The custom of living in a community professing one identical faith, and indulging in one and the same expectation, necessarily produced many habits common to all the society. Very soon rules were enacted, and established a certain analogy between this primitive church and the cenobitical establishments with which Christianity became acquainted at a later period. Many of the precepts of Jesus conduced to this; the true ideal of the gospel life is a monastery—not a monastery closed in with iron gratings, a prison of the type of the Middle Ages, with the separation of the two sexes, but an asylum in the midst of the world, a place set apart for the spiritual life, a free association or little confraternity, tracing around it a rampart which may serve to dispel cares that are hurtful to the kingdom of God. All, then, lived in common, having only one heart and one mind.[5.1] No one possessed aught which individually belonged to him. On becoming disciples of Jesus, they sold their goods and presented to the society the price of them. The chiefs of the society then distributed the common possessions according to the needs of each member. They dwelt in one neighborhood only.[5.2] They took their meals together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense which Jesus had ordered.[5.3] Many hours of the day they spent in prayer. These prayers were sometimes improvised in a loud voice; oftener they were silent meditations. Their states of ecstasy were frequent, and each one believed himself to be incessantly favored with the Divine inspiration. Their harmony was perfect; no quarrelling about dogmas, no dispute respecting precedence. The tender recollection of Jesus prevented all dissensions. A lively and deeply rooted joy pervaded their hearts.[5.4] Their morals were austere, but marked by a sweet and tender sympathy. They assembled in houses to pray and abandon themselves to ecstatic exercises.[5.5] The remembrance of those two or three years rested upon them like that of a terrestrial paradise, which Christianity would henceforth pursue in all its dreams, and to which it would endeavor to return in vain. Who, indeed, does not see that such an organization could only be applicable to a very little church? But, later on, the monastic life will resume on its own account this primitive ideal, which the church universal will hardly dream of realizing.

That the author of the “Acts,” to whom we owe the picture of this first Christianity at Jerusalem, has somewhat overcolored it, and in particular has exaggerated the community of goods which prevailed there, is quite possible. The author of the “Acts” is the same as the author of the third Gospel, who, in his life of Jesus, is accustomed to shape his facts according to his own theories,[5.6] and with whom a tendency to the doctrine of “ebionism,”[5.7]—that is to say, of absolute poverty—is very perceptible. Nevertheless, the story of the “Acts” cannot be entirely without foundation. Although even Jesus would not have given utterance to any of those communistic axioms which we read of in the third Gospel, certain it is that a renunciation of the goods of this world and a giving of alms, carried so far as even the despoiling of self, was entirely conformable to the spirit of his preaching. The belief that the world is coming to an end has always been conducive to a cenobitical life and to a distaste for the things of this world.[5.8] The story of the “Acts” is, in other respects, perfectly conformable to what we know of the origin of other ascetic religions—of Buddhism, for example. These sorts of religion invariably commence with the cenobitical life. Their first adepts are a species of mendicant monks. The laity are only introduced into them at a more advanced period, and when these religions have conquered entire societies, or the monastic life could only exist under exceptional circumstances.[5.9] We admit, then, in the Church of Jerusalem a period of cenobitical life. Two centuries later, Christianity produced still on the pagans the effect of a communistic sect.[5.10] We must remember that the Essenians or Thereapeutians had already produced the model of this description of life, which sprang very legitimately from Mosaism. The Mosaic code being essentially moral, and not political, naturally produced a social Utopia; church, synagogue, and convent—not a civil rÉgime, nation, or city. Egypt had had, for many centuries, recluses both male and female supported by the State, probably in fulfilment of charitable bequests, near the Serapeum of Memphis.[5.11] Above all, it must be remembered that such a life in the East is by no means such as it has been in our West. In the East, one can abundantly enjoy nature and life without possessing anything. Man, in those countries, is always free because he has few cares; the slavery of labor is there unknown. We willingly suppose that the communism of the primitive Church was neither so rigorous nor so universal as the author of the “Acts” would lead us to believe. What is certain about it is, that it had a large community of poor people at Jerusalem, governed by the apostles, and to whom donations from all the places where Christianity existed were sent.[5.12] This community was, doubtless, compelled to establish rules of a sufficiently rigorous nature, and some years later it became necessary to keep it in due order, even to employ terror. Frightful legends were circulated, according to which, the simple fact of having retained anything besides that which had been presented to the community, was treated as a capital crime and punished with death.[5.13]

The porticos of the temple, especially Solomon’s porch, which commanded the valley of Cedron, was the place where the disciples usually assembled in the day-time.[5.14] There they recalled the remembrance of those hours which Jesus had passed in the same spot. In the midst of the immense activity which existed all about the temple, they would be little remarked. The galleries which formed part of this building were the seat of numerous schools and sects, and the arena of many a dispute. The faithful of Jesus would no doubt be taken for devotees of great precision of manner; for they scrupulously observed all the Jewish customs, praying at the appointed hours,[5.15] and observing all the precepts of the law. They were Jews, only differing from the others in their belief that the Messiah had already come. People who were not well versed in their concerns (and these were the immense majority), looked upon them as a sect of Hasidim, or pious people. By being affiliated with them, they became neither schismatics nor heretics,[5.16] any more than a man ceases to be a Protestant on becoming a disciple of Spener, or a Catholic because he is a member of the order of St. Francis or St. Bruno. They were beloved by the people on account of their piety, their simplicity, and sweetness of temper.[5.17] The aristocrats of the temple, no doubt, regarded them with disfavor. But the sect made little noise; it was quiet and tranquil, thanks to its obscurity. At eventide, the brethren returned to their quarters and partook of the meal, divided into groups[5.18] as a mark of brotherhood and in remembrance of Jesus, whom they always saw present in the midst of them. The head of the table brake the bread, blessed the cup,[5.19] and handed them round as a symbol of union in Jesus. The commonest act of life thus became the most holy and reverential one. These family repasts, always favorites with the Jews,[5.20] were accompanied by prayers and pious ejaculations, and abounded in a pleasant sort of joyfulness. They thought again of the time when Jesus cheered them by His presence; they fancied that they saw Him; and soon it was bruited abroad that Jesus had said: “As often as ye break the bread, do it in remembrance of me.”[5.21]

The bread itself became, in a certain manner, Jesus; regarded as the only source of strength for those who had loved him, and who still lived by him. These repasts, which were always the principal symbol of Christianity and the very life of its mysteries,[5.22] were at first served every night;[5.23] but soon custom restricted them to Sunday evenings[5.24] only; and later, the mystic repast was transferred to the morning.[5.25] It is probable that at the period of the history which we are now treating, the holiday of each week was still, with the Christians even, the Saturday.[5.26] The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received from Him a special command to announce to the world the kingdom of God, had, in the little community, an undoubted superiority. One of their first cares, as soon as they saw the sect quietly settled at Jerusalem, was to fill up the void which Judas of Kerioth had left in its ranks.[5.27] The opinion that this Judas had betrayed his Master and became the cause of his death, became more generally received. The legend was mixed up with him, and daily they learned some new circumstance which increased the blackness of his deed. He had bought for himself a field near the old necropolis of Hakeldama, to the south of Jerusalem, and there he lived a retired life.[5.28] Such was the artless excitement which pervaded the whole of the little church, that in order to replace him they had recourse to the plan of casting lots. In general, in times of great religious excitement, this method of deciding is preferred, for it is admitted on principle that nothing is fortuitous, that the matter in hand is the principal object of the Divine attention, and that the part which God takes in any matter is greater in proportion to the weakness of man. The only condition was, that the candidates should be selected from the number of the older disciples, who had been witnesses of the entire series of events since the baptism by John. This considerably reduced the number of those who were eligible. Only two were found in the ranks, Joseph Bar-Saba, who bore the name of Justus,[5.29] and Matthias. The lot fell upon Matthias, who from that time was counted in the number of the Twelve. But this was the only example of such a replacing. The apostles were considered hitherto as having been named by Jesus once for all, and as not proposing to have any successors. The idea of a permanent college, preserving in itself all the life and strength of association, was judiciously rejected for a time. The concentration of the Church into an oligarchy did not occur until much later.

We must guard, moreover, against the misunderstandings which this appellation of “apostle” may induce, and which it has not failed to occasion. From a very remote period the idea was formed, by some passages of the Gospels, and above all by the analogy of the life of St. Paul, that the apostles were essentially travelling missionaries, distributing amongst themselves in a certain way the world in advance, and traversing as conquerors all the kingdoms of the earth.[5.30] A cycle of legends was invented in respect to this gift, and imposed upon ecclesiastical history.[5.31] Nothing is more opposed to the truth.[5.32] The twelve disciples were permanently settled at Jerusalem; up to the year 60, or thereabouts, they did not leave the holy city, except on temporary missions. And in this way is explained the obscurity in which the greater part of the central council remained; very few of them had any particular duty to perform. They formed a sort of a sacred college or a senate,[5.33] unequivocally destined to represent tradition and a conservative spirit. In the end they were discharged from all active duty, because they had only to preach and to pray;[5.34] as yet the brilliant feats of preaching had not fallen to their lot. Scarcely were their names known out of Jerusalem; and about the year 70 or 80 the catalogues which were published of these twelve primary elect ones only agreed in the principal names.[5.35]

The “brothers of the Lord” appear to have been often with the “apostles,” although they were distinguished from them.[5.36] Their authority was at least equal to that of the apostles. These two groups constituted, in the nascent Church, a sort of aristocracy, based entirely upon the greater or less intimacy which they had had with the Master. It was these men whom St. Paul called “pillars” of the Church of Jerusalem.[5.37] We see, moreover, that no distinctions of ecclesiastical hierarchy were yet in existence. The title was nothing; the personal authority was everything. The principle of ecclesiastical celibacy was already well established;[5.38] but it required time to conduct all these germs to their full development. Peter and Philip were married, and were the fathers of sons and daughters.[5.39]

The term by which the assembly of the faithful was distinguished, was the Hebrew word Kahal, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word ?????s?a, Ecclesia, which means the convocation of the people in the ancient Grecian cities, the summons to assemble at the Pnyx or the Agora. Commencing about the second or third century before Jesus Christ, Athenian democracy became a sort of common law wherever the Hellenic language was spoken; many of these terms,[5.40] on account of their being used in the Greek confraternities, were introduced into the language of Christianity. It was in reality the popular life, for centuries kept under restraint, which reasserted its power under entirely different forms. The primitive Church is, in its own way, a little democracy. The election by ballot, however—that mode so cherished by the ancient republics—is only rarely reproduced.[5.41] Far less harsh and suspicious than the ancient cities, the church readily delegated its authority; like every theocratic society, it had a tendency to abdicate its functions into the hands of the clergy, and it was easy to foresee that one or two centuries would scarcely elapse before all this democracy would resolve into an oligarchy.

The powers which they ascribed to an assembled Church and to its chiefs was enormous. All mission was conferred by the Church, which was entirely guided in its choice by signs given by the spirit.[5.42] Its authority extended as far as the death penalty. They related how, at the voice of Peter, guilty persons fell backwards and expired immediately.[5.43] St. Paul, at a later period, was not afraid, when excommunicating an incestuous person, “to deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.{5.44}” Excommunication was considered equivalent to a sentence of death. They doubted not that an individual whom the apostles or chiefs of the Church had cut off from the body of the saints and delivered over to the power of the Evil One, was lost.[5.45] Satan was considered to be the author of the diseases; to deliver to him the infected member was to hand him over to the natural executioner. A premature death was ordinarily considered as the result of one of those secret judgments, which, according to the expressive Hebrew term, “cut off a soul from Israel.”[5.46] The apostles believed themselves to be invested with supernatural powers; while pronouncing such condemnations, they believed that their anathemas could not fail to be effectual.

The terrible impression which these excommunications made, and the hatred of all the brethren towards the members thus cut off, were powerful enough in fact to produce death in many cases, or at least to compel the guilty person to expatriate himself. The same frightful ambiguity was found in the old law. “Extirpation” implied, at once decease, expulsion from the community, exile, and a solitary and mysterious death.[5.47] To kill the apostate, or blasphemer, to beat his body in order to save his soul, would seem quite lawful. It must be remembered that we are treating of the times of zealots, who considered it a virtuous act to assassinate any one who failed in obedience to the law;[5.48] nor must we forget that some of the Christians were, or had been, zealots.[5.49] Stories like that of the death of Ananias and Sapphira[5.50] raised no scruples. The idea of the civil power was so strange to all this world situated outside of the Roman law, they were so persuaded that the Church was a complete society sufficient for all its own needs, that nobody regarded the death or mutilation of an individual as an outrage punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and burning faith covered all, yea, excused all. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims entailed on the future was easily perceived. The Church is armed with a sword; excommunication will be a sentence of death. There is henceforth in the world a power above that of the State which disposes of the lives of citizens. Assuredly if the Roman power had limited itself to the repression among the Jews and the Christians of such abominable principles, it would have been a thousand times in the right. Only in its brutality it confounded the most legitimate of liberties, that of worshipping according to one’s own conviction, with abuses which no society has ever been able to endure with impunity.

Peter had a certain primacy amongst the apostles; the result of his daring zeal and activity.[5.51] In these early times he is scarcely ever separated from John, the son of Zebedee. They went together almost always,[5.52] and their perfect concord was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James, brother of the Lord, was nearly their equal in authority, at least in one section of the Church. In respect to certain intimate friends of Jesus, like the women of Galilee and the family of Bethany, we have already observed that we have no more to do with them. Less anxious to organize and found a society, the faithful companions of Jesus were satisfied to love in death Him whom they had loved when alive. Totally occupied with their waiting, these noble women, who have established the faith of the world, were almost unknown to the important men of Jerusalem. When they died, the most important traits in the history of nascent Christianity were buried in the tomb with them. The active characters alone became renowned; those who are content to love secretly remain in obscurity, but assuredly they have the better part.

It is superfluous to remark that this little group had no speculative theology. Jesus kept himself far removed from everything metaphysical. He had only one dogma, His own divine Sonship and the divine authority of His mission. Every symbol of the primitive Church might be contained in one line: “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” This belief rested upon a peremptory argument, the fact of the resurrection, of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. In reality, no one (not even the Galilean women) declared that they had seen the resurrection.[5.53] But the absence of the body and the apparitions which had followed appeared to be equivalent to the fact itself. To attest the resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being specially imposed upon them.[5.54] They quickly entertained the idea that the Master had predicted this event. They recollected different sayings of His, which they fancied that they had never thoroughly understood, and in which they saw too late an announcement of the resurrection.[5.55] Belief in the next glorious manifestation of Jesus was universal.[5.56] The secret word which the associated brethren used among themselves for purposes of mutual recognition and confirmation was Maranatha, “The Lord will come.”[5.57] They fancied that they remembered a declaration of Jesus, according to which their preaching would not have time to reach to all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man appeared in His majesty.[5.58] In the meanwhile, Jesus risen is seated at the right hand of His Father. There He remains until the solemn day on which He shall come, seated on the clouds, to judge the quick and the dead.[5.59]

The idea which they had of Jesus was the very same which Jesus had given them of Himself. Jesus had been a mighty prophet in word and in deed,[5.60] a man elect of God, having received a special mission in behalf of mankind,[5.61] a mission the truth of which he had proved by His miracles, and, above all, by His resurrection. God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and endued Him with power; He went about doing good and healing those who were under the power of the devil;[5.62] for God was with Him.[5.63] He is the Son of God, that is, a man entirely sent of God, a representative of God on earth; He is the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel announced by the prophets.[5.64] The perusal of the books of the Old Testament, above all of the Psalms and the prophets, was a constant habit of the sect. In these readings one fixed idea ever accompanied them, and that was to discover, above all other considerations, the type of Jesus. They were persuaded that the ancient Hebrew books were full of Him, and, from the very first, He was moulded into a collection of texts drawn from the prophets and the Psalms and certain of the apocryphal books, wherein they were convinced that the life of Jesus was foretold and described in advance.[5.65] This arbitrary mode of interpretation was, at that time, that of all the Jewish schools. The Messianic allusions were a description of witty trifling, analogous to the use which the ancient preachers made of passages of the Bible, diverted from their natural meaning, and received as simple ornaments of sacred rhetoric. Jesus, with His exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no new ritual movement. The new sect had not, as yet, any special ceremonies.{5.66} Habits of piety were Jewish habits. The assemblies had nothing precisely liturgic about them; they were the sessions of confraternities, in which they devoted themselves to prayer, to glossological or prophetic{5.67} exercises, and to the reading of correspondence. There was nothing yet of sacerdotalism. There was no priest (cohen, or ?e?e??); the presbyter is the “elder” of the community, nothing more. The only priest is Jesus;{5.68} in another sense, all the faithful are priests.{5.69} Fasting was considered a very meritorious usage.{5.70} Baptism was the sign of entrance into the sect.{5.71} The rite was the same in form as the baptism of John, but it was administered in the name of Jesus.{5.72} Baptism was always considered an insufficient initiation into the society. It should be followed by a conferring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,{5.73} which was produced by means of a prayer pronounced over the head of the neophyte with the imposition of hands.

This imposition of hands, already so familiar to Jesus,{5.74} was the crowning sacramental act.{5.75} It conferred inspiration, inward illumination, the power of working wonders, of prophesying and of speaking languages. This was what they called the baptism of the Spirit. They believed that they recollected a saying of Jesus: “John baptized you with water: but as for you, you shall be baptized with the Spirit.”{5.76} Little by little these ideas became confused, and baptism was conferred “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”{5.77} But it is not probable that this formula, at the early period which we are describing, was as yet employed. The simplicity of this primitive Christian worship is evident. Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had adopted, before them, grave and solemn ceremonies, which appear to have come partly from ChaldÆa, where they are still practised with special liturgies, by the SabÆans and MendÄites.{5.78} The Persian religion contained, likewise, many rites of the same description.{5.79} The beliefs in popular medicine, which had accompanied the strength of Jesus, continued to be held by his disciples. The power of healing was one of the marvellous graces conferred by the Spirit.{5.80} The first Christians, like all the Jews of the age, regarded diseases as the punishment due to a fault,{5.81} or the work of a malicious demon.{5.82} The apostles, as well as Jesus, passed for powerful exorcists.{5.83} They imagined that anointings with oil, administered by them, with imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus, were all-powerful to wash away the sins which were the causes of the disease, and to cure the sick.{5.84} Oil has always been in the East the chiefest of medicines.{5.85} Of itself, moreover, the imposition of hands by the apostles was supposed to have the same effect.{5.86} This imposition was conferred by immediate contact with the person; and it is not impossible that, in certain cases, the warmth of the hands, being sensibly communicated to the head, produced some little relief to the sick man. The sect being young and few in number, the question of the dead was only subsequently brought under their notice. The effect caused by the first deaths which took place in the ranks of the brotherhood was strange.{5.87} They disquieted themselves about the condition of the departed; they inquired if they would be less favored than those who were reserved to see with their eyes the second advent of the Son of Man. They generally came to the conclusion that the interval between death and the resurrection was a sort of blank in the recollection of the defunct.{5.88} The idea, expressed in the PhÆdon that the soul exists before and after death; that death is a benefit; that it is even the state above all others favorable to philosophy, because the soul is then altogether free and disengaged—this idea, I say, was in no respect entertained by the first Christians. They appear generally to have believed that man has no existence apart from his body. This persuasion lasted a long time, and only gave way when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in the sense of the Greek philosophy, had been received into the Church, and become associated, for good or for evil, with the Christian dogma of the resurrection and universal restoration. At the time of which we speak, a belief in the resurrection prevailed almost alone.{5.89} The funeral rites were doubtless Jewish. No importance was attached to them; no inscription pointed out the name of the departed. The great resurrection was at hand; the body of the faithful had only to sojourn for a very short time in the rock. They took but little pains to come to an agreement upon the question whether the resurrection would be universal—that is to say, whether it would embrace both good and wicked, or would apply to the elect only.{5.90}

One of the most remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of prophecy. For a long time previous, prophets in Israel were scarcely mentioned. This peculiar kind of inspiration appeared to revive in the little sect. The primitive Church had many prophets and prophetesses,{5.91} answering to those of the Old Testament. Psalmists reappeared also. The model of the Christian Psalmody is, no doubt, to be found in the Canticles, which Luke loves to scatter about the pages of his Gospel,{5.92} and which are imitated from the Canticles of the Old Testament. These Psalms and prophecies are, in point of form, destitute of originality; but an admirable spirit of tenderness and piety animates and pervades them. It is like an attenuated echo of the later productions of the sacred lyre of Israel. The book of Psalms was, in some sort, the calyx of the flower from which the Christian bee stole its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary, was, as it appears, but little read and less pondered; allegories were substituted in the form of Jewish midraschim, in which all the historical meaning of the books was suppressed.

The chanting with which they accompanied the new hymns{5.93} was probably that species of groaning without distinct notes, which is still the chant of the Greek Church, of the Maronites, and of the Eastern Christians in general.{5.94} It is not so much a musical modulation as a manner of forcing the voice, and of emitting through the nose a sort of groaning, in which all the inflexions follow each other with rapidity. They performed this extraordinary melopoeia standing, with fixed eye, knit forehead, and contracted eyebrows, using an appearance of effort. The word amen, above all, was uttered in a tremulous voice with bodily shaking. This word was of great importance in the liturgy. After the manner of the Jews,{5.95} the new faithful employed it to mark the assent of the people to the word spoken by the prophet or precentor.{5.96} They perhaps already attributed to it concealed virtues, and it was only pronounced with a certain emphasis. We know not whether the primitive ecclesiastical chant was accompanied with instruments.{5.97} As to the inward chant, which the faithful “sang in their hearts,”{5.98} and which was nothing else than the overflowing of those tender spirits, ardent and dreamy as they were, they performed it no doubt like the slow chants of the Lollards of the Middle Ages, in a sort of whisper.{5.99} In general, joyousness manifested itself in these hymns. One of the maxims of the sages of the sect was, “If thou art sad, pray; if thou art merry, sing.”{5.100}

Moreover, this first Christian literature, designed as it was entirely for the edification of the assembled brethren, was not committed to writing. It entered into the mind of none to compose books. Jesus had spoken; they remembered his words. Had he not promised that that generation of his hearers should not pass away before he re-appeared among them?{5.101}