Part 6

Ladies and Gentlemen,--It is plain that the importance of the churches in the primitive Christian community was in proportion to their apostolic nobility. The guaranty of orthodoxy was in the succession of the bishops, by which the great churches were linked to the apostles. A direct line appeared to afford a very strong assurance of conformity of doctrine, and it was jealously maintained. Now, what can be said of a church founded by both Peter and Paul? It is clear that such a church ought to endure in order to have a veritable superiority over others. The _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ of the competency of the Roman Church was the establishment of this superiority. That once assured, the ecclesiastical destiny of Rome was established. When this city should have cast off her secular character, she would have another,--a sacred capacity, corresponding to that of Jerusalem.

She would know how to confiscate to her profit this Christianity which she had so cruelly combated,--so much had humanity suffered, to escape from those whom fate had designed for this great secular task, _regere imperio populos!_

Under Antonine and Marcus Aurelius, Rome reached its highest grandeur; its rule of the whole world seemed to be undisputed; no cloud could be seen upon its horizon. The emigration from the provinces, above all from the Orient, was augmented rather than lessened. The Greek-speaking population was larger than it had ever been. All who desired a place in the world aspired to come to Rome: nothing was sanctioned until it had received the stamp of this universal exposition of the products of the entire universe.

The centre of a future catholic orthodoxy was evidently there. The well-developed germ of the Papacy existed under Antonine. The Church of Rome showed itself more and more indifferent to those crude Gnostic speculations which occupied some minds filled with the intellectual activity of the Greeks, but tainted with the reveries of the Orient. The organization of Christian society was the principal labor at Rome. This extraordinary city applied to this object the energetic moral strength and the practical genius which she has employed in the most diverse causes. Careless of speculation, decidedly hostile to dogmatic innovations, she presided there,--a mistress already trained by all the changes which had been brought about in discipline and in the hierarchy.

I.

From the year 120 to 130 the Episcopate was elaborated in the Christian Church, and the creation of the Episcopate was eminently a Roman work. All _ecclesiæ_ imply a little hierarchy,--a bureau as it is called to-day,--a president, some assessors, and a small staff of men in its service. Democratic associations are careful that these functions shall be limited as far as possible as to power and duration; but from this arises that precarious something which has prevented any democratic association from outlasting the circumstances which have created it. The Jewish synagogues have had more continuity, although the synagogical body has never come to be a clergy. This is the result of the subordinate place which Judaism has held during several centuries: the pressure from without has counteracted the effects of internal divisions. If the Christian Church had been left with the same absence of directorship, it would doubtless have missed its destiny.

If its ecclesiastical powers had continued to be regarded as emanating from the Church itself, it would have lost all its hieratic and theocratic character. It was written, on the contrary, that a clergy should monopolize the Christian Church, and substitute themselves for it. Acting as its spokesman, presenting itself as having the sole power of attorney in every thing, this clergy will be its strength, and at the same time its gnawing worm,--the principal cause of its future falls.

I repeat, that history has no example of a more complete transformation than that which occurred in the government of the Christian Church about the time of Hadrian and Antonine. What happened in the Christian Church will happen in any association in which the subordinates could resign in favor of the bureau, and that again in favor of the president; so that afterwards the subordinates and the seniors would have no deliberative voice nor influence, nor any control in the management of the funds, and the president would be able to say, "I alone, I, am the association." The _presbyteri_ (seniors) or _episcopi_ (superintending officers) became very soon the only representatives of the Church; and almost immediately another still more important revolution took place. Among the _presbyteri_ or _episcopi_, there had been one, who, through the habit of occupying the principal seat, absorbed the power of the others, and became pre-eminently the _episcopos_ or the _presbyteros_. The form of worship contributed powerfully to the establishment of this unity. The eucharistic act could only be celebrated by one person, and gave to the celebrant an extreme importance. That _episcopos_, with a surprising rapidity, became the head of the presbytery, and, consequently, the entire Church. His _cathedra_ was placed apart, and, having the form of an arm-chair, became the seat of honor, the symbol of primacy. From this time, each church has but one chief _presbyteros_, who is thus called to the exclusion of the other _episcopi_. Beside this bishop, there were deacons, widows, and a council of _presbyteri_: but the great step has been taken; the bishop is the sole successor of the prophets, his associates have disappeared. Apostolic authority, reputed as transmitted by the laying-on of hands, suppressed the authority of the community. The bishops of the various churches soon placed themselves in communication with the others, and formed of the Universal Church a sort of oligarchy, which held assemblies, censured its members, decided questions of faith, and was in itself a true sovereign power. On one side, the shepherds; on the other, the flock. Primitive equality no longer existed: in fact, it had endured but a single day. The Church, however, was only an instrument in the hands of those who guided her; and these held their power, not from the community, but from the spiritual inheritance of a transmission claiming to date back to the apostles in a continuous line. It is evident that the representative system will never be in any degree whatever the law of the Christian Church.

It was the Episcopate, without the intervention of civil power, with no support from the tribunals, which thus established order above liberty in a society originally founded upon individual inspiration. This is why the Ebionites, who had no Episcopate, had also no idea of Catholicity. At first sight, the work of Jesus was not made to last. Founded upon a belief in the destruction of the world, which, as years rolled on, was proved an error, it seemed that his congregation could only dissolve in anarchy. The prophetic book, the _charismes_, the speaking of tongues, individual inspiration, were no more than were necessary to bring all again into the proportions of a common chapel. Individual inspiration created, but immediately destroyed what it created. After liberty, law is necessary. The work of Jesus might be considered as saved the day in which it was admitted that the Church has a direct power, a power representing that of Jesus. Since then the Church dominates the individual, drawing him to her bosom through his need. Inspiration passes from the individual to the community. The clergy is the dispenser of all pardons, the intermediary between God and the faithful. Obedience, first to the Church, then to the bishop, becomes the highest duty. Innovation is the sign of error: schism, henceforth, will be for the Christian the worst of crimes.

In a certain regard one may say that this was a decadence, a diminution of that spontaneity which had been eminently creative until now. It was evident that ecclesiastical forms were about to absorb, to stifle, the work of Jesus, that all free manifestations of Christian life would soon be arrested. Under the censure of the Episcopate, the speaking of tongues, prophecy, the creation of legends, the making of new sacred books, would soon become withered powers, the _charismes_ would be reduced to official sacraments. In another sense, however, such a transformation was the essential condition of the strength of humanity. And, moreover, the centralization of powers became necessary when churches were more numerous: intercourse between these little pious societies would be impossible, unless they had representatives appointed to act for them. It is undeniable, moreover, that, without the Episcopate, the churches, re-united for a time by the souvenirs of Jesus, would gradually have been dispersed. The divergences of opinion, the difference in the turn of imagination, and, above all, the rivalries, and the unsatisfied _amours-propres_, would have operated by their infinite effects of disunion and disintegration. Christianity would have expired at the end of three or four centuries, like Mithraicism and so many other sects which were not allowed to endure. Democracy is sometimes eminently creative; but it is upon the condition that the democracy comes forth from conservative institutions which prevent the revolutionary fever from prolonging itself indefinitely.

Here was the greatest miracle of the new Christianity. It drew order, hierarchy, authority, and obedience from the free subjection of desires: it organized the crowd; it disciplined anarchy. What does this miracle accomplish other than to strike at the pretended derogations to the laws of physical nature? The spirit of Jesus strongly inoculated in his disciples that spirit of sweetness, of abnegation, of forgetfulness of the present; that unique pursuit of interior joys which kills ambition; that strong preference given to childhood; those words repeated without ceasing, as from Jesus, "Whoever is first among you, let him be the servant of all." The influence of the apostles was not less in that direction. The apostles lived and ruled after their death. The idea that the head of the Church held his command under the members of the Church who had elected him never once occurs in the literature of this time. The Church thus escaped through the supernatural origin of its power, that element of decay which exists in delegated authority. A legislative and executive authority may come from the people; but sacraments and dispensations of celestial pardons have nothing in common with universal suffrage. Such privileges come from heaven, or, according to the Christian formula, from Jesus Christ, the source of all pardon and of all good.

The religion of Jesus thus became something solid and consistent. The great danger of Gnosticism, which was to divide Christianity into numberless sects, was exorcised. The word "Catholic Church" resounded everywhere, as the name of that great body which would thenceforth survive the ages unbroken. The character of this catholicity is already seen. The Montanists are regarded as sectarian; the Marcionites are convinced of the falseness of the apostolic doctrine; the different Gnostic schools are more and more driven from the bosom of the general church. Something had arisen which was neither Montanism, nor Marcionism, nor Gnosticism; which was Christianity, not sectarian,--the Christianity of the majority of bishops, resisting sects, and using them all, having, if you will, only negative characters, but preserved by these negative characters from the pietist aberrations, and from dissolving rationalism. Christianity, like all parties who wish to live, disciplines itself, and restrains its own excesses. It unites to mystical exaltation a fund of good sense and moderation which will kill Millenarism, Charisms, Glossolaly, and all the primitive phenomenal spirits. A handful of excited men, like the Montanists, running into martyrdom, discouraging penitence, condemning marriage, are not the Church. The _juste milieu_ triumphs. Radicals of any sort will never be allowed to destroy the work of Jesus. The Church is always of a medium opinion: it belongs to all the world, and is not the privilege of an aristocracy. The pietist aristocracy of the Phrygian sects and the speculative aristocracy of the Gnostics are equally stripped of their pretensions.

In the midst of the enormous variety of opinions which fill the first Christian age, the Catholic opinion constitutes a sort of standard. It was not necessary to reason with the heretic in order to convince him. It was sufficient to show him that he was not in communion with the Catholic Church, with the grand churches which trace the succession of their bishops to the apostles. _Quod semper, quod ubique_ became the absolute rule of truth. The argument of prescription to which Tertullian gave such eloquent force reviews all the Catholic controversy. To prove to any one that he was an innovator, a disturber, was to prove that he was wrong,--an insufficient rule, since, by a singular irony of fate, the doctor himself who developed this method of refutation in so imperious a manner, Tertullian, died a heretic.

Correspondence between the churches was an early custom. Circular letters from the heads of the great churches, read on Sunday in the re-unions of the faithful, were a sort of continuation of the apostolic literature. The ecclesiastical province, questioning the precedency of the great churches, appeared in germ. The Church, like the synagogue and the mosque, is essentially a citadel. Christianity, like Judaism and Islamism, is a religion of cities. The countryman, the _paganus_, will be the last resistance which Christianity will encounter. The few rural Christians came to the church of the neighboring city. The Roman municipality thus enclosed the church. Among the cities, the _civitas_, the grand city, was alone a veritable church, with an _episcopos_. The small city was in ecclesiastical dependence on the great city. This primacy of the great cities was an important fact. The great city once converted, the small city and the country followed the movement. The diocese was thus the unity of the conglomerate Christians. As for the ecclesiastical province, it corresponded to the Roman province: the divisions of worship of Rome and Augustus were the secret law which ruled all. Those cities which had a flamen, or _archiereus_, are those which later had an archbishop: the _flamen civitatis_ became the bishop. After the third century, the flamen held the rank in the city which was later that of the bishop in the diocese. Thus it happened that the ecclesiastical geography of a country was very nearly the geography of the same country in the Roman epoch. The picture of the bishops and the archbishops is that of the ancient _civitates_, according to their line of subordination. The empire was as the mould in which the new religion was formed. The interior framework, the outlines, the hierarchical divisions, were those of the empire. The ancient archives of the Roman administration, and the church-registers of the middle ages, and even those of our own day, are nearly the same thing.

Thus the grand organisms which have become so essential a part of the moral and political life of European nations were all created by those _naïve_ and sincere Christians, whose faith has become inseparable from the moral culture of humanity. The Episcopate under Marcus Aurelius was fully ripe: the Papacy existed in germ. [OE]cumenical councils were impossible. The Christian Empire alone could authorize great assemblies; but the provincial synod was used in the affairs of the Montanists and of the Passover. The bishop of the capital of the province was allowed to preside without contest.

II.

Rome was the place in which the grand idea of Catholicity was conceived. Rome became each day more and more the capital of Christianity, and replaced Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its church had a generally recognized precedence over others. All doubtful questions which disturbed the Christian conscience demanded an arbitration, if not a solution, at Rome. This very defective reasoning was used,--that, since Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of his church, this privilege ought to extend to his successors. By an unequalled stroke, the Church of Rome had succeeded in making itself at the same time the Church of Peter and the Church of Paul, a new mythical duality, replacing that of Romulus and Remus. The Bishop of Rome became the bishop of bishops, the one who admonished others. Rome proclaims its right (a dangerous right) to excommunicate those who do not entirely agree with her. The poor Artemonites (a sort of anticipated Arians) had much to complain of in the injustice of the fate which made them heretics; while, even until Victor, all the Church of Rome thought with them; but they were not heard. From this point, the Church of Rome placed itself above history. The spirit which in 1870 could proclaim the infallibility of the Pope might see itself reflected at the end of the second century by certain clear indications. The writing made at Rome about 180, of which the Roman fragment known as the "_Canon de Muratori_" makes a part, shows us Rome already regulating the canon of the churches, making the passion of Peter the basis of Catholicity, and repulsing equally Montanism and Gnosticism. Irenæus refutes all heresies by the faith of this church, "the grandest, the most ancient, the most illustrious, which possesses by continuous succession the true tradition of the apostles Peter and Paul; to which, on account of its primacy, all the rest of the Church should have recourse."

One material cause contributed much to that pre-eminence which most of the churches recognized in the Church of Rome. This Church was extremely rich: its goods, skilfully administered, served to succor and propagate other churches. The heretics condemned to the mines received a subsidy from it: the common treasury was in a certain sense at Rome. The Sunday collection, practised continually in the Roman Church, was probably already established. A marvellous spirit of tradition animated this little community, in which Judæa, Greece, and Latium seemed to have confounded their very different gifts, in view of a prodigious future. While the Jewish Monotheism furnished the immovable base of the new formation, while Greece continued through Gnosticism its work of free speculation, Rome attached itself with an astonishing readiness to the work of the government. All its authorities and artifices served well for that. Politics recoils not before fraud. Now, politics had already taken up its home in the most secret councils of the Church of Rome. Some veins of apocryphal literature, constantly refilled, sometimes under the name of the apostles, sometimes under that of apostolic personages, such as Clement and Hermas, were received with confidence to the limits of the Christian world on account of the guaranty of Rome.

This precedence of the Church of Rome continued to increase up to the third century. The bishops of Rome showed a rare competency, evading theological questions, but always in the first rank in matters of organization and administration. The tradition of the Roman Church passes for the most ancient of all. Pope Cornelius took the lead in the matter of substitution. This was particularly seen in the dismissal of the bishops of Italy, and the appointment of their successors. Rome was also the central authority of the churches of Africa.

This authority was already excessive, and showed itself above all in the affair of the Passover. This question was much more important than it appears to us. In the early times all Christians continued to make the Jewish Passover their principal feast. They celebrated this feast on the same day as the Jews,--on the 14th of Nisan, upon whatever day of the week it happened to fall. Persuaded, according to the account of all the old gospels, that Jesus, the evening before his death, had eaten the Passover with his disciples, they regarded such a solemnity as a commemoration of the last supper, rather than as a memorial of the resurrection. As Christianity became more and more separated from Judaism, such a manner of regarding it was very much questioned. At first a new tradition was promulgated,--that Jesus, being about to die, had not eaten the Passover, but had died the very day of the Jewish feast, thus constituting himself the Pascal Lamb. Moreover, this purely Jewish feast wounded the Christian conscience, especially in the churches of Paul. The great feast of the Christians, the resurrection of Jesus, occurred in any case the Sunday after the Jewish Passover. According to this idea, the feast was celebrated the Sunday which followed the Friday after the 14th of Nisan.

In Rome this custom prevailed, at least since the pontificates of Xystus and Telesphorus (about 120). In Asia there were great divisions. The conservatives, like Polycarp, Meliton, and all the ancient school, believed that the old Jewish custom conformed to the first Gospels and to the usage of the apostles John and Philip. This was the object of the voyage to Rome which Polycarp undertook about the year 154, under the Pope Anicetus. The interview between Polycarp and Anicetus was very cordial. The discussion of certain points appears to have been sharp, but they understood each other. Polycarp was not able to persuade Anicetus to renounce a practice which had been that of the bishops of Rome before his time. Anicetus, on the other hand, hesitated when Polycarp told him that he governed himself according to the rule of John and the other apostles, with whom he had lived on a familiar footing. The two religious leaders remained in full communion with each other; and Anicetus showed Polycarp an almost unprecedented honor. In fact he desired that Polycarp, in the Assembly of the Faithful at Rome, should pronounce, in his stead and in his presence, the words of the eucharistic consecration. These ardent men were full of too lofty a sentiment to rest the unity of their souls upon the uniformity of rites and exterior observances.