THE COMMON FAITH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF KNOWLEDGE IN GENTILE CHRISTIANITY
AS IT WAS BEING DEVELOPED INTO CATHOLICISM[162]
§ 1. _The Communities and the Church._
The confessors of the Gospels, belonging to organised communities who
recognised the Old Testament as the Divine record of revelation, and
prized the Evangelic tradition as a public message for all, to which, in
its undiluted form, they wished to adhere truly and sincerely, formed
the stem of Christendom both as to extent and importance.[163] The
communities stood to each other in an outwardly loose, but inwardly firm
connection, and every community by the vigour of its faith, the
certainty of its hope, the holy character of its life, as well as by
unfeigned love, unity and peace, was to be an image of the holy Church
of God which is in heaven, and whose members are scattered over the
earth. They were further, by the purity of their walk and an active
brotherly disposition, to prove to those without, that is to the world,
the excellence and truth of the Christian faith.[164] The hope that the
Lord would speedily appear to gather into his Kingdom the believers who
were scattered abroad, punishing the evil and rewarding the good, guided
these communities in faith and life. In the recently discovered
"Teaching of the Apostles" we are confronted very distinctly with ideas
and aspirations of communities that are not influenced by Philosophy.
The Church, that is the totality of all believers destined to be
received into the kingdom of God (Didache, 9. 10), is the holy Church,
(Hermas) because it is brought together and preserved by the Holy
Spirit. It is the one Church, not because it presents this unity
outwardly, on earth the members of the Church are rather scattered
abroad, but because it will be brought to unity in the kingdom of
Christ, because it is ruled by the same spirit and inwardly united in a
common relation to a common hope and ideal. The Church, considered in
its origin, is the number of those chosen by God,[165] the true
Israel,[166] nay, still more, the final purpose of God, for the world
was created for its sake.[167] There were in connection with these
doctrines in the earliest period, various speculations about the Church:
it is a heavenly Æon, is older than the world, was created by God at the
beginning of things as a companion of the heavenly Christ;[168] its
members form the new nation which is really the oldest nation,[169] it
is the [Greek: laos ho tou agapêmenou ho philoumenos kai philon
auton],[170] the people whom God has prepared "in the Beloved,"[171]
etc. The creation of God, the Church, as it is of an antemundane and
heavenly nature, will also attain its true existence only in the Æon of
the future, the Æon of the kingdom of Christ. The idea of a heavenly
origin, and of a heavenly goal of the Church, was therefore an essential
one, various and fluctuating as these speculations were. Accordingly,
the exhortations, so far as they have in view the Church, are always
dominated by the idea of the contrast of the kingdom of Christ with the
kingdom of the world. On the other hand, he who communicated knowledge
for the present time, prescribed rules of life, endeavoured to remove
conflicts, did not appeal to the peculiar character of the Church. The
mere fact, however, that from nearly the beginning of Christendom, there
were reflections and speculations not only about God and Christ, but
also about the Church, teaches us how profoundly the Christian
consciousness was impressed with being a new people, viz., the people of
God.[172] These speculations of the earliest Gentile Christian time
about Christ and the Church, as inseparable correlative ideas, are of
the greatest importance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in
them, but rather have their origin in the Apostolic tradition. But for
that very reason the combination very soon, comparatively speaking,
became obsolete or lost its power to influence. Even the Apologists made
no use of it, though Clement of Alexandria and other Greeks held it
fast, and the Gnostics by their Æon "Church" brought it into discredit.
Augustine was the first to return to it.
The importance attached to morality is shewn in _Didache_ cc. 1-6, with
parallels[173]. But this section and the statements so closely related
to it in the pseudo phocylidean poem, which is probably of Christian
origin, as well as in Sibyl, II. v. 56, 148, which is likewise to be
regarded as Christian, and in many other Gnomic paragraphs, shews at the
same time, that in the memorable expression and summary statement of
higher moral commandments, the Christian propaganda had been preceded by
the Judaism of the Diaspora, and had entered into its labours. These
statements are throughout dependent on the Old Testament wisdom, and
have the closest relationship with the genuine Greek parts of the
Alexandrian Canon, as well as with Philonic exhortations. Consequently,
these moral rules, the two ways, so aptly compiled and filled with such
an elevated spirit, represent the ripest fruit of Jewish as well as of
Greek development. The Christian spirit found here a disposition which
it could recognise as its own. It was of the utmost importance, however,
that this disposition was already expressed in fixed forms suitable for
didactic purposes. The young Christianity therewith received a gift of
first importance. It was spared a labour in a legion, the moral, which
experience shews, can only be performed in generations, viz, the
creation of simple fixed impressive rules, the labour of the Catechist.
The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were not of themselves sufficient
here. Those who in the second century attempted to rest in these alone
and turned aside from the Judaeo-Greek inheritance, landed in Marcionite
or Encratite doctrines.[174] We can see, especially from the Apologies
of Aristides (c. 15), Justin and Tatian (see also Lucian), that the
earnest men of the Græco-Roman world were won by the morality and active
love of the Christians.
§ 2. _The Foundations of the Faith._
The foundations of the faith--whose abridged form was, on the one hand,
the confession of the one true God, [Greek: monos alethinos theos],[175]
and of Jesus, the Lord, the Son of God, the Saviour[176] and also of the
Holy Spirit, and on the other hand, the confident hope of Christ's
kingdom and the resurrection--were laid on the Old Testament interpreted
in a Christian sense together with the Apocalypses,[177] and the
progressively enriched traditions about Jesus Christ ([Greek: he
parodosis--ho paradotheis logos--ho kanôn tês alêtheías] or [Greek: tês
paradoseôs--hê pistis--ho kanôn tês pisteôs--ho dotheisa pistis--to
kêrygma--ta didagmata tou christou--hê didachê--ta mathêmata], or
[Greek: to mathêma]).[178] The Old Testament revelations and oracles were
regarded as pointing to Christ; the Old Testament itself, the words of
God spoken by the Prophets, as the primitive Gospel of salvation, having
in view the new people, which is, however, the oldest, and belonging to
it alone.[179] The exposition of the Old Testament, which, as a rule,
was of course read in the Alexandrian Canon of the Bible, turned it into
a Christian book. A historical view of it, which no born Jew could in
some measure fail to take, did not come into fashion, and the freedom
that was used in interpreting the Old Testament,--so far as there was a
method, it was the Alexandrian Jewish--went the length of even
correcting the letter and enriching the contents.[180]
The traditions concerning Christ on which the communities were based,
were of a twofold character. First, there were words of the Lord, mostly
ethical, but also of eschatological content, which were regarded as
rules, though their expression was uncertain, ever changing, and only
gradually assuming a fixed form. The [Greek: didagmata tou christou] are
often just the moral commandments.[181] Second, the foundation of the
faith, that is, the assurance of the blessing of salvation, was formed
by a proclamation of the history of Jesus concisely expressed, and
composed with reference to prophecy.[182] The confession of God the
Father Almighty, of Christ as the Lord and Son of God, and of the Holy
Spirit,[183] was at a very early period in the communities, united with
the short proclamation of the history of Jesus, and at the same time, in
certain cases, referred expressly to the revelation of God (the Spirit)
through the prophets.[184] The confession thus conceived had not
everywhere obtained a fixed definite expression in the first century (c.
50-150). It would rather seem that, in most of the communities, there
was no exact formulation beyond a confession of Father, Son and Spirit,
accompanied in a free way by the historical proclamation.[185] It is
highly probable, however, that a short confession was strictly
formulated in the Roman community before the middle of the second
century,[186] expressing belief in the Father, Son and Spirit, embracing
also the most important facts in the history of Jesus, and mentioning
the Holy Church, as well as the two great blessings of Christianity, the
forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the dead ([Greek: aphesis
hamartiôn, sarkos anastasis][187]). But, however the proclamation might
be handed down, in a form somehow fixed, or in a free form, the
disciples of Jesus, the (twelve) Apostles, were regarded as the
authorities who mediated and guaranteed it. To them was traced back in
the same way everything that was narrated of the history of Jesus, and
everything that was inculcated from his sayings.[188] Consequently, it
may be said, that beside the Old Testament, the chief court of appeal in
the communities was formed by an aggregate of words and deeds of the
Lord;--for the history and the suffering of Jesus are his deed: [Greek:
ho Iêsous hupemeinen pathein, k.t.l.]--fixed in certain fundamental
features, though constantly enriched, and traced back to apostolic
testimony.[189]
The authority which the Apostles in this way enjoyed, did not, in any
great measure, rest on the remembrance of direct services which the
twelve had rendered to the Gentile Churches: for, as the want of
reliable concrete traditions proves, no such services had been rendered,
at least not by the _twelve_. On the contrary, there was a theory
operative here regarding the special authority which the twelve enjoyed
in the Church at Jerusalem, a theory which was spread by the early
missionaries, including Paul, and sprang from the _a priori_
consideration that the tradition about Christ, just because it grew up
so quickly,[190] must have been entrusted to eye-witnesses who were
commissioned to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, and who
fulfilled that commission. The _a priori_ character of this assumption
is shewn by the fact that--with the exception of reminiscences of an
activity of Peter and John among the [Greek: ethnê], not sufficiently
clear to us[191]--the twelve, as a rule, are regarded as a _college_, to
which the mission and the tradition are traced back.[192] That such a
theory, based on a dogmatic construction of history, could have at all
arisen, proves that either the Gentile Churches never had a living
relation to the twelve, or that they had very soon lost it in the rapid
disappearance of Jewish Christianity, while they had been referred to
the twelve from the beginning. But even in the communities which Paul
had founded and for a long time guided, the remembrance of the
controversies of the Apostolic age must have been very soon effaced, and
the vacuum thus produced filled by a theory which directly traced back
the _status quo_ of the Gentile Christian communities to a tradition of
the twelve as its foundation. This fact is extremely paradoxical, and is
not altogether explained by the assumptions that the Pauline-Judaistic
controversy had not made a great impression on the Gentile Christians,
that the way in which Paul, while fully recognising the twelve, had
insisted on his own independent importance, had long ceased to be really
understood, and that Peter and John had also really been missionaries to
the Gentiles. The guarantee that was needed for the "teaching of the
Lord" must, finally, be given not by Paul, but only by chosen
eye-witnesses. The less that was known about them, the easier it was to
claim them. The conviction as to the unanimity of the twelve, and as to
their activity in founding the Gentile Churches, appeared in these
Churches as early as the urgent need of protection against the serious
consequences of unfettered religious enthusiasm and unrestrained
religious fancy. This urgency cannot be dated too far back. In
correspondence therewith, the principle of tradition in the Church
(Christ, the twelve Apostles) in the case of those who were intent on
the unity and completeness of Christendom, is also very old. But one
passed logically from the Apostles to the disciples of the Apostles,
"the Elders," without at first claiming for them any other significance
than that of reliable hearers (Apostoli et discentes ipsorum). In coming
down to them, one here and there betook oneself again to real historical
ground, disciples of Paul, of Peter, of John.[193] Yet even here legends
with a tendency speedily got mixed with facts, and because, in
consequence of this theory of tradition, the Apostle Paul must needs
fall into the background, his disciples also were more or less
forgotten. The attempt which we have in the Pastoral Epistles remained
without effect, as regards those to whom these epistles were addressed.
Timothy and Titus obtained no authority outside these epistles. But so
far as the epistles of Paul were collected, diffused, and read, there
was created a complex of writings which at first stood beside the
"Teaching of the Lord by the twelve Apostles", without being connected
with it, and only obtained such connection by the creation of the New
Testament, that is, by the interpolation of the Acts of the Apostles,
between Gospels and Epistles.[194]
§ 3. _The Main Articles of Christianity and the Conceptions of
Salvation. Eschatology._
1. The main articles of Christianity were (1) belief in God the [Greek:
despotês], and in the Son in virtue of proofs from prophecy, and the
teaching of the Lord as attested by the Apostles; (2) discipline
according to the standard of the words of the Lord; (3) baptism; (4) the
common offering of prayer, culminating in the Lord's Supper and the holy
meal, (5) the sure hope of the nearness of Christ's glorious kingdom. In
these appears the unity of Christendom, that is, of the Church which
possesses the Holy Spirit.[195] On the basis of this unity Christian
knowledge was free and manifold. It was distinguished as [Greek: sophia,
sunesis, epistême, gnôsis (tôn dikaiômatôn)], from the [Greek: logos
theou tês pisteôs], the [Greek: klêsis tês epangelias] and the [Greek:
entolai tês didachês] (Barn. 16. 9, similarly Hermas). Perception and
knowledge of Divine things was a Charism possessed only by individuals,
but like all Charisms it was to be used for the good of the whole. In so
far as every actual perception was a perception produced by the Spirit,
it was regarded as important and indubitable truth, even though some
Christians were unable to understand it. While attention was given to
the firm inculcation and observance of the moral precepts of Christ, as
well as to the awakening of sure faith in Christ, and while all
waverings and differences were excluded in respect of these, there was
absolutely no current doctrine of faith in the communities, in the sense
of a completed theory, and the theological speculations of even closely
related Christian writers of this epoch, exhibit the greatest
differences.[196] The productions of fancy, the terrible or consoling
pictures of the future pass for sacred knowledge, just as much as
intelligent and sober reflections, and edifying interpretation of Old
Testament sayings. Even that which was afterwards separated as Dogmatic
and Ethics was then in no way distinguished.[197] The communities gave
expression in the cultus, chiefly in the hymns and prayers, to what they
possessed in their God and their Christ; here sacred formulæ were
fashioned and delivered to the members.[198] The problem of surrendering
the world in the hope of a life beyond was regarded as the practical
side of the faith, and the unity in temper and disposition resting on
faith in the saving revelation of God in Christ, permitted the highest
degree of freedom in knowledge, the results of which were absolutely
without control as soon as the preacher or the writer was recognised as
a true teacher, that is, inspired by the Spirit of God.[199] There was
also in wide circles a conviction that the Christian faith, after the
night of error, included the full knowledge of everything worth knowing,
that precisely in its most important articles it is accessible to men of
every degree of culture, and that in it, in the now attained truth, is
contained one of the most essential blessings of Christianity. When it
is said in the Epistle of Barnabas (II. 2. 3); [Greek: tês písteôs hêmôn
eisìn boêthoì phobos kai hupomonê, ta de summachounta hêmìn makrothumía
kai enkrateia; toutôn menontôn ta pros kurion hagnôs, suneuphrainontai
autois sophia, sunesis, epistêmê, gnôsis], knowledge appears in this
classic formula to be an essential element in Christianity, conditioned
by faith and the practical virtues, and dependent on them. Faith takes
the lead, knowledge follows it: but of course in concrete cases it could
not always be decided what was [Greek: logos tês pistêôs], which
implicitly contained the highest knowledge, and what the special [Greek:
gnôsis]; for in the last resort the nature of the two was regarded as
identical, both being represented as produced by the Spirit of God.
2. The conceptions of Christian salvation, or of redemption, were
grouped around two ideas, which were themselves but loosely connected
with each other, and of which the one influenced more the temper and the
imagination, the other the intellectual faculty. On the one hand,
salvation, in accordance with the earliest preaching, was regarded as
the glorious kingdom which was soon to appear on earth with the visible
return of Christ, which will bring the present course of the world to an
end, and introduce for a definite series of centuries, before the final
judgment, a new order of all things to the joy and blessedness of the
saints.[200] In connection with this the hope of the resurrection of the
body occupied the foreground[201]. On the other hand, salvation appeared
to be given in the truth, that is, in the complete and certain knowledge
of God, as contrasted with the error of heathendom and the night of sin,
and this truth included the certainty of the gift of eternal life, and
all conceivable spiritual blessings.[202] Of these the community, so far
as it is a community of saints, that is, so far as it is ruled by the
Spirit of God, already possesses forgiveness of sins and righteousness.
But, as a rule, neither blessing was understood in a strictly religious
sense, that is to say, the effect of their religious sense was narrowed.
The moralistic view, in which eternal life is the wages and reward of a
perfect moral life wrought out essentially by one's own power, took the
place of first importance at a very early period. On this view,
according to which the righteousness of God is revealed in punishment
and reward alike, the forgiveness of sin only meant a single remission
of sin in connection with entrance into the Church by baptism,[203] and
righteousness became identical with virtue. The idea is indeed still
operative, especially in the oldest Gentile-Christian writings known to
us, that sinlessness rests upon a new creation (regeneration) which is
effected in baptism;[204] but, so far as dissimilar eschatological hopes
do not operate, it is everywhere in danger of being supplanted by the
other idea, which maintains that there is no other blessing in the
Gospel than the perfect truth and eternal life. All else is but a sum of
obligations in which the Gospel is presented as a new law. The
christianising of the Old Testament supported this conception. There was
indeed an opinion that the Gospel, even so far as it is a law,
comprehends a gift of salvation which is to be grasped by faith [Greek:
nomos aneu zugou anankês,[205] nomos t. eleutherias],[206] Christ
himself the law;[207] but this notion, as it is obscure in itself, was
also an uncertain one and was gradually lost. Further, by the "law" was
frequently meant in the first place, not the law of love, but the
commandments of ascetic holiness, or an explanation and a turn were
given to the law of love, according to which it is to verify itself
above all in asceticism.[208]
The expression of the contents of the Gospel in the concepts [Greek:
epangelia (zôê aiônios) gnôsis (alêtheia) nomos (enkrateia)], seemed
quite as plain as it was exhaustive, and the importance of faith which
was regarded as the basis of hope and knowledge and obedience in a holy
life, was at the same time in every respect perceived.[209]
_Supplement_ 1.--The moralistic view of sin, forgiveness of sin, and
righteousness, in Clement, Barnabas, Polycarp and Ignatius, gives place
to Pauline formulæ; but the uncertainty with which these are reproduced,
shews that the Pauline idea has not been clearly seen.[210] In Hermas,
however, and in the second Epistle of Clement, the consciousness of
being under grace, even after baptism, almost completely disappears
behind the demand to fulfil the tasks which baptism imposes.[211] The
idea that serious sins, in the case of the baptised, no longer should or
can be forgiven, except under special circumstances, appears to have
prevailed in wide circles, if not everywhere.[212] It reveals the
earnestness of those early Christians and their elevated sense of
freedom and power; but it might be united either with the highest moral
intensity, or with a lax judgment on the little sins of the day. The
latter, in point of fact, threatened to become more and more the
presupposition and result of that idea--for there exists here a fatal
reciprocal action.
_Supplement_ 2.--The realisation of salvation--as [Greek: basileia tou
theou] and as [Greek: aphtharsia]--being expected from the future, the
whole present possession of salvation might be comprehended under the
title of vocation ([Greek: klêsis]) see, for example, the second Epistle
of Clement. In this sense _gnosis_ itself was regarded as something only
preparatory.
_Supplement_ 3.--In some circles the Pauline formula about righteousness
and salvation by faith alone, must, it would appear, not infrequently
(as already in the Apostolic age itself) have been partly misconstrued,
and partly taken advantage of as a cloak for laxity. Those who resisted
such a disposition, and therefore also the formula in the post-Apostolic
age, shew indeed by their opposition how little they have hit upon or
understood the Pauline idea of faith: for they not only issued the
watchword "faith and works" (though the Jewish ceremonial law was not
thereby meant), but they admitted, and not only hypothetically, that one
might have the true faith even though in his case that faith remained
dead or united with immorality. See, above all, the Epistle of James and
the Shepherd of Hermas; though the first Epistle of John comes also into
consideration (III. 7: "He that doeth righteousness is righteous").[213]
_Supplement_ 4.--However similar the eschatological expectations of the
Jewish Apocalyptists and the Christians may seem, there is yet in one
respect an important difference between them. The uncertainty about the
final consummation was first set aside by the Gospel. It should be noted
as highly characteristic of the Jewish hopes of the future, even of the
most definite, how the beginning of the end, that is, the overthrow of
the world-powers and the setting up of the earthly kingdom of God, was
much more certainly expressed than the goal and the final end. Neither
the general judgment, nor what we, according to Christian tradition,
call heaven and hell, should be described as a sure possession of Jewish
faith in the primitive Christian period. It is only in the Gospel of
Christ, where everything is subordinated to the idea of a higher
righteousness and the union of the individual with God, that the general
judgment and the final condition after it are the clear, firmly grasped
goal of all meditation. No doctrine has been more surely preserved in
the convictions and preaching of believers in Christ than this. Fancy
might roam ever so much and, under the direction of the tradition,
thrust bright and precious images between the present condition and the
final end, the main thing continued to be the great judgment of the
world, and the certainty that the saints would go to God in heaven, the
wicked to hell. But while the judgment, as a rule, was connected with
the Person of Jesus himself (see the Romish Symbol: the words [Greek:
kritês zôntôn kai nekrôn], were very frequently applied to Christ in the
earliest writings), the moral condition of the individual, and the
believing recognition of the Person of Christ were put in the closest
relation. The Gentile Christians held firmly to this. Open the Shepherd,
or the second Epistle of Clement, or any other early Christian writing,
and you will find that the judgment, heaven and hell, are the decisive
objects. But that shews that the moral character of Christianity as a
religion is seen and adhered to. The fearful idea of hell, far from
signifying a backward step in the history of the religious spirit, is
rather a proof of its having rejected the morally indifferent point of
view, and of its having become sovereign in union with the ethical
spirit.
§ 4. _The Old Testament as Source of the Knowledge of Faith._[214]
The sayings of the Old Testament, the word of God, were believed to
furnish inexhaustible material for deeper knowledge. The Christian
prophets were nurtured on the Old Testament, the teachers gathered from
it the revelation of the past, present and future (Barn. 1. 7), and were
therefore able as prophets to edify the Churches; from it was further
drawn the confirmation of the answers to all emergent questions, as one
could always find in the Old Testament what he was in search of. The
different writers laid the holy book under contribution in very much the
same way; for they were all dominated by the presupposition that this
book is a Christian book, and contains the explanations that are
necessary for the occasion. There were several teachers, e.g., Barnabas,
who at a very early period boasted of finding in it ideas of special
profundity and value--these were always an expression of the
difficulties that were being felt. The plain words of the Lord as
generally known, did not seem sufficient to satisfy the craving for
knowledge, or to solve the problems that were emerging;[215] their
origin and form also opposed difficulties at first to the attempt to
obtain from them new disclosures by re-interpretation. But the Old
Testament sayings and histories were in part unintelligible, or in their
literal sense offensive; they were at the same time regarded as
fundamental words of God. This furnished the conditions for turning them
to account in the way we have stated. The following are the most
important points of view under which the Old Testament was used. (1) The
Monotheistic cosmology and view of nature were borrowed from it (see,
for example, 1 Clem.). (2) It was used to prove that the appearance and
entire history of Jesus had been foretold centuries, nay, thousands of
years beforehand, and that the founding of a new people gathered out of
all nations had been predicted and prepared for from the very
beginning.[216] (3) It was used as a means of verifying all principles
and institutions of the Christian Church,--the spiritual worship of God
without images, the abolition of all ceremonial legal precepts, baptism,
etc. (4) The Old Testament was used for purposes of exhortation
according to the formula _a minori ad majus_; if God then punished and
rewarded this or that in such a way, how much more may we expect, who
now stand in the last days, and have received the [Greek: klêsis tês
epangelías]. (5) It was proved from the Old Testament that the Jewish
nation is in error, and either never had a covenant with God or has lost
it, that it has a false apprehension of God's revelations, and therefore
has, now at least, no longer any claim to their possession. But beyond
all this, (6) there were in the Old Testament books, above all, in the
Prophets and in the Psalms, a great number of sayings--confessions of
trust in God and of help received from God, of humility and holy
courage, testimonies of a world-overcoming faith and words of comfort,
love and communion--which were too exalted for any cavilling, and
intelligible to every spiritually awakened mind. Out of this treasure
which was handed down to the Greeks and Romans, the Church edified
herself, and in the perception of its riches was largely rooted the
conviction that the holy book must in every line contain the highest
truth.
The point mentioned under (5) needs, however, further explanation. The
self-consciousness of the Christian community of being the people of
God, must have been, above all, expressed in its position towards
Judaism, whose mere existence--even apart from actual assaults--
threatened that consciousness most seriously. A certain antipathy of the
Greeks and Romans towards Judaism co-operated here with a law of
self-preservation. On all hands, therefore, Judaism as it then existed
was abandoned as a sect judged and rejected by God, as a society of
hypocrites,[217] as a synagogue of Satan,[218] as a people seduced by an
evil angel,[219] and the Jews were declared to have no further right to
the possession of the Old Testament. Opinions differed, however, as to
the earlier history of the nation and its relation to the true God.
While some denied that there ever had been a covenant of salvation
between God and this nation, and in this respect recognised only an
intention of God,[220] which was never carried out because of the
idolatry of the people, others admitted in a hazy way that a relation
did exist; but even they referred all the promises of the Old Testament
to the Christian people.[221] While the former saw in the observance of
the letter of the law, in the case of circumcision, sabbath, precepts as
to food, etc., a proof of the special devilish temptation to which the
Jewish people succumbed,[222] the latter saw in circumcision a sign[223]
given by God, and in virtue of certain considerations acknowledged that
the literal observance of the law was for the time God's intention and
command, though righteousness never came from such observance. Yet even
they saw in the spiritual the alone true sense, which the Jews had
denied, and were of opinion that the burden of ceremonies was a
pædagogic necessity with reference to a people stiff-necked and prone to
idolatry, i.e., a defence of monotheism, and gave an interpretation to
the sign of circumcision which made it no longer a blessing, but rather
the mark for the execution of judgment on Israel.[224]
Israel was thus at all times the pseudo-Church. The older people does
not in reality precede the younger people, the Christians, even in point
of time; for though the Church appeared only in the last days, it was
foreseen and created by God from the beginning. The younger people is
therefore really the older, and the new law rather the original
law.[225] The Patriarchs, Prophets, and men of God, however, who were
favoured with the communication of God's words, have nothing inwardly in
common with the Jewish people. They are God's elect who were
distinguished by a holy walk, and must be regarded as the forerunners
and fathers of the Christian people.[226] To the question how such holy
men appeared exclusively, or almost exclusively, among the Jewish
people, the documents preserved to us yield no answer.
§ 5. _The Knowledge of God and of the World. Estimate of the World._
The knowledge of faith was, above all, the knowledge of God as one,
supramundane, spiritual,[227] and almighty ([Greek: pantokratôr]); God
is creator and governor of the world and therefore the Lord.[228] But as
he created the world a beautiful ordered whole (monotheistic view of
nature)[229] for the sake of man,[230] he is at the same time the God of
goodness and redemption ([Greek: theos sôtêr]), and the true faith in
God and knowledge of him as the Father,[231] is made perfect only in the
knowledge of the identity of the God of creation and the God of
redemption. Redemption, however, was necessary, because at the beginning
humanity and the world alike fell under the dominion of evil
demons,[232] of the evil one. There was no universally accepted theory
as to the origin of this dominion; but the sure and universal conviction
was that the present condition and course of the world is not of God,
but is of the devil. Those, however, who believed in God, the almighty
creator, and were expecting the transformation of the earth, as well as
the visible dominion of Christ upon it, could not be seduced into
accepting a dualism in principle (God and devil: spirit and matter).
Belief in God, the creator, and eschatological hopes, preserved the
communities from the theoretic dualism that so readily suggested itself,
which they slightly touched in many particular opinions, and which
threatened to dominate their feelings. The belief that the world is of
God and therefore good, remained in force. A distinction was made
between the present constitution of the world, which is destined for
destruction, and the future order of the world which will be a glorious
"restitutio in integrum." The theory of the world as an articulated
whole which had already been proclaimed by the Stoics, and which was
strengthened by Christian monotheism, would not, even if it had been
known to the uncultured, have been vigorous enough to cope with the
impression of the wickedness of the course of this world, and the
vulgarity of all things material. But the firm belief in the omnipotence
of God, and the hope of the world's transformation grounded on the Old
Testament, conquered the mood of absolute despair of all things visible
and sensuous, and did not allow a theoretic conclusion, in the sense of
dualism in principle, to be drawn from the practical obligation to
renounce the world, or from the deep distrust with regard to the flesh.
§ 6. _Faith in Jesus Christ._
1. As surely as redemption was traced back to God himself, so surely was
Jesus ([Greek: ho sôtêr hêmôn]) held to be the mediator of it. Faith in
Jesus was therefore, even for Gentile Christians, a compendium of
Christianity. Jesus is mostly designated with the same name as God,[233]
[Greek: ho kurios (hêmôn)], for we must remember the ancient use of this
title. All that has taken place or will take place with reference to
salvation, is traced back to the "Lord." The carelessness of the early
Christian writers about the bearing of the word in particular
cases,[234] shews that in a religious relation, so far as there was
reflection on the gift of salvation, Jesus could directly take the place
of God. The invisible God is the author, Jesus the revealer and
mediator, of all saving blessings. The final subject is presented in the
nearest subject, and there is frequently no occasion for expressly
distinguishing them, as the range and contents of the revelation of
salvation in Jesus coincide with the range and contents of the will of
salvation in God himself. Yet prayers, as a rule, were addressed to God:
at least, there are but few examples of direct prayers to Jesus
belonging to the first century (apart from the prayers in the Act. Joh.
of the so-called Leucius). The usual formula rather reads: [Greek: theôi
exomologoumetha dia 'I. Chr.--theôi doxa dio 'I. Chr].[235]
2. As the Gentile Christians did not understand the significance of the
idea that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), the designation "[Greek:
christos]" had either to be given up in their communities, or to subside
into a mere name.[236] But even where, through the Old Testament, one
was reminded of the meaning of the word, and allowed a value to it, he
was far from finding in the statement that Jesus is the Lord's anointed,
a clear expression of the dignity peculiar to him. That dignity had
therefore to be expressed by other means. Nevertheless the
eschatological series of ideas connected the Gentile Christians very
closely with the early Christian ideas of faith, and therefore also with
the earliest ideas about Jesus. In the confession that God chose[237]
and prepared[238] Jesus, that Jesus is the Angel[239] and the servant of
God,[240] that he will judge the living and the dead,[241] etc.,
expression is given to ideas about Jesus, in the Gentile Christian
communities, which are borrowed from the thought that he is the Christ
called of God and entrusted with an office.[242] Besides, there was a
very old designation handed down from the circle of the disciples, and
specially intelligible to Gentile Christians, though not frequent and
gradually disappearing, viz., "the Master."[243]
3. But the earliest tradition not only spoke of Jesus as [Greek: kurios,
sôtêr], and [Greek: didaskalos], but as "[Greek: ho huios tou theou]",
and this name was firmly adhered to in the Gentile Christian
communities.[244] It followed immediately from this that Jesus belongs
to the sphere of God, and that, as is said in the earliest preaching
known to us,[245] one must think of him "[Greek: hôs peri theou]." This
formula describes in a classic manner the indirect "theologia Christi"
which we find unanimously expressed in all witnesses of the earliest
epoch.[246] We must think about Christ as we think about God, because,
on the one hand, God had exalted him, and committed to him as Lord,
judgment over the living and the dead, and because, on the other hand,
he has brought the knowledge of the truth, called sinful men, delivered
them from the dominion of demons, and hath led, or will lead them, out
of the night of death and corruption to eternal life. Jesus Christ is
"our faith", "our hope", "our life", and in this sense "our God." The
religious assurance that he is this, for we find no wavering on this
point, is the root of the "theologia Christi"; but we must also remember
that the formula "[Greek: theos]" was inserted beside "[Greek: kurios],"
that the "dominus ac deus," was very common at that time,[247] and that
a Saviour [Greek: sôtêr] could only be represented somehow as a Divine
being.[248] Yet Christ never was, as "[Greek: theos]," placed on an
equality with the Father,[249]--monotheism guarded against that. Whether
he was intentionally and deliberately identified with Him the following
paragraph will shew.
4. The common confession did not go beyond the statements that Jesus is
the Lord, the Saviour, the Son of God, that one must think of him as of
God, that dwelling now with God in heaven, he is to be adored as [Greek:
prostatês kai boêthos tês astheneias], and as [Greek: archiereus tôn
prosphorôn hêmôn] [as guardian and helper of the weak and as High Priest
of our oblations], to be feared as the future Judge, to be esteemed most
highly as the bestower of immortality, that he is our hope and our
faith. There are found rather, on the basis of that confession, very
diverse conceptions of the Person, that is, of the nature of Jesus,
beside each other,[250] which collectively exhibit a certain analogy
with the Greek theologies, the naive and the philosophic.[251] There was
as yet no such thing here as ecclesiastical "doctrines" in the strict
sense of the word, but rather conceptions more or less fluid, which were
not seldom fashioned _ad hoc._[252] These may be reduced collectively to
two.[253] Jesus was either regarded as the man whom God hath chosen, in
whom the Deity or the Spirit of God dwelt, and who, after being tested,
was adopted by God and invested with dominion, (Adoptian
Christology);[254] or Jesus was regarded as a heavenly spiritual being
(the highest after God) who took flesh, and again returned to heaven
after the completion of his work on earth (pneumatic Christology).[255]
These two Christologies which are, strictly speaking, mutually
exclusive--the man who has become a God, and the Divine being who has
appeared in human form--yet came very near each other when the Spirit of
God implanted in the man Jesus was conceived as the pre-existent Son of
God,[256] and when, on the other hand, the title, Son of God, for that
pneumatic being, was derived only from the miraculous generation in the
flesh; yet both these seem to have been the rule.[257] Yet, in spite of
all transitional forms, the two Christologies may be clearly
distinguished. Characteristic of the one is the development through
which Jesus is first to become a Godlike Ruler,[258] and connected
therewith, the value put on the miraculous event at the baptism; of the
other, a naive docetism.[259] For no one as yet thought of affirming two
natures in Jesus:[260] the Divine dignity appeared rather, either as a
gift,[261] or the human nature ([Greek: sarx]) as a veil assumed for a
time, or as the metamorphosis of the Spirit.[262] The formula that Jesus
was a mere man ([Greek: psilos anthrôpos]), was undoubtedly always, and
from the first, regarded as offensive.[263] But the converse formulæ,
which identified the person of Jesus in its essence with the Godhead
itself, do not seem to have been rejected with the same decision.[264]
Yet such formulæ may have been very rare, and even objects of suspicion,
in the leading ecclesiastical circles, at least until after the middle
of the second century we can point to them only in documents which
hardly found approbation in wide circles. The assumption of the
existence of at least one heavenly and eternal spiritual being beside
God, was plainly demanded by the Old Testament writings, as they were
understood; so that even those whose Christology did not require them to
reflect on that heavenly being were forced to recognise it.[265] The
pneumatic Christology, accordingly, meets us wherever there is an
earnest occupation with the Old Testament, and wherever faith in Christ
as the perfect revealer of God, occupies the foreground, therefore not
in Hermas, but certainly in Barnabas, Clement, etc. The future belonged
to this Christology, because the current exposition of the Old Testament
seemed directly to require it, because it alone permitted the close
connection between creation and redemption, because it furnished the
proof that the world and religion rest upon the same Divine basis,
because it was represented in the most valuable writings of the early
period of Christianity, and finally, because it had room for the
speculations about the Logos. On the other hand, no direct and natural
relation to the world and to universal history could be given to the
Adoptian Christology, which was originally determined eschatologically.
If such a relation, however, were added to it, there resulted formulæ
such as that of two Sons of God, one natural and eternal, and one
adopted, which corresponded neither to the letter of the Holy
Scriptures, nor to the Christian preaching. Moreover, the revelations of
God in the Old Testament made by Theophanies, must have seemed, because
of this their form, much more exalted than the revelations made through
a man raised to power and glory, which Jesus constantly seemed to be in
the Adoptian Christology. Nay, even the mysterious personality of
Melchisedec, without father or mother, might appear more impressive than
the Chosen Servant, Jesus, who was born of Mary, to a mode of thought
which, in order to make no mistake, desired to verify the Divine by
outer marks. The Adoptian Christology, that is, the Christology which is
most in keeping with the self-witness of Jesus (the Son as the chosen
Servant of God), is here shewn to be unable to assure to the Gentile
Christians those conceptions of Christianity which they regarded as of
highest value. It proved itself insufficient when confronted by any
reflection on the relation of religion to the cosmos, to humanity, and
to its history. It might, perhaps, still have seemed doubtful about the
middle of the second century, as to which of the two opposing formulæ
"Jesus is a man exalted to a Godlike dignity", and "Jesus is a divine
spiritual being incarnate", would succeed in the Church. But one only
needs to read the pieces of writing which represent the latter thesis,
and to compare them, say, with the Shepherd of Hermas, in order to see
to which view the future must belong. In saying this, however, we are
anticipating; for the Christological reflections were not yet vigorous
enough to overcome enthusiasm and the expectation of the speedy end of
all things, and the mighty practical tendency of the new religion to a
holy life did not allow any theory to become the central object of
attention. But, still, it is necessary to refer here to the
controversies which broke out at a later period; for the pneumatic
Christology forms an essential article, which cannot be dispensed with,
in the expositions of Barnabas, Clement and Ignatius, and Justin shews
that he cannot conceive of a Christianity without the belief in a real
pre-existence of Christ. On the other hand, the liturgical formulæ, the
prayers, etc., which have been preserved, scarcely ever take notice of
the pre-existence of Christ. They either comprise statements which are
borrowed from the Adoptian Christology, or they testify in an
unreflective way to the Dominion and Deity of Christ.
5. The ideas of Christ's work which were influential in the
communities--Christ as Teacher: creation of knowledge, setting up of the
new law; Christ as Saviour: creation of life, overcoming of the demons,
forgiveness of sins committed in the time of error,--were by some, in
conformity with Apostolic tradition and following the Pauline Epistles,
positively connected with the death and resurrection of Christ, while
others maintained them without any connection with these events. But one
nowhere finds independent thorough reflections on the connection of
Christ's saving work with the facts proclaimed in the preaching, above
all, with the death on the cross and the resurrection as presented by
Paul. The reason of this undoubtedly is that in the conception of the
work of salvation, the procuring of forgiveness fell into the
background, as this could only be connected by means of the notion of
sacrifice, with a definite act of Jesus, viz., with the surrender of his
life. Consequently, the facts of the destiny of Jesus combined in the
preaching, formed, only for the religious fancy, not for reflection, the
basis of the conception of the work of Christ, and were therefore by
many writers, Hermas, for example, taken no notice of. Yet the idea of
suffering freely accepted, of the cross and of the blood of Christ,
operated in wide circles as a holy mystery, in which the deepest wisdom
and power of the Gospel must somehow lie concealed.[266] The peculiarity
and uniqueness of the work of the historical Christ seemed, however, to
be prejudiced by the assumption that Christ, essentially as the same
person, was already in the Old Testament the Revealer of God. All
emphasis must therefore fall on this--without a technical reflection
which cannot be proved--that the Divine revelation has now, through the
historical Christ, become accessible and intelligible to all, and that
the life which was promised will shortly be made manifest.[267]
As to the facts of the history of Jesus, the real and the supposed, the
circumstance that they formed the ever repeated proclamation about
Christ gave them an extraordinary significance. In addition to the birth
from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, the death, the resurrection, the
exaltation to the right hand of God, and the coming again, there now
appeared more definitely the ascension to heaven, and also, though more
uncertainly, the descent into the kingdom of the dead. The belief that
Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after the resurrection, gradually
made way against the older conception, according to which resurrection
and ascension really coincided, and against other ideas which maintained
a longer period between the two events. That probably is the result of a
reflection which sought to distinguish the first from the later
manifestations of the exalted Christ, and it is of the utmost importance
as the beginning of a demarcation of the times. It is also very probable
that the acceptance of an actual _ascensus in coelum_, not a mere
_assumptio_, was favourable to the idea of an actual descent of Christ
_de coelo_, therefore to the pneumatic Christology and vice versa. But
there is also closely connected with the _ascensus in coelum_, the
notion of a _descensus ad inferna_, which commended itself on the ground
of Old Testament prediction. In the first century, however, it still
remained uncertain, lying on the borders of those productions of
religious fancy which were not able at once to acquire a right of
citizenship in the communities.[268]
One can plainly see that the articles contained in the _Kerygma_ were
guarded and defended in their reality ([Greek: kat' alêtheian]) by the
professional teachers of the Church, against sweeping attempts at
explaining them away, or open attacks on them.[269] But they did not yet
possess the value of dogmas, for they were neither put in an
indissoluble union with the idea of salvation, nor were they stereotyped
in their extent, nor were fixed limits set to the imagination in the
concrete delineation and conception of them.[270]
§ 7. _The Worship, the Sacred Ordinances, and the Organisation of the
Churches._
It is necessary to examine the original forms of the worship and
constitution, because of the importance which they acquired in the
following period even for the development of doctrine.
1. In accordance with the purely spiritual idea of God, it was a fixed
principle that only a spiritual worship is well pleasing to Hun, and
that all ceremonies are abolished, [Greek: hina ho kainos nomos tou
kuriou hêmôn Iêsou Christou mê anthropôpoiêton echêi tên
prosphoran].[271] But as the Old Testament and the Apostolic tradition
made it equally certain that the worship of God is a sacrifice, the
Christian worship of God was set forth under the aspect of the spiritual
sacrifice. In the most general sense it was conceived as the offering of
the heart and of obedience, as well as the consecration of the whole
personality, body and soul (Rom XIII. 1) to God.[272] Here, with a
change of the figure, the individual Christian and the whole community
were described as a temple of God.[273] In a more special sense, prayer
as thanksgiving and intercession,[274] was regarded as the sacrifice
which was to be accompanied, without constraint or ceremony, by fasts
and acts of compassionate love.[275] Finally, prayers offered by the
worshipper in the public worship of the community, and the gifts brought
by them, out of which were taken the elements for the Lord's supper, and
which were used partly in the common meal, and partly in support of the
poor, were regarded as sacrifice in the most special sense ([Greek:
prosphora, dôra]).[276] For the following period, however, it became of
the utmost importance, (1) that the idea of sacrifice ruled the whole
worship, (2) that it appeared in a special manner in the celebration of
the Lord's supper, and consequently invested that ordinance with a new
meaning, (3) that the support of the poor, alms, especially such alms as
had been gained by prayer and fasting, was placed under the category of
sacrifice (Heb. XIII. 16), for this furnished the occasion for giving
the widest application to the idea of sacrifice, and thereby
substituting for the original Semitic Old Testament idea of sacrifice
with its spiritual interpretation, the Greek idea with its
interpretation.[277] It may, however, be maintained that the changes
imposed on the Christian religion by Catholicism, are at no point so
obvious and far-reaching, as in that of sacrifice, and especially in the
solemn ordinance of the Lord's supper, which was placed in such close
connection with the idea of sacrifice.
2. When in the "Teaching of the Apostles," which may be regarded here as
a classic document, the discipline of life in accordance with the words
of the Lord, Baptism, the order of fasting and prayer, especially the
regular use of the Lord's prayer, and the Eucharist are reckoned the
articles on which the Christian community rests, and when the common
Sunday offering of a sacrifice made pure by a brotherly disposition, and
the mutual exercise of discipline are represented as decisive for the
stability of the individual community,[278] we perceive that the general
idea of a pure spiritual worship of God has nevertheless been realised
in definite institutions, and that, above all, it has included the
traditional sacred ordinances, and adjusted itself to them as far as
that was possible.[279] This could only take effect under the idea of
the symbolical, and therefore this idea was most firmly attached to
these ordinances. But the symbolical of that time is not to be
considered as the opposite of the objectively real, but as the
mysterious, the God produced ([Greek: mystêrion]) as contrasted with the
natural, the profanely clear. As to Baptism, which was administered in
the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, though Cyprian, Ep. 73. 16-18,
felt compelled to oppose the custom of baptising in the name of Jesus,
we noted above (Chap. III. p. 161 f.) that it was regarded as the bath
of regeneration, and as renewal of life, inasmuch as it was assumed that
by it the sins of the past state of blindness were blotted out.[280] But
as faith was looked upon as the necessary condition,[281] and as on the
other hand, the forgiveness of the sins of the past was in itself deemed
worthy of God,[282] the asserted specific result of baptism remained
still very uncertain, and the hard tasks which it imposed, might seem
more important than the merely retrospective gifts which it
proffered.[283] Under such circumstances the rite could not fail to lead
believers about to be baptized, to attribute value here to the
mysterious as such.[284] But that always creates a state of things which
not only facilitates, but positively prepares for the introduction of
new and strange ideas. For neither fancy nor reflection can long
continue in the vacuum of mystery. The names [Greek: sphragis] and
[Greek: phôtismos], which at that period came into fashion for baptism,
are instructive, inasmuch as neither of them is a direct designation of
the presupposed effect of baptism, the forgiveness of sin, and as
besides, both of them evince a Hellenic conception. Baptism in being
called the seal,[285] is regarded as the guarantee of a blessing, not as
the blessing itself, at least the relation to it remains obscure; in
being called enlightenment,[286] it is placed directly under an aspect
that is foreign to it. It would be different if we had to think of
[Greek: phôtismos] as a gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given to the
baptised as real principle of a new life and miraculous powers. But the
idea of a necessary union of baptism with a miraculous communication of
the Spirit, seems to have been lost very early, or to have become
uncertain, the actual state of things being no longer favourable to
it;[287] at any rate, it does not explain the designation of baptism as
[Greek: phôtismos].
As regards the Lord's Supper, the most important point is that its
celebration became more and more the central point, not only for the
worship of the Church, but for its very life as a Church. The form of
this celebration, the common meal, made it appear to be a fitting
expression of the brotherly unity of the community (on the public
confession before the meal, see Didache, 14, and my notes on the
passage). The prayers which it included presented themselves as vehicles
for bringing before God, in thanksgiving and intercession, every thing
that affected the community; and the presentation of the elements for
the holy ordinance was naturally extended to the offering of gifts for
the poor brethren, who in this way received them from the hand of God
himself. In all these respects, however, the holy ordinance appeared as
a sacrifice of the community, and indeed, as it was also named, [Greek:
eucharistia], sacrifice of thanksgiving.[288] As an act of sacrifice,
_termini technici_ which the Old Testament applied to sacrifice could be
applied to it, and all the wealth of ideas which the Old Testament
connects with sacrifice, could be transferred to it. One cannot say that
anything absolutely foreign was therewith introduced into the ordinance,
however doubtful it may be whether in the idea of its founder the meal
was thought of as a sacrificial meal. But it must have been of the most
wide-reaching significance, that a wealth of ideas was in this way
connected with the ordinance, which had nothing whatever in common,
either with the purpose of the meal as a memorial of Christ's
death,[289] or with the mysterious symbols of the body and blood of
Christ. The result was that the one transaction obtained a double value.
At one time it appeared as the [Greek: prosphora] and [Greek: thusia] of
the Church,[290] as the pure sacrifice which is presented to the great
king by Christians scattered over the world, as they offer to him their
prayers, and place before him again what he has bestowed in order to
receive it back with thanks and praise. But there is no reference in
this to the mysterious words that the bread and wine are the body of
Christ broken, and the blood of Christ shed for the forgiveness of sin.
These words, in and of themselves, must have challenged a special
consideration. They called forth the recognition in the sacramental
action, or rather in the consecrated elements, of a mysterious
communication of God, a gift of salvation, and this is the second
aspect. But on a purely spiritual conception of the Divine gift of
salvation, the blessings mediated through the Holy Supper could only be
thought of as spiritual (faith, knowledge, or eternal life), and the
consecrated elements could only be recognised as the mysterious vehicles
of these blessings. There was yet no reflection on the distinction
between symbol and vehicle; the symbol was rather regarded as the
vehicle, and vice versa. We shall search in vain for any special
relation of the partaking of the consecrated elements to the forgiveness
of sin. That was made impossible by the whole current notions of sin and
forgiveness. That on which value was put was the strengthening of faith
and knowledge, as well as the guarantee of eternal life, and a meal in
which there was appropriated not merely common bread and wine, but a
[Greek: trophê pneumatikê], seemed to have a bearing upon these. There
was as yet little reflection; but there can be no doubt that thought
here moved in a region bounded, on the one hand, by the intention of
doing justice to the wonderful words of institution which had been
handed down, and on the other hand, by the fundamental conviction that
spiritual things can only be got by means of the Spirit.[291] There was
thus attached to the Supper the idea of sacrifice, and of a sacred gift
guaranteed by God. The two things were held apart, for there is as yet
no trace of that conception, according to which the body of Christ
represented in the bread[292] is the sacrifice offered by the community.
But one feels almost called upon here to construe from the premises the
later development of the idea, with due regard to the ancient Hellenic
ideas of sacrifice.
3. The natural distinctions among men, and the differences of position
and vocation which these involve, were not to be abolished in the
Church, notwithstanding the independence and equality of every
individual Christian, but were to be consecrated: above all, every
relation of natural piety was to be respected. Therefore the elders also
acquired a special authority, and were to receive the utmost deference
and due obedience. But, however important the organisation that was
based on the distinction between [Greek: presbuteroi] and [Greek:
neoteroi], it ought not to be considered as characteristic of the
Churches, not even where there appeared at the head of the community a
college of chosen elders, as was the case in the greater communities and
perhaps soon everywhere. On the contrary, only an organisation founded
on the gifts of the Spirit [Greek: charismata], bestowed on the Church
by God,[293] corresponded to the original peculiarity of the Christian
community. The Apostolic age therefore transmitted a twofold
organisation to the communities. The one was based on the [Greek:
diakonia tou logou], and was regarded as established directly by God;
the other stood in the closest connection with the economy of the
church, above all with the offering of gifts, and so with the
sacrificial service. In the first were men speaking the word of God,
commissioned and endowed by God, and bestowed on Christendom, not on a
particular community, who as [Greek: apostoloi, prophêtai], and [Greek:
didaskaloi] had to spread the Gospel, that is to edify the Church of
Christ. They were regarded as the real [Greek: hêgoumenoi] in the
communities, whose words given them by the Spirit all were to accept in
faith. In the second were [Greek: episkopoi], and [Greek: diakonoi],
appointed by the individual congregation and endowed with the charisms
of leading and helping, who had to receive and administer the gifts, to
perform the sacrificial service (if there were no prophets present), and
take charge of the affairs of the community.[294] It lay in the nature
of the case that as a rule the [Greek: episkopoi], as independent
officials, were chosen from among the elders, and might thus coincide
with the chosen [Greek: presbyteroi]. But a very important development
takes place in the second half of our epoch. The prophets and
teachers--as the result of causes which followed the naturalising of the
Churches in the world--fell more and more into the background, and their
function, the solemn service of the word, began to pass over to the
officials of the community, the bishops, who already played a great rôle
in the public worship. At the same time, however, it appeared more and
more fitting to entrust one official, as chief leader (superintendent of
public worship), with the reception of gifts and their administration,
together with the care of the unity of public worship, that is, to
appoint one bishop instead of a number of bishops, leaving, however, as
before, the college of presbyters, as [Greek: proistamenoi tês
ekklêsias], a kind of senate of the community.[295] Moreover, the idea
of the chosen bishops and deacons as the antitypes of the Priests and
Levites, had been formed at an early period in connection with the idea
of the new sacrifice. But we find also the idea, which is probably the
earlier of the two, that the prophets and teachers, as the commissioned
preachers of the word, are the priests. The hesitancy in applying this
important allegory must have been brought to an end by the disappearance
of the latter view. But it must have been still more important that the
bishops, or bishop, in taking over the functions of the old [Greek:
lalountes ton logon], who were not Church officials, took over also the
profound veneration with which they were regarded as the special organs
of the Spirit. But the condition of the organisation in the communities
about the year 140, seems to have been a very diverse one. Here and
there, no doubt, the convenient arrangement of appointing only one
bishop was carried out, while his functions had not perhaps been
essentially increased, and the prophets and teachers were still the
great spokesmen. Conversely, there may still have been in other
communities a number of bishops, while the prophets and teachers no
longer played regularly an important rôle. A fixed organisation was
reached, and the Apostolic episcopal constitution established, only in
consequence of the so-called Gnostic crisis, which was epoch-making in
every respect. One of its most important presuppositions, and one that
has struck very deep into the development of doctrine must, however, be
borne in mind here. As the Churches traced back all the laws according
to which they lived, and all the blessings they held sacred, to the
tradition of the twelve Apostles, because they regarded them as
Christian only on that presupposition, they also in like manner, as far
as we can discover, traced back their organisation of presbyters, i.e.,
of bishops and deacons, to Apostolic appointment. The notion which
followed quite naturally, was that the Apostles themselves had appointed
the first church officials.[296] That idea may have found support in
some actual cases of the kind, but this does not need to be considered
here; for these cases would not have led to the setting up of a theory.
But the point in question here is a theory, which is nothing else than
an integral part of the general theory, that the twelve Apostles were in
every respect the middle term between Jesus and the present Churches
(see above, p. 158). This conception is earlier than the great Gnostic
crisis, for the Gnostics also shared it. But no special qualities of the
officials, but only of the Church itself, were derived from it, and it
was believed that the independence and sovereignty of the Churches were
in no way endangered by it, because an institution by Apostles was
considered equivalent to an institution by the Holy Spirit, whom they
possessed, and whom they followed. The independence of the Churches
rested precisely on the fact that they had the Spirit in their midst.
The conception here briefly sketched, was completely transformed in the
following period by the addition of another idea--that of Apostolic
succession,[297] and then became, together with the idea of the specific
priesthood of the leader of the Church, the most important means of
exalting the office above the community.[298]
_Supplementary._
This review of the common faith and the beginnings of knowledge, worship
and organisation, in the earliest Gentile Christianity, will have shewn
that the essential premises for the development of Catholicism were
already in existence before the middle of the second century, and before
the burning conflict with Gnosticism. We may see this, whether we look
at the peculiar form of the _Kerygma_, or at the expression of the idea
of tradition, or at the theology with its moral and philosophic
attitude. We may therefore conclude that the struggle with Gnosticism
hastened the development, but did not give it a new direction. For the
Greek spirit, the element which was most operative in Gnosticism, was
already concealed in the earliest Gentile Christianity itself: it was
the atmosphere which one breathed; but the elements peculiar to
Gnosticism were for the most part rejected.[299] We may even go back a
step further (see above, pp. 41, 76). The great Apostle to the Gentiles
himself, in his epistle to the Romans, and in those to the Corinthians,
transplanted the Gospel into Greek modes of thought. He attempted to
expound it with Greek ideas, and not only called the Greeks to the Old
Testament and the Gospel, but also introduced the Gospel as a leaven
into the religious and philosophic world of Greek ideas. Moreover, in
his pneumatico-cosmic Christology he gave the Greeks an impulse towards
a theologoumenon, at whose service they could place their whole
philosophy and mysticism. He preached the foolishness of Christ
crucified, and yet in doing so, proclaimed the wisdom of the
nature-vanquishing Spirit, the heavenly Christ. From this moment was
established a development which might indeed assume very different
forms, but in which all the forces and ideas of Hellenism must gradually
pass over to the Gospel. But even with this the last word has not been
said; on the contrary, we must remember that the Gospel itself belonged
to the fulness of the times, which is indicated by the inter-action of
the Old Testament and the Hellenic religions (see above, pp. 41, 56).
The documents which have been preserved from the first century of the
Gentile Church are, in their relation to the history of Dogma, very
diverse. In the Didache we have a Catechism for Christian life,
dependent on a Jewish Greek Catechism, and giving expression to what was
specifically Christian in the prayers, and in the order of the Church.
The Epistle of Barnabas, probably of Alexandrian origin, teaches the
correct, Christian, interpretation of the Old Testament, rejects the
literal interpretation and Judaism as of the devil, and in Christology
essentially follows Paul. The Romish first Epistle of Clement, which
also contains other Pauline reminiscences (reconciliation and
justification) represents the same Christology, but it set it in a
moralistic mode of thought. This is a most typical writing in which the
spirit of tradition, order, stability, and the universal ecclesiastical
guardianship of Rome is already expressed. The moralistic mode of
thought is classically represented by the Shepherd of Hermas, and the
second Epistle of Clement, in which, besides, the eschatological element
is very prominent. We have in the Shepherd the most important document
for the Church Christianity of the age, reflected in the mirror of a
prophet who, however, takes into account the concrete relations. The
theology of Ignatius is the most advanced, in so far as he, opposing the
Gnostics, brings the facts of salvation into the foreground, and directs
his Gnosis not so much to the Old Testament as to the history of Christ.
He attempts to make Christ [Greek: kata pneuma] and [Greek: kata sarka]
the central point of Christianity. In this sense his theology and speech
is Christocentric, related to that of Paul and the fourth Evangelist,
(specially striking is the relationship with Ephesians), and is strongly
contrasted with that of his contemporaries. Of kindred spirit with him
are Melito and Irenæus, whose forerunner he is. He is related to them as
Methodius at a later period was related to the classical orthodox
theology of the fourth and fifth centuries. This parallel is
appropriate, not merely in point of form: it is rather one and the same
tendency of mind which passes over from Ignatius to Melito, Irenæus,
Methodius, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa (here, however, mixed with
Origenic elements), and to Cyril of Alexandria. Its characteristic is
that not only does the person of Christ as the God-man form the central
point and sphere of theology, but also that all the main points of his
history are mysteries of the world's redemption. (Ephes. 19). But
Ignatius is also distinguished by the fact that behind all that is
enthusiastic, pathetic, abrupt, and again all that pertains to
liturgical form, we find in his epistles a true devotion to Christ
([Greek: ho theos mou]). He is laid hold of by Christ: Cf. Ad. Rom. 6:
[Greek: ekeinon zêtô, ton hyper hêmôn apothanonta, ekeinon thelô ton di'
hêmas anastanta]; Rom. 7: [Greek: ho emos erôs estaurôtai kai ouk estin
en emoi pur philoulon]. As a sample of his theological speech and his
rule of faith, see ad. Smyrn. 1: [Greek: enoêsa humas katêrtismenous en
akinêtô pistei, hôsper kathêlômenous en tô staurô tou kuriou Iêsou
Christou sarki te kai pneumati kai hêdrasmenous en agapê en tô haimati
Christou, peplêrophorêmenous eis ton kuriou hêmôn, alêthôs onta ek
genous Dabid kata sarka, huion theou kata thelêma kai dunamin theou,
gegenêmenon alêthôs ek parthenou, bebaptismenon hypo Iôannou, hina
plêrôthê pasa dikaiosunê hup' autou, alêthôs epi Pontiou Pilatou kai
Hêrôdou tetrarchou kathêlômenon huper hêmôn en sarki--aph' hou karpou
hêmeis, apo tou theomakaritou autou pathous--hina arê sussêmon eis tous
aiônas dia tês anastaseôs eis tous agious kai pistous autou eite en
Ioudaious eite en ethnesin en heni sômati tês ekklêsias autou]. The
Epistle of Polycarp is characterised by its dependence on earlier
Christian writings (Epistles of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John), consequently, by
its conservative attitude with regard to the most valuable traditions of
the Apostolic period. The _Kerygma_ of Peter exhibits the transition
from the early Christian literature to the apologetic (Christ as [Greek:
nomos] and as [Greek: logos]).
It is manifest that the lineage, "Ignatius, Polycarp, Melito, Irenæus",
is in characteristic contrast with all others, has deep roots in the
Apostolic age, as in Paul and in the Johannine writings, and contains in
germ important factors of the future formation of dogma, as it appeared
in Methodius, Athanasius, Marcellus, Cyril of Jerusalem. It is very
doubtful therefore, whether we are justified in speaking of an Asia
Minor theology. (Ignatius does not belong to Asia Minor.) At any rate,
the expression, Asia Minor-Romish Theology, has no justification. But it
has its truth in the correct observation, that the standards by which
Christianity and Church matters were measured and defined, must have
been similar in Rome and Asia Minor during the second century. We lack
all knowledge of the closer connections. We can only again refer to the
journey of Polycarp to Rome, to that of Irenæus by Rome to Gaul, to the
journey of Abercius and others (cf. also the application of the
Montanist communities in Asia Minor for recognition by the Roman
bishop). In all probability, Asia Minor, along with Rome, was the
spiritual centre of Christendom from about 60-200: but we have but few
means for describing how this centre was brought to bear on the
circumference. What we do know belongs more to the history of the Church
than to the special history of dogma.
_Literature._--The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. See the
edition of v. Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, 1876. Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test.
extra Can. recept. fasc. IV. 2 edit. 1884, has collected further remains
of early Christian literature. The Teaching of the twelve Apostles.
Fragments of the Gospel and Apocalypse of Peter (my edition, 1893). Also
the writings of Justin and other apologists, in so far as they give
disclosures about the faith of the communities of his time, as well as
statements in Celsus [Greek: Alêthês Logos], in Irenæus, Clement of
Alexandria, and Tertullian. Even Gnostic fragments may be cautiously
turned to profit. Ritschl, Entstehung der altkath. Kirche 2 Aufl. 1857.
Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, 1887. Renan, Origins of Christianity,
vol. V. V. Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justin's, d. M. 1878, p. 375 ff.
Schenkel, Das Christusbild der Apostel, etc., 1879. Zahn, Gesch. des
N.-Tlichen Kanons, 2 Bde. 1888. Behm, Das Christliche Gesetzthum der
Apostolischen Väter (Zeitschr. f. kirchl. Wissensch. 1886). Dorner,
History of the doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1845. Schultz, Die
Lehre von der Gottheit Christi, 1881, p. 22 ff. Höfling. Die Lehre der
ältesten Kirche vom Opfer, 1851. Höfling, Das Sacrament d. Taufe, 1848.
Kahnis, Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, 1851. Th. Harnack, Der Christliche
Gemeindegottedienst im Apost. u. Altkath. Zeitalter, 1854. Hatch,
Organisation of the Early Church, 1883. My Prolegomena to the Didache
(Texte u. Unters. II. Bd. H. 1, 2). Diestel, Gesch. des A.T. in der
Christi. Kirche, 1869. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, 1892, Monographs on the
Apostolic Fathers: on 1 Clem.: Lipsius, Lightfoot (most accurate
commentary), Wrede; on 2 Clem.: A. Harnack (Ztschr. f. K. Gesch. 1887);
on Barnabas: J. Müller; on Hermas: Zahn, Hückstädt, Link; on Papias:
Weiffenbach, Leimbach, Zahn, Lightfoot; on Ignatius and Polycarp:
Lightfoot (accurate commentary) and Zahn; on the Gospel and Apocalypse
of Peter: A. Harnack: on the Kerygma of Peter: von Dobschütz; on Acts of
Thecla: Schlau.
[Footnote 162: The statements made in this chapter need special
forbearance, especially as the selection from the rich and motley
material--cf. only the so-called Apostolic Fathers--the emphasising of
this, the throwing into the background of that element, cannot here be
vindicated. It is not possible, in the compass of a brief account, to
give expression to that elasticity and those oscillations of ideas and
thoughts which were peculiar to the Christians of the earliest period.
There was indeed, as will be shewn, a complex of tradition in many
respects fixed, but this complex was still under the dominance of an
enthusiastic fancy, so that what at one moment seemed fixed, in the next
had disappeared. Finally, attention must be given to the fact that when
we speak of the beginnings of knowledge, the members of the Christian
community in their totality are no longer in question, but only
individuals who of course were the leaders of the others. If we had no
other writings from the times of the Apostolic Fathers than the first
Epistle of Clement and the Epistle of Polycarp, it would be
comparatively easy to sketch a clear history of the development
connecting Paulinism with the old-Catholic Theology as represented by
Irenæus, and so to justify the traditional ideas. But besides these two
Epistles which are the classic monuments of the mediating tradition, we
have a great number of documents which shew us how manifold and
complicated the development was. They also teach us how careful we
should be in the interpretation of the post-Apostolic documents that
immediately followed the Pauline Epistles, and that we must give special
heed to the paragraphs and ideas in them, which distinguish them from
Paulinism. Besides, it is of the greatest importance that those two
Epistles originated in Rome and Asia Minor, as these are the places
where we must seek the embryonic stage of old-Catholic doctrine.
Numerous fine threads, in the form of fundamental ideas and particular
views, pass over from the Asia Minor theology of the post-Apostolic
period into the old-Catholic theology.]
[Footnote 163: The Epistle to the Hebrews (X. 25), the Epistle of
Barnabas (IV. 10), the Shepherd of Hermas (Sim. IX. 26, 3), but
especially the Epistles of Ignatius and still later documents, shew that
up to the middle of the second Century, and even later, there were
Christians who, for various reasons, stood outside the union of
communities, or wished to have only a loose and temporary relation to
them. The exhortation: [Greek: epi to auto sunerchomenoi sunzêteite peri
tou koinê sumpherontos] (see my note on Didache, XVI. 2, and cf.) for
the expression the interesting State Inscription which was found at
Magnesia on the Meander. Bull, Corresp. Hellen 1883, p. 506: [Greek:
apagoreuo mête sunerchesthai tous artokokous kat' hetairian mête
parestêkotas thrasunesthai, peitharchein de pantôs tois huper tou koinê
sumpherontos epitattomenois k.t.l.] or the exhortation: [Greek:
kollasthe tois hagiois, hoti hoi kollômenoi autois hagiasthêsontai] (1
Clem. 46. 2, introduced as [Greek: graphê]) runs through most of the
writings of the post-Apostolic and pre-catholic period. New doctrines
were imported by wandering Christians who, in many cases, may not
themselves have belonged to a community, and did not respect the
arrangements of those they found in existence, but sought to form
conventicles. If we remember how the Greeks and Romans were wont to get
themselves initiated into a mystery cult, and took part for a long time
in the religious exercises, and then, when they thought they had got the
good of it, for the most part or wholly to give up attending, we shall
not wonder that the demand to become a permanent member of a Christian
community was opposed by many. The statements of Hermas are specially
instructive here.]
[Footnote 164: "Corpus sumus," says Tertullian at a time when this
description had already become an anachronism, "de conscientia
religionis et disciplinæ unitate et spei foedere." (Apol. 39: cf. Ep.
Petri ad Jacob. I.: [Greek: eis theos, eis nomos, mia elpis]). The
description was applicable to the earlier period, when there was no such
thing as a federation with political forms, but when the consciousness
of belonging to a community and of forming a brotherhood ([Greek:
adelphotês]) was all the more deeply felt: See, above all, 1 Clem ad
Corinth., the Didache (9-15), Aristides, Apol 15: "and when they have
become Christians, they call them (the slaves) brethren without
hesitation ... for they do not call them brethren according to the
flesh, but according to the spirit and in God;" cf. also the statements
on brotherhood in Tertullian and Minucius Felix (also Lucian). We have
in 1 Clem. I. 2, the delineation of a perfect Christian Church. The
Epistles of Ignatius are specially instructive as to the independence of
each individual community: 1 Clem. and Didache, as to the obligation to
assist stranger communities by counsel and action, and to support the
travelling brethren. As every Christian is a [Greek: paroikos] so every
community is a [Greek: paroikousa tên polin] but it is under obligation
to give an example to the world, and must watch that "the name be not
blasphemed." The importance of the social element in the oldest
Christian communities, has been very justly brought into prominence in
the latest works on the subject (Renan, Heinrici, Hatch). The historian
of dogma must also emphasise it, and put the fluid notions of the faith
in contrast with the definite consciousness of moral tasks. See 1 Clem.
47-50; Polyc. Ep. 3; Didache 1 ff.; Ignat. ad Eph. 14, on [Greek: agapê]
as the main requirement Love demands that everyone "[Greek: zêtei to
koinôpheles pasin kai mê to heautou]" (1 Clem. 48. 6, with parallels;
Didache 16. 3; Barn. 4. 10; Ignatius).]
[Footnote 165: 1 Clem. 59. 2. in the Church prayer; [Greek: hopôs ton
arithmon ton katêrithmênon tôn eklektôn autou en holô tôi kosmô
diaphulaxê athrauston ho dêmiourgos tôn hapantôn dia tou êgapêmenou
paidos autou Iêsou Christou].]
[Footnote 166: See 1 Clem., 2 Clem., Ignatius (on the basis of the
Pauline view; but see also Rev. II. 9).]
[Footnote 167: See Hermas (the passage is given above, p. 103, note).]
[Footnote 168: See Hermas Vis. I-III. Papias. Fragm. VI. and VII. of my
edition. 2 Clem. 14: [Greek: poiountes to thelêma tou patros hêmôn
esometha ek tês ekklêsias tês prôtês tês pneumatikês, tês pro hêliou kai
selênês ektismenes.... ekklêsia zôsa sôma esti Christou legei gar hê
graphê epoiêsen ho theos ton anthrôpon arsen kai thêlu. to arsen estin
ho Christos, to thêlu hê ekklêsia].]
[Footnote 169: See Barn. 13 (2 Clem. 2).]
[Footnote 170: See Valentinus in Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 52. "Holy Church",
perhaps also in Marcion, if his text (Zahn. Gesch. des N.T.-lichen
Kanons, II. p. 502) in Gal. IV. 21, read: [Greek: hêtis estin mêtêr
humôn, gennôsa eis hên epengeilametha hagian ekklêsian].]
[Footnote 171: Barn. 3. 6.]
[Footnote 172: We are also reminded here of the "tertium genus." The
nickname of the heathen corresponded to the self-consciousness of the
Christians (see Aristides, Apol).]
[Footnote 173: See also the letter of Pliny the paragraphs about
Christian morality, in the first third part of Justin's apology and
especially the apology of Aristides c. 15. Aristides portrays
Christianity by portraying Christian morality. The Christians know and
believe in God the creator of heaven and of earth, the God by whom all
things consist, i.e. in him from whom they have received the
commandments which they have written in their hearts commandments, which
they observe in faith and in the expectation of the world to come. For
this reason they do not commit adultery, nor practise unchastity, nor
bear false witness, nor covet that with which they are entrusted or what
does not belong to them, etc. Compare how in the Apocalypse of Peter
definite penalties in hell are portrayed for the several forms of
immorality.]
[Footnote 174: An investigation of the Greco Jewish Christian literature
of norms and moral rules commencing with the Old Testament doctrine of
wisdom on the one hand and the Stoic collections on the other then
passing beyond the Alexandrian and Evangelic norms up to the Didache,
the Pauline tables of domestic duties, the Sibylline sayings,
Phocylides, the Neopythagorean rules and to the norms of the enigmatic
Sextus, is still an unfulfilled task. The moral rules of the Pharisaic
Rabbis should also be included.]
[Footnote 175: Herm. Mand. I. has merely fixed the Monotheistic
confession [Greek: proton pantôn pisteuson, hoti eis estin ho theos, ho
ta panta ktisas kai katartisas k.t.l.] See Praed Petri in Clem Strom VI.
6, 48, VI. 5, 39. Aristides gives in c. 2 of his Apology the preaching
of Jesus Christ but where he wishes to give a short expression of
Christianity he is satisfied with saying that Christians are those who
have found the one true God. See e.g. c. 15.
Christians have found the truth. They know and believe in God the
creator of heaven and of earth by whom all things consist and from whom
all things come who has no other god beside him and from whom they have
received commandments which they have written on their hearts,
commandments which they observe in faith and in expectation of the world
to come. It is interesting to note how Origen Comm. in Joh. XXXII. 9 has
brought the Christological Confession into approximate harmony with that
of Hermas. First Mand. I. is verbally repeated and then it is said
[Greek: chrê de kai pisteuein, hoti kurios Iêsous Christos kai pase tê
peri autou kata tên theotêta kai tên anthropôteta alêtheia dei de kai
eis to hagion pisteuein pneuma, kai hoti autexousioi ontes kolazometha
men eph' hois hamartanomen timômetha de eph' hois eu prattomen].]
[Footnote 176: Very instructive here is 2 Clem. ad Corinth. 20, 5
[Greek: to monô theo aorato, patri tês alêtheias, tô exatosteilanti
hêmin ton sôtêra kai archêgon tês aphtharsias, di' ou kai ephanerôsen
hêmin tên alêtheian kai tên epouranion zôên, autô he doxa]. On the Holy
Spirit see previous note.]
[Footnote 177: They were quoted as [Greek: hê graphê, ta biblia], or
with the formula [Greek: ho theos (kurios) legei, gegraptai]. Also Law
and Prophets. Law Prophets and Psalms. See the original of the first six
books of the Apostolic Constitutions.]
[Footnote 178: See the collection of passages in Patr. App. Opp. edit.
Gebhardt. 1. 2 p. 133, and the formula, Diogn. 11: [Greek: apostolôn
genomenos mathêtês ginomai didaskalos ethnôn, ta paradothenta axiôs
hupêretôn ginomenois alêtheias mathêtais]. Besides the Old Testament and
the traditions about Jesus (Gospels), the Apocalyptic writings of the
Jews, which were regarded as writings of the Spirit, were also drawn
upon. Moreover, Christian letters and manifestoes proceeding from
Apostles, prophets, or teachers, were read. The Epistles of Paul were
early collected and obtained wide circulation in the first half of the
second century; but they were not Holy Scripture in the specific sense,
and therefore their authority was not unqualified.]
[Footnote 179: Barn. 5. 6, [Greek: hoi prophetai, apo tou kuriou
echontes tên charin, eis auton eprophêteusan]. Ignat. ad Magn. 8. 2. cf.
also Clem. Paedag. I. 7. 59: [Greek: ho gar autos houtos paidagôgos tote
men "phobêthêsê kurion ton theon elegen, hêmin de agapêseis kurion ton
theon sou" tarênesen. dia touto kai entelletai hêmin "pausasthe apo tôn
ergôn humôn" tôn palaiôn hamartiôn, "mathete kalon poiein, ekklinon apo
kakou kai poiêson agathon, êgapêsas dikaiosunên, emisêsas anomian" hautê
mou hê nea diathêkê palaìoi kecharagmenê grammati].]
[Footnote 180: See above § 5, p. 114 f.]
[Footnote 181: See my edition of the Didache. Prolegg. p. 32 ff.; Rothe,
"De disciplina arcani origine," 1841.]
[Footnote 182: The earliest example is 1 Cor. XI. 1 f. It is different
in 1 Tim. III. 16, where already the question is about [Greek: to tês
eusebeias mystêrion]. See Patr. App. Opp. 1. 2. p. 134.]
[Footnote 183: Father, son, and spirit: Paul; Matt XXVIII. 19; 1 Clem.
ad. Cor. 58. 2 (see 2. 1. f.; 42. 3; 46. 6); Didache 7; Ignat. Eph. 9.
1; Magn. 13. 1. 2.; Philad. inscr.; Mart. Polyc. 14. 1. 2; Ascens. Isai.
8 18:9. 27:10. 4:11. 32ff;, Justin _passim_; Montan. ap. Didym. de
trinit. 411; Excerpta ex Theodot. 80; Pseudo Clem. de virg. 1 13. Yet
the omission of the Holy Spirit is frequent, as in Paul, or the Holy
Spirit is identified with the Spirit of Christ. The latter takes place
even with such writers as are familiar with the baptismal formula.
Ignat. ad Magn. 15; [Greek: kektêmenoi adiakriton pneuma, hos estin
Iêsous Christos.].]
[Footnote 184: The formulæ run: "God who has spoken through the
Prophets," or the "Prophetic Spirit," etc.]
[Footnote 185: That should be assumed as certain in the case of the
Egyptian Church, yet Caspari thinks he can shew that already Clement of
Alexandria presupposes a symbol.]
[Footnote 186: Also in the communities of Asia Minor (Smyrna); for a
combination of Polyc. Ep. c. 2 with c. 7, proves that in Smyrna the
[Greek: paradotheis logos] must have been something like the Roman
Symbol, see Lightfoot on the passage; it cannot be proved that it was
identical with it. See, further, how in the case of Polycarp the moral
element is joined on to the dogmatic. This reminds us of the Didache and
has its parallel even in the first homily of Aphraates.]
[Footnote 187: See Caspari, Quellen z. Gesch. des Taufsymbols, III. p. 3
ff. and Patr. App. Opp. 1. 2. p 115-142. The old Roman Symbol reads:
[Greek: Pisteuô eis theon patera pantokratora, kai eis Christon Iêsoun
(ton) huion autou ton monogenê], (on this word see Westcott's Excursus
in his commentary on 1st John) [Greek: ton kurion hêmôn ton gennêthenta
ek pneumatos hagiou kai Marias tês parthenou, ton epi Pontiou Pilatou
staurôthenta kai taphenta; tê tritê hêmerai anastanta ek nekrôn,
anabanta eis tous ouranous, kathêmenon en dexia tou patros, hothen
erchetai krinai zôntas kai nekrous. kai eis pneuma hagion, hagian
ekklêsian, aphesin hamartiôn sarkos anastasin, amên]. To estimate this
very important article aright we must note the following: (1) It is not
a formula of doctrine, but of confession. (2) It has a liturgical form
which is shewn in the rhythm and in the disconnected succession of its
several members, and is free from everything of the nature of polemic.
(3) It tapers off into the three blessings, Holy Church, forgiveness of
sin, resurrection of the body, and in this as well as in the fact that
there is no mention of [Greek: gnôsis (alêtheia) kai zôê aiônos], is
revealed an early Christian untheological attitude. (4) It is worthy of
note, on the other hand, that the birth from the Virgin occupies the
first place, and all reference to the baptism of Jesus, also to the
Davidic Sonship, is wanting. (5) It is further worthy of note, that
there is no express mention of the death of Jesus, and that the
Ascension already forms a special member (that is also found elsewhere,
Ascens. Isaiah, c. 3. 13. ed. Dillmann. p. 13. Murator. Fragment, etc.).
Finally, we should consider the want of the earthly Kingdom of Christ
and the mission of the twelve Apostles, as well as, on the other hand,
the purely religious attitude, no notice being taken of the new law.
Zahn (Das Apostol. Symbolum, 1893) assumes, "That in all essential
respects the identical baptismal confession which Justin learned in
Ephesus about 130, and Marcion confessed in Rome about 145, originated
at latest somewhere about 120." In some "unpretending notes" (p. 37 ff.)
he traces this confession back to a baptismal confession of the Pauline
period ("it had already assumed a more or less stereotyped form in the
earlier Apostolic period"), which, however, was somewhat revised, so far
as it contained, for example, "of the house of David", with reference to
Christ. "The original formula, reminding us of the Jewish soil of
Christianity, was thus remodelled, perhaps about 70-120, with retention
of the fundamental features, so that it might appear to answer better to
the need of candidates for baptism, proceeding more and more from the
Gentiles.... This changed formula soon spread on all sides. It lies at
the basis of all the later baptismal confessions of the Church, even of
the East. The first article was slightly changed in Rome about 200-220."
While up till then, in Rome as everywhere else, it had read [Greek:
pisteuô eis hena theon pantokratora], it was now changed in [Greek:
pisteuô eis theon patera pantokratora]. This hypothesis, with regard to
the early history of the Roman Symbol, presupposes that the history of
the formation of the baptismal confession in the Church, in east and
west, was originally a uniform one. This cannot be proved; besides, it
is refuted by the facts of the following period. It presupposes
secondly, that there was a strictly formulated baptismal confession
outside Rome before the middle of the second century, which likewise
cannot be proved; (the converse rather is probable, that the fixed
formulation proceeded from Rome.) Moreover, Zahn himself retracts
everything again by the expression "more or less stereotyped form;" for
what is of decisive interest here is the question, when and where the
fixed sacred form was produced. Zahn here has set up the radical thesis
that it can only have taken place in Rome between 200 and 220. But
neither his negative nor his positive proof for a change of the Symbol
in Rome at so late a period is sufficient. No sure conclusion as to the
Symbol can be drawn from the wavering _regulæ fidei_ of Irenæus and
Tertullian which contain the "unum"; further, the "unum" is not found in
the western provincial Symbols, which, however, are in part earlier than
the year 200. The Romish correction must therefore have been
subsequently taken over in the provinces (Africa?). Finally, the formula
[Greek: theon patera pantokratora] beside the more frequent [Greek:
theon pantokratora] is attested by Irenæus, I. 10. 1, a decisive
passage. With our present means we cannot attain to any direct knowledge
of Symbol formation before the Romish Symbol. But the following
hypotheses, which I am not able to establish here, appear to me to
correspond to the facts of the case and to be fruitful: (1) There were,
even in the earliest period, separate _Kerygmata_ about God and Christ:
see the Apostolic writings, Hermas, Ignatius, etc. (2) The _Kerygma_
about God was the confession of the one God of creation, the almighty
God. (3) The _Kerygma_ about Christ had essentially the same historical
contents everywhere, but was expressed in diverse forms: (a) in the form
of the fulfilment of prophecy, (b) in the form [Greek: kata sarka, kata
pneuma], (c) in the form of the first and second advent, (d) in the
form, [Greek: katabas-anabas]; these forms were also partly combined.
(4) The designations "Christ", "Son of God" and "Lord"; further, the
birth from the Holy Spirit, or [Greek: kata pneuma], the sufferings (the
practice of exorcism contributed also to the fixing and naturalising of
the formula "crucified under Pontius Pilate"), the death, the
resurrection, the coming again to judgment, formed the stereotyped
content of the _Kerygma_ about Jesus. The mention of the Davidic
Sonship, of the Virgin Mary, of the baptism by John, of the third day,
of the descent into Hades, of the _demonstratio veræ carnis post
resurrectionem_, of the ascension into heaven and the sending out of the
disciples, were additional articles which appeared here and there. The
[Greek: sarka labon], and the like, were very early developed out of the
forms (b) and (d). All this was already in existence at the transition
of the first century to the second. (5) The proper contribution of the
Roman community consisted in this, that it inserted the _Kerygma_ about
God and that about Jesus into the baptismal formula, widened the clause
referring to the Holy Spirit, into one embracing Holy Church,
forgiveness of sin, resurrection of the body, excluded theological
theories in other respects, undertook a reduction all round, and
accurately defined everything up to the last world. (6) The western
_regulæ fidei_ do not fall back exclusively on the old Roman Symbol, but
also on the earlier freer _Kerygmata_ about God and about Jesus which
were common to the east and west; not otherwise can the _regulæ fidei_
of Irenæus and Tertullian, for example, be explained. But the symbol
became more and more the support of the _regula_. (7) The eastern
confessions (baptismal symbols) do not fall back directly on the Roman
Symbol, but were probably on the model of this symbol, made up from the
provincial _Kerygmata_, rich in contents and growing ever richer,
hardly, however, before the third century. (8) It cannot be proved, and
it is not probable, that the Roman Symbol was in existence before
Hermas, that is, about 135.]
[Footnote 188: See the fragment in Euseb. H. E. III. 39, from the work
of Papias.]
[Footnote 189: [Greek: Didachê kurion dia tôn ib' apostolôn] (Did.
inscr.) is the most accurate expression (similarly 2 Pet. III. 2).
Instead of this might be said simply [Greek: ho kurios] (Hegesipp.).
Hegesippus (Euseb. H. E. IV. 22. 3; See also Steph. Gob.) comprehends
the ultimate authorities under the formula: [Greek: hôs ho nomos
kêrussei kai hoi prophêtai kai ho kurios], just as even Pseudo Clem de
Virg. I. 2: "Sicut ex lege ac prophetis et a domino nostro Jesu Christo
didicimus." Polycarp (6.3) says: [Greek: kathôs autos eneteilato kaì hoi
euangelisamenoi hêmas apostoloi kai hoi prophêtai hoi prokêruxantes tên
eleusin tou kuriou hêmôn]. In the second Epistle of Clement (14. 2) we
read: [Greek: ta biblia] (O.T.) [Greek: kai hoi apostoloi, to
euangelion] may also stand for [Greek: ho kurios]; (Ignat., Didache. 2
Clem. etc.). The Gospel, so far as it is described, is quoted as [Greek:
ta apomnêmoneumata t. apostolôn] (Justin, Tatian), or on the other hand,
as [Greek: hai kuriakai graphai], (Dionys. Cor. in Euseb. H. E. IV. 23.
12: at a later period in Tertull. and Clem. Alex.). The words of the
Lord, in the same way as the words of God, are called simply [Greek: ta
logia (kuriaka)]. The declaration of Serapion at the beginning of the
third century (Euseb., H. E. VI. 12. 3): [Greek: hêmeis kai Petron kai
tous allous apostolous apodechometha hôs Christon], is an innovation in
so far as it puts the words of the Apostles fixed in writing and as
distinct from the words of the Lord, on a level with the latter. That
is, while differentiating the one from the other, Serapion ascribes to
the words of the apostles and those of the Lord equal authority. But the
development which led to this position, had already begun in the first
century. At a very early period there were read in the communities,
beside the Old Testament, Gospels, that is collections of words of the
Lord, which at the same time contained the main facts of the history of
Jesus. Such notes were a necessity (Luke 1.4; [Greek: hina epignôs peri
hôn katêchêthês logôn tên asphaleian]), and though still indefinite and
in many ways unlike, they formed the germ for the genesis of the New
Testament. (See Weiss, Lehrb. d. Einleit in d. N. T. p. 21 ff.). Further
there were read Epistles and Manifestoes by apostles, prophets and
teachers, but, above all, Epistles of Paul. The Gospels at first stood
in no connection with these Epistles, however high they might be prized.
But there did exist a connection between the Gospels and the [Greek: ap'
archês autoptais kai hupêretais tou logou], so far as these mediated the
tradition of the Evangelic material, and on their testimony rests the
_Kerygma_ of the Church about the Lord as the Teacher, the crucified and
risen One. Here lies the germ for the genesis of a canon which will
comprehend the Lord and the Apostles, and will also draw in the Pauline
Epistles. Finally, Apocalypses were read as Holy Scriptures.]
[Footnote 190: Read, apart from all others, the canonical Gospels, the
remains of the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, and perhaps the Shepherd of
Hermas: see also the statements of Papias.]
[Footnote 191: That Peter was in Antioch follows from Gal. II.; that he
laboured in Corinth, perhaps before the composition of the first epistle
to the Corinthians, is not so improbable as is usually maintained (1
Cor.; Dionys. of Corinth); that he was at Rome even is very credible.
The sojourn of John in Asia Minor cannot, I think, be contested.]
[Footnote 192: See how in the three early "writings of Peter" (Gospel,
Apocalypse, _Kerygma_) the twelve are embraced in a perfect unity. Peter
is the head and spokesman for them all.]
[Footnote 193: See Papias and the Reliq. Presbyter, ap. Iren., collecta
in Patr. Opp. I. 2, p. 105: see also Zahn, Forschungen. III., p. 156 f.]
[Footnote 194: The Gentile-Christian conception of the significance of
the twelve--a fact to be specially noted--was all but unanimous (see
above Chap. II.): the only one who broke through it was Marcion. The
writers of Asia Minor, Rome and Egypt coincide in this point. Beside the
Acts of the Apostles, which is specially instructive, see 1 Clem. 42;
Barn 5. 9, 8. 3: Didache inscr.; Hermas, Vis. III. 5, 11; Sim. IX. 15,
16, 17, 25; Petrusev-Petrusapok. Præd. Petr. ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48;
Ignat. ad Trall. 3; ad Rom 4; ad Philad. 5; Papias; Polyc., Aristides;
Justin _passim_; inferences from the great work of Irenæus, the works of
Tertull. and Clem. Alex; the Valentinians. The inference that follows
from the eschatological hope, that the Gospel has already been preached
to the world, and the growing need of having a tradition mediated by
eye-witnesses co-operated here, and out of the twelve who were in great
part obscure, but who had once been authoritative in Jerusalem and
Palestine, and highly esteemed in the Christian Diaspora from the
beginning, though unknown, created a court of appeal, which presented
itself as not only taking a second rank after the Lord himself, but as
the medium through which alone the words of the Lord became the
possession of Christendom, as he neither preached to the nations nor
left writings. The importance of the twelve in the main body of the
Church may at any rate be measured by the facts, that the personal
activity of Jesus was confined to Palestine, that he left behind him
neither a confession nor a doctrine, and that in this respect the
tradition tolerated no more corrections. Attempts which were made in
this direction, the fiction of a semi-Gentile origin of Christ, the
denial of the Davidic Sonship, the invention of a correspondence between
Jesus and Abgarus, meetings of Jesus with Greeks, and much else, belong
only in part to the earliest period, and remained as really inoperative
as they were uncertain (according to Clem. Alex., Jesus himself is the
Apostle to the Jews; the twelve are the Apostles to the Gentiles in
Euseb. H. E. VI. 141). The notion about the twelve Apostles evangelising
the world in accordance with the commission of Jesus, is consequently to
be considered as the means by which the Gentile Christians got rid of
the inconvenient fact of the merely local activity of Jesus (compare how
Justin expresses himself about the Apostles: their going out into all
the world is to him one of the main articles predicted in the Old
Testament, Apol. 1. 39; compare also the Apology of Aristides, c. 2, and
the passage of similar tenor in the Ascension of Isaiah, where the
"adventus XII. discipulorum" is regarded as one of the fundamental facts
of salvation, c. 3. 13, ed. Dillmann, p 13, and a passage such as Iren.
fragm. XXIX. in Harvey II., p. 494, where the parable about the grain of
mustard seed is applied to the [Greek: logos epouranios] and the twelve
Apostles; the Apostles are the branches [Greek: hup' hôn kladôn
skepasthentes hoi pantes hôs ornea hupo kalian sunelthonta metelabon tês
ex autôn proerchomenês edôdimou kai epouraniou trophês] Hippol. de
Antichr. 61. Orig. c. Cels. III. 28). This means, as it was empty of
contents, was very soon to prove the most convenient instrument for
establishing ever new historical connections, and legitimising the
_status quo_ in the communities. Finally, the whole catholic idea of
tradition was rooted in that statement which was already, at the close
of the first century, formulated by Clement of Rome (c. 42): [Greek: hoi
apostoloi hêmin euêngelisthêsan apo tou kuriou Iêsou Christou, Iêsous ho
christos apo tou theou exepemphthê. ho christos oun apo tou theou, kai
hoi apostoloi apo tou Christou; egenonto oun amphotera eutaktôs ek
thelêmatos theou, k.t.l.] Here, as in all similar statements which
elevate the Apostles into the history of revelation, the unanimity of
all the Apostles is always presupposed, so that the statement of Clem.
Alex. (Strom VII., 17, 108: [Greek: mia hê pantôn gegone tôn apostolôn
hôsper didaskalia houtôs de kai hê paradosis], see Tertull., de præscr.
32: "Apostoli non diversa inter se docuerent," Iren. alii), contains no
innovation, but gives expression to an old idea: That the twelve
unitedly proclaimed one and the same message, that they proclaimed it to
the world, that they were chosen to this vocation by Christ, that the
communities possess the witness of the Apostles as their rule of conduct
(Excerp. ex Theod. 25 [Greek: hosper hupo tôn zôdion hê genesis
dioikeitai houtôs hupo tôn apostolôn hê anagennêsis]) are authoritative
theses which can be traced back as far as we have any remains of
Gentile-Chnstian literature. It was thereby presupposed that the
unanimous _kerygma_ of the twelve Apostles which the communities possess
as [Greek: kanôn tês paradoseôs] (1 Clem. 7), was public and accessible
to all. Yet the idea does not seem to have been everywhere kept at a
distance that besides the _kerygma_ a still deeper knowledge was
transmitted by the Apostles or by certain Apostles to particular
Christians who were specially gifted. Of course we have no direct
evidence of this, but the connection in which certain Gnostic unions
stood at the beginning with the communities developing themselves to
Catholicism and inferences from utterances of later writers (Clem. Alex.
Tertull.), make it probable that this conception was present in the
communities here and there even in the age of the so-called Apostolic
Fathers. It may be definitely said that the peculiar idea of tradition
([Greek: theos--christos--hoi dodeka apostoloi--ekklêsiai]) in the
Gentile Churches is very old but that it was still limited in its
significance at the beginning and was threatened (1) by a wider
conception of the idea 'Apostle' (besides, the fact is important that
Asia Minor and Rome were the very places where a stricter idea of
Apostle made its appearance. See my Edition of the Didache, p. 117), (2)
by free prophets and teachers moved by the Spirit, who introduced new
conceptions and rules and whose word was regarded as the word of God,
(3) by the assumption not always definitely rejected, that besides the
public tradition of the _kerygma_ there was a secret tradition. That
Paul as a rule was not included in this high estimate of the Apostles is
shewn by this fact among others, that the earlier Apocryphal Acts of the
Apostles are much less occupied with his person than with the rest of
the Apostles. The features of the old legends which make the Apostles in
their deeds, their fate, nay even in appearance as far as possible,
equal to the person of Jesus himself deserve special consideration (see,
for example the descent of the Apostles into hell in Herm. Sim. IX. 16),
for it is just here that the fact above established that the activity of
the Apostles was to make up for the want of the activity of Jesus
himself among the nations stands clearly out (See Acta Johannis ed. Zahn
p 246 [Greek: ho eklexamenos hêmas eis apostolên ethnôn ho ekpempsas
hêmas eis tên oikoumenen theos ho deixas heauton dia tôn apostolôn] also
the remarkable declaration of Origen about the Chronicle of Phlegon
[Hadrian], that what holds good of Christ, is in that Chronicle
transferred to Peter; finally we may recall to mind the visions in which
an Apostle suddenly appears as Christ). Between the judgment of value
[Greek: hêmeis tous apostolous apodechometha hôs Christon] and those
creations of fancy in which the Apostles appear as gods and demigods
there is certainly a great interval but it can be proved that there are
stages lying between these extreme points. It is therefore permissible
to call to mind here the oldest Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles although
they may have originated almost completely in Gnostic circles (see also
the Pistis Sophia which brings a metaphysical theory to the
establishment of the authority of the Apostles, p. 11, 14; see Texte u
Unters VII. 2 p. 61 ff.). Gnosticism here as frequently elsewhere is
related to common Christianity as excess progressing to the invention of
a myth with a tendency to a historical theorem determined by the effort
to maintain one's own position; cf. the article from the _kerygma_ of
Peter in Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48 [Greek: Exelexamên humas dôdeka
mathêtas, k.t.l.] the introduction to the basal writing of the first 6
books of the Apostolic Constitutions and the introduction to the
Egyptian ritual, [Greek: kata keleusin tou kuriou humôn k.t.l.] Besides
it must be admitted that the origin of the idea of tradition and its
connection with the twelve is obscure; what is historically reliable
here has still to be investigated, even the work of Seufert (Der Urspr.
u. d. Bedeutung des Apostolats in der christl Kirche der ersten zwei
Jahrhunderte, 1887) has not cleared up the dark points. We will perhaps
get more light by following the important hint given by Weizsäcker
(Apost. Age p. 13 ff.) that Peter was the first witness of the
resurrection, and was called such in the _kerygma_ of the communities
(see 1 Cor. XV., 5 Luke XXIV. 34). The twelve Apostles are also further
called [Greek: hoi peri ton Petron] (Mrc. fin. in L Ign. ad Smyrn. 3,
cf. Luke VIII. 45, Acts II. 14, Gal. I. 18 f., 1 Cor. XV. 5), and it is
a correct historical reminiscence when Chrysostom says (Hom. in Joh.
88), [Greek: ho Petros ekêritos ên tôn apostolôn kai stoma tôn mathêtôn
kai koruphê tou chorou.] Now as Peter was really in personal relation
with important Gentile-Christian communities, that which held good of
him, the recognized head and spokesman of the twelve, was perhaps
transferred to these. One has finally to remember that besides the
appeal to the twelve there was in the Gentile Churches an appeal to
Peter and Paul (but not for the evangelic _kerygma_) which has a certain
historical justification, cf. Gal. II. 8, 1 Cor. I. 12 f., IX. 5, 1
Clem. Ign. ad Rom. 4 and the numerous later passages. Paul in claiming
equality with Peter, though Peter was the head and mouth of the twelve
and had himself been active in mission work, has perhaps contributed
most towards spreading the authority of the twelve. It is notable how
rarely we find any special appeal to John in the tradition of the main
body of the Church. For the middle of the 2nd century the authority of
the twelve Apostles may be expressed in the following statements: (1)
They were missionaries for the world, (2) They ruled the Church and
established Church Offices, (3) They guaranteed the true doctrine (a) by
the tradition going back to them, (b) by writings, (4) They are the
ideals of Christian life, (5) They are also directly mediators of
salvation--though this point is uncertain.]
[Footnote 195: See Didache c. 1-10, with parallel passages.]
[Footnote 196: Cf., for example, the first epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians with the Shepherd of Hermas. Both documents originated in
Rome.]
[Footnote 197: Compare how dogmatic and ethical elements are inseparably
united in the Shepherd, in first and second Clement, as well as in
Polycarp and Justin.]
[Footnote 198: Note the hymnal parts of the Revelation of John, the
great prayer with which the first epistle of Clement closes, the "carmen
dicere Christo quasi deo," reported by Pliny, the eucharist prayer in
the [Greek: Didachê], the hymn 1 Tim. III. 16, the fragments from the
prayers which Justin quotes, and compare with these the declaration of
the anonymous writer in Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 5, that the belief of the
earliest Christians in the Deity of Christ might be proved from the old
Christian hymns and odes. In the epistles of Ignatius the theology
frequently consists of an aimless stringing together of articles
manifestly originating in hymns and the cultus.]