 Chapter 3 Part 2 of A History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org A History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries by Samuel Cheatham Chapter 3 Part 2 The Early Struggles of the Church What were the conditions which previously limited the freedom of Christians is not absolutely certain, but it is probable that the Edict of 311, which conferred freedom of worship on existing bodies of Christians, did not give them the liberty of making converts. If so, this restriction was removed. When the emperors give full liberty to every form of worship, quote, whereby the Divinity in Heaven may be propitiated, close quote, they seem still to retain the power of putting down any fowl and impious orgies which they judged likely rather to offend than to propitiate the supreme deity. But the essential thing is that the Edict frankly recognized the Corpus Christianorum, the great organized body of Christians which had spread itself over the empire. It is thus indicated that the policy of the state had undergone a complete revolution, the almost despairing effort of Diocletian and Galerius had been to put down a force which, they thought, tended to dissolve the social coherence of the empire at a time when it was so sorely in need of unity. In the Edict of Constantine and Licinius, we see that this attempt is abandoned. The persecutions were reckoned, before the end of the fourth century, to be ten in number, so as to correspond to the ten plagues of Egypt. The persecutions, according to this account, were those under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximon, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian. The artificial and fallacious character of this enumeration was long ago pointed out by Augustine. It is impossible to determine with certainty the number of those who suffered. Origin, as we have seen, thought it inconsiderable up to his own time, though at a still earlier date, Irenaeus speaks of the multitude of martyrs who had passed from earth to God, and in the persecutions under Decius and Diocletian at any rate, we can scarcely doubt that very many bore torture and death for the faith of Christ. It was only natural that events, terrible in themselves and deeply affecting a great community, should be repeated in succeeding generations with much unconscious exaggeration. True and accurate accounts, even notarial records of many martyrdoms were no doubt preserved, but round these clustered a large number of legends which either arose from the excited imagination of a troublesome time, or were composed as works of edification rather than of history. Additional infamy was in this way heaped upon them persecutors, and additional glory bestowed upon the martyrs. Augustine lamented the scarcity of genuine acts which might be read in the services. While the church was suffering from the opposition of the civil government and the passions of the mob, it was also attacked by the literary champions of heathendom. The dislike and suspicion which educated heathen felt for Christianity found definite expression in various writings. The lost oration of fronto seems to have been an advocate's defense on legal grounds of the proceedings against them under Marcus Aurelius. Lucian's light realery, which found in the Greek mythology, subjects for his wit and sarcastic humor, was also turned against Christianity. He does not merely echo the popular prejudice, it is evident from his parody that he had some real knowledge of the manners and customs of Christians, but he only regards the church as one of the varied outgrowths of human folly and superstition. His history of peregrinus protius was no doubt intended, at least in part, to ridicule the supposed credulity of Christians which made them an easy prey to a clever nave, but it shows incidentally how a heathen noticed without admiring their brotherly love, their courage in facing death, their belief in immortality. Very different from the light mockery of Lucian is the eager hatred of his contemporary calcis, a man of keen and vigorous intellect who had really studied, though without sympathy or insight, both Christianity and Judaism. Skepticism has hardly discovered an objection to Christianity, which is not contained in some shape or other in the work of calcis. Modern ingenuity has done little more than elaborate the arguments of the ancient dialectian. The credibility of the gospel history in general, the reality of the incarnation and the resurrection, the belief in the atonement, the very idea of a special revelation of God, are attacked with no mean ability. He utterly repudiates the view of nature in which man appears as a final cause of the world and of all things that are therein, and attempts to set Greek philosophy and religion above the teaching of Christianity, which he accuses of having borrowed and spoiled many of the doctrines of Plato. Further, he reproaches Christians with their gross, corporeal conception, as he thinks it, of God and things divine. At the same time, he attempts to set the heathen polytheism and idolatry in a more attractive light, and condemns that they were not incompatible with the worship of one supreme deity. Altogether, probably no more vigorous assailant than calcis has ever attacked Christianity. The attack of so skillful a polemic is a sufficient proof that Christianity was regarded as an important phenomenon. However, men might assume contempt for it when a man like calcis of high ability, cultivation, and learning thought it worthwhile to give it so careful an examination, it had certainly gained attention beyond the ranks of slaves and artisans. The remarkable work of Phylostratus, the life of Apollonius of Tyanna, may also be considered as a part of the polemic against Christianity, though of a very different kind from the uncompromising attack of calcis. Apollonius was a real person who attained some fame as a magician in the later part of the first century. But the life, written in the early years of the third, is probably so highly idealized as to be little more than a romance with a purpose. It belongs to the synchronistic age of Septimius Severus, when the view began to prevail that the wise man should choose what was best and noblest from all religions without venturing to assert that anyone was absolutely true. Hence, Phylostratus, who was evidently acquainted with the gospel history, attempts to set up Apollonius as a kind of neopathagorean leader and type. He attributes to him the nobleness, the unselfish devotion, the readiness to encounter persecution and death which are seen in the greatest heroes. He contends not that Christianity is false, but that pathagorism deserves to be set above it as a practical religious power. Philosophy, in truth, took at this time a more religious direction and was not wholly disinclined to satisfy its aspirations from a system which had so high claims to be a divine revelation as Christianity. But the man whom the early Christians singled out as their most implacable enemy, their bitterest opponent, was the Neoplatonist periphery. His 15 books against the Christians were the most famous production of heathen polemics in the third century and were thought worthy of refutation by such men as Methodius of Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Apollonaris of Laodicea. The refutations have perished and but a few fragments remain of the work of periphery. To judge from these fragments, periphery made his principal attack on the scriptures, attempting to show that they were unworthy of the divine inspiration attributed to them. He examined the book of the prophet Daniel, contending that it was not written in the sixth century before Christ, but by a later writer who lived under Antiochus Epiphanes and that it was in fact not prophecy but history. He found great fault with such expositors as Origen, who shrouded the plain facts of Israelite's history in a veil of allegory. He fastened on the dispute between St. Peter and St. Paul in Galatia as an event discreditable to the heads of the community and he found inconsistencies in the gospel history itself. To him also appeared to be due some questions which have frequently reappeared in controversy, such as, why did Christians reject sacrifice which God himself had instituted in the Old Covenant? Yet, with all his keen dialectic against portions of the Christian scheme, periphery was probably not without admiration for the character of Christ himself. The Neoplatonists were not averse to the thought of a, quote, dwelling of God among men, close quote. What they disputed was the claim of Christ Jesus to be in an absolute and exclusive sense, God manifest in the flesh, and it was probably with a view of setting up a rival manifestation of the divinity that periphery and Diamblicus wrote The Life of Pythagoras, the, quote, good spirit dwelling in Samos, close quote, in which the great teacher of Old Greece is magnified into divine proportions. The same line of thought reappears in Hierocles whose truth-loving words are known to us only in the refutation by Eusebius. He seems to have set himself to show that miracles in any case only proved the existence of superior power in the Wonder Worker and that the miracles of Apollonius of Tyanna were greater and better attested than those of Jesus Christ. He would grant, apparently, that Christ was divine, but not the one, only God. In truth, it can scarcely be doubted that Neoplatonism was to many minds a, quote, schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, close quote, for it changed the whole character of ancient philosophy. With such men as Plotinus and Proclus, philosophy is no longer purely an affair of dialectic. They are seers and ecstatics looking for divine revelation through their ascetic and contemplative life, eager to be freed from the chains of sense and to have a nearer view of heavenly beauty. Their system, if system it can be called, was accepted by a large number of the most cultivated men throughout the empire, and when the minds of men were once familiar with the thought of a revelation of God to man, of a divine radiance poured into the soul, they were more ready to acknowledge the revelation of God in Christ and the life-giving influence of the Holy Spirit. The great and victorious answer to heathen calamity was found in the lives of Christians, with praying and dying they overcame the world, but they fought also in intellectual combat with great vigor and success. In the first place, they had to repel the popular calamities which pursued them. Against the accusation of atheism, they alleged the piety of Christians in their lives as visible to their heathen neighbors and explained the nature of their spiritual worship. Charged with unnatural crimes, they pointed out that their religion bound them before all things to purity and holiness of life. Accused of treason against the government, they referred to their prayers for the emperor and their quiet submission to a persecuting power. If it was said that the misfortunes of the empire were due to the progress of Christianity, they retorted that it might with at least equal justice be said to be due to the persecution of Christianity. Heathen rhetoricians and philosophers were at last driven back upon the principle that men ought to accept and maintain, in matters of religion, the customs and rights derived from their forefathers, the last refuge of skeptical conservatism. Against this heathen maxim of the duty of submission in all cases to existing authority and tradition, the early apologists protest. They contend with great vigor for the rights of conscience and private judgment. If they desert their country's customs, it is only because they have discovered them to be impious. Custom is by no means identical with truth. It is our duty to forsake the customs of our country. When better and holier laws require it, we must obey him who is above all lords. Yet, though obedience would be due to the gospel of Christ, even if it were an innovation, they contended that it was none. It existed already in the days of Abraham and Moses. Nay, from the beginning of the world, they represented God in Christ as the source and fount of all good even in the heathen world. The same word which wrought in Hebrew prophets produced also all the truth and right and nobleness which existed among the Gentiles. All who have lived in accordance with the divine word or reason were Christians, even though, like Socrates, they were thought atheists. The great achievements of law givers and philosophers were considered, though imperfectly apprehended. What was seen incomplete and dispersed in the old world was at last found complete and perfect in Christ. The many phrases in which heathens expressed their sense of one great and good God over all in spite of a polytheistic form of religion were quote, the utterances of a soul naturally Christian, close quote. And while they defended themselves, they did not share their adversaries, pointing out with great frankness the follies and frequent impurities of heathen worship. Perhaps the earliest of the formal defenses of Christianity is the letter in which the unknown writer points out to his inquiring friend D'Ognetus, the absurdities of heathenism, the inadequacy of Judaism, the excellence of the Christian religion. When the Emperor Hadrian visited Athens, a defense of Christianity was presented to him by the bishop, Quadratus, and another by a philosopher named Aristides, the former of whom, an old man, says that he had actually seen persons upon whom some of the Lord's miracles had been wrought. Not long after Aristides, Aristotle of Pella wrote a defense of Christianity in the form of a dialogue between a Jewish Christian named Jason and Pat Piscis, an Alexandrian Jew whose distress is laid on the argument from prophecy. Claudius Apollonaris, also a bishop of Hierapolis, and the Retorician Miltiades presented to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius apologies which had in their day great repute. But the great age of Christian apologetic is the period of hope and fear which coincides nearly with the reigns of the Antoninese. It was then that Justin Martyr, a Christian who retained the philosopher's gown, wrote and presented to the rulers of the world his defenses against the unjust charges heaped upon Christians and pleaded for the protection of the laws of the Empire. Let Christians, he urges, at least not suffer except as malifactors. Let not their very name be a crime when all kinds of monstrosities rear their heads in safety. Let a philosophic emperor consider that the very same word which inspired philosophers spoke in clearer tones through prophets and apostles. He pleaded in vain. The vigor of his attack on the pretensions of paganism in his second defense probably brought about his own end. His pupil, Tecian the Syrian, attacked the perversions of Greek morality and philosophy with great vigor. Athenagoras, in the plea for the Christians which he addressed to Marcus Aurelius in a quiet and respectful tone, commends to the favor of the emperor, his fellow believers, whom he vindicates from the charges so often brought against them. Probably to the same sovereign and about the same time, Milito, the learned bishop of Sardis, addressed the memorial in which he sets forth the injury done to Christians under the cover of the imperial edicts by evil men who desired nothing but plunder and insisted that the continued prosperity of the empire since the days of Augustus was alone sufficient to show that the Star of Christ was propitious. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch in his Three Books to Atolikus, set himself more particularly to repel the scoffing objections of his acquaintance Atolikus to Christian teaching on the nature of God and the resurrection. And again, at his friend's request for further information, he went on to speak of the creation and destiny of man and the venerable antiquity of the Hebrew scriptures. His style is clear and agreeable. Hermaeus, in his Worrying of the Pagan Philosophers, retorts upon the heathen and contradictions and absurdities with which they charged Christianity. The Octavius, of the rhetorician Minucius Felix, a dialogue in the style of Cicero, contains perhaps of all the apologetic writings the clearest statement of the great questions that issue between Christian and Pagan as they presented themselves to educated men in the second century. Cacilius, who undertakes the defense of heathenism and the attack on Christianity, is permitted by the dialogue writer to state his case with unsparing vigor and the Christian Octavius replies, if always with earnestness, yet calmly and fairly. In the end, Cacilius admits the victory of his friend in the words, quote, we are both conquerors. He has conquered me. I have triumphed over error. Close quote. Tertullian burst forth with his glowing southern rhetoric against the ignorant hatred of Christians which prevailed in the empire. They were treated with a harshness which violated the first principles of right, yet they were good subjects. Though they offered no incense to the emperor, their lives were purer, their religion was nobler than that of their heathen neighbors. Who could think of the old mythologic fables without scorn? If Celsus is in many respects the type of those who from age to age have attacked Christianity with cleverness and learning, Origen is equally the type of the honest, able, learned and laborious defender. He fastens upon the work of Celsus, which seems to have been a hundred years in the world without meeting with an adequate refutation and deals with it, clouds by clouds, the attacks of the pagan on the credibility of the gospel history, on the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, on the idea of revelation, his attempts to set philosophy above the teaching of Christ, and polytheism above the true worship, his misconceptions of Christian ideas, all these are taken in turn and exposed or refuted. Christian worship, says Origen in the reign of Deceus. Quote, shall one day prevail over the whole world. Close quote. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4, Part 1 of History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulet. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. By S. Cheetham. Chapter 4, Part 1. Growth and characteristics of the Church. One. In spite of persecution, perhaps because of persecution, the Church grew rapidly. Even before the last apostle left the earth, the light which rose in Palestine had struck the three great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. In another generation, it had reached almost the whole coast of the Mediterranean. Then the great highway of nations. It followed in the track of the Jewish dispersion. Wherever there was a Hebrew colony, there was also a Christian Church. Merchants brought back from their journeys the news of the pearl of great price. The messengers of peace followed in the track of the Roman armies. And liberated captives carried to their homes the tidings of the new religion which was pervading the empire. Everywhere, from the workshop to the palace, were found devoted men, working quietly yet earnestly for the furtherance of the Gospel. Looking first to the eastward, we find that Inidesa, the capital of Osrone. The Church first ascended a throne. We must no doubt reject as a forgery the correspondence of Abgar with the Lord Jesus. But one of its kings, Abgar Bar Manu, does seem to have been converted to Christianity about AD 65. The Chaldean Christians look upon Merus, the disciple of St. Thaddeus as their apostle. The existence of Christian churches in Roman Armenia as early as the third century is proved by the fact that a letter was addressed to them by Dionyses of Alexandria. Pantanus, head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, is said to have been a missionary of the faith in the land of the Indians, by which we are probably to understand Arabia Felix, an Arabian chief, or perhaps a Roman procurator stationed in Arabia, is said to have desired that the great origin should be sent to him as his instructor. And about the same period, we find Bostra in Arabia mentioned as a Bishop's See. In Persia, the Christian faith was widely spread when Arnobius wrote, towards the end of the third century. There were numerous churches in Syria and in Asia Minor from apostolic times. In Bethany, the well known letter of Pliny to Trajan is an impregnable testimony to the number of Christian converts about AD 106. The Cappadocian, Caesarea, had for its bishop in the middle of the third century the well known Vermilion, Cyprian's correspondent. Turning now to Africa, we find from the very dawn of ecclesiastical history, a church at Alexandria, the home of the learned Apollos. St. Mark was regarded as its founder and first bishop. Dionyses, who became bishop in 246, was one of the most famous men of the age in which fell the Decian persecution. Of the first beginnings of the church in proconsular Africa, in Mauritania and Numibia, nothing is known, it may probably have received its Christianity from Italy. Certainly the North African is to us the earliest Latin church. However originated, Christianity spread so rapidly in these fervent regions that early in the third century, a Christian speaks, perhaps a little rhetorically, of Christians forming the majority in every town. At the end of the second century, Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, is said to have assembled a large number of African and Numidian bishops, and Cyprian, who held the same sea in the middle of the third century, was able to assemble 87 bishops from the three North African provinces. Passing over to Europe, we find Ancielus, on the east coast of Thrace, the sea of a bishop in the middle of the second century. Byzantium, not yet dreaming of becoming the seat of the greatest patriarchate of the east, seems to have received its first bishop early in the third century. Heraclea had a bishop who received the crown of martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian. Of the churches of Macedonia, after the apostolic age, scarcely a trace is found in the records of the first three centuries. Passing onward into Achaia, we find little enduring effect of St. Paul's work in Athens, where the whole city was deeply imbued with Hellenic culture and worship, but at Corinth, where there was a less purely Hellenic population, the Christian community maintained itself from the days of the apostle. Hegesipus, on his journey to Rome, found there a church with primus as bishop, who was succeeded by a more famous man, Dionysus. Of the history of the Church of Rome, in early days we have but scanty records, that it received the gospel in very early times we know from the testimony of St. Paul. The earliest Christians of whose sojourn in Rome we have any authentic account are Aquila and Priscilla, St. Paul's companions. The foundation of many other churches in Italy is ascribed by tradition, often early tradition, to immediate disciples of the apostles. Such sub-apostolic churches are found in Milan, Bologna, Luca, Via Sole, Ravina, and Acculea, the latter of which claims St. Mark as its founder. The Church of Bari and Apulia, boast to have received its first bishop, Maurus, from the hands of St. Peter himself, and similar legends are found in the doubtless ancient churches in many parts of Italy. The visit of St. Paul to Spain, though probable, cannot be regarded as certain. That of St. James, the son of Zebedee, the opposite tomb at Campostella has been an object of veneration for so many generations. May safely be said down as apocryphal. An inscription thanks the excellent Nero for having cleared the Spanish province from robbers and from the presence of those who would have subjected mankind to the new superstition. It is, however, highly improbable that any part of Spain was overrun with Christians in the days of Nero, though churches no doubt existed there in early times. In the Council of Eiberis, Elvira, in the year 306, 19 Spanish bishops were present. In the Valerian persecution, the Spanish church had its martyrs in the persons of bishop Fructuosis of Tarragona, and the deacons Agurius and Eulogius. Gaul received its first Christianity by the well-known commercial route from Asia Minor to Marseille. The legends of the preaching of Lazarus, of Martha, or of Mary Magdalene in southern Gaul. Gaul do but represent the fact that very ancient Christian communities existed there. At the Synod of Arles, A.D. 314, the bishops of Reims, Rowan, Besson, Bordeaux and Orange were present, as well as representatives of other churches. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian speak of churches existing in their time in Germany, that is, in the Roman provinces on the Rhine. The churches of Trevesce, and Cologne have undoubtedly existed from very early times. And Maternus, bishop of the latter city, is said to have been summoned to Rome, A.D. 313, to aid in deciding on the Donatus controversy. In the Danubian provinces, we find early traces of the establishment of Christian churches. The oldest of these is thought to be that of Lorch, whose bishop, Maximilian, died a martyr's death in the year 285, in the reign of 303. Aphra appears as a martyr of the church in Ausberg, and Victorinas in Pateo in Styria. In the same persecution fell the bishop of Sermium in the lower Pannonia. Even the wild Goths, who troubled the borders of the empire, seem in the 2nd century to have received some tidings of Christianity from captives of their sword. The origin of British Christianity is unknown. The tradition that St. Paul was given is supported by no early authority, and probably originated in a misinterpretation of a well known passage in Clement of Rome, nor is much credit given to the venerable beads account that a British prince, Lucius, sought and obtained preachers of the Gospel from the Roman bishop, Eluetherius. The Gospel probably here, as in so many other cases, follow the track of the Roman soldiers and colonists. At the beginning of the 3rd century, Julian boasts that the armies of Christ had penetrated parts of Britain where those of Rome had failed. In the persecution under Diocletian, the centurion Albinus, or Albinus, is said to have fallen for the faith at Virulium, giving the first British sufferer to the martyrologies. At the senate of Arles, three British bishops, those of York, London and Lincoln, are said to have subscribed. Thus Christianity in 3 centuries had penetrated the greater part of the Roman Empire, and even in some cases passed beyond its boundaries. We ought not perhaps to understand quite literally the rhetorical expression of early apologists when they tell us that the Christians, the growth of yesterday, had filled the courts, the camps, the council chambers, even the very palaces of Caesar. But it is clear that in the time of Constantine, if the Christians did not form the most numerous portion of his subjects, they were the most powerful. In the decline of national feeling, no other body of men was left, so numerous and widely spread as the Christian Church, animated by one spirit and subject to one rule. Two, to come to the more particular consideration of several churches, nowhere was there greater religious activity than in the early Syrian home of Christianity and in the neighboring Asia Minor. The people of these regions seem to have been naturally disposed to religion, and that with a heat and a tendency to mysticism which sometimes led them astray. It was there that the Jewish converts clung most tenaciously to their ancient rites. It was there that the anticipation of a thousand years reign of Christ on earth was most deeply rooted and adorned with the most fantastic imagery. It was there that montanism found its earliest followers. We cannot fail to be conscious of a falling off in spiritual power when we pass from the writings of the apostolic age to those which immediately succeeded. There is a life and fire in those early works which is wanting in the latter. Moreover, the period immediately succeeding the apostles is practical rather than speculative. The Christian communities of this age show us rather renewed life than intellectual movement. It is a period of growth rather than of blossoming. The struggle against Judaism and heathendom, and the churches absorbed a large portion of the energies of Christians. If the epistle which bears the name of Barnabas be really the work of the apostle it belongs to Syria. For we know him in connection with Jerusalem in Antioch rather than with his native country Cyprus. It is, however, in Alexandria where it was placed almost on inequality with the canonical writings that we first find the epistle distinctly mentioned and some portions of its contents tempt us to believe that it may have been the work of an Alexandrian. Its tone is decidedly anti-Judaic. The covenant of God with Israel through Moses was annulled from the very first when the law giver, coming down from the mount, broke the tablets of the law. But if there is no prophet in the old law taken literally, in its spiritual, i.e. allegorical sense, there is much to be found which is instructive for Christians. To discover this is the true gnosis. In the law we may find nostically Jesus Christ, his cross, and his sacraments. The law in its true import belongs to Christians and not to Jews. This teaching is Pauline, so far as it lays down that Christians need not observe the Jewish law, but it displays none of St. Paul's yearning love for his countrymen. One of the most venerated teachers of the Syrian church was Ignatius known also by the Greek name Theophorus Bishop of the church in Antioch. He was reputed to have been a pupil of St. John the Apostle and doubtless prolonged into the second century the traditions of the first. This aged bishop, the emperor Trajan, on his visit to Antioch, condemned to death and sent to Rome to die. On his last journey he wrote letters to his friend Polycarp at Smyrna and to the churches in various cities. Letters which have all the earnest simplicity, sometimes almost eloquence, which we should expect who was going to meet his death. In the storm which he foresees, he implores Christians to cling together in love and to obey those who had the rule over them. He is eager to warn them against the errors of the time, especially against the Judaic Gnosticism which troubled some of the Asiatic churches in the first century. For himself he only desires to be with Christ. He would not have his friends at Rome take measures to deliver him, even if it were possible. After the departure of Ignatius, there yet remained one who was born within the apostolic age and was the depository of many of its traditions. The venerable Polycarp, Bishop of the Catholic Church in Smyrna, his nearness to the primitive teachers of the church, his prophetic gift, his constant prayers for the church dispersed throughout the world, gave him high authority throughout the churches of Asia. It was no doubt in recognition of his position as well as of his personal qualities that Anisotus, Bishop of Rome, allowed him to consecrate the Eucharist in the Roman church in his own presence. The letter which he, as the representative of the Smyrian Presbytery, wrote to the Philippians is principally composed of practical exhortations to sobriety of life and doctrine in the midst of the trials which encompassed them. It is especially valuable for its abundant citation of the scriptures of the New Testament. Contemporary with Pappius, Bishop of Hierapolis, probably the first collector of anecdotes in the Christian church. He made it the business of his life to gather from the lips of those who had known the apostles such memories as still survived of the first age, which were not embodied in written gospels. From such researches he compiled five books of the sayings of the Lord. He was respected as one of the old school, but his judgment was weak and his collection contained royalties. He had a strong expectation of a corporeal reign of the Lord on earth for a thousand years. Hegesipus, who wrote during the Episcopate of Eleutherus of Rome, was a Jewish origin. Of his life scarcely anything is known, except that he was at Rome in the time of Bishop Anacetus, and that he visited Corinth on his journey thither. His memoranda have commonly been regarded as a collection of materials for history beginning of the church to his own time. It must, however, in this case have been a strange arrangement which placed the death of Saint James the Just in the fifth and last book. Moreover, Eusebius places him first on the list of those who had written against the Gnostic heresies. As he is not known to have written more than one work, it seems not improbable that it was in controversial heresy that he narrated some portions of the early history of the true church. In spite of his origin, he can scarcely have been a partisan of Judea Christianity. His commendation of the certainly not anti-Pauline epistle of Clement seems to show to the contrary. And his condemnation of a passage nearly identical with one found in Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9, was probably directed not against the apostle, but against the Gnostics, whom we know that he opposed. Clement, in fact, whom Hegisopas approves, quotes the very same passage for the same purpose as the apostle. Moreover, Eusebius, who had his whole work before him, speaks of him as having preserved the unerring tradition of the apostolic preaching, an expression which he could not have used if he had been decidedly hostile to Saint Paul. An offshoot of the church of Asia Minor established itself in Gaul. There, the Greeks who composed it learned the speech of Celtic neighbors and taught them the faith of Christ. The first head of the Christian community was Pathanus, and when he fell in horny age by a barbarous death, another Asiatic took his place. This was Aranaus, an earnest Christian, a pupil of the venerable Polycarp. He delighted to tell how through his master he had been brought close to the traditions of the time when apostles and others who had seen the Lord, yet moved on earth. He came out the very seat where the old man had sate and talked of the days of his youth. He became a kind of patriarch of the churches throughout Gaul. He, too, is said to have suffered martyrdom under Septimius Severus. Such a man was naturally grieved and angered at any departure from the simplicity of the faith. The startling progress of narcissism moved him to write his, Confutation and Oversetting of Knowledge, falsely so called, a work partly now lost, Centagma of Justin Martyr. Of this work, which is of the highest value for the history of the early heresies, only fragments remain in the original Greek. But the whole is preserved in an archaic and evidently very literal Latin translation. It was perhaps because his other works contained opinions, such as chileasm, which ceased to prevail or even were condemned in the church that they were in after time little quoted and allowed to perish. In his attachment to the faith of his youth and his earnestness to save the church of Christ from being divided and ruined by unheard of novelties of hasty wits, Aranaeus is certainly one of the most interesting figures of his time. Among Asiatic writers may also be mentioned Julius Africanus. He appears to have passed his early life in Asia Minor. Afterwords we find him living in Nicopolis, Emmaus, in Palestine, and then corresponding with Origen. His chronographia and attempt to synchronize the events of sacred and profane history on which Eusebius, based his chronicon, is unfortunately lost. His letter to Origen on the authorship of the history of Susanna shows considerable power of criticism. Here may also be noticed Dorotheus of Antioch and his contemporary Lucian the martyr, in whom we find the first beginning of that sound school of scriptural interpretation which distinguished Antioch in the following centuries. Of the first of these, Eusebius tells us that he was a man of liberal mind and of Greek culture, also able to read the scriptures of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew. Of the second, that he was not only a man of pure and active life but also well disciplined and sacred learning. In Armenia Christian communities are said to have existed in the time of Tertilian but it is to Gregory the Illuminator that Christianity owes its victory over persecution and its recognition as a national church. He became the first Metropolitan or Catholicus of Armenia and so strongly did his character impress the people, that for some generations the Catholicus was chosen from his family. End of Chapter 4 Part 1 Chapter 4 Part 2 of History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ann Boulet History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by S. Cheetham. Chapter 4 Part 2 The Revelation made in Christ did not come into the world as philosophy but as fact. The great fact which lies at the root of all teaching is the incarnation of the Son of God for the redemption and renewal of man. But it soon became evident that a system which claimed to deal authoritatively with the destiny of man and his relation with the deity must have some kind of contact with systems of philosophy which attempted the same task. It must either abrogate them or define the relation which it bore to them. And again it is scarcely possible for man to receive momentous truths into the divine without some attempt to explain them, to systematize them, to allot them their place in the general history of the world. This process of connecting the great truths of Christianity with the truths already known and of blending Christian teaching with the intellectual life of the world began early. Justin Martyr was not satisfied to regard Revelation as given only to the then small body of Christians. He, though born in the city built on the site of him, was almost certainly of Hellenic race and certainly a pagan by early training. His love of learning drove him to philosophy, but in the philosophic schools he found no rest. There was always something wanting. He was impressed by the constancy with which the Christians bore their sufferings for the truth's sake. And if we are to take the introduction to the dialogue with trifo as an account of a real incident in his own life, an old man who accosted him as he from the shore directed him to the prophets and to Christ. But he was still a philosopher. He regarded his conversion as a passing from an imperfect to the perfect philosophy. To the Gentiles also, to the old philosophers and legislators, something of the divine word was given. Though, but as a germ, the full revelation of the word was found only in the incarnate son. Even the law given to the Jews was, as a mere historical fact, mean imperfect. But the truths typified in the law and foreshadowed in the prophets were great and glorious. Justin was not a great man, though he had extensive knowledge. His style is commonplace and often inaccurate, but he represents a tendency which largely influenced the church at a most critical period. But it was in Alexandria that Christian philosophy attained the highest development which it reached in the period which we are now considering. That famous city situated almost at the meeting point of three continents became soon after its foundation, a center of intellectual life. When national barriers fell before the universal dominion of Rome, the great problems of the nature and destiny of man as man engaged more closely the attention of mankind. And nowhere was man so cosmopolitan as at Alexandria. Thither flowed the thoughts of Greece and Rome to mingle with those of Syria and Arabia, of Georgia and India and of Egypt itself. Here, more than elsewhere, philosophy required Christianity to give an account of its existence and its work. In Alexandria, as in other cities, there was in early times, we cannot tell exactly how early, a school for the instruction of candidates for Christian baptism. Here alone, this catechetical school became a philosophic training college, to which many of the most distinguished ecclesiastics really education. The first head of this school, whose name we know as Pantanus, once a stoic philosopher, then after some years of presidency over the Alexandria school, a missionary in the east. He, however, is famous only through his pupils. No works of his remain. Titus Flavius Clemens, a Greek in spite of his Roman name, after wandering unsatisfied through the schools of philosophy, found a satisfactory teacher in Pantanus, whose assistant he became and whom he ultimately succeeded in the management of the school. In the persecution under Severus, he withdrew from Alexandria, and the last glimpse we have of him is at Jerusalem in the year 211. His principal extant works, the address to the Greeks, the tutor, and the miscellanies correspond to the three stages of Christian life, conversion, conduct, contemplation. He was not an original or independent thinker, but he was well acquainted with the current systems of philosophy and saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries the great stream of the world's history. He is not an adherent of one particular school. When he speaks of philosophy, he means not the stoic or the platonic, the epicurean or the Aristotleian, but whatever each sect has taught which tends to righteousness of life and reverent science. He selects, in fact, from the several systems such portions as correspond with the teaching of Christ. But a great teacher still was Origen, a born Alexandrian, and subjected from his earliest youth to the influences of his native place. He was the son of a Christian martyr, Leonides, whose martyrdom he was only prevented from sharing by the tender care of his mother. Religiously brought up, he devoted his aspiring spirit, iron will and untiring industry to the Alexandrian learning. From Clement, who left Alexandria in the year of his father's death, he probably learned more through his writings than through oral instruction. But he was a pupil in the philosophic school of anemoneus sacus, commonly regarded as the founder of neoplatonism, from whom he no doubt received a lasting influence. He was but a team when he became the head of the catechetical school, where, poor as he was, he declined to receive fees from him, preferring rather to confine his wants within the limits of his narrow means. Here, he soon left to an assistant the training of the younger children, while he led his more advanced hearers through Hellenic culture to an intelligent comprehension of Scripture and to a Christian philosophy. His irregular ordination as presbyter at Caesarea brought upon him the displeasure of his bishop, Demetrius, already jealous of his fame, who drove him from the church of Alexandria. The neighboring churches, however, continued to hold him in honor, in spite of the hostility of his bishop, and he lived thenceforth, commonly at Caesarea, surrounded by pupils. Twice during this period, he was summoned to synods held in Arabia against heretics, barilless of Bostra and the Arabiki, and on both occasions he succeeded in convincing them of their error. In the persecution under Dekius, he endured great suffering with steadfastness, but died soon after. His writings are preserved partly in the original Greek, partly in the Latin translation of Rufanus. No name marks a more distinct epic in the church than that of origin. Whatever may be the faults of his scriptural exposition, he was the first to apply philology to the study of the Bible, the first who was conscious of the necessity of settling its text on a firm basis of documents, and his work on principles may be said to be the first traces on systematic theology which the Christian church produced. No one of his time, few of any time, manifested the same anxiety to discern the element of truth in the tenets of the several warring schools. No one combined in an equal degree purity of life and biblical learning with wide knowledge and capacity for philosophical speculation. His influence on the church has probably not been less than that of Athanasius or Augustine, and even those who, in after time, condemned his tenets were themselves influenced by his method. Clement and Origen were in some respects wide asunder, yet they have much in common, and the views which both held we may consider as representing the doctrines of the Alexandrian school. Both are sympathetic students of philosophy and both seek a system which may throw light upon the history of the universe. Both develop the doctrines implicitly contained in the bare facts of Christianity, avoiding on the one hand the narrowness of Judaism, on the other, the unlicensed speculations of Gnosticism. In the writings of Clement and Origen, broadly considered, we may find something of a system. God alone is purely incorporeal energy. As this energy can never be idle, an infinite series of worlds must have preceded the present, and an infinite series must follow. The present world is the refuge and the school of souls who have sinned in another state of existence. Here they expiate their guilt, but as no spiritual being ever loses its freedom of will, they have the capacity for raising themselves out of their degradation to a higher life. Even the condemned suffer purifying, not everlasting punishment. God has revealed himself at various times and in many ways through the word to the peoples of the earth. Philosophy was a tutor to bring the trials to Christ as the law to bring the Jews. For the highest and final revelation is that made in the incarnation of Christ. Popular faith or belief does not rise above the reception of the most necessary truths on the ground of authority. A higher stage is that of knowledge in which the Christian has attained to a scientific demonstration of the truths revealed in Christ. But the highest of all is wisdom when the Christian has immediate intuition of divine truth. It was for the more highly gifted to inquire into the reasons, the philosophy of the truths which the apostles taught to the multitude. But besides the simple and necessary doctrine which was given to all believers, the Lord, when he took the apostles aside privately, imparted to them treasures of secret wisdom which through them had been handed down to the true Gnostics. Both Clement and Origen expressed a certain dread of putting a sword into a child's hand by publishing to the many Christians only suited for the few. The Christian sage or Gnostic must aim at attaining not only a higher range of knowledge, but a complete freedom from the passions, even the passions which may have a good end, which move the greater part of mankind. He must deserve the words, I have said, ye are gods. He must be like God, in a sense deified. To this end he must free himself, so far as may be, from the bonds of the flesh. And he must pursue that of seeing God and becoming like him, with no reference to his own personal welfare. If his own salvation were offered him on the one hand, and the knowledge of God on the other, he would unhesitatingly choose the knowledge of God. With the view which the Alexandrians held on the pleasures of sense, it will readily be understood that they rejected with horror the sensuous conceptions of the thousand years reign of Christ on earth which had been held by many of the church, and that they did not regard the resurrection as a reconstruction of the decaying relics of mortality, but as a rising of the spiritual body to eternal life. Many points of their system could hardly be defended by a literal interpretation of scripture, and origin and his school, no doubt, made free use of allegory. It would however, be a mistake to imagine that origin gave greater scope to arbitrary interpretation than he found existing. Rather, he systematized it. He found in the scriptures a threefold sense, historical, moral, and mystic, corresponding to the threefold division of body, soul, and spirit. He is, in fact, the father of grammatical rather than of mystical exposition. Doctrines such as those of origin naturally called forth vehement opposition, and as vehement defense. Among those who continue the tradition of origin was his convert and pupil Dionysus, himself also head of the catechetical school, and afterwards for some years bishop of Alexandria, who shows in the remains of his writings both philosophical and critical power. Like his master, he was much opposed to the sensuous conceptions of the thousand years reign of Christ on earth. He seems to have deserved by his wise and temperate spirit the epiteth which Eusebius bestows upon him of, the great bishop, Gregory, Bishop of Neo-Cesarea, on whom a later generation bestowed the name of Thalmaturgus, the wonder worker, was another very distinguished pupil of origin, following him perhaps more in the ascetic than in the philosophic direction. It is highly probable also that Hierarchs or Hierarchus of Leontophilus derived his peculiar opinions from origin rather than from the Manichean source to which Epiphanius refers them. He rejected the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh and all representations of the life to come and very strongly discouraged marriage and the use of wine and flesh. But even the exaggerations of Hierarchs did not seem to have called forth any formal opposition at the time. The first who formally impugned the teaching of origin appears to have been Methodius, Bishop of Tyre, who, though himself of the Platonic school, attacked his doctrines on the continued evolution of worlds, on the resurrection and on the absolute human will. It was probably this attack which drew forth a defense from the excellent Pamphilius, a presbyter of Caesarea, perhaps the first wealthy churchman who employed his means in collecting a theological library. His defense was still incomplete when its author met a martyr's death. It was completed by his devoted friend and intellectual son Eusebius, Pamphilus's Eusebius as he came to be called. In the next generation the controversy about origin and his opinions blazed out with greater fierceness. End of Chapter 4, Part 2. Chapter 4, Part 3 of History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boulet. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by S. Cheetham. Chapter 4, Part 3. 4. While Alexandria was laboring to unite religion and philosophy, a very different school was dominant in the neighboring province of Roman Africa. Greek seems to have been commonly understood in Carthage, but Latin was evidently the usual language of society while the country folk retained their native Punic. The African was the first Latin church. There first we find a Latin literature in the service of Christianity. It has the rhetorical character which we find in the Roman literature of a purer age, vivified and at the same time deformed by the gloomier genius of the Punic race. A translation of the scriptures into this vigorous dialect supplied the wants of the faithful in the African cities and was for some generations the Bible of Latin Christendom. The earnest mysticism which was to become Montanism flourished among the half oriental Africans. In this church the most famous name is that of Quintus Septimius Florence Turtullianus as characteristic a product of Roman Africa as Clement was of Alexandria. Turtullian was born, the child of heathen parents, about the year 160 at Carthage. At that time one of the most considerable schools of literature in the Roman Empire he understood and wrote Greek he was a skillful returition and, as his works abundantly show, well acquainted with Roman jurisprudence. Converted while still young to Christianity by the sight of the constancy of the Christian martyrs he became a presbyteria of the church and its most vigorous literary defender. If, as Jerome tells us was the case, he reached a good old age. His days were probably prolonged into the fourth decade of the third century. With much of the imperious character of the Roman and the subtlety of the lawyer he has an impestuousity of temper and warmth of imagination which are perhaps due to punic blood. Christianity probably has rarely won a more eager and uncompromising convert. In his controversial writings, which are many, he upholds the Catholic faith according to his conception of it against Pagans, Jews and heretics in his practical works. Christian simplicity against corruptions of a luxurious society but in his polemics he is still the stern moralist. In his practical trices he is still the controversialist. His excellencies and his faults alike arise from his vehemence and his incapacity for compromise. He saw, as he thought the true doctrines of the church endanger from the speculations of philosophy and the wisdom of this world became the object of his keenest scorn and irony. The academy has nothing in common with the church. It was natural therefore that he should contend earnestly against Gnosticism, a development of the cosmic theories of Paganism. For himself he prefers that which is above reason and nothing is too marvelous for his eager faith to receive. He is realistic to the verge of materialism. With him the same thing as non-existent. The soul of man, God himself must have some kind of body. And again, seeing the life of holiness in danger from social relaxation, the spirit in danger of being quenched by ecclesiastical routine, he invades against all the pleasures of sense, however innocent, and at last joins the party of the Montanus, where he hoped to find more of the spirit of life. In theory, he paid great respect to the authority of the leading churches, but he was not the man to accept any authority, however exalted, which clashed with his conception of the truth. Christ, he says, called himself truth, not custom. The great representative of the church of Africa in the third century was Cyprian. Thascius Celysius Cyprianus, the son of wealthy parents after enjoying for a season the pleasures of pagan society at Carthage, where he was a rhetorician and teacher of rhetoric, sought refuge in the church from the emptiness of the life which he was leading. In the glow of religious feeling immediately after his baptism, he distributed a large portion of his wealth to the poor, and all his life long he was distinguished for his munificence. Within two years of his conversion he became a presbyter in Carthage, and shortly afterwards, though reluctant, recognized the voice of God in the voice of the people who hailed him bishop. Pleading a divine command, he fled in the persecution of Decius, though from his retreat he still continued to administer the affairs of his church, asking pardon that in the extraordinary emergency he was unable to consult the presbyters and people as he was ever want. Returning after a year's absence, he found his path full of obstacles. The small party which had opposed his election rose in rebellion against him, and the confessors in the late persecution claimed, by their mere word, to re- admit to communion those who had fallen by conformity to paganism in the trevelous time. Again, he was vexed by the conduct of the bishop of Rome on the question of the re-baptism of heretics. He had to maintain the authority of the bishop, on the one hand against those of his own people who impugned it, on the other, against a foreign power which claimed to override it. In the midst of these disputes, the great pestilence of the year 253 fell upon the empire and was special severity on the province of Africa. The good bishop was probably happier in suckering the distress of the terrible time than in disputes about discipline and doctrine, but his disputes and his beneficence alike came to an end in the persecution under rule. When he met his death with quiet courage, he was beheaded at Carthage in the year 258. The first African bishop says Prudentius, who suffered martyrdom. Cyprian called Tertullian his master, and so he was. He borrowed from him both thoughts and expressions, but he is neither the genius, the passion, nor the imagination of his teacher. His ability was rather that of ruler and administrator. And in this capacity, he showed great moderation in a time of feverish excitement. In his style, we find neither the glowing fancy nor the energetic brevity of Tertullian, but it is clear and flowing, rising occasionally into eloquence and imagery. On the whole, he gives us the impression of an able, cultivated Christian man, sincerely religious but incapable of fanaticism. Among African writers may be Wreck and Comodian, the earliest Latin verse. Born a pagan, he was converted, as he himself tells us, to Christianity by the reading of Holy Scripture. It was when Christianity had been already about 200 years in the world. In an age of persecution, that he wrote his Equipments Against the Gods of the Nations, 80 acrostic poems and hexameters in somewhat barbarous language. He also wrote an apologetic poem against Jews and Gentiles. It is in Comodian's work that we have the first specimens of that which was destined to prevail in modern Europe. Verse written solely according to accent with no regard to the quantity of the syllables. His style is barbarous and prosaic, though not without a certain rough figure, but his matter, especially his prophecy of the two antichrists and the Lord's final victory, is sometimes of considerable interest. Some half-century later than Cyprian, we meet with a distinguished African man of letters, Arnobius. Of him, we know no more than that he was a teacher of rhetoric at Sica in Africa, and that after his conversion to Christianity, he wrote seven books against paganism. He is very successful in showing the absurdities of heathen worship and the follies of the attempts to rehabilitate it, but he evidently holds opinions not compatible with the purity of Christian doctrine. He seems to have been drawn into the church partly by a strong reaction from heathenism, partly by the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life which Christianity pro-offered him. He could not accept philosophy as a substitute for religion. From Arnobius, we naturally pass to his pupil, Lactantius Fermianus, though a considerable portion of his life was passed in Europe, and his style betrays no African provincialism. His book on the handy work of God is probably the first Christian treatise on natural theology. His principal work on First Principles of Things Divine, though primarily apologetic, is really an introduction to Christian doctrine. He is not content, like some of his predecessors, with a merely negative position. The great contrast between the morality of Christianity and that of heathen he treats with a special vigor and success. And if we can detect here and there some weakness in his grasp both of theology and of philosophy, his work must have rendered an important service in the critical time in which it was produced, just on the eve of the victory of Christianity. His style is clear and pleasant, certainly superior to that of the best of his pagan contemporaries. In his treatise on the deaths of the persecutors, his first attempt to trace the judgments of God in history, especially in the history of his own time, from a Christian point of view. Five. We now come to the one apostolic sea of the west, the Great Church of Rome. Here there is a large Jewish colony and here, even more than in other cities, the Hebrew community drew around its proselytites and frequenters of its worship of all ranks, from a slave to an empress. Among the idols, proselytites and Jews, many converts were found. It soon became probably the most numerous of Christian churches. Tacitus describes the Christians of Rome as a vast multitude in the days of Nero, and in the third century, Cornelius, its bishop, speaks of the Roman church as containing a very large number of laymen, 46 presbyters, and 1500 widows and other distressed persons maintained by charity. The Judaic Christians for some generations did not fully harmonize with their Gentile brethren, but it was in Rome more than elsewhere that differences were assuaged and compromises made. For representatives of all nations and all forms of thought found their way to the central city of the world, and the Roman church early manifested the capacity for ruling, organizing and amalgamating, which had long distinguished the Roman state. And Rome was famed for its presence. The days of St. Lawrence, when the poor of the great city formed the treasure of the church, were not as the days when a Borgia or a Medici squandered vast wealth on luxury or art. The common language of this mixed multitude was Greek. Greek was the language of its principal writers, and Greek inscriptions appeared on the tombs of its bishops as late as the year 275. Victor, AD 189, is apparently the first Latin bishop of Rome, and he is also the first who is known to have had relations with the imperial court and to have claimed for his sea something like universal dominion. The real origin of the Roman church is utterly unknown, but in very early times St. Peter and St. Paul came to be regarded as its founders. The belief that the former had preached in Rome may possibly have arisen from the Jewish Christian fiction in which the two Simons the Apostle and the Magus play a prominent part, but it is much more probable that the legend was localized in Rome in consequence of St. Peter's actual presence there. The succession of the early bishops is involved in great obscurity. Irenaeus gives the order Linus, Anacletus, Clemens, and in the same order the names appear in the canon of the Roman liturgy, though Cleetus is substituted for Anacletus. A Clementine fiction makes St. Peter hand on his authority directly to Clemente. The ancient Boucherian catalog almost certainly derived in its earlier portion from Hippolytus gives the order Linus, Clemens, Cleetus, Anacletus. While the apostolic constitutions put into the mouth of St. Peter, the statement that Linus was ordained by Paul and Clemente after the death of Linus by Peter himself. It has been suggested as a way of reconciling these various statements that there may have existed at the same time in Rome, Jewish and Gentile communities, having separate bishops who derive their authority from St. Peter and St. Paul respectively. On the whole, however, it seems probable that the list given by Irenaeus is the correct one. In the early part of the third century we have a curious glimpse at the life of the Roman church through the writings of Hippolytus. It is to be credited Callistus, a runaway slave, a fraudulent bankrupt, and an escaped convict found it possible to worm himself into the confidence of the weak bishop Zephyrinus and to become his successor. This is, however, the story of a vehement opponent and probably an anti-bishop. But whatever may be said of Callistus, it is certain that the character of the early Roman bishops generally cannot be mad. They were not distinguished as writers or theologians, but many were martyrs. And men nurtured in Rome, hearing representations from all sides, were naturally more capable of comprehending the general bearings of a question than the worthy men who occupied analogous positions in provincial towns. At the same time, they were devoted to the interests of Rome. The first writer of the Roman church of whom we have any remains is Cormont, possibly identical with the Flavius Clemens, who was put to death by Domitian. His only extant work is a letter simple in style and abounding in Old Testament quotations written by him as the official organ of communication with foreign churches to the church of Corinth. The main purpose of the letter is to restore the harmony which had been broken by dissensions and by a revolt against the duties of meekness and of submission to those who are in authority over them and bear it blamelessly, are especially insisted on. The subject of the resurrection and old difficulty in the Corinthian church is also touched. There certainly seems to be a tone of authority in some of the expressions used and the mere fact of such a letter being written, probably at the request of those who were aggrieved, seems to imply that Rome was recognized by some, at least, as a superior authority. Another production of the Roman church is the curious work of Hermes, which bears the name of The Shepherd. He writes as a contemporary of Clement, but the writer of the Muratorian fragment describes him as the brother of the bishop Pius, 142 to 157. There is, however, nothing in the book incompatible with the earlier date. The book consists of a series of decisions, divine commands given to him, and parables or solemnities, related in an artless style which is not unattractive. The writer laments the corruption and the worldliness of the church. He warns men of the wrath to come, when the dross will be purged away. He beseeches them to repent while repentance is still possible. He distinctly claims to be a prophet, and his position is in some respects of a montanist, though Tertullian in his later days violently blamed his want of montanistic rigor. There is nothing in the book which savors Judaism, nor indeed any mention of the Jewish law. It evidently made a great impression on the church for such men as Irenaeus and the Alexandrian Clement quoted as scripture or revelation, and a fresco in the Neapolitan catechome represents the tower building which Hermes describes. Caius, a presbyter of Rome, who is said to have written in the days of Zephyrinus, refuted the tenets of montanism in a controversy with Proclus, the head of that sect in Rome, appealing against heretical novelties to the authority of a church which was able to point to the trophies of St. Peter and St. Paul, and denying that the expectation of a thousand years reign of Christ on earth had the authority of an apostle. Nothing is known of his personal history, and it is very possible that the name Caius is simply that of a person in a dialogue written by Hippolytus. This Hippolytus is the most remarkable man of letters produced by the church of Rome in the first three centuries. He was a pupil of Irenaeus. Besides his great work against heresies, numerous fragments remain, exegetical, apologetic, controversial and dogmatic. He was also a sociologist and compiled a chronicle, and his statue, found in the Via Tiburtina in 1551, has engraved upon it the paschal cycle which he drew up, as well as a list of his writings. It can scarcely be doubted that he was the bishop of some portion of the Christians in Rome, and it is clear that he regarded Callistus as the mere head of a school and not as a Catholic bishop. In the book against the heresies, the writer, starting from the assumption that heretics did not find their support in Holy Scripture, but in astrology, in pagan mysteries, and in Hellenic philosophy, proceeds first to examine these systems, and then the heresies, Gnostic and Monarchian, which he believed to have grown out of them. His work is consequently of considerable importance for the history of philosophy, as well as for that of the thought and life of the church in the early part of which, otherwise, we have little contemporary evidence. These wrote in Greek, but it is possible that the first of the long array of Christian Latin writers may also belong to Rome. Menuchius Felix, an advocate converted in middle life to Christianity, was probably a Roman, and evidently shared in the best culture of his time. Regarded simply as literature, his work is superior to those of his pagan contemporaries. As to his date, however, there are great diversities of opinion, some maintaining that he lived before Tertullian, who made use of his work, others that he lived in the quiet days of Alexander Severus, and made use of the work of Tertullian, a much more original mind in the compilation of his dialogue Octavius. End of Chapter 4 Part 3 Chapter 5 Part 1 of the history of the Christian Church during the first 6 centuries. This is added LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org History of the Christian Church during the first 6 centuries by Samuel Cheatham Chapter 5 Part 1 The Great Divisions We have already seen that there existed, as there could not but exist, where there was active life, warrior schools of thought within the Church. Men apprehended wariously the same great cardinal truths, but differences such as those of the Alexandrians and Africans were perfectly compatible with the recognition of the common face. Some teachers, however, either exaggerated a particular tenet so as to deform the proportion of the face, or refused to receive some truths essential to Christianity. There were Jews, Varezeleus for the law, who were for retaining the legal observances of the Mosaic Code and even for enforcing them upon converts from the Gentiles. There were Marcionites who exalted the teaching of St. Paul to the utter disparagement of everything belonging to the Jews. There were Mountainists who were for maintaining the freedom of prophetic gifts and a higher and pure standard of life in the Church, even to the loss of ecclesiastical unity. There was Gnosticism, the general name given to a number of systems which claimed to supersede at once Polytheism, Judaism and Christianity, which provide adequate explanations of the mysteries of the universe. And there was Monichaeism which resolved the moral and spiritual phenomena of the world into the war of the opposing principles of good and evil. And in the midst of the storm occasioned by these winds of doctrine the Church became more and more conscious that if she found that upon a rock that there was a basis of Catholic troughs that seemed altogether unaffected by heresies and schools of thought. 1. Where the Jew and the Gentile mingled freely in Christian worship the truth that in Christ was neither Jew nor Greek must gradually have asserted itself but in Jerusalem there was little or nothing of such influence there are all alike or Jewish converts all reverencing Moses under the shadow of the temple but before Jerusalem fell and the temple was raised to the ground the Christians heeding their Lord's words fled from the doomed city and reconstituted the Church of the Circumcision at Pella a city of the Decapolis and we find a little body of Nazarenes dwelling in Pella and its neighborhood as late as the close of the 4th century these held themselves bound by the Mosaic law but did not refuse communion with the Gentiles according to some authorities they had not risen to the full apprehension of the dignity of the person of Christ yet Jeremy, who must have known them seems to regard them as separated from Catholic Christendom chiefly by their retention of the Jewish law these simple folk were we may say inheritors of the spirit of St. James the Lord's brother and the same spirit pre-raids its proliterary production of the Nazarene school the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs which, to a strong Israeli feeling, unites the fullest recognition of the Gentile churches our Lord is represented as the renovator of the law the imagery and illustrations are all Hebrew certain virtues are strongly commended and certain vices strongly denounced according to a Hebrew standard that stands in the lives of the Patriarchs are derived from some unknown legendary Hebrew source yet the admission of the Gentiles into the privileges of the Convenant is a constant theme of thanksgiving with the writer but a much larger body than the Nazarenes the Ebionids not content with observing the Mosaic law themselves maintained that it was binding on all Christians impure all who did not conform they regarded Jesus as a messiah while they denied his divinity they rejected the authority of Saint Paul and may in truth be regarded as the successors of the false brethren who dogged his steps and deposed his doctrine these whom we may call for distinction farisake are the Ebionids of Irenaeus and Hippolytus the other more widely spread type of ebionism agreeing in general with opinions of the Frasiac Ebionids added to them new elements of mysticism and asceticism derived probably from contact with the Essenes this is the ebionism of Epiphanius these ebionids like the rest were zealous for the law but the law must be adapted to their peculiar tenets bloody sacrifices they looked upon this horror and the prophets they utterly rejected they laid great stress on certain peculiar observances especially lustral washings and abstinence from flesh and wine they maintained that the word or wisdom of God had been incarnate more than once and that thus there had been more Christ than one of whom Adam was the first and Jesus the last was regarded by them merely as the restoration of the primeval religion in other words of pure mosaism before it had been corrupted by foreign aggressions these Essenic ebionids bear a strong resemblance to the Judaic sectaries who disturbed the peace of the church at Colossae in the days of St. Paul they were eager to spread their face in many different parts of the empire and produced a great number of books which have not been without influence on Christian tradition though the works themselves have for the most part perished there are still extant the Clementines the homilies and recognitions attributed to Clement of Rome and a few fragments of the book of El Cassai of these the homilies were written probably in the latter half of the second century the recognitions known only in the free Latin version of Ruffinus somewhat later in the homilies Simon Magus the antithesis of Simon Peter is the impersonation of heresy where his traits are accumulated in his person and some of these are manifestly derived from St. Paul in the recognitions the animus of the writer against the Apostle of the Gentiles is much less strongly marked the book of El Cassai the hidden power professes to be written in the third year of Trajan and epoch corresponding remarkably with that mentioned by Haggis Sippos as the time of the great outbreak of heresies whatever its date it maintains like the rest of the Ebonid writings the perpetual obligation of the Jewish law and the purely human nature of Christ both this book and the Clementines have a strongly agnostic tinge the system of the Clementine writings makes Christianity itself little else than a purification and renewal of premuval Judaism Judaism and its latest development Christianity stand together in opposition to heathenism the main intention of the works in question seems in truth to have been to unite the Judaic and anti-Judaic parties in the church against pagan tenets whether in the church or in the world which surrounded it we have here no separation of a demurgus from the most high God the one God is all in all God created the universe through the wisdom the operative hand which is with him Christ and Satan are respectively the right hand and the left hand of God with the one he brings to death with the other gives life to Christ is made subject the world to come to the devil who was not created evil but became bad by a mixture of external elements is made subject to this present world man as made at first in the image of God rejoiced in the revelation of God made through the prophets of truth this line of true prophets began in Adam and when at the instigation of the devil the woman had brought confusion into the primeval revelation was renewed in Moses when the mosaic law began to lose its force and purity it was renewed in Christ who is the son of God in a sense in which that title could not be given to Adam or to Moses if not one with God in the Christian sense in this system the way of salvation begins with the calling from God through which man comes to know the true prophet in him he must have faith and in his name receive baptism then he advances to Gnosis the knowledge of the true nature of God and his perfect righteousness of the immortality of the soul of man of the judgment to come this Gnosis gives man power to fulfill the law as a series of positive ordinances a rigorous asceticism is required involving the utmost possible abstinence from the things of earth especially from flesh and from wine but the Judaic spirit of the system appears strongly in its commendation of marriage 2. if the system represented by the Clementines tended to exile Judaism even at the expense of Christianity that of Marcian exited the teaching of Saint Paul at the expense not only of Judaism but of other Christian teachers Saint Paul alone he recognizes as the Apostle the one depository of the truth as it is in Jesus his object throughout is to make the sharpest and most absolute separation between divine Pauline Christianity and the not merely inferior but hostile systems which preceded it the law is with him mere hardness and sternness the gospel an absolutely new revelation of God for which nothing in the previous history of the world had prepared the way it is a sunrise without a dawn in Marcian's system all things are sudden which in God's providence require a long development John comes suddenly Christ comes suddenly he is always bringing into prominence the undecesis of law and gospel righteousness and mercy fear and love as to his personal history we learn that Marcian was the son of a bishop of Sinope by whom it is said that he was excommunicated for some juvenile excesses he found his way about the middle of the second century to Rome where he was also rejected by the church and where with the help of a Syrian gnostic named Sardon he seems to have thought out his system he assumed three primal powers the supreme deity or good God the righteous Demiurgos or creator and matter with its ruler the evil one the Demiurgos putting forth the best of his limited powers created a world of the same nature as himself in which he chose the Jews to be his own people and gave them merely the covenant of salvation by works thus provided they struggled but feebly against the power of evil until at last the good God of his great love towards mankind sent his son Christ clothed in a body of no earthly mold yet capable of doing and suffering to reveal his hither to a known being he was at first taken for the messiah of the Jews deity but when he preached the gospel of the good God Demiurgos in wrath caused him to be crucified he died however only a seeming death they who believe in Christ and lead a holy life out of love to God shall attain to bliss in the heavenly kingdom the rest belong to the realm of Demiurgos and after his just condemnation are destined to receive according to their works either an inferior happiness or utter reprobation in one respect only does Marcion give hope for the heathen world the Christ after his seeming death descended into hell at Inferos and saved those of the old world whether heathens or Jews who believed on him Marcion's teaching professed to be founded on the very words of holy scripture but the canon of scripture which he acknowledged consisted only of ten epistels of Saint Paul and the gospel bearing the name of Saint Luke Saint Paul's disciple in the epistels it does not seem probable that he altered the words of the venerated master whose doctrine he claimed to have restored but the gospel which he used differed from the canonical gospel according to Saint Luke though it may be doubted whether Marcion himself introduced all the variations which were found in it he passed his days in eager contention against what he sought the prevalent Judaism of the church and in organizing the societies of those whom he hold his comrades in hate and persecution and the discipline of these societies however different from that of the church was by no means lacks if his teaching was antinomium in its opposition to the Jewish law he still inculcated an asceticism springing from the genuine devotion of the inner man to God those who did not rise to this asceticism and those who were married he retained in the ranks of the catehumans but to these he gave the privilege of being present at all the sites of the church the gospel was for all not merely for an inner circle of disciples like the Catholics he baptized with water he anointed with oil he gave milk and honey to the neofeeds and bread to the communicans in the Eucharist but wine was absent his disciples used neither wine nor flesh a second and even a third baptism was permitted and it was possible that for those who departed unbaptised a vicarious baptism was performed women were permitted to administer the baptismal rite his pupil Appellus taught that there was but one primal power the good God he it was who created the intermediate being who made the world the imperfections of which arise from lack of power in him who made it then intervened the being who spake in a flame of fire to Moses from whose inspiration sprang the Old Testament at the prayer of the world creator the good God sent his Christ into the world he appeared, lived, wrought and suffered in a real body not of sinful flesh but compounded direct from the pure elements without spot of sin and resolved at death into the elements again in his later days Appellus seems to have given heed to the utterances of a possessed maiden Philomena and to have more and more renounced Gnosticism and approach to the Catholic faith in his disputation with Rodon he declared that all would be saved who placed their hope on the crucified provided that they were found in good works the Marcianites maintained themselves as a distinct society as late as the 6th century split however by many seasons and perverted by the speculations of adherents from various Gnostic sects an inscription which once stood over the doorway of the Marcianite meeting house of the year 630 of the era of the Soloi Seidi AD 318 319 was found a few years ago in the village 3 there has always existed in the church more or less openly an opposition between established routine and the freer manifestation of religious emotion in the church of the 2nd century the more ardent spirits began to feel that the love of many had waxed gold the expectation of the coming of Christ was less vivid the standard of Christian life was lower plain living and high thinking had declined faith in the perpetual activity of the prophetic and other gifts of the spirit was no longer as it had once been the great animating principle of the church a church in which the sternest morality was not insisted upon seemed to them no true branch of the church of Christ the true church is where the spirit is not necessarily wherever the ecclesiastical organization is complete with such as these the divine in breathing the personal ecstasy of the prophet lifted him high above those whose authority depended upon mere ecclesiastical appointment such as these felt it a matter of life and death to maintain primitive Christianity as they conceived it against the increasing wordliness on the one hand and its gnostic departures from the simplicity of Christian doctrine on the other their feelings generally and especially the desire to maintain the gifts of prophecy within the church found expression in the voice of montanus a museum who about the year 130 began to claim to have received prophetic powers and the new revelation his enemies said that he even claimed to be the paraclete all that can be said of him with certainty is that he attracted to himself a large number of disciples including several women of high social position among whom the most conspicuous were Maximilla and Priscilla or as she is sometimes called Priska these two constantly appear as his companions and are sharing in his spiritual gifts of the other women whose utterances were received as divine revelation the only names that have come down to us are those of the martyrs perpetua and felicitas the montanists maintained as earlier teachers had done the perpetuity and necessity of the gifts of prophecy and vision they received the whole of the Christian scriptures there was no heresy in their views with regard to the father the son and the Holy Spirit they held very earnest and very precise opinions as to the speedy coming of the lord and are said to have expected the descent of the new Jerusalem at the village in Frigia Pepusa whence they are not unfrequently called Pepuciani strangely enough while insisting on the ever present guidance of the Holy Spirit they were only on precepts on permitted food and permitted acts which approached Judaic legalism their fasts were more numerous and more severe than those observed by the church in general marriage was permitted though the marriage were clearly placed on a lower level than the unmarried and probably remained in the ranks of the catechumens second marriages were utterly condemned often being condemned before time in the church with regard to sin after baptism the spirit declared through the new prophets the church has power to remit sin but I will not do it less others offend martyrdom was by no means to be avoided by flight but it was meritorious only if endured in faith and out of pure submission to God's will the one visible church of Christ included all who had been duly baptized yet many of its members were merely physical or natural men the spiritual or ploematic were those alone who accepted the higher teaching of the spirit by the mouth of his prophets and each one of these was endued with the spiritual priesthood some peculiar rites were attributed to them that woman prophesied in the churches is admitted on all hands but there is no reason to believe that this prophesying took place during divine service or that woman took any share in celebrating the mysteries the unmarried women were closely wailed in the churches it is not wholly improbable that the mountainists performed vicarious baptism on behalf of those who had died unbaptized such deaths were likely to be frequent in society which detains the majority of its members in a long catechumenate it is said that they used cheese in the Eucharist but this may probably have been as an offering rather than as a part of the actual Eucharistic celebration that some disorder took place in their assemblies is probable enough there have perhaps never been assemblies of ecstatics and visionaries which have not fallen into occasional improprieties but it is impossible to accept as through the charges of child murder and of horrible food given in their secret rites charges precisely similar to those of the heathen against the whole body of Christians which were circulated in the later age it is impossible to believe that their tullian and perpetua belong to society capable of horrible crime in its secret assemblies teachings such as that of the mountainists naturally spread rapidly among the excitable people of Rigia the church in that region was alarmed councils of the faithful were held in which their tenets were condemned and themselves excommunicated tidings of the proceedings in Asia soon reached the asiatic colony in southern Gaul and the confessors yet in bonds under stress of persecution brought letters in the interests of peace both to the brethren in Asia and Rigia and to Eloyterus bishop of Rome one bishop of Rome either Eloyterus or Victor acknowledged the prophetic gifts of montanus Prisca and Maximilla and gave peace to the churches of Asia and Rigia but Prahseas by misrepresenting the prophets induced him to recall the letters of peace which he had issued and to withdraw his recognition montanism had probably at one time many adherents in Italy but it was in Africa that it won its most important conquest Tertullian who gave to its cause all the warmth of his African nature and the skill of a practiced advocate now other of the sects of the ancient church has the advantage of presenting itself to later times as pictured by its greatest convert a provincial council at Iconium in the first half of the third century declared montanist baptism invalid thus branding montanism as a sect separate from the church shortly afterwards Stefan, bishop of Rome recognized it as valid Nikaia passed the question over in silence the synod of lower Dikaia in the latter part of the third century enacted that the Phrygians should be catechized and baptized ere they were admitted to the church and the Ocumenial Council of Constantinople even more strongly that the montanists here called Phrygians should be received into the church in precisely the same manner in which pagans were received montanism was found worthy of notice even as late as the legislation of Justinian in the sixth century and probably its later manifestations when it was a mere despised sect cast their credit on its earlier and purer time but it was already practically extinct in the latter part of the fourth century when, as Epiphanius tells us it could point to no prophet its real work was done in the protest which it made against spiritual deadness in the church in the second and third centuries End of chapter 5 part 1