§ 2.1. The Various Branches Included in a Complete Course of Church History.—The Christian Church has undertaken the task of absorbing all peoples and tongues. Hence it is possessed of an eager desire to enlarge its borders by the conversion of all non-Christian races. The description of what helps or hinders this endeavour, the history of the spread and limitation of Christianity, is therefore an essential constituent of church history. Since, further, the church, in order to secure its continued existence and well-being, must strive after a legally determined position outwardly, as well as a firm, harmonious articulation, combination and order inwardly, it evidently also belongs to our science to give the history of the ecclesiastical constitution, both of the place which the church has in the state, and the relation it bears to the state; and also of its own internal arrangements by superordination, subordination, and co-ordination, and by church discipline and legislation. Not less essential, nay, even more important for the successful development of the church, is the construction and establishment of saving truth. In Holy Scripture the church indeed has possession of the fountain and standard, as well as the all-sufficient power and fulness, of all saving knowledge. But the words of Scripture are spirit and life, living seeds of knowledge, which, under the care of the same Spirit who sows them, may and shall be developed so as to yield a harvest which becomes ever more and more abundant; and therefore the fulness of the truth which dwells in them comes to be known more simply, clearly, fully, and becomes always more fruitful for all stages and forms of culture, for faith, for science, and for life. Hence church history is required to describe the construction of the doctrine and science of the church, to follow its course and the deviations from it into heresy, whenever these appear. The church is, further, in need of a form of public worship as a necessary expression of the feelings and emotions of believers toward their Lord and God, as a means of edification and instruction. The history of the worship of the church is therefore also an essential constituent of church history. It is also the duty of the church to introduce into the practical life and customs of the people that new spiritual energy of which she is possessor. And thus the history of the Christian life among the people comes to be included in church history as a further constituent of the science. Further, there is also included here, in consequence of the nature and aim of Christianity as a leaven (Matt. xiii.33), an account of the effects produced upon it by the development of art (of which various branches, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, have a direct connexion with Christian worship), and likewise upon national literature, philosophy, and secular science generally; and also, conversely, an estimate of the influence of these forms of secular culture upon the condition of the church and religion must not be omitted. The order of succession in the historical treatment of these phases under which the life of the church is manifested, is not to be rigidly determined in the same way for all ages after an abstract logical scheme. For each period that order of succession should be adopted which will most suitably give prominence to those matters which have come to the front, and so call for early and detailed treatment in the history of that age.

§ 2.2. The Separate Branches of Church History.—The constituent parts of church history that have been already enumerated are of such importance that they might also be treated as independent sciences, and indeed for the most part they have often been so treated. In this way, not only is a more exact treatment of details rendered possible, but also, what is more important, the particular science so limited can be construed in a natural manner according to principles furnished by itself. The history of the spread and limitation of Christianity then assumes a separate form as the History of Missions. The separate history of the ecclesiastical constitution, worship, and customs is known by the name of Christian ArchÆology, which is indeed, in respect of title and contents, an undefined conglomeration of heterogeneous elements restricted in a purely arbitrary way to the early ages. The treatment of this department therefore requires that we should undertake the scientific task of distinguishing these heterogeneous elements, and arranging them apart for separate consideration; thus following the course of their development down to the present day, as the history of the constitution, of the worship, and of the culture of the church. The history of the development of doctrine falls into four divisions:

1. The History of Doctrines in the form of a regular historical sketch of the doctrinal development of the church.
2. Symbolics, which gives a systematic representation of the relatively final and concluded doctrine of the church as determined in the public ecclesiastical confessions or symbols for the church universal and for particular sects: these again being compared together in Comparative Symbolics.
3. Patristics, which deals with the subjective development of doctrine as carried out by the most distinguished teachers of the church, who are usually designated church Fathers, and confined to the first six or eight centuries.
4. And, finally, the History of Theology in general, or the History of the particular Theological Sciences, which treats of the scientific conception and treatment of theology and its separate branches according to its historical development; while the History of Theological Literature, which when restricted to the age of the Fathers is called Patrology, has to describe and estimate the whole literary activity of the church according to the persons, motives, and tendencies that are present in it.

As the conclusion and result of church history at particular periods, we have the science of Ecclesiastical Statistics, which describes the condition of the church in respect of all its interests as it stands at some particular moment, “like a slice cut cross-wise out of its history.” The most important works in these departments are the following:

1. History of Missions.—

   Brown, “Hist. of Propag. of Christ. among Heathen since Reformation.” 3rdEd., 3vols., Edin.,1854.

   Warneck, “Outlines of Hist. of Prot. Miss.” Edin.,1884.

   Smith, “Short Hist. of Christ. Miss.” Edin.,1884.

2. History of the Papacy.—

   Ranke, “History of Papacy in 16th and 17th Cent.” 2vols., Lond.,1855.

   Platina (Lib. of Vatican), “Lives of Popes.” (1481). Trans. by Rycaut, Lond.,1685.

   Bower, “Hist. of Popes.” 7vols., Lond.,1750.

   Bryce, “Holy Rom. Empire.” Lond.,1866.

   Creighton, “Hist. of Papacy during the Reformation.” Vols.I.-IV., from A.D.1378-1518, Lond., 1882-1886.

   Janus, “Pope and the Council.” Lond.,1869.

   Pennington, “Epochs of the Papacy.” Lond.,1882.

3. History of Monasticism.—

   Hospinianus [Hospinian], “De Monachis.” Etc., Tigur.,1609.

   Maitland, “The Dark Ages.” Lond.,1844.

4. History of Councils.—

   Hefele, “Hist. of Councils.” Vols.I.-III., to A.D.451, Edin., 1871-1883. (Original German work brought down to the Council of Trent exclusive.)

5. Church law.—

   Haddan and Stubbs, “Councils and Eccl. Documents illust. Eccl. Hist. of Gr. Brit. and Ireland.” 3vols., Lond.,1869ff.

   Phillimore, “Eccl. Law.” Lond.,1873.

6. ArchÆology.—

   By Cath. Didron, “Christ. Iconography; or, Hist. of Christ. Art in M.A.” Lond.,1886.

   By Prot. Bingham, “Antiq. of Christ. Church.” 9vols., Lond.,1845.

   “Dictionary of Christ. Antiquities.” Ed. by Smith & Cheetham, 2vols., Lond.,1875ff.

7. History of Doctrines.—

   Neander, “Hist. of Christ. Doct.” 2vols., Lond.

   Hagenbach, “Hist. of Christ. Doctrines.” 3vols., Edin.,1880f.

   Shedd, “Hist. of Christ. Doc.” 2vols., Edin.,1869.

8. Symbolics and Polemics.—

   Winer, “Confessions of Christendom.” Edin.,1873.

   Schaff, “Creeds of Christendom.” 3vols., Edin.,1877ff.

   MÖhler, “Symbolism: an Expos. of the Doct. Differences between Catholics and Protestants.” 2vols., Lond.,1843.

9. Patrology and History of Theolog. Literature.—

   Dupin, “New History of Ecclesiastical Writers.” Lond.,1696.

   Cave, “Script. Eccl. Hist. Lit.” 2vols., Lond.,1668.

   Fabricii, “Biblioth. GrÆca.” 14vols., Hamb.,1705; “Biblioth. MediÆ et infinÆ Latin.” 6vols., Hamb.,1734.

   Teuffel, “Hist. of Rom. Lit.” 2vols., Lond.,1873.

10. History of the Theological Sciences.—

    BuddÆus, “Isagoge Hist. Theol. ad Theol. Univ.” Lps.,1727.

    RÄbiger, “EncyclopÆdia of Theology.” 2vols., Edin.,1884.

    Dorner, “Hist. of Prot. Theol.” 2vols., Edin.,1871.

    • History of Exegesis.—

      Davidson, “Sacred Hermeneutics; including Hist. of Biblical Interpretation from earliest Fathers to Reformation.” Edin.,1843.

      Farrar, “Hist. of Interpretation.” Lond.,1886.

    • History of Morals.—

      Wuttke’s “Christian Ethics.” Vol.I., “Hist. of Ethics.” Edin.,1873.

11. Biographies.—

    “Acta Sanctorum.” 63vols. fol., Ant.,1643ff.

    Mabillon, “Acta Ss. ord. S. Bened.” 9vols. fol., Par.,1666ff.

    Flaccius [Flacius], “Catalog. Testium Veritatis.”1555.

    Piper, “Lives of Leaders of Church Universal.” 2vols., Edin.

    Smith and Wace, “Dict. of Chr. Biog.” etc., 4vols., Lond.,1877ff.

§ 4.1. Literature of the Sources.—

1. Inscriptions:

   de Rossi, “Inscriptt. chr. urbis Rom.” Vols.I.II., Rome,1857.

2. Collections of Councils:

   Harduin [Hardouin], “Conc. coll.” (to A.D.1715), 12vols., Par.,1715.

   Mansi, “Conc. nova et ampl. coll.” 31vols., Flor.,1759.

3. Papal Acts:

   Jaffe, “Regesta pont. Rom.” (to A.D.1198), 2ed., Brl.,1881.

   Potthast, “Regesta pont. Rom.” (A.D.1198-1304), 2Vols., Brl.,1873.

   The Papal Decretals in “Corp. jur. Canonici.” ed., Friedberg, Lips.,1879.

   “Bullarum, diplom. et privil. SS. rom. pont.” Taurenensis editio, 24vols., 1857ff.

   Nussi, “Conventiones de reb. eccl. inter s. sedem et civ. pot. initÆ.” Mogunt.,1870.

4. Monastic Rules:

   Holstenii, “Cod. regul. mon. et. can.” 6vols., 1759.

5. Liturgies:

   Daniel, “Cod. liturg. eccl. univ.” 4vols., Leipz.,1847ff.

   Hammond, “Ancient Liturgies.” Oxf.,1878.

6. Symbolics:

   Kimmel, “Ll. Symb. eccl. Orient.” Jena.,1843.

   Danz, “Ll. Symb. eccl. Rom. Cath.” Weimar,1835.

   Hase, “Ll. Symb. eccl. evang.” Ed.iii., Leipz.,1840.

   Niemeyer, “Coll. Conf. eccl. Ref.” Leipz.,1840.

   Schaff, “Creeds of Christendom.” 3vols., Lond.,1882.

7. Martyrologies:

   Ruinart, “Acta prim. Mart.” 3vols., 1802.

   Assemanni [Assemani], “Acta SS. Mart. orient. et occid.” 2vols., Rome,1748.

8. Greek and Latin Church Fathers and Teachers:

   Migne, “PatrologiÆ currus completus.” Ser.I., Eccl. GrÆc., 162vols., Par.,1857ff.; Ser.II., Eccl. Lat., 221vols., Par.,1844ff.

   Horoy, “Media Ævi biblioth. patrist.” (from A.D.1216 to1564), Paris,1879.

   “Corpus Scriptorum eccl. lat.” Vindob., 1866ff.

   Grabe, “Spicilegium SS. Pp. et HÆrett.” SÆc.I.-III., 3vols., Oxford,1698.

   Routh, “ReliquiÆ sac.” 4vols., Oxford,1814ff.

   “Ante-Nicene Christian Library; a collection of all the works of the Fathers of the Christian Church prior to the Council of NicÆa.” 24vols., Edin.,1867ff.

9. Ancient Writers of the East:

   Assemanus [Assemani], “Biblioth. orient.” 4vols., Rome,1719.

10. Byzantine Writers:

    Niebuhr, “Corp. scr. hist. Byz.” 48vols., Bonn,1828ff.

    Sathas, “Biblioth. GrÆc. Med. Ævi.” Vols.I.-VI., Athens,1872ff.

§ 4.2. Literature of the Auxiliary Sciences.—

1. Diplomatics:

   Mabillon, “De re diplomatic.” Ed.ii., Par.,1709.

2. Philology:

   Du Fresne (du Cange), “Glossarium ad scriptt. med. et infim. Latin.” 6vols., Par.,1733; Newed., Henschel and Favre, in course of publication.

   Du Fresne, “Glossarium, ad scriptt. med. et infim. GrÆc.” 2vols., Leyden,1688.

   Suiceri, “Thesaurus ecclesiast. e patribus grÆcis.” Ed.ii., 2vols., Amst.,1728.

3. Geography and Statistics:

   Mich. le Quien, “Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus.” 3vols., Par.,1704.

4. Chronology:

   Nicolas, “The Chronology of History.” 2ed., Lond.,1838.

   “L’art de verifier les dates, by d’Antine.” Etc., ed.by Courcelles, 19vols., Par.,1821-1824.

§ 5.1. Down to the Reformation.—The church history of Eusebius, which reaches down to A.D.324, was to some extent continued by his Vita Constantini, down to A.D.337 (§47,2). The church history of Philostorgius, which reaches from A.D.318-423, coming down to us only in fragments quoted by Photius, was an Arian party production of some importance. During the 5th century, however, the church history of Eusebius was continued down to A.D.439 by the Catholic Socrates, an advocate at Constantinople, written in a simple and impartial style, yet not altogether uncritical, and with a certain measure of liberality; and down to A.D.423, by Sozomen, also an advocate at Constantinople, who in large measure plagiarizes from Socrates, and is, in what is his own, uncritical, credulous, and fond of retailing anecdotes; and down to A.D.428 by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, who produces much useful material in the shape of original authorities, confining himself, however, like both of his predecessors, almost exclusively to the affairs of the Eastern Church. In the 6th century, Theodorus, reader at Constantinople, made a collection of extracts from these works, continuing the history down to his own time in A.D.527. Of this we have only fragments preserved by Nicephorus Callisti. The continuation by Evagrius of Antioch, reaching from A.D.431-594, is characterized by carefulness, learning, and impartiality, along with zealous orthodoxy, and an uncritical belief in the marvellous. Collected editions of all these works have been published by Valesius (Par.,1659), and Reading (Cantab.,1720), in each case in 3vols. folio.—In the Latin Church Rufinus of Aquileia translated the work of Eusebius and enlarged it before the continuations of the three Greek historians had appeared, carrying it down to his own time in A.D.395 in an utterly uncritical fashion. Sulpicius Severus, a presbyter of Gaul, wrote about the same time his Historia Sacra, in two books, from the creation of the world down to A.D.400. In the 6th century, Cassiodorus fused together into one treatise in 12books, by means of extracts, the works of the three Greek continuators of Eusebius, under the title Hist. ecclesiastica tripartita, which, combined with the history of Rufinus, remained down to the Reformation in common use as a text-book. A church history written in the 6th century in Syriac, by the monophysite bishop, John of Ephesus, morbidly fond of the miraculous, first became known to us in an abridged form of the third part embracing the history of his own time. (Ed. Cureton, Oxf.,1853. Transl. into Engl. by Payne Smith, Oxford,1859.)—Belonging to the Latin church of the middle ages, Haymo of Halberstadt deserves to be named as a writer of universal history, about A.D.850, leaning mainly upon Rufinus and Cassiodorus. The same too may be said about the work entitled, LibriXIII. historiÆ ecclesiasticÆ written by the Abbot Odericus Vitalis in Normandy, about A.D.1150, which forms upon the whole the most creditable production of the middle ages. In the24 books of the Church history of the Dominican and Papal librarian, Tolomeo of Lucca, composed about A.D.1315, church history is conceived of as if it were simply a historical commentary on the ecclesiastical laws and canons then in force, as an attempt, that is, to incorporate in the history all the fictions and falsifications, which Pseudo-Isidore in the 9th century (§87,2-4), Gratian in the 12th century, and Raimundus [Raimund] de Penneforti [Pennaforte] in the 13th century (§99,5), had wrought into the Canon law. Toward the end of the 15th century, under the influence of humanism there was an awakening here and there to a sense of the need of a critical procedure in the domain of church history, which had been altogether wanting throughout the middle ages. In the Greek Church again, during the 14th century, Nicephorus Callisti of Constantinople, wrote a treatise on church history, reaching down to A.D.610, devoid of taste and without any indication of critical power.

§ 5.2. The 16th and 17th Centuries.—About the middle of the 16th century the Lutheran Church produced a voluminous work in church history, the so-called Magdeburg Centuries, composed by a committee of Lutheran theologians, at the head of which was Matthias Flacius, of Illyria in Magdeburg. This work consisted of 13folio vols., each of which embraced a century. (Eccles. Hist., integram eccl. ideam complectens, congesta per aliquot studiosos et pios viros in urbe Magdb. Bas.,1559-1574.) They rest throughout on careful studies of original authorities, produce many documents that were previously unknown, and, with an unsparingly bitter polemic against the Romish doctrinal degeneration, address themselves with special diligence to the historical development of dogma. In answer to them the Romish Oratorian, CÆsar Baronius, produced his Annales ecclesiastici, in 12vols. folio, reaching down to A.D.1198 (Rome,1588-1607). This work moves entirely along Roman Catholic lines and is quite prejudiced and partial, and seeks in a thoroughly uncritical way, by every species of ingenuity, to justify Romish positions; yet, as communicating many hitherto unknown, and to others inaccessible documents, it must be regarded as an important production. It secured for its author the cardinal’s hat, and had wellnigh raised him to the chair of St.Peter. In the interests of a scholarly and truth-loving research, it was keenly criticised by the Franciscan Anthony Pagi (Critica hist-chronol. 4vols., Antw.,1705), carried down in the 17th century from A.D.1198-1565, in 9vols. by Oderic. Raynaldi, in the 18th century from A.D.1566-1571, in 3vols. by de Laderchi, and in the 19th century down to A.D.1585 in 3vols. by August Theiner. A new edition was published by Mansi (43vols., 1738ff.), with Raynaldi’s continuation and Pagi’s criticism.—During the 17th century the French Catholic scholars bore the palm as writers of Church history. The course was opened in general church history by the Dominican Natalis Alexander, a learned man, but writing a stiff scholastic style (Selecta hist. eccl. capita et diss. hist. chron. et dogm. 24vols., Par.,1676ff.). This first edition, on account of its Gallicanism was forbidden at Rome; a later one by Roncaglia of Lucca, with corrective notes, was allowed to pass. Sebast. le Nain de Tillemont, with the conscientiousness of his Jansenist faith, gave an account of early church history in a cleverly grouped series of carefully selected authorities (Memoires pour servir À l’hist. eccl. des six premiers siÈcles, justifiÉs par les citations des auteurs originaux. 16vols., Par.,1693ff.). Bossuet wrote, for the instruction of the Dauphin, what Hase has styled “an ecclesiastical history of the world with eloquent dialectic and with an insight into the ways of providence, as if the wise Bishop of Meaux had been in the secrets not only of the king’s but also of God’s councils” (Discours sur l’hist. universelle depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’À l’empire de Charles M. Par.,1681). Claude Fleury, aiming at edification, proceeds in flowing and diffuse periods (Histoire ecclst. 20vols., Par.,1691ff.).—The history of the French Church (A.D.1580) ascribed, probably erroneously, to Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, marks the beginning of the writing of ecclesiastical history in the Reformed Church. During the 17th century it secured an eminence in the department of church history, especially on account of learned special researches (§160,7), but also to some extent in the domain of general church history. J.H. Hottinger overloaded his Hist. ecclst. N.T. (9vols., Fig.,1651ff.) by dragging in the history of Judaism, and Paganism, and even of Mohammedanism, with much irrelevant matter of that sort. Superior to it were the works of Friedr. Spanheim (Summa hist. eccl. Leyd.,1689) Jas. Basnage (Hist. de l’Égl. 2vols., Rotd.,1699). Most important of all were the keen criticism of the Annals of Baronius by Isaac Casaubon (Exercitt. BaronianÆ. Lond.,1614), and by Sam. Basnage (Exercitt. hist. crit. Traj.,1692; and Annales polit. ecclst. 3vols., Rotd.,1706).

§ 5.3. The 18th Century.—After the publication of the Magdeburg Opus palmare the study of church history fell into the background in the Lutheran Church. It was George Calixtus (†A.D.1658) and the syncretist controversies which he occasioned that again awakened an interest in such pursuits. Gottfr. Arnold’s colossal party-spirited treatise entitled “Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie” (2vols. fol., Frkf.,1699), which scarcely recognised Christianity except in heresies and fanatical sects, gave a powerful impulse to the spirit of investigation and to the generous treatment of opponents. This bore fruit in the irenical and conciliatory attempts of Weismann of TÜbingen (Introd. in memorabilia ecclst. 2vols., TÜb.,1718). The shining star, however, in the firmament of church history during the 18th century was J.Lor.v. Mosheim in Helmstedt [Helmstadt] and GÖttingen, distinguished alike for thorough investigation, with a divinatory power of insight, and by a brilliant execution and an artistic facility in the use of a noble Latin style (Institutionum hist. ecclst. LibriIV. Helmst.,1755; transl. into English by Murdock, ed.by Reid, 11thed., Lond.,1880). J.A. Cramer, in Kiel, translated Bossuet’s Einl. in die Gesch. d. Welt u.d. Relig., with a continuation which gave a specially careful treatment of the theology of the middle ages (7vols., Leipz.,1757ff.). J.Sal. Semler, in Halle, shook, with a morbidly sceptical criticism, many traditional views in Church history that had previously been regarded as unassailable (Hist. eccl. selecta capita. 3vols., Halle,1767ff.; Versuch e. fruchtb. Auszugs d.K. Gesch. 3vols., Halle,1773ff.). On the other hand, Jon. Matt. SchrÖckh of Wittenberg produced a gigantic work on church history, which is characterized by patient research, and gives, in so far as the means within his reach allowed, a far-sighted, temperate, and correct statement of facts (Christl. K.G. 45vols., Leipz.,1772ff., the last two vols. by Tzschirner). The WÜrtemburg [WÜrttemberg] minister of state, Baron von Spittler, sketched a Grundriss der K. Gesch., in short and smartly expressed utterances, which in many cases were no better than caricatures (5thed. by Planck, GÖtt.,1812). In his footsteps Henke of Helmstedt [Helmstadt], followed, who, while making full acknowledgment of the moral blessing which had been brought by true Christianity to mankind, nevertheless described the “Allg. Gesch. der Kirche” as if it were a bedlam gallery of religious and moral aberrations and strange developments (6vols., Brsweig.,1788ff.; 5thed. revised and continued by Vater in 9vols.).—In the Reformed Church, Herm. Venema, of Franeker, the Mosheim of this church, distinguished himself by the thorough documentary basis which he gave to his exposition, written in a conciliatory spirit (Institutt. hist. eccl. V. et N.T. 7vols., Leyd.,1777ff.). In the Catholic Church, Royko of Prague, favoured by the reforming tendencies of the Emperor JosephII., was able with impunity to give expression to his anti-hierarchical views in an almost cynically outspoken statement (Einl. in d. chr. Rel. u.K.G. Prague,1788).

§ 5.4. The 19th Century. In his Handb. d. chr. K.G., publ. in1801 (in 2nded. contin. by Rettberg, 7vols., Giessen,1834), Chr. Schmidt of Giessen expressly maintained that the supreme and indeed the only conditions of a correct treatment of history consisted in the direct study of the original documents, and a truly objective exhibition of the results derived therefrom. By objectivity, however, he understood indifference and coolness of the subject in reference to the object, which must inevitably render the representation hard, colourless, and lifeless. Gieseler of GÖttingen, †1854, commended this mode of treatment by his excellent execution, and in his Lehrbuch (5vols., Bonn, 1824-1857; Engl. transl. “Compendium of Church History.” 5vols., Edinb., 1846-1856), a master-piece of the first rank, which supports, explains and amplifies the author’s own admirably compressed exposition by skilfully chosen extracts from the documents, together with original and thoughtful criticism under the text. A temperate, objective, and documentary treatment of church history is also given in the Handbuch of Engelhardt of Erlangen (5vols., Erlang.,1832ff.). Among the so-called Compendia the most popular was the Universalgeschichte d.K. by StÄudlin, of GÖttingen (Hann.,1807; 5thed. by Holzhausen,1833). It was superseded by the Lehrbuch of Hase, of Jena (Leipz.,1834; 10thed., 1877; Engl. transl. from 7thGerm. ed., NewYork,1855), which is a generally pregnant and artistically tasteful exposition with often excellent and striking features, subtle perception, and with ample references to documentary sources. The Vorlesungen of Schleiermacher, †1834, published after his death by Bonell (Brl.,1840), assume acquaintance with the usual materials, and present in a fragmentary manner the general outlines of the church’s course of development. Niedner’s Lehrbuch (2nded., Brl.,1866), is distinguished by a philosophical spirit, independent treatment, impartial judgment, and wealth of contents with omission of customary matter, but marred by the scholastic stiffness and awkwardness of its style. GfrÖrer’s (†1861) Kirchengeschichte (7vols. reaching down to A.D.1000, Stuttg.,1840) treats early Christianity as purely a product of the culture of the age, and knows of no moving principles in the historical development of the Christian church but clerical self-seeking, political interests, machinations and intrigues. Nevertheless the book, especially in the portion treating of the middle ages, affords a fresh and lively account of researches among original documents and of new results, although even here the author does not altogether restrain his undue fondness for over subtle combinations. After his entrance into the Catholic Church his labours in the domain of church history were limited to a voluminous history of GregoryVII., which may be regarded as a continuation of his church history, the earlier work having only reached down to that point. Baur of TÜbingen began the publication of monographical treatises on particular periods, reaching down to the Reformation (3vols., 2nded., TÜb.,1860ff.), a continuation to the end of the 18th cent. (published by his son F.Baur,1863), and also a further volume treating of the 19thcent. (publ. by his son-in-law Zeller, 2nded.,1877). These works of this unwearied investigator show thorough mastery of the immense mass of material, with subtle criticism and in many cases the first establishment of new views. BÖhringer’s massive production (Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, oder Kirchengeschichte in Biographien. 24vols., Zur.,1842; 2nded., Zur.,1873), upon the basis of an independent study of the several ages down to the Reformation, characterizes by means of detailed portraiture the personalities prominent during these periods. In the second edition, thoroughly recast with the assistance of his two sons, there is evidence of a more strictly critical research and a judicial frame of mind, so that the predominantly panegyrical character of the first edition is considerably modified. Rothe’s lectures, edited after his death, with additions from his literary remains, by Weingarten (2vols., Hdlb.,1875) are quite fragmentary because the usual historical matter was often supplied from Gieseler, Neander, or Hase. The work is of great value in the departments of the Constitution and the Life of the Church, but in other respects does not at all satisfy the expectations which one might entertain respecting productions bearing such an honoured name; thoroughly solid and scholarly, however, are the unfortunately only sparse and short notes of the learned editor.

§ 5.5. Almost contemporaneously with Gieseler, Aug. Neander of Berlin, †1850, began the publication of his Allg. Gesch. d. chr. Kirche in xi.divisions down to A.D.1416 (Ham., 1824-1852. Engl. Transl. 9vols., Edin., 1847-1855), by which ground was broken in another direction. Powerfully influenced by the religious movement, which since the wars of independence had inspired the noblest spirits of Germany, and sympathizing with Schleiermacher’s theology of feeling, he vindicated the rights of subjective piety in the scientific treatment of church history, and sought to make it fruitful for edification as a commentary of vast proportions on the parable of the leaven. With special delight he traces the developments of the inner life, shows what is Christian in even misconceived and ecclesiastically condemned manifestations, and feels for the most part repelled from objective ecclesiasticism, as from an ossification of the Christian life and the crystallization of dogma. In the same way he undervalues the significance of the political co-efficients, and has little appreciation of esthetic and artistic influences. The exposition goes out too often into wearisome details and grows somewhat monotonous, but is on every side lighted up by first hand acquaintance with the original sources. His scholar, Hagenbach of Basel, †1874, put together in a collected form his lectures delivered before a cultured public upon several periods of church history, so as to furnish a treatise dealing with the whole field (7vols., Leipz.,1868). These lectures are distinguished by an exposition luminous, interesting, sometimes rather broad, but always inspired by a warm Christian spirit and by circumspect judgment, inclining towards a mild confessional latitudinarianism. What, even on the confessional and ecclesiastical side, had been to some extent passed over by Neander, in consequence of his tendency to that inwardness that characterizes subjective and pectoral piety, has been enlarged upon by Guericke of Halle, †1878, another of Neander’s scholars, in his Handbuch (2vols., Leipz.,1833; 9thed., 3vols., 1866; Eng. transl. “Manual of Ch. Hist.” Edinb.,1857), by the contribution of his own enthusiastic estimate of the Lutheran Church in a strong but clumsy statement; beyond this, however, the one-sidedness of Neander’s standpoint is not overcome, and although, alongside of Neander’s exposition, the materials and estimates of other standpoints are diligently used, and often the very words incorporated, the general result is not modified in any essential respect. Written with equal vigour, and bearing the impress of a freer ecclesiastical spirit, the Handbuch of Bruno Lindner (3vols., Leipzig,1848ff.) pursues with special diligence the course of the historical development of doctrine, and also emphasizes the influence of political factors. This same end is attempted in detailed treatment with ample production of authoritative documents in the Handbuch of the author of the present treatise (vol.I. in three divisions, in a 2nded.; vol.II.1, down to the end of the Carlovingian Era. Mitau,1858ff.). Milman (1791-1868) an English church historian of the first rank (“Hist. of Chr. to Abolit. of Pag. in Rom. Emp.” 3vols., London,1840; “History of Latin Christianity to the Pontificate of NicholasV.” 3vols., London,1854), shows himself, especially in the latter work, learned, liberal and eloquent, eminently successful in sketching character and presenting vivid pictures of the general culture and social conditions of the several periods with which he deals. The Vorlesungen of R.Hasse [Hase], published after his death by KÖhler (2nded., Leipz.,1872), form an unassuming treatise, which scarcely present any trace of the influence of Hegel’s teaching upon their author. KÖllner of Giessen writes an Ordnung und Uebersicht der Materien der chr. Kirchengeschichte, Giess.,1864, a diligent, well-arranged, and well packed, but somewhat dry and formless work. H.Schmid of Erlangen has enlarged his compendious Lehrbuch (2nded., 1856), into a Handbuch of two bulky volumes (Erlang.,1880); and O.ZÖckler of Greifswald has contributed to the Handbuch d. theolog. Wissenschaften (Erlang.,1884; 2nded., 1885) edited by him an excellent chronological summary of church history. Ebrard’s Handbuch (4vols., Erlang.,1865ff.) endeavours to give adequate expression to this genuine spirit of the Reformed conception of historical writing by bringing church history and the history of doctrines into organic connection. The attempt is there made, however, as Hase has expressed it, with a paradoxical rather than an orthodox tendency. The spirit and mind of the Reformed Church are presented to us in a more temperate, mild and impartial form, inspired by the pectoralism of Neander, in the Handbuch of J.J. Herzog of Erlangen, †1882 (3vols., Erlang.,1876), which assumes the name of Abriss or Compendium. This work set for itself the somewhat too ambitious aim of supplying the place of the productions of Gieseler and Neander,—which, as too diffuse, have unfortunately repelled many readers—by a new treatise which should set forth the important advances in the treatment of church history since their time, and give a more concise sketch of universal church history. The Histoire du Christianisme of Prof. Chastel of Geneva, (5vols., Par.,1881ff.) in its earlier volumes occupies the standpoint of Neander, and we often miss the careful estimation of the more important results of later research. In regard to modern church history, notwithstanding every effort after objectivity and impartiality, theological sympathies are quite apparent. On the other hand, in the comprehensive History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff (in 8vols., Edinb.,1885, reaching down to GregoryVIII., A.D.1073), the rich results of research subsequent to the time of Neander are fully and circumspectly wrought up in harmony with the general principles of Neander’s view of history. Herzog’s RealencyclopÆdie fÜr protest. Theol. u.Kirche, especially in its 2nded. by Herzog and Plitt, and after the death of both, by Hauck (18vols., Leipz.,1877ff.), has won peculiar distinction in the department of church history from the contributions of new and powerful writers. Lichtenberger, formerly Prof. of Theol. in Strassburg, now in Paris, in his EncyclopÉdie des sciences relig. has produced a French work worthy of a place alongside that of Herzog. The Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines during the first eight centuries, edited with admirable circumspection and care by Dr.Wm. Smith and Prof. Wace, combines with a completeness and richness of contents never reached before, a thoroughgoing examination of the original sources. (4vols., Lond.,1877ff.) Weingarten’s Chronological Tables for Church History (Zeittafeln z.K.G. 2nded., Brl.,1874) are most useful to students as the latest and best helps of that kind.

§ 5.6. In the Catholic Church of Germany too a great activity has been displayed in the realm of church history. First of all in general Church history we have the diffuse work of the convert von Stolberg (Gesch. d. Rel. Jesu, 15vols., down to A.D.430, Hamb.,1806ff., continued by von Kerz, vols.16-45, and by Brischar, vols.46-52, Mainz, 1825-1859), spreading out into hortatory and uncritical details. The elegant work of Katerkamp (K.G., 5vols., down to1153, MÜnst.,1819ff.) followed it, inspired by a like mild spirit, but conceived in a more strictly scientific way. Liberal, so far as that could be without breaking with the hierarchy, is the Handbuch der K.G. (3vols., Bonn,1826ff.; 6thed. by Ennen, 2vols., 1862), by I.Ign. Ritter. The ample and detailed Gesch. d. Chr. Rel. u.d.K. (8vols., down to1073, Ravensb.,1824ff.) of Locherer reminds one of SchrÖckh’s work in other respects than that of its voluminousness. A decidedly ultramontane conception of church history, with frequent flashes of sharp wit, first appears in Hortig’s Handbuch (2vols., Landsh.,1826). DÖllinger in1828 publ. as a 3rdvol. of this work a Handbuch d. Neuern K.G., which, with a similar tendency, assumed a more earnest tone. This theologian afterwards undertook a thoroughly new and independent work of a wider range, which still remains incomplete (Gesch. d. chr.K., I.1,2, partially down to A.D.630, Landsh., 1833-1835). This work with ostensible liberality exposed the notorious fables of Romish historical literature; but, on the other hand, with brilliant ingenuity, endeavoured carefully to preserve intact everything which on ultramontane principles and views might seem capable of even partial justification. His Lehrbuch (I.II.1., Rgsb.,1836ff.), reaching down only to the Reformation, treats the matter in a similar way, and confines itself to a simple statement of acknowledged facts. In the meantime J.A. MÖhler, by his earlier monographical works, and still more decidedly by his far-reaching influence as a Professor at TÜbingen, gave rise to an expectation of the opening up of a new epoch in the treatment of Catholic church history. He represented himself as in spiritual sympathy with the forms and means of Protestant science, although in decided opposition and conflict with its contents, maintaining his faithful adhesion to all elements essential to Roman Catholicism. This master, however, was prevented by his early death, †1838, from issuing his complete history. This was done almost thirty years after his death by Gams, who published the work from his posthumous papers (K.G., 3vols., Rgsb.,1867ff.), with much ultramontane amendment. It shows all the defects of such patchwork, with here and there, but relatively, very few fruitful cases. Traces of his influence still appear in the spirit which pervades the LehrbÜcher proceeding from his school, by Alzog (†1878) and Kraus. The Universalgeschichte d.K., by J.Alzog (Mainz,1841; 9thed., 2vols., 1872; transl. into Engl., 3vols., Lond.,1877), was, in its earlier editions, closely associated with the lectures of his teacher, not ashamed even to draw from Hase’s fresh-sparkling fountains something at times for his own yet rather parched meadows, but in his later editions he became ever more independent, more thorough in his investigation, more fresh and lively in his exposition, making at the same time a praiseworthy endeavour at moderation and impartiality of judgment, although his adhesion to the Catholic standpoint grows more and more strict till it reaches its culmination in the acceptance of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. The 10thed. of his work appeared in1882 under the supervision of Kraus, who contributed much to its correction and completion. The Lehrbuch of F.Xav. Kraus of Freiburg (2nded., Trier,1882) is without doubt among all the Roman Catholic handbooks of the present the most solid from a scientific point of view, and while diplomatically reserved and carefully balanced in its expression of opinions, one of the most liberal, and it is distinguished by a clever as well as instructive mode of treatment. On the other hand, the WÜrzburgian theologian, J.HergenrÖther (since1879 Cardinal and Keeper of the Papal Archives at Rome), who represents the normal attitude of implicit trust in the Vatican, has published a Handbuch (2vols. in 4parts, Freib.,1876ff.; 2nded., 1879, with a supplement: Sources, Literat., and Foundations). In this work he draws upon the rich stores of his acknowledged scholarship, which, however, often strangely forsakes him in treating of the history of Protestant theology. It is a skilful and instructive exposition, and may very fitly be represented as “a history of the church, yea, of the whole world, viewed through correctly set Romish spectacles.” Far beneath him in scientific importance, but in obstinate ultramontanism far above him, stands the Lehrbuch of H.Bruck [BrÜck] (2nded., Mainz,1877). A far more solid production is presented in the Dissertatt. selectÆ in hist. ecclst. of Prof. B.Jungmann of Louvain, which treat in chronological succession of parties and controversies prominent in church history, especially of the historical development of doctrine, in a thorough manner and with reference to original documents, not without a prepossession in favour of Vaticanism (vols.i.-iii., Ratisb., 1880-1883, reaching down to the end of the 9thcent.). The Kirchenlexikon of Wetzer and Wette (12vols., Freib.,1847ff.) gained a prominent place on account of the articles on church history contributed by the most eminent Catholic scholars, conceived for the most part in the scientific spirit of MÖhler. The very copious and of its kind admirably executed 2nd ed. by Kaulen (Freib.,1880ff.), under the auspices of Card. HergenrÖther, is conceived in a far more decidedly Papistic-Vatican spirit, which often does not shrink from maintaining and vindicating even the most glaring productions of mediÆval superstition, illusion and credulity, as grounded in indubitable historical facts. Much more important is the historical research in the Hist. Jahrbuch der GÖrres-Gesellschaft, edited from 1880 by G. HÜffer, and from1883 by B.Gramich, which presents itself as “a means of reconciliation for those historians with whom Christ is the middle point of history and the Catholic Church the God-ordained institution for the education of the human race.”—In the French Church the following are the most important productions: the Hist. de l’Égl. of Berault-Bercastel (24vols., Par.,1778ff.), which have had many French continuators and also a German translator (24vols., Vienna,1784ff.); the Hist. ecclst. depuis la crÉation, etc., of Baron Henrion, ed. by Migne (25vols., Par.,1852ff.); and the very diffuse compilation, wholly devoted to the glorification of the Papacy and its institutions, Hist. universelle de l’Égl. Cath. of the Louvain French AbbÉ Rohrbacher (29vols., Par.,1842ff.; of which an English transl. is in course of publication). Finally, the scientifically careful exposition of the Old Catholic J.Rieks, Gesch. d. chr. K.u.d. Papstthums, Lahr.,1882, though in some respects onesided, may be mentioned as deserving of notice for its general impartiality and love of the truth.

§ 7.1. The Religious Character of Heathenism.—The hidden powers of the life of nature and the soul, not intellectually apprehended in the form of abstract knowledge, but laid hold of in immediate practice, and developed in speculation and mysticism, in natural magic and soothsaying, and applied to all the relations of human life, seemed revelations of the eternal spirit of nature, and, mostly by means of the intervention of prominent personalities and under the influence of various geographical and ethnographical peculiarities, produced manifold systems of the religion of nature. Common to all, and deeply rooted in the nature of heathenism, is the distinction between the esoteric religion of the priests, and the exoteric religion of the people. The former is essentially a speculative ideal pantheism; the latter is for the most part a mythical and ceremonial polytheism. The religious development of heathenism has nevertheless been by no means stripped of all elements of truth. Apart from casual remnants of the primitive divine revelation, which, variously contorted on their transmission through heathen channels, may lie at the foundation or be inwrought into its religious systems, the hothouse-like development of the religion of nature has anticipated many a religious truth which, in the way of divine revelation, could only slowly and at a late period come to maturity, but has perverted and distorted it to such a degree that it was little better than a caricature. To this class belong, for example, the pantheistic theories of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the dualistic acknowledgment of the reality of evil, etc. To this also especially belongs the offering of human victims which has been practised in all religions of nature without exception,—a terrible and to some extent prophetic cry of agony from God-forsaken men, which is first toned down on Golgotha into hymns of joy and thanksgiving. Witness is given to the power and energy, with which the religions of nature in the time of their bloom took possession of and ruled over the minds and emotions of men, by the otherwise unexampled sacrifices and self-inflictions, such as hecatombs, offerings of children, mutilation, prostitution, etc., to which its votaries submitted, and not less the almost irresistible charm which it exercised again and again upon the people of Israel during the whole course of their earlier history. It also follows from this that the religion of heathenism does not consist in naked lies and pure illusions. There are elements of truth in the lies, which gave this power to the religion of nature. There are anticipations of redemption, though these were demoniacally perverted, which imparted to it this charm. There are mysterious phenomena of natural magic and soothsaying which seemed to establish their divine character. But the worship of nature had the fate of all unnatural, precocious development. The truth was soon swallowed up by the lies, the power of development and life, of which more than could possibly be given was demanded, was soon consumed and used up. The blossoms fell before the fruit had set. Mysteries and oracles, magic and soothsaying, became empty forms, or organs of intentional fraud and common roguery. And so it came to pass that one harauspex could not look upon another without laughing. Unbelief mocked everything, superstition assumed its most absurd and utterly senseless forms, and religions of an irrational mongrel type sought in vain to quicken again a nerveless and soulless heathenism.

§ 7.2. The Moral Character of Heathenism.—Religious character and moral character go always hand in hand. Thus, too, the moral life among heathen peoples was earnest, powerful, and true, or lax, defective, and perverse, in the same proportion as was the religious life of that same period. The moral faults of heathenism flow from its religious faults. It was a religion of the present, to whose gods therefore were also unhesitatingly ascribed all the imperfections of the present. In this way religion lost all its power for raising men out of the mire and dust surrounding them. The partly immoral myths sanctioned or excused by the example of the gods the grossest immoralities. As the type and pattern of reproductive power in the deified life of nature, the gratification of lust was often made the central and main point in divine service. The idea of pure humanity was wholly wanting in heathenism. It could only reach the conception of nationality, and its virtues were only the virtues of citizens. In the East despotism crushed, and in the West fierce national antipathies stifled the acknowledgment of, universal human rights and the common rank of men, so that the foreigner and the slave were not admitted to have any claims. As the worth of man was measured only by his political position, the significance of woman was wholly overlooked and repudiated. Her position was at most only that of the maid of the man, and was degraded to the lowest depths in the East by reason of the prevalent polygamy. Notwithstanding all these great and far-reaching moral faults, heathenism, in the days of its bloom and power, at least in those departments of the moral life, such as politics and municipal matters, in which pantheism and polytheism did not exert their relaxing influence, had still preserved much high moral earnestness and an astonishing energy. But when the religion of their fathers, reduced to emptiness and powerlessness, ceased to be the soul and bearer of those departments of life, all moral power was also withdrawn from them. The moral deterioration reached its culminating point in the dissolute age of the Roman Emperors. In this indescribable state of moral degeneration, the church found heathenism, when it began its spiritual regeneration of the world.

§ 7.3. The Intellectual Culture in Heathenism.—The intellectual culture of heathenism has won in regard to the church a twofold significance. On the one hand it affords a pattern, and on the other it presents a warning beacon. Pagan science and art, in so far as they possess a generally culturing influence and present to the Christian church a special type for imitation, are but the ultimate results of the intellectual activity which manifested itself among the Greeks and Romans in philosophy, poetry and historical writing, which have in two directions, as to form and as to contents, become the model for the Christian church, preparing and breaking up its way. On the one side they produced forms for the exercise of the intellectual life, which by their exactness and clearness, by their variety and many-sidedness, afforded to the new intellectual contents of Christianity a means for its formal exposition and expression. But, on the other side, they also produced, from profound consideration of and research into nature and spirit, history and life, ideas and reflections which variously formed an anticipation of the ideas of redemption and prepared the soil for their reception. The influence, however, on the other hand, which oriental forms of culture had upon the development and construction of the history of redemption, had already exhausted itself upon Judaism. What the symbolism of orientalism had contributed to Judaism, namely the form in which the divine contents communicated by Old Testament prophesy should be presented and unfolded, the dialectic of classical heathenism was to Christianity, in which the symbolic covering of Judaism was to be torn off and the thought of divine redemption to be manifested and to be laid hold of in its purely intellectual form. The influence of heathenism upon the advancing church in the other direction as affording a picture of what was to be avoided, was represented not less by Eastern culture than by the classical culture of the Greeks and Romans. Here it was exclusively the contents, and indeed the ungodly anti-Christian contents, the specifically heathen substance of the pagan philosophy, theosophy, and mysteriosophy, which by means of tolerated forms of culture sought to penetrate and completely paganize Christianity. To heathenism, highly cultured but pluming itself in the arrogance of its sublime wisdom, Christianity, by whose suggestive profundity it had been at first attracted, appeared altogether too simple, unphilosophical, unspeculative, to satisfy the supposed requirements of the culture of the age. There was needed, it was thought, fructification and enriching by the collective wisdom of the East and the West before religion could in truth present itself as absolute and perfect.

§ 7.4. The Hellenic Philosophy.—What is true of Greek-Roman culture generally on its material and formal sides, that it powerfully influenced Christianity now budding into flower, is preeminently true of the Greek Philosophy. Regarded as a prefiguration of Christianity, Greek philosophy presents a negative side in so far as it led to the dissolution of heathenism, and a positive side in so far as it, by furnishing form and contents, contributed to the construction of Christianity. From its very origin Hellenic philosophy contributed to the negative process by undermining the people’s faith in heathenism, preparing for the overthrow of idolatry, and leading heathenism to take a despondent view of its own future. It is with Socrates, who died in B.C.399, that the positive prefiguring of Christianity on the part of Greek philosophy comes first decidedly into view. His humble confession of ignorance, his founding of the claim to wisdom on the G???? sea?t??, the tracing of his deepest thoughts and yearnings back to divine suggestions (his ?a??????), his grave resignation to circumstances, and his joyful hope in a more blessed future, may certainly be regarded as faint anticipations and prophetic adumbrations of the phenomena of Christian faith and life. Plato, who died B.C.348, with independent speculative and poetic power, wrought the scattered hints of his teacher’s wisdom into an organically articulated theory of the universe, which in its anticipatory profundity approached more nearly to the Christian theory of the universe than any other outside the range of revelation. His philosophy leads men to an appreciation of his God-related nature, takes him past the visible and sensible to the eternal prototypes of all beauty, truth and goodness, from which he has fallen away, and awakens in him a profound longing after his lost possessions. In regard to matter Aristotle, who died B.C.322, does not stand so closely related to Christianity as Plato, but in regard to form, he has much more decidedly influenced the logical thinking and systematizing of later Christian sciences. In these two, however, are reached the highest elevation of the philosophical thinking of the Greeks, viewed in itself as well as in its positive and constructive influence upon the church. As philosophy down to that time, consciously or unconsciously, had wrought for the dissolution of the religion of the people, it now proceeded to work its own overthrow, and brought into ever deeper, fuller and clearer consciousness the despairing estimate of the world regarding itself. This is shown most significantly in the three schools of philosophy which were most widely spread at the entrance of the church into the GrÆco-Roman world, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism. Epicurus, who died B.C.271, in his philosophy seeks the highest good in pleasure, recognises in the world only a play of fortune, regards the soul as mortal, and supposes that the gods in their blissful retirement no longer take any thought about the world. Stoicism, founded by Zeno, who died in B.C.260, over against the Epicurean deism set up a hylozoistic pantheism, made the development of the world dependent upon the unalterable necessity of fate, which brings about a universal conflagration, out of which again a new world springs to follow a similar course. To look on pleasure with contempt, to scorn pain, and in case of necessity to end a fruitless life by suicide—these constitute the core of all wisdom. When he has reached such a height in the mastery of self and of the world the wise man is his own god, finding in himself all that he needs. Finally, in conflict with Stoicism arose the Scepticism of the New Academy, at the head of which were Arcesilaus who died B.C.240 and Carneades who died B.C.128. This school renounced all knowledge of truth as something really unattainable, and in the moderation (?p???) of every opinion placed the sum of theoretic wisdom, while it regarded the sum of all practical wisdom to consist in the evidence of every passionate or exciting effort.

§ 7.5. The Heathen State.—In the grand endeavour of heathenism to redeem itself by its own resources and according to its own pleasure, the attempt was finally made by the concentration of all forces into one colossal might. To gather into one point all the mental and bodily powers of the whole human race, and through them also all powers of nature and the products of all zones and lands, and to put them under one will, and then in this will to recognise the personal and visible representation of the godhead—to this was heathenism driven by an inner necessity. Hence arose a struggle, and in consequence of the pertinacity with which it was carried on, one kingdom after another was overthrown, until the climax was reached in the Roman empire. Yet even this empire was broken and dissolved when opposed by the spiritual power of the kingdom of God. Like all the endeavours of heathenism, this struggle for absolute sovereignty had a twofold aspect; there are thereby made prominent men’s own ways and God’s ways, the undivine aims of men, and the blessed results which God’s government of the world could secure for them. We have here to do first of all simply with the Roman universal empire, but the powers that rose in succession after it are only rejuvenations and powerful continuations of the endeavour of the earlier power, and so that is true of every state which is true of the Roman. Its significance as a preparer of the way for the church is just this, that in consequence of the articulation of the world into one great state organisation, the various stages and elements of culture found among the several civilized races hitherto isolated, contributed now to one universal civilization, and a rapid circulation of the new life-blood driven by the church through the veins of the nations was made possible and easy. With special power and universal success had the exploits of Alexander the Great in this direction made a beginning, which reached perfection under the Roman empire. The ever advancing prevalence of one language, the Greek, which at the time of the beginning of the church was spoken and understood in all quarters of the Roman empire, which seemed, like a temporary suspension of the doom of the confusion of languages which accompanied the rise of heathenism (Gen.xi.), to celebrate its return to the divine favour, belongs also pre-eminently to those preparatory influences. And as the heathen state sought after the concentration of all might, Industry and Trade, moved by the same principle, sought after the concentration of wealth and profit. But as worldly enterprise for its own ends made paths for universal commerce over wastes and seas, and visited for purposes of trade the remotest countries and climes, it served unwittingly and unintentionally the higher purposes of divine grace by opening a way for the spread of the message of the gospel.

§ 8.1. Judaism under special Training of God through the Law and Prophecy.—Abraham was chosen as a single individual (Isa.li.2), and, as the creator of something new, God called forth from an unfruitful womb the seed of promise. As saviour and redeemer from existing misery He delivered the people of promise from the oppression of Egyptian slavery. In the Holy Land the family must work out its own development, but in order that the family might be able unrestrainedly to expand into a great nation, it was necessary that it should first go down into Egypt. Moses led the people thus disciplined out of the foreign land, and gave them a theocratic constitution, law, and worship as means for the accomplishment of their calling, as a model and a schoolmaster leading on to future perfection (Gal.iii.24; Heb.x.1). The going out of Egypt was the birth of the nation, the giving of the law at Sinai was its consecration as a holy nation. Joshua set forth the last condition for an independent people, the possession of a country commensurate with the task of the nation, a land of their own that would awaken patriotic feelings. Now the theocracy under the form of a purely popular institution under the fostering care of the priesthood could and should have borne fruit, but the period of the Judges proves that those two factors of development were not sufficient, and so now two new agencies make their appearance; the Prophetic order as a distinct and regular office, constituted for the purpose of being a mouth to God and a conscience to the state, and the Kingly order for the protecting of the theocracy against hurt from without and for the establishment of peace within her borders. By David’s successes the theocracy attained unto a high degree of political significance, and by Solomon’s building of the temple the typical form of worship reached the highest point of its development. In spite, however, of prophecy and royalty, the people, ever withdrawing themselves more and more from their true vocation, were not able outwardly and inwardly to maintain the high level. The division of the kingdom, internal feuds and conflicts, their untheocratic entanglement in the affairs of the world, the growing tendency to fall away from the worship of Jehovah and to engage in the worship of high places, and calves, and nature, called down incessantly the divine judgments, in consequence of which they fell a prey to the heathen. Yet this discipline was not in vain. Cyrus decreed their return and their independent organization, and even prophecy was granted for a time to the restored community for its establishment and consolidation. Under these political developments has prophecy, in addition to its immediate concern with its own times in respect of teaching, discipline, and exhortation, given to the promise of future salvation its fullest expression, bringing a bright ray of comfort and hope to light up the darkness of a gloomy present. The fading memories of the happy times of the brilliant victories of David and the glorious peaceful reign of Solomon formed the bases of the delineations of the future Messianic kingdom, while the disasters, the suffering and the humiliation of the people during the period of their decay gave an impulse to Messianic longings for a Messiah suffering for the sins of the people and taking on Himself all their misery. And now, after it had effected its main purpose, prophecy was silenced, to be reawakened only in a complete and final form when the fulness of time had come.

§ 8.2. Judaism after the Cessation of Prophecy.—The time had now come when the chosen people, emancipated from the immediate discipline of divine revelation, but furnished with the results and experiences of a rich course of instruction, and accompanied by the law as a schoolmaster and by the light of the prophetic word, should themselves work out the purpose of their calling. The war of extermination which Antiochus Epiphanes in his heathen fanaticism waged against Judaism, was happily and victoriously repelled, and once more the nation won its political independence under the Maccabees. At last, however, owing to the increasing corruption of the ruling Maccabean family, they were ensnared by the craft of the Roman empire. The Syrian religious persecution and the subsequent oppression of the Romans roused the national spirit and the attachment to the religion of their fathers to the most extreme exclusiveness, fanatical hatred, and proud scorn of everything foreign, and converted the Messianic hope into a mere political and frantically carnal expectation. True piety more and more disappeared in a punctilious legalism and ceremonialism, in a conceited self-righteousness and boastful confidence in their own good works. Priests and scribes were eagerly bent on fostering this tendency and increasing the unsusceptibility of the masses for the spirituality of the redemption that was drawing nigh, by multiplying and exaggerating external rules and by perverse interpretation of scripture. But in spite of all these perverting and far-reaching tendencies, there was yet in quiet obscurity a sacred plantation of the true Israel (Johni.47; Lukei.6; ii.25,38, etc.), as a garden of God for the first reception of salvation in Christ.

§ 8.3. The Synagogues.—The institution of the Synagogues was of the greatest importance for the spread and development of post-exilian Judaism. They had their origin in the consciousness that, besides the continuance of the symbolical worship of the temple, a ministry of the word for edification by means of the revelation of God in the law and the prophets was, after the withdrawal of prophecy, all the more a pressing need and duty. But they also afforded a nursery for the endeavour to widen and contract the law of Moses by Rabbinical rules, for the tendency to external legalism and hypocrisy, for the national arrogance and the carnal Messianic expectations, which from them passed over into the life of the people. On the other hand, the synagogues, especially outside of Palestine, among the dispersion, won a far-reaching significance for the church by reason of their missionary tendency. For here where every Sabbath the holy scripture of the Old Testament was read in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and expounded, a convenient opportunity was given to heathens longing for salvation to gain acquaintance with the revelations and promises of God in the Old Covenant, and here there was already a place for the first ministers of the gospel, from which they could deliver their message to an assembled multitude of people from among the Jews and Gentiles. (SchÜrer, “Hist. of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ.” Div.ii., vol.2., “The School and Synagogue.” pp.44-89, Edin.,1885.)

§ 8.4. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.—The strict, traditionally legalistic, carnally particularistic tendency of Post-Exilian Judaism had its representatives and supporters in the sect of the Pharisees (??????????, ?f???s????), so called because their main endeavour was to maintain the strictest separation from everything heathenish, foreign, and ceremonially unclean. By their ostentatious display of zeal for the law, their contempt for everything not Jewish, their democratic principles and their arrogant patriotism, they won most completely the favour of the people; they shared the evil fortunes of the Maccabean princes, and became the bitterest enemies of the Herodians, and entertained a burning fanatical hatred to the Romans. They held sway in the synagogues to such an extent that the names Scribes and Pharisees were regarded as almost synonymous, and even in the Sanhedrim they secured many seats. In the times of Jesus the schools of Hillel and Shammai contended with one another, the former pleading for somewhat lax views, especially in reference to divorce and the obligation of oaths, while the latter insisted upon the most rigorous interpretation of the law. Both, however, were agreed in the recognition of oral tradition, the pa?ad?se?? t?? pat????, as a binding authority and an essential supplement to the law of Moses. In direct opposition to them stand the Sadducees, out of sympathy with the aspirations of the people, and abandoning wholly the sacred traditions, and joining themselves in league with the Herodians and Romans. The name originally designated them as descendants of the old temple aristocracy represented by the family of the high priest Zadok, and, in consequence of the similarity in sound between ?????????? and ??????????, gave expression to their claim to be regarded as essentially and truly righteous because of their outward adherence to the Mosaic law. Proceeding on the principle that virtue as a free act of man has in it its own worth and reward, just as vice has in it its own punishment, they rejected the doctrine of a future judgment, denied the doctrine of a resurrection, the existence of angels and spirits, and the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge.2 The Essenes, not mentioned in the Bible, but named by Philo, Josephus, and the elder Pliny, form a third sect. Their name was probably derived from ?????, pious. The original germ of their society is found in distinct colonies on the banks of the Dead Sea, which kept apart from the other Jews, and recognised even among themselves four different grades of initiation, each order being strictly separated from the others. A member was received only after a three years’ novitiate, and undertook to keep secret the mysteries of the order. Community of goods in the several communities and clans, meals in common accompanied by religious ceremonies, frequent prayers in the early morning with the face directed to the rising sun, oft repeated washings and cleansings, diligent application to agriculture and other peaceful occupations, abstaining from the use of flesh and wine, from trade and every warlike pursuit, from slavery and taking of oaths, perhaps also abstinence from marriage in the higher orders, were the main conditions of membership in their association. The Sabbath was observed with great strictness, but sacrifices of blood were abolished, and all anointing with oil was regarded as polluting. They still, however, maintained connection with Judaism by sending gifts to the temple. So far the order may fairly be regarded, as it is by Ritschl, as a spiritualizing exaggeration of the Mosaic idea of the priestly character that had independently grown up on Jewish soil, and indeed especially as an attempt to realize the calling set forth in Exod.xix.5,6, and repudiated in Exod.xx.19,20, unto all Israelites to be a spiritual priesthood. But when, on the other hand, the Essenes, according to Josephus, considered the body as a prison in which the soul falling from its ethereal existence is to be confined until freed from its fetters by death it returns again to heaven, this can scarcely be explained as originating from any other than a heathen source, especially from the widely spread influences of Neo-Pythagoreanism (§24). Lucius(1881) derives the name and seeks their origin from the AsidÆans, Chasidim, or Pious, in 1Macc. ii.42; vii.13; and 2Macc. xiv.6. Very striking too is Hilgenfeld’s carefully weighed and ably sustained theory (Ketzergesch., pp.87-149), that their descent is to be traced from the Kenite Rechabites (Jer.xxxv.; Judg.i.16), and their name from the city Gerasa, west of the Dead Sea, called in Josephus also Essa, where the Rechabites, abandoning their tent life, formed a settlement. In the time of Josephus the Essenes numbered about four thousand. In consequence of the Jewish war, which brought distress upon them, as well as upon the Christians, they were led into friendly relations with Christianity; but even when adopting the Christian doctrines, they still carried with them many of their earlier tenets (§28,2,3).3

§ 10.1. Influence of Heathenism upon Judaism.—This reached its greatest strength in Egypt, the special centre and source of the syncretic tendencies of the age. Forming for itself by means of the adoption of Greek culture and especially of the Platonic philosophy a more universal basis of culture, Jewish Hellenism flourished in Alexandria. After Aristobulus, who wrote ?????se?? t?? ???s???, about B.C.170, now only found in a fragment of doubtful authority, and the author of the Book of Wisdom, the chief representative of this tendency was the Alexandrian Jew Philo, a contemporary of Christ. His Platonism enriched by elements drawn from Old Testament revelation and from the doctrines of the Essenes has on many points carried its speculation to the very borders of Christianity, and has formed a scaffolding for the Christian philosophy of the Church Fathers. He taught that all nations have received a share of divine truth, but that the actual founder and father of all true philosophy was Moses, whose legislation and teaching formed the source of information for even the Greek Philosophy and Mysteriosophy. But it is only by means of allegorical interpretation that such depths can be discovered. God is t? ??, matter t? ? ??. An intermediate world, corresponding to the Platonic world of ideas, is the ??s?? ???t??, consisting of innumerable spirits and powers, angels and souls of men, but bound together into a unity in and issuing from the Word of God, who as the ????? ??d?a?et?? was embraced in God from eternity, coming forth from God as the ????? p??f?????? for the creation of the world (thought and word). The visible world, on account of the physical impotence of matter, is an imperfect representation of the ??s?? ???t??, etc. On the ground of the writing De vita contemplativa attributed to Philo, the TherapeutÆ, or worshippers of God, mentioned therein, had been regarded as a contemplative ascetic sect related to the Essenes, affected by an Alexandrian philosophical spirit, living a sort of monastic life in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, until Lucius (Strassb.,1879) withdrew them from the domain of history to that of Utopian romance conceived in support of a special theory. This scholar has proved that the writing referred to cannot possibly be assigned to Philo, but must have been composed about the end of the third century in the interest of Christian monasticism, for which it presented an idealizing apology. This, however, has been contested by Weingarten, in Herzog, x.761, on good grounds, and the origin of the book has been assigned to a period soon after Philo, when Hellenistic Judaism was subjected to a great variety of religious and philosophical influences.5

§ 10.2. Influence of Judaism upon Heathenism.—The heathen state showed itself generally tolerant toward Judaism. Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptolemies, to some extent also the SeleucidÆ, allowed the Jews the free exercise of their religion and various privileges, while the Romans allowed Judaism to rank as a religio licita. Nevertheless the Jews were universally despised and hated. Tacitus calls them despectissima pars servientium, teterrima gens; and even the better class of writers, such as Manetho, Justin, Tacitus, gave currency to the most absurd stories and malicious calumnies against them. In opposition to these the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus took pains to overcome the prejudices of Greeks and Romans against his nation, by presenting to them its history and institutions in the most favourable light. But on the other side, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, as well as the multitude of Jewish synagogues, which during the Roman period were scattered over the whole world, afforded to every heathen interested therein the opportunity of discovering by personal examination and inquiry the characteristic principles of Judaism. When, therefore, we consider the utterly corrupt condition of heathenism, we cannot wonder that Judaism, in spite of all the contempt that was thrown upon it, would attract, by reason of its hoary antiquity and the sublime simplicity of its creed, the significance of its worship, and its Messianic promises, many of the better aspiring heathens, who were no longer satisfied with their sorely degraded forms of religion. And though indeed only a few enrolled themselves as “Proselytes of Righteousness,” entering the Jewish community by submitting to the rite of circumcision, the number of the “Proselytes of the Gate” who without observing the whole of the ceremonial law undertook to abandon their idols and to worship Jehovah, in all ranks of society, mostly women, was very considerable, and it was just among them that Christianity found the most hearty and friendly acceptance.

§ 13.1. In regard to the year of the birth and the year of the death of the Redeemer no absolutely certain result can now be attained. The usual Christian chronology constructed by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century, first employed by the Venerable Bede, and brought into official use by Charlemagne, assumes the year 754A.U.C. as the date of Christ’s birth, which is evidently wrong, since, in A.D.750 or 751, Herod the Great was already dead. Zumpt takes the seventh, others the third, fourth, or fifth year before our era. The length of Christ’s public ministry was fixed by many Church Fathers, in accordance with Isaiah lxi.1,2, and Lukeiv.19, at one year, and it was consequently assumed that Christ was crucified when thirty years of age (Lukeiii.21). The synoptists indeed speak only of one passover, the last, during Christ’s ministry; but John (ii.13; vi.4; xii.1) speaks of three, and also besides (v.1) of a ???t? t?? ???da???.

§ 13.2. Among the non-biblical witnesses to Christ the earliest is probably a Syrian Epistle of Mara to his son Serapion, written, according to Cureton (“Spicileg. Syriacum.” Lond.,1855), about A.D.73. The father, highly cultured in Greek wisdom but dissatisfied with it, writes from exile words of comfort and exhortation to his son, in which he places Christ alongside of Socrates and Pythagoras, and honours him as the wise King, by whose death the Jews had brought upon themselves the swift overthrow of their kingdom, who would, however, although slain, live for ever in the new land which He has given. To this period also belongs the witness of the Jewish historian Josephus, which in its probably genuine portions praises Jesus as a worker of miracles and teacher of wisdom, and testifies to His death on the cross under Pilate, as well as the founding of the church in His name. Distinctly and wholly spurious is the Correspondence of Christ with Abgar, Prince of Edessa, who entreats Christ to come to Edessa to heal him and is comforted of the Lord by the sending of one of His disciples after His ascension. This document was first communicated by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., i.13) from the Archives of Edessa in a literal translation from the Syriac, and is also to be found in the Syrian book Doctrina AddÆi (§32,6). Of a similar kind are the apocryphal Acta Pilati, as well the heathen form which has perished (§22,7), as the Christian form which is still extant (§32,4). An Epistle of Lentulus, pretending to be from a Roman resident in Palestine on terms of intimacy with Pilate, containing a description of the appearance of Christ, is quoted, and even then as a forgery, by Laurentius Valla in his writing on the Donation of Constantine. Since in many particulars it agrees with the description of the person of Christ given in the Church History by Nicephorus Callisti (§5,1), in accordance with the type then prevailing among Byzantine painters, it may fairly be regarded as an apocryphal Latin retouching of that description originating in the fifteenth century. At Edessa a picture of Christ was known to exist in the fourth century (according to the Doctr. AddÆi), which must have been brought thither by the messengers of Abgar, who had picked it up in Jerusalem. During the fourth century mention is made of a statue of Christ, first of all by Eusebius, who himself had seen it. This was said to have been set up in Paneas by the woman cured of the issue of blood (Matt.ix.20). It represents a woman entreating help, kneeling before the lofty figure of a man who stretches out his hand to her, while at his feet a healing herb springs up. In all probability, however, it was simply a votive figure dedicated to the god of healing, Æsculapius. The legend that has been current since the fifth century of the sweat-marked handkerchief of Veronica—this name being derived either from vera icon, the true likeness, or from Bernice or Beronice, the name given in apocryphal legends to the woman with the issue of blood,—on which the face of the Redeemer which had been wiped by it was imprinted, probably arose through the transferring to other incidents the legendary story of Edessa. On the occurrence of similar transferences see §57,5.

It is difficult to determine with chronological exactness either the beginning (§13,1) or the close of the Apostolic Age. Still we cannot be far wrong in taking A.D.30 as the beginning and A.D.70 as the close of that period. The last perfectly certain and uncontested date of the Apostolic Age is the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul in A.D.64, or perhaps A.D.67, see §15,1. We have it on good evidence that James the elder died about A.D.44, and James the Just about A.D.63 (§16,3), that Peter suffered martyrdom contemporaneously with Paul (§16,1), that about the same time or not long after the most of the other Apostles had been in all probability already taken home, at least in regard to their life and work after the days of Paul, we have not the slightest information that can lay any claim to be regarded as historical. The Apostle John forms the only exception to this statement. According to important witnesses from the middle and end of the second century (§16,2), he entered upon his special field of labour in Asia Minor after the death of Paul, and continued to live and labour there, with the temporary interruption of an exile in Patmos, down to the time of Trajan, A.D.98-117. But the insufficient data which we possess regarding the nature, character, extent, success, and consequences of his Apostolic activity there are partly, if not in themselves altogether incredible, interesting only as anecdotes, and partly wholly fabulous, and therefore little fitted to justify us, simply on their account, in assigning the end of the first or the beginning of the second century as the close of the Apostolic Age. We are thus brought back again to the year of Paul’s death as indicating approximately the close of that period. But seeing that the precise year of this occurrence is matter of discussion, the adoption of the round number70 may be recommended, all the more as with this year, in which the last remnant of Jewish national independence was lost, the opposition between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, which had prevailed throughout the Apostolic Age, makes its appearance under a new phase (§28).

It may be accepted as a well authenticated and incontestable fact that Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome under Nero. This is established by the testimony of Clement of Rome—a?t???sa? ?p? t?? ???????? ??t?? ?p?????? t?? ??s??,—and is further explained and confirmed by Dionysius of Corinth, quoted in Eusebius, and by IrenÆus, Tertullian, Caius of Rome (§16,1). On the other hand it is disputed whether it may have happened during the imprisonment spoken about in the Acts of the Apostles, or during a subsequent imprisonment. According to the tradition of the church given currency to by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., ii.22), which even in our own time has been maintained by many capable scholars, Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment shortly before the outburst of Nero’s persecution of the Christians in A.D.64 (§22,1), and made a fourth missionary journey which was brought to a close by his being a second time arrested and subsequently beheaded at Rome in A.D.67. The proofs, however, that are offered in support of this assertion are of a very doubtful character. Paul certainly in A.D.58 had the intention (Rom. xv.24,28) after a short visit to Rome to proceed to Spain; and when from his prison in Rome he wrote to Philemon (v.22) and to the Philippians (i.25; ii.24), he believed that his cherished hope of yet regaining his liberty would be realised; but there is no further mention of a journey into Spain, for apparently other altogether different plans of travel are in his mind. And indeed circumstances may easily be conceived as arising to blast such hopes and produce in him that spirit of hopeless resignation, which he gives expression to in 2Tim. iv.6ff. But the words of Clement of Rome, chap.5: d??a??s???? d?d??a? ???? t?? ??s?? ?a? ?p? t? t??a t?? d?se?? ?????, etc., are too indefinite and rhetorical to be taken as a certain testimony on behalf of a Spanish missionary journey. The incomplete reference in the Muratorian Fragment (§36,8) to a profectio Pauli ab Urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis may be thought to afford more direct testimony, but probably it is nothing more than a reminiscence of Rom. xv.24,28. Much more important, nay almost conclusive, in the opposite direction, is the entire absence, not only from all the patristic, but also from all the apocryphal, literature of the second and third centuries, of any allusion to a fourth missionary journey or a second imprisonment of the Apostle. The assertion of Eusebius introduced by a vague ????? ??e? can scarcely be regarded as outweighing this objection. Consequently the majority of modern investigators have decided in favour of the theory of one imprisonment. But then the important question arises as to whether the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, claiming to be Pauline, with the journeys referred to or presupposed in them, and the residences of the Apostle and his two assistants, can find a place in the framework of the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, and if so, what that place may be. In answering this question those investigators take diverse views. Of those who cannot surrender their conviction that the Pastoral Epistles are genuine, some assign them to the Apostle’s residence of almost three years in Ephesus, others to the imprisonment in CÆsarea which lasted two years and a half, and others to the Roman imprisonment of almost three years. Others again, looking upon such expedients as inadmissible, deny the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, these having appeared to them worthy of suspicion on other grounds.

§ 16.1. The Roman Episcopate of Peter.—The tradition that Peter, after having for some years held the office of bishop at Antioch, became first Bishop of Rome, holding the office for twenty-five years (A.D.42-67), and suffered martyrdom at the same time with Paul, had its origin in the series of heretical apocryphal writings, out of which sprang, both the romance of the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (§28,3), and the Ebionite Acts of Peter; but it attained its complete form only at the end of the fourth century, after it had been transplanted into the soil of the church tradition through the Acta Petri et Pauli (§32,6). What chiefly secured currency and development to this tradition was the endeavour, ever growing in strength in Rome, to vindicate on behalf of the Roman Episcopate as the legitimate successor and heir to all the prerogatives alleged to have been conferred on Peter in Matt.xvi.18, a title to primacy over all the churches (§34,8; 46,3ff.). But that Peter had not really been in Rome as a preacher of the gospel previous to the year A.D.61, when Paul came to Rome as a prisoner, is evident from the absence of any reference to the fact in the Epistle to the Romans, written in A.D.58, as well as in the concluding chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. According to the Acts, Peter in A.D.44 lay in prison at Jerusalem, and according to Gal.ii., he was still there in A.D.51. Besides, according to the unanimous verdict of tradition, as expressed by IrenÆus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and the Apostolic Constitutions, not Peter, but Linus, was the first Bishop of Rome, and it is only in regard to the order of his successors, Anacletus and Clement, that any real uncertainty or discrepancy occurs. This, indeed, by no means prevents us from admitting an appearance of Peter at Rome resulting in his martyrdom. But the testimonies in favour thereof are not of such a kind as to render its historical reality unquestionable. That Babylon is mentioned in 1Pet.v.13 as the place where this Epistle was composed, can scarcely be used as a serious argument, since the supposition that Babylon is a symbolical designation of Rome as the centre of anti-Christian heathenism, though quite conceivable and widely current in the early church, is not by any means demonstrable. Toward the end of the first century, Clement of Rome relates the martyrdom of Peter as well as of Paul, but he does not even say that it took place at Rome. On the other hand, clear and unmistakable statements are found in Dionysius of Corinth, about A.D.170, then in Caius of Rome, in IrenÆus and Tertullian, to the effect that Peter and Paul exercised their ministry together and suffered martyrdom together at Rome. These statements, however, are interwoven with obviously false and fabulous dates to such a degree that their credibility is rendered extremely doubtful. Nevertheless they prove this much, that already about the end of the second century, the story of the two Apostles suffering martyrdom together at Rome was believed, and that some, of whom Caius tells us, professed to know their graves and to have their bones in their possession.

§ 16.2. The Apostle John.—Soon after the death of Paul, the Apostle John settled in Ephesus, and there, with the temporary break caused by his exile to Patmos (Rev.i.9), he continued to preside over the church of Asia Minor down to his death in the time of Trajan (A.D.98-117). This rests upon the church tradition which, according to Polycrates of Ephesus (Eus., Hist. Eccl., v.24) and IrenÆus, a scholar of Polycarp’s (Eus.,iv.14), was first set forth during the Easter controversies (§37,2) in the middle of the second century by Polycarp of Smyrna, and has been accepted as unquestionable through all ages down to our own. According to IrenÆus (Eus.,iii.18), his exile occurred under Domitian; the Syrian translation of the Apocalypse, which was made in the sixth century, assigned it to the time of Nero. But seeing that, except in Rev.i.11, neither in the New Testament scriptures, nor in the extant writings and fragments of the Church Fathers of the second century before IrenÆus, is a residence of the Apostle John at Ephesus asserted or assumed, whereas Papias (§30,6), according to Georgius Hamartolus, a chronicler of the 9thcent., who had read the now lost work of Papias, expressly declares that the Apostle John was slain “by Jews” (comp. Matt.xx.23), which points to Palestine rather than to Asia Minor, modern critics have denied the credibility of that ecclesiastical tradition, and have attributed its origin to a confusion between the Apostle John and a certain John the Presbyter, with whom we first meet in the Papias-Fragment quoted in Eusebius as a??t?? t?? ??????. Others again, while regarding the residence of the Apostle at Ephesus as well established, have sought, on account of differences in style standpoint and general mode of thought in the Johannine Apocalypse on the one hand, and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles on the other hand, to assign them to two distinct a??ta? t?? ?????? of the same name, and by assigning the Apocalypse to the Presbyter and the Gospel and Epistles to the Apostle, they would in this way account for the residence at Ephesus. This is the course generally taken by the Mediation theologians of Schleiermacher’s school. The advanced liberal critics of the school of Baur assign the Apocalypse to the Apostle and the Gospel and Epistles to the Presbyter, or else instead of the Apostle assume a third John otherwise unknown. Conservative orthodox theology again maintains the unity of authorship of all the Johannean writings, explains the diversity of character discernible in the different works by a change on the part of the Apostle from the early JudÆo-Christian standpoint (Gal.ii.9), which is still maintained in the Apocalypse, to the ideal universalistic standpoint assumed in the Gospel and the Epistles, and is inclined to identify the Presbyter of Papias with the Apostle. Even in Tertullian we meet with the tradition that under Nero the Apostle had been thrown into a vat of boiling oil, and in Augustine we are told how he emptied a poisoned cup without suffering harm. It is a charming story at least that Clement of Alexandria tells of the faithful pastoral care which the aged Apostle took in a youth who had fallen so far as to become a bandit chief. Of such a kind, too, is the story told of the Apostle by Jerome, how in the extreme weakness of old age he had to be carried into the assemblies of the congregation, and with feeble accents could only whisper, Little children, love one another. According to IrenÆus, when by accident he met with the heretic Cerinthus (§27,1) in the bath, he immediately rushed out to avoid any contact with him.

§ 16.3. James, the brother of the Lord.—The name of James was borne by two of the twelve disciples of Jesus: James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, who was put to death by the command of Herod AgrippaI. (Actsxii.2) about A.D.44, and James, son of AlphÆus, about whom we have no further information. A third James, designated in Gal.i.19 the brother of the Lord, who according to Hegesippus (Euseb., Hist. Eccl., ii.23) on account of his scrupulous fulfilment of the law received the title of the Just, is met with in Actsxii.17; xv.13; xxi.18, and is recognised by Paul (Gal.i.19; ii.9-12) as the President of the church in Jerusalem. According to Hegesippus (§31,7), he was from his childhood a Nazirite, and shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews at the Passover having desired of him a testimony against Christ, and he having instead given a powerful testimony on His behalf, he was hurled down from a pinnacle of the temple, stoned, and at last, while praying for his enemies, slain by the blows of a fuller’s club. According to Josephus, however, Ananus, the high priest, after the recall of the Proconsul Festus and before the arrival of his successor Albinus, along with other men hostile to James, hastily condemned him and had him stoned, about A.D.63. In regard to the person of this last-named James three different theories have been proposed.

1. In the ancient church, the brothers of Jesus, of whom besides James other three, Joses, Simon, and Judas, are named, were regarded undoubtedly as step-brothers of Jesus, sons of Joseph and Mary (Matt.i.25), and even Tertullian argues from the existence of brothers of the Redeemer according to the flesh against the Docetism of the Gnostics.
2. Soon, however, it came to be felt that the idea that Joseph had conjugal intercourse with Mary after the birth of Jesus was in conflict with the ascetic tendency now rising into favour, and so to help themselves out of this embarrassment, it was assumed that the brothers of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife.
3. The want of biblical foundation for this view was the occasion of its being abandoned in favour of a theory, first hinted at by Jerome, according to which the expression brothers of Jesus is to be taken in a wider sense as meaning cousins, and in this way James the brother of the Lord was identified with James the son of AlphÆus, one of the twelve disciples, and the four or five Jameses named in the New Testament were reduced to two, James the son of Zebedee and James son of AlphÆus. It was specially urged from Johnxix.25 that James the son of AlphÆus was the sister’s son of Jesus’ mother. This was done by a purely arbitrary identification of the name Clopas or Cleophas with the AlphÆus of the Synoptists, the rendering of the words ?a??a t?? ???p? by the wife of Clopas, and also the assumption, which is scarcely conceivable, that the sister of the mother of Jesus was also called Mary. We should therefore in this passage regard the sister of the mother of Jesus and Mary wife of Clopas as two distinct persons. In that case the wife of AlphÆus may have been called Mary and have had two sons who, like two of the four brothers of Jesus, were named James and Joses (Matt.xxvii.56; Markxv.40; Lukexxiv.10); but even then, in the James here mentioned, we should meet with another James otherwise unknown, different from the James son of AlphÆus in the list of the Apostles, whose name occurs in Lukexv.16 and Actsi.13 in the phrase Judas of James, where the genitive undoubtedly means brother of James son of AlphÆus. And though in Gal.i.19, James the brother of the Lord seems to be called an Apostle, when this is compared with Actsxiv.14, it affords no proof that he belonged to the number of the twelve.

But the fact that the brothers of Jesus are all and always expressly distinguished from His twelve Apostles, and form a group outwardly and inwardly apart from them (Matt.xii.46; Markiii.31; Lukeviii.19; Johnii.12), tells decidedly against that idea. In John vii.3,5, they are, at a time when James son of AlphÆus and Judas brother of James were already in the Apostolate, described as unbelieving, and only subsequently to the departure of the Lord, who after His resurrection appeared to James (1Cor.xv.7), do we meet them, though even then distinguished from the twelve, standing in the closest fellowship with the Christian believing community (Actsi.14; 1Cor.ix.5). Besides, in accordance with Matt.xxviii.19, none of the twelve could assume the permanent presidency of the mother church, and Hegesippus not only knows of p????? ??????, and so surely of more than two, but makes James enter upon his office in Jerusalem first et? t?? ?p?st????.

§ 16.4. The Later Legends of the Apostles.—The tradition that after the Lord’s ascension His disciples, their number having been again made up to twelve (Actsi.13), in fulfilment of their Lord’s command (Matt.xxviii.18), had a special region for missionary labour assigned by lot to each, and also the other tradition, according to which, before their final departure from Jerusalem, after a stay there for seven or twelve years, they drew up by common agreement rules for worship, discipline and constitution suited to the requirements of universal Christendom, took shape about the middle of the second century, and gave occasion to the origin of many apocryphal histories of the Apostles (§32,5,6), as well as apocryphal books of church order (§43,4,5). Whether any portion at all, and if so, how much, of the various contradictory statements of the apocryphal histories and legends of the Apostles about their mission fields and several fortunes can be regarded as genuine tradition descending from the Apostolic Age, must be left undecided. In any case, the legendary drapery and embellishment of casual genuine reminiscences are in the highest degree fantastic and fabulous. Ancient at least, according to Eusebius, are the traditions of Thomas having preached in Parthia, Andrew in Scythia, and Bartholomew in India; while in later traditions Thomas figures as the Apostle of India (§32,5). The statement by Eusebius, supported from many ancient authorities, that the Apostle Philip exercised his ministry from Hierapolis in Phrygia to Asia Minor, originated perhaps from the confounding of the Apostle with the Evangelist of the same name (Acts xxi.8,9). A history of the Apostle Barnabas, attributed to John Mark, but in reality dating only from the fifth century, attaching itself to Actsxv.39, tells how he conducted his mission and suffered martyrdom in his native country of Cyprus; while another set of legends, probably belonging to the same period, makes him the founder of the church of Milan. John Mark, sister’s son of Barnabas, who appears in Col.iv.10; 2Tim.iv.11; and Philem.24, as the fellow-labourer of the Apostle Paul, in 1Pet.v.13 as companion of Peter at Babylon, and, according to Papias, wrote his gospel at Rome as the amanuensis of Peter, is honoured, according to another very widely received tradition, quoted by Eusebius from a Chronicle belonging to the end of the second century, from which also Julius Africanus drew information, as the founder and first bishop of the church of Alexandria, etc.,etc.

§ 17.1. The Charismata of the Apostolic Age are presented to us in 1Cor. xii.4ff. as signs (fa?e??se??, v.7) of the presence of the Spirit of God working in the church, which, attaching themselves to natural endowment and implying a free personal surrender to their influence, and manifesting themselves in various degrees of intensity from the natural to the supernatural, qualified certain members of the church with the powers necessary and desirable for the upbuilding and extension of the Christian community. In verses8-11, the Charismata are arranged in three classes by means of the twice-repeated ?t???.

1. Gifts of Teaching, embracing the ????? s?f?a? and the ????? ???se??.
2. Completeness of Faith, or p?st?? with the possession of supernatural powers for healing the sick, working miracles, and prophesying, and alongside of the latter, for sifting and proving it, d?????s?? p?e??t??.
3. Ecstatic speaking with tongues, ???? ???ss??, ???ssa?? ?a?e??, alongside of which is placed the interpretation of tongues necessary for the understanding thereof ??e?e?a ???ss??.

In addition to these three are mentioned, in verse28, ??t????e??, care of the poor, the sick and strangers, and ??e???se??, church government. The essential distinction between speaking with tongues and prophesying consists, according to 1Cor. xiv.1-18, in this, that whereas the latter is represented as an inspiration by the Spirit of God, acting upon the consciousness, the ???? of the prophet, and therefore requiring no further explanation to render it applicable for the edification of the congregation, the former is represented as an ecstatic utterance, wholly uncontrolled by the ???? of the human instrument, yet employing the human organs of speech, ???ssa?, which leaves the assembled congregation out of view and addresses itself directly to God, so that in ver.13-15 it is called a p??se??es?a?, being made intelligible to the audience only by means of the charismatic interpretation of men immediately acted upon for the purpose by the Spirit of God. In Rom.xii.6-8, although there the charisms are enumerated in even greater details, so as to include even the showing of mercy with cheerfulness, the ???ssa?? ?a?e?? is wanting. It would thus seem that this sort of spiritual display, if not exclusively (Actsii.4; x.46; xix.6; Markxvi.17), yet with peculiar fondness, which was by no means commended by the Apostle, was fostered in the church of Corinth. The thoroughly unique speaking with tongues which took place on the first Pentecost (Acts ii.6,11) is certainly not to be understood as implying that the Apostles had been either temporarily or permanently qualified to speak in the several languages and dialects of those present from all the countries of the dispersion. It probably means simply that the power was conferred upon the speakers of speaking with tongues and that at the same time an analogous endowment of the interpretation of tongues was conferred upon those who heard (Comp., Acts ii.12,15, with 1Cor. xiv.22f.).

§ 17.2. The Constitution of the Mother Church at Jerusalem.—The notion which gained currency through Vitringa’s learned work “De synagoga vetere,” publ.1696, that the constitution of the Apostolic church was moulded upon the pattern of the synagogues, is now no longer seriously entertained. Not only in regard to the Pauline churches wholly or chiefly composed of Gentile Christians, but also in regard to the Palestinian churches of purely Jewish Christians, no evidence in support of such a theory can be found. There is no sort of analogy between any office bearers in the church and the ????s???????? who were essentially characteristic of all the synagogues both in Palestine and among the dispersion (Markv.22; Luke viii.41,49; Actsxiii.15; xviii.8,17), nor do we find anything to correspond to the ?p??eta? or inferior officers of the synagogue (Lukeiv.20). On the other hand, the office bearers of the Christian churches, who, consisting, according to Actsvi., of deacons, and also afterwards, according to Actsxi.30, of p?es?te???, or elders of the church at Jerusalem, occupied a place alongside of the Apostles in the government of the church, are without any analogy in the synagogues. The Jewish p?es?te??? t?? ?a?? mentioned in Matt.xxi.23; xxvi.3; Actsiv.5; xxii.5, etc., did not exercise a ministry of teaching and edification in the numerous synagogues of Jerusalem, but a legislatory, judicial and civil authority over the whole Jewish commonwealth as members of the Sanhedrim, of chief priest, scribes and elders. Between even these, however, and the elders of the Christian church a far-reaching difference exists. The Jewish elders are indeed representatives of the people, and have as such a seat and vote in the supreme council, but no voice is allowed to the people themselves. In the council of the Christian church, on the other hand, with reference to all important questions, the membership of all believers is called together for consultation and deliverance (Actsvi.2-6; xv.4,22). A complaint on the part of the Hellenistic members of the church that their poor were being neglected led to the election of seven men who should care for the poor, not by the Apostles, but by the church. This is commonly but erroneously regarded as the first institution of the deaconship. To those then chosen, for whom the Acts (xxi.8) has no other designation than that of “the seven,” the d?a???e?? t?ap??a?? is certainly assigned: but they were not and were not called Deacons in the official sense any more than the Apostles, who still continued, according to v.4, to exercise the d?a????a t?? ?????. When the bitter persecution that followed the stoning of Stephen had scattered the church abroad over the neighbouring countries, they also departed at the same time from Jerusalem (Actsviii.1), and Philip, who was now the most notable of their number, officiated henceforth only as an evangelist, that is, as an itinerant preacher of the gospel, in the region about his own house in CÆsarea (Actsviii.5; xxi.8; comp. Eph.iv.11; 2Tim.iv.5). Upon the reorganization of the church at Jerusalem, the Apostles beginning more clearly to appreciate their own special calling (Matt.xxviii.19), gave themselves more and more to the preaching of the gospel even outside of Jerusalem, and thus the need became urgent of an authoritative court for the conducting of the affairs of the church even during their absence. In these circumstances it would seem, according to Actsxi.30, that those who ministered to the poor, chosen probably from among the most honourable of the first believers (Actsii.41), passed over into a self-constituted college of presbyters. At the head of this college or board stood James, the brother of the Lord (Gal.i.19; ii.9; Actsxii.17; xv.13; xxi.15), and after his death, according to Hegesippus, a near relation of the Lord, Simeon, son of Clopas, as a descendant of David, was unanimously chosen as his successor. The episcopal title, however, just like that of Deacon, is first met with in the New Testament in the region of the Pauline missions, and in the terminology of the Palestinian churches we only hear of presbyters as officers of the church (Actsxv.4, 6,22; xxi.18; Jamesv.14). In 1Peterv.2, however, although ?p?s??p?? does not yet appear as an official title, the official duty of the ?p?s??pe?? is assigned to presbyters (see §17,6). It is Hegesippus, about A.D.180, who first gives the title Bishop of Jerusalem to James, after the Clementines (§28,3) had already ten years previously designated him ?p?s??p?? ?p?s??p??.

§ 17.3. The Constitution of the Pauline Churches. Founding upon the works of Mommsen and Foucart, first of all Heinrici and soon afterwards the English theologian Hatch7 has wrought out the theory that the constitution of the churches that were wholly or mainly composed of Gentile Christians was modelled on those convenient, open or elastic rules of associations under which the various Hellenistic guilds prospered so well (??as??, ??a???),—associations for the naturalization and fostering of foreign, often oriental, modes of worship. In the same way, too, the Christian church at Rome, for social and sacred purposes, made use of the forms of association employed in the Collegia or Sodalicia, which were found there in large numbers, especially of the funeral societies in which both of those purposes were combined (collegia funeraticia). In both these cases, then, the church, by attaching itself to modes of association already existing, acknowledged by the state, or tolerated as harmless, assumed a form of existence which protected it from the suspicion of the government, and at the same time afforded it space and time for independent construction in accordance with its own special character and spirit. As in those Hellenic associations all ranks, even those which in civil society were separated from one another by impassable barriers, found admission, and then, in the framing of statutes, the reception of fellow members, the exercise of discipline, possessed equal rights; as, further, the full knowledge of their mysteries and sharing in their exercise were open only to the initiated (e??????), yet in the exercise of exoteric worship the doors were hospitably flung open even to the ???t??; as upon certain days those belonging to the narrow circle joining together in partaking of a common feast; so too all this is found in the Corinthian church, naturally inspired by a Christian spirit and enriched with Christian contents. The church also has its religious common feast in its Agape, its mystery in the Eucharist, its initiation in baptism, by the administration of which the divine service is divided into two parts, one esoteric, to be engaged in only by the baptized, the other exoteric, a service that is open to those who are not Christians. All ranks (Gal.iii.28) have the same claim to admission to baptism, all the baptized have equal rights in the congregation (see §17,7). It is evident, however, that the connection between the Christian churches and those heathen associations is not so to be conceived as if, because in the one case distinctions of rank were abolished, so also they were in the other; or that, because in the one case religious festivals were observed, this gave the first hint as to the observance of the Christian Agape; or that, because and in the manner in which there a mysterious service was celebrated from which all outside were strictly excluded, so also here was introduced an exclusive eucharistic service. These observances are rather to be regarded as having grown up independently out of the inmost being of Christianity; but the church having found certain institutions existing inspired by a wholly different spirit, yet outwardly analogous and sanctioned by the state, it appropriated, as far as practicable, their forms of social organization, in order to secure for itself the advantages of civil protection. That even on the part of the pagans, down into the last half of the second century, the Christian congregational fellowship was regarded as a special kind of the mystery-communities, is shown by Lucian’s satire, De morte Peregrini (§23,1), where the description of Christian communities, in which its hero for a time played a part, is full of technical terms which were current in those associations. “It is also,” says Weingarten, “expressly acknowledged in Tertullian’s Apologeticus, c.38,39, written about A.D.198, that even down to the close of the second century, the Christian church was organized in accordance with the rules of the Collegia funeraticia, so that it might claim from the state the privileges of the Factiones licitÆ. The arrangements for burial and the Christian institutions connected therewith are shown to have been carefully subsumed under forms that were admitted to be legal.”

§ 17.4. Confining ourselves meantime to the oldest and indisputably authentic epistles of the Apostle, we find that the autonomy of the church in respect of organization, government, discipline, and internal administration is made prominent as the very basis of the constitution. He never interferes in those matters, enjoining and prescribing by his own authority, but always, whether personally or in spirit, only as associated with their assemblies (1Cor. v.3), deliberating and deciding in common with them. Thus his Apostolic importance shows itself not in his assuming the attitude of a lord (2Cor. i.24), but that of a father (1Cor. iv.14f.), who seeks to lead his children on to form for themselves independent and manly judgments (1Cor. x.15; xi.13). Regular and fixed church officers do not seem to have existed in Corinth down to the time when the first Epistle was written, about A.D.57. A diversity of functions (d?a???se?? d?a??????, 1Cor. xii.4) is here, indeed, already found, but not yet definitely attached to distinct and regular offices (1Cor. vi.1-6). It is always yet a voluntary undertaking of such ministries on the one hand, and the recognition of peculiar piety and faithfulness, leading to willing submission on the other hand, out of which the idea of office took its rise, and from which it obtained its special character. This is especially true of a peculiar kind of ministry (Rom. xvi.1,2) which must soon have been developed as something indispensable to the Christian churches throughout the Hellenic and Roman regions. We mean the part played by the patron, which was so deeply grounded in the social life of classical antiquity. Freedmen, foreigners, proletarii, could not in themselves hold property and had no claim on the protection of the laws, but had to be associated as Clientes with a Patronus or Patrona (p??st?t?? and p??st?t??) who in difficult circumstances would afford them counsel, protection, support, and defence. As in the Greek and Roman associations for worship this relationship had long before taken root, and was one of the things that contributed most materially to their prosperity, so also in the Christian churches the need for recognising and giving effect to it became all the more urgent in proportion as the number of members increasing for whom such support was necessary (1Cor. i.26-29). Phoebe is warmly recommended in Rom. xvi.1,2, as such a Christian p??st?t??, at Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, among whose numerous clients the Apostle himself is mentioned. Many inscriptions in the Roman catacombs testify to the deep impress which this social scheme made upon the organization, especially of the Roman church, down to the end of the first century, and to the help which it gave in rendering that church permanent. All the more are we justified in connecting therewith the p???st?e??? ?? sp??d? (Rom. xii. 8), and in giving this passage in connection with the preceding and succeeding context the meaning: whoever represents any one as patron let him do it with diligence.—The gradual development of stated or independent congregational offices, after privileges and duties were distinguished from one another, was thus brought about partly by the natural course of events, and partly by the endeavour to make the church organization correspond with the Greek and Roman religious associations countenanced by the state by the employment in it of the same or similar forms and names. In the older communities, especially those in capital cities, like Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, etc., the heads of the families of the first believers attained an authoritative position altogether unique, as at Corinth those of the household of Stephanas, who, according to 1Cor. xvi.15, as the ?pa??? t?? ??a?a? e?? d?a????a? t??? ?????? ?ta?a? ?a?t???. Such honour, too, was given to the most serviceable of the chosen patrons and others, who evidently possessed the gifts of ??e???se?? and ??t????e??, and those who first in an informal way had discharged official duties had amends made them even after death by a formal election. On the other hand, the churches that sprang up at a later period were probably provided immediately with such offices under the direction and with the consent of the Apostle or his apostolic assistants (1Tim. v.9; Tit.i.5).

§ 17.5. Congregational and Spiritual Offices.—While then, down to A.D.57 no ecclesiastical offices properly so called as yet existed at Corinth, and no injunctions are given by the Apostle for their definite introduction, it is told us in Actsxiv.23 that, so early as A.D.50, when Paul was returning from his first missionary journey he ordained with prayer and fasting elders or presbyters in those churches of Asia Minor previously founded by him. Now it is indeed quite conceivable that in these cases he adhered more closely to the already existing presbyterial constitution of the mother church at Jerusalem (Actsxi.30), than he did subsequently in founding and giving a constitution to the churches of the European cities where perhaps the circumstances and requirements were entirely different. But be this as it may, it is quite certain that the Apostle on his departure from lately formed churches took care to leave them in an organized condition, and the author of the Acts has given expression to the fact proleptically in terms with which he was himself conversant and which were current in his time.—Among the Pauline epistles which are scarcely, if at all, objected to by modern criticism the first to give certain information regarding distinct and independent congregational offices, together with the names that had been then assigned to these offices, is the Epistle to the Philippians, written during the Roman imprisonment of the Apostle. In chap.i.1, he sends his apostolic greeting and blessing p?s? t??? ?????? t??? ??s?? ?? F???pp??? s?? ?p?s??p??? ?a? d?a??????.8 The Episcopate and the Diaconate make their appearance here as the two categories of congregational offices, of both of which there are several representatives in each congregation. It is in the so-called Pastoral Epistles that for the first time we find applied in the Gentile Christian communities the title of Presbyter which had been the usual designation of the president in the mother church at Jerusalem. This title, just as in Acts xx. 17, 28, is undoubtedly regarded as identical with that of bishop (?p?s??p??) and is used as an alternative (Tit. i.5,7; 1Tim. iii.1; iv.14; v.17,19). From the practical identity of the qualifications of bishops (1Tim. iii.1) or of deacons (v.12f.), it follows that their callings were essentially the same; and from the etymological signification of their names, it would seem that there was assigned to the bishops the duty of governing, administrating and superintending, to the deacons that of serving, assisting and carrying out details as subordinate auxiliaries. It is shown by Rom.xvi.1, that even so early as A.D.58, the need of a female order of helpers had been felt and was supplied. When this order had at a later period assumed the rank of a regular office, it became the rule that only widows above sixty years of age should be chosen (1Tim. v.9).—We are introduced to an altogether different order of ecclesiastical authorities in Eph.iv.11, where we have named in the first rank Apostles, in the second Prophets, in the third Evangelists, and in the fourth Pastors and Teachers. What is here meant by Apostles and Prophets is quite evident (§34,1). From 2Tim. iv.5 and Actsxxi.8 (viii.5), it follows that Evangelists are itinerant preachers of the gospel and assistants of the Apostles. It is more difficult to determine exactly the functions of Pastors and Teachers and their relation to the regular congregational offices. Their introduction in Eph.iv.11, as together constituting a fourth class, as well as the absence of the term Pastor in the parallel passage, 1Cor. xii.28,29, presupposes such a close connection of the two orders, the one having the care of souls, the other the duties of preaching and catechizing, that we unhesitatingly assume that both were, if not always, at least generally, united in the same person. They have been usually identified with the bishops or presbyters. In Acts xx.17,28, and in 1Pet. v.2-4, presbyters are expressly called pastors. The order of the ????e??? in Heb.xiii.7, ??t??e? ?????sa? ??? t?? ????? t?? ?e??, has also been regarded as identical with that of bishops. In regard to the last named order a confusion already appears in Acts xv., where men, who in v.22 are expressly distinguished from the elders (presbyters) and in v.32 are ranked as prophets, are yet called ????e???. We should also be led to conclude from 1Cor. xii.28, that those who had the qualifications of ??t????e?? and ??e???se??, functions certainly belonging to bishops or presbyters as administrative and diocesan officers, are yet personally distinguished from Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers. Now it is explicitly enjoined in Tit.i.9 that in the choice of bishops special care should be taken to see that they have capacity for teaching. In 1Tim. v.17 double honour is demanded for the ?a??? p??est?te? p?es?te???, if they also labour ?? ???? ?a? d?das?a???. This passage, however, shows teaching did not always and in all circumstances, or even ex professo belong to the special functions of the president of the congregation; that it was rather in special circumstances, where perhaps these gifts were not at all or not in sufficient abundance elsewhere to be found, that these duties of teaching were undertaken in addition to their own proper official work of presidency (p???st??a?). The dividing line between the two orders, bishops and deacons on the one hand, and pastors and teachers on the other, consists in the fundamentally different nature of their calling. The former were congregational offices, the latter, like those of Apostles and Prophets, were spiritual offices. The former were chosen by the congregation, the latter had, like the Apostles and Prophets, a divine call, though according to James iii.1 not without the consenting will of the individual, and the charismatic capacity for teaching, although not in the same absolute measure. The former were attached to a particular congregation, the latter were, like the Apostles and Prophets, first of all itinerant teachers and had, like them, the task of building up the churches (Eph.iv.12, e?? ????d??? t?? s?at?? t?? ???st??). But, while the Apostles and Prophets laid the foundation of this building on Christ, the chief corner stone, preachers and teachers had to continue building on the foundation thus laid (Eph.ii.20). A place and importance are undoubtedly secured for these three spiritual offices, in so far as continued itinerant offices, by the example of the Lord in His preliminary sending forth of the twelve in Matt.x., and of the seventy disciples in Lukex.—Continuation, §34,1.

§ 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 1Pet. v.2, all such presbyters should be ?p?s??p???te?.—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: ?? p?es?te??? t? pa?a??? ??a????t? ?p?s??p?? ?a? d??????? ???st??, ?a? ?? ?p?s??p?? p?es?te???. 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 UrbanII. 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 ?p?s??p??, which arose among the Gentile-Christian churches, pointed more to the duty officially required, while the title p?es?te???, which arose among the Jewish-Christian churches, pointed more to the honourable character of the person (1Tim. 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 ?p?s??p??, but had also the president’s seat in their assemblies (?e???s?a, ????), 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 (??t????e??) as the principal task, could actually have won a place so superior in respectability, influence and significance to that of congregational government (??e???se??), 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 ?p?s??pe?? and a d?a???e?? 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 1Pet. v.2 presbyters are described as ?p?s??p???te?; in 1Pet. ii.25 Christ is spoken of as ?p?s??p?? t?? ?????; in Acts i.20 the apostolic office is called ?p?s??p?, while in Acts i.25 and often, especially in the Pauline epistles, it is designated a d?a????a.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 1Cor. 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 1Cor. 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 (1Cor. 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 (1Thess. v.19). In 1Cor. xiv.24 the ?d??ta? (synonymous with the ???t?? in the statutes of Hellenic religious associations) are mentioned as admitted along with the ?p?st?? 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; 1Cor. xi.20-23). The celebration of the Lord’s Supper (de?p??? ????a???, 1Cor. 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 ???p?, 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 (e??a??st?a, 1Cor. xi.24; or e?????a, 1Cor. x.16), together with a recital of the words of institution which contained a proclamation of the death of Christ (1Cor. 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 church15 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 (Actsvi.) 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 (1Cor. v.1; 2Cor.ii.5).

§ 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 (Actsx.). 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. Abeginning 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 (1John 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 1Cor.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 (1Cor. iii.11-14), and warned against an over-estimation of human wisdom (1Cor. 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 (1Cor.i.). The Judaists appealed to the authority of the Apostle Peter (?? t?? ??f?); the Gentile Christians were divided into the parties of Apollos and of Paul, or by the assumption of the proud name ?? t?? ???st??, 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 ?e?d????? ???s?? 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 (2Tim. 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. 1Cor.x.), and justified or at least apologized for fleshly impurity.