Chapter II: The Apostolic Age (2)

§ 17.6. =The question about the original position of the
Episcopate and Presbyterate=, as well as their relation to one
another, has received three different answers. According to
the =Roman Catholic= theory, which is also that of the Anglican
Episcopal Church, the clerical, hierarchical arrangement of the
third century, which gave to each of the larger communities a
bishop as its president with a number of presbyters and deacons
subject to him, existed as a divine institution from the
beginning. It is unequivocally testified by the New Testament,
and, as appears from the First Epistle of Clement of Rome (ch. 42,
44, 57), the fact had never been disputed down to the close of
the first century, that bishops and presbyters are identical.
The force of this objection, however, is sought to be obviated by
the subterfuge that while all bishops were indeed presbyters, all
presbyters were not bishops. The ineptitude of such an evasion
is apparent. In Phil. i. 1 the Apostle, referring to this one
particular church greeted not one but several bishops. According
to Acts xx. 17, 28, all the presbyters of the one Ephesian
community are made bishops by the Holy Ghost. Also, Tit. i. 5, 7
unconditionally excludes such a distinction; and according to
1 Pet. v. 2, all such presbyters should be ἐπισκοποῦντες.--In
opposition to this theory, which received the sanction of the
Council of Trent, the =Old Protestant= theologians maintained the
original identity of the two names and offices. In support of
this they could refer not only to the New Testament, but also to
Clement of Rome and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (§ 34, 1),
where, just as in Phil. i. 1, only bishops and deacons are named
as congregational officers, and as appointed by the free choice
of the congregation. They can also point to the consensus of the
most respected church fathers and church teachers of later times.
Chrysostom (Hom. ix. in _Ep. ad Tim._) says: οἱ πρεσβύτεροι
τὸ παλαιὸν ἐκαλοῦντο ἐπίσκοποι καὶ διάκονοι Χριστοῦ, καὶ οἱ
ἐπίσκοποι πρεσβύτεροι. Jerome (_ad Tit._ i. 5) says: _Idem
est presbyter qui et episcopus et antequam diaboli instinctu
studia in religione fierent ... communi presbyterorum concilio
gubernantur ecclesiæ._ Augustine, and other church fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries, as well as Urban II. in A.D. 1091,
Petrus [Peter] Lombardus and the Decree of Gratian, may all
be referred to as supporting the same view. After such an
identification of the person and office, the existence of the two
names must be explained from their meaning as words, by assuming
that the title ἐπίσκοπος, which arose among the Gentile-Christian
churches, pointed more to the duty officially required, while
the title πρεσβύτερος, which arose among the Jewish-Christian
churches, pointed more to the honourable character of the person
(1 Tim. v. 17, 19). The subsequent development of a monarchical
episcopacy is quite conceivable as having taken place in the
natural course of events (§ 34, 2).--A third theory is that
proposed by =Hatch=, of Oxford, in A.D. 1881, warmly approved of
and vigorously carried out by =Harnack=. According to this theory
the two names in question answer to a twofold distinction that
appears in the church courts: on the college of presbyters was
devolved the government of the community, with administration
of law and discipline; on the bishops and their assistants the
superintendence and management of the community in the widest
sense of the word, including its worship, and first of all and
chiefly the brotherly care of the poor, the sick and strangers,
together with the collecting, keeping, and dispensing of
money needful for those ends. In the course of time the two
organizations were combined into one, since the bishops, on
account of their eminently important place and work, obtained
in the presbytery not only a simple seat and vote, but by-and-by
the presidency and the casting vote. In establishing this theory
it is pointed out that in the government and management of
federations of that time for social and religious purposes
in country districts or in cities, in imitation of which the
organization of the Christian communities was formed, this
twofold distribution is also found, and that especially the
administrators of the finances in these societies had not only
the title of ἐπίσκοποι, but had also the president’s seat in
their assemblies (γερουσία, βουλή), which, however, is not
altogether conclusive, since it is demonstrable that this title
was also borne by judicial and political officials. It is also
pointed out on the other hand that, in accordance with the
modified view presented in the Pastoral Epistles, the Acts,
and the Epistle of Clement of Rome, the consciousness of the
original diversity of calling of the two offices were maintained
throughout the whole of the second century, inasmuch as often a
theoretical distinction between bishops and presbyters in the way
specified was asserted. Now, in the first place, it can scarcely
be matter of dispute as to whether the administration of property,
with the care of the poor (ἀντιλήψεις) as the principal task,
could actually have won a place so superior in respectability,
influence and significance to that of congregational government
(κυβερνήσεις), or whether the authority which embraced the
functions of a judicial bench, a court of discipline, and a court
of equity did not rather come to preponderate over that which was
occupied in the administration of property and the care of the
poor. But above all we shall have to examine the New Testament
writings, as the relatively oldest witnesses to the matter of
fact as well as to the usage of the language, and see what they
have to say on the subject. This must be done even by those who
would have the composition of the Pastoral Epistles and the Acts
removed out of the Apostolic Age. In these writings, however,
there is nowhere a firm and sure foundation afforded to that
theory. It has, indeed, been supposed that in Phil. i. 1 mention
is made only of bishops and deacons because by them the present
from the Philippians had been brought to the Apostle. But seeing
that, in the case of there actually existing in Philippi at this
time besides the bishops a college of presbyters, the omission
of these from the greeting in this epistle, the chief purpose
of which was to impart apostolic comfort and encouragement, and
which only refers gratefully at the close, ch. iv. 10, to the
contribution sent, would have been damaging to them, we must
assume that the bishops with their assistants the deacons were
the only office-bearers then existing in that community. Thus
this passage tells as much against as in favour of the limiting
of the episcopal office to economical administration. Often
as mention is made in the New Testament of an ἐπισκοπεῖν and
a διακονεῖν in and over the community, this never stands in
specific and exclusive relation to administration of property and
care of the poor. It is indeed assumed in Acts xi. 30 that care
of the poor is a duty of the presbyter; so also the charismatic
caring for the sick is required of presbyters in James v. 14;
and in 1 Pet. v. 2 presbyters are described as ἐπισκοποῦντες;
in 1 Pet. ii. 25 Christ is spoken of as ἐπίσκοπος τῶν ψυχῶν;
in Acts i. 20 the apostolic office is called ἐπισκοπή, while in
Acts i. 25 and often, especially in the Pauline epistles, it is
designated a διακονία.[9]--Continuation, § 34, 2.

§ 17.7. =Christian Worship.=--Even in Jerusalem, where the
temple ordinances were still observed, the religious needs of
the Christian community demanded that separate services of a
distinctly Christian character should be organized. But just
as the Jewish services of that day consisted of two parts--the
ministry of the word for purposes of instruction and edification
in the synagogues, and the symbolic service of a typical and
sacramental character in the temple,--the Christian service was
in like manner from the first divided into a homiletical-didactic
part, and a eucharistic-sacramental part.--=The Homiletical and
Didactic part=, on account of the presence of those who were
not Christians, must have had, just like the synagogue service,
alongside of its principal aim to instruct and edify the
congregation, a definite and deliberately planned missionary
tendency. The church in Jerusalem at the first held these
_morning_ services in one of the halls of the temple, where the
people were wont to assemble for prayer (Acts ii. 46; iii. 1, 11);
but at a later period they were held in private houses. In the
Gentile churches they seem from the first to have been held in
private houses or in halls rented for the purpose. The service
consisted in reading of portions of the Old Testament, and at a
later period, portions of the Apostolic Epistles and Gospels, and
in connection therewith, doctrinal and hortatory discourses, with
prayer and singing of psalms. It is more than probable that the
liberty of teaching, which had prevailed in the synagogues (Luke
ii. 46; iv. 16; Acts xiii. 15), was also permitted in the similar
assemblies of Jewish Christians (Acts viii. 4; xi. 19; James
iii. 1); and it may be concluded from 1 Cor. xiv. 34 that this
also was the practice in Gentile-Christian congregations. The
apparent contradiction of women as such being forbidden to
speak, while in 1 Cor. xi. 5 it seems to be allowed, can only be
explained by supposing that in the passage referred to the woman
spoken of as praying or prophesying is praying in an ecstasy,
that is, speaking with tongues (1 Cor. xiv. 13-15), or uttering
prophetic announcements, like the daughters of Philip (Acts
xxi. 9), and that the permission applies only to such cases, the
exceptional nature of which, as well as their temporary character,
as charismatic and miraculous gifts, would prevent their being
used as precedents for women engaging in regular public discourse
(1 Thess. v. 19). In 1 Cor. xiv. 24 the ἰδιῶται (synonymous with
the ἀμύητοι in the statutes of Hellenic religious associations)
are mentioned as admitted along with the ἀπίστοι to the didactic
services, and, according to _v._ 16, they had a place assigned
to them separate from the congregation proper. We are thus led to
see in them the uninitiated or not yet baptized believers, that
is, the _catechumens_.--=The Sacramental part of the service=,
the separation of which from the didactic part was rendered
necessary on account alike of its nature and purpose, and is
therefore found existing in the Pauline churches as well as
in the church of Jerusalem, was scrupulously restricted in its
observance, in Jewish and Gentile churches alike, to those who
were in the full communion of the Christian church (Acts ii. 46;
1 Cor. xi. 20-23). The celebration of the Lord’s Supper
(δεῖπνον κυριακόν, 1 Cor. xi. 21), after the pattern of the
meal of institution, consisting of a meal partaken of in common,
accompanied with prayer and the singing of a hymn, which at a
later period was named the Ἀγάπη, as the expression of brotherly
love (Jude _v._ 12), was the centre and end of these _evening_
services. The elements in the Lord’s Supper were consecrated to
their sacramental purpose by a prayer of praise and thanksgiving
(εὐχαριστία, 1 Cor. xi. 24; or εὐλογία, 1 Cor. x. 16), together
with a recital of the words of institution which contained
a proclamation of the death of Christ (1 Cor. xi. 26). This
prayer was followed by the kiss of brotherhood.[10] In the
service of song they used to all appearance besides the
psalms some Christian hymns and doxologies (Eph. v. 19;
Col. iii. 16).[11]--The homiletical as well as the eucharistic
services were at first held daily; at a later period at least
every Sunday.[12] For very soon, alongside of the Sabbath, and
among Gentile Christians, instead of it, the first day of the
week as the day of Christ’s resurrection began to be observed as
a festival.[13] But there is as yet no trace of the observance of
other festivals. It cannot be exactly proved that infant baptism
was an Apostolic practice, but it is not improbable that it
was so.[14] Baptism was administered by complete immersion
(Acts viii. 38) in the name of Christ or of the Trinity
(Matt. xxviii. 19). The charism of healing the sick was exercised
by prayer and anointing with oil (Jas. v. 14). On the other
hand, confession of sin even apart from the public service was
recommended (Jas. v. 16). Charismatic communication of the Spirit
and admission to office in the church[15] was accomplished by
prayer and laying on of hands.[16]

§ 17.8. =Christian Life and Ecclesiastical Discipline.=--In
accordance with the commandment of the Lord (John xiii. 34),
brotherly love in opposition to the selfishness of the natural
life, was the principle of the Christian life. The power of
youthful love, fostered by the prevalent expectation of the
speedy return of the Lord, endeavoured at first to find for
itself a fitting expression in the mother church of Jerusalem by
the voluntary determination to have their goods in common,--an
endeavour which without prejudice of its spiritual importance
soon proved to be impracticable. On the other hand the well-to-do
Gentile churches proved their brotherly love by collections for
those originally poor, and especially for the church at Jerusalem
which had suffered the special misfortune of famine. The three
inveterate moral plagues of the ancient world, contempt of
foreign nationalities, degradation of woman, and slavery, were
overcome, according to Gal. iii. 28, by gradual elevation of
inward feeling without any violent struggle against existing laws
and customs, and the consciousness of common membership in the
one head in heaven hallowed all the relationships of the earthly
life. Even in apostolic times the bright mirror of Christian
purity was no doubt dimmed by spots of rust. Hypocrisy (Acts v.)
and variance (Acts vi.) in single cases appeared very early in
the mother church; but the former was punished by a fearfully
severe judgment, the latter was overcome by love and sweet
reasonableness. In the rich Gentile churches, such as those
of Corinth and Thessalonica, a worldly spirit in the form of
voluptuousness, selfishness, pride, etc., made its appearance,
but was here also rooted out by apostolic exhortation and
discipline. If any one caused public scandal by serious departure
from true doctrine or Christian conduct, and in spite of pastoral
counsel persisted in his error, he was by the judgment of the
church cast out, but the penitent was received again after his
sincerity had been proved (1 Cor. v. 1; 2 Cor. ii. 5).

§ 18. HERESIES IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.[17]

When Christianity began its career of world conquest in the preaching of the Apostle Paul, the representatives of the intellectual culture of the ancient world assumed toward it an attitude, either of utter indifference, or of keen hostility, or of readiness to accept Christian elements, while retaining along with these many of their old notions. From this mixing of heterogeneous elements a fermentation arose which was the fruitful mother of numerous heresies.

§ 18.1. =Jewish Christianity and the Council of Apostles.=--The
Lord had commanded the disciples to preach the gospel to all
nations (Matt. xxviii. 19), and so they could not doubt that the
whole heathen world was called to receive the church’s heritage;
but feeling themselves bound by utterances of the Old Testament
regarding the eternal validity of the law of Moses, and having
not yet penetrated the full significance of the saying of Christ
(Mark v. 17), they thought that incorporation into Judaism by
circumcision was still an indispensable condition of reception
into the kingdom of Christ. The Hellenist Stephen represented a
more liberal tendency (Acts vi. 14); and Philip, also a Hellenist,
preached at least occasionally to the Samaritans, and the
Apostles recognised his work by sending down Peter and John
(Acts viii. 14). On the other hand, it needed an immediate
divine revelation to convince Peter that a Gentile thirsting for
salvation was just as such fit for the kingdom of God (Acts x.).
And even this revelation remained without any decisive influence
on actual missionary enterprise. They were Hellenistic Jews who
finally took the bold step of devoting themselves without reserve
to the conversion of the Gentiles at Antioch (Acts xi. 19). To
foster the movement there the Apostles sent Barnabas, who entered
into it with his whole soul, and in Paul associated with himself
a yet more capable worker. After the notable success of their
first missionary journey had vindicated their claim and calling
as Apostles of the Gentiles, the arrival of Jewish zealots in
the Antiochean church occasioned the sending of Paul and Barnabas
to Jerusalem, about A.D. 51, in order finally to settle this
important dispute. At a Council of the Apostles convened there
Peter and James the Just delivered the decision that Gentile
converts should only be required to observe certain legal
restrictions, and these, as it would seem from the conditions
laid down (Acts xv. 20), of a similar kind to those imposed
upon proselytes of the gate. An arrangement come to at this
time between the two Antiochean Apostles and Peter, James, and
John, led to the recognition of the former as Apostles of the
Gentiles and the latter as Apostles of the Jews (Gal. ii. 1-10).
Nevertheless during a visit to Antioch Peter laid himself open
to censure for practical inconsistency and weak connivance with
the fanaticism of certain Jewish Christians, and had to have
the truth respecting it very pointedly told him by Paul (Gal.
ii. 11-14). The destruction of the temple and the consequent
cessation of the entire Jewish worship led to the gradual
disappearance of non-sectarian Jewish Christianity and its
amalgamation with Gentile Christianity. The remnant of Jewish
Christianity which still in the altered condition of things
continued to cling to its principles and practice assumed ever
more and more the character of a sect, and drifted into open
heresy. (Comp. § 28).

§ 18.2. =The Apostolic Basis of Doctrine.=--The need of fixing
the apostolically accredited accounts of the life of the
Redeemer by written documents, led to the origin of the Gospels.
The continued connection of the missionary Apostles with the
churches founded by them, or even their authority of general
superintendence, called forth the apostolic doctrinal epistles.
A beginning of the collection and general circulation of the New
Testament writings was made at an early date by the communication
of these being made by one church to another (Col. iv. 16). There
was as yet no confession of faith as a standard of orthodoxy, but
the way was prepared by adopting Matt. xxviii. 19 as a confession
by candidates for baptism. Paul set up justification through
faith alone (Gal. i. 8, 9), and John, the incarnation of God in
Christ (1 John iv. 3), as indispensable elements in a Christian
confession.

§ 18.3. =False Teachers.=--The first enemy from within its own
borders which Christianity had to confront was the ordinary
Pharisaic Judaism with its stereotyped traditional doctrine, its
lifeless work-righteousness, its unreasonable national prejudices,
and its perversely carnal Messianic expectations. Its shibboleth
was the obligation of the Gentiles to observe the Mosaic
ceremonial law, the Sabbath, rules about meats, circumcision,
as an indispensable condition of salvation. This tendency had
its origin in the mother church of Jerusalem, but was there
at a very early date condemned by the Apostolic Council. This
party nevertheless pursued at all points the Apostle Paul with
bitter enmity and vile calumnies. Traces of a manifestation of a
Sadducean or sceptical spirit may perhaps already be found in the
denial of the resurrection which in 1 Cor. xv. Paul opposes. On
the other hand, at a very early period Greek philosophy got mixed
up with Christianity. Apollos, a philosophically cultured Jew
of Alexandria, had at first conceived of Christianity from the
speculative side, and had in this form preached it with eloquence
and success at Corinth. Paul did not contest the admissibility
of this mode of treatment. He left it to the verdict of history
(1 Cor. iii. 11-14), and warned against an over-estimation of
human wisdom (1 Cor. ii. 1-10). Among many of the seekers after
wisdom in Corinth, little as this was intended by Apollos, the
simple positive preaching of Paul lost on this account the favour
that it had enjoyed before. In this may be found perhaps the
first beginnings of that fourfold party faction which arose
in the Corinthian church (1 Cor. i.). The Judaists appealed to
the authority of the Apostle Peter (οἱ τοῦ Κηφᾶ); the Gentile
Christians were divided into the parties of Apollos and of Paul,
or by the assumption of the proud name οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, sought to
free themselves from the recognition of any Apostolic authority.
Paul successfully opposes these divisions in his Epistle to
the Corinthians. Apprehension of a threatened growth of gnostic
teachers is first expressed in the Apostle Paul’s farewell
addresses to the elders of Asia Minor (Acts xx. 29); and in the
Epistle to the Colossians, as well as in the Pastoral Epistles,
this ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις is expressly opposed as manifesting itself
in the adoption of oriental theosophy, magic, and theurgy, in an
arbitrary asceticism that forbade marriage and restricted the use
of food, in an imaginary secret knowledge of the nature and order
of the heavenly powers and spirits, and idealistic volatilizing
of concrete Christian doctrines, such as that of the resurrection
(2 Tim. ii. 18). In the First Epistle of John, again, that
special form of Gnosis is pointed out which denied the
incarnation of God in Christ by means of docetic conceptions; and
in the Second Epistle of Peter, as well as in the Epistle of Jude,
we have attention called to antinomian excrescences, unbridled
immorality and wanton lust in the development of magical and
theurgical views. It should not, however, be left unmentioned,
that modern criticism has on many grounds contested the
authenticity of the New Testament writings just named, and
has assigned the first appearance of heretical gnosis to
the beginning of the second century. The Nicolaitans of the
Apocalypse (iii. 5, 14, 15, 20) appear to have been an antinomian
sect of Gentile Christian origin, spread more or less through the
churches of Asia Minor, perhaps without any gnostic background,
which in direct and intentional opposition to the decision of the
Apostolic Council (Acts xv. 29) took part in heathen sacrificial
feasts (comp. 1 Cor. x.), and justified or at least apologized
for fleshly impurity.

FIRST DIVISION.

History of the Development of the Church during the
Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods.

§ 19. CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES
OF THOSE PERIODS.

At the very beginning of the Apostolic Age the universalistic spirit of Christianity had already broken through the particularistic limitations of Judaism. When once the substantial truth of divine salvation had cast off the Judaistic husk in which the kernel had ripened, those elements of culture which had come to maturity in the Roman-Greek world were appropriated as means for giving to Christian ideas a fuller and clearer expression. The task now to be undertaken was the development of Christianity on the lines of Græco-Roman culture, or the expansion of the church’s apostolicity into catholicity. The ancient church of the Roman and Byzantine world fulfilled this task, but in doing so the sound evangelical catholic development encountered at every point elements of a false, because an unevangelical, Catholicism. The centre, then, of all the movements of Church History is to be found in the Teutono-Roman-Slavic empire. The Roman church preserved and increased her importance by attaching herself to this new empire, and undertaking its spiritual formation and education. The Byzantine church, on the other hand, falling into a state of inward stagnation, and pressed from without by the forces of Islam, passes into decay as a national church.

The history of this first stage of the development of the church falls into =three periods=. The first period reaches down to Constantine the Great, who, in A.D. 323, secured to Christianity and the church a final victory over Paganism. The second period brings us down to the close of the universal catholic or œcumenical elaboration of doctrine attained by the church under its old classical form of culture, that is, down to the close of the Monothelite controversy (§ 52, 8), by the Sixth Œcumenical Council at Constantinople in A.D. 680. But inasmuch as the _Concilium quini-sextum_ in A.D. 692 undertook simply the completion of the work of the two previous œcumenical synods with reference to church constitution and worship, and as here the first grounds were laid for the great partition of the church into Eastern and Western (§ 63, 2), we prefer to make A.D. 692 the closing limit of the second period. The conclusion of the third period, is found in the overthrow of Constantinople by the Turks in A.D. 1453. The first two periods are most evidently distinguished from one another in respect of the outward condition of the church. Before the times of Constantine, it lives and develops its strength amid the oppression and persecution of the pagan state; under Constantine the state itself becomes Christian and the church enjoys all the advantages, all the care and furtherance, that earthly protection can afford. Along with all this worldly splendour, however, a worldly disposition makes its way into the church, and in exchange for its protection of the church the state assumes an autocratic lordship over it. Even in the inner, and pre-eminently doctrinal, development of the church the two periods of this age are essentially distinguished from one another. While it was the church’s endeavour to adopt only the forms of culture of ancient paganism, while rejecting its godless substance, it too often happened that pagan ideas got mixed up with Christianity, and it was threatened with a similar danger from the side of Judaism. It was therefore the special task of the church during the first period to resist the encroachment of anti-Christian Jewish and Pagan elements. In the first period the perfecting of its own genuinely Christian doctrinal content was still a purely subjective matter, resting only on the personal authority of the particular church teachers. In the second period, on the other hand, the church universal, as represented by œcumenical synods with full power, proceeds to the laying down and establishing of an objective-ecclesiastical, œcumenical-catholic system of doctrine, constituting an all-sided development of the truth in opposition to the one-sided development of subjective heretical teaching. In doing so, however, the culture of the old Græco-Roman world exhausted its powers. The measure of development which these were capable of affording the church was now completed, and its future must be looked for among the new nationalities of Teutonic, Romanic, and Slavic origin. While the Byzantine empire, and with it the glory of the ancient church of the East was pressed and threatened by Islam, a new empire arose in the West in youthful vigour and became the organ of a new phase of development in the history of the church; and while the church in the West struggled after a new and higher point in her development, the Eastern church sank ever deeper down under outward oppression and inward weakness. The partition of the church into an Eastern and a Western division, which became imminent at the close of the second period, and was actually carried out during the third period, cut off the church of the East from the influence of those new vital forces, political as well as ecclesiastical, and which it might otherwise, perhaps, have shared with the West. By the overthrow of the East-Roman empire the last support of its splendour and even of its vital activity was taken away. Here too ends the history of the church on the lines of purely antique classical forms of culture. The remnants of the church of the East were no longer capable of any living historical development under the oppression of the Turkish rule.

FIRST SECTION.

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

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

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

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

§ 20.2. =The Age of the Old Catholic Church.=--The designation
of the universal Christian church as Catholic dates from the time
of Irenæus, that is, from the beginning of this second part of
our first period. This name characterizes the church as the one
universally (καθ’ ὅλου) spread and recognised from the time of
the Apostles, and so stigmatizes every opposition to the one
church that alone stands on the sure foundation of holy scripture
and pure apostolic tradition, as belonging to the manifold
particularistic heretical and schismatical sects. The church
of this particular age, however, has been designated the Old
Catholic Church as distinguished from the œcumenical Catholic
church of the following period, as well as from the Roman
Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, into which afterwards the
œcumenical Catholic church was divided.

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

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