, centre of Montanism,
202
Perpetua, martyred at Car
thage, 47
Perseus, as virgin-bom, 74
Persona, in TertuUian, 113
Peter, Epistles of, 5; I Pet. v. 2,
„I74
Peter, Gospel according to, 36
Peter, Preaching of, 307
Peter, Revelation of, 32
PhiUppi, presbyters and dea
cons at, 175
Philo, on assimilation with
Deity, 56; theology, 297 ff.,
344, 349; Sarah, as symbol
of philosophy, 331
Philosophy, influence of, 287
ff. ; TertuUian on, 309; views
of Church writers, 329; value
for Clement of Alexandria,
341; studied by Origen, 362;
its defects, 371
Phocas, on Christ's teaching,
122
Pinytus, bishop of Cnossus,
189
Pistis Sophia, 312

Plato, on demons, 23; on the
future life, 32 f., 339; on
becoming Uke God, 56 f.;
influence on the Gnostics
and Clement, 310, 317, 341,
344, 346 f., 349; denounced
by Tatian, 329
Pleroma, in Valentinian teach
ing, 318
Pliny, on the Christians, i
Plutarch, of Chaeronea, on
demons, 23; on temple-
rituals, 32; on the myth of
Isis, 225, 296; his theology,
290 ff., 344, 349
Plutarch, convert of Origen,
361
Pneumatic Christology, 131
Pneumatics, in Valentinian
teaching, 315
Poimandres, on becoming theos,
53
Polycarp, of Smyrna, known
by Irenaeus, 97, 196; an
apostolic and prophetic
teacher, 159; mentions pres
byters and deacons, 175;
visits Rome, 189; laments
the fall of Valens, 199, 395
Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus,
190
Porphyry, on phUosophy, 21;
on demons, 24; on Hermes
and the Logos, 87; on Origen,
362 f., 371
Prayer, in Hellenic religion,
252; in Hermetic literature,
254;described by lamblichus,
254; in Christian worship,
256 ff.
Praxeas, and Monarchianism,
iiQ, 133, 136, 382
Pre-existences in heaven, 144 ff.
Presbyters (elders), 166 ff.;
relation to bishops, 172 ff.;
in the Canons of Hippolytus,
207
PrimuS', bishop of Corinth, 188
PrisciUa, a Montanist pro
phetess, 201, 203

Index

447

Prophecy, early Christian, 7,
155; Montanist, 201
Prophets, in the early Church,
154 ff. ; in the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, 157; false,
denounced by Hermas, 200
Psalms of Solomon, 14
Psychics, in Valentinian teach
ing, 315
Ptolemy, disciple of Valentinus,
314
Puritans, 415 f.
Pythagoras, 33, 289, 317, 329,
341 Q
Quadratus, an Apologist, 132
R
Rebirth, in religious communi
ties, 229; see Birth, the new
Redemption, acc'ording to Cle
ment of Rome,. 115; Ignatius,
116 f.; Justin, '119 f.; Irenae
us, 125; in Gnostic teaching,
313 ; differentmodesof effect
ing it, 323; in Clement of
Alexandria, 352; Origen, 385
Refrigerium, 220
Reformation, the, 434
Reign of the saints with Christ,
28 ff., 128, 164
Renatus in eternum, 230 '
Resurrection of the body, 32 ff.
Revelation, book of, 6 ff., 156
Revelation of Peter, 32
Rome, Christianity at, 3 ; prim
itive confession, 83; the
Church in, 172, 175, 196,358;
Polycarp visits, 189; Cyp
rian's relations with, 414,
418,427 , , „
Rule of Faith, the, 83, 195
Rule of Truth, the, 83, 100

Sabellius and Monarchianism,
136, 383

Sacrifice, in the early Church,
162 f.; the Eucharist as
sacrifice, 268, 276, 281 ff.
Salvation, its problems, 10;
its ideas and language, 12;
in Rome, 13, and in Israel,
14; connection with immor
tahty, 16; from sins, 17;
physical aspect, 19; the
coming Wrath, 26; scope,
35; limitations, 37; the fu
ture reward of righteousness,
38; of encrateia, 44; won by
martyrdom, 45 ; already real
ized, 47 ff.; by philosophy,
296, 304 (cp. Plutarch, PhUo) ;
Gnostic conceptions of, 316
ff., 323; in Clement of
Alexandria, 336, 348; Origen,
387 ff.; controUed by the
bishop, 424
Sarapis, table of the Lord, 64,
259, 272
Satan, 19, 106, 244. See Devil
Saturus, martyred at Carthage,
47
Saviour, applications of the
title, 12 ff., 20
Scala ascensionis ad Deum, 198,
208, 238
Scriptures, the Jewish, 4, 98,
430; Justin's argument, 94,
120; Irenseus, 192; allegorical
interpretation by Clement
of Alexandria, 343, and
Origen, 374 ff.
Seal, the, of baptism, 39; con
ferred upon the dead, 239
Serapion, Eucharistic prayer
of, 281
Servant, a title of Jesus Christ,
76
"Seven, " the, at Jerusalem, 159
Seven heavens, the, 129, 322
Seven Rulers (Gnostic), 322
Severus, persecution under, 361
Simon, the mage, 309
Simon of Cyrene, supposed to
have taken the place of
Jesus on the cross, 325

448

Index

Sins, cause of, in Jewish
thought, 17; connection with
disease, 19; remission in
baptism, 233, 246; confession
in Church prayers, 258, 395
f., 399; in the Roman Church
(Hermas), 199, 398
Smyrna, 2; Irenaus at, 97;
Polycarp, bishop at, 97, 177,
189, 196; Ignatius to the
Church, 180, and to Poly
carp, 184
Socrates, and the Logos, in
Justin, 90, 329
Son of God, title of Augustus,
14; of Jesus, 14; of the Holy
Spirit, 77; of the wise man,
74; of Christ in Ignatius, 77;
in Marcion, 81; in the Rule
of Truth, 83 ; of the Logos in
the Hermetic books, 87; in
Justin and Athenagoras, 93;
in Irenaus, 102; in Tertul
Han, in; in Philo, 300; in
Gnostic teaching, 324; in
Clement of Alexandria, 350
f. ; in Origen, 379 ff.
Sophia (Wisdom), in Valen
tinian teaching, 318
Soul, hymn of the, 320 ff. ; its
return to its heavenly home,
322; creation and destiny
according to Origen, 387 ff.
Spirit, the Holy, identified
with the Son, 77; with the
Lord, 68, 234; equated with
Wisdom, 93, 102 (Irenaus);
in TertuUian, in; 113;
identical with the Church,
147; work in the Chuirch,
152, 194 ff., 234; invoked on
bishops and presbyters, 207 ;
conferred in baptism, 245,
249, 261 ; function according
to Origen, 382
Spiritual marriages, 42, 408
Stephen, bishop of Rome, 418,
4-?7
Stoics, doctrine of Fate repudi
ated, 40, 288; influence on

TertuUian, 288; ethics in
Clement of Alexandria, 345,
355
Substantia, in TertuUian, 1 12 f.
Symeon, son of Clopas, 70

Tatian, on the Logos, 93, 122;
his Address to the Greeks, 132 ;
attacks phUosophers, 329
Taurobolium, ritual of the,
230
Teachers, in the early Church,
158; in the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, 159
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
5, 39; on Apostles, 153; on
Prophets, 157; on Teachers,
159; on Christian worship,
162; Church officers, 174;
baptism, 238; the Eucharist,
261; confession before com
municating, 275, 396
Temple, in the fourth heaven,
145,
TertuUian, on the resurrection
of the body, 34; the " Rule of
Faith," 83; the popular
rehgion, 107; education, 108;
conversion, 109; influences
on his Christology, no; the
Trinity, in; the generation
of the Word, 112; substantia
and persona, 1 13 ; the person
of Christ, 114; his Apologeti
cus, 133; on Praxeas and the
monarchy, 133; on heresy
and the Church, 210 ff.; on
baptism, 248 f . ; the Euchar
ist, 284; influence on Cyp
rian, 359; on Penitence, 399;
on modesty, 400
Testaments of the Twelve Pa
triarchs, 14
Testimonium veritatis, in Ter
tuUian, 211
Thales, 343
Thanksgiving, the, see Euchar
ist

Index

449

Theanthropos, term coined by
Origen, 383
Thekla, and the Apostle Paul,
44
Theoctistus, bishop of Ca-
sarea, 364, 366
Theodotus, a Monarchian, at
Rome, 134
Theodotus, disciple of Valen
tinus, 314, 324
Theophilus, of Antioch, on
becoming theos, 57; on the
Logos and the "Trias, 93;
condemns philosophers, 329
Theos, Orphic teaching on
becoming, 51; Empedocles,
52; Epictetus, 53; Poiman
dres, 53; Hermes, 54; Mith
ras-liturgy, 55; Philo, 56;
applied to Christians, 57 ff.
Therapeuts, the, in Egypt, 42;
supposed by Eusebius to be
Christians, 171; their com
mon meal, 260
Thomas, the Apostle, among
the Indians, 320
I Tim iii, v. 2, and v, 0. 17 —
173.
Titus 1, vv. 5-9 — 173
Trajan, consulted by Pliny, I
Trias, according to Theophilus,
93
Trinity, the, in TertuUian,
in; in Origen, 382; Sabel-
Uus, 383 V
Valens, presbyter at PhiUppi,
199. 395

Verbum, in TertulHan, 112
Victor, bishop of Rome, ex
communicates Theodotus,
135; action in the Easter
controversy, 175, 190
VirgU, 9, 32 W
Waldenses, the, 416
"Way of Life," the, 39,
396
"Way of Light," the, 39
Wisdom, beside the Logos in
God, 92, 379; third in the
Triad of Athenagoras, 93;
created the Church at the
beginning, 148; Gnostic
myth of, 318 f.
Word, the, in the Odes of Solo
mon, 87 f.; in TertuUian
{verbum), 112. See Logos
Work of Christ, according to
Clement of Rome, 115; vary
ing conceptions of, by Igna
tius, Justin, etc., 116 ff.;
Irenaus, 123 ff.; Gnostic
views, 324; Clement_ of
Alexandria, 351; Origen,
383 ff-
World-rulers, the, 130
Worship, elements of Christian,
2526.
Wrath, salvation from the, 26

Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome,
135 f., 400

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