Chapter IV: Constitution, Worship, Life and Discipline.94 (2)

§ 36.4. =The Disciplina Arcani.=--The notion that the
sacramental part of the divine service, including in this
the prayers and hymns connected therewith, the Lord’s prayer,
administration of baptism and the baptismal formula, as well as
the anointing and the consecration of the priest, was a _mystery_
(μυστικὴ λατρεία, τελετή) which was to be kept secret from all
unbaptised persons (ἀμύητοι) and only to be practised in presence
of the baptised (συμμύσται), is quite unknown to Justin Martyr
and also to Irenæus. Justin accordingly describes in his Apology,
expressly intended for the heathen, in full detail and without
hesitation, all the parts of the eucharistic service. It was in
Tertullian’s time that this notion originated, and it had its
roots in the catechumenate and the consequent partition of the
service into two parts, from the second of which the unbaptised
were excluded. The official Roman Catholic theology, on the other
hand, regards the _disciplina arcani_ as an institution existing
from the times of the Apostles, and from it accounts for the want
of patristic support to certain specifically Roman Catholic dogmas
and forms of worship, in order that they may, in spite of the
want of such support, maintain that these had a place in primitive
Christianity.

§ 36.5. =The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.=--Though the idea
was not sharply and clearly defined, there was yet a widespread
and profound conviction that the Lord’s Supper was a supremely
holy mystery, spiritual food indispensable to eternal life,
that the body and blood of the Lord entered into some mystical
connection with the bread and wine, and placed the believing
partaker of them in true and essential fellowship with Christ.
It was in consequence of the adoption of such modes of expression
that the pagan calumnies about _Thyestian feasts_ (§ 22) first
gained currency. Ignatius calls the Lord’s Supper a φάρμακον
ἀθανασίας, the cup a ποτήριον εἰς ἕνωσιν τοῦ αἵματος Χριστοῦ,
and professes εὐχαριστίαν σάρκα εἶναι τοῦ σωτῆρος. Justin Martyr
says: σάρκα καὶ αἷμα ἐδιδάχθημεν εἶναι. According to Irenæus,
it is not _communis panis, sed eucharistia ex duabus rebus
constans, terrena et cœlesti_, and our bodies by means of its
use become _jam non corruptibilia, spem resurrectionis habentia_.
Tertullian and Cyprian, too, stoutly maintain this doctrine, but
incline sometimes to a more symbolical interpretation of it. The
spiritualistic Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, consider that
the feeding of the soul with the divine word is the purpose of
the Lord’s Supper.[100]--Continuation § 58, 2.

§ 36.6. =The Sacrificial Theory.=--When once the sacerdotal
theory had gained the ascendancy (§ 34, 4) the correlated notion
of a sacrifice could not much longer be kept in the background.
And it was just in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper that the
most specious grounds for such a theory were to be found. First
of all the prayer, which formed so important a part of this
celebration that the whole service came to be called from it the
Eucharist, might be regarded as a spiritual sacrifice. Then again
the gifts brought by the congregation for the dispensation of the
sacrament were called προσφοραί, _Oblationes_, names which were
already in familiar use in connection with sacrificial worship.
And just as the congregation offered their contributions to the
Supper, so also the priests offered them anew in the sacramental
action, and also to this priestly act was given the name
προσφέρειν, ἀναφέρειν. Then again, not only the prayer but the
Supper itself was designated a θυσία, _Sacrificium_, though at
first indeed in a non-literal, figurative sense.--Continuation
§ 58, 3.

§ 36.7. =The Use of Scripture.=--In consequence of their
possessing but few portions of Scripture, the references of the
Apostolic Fathers to the New Testament books must necessarily be
only occasional. The synoptic gospels are most frequently quoted,
though these are referred to only as a whole under the name τὸ
εὐαγγέλιον. In Justin Martyr the references become more frequent,
yet even here there are no express citation of passages; only
once, in the Dialogue, is the Revelation of John named. He
mentions as his special source for the life and works of Jesus
the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων. What he borrows from this
source is for the most part to be found in our Synoptic Gospels;
but we have not in this sufficient ground for identifying the one
with the other. On the contrary, we find that the citations of our
Lord’s words do not correspond to the text of our gospels, but are
sometimes rather in verbal agreement with the Apocryphal writings,
and still further, that he adopts Apocryphal accounts of the life
of Jesus, _e.g._, the birth of Christ in a cave, the coming of
the Magi from Arabia, the legend that Jesus as a carpenter made
ploughs and yokes, etc., borrowing them from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα
τῶν ἀποστόλων. If one further considers Justin’s account of the
Sunday service as consisting of the reading of the Ἀπομνημονεύματα
or the writings of the Prophets, and thereafter closed by the
expository and hortatory address of the president (προεστώς), he
will be led to the conclusion that his “Apostolic Memoirs” must
have been a Gospel Harmony for church use, probably on the basis
of Matthew’s Gospel drawn from our Synoptic Gospels, with the
addition of some apocryphal and traditional elements. The author
of the Didache too does not construct his “commands of the Lord
communicated by the Apostles” directly from our Synoptic Gospels,
but from a εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ κυρίου which presented a text of
Matthew enriched by additions from Luke. The Diatessaron of
Tatian (§ 30, 10) shows that soon after this the gospel of John,
which was not regarded by Justin or the author of the Didache
as a source for the evangelical history, although there are not
wanting in both manifold references to it, came to be regarded
as a work to be read in combination with these. It was only after
a New Testament Canon had been in the Old Catholic Age gradually
established, and from the vast multitude of books on gospel
history, which even Luke had found existing (i. 1) and which
had been multiplied to an almost incalculable extent both in the
interests of heresy and of church doctrine, our four gospels were
universally recognised as alone affording authentic information
of the life and doctrines of the Lord, that the eclectic gospels
hitherto in use had more and more withdrawn from them the favour
of the church. =Tatian’s Diatessaron= maintained its place longest
in the Syrian Church. Theodoret, † A.D. 457, testifies that in his
diocese he had found and caused to be put away about two hundred
copies. Aphraates (about A.D. 340, § 47, 13) still used it as the
text of his homilies. At the time of publication of the _Doctrina
Addæi_ (§ 32, 6) it was still used in the church of Edessa, and
Ephraim Syrus in A.D. 360 refers to a commentary in the form of
scholia on it in an Armenian translation, in which the passages
commented on are literally reproduced, Theodoret’s charge against
it of cutting out passages referring to the descent of Christ
after the flesh from David, especially the genealogies of Matthew
and Luke, is confirmed by these portions thus preserved. Otherwise
however, it is free from heretical alterations, though not wholly
without apocryphal additions. All the four gospels are in brief
summary so skilfully wrought into one another that no joining
is ever visible. What cannot be incorporated is simply left out,
and the whole historical and doctrinal material is distributed
over the one working year of the synoptists.

§ 36.8. =Formation of a New Testament Canon.=--The oldest
collection of a New Testament Canon known to us was made by the
Gnostic _Marcion_ (§ 27, 11) about A.D. 150. Some twenty years
later in the so-called _Muratorian Canon_, a fragment found by
Muratori in the 18th century with a catalogue in corrupt Latin
justifying the reception of the New Testament writings received
in the Roman church. For later times the chief witnesses are
Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Eusebius.
The Muratorian Canon and Eusebius are witnesses for the fact that
in the 2nd century, besides the Gospels, the Apostolic Epistles
and the Revelation of John, other so-called Apostolic Epistles
were read at worship in the churches, for instance, the _1st
Ep. of Clement of Rome_, _the Ep. of Barnabas_, _the Shepherd
of Hermas_, in some churches also the apocryphal _Apocalypse
of Peter_ and _Acts of Paul_, in Corinth, an Ep. of the Roman
bishop Soter (A.D. 166-174) to that church, and also _Acts of the
Martyrs_. Montanist as well as Gnostic excesses gave occasion for
the definite fixing of the New Testament Canon by the Catholic
church (§ 40). Since the time of Irenæus, the four Gospels, the
Acts, the 13 Epp. of Paul, the Ep. to the Hebrews (which some
in the West did not regard as Pauline), 1st Peter, and 1st John,
along with the Revelation of John, were universally acknowledged.
Eusebius therefore calls these ὁμολογούμενα. There was still some
uncertainty as to the Ep. of James, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John
and Jude (ἀντιλεγόμενα). The antilegomena of a second class,
which have no claim to canonicity, although in earlier times they
were much used in churches just like the canonical scriptures,
were called by him νόθα, viz. the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of
Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Ep. of Barnabas, and the
Didache. He would also very willingly have included among these
the Revelation of John (§ 33, 9), although he acknowledged
that elsewhere that is included in the Homologoumena.--=The Old
Testament Canon= was naturally regarded as already completed. But
since the Old Testament had come to the Greek and Latin Church
Teachers in the expanded form of the LXX., they had unhesitatingly
assumed that its added books were quite as sacred and as fully
inspired as those of the Hebrew Canon. Melito of Sardis, however,
about A.D. 170, found it desirable to make a journey of research
through Palestine in order to determine the limits of the Jewish
Canon, and then to draw up a list of the Holy Scriptures of the
Old Testament essentially corresponding therewith. Origen too
informs us that the Jews, according to the number of letters in
their alphabet acknowledged only 22 books, which, however, does
not lead him to condemn this reception of the additional books of
the church. From the end of the 2nd century, the Western church
had =Latin Translations= of the biblical books, the origin of
which is to be sought in North Africa, where in consequence
of prevailing ignorance of the Greek language the need of
such translations was most deeply felt. Even so early as the
beginning of the 5th century we find Jerome († 420) complaining
of _varietas_ and _vitiositas_ of the _Codices latini_, and
declaring: _Tot sunt exemplaria_ (=forms of the text) _paene
quot codices_. Augustine[101] gives preference to the _Itala_
over all others. The name =Itala= is now loosely given to all
fragments of Latin translations previous to that of Jerome.--The
Syriac translation, =the Peshito=, plain or simple (so-called
because it exactly and without paraphrasing renders the words
of the Hebrew and Greek originals) belongs to the 3rd century,
although first expressly referred to by Ephraim. In it 2 Peter,
2 and 3 John and Jude are not found.

§ 36.9. =The Doctrine of Inspiration.=--In earlier times it
was usual, after the example of Philo, to regard the prophetic
inspiration of the sacred writers as purely passive, as ἔκστασις.
Athenagoras compares the soul of the prophet while prophesying
to a flute; Justin Martyr in his _Cohort. ad Græc._ to a lyre,
struck by the Holy Spirit as the _plectrum_, etc. The Montanist
prophets first brought this theory into disrepute. The Apologist
Miltiades of Asia Minor was the first Church Teacher who
vindicated over against the Montanists the proposition: προφήτην
μὴ δεῖν ἐν ἐκστάσει λαλεῖν. The Alexandrians who even admitted
an operation of the Holy Spirit upon the nobler intellects of
paganism, greatly modified the previously accepted doctrine
of inspiration. Origen, for example, teaches a gradual rising
or falling in the measure of inspiration even in the bible,
and determines this according to the more or less prominence
secured by the human individuality of the writers of scripture.

§ 36.10. =Hymnology.=--The _Carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere
secum invicem_ in the report of Pliny (§ 22, 2), may be classed
with the antiphonal responsive hymns of the church. Tertullian
bears witness to a rich use of song in family as well as
congregational worship. So too does Origen. In the composition
of church hymns the heretics seem for a long while to have kept
abreast of the Catholics (Bardesanes and Harmonius, § 27, 5),
but the latter were thereby stirred up to greater exertions.
The Martyr Athenogenes and the Egyptian bishop Nepos are named
as authors of church hymns. We have still a hymn εἰς Σωτῆρα by
Clement of Alexandria. Socrates ascribes to Ignatius, bishop
of Antioch, the introduction of the alternate-song (between
different congregational choirs). More credible is Theodoret’s
statement that the Antiochean monks Flavian and Diodorus had
imported it, about A.D. 260, from the National Syrian into the
Greek-Syrian church.--Continuation § 59, 4, 5.

§ 37. FEASTS AND FESTIVAL SEASONS.[102]

Sunday as a day of joy was distinguished by standing at prayer, instead of kneeling as at other times, and also by the prohibition of fasting. Of the other days of the week, Wednesday, the day on which the Jewish Council decided to put Jesus to death and Judas had betrayed him, and Friday, as the day of his death, were consecrated to the memory of Christ’s suffering; hence the _Feria quarta et sexta_ were celebrated as watch days, _dies stationum_, after the symbolism of the _Militia christiana_ (Eph. vi. 10-17), by public meetings of the congregation. As days of the Passion, penitence and fasting they formed a striking contrast to the Sunday. The chief days of the Christian festival calendar, which afterwards found richer and more complete expression in the cycle of the Christian year, were thus at first associated with the weekly cycle. A long continued and wide spread controversy as to the proper time for celebrating Easter arose during the 2nd century.

§ 37.1. =The Festivals of the Christian Year.=--The thought
of Christ’s suffering and death was so powerful and engrossing
that even in the weekly cycle one day had not been sufficient.
Still less could one festal day in the yearly cycle satisfy
the hearts of believers. Hence a long preparation for the
festival was arranged, which was finally fixed at forty days,
and was designated the season _Quadragesima_ (τεσσαρακοστή). Its
conclusion and acme was the so-called Great Week, beginning with
the Sunday of the entrance into Jerusalem, culminating in the day
of the crucifixion, Good Friday, and closing with the day of rest
in the tomb. This Great Week or Passion Week was regarded as the
antitype of the Old Testament Passover feast. The Old Catholic
church did not, however, transfer this name to the festival
of the resurrection (§ 56, 4). The day of the resurrection
was rather regarded as the beginning of a new festival cycle
consecrated to the glorification of the redeemer, viz. the season
of _Quinquagesima_ (πεντηκοστή), concluding with the festival
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the anniversary of the
founding of the Christian church, which has now come to be known
_par excellence_ as _Pentecost_. The fifty intervening days were
simply days of joy. There was daily communion, no fasting, only
standing and not kneeling at prayer. The fortieth day, the day
of the _Ascension_, had a special pre-eminence as a day of festal
celebrations. The festival of Epiphany on 6th January originated
in the East to celebrate the baptism of Christ in Jordan, as the
manifestation of his Messianic rank. As yet there is nowhere any
trace of the Christmas festival.--Continuation, § 56.

§ 37.2. =The Paschal Controversies.=--During the 2nd century,
there were three different practices prevalent in regard to the
observance of the Paschal festival. The Ebionite Jewish Christians
(§ 28, 1) held the Paschal feast on the 14th Nisan according to
the strict literal interpretation of the Old Testament precepts,
maintaining also that Christ, who according to the synoptists
died on the 15th, observed the Passover with his disciples on
the 14th. Then again the church of Asia Minor followed another
practice which was traced back to the Apostle John. Those of Asia
Minor attached themselves indeed in respect of date to the Jewish
festival, but gave it a Christian meaning. They let the passover
alone, and pronounced the memorial of Christ’s death to be the
principal thing in the festival. According to their view, based
upon the fourth Gospel, Christ died upon the 14th Nisan, so that
He had not during the last year of His life observed a regular
Passover. On the 14th Nisan, therefore, they celebrated their
Paschal festival, ending their fast at the moment of Christ’s
death, three o’clock in the afternoon, and then, instead of the
Jewish Passover, having an Agape with the Lord’s Supper. Those who
adopted either of those two forms were at a later period called
_Quartodecimans_ or _Tessareskaidekatites_. Different from both
of these was a third practice followed in all the West, as also
in Egypt, Palestine, Pontus and Greece, which detached itself
still further from the Jewish Passover. This Western usage
disregarded the day of the month in order to secure the observance
of the great resurrection festival on the first day of the week.
The πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, then, if the 14th did not happen to be a
Friday, was always celebrated on the first Friday after the 14th,
and the Easter festival with the observance of the Lord’s Supper
on the immediately following Sunday. The Westerns regarded the
day of Christ’s death as properly a day of mourning, and only
at the end of the pre-Easter fast on the day of the Resurrection
introduced the celebration of the Agape and the Lord’s Supper.
These divergent practices first awakened attention on the
appearing of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna at Rome in A.D. 155.
The Roman bishop Anicetus referred to the tradition of the Roman
Church; Polycarp laid stress upon the fact that he himself had
celebrated the Paschal festival after the manner followed in
Asia Minor along with the Apostle John. No common agreement was
reached at this time; but, in token of their undisturbed church
fellowship, Anicetus allowed Polycarp to dispense the communion
in his church. Some fifteen years later a party, not distinctly
particularised, obtained at Laodicea in Phrygia sanction for
the Ebionite practice with strict observance of the time of
the Passover, and awakened thereby a lively controversy in the
church of Asia Minor, in which opposite sides were taken by the
Apologists, Apollinaris and Melito (§ 30, 7). The dispute assumed
more serious dimensions about A.D. 196 through the passionate
proceedings of the Roman bishop Victor. Roused probably by the
agitation of a Quartodeciman named Blastus then in Rome, he urged
upon the most distinguished bishops of the East and West the
need of holding a Synod to secure the unequivocal vindication
of the Roman practice. On this account many Synods were held,
which almost invariably gave a favourable verdict. Only those
of Asia Minor with Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at their head,
entered a vigorous protest against the pretensions of Rome, and
notwithstanding all the Roman threatenings determined to stand
by their own well established custom. Victor now went the length
of breaking off church fellowship with them, but this extreme
procedure met with little favour. Even Irenæus expressed himself
to the Gallican bishops as opposed to it.--Continuation § 56, 3.

§ 37.3. =The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.=--The
Didache gives evidence that even at so early a date, the regular
fasts were religiously observed on the _Dies stationum_ by
expressly forbidding fasting “with hypocrites” (Jews and Jewish
Christians, Luke xviii. 12) on Monday and Thursday, instead of
the Christian practice of so observing Wednesday and Friday. The
usual fast continued as a rule only till three o’clock in the
afternoon (Semijejunia, Acts x. 9, 30; iii. 1). In Passion week
the Saturday night, which, at other times, just like the Sunday,
was excluded from the fasting period, as part of the day during
which Christ lay buried, was included in the forty-hours’ fast,
representing the period during which Christ lay in the grave.
This was afterwards gradually lengthened out into the forty-days’
fast of Lent (Exod. xxxiv. 28; 1 Kings xix. 8; Matt. iv. 2), in
which, however, the _jejunium_ proper was limited to the _Dies
Stationum_, and for the rest of the days only the ξηροφαγίαι,
first forbidden by the Montanists (§ 40, 4), _i.e._ all fattening
foods, such as flesh, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, etc., were
abstained from.--On fasting preparatory to baptism, see § 35, 1.
The Didache, c. i. 3, adds to the gospel injunction that we should
pray for our persecutors (Matt. v. 44) the further counsel that
we should fast for them. The meaning of the writer seems to be
that we should strengthen our prayers for persecutors by fasting.
Hermas, on the other hand, recommends fasting in order that we may
thereby spare something for the poor; and Origen says that he read
_in quodam libello_ as _ab apostolis dictum: Beatus est, qui etiam
jejunat pro eo ut alat pauperem_.

§ 38. THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND THE CATACOMBS.

The earliest certain traces of special buildings for divine worship which had been held previously in private houses of Christians are met with in Tertullian about the end of the 2nd century. In Diocletian’s time Nicomedia became a royal residence and hard by the emperor’s palace a beautiful church proudly reared its head (§ 22, 6), and even in the beginning of the 3rd century Rome had forty churches. We know little about the form and arrangement of these churches. Tertullian and Cyprian speak of an altar or table for the preparation of the Lord’s supper and a desk for the reading, and in the _Apostolic Constitutions_ it is required that the building should be oblong in shape. The wide-spread tradition that in times of sore persecution the worshippers betook themselves to the Catacombs is evidently inconsistent with the limited space which these afforded. On the other hand, the painter whose works, by a decree of a Spanish Council in A.D. 306, were banished from the churches, found here a suitable place for the practice of sacred art.

§ 38.1. =The Catacombs.=--The Christian burying places were
generally called κοιμητήρια, _Dormitoria_. They were laid out
sometimes in the open fields (_Areæ_), sometimes, where the
district was suitable for that, hewn out in the rock (κρύπται,
crypts). This latter term was, by the middle of the 4th century,
quite interchangeable with the name _Catacumbæ_, (κατὰ κύμβας=in
the caves). The custom of laying the dead in natural or rock-hewn
caves was familiar to pagan antiquity, especially in the East.
But the recesses used for this purpose were only private or family
vaults. Their growth into catacombs or subterranean necropolises
for larger companies bound together by their one religion without
distinctions of rank (Gal. iii. 28), first arose on Christian
soil from a consciousness that their fellowship transcended death
and the grave. For the accomplishment of this difficult and costly
undertaking, Christian burial societies were formed after the
pattern of similar institutions of paganism (§ 17, 3). Specially
numerous and extensive necropolises have been found laid out in
the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. But also in Malta, in Naples,
Syracuse, Palermo, and other cities, this mode of sepulchre
found favour. The Roman catacombs, of which in the hilly district
round about the eternal city fifty-eight have been counted in
fourteen different highways, are almost all laid out in the white
porous tufa stone which is there so abundant, and useful neither
for building nor for mortar. It is thus apparent that these are
neither wrought-out quarries nor gravel pits (_Arenariæ_), but
were set in order from the first as cemeteries. A few _Arenariæ_
may indeed have been used as catacombs, but then the sides with
the burial niches consist of regularly built walls. The Roman
Catacombs in the tufa stone form labyrinthine, twisting, steep
galleries only 3 or 4 feet broad, with rectangular corners caused
by countless intersections. Their perpendicular sides varied
greatly in height and in them the burial niches, _Loculi_, were
hewn out one above the other, and on the reception of the body
were built up or hermetically sealed with a stone slab bearing
an inscription and a Christian symbol. The wealthy laid their
dead in costly marble sarcophagi or stone coffins ornamented with
bas-reliefs. The walls too and the low-arched roofs were adorned
with symbols and pictures of scripture scenes. From the principal
passages many side paths branched off to so-called burial
chambers, _Cubicula_, which were furnished with shafts opening
up to the surface and affording air and light, _Luminaria_. In
many of these chambers, sometimes even in the passages, instead
of simple _Loculi_ we meet with the so-called _Arcosolium_ as the
more usual form; one or more coffin-shaped grooves hewn out in the
rocky wall are covered with an altar-shaped marble plate, and over
this plate, _Mensa_, is a semicircular niche hewn out spreading
over it in its whole extent. These chambers are often held
in reverence as “catacomb churches,” but they are so small in
size that they could only accommodate a very limited number,
such as might gather perhaps at the commemoration of a martyr or
the members of a single family. And even where two or three such
chambers adjoin one another, connected together by doors and
having a common lighting shaft, accommodating at furthest about
twenty people, they could not be regarded as meeting-places for
public congregations properly so called.--Where the deposit of
tufa stone was sufficiently large, there were several stories
(_Piani_), as many as four or five connected by stairs, laid
out one above the other in galleries and chambers. According to
_de Rossi’s_[103] moderate calculation there have been opened
altogether up to this time so many passages in the catacombs
that if they were put in a line they would form a street of
120 geographical miles. Their oldest inscriptions or epitaphs date
from the first years of the second century. After the destruction
of Rome by the hordes of Alaric in A.D. 410, the custom of burying
in them almost entirely ceased. Thereafter they were used only
as places of pilgrimage and spots where martyr’s relics were
worshipped. From this time the most of the so-called _Graffiti_,
_i.e._ scribblings of visitors on the walls, consisting of pious
wishes and prayers, had their origin. The marauding expedition of
the Longobard Aistulf into Roman territory in A.D. 756, in which
even the catacombs were stripped of their treasures, led Pope
Paul I. to transfer the relics of all notable martyrs to their
Roman churches and cloisters. Then pilgrimages to the catacombs
ceased, their entrances got blocked up, and the few which in later
times were still accessible, were only sought out by a few novelty
hunting strangers. Thus the whole affair was nigh forgotten until
in A.D. 1578 a new and lively interest was awakened by the chance
opening up again of one of those closed passages. Ant. Bosio from
A.D. 1593 till his death in A.D. 1629, often at the risk of his
life, devoted all his time and energies to their exploration. But
great as his discoveries were, they have been completely outdone
by the researches of the Roman nobleman, Giov. Battista de Rossi,
who, working unweariedly at his task since A.D. 1849 till the
present time, is recognised as the great master of the subject,
although even his investigations are often too much dominated
by Roman Catholic prejudices and by undue regard for traditional
views.[104]

§ 38.2. =The Antiquities of the Catacombs.=--The custom widely
spread in ancient times and originating in piety or superstition
of placing in the tombs the utensils that had been used by
the deceased during life was continued, as the contents of
many burial niches show among the early Christians. Children’s
toys were placed beside them in the grave, and the clothes,
jewels, ornaments, amulets, etc., of grown up people. Quite a
special interest attaches to the so-called Blood Vases, _Phiolæ
rubricatæ_, which have been found in or near many of these niches,
_i.e._ crystal, rarely earthenware, vessels with Christian symbols
figured on a red ground. The _Congregation of rites and relics_
in A.D. 1668, asserted that they were blood-vessels, in which the
blood of the martyrs had been preserved and stood alongside of
their bones; and the existence of such jars, as well as every
pictorial representation of the palm branch (Rev. vii. 9),
was supposed to afford an indubitable proof that the niches
in question contained the bones of martyrs. But the Reformed
theologian Basnage shows that this assumption is quite untenable,
and he has explained the red ground from the dregs of the red
sacramental wine which may have been placed in the burial niches
as a protection against demoniacal intrusion. Even many good
Roman Catholic archæologists, Mabillon, Papebroch, Tillemont,
Muratori, etc., contest or express doubts as to the decree of the
_Congregation_. At the instigation probably of the Belgian Jesuit
Vict. de Buck, Pius IX. in A.D. 1863 confirmed and renewed the
old decree, and among others, Xav. Kraus has appeared as its
defender. But a great multitude of unquestionable facts contradict
the official decree of the church; _e.g._ the total absence
of any support to this view in tradition, the silence of such
inscriptions as relate to the martyrs, above all the immense
number of these jars, their being found frequently alongside the
bones of children of seven years old, the remarkable frequency
of them in the times of Constantine and his successors which were
free from persecution, the absence of the red dregs in many jars,
etc. Since dregs of wine, owing to their having the vegetable
property of combinableness could scarcely be discernible down
to the present day, it has recently been suggested that the red
colour may have been produced by a mineral-chemical process as
oxide of iron.

§ 38.3. =Pictorial Art and the Catacombs.=--Many of the earliest
Christians may have inherited a certain dislike of the pictorial
arts from Judaism, and may have been confirmed therein by their
abhorrence of the frivolous and godless abuse of art in heathenism.
But this aversion which in a Tertullian grew from a Montanistic
rigorism into a fanatical hatred of art, is never met with as a
constituent characteristic of Christianity. Much rather the great
abundance of paintings on the walls of the Roman and Neapolitan
catacombs, of which many, and these not the meanest, belong
to the 2nd century, some indeed perhaps to the last decades of
the 1st century, serves to show how general and lively was the
artistic sense among the earliest Christians at least in the
larger and wealthier communities. Yet from its circumstances the
Christian church in its appreciation of art was almost necessarily
limited on two sides; for, on the one hand, no paintings were
tolerated in the churches, and on the other hand, even in private
houses and catacombs they were restricted almost exclusively to
symbolico-allegorical or typical representations. The 36th Canon
of the Council of Elvira in A.D. 306 is a witness for the first
statement when it says: _Placuit picturas in ecclesia non esse
debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur_.
The plain words of the Canon forbid any other interpretation
than this: From the churches, as places where public worship is
regularly held, all pictorial representations must be banished,
in order to make certain that in and under them there might not
creep in those images, forbidden in the decalogue, of Him who
is the object of worship and adoration. The Council thus assumed
practically the same standpoint as the Reformed church in the
16th century did in opposition to the practice of the Roman
Catholic and Lutheran churches. It cannot, however, be maintained
that the Canon of this rigorous Council (§ 45, 2) found general
acceptance and enforcement outside of Spain--Proof of the
second limitation is as convincingly afforded by what we find
in the catacombs. On the positive side, it has its roots in the
fondness which prevailed during these times for the mystical and
allegorical interpretation of scripture; and on the negative side,
in the endeavour, partly in respect for the prohibition of images
contained in the decalogue, partly, and perhaps mainly, in the
interests of the so-called _Disciplina arcani_, fostered under
pressure of persecution, to represent everything that pertained
to the mysteries of the Christian faith as a matter which only
Christians have a right fully to understand. From the prominence
given to the point last referred to it may be explained how
amid the revolution that took place under Constantine the age of
Symbolism and Allegory in the history of Christian art also passed
away, and henceforth painters applied themselves pre-eminently to
realistic historical representations.

§ 38.4. The pictorial and artistic representations of
the pre-Constantine age may be divided into the six following
groups:--

a. =Significant Symbols.=--To these belong especially _the
cross_,[105] though, for fear of the reproaches of Jews
and heathens (§ 23, 2), not yet in its own proper form but
only in a form that indicated what was meant, namely in
the form of the Greek Τ, very frequently in later times in
the monogram of the name of Christ, _i.e._ in a variously
constructed combination of its first two letters Χ and Ρ,
while the Χ, as _crux dissimulatæ_, has very often on
either side the letters α and ω.

b. =Allegorical Figures.=--In the 4th century a particularly
favourite figure was that of the _Fish_, the name of
which, ἰχθύς, formed a highly significant monogrammatic
representation of the sentence, Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς
Σωτήρ, and which pointed strikingly to the new birth from
the water of baptism. Then there is the _lamb_ or _sheep_,
as symbol of the soul, which still in this life seeks
after spiritual pastures; and the _dove_ as symbol of
the pious believing soul passing into eternal rest, often
with an _olive branch_ in its mouth (Gen. viii. 11), as
symbol of the eternal peace won. Also we have the _hart_
(Ps. xlii. 1), the _eagle_ (Ps. ciii. 5), the _chicken_,
symbol of Christian growth, the _peacock_, symbol of
the resurrection on account of the annual renewal of its
beautiful plumage, the _dolphin_, symbol of hastiness
or eagerness in the appropriation of salvation, _the
horse_, symbol of the race unto the goal of eternal life,
_the hare_, as symbol of the Christian working out his
salvation with fear and trembling, _the ship_, with
reference to Noah’s ark as a figure of the church, _the
anchor_ (Heb. vi. 19), _the lyre_ (Eph. v. 19), _the palm
branch_ (Rev. vii. 9), _the garland_ (or crown of life,
Rev. ii. 9), _the lily_ (Matt. vi. 28), _the balances_,
symbol of divine righteousness, _fishes and bread_,
symbol of spiritual nourishment with reference to Christ’s
miracle of feeding in the wilderness, etc.

c. =Parabolic Figures.=--These are illustrations borrowed from
the parables of the Gospels. To these belong conspicuously
the figure of the _Good Shepherd_, who bears on His
shoulder the lost sheep that He had found (Luke xv. 5),
the _Vine Stock_ (John xv.), the _Sower_ (Matt. xiii. 3),
the _Marriage Feast_ (Matt. xxii.), the _Ten Virgins_
(Matt. xxv.), etc.

d. =Historical Pictures of O. T. Types.=--Among these we
have Adam and Eve, the Rivers of Paradise (as types of
the four evangelists), Abel and Cain, Noah in the Ark, the
Sacrifice of Isaac, Scenes from Joseph’s History, Moses at
the Burning Bush, the Passage of the Red Sea, the Falling
of the Manna, the Water out of the Rock, History of Job,
Samson with the Gates of Gaza (the gates of Hell), David’s
Victory over Goliath, Elijah’s Ascension, Scenes from the
History of Jonah and Tobit, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the
Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, etc. Also typical
material from heathen mythology had a place assigned them,
such as the legends of Hercules, Theseus, and especially
of Orpheus who by his music bewitched the raging elements
and tamed the wild beasts, descended into the lower world
and met his death through the infuriated women of his own
race.

e. =Figures from the Gospel History.=--These, _e.g._ the
Visit of the Wise Men from the East, and the Resurrection
of Lazarus, are throughout this period still exceedingly
rare. We do not find a single representation of the
Passion of our Lord, nor any of the sufferings of Christian
martyrs. Pictorial representations of the person of Christ,
as a beardless youth with a friendly mild expression,
are met with in the catacombs from the first half of the
2nd century, but without any claim to supply the likeness
of a portrait, such as might be claimed for the figures of
Christ in the temple of the Carpocratians (§ 27, 8) and in
the Lararium of the Emperor Alexander Severus (§ 22, 4).
Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, in accordance with
the literal interpretation of Isa. liii. 2, 3, thought
that Christ had an unattractive face; the post-Constantine
fathers, on the contrary, resting upon Ps. xlv. 3 and
John i. 14, thought of Him as beautiful and gracious.

f. =Liturgical Figures.=--These were connected only with the
ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

§ 39. LIFE, MANNERS, AND DISCIPLINE.[106]

When the chaff had been so relentlessly severed from the wheat by the persecutions of that age, a moral earnestness and a power of denying the world and self must have been developed, sustained by the divine power of the gospel and furthered by a strict and rigorous application of church discipline to the Christian life, such as the world had never seen before. What most excited and deserved wonder in the sphere of heathendom, hitherto accustomed only to the reign of selfishness, was the brotherly love of the Christians, their systematic care of the poor and sick, the widespread hospitality, the sanctity of marriage, the delight in martyrdom, etc. Marriages with Jews, heathens and heretics were disapproved, frequently even the celebration of a second marriage after the death of the first wife was disallowed. Public amusements, dances, and theatres were avoided by Christians as _Pompa diaboli_. They thought of the Christian life, in accordance with Eph. vi. 10 ff., as _Militia Christi_. But even in the Post-Apostolic Age we come upon indications of a tendency to turn from the evangelical spirituality, freedom and simplicity of the Apostolic Age toward a pseudo-catholic externalism and legalism in the fundamental views taken of ethical problems, and at the same time and in the same way in the departments of the church constitution (§ 34), worship (§ 36) and exposition of doctrine (§ 30, 2). The teachers of the church do still indeed maintain the necessity of a disposition corresponding to the outward works, but by an over-estimation of these they already prepare the way for the doctrine of merit and the _opus operatum_, _i.e._ the meritoriousness of works in themselves. Even the _Epistle of Barnabas_ and the _Didache_ reckon almsgiving as an atonement for sins. Still more conspicuously is this tendency exhibited by _Cyprian_ (_De Opere et eleemosynis_) and even in the _Shepherd of Hermas_ (§ 30, 4) we find the beginnings of the later distinction, based upon 1 Cor. vii. 25, 26; Matt. xxv. 21, and Luke xviii. 10, between the divine commands, _Mandata_ or _Præcepta_, which are binding upon all Christians, and the evangelical counsels, _Consilia evangelica_, the non-performance of which is no sin, but the doing of which secures a claim to merit and more full divine approval. Among the Alexandrian theologians, too, under the influence of the Greek philosophy a very similar idea was developed in the distinction between higher and lower morality, after the former of which the Christian sage (ὁ γνωστικός) is required to shine, while the ordinary Christian may rest satisfied with the latter. On such a basis a special order of Ascetics very early made its appearance in the churches. Those who went the length of renouncing the world and going out into the wilderness were called Anchorets. This order first assumed considerable dimensions in the 4th century (§ 44).

§ 39.1. =Christian Morals and Manners.=--The Christian spirit
pervaded the domestic and civil life and here formed for itself
a code of Christian morals. It expressed itself in the family
devotions and family communions (§ 36, 3), in putting the sign
of the cross upon all callings in life, in the Christian symbols
(§ 38, 3) with which dwellings, garments, walls, lamps, cups,
glasses, rings, etc. were adorned. As to private worship the
Didache requires without fixing the hours that the head of the
household shall have prayers three times a day (Dan. vi. 30),
meaning probably, as with Origen, morning, noon, and night.
Tertullian specifies the 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours as the hours
of prayer, and distinctly demands a separate morning and evening
prayer.--The concluding of marriage according to the then existing
Roman law had to be formally carried through by the expressed
agreement of the parties in the presence of witnesses, and this
on the part of the church was regarded as valid. The Christian
custom required that there should be a previous making of it
known, _Professio_, to the bishop, and a subsequent going to the
church of the newly married pair in order that, amid the church’s
intercessions and the priestly benediction, a religious sanction
might be given to their marriage covenant, by the oblation
and common participation of the Lord’s Supper at the close of
the public services. Tertullian’s Montanistic rigorism shows
itself in regarding marriages where these are omitted, _occultæ
conjunctiones_, as no better than _mœchia_ and _fornicatio_. The
crowning of the two betrothed ones and the veiling of the bride
were still disallowed as heathenish practices; but the use of the
wedding ring was sanctioned at an early date and had a Christian
significance attached to it. The burning of dead bodies prevalent
among the heathens reminded them of hell fire; the Christians
therefore preferred the Jewish custom of burial and referred in
support to 1 Cor. xv. 36. The day of the deaths of their deceased
members were celebrated in the Christian families by prayer and
oblations in testimony of their fellowship remaining unbroken by
death and the grave.--Continuation § 61, 2, 3.

§ 39.2. =The Penitential Discipline.=--According to the
Apostolic ordinance (§ 17, 8) notorious sinners were excluded
from the fellowship of the church, _Excommunicatio_, and only
after prolonged trial of their penitence, _Exomologesis_,
were they received back again, _Reconciliatio_. In the time
of Cyprian, about A.D. 250, there was already a well defined
order of procedure in this matter of restoring the lapsed which
continued in force until the 5th century. Penance, _Pœnitentia_,
must extend through four stages, each of which according to
circumstances might require one or more years. During the first
stage, the πρόσκλαυσις, _Fletio_, the penitents, standing at
the church doors in mourning dress, made supplication to the
clergy and the congregation for restoration; in the second,
the ἀκρόασις, _Auditio_, they were admitted again to the reading
of the scriptures and the sermon, but still kept in a separate
place; in the third, ὑπόπτωσις, _Substratio_, they were allowed
to kneel at prayer; and finally, in the fourth, σύστασις,
_Consistentia_, they took part again in the whole of the public
services, with the exception of the communion which they were
only allowed to look at standing. Then they received Absolution
and Reconciliation (=_pacem dare_) in presence of the assembled
and acquiescing congregation by the imposition of the hands
of the bishop and the whole of the clergy, together with
the brotherly kiss and the partaking of the communion. This
procedure was directed against open and demonstrable sins
of a serious nature against the two tables of the decalogue,
against so called _deadly sins_, _Peccata_ or _crimina mortalia_,
1 John v. 16. Excommunication was called forth, on the one
side, against idolatry, blasphemy, apostasy from the faith and
abjuration thereof; on the other, against murder, adultery and
fornication, theft and lying, perfidy and false swearing. Whether
reconciliation was permissible in the case of any mortal sin at
all, and if so, what particular sins might thus be treated, were
questions upon which teachers of the church were much divided
during the 3rd century. But only the Montanists and Novatians
(§§ 40, 41) denied the permissibility utterly and that in
opposition to the prevailing practice of the church, which
refused reconciliation absolutely only in cases of idolatry
and murder, and sometimes also in the case of adultery.
Even Cyprian at first held firmly by the principle that all
mortal sins committed “against God” must be wholly excluded
from the range of penitential discipline, but amid the horrors
of the Decian persecution, which left behind it whole crowds
of fallen ones, _Lapsi_ (§ 22, 5), he was induced by the
passionate entreaties of the church to make the concession that
reconciliation should be granted to the _Libellatici_ after a
full penitential course, but to the _Sacrificati_ only when in
danger of death. All the teachers of the church, however, agree
in holding that it can be granted only once in this life, and
those who again fall away are cut off absolutely. But excessive
strictness in the treatment of the penitents called forth the
contrary extreme of undue laxity (§ 41, 2). The _Confessors_
frequently used their right of demanding the restoration of the
fallen by means of letters of recommendation, _Libelli pacis_,
to such an extent as to seriously interfere with a wholesome
discipline.[107]--Continuation § 61, 1.

§ 39.3. =Asceticism.=--The Ascetism (_Continentia_, ἐγκρατεία)
of heathenism and Judaism, of Pythagoreanism and Essenism,
resting on dualistic and pseudo-spiritualistic views, is
confronted in Christianity with the proposition: Πάντα ὑμῶν
ἐστιν (1 Cor. iii. 21; vi. 12). Christianity, however, also
recognised the ethical value and relative wholesomeness of a
moderate asceticism in proportion to individual temperament,
needs and circumstances (Matt. ix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. 5-7), without
demanding it or regarding it as something meritorious. This
evangelical moderation we also find still in the 2nd century,
_e.g._ in Ignatius. But very soon a gradual exaggeration becomes
apparent and an ever-advancing over estimation of asceticism as a
higher degree of morality with claims to be considered peculiarly
meritorious. The negative requirements of asceticism are directed
first of all to frequent and rigid fasts and to celibacy or
abstinence from marital intercourse; its positive requirements,
to the exercise of the spiritual life in prayer and meditation.
The most of the =Ascetics=, too, in accordance with Luke xviii. 24,
voluntarily divested themselves of their possessions. The number
of them, men and women, increased, and even in the first half
of the 2nd century, they formed a distinct order in the church,
though they were not yet bound to observe this mode of life by any
irrevocable vows. The idea that the clergy were in a special sense
called to an ascetic life resulted in their being designated the
κλῆρος Θεοῦ. Owing to the interpretation given to 1 Tim. iii. 2,
second marriages were in the 2nd century prohibited among the
clergy, and in the 3rd century it was regarded as improper for
them after ordination to continue marital intercourse. But it was
first at the Council of Elvira, in A.D. 306, that this opinion was
elevated into a law, though it could not even then be rigorously
enforced (§ 45, 2).--The immoral practice of ascetics or clerics
having with them virgins devoted to God’s service as _Sorores_,
ἀδελφαί on the ground of 1 Cor. ix. 5, with whom they were united
in spiritual love, in order to show their superiority to the
temptations of the flesh, seems to have been introduced as early
as the 2nd century. In the middle of the 3rd century it was
already widespread. Cyprian repeatedly inveighs against it.
We learn from him that the so-called _Sorores_ slept with the
Ascetics in one bed and surrendered themselves to the tenderest
caresses. For proof of the purity of their relations they referred
to the examinations of midwives. Among bishops, Paul of Samosata
in Antioch (§ 33, 8) seems to have been the first who favoured
this evil custom by his own example. The popular wit of the
Antiochenes [Antiocheans] invented for the more than doubtful
relationship the name of the γυναίκες συνεισάκτοι, _Subintroductæ_,
_Agapetæ_, _Extreneæ_. Bishops and Councils sent forth strict
decrees against the practice.--The most remarkable among the
celebrated ascetics of the age was =Hieracas=, who lived at
Leontopolis in Egypt toward the end of the 3rd and beginning of
the 4th century and died there when ninety years old. A pupil
of Origen, he was distinguished for great learning, favoured
the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, a spiritualistic
dogmatics and strict asceticism. Besides this he was a physician,
astronomer and writer of hymns, could repeat by heart almost all
the Old and New Testaments, wrote commentaries in Greek and Coptic,
and gathered round him a numerous society of men and women, who
accepted his ascetical principles and heterodox views. Founding
upon Matt. xix. 12; 1 Cor. vii. and Heb. xii. 14, he maintained
that celibacy was the only perfectly sure way to blessedness
and commended this doctrine as the essential advance from the
Old Testament to the New Testament morality. He even denied
salvation to Christian children dying in infancy because they had
not yet fought against sensuality, referring to 2 Tim. ii. 5. Of
a sensible paradise he would hear nothing, and just as little of
a bodily resurrection; for the one he interprets allegorically
and the other spiritually. Epiphanius, to whom we owe any precise
information that we have about him, is the first to assign him
and his followers a place in the list of heretics.

§ 39.4. =Paul of Thebes.=--The withdrawal of particular
ascetics from ascetical motives into the wilderness, which was
a favourite craze for a while, may have been suggested by Old
and New Testament examples, _e.g._ 1 Kings xvii. 3; xix. 4;
Luke i. 80; iv. 1; but it was more frequently the result of sore
persecution. Of a regular professional institution of anchorets
with life-long vows there does not yet appear any authentic trace.
According to Jerome’s _Vita Pauli monachi_ a certain =Paul of
Thebes= in Egypt, about A.D. 250, during the Decian persecution,
betook himself, when sixteen years old, to the wilderness, and
there forgotten by all the world but daily fed by a raven with
half a loaf (1 Kings xvii. 4), he lived for ninety-seven years
in a cave in a rock, until St. Anthony (§ 44, 1), directed
to him by divine revelation and led to him first by a centaur,
half man, half horse, then by a fawn, and finally by a she-wolf,
came upon him happily just when the raven had brought him as
it never did before a whole loaf. He was just in time to be
an eye-witness, not indeed of his death, but rather of his
subsequent ascension into heaven, accompanied by angels, prophets
and apostles, and to arrange for the burial of his mortal remains,
for the reception of which two lions, uttering heart-breaking
groans, dug a grave with their claws. These lions after earnestly
seeking and obtaining a blessing from St. Anthony, returned back
to their lair.--Contemporaries of the author, as indeed he himself
tells, declared that the whole story was a tissue of lies. Church
history, however, until quite recently, has invariably maintained
that there must have been some historical foundation, though it
might be very slight, for such a superstructure. But seeing that
no single writer before Jerome seems to know even the name of Paul
of Thebes and also that the _Vita Antonii_ ascribed to Athanasius
knows nothing at all of such a wonderful expedition of the saint,
Weingarten (§ 44) has denied that there ever existed such a man
as this Paul, and has pronounced the story of Jerome to be a
monkish Robinson Crusoe, such as the popular taste then favoured,
which the author put forth as true history _ad majorem monachatus
gloriam_. We may simply apply to this book itself what Jerome
at a later period confessed about his epistles of that same
date _ad Heliodorum:--sed in illo opere pio ætate tunc lusimus
et celentibus adhuc Rhetorum studiis atque doctrinis quædam
scholastico flore depinximus_.