2704 S91 cop 3
Keep Your Card in This Pocket
Books will be issued oily on presentation of proper
library cards*
Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks. Borrowers finding books marked, de-
faced or mutilated am expected to report at
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible lor all imperfections discovered*
The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on fcis card.
Penalty for over-dud books 2o a day plus ooet of
notices,
Lost cards and ohangct of residence must be VB*
ported promptiy.
Public Library
Kansas City, Mo.
X-:,r
S iv^i-t V J > **"
.. . . , t ,r*: tj .^ ^ * v c
" i3 , '
i I VA o
MAI MAY 1 2 1990
MAY
,..
i
t
I
- t '
THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
By BURNETT H. STRBETRR
REALITY
THE FOUR GOSPELS
RESTATEMENT AND REUNION: A Study
in First Principles
MORAL ADVENTURE: (Reprinted Iroro
the book ** Adventure ")
THE MESSAGE OF SADHU SUNDAR
SINGH; (Jointly with A. J. Appasamy)
THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH: Edited by
Burnett H, Streeter
ADVENTURE
THE SPIRIT
IMMORTALITY
CONCERNING PRAYER
FOUNDATIONS
THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
STUDIED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE ORIGINS OF THE
CHRISTIAN MINISTRY
LECTURES DELIVERED ON
THE HEWETT FOUNDATION
BY
BURNETT HILLMAN STBEETER
WBADBB IN CHRISTIAN ORIGIN'S IN THK TJNITnOffllTY W OXFORD"
FELLOW OP TH QXJEBN'S COLUOGB, OXFOKO; CANON OF
FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
HON. D.D. EDIN. ; HON, D.D, DUKHAM
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1929
COPYRIGHT, I$29 ?
Br THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
AH rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whoto or in fy.rl in any form.
Set up and eloctrotyjved,
Published, September, 1929.
Printed m the Unitid StMtg of Amtrira b
tB FXItiXfl rxtNTIMO COMtAWY^ WEW "srot
CONTENTS
PAGK
INTRODUCTION vii
Some Notable Dales xi
LECTURE 1
HISTORY AND LEGEND ...... . ........... 1
Map shovrinff chief placet* mentioned in this book. , .(facing 'page 1)
LECTURE II
APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES ..... ....... 29
LECTURE III
EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDKR IN THE NEW TESTAMENT , 09
CONSPECTUS of Christian literature to AJ>, 2SO ...... 101
LECTURE IV
THIS CHUECH IN ASIA . . , .......... ... 103
LECTURE V
THE CIIUECH IN SYRIA ...............*. 143
Not THB EPISTLK OF ST. JTOMS ...*... 145
LECTURE VI
THB CHXTECH or ROMB . . . . : - 187
T
vi CONTENTS
LECTURE VII
?Ai
ALEXANDRIA AND THK PATRIARCHATES ....,,.,... 236
EPILOGUE 267
APPENDICES
A. PioNras' LIFE OF POLTCAEF 271
B. THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS AND POLTCAEP ........ 279
C. OKIGIN AND DATE OP THE * DXDACK& ' , , 388
B. IRBNABTJS AND THE EARLY POPES 205
E. A GNOSTIC HYMN .................. 304
INDEX OP NAMES . .... 307
INDEX OP SUBJECTS 311
EXTRACT PEOM THE WILL
OF
WATERMAN THOMAS HEWETT
I desire to plaee on record at the close of my life, my
profound FAITH in the Christian religion, 1 believe* that
the future of the human race and the highest individual
character are dependent upon realising in life, consciously
or unconsciously, the spirit of our Lord and Master, JCBUH
Christ. Every successive generation must apprehend anew
these truths, and a fresh statement of them by the
and most reverent scholars is desirable to secure their intel-
ligent acceptance and recognition*
It is provided that the Lectures are to be delivered in, or in
connection with, the Episcopal Theological School, Canbritlg**,
Mass., and also in Union Theological Seminary, New York, By
the courtesy of President Lowell, the first course WM given in
Emerson Hail, Harvard.
INTRODUCTION
WHEN I first began to read Theology more than thirty
years ago, I found Church History so dull especially after
reading Greek and Roman history for * Greats ' that I
dropped the subject, and offered for examination Textual
Criticism instead. I discovered later what the matter
was; it was not that ' Church ' history was dull, but that
what was then presented to me as such was not really
history. Whether the present volume is dull, or even
history, it will be for others to pronounce, I only know
that I have enjoyed the writing of it the hue and cry
after new discovery, the following up of hitherto unnoticed
clues, the delimitation of conflicting tendencies, envisaging
the interaction between personality and circumstance in
testing situations, noting the intermittent ironies emergent
in all things human.
The special reference to the Origins of the Christian
Ministry was due in the first place to the importance of
that topic in relation to the present-day discussion of
Christian Reunion. But as my investigations led me to
detect the existence of a far greater diversity and variega-
tion in primitive Christianity than is commonly recognised,
I came to see in the study of Primitive Church Order the
most convenient skeleton, so to speak, round which to form
the living body of early church history. It led me also to
a fresh survey of the surviving literature of the first hun-
dred years of Christianity including the New Testament
as a result of which I seemed to see the several documents
in a new way. Each had its special place in the develop-
ril
viii THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
nient of the organism, as well an of the thought, of the
Christian community; and most of thorn, though in differ-
ent ways, exercised u determinative influence on that devel-
opment* Indeed, unless a writing produced a profound
impression on contemporaries or, like Philemon and 2 and
3 John, bore the name of an outstanding leader in the
eimimtfanccs of the early Church it would have little
chance of being copied and, therefore, of survival.
It is my hope that many who take no special intercut
in the history of Church organisation nuiy find ihi* hook
of value a:* u general introdwtion to the literature of early
Christianity, wn from this? point of view. A past ujre lives
in it architecture, its art, and it* literature; but where,
us in thin ease, hardly anything remains of the art or
architecture, it is the mw nwvssary, if that literature is
to he heard again speaking with a living voice, to fee it
in the right historical framework.
For four hundred yearn theologians of rival churches
have armed themselves to battle on tin* question of the
Primitive Church* However greait their rcwonco for
peientifio truth and historic fad, they have at least hoprd
that the result of their investigations would lu to vindicate
apodtolic authority for the type of Church Order to which
they were themselves attaehtui. The Episcopalian has
sought to find episcopacy, the Presbyterian presbyterian-
i#m and the Independent a Hyutem of independency, to he
the form of church government in New Testament times.
But while each party to the dispute 1ms been able to make
out n ease for hi** own view, h* has never succeeded in
demolishing the ea**e of his opponent The explanation of
thin dvadloek, I have eome to believe, is quit simple. It i
the uncriticiwd aRmimption r made by all parties to the
controvitivy, that m the* Cmt century there existed a single
type of Church Order,
INTRODUCTION ix
Approach the evidence without making that assump-
tion and two conclusions come into sight:
(1) In the New Testament itself there can be traced
an evolution in Church Order, comparable to the develop-
ment in theological reflection detected by the scholarship
of tho last century.
(2) The most natural interpretation of the other evi-
dence is that, at the end of the first century A.D., there
existed, in different provinces of the Roman Empire, dif-
ferent systems of church government. Among these, the
Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Independent, can
each discover the prototype of the system to which he
himself adheres.
The hypothesis of a primitive diversity in Christian
institutions may, or may not, succeed in commending
itself to the judgment of scholars; but in the meantime it
has, at any rate, one merit. It is not likely to add fuel
to the flames of ecclesiastical controversy. Indeed, if my
hypothesis is correct, then, in the classic words of Alice in
Wonderland, ' Everyone has won, and all shall have prizes '
At any rate, I am entitled to presume that among those
who profess and call themselves Christians there will be
but few of those unfortunates, to whom it is no satisfaction
to be right unless they can thereby put others in the wrong.
The clarification of my ideas on this matter has been
gradual. Considerations of space prevented me from
including a discussion of the subject in my book The Few
Gospels to which this volume is, in some respects, a
sequel. They were advanced a stage further by an invita-
tion from the Theological Faculty of the University of
London to deliver in May 1925 a short course of lectures
embodying original research. The lectures then, given,
under the title of Primitive Church Order, formed the first
draft for three of those comprised in this book. I have
x THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
learnt much from members of a Seminar for post-graduate
research, modelled on those held by Dr. Jxuuiay, which I
started in 1927 on my appointment as Header in Christian
Origins at Oxford. Many valuable suggestions from Dr. J.
Vernon Bartlet. Prof. F. C. Burkitt, Mr, 1L J. Carpenter,
and Dr, P. N. Harrison, made after reading the galloy-
proofc, I have been able to embody. Lastly, this book
owes much to the vigilant reading of the page-proofs by
Mr. J. S. Bczzunt and Canon Lilloy, For the Index I am
indebted to Mrs. C. VT. Sowhy.
The Lectures here printed were, I should explain, the
first to be given on a new Foundation by tin* late Prof. \V.
T, Hewett of Harvardan extract from \vhn>e will is
printed above tp, vil. It is fitting, therefore* that 1 should
put on record my sense of the compliment implied in the
invitation by the Heweft Trustee^ to deliver the iimuminil
course on a Foundation of this importance. I should like
also t<^ express my appreciation of the more than gracious
hospitality of my Hirveral hosts and hostesses on u visit
to the United Slates in which ! shall always Inok bark as
<ne of the most enjoyable cxpfTH'iH'es that have fallen to
iny lot.
B. H. STUKCTEU.
TIIR QVKKX'A C^U45,
1929.
SOME NOTABLE DATES
B.C.
27 Augustus finally ends Roman Bepublic, and founds Mili-
tary Monarchy,
19 Death of Virgil,
8 Death of Horace.
4 Birth of Christ.
Death of Herod the Great,
A.D.
14-37 Tibcriw.
16 Recall of Gennanicus. The Rhine-Danube line becomes
frontier of the Empire,
17 Death of Livy and Ovid.
30 The Crucifixion. (For this date ef, J.T.S. xii. 120 ff.;
Harvard Theol. Review, xxii. l'57n.)
37-41 Gaim (Cdigula),
40 Philo visits Home.
41 Caligula orders his image to be set up ia the Holy of
Holies.
41-54 Claudim.
43 Romans begin conquest of Britain,
44 Death of Herod Agrippa (Acts xii, 20 ff.).
46 Famine (Acts a. 28 ff.),
50 Paul at Corinth; writes 1 Thess. (probably earliest book
of N,T,). Tried by Gallic,
54-68 JW?ro,
50 Paul before Felix.
60 Paul brought to Borne as prisoner.
02 Death of James. Release (or death) of Paul,
64' Great Fire at Borne.
Fantastic execution of Christians in gardens of Nero.
65 Death of Seneca,
65 Gospel of Mark,
xi
xii THK PRIMITIVE CHURCH
AJD,
68-69 CMl ir?v, following death of Nero,
70 Jf ru&ilrm drKtroyiHi hy Titus.
77 Cofo&cum hrgun.
79-81 nf*.
79 Pompeii and Hrrculancum
81-96 />umtftrjn.
M.'ttrhrw. Lnkt\ Aw AjHH'
Jowi'hus writrn and Plut;in'h lirtun\< in Runir,
Hnt;jin Mith <*! Forth.
rr n^t-d, *si>*vi,illy in AH.I.
of Christ inn aristuonit* at Honw,
96-98 A%rr.
t>6 Kpi.-tlo tf C'h-nwnt,
97 Trtsj-iii Womrrt cH*fnjMTi>r.
Tacitus* Lift 1 of Ayric&ta*
98-117 Tr^n,
of Mm,
of Kyinron of Jrniftifrm,
107 Juvuml, Bonk 1. *if ^itin^.
112 Pliny jwm*ciitr*s Chmtfoa* in Uithynia (PcmUM).
115 IgnutitiH martyn'd m C'olo^dnn
117-138 Hadrian.
l rt^huilt n* Ailin (fopititfim.
13S-16I
140 Mnmtrn enniow to Hum*.
156 Polyi'arp martyred at Smyrna,
161*180 Marcwt Auwtiw*.
Thin rrigft mark* culturally * tfu* end of the ancimt world \
163 Justin nmrtyrt'ci at Ronu*.
l(k r > Ht^fwj|iiH visits Rome.
177 i*t?rmiti0n at Lyo,
180-192 Commodux.
1B5 l3WtHA'U3* of Iiyotm C Lu^dtitttimt}.
19D Victor of Romit encoinmuntcatai chwrchwt of Aia
SOME NOTABLE DATES xiii
AJX
193-211 Septimus Se.verm.
192 Tertullian converted (Carthage).
202 Persecution drives Clement from Alexandria.
203 Origcn (#t, 18) takes charge of Catechetical School.
204 Birth of Piotinm
211-217 Caracalfa
212 Edict conferring Roman citizenship on all freeborn sub-
jects of Empire.
NOTE. The purpose of the above selection of dates is to assist
the student to see the events of Church. History against their back-
ground in European History. When, therefore, the exact year is
disputable, I have usually given, * without prejudice \ the approxi-
mation most generally accepted.
HISTORY AND LEGEND
SYNOPSIS
TUB APOCRYPHAL ACTS
WHAT became of the Twelve Apostles ? History tells surprisingly
little ; legends abound, but they go back to romances artificially con-
cocted as party propaganda- Gnostic (or Gnosticising) and Ebiomte.
Thus thereto of JoAnrand to a varying extent those of Paul, Peter,
Andrew, and Thomas- condemn marriage ; the Clementine Homilies
(the Recognitions are only another recension of these) make it an
obligatory duty.
The Maniehaean Canon* and the * Catholic * recensions of the
Apocryphal Acts. Their influence on Christian art and liturgies ; on
statements made by the Fathers, and even by the historian Eusebius.
Possibility that the Acts of JPaul may contain scraps of authentic
tradition. The Gnostic Hymn in the Acts of John.
The Clementine* depict a contest between Peter and Simon
Magus, They are based on an earlier Ebionite document, which
aimed at delivering a veiled attack on the Apostle Paul under the
name of Simon Magu. Much more of this Ebionite propaganda is
preserved in the Homilies than in the Recognition*. The ffomSies
open with two fictitious letters : I. Of Peter to James, the brother
of the Lord, saluting him as the supreme Bishop of the Church, and
affirming his (Peter's) adherence to the Mosaic law. II. Of Clement
to James, notable as the earliest statement that Peter was himself
Bishop of Rome, and that he consecrated Clement as his successor
in that See,
In the Acts of Peter the story of the Apostle's conflict with Simon
Magus is carried to its conclusion in Rome, These Act* include th
noble Quo Vadu legend, and an account of Petert crucifixion head-
downwards, Peter's Journey to Rome to confront Simon Magus is
1
2 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
dated twelve years after the Resurrection, or AJX 42, If th (late be
set in conjunction with the date A.D. 07 "mistakenly asigm i d by
Kusebius to Nero's perwcution, in the course of which, he &iyt, IVirr
and Paul were put to death :i wimple sum in nubtraetion givex the
period of twenty-five years, which tradition assigns to the EpiA'upat**
of Peter in Rome.
TRADITION AND THE FATHERS
The * tradition ' which the Fathers take seriously is the tradition
of sound doctrine. With the eorreetnew* of this they wrr< gravrly
concerned, * Traditions ', in the senne of anecdotes about the doing*
of Apostlea, they were prepared to accept on. very slight ovidrnciv
It ~w evident that many of the stories they tell are derived, directly
or indirectly, from Apocryphal Act*.
Church historian* have been nometimea mirfed through overlook-
ing the fact that the Fathers quote one another usually with *om
amplification of the tfatenieatR made by their prrdocttmora, This
crescendo illustrated by a series of Btatcnitiit made by Fathers in
regard to the origins of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, The
evidence of Irenaoua as to the residence of the Apontle John ID Aitia
must be scrutinised in tin* light of thm tendency, But the Fathers
must nofc be judged too hatvhly ; historical accuracy was for them a
thing clilTieult to attain owing to the lark, until the ago of Con-
utantiae, of n standard trxt-hook of Church history. The? pioaer
attempt to write a history of tho Church made by Euwbiua c. A.O
311 . The ftt^k proHontutl gwuit difficulties ; but thij*e were
overcome by the fact that Kunt'biua was, for hm ng^% a wnlly
historian.
It is largely duo to Krfw* - ftd the ancient itti'*riali which he
preserves- that tho hiatory of the* origins of ChriHtiantty in no much
than that of the ofhor great Rdigtonn. Btit in
reK&rd, of Btlll git*Mrr import&oeo was the coailft with Gnovtkiflin
in the si^eoiici CPU! wry, In ordor to nile out GntiPticing
Acts, the Church was compelled to wlc*ct t an<I to attribute
authority to, that portion of Ito litemlurt which it
believed to he authentically apogtolta in origin. Thin prixnittv^
literature, once it was regardrct an * inspired '**. m a Nf*w Tegta*
meat nlojagaiclc I lie Old**-cottld no longer be or
re-written ; and In therrfore still available for the of tha
hitorian in approximately it original form, la addition to the <N*|
lection of early literature included ia the Nw Tentatnent,
HISTORY AND LEGEND 3
fortunately survives another collection known as the * Apostolic
Fathers 1 . In point of date tho two collections overlap ; together
they form a solid basi 4 * and thf* only solid basis on which to build
a history of the primitive Church.
The nature of the task set before a writer of early Church History.
HISTORY AND LEGEND
THE APOCRYPHAL ACTS
WHAT became of the Twelve Apostles? That is a question
to which legend will give a vivacious answer; but history
is strangely silent. For stories about great men there is
always a popular demand; in the Christian Church this
demand was catered for in the first instance by persons
who saw here an opportunity for commending a particular
type of doctrine and ethical practice. The earliest to per-
ceive and exploit to the full this opportunity was one
* Leucius ', who produced (AJX 150-170) a work of pure
imagination, the Acts of John a novel with a religious
purpose, that of advocating a Gnostic or semi-gnostic
interpretation of Christianity. His success encouraged
others; there followed rapidly Acts af Paul, Acts of Peter,
and an earlier recension of the Clementines? then Acts of
Andrew, and Acts of Thomas all probably between AJX
175 and 250.
From the standpoint of doctrine and ethics the Acts of
John and the Clementine Homilies represent directly oppo-
1 Extant in two later recensions, known respectively as the Xtecoff~
nitions and the ffomUies. J?. J. A. Sort, in his lectures on the OUmen-
tim Recognitions (Macmillan, 1901), argues that these are two inde-
pendent abbreviations of a work referred to by Epiphanius as popular
among Essene Bbionites the TrcpWoi, or Circuits, of Peter f * written by
the hand of Clement *. The Recognitions preserve- more of the original
story, the Homilies more of the Ebionite discourse. See also Dr.
Vernoa B&rtlet'a article, 'Clementine Literature 1 , in
Britannica.
5
6 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH I
site tendencies the Gnostic and the Ebionite. Probably
the authors wrote with a definite intention of commending
these heresies to the orthodox, though some scholars think
that they represent the extreme limits of what was still
tolerated within the Church at the time of writing. In
the Act of John, Christ is a Divine Being essentially inca-
pable of suffering, and is depicted as calmly talking to the
disciples on the Mount of Olives while the spectacle of the
Crucifixion a pure illusion is being enacted on Calvary
before the eyes of the multitude. In the Homilies, Christ
is regularly styled * the True Prophet ', and is not much
more than a kind of super-human Moses. Again the Acts
of John is largely concerned with a polemic against mar-
riage, whereas in the HamiKes marriage is commanded as
a matter of obligation.
The other works mentioned above* with the possible
exception of the Acts of Thomas* seem to represent different
strains in popular Christianity within the Church at the
end of the second century. But at a later date the five
volumes of 4cte were adopted by the Munichees into their
Canon of sacred books in place of the Lukan Acts doubt-
less because, in a greater or less degree, their attitude
towards marriage is that which the Manichees themselves
adopted. This damaged the reputation of Aet* 9 and,
with the exception for a time of the Act of Paul, they
eame to be regarded definitely as heretical But to the
taste of that age they were too interesting to be completely
discarded, and various editions of them often of
as * Catholic Acts * were produced, in which the
speeches were altered or excised, while the adve&turea and
miracles received further embellishment* At the
time similar Act$ of the remaining apostles were produced,
beginning with those of Philip c. AJD. 250* In
are to be found numerous legends Immortalised la Chris-
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 7
tian art; and by them the mediaeval liturgies have been
profoundly influenced. Even in the revised Calendar of
the Church of England the commemoration as martyrs of
all the Apostles except John, rests ultimately on the
authority of these apocryphal Acts*
What is less commonly realised, is the extent to which
statements by Fathers of the third and fourth centuries,
and even by our primary historian Eusebius, are dependent
upon the earlier examples of this type of romance. For
this reason a great service has been done to the ordinary
student of Church History by Dr. M. R. James, who has
collected and translated into English, in one convenient
volume, The Apocrypfial New Testament? all that sur-
vives of this kind of literature from the second and the
third centuries with the exception of the Clementines,
which were already conveniently accessible to English
readers in the Ante-Nicene Library.
The Acts of Paul, we are told by Tertullian, was pro-
duced shortly before his own time by a presbyter of Asia.
For this exploit the presbyter was degrade^ from office, in
spite of his plea that he did it from 'love of Paul*. It
was doubtless the attribution to the Apostle of speeches
roundly denouncing marriage that secured his condemna-
tion, not the venial indeed all but commendable offence
of providing him with fictitious adventures and bogus
miracles. At any rate, in spite of the widely-known fact
of its author f s condemnation, the Acts of Paul was treated
as a serious historical authority by Hippolytus in Rome,
e. AJD. 220, by Origen in Alexandria, and even by St. Augus-
tine, who must have read what his African predecessor
Tertulllan had said on the subject. The historian naturally
asks, How many statements made by other Fathers from
* Clarendon Prs, 1924,
8 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
AO>. 200 onwards may not be derived from some of the
other apocryphal Acts?
The Acts of Paid, however, may preserve scraps of
authentic tradition. Prof, Ramsay * has argued that there
is a historical basis to the story of Thecla, And there is a
personal description of the Apostle's appearance* given
near the beginning of this episode, which is so uncompli-
mentary that it may be surmised to rest on some local
memory, especially as this romance comes from Asia
Minor/ the main field of the Apostle's activity.
And he saw Paul coming, a man little of stature, thin-haired
upon the head, crooked in the legs, of good state of body, with
eyebrows joining, and nose somewhat hooked, full of grace ; for
sometimes he appeared like a man, and sometimes he had the fact
of an angel
The imaginative faculty of the author of the Act of
John operated untrammelled by any regard for history or
authentic local tradition; but, considered as a novelist, he
shares with the author of the Acts of Thoinm the distlne*
tion of being skilled in his craft. Fortunately he incor-
porates a hymn of great beauty, which gives us a glimpse
of Gnosticism on its more attractive side. In general,
what survives of Gnostic literature, the for
example. Is Incredibly tedious; and what we know of
Gnostic theosophieal speculation is so that we
are apt to wonder what was the movemeni
which it so alluring to that age as to &
formidable enemy to the Chtirch. No doubt its
appeal lay in the dualism which offered a solution,
retical and practical, to the problem of evil This hymm
another and a completely different of It
x yjte 0JtarJk 4m !&* jRmm Smp$f, eb* rrL (Hoddtr
1103,)
*Pottib!y from Xcontam. 1 M. E* *Fttt *fi* efl* p.
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 9
mystical, devotional, poetical For that reason I print it,
in an Appendix at the end of this volume, from a version
familiar, from its musical setting by G. Hoist, to those who
resort to choral festivals.
The Clementine Homilies and Recognitions purport to
be the work of Clement, represented as a personal disciple
of Peter, who appoints him his successor as Bishop of
Home. Though not commonly classed among the Apocry-
phal Acts, the Clementines are romances of a similar
character. They are equally novels with a purpose, the
centre of interest lying in the adventures and teaching of
the Apostle Peter. But there is some difference between
the Clementines and the Acts in the literary form adopted,
and still more in the theological position of the writers.
In the Apocryphal Acts startling miracles are the conspic-
uous feature of the narrative setting, which is, so to speak,
the jam supplied to make more palatable the solid nutri-
ment of the doctrinal harangues; and the Apostle who is
the hero of the romance is brought into contact with a large
variety of persons in divers situations. In the Clementines
the plot is tamer, and the range of incident less varied.
The under-plot is a familiar Greek and Latin comedy
motif the discovery, after a long lapse of years, of parents
by children, brothers and sisters by one another, having
been separated and sold into slavery in early youth* In
this subordinate plot Clement is the hero. The main plot
is title contest between Peter and the sorcerer and heresiarch
Sli&on Magus, whom Peter follows from place to place,
confutes in doctrinal argument, and finally vanquishes
outtrumping the sorcerer at Antioch by opposing to his
magic a happy mixture of miracle and ruse,
Either the whole romance of which the extant Clemen*
tim$ are divergent recensions, or else a document embodied
in it containing the series of conflicts between Peter and
10 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
Simon Magus, as well as a great deal of the substance of
the speeches of the combatants, was a piece of Ebionite
propaganda most probably emanating from an Essene
Jewish-Christian sect, the Elkesaitcs. In it the character
of Simon Magus is made use of to mask an attack on the
Apostle Paul, whom all Ebionitcs hated for his attitude
towards the law of Moses, For that reason this EbSonite
document was supposed by the Tubingen school to be prior
to the Lukan Acts, and to afford a key to the true interpre-
tation of the history of the Apostolic Age. This was a
grand mistake. So far from being prior to the work of
Luke, it comes much nearer to being a reply to it. In the
Acts, Peter is represented as being the precursor of Paul
in throwing open Christianity to the Gentiles. The author
of the Ebionite work (or the earlier source he followed)
finds both the Acts and the corpus of Pauline Epistles
already accepted as religious classics fay the majority of
Christians. He dislikes Paul and still more the doeetic,
ascetic, Gaostic section of his followers but he is not in
a position to deliver a frontal attack on the Apostle in
person* He therefore takea from the Acts (viii. 9 ff.) the
character of Simon, the sorcerer whom Peter rebuked in
Samaria, and under cover of that name develops his assault
on the Paulinists of his own time believing, no doubt with
good reason, that his work would have a wider circulation
if the attack on Paul himself was, to this extent, veiled.
The Homttm conserves much more of this Ebionite
polemic than the Recognitions, and so is of far more value
to the historian. It also includes two letters which! though
palpable inventions, are of considerable moment*
(I.) The letter of Peter to James, In this Peter salutes
James as his superior, ' the lord and bishop of the holy
church, under the Father of all ', and explains that he had
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 11
taught adherence to the Law of Moses> but that his teach-
ing had been misrepresented.
Some from among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preach-
ing, attaching themselves to certain lawless and trifling preaching
of the man [ie. Simon Magus-Paul] who is my enemy.
Of the quasi-Papal supremacy here ascribed to James,
the brother of the Lord, I shall have something to say later,
(II, ) RufimiSy in his preface to the Latin translation
of the Recognitions the original Greek is lost says:
The letter in which the same Clement, writing to James the Lord's
brother, informs him of the death of Peter, and that he had left
him (Clement) as his successor in his chair and teaching ; and in
which the whole subject of church order is treated of, I have not
prefixed to this work . . , because I have already translated
and published it,
The Greek text is preserved in the Homilies. This letter
of Clement to Peter contains the earliest statement that
Peter was himself actually Bishop of Rome; Irenaeus
reckons Linus as the first bishop, appointed by Peter and
Paul Also it makes Clement the first bishop after the
Apostles; whereas in the old Roman tradition, found in the
Canon of the Mass and in Irenaeus (cf. p. 191 ), he is
preceded by Linus and Cletus (=Anencletus), Now Ter-
tullian, 1 it should be noted, though he had read Irenaeus,
places Clement first most probably on the authority of
this apocryphal letter. Still more influential was Rufinus'
Latin translation of the letter. This became the nucleus
of the False Decr^tefe, which throughout the Middle Ages
constituted the chief documentary basis for the more
grandiose of the Papal claims.
The author of the Acts of Peter had read the Acts of
l De .Praetor. Baere*. 32* written 0. AJ>. 199,
12 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, i
John, and sympathised with its views on marriage; but
the greater part of what Is preserved of his work apart
from the account of the arrest and death of Peter is a
continuation of the story of the conflict between Peter and
Simon Magus. Simon* defeated by Peter in Palestine, has
gone to Rome. There he works desolation among the
believers until Peter is summoned by a divine vision to
go to Rome and undo the mischief caused. Since the author
of these Acts never mentions the name of Clement, it is
possible that he derived the Idea of the conflict between
Peter and Simon Magus, not from the Clementine Ro-
mancethe immediate source of the extant Recognitions
and Homilm~but either from an older Ebionite work
embodied therein, or from a legendary amplification of the
incident mentioned in Acts (vixi. 9 ff.) current in non-
Ebionite circles. At any rate he clearly intended to writs
a sequel in which the conflict was carried to a finish in
Rome,
The Idea of a visit of Simon Magus to Rome originated
in a mare*s discovered by Justin Martyr, c. A,D. 152*
Justin speaks of a founded by & Samaritan namtd
Simon, who gave himself out to be an incarnation of the
Supreme God, and was worshipped as such by a
following in Samaria, * though very few of other nations \
He goes on to say that in the time of Claudius Caesar;
Simon . . . by his magic with the powers of
did wonderful m the imperial city of t he
gained the reputation of a god, mad accordiagly is faoaourtd by
you [Romans]! like your other with a
the liber between the two bridge^ with this Latin
Dm Sumto f * To Simon the Holy God ** (Apo& i xxxfr.).
This astonishing statement could never hava
by a native of Rome ; but Justin born In
had then lived In Ephesus, and on the which he iodi-
I HISTORY AND LEGEND 13
cates, an island in the Tiber known as inter diws pontes
(' between the two bridges y ) there was discovered in A.D.
1574 an altar with a dedication Semoni Banco Deo (C.I.L.,
vL 567). Semo Sancus was an ancient Sabine deity, of
whose existence Justin could hardly be expected to be
aware. Jtistin j s veracity, then, is completely vindicated,
somewhat at the expense of his intelligence, if, familiar as
he was with the cult of the Samaritan Simon, he confused
him with the Sabine deity. 1 That the Samaritan Simon
ever came to Rome is improbable. Justin expressly says
that he had a very small following outside Samaria; and
Hegesippus ranks the Simonians as one of five Jewish sects.
It is not certain that he is the same person as the magician
Simon, whose rebuke by Peter is recorded in the Acts (viiL
20-24), and who has provided ecclesiastical law with the
technical term * simony '. Since, however, the Simon of the
Acts was regarded by his followers as ' that Power (i.e.
emanation) of God which is called Great 7 , I incline to
think they are identical; at any rate, they were identified.
Any Christian who had read the Ebionite story of the
contest of Peter with Simon Magus, and then read Justin
Martyr, would receive a shock. Simon Magus, vanquished
by the apostle in Syria, had succeeded in getting himself
deified in Rome. Neither divine nor poetic justice could
allow the villain of the piece such a signal triumph in the
end. Clearly, something had to be done about it; Peter
must once more pursue the sorcerer, and must finally van-
quish him on the field of his apparent victory. This is
the principal motif of the Acts of Peter. . * * And in
Eusebius it reappears as sober history (H.E. ii. 14r-15) .
*Frof, Merrill suggests that the statue may have been set up or
repaired by Ckudiuu (who had an^ aBtiquariaa interest in reviving
moribund enltt) and bore an inscription to thin eifeet. If so, this
would be Justin's evidence that Simon came to Rome * in the time of
14 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
Tbe romantic necessity that Peter should crash Simon
carried with it chronological consequences- Simon had
come to Rome in the days of Claudius; Peter, therefore,
must have done the same, St. Luke tells us that Peter,
after his escape from prison under Herod Agrippa I., left
Jerusalem and * went to another place ' (Acts xiL 17). How
obvious the conjecture that the * other place 1 was Rome!
And the date of Peter's -escape from prison, and therefore
of his journey to Rome, could very naturally be fixed at
twelve yean after the Crucifixion. Judaea and Samaria
were added to the previous dominions of Herod Agrippa L
by Claudius on his accession in AJ>. 41; and Agrippit died
in A.D. 44. Hence the execution of James the son of Zebe-
dee and the imprisonment of Peter must have taken place
between these years. If the Crucifixion be dated AJX 80,
Peter's departure * to another place * may have been exactly
twelve years later. But the ancients took numbers
seriously; there are twelve tribes, twelve of the
Zodiac* * twelve months of the sun 7 etc* Twelve years
would be the right period for the College of Twelve Apos-
tles to remain in Jerusalem^ working for the conversion
of Israel before they separated to go on the Gentile Mis-
sion. This a priori of the appropriate plus the
actual fact that Peter left Jerusalem about twelve years
after the Crucifixion was translated into an express com-
mand of the Lord to all the Apostles, This
already appears in the of Peter, an apocrypha!
writing not later than AJD. 160, from which Clement of
Alexandria quotes as follows:
The Lord said to the : If then any of will
repent, to balteve in God through my name, his be for*
him ; , , . after twelve go ye out into the world,
last my siy : We did not hear (Stmm* vL 5).
* Tlit jptoati 0ecar fa
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 15
The Preaching of Peter was presumably known to the
author of the Acts of Peter. At any rate he refers to this
command; and had evidently recorded it in the early por-
tion of his book, which is now lost.
And aa they [ie, the Christians at Rome] prayed and fasted,
God was always teaching Peter at Jerusalem of that which should
coma to pass. For whereas the twelve years which the Lord Christ
had enjoined upon Mm were jidfitted, he showed a vision after this
manne^ saying unto him : e Peter, that Simon the sorcerer whom
thou didst east out of Judaea, confuting him, hath again come
before thee at Rome. , . Delay thee not ; set forth on the
morrow, and then thou shalt find a ship ready, setting sail for
Italy. . . .'
In Jerome's translation of the Chronicon of Eusebius
the standard authority for all later ecclesiastical writers
the entry opposite the second year of Claudius (AJD.
42) is:
Peter the Apostle, after first founding the Church of Antioch,
is sent to Rome, where he preached the Gospel and continued for
twenty-five years as Bishop of the same city.
The ultimate authority for Peter's arrival in Rome in
AJX 42 would seem to be the passage of the Acts of Peter
quoted above. The earliest statement that Peter exercised
the office of Bishop in Rome is the apocryphal letter of
Clement to James, now extant, in the Clementine Homilies.
Whence comes the period of twenty-five years? The
answer to this question lies near at hand* A few pages
later in the Chromcon, against the last year of Nero (AJ>.
67-48) , we read:
Nero, to crown his enormities, waa the first to carry out a per-
secution of the Christkns, in which Peter and Paul died gloriouily
at Rome.
16 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
According to Tacitus, the persecution took place shortly
after the great fire of A.D. 04, so that the date given by
Etisebius, A,D. 67, Is, In point of fact, three years out. But
AJX 67 is the Eusebian date; and a simple sum In subtrac-
tion (67 --42 =25) gives as the Interval between Peter's first
arrival in Rome and his martyrdom in the same city (and
therefore, as the duration of his episcopate), the famous
twenty-five years,
The Acts of Peter is probably the ultimate source, not
only of the traditional chronology of Peter's life, hut also
of the story, repeated later by Origcn, that Peter at his
own request was crucified head downwards. And like the
Acts of John* it includes one item which is really great
the glorious legend commemorated by the Church Dowint
Quo Vadis on the Appian Way outside the walls of Rome*
Peter is warned that Agrippa the prefect is about to arrest
and put him to death, The brethren exhort him to
his life * that he might yet be able to serve the Lord \ and
he decides to leave Rome in disguise,
And he obeyed the brethren's voice and went forth alone . . *
and aa hie went forth out of the city, lie aw the Lori! entering
iato Rome. And when he iaw Him, he gaid, 4 Lord, whither
thou f * And the Lord aid unto him, * I go unto Rome to bo
cnicified \ And Peter wato Him, * Lord, art thou being cruci-
fied ? * He him, * Ye% Peter, 1 am crucified
again 11 * And Peter came to . . . aad to
TBA0OTOK ABB
At it is clear that the
directly on the authority of Apocryphal
1 Tb# vmion in of Br,
mint, p. $33*
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 17
Hippolytus, for example, in defending the credibility of
the story of Daniel in the lions' den, writes; 1
If we believe that, when Paul was condemned to the beasts,
the lion that was set upon him laid down at his feet and licked
him, how shall we not believe that which happened in the case of
Daniel ? (Commmtory on Darned, ML 9) ,
No one could appeal to an event supposed to have
taken place a hundred and fifty years ago as evidence for
the credibility of an incident recorded in scripture merely
on the authority of floating tradition; it must have been
recorded in a book known to and valued by Hippolytus
and his readers. And the story of St. Paul and the lion
does occur in the Act of Paid.
In the majority of eases, however, when the Fathers
quote a * tradition ', it is probable that they are not refer-
ring directly to the text of Apocryphal Acts, but to stories
current by word of mouth. But whenever a story occurs
in one of the Apocryphal Acts, and is first quoted by a
Father who wrote later than the earliest edition of those
Acts* it Is open to the suspicion of being part of the output
of those factories of legend. Human nature changes but
slowly; and stories spread In those days as now, not be-
cause they are true, but because they are interesting. And
once a good story becomes current, it is widely believed
unless immediately and repeatedly contradicted^ either by
glaring incompatibility with some notorious fact, or by
powerful influences which have an interest in its suppres-
sion. In the third century, as to most people in the
twentieth, * everybody says so Ms a quite sufficient reason
for accepting any anecdote which is really interesting.
In the Fathers, 'tradition 5 ' or rather the various
words and phrases which we translate by that word
* Of, M, E* James, op, elf. p. 291 1
18 THE PRIMITIVE CHUECH x
means two very different things. There Is the tradition
of sound doctrine, of which the Bishops of the great
were regarded as in a special sense the custodians; and
there are stories current about historical personages or
events. It is only where the tradition of sound doctrine
is in question more especially as regards the Unity of
God and the reality of Christ's Manhood as against the
Gnostic challenge that the early Fathers are serious about
the appeal to history. Anecdotes about apostles or other
personages of that age, like common-room stories at the
present day about persons regarded as 4 characters \ were
told and re-told without anyone feeling the need of con-
formity to an exacting standard of historical accuracy*
There is another reason why writers of Church history
often misconceive the nature and value "of a catena of
statements of Church writers, when these oceur in a
chronological series in regard to some one set of facts.
They forget that the ancients read one another. Indeed,
save in exceptional and more or accidental eircum-
stances, no ancient writer has survived at all unless his
work was highly esteemed by those who followed after;
and where a statement appeared in a previous writer of
esteemed reputation, a later writer naturally accepted it
on his authority. Most commonly, however, of
word for word quotation, the later writer reproduced what
he took to be the general meaning of his authority whieh
in practice that he reproduced the original
with amplifications and modifications of his own, Stu-
dents of the Old New Testament are traintd to study
carefully the way in which. In ancient historical writings,
the of or the for greater
has led to the amplification of the account of an earlier
anchor. They are familiar* for examplep with the
which the Chronicler has given to many of the
i HISTORY AND LEGEND W
taken by him from older books like Samuel or Kingi; or
with the way, rather more conservative yet not in principle
dissimilar, in which Matthew and Luke have re-written
certain sections which they have derived from Mark,
Curiously enough, it is less generally recognised that the
relation between earlier and later ecclesiastical writers is
of a very similar character, Irenaeus derived materials
from Papias, Hegesippus, and Justin Martyr; Clement of
Alexandria, Tertullian, and Hippolytus used Irenaeus;
Origen read most of his predecessors; and Eusebius, the
real * father of Church history J , used all these earlier
writers. Jerome, the greatest scholar of the Western
Church, copied and improved upon Eusebius. But even
Eusebius rarely, if ever, perceived that a later writer was
merely repeating, with his own comments or conjectural
amplification, the statement of an earlier writer; and he
thus sets their evidence side by side, as if they were inde-
pendent witnesses who corroborated one another's testi-
mony. And not a few modern writers have followed his
example.
An instructive illustration of the crescendo in a series
of statements which can originate in this manner is to be
seen by studying what these authorities respectively have
to say in regard to the relation of the Gospel of Mark to
the Apostle Peter* Papias states that, 'Mark, having
become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately
everything he remembered *, with the disparaging qualifi-
cation * without, however, recording in order what was
either said or done by Christ *.
Irenaeus adds the detail that Mark wrote * after the
death of Peter and Paul 1 . Clement of Alexandria (ap.
Bus, IT JL vi. 14. 5 ff.) says that this Gospel was written
during the lifetime of Peter, but in his absence, at the
reqpesfc of those who had heard Peter preach; and that,
20 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH x
1 when Peter heard of it, lie neither strongly hindered nor
encouraged it J . Origen improves on this, saying that Mark
* wrote it in accordance with Peter's instructions f (Ens.
H.B. vl 25. 5). Eusebius (JSTJSL ii IS* 2) reports substan-
tially the story as told by Clement, and adds;
It is said that the Apostle, learning by the revelation of the
Spirit what was done, was delighted with the zealous ardour of
these men, and authorized the book to be read in the Churches.
Jerome brings the scries to a climax by making the
relation of Peter and Mark a matter of simple dictation,
saying that the Gospel was composed Pctro narrante, iilo
scribente (Ad Hcdibtom, iLK The last two ease** are par-
ticularly enlightening as to the standard of accuracy in
reproduction of earlier authorities, for Etisebks expressly
gives us to understand that he is merely repeating the
statements previously quoted from Clement of Alexandria 1
and Papias;
This account is given by Clement, whose testimony is cor-
roborated also by that of Papias.
Jeromc f again, in another work (Dc vir, illwtr* viit)
repeats from Eusebius the statement in the form given by
Clement; so that in his letter to Hedibia we catch him out
in a conscious exaggeration,
A similar evolution in tradition, as represented in
patristic writers, can be traced from its origin in the
bald sentence of Papias:
So then Matthew compoRfd the in the Hebrew lan-
guage, and each one interpreted them as be could,
This by the time of Enseblus lias become;
l l eft¬ *'pt Zahn'ii contention Hint the iwlcW dot*U
riwfi from a ftwitiwi* whfrh Kt<tl>ii omitted in feii prwk
wn Papias. Kunchttifi not ths wimii to omit tlw telling
from the earliest ' testimony * aviljb!.
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 21
Matthew and John alone have left us memoirs of the Lord's
discourses ; and they, it is recorded, only came to write under
compulsion. 1 For Matthew first of all preached to Hebrews ; and
when he was about to go also to others he committed his Gospel
to writing in his native tongue ; thus he made his writing com-
pensate those from whom he was departing for the lack of his
bodily presence (HJ3. iii. 24. 5 f.).
This example is in some ways even more instructive
than the former; for there is no doubt that the Greek
Gospel of Matthew is not a translation of a Hebrew orig-
inal; and therefore the whole of the patristic tradition has
arisen from a misapprehension of the fact (whatever it
may be) which lies behind the original, and unfortunately
enigmatical, sentence of Papias* The historian, then, has
not done his duty unless he has tested every item of
patristic evidence in the light of the tendency of the
Fathers to copy and improve upon the statements of their
predecessors, of which the passages quoted above are not
exceptional, but fairly representative, examples.
The case of Irenaeus (AJX 185) Is, perhaps, the most
important He stands to the theologians who succeeded
him in a relation not unike that in which Hooker stands
to the series of Anglican Divines. He is the first of the
4 Fathers ' in the strict sense of that term, which excludes
the still earlier * Apologists * and ' Apostolic Fathers ',
And every influential Church writer in the next two hun-
dred years had studied his work. His theology, however,
was better than his history. The way in which he repro-
duces the statement of Papias about Matthew (quoted p.
1Q4), shows that same tendency to improve upon earlier
authorities which later writers exhibit in their improve-
ments upon him. This tendency on his part will assume a
s Th story that John wrote under pressure from his disciples Is
found itt the Murt0rianum and is probably derived from a lost section
of the A&t9 &f John*
22 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
vital import when we come to consider the exact value of
his evidence as to the residence in Asia of the Apostle John,
In fairness, however, to Ircnaeus and other early
Fathers, it should be insisted that it was far more difficult
than we are apt to suppose for them to draw a clear di*
tinction between history and legend. That distinction is
one which can never be effectively drawn for any period
tintil and unless there arc standard written histories deal-
ing with that period. It is a fuct, in itself remarkable and
of immense consequence to the modern student, that be-
tween St. Luke whose second volume, the Acts*, brings the
history of the Church down to about the year A.D. 62 and
Eusebius, who seems to have published the first edition
(Bks. i.-viii.) of his works about A.D. 311, 1 no one thought
it worth while to write a history of the Church, Hegfttip"
pus has been miscalled * the father of Church History ! ; it
is now realised that he did not write a history at all, but
an apologetic and controversial treatise in the course of
which mainly! it would seem, in the fifth book lie
some interesting information about the early Church 0!
Jerusalem and a list of the bishops of Rome.* Julius Afri*
canus in A.JX 221 produced his Chronogmphics, a table of
dates of important events. But this work dealt mainly
with pre-Christian history, though giving dates to a few
important events of Church history and to the
of the bishops of certain down to the time at which
he wrote.
Eusebras was thus a pioneer; he was actually the
to write the history of the Church during the
250 yearn Fortunately he had at to a
z EttBebins Mdms to have published a diticm, AJ. jtitti
before the Council of Nicaea. See the in tfat
edition of the Bwlmimtiml Kktory by Lawlor and OstXton, U. . 2 ff.
(S.PX3.K,, 1928.)
9 H. J. Lawlor, Mm^mm t p. I ff. CCInretscldii
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 23
unique library of early Christian literature; and this,
though mainly consisting of hortatory and controversial
works, included collections of letters and descriptions of
martyrdoms. He had also an insight ? for that age quite
exceptional, Into the possibility of constructing history out
of the incidental allusions in such literature to persons and
events contemporary with the writers. Inevitably he some-
times gets his facts wrong; sometimes, though less often
than might have been expected, he mistakes legend for
history. He accepts as genuine, for example, the apocry-
phal correspondence between our Lord and Abgar, King of
Edessa (HJB. i. 13). * Again, though he mentions the Acts
of Peter as a book having no claim at all to inclusion
among the canonical books of the New Testament (H.E.
iii. 3. 2), he repeats as history Peter r s pursuit of Simon
Magus to Rome in the reign of Claudius (H.E. ii. 14. 6)
and that with details nearer to the account in the Acts of
Peter than to the bare allusion in Hippolytus (Ref. vi. 15) ,
who is the earliest reputable church writer to allude to the
incident
Nevertheless the debt which the historian owes to
Eusebius cannot be over-estimated. His matter is ill-
arranged, his style is. both sententious and pretentious;
yet he is one of the very few great historians of antiquity.
He was, unless I am mistaken, actually the first writer
of history to quote original authorities consistently and on
a large scale; and his method of using, and his comments
upon, the sources available show an insight into the nature
of historical evidence far in advance of his time. More-
over, he set an example which others followed. His Eccle-
is converted by Thaddseus, who is not one of the Twelre
(mi in the B $f text of Matthew and Mark) but one of the Seventy*
But Thttddaeus it Busebwi 1 own rendering of the Syriae name Addai,
irhom BurMtt attractively identifies with Tatian, the historical founder
of tt*e church in Ideasa about AJ>, 170, The name Abgar was borne by
many kings of Edessa.
24 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
simticai History at once became a standard authority; and
from time to time thereafter it was brought "up to date by
a succession of historians whose works aimed at being in
some sense continuations of his. But until the reign of
Constantine the Fathers had no text-book of Church his-
tory. And if we reflect on what the general knowledge of
modern Church history would be like, if in the Universities
or Theological Colleges of Europe no text-book was avail-
able which brought that history down later than the death
of Charles IL, we shall marvel, not that the Fathers some-
times mistake legend for history, but that they do not
commit historical blunders more frequent and more out-
rageous than is actually the ease.
The early history of Christianity is far loss obscure
than that of any of the other great religions; we are apt
to forget how largely this is due to the initiative, learning,
and historical gifts of Eusebius. But in this regard,
more important than the emergence shortly after the
AJX 300 of a historian of real capacity, was the collection
(probably made before A,D* 180) into a sacred Canonto
form a New Testament^ alongside of the Oldof certain
books which had already won their way Into general esti-
mation in the Church as religious classics* The list of
books comprised in this New Testament varied in different
churches ; but all recognised the Pour Gospel**, Acts, and a
collection of epistles of Paul, while most had the Apoca-
lypse and some (these varied from church to church) of
the Catholic Epistles. The formation of the Canon was
due, not to any historical interest s but to the of
ruling out apocryphal Gospels and Acts produced by the
Gnostics for the dissemination of their views* But though
the motive was not historical, the result has the
situation for the modern historical investigator. As
the Gnostics, the appeal of the Church had to be to
I HISTORY AND LEGEND 25
which were universally known to be ancient, as well as
orthodox. Hence legendary works arising in orthodox
circles (like the Protevangelmm of James) were ruled out
along with works of Gnostic origin; and the orthodox re-
visions made at a later date of Acts originally Gnostic
were unable to force an entrance into the Canon. Had the
Church waited till the year A.D. 500 before drawing a sharp
distinction between inspired scripture and all other re-
ligious writings, the greater part of the literature contained
in Dr. James* Apocryphal New Testament would almost
certainly have been included among the sacred books of
Christianity. Again, the books of the New Testament
themselves, but for the fact that (from AJD. 180 on, if not
earlier) they were regarded as verbally inspired, would,
like this Apocryphal literature, have been subjected to con-
stant amplification and adaptation. We owe more to the
Gnostics, or rather to what they forced the Church to do,
than is usually supposed. But for the conflict with these
early heretics, and the resultant canonisation of the New
Testament, the early history of Christianity would have
been as hard to trace, and the earliest forms of its sacred
books might have been as difficult to determine, as is now
the case with the history and literature of Buddhism.
By a fortunate series of accidents there has also sur-
vived the handful of early documents known collectively
as the Apostolic Fathers the epistles of 'Barnabas',
Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp; the Didache (a manual
of ethics and Church Order), and a book of Visions, The
Shepherd of Hamas* The original Greek of two of these
1 Th Apofttoli Fathers are collected into a single volume (with
original text, translation, and brief Introductions) by Lightfoot and
Hamer, which includes also the (somewhat later) Martyrdom of
Potywfp, Mpfatle to Diognetwtt and fragments of Papias, etc, (Mac-
nullaa* 1893). All these, except the DictooJke, with comprehensive In-
troductions and notes in Latin, are contained in the three volume
edition by Gebhardt and Harnack. A still more elaborate edition of
26 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
has come down in a single MS. ; of two more in a couple of
MSS. of which one is incomplete; and of two, part of the
Greek text is lost, and the gaps must be supplied from an
old Latin translation. The determination of their several
dates and place of writing is of so great importance to the
historian that each case merits careful discussion in the
appropriate place in this volume. In point of date this
collection of writings, and that other which we call the
New Testament, overlap the earlier 'Apostolic Fathers 1
being contemporary with some of the later writers of the
New Testament. For that reason, though in spiritual value
the Apostolic Fathers are in general much inferior y as his-
torical evidence for the first hundred years of Christianity
they must be studied side by side with the later writings of
the New Testament.
Only upon the foundation of a critical study of these
two collections of primitive writings can an authentic his-
tory of the early Church be built. The total extent of the
material provided by both of them together is not large;
but for the historian it has a very special quality- These
documents are not like the casual hoards of old letters and
diaries, which a dip into the lucky bag of history brings
to light in some country house. Nor are they that flotsam
and jetsam of a by-gone age which chances to be left
stranded in the inscriptions of a cemetery or a buried city*
They are the writings of men who made history; often the
very writings which were the implements with which they
made it. Such documents once we can correctly date*
place, and correlate them take us back to the
centres of the Church in an age which, like every
the letters ascribed to Clement and Ignatius, in fivt votamtt, Ii tbat of
Lightfoot. By anyone who aspires to a real grasp of tht Mftery erf 111*
early Church, both these great editions should to staidiod *ft*l
re-studied,
i HISTORY AND LEGEND 27
creative epoch In the history of man, was essentially an
age of conflict.
The historian of primitive Christianity is like an archi-
tect called in to restore to its original form the chapel of
some ruined abbey which, partially rebuilt as a village
church in the eighteenth century, was further renovated
and enlarged during the Gothic revival. First, he must
clear away all later work; yet in so doing he will look out
for fragments of the ancient stone-work built into new
structure by the first restorer, or stiffly copied by the
second. It will then appear that there are places where the
original walls and arches stand out practically intact; in
others the old work is still there to perhaps half of its
original height. Elsewhere a wall or a column has com-
pletely disappeared; yet its position can still be traced
with absolute certainty from the old foundations. But
these must be dug for to be discovered. And sometimes
their position can only be inferred. The diggers will come
across broken pinnacles and fragments of tracery. Of
these, some will be lying so near the spot where they first
fell that there can be little doubt of their original position ;
others will have been removed some distance away. Yet
others may turn up, built into the walls of a neighbouring
farmhouse, or ornamenting a cottage garden. Much, there-
fore, of the restoration will be a matter for conjecture*
But it will not be mere guess-work; for conjecture will
always be controlled by careful study of the architecttire
of the period. The trained eye can detect that this shaft
once stood in the clerestory, whereas that moulding be-
longed to the upper part of a window, on the left-hand
side. From two stones it may be obvious what was the
original shape of a complete arch. But there will also be
eases where all th$t can be said is, that a gap from which
28 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH i
no original fragment survives would probably, In a build-
ing of this character, have been filled by a wall of approxi-
mately such a height, pierced by windows of a number that
can no longer be determined.
On principles not very dissimilar the historian must
seek to piece together into a consistent whole what evi-
dence survives. Some of this is plain and incontestable y
some consists of scraps and casual hints, often derived
from out-of-the-way sources, supplemented by inference
which at times amounts only to * scientific guessing/ But
in one respect he differs from the architect. Human per-
sonality and human motive are among the causes of the
sequence of events which he aspires to reconstruct. Deeds
are done; they do not happen; to the study , then, of this
part of his material he must bring some understanding of
psychology, and some sympathy with human nature alike
in Its heroism and in its pettiness. While, therefore, the
historian will always aim at the objectivity of science,
success in this very aim will depend upon his capacity to
bring to bear upon his subject an imaginative insight into
character and its reaction to circumstance akin to the
novelists* art. In a task so difficult he may fairly crave
an indulgent judgment on the achievement/ even if its
imperfections be grave.
II
THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES
SYNOPSIS
THE TWELVE APOSTLES
WE ask again What became of the Twelve Apostles ? According to
the Gnostic Acts of Thomas (c. AJ>. 250) they cast lots, and divided
the regions of the world between them as their field of preaching-
India falling to the lot of Thomas. It has been recently argued that
the visit of Thomas to India is historical. With regard to the others,
sources which are indubitably authentic give solid information only
about Peter, James, and John. Brief discussion of the traditions con-
nected with Matthew, Bartholomew, and Philip. Uncertainty as to
the actual name of the twelfth Apostle.
Possibility that the rest of the Twelve confined their preaching to
Palestine. At any rate, there is no basis in history for the traditional
picture of the Apostles sitting at Jerusalem, like a College of Cardi-
nals, systematising the doctrine and superintending the organisation
of the Church.
JAMBS OF JERUSALEM
The remarkable position held at Jerusalem by James, the brother
of the Lord, This due to the fact that he was the eldest male of the
Messianic House. But for the catastrophes which overwhelmed
Jerusalem and the Jewish Christian Church, a Caliphate, hereditary
in the family of our Lord, might have been developed.
Between, the original Jewish Christian Church of Jerusalem and
the purely Gentile Church of the city re-founded there (with the
name Aelia) after AJO, 13$, there was a complete breach of continuity.
Nevertheless, the bishops of Aelia gradually established their claim
29
80 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
to lit in the Chair of James, and Jerusalem was recognised M the
fifth Patriarchal See by the Council of Chalcedon. The survival of
th* Clementine Homtic$ t which exalt James above Peter, may not
be unconnected with these ambitions.
Historically, James was the leader of the Judateing section of the
Church. Peter's position was intermediate between James and Paul,
Since, however, James was one of the brethren who did not believe
in our Lord during His earthly life, while Peter was His most faithful
follower, it is reasonable to suppose the Pe.trino attitude towards the
Law of Moses represents mueh nearer the actual teaching of Jedutf.
The attitude of Jame would represent rather that of the home la
which Jesus was brought up.
GENTILE CHRISTIAKITY
A mistake to regard this as mainly the creation of Paul. He did
more than any other one individual, but he wa not the founder of
the Church in the three largest cities of the Empire, Aniiocb, Alex-
andria, and Rome,
Probability that many Cent He churche* began with individual
Jews of the Dinperaon, who, having come up to Jerusalem on a
pilgrimage and being there converted, returned to spread the good
m their place of residence?. At any rate, the founders of the
Gentile churches were not, like modern* missionaries, persons trailed
in communities whirh inherited a long tradition of doctrine defined
through controversy, a collection of specifically Christ km
books, tBd a carefully thought-out ayatem of Church Order,
Inevitably, local churches* which had iirispn in thwts various ways
would exhibit great diversity. The hitlory </ Catholits Ghrfatianitv
durinff the fimi fimj centime* in the hittnry o/ thv of
a iin in ike AponMm Ag^,,
Summary of reasons why the conception of an Meal unity of
thi Church was powerful enough to make eucli s stiiadardllfctioR
practicable.
BvnMENce m LOCAL
Our o pru>n expect aiion^ that churchuts o fouaded would eachibit
divrnvity in the m attar of orgaaiiwticm. Is we
Stt how other of high ia curly
diversity*** diversity which wnj to *
m tag waifonity Six iButtiatiooi of
THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 3
THE GRBAT CHUECHBS
Til! its destruction, AJ>. 70, Jerusalem was the natural capital <
Christianity with Caesarea and Antioch as subordinate centre
After the fall of Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome are for
hundred years centres of more or less equal importance. After ths
the influence of Rome steadily increases, while Alexandria steps int
the place once held by Ephesus.
Brief survey of the characteristic spirit of the churches in thes
five capitals, with special reference to the relation of each to th
literature and development of the Early Church,
The cosmopolitan character of the population of Rome ; and th
importance, more especially in the struggle with Marcion, of th
claim to be the heir to the teaching of both Peter and Paul,
II
THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES
THE TWELVE APOSTLES
WE ask again. What became of the Twelve Apostles? The
Gnostic, or all but Gnostic, Acts of Thomas which many
scholars believe was originally written, not in Greek but in
Syriac, c. A.IX 250, in the church of Northern Mesopotamia
answers our question as follows:
At that season all we the apostles were at Jerusalem, Simon
which is called Peter, etc., . . and we divided the regions of
the world, that every on of us should go unto the region that fell
to him by lot, and unto the nation whereunto the Lord sent him.
According to the lot, therefore, India fell unto Judas Thomas,
which is also the twin. . . .
It has been recently argued by Dr. J. N. Farquhar 1
that in these Acts all but hidden under the luxuriant
overgrowth of legend and invention is preserved an au-
thentic fragment of historic fact. There was a trade route
between Alexandria and India by boat up the Nile to
Andropolis, then by land to a port on the Red Sea, and
thence by ship across the Indian Ocean to the mouth of
the Indus. The Acts mention a stay en route at a royal
city, Andrapolis (sic) , and the name of a king Gudnaphar
(Gundaphorus) , with a brother Gad, at whose court the
Apostle was received. The namei is the actual name of a
1 The Bulletin of th0 John &vland9 Library, ac. 1 and ad. 1. (Man-
Univ. Frees, 1926, 1027.)
33 D
34 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
king who reigned at Taxila in the Punjaub until a date
c. A,D. 50, when his dynasty was completely destroyed by
invaders known as Kushans; and the name Gudi occurs as
that of a neighbouring prince. The dynasty was of Par-
thian origin which accounts, suggests Dr. Parquhar, for
the tradition which had reached Origen, that Thomas went
to Parthia. Moreover, the ancient native church of South-
ern India, which claims to have been founded by St.
Thomas, dates his arrival A.D. 52 which would be ex-
plained if Thomas left the kingdom of Gudnaphar in view
of, or just after, the invasion which led to its destruction,
Be this as it may, the opening scene in the Acts of
Thomas, the Twelve casting lots for the regions of the
world, is just a picturesque development of the story al-
ready discussed (p. 14 ff.) that they left Jerusalem twelve
years after the Resurrection. It is possible that their
twelves-ears' residence in Jerusalem may rest on genuine
tradition, rather than merely on inference from Acts xiii. 7,
as I have suggested above. But even so, it is still, I think,
remarkable how soon, when we search the early authorities
on which alone sober Church history can be built, we dis-
cover that there are only three of the Twelve about whose
careers any detailed information exists Peter, James, and
John. About these alone have the Synoptic gospels, the
Acts or the Epistles, anything in particular to record, 1
The career of one, James the son of Zebectee, was very
brief, as he was put to death in Jerusalem by Herod
Agrippa L, who himself died in A.D. 44; and it is significant
that in the second century even legend busies itself only
with the names of Peter and John, and the two leaders
who were not of the Twelve, James the Lord's brother and
Paul ; while the apocryphal Acts of the third century begin
1 On Matthew in Mt. he. 9, gee p, 36. Mark twice namas Andrew-
but only in connection with Peter (Mk. i. 10; adiL 3).
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 35
with Andrew, Thomas, and Philip apostles about whom
only the Fourth Gospel has anything to tell The Twelve
are said to have been present on the Day of Pentecost,
and at the choosing of the Seven; and in the Acts (for the
last time Acts xv. 22) 'the Apostles', in the plural, are
frequently spoken of as being in Jerusalem. But none is
mentioned by name except Peter, John, and James; and in
the Epistle to the Galatians (i. 19) Paul says expressly
that on his first visit to Jerusalem, three years after his
conversion, he met there of the Twelve only Peter; and on
his second visit (Gal. iL 9) he speaks as if he saw only
Peter and John the James there mentioned is not the son
of Zebedee (who was already dead) but the brother of the
Lord. It is stated in the Acts (ix. 27) that on the former
of these occasions Barnabas introduced Paul to ' the apos-
tles y ; the author of Acts was therefore either misinformed
as to the facts, or else uses the plural ' apostles ' to cover
only two names one of them, James the brother of the
Lord, not being a member of the Twelve. On either
hypothesis the evidence for a continued residence of the
Twelve in Jerusalem disappears.
Paul had lived in Jerusalem, so had Mark ; his mother's
house was a place of resort for many members of the
Church there (Acts xii. 12). Luke knew some Jerusalem
traditions. The conjecture lies handy that one reason
apart from their outstanding personalities why Peter,
James, and John are the only three of the Twelve of whom
any definite action is recorded in the Synoptics, the Acts,
or Epistles, may be that they alone did make Jerusalem
a kind of headquarters, and were thus familiar to that
church. In any society the anecdotes most frequently told
concern persons well known to it. But even legend gives
the arest of the Apostles only twelve years w the Holy City.
36 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
The permanent resident head of the Church of Jerusalem Is
not one of the Twelve, but James the brother of the Lord,
To John are ascribed the Gospel, Epistles, and Apoca-
lypse, which together make up nearly one-fifth of the New
Testament. If that ascription is correct, we must accept
the tradition that he migrated to Ephesus, and died there
in extreme old age about A.D. 100. Personally, I am unable
to accept the ascription of these works to an Apostle, and
believe that the tradition that St. John lived in Ephesus
is due to a confusion between him and the Elder John,
about whom I shall have much to say in the next lecture.
Accordingly, I am inclined to think that an authentic tra-
dition lies behind the fragment of Papias which says that
the Apostle John was f killed by Jews 1 , presumably in
Palestine before the destruction of Jerusalem in AJX 70.
The attachment of the name Matthew to the first
Gospel creates a presumption that one of the sources which
it incorporates possibly Q was the work of that Apostle;
but the substitution (Matt. ix. 9) of his name for that of
Levi, the publican mentioned in the parallel passages in
Mark and Luke, is open to suspicion of being merely a
conjecture arising from the desire to give biographical dis-
tinctness to the author either of the Gospel or of its most
important source.
If any of the Twelve left Palestine, we should expect
them to go first of all to the Jews in the provinces border-
ing on Palestine, or to those in Babylonia. There is an
obscure statement in Eusebius (HJE. v. 10. 3) that Pan-
taenus subsequently, c. A.B. 180, founder of the Catechet-
ical School of Alexandria discovered among the Indians a
copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, handed down
by persons converted by Bartholomew. It is not clear that
their actual conversion took place in India; also it has
been suggested that the name India might apply to a dis-
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 37
trict of South Arabia. But we may have here a scrap of
evidence for the existence of a church founded by Bartholo-
mew at some place (possibly in Arabia) which had trading
connections with India.
Philip, one of the Twelve, is stated in a letter of Poly-
crates, Bishop of Ephesus (c. A.D. 190), preserved by
Eusebius (H.E. iii.31.3), to have been buried at Hierapolis
in Asia Minor. But a comparison of his statement with
those of the Acts (xxL 8-9) and of a Roman writer Gains,
c. A.D. 200 (both of which are quoted by Eusebius in the
same chapter), makes it practically certain that the Philip
in question was really Philip 'the Evangelist 1 , one of the
Seven, whose earlier exploits are narrated in Acts viii.,
and who seems to have settled subsequently, with the
prophetesses his daughters, in Caesarea.
Thus most of the Twelve are mere names; and even the
list of names varied with the tradition current in different
localities. The twelfth name is given respectively as Thad-
daeus, Lebbaeus, or as Judas son of James, in the first
three Gospels. The MSS. have suffered, though in quite
different ways, from assimilation of the parallel lists and
from conflation. Origen, however, seems to me clearly to
indicate the true text when he says, 'The disciple whom
Matthew names Thaddaeus, Mark calls Lebbaeus; and
Luke, Judas of James > . 1 Again, it is by no means certain
* The Epwtitla Apoxtolorum, a second-century document (included in
M. R* James's Apocryphal New Testament} recently discovered, of
either Asian or Egyptian origin, gives the following list : John,
Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, [Na-
thaniel, Judas Motes, and Cephas Paul, who is mentioned later,
being probably regarded as the twelfth. This, however* is not an inde-
pendent tradition btit a selection and conflation from the various lists
in the New Testament. The conflation Judas Zelotes occurs also in
Matt, x. 3 in the Old Latin MSS. a b g h grot* and in the mosaics in
the (fifth century) Baptistry of the Orthodox at Bavemaa. In the
A,ct8 of Thomas and other literature of the Church of Bdessa pre-
sumably because Thomas was regarded not as a name, but as a descrip-
tion, i.e. c * twin " we find the combination " Judas Thomaa J *. In the
38 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
that the identification of Nathaniel, mentioned by John,
with the Apostle elsewhere called Bartholomew, was in-
tended by the author of the Fourth Gospel
Of Peter, James, and John we learn something from
the Epistles and Acts. Of what happened to the rest of
the Twelve we can, I think, get a hint from the opening
words of the 'Mission Charge' in Matt x. Schweitzer
assumes that Matt. x. represents practically a word for
word report of a discourse actually delivered on the occa-
sion of the sending out of the Twelve; and on that assump-
tion bases the strange theory that Christ expected to be
manifested in glory to judge the world before the disciples
had returned from that preaching tour in Galilee. It is
remarkable that so acute a mind should not have perceived
that this assumption implies a degree of confidence in the
accuracy of the report, legitimate only to a believer either
in verbal inspiration or in the presence with the company
in Galilee of a shorthand writer. Actually, of course, the
sayings of Christ were collected long after they were
spoken, and they were written down for a definite purpose
the guidance of the early Church on practical issues.
Here, then, we have a collection of sayings giving advice
to Christian missionaries which begins:
Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any
city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel (Mix. 51);
That the reason for this prohibition is primarily the
shortness of the time, appears later:
For verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the
cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come (Mi x 23).
old Syriac the text of John xiv. 22 is emended accordingly ; lot the
usual * Judas (not lucariot)", #yr Cfyr, reada * Judas Tbonwui^ and
Syr. J8ff. simply " Thoma* *.
u THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 39
Th natural inference is that this particular collection of
sayings took shape in the period when the controversy as
to the admission of Gentiles to the Church was at its
height. We should naturally date it about the time of
Paul's visit to Jerusalem (Gal. ii, 1 ff.), when James, Peter,
and John made clear to him their conviction that, though
God seemed to have called him to preach to Gentiles, their
duty was to the circumcised.
We may, however, fairly question whether this colloca-
tion of sayings would have survived intact long enough to
become incorporated in our first Gospel, unless it reflected
the actual procedure of the Twelve. So interpreted, this
passage supplies the one piece of evidence we have as to
what really became of them. What they did was to con-
tinue going about two by two, avoiding cities of the Gentile
and the Samaritan, confining their preaching to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel fearing that, even so, they
would not have visited the cities of Israel till the Son of
man should return to judge the world.
At any rate, that the Twelve did confine themselves to
Hhe lost sheep of the house of Israel', there are other
indications. The promise to *sit on thrones, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel' (Mt. xix. 28; Lk. xxiii. 30), is
enigmatic; the function of * judging* clearly belongs to
them, not only in the present world-order, but in the life
of the world-to-come. Nevertheless it implies a special
association, both of their number and of their work on
earth, with Israel as such. This same association best ex-
plains the importance attached to the filling up of the
mystic number Twelve by the election of Matthias (Acts
i 15 ff.)* Finally, the passage in Galatians already re-
ferred to proves conclusively the baselessness of the later
tradition that, after twelve years in Jerusalem spent
preaching to Jews, the Apostles separated in order to carry
40 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
the Gospel to the Gentiles. Here it is emphatically stated
that at a date at least sixteen, possibly as much as
twenty, years after the Crucifixion even Peter still re-
garded his mission as limited to 'the circumcision \ Nor
is there any evidence that Peter even though (at one
time) ready to eat and drink with Gentiles ever changed
his conception of his own call. If, later on, he went to
Rome, it might well be to preach to the very large Jewish
settlement there; or he may have gone unwillingly, like
Paul and Ignatius a leading Christian arrested while
working in an Eastern city.
Whether any of the Apostles besides the three * pillars '
were present at the so-called Council of Jerusalem (Acts
xv. 50 if.) is a matter of dispute; the decision rests largely
on the answer given to the further question whether the
occasion is or is not the same as the second of the visits
of Paul to Jerusalem mentioned in Galatians, 1 But even
on the assumption that all were present, they are not rep-
resented as. recognising for themselves a mission to the
Gentiles, but merely as authorising certain liberties in re-
'gard to the observance of the Law by Gentile converts
demanded by Paul and Barnabas, who, in claiming such
a mission, were held to have proved their case. What the
Apostles present on that occasion did was to exercise that
power 'to bind or to loose', which in one place in the
first Gospel (Mt. xvi. 19) is ascribed especially to Peter;
in another passage (xviii. 18) probably from a different
source to the Apostles as a body.
Judaism is a religion with a single dogma that God
is One (cf. Jas. ii. 19) ; but this no Jew disputed. To the
Jew, then, the only ' orthodoxy * about which controversy
was possible concerned the stricter or laxer interpretations
of the Law; here the Rabbi came in. In technical Rab-
1 Cf . The Four Gospels, p. 550, footnote.
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHUECHES 41
binic phrase, 'binding' or loosing ' means the allowing
or disallowing of particular types of action by a recog-
nised exponent of the traditional interpretation of the
Law. So far, then, as the right to exercise this power is
conceived as vested in the Apostles they would constitute,
not so much a Christian Sanhedrin, as a Christian School
of Rabbis. As touching the extent to which the obliga-
tions of the Law are applicable to Christians, they speak
with authority by the commission of Christ. But in the
Palestinian Church questions concerning definition of doc-
trinal belief or ecclesiastical jurisdiction were simply not
under consideration. If such questions had arisen, the
Apostles would have been the natural persons to consult;
but that was not the purpose for which it was supposed
they had been called.
From the standpoint of such a situation both the scope
and the title of a document like the Didache becomes clear.
The title, The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve
Apostles to the Gentiles, does not mean that at about the
year A,D, 90 Syrian tradition had it that the Twelve actu-
ally, themselves, preached to the Gentiles. It is meant,
I shall argue later (p. 151, n.), to suggest that the injunc-
tions contained in the book are ethical and ceremonial
rules approved (at least in principle) by the Apostles at
the Council of Jerusalem the historic occasion on which,
in regard to Gentile Christians, they exercised the author-
ity to bind and to loose conferred on them by the Lord.
The precepts laid down in the Didache are conceived as
being an amplification of, if not almost a commentary
upon, the epistle (usually called the Apostolic Decree)
sent out by that Council to the churches of Syria. In no
way is it implied that the Twelve themselves conducted
a mission to the Gentiles; still less that the authority in-
42 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
herent in their office was primarily of an administrative
character.
There follows an important conclusion. To understand
the history of early Christianity we must begin by elimi-
nating from our minds the traditional picture of the
Twelve Apostles sitting at Jerusalem, like a College of
Cardinals, systematising the doctrine, and superintending
the organisation, of the Primitive Church. They had a
more urgent work to do. The Day of Judgment was at
hand; their duty was to call men to repent before it was
too late. When the Lord might at any day return in
glory, it was unprofitable to build up an organisation
about which the one thing certain was that it was never
meant to last.
JAMES OF JERUSALEM
Dismissing, then, as a fancy picture drawn in a later
age, the idea of a Board of apostolic legislators, we turn to
the study of the evidence. Here we are at once struck by
the remarkable position held at Jerusalem by James the
brother of the Lord. About him we are in the fortunate
position of being able to draw information from Josephus
(Ant. xx, 9. 1) as well as from the New Testament* 1 From
these sources, and from the position he occupies in Ebionite
romance, it becomes clear that James of Jerusalem ranks
with Peter and Paul as one of the three outstanding indi-
viduals by whose personal gifts and influence was deter-
mined, humanly speaking, the future development of the
Primitive Church. It is one of the ironies of history that
1 The account of his death given by Hegesippus (ap. Bus. HJB. IL
23) is regarded as suspicious by Lightfoot as being derived from a Icwfc
Ebionite romance, the &?ootyio of James, mentioned by Ennebiw
and probably drawn upon in the Clementines (cl tfafaffoft*, p. 330-66).
But even if this be &o f it probably rests on early Palestinian tradition.
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 43
his name does not appear In the Calendar of Saints in the
Western Church he having been wrongly identified with
James the Less, the son of Alphaeus, one of the incon-
spicuous members of the Twelve. 1
In the epistle to the Galatians, our earliest authority,
three persons are named by Paul as the universally recog-
nised 'pillars 7 of the Church, i.e. James James the son
of .Zebedee was by this time dead Peter, and John. Of
the three, James has the first place, though not a member
of the Twelve. It is also strange to find that there were
persons in the Church who, alleging the authority of
James, presumed to set Peter right for his behaviour at
Antioch (GaL ii. 12)* ; it is hardly less strange that Peter
gives way to them, at any rate for a time thereby bring-
ing down upon himself a fierce rebuke from Paul.
With the order of precedence in Galatians we may
compare the actual superiority to most of the Twelve
asserted in a passage of Clement of Alexandria possibly
derived by him from Hegesippus:
After the Resurrection the Lord imparted the (true) knowl-
edge to James the Just, and John, and Peter. These handed it on
to the rest of the Apostles ; and the rest of the Apostles to the
Seventy, one of whom was Barnabas (Eus. HJS. ii. 1. 4).
This pre-eminent position accorded to James seems re-
markable to us, only because we moderns take for granted
both an international spiritual conception of Christianity
and a more or less democratic view of the rights and
qualifications of ruling persons. But to the Jewish Chris-
tian, Jesus was the national Messiah destined to revive,
on an infinitely grander scale, the glories of the golden
age of David. And to the Jew both monarchy and priest-
hood were offices essentially hereditary in a sacred house.
1 Of. Dissertation II. in Ligktfoot's Galatians,
44 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
The Jewish Christian, then, would take it for granted that
the most prominent male relation of Jesus was marked
out to be His Vicegerent by Divine right, until He came
again. Anything else would have seemed in the last de-
gree unnatural. The prestige of birth was consolidated
by personal character. James, styled the Just for his
austere observance of the Law, lived on for many years,
so Hegesippus states (c/. Eus. H.E. ii. 23) , highly respected
by orthodox Jews. In A.D. 62, accepting the date Implied
by Josephus that is, at the beginning of the outburst of
nationalistic and religious fanaticism which brought on
the Jewish war James was murdered by the mob; and
shortly afterwards the Christian community fled the city
and took refuge in Pella, a Gentile centre beyond the Jor-
dan. After 70 A.D. Jerusalem was slowly re-populated and
some Jewish Christians came back; Symeon, the nephew
of James that is, another member of the royal house
is at once recognised as their head. It was Hamack, I
think, who first pointed out that Christianity, like Moham-
medanism, might have developed a Caliphate, hereditary
in the family of James. But three things made this im-
possible: first, the breach of continuity caused by the
double destruction of Jerusalem, in A.IX 70, and again in
A.D. 135 (after which no Jew was allowed to live ia the
city); secondly, the peculiar impetus given to Gentile
Christianity by the genius of St. Paul; thirdly, the enor-
mous disparity in numbers, intelligence, and wealth be-
tween the rapidly growing Gentile churches and the deci-
mated fragment of Jewish Christianity which still struggled
on in Palestine.
Later writers uniformly speak of James as the first
Bishop of Jerusalem. Epiphanius, probably on the author-
ity of Hegesippus (who represents mid-second-century
Palestinian tradition), says distinctly that James was ap-
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 45
pointed Bishop of Jerusalem by the Lord Himself. 1 I
would venture to surmise that this statement (of Hegesip-
pus) was an inference from the Gospel according to the
Hebrews. We know that he used this Gospel as an author-
ity; and Jerome quotes a fragment of its account of the
Appearance of Christ to James after the Resurrection.
This account may well have included a special commis-
sion of the Lord to James, similar to the ' feed my sheep ',
spoken to Peter (John xxi. 15 ff.).
There was great rivalry between the Sees of Jerusalem
and Caesarea for the primacy of Palestine; Jerusalem
based its case on the status of James. That is why Euse-
bius, as Bishop of Caesarea, prefers another statement
of Clement of Alexandria (H,E. iL 1. 3) although he is
later in date and obviously a much poorer authority for
affairs in Palestine that James was appointed Bishop of
Jerusalem by the Apostles Peter, James, and John. But
Eusebius, having something of the historian's conscience,
does not quite suppress the statement of the earlier author-
ity; for he says elsewhere that James
received the episcopate of the Church of Jerusalem at the hands
of the Saviour Himself and His apostles (H J?. vii. 19).
In the Clementine Homilies, we have seen, James is
depicted as occupying a position of almost Papal author-
ity. Peter is made to write a letter, which begins:
Peter to James, the lord and bishop of the holy Church, under
the Father of all, through Jesus Christ.
Similarly Clement, writing explicitly as Peter's suc-
cessor in the See of Rome, opens his letter:
Clement to James, the lord, and the bishop of bishops, who
*C. H. J. Lawlor, MmeMam, p. 10 f. (Clarendon Press, 1012).
Also the Mcnology quoted op. cit. p. 44, n. 3.
46 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ir
rules Jerusalem, the holy Church of the Hebrews, and the churches
everywhere excellently founded by the providence of God.
The Homilies are party propaganda in the form of a
historical novel; and the passages quoted are not history
but caricature. But caricature has no propaganda value
unless it has a basis in something which is popularly
believed.
Between the original Jewish Christian Church at Jeru-
salem and the church which grew up in the purely Gentile
city of Aelia (built by Hadrian after the second destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, AJX 135) there was a complete breach
of continuity. But already in the second century there
had begun the stream of pilgrims to see " the Place where
the Gospel was proclaimed and the Gospel history was
acted out". 1 Soon the Gentile Church in the new pagan
Jerusalem became, as Prof. Burkitt happily puts it, " like
a new purchaser that has bought the Old Manor House,
who after a while begins to collect old family portraits
and souvenirs coming at last to believe himself the
genuine heir of the old line ". 2 For some years, evidently,
before the time of Eusebius (cf. HJS. vii. 19. 1), pilgrims
were shown the episcopal Chair actually used by James
the brother of the Lord. What explanation was given of
its marvellous survival through two destructions of the
city we are not told; possibly no one asked so tactless a
question. But at Rome what could they do the point
of honour would demand it but retaliate by exhibiting
a Chair of Peter? And this, more fortunate than Jeru-
salem, Rome can still show.
The unimportant Gentile Church of Aelia-Jerusalem
3 So Melito of Sardis -who died some time before AJ>. 190 (Eus.
JOT. iv, 26); the tern r <fcx*, "the Places", became a technical term
for the Sacred Sites of Palestine ; cf. 0. H. Turner, jr.TL i. p. 55L
*F. O, Burkitt, Gkriatw* Begtwfag*, p. 68. (Univ. of London
Preig, 1924.)
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 47
was naturally at first under the jurisdiction of the Metro-
politan of Caesarea, the civil capital of Palestine; but the
possession of the Sacred Sites, and the claim to sit in the
seat of James, enabled its bishops gradually to assert their
independence of Caesarea. Later on, after a preposterous
attempt by Bishop Juvenal to assert supremacy over Anti-
och itself, the Council of Chalcedon recognized the claim
of Jerusalem to patriarchal pre-eminence alongside of
Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople. In the
long struggle of which this was the triumphant climax, a
letter written to James by Peter whose successor the
Patriarch of Antioch claimed to be in terms of deference
as marked as in the above quotation, would be an asset
of great value to the successors of James. I have little
doubt that, if we knew the details of the textual tradition,
we should find that the Homilies (which embodies this
letter) was the version of the Clementine romance most
popular within the sphere of influence of the Patriarch of
Jerusalem; whereas the Recognitions (in which it does
not appear) would be the recension circulating in that of
Antioch where, as in the West, the primacy of Peter had
become a postulate of Faith and Order.
James was one of ' the brethren ' who in the lifetime of
Jesus did not believe in Him; and even on one occasion
(Mark iii 21, 31) made an attempt to restrain Him on
the suspicion that He was beside Himself. This surely
explains the conservative attitude of James in the con-
troversy as to the position of Gentiles and the binding
power of the Law. The attitude of James, as distinct
from that of Peter, is only what we should expect if James
reflects in the main the religion of the home in which Jesus
was brought tip modified little save by the conviction
that He was Messiah, which followed on a post-resurreo-
48 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
tion Appearance. Peter, who had actually followed Jesus
and opened his whole soul to His preaching, does not hesi-
tate to baptize Cornelius without any stipulation as to
observance of the Law; and later on at Antioch, when left
to himself, he will go so far as actually to break the Law
in order, in the spirit of full Christian brotherhood, to
eat and drink with Gentile converts (Gal. ii. 12) . Ought
not the historian to look to Peter, rather than to James,
as representing the real attitude of Jesus Himself towards
the Gentile and towards the Law? What Paul did was
to work out with clear-sighted logic the full implications
of an attitude of which Peter had merely an instinctive
apprehension,
GENTILE CHRISTIANITY
Judaistic Christianity, then, should be regarded as the
Christianity, not so much of the Twelve, as of James.
What of Gentile Christianity ? The fundamental fallacy
of histories of the Apostolic age inspired by the Tiibingcn
school was the tacit assumption that Gentile Christianity
was of one single type, and that that type was the creation
of Paul
Paul laboured more abundantly than they all; more
churches were founded by him than by any other one man.
But he was not the first to preach to Gentiles; that was
the glory (Acts xl 20) of unnamed men of Cyprus and
Gyrene. He was the first effectively to plant Christianity
in the chief cities of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece.
But he was not the founder of the church in the three
cities which in size and influence stood out unique IE the
Mediterranean world Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome.
And these were the three churches whose traditions were
destined ultimately to dominate the Catholic Church. In
later years both Antioch and Rome were proud to recall
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHUECHES 49
their connection with him. But during his lifetime there
was, even in Rome, as the epistle to the Philippians shows,
a party vigorously hostile to him to the end. And in the
Church of Antioeh, with its far greater proportion of
Jewish members and its propinquity to Jerusalem the
focus of the anti-Pauline counter-missions which visited
the churches of Galatia and Corinth it is a fair pre-
sumption that his influence was considerably less. If we
are to associate the outlook of Antioch the first capital
of Gentile Christianity with the name of any Apostle it
will be (cf. p. 61) with that of Peter.
There is little reason to suppose that the majority of
Gentile churches were founded by persons who, like
Barnabas and Paul, adopted the life of a wandering
preacher as a life career. Doubtless there were some such;
but they differed in one essential point from the modern
missionary. The modern missionary is a man with a pro-
fessional training; he goes out to "heathen lands with a
complete New Testament in his hands, which he inter-
prets in accordance with a theology, and a tradition of
discipline and devotion, which it has taken centuries to
evolve. The Primitive Church had no New Testament,
no thought-out theology, no stereotyped traditions. The
men who took Christianity to the Gentile world had had
no special training, only a great experience in which l all
maxims and philosophies were reduced to the simple task
of walking in the light since the light had come '.
Jerusalem was a pilgrimage centre, like Mecca or
Rome to-day. To the great feasts from all parts of the
world came Jews of the Dispersion. At great cost, after
years of aspiration, perhaps once in his lifetime the exile
would approach the Mountain of immemorial sanctity.
Among these, as the story of the day of Pentecost suggests,
many would be found to listen eagerly to the news that
B
50 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
c th@ hop of Israel* had been fulfilled. When such re-
turned to Carthage or Cyrene, to Ctesiphon or Rome, they
would not keep quiet. Who first preached Christ at
Damascus? We only know that it was done some time
before the conversion of Paul. Who brought the new re-
ligion to Antioch ? Not Apostles or trained missionaries,
but unnamed Jews of the Dispersion who had caught the
fire in Jerusalem; and had therefore to flee the persecution
in which Stephen fell (Acts xi. 19-20).
The facts to which I have called attention are patent
and undisputed. It is, then, remarkable that so few his-
torians have pointed out that churches so founded must
hav$ differed from one another indefinitely differed ac-
cording to the degree of knowledge and insight of the first
enthusiast who preached there, according also to the temper
and type of their earlier converts. There was * one Lord,
one faith, one baptism' but the content of that faith
and its outward expression in the life of the local com-
munity cannot but have varied enormously from place
to place. There follows the principle I have had occasion
to emphasise in another connection. 1 The history of CatA-
olic Christianity during the first five centuries u the history
of a progressive standardisation of a diversity which had
its origin in the Apostolic age.
This standardisation would not have been possible* it
would not even have been desired, but for the fact that m
theory the Church was from the beginning and always
envisaged as one and indivisible. In modem times all
who would establish a community on international lines
a League of Nations, a Federation of Labour, or what
not are confronted at once with the tremendous difficulty
of getting men, originally grouped in national, local, or
sectional societies, to recognise a common bond of union
*C1 Th Four
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 51
and to feel an effective loyalty to the larger brotherhood.
Even when a central organisation has been created to
embody the wider idea, it is a long while before this can
elicit from the generality an allegiance strong enough to
outbalance the centrifugal tendencies of the interests and
traditions of the smaller constituent groups. In the primi-
tive Church this difficulty simply did not exist, for the
simple reason that the first Christians did not regard them-
selves as a new society, but as the ancient ' People of God ',
that is, as that portion of the Church of the Patriarchs and
Prophets which had not, by rejecting the Messiah, forfeited
its birthright and cut itself off from the ' promises of Israel *.
Many of the prophets had proclaimed that only a * remnant *
of Israel after the flesh would repent and be saved; others
bad foretold that in the Messianic age Gentiles also would
be brought to share the religious privileges of Israel The
Christian position was that, by recognising Jesus as Mes-
siah, they and they alone understood the prophets aright.
The number of Jews who had rejected the Messiah was
larger than might have been expected, so also was the
number of Gentiles who had accepted Him; but that did
not in any way alter the fundamental position that only
the community of those who did accept Him could claim
to be the ' Israel of God '.
During the first fifty years of Christianity but less
so with every decade after that the adoption of this con-
ception of the Church as the ' remnant * of Israel entailed
four important consequences.
(1) Lack of definition, and even considerable diversity
in regard to doctrine, caused small offence. The genius
of the Jew was ethical ; to him religious orthodoxy expressed
itself in condut, that is, in a strict observance of the Law.
Indeed, precisely because to the Jew orthodoxy and patriot-
ism alike centred in the Law of Moses, the controversy as
52 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH xi
to the observance of the Law did all but break up the
Apostolic Church. In regard to this matter the situation
was saved by the fact of which the epistle to the Galatians
is our chief first-hand evidence that, while Paul and James
were hailed as leaders of the factions most opposed, Peter
(perhaps with some vacillation) held an intermediate
position.
(2) Theoretically Christians were the 'new Israel';
and members of a * nation ' scattered amid other peoples
have a natural tendency to cohere with one another without
the assistance of any external organisation. Hence th#
precise method of organisation would seem relatively unim-
portant. Membership of the Ecclesia, the * congregation
of Israel', was the important thing; and all who were
baptized in the name of the Lord were ipso facto members
of the 'remnant', however it might locally be organised.
(3) By many this Divine society was conceived as
being also the mystical body of Christ; and this could not
but enhance their sense of a fundamental one-ness of all
believers. It was further intensified by the fact that the
weekly assemblage for solemn worship found expression
in the Eucharist ever renewing the union of the faithful
with one another and with the One Lord.
(4) To the new Israel, as to the old, the Old Testament
was the Holy Book, Jerusalem was the Holy City. These
two provided a bond of unity > not only as between Jew
and Gentile, but also as between the Gentile churches of
different localities. It is evident that the carefully organ-
ised collection for the impoverished church in Jerusalem,
mentioned so often in PauFs epistles, had a political, so
to speak, as well as a purely philanthropic, object (Rom.
xv. 26 f. 31). The Gentile churches were to be made to
feel the essential unity of the Church by realising their
debt to, and their unity with, the Mother Church; the
i THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 53
Mother Church was to recognise the Gentile communities
is true daughters of Israel.
But between 62-67 A.D. death removed the leaders,
Fames, Peter, and Paul, on whose prestige and moderation
so much had depended ; in 70 AJX Jerusalem and its Temple
were destroyed, and the church there was decimated and
forced to flee the city. For the next few decades the cen-
trifugal tendency inherent in the Gentile churches, from
liversity of race, temper, and the circumstances of their
foundation was checked by little but a vivid consciousness
)f an ideal union and by the growing prestige of the writings
vhich later came to form the New Testament In the first
generation only the Gospel of Mark, collections of sayings
>f the Lord like Q, and some of the epistles of Paul.
It follows that the historian should approach the study
>f the scanty evidence for the organisation of the early
Dhurch and the origin of the ministry with an antecedent
expectation of discovering, not a uniform system, but a
vide range of local diversity.
EVIDENCE OF LOCAL DIVERSITIES
That expectation is intensified by the observation that
n other matters of the first importance diversity rather
han uniformity is the note of the Church even in the second
tfid third centuries. For in every case this diversity
appears to be, not a recent development, but the survival
>f a more primitive state of things. To marshal the evi-
lence for this diversity and to discuss it in detail would be
.o digress too far from the main subject of this book. I can
mly call attention to the implications of the following
acts:
(1) A divergency between the churches of Rome and
i.sia in regard to the day on which Easter should be
)bserved was a matter of acute controversy throughout
54 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
the second century, leading to the excommunication of
Asia by Rome about A.B. 195. But when Polycarp of
Smyrna visited Rome in AJX 155, both he and the Bishop
of Rome could urge as immemorial the practice of their
respective churches. This divergence, then, must have gone
back at least to the sub-apostolic period.
(2) The Gospels of Matthew and Luke coincide with
one another over a large part of their contents. Their
coincidence is adequately accounted for by their depend-
ence on two earlier writings, Mark and Q written docu-
ments acquire authority in places very far apart. Less
easy of explanation is the startling divergence in the tradi-
tions they follow in regard to the Birth and Infancy of
Christ, and the Appearances after the Resurrection let
alone the glaring discrepancy between the genealogies in
these Gospels, or between the accounts given by the same
two writers of the end of Judas (Matt, xxvii. 3 ff* ; Acts L
18 ff.). This is only explicable if there existed a high degree
of local independence in the sub-Apostolic age even in
regard to matters which must have been considered as of
supreme importance.
(3) It is a commonplace of the history of dogma that
the great doctrinal disputes tended to follow lines of local
cleavage corresponding roughly to the spheres of influence
of Alexandria and Antioch. Egypt tended to favour a
theology which was incarnationist to the verge of docetlsm;
Syria inclined to one which leaned towards the adoptionist
side. The Latin attitude, though verbally often a synthesis
of the two chief Eastern views, had an individuality of Its
own. 1 But if we put side by side the high Christology and
mystical allegorising tendency of the Alexandrian epistle
of Barnabas (cl p. 243, 251), and the practical, ethical,
1 Cf . assays on the Trinity and Incarnation, p. 2i2 flL, ed A. 1. J*
Rawlinsoo. (Longmans, 1028.)
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 55
non-theological interest of the Syrian Didache, we see that
the difference of emphasis not to say of actual doctrine
which we find between Egypt and Syria in the fourth cen-
tury is already present in the sub-Apostolic age; though
the fact that Ignatius could represent Antioch shows that
this point must not be pressed too far.
(4) A study of the older MSS. versions and patristic
quotations enables us to recover the greatly variant texts
of the Gospels (and Acts) which were used in different
churches about A.D. 230 and the main variations clearly
go back to a much earlier date. These local texts were
gradually replaced by a single standardised text. 1 The
actual evidence for this variety belongs to a period some-
what later than that we are here discussing. Nevertheless,
seeing that it is evidence of a local diversity which lasted
on long after the process of general standardisation had
begun, it affords an interesting analogy.
(5) No student of Liturgiology will need to be reminded
that each of the great centres of Christianity evolved its
own type of Liturgy. But attempts to trace these back to
their earliest form suggest that, apart from a very few
constant features, there existed a maximum of freedom
and diversity in the earliest period.
(6) The Canon of the New Testament seems to have
been finally settled by the list promulgated in the Festal
Letter of Athanasius, AJX 367, which doubtless represents
an agreement between Alexandria and Rome; at least this
is the earliest list of the books of the New Testament which
exactly corresponds to that which ultimately prevailed.
Till then and indeed for some time afterwards in the
East there was considerable local diversity among the
churches as to the inclusion or exclusion of the Apocalypse
and of certain of the Epistles. From about AJX 180 all
1 Of. The Pom- &os&eU> Part L
56 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
churches had included in their list at least the Four Gospels,
the Acts, and a collection of epistles of Paul; but there were
local differences as to the number of epistles in the Corpus
Paulinum. In Alexandria there were fourteen, including
Hebrews (cf. p. 135) ; Asia (cf. Polycarp's letter) had long
recognised thirteen; but the exclusion by Marcion (and in
part by Tatian) of the Pastorals, makes it probable that
(perhaps till A.D. 170) the Roman collection included only
ten. Again, in Asia the Four Gospel Canon is, I think,
implied by Papias (A.D. 140 or earlier} ;* but in Rome to
judge by the use made of them by Justin Martyr not
more than three of the Gospels were acknowledged as
authoritative by AJ>. 150. And there is reason to suppose
that even this measure of standardisation had only been
arrived at by a gradual process. 2
Standardisation is likely to be first attempted where
the need for it seems most urgent. In a community beset
with foes within and without, the development of an organ-
isation of proved efficiency may even be a condition of
survival. It is not disputed that by A.D. 200 a system of
Church organisation, in its main structure uniform, had
come into existence throughout the Christian world. But
in view of the facts summarised in this lecture, the hypothe-
sis that this uniformity of system displaced an earlier
1 To Papias, Mark and Matthew are Church classic^ yet hin lan-
guage ifl curiously disparaging in regard to the order (of events) in
Mark, ami to the correctness of the translation of the dis0ra
(X&yia) in Matthew. This is most easily explained if he for his
informant, John the Blder) preferred the order of events, anil the con-
tents of the discourses, of the Fourth Gospel (of. my The F&nr {SPotpeXi,
p. 19 ff.) . Since John seems to be dependent on Luke, the Third Gtaipel
must have been recognised in Asia in the time of Papias ; but if
Papias, like the writer of the MvratoriaMtM*, merely emphasised tho
fact that Luke did no* see the Lord in the flesh, later writer! would
have found nothing in Luke which it was worth while to quote,
* the silence of Eusebius * in regard to any mention of Luke by
needs no explanation.
* Cf . The Four GospvU, p. 026 i
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 57
diversity is, I submit, one that has a valid claim to serious
consideration.
THE GKBAT CHTJRCHES
Till A.D. 70 the Church looked to Jerusalem as its capital
But the student of the history of the next hundred years
of Christianity must keep his eyes fixed mainly on the
Churches of Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome not, however,
as yet on that of Alexandria.
Alexandria and Antioch after Rome, the largest cities
in the civilised world still retained, at any rate in the
East, much of the prestige which before their absorption
into the Roman Empire they had enjoyed as capitals of
the two largest kingdoms founded by the successors of
Alexander the Great. Cities of approximately equal size,
but reflecting very different racial temperaments and intel-
lectual and religious traditions, they were destined, from
the third century onwards, to reproduce in ecclesiastical
controversy the immemorial rivalry between Syria and
Egypt.
After the year A.D. 200 Alexandria rapidly became the
intellectual centre of the Christian world, as it had long
been of the Greek. A turning-point in the history of the
Church there had been the inception (by Pantaenus about
A.D. 180) of the Catechetical School. The famous Museum
and Library of Alexandria really formed what nowadays
would be called a post-graduate University; and the rela-
tion of the Catechetical School to this has been happily
likened to that of a denominational Theological College to
the University in Oxford or Cambridge. But till the time
of Clement of Alexandria namesake and admirer of the
much earlier Clement of Rome who seems to have .begun
writing not much, if at all, before A.D. 200, this Church,
though it had produced Valentinus, the greatest of the
58 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
Gnostics, seems to have had no influence on the develop-
ment of orthodox Christianity outside Egypt. To pre-
Christian Alexandria, or rather to its Jewish colony, the
Church was early a debtor. Its apologetic rested mainly on
the appeal to ancient prophecy; the inheritance, then, in
the Septuagint of a version of the Old Testament already
invested with the glamour of antiquity was an invaluable
asset. Again, before AJ>. 40 Philo had utilised the concep-
tion of the Logos to lay the foundations of that synthesis
between Hebrew and Greek thought which Alexandrian
theologians were ultimately to work out. Yet it was not
in Alexandria that the Logos doctrine was first applied to
interpret Christianity to the Greek mind; in the hundred
years which followed the fall of Jerusalem, the part which
in later centuries fell to Alexandria was played by Ephesus
(p. 64).
In history formulae are misleading unless recognised as
mere approximations. Subject to this proviso, we may say
that the history of the early Church was always the history
of three of its capitals but at different periods the three
were not the same. Up to A.D. 70 they are Jerusalem*
Caesarea, and AntiocL From A.D- 70 till A.D, 200 the
primacy is with Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome. After AJX
200 Alexandria takes the place of Ephesus, The one factor
always present is Antioch. Each of the five churches named
has a clearly marked character and atmosphere of Its own ;
and, in each case, this may be associated with the name of
an outstanding leader in the early Church.
Jerusalem is the church of James, the brother of the
Lord. Its spirit is that which in the New Testament Is
associated with his name. It is conservatively Jewish, care-
fully observant of the Law, ready to accept, with reserva-
tions, the admission of Gentiles to the Church, but with
hesitation and not really upon equal terms. James himself
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 59
may possibly have come round completely on this last
point; but if so, as so often happens in political or eccle-
siastical controversy, it was because the leader had a larger
spirit than his followers. Thus persons claiming to repre-
sent James were able to put effective pressure upon Peter,
when at Antioch he was associating with Gentile Christians
on a basis of complete equality and freedom from the Law
(Gal. ii. 11 f.). It was James who felt it vital, from the
point of view of the rank and file of the Church of Jeru-
salem, that Paul should make clear his own personal respect
for the Jewish Law by publicly associating himself with a
piece of characteristically Levitical ritual (Acts xxi. 20 ff.).
Moreover, as already mentioned, by his own rigid adher-
ence to the Law, James gained the title of f the Just ' and
retained the respect, and apparently even the goodwill, of
a large section of the Pharisaic party until his murder, c. A J>.
62, in the outburst of fanaticism which preceded the Jewish
war. But this respect would never have been accorded had
not James adhered closely to the traditional scribal inter-
pretation of the Law as well as to its actual letter. In our
first Gospel we find attributed to Christ a few sayings of a
markedly Judaistic type, which, whatever was their origi-
nal meaning, must have suffered distortion in oral tradition.
The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat ; all things what-
soever "therefore they command you, that observe and keep
(xxiii 21).
This actually sets the scribal interpretation on the level
of the Law, ancl demands obedience to it. In another saying
the words underlined seem definitely a hit at Paul, who
taught that the Law was superseded.
Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commaEdments,
60 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven : but whoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. v. 18-19).
Again, there is the prohibition on which I have commented
already:
Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any
city of the Samaritans (Matt. x. 5).
We may reasonably infer that one at least of the sources
of that Gospel is a tradition ultimately emanating from the
Church over which James presided.
Caesarea, on the coast of Samaria, was re-founded and
re-named by Herod the Great as the Hellenised capital of
his still independent kingdom. Later on it was the usual
headquarters of the Roman governor of Palestine, The
incident of the conversion of Cornelius by Peter would have
given the Church of Caesarea as good a right to claim
Apostolic foundation as Antioch or Rome. But Philip was
its actual founder (Acts viii. 40), and for many years he
and his four daughters, noted for that gift of prophecy so
highly esteemed in the primitive community, permanently
resided in the city (Acts xxL 8), Philip was a Greek-
speaking Jew of the Dispersion; and he had been the first
to preach the Gospel to the Samaritans. Later on he seems
to have migrated to Hierapolis in Asia Minor (cf. p. 37).
Caesarea, then, was the earliest centre of a liberal Gentile
Christianity. Thus, in the first half-century of Christianity,
Caesarea would to Jerusalem and Antioch be very much
what a little later Ephesus, and what later still Alexandria,
became to Antioch and Rome. Caesarea, the city of the
Herods and the gate of Samaria, is the place where we
should expect to find preserved the memory of our Lord's
dealings with Samaritans and His relations with Herod or
his entourage. Both for that reason, and because we have
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 61
definite evidence that Luke knew Philip and his daughters
(Acts xxi. 8-9), and lived for two years in Caesar ea while
Paul was in prison there, we can connect with that church
the bulk of the traditions concerning Christ found only in
the Third Gospel In later years, as the second home (after
A,D. 231) of Origen, the master mind of Greek theology, it
renewed its glory in a quite different way; while the
library of early Christian writers, collected by the martyr
Pamphilus, gave Eusebius the chance to become l the Father
of Church History ', as well as, despite his shocking literary
style, one of the greatest historians of the Ancient World.
Antioch, before A.D. 70, was what Rome became later,
the capital of Gentile Christianity. Here the disciples were
first called Christians (Acts xL 26). Here, so far as we
know, the first organised attempt at missionary enterprise
was conceived (Acts xiii. 1-3). The accidental glimpse of
Peter's movements afforded by Paul's Epistle to the
Galatians shows that at some quite early date he visited
Antioch; and it is extremely unlikely that this was his only
visit. With pardonable exaggeration, the Church of Antioch
claimed Peter as its first Bishop; and does so to this day.
Antioch was largely Jewish, but probably a majority of its
Jews would incline towards the cosmopolitan Judaism of
the Dispersion rather than the narrow Pharisaism of
Judaea. The rest of the inhabitants at any rate the lower
and middle classes to whom the Church mainly appealed
were less Greek than Hellenised Syrian* The Church of
Antioch, therefore, was one whose traditions, hopes, and
sympathies were strongly Jewish; but it was a Jewish
Christianity of a philo-Gentile, universalistic type. What-
ever, then, its exact relation to Peter, or the amount of
time that he spent there, it is the church whose traditional
outlook well expressed the spirit of Petej> that one of the
original Twelve who ate and drank with Gentiles at
62 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
Caesarea and at Antioch, If one of the sources of our first
Gospel seems to represent a church owing allegiance to the
views of James, the complete Gospel, as we have it, would
seem rather to have been published in a church which, like
that of Antioch, regarded Peter as the Great Leader. There
is more about Peter in Matthew than even in Mark, though
that Gospel is largely based on Peter's own recollections;
and Matthew alone contains the notable saying:
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
... I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven :
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven (Matt. xvi. 18 f .) .
In searching for the original meaning of the phrase 'the
keys of the kingdom of heaven *, it is hard to feel sure that
one is doing so with eyes undazssled by the glare of an eccle-
siastical controversy that after 400 years is still ablaze.
But the safest guide to an unbiassed exegesis would seem
to be the simple maxim that the probable interpretation of
any saying in the Synoptic Gospels will be one which starts
by studying first the linguistic usage in other passages of
those same Gospels. At any rate, if we merely set side by
side Matt, xxiii. 13 and its parallel, Luke xi 52, there
emerges a simple and obvious meaning of the phrase. The
scribes (or lawyers) and Pharisees are denounced, in
Matthew's version,
because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against mea ; for ye eater
not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are eateriag to
enter;
in Luke's version:
for ye took away the key of knowledge ; ye entered w& m your-
selves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 63
Here the key of the kingdom of heaven is evidently the
knowledge which makes entrance to the kingdom possible.
To Peter, then, is given that true insight into the nature
of the righteousness taught by Christ a righteousness that
will * exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees' which is
the indispensable qualification of one who is 'to bind and
to loose ' (i.e. to expound the moral law) with such dis-
crimination that what he shall 'bind on earth, shall be
bound in heaven'. It was, I suggest, just the possession
of that sound sense of moral values which enabled Peter
instinctively to grasp the via media between legalism and
licence, that made him and has made men like-minded
then and through the ages since the solid rock on which
the Church is built.
It is not surprising that it was to Peter, with his sym-
pathy for freedom and experiment, not to James the hero
of the conservative reactionaries, that Christ so the more
liberal Jews insisted had given authority to 'bind and to
loose 7 to decide, that is, how much or how little of the
Law the members of the new dispensation shall be required
to observe. 1 Thus Matthew, while in some ways the most
^The power of 'binding and loosing* is still correctly interpreted
of the teaohinff office (of the bishop) in the epistle of Clement to James
(vi) in the Clementina Somilies. Peter instructs Clement to keep
himself free from all secular business: *Now, if you were occupied
with secular cares, you should deceive both yourself and your hearers.
For not being able, on account of occupation, to point out things that
are advantageous, both you should b punished, as not having taught
what was profitable, and they, not having learned, should perish by
reason of ignorance. Wherefore you preside over them, without
(worldly) occupation, so as to send forth seasonably the words that
are able to save them ; and so let them listen to you, knowing that
whatever the ambassador of the truth shall bind upon earth is bound
also in heaven, and what he shall loose is loose. But you shall bind
what ought to be bound, and loose what ought to be loosed/
The passage (Matt xviii. 18) in which the power of binding and
loosing is given to aW the Apostles is obviously a doublet. If this is
from Q or from a Jerusalem source, the alternative version (xvi.
18 1) conferring it on Peter will be from Antiochene oral tradition.
64 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
Jewish of the Gospels, yet is also the Gospel which ends
with the command 'Go ye therefore, and make disciples
from all the Gentiles'. It reflects alike the missionary
spirit, and the liberal Jewish atmosphere, of Antioch. At
any rate, even if compiled elsewhere than in Antioch, we
know that it soon became the most favoured Gospel in
Syria. For it is the Gospel most often quoted, indeed the
only one undoubtedly quoted, both in that early Syrian
work the Didache and by Ignatius of Antioch.
The word 'Asia' in Roman usage which, since it is
also that of the New Testament, I shall follow in these
lectures means not Asia Minor, but one westerly province
of Asia Minor. In strict legality the capital of this was
Pergamum, but in practice Ephesus and Smyrna were the
first and second cities Ephesus enjoying a certain cus-
tomary precedence. 1 The coast cities of Asia Minor had
been Greek from immemorial times, Ionia was the birth-
place both of the poems of Homer and of Greek philosophy.
Ephesus had been ruled by Greeks, and its Anatolian popu-
lation had been under Greek influence, centuries before
Antioch was founded by one of Alexander's generals. There,
as elsewhere, Paul had preached to the synagogue first, and
doubtless with some slight success. But the church of
Ephesus was the most thoroughly Greek, or rather Hellen-
istic, of the churches so far mentioned, and it was the most
Pauline. Here Paul had worked for three years, more than
twice as long as in any other city. Ephesian Christianity,
then, was the gospel of Paul in so far as the religion of
one reared in the discipline of Pharisaic Judaism could be
assimilated and understood by any minds formed In an
environment essentially Hellenistic* In the interpretation
to the Greek world of a religion originally expressed in
*W. M. Eameay, The Letter* to the Seven Ohitwtet <tf J,tto, p.
(Hodder,
ii THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 65
terms of Palestinian thought, Ephesus could play the lead-
ing part; from this church could come the Fourth Gospel
the culminating point in the New Testament of the effort
to interpret Christianity to the Greek.
Rome in the first century of the Christian era was no
longer, like the Rome that defeated Hannibal, an Italian
city; it was international. 1 Its population was drawn from
all parts of the Empire. Rome was the centre of the world's
politics, administration, and commerce. But Rome derived
the arts and luxuries of civilisation entirely from its Hellen-
ised population, which was thus far larger and more impor-
tant than is the foreign element in any of the great capitals
of the modern world. ' I cannot stand Rome Greek/ spits
the indignant citizen ; f but how little in this sewer is even
Greek ! The drains of Antioch have long discharged into
the Tiber/
Nom possum ferre, Quirites,
Graecam urbem : quamvis quota portio f aecis Achaei ?
lain pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes. 2
That is why the Roman could be in a unique sense the
representative Church; it reflected the characteristics, not
of Jew, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian, or Italian, but of the
Empire as a whole. At the same time it entered into that
heritage of practical sagacity and administrative experience,
and that capacity for taking ' a world view ', which become
part of the very atmosphere of any imperial city.
The 'atmosphere' of Rome proved stimulating to the
Church in another way. Under the later Republic and
earlier Emperors there was here a considerable output of
literature of a historical and biographical character; and
1 Much fresh material "bearing on this is contained in the important
article by G. la Piana, * Foreign Groups in Rome during the First
Centuries of the Empire/ which forms the whole of an enlarged num-
ber of The Harvard Theological Review, Oct. 1927.
* Juvenal, iiL 60-61. This satire was published c. AJD. 107.
F
66 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
supply is to some extent an evidence of demand. At Rome,
then, (so it would seem) the demand for a Life of Christ
first became effective; the response to it was the work of
Mark, the oldest of the Gospels. Here, probably, the Acts
also perhaps, too, the Gospel of Luke, to which it is a
se q ue l wag written, to meet a demand for an account of
the historical origins of Christianity that was felt sooner in
Rome than elsewhere. 1
When Jerusalem was destroyed, it was inevitable that
Rome should sooner or later succeed to the vacant primacy
of the Church. Luke saw this happening, or about to
happen. The Acts is the story of the progress of Chris-
tianity on the road from Jerusalem to Rome with the
concomitant acceptance of it by the Gentile and rejection
by the Jew. The position of the Church of the capital of
the world was further enhanced by Its prestige as the church
where Peter and Paul had met or ? what came to the same
thing, were (at least as early as A.D. 170} generally believed
to have met a martyr's fate. The Roman claim to be in
a special sense 'the see of Peter * is not heard of till the
third century. That claim Antioch could and did make;
and Antioch could make out the better case. In the second
century the Roman Church put forth what then seemed the
larger claim to be the Church of Peter and Paul.
As the conflict with Gnosticism and with Marclon
(which raged most acutely in the half century after A.D.
144) became more and more a matter of appeal to public,
as against secret, traditions of Apostolic doctrine, the public
tradition of a Church which was believed to rest on the
joint foundation of Peter and Paul became more and mow
a court of final appeal What Rome accepted as apostolic,
was guaranteed as such; what Rome rejected, was new-
*Cf. Tke Fmr Gfat*eb, p. 531 ff.
n THE APOSTLES AND THE CHURCHES 67
fangled heresy, Irenaeus gives vigorous expression to this
conviction.
The tradition, therefore, of the Apostles, made manifest in aU
the world, all in every church who wish to see the truth may
study ; and we can enumerate those whom the Apostles appointed
to be Bishops in the Churches, and their successors down to our
own day ; who neither taught nor knew any such thing as the
ravings of those [heretics], . . . But because it were very long
in such a work as this to reckon up the successions in all the
churches ; there is one, very great and most ancient and known
to all, the Church founded and established at Rome by the two
most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, whose tradition which it
hath from the Apostles, and her faith proclaimed unto men, as by
succession of Bishops it comes down even unto us, we point to ;
thereby confounding all those, who in any way form unauthorised
assemblies, on account either of self-pleasing ways, or of vainglory,
or of blindness and wrong opinion. (Adv. Haer. iii. 1, 1-2.)
Accordingly we find Basilides from Syria, Valentinus and
Carpocrates from Egypt, Marcion from Pontus, Montanists
from Phrygia anyone, in fact, who had some striking doc-
trine to propound, sooner or later making his way to Rome.
The very number, diversity, and complexity of new views
and systems, which were for ever knocking for admission
at the doors of the Roman Church, necessitated circum-
spection and thereby trained it.
The genius of Marcion confronted the loosely jointed
system and the heterogeneous, undefined theology of the
' great Church 7 with an opposition Church well organised,
with a clear-cut theology and a definite selection of sacred
books in a New Testament In reply, the ' great Church '
strengthened its organisation, gave definition to its doc-
trines, delimited its Canon, It began that process of
standardization which went on, in the Church Universa]
until the lasting schisms which followed on Chalcedon, AJD,
68 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH n
451, in the Latin Church until the Infallibility Decree of
1870 by which in the last resort all doctrines are sub-
sumed under that of authority, and all duties under that of
obedience.
The Christian Church of the present day is suffering,
it may seem, from the inheritance of an organisation unduly
hardened, and of a theology too much defined. In things
spiritual, standardisation is less profitable than in things
material. But in that age some measure of standardisation
was a condition of survival. In the process the most impor-
tant event was the delimitation of the Four Gospel Canon ,
the principal instrument was the monarchical episcopate.
By the year AJX 180 we find both of these accepted
throughout the Catholic Church. But in the hundred and
fifty years between that date and the birthday of the
Church there had been time for much to happen*
Ill
THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT
SYNOPSIS
HYPOTHESIS TO BE TESTED
To the first Christians the Last Day was at hand, and the outpouring
of the Spirit a vivid experience. They were not interested either in
the definition of doctrine or in the theory of Church Order.
Our hypothesis is that within the New Testament an evolution, in
the system of Church Order can be traced, comparable to that evo-
lution in doctrinal reflection which has long been recognised by
scholars. In both cases the movement was largely due to the genius
of Paul ; and in both it culminates in the Johannine writings.
Harnack ; s theory that there were originally two distinct kinds of
ministry a universal (Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers), and a local
(Presbyter-Bishops and Deacons) briefly considered. The facts-
desiderate an explanation less cut and dried and more dynamic,
JEEUSALEM
The unique position of James. Christians here would naturally
organise themselves as a ' synagogue ' with the normal body of
' Presbyters \ At an early date certain individuals were appointed
to do the work of almoners. The question whether the name
1 Deacons ' was actually used of these. Owing to these exceptional
circumstances something very like the later mon-episcopal system
was in Jerusalem really primitive. It does not follow that things
were the same elsewhere.
ANTIOCH
This the capital of Gentile Christianity, and the headquarters of
the original mission of Paul and Barnabas. But it had been founded
70 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
by Hellenistic Jews, refugees during the persecution in which Stephen
fell ; and these (possibly deliberately) did not make the Jerusalem
Church their model.
It would seem from Acts xiii. 1 f. that the leading and quite
possibly the only officers in this church were * Prophets and
Teachers \ Probability that the churches in its sphere of influence
would be more or less organised on its model. The Didache shows
that in parts of Syria this system still prevailed at the end of the
first century.
CHTJHCHES FOUNDED BY ST. PAUL
The Acts states that Paul and Barnabas appointed Elders in every
Church. The evidence of the Epistles supports this statement, but
with the important qualification that at first these officers seem to be
persons of less weight than Prophets and Teachers. Gradually, how-
everprobably because experience (especially at Corinth) showed
the need of strengthening discipline growing emphasis is laid by
Paul on the importance of Episcopoi (or Shepherds).
Paul's farewell speech at Ephesus (Act, xx. 17 ff ,) occurs in a f we '
section, and has therefore value as evidence for Paul's views. Note
here (1) that the terms 'Episcopoi ; and ' Presbyters ' are applied to
the same persons ; (2) the great stress laid on their responsibility
(which of course presumes authority) * to feed the Church of God '.
THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN
Two questions are raised by these Epistles ;
(1) Who is 'the Elder 1 who writes 2 and 3 Johnand who, on
stylistic grounds, appears also to be the author of 1 John ?
(2) What is the position held by the Diotrephes, * who loveth to
have the pre-eminence among them *, whose defiance of the Elder is
the subject of 3 John ?
The answer to the second question is clear : Diotrephes exercises
the power, not only of a veto on visiting Christians who wish to
address the Church, but also of excommunicating members of the
Church over which he has * the pre-eminence '. Evidently^ then, he
holds the position of monarchical bishop in that Church, The Epistle
is therefore conclusive evidence that at the time It was written a
mon-episcopal system of Church government already existed in at
least one (and probably several) of the churches in Asia,
* The Elder * is a pereon of admitted status. In 2 John he ad-
dresses a letter of exhortation to a church other than his own ; in
THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 71
3 John he writes as if he was himself a person who held a position of
greater dignity and prestige than Diotrephes the local bishop ; in
1 John he speaks as the spiritual father of a large community.
Objections to Harnack's theory as to the identity and position of
the Elder. Alternative suggestion that the Elder was the Bishop of
Ephesus and claimed, as such, an honourable precedency among the
bishops of the local churches of Asia.
THE ELDER JOHN
Reasons for identifying the Elder who wrote 2 and 3 John with
the Elder John mentioned by Papias as a * disciple of the Lord ' ;
presumably, that is, a person who had seen Christ in the flesh. If so,
3 John must have been written and therefore mon-epiacopacy was
in being in some churches in Asia not later than A.D. 100.
Discussion of the evidence of the Apostolic Constitutions and of
the Life of Polycarp by Pionius, that Aristion was Bishop of Smyrna
and that at the close of the first century the Bishop of Ephesus was
named John, and believed to be a disciple of the Apostle John.
Ill
THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT
HYPOTHESIS TO BE TESTED
CHBISTIANS of the first generation troubled themselves
little about the theory either of doctrine or of Church
Order; i the hammer of the world's clock was raised to strike
the last hour'. In the meanwhile the most vivid fact of
present experience was the outpouring of 'the Spirit'. To
the individual Christian something had happened some-
thing so obvious that it could be pointed to as evidence of
something else. 'Received ye the spirit (says St. Paul)
by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith ? ' (Gal
iii. 2), as if the reception of the Spirit was something as
definite and observable as, for example, an attack of influ-
enza. Some such manifestation of the Spirit had been an
expected precursor of the Last Day:
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . . and on
my servants and on iny handmaidens in those days will I pour
forth of my Spirit . . . before the day of the Lord come, that
great and notable day.
So quotes Peter, in a speech (Acts ii. 17) obviously
regarded by Luke as giving his readers the key to the right
understanding of the history of primitive Christianity
Inevitably in that generation the Prophet, the man or
woman supremely inspired by the Spirit, was an outstand-
ing figure in the Church.
73
74 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ra
To the prophetic type of mind, system, whether in
thought or organisation, is normally uncongenial. The
Apostle Paul belonged to this type; but his was a genius
of abnormal range. To him, it is generally conceded, must
be credited the beginnings of that intellectual formulation
of belief out of which was gradually developed the theology
of the Church. To him also, I am about to argue, must be
ascribed an importance hardly less in the introduction of
system into the organisation of the Church. And in both
cases what is begun by Paul reaches its climax, so far as
the New Testament- is concerned, in the Johannine litera*
ture. Nineteenth-century scholarship has traced the evolu-
tion of theology in the New Testament stage by stage,
through the series of the epistles of Paul and that to the
Hebrews, to its culmination in the Fourth Gospel. Taking
these writings in their chronological sequence, we see con-
ceptions, at first undefined, moving steadily (though all but
insensibly) in the direction of an ever-increasing definite-
ness- Yet this process of development was not due to any
desire to frame an abstract theology; it was the result,
simple but inevitable, of the application to new circum-
stances of first principles, originally vague and implicit, as
problem after problem arose and demanded immediate prac-
tical solution.
Since Newman wrote his Essay on Development it has
been generally recognised that, so far as the later period of
Church history is concerned, organisation as well as doc-
trine developed in this way as the reaction of the living
organism to a changing environment The purpose of this
chapter is to marshal evidence which suggests that, within
the period covered by the writings of the New Testament
itself, there is traceable an evolution in Church organisation
parallel to the evolution in theology and similarly explica-
ble as the reaction of organism to environment. And this
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 75
evolution also, curiously enough, reaches its culminating
point in writings ascribed to St. John.
I ought perhaps to make clear the relation of this
hypothesis to the theories, on the one hand of Harnack, on
the other of Lightfoot. Harnack and Lightfoot share the
distinction of being so eminent in this particular field of
history that it is assumed unless the contrary is explicitly
affirmed that ordinary persons will be to a greater or less
degree disciples either of the one or of the other. It may
be worth while, then, to insist that, although my debt to
both of them is immeasurable, yet the general position I
have reached is one which, whether admissible or not, is a
third alternative to that maintained by either of them.
Lightfoot's Dissertation on the Christian Ministry, in
his Philippians, is a standard classic; but Harnack's views,
in England less familiar, I may here summarise. They
were largely inspired by the discovery of the Didache (first
published 1883), which led everywhere to a renewed study
of the origins of the Christian ministry. Harnack r s main
contention is that in the earliest period there existed side
by side what were really two distinct kinds of ministry a
universal and a local. 1 The first, comprising Apostles,
Prophets, and Teachers, had a scope of activity theoreti-
cally co-extensive with the Church universal, and derived
its authority from the Holy Spirit; the second consisted of
Presbyter-bishops and Deacons, appointed by popular elec-
tion in particular local churches with functions limited to
the church which had elected them.
To me this theory seems to postulate in the mind of the
primitive Church an abstract and systematic way of looking
at a concrete and ever-changing situation which I find it
hard to accept as historical. I prefer, however, instead of
1 The Constitution and Law of the Church in the Fvr&t Two Gen-
turie*, B. T. (Williams & Horgate, 1910.)
76 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ni
criticising this or any other theory, to make a fresh start.
I ask whether a re-examination of the evidence does not
suggest that the actual course of events was of a more hap-
hazard, and at the same time a more dynamic, character
than students of the subject have hitherto suspected an
original diversity, a rapid evolution in response to urgent
local needs, to be followed later by standardisation up to an
efficient uniform model
JERUSALEM
At Jerusalem, James the brother of the Lord, and those
who regarded him as leader, observed, we have seen, not
only the law of Moses, but the recognised scribal interpreta-
tion of it (Matt, xxiii. 1-3). They were, moreover, assiduous
devotees of the Temple worship. It had long been the
custom for groups of Jews resident in Jerusalem to have
their own synagogues we hear of synagogues of Preedmen,
and of Jews of Gyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia (Acts
vi. 9). These were, so to speak, recognized conventicles
in no way regarding themselves, or regarded by others, as
in any sense heretical. Nothing, then, would be more
natural than for the Jewish Christians resident in Jerusalem
to regard themselves, and sooner or later to organise them-
selves, as a ' synagogue' of this kind. The place where
Christians met for worship is actually called a synagogue
in the epistle of James (il 2) and in Hennas (Mand, xi. 9.
13, 14). Some commentators have inferred that, when the
epistle of James was written, Christians still met for wor-
ship in the same building as the Jewish synagogue; the
survival of the name ' synagogue ' at Rome as late as
Hermas shows the error of this view,
Now, a Jewish synagogue normally had a board of
Presbyters, who formed a kind of committee of manage-
ment. In the Christian * synagogue * at Jerusalem this board
m THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 77
was already in existence by about A.D. 46 ; for we note that
' the presbyters J are specified (Acts xi. 30) as the persons
to whom the delegates from Antioch handed over the funds
collected for famine relief after the prophecy of Agabus.
But the position of James, as eldest male of the Messianic
House (p. 44), brought it about that in the Church of
Jerusalem there was from the earliest times a single person
credited with an unique authority, different in kind from
that of the ordinary presbyter. From the first, then, the
government of this church was of the type that it will be
convenient to describe by the adjective ' mon-episcopaP
which I shall use to imply the presidency of an individual
1 bishop ' whose status is confessedly much more than that
of primus inter pares among the presbyters.
In another respect circumstances at Jerusalem were
exceptional. The number of believers requiring charitable
relief was there unusually large. Barnabas and Ananias,
though with different motives, sell land to increase the funds
available. The three ' pillars ' exhort Paul to ' remember
the poor ' (Gal. ii. 10) ; and the epistles to the Romans and
Corinthians (Rom. xv. 26 f., 1 Cor. xvi. 1 ff., 2 Cor. 1 ff.)
and the Acts (xxiv. 17) attest his efforts to raise money
among the Gentile churches for Jerusalem. Heart-burnings
are an inevitable incident in any system of large-scale
charity; from this human weakness the church of Jerusalem
was not exempt. To meet the difficulties a body of seven
were appointed (Acts vi. 1 ff.) to act as almoners to the
community. The Seven are not actually spoken of as
Deacons (Sukowi) ; but since, by the time that Luke wrote,
there existed in most churches an Order of Almoners who
did bear this title, his use of the corresponding noun and
verb (Stajcopla, dtajcomzOis most naturally read to mean that
he regards the appointment of the Seven as the institution
of this Order. And to this view it is no valid objection that
78 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH in
the actual proceedings of Stephen, as preacher and contro-
versialist, have little to do with poor relief; it is not the habit
of enthusiasts to keep strictly to the routine of their official
duties.
But the situation at Jerusalem was unique. We cannot
safely deduce that in the Gentile churches the primitive
form of government even roughly corresponded to a three-
fold hierarchy of Bishop, Presbyters, and Deacons.
ANTIOCH
If we seek to know the type of organisation character-
istic of the Gentile Churches, our investigation will neces-
sarily begin with Antioch the city where first of all
Christian preachers turn to Gentiles (Acts XL 20), where
the name ' Christian ' has its origin, the headquarters from
which Paul and Barnabas start on their first and second
missionary journeys, and to which they report on their
return (Acts xiv. 26; xviii. 22 f.).
The Church of Antioch was founded by refugees from
the persecution in which Stephen fell (Acts xl 19) ; but,
though we are told * they were all scattered abroad ', there
is added the remarkable qualification * except the apostles '
(Acts viii. 11). Persecutors who wish to stamp out a move-
ment always strike at the leaders first. If, then, the Apostles
could remain unharmed in Jerusalem, it can only be because
they were not regarded by the persecutors as being asso-
ciated with that disparagement of the Law and the Temple
which had* caused the attack on Stephen and his supporters.
It has been surmised that the dispute about the administra-
tion of poor relief, which led to the appointment of the
Seven, was concomitant with and perhaps symptomatic
of a growing rift between those Christians who were con-
verts from the partially Hellenised Jews of the Dispersion
settled in Jerusalem, and the more conservative section
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 79
made up of Palestinian Jews. Be this as it may, the
Church at Antioch was founded by members of a group
whose general attitude towards the Law and the Temple
was evidently not that of James and such of the Twelve
as were then in Jerusalem. This may be one reason why
the constitution of the newly founded church at Antioch
was definitely not modelled on that of Jerusalem. At any
rate, the evidence shows that it was not so modelled.
There were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets
and teachers, Barnabas, and Symeon that was called Niger, and
Lucius of Gyrene, and Manaen the foster-brother of Herod the
tetrarch, and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord, and
fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for
the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had
fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them
away (Acts xiii. 1 ff.).
The five persons named are mentioned as if they were
in charge of the .church, and no other officers are mentioned.
The occasion was an important one; the step taken is evi-
dently conceived of as being a corporate act of the Church,
and the representative agents in this act are styled ' Prophets
and Teachers \ Clearly, whatever other officers the Church
at Antioch may have had, Prophet and Teacher (StSdcr/caXos)
are titles borne by those of chief importance. The burden
of proof lies with those who would argue that already at the
time of Paul's first missionary journey the Church of
Antioch possessed Episcopoi, but omitted to make use of
their services on this historical occasion. For though it
might be argued that Prophets, being inspired persons,
might have been preferred to Episcopoi, this could hardly
hold good of Teachers.
The position of Antioch in the Province of Syria was
of so dominating a character that we should expect on the
hypothesis that the original constitution of the church of
80 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH in
that city was such as I have inferred to find traces of a
similar type of Church Order elsewhere in that area. And
this is precisely what we do find. It is clear from the
Didache (p. 148) that in Syria, at any rate in some districts,
there were still at the end of the first century churches
where Prophets and Teachers existed, but in which there
were as yet no Episcopoi or Deacons,
CHURCHES FOUNDED BY ST. PAUL
We are told (Acts xiv. 23) that Paul and Barnabas on
their first missionary journey on the return visit, be it
noted ' appointed for them elders in every church '. The
actual word 7rpeor/3urepos does not occur in the ten probably
authentic letters of Paul, though frequent in the Pastoral
Epistles. Nevertheless, Luke's statement gains some sup-
port from the allusion to those who are ' over you in the
Lord 1 , which occurs a few years later in Paul's earliest
extant epistle:
We beseech you, brethren, to know them that labour among
you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you ; and to
esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake (1
Thess. v. 12-13).
The nucleus of the body of converts in the churches
founded by Paul consisted of Jews and proselytes ; and since
he regarded the Christian Church as being the authentic
Israel, it would have been natural for him to view the newly
founded local communities as synagogues and to organise
them accordingly. Nevertheless, from other epistles it is
clear that these presbyters who perhaps already bore titles
Episcopoi and Deacons were, at any rate to begin with,
regarded as persons of quite minor importance. This seems
strange; it is most easily explicable on the view that
prophets and teachers were the recognised leaders of the
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 81
Church of Antioch (from which Paul and Barnabas had
themselves been sent out), and that, so far as Gentile
churches were concerned, the appointment of presbyters was
an innovation.
Paul's earlier theory of the Christian ministry is clearly
laid down in the letters to Corinth and Rome.
God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly
prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings,
helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues (1 Cor. xii. 28).
Since apostles obviously belong to a special class, it is
evident that, even in Corinth, a church of Paul's own
foundation, the terms prophet and teacher represent the two
most important offices in what may be called the normal
ministry in a local church. The notion that a prophet was
usually a person who led a wandering life is an entirely
mistaken deduction from the Didache; the fact that some
prophets led that kind of life is no evidence that all or even
that a majority did so. After naming the three main offices
of the Christian ministry, the passage quoted above runs on
with a list of spiritual gifts, ' miracles ', ' gifts of healings ',
' helps ', * governments ', * divers kinds of tongues '. In this
enumeration the term ' helps ' would well describe the gift
of being a good almoner, while ' governments ' appears to
mean administrative capacity. If so, the offices of Deacon
and Episcopos would seem to have already existed at
Corinth; but their functions, we should surmise, were at this
time and place analogous to those of the officers styled
' Deacons ' in the modern Congregationalist system. Never-
theless it is remarkable that the gifts required for the exer-
cise of these offices should be, as it were, ' thrown in ' near
the end of the list, as though these officers (even if they
already had a specific name) were as yet persons of quite
minor importance.
82 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH ra
This passage in Corinthians should be compared with a
similar one in Romans.
And having gifts differing according to the grace that was
given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the
proportion of our faith ; or ministry, let us give ourselves to our
ministry ; or he that teacheth, to his teaching ; or he that
exhorteth, to his exhorting ; he that giveth, let him do it with
liberality ; he that ruleth, with diligence ; he that sheweth mercy,
with cheerfulness (Rom. xii. 6-8).
Here again the prophet and the teacher come high tip
in the list, while ' he that ruleth ' (6 TrpoZcrra/zcvos) comes
towards the end. Yet he or rather they, for the singular
is generic as in the case of the other persons mentioned is
not mentioned actually last, which might have implied that
he was of special importance. Curiously enough, both in
Romans and Corinthians the gifts of a deacon are mentioned
before those of a person who rules. Evidently the word
translated 'rule' means 'lead' rather than 'govern*.
The Church of Corinth exhibited over a period of years
a turbulence which strained PauPs capacities, physical,
moral, and intellectual, to the uttermost. The worst trou-
bles broke out at intervals after he had left Corinth and
was working at Ephesus fortunately for posterity, since
otherwise certain letters, which are among the world's
classics of religion, would have been left unwritten. Live
minds grow through conflict, and no one who turns from
the epistles to the Thessalonians to those written to Corinth
three to five years later can fail to see an enhancement of
mental range and insight. 1 We can see how questions asked
by the Church of Corinth compelled Paul to formulate more
*This point holds good to a considerable extent, even if Burkitt*fl
suggestion be accepted that the letters were drafted by Silas (whose
name appears along with that of Paul in the salutation) and revised
by Paul. Of. F. C. Burkitt, Ohriatfan Begmninga, p. 131 ff. (Univ.
London Press, 1924.)
in THE EVOLUTION OP CHURCH ORDER 83
clearly than heretofore his conceptions of 'the spiritual
body' a via media between the Greek idea of the essential
immortality of the reasoning principle only in man, and the
Jewish notion of the resurrection of the flesh, which had
evidently been found too crude by certain members of that
church. We can study his reactions to a practical difficulty
caused in this non-Jewish community by a too logical inter-
pretation of his principle of the glorious freedom of the
Christian from the law. 'All things are lawful/ cry the
antinomian party at Corinth. 1 f All things are not con-
gruous/ replies the Apostle; and he then proceeds to build
up a new ethic to replace the now obsolete code of Moses
in the form of a series of such moral principles and injunc-
tions as are most evidently the external expression of the
inward spirit of Christian love.
The suggestion I would make is that, in a similar way,
it was the practical disorders at Corinth (with which his
epistles are so largely concerned) that forced Paul to face
more clearly than heretofore the need, if not of a new
Church Order, at least of a new emphasis on the respect
due to those who stood for discipline and coherence in the
Church. That intention certainly seems to underlie the
exhortation:
Now, I beseech you, brethren (ye know the house of Ste-
phanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have set
themselves to minister unto the saints), that ye also be in subjec-
tion unto such, and to every one that helpeth in the work and
laboureth (1 Cor. xvi. 15-16).
At any rate it is a notable fact that in his later epistles
a growing importance is assigned to th^ regular ministry.
Thus in Philippians, the Episcopoi and Deacons are spe-
cially singled out in the salutation, in a way which would
1 Of. K. Lake, The Earlier Epfotles of St. Paul, p. 225.
84 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
be unnatural unless he wished them to be recognised as
persons of great importance in that church.
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints
in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with (the) bishops and
deacons (Phil. i. 1).
The epistle to the Ephesians is of disputable authorship.
On the whole I incline to think it genuine. 1 If not, it is a
re-writing of Colossians of very early date, for it seems to
be known to all the Apostolic Fathers and is therefore
evidence for the state of affairs in one of the Pauline
churches of Asia. The passage in Ephesians which deals
with the ministry should be carefully compared and con-
trasted with that quoted above (p. 81) from 1. Cor. xii.
And he gave some to be apostles ; and some, prophets ; and
some, evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the
perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the
building up of that body of Christ (Eph. iv. 11-12).
Two points are to be noted:
(1) The administrative officers, the. Pastors (-Trot/icves,
= shepherds), 2 are obviously the equivalent of Episcopoi;
but these are no longer nameless, as in the Corinthito
*Two of the greatest objections to its genuineness disappear if we
follow the text of our oldest MSS. B N, which (with other MS. sup-
port) omit & 'E<f>fatp in i. 1 and so removes the difficulty that the
letter is addressed to persons who only knew Paul by hearsay (iii, 2) ;
B also omits forcer 6Xo in iii. 5. With this omission rots dr&ns afrroO
Kat TTpo^Tcus will mean 'His saints (i.e. all Christians) and (con-
temporary Christian) prophets ', and Paul is not speaking of the * Holy
Apostles and (Old Testament) prophets '. * Built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
corner-stone* (ii. 20), may thus mean that apostles and prophets (the
words being used as in 1 Cor. xii. 28) were the 'founders* of churches
being careful to make Christ the chief corner-stone in every building
they founded.
2 The only 'evangelists' named in the New Testament are Philip,
one of the Seven (Acts xxi. 8) and Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 5). Possibly
it was a title given to persons of deutero-apostolic status.
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 85
letter, but come between the Prophets and the Teachers.
And in the title ' shepherd ' there are wide-reaching implica-
tions. In the Old Testament, more especially in the
Prophets and Psalms, ' Shepherds of Israel ' is a standing
equivalent for rulers and the Christian Church regarded
itself as the New Israel.
(2) The stress is no longer laid primarily on the spirit-
ual gifts required which is an individual matter but on
the office as such in relation to its function in the corpo-
rate life.
The apostolic authorship of the epistles to Timothy and
Titus commonly styled ' The Pastoral Epistles ' as well
as of the first epistle of Peter, is so widely questioned that
I postpone discussion of them to the next lecture. But it is
appropriate to consider here the evidence afforded by the
farewell speech of Paul to the Ephesian elders (Acts xx.
17 ff.) . This occurs in a ' we section ' of the Acts. Probably,
then, it is either based on actual reminiscence of what the
Apostle actually said at the time, or it represents views
which Luke, who was with Paul to the end, knew him to
entertain towards the close of his life. We are justified,
therefore, in treating this speech as being, at any rate,
secondary evidence for Paul's own views.
We note first that the delegates from Ephesus are de-
scribed by Luke as ' Presbyters ; or ' Elders ', but they are
addressed by Paul as ' Episcopoi ' or * Bishops '. It is clear,
then, that there were at this time in the church of Ephesus
several persons who bore the title Episcopos; it is also clear
that episcopoi could be called 'presbyters'. It does not,
however, follow that all presbyters could be called * epis-
copoi'. The main point of the speech is the immense
responsibility which attaches to the office held by those
addressed.
86 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which
the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the Church of
God, which he purchased with his own blood (Acts xx. 28).
The actual wording of such a speech may be open to the
suspicion of some colouration by the views and needs of
the time when Luke wrote. Nevertheless the mere fact that
Paul sent for the elders is an important piece of historical
evidence of a growing desire on his part to enhance the
prestige of, and foster a sense of responsibility in, officers
charged with the direction of the church.
The total amount of evidence yielded up by the passages
considered above is not large; nor do I claim that it is
always unambiguous* But it all points in the same direc-
tion; and taken as a whole it suffices, if not to prove, at least
to make probable, the fact of a slow but steady movement.
And it is a movement away from the state of things implied
in 1 Corinthians where pre-eminence in the Church de-
pends on the personal possession of some spiritual gift (of
which 'government' is one of the least esteemed) and
towards a state of things where importance is attached to
the holding of an office invested with recognised authority.
THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN
The two little notes, known as the second and third
epistles of John, are the shortest, and perhaps the most
neglected, books of the New Testament. But to the his-
torian they are of unique importance. The author describes
himself simply as ' the Elder '. This in itself implies that
he occupies a position of unique consideration; he is a
personage so well known that there is no need for him to
append his name. The second epistle is addressed 'Unto
the elect Lady and her children, whom I love in truth '.
The omission of the substantive ^X^crta (Church) in the
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 87
phrase fi b> Ra/3vX>vi crvvK\Kri] (she that is elect with you)
in 1 Peter v. 13, and the absolute use of the feminine
adjective ticKeKTrj (elect) in Ignatius (Trail. L), make it
probable that the elect Lady is not a person but a church.
This is further implied by the salutation in the last verse
from 'the children of thine elect sister', the 'elect sister*
being obviously the church in which the author writes. It is-,
then, a little surprising to find that he takes upon himself
to say ' I rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy
children walking in the truth '. This, surely, is a very
remarkable expression for an individual to use in writing
to a church. It is explicable only if the writer occupied a
position of almost patriarchal prestige and that not only
in his own but in neighbouring churches.
We collect the same impression of the author's pre-
eminent position from reading the third epistle. It is
addressed to Gaius, evidently a Christian of some local
prominence, and informs him that he had previously written
to the church observe again it is to a church of which
Gaius is a member. But a certain Diotrephes, ' who loveth
to have the pre-eminence among them', had declined to
receive his representations, indeed had publicly flouted him,
'prating against us with wicked words'. Diotrephes had
refused to receive certain brethren, whom the writer bad
evidently commended to the church, and had even gone to
the length of excommunicating those members of the church
who desired to received the commended brethren. It may
fairly be presumed that the brethren in question, like those
mentioned just before (verse 7), were on a preaching mis-
sion, and that therefore the writer had commended them as
persons qualified to address the church a mere letter of
introduction, asking for no more than hospitality, would
hardly have aroused such opposition. The writer goes on to
88 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH in
threaten that he may visit the church in person; and he
implies that this will bring Diotrephes to his senses.
Who, then, is this ' Elder' who so quietly takes for
granted an almost apostolic authority over neighbouring
churches ? Who, and what, we ask, is Diotrephes ? To the
historian this, possibly trifling, local dispute may turn out
to be of supreme interest for the light it throws on the
status of the leading disputants.
Diotrephes, it is evident, not only loved the pre-emi-
nence many in all times and places have done that he
had actually secured it. One cannot be a ' Jack in office '
unless the office is already there; and Diotrephes holds a
position which enables him not only to forbid Christians
whose doctrines he suspects from addressing the church, but
to ' cast out of the church ' those members of it who express
sympathy with them. He not only has supreme control of
public worship, but also (it would seem on his own sole
authority) the power of excommunication. In other words,
in this church Diotrophes held the office of Bishop, in the
full monarchical sense of the term. Since, then, it is not
disputed that the Johannine literature originated in Asia,
it follows that by the date when 3 John was written, the
monarchical episcopate was established in at least one, more
probably in several, of the churches of that province. This
is a historical conclusion of immense interest.
And the Elder, who was he ? Clearly he was regarded
by others, besides himself and his supporter Gaius, as a
personage of special importance. Letters like 2 and 3
John dealing with an obscure and uninteresting quarrel
would never have been preserved at all, let alone have crept
into the Canon, unless they had been venerated as relics
of a man whose person or position was highly revered in
some very influential church.
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 89
If I may assume that the linguistic studies of Dr.
Charles 1 have proved the first epistle of John, so called,
to be by the same author as 2 and 3 John, there is further
evidence as to the prestige which he enjoyed. The first
epistle of John is miscalled an ' epistle '. It is not a letter
at all. It has no introductory greeting, no closing saluta-
tion. It is either a pamphlet, or, as I think more probable,
a sermon delivered on some important occasion. It is called
an ' epistle ; simply because the compilers of the New Testa-
ment had no other way of classing it in the collection of
sacred books. It reads like an address by a very old man
speaking to those whom, though adults, he can without
offence call his ' little children ' summing up, in what he
feels is perhaps his last message to them, in the simplest
words he can command, the very core of what Christianity
means to him, and giving them a last warning against the
worst perils of the time.
This authoritative position, not so much asserted as
taken for granted in the first epistle to a whole community ,
in the second epistle in writing to another church, in the
third in regard to a local bishop would be perfectly ex-
plicable if the author was the Apostle John and could speak
with the authority of an Apostle. Paul writes in much the
same tone to the rebellious Corinthians. But as every one
knows, there are grave difficulties in the supposition that
the Apostle John lived in Asia Minor and wrote the gospel
and epistles that are called by his name. Yet the two
shorter epistles are indubitably genuine letters of some-
body. No motive for forgery can be discovered. They
develop no doctrinal thesis, they contain hardly any moral
or religious exhortation, they mainly consist in obscure
allusions to a not specially creditable incident of local
church history. Moreover, the hypothesis that they are
1 Revelation, i. p. xxxiv. ff. (T. & T. Clark.)
90 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
pseudonymous is excluded by the mere fact that they are
put forward without an author's name.
Harnack regards the dispute between the Elder and
Diotrephes as ' an example of a flagrant collision between
the general spiritual and missionary organisation, repre-
sented by the elder, and the local organisation 7 (op. dt.
p. 65) .* Personally, as I have already said, I see no suf-
ficient evidence for the existence of these two clear-cut types
of organisation. Harnack is also disposed to identify the
Elder with the author of the Apocalypse. Of this work
he says:
But the position of the writer, John, is important. He appears
in point of fact as the superintendent of these communities (the
Seven Churches), although he describes himself as a brother
(1. 9).
Later on he remarks:
The author of the three Epistles , . who is probably iden-
tical with the John of the Apocalypse, appears in these likewise
as a superintendent.
A fatal objection to this identification of the Elder with
the author of the Apocalypse is the linguistic evidence that
the shorter epistles of John are related far more nearly to
the Gospel and first epistle than to the Apocalypse. 2 I would
also demur to the description of the John of the Apocalypse
as a l superintendent ', which implies a person in a position
of permanent authority. The writer of the Apocalypse
describes himself, not only as 'a brother', but also as 'a
prophet' (Rev. i. 3, 10; xxii. 10, 18 f.); but a prophet is a
person whose authority is necessarily intermittent. When
'in the Spirit' he speaks with the voice of God; on other
occasions he is merely a ' brother' or ordinary church
*But on Harnack's general theory an " elder * is a local officer !
*R. H. Charles, Revelation, i. p. xxxiv. ff. (T. & T. Clark, 1920.)
ra THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 91
member. 1 The writer to the Seven Churches writes, not as
a superintendent, but as a prophet (Rev. i. 9-11), What he
writes he expects to be taken, not as a set of disciplinary
exhortations of his own, but as an inspired message.
The true answer, then, to the question, What position
did the Elder hold? must be looked for in some other
direction. We may find it, I suggest, by asking, What are
the implications of the greeting, * The children of thine elect
sister salute thee ' (2 John 13) ? Surely it is likely that the
church on whose behalf he sends this salutation is one of
which he himself is the acknowledged head, Now the de-
velopment of things in small towns usually lags behind that
in large centres. If, then, at this date the church over
which Diotrephes presided already had a monarchical
bishop, it is probable that Ephesus had reached that stage
of development some years before. But the Bishop of
Ephesus would naturally claim a certain precedence among
other bishops of the province. He would at least expect
that persons bearing letters of commendation from him
would be accepted by the smaller churches as orthodox. All
the evidence, then, is satisfied by the hypothesis that the
writer of 2 and 3 John is the Bishop of Ephesus, the mother
church of Asian Christianity.
Partly as President of the mother church of Asia, partly,
perhaps, in virtue of the personal influence he enjoyed, he
assumes the same kind of responsibility for the smaller
churches of the province as Clement's epistle shows- the
Roman Church exercising at about the same date over
churches within its sphere of influence, or which Ignatius
wields a little later in the region of Antioch (cf. p. 264).
We note, however, an essential difference. Clement writes
*The reason, I take it, of the rubric in the Didaehe (x. 7) that a
prophet is free to use extempore prayer at the Eucharist is, not that
the prophet as such is a church official, but that the prayer he would
offer was likely to be in a special sense prayer * in the Spirit ',
92 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
merely as the anonymous mouthpiece of the Church of
Rome; the Elder writes, like Ignatius, in his own name.
Indeed, to describe his office, the title ' Archbishop ' would
of course without the formal implications of later canonical
law and usage be even more appropriate than that of
1 Bishop '.
At any rate, my thesis stands that the evolution of
Church Order in the New Testament culminates in the
Johannine writings*
THE ELDER JOHN
There remains, however, to date this culminating point.
For that it will be necessary to explore further the question
of the identity of the, so far anonymous, Elder who wrote
the epistles we have been discussing. I cannot without
apology thrust once more upon the notice of such of my
readers as are students of theology an ancient fragment on
which they have so often been lectured. I mean the quota-
tion by Eusebius from a work of Papias, Bishop of
Hierapolis a city of Asia, situated about 100 miles due
east of Ephesus written at some date between A,D. 130-160.
And again, on any occasion when anyone came in my way who
had been a follower of the Elders, I would inquire about the dis-
course of the Elders what was said by Andrew, or by Peter, or
by Philip, or by Thomas or James, or by John, or Matthew or
any other of the Lord's disciples, and what Aristion and the Elder
John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that I
could get so much profit from the contents of books as from the
utterance of a living and abiding voice.
Eusebius adds later:
Papias . . . confesses that he had received the words of the
Apostles from those who had followed them, but says that he was
himself a hearer of Aristion and the Elder John ; at all events he
in THE EVOLUTION OP CHURCH ORDER 93
mentions them frequently by name, and besides, records their
traditions in his writings.
The word Elder was until the third century used as a
general title of respect for the great men of a previous
generation. Clement of Alexandria calls Pantaenus 'the
blessed Elder ', and Hippolytus of Rome does the same by
his teacher Irenaeus. 1 Papias, at the beginning of the
passage quoted, is obviously using the plural e Elders ' in this
general sense, in order, I suggest, to cover both the Apostles
mentioned and the two/ Disciples of the Lord '. It has been
argued by a few scholars, Provost Salmon and Dom
Chapman among them, that Papias means the Apostle when
he speaks of the Elder John. But though a group of vener-
able persons including with Apostles men who were not
Apostles could be spoken of collectively as 'Elders', it
would be quite another matter to speak of an individual
Apostle as an Elder. The view, therefore, that the Elder
and the Apostle are the same person, seems to me impossi-
ble. But granted it were linguistically possible, what about
Aristion ? He is mentioned as ( a disciple of the Lord ', on
a par with, and actually before, the Elder John; was
Aristion, then, as an authority for the teaching of Christ,
the equal, or even the superior, of the Apostle John ?
Another fragment of Papias quoted by Eusebius begins,
1 And the Elder said this also . . . \ This use of the phrase
1 the Elder ' without the name being added is for our imme-
diate purpose significant; for we at once recall the fact
that the author of 2 and 3 John does not give his name, but
calls himself ' the Elder \
The letter of Irenaeus to Florinus (op. Eus. H. E. v. 20)
is usually quoted as evidence for the presence in Asia of the
1 Hghtfoot, Clement, ii. p. 435 L
94 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH in
Apostle John. He relates how, when still a boy, he listened
to the discourses of Polycarp, and remembered
how he would describe his intercourse with John, and with the rest
who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words.
The difficulties of supposing that the Apostle John re-
sided in Asia are well known, 1 But if the Apostle did not
live in Asia, Polycarp may well have used a phrase like
1 John and the rest who had seen the Lord ', in speaking of
Aristion and the Elder John.
There is thus good evidence of the existence of a person-
age known as the Elder John, who was held in special
veneration as a ' disciple of the Lord ' (which must at least
mean one who had himself seen the Lord), and was so
notable that he could be spoken of simply as ' The Elder ',
as one to whom the title belonged par excellence. Assuming
this individual to be the author of the Johannine epistles,
the personal authority which the writer takes for granted,
the description of himself as l The Elder \ and the attach-
ment to the writings of the name John, are all satisfactorily
explained. So also are the opening words of the first epistle:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard,
that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and
our hands handled.
We now have what to the historian is supremely wel-
come a means of approximately dating the epistles. John
the Elder was ' a disciple of the Lord ', in some sense which
made him an authority for authentic tradition second only
to the original Apostles. At least he must have seen Christ
in the flesh, and that at an age reputed to be outside the
years of childhood. For certain purposes childhood was
reckoned by Jews to last till the age of twelve. Supposing,
1 They are conveniently summarised by Dr. Charles, Mevefotfon, p.
adv. ff.
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 95
then, the Elder had been just twelve years old at the time
of the crucifixion, by A.D. 100 he would be eighty-two. His
controversy with Diotrephes can hardly have been carried
on long after he had reached the age of eighty, and, since
Diotrephes had the full powers of a bishop, it follows that
in Asia the monarchical episcopate was established, at any
rate in some cities, before the year A.D. 100.
An intensive study of the Johannine epistles has sug-
gested the inference that their author was Bishop of
Ephesus. We naturally ask whether there is any external
evidence that John the Elder held that position. For the
churches of Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria com-
plete lists of the names of the early bishops are given by
Eusebius. The Roman list has much the best attestation
it can be traced back to Hegesippus, who visited Rome c.
A.D. 165 the Jerusalem list has the worst. 1 For Ephesus no
such list has survived; but it must have once existed. The
Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46), 2 however, gives the names
of tJhe bishops of all churches who were ordained in the life-
time of the Apostles that is, before A.B. 100, the reputed
date of the death of John. 3 The names given for Jerusalem,
Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome correspond closely with
Eusebius that is only what we should expect. What we
should like to know is, How far had the author access to
genuine local tradition in the case of less important
1 Of. C. EL Turner in J.T.S., i. p. 529 ff.
a Zahn thinks the Apostolic Constitutions is by Acacius of Caesarea,
AJ>. 340-366. It alludes to the observance of Christmas on December
25, a usage which came from the "West and was, we know from Chry-
sostom, introduced at Antioch c. 376 ; but this may have been adopted
earlier at Caesarea. The standard edition of the text is by F. 3L
Funk, Didascalia et Constitutions Apostolorum (Pederbornae, 1905) !
There is an English translation in The Library of Ante-Nicene Fathers
(T. & T. Clark).
8 Jerome, De Vir. Illustr. 9, dates the death of John in the sixty-
eighth year after the Passion A.D. 100, since Jerome dates Passion
A.D. 32. Earlier tradition inclines to 29 A.D. for date of the Passion.
Recent chronologists prefer A.D. 30.
96 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
churches ? Fortunately there is a test case the church of
Smyrna which creates a presumption that, at any rate as
regards Asia, he had some evidence to go on. In regard to
this church he states the succession as follows:
Ariston the first, after whom Strataeas the son of Lois, and
the third Ariston.
The recurrence of the name Ariston twice is curious; it
may be that the presidency of the church of Smyrna not
yet being a life-office, the same person held it twice. 1 Or
possibly in the list used a name had been duplicated by a
scribal error; this happened in the old editions to the list
of early Roman bishops in Epiphanius in regard to the
name Evarestus. 2 Later on I shall raise the question
whether this Ariston may not be the Aristion whom Papias
ranks along with the Elder John. Undoubtedly Ariston and
Aristion are used in pagan writings as interchangeable forms
of the same name; and both occur on the coins of Smyrna. 3
That this list goes back to an early tradition is shown
by the flagrant contradiction between it and the statement
of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. iii. 3. 4).
Polycarp was not only taught by Apostles, and held conversa-
tion with many who had seen Christ, but he was appointed by
Apostles in Asia bishop of the church in Smyrna,
Tertullian gives the statement further precision:
For this is the manner in which apostolic churches transmit
their registers ; as the church of Smyrna, which records that Poly-
carp was placed therein by John (De Praescrip. Haer. xrxiL).
^Cf. pp. 98 and 275.
a A similar slip, I think, is the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac in
Matt, i, 16, * Joseph begot Jesus '. Cf . The Four G>ospeU, p. 0.
3 Cf . Lightfoot, Ignatius, i. p. 463. It is to be noted that the famous
Armenian Codex at Etchmiadasin, in which F. C. Conybeare found
Mark xvi. 9-20 headed by the rubric, ' Of Ariston the Presbyter * pre-
sumably meaning the Aristion mentioned by Papias spells it
* Ariston '.
m THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 97
Tertullian had read Irenaeus. Whenever I have had
occasion to compare their statements, I have noticed that
the relation of Tertullian to Irenaeus, in the matter of all
statements concerning the Apostles or their writings, is
almost exactly comparable to that of Jerome to Eusebius.
Each ' dots the " i's " and crosses the " t's " ' of his prede-
cessor's statements. The two Latin writers have a fine style
and a keen sense of the effective; the more dingy Greeks
give the statement in a more original, if less embellished,
form.
The early date and wide circulation of these writers,
especially Irenaeus, whose statement about Polycarp was
republished by Eusebius, must have familiarised the Church
at large with the idea that Polycarp was ordained by the
Apostle John; and it was an idea of considerable apologetic
value in controversy with the Gnostics. But here we find
a writer completely ignoring the famous martyr Polycarp,
naming as the first bishops of Smyrna three persons quite
unknown to fame, and most notable of all refraining
from the assertion that any one of these was ordained by
an Apostle. This certainly looks as if he had access to
authentic tradition as regards the bishops of the church of
Smyrna.
This view receives some confirmation from comparison
with the tradition, evidently quite independent, made use
of in the Life of Polycarp by Pionius a document which,
in spite of Lightfoot's strictures, I believe to be of very
considerable historical value (see Appendix A). This docu-
ment suggests that Strataeas, son of Lois, was the first
Bishop of Smyrna ; and gives as the teacher and immediate
predecessor of Polycarp an otherwise unknown Bucolus.
After the departure of the Apostle (i.e. Paul) Strataeas suc-
ceeded to his teaching, and certain of those after him, whose
names, so far as it is possible to discover who and what manner
98 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
of men. they were, I will set down. But for the present let us pro-
ceed at once to Polycarp. One whose name was Bucolus being
bishop in Smyrna at that time, there was in those days ... a
little lad named Polycarp.
Unfortunately the Life of Polycarp is incomplete, and
the promised list of the successors of Strataeas has (with
much other matter) fallen out of the text; but the passage
above quoted implies that Bucolus was not the immediate
successor, and he is never spoken of as if he in any sense
belonged to the age nearest to the Apostles. Assuming the
repetition of the name Ariston in the Apostolic Constitu-
tions to be due to dittography, the original list may have
run: Strataeas, Ariston, Bucolus, Polycarp.
Neither the Apostolic Constitutions nor the Life of Poly-
carp is an historical authority on which much reliance can
in general be placed; but just because they so little scruple
to prefer edification to fact, their concurrence in dissociating
Polycarp from any connection with the Apostle John is
worthy of note. It is also favoured by chronological con-
siderations. Polycarp, on his own statement to the Roman
magistrate, 1 was eighty-six years old at the time of his
death in A.D. 156. He would therefore have only just
attained his thirtieth year in A.D. 100, the traditional date
for the death of the John who lived in Asia (whether we
suppose him to be the Apostle or his namesake the Elder).
The canonical rule that a bishop must not be under thirty
derives ultimately from the Jewish practice of making that
the lower age-limit for all posts of special responsibility.
The ancients had no belief in the wisdom of youth. The
accident of birth gave Alexander and Augustus the command
of armies before the age of twenty; but in Roman, even
more than in Jewish, custom, young men must wait their
turn for all high office. Polycarp, to judge from his sur~
1 Martyrdom, 9.
in THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 99
viving epistle, was a person of small ability; and without
ability, goodness and honesty rarely secure a man election
as supreme governor of a community by the age of thirty.
The statement of Irenaeus is therefore inherently less
probable than that of these otherwise inferior authorities.
Moreover, it is not the statement of an unbiased witness.
To Irenaeus, Polycarp was the link between himself and
apostolic tradition. It was very tempting to be able ' to
place upon his own brow that crown of apostolic succession,
at only one remove from the Apostle John, which Basilides
had claimed through Glaukias from Peter, and Valentinus
through Theodas from Paul'. 1 Polycarp, again, was the
link between the Apostles themselves and the tradition of
the churches of Asia, on which along with that of the See
of Rome the main argument of Irenaeus' work against the
Gnostics was based. Irenaeus is not the only person who,
seeing in some statement t a short way with dissenters ',
has inclined to view the evidence for it with a perhaps too
partial eye.
The Apostolic Constitutions is commonly dated c. AJD.
370; but it consists in the main of older material re-edited.
Some of this material is very early; it includes, for example,
practically every sentence in the Didache, with ' corrections '
and amplifications meant to adapt it to fourth-century
ideas. 2 If, then, its author had access to an authentic list
of the bishops of Smyrna, there is some slight presumption
that he had one for the neighbouring and more notable
church of Ephesus. Now for Ephesus he gives ' Timothy
ordained by Paul; and John ordained by (the Apostle)
John \ The author of the Apostolic Constitutions has no
conscience at all about ascribing words or actions to Apos-
*B. W. Bacon, ZJT.T.W., 1927, p. 190.
a The text of Apos. Constit. vii. 1-32 is printed in full with the
passages taken from the Didache in bold-face type, in Harnack's edi-
tion of the Didache, p. 178 fL
100 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH m
ties; no stress, therefore, can be laid on the part of his state-
ment which avers that the Bishop John was ordained by
the Apostle of that name. Nevertheless if, as I believe, the
Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel is the Apostle John,
and the author of the Gospel had been in some sense a pupil
of his in Palestine, 1 the statement that John the Elder was
' ordained ' by John the Apostle in spite of the ' tenden-
cious ' character of the document which states it may have
some basis in fact. But, quite apart from this possibility,
our argument that the Elder was Bishop of Ephesus Is, I
think, strengthened by a piece of evidence that at the close
of the first century the Bishop of Ephesus was named John.
It would seem, then, that we must make an addition to
the names of those outstanding leaders in the great churches,
commonly known as ' Apostolic Fathers y , whose epistles
have come down to us and are our main authority for the
history and doctrine of the Church at the turn of the first
and second centuries. Along with, indeed in front of,
Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Ignatius of
Antioch, we must place the Elder John,
1 The Four Gospels, p. 432.
m THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH ORDER 101
1
Q"
g
85
rH T-H i i
=4*
"* CD ,
PHH
O X
g 1 ^
&
II ..I
oco
00 <M
~
5 g *
?^^i
81
ll
8OQ
O3O3
OppiCQ OOlOpip
O OOlO O"5O
-
w
I*
.22 W)
a? S
2l
ja 37
III
13
a ^-?
^p
4 rQ
?l|
Irf
111
III
Di
The Tabl
Bxtant in f
Epistle to
IV
THE CHURCH IN ASIA
SYNOPSIS
THE PASTOKAL EPISTLES
IN the fourth century the genuine epistles of Ignatius were expanded,
and five fresh ones were composed, by the author of the Apostolic
Constitutions ; in the second century the author of 2 Peter treated
Jude in a similar way.
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus present an analogous case,
2 Timothy and Titus being amplifications of genuine notes by Paul,
1 Timothy being a fresh composition by the same editor.
Eeasons for believing they were composed in Ephesus in which
case they afford evidence in regard to the state of things in Asia at
the date of writing not later than AJ>. 110.
Timothy may have settled in Ephesus after the death of Paul and
inherited something of his authority ; but there is evidence (Acts,
Epistles, Ascension of Isaiah) of troublous times in Asia, due to the
moral failure of church officers, so that Timothy's rule (if any) was
of short duration. Suggestion that order was restored by John the
Elder, supported by persons who remembered the benefits of indi-
vidual rule under Timothy.
In any case, since the monarchical episcopate existed in Asia by
A.D. 100, it ante-dates the Pastorals ; and their purpose will be mis-
understood if this fact is forgotten. That purpose is moral rather
than ecclesiastical. It is with the character of the officers, not the
form of church government, that the author is mainly concerned.
The terms Episcopos and Presbyter are still, to some extent, inter-
changeable (assuming the two passages in which * episcopos J occurs
to be original), but the use of them is probably designedly ambiguous
in order that the advice given may be appropriate to churches which
had not, as well as those which had, adopted a monarchical rule.
103
104 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
The use of the Epistles in Pionius' U}e oj Polycarp, which may
well represent a second-century interpretation of their main purport.
In general the advice given is more appropriate where the mon-
archical system prevails. Timothy and Titus are not actually de-
scribed as Bishops (historic fact forbade this), but they are depicted
as exercising the functions which, at the date of writing, were those
of Bishops. Under these names is portrayed the Ideal Bishop in the
one case of a large city, in the other of a country district.
THE FIBST EPISTLES OF S*. PETER
The address is to the Church in the provinces of Asia Minor,
north of the Taurus ; it ends with a salutation from the Church in
Babylon. There is no improbability in Peter visiting Babylonia,
where there still existed a large Jewish population. Nevertheless,
here, as in Revelation, Babylon would seem to be a veiled name for
Home.
This raises considerable difficulties as to the authorship and char-
acter of the document. The question of Petrine authorship and of
inspiration not to be confused.
The external evidence in its favour is less strong than might have
been expected.
From the side of internal evidence three main objections to
Petrine authorship require careful weighing.
After fifty years of discussion no general agreement of scholars
has been reached in regard to the historical situation implied by the
epistle. It is not, therefore, temerarious to propound a new solution
if that be avowedly of a tentative character.
Hypothesis that the epistle really consists of two documents:
(1) a sermon given by the Bishop to a group of newly-baptized per-
sons (i. 3-iv. 11) ; (2) a letter of encouragement (iv. 12-v. 11), written
in time of persecution. The address and salutations (i.e. the first two
and last three verses) of the epistle in that case are later additions.
Six considerations which suggest that (on the assumption that the
epistle is not by Peter himself) it originated in Asia.
The addition, perhaps at the time of Pliny's persecution (AJ>. 112),
of the first two and last three verses secured admission to the Canon
of a document of the highest religious value which otherwise might
not have been preserved.
AETSTION OF SMYRNA
Suggestion put forward not as ' a result of criticism ', but as a
reasonable guess that the actual author of 1 Peter was the Aristion
THE CHURCH IN ASIA 105
mentioned by Papias, and that he was Bishop of Smyrna at the time
of the outburst of persecution in that Church mentioned in Reve-
lation (ii. 10).
THE CHURCH ORDER IMPLIED
The exhortation given to the Elders has meaning only if they
stood to the people as a shepherd to his sheep, and were in a position
to 'lord it over' the flock. In other ways also it is clear that the
regular ministry had attained a position of authority far in advance
of that implied in the epistles of Paul.
The identification of the writer with Aristion, Bishop of Smyrna,
makes it easier to bridge the gulf between the rule by corporations of
bishop-presbyters established by Paul in Asia, and the mon-episcopal
system generally prevalent there in the time of Ignatius. The posi-
tion of John the Elder at Ephesus and of Aristion at Smyrna would
lead to imitation in the smaller churches.
IV
THE CHURCH IN ASIA
THE PASTORAL EPISTLES
SOME much debated questions in regard to the epistles to
Timothy and Titus will become clearer if we first consider
an analogous literary problem. Somewhere about the year
A.D. 360 an unknown ecclesiastic it would seem from his
style that he is identical with the author of the Apostolic
Constitutions took upon himself to produce an enlarged
and (in his own judgment) an improved edition of the
epistles of Ignatius. The seven genuine letters he ampli-
fied with edifying matter, appropriate to the needs of his
own time; and he composed five additional letters. Fortu-
nately there survives a single Greek manuscript (and a
Latin translation) of the letters in their original form;
and as in the Apostolic Constitutions we have a quite other
work in which to study the style and methods of this enter-
prising editor, we are in a position to ascertain the exact
state of affairs in regard to the Ignatian letters. 1
This re-editing of Ignatius was done in the fourth
century; but the same sort of thing could happen in the
second. No one can read side by side the epistle of Jude
and chapter ii. of the second epistle of Peter, so-called,
without perceiving that in these two documents the same
things are being said in very much the same words. There
1 In bks. i.-vi. he works over the Didascalia; in bk. vii., the
Didache; in bk. viii., a work by Hippolytus, which (in something near
its original form) is preserved in the Egyptian Church Order.
107
108 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
can be no reasonable doubt that the author of 2 Peter
has, with slight verbal alterations, incorporated practically
the whole of the older epistle of Jude. 1 What he found
in Jude, along with what he added himself, seemed to
comprise ' a tract for the times ' so vitally needed that
feeling sure Peter, if alive, would have taken that line
he deemed it justifiable to gain for it wide and immediate
publicity by putting at the head of it the name of the
Apostle.
It has long been thought that the epistles to Timothy
and Titus, in the form in which we have them, are the
result of a similar process of editing. If any doubt still
remained, it has been removed by the brilliant study of
Dr. P. N. Harrison. 2 It seems clear that 2 Timothy em-
bodies several authentic letters of the Apostle these being
short notes, similar to many, only a few lines in length,
that have been discovered among the papyrus finds in
Egypt. Titus concludes with one such; but 1 Timothy
would seem to be entirely the composition of the editor.
The epistles in their present form appear to have been
known both to Polycarp in Smyrna and to Ignatius in
Antioch 3 by A.D. 115; hence they can hardly be later
than A.D. 110. The evidence, therefore, which they afford
in regard to Church Order must be taken as evidence as
to the state of things in the church in which they were
1 The parallels are conveniently set out and discussed by J. MofFatt,
Introduction to the New Testament, p. 348 ff.
9 The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, P. N. Harrison. (Oxford
University Press, 1921.) The analogy with the Ignatian letters I owe
to Prof. K. Lake.
8 The verbal echoes in Ignatius of phrases that occur in the Pas-
torals are just not sufficient to prove his knowledge of them. But he
tells the Ephesians (xii. 2) that Paul makes mention of them ' in every
letter * ; but if the Pastorals were not included in his collection of
letters of Paul, 1 Corinthians would remain as the only letter in which
Ephesus is even named.
17 THE CHURCH IN ASIA 109
produced at about that date, rather than as evidence for
the Apostolic Age.
That the church in and for which the editor worked
was in the province of Asia we may conjecture with some
confidence. Most probably he worked in Ephesus itself.
(1) Two out of the three letters, and those the longest,
purport to be addressed to Timothy while resident at
Ephesus ; and the editor is concerned to make a good deal
of Timothy's connection with Ephesus. Thus the first
epistle opens with a reminder to Timothy of a previous
occasion in which he had been left by Paul to take charge
of this church; and as nothing is said in this epistle about
the Apostle being in prison, while he twice expresses an
intention of coming to Ephesus in person, the author evi-
dently intends the epistle to be read as if written, either
when Paul was at liberty, or in the earlier stages of his
imprisonment when he still anticipated release. The second
epistle to Timothy, on the other hand, is represented as
written when the Apostle is in prison, and expecting death.
But Timothy is still at Ephesus as appears from the fact
that salutations are sent to the house of Onesiphorus
(2 Tim. iv. 19), who earlier in the letter (2 Tim. L 16-18) *
is identified as having come to Rome from Ephesus.
(2) The editor names certain persons whom he thinks
should be treated as especially dangerous heretics Hyme-
naeus, Alexander, and Philetus (1 Tim. i. 20; 2 Tim. ii
17). We know the names of a large number of early
heretics; but of the above none is ever heard of elsewhere.
x Prisca and Aquila, who are also saluted, were settled in Ephesus
and had a church in their house a few years earlier (1 Cor. xvi. 19).
They are also saluted in Romans (Rom. xvi. 3) ; personally, I accept
the view that Rom. xvi. was originally a separate letter addressed to
the church at Ephesus, or else a postscript appended to a copy of
Romans sent by Paul himself to the Ephesians at the time of writing.
At any rate, they cannot have been in Rome when 2 Tim. iv. 19 was
penned, since Paul was writing this in Rome.
110 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
Their importance, we infer, must have been purely local.
Our editor would never have singled out these persons,
and these only, for special execration unless be wrote in
a locality where they were well known and had a con-
siderable following. Since, then, they are represented as
among the most serious enemies whom Timothy would
have to face in Ephesus, it is a fair presumption that the
epistles were written in, and primarily for, the Church in
Asia.
If the editor wrote ia Ephesus not later than A.D. 110,
we may accept it as an historical fact, preserved by local
tradition, that Timothy had been either left in Ephesus
by Paul, or subsequently sent there by him. We know
that he had been sent on analogous missions to Corinth
and to Philippi.
For this cause have I sent unto you Timothy, who is my
beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who shall put you in
remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, even as I teach
everywhere in every church (1 Cor. iv. 17 f.).
Our editor's representation of the character of Timothy,
his relations with the Apostle, and the nature of his mis-
sion, has obviously been influenced by this passage, as
well as by the similar notice in Philippians (ii. 19-24).
The Apostle's repeated promise that he will follow up
Timothy 's visit with one by himself (1 Tim. iii. 14, 15;
iv. 13) is clearly an echo of the similar promises in 1 Cor.
iv. 19 and PhiL ii. 24. Similarly the injunction, 'Let no
man despise thy youth' (1 Tim. iv. 12), is evidently an
exegetical comment on 'Let no man therefore despise him*
(1 Cor. xvi. 10, 11) a mistaken exegesis, it should be
noted, since Timothy cannot have been a very young man
at this date.
It is possible that, after the death of Paul, Timothy
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 111
settled permanently in Ephesus. In that case the mantle
of Elijah would have descended upon Elisha, and Timothy
would have virtually stepped into the place of Paul, and
found himself in a position of acknowledged supremacy
over other officers of the local church. He would, in fact
if not in, name, have at once become bishop, in the mon-
archical sense, of that city with, in addition, a kind of
patriarchial jurisdiction over all other churches in the
province. It is more probable that after a time Timothy
resumed the life of a wandering ' Evangelist '; or possibly
he did settle and become virtually Bishop of Ephesus, but
did not hold the position long. We hear of him once at
a later date as being in prison; and on his release he may
have had to leave Asia (Heb. xiii. 23).
What happened to Timothy is a matter of conjecture;
but there is clear evidence that later on, precisely from the
lack of wise and trustworthy leaders, the church at Ephe-
sus passed through stormy times.
I know that after my departing, grievous wolves shall enter
in among you, not sparing the flock ; and from among your own
selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away
the disciples after them. ... I coveted no man's silver or gold,
or apparel. Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto
my necessities, and to them that were with me. In all things I
gave you an example (Acts xx. 29-30, 33-55) .
How far these are the exact words spoken by the
Apostle to the Ephesian episcopoi may be disputed (about
himself he says something very like this in 1 Thess. ii,
3-12) ; what is certain is that they would never have ap-
peared as the central point of emphasis in Paul's farewell
address, unless the author of Acts had known that in after
years this church had suffered, not only from heretical
teaching, but also from the venality and domineering spirit
of its officers. And the language used is far more intelli-
112 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
gible if the church was ruled by a group of officers of
co-equal power, than by one single individual, who might
have been held more or less responsible for what his sub-
ordinates taught and did. Other evidence points in the
same direction. From Colossians we see that, even within
the lifetime of St. Paul, Gnosticism, of an early type, was
beginning to invade the church in Asia. In 1 John we
hear of ' many Antichrists ' who ' went out from us, but
they were not of us'; such 'going out' implies a previous
struggle; 'many 7 implies heretics of more than one type.
There is also the allusion to the teaching (probably of
Cerinthus) that Christ did not really suffer on the Cross
(1 John v. 6). I comment later on the hint in 1 Peter,
coinciding with the passage quoted above from Acts, that
there was serious moral failure in some of the church
officials otherwise what need to exhort the Presbyters
to keep clear of 'filthy lucre 7 and of 'lording it over'
the flock of Christ? (1 Pet. v. 2 f.).
The iniquities of church officers are vigorously de-
nounced in one of the ancient sources believed to date
from the first century embodied in the Ascension of
Isaiah.
In those days many will love office, though devoid of wisdom.
And there will be many lawless elders, and shepherds dealing
wrongly by their own sheep, and they will ravage (them) owing
to their not having holy shepherds. . . . And there will not be
in those days many prophets, nor those who speak trustworthy
words, save one here and there in divers places. On account
of the spirit of error and fornication and of vainglory, and of
eovetousness, which shall be in those who will be called servants
of that One and in those who will receive that One. And there
will be great hatred in the shepherds and elders towards each
other (Hi 23-27) *
1 TM Ascemion of Isafah, p. 22 f ., ed. R. H. Charles. (A. & C*
Black, 1900*}
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 113
In the same document, but in another context, there
is an obscure phrase which seems to imply that at the
time of writing there were, though ' few ', still some alive,
who had seen the Lord in the flesh. We know that two
such, Aristion and the Elder John, survived in Asia till
late in the first century; and the evidence of Acts and
1 Peter suggests that in Asia the clergy earlier than else-
where acquired considerable power, and frequently abused
it. On the other hand, if the Didache be taken as evidence
for the state of affairs in Syria at this date, it would seem
that in that province the Episcopoi and Deacons had too
little authority (p. 150 ff.)- I infer that the document
represented by this section of the Ascension of Isaiah prob-
ably originated in Asia. 1 If so, it casts a flood of light
on the situation there.
It would look as if in the Church of that date as has
sometimes happened in the State, ancient and modern
a situation was developing such that the autocratic rule
of an individual seemed the only alternative to disintegra-
tion of the society. We may surmise that in Ephesus the
situation was saved by the Elder John. In that case the
memory of the period or periods in which Timothy, as
the accredited representative of the Apostle, had kept the
church true to the ideal of a Christian community, would
have been the precedent everywhere quoted by the party
who supported the concentration of power in the hands
of a single individual; so that, in effect, John (and other
local bishops) inherited in permanency the position once
temporarily held by Timothy.
But whatever may have been the history of the
fact that it was known to Ignatius at Antioch (Charles, op.
cit. p. 77), while evidence to the early date of the document, is no
objection to the view that it originated in Asia; he echoes phrases in
other literature written in Asia; e.g. the Pastorals and the Fourth
Gospel.
I
114 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH w
emergence in Ephesus of the monarchical episcopate, the
case of Diotrephes shows that it already existed in some
churches of Asia by the end of the first century. In Asia,
mon-episcopacy antedates the writing of the Pastoral
Epistles. We shall, then, make nonsense of the evidence
they afford as to Church Order, unless we study them with
this fact in mind. It will then appear that what the
author has in mind is, not advocacy of one type of church
government rather than another, but the moral level of its
personelle.
It was pointed out long ago by Jerome and by several
of the Greek fathers, that there is no passage in the New
Testament which compels the assumption that the terms
'Episcopos' and ' Presbyter are the names of two dif-
ferent offices. We remember that the leaders of the church
at Ephesus summoned to Miletus (Acts xx. 17-28) are
styled ' Presbyters ' but are addressed by Paul as <Epis~
copoi 7 ; while in the Pauline church of Philippi the officers
saluted are Episcopoi and Deacons. And so far as the
actual use of the word Episcopos is concerned, there
is nothing in the Pastorals to show that this usage has
changed. Titus is instructed
to appoint elders in every city ... if any man is blameless
, . . for the bishop must be blameless . , . (Tit. i. 5-7).
Again, when the duties and qualifications of particular
offices are being defined (1 Tim. iii. 1-13) the Episcopos,
Deacons and 'women' (apparently Deaconesses) are
mentioned, but not Presbyters. The word ' episcopos ' is
in the singular; but both passages read most naturally
if this is taken as the generic singular, which is quite com-
patible with there being several officers bearing that name
in each church.
Harnack and others argue that these passages the
w THE CHURCH IN ASIA 115
only two in which the word Episcopos occurs are early
interpolations. But in neither case is the connection of
thought in the context really improved if they are struck
out. Thus the paragraph 1 Tim. ii. 1-15 is concerned
with the conduct of public worship ; it is immediately fol-
lowed by the section 1 Tim. iii. 1-13, which deals with
the qualifications required in a person to be appointed to
the office of bishop or deacon. The writer then goes on
to say:
These things write I unto thee . . . that thou mayst know
how men ought to behave themselves in the House of God, which
is the Church of the living God (1 Tim. iii. 14-15).
In the English version this reads like an injunction as
to decorum in public worship; but in Greek the word
' house * in this context would suggest the idea of organi-
sation and management. It is, therefore, more appropriate
after a paragraph dealing with Church Order, than after
one concerned with the conduct of worship.
There is more to be said for the view that the passage
in Titus is an interpolation. The paragraph (Tit. i. 10),
'For there are many unruly men . . /, follows admir-
ably on the conclusion of L 6, 'who are not accused of
riot or unruly y , if the intervening verses (in which the
word 'episcopos' occurs) are struck out. But this also
makes quite good sense where it stands, and it 'is quite
in the style of the author of the rest of the epistle.
Even if these passages be regarded as genuine, there
is not much in the way of direct reference in the Pastorals
to church organisation as such] and what little there is
seems ambiguous designedly ambiguous, I suggest. The
reference to
the elders that rule well . . . especially those who labour in the
word md teaching (1 Tim. v. 17),
116 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
would be appropriate to a church ruled by a body of
Episcopoi who, as in the older usage, could be spoken of
under the generic name of Presbyters. But it would
equally have point in a church in which a single Episcopos
held a position superior to other Presbyters who yet en-
joyed subordinate powers of discipline. Again, the allusion
to the spiritual gift conferred by 'the laying on of hands
of the Presbytery' (1 Tim. iv. 14) would be appropriate
whichever way the church was governed; for even to the
present day priests are associated with the bishop in the
laying on of hands at ordinations.
What more likely than that the author, writing for a
district where most but not as yet all churches had a
monarchical bishop, should preserve a studious ambiguity.
He could do so, since the discussion of church organisa-
tion is not the main purpose of his epistles. Controversy
about primitive Church Order has largely raged round the
interpretation of the Pastoral epistles; again, the only two
passages which name * the bishop ? do so as ' the husband
of one wife * and this lends them to modern ears a faint
absurdity and picturesqueness which makes them stick in
the memory. Thus it has come about that among scholars
and divines it is more or less taken for granted that the
Pastoral epistles as a whole are primarily concerned with
church organization. But if they are read apart from
these two sections, there results a very different impres-
sion of the author's main aim. His purpose is then seen
to be, not so much ecclesiastical, as moral; that is to say,
he is not primarily concerned with advocating a particular
type of Church Order, but with exhorting the persons who
actually hold office to live worthily of their high responsi-
bilities. He is not concerned to make out that the mon-
archical episcopate existed in Ephesus in the lifetime of
the Apostles ; he was doubtless aware that it did not. What
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 117
he is concerned to do is to urge the rulers of the churches
of his own time in Ephesus and elsewhere to exercise
their office with the diligence, tact, and sense of a sacred
responsibility, that persons like Timothy and Titus dis-
played in the exercise of analogous, though not quite
identical, functions in the Apostolic Age. It was not the
form of church government, but the character of those
who held office, which was disquieting the Church at this
period.
The moral problems of any church differ from age to
age much less than the theological. Hence it will not be
entirely irrelevant to cite the Pionian Life of Polycarp as
evidence of the way in which the moral emphasis in these
epistles struck the early church. The passage to be cited
is also relevant as evidence, if not of the primitive method
of appointing a bishop, yet of that practised in Asia, per-
haps already in the second century.
And on the Sabbath, when prayer had been made long time
on bended knee [Polycarp], as was his custom, got up to read ;
and every eye was fixed upon him. Now the lesson was the
Epistles of Paul to Timothy and to Titus, in which he says what
manner of man a bishop ought to be. And he was so well fitted
for the office that the hearers said one to another that he lacked
none of those qualities which Paul requires in one who has the
care of a church. "When, then (after the reading, and the in-
struction of the bishops and the discourses of the presbyters) the
deacons were sent to the laity to enquire whom they would have,
they said with one accord, 'Let Polycarp be our pastor and
teacher '. The whole priesthood then having assented, they ap-
pointed him, notwithstanding his earnest entreaties and his desire
to decline.
Accordingly the deacons led him up for ordination by the
hands of the bishops according to custom. And being placed in
Ms chair by them, he moistened and anointed first with tears of
piety and humility the place where in the spirit he saw standing
118 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH w
the feet of Christ who was present with him for the anointing to
the priestly office. For where the ministers are the priests and
Levltes there in the midst is also the High-priest arrayed in the
great flowing robe. Then the company present urged him, since
this was the custom, to address them. For they said that this
work of teaching was the most important part of the communion
(Life of Poly carp, 22-23).
Then follows a brief sermon, in the course of which,
it is interesting to note, the Pastoral epistles are again
alluded to.
This office exceeds my powers ; for I well know that no man
could fulfil it well, except that he hath just received it from the
Lord from heaven, as the blessed Paul has shown in his epistles,
showing in a single word the whole life of one who is appointed
to office, when he speaks of it as e blameless '.
Of the practical advice given to Timothy in the Pas-
torals the larger part is pointless except as given to persons
in a position to exercise a virtually supreme authority.
Timothy and Titus are historical individuals, and are rep-
resented as having such authority delegated to them by
the Apostle who writes the letters; but the actual letters
are the work of one who wrote years after these two dis-
tinguished personages were dead. The question, then,
which the historian must ask himself is, What was the
motive of the editor of the Pastorals in developing all this
elaborate advice as to how an individual in supreme
charge of a church was to order his own life and that of
the community ? Clearly, such advice would have point
only if at the time of writing (at any rate in some churches)
individuals existed who were in a position to carry it out.
The author of the Pastorals, we infer, takes the mon-
archical episcopate for granted. To him the figures of
Timothy and Titus are of interest, not as historical per-
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 119
sonages, but as affording him an opportunity of portraying
two different types of the ideal bishop. Timothy is the
ideal bishop in his relation to his own church in a province
like Ephesus, where organised churches already existed
in all the principal towns. Titus, on the other hand, is
the ideal of the Missionary Bishop the bishop of some
outlying province, where the churches outside the bishop's
own headquarters are weak and disorganized. That is why
in the epistle to Titus rather more stress is laid on church
organisation as such. But, though mentioned first, this
subject is still treated as one of which the actual details
may be taken as a matter of established tradition.
Clement of Alexandria quotes a story about the Apostle
John and a convert who became a robber chief and was
re-converted. 1 He may have got this from the Acts of
John; but Clement tells us he had lived in Ionia the
ancient name for the coast cities of Asia and he implies
that he got it from oral tradition; and his incidental re-
mark, 'a certain city . . . whose very name is told by
some ', seems to imply divergencies in the tradition unlikely
to be found in a written source. If so, the story stands on
a different footing from the narratives derived by various
fathers from the Acts of John. But if we may take leave
to assume that the story is in the main historical, but
should be told, not of the Apostle John but of the Elder,
we get a picture of his activities on a more extended scale.
He went also, when invited, 2 from Ephesus to the neighbour-
ing regions of the Gentiles : in some to appoint bishops, in some
to institute entire new churches, and in others to appoint to the
1 Quis Dives, xliii., also Eus., H,E. iii. 23.
fl Euseb., H.E. iii. 23. The phrase * when invited ' has a primitive
look. It is not an attitude which a later writer would attribute to
churches in dealing with an apostle. Another evidence of antiquity is
the fact that the same person is first spoken of as 'the Bishop' and
then as *the Presbyter '. Of. 7-8 in Eusebius' version.
120 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
ministry some one of those that were pointed out by the Holy
Ghost.
Now the procedure here attributed to John is exactly
that ascribed to Titus in the epistle addressed to him.
But why, we ask, are not similar duties in regard to
the smaller cities of the province assigned to Timothy,
whose headquarters is Ephesus ? Timothy and Titus are
character sketches of the ideal bishop. But by the time
the Pastorals were written mon-episcopacy would seem
to have been established in all or most of the cities of
Asia. And these bishops may have been a trifle jealous
of their rights as against the See of Ephesus. Even John
the Elder may have found it more difficult than he had
anticipated to bring Diotrephes to heel. In the days of
John's successor, who necessarily lacked the prestige of
being a disciple of the Lord, it was more tactful not to
raise this question. Timothy and Titus are painted as
models of the ideal bishop; but it was perhaps safer not
to suggest that the one of them who was stationed at
Ephesus exercised in regard to neighbouring cities duties
and authority which pertained to the bishops of provincial
capitals in more backward provinces.
But, it may be objected, the Timothy of the Pastorals
is not permanently at Ephesus; his residence there is tem-
porary, ' Till I come ' (1 Tim. iv. 13). To this I reply that
the facts about Timothy's stay in Ephesus were well known
and could not be otherwise represented. But if we examine
the instructions given him, it is clear that they are not at
all of an emergency character; they are appropriate only
if given to a person who has both the responsibilities and
the difficulties of a man in supreme charge of a great
church over a period oj years. He is told that the example
of a good life is to be relied on, quite as much as steady
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 121
sound teaching, to counteract heresy (1 Tim. iv. 12) ; that
a body of ' faithful men ' is to be trained up to hand on
to others the true doctrine (2 Tim. ii.) 7 and so on. The
epistles might be entitled, "Advices to those who are, or
who aspire to become, Bishops 7 . And the advice is ex-
actly what we should expect of an author who wrote after
the monarchical episcopate had been established in Ephe-
sus and the principal towns of the neighbourhood. He
wrote to supply what the time needed; and what the time
needed was, not a defence of episcopacy, but good bishops.
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
The first epistle of Peter is addressed to the Church in
certain provinces of Asia Minor. It ends with a saluta-
tion from the church in Babylon. Does this mean the
famous city on the Euphrates, or is it a veiled name for
Rome?
That Peter should have conceived the idea of preach-
ing in Babylon is highly probable. Paul, born a Roman
citizen and conscious of a call to evangelise the Gentiles,
naturally turned his eyes towards the West ultimately
towards Spain. Just as naturally a Palestinian Jew, con-
vinced as Peter was that God's call for him was to preach
to the ' circumcision ', would look East, towards Babylonia.
We moderns, with 2000 years of European religion behind
us, think as Paul thought; but to a Palestinian Jew, Baby-
lon must have seemed a far more important, and a far
more promising, field for missionary endeavour. It was
the best of the Jews who had been taken into exile; and if
anyone was inclined to forget that fact, there were there
to remind him the prophecies of Jeremiah (xxiv. 1 flf.)
about the good and 'very evil figs', not to mention the
evident fact that the religious reforms of Ezra and Nehe-
miah were forced upon the Palestinian Jews by men from
122 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH w
Babylon. The purest stock and the strictest orthodoxy
still Lad its centre in Mesopotamia. The Christians of
Jerusalem did not forget this. In the tradition which had
reached Luke about the day of Pentecost, the list of per-
sons whom Peter addressed is headed, not by the Greek-
speaking Jews of the Dispersion in the West, but by ' Par-
thians, Modes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia '.
The first place outside Palestine where we hear of Chris-
tianity is Damascus on the high road to the Euphrates.
If a Hellenised courtier like Josephus thought it worth
while to write the first edition of his book on the Jewish
war in Aramaic, for the benefit of his fellow countrymen
in Mesopotamia, how much more would a missionary like
Peter desire to bring the message of salvation to his people
in their second home f before the great and terrible day
of the Lord come *.
But if Peter did go to Babylon, it is unlikely that he
was well received there. Babylon, the home of Ezra,
practically untouched by Hellenistic culture, would be
rocky ground on which to sow the seed. In all ages there
has been a wide gulf between orthodox and liberal Judaism;
and the difference between the Judaism of Antioch and
that of Babylon would be comparable to the difference
to-day between the Judaism of New York and of Damas-
cus. At any rate, Peter did not succeed in laying in
Babylon the foundations of a church which preserved the
memory of his work and of his name.
But though Peter may well have gone to Babylon, we
should not have expected to find there in his company
both Silvanus ( = Silas) and Mark, who had been such
useful and successful fellow-workers of Paul in the Gen-
tile West. Still less should we expect Peter, if he did go
to Babylon, from that city to write a letter addressed ex-
pressly to the churches of Northern Asia Minor the special
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 123
sphere of Paul's activity. Accordingly, the view that in
this epistle, as in the book of Revelation, the name Baby-
lon should be understood to mean Rome, has the balance
of probability in its favour.
Yet it is surely very strange that anyone writing an
actual letter from Rome itself should date it as from
Babylon. To call Rome 'Babylon 7 is entirely consonant
with the fiery symbolism of the Apocalypse; it is appro-
priate in a work like the Sibylline Oracles, which is not
only apocalyptic in spirit but metrical in form. But in
the sober prose of a letter it seems out of place, and quite
extraordinarily so in this particular letter.
Not only the style of 1 Peter, but its whole attitude
towards the Roman power, is the very antithesis of that
of the author of Revelation, awaiting with exultation the
fall of
the great city, the woman on whose forehead a name is written,
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND
OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH . . . drunken with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus
(Rev. xvii 5 ff.).
How absolute a contrast is Peter's exhortation:
Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
whether it be to the king as supreme ; or unto governors, as sent
by him for vengeance on evil doers and for praise to them that do
weU. ... (1 Peter ii 13 ff.).
He goes on to put side by side the precepts, 'Fear
God; honour the king'. Could one who speaks in this way
of the sacred duty of obedience towards the Emperor and
the provincial governors who are his representatives, pro-
ceed in cold blood to name the seat of Empire, ' Babylon ' ?
Perforce we must raise the question, Is this epistl^
124 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
so called really a letter at all, and with that the conse-
quential question, Is it an authentic work of Peter ?
The first epistle of Peter is one of the finest things in
the New Testament; and were plenary inspiration and
apostolic authorship identical as was supposed when the
Canon of the New Testament was settled we could only
affirm it to be the work of an Apostle. But once we have
made up our minds that such marvellous pieces as the
epistle to the Hebrews and the Fourth Gospel are not by
Apostles, we have recognised the fact that inspiration in
the fullest sense was in no way limited to St. Paul and
the Twelve. Frankly I confess the pang it costs me to
surrender the Petrine authorship ; but the loss I feel is in
our knowledge of Peter himself, not in the value which
the epistle has for me. We are free, then, to consider the
problem of this epistle apart from any a priori prejudice
in favour of apostolic authorship derived from its high
religious quality.
The external evidence in favour of the epistle is not
quite so strong as we should have expected.
(1) Eusebius classes it among the books concerning
which there has never been any doubt in the Church. We
cannot, however, accept this without examination; for
among the undisputed books he includes the Gospel of
John, concerning which there was at Rome in the middle
of the second century considerable hesitation even in
orthodox circles. 1 Moreover, in regard to 1 Peter and
1 John, Eusebius is careful to quote evidences of use by
ancient writers a thing which he does not do in regard
to the thirteen epistles of Paul which, with the Gospels,
1 See my The Four Gospels, p. 436 ff. Since the publication of that
book I have learnt that in Barsalibi's Commentary it is stated on the
authority of Hippolytus that Gaius (whom Eusebius elsewhere (ii.
25.6) calls * a churchman *) attributed both the Gospel and the
Apocalypse to Cerinthus.
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 125
Acts, 1 John, and 1 Peter, make up the list which he
classes as undisputed. He tells us it was used by Papias
and Polycarp; but the possibility that Polycarp knew it,
but not as Peter's (p. 132) , cannot be ruled out.
(2) Westcott remarks:
The actual traces of the early use of 1 Peter in the Latin
churches are very scanty. There is not the least evidence to show
that its authority was ever disputed, but, on the other hand, it
does not seem to have been much read. . . . Tertullian quotes
it only twice, and that too in writings which are more or less open
to suspicion. 1
But if Peter both wrote the epistle and died in Rome, it
is precisely in the Latin churches that we should expect
to find it most quoted. True, it is cited by Irenaeus,
A.D. 185. But in the matter of the Canon he represents
Asian, more strictly than typically Western, opinion.
(3) It is not included in the Muratorianum, which gives
the list of canonical books accepted at Rome A.D. 200, or
perhaps earlier. Its omission there may be accidental, for
the only surviving copy of that document has a very
corrupt text; yet none of the conjectures, as to the precise
place in which an allusion to 1 Peter might have originally
stood, is satisfactory. Moreover, corroborative evidence
of the absence of 1 Peter from the Roman Canon in A.D.
170 may be deduced from its absence from that of the
Syri'ac-speaking church in Mesopotamia as late as Aphra-
ates (c. A.D. 350) and Ephraim (died A.D. 373). This
shows that it was not among the books which Tatian
brought with him from Rome when he founded the church
of Edessa (c. A.D. 172) .
On grounds of internal evidence various objections
have been raised to the epistle being the work of Peter
of which three are weighty.
1 Canon of the New Testament, p. 263. (Macmillan, 1896.)
126 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
(1) It would seem that the author had read, and that
his language and thoughts have been influenced by, epistles
of Paul more especially by Romans and Ephesians. He
also exhibits a mastery of the Greek tongue greater than
we should have expected of the Apostle Peter. This objec-
tion has been countered by the hypothesis that the letter
was as much the work of Paul's old comrade Silvanus, who
is mentioned as the scribe, as of Peter himself. It is also
suggested that there are points of contact they do not
amount to very much between the epistle and the speeches
attributed to Peter in the early chapters of Acts. It is,
however, improbable that these speeches rest on records,
or even authentic memories, of what Peter actually said.
In the exhilaration of those first days of the * outpouring
of the Spirit ' it was on the present and on the future, not
on the past, that the minds of all were turned. It is more
likely that these speeches represent the average apologetic
of certain circles uninfluenced by Pauline thought with
which Luke was in contact. Moreover, the fact that cer-
tain passages in 1 Peter are most naturally explained by
a literary dependence on epistles of Paul, makes it not
unlikely that the author had read Acts as well; indeed,
the exhortation, 'tend the flock of Christ' (1 Pet. v. 2),
is much nearer to the speech attributed to Paul in Acts
xx. 28 than are any passages in the Epistle to speeches of
Peter in that book.
(2) We should not have expected Peter himself to have
said:
The elders, therefore, among you I exhort, who am a fellow-
elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
Not that Peter would have been too proud to call
himself a Presbyter; but in the apostolic age the titles
'Apostle' and 'Presbyter' were applied to persons who
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 127
exercised functions of a wholly different character. The
one was a wandering missionary, the other was a local
official. An admiral might properly address a group of
midshipmen as * fellow officers ', but not as ' fellow sol-
diers '; the words ascribed to Peter would, if written before
A.D. 70, have a similar inappropriateness.
Again, strictly speaking, Peter was not f a witness of
the sufferings of Christ '. Neither he nor any of the Twelve
were present at the Crucifixion. This point may at first
sound niggling; and it would be so but for the fact that
in the Acts, in six different speeches, Peter goes out of his
way to call himself a 'witness' of the Resurrection which
of course he truly was.
(3) The epistle was written at a time when the profes-
sion of Christianity was a crime punishable by death; for
it is implied (iv. 15-16) that for being a Christian a man
might suffer the same penalty as for being a murderer.
Liability to the death-penalty for the mere profession of
'the name* may have followed automatically from the
action taken by Nero though this is a point of Roman
jurisprudence disputed by eminent scholars. It certainly
cannot have existed earlier than Nero. If, then, the epistle
was written by Peter in Rome, it must have been written
after the spectacular display in the gardens of Nero on
the Vatican. 1 It is possible that Peter came to Rome
shortly after this event; and if Paul was dead there would
be nothing remarkable in Peter writing to a group of
*Prof. Bartlet suggests to me a view, partially based on that of
Hort. If Paul was condemned to death by Nero A.D. 62, the profession
of 'the name' would have at once become in law a penal offence.
Shortly after this, but fee/ore the great outrage of A.D. 64, Peter might
have written from Home to Asia, in expectation that the local authori-
ties in the provinces would enforce the law the use of Babylon for
Rome being a precautionary disguise. If the epistle be regarded as
being as much the work of Silas as of Peter, this would be a possible
occasion. But the other difficulties discussed in this Lecture still
remain.
128 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
Pauline churches a word of exhortation, in view of the
probability that a persecution begun in Rome would shortly
extend to Asia. But in these circumstances, it is remark-
able that he should say not a word either about their
founder Paul or about the recent horrors in Rome. More
remarkable is what he does say. I find it hard to believe
that anyone (pagan or Christian) with any sense of real-
ities at all, however strongly impressed with the duty of
civic obedience in general, in that mad cresendo of futility,
debauchery, and crime with which the reign of Nero ended
while living in Rome itself in the very midst of it all
could write of such a government, without any hint of
reserve or qualification, that it was sent by God.
for vengeance on evil doers and for praise to those that do well.
. . . Fear God ; honour the Emperor.
For fifty years the ingenuity of scholars has been taxed
by the attempt to envisage the actual historical situation
presupposed by the epistle. So small a measure of agree-
ment has been reached that to venture a new solution will
hardly be deemed 'temerarious. But if I do this, it is with
full consciousness of its precarious character. The hy-
pothesis I am about to put forward is one which would
explain the facts, and that in a way which is, to my mind,
less unsatisfactory than any other I have come across;
but I should be the last to maintain that it is the only
hypothesis which will explain them ; or that it is one which
admits of verification of a convincing character.
I will Begin, then, by allowing myself to make the
tentative assumption which I owe to a suggestion put out
by Harnack many years ago that the address and salu-
tations (which form the first two and last three verses)
are additions by a later editor, who hoped thereby to turn
a document already old and valued into an 'epistle'
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 129
which could then find a place in the public estimation of
the Church alongside the epistles of Paul. Apart from
these verses, the document falls into two clearly marked
portions, the longer of which (i. 3-iv. 11) reads, not like
a letter, but like a sermon. H. Gunkel in his Introduction
to the epistle 1 mentions a recent conjecture of Perdelwite
(a writer to whose works I have not direct access) that
this section of the epistle was originally an address given
by the bishop to a group of newly baptized persons
presumably at some great festival
In the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein
few, that is eight souls, were saved through water : which also
after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a
good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ (Hi. 20 1).
In the early Church candidates for baptism were normally
adults converted from heathenism, and would include per-
sons of very different classes slaves, married women,
fathers of families (ii. 18-iii. 7), Read as an address given
on such an occasion the exhortations are extraordinarily
appropriate an inspiring description of the new life into
which they have been re-born, followed by encouragement
to face alike the responsibilities involved and the hostility
of the outside world.
On any view the doxology and 'Amen' (iv. 11) is a
note of conclusion which detaches the latter part of the
epistle from what goes before. A fresh start is then made.
This might be explained by supposing that the preacher
now turns from the group of the newly baptized to address
the larger congregation present including presbyters who
1 Die Schriften dea Neuen Testaments, in, p. 250. I owe the refer-
ence to Dr. A. E. J. Rawlinson.
130 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
have come in from the adjacent villages. But there is a
change both in tone and in substance at this point, which
makes it more probable that this latter section (iv. 12-v.
11) really is a pastoral letter, written perhaps two or three
years later by the same author as the sermon no doubt
the bishop of some important city to be circulated in the
smaller towns of the district. The difference between i.
3-iv, 11 and iv. 12-v. 11 is comparable to that between
the first epistle of John and the second. Instead of dis-
course on the general principles of the Christian life (emi-
nently suitable in an address to those just entering upon
it) , we find advice directed to a definite historical situation.
In the first part of the epistle Christians are warned in a
general way that they may expect trials (i. 6-7) ; but only
when the preacher is specifically addressing slaves who in
antiquity might at any moment be put to the torture by
their masters does he dwell on the right attitude towards
suffering. In the second a ' fiery trial J has to be faced of
an unexpected character (' think it not strange . . . .
Clearly there has just occurred an outbreak of persecution,
which threatens to become worse. Christians need the
warning to stand firm but first let each make quite sure
that his own life is such as never to give the magistrate
just cause for penal action. There are, it is implied, some
Christians who require to be so exhorted: 'The time is
come for judgment to begin at the house of God \
In this hour of crisis the persons on whom rests the
gravest responsibility are the presbyters (v. 2-3). Here
again we come across indications of venality and arrogance
among the ministers. This we have seen, from the Acts
(xx. 24 ff.) and from other evidence (p. 108 i), had become
an acute problem for the church in Asia after A.D. 80. We
should not have expected to see it already within the life-
time of Peter. Again, the Apocalypse affords evidence of
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 131
an outbreak of persecution in Asia near the end of the
reign of Domitian (A.D. 90-95), possibly due to his at-
tempted enforcement of Emperor-worship, which seems to
have been carried out with exceptional vigour in that
province.
These facts lead us on to the reflection that, if once
we decide that the balance of evidence is against Petrine
authorship, the case for the document having any connec-
tion at all with Rome simply disappears. On the other
hand, a number of considerations point to Asia as the
place where it was originally written, and where subse-
quently the opening and concluding salutations were added.
(1) Babylon as a name for Rome occurs in the Apoca-
lypse of John, undoubtedly an Asian document. We know,
therefore, that in Asia Rome was spoken of under that
figure; that the figure would be used by anyone living in
Rome itself, is less probable.
(2) The list of provinces to which the epistle is ad-
dressed has caused puzzlement to scholars. It is neither
addressed to a single church, like most of the epistles of
Paul; nor to the Church at large, like James or the pseu-
donymous 2 Peter. It purports to be sent to Christians
in five different provinces of Asia Minor. Various theories
have been put forth to explain by what possible compli-
cation of routes a messenger coming either from Rome or
Babylon would be able to deliver such a letter to the
persons addressed on his way through the provinces named.
But a glance at the map reveals the perfectly simple fact
that the epistle is addressed to all Asia Minor north of
the natural boundary formed by the range of mountains
of which Taurus is the core. 1 Cilicia (and the smaller
provinces south of the mountains), fell within the sphere
* I assume the correctness of Prof. Kamsay's view as to the borders
of the Koman province of Galatia at this period.
132 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
of influence of Antiooh (of. Gal, I 21; Acts xv. 23, 41). 1
The curious order in which the various provinces are
named is explained by Hort on the theory that the bearer
of the letter would land at Sinope, or some other port in
Pontus, and, traversing a circular route, would return to
the same place thus reaching Bithynia, which adjoins
Pontus, last. I would offer the alternative explanation
that the opening verses were first prefixed to the document
in Sinope, at the time when Pliny (AJ>. 112) , then Gover-
nor of Pontus and Bithynia, had begun to persecute
Christians, and when it was doubtless anticipated that his
alacrity would be imitated by governors of neighbouring
provinces. In such a crisis the message of the latter part
of 1 Peter would be one to which church leaders might well
desire to give fresh currency.
(3) The epistle is first quoted in Asia. Polycarp's fre-
quent quotation of it implies that it was highly valued in
Smyrna although, as Haraack pointed out, we are not
entitled to assume that, when Polycarp read it, the opening
and closing paragraphs, which assert Petrine authorship,
were as yet appended. It is noticeable, too, that whereas
Polycarp names Paul twice, he never mentions Peter. Nor,
I may add, does Polycarp's use of it imply that he re-
garded it as apostolic; for he treats Clement in the same
way; while Clement makes a similar use of Hebrews.
(4) Apart from the affinities which 1 Peter has with
Romans and Ephesians which were circulated all over
Christendom its literary contacts are with literature defi-
nitely connected with Asia:
(a) The usage which speaks of a church as 'she that
is elect ' is paralleled in 2 John 13.
(6) 'Whom not having seen ye love' recalls the words
1 Of. F. JT. A. Hort, The First Epistle of tit. Peter, p, 175 ff, (Mac-
millan, 1898.)
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 133
of the Fourth Gospel, ' Blessed are those who
have not seen, and yet have believed',
(c) The exhortation (1 Pet. v. 2), 'Tend the flock of
Christ', echoes the tradition which lies behind
the ' Feed my lambs ? of John xxi. 16 ff . ; or the
farewell speech of Paul to the Ephesian elders
(Acts xx. 28).
(5) Prof. Goodspeed makes the interesting suggestion
that the emphasis on the Pauline principle that Christians
were to honour the emperor and his representatives as
persons wielding, each in his own sphere, an authority
Divine in origin was directly called forth by the necessity
of doing something to counteract a dangerous movement
among Christians of Asia who had been too powerfully
affected by the identification of Rome with the Power of
Evil, preached by the author of the Apocalypse. 1 This is
an attractive suggestion; but if it be accepted, surely an
attempt to recall the churches of Asia to the traditional
attitude of their founder, Paul, is more likely to have
been made by one who lived on the spot and knew the
actual situation, rather than by a writer in far-away Rome.
(6) Some critics hold the epistle to have been written
at Rome pseudonymously in the name of Peter, in order
to be sent to Asia Minor to encourage Christians in face
of some particular outbreak of persecution. I find such
a conception difficult. In the time of Pipin the Frank it
was possible for a Pope to write a letter in the name of
Peter dealing with a present crisis; it was not possible
in the first century. A letter coming straight from Rome
about A.D. 90 would not have been accepted in Asia Minor
as the genuine work of Peter; in order to be so accepted
1 New Solutions of 'New Testament Problems, B. J. G-oodspeed, p. 32.
(University of Chicago Press, 1927.)
134 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
there, It must have been produced as a work of Peter which
had reached the churches addressed in it long ago, and
which had recently been re-discovered in Asia itself.
The epistle, then, I suggest, is made up of two writings
by the same author, about the year A.D. 90 a sermon and
a letter. These having been originally copied, one imme-
diately after the other, on the same papyrus roll, were
afterwards supposed to be a single piece. Twenty years
or more later the name of the author being lost, as so
often happened in antiquity its supreme religious quality
led to the conjecture that it was the work of an apostle.
This conjecture proving to be generally acceptable, the
existing address and salutation (i 1-2; v. 12-14) were
added possibly in Sinope in Pliny's time in order the
better to secure for it the authority of an apostolic name.
It thus became possible to justify its inclusion alongside
the epistles of Paul in the Canon of New Testament writ-
ings recognised by the churches of Asia and on the guar-
antee of Asia it was rapidly accepted by the Church at
large.
The battle with Gnosticism was largely fought on the
appeal to Apostolic tradition; hence Apostolic authorship-
became a sine qua nan for the inclusion in the Canon of
any document, save the Gospels of Mark and Luke which
were brought in under the wing, so to speak, of Peter and
Paul. 1 The most notable instance is the epistle to the
Hebrews. This was so highly valued at Rome A.D. 96 that
it has largely determined the theology of the epistle of
Clement. But at Rome it was evidently known not to be
*Cf. Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iv. 5: '(The Gospel) which was pub-
lished by Mark may also be maintained to be Peter's, whose interpreter
Mark was ; for the narrative of Luke also is generally ascribed to
Paul ; since it is allowable that that which pupils publish should be
regarded as their master's work.' *" *
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 135
by Paul ; it was, therefore, not even considered for admis-
sion into the Canon in that church in the Mumtorwnum
it is not even mentioned. But at Alexandria a tradition
had arisen, old enough for Pantaenus, the master of
Clement of Alexandria, to take for granted, that it was
the work of Paul. Thus the Alexandrians, though much
troubled by the difference in style between this and the
other Pauline letters, were able to accept it as Apostolic.
Ultimately Rome, probably urged by Athanasius, re-
accepted it on the authentication of the East as a genuine
epistle of Paul.
The name of Paul was never inserted into the actual
text of Hebrews; but in Asia there was less diffidence in
re-editing ancient texts. The phenomenon of the Pastoral
Epistles proves this. But there is no need to suggest a
.consciously fraudulent intention. It was becoming an
axiom that an early document of high religious merit must
be Apostolic ; for only to Apostles was supreme inspiration
given. Since, then, the style of 1 Peter would not allow
it to be ascribed to Paul, it was natural to conjecture that
it was the work of Peter, the only other apostle who had
anything to do with the Gentiles. Peter was already con-
nected in Asian tradition with the Gospel of Mark; and in
that tradition, as expressed by the Elder John, Mark had
been Peter's 'interpreter'; but this epistle not being in the
style of Mark, conjecture supplied another interpreter in
Silvanus. The transition from hypothesis to definite asser-
tion is not a difficult one even to modern critics. But in
those days an assertion, if made often enough to become a
'tradition', could be more readily transmuted by some
ingenious pen into an address and a closing salutation,
modelled on those of the epistles of Paul thereby, per-
haps, saving the epistle from oblivion. Copies without the
editorial additions would doubtless still be in circulation.
136 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
But in another fifty years these would be regarded as muti-
lated and there would be then no textual critic to defend
their originality. Their owners would 'correct 1 them by
the fuller text; and any clean copies made from these would
show no traces of the fact of such correction.
AKISTION OF SMYRNA
But, granted the epistle be not by Peter, is it still
possible to make a reasonable guess at the name of the
actual author?
I am bold to hazard such, offering it, I would emphasise,
not as * a result of criticism J , but frankly as a guess but
I hope, a ' scientific ' guess. Let us re-examine a sentence
already quoted:
The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-
elder, and a witness of the sufferings 1 of Christ (v. 1).
The phrase ' fellow-elder ' clearly belongs to the original
document. If it is not easy to envisage Peter speaking
of himself thus, it is far more difficult to imagine a pseu-
donymous writer making an apostle so speak. Such
writers invariably over-emphasise the status of the great
men in whose name they write. We proceed to ask whether
the words ' a witness of the sufferings of Christ ' also belong
to the original document, or whether they are an interpo-
lation by the editor.
Obviously, if the original document did contain these
words, they would readily suggest, and then be used to
justify, the conjecture that it was the work of an apostle.
Let us, then, assume for the moment that the words are
original, and see what conclusions that assumption would
entail. First, that the original document was written by a
person who had been present at the Crucifixion, if only as
a mere boy. Now the passage of Papias quoted above
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 137
(p. 92) shows that there were two persons who were reck-
oned in Asia to rank next after the Apostles as authorities
for the authentic teaching of Christ, and were styled
'Disciples of the Lord', namely, the Elder John and
Aristion. I have given reasons (p. 93 f.) for supposing
that it was this John whom Polycarp of Smyrna meant
when he spoke of his contact 'with John and others who
had seen the Lord \ l Now, in the context in Papias, the
mention of this John required the addition of the title
'Elder* to distinguish him from the Apostle John, pre-
viously named in the same sentence; but doubtless Aristion
also bore the title Elder. 2 Hence it would be perfectly
natural for Aristion to say in a letter:
The elders among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a
witness to the sufferings of Christ.
We next notice a special connection between the epistle,
the name Aristion, and the city of Smyrna. In the Apos-
tolic Constitutions the name of the first Bishop of Smyrna
is given as Ariston. The reasons for ascribing considerable
historical value to this notice I have already discussed;
and I have noted the fact that in pagan writers Ariston
and Aristion are interchangeable forms of the same name
(p. 96). Now Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna; Irenaeus
could remember his speaking of his connection not only
with John (I will assume the John he spoke of was really
the Elder, not the Apostle) but with * others who had seen
the Lord'. The ancients habitually exaggerate; but the
existence of at least one such person besides John is re-
quired to justify the plural ' others '. Further, Polycarp is
the earliest writer to use 1 Peter; and he echoes it more
often than he does any other book in the New Testament.
1 Of. Irenaeus' Letter to Florinus (ap. Eus. H.E. v. 20) .
"He is styled 'Elder* in the colophon in the Armenian MS., which
attributes to him the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark (p. 96, *.)
138 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH iv
In Smyrna, therefore, it was a religious classic though
probably not yet attributed to Peter. Much the simplest
explanation of all these facts would be that the baptismal
sermon (1 Pet. i. 3-iv. 11), and the letter concerning perse-
cution (1 Pet. iv. 12-v. 11), which together make up the
epistle, are by Aristion, Bishop of Smyrna.
Turn now to the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia
in the Apocalypse. The church of Smyrna is mentioned
second naturally, next to Ephesus Smyrna was the most
important city of the province. But the message of the
Seer to this church is shorter than that delivered to any
other of the Seven. The core of it is this:
Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer ; behold
the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may
be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou
faithful unto death, and I will give t&ee the crown of life (Rev.
ii. 10),
This surely is the very same situation as that which
has called forth the latter part of 1 Peter. The 'fiery
trial '; ' suffering for the name' at the hand of the magis-
trate; and the devil conceived not in his more usual r61e
of tempter but as the agent in persecution,
whom withstand, knowing that the same sufferings are accom-
plished by your brethren who are in the world (v. 9) .
The writer of the Apocalypse views from outside an
impending persecution by the civil power centering in
Smyrna; and to him that civil power is on the side of
Satan. In 1 Peter iv. 12-v. 11 we have the reaction from
within of the man responsible for the church, both in
Smyrna and in the country towns dependent on it. He
knows that it is dangerous to teach that kind of thing in a
Levantine slum. Like Paul, he recognises in the Roman
Empire, with all its faults, a power that upholds law, order,
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 139
and civil justice. He had himself, perhaps only a year or
two earlier, urged his people to look on rulers as sent by
God 'for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them
that do well '. It is no longer possible for him to speak so.
But he will still urge the Christians not to lose their heads
(iv. 12 f.) ; and above all, not to come into conflict with
the authorities in so far as they do function legitimately
as the upholders of law and order.
He writes like a man entitled by his position, not
merely to indite letters of exhortation in the face of an
emergency, but to speak to the presbyters of the district
in a tone of paternal admonition bordering on rebuke.
Few men would be so entitled. But Aristion having the
prestige, not only of Bishop of Smyrna, but still more of
one who had 'seen the Lord', would have title enough
and to spare. He could afford to say, c I, who am a fellow
elder '. And such writings by such a personage would be
cherished at Smyrna as a religious classic.
THE CHURCH ORDER IMPLIED
So far this discussion of the authorship of 1 Peter may
have seemed pure digression, having little or no bearing
on the question of the evolution of Church Order. That
is not so ; for supposing the identification of the author of
1 Peter with Aristion of Smyrna the evidence for which
I am quite aware falls a long way short of demonstration
to be provisionally accepted, we have a document which
we can date. It is contemporary with the Apocalypse, i.e.
A.D. 90-95. But, whoever was its author or whatever be
its date, we have in 1 Peter evidence of a stage in the
evolution of the importance of the regular ministry, con-
siderably in advance of anything in the epistles of Paul.
The elders therefore among you I exhort. . . . Tend the
flock pf God which is among you [exercising the oversight], not
140 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH w
of constraint, but willingly, according unto God ; nor yet for
filthy lucre, but of a ready mind ; neither as lording it over the
charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the
flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye
shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away (1 Peter
v. 1-4).
It is here taken for granted as in Acts xx. 28 and
Ephesians iv, 11 that Presbyters stand to the people in
a relation comparable to that of a shepherd to his flock,
and even, in a sense, to that of Christ Himself to the
believers. More than that, it is implied that some Pres-
byters need to be exhorted not to ' lord it over ' the flock.
But this would be a real temptation only to men whose
status or office was one that made ' lording it ' a practical
procedure.
It follows that we must read a passage in the first part
of the epistle in the light of that discussed above.
For ye were going astray like sheep ; but are now returned to
the shepherd and bishop of your souls (ii 25) .
This application to Christ Himself of the titles Pastor
and Bishop, which used thus in collocation with one another
are clearly meant to recall their use of the Christian min-
istry, is rather startling. It would have been impossible
except it were addressed to a church where the powers,
prestige, and responsibility of the regular ministry had for
years been a matter of general acceptance. If I am right
in regarding the first part of the epistle as a sermon, this
is primarily evidence for Smyrna itself. The warnings
against venality and overbearing conduct occur in the
latter part of the epistle, which is addressed to other
churches perhaps less fortunate in their rulers.
The identification of the writer with Aristion would
also ease the solution of one of the most difficult problems
iv THE CHURCH IN ASIA 141
of early Church History. How can we bridge the gulf
between the original, more or less ' presbyterian ', organi-
sation of the Pauline churches in Asia, and the monarchical
episcopate which we find established there by the time of
Ignatius and Polycarp (c. A.D. 115) ? So far as the church
of Ephesus is concerned, I have called in the personality of
John the Elder to explain the development. Obviously a
similar explanation holds good of Smyrna, if that was the
church of Aristion. Like John the Elder, he could speak
with authority as one who had seen the Lord; if he was
also a man of the character and religious insight shown
by 1 Peter, it would not have been long before in his own
church he attained a position of unique leadership. In
periods of transition, names of offices matter little; person-
alities count for much. Whether he enjoyed the title
' Bishop ' in any exclusive sense would matter little. In
actual fact he would occupy the position of a bishop. Now
if, round about A.D. 96, both in Ephesus and in Smyrna
(the two largest cities of Asia, and intellectually the most
alive) the church had, possibly for fifteen or twenty years,
been directed by two outstanding individuals, who to all
intents and purposes were bishops in the later sense; and
if the system (as doubtless was the case under men of this
calibre) had proved a great success, the experiment would
inevitably be imitated in neighbouring churches. The per-
sonality of John the Elder, operating from his strategic
position in Ephesus, the chief city of the province, might
alone suffice to explain the rapid transition from the older
system to the new. But how much easier to explain it if,
besides a John in Ephesus, capable of the Fourth Gospel,
there was an Aristion in Smyrna, equal to the writing of
the Petrine epistle. Two men together can do more than
twice as much as one.
THE CHURCH IN SYRIA
SYNOPSIS
THE * DH>ACHB ' versus IGNATIUS
THE difficult historical problem posed by the fact that documents
implying the most opposite types of Church Order, viz. the Didache
and the Letters of Ignatius, both seem to represent Syria. The
Didache the document mainly relied on by champions of the view
that * Independency ' was primitive, the Ignatian letters by the
defenders of ' Episcopalianism '.
The Didache, I Clement, and the Pastorals should be regarded as
three, more or less contemporary but independent, efforts to deal
with the problem of Church Order in three different localities. If
however, the Didache emanates from Syria, can the gulf between it
and the Letters of Ignatius be bridged ?
SYRIA
The New Testament evidence (discussed in the last two Lectures)
for an advanced development of Church Order along the lines origi-
nated by Paul is confined to Asia. But at Antioch there were at
work in the first century anti-Pauline influences ; moreover, the Paul
who had worked at Antioch as a young convert was not the devel-
oped personality known to us through the epistles written in later
life.
Accordingly, to envisage the historical situation at Antioeh we
must ignore the developments attested by the epistles of Paul and
John, and return to our original starting-point the statement (Acts
xiii. 1), 'There were in the Church of Antioch Prophets and
Teachers '. Starting from this point, the Didache is clearly the next
step forward.
Hypothesis propounded the Didache was composed in Antioch
143
144 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
c. AD. 95 with the object of bringing the organisation of the smaller
churches in Syria up to a standard already reached at Antioch, and
of protecting them from exploitation by bogus ' prophets '.
CHTJECH OEDEE IN THE * DIDACHE '
Presumption that the type of Church Order recommended in the
Didache was that already established in the church where it was
written. Already, then, this church had Bishops and Deacons who
were regarded as officials deserving high respect. The smaller
churches are advised to follow this example.
The injunctions about wandering Apostles and Prophets the
mention of Apostles is possibly an archaism deal with a problem
which, towards the end of the first century, was becoming acute all
over the Christian world. The words of a true prophet, admittedly,
are the voice of God which it is blasphemy to disregard ; but how
are the churches to know the difference between a true prophet and
an impostor ? The same problem is felt in Rome by Hermas, in
Asia by the author of 1 John, and in Syria as early as the Gospel of
Matthew. The test proposed, an ethical one.
The Didache marks the stage when the system in which Prophets
and Teachers were the natural leaders of the churches is breaking
down, and gradually being replaced by a ' regular ' ministry of
Bishops and Deacons.
The importance (hitherto overlooked) of the injunction that a
prophet who settles in a church has a claim to ' first fruits *, if taken
in connection with the rubric which implies that a prophet when
present celebrates the Eucharist. A person who controls the offerings,
and is the regular leader in the worship of a local church, has become
de jacto something very like a monarchical bishop.
Ignatius, monarchical bishop of Antioch, was a Prophet.
CLEMENT AND THE EAST
Evidence that the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (A.D.
96) doubtless because the claim it makes to inspiration was taken
seriously exercised enormous influence on the East, more especially
in Syria. This the more explicable if we suppose that, owing to its
insistence on discipline and its doctrine of apostolical succession, it
became, from the time of Ignatius onward, the Magna Charta of the
hierarchy in Syria.
To the eye of the modern critic the epistle of Clement implies
that mon-episcopacy was not yet established at Rome and Corinth.
THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 145
But it could easily be read as implying a threefold hierarchy the
writer Clement being the Bishop (=High Priest). The fact that
such a letter emanated from the Roman Church explains Ignatius'
salutation of the Roman Christians as ' the instructors of others '.
THE ACTS AND THE CORPUS PAULINUM
The publication of Acts brought the Church at large to a new
recognition of the real greatness of Paul and of his life's work.
Goodspeed's suggestion that this led to the completion of the collec-
tion of his letters. These were known as a collection to the authors
of the Pastorals and (probably) of the Apocalypse. If the collection
reached Antioch along with the Acts about A.D. 90, the Pauline
theology would have begun to take root there before Ignatius this
fact bridges the gulf between the theology of the Didache and that
of the Ignatian letters.
IGNATIUS
His letters, besides constituting a difficult historical problem, are
fascinating as a vivid ' human document '. The historical difficulties
disappear if two points are recognised. First, the hierarchical system
championed was at Antioch of recent origin, and not yet securely
established. Secondly, Ignatius is a man of genius who, psycho?-
logically regarded, is of ' the neurotic temper ' ; and he was writing
under circumstances of great nervous strain. Inevitably his language,
at a time when he felt that he was striking the last blow for ,the con-
solidation of his life's work, strikes a note of consistent exaggeration.
Two facts which support the view that the system defended by
Ignatius was a recent development at Antioch. But the conflict
envisaged is not for the supremacy of the Bishop as against the
Presbyters, but of the clerical order as such as against the laity.
Five considerations indicating the bearing on the historical prob-
lem of the psychological idiosyncrasy of Ignatius himself.
Summary statement. The language of Ignatius about the position
of the Bishop.
The question, whether the gulf between the Didache and the
Ignatian letters can be bridged, is satisfactorily answered.
Additional Note
Possibility that the Epistle of Jude emanates from Syria. A con-
jecture as to its authorship.
THE CHURCH IN SYRIA
THE ' DIDACHE ' VERSUS IGNATIUS
TYPES of Church Order at the furthest possible remove
from one another are represented respectively, on the one
hand by the ancient Christian handbook known as the
Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, on the other
by the Epistles of Ignatius. The Didache is the stronghold
of those who think that the Church Order of the Primitive
Church closely resembled what we know now as Inde-
pendency; the Letters of Ignatius have always been the
embattled fortress of the defenders of Episcopalianism.
And the curious thing is that on one point every one is
agreed: both these writings emanate from Syria.
It is not surprising that the historical problem thus
raised should have overtaxed the patience of many scholars.
Many have been the attempts to cut the Gordian knot by
assigning either to the one or to the other of these two
authorities an origin or a date which would justify the
historian in completely discounting its evidence. One set
of scholars have, in this way or in that, tried to discredit
the Didache*, the other side in the controversy has im-
pugned the genuineness of the Letters of Ignatius, or else
the correctness of the date assigned to his martyrdom. But
these attempts have succeeded only in raising commemo-
rative monuments to the gift for special pleading possessed
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 147
by their several authors. I propose, therefore, to relegate
to Appendices the discussion of the genuineness and the
dating of the documents; and to ask whether it is not
possible accepting provisionally for the Didache the
obvious date c, A.J>. 90, and for Ignatius AD. 115 to recon-
cile the apparently conflicting evidence by approaching the
historical situation from a new angle.
Once among the most influential and popular of Chris-
tian writings, the Didache (cf. Appendix C) has left a
mark upon the work of Eastern writers on Church Order
as great as, if not greater than, that left by the New Testa-
ment itself. Yet after the fifth century it gradually went
out of fashion, and at length completely disappeared. As
lately as 1875 it was re-discovered, and is now known
from a single MS. a strange fate for a book of which the
prestige was once so great that it was a candidate for
inclusion in the !New Testament.
If we allow ourselves provisionally to assume that the
Didache was produced in Syria at a date not later than
AJX 100, we are led to an interesting reflection. Just about
this time in the churches all round the Mediterranean there
is an outcrop of literature arising from the need of
strengthening the leadership, and consolidating the organi-
sation, of the churches. In the West there is Clement's
letter to the Corinthians, in Asia Minor there are the
Pastoral Epistles, in the East we have the Didache. It
would be highly illuminating if we could view these three
documents as parallel expressions of a single tendency,
and see the Didache, the Pastoral Epistles, and 1 Clement
as three independent, but more or less contemporary, at-
tempts emanating from the three main foci of Christian
activity in the first century to achieve, in circumstances
148 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
which varied very greatly in their respective localities,
what is fundamentally the same end.
But can the view that the Church Order implied in the
Didache is at all representative of Syria at this date, be
maintained in face of the entirely different picture guaran-
teed by the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Can the gulf
between these be bridged? That is the main problem
which this lecture will discuss.
SYRIA
If the conclusions of my last two lectures are sound,
the evidence for the more advanced developments in
Church Order discoverable in the New Testament is con-
fined to the province of Asia. Indeed practically all the
writings examined were either Epistles of Paul or, like the
Pastorals and 3 John, stand still further on in a line of
development originated by Paul. But Syrian Christianity
came under influences antithetic to St. Paul. The fact that
the Clementine Homilies, even if Elkesaite in origin, were
circulated in the Church, shows that in Syria well on into
the third century there were still those who would have
liked to believe that Peter was a champion of legalism,
and to set James above Peter himself. Emissaries from
James had driven Peter to the act of backsliding, in the
matter of eating and drinking with Gentiles, for which
Paul denounced him (Gal. ii. 11 ff.). Even if, from the
way Paul speaks of Peter in 1 Corinthians, we think the
inference legitimate that Peter subsequently came round
to Paul's view, it is clear that, in that case, a vigorous
section of the Judaising party refused to follow him. The
population of Antioch was so largely Jewish that it is
probable that the Judaistic view of Christianity would long
continue to have there many adherents. And since Jewish
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 149
Christians fled to Antioch in the persecution in which
Stephen died (Acts xi. 19) , much more would they do so in
the far severer persecution, in which James was martyred
A.D. 62, and which went on all through the Jewish war.
But these refugees, unlike the former, would be a reinforce-
ment of the Judaistic strain at Antioch. Doubtless, espe-
cially among Gentile converts, there were some to whom
the name of Paul was a venerated memory. On the whole
Che Syrian Church seems to have followed the via media
of Peter, and did not absolutely reject Paul. It is the
probably Syrian Gospel of Matthew, not the Roman Gospel
of Mark, that quotes the word of Christ conferring on Peter
' the Keys ', and whatever Jesus Himself actually said, and
meant, we may surmise that the author of the gospel
quotes them quite as much against the extreme followers
of James as against those of Paul.
To suppose, therefore, that, so far as the first century
A.D. is concerned, any large section of the church of Syria
looked up to Paul as the great leader is probably the
reverse of the truth. We must remember that, though Paul
had worked in Antioch, it was before he began his mis-
sionary journeys; and this was not the Paul of the great
epistles. Capacity to profit by experience is one of the
hall-marks of genius. Before the age of fifty the minds
of most men become fixed; they may go on doing good,
and even creative, work; but they no longer strike out new
lines. But Paul was one of those exceptional men who
remain capable of continuous mental growth. Between the
epistles to the Thessalonians and the epistle to the Romans,
though they are only separated in time by about five years,
there is an expansion of mental stature which cannot be
accounted for merely by differences in the theme treated,
or in the audience addressed. The epistle to the Colossians
150 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
(Ephesians, too, if that be genuine) exhibits a still further
growth. The question is forced upon us, If we possessed
a letter by Paul prior to the great experience of the first
missionary journey, should we not find a similar gulf be-
tween this and the Thessalonian letters, the earliest that
survive? The Paul who had lived and worked in Antioch
was not yet the Paul we know. The church of Antioch
was not his foundation ; and it never felt the impact of his
developed personality or the benefit of his later experience.
If, then, we would study the development of Church
Order in Syria we must return to our original starting
point the statement in Acts (xiii. 1), 'There were in the
church of Antioch prophets and teachers \ Begin again at
this point, and it is pellucidly clear that the state of things
implied in the Didache marks the next step forward.
I propose, then, to test the hypothesis that the Didache
is a manual drawn up at Antioch, approximately A.D. 90,
and circulated by the mother church of Syria, with the
object of standardising the organisation of the churches in
the smaller towns and villages of Syria, and of encouraging
them to establish a permanent ministry largely with a
view to saving them from exploitation by wandering im-
postors professing to be prophets or ' apostles '.
CHTJKCH OBDEB IN THE DIDACHE
In whatever church the Didache was produced, it was
not intended merely or mainly for home consumption. On
the contrary, it reads like ' advices * sent out from a larger
and more settled church to assist the less developed con-
gregations within its 'sphere of influence'. This is a
consideration of great importance; and failure to give due
weight to it has unnecessarily complicated the historical
problem presented by the contrast between the Church
Order implied in the Didache and that known to exist
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 151
elsewhere at the end of the first century. There occurs,
for example, in the Didache the injunction:
Appoint for yourselves, therefore, bishops and deacons . . .
despise them not, for they are your' honourable men along with
the prophets and teachers (xv. 1).
From this we must infer that in the church from which
the Didache emanated, bishops and deacons were already
an established institution; and the holders of these offices
were in that church already regarded as persons of an
importance comparable with that assigned at an earlier
period only to prophets and teachers. The argument of
those who maintain that the Didache must have been pro-
duced in an out-of-the-way and backward church has this
amount of truth in it. It was addressed to backward and
out-of-the-way churches; but the church from which it
came must have already, perhaps for some years, adopted
the advice which it gives to others. If the Didache is to be
treated as evidence for Antioch this point is obviously
vital.
The opening words of the Didache are striking:
There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is
a great difference between the two ways. The way of life is this.
First of all, thou shalt love the God that made thee ; secondly,
thy neighbour as thyself. And all things whatsoever thou wouldest
not have befall thyself, neither do thou unto another.
The first half of the work consists of impressive moral
exhortation, working out the teaching of these Two Ways
in its detailed application ending:
But concerning eating, bear that which thou art able ; yet
abstain by all means from meat sacrificed to idols ; for it is the
worship of dead gods (vi. 3). 1
1 There must be some connection between the Didache and the form
in which the Apostolic Decree (Acts rv. 28-29) appeared in the West-
152 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
The Two Ways are followed by instructions as to Bap-
tism, Fasting, and Prayers to be used at the Eucharistic
thanksgiving. Then come the sections which make the
Didache a primary document for the historian of Church
Order.
But concerning the apostles and prophets, so do ye according
to the ordinance of the Gospel. Let every apostle, when he
cometh to you, be received as the Lord ; but he shall not abide
more than a single day, or if there be need, a second ; but if he
abide three days, he is a false prophet (xi. 3 if.) .
The title 'apostle' in the first generation was given
to many besides the Twelve. Thus Paul salutes two
persons, Andronicus and Junias, whose names are never
mentioned elsewhere, as being actually ' of note among
the apostles \ cTrtcnjjuoi b> rots dTO(rr6Xots (Rom. xvi. 7) .
Nevertheless, it is a little surprising, as late as A.D. 90,
to find ' apostles J alluded to as if they were a class suffi-
ciently numerous to make the problem, whether they be
true or false, one of practical import. The Hebrew equiva-
lent of the name ' apostle 'perhaps best translated ' com-
missioner ' was a title of persons sent out officially from
Jerusalem, often, though not always, with a commission
to collect money. The Church of Jerusalem may have
imitated this practice; and it is not unlikely that some of
era text as it was read by Irenaeus in Gaul, Cyprian in Africa, and
Eusebius in Caesarea, ' For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to
us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things ;
that ye ahstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from,
fornication. And whatsoever ye would not have befall yourselves, do
not unto another.' The title of the Didache, * The teaching of the Lord
to the Gentiles by the twelve Apostles ', seems also to reflect the Apos-
tolic Decree, 'It seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and to us'; for,
where prophecy was in question, the distinction between the Spirit and
the Lord did not exist in the first century. In the Didascalia, a third-
century amplification of the Didache^ the connection with Acts xv. is
made quite clear ; Prof. Turner reminds me that this document ex-
plicitly claims to represent the Acts of the Council of Jerusalem.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 153
the Judaistic emissaries who caused such trouble in the
churches founded by St. Paul bore the title 'apostle' in
this sense. It is possible that after A.D. 70 the restored
church in Jerusalem tried for a while to revive this
practice.
It is, however, in my opinion more likely that the only
contemporaries whom the author of the Didache has in
mind are wandering Prophets; but that their manner of
life, and therefore their right to entertainment by a local
church, was regarded as governed by the ' ordinance of the
Gospel' that is, the injunctions of Christ concerning
* apostles ' on a preaching tour recorded ' in the Gospel '
(Matt. x. 9-16), to which he expressly refers (xl 3). The
use of the word ' apostle * may also be in part- an inten-
tional archaism. The Didache claims to be a message to
the Gentiles from the Twelve; but in a document purport-
ing to emanate from the Twelve it would be appropriate
so to phrase their injunctions as to make them seem to
cover the circumstances of the Apostolic Age, as well as
those of the latter part of the century. At any rate the
equation, apostle=prophet, is twice repeated where the
case is that of a false prophet; no difference between their
respective functions can be discerned; and in the greater
part of these advices prophets only are named.
All over the Christian world at this time the gift of
prophecy was a cause of acute difficulty* On the one hand,
if a person was a true prophet, to reject him involved the
gravest peril.
Any prophet speaking in the Spirit, ye shall not test, neither
pass judgment on ; for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin
shall not be forgiven (Did . xi. 7) , l
1 This interpretation of the sin of 'blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost ' shows that the author of the Didache knew our gospel of Mat-
thew. For there only is such blasphemy connected with the saying
154 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
On the other hand, experience had shown that both
impostors and self-deluded egotists frequently claimed to
be prophets. Everywhere there was urgent need of some
means of 'testing the spirits'. We find John in Asia (1
John iv. 1-2), and Hennas in Rome (Hand, xi.), giving
advice about this same difficulty. And in the Gospel of
Matthew there are two passages which suggest that the
problem had arisen in Syria at an even earlier date. Mat-
thew inserts, into a context otherwise all but verbally
identical with Mark xiii., the warning:
Many false prophets shall arise, and lead many astray. And
because avopla (i.e. moral antinomianism) shall be multiplied, the
love of the many shall wax cold (Matt. xxiv. 11 f.).
Again, in the version of the Great Sermon in that
gospel, a whole section (Matt. vii. 15-23) is devoted to this
question of the false prophet.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's cloth-
ing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
And the test of such, ' By their fruits ye shall know them ',
is twice repeated. If, however, we compare the parallel
passage in Luke's Sermon on the Plain (Luke vi. 43-45),
or again the doublet in Matthew (xii. 33-35) , there is no
mention of false prophets, and the moral, ' by their fruits
ye shall know them ', though perhaps intended, is not ex-
plicitly drawn. It would look as if Matthew has taken
the words of his source (Q, or perhaps it stood both in Q
and M) and amplified them slightly in order to bring out
their application to what was becoming a practical diffi-
culty acutely felt as such by the church for which he wrote.
The tests which the Didache puts forward, like those
about judging a tree by its fruits (Matt. xii. 31-35) a saying which
in turn is interpreted of false prophets in Matt. vii. 15-20, but is not
BO interpreted in the parallel in Luke (vi. 43 if.) .
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 155
laid down by Matthew, John, and Hennas, are primarily
ethical; both the moral teaching and the personal conduct
of the prophet must be in accordance with righteousness.
Whosoever therefore shall come and teach you all these things
that have been said before [i.e. in the Two Ways'], receive him ;
but if the teacher himself be perverted, and teach a different
doctrine to the destruction thereof, hear him not ; but if to the
increase of righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive
him as the Lord (xi. 1).
The Church Order implied in the Didache is that of
an era of transition. The older system of dependence on
Prophets and Teachers is breaking down; but the Bishops
and Deacons have not yet quite taken their place. As at
Antioch in the Apostolic Age (Acts xiii. 1), the Prophets
and the Teachers are the officers in highest repute; but the
Bishops and Deacons are recognised as also ' performing
the service of the Prophets and Teachers ', and they are
to be held in similar esteem (Did. xiii. 1; xv. 2). A prophet
who settles permanently in a community is accorded the
highest measure of respect; but the institution of the wan-
dering prophet, though still existing, is obsolescent. In
fact, the attitude of the Didache towards prophecy is com-
parable to that of Paul towards speaking with tongues.
Paul entirely allows that speaking with tongues is a gift
of the Spirit; but for the sake of edification and good order
in the church he prefers coherent prophecy. Just so the
author of the Didache allows the supreme value and unique
prestige of a true prophet; but experience has by this time
proved that self-authenticated wandering prophets are a
doubtful blessing.
Not every one that speaketh in the Spirit is a prophet, but
only if he have the ways of the Lord. ... No prophet when
he ordereth a table in the Spirit shall eat of it ; otherwise he is
156 THE PEIMITIVE CHURCH v
a false prophet. . . . Whosoever shall say in the Spirit, * Give
me silver ' or anything else, ye shall not listen to him ; but if he
tell you to give on behalf of others that are in want, let no man
judge him (xL 8) .
The aim, therefore, of the author of the Didache is to
create, wherever it did not yet exist, a resident ministry of
episcopoi and deacons. Where this already exists, he tries
to raise its status ; congregations are bidden to regard these
as their 'honourable men along with the prophets and
teachers '. Evidently one main object of the Didache is to
secure that the resident ministers shall no longer be treated
as of subordinate importance. That is to say, the Didache
attempts to do in Syria what Paul a whole generation
earlier had seen to be necessary in the churches which he
controlled.
There is one injunction in the Didache of which the
full historical significance has (so far as I am aware)
escaped the notice of scholars that which encourages a
prophet to settle permanently in a local church. It is clear
that whenever a person recognised as a true prophet ac-
cepted an invitation so to settle, his position would at once
become one of outstanding influence quite apart from the
fact that, when actually c in the spirit ', he necessarily spoke
with divine authority. First, the liturgical prayer pre-
scribed as the eucharistic thanksgiving is followed by a
rubric, ' But permit the prophets to offer thanksgiving as
much as they desire '. This implies that a prophet, as such,
has a special claim to celebrate the Eucharist. Secondly,
the faithful are exhorted to give first-fruits of wine, corn,
and cattle to the prophets, *For these are your chief
priests'. There follows, quite inevitably, this conclusion:
in any church where one, and only one, prophet had perma-
nently settled on these terms, that prophet would have
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 157
become, to all intents and purposes, a monarchical bishop. 1
He would be the regular celebrant of the Eucharist; he
would have control of the offerings from which clergy would
be supported and the poor relieved; while in addition he
would, on occasion, be able to speak as the mouthpiece of
the Holy Ghost. It has been suggested that the injunction
(Is it the origin of church tithe?), that the prophets re-
ceive the first-fruits due to the chief priests, was prompted
by the desire to prescribe, in the case of Christians, a use
and destination for religious offerings of a kind which had
become customary, analogous to, but different from, the
Jewish use. However this may be, it is certain that, as
soon as a prophet settled down in any important city and
became practically a monarchical bishop, this analogy
between him and the Jewish chief priest was one which
had in it the seed of great future developments.
I have already pointed out that the instructions given
in the Didache to congregations in general imply that
somewhere a standard existed towards which they ought
to aspire. We infer, then, that the Didache emanated from
some important church where Episcopoi and Deacons al-
ready enjoyed the status and high degree of respect which
it enjoins. And what, we must ask, happened to an
'approved' prophet, if one permanently settled in that
church? He surely in that provincial capital (whether
Antioch or elsewhere) would not enjoy less powers and
1 Outside Syria also there seems to have been at first a tendency to
prefer as bishop a person having the prophetic gift. Polycarp is de-
scribed as * an apostolic and prophetic teacher in our own time, a
bishop of the holy church which is in Smyrna' (Martyrdom of Poly-
carp , xvi. 2) ; and there is reason to believe that the author of the
Fourth Gospel (cf. my The Four Gospels, p. 367 f.) was a prophet, and
is to be identified with the Elder John whom I have argued above^was
Bishop of Ephesus. Possibly the claim to inspiration made in 1
Clement (lix. 1 ; Ixiii. 2) implies that the writer of that letter was a
prophet ; or it may be that the letter is regarded as the corporate
voic* of the spirit-indwelt community.
158 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
privileges than those which the Didache demands for
prophets, when settled in a smaller church. There, too, he
would become de facto Bishop.
Suppose, then, that in the church of Antioch a time
came when there was only one such resident prophet, and
he a man of ambition and possessed of administrative
ability in a single generation the Church Order which the
Didache implies would, ipso facto, and as it were auto-
matically, harden into a threefold ministry of Bishop,
Presbyters, and Deacons. 1
Tradition names one Bishop of Antioch before Igna-
tius Euodius. Whether he was a prophet or not is not
recorded; but of Ignatius we know for certain that he was
regarded as a prophet.
CLEMENT AND THE EAST
There are writings which have made history. These
should be studied, not merely nor mainly as evidence for
the historical situation at the time of writing, but also
and more especially as efficient causes of the situation
which followed next. The document commonly cited as
the first epistle of Clement is, I suggest, one of these.
Considered as evidence for an actual situation, the epistle
relates to the Church of Rome from which it emanated in
A.D. 96, and that of Corinth, to which it was addressed.
A discussion of its importance in that regard will be more
appropriate in the next lecture, which will deal with the
Church of Rome. What I propose here to examine, is the
influence exercised by this epistle on the future develop-
ment of the Church in Syria.
1 It is not impossible that in some churches the President was called
the Episcopos, in others, the Elder. If in a particular case one of the
Episcopoi developed the gift of prophecy, that might easily determine
a local usage.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 159
The epistle is written, not in the name of Clement, but
of the Roman Church; it therefore came to the East
backed by the prestige of that church. More than that,
it makes a definite claim to be directly inspired:
If certain persons should be disobedient unto the words spoken
by Him [the Holy Spirit] through us ... (lix 1).
And again:
If ye render obedience unto the things written by us through
the Holy Spirit (Ixiii. 2).
In an age which took inspiration seriously, as a contem-
porary phenomenon, we should except a document thus
guaranteed by the testimony of a great Church to have
world-wide acceptance as the voice of God. And that in
point of fact it was so received, we have abundant evidence.
Clement's letter was circulated, almost at once, throughout
the East. The verbal parallelisms between 1 Clement and
the Pastoral Epistles are just not striking enough to prove
a literary connection; but they are enough to make it
probable. Since, then, 1 Clement is the earlier document,
it will be the editor of the Pastorals who is the borrower,
of ideas as well as words. 1 In Smyrna by A.D. 115, Poly-
carp is more influenced by the language of Clement than
by any book of the New Testament, except perhaps 1
Peter. 2 Fifty years later the church of Smyrna, having
occasion to write to the church of Philomelium the letter,
which we style the Martyrdom of Polycarp, turns to 1
Clement as the model of the way in which one church
addressing another should open and conclude a letter. 3
1 Cf . the table of parallel passages in Harrison, The Problem of the
Pastoral Epistles, p. 176.
'The parallels are set out in Gebhardt and Harnack, Patres Apos-
licif i. p. xxiv. ff.
a Cf. Lightfoot, Ignatius, L p. 6Z6 f .
160 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
Dionysius of Corinth, AJ>. 170, tells us it was read there
at the Sunday services (Eus. H.E. iv. 23). Clement of
Alexandria calls him 'the Apostle Clement' (Strom, iv.
17). But it was in Syria, to judge from subsequent litera-
ture, that the epistle made most impression. Here Clement
came to be regarded as the mouthpiece and successor of
Peter; and he became either the hero, or the pseudonymous
author, of an immense amount of literature, beginning in
the second century with an early recension of the story in
the Clementine Recognitions. The epistles of Clement are
frankly and unreservedly included in the Canon of the
New Testament in the undoubtedly Syrian Apostolic Con-
stitutions which itself purports to be a work of Clement.
And these epistles appear as an appendix to the New
Testament in the early fifth-century Codex A, which prob-
ably represents not an Alexandrian, but a Syrian, textual
tradition. 1
But for our immediate purpose the thing to note is the
association of the name of Clement with the idea of sound
Church Order. The pseudonymous letter of Clement to
James the Lord's brother, which formerly stood as a preface
to the Clementine Recognitions, was one (says Rufinus)
'in which the whole subject of Church Order is treated ';
and Church Order is the main theme of the (clearly iden-
tical) letter of Clement to James still extant in the
Clementine Homilies. The Didascalia, a book of Church
Order of the third century, is in the Syriac version entitled
The Third Book of Clement, while the Apostolic Consti-
tutions, the most elaborate work on that subject in the first
six centuries, is directly ascribed to him. In Rome there
originated a book of Church Order; but this is ascribed to
the actual author Hippolytus. But in Syria regulations
1 Of. The Four Qotpel*, p. 110 ff.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 161
on this subject are uniformly ascribed to Clement, or to
apostles using him as their mouthpiece. 1
What, we ask, is the reason of this special association
in Syrian tradition of the name of Clement with the idea
of sound Church Order? Lightfoot called attention to the
striking contrast between the reputation of Clement and
wide circulation of his writings, genuine or otherwise, in
the East, and the exiguous mention of him in the West, 2
but he offered no explanation. The hypothesis I advance
is that Clement's genuine epistle was one of the chief
weapons wielded by the dominating personality of Ignatius
in a lifelong battle for ecclesiastical discipline; and that
it thus exercised a creative influence in the development
of the powers of the hierarchy in Syria. In that case it
would have remained the magna charta of episcopal au-
thority in Syria for the next two generations indeed until
that authority had been consolidated to the point of being
no longer open to challenge. We have seen reason to
believe that, before the time of Ignatius, the church in
Syria in this respect was less advanced than in other
provinces. But if so, the dominant position of the episco-
pate implied in the letters of Ignatius can only have come
into existence after a period of acute struggle. Once that
is granted, it is obvious how valuable to the 'High Church '
party of that day Clement's letter would have been with
x The name of Clement occurs also in the MS. title of The Apostolic
Church Ordinances. But as it does not occur in the actual text it prob-
ably derives from some scribe who knew Clement as the reputed author
of most other works on Church Order. Another work ascribed to
Clement is the Testamentum Domini.
3 When Lightfoot wrote, no Latin translation of his letter existed,
and none is referred to by any Latin Father. But a single copy of a
Latin translation of the two Letters attributed to Clement has since
turned up. Since the translator found the second epistle already as-
cribed to Clement, I should suppose his date to be of the fourth or fifth
century, when the translation of Greek theological classics into Latin
was the vogue. Published 1894 ; G. Morin, Anecdota Maredaolana,, ii.
L
162 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
its exhortation to Christians to imitate the notable dis-
cipline of the Roman army, and its derivation of the
authority of the regular ministry from 'Apostolical Suc-
cession '.
Higher critics sometimes miss the mark through for-
getting that the ancients did not share their art. To
ascertain, for instance, the influence of any book of the
Old Testament upon the New, we must ask, not the real
meaning of the Hebrew writer, but what the Christian
thought he meant., The same holds good in the present
case. To the sharp eye of the modern critic, as we shall
see in the next lecture, Clement seems to imply that at
Corinth (and presumably at Rome) church government
was nearer to the Presbyterian type than to the Episco-
palian. So far as I am aware, no scholar hitherto has
pointed out how easy it would be for Ignatius to read into
Clement's language a totally different meaning. In the
course of working out an analogy between the officers of
the Christian and the Jewish Church, Clement writes:
For unto the High Priest Ms proper services have been as-
signed, and to the Priests their proper office is appointed, and
upon the Levites their proper ministrations are laid. The layman
is bound by the layman's ordinances (1 Clem. xl. 5)*
What Clement had in mind when writing thus, was the
analogy between the function of Christ and that of the
High Priest worked out in the epistle to the Hebrews a
writing by which Clement has been profoundly influenced.
This analogy he had already drawn in the near context
(xxxvi.) in language suggested by Hebrews, and doubtless
intended to recall his readers to the argument elaborated
in that epistle., But Hebrews was probably unknown at
Antioch at this date; and, without the key to Clement's
meaning which that document affords, the passage quoted
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 163
above positively invites misinterpretation. Nor does it
follow, even if Hebrews were known at Antioch, that any-
one would turn to it for light on the exegesis of Clement
in a passage which, on the surface, presents $o obscurity.
Ignatius is familiar with the idea of Christ as High Priest
(Philad. ix. 1). But in Syria, Clement would be read by
men brought up on the Didache, whose minds, therefore,
would be preoccupied with the injunction (Did. xiL) con-
cerning prophets who had settled permanently in a church:
' They are your chief -priests '. In a church where the Di-
dache was a religious classic, and where already a single
resident prophet was established as the most important
person in the community, the natural and obvious reading
of Clement's words would make the point of his remark to
be the correspondence between the three Old Testament
orders of High Priest, Priest, and Levite, and the Chris-
tian Offices of Bishop, Presbyter, and Deacon; more espec-
ially as the orders of Bishops and Presbyters were clearly
distinguished both in Asia and in Jerusalem, that is, in the
churches of the provinces which marched with Syria on
either side.
The writer of the letter there is no reason to doubt that
his name was Clement would at least be the presbyter
normally chosen to represent the Roman Church in its
dealings with other churches, and was very likely in other
respects the leading personage in the church. What would
be more natural for a Syrian Christian than to assume that
Clement held at Rome a position of formally recognised
supremacy, similar to that which in the church of Jerusa-
lem had descended in the family of James, and which John
the Elder had occupied in Asia? In the light of the prac-
tice of these churches, the passage of Clement I have
quoted would naturally be read as implying that he,
Clement, occupied at Rome a position analogous to that of
164 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
the Jewish High Priest that is, belonged to an order
hierarchically distinct from the other presbyters. So in-
terpreted, the moral of his letter would appear to be that
the monarchical episcopate was the one right and apostolic
system.
This view at once explains an otherwise very difficult
passage in Ignatius: 'Ye were the instructors of others'
(Rom. iii. 1). When and how, we ask, had the Roman
church instructed other churches? The answer of this
question will appear, if we ask another. What was the
kind of instruction Ignatius thought the church of his time
most needed ? Submission to the Bishop and Presbyters,
as representing Christ (or God), and His Apostles, is the
main theme of all his letters except that addressed to
Rome. Why the exception? Obviously, when Ignatius
speaks of the instruction which Rome had given other
churches, he is thinking primarily of that letter of Clement
which he found so valuable in consolidating his own posi-
tion at Antioch, for its inculcation of obedience to the local
hierarchy. 1 That was the kind of instruction which, in
view of the exigencies of the times, Ignatius deemed of all
things the most necessary ; and it was a kind which his
own temperament, instinct with 'the will to power 7 , dis-
posed him enthusiastically to accept.
I shall argue later that the high satisfaction expressed
by Ignatius at the election of his successor shows that the
hierarchical party had definitely triumphed at Antioch
(p. 181 f.). That being so, Clement, as the author of the
epistle which was their charter, would inevitably become,
after the Apostles, their greatest saint. Soon legend makes
him the chosen companion of Peter the special Apostle
of Antioch. And while Roman tradition put Linus and
1 Lightf oot in his note ad loc. thinks Ignatius may be referring here
to 1 Clement, but prefers another (I think inferior) interpretation.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 165
Cletus between Clement and the Apostles, Syrian romance
makes Peter consecrate Clement as the first Bishop of
Rome. Henceforth Clement of Rome becomes not, be it
observed, in Rome itself, but in Syria the mouthpiece
of Peter, and thus the pseudonymous guarantor of any
views for which Apostolic sanction was desired.
THE ACTS AND THE CORPUS PATJLINUM
Another document which, as Prof. Goodspeed has
recently pointed out, 1 undoubtedly 'made history', is
the Acts of the Apostles. It made history, by compelling
churches in which he had not himself worked to recognise
the real greatness of Paul; and by providing his epistles
with a background in biography, which made them the
living message of a vividly- conceived personality, rather
than a number of disconnected memoranda in which
inspiring exhortation and l things hard to be understood 7
alternate in almost equal proportions. Without the Acts
as a background, it would require the skill of a trained
literary critic clearly to envisage the personality of the
Apostle, Of course, in his own churches there would
have been memories handed down in local tradition. But
these would, in the main, relate only to his impact on the
local church in which they were preserved. Of his career
as a whole, of the magnitude of the task he accomplished,
of the variety of his adventures and of the intensity of
his endurances, till Acts was written, no one, even in the
churches which he had himself founded, could have any
adequate appreciation.
Prof. Goodspeed makes the further suggestion that
it was the revived interest in Paul, due to the publica-
tion of the Acts, that caused search to be made in the
*E. J, Goodspeed, "New Solutions of New Testament Problems.
(University of Chicago, 1927.)
166 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
churches round the Aegean for letters by him, which
hitherto had heen hardly known outside the particular
church to which they had been originally addressed. He
points out, what we are apt to forget, how enormously
these letters gain in weight from the fact that they are
read as a collection; and how important an event, there-
fore, for the history of the Church the formation of that
collection must have been. And in the Pauline church
of Ephesus, where probably it was first made, it would
attain at once an all but canonical authority.
Certainly it is hard to believe that Luke himself, when
he wrote the Acts c. A.D. 85, had access to the complete
collection of epistles of Paul ; and if Luke did not possess
them all, who else would ? I think he knew Romans x and
1 Corinthians ; and those two epistles circulated widely
from a very early date. But, asks Prof. Goodspeed, where
did the author of Revelation get the idea a very strange
idea, when one comes to think of it of prefacing an apoc-
alyptic writing with a collection of seven letters to
churches? He brilliantly suggests the explanation that
John the Seer was familiar in Ephesus with letters to
churches by another whom he regarded as an inspired
prophet these being already formed into a definite col-
lection. 2 At any rate, the author of the Pastorals who
wrote, we have seen, in Asia knew the Ten Epistles as a
collection already venerated in the Church. 8 While the
1 Cf . The Four Gospels, p. 555.
2 For evidence that the author of Revelations was familiar with sev-
eral of the Epistles of Paul, cf. R. H. Charles, Revelations, L p.
IxxxiiL ff. (T. & T. Clark, 1920.)
s The evidence for this important conclusion is forcibly marshalled
by P. N". Harrison (op. cit. p. 87 ff.) . The fact that the Prefaces to the
Epistles found in some Latin MSS. are evidently Marcionite in origin
has suggested the theory that the first complete collection was made by
Marcion ; but if this holds, the similar Prologues in some MSS. of the
gospels would be evidence that the, $ow Gospel canon was of Mon-
archian origin !
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 167
frequent reminiscences of the Pauline Epistles in Ignatius
and Polycarp make it certain that, some time before A.D.
115, both Antioch and Smyrna possessed a collection of
Pauline epistles and reasonably certain that this was our
present collection of thirteen, including the Pastorals.
Polycarp, again, had formed a collection of letters of Igna-
tius within a few weeks of their being written, and he sent
copies thereof to at least one church, that of Philippi, at
its request. The existence of this demand for a collection
of the letters of Ignatius is explicable only if the Pauline
corpus had familiarised that church with the idea of, and
created the demand for, collected letters by Christian
saints.
It is interesting to note that, whereas traces of a use
of the Gospel of Luke are both scanty and doubtful, there
appear to be clear reminiscences of the Acts in Clement,
Polycarp, and Ignatius. It would look as if Mark and
Matthew (or Q) had become established in the affections
of these several writers and the churches they represent;
so that they welcomed the Acts, which broke entirely fresh
ground, with more enthusiasm than a new Gospel, which
largely covered the same field. Luke also, we remember,
often gives sayings of Christ in a different, and usually
slightly Hellenised, form, which until they became familiar
might grate on many, in the same way as a new trans-
lation does to-day on those brought up on the Authorised
Version.
The deep impression made by Acts is further shown
by the body of secondary literature which it called into
existence the original Ebionite romance of the adven-
tures of Peter and Simon Magus, the orthodox Preaching
of Peter, and then the series of Apocryphal Acts.
For a moment, however, let us concentrate our attention
on the probable effect on the Church of Antioch of the
168 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
arrival there, perhaps c. A.D. 90, of the Acts and the collec-
tion of Pauline epistles. By this time the church had
become more Gentile than Jewish; and, Jerusalem having
fallen, the Jewish element, in so far as it did not in a spirit
of despairing nationalism revert to Pharisaism, would in-
evitably become more liberal. Paul then, as portrayed in
the narrative of Luke, came to them, no longer as the rebel
antinomian pictured to them by the Judaisers of an earlier
generation, but as the Apostle the continuator of the
policy of Peter who had verily 'laboured more abun-
dantly than they all', and who through his epistles, now
heard at Antioch for the first time, still spoke to them
voicing a passionate call to righteousness. Inevitably
there would be a strong pro-Pauline reaction. Ignatius
no doubt belonged to the party most profoundly influenced
by this movement; he may indeed have lived for a while
in some Pauline church in Asia, for at times he seems to
echo the Fourth Gospel, But he could hardly have written
as he does, unless something very like the post-Pauline
interpretation of Christianity was already regarded in
Antioch as orthodox. 1
Between the Didache and Ignatius there is as great a
gulf theologically as there is in the matter of Church Order.
But the Acts and the Epistles of Paul had ten years longer
in which to do for the theology of Antioch what Clement's
epistle, if I am correct in my view of its influence, had
begun to do for its conception of Church Order.
IGNATIUS
Next to the epistles of Paul, the letters of Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch, written on his way to martyrdom in
1 An historical analogy to this impact on Antioch of the Pauline
theology, would be the impact of Alexandrian thought on Syria after
Origen made Caesarea his base of operations.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 169
the Colosseum at Rome, c. A.D. 115 four from Smyrna,
three when he had reached Troas are, considered simply
as ' a human document ', the most vivid piece of literature
that has survived from the early Church. They also, by
reason of the developed system of episcopal Church Order
which they imply, pose a question which is one of the most
controverted in early Church history.
The historical problem, however, becomes far less diffi-
cult of solution if sufficient weight be given to two considera-
tions which heretofore have been commonly ignored
First, there is evidence that the hierarchical system
championed by Ignatius was, so far as Antioch is con-
cerned, of recent origin and not yet securely established.
Secondly, Ignatius, like some other men of genius, exhibits
certain characteristics of the ' neurotic temper ' ; and he is
writing under circumstances of great nervous strain. Hence
whatever he writes is instinct with excitement and exaggera-
tion, and must be interpreted with due allowance made for
the mentality of the writer.
The view that at Antioch the monarchical episcopate
was an institution of relatively recent origin is borne out
by two facts.
(1) In the traditional lists of Bishops of the great Sees
only one name is given between Ignatius and the Apostles ;
whereas Xystus, who, in the accepted chronology, was
Bishop of Rome at the time of Ignatius 7 martyrdom, is
reckoned the sixth after the Apostles in that church. It is
significant also that, in spite of his insistence on the impor-
tance of the Bishop, Ignatius (to quote the words of Prof.
C. H. Turner) ' has no thought of a " succession " at all '.*
(2) Six of the seven letters are filled with exaggerated
and passionate exaltation of the authority and importance
* Essays on the Early History of the Church and Ministry > ed. H, B.
Swete, p. 113. (Macmillan, 1918.)
170 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
of the bishop's office. What nobody questions, nobody
defends; over-enthusiastic defence implies the existence of
strong opposition. The principle which Ignatius is so con-
cerned to uphold is evidently one by no means universally
recognised. More than that, we cannot but suspect that it
is one for which he himself has had to fight long and hard.
The language and tone of Ignatius on the subject of the
episcopate is that of a man who had become Bishop of
Antioch at a time when the monarchical status and author-
ity of that office was as yet not sufficiently ancient to be
secure. He is fighting a battle which is not yet won.
Conflict is the note of the Ignatian correspondence. But
we shall entirely misunderstand the nature of the conflict
if we think of it as a struggle between Ignatius and the body
of Presbyters. Ignatius is not fighting for the supremacy
of the Bishop as against the Presbyters ; he is fighting for
the supremacy of the regular church officers as a body. In
this respect he is at one with Clement; and he is carrying
a stage further forward the process of strengthening their
authority which the Didache already shows at work. He
always speaks as if it could be taken for granted that the
Presbyters and Deacons were in complete harmony with
the Bishop, and will in all things act with him an assump-
tion which in some ages might seem precarious. But it
frequently happens that a governing class regards the con-
centration of power in an individual as essential to their
own predominance. That is the attitude of regimental
officers towards the commander, of Fascist leaders towards
Mussolini, and was that of the Prussian aristocracy to the
Hohenzollern. It is of the laity that Ignatius is thinking
in his reiteration of the demand for obedience; and he urges
this as a remedy both against the counter attractions of
heretical teachers and against the tendency to form inde-
pendent groups. It may be that Ignatius had chanced on
V THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 171
a body of presbyters whom he could easily dominate; it
may be he had succeeded in getting rid of a recalcitrant
minority. Be that as it may, the Bishop to him is the
keystone of the arch of authority; he assumes that the other
stones will be in place.
Let us now, giving due weight to these considerations,
examine the personal idiosyncrasy of Ignatius himself in
the light of modern psychological theory. The historical
difficulties, we shall find, begin to disappear.
Ignatius, like many who have achieved high fame, was
clearly of the ' neurotic temper '. His letters on every page
reveal a high-minded personality keyed up to that peculiar
intensity which is a symptom of that temper. Genius is
often a concomitant of the neurotic constitution. Not that
genius is the result of the neurosis ; but that same hypersen-
sitiveness to impressions, which makes the genius quick to
perceive what other men ignore, exposes him in early life to
injury from experiences which would leave unscathed per-
sons of more ordinary clay. A piece of grit that will derange
a watch will not affect a traction engine.
(1) The most obvious evidence that Ignatius was a man
of abnormal psychology is the prophetic seizure he alludes
to in writing to the Philadelphians :
For even though certain persons desired to deceive me after
the flesh, yet the Spirit is not deceived, being from God ; for it
knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth, and it searcheth
out the hidden things. I cried out, when I was among you ; I
spake with a loud voice, with God's own voice. . . . (Philad.
vii. 1).
It is evident that he like other ' prophets ' of his time
had an overwhelming conviction of possession by a person-
ality other than his own. From the purely psychological
point of view such an experience has obvious analogies to
172 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
that of the medium in modern times. Ignatius believed
himself to be under a control which made use of his voice,
he himself being merely a passive instrument. That control
he is convinced is the Holy Spirit. To discuss the question
whether or no certain individuals the Prophets of the Old
Testament, for example 1 may at certain moments be in
some special sense susceptible to influences from the Divine
Spirit (working, perhaps, through the ' subconscious ' region
of the self) would be outside the purpose of this chapter;
but few, I think, would wish to maintain that Ignatius was
one of these. In any case, psychologically considered, such
an experience implies a state of 'temporary dissociation',
during which the vocal organs are directed by forces acting
below the level of conscious volition. All I am here con-
cerned to point out is, that the incident is evidence of a
psychological disposition other than the normal.
The evidence is the more important since it is clear that
such experiences were not unusual with him. He tells the
Ephesians he purposes to write again to them, ' especially if
the Lord should reveal aught to me' (Eph. xx. 2). This
shows that the prophetic seizure was with him a matter of
frequent occurrence.
(2) Another trait suggestive of psychological abnor-
mality stands out in another passage of which the great
editors have missed the real meaning.
Am I not able to write to you of heavenly things ? But I
fear lest I should cause you harm, being babes. So bear with me,
lest not being able to take them in, ye should be choked. For
I myself also, albeit I am in bonds and can comprehend heavenly
things and the arrays of the angels and the musterings of the
principalities, things visible and things invisible I myself am not
yet by reason of this a disciple (Trail, v.) .
1 1 have put together some facts and reflections bearing on this sub-
ject in an Appendix to my book Reality.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 173
The passage is a conscious echo of PauPs epistles to the
Corinthians. 1
I, like Paul [he means], am in bonds for the Gospel ; like
Paul, I have had visions and revelations ; I have been caught up
into the third heaven, and heard unspeakable words but (like
Paul) I do not pride myself thereon ; I merely ask you * to bear
with me ', if, speaking as to babes in Christ, I withhold a wisdom
fit only for the perfect, and veil the glory of my vision.
With an unhappy mixture of pride and humility Igna-
tius at once boasts of, yet declines to reveal the content of,
his mystic visions. How sharp the contrast with the real
reluctance of the Apostle forced in self-defence to speak
of high experiences 'I am become foolish, ye compelled
me'. Ignatius conceived that it had been given him to
share the Apostle's spiritual vision. To us, all that it shows
is that he was addicted to trance-practice. Truly spiritual
vision depends on the quality of soul of him who sees, not
on the psychological mechanism of the moment of intuition. 2
Theosophy has familiarised the modern world with the
claim that certain ' Adepts ' can in the ecstasy of trance
attain i clairvoyant ' information about the mysteries of
the heavenly ' spheres '. That there were Christians in the
first century who claimed similar knowledge of high things
clairvoyantly e seen ', is the most natural interpretation of
Paul's allusion in Colossians to * worshipping of angels,
taking his stand on things which he hath seen '. Especially
if we accept the brilliant conjecture, favoured by Lightfoot,
& ccipa/ce KeveypaTevuv, ' making empty boasts of visions
he has seen 7 (Col. ii. 18). The whole series of Apocalypses
points in the same direction. Some, at any rate, of these
visions of the Apocalyptists, even if subsequently a good
1 Cf. esp. 1 Cor. iii. 1-2; 2 Cor. zi. 1, xii. 1-7.
9 Cf . Reality, p. 327.
174 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
deal edited, must have been actually seen. The notion that
by the method of trance-practice the individual can attain
actual vision of things unutterable opens wide the door to
self-delusion and inflated self-esteem. That result by no
means always follows ; it all depends on the moral quality
of the visionary. Ignatius ought not to be depreciated
simply because he had and valued such experiences ; but it
must be recognised that the psychological make-up of the
person who enjoys them is not that of the ordinary man.
(3) Any one familiar with the literature of modern
psychology will incline to see in Ignatius an example of that
neurotic variety of ' the will to power ' which is often found
along with great ability, and not infrequently with high
ideals. In a man of the idealist temper ' the will to power '
is usually to be explained as being the result of a ' psychic
over-compensation for an inferiority complex 7 , that is, of a
sub-conscious sense of inferiority due to some humiliating
experience or experiences in early life. This phenomenon
has been most elaborately studied by Prof. A. Adler of
Vienna, 1 who makes it the foundation of his system. But
the main facts and the light they throw on the character
of Ignatius hold good, even if the system of psychology
which Adler builds upon them be regarded as somewhat
one-sided. 2
Christianity, just because it has made humility a virtue,
has made it a virtue the more difficult of attainment by
persons of this temper. Self-deception can take many and
1 A. Adler, The Neurotic Constitution (E. T. Kegan Paul, 1917), and
the more recent Individual Psychologie.
* Cf . C. O. Jung, Two Essays on- Analytical Psychology^ B. T., p, 62
(Balliere, Tindall & Cox, 1928) . ' The views of Adler and Freud are
therefore in contradiction only if there be such a theory. ... In the
neurosis of a youthful introvert, the psychological theory of Adler
seldom fails; and in the treatment of the young extravert it is always
advisable, indispensable indeed, to take account of the Freudian stand-
point/ Ignatius, I would remark, clearly belongs to the ' introverted '
type.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 175
subtle forms, but none more subtle than the self-esteem
which prides itself on not being proud. Ignatius, like many
religious leaders since, painfully and conscientiously wills
to be humble; but his sub-conscious mind is continually in
revolt.
A prisoner for the faith, about to die for Christ's sake,
writing letters of exhortation to the churches with that
' repressed ' instinct of self-assertion, how can the thought
not surge up that once a great apostle was in that same
position? But no; let others, if they will and the repressed
self hopes they will make that comparison; he will dis-
claim it.
The Church in Tralles he salutes * in the Divine pleni-
tude' in the apostolic fashion; he speaks as one having
authority:
Seeing that I love you, I thus spare you, though I might write
more sharply on His [Christ's] behalf.
And at once comes the disclaimer:
I thought not myself competent for this, that being a convict,
I should order you as though I were an Apostle (Trail, iii. 3).
Similarly he writes to the Romans:
I do not command you as though I were Peter and Paul ; they
were Apostles, I am a convict (Rom. iv. 3). 1
' I am a convict/ If we accept the tradition that Peter
and Paul died for their faith in Rome, they too were i con-
victs * in precisely the same sense as Ignatius; if we reject
that tradition, then an unconscious self-esteem half hints
1 The words <5$ n&rpo5 jccu ICaOXos are commonly mistranslated 'as
Peter and Paul did'. But Ignatius three times makes the same dis-
claimer of the right to command (SwtTd<r<rr0ai), To the Trallians he
writes, * as though I were an Apostle ' ; to the Ephesians, * as though
I were somewhat * ; to the Romans, * as though I we?e peter an4
Paul ' ; cj>s must mean the same in each case.
176 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
at a glory which belonged to him, but which the Apostles
did not share. On this Lightfoot comments: ' His judicial
condemnation by the Roman power was a type of his
unworthiness, his conviction, in the sight of God; his
duc&uixns was yet to come'; and he compares his remark
to the Ephesians:
I know who I am, and to whom I write. I am a convict; ye
have obtained mercy, I am in peril ; ye are established (xii. 1).
Thus to assure the rank and file of an average church
that they are more surely in the way of salvation than a
martyr on his road to death, is not real humility. Lightfoot
perhaps gives what Ignatius thought he ought to feel; and
what (echoing 1 Cor. iv.) he meant to say. But there is
often a gap between what the conscious self wills to say,
and what the sub-conscious allows it to convey.
In most societies, whether secular or religious, there are
persons deemed by their admirers to be l indispensable '.
There are more who deem themselves to be so. Sometimes
it is on good grounds; but few would state the fact as
naively as Ignatius.
Remember in your prayers the church which is in Syria, which
hath God for its shepherd in my stead (Rom. ix. 1).
That this self-exaltation is merely the obverse side of an
'inferiority complex' is seen when we contrast with it
expressions of humility no less extravagant, and no less
sincere. In as many as five of the seven letters he speaks
of himself as 'the very last of the faithful', or as 'not
worthy to be a member ' of the church of Syria. 1
That was a genuine humility which cried:
And last of aU, as unto one born out of due time, he appeared
to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet
1 Eph. zxl. 2, Romu ix, 2, Magru xiv. ? Trail, xiii. 1, Smyrn. xi. 1.
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 177
to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God
(1 Cor. xv. 8-9).
It is not humility, it is egoism repressed, that, consciously
echoing these classic words, can say of the converted slum
dwellers, who formed the rank and file of the Church of
Antioch:
But for myself, I am ashamed to be called one of them;
neither am I worthy, being the very last of them and one born
out of due time (Rom. ix. 2) .
At times Ignatius himself, to do him justice, seems to
catch a glimpse of this inner contradiction.
I have many deep thoughts in God ; but I take the measure
of myself, lest I perish in my boasting. For I ought now to be
the more afraid and ought not to give heed to them that would
puff me up ... for though I desire to suffer, I know not
whether I am worthy (Trail, iv.).
But even here and the more so if this be read with what
follows in the context we still seem to be listening to a
man who publicly disclaims a virtue expecting that his
hearers will repudiate the disclaimer.
(4) With Ignatius the desire for martyrdom has risen
to the height of passion.
Why do I desire to fight with wild beasts ? (Trail, x.)
Pray ye ... that I may be vouchsafed the lot which I am
eager to attain (Trail, xii. 3) .
This is not, I think, as with some of the later ascetics, an
indication of the neurotic desire to suffer, known as
' masochism '. It is rather an expression of the contradic-
tion in his character the heroic resolve by the imitation
of Christ to serve God in a way worthy of his high calling,
combined with a desire to attain the glory of martyrdom,
which was the highest personal distinction in the contem-
M
178 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
poraiy church. He begs the Roman Christians to forbear
any attempt to procure for him a reprieve.
If ye be silent and leave me alone, I am a word of God ; but
if ye desire my flesh, then shall I be again a mere cry (Rom. ii 1) .
Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can
attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the
teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread of Christ.
Rather entice the wild beasts that they may become my sepulchre
and may leave no part of my body behind (Rom. iv. 1 f.).
A note is here struck that compels both sympathy and
respect but it contrasts rather curiously with another cry:
' Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass '.
(5) Ignatius was a man used to deference and obedience,
accustomed also to that reverential admiration always in
his own circle accorded to an outstanding religious leader
a form of flattery the more insidious because it is usually
sincere. Brutality to prisoners condemned to the arena
was the rule. Given guards with a taste for prisoner-baiting,
his was just the temperament which would incite to that
amusement. To his highly-strung, sensitive nature, the
long road to Italy was itself a martyrdom.
From Syria to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea,
by day and night, being bound amidst ten leopards, a company
of soldiers who only wax worse when they are kindly treated.
Howbeit through their injuries I am becoming more of a disciple
yet am I not hereby justified (Rom. v. 1).
Inevitably such an experience would intensify, and force
to find expression, psychoneurotic tendencies latent in his
mental constitution which in easier circumstances might
never have developed. In that respect the portrait painted
in his letters misrepresents the real Ignatius. The tension
of a soul sorely over-strained rings in every sentence of
this pathetic, yet still heroic, figure. We cannot but note
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 179
the unconscious egoism in many a sentence; yet it is the
egoism of a noble mind unstrung.
The psychological idiosyncrasy of Ignatius must be
borne in mind when we approach the consideration of those
passages in his epistles which bear on Church government.
First, the commonest symptom of nervous overstrain is a
loss of the sense of proportion, with the consequential resort
to exaggeration of statement. Secondly, the neurotic tem-
perament is frequently characterised by an obsessive con-
centration on certain dominant ideas. To Ignatius the
monarchical episcopate is literally an idee fixe. It may
easily happen that an idee fixe is an idea intrinsically val-
uable. In the circumstances of the time it probably was
true statesmanship to strengthen the authority of the epis-
copate. A policy may in itself be sound, and yet in a
particular individual become neurotically an obsession; and
to Ignatius the importance of the Bishop had become a real
obsession. His language in regard to that office is beyond
measure extravagant.
Plainly, therefore, we ought to have respect to the bishop as
to the Lord Himself (Eph. vi. 1).
The bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the pres-
byters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles (Magn.
vi. 1).
The bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters
as the council of God and as the college of the Apostles. Apart
from these a church does not deserve to be called a church (Trail,
iii 1).
Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be ;
even as where Jesus may be, there is the Catholic Church. It is
not lawful apart from the bishop either to baptize or to hold a
love feast ; but whatsoever he shall approve, this is well pleasing
also to God. . . . It is good to recognise God and the bishop.
He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God ; he that doth
180 THE PKIMITIVE CHURCH v
aught without the knowledge of the bishop rendereth service to
the devil (Smyrn. viii. 2-ix. 1) .
Sentiments like these are often reiterated several times
in the same letter; and they occur more than once in every
letter, except that addressed to Rome. The exception is
significant; and I have already suggested the reason for it.
To Ignatius the Church of Rome is the ideal church,
worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of felicitations, worthy
of praise, worthy of success, worthy in purity and having the
presidency in love, walking in the law of Christ.
It is the church which teaches other churches ' Ye were the
instructors of others '. The instruction given by the Church
of Rome to other churches was, as we have already seen
(p. 160 f.), the letter sent out some twenty years before
written in the name of the whole Church, though probably
penned by Clement the teaching of which seemed so
supremely valuable to Ignatius and the party who sup-
ported him in his stand for discipline. Naturally Ignatius
took it for granted that the church which had itself pro-
duced the epistle of Clement did not need his good advice;
he assumed possibly on inadequate information as to the
contemporary situation that it was a model of episcopal
discipline as well as of all other Christian virtues.
A still more tell-tale fact is the recurrence of this same
topic when, on the occasion already alluded to, he was
speaking under the control of the prophetic spirit.
I cried out when I was among you ; I spoke with a loud voice,
with God's own voice, Give ye heed to the bishop and the pres-
bytery and the deacons, , . He in whom I am bound is my
witness that I learned it not from flesh of man ; it was the preach-
ing of the Spirit who spake in this wise ; Do nothing without the
bishop (Philad. vii. 1).
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 181
Utterances during the kind of prophetic seizure here
described reveal the working of the sub-conscious mind
which is always the citadel of the idee fixe.
When a man on his road to death is seen using every
opportunity to impress one idea with all the prestige that
martyrdom would give him; when he enforces it in language
neurotically extravagant; and when there is evidence that
his sub-conscious as well as his conscious mind is dominated
by the same idea, we may well conclude that it stood to him
as the summation of his life's work. But if the consolida-
tion of an ecclesiastical discipline centred in the monarchical
bishop was the ideal for which Ignatius had lived, and which
he hoped by a martyr's death firmly to rivet on the Church
at large, it is a fair presumption that it was a thing which
he had had to fight for in his own Church of Antioch.
Again, what is the meaning of the extreme anxiety in
regard to the election of his successor voiced in the three
earlier letters which he despatched from Smyrna? Did he
know that the party he had vanquished had raised their
heads, and were intriguing to prevent the supreme power
ever again being concentrated in the hands of a single
person? Till the new bishop was seated in his chair, Igna-
tius' life's work was in peril. After reaching Troas he heard
satisfactory news on this point; thereupon he adjures the
four churches to which he then writes to send special depu-
tations to congratulate the Church of Antioch on having
acquired a bishop. We may think it odd that he should
expect them to display such enthusiasm about a routine
matter of that sort; then we reflect that the election of the
right man as successor meant to Ignatius the final victory
of his policy. With the self-centredness of the neurotic
temper, he takes it for granted that the churches of Asia will
share his delight. Whether they obeyed his behest we shall
never know. To us the point of interest is to note that,
182 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
alike in his anxiety and in his joy, there speaks a man whose
life work has just been saved.
I ask once more the question with which this Lecture
opened. Is it possible to bridge the gulf between the Church
Order not to mention the theology of the Didache and
that of the letters of Ignatius? So far as the theology is
concerned the impingement on the Church of Antioch, soon
after the writing of the Didache, of the collection of Pauline
Epistles would suffice. As regards Church Order, the gulf,
I have shown, is nothing like so wide as it at first sight
appears. On the one hand, already in the church in which
the Didache was written, episcopoi and deacons were offi-
cials enjoying high repute; and the aim of the document
is to increase their prestige in the smaller churches. On the
other hand, it has become clear that the position claimed
by Ignatius for the hierarchy was, at Antioch, a thing
recently developed and, indeed, as yet by no means secure.
But between the Didache and the letters of Ignatius three
influences had operated concurrently to strengthen that
position the Epistle of Clement, with its stress on the
necessity of discipline under a ministry deriving authority
from Apostolic succession; the obvious value of mon-
episcopacy at a time when unity in the local church was
seriously threatened (Smyr. vi. and viii.) ; the lifework of
Ignatius himself.
Throughout his struggle he would have been able to
quote the example of other famous churches. His allusion
to ' bishops settled in the farthest parts of the earth ' may
be a rhetorical exaggeration; but at Jerusalem a monarchical
episcopate was primitive; in the larger churches of Asia, as
we have seen, it was established perhaps twenty years
before Ignatius wrote. Clement's letter was, I have shown,
capable of being interpreted as if mon-episcopacy had been
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 183
immemorial at Rome. In State as well as Church, the cur-
rent of the times was towards absolute personal rule. An
able, energetic man, concentrated on one subject, wholly
unsparing of himself, can in any circumstances effect much;
but Ignatius held all the cards. Why, then, had it cost him
the effort, which unless our interpretation of his letters is
entirely amiss, it must have cost, to establish at Antioch
what elsewhere had come by easy stages? All is explained
on the view that in this matter Syria was behind the times;
that at Antioch the entrusting of monarchical authority to
the bishop was comparatively recent; so that Ignatius had
had a long fight and a hard one to bring his church into line
with other churches. Tradition knows of one predecessor
only in the office; and Euodius may well have been little
more than chairman of the local board of presbyters. Like
many an Anglican vicar in England in the last three-
quarters of a century, Ignatius during his tenure of office
changed his church from ' Low ' to ' High ' ; and so brought
it into conformity with what he sincerely believed to be
the mind of Christ and what, beyond doubt, was the
fashion of the age.
ADDITIONAL NOTE
THE EPISTLE OF ST. JTJDB
IF this epistle be ascribed to Jude, the brother of the Lord, we
should naturally in default of evidence to the contrary assign
its place of origin either to Palestine or, at any rate, to some
locality in that part of the Roman Empire. In that case it is a
document bearing on the early history of the Church in Syria.
It is relevant, therefore, to the subject of this Lecture to consider
briefly the question of its authorship and provenance.
The epistle opens with the words, ' Judas, a servant of Jesus
Christ, and brother of James'. That a feeling of humility should
have made Jude describe himself as the 'servant', rather than
184 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
as the ( brother ', of the Lord, is not unnatural. What surprises
us is the addition, * and brother of James '. Jude and his family
were, we should gather from Hegesippus, well known in Palestine ;
besides, in the early Church letters were carried by hand by
friends of the writer, so that there could be no doubt in the minds
of the first readers as to the identity of the Judas named in the
address. We suspect, therefore, that the identification, 'brother
of James', is an addition perhaps originating in a marginal note
in some early MS. made at a later date, when the identity of the
Judas who wrote it was open to debate.
But if the identification of the Judas who wrote the letter with
the brother of James is a conjecture, it may possibly be a mis-
taken one. This possibility turns into a probability when we
read the exhortation (verse 17), 'Remember ye the words which
have been spoken aforetime by the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ; how that they said to you; In the last time there shall
be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts/ This
seems to imply that the writer of the epistle lived in what he
believed to be 'the last time/ but a time related to that in which
the Apostles lived as the time of fulfilment to the time of prophecy
the prophecy having been uttered by the great men of the past.
The persons denounced in the epistle are a group who, so far
from condemning sexual immorality, defend it as the expression
of the liberty justified by a higher spirituality. We know that
Carpocrates, c. AJ>. 125, taught this. But the Gnostic doctrine
that the spirit and the flesh were completely separable lent itself
from the first, either to extreme asceticism, or to extreme anti-
nomianism. Hence this kind of teaching is likely to have ap-
peared in some quarters very soon after the first infiltration of
the Gnostic outlook into Christianity i.e. before the end of the
first century. It looks as if this conscientious immoralism was
something of a novelty in the particular church to which the letter
was addressed. At any rate, the impression left by the epistle is
that the teaching in question was something which had only
recently crept in ; the mere discovery of its existence had come
to the author as something of a shock. It is the moral turpitude
of the teaching, rather than any doctrinal theory, which stirs him
v THE CHURCH IN SYRIA 185
to indignant denunciation. In so far, however, as the theoretical
basis of Gnostic immoralism was a distinction between the ulti-
mate Good God and the more or less evil Creator of the material
universe, including our flesh, Judas appeals to his hearers to keep
' the faith once delivered to the saints '. But here, as in James,
the typical article of faith, on its intellectual side, is * thou be-
lievest that God is One 7 which for all who accepted the Old
Testament as Scripture needs not to be argued about,
So far as external evidence is concerned, Jude is one of the
best authenticated of the catholic epistles. It alone, in addition to
the Johannine epistles, is mentioned in the Muratorianum, which
represents Rome ; Clement of Alexandria wrote a commentary on
it ; and the author of 2 Peter who probably wrote either in Asia
or in Syria, c. AD. 140 valued it so highly that he incorporated
it practically whole in a work which he wished to be accepted as
Peter's. This is against a date much later than AJX 100.
But though not the work of Jude, the brother of the Lord, the
epistle ought by no means to be treated as a specimen of early
Christian pseudonymous writing. Jude is a person so obscure that
no one, desiring to give weight to his own views by publishing
them under an authoritative name, would ever have thought of
him, until and unless he had used up all the greater figures of the
Apostolic Age. The epistle must therefore be the authentic work
of a Christian leader actually named Judas.
Prof. B. W. Bacon (Journal of Biblical Lit., 1928, p. 230 f.)
detects a connection between the aim and spirit of Jude and
'Matthew's .attempt to counteract the antinomian laxity of the
times' depicting the historic Jesus 'as a second Moses, laying
down commandments for a higher righteousness enforced by
rewards and penalties of the world to come '. ' Luke ', he says,
' stands closer to James '. My own feeling as to the ' atmosphere '
of the documents coincides with his ; and while I would place
Luke and James in Rome (or, at any rate, the West), I should
conjecture Jude, like Matthew, to be a Syrian work.
Who was this Judas ? Though not an apostle, he writes as
one from whom written pronouncements on Church matters were
186 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH v
expected (Jude 3). Can he have been the Bishop of an important
See?
The Apostolic Constitutions, in the passage already quoted
(p. 95) > gives the third Bishop of Jerusalem (following Symeon,
the successor to James, the Lord's brother) as ' Judas of James '.
As its author probably lived in Caesarea, he would be familiar
with Jerusalem tradition. We have lists of Jerusalem bishops by
two other persons who could have had access to that tradition,
viz. Eusebius and Epiphanius. Their lists are nearly, but not
quite, identical Eusebius used a written authority, which did not
give dates (H.E. iv. 5). Prof. Turner (J.T,S. i. p. 540) argues
that Epiphanius used this same source doubtless a list drawn up
by the authorities at Jerusalem. Now, whereas in Eusebius' list
the third name is Justus, Epiphanius gives it as Judas. There
exist four later lists ; these vary, giving either Judas or Justus, or
a combination of the two names. Epiphanius, I suggest, copied
the original correctly as James ; the Apostolic Constitutions more
accurately as Judas of James.
The conjecture lies ready to hand that the Epistle originally
opened * Judas of James, a servant of Jesus Christ '. The addi-
tion of the word * brother ' would make ' of James ' no longer a
kind of surname, but a description ; and for reverential reasons
this would be transposed so as to follow ' servant of Jesus Christ '.
On that hypothesis the author of the Epistle was Bishop of
Jerusalem early in the reign of Trajan.
VI
THE CHURCH OF ROME
SYNOPSIS
THE EARLY POPES
THE lists of the early Bishops of Home in Irenaeus and Epiphanius
probably go back to one drawn up by Hegesippus, who visited Rome
C. AJD. 165.
As regards the earliest names, Tertullian contradicts Irenaeus ;
but, though Irenaeus is the better authority, he too is capable of
substituting inference for information.
Strictly speaking, neither Peter nor Paul * founded ' the Church in
Borne.
The statement that Peter and Paul appointed the first mon-
archical Bishop of Rome is not borne out by the evidence of docu-
ments undoubtedly emanating from the Roman Church.
Documents undoubtedly Roman are 1 Clement and The Shepherd
of Hennas ; so possibly are the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of
James.
HEBREWS AND JAMES
Both these were known and valued at Rome at an early date,
but were not there -accepted as apostolic. It was in Alexandria that
Hebrews was earliest attributed to Paul ; James is first mentioned
by Origen, and first quoted by Dionysius of Alexandria.
Points of contact between Hebrews, James, and the Lucan
writings.
Beasons for connecting Hebrews with Rome.
The situation, presupposed in James is equally appropriate to
Rome though this is not generally realised.
The Church Order of Hebrews and James comparable to that
implied in the farewell speech of Paul to the Elders of Ephesus,
J87
188 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
Mon-episcopacy would seem not yet to have been developed, but the
disciplinary powers and pastoral responsibility of the regular ministry
are strongly emphasised.
THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT
Written in the name of the Church of Rome to the Church of
Corinth. Its date can be determined as immediately after the
assassination of Domitian, AD. 96.
* THE SHEPHEBD ' OF HEBMAS
The Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of John the main
literary survivals of the outbreak of prophetism which was a notable
feature of early Christianity. The Shepherd a work of very mediocre
quality ; but it enjoyed great popularity in the second and third
centuries and reflects the mentality of the average church member
of the time.
Internal evidence favours the view that it was written by a con-
temporary of Clement ; but the Muratorianum states that it was
written by Hennas, * while his brother Pius, the Bishop, was sitting in
the Chair of the Church of the city of Rome \ i.e. A.D. 139-154.
This statement cannot be considered apart from evidence that c.
AJX 200 the question of the exact degree of authority to be ascribed
to Hennas was a matter of acute controversy. Hippolytus and
Tertullian (and certain synods) would dislike the book for theological
reasons. Origen here following Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria
affirms it to be inspired. Origen ascribed it to the Hermas men-
tioned by Paul which he could not have done unless it had been a
religious classic in Alexandria long before the time of Pope Pius.
Four other objections to the Muratorian date.
Probability that only the first four Visions of Hermas date from
the lifetime of Clement (c. AJX 100). The composition of the latter
and longer part of the book was probably spread over another dozen
years or so,
CHURCH ORDER AT ROME
The Epistle of Clement affords evidence as to Church Order at
Home as well as at Corinth especially as it is supported by the evi-
dence of Hermas.
The officers are named Episcopoi and Deacons ; and these terms
are used in contexts which exclude the possibility that Presbyters was
the name of a third order of intermediate rank. The term Presbyter
vi THE CHURCH OP ROME 189
appears to imply status rather than office, and to be somewhat wider
than that of Episcopos.
Polycarp's letter to the Philippians shows that in this church also,
as late as AJD. 115, mon-episcopacy did not yet exist.
The new and important thing contributed by Clement's letter is,
not the names of the church officers, but the conception of the nature
and source of their authority. The principle of apostolic succession
as the basis of authority is affirmed though the succession is a
collegiate, not an individual mon-episcopal, succession.
Immense stress is laid on discipline and the duty of obedience.
This is enforced by the analogies, on the one hand of the Roman
army, on the other of the Old-Testament priesthood.
It is notable that at Rome though apparently not yet at Corinth
the prophet is definitely subordinate to the regular ministry. With
this contrast the situation implied in the Didache.
MON-EPISCOPACY AT ROME
Can the evidence that in the time of Clement and Hennas the
Church of Rome was governed by a college of presbyter-bishops be
reconciled with the monarchical form of government implied by
Hegesippus' list of bishops ? Probability that the Roman Church
was originally organised like a Jewish Synagogue, in which one of
the Elders, known as kpxurw 470)705 or ' ruler of the synagogue J , was
in charge of the conduct of divine worship. The special sanctity of
the Eucharistic service would enhance the importance among Chris-
tians of such an officer. Personal character, and the inconveniences
in time of crisis of committee-rule, might easily make him a kind of
' Managing Director ' of the Board of Presbyters. Evidence that as
late as Irenaeus the Bishop of Rome was still entitled * presbyter '.
Evidence, under three heads, that by AJ>. 115 the position of the
President of the Elders had grown in importance.
The Quartodeciman controversy ; Asian Christians at Rome ; and
the fermentum. Hypothesis that the episcopate of Xystus marked a
turning-point in the development of mon-episcopacy at Rome.
The impingement of the arrival of Ignatius, with his impassioned
advocacy of the predominance of the bishop, upon the local situation
at Rome.
Some reflections on the mutual interaction of Rome and Antioch.
VI
THE CHURCH OF ROME
EARLY POPES
WERE it certain that the account of the origin of the Roman
episcopate given by Irenaeus (A.D. 185) is as accurate as it
is precise, our investigation so far as it concerns the Church
of Rome would be ended.
We confound all [the heretics] by pointing to the tradition,
derived from the Apostles, of the great, ancient and famous
church founded and organised at Rome by the two most notable
apostles, Peter and Paul, and the faith proclaimed to mankind,
which has come down even to ourselves through its succession of
bishops. ... So having founded and built up the Church, the
blessed Apostles entrusted the ministration of the bishopric to
Linus (Adv. Haer. iii. 3. 2 f.).
Irenaeus then gives a list of the first twelve Bishops of
Rome, from the Linus just mentioned to Eleutherus who
was bishop at the time he wrote. 1
1. Linus. [64] 7. Telesphorus. [125]
2. Anencletus. [76] 8. Hyginus. [136]
3. Clement. [88] 9. Pius. [140]
4. Euaristus. [97] 10. Anicetus. [155]
5. Alexander. [105] 11. Soter. [166]
6. Xystus. [115] 12. Eleutherus. [174]
A list containing the first ten of these names (save that
1 1 add dates, as restored from the ' term numbers ' in the Ghronica
of Hippolytus by H. J. Lawlor in his JSJwse&ws, ii, p. 44,
191
192 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
Anencletus appears in the shortened form Cletus, as in the
Canon of the Mass) is given by Epiphanius (Pan. xxvii. 6) ;
and Lightfoot showed that the list was derived by him from
Hegesippus, a Palestinian Christian who visited Rome in
the time of Anicetus, i.e. about A.D. 165. A fragment of
Hegesippus is preserved, in which he says:
But when I came to Rome, I made for myself a succession-list
as far as Anicetus (Eus. EJB. iv. 22).
From this the most natural inference is that the list of the
Roman succession was made out then for the first time,
and is due to the researches of Hegesippus, 1
The names Linus, Cletus, Clement occur (after those
of the Apostles) in the Canon of the Mass, and are followed
by that of Xystus. Liturgiologists believe this to be
Xystus IL (martyred A.D. 258) the first three being the
remains of a list which originally enumerated all the
Bishops of Rome. Parts of the Canon are of great antiquity,
but it seems to have been modified considerably in the
fourth century; and there is no evidence at all as to the
origin of the two diptychs, or lists of names. It is, however,
not improbable that Hegesippus may have found a list of
names already traditional in the eucharistic commemora-
tion, and have drawn upon it on the assumption that,
unless the contrary was clear, all names occurring in it were
those of bishops.
The list of Irenaeus is derived, I shall try to prove later
(p. 295 ff.), directly from that made out by Hegesippus.
The historical value of such a list will for the later names
be very high; but its value, of course, will decrease the
nearer we get back to the beginning. For the purpose,
however, of our present investigation it is precisely the
*Cf. Lightfoot, Clement, i. p. $27 ff. ; also, for a defence of Liglit-
foot's views from criticisms by Harnack and Zahn, H. J, Lawlor,
Eusebiana, p. 65 ff.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 193
beginning that matters most and it is just here that other
evidence conflicts with that of Irenaeus.
Rhetorical exaggeration is all but universal in ancient
writers an inevitable result of an education mainly con-
ducted in the School of Rhetoric. 1 To this weakness the
Fathers are not more subject than their pagan contempo-
raries; on the whole they are less so. But the historian
who is not constantly on his guard against its influence will
make grave mistakes in his estimate of evidence.
Tertullian contradicts the statement of Irenaeus that
Clement was f in the third place from the Apostles'; he
affirms definitely that Clement was appointed first Bishop
of Rome, and that, not by Peter and Paul, but by Peter.
Tertullian had read Irenaeus ; but it would seem that he was
attracted by the more vivid and picturesque narrative of
the spurious letter of Clement to James (now in the Clemen-
tine Homilies) which describes the actual ceremony of
Clement's consecration by Peter (p. 11) . Of the rival state-
ments, that of Irenaeus (and Hegesippus) has clearly the
prior claim to consideration; but the fact that Tertullian,
having alternative sources of information to choose from,
prefers the one which is obviously the less authentic is
significant for the mentality of church writers of the period.
It compels us to adopt an attitude of caution in regard to
the evidence of Irenaeus also especially as it is not easy
to reconcile with that of earlier documents emanating from
the Church of Rome itself. Moreover, Irenaeus (in the
chapter next following that quoted above), when tracing
the episcopal succession in Asia, makes the almost certainly
erroneous statement that Polycarp 'was appointed bishop
of the Church in Smyrna by apostles in Asia '.
To the statement of Irenaeus that the Church of Rome
1 C. C. Bigg, The Church's Task under the Roman Empire, p. 6 ff.
(Clarendon Press, 1905.)
N
194 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
was * founded* by Peter and Paul, St. Paul himself would
probably have demurred. Some years before he visited
Rome there was in existence in that city a church sufficiently
important to elicit from him the longest of his epistles in
effect a considered apologia for his whole attitude towards
Judaism and Jewish Christianity. And in that epistle he
gives as one reason why he had not been to Rome before,
that he had made it his aim not to preach ' where Christ
was already named, that I might not build on another man's
foundation ' (Rom. xv. 20 ff.). Nor can it be said in exten-
uation of Irenaeus' language that he used the word ' found '
loosely of Paul, but strictly of Peter in the belief that
Peter first went to Rome in pursuit of Simon Magus (p.
12 ff.) (and so may be said to have ' founded ' the Church
there) in AJX 42, seventeen years before the arrival of Paul.
For a few chapters earlier, in the well-known passage on
the origin of the Gospels, Irenaeus uses the same word
'found 7 ; and he there makes it clear that he thought of
Peter and Paul as being engaged on this ' founding ' vt the
same time.
Matthew published his written Gospel among the Hebrews
in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching and
founding the church in Rome.
It is not irrelevant to remark that our confidence in
Irenaeus' accurate knowledge of the facts is not increased
by finding the statement that Peter and Paul founded the
Church of Rome coupled with the assertion that Matthew
wrote his gospel in Hebrew. This is certainly incorrect,
being incompatible with the admitted dependence of our
first Gospel on the Greek Gospel of Mark, which is the one
certain result of Synoptic criticism. But it can be explained
as a mistaken inference by Irenaeus from the saying of
Papias about TO. \6jia. His statement that Linus was
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 195
appointed Bishop of Rome, in the monarchical sense of that
office, by Peter and Paul, may also rest on inference. If so,
as will appear shortly, it would seem (whether first made
by himself, or by Hegesippus) to be similarly a mistaken
one,
Though Paul did not ' found ' the Church in Rome, his
influence on its thought must have been considerable. And
this influence may also have been determinative of the
type of Church Order which it came to adopt. In that case
we should antecedently have expected him to promote an
organisation similar to that of the churches which he himself
had founded. We have already seen that at Ephesus and
at Philippi, the two churches about which we have clear
evidence, the government was in the hands, not of a single
monarchical bishop, but of a body of episcopoi. The tradi-
tion that Peter came to Rome has been recently subjected
to formidable scrutiny by Prof. E. T. Merrill, of Chicago. 1
But of those scholars who think the evidence adequate, the
majority hold that Peter did not reach Rome till after the
two years' imprisonment of Paul with which the story of
the Acts concludes. 2 Now if Peter was in Rome after Paul's
death, it is theoretically possible that he then introduced a
new form of church government. That possibility, how-
ever, shrinks to the point of invisibility when we study the
evidence available as to the state of affairs at Rome during
the ensuing fifty years.
Of documents indisputably emanating from the early
Roman Church there survive two the epistle of the Roman
Church to that of Corinth, known as the first epistle of
Clement; and the quaint collection of visions and revela-
tions known as The Shepherd of Hermas. The epistle of
1 JUssays in Early Christian History. (Macmillan, 1924.)
a Even Monsignor Duchesne writes : ' He had, perhaps, been there
before ; this is possible, but it cannot be proved '. Early History of
the Christian Church, E.T., p. 45. (Murray, 1910.)
196 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
Clement is usually, and I believe correctly, dated A.D. 96.
The date of Hennas is disputed; I shall argue later that
his book was published in instalments between A.D. 97-114.
But there are in the New Testament itself two documents
of a date earlier than these, which can with some degree
of probability be connected with Rome, viz. the epistle to
the Hebrews and that of James. The case, then, for con-
necting them with Rome and the light they throw on
Church Order must be briefly considered before we pro-
ceed to scrutinise the evidence of the other, and undoubtedly
Roman, documents,
HEBREWS AND JAMES
There is a remarkable analogy between these two
epistles in other respects so different so far as concerns
the history of their acceptance by the Church. Both epis-
tles are known and valued in Rome at a very early date.
Hebrews has largely determined the thought, as well as
the language, of Clement (A.D. 96) ; and Hermas, a later
contemporary of Clement, shows in a number of passages
the influence of James. Nevertheless, the Church of Rome
declined for more than a couple of centuries to accept either
of them as the work of an apostle. Neither is even men-
tioned in the Muratorianum, which is a list of books
accepted (or explicitly rejected) by the Church of Rome
at the end of the second century. Eusebius says that the
hesitation of Rome in regard to Hebrews lasted down to
his own time, A.D. 311 (H.E. vi. 20. 3), and James was not
admitted to the Roman Canon till about A.D. 350. Again,
in regard to both, Alexandria is the place where we first
find evidence of their acceptance as the writings of apos-
tles but here there is a difference. The attribution of
Hebrews to Paul was already an ancient tradition in that
church in the time of Clement of Alexandria; he quotes a
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 197
theory of 'the blessed Elder' (presumably Pantaenus,
A.D. 180) as to why Paul omitted to set his name to the
epistle. And both Clement and Origen wrestle to explain
the difference of style which was as obvious to the schol-
arly theologians of Alexandria as to a modern professor
between this epistle and the rest of the Pauline Corpus, in a
way which shows that they were dealing with a work tradi-
tionally accepted as Pauline in the Alexandrian church.
James, on the other hand, is not mentioned by name before
Origen, who, in his Commentary on John (torn. xix. 6)
(after A.D. 232), speaks of it as doubtfully attributed
(fapojjL&vj) to the Apostle; and it is not clearly quoted by
any ecclesiastical writer (save Hennas) until Dionysius
of Alexandria A.D. 248. 1
The most noticeable thing, however, about the attesta-
tion of James is the hesitation in regard to it, felt as late
as the fifth century, in the churches of Syria where the
name of James, brother of the Lord, was held in special
honour, and where Judaistic influences had been relatively
the strongest. In that part of the world its first appearance
is in the Peshitta, the revised translation of the Syriac made
by Rabbula (A.D. 411-435) . It seems to have been accepted
by Chrysostom; but it is definitely rejected by Theodore
of Mopsuestia A.D. 429 and Theodoret A.D. 450, both of
whom represent the Syrian tradition.
The slow acceptance into the Canon of a document of
such early date and of such a lofty ethical character would
be easily explained if we could suppose that originally
James, like Hebrews, lacked an opening address giving its
author's name. In that case the first verse of the text as
we have it will have been prefixed in the second century by
some Alexandrian scholar, who, from the internal evidence
1 There are possible traces of it in II. Clement, which is also (cf . p.
244 ff.) an Alexandrian document.
198 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
afforded by the author's attitude to faith and works, con-
jectured that this ancient document was by the brother of
the Lord, whom he knew to have been in the apostolic age
the leader of those whose thought was at the furthest remove
from that of Paul. The prefixing of the name of James
would revive and extend its circulation; and, once attributed
to an apostle, its merits would, after sufficient lapse of
time, secure its admission to the Canon especially as the
increasingly influential Church of Aelia-Jerusalem would
have warmly championed the inclusion of a work by their
patron saint (p. 46) - 1
Eusebius' attitude to 2 Peter supplies an exact parallel:
The tradition received by us is that it is not canonical ; never-
theless, since it appeared profitable to many, store was set by it
along with the other Scriptures (H.E. iii. 3. 1).
Nevertheless, 2 Peter, in spite of doubts of its genuineness,
ultimately got into the New Testament, partly on its relig-
ious and ethical merits, partly, we may surmise, because
it seemed fitting that Peter, as well as Paul and John,
should be represented in the Canon by a plurality of
Epistles.
At any rate, however we explain it, it is a fact that,
whereas at the end of the first century both Hebrews and
James were religious classics at Rome, at the end of the
second century no one there even desires to attribute them
to an apostle and thereby secure for them the admission
to the Canon of the New Testament which was at that date
a corollary of such attribution. Of this the only explana-
tion I can see is, that the Roman Church originally knew
the names of the actual authors, and therefore never thought
of ascribing their works to apostles.
It may be objected that, from the standpoint of theologi-
1 The Liturgy of Jerusalem is attributed to James.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 199
cal development, Hebrews and James are at too far a
remove from one another to make it likely that they repre-
sent the same church at approximately the same date.
To this I would reply, that the evidence of Clement and
Hermas shows that, wherever they were written, both were
found acceptable by some Christians in Rome at an early
date. Rome, it must be remembered, differed from other
churches in that its membership must from the first have
included persons from all parts of the Empire, and presum-
ably, therefore, of a wide range of views.
The Christian community at Rome was not only one of the
largest, but also was highly representative of the various currents
of thought, tradition, and practice of the whole Christian church.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Rome became very early the
great laboratory of Christian and ecclesiastical policy, and that
it contributed more than any other Church ... to the defeat
of the internal forces which [in the second century] were leading
Christianity to a complete disintegration. 1
There is a link between the two documents. Both Hebrews
and James exhibit, though in very different ways, interesting
points of contact with the Lukan writings which there is
reason to associate with Rome. Clement of Alexandria
tried to account for the Greek style of Hebrews on the
hypothesis that it was a translation by Luke of an epistle
written by Paul in Hebrew. No one now holds this view;
but the linguistic affinities between Hebrews and the Lukan
writings are striking. 2 And though the author of Hebrews
had perhaps not read the Gospel, Ms obvious reference to
Gethsemane (v. 7 f .) suggests that he knew the story with
the addition (including the ' bloody sweat ') found in Luke
(xxii 43 f.) in the Western and Byzantine texts. In this
1 G. La Piana, Harvard Theologieal Review, July 1925, p. 203.
* Cf. J. Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testa-
ment, 3rd ed., p. 435 f.
200 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
case I believe these texts preserve the true reading. But if
it be an interpolation, it only the more evidently reflects a
tradition current at Rome; for it was known to Justin
Martyr. The contacts between Luke and James are of
another character. ' There is the same fusion of Wisdom-
ideas with the tradition and formation of the evangelic
logia, and the same attitude towards wealth which has led
many writers to ascribe a sort of Ebionistic sympathy to
Luke/ 1
Matthew, in his attitude towards wealth, shows by
contrast a desire to beat a retreat from a too literal insis-
tence on the commands of the Lord; he omits the story of
the widow's mite in Mark, he explains the beatitude as
applicable to ' the poor in spirit ', and he omits (if this stood
in his source) the ' Woes ' to the rich and fortunate, which
are so striking a feature in Luke's version of the Great
Sermon.
The verbal reminiscences in James of sayings of Christ
are also on the whole nearer to Luke than to Matthew.
But occasionally they reflect more nearly the wording of
Matthew; Luke slightly Hellenises his sources, so it would
look as if the author of James had read Q in the recension
known to Luke.
That the epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to the
Church of Rome, or to some section of it, is a view which
has of late years won a very general acceptance. Apart
from the fact that the epistle first appears in Rome and
had made a mark on Roman thought as early as Clement,
the allusions to persecution in which many had been made
a spectacle of (Oearpifbucvoi) (x. 32 ff.), and to the noble
end (&e/3acn*>) of the leaders who had converted them
(xiii. 7), may be read naturally as references to the perse-
cution by Nero. So, too, the words 'Those from Italy
1 Cf . Moffatt, op, cit. p, 466 where parallels are given.
vi THE CHURCH OP EOME 201
(ol ctTni TT?S 'IroXtos) salute you' (Heb. xiii. 24). The
translation ( They of Italy ' in A..V. and R.V. is unfortu-
nate; it suggests a greeting sent by persons living in Italy
to some place outside, whereas the Greek favours the con-
verse. It is a greeting sent by Italian Christians living
away from their native land at the place of writing; such
a greeting would be most natural in an epistle addressed
to Rome.
The place from which the letter was sent, we can only
guess. The fact that its Christological doctrine bridges the
gulf between Ephesians and the Fourth Gospel, combined
with the allusion to Timothy's imprisonment (xiii. 23),
makes Ephesus the obvious guess. But for our immediate
purpose, the actual place of writing is not important. It
was addressed to Rome by a person who obviously knew
(and was well known by) the Roman Church; it is, there-
fore, evidence for the state of things at Rome.
Equally appropriate to the situation at Rome though
the fact is less generally recognised by scholars is the
message of the epistle of James. In Rome as we should
expect and as Clement's letter shows to have been the case
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans was a church classic. But
only the more for that was it liable to misinterpretation.
In all ages the Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith
without the works of the Law has been the source, either
of intellectual misconception, or of moral antinomianism ;
and many of the Gnostics were strongly antinomian. In
Romans more than in any other of his epistles there are,
as the author of 2 Peter puts it,
some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and
unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their
qwn destruction (iii. 16).
202 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
One main purpose of James is to protest that mere belief
is not enough; right conduct; and that conceived in accord
with the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, is the essential
thing (ii 14r-26) . Paul would not have denied this ; and if
the author of the epistle of James had had a deeper insight
into Paul's mind, he might have expressed himself differ-
ently. But what he is mainly concerned with is, not the
inner meaning of Paul, but the misuse by certain, persons
of texts from Paul to disparage the necessity of good works.
Paul cites the faith of Abraham; James replies by enu-
merating his works.
The epistle to the Romans was so widely read that a
reply to a misunderstanding of this epistle might have been
written in any church. But James also cites Rahab the
harlot as a case of one who was justified, not by faith, but
by works. Why, with all the characters of the Old Testa-
ment to choose from, should he select two only and those
Abraham and Rahab? Obviously because these were the
two cases most often cited by the persons he would refute.
We know why they -cited Abraham; Paul had done so as
the outstanding example of justification by faith without
works. But why Rahab? It is always in regard to the
ethics of sex that antinomians are primarily in revolt;
Rahab's profession, therefore, would specially recommend
her to them. But why, we ask, could they quote her as a
person who had been justified by faithf Doubtless, because
her name is one that occurs in the long roll-call of the
heroes of faith in Hebrews xl 1 Rahab would not naturally
be cited as a model of faith except in a church where that
virtue had been ascribed to her in a work regarded as a
religious classic. And we know from Clement's epistle that
1 It is no objection to this view that faith in Hebrews is not used in
quite the same sense as it is by Paul ; it is used in yet another sense
in James. In religious controversy, it is commonly words, not their
meaning, that matters.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 203
Hebrews was already such at Rome before A.D. 96; while,
since Hebrews was not yet attributed to Paul, it could
hardly have acquired that position in many other churches
by the date when James was written.
There are two other points in which the language of
James seems specially appropriate if addressed to the
Roman Church.
(a) The place where Christians meet for worship is
still called a e synagogue ? ; it is so named (three times) by
Hermas, who wrote in Rome a few years later. It is possible
that the use of this word survived in other parts of the
Christian world; but I know of no other evidence to that
effect.
(6) Undue deference to the rich, the wearers of ' a gold
ring', has become a crying abuse (ii. 1-7). The abuse in
question is, unfortunately, one liable to arise in all times
and in all places. But at Rome the gold ring was an official
class distinction; it signified membership of the Equestrian
Order. Archaeological evidence has accumulated of late
confirming the previously existing literary evidence that,
towards the end of the first century A..D., the Church in
Rome was gaining, if not full members, at least c adherents ',
from some of the noblest families in Rome, including
Flavius Clemens and his wife Domitilla (near relatives of
the Emperor), and the Consul Acilius Glabrio. One can
imagine the flutter of excitement, in a congregation largely
composed of slaves and ex-slaves, when persons of this sort
walked into the place of assembly, and the deferential
anxiety of those in charge to give them the best seat. It
was a situation in which the natural human weakness that
inclines the best of us to * respect of persons' would be
peculiarly difficult to withstand.
The almost Ebionite outlook of the writer is quite com-
patible with a Roman origin for the epistle. From Philip-
204 THE PRIMITIVE CHUECH vi
plans it appears that the Judaistic opponents of Paul were
extremely active during his imprisonment in Rome; 1 and
they were successful in making converts. Paul is large-
minded enough to rejoice even in this.
Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife ; and some
also of good will ; the one do it of love, knowing that I am set
for the defence of the gospel ; but the other proclaim Christ of
faction, not sincerely, thinking to raise up affliction for me in my
bonds. What then ? Only that in every way, whether in pretence
or in truth, Christ is proclaimed ; and therein I rejoice, yea, and
will rejoice (Phil. i. 15 ff .) .
Persecution from without always tends to assuage
internal strife. And a persecution like that of Nero must
have done much to bring together the warring parties in
the Church of Rome. The destruction of Jerusalem also,
especially as it was followed by a temporary elimination
of the Jerusalem Church, weakened the position of the
Judaisers, at any rate outside Palestine. In Rome after
the events of AJD. 64, followed by those of A.D. 70, few of
the Judaisers would have declined to throw in their lot with
the remnant of the converts of Paul. During the next
hundred years or so the Church of Rome, like the Church
of England to-day, was notably ' comprehensive ' a state
of affairs productive of high vitality, but exigent of tact in
persons of position. If, as I believe, the Acts was written
in Rome, it was especially in view of this local situation
that Luke thought it desirable to stress, on the one hand,
the occasions on which Paul went out of his way to keep
some ceremonial injunction of the Mosaic Law, and, on
*It has been suggested that JPhilippians was not written at Borne,
but at Ephesus, during an imprisonment in that city not recorded in
the Acts. But even without the evidence of that epistle, it is certain
that any church not actually founded by Paul would have included
gome Judaisers,
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 205
the other, those on which Peter welcomed Gentile converts
with open arms. At Rome, then, a marked difference
between various parties in regard to what they deemed to
be the essential elements in Christianity would survive for
some generations; and the outlook of the author of James
is exactly what one would anticipate in a l Teacher 7 he
probably held the office of SiSacrKaXos (iii. 1-2) whose
forbears were brought up in the Judaistic school of thought.
Assuming, then, that Hebrews and James can be used
as evidence for the early Roman Church, what light do
they throw upon Church Order in this period?
Hebrews supplies this paragraph:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them :
for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give
account, that they may do this with joy, and not with grief : for
this were unprofitable for you (Heb. xiii. 17) .
It can hardly be accidental that the only writings
whether in the New Testament or in the Apostolic Fathers
which speak of the Christian ministers bluntly as c rulers ',
are connected with Rome, where the idea of command was
in the very atmosphere. The Pauline word 7rpoiVra<70ai
should be translated Mead' rather than 'rule'. The
stronger word Jwobpevoi occurs three times in Hebrews
(vii. 1; xiii. 17; xxiv. 1). It is used by Clement when
exhorting the Corinthians to live up to the good name they
had of old for * obeying your rulers and paying due honour
to the elders among you* (iii. 1). Again, using the com-
pound form Trpoiwobptvoi he says, 'Let us reverence our
rulers ; let us honour our elders \ And in this form the word
is twice used of the church authorities by Hermas (Vis. ii.
2-6; iii* 9-7), but is found nowhere else in the Apostolic
Fathers.
206 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
In James we find:
Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders of the
church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord (James v. 14) .
It is impossible to build much upon so meagre a founda-
tion. At the same time, taken together, these passages
suggest a situation comparable to that implied in the fare-
well speech of Paul to the Ephesian elders. Indeed, sup-
posing, as I believe, the Acts was written in Rome, it would
be quite consonant with the methods of ancient historians
if the phrasing of the speech attributed to the Apostle were
not uninfluenced by St. Luke's knowledge of the situation
at Rome, A.D. 85. At any rate, both in James and Hebrew
'rulers 3 (ri^bv^evoi) and ' elders' are spoken of in the
plural in a way which, while not actually precluding the
existence of a monarchical bishop, would be unnatural if
the ruling functions were already concentrated in the hands
of a single person. At the same time both epistles leave us
with the impression that the disciplinary powers and pas-
toral responsibility of the presbytery has been consolidated.
In other words, by comparison with the situation implied
in 1 Corinthians or in the Didache } the relative importance
of the Pastor, as against the Prophet, has substantially in-
creased. As we shall see later, Rome at an early date had
got its prophets well in hand.
THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT
The historian, before calling documents into evidence,
must as far as possible assure himself about their dates.
And as the dates of both Clement and Hennas have been
disputed, discussion of this question cannot be avoided. All
I can do is to try and make this as little tedious as the
subject allows. But a reader confiding enough to accept
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 207
my results without asking for reasons may skip what
follows and start again on p. 219. For the benefit of such
an one, I may say here that I am about to argue that
Clement wrote immediately after the terror of Domitian's
persecution had been ended by his assassination in A.B. 96 ;
and that the first four Visions of Hermas were published
between this date and the death of Clement the rest of
his book representing visions seen during the next dozen
years or so.
Strictly speaking, the so-called First Epistle of Clement
is a letter from the Church in Rome to the Church in
Corinth, urging the restoration of certain church officers
who (in the Roman view) had been wrongfully displaced.
The ascription of it to the Clement whose name appears
third in the earliest lists of the Bishops of Rome (and who,
according to Eusebius, 1 died in the fourth year of Trajan,
i.e. A.B. 101-102), is already found in a letter (Eus, H. E.
iv. 23), written to the Roman Church by Dionysius, Bishop
of Corinth, c. A.D. 170. Since 1 Clement is written on behalf
of the Church of Rome as a whole, the date of writing is
more important than the name of the person who actually
drafted it. Since, however, nothing in the internal evidence
provided by the document itself conflicts with the tradition
that Clement was that person, it is permissible (and con-
venient) to speak of it as Clement's, so long as no historical
argument is based on his being the actual author. The letter
opens with a reference to * sudden and repeated calamities
and disasters ' recently undergone by the Church in Rome,
The strength of the language used (early Christians were
inured to minor inconveniences) taken in connection with
the fact that later on (lix. 4) prayer is offered for Christians
in prison suggests that the calamities in question were
1 The duration numbers of Hippolytus, however, favour 97 A,D.
208 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH yi
suffered in an outbreak of persecution in Rome which at
the time of writing has just ceased. 1
Now at the end of the year A.D. 96 there was a moment
of acute peril for the Church in Rome. Under Trajan the
church in Rome would seem to have been on reasonably
good terms with the authorities; so much so, that Ignatius
in his letter to that church is apprehensive that its influence
might even extend to procuring a remission of his sentence.
But the last years of Domitian were a ' Reign of Terror '
for the Roman aristocracy. The haunting, deadening horror
of this still lives for the reader in the grim opening of
Tacitus' Life of Agricola, written like 1 Clement, imme-
diately after the assassination of the tyrant allowed Liberty
for a moment to draw fresh breath. Seemingly among the
victims were persons of high rank who had been attracted
towards Christianity. The most eminent of these was
Flavius Clemens, Domitian's first cousin whose sons he
had apparently designated as the successors to the throne.
Clemens was put to death early in A.D. 96, and the charge
on which he was condemned is stated to have been a re-
ligious one; at the same time his wife Domitilla was sent
into exile. There is evidence that the wife at any rate was,
or afterwards became, a Christian; and inscriptions show a
Christian cemetery developing during her lifetime on land
belonging to her. 2 How many other less important persons
connected with the church shared their fate we do not know*
But even if the Emperor had decided that it would suffice to
1 Lightfoot makes out a case for interpreting r6v S-r)\obfj,&>ov ( = the
aforesaid) in Eusebius (HJ9. iii. 16) to refer, not to Clement, but to
Domitian, in which case Hegesippus stated that the faction in Corinth
which called forth Clement's letter was in the reign of Domitian.
(Lightfoot, Clement I. p. 165). If however, as I suspect, Irenaeus
(Adv. Haer. iii. 1. 3) is following Hegesippus, these words may repre-
sent fai Tobrov rov KX^evros ; and Eusebius may be quoting Hegesippus,
not so much as evidence of date, but to show that the letter of the
Church of Rome was rightly associated with the name of Clement.
* Cf . Lightfoot, Clement i. p. 33 if.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 209
make a few conspicuous examples (so that the actual
numbers of martyrs was quite small), the last thing he
would do would be to communicate this benevolent resolve
to the Church. Whether the actual victims were few or
many, the leaders of the Roman Church during the last
eight months of his reign would not find it easy to induce a
community living in daily expectation of some fresh blow
to concentrate its attention on the grievances of some dis-
possessed clergy at Corinth.
Domitian was assassinated in September AJD. 96. The
new government recalled persons whom he had sent into
exile, and in many other ways completely and ostentatiously
reversed his policy. Among the exiles recalled was Flavia
Domitilla, his niece. As the letter of Clement alludes to
disasters only in order to explain why the Roman Church
had not written before, we may assume that it was written
immediately after the cessation of the persecution, that is,
in the late autumn of AJX 96,
THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS
The Shepherd of Hennas and the Apocalypse of John
are of special interest as being the chief survivals in literary
form of that outburst of prophetisin which was a conspic-
uous feature in early Christianity the one representing
Rome, the other Asia. They differ from all earlier Jewish,
and from most Christian Apocalyptic writings in that they
were published in the author's own name. But, though
both write as prophets, no contrast could be greater than
that between the pottering mediocrity of the timid little
Greek and the fiery brilliancy of the impassioned Jew.
Hermas is the ' White Rabbit' of the Apostolic Fathers. 1
*I quote Lewis Carroll's own description of the 'White Babbit*
(from an old magazine, the Theatre) : 'Call Mm ** elderly ff t " timid",
'* feeble w , and *' nervously shilly-shallying *\ and you will get sometMny
of what I meant him to be, I think the White Babbit should wear
o
210 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
That is why we can be certain that he wrote in his own
name. Pseudonymous writers always adopt the style and
title of some great and impressive figure of the past; the
Hennas described in this book is singularly unheroic a
timid, fussy, kindly, incompetent, middle-aged freedman,
delightfully naive, just a little vain of his prophetic gift,
and with a wife and children decidedly out of hand.
Taken in large quantities Hennas is distinctly tedious
after the first four Visions, which are quaintly interesting.
Nevertheless there is probably no document which reflects
better the simplicity and genuine piety of the rank and file
of the average church members largly recruited as these
were from the slave class in the sub-apostolic age. That,
no doubt, partly explains the extraordinary popularity that
it enjoyed in the first four centuries, in spite of the frowns
of synods and the strictures of theologians. Hennas is also
a landmark, and more than that, a creative departure in
the development of the Moral Theology of the Church* He
affirms, what the epistle to the Hebrews explicitly denies,
the possibility of repentance and forgiveness in the case of
grave post-baptismal sin. On that issue the Church of that
day was seriously exercised, and remained so for another
century and more. That was why so many were ready to
attribute plenary inspiration to the revelation of the wider
charity given through Hennas.
The place of writing of The Shepherd was undoubtedly
Rome. x Unfortunately in regard to its date we have two
quite definite, but quite irreconcilable pieces of evidence.
1 Hermas has recently been the subject of important studies by
American scholars (cf. Harvard Theological Review, Ap. 1925, Jan,
1927) ; the world of scholarship is eagerly awaiting the publication of
the recently discovered papyrus of The Shepherd, now in the library at
Michigan.
spectacles. I am sure his voice should quaver, his knees quiver, and
his whole air suggest a total inability to say " Bo ! " to a goose,'
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 211
Hennas himself (in a passage quoted p. 216; Vis. II. 4, 3)
alludes to a contemporary named Clement whose special
business it is to communicate with churches in foreign
cities. It is hard to believe that this is other than the
Clement associated with the letter from Rome to the
Corinthians discussed above. According to Eusebius, this
Clement died in the fourth year of Trajan, not later, there-
fore, than A.D. 101. And this early date is borne out by the
internal evidence of The Shepherd itself a book which in
every way reflects an extraordinary primitive state of things.
The problem, for example, of distinguishing between false
and true prophets is still a live issue in the Church; and
the monarchical episcopate does not yet exist at Rome,
Indeed no one would ever have doubted that The Shepherd,
or at any rate its earliest chapters, were written about A.D,
100, but for an explicit statement to the contrary in the
fragmentary list of books of the Canon of the New Testa-
ment known as the Muratorianum* This document affirms
that The Shepherd was written by Hermas
while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting in the chair of the
church of the city of Rome,
and Pius was Bishop of Rome, c. AJD. 139-154.
It is a mistake to suppose a statement true, merely be-
cause it is not in Holy Writ ! Yet scholars of the sharpest
critical acumen have allowed themselves to be terrorised,
so to speak, into the acceptance of a date which brings to
confusion the history of the Church in Rome, on the evi-
dence of an authority no better than the Muratorianum.
If we scrutinise other statements characteristic of this docu-
ment, it is at once clear that few, If any, of them rest on
sound tradition. Th Muratorianum is contemporary evi-
dence as to the views on the Canon of the New Testament
held in the Roman Church about AJX 200 or perhaps a
212 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
little earlier. For that it is an authority of the first impor-
tance. It is a very poor authority on everything else. Its
account, for example, of the origin of the Fourth Gospel
can only be styled ' a cock and bull story \ This, there is
some reason to believe, was derived from the apocryphal
Acts of John which is not only a work of pure romance,
but one which at that date was not even ancient. Again,
the statement that Paul visited Spain may possibly be true;
but as it is known to have occurred in other apocryphal
Acts of the same date, the author of the Muratorianum
probably derived it from these. Lastly, he makes the aston-
ishing affirmation that all the epistles of Paul were written
subsequently to the Apocalypse.
Since, however, the work of which the Muratorianum
is an. extract was evidently composed in Rome, it may be
urged that its evidence carries weight when dealing with
The Shepherd a work originally written in that church.
But in the particular case of Hennas, the author of the
Muratorianum has ' an axe to grind ' ; he wishes to under-
cut the position of the Montanists, whose books he later on
expressly condemns.
But The Shepherd was written quite lately in our own times
by Hennas, while his brother PITJS, the bishop, was sitting in the
chair of the Church of the city of Rome ; and therefore it ought
indeed to be read, but it cannot to- the end of time be publicly
read in the Church to the people, either among the Prophets, who
are complete in number, or among the Apostles.
The point of this objection is that Hennas was a prophet;
and the Montanists claimed for contemporary prophets of
their own a plenary inspiration on a level with that of
Scripture. The author of the Muratorianum holds that the
Canon of the Old Testament prophets is finally closed; 1
*In acme MSB. Hermas seems to have etood among the O.T.
prophets.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 213
and that under the new dispensation plenary inspiration
is confined to apostles. If he were to admit a single excep-
tion to this rule by including Hermas in the Canon (as
some evidently wished to do) , his whole case against the
Montanists would be gone. Origen, who defends the in-
spiration of The Shepherd , expresses the belief doubtless
a common one that its author was the Hermas saluted by
St. Paul (Rom. xvi, 14). To the opposition, therefore, it
is vital to prove that Hermas did not even belong to the
apostolic age. The name Hermas was a common one; no
doubt Pope Pius had a brother so named. How convenient,
then, to ascribe to him the authorship of The Shepherd",
for it thus became possible to wave on one side its claim
to authority, as having been written 'quite lately in our
own times '. The phrase * in our own times ', occurring in
such a contest is, of course, the rhetorical exaggeration of
the controversialist. It cannot be pressed, as has been
often done, to imply that the author lived near enough to
the time of Pius to be well informed in the matter. In any
case such language in early Christian usage allowed con-
siderable elbow-room. Irenaeus, for instance, writing about
A.D. 185, says of the Apocalypse, * It was seen not long ago,
but almost in our own generation, at the end of Domitian's
reign' (Adv. Haer. v. 30. 3; Eus. H.E. iii. 18). Domitian
died AJX 96.
Lightfoot thinks the Muratorianum is a fragment of an
early work of Hippolytus, AJX 190. Harnack for reasons
which I find not quite convincing rejects this view, regard-
ing it as a synodical or episcopal pronouncement on the
Canon, Even so, since Hippolytus was the leading theo-
logian at Rome at this date, he would be largely respon-
sible for the contest of any such pronouncement. Lightfoot
argues with considerable plausibility that the list of early
popes in the ' Liberian Catalogue * was taken from another
214 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
work of the same doughty controversialist. It is very re-
markable in this list that, while nothing but the bare names
of other early popes are given, to that of Pius it is added
that he was brother of Hennas who wrote The Shepherd.
Hippolytus, then, took a very special interest in the date
of Hennas. Now Hippolytus would have heartily despised
the mere historian, to whom things like dates are of interest;
he was a man of war, a malleus haereticorum, and he had
a special aversion to the Montanists. He takes this oppor-
tunity of insisting once more than Hermas does not belong
to the apostolic age. Now Hippolytus has given us an ac-
count of the proceedings of his rival, Pope Callistus; anyone
who has read this (I can only call it) t spicy ' document,
will expect in Hippolytus, when a theological issue is at
stake, not accuracy but vehemence.
The author of the Muratorianum was not the only
theologian who dreaded allowing too much authority to
Hennas. Tertullian (though he had himself at one time
accepted The Shepherd as inspired prophecy) tells us that
more than one synod had rejected it. But synods do not
condemn views unless they have sufficient support to be
worth condemning. Clearly, the degree of authority to be
allowed to The Shepherd was a matter of considerable con-
troversy. Especially as many, who did not share the anti-
Montanist bias of the Muratorianum, would be averse to
accepting Hermas as an inspired writer on account of his,
for that age, lax, teaching as to post-baptismal sin, as well
as of a Christological theory which, from the standpoint
of later orthodoxy, is deplorable.
Nevertheless Hennas had eminent defenders. Irenaeus
and Clement of Alexandria both quote him as * scripture *.
Irenaeus perhaps wrote thus before the attack on him was
opened; and it is just possible that Clement had not yet
heard of it. But Origen must have known of it; he had
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 215
visited Rome and conferred with Hippolytus. Origen fre-
quently quotes Hermas as an authority, and he lays it
down with the implication that he was aware of a con-
trary opinion in my opinion it is divinely inspired ', and
goes on to suggest that it was written by the Hermas men-
tioned in St. Paul's epistle to the Romans. Origen attrib-
uted The Shepherd to the apostolic Hermas, because he
valued it as inspired; the author of the Muratorianum
attributes it to the brother of Pius, because he wished to
reject that view. Neither statement is that of a dispassion-
ate historical investigator. But there is this to be said in
favour of Origen. Of all early Christian writers he was the
one most interested in questions of the authenticity of
sacred books, and he did approach these questions with the
equipment and instincts of a scholar. If he attributed The
Shepherd to a contemporary of St. Paul it must have been
because he knew it had been read and valued in Alexandria
for many generations; and this could not have been the
case if it was written by the brother of Pope Pius. On the
contrary, his remarks on Hermas read like a definite pro-
test, in defence of a book prized by Alexandrian tradition,
against the recent Roman attack on its date and author-
ship- whether by Hippolytus himself, or by the synod or
Pope responsible for the Muratorianum. The repute in
which The Shepherd continued to be held is evidenced by
the fact that, of the books which had for a long while
hovered on the border line of acceptance into the Canon,
of the New Testament, The Shepherd and the Itidache alone
are thought worthy of mention by Athanasius who speaks
of them much as the XXXIX* Articles speaks of the
Apocrypha in the Festal letter (p. 55) which finally
settled the list of canonical books.
At any rate, the difficulties involved in accepting the
MuratoriaB date are immense.
216 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
(1) Hennas cannot have written while his brother was
Pope; for it is quite clear from his book that he wrote
before the monarchical episcopate was established in Rome.
He refers to ' the presbyters ', ' the rulers ', ' the bishops '.
But these are always mentioned in the plural, and all the
references imply in the Church of Rome the same kind of
collegiate rule by presbyter-bishops which is evidenced in
the epistle of Clement. Yet there can be no reasonable
doubt that by the time of Pius, alleged to be the author's
own brother, there was at Rome a Bishop in the monarch-
ical sense.
(2) Hennas opens with the words 'The master who
reared me sold me to Rome > . 1 This rather looks as if he
was a foundling-slave. It was a common practice to expose
unwanted babies ; and it was a regular trade to collect and
rear such for the slave market. But such a system obviously
would rarely, if ever, admit of the foundling knowing the
identity of his own parents much less of a brother, if he
had one.
(3) Hermas is commanded in a vision:
Write two booklets, and thou shalt send one to Clement and
one to Grapte. So Clement shall send to the foreign cities ; for
this is his duty (Vis. II. 4, 3).
If we assume that the Clement named is he who wrote the
letter which at once made him famous throughout the
whole Church, this would fix Hermas as a contemporary of
Clement. Now the early Church took visions seriously, and
(unless Hermas was pronounced a false prophet) Clement-
would as a matter of course obey such an injunction, 2 and
would without delay send the book to the principal churches.
1 d Bpk^os n* irkTrpaxi els J*&fj,r]v.
*An example of the serious way in which injunctions in visions
were taken is the election of Alexander as Bishop co-adjutor of Jeru-
salem (Eus. H.E. vi. 11).
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 217
Here at once is an explanation for the world-wide circula-
tion and universal repute which Hennas certainly enjoyed.
It came to the other churches guaranteed as a genuine
prophecy by the important Church of Rome. I would add
that the early dating of Hennas gives added point to
Ignatius' description of Rome as the church which instructed
other churches; for he would then have in mind the fact
that, within his own memory, not only the letter of Clement,
but also The Shepherd, had been officially circulated by
the Roman church.
(4) Irenaeus was certainly in Rome about AJD. 176. If
the Muratorian date for Hermas is right, The Shepherd
had been written within a generation. Yet Irenaeus quotes
it with the words, ' Well doth the Scripture say ' and
Irenaeus is far more sparing in his use of the term ' scripture *
than Clement of Alexandria, whom I have already cited as
doing the same. 1
Harnack, followed by many scholars, realising the im-
possibility of accepting the statement that Hermas wrote
while Pius was Pope, tried in effect to * split the difference *
between the earlier and later dates. His suggestion is that
Hermas may have been by many years the elder of his
brother Pius, and might thus be writing fifteen or twenty
years before the younger brother became Pope. But the
only reason why the author of the Muratonanum gives a
date at all, is to substantiate his contention that Hermas
is a recent work written ' in our own times 9 . If, therefore,
The Shepherd was written, not (as that writer says) while
1 There lias been an Immense amount of discussion as to
Hermas used the Didache or vice versa. It -would seem practically
certain that Hermas used a recension of the Two Ways, possibly of the
Didwhe as a whole. It is, however, pos&ible that Hennas used a recen-
sion of the Didache which lacked the * interpolation * (iMi 1 ) and that
the interpolation in the X>idch$ was made at a later date by someone
who had read Hennas (Mand. ii. 4-6) ,
218 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
Pius was Pope, but twenty years or so before, he is making
a grave mis-statement in a point essential to his argument.
It is much simpler to assume that his statement is totally
false. Accuracy and veracity were virtues not widely prac-
tised in the Ancient World they would be thought quixotic
in dealing with political or theological adversaries. The
things said about one another's private life and family ante-
cedents by Demosthenes and Aeschines, the two leading
statesmen of an age when Athens still was glorious, go
beyond what would now be permissible in two costermongers
who had quarrelled over a deal. Even at the present day
there are areas of the earth's surface in which language is
regarded,' less as a means of communication than as a
weapon, and where politician or trader takes it for granted
that the other man is lying, until and unless the contrary-
is proved.
In politics compromise is often the best solution of a
difficulty; there is less to be said for it in chronology. To
accept the Muratorian date for Hennas is to make nonsense
of the documentary evidence and, as will appear shortly,
of the early history of the Roman Church. Harnack's com-
promise neither meete the difficulties nor really saves the
credit of the Muratorianum. Its statement about Hennas
not only may, but must be, completely ignored. Pope Pius
doubtless had a brother who bore the not at all uncommon
name of Hennas; but it was not he who wrote The
Shepherd. If so, the attribution to him of The Shepherd
would be exactly analogous to the procedure of Dionysius
of Alexandria in regard to the Apocalypse; he disliked its
millennarianism and therefore attributed it, not to the
Apostle John, but to a later personage who bore the same
name.
It would seem, however, that only the first four Visions
were written down, as the Sibyl bade, and circulated in the
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 219
lifetime of Clement. (1) The word used /3i/3Xapt6icw, or
' booklet ', implies that the document would not fill a full-
size roll (/%6Xos); The Shepherd as a whole is quite half
as long again as the Gospel of Matthew, which itself, so
far as the information available suggests, would fill a roll
of rather above the average length. (2) Considerations of
internal evidence show a clearly marked division after the
first four Visions. (3) The recently discovered Michigan
Papyrus would appear never to have contained Vis. L-IV.,
but to have begun with Vision V. There is thus MS. evi-
dence that the latter portion of the work, viz. Vision V.,
the Mandates and the Similitudes, circulated as a separate
volume. 1 And, if so, there is a presumption that the latter
portion was originally published as a separate work, and
at a different date. (4) The title of the book, The Shepherd,
is slightly more easy to explain on the hypothesis that the
second (and much the longer) part of the book circulated
separately. For in this part supernatural communications
come to Hermas from an angelic figure called 'the Shep-
herd 1 ; but he first appears in Vision V. 1. There are
reasons for supposing that the composition of the latter and
longer part of the book was begun after a not inconsider-
able interval, and it may have been spread over perhaps
another dozen years or so. 2 Nevertheless, it is not safe to
quote even the later chapters of Hermas as evidence for a
period of later than AJX 110.
CHXJBCH OBDBB AT ROME
Clement's letter, being addressed to Corinth, is primarily
evidence as to the state of things at Corinth ; but he writes
throughout as if he took it for granted that the system of
Church Order which prevailed or rather, which he hoped
1 Of. Campbell Bonnet in Harvard Wheologiml M@vww t Apr. 1925.
* Cf * W. J, Wilson in Htorv&rd Theological tt&view, Jan- 1027,
220 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
to see restored at Corinth was not other than that which
existed at Rome. Again, there are two passages, which I
shall shortly quote, where the authority of the regular
ministry is based on its standing in a succession from the
Apostles in a way which would be pointless unless such a
succession existed in Rome as well as in Corinth. Neverthe-
less, but for the evidence of Hennas, it would be just possi-
ble though not at all plausible to maintain that Clement
himself, who wrote the letter in the name of the Church
of Rome, occupied in that church the position of mon-
archical bishop. But, as has already been pointed out, it
is quite clear from Hennas that the Church of Rome, clearly
in the lifetime of Clement (i.e. Vis. I.-IV.), probably till
the date of the latest portion of The Shepherd, continued
to be governed by a board of persons who are spoken of
alternatively as 'the Elders', or 'the Elders that preside
over the Church ' (Vis. II. 4) , or as ' the Rulers ', or ' you
that are Rulers of the Church and occupy the chief seats 7 1
(Vis. III. 9. 7).
Clement reproaches the Church of Corinth for having
'made sedition against its presbyters * (1 Clem. 47. 6), some
of whom it has dispossessed of office. Several though not
necessarily all of the dispossessed presbyters held an office
called by the technical name of liner KOTTJI or office of bishop.
And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that
there would be strife over the name of the bishop's office. [I
doubt that they knew it was going to last so long !] . . . For
it will be no light sin for us if we depose from the bishop's office
1 In Hermas the actual word Mtnccnros occurs twice, and on both
occasions in the plural ; but it is used in an interpretation of a vision
symbolising the Church Universal, and the context is such as to leave
it grammatically an open question whether in any particular local
church one or more persons bore this name (Vis. III. 5. 1 ; Sim. ix.
27. 2) . But Clement's evidence is decisive that more than one person
bore the name at Corinth. They are called "shepherds" (Sim. ix,
31, 5 f.).
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 221
those who have offered the gifts (i.e. the Eucharist) unblameably
and holily. 1 Blessed are those presbyters who have gone before
... for they have no fear lest anyone should remove them from
their established place (I. Clem. xliv. 4-5).
Again, those who have usurped their place are exhorted
to give way, if and when required, to the end that
the flock of Christ be at peace with its duly appointed
presbyters (I. Clem. liv. 2) .
But the body of presbyters in its corporate capacity
constituted the ruling authority in the Church.
Ye therefore who laid the foundation of the sedition, submit
yourselves unto the Presbyters and receive chastisement unto
repentance (Ivii 1).
f Presbyter ' would seem to be a term connoting not so
such office as status. Among those who enjoy the status of
presbyter are included a class of episcopoi, and (possibly)
also the deacons. At any rate, as in Philippians, bishops
and deacons are the names of two kinds of officers. These
two offices are spoken of by Clement in a way which ex-
cludes the possibility that presbyters is the name of a third
and intermediate office.
The Apostles, preaching everywhere in country and town,
appointed their first-fruits, when they had pioved them by the
Spirit, to be Bishops and Deacons unto them that should believe
(xffi.4).
He goes on to argue that the existence of these two
orders in the Church was a fulfilment of Old Testament
prophecy again in a way which excludes there being a
third order of presbyters.
1 Lightf oot, I think by a slip, slightly mistranslates; at any rate, I
follow Harnaek in taking rfjs ferwmwr^r with &7ro/3dA^o> rather than
with r&dpa.
222 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
It has been, written concerning Bishops and Deacons from very
ancient times ; for thus saith the Scripture in a certain place, I
will appoint their Bishops in righteousness and their Deacons in
faith (cf. Isa. Ix. 17 in the LXX.).
There is nothing to call forth surprise in this evidence
that in Rome and Corinth a system still prevailed not very
far removed from that established by Paul. That system
prevailed at Philippi for some time longer. It is quite clear
from the letter which Polycarp wrote to that church, A.D.
115, sending them copies of the letters of Ignatius, that
there was as yet no single Bishop at Philippi. Polycarp
himself is mentioned as Bishop of Smyrna, and therefore
in writing to Philippi he avoids the word episcopos; but the
persons in authority are addressed collectively as presbyters.
But the new and important thing about the early
Roman Church is, not the names or the functions of ite
officers, but the conception of the nature and source of their
authority. Whatever power in the way of personal prestige
may have belonged to Clement, there is not a word to hint
that he contemplated at Rome or elsewhere any other
system than rule by a college of persons alternatively
spoken of as episcopoi and presbyters. But, whereas in the
Didache the episcopoi are represented as elected by the
local congregation, Clement affirms that they were origi-
nally appointed by Apostles, who made provision for a
regular succession. The principle of apostolic succession as
the basis and rationale of the authority of the ministry is
clearly and emphatically laid down only it appears to be
what we should call a collegiate or ' presbyterian ' as opposed
to an individual or ' episcopal ' succession.
The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus
Christ ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is
from God and the Apostles are from Christ . . . They appointed
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 223
their first-fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to
be bishops and deacons, etc. (xlii. 1-4) .
The apostolic commission is still further elaborated a
few paragraphs later though it is important to note that
it is qualified by the need for the consent of the whole
Church.
For this cause, therefore, having received complete foreknowl-
edge, they appointed the aforesaid persons, and afterwards they
provided a continuance, that if these should fall asleep, other
approved men (SeSo/ajuacrju^oi &v8ps) should succeed to their
ministration. Those, therefore, who were appointed by them, or
afterward by other men of repute (^AXiytjuot &z/6pes) with the
consent of the whole Church, and have ministered unblameably
to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peacefully and with
all modesty, and for long time have borne a good report with all
these men we consider are being unjustly thrust out from their
ministration (xliv. 2-3).
I must confess that I am unable to regard as other than
special pleading the arguments of those who interpret the
phrase l\\6ywoi, &vdp$ as implying the existence at that
date of persons qualified to exercise technically episcopal
functions but unattached to any definite church. They are
obviously the same as the dedoKi^crfiepoL &v8p*$j i.e., 'ap-
proved men 7 duly ordained by the Apostles or their suc-
cessors.
For the people to support irregular, self-appointed
leaders is disobedience to God.
Therefore it is right and proper, brethren, that we should be
obedient unto God, rather than follow those who in arrogance
and unruliness have set themselves up as leaders in abominable
jealousy (xiv. 1).
The necessity of a regular ministry and the authority
due to it is further enforced by two illustrations.
224 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
First, the splendid discipline of the Roman Army is held
up as a model for imitation.
Let us mark the soldiers that are enlisted under our rulers,
how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they execute the
orders given them. AU are not prefects, nor rulers of thousands,
nor rulers of hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so forth ; but each
man in his own rank executeth the orders given by the king and
the governors (xxxvii. 2-3).
Secondly, he appeals to the analogy of the Divine ordi-
nance in the Old Testament for a worship carried out by an
appointed hierarchy.
Now, the offerings and ministrations He commanded to be
performed with care, and not to be done rashly or in disorder,
but at fixed times- and seasons, ... For unto the High Priest
his proper services have been assigned, and to the Priests their
proper office is appointed, and upon the Levites their proper
ministrations are laid. The layman is bound by the layman's
ordinances (xl, 2-5).
He develops this analogy with great elaboration. He
can even detect an illuminating parallel between the knowl-
edge possessed by Moses that there would be dissension
among the tribes in regard to the Priesthood brought to
an end by the budding of Aaron's rod and the knowledge
which he ascribes to the Apostles that there would be strife
' over the name of the bishop's office '. In a previous lecture
(p. 162) I have pointed out how readily the passage last
quoted lends itself to a mon-episcopal interpretation of the
nature and function of the Christian ministry that goes
further than anything which, so far as we can judge, was
actually in the mind of Clement when he wrote and
which may have been so interpreted by Ignatius.
Since Clement wrote little more than thirty years after
the death of Paul, and at the date of writing was doubtless
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 225
one of the senior members of the church, his statement
that the existing college of presbyters was descended from
that of apostolic times by a method of co-optation by those
already in office (subject to the consent of the people) is
probably correct so far as the churches of Rome and
Corinth are concerned. Paul does seem to have appointed
colleges of episcopoi and deacons, and to have attached a
growing importance to their functions; and it is also clear
from Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, that in the
Pauline Church of Philippi the system of two orders only
presbyters and deacons still survived in A.D. 115. What
Clement does is, not to invent facts, but to harden a practice
really primitive into the basis of a theory of authority.
But there is one feature in the situation at Rome which
must not be overlooked. At Rome the prophet is definitely
subordinated to the regular ministry. Hennas is admittedly
a prophet; yet it is only gradually and tentatively that he
is admitted to a seat on the Elders' bench; and he always
speaks of the Rulers as if he himself were not reckoned in
their number. He has a vision (M, xi.) which embodies in
effect a discussion of the problem how the true prophet is
to be distinguished from the false a standing difficulty,
we have seen (p. 153 ff.), all over the Christian world at
this period. Who is to apply the test he does not say
explicitly; but he doubtless means it to be applied by the
persons, said to be ' faithful ', who at the opening of the
vision are ' seated on a bench '. These obviously represent
the board of Elders who, as in early pictures in the Cata-
combs, sat facing the assembled church. This conception
of the relationship between the regular ministry and persons
possessed of spiritual gifts is the more remarkable from the
contrast it shows between the state of things at Rome and
that implied by the Didache* In the church from which
the Didache issued (p. 156) it is taken for granted that a
226 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
prophet claims precedence over the episcopoi, and that if
a prophet is present he will normally celebrate the Eucha-
ristthe prophet in that case being allowed, or even
expected, to extemporise a prayer of thanksgiving in lieu
of the fixed liturgical prayer prescribed for the regular
minister.
In Clement's letter there are certain hints which suggest
that in the disturbance at Corinth the question of the claims
of the Prophet as against those of the regular ministry was
at least one of the issues. True, Clement nowhere mentions
the existence of Prophets. But we must remember that to
do so would have placed him in an awkward dilemma. He
must either have admitted that they were true Prophets
or have denounced them as false. To do the latter would
have offended the section at Corinth who were inclined to
support them and Clement's purpose was to reconcile the
factions at Corinth. To admit that they were Prophets
would be to weaken the case of their opponents, whose cause
Clement is supporting. It was thus safer to avoid using
the word Prophet. But what Clement says to, or about,
the leaders of the party who had dislodged the established
ministry, implies that they claimed to be persons of superior
spiritual gifts and enlightenment. They are described as
persons 'who in arrogance and unruliness have set them-
selves up as leaders * (xiv. 1). It is pointed out that, if any
individual has any special spiritual gift, humility is only
the more incumbent on him.
Let a man be faithful, let him be able to expound a deep say-
ing, let him be wise in discernment of words ... so much the
more ought he to be lowly in mind in proportion as he seemeth
to be the greater (xlviii. 5-6).
Again, we are told that regularly appointed ministers who
had served, apparently for many years, without reproach,
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 227
had been thrust out from their ministration, Xetroupyta,
and from an office of which a chief function was the offering
of the Eucharist (xliv. 3-4). Obviously they must have
been thrust out in order to make room for persons deemed
by some to have superior qualifications for offering the
Eucharist; and in the Didache it is clear that a Prophet
was, in some churches, regarded as having such. In Clem-
ents letter, then, if we look below the surface, we see Rome
already taking a decided stand in the age-long conflict
between the Prophet and the Priest.
MON~EPISCOPACY AT ROME
But if at the date when Clement and Hennas were
written the government of the Church of Rome was of a
type which might not inappropriately be called 'presby-
terian ', we are compelled to attempt some further investi-
gation of the origin of the monarchical episcopate in that
church.
When Hegesippus came to Rome (before AD. 166), he
was able to draw up what he believed to be an authentic
list of Bishops of Rome from the beginning until his own
time. We must ask, then, is it possible to reconcile the
combined evidence of Clement and Hennas, which points
to a rule by a college of presbyters, and the monarchical
form of government implied in a list of bishops?
Starting with the reflection that at Rome the place
where Christians meet for worship is regularly (so three
times, in Hennas) called a * synagogue *, the hypothesis
presents itself that in Rome the organisation of the primi-
tive Christian community was modelled more nearly than
that of some other churches on that of a Jewish Synagogue,
The Synagogue was governed by a college of elders, one
of whom, styled dpxwJwATOjyos, or Ruler of the Syna-
gogue, was in charge of the actual conduct of worship,
228 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
though in other respects he does not seem to have been
superior to his colleagues. The special sanctity attached
by Christians to the Eucharist would emphasise the impor-
tance of the president in the public worship. If a man of
any practical capacity, he might soon become a sort of
permanent chairman of the college. But in times of crisis,
committee rule works badly and, for the Roman Church,
crisis began under Nero. Indeed, in the capital of the
Empire, under the very eye of a central government, the
Church could never have been in an easy position. Inevita-
bly, the chairman of the college would insensibly develop
into a kind of Managing Director of the Board, especially
as the whole tendency of the age was in the direction of
autocratic rule. The rapidity of such a development would
depend on the strength of character, efficiency, and personal
ambition of the presiding presbyters of early times.
Power is most easily achieved by pretending not to want
it. At Rome that secret had been divulged to all who had
the wit to learn it by Augustus at home, ever careful to
affect the title 'first citizen', or <tribune~for-life', even
while consenting to divine honours in the East. It may be
that for practical purposes Clement himself held a position
of pre-eminence the reality of which was more clearly per-
ceived by outside churches. There is some evidence that
at Rome some generations later the ' bishop ' still professed
to be nothing more than primus inter pares among his col-
leagues. So at least one would infer from Irenaeus' letter
to Victor, protesting against his threatened excommunica-
tion of the churches of Asia on the question of the date of
Easter (Bus. H.E. 5. 24), It looks as if, as late as A.IX 191,
the Roman bishops still officially spoke of themselves as
' presbyters '. That Victor's own status, and that of the
Bishop of Rome long before his time, was monarchical
cannot be doubted ; yet Irenaeus uses the title ' presbyter '
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 229
three times (not once, which might be accidental) of Vic-
tor's precursors in the Papal chair, and by implication of
Victor himself. Irenaeus' aim is to conciliate Victor; but
it would not conciliate a bishop to address him as 'Pres-
byter 7 , unless that were, in this particular instance, an
official title. The greatest thought of Gregory the Great
was the self-chosen style, Servw servorum Dei; but thrust
upon him by a provincial bishop, he might have liked it less.
Ignatius, in his letter to the Roman church, does not
mention the bishop ; but that would only prove that there
was none, if he did mention the presbyters and deacons.
Actually he salutes the church as a whole, without mention-
ing any of its officers. Now it is not too much to say of
Ignatius that he had episcopacy 'on the brain'; to him
' without the Bishop there is not even the name of a
Church 7 ; he speaks of bishops as established 'throughout
the world '; and he salutes the Church of Rome as the model
of a Christian Church. Such enthusiastic language in him
is hard to understand if there was as yet no bishop at Rome.
And though he might have misconceived the position of
earlier bishops like Clement, Ignatius could hardly have
been under a complete delusion as to the state of things in
Rome in his own day.
(1) By the time of Ignatius, then, there must certainly
have been at Rome some one person who, whatever his
powers in regard to the other presbyters of his own church,
was at least the head of it in the sense of being its official
representative in dealing with external churches that much
I think we must infer to account for the enthusiastic admira-
tion expressed by Ignatius for Rome as a model for other
churches. And, that presumption granted, we are entitled
to interpret certain infinitesimal pieces of evidence in the
light of this presumption, although apart from it they are
not definite enough to carry much weight.
230 THE PKIMITIVE CHURCH vi
(2) Hennas, or rather the lady who appears to him in
a vision, severely blames the rulers of the Church for their
divisions.
Now therefore I say unto you that are Rulers of the Church,
and that occupy the chief seats . . . Look ye ... lest these
divisions of yours deprive you of your life. How is it that ye
wish to instruct the elect of the Lord, while ye yourselves have
no instruction ? Instruct one another therefore, and have peace
among yourselves (Vis. III. 9. 7-9) .
He returns to the subject again later, and makes it clear
that the dissensions were due to competition between persons
who, though faithful and virtuous, were jealous of one
another about first places and a ' certain honour ' (Sim. viii.
7. 4.) The second reference comes in a prophecy belonging
to the later part of Hermas' career, and may be as late as
A.D. 110. Thus it is not improbable that * the honour J in
question which was the cause of dispute, concerned, either
the increasing power claimed by, or the next succession to,
the Presidency of the Board of Presbyters.
(3) Irenaeus in his letter to Victor, on the 'Quarto-
deciman ' dispute, reminds him of the policy of * those Pres-
byters who governed the Church . . . over which you now
preside ', and names them one by one from Soter back to
Xystus. Ought we to infer from this that names earlier
than Xystus in the list of the Roman bishops are names
of presbyters who were presiding officers, rather than gov-
ernors, of the church? Is it possible that Xystus may have
played at Rome a part in the establishment of a definitely
monarchical episcopate comparable to that played by John
the Elder at Ephesus, and by Ignatius at Antioch?
This question I proceed to investigate in the light of a
brilliant suggestion by G. la Piana. 1 He argues, to my
i Harvard Theoloffical JBetriw, July 1925, p. 213 ff.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 231
mind convincingly, that this dispute between Rome and
the churches of Asia Minor (as to the date of celebrating
Easter and of the previous fast) originated from the exist-
ence in Rome of a group of Christians from Asia who,
though permanently resident there, insisted on still observ-
ing the Asian custom in this regard. Circumstances at
Rome in the second century when every kind of heresy
was competing for recognition, or rather dominance made
the problem of church unity exceptionally acute. Hence
the existence of a group of Christians in Rome who insisted
on keeping fast and celebrating the greatest of all the
festivals at a different time from the rest of the brethren,
constituted what might well seem a dangerous anomaly.
The visit of Polycarp to Rome, A.D. 155 referred to by
Irenaeus in his letter to Victor was due, probably, to an
appeal made to him by the Asian Christians in Rome
against an attempt of Anicetus to compel them to conform
to the Roman usage. In the result, Anicetus did not feel
able to prohibit a practice which so venerable a person as
Polycarp affirmed to be apostolic. He therefore consented
to continue a practice which had been that of his prede-
cessors as far back as Xystus: that is to say, while not
himself observing or commending the Asian custom, he did
not treat it as ground for excommunication, but * sent the
Eucharist to those from the communities (or dioceses,
Trapowdcu) who observed it ' (Iren., ap. Eus. H.E. v. 24, 14).
This ' sending of the Eucharist ', la Piana urges, does not
mean (as heretofore has been supposed) that the conse-
crated elements were sent to churches in distant Asia Minor.
It is a reference, in point of fact the earliest, to a custom
apparently peculiar to Rome, which lasted there till after
A.D. 417. A fragment of the Eucharistic Bread consecrated
by the Bishop, technically known as the fermentum, was
sent every Sunday to the celebrating priest in each of the
232 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
principal churches of Rome, to be by him mixed with the
bread which he would himself consecrate. The purpose of
this custom is obvious. In a large city like Rome it was
impossible for all Christians to attend the Sunday Eucharist
of the Bishop; but, in every church to which the fermentum
was taken, the Eucharist there celebrated could be thought
of as being materially, so to speak, as well as spiritually,
the Bishop's Eucharist.
If la Piana is right, as I feel sure he is, then, on the
evidence of Irenaeus, this practice must have been initiated
by Xystus. We may surmise that it was primarily devised
to deal with the exceptionally difficult case of those Asian
Christians who, though recognised as orthodox, insisted
in certain respects on preserving their own usages, but was
extended to other churches in the city. Thus, from the
time of Xystus to that of Soter, the Asians living in Rome
formed a kind of ' uniat y church in that city. 1 It was this
state of things that Victor wished to end when he excom-
municated those who declined to conform to the Roman
usage thereby precipitating the open breach with the
churches of Asia Minor, which called forth notable letters
from Irenaeus and Poly crates of Ephesus.
But the practice of sending the fermentum is one that
carries with it large implications. If it was begun by
1 Irenaeus, it will be noted, omits to mention Eleutherus, the bishop
who intervened between Soter and Victor. We may surmise that the
trouble which came to a head under Victor began in the time of
Eleutherus. There is evidence of an outbreak of Gnosticism about this
time which can be definitely connected with Asian Christians in Rome.
The Florinus whom Irenaeus reproached for falling into Gnostic error
was at Rome in Victor's time ; and he was, or had been, a Presbyter
who had once been a disciple of Polycarp ; while Eusebius (H.E. v.
14) mentions a certain Blastus as forming a schism in Rome at this
time, and it appears from Pseudo-Tertullian (Adv. om. tor, viii.) that
he was a Quartodeciman and therefore presumably belonged to the
Asian group. If the Asian group was in danger of becoming a nursery
of Gnostics, Victor's action in regard to the Quartodeciman issue was
less uncalled for than is usually supposed.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 233
Xystus, it means that from his time onward participation
in the Bishop's Eucharist becomes the essential test of full
communication with the Church. Inevitably the Bishop,
as the recognised centre and symbol of church-union, would
become more and more the arbiter of orthodoxy, and thus
the supreme fount of authority.
In this connection, consider the following passage from
Ignatius:
Shun divisions, as the beginning of evils ... let no man do
aught to things pertaining to the Church apart from the Bishop.
Let that be held a valid Eucharist which is under the Bishop or
one to whom he shall have committed it. Wheresoever the Bishop
shall appear, there let the people be ; even as where Jesus may be,
there is the catholic church. It is not lawful, apart from the
Bishop, either to baptize or to hold a love-feast (Smyrn. viii 1 f .) .
I venture to put forward the hypothesis that the policy
of Xystus, attested by Irenaeus in regard to Christians from
Asia, marks the beginning of a new epoch at Rome as
regards insistence on the unique position of the Bishop
and that this is directly due to the influence of Ignatius
himself. For if I am correct in the suggestion which I
make (p. 282) as to the date of the martyrdom of Ignatius,
he will have reached Rome a few months later than the
appointment of Xystus (whose tenure is ordinarily dated
A.D. 115-125) * as * Bishop', or, perhaps, President of the
presbytery at Rome.
On these assumptions, let us envisage the situation at
Rome on the arrival there of Ignatius at the very end of
the year A.D. 115. Ignatius had sent on ahead of Jtika a
letter which would have reached Rome a fortnight or so
before his own arrival His letter to the Roman Church
is a striking document; it made profound impression on
1 Of. Lightfoot, Clement, L p. 340.
234 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
the mind of the early Church at large, becoming, as Light-
foot puts it, ' in some sense a vade mecum of martyrs in
the subsequent ages'. 1 His name has found its way at
what date we do not know into the list of martyrs daily
enumerated in the Canon of the Mass. At once on his
arrival the leaders of the Roman Church would have waited
upon him in prison; there is no reason to suppose that they
would have been allowed less freedom of personal com-
munication with him than were the bishops of the churches
of the cities in Asia Minor which he had already passed
through on his way to Rome. Recall the personality of the
man, aglow with religious exaltation as martyrdom drew
near; picture its effect upon minds already deeply moved
by his letter his lightest word would seem full of conse-
quences tremendous. And of what did he speak? When
a man has an idee fixe, we know for certain of what he will
speak whenever the slightest occasion presents itself for
doing so. We may be quite sure that, in every interview
he had with the leading Christians at Rome, he reiterated
with passionate conviction what is the main theme of all
his other letters the supreme necessity of concentrating
power in the hands of a single bishop.
Remember also that Ignatius was a prophet and to
the early Church, once a prophet was accepted, as a true
prophet and no impostor, his words came with the authority
of, the voice of God. Now supposing Ignatius discovered,
as he doubtless soon would, that, in the matter of the cen-
tralised authority of the Bishop, Rome was not quite the
model church he had believed; psychologically it would be
almost inevitable that, in this supreme emotional crisis,
the prophetic frenzy would come upon him, and he would
speak ' in the spirit 7 . And what would he have said? He
1 For evidence, see Lightfoot, Ignatius* ii. p. 186 f.
vi THE CHURCH OF ROME 235
has himself told us how, only a few weeks earlier, at Phila-
delphia, under control of the prophetic spirit,
I cried out, when I was among you ; I spoke with a loud voice,
with God's own voice, ' Give ye heed to the bishop and the
presbytery and deacons ' (PhUad. vii. 2) .
Ignatius spoke as a prophet, and he spoke to a church
already strongly imbued with the Roman sense of discipline.
Is it likely that his exhortations fell upon unheeding ears?
And, this message spoken, he was led out to the Colosseum
to die a martyr. That would have lent his message double
power.
He had prayed, he had worked, he had written, he had
fought, to strengthen everywhere the Bishop's power; and
he had longed for the martyr's palm. But he had accom-
plished more, and other, than his heart's desire, if on that
day when he realised his dream to be f God's wheat, ground
by the teeth of wild beasts ' the Papacy was born.
As in the Empire, so in the Church, there was constant
interaction between the capitals of East and West. Rome
sent the legions to Antioch; in the result, deplored by
patriotic satirists, 'the Orontes drained into the Tiber'
bringing, amid a wash of Eastern cults, the Christian
Church. From Rome came the Gospel of Mark; it came
back again from Syria vastly enriched, and with the apos-
tolic name of 'Matthew* and that enrichment includes
the words which give the Keys to Peter. Prom Rome came
the letter of Clement, bringing to Antioch the idea of Roman
discipline in the ordering of the Christian Church; there
came back the fervour of Ignatius which, if I am right, gave
Rome a line of bishops ready later on to make a grander
claim upon those Keys.
On the balance of exchange Rome was not the loser.
VII
ALEXANDRIA AND THE PATRIARCHATES
SYNOPSIS
THE DEARTH OF EVIDENCE
ABOUT AJ>, 180 Pantaenus founded the Catechetical School at Alex-
andria, which was to be the nursery of the creative minds of Greek
theology Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril. But before this date
the dearth of evidence for this church is remarkable.
Hence, to assign to Alexandria the * Epistle of Barnabas ' and the
' Second Epistle of Clement ' is to fill an important gap in Church
history.
Neither Barnabas nor 2 Clement claim to be by the authors with
whose names tradition connects them. They are not pseudonymous,
but merely anonymous. The author of 2 Clement should therefore
be called, not ' Pseudo-Clement ', but ' Deutero-Clement '.
THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS
Three reasons for connecting ' Barnabas ' with Alexandria.
The exact date is disputable ; but it must be somewhere between
the first destruction of Jerusalem (A.. 70) and the second (A.D. 132).
DETJTERO-CLEMENT
Discussion of the theory of Harnack, that Deutero-Clement
emanated from Borne, and that of Lightfoot, that it was written at
Corinth. On examination both theories completely break down.
But a strong case can be made out for connecting the document
with Alexandria. This summarised under four main heads.
CHURCH ORDER AT ALEXANDRIA
The authoi of Barnabas would seem to belong to the order of
Teachers. After high flights of allegorical exegesis he ends on the
simple moral teaching of 'The Two Ways ' another recension of
that found in the Didache. This emphasis on the primary place of
236
vn ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 237
ethics in the Christian life characteristic of the Catholic Church as
against the Gnostics.
Haraack's theory that Deutero-Clement held the office of Header
an office which (at any rate In Syria) ranked next after that of
Presbyter and implied the duty of interpreting, as well as of reading,
Scripture.
Alternative theory of Dr. Vernon Bartlet that the writer of
Deutero-Clement was President of the Board of Presbyters. The
case for this theory stated.
The theory would fit in with the evidence that well into the third
century the Bishop of Alexandria was elected from among themselves
by the twelve Presbyters and consecrated Patriarch by them.
Until Demetrius there was no Bishop in Egypt except the Bishop
of Alexandria, Demetrius, and his successor Heraclas, appointed
Bishops in other cities. These naturally remained dependent on the
Bishop of Alexandria, who thus at one step attained the position of
Patriarch.
THE PATRIARCHATES
With the death of the Apostles and the destruction of Jerusalem
the Church lost its natural centreespecially as the fact that it was
regarded by the State as a more or less illegal association, made
impossible the calling of large Synods, much less an Oecumenical
Council.
Of necessity, therefore, the decision of most important questions
was left in the hands of the churches of the greater capitals supple-
mented by conferences of a more or less secret and informal character
between representatives of the Great Churches.
This explains the exceptional authority accorded to the Patriarchs
of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, and the authority In their own
provinces of the Metropolitans of smaller capitals like Ephesus or
Caesarea.
The position of the Patriarch of Alexandria has a special expla-
nation ; but the position accorded to the apostolic sees Rome,
Antioch, and (in the second century) Ephesus goes back to sub-
apostolic times. It is implicit in Clement's letter to the Corinthians,
and in the special courtesy shown by Ignatius to the churches of
Rome and Ephesus, and assumed by him to be due to himself as
representing the Church of Antioch. Thus, to speak paradoxically,
the office of Archbishop would seem more primitive than that of
Bishop,
VII
ALEXANDRIA AND THE PATRIARCHATES
THE DEABTH OF EVIDENCE
OF the early history, at any rate in outline, of the Church
in Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome, a clear view can be derived
from the New Testament and from the writings of those
Apostolic Fathers of which we have so far made use. By
contrast the early history of the Church of Alexandria is
darkness itself. There is a tradition that it was founded
by the evangelist Mark; but this first appears A.D. 311 in
Eusebius, with the significant qualification, *it is said
that , . .' (H.E. ii. 16). The tradition is ignored rather
curiously, as Duchesne has pointed out, if it be authentic
in a discussion of the career of Mark, as given in the New
Testament, by Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Eus. H.E.
vii. 25). And there is no hint of it in the by no means
exiguous surviving writings of Clement and Origen, them-
selves members of this Church. In the Clementine Homilies
Barnabas appears as the founder of the Church in Alex-
andria, And though this is a work of fiction, and in no
sense authentic history, it does afford negative evidence
that, c. A.D. 220, Syrian tradition did not attribute that
distinction to Mark.
A letter of Hadrian to the consul Servianus (he was
consul A.D. 134) , of which the genuineness is disputed, in a
satirical allusion to the medley of religions in Egypt, men-
240 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
tions Christianity as one of them. 1 The Gnostic Valentinus,
c. A.D. 130, and Carpocrates a little later, started off to teach
in Alexandria. The recently discovered Epistle of the
Apostles 2 which, if the Coptic text is correct ( 17) must
be dated before A.D. 150 is thought by some scholars to
be of Egyptian origin. But we do not reach the firm ground
of definite historical evidence until the statement by Clement
of Alexandria that Pantaenus founded in Alexandria,
apparently about A.D. 180, the Catechetical School, which
was destined to be the nursery of so many great philo-
sophical theologians. Immediately thereafter begins the
sequence including Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril
of the creative minds in the history of Greek theology.
During the period of darkness there is reason to think
that the Church of Alexandria developed on relatively
independent lines. It was characterised by width of out-
look, and a more tolerant attitude than other churches
towards Greek thought and even Gnostic speculation. We
find also that the line between canonical and uncanonical
books of Scripture is drawn less rigidly here than else-
where. Apocryphal Gospels, too, the Gospel according to
the Hebrews, and a Gospel according to the Egyptians
extracts from one of which probably survive in the Oxyrhyn-
chus Logia. are often quoted, not indeed an canonical,
but as reputable, authorities.
The writings of Clement of Alexandria, intellectually
the most latitudinarian of the Saints, have an added interest
if regarded as the bridge over which the thought of Alex-
andria passed on its way from the too gnosticising liberalism
1 See below, p. 260. The text is given in full, and the genuineness
defended by Lightfoot, Ignatius, i. p. 480 f.
a Dr. James includes a translation of this in his Apocryphal New
Testament. He assigns to Egypt the Preaching of Peter (frags.).
Lightfoot and Harmer (op. cit. p. 488 f.) suggest Pantaenus as author
of Ef. Diognetus, xi.-xii.
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 241
of the second century to the highly cultured orthodoxy of
the third. To Clement the instructed Christian is the only
real Gnostic. He is the possessor of a i gnosis ' a knowl-
edge, or, perhaps better, wisdom which includes, but far
transcends, the best which the divinely given faculty of
human reason has heretofore achieved. He grasps Reality,
for he not only securely ' apprehends the First Cause ', but
can also clearly define Good and Evil and comprehend the
teaching of the Lord. He is calm in danger, firm against
the lures of pleasure, frugal and serious, making 'knowl-
edge ' his chief pursuit. He is a student of music, math-
ematics, astronomy, logic, and metaphysics all of which
are means of elevating the mind from earth to heaven and,
' studying ever divine things ', he ascends ' to the knowledge
of Him who created them \
But [he goes on] the generality are as frightened of Greek
philosophy as are children of hobgoblins- afraid that it will run
away with them. But if their faith I could not call it knowl-
edge is such that it will be upset by specious argument, let it be
upset ; and therefore the more let them confess that they are not
[persons] likely to get hold of ( gfeuO Truth, for Truth, it is said,
is invincible, falsehood is ever overthrown (ei Strom, vi, ix.-x.
78-81).
The discipline of philosophy was given to the Greeks, as
the law was given to the Jews, as the schoolmaster to bring
them to Christ (Strom. L v. 28).
Just because of the remarkable lack of information
about the early history of such an important church, a
special interest (quite apart from the question of the
Church Order which they imply) attaches to the possi-
bility of assigning to Alexandria two early documents which
so far have not been discussed, though usually classed under
the general name of ' the Apostolic Fathers 'the Epistle
of Barnabas and the ' Second Epistle ' of Clement to the
242 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
Corinthians. Both titles are misleading; but in neither
case are they due to the original authors.
(1) Barnabas is a homily sent as a letter. It makes
no claim to be the work of the apostle; the writer's name
was doubtless known to its earliest readers, but, like the
name of the author of Hebrews, the Epistle to Diognetus,
and many other ancient writings, it has been forgotten.
Or, if his name was actually Barnabas, then he never sup-
posed his readers would confuse him with the apostle.
(2) The 'second epistle' of Clement is not an epistle
at all, but a homily. In the MSS. it follows the genuine
(so-called 'first') epistle of Clement of Rome which we
have discussed in previous lectures, and is attributed to
the same author. But no scholar now accepts it as the
work of this Clement; and the document itself makes no
pretence of being by him. I propose, therefore, to speak
of him, not as Pseudo-Clement which might imply that
he professed to be Clement but as Deutero-Clement. The
unfortunate student of Church History will then the more
easily distinguish him both from Clement of Rome (A.B. 96)
and the later Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 200).
I labour the point that we are not here dealing with
pseudonymous documents, which are often difficult of inter-
pretation because they purport to be of authorship other
than they are. It is important to grasp that we have here
authentic documents of which the authorship and, there-
fore, also the date and place of writing happens to have
been forgotten.
THE EPISTLE OF * BABNABAS '
For believing that the Epistle of Barnabas was written
by an Alexandrian there are three main reasons.
(1) The epistle exhibits in the most extreme form the
application to the interpretation of the Old Testament of
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 243
the method of allegory, which in Alexandria had been devel-
oped, more especially by Philo, to a degree of elaboration
unparalleled elsewhere. I give as a specimen, an exegetical
effort of which (as appears from the concluding sentence)
the author was particularly proud.
Learn therefore, children of love, concerning all things abun-
dantly, that Abraham, who first appointed circumcision, looked
forward in the spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised, having
received the ordinances of three letters. For the scripture saith :
' And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and
three hundred '. What then was the knowledge given unto him ?
Understand ye that He saith the * eighteen ' first, and then after
an interval, * three hundred *, In the * eighteen' I stands for
ten, H for eight [i.e. in the Greek system of notation in which
numerals are represented by letters of the alphabet]. Here thou
hast Jesus (IHSOTS). And because the cross in the T was to
have grace, He saith also ' three hundred *. So He revealeth Jesus
in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross. He who
placed within us the innate gift of His covenant knoweth ; no
man hath ever learnt from me a more genuine word ; but I know
that ye are worthy (Barn, xx, 7-9).
(2) The epistle is quoted by Clement of Alexandria as
'scripture 1 and is attributed by him to 'the apostle', or
* the prophet ', Barnabas, whom he identifies with the com-
panion of Paul. Origen also cites it as i the catholic epistle
of Barnabas \ But elsewhere in the Church it Is practically
ignored; and by Eusebius it is not even reckoned in the
list of books 'disputed though they are well known and
approved by many ? , but definitely among those classed as
* spurious '.
(3) The two great fourth-century MSS B seem to
preserve the text of the New Testament in the form spe-
cifically characteristic of Alexandria. 1 The end of B is
1 Of. The four Ctapeb, p. *4 ff.
244 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vi
missing; but in Barnabas follows immediately after the
Apocalypse. In no other MS. is it associated with the
canonical books.
There are therefore solid reasons for connecting the
epistle with Alexandria ; and there are none for connecting
it with any other church.
About the connection of Barnabas with Alexandria
scholars are generally agreed. In regard to its date there
is a wide difference of opinions. It contains a reference
to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus A.D. 70, but does
not refer to that under Hadrian A.D. 132. Within these
limits a plausible case can be made out for more than one
date ; all depends on which interpretation of certain obscure
references a particular critic may prefer. Lightfoot would
place the epistle before A.D. 79; Gebhardt and Harnack
incline to a date about A.D. 120.
DETJTERO- CLEMENT
In Deutero-Clement we have another document of which
it is difficult to determine the date, but not, I hold, the place
of origin. Lightfoot would put it between A.D. 120-140;
Gebhardt and Harnack A.D. 130-160.
The Alexandrian origin of Deutero-Clement has not
been recognised by the great editors. Lightfoot assigns it
to Corinth, Harnack to Rome. The view that it originated
in Alexandria occurred to me spontaneously some years
ago; it was not till after the actual delivery of these lec-
tures that I made the discovery which fortified my confi-
dence in the correctness of my view that it had been
previously propounded by Dr. Vernon Bartlet. 1
Lightfoot completely succeeds in demolishing Harnack's
case; but, no less completely, he fails to establish his own.
The case for Rome was attractive only in conjunction with
1 In Zeitachrift f. N.T. Wisaenschaft., vol. vii. 123 ff.
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 245
Harnack's conjecture that Deutero-Clement is really the
letter of Pope Soter mentioned by Eusebius (H.E. iv. 23. 9) ,
which seems to have been read in public worship, as well
as that of real Clement, in the Church of Corinth. Obviously
this conjecture rests entirely on the assumption that
Deutero-Clement is a letter an assumption which was
possible, and even natural, so long as the last chapters were
missing. It collapsed when in 1875 for the first time a com-
plete text, containing the missing end, was made known,
derived from the same unique MS. that includes the one
surviving copy of the Didache. It then became certain
that Deutero-Clement is not a letter at all, but a sermon.
In support of the theory of Roman origin it was also urged
that the conception of the Church, and of the pre-existent
Christ as spirit, in Deutero-Clement has some points of
contact with Hennas. These points on examination are
seen to amount to very little. But even if dependence on
Hennas were certain, it would constitute no evidence for a
Roman origin of Deutero-Clement. Hermas, we know, was
(as commanded in the vision, p. 216) circulated among
the churches of the Empire in the lifetime of its author; in
the second century it was widely regarded as * scripture',
and in Alexandria its prestige was greater, and lasted far
longer, than in Rome (p. 214 1). Dependence on Hennas,
if such can be proved, is really quite as strong an argument
for Alexandria as for Rome.
For a Corinthian origin Lightfoot adduces two argu-
ments. The first of these is best given in his own words.
The allusion to the athletic games, and presumably to the
Isthmian festival, is couched in language which is quite natural
if addressed to Corinthians, but not so if spoken elsewhere. When
the preacher refers to the crowds that * land ' to take part in the
games without any mention of the port, we are naturally led to
246 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
suppose that the homily was delivered in the neighbourhood of
the place where these combatants landed. 1
But are the games referred to those held on the isthmus
of Corinth? This inference and therefore its corollary
that the audience addressed must have lived hard by is
in no way justified by the evidence which Lightfoot adduces.
This evidence stands or falls by the correctness of the word
'land' as a translation of the verb /carairXcij'; and Light-
foot, by a curious slip of memory, renders this by ' land ' in
his general discussion, but by ' resort to ' in his translation
of the text.
So then, my brethren, let us contend, knowing that the con-
test is nigh at hand,, and that, while many resort to the corruptible
contests, yet not all are crowned, but only they that have toiled
hard and contended bravely. Let us then contend that we all
may be crowned. Wherefore let us run in the straight course,
the incorruptible contest. And let us resort to it in throngs and
contend, that we may also be crowned (2 Clem. vii. 1-2).
I have quoted the passage from Lightfoot's own trans-
lation in order to call attention to the fact that he twice
translates the Greek /caraTrXctv by the English words
(which I have italicised) ' resort to '. That this translation
is not an accident appears from his note on the word, at
its first occurrence, where he supports this rendering by a
passage of Plutarch. Yet, having done this, unaccountably,
and without alleging any reason, he adds, ' But jcaraTrXco'
can har'dly be so explained here *. 2 Then, on the very same
page, he himself proceeds to explain the word thus on its
second occurrence in the passage quoted above trans-
lating it, in his note, * go there '. ' Let us not only take part
in this race, but let us go there * (the italics are mine) ' in
great numbers'.
1 Clement, ii, 197 f. a Clement, ii 223-4.
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 247
If the verb /cara-rXetj' occurs twice in the same context,
and on the second occurrence clearly means 'to go there',
we cannot in the first occurrence press its literal meaning
' to land \ But on this possibility rests the whole case for
supposing the games mentioned to be the Isthmian.
But if the passage quoted above be approached without
any a priori preconception, it reads quite naturally if ,
Deutero-Clement is merely after the manner of preachers
echoing the well-known words of St. Paul:
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one
receiveth the prize ? Even so run that ye may attain. And
every man that striveth in the games is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown ; but we an
incorruptible (1 Cor. ix. 24-26).
St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians is quoted by
Clement of Rome, by Ignatius, by Polycarp, and by Hermas,
more clearly and more frequently than any other of the
Apostle's writings. At a very early date it had become a
classic read everywhere throughout the whole Church.
Moreover, in Greek life the games were as prominent a
feature as is football in English or American life, and meta-
phors drawn from them are a regular feature in ancient
literature. The notion, then, that this passage of Deutero-
Clement would be in any degree more appropriate to a
Corinthian than it would be to any other audience is quite
unfounded.
Lightfoot's only other argument for a Corinthian origin
of Deutero-Clement is the hypothesis that its attribution
to Clement would be most easily explained if it had been
copied without a title into some early MS. immediately
after the genuine epistle of Clement, so that the two writings
were, by subsequent scribes, taken to be by the same author.
But why, we ask, is this more likely to have happened at
248 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
Corinth than anywhere else? On the contrary, if it had
happened at Corinth and at an early date, the evidence for
the two letters circulating together as Clement's ought to
be much earlier and stronger than is actually the case,
Eusebius, for example, though he knows of the existence
of a second epistle reputed to be by Clement, is quite clear
that only the first is authentic. Evidently, at the time he
wrote, MSS. of the genuine letter did not as a rule contain
the second epistle.
Deutero-Clement first appears under Clement's name
towards the end of the fourth century, in the Apostolic
Constitutions, which undoubtedly originated in Syria. The
author of this work, which purports to be instructions from
the Twelve Apostles to the bishops of the churches, trans-
mitted through their disciple par excellence Clement of
Rome, includes two epistles of Clement (as well as the
Apostolic Constitutions, itself considered as a work of
Clement) in his list of canonical books of the New Testa-
ment. The next witness to Deutero-Clement one who
gives, in Lightfoot's phrase, 'the earliest reference to its
contents' is a work (ztA.D. 400) (falsely ascribed to
Justin) which Harnack and Lightfoot agree in supposing
Ho have emanated from the Syro-Antiochene Church'. 1
But it is not till the fifth or sixth century that the two
works are generally spoken of together and accepted as
Clement's. And so late as the ninth century a learned
writer like Photius of Constantinople pronounces the second
spurious. From these facts the natural inferences are:
(1) The attribution of the writing to Clement is not
an early one,
(2) It was first made in Syria. In Syria, as we have
already seen (p. 160 f.), they had a passion for foisting
works on to Clement. At Corinth they would probably
1 Lightfoot, Cement, ii. p. 200.
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 249
have known better. The church where the homily was
written would be the last, not the first, to make mistakes
about its authorship; just as Rome, to which the epistle
to the Hebrews was originally written, was the last church
to accept it as by Paul,
Thus I venture to affirm there is simply no case at
all for assigning Deutero-Clement either to Corinth or
to Rome. But quite a strong one can be made out for
Alexandria.
(1) Deutero-Clement evidently used at least one
written Gospel; for he introduces a saying of Christ by
the words, ' For the Lord saith in the Gospel \ He gives
three sayings of Christ which are not to be found in our
Gospels. He also quotes several sayings of Christ which
in substance occur in the canonical Gospels, but nearly
always in a form strikingly different. Clearly, then, he
uses some authority for the sayings of Christ other than
the canonical Gospels. It is possible that all his quotations
come from this source; or, if he does use any of our Gos-
pels, he treats them and his apocryphal Gospel as on the
same level. Of the three uncanonical sayings given by
Deutero-Clement, one (in a slightly different form) is
quoted by Clement of Alexandria as coming from the
Gospel according to the Egyptians. This, or the Gospel
according to the Hebrews, is probably the source of the
other untraced quotations given in Deutero-Clement. Both
these Gospels are treated with respect as sub-canonical
authorities by the Alexandrian Fathers. They must, then,
have been documents of some antiquity. The very name
of the first suggests it was of Egyptian origin; and there
is no evidence that it was ever read, much less quoted on
a level with the other Gospels, outside Egypt.
(2) Deutero-Clement develops a curious doctrine of
250 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
the pre-existent ecclesia incarnate in Christ related to
Christ, as female to male, by means of a mystical interpre-
tation .of Gen. i. 27. Lightfoot compares it with that of
Paul in Eph. i. 3; and goes on to say:
The language of our preacher stands midway in point of
development, and perhaps also about midway in point of chron-
ology, between this teaching of St. Paul and the doctrine of the
Valentinians, who believed in an eternal aeon ' Ecclesia \ thus
carrying the Platonism of our Pseudo-Clement a step in advance. 1
Quite so, and what conclusion follows? Valentinus
was born in Egypt, and was educated in Alexandria. He
taught there before he went to Rome; and he reached
Rome sometime in the episcopate of Hyginus, who died
A.D. 140. If Valentinus, as Harnack and Lightfoot agree
in thinking, represents a later development of a doctrine
regarded as orthodox in the church to which Deutero-
Clement was addressed, the natural inference is that this
was the church in which Valentinus started to develop his
views. We have thus another reason for supposing that
Deutero-Clement wrote in Alexandria.
(3) Hilgenfeld in his edition argued, on the ground of
certain points of contact in thought and style, that
Deutero-Clement was an early work of Clement of Alex-
andria, attributed by a curious error to the Roman writer
of the same name. His view has met with so little
acceptance that it is not necessary to discuss it. I would,
however, point out that the coincidences of thought or
style which struck Hilgenfeld given that any of them
be accepted as sufficiently striking to establish a connec-
tion between the two writers would be completely ex-
plained on the view that Clement of Alexandria had read,
and been influenced by, a homily which by this time had
kind of religious classic in Alexandria.
1 Clement, ii. j>. 243,
vn ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 251
(4) Since Barnabas is generally admitted to be Alex-
andrian, the existence of a number of resemblances between
this epistle and Deutero-Clement cannot but add some-
thing to the case for connecting him with the same church.
(a) Both these writings show an exaggerated sense of
the breach between the religion of the Old Testament and
the New. Barnabas, for instance, holds not only that the
Law of Moses was superseded, except in an allegorical
sense which is the view of the author of Hebrews but
that it had never been meant to be taken literally. He
draws the sharpest contrast between Jews and Christians.
Now let us see whether this people or the first people hath the
inheritance, and whether the covenant had reference to us or to
them (Barn. 13).
In a like spirit Deutero-Clement interprets the words
of Isaiah liv. 1, which form, as it were, the 'text 7 for his
sermon,
the children of the desolate are more than of her that hath the
husband,
as meaning
our people [le. Christians] seemed desolate and forsaken of God,
whereas now, having believed, we have become more than those
{i.e. the Jews] who seemed to have God (2 Clem. ii. 3).
In another passage (i. 6) he speaks as if he himself,
and the whole of the church he addresses, had been con-
verted from idolatry.
(6) Barnabas and Deutero-Clement agree in a high
incarnationist doctrine of the person of Christ.
The Lord endured to suffer for our souls, though he was Lord
of the whole world, unto whom God said from the foundation of
the world, ' let us make man after our own image and likeness '
(Bam, 5).
252 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH TO
So Deutero-Clement opens with a passionate protest
against any Mow Christology '.
Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God, as
of the Judge of quick and dead. And we ought not to think mean
things of our salvation : for when we think mean things of Him
we expect also to receive mean things.
This makes it the more remarkable that neither of them
employs the term Logos, Possibly in the city of Philo
the gulf from abstract to concrete implied in the phrase
'the Word was made flesh' was more visible than else-
where. Or, possibly the use made of the Logos in Egyptian
theosophic speculations, like those that survive in the
Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistos, made it somewhat
suspect. More probably it had never occurred to anyone
to connect together the Logos of Hellenistic philosophy and
the conception of the pre-existent Christ. Once the equa-
tion was made, it seems so natural that we wonder how
anyone of that age could have overlooked it. But most
epoch-making discoveries seem obvious, once they have
been made.
It is one more striking piece of evidence for my thesis
of the independent development of the Great Churches,
to* find documents, whose incarnationist doctrine is prac-
tically identical with that of the Fourth Gospel, just
stopping short of the word Logos which later theology
made fundamental. Incidentally, I would remark, this
complete ignoring of the Fourth Gospel, combined with a
free use of the Gospel according to the Egyptians, are
marks of an early date before A.D. 140 at the latest. It
cannot be explained by attributing to Deutero-Clement
semi-Gnostic tendencies; for the Gnostics favoured the
Fourth Gospel. In the dogmatic controversies of the later
Church, Antioch is always inclined to emphasise the more
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 253
literal, the more Hebraic, the more ' adoptionist ' of two
possible interpretations; Alexandria champions the more
allegorical, Platonic, incarnationist. If we contrast the
Didache and the Gospel of Matthew, on the one hand, with
Barnabas and Deutero-Clernent on the other, we trace the
difference between these two great Churches as we should
expect back to the sub-apostolic period.
(c) Three minor points of contact between Barnabas
and Deutero-Clement may be noted. Both use the alle-
gorical method of interpreting the Old Testament in an
advanced form; both are familiar with the Two Ways;*
both quote our Lord's saying, 'I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners, to repentance 7 a coincidence the
more interesting in view of the doubt whether either of
them used the canonical Gospels. If these stood alone,
nothing could be inferred from them; but they are con-
gruent with other evidence that both documents came from
the same church the Church of Alexandria.
CHUECH ORDER AT ALEXANDRIA
The evidence in regard to Church Order to be derived
from Barnabas and Deutero-Clement is extremely scanty;
but it makes up for this by being of an unusual character.
In the documents discussed in earlier lectures there has
been frequent allusion to the office of Teacher. It is there-
fore of very great interest to note that Barnabas twice
alludes to himself in a way which makes it evident that
he held this office. 2
The document is in form a letter. It opens with
the conventional phrase of greeting (xalpcrc); and the
expression, 'I was eager to send you a trifle \ implies
1 Deutero-Clement is not here dependent on Barnabas, for he quotes
a phrase from the Two Ways which occurs in the Didache but not in
Barnabas.
r (1, 8); of, (iv. 9).
254 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
absence from those to whom the message is given. It
was perhaps, written by a revered Teacher of the Church
of Alexandria to the church in one of the small towns in
Egypt, which he had recently visited, in order to provide
them with some record of the essential features in his
teaching. If, then, we wish to use Barnabas as evidence
for the kind of thing a Teacher did, we must read it not
so much as a single sermon but rather as a summary
statement of what the author conceived to be the various
heads of his special message including his choicest (and
most original) efforts in the way of allegorising the Old
Testament. It is, perhaps, lest he should seem only to care
for the more ' high-brow ? members of the church, that he
concludes (chs. xviii.-xxi.) with ' another gnosis and teach-
ing' the simple old-fashioned moral instruction of the
Two Ways.
At any rate his selection for the final, and therefore
the most important, element in his message, not of his
own daring and original flights of exegesis though he was
very proud of these but of the simple traditional exhor-
tation to righteousness of life, is significant. It was just
this exaltation of sound conduct over intellectual brilliance
which differentiated the Catholic Church from the Gnostic
sectaries. It is the conduct of daily life, love of the
brethren and the homely virtues, that Barnabas, like the
writers of the New Testament, puts first. That was the
strength of the ' great ' Church; even to Ignatius, pre-
occupied as he is with questions of ecclesiastical discipline
and theological orthodoxy, the main count against the
heretics is moral.
They have no care for love, none for the widow, none for the
orphan, none for the afflicted, none for the prisoner, none for the
hungry and thirsty (Smyrn. vL 2),
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 255
Harnack has made the interesting suggestion that the
author of Deutero-Clement belonged to a class of church
officers which so far we have not heard of: he was a
Reader* In the standardised Church Order of the fourth
century the Reader, or Lector, is one of the ' Minor Orders ',
along with officers like doorkeeper and exorcist. But at
an earlier period; in Syria at any rate, and possibly in
other churches, 2 the Reader was, it would seem, an impor-
tant officer, who in certain respects ranked next after the
Presbyters. The work known as The Apostolic Church
Ordinances 8 embodies older sources containing a number
of regulations in regard to the appointment and function
of church officials. These regulations Harnack regards as
earlier than the year A.D. 200. Here, after the sections
dealing with the Bishop and the Presbyters, and imme-
diately before that dealing with the Deacons, occurs this
regulation:
For Reader, one should be appointed, after he has been care-
fully proved ; no babbler, nor drunkard, nor jester ; of good
morals, submissive, of benevolent intentions, first in the assembly
1 Sources of the Apostolic Canons, E.T. (Black, 1895.)
a Harnack's discussion too rashly assumes that in these matters -what
is evidence for one church is presumptive evidence for all, and that
2 Clement is evidence for Rome.
3 Die apostolische Kirchenordnung, so called by its editor, J. W.
Bickell. But in the MS. it is called The Constitutions of Clement and
Ecclesiastical Canons of the Holy Apostles. The full text in Greek
which includes the Two Ways is given by Harnack in his edition of
the Didache (Die Lehre der ssw&lf Apostel, Leipzig, 1884), p. 225 ff.
The regulations on church offices are given in English in the above
mentioned work by Harnack, Sources of the Apostolic Canons, which
contains his extremely important discussion of the * Origin of the
Readership * Harnack thinks the Apostolic Church Ordinances to be
of Egyptian origin ; but the regulation, that a small church wanting a
bishop shall apply to the neighbouring churches * where any of them is
a settled one ', does not seem to suit Egypt, where the Bishop of Alex-
andria appointed all local bishops. On this ground, Prof. C. H, Turner
maintains (in an unpublished lecture) that, like the Apostolic Consti-
tutions and (probably) the Didascalia, it represents Syria.
256 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
at the meetings on the Lord's day, of a plain utterance, and
capable of clearly expounding, mindful that he assumes the posi-
tion of an Evangelist ; for whoever fills the ear of the ignorant
will be accounted as having his name written with God.
From this it is clear that in some churches in early
times the status of Reader was a relatively high one; and
that his office entailed, not merely the reading of the Scrip-
ture (for which a good voice would suffice), but the
exposition of what he read; for his work is compared to
that of an Evangelist, and he gains honour in the sight of
God if he guides the ignorant aright.
In Syria where, to judge from the Didache, prophets
were numerous till a later date than elsewhere the office
of Reader was of a quasi-prophetic character. An ancient
prayer, to be used at the admission of a Reader, is pre-
served in the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 22) and includes
the words:
Look upon him now being admitted to read thy Holy Scrip-
tures to thy people, and give him a holy spirit, a prophetic spirit ;
thou who didst make wise thy servant Esdras to read thy laws to
thy people, now also in answer to our prayers make wise thy
servant. , , .
Wisdom, it is obvious, is a prime requisite, not for reading
the Scripture aloud, but for expounding it.
In the (earlier) Didascalia (ii. 20) occurs the sentence:
And if there is a Reader, let him too receive (an allowance)
like the Presbyters, as ranking with the prophets.
In light of these three quotations Harnack interprets
the following remark of Deutero-Clement:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, after the God of Truth hath
been heard lie. after the lesson from Scripture] I read to you an
exhortation to the end that ye may giv heed to the things which
vn ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 257
are written [{.e. the Scripture], so that ye may save both your-
selves and him that readeth in the midst of you * (2 Clem, xix, 1) .
He concludes that Deutero-Clement was a Reader; and
that the document we have is his exposition of a portion
of Scripture, written out beforehand and read to the con-
gregation at the conclusion of the Scripture lesson.
I have summarised the main points in Harnack's theory,
because, whether or no we accept his view of Deutero--
Clement, the evidence as to the existence and nature of
the office of Reader is of considerable interest to the student
of early Church Order. When I first wrote this chapter
I was disposed to accept the suggestion that the author
of Deutero-Clement held the office of Reader; but Dr. J.
Vernon Bartlet has since communicated to me an alterna-
tive theory which he has recently developed, and has
kindly given me permission to make use of it. I gladly
avail myself of this adding that he is not to be held
responsible in" detail for the way in which I have here
worked it out.
It would appear from Justin Martyr that at Rome the
Sunday service began with reading from the Gospels and
the Old Testament. The procedure is thus described:
The memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets
are read as long as we have time. Then, when the Reader has
finished, the President speaks, admonishing, and exhorting us to
the imitation of these excellent things. After that we rise aU
together and offer prayer. And when the prayer has ended, bread
and wine and water are presented. . . . (Justin, ApoL i. 76).
From this it would appear that the preacher and the reader
were not as a rule the same person. The preacher was
1 Of. Rev. i. 3 : ' Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the
words of this prophecy and keep the things which are written therein '.
Karnack thinks this implies the existence of a special Reader.
258 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vu
normally the Bishop, but he would take his text from the
Scripture-lesson which had just been read. We cannot, of
course ; be certain that the practice of Alexandria was
identical with that of Rome. But the assumption that it
was so in this particular respect, provides an illuminating
explanation of the passage quoted above from Deutero-
Clement, A portion of Scripture has been read and is
followed by a homily, exhorting the congregation to ' give
heed to the things ' they have just heard read. There is
nothing here to suggest that the person who had read from
the Scriptures was the same as he who reads the homily
still preserved to us in Deutero-Clement. On the contrary?
on the analogy of the practice of the synagogue, what we
should expect of a reader is that (if and when he did more
than read the bare text) he would, at most, venture on a
kind of paraphrase or running commentary related to the
lection much as the Targum to the Hebrew text. What
Deutero-Clement does is to select from a lection taken
from Isaiah presumably one of considerable length
certain verses (especially Isa. liv. 1) which he treats much
in the way that a modern preacher does the text of his
sermon. He speaks, too, with authority; he takes upon
himself to censure and to warn. Now a Bishop may do
this ; but hardly (we should suppose) a mere Reader.
We ask, then, was the author of Deutero-Clement a
Bishop? To answer that question we must consider the
two allusions which he makes to the Presbyters.
And let us not tMnk to give heed and believe now only while
we are admonished by the Presbyters. But likewise when we have
departed home let us remember the commandments of the Lord
and not suffer ourselves to be dragged off the other way by our
worldly affections (xvii. 3).
Admirable advice, and not yet out of date! Again, a few
vii ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 259
sentences later, the obdurate are represented as destined
to say at the Last Judgment:
Woe unto us, for Thou wast and we knew it not, and believed
not ; and we obeyed not the Presbyters when they told us of our
salvation (xvii. 5).
The allusions to the Presbyters are susceptible of alter-
native explanations. Either the writer is not himself a
Presbyter (but a Reader, or other such officer), or he is
a Presbyter entitled to speak as representing that body
just as the Vicar of a modern church where there are
several curates might ask the congregation to pay atten-
tion to 'the Clergy'. In view of the tone of authority
assumed by the writer, and also of the fact that both the
passages quoted imply that preaching and admonishing
belong specially to the office of Presbyter the more prob-
able alternative is, that the writer is the President of the
body of presbyters.
We infer, then, that at Alexandria at this date there
was a President of the board of presbyters; but that he
was still called by the title Presbyter, and was not yet, or
not yet quite, in the position of a monarchical bishop.
This hypothesis would explain why, when monepisco-
pacy did arise in Alexandria, it retained, at least until
some date in the third century, a notable feature. The
Bishop was elected by the twelve presbyters of the city
churches, and was by them consecrated to his office. When
the see was vacant, we are told, the twelve presbyters
chose one of themselves, and the remaining eleven laying
their hands on his head, blessed him, and created him
patriarch. Evidence for this practice is given in detail
in the well-known * Dissertation on the Christian Ministry '
appended to Lightfoot's Philippians (p. 230 if.) ; it has
been slightly increased by fresh discoveries since he wrote. 1
*J.T. S, ii.p, 612 ff.
260 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
Lightfoot calls into evidence the letter of Hadrian to
Servianus, mentioned above, to prove that already by AJ>.
134 the offices of Bishop and Presbyter were clearly distin-
guished in Egypt. Hadrian, enlarging on the fickleness
and instability of the Egyptians, says:
There, worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those who
say they are bishops of Christ are devotees of Serapis. There is
no Ruler of a Jewish Synagogue, no Samaritan, no presbyter of
the Christians, who is not an astrologer, a soothsayer, a quack.
Hadrian, it should be noted, speaks of ' bishops ' in the
plural ; but, as we shall see later, a hundred years after his
time there was still only one bishop in Egypt. Lightfoot
thinks Hadrian may have used the plural through misap-
prehension taking it for granted, from his knowledge of
Christianity elsewhere, that there would be bishops in
Egypt outside Alexandria. But in view of the evidence
afforded by Deutero-Clement which Lightfoot, of course,
did not regard as Alexandrian it is far more likely that
Hadrian was not mistaken on this point. His letter is
evidence that in Alexandria as in the usage of the New
Testament, Clement of Rome, and Hennas the same
persons could be called alternatively Bishops or Presbyters,
It cannot, however, have been many years after Hadrian
wrote before there was a monarchical bishop in Alexandria.
True, the first Bishop of this church about whom we have
any very definite information is Demetrius, who was ap-
pointed about A.B. 190. But it is clear that the office to
which he was appointed was one of old standing, and of
universally-recognised authority; and from the moment of
his election he was able to exercise very autocratic powers.
His own position was so secure that he could afford to
make fresh departures outside Alexandria, of a kind which
imply that monepiscopacy was already an old-established
vn ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 261
institution. Until Demetrius, we are told, the Bishop of
Alexandria was the only bishop in Egypt. Demetrius
initiated an entirely new policy, and appointed bishops in
other cities of 'Egypt. His successor, Heraclas (A.D. 233),
continued this policy, and largely increased their number.
Incidentally, though not perhaps accidentally, this
policy reacted on the position of the Bishop of Alexandria
itself. The newly-founded sees naturally remained subject
to his supreme authority. Thus the Bishop of Alexandria
attained at one step to the position of a Patriarch.
THE PATRIARCHATES
After the death of Peter, Paul, and James, and the
destruction of Jerusalem, the Church's natural centre, the
theoretical ideal of a Church one and indivisible became a
thing extremely difficult to realise in actual practice. The
centrifugal tendencies inherent in that diversity of local
usage and outlook, which was the inevitable result of the
spontaneous and almost haphazard character of the earliest
mission, had no longer an effective counterpoise. The
position was made more difficult by the political situation.
Divide et impera was the maxim of Roman rule. The
Government was traditionally and on principle jealous of
anything that savoured of combination and co-operation,
even when the objects of such combination were regarded
as of the most highly respectable character; 1 and the
persecution of Nero established a precedent, after which
Christianity was, in the eye of the law, a religio illidta.
This made conference on disputed questions impracticable
on any large scale. The law in its full rigour was rarely
enforced against Christians, and persecution of a serious
character appears to have been intermittent and sporadic.
But in the first two centuries, to hold anything like a
1 Cf . Trajan's letter to Pliny, x, 97.
262 THE PRIMITIVE CHUECH TO
provincial synod, much less an Oecumenical Council like
those of later Church history, would have been quite im-
possible. The Church was a secret society suspect by the
police. In order to survive, it had to adapt itself to this
difficult environment.
One result of this necessity of avoiding public attention
would be that important questions would often have to be
decided by the churches of the great provincial capitals,
without formal consultation either with one another or
with the smaller local churches. Again, local churches
would be compelled to depend for support and guidance
less on one another than on the church of the provincial
capital; for it was easy for delegates of a small church to
find a pretext for visiting the capital without attracting
notice. Thus on large points of policy the affairs of the
church local would in practice be decided by the churches
of the provincial capitals; while questions affecting the
Church universal could only be settled by occasional con-
ference, necessarily of a more or less secret and informal
character, between representatives of the Great Churches.
By the third century we find the Patriarchs of the
churches of the greater capitals, Rome, Antioch, Alexan-
dria, and the Metropolitans of provincial capitals like
Ephesus or Caesarea, exercising a large authority over the
smaller churches in their province. Historians have often
commented on the obscurity of the origin of this Patri-
archate and Metropolitan jurisdiction. How and by what
stages did the bishops of the Great Churches acquire their
predominant position in regard to the lesser churches of
a province? The answer to this question is that the pri-
macy of the metropolitan churches was not a thing that
had to be acquired; in its essential features it was, in effect,
primitive. The case of Jerusalem was exceptional (p. 45).
Again, in Egypt at definite dates, and by definite acts,
vn ALEXANDEIA AND PATRIARCHATES 263
the bishoprics of the smaller churches were constituted in
accordance with a clearly determined policy by bishops of
Alexandria ; and naturally their appointees continued to be
regarded as their subordinate officers. But elsewhere this
patriarchal and metropolitan authority grew insensibly and
inevitably out of the circumstances of the sub-apostolic
age on iy i n the earliest period the authority would seem
to have resided rather in the metropolitan church as such
than in the person of its bishop.
This is exactly as we should expect. Anyone who has
any knowledge of the way in which successful f movements '
whether religious, political, or otherwise are 'run' at
the present day, is aware that it is precisely in the early
stages that local branches depend most upon ' headquar-
ters '. Whenever a crisis or a difficulty occurs in a strug-
gling branch, advice is sought at the national headquarters
or at a provincial head office. On all points, whether in
regard to organisation or to ' platform \ a deputy from the
central office is listened to with a respect which is almost
pathetic. It is at a later stage, when a local branch feels
that it is firmly rooted, that it is apt to Hake the bit
between its teeth ' and to cause headquarters much trouble.
In new movements the primitive stage is that in which
dependence of local branches on the great centres is at its
maximum. And if this is so in the democratic England
or America of the twentieth century, how much more
would it hold good in the patriarchally-minded semi-
oriental civilisation of the bureaucratically governed
Roman Empire?
It is not, of course, suggested that the pre-eminence of
the Great Churches was of the nature of a rigidly defined
legal jurisdiction all the evidence points the other way.
For the first hundred years or so all church organisation
must have been more or less informal, and a matter of
264 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
moral prestige rather than of legal right. Still less is it
to be supposed that the smaller churches of the whole of
the Roman empire were neatly parcelled out among certain
Great Churches definitely labelled 'metropolitan'. The
churches of all important cities would enjoy a certain pre-
eminence in their own neighbourhood. But the fight with
Gnosticism led to a growing stress on the tradition of
churches founded by apostles. Hence arose a widespread
feeling that both a special pre-eminence and a special
responsibility belonged to the churches in the three capitals
which could also claim to be 'Apostolic Sees' Antioch,
Ephesus, and Rome.
Tertullian speaks of those 'Apostolic Churches which
are the wombs and origin of the faith '* Irenaeus regards
them with similar respect. Neither Irenaeus (of Lyons)
nor his younger contemporary, Tertullian (of Carthage) ,
was himself a member of one of the great Apostolic
Churches; and both of them were prepared on occasion to
denounce in strong language high-handed action by a
Roman bishop. Hence their testimony to the influence of
the Apostolic Sees upon the Church at large is by that
much the more impressive.
The question whether the position occupied by a man
like Clement of Rome in relation to his presbyters was
comparable to that of a bishop to his clergy, or of a dean
to his canons, is one which has been much disputed. It
is not disputable that the position taken up by Clement,
writing in the name of the Roman Church to the church
at Corinth, implies a sense in the larger church, both of
responsibility and of moral authority, in which lie the
germs of the legal authority claimed by later Popes. It
is not less significant that Ignatius of Antioch speaks more
than once as if conscious of a similar responsibility for the
et originulibus fidei (De Praetor. Haer. 21).
vn ALEXANDRIA AND PATRIARCHATES 265
Church throughout Syria ; and that the Bishop of Ephesus,
as will shortly appear, seems to occupy a similar position
in Asia.
Martyrdom was not a rare thing in the early Church.
Why, then, did deputations, including in every case the
bishop, come, often from a considerable distance, to wait
upon Ignatius? Why does he feel it incumbent on him
to write letters of good advice to churches in Asia which
he had never seen or only once passed through? The
alternations of mood between extreme self-esteem and
exaggerated profession of humility which occur in almost
every letter, I have explained (p. 174 ff,) as partly neu-
rotic. But a neurotic, except his case is very serious, is
more likely to exaggerate something which actually exists
than to imagine the non-existent. Why, then, in writing
to the Roman Church does Ignatius feel it necessary to
say, * I do not command you as though I were Peter and
Paul. They were Apostles, I am a convict; they were free,
but I am a slave, to this very hour'? Martyrdom in the
early Church conferred upon a man a claim to exaggerated
respect. But that alone would not put Ignatius in a posi-
tion in which a disclaimer of equality with Peter and Paul
could seem an expression of humility. Ignatius, as we
have seen, grossly ' over-does it'; but there would be rea-
son, or at least excuse, for his protestations, if he knew
that his post as president of the Church of Antioch was
generally recognised as one of a quasi-apostolic character.
In that case it might seem a tactful courtesy to disclaim
the intention of speaking to the Church of Rome in that
capacity; while his own position would be one for the
responsibilities of which it would behoove the holder to
remind himself though not quite so often other people of
his personal unworthiness.
That the See of Ephesus enjoyed a certain distinction
266 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH vn
in Asia I have inferred from the Pastoral epistles and the
minor epistles of John. It should be noted also that Ephe-
sus heads the list of the Seven Churches of Asia in the
Apocalypse. We are not, then, surprised at the marked
difference in the tone in which Ignatius writes to the
smaller churches, and that he adopts in his letter to Ephe-
sus. The special compliments which he pays to this church
are significant. He obviously regards the Apostolic church
of Ephesus, as well as that of Rome, as being of a dignity
comparable to that of his own church of Antioch.
Thus already in the time of Ignatius there are at least
three churches enjoying a pre-eminence in which is implied
more than the beginnings of the later provincial system.
This pre-eminence was evidently no new thing. In fact
to put it paradoxically the office of Archbishop would
seem more primitive than that of Bishop.
EPILOGUE
OUK survey of the evidence is ended. Much of it is
unambiguous; much admits of more than one interpreta-
tion. Of necessity, there will be a corresponding variation
in the degree of certainty which attaches to the several
conclusions reached. Of these, some are as firmly estab-
lished as anything can be that rests on ancient testimony,
others are no more than, in Huxley's phrase, * scientific
guesses '. But whatever else is disputable, there is, I sub-
mit, one result from which there is no escape. In the
Primitive Church there was no single system of Church
Order laid down by the Apostles. During the first hundred
years of Christianity, the Church was an organism alive
and growing changing its organisation to meet changing
needs. Clearly in Asia, Syria, and Rome during that cen-
tury the system of government varied from church to
church, and in the same church at different times. Uni-
formity was a later development; and for those times it
was, perhaps, a necessary development.
In a book which aims at being a contribution to his-
torical research, a discussion of issues which are a matter
of controversy in the Church of to-day would be out of
place. It would, however, be futile to pretend that the
historical conclusions here reached are without relevance to
practical questions keenly debated at the present time.
All over the world more especially in India, China, and
Africa disunion among Christians is recognised as a force
of weakness amid surrounding paganism. The obstacles
to be overcome are many; and they are real. No one who
267
268 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
has given serious study to the question will condemn out
of hand those who are apprehensive lest ill-considered at-
tempts at premature reunion may hinder rather than
advance the cause. But perhaps the greatest obstacle
is the belief entertained more or less explicitly by most
bodies of Christians that there is some one form of Church
Order which alone is primitive; and which, therefore, alone
possesses the sanction of Apostolic precedent. Our review
of the historical evidence has shown this belief to be an
illusion. In the Primitive Church no one system of Church
Order prevailed. Everywhere there was readiness to ex-
periment, and, where circumstances seemed to demand it,
to change.
To offer any suggestions in regard to the practical prob-
lems and current controversies of the present day would
be to go outside the province of strictly historical investi-
gation proper to this book. Yet it is permissible to hint
that the first Christians achieved what they did, because
the spirit with which they were inspired was one favourable
to experiment. In this and, perhaps, in some other re-
spects it may be that the line of advance for the Church
of to-day is not to imitate the forms, but to recapture
the spirit, of the Primitive Church.
APPENDICES
A. PIONIUS' LIFE OF POLYCAEP
B. THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS AND POLYCAEP
C. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE ' DIDACHE '
D.~ IRENAETJS AND THE EARLY POPES
E. A GNOSTIC HYMN
269
APPENDIX A
PIONIXJS* LIFE OF POLYCARP
THE importance of this document has been strangely overlooked.
For if any historical value whatever be allowed to it, the case for
the residence of the Apostle John hi Asia can no longer be sus-
tained. Lightfoot allows it none.
Unhappily it has no points of contact with authentic tradition.
If it contains any grains of truth, we have no means of sifting them
from the huge heap of falsehood. 1
Similarly the BoUandist, Fr. H. Delehaye, dismisses the Pionian
Life as a fourth-century fiction in the conventional hagiological
manner. 2
To me any such estimate of its historical value appears to be
gravely in error. No doubt the author revels in stories of miracle ;
and he is obviously inclined to rewrite and embellish his original
sources for purposes of edification. Biographers of saints all do
this and so, though in a slightly different way, do most biog-
raphers of sinners. St. Bonaventura did in the Life of St. Fronds,
which became the official * legend ' of the Franciscan Order. A
tendency to Idealise 1 creates no presumption at aH against the
probability that, like Bonaventura, the author of The Life of
Polycarp had access to early and valuable sources.
Of the miracles, the great majority occur lumped together in
one section of The Life (25-32). This looks as if they came
from a different source from the rest of the story ; and the author
virtually says so 27 (p. 271). Probably they represent a collec-
tion of stories told by guides to pilgrims to the martyr's tomb.
Apart from the author's taste for miracles, the ground on which
1 Lightfoot, Ignatius and Polyearp f i. p. 435 f. IE vol. iii. of the
same work will be found the text in full and a translation.
*Les Passions des Martyrs et les Genres Litteravres, (Bruxelles,
Office of the Bollandists, 1921,)
271
272 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
Lightfoot rules him absolutely out of court in his complete igno-
rance of the residence of the Apostle John in Asia, and of the
appointment of Polycarp as Bishop of Smyrna by that apostle ;
and the fact that he gives an account of the life and career of
Polycarp quite incompatible with Polycarp's having had any
connection whatever with the apostle. 1
Lightfoot accepts unreservedly all that Irenaeus says about
Polycarp's relations with the Apostle John ; and also those of
Tertullian, whose statements he regards as those of an independent
witness, and not as a mere rhetorical amplification of what he read
in Irenaeus. Lightfoot, therefore, can take no other view than he
does of the historical value of the Life of Polycarp. Supposing,
however, we have, on other grounds, begun to suspect that the
tradition of the apostle's residence in Asia may have arisen out of
a confusion between him and the Elder John, then the mere fact
that the author of The Life never mentions the Apostle John in
Asia, and seems never to have heard of any connection between
him and Polycarp, compels to a patient hearing of the case in
favour of its historicity. The belief that John the Apostle lived
in Ephesus soon became universal. The Acts of John, which pre-
suppose it, had a great vogue. The works of Irenaeus, who makes
the connection of Polycarp with St. John one of the corner-stones
of his argument against the Gnostics, had a wide circulation and
repute. And his statements about St. John in Asia, along with
those of Polycrates and others, were republished by Eusebius AD,
311, and thus gained still wider currency.
Now the author of The Life of Polycarp wished above all
things to glorify his hero. He had read Irenaeus,* who asserts :
Polycarp was not only instructed by Apostles and lived in
familiar intercourse with many that had seen Christ, but was also,
by Apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna ;
whom I also saw in my early youth.
How, then, can we possibly account for the fact that he totally
ignores Poly carp's connection with any of the apostles, and rep-
resents him instead as the protege and pupil of an insignificant
1 Lightfoot, op. cit. iii. p. 430 f.
3 Lightfoot, op. cit. p, 428.
APPENDIX A 273
and wholly unknown bishop, Bucolus ? Only, I suggest, on the
hypothesis that this maligned writer was doing what he tells us
he is doing, ie. drawing his facts from an ancient document based
on authentic Smyrnaean tradition.
That the author made use of some older documents we know.
The Life, as we have it, is incomplete. Lightfoot shows that the
Letter of the Smyrnaeans, commonly known as The Martyrdom
of Polycarp, was originally included in The Life ; and it follows it
immediately in the sole surviving MS. of The Life. (The other
MSS. of The Martyrdom are all derived, not from the Letter in
its original form most of which is also reproduced by Eusebius
(H.E. iv. 15) but from the version of it reproduced in The Life).
Lightfoot also shows that the miraculous incident of the dove
which does not appear in Eusebius' version is an embellishment
of the original letter made by the author of The Life. Another
ancient document originally contained in The Life was the genuine
letter of Polycarp to the Philippians ( 12). It certainly included
a list of early Bishops of Smyrna ( iiL), an account of Polycarp 's
scriptural expositions (xx.), a dream, in which Polycarp ap-
peared to the author, ' as I will declare in the sequel ' (Martyr-
dom, xxii. 4) . I shall argue later that in addition it contained a
notice of Polycarp's visit to Rome. Some of this lost material
may have stood in the lacuna between 28 and 29 ; but most of
it probably occurred, either between the end of the part of The
Life which survives and The Martyrdom, or after The Martyrdom.
The author makes the definite assertion that the earlier part
of The Life was based on an ancient source or sources. He begins
his work :
Tracing my steps farther back and beginning with the visit of the
blessed Paul to Smyrna, as I have found it in ancient copies, I will
give the narration in order, thus coming down to the history of the
blessed Polycarp.
There follows a paragraph in which a visit of St. Paul to one
Strataeas, who had heard him in Pamphylia, is described. In
this the Apostle lays down the true doctrine in regard to the
Quartodeciman controversy. The details of the Apostle's dis-
course are of course purely apocryphal and reflect as one would
274 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
expect in a document written for edification the views on the
subject regarded as orthodox, and therefore apostolic, by the
author of The Life.
Lightfoot says of the author :
He does not scruple to appeal to documents, where these docu-
ments have no existence.
The only ground for this condemnation is that he asserts of
Polycarp :
He wrote many treatises and sermons and letters, but in the
persecution . . certain lawless heathen carried them off. Their
character, however, is evident from those still extant, among which
the Epistle to the Philippians was the most adequate (J/cawrd-n?).
This we will include in its proper place ( 12).
Lightfoot argues that it is highly improbable that there were
in existence any other letters than that to the Philippians which
still survives. But in fairness to our author it should be observed
that, though he asserts that other letters were extant, he only
professes to have access to this one. 1
But there is an independent reason for thinking that his
account of the interview between St. Paul and Strataeas is a
re-writing of an older source. One of the great moments in the
career of Polycarp was the visit to Rome in the time of Anicetus
(A.D. 155), in which he stoutly upheld the tradition of the churches
of Asia on the Quartodeciman issue, as being primitive and
apostolic, against the tradition of Rome. The firm stand made by
Polycarp for the customs of Asia, and Anicetus' friendly * agree-
ment to differ J on the matter, form one of the main precedents in
the 'case for Asia' in the letter of Irenaeus cited above (p. 228),
when the churches of Asia were excommunicated by Victor of
1 The statement that Polycarp wrote several letters to neighbouring
churches occurs in Irenaeus 7 letter to Florinus ; and the adjective
kcwwreirfl is applied by Irenaeus (Haer. iii. 3, 4) to Polyearp's extant
letter. Since both passages are quoted by Eusebius (JBTJET, v. 20 and iv.
14), it has been suggested that the author of The Life only knew
Irenaeus from Eusebius, and therefore wrote in the IVth century. But
the colophon attached to the best (the Moscow) MS. of Tfce Martyr Aom
(originally part of The Life} says, 'This account Gains copied from
the papers of Irenaeus. The same lived with Irenaeus/
APPENDIX A 275
Rome (AJ>. 190) (Eus. HJB. v. 24, 14 ff.). Some notice of this
incident must have occurred in a, portion of The Life that has
been lost. But if Polycarp was to be represented as appealing,
when at Rome, to the tradition of Smyrna as truly preserving the
apostolic teaching on the Quartodeciman question, it would be
natural, if not actually necessary, to prepare the way for this by
setting down early in The Life a version of the teaching as
originally given by an apostle.
That the author regards this as the point of the incident,
appears from the opening words of the next section (3), 'But
after the departure of the apostle, Strataeas; succeeded to his
teaching.' He means to indicate, no doubt, that Strataeas became
Bishop ; but the emphasis is not on his office as such, but on his
being a link in the tradition between Paul and Polycarp of Smyrna
as to the true doctrine on the Quartodeciman issue. Of course, if
St. Paul ever did meet Strataeas (which is not unlikely), he would
have found something better to talk about than- the Quartodeci-
man controversy. St. Paul was interested in saving souls, not in
the exact date of the termination of the Lenten fast. And no
doubt Lightfoot is right in supposing that the actual views
attributed to the apostle are related to the particular stage this
controversy had assumed at the time of the author. I am not
arguing that the views expressed go back to Polycarp, much less
to Paul ; I do urge that the ancient source used by the author of
the existing Lifeif it was a document written in Asia within a
year or two of Poly carp's death must have contained something
to justify Polycarp's claim to represent apostolic tradition in
regard to this particular question. And that something partly
re-writtenmay well be the story with which the Pioman Life
begins.
Two other considerations suggest the dependence of the
Strataeas incident on an early source.
(1) Paul is not stated to have been the founder of the church
in Smyrna. He is represented as visiting it after it was founded.
This fits in with the tradition preserved in the Apostolic Consti-
tutions which makes Strataeas first Bishop of Smyrna, but does
not say he was ordained by Paul.
276 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
(2) The apostolic tradition in regard to the Quartodeciman
controversy is traced back, not to John nor even to John and
Paul togetherbut to Paul alone. That is to say, the appeal to
apostolic tradition on a question vital to the independence of the
churches of Asia against Rome is made to depend, not on the joint
authority of John and Paul, who together might fairly balance the
Roman appeal to Peter and Paul, but solely on that of Paul.
We are now entitled to give their due weight to other little bits
of evidence. The facts are mentioned by Lightfoot, though he is
obliged to minimise their significance.
(1) The author shows a good deal of local knowledge of
Smyrna and the neighbourhood. I need not reproduce the details,
which are fairly summarised by Lightfoot (op. cit. iii. p. 430).
(2) A miracle story (in which figures a certain Cainerius)
opens with these words:
Now among others, whom Polycarp appointed Deacons, was one
named Camerius, who also became Bishop, the third in succession
from him, and next after Papirius (27).
Of Papirius nothing more is said. The allusion to him is a
mere parenthesis ; but the name is mentioned in the letter of
Polycrates of Ephesus to Victor of Rome (Eus. H.E. v. 24) as a
prominent upholder of Asiatic custom, in regard to Easter at this
date.
(3) Our author tells how the body of Bucolus was taken
to Smyrna, to the cemetery in front of the Ephesian Royal gate, and
placed where in our day a myrtle tree sprang up after the burial of
the body of Thraseas the martyr (20).
Lightfoot (op. cit. L p. 510) dates the martyrdom of Thraseas
within the years A.D. 155-164. And in his note on the passage
quoted above, remarks : ' There would seem therefore to be an
anachronism in the v$v> tl in our day " \ If the passage, as Light-
foot holds, was originally penned in the fourth century, there
would certainly be an anachronism ; a more natural view is that
we have here preserved the actual wording of a second-century
source.
The question whether The Life was written by the Pionius who
APPENDIX A 277
was martyred AJD. 250 in the Decian persecution and who is known
to have had a special veneration for the memory of Polycarp, has
been hotly debated since Lightfoot wrote. Corssen and others
have maintained that the martyr was the author. Delehaye
argues for a date <x A.D. 400, Personally I incline to think that
the attribution to Pionius, though not provable, is at least prob-
able. I find it hard to believe that, after the publication of
Eusebius* History, a Life of Polycarp written in the spirit of
enthusiastic hero-worship could have absolutely ignored the unique
distinction there claimed for him as a personal disciple of St. John,
consecrated Bishop by apostolic hands. All, however, that I am
here concerned to show is that, whoever wrote The Life, aad how-
ever freely he may have dealt with his materials, he was working
upon old and valuable sources, or rather that one of his sources
was such.
The author definitely states that he had access to an ancient
document* And that such a document once existed we might, on
independent grounds, have surmised, though I believe the fact
has not heretofore been noticed. At the close of the Martyrdom
of Polycarp there is a sentence which suggests that the letter of
the Church of Smyrna, which we call the Martyrdom, was merely
intended as an instalment.
Ye indeed required that the things which happened should be
shown unto you at greater length : but we for the present (/caret r&
7rap6i>)have certified you as it were in a summary (cos tv fce0aX<ucd)
by the hand of our brother Marcianus ( 20).
This looks as if, at the time of writing, the authorities of the
Church of Smyrna contemplated something like a Life of Poly-
carp. If they carried out that intention, there is not the slightest
reason why Pionius, who was a prominent member of the church
of Smyrna and whose devotion to Polycarp was of the nature of
a ' cult ', should not have got possession of a copy,
Be this as it may, the first part of The Life purports to be
based on an ancient document. It is, therefore, the more im-
portant to note that in introducing the collection of miracle stories
about the saint, the author speaks as if he was here dependent on
a different source apparently oral tradition. ' I will now record
278 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
such of the miracles wrought by Ms hands as have been handed
down to us ' (25). In mediaeval times the most famous exam-
ples are St. Francis and St. Thomas of Canterbury we have
instances of collections of miracles being made at a slightly later
date, as supplements to an original biographical sketch. I suggest
that in this, and in some other respects, the Pionian Life of Poly-
carp started a fashion.
The question, however, whether or not The Life is actually the
work of the Pionius who was martyred in A.D. 250, does not affect
my main argument. Nevertheless it has some historical interest.
For, if The Life be dated before A.D. 250, it becomes early evidence
for the prevalence in Asia of the custom that for the consecration
of a bishop, bishops should be summoned from neighbouring
churches. The Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, made it a matter of
canonical rule that at least three bishops should take part in the
consecration. Such a rule implies a widespread previous custom.
The practice is implied in the document miscalled The Egyptian
Church Order, which is really a recension of The Apostolic Trar
dition of Hippolytus of Rome (c. AJD. 220) ^ If it can be carried
back to the ancient source used in The Life of Polycarp, the
hypothesis suggests itself that it was a practice that originated in
Asia. In Asia, earlier than elsewhere among the Gentile churches,
mon-episcopacy had been established ; and in Asia the close pro-
pinquity of a number of churches dating from the apostolic age
(cf . ' The seven churches of Asia ') made it both natural and easy
for bishops from neighbouring churches to assemble for such a
purpose.
1 Texts and Studies, viii. 4 (Camb. Univ. Press). In the Verona
MS., the best witness for the text in its oldest form here supported
by the Sahidic the Canon reads as follows : Bpiscopus ordinetur
electue ab omni populo ,* quique cum nominatus fuerit et placuerit
omnibus, conueniet populum una cum praesbyterio et his qui praesentes
fuerint episcopi die dominica . . . unus de praesentibus episcopis ab
omnibus rogatus inponens manum ei qui ordinatur episcopus, orat ita
dicens, etc. (Similarly the Sahidic, G. Horner^ edition, p, 306*)
APPENDIX B
THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS AND POLYCARP
THE genuineness of the seven short letters written by Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch, on his road to martyrdom in the Colosseum
at Rome, was finally established by the monumental work of
Lightfoot. Otto Pfieiderer, quite the ablest of the later Tiibingen
School, was converted by Lightfoot from a complete rejection, to
an enthusiastic advocacy, of their authenticity. But while accept-
ing their genuineness, he wished to bring down their date to about
AD. 130 on the ground that the Gnostic views combated in
the Epistles resembled those of Basilides and Saturninus, who
flourished in the reign of Hadrian.
Lightfoot had already shown the fully developed views of these
two leaders to be precisely not the kind, of Gnosticism implied by
the strictures of Ignatius. And as a result of more recent research
it is now recognised that Gnosticism represents essentially a
pre-Christian tendency ; so that we must push back to an earlier
date the beginning of the infiltration into Christianity of Gnostic
views.
The evidence for the view that Ignatius perished under Trajan,
who died in the latter part of the year A.D. 117, though it comes
a long way short of being conclusive, is adequate, in default of
evidence to the contrary.
(1) Origen in his Homilies on Luke (eh. 6), written about A.D,
231, speaks of
Ignatius, who was second Bishop of Antioch after the blessed Peter,
and during the persecution fought with wild beasts in Rome.
Evidently Origen regarded Ignatius as belonging to the sub-
apostolic period ; while the phrase * the persecution ' is appro-
priate to Trajan's reign, under whom Symeon, Bishop of Jeru-
salem, was martyred, besides a number of Christians in Bithynia
270
280 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
when Pliny was governor. Trajan on the whole discouraged perse-
cution ; but Hadrian, the next emperor, went a stage further than
Trajan in this direction.
(2) In Fotheringham's edition of Jerome's version of the
Chronicon of Eusebius the martyrdoms of Symeon of Jerusalem,
Ignatius, and the Bithynian Christians are mentioned one after
the other continuously in the space opposite the numbers X and
XI (but, perhaps by accident, IX is omitted), which perhaps
means that they are assigned vaguely to the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh years of Trajan (i.e. AJ>. 107--8). C. H. Turner (Studies
in Early Church History, p. 137) argues that the ninth year is the
date intended in the Armenian version of the Chronicon, Lightfoot
having misunderstood the method of arrangement adopted by the
scribe in the case of specially long entries. And Lightfoot himself
shows that the concurrence of the ' Roman ' and of Antiochene
Acts, and also of the Chronicon Paschale, which all agree in. assign-
ing his death to the ninth year of Trajan, is to be explained by
their dependence on the Chronicon of Eusebius. But there is no
reason for supposing that the date assigned by Eusebius is more
than an approximation. Indeed, in the Ecclesiastical History he
treats of Ignatius after his: account of the persecution carried out
by Pliny thus reversing the order in which these events are given
in the Chronicon. (The date of Pliny's persecution can be fixed as
A.D. 112.) At any rate the words 'in their time* (H.E* iii. 36)
show that Eusebius was not professing knowledge of the exact
year. The earliest of the various legendary accounts of Ignatius'
martyrdom the * Antiochene Acts ', which Lightfoot dates c. AD.
440 confronts Ignatius with the Emperor Trajan in Antioch, and
makes the Emperor himself pronounce sentence upon him. Light-
foot has shown that these Acts have the most shadowy daim to
be treated as historical evidence. To the arguments he adduces I
would add the consideration that, if sentence had been passed by
the Emperor in person, there would have been no possible ground
for the apprehensions expressed in Ignatius' letter to the Romans
that members of that church might be successful in procuring a
reprieve. Moreover, Trajan, when in Antioch, would have been
much too busy organising his projected campaign in Mesopotamia
APPENDIX B 281
to concern himself with trying unimportant criminals and as
such he would certainly regard Ignatius. Nevertheless, it is just
possible that in synchronising the condemnation of Ignatius with
the Emperor's visit to Antioch, these Acts preserve an authentic
tradition.
(3) While Trajan was in Antioch there occurred a prodigious
earthquake, which caused enormous havoc in the city. Now when-
ever in the early centuries some great natural catastrophe oc-
curred, the populace at once leapt to the conclusion that it was
an expression of the anger of the gods for permitting the ' atheist '
Christians to exist.
If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not
send its waters over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is
an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence straightway the cry
is, *The Christians to the lion/ And what a mouthful ! (Tantos ad
unum f) (Tertullian, Apol. 40 ; cf. Ad Nationes, 9).
It may be taken for granted that an earthquake of exceptionally
devastating character would stir the mob of Antioch to seek out
the persons who had earned for the city the vengeance of heaven.
Ignatius, as his letters show, was one of those fiery spirits whose
existence in any community cannot be hidden ; and if, as is prob-
able, he was wont to denounce the gods of the heathen as violently
as he does heretics' and Jews, he would be marked out clearly as a
victim. On this view, no difficulty is presented by Ignatius* belief
that Christians in Rome might, if they tried, procure a reprieve.
In AD. 112 Trajan had written to Pliny saying that Christians
were not to be sought out for punishment, nor arrested on
anonymous information ; and that, even if publicly accused, they
were to be given an opportunity to recant and thereby obtain
pardon. It would be known by those in authority that the Em-
peror's policy was, so far as possible, to turn a blind eye towards
Christians ; and at Rome there would be no mob demanding
expiation for the crime of having brought down the anger of the
gods upon the community.
This hypothesis fits in sufficiently well with the evidence as
to the time of year. The earthquake took place during winter ;
282 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
probably in January, possibly in December, A.D. 115. 1 The day
of the month, though unfortunately not the year, is given by
Ignatius himself in his letter to the Romans. This was written
from Smyrna on August 24, and we know that he had been
brought to Smyrna from Antioch by road, a journey which would
take some little time. Lightfoot thinks that the soldiers in charge
of him were commissioned to pick up criminals condemned to the
amphitheatre at various places on the route travelled for a single
prisoner a guard of ten seems unnecessarily large. This would
probably mean delays at various stages. Allowing, therefore, time
for periods of imprisonment before and after the trial, the six
months' interval required could easily be filled.
Trajan died AJX 117, and there is not the slightest ground for
rejecting the tradition that the martyrdom of Ignatius took place
in his reign. If, however, the Didache, as I have argued, origi-
nated in the Church of Antioch, it would allow more ample time
for a development from the situation implied in that document to
that implied in the letters of Ignatius, if we assume that his death
took place towards the end of that Emperor's reign. Apart, there-
fore, from the conjectural datum afforded by the earthquake, the
date A.D. 115 is one that reasonably satisfies the available evidence.
It is, however, worth while to add that, should evidence turn up
which established a date some ten years later, no position taken,
up in this book would require to be surrendered, and some would
be the more easy to defend.
The date of the Ignatian Epistles cannot be considered alto-
gether apart from that of the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philip-
pians. On this point an interesting suggestion has been communi-
cated to me by Dr. P. N. Harrison. I have urged Mm to publish
this, presenting the evidence in detail ; in the meantime, he per-
mits me to state it in outline.
He asks whether what has come down to us as the Epistle of
Polycarp to the Philippians is not really two letters a short
* A late sixth century chronographer, Malalas, gives tlie exact date
as Dec. 13, AJX 115. Bion merely says 'in winter*; and Lightfoot
argues for a date early in A.D, 115 (Iffnatiw* ii. p. 41S ff,, 436 ft.).
APPENDIX B 283
letter, comprising ch, xiiL and xiv,, written at the time of the
death of Ignatius* and a longer letter (ch, i.-xii.) written ten years
or more later ? The shorter letter (ch. xiiL and xiv.) is a covering
letter, obviously authentic, sent to the Philippians, along with
copies of such of the letters of Ignatius as Polyearp had been able
to procure probably the collection which has descended to us.
The letters of Ignatius which were sent to us by him, and others
as many as we had by us, we send unto you, according as ye gave
charge; the which are subjoined to the letter,
Polycarp wrote this before he had received definite news that
the martyrdom of Ignatius had actually taken place.
Moreover concerning Ignatius himself and those that were with
him, if ye have any sure tidings, certify us.
The main reason for referring ch. ixriL to a later date is the
contents of ch. vii. This seems to be directed against Marcion,
whose views we know were regarded by Polycarp with special
aversion.
For everyone who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh, is antichrist ; and whosoever shall not confess the witness
of the Cross, is of the Devil ; and whosoever shall pervert the truths
of the Lord to his own lusts, and say there is neither resurrection
nor judgment, that man is the first-born of Satan,
First, notes Dr. Harrison, comes a quotation from 1 John,
originally no doubt directed against the Docetists of AJD. 90.
Polycarp is evidently applying this to someone in his own day
who failed to acknowledge that Jesus Christ came * in the flesh *.
Now Marcion taught that * clothed in a visionary body in the like-
of a man of thirty years old, the Son made His appearance,
etc/ (This and subsequent summaries of Mareion's views are
quoted from Harnadc) Further, somebody or other is now fail-
ing to confess * the witness of the Cross '. Marcion, again, saw in
the Crucifixion an* act of the Demiurge a * crime * for which He
was forced to make amends. Marcion's view of the Old Testa-
ment would make it impossible for him to appreciate the early
Christian interpretation of a witness of the prophets in general^
284 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
and of Isaiah liiL in particular, to a conception of the Cross which
makes it in a real sense an act of the good God. Further, this
preacher of devil's doctrine is taking liberties with the oracles
(\6yta) of the Lord to suit Ms own perverse inclination, which
looks like a reference to Mansion's mutilation of the Gospel of
Luke* He says there is * no resurrection ' : Marcion taught that
' only the spirit of man is saved by the good God ; the body,
because material, perishes '. He teaches that there is * no judg-
ment ' ; here again, ' according to Marcion, the good God never
judges, but everywhere manifests his goodness. . . . Men who
do not believe the Gospel, the good God does not judge, but merely
removes from his presence 7 . Finally, Polycarp says that the
teacher of these doctrines is ' Satan's first born ' ; and we know
from Irenaeus (Haer. iii. 3, 4) that Polycarp, when he met
Marcion in the Baths, addressed him in these very words. 1
Dr. Harrison also points out that the reference to ' the blessed
Ignatius', along with Paul and the rest of the Apostles (ch. ix,)
reads more naturally if it was written sometime after the martyr-
dom of Ignatius. One does not include in a list of the glorious
dead the name of a man as to whose fate one in the same letter
asks for information, and who, for all one knows, may be still alive.
Some further considerations in favour of the hypothesis that
ch. i-xii. are a letter written at a later date have occurred to me.
(1) Irenaeus tells us (cf. p. 274, n.) that Polycarp was in the
habit of writing letters to neighbouring churches ; there is, there-
fore, nothing surprising in his having written a second letter to
the Philippians.
(2) The letter was written in reply to a request from the
Church of Philippi for Polycarp 's advice (ch. iii. 1). His com-
ments on the case of the erring presbyter Valens and his wife (eh.
xi.) look as if the advice was asked for at least partly in regard to
this affair. Such a request by a distant church could only have
been made to a man of great and established reputation. And
the whole tone of the letter, with its fatherly exhortations to
1 Lightfoot arguing against the view that the whole letter was
directed against Marcion, and therefore spurious asks, * If Marcion
was the object of attack, why is his dualism spared ? * The objection
proves too much ; the early Docetae were also dualists.
APPENDIX B 285
purity in doctrine and conduct, is far more appropriate in a letter
sent by Polycarp in Ms venerable old age, when he had become a
quasi-apostolic figure, than in one written at the time of the death
of Ignatius (when he was approximately forty-five years of age)-
more especially us he was writing to a church other than his own,
(3) There is some reason to suspect that another letter ad-
dressed to the PhilSppians (that of the Apostle Paulis) made up
of two letters written on different occasions pieced together so as
to read like one Phil. iii. SMv. 1 being from a different letter.
(4) The benediction, * Now may God the Father, etc/, and the
call for prayer ending with the words * that ye may be perfect
in Him 'with which the first part concludes, read as if they
were intended as a kind of peroration (to a letter which is aH but
a sermon), and therefore originally stood at the end*
APPENDIX C
ORIGIN AND DATE OP THE '
THE Didache circulated mainly, if not exclusively, in Syria and
Egypt. But as the place of origin Egypt is ruled out. The
Eucharistic prayer (9) speaks of the corn of which the bread is
made as having been 'scattered upon the mountains'. This
would be unnatural in Egypt ; it would be appropriate in many
districts of Syria, including its capital Antioch, which is close to
a range of mountains. The undeveloped Christology, resembling
that of the early chapters of Acts, suits Syria far better than
Alexandria. Barnabas, the earliest document we have from Alex-
andria, already shows, we have seen (p. 251), that tendency
towards a high Christology which in later times was characteristic
of Alexandrian as contrasted with Antiochene theology. The
fact that the moral teaching given in the opening chapters of the
Didache is practically identical with that of the latter chapters of
Barnabas, only emphasises the more the contrast between their
doctrinal outlook. The ethics of the Two Ways Barnabas ac-
cepts ; but the theology implied in the rest of the Didache he has
left far behind.
There are seeming echoes of the Didache in Ignatius. 1 This
does not prove that the Didache was written in Antioch, but it-
suggests that it was valued in Antioch before the time of Ignatius.
It is even possible that Ignatius directly refers to it. In the
collocation of ' the Gospel ', ' the Apostles ', and * the Prophets '
(Philad. v. 1-2), the Prophets axe clearly those of the Old Testa-
ment, and the Gospel, which is ' as it were the flesh of Christ *,
must be a book (doubtless our Matthew) which makes His
*Cf. Magn. v. 1 ; other phrases which suggest that Ignatius was
familiar with the Didache are pointed out by Prof. C. BL Turner,
Studies in Early Church History, p* 8.
286
APPENDIX C 287
humanity real 1 In what sense, then, can he urge that one takes
refuge in the apostles * as in the presbytery of the Church ', unless
they also were available in written form ? The epistles of Paul
go far to give this exhortation meaning ; but Ignatius use$ the
plural * Apostles \ and elsewhere he speaks of * the ordinances
(8tar&7/xara) of the Apostles' (Trail, vii 1). May not the
Didache, regarded a& being what it claims to be, viz, teaching
given by the Twelve, have been at Antioch on the way to inclusion
in the New Testament Canon alongside the epistles of Paul ?
The Didache, as I have shown elsewhere, 2 quotes from (and
tells its readers to refer to) the Gospel of Matthew and (if DuL
I 3-41. I, which appears to conflate Matthew, Luke, and Hennas,
be regarded as an interpolation) apparently no other It must,
therefore, have been produced in an area where Matthew was the
Gospel officially recognised. If we could accept the tradition that
the Gospel of Matthew was written in Palestine, we might assign
the Didac/ie to the same province. But this so-called ' tradition J
is merely a repetition by later writers of the statement (which I
quote, p, 194) made for the first time by Irenaeus A.D. 185. And
this we have seen (p. 20) is merely an mjermce drawn from the
famous, but highly enigmatic, statement of Papias, 'Matthew
wrote rd Aiyta in the Hebrew tongue \ The inference that a
book written in Hebrew was written in Palestine is natural ; but,
1 Both Lightfoot and Harnaek miss the point, believing (on purely
priori grounds) that ^ajj&M^ could not yet have been the name of
a book* The use at such an early date of the word 'Gospel* as the
title of a book (cf. also Did, xv. 3 f.) need excite no surprise, I have
suggested (Th Four Gospel > p, 507) that it originated soon after the
publication of Mark, from the (Jewish) practice of using a striking
word in the first sentence as the title of a book or a section of it.
cfayyiXiOP is the striking word in Mark i. 1. At any rate a Hebrew
punning transliteration of the Greek word ifayy^Xto? is so used in a
story about the wife of Rabbi Bleazer, AJ>. 100, in which a Christian
judge quotes a saying very like Matt, v. 17 from a book called The
$0pel Cf. the essay by G. F, Moore in Wmay in Modern TMologv
and Belatod $u%feot$ (Papers in honour of 0, A, Briggs), p. 101 ff.
(Seribner, 1911), The story is also given and discussed by R. T, Her-
ford in Christianity in Tabnwl and Midrmh, p. 146 ff. (Williams &
Kforgtte, 1903). In a conversation with Prof. Q. F* Moore I raised the
question whether the reference to the *eTangelion* belonged to the
original story ; he gave reasons for believing it to be original.
8 The Wmr Gotpjk, p. 507,
288 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
as it is quite certain that our Gospel of Matthew is not a trans-
lation from Hebrew (being dependent on the Greek Gospel of
Mark), the deduction is fallacious. Yet on this deduction depends
the whole case for the Palestinian origin of the Gospel. Against
such an origin there is, to my mind, one fatal objection, ie. the
character of the narrative additions which this Gospel mates to
the story as told by Mark. If Matthew was really written in
Palestine, we should expect it to exhibit additions to the narrative
material derived from Mark, both considerable in extent and
palpably authentic whereas in fact the precise contrary holds
good. In the matter of the teaching of Christ, the additions made
to Mark by Matthew are of the utmost value ; and that is ex-
plained by his use of imtten documents like Q. But the narrative
additions are not of a character that suggests that they are derived
from authentic local tradition ; most, if not all, of them are of the
nature of ' Haggada > i.e. imaginative homiletic expansion OB
the text of Mark, whose narrative they presuppose.
But though the Gospel of Matthew can hardly have been
written in Palestine, it is undoubtedly used by Ignatius, Bishop of
Antioch. To him, moreover, Matthew is evidently the Gospel,
For this and other reasons I myself incline to the view that it was
compiled in Antioch. At any rate, the Didache and the Gospel of
Matthew both emanate from the part of the world covered by
the wide term Syria; and the circulation and prestige which both
enjoyed are not easily explained unless the general position which
they represent was one which about the year AJ>. 90 was congenial
to important churches in an area in which far the most important
church was Antioch. 1
The historian is liable to draw false conclusions as to the date
of an ancient document unless he first asks the question how
exactly the text in front of him represents what the original
author wrote. The Didache survives in a single manuscript dated
by the scribe who wrote it in the year AD. 1056. Now if we take
any one average MS. of the Gospels of that date, we find a number
1 To the view that tlie Dldaohe emanated from Caesarea the main
objection is the absence of points of contact with the strains of Gospel
tradition preserved in Luke which we have some reason (p, 00} to con-
nect with Caesarea.
APPENDIX C 289
of complete sentences and a very large number of individual words
which editors like West cot t and Hort or Tischendorf (who base
their text on the oldest MSS.) will not allow us to regard as
authentic. For example, every Greek MS. but one of the Gospels
later than the year AJX 1000, so far as I recollect, gives Mark xvi.
9-20 as part of the authentic text of that Gospel It is obvious
to any critie that the author of those twelve verses made use of
the Gospel of Luke and the Acts from which fact it would, if
the passage were authentic, be a necessary inference that the date
of Mark is later than that of Luke and Acts. Only because those
veraes do not occur in the oldest MSS. are we free to accept with-
out qualms the convincing evidence afforded by the rest of the
Gospel that Mark was not only earlier than, but actually used by,
Luke,
The text of the Didache presents an exact analogy* Near the
beginning there is a passage (i. 5) which appears to contain a
quotation from Herman, But of the Two Ways, the first six
chapters of the Didache, we have an old Latin version ; and the
Two Way also appears in Greek as the conclusion of Barnabas ;
and both the^e authorities omit a considerable section (i* 3~iL 1)
in the middle of which th quotation from Hennas occurs* True,
most scholars believe that the Two Ways (eh. L-vi.) was an earlier
document incorporated independently by the authors of Barnabas
and of the Didache. And it is possible that the Latin version may
be derived directly from this earlier document and not from the
Didache itself; though it is more likely that it represents a trun-
cated version of the Didache, made after the Church Order and
other directions in eh. vii.-xvi. had become obsolete. But even
if that be so, we have evidence that in the third century there
existed texts of the Didache itself which lacked the * interpolar
tion * ; for precisely that same section is omitted by the author
of The Apostolic Church Ordinances, and he read the Two Ways
as an integral part of the Didache itself (p. 285) . Admittedly the
* interpolation * is an early one ; it is found in texts of the Didache
both in Egypt and Syria before the end of the fourth century,
Curiously enough a papyrus fragmmt of that date (cf. Oxyrhyn-
chw Papyri, vol xv. p. 14) wMch contains only a few Hues of the
290 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
Didache happens to include one sentence of the ' interpolation * ;
it was also in the copy used about the same date by the author
of the Apostolic Constitutions. In this matter, therefore, the text
of our surviving MS. can be carried back to the fourth century.
But this does not prove the reading authentic ; texts of St. Mark's
Gospel containing the last twelve verses can be shown to have
existed as far back as the second century, for Irenaeus, AJX 185,
used such a text. The analogy of the text of the Gospels would
lead us to expect that this is by no means the only place where
the text of our one MS. of the Didache is not to be regarded as
infallible. The tiny papyrus fragment I have mentioned has sev-
eral minor variants ; so also, it would appear, had the MS. used
by the author of the Apostolic Constitutions.
There is also evidence that the Didache circulated in more than
one recension. Thus a couple of phrases are found, both in the
Apostolic Church Ordinances and in the version of the Two Ways
at the end of Barnabas, which are absent from our text of the
Didache; and, as already mentioned, both these omit Did. i. 3-ii. 1
1 the interpolation '. The old Latin version, however, while agree-
ing with Barnabas and the Apostolic Church Ordinances in omit-
ting the ' interpolation ', does not have the two short inserted
phrases. Again, the striking phrase 'dead gods' (Did. vi. 3),
which does not appear in the parallel in Barnabas, is found also
in the document I have styled Deutero-Clement (iii. 1), where it
is presumably an echo of a MS. of the Didache slightly different
from that used by Barnabas.
It has been necessary to discuss the state of the text, and in
particular the ' interpolation \ at some length, because the main
argument advanced by scholars so distinguished as Prof, von
Harnack and Dr. Armitage Robinson for assigning to the Didache
a relatively late date is the fact that it quotes Hennas. But apart
from this section (which on textual grounds we conclude not to
have been penned by the original author) the case for such, quo-
tation is too flimsy to bear any serious weight.
Dr. Robinson's theory that the Didache represents a fancy
picture by some antiquarian romancer of later date, who was
endeavouring to depict what he (falsely) conceived to be the state
APPENDIX C 291
of things existent in the primitive church, is one that I cannot
bring myself to take seriously. 1 There survive several attempts
in the third and fourth centuries to depict what their authors
conceived as the discipline and order of the Apostolic Age. But
then, even more than now, the customs of the Primitive Church
were regarded as an authoritative guide for present-day practice*
What these writers are concerned to do is to project back into the
apostolic age, either the conditions which existed at their own
time, or else conditions which seemed to them a slightly improved
variety of contemporary usage. That a later writer, of Montanist
proclivities, should have admired, and desired to depict as primi-
tive, the state of things reflected in the Didache is possible there
are no Emits to the idiosyncrasy of individuals in any age* What
is incredible is that, had he done so, his work running so abso-
lutely counter as it does to the ideals and tendencies of the time
should at one have secured such wide influence and prestige.
A second theory, that the Didache represents a state of things
which actually existed at an early date, but only in some out-of-
the-way church, is less intrinsically absurd. Nevertheless it goes
shipwreck on the fact, for which I shaU shortly adduce evidence,
that the influence of this little book on the later literature dealing
with Church Order has been perhaps greater thaa that of any
other work outside the New Testament Wherever, and by whom-
soever, it was composed, it must have been accepted as authorita/-
tiva, and that almost at once by the most important churches
of Syria and Egypt But this could not have happened unless the
situation which it implies was one that actually existed in these
churches, so that the advice given in the document supplied
something of which they felt an actual need,
I proceed to recall certain, facts which attest the exceptional
prestige which once attached to this ancient writing.
(1) It hovered on the verge of acceptance into the Canon until
the fourth century.
Athanasius, in the notable 39th Festal letter (AJX 867), which
practically settled the Canon of the New Testament, classes the
*The theory is discussed in detail in the admirable little edition by
A, 8* Maclean, The Doetnm of tk Twelve J.jM>*fle* (BJP.CJL* 1022).
292 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
Didache and The Shepherd, along with certain books of the (XT.,
i.e. Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Judith, and Tobit, which he
pronounces extra-canonical. All these he characterises as
books not admitted into the Canon, but appointed by the fathers
to be read to those who are just coming to us and desire to be in-
structed in the doctrine of godliness. 1
This special mention of the Didache and Hennas is the more
significant because of the omission of all mention of books like
I. Clement, Barnabas, and the Apocalypse of Peter, which at one
time were also serious candidates for admission to the Canon.
(2) The Didache must have been regarded as an ancient
classic by the author of the, probably Syrian (p. 255, n.), manual
on Church Order of the third century called by its editor, J. W.
Bickell, the Apostolic Church Ordinances. Both open with the
Two Ways. But in the Didache this introductory section is ex-
plicitly affirmed to be a manual of instruction for candidates for
Baptism ; and is then followed by directions about the ritual of
Baptism, about Prayer, the Eucharist, and the Ministry. This
arrangement is natural and intelligible. The Apostolic Church
Ordinances, however, begins with a series of extracts from the Two
Ways, and then goes on to elaborate at great length, a new Church
Order, quite unlike that of the Didache, but conformed to the
views of a later period. 2 No one starting fresh to set out a Church
Order would have prefaced it with the Two Ways, still less with a
mutilated version of it. Such a proceeding, however, is quit
explicable in an author who wished to capture for his own ideas
on Church Order the * good-will ' of a primitive document, which
claimed to be the work of the apostles and was commonly regarded
as the classical treatise on the subject. 8
1 Rufinus, writing in Italy about the same time, gives practically the
same list, if, as is probable, the work Duae Viae $ive Judicium Petri,
of which he speaks, is a recension of the Didach, or at least of the
Two Ways. Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter and the list of Bu&ems are
conveniently printed in Westcott's Canon of the New Testament, p
554 ff. and p. 569 f. (Macmillan, 1889).
2 A single sentence, however, in this latter portion betrays its
author's knowledge of the latter part of the Didaehe.
3 The Greek text of the Apostolic Church Ordinanoe* and that of
the relevant portions of the Apostolic Comtitutiow are printed m
APPENDIX C 293
(3) A similar effort to bring the Church Order of the Didache
{ up to date f Is found in the seventh book of the Apostolic Consti-
tutions, This author incorporates the text of the Didache prac-
tically whole. But he gains his object by tendenckms additions.
But why trouble to do this, unless the Didache was regarded as an
ancient standard authority for the practice of the Apostolic Age ?
(4) To a somewhat less extent the Didache has been made use
of in an earlier Syrian Church Order known as the Didascdia ;
also in a treatise by Athanasius, Syntagma Doctrinae, and in
other less important works, such as the Pseudo-Athanasian De
Virginitate*
The evidence summarised above proves that both in Syria and
Egypt the Didache was a document which enjoyed immense
prestige. Just for that reason, it was a cause of considerable
embarrassment to the authorities on account of the striking con-
trast between the type of Church Order which in the third and
fourth centuries they wished to believe apostolic, and that which
the Didache implies* Hence the various attempts to get rid of
the difficulty by producing up-to-date versions of it, The Didache
purports to represent the teaching of the Twelve Apostles in this
matter ; it must, therefore, have been accepted as Apostolic in
character if not in actual authorship in Syria and Egypt before
the Church Order it implies had become obsolete in those coun-
tries. And this was certainly obsolete by AJ>. 130. We must go
further and say that the Didache must have reached these
churches at a time when its teaching was actually in advance of
the needs of the actual situation. The main object of the second
half of the Didache is to give advice to communities which are in
difficulties owing to the lack of an established ministry and to help
them in that direction. Now there are always people in this world
ready to give unnecessary advice but there are few who accept
it with enthusiasm. And the Didache would never have attained
mich widespread popularity unless, at the time when it reached
these churches, the advice It gave was felt to be really needed.
But the stage when churches like Antioch and Alexandria keenly
Harnaek's Lehre der ZiMfe Apo*tet, Leipsig, 1884, passages derived
from the DtdaeAe "being in different type.
294 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
felt the need of the precise advice which the Didache gives can
hardly have lasted much later than A.D. 110. Beginning about
AJX 130, there was a spate of literature, mostly Gnostic in origin,
purporting to represent the teaching of one or more of the apostles.
But by AJX 250 all of this which the Great Churches were not
ready to accept as consonant with apostolic teaching was officially
discredited. The Didache remained respectable, in spite of reflect-
ing a type of Church organisation which at that date these
churches would have vehemently declined to consider apostolic.
This is difficult to explain unless the work in question was known
to be of immemorial antiquity, was believed by some to be actually
apostolic, and had reached these churches at much about the same
time as some of the books of the New Testament itself.
External evidence, then, is against a date much later than
A.D. 100. On the other hand, the reference by the Didache to the
Gospel of Matthew as a standard authority (xv. 3, 4) makes it
impossible to date it much earlier than A.D. 90.
To the historian it has long been something of a puzzle to
account for the way in which already in the second century the
Gentile churches looked back on the work of the Twelve Apostles,
as if to them, quite as much as to Paul, was due the mission to
the Gentiles in spite of the clear evidence of the New Testament
to the contrary. No doubt a number of different causes con-
tributed to this result. But to those which have been suggested
by previous writers, I would add another the great repute and
the wide circulation of the Message of the Twelve to the Gentiles
which we name the Didache,
APPENDIX D
IRBNAEUS ANX> THE EARLY POPES
IN Lightfoot ? s classical discussion of t The Early Roman Succes-
sion ' occurs this sentence:
Whether Irenaeus directly copied the Catalogue (of Roman
bishops) of Hegesippus, or whether he instituted independent in-
quiries, we cannot say (Clement, i. p. 205).
I hope to find the answer to the question which Lightfoot
here leaves open by showing that Irenaeus derived from
Hegesippus, not only his Catalogue of Bishops, but also a good
deal more, Lightfoofs brilliant identification of the Catalogue
of bishops in the Panarbn of Epiphanius (xxvii. 6) with that
compiled by Hegesippus has been further consolidated, and
defended from objections raised by Harnack and others, in Dr.
Lawlor^s Emebiana* I do not propose, except incidentally, to
re-state here a case so adequately presented elsewhere. Never-
theless, while my main object is to answer the question posed
above, the considerations I advance do, if they hold good at all,
materially strengthen Lightfoot's argument,
My starting-point is the statement of Eusebms (H. JB. iv, 22)
as to the identity of Hegesippus, supported as it is by a quotation
from his work.
Now Hegesippus, in the five Nate Book which have come down
to us, has left behind a very complete record of his personal views.
And in his Note Books he tells us that on a journey as far as Borne
he associated with very many bishops, and that he had received the
same teaching from all. In fact, we may listen to what he says,
when, after remarks on the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, he
acids as follows :
*And the Church of the Corinthians continued in the true
doctrine until Primus wan bishop of Corinth, . . . With them
395
296 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
I associated on my voyage to Rome, and I abode with the
Corinthians many days ; during which we were refreshed to-
gether in the true doctrine. But when I came to Rome, I made
for myself a succession-list as far as Anicetus ; whose deacon
was Eleutherus. And from Anicetus Soter received the succes-
sion ; after whom came Eleutherus. And in every succession
and in every city, that prevails which the Law and the Prophets
and the Lord proclaim. '
There are here two points of which, to the best of my knowl-
edge, the full significance has heretofore escaped the notice of
scholars that call for comment. First, in the original work of
Hegesippus the paragraph quoted by Eusebius stood ' after some
remarks on the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians \ Secondly,
the sound doctrine with which Hegesippus was mainly concerned
was the affirmation that the God who created the world and re-
vealed Himself in the Law and in the Prophets was oho the God
and Father of Jesus Christ, and not (as the Gnostics maintained)
a Demiurge, i.e. a secondary, and ethically inferior, creator. Now
in the middle of his Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome, Irenaeus
has a long paragraph giving an account of the contents of the
epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, elaborating its teaching in
regard to this very point. (Adv. Haer. iii. 3.) The digression
occurs at the mention of the name of Clement, the third bishop
after the apostles, in whose time
the Church in Rome wrote a most effective letter to the Corinthians,
urging them to be at peace together, and renewing their faith and
setting forth the tradition which it had recently received from the
apostles : which tradition proclaims One God Omnipotent, Maker
of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the Deluge,
and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt,
spake with Moses, ordained the law, and sent the prophets. * .
Those who will, may learn from this very writing that He, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, is (the God) preached by the churches,
and may understand the apostolical tradition of the Church ; since
the epistle is more ancient than those who now utter false teachings
and fabricate another God, above the Artificer and Creator of all
things that exist.
APPENDIX D 297
The occurrence of this digression is notable in two ways. First,
it is a clumsy interruption in the list of Roman bishops. Secondly,
as a matter of fact, Clement's letter betrays not the slightest
interest in, or knowledge of, the controversy about the God of the
Old Testament. His epistle is remarkable for the large number,
and the great length, of its quotations from the Old Testament ;
and he takes it for granted that this is Holy Scripture indeed the
only Scripture, since he writes before the books of the New Testa-
ment had attained canonical authority. But the point of Clement's
quotations from the Old Testament is the duty of peace and good
will and similar practical problems, not their bearing on the unity
of God a doctrine which in his day had been called in question
by few (if any) who claimed to be Christians, and was not the
matter in dispute at Corinth.
Both facts are explicable on the hypothesis that this account
of Clement's letter occurred in the middle of the Catalogue of
Hegesippus, and reproduces substantially the * remarks on the
epistle of Clement to the Corinthians ' mentioned in the excerpt
quoted above by Eusebius, The testimony to the faith given in
a letter of the Church of Rome to the Corinthians written in the
time of Clement would be highly appropriate in a context dealing
with the purity of the apostolic doctrine preserved at Corinth till
the time of Primus.
I suggest, therefore, that Irenaeus had never himself come
across Clement's letter. But he was interested to find, on the
authority of Hegesippus, that suchgstrong and definite anti-Gnostic
teaching occurred in the work of a person so near the age of the
spostles. Hence he thought it worth while to summarise it, even
though it here formed a cumbrous digression in his Catalogue.
Clement's letter, though highly prized in the East, was hardly read
in the West, In the passages quoted in the editions of Lightfoot,
and of Gebhardt and Harnack, as evidence for use of the epistle
by later writers, the only clear quotation by a Western writer is
this very passage of Irenaeus which we are now discussing ; and
nowhere else does Irenaeus himself display any knowledge of the
epistle.
We next note that Epiphanius, too in the same place in his
298: THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
Catalogue of the Roman bishops has a long digression about
Clement. (This is mainly concerned with reconciling the occur-
rence of the name Clement as third from the apostles in the Cata-
logue with the alternative tradition, derived from the Clementine
Romance, that Clement was appointed bishop by Peter.) And
Epiphanius, also, in the course of his digression, quotes from
Clement's letter. But the sentence he quotes ('I depart, I go
away, only that the people of God be in good case ') was derived,
he expressly states, not direct from the original, but ' from one
of Clement's letters in certain Note Boots (wo/zpi;juem07w>Is)'.
And ^Troju^juara is the title given by Eusebius as that of the
work of Hsgesippus. Again, Lightfoot and Harnack agree in
affirming that Epiphanius, though he quotes certain spurious
letters of Clement, seems not to have read the genuine letter.
If, then, Epiphanius derived his Catalogue of bishops from Hege-
sippus, "the natural inference is that he found this quotation from
Clement's letter in Hegesippus, in the exact context (in the Cata-
logue) in which he quotes it.
Thus two persons, who elsewhere show no knowledge of
Qement's letter, quote it at the mention of the name Clement in
a digression in the middle of a Catalogue of bishops of Rome, The
presumption that both derived the list from the same source, and
that this source quoted from Clement's letter is very high* The
words quoted by Epiphanius from Clement are in the original an
exhortation to any individual who is a focus of dissension to sacri-
fice himself for the sake of the peace of the church ; Irenaeus also,
though his summary of Clement is mainly concerned with its
doctrinal content, speaks of the letter as * urging them to be at
peace together '.
Hegesippus, then, said rather more about the purpose of the
epistle being to urge peace than is preserved by either Irenaeus or
Epiphanius. That is only natural. No one who was making ofc
first hand a summary of the epistle could fail to stress this point,
seeing that it was really the sole purpose for which it was written.
But in Irenaeus this aspect of the epistle is barely mentioned, and
if we knew nothing of it but what he tells us, we should suppose
that its main purpose was to oppose the doctrinal teaching of
APPENDIX D 299
certain Gnostics. This, however, is readily explicable if h only
knew Clement at second hand, and was excerpting from Hege-
sippus the part of his summary of the epistle which was most
germane to the subject of his own book,
Epiphanius, after naming Clement, adds, ' whom Paul mentions
in the epistle to the Romans ? . This is an error ; it is in Philip-
pians that mention is made of a person of the name Clement,
Either Epiphanius or his source Hegesippus has made a slip.
Irenaeus omits Paul's reference to Clement, bxit substitutes a
similar remark about Linus, 'of this Linus Paul makes mention
in the epistles to Timothy \ As these epistles purport to have
been written from Rome 9 this is to the point. There is little force
in saying that a Clement, named as the third Bishop of Rome, is
mentioned by Paul as living in PhUippi. It looks as if the dip
goes back to Hegesippus ; Irenaeus detected it, but it suggested
to him the substitution of a statement about Linus which is both
correct and to the point.
The Catalogue of bishops occurs in the third book of Irenaeus'
Agamst Heresies ; in a totally different context (bk. L 25) he has
an account of the observance of the Carpocratians, and of a
certain Marcellina, who spread their doctrine in Rome under Pope
Anicetus, In Epiphanius an identical account of MarceUina and
the Carpocratians occura, but curiously mixed up with the Cata-
logue of bishops. There is an almost word-for-word agreement
between Irenaeus and Epiphanius in what they jointly say about
Marcellina and the Carpocratians ; but it is clear that Epiphanius
is not deriving his information from Irenaeus, but from a source
which also contained the Catalogue of bishops* A brief rSmmS of
Epiphanius will make this clear* 1 He begins :
Now there came upon w (5JX#p 8i d$ ^M^s) * m ** me a
certain Marcellina who had been led into error by them [the Carpo-
cratians], She was the rain of a great number of persons in the time
of Anicetus, bishop of Home, who succeeded Pius and his prede-
cessors. [Irenaeus has the above sentence in all but identical terms,
save that he writes * to Home * instead of * upon us M For in Rome
*The student wfoo lias access to Dr. Lawlor's JBittebfan* -will ind'
there the passages of Irenacns and EpipbaniuH to be discussed printed
conveniently in parallel columns.
300 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
there were first Peter and Paul, both Apostles and Bishops, then
Linus, then Cletus, then Clement, a contemporary of Peter and Paul,
of whom Paul makes mention in his epistle to the Romans (Pan.
27. 6. 1 .).
Then comes the long digression already discussed explaining
why it was that, since Clement was a contemporary of the
Apostles, they did not make him the first bishop, instead of the
third in the course of which occurs the quotation from Clement's
letter derived, not from the letter itself but from ' certain Note
Books' (i.e. from Hegesippus).
After the digression Epiphanius starts off again on the Cata-
logue :
But however this may be, this is the succession of Roman bishops.
Peter and Paul, Linus and Cletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander,
Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, whom shortly before
I have named in the Catalogue. And let no one be surprised that I
have gone so minutely into these details ; for always by means of
these is the truth established. In the time, then, as I have said,
of Anicetus the above-mentioned Marcellina coming to Rome, and
vomiting out the poison of Carpocratian doctrine, corrupted and
drove to their destruction many in that place. . . . [Here follows
a section giving certain details about the Carpoeratians which occurs
almost word for word in Irenaeus (i. 25, 6) immediately after his
mention of Marcellina,]
Three points require notice :
(a) The words, ' whom shortly before I have named in the
Catalogue ', can only be a quotation carelessly copied unaltered
from his source by Epiphanius ; for in his own work the Catalogue
of bishops occurs, not before, but after this reference to it.
(6) The Marcellina incident is twice alluded to the first time
in words found also in Irenaeus (and therefore derived from the
common source), the second time in Epiphanius' own vituperative
paraphrase. Evidently in the source (ie. in Hegesippus) the
Marcellina incident stood in the second of these two contexts
the one where Epiphanius has reproduced it in paraphrase. The
words identifying Anicetus as the bishop, * whom shortly before
I have named in the Catalogue ', must have originally followed
APPENDIX D 301
the mention of his name (in the former of the paragraphs quoted
above) as the Pope in whose time Marcellina came to Rome. The
words which there follow the mention of his name (which do not
occur in Irenacus), * Bishop of Rome, who succeeded Pius and his
predecessors ', are an addition by Epiphanius, who had just read
the Catalogue, \vhich in Ms source stood a few sentences earlier.
(c) The words $K0w 8k els ^M<*S are translated by Lightfoot,
* paid us a visit * ; and he interprets the presence of the first
person plural in the text of Epiphanius as a survival of the actual
language of Hegesippus carelessly reproduced by Epiphanius. K.
Holl, in the edition of the Panarion in the Berlin Corpus, argues
that the words, in the usage of Epiphanius, should be translated
' There has come to our knowledge how Marcellina , . . ' ; a-nd
he concludes that Lightfoot's whole theory that Epiphanius is
here using Hegesippus therewith falls to the ground. Personally
I prefer to translate the words * came upon us ', i.e. ' effected an
entrance into our society * in which case Lightfoot is right in
supposing that we have here preserved the actual language of
Hegesippus. I note that there is other evidence here of careless
copying of an earlier source. The final letter of ^Xde? is only in
place if followed by els; the 5^ has been added to make a connec-
tion with the previous sentence by some one (whether Epiphanius
himself or his secretary) who forgot to cut out the superfluous
consonant. But even if Holl is right in the matter of translation,
the dependence of Epiphanius upon Hegesippus, both for the
incident of Marcellina and for the Catalogue of bishops (which,
as we have already seen, must have stood in the same source), is
an hypothesis still needed to account for the following facts :
(i) Unless the whole argument of this Appendix has been
nonsense, Irenaeus and Epiphanius each used a source which con-
tained an identical account of Marcellina and the Carpocratians,
and also a Catalogue of bishops substantially identical, 1 and in
1 The only difference between the Catalogue of Irenaeus and that in
Epiphanius is that, while Bpiphanius gives the name of the second
bishop as Cletws, Irenaeus gives it as Anenelettis. The name occurs in
the shorter form in the Canon of the Mass. Litorgiologiats believe that
the first three names of Roman Bishops in the Canon represent the
remnant of what was originally an enumeration of all the bishops down
302 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
each case broken by a digression in which 1 Clement was quoted.
(ii.) Hegesippus says that while in RomeStaSox^ forowjirAjtity p
p&Xpvs 'AMW&TOU, which is naturally to be translated, f l drew
up a succession-list of bishops as far as Anicetus '. This implies in
some degree individual research ; the idea that such a succession-
list had an apologetic value was evidently his own. Irenaeus
visited Rome ten or twelve years after Hegesippus, so that the
probability that he would have known his work is extremely high.
(iii.) The confluence of four independent streams of informa-
tion at the name of Anicetus must be explained. Under Anicetus
Marcellina comes to Rome ; in the time of Anicetus Hegesippus
visits Rome ; he made a Catalogue of bishops ending with
Anicetus ; with Anicetus ends the Epiphanian Catalogue of
bishops,
Hegesippus saw apologetic value against Gnostics in a Cata-
logue of bishops ; moreover, his journey from Palestine to Rome
to visit the apostolic churches was inspired by the idea that any
doctrine in which they all agreed must be apostolic. In the light
of these facts let us consider the comment of Epiphanius in the
passage last quoted in the Catalogue of bishops, ' Let no one be
surprised that I have gone so minutely into these details ; for
always by means of these is the truth established '. In the con-
text in Epiphanius* own work there is nothing to show how or
why this kind of detail has any bearing at all on religious truth.
But all is clear if we suppose that Epiphanius is here summarising
an argument of Hegesippus that the succession of bishops is,
against the Gnostics, the great guarantee of the apostolicity, and
therefore the truth, of the orthodox faith. Now this is the precise
point made by Irenaeus (iii. 3, 1-2) in the paragraphs with
which he introduces his Catalogue of bishops. I suggest, therefore,
that Irenaeus derived the substance of these introductory para-
to a certain (unknown) date. In such a list a shorter would naturally
be preferred to a longer name ; it is even possible that the shortening
came about in the rapid utterance of a recital constantly repeated.
Eastern Christians often went to Rome Epiphanius himself waa there
in AJD, 382 ; but that was after he wrote the Panarion and it is quite
likely that the form Cletus is due to a correction by Epiphanius of the
original list of Hegesippus to make it conform to the Hat of names as
there recited in the Canon.
APPENDIX D 303
graphs, as well as the Catalogue itself, from Hegesippus. If so,
Hegesippus, though not 'the father of Church History', is the
real father of the argument from tradition, guaranteed by the
succession of bishops in the great Churches, which is the subject
of this famous opening of the third book of Irenaeus.
The question how much more of the lost work of Hegesippus
is preserved in other parts of Irenaeus* treatise is one which I
commend to the investigation of scholars*
APPENDIX E
A GNOSTIC HYMN
(The Acts of John, 94-95)
JESUS gathered all of us together and said : Before I am delivered
up unto them let us sing an hymn to the Father, and so go forth
to that which lieth before us. He bade us therefore make as it
were a ring, holding one another's hands, and Himself standing
in the midst He said : Answer Amen unto Me. He began, then,
to sing an hymn and to say :
Glory be to thee, Father.
And we, going about hi a ring, answered Him : Amen, 1
',
THE HYMN OF JESUS
Glory to Thee, Father I Amen.
Glory to Thee, Word ! Amen.
Glory to Thee, Grace ! Amen.
Glory to Thee, Holy Spirit ! Amen.
Glory to Thy Glory !
We praise Thee, Father ;
*We give thanks to Thee, O shadowless light ! Amen,
Fain would I be saved : And fain would I save.
Fain would I be released : And fain would I release.
Fain would I be pierced : And fain would I pierce.
Fain would I be borne : Fain would I bear.
Fain would I eat : Fain would I be eaten.
Fain would I hearken : Fain would I be heard.
*The introductory paragraph. I have taken from Dr. Jam. The
Hymn itself I have given in the free btit fine version prepared by Mr.
Gustav Hoist for his musical setting ; with his kind permission and
that of the publishers, Messrs. Stainer and Bell.
304
APPENDIX E 305
Fain would I be cleansed : Fain would I cleanse.
I am Mind of All ! Faia would I be known.
Divine grace is dancing : Fain would I pipe for you.
Dance ye aH ! Amen.
Fain would I lament : Mourn ye all ! Amen.
The Heav'nly Spheres make music for us ;
The Holy Twelve dance with us ;
All things join in the dance !
Ye who dance not, know not what we are knowing.
Fain would I flee : And fain would I remain.
Fain would I be ordered : And fain would I set in order.
Fain would I be infolded : Fain would I infold,
I have no home. In all I am dwelling.
I have no resting place : I have the earth*
I have no temple : And I have Heav'n.
To you who gaze, a lamp am I :
To you that know, a mirror.
To you who knock, a door am I :
To you who fare, the way. Amen.
Give ye heed unto my dancing :
In me who speak, behold yourselves ;
And beholding what I do,
Keep silence on my mysteries.
Divine ye in dancing what I shall do ;
For yours is the passion of man that I go to endure
Ah ! Ye could not know at all what thing ye endure.
Had not the Father sent me to you as a Word.
Beholding what I suffer, ye know me as the Sufferer.
And when ye had beheld it, ye were not unmoved ;
But rather were ye whirled along.
Ye were Mndled to be wise.
Had ye known how to suffer, ye would know how to suffer no more,
Learn how to suffer, and ye shall overcome.
Behold m me a couch ; Rat on me 1 Amen.
306 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
When. I am gone ye shall know who I am ;
For I am in no wise that which now I seem,
When, ye are come to me, then shall ye know ;
What ye know not, will I myself teach you,
Fain would I move to the music of holy souls !
Know in me the word of wisdom !
And with me cry again :
Glory to Thee, Father ! Amen.
Glory to Thee, Word ! Amen.
Glory to Thee, Holy Spirit ! Amen.
INDEX OF NAMES
Abgar, King of Edcssa, 23, 23 n.
Acacixis of Cacsarea, 94 n.
Acilius Glabrio, 203
Adlcr, A., 174, 174 n,
Agabus, 77
Agrippa, 14
Alexander, Bishop of Rome, 191,
300
Alexander the Great, 57, 64
Alexander (heretic), 108
Ananias, 77
Andrew, 35, 37 n., 92
A&dromcus, 152
Anicetus, 191, 231, 274, 296, 300
Antichrist, 112
Aphraatcs, 125
Aristides, 101
Ariation, Ariston. See Subject
Index:
Athanasius (pseudo-), 291
Athenagoras, 101
Augustine, 7
Augustus, 98, 228
Bacon, B. W., 99 n,, 186
Barnabas, 77, 236
and Paul, 35, 48, 49, 77 ff , 242
Barsalibi, 124 n
Bartholomew, 36 ff., 37 n,
Bartlet, J. Vernon, x, 3 n* 127 n*
244, 257
Basilides, 67, 99, 279
B@ffimnt, J. S. f x
Bickell, J. W., 255 n.
B%g, C,, 19$ n.
Blastus (Quartodeciman), 232 n.
Bouner, Campbell, 219 n.
Bucolus, 97 f ., 273, 276
Burkitt, F. C, x, 23 n., 46, 82 n.
Callistus, Pope, 214
Carpenter, H. J., x
Carpocrates, 67, 184, 240, 299 f.
Carroll, Lewis, 209
Cephas, 37 n.
Cerinthus. $ee Subject Index
Chapman, D., 93
Charles, R. H., 89 ff., 112 .,
166 n.
Chrysostom, 95 n., 197
Claudius Caesar, 12, 13 n., 14 f.
Clement of Alexandria, 14, 19 f.,
43, 45, 57, 93, 101, 119, 135, 188,
196, 199, 214, 240 ff., 250 ff.
Clement of Rome. See Subject
Index
Cletus ( ^Anencletus), 11, 165,
192, 300
Colosseum, 169, 235, 279
Constant ine, 24
Conybeare, F. C., 96 *
Cornelius, 48, 60
Corssen, P., 277
Cyprian, 152 n.
Cyril of Alexandria, 240
Daniel, 17
Deldbaye, F. H., 271, 277
Demetrius of Alexandria, 260
a^ 282 n.
SOT
308
INDEX
Dionysius of Alexandria, 197,
218, 239
Dionysius of Corinth, 160, 207
Diotrephes, 87 ff.
Domitian, 131, 208 ff., 213
Domitilla, 203, 208
Duchesne, Monsignor, 195 n., 239
Eleutherus, Bp. of Home, 191,
232 n,, 296
Ephraim Synis, 125
Epiphanius, 5 n., 44, 96, 186, 187,
Appendix D, passim
Euodius, Bp. of Antioch, 158, 183
Eusebius. See Subject Index
Evaristus, 96, 191, 300
Farquhar, J. N., 33 f.
Flavius Clemens, 203, 208
Florinus, 93, 137 n., 232 n., 274 n.
Fotheringham, J. K, 280
Freud, S., 174 n.
Funk, F. X., 95 n.
Gad (Gudi?),33f.
Gaius of Rome, 37, 134 n.
Gebhardt. See Harnack
Glaukias, 99
Goodspeed, E. J., 133, 165 f.
Grapte, 216
Gregory the Great, 229
Gudnaphar (Gundaphoras), 33 f.
Gunkel, H., 129
Hadrian, 46, 239, 279 f.
Harnack. See Subject Index
Harrison, P. N., 108, 159 n,, 166
n. f., 282 ff.
Hegesippus, 13, 19, 22, 42 n., 43
ff., 101, 184, 192 f., 195, 208 n,,
227, Appendix D, passim
Heradas of Alexandria, 261
Hennas. See Subject Index
Hermes Trismegistos, 252
Herod Agrippa I., 14, 34
Hierapolis, 37, 60
Hilgenfeld, 250
Hippolytus, 17, 23, 93, 101, 107 n.,
124 n., 207 n., 213, 278
Holl, K, 301
Hoist, G,, 9, 304 n.
Hooker, 21
Horner, G., 278 n.
Hort, F. J. A., 5 n v 127 n. f 132 n.
Hygimis, Bp. of Rome, 191, 250,
300
Hymenaeus, 109
Ignatius, See Subject Index
James the Less, of Alphaetis, 43
James the Lord y s brother* See
Subject Index
James, M, R,, 7, 8 n., 16 n., 17 n. t
25, 37 n., 240 n.
James, son of Zebedee, 14, 34 f.,
43
Jerome, 15, 19, 20, 45, 95 n., 97,
280
John, Apostle, See Subject
Index
John the Elder. Sea Subject
Index
Josephus, 42, 44, 122
Judas (not Iscariot), 38 n.
Judas Thomas, 38 n
Judas Zelotes, 37 n,
Jude, 108, 184 ff.
Julius Africanus, 22
Jung, C. P., 174 n.
Justin Martyr, 12 f., 19, 66, 101,
200, 248, 257 f.
Juvenal, 65
INDEX
309
Juvenal of Jerusalem, 47
Lake, K., 83 ., 108 n.
La Piana, G., 199 ., 230 f.
Lawlor, H. J., 22 n., 45 n,, 192 n v
295
Leucius, 5
Lightfoot. See Subject Index
Lilley, A, L,, X
Linus, 11, 164, 191 f., 194
Lucius of Cyrene, 79
Luke, 10, 14, 19, 22, 35, 73, 85,
166, 168, 199
Maclean, A. S., 291 n.
MalaJas, 282 n.
Manaen, 79
Marcellina, 299 fit.
Mansion, 56, 66 f., 166 n., 283 f.
Mark. See Subject Index
Matthew, Sec Subject Index
Matthias, 39
Melito of Sardis, 46 n,, 101
Merrill, B. T-, 13 n., 195
Moffatt, J., 108 n,, 199 n.
Moor, Q. F., 287 n.
Morin, G., 161 n,
Nathaniel, 37 n*, 38
Nero, 15, 127 f., 200, 204, 228, 261
Newman, J* H., 74
Oneeiphorus, 109
Origen, 7, 16, 19 f ., 34, 37, 61, 101,
197, 214, 239 1, 243, 279
Pamphilus, 61
Pantaenus, 36, 57, 93, 135, 197,
240, 240 n.
PapiasL Bee Subject Index
Papirius, 276
Paul. See Subject Index
Perdelwitz, 129
Peter. See Subject Index
Pfleiderer, Otto, 279
Philetus, 109
Philip, See Subject Index
Philo, 58, 243, 252
Photius of Constantinople, 248
Pius, Bp. of Rome, 191, 211 f.,
215 f., 217, 299 f,
Pliny, 132, 261 n., 281 f.
Plutarch, 246
Polycarp. See Subject Index
Poly crates, Bp, of Ephesus, 37,
101, 232, 272, 276
Primus, Bp. of Corinth, 297
Prisca (and Aquila), 109 n.
Rabbula, 197
Ramsay, W. M., 8 n*, 131 .
Rawlinson, A. E. J. ? 54 n v 129 n.
Robinson, J. Armitage, 290 f,
Rufinus, 11, 292 %.
Salmon, Provost, 93
Saturninus, 279
Schweitzer, A., 3S
Semo Sancus, 13
Serapis, 260
Silvanus ( Silas), 82 n,, 122,
126, 127 n., 135
Simon Magus. See Subject
Index
Soter, Bp. of Rome, 191, 230,
232, 232 n., 245, 296
Stephanas, 83
Stephen, 50, 78 f .
Str&taeas, son of Lois, 97 ff.,
273 ff.
Symeon, nephew of James, 44,
180, 279 f .
310
INDEX
Tacitus, 16, 208
Tatian, 56, 101, 125
Titus, friend of Paul. See Sub-
ject Index
Telesphorus, Bp. of Rome, 191, Trajan, 207 f., 211, 280 ff.
300
Tertullian. See Subject Index
Thaddaeus ( = Addai=Lebbaeus
= Judas), 23 n. f 37
Thecla, 8
Theodas, 90
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 197
Theodoret, 197
Theophilus of Antioch, 101
Thraseas, 276
Timothy. See Subject Index
Tischendorf, 289
Titus, Emperor, 244
Turner, C. H,, 46 n v 95 n., 152
n., 169, 255 n., 280, 286 71.
Valens, 284
Valentinus, 57, 67, 99, 240, 250
Victor of Rome, 228 ff.
Westcott, 125, and Hort, 289
Wilson, W. J., 219 .
Xystus of Rome, 169, 191 f., 230
ff., 300
Zahn, T., 20 n., 95 n., 192 n.
INDEX
Acta, Apocryphal, 5 ff., 17, 25, 33 Antioch
ff., 167.
Acts, Catholic, 6
Acts, Lukan, 6, 10, 14 f ., 22, 24, 34,
35 f!., 48, 55 i, 59 f ., 73, 77 ff.,
101, 111 ff., 126, 130 f., 149,
195, 286
Church Order in, 77 f,, 85, 139,
149 and Paul, 165 ff.
Roman origin of, 60 f*, 206 f .
Acts, Manichaean, 6
Alexandria
Bishops of, 95
Canon of N. T., 55, 134, 197, 240,
291
Catechetical School of, 36, 57,
240
Church of, 57, 60, 215, Ch. VII.,
pamm
Church Order at, 253 ff .
influence of, 57
founder of Church in, 239
Library of, 57
moil-episcopacy at, 259 fit.
Museum of, 57
Patriarchate of, 47, 57, 262
theology of, 54, 57, 240 f ., 244 f .,
254, 280
Alice in Wonderland, IX, 209
Andrew, Acts of* 3
Antinomianism, 83, 185 f ., 201
Antioch, 9, 49, 57, 64, 163 f ,
Acts in, 167 f .
Bishops of, 95
Canon of N. T. in, 56
Christmas at, 95 n.
Church of, 15, 54, 61, 78
Church Order at, 79 ff., 148 ff.,
169 ff.
and Didache, 150 ff., Appendix
C, passim
earthquake at, 281 f.
and Gentile Christianity, 61 ff.
and Ignatius, 91, 148, 164 f ., 177
f.
influence of, 54
Patriarchate of, 47, 61, 91, 262 ff.
and Paul, 49, 78, 149, 150
and Pauline Epistles, 167 f .
and Peter, 43, 48 ff., 59, 61 ff,,
148 f ., 164, 163
theology of, 54, 61, 168, 252
Apocalypse of John, 24, 101, 123,
131, 133, 138 f., 166, 209, 212,
244, 257 n v 266
authorship of, 90 f ., 124 n., 218
and Canon of N. T., 55
Apocalypse of Peter, 101
Apocalyptic Visions, 173
Apocalyptic Writing, 209
Apocrypha, The, 215
Apostolic Chwch ordiwmoB f 255
n, f 289 1, 29&, 292 n.
ascribed to Clement of Borne,
161 n.
Church Order in, 255 f .
Apostolic Constitutions, 95, 95 n.
311
312
INDEX
Apostolic Constitutions
98 ff., 103, 137, 160, 186, 248,
255 n v 275, 290, 293
Apostolic Decree, The, 41
and Didache, 151 n.
Western text of, 151 n.
Apostle, use of term, 151 n.
Arabia, South, and Bartholo-
mew, 37
Aristion. See also John, the
Elder, 113
= Ariston? 96, 136 f.
author of 1 Peter? 133 ff.
Called Elder, 96 ., 137
in Papias, 92 ff .
Art, Christian, and legend, 5
Ascension of Isaiah, 101, 112 f .
Asia Minor, 7, 64 f., 128 f .
Canon of N. T. in, 56
Christianity in, 48, 130 f .
Church in, 64 f., 181, 209> 228,
239
Church Order in, 108 f., 112 ff,,
139 f ., 147
and John, 22, 89, 93 f., 95, 137
ff., 163, 166, 271 f ., 276
and mon-episcopacy, 88 ff., 95
ff., Ill, 141, 265, 278
and Pastorals, 107 ff.
persecution in, 130, 132
and 1 Peter, 121, 123, 126 ff.
and Quartodeciman contro-
versy, 53, 230 ff., 274 ff.
Athanasius, 55, 135, 215, 240, 291 f .
festal Letter of, 55, 215, 291 f.
Babylon
Jewish exiles in, 36, 121 ff.
Peter in, 121 ff,
Rome as, 121 ff., 127 n., 131
Barnabas, Episttc of f 25, 101, 241
ff.
allegorising tendency of, 54, 243,
251 f.
Christology of, 54, 251, 286
Church Order in, 254 f .
date of, 242
and Deutero-Clement, 251 ff .
origin of, 242 ff,, 251
and 0. T., 251, 253
and Two Ways, 253 ff ., 286, 289
ff,
Bishop. See Episcopoi
as title of Christ, 140
Bulletin of the John Ryl&nd*
Library, 33 n.
Caesarea, 152 n.
Bishops of, 45, 47, 60
Christmas, date of, at, 95 n.
Gentile Christianity of, 60
Library at, 23
and Luke, 61
metropolitan claim of, 262
and Philip, 37, 61
and Peter, 45, 61
Calendar of Saints, 7, 43
Canon, Four Gospel, 56, 68, 162 n.
Canon of the Mass, 11, 192, 234
Canon of New Testament, 24 f ,
55, 68, 124 f., 160, 196 ff., 211
f.,287
and Athanasius, 55, 135, 215, 240,
291 f.
importance for Church history
of, 24 f .
and Inostieism, 134 f .
aad Marcion, 67
Roman, 190
Canon of the New Testament
INDEX
313
Christ-
birth and infancy of, 54
as High Priest, 162 f.
Manhood of , 13
Messiahship, 43, 47, 51
Mystical Body of, 52
Christianity in Caliphate, 44
Orinthus, 112
Fourth Gospel, and Apocalypse
attributed to, 124 n.
Ghalcecion, Council of, 47, 67
Christian Beginnings, 46 n., 82 n.
Christinas, date of, 95 n.
Chmtiamty in Talmud and
Midrash, 287 n.
Chronicon of Euaebius, 15, 280
Ohronicon Pattckale, 280
ChrQnographws, 22
Clement, Epistle of, 25, 91, 132,
134, 147, 170, 180, 182, 195 f.,
202 ff ., 208, 216, 235 f ., 242, 247,
295
Church Order In, 219 ff.
and Corinth, 168, 219 ff.
date of, 196, 206 ff,
Hcgcsippua and, 296 f,
influence of, in Syria, 158 ff ,, 167,
248
and 0. T, 224, 297 ff.
and Rome, 158, 219 ff.
Clementine Homilies, 5, 9 ff., 14
n., 15, 42 n t , 46 ff., 6S n, f 148,
100, 193, 239
Clement to James, JEpktl6 f 15, 45,
63 n v 160, 193
Clement (Lightfoot), 93 n v 192 n.,
208 n., 246 n., 260 n., 297
Clement of Rome, 9, 11 f., 45, 57,
100, ISO, 191 ff., 200, 211, 216,
219, 242, 248, Appendix D,
pamm
Clement of Rome
and Church Order, 158 ff., 219
ff., 260
influence in Syria, 158 ff., 300
and man-episcopacy, 161 ff., 219
f, 264
and Old Testament, 224
and Peter, 165, 193, 298
position of, 163 ff.
writings ascribed to, 9 ff,, 158 f,,
255
Clement to Peter, Epistle, 9 f.
Clement, Second Epistle of. See
Dcut ore-Clement
Clementine Recognitions, 5 n*, 9
ff., 42 n., 47, 160
Colomaw, Epistle to, 84, 149, 173
Constantinople, Patriarchate of,
47
Constitution and Law of the
Church in the First Two Cen~
tunes, A. Harnack, 75 n.
Corinth
antinomianism at, S3
Church of, 49, 158, 207, 208 .
Church Order in, 81 f ., 162, 205,
219 ff.
and Deutero-Clemcnt, 244 If.
games at, 245 ff.
and Paul, 82 ff .
Corinthians, Pauline Spwtles to,
77, 82 ff., 84, 86, 89, 108 n., 109
n., 148, 166, 173, 247
Corpus Paulinum, 56, 165 ff*, 197
Crucifixion, 6, 40, 95, 112, 127, 136,
See aho Cerinthus, Passion
and Mareion, 283
Damascus, 50, 122
Day of Judgment, 42
314
INDEX
Deacons
at Antioch, 81
in Apostolic Constitutions, 256
at Corinth, 82, 221 f.
in Didache (Syria), 113, 151,
155 f ., 157
in earliest period, 75
and Ignatius, 170
at Jerusalem, 77
in Pauline churches, 80, 225 ff.
at Philippi, 84, 114, 221, 225
Decretals, False, 11
Deutero-Clementj 161 n. f 197 n.
and Barnabas, 251 ff.
Church Order in, 256 ff ., 260
and mon-episcopacy, 259 f.
and 0. T., 253 f ., 257
origin of, 242 f ., 244 ff.
theology of, 249, 251 f .
Didache (or Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles), 25, 25 n.,
91 n., 99 n., 101, 215, 245, Ap-
pendix C
and Apostolic Constitutions, 99,
107 n., 255 .
and Canon of N. T., 286, 291 f.
Christology of, 286
Church Order in, 75, 81 f,, 113,
148, 150 ff., 168, 182, 296, 222
!f. ,291
date of, 147, 150, Appendix B,
passim
ethics of, 54, 151 f .
and Gentiles, 41
and Hermas, 217 n.
and Ignatius, 146 ff.
and Matthew, 64, 153 n, f 286 f.
Syrian origin of, 113, 147 ff., 256,
282, Appendix C, passim
Didascalia, 107 n., 152 n. t 255 n.,
293
Church Order in, 256 f .
Didascalia
name, Third Book oj Clemt nt t
160
Die Apostolische Kirchcnord-
nung, 255, 255 n.
Diognetus, Epistle to, 25 n., 240
n. f 242
Diversities, local, 53 ff.
Docetism, 283, 284 n.
Duae Viae Sive Judicium Petri,
292 n.
Easter, date of. See Quartodcci-
man
Ebionism, 5 n., 10, 12 f., 42, 167,
200, 203
Ecclesiastical History. See Euse-
bius, also Lawlor
Edessa, Church of, 37 n., 125
Egypt, 58, 239 f,, 250, 254, 255 n. $
260 f., 262
incarnationist theology of, 54
and Didache, Appendix C, pm~
stm
Egyptian Church Order, 107 n.,
278
Elders, 93 ff., 126, 136 f., 139, 158
n., 205, See aho Episcopos,
John the Elder
at Ephesus, 85, 112, 114
at Rome, 216, 220, 225
Elkesaites, 10, 148
England, Church of, 7, 204
Ephesus; 57, 60, 138
Bishops of, 99 f
Church Order in, 85 f,, 112 ff,,
195, 230, 262 ff.
Hellenistic Christianity of, 64
and Logos, 58 f.
and Pmtorol&t 100 ff,
and Paul, 64, 82, 85, 108 n., 109
ff. , 109 fe, 133, 166,206
INDEX
315
Ephesus
pre-eminence of, 264
Epkcsiam, Ignatiw to, 108 n. } 172,
176, 179
EphexiaHx, Epistle of Paul to, 126,
133, 150
authenticity of, 84 n.
Church Order in, 84, 140, 206
Christology of, 201, 250
Episcopoi. Se& also Mon-epis-
copacy
at Alexandria, 259 ff.
at Antioeh, 79
in Apostolic Constitutions, 255
at Corinth, 81, 2201
in Didachc (Syria), 113, 150,
155 f., 158, 222
Eiders, see = Presbyters
at Ephesus, 85, 113, 195
"The Episcopos," 158 n.
and Ignatius, 170
and Old Testament, 163
ia Pastorals, 114 If*
in Pauline Churches, 81, 84, 225
at Philippi, 83, 114, 195, 221 f.
Presbyters, 75, 85, 114, 216,
222, 260
Shepherds, 84, 133, 140 f .
Spistula Apo&tolorum, 37 n., 240
Equestrian Order at Rome, 203
Emays on the Early History of
the Church and Ministry,
169 n.
Etchmiadnn Codex, 96 n., 137 n.
Bueharist, 52, 91 n., 221, 227, 228
Bishop's, 231 ff,
in Dithche, 152, 156 L, 226, 228,
21)2
Eusebius, 7 15 ff, 19 ff. 20 n.
37 f., 42 n., 43 ff., 97, 119 n.,
152 n. y 160, 186, 196, 198
Eusebius
208 n., 211, 216 n., 231, 232 n.>
245, 273, 274 n., 276, 280
and John the Elder, 92 f.
List of Bishops, 97, 186, Ap-
pendix D, passim
on Papias, 92 f .
1 Peter, 124 f .
pioneer of Church history, 22 f .,
61
Eusebiana, 22 n., 45 n., 192 n., 295,
2997k
Four Gospel Canon. See Canon
Four Gospels, The, IX, 40 n, 9
50 n., 55 n. ff., 66 n., 100 n. t
124 n., 157 n., 160 ,, 166 n.,
243 n., 287 7i.
Galatia, 49, 131 n.
Galatians, Lightfoot's ed. of,
42n.,43n.
Galatfans, Paul's Mpistle to, 35,
40, 43, 48, 52, 61, 64, 73, 77,
132, 148
Galilee, 38
Gentile Christians, 40 ff., 59, 61,
1491
at Antioch, 61 if,
at Caesarea, 62
Church at Aelia-Jerasalera, 46
collection by, 77
and Judaistic controversy, 10 f .,
38 ff., 48, 61, 148 f,, 204
Gentiles, 10 f ., 38 ff.
Gnosticism, 5, 8 f ., 18, 97, 99, 185,
201, 241, 252, 264, 272, 279,
296 ff.
In Alexandria, 240 f.
in Asia, 112
in Borne, 66, 232 n.
316
INDEX
Gnostic literature, 8, 33, 294
Gnostic Hymn, 8, Appendix E
God, Unity of, 18, 284 n,, 296 f .
Gospels, Apocryphal, 25
According to Egyptians, 101,
240, 249, 252
According to Hebrews, 45, 101,
240, 249
Greek philosophy, 64, 240 f .
Greece, Christianity in, 48
Hadrian to Servianus, Letter of,
239 f ., 260 f.
Haggada, 288
Harnack, A., 44, 192 n., 213, 221 n.
and Christian ministry, 75 f.,
90, 114 f.
and Deutero-Clement, 244 f.,
248 f.
and Didache, 75, 99 n. 9 255 n.,
287 n. y 293 n.
Gebhardt and, 25 n., 159 n., 244,
297
and John the Elder, 90 1
and 1 Peter, 128, 132
Harvard Theological Review,
199 n, 210 n,, 219 n., 230 n.,
etc.
Hebrews, Epistle to, 74, 111, 124,
134, 196 ff., 210, 242, 251
and Canon of N. T,, 55, 196
Church Order in, 205 f ,
and 1 Clement, 162 f.
and Ignatius, 162 f .
and Rome, 196, 198 ff., 249
Hellenism, 122, 252
Hellenistic Christianity in Ephe-
sus, 64
Heretics. Bee also Gnostics, etc,
in Ephesus, 109 f t
in Rome, 67 f.
Hennas, 25, 76, 154 f ., 195 f., 199,
212 ff., 225, 230, 245, 247
character of, 209
Church Order in, 210, 216, 225,
230, 260
date of, 196, 206 ff.
and Didache, 217 n., 287, 289 ff.
Michigan, papyrus of, 210 n.
theology of, 210, 214, 245
Holy Spirit, the, 73 ff., 70, 81, 83,
126, 152 7i., 153 n., 155 IT., 159,
172, 223
Homilies on Luke, Origen's, 279
Iconium, 8 n.
Ignatius, 25, 26 n,, 40, 87, 101, 254
and Acts, 167
and Antioch, 91, 158, 181 f.
and 1 Clement, 161 ff,
Church Order, 146, 169 f ,, 176 ff.,
264
and Didache, 146 ff., 168, 282 ff,
and EpisUes, 25, 87, 146, 161,
167 ff., 222, 233 ff.
Appendix B
Epistles, date of, 147 f *
Epktles, longer recension of,
107
and Fourth Gospel , 168
martyrdom of, 146, 168, 176,
234ff,,265f.,279f.
and Matthew, 64
and mon-episcopacy, 146, 101 ff .
169 ff., 179 ff,, 229 f., 233
neurotic constitution of, 171,
173 ff., 265
and Pastorals, 107
and Pauline .UpMes, 167 f.,
247
as Prophet, 158, 234 1
INDEX
317
Ignatius and Poly carp (Light-
foot), 96 n,, 159 n,, 234 n.
240, Appendix B
India, 33 f . See also Thomas
Individual Psychologic, Adler,
174 n.
Infallibility Decree, 68
Introduction to New Testament,
J. Moffat, 108 n v 199 n.
Irenneua, 67, 93, 96 f., 125, 152 n.,
191, 194, 213 f., 214 f., 264,
234, 295
and Gnostics, 296 ff.
Letter to Florinus, 93, 137 n.,
232 n., 274 n.
Letter to Victor, 228 f ., 274
and mon-episcopacy, 191 ff.
and Papias, 11,19 ff., 287
and Polycarp, 97 ff., 137, 193,
272, 284
and Popes, Appendix D passim
Israel, 14, 38
Christian Church as new, 51 ff.,
83,85
hope of, 50 f.
Isthmian, games, 245 ff,
James, the Lord's brother, 10, 36,
37 f ., 63, 60, 63 ? 92, 196
chair of, at Jerusalem, 46 f,
Epistle ascribed to, 197
at Jerusalem, 34 ff., 39 ff., 62 ff .,
76 f ., 160
and Law, 44, 47, 58 f,, 76, 79,
148
martyrdom, 44, 53, 140, 261
Papal authority of, 42 f.
marnamed Just, 44 f,, 59
Vice-regent of Christ, 44 f ,, 77
JameB, Eputk of, 38, 76 f 131, 185,
106 ff.
James, Epistle of
Church Order in, 203 f .
origin of, 196 ff.
and Canon of N. T., 196 ff,
and Rome, 196, 198 ff .
faith and works, 202 f.
James, Protevangclium of, 25
Jeremiah, 121
Jerusalem, 14 1, 76
Apostles at, 14 ff., 34 ff., 40 ff.
Bishops of, 95, 186
Council of, 40 f ., 152 n.
destruction of, 42, 44, 53, 58, 66,
168, 204, 244, 261
Early Church of, 22, 39 f., 46,
59, 76 ff., 152
Gentile Church of Aelia-Je-
rusalem, 46 f., 198
James, position of, at, 42 ff., 58
f., 76 f., 160
patriarchal pre-eminence of, 46,
58, 262
pilgrim centre, 46
as sacred site, 46
See of, 42, 44, 45, 262
Jews, Judaism
Christian, 43 ff,, 48, 51, 61, 76 ff.,
78, 80, 148 i, 204 f .
of dispersion, 49, 61, 76, 80, 121
exiles in Babylon, 121 ff.
Mission of Twelce to, 34, 38, 121
orthodox, 11, 40, 51, 78, 122
Jewish War, 44, 59
John, Acts of, 5 ff*, 16, 21 n., 101,
119, 212, 272, Appendix E
John, Apocalypse of, See Apoc-
alypse
John, the Apostle, 7, 37 ., 38 f.,
43,92
ascription of Apocalypse to, 36,
218
318
INDEX
John, the Apostle
ascription of Epistles to, 36, 90
ascription of Gospel to, 36, 90
in Asia, 22, 91, 94, 99, 135 ff ,, 163,
166, 272 f ., 276
= Beloved Disciple, 100
confusion with John the Elder,
36, 94, 119, 137 f., 272
in Ephesus, 36, 272
in Jerusalem, 34 ff.
and Papias, 36, 93
and Polycarp, 94, 96 ff., 137, 272
277
John, the Elder, 36, 113, 135
and Aristion, 93 f ., 96, 137 f .
author of Apocalypse? 90 f.
author of Epistles, 86 ff.
author of Gospel, 157 n.
Bishop of Ephesus, 91, 94 ff.,
141, 157 n v 230
controversy with Diotrephos,
87 ff., 95, 120
identity of, 90 ff . 137, 157 n. f 272
ordained by Apostle John, 100
and Papias, 56 n., 92 f .
patriarchal prestige of, 86 ff,, 163
Johannine Epistles, 86 ff ., 112, 124
f ., 130, 133, 154 f ., 185, 266
authorship of, 86 ff.
date of, 94 ff .
John, Gospel of (Fourth Gospel),
21, 36, 74, 133, 168, 212
authorship of, 36, 124, 124 n
141, 157 n.
Christology of, 201
doctrine of Logos in, 58, 252 f.
and Ephesus, 65
old Syriac text of, 38 n.
and Papias, 56
Judaism. See Jews
Jude, authorship and origin of,
183 ff.
and 2 Peter, 108
Justification by faith, 201
Levites, 162 f ,, 224
Siberian Catalogue/ 213
Library of Ante-Nicene Fathers,
7, 95 n.
Lightfoot, 26 n., 42 n., 43 n., 93 ,.,
96 n., 161, 161 n., 164 n., 173,
192, 208 n., 213, 221 n., 233 ,,
234 n., 240 n., 276, 279, 284 n.
and 'Christian Ministry/ 75, 259
and Deutero-Clement, 244 ff.,
248
and 'Early Roman Succession/
Appendix D, passim
and Harmer 25 n., 240 n
and Pionius* Life of Polycarp,
Appendix A, passim
and Poly carp's Letter, Appen-
dix B, passim
Liturgies, 55. See aho Canon of
Mass
Logos, 58, 252 f .
Lukan Acts. See Acts
Luke, Gospel of, 36, 39, 54, 62, 77,
154, 166, 199, 287
admitted to Canon, 134
and Papias, 56 n.
Marcion's edition of, 284
written at Rome?, 66, 185, 199
Macedonia, Christianity in, 48
Mark, Gospel of, 34 n., 86 r 47, 53
ff., 66, 154, 167, 194, 200, 239,
288
and Ariston, 96 n*
BX test of,
INDEX
319
Mark, Gospel of
and Papias, 56 n.
written at Home, 66, 149, 235
Mark, 33
connection with Peter, 19 f.,
122, 134 f.
at Jerusalem, 35
Marriage, condemned, 6
Martyrdoms, 7
death penalty under Nero, 127
f.
of Ignatius, 146, 168, 176 ff,, 234
ff., 265 f., 279 ff.
of James, 44, 53, 149, 261
of Paul, 66, 127 n., 175, 261
of Peter, 16, 66, 175, 261
of Pionius, 276 f .
of Polycarp, 97. See ako Mar-
tyrdom of Poll/carp
of Stephen, 50, 78, 149
of Symeon, Bishop of Jeru-
salem, 279
of Thraseas, 276
Martyrdom of Poly carp, 25 n.,
273, See Polyearp
Matthew, St., 34 n.
Matthew, Gospel of, 19, 36 ff,, 86
n., 38, 54, 62, 63 ff., 76, 149,
153 ff., 167, 200, 219
B X text of, 23 n,
dependence on Mark, Q, 36, 54,
2871
and Didache, 64, 153 n., 287 f .
and Papias, 20 f., 56 n., 287
Syrian origin of, 21, 36, 185, 194,
235, 253, 286 f.
Sinai tic Syriac text, 96 w.
Mesopotamia, Church in, 33
Michigan papyrus, 210 n., 219
Mission charge, 38
, 166 n.
Mon-episcopacy, 68, 77
at Alexandria, 258 ff .
at Antioch, 169 ff,, 230
in Asia, 91 ff., 96 ff ., 113, 141, 181
and 1 Clement, 161 ff.
at Ephesus, 91, 95 ff., 141, 230
and Ignatius, 146, 161 ff., 169 ff.,
179 ff., 229 f., 233
at Jerusalem, 77 f ., 182
in Pastorals, 114 ff.
and Presbyter Bishops, 75, 85,
260
at Rome, 162 ff., 180, 182, 205,
216, 220 f ., 227 ff.
at Smyrna, 138 f .
Montanism, 67, 213 ff., 291
Mosaic law, 11 f., 40 f., 52, 59 f., 78,
241, 251
James' observation of, 44, 47,
59 f ., 76, 79, 148
Paul and, 52, 59 f., 83, 148 f.,
194, 201, 204
Muratorianum, 21 n v 56 n., 125,
135, 185, 196, 211 ff., 217 ff,
Neurotic Constitution, the, 174 n.
New Testament, Apocryphal, 5,
16 n., 25, 37 n., 240 n.
Nicaea, Council of, 22 n., 278
Old Testament-
influence of, 162, 185, 202, 224,
242,251
and Marcion, 283
Books and Canon, 292
Oxyrhynchus Logia, 240
Qxyrhynchus, fragment of the
Didache, 289
Palestine, 12
sacred sites of, 46 f .
320
INDEX
fanarion of Epiphanius, 186, Ap-
pendix D
Papal authority. See also Mon-
episcopacy, 10 f ., Ch, Vi., pas-
sim
and position of James, 44
Papias, 19 ff., 25 n., 36, 101, 125,
194, 287. See also Aristion,
John, Mark, Matthew
and Eusebius, 93 f .
and Four Gospel Canon, 56 n.
Parthia. See Thomas
Passion, date of, 95 n.
Pastor. See Episcopoi
as title of Christ, 140
Pastoral Epistles, 107 ff., 130, 159,
166
authorship of, 85, 107 ff.
and Canon of N. T., 56
Church order in, 80, 107 f., 147
date of, 107 f., 147
editing of, 107 ff,, 135
and mon-episcopacy, 114 ff., 266
origin, in Asia (Epheus), 108 ff,,
148, 166
Patriarchates, the, 261 ff.
Paul, Acts of, 5 ff., 17
Paul, Apostle, 7 ff., 15, 19, 37 n.,
42 f., 52 f., 73 f., 77, 89, 99, 108
n,, 126, 131 f., 138, 152, 212 f.,
215, 224, 247, 284
and Acts, 165 ff.
at Antioch, 49, 78, 149 f., 168
and Barnabas, 35, 40, 49, 77 ff.,
243
at Corinth, 82 ff.
at Ephesus, 64, 82, 84, 108 ff.,
133, 166, 204
Gentile Controversy, 38 f., 47,
147 f.
at Jerusalem, 33 f ., 35 f .
Paul, Apostle
and Law, 51, 59 f., 83, 148 f ., 195,
201, 204
as missionary, 48 ff., 79 ff., 121
ff., 148 ff.
at Rome, 49, 103, 103 ?k, 191,
204 n., 299 ff.
Roman Church, founder of, 67,
191 ff.
Rome martyrdom at, 66, 127 n.,
175, 261
and Timothy, 109 ff.
and Quartodeciman contro-
versy, 273 ff.
Pauline Epistles, 10, 52, 108 n.,
139, 147, 165 ff., 182, 197, 212
influence on 1 Peter, 126
received into N. T. Canon, 24,
56, 134 f , 287
Pella, 44
Pentecost, 35, 49, 122
Pergamum, 64
Persecution. See also Martyr*
dom
in Asia, 131
under Dccian, 277
under Domitian, 131, 208
in Jerusalem, 50, 78 f., 149
under Nero, 15, 127 f., 200, 204,
228, 261
under Pliny, 132, 280 ff.
under Trajan, 280
Peshitta, 197
Peter, Apostle, 37 n., 38, 42, 53,
73, 92, 99, 132 f.
at Antioch, 43, 47 f,, 59, 61 ff,,
148 f , 164, 168
and Babylon, 121 ff.
at Caesarea, 47, 61 f.
crucified upside dowa, 10
INDEX
321
Peter, Apostle
and Gentile controversy, 39 f.,
148, 205
at Jerusalem, 34 ff,
and Keys, 62 ff., 149, 235
and Law, 48, 52
and Mark, 19, 122, 134 f .
mission to circumcised, 39 f.,
121 ff,
at Rome, 13 f,, 23, 40, 279
founder of Roman Church, 46,
66, 191 ff., 300
martyrdom at Rome, 66, 175,
261
and Simon Magus legend, 9 ff.,
23, 167, 194
Peter, Acts of, 5 ff., 13 f., 23, 101
Peter 9 Apocalypse oj, 292
Peter, Circuits of, 5 n.
Peter to James, Epistle of, 10, 45
f,
Peter, Fint Epistle of, 85, 112 f.,
121 ff.
address to newly baptised, 129
attitude to Roman power, 123,
128
authorship of, 85, 123 ff., 132 ff.
Church order in, 139 ff.
date of, 139
literary contacts, 126, 132
origin of, 121 ff.
and Papias, 125
, and persecution, 127 f., 133
Peter, Preaching of, 5, 101, 167
Peter, Second Epistle of, 131, 201
and Canon, 198
and Jude, 107 f ,, 185
Pharisees, Pharisaism, 59, 62 f.,
168
Philippi, Church of, 83, 114, 167,
195, 222 1
Philip, 35 f ., 84 ., 92
at Caesarea, 37, 60
at Hierapolis, 37, 60
at Jerusalem, 35
and Luke, 61
= Philip the Evangelist, 37
PkiUp, Acts of, 6
Philippians, Epistle of jPaul to, 49,
110, 204, 299
Church Order in, 83, 222 f ., 284
Philomelium, Church of, 159
Pionius, 97, 117, Appendix A, pas-
sim. See Life of Poly carp
Pistis Sophia, 8
Platonism, 250, 253
PoimandreSf 252
Polycarp of Smyrna, 98, 193
and Acts, 167
and 1 Clement, 159
Epistles of, 25, 56, 222, 225, 273,
Appendix B, passim
and Gnostics, 97, 232 n., 284
and John, 96 f 99 ff., 137, 272,
277
Life of, Pionius', 97 f., 117 f.,
Appendix A, passim
and Marcion, 283 f.
martyrdom of, 25 n., 98, 157 n. f
159, 271 f., 277
and Pastorals, 108, 117
and Pauline Epistles, 167, 247
and 1 Peter, 125, 132 f,, 137, 159
and Quartodeciman contro-
versy, 56, 231
Popes, Early, 191 ff ., Appendix D,
passim
Presbyters. See also Episcopoi,
Deacons, Elders
at Alexandria, 258 ff.
at Antioch, 158
322
INDEX
Presbyters >
in Apostolic Constitutions,
255 f.
at Corinth, 220 f .
and D enter o-Clementj 244 f.
at Ephesus, 114
and Ignatius, 164, 170 f .
at Jerusalem, 76 f .
and Old Testament, 163
in Pastoral Epistles, 80, 114
in Pauline Churches, 81, 225
in 1 Peter, 112, 126, 140
at Philippi, 221, 225
and Readers, 255
at Rome, 216, 222, 229 f.
Priest (High Priest), in Old Tes-
tament, 162 f., 224
Problem of evil, 8
Prophets, prophetism, 81
in earliest period, 73 f ., 209 f .
at Antioch, 79 f .
or Apostle, 152
in 1 Clement, 226
in Didache, 151 ff., 225 f.
in 0. T., 172, 212, 221, 283
at Rome, 206, 209, 212, 217, 225
ff., 257
Q., 53, 63 n., 167
and Matthew, 36, 154 ., 200, 288
Quartodeciman controversy, 53,
230, 274 ff.
Quo Vadu legend, 16
Ravenna, Baptistry of the Ortho-
dox at, 37 n,
Reader, Order of, 255 ff .
Resurrection, the, 34, 43, 127
Resurrection appearances, 43, 47
1,54
Revelation. See Apocalypse;
also under Charles
Roman Empire, 57, 65 f ., 123
Romans f Epistle of jPaul to, 52,
77, 82 f,, 109 n., 126, 135, 152,
164, 177, 194, 200 f ., 213, 299
Romans, Epistle of Ignatius to,
164, 175 ff .
Rome, 7, 11 f., 65 1
Babylon, name as, 121 ff., 127
,, 131
Bishops of, 22, 95 f ., 191 ff., 207,
230
and Canon of N. T., 55, 211 f!.
Church of, 57, 60, 65 ff., 100,
Chapter VI, passim
Church, founders of, 46, 66, 191
ff ., 299 ff,
Church Order at, 160, 195, 200,
203 ff ., 219 ff.
and Deutero-Clementf 244 f.,
248
and Gnosticism at, 66, 232 u.
and Hermas, 210 ff.
and Ignatius, 169, 177, 229 ff.
and Mansion, 66 f .
and mem-episcopacy, 163 ff ., 180,
182, 206, 216, 220 f., 227 f!,
Paul at, 49, 109, 194, 204
Paul martyred at, 66, 127 , 175,
261
Peter at, 14 ff ., 23, 40, 133, 194,
276
Peter, Bishop, 45
Peter's Chair at, 46
Peter martyred at, 66, 175, 235
and 1 Peter, 121 ff.
pilgrim centre, 49
pre-eminence of, 57, 65, 91, 159,
163, 180, 264 f.
and Quartodeciman Contro-
versy, 53, 230 ff ,
INDEX
323
Borne
'Reign of Terror at 7 , 208 1
Rulers, ij7oft/*m, 205 1
Samaria (Samaritans), 10 3 12 f.,
38 f ., ^60 f.
Sanhedrim, Christian, 41
Shepherd, The. See Hennas
SybiUine Oracles, 123
Signs of Zodiac, 14
Simoniane, 13
Simon Magus, 10, 12 ff., 23, 167,
194
Simony, origin of term, 13
Sinope, 132, 134
Smyrna, 64, Appendix A, passim.
See also Polycarp
Aristion, Bishop of, 96, 137 ff,
Bishops of, 06 ff., 275 f, } 278
1 Clement, 159 f.
Sources of the Apostolic Canons,
A, Harnack, 255 n,
Spain, 212
Synagogue
Christian, at Jerusalem, 76 f,
Jewish, at Jerusalem, 76 f.
at Rome, 76, 203, 227
Syntagma Doctrinae t 293
Syria, 13, 57, 197
Church in, 41, 57, Chapter V.,
pamm f 239
Church Order in, 79, 146 ff ., 160
ff ., 256, 267
and Clement, 158 ff., 248
and Didache, 113, 146 ff., 256,
282, Appendix C, passim
theology of, 54, 61, 168, 168 n.,
252
Syriac, Sinaitic, 38 n., 96 n.
Taxila, 34
Teacher, office of, 82
in earliest times, 75
at Antioch, 79, 151, 155
in Barnabas, 253
in Didache, 155
in Ephesians, 84
in James, 205
Temple, destruction of, 53
Tertullian, 7, 11, 19, 96 f., 125, 134
n., 193, 214, 264, 272, 281
on Apostolic Sees, 96, 264
Testamentum Domini, ascribed to
Clement of Rome, 161 n.
Thessalonians, Epistles oj Paul to,
80, 82, 149 f .
Thomas (Judas Thomas) 33, 37
n., 92
in Parthia and India 33 1
Timothy, 84 f., 103, 107 ff., 201,
See ako Pastoral Epistles
as Bishop, 111, 119 ff.
at Ephesus, 110 ff*
and Paul, 110 ff.
Titus, 85, 108 ff. See also Pastoral
Epistles
as ideal Bishop, 120 ff.
Thomas, Acts oj, 5 ff., 33 ff., 37 n.
Trajan, Letter to Pliny, 261 n,, 281
and Ignatius, 280 ff.
Troas, 169, 181
Tubingar School, 10, 48, 279
Two Ways. See 'Didache/
Verona MS. of Egyptian Church
Order, 278
Wisdom ideas, 200
Wisdom, Book of, 292
1 30 802
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11