CHAPTER IV

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, AS
BEARING UPON THE CHRISTIAN MISSION\1/

CHRISTIAN preaching aimed at winning souls and bringing 'individuals to God, "that the number of the elect might be made up," but from the very outset it worked through a com­munity and proposed to itself the aim of uniting all who believed in Christ. Primarily, this union was one which con­sisted of the disciples of Jesus. But, as we have already seen, these disciples were conscious of being the true Israel and the ecelesia of God. Such they held themselves to be. Hence they appropriated to themselves the form and well-knit frame of Judaism, spiritualizing it and strengthening it, so that by one stroke (we may say) they secured a firm and exclusive organization.

But while this organization, embracing all Christians on earth, rested in the first instance solely upon religious ideas, as a purely ideal conception it would hardly have remained effective for any length of time, had it not been allied to local organization. Christianity, at the initiative of the original apostles and the brethren of Jesus, began by borrowing this as well from Judaism, i.e., from the synagogue. Throughout the Diaspora the Christian communities developed at first out of the syna­gogues with their proselytes or adherents. Designed to be essentially a brotherhood, and springing out of the synagogue, the Christian society developed a local organization which was of double strength, superior to anything achieved by the societies

¹ Cp. on this Von Dobschutz's Die urchristlichen Gemeinden (1902) [translated in this library under the title of Christian Life in the Primitive Church].
 

432 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

of Judaism.\1/ One extremely advantageous fact about these local organizations in their significance for Christianity may be added. It was this : every community was at once a unit, com­plete in itself; but it was also a reproduction of the collective church of God, and it had to recognize and manifest itself as - such.\2/

Such a religious and social organization, destitute of any political or national basis and yet embracing the entire private life, was a novel and unheard-of thing upon the soil of Greek and Roman life, where religious and social organizations only existed as a rule in quite a rudimentary form, and where they lacked any religious control of life as a whole. All that people could think of in this connection was one or two schools of philosophy, whose common life was also a religious life. But here was a society which united fellow-believers, who were resident in any city, in the closest of ties, presupposing a relationship which was assumed as a matter of course to last through life itself, furnishing its members not only with holy unction administered once and for all or from time to time, but with a daily bond which provided them with spiritual benefits

r We cannot discuss the influence which the Greek and Roman guilds may have exercised upon Christianity. In any case, it can only have affected certain forms, not the essential fact itself or its fixity.

² We do not know how this remarkable conviction arose, but it lies perfectly plain upon the surface of the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. It did not originate in Judaism, since-to my knowledge-the individual Jewish synagogue did not look upon itself in this light. Nor did the conception spring up at a single stroke. Even in Paul two contradictory conceptions still lie unexplained together : while, on the one hand, he regards each community, so to speak, as a "church of God," sovereign, independent, and responsible for itself, on the other hand his churches are at the same time his own creations, which consequently remain under his con­trol and training, and are in fact even threatened by hire with the rod. He is their father and their schoolmaster. Here the apostolic authority, and, what is more, the general and special authority, of the apostle as the founder of a church invade and delimit the authority of the individual community, since the latter has to respect and follow the rules laid down and enforced by the apostle throughout all his churches. This he had the right to expect. But, as we see from the epistles to the Corinthians, especially from the second, conflicts were inevitable. Then again in 3 John we have an important source of information, for here the head of a local church is openly rebelling and asserting his independence, against the control of an apostle who attempts to rule the church by means of delegates. When Ignatius reached Asia not long afterwards, the idea of the sovereignty of the individual church had triumphed.

ORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 433
and imposed duties on them, assembling them at first daily and then weekly, shutting them off from other people, uniting them in a guild of worship, a friendly society, and an order with a definite line of life in view, besides teaching them to consider themselves as the community of God.

Neophytes, of course, had to get accustomed or to be trained at first to a society of this kind. It ran counter to all the requirements exacted by any other cultus or holy rite from its devotees, however much the existing guild-life may have paved the way for it along several lines. That its object should be the common edification of the members, that the community was therefore 'to resemble a single body with many members, that every member was to be subordinate to the whole body, that one member was to suffer and rejoice with another, that Jesus Christ did not call individuals apart but built them up into a society in which the individual got his place-all these were lessons which had to be learnt. Paul's epistles prove how vigorously and unweariedly he taught them, and it is perhaps the weightiest feature both in Christianity and in the work of Paul that, so far from being overpowered, the impulse towards association was most powerfully intensified by the individualism which here attained its zenith. (For to what higher form can individualism rise than that reached by means of the dominant counsel, "Save thy soul"?) Brotherly love constituted the lever ; it was also the entrance into that most wealthy inherit­ance, the inheritance of the firmly organized church of Judaism. In addition to this there was also the wonderfully practical idea, to which allusion has already been made, of setting the collective church (as an ideal fellowship) and the individual community in such a relationship that whatever was true of the one could be predicated also of the other, the church of Corinth or of Ephesus, e.g., being the church of God. Quite apart from the content of these social formations, no statesman or politician can hesitate to admire and applaud the solution which was thus devised for one of the most serious problems of any large organization, viz., how to maintain intact the complete autonomy of the local communities and at the same time to knit them into a general nexus, possessed of strength and unity, which

434 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

should embrace all the empire and gradually develop also into a collective organization.

What a sense of stability a creation of this kind must have given the individual ! What powers of attraction it must have exercised, as soon as its objects came to be understood ! It was this, and not any evangelist, which proved to be the most effective missionary. In fact, we may take it for granted that the mere existence and persistent activity of the individual Christian communities did more than anything else to bring about the extension of the Christian religion.'

Hence also the injunction, repeated over and again, "Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together,"-" as some do," adds the epistle to the Hebrews (x. 25). At first and indeed always there were naturally some people who imagined that one could secure the holy contents and blessings of

¹ We possess no detailed account of the origin of any Christian community, for the narrative of Acts is extremely summary, and the epistles of Paul presuppose the existence of the various churches. Acts, indeed, is not interested in the local churches. It is only converted brethren that come within its ken ; its pages reflect but the onward rush of the Christian mission, till that mission is merged in the legal proceedings against Paul. The apocryphal Acts are of hardly any use. But from r Thessalonians, i Corinthians, and Acts we can infer one or two traits. Thus, while Paul invariably attaches himself to Jews, where such were to be found, and preaches in the synagogues, the actual result is that the small communities which thus arose are drawn mainly from "God-fearing" pagans, and upon the whole from pagans in general, not from Jews. Those who were first converted naturally stand in an important relation to the organization of the churches (Clem. Rom. xlii.: of aado'ToAoj KaTa xo5pas cal 7rdAELS Kfp110'voyTes

• . . . Kae(o^-ravo, Ta.S arapxas a T&', SoKL/.L,ravTES TQ mve ar,, EIS ?. r,o,d,ous Kai SLaK6youS Twv ueAAdyTtoy 5LVTELietS=Preaching throughout the country districts and cities, the apostles . . . . appointed those who were their firstfruits, after proving them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons for those who were to believe) ; as we learn from i Thess. v. 12 f. and Phil. i. t, a sort of local superintendence at once arose in some of the communities. But what holds true of the Macedonian churches is by no means true of all the churches, at least during the initial period, for it is obvious that in Galatia and at Corinth no organization whatever existed for a decade, or even longer. The brethren submitted to a control of "the Spirit." In Acts XlV. 23 (xetpOTov4O-ayTEs abTOtS KaT' E'KKA71clay TpEOrf3vTEpous) the allusion may be accurate as regards one or two communities (cp. also Clem. Rom. xliv. ), but it is an extremely questionable statement if it is held to imply that the apostles regularly appointed officials in every locality, and that these were in all cases "presbyters." Acts only mentions church-officers at Jerusalem (xv. 4) and Ephesus (xx. 28, presbyters who are

invested with episcopal powers).

ORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 435

Christianity as one did those of Isis or the Magna Mater, and then withdraw. Or, in cases where people were not so short­sighted, levity, laziness, or weariness were often enough to detach a person from the society. A vainglorious sense of superiority and of being able to dispense with the spiritual aid of the society, was also the means of inducing many to withdraw from fellowship and from the common worship. Many, too, were actuated by fear of the authorities ; they shunned attend­ance at public worship, to avoid being recognized as Christians.'

"Seek. what is of common profit to all," says Clement of home' (c. xlviii.). ¹¹ Keep not apart by yourselves in secret," says Barnabas (iv. 10), "as if you were already justified, but meet together and confer upon the common weal." Similar passages are often to be met with. ² The worship on Sunday ;s of course obligatory, but even at other times the brethren are expected to meet as often as possible. "Thou shalt seek out every day the company of the saints, to be refreshed by their words" (Did., iv. 2). "We are constantly in touch with one another," says Justin, after describing the Sunday worship (Apol., I. lxvii.), in order to show that this is not the only place of fellowship. Ignatius, ³ too, advocates over and over again more frequent meetings of the church ; in fact, his letters are written primarily for the purpose of binding the individual member as closely as possible to the community and thus

  \1/Cp. Tertullian, de I'uga, iii.: " Timide conveniunt in ecclesiam : dicitis enim, quoniam incondite convenimus et simul convenimus et complures concurrimus in ecclesiam, quaerimur a nationibus et timemus, ne turbentur nationes" ("They gather to church with trembling. For, you say, since we assemble in disorder, simultaneously, and in great numbers, the heathen make inquiries, and we are afraid of stirring them up against us ").
\2/Herm., Sitnil., IX. xx.: oiTo, of by ,roAAots Kal aoud(Aals apa7paTE(aes Jµaeq6VpA6101 ab KOAAmzTal Tois 506AOIS TOo oeoo, axx' aaoa?avroyrai (" These, being involved in many different kinds of occupations, do not cleave to the servants of God, but go astray"); IX. xxvi. : yeyJp.evo! 4p7l LOetr, µ3/ KoAA(Vµevoi rots SotAoir TOD Beou", &AAa µovdCoyr€S AKOAAdouo^-! Tas EaVTav >Vuxds (" Having become barren, they cleave not to the servants of God, but keep apart and so lose their own souls ").

\3/Cp. Ephes. xiii.:' oirOV8dCers ,rUKVdTEpOV OUVEpXEO^.9aL EIS ebXapuQT(av, OeOu (" Endeavour to meet .more frequently for the praise of God ") ; Polyc. iv. trueVETEpOV rruvayayal ywea-Oavav ("Let meetings be held more frequently"); cp. also Magn. iv.

436 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

securing him against error, temptation, and apostasy. The means to this end is an increased significance attaching to the church. In the church alone all blessings are to be had, in its ordinances and organizations. It is only the church firmly equipped with bishop, presbyters, and deacons, with common worship and with sacraments, which is the creation of God.\1/ Consequently, beyond its pale nothing divine is to be found, there is nothing save error and sin; all clandestine meetings for worship are also to be eschewed, and no teacher who starts up from outside is to get a hearing unless he is certificated by the church. The absolute subordination of Christians to the local community has never been more peremptorily demanded, the position of the local community itself has never been more eloquently laid down, than in these primitive documents. Their eager admonitions reveal the seriousness of the peril

\1/The common worship, with its centre in the celebration of the Supper, is the cardinal point. No other cultus could point to such a ceremony, with its sublimity and unction, its brotherly feeling and many-sidedness. Here every experience, every spiritual need, found nourishment. The collocation of prayer, praise, preaching, and the reading of the Word was modelled upon the worship of the synagogue, and must already have made a deep impression upon pagans ; but with the addition of the feast of the Lord's supper, an observance was introduced which, for all its simplicity, was capable of being regarded, as it actually was regarded, from the most diverse standpoints. It was a mysterious, divine gift of knowledge and of life ; it was a thanksgiving, a sacrifice, a representation of the death of Christ, a love-feast of the brotherhood, a support for the hungry and distressed. No single observance could well be more than that, and it preserved this character for long, even after it had passed wholly into the region of the mysterious. The members of the church took home portions of the consecrated bread, and consumed them^- during the week. I have already (pp. 150 f.) dis­cussed the question how far the communities in their worship were also unions for charitable support, and how influential must have been their efforts in this direction.-A whole series of testimonies, from Pliny to Arnobius (iv. 36), proves that the preaching to which people listened every Sunday bore primarily on the inculcation of morality : " In conventiculis summus orator deus, pax cunctis et venia postulatur magistratibus exercitibus regibus familiaribus inimicis, adhuc vitam degentibus et resolutis corporum vinctione, in quibus aliud auditor nihil nisi quod humanos faciat, nisi quod mites, verecundos, pudicos, castos, familiaris comaiunicatores rei et cum omnibus vobis solidae germanitatis necessitudine copulatos" (" At our meetings prayers are offered to Almighty God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers, kings, friends, enemies, those still in life, and those freed from the bondage of the flesh ; at these gatherings nothing is said except what makes people humane, gentle, modest, virtuous, chaste, generous in dealing with their substance, and closely knit to all of you within the bonds of brotherhood ").

ORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 437

which threatened the individual Christian who should even in the slightest degree emancipate himself from the community; thereby he would fall a prey to the "errorists," or slip over into paganism. At this point even the heroes of the church were threatened by a peril, which is singled out also for notice. As men who had a special connection with Christ, and who were quite aware of this connection, they could not well be subject to orders from the churches ; but it. was recognized even at this early period that if they became "inflated" with pride and held aloof from the fellowship of the church, they might easily come to grief. Thus, when the haughty martyrs of Carthage and Rome, both during and after the Decian persecution, started cross-currents in the churches and began to uplift themselves against the officials, the great bishops finally resolved to reduce them under the laws common to the whole church.

While the individual Christian had a position of his own within the organization of the church, he thereby lost, however, a part of his autonomy along with his fellows. The so-called Montanist controversy was in the last resort not merely a struggle to secure a stricter mode of life as against a laxer, but also the struggle of a more independent religious attitude and activity as against one which was prescribed and uniform. The outstanding personalities, the individuality of certain people, had to suffer in order that the majority might not become unmanageable or apostates. Such has always been the case in human history. It is inevitable. Only after the Montanist conflict did the church, as individual and collective, attain the climax of its development; henceforth it became an object of desire, coveted by everyone who was on the look-out for power, inasmuch as it had extraordinary forces at its disposal. It now bound the individual closely to itself; it held him, bridled him, and dominated his religious life in all directions. Yet it was not long before the monastic movement originated, a movement which, while it recognized the church in theory (doubt upon this point being no longer possible), set it aside in actual

practice.

The progress of the development of the juridical organization

438 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

from the firmly organized local church ¹ to the provincial church,' from that again to the larger league of churches, a league which realized itself in synods covering many provinces, and finally from that league to the collective church, which of course was never quite realized as an organization, though it was always present in idea-this development also contributed to the strengthening of the Christian self-consciousness and missionary activity.³ It was indeed a matter of great moment to be able to proclaim that this church not only embraced humanity in its religious conceptions, but also presented itself to the eye as an immense single league stretching from one side of the empire to another, and, in fact, stretching beyond even these imperial boundaries. This church arose through the co-operation of the Christian ideal with the empire, and thus every great force which operated in this sphere had also its part to play in the building up of the church, viz., the universal Christian idea of a bond of humanity (which, at root, of course, meant no more than a bond between the scattered elect throughout mankind), the Jewish church, and the Roman empire. The last named, as has been rightly pointed out, became bankrupt over the church ; ⁴ and the same might be said of the Jewish church, whose powers of attraction ceased for a large circle of people so soon as the Christian church had developed, the latter taking,them over into its own life.⁵ Whether the Christian communities were as free creations as they were in the first century, whether they set

¹ Christians described themselves at the outset as παροικουντεσ (" sojourners " ; cp. p. 252) ; the church was technically " the church sojourning in the city "( ἠ ἐκκλησία ἠ παροικοωσα την πόλιν ), but it rapidly became well defined, nor

did it by any means stand out as a structure destined to crumble away.

a How far this ascent, when viewed from other premises which are equally real, corresponded to a descent, may be seen from the first Excursus to this chapter.

³ Tert., de Prcescript. xx.: " Sic omnes [se. ecclesiae] primae et omnes apostolicae, dum una omnes, probant unitatem communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalis, quae iura non alio natio regit quam eiusdem sacramenti una traditio" ("Thus all are primitive and all apostolic, since they are all alike certified by their union in the communion of peace, the title of brotherhood, and the interchange of hospitable friendship - rights whose only rule is the one tradition of the same mystery in    all ").

⁴ It revived, however, in the Western church.

5 Ever since the fall of the temple, however, the Jewish church had consciously and voluntarily withdrawn into itself more an(T more, and abjured the Greek spirit.

ORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 439

up external ordinances as definite and a union as comprehensive as was the case in the third century-in either case these communities exerted a magnetic force on thousands, and thus proved of extraordinary service to the Christian mission.

Within the church-organization the most weighty and significant creation was that of the monarchical episcopate.¹ It was the bishops, properly speaking, who held together the individual members of the churches; their rise marked the close of the period during which charismata and offices were in a state of mutual flux, the individual relying only upon God, hinmself, and spiritually endowed brethren. After the close of the second century bishops were the teachers, high priests, and udges of the church. Ignatius already had compared their position in the individual church to that of God in the church collective. But this analogy soon gave way to the formal quality which they acquired, first in Rome and the West, after the gnostic controversy. In virtue of this quality, they were regarded as representatives of the apostolic office. According to Cyprian, they were "judices vice Christi" (judges in Christ's room); and Origen, in spite of his unfortunate experience with bishops, had already written that "if kings are so called from reigning, then all 'who rule the churches of God deserve to be called kings" (" si reges a regendo dicuntur, omnes utique, qui ecclesias dei regunt, reges merito appellabuntur," Hom. xii. 2 in Num., vol. x. p. 133, Lomm.). On their conduct the churches depended almost entirely for weal or woe. As the office grew to maturity, it seemed like an original creation ; but this was simply because it drew to itself from all quarters both the powers and the forms of life.

The extent to which the episcopate, along with the other clerical offices which it controlled, formed the backbone of the

church,² is shown by the fierce war waged against it by the  

k

1 I leave out of account here all the preliminary steps. It was with the mon­archical episcopate that this office first became a polder in Christendom, and it does not fall within the scope of the present sketch to investigate the initial stages-a task of some difficulty, owing to the fragmentary nature of the sources and the varieties of the original organization throughout the different churches.
\2/ Naturally, it came more and more to mean a position which was well-pleasing to God and specially dear to him ; this is implied already in the term "priest,"

440 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

state during the third century (Maximinus Thrax, Decius,. Valerian, Diocletian, Daza, Licinius), as well as from many isolated facts. In the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Dionysius of Corinth tells the church of Athens (Eus., H.E., iv. 23) that while it had well-nigh fallen from the faith after the death of its martyred bishop Publius, its new bishop Quadratus had reorganized it and filled it with fresh zeal for the faith. In de Fuga, xi. Tertullian says that when the shepherds are poor creatures the flock is a prey to wild beasts, "as is never more the ease than when the clergy desert the church in a persecution" ("quod nunquam magis fit quam cum in persecutione destituitur a clero "). Cyprian (Ep. Iv. 11) tells how in the persecution bishop Trophimus had lapsed along with a large section of the church, and had offered sacrifice ; but on his return and penitence, the rest followed him, "qui onines regressuri ad ecclesiam non essent, nisi cum Trofimo comitante venissent" (" none of whom would have returned to the church, had they not had the companionship of '1'rophimus "). When Cyprian lingered in retreat during the persecution of Decius, the whole community threatened to lapse. Hence one can easily see the significance of the bishop for the church ; with him it fell, with him it stood,' and in these days a vacancy or interregnum meant a serious crisis for any church. Without being properly a missionary,

[[440b]] which became current after the close of the second century. Along with the higher class of heroic figures (ascetics, virgins, confessors), the church also possessed a second upper class of clerics, as was well known to pagans in the third century. Thus the pagan in Macarius Magnes (III. xvii.) writes, apropos of Matt. xvii. 20, xxi. z 1 ('' Have faith as a grain of mustard-seed ") : " He who has not so much faith as this is certainly unworthy of being reckoned among the brotherhood of the faithful ; so that the majority of Christians, it follows, are not to be counted among the faithful, and in fact even among the bishops and presbyters there is not one who deserves this name."

\1/This is the language also of the heathen judge to bishop Achatius : "a shield and succourer of the region of Antioch " (" scutum quoddam ac refugium Antiochiae regionis " ; Ruinart, Acta Afant., Ratisb., 1859, p. zor) : " Veniet tecum [i.e., if you return to the old gods] omnis populus, ex tuo pendet arbitirio" ("All the people will accompany you, for they hang on your decision"), The bishop answers of course : " Illi omnes non meo nutu, sed dei praecepto reguntur ; audiant me itaque, si iusta persuadeam, sin vero perversa et nocitura, contemnant" ("They are ruled, not by my beck and call, but all of them by God's counsel; wherefore let them hearken to me, if I persuade them to what is right ; hut ,despise me, if I counsel what is perverse and mischievous. "-Hermas (Sine., IX. xxxi.) says of the

ORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 441

the bishop exercised a missionary function.' In particular, he preserved individuals from relapsing into paganism, while any bishop who really filled his post was the means of winning over n any fresh adherents. We have instances of this, e.g., in the cruse of Cyprian or of Gregory Thaumaturgus. The episcopal dignity was at once heightened and counterbalanced by the institution of the synods which arose in Greece and Asia (modelled possibly upon the federal diets),' and eventually were adopted by a large number of provinces after the opening of the third century. On the one hand, this association of the bishops entirely took away the rights of the laity, who found before very long, that it was no use now to leave their native church in order to settle down in another. Yet a synod, on the other hand, imposed restraints upon the arbitrary action of a bishop, by setting itself up as an ecclesiastical "forum publicum to which he was responsible. The correspondence of Cyprian resents several examples of individual bishops being thus arraigned by synods for arbitrary or evil conduct. Before very tong too (possibly from the very outset) the synod, this "representatio totius nominis Christiani, appeared to be a specially trustworthy organ of the holy Spirit. The synods which expanded in the course of the third century from provincial synods to larger councils, and which would seem to have anticipated Diocletian's redistribution of the empire in the East, naturally gave an extraordinary impetus to the prestige and authority of the church, and thereby heightened its powers

[[441b]] shegherds : "Sin aliqua e pecoribus dissipate invenerit dominus, vae erit pastoribus. quod si ipsi pastores dissipati reperti fuerint, quid respondebunt pro pecoribus his? numquid dicunt, a pecore se vexatos? non credetur illis. incredibilis enim res est, pastorem pati posse a pecore " (" But if the master finds any of the sheep scattered, woe to the shepherds. For if the shepherds themselves be found scattered, how will they answer for these sheep? Will they say that they were themselves worried by the flock? Then they will not be believed, for it is absurd that a shepherd should; be injured by his sheep").

I For a distingu^:.shed missionary or teacher who had founded a church becoming its bishop, cp. Origen, Hom. xi. 4 in Num. [as printed above, p. 351].

a Cp. (trans. below, under " Asia Minor," § 9, in Book IV. Chap. IIL) Tertull., de Jejunio, xiii.: "Aguntur per Graecias (for the plural, cp. Eus., Vita Const., 'ii. ig)'illa certis in locis concilia ex universis ecclesiis, per quae et al tiora quaeque commune tractantur et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna veneratione celebratur."

442 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY ^,

of attraction. Yet the entire synodal system really flourished in the East alone (and to some extent in Africa). In the ?Vest it no more blossomed than did the system of metropolitans, a fact which was of vital moment to the position of Rome and of the Roman bishop.'

One other problem has finally to be considered at this point, a problem which is of great importance for the statistics of the church. It is this : how strong was the tendency to create independent forms within the Christian communities, i.e., to form complete episcopal communities ? Does the number of communities which were episcopally organized actually denote the number of the communities in general, or were there, either as a rule or in a large number of provinces, any considerable number of communities which possessed no bishops of their own, but had only presbyters or deacons, and depended upon an outside bishop? The following Excursus ² is devoted to the answering of this important question. Its aim is to show that the creation of complete episcopal communities was the general rule in most provinces (excluding Egypt) down to the middle of the third century, however small might be the number of Christians in any locality, and however insignificant might be . the locality itself.

As important, if not even more important, was the tendency, which was in operation from the very first, to have all the Christians in a given locality united in a single community. As

r I do not enter here into the development of the constitution in detail, although by its close relation to the divisions of the empire it has many vital points of con­tact with the history of the Christian mission (see Lubeck, Reichseinteilung and kirchliche Hierarchie des Orients his sum Ausgang des 4. Jahrhunderts, r9or). I simply note that the ever-increasing dependence of the Eastern church upon the redistributed empire (a redistribution which conformed to national boundaries) imperilled by degrees the unity of the Church and the universalism of Christianity. The church began by showing harmony and vigour in this sphere of action, but centrifugal influences soon commenced to play upon her, influences which are perceptible as early as the Paschal controversy of 190 A.D. between Rome and Asia, which are vital by the time of the controversy over the baptism of heretics, and which finally appear as disintegrating forces in the fourth and fifth centuries. In the West the Roman bishop knew how to restrain them admirably, evincing both tenacity and clearness of purpose.

\2/ Read before the Royal Prussian Academy of Science, on 28th Nov. tgoi (pp. r 186 f.).

ΟORGANIZATION OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 443

Pauline epistles prove, house-churches were tolerated at the outset, (we do not know how long),' but obviously their position was (originally or very soon afterwards) that of members belong­ing to the local community as a whole. This original relation­ ship is, of course, as obscure to us as is the evaporation of such churches. Conflicts there must have been at first, and even attempts to set up a number of independent Christian Olao-oc in a city; the « schisms" at Corinth, combated by Paul, would seem to point in this direction. Nor is it quite certain whether, even after the formation of the monarchical episcopate, there were not cases here and there of two or more episcopal corn­pmnities existing in a single city. But even if this obtained in 'certain cases, their number must have been very small; nor do these avail to alter the general stamp of the Christian organiza­tiun throughout its various branches, i.e., the general constitution according to which every locality where Christians were to be ound had its own independent community, and only one community. ² This organization, with its simplicity and natural­ess, proved itself extraordinarily strong. No doubt, the community was soon obliged to direct the full force of its

\1/We cannot determine how long they lasted, but after the New Testament we hear next to nothing of them-which, by the way, is an argument against all attempts, to relegate the Pauline epistles to the second century. For the house­chu.rches, see the relevant sections in Weizsacke's History of the Apostolic Age. llcbrews is most probably addressed to a special community in Rome. Schiele ha; recently tried to prove, for reasons that deserve notice, that the community in ,question was developed from the Συναδωδή των Εβραίων , for which there is inscrip­tloaal evidence at Rome (American Journal of Theology, 1905, _pp. 290 f.), and I have tried to connect the epistle with Prisca and Aquila (Zeitsr fur die neuteςt. Wisς„-i., rgoo, pp. 16 f.). The one theory does not exclude the other.

² The relation of the Christian διδασκαλεια to the local church (cp. above, p. 356) is wrapt in obscurity. We know of Justin's school, of Tatian's, Rhodon's, Theodotus's, Praxeas's, Epigonus's, and Cleomenes's in Rome, of the transition of

the Thedotian school into a church (the most interesting case of the kind known to us), of catechetical schools in Alexandria, of Hippolytus scorning the Christians in Rome who adhered to Callistus, i.e., the majority of the church (or a school), of
various gnostic schools, of Lucian's school at Antioch side by side with the church, etc. But this does not amount to a clear view of the situation, for we learn very little apart from the fact that such schools existed. Anyone might essay to prove that by the second half of the second century there was a general danger of the church being dissipated into nothing but schools. Anyone else might undertake to prove that even ordinary Christianity here and there deliber­ately assumed the character of a philosophic school in order to secure freedom and

444 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

anti-pagan exclusiveness against such brethren of its own number as refused submission to the church upon any pretext whatsoever. The sad passion for heresy-hunting, which prevailed among Christians as early as the second century, was not only a' result of their fanatical devotion to true doctrine, but quite as much an outcome of their rigid organization and of the exalted predicates c f honour, which they applied to themselves as "I the church of God." Here the reverse of the medal is to be seen. The community's valuation of itself, its claim to represent the ἐκκλησία τού θεού ("the church of God" or "the catholic church" in Corinth, Ephesus, etc.) prevented it ultimately from recognizing or tolerating any Christianity whatever outside its own boundaries.'

[[444b]] safeguard its interests against the state and a hostile society (as was the case, we cannot doubt, with some circles; cp. above, p. 364). Both attempts would bring in useful material, but neither would succeed in proving its thesis. So much is certain, however, that, during the second century and perhaps here and there throughout the third, as well, the "schools" spelt a certain danger for the unity of the episcopal organization of the churches, and that the episcopal church had succeeded, by the opening of. the third century, in rejecting the main dangers of the situation. The materials are scanty, but the question deserves investigation by itself.

I Celsus had already laid sharp stress on heresy-hunting and the passion with which Christians fought one another: 6AaQ071pouooty *is βλασφημουσιν εις αλλήλουs ούτοι πάνδεινα

ρητα και άρρητα, και ουκ &ν εΤξαιεν ουδέ καθ' δτιοϋν εis δμόοιαν πάντη αλλήλουτ αιοστυγοϋντεs (V. lxiii.: " These people utter all sorts of blasphemy, mentionable and unmentionable, against one another, nor will they give way in the smallest point for the sake of concord, hating each other with a perfect hatred ").

  [[445]]
EXCURSUS I

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE (IN THE PROVINCES, THE CITIES, AND THE VILLAGES), FROM PIUS TO CONSTANTINE.

"In 1 Tim, iii. (where only bishops and deacons are mentioned) the apostle Paul has not forgotten the presbyters, for at first the same officials bore the name of ' presbyter' as well as that of bishop.' . . . Those who had the power of ordination and are now called' bishops' were not appointed to a single church but o a whole province, and bore the name of 'apostles.' Thus St Paul set Timothy over all Asia, and Titus over Crete. And plainly he also appointed other individuals to other provinces in the same way, each of whom was to take charge of a whole province, making circuits through all the churches, ordaining clergy for ecclesiastical work wherever it was necessary, solving any difficult questions which had arisen among them, setting them right by means of addresses on doctrine, treating sore sins in a salutary fashion, and in general discharging all the duties of a superintendent-all the towns, meanwhile, possessing the presbyters of whom I have spoken, men who ruled their respective churches. Thus in that early age there existed those who are now called bishops, but who were then called apostles, discharg­ing functions for a whole province which those who are nowadays ordained to the episcopate discharge for a single city and a single district. Such was the organization of the church in those days. But when the faith became widely spread, filling not merely towns, but also country districts with believers,

\1/Gk .: μέγισται δέ ου πόλεις μόνον αλλα και χϋιραι τϋιν πεπιστεοκότων ήσαν; Lat. version=repletae autem sunt non modo civitates credentium, sed regiones. Read , μεσταί therefore instead of μέγισται.

446 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

then, as the blessed apostles were now dead, came those who took charge of the whole [province]. They were not equal to their predecessors, however, nor could they certify themselves, as did the earlier leaders, by means of miracles, while in many other respects they showed their inferiority. Deeming it there­fore a burden to assume the title of i apostles,' they distributed the other titles [which had hitherto been synonymous], leaving that of ' presbyters' to the presbyters, and assigning that of ' bishops' to those who possessed the right of ordination, and who were consequently entrusted with leadership over all the church. These formed the majority, owing, in the first instance, to the necessity of the case, but subsequently also, on account of the generous spirit shown by those who arranged the ordinations.¹ For at the outset there were but two, or at most three, bishops usually in a province-a state of matters which prevailed in most of the Western provinces until quite recently, and which may still be found in several, even at the present day. As time went on, however, bishops were ordained not merely in towns, but also in small districts, where there was really no need of anyone being yet invested with the episcopal office."

So Theodore of Mopsuestia in his commentary upon First Timothy.' The assertion that " bishop " and '° presbyter " were identical in primitive ages occurs frequently about the year 400, but Theodore's statements in general are, to the best of my knowledge, unique ; they represent an attempt to depict the primitive organization of the church, and to explain the most important revolution which had taken place in the history of the church's constitution. Theodore's idea is, in brief, as follows. From the outset, he remarks-i.e. in the apostolic age, or by original apostolic institution-there was a monarchical office in the churches, to which pertained the right of ordination. This

  \1/Gk.: Sub tA.hv T7)v XpEfae TD irpaTOV, UBTEpoy Si: iral €orb OiAorilA.laS TNV sr0406PTWP ;

Ambition, it might be conjectured, would be mentioned as the motive at work, but in that case rrv 1roiobvrwv would require to be away. 4ixoriµfa therefore must mean " liberal spirit," and this is the interpretation given in the Latin version : " Postea vero et illis adiecti sunt alii liberalitate comm qui ordinationes faciebant." Dr Bischoff, however, proposes 7rapourov'vTwv for ,rotouvTwv.

a See Swete's Theodori episcapi Mopsuesteni in epp. L. Pa 4i comvuentarii, vol. ii. (1882), pp. 121 f.

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 447

office was one belonging to the provincial churches (each province lossessing a single superintendent), and its title was that of apostle." Individual communities, again, were governed by bishops (presbyters) and deacons. Once the apostles I (i.e. the original apostles) had died, however, a revolution took place. The motives assigned for this by Theodore are twofold : in the first place, the spread of the Christian religion, and in the second place, the weakness felt by the second generation of_. the apostles themselves. The latter therefore resolved (i.) to abjure and thus abolish ² the name of ⁱⁱ apostle," • and (ii.) to distribute the monarchical power, i.e., the right of ordination, among several persons' throughout a province. Hence the circumstance of two or three bishops existing in the same province-the term "bishop" being now employed in the sense of monarchical authority. That state of matters was the rule until quite recently in most of the Western provinces, and it still survives n several of them. In the East, however, it has not lasted. Partly owing to the. requirements of the case (i.e., the increase of Christianity throughout the provinces), partly owing to the "liberality" of the apostles,³ the number of the bishops has multiplied, so that not only towns, but even villages, have come to possess bishops, although there was no real need for such appointments.

We must in the first instance credit Theodore with being sensible of the fact that the organization of the primitive churches was originally on the broadest scale, and only cane down by degrees (to the local communities). Such was indeed the case. The whole was prior to the part. That is, the

' This is the first point of obscurity in Theodore's narrative. "The blessed apostles" are not all the men whom he has first mentioned as "apostles," but either the apostles in the narrowest sense of the term, or else these taken together with men like Timothy and Titus.

² This has, to be supplied by the reader (which is the second obscure point) ; the text has merely Sapb voµfvaiTES T3iv ray a,roOT6hwv 9Xeiv apovrtyoplav. Theodore says nothing about what became of them after they gave up their nameand rights.

s This is the third point of obscurity in Theodore's statement. By ¢i?oTiµfa Twv aoiotvrwv it seems necessary to understand the generosity of the retiring apostles," and yet the process went on-according to Theodore himself-even after these apostles had long left the scene. 

448 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

organization effected by the apostles was in the first place universal ; its scope was the provinces of the church. It is Judwa, Sarnaria, Syria, Cilicia, Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, etc., that are present to the minds of the apostles, and figure in their writings. Just as, in the missions of the present day, outside sects capture " Brandenburg," " Saxony," and " Bavaria " by getting a firm foothold in Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and one or two important cities; just as they forthwith embrace the whole province in their thoughts and in some of the measures which they adopt, so was it then. Secondly, Theodore's observation upon the extension of the term "apostle" is in itself quite accurate. But it is just at this point, of course, that our doubts begin. It is inherently improbable that the apostles, i.e., the twelve together with Paul, appointed the other "apostles" (in the wider sense of the word) collectively; besides, it is contra­dicted by positive evidence to the contrary,' and Theodore's statement of it may be very simply explained as due to the pre- . conceived opinion that everything must ultimately run back to the apostles' institution. Further, the idea of each province having an apostle-bishop set over it is a conjecture which is based on no real evidence, and is contradicted by all that we know of the universal ecclesiastical nature of the apostolic office. Finally, we cannot check the statement which would bind up the right of ordination exclusively with the office of the apostle-bishop. In all these respects Theodore seems to have introduced into his sketch of the primitive churches' organization features which were simply current in his own day, as well as hazardous hypotheses. Moreover, we can still show how slender are the grounds on which his conjectures rest. Unless I am mistaken, he has nothing at his disposal in the shape of materials beyond the traditional idea, drawn from the pastoral epistles, of the position occupied by Timothy and Titus in the church, as well as the ecclesiastical notices and legends of the work of John in Asia.' All this he has generalized, evolving therefrom the

\1/Compare the remarks of Paul and the Didache upon apostles, prophets, and teachers. The apostles are appointed by God or " the Spirit."

2 It is ever, probable that he has particularly in mind, along with Tit. i. 5 f. and I Tim. iii. I f., the well-known passage in Clenm. Alex., Quis Dives Salvelu, (cp. Eus., H.E., III. xxiii.), since his delineation of the tasks pertaining to the

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 449

conception of a general appointment of "apostles" who are equivalent to "provincial bishops."' "Apostles" are equivalent "provincial bishops"; such is Theodore's conception, and the conception is a fantasy. Whether it contains any kernel of historical truth, we shall see later on. Meantime we must, in the first instance, follow up Theodore's statements a little further.

He is right in recognizing that any survey of the origin of the church's organization must be based upon the apostles and their missionary labours. We may add, the organization which arose during the mission and in consequence of the mission, would attempt to maintain itself even after local authorities and institu­tions had been called into being which asserted rights of their own. But the distinctive trait in Theodore's conception consists in the fact that he knows absolutely nothing of any originally constituted rights appertaining to local authorities. He has no eyes for all that the New Testament and the primitive Christian writings, as a whole, contain upon this point ; for even here, on his view, everything must have flowed from some apostolic injunction or concession-i.e., from above to below. He adduces, no doubt, tl " weakness " of the " apostles " in the second generation­ which is quite a remarkable statement, based on the cessation of miraculous gifts.² But it was in virtue of their own resolve that the, apostles withdrew from the scene, distributing their

[[449b]] apostle-bishop coincides substantially with what is narrated of the work of John in that passage (§ 6 - ihrou µhy &t(rκ67rovs KwπαoT4to •w Y, htrou 80 IAas IKKAtlaίαs apfl4owy, IS7rau 51 KAJprp 9ya .y TLYa KAtjpoLOws'Tay Utr? TOV 7rVEUµaTOS o'71 LαLνOµsYwy

" Appointing bishops in some quarters, arranging the affairs of whole churches other quarters, and elsewhere selecting for the ministry some one of those indicated by the Spirit" ; cp. also the description of how John dealt with a

difficult case).

\1/Clem. Rom. xl. f. cannot have been present to his mind, for his remarkable and ingenious idea of the identity of "apostles" and "provincial bishops" would have been shattered by a passage in which it is quite explicitly asserted that the

apostles κaTa _xeoper Kαl 7r6AElς 001P60-oowTES Kαl TOUS r 1rαKο6ovTes TIJ souAfiOEI Toil 6Eoi $αirT(SOVTES Ke8ISTαvos Taς atrapxaς akroy, aOKLfs O'eVTES Tip ,YE6fAaT,, GS

&0KdirοVS Kal araK6yous Try fAEAA6νTws irLO'Te4eryv (see above, p. 434), while xlii.

escribes a succession, not of apostles one after another, but of bishops.

\2/ It seems inevitable that we should take Theodore as holding that the cessa­of the miraculous power hitherto wielded by the apostles was a divine indica­tion that they were now to efface themselves.-It was a widely spread conviction (see Origen in several passages, which Theodore read with care) that the apostolic

450 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

power to other people ; for only there could the local church's authority originate! Such is his theory ; it is extremely in­genious, and dominated throughout by a magical conception of the apostolate. The local church-authority (or the monarchical and supreme episcopate) within the individual community owed its origin to the "apostolic " provincial authority, by means of a conveyance of power. During the lifetime of the apostles it was quite in a dependent position. Even after their de­parture, the supreme episcopal authority did not emerge at once within each complete community. On the contrary, says Theodore, it was only two or three towns in every province which at the outset possessed a bishop of their own (i.e., in the new sense of the term " bishop "). Not until a later date, and even then only by degrees, were other towns and even villages added to these original towns, while in the majority of provinces throughout the West the old state of matters prevailed, says Theodore, till quite recently. In some provinces it prevails at present.'

This theory about the origin of the local monarchical episcopate baffles all discussions We may say without any hesitation that Theodore had no authentic foundation for it whatever. Even when he might seem to be setting up at least the semblance of historic trustworthiness for his identification of "apostles" with "provincial bishops," by his reference to Timothy, Titus, and John, the testimony breaks down entirely. We are forced to ask, Who were these retiring apostles ? What sources have we for our knowledge of their resignation? How do we learn of this conveyance of authority which they are declared to have executed? These questions, we may say quite plainly,

[[450b]] power of working miracles ceased at some particular moment in their history. The power of working miracles and the apostles' power of working miracles are not, however, identical.

\1/Theodore seems to regard this original state of matters as the ideal. At any rate, he expresses his dislike for the village-episcopacy.

\2/ All the more so that Theodore goes into the question of how the individual community was ruled at first (whether by some local council or by a single presbyter-bishop). He says nothing, either, of the way in which the monarchical principle was reached in the individual community. We seem shut up to the

conjecture that in his view the individual communities were ruled by councils for several generations.

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 451

Theodore ought to have felt in duty bound to answer; for in what sources can we read anything of the matter? It was not without reason that Theodore veiled even the exact time at which this great renunciation took effect. We can only suppose that it was conceived to have occurred about the year :100 A.D 1'

At the same time there is no reason to cast aside the state­tnents of Theodore in toto. They start a whole set of questions to which historians have not paid sufficient attention, questions relating to the position of bishops in the local church, territorial or provincial bishops (if such there were), and metropolitans. To state the problem more exactly : Were there territorial (or provincial) bishops in the primitive Period? And was the territorial bishop perhaps older than the bishop of the local, church? Furthermore, did the two disparate systems of organization denoted by these offices happen to rise simultaneously, coming to terms with each other only at a later period ? Finally, was the metropolitan office, which is not visible till the second half of the second century, originally an older creation ? Can it have been merely the sequel of an earlier monarchical office which prevailed in the ecclesiastical provinces ? These questions are of vital moment to the history of the extension of Christianity, and in fact to the statistics of primitive Christianity ; for, sup­posing that it was the custom in many provinces to be content with one or two or three bishoprics for several generations, it would be impossible to conclude from the small number of bishoprics in certain provinces that Christianity was only scantily represented in these districts. The investigation of this question is all the more pressing, as Duchesne has recently (Pastes episcopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, i., 1894, pp. 86 f.) gone into it, referring -- ­although with caution -- to the statements of Theodore, and deducing far-reaching conclusions with regard to the organization of the churches in Gaul. We shall require, in the first instance,

¹ Theodore adduces but one "proof" for his assertion that originally there Were only two or three bishoprics in every province. He refers to the situation in the West as this had existed up till recently, and as it still existed in some

quarters. But the question is whether he has correctly understood the circum­stances of the case, and whether these circumstances can really be linked on to what is alleged to have taken place about the year zoo.

452 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

to make ourselves familiar with his propositions' (pp. 1-59). I give the main conclusion in his own words.

P. 32: "Dans les pays situes a, quelque distance de la Medi­terranee et de la basse valle'e du Rhone, it ne s'est fonde aucune eglise (Lyon exceptee) avant le milieu du IIIe siecle environ."

 
Pp. 38 f.: " Il en resulte que, dans 1'ancienne Gaule celtique, avec ses grandes subdivisions en Belgique, Lyonnaise, Aquitaine et Germanie, une seule eglise existait au Ile siecle, celle de Lyon . .. . ce que nos documents nous apprennent, c'est que 1'eglise de Lyon etait, en dehors de la Narbonnaise, non la premiere, mais la seule. Tous les chretiens epars depuis le Rhin jusqu' auz' Pjjrendes ² ne formaient qu'une seule communaute ; ils reconnais­saient un chef unique, l'dveque de Lyon."

P. 59: "Avant la fin du IIIe siecle-sauf toujours la region du bas Rhone et de la Mediterranee-peu d'eveches en Gaule et cela seulement dans les villes les plus importantes, A 1'origine, au premier siecle chretien pour notre pays (150-250), une seule eglise, celle de Lyon, reunissant dans un meme cercle d'action et de direction tous les groupes chretiens epars dans. les diverses provinces de la Celtique."

Duchesne reaches this conclusion by means of the following observations :­

1. No reliable evidence for a single Gallic bishopric, apart from that of Lyons, goes back beyond the middle of the third century.³ Nor do the episcopal lists, so far as they are relevant in this connection, take us any farther back. Verus of Vienne, e.g., who was present at the council of Arles in 314 A.n., is counted as the fourth bishop in these lists; which implies that the bishopric of Vienne could hardly have been founded before ± 250 A.D.

1 Duchesne, be it observed, only draws these conclusions for Gaul, nor has he yet said his last word upon the other provinces. I have reason to believe that his

verdict and my own are not very different ; hence in what follows I am attacking, not himself, but conclusions which may be drawn from his statements.

s The mention of the Pyrenees shows that Duchesne includes Aquitania and the extreme S.W. of France in the province of which Lyons is said to have formed the only bishopric.

s Arles alone was certainly in existence before 250 A. D., as the correspondence of Cyprian proves. But Arles lay in the provincia Narbonensis, which is excluded from our present purview.

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 453

2. The heading of the well-known epistle from Vienne and Lyons (Eus., H.E., v. 1) runs thus : of ev Btevvp Kai Aovy8ovvw J1c tag 7rapotKOVVTes So9Xoc Xpta-t oii (" the servants of Christ sojourning at Vienne and Lyons"). This heading re­sembles others, such as _i e KXila-ia T0i Oeou st aapOLKovaua `Puitcr;V, or Koptv&ov, 43LXi7rarouc, E,uupvav, etc. (" the church of God sojourning at Rome, Corinth, Philippi, Smyrna_'" etc.), and consequently represents both churches as a unity-at least upon that reading of the words which first suggests itself.'

3. In this epistle " Sanctus, deacon from Vienne, is mentioned -a phrase which would hardly be intelligible if it alluded to one of the-deacons of the bishop of Vienne, but which is per­fectly natural if Sanctus was the deacon who managed the i uchoate church of Vienne, as a delegate of the Lyons bishop. In that event Vienne had no bishop of its own.

4. Irenaeus in his great. work speaks of churches in Germany and also among the Iberians, the Celts, and the Libyans. Now it is a well-established fact that there were no organized churches, when he wrote, in Germany (i.e., in the military province, for free Germany is out of the question). When Irens us speaks of churches, lie must therefore mean churches which were not episcopal churches.²

5. Theodore testifies that till quite recently there had been only two or three bishops in the majority of the Western provinces, and that this state of matters still lasted in one or two of them. Now, as a large number of bishoprics can be. shown to have existed in southern and middle Italy, as well as in Africa, we are thrown back upon the other countries of the West. Strictly speaking, it is true, Theodore's evidence only covers his own period ; but it fits in admirably with our first four arguments, and it is in itself quite natural, that bishoprics were less numerous in the earlier than in the later

period.

1 Certainly this argument is advanced with some caution (p. 40) : " Cette formule semble plutOt designer un groupe ecclesiastique que deux groupes ayant chacun son organization distincte : en tout cas, elle n'offre rien de contraire it l'indistinction

des deux eglises."

z It is in this way, I believe, that Duchesne's line of argument must be taken (pp. 4o f.). But its trend is not quite clear to my mind.

454 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

6. Eusebius mentions a letter from "the parishes in Gaul over which Irenaeus presided" (Twv KaTa UaXX1av 7raporKtwv ds Eipgvaios 67reo^-KO7rec, H.E., v. 23). Now although, 7rapouKla usually means the diocese of a bishop, in which sense Eusebius actually employs it in this very chapter, we must nevertheless attach another meaning to it here. "Le verbe E7rto'KO7reIv ne saurait s'entendre d'une simple presidence comtne serait celle d'un metropolitain a la tete de son concile. Cette derniere ' situation est vise dans le meme passage d'Eusebe ; en parlant de 1'eveque Theophile, qui pr6sida celui du Pont, it se sert de 1'expression 7rpouTeraKTO." In the present instance, then, 7rapotKiat denote "groupes detaches, disperses, dune meme grande eglise "-" plusieurs groupes de chretiens, epars sur divers points du territoire, un seul centre ecclesiastique, un seul eveque, celui de Lyon."

7. Analogous phenomena (i.e., the existence of only one bishop at first and for some time to come) occur also in other large provinces, but the proof of this would lead us too far afield.' Duchesne contents himself with adducing a single instance which is especially decisive. The anonymous anti­Moutanist who wrote in 192-193 A.D. (Eus., HT:., v. 16) relates how on reaching Ancyra in Galatia he found the Pontic church (Ti,v Kara Ilov"OV eKKar/a •i av) absorbed and carried away by the

new prophecy. Now Ancyra does not lie in Pontus, and-" ce West pas des nouvelles de 1'eglise du Pont qu'il a eues a Ancyre, c'est ''eglise elle-7neme, ''eglise du Pont, qu'il y a reneontree." Hence it follows in all likelihood ² that the church of Pontus had still its " chef-lieu " in Ancyra during the reign of Septimius

Severus (c. 200 A.D.).³

8. The extreme slowness with which bishoprics increased in

¹ P. 42: "D'autres eglises que celle de Lyon ont eu d'abord un cercle de rayonnement tres etendu et ne se sont en quelque sorte subdivis6es qu'apres une indivision d'assez longue duree. Je ne veux pas entrer ici dans l'hittoire de l' vangelization de ''empire romain : cela m'entrainerait beaucoup trop loin. Il me serait facile de trouver en Syrie, en tgypte et ailleurs des termes de compar­aison assez interessants. Je les neglige pour me borner ii un seul exemple," etc.

2 Duchesne also mentions the allusions to Christians in Pontus which we find in Gregory Thaumaturgus.

³ This is the period, therefore, in which Duchesne places the anonymous anti­Montanist. In my opinion, it is rather too late.

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 455

Gaul is further corroborated by the council of Arles (314 A.D.), at which four provinces (la Germaine I., la Sequanaise, les es et Pennines, les Alpes Maritimes) were unrepresented. may be assumed that as yet they contained no autonomous churches whatever.'

Before examining these arguments in favour of the hypothesis that episcopal churches were in existence, which covered wide regions and a.number of. cities, and in fact several provinces together, let me add a further series of statements which appear also to tell in favour of it.

(1) Paul writes . . . . T[l eKKXga'lq. Toy Oeoy Tel outrtl eV Kopiv9W (TV, Tots ayiotc 7raa'ty Tots ovo-ty ⁷ev oan -r5 AXa'ca (2 Cor. i. 1).

(2) In the Ignatian epistles (c. 115 A.D.) not only is Antioch called n e'1' Evpi a.eKKXfTt a (" the church in Syria," Rom. ix., Magn. xiv., Trail. xiii.) absolutely, but Ignatius even describes himself as "the bishop of Syria" (ti e7rlo-KO7ros Euplac, Rom. ii.).

(3) Dionysius of Corinth writes a letter " to the church sojourning at Gortyna, with the rest of the churches in Crete,

  commending Philip their bishop" (Tj leKKAgala Til 7rapotKOUa'p fopTVVav dµa Tars Xot7rats KaTa Kp7/T)ly, ~lXt7r7rov e7rlTKOWOV aurwv a7ro&&X6uevoc.-Eus., HE., iv. 23. 5).

16

(4) The same author (op. cit., iv. 23. 6) writes a letter to the church sojourning in Amastris, together with those in Pontus, in which he alludes to Bacchylides and Elpistus as having incited him to write . . . . and mentions their bishop Palmas by name" (Tr eKKXgada Tp 7rapoucouo •p 'AµaTTpty dµa Tars KaTa IIoVTOV, BaKXuXidov µev Ka't 'EX7rio •T ov wTav alTOV E7rt To ypa*at 7rpoTpe*avTwv ^{µeltvgµevos} . . . e'rlo-KO7rov

·                   vrwv ovouaTt IlaXp.av v7rocTgaaivwv).

1 A counter-argument is noticed by Duchesne. In Cypr., Ep. lxviii., we are told that Faustinus, the bishop of Lyons, wrote to Stephen the pope (c. 254 A.D.), not only in his own name but in that of " the rest of my fellow-bishops who hold office in the same province" ("ceteri coepiscopi nostri in eadem provincia con­stituti "). Duchesne admits that the earliest of the bishoprics (next to that of Lyons) may have been already in existence throughout the provincia Lugdunensis, but he considers that it is more natural to think of bishops on the lower Rhone and on the Mediterranean, i.e., in the provincia Narbonesis, which had had bishops

for a long while.

456 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

(5) In Eus., H.E., iii. 4. 6, we read that "Timothy is stated indeed to have been the first to obtain the episcopate of the parish in Ephesus, just as Titus did over the churches in Crete" ;

(TlµoOeos ye µiv rig ev 'Eoeo-cu 7rapotKias io'TOpetTat 7rpwTos Tr7v e7rto'KO7ri,v et'X77Xevat, iug Kai TLTOS Twv earl Kp75T)7s eKKX770'lwv).

(6) " In the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, Irenaeus sent despatches," etc. (o Eip77vaioc eK 7rpo (T w7rou

wv 7; _y ecTO KaTa Tl ^' 76 FaXXiav adeXOwy s7rto-TeAas, Eus., H.E., v. 24, 11); cp. vi. 46: Alovvolos TOis KaTa 'Apµeviav adeXoois eirt0'TeXXez, coy e'7re0 •K 07reue Mepou~av77s (" Dionysius despatched

a letter to the brethren in Armenia over whom Merozanes presided ").

(7) "Demetrius had just then obtained the episcopate over the parishes in Egypt, in succession to Julian " (Twv 8e ev

AiyU'irTw 7rapocKLwv Ti7v 6710 ^- KO7rJIV V60)0 ^- Tl TO'Te µeTa ^' IOVXIUVOU

A7ya77Tptos U'7r€LXijoei-Eus., H.E., vi. 2. 2).

(8) " Xystus . . . . was over the church of Rome, Demetri­anus . . . . over that of Antioch, Firmilianus over Caesarea in Cappadocia, and besides these Gregory and his brother Athenodorus over the churches in Pontus" (7-;7s tiev `Pwµaiwv

eKKX77O-las .... Z U0-ros, -rig 8e eir' 'A6TtoXeiac . . . . A77µ,7Tpl­avos, 4'lpµlXlavos 8e Katoapelac Ti7q Ka7r7ra8orcwv, Kai eir't TOUTOIS ^- raw Ka'ra HO6TOV eKKXflO •t wv I ^' p?jyoptos Kal O TOVTOu a6eX0s 'AOrjvo8wpoc.-Eus., H.E., vii. 14).

(9) "Firmilianus was bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Gregory and his brother Athenodorus were pastors of the parishes in Pontes, and besides these Helenus of the parish in

Tarsus, with Nicomas of Iconium," etc. ( 4)^, lpµiXtavos µe6 Ti7s

Ka w ?ra8oKwv KawTapeias e7ri0'K'o7ros ?I v, I'p77yoptos 8e Kai 'A.O77vo&wpoc adeXq)oi TOW KaTa Ilov'rov 7rapoLKtwv 7rotµeves, Kai e7rt TOUTOIS^NEXevos 7* Jv Tapo •( P 7rapOlKlas, Kai Ntrcoµas T>)s ev

'I,coviw, etc.-Eus., H.E., vii. 28).

(10) "Meletius, bishop of the churches in Pontus" (MeXETtos

TW6 KaTa IIOVTOV eKKX770'iW6 e7rio^-KO7ror.-''us., H.E., vii. 32. 26).

(Ba(rtXei8r7s o Ka-ra Ti7v Ilevea7roXty 7rapojKwV e7rio •K O7ros.­

(12) Signatures to council of Nicaea (ed. Gelzer et socii)

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 457

" Calabria-Marcus of Calabria ; Dardania-Dacus of Mace­donia; Thessaly-Claudianus of Thessaly and Cleonicus of Thebes; Pannonia-Domnus of Pannonia; Gothia-Theophilus of Gothia ; Bosporus - Cadmus of Bosporus (KaXa/3piac

Alapicos K. - Aap8avias - Aalcos MaKe8ovias • - Oeoro •a Xiac ' iXau&avos 0., KXeovIKOs 0 /3wv.-IIavvovias' Aoµvos IL ^­ 1 ^' oTOiaS' 6eoq(Xos P.-Boo •T opou • Ka&µos B.).

(14) Sozomen (vii. 19) declares that the Scythians had only a single, bishop, although their country contained many towns (cp. also Theodoret, H.E., iv. 31, where Bretanio is called the high priest, of all the towns in Scythia).

On, 1. I note that Duchesne's first argument is an argument from silence. Besides, it must be added that we have no writings in which any direct notice of the early Gothic bishoprics could be expected, so that the argument from silence hardly seems worthy of being taken into account in this connection. The one absolutely reliable piece of evidence (Cypr., Ep. lxviii.) ²

for the history of the Gothic church, which reaches us from the middle of the third century, is certainly touched upon by

Duchesne, but he has not done it full justice. This letter of  Cyprian to the Roman bishop Stephen, which aims at persuading

the latter to depose Marcian, the bishop of Arles, who held to Novatian's ideas, opens with the words : " Faustinus, our colleague, residing at Lyons, has repeatedly sent me information which I know you also have received both from him and also from he rest of our fellow-bishops established in the same province" (`° Faustinus collega noster Lugduni consistens semel adque iterum mihi scripsit significans ea quae etiam vobis scio utique nuntiata tam ab eo quam a ceteris coepiscopis nostris in eadem

' Merely for the sake of completeness let me add that the Liber Prcedestinalus mentions "Diodorus episc. Cretensis" (xii.), "Dioscurus Cretensis episc." (xx.), Craton episc. Syrorum" (xxxiii.), "Aphrodisius Hellesponti episc." (xlvii.), ' ` Basilius episc. Cappadociae " (xlviii. ), " Zeno Syrorum episc." (L), and Theodotus Cyprius episc." (lvi. ).

2 See above, page 455.

provincia constitutis "). It is extremely unlikely that by "eadem provincia" here we are meant to understand the provincia Narbonensis. For, in the first place, Lyons did not lie in that province ; in the second place, had the bishops of Narbonensis been themselves opponents of Marcian and desirous of getting rid of him, Cyprian's letter would have been couched in different terms, and it would hardly have been necessary for the three great Western bishops of Lyons, Carthage, and Rome to have intervened ; thirdly, Cyprian writes in ch. ii. (" Quapropter facere to oportet plenissimas litteras ad coepiscopos nostros in Gallia constitutos, ne ultra Marcianum pervicacem et superbum . . . . collegio nostro insultare patiantur ") : "Wherefore it behoves you to write at great length to our fellow-bishops established in Gaul, not to tolerate any longer the wanton and insolent insults heaped by Marcian . . . . upon our assembly"; and. in ch. iii. (" Dirigantur in provinciam et ad plebem Arelate consistentem a to litterae quibus abstento Marciano alius in loco eius substituatur ") : " Let letters be sent by you to the province and to the people residing at Arles, to remove Marcian, and put another person in his place." Obviously, then, it is a question . here of two (or three) letters, i.e., of one addressed to the bishops of Gaul, and of a second (or even a third) addressed not only to the "plebs Arelate consistens," but also to the "provincia " (which can only mean the provincia Narbonensis, in which Arles lay). It follows from this that the "coepiscopi nostri in Gallia constituti" (ii.) are hardly to be identified with the bishops of Narbonensis, which leads to the further conclusion that these "_coepiscopi" are the bishops of the provincia Lugdunensis-a conclusion which in itself appears to be the most natural and obvious explanation of the passage. The provincia Lugdunensis thus had several bishops in the days of Cyprian, who were already gathered into one Synod,l and corresponded with Rome. We cannot make out from this passage how old these bishoprics were, but it is at any rate unlikely that all of them had just been founded. In this connection Duchesne also refers to the fact that bishop Verus of Vienne, who was present at the council

r This must be the meaning of Cyprian's phrase, " tam a Faustino quam a ceteris coepiscopis nostris in eadem provincia constitutis."

                                  ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 459

of Arles in 314, is counted in one ancient list as the fourth bishop of Vienne ; which makes the origin of the local bishopric fall hardly earlier than ± 250 A.D. But the list is not ancient. Besides, it is a questionable authority. And, even granting :hat it were reliable, it is quite arbitrary to assume a mean term of. eighteen years as the duration of an individual episcopate ; while, even supposing that such a calculation were accurate, it would simply follow that Vienne (although situated_. in the provincia Narbonensis, where even Duchesne admits tat bishoprics had been founded in earlier days) did not receive her

bishopric till later. No inference could be drawn from this regarding the town of Lyons.

 
On 2. Duchesne holds that the heading of the letter (in Eus., H.E., v. 1: of ev Btevvll Kat Aovy8ovt(P Tqs I'aXAiaq arapoucovvres BouXot TOO Xpto ^- TOV) seems to describe the Christians of Vienne and Lyons as if they were a single church. But if such were the case, one would expect Lyons to be put ;first, since it was Lyons and not Vienne which had a bishop. Besides, the letter does not speak of e'KKA'iviat or eKKA₇O"ia but .,of loiiAot XpwTov,, just as the, address of the letter mentions "the brethren in Asia and Phrygia" (oi KaTa riw 'ATiav Kai "pvyiav a6eX4)oi) and not "churches" at all. Hence nothing at all can be gathered from this passage regarding the organiza­tion of the local Christians. Though Vienne and Lyons belonged to different provinces, they lay very close together ; and as the same calamity had befallen the Christians of both places, one can quite understand how they write a letter in common on that subject.

On 3. "Their whole fury was aroused exceedingly against Sanctus the deacon from Vienne" (eveo-KrlV1eV , opyll ara(ra eGs ZayKTOV Tot ¹ StaKOVOV afro Btevvns). It is possible to take this, with Duchesne, as referring to a certain Sanctus who managed the inchoate church of Vienne as a delegate of the Lyons bishop. But the explanation is far from certain. This sense of aTo is unusual (though not intolerable),² and the words may quite well

¹ So, rightly, Schwartz.

  ²Cp. Eus., H.E., v. Ig : Alxws no(,rhwos'Io6A os R7rl AESEATOV ,OAWVEtas T7/s epgtefs b7rto,co7ros (" Aelius Publius Julius, bishop of Debeltum, a colony of

460 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

be rendered, "the deacon who came from Vienne" [sc. belonging to the church of Lyons].' But even supposing that Sanctus was described here as. the deacon of Vienne, it seems to me hasty and precarious to infer, with Duchesne, that Vienne had only a single deacon and no bishop (not even a presbyter) at all. Surely this is to build too much upon the article before StciKOVOV. Of course, it may be so ; we shall come back to this passage later on. Meantime, suffice it to say that the explicit descrip­tion of Pothinus in the letter as " entrusted with the bishopric of Lyons" (TIJv BLaKOViav Tits e7rLVKo7rsis Tics er' AovyBovvw vre'rrt0'Tevµevos), instead of as  "our bishop" or even " the bishop," does not tell in favour of the hypothesis that Lyons alone, and not Vienne, had a bishop at that period.

On 4. The passage from Iren., i. 10. f (Kai ouTe at eV I'epµavlats i8pvµevat EKKXsJc^-lal aXawc vrevrL(rTeuKavty I aXXws wapa&Lr5Oao'LV, ouTe ev TaLLc 'I,3LJplaLc, ore ev KeXTOis, ouTe KaTa 7-ac avaToXttc ov'Te ev AL-16r-r(0, ore e'v At/3v^' 1 oVTe at^' Kara ' o a TOY KOa aov iSpvµevat = Nor did the churches planted in Germany hold any different faith or tradition, any more than do those in Iberia or in Gaul or in the East or in Egypt or in Libya or in the central region of the world) remains neutral if we read it and interpret it very sceptically. The language affords no clue to the way in which the churches in Germany and among the Celts were organized. But the most obvious interpretation is that these "churches" were just as entire and complete in themselves as the churches of the East, of Egypt, of Libya, and of all Europe, which are mentioned with them on the samelevel. At any rate, nothing can be inferred from this passage in support of Duchesne's opinion. It is a pure " petitio principii " to hold that complete churches could not have existed in Germany.

[[460b]] Thrace"). The parallel, of course, is not decisive, as Julius was at a gathering in Phrygia when he penned these words.

I Cp. what immediately follows-" against Attalus a native of Pergamum " (els "ArreXov Ilepyaµgvbv rrp _y ipes), and also § 49 ('AXEjay&pos TnS, '3'pv~ µfu Tb yevos, lwrpbs Sb Tbv EacaTijµrjv=a certain Alexander, of Phrygian extraction, and a physician by profession). Neumann, in his Rom. Staat and die allSe,u. Kirche, i. (L8go), p. 30, writes thus: "As Sanctus, the deacon of Vienna, appears before the tribunal of the legate of Lyons, he must have been arrested in Lyons."

ORGANIZATION AND THE EPISCOPATE 461

On 5. No weight attaches to Theodore's evidence regarding the primitive age. Yet even he presupposes that after the exit of the " apostles " ( =provincial bishops) each separate province had two or three bishops of its own, while Duchesne would prove that the three Gauls had merely one bishop between them or about a hundred years.

On 6. At first sight, this argument seems to be particularly conclusive, but on a closer examination it proves untenable, and n fact turns round in exactly an opposite direction. The expression TIOV KaTa . . . . eIeo'KOVret cannot, we are told, be

understood to mean episcopal dioceses over which Irenaeus resided as.:metropolitan; it merely denotes scattered groups of Christians (though in the immediate context _n vrapoucla does mean an episcopal diocese), as ewto •K oireiv need only imply direct episcopal functions. Yet in H.E., vii. 26. 3, Eusebius describes Basilides as o KaTa Tijv IlevrawoXty orapoLKtwv eIrio •K ooros (see 11)), and Meletius. (H.E., vii. 302. 26 ; cp. (10)) as Twv Kara

;IIovrov eKKXno •L mv e,7rL0'KO7roS, and it is quite certain-even on the testimony of Eusebius himself-that there were several bishoprics at that period in Pentapolis and Pontus.' 'ETio-Ko'nroc

'Tupo1KUUV, therefore, denotes in this connection the position of naetropolitan,² and it is in this sense that erapouKlac e7rtO KOt7reiy

must also be understood with reference to Irenseus. The latter, Eusebius meant, was metropolitan of the episcopal dioceses in Gaul. So far from proving, then, that about 100 A.D. there was only one bishop in Gaul, our passage proves the existence of several bishops.³

  \1/In this very chapter Eusebius mentions the bishopric of Berenice in Pentapolis.

\2/On Eus., H.E., vi. 2. 2, see below (p. 462).

\3/Thus the expression used by Eusebius in H.E., V. 24. t t (a Elpsjvalos EK

,rpo7rb,rov rbv hyE&TO Ka & T>]v ra W av &5eX0cii b,r TTELJras-cp. (6)) is also to be

understood as a reference to the metropolitan rank of Irenseus, since it is
employed as a simple equivalent for the above expression in v. 23. Probst
(hirchliche Disziplin in den drei ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten, p. 97) and
other scholars even go the length of including Gallic bishops among the
OxE oi, an interpretation which is not necessary, although it is possible, and
is on one strong piece of evidence in the "parishes" of v. 23.-The outcome
of both passages relating to Irenseus and Gaul is that it is impossible to ascertain
whether the Meruzanes mentioned in H.E. vi. 46 as the bishop of the Armenian
brethren was the sole local bishop at that period or the metropolitan. See on (6).

462 MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY

On 7. This argument is quite untenable. The church of Pontus, we are told, had its episcopal headquarters in the Galatian Ancyra about 200 A.D. ! But about 190 A.D. it already had a metropolitan of its own, for Eusebius mentions a writing sent during the Paschal controversy by ¹¹ the bishops of Pontus over whom Palmas, as their senior, presided"" (Twv KaTa

IIOVTOV e7rt('Ko7rWV, WV IIaXµac wT apXawoTa-roc 7rpoaTeTaKTo, H.E., v. 23). How Duchesne could overlook this passage is all the more surprising, inasmuch as a little above he quotes from this very chapter. Besides, this Palmas, as we may learn from Dionysius of Corinth (in Eus., H.E., iv. 23. 6 ; see below, p. 463), seems to have stayed not in Ancyra but in Amastris. Further­more, in the passage in question To7rov (so Schwartz) must be read ¹ instead of IIovTov, despite the Syriac version. II0'VTOV is meaningless here, even if the territorial bishop of Pontus resided at that time in Ancyra. Thus it is not in Pontus, but in Phrygia and Gaul, that we hear of Montanist agitations, and, moreover, one could not possibly have got acquainted with the church of Pontus in Ancyra, even if the latter place had been the residence of that church's head. Can one get acquainted in Alexandria nowadays with the church of Abyssinia?

On 8. Duchesne's final argument proves nothing, because it is uncertain whether the four recent provinces mentioned here had still no bishops by 314 A.D. Nothing can be based on the fact that they were not represented at Arles, for the representa­tion of churches at the great synods was always an extremely haphazard affair. But even supposing that these provinces were still without bishops of their own, this proves nothing with regard to Lyons.

\I have added to Duchesne's reasons fourteen other passages which appear to favour his hypothesis. Three of these (6), (10), (11) have been already noticed under 6., and our conclusion was that they were silent upon provincial bishops, being concerned

^r npo0'pdTws yeyvtLeYos & ^' AylcVpg T1]s raXaTfas Kal KaTaAa$(JY T7)Y KaTa Td,OY (not ndyTOY) lKKA7llrfav V7rll TfS YEAS TaU'T71S . . . . +EYS07rpoj7lTEfas SlmreopYAs.

µ4'8y (" When I was recently at Ancyra in Galatia, I found the local church quite upset by this novel form . . . . of false prophecy"). KaTa nd,Toy is in one other passage of Eusebius a mistake for KaTa adwTa Td,rov (iv. _15. 2).

[[463]] rather with metropolitans. It remains for us to review briefly the other eleven.

there were bishoprics ^I in Syria, and indeed in the immediate vicinity of Antioch, c. 115 A.D. The bishop of Antioch called himself "bishop of Syria" on account of his -metropolitan position.

From Eus., H.E., iv. 23. 5-6, it would appear that there was only a single bishop (3), (4), in Crete and in Pontus c. 170 A.D., inasmuch as Dionysius of Corinth designates Philip as bishop of Gortyna and the rest of the churches in Crete, and Palmas bishop of Amastris and the churches of Pontus. But whether the expression be attributed to Dionysius himself, or ascribed, as is more likely, to Eusebius, the fact remains that the same collec­tion of the letters of Dionysius contained one to the church of Cnossus in Crete, or to its bishop Pinytus (loc cit., § 7), whi