there were three different practices prevalent in regard to the
observance of the Paschal festival. The Ebionite Jewish Christians
(§ 28, 1) held the Paschal feast on the 14th Nisan according to
the strict literal interpretation of the Old Testament precepts,
maintaining also that Christ, who according to the synoptists
died on the 15th, observed the Passover with his disciples on
the 14th. Then again the church of Asia Minor followed another
practice which was traced back to the Apostle John. Those of Asia
Minor attached themselves indeed in respect of date to the Jewish
festival, but gave it a Christian meaning. They let the passover
alone, and pronounced the memorial of Christ’s death to be the
principal thing in the festival. According to their view, based
upon the fourth Gospel, Christ died upon the 14th Nisan, so that
He had not during the last year of His life observed a regular
Passover. On the 14th Nisan, therefore, they celebrated their
Paschal festival, ending their fast at the moment of Christ’s
death, three o’clock in the afternoon, and then, instead of the
Jewish Passover, having an Agape with the Lord’s Supper. Those who
adopted either of those two forms were at a later period called
_Quartodecimans_ or _Tessareskaidekatites_. Different from both
of these was a third practice followed in all the West, as also
in Egypt, Palestine, Pontus and Greece, which detached itself
still further from the Jewish Passover. This Western usage
disregarded the day of the month in order to secure the observance
of the great resurrection festival on the first day of the week.
The πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, then, if the 14th did not happen to be a
Friday, was always celebrated on the first Friday after the 14th,
and the Easter festival with the observance of the Lord’s Supper
on the immediately following Sunday. The Westerns regarded the
day of Christ’s death as properly a day of mourning, and only
at the end of the pre-Easter fast on the day of the Resurrection
introduced the celebration of the Agape and the Lord’s Supper.
These divergent practices first awakened attention on the
appearing of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna at Rome in A.D. 155.
The Roman bishop Anicetus referred to the tradition of the Roman
Church; Polycarp laid stress upon the fact that he himself had
celebrated the Paschal festival after the manner followed in
Asia Minor along with the Apostle John. No common agreement was
reached at this time; but, in token of their undisturbed church
fellowship, Anicetus allowed Polycarp to dispense the communion
in his church. Some fifteen years later a party, not distinctly
particularised, obtained at Laodicea in Phrygia sanction for
the Ebionite practice with strict observance of the time of
the Passover, and awakened thereby a lively controversy in the
church of Asia Minor, in which opposite sides were taken by the
Apologists, Apollinaris and Melito (§ 30, 7). The dispute assumed
more serious dimensions about A.D. 196 through the passionate
proceedings of the Roman bishop Victor. Roused probably by the
agitation of a Quartodeciman named Blastus then in Rome, he urged
upon the most distinguished bishops of the East and West the
need of holding a Synod to secure the unequivocal vindication
of the Roman practice. On this account many Synods were held,
which almost invariably gave a favourable verdict. Only those
of Asia Minor with Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at their head,
entered a vigorous protest against the pretensions of Rome, and
notwithstanding all the Roman threatenings determined to stand
by their own well established custom. Victor now went the length
of breaking off church fellowship with them, but this extreme
procedure met with little favour. Even Irenæus expressed himself
to the Gallican bishops as opposed to it.--Continuation § 56, 3.
§ 37.3. =The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.=--The
Didache gives evidence that even at so early a date, the regular
fasts were religiously observed on the _Dies stationum_ by
expressly forbidding fasting “with hypocrites” (Jews and Jewish
Christians, Luke xviii. 12) on Monday and Thursday, instead of
the Christian practice of so observing Wednesday and Friday. The
usual fast continued as a rule only till three o’clock in the
afternoon (Semijejunia, Acts x. 9, 30; iii. 1). In Passion week
the Saturday night, which, at other times, just like the Sunday,
was excluded from the fasting period, as part of the day during
which Christ lay buried, was included in the forty-hours’ fast,
representing the period during which Christ lay in the grave.
This was afterwards gradually lengthened out into the forty-days’
fast of Lent (Exod. xxxiv. 28; 1 Kings xix. 8; Matt. iv. 2), in
which, however, the _jejunium_ proper was limited to the _Dies
Stationum_, and for the rest of the days only the ξηροφαγίαι,
first forbidden by the Montanists (§ 40, 4), _i.e._ all fattening
foods, such as flesh, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, etc., were
abstained from.--On fasting preparatory to baptism, see § 35, 1.
The Didache, c. i. 3, adds to the gospel injunction that we should
pray for our persecutors (Matt. v. 44) the further counsel that
we should fast for them. The meaning of the writer seems to be
that we should strengthen our prayers for persecutors by fasting.
Hermas, on the other hand, recommends fasting in order that we may
thereby spare something for the poor; and Origen says that he read
_in quodam libello_ as _ab apostolis dictum: Beatus est, qui etiam
jejunat pro eo ut alat pauperem_.
§ 38. THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND THE CATACOMBS.
The earliest certain traces of special buildings for divine worship
which had been held previously in private houses of Christians are met
with in Tertullian about the end of the 2nd century. In Diocletian’s
time Nicomedia became a royal residence and hard by the emperor’s
palace a beautiful church proudly reared its head (§ 22, 6), and even
in the beginning of the 3rd century Rome had forty churches. We know
little about the form and arrangement of these churches. Tertullian
and Cyprian speak of an altar or table for the preparation of the
Lord’s supper and a desk for the reading, and in the _Apostolic
Constitutions_ it is required that the building should be oblong in
shape. The wide-spread tradition that in times of sore persecution
the worshippers betook themselves to the Catacombs is evidently
inconsistent with the limited space which these afforded. On the
other hand, the painter whose works, by a decree of a Spanish Council
in A.D. 306, were banished from the churches, found here a suitable
place for the practice of sacred art.
§ 38.1. =The Catacombs.=--The Christian burying places were
generally called κοιμητήρια, _Dormitoria_. They were laid out
sometimes in the open fields (_Areæ_), sometimes, where the
district was suitable for that, hewn out in the rock (κρύπται,
crypts). This latter term was, by the middle of the 4th century,
quite interchangeable with the name _Catacumbæ_, (κατὰ κύμβας=in
the caves). The custom of laying the dead in natural or rock-hewn
caves was familiar to pagan antiquity, especially in the East.
But the recesses used for this purpose were only private or family
vaults. Their growth into catacombs or subterranean necropolises
for larger companies bound together by their one religion without
distinctions of rank (Gal. iii. 28), first arose on Christian
soil from a consciousness that their fellowship transcended death
and the grave. For the accomplishment of this difficult and costly
undertaking, Christian burial societies were formed after the
pattern of similar institutions of paganism (§ 17, 3). Specially
numerous and extensive necropolises have been found laid out in
the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. But also in Malta, in Naples,
Syracuse, Palermo, and other cities, this mode of sepulchre
found favour. The Roman catacombs, of which in the hilly district
round about the eternal city fifty-eight have been counted in
fourteen different highways, are almost all laid out in the white
porous tufa stone which is there so abundant, and useful neither
for building nor for mortar. It is thus apparent that these are
neither wrought-out quarries nor gravel pits (_Arenariæ_), but
were set in order from the first as cemeteries. A few _Arenariæ_
may indeed have been used as catacombs, but then the sides with
the burial niches consist of regularly built walls. The Roman
Catacombs in the tufa stone form labyrinthine, twisting, steep
galleries only 3 or 4 feet broad, with rectangular corners caused
by countless intersections. Their perpendicular sides varied
greatly in height and in them the burial niches, _Loculi_, were
hewn out one above the other, and on the reception of the body
were built up or hermetically sealed with a stone slab bearing
an inscription and a Christian symbol. The wealthy laid their
dead in costly marble sarcophagi or stone coffins ornamented with
bas-reliefs. The walls too and the low-arched roofs were adorned
with symbols and pictures of scripture scenes. From the principal
passages many side paths branched off to so-called burial
chambers, _Cubicula_, which were furnished with shafts opening
up to the surface and affording air and light, _Luminaria_. In
many of these chambers, sometimes even in the passages, instead
of simple _Loculi_ we meet with the so-called _Arcosolium_ as the
more usual form; one or more coffin-shaped grooves hewn out in the
rocky wall are covered with an altar-shaped marble plate, and over
this plate, _Mensa_, is a semicircular niche hewn out spreading
over it in its whole extent. These chambers are often held
in reverence as “catacomb churches,” but they are so small in
size that they could only accommodate a very limited number,
such as might gather perhaps at the commemoration of a martyr or
the members of a single family. And even where two or three such
chambers adjoin one another, connected together by doors and
having a common lighting shaft, accommodating at furthest about
twenty people, they could not be regarded as meeting-places for
public congregations properly so called.--Where the deposit of
tufa stone was sufficiently large, there were several stories
(_Piani_), as many as four or five connected by stairs, laid
out one above the other in galleries and chambers. According to
_de Rossi’s_[103] moderate calculation there have been opened
altogether up to this time so many passages in the catacombs
that if they were put in a line they would form a street of
120 geographical miles. Their oldest inscriptions or epitaphs date
from the first years of the second century. After the destruction
of Rome by the hordes of Alaric in A.D. 410, the custom of burying
in them almost entirely ceased. Thereafter they were used only
as places of pilgrimage and spots where martyr’s relics were
worshipped. From this time the most of the so-called _Graffiti_,
_i.e._ scribblings of visitors on the walls, consisting of pious
wishes and prayers, had their origin. The marauding expedition of
the Longobard Aistulf into Roman territory in A.D. 756, in which
even the catacombs were stripped of their treasures, led Pope
Paul I. to transfer the relics of all notable martyrs to their
Roman churches and cloisters. Then pilgrimages to the catacombs
ceased, their entrances got blocked up, and the few which in later
times were still accessible, were only sought out by a few novelty
hunting strangers. Thus the whole affair was nigh forgotten until
in A.D. 1578 a new and lively interest was awakened by the chance
opening up again of one of those closed passages. Ant. Bosio from
A.D. 1593 till his death in A.D. 1629, often at the risk of his
life, devoted all his time and energies to their exploration. But
great as his discoveries were, they have been completely outdone
by the researches of the Roman nobleman, Giov. Battista de Rossi,
who, working unweariedly at his task since A.D. 1849 till the
present time, is recognised as the great master of the subject,
although even his investigations are often too much dominated
by Roman Catholic prejudices and by undue regard for traditional
views.[104]
§ 38.2. =The Antiquities of the Catacombs.=--The custom widely
spread in ancient times and originating in piety or superstition
of placing in the tombs the utensils that had been used by
the deceased during life was continued, as the contents of
many burial niches show among the early Christians. Children’s
toys were placed beside them in the grave, and the clothes,
jewels, ornaments, amulets, etc., of grown up people. Quite a
special interest attaches to the so-called Blood Vases, _Phiolæ
rubricatæ_, which have been found in or near many of these niches,
_i.e._ crystal, rarely earthenware, vessels with Christian symbols
figured on a red ground. The _Congregation of rites and relics_
in A.D. 1668, asserted that they were blood-vessels, in which the
blood of the martyrs had been preserved and stood alongside of
their bones; and the existence of such jars, as well as every
pictorial representation of the palm branch (Rev. vii. 9),
was supposed to afford an indubitable proof that the niches
in question contained the bones of martyrs. But the Reformed
theologian Basnage shows that this assumption is quite untenable,
and he has explained the red ground from the dregs of the red
sacramental wine which may have been placed in the burial niches
as a protection against demoniacal intrusion. Even many good
Roman Catholic archæologists, Mabillon, Papebroch, Tillemont,
Muratori, etc., contest or express doubts as to the decree of the
_Congregation_. At the instigation probably of the Belgian Jesuit
Vict. de Buck, Pius IX. in A.D. 1863 confirmed and renewed the
old decree, and among others, Xav. Kraus has appeared as its
defender. But a great multitude of unquestionable facts contradict
the official decree of the church; _e.g._ the total absence
of any support to this view in tradition, the silence of such
inscriptions as relate to the martyrs, above all the immense
number of these jars, their being found frequently alongside the
bones of children of seven years old, the remarkable frequency
of them in the times of Constantine and his successors which were
free from persecution, the absence of the red dregs in many jars,
etc. Since dregs of wine, owing to their having the vegetable
property of combinableness could scarcely be discernible down
to the present day, it has recently been suggested that the red
colour may have been produced by a mineral-chemical process as
oxide of iron.
§ 38.3. =Pictorial Art and the Catacombs.=--Many of the earliest
Christians may have inherited a certain dislike of the pictorial
arts from Judaism, and may have been confirmed therein by their
abhorrence of the frivolous and godless abuse of art in heathenism.
But this aversion which in a Tertullian grew from a Montanistic
rigorism into a fanatical hatred of art, is never met with as a
constituent characteristic of Christianity. Much rather the great
abundance of paintings on the walls of the Roman and Neapolitan
catacombs, of which many, and these not the meanest, belong
to the 2nd century, some indeed perhaps to the last decades of
the 1st century, serves to show how general and lively was the
artistic sense among the earliest Christians at least in the
larger and wealthier communities. Yet from its circumstances the
Christian church in its appreciation of art was almost necessarily
limited on two sides; for, on the one hand, no paintings were
tolerated in the churches, and on the other hand, even in private
houses and catacombs they were restricted almost exclusively to
symbolico-allegorical or typical representations. The 36th Canon
of the Council of Elvira in A.D. 306 is a witness for the first
statement when it says: _Placuit picturas in ecclesia non esse
debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur_.
The plain words of the Canon forbid any other interpretation
than this: From the churches, as places where public worship is
regularly held, all pictorial representations must be banished,
in order to make certain that in and under them there might not
creep in those images, forbidden in the decalogue, of Him who
is the object of worship and adoration. The Council thus assumed
practically the same standpoint as the Reformed church in the
16th century did in opposition to the practice of the Roman
Catholic and Lutheran churches. It cannot, however, be maintained
that the Canon of this rigorous Council (§ 45, 2) found general
acceptance and enforcement outside of Spain--Proof of the
second limitation is as convincingly afforded by what we find
in the catacombs. On the positive side, it has its roots in the
fondness which prevailed during these times for the mystical and
allegorical interpretation of scripture; and on the negative side,
in the endeavour, partly in respect for the prohibition of images
contained in the decalogue, partly, and perhaps mainly, in the
interests of the so-called _Disciplina arcani_, fostered under
pressure of persecution, to represent everything that pertained
to the mysteries of the Christian faith as a matter which only
Christians have a right fully to understand. From the prominence
given to the point last referred to it may be explained how
amid the revolution that took place under Constantine the age of
Symbolism and Allegory in the history of Christian art also passed
away, and henceforth painters applied themselves pre-eminently to
realistic historical representations.
§ 38.4. The pictorial and artistic representations of
the pre-Constantine age may be divided into the six following
groups:--
a. =Significant Symbols.=--To these belong especially _the
cross_,[105] though, for fear of the reproaches of Jews
and heathens (§ 23, 2), not yet in its own proper form but
only in a form that indicated what was meant, namely in
the form of the Greek Τ, very frequently in later times in
the monogram of the name of Christ, _i.e._ in a variously
constructed combination of its first two letters Χ and Ρ,
while the Χ, as _crux dissimulatæ_, has very often on
either side the letters α and ω.
b. =Allegorical Figures.=--In the 4th century a particularly
favourite figure was that of the _Fish_, the name of
which, ἰχθύς, formed a highly significant monogrammatic
representation of the sentence, Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς
Σωτήρ, and which pointed strikingly to the new birth from
the water of baptism. Then there is the _lamb_ or _sheep_,
as symbol of the soul, which still in this life seeks
after spiritual pastures; and the _dove_ as symbol of
the pious believing soul passing into eternal rest, often
with an _olive branch_ in its mouth (Gen. viii. 11), as
symbol of the eternal peace won. Also we have the _hart_
(Ps. xlii. 1), the _eagle_ (Ps. ciii. 5), the _chicken_,
symbol of Christian growth, the _peacock_, symbol of
the resurrection on account of the annual renewal of its
beautiful plumage, the _dolphin_, symbol of hastiness
or eagerness in the appropriation of salvation, _the
horse_, symbol of the race unto the goal of eternal life,
_the hare_, as symbol of the Christian working out his
salvation with fear and trembling, _the ship_, with
reference to Noah’s ark as a figure of the church, _the
anchor_ (Heb. vi. 19), _the lyre_ (Eph. v. 19), _the palm
branch_ (Rev. vii. 9), _the garland_ (or crown of life,
Rev. ii. 9), _the lily_ (Matt. vi. 28), _the balances_,
symbol of divine righteousness, _fishes and bread_,
symbol of spiritual nourishment with reference to Christ’s
miracle of feeding in the wilderness, etc.
c. =Parabolic Figures.=--These are illustrations borrowed from
the parables of the Gospels. To these belong conspicuously
the figure of the _Good Shepherd_, who bears on His
shoulder the lost sheep that He had found (Luke xv. 5),
the _Vine Stock_ (John xv.), the _Sower_ (Matt. xiii. 3),
the _Marriage Feast_ (Matt. xxii.), the _Ten Virgins_
(Matt. xxv.), etc.
d. =Historical Pictures of O. T. Types.=--Among these we
have Adam and Eve, the Rivers of Paradise (as types of
the four evangelists), Abel and Cain, Noah in the Ark, the
Sacrifice of Isaac, Scenes from Joseph’s History, Moses at
the Burning Bush, the Passage of the Red Sea, the Falling
of the Manna, the Water out of the Rock, History of Job,
Samson with the Gates of Gaza (the gates of Hell), David’s
Victory over Goliath, Elijah’s Ascension, Scenes from the
History of Jonah and Tobit, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the
Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, etc. Also typical
material from heathen mythology had a place assigned them,
such as the legends of Hercules, Theseus, and especially
of Orpheus who by his music bewitched the raging elements
and tamed the wild beasts, descended into the lower world
and met his death through the infuriated women of his own
race.
e. =Figures from the Gospel History.=--These, _e.g._ the
Visit of the Wise Men from the East, and the Resurrection
of Lazarus, are throughout this period still exceedingly
rare. We do not find a single representation of the
Passion of our Lord, nor any of the sufferings of Christian
martyrs. Pictorial representations of the person of Christ,
as a beardless youth with a friendly mild expression,
are met with in the catacombs from the first half of the
2nd century, but without any claim to supply the likeness
of a portrait, such as might be claimed for the figures of
Christ in the temple of the Carpocratians (§ 27, 8) and in
the Lararium of the Emperor Alexander Severus (§ 22, 4).
Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, in accordance with
the literal interpretation of Isa. liii. 2, 3, thought
that Christ had an unattractive face; the post-Constantine
fathers, on the contrary, resting upon Ps. xlv. 3 and
John i. 14, thought of Him as beautiful and gracious.
f. =Liturgical Figures.=--These were connected only with the
ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
§ 39. LIFE, MANNERS, AND DISCIPLINE.[106]
When the chaff had been so relentlessly severed from the wheat
by the persecutions of that age, a moral earnestness and a power of
denying the world and self must have been developed, sustained by
the divine power of the gospel and furthered by a strict and rigorous
application of church discipline to the Christian life, such as the
world had never seen before. What most excited and deserved wonder
in the sphere of heathendom, hitherto accustomed only to the reign
of selfishness, was the brotherly love of the Christians, their
systematic care of the poor and sick, the widespread hospitality,
the sanctity of marriage, the delight in martyrdom, etc. Marriages
with Jews, heathens and heretics were disapproved, frequently even the
celebration of a second marriage after the death of the first wife was
disallowed. Public amusements, dances, and theatres were avoided by
Christians as _Pompa diaboli_. They thought of the Christian life,
in accordance with Eph. vi. 10 ff., as _Militia Christi_. But even
in the Post-Apostolic Age we come upon indications of a tendency to
turn from the evangelical spirituality, freedom and simplicity of the
Apostolic Age toward a pseudo-catholic externalism and legalism in the
fundamental views taken of ethical problems, and at the same time and
in the same way in the departments of the church constitution (§ 34),
worship (§ 36) and exposition of doctrine (§ 30, 2). The teachers of
the church do still indeed maintain the necessity of a disposition
corresponding to the outward works, but by an over-estimation of
these they already prepare the way for the doctrine of merit and the
_opus operatum_, _i.e._ the meritoriousness of works in themselves.
Even the _Epistle of Barnabas_ and the _Didache_ reckon almsgiving
as an atonement for sins. Still more conspicuously is this tendency
exhibited by _Cyprian_ (_De Opere et eleemosynis_) and even in
the _Shepherd of Hermas_ (§ 30, 4) we find the beginnings of the
later distinction, based upon 1 Cor. vii. 25, 26; Matt. xxv. 21, and
Luke xviii. 10, between the divine commands, _Mandata_ or _Præcepta_,
which are binding upon all Christians, and the evangelical counsels,
_Consilia evangelica_, the non-performance of which is no sin, but the
doing of which secures a claim to merit and more full divine approval.
Among the Alexandrian theologians, too, under the influence of the
Greek philosophy a very similar idea was developed in the distinction
between higher and lower morality, after the former of which the
Christian sage (ὁ γνωστικός) is required to shine, while the ordinary
Christian may rest satisfied with the latter. On such a basis a
special order of Ascetics very early made its appearance in the
churches. Those who went the length of renouncing the world and
going out into the wilderness were called Anchorets. This order
first assumed considerable dimensions in the 4th century (§ 44).
§ 39.1. =Christian Morals and Manners.=--The Christian spirit
pervaded the domestic and civil life and here formed for itself
a code of Christian morals. It expressed itself in the family
devotions and family communions (§ 36, 3), in putting the sign
of the cross upon all callings in life, in the Christian symbols
(§ 38, 3) with which dwellings, garments, walls, lamps, cups,
glasses, rings, etc. were adorned. As to private worship the
Didache requires without fixing the hours that the head of the
household shall have prayers three times a day (Dan. vi. 30),
meaning probably, as with Origen, morning, noon, and night.
Tertullian specifies the 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours as the hours
of prayer, and distinctly demands a separate morning and evening
prayer.--The concluding of marriage according to the then existing
Roman law had to be formally carried through by the expressed
agreement of the parties in the presence of witnesses, and this
on the part of the church was regarded as valid. The Christian
custom required that there should be a previous making of it
known, _Professio_, to the bishop, and a subsequent going to the
church of the newly married pair in order that, amid the church’s
intercessions and the priestly benediction, a religious sanction
might be given to their marriage covenant, by the oblation
and common participation of the Lord’s Supper at the close of
the public services. Tertullian’s Montanistic rigorism shows
itself in regarding marriages where these are omitted, _occultæ
conjunctiones_, as no better than _mœchia_ and _fornicatio_. The
crowning of the two betrothed ones and the veiling of the bride
were still disallowed as heathenish practices; but the use of the
wedding ring was sanctioned at an early date and had a Christian
significance attached to it. The burning of dead bodies prevalent
among the heathens reminded them of hell fire; the Christians
therefore preferred the Jewish custom of burial and referred in
support to 1 Cor. xv. 36. The day of the deaths of their deceased
members were celebrated in the Christian families by prayer and
oblations in testimony of their fellowship remaining unbroken by
death and the grave.--Continuation § 61, 2, 3.
§ 39.2. =The Penitential Discipline.=--According to the
Apostolic ordinance (§ 17, 8) notorious sinners were excluded
from the fellowship of the church, _Excommunicatio_, and only
after prolonged trial of their penitence, _Exomologesis_,
were they received back again, _Reconciliatio_. In the time
of Cyprian, about A.D. 250, there was already a well defined
order of procedure in this matter of restoring the lapsed which
continued in force until the 5th century. Penance, _Pœnitentia_,
must extend through four stages, each of which according to
circumstances might require one or more years. During the first
stage, the πρόσκλαυσις, _Fletio_, the penitents, standing at
the church doors in mourning dress, made supplication to the
clergy and the congregation for restoration; in the second,
the ἀκρόασις, _Auditio_, they were admitted again to the reading
of the scriptures and the sermon, but still kept in a separate
place; in the third, ὑπόπτωσις, _Substratio_, they were allowed
to kneel at prayer; and finally, in the fourth, σύστασις,
_Consistentia_, they took part again in the whole of the public
services, with the exception of the communion which they were
only allowed to look at standing. Then they received Absolution
and Reconciliation (=_pacem dare_) in presence of the assembled
and acquiescing congregation by the imposition of the hands
of the bishop and the whole of the clergy, together with
the brotherly kiss and the partaking of the communion. This
procedure was directed against open and demonstrable sins
of a serious nature against the two tables of the decalogue,
against so called _deadly sins_, _Peccata_ or _crimina mortalia_,
1 John v. 16. Excommunication was called forth, on the one
side, against idolatry, blasphemy, apostasy from the faith and
abjuration thereof; on the other, against murder, adultery and
fornication, theft and lying, perfidy and false swearing. Whether
reconciliation was permissible in the case of any mortal sin at
all, and if so, what particular sins might thus be treated, were
questions upon which teachers of the church were much divided
during the 3rd century. But only the Montanists and Novatians
(§§ 40, 41) denied the permissibility utterly and that in
opposition to the prevailing practice of the church, which
refused reconciliation absolutely only in cases of idolatry
and murder, and sometimes also in the case of adultery.
Even Cyprian at first held firmly by the principle that all
mortal sins committed “against God” must be wholly excluded
from the range of penitential discipline, but amid the horrors
of the Decian persecution, which left behind it whole crowds
of fallen ones, _Lapsi_ (§ 22, 5), he was induced by the
passionate entreaties of the church to make the concession that
reconciliation should be granted to the _Libellatici_ after a
full penitential course, but to the _Sacrificati_ only when in
danger of death. All the teachers of the church, however, agree
in holding that it can be granted only once in this life, and
those who again fall away are cut off absolutely. But excessive
strictness in the treatment of the penitents called forth the
contrary extreme of undue laxity (§ 41, 2). The _Confessors_
frequently used their right of demanding the restoration of the
fallen by means of letters of recommendation, _Libelli pacis_,
to such an extent as to seriously interfere with a wholesome
discipline.[107]--Continuation § 61, 1.
§ 39.3. =Asceticism.=--The Ascetism (_Continentia_, ἐγκρατεία)
of heathenism and Judaism, of Pythagoreanism and Essenism,
resting on dualistic and pseudo-spiritualistic views, is
confronted in Christianity with the proposition: Πάντα ὑμῶν
ἐστιν (1 Cor. iii. 21; vi. 12). Christianity, however, also
recognised the ethical value and relative wholesomeness of a
moderate asceticism in proportion to individual temperament,
needs and circumstances (Matt. ix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. 5-7), without
demanding it or regarding it as something meritorious. This
evangelical moderation we also find still in the 2nd century,
_e.g._ in Ignatius. But very soon a gradual exaggeration becomes
apparent and an ever-advancing over estimation of asceticism as a
higher degree of morality with claims to be considered peculiarly
meritorious. The negative requirements of asceticism are directed
first of all to frequent and rigid fasts and to celibacy or
abstinence from marital intercourse; its positive requirements,
to the exercise of the spiritual life in prayer and meditation.
The most of the =Ascetics=, too, in accordance with Luke xviii. 24,
voluntarily divested themselves of their possessions. The number
of them, men and women, increased, and even in the first half
of the 2nd century, they formed a distinct order in the church,
though they were not yet bound to observe this mode of life by any
irrevocable vows. The idea that the clergy were in a special sense
called to an ascetic life resulted in their being designated the
κλῆρος Θεοῦ. Owing to the interpretation given to 1 Tim. iii. 2,
second marriages were in the 2nd century prohibited among the
clergy, and in the 3rd century it was regarded as improper for
them after ordination to continue marital intercourse. But it was
first at the Council of Elvira, in A.D. 306, that this opinion was
elevated into a law, though it could not even then be rigorously
enforced (§ 45, 2).--The immoral practice of ascetics or clerics
having with them virgins devoted to God’s service as _Sorores_,
ἀδελφαί on the ground of 1 Cor. ix. 5, with whom they were united
in spiritual love, in order to show their superiority to the
temptations of the flesh, seems to have been introduced as early
as the 2nd century. In the middle of the 3rd century it was
already widespread. Cyprian repeatedly inveighs against it.
We learn from him that the so-called _Sorores_ slept with the
Ascetics in one bed and surrendered themselves to the tenderest
caresses. For proof of the purity of their relations they referred
to the examinations of midwives. Among bishops, Paul of Samosata
in Antioch (§ 33, 8) seems to have been the first who favoured
this evil custom by his own example. The popular wit of the
Antiochenes [Antiocheans] invented for the more than doubtful
relationship the name of the γυναίκες συνεισάκτοι, _Subintroductæ_,
_Agapetæ_, _Extreneæ_. Bishops and Councils sent forth strict
decrees against the practice.--The most remarkable among the
celebrated ascetics of the age was =Hieracas=, who lived at
Leontopolis in Egypt toward the end of the 3rd and beginning of
the 4th century and died there when ninety years old. A pupil
of Origen, he was distinguished for great learning, favoured
the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, a spiritualistic
dogmatics and strict asceticism. Besides this he was a physician,
astronomer and writer of hymns, could repeat by heart almost all
the Old and New Testaments, wrote commentaries in Greek and Coptic,
and gathered round him a numerous society of men and women, who
accepted his ascetical principles and heterodox views. Founding
upon Matt. xix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. and Heb. xii. 14, he maintained
that celibacy was the only perfectly sure way to blessedness
and commended this doctrine as the essential advance from the
Old Testament to the New Testament morality. He even denied
salvation to Christian children dying in infancy because they had
not yet fought against sensuality, referring to 2 Tim. ii. 5. Of
a sensible paradise he would hear nothing, and just as little of
a bodily resurrection; for the one he interprets allegorically
and the other spiritually. Epiphanius, to whom we owe any precise
information that we have about him, is the first to assign him
and his followers a place in the list of heretics.
§ 39.4. =Paul of Thebes.=--The withdrawal of particular
ascetics from ascetical motives into the wilderness, which was
a favourite craze for a while, may have been suggested by Old
and New Testament examples, _e.g._ 1 Kings xvii. 3; xix. 4;
Luke i. 80; iv. 1; but it was more frequently the result of sore
persecution. Of a regular professional institution of anchorets
with life-long vows there does not yet appear any authentic trace.
According to Jerome’s _Vita Pauli monachi_ a certain =Paul of
Thebes= in Egypt, about A.D. 250, during the Decian persecution,
betook himself, when sixteen years old, to the wilderness, and
there forgotten by all the world but daily fed by a raven with
half a loaf (1 Kings xvii. 4), he lived for ninety-seven years
in a cave in a rock, until St. Anthony (§ 44, 1), directed
to him by divine revelation and led to him first by a centaur,
half man, half horse, then by a fawn, and finally by a she-wolf,
came upon him happily just when the raven had brought him as
it never did before a whole loaf. He was just in time to be
an eye-witness, not indeed of his death, but rather of his
subsequent ascension into heaven, accompanied by angels, prophets
and apostles, and to arrange for the burial of his mortal remains,
for the reception of which two lions, uttering heart-breaking
groans, dug a grave with their claws. These lions after earnestly
seeking and obtaining a blessing from St. Anthony, returned back
to their lair.--Contemporaries of the author, as indeed he himself
tells, declared that the whole story was a tissue of lies. Church
history, however, until quite recently, has invariably maintained
that there must have been some historical foundation, though it
might be very slight, for such a superstructure. But seeing that
no single writer before Jerome seems to know even the name of Paul
of Thebes and also that the _Vita Antonii_ ascribed to Athanasius
knows nothing at all of such a wonderful expedition of the saint,
Weingarten (§ 44) has denied that there ever existed such a man
as this Paul, and has pronounced the story of Jerome to be a
monkish Robinson Crusoe, such as the popular taste then favoured,
which the author put forth as true history _ad majorem monachatus
gloriam_. We may simply apply to this book itself what Jerome
at a later period confessed about his epistles of that same
date _ad Heliodorum:--sed in illo opere pio ætate tunc lusimus
et celentibus adhuc Rhetorum studiis atque doctrinis quædam
scholastico flore depinximus_.
§ 39.5. =Beginning of Veneration of Martyrs.=--In very early
times a martyr death was prized as a sin-atoning _Lavacrum
sanguinis_, which might even abundantly compensate for the want
of water baptism. The day of the martyr’s death which was
regarded as the day of his birth into a higher life, γενέθλια,
_Natalitia martyrum_, was celebrated at his grave by prayers,
oblations and administration of the Lord’s Supper as a testimony
to the continuance of that fellowship with them in the Lord that
had been begun here below. Their bones were therefore gathered
with the greatest care and solemnly buried; so _e.g._ Polycarp’s
bones at Smyrna (§ 22, 2), as τιμιώτερα λίθων πολυτελῶν καὶ
δωκιμώτερα ὑπὲρ χρυσίον, so that at the spot where they were
laid the brethren might be able to celebrate his γενέθλιον ἐν
ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ χαρᾷ, εἴς τε τῶν προηθληκότων μνήμην καὶ τῶν
μελλόντων τε καὶ ἑτοιμασίαν. Of miracles wrought by means of
the relics, however, we as yet find no mention. The _Graffiti_
on the walls of the catacombs seem to represent the beginning
of the invocation of martyrs. In these the pious visitors seek
for themselves and those belonging to them an interest in the
martyr’s intercessions. Some of those scribblings may belong
to the end of our period; at least the expression “_Otia petite
pro_,” etc. in one of them seem to point to a time when they
were still undergoing persecution. The greatest reverence, too,
was shown to the _Confessors_ all through their lives, and great
influence was assigned them in regard to all church affairs,
_e.g._ in the election of bishops, the restoration of the fallen,
etc.--Continuation, § 57.
§ 39.6. =Superstition.=--Just as in later times every great
Christian missionary enterprise has seen religious ideas
transferred from the old heathenism into the young Christianity,
and, consciously or unconsciously, secretly or openly, acquiesced
in or contended against, securing for themselves a footing, so
also the Church of the first centuries did not succeed in keeping
itself free from such intrusions. A superstition forcing its
entrance in this way can either be taken over _nude crude_ in its
genuinely pagan form and, in spite of its palpable inconsistency
with the Christian faith, may nevertheless assert itself side
by side with it, or it may divest itself of that old pagan form,
and so unobserved and uncontested gain an entrance with its not
altogether extinguished heathenish spirit into new Christian
views and institutions and thus all the more dangerously make its
way among them. It is especially the magico-theurgical element
present in all heathen religions, which even at this early period
stole into the Christian life and the services of the church
and especially into the sacraments and things pertaining thereto
(§ 58), while it assumed new forms in the veneration of martyrs
and the worship of relics. One can scarcely indeed accept as a
convincing proof of this the statement of the Emperor Hadrian
in his correspondence regarding the religious condition of
Alexandria as given by the historian Vopiscus: _Illic qui
Serāpem colunt Christiani sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi qui se
Christi episcopos dicunt; nemo illic archisynagogus Judæorum,
nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter non mathematicus,
non haruspex, non aliptes_. This statement bears on its face
too evidently the character of superficial observation, of vague
hearsay and confused massing together of sundry reports. What
he says of the worship of Serapis, may have had some support
from the conduct of many Christians in the ascetic order, the
designating of their presbyters _aliptæ_ may have been suggested
by the chrism in baptism and the anointing at the consecration
of the clergy, perhaps also in the anointing of the sick
(Matt. vi. 13; Jas. v. 14); so too the characterizing of them
as _mathematici_ may have arisen from their determining the date
of Easter by means of astronomical observations (§ 37, 2; 56, 3),
though it could not be specially wonderful if there actually
were Christian scholars among the Alexandrian clergy skilled
in astronomy, notwithstanding the frequent alliance of this
science with astrology. But much more significant is the gross
superstition which in many ways shows itself in so highly
cultured a Christian as Julius Africanus in his _Cestæ_ (§ 31, 8).
In criticising it, however, we should bear in mind that this book
was written in the age of Alexander Severus, in which, on the one
hand, a wonderful mixture of religion and theurgical superstition
had a wonderful fascination for men, while on the Christian side
the whirlwind of persecution had not for a long time blown its
purifying breeze. The catacombs, too, afford some evidences of a
mode of respect for the departed that was borrowed from heathen
practices, but these on the whole are wonderfully free from
traces of superstition.
§ 40. THE MONTANIST REFORMATION.[108]
Earnest and strict as the moral, religious and ascetical requirements
of the church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries generally were in regard
to the life and morals of its members, and rigidly as these principles
were carried out in its penitential discipline, there yet appeared
even at this early date, in consequence of various instances of the
relaxation of such strictness, certain eager spirits who clamoured
for a restoration or even an intensification of the earlier rules of
discipline. Such a movement secured for itself a footing about the
middle of the 2nd century in Montanism, a growth of Phrygian soil, which
without traversing in any way the doctrine of the church, undertook
a thorough reformation of the ecclesiastical constitution on the
practical side. Montanism, in opposition to the eclecticism of heretical
Gnosticism, showed the attitude of Christianity to heathenism to be
exclusive; against the spiritualizing and allegorizing tendencies of the
church Gnosticism it opposed the realism and literalism of the doctrines
and facts of the scripture revelation; against what seemed the excessive
secularization of the church it presented a model of church discipline
such as the nearness of the Lord’s coming demanded; against hierarchical
tendencies that were always being more and more emphasized it maintained
the rights of the laity and the membership of the church; while in order
to secure the establishment of all these reforms it proclaimed that a
prophetically inspired spiritual church had succeeded to Apostolic
Christianity.
§ 40.1. =Montanism in Asia Minor.=--According to Epiphanius as
early as A.D. 156, according to Eusebius in A.D. 172, according
to Jerome in A.D. 171, a certain Montanus appeared as a prophet
and church reformer at Pepuza in Phrygia. He was formerly a
heathen priest and was only shortly before known as a Christian.
He had visions, preached while unconscious in ecstasy of the
immediate coming again of Christ (_Parousia_), fulminated against
the advancing secularisation of the church, and, as the supposed
organ of the _Paraclete_ promised by Christ (John xiv. 16)
presented in their most vigorous form the church’s demands in
respect of morals and discipline. A couple of excited women
_Prisca_ and _Maximilla_ were affected by the same extravagant
spirit by which he was animated, fell into a somnambulistic
condition and prophesied as he had done. On the death of
Maximilla about A.D. 180, Montanus and Prisca having died
before this, the supposed prophetic gift among them seems to
have been quenched. At least an anonymous writer quoted in
Eusebius (according to Jerome it was Rhodon, § 27, 12), in
his controversial treatise published thirteen years afterwards,
states that the voices of the prophets were then silent. So
indeed she herself had declared: Μεθ’ ἐμὲ προφῆτης οὐκέτι ἔσται,
ἀλλὰ συντέλεια. The Montanist prophecies occasioned a mighty
commotion in the whole church of Asia Minor. Many earnest
Christians threw themselves eagerly into the movement. Even
among the bishops they found here and there favour or else mild
criticism, while others combated them passionately, some going
so far as to regard the prophesying women as possessed ones and
calling exorcism to their aid. By the end of the year 170 several
synods, the first synods regularly convened, had been held
against them, the final result of which was their exclusion from
the catholic church. Montanus now organized his followers into an
independent community. After his death, his most zealous follower,
Alcibiades, undertook its direction. It was also not without
literary defenders. Themison, Alcibiades’ successor, issued “in
imitation of the Apostle” (John?) a Καθολικὴ ἐπιστολή, and the
utterances of the prophets were collected and circulated as
holy scripture. On the other hand during this same year 170 they
were attacked by the eminent apologists Claudius Apollinaris
and Miltiades (§ 36, 9) probably also by Melito. Their radical
opponents were the so-called _Alogi_ (§ 33, 2). Among their later
antagonists, who assumed more and more a passionately embittered
tone, the most important according to Eusebius were one
Apollinaris, whom Tertullian combats in the VII. Bk. of his
work, _De ecstasi_, and Serapion. At a Synod at Iconium about
the middle of the 3rd century at which also Firmilian of Cæsarea
(§ 35, 5) was present and voted, the baptism of the Montanists,
although their trinitarian orthodoxy could not be questioned,
was pronounced to be like heretical baptism null, because
administered _extra ecclesiam_, and a second baptism declared
necessary on admission to the Catholic church. And although at the
Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 and of Constantinople in A.D. 381,
the validity of heretics’ baptism was admitted if given orderly
in the name of the Holy Trinity, the baptism of the Montanists was
excluded because it was thought that the Paraclete of Montanism
could not be recognised as the Holy Spirit of the church.--Already
in the time of Constantine the Great the Montanists were spreading
out from Phrygia over all the neighbouring provinces, and were
called from the place where they originated Κατάφρυγες and
Pepuziani. The Emperor now forbade them holding any public
assemblies for worship and ordered that all places for public
service should be taken from them and given over to the Catholic
church. Far stricter laws than even these were enforced against
them by later emperors down to the 5th century, _e.g._ prohibition
of all Montanist writings, deprivation of almost all civil rights,
banishment of their clergy to the mines, etc. Thus they could only
prolong a miserable existence in secret, and by the beginning of
the sixth century every trace of them had disappeared.
§ 40.2. =Montanism at Rome.=--The movement called forth by
Montanism in the East spread by and by also into the West. When
the first news reached Gaul of the synodal proceedings in Asia
Minor that had rent the church, the Confessors imprisoned at
Lyons and Vienne during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, of
whom more than one belonged to a colony that had emigrated from
Phrygia to Gaul, were displeased, and, along with their report
of the persecution they had endured (§ 32, 8), addressed a letter
to those of Asia Minor, not given by Eusebius, but reckoned pious
and orthodox, exhorting to peace and the preservation of unity.
At the same time (A.D. 177) they sent the Presbyter Irenæus to
Rome in order to win from Bishop Eleutherus (A.D. 174-189), who
was opposed to Montanism, a mild and pacific sentence. Owing,
however, to the arrival of Praxeas, a Confessor of Asia Minor and
a bitter opponent of Montanism, a formal condemnation was at last
obtained (§ 33, 4). Tertullian relates that the Roman bishop, at
the instigation of Praxeas, revoked the letters of peace which
had been already prepared in opposition to his predecessors.
It is matter of controversy whether by this unnamed bishop
Eleutherus is meant, who then was first inclined to a peaceable
decision by Irenæus and thereafter by the picture of Montanist
extravagances given by Praxeas was led again to form another
opinion; or that it was, what seems from the chronological
references most probable, his successor Victor (A.D. 189-199), in
which case Eleutherus is represented as having hardened himself
against Montanism in spite of the entreaties of Irenæus, while
Victor was the first who for a season had been brought to think
otherwise.--Yet even after their condemnation a small body of
Montanists continued to exist in Rome, whose mouthpiece during
the time of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199-217) was Proclus, whom
the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7) opposed by word and writing.
§ 40.3. =Montanism in Proconsular Africa.=--When and how
Montanism gained a footing in North Africa is unknown, but
very probably it spread thither from Rome. The movement issuing
therefrom first attracted attention when Tertullian, about
A.D. 201 or 202, returned from Rome to Carthage, and with the
whole energy of his character decided in its favour, and devoted
his rich intellectual gifts to its advocacy. That the Montanist
party in Africa at that time still continued in connection with
the Catholic church is witnessed to by the Acts of the Martyrs
Perpetua and Felicitas (§ 32, 8), composed some time after this,
which bear upon them almost all the characteristic marks of
Montanism, while a vision communicated there shows that division
was already threatened. The bishop and clergy together with the
majority of the membership were decided opponents of the new
ecstatic-visionary prophecy already under ecclesiastical ban in
Asia Minor. They had not yet, however, come to an open breach
with it, which was probably brought about in A.D. 206 when quiet
had been again restored after the cessation of the persecution
begun about A.D. 202 by Septimius Severus. Tertullian had stood
at the head of the sundered party as leader of their sectarian
services, and defended their prophesyings and rigorism in
numerous apologetico-polemical writings with excessive bitterness
and passion, applying them with consistent stringency to all the
relations of life, especially on the ethical side. From the high
esteem in which, notwithstanding his Montanist eccentricities,
Tertullian’s writings continued to be held in Africa, _e.g._
by Cyprian (§ 31, 11), and generally throughout the West, the
tendency defended by him was not regarded in the church there as
in the East as thoroughly heretical, but only as a separatistic
overstraining of views allowed by the church. This mild estimate
could all the easier win favour, since to all appearance the
extravagant visionary prophesying, which caused most offence, had
been in these parts very soon extinguished.--Augustine reports
that a small body of “Tertullianists” continued in Carthage
down to his time († 430), and had by him been induced to return
to the Catholic church; and besides this, he also tells us
that Tertullian had subsequently separated himself from the
“Cataphrygians,” _i.e._ from the communion of the Montanists of
Asia Minor, whose excesses were only then perhaps made known to
him.
§ 40.4. =The Fundamental Principle of Montanism.=--Montanism
arose out of a theory of a divinely educative revelation
proceeding by advancing stages, not finding its conclusion in
Christ and the Apostles, but in the age of the Paraclete which
began with Montanus and in him reached its highest development.
The times of the law and the prophets in the Old Covenant is
the childhood of the kingdom of God; in the gospel it appears in
its youth; and by the Montanist shedding forth of the Spirit it
reaches the maturity of manhood. Its absolute perfection will be
attained in the millennium introduced by the approaching Parousia
and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza (Rev. xx. 21).
The Montanist prophecy did not enrich or expand but only
maintained and established against the heretics, the system of
Christian doctrine already exclusively revealed in the times of
Christ. Montanism regarded as its special task a reformation of
Christian life and Church discipline highly necessary in view of
the approaching Parousia. The defects that had been borne with
during the earlier stages of revelation were to be repaired or
removed by the _Mandata_ of the Paraclete. The following are some
of the chief of these prescriptions: Second marriage is adultery;
Fasting must be practised with greater strictness; On _dies
stationum_ (§ 37, 3) nothing should be eaten until evening, and
twice a year for a whole week only water and bread (ξηροφαγίαι);
The excommunicated must remain their whole lifetime in _status
pœnitentiæ_; Martyrdom should be courted, to withdraw in any way
from persecution is apostasy and denial of the faith; Virgins
should take part in the worship of God only when veiled; Women
generally must put away all finery and ornaments; secular science
and art, all worldly enjoyments, even those that seem innocent,
are only snares of the devil, etc. An anti-hierarchical tendency
early showed itself in Montanism from the circumstance that
it arrogated to itself a new and high authority to which
the hierarchical organs of the church refused to submit
themselves. Yet even Montanism, after repudiating it, for its
own self-preservation was obliged to give itself an official
congregational organization, which, according to Jerome, had
as its head a patriarch resident at Pepuza, and, according to
Epiphanius, founding on Gal. iii. 28, gave even women admission
into ecclesiastical offices. Its worship was distinguished
only by the space given to the prophesyings of its prophets and
prophetesses. Epiphanius notes this as a special characteristic
of the sect, that often in their assemblies seven white-robed
virgins with torches made their appearance prophesying; evidently,
as the number seven itself shows, as representatives of the seven
spirits of God (Rev. iv. 5, etc.), and not of the ten virgins
who wait for the coming of the Lord. According to Philaster they
allowed even unbaptized persons to attend all their services and
were in the habit of baptizing even the dead, as is elsewhere
told also of certain Gnostic sects. Epiphanius too speaks of a
Montanist party which celebrated the Lord’s Supper with bread and
cheese, _Artotyrites_, according to Augustine, because the first
men had presented offerings of the fruits of the earth and sheep.
§ 40.5. =The Attitude of Montanism toward the Church.=--The
derivation of Montanism from Ebionism, contended for by Schwegler,
has nothing in its favour and much against it. To disprove this
notion it is enough to refer to the Montanist fundamental idea
of a higher stage of revelation above Moses and the prophets as
well as above the Messiah and His Apostles. Neither can we agree
with Neander in regarding the peculiar character of the Phrygian
people, as exhibited in their extravagant and fanatical worship
of Cybele, as affording a starting point for the Montanist
movement, but at most as a predisposition which rendered the
inhabitants of this province peculiarly susceptible in presence
of such a movement. The origin of Montanism is rather to be
sought purely among the specifically Catholic conditions and
conflicts within the church of Asia which at that time was
pre-eminently gifted and active. In regard to dogma Montanism
occupied precisely the same ground as the Catholic church;
even upon the trinitarian controversies of the age it took up
no sectarian position but went with the stream of the general
development. Not on the dogmatical but purely on the practical
side, namely, on that of the Christian life and ecclesiastical
constitution, discipline and morals, lay the problems which by
the action of the Montanists were brought into conflict. But
even upon this side Montanism, with all its eccentricities, did
not assume the attitude of an isolated separatistic sect, but
rather as a quickening and intensifying of views and principles
which from of old had obtained the recognition and sanction of
the church,--views which on the wider spread of Christianity
had already begun to be in every respect toned down or even
obliterated, and just in this way called forth that reaction of
enthusiasm which we meet with in Montanism. From the Apostles’
time the expectation of the early return of the Lord had stood
in the foreground of Christian faith, hope and yearning, and
this expectation continued still to be heartily entertained.
Nevertheless the fulfilment had now been so long delayed that men
were beginning to put this coming into an indefinitely distant
future (2 Pet. iii. 4). Hence it happened that even the leaders
of the church, in building up its hierarchical constitution and
adjusting it to the social circumstances and conditions of life
by which they were surrounded, made their arrangements more and
more deliberately in view of a longer continuance of the present
state of things, and thus the primitive Christian hope of an
early Parousia, though not expressly denied, seemed practically
to have been set aside. Hence the Montanist revivalists
proclaimed this hope as most certain, giving a guarantee for it
by means of a new divine revelation. Similarly too the moral,
ascetic and disciplinary rigorism of the Montanist prophecy is
to be estimated as a vigorous reaction against the mild practice
prevailing in the church with its tendency to make concessions
to human weakness, in favour of the strict exercise of church
discipline in view of the nearness of the Parousia. Montanism
could also justify the reappearance of prophetic gifts among
its founders by referring to the historical tradition which from
the Apostolic Age (Acts xi. 27 f.; xxi. 9) presented to view a
series of famous prophets and prophetesses, endowed with ecstatic
visionary powers. The exclusion of Montanism from the Catholic
Church could not, therefore, have been occasioned either by its
proclaiming an early Parousia or by its rigorism, or finally,
even by its prophetic claims, but purely by its doctrine of the
Paraclete. Under the pretence of instituting a new and higher
stage of revelation, it had really undertaken to correct the
moral and religious doctrines of Christ and the Apostles as
defective and incomplete, and had thereby proved itself to the
representatives of the church to be undoubtedly a pseudo-prophecy.
The spiritual pride with which the Montanists proclaimed
themselves to be the privileged people of the Holy Spirit,
Πνευματικοὶ, _Spirituales_ and characterized the Catholics as,
on the contrary, Ψυχικοὶ, _Carnales_, as also the assumption
that chose their own obscure Pepuza for the site of the heavenly
Jerusalem, and the manifold extravagances committed by their
prophets and prophetesses in their ecstatic trances, must
have greatly tended to create an aversion to every form of
spiritualistic manifestation. The origin of Montanism, the
contesting of it and its final expulsion, constitute indeed a
highly significant crisis in the historical development of the
church, conditioned not so much by a separatistic sectarian
tendency, but rather by the struggle of two tendencies existing
within the church, in which the tendency represented by Montanism
and honestly endeavouring the salvation of the church, went
under, while that which was victorious would have put an end
to all enthusiasm. The expulsion of Montanism from the church
contributed greatly to freeing the church from the reproach
so often advanced against it of being a narrow sect, made its
consenting to the terms, demands and conditions of everyday
life in the world easier, gave a freer course and more powerful
impulse to its development in constitution and worship dependent
upon these, as well as in the further building up of its
practical and scientific endeavours, and generally advanced
greatly its expansion and transformation from a sectarian close
association into a universal church opening itself up more and
more to embrace all the interests of the culture of the age;--a
transformation which indeed in many respects involved a
secularizing of the church and imparted to its spiritual
functions too much of an official and superficial character.
§ 41. SCHISMATIC DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH.
Even after the ecclesiastical sentence had gone forth against
Montanism, the rigoristic penitential discipline in a form more or less
severe still found its representatives within the Catholic church. As
compared with the advocates of a milder procedure these were indeed
generally in the minority, but this made them all the more zealously
contend for their opinions and endeavour to secure for them universal
recognition. Out of the contentions occasioned thereby, augmented by
the rivalry of presbyter and episcopus, or episcopus and metropolitan,
several ecclesiastical divisions originated which, in spite of the
pressing need of the time for ecclesiastical unity, were long continued
by ambitious churchmen in order to serve their own selfish ends.
§ 41.1. =The Schism of Hippolytus at Rome about A.D. 220.=--On
what seems to have been the oldest attempt to form a sect at Rome
over a purely doctrinal question, namely that of the Theodotians,
about A.D. 210, see § 33, 3.--Much more serious was the schism of
Hippolytus, which broke out ten years later. In A.D. 217, after
an eventful and adventurous life, a freedman Callistus was raised
to the bishopric of Rome, but not without strong opposition on
the part of the rigorists, at whose head stood the celebrated
presbyter Hippolytus. They charged the bishop with scoffing at
all Christian earnestness, conniving at the loosening of all
church discipline toward the fallen and sinners of all kinds, and
denounced him especially as a supporter of the Noetian [Noëtian]
heresy (§ 33, 5). They took great offence also at his previous
life which his opponent Hippolytus (_Elench._, ix. 11 ff.) thus
describes: When the slave of a Christian member of the imperial
household, Callistus with the help of his lord established
a bank; he failed, took to flight, was brought back, sprang into
the sea, was taken out again and sent to the treadmill. At the
intercession of Christian friends he was set free, but failing to
satisfy his urgent creditors, he despairingly sought a martyr’s
death, for this end wantonly disturbed the Jewish worship, and
was on that account scourged and banished to the Sardinian mines.
At the request of bishop Victor the imperial concubine Marcia
(§ 22, 3) obtained the freedom of the exiled Christian confessors
among whom Callistus, although his name had been intentionally
omitted from the list presented by Victor, was included. After
Victor’s death he wormed himself into the favour of his weak
successor Zephyrinus, who placed him at the head of his clergy,
in consequence of which he was able by intrigues and craft
to secure for himself the succession to the bishopric.--An
opportunity of reconciliation was first given, it would seem,
under Pontianus, the second successor of Callistus, by banishing
the two rival chiefs to Sardinia. Both parties then united in
making a unanimous choice in A.D. 235.[109]
§ 41.2. =The Schism of Felicissimus at Carthage in
A.D. 250.=--Several presbyters in Carthage were dissatisfied with
the choice of Cyprian as bishop in A.D. 248 and sought to assert
their independence. At their head stood Novatus. Taking the
law into their own hands they chose Felicissimus, the next
head of the party, as a deacon. When Cyprian during the Decian
persecution withdrew for a time from Carthage, they charged him
with dereliction of duty and faint-heartedness. Cyprian, however,
soon returned, A.D. 251, and now they used his strictness toward
the _Lapsi_ as a means of creating a feeling against him. He
expressed himself very decidedly as to the recklessness with
which many confessors gave without examination _Libelli pacis_
to the fallen, and called upon these to commit their case to a
Synod that should be convened after the persecution. A church
visitation completed the schism; the discontented presbyters
without more ado received all the fallen and, notwithstanding
that Cyprian himself on the return of persecution introduced
a milder practice, they severed themselves from him under an
opposition bishop Fortunatus. Only by the unwearied exercise of
wisdom and firmness did Cyprian succeed in putting down the
schism.[110]
§ 41.3. =The Schism of the Presbyter Novatian at Rome in
A.D. 251.=--In this case the rigorist and presbyterial interests
coincide. After the martyrdom of bishop Fabian under Decian in
A.D. 250, the Roman bishopric remained vacant for more than a
year. His successor Cornelius (A.D. 251-253) was an advocate
of the milder practice. At the head of his rigorist opponents
stood his unsuccessful rival, Novatian, a learned but ambitious
presbyter (§ 31, 12). Meanwhile Novatus, excommunicated by Cyprian
at Carthage, had also made his way to Rome. Notwithstanding his
having previously maintained contrary principles in the matter
of church discipline, he attached himself to the party of the
purists and urged them into schism. They now chose Novatian as
bishop. Both parties sought to obtain the recognition of the most
celebrated churches. In doing so Cornelius described his opponent
in the most violent and bitter manner as a mere intriguer,
against whose reception into the number of presbyters as one
who had received clinical baptism (§ 35, 3) and especially
as an energoumenon under the care of the exorcists, he had
already protested; further as having extorted a sham episcopal
consecration from three simple Italian bishops, after he had
attached them to himself by pretending to be a peacemaker, then
locking them up and making them drunk, etc. Cyprian, as well as
Dionysius of Alexandria, expressed himself against Novatian, and
attacked the principles of his party, namely, that the church has
no right to give assurance of forgiveness to the fallen or such
as have broken their baptismal vows by grievous sin (although
the possibility of finding forgiveness through the mercy of
God was indeed admitted), and that the church as a communion of
thoroughly pure members should never endure any impure ones in
its bosom, nor receive back any excommunicated ones, even after
a full ecclesiastical course of penitence. The Novatianists had
therefore called themselves the Καθαροί. The moral earnestness of
their fundamental principles secured for them even from bishops
of contrary views an indulgent verdict, and Novatianist churches
sprang up over almost all the Roman empire. The Œcumenical
Council at Nicæa in A.D. 325 maintained an attitude toward them
upon the whole friendly, and in the Arian controversy (§ 50) they
stood faithfully side by side with their ecclesiastical opponents
in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy, and with them suffered
persecution from the Arians. Later on, however, the Catholic
church without more ado treated them as heretics. Theodosius
the Great sympathizing with them because of such unfair treatment,
took them under his protection; but Honorius soon again withdrew
these privileges from them. Remnants of the party continued
nevertheless to exist down to the 6th century.[111]
§ 41.4. =The Schism of Meletius in Egypt in A.D. 306.=--Meletius,
bishop of Lycopolis in the Thebaid, a representative of the
rigorist party, during the Diocletian persecution claimed to
confer ordinations and otherwise infringed upon the metropolitan
rights of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a supporter of the
milder practice who for the time being lived in retirement. All
warnings and admonitions were in vain. An Egyptian Synod under
the presidency of Peter issued a decree of excommunication and
deposition against him. Then arose the schism, A.D. 306, which
won the whole of Egypt. The General Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325
confirmed the Alexandrian bishop in his rights of supremacy
(§ 46, 3) and offered to all the Meletian bishops an amnesty
and confirmation in the succession on the death of the catholic
anti-bishop of their respective dioceses. Many availed themselves
of this concession, but others persisted in their schismatical
course and finally attached themselves to the Arian party
(§ 50, 2).