Chapter XV: Front Matter (15)

3. _Worship._--The primitive belief in the immediate presence of the Spirit affected the religious services of the Church. They were regarded in early days as occasions for the free exercise of spiritual gifts. As a consequence the completest liberty was accorded to all Christians to take such part as they chose, it being assumed that they did so only under the Spirit's prompting. But the result of this freedom was confusion and discord, as is indicated by Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (see chapters xi., xiv.). This led to the erection of safeguards, which should prevent the continuance of the unseemly conditions (on Paul's action in the matter, see McGiffert's _Apostolic Age_, p. 523). Particular Christians were designated to take charge of the services, and orders of worship were framed out of which grew ultimately elaborate liturgies (see LITURGY). The Lord's Supper first took on a more stereotyped character, and prayers to be used in connexion with it are found already in the _Didach[=e]_ (chapters ix. and x.). The development cannot here be traced in detail. It may simply be said that the general tendency was on the one hand toward the elaboration and growing magnificence of the services, especially after the Church had become a state institution and had taken the place of the older pagan cults, and on the other hand toward the increasing solemnity and mystery of certain parts, particularly the eucharist, the sacred character of which was such as to make it sacrilegious to admit to it the unholy, that is, outsiders or Christians under discipline (cf. _Didach[=e]_, ix.). It was, in fact, from the Lord's table that offending disciples were first excluded. Out of this grew up in the 3rd or 4th century what is known as the _arcani disciplina_, or secret discipline of the Church, involving the concealment from the uninitiated and unholy of the more sacred parts of the Christian cult, such as baptism and the eucharist, with their various accompaniments, including the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The same interest led to the division of the services into two general parts, which became known ultimately as the _missa catechumenorum_ and the _missa fidelium_,--that is, the more public service of prayer, praise and preaching open to all, including the catechumens or candidates for Church membership, and the private service for the administration of the eucharist, open only to full members of the Church in good and regular standing. Meanwhile, as the general service tended to grow more elaborate, the _missa fidelium_ tended to take on the character of the current Greek mysteries (see EUCHARIST; Hatch, _Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church_, 1890; Anrich, _Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christentum_, 1894; Wobbermin, _Religionsgeschichtliche Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Urchristentums durch das antike Mysterienwesen_, 1896). Many of the terms in common use in them were employed in connexion with the Christian rites, and many of the conceptions, particularly that of sharing in immortality by communion with deity, became an essential part of Christian doctrine. Thus the early idea of the services, as occasions for mutual edification through the interchange of spiritual gifts, gave way in course of time to the theory that they consisted of sacred and mysterious rites by means of which communion with God is promoted. The emphasis accordingly came to be laid increasingly upon the formal side of worship, and a value was given to the ceremonies as such, and their proper and correct performance by duly qualified persons, i.e. ordained priests, was made the all-important thing.

4. _The Church and the Sacraments._--According to Paul, man is flesh and so subject to death. Only as he becomes a spiritual being through mystical union with Christ can he escape death and enjoy eternal life in the spiritual realm. In the Epistle to the Ephesians the Christian Church is spoken of as the body of Christ (iv. 12 ff., v. 30); and Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, early in the 2nd century, combined the two ideas of union with Christ, as the necessary condition of salvation, and of the Church as the body of Christ, teaching that no one could be saved unless he were a member of the Church (cf. his Epistle to the Ephesians 4, 5, 15; Trall. 7; Phil. 3, 8; Smyr. 8; Magn. 2, 7). Traces of the same idea are found in Irenaeus (cf. _Adv. Haer._ iii. 24, 1, iv. 26, 2), but it is first clearly set forth by Cyprian, and receives from him its classical expression in the famous sentence "Salus extra ecclesiam non est" (Ep. 73, 21; cf. also Ep. 4, 4; 74, 7; and _De unitate ecclesiae_, 6: "habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet matrem"). The Church thus became the sole ark of salvation, outside of which no one could be saved.

Intimately connected with the idea of the Church as an ark of salvation are the sacraments or means of grace. Already as early as the 2nd century the rite of baptism had come to be thought of as the sacrament of regeneration, by means of which a new divine nature is born within a man (cf. Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ i. 21, 1, iii. 17, 1; and his newly discovered _Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching_, chap. 3), and the eucharist as the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, feeding upon which one is endowed with immortality (cf. Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ iv. 18, 5, v. 2, 2). In the early days the Church was thought of as a community of saints, all of whose members were holy, and as a consequence discipline was strict, and offenders excluded from the Church were commonly not readmitted to membership but left to the mercy of God. The idea thus became general that baptism, which had been almost from the beginning the rite of entrance into the Church, and which was regarded as securing the forgiveness of all pre-baptismal sins, should be given but once to any individual. Meanwhile, however, discipline grew less strict (cf. the _Shepherd of Hermas_, Vis. v. 3; M. iv. 7; Sim. viii. 6, ix. 19, 26, &c.); until finally, under the influence of the idea of the Church as the sole ark of salvation, it became the custom to readmit all penitent offenders on condition that they did adequate penance. Thus there grew up the sacrament of penance, which secured for those already baptized the forgiveness of post-baptismal sins. This sacrament, unlike baptism, might be continually repeated (see PENANCE). In connexion with the sacraments grew up also the theory of clerical sacerdotalism. Ignatius had denied the validity of a eucharist administered independently of the bishop, and the principle finally established itself that the sacraments, with an exception in cases of emergency in favour of baptism, could be performed only by men regularly ordained and so endowed with the requisite divine grace for their due administration (cf. Tertullian, _De Exhort. cast. 7; De Bapt. 7, 17; De Praescriptione Haer. 41_; and Cyprian, _Ep. 67._ For the later influence of the Donatist controversy upon the sacramental development see DONATISTS). Thus the clergy as distinguished from the laity became true priests, and the latter were made wholly dependent upon the former for sacramental grace, without which there is ordinarily no salvation (see ORDER, HOLY).

5. _Christian Doctrine._--Two tendencies appeared in the thought of the primitive Church, the one to regard Christianity as a law given by God for the government of men's lives, with the promise of a blessed immortality as a reward for its observance; the other to view it as a means by which the corrupt and mortal nature of man is transformed, so that he becomes a spiritual and holy being. The latter tendency appeared first in Paul, afterwards in the Gospel and First Epistle of John, in Ignatius of Antioch and in the Gnostics. The former found expression in most of our New Testament writings, in all of the apostolic fathers except Ignatius, and in the Apologists of the 2nd century. The two tendencies were not always mutually exclusive, but the one or the other was predominant in every case. Towards the end of the 2nd century they were combined by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons. To him salvation bears a double aspect, involving both release from the control of the devil and the transformation of man's nature by the indwelling of the Divine. Only he is saved who on the one hand is forgiven at baptism and so released from the power of Satan, and then goes on to live in obedience to the divine law; and on the other hand receives in baptism the germ of a new spiritual nature and is progressively transformed by feeding upon the body and blood of the divine Christ in the eucharist. This double conception of salvation and of the means thereto was handed down to the Church of subsequent generations and became fundamental in its thought. Christianity is at once a revealed law which a man must keep, and by keeping which he earns salvation, and a supernatural power whereby his nature is transformed and the divine quality of immortality imparted to it. From both points of view Christianity is a supernatural system without which salvation is impossible, and in the Christian Church it is preserved and mediated to the world.

The twofold conception referred to had its influence also upon thought about Christ. The effect of the legal view of Christianity was to make Christ an agent of God in the revelation of the divine will and truth, and so a subordinate being between God and the world, the Logos of current Greek thought. The effect of the mystical conception was to identify Christ with God in order that by his incarnation the divine nature might be brought into union with humanity and the latter be transformed. In this case too a combination was effected, the idea of Christ as the incarnation of the Logos or Son of God being retained and yet his deity being preserved by the assertion of the deity of the Logos. The recognition of Christ as the incarnation of the Logos was practically universal before the close of the 3rd century, but his deity was still widely denied, and the Arian controversy which distracted the Church of the 4th century concerned the latter question. At the council of Nicaea in 325 the deity of Christ received official sanction and was given formulation in the original Nicene Creed. Controversy continued for some time, but finally the Nicene decision was recognized both in East and West as the only orthodox faith. The deity of the Son was believed to carry with it that of the Spirit, who was associated with Father and Son in the baptismal formula and in the current symbols, and so the victory of the Nicene Christology meant the recognition of the doctrine of the Trinity as a part of the orthodox faith (see especially the writings of the Cappadocian fathers of the late 4th century, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil and Gregory Nazianzen).

The assertion of the deity of the Son incarnate in Christ raised another problem which constituted the subject of dispute in the Christological controversies of the 4th and following centuries. What is the relation of the divine and human natures in Christ? At the council of Chalcedon in 451 it was declared that in the person of Christ are united two complete natures, divine and human, which retain after the union all their properties unchanged. This was supplemented at the third council of Constantinople in 680 by the statement that each of the natures contains a will, so that Christ possesses two wills. The Western Church accepted the decisions of Nicaea, Chalcedon and Constantinople, and so the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures in Christ were handed down as orthodox dogma in West as well as East.

Meanwhile in the Western Church the subject of sin and grace, and the relation of divine and human activity in salvation, received especial attention; and finally, at the second council of Orange in 529, after both Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism had been repudiated, a moderate form of Augustinianism was adopted, involving the theory that every man as a result of the fall is in such a condition that he can take no steps in the direction of salvation until he has been renewed by the divine grace given in baptism, and that he cannot continue in the good thus begun except by the constant assistance of that grace, which is mediated only by the Catholic Church. This decision was confirmed by Pope Boniface II., and became the accepted doctrine in the Western Church of the middle ages. In the East, Augustine's predestinationism had little influence, but East and West were one in their belief that human nature had been corrupted by the fall, and that salvation therefore is possible only to one who has received divine grace through the sacraments. Agreeing as they did in this fundamental theory, all differences were of minor concern.

In general it may be said that the traditional theology of the Church took its material from various sources--Hebrew, Christian, Oriental, Greek and Roman. The forms in which it found expression were principally those of Greek philosophy on the one hand and of Roman law on the other (see CHRISTIANITY).

6. _Organization._--The origin and early development of ecclesiastical organization are involved in obscurity. Owing to the once prevalent desire of the adherents of one or another polity to find support in primitive precept or practice, the question has assumed a prominence out of proportion to its real importance, and the few and scattered references in early Christian writings have been made the basis for various elaborate theories.

In the earliest days the Church was regarded as a divine institution, ruled not by men but by the Holy Spirit. At the same time it was believed that the Spirit imparted different gifts to different believers, and each gift fitted its recipient for the performance of some service, being intended not for his own good but for the good of his brethren (cf. 1 Cor. xii.; Eph. iv. 11). The chief of these was the gift of teaching, that is, of understanding and interpreting to others the will and truth of God. Those who were endowed more largely than their fellows with this gift were commonly known as apostles, prophets and teachers (cf. Acts xiii. 1; 1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. ii. 20, iii. 5, iv. 11; _Didach[=e]_, xi.). The apostles were travelling missionaries or evangelists. There were many of them in the primitive Church, and only gradually did the term come to be applied exclusively to the twelve and Paul. There is no sign that the apostles, whether the twelve or others, held any official position in the Church. That they had a large measure of authority of course goes without saying, but it depended always upon their brethren's recognition of their possession of the divine gift of apostleship, and the right of Churches or individuals to test their claims and to refuse to listen to them if they did not vindicate their divine call was everywhere recognized. Witness, for instance, Paul's reference to false apostles in 2 Cor. xi. 13, and his efforts to establish his own apostolic character to the satisfaction of the Corinthians and Galatians (1 Cor. ix. 1 ff.; 2 Cor. x. 13; Gal. i. 8 ff.); witness the reference in Rev. ii. 2 to the fact that the Church at Ephesus had tried certain men who claimed to be apostles and had found them false, and also the directions given in the _Didach[=e]_ for testing the character of those who travelled about as apostles. The passage in the _Didach[=e]_ is especially significant: "Concerning the apostles and prophets, so do ye according to the ordinance of the gospel. Let every apostle when he cometh to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not abide more than a single day, or if there be need a second likewise. But if he abide three days he is a false prophet. And when the apostle departeth let him receive nothing save bread until he findeth shelter. But if he ask money he is a false prophet" (ch. xi.). It is clear that a man who is to be treated in this way by the congregation is not an official ruler over it.

Between the apostles, prophets and teachers no hard-and-fast lines can be drawn. The apostles were commonly missionary prophets, called permanently or temporarily to the special work of evangelization (cf. Acts xiii. 1; _Did_. xi.), while the teachers seem to have been distinguished both from apostles and prophets by the fact that their spiritual endowment was less strikingly supernatural. The indefiniteness of the boundaries between the three classes, and the free interchange of names, show how far they were from being definite offices or orders within the Church. Apostleship, prophecy and teaching were only functions, whose frequent or regular exercise by one or another, under the inspiration of the Spirit, led his brethern to call him an apostle, prophet or teacher.

But at an early day we find regular officers in this and that local Church, and early in the 2nd century the three permanent offices of bishop, presbyter and deacon existed at any rate in Asia Minor (cf. the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch). Their rise was due principally to the necessity of administering the charities of the Church, putting an end to disorder and confusion in the religious services, and disciplining offenders. It was naturally to the apostles, prophets and teachers, its most spiritual men, that the Church looked first for direction and control in all these matters. But such men were not always at hand, or sometimes they were absorbed in other duties. Thus the need of substitutes began to be felt here and there, and as a consequence regular offices within the local Churches gradually made their appearance, sometimes simply recognized as charged with responsibilities which they had already voluntarily assumed (cf. 1. Cor. xvi. 15), sometimes appointed by an apostle or prophet or other specially inspired man (cf. Acts xiv. 23; Titus i. 5; 1 Clement 44), sometimes formally chosen by the congregation itself (cf. Acts vi., _Did._ xi.). These men naturally acquired more and more as time passed the control and leadership of the Church in all its activities, and out of what was in the beginning more or less informal and temporary grew fixed and permanent offices, the incumbents of which were recognized as having a right to rule over the Church, a right which once given could not lawfully be taken away unless they were unfaithful to their trust. Not continued endowment by the Spirit, but the possession of an ecclesiastical office now became the basis of authority. The earliest expression of this genuinely official principle is found in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. xliv. Upon these officers devolved ultimately not only the disciplinary, financial and liturgical duties referred to, but also the still higher function of instructing their fellow-Christians in God's will and truth, and so they became the substitutes of the apostles, prophets and teachers in all respects (cf. 1 Tim. iii. 2, v. 17; Titus i. 9; _Did._ 15; 1 Clement 44; Justin's first _Apology_, 67).

Whether in the earliest days there was a single officer at the head of a congregation, or a plurality of officers of equal authority, it is impossible to say with assurance. The few references which we have look in the latter direction (cf., for instance, Acts vi.; Phil. i. 1; 1 Clement 42, 44; _Did._ 14), but we are not justified in asserting that they represent the universal custom. The earliest distinct evidence of the organization of Churches under a single head is found in the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, which date from the latter part of the reign of Trajan (c. 116). Ignatius bears witness to the presence in various Churches of Asia Minor of a single bishop in control, with whom are associated as his subordinates a number of elders and deacons. This form of organization ultimately became universal, and already before the end of the 2nd century it was established in all the parts of Christendom with which we are acquainted, though in Egypt it seems to have been the exception rather than the rule, and even as late as the middle of the 3rd century many churches there were governed by a plurality of officers instead of by a single head (see Harnack, _Mission und Ausbreitung des Christenthums_, pp. 337 seq.). Where there were one bishop and a number of presbyters and deacons in a church, the presbyters constituted the bishop's council, and the deacons his assistants in the management of the finances and charities and in the conduct of the services. (Upon the minor orders which arose in the 3rd and following centuries, and became ultimately a training school for the higher clergy, see Harnack, _Texte und Untersuchungen_, ii. 5; English translation under the title of _Sources of the Apostolic Canons_, 1895.)

Meanwhile the rise and rapid spread of Gnosticism produced a great crisis in the Church of the 2nd century, and profoundly affected the ecclesiastical organization. The views of the Gnostics, and of Marcion as well, seemed to the majority of Christians destructive of the gospel, and it was widely felt that they were too dangerous to be tolerated. The original dependence upon the Spirit for light and guidance was inadequate. The men in question claimed to be Christians and to enjoy divine illumination as truly as anybody, and so other safeguards appeared necessary. It was in the effort to find such safeguards that steps were taken which finally resulted in the institution known as the Catholic Church. The first of these steps was the recognition of the teaching of the apostles (that is, of the twelve and Paul) as the exclusive standard of Christian truth. This found expression in the formulation of an apostolic scripture canon, our New Testament, and of an apostolic rule of faith, of which the old Roman symbol, the original of our present Apostles' Creed, is one of the earliest examples. Over against the claims of the Gnostics that they had apostolic authority, either oral or written, for their preaching, were set these two standards, by which alone the apostolic character of any doctrine was to be tested (cf. Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ i. 10, iii. 3, 4; and Tertullian, _De Prescriptione Haer. passim_). But these standards proved inadequate to the emergency, for it was possible, especially by the use of the allegorical method, to interpret them in more than one way, and their apostolic origin and authority were not everywhere admitted. In view of this difficulty, it was claimed that the apostles had appointed the bishops as their successors, and that the latter were in possession of special divine grace enabling them to transmit and to interpret without error the teaching of the apostles committed to them. This is the famous theory known as "apostolic succession." The idea of the apostolic appointment of church officers is as old as Clement of Rome (see 1 Clement 44), but the use of the theory to guarantee the apostolic character of episcopal teaching was due to the exigencies of the Gnostic conflict. Irenaeus (_Adv. Haer._ iii. 3 ff., iv. 26, iv. 33, v. 20), Tertullian (_De prescriptione_, 32), and Hippolytus (_Philosophumena_, bk. i., preface) are our earliest witnesses to it, and Cyprian sets it forth clearly in his epistles (e.g. Ep. 33, 43, 59, 66, 69). The Church was thus in possession not only of authoritative apostolic doctrine, but also of a permanent apostolic office, to which alone belonged the right to determine what that doctrine is. The combination of this idea with that of clerical sacerdotalism completed the Catholic theory of the Church and the clergy. Saving grace is recognized as apostolic grace, and the bishops as successors of the apostles become its sole transmitters. Bishops are therefore necessary to the very being of the Church, which without them is without the saving grace for the giving of which the Church exists (cf. Cyprian, _Ep._ 33, "ecclesia super episcopos constituitur"; 66, "ecclesia in episcopo"; also _Ep._ 59, and _De unitate eccles._ 17).

These bishops were originally not diocesan but congregational, that is, each church, however small, had its own bishop. This is the organization testified to by Ignatius, and Cyprian's insistence upon the bishop as necessary to the very existence of the Church seems to imply the same thing. Congregational episcopacy was the rule for a number of generations. But after the middle of the 3rd century diocesan episcopacy began to make its appearance here and there, and became common in the 4th century under the influence of the general tendency toward centralization, the increasing power of city bishops, and the growing dignity of the episcopate (cf. canon 6 of the council of Sardica, and canon 57 of the council of Laodicea; and see Harnack, _Mission und Ausbreitung_, pp. 319 seq.). This enlargement of the bishop's parish and multiplication of the churches under his care led to a change in the functions of the presbyterate. So long as each church had its own bishop the presbyters constituted simply his council, but with the growth of diocesan episcopacy it became the custom to put each congregation under the care of a particular presbyter, who performed within it most of the pastoral duties formerly discharged by the bishop himself. The presbyters, however, were not independent officers. They were only representatives of the bishop, and the churches over which they were set were all a part of his parish, so that the Cyprianic principle, that the bishop is necessary to the very being of the Church, held good of diocesan as well as of congregational episcopacy. The bishop alone possessed the right to ordain; through him alone could be derived the requisite clerical grace; and so the clergy like the laity were completely dependent upon him.

The growth of the diocesan principle promoted the unity of the churches gathered under a common head. But unity was carried much further than this, and finally resulted in at least a nominal consolidation of all the churches of Christendom into one whole. The belief in the unity of the entire Church had existed from the beginning. Though made up of widely scattered congregations, it was thought of as one body of Christ, one people of God. This ideal unity found expression in many ways. Intercommunication between the various Christian communities was very active. Christians upon a journey were always sure of a warm welcome and hospitable entertainment from their fellow-disciples. Messengers and letters were sent freely from one church to another. Missionaries and evangelists went continually from place to place. Documents of various kinds, including gospels and apostolic epistles, circulated widely. Thus in various ways the feeling of unity found expression, and the development of widely separated parts of Christendom conformed more or less closely to a common type. It was due to agencies such as these that the scattered churches did not go each its own way and become ultimately separate and diverse institutions. But this general unity became official, and expressed itself in organization, only with the rise of the conciliar and metropolitan systems. Already before the end of the 2nd century local synods were held in Asia Minor to deal with Montanism, and in the 3rd century provincial synods became common, and by the council of Nicaea (canon 5) it was decreed that they should be held twice every year in every province. Larger synods representing the churches of a number of contiguous provinces also met frequently; for instance, in the early 4th century at Elvira, Ancyra, Neo-Caesarea and Arles, the last representing the entire Western world. Such gatherings were especially common during the great doctrinal controversies of the 4th century. In 325 the first general or ecumenical council, representing theoretically the entire Christian Church, was held at Nicaea. Other councils of the first period now recognized as ecumenical by the Church both East and West are Constantinople I. (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II. (553). All these were called by the emperor, and to their decisions he gave the force of law. Thus the character of the Church as a state institution voiced itself in them. (See COUNCIL.)

The theory referred to above, that the bishops are successors of the apostles, and as such the authoritative conservators and interpreters of apostolic truth, involves of course the solidarity of the episcopate, and the assumption that all bishops are in complete harmony and bear witness to the same body of doctrine. This assumption, however, was not always sustained by the facts. Serious disagreements even on important matters developed frequently. As a result the ecumenical council came into existence especially for the purpose of settling disputed questions of doctrine, and giving to the collective episcopate the opportunity to express its voice in a final and official way. At the council of Nicaea, and at the ecumenical councils which followed, the idea of an infallible episcopate giving authoritative and permanent utterance to apostolic and therefore divine truth, found clear expression, and has been handed down as a part of the faith of the Catholic Church both East and West. The infallibility of the episcopate guarantees the infallibility of a general council in which not the laity and not the clergy in general, but the bishops as successors of the apostles, speak officially and collectively.

Another organized expression of the unity of the Church was found in the metropolitan system, or the grouping of the churches of a province under a single head, who was usually the bishop of the capital city, and was known as the metropolitan bishop. The Church thus followed in its organization the political divisions of the Empire (cf. for instance canon 12of the council of Chalcedon, which forbids more than one metropolitan see in a province; also canon 17 of the same council: "And if any city has been or shall hereafter be newly erected by imperial authority, let the arrangement of ecclesiastical parishes follow the political and municipal forms"). These metropolitan bishops were common in the East before the end of the 3rd century, and the general existence of the organization was taken for granted by the council of Nicaea (see canons 4,6,7). In the West, on the other hand, the development was much slower.

Meanwhile the tendency which gave rise to the metropolitan system resulted in the grouping together of the churches of a number of contiguous provinces under the headship of the bishop of the most important city of the district, as, for instance, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Rome, Milan, Carthage, Arles. In canon 6 of the council of Nicaea the jurisdiction of the bishops of Alexandria, Rome and Antioch over a number of provinces is recognized. At the council of Constantinople (381) the bishop of Constantinople or New Rome was ranked next after the bishop of Rome (canon 3), and at the council of Chalcedon (451) he was given authority over the churches of the political dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace (canon 28). To the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria was added at the council of Chalcedon (session 7) the bishop of Jerusalem, the mother church of Christendom, and the bishops thus recognized as possessing supreme jurisdiction were finally known as patriarchs.

Meanwhile the Roman episcopate developed into the papacy, which claimed supremacy over the entire Christian Church, and actually exercised it increasingly in the West from the 5th century on. This development was forwarded by Augustine, who in his famous work _De civitate Dei_ identified the Church with the kingdom of God, and claimed that it was supreme over all the nations of the earth, which make up the _civitas terrena_ or earthly state. Augustine's theory was ultimately accepted everywhere in the West, and thus the Church of the middle ages was regarded not only as the sole ark of salvation, but also as the ultimate authority, moral, intellectual and political. Upon this doctrine was built, not by Augustine himself but by others who came after him, the structure of the papacy, the bishop of Rome being finally recognized as the head under Christ of the _civitas Dei_, and so the supreme organ of divine authority on earth (see PAPACY and POPE).

_Historical Sources of the First Period._--These are of the same
general character for Church history as for general history--on the
one hand monumental, on the other hand documentary. Among the
monuments are churches, catacombs, tombs and inscriptions of
various kinds, few antedating the 3rd century, and none adding
greatly to the knowledge gained from documentary sources (see
De Rossi, _Roma sotteranea_, 1864 ff., and its English abridgment
by Northcote and Brownlow, 1870; André Pératé, _L'Archéologie
chrétienne_, 1892; W. Lowrie, _Monuments of the Early Church_, 1901,
with good bibliography). The documents comprise imperial edicts,
rescripts, &c, liturgies, acts of councils, decretals and letters of
bishops, references in contemporary heathen writings, and above all
the works of the Church Fathers. Written sources from the 1st and
2nd centuries are relatively few, comprising, in addition to some
scattered allusions by outsiders, the New Testament, the Apostolic
Fathers, the Greek Apologists, Clement of Alexandria, the old
Catholic Fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus) and a few
Gnostic fragments. For the 3rd, and especially the 4th and following
centuries, the writers are much more numerous; for instance, in the
East, Origen and his disciples, and later Eusebius of Caesarea,
Athanasius, Apollinaris, Basil and the two Gregories, Cyril of
Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Cyril of
Alexandria, Pseudo-Dionysius; in the West, Novatian, Cyprian,
Commodian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Hilary, Ambrose, Rufinus,
Jerome, Augustine, Prosper, Leo the Great, Cassian, Vincent of
Lerins, Faustus, Gennadius, Ennodius, Avitus, Caesarius, Fulgentius
and many others.

There are many editions of the works of the Fathers in the original,
the most convenient, in spite of its defects, being that of J.P. Migne
(_Patrologia Graeca_, 166 vols., Paris, 1857 ff.; _Patrologia Latina_,
221 vols., 1844 ff.). Of modern critical editions, besides those
containing the works of one or another individual, the best are the
Berlin edition of the early Greek Fathers (_Die griechischen
christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderie_, 1897 ff.),
and the Vienna edition of the Latin Fathers (_Corpus scriptorum
ecclesiasticorum Latinorum_, 1867 ff.), both of first-rate importance.
There is a convenient English translation of most of the writings of
the ante-Nicene Fathers by Roberts and Donaldson (_Ante-Nicene
Christian Library_, 25 vols., Edinburgh, 1868 ff., American reprint in
nine vols., 1886 ff.). A continuation of it, containing selected works
of the Nicene and post-Nicene period, was edited by Schaff and others
under the title _A Select Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers_
(series 1 and 2; 28 vols., Buffalo and New York, 1886 ff.).

On early Christian literature, in addition to the works on Church
history, see especially the monumental _Geschichte der altchristlichen
Litteratur bis Eusebius_, by Harnack (1893 ff.). The brief _Geschichte
der altchristlichen Litteratur in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten_, by
G. Krüger (1895, English translation 1897) is a very convenient
summary. Bardenhewer's _Patrologie_ (1894) and his _Geschichte der
altkirchlichen Litteratur_ (1902 ff.) should also be mentioned. See
also Smith and Wace's invaluable _Dictionary of Christian Biography_
(1877 ff.). (A. C. Mcg.)

B. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The ancient Church was the church of the Roman empire. It is true that from the 4th century onwards it expanded beyond the borders of that empire to east and west, north and south; but the infant churches which gradually arose in Persia and Abyssinia, among some of the scattered Teutonic races, and among the Celts of Ireland, were at first not co-operating factors in the development of Christendom: they received without giving in return. True historic life is only to be found within the church of the Empire.

The middle ages came into being at the time when the political structure of the world, based upon the conquests of Alexander the Great and the achievements of Julius Caesar, began to disintegrate. They were present when the believers in Mahomet held sway in the Asiatic and African provinces which Alexander had once brought under the intellectual influence of Hellenism; while the Lombards, the West Goths, the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons had established kingdoms in Italy, Spain, Gaul and Britain. The question is: what was the position of the Church in this great change of circumstances, and what form did the Church's development take from this time onwards? In answering this question we must consider East and West separately; for their histories are no longer coincident, as they had been in the time of the Roman dominion.