 Chapter 5 Part 2 of the history of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. The history of Christian Church during the first six centuries by Samuel Cheatham. Chapter 5 The Great Division. Part 2. The desire to explain the mystery of the universe with its strange contrast of good and evil, of order and energy is probably ineradicable for the heart of man, and with this has often been joined the pride of possessing a higher wisdom which the crowd of inferior beings can only approach in gross material symbols. Probably the most striking exhibition of these tendencies with which we are acquainted is to be found in the various systems existing in every part of the Roman Empire in the early days of Christianity which have received the general name of Gnostic. The origin of these systems has been much disputed. The contemporary opponents of Gnosticism thought it little else than the Greek philosophy of religion putting on a mystic disguise. Modern inquirers have traced it to the Zoroastrian system of Zendevesta, to the Hebrew Kabbalah, to the Talmud, to the teaching of the Buddhists. The very variety of these theories shows that no one of them accounts for all the phenomena. The influence of all may be found in one or other of the Gnostic systems. The antithesis of light and darkness reminds us of Persia. The series of emanations from the divine essence recalls the Buddhists, while the allegory not seldom resembles that of the Hebrew Kabbalah. In cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus these theories ran together and met with Nessan Christianity. Gnosis is knowledge, in a special sense, an inner and deeper knowledge of the mystery of the existence not accessible to the vulgar and the source of pride to the initated. But the Gnosticism with which we are concerned, the Gnosticism which came in contact with Christianity, has certain special characteristics. In the first place some evil principle, generally identified with matter, is held to oppose the pure creative energy of the divinity. In nothing is the pagan origin of the system more distinctly visible than in this. For ancient speculation rarely arises disconception of one soul, creative will. All Gnostic systems derive the universe from the contact of spirit with matter, but spirit must lower itself by a gradual descent to matter. The great gulf between the two is bridged over by a long series of emanations from the highest or absolute being. These emanations, under the name of ions, occupy a very important place in most Gnostic systems. The same effort to provide a medium between spirit and matter is found in the Gnostic conception of a psychic or animal principle between the purest spiritual or Pneumatic, and the mere material or helic portion of the universe. The actual creation of the visible and palpable world is often attributed to Demiurgus, the working or forming deity whose special realm is psychic, separated from the most high god by a long series of ions and acting on matter as his subordinate. In several of the systems this Demiurgus or handicraft deity is identified with the god of the Jews, yet the conception itself seems to be derived from Plato, whose creator of heaven and earth is a Demiurgus superior indeed to the gods of the old mythology, but subject to the eternal forms which rule the universe. So far Gnosticism seems to have no very obvious contact with Christianity. It has, however, in fact a very intimate connection, both with Christianity and with Judaism. In the first place, many of the Gnostic Theosophists profess to draw much of their system from the scriptures. Justice Philo on his school found a whole system of Platonic philosophy in the plain facts of scripture history. So, by the help of allegoric or esoteric explanations, the Gnostics found in the sacred books a whole series of divine beings or emanations. The number 30, the years of our Lord's life when he began his ministry, became the number of the Valentinian ions. The lost sheep of the parable became Akhamoth, the lower or earthly wisdom wandering from its true home. Nor did the Gnostics appeal only to scripture. They set up a tradition of their own against that of the Church. The disciples of Carpocrates, for instance, asserted that Jesus had imparted their doctrine in secret to his apostles, beating them in turn imparted to faithful and worthy men. The offheats declared that the Lord in the interval between his resurrection and ascension had taught their peculiar wisdom to those few disciples whom he found worthy of so great a trust. Or that James the Lord's brother had disclosed it to Marianne, by the leadies professed to derive his system from Glaucius, an interpreter of Saint Peter, Valentius his from one Thoidas, a companion of Saint Paul. Both appealed to the tradition of Matthias and Ptolemy the Valentinian claimed an apostolic tradition which had come down to him through a succession of persons. All Gnostic teachers taught their disciples to look for some kind of redemption. This was generally regarded as the liberation of the Pneumatic element from the bones of matter, the escape of the spiritual man from the realm of the lower world forming deity. This redemption was said to be effected by one of the ions of which the man Christ Jesus was merely the instrument. We may almost say the mask or disguise. All the Gnostics differed widely from the Catholic teaching on the person of Christ. Many thought that he had but a seeming body and suffered only in appearance when they received the name of doketae. Again, all the Gnostic leaders in some shape or other took up a definite position, friendly or hostile to Judaism. In the older and more numerous systems both Judaism and Hithindam are represented as preparing the way for the advent of the complete and perfect religion their own. There is no essential opposition between them. In spite of innumerable differences of detail, they agree in this that the old religions of the world were a preparation for the complete and perfect religion. The disciples of Marcian, indeed, as we have seen, supposed Christianity to be in absolute contrariety both to Judaism and Hithindism. While the Gnosticism of the Judaism tended to the exaltation of Judaism, but neither of these systems can be considered as purely and simply Gnostic. The moral system of the Gnostics was the natural outcome of their religion. As they regarded matter as the seat of evil, morality consisted to a large extent of the struggle to free the spiritual principle from the influence of matter, that so it might acquire Gnosis. Hence, the really serious and religious Gnostics tended to Ascatism. Some allowed marriage, some even enjoined it on the spiritual, some, as Saturnius and Tatian, seemed to have forbidden it either altogether or at least for those who would be perfect. The coarser natures among them, on the other hand, drew very different conclusions from the same premise, and scorned the ordinary restraints of social decency. Mere outward acts where they contended indifferent, as matter was distinct from spirit, self-restraint was of little value in those who had never tasted the delights of dissoluteness. The real victory was for the spirit to stand and conquered amid the passions of the lower nature. Carpocrates and Prodacus, as also the later Marcosians, are said to have taken this direction. Gnostics of this kind, as was natural, readily conformed to pagan worship, and despised those who endured martyrdom for conscience's sake. The rise of Gnosticism is co-evil with that of Christianity. We can scarcely doubt that when Simon Magus in Samaria was accepted by the people as that power of God, which is called great, he had given himself out to be some kind of Gnostic emanation from the divinity. He was regarded indeed in later times as the head and source of heresy. They find distinct traces of Gnosis, probably in an esonic form, at Colossae, in the days of St. Paul, and again we meet with an angelology, which is apparently Gnostic, in the letters to Timothy. It was against Doctetism that St. John wrote of him, whom his eyes had seen and his hands handled. The Nicolaotans of the Apocalypse and the false teachers of the Apostle of Jude may probably have based their licentious views on Gnostic speculations. Towards the end of the Apostolic Age, Carinthus propagated views akin to Gnosticism in the district of Asia Minor, which was under the influence of St. John, saying that the Christ descended on Jesus, who was mere man at his baptism, and that while Jesus suffered, the Christ ascended again into heaven. In the Age immediately succeeding that of the Apostles, the simple, practical nature of the Church's work, pressed upon it as it was by surrounding Gnosticism, was not favourable to the spread of Gnosticism. It gained more influence as the desire grew stronger for theoretical completeness in the teaching of theology. Basilides, one of the most famous Gnostic teachers, a younger contemporary of Carinthus, was said to be Assyrian by birth, but passed the greater part of his active life in Alexandria, and there his son also, Isidorus, became a famous teacher. About the same time flourished Carpocrates and Egyptian, and his son Epiphanes as also the Syrian Saturninus or Saturnilus. Even in these early days of Gnosticism, its systems present the greatest diversities. In Valentinus, an Alexandrian settled in Rome, the speculative and imaginative development of Gnosticism reached its highest point. He produced, in fact, a highly poetic account of the creation and constitution of the universe, from the point of view of a thoughtful and cultivated hyzen. His school, which split into an Eastern and a Western or Italian branch, produced many distinguished teachers. Heracleon, against whom Oregon wrote his comment on Saint John, Ptolomaius, Marcus, Bardaisan or Bardassinis, an Armenian who lived long in Edessa and who is said to have been the first of Syrian hymn writers. Contemporary with Valentinus was who initiated Marcion in Gnostic tenets. To this period also belongs the restless Tatian, who, after passing through the most various forms of religion, at last settled in Gnosticism. His disciples received the names of Ancrotates from the excessive rigor of their lives, of Hydroparastatae or Aquarii from their abstinence from wine even in the Holy Common Union and sometimes that of Severiani from one Severus who was the pupil of Tatian. The sect still existed in the 4th century. The Orphites or Nasseni, who regarded the serpent as the beginner of true knowledge and the great benefactor of mankind, probably existed before Christianity, though their Gnostic development may have been as late as the 2nd century. With these we may reckon the Sessiani, the Kainites, the Paratissi and the Gnostic Justine with his followers. To the 2nd century also we may refer Gnostic of Arabian origin, mentioned only by Hippolytus, Monoemus or Menemhem. It is difficult to estimate the number and the influence of the Gnostics. Nowhere does it appear that the Gnostic community was superior to the Catholic Church of the place, but almost everywhere there were Gnostics, and Gnostics distinguished by intellectual activity and boldness. There was much Gnosticism to attract the Greeks, its generally anti-Judaic spirit, its promise of a conquest over matter and an advance to the fullness and perfection of knowledge, the imaginativeness of its adventurous systems, the ease with which it adopted votaries. But it nevertheless could not endure the steady, disciplined attack of the Church, its unsubstantial pagions vanished before the light of truth. In the 3rd century it had already lost its creative force, in the force it is powerless, and the 6th it vanishes, leaving hardly a wreck behind. The effects of Gnosticism on the Church were by no means wholly disastrous. The efforts of the Gnostics to construct a system which should explain all the variate and perplexing phenomena of the universe led the Christian teachers to point out with more distinctness that they were explained by the principles already revealed in Christ. The contest with men so able and so well acquainted with pagan philosophy, as many of the Gnostic teachers were, led to the more systematic development of Christian theology. And as a truly Christian theology was developed, the Jewish elements in the Church fell more and more into the background. It is very largely due to the pressure of Gnosticism that art and literature were enlisted in the service of the Church. But these benefits were counterbalanced by serious evils. The redemption which Gnosticism offered was merely knowledge, which certainly tended to poof man up with a vain sense of their own superiority. Its systems were based not upon historic reality, but upon the mere creations of erratic fancy in an ideal world. Gnostic asceticism and Gnostic laxity both found their way into the Church and corrupted the pure springs of Christian morality. It is not wonderful then that the Catholic teachers conscious that the religion of Christ is for man, as man not for a select coterie of initiated, conscious that speculation is not religion and that life as well as truth is to be found in Christ. It is not wonderful that such teachers set themselves emphatically to oppose the claims and the allurements of the Gnostics. Pace conquered knowledge falsely so cold. Five. In the third century arose on the eastern frontier of the empire a system which was destined to trouble the Church for many a year. This was the doctrine of money or Manichaius, which was in its origin a renewal and reform of the old Zoroastrian teaching, which probably some admixture of Buddhism. This religion adopted, as it spread westward, a certain coloring of Christian ideas and phrases, but it remained a foreign and rival power, not a heresy developed from the bosom of the Church itself. The accounts of Manichaius' life given by the eastern and the western authorities differ materially. We can hardly say of him, with any degree of certainty, more than this, that in the revival of national and religious life in Persia, which took place under the native dynasty of the Sassani Daae, Mani, a member of a distinguished Magian family, became prominent as a teacher. By his eloquence and his many accomplishments, he acquired fame and influence, and the favor of more than one person king, but was at last cruelly put to death by Varanis, Behram II. Mani attempted, as Mani had done before him, to explain the enigmas of human life by the supposition of two eternal all-pervading principles, a good and a bad. The good god of his realm of light are opposed to the evil spirit and his realm of darkness. Good struggles with evil. After a long internal conflict, the devilish powers threw together their forces on one tremendous day to battle against the army of light. The first born of God, the patterned man, fought with the help of the five pure elements, light, fire, air, earth, and water, for the realm of goodness was overthrown and again delivered, leaving behind some portion of his light in the power of darkness. For the reception of this, God caused the living spirit to form the material universe, in which the vital force, or soul of the world, is the fragment of light, which is held in the bonds of darkness. To redeem this light from its bondage, God sent forth two powers, Christ and the Holy Spirit, the one as sun and moon, the other as the ether, or pure, supreme mundane atmosphere, attract to themselves the elements of light, enveloped in earth. To retain these elements of light, the evil spirit formed man, after the image of the patterned man, making of him a microcosm, in which light and darkness mingled, as in the great world. Man then had within himself two vital principles, the reasonable soul, which aspires to the source of light, and the unreasonable soul, full of passionate lusts and longings. Hence he was constantly subject to the crafts and deceits of the evil one. Then appeared Christ in his own person upon earth, in a seeming human body, and seemed to suffer death. The design of the coming of the Jesus Patibilis was by his attractive force, to draw to himself the kindred spirit distributed throughout the world of nature and of man. He began the work of setting free the imprisoned particles of light. But even the apostles misunderstood him, through the force of Jewish prejudice, the scriptures of the Old Testament, or the work of evil spirits, those of the new were corrupted, partly by the mistakes of men, partly by the guile of demons. Money, the promised park lead, came to reveal all mysteries and to teach the means, whereby the noble part of the universe may be freed. His writings alone are the guide to all truths. In the end the light shall be separated from the darkness, and the powers of darkness mutually destroy each other. Like several of the agnostic sects, money divided his community into the two classes of initiated or chosen, and hearers or catechumens. The latter were prepared by a long course of instruction, for the revelation of the mysteries of man and nature, which was to be granted to them in the higher stage. These, during their catechumenet, received indulgence for the enjoyment of the ordinary pleasures of life, in consequence of the intercession of the chosen. The society was organized a direct imitation of the Catholic Church. During money's life he was himself the head of his Church. After his death, his place was supplied by a succession of vikers, or locum tenentes. The representative of the founder was supported and assisted by a body of 12 masters or apostles, under whom were 72 bishops, and under these again a body of presbyters and deacons. All these were taken from the initiated. These elect disciples received the seal of the mouse, the hand and the bosom. The first symbolized their abstinence from all columny and evil speaking, as well as from flesh and all intoxicating drinks. The second, they are desisting from all common toil, and from every act injurious to the life, whether of man or beast. The third, they are refraining from all indulgence of fleshly lust. The hearers, not yet bound to so strict an observance, were permitted to engage in trade and agriculture, and had to provide food for the initiated, who were above terrestrial cares. The ministers of the money high and sect were said to grant absolution, with too great readiness for sins committed, as sins were regarded, rather as the work of the evil principal within him, than of the man himself, as misfortunes rather than crimes. Their exoteric worship seems to have been extremely simple, without altars or elaborate ceremony. Sunday was a fast day. A great annual festival, called the Feast of the Beema or Pulpit, was held in March to commemorate the tragic death of money. And the magnificent pulpit, a symbol of the teaching power of the Paraclete, stood in money high in meeting houses, raised on five steps. The symbols perhaps of the five pure elements. The esoteric worship of the initiated was kept a close secret. It was thought to consist of baptism in oil, and the participation of a sacred feast without wine, a parody of the Eucharist. In spite of the terrible fate of money, his disciples rapidly increased in numbers. They spread in a short time, from Persia over Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, over Egypt and North Africa, and even reached Italy, Gaul and Spain. But a few years after the death of money, we find Deokletian, who hated religious division in general, and a new sect from the hostile realm of Persia, in particular, addressing a severe addict to Julian, pro-consul of Africa, against this abominable gang of money highens, and condemning their chiefs to the flames, their adherents to beheading and confiscation of goods. They spread, however, notwithstanding, and though their public worship was suppressed in the sixth century, they find scattered secret societies of money highens late in the Middle Ages, if indeed they can be said to be even now extinct. 6. In the stirrup parties and the struggles of sects, there became manifest a great unity, the Catholic Church. The Church not of Paul or Cephas, of Montanus or Marcion, but of Christ. In the midst of the bins of doctrine, which blew from all quarters, men felt it is more necessary to take their stand upon the rock. The great mass of the disciples clung to the central truth of Christian doctrine, which were neither Judaic nor Gnostic, but Christian and apostolic. They felt that behind all partial views were truths which are indeed universal, destined for all men. In spite of all divisions, there was still one, all embracing or Catholic Church, of which particular churches were members. The divisions of the early generations played a large part in bringing these things into distinct consciousness. Even Saint Paul, in his lifetime, appealed against the strange opinions of isolated innovators, to the greater antiquity and universality of the true faith. And after the death of the last surviving Apostle, it was even more necessary to appeal to such a standard against the almost infinite variety of opinions, which claimed to be in some sort Christian. The sense of unity and continuity, to which the early writers' appeal was brought into greater prominence as it was brought into danger. And as the expectation of the speedy coming of an earthly reign of Christ faded away, the conception of the Church as it so, the earthly province of the Kingdom of God, asserted its true place in man's minds. It presented itself as a divine institution, a means of deliverance from the world, and of adoption into the heavenly Kingdom. It is the guardian of the truth committed to it, and the bestower of grace throughout the world, and the sacraments which Christ ordained. The ministry is divinely instituted as a continuation of the Apostolic office. It is the Church, under the guidance of the successors of the Apostles, which is recognized as the Apostolic Church. It is the whole congregation of Christian people, dispersed throughout the world, which is recognized as Catholic. To belong to the Catholic Church is not only to hold the true faith, but to be a member of the great and the unique organization to which its Lord has given, exceeding great and precious privileges and promises. To be outside this organization, to be disowned by it, is the last and most fatal of penalties. Please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Anna Roberts. History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries by S. Chetham. Chapter 6, Part 1. The Theology of the Church and Its Opponents. 1. The human mind naturally attempts to connect and systematize the truth imparted to it. It is tolerant of mere isolated fragments of truth, and this systematizing faculty, working upon the truths revealed in Christ, produced in the course of ages the fabric of Christian theology. But in the early years of the Church it was perceived that there must be some limitation of the truths which could be considered Christian. Neither the pretended revelations and traditions of the Gnostics, for instance, nor the apocryphal books of some other sects, could be admitted to be sources of Christian doctrine. What then are the genuine sources of Christian truth? A. In the first place, Holy Scripture. The scriptures of the Old Testament were received from the first, in all the churches, as authoritative declarations of the Divine Will. But here the question arose, what was to be understood under the name Holy Scripture? The Hebrew Canon was indeed defined, but several later works of Palestinian and Egyptian Jews, though never received by the Hebrew doctors as equal with the ancient sacred books, were thought by many to possess some degree of authority. And to the great mass of Christians, the books of the ancient Jewish Canon and the recent editions were known alike in the Greek language. It was not easy to distinguish the canonical from the apocryphal books, to use the terms by which they came to be designated in later times, when all came before them in the same form and with no outward marks of distinction. And this confusion was propagated in the West by the old Latin version, which was made from the Greek. The prevalence of this uncertainty induced Melito of Sardis to inquire in the East for the true canon of the ancient books. The list of the books of the Old Testament which he gives exactly coincides with that of the English Church, except in the exclusion of the Book of Esther. Origin gives in the main the same catalog, including Esther, and perhaps also Baruch. Although, however, men whose attention had been specially directed to the subject distinguished between the ancient Hebrew books and the later editions, many early writers quote apocryphal books as of authority. In the case of the New Testament, we have to do with the formation of a canon, not with the recognition of one already formed. While the teaching of the apostles and of others who had seen the Lord was still fresh in the minds of the brethren, the need of an authentic written standard of the facts and doctrines of the gospel was scarcely felt. The word was a message or proclamation. It was heard, received, handed down. But as this word died away, a variety of written documents claimed to supply its place. It is clear, however, that, from the earliest date at which we could expect to find evidence of such a fact, the four Gospels which we recognize occupy to place a part. The picture of Christ which we find in the earliest Christian writers is the picture which we find in the Gospels, and not elsewhere. Both in Orthodox and Heretical Writers, there is a constancy of reference to the now received Gospels, such as cannot be produced in favor of any other writings whatever. Irenaeus, connected by only one intervening link with St. John, distinctly recognizes four Gospels, undoubtedly are four, and no more as the authentic pillars of the Church. The apostolic epistles from the first claim to be something more than occasional writings, and as early as the time when the second epistle of St. Peter was written, the epistles of St. Paul were clearly regarded as scripture. Basilities the Gnostic, about the year 125, quotes as scripture the epistle to the Romans and the first to the Corinthians. Clement of Alexandria recognizes the Apostle, the collection of apostolic writings, as correlative to the Gospel. Tertullian speaks expressly of the New Testament as consisting of the Gospels and the Apostle. The earliest testimonies to the existence of the New Testament as a whole are the catalog contained in the famous Muratorian fragment, written about AD 170, a Western document, and the Syriac version of the New Testament, called Peshito, made about the same period, which to a great extent agrees with it. In the third century, testimonies abundant to the general reception as scripture of nearly all the books of the New Testament which we at present acknowledge. Certain books, the epistle to the Hebrews, of Jude, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John, James and the Apocalypse, were not received as canonical with the same absolute unanimity as the rest. Of these it may be said that by the end of the 3rd century, the Apocalypse was universally received, with the single exception of Dionysius of Alexandria, by all the writers of the period, and the epistle to the Hebrews by the churches of Alexandria, Asia, and Syria, but not by those of Africa and Rome. The epistles of St. James and St. Jude were little used, and the 2nd epistle of St. Peter was barely known. And the reverence with which the books of the New Testament were received was due to the belief that their writers had the special guidance of the Holy Spirit. The scriptures are divine writings, oracles of God, writings of the Lord. The prophets spoke as they were moved by a spirit given by God, yet in such a way that the spirits of the prophets were subject to the prophets, not in the blind, furor, or ecstasy of a pagan soothsayer. The recognition of the guidance of the Spirit granted to the sacred writers did not blind the early fathers to the differences of their gifts. Both Irenaeus and Origen made excellent remarks on the peculiarities of the style of St. Paul, and tertulience base of him in the early days of his discipleship as still raw in grace, as of capable of after development. It was an object of great importance with the early defenders of the faith to shoe the essential harmony of the Old Testament with the new, a harmony which Marcian and some others denied. It is in view of such an opinion that Irenaeus lays down that it is the same householder who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. Both the Old Testament and the New were brought forth by one and the same Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. The two Testaments are the two pillars upon which rest the mighty structure of the Church. The method of the ancient interpretation of Scripture is, for the most part, neither historical nor philological. It is the effort of pious and believing minds to find in the books for which they felt so much reverence the greatest amount of edification for their souls. B. But the appeal to the Scriptures against heresy was not in all cases conclusive. Many of the early Christians knew little of them. They had believed without paper and ink, and it was difficult for the Orthodox teachers to refute the allegorical interpretations by means of which many heretics thrust their own opinions into Scripture, for they themselves also practiced the same method. Heretics frequently claimed to possess the only key to its meaning. The early teachers did in fact appeal to the doctrine of the Apostles, as maintained in the Churches which they had founded. They appealed to the actually existing faith in the Churches of such cities as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Rome. Irenaeus claimed the authority of his old friend and master. Polycarp had seen an Apostle, Valentinas had not. He claimed the authority of the Church of Ephesus, founded by St. Paul, instructed by St. John, and generally appealed to the store of faith left by the Apostles in the Churches. In precisely the same strain, Tertullian affirms, that what the Apostles taught is to be discovered through the Churches which they founded, in which they preached, to which they wrote. That doctrine is to be held true which agrees with that of the Apostolic Churches, the sources and springs of faith. And it was natural, and indeed necessary, that the essence of the Apostolic teaching, as it was found in the memories of the Churches and in the writings of the New Testament, should be summed up in a brief and easily grasped shape for the use of the faithful. Such a rule of faith, rule of the Church, rule of truth, or by whatever name it may be called, does in fact soon make its appearance. No such rule, as far as we know, was drawn up by any Apostle or by the Apostles collectively, yet a document which set forth a primitive doctrine naturally claimed the authority of Christ and the Apostles. It was given by teachers in a briefer or more extended form, as circumstances required, so that it has come down to us in several shapes, in which we may generally trace the special errors against which they are directed. Traces of such a rule are found in Ignatius and in Justin Martyr. But it is in Irenaeus first that we find a tolerably complete summary of the faith which the Church, dispersed throughout the world, had received from the Apostles and their disciples, the belief in one God, the Father all sovereign, who made heaven and earth, in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the life and death, the resurrection and ascension of our beloved Lord, and his coming again in the glory of the Father, to raise up all flesh of all mankind, and to do just judgment upon all. The short rule given by Tertullian coincides in substance with that of Irenaeus, with the addition that the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate are mentioned by name. In Origen the statement of the rule is mangled with paraphrastic comment, referring to opinions of the writer's own time, but it is easy to see that the substance of the faith taught in Alexandria was identical with that of Gaul and of Africa. The same may be said of the Summary of Apostolic Teaching given in the Apostolic Constitutions, where it is remarkable that the Twelve Apostles, with Saint James the Lord's brother and Saint Paul, are said to have drawn up this Catholic teaching for the use of those to whom the oversight of the Church had been entrusted. In these formularies we have not mere individual utterances, but the expression of what the Church at large felt to be the essence of its faith. These cardinal truths remain fixed and firm, while matters of conduct and organization admit of change from time to time under the influence of the grace of God. But custom and tradition are by no means to be followed contrary to the words of Christ. Side by side with the conception of Catholicity was developed that of heresy. Those who did not accept in its fullness the Apostolic doctrine embodied in the rule of faith were heretics. Heretics, Cisirenaeus, offer strange fire, doctrines, that is, strange to the Church. They are a rebellious minority. It is of the essence of heresy that it claims to be Christian, that it disguises false doctrine under Christian terms, that it offers, as Ignatius says, a deadly poison mixed with honey wine, its wolves pass for sheep, its wild beasts for men, its springs from unbridled self-assertion. It is a later birth, while Catholic doctrine is from the beginning and therefore true. The duty of Christians is to avoid heretics, but to pray for them, that they may be brought to repentance. The Church was continually arming itself against heresy, and to some extent modified its own attitude. A kin to the rule of faith, though distinct from it in origin, is the baptismal confession. From the earliest times a profession of faith was required of him who would be baptized, when the Lord charged his apostles to admit men to discipleship by baptism into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, it is clear that he required faith in the Holy Trinity as a condition. A man must confess the good confession in order to receive baptism. But in the course of a few generations it came to pass that the candidate was required to answer somewhat more than the Lord laid down in the Gospel. Something was added of the Church, perhaps also the resurrection of the flesh. End of Chapter 6, Part 1 Chapter 6, 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. This reading by Anna Roberts. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by S. Tetham. Chapter 6, Part 2 The theology of the Church and its opponents. 2. The central belief of Christians in one God, creator, ruler, sustainer of the universe, was contradictory to polytheism. One of their first tasks was to persuade the heathen that the rejection of a plurality of deities and of visible objects of worship was not atheism. In controversy with them, they appealed both to the works of nature and to man's inborn spontaneous recognition of a supreme deity when his eyes were not blinded that they saw not. The man who knows himself shall know God. In the Christian conceptions of the deity we see a certain variation in teachers of different schools. Tertullian ascribes a bodily form to God, but then he understands by body, any medium by which an existing thing manifests its existence. His body is not necessarily gross and palpable. At the other extreme are the Alexandrian theologians, whose great effort it was to keep the conception of God clear of the conditions of time and sense. Origin naturally would not hear of God's being described as, in any sense, corporeal. Unlike the heathen philosophers, Christian teachers almost invariably held that God had made the world, not from pre-existing formless matter but from nothing, that he was the cause of matter as well as of form. Justin Martyr and Athenagoras are apparent rather than real exceptions. No one of the early writers has more vigorously attacked the pagan view than Tertullian in his treatise against Hermogenes. Against the Gnostics the doctors of the church earnestly contend that no inferior handicraft deity was the creator of the world but the very same almighty power who redeemed it, and against the Gnostics also it was maintained that it was not in consequence of any overpowering necessity but of his own will, of his own love, that God made the world. The pagan notion of a supreme destiny, or fate, to which even God's were subject, was rejected. God was the creator not only of the visible universe but also of the invisible world of angels and spirits by whose agency he rules the world. But if the unity of the deity was carefully asserted by the early church against pagan polytheism and Gnostic dualism, no less earnestly was it maintained that in this unity is a trinity of persons equally divine. This one God in three persons is the object of Christian worship and contemplation. In the early ages it was sought to give adequate expression to the central blessing of Christianity, the union of the life of God with the life of man, and this end could only be attained by such a conception of the divine and human in Christ Jesus as should make clear both the perfect God and perfect man in Christ, and this without confusion of persons. Hence the Ebonite conception of Christ as a being essentially human, though filled with the spirit of God and even in wondrous wise begotten of the spirit, was rejected as altogether short of the truth. Equally inadequate was the conception of a being essentially divine, seemingly appearing in human form or seemingly united with the man Jesus. All conceptions in a word were rejected which seemed to endanger either the true divinity of the Son of God or the true humanity of the Son of Man or the true union of God and man in one Christ. If it is in Christ that the one real atonement is made between God and man, faith must contemplate in him at once God with us and the true and perfect man. This it was which the church of the early ages set itself to express in its teaching. The earliest pagan witness testifies expressly that Christians sang a hymn to Christ as God. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Ignatius, without special exactness of expression, assert the transcendent dignity of the person of the Son. The word logos, already used by Philo to designate both the reason and the creative utterance of God, was applied by Saint John to the incarnate Son and after him by Justin Martyr and other apologists. The logos is, in the usage of the latter, the deity in Christ, as distinct from his human nature. The logos existed with the Father at first only potentially, but was brought into actual existence before the creation of the world and with a view to that creation. God manifests himself in him, just as human reason is manifested in the utterance of an articulate word. The word is, in this mode of conception, subordinate. Irenaeus, on the other hand, deprecates his over-subtle all speculation on the manner in which the Son was produced from the being of the Father, while holding fast the doctrine of his divinity. As regards to the Holy Spirit, difficulties arose from the attempt to explain to the understanding his essence and relation to the Father. Some, as Theophilus, made the logos coordinate with the wisdom or Holy Spirit of God. Some, as Justin, seem to make little distinction between logos and spirit. Logos, spirit, power, seem almost identical terms. Several teachers deviated from the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, tending towards one of the two extremes. Either in their anxiety to preserve the unity of God, they identified the Father and the Son, or they made the Son, however exalted, something less than God. The first, starting from the cardinal truth of the divine unity, contended that the advocates of a Trinity preached two or three gods and called themselves advocates of the monarchy of the deity. This monarchy in tendency developed itself in different directions. One party held that the supreme being simply worked upon or influenced the man Christ. This opinion had several adherents. Theodotus was the first, too, since the days of the Ebianites, taught that the Lord was mere man, for which heresy he was excommunicated by Victor, bishop of Rome. The same view is maintained by another Theodotus, a money-changer, and also by Artemon, who further maintained that his view was that of the Primitive Church. In this class must also probably be included those whom Epiphanius calls a logai, who rejected the whole doctrine of the logos. But the most conspicuous of those who maintained this heresy is Paul of Samosata, the worldly splendor-loving bishop of Antioch in Syria. He denied that the Son of God came down from heaven and asserted that Christ was a mere natural man like other men. God's logos and God's spirit remained always in God, just as a man's reason or discourse remains in his own heart, and the Son was no distinct substance or person, may, and I, anupostaton. But in God himself, the logos came and dwelt in Jesus, who was a man, but the divine wisdom dwelt in him, not in essence, but as a quality. He denied that his doctrine involved the suffering of God, the Father, saying that the word alone wrought upon Christ, and ascended again to the Father. Paul was deposed by a Synod held at Antioch in the year 269, but his party, under the name of Paulianists or Samosatanians, maintained itself into the fourth century. Others, again altogether obliterated the distinction between the Father and the Son, the first to became conspicuous by the advocacy of this confusion was Praxeus, who came from Asia Minor to Rome in the days of Eleotherus and Victor, and combatted mountainous views with great success. His doctrine of the person of Christ is said to have found considerable acceptance in the imperial city. Tertullian says of him, with characteristic vigor, that he accomplished two tasks for the devil. He banished prophecy and introduced heresy. He put to flight the paraclete and crucified the Father. He seems to have taught that the Father and the Son were one person, the former in a spiritual state of existence, the latter in the flesh. It follows that the Father must have suffered for us, whence those who held this opinion received the name of Patripasians. Similar views were propounded by Aenoetus, a native of Smyrna, where he was excommunicated for his heresy about the year 200. He, if we may trust the accounts of his opponents, held that the one God and Father, the maker of the universe, appears and disappears when he will and as he will. One and the same person is visible and invisible, begotten and unbegotten, unbegotten from the beginning, begotten when he willed to be born of a virgin, in his own nature incapable of suffering and death, and again of his own free will capable of suffering and death, even the death of the cross. The same person bears the name of Father or Son as circumstances require. Aenoetus' doctrine was propagated in Rome by his disciple Epigonus, who there won over Cleomenes, and in Rome it found its most able and conspicuous opponent in Hippolytus. This distinguished teacher held the person of the Son to be distinct from the person of the Father, but in order to preserve the primordial unity of the deity, he maintained that Christ must be described as a begotten God, Theos Heoenetus. The Logos has no doubt a distinct personality, but he first became a person by proceeding forth from God the Father as his firstborn, through whom all things were made. Hippolytus himself, in fact, regarded the Son as it being created simply by the will of the Father. Against this view, Zeferinus, then Bishop of Rome, declared that he at least acknowledged only one God. He believed Christ, the incarnate Son of God, to be not another God distinct from the Father, but in his divine being or substance the same with God the Father. Zeferinus had probably no intention of denying the personality of the Son, but simply wished to protest against what he considered the dytheism of Hippolytus. The latter, however, retorted upon him fiercely, and when Zeferinus' successor, in the Bishopric, Callistus, entered the list against him, he attacked him with still greater bitterness, a bitterness intensified probably by circumstances which are very imperfectly known to us. Making allowance for the evident bias of Hippolytus our only authority on this matter, it seems probable that Callistus attempted to maintain the unity of substance in the deity against Hippolytus, while protesting against the confusion of persons introduced by Noetus and others. For while Rome was yet agitated by the opinions of Noetus, a new form of error had found its way thither, the modalism of Sebelius. It is uncertain whether this remarkable person sprang from Libya or from Italy. It is certain that in the Episcopate of Zeferinus he was at Rome, where he was won over to the opinions of Cleomenus, which he developed after his own fashion. When Callistus, who had previously seemed to encourage him, became bishop, he disowned Sebelius, and it was perhaps for this reason that the latter left Rome for the east, and became a presbyter at Ptolemaus, where his success induced Dionysius of Alexandria to write a treatise against him. His system probably derived something from the same Gnostic source which influenced the Clementine homilies. The monad, he says, becomes by extension a triad. God extends and again contracts himself. As there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit, so the father always remains the same, but is extended into son and spirit. The same God, remaining one in substance, transforms himself according to the several needs which arise, and now addresses us as father, now as son, now as holy spirit. In the Old Testament he legislated as father, in the new he became man as son, as holy spirit he descended upon the apostles. And he compared the deity to the son, which though always remaining one's substance, has three energies or modes of manifestation, first his actual mass or disc, second that which causes light, third that which causes heat. In the same class with Nohetus and Sebelius may be placed Barillus of Bostra, whose leading tenet was that the son before his incarnation had no defined personal existence. Barillus, however, was convinced of his error by the arguments of origin. In the working out of the human expression of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the teaching of origin is of great importance. With him, God is the one real existence, the ground of all the phenomena of the universe. But it is impossible to conceive God, the supreme energy, resting in idleness and immobility. He must therefore exert his ceaseless energy in creative work, and he must reveal himself. The link between the eternal God and the creation is the son, the very image of his substance. The word wisdom, applied to him in the older writings, denotes the totality of the primal thoughts, which are the eternal forms of the universe, the source of which is the son. The expression logos denotes the revelation and communication of these same thoughts, which are contained in the divine wisdom. But we must not attribute all this to the will of the Father only, for the will of God is itself impersonated in the Son. The Son is begotten of the Father, but we must not say that a portion of the substance of the Father is transformed into the Son, or that he was created out of nothing by the Father. There was never a time in which God was not the Father of the Son. With God all things are present. The Son is a consubstantial emanation from the glory of the Father, yet is this identity of substance a conditional one, for the Father alone is the Absolute God. In this respect the Son is inferior to the Father. The Father, he said, is greater than I. The Father therefore alone is the proper object of worship. Origin even sometimes speaks of the Son as created or fashioned. The subordination of the Son shows itself in his work. The Son does the same as the Father, but the impulse comes from the Father. He is the instrument by which the Father works. The Holy Spirit is made through the Son, for all things were made through him. He is the first and chiefest being made by the Father through the Son, and subordinate to the Son as the Son to the Father. He it is who sanctifies the elect people of God. In Origen's doctrine of the Holy Trinity, therefore, there is clearly subordinationism. In teaching the consubstantiality of the Son, Origen is the forerunner of Athanasius. When he teaches subordinationism, he may be appealed to by the Arians. In the early days of the Church, few Latin writers appear as theologians. Tertullian, however, is a vehement opponent of partipassianism. He is himself a decided subordinationist, considering the Father as the whole substance of the Godhead, and the Son as a portion of, or affluence, from him. The Holy Spirit in Tertullian's scheme occupies the same subordinate position as in Origen's. How widespread was the Patropassian theory is shown by the fact that the poet Commodian held it, apparently without any consciousness that he had deviated from the faith of the Church. 4. Many, perhaps most, of the early Christians regarded the Second Coming of Christ and his final victory over all that opposed as rapidly approaching, and to most of these the Coming of the Lord presented itself in the form of chileism, the expectation of a thousand-year reign of the Redeemer, with his risen and glorified saints upon Earth as a preparation for the final consummation of all things. Probably the contest against Gnosticism tended to strengthen the belief in a material aspect of the Kingdom of God which the Gnostics denied. The Epistle of Barnabas first lays it down that as one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, the first six thousand years of the world's existence are as the six days of creation, and the seventh period is to be a thousand years of sabatic peace and rest. Justin Martyr expects Christ to reign a thousand years in Jerusalem. The materialistic and sensuous view of the reign of Christ appears in the description of the Blessings of the Saints quoted from Papias by Irenaeus. Irenaeus himself derives his imagery from such passages as those which speak of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, of the fruit of the vine to be drunk in the Father's Kingdom, of the fashion of this world passing away. Tertullian, as a Montanist, was of course extremely emphatic in his belief of the speedy coming of the Lord. At the end of the second century these opinions, when they were propagated at Rome by Serentus, were strongly opposed by Caes the Presbyter. In Alexandria, they met still more vigorous opposition, and under the great influence of origin, came to be regarded as at any rate fanatical, if not heretical. End of Chapter 6, Part 2. Chapter 7, 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. This reading by Anna Roberts. History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries by S. Chetham. Chapter 7, Part 1. The Organization of the Church From the first, the Church of God had a deep consciousness of its unity. Its members were bound together by a common feeling for religion, a common system, a common hope. Wherever there were Christians, a brother found himself at home. Whoever came to a church and brought the true teaching was to be received and entertained. Especially were they to be honored who spoke the word of God. The apostles, prophets and teachers, who passed from church to church without being of necessity officials of any, had no doubt a large share in keeping alive the sense of unity in the scattered communities. These were men raised up by the Holy Spirit for the work which they undertook. There is no record of their being elected or ordained. The Church recognized the gift which was in them. Careful arrangements were made for their reception in the churches which they visited, and directions given to guard against imposters. For in very early times, tears were found among the wheat. But besides teachers specially raised up, a regular organization for teaching and government was found in each church. The distinction of clergy, clericoi, and laity, leokoi, is found at an early age of the church. Clement of Rome hints not obscurely a parallel between the Order of the Priesthood in the Jewish church and that of the Christian ministry. The Ignatian letters are full of references to a distinct Order of Ministry with several ranks. Polycarp has much to say on its claims and duties. Irenaeus speaks rather of the distinction conferred by moral and spiritual excellence, the Alexandrian Clement rather of the privileges of the true Christian Gnostic than of a formal Order of Ministers, though clearly recognizing a distinction between the Presbyter, the Deacon, and the layman. It is in Tertullian that we first find the words sasserdos and sasserdotium applied directly to the Christian ministers and ministry, yet he asserts distinctly enough the priesthood of the community in Christ, though the authority of the church made a distinction between clergy and laity, ordo and plaves, as was plainly indicated in the separate bench assigned to the former. A few years later Hippolytus speaks of himself as sharing in the grace of high priesthood, archerateus. But in no early writer do we find the sasserdotal claims and functions of the ministry put forward so distinctly as they are by Cyprian. He frankly applies to the officers of the Christian church passages relating, in the first instance, to the privileges and duties of the Aaronic priesthood. Those who oppose the priesthood are guilty of the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The language of the apostolic constitutions, probably contemporary with Cyprian, is not less strong. With regard to the particular offices of the ministry, we have already seen that instances of one person exercising in a church and authority, such as we call Episcopal, are not wanting in the apostolic age. The leading indications of the several orders of the ministry in early writers are as follows. The Apostles, says Clement of Rome, appointed their firstfruits as bishops and deacons of those who should join the faith. Here, as in St. Paul's epistles, all officers of the church driving authority from the apostles seemed to be included under the two categories of direction or supervision and executive or ministerial activity. Moreover, they directed that after they had fallen asleep, other approved men should succeed to their office, lay tourgion. Therefore, continues Clement, those who had either been appointed by the apostles themselves, or by men of consideration with the consent of the church, were not likely to be deposed from their office, expressions which seem to imply that after the time of the apostles, the chief officers of the church were appointed by a council of its most distinguished members with the ascent of the general body of the faithful. The shepherd of Hermes describes as the squared stones of the great building, apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons, where the teachers are probably presbyters regarded in their teaching capacity, so that the division of offices here appears to be equivalent to that into bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Before the middle of the second century, we find a distinct recognition of the three orders of the Christian ministry, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and opposite parties agree in inculcating the most profound respect for the bishops, who are the centers of unity. Nothing was to be done without the bishop and the presbyters, the faithful were to obey the bishop even as Christ, in obeying the bishop they obeyed God, such as the language of the opponents of Judaism, nor is that of the Judaizers themselves less emphatic, the bishop sits in the seat of Christ, he is the lookout at the bowels of the ship of the church, is entrusted with the place of Christ, whoso honors him honors Christ, he presides over and guards the truth delivered to the church. Irenaeus and Tertullian at the end of the second century assume everywhere the universal prevalence of Episcopacy from the time of the apostles themselves, they know nothing of any other form of government. And not only do we find opposing parties agreeing and paying the highest respect to the Episcopal office, but the succession of bishops in many cities is traceable to a very high antiquity. The statement of Jerome that Episcopacy was developed out of Presbyterianism in consequence of the increase of faction and schism, which rendered necessary the predominance of one head in each church, is probably not well founded, and is contradicted by other authorities. But there can be no doubt that the dissensions of the early ages, especially the struggles of Judaism and Gnosticism against Catholic Christianity, turned men's thoughts to the advantage arising from the recognition of one head in each church. The due succession of bishops was the chief security for the maintenance throughout the world of the teaching transmitted from the apostles themselves. In the universal prevalence of Episcopacy was the varied unity of the church most clearly seen. Yet even when a distinct Episcopal order is fully recognized, bishops are still called presbyters by Greek and Sassardodes by Latin writers. The offices of bishop and presbyter were not separated by so broad a line as those of presbyterian deacon. Every bishop is a presbyter, but every presbyter is not a bishop. The practice of the church, rather than any fundamental distinction, made the Episcopate greater than the presbytery. In truth, in the earliest times, the bishop is never divorced from the presbytery, which forms a spiritual coronal around him. It is the special duty of the presbyters to support and encourage their bishop. They are to him as strings to the liar. The faithful are to submit themselves not only to the bishop but to the presbyters, as apostles of Christ and the counsel of God. In each church there is one bishop, as there is one sanctuary, and with each bishop is joined the presbytery and the deacons. Every city in which a church was formed had its bishop, whose position in many respects resembled that of the rector of a parish surrounded by his assistant clergy, rather than that of the modern bishop of the diocese, containing perhaps several large towns. To him it belonged to preside over the assemblies, whether of the presbyters or of the brethren at large, to decide finally on the reception or exclusion of members, to grant commendatory letters to members of his flock passing into other dioceses, to maintain correspondence with other churches, to ordain, to preach, to administer the sacraments, the two latter offices he might and often did delegate in case of necessity to his presbyters. As the number of the faithful increased, it became more and more necessary to prevent the ministers of the church from being entangled in worldly affairs. A bishop was forbidden even to undertake the guardianship of children, as tending to withdraw him from his proper avocations. This withdrawal of the highest order from secular affairs tended to give greater prominence and influence to the order which had from the first the principal charge of charitable organization of the church, that of deacons, ministry, or, as they soon came to be called, Levites. These formed a link between the higher clergy and the laity. Besides preaching and baptizing by the bishop's authority, they kept order in the churches, they received the offerings of the faithful, prepared the holy table, read the gospel, administered the sacrament, both to the faithful who were present at the Lord's Supper and to those who were absent by reason of sickness. In numberless ways, they were the active agents of the bishop. One of their number, who was more especially attached to his service, received the name of Archdeacon, and became one of the most important officers of the church. In some churches, the original number of deacons, seven, was not exceeded for several generations. That the deacons, possessing so much actual power, did not always confine themselves within the proper limits of their office, is evident from a decree of the early part of the fourth century. But the needs of the church occasioned a still further extension of the ranks of the ministry. In the third century, we find already, besides the superior orders, sub-deacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and doorkeepers. Those who were destined for the higher office passed in most instances through a period of probation in these lower stations. There is possibly a trace of the office of reader, even in Scripture itself, and the homily which is known as the second epistle of Clement, and which is not later than the middle of the second century, certainly seems to have been written with a view to being publicly delivered by a reader. In the most ancient directions for the ordination of church ministers, the reader is mentioned before the deacon, and is required, among other qualifications, to possess the gift of fluency, knowing that he discharges the office of an evangelist. All this indicates that in the early days of the church, the reader was a person possessing a special gift, regarded as akin to that of prophecy, though in the third century his office had become mechanical, and he was ranked, as we have seen, last but one of the minor officials. Even then, however, when his office was limited to the reading aloud of the selected portions of Scripture in the congregation, he retained traces of his former quasi-prophetic office. The stipend which is assigned to him is said to be, for the honor of the prophets, and in his ordination the Lord is implored to bestow upon him the prophetic spirit. It is noteworthy that all the ancient western ordinals refer the election of the reader to the brethren, meaning probably the clergy. He was anciently ordained with laying on of hands, later by the delivery of the book from which he was to read. The office of exorcists was also one which required a special gift, that of casting out evil spirits, which could not be conferred by the laying on of hands. Hence, the exorcist does not receive ordination in that form. The grace that is in him is manifest to all. The ancient western ordinals direct the bishop to constitute an exorcist by delivering to him a book of exorcisms, the office then implying duties little more than mechanical. Two causes contributed to render necessary an order of sub-deacons. As the congregations became larger and the services more elaborate, the deacons were found to be no longer capable of discharging all the offices which fell to them, in the congregation and out of it, while at the same time a religious scruple prevented the authorities in many cases, even in large towns, from appointing a larger number of deacons than the mystic seven sanctioned by the practice of the apostles in Jerusalem. Hence, a subordinate order was instituted to discharge such portions of the deacons office as might be delegated to them. These officers were probably first appointed in a Greek-speaking church, such as that of Rome, for even Cyprian speaks of them as hypodiacani. It is noteworthy that Fabian, who was bishop of Rome in the middle of the third century, is said to have appointed seven sub-deacons in addition to the already existing seven deacons, as if to bring up the number of the two together to that of the regions of the city, to which greater importance had recently been given by the appointment of a kind of sub-prefect in each by Alexander Severus. We have not sufficient information to enable us to give any exact definition of the duties of the sub-deacon in the first three centuries. Cyprian employed them as his messengers to the churches under his charge. The Aco Lothos, sometimes spoken of under the equivalent Latin name sequins, was the follower or personal attendant of some higher official, probably a presbyter. Their appointment seems to indicate a certain increase of state and dignity in the higher officials, but they are not mentioned in this early period in such a way as to indicate with any exactness the duties of their office. The number of Acolyths at Rome mentioned in the letter of Cornelius was 42, just thrice the number of the regions in the city. As the deacons came to be more and more occupied with higher duties, the lower were delegated to officials of a different class. Among these were the doorkeepers, Ostiari or Thouro Roy, who discharged the duty of watching the doors to prevent the intrusion of improper persons. They are first mentioned in the letter of Cornelius of Rome already referred to. These were the male officers of the church, but it was thought well to give to women also a share in the sacred ministry. The widows about whom directions are given in the pastoral epistles seem to be rather those whose maintenance was undertaken by the church than a band of workers. No mention at least is made there of any special work entrusted to them, though the fact that those placed on the role were required to be already distinguished for good work seems to indicate that they were not mere dependents on the bounty of the church. The word widow, however, soon came to be applied to single women who devoted themselves to church work, so that Ignatius salutes the virgins who are called widows and Tertullian mentions and denounces the case of a virgin who had been entered on the role of widows before she was 20. The widows were to be engaged, summon intercession and in waiting for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, some in nursing the sick and reporting to the presbyter such cases as required their help. The seclusion of women in the east rendered them in many cases inaccessible to the ministrations of men, and the office of Deaconess was created to reach them. Thus we find Phoebe called by the same title as a male deacon and directions given about the qualifications of women deacons. Deaconesses, like widows, might be either virgins or widows who had once been married. The widows were placed under the orders of the deaconesses who are again made subject to the deacons. The duties of the deaconess, besides that of paying pastoral visits to women under the direction of the bishop, were to keep the door of the women's entrance to the church and to perform such portions of the baptismal rite as could not without indelicacy be undertaken by men. She was to be appointed by the bishop only, not by any inferior officer. The members of Christian communities in the neighborhood of a city attended its services and acknowledged the authority of its bishop. Those which were more remote were cared for by their own presbyters and deacons, or sometimes even a deacon without bishop or presbyter, had charge of a congregation, though not, of course, so as to exercise especially episcopal functions. In the latter part of the third century, mention is made of bishops of country districts, agrone, as well as of towns, and a little later we find such bishops recognized under the title of cor episcopoi, or district bishops. These, however, had no power of ordaining without a commission from the city bishop to whom they were subject. We see here a difference of rank within the limits of the episcopal order itself. As to the election of bishops and other officers of the church, Clement of Rome describes the bishops and deacons after the death of the apostles as being appointed by men of consideration with the ascent of the whole church. By these, Andres, a logomoi, may possibly be understood men like Titus and Timothy, commissioned by the apostles themselves to appoint elders, but it seems more probable that the term is intended to designate those who from the length of time that they had been disciples, their rank, or their personal qualities, exercised a dominant influence in the community, the seniors of a later time. At all events, the ascent of the whole church is appealed to as a proof of the validity of the appointment of the rulers who succeeded the apostles. And we find the popular election of bishops still maintained in the third century. Cyprian represents the vote of the whole brotherhood in a city as necessary for the valid appointment of its bishop, the lay people as having a dominant influence in choosing good pastors and rejecting bad. Even if there were in a city but three Christians competent to vote, they were still to have a bishop, but their choice was to be assisted and ratified by their brethren from a neighboring city. But after that the relations of churches and bishops to each other had been developed and organized, another element appears in the choice of prelates, the ascent of the neighboring, calm provincial bishops. But this does not seem to have been universally required. In Alexandria at least, up to the middle of the third century, the presbyters always nominated as bishop when chosen out of their own body, just as an army might elect a general. A later authority says that it was not until the time of Alexander, A.D. 313-336, that the presbyters ceased to ordain the patriarch. The choice of the person, however, to whom the Episcopal office was to be committed, was a matter entirely distinct from the conferring of the distinctive authority of the office. The person once chosen received the imposition of hands from his fellow bishops and was regarded not simply as the elected head of the community, but as invested with an authority derived from the Lord himself. The voice of the people was the voice of God, the bishops were successors of the apostles, the gifts conferred by ordination were divine. Three bishops, or two at least, were to lay their hands on the head of the person to be consecrated. Nor was it the bishop only who was chosen by the voice of the community over which he was to preside. Ministers of other orders, not only presbyters and deacons, but even readers, were not appointed in ordinary cases without the people being summoned to deliberate on their merits, though in cases where a special fitness was manifest the bishop might exercise his individual judgment and authority. In ordination to inferior offices, not more than one bishop was required to lay hands on the head of the candidate. In some cases, unction was added to the laying on of hands. The bishop was, for the most part, chosen from the members of the church over which he was to preside, and generally from among those who had already borne some office in the ministry. He who had borne well in the inferior office earned for himself a higher place. That in times of peril the communities endeavored to choose men fitted by age, character, and holiness to guide them aright will readily be understood. The training of the spirit, the education of practical work superseded in early days special schools for the clergy, yet the catechetic school of Alexandria rose into fame in the third century, and came to be regarded as an advantageous place of training for those who were to undertake the sacred ministry, and schools frequented by Christians were formed at Caesarea, Antioch, and Rome. The older Christian writers, as Clement of Alexandria and the Apologists, owed their learning and cultivation to heathen and not to Christian schools. While Christian teachers were insisting on the parallel between the Christian ministry and the Jewish priesthood, in one respect at least they entirely deserted this analogy. Marriage had been held in honor among the Jews, and Jewish priests had been always married. But even in early days a notion that marriage implied imperfect sanctity crept into the Christian church, and as imperfect sanctity was certainly not befitting those who served the altar, the celibacy of priests came first to be recommended, and then to be enjoined. Second marriages of the clergy were from the first, discommended, and even held to exclude from ecclesiastical offices. But no evidence is found of the actual prohibition of marriage to the higher orders of the ministry until the very end of the third century, or the beginning of the fourth. At that period a diversity of practice clearly existed in the church. We find excommunication denounced against any bishop, presbyter, or deacon, who should put away his wife under pretense of living a more aesthetic life. While of those who were unmarried when ordained, only readers and choristers were permitted to marry. Again it is laid down that bishops, presbyters, deacons, and other clerks engaged in the work of the ministry should not dwell with their wives. A special provision was made by the Council of Ansara for the case of deacons. If a deacon on ordination declared that he could not engage to lead a life of continents, he was permitted to marry. But if he was ordained without any such declaration, he was to be degraded from his office if he afterwards married. It is evident, however, that there was at this time no absolute and universal prohibition of marriage to the clergy, for several distinguished clerics of the fourth and later centuries are known to have been married, nor does that state seem in their case to have been regarded as in any way involving disgrace or inferiority. We find in the earliest age of the church no distinct ordinance as to the maintenance of its ministers. No doubt many, like St. Paul, lived by the labor of their hands. Yet the great principal, that the laborers worthy of his hire, and that those who preached the gospel should live of the gospel, was always admitted. They who waited at the altar became partakers of the offerings of the faithful at the altar, and these free will offerings soon came to be regarded as the equivalents for the tithes of the Mosaic Law. As the clergy were more and more withdrawn from all participation in secular affairs, it became more and more necessary to provide them an independent subsistence. It is evident from the very nature of the Church of Christ that the Church of any one city could not remain in loveless isolation from other churches, the community of life, discipline, and doctrine, which are inherent in the very conception of the church, forbade it. As individuals formed a particular church, so all the churches taken together formed the Catholic Church, and as the bishop with his presbyters formed the council of a particular community, so an assembly of bishops formed the council of a district or province. Synods were a natural product of the life of the church. They were the principal manifestations of its unity both in doctrine and discipline. It was their work to concert common action for the resisting of heresy, the healing of schism, the restoration of discipline. The bishop seems in all cases to have represented his church at these assemblies, as each bishop was the center of unity in his own church, so the assembled bishops represented the unity of a larger portion of the church universal. Of general councils, we of course hear nothing, until the cessation of persecution permitted the assembling of prelates from every quarter of the Roman world. But though bishops were the ordinary and indispensable members of a synod, yet presbyters also took part in their deliberations. In Cappadocia, seniors and presidents assembled every year to arrange matters of common concern. At the Synod of Antioch, it was the presbyter Malchion who refuted Paul of Samosata, and in the synodal letters the presbyters Malchion and Lucius are named expressly, while several of the bishops are not. The regular constitution of a council at the beginning of the fourth century was probably that described in the preamble to the canons of Elvira. When the bishops had taken their seats, twenty-six presbyters also sitting with them, and the deacons in the whole commonality, plebs, standing by, the bishops said. The canons run in the name of the bishops, though the presbyters no doubt took part in the deliberations, and the deacons and people had perhaps the same kind of tumultuary influence as the commons at an English wittengemmet. Chapter 7 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. This recording by Anna Roberts. History of the Christian Church During the First Six Centuries by S. Cheetham. Chapter 7 The Organization of the Church Part 2 When it became usual for the bishops of neighboring churches to meet for deliberation on matters of common interest, it was necessary that some one of their number should have the power both of summoning assemblies and of presiding in them. Thus, although in spiritual powers all bishops were equal, a certain precedence and dignity came to be assigned to the occupants of certain ancient and important seas. It is probable, indeed, that a certain subordination among churches existed from the first. As in every city where Jews were found in large numbers, it's Sanhedrin exercised authority over the councils of the smaller synagogues in the neighborhood. So, when the faith of Christ came to be preached, and it was first preached by preference in cities containing Jewish communities, a presbytery with its bishop was formed from the converts, which naturally took the oversight of smaller neighboring communities in much the same way that the Jewish presbytery had done that of its dependence. In some cases, the senior bishop, without reference to his sea, presided in councils, but generally the bishop of the chief town of a province, where also the church generally claimed an apostle or apostolic man as its founder, summoned and presided in assemblies and exercised a vague authority over his comprovincial bishops. The great metropolitan seas were the following. Jerusalem itself, blessed with the presidency of St. James and afterwards of others of the same family, had a natural preeminence among Jewish Christian churches. But when, after the rebellion in the time of Hadrian, the purely gentile town of Elia, Capitolina, rose up upon the ruins of the sacred city, its prerogative passed to Caesarea, the political capital of Palestine, where the church was at any rate of apostolic origin and illustrious from the memory of St. Peter and of St. Philip the Evangelist. In Syria and the neighboring countries the preeminence of Antioch, the first meeting point of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, was long acknowledged. Alexandria rose into prominence at a somewhat later period. Here was found the most numerous and important Jewish community existing beyond the limits of Palestine, and here too was formed in the course of the first two centuries a Christian church so important that its bishop ranked first among the bishops of the east, though it was not of the very highest antiquity, nor founded by an apostle. The authority of this church extended itself, like that of the Sanhedrin in the same place, over the communities in the Cyrenaica and in Libya, though Cyrene and Libya Mariatis belonged politically to the province of Africa and not to Egypt, a proof that the ecclesiastical was not always identical with the political province. Rome had probably a larger Jewish population than any other city of the west, and here too a Christian church was formed, if not by an apostle, at least in the lifetime of many apostles. It was inevitable that the church in the capital of the world, when it came to be an important body, should exercise a dominant authority over the churches of the neighboring cities. Such was in fact the case, though its predominance was not at once recognized. The first and natural center of the church on earth was of course Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit was first given, hence Jewish Christian fiction in the second century gives to Saint James, the Lord's brother, the title of Bishop of Bishops, and regards him as the center of ecclesiastical unity. But on the destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian, the central power of Christendom passed, by a kind of natural affinity, to the middle point of the political world, Rome. Henceforth, Saint Peter and not Saint James is the central figure with the Christians of the Hebrew faction. It is again in Judaizing fiction that Saint Peter, the first fruits of the Lord as the primeval bishops were of the apostles, is represented as possessing supreme authority in the Roman church and handing on the privileges of his cathedral to his faithful disciple Clement. Yet Dionysius of Corinth, who had the greatest respect for the Roman sea, knows nothing of the sea of Saint Peter, but refers the foundation of the Roman church to Saint Paul and Saint Peter in common. Tertullian ranks Rome with Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ephesus among the apostolic seas, and agrees with the Clementines in regarding Saint Peter as first bishop of Rome and as having ordained Clement as his successor. Yet he treats with the utmost scorn the claim of the Pontifex Maximus to be a bishop of bishops, or by his own authority to grant remission of penalties for certain offenses. Irenaeus, in an interesting passage, refers to the ancient and glorious Roman sea as the acknowledged preserver of the traditions derived from the two great apostles its founders, and therefore having a natural precedence among the churches. Cyprian, who regards Rome as certainly the sea of Peter and the center of unity in the church, urges that the gift of the Lord to Saint Peter was identically the same as that to all the apostles, and if it was given to one in token of its unity it was given to many in token of its variety. All bishops alike are successors of Saint Peter, for one bishop to claim an episcopate over his brother bishops is simple tyranny. The claim of Rome to be cathedra petri was acknowledged from the end of the second century, but it is needless to seek the grounds of the Roman primacy in a supposed supremacy of Saint Peter and a supposed commission of Saint Peter to those who should occupy the Roman sea. The causes which really led to the preeminence of the Roman church and its bishop are sufficiently obvious. All the roads in the world led to Rome, all nations and sects were represented there, and probably those obscure bishops of Rome in the second century had more of the governing instinct than their more literary and contemplative brethren in the east. The majesty of the eternal city could not fail to add dignity to its bishop. It was not, so far as we can now trace, the greatness of particular bishops which raised the church of Rome to its preeminence. If there were among them saints and martyrs, there were also some whose name bears no good odor, but all were eager for Roman interests. Callistus was probably a man of doubtful character, but he at least strengthened the position of the episcopate by the declaration that a bishop should in no case be deposed by the Presbytery, not even in case of mortal sin. If Marcelinus offered incense to idols, the Roman legend turns even his fall to account saying that it was only by his own voice that he was condemned, for the first sea is judged by no man. In spite of individual failures, the Roman church, like the Roman nation, steadily pursued its aim of ruling the peoples. It gained its end so far as the western churches are concerned, yet not without many struggles. Its claim to settle controversy by an authoritative decision was vehemently rejected in the second and third centuries by the Asiatic and the African churches, and it was not until political causes powerfully cooperated with spiritual that the power of the great Roman Patriarchate was consolidated. Within the first three centuries it exercised authority over the suburban Carian provinces in central and southern Italy, and a vague influence over the churches of southern Gaul, to which bishops were sent from Rome. Chapter 8 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. This recording by Anna Roberts. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by S. Chetham. Chapter 8, Part 1. Social Life and Ceremonies of the Church. 1. We might express the great difference between the life of Christians and that of the world around them by saying that within the church were special gifts of the Holy Spirit. Outward signs of the presence of the Spirit, prophecy, healing of disease, casting out of demons, were still recognized in the first three centuries. Tertullian speaks as if it were an everyday matter for a Christian to compel a demon to disclose himself and quit the afflicted person, and not less certain signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit were seen in the love and beneficence of the brethren towards each other. Family life received a new sacredness. Children were looked upon as a precious trust to be trained in the chastening of the Lord for a higher life. Husband and wife who were heirs together of the grace of life were drawn together in a closer bond. Tertullian draws a charming picture of the serene happiness of a wedded pair who have all their thoughts in common, who share one hope and one service of God, who pray together, fast together, and approach together the table of the Lord. Marriage was regarded as indissoluble, except in the case of adultery. Nay, in the view of some, even death itself did not dissolve it, and second marriage was, to such, only respectable adultery. Doubts were early raised whether marriage was permitted to the clergy. Marriages between Christians and heathens were of course looked upon with disfavor. The poor, widows and orphans, those who were sick or in prison, and friendless Christian strangers, were the charge of the community. For these contributions were made at the celebration of the Eucharist. Ladies visited the poor at their own homes. Large sums were given for the redemption of captives. Never was the helpfulness and the courage in the presence of danger, which distinguished the brotherhood, more marked than in the time of pestilence. While pagans deserted their nearest kindred, or cast them half-dead into the streets, Christians gave the utmost care to the sick and the dead, Christian or pagan, regardless of the deadly atmosphere which they breathed. The Christian regarded his whole life as guarded by Christ, and loved the sign of his cross. Christians lived in the world as not of the world. They were serious while much of the world around them was frivolous. Many of the amusements and occupations of paganism seemed incompatible with the life vowed to God. The pagan divinities seemed to them evil demons, and their votaries given over to a strong delusion. And as splendid dress and decorative art were largely in the service of pagan worship, they looked with suspicion and dislike upon all artificial attractions. Every trade which ministered to idolatry was of course forbidden, and some regarded the disguises of a stage-player as a kind of deceit and fraud not permitted to true worshippers. Such teachers also invaded against elegance and attractiveness in women's dress as unworthy of those who should be devoted to Christ. And even without such admonition, in time of persecution, the realities of life were too absorbing to permit much attention to be given to its ornamentation. Civic life was so interwoven with pagan worship, so many common observances implied a recognition of some deity that Christian life in the midst of heathenism was full of pitfalls. It was doubted by some whether it was lawful to wear a garland on the head, or to read the doorposts on occasions of public festivity. Already in the time of St. Paul, perplexity arose from the fact that portions of the victims offered in sacrifice were probably sold at the shambles, and this must have continued so long as pagan sacrifices were tolerated. Some doubted whether it was lawful for a Christian to serve in the Roman armies under standards which implied a deification of the emperor. Those who served could, however, point to the examples of the Centurion at Capernaum and of Cornelius, who were not recorded to have left their military profession. Two, the horror which the Christian felt towards the pagan world expressed itself in an extreme form in the rigorous life which was known as asceticism, a life, that is, of self-denial such as was not expected from the ordinary Christian. Aesthetics were distinguished by their withdrawing, so far as might be, from the world and devoting themselves to prayer and meditation on holy things by their scanty diet and abstinence from marriage. To such was assigned a special rank in the House of Prayer. As early as the latter half of the second century we find both men and women devoting themselves to lifelong celibacy in the hope of near communion with God. The Apologistation was the leader of those who, from their severe self-control, were called Encritites, and Hierarchus, a pupil of origin and in many ways a distinguished man, held principles hardly less rigid. Under the influence of such principles women lived unmarried under vows not yet absolutely perpetual. Some, in their exaltation, were led to attempt that which is above nature, living while vowed to continents, in the same house and in the yet most familiarity with men bound by similar vows. Such arrogant purity, which was found to have evil consequences, was forbidden by a definite enactment in the beginning of the fourth century. This appreciation of virginity not unnaturally led to depreciation of marriage, to which no doubt some of the coarse associations of hedonism still clung. So much coarseness and truth was found in pagan marriage feasts that Cyprian thought them no fit scenes for the presence of a disciple of Christ. 3. The feeling of the vanity of earthly things and of the need of self-discipline and self-mortification, combined with horror of the pagan world, to drive enthusiastic devotees into the desert. Many stoles in all ages of Christianity have felt the deep longing to withdraw from the vain and unsatisfying pleasures and pumps of the world into the deep, unbroken solitude in which communion with God seems more possible. The first great saint of the desert, the first, that is, who made a great impression on the world, was Antonius, whom we commonly know as St. Anthony. Born near Memphis in the middle of the third century, he was impelled by the hearing of the gospel precepts, sell all that thou hast, and take no thought for the morrow, to divest himself of all his worldly wealth. He visited some who were already hermits to learn their manner of life, and soon after fixed his dwelling in the midst of barren hills about a day's journey from the Red Sea in a ruined tower, the entrance to which he blocked up with stones. There he remained for many a year, seeing no human countenance, unless it were that of a friend who twice a year brought him a supply of bread. It was in this solitude that he experienced the temptations which have become famous. Outrage nature rose against him and filled his imagination, sometimes with horrible forms of demons, sometimes with alluring phantoms of beautiful women. The tidings of the persecution of Maximon lured him from his retreat to Alexandria, where the Alexandrians looked with wonder on the strange form from the desert. He encouraged confessors before the judge and ministered to the saints in prison, but found not the martyr's crown. His visit to the haunts of men, however, spread abroad his fame, and his desert became populous with disciples, on whom he enjoined the great duties of prayer and work. Here we see the beginning of the Canobium, the common life of ascetics, afterwards so largely developed. He himself continued to lead a life of watchings and fastings, hardly consenting to take sufficient food to sustain life. He was unlearned, but wise with long experience of the human heart. His saying, as the demons find us, so they behave towards us, and according to the thoughts which are in us, they direct their assaults, shows that he was no brain-sick visionary. At his word the sick were sometimes healed and demons driven out, but he was neither elated when God heard his prayer nor angry when his prayer was not answered. In all things he praised the Lord. A true physician of the soul he reconciled enemies and comforted mourners. In the midst of this poverty which made many rich, it was made known to him where he would find one who was more perfect than himself. Paul of Thebes had dwelt since the persecution of Desius in a cave of the desert, where a palm tree gave him shade, clothing, and food. For ninety years he had been lost to men and was found by Antony as he lay at the point of death. As his own and drew near, he withdrew from the veneration and the disquiet of humankind further into the desert and only reappeared occasionally to defend the faith or to protect the oppressed. He departed at last in extreme old age, leaving behind him the fame of a pure and simple character and a great posterity in the numerous army of hermits. Four, the great end and aim of Christian teaching, with regard to a man's life among his fellows, is to produce in each man such a condition of heart and mind as will itself impel him to right conduct. But Christian morality has also another aspect. There is given to the church, considered as a theocratic community, a code specially revealed and sanctioned by glorious promises and terrible penalties. This code has to be enforced in the purity of the society guarded. Hence within the church the great problems of morality tended to assume a juristic aspect. The heads of the community are not merely teachers of morality or administrants in sacred things, but also jurists administering a code, determining what censure or penalty should be inflicted in particular cases. The great penalty was the exclusion of offenders for a longer or shorter period from the privileges of membership, and these privileges could only be regained by a long process of prayer, fasting and humiliation, a process comprehended under one word, penitence, together with public confession of sin in the midst of a congregation. Excommunication, with its consequences, became, in fact, the great earthly sanction of the moral law. The judgment on such cases was committed to the presbyters under the presidency of their bishop, but as is evident from the history of the church, the bishops exercised a dominant influence, and were held responsible for the severity or laxity of the proceedings. The germ of the code which guided the decisions of the ecclesiastical judge was found in the commands of the Lord himself and in the decalogue. With regard to other precepts of the Mosaic law, the early church does not seem to have laid down any definite principle by which commands of perpetual obligation might be distinguished from those which were merely national and temporary. There were, for instance, different opinions as to the necessity of abstaining from things strangled and from blood. In the church, as in other societies, circumstances arose which were not explicitly provided for by the law, and decisions of churches or bishops from time to time enlarge the scope of old precepts. Hence there was formed a mass of traditional or common law, which was often, in fact, new, while it claimed to be old, and which passed current under venerable names. A collection of such precepts is found in the teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles in the ordinances of the Holy Apostles which are derived from it and in the so-called Apostolical Constitutions and Canons of the Holy Apostles. The Constitutions consist of eight books of which the first six clearly reflect the customs and practices of the Eastern Church of the first three centuries. The seventh is founded upon the ordinances. The eighth, though it may contain matter belonging to an earlier period, embodies the ritual of the middle of the fourth century and has been thought to exhibit traces of Arianism. The Canons which bear the name of the Apostles are a collection of precepts from the Constitutions or from the acts of various synods up to the fourth century. It may be observed that although these collections bear the names of Apostles or Apostolic men, they were never placed by the ancient church on inequality with Scripture. As may readily be supposed, the administration of this system of penalties was by no means free from difficulty. Penitents were readmitted to communion in one church with much more facility than in another. One of the grounds for the attack of Hippolytus on Callistus, Bishop of Rome, was his excessive readiness to restore to communion all manner of sinners, so as to lower the standard of Christian holiness. Hippolytus appears to have been chosen anti-bishop by the party discontented with the mild role of Callistus, and again at a later period, when Cornelius declined to make heavy the yoke which since the time of Callistus had been light, one of his presbyters, Novotianus, rose up against him and was made the bishop of an opposition. This was a man of considerable culture, of ascetic life and nervous temperament, who had received benefit from the prayers of a Christian exorcist, and so been one for Christianity. Like Justin Martyr, he was reputed a philosopher. He laid down the principle that the first duty of ecclesiastical rulers was to preserve the church as a pure society of saints, or cathari. Hence, that one who by sin had separated himself from God and been excluded from the church could never be received back into it, though he exhorted the fallen to repentance even without hope of returning to the church. The Novotianists refused communion with the Catholic Church, and baptized anew those who came over to them from Catholicism. Novotianus died as a martyr under Valyrian, but the schism perpetuated itself for some generations. One of the Novotianist bishops was Asesius, who at the Council of Nicaea, Constantine bade to plant a ladder and go up into heaven by himself. Meantime, a schism had arisen on opposite grounds at Carthage. In the severity of persecution, there were some who delivered up to the Pagans their copies of Holy Scripture, Treditoris, some who had actually sacrificed to idols, Lapsae, and some who, without sacrificing, had obtained from the magistrates by favor or bribery certificates of having sacrificed, Labelotisi. When such offenders desired to be restored to the church, it became a pressing question how they, especially the Lapsed, who had actually sacrificed, should be dealt with. Were they to be readmitted to the church, and, if so, on what conditions? At Carthage, Cyprian refused to receive at once men who had denied their Lord, even though some who had suffered in the persecution, confessors as they were now called, desired them to be readmitted, giving them certificates of reconciliation, Labeli passis. Thus there arose a discontented party composed of the aggrieved confessors, those who were dissatisfied with Cyprian's administration, and the Lapsed who were eager to be received again into communion. These, with Novates at their head, rebelled against Cyprian as being unworthy, in consequence of his flight during the persecution, to rule over men who had endured torture with heroic constancy. They chose a deacon of their own, one Phyllisissimus, and set up Fortunatus, one of their adherents, as bishop of their party. Cyprian's severe views, unfortunately, set him at variance with the milder bishop of Rome. When able to hold a synod, he so far modified his decree as not to hand over the laps to despair, but to readmit them to communion after long penitence in prospect of death. Libilitesi were at once readmitted, and in the troubleous time when his diocese suffered from war and pestilence, he acknowledged works of mercy as an atonement for all sin. Novates, who had been a champion of the laxer rule at Carthage, found his way to Rome, where he became an adherent of the stricter party of Novatianus, and did much to encourage the schism. If we may trust the account of Epiphanius, the schism of Meletius in Egypt was of the same kind as that of Novatianus in Rome. According to him, during the persecution of Diocletian, many Christians who had denied their Lord entreated mercy and forgiveness. Peter, the bishop of Alexandria, who was himself in prison with most of his brethren, was inclined to gentle courses, and would have granted communion to such of the lapsed as were ready to do penance for their fault. Meletius, however, bishop of Lycopolis in the Thaibade, who was also a prisoner, opposed this, and would at any rate defer the readmission of the penitence until the persecution should be over. A majority of the bishops took his part. Soon after this Peter died in consequence of the torture which he had endured, and Meletius was sentenced to slavery in the mines. On his way, however, to his place of banishment, he ordained several presbyters and deacons, and the schism which thus arose was still dangerous at the time of the Council of Nicaea. Meletius, on the cessation of persecution, had returned to Egypt.