Part 10

to make A.D. 692 the closing limit of the second period. The conclusion of the third period, is found in the overthrow of Constantinople by the Turks in A.D. 1453. The first two periods are most evidently distinguished from one another in respect of the outward condition of the church. Before the times of Constantine, it lives and develops its strength amid the oppression and persecution of the pagan state; under Constantine the state itself becomes Christian and the church enjoys all the advantages, all the care and furtherance, that earthly protection can afford. Along with all this worldly splendour, however, a worldly disposition makes its way into the church, and in exchange for its protection of the church the state assumes an autocratic lordship over it. Even in the inner, and pre-eminently doctrinal, development of the church the two periods of this age are essentially distinguished from one another. While it was the church’s endeavour to adopt only the forms of culture of ancient paganism, while rejecting its godless substance, it too often happened that pagan ideas got mixed up with Christianity, and it was threatened with a similar danger from the side of Judaism. It was therefore the special task of the church during the first period to resist the encroachment of anti-Christian Jewish and Pagan elements. In the first period the perfecting of its own genuinely Christian doctrinal content was still a purely subjective matter, resting only on the personal authority of the particular church teachers. In the second period, on the other hand, the church universal, as represented by œcumenical synods with full power, proceeds to the laying down and establishing of an objective-ecclesiastical, œcumenical-catholic system of doctrine, constituting an all-sided development of the truth in opposition to the one-sided development of subjective heretical teaching. In doing so, however, the culture of the old Græco-Roman world exhausted its powers. The measure of development which these were capable of affording the church was now completed, and its future must be looked for among the new nationalities of Teutonic, Romanic, and Slavic origin. While the Byzantine empire, and with it the glory of the ancient church of the East was pressed and threatened by Islam, a new empire arose in the West in youthful vigour and became the organ of a new phase of development in the history of the church; and while the church in the West struggled after a new and higher point in her development, the Eastern church sank ever deeper down under outward oppression and inward weakness. The partition of the church into an Eastern and a Western division, which became imminent at the close of the second period, and was actually carried out during the third period, cut off the church of the East from the influence of those new vital forces, political as well as ecclesiastical, and which it might otherwise, perhaps, have shared with the West. By the overthrow of the East-Roman empire the last support of its splendour and even of its vital activity was taken away. Here too ends the history of the church on the lines of purely antique classical forms of culture. The remnants of the church of the East were no longer capable of any living historical development under the oppression of the Turkish rule.

FIRST SECTION.

History of the Græco-Roman Church during the Second and Third Centuries (A.D. 70-323).[18]

§ 20. CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES OF THIS PERIOD.[19]

As the history of the beginnings of the church has been treated by us under two divisions, so also the first period of the history of its development may be similarly divided into the =Post-Apostolic Age=, which reaches down to the middle of the second century, and the =Age of the Old Catholic Church=, which ends with the establishment of the church under and by Constantine, and at that point passes over into the Age of the œcumenical Catholic or Byzantine-Roman Imperial Church.--As the Post-Apostolic Age was occupied with an endeavour to appropriate and possess in a fuller and more vigorous manner the saving truths transmitted by the Apostles, and presents as the result of its struggles, errors, and victories, the Old Catholic Church as a unity, firmly bound from within, strictly free of all compulsion from without, so on the basis thus gained, the Old Catholic Church goes forward to new conflicts, failures, and successes, by means of which the foundations are laid for the future perfecting of it through its establishment by the state into the Œcumenical Catholic Imperial Church.[20]

§ 20.1. =The Post-Apostolic Age.=--The peril to which the church was exposed from the introduction of Judaistic and Pagan elements with her new converts was much more serious not only than the Jewish spirit of persecution, crushed as it was into impotence through the overthrow of Jewish national independence, but also than the persecution of anti-Christian paganism which at this time was only engaged upon sporadically. All the more threatening was this peril from the peculiar position of the church during this age. Since the removal of the personal guidance of the Apostles that control was wanting which only at a subsequent period was won again by the establishment of a New Testament canon and the laying down of a normative rule of faith, as well as by the formation of a hierarchical-episcopal constitution. In all the conflicts, then, that occupied this age, the first and main point was to guard the integrity and purity of traditional Apostolic Christianity against the anti-Christian Jewish and Pagan ideas which new converts endeavoured to import into it from their earlier religious life. Those Judaic ideas thus imported gave rise to Ebionism; those Pagan ideas gave rise to Gnosticism (§§ 26-28). And just as the Pauline Gentile Christianity, in so far as it was embraced under this period (§ 30, 2), secured the victory over the moderate and non-heretical Jewish Christianity, this latter became more and more assimilated to the former, and gradually passed over into it (§ 28, 1). Add to this the need, ever more pressingly felt, of a sifting of the not yet uniformly recognised early Christian literature that had passed into ecclesiastical use (§ 36, 7, 8) by means of the establishment of a New Testament =canon=; that is, the need of a collection of writings admitted to be of Apostolic origin to occupy henceforth the first rank as a standard and foundation for the purposes of teaching and worship, and to form a bulwark against the flood of heretical and non-heretical =Pseudepigraphs= that menaced the purity of doctrine (§ 32). Further, the no less pressing need for the construction of a universally valid =rule of faith= (§ 35, 2), as an intellectual bond of union and mark of recognition for all churches and believers scattered over the earth’s surface. Then again, in the victory that was being secured by Episcopacy over Presbyterianism, and in the introduction of a Synodal constitution for counsel and resolution, the first stage in the formation of a hierarchical organization was reached (§ 34). Finally, the last dissolving action of this age was the suppression of the fanatical prophetic and fanatical rigorist spirit, which, reaching its climax in =Montanism=, directed itself mainly against the tendency already appearing on many sides to tone down the unflinching severity of ecclesiastical discipline, to make modifications in constitution, life and conversation in accordance with the social customs of the world, and to settle down through disregard of the speedy return of the Lord, so confidently expected by the early Christians, into an easy satisfaction in the enjoyment of earthly possessions (§ 40, 5).

§ 20.2. =The Age of the Old Catholic Church.=--The designation of the universal Christian church as Catholic dates from the time of Irenæus, that is, from the beginning of this second part of our first period. This name characterizes the church as the one universally (καθ’ ὅλου) spread and recognised from the time of the Apostles, and so stigmatizes every opposition to the one church that alone stands on the sure foundation of holy scripture and pure apostolic tradition, as belonging to the manifold

## particularistic heretical and schismatical sects. The church

of this particular age, however, has been designated the Old Catholic Church as distinguished from the œcumenical Catholic church of the following period, as well as from the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, into which afterwards the œcumenical Catholic church was divided.

At the beginning of this age, the heretical as well as the non-heretical Ebionism may be regarded as virtually suppressed, although some scanty remnants of it might yet be found. The most brilliant period of Gnosticism, too, when the most serious danger from Paganism within the Christian pale in the form of Hellenic and Syro-Chaldaic Theosophy and Mysteriosophy threatened the church, was already past. But in Manichæism (§ 29) there appeared, during the second half of the third century, a new peril of a no less threatening kind, inspired by Parseeism and Buddhism, which, however, the church on the ground of the solid foundations already laid was able to resist with powerful weapons. On the other hand the Pagan element within the church asserted itself more and more decidedly (§ 39, 6) by means of the intrusion of magico-theurgical superstition into the catholic doctrine of the efficacy of the church sacraments and sacramental acts (§ 58). But now also, with Marcus Aurelius, Paganism outside of Christianity as embodied in the Roman state, begins the war of extermination against the church that was ever more and more extending her boundaries. Such manifestation of hostility, however, was not able to subdue the church, but rather led, under and through Constantine the Great, to the Christianizing of the state and the establishment of the church. During the same time the episcopal and synodal-hierarchical organization of the church was more fully developed by the introduction of an order of Metropolitans, and then in the following period it reached its climax in the oligarchical Pentarchy of Patriarchs (§ 46, 1), and in the institution of œcumenical Synods (§ 43, 2). By the condemnation and expulsion of Montanism, in which the inner development of the Post-Apostolic Age reached its special and distinctive conclusion, the endeavour to naturalize Christianity among the social customs of the worldly life was certainly legitimized by the church, and could now be unrestrictedly carried out in a wider and more comprehensive way. In the Trinitarian controversies, too, in which several prominent theologians engaged, the first step was taken in that œcumenical-ecclesiastical elaboration of doctrine which occupied and dominated the whole of the following period (§§ 49-52).

§ 20.3. =The Point of Transition from the One Age to the Other= may unhesitatingly be set down at A.D. 170. The following are the most important data in regard thereto. The death about A.D. 165 of Justin Martyr, who marks the highest point reached in the Post-Apostolic Age, and forms also the transition to the Old Catholic Age; and Irenæus, flourishing somewhere about A.D. 170, who was the real inaugurator of this latter age. Besides these we come upon the beginnings of the Trinitarian controversies about the year 170. Finally, the rejection of Montanism from the universal Catholic church was effected about the year 170 by means of the Synodal institution called into existence for that very purpose.

I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EXTRA-CHRISTIAN PAGANISM AND JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.[21]

§ 21. THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

Amid all the persecutions which the church during this period had to suffer it spread with rapid strides throughout the whole Roman empire, and even far beyond its limits. Edessa, the capital of the kingdom of Osrhoëne in Mesopotamia, had, as early as A.D. 170, a Christian prince, named =Abgar Bar Maanu=, whose coins were the first to bear the sign of the cross. We find Christianity gaining a footing contemporaneously in Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia. In the third century we find traces of its presence in Armenia. Paul himself made his way into Arabia (Gal. i. 17). In the third century Origen received an invitation from a ἡγούμενος τῆς Ἀραβίας, who wished to receive information about Christianity. At another time he accepted a call from that country in order to settle an ecclesiastical dispute (§ 33, 6). From Alexandria, where Mark had exercised his ministry, the Christian faith spread out into other portions of Africa, into Cyrene and among the Coptic races, neighbouring upon the Egyptians properly so-called. The church of proconsular Africa, with Carthage for its capital, stood in close connection with Rome. Mauretania and Numidia had, even in the third century, so many churches, that Cyprian could bring together at Carthage a Synod of eighty-seven bishops. In Gaul there were several flourishing churches composed of colonies and teachers from Asia Minor, such as the churches of Lyons, Vienne, etc. At a later period seven missionary teachers of the Christian faith came out of Italy into Gaul, among whom was Dionysius, known as St. Denis, the founder of the church at Paris. The Roman colonies in the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube had several flourishing congregations as early as the third century.

The emptiness and corruption of paganism was the negative, the divine power of the gospel was the positive, means of this wonderful extension. This divine power was manifested in the zeal and self-denial of Christian teachers and missionaries (§ 34, 1), in the life and walk of Christians, in the brotherly love which they showed, in the steadfastness and confidence of their faith, and above all in the joyfulness with which they met the cruellest of deaths by martyrdom. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and it was not an unheard-of circumstance that the executioners of those Christian witnesses became their successors in the noble army of confessors.

§ 22. PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.[22]

The Law of the Twelve Tables had already forbidden the exercise of foreign modes of worship within the Roman empire (_Religiones peregrinæ_, _Collegia illicita_), for religion was exclusively an affair of the state and entered most intimately into all civil and municipal relations, and on this account whatever endangered the national religion was regarded as necessarily imperilling the state itself. Political considerations, however, led to the granting to conquered nations the free use of their own forms of worship. This concession did not materially help Christianity after it had ceased, in the time of Nero, to be regularly confounded by the Roman authorities with Judaism, as had been the case in the time of Claudius, and Judaism, after the destruction of Jerusalem, had been sharply distinguished from it. It publicly proclaimed its intention to completely dislodge all other religions, and the rapidity with which it spread showed how energetically its intentions were carried out. The close fellowship and brotherliness that prevailed among Christians, as well as their exclusive, and during times of persecution even secret assemblies, aroused the suspicion that they had political tendencies. Their withdrawal from civil and military services on account of the pagan ceremonies connected with them, especially their refusal to burn incense before the statues of the emperor, also the steadfastness of their faith, which was proof against all violence and persuasion alike, their retiredness from the world, etc., were regarded as evidence of their indifference or hostility to the general well-being of the state, as invincible stiff-neckedness, as contumacy, sedition, and high treason. The heathen populace saw in the Christians the sacrilegious enemies and despisers of their gods; and the Christian religion, which was without temples, altars and sacrifices, seemed to them pure Atheism. The most horrible calumnies, that in their assemblies (_Agapæ_) the vilest immoralities were practised (_Concubitus Œdipodei_), children slain and human flesh eaten (_Epulæ Thyesteæ_, comp. § 36, 5), were readily believed. All public misfortunes were thus attributed to the wrath of the gods against the Christians, who treated them with contempt. _Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos!_ The heathen priests also, the temple servants and the image makers were always ready in their own common interests to stir up the suspicions of the people. Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the fire of persecution on the part of the heathen people and the heathen state continued to rage for centuries.

§ 22.1. =Claudius, Nero and Domitian.=--Regarding the Emperor =Tiberius= (A.D. 14-37), we meet in Tertullian with the undoubtedly baseless tradition, that, impressed by the story told him by Pilate, he proposed to the Senate to introduce Christ among the gods, and on the rejection of this proposal, threatened the accusers of the Christians with punishment. The statement in Acts xviii. 2, that the Emperor =Claudius= (A.D. 41-54) expelled from Rome all Jews and with them many Christians also, is illustrated in a very circumstantial manner by Suetonius: _Claudius Judæos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit_. The tumults, therefore, between the Jews and the Christians, occurring about the year 51 or 52, gave occasion to this decree. The first persecution of the Christians proceeding from a Roman ruler which was directed against the Christians as such, was carried out by the Emperor =Nero= (A.D. 54-68) in the year 64, in consequence of a nine days’ conflagration in Rome, the origin of which was commonly ascribed by the people to the Emperor himself. Nero, however, laid the blame upon the hated Christians, and perpetrated upon them the most ingeniously devised cruelties. Sewn up in skins of wild animals they were cast out to be devoured of dogs; others were crucified, or wrapt in tow and besmeared with pitch, they were fixed upon sharp spikes in the imperial gardens where the people gathered to behold gorgeous spectacles, and set on fire to lighten up the night (Tac., _Ann._, xv. 44). After the death of Nero the legend spread among the Christians, that he was not dead but had withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, soon to return as Antichrist. Nero’s persecution seems to have been limited to Rome, and to have ended with his death.--It was under =Domitian= (A.D. 81-96) that individual Christians were for the first time subjected to confiscation of goods and banishment for godlessness or the refusal to conform to the national religion. Probably also, the execution of his own cousin, the Consul Flavius Clemens [Clement], on account of his ἀθεότης and his ἐξοκέλλειν εἰς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθη (Dio Cass., lxvii. 14), as well as the banishment of Clemens’ [Clement’s] wife, Flavia Domitilla (A.D. 93), was really on account of their attachment to the Christian faith (§ 30, 3). The latter at least is proved by two inscriptions in the catacombs to have been undoubtedly a Christian. Domitian insisted upon having information as to the political significance of the kingdom of Christ, and brought from Palestine to Rome two relatives of Jesus, grandsons of Jude, the brother of the Lord, but their hands horny with labour satisfied him that his suspicions had been unfounded. The philanthropic Emperor =Nerva= (A.D. 96-98) recalled the exiles and did not listen to those who clamoured bitterly against the Christians, but Christianity continued after as well as before a _Religo illicita_, or rather was now reckoned such, after it had been more distinctly separated from Judaism.[23]

§ 22.2. =Trajan and Hadrian.=--With =Trajan= (A.D. 98-117), whom historians rightly describe as a just, earnest, and mild ruler, the persecutions of the Christians enter upon a new stage. He renewed the old strict prohibition of secret societies, _hetæræ_, which could easily be made to apply to the Christians. In consequence of this law the younger Pliny, as Governor of Bithynia, punished with death those who were accused as Christians, if they would not abjure Christianity. But his doubts being awakened by the great number of every rank and age and of both sexes against whom accusations were brought, and in consequence of a careful examination, which showed the Christians to be morally pure and politically undeserving of suspicion and to be guilty only of stubborn attachment to their superstition, he asked definite instructions from the Emperor. Trajan approved of what he had done and what he proposed; the Christians were not to be sought after and anonymous accusations were not to be regarded, but those formally complained of and convicted, if they stubbornly refused to sacrifice to the gods and burn incense before the statues of the Emperor were to be punished with death (A.D. 112). This imperial rescript continued for a long time the legal standard for judicial procedure with reference to the Christians. The persecution under Trajan extended even to Syria and Palestine. In Jerusalem the aged bishop Simeon, the successor of James, accused as a Christian and a descendant of David, after being cruelly scourged, died a martyr’s death on the cross in A.D. 107. The martyrdom, too, of the Antiochean bishop, Ignatius, in all probability took place during the reign of Trajan (§ 30, 5). An edict of toleration supposed to have been issued at a later period by Trajan, a copy of which exists in Syriac and Armenian, is now proved to be apocryphal.--During the reign of =Hadrian= (A.D. 117-138), the people began to carry out in a tumultuous way the execution of the Christians on the occasion of the heathen festivals. On the representation of the proconsul of Asia, Serenius Granianus, Hadrian issued a rescript addressed to his successor, Minucius Fundanus, against such acts of violence, but executions still continued carried out according to the forms of law. The genuineness of the rescript, however, as given at the close of the first Apology of Justin Martyr, has been recently disputed by many. In Rome itself, between A.D. 135 and A.D. 137, bishop Telesphorus, with many other Christians, fell as victims of the persecution. The tradition of the fourth century, that Hadrian wished to build a temple to Christ, is utterly without historical foundation. His unfavourable disposition toward the Christians clearly appears from this, that he caused a temple of Venus to be built upon the spot where Christ was crucified, and a statue of Jupiter to be erected on the rock of the sepulchre, in order to pollute those places which Christians held most sacred.