The foundations of the faith—whose abridged form was, on the one hand, the confession of the one true God, μονος αλεθινος θεος,[175] and of Jesus, the Lord, the Son of God, the Saviour[176] and also of the Holy Spirit, and on the other hand, the confident hope of Christ's kingdom and the resurrection—were laid on the Old Testament interpreted in a Christian sense together with the Apocalypses,[177] and the progressively enriched traditions about Jesus Christ ('ε παροδοσις—'ο παραδοθεις λογος—'ο κανων της αληθειας or της παραδοσεως—'η πιστις—'ο κανων της πιστεως—'ο δοθεισα πιστις—το κηρυγμα—τα διδαγματα του χριστου—'η διδαχη—τα μαθηματα, or το μαθημα).[178] The Old Testament revelations and oracles were regarded as pointing to Christ; the Old Testament itself, the words of God spoken by the Prophets, as the primitive Gospel of salvation, having in view the new people, which is, however, the oldest, and belonging to it alone.[179] The exposition of the Old Testament, which, as a rule, was of course read in the Alexandrian Canon of the Bible, turned it into a Christian book. A historical view of it, which no born Jew could in some measure fail to take, did not come into fashion, and the freedom that was used in interpreting the Old Testament,—so far as there was a method, it was the Alexandrian Jewish—went the length of even correcting the letter and enriching the contents.[180]
The traditions concerning Christ on which the communities were based, were of a twofold character. First, there were words of the Lord, mostly ethical, but also of eschatological content, which were regarded as rules, though their expression was uncertain, ever changing, and only gradually assuming a fixed form. The διδαγματα του χριστου are often just the moral commandments.[181] Second, the foundation of the faith, that is, the assurance of the blessing of salvation, was formed by a proclamation of the history of Jesus concisely expressed, and composed with reference to prophecy.[182] The confession of God the Father Almighty, of Christ as the Lord and Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit,[183] was at a very early period in the communities, united with the short proclamation of the history of Jesus, and at the same time, in certain cases, referred expressly to the revelation of God (the Spirit) through the prophets.[184] The confession thus conceived had not everywhere obtained a fixed definite expression in the first century (c. 50-150). It would rather seem that, in most of the communities, there was no exact formulation beyond a confession of Father, Son and Spirit, accompanied in a free way by the historical proclamation.[185] It is highly probable, however, that a short confession was strictly formulated in the Roman community before the middle of the second century,[186] expressing belief in the Father, Son and Spirit, embracing also the most important facts in the history of Jesus, and mentioning the Holy Church, as well as the two great blessings of Christianity, the forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the dead (αφεσις 'αμαρτιων, σαρκος αναστασις[187]). But, however the proclamation might be handed down, in a form somehow fixed, or in a free form, the disciples of Jesus, the (twelve) Apostles, were regarded as the authorities who mediated and guaranteed it. To them was traced back in the same way everything that was narrated of the history of Jesus, and everything that was inculcated from his sayings.[188] Consequently, it may be said, that beside the Old Testament, the chief court of appeal in the communities was formed by an aggregate of words and deeds of the Lord;—for the history and the suffering of Jesus are his deed: 'ο Ιησους 'υπεμεινεν παθειν, κ.τ.λ.—fixed in certain fundamental features, though constantly enriched, and traced back to apostolic testimony.[189]
The authority which the Apostles in this way enjoyed, did not, in any great measure, rest on the remembrance of direct services which the twelve had rendered to the Gentile Churches: for, as the want of reliable concrete traditions proves, no such services had been rendered, at least not by the twelve. On the contrary, there was a theory operative here regarding the special authority which the twelve enjoyed in the Church at Jerusalem, a theory which was spread by the early missionaries, including Paul, and sprang from the a priori consideration that the tradition about Christ, just because it grew up so quickly,[190] must have been entrusted to eye-witnesses who were commissioned to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, and who fulfilled that commission. The a priori character of this assumption is shewn by the fact that—with the exception of reminiscences of an activity of Peter and John among the εθνη, not sufficiently clear to us[191]—the twelve, as a rule, are regarded as a college, to which the mission and the tradition are traced back.[192] That such a theory, based on a dogmatic construction of history, could have at all arisen, proves that either the Gentile Churches never had a living relation to the twelve, or that they had very soon lost it in the rapid disappearance of Jewish Christianity, while they had been referred to the twelve from the beginning. But even in the communities which Paul had founded and for a long time guided, the remembrance of the controversies of the Apostolic age must have been very soon effaced, and the vacuum thus produced filled by a theory which directly traced back the status quo of the Gentile Christian communities to a tradition of the twelve as its foundation. This fact is extremely paradoxical, and is not altogether explained by the assumptions that the Pauline-Judaistic controversy had not made a great impression on the Gentile Christians, that the way in which Paul, while fully recognising the twelve, had insisted on his own independent importance, had long ceased to be really understood, and that Peter and John had also really been missionaries to the Gentiles. The guarantee that was needed for the "teaching of the Lord" must, finally, be given not by Paul, but only by chosen eye-witnesses. The less that was known about them, the easier it was to claim them. The conviction as to the unanimity of the twelve, and as to their activity in founding the Gentile Churches, appeared in these Churches as early as the urgent need of protection against the serious consequences of unfettered religious enthusiasm and unrestrained religious fancy. This urgency cannot be dated too far back. In correspondence therewith, the principle of tradition in the Church (Christ, the twelve Apostles) in the case of those who were intent on the unity and completeness of Christendom, is also very old. But one passed logically from the Apostles to the disciples of the Apostles, "the Elders," without at first claiming for them any other significance than that of reliable hearers (Apostoli et discentes ipsorum). In coming down to them, one here and there betook oneself again to real historical ground, disciples of Paul, of Peter, of John.[193] Yet even here legends with a tendency speedily got mixed with facts, and because, in consequence of this theory of tradition, the Apostle Paul must needs fall into the background, his disciples also were more or less forgotten. The attempt which we have in the Pastoral Epistles remained without effect, as regards those to whom these epistles were addressed. Timothy and Titus obtained no authority outside these epistles. But so far as the epistles of Paul were collected, diffused, and read, there was created a complex of writings which at first stood beside the "Teaching of the Lord by the twelve Apostles", without being connected with it, and only obtained such connection by the creation of the New Testament, that is, by the interpolation of the Acts of the Apostles, between Gospels and Epistles.[194]
§ 3. The Main Articles of Christianity and the Conceptions of Salvation. Eschatology.
1. The main articles of Christianity were (1) belief in God the δεσποτης, and in the Son in virtue of proofs from prophecy, and the teaching of the Lord as attested by the Apostles; (2) discipline according to the standard of the words of the Lord; (3) baptism; (4) the common offering of prayer, culminating in the Lord's Supper and the holy meal, (5) the sure hope of the nearness of Christ's glorious kingdom. In these appears the unity of Christendom, that is, of the Church which possesses the Holy Spirit.[195] On the basis of this unity Christian knowledge was free and manifold. It was distinguished as σοφια, συνεσις, επιστημε, γνωσις (των δικαιωματων), from the λογος θεου της πιστεως, the κλησις της επαγγελιας and the εντολαι της διδαχης (Barn. 16. 9, similarly Hermas). Perception and knowledge of Divine things was a Charism possessed only by individuals, but like all Charisms it was to be used for the good of the whole. In so far as every actual perception was a perception produced by the Spirit, it was regarded as important and indubitable truth, even though some Christians were unable to understand it. While attention was given to the firm inculcation and observance of the moral precepts of Christ, as well as to the awakening of sure faith in Christ, and while all waverings and differences were excluded in respect of these, there was absolutely no current doctrine of faith in the communities, in the sense of a completed theory, and the theological speculations of even closely related Christian writers of this epoch, exhibit the greatest differences.[196] The productions of fancy, the terrible or consoling pictures of the future pass for sacred knowledge, just as much as intelligent and sober reflections, and edifying interpretation of Old Testament sayings. Even that which was afterwards separated as Dogmatic and Ethics was then in no way distinguished.[197] The communities gave expression in the cultus, chiefly in the hymns and prayers, to what they possessed in their God and their Christ; here sacred formulæ were fashioned and delivered to the members.[198] The problem of surrendering the world in the hope of a life beyond was regarded as the practical side of the faith, and the unity in temper and disposition resting on faith in the saving revelation of God in Christ, permitted the highest degree of freedom in knowledge, the results of which were absolutely without control as soon as the preacher or the writer was recognised as a true teacher, that is, inspired by the Spirit of God.[199] There was also in wide circles a conviction that the Christian faith, after the night of error, included the full knowledge of everything worth knowing, that precisely in its most important articles it is accessible to men of every degree of culture, and that in it, in the now attained truth, is contained one of the most essential blessings of Christianity. When it is said in the Epistle of Barnabas (II. 2. 3); της πιστεως 'ημων εισιν βοηθοι φοβος και 'υπομονη, τα δε συμμαχουντα 'ημιν μακροθυμια και εγκρατεια; τουτων μενοντων τα προς κυριον 'αγνως, συνευφραινονται αυτοις σοφια, συνεσις, επιστημη, γνωσις, knowledge appears in this classic formula to be an essential element in Christianity, conditioned by faith and the practical virtues, and dependent on them. Faith takes the lead, knowledge follows it: but of course in concrete cases it could not always be decided what was λογος της πιστηως, which implicitly contained the highest knowledge, and what the special γνωσις; for in the last resort the nature of the two was regarded as identical, both being represented as produced by the Spirit of God.
2. The conceptions of Christian salvation, or of redemption, were grouped around two ideas, which were themselves but loosely connected with each other, and of which the one influenced more the temper and the imagination, the other the intellectual faculty. On the one hand, salvation, in accordance with the earliest preaching, was regarded as the glorious kingdom which was soon to appear on earth with the visible return of Christ, which will bring the present course of the world to an end, and introduce for a definite series of centuries, before the final judgment, a new order of all things to the joy and blessedness of the saints.[200] In connection with this the hope of the resurrection of the body occupied the foreground[201]. On the other hand, salvation appeared to be given in the truth, that is, in the complete and certain knowledge of God, as contrasted with the error of heathendom and the night of sin, and this truth included the certainty of the gift of eternal life, and all conceivable spiritual blessings.[202] Of these the community, so far as it is a community of saints, that is, so far as it is ruled by the Spirit of God, already possesses forgiveness of sins and righteousness. But, as a rule, neither blessing was understood in a strictly religious sense, that is to say, the effect of their religious sense was narrowed. The moralistic view, in which eternal life is the wages and reward of a perfect moral life wrought out essentially by one's own power, took the place of first importance at a very early period. On this view, according to which the righteousness of God is revealed in punishment and reward alike, the forgiveness of sin only meant a single remission of sin in connection with entrance into the Church by baptism,[203] and righteousness became identical with virtue. The idea is indeed still operative, especially in the oldest Gentile-Christian writings known to us, that sinlessness rests upon a new creation (regeneration) which is effected in baptism;[204] but, so far as dissimilar eschatological hopes do not operate, it is everywhere in danger of being supplanted by the other idea, which maintains that there is no other blessing in the Gospel than the perfect truth and eternal life. All else is but a sum of obligations in which the Gospel is presented as a new law. The christianising of the Old Testament supported this conception. There was indeed an opinion that the Gospel, even so far as it is a law, comprehends a gift of salvation which is to be grasped by faith νομος ανευ ζυγου αναγκης,[205] νομος τ. ελευθεριας,[206] Christ himself the law;[207] but this notion, as it is obscure in itself, was also an uncertain one and was gradually lost. Further, by the "law" was frequently meant in the first place, not the law of love, but the commandments of ascetic holiness, or an explanation and a turn were given to the law of love, according to which it is to verify itself above all in asceticism.[208]
The expression of the contents of the Gospel in the concepts επαγγελια (ζωη αιωνιος) γνωσις (αληθεια) νομος (εγκρατεια), seemed quite as plain as it was exhaustive, and the importance of faith which was regarded as the basis of hope and knowledge and obedience in a holy life, was at the same time in every respect perceived.[209]
Supplement 1.—The moralistic view of sin, forgiveness of sin, and righteousness, in Clement, Barnabas, Polycarp and Ignatius, gives place to Pauline formulæ; but the uncertainty with which these are reproduced, shews that the Pauline idea has not been clearly seen.[210] In Hermas, however, and in the second Epistle of Clement, the consciousness of being under grace, even after baptism, almost completely disappears behind the demand to fulfil the tasks which baptism imposes.[211] The idea that serious sins, in the case of the baptised, no longer should or can be forgiven, except under special circumstances, appears to have prevailed in wide circles, if not everywhere.[212] It reveals the earnestness of those early Christians and their elevated sense of freedom and power; but it might be united either with the highest moral intensity, or with a lax judgment on the little sins of the day. The latter, in point of fact, threatened to become more and more the presupposition and result of that idea—for there exists here a fatal reciprocal action.
Supplement 2.—The realisation of salvation—as βασιλεια του θεου and as αφθαρσια—being expected from the future, the whole present possession of salvation might be comprehended under the title of vocation (κλησις) see, for example, the second Epistle of Clement. In this sense gnosis itself was regarded as something only preparatory.
Supplement 3.—In some circles the Pauline formula about righteousness and salvation by faith alone, must, it would appear, not infrequently (as already in the Apostolic age itself) have been partly misconstrued, and partly taken advantage of as a cloak for laxity. Those who resisted such a disposition, and therefore also the formula in the post-Apostolic age, shew indeed by their opposition how little they have hit upon or understood the Pauline idea of faith: for they not only issued the watchword "faith and works" (though the Jewish ceremonial law was not thereby meant), but they admitted, and not only hypothetically, that one might have the true faith even though in his case that faith remained dead or united with immorality. See, above all, the Epistle of James and the Shepherd of Hermas; though the first Epistle of John comes also into consideration (III. 7: "He that doeth righteousness is righteous").[213]