I. FIXING AND GRADUAL SECULARISING OF CHRISTIANITY AS A CHURCH
CHAPTER II
THE SETTING UP OF THE APOSTOLIC STANDARDS FOR ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITY. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.[20]
We may take as preface to this chapter three celebrated passages from Tertullian's "de præscriptione hæreticorum." In chap. 21 we find: "It is plain that all teaching that agrees with those apostolic Churches which are the wombs and origins of the faith must be set down as truth, it being certain that such doctrine contains that which the Church received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God." In chap. 36 we read: "Let us see what it (the Roman Church) has learned, what it has taught, and what fellowship it has likewise had with the African Churches. It acknowledges one God the Lord, the creator of the universe, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God the creator, born of the Virgin Mary, as well as the resurrection of the flesh. It unites the Law and the Prophets with the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles. From these it draws its faith, and by their authority it seals this faith with water, clothes it with the Holy Spirit, feeds it with the eucharist, and encourages martyrdom. Hence it receives no one who rejects this institution." In chap. 32 the following challenge is addressed to the heretics: "Let them unfold a series of their bishops proceeding by succession from the beginning in such a way that this first bishop of theirs had as his authority and predecessor some one of the Apostles or one of the apostolic men, who, however, associated with the Apostles."[21] From the consideration of these three passages it directly follows that three standards are to be kept in view, viz., the apostolic doctrine, the apostolic canon of Scripture, and the guarantee of apostolic authority, afforded by the organisation of the Church, that is, by the episcopate, and traced back to apostolic institution. It will be seen that the Church always adopted these three standards together, that is simultaneously.[22] As a matter of fact they originated in Rome and gradually made their way in the other Churches. That Asia Minor had a share in this is probable, though the question is involved in obscurity. The three Catholic standards had their preparatory stages, (1) in short kerygmatic creeds; (2) in the authority of the Lord and the formless apostolic tradition as well as in the writings read in the Churches; (3) in the veneration paid to apostles, prophets, and teachers, or the "elders" and leaders of the individual communities.
A. The Transformation of the Baptismal Confession into the Apostolic Rule of Faith.
It has been explained (vol. I. p. 157) that the idea of the complete identity of what the Churches possessed as Christian communities with the doctrine or regulations of the twelve Apostles can already be shown in the earliest Gentile-Christian literature. In the widest sense the expression, κανων τησ παραδοσεως (canon of tradition), originally included all that was traced back to Christ himself through the medium of the Apostles and was of value for the faith and life of the Church, together with everything that was or seemed her inalienable possession, as, for instance, the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. In the narrower sense that canon consisted of the history and words of Jesus. In so far as they formed the content of faith they were the faith itself, that is, the Christian truth; in so far as this faith was to determine the essence of everything Christian, it might be termed κανων της πιστεως, κανων της αληθειας (canon of the faith, canon of the truth).[23] But the very fact that the extent of what was regarded as tradition of the Apostles was quite undetermined ensured the possibility of the highest degree of freedom; it was also still allowable to give expression to Christian inspiration and to the intuition of enthusiasm without any regard to tradition.
We now know that before the violent conflict with Gnosticism short formulated summaries of the faith had already grown out of the missionary practice of the Church (catechising). The shortest formula was that which defined the Christian faith as belief in the Father, Son, and Spirit.[24] It appears to have been universally current in Christendom about the year 150. In the solemn transactions of the Church, therefore especially in baptism, in the great prayer of the Lord's Supper, as well as in the exorcism of demons,[25] fixed formulæ were used. They embraced also such articles as contained the most important facts in the history of Jesus.[26] We know definitely that not later than about the middle of the second century (about 140 A.D.) the Roman Church possessed a fixed creed, which every candidate for baptism had to profess;[27] and something similar must also have existed in Smyrna and other Churches of Asia Minor about the year 150, in some cases, even rather earlier. We may suppose that formulæ of similar plan and extent were also found in other provincial Churches about this time.[28] Still it is neither probable that all the then existing communities possessed such creeds, nor that those who used them had formulated them in such a rigid way as the Roman Church had done. The proclamation of the history of Christ predicted in the Old Testament, the κερυγμα της αληθειας, also accompanied the short baptismal formula without being expressed in set terms.[29]
Words of Jesus and, in general, directions for the Christian life were not, as a rule, admitted into the short formulated creed. In the recently discovered "Teaching of the Apostles" (Διδαχη των αποστολων) we have no doubt a notable attempt to fix the rules of Christian life as traced back to Jesus through the medium of the Apostles, and to elevate them into the foundation of the confederation of Christian Churches; but this undertaking, which could not but have led the development of Christianity into other paths, did not succeed. That the formulated creeds did not express the principles of conduct, but the facts on which Christians based their faith, was an unavoidable necessity. Besides, the universal agreement of all earnest and thoughtful minds on the question of Christian morals was practically assured.[30] Objection was not taken to the principles of morality—at least this was not a primary consideration—for there were many Greeks to whom they did not seem foolishness, but to the adoration of Christ as he was represented in tradition and to the Church's worship of a God, who, as creator of the world and as a speaking and visible being, appeared to the Greeks, with their ideas of a purely spiritual deity, to be interwoven with the world, and who, as the God worshipped by the Jews also, seemed clearly distinct from the Supreme Being. This gave rise to the mockery of the heathen, the theological art of the Gnostics, and the radical reconstruction of tradition as attempted by Marcion. With the freedom that still prevailed Christianity was in danger of being resolved into a motley mass of philosophic speculations or of being completely detached from its original conditions. "It was admitted on all sides that Christianity had its starting-point in certain facts and sayings; but if any and every interpretation of those facts and sayings was possible, if any system of philosophy might be taught into which the words that expressed them might be woven, it is clear that there could be but little cohesion between the members of the Christian communities. The problem arose and pressed for an answer: What should be the basis of Christian union? But the problem was for a time insoluble. For there was no standard and no court of appeal." From the very beginning, when the differences in the various Churches began to threaten their unity, appeal was probably made to the Apostles' doctrine, the words of the Lord, tradition, "sound doctrine", definite facts, such as the reality of the human nature (flesh) of Christ, and the reality of his death and resurrection.[31] In instruction, in exhortations, and above all in opposing erroneous doctrines and moral aberrations, this precept was inculcated from the beginning: απολιπωμεν τας κενας και ματαιας φροντιδας, και ελθωμεν επι τον ευκλεη και σεμνον της παραδοσεως 'ημων κανονα ("Let us leave off vain and foolish thoughts and betake ourselves to the glorious and august canon of our tradition"). But the very question was: What is sound doctrine? What is the content of tradition? Was the flesh of Christ a reality? etc. There is no doubt that Justin, in opposition to those whom he viewed as pseudo-Christians, insisted on the absolute necessity of acknowledging certain definite traditional facts and made this recognition the standard of orthodoxy. To all appearance it was he who began the great literary struggle for the expulsion of heterodoxy (see his συνταγμα κατα πασων των γεγενημενων 'αιρεσεων); but, judging from those writings of his that have been preserved to us, it seems very unlikely that he was already successful in finding a fixed standard for determining orthodox Christianity.[32]
The permanence of the communities, however, depended on the discovery of such a standard. They were no longer held together by the conscientia religionis, the unitas disciplinæ, and the fœdus spei. The Gnostics were not solely to blame for that. They rather show us merely the excess of a continuous transformation which no community could escape. The gnosis which subjected religion to a critical examination awoke in proportion as religious life from generation to generation lost its warmth and spontaneity. There was a time when the majority of Christians knew themselves to be such, (1) because they had the "Spirit" and found in that an indestructible guarantee of their Christian position, (2) because they observed all the commandments of Jesus (εντολαι Ιησου). But when these guarantees died away, and when at the same time the most diverse doctrines that were threatening to break up the Church were preached in the name of Christianity, the fixing of tradition necessarily became the supreme task. Here, as in every other case, the tradition was not fixed till after it had been to some extent departed from. It was just the Gnostics themselves who took the lead in a fixing process, a plain proof that the setting up of dogmatic formulæ has always been the support of new formations. But the example set by the Gnostics was the very thing that rendered the problem difficult. Where was a beginning to be made? "There is a kind of unconscious logic in the minds of masses of men when great questions are abroad, which some one thinker throws into suitable form."[33] There could be no doubt that the needful thing was to fix what was "apostolic," for the one certain thing was that Christianity was based on a divine revelation which had been transmitted through the medium of the Apostles to the Churches of the whole earth. It certainly was not a single individual who hit on the expedient of affirming the fixed forms employed by the Churches in their solemn transactions to be apostolic in the strict sense. It must have come about by a natural process. But the confession of the Father, Son, and Spirit and the kerygma of Jesus Christ had the most prominent place among these forms. The special emphasising of these articles, in opposition to the Gnostic and Marcionite undertakings, may also be viewed as the result of the "common sense" of all those who clung to the belief that the Father of Jesus Christ was the creator of the world, and that the Son of God really appeared in the flesh. But that was not everywhere sufficient, for, even admitting that about the period between 150 and 180 A.D. all the Churches had a fixed creed which they regarded as apostolic in the strict sense—and this cannot be proved,—the most dangerous of all Gnostic schools, viz., those of Valentinus, could recognise this creed, since they already possessed the art of explaining a given text in whatever way they chose. What was needed was an apostolic creed definitely interpreted; for it was only by the aid of a definite interpretation that the creed could be used to repel the Gnostic speculations and the Marcionite conception of Christianity.