BOOK II
THE LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE FAITH
INTRODUCTORY
The scene of the following sketches of the life of a Christian of the first days is, generally speaking, laid in Rome; but much of what belonged to the Christian of the Roman congregation was common to the believer who dwelt in other great cities of the Empire.
The sketches in question deal with the following subjects:
1. The numbers of believers in the first two centuries which followed the death of Peter and Paul.
2. The assemblies or meetings together of the Christian folk in those very early times are specially dwelt on. These assemblies were an extremely important and influential factor in the life of the believer. This was recognized in the New Testament writings and in the contemporary writings of the earliest teachers of the faith.
3. The various classes of the population of a great city which composed these early assemblies are enumerated.
4. What was taught and done at these early gatherings together of Christians is set forth with some detail.
5. Outside these gatherings, the life of a believer in the world is referred to with especial regard to the many difficulties which were constantly encountered by one who professed the religion of Jesus.
6. The methods by which these difficulties were to be grappled with are described. Two schools of teaching evidently existed here, generally characterized as the “Rigourist” and the “Gentle” schools. These are briefly dwelt upon.
7. In the concluding paragraphs of this sketch of the early Christian life, what Christianity offered in return for the hard and often painful life which its professors had to live, is sketched.
I
LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN IN THE EARLY DAYS
There is no shadow of doubt but that in a comparatively short space of time the religion of Jesus was accepted by great numbers of the dwellers in the various provinces of the Roman Empire. This fact is abundantly testified to by contemporary writers, Christian and pagan.
The only other widely professed religion with which we can compare it--Mahommedanism--owed its rapid progress and the extraordinary numbers of its proselytes mainly to the sword of the conquerors. Christianity, on the other hand, possessed no army to enforce its tenets. It was not even the heritage of a people or a nation. The Jews, to whom in the first days of its existence it _might_ have belonged, were very soon to be reckoned among its deadliest foes.
One powerful factor which influenced the reception of the new religion has been rarely dwelt upon, but it deserves more than a merely passing notice.
The news of the religion of Jesus, as by many channels it reached the slave, often a highly educated slave, the freedman, the merchant, the small trader, the soldier of the legions, the lawyer, the Roman patrician, the women of the varied classes and orders in the great Empire,--the news came of something that had quite recently happened; and not only recently, but in a well-known city of the Empire. It was a wonderful story, firmly and strongly attested by many eye-witnesses, and it appealed at once to the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men.
It differed curiously from all other religions of which the pagans of the Empire had ever heard. These other religions were very ancient; their cradle, so to speak, belonged to far-back days--pre-historical days, as men would now call them. _This new religion really belonged to their own time._ Its founder had talked with men quite recently. He had lived in a city they knew a good deal about.
There was no dim mist about its origin; no old legends had gathered round it--legends which few, if any, believed.
The story of the religion of Jesus, told so simply, so convincingly, in the four Gospels, had a strange attraction; it went home to the hearts of a vast multitude; it rang true and real.
* * * * *
We know that very soon after the date of the events of the Gospel story the numbers of the men and women who accepted it were great. From the pagan Empire we have the testimony of Tacitus, the most eminent of Roman historians. Writing some fifty years after the first persecution under Nero, A.D. 64, he describes the Christians at the time of that first persecution as “a vast multitude” (_ingens multitudo_).[40]
Still more in detail the younger Pliny, the Governor of Bithynia, writing to the Emperor Trajan _circa_ A.D. 112-13 for instructions how to deal with the Christians, relates that the new religion had spread so widely in his province, not merely in the cities but in the villages and country districts generally, that the temples were almost deserted.[41] It is, of course, possible that the new faith had found especial favour in Bithynia; but such a formal and detailed representation from an official of the highest rank and reputation to the Emperor of what was happening in his own province, is a sure indication of the enormous strides which Christianity had generally made in the Empire when the echoes of apostles and apostolic men were still ringing in the ears of their disciples. S. John’s death only preceded Pliny’s letter to Trajan[42] by at most twenty years.
Among contemporary Christian writers we find similar testimony to the vast numbers of Christians in very early times. To take a few conspicuous examples:
Clement, bishop of Rome _circa_ A.D. 95, writing to the Church at Corinth, speaks of “the great multitude of Christians” who suffered in the persecution of Nero, A.D. 64.[43]
Hermas, in his book termed the _Shepherd_, shows us that in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, _circa_ A.D. 130-40, there was resident a large number of Christians in the capital, many of them well-to-do and wealthy citizens.
Soter, bishop of Rome, writing to the Church of Corinth,[44] shortly after A.D. 165, refers to the Christians as superior in numbers to the Jews, no doubt especially alluding to the Roman congregation mentioned.
In the Acts of the Martyrdom of Justin, _circa_ A.D. 165, an undoubtedly genuine piece, Rusticus the Roman prefect asks Justin where the Christians assembled. In reply, Justin said, “Where each one chooses and can; for do you imagine that we all meet in the very same place?”
Irenæus in a very striking passage,[45] written _circa_ A.D. 180, alludes to the size and importance of the Roman congregation. His words are as follows:
“Since, however, it would be most tedious in such a volume as this to reckon up the (Episcopal) succession of all the Churches, we confound all those who assemble in unauthorized meetings by indicating the tradition handed down from the apostles of the _most great_, the very ancient, and universally known Church organized by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul.”
The statements of Tertullian _circa_ A.D. 195-200 are well known and are often quoted; and though they are probably exaggerated, still such assertions, although they are rhetorical rather than simple statistics, would never have been advanced by such a learned and weighty writer if the numbers of the Christians of his time (the latter years of the second century) had not, in many cities and countries, been very great.
In the works of Tertullian we come across such statements as the following:
“The grievance (of the pagan government) is that the State is filled with Christians; that they are in the fields, in the citadels, in blocks of houses (which fill up the cities). It grieves (does the government), as over some calamity, that both sexes indifferently, all ages, every condition, even persons of high rank, are passing over to the Christian ranks.”[46]
And again: “We are not Indian Brahmins who dwell in forests and exile themselves from the common life of men.... We company with you in the world, forsaking neither the life of the Forum, nor the Bath, nor Workshop, nor Inn, nor Market-place, nor any Mart of commerce. We sail with you, fight with you, till the ground with you, even we share in the various arts.”[47]
About fifty years after Tertullian’s writing just quoted, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, A.D. 251, in an Epistle addressed to Fabius, bishop of Antioch,[48] gives some official statistics of the Roman Church in his days.[49] Cornelius particularizes the classes of the various officials, together with the numbers of persons in distress who were on the lists of the Church receiving charitable relief. Scholars and experts, basing their calculations upon these official statistics, variously estimate the numbers of Christians in the city of Rome at from 30,000 to 50,000, the latter calculation on the whole being probably nearest to the truth.
Lastly, in this little sketch of the vast numbers of disciples who at a very early date had joined the Christian community, the changeless testimony of the Roman catacombs must be cited. Much will be found written in this work regarding these enormous cemeteries of the Christian dead. It is absolutely certain that in the second half of the first century these catacombs were already begun.
The words of the eminent German scholar Harnack may well be quoted here: “The number, the size, and the extent of the Roman catacombs ... is so great that even from them we may infer the size of the Roman Church, its steady growth, its adherents from distinguished families, its spread all over Rome.”[50]
The foregoing contemporary witnesses, including the testimony of the Church to the size and numbers of the Christian congregation, speak of the Roman Christians with two notable exceptions--the pagan Pliny and the Christian Tertullian. The others, including Clement of Rome, Hermas, Justin Martyr, Soter, Irenæus, Cornelius, are specially writing of Rome and the Christian portion of its population.
But, as has been already remarked, what was written of Rome in a greater or less degree applies to other great centres of population in the Empire, notably to such centres as Antioch and Ephesus, Alexandria and Carthage.
II
THE ASSEMBLIES OF CHRISTIANS
The Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline and other New Testament Epistles, bear witness to the favourable reception of the preaching of the new faith. Paul’s success in Macedonia, Achaia, in the province of Asia, and in Galatia had been extraordinary. Peter in his First Epistle addresses the converts already scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Paul again expressly mentions in a letter to the Roman Christians, that the faith of the Roman Church was spoken of throughout the whole world.
The story of the progress of Christianity was taken up by the pagan writers Tacitus and Pliny, and was dwelt upon by Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Hermas, Justin, Irenæus, and the other Christian writers of the first and second centuries already quoted.
Thus the great numbers of Christians in Rome and in other centres dating from primitive days, already dwelt upon with some detail, is a clear and indisputable fact.
Nothing did more for the progress and extension of the Christian religion than the constant meeting together, the assemblies of the various congregations of believers.
This was recognized from the earliest days. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 25) a solemn injunction to Christians not “to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.”
Definite allusions to such “assemblies of believers” occur in the New Testament writings, in the Acts and in the Epistles, _e.g._ 1 Cor. xi. 20 and following verses, Jas. ii. 2-4.
The importance attached to these meetings of believers by the rulers and teachers of the Church of the first days, is manifest from the chain of reminders and injunctions to the faithful which exists in the contemporary writings we possess of leading Christians, dating from the latter years of the first and all through the second and third centuries.
The words they heard, and the matters decided upon at these gatherings, more or less coloured and guided the life and conduct of Christians in the world. From the first the Sunday meeting seems to have been obligatory; but these meetings of the brethren were by no means confined to the general assembly on Sunday. So we read in the _Didaché_ (the Teaching of the Apostles), a writing probably dating from the latter years of the first century: “Thou shalt seek out every day the company of the Saints, to be refreshed by their words.”[51] “Let us,” writes Clement, bishop of Rome (_circa_ A.D. 95), “ourselves then being gathered together in concord with intentness of heart, cry unto Him as from one mouth earnestly, that we may be made partakers of His great and glorious promise.”[52]
So S. Ignatius (_circa_ A.D. 107-10) in his Epistle to the Ephesian Church[53] writes: “Do your diligence therefore to meet together more frequently for thanksgiving to God, and for His glory; for when ye meet together frequently the powers of Satan are cast down, and his mischief cometh to nought in the concord of your faith.”
In his letter to Polycarp he says: “Let meetings be held more frequently.”[54]
Barnabas (_circa_ A.D. 120-30): “Keep not apart by yourselves, as if you were already justified; but meet together, and confer upon the common weal.”[55]
Justin Martyr--in his first _Apology_, written in the middle of the second century--describes these meetings of the brethren with some detail.[56]
A very striking passage occurs in a writing of Theophilus, the sixth bishop of Antioch, addressed to his friend Autolycus. Its date is between A.D. 168 and A.D. 181. The power which these meetings of the brethren exercised over the life of Christians is described as follows:
“As in the Sea there are Islands ... with havens and harbours in which the storm-tossed may find refuge, so God has given to the world, which is driven and tempest-tossed by sins, assemblies ... in which survive the doctrines of the truth, as in the island-harbours of good anchorage; and into these run those who desire to be saved ... and who wish to escape the wrath and judgment of God.”[57]
III
OF WHOM WERE THESE ASSEMBLIES OF BELIEVERS COMPOSED?
From the very first days, it is certain that the assemblies or congregations of the Christians were made up of all classes and orders of the people. The lower classes, including slaves, freedmen, artisans, small traders, no doubt were in the majority; but from the beginning, persons of position, culture, and even of rank were certainly reckoned among them.
In the days of the apostles we hear of many such. Among the earliest believers were reckoned a Nicodemus, a Joseph of Arimathea, a Barnabas, a Sergius Paulus. In Acts vi. 7 mention is made of a great company of the priests obedient to the faith. Chapter x. tells us of the centurion who sent for S. Peter. Paul himself and Stephen were men of high culture. Priscilla the wife of Aquila and the Phoebe of Rom. xvi. 1 were evidently persons of considerable means. Others might be named in these categories. S. James (ii. 14) in his picture of one of these meetings alludes to the presence of the rich among the worshippers. Tacitus speaks of a lady of distinguished birth (_insignis femina_) who evidently belonged to the Christian ranks; and very shortly after, some near connexions of the imperial house of Domitian were persecuted for their faith.
Pliny, when he wrote to Trajan, tells him how many of all ranks in the province of Bithynia had joined the Christian sect.
Ignatius in the early years of the second century, writing to the Roman Church, gives utterance to his fear lest influential members of the Church should intercede for him, and so hinder his being exposed to the beasts in the amphitheatre games.
Roman Christians of wealth and position are clearly alluded to by Hermas in the _Shepherd_ (Comm. x. 1), and he assumes the presence of such in the Roman congregation (Simil. i. etc.)
In the famous dialogue of Minucius Felix, _circa_ A.D. 160, the speakers belong to the higher ranks; these under thinly disguised names were probably actual personages well known in their day. The scene and story of the writing, the class of argument brought forward, all evidently issued from and were addressed to a highly cultured circle.
In the writings of Justin Martyr, dating from about the middle of the second century, are various references to the presence of wealthy and cultured persons in the Christian congregation of Rome.
Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, whose pictures of Christian life belong to the latter years of the second century, bear ample testimony to the same fact. Clement even wrote a special treatise entitled, _What rich man can be saved?_ in which he refers not to pagans whose conversion to Christianity was to be aimed at, but to those who were Christians and at the same time wealthy.[58]
Tertullian again and again refers to the presence of the rich and the noble in the Christian Churches, in such passages where he speaks of thousands of every age and rank among the brethren--of officials of the Empire, of officers of the imperial household, of lawyers, and even of men of senatorial rank. In his passionate appeals, too, he singles out fashionable ladies, and dwells on their costly dress and jewels.
But the most striking proof of the presence of many high-born and wealthy members of the Christian Brotherhood in this congregation dating from primitive times, after all exists in that wonderful City of the Dead beneath the suburbs of Rome which is now being explored.
These Roman catacombs, as they are termed, in the large majority of cases in the first instance began in the villa gardens of the rich, and were, as time went on, enlarged by their owners in order to offer the hospitality of the tomb to their poorer brothers and sisters.
As we shall see in our chapter dealing with these all-important memories of early Roman Christianity, as cemetery after cemetery is examined we come upon more and more relics in marble and stone which tell of great and powerful Roman families who had thrown in their lot with the despised and persecuted people who had accepted the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and who, in common with the slave and petty tradesman, shared in the hard trials of the Christian life, and welcomed the joys and solace of the glorious Christian hope.
These striking memories of the Christian dead, who in life bore great names and possessed ample means, date from the first century onward. One of the more famous of these very early catacombs, the cemetery of Domitilla, was the work of the members of the imperial family--of near relatives of the Emperor Domitian.
Indeed the composition of the meetings of the Christian Brotherhood varied very little from the days of Peter and Paul to the era of the Emperor Constantine. The numbers of these assemblies, however, increased with strange rapidity. There were, of course, in primitive times but few of these assemblies. By the end of the third century there were in the city of Rome some forty basilicas, each with its separate staff of ministers and its individual congregation.[59]
IV
WHAT WAS SAID AND DONE IN THESE ASSEMBLIES AND MEETINGS OF THE BRETHREN
Justin Martyr in his first _Apology_, which was written, before A.D. 139, gives us a good picture of one of these primitive Christian assemblies in Rome. The early date of this writing enables us to form an accurate idea of the outward procedure of one of these most important factors in the Christian life in the first half of the second century.
Justin has been explaining the nature of the Eucharist; he then goes on to say: “We continually remind each other of these things. And the rich among us help the poor, and we always keep together; and for all things which are given us, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the ‘Memoirs of the Apostles’ or the writings of the Prophets are read, as time allows; then when the reader has done, the president (of the assembly), in an address, instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of the good things (which had formed the subject of the address). Then we all rise and pray; and when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability; and the people assent, saying, Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given; and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.
“And they who are well-to-do and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows, and those who through sickness or any other cause are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the stranger sojourning among us--in a word, takes care of all who are in need.
“Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly.”
Justin goes on to explain the reason of the choice of Sunday, dwelling especially on the fact of Jesus Christ having risen from the dead on that day.
Such is a sketch of the framework of one of these primitive meetings of the Christian Brotherhood, drawn by an eye-witness some time in the first half of the second century, at most thirty or forty years after S. John’s death.
It is a little picture of a gathering composed of all sorts and conditions of men and women, of slaves and freedmen, of artisans, tradesmen, and soldiers, with a certain admixture of cultured and wealthy persons, drawn together in the first instance by the pressure of the burden of the awful sadness of life, by a belief, hazy at first, but growing clearer and more definite every day, as the congregation listened to these teachers who dwelt on the words and acts of the Divine Redeemer who had visited this earth for their sakes.
For they came together to hear more of the Redeemer who had sojourned so lately among men. They listened while the Christian teacher who presided over the gathering explained the historic words, the commandments and promises of that pitiful, loving Master who had entered into their life; they would then partake of the mystic Eucharist feast together; and as they partook of the sacred bread and wine as He had bidden His followers to do in memory of Him and His death and suffering for their sakes, they would feel He was indeed in their midst, and that new life, new hope were theirs.
The dogmatic teaching in these early assemblies was very simple, but strangely sublime. It was given in a language every one could understand. It went home to the hearts of all--of the wise and unlearned alike. The story of the Gospels, the wonderful words of the Master--were at once the text and subject of every sermon and exposition.
We have among our precious reliquiæ of the earliest days enough to show us what was the groundwork of this primitive teaching.
An _atonement_ had been made by the Divine One who had come among men; He had suffered for them, and by His suffering had redeemed them. In all the earliest Christian writings which we possess, this great truth is repeated again and again. With adoring gratitude the Christian Brotherhood loved and worshipped Him. Jesus Christ was the centre of all their hopes--the source of their strange, newly found happiness.[60]
Very briefly we will quote a very few of these important dogmatic sayings pressed home to the believers when they met together.
_Clement of Rome_--_circa_ A.D. 95:
“Let us fix our eyes on _the blood of Christ_, and understand how precious it is unto His Father, because being _shed for our salvation_.”--_Ep._ i. 7.
“Let us fear the Lord Jesus whose blood was given for us.”--_Ep._ i. 11.
“Jesus Christ our Lord hath given His blood for us, by the will of God ... His life for our lives.”--_Ep._ i. 49.
_Ignatius of Antioch_--_circa_ A.D. 107-10.
“It is evident to me that you are living not after men but after Jesus Christ who died for us, that believing on His death ye might escape death.”--_Ep. ad Trall._ 2.
“Him (Jesus Christ) I seek, who died on our behalf; Him I desire, who rose again (for our sake).”--_Ep. ad Rom._ 6.
After relating the passion of the Cross, Ignatius went on to say: “For He suffered these things for our sakes (that we might be saved).”--_Ep. ad Smyrn._ 1, 2.
“Even the heavenly beings, and the glory of the angels, and the rulers visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ (who is God), judgment awaiteth them also.”--_Ep. ad Smyrn._ 6.
“Await Him ... the Eternal, the Invisible, who became visible for our sakes; the Impalpable, the Impassible, who suffered for our sake, who endured in all ways for our sake.”--_Ep. ad Polycarp_, 3.
_Epistle to Diognetus_,--early in second century,--an anonymous writing:
“He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the Holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal.”
“For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other One was it possible that we, the wicked and the ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God?”
“Oh sweet exchange! Oh unsearchable operation! Oh benefits surpassing expectation! that the wickedness of many shall be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”
“Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Saviour who is able to save even those things which it was (formerly) impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to deem Him our Minister--Father--Teacher--Counsellor--Healer--our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power and Life.”--_Ep. ad Diog._ ix.
_Shepherd_ of Hermas--written _circa_ A.D. 140.
“He Himself (the Son of God) then having purged away the sins of the people, showed them the paths of life, by giving them the law which He received from His Father.”
_Epistle of Barnabas_--written _circa_ A.D. 120-50:
“For to this end the Lord endured to deliver up His flesh to corruption, that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins, which is effected by His blood of sprinkling.”--_Ep. Barnabas_, v.
“If, therefore, the Son of God, who is Lord (of all things), and who will judge the living and the dead, suffered, that His stroke might give us life, let us believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sakes.”--_Ep. Barnabas_, vii.
“Thou shalt love Him that created thee, thou shalt glorify Him that redeemed thee from death.”--_Ep. Barnabas_, xix.
_Justin Martyr_--writing between _circa_ A.D. 114 and A.D. 165:
“Isaiah,” wrote Justin, “did not send you to a laver, there to wash away murder and other sins; but those who repented were purified by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death, who died for this very reason.”--_Dial. with Trypho_, xiii.
Writing of Jesus Christ, Justin comments thus on the words written by Moses as prophesied by the patriarch Jacob: “He shall wash his garments with wine, and his vesture with the blood of the grape.” This signified that “He (Jesus Christ) would wash those who believe in Him with His own blood.”--_Dial. with Trypho_, liv.
“If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up”....
“For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family”....
“If His Father wished Him to suffer thus in order that by His stripes the human race might be healed.”--_Dial. with Trypho_, xcv.
“And as the blood of the Passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed.”--_Dial. with Trypho_, cxi.
In well-nigh all these reliquiæ of the earliest Christian teaching, copious use was made of that wonderful 53rd chapter of Isaiah, in which the Hebrew seer sketched with a startling accuracy of detail some of the leading features of the awful drama of the Divine Atonement for all sin.[61] The scene of this drama was the storied Holy City, and the One who made the great Atonement was He who on earth was known as Jesus Christ and in heaven as the Son of God.
The above “Catena Aurea” (golden chain) of passages is taken from the works we possess of the earliest teachers of Christianity who wrote in the fifty years immediately following the passing of S. John the beloved apostle, and they tell us exactly what was _the_ doctrine pressed home to the Brotherhood in the early assemblies of Christians of which we are here speaking.
There were other dogmas, no doubt, included in the teaching of these early assemblies and meetings, such as the resurrection of the flesh; the great reckoning before the Judge, at which even the just would tremble were it not that the Judge was at the same time their Redeemer and loving Friend. The unspeakable joys of Paradise, the garden of their God and Saviour, were constantly dwelt upon, and the good glad tidings would fall like dew from heaven upon the world-weary, sad-eyed listeners.
But the great doctrine of the “Atonement,” at once simple and sublime, so repeatedly pressed home in the above-quoted words of the earliest teachers, was no doubt the strongest inducement which drew the Christian folk to meet often together--was _the_ link which bound them into one brotherhood, and knit them at the same time to the loving Master.
It was a new preaching, this secret of the great love of God which passeth understanding, and one that excited wonderful and soul-stirring fears and hopes, and which filled the small dark corridors and low-browed chapels of the Roman catacombs which the faithful often used as meeting-homes for teaching and for prayer, with what seemed to the groups of worshippers verily a Divine light; and to these early Christian worshippers, the gloomy rough-hewn sleeping-places of the dead, through which the pilgrim traveller now wanders and wonders, seemed to them the very ante-chambers of heaven.
We have dwelt with some insistence upon the dogmatic teaching which without doubt formed a part, and that by no means an inconsiderable part, of the procedure of the primitive gatherings of Christians; for it is often urged that the great bond which united the brethren of the very early Church was only the beautiful mutual love and charity urged in these gatherings.
There is some truth in this assertion. It was a new life which was preached, and to a certain extent lived, by the Christian Brotherhood. It was a life quite different to anything which had existed before the Redeemer went in and out among men. We shall dwell on it presently; but it must never be forgotten that the mainspring of this new life was the doctrine of the Cross--of the _Atonement_ made by that Divine One who had founded the new religion.
The belief in the supreme Divinity of Jesus, who had come from heaven to redeem men, was the foundation story of the wonderful love and boundless charity which lived in their midst,--a love which charmed the hearts of all sorts and conditions of men, and attracted more and ever more weary and heavy-laden men and women to join the company of Christians.
ALMSGIVING
The duty and delight of materially assisting the poor and sad-eyed brothers and sisters of the community became an absorbing passion in the lives of very many of the rich and well-to-do members of each congregation; and in populous centres the abundance of the alms publicly contributed or privately given is a sure indication that many well-to-do and even wealthy persons were at an early date numbered among the Christians.
The splendid charities of the Church of the first days no doubt did much to bring about the rapid progress of the religion of Jesus. There was an intense reality in the love of the Christians of the first days for one another. “See,” says Tertullian (_Apol._ xxxix.), quoting from the pagan estimate of the new society, “how they love one another.” So Cæcilius (in _Minucius Felix_, ix.) tells us “they love one another almost before they are acquainted.”
Justin Martyr, in his picture already quoted of a Christian assembly in the first half of the second century, speaks, as we have seen, in detail of the destination of the alms collected.[62]
Tertullian, writing in the last years of the same century on what took place at these meetings of the brethren, relates how “each of us puts in a small amount one day in the month, or whenever he pleases, but only if he pleases, and if he is able; for there is no compulsion in the matter, every one contributing of his own free will. The amounts so collected are expended on poor orphans, in support of old folk, ... on those who are in the mines, or exiled, or in prison, so long as their distress is for the sake of God’s fellowship.”
We notice how often it is repeated that all these offerings are purely voluntary--the idea of communism[63] was absolutely unknown in the Church of the first days. The fact that there were rich and poor is ever acknowledged. This is especially marked in the tombs of the catacombs, where the rich were laid to sleep in costly and even in splendidly adorned chambers, leading out of the corridors where the bodies of the poorer ones were tenderly and reverently buried, but in far humbler and unadorned resting-places.
In less that fifty years after Tertullian’s time, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, in a letter written _circa_ A.D. 250 (quoted by Eusebius, _H. E._ vi. 43), gives us a fairly exhaustive catalogue of the officials and the persons in distress supported by the voluntary contributions of the Roman Brotherhood. He enumerates forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and doorkeepers, together with fifteen hundred widows and persons in poverty maintained constantly by the alms of the faithful.
It is evident from the references in writings of the second century that almsgiving in the Church of the first days occupied in the hearts of believers a higher place, a far more important position, than it filled in the dogmatic teaching of mediæval and yet later times.
The immeasurable work effected by the blessed Redeemer is never minimized by the earliest and most weighty of the Christian teachers, as we have seen in our little chain of quoted passages; but it is indisputable that they considered that something might be done by men themselves. Alms, according to these early instructors, held a very high position in the new beautiful life they taught men who loved the Lord to strive after.
We will quote a few prominent examples of this very early teaching which, of course, was pressed home to the Brotherhood who gathered together in these primitive assemblies; and to a large extent we see that this somewhat peculiar dogmatic teaching concerning the value of almsgiving had a marked and striking effect upon the listeners.
For instance, in the _Didaché_ (Teaching of the Apostles), written in the last years of the first century, we read:
“If thou possessest (anything) by thy hands, thou shalt give a ransom for thy sins.”--_Didaché_, iv.
This was no new idea in Hebrew theology; see Dan. iv. 27: “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shoving mercy to the poor.” See Prov. xvi. 6, and also Tob. xii. 8, 9.
So in the _Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs_, put out in the first quarter of the second century:
“For in proportion as a man is pitiful to the poor, will the Lord be pitiful towards him” (Zabulon 7).
“Almsgiving therefore is a good thing, even as repentance from sin. Fasting is better than prayer, but almsgiving than both; and ‘love covereth a multitude of sins,’[64] but prayer out of a good conscience delivereth from death. Blessed is every man that is found full of these. For almsgiving lifteth off the burden of sin.”--_2nd Epistle of Clement_ (part of an ancient homily put out _circa_ A.D. 130 to 150).[65]
_S. Cyprian_ about the middle of the third century develops almsgiving into a formal means of grace, and indeed assigns a distinct propitiatory value to alms, representing them as a means of prolonging the effectiveness of baptism and abolishing subsequent frailties.[66]
_Lactantius_--_Inst._ vi. 12--_circa_ end of fourth century:
“Mercy has a great reward (_magna est misericordiæ merces_), for God promises to it that He will remit all sins.”
_S. Chrysostom_ speaks of this as “the medicine for our sins.”
In the _Apostolical Constitutions_, vii. 12 (probably put out in the form that we possess them _circa_ the end of the fourth or early in the fifth century), we read:
“If thou hast (acquired anything by the work of thy hands) give, that thou mayest labour for the redemption of thy sins; for by alms and acts of faith sins are purged away.”
All this is somewhat an exaggerated development of a teaching which in the primitive Church undoubtedly elevated almsgiving to a chief place in Christian practice; but that charity and kindness to the poor and needy in primitive times often were regarded positively as _a formal means of grace_, is clear from the weighty early references just quoted, such honoured names as Cyprian and later even Chrysostom appearing among the supporters of this view. That it was an exaggerated estimate is, however, clear from the plain words of Paul in his exquisite Psalm of Love (1 Cor. xiii.), where under the general term of love or charity he expressly includes much besides mere almsgiving.
But, apart from this somewhat curious development and perhaps exaggerated view, there remains the undisputed fact that almsgiving was urged upon the primitive congregations of Christians with a force and insistency quite unknown in mediæval and modern times; and the splendid voluntary generosity to the poor and needy and forlorn on the part not only of the well-to-do, but of all who had anything to give, however little, was no doubt a most important element in the rapid extension of the Christian religion. It demonstrated, as nothing else could, the real and intense love of Christians one for the other. It was verily a brotherhood, and constantly, even in the most exalted quarters,[67] evoked the grudging admiration of the bitterest foes of the religion of Jesus.
* * * * *
So numerous, so touching, so insistent are the early references here, that it would be simply impossible to quote even a small part of them. But a very few examples from early writings will, however, show what was the nature of the exhortations and teaching here which we know were pressed home in every one of these early gatherings of the Christian Brotherhood.
The _1st Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians_ (_circa_ A.D. 90 or earlier) has been well described as matchless in early Christian literature as an elaborate and effective piece of writing, lit up with all the brotherly affection of the Church.
Such sentences as these occur in the Epistle: “Who did not proclaim your splendid hospitality (to strangers)--you did everything without respect of persons ... you are more ready to give than to take. Day and night you agonized for all the Brotherhood, that by means of comparison and care the number of God’s elect might be saved. You never rued an act of kindness, but were ready for every good work.”
In the _Didaché_ (Teaching of the Apostles) we come across such directions as--
“To every one that asketh thee give, and ask not back; for to all the Father wishes to give of His own gracious gifts.”
“Blessed is he that giveth.... Let thine alms drop like sweat into thy hands, so long as thou knowest to whom thou givest.” This last injunction, from the way it is introduced, is probably a reference to some unwritten traditional saying spoken by our Lord Himself.--_Didaché_, i.
“Thou shalt not hesitate to give, nor in giving shalt thou murmur.”--_Didaché_, iv.
“Thou shalt not turn away from the needy, but thou shalt share all things with thy brother; and thou shalt not say that they are thine own: for if ye are fellow partakers in that which is immortal, how much more in things which are mortal.”--_Didaché_, iv.
_Aristides_--_circa_ A.D. 130-40:
“They (the Christians) love one another, and from the widows they do not turn away their countenance, and they rescue the orphan ... and he who has, gives to him who has not without grudging ... and if they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their Messiah, all of them provide for his needs.... And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast two or three days, that they may supply the needy with their necessary food.”[68]--_Apol._ xv.
_Hermas_--_Shepherd_--_circa_ A.D. 135-40:
“You know that you, servants of God, dwell in a foreign land, for your city is far from this city. If, then, you know the city where you are to dwell, why provide yourselves here with fields and costly luxuries? He who makes such provision for this city has no mind to return to his own city.... Instead of fields, then, buy souls in trouble as each of you is able. Visit widows and orphans, and neglect them not; expend on such fields and houses, God has given you your wealth and all your gains. The Master endowed you with riches that you might perform such ministries for Him.
“Far better is it to buy fields, possessions, houses of this kind. Thou wilt find them in thine own city when thou dost visit it. Such expenditure is noble and joyous: it brings gladness, not fear and sorrow.”--Simil. i.
Harnack, _Mission, etc., of Christianity_ (book ii. chap. i.), commenting on this passage of the _Shepherd_, has an interesting and suggestive Note, in which he says: “For all the vigour of his counsel, however, it never occurs to Hermas that the distinction between the rich and the poor should cease within the Church. This is plain from the next Similitude or Parable (ii.). The saying of Jesus, too, S. John xii. 8, ‘The poor ye have always with you,’ shows that the abolition of the distinction between rich and poor was never contemplated in the Church.”
_Hermas_--_Shepherd_.--“Not hesitating as to whom you are to give or not to give, for God wishes His gifts to be shared by all.”--Comm. 2.
“Rescuing the servants of God from necessities--being hospitable, for in hospitality good-doing finds a field.”--Comm. 8.
_Polycarp_--_Epistle_ (written early in the second century):
“In love of the brotherhood, kindly affectioned one to another ... when ye are able to do good, defer it not, for pitifulness delivereth from death.”--_Epistle_, 10.
A short sketch of the practical side of the teaching current at these meetings of the brethren will complete our description of these primitive Christian gatherings. The teaching dwelt on duties for the most part absolutely novel to the Roman world of the first and second centuries of our era. The inescapable duties pressed home to the listeners were duties generally quite unknown to noble, artisan, or slave in Roman society of the first three centuries. If carried out they would essentially change the old view of life current in all grades of the Roman world.
As before, we draw our information exclusively from the remains of very early Christian letters (Epistles) and tractates of well-known and honoured teachers in the Brotherhood which have been preserved to us.
The practical side of the teaching current in the gatherings was very largely based on the strange, beautiful, but perfectly novel saying of the Founder of the religion. It was, in fact, a new language which was used:
“_Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself._” The instructions given in the early assemblies defined the term “neighbour,” and explained how the love enjoined was to be especially shown.
Now in all the early Christian writings the persons to be helped in the first place seem invariably to have been “_the widows and orphans_” of the new Society; for example, _S. James_, the Lord’s disciple, writes how “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widow in their affliction,” etc. (i. 27).
_Hermas_--_circa_ A.D. 135-40--in his list of good deeds which ought to be done, after faith and the fear of the Lord--love, concord, words of righteousness, truth, patience--places “the helping widows, looking after orphans.”--_Shepherd_, Comm. viii.
_Aristides_--_circa_ A.D. 130-40--has been already quoted.
_Clement of Rome_--_circa_ A.D. 90--gives as one of his quotations: “He--the Master of the Universe--saith, ... Give judgment for the orphan, and execute righteousness for the widows.”--_1 Epistle_, 8.
_Lactantius_--_circa_ last years of fourth century--in his catalogue of the different kinds of benevolence and works of mercy which had especially been enjoined on Christians, twice dwells on this peculiar work, and then writes: “Nor is it less a great work of justice to protect and defend orphans and widows who are destitute and stand in need of assistance, and therefore that Divine Law prescribes this to all,” etc.... And again: “For God, to whom everlasting mercy belongs, commands that widows and orphans should be defended and cherished, that no one through regard and pity for his loved ones should be prevented from suffering death (_i.e._ martyrdom)” ... “but should meet it with promptitude and faith, since he knows that he leaves his beloved ones to the care of God, and that they will never want protection.” This last telling argument repeated by Lactantius had been, no doubt, frequently taught in the days of stress and trial.
These very early references might be multiplied; we find this injunction again and again repeated. It is no exaggeration to assert that among the poor and sad-eyed ones placed before the congregations of believers to help, the poor widow and the orphan occupy the first place.
_The Sick._--The visiting the sick and distributing the alms of the brethren, public and private, were also urged as an inescapable duty. This stood in the forefront of all their exhortations, and the injunction was ever generously responded to. To quote references here, where they are so very numerous, would be superfluous. Lactantius’ words, in his summary above referred to, will suffice to show what was the mind of the Church, and how this wish of the Master’s had been constantly urged.
Justin Martyr has well summarized the loved duty--“To undertake the care and support of the sick, who need some one to assist them, is the part of the greatest kindness, and is of great beneficence; and he who shall do this, will both offer a living sacrifice to God, and that which he has given to another for a time he will himself receive from God for eternity.”--Justin, vi. 12.
So prominent a place did the giving of alms to the sick occupy among the exhortations addressed to the Christians of the first days, that the injunctions to succour the sick sufferers seem not infrequently to have been extended beyond the circle of the “Household of faith.” We find S. Cyprian, for instance, on the occasion of the great plague of Carthage, A.D. 252, telling, in one of his addresses, his audience that to cherish our own people was nothing wonderful, but surely he who would become perfect must do more; he must love even his enemies, as the Lord admonishes and expects.
“It is our duty not to fall short of our splendid ancestry.” In the saintly bishop’s own grand untranslatable words--“Respondere nos decet natalibus nostris.”[69] The Christians of Carthage, as their reply, at once raised amongst themselves an abundant fund, and forming a company for the succour of the sick, absolutely helped all without any inquiry as to whether the sick sufferers were pagan or Christian.--Pontius, _Life of Cyprian_.
Eusebius (_H. E._ ix. 8) gives a pathetic picture of the great pestilence which raged at the end of the third century, and notices the devoted behaviour of the Christians to all the sick and dying, without reference to the sufferer’s creed.
This splendid altruism of the “Godless Galilean” was markedly referred to by the Emperor Julian--“Not only their own poor, but ours do they care for,” wrote the great Emperor; “_our poor_ lack our care,” was his bitter reproach to paganism.--_Letter to Arsacius._
_Hospitality_ was another urgent recommendation pressed home by the early Christian teachers to their flocks. Clement of Rome (quoted above) in the first century dwells on this special virtue in his Letter to the Corinthian Church.
The _Didaché_--_circa_ end of first century--dwells on this. “If he who comes is a traveller, help him to the best of your ability” (chap. xii.).
Much is said in this very early treatise on the duty of caring for strangers, but care is specially enjoined to guard against any imposture here.
_Hermas_ in the _Shepherd_ writes: “In hospitality, good-doing finds a field” (Comm. viii.).
_Aristides_, quoted above, tells us how Christians “when they see the stranger, bring him to their dwellings, and rejoice over him as over a true brother.”
_Justin Martyr_ (quoted above), in his picture of a Christian meeting on Sunday, especially directs that out of the alms contributed by the faithful, among those who were to be succoured were “the strangers sojourning amongst us.”--1 _Apol._ lxvii.
_Melito of Sardis_--so Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 26, tells us--wrote a treatise “on hospitality.”
_Cyprian_ expressly directs that the expenses of any stranger who may happen to be in want, be paid out of certain moneys he had left for that purpose.--_Ep._ vii.
Among other direct references to this duty may be quoted Tertullian, _ad Uxor._ ii. 4, and the _Apost. Constit._ iii. 3; the Emperor Julian in his Letter to Arsacius wishes the pagans would imitate these Christian practices.
This striking and unique custom, which no doubt very largely contributed to the feeling of Christian brotherhood, was, of course, based upon the directions so often repeated in the New Testament Epistles.
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” Heb. xiii. 2. “Distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality,” Rom. xii. 13. “Use hospitality one to another, without grudging,” 1 Pet. iv. 9. “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers,” 3 John 5, etc.
This urgent recommendation to practise hospitality in the New Testament Epistles of Peter and Paul, of John and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, repeated with insistence and earnestness by writers of the second and third centuries, was, as Justin Martyr tells us in his picture of the Sunday gathering of Christians, incorporated among the special exhortations to the brethren urging them to generous almsgiving.
The duty of “hospitality” thus pressed home at these gatherings as important enough to rank with the claims of the widow and the orphan and the sick poor, needs a few words of explanation.
In the early days of Christianity it must be borne in mind that the widely extended world of Rome was not as in mediæval and modern times, made up of different nations and peoples, but that the Roman world was all one, that men were fellow-subjects of one great Empire, and that the passing to and fro from land to land was far more common than in after times; and that Christians, whether belonging to Asia or to Greece, to Italy or to Gaul, made up one great Brotherhood.
For a Christian coming into a strange city to find there at once a home and a warm welcome, and if poor and needy, help and assistance, would constitute a very powerful inducement to very many to join the new Society in which lived such a spirit of loving brotherhood and kindness.
Special means of intercourse through letters and messages and other means were provided. Cæcilius in _Minucius Felix_ (c. ix.), an early writing, as we have said, belonging to the middle of the second century or even earlier, especially tells us that “Christians recognize each other by means of secret marks and signs, and love one another almost before they are acquainted.”
It was to give effect to this far-reaching spirit of brotherhood that the apostles and their successors insisted so earnestly upon the new and beautiful duty of “hospitality.” It was a practical proof that all Christians were really brothers and sisters--“that goodness among the Christians was not an impotent claim or a pale ideal, but a power which was developed on all sides, and was actually exercised in common everyday life.”
We have dwelt at some length upon what were the principal objects to which the alms of the Brotherhood, asked so earnestly at the various weekly assemblies, were devoted; there were, however, other “causes” pleaded for besides these--no doubt principally in such great centres as Rome, where a proportion of rich and well-to-do persons formed part of the little gatherings; of these, relief and assistance to “prisoners of the faith” occupy a prominent place.
There were many Christians, especially in the more acute periods of persecution, who were arrested and imprisoned by the government, and not a few condemned to the harsh discipline of the mines. Justin Martyr especially names assistance to imprisoned Christians as one of the regular objects to which a portion of the collections at the “meetings” was devoted. It was ever a matter of love, if not of absolute duty, to help and succour these. “If,” wrote Aristides in his _Apology_ quoted above, “the Christians learn that any one of their number is imprisoned or is in distress for the sake of the Name of Christ, they should all render aid to such a one in his necessity.”--_Apol._ xv.
See, too, among other references, Heb. x. 34; Tert. _ad Mart._ i., and _Apol._ xxxix.
Another and special object of almsgiving pressed upon the faithful was help to other and perhaps distant Churches who from one cause or other were in want. We find this urged upon Christian congregations even in apostolic days.
In S. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians we find various appeals to the generosity of these early communities to assist the Church at Jerusalem. The deep poverty of this famous Church we have already suggested was probably owing to the attempt of the Jerusalem Christians literally to carry out the idea of community of goods.
In the Letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the Roman Church written _circa_ A.D. 170, quoted by Eusebius, _H. E._ iv. 23, we find this generosity referred to as a well-known custom of the comparatively wealthy Roman congregation. “From the very first,” wrote Dionysius, “you have had this practice of aiding all the brethren in many ways, and of sending contributions to many Churches in every city ... by these gifts you keep up the hereditary custom of the Roman Christians, a practice which your bishop, Soter, has not only kept up, but even extended.” In the third century, Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, writing to Stephen, bishop of Rome, alludes to the generous help given to the poor Churches of Syria and Arabia. “To them,” he says, “you send help regularly.”--Euseb. _H. E._ viii. 5.
Ignatius, referring to this noble generosity of the Roman congregations as early as the first years of the second century, styles the Church of Rome as “the leader of love.”
Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, several times mentions how the Church at Carthage, evidently a wealthy community, was in the habit of sending help to other and needy communities.
But there was one department in the novel teaching pressed home by the early Christian teachers which seems at once to have riveted the attention of the listeners, and its universal acceptance at once won extraordinary, possibly an undreamed of popularity in the Christian ranks. It was an entirely new departure from any custom prevalent in the world of Rome--the injunction reverently to care for _the bodies of the dead poor_.
The Emperor Julian in his summary of what he considered the chief points in the hated Christian system which had won them so many hearts, especially calls attention to this. He wrote this remarkable comment here:
“This godlessness (_i.e._ Christianity) is mainly furthered by its charity towards strangers, and its _careful attention to the bestowal of the dead_.”--_Letter to Arsacius_, in Soz. v. 15.
Lactantius in his review of the Christian virtues urged by the great teachers of the new religion, and to a great extent practised in the early centuries, gives a prominent and detailed notice of this pious and loving custom, and strikingly writes as follows: “The last and greatest office of piety is the burying of strangers and the poor,” adding that the noblest pagan teachers of virtue and justice had never touched at all upon this inescapable duty. These had left this, he adds, quite out, because they were unable to see any advantage in it.
Some of these pagan teachers, he goes on to say, even esteemed burial as superfluous, adding that it was no evil to lie unburied and neglected.
The great fourth century writer proceeds at some length to give some of the reasons which had influenced Christians so tenderly to care for their brethren who had fallen asleep: “We will not suffer the image and workmanship of God to lie exposed as a prey to beasts and birds, but we will restore it to earth from which it was taken; and although it be in the case of an unknown person, we will supply the place of relatives, whose place, since they are wanting, let benevolence take.”--Lactantius, _Inst._ vi. 12.
Aristides--middle years of second century--thus dwells upon the tender solicitude of the Christian folk for their dead: “When one of their poor passes away from the world, one of them (the brethren) looks after him, and sees to his burial according to his means.”--_Apol._ xv.
Aristides is here referring to the private charity of individual members of the community, which was often very lavish in the early centuries. Tertullian, on the other hand, writing on the same duty of caring for the brethren, includes the cost of “burying the poor” as coming out of the common fund made up of the money contributed at the public meetings of the Brotherhood.--_Apol._ xxxix.
As the amount required for these burials and the subsequent care bestowed on the places of Christian sepulture was very considerable, the public collections made in the assemblies were necessarily often largely supplemented by private alms.
All this loving care for the remains of the deceased went home to numberless hearts among the survivors of the loved, and evidently ranked high among the reasons which attracted many into the ranks of the Christian Brotherhood.
In our little picture of very early Christian life, Rome and its powerful Church has been generally selected as the scene of the life in question. In this primitive custom of reverent care for the dead,--a care which embraced the very poor as well as the rich and well-to-do, we discern the reasons which led to the first beginnings of the vast city of the Christian dead,--the wonderful city known as the Roman catacombs. This will be carefully described at some length in this work: the building and excavating of the endless corridors, the private chambers, the chapels and meeting-rooms, began even before the close of the first century of the Christian era, and went on for some two centuries and a half--the long-drawn-out age of persecution.
They constitute a mighty and ever-present proof of the accuracy of much that has been advanced in the foregoing pages on the subject of the life led--of the hopes and ideals cherished among the disciples of Jesus in that first stage of anxious trial and sore danger.
The pictures painted below in the chapters treating of the catacombs of Rome are admirable contemporary illustrations of what the writings of Aristides, Tertullian, and Lactantius tell us of the solemn duty to the dead which was insisted upon with such touching eloquence to the primitive congregations of the faithful.
V
THE SLAVE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LIFE
There was ever present in these early assemblies of Christians one class of persons who had no rank, no place in Roman society,--a class in which Cicero had declared that nothing great or noble could exist. Slavery has been well characterized as the “most frightful feature of the corruption of ancient Rome, and it extended through every class of the community.” Economically, “the poor citizen found almost all the spheres in which an honourable livelihood might be obtained, wholly or at least in a very great part preoccupied by slaves.” Morally, “the slave population was a hotbed of vice, and it contaminated all with which it came in contact.”[70]
Now what position did the slave occupy in early Christian society? It is quite clear that the primitive Christians had no idea of abolishing slavery. It was part of the ancient society, and they accepted it even amongst themselves--apparently made no effort to abolish it; but the view they took of it in reality dealt a death-blow to the unhappy and miserable institution. It is true that whilst Christianity gradually modified its most painful and objectionable features by example and by precept, it was only after long, long years that it succeeded by a bloodless revolution to wipe away the awful curse--“The mills of God grind slowly.”
But the New Testament simply directs slaves to be faithful and obedient. In the letter to Philemon, Paul never even hints at the release of the slave Onesimus, who was very dear to him.
In 1 Cor. vii. 20, Paul urges every man to abide in the calling (_i.e._ the state of life or condition) in which he was when he was called to God; and even advises the slave to be content to remain a slave even if the opportunity to become free presents itself; for this is the interpretation which a chain of the best commentators gives to the words “use it rather.” See, too, Eph. vi. 5-9; Tit. ii. 9; 1 Pet. ii. 18.[71]
The earliest Christian writings take the same view of the question of slavery as we find in the Epistles of Paul and Peter. So in the _Didaché_ we read: “Thou shalt not give directions when thou art in anger to thy slave or thy handmaid, who trust in the same God, lest perchance they shall not fear the Lord who is over you both; for He cometh not to call men according to their outward position, but He cometh to those whom the Spirit hath made ready. And ye slaves, ye shall be subject to your masters as to God’s image, in modesty and fear” (chap. iv.).
Aristides writes as follows: “But as for their servants or handmaids, or their children if any of them have any, they (the Christians) persuade them to become Christians, for the love that they have towards them; and when they have become so, they call them without distinction Brethren.”--_Apol._, chap. xv.
But although slavery as an institution[72] was left for the time virtually untouched, Christianity in its own circles worked an immediate and vast change in the condition of the slave: “It supplied a new order of relations, in which the relations of classes were unknown, and it imparted a new dignity to the servile classes.”[73]
In the assemblies of the Christians of the first days on which we have been dwelling, the social difference between master and slave was quite unknown. They knelt side by side when they received the Holy Eucharist. They sat side by side as the instructions were given and the words of the Lord Jesus were expounded. Their prayers ascended together to the mercy-seat of the Eternal. While not unfrequently a slave was promoted to be the teacher; the highest offices in the congregation[74] were now and again filled by chosen members of the slave class. They suffered with their masters, and shared with them the glory of martyrdom.
The Acts of the Martyred Slaves were read to the congregations of the faithful, and the highest honour and veneration was paid to their memory. The slaves Blandina of Lyons, Felicitas of Carthage, Emerentiana of Rome the foster-sister of Agnes, the famous martyr--are names which deservedly rank high in the histories of the early heroines of the Church.
But although slavery was still recognized in the new Society which outwardly made no abrupt changes, which desired no sudden and violent uprooting in the old Society, a marvellous change passed over the ordinary conception of the slave.
An extract from a letter of Paulinus of Nola to Sulpicius Severus, the disciple and biographer of S. Martin of Tours (_circa_ the last years of the fourth century), will give some idea of the regard so largely entertained by Christian thinkers for the slave members of the community. Thanking Sulpicius for a young slave he had sent him, Paulinus of Nola, recognizing in the slave an earnest and devout soul, writes to his friend as follows: “He has served me, and woe is me that I have allowed him to be my servant--that he who was no servant of sin, should yet be in the service of a sinner! Unworthy that I am, every day I suffered him to wash my feet; and there was no menial duty he would not have performed had I allowed him, so unsparing was he of his body--so watchful for his soul. Ah, it is Jesus Christ that I venerate in this young man; for surely every faithful soul proceeds from God, and every humble man of heart comes from the very heart of Christ.”[75]
There is little doubt but that this authoritative teaching of the Christian masters in the matter of the perfect equality of the slave in the eyes of God, and the consequent tender and often loving treatment meted out to the Christian members of the despised and downtrodden class, gravely misliked the more thoughtful among the pagan aristocracy of Rome, and that this teaching and practice of Christians in the case of the vast slave class in the pagan Empire ranked high among the dangers which they felt threatened the existence of the old state of things. Grave considerations of this kind must have strongly influenced the minds of men like Pius and Marcus and their entourage, before they determined to carry out their bitter policy of persecution.
The Romans of the old school could have well afforded to regard with comparative indifference the enfranchisement of any number of Christian slaves. Freedmen, especially in the imperial household, were very numerous in the days of the Antonines. But the teaching that these slaves--_while still slaves_--were their brethren, and ought to be treated with love and esteem, was a new and disturbing thought in the Empire of the great Antonines.
* * * * *
Lecky, in his _History of European Morals_ (chap. iv.), has a fine passage in which he sums up the great features of the new movement of Christian charity, and its results on the world at large. It runs as follows:
“There is no fact of which an historian becomes more steadily or more painfully conscious than the great difference between the importance and the dramatic interest of the subjects he treats. Wars or massacres, the horrors of martyrdom or the splendour of individual prowess, are susceptible of such brilliant colouring that with but very little literary skill they can be so portrayed that their importance is adequately realized, and that they appeal powerfully to the emotions of the reader. But this vast and unostentatious movement of charity, operating in the village hamlets and in the lonely hospital, staunching the widow’s tears and following all the windings of the poor man’s griefs, presents few features the imagination can grasp, and leaves no deep impression upon the mind. The greatest things are those which are most imperfectly realized; and surely no achievements of the Christian Church are more truly great than those which it has effected in the sphere of charity. For the first time in the history of the world it has inspired many thousands of men and women, at the sacrifice of all worldly interests, and often under circumstances of extreme discomfort or danger, to devote their entire lives to the single object of assuaging the sufferings of humanity. It has covered the globe with countless institutions of mercy, absolutely unknown to the whole pagan world. It has indissolubly united in the minds of men the idea of supreme goodness with that of active and constant benevolence.”
The foundation stories of all this vast movement of charity and altruistic love were laid in the early years of Christianity.
The assemblies--the meetings together of the Christians of the first days--constructed and developed, as we have seen, the laws of charity; indicating the persons who were to be assisted, suggesting, too, the means and resources out of which the sufferers--the forlorn and needy--might be helped and comforted in life and in death.
All that happened subsequently--the mighty organizing work of great masters of charity, such as Basil of Cappadocian Cæsarea, and later of members of the monastic orders--was simply the development, the expansion, the application to individual needs of the primitive ordinances of the first days which we have been sketching out,--ordinances all founded upon the advice, the injunctions, the commands which we find in early Christian writings such as the _Didaché_, the _1st Epistle_ of Clement of Rome, the _Apology_ of Aristides, the _Shepherd_ of Hermas, the writings of Justin Martyr and Minucius Felix, and a very little later in the more elaborate works of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, and repeated in the first half of the third century by eminent teachers such as Origen and Cyprian of Carthage; all primarily based more or less exactly upon the words of the Lord Jesus and of His own immediate disciples.
In the primitive assemblies of the Christian Brotherhood these things formed the groundwork of the instructions and exhortations of the teachers and preachers, and were united with the dogma of the Atonement, with the tidings of immortality, the promises of bliss and eternal peace in the life beyond the grave.
Entering into one of these early assemblies held in an upper chamber or courtyard of a wealthy Christian brother, or in one of those dark and gloomy chambers of the catacombs, “we step,” as it has been well said, “into a whole world of sympathy and of love.”
VI
DIFFICULTIES IN ORDINARY LIFE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
But the rapt moments enjoyed by the men and women who met together in these primitive assemblies soon passed. The perfect realization of brotherhood, the sharing in the mystic Eucharist, the fervent prayers, the dwelling on the sunlit words of their Divine Master, the earnest and pressing injunctions to be generous in charity and almsgiving for the benefit of the forlorn and sick in their company, the feeling that the unseen presence of the Lord was all the while in their midst,--all these things contributed to the joy and gladness which permeated each little assembly; every one who assisted at one of these meetings could whisper in his or her heart the words of the “apostle” on the Mount of Transfiguration--“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
But when the gathering dispersed, a reaction must have quickly set in. From that atmosphere of sympathy, of love and hope, they passed at once into the cold, hard, busy world--into family life--into the workshop, the study, the barrack, and the Forum--all coloured with--permeated by that system of gross and actual idolatry which entered into every home, every trade and profession of the Roman Empire. What was to be their conduct? how were Christians to behave in a world wholly given up to an idolatry they knew was false, and utterly hateful to the Lord whose presence they had just left?
The difficulties of a believer’s life in the early Christian centuries must have been terrible; and it must be borne in mind that these difficulties were not occasional, but of daily, almost of hourly occurrence. To enumerate a few:
1. _In the family_, in domestic life. Consider the position of a Christian slave--of a son or daughter--of a wife--in a pagan family. What scenes of strain and estrangement if one member was a Christian and the household generally clung to the old Roman religion! The son or daughter might wish to be Christ’s disciple, and yet shrink from “hating father and mother, brothers and sisters.” What constant contests would the Christian have to endure--what bitter reproaches--what perpetual danger of giving way and so endangering the immortal soul! What share could the Christian member of a pagan family take in the ordinary business and pleasures of the everyday existence, to say nothing of the extreme peril to which a member of the sect would be constantly subject of being denounced as a Christian to the authorities, who were often too ready to listen to the informer?
2. _In Trade._--Many commercial occupations were more or less closely connected with idol-worship; to say nothing of the makers and decorators of idol-images, a trade that manifestly was impossible for a Christian to be occupied in, there were hosts of artisans employed in the great arenas where the public games were held; then, too, there were the actors--the gladiators--those engaged in the schools and training-homes of these. What were such persons to do?
3. In the ordinary _pleasures of the people_ in which such multitudes took the keenest delight, was the Christian to stand aloof from all these? Was the Christian to attract a painful and dangerous notoriety by refusing to share in such dearly loved amusements, which with rare exceptions were positively hateful to every Christian’s conscience?
4. Was the civil servant or the lawyer to abandon his calling in which the worship of and reverence for the gods of Rome played so prominent a part? Was the soldier, or still more the officer of the Legions, to abandon his post and desert his colours, rather than acquiesce in the daily service and adoration of the gods of Rome. Was he to refuse to pay the customary homage to the awful Cæsar, when the slightest disrespect or failure in homage to this sovereign master, who claimed the rank of Deity, would be construed into treason and disloyalty?
5. _Education._--Could a Christian still continue to be a teacher of the young, seeing that in all the manuals of education a knowledge of the old gods still worshipped in Rome--their myths, their prowess, their various attributes--was carefully taught? The very festivals and sacred days had to be carefully observed by them, since it was by means of these the teachers’ fees were reckoned.
All such and many other like questions had to be considered and weighed by the Christian converts living in the world of Rome. Very thorny and rough was the path which had to be travelled by every earnest Christian in his way through life.
* * * * *
A striking and eloquent apologia for or explanation of the reasons which guided many of the early Christian teachers to advocate a certain feeling of toleration in various circumstances of everyday life may be quoted here:
“The (Roman) Empire was originally developed quite apart from Christianity under the shadow of the worship of the old false gods. Everything in it bore the stamp of idolatry. Its laws and its customs, first framed by patricians who were at once priests and lawgivers, then consolidated by Emperors who ranked first and foremost as sovereign pontiffs of the idol-worship, everything was coloured with and permeated by polytheism. Art--Letters--private customs--all were pagan. There was no public monument but was placed under the guardianship of some heathen deity. No poem was composed without special reference to an idol god; no feast began without a libation to an idol; no household omitted the inescapable duty which directed that a sacred fire should burn before the household gods (Lares). Thus absolutely independent of Christianity, such a civilization must needs be intensely hostile to the new faith, and its hostility never faltered one instant. Differing here from the fixed rule of universal toleration, Roman society from the very first displayed towards Christianity the bitterest contempt--insulting treatment--persecution. The religion of Jesus grew up and spread under circumstances of general ignominy and hatred ... living in such a highly civilized community--mighty and indeed all-powerful--the Church of Christ destroyed nothing, adopted everything, quietly correcting, gently changing and reforming everything, graving the Cross of its Founder on all the institutions of pagan Rome; breathing its inspiration by degrees into all its laws and customs.”[76]
VII
THE ASCETIC AND THE MORE PRACTICAL SCHOOLS OF TEACHING
The members of the Christian Brotherhood were not left without guidance as to their behaviour in the world of Rome. There were _two schools_ among the Christian teachers of authority in the primitive Church.
The one which we will term the school of “Rigourists” or “ascetics” found a brilliant and able exponent in the stern African Father, Tertullian, who taught and wrote in the latter years of the second and the earlier years of the third centuries. From the burning and impassioned words of this famous African teacher we can form a generally accurate idea of what was taught and pressed home in the school of “Rigourists.”
No compromise was ever suggested by these hard, stern teachers--no “via media” was even hinted at.
The artisan must forsake his calling if it even was connected in the most remote degree with idol-worship,[77] with the games loved of the people, with anything which appeared antagonistic to any of the Master’s commands. These words must be understood in their strict literal sense, and must be obeyed.
The soldier must abandon his colours, the civil servant his profession. The slave must at all risks refuse his obedience when that obedience involved acquiescence in any form of idolatry. The Christian wife, the son or daughter in a pagan family, must gently but firmly decline to share even in the formal ancestral worship, or to be present at the public games of the arena, or the performances in the theatre. In their dress and ornaments, in their very language, in their hours of play and work, they must hold themselves aloof. We may picture to ourselves how in many a pagan household, in the Forum, in the army and civil service, gentle, pitying men and women would be found who would shield and shelter these seemingly fanatical and earnest adherents of a despised religion; but in many cases there would be no loving, pitying ones who would strive to throw a kindly veil over what seemed to them such strange, such unpatriotic and even disloyal conduct. Then would assuredly follow arrest--imprisonment--exile--the deadly mines, where the condemned toiled in a hopeless, dreary captivity. Not unfrequently torture and death would be the guerdon of the devoted Christian under circumstances of awful pain and mortal agony.
It is out of this class that the martyrs mostly came. It was to embolden and encourage these that the little known “Schools of Martyrdom” were formed, where very earnest Christians were trained to endure all and suffer for the Name’s sake.[78]
The ascetics, however, were in the minority. There was another school in the primitive Church, strict certainly in its instructions, but more ready to make allowances; less uncompromising in its views of the everyday Christian life; less literal in its interpretation of the Divine Master’s words.
This gentler and more practical school is well represented in the works still preserved to us of several of the great teachers of early Christianity. A very conspicuous example of this school of teaching is the famous Dialogue put together by the North African Latin writer, Minucius Felix. The generally received date of the writing is _circa_ A.D. 160, in the reign of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. It is a work of peculiar charm. One scholar terms it “a golden Book”; another (Renan) styles it “the pearl of Apologetic literature.”
It is cast in the form of a dialogue held by three persons on the then beautiful seashore of Ostia. The speakers are real historic characters of some rank and position in the Roman world in the middle years of the second century. The arguments adduced by the pagan Cæcilius are supposed to be a reproduction of a lost work of Fronto, the tutor and friend of the Emperor Marcus. The refutation of Octavius the wealthy Christian merchant, which follows and which convinced Cæcilius of the truth of the new faith, is the principal piece in the work and the part to which reference is specially made here, and it admirably voices many of the views of the second and gentler school of early Christianity. The criticism of Renan on the view of Christianity taken by Octavius is striking, and fairly accurate. It is, he says, “the conception of the new religion of amiable advocates wishful to enrol in the Christian ranks, men of culture and position. Such men as the Octavius of the Dialogue would never have written the Gospels or the Apocalypse; but, on the other hand, without such liberal interpreters, the Gospels, the Apocalypse, and the Epistles of Paul would have never penetrated beyond the circle of a narrow sect, and in the long run the sect of Christians would have disappeared.” “Minucius Felix,” the great French writer, goes on to say, “represented in those early years the preacher of Nôtre Dâme (in Paris) in our own time, addressing men of the world.”[79]
Christianity, in the eloquent presentment of Octavius, by no means requires the believer to put aside the philosophers and pagan writers whose works he admired. In the argument of Octavius, Christian teaching lives in the pages of Aristotle and Plato. He points out with rare skill and ingenuity that the new religion makes no claim on men to give up their callings and professions; for instance, advocates like Minucius, the author of “the Dialogue,” never dream, save in times of vacation, of leaving the Forum the scene of their life-work. Christians, like other men, busy themselves with the same occupations; so society may surely accept them without any scruples. The cultivation of Art--the study of Letters--are by no means incompatible with the profession of Christianity. The religion of Jesus uses all these things, and using them sanctifies them.
Eminent teachers, such as Clement of Alexandria at the close of the second century in his _Pædagogus_, give directions to believers to enable them to live a Christian life in the world. Origen, in many respects a “Rigourist,” is far from emulating Tertullian in his stern denunciations and warnings; and even such men as the saintly Cyprian, who closed his beautiful life by a voluntary martyrdom, shows by his own example that there were even times and seasons when a Christian by flight might rightly avoid arrest and suffering for the Name’s sake.
In this gentler, more accommodating school it was clear that heathen art was not forbidden. The decoration of even the earlier sepulchral chambers in the Roman catacombs plainly indicates this freedom.
That this policy of the gentler school of early teaching, which countenanced, perhaps suggested, many allowances, especially in matters of purely ceremonial idolatry, was adopted by the majority of believers, is clear from the numbers of Christians who we know lived in the imperial court, served in the army, and occupied positions in the civil service.
For instance, in the imperial court, in the days of S. Paul, we meet with salutations from Christians in Cæsar’s household (Phil. iv. 22).
The well-known “graffito” on the Palatine, of the caricature of a crucifix, is an indication that there were Christians among the imperial pages in the reign of Marcus,[80] A.D. 161-80.
Irenæus (iv. 30) in the last quarter of the second century expressly writes as follows: “And what of those who in the royal palace are believers?”
Marcia, the favourite of Commodus, if not a Christian, was more than kind to the Christian sect; that many Christians were in her circle is certain. Even Tertullian testifies (_Apol._ xxxvi.) to the fact that there were Christians in the palace of the Emperor Septimius Severus, A.D. 193-212.
In the court of Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-35) were many Christians; and it has been supposed, not without some reason, that the Emperor himself was secretly a believer.
Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria (quoted in Euseb. _H. E._ vii. 10), writing of the favourable disposition of the Emperor Valerian towards Christians in the earlier part of his reign, A.D. 253, says: “All his house (court) was filled with pious persons; it was indeed a congregation of the Lord.”
In the first part of Diocletian’s reign, A.D. 284-96, the court of Nicomedia was in great measure composed of Christians; the wife and daughter of the Emperor were believers.
From this chain of references to the presence of Christians in the imperial court from the days of S. Paul to the latter years of the third century, we are compelled to conclude that large allowances on the part of the Emperor were not unfrequently made to the sect, and even that not a few concessions outwardly to take part in the ceremonies of official paganism must have been allowed to the Christian courtier all through the period when Christianity was an unlawful and forbidden religion.
In the army a similar spirit of mutual allowance and concession must have been often shown. It is clear that from the very first there were not a few Christian soldiers in the Legions. There must have been many cases in which the superior officers connived at the scruples of Christian soldiers; while, on the other hand, the Christian Legionary must have consented generally to share in the more public and official ceremonies in which the old worship of the gods was inextricably mixed up. Nowhere were the difficulties, however, for believers more acute than in the army, and the slightest ill-will or pagan bigotry on the part of the superior officer made the position of a Christian soldier absolutely untenable even when the soldier belonged to what we have termed the gentler and more accommodating school of Christian teaching. Martyrs in the army, it has been noticed, were relatively more numerous than in the civil callings.[81]
The civil service contained undoubtedly many Christians in the early centuries of the era; see Aristides (_Apol._ xv.), who, writing of Christians, says: “Where they are judges they judge righteously.” Tertullian refers to the presence of Christians in all ranks, and states how “they could be found in the palace, in the Senate, and in the Forum” (_Ad. Nat._ i. 1 and _Apol._ i.). Cyprian, Ep. lxxx. 1, and other early authorities could be quoted here. Eus. _H. E._