Chapter I: Scope and Character of the Unestablished Church

§ 1. Numbers and Inner Life

Gibbon's fifteenth chapter is still valuable here. Compare Hatch, Organization; Renan, Saint Paul, concluding chapter; and the church historians generally. As to Britain, see Wright's The Roman, the Celt, and the Saxon, 4th ed. 1885. On the personnel and emotional life of the early church compare Louis Ménard, Études sur les origines du Christianisme, 1893; Loisy, L'Évangile et L'Église, 1904; Renan, L'Église Chrétienne and Marc Aurèle; Tertullian, passim; J. A. Farrer, Paganism and Christianity; Dr. John Stoughton, Ages of the Church (pp. 42-43--orthodox admissions).

§ 2. Growth of the Priesthood

Hatch, as before cited, is here a specially good guide; and Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church (trans. in Bohn Lib.), gives a copious narrative (vol. i, sect. ii). On episcopal policy compare the series of popular monographs under the title "The Fathers for English Readers" (S.P.C.K.) and the anonymous treatise On the State of Man Subsequent to the Promulgation of Christianity (1852), Part II, ch. iv. Mosheim (Reid's ed. of Murdock's trans.) here deserves study. The question of priestly morals is handled in almost all histories of the Church. Cp. Gibbon, chs. xxi, xxv, xxxviii. Lea's History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (2nd ed. 1884) is a full and valuable record. As to the papacy see references given below, Part III, ch. i, § 3.

§ 3. The Gnostic Movement in the Second Century

Baur's Die christiche Gnosis (1835) remains perhaps the most comprehensive study of this subject; but C. W. King's The Gnostics and their Remains adds to his elucidations. Matter's Histoire critique du Gnosticisme (2e édit. 1843-44) remains worth study; as is Neander's general account of the Gnostic sects in vol. ii of his General History. See shorter accounts in Baur's Church History (vol. i), in Mosheim's, and in that of Jeremie (1855).

§ 4. Marcionism and Montanism

Neander, Hatch, and Baur, as last cited, give good views. Tertullian, who wrote a treatise Against Marcion, and himself became a Montanist, is a primary authority. See also De Soyres, cited on p. 98.

§ 5. Rites and Ceremonies

Bingham's Christian Antiquities (rep. 1855) gives abundant details; but see also Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. Mosheim traces the development century by century.

§ 6. Strifes over Primary Dogma

These may be followed in brief in Mosheim, or at length in Harnack's History of Dogma, or in Hagenbach's earlier manual, which is more concise. Hatch's Influence of Greek Ideas is light-giving at some points; and Dr. Albert Réville's Histoire du dogme de la divinité de Jésus Christ (2e édit. 1876) is a good conspectus of its subject. For a briefer general view see Stoughton's Ages of the Church, Lect. v and vii. The history of the so-called Apostles' Creed is fully discussed by M. Nicolas, Le Symbole des Apôtres, 1867, and in Harnack's work on the same subject (Eng. tr. 1901).