a formula or pass-word (σύμβολον or σύνθημα), so the catechumens had
a formula which was only entrusted to them in the last days of their
catechumenate—the baptismal formula itself and the Lord’s Prayer.[641]
In the Western rites the _traditio symboli_ occupies an important place
in the whole ceremony. There was a special rite for it. It took place
a week or ten days before the great office of Baptism on Easter-eve.
Otherwise the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were kept secret and kept so
as mysteries; and to the present day the technical name for a creed is
σύμβολον or pass-word.
(β) Sometimes the baptized received the communion at once after baptism,
just as those who had been initiated at Eleusis proceeded at once—after a
day’s fast—to drink of the mystic κυκεὼν and to eat of the sacred cakes.
(γ) The baptized were sometimes crowned with a garland, as the initiated
wore a mystic crown at Eleusis. The usage was local, but lasted at
Alexandria until modern times. It is mentioned by Vansleb.[642]
(δ) Just as the divinities watched the initiation from out of the
blaze of light, so Chrysostom pictures Christian baptism in the blaze
of Easter-eve;[643] and Cyril describes the white-robed band of the
baptized approaching the doors of the church where the lights turned
darkness into day.
(ε) Baptism was administered, not at any place or time, but only in the
great churches, and only as a rule once a year—on Easter-eve, though
Pentecost was also a recognized season. The primitive “See here is water,
what doth hinder me to be baptized?” passed into a ritual which at every
turn recalls the ritual of the mysteries. I will abridge the account
which is given of the practice at Rome so late as the ninth century.[644]
Preparation went on through the greater part of Lent. The candidates were
examined and tested: they fasted: they received the secret symbols, the
Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. On Easter-eve, as the day declined towards
afternoon, they assembled in the church of St. John Lateran. The rites
of exorcism and renunciation were gone through in solemn form, and the
rituals survive. The Pope and his priests come forth in their sacred
vestments, with lights carried in front of them, which the Pope then
blesses: there is a reading of lessons and a singing of psalms. And
then, while they chant a litany, there is a procession to the great bath
of baptism, and the water is blessed. The baptized come forth from the
water, are signed with the cross, and are presented to the Pope one by
one, who vests them in a white robe and signs their foreheads again with
the cross. They are arranged in a great circle, and each of them carries
a light. Then a vast array of lights is kindled; the blaze of them, says
a Greek Father, makes night continuous with dawn. It is the beginning of
a new life. The mass is celebrated—the mystic offering on the Cross is
represented in figure; but for the newly baptized the chalice is filled,
not with wine, but with milk and honey, that they may understand, says
an old writer, that they have entered already upon the promised land.
And there was one more symbolical rite in that early Easter sacrament,
the mention of which is often suppressed—a lamb was offered on the
altar—afterwards cakes in the shape of a lamb.[645] It was simply the
ritual which we have seen already in the mysteries. The purified crowd at
Eleusis saw a blaze of light, and in the light were represented in symbol
life and death and resurrection.
2. Baptism had felt the spell of the Greek ritual: not less so had
the Lord’s Supper. Its elements in the earliest times may be gathered
altogether apart from the passages of the New Testament, upon which,
however clearly we may feel, no sensible man will found an argument, and
which, taken by themselves, possibly admit of more than one meaning.
The extra-biblical accounts are:
(1) “The Teaching of the Apostles;”[646] which implies:
(_a_) Thanksgiving for the wine. “We thank Thee, our Father, for the holy
vine of David Thy servant, which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus
Christ Thy Servant. To Thee be glory for ever.”
(_b_) Thanksgiving for the broken bread. “We thank Thee, our Father, for
the life which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus Thy Servant. To
Thee be glory for ever.”
After the thanksgiving they ate and drank: none could eat or drink until
he had been baptized into the name of the Lord. After the partaking there
was another thanksgiving and a prayer of supplication.
(2) There is a fragmentary account which has been singularly overlooked,
in the Apostolical Constitutions,[647] which carries us one stage
further. After the reading and the teaching, the deacon made a
proclamation which vividly recalls the proclamation at the beginning of
the Mysteries. “Is there any one who has a quarrel with any? Is there any
one with bad feeling” (ἐν ὑποκρίσει)?
(3) The next stage is found in the same book of the Apostolical
Constitutions.[648] The advance consists in the fact that the catechumens
and penitents go out, just as those who were not yet initiated and those
who were impure were excluded from the Greek Mysteries.
This marked separation of the catechumens and the baptized, which
was possibly strengthened by the philosophic distinction between οἱ
προκόπτοντες and οἱ τέλειοι, lasted until, under influences which it
would be beyond our present purpose to discuss, the prevalence of infant
baptism caused the distinction no longer to exist.[649]
(4) In a later stage there is a mention of the holy table as an altar,
and of the offerings placed upon the table of which the faithful partook,
as mysteries.[650]
(_a_) The conception of the table as an altar is later than the middle
of the second century.[651] It is used in the Apostolic Fathers of
the Jewish altar. It is used by Ignatius in a Christian sense, but
always metaphorically.[652] It may be noted that though the Apostolic
Constitutions (Bk. ii.) speak of a θυσία, they do not speak of a
θυσιαστήριον.[653] This use of θυσιαστήριον is probably not earlier than
Eusebius.[654]
(_b_) The conception of the elements as μυστήρια is even later;[655] but
once established, it became permanent, like the Latin term “sacramentum.”
(5) The conception of a priest—into which I will not now enter—was
certainly strengthened by the mysteries and associations.
The full development or translation of the idea is found in the great
mystical writer of the end of the fifth century, in whom every Christian
ordinance is expressed in terms which are applicable only to the
mysteries. The extreme tendency which he shows is perhaps personal to
him; but he was in sympathy with his time, and his influence on the
Church of the after-time must count for a large factor in the history
of Christian thought. There are few Catholic treatises on the Eucharist
and few Catholic manuals of devotion into which his conceptions do not
enter.[656]
I will here quote his description of the Communion itself: “All the other
initiations are incomplete without this. The consummation and crown
of all the rest is the participation of him who is initiated in the
thearchic mysteries. For though it be the common characteristic of all
the hierarchic acts to make the initiated partakers of the divine light,
yet this alone imparted to me the vision through whose mystic light, as
it were, I am guided to the contemplation (ἐποψίαν) of the other sacred
things.” The ritual is then described. The sacred bread and the cup of
blessing are placed upon the altar. “Then the sacred hierarch (ἱεράρχης)
initiates the sacred prayer and announces to all the holy peace: and
after all have saluted each other, the mystic recital of the sacred lists
is completed. The hierarch and the priests wash their hands in water;
he stands in the midst of the divine altar, and around him stand the
priests and the chosen ministers. The hierarch sings the praises of the
divine working and consecrates the most divine mysteries, (ἱερουργεῖ τὰ
θειότατα), and by means of the symbols which are sacredly set forth,
he brings into open vision the things of which he sings the praises.
And when he has shown the gifts of the divine working, he himself comes
into a sacred communion with them, and then invites the rest. And
having both partaken and given to the others a share in the thearchic
communion, he ends with a sacred thanksgiving; and while the people bend
over what are divine symbols only, he himself, always by the thearchic
spirit, is led in a priestly manner, in purity of his godlike frame of
mind (ἐν καθαρότητι τῆς θεοειδοῦς ἕξεως), through blessed and spiritual
contemplation, to the holy realities of the mysteries.”[657]
Once again I must point out that the elements—the conceptions which
he has added to the primitive practices—are identical with those in
the mysteries. The tendency which he represented grew: the Eucharistic
sacrifice came in the East to be celebrated behind closed doors: the
breaking of bread from house to house was changed into so awful a mystery
that none but the hierophant himself might see it. The idea of prayer and
thought as offerings was preserved by the Neo-Platonists.
There are two minor points which, though interesting, are less
certain and also less important. (_a_) It seems likely that the use
of δίπτυχα—tablets commemorating benefactors or departed saints—was a
continuation of a similar usage of the religious associations.[658] (_b_)
The blaze of lights at mysteries may have suggested the use of lights at
the Lord’s Supper.[659]
It seems fair to infer that, since there were great changes in the
ritual of the sacraments, and since the new elements of these changes
were identical with elements that already existed in cognate and largely
diffused forms of worship, the one should be due to the other.
This inference is strengthened when we find that the Christian
communities which were nearest in form and spirit to the Hellenic
culture, were the first in which these elements appear, and also those
in which they assumed the strongest form. Such were the Valentinians,
of whom Tertullian expressly speaks in this connection.[660] We read of
Simon Magus that he taught that baptism had so supreme an efficacy as to
give by itself eternal life to all who were baptized. The λουτρὸν ζωῆς
was expanded to its full extent, and it was even thought that to the
water of baptism was added a fire which came from heaven upon all who
entered into it. Some even introduced a second baptism.[661]
So also the Marcosians and some Valentinian schools believed in a baptism
that was an absolute sundering of the baptized from the corruptible world
and an emancipation into a perfect and eternal life. Similarly, some
other schools added to the simple initiation rites of a less noble and
more sensuous order.[662]
It was but the old belief in the effect of the mysteries thrown into a
Christian form. So also another Gnostic school is said to have not only
treated the truths of Christianity as sacred, but also to have felt about
them what the initiated were supposed to feel about the mysteries—“I
swear by Him who is above all, by the Good One, to keep these mysteries
and to reveal them to no one;” and after that oath each seemed to feel
the power of God to be upon him, as it were the pass-word of entrance
into the highest mysteries.[663] As soon as the oath had been taken, he
sees what no eye has seen, and hears what no ear has heard, and drinks of
the living water—which is their baptism, as they think, a spring of water
springing up within them to everlasting life.
Again, it is probably through the Gnostics that the period of preparation
for baptism was prolonged. Tertullian says of the Valentinians that their
period of probation is longer than their period of baptized life, which
is precisely what happened in the Greek practice of the fourth century.
The general inference of the large influence of the Gnostics on baptism,
is confirmed by the fact that another element, which certainly came
through them, though its source is not certain and is more likely to
have been Oriental than Greek, has maintained a permanent place in most
rituals—the element of anointing. There were two customs in this matter,
one more characteristic of the East, the other of the West—the anointing
with (1) the oil of exorcism before baptism and after the renunciation of
the devil, and (2) the oil of thanksgiving, which was used immediately
after baptism, first by the presbyter and then by the bishop, who then
sealed the candidate on the forehead. The very variety of the custom
shows how deep and yet natural the action of the Gnostic systems, with
the mystic and magic customs of the Gnostic societies or associations,
had been on the practices and ceremonies of the Church.[664]
But beyond matters of practice, it is among the Gnostics that there
appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the
elements to the material body and blood of Christ. The fact that they
were so regarded is found in Justin Martyr.[665] But at the same time,
that the change was not vividly realized, is proved by the fact that,
instead of being regarded as too awful for men to touch, the elements
were taken by the communicants to their homes and carried about with them
on their travels. But we read of Marcus that in his realistic conception
of the Eucharistic service the white wine actually turned to the colour
of blood before the eyes of the communicants.[666]
Thus the whole conception of Christian worship was changed.[667] But it
was changed by the influence upon Christian worship of the contemporary
worship of the mysteries and the concurrent cults. The tendency to
an elaborate ceremonial which had produced the magnificence of those
mysteries and cults, and which had combined with the love of a purer
faith and the tendency towards fellowship, was based upon a tendency of
human nature which was not crushed by Christianity. It rose to a new
life, and though it lives only by a survival, it lives that new life
still. In the splendid ceremonial of Eastern and Western worship, in the
blaze of lights, in the separation of the central point of the rite from
common view, in the procession of torch-bearers chanting their sacred
hymns—there is the survival, and in some cases the galvanized survival,
of what I cannot find it in my heart to call a _pagan_ ceremonial;
because though it was the expression of a less enlightened faith, yet it
was offered to God from a heart that was not less earnest in its search
for God and in its effort after holiness than our own.
LECTURE XI.
THE INCORPORATION OF CHRISTIAN IDEAS, AS MODIFIED BY GREEK, INTO A BODY
OF DOCTRINE.
The object which I have in view in this Lecture is to show the transition
by which, under the influence of contemporary Greek thought, the
word Faith came to be transferred from simple trust in God to mean
the acceptance of a series of propositions, and these propositions,
propositions in abstract metaphysics.
* * * * *
The Greek words which designate belief or faith are used in the Old
Testament chiefly in the sense of trust, and primarily trust in a person.
They expressed confidence in his goodness, his veracity, his uprightness.
They are as much moral as intellectual. They implied an estimate of
character. Their use in application to God was not different from their
use in application to men. Abraham trusted God. The Israelites also
trusted God when they saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. In the
first instance there was just so much of intellectual assent involved
in belief, that to believe God involved an assent to the proposition
that God exists. But this element was latent and implied rather than
conscious and expressed. It is not difficult to see how, when this
proposition came to be conscious and expressed, it should lead to other
propositions. The analysis of belief led to the construction of other
propositions besides the bare original proposition that God is. Why do
I trust God? The answer was: Because He is wise, or good, or just. The
propositions followed: I believe that God is wise, that He is good, that
He is just. Belief in God came to mean the assent to certain propositions
about God.[668]
In Greek philosophy the words were used rather of intellectual conviction
than of moral trust, and of the higher rather than of the lower forms
of conviction. Aristotle distinguishes faith from impression—for a man,
he says, may have an impression and not be sure of it. He uses it both
of the convictions that come through the senses and of those that come
through reason.
There is in Philo a special application of this philosophical use, which
led to even more important results. He blends the sense in which it is
found in the Old Testament with that which is found in Greek philosophy.
The mass of men, he says, trust their senses or their reason. The good
man trusts God. Just as the mass of men believe that their senses and
their reason do not deceive them, so the latter believes that God
does not deceive him. To trust God was to trust His veracity. But the
occasions on which God spoke directly to a man were rare, and what He
said when He so spoke commanded an unquestioning acceptance. He more
commonly spoke to men through the agency of messengers. His angels
spoke to men, sometimes in visions of the night, sometimes in open
manifestation by day. His prophets spoke to men. To believe God, implied
a belief in what He said indirectly as well as directly. It implied the
acceptance of what His prophets said, that is to say, of what they were
recorded to have said in the Holy Writings. Belief in this sense is not
a vague and mystical sentiment, the hazy state of mind which precedes
knowledge, but the highest form of conviction. It transcends reason in
certainty. It is the full assurance that certain things are so, because
God has said that they are so.[669]
In this connection we may note the way in which the Christian communities
were helped by the current reaction against pure speculation—the longing
for certainty. The mass of men were sick of theories. They wanted
certainty. The current teaching of the Christian teachers gave them
certainty. It appealed to definite facts of which their predecessors
were eye-witnesses. Its simple tradition of the life and death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ was a necessary basis for the satisfaction
of men’s needs. Philosophy and poetry might be built upon that tradition;
but if the tradition were shown to be only cloudland, Christian
philosophy was no more than Stoicism.
We have thus to see how, under the new conditions, faith passed beyond
the moral stage, or simple trust in a person, to the metaphysical
stage, or belief in certain propositions or technical definitions
concerning Him, His nature, relations and actions. In this latter we may
distinguish two correlated and interdependent phases or forms of belief,
the one more intellectual and logical, the other more historical and
concrete, namely, (1) the conviction that God being of a certain nature
has certain attributes; (2) the conviction that, God being true, the
statements which He makes through His prophets and ministers are also
true.[670] The one of these forms of belief was elaborated into what we
know as the Creed; the other, into the Canon of the New Testament.
* * * * *
We shall first deal with these phases or forms of belief, and then with
the process by which the metaphysical definitions became authoritative.
1. In the first instance the intellectual element of belief was
subordinated to the ethical purpose of the religion. Belief was not
insisted upon in itself and for itself, but as the ground of moral
reformation. The main content of the belief was “that men are punished
for their sins and honoured for their good deeds:”[671] the ground of
this conviction was the underlying belief that God is, and that He
rewards and punishes. The feature which differentiated Christianity
from philosophy was, that this belief as to the nature of God had
been made certain by a revelation. The purpose of the revelation was
salvation—regeneration and amendment of life. By degrees stress came to
be laid on this underlying element. The revelation had not only made
some propositions certain which hitherto had been only speculative,
it had also added new propositions, assertions of its distinctive or
differentiating belief. But it is uncertain, except within the narrowest
limits, what those assertions were. There are several phrases in the
New Testament and in sub-apostolic writings which read like references
to some elementary statements or rule.[672] But none of them contain or
express a recognized standard. Yet the standard may be gathered partly
from the formula of admission into the Christian community, partly from
the formulæ in which praise was ascribed to God. The most important
of these, in view of its subsequent history, is the former. But the
formula is itself uncertain; it existed at least in two main forms.
There is evidence to show that the injunction to baptize in the name of
the three Persons of the Trinity, which is found in the last chapter of
St. Matthew, was observed.[673] It is the formula in the Teaching of
the Apostles.[674] But there is also evidence, side by side with this
evidence as to the use of the Trinitarian formula, of baptism into the
name of Christ, or into the death of Christ.[675]
The next element in the uncertainty which exists is as to how far the
formula, either in the one case or the other, was conceived to involve
the assent to any other propositions except those of the existence of
the divine Persons or Person mentioned in the formula. Even this assent
was implied rather than explicit. It is in the Apologists that the
transition from the implicit was made. The teaching of Jesus Christ
became to them important, especially in Justin Martyr.[676] The step by
which it became explicit is of great importance, but we have no means
of knowing when or how it was made.[677] It is conceivable that it was
first made homiletically, in the course of exhortation to Christian
duty.[678] When the intellectual contents of the formula did become
explicit, the formula became a test. Concurrently with its use as a
standard or test of belief, was probably the incorporation in it of so
much of Christian teaching as referred to the facts of the life of Jesus
Christ. But the facts were capable of different interpretations, and
different propositions might be based upon them. In the first instance,
speculation was free. Different facts had a different significance. The
same facts of the life were interpreted in different ways. There was an
agreement as to the main principle that the Christian societies were
societies for the amendment of life. It is an almost ideal picture which
the heathen Celsus draws of the Christians differing widely as to their
speculations, and yet all agreeing to say, “The world is crucified to
me, and I unto the world.”[679] The influence of Greek thought, partly
by the allegorizing of history, partly by the construction of great
superstructures of speculation upon slender bases, made the original
standard too elastic to serve as the basis and bond of Christian society.
When theories were added to fact, different theories were added. It is at
this point that the fact became of special importance that the Gospel had
been preached by certain persons, and that its content was the content
of that preaching. It was not a philosophy which successive generations
might modify. It went back to the definite teaching of a historical
person. It was of importance to be sure what that teaching was. It was
agreed to recognize apostolic teaching as the authoritative vehicle and
interpretation of Christ’s. All parties appealed to it.[680] But there
had been more than one apostle. The teaching was consequently that, not
of one person, but of many.
Here was the main point of dispute. All parties within the Church agreed
as to the need of a tribunal, but each party had its own. Each made its
appeal to a different apostle. But since, though many in number, they
were teachers, not of their own opinions, but of the doctrine which they
had received from Jesus Christ, the more orthodox or Catholic tendency
found it necessary to lay stress upon their unity. They were spoken of
in the plural, οἱ ἀπόστολοι.[681] While the Gnostics built upon one
apostle or another,[682] the Catholics built upon an apostolic consensus.
Their tradition was not that of Peter or of James, but of the twelve
apostles. The πίστις was ἀποστολική, an attribute which implies a uniform
tradition.[683]