ADDENDA.
I. THE PRIESTHOOD. The completion of the old Catholic conception of the Church, as this idea was developed in the latter half of the third century, is perhaps most clearly shown in the attribute of priesthood, with which the clergy were invested and which conferred on them the greatest importance.[259] The development of this conception, whose adoption is a proof that the Church had assumed a heathen complexion, cannot be more particularly treated of here.[260] What meaning it has is shown by its application in Cyprian and the original of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions (see Book II.). The bishops (and also the presbyters) are priests, in so far as they alone are empowered to present the sacrifice as representatives of the congregation before God[261] and in so far as they dispense or refuse the divine grace as representatives of God in relation to the congregation. In this sense they are also judges in God's stead.[262] The position here conceded to the higher clergy corresponds to that of the mystagogue in heathen religions, and is acknowledged to be borrowed from the latter.[263] Divine grace already appears as a sacramental consecration of an objective nature, the bestowal of which is confined to spiritual personages chosen by God. This fact is no way affected by the perception that an ever increasing reference is made to the Old Testament priests as well as to the whole Jewish ceremonial and ecclesiastical regulations.[264] It is true that there is no other respect in which Old Testament commandments were incorporated with Christianity to such an extent as they were in this.[265] But it can be proved that this formal adoption everywhere took place at a subsequent date, that is, it had practically no influence on the development itself, which was not legitimised by the commandments till a later period, and that often in a somewhat lame fashion. We may perhaps say that the development which made the bishops and elders priests altered the inward form of the Church in a more radical fashion than any other. "Gnosticism," which the Church had repudiated in the second century, became part of her own system in the third. As her integrity had been made dependent on inalienable objective standards, the adoption even of this greatest innovation, which indeed was in complete harmony with the secular element within her, was an elementary necessity. In regard to every sphere of Church life, and hence also in respect to the development of dogma[266] and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, the priesthood proved of the highest significance. The clerical exposition of the sacred books, with its frightful ideas, found its earliest advocate in Cyprian and had thus a most skilful champion at the very first.[267]
II. SACRIFICE. In Book I., chap. III., § 7, we have already shown what a wide field the idea of sacrifice occupied in primitive Christendom, and how it was specially connected with the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The latter was regarded as the pure (i.e., to be presented with a pure heart), bloodless thank offering of which Malachi had prophesied in I. 11. Priesthood and sacrifice, however, are mutually conditioned. The alteration of the concept "priest" necessarily led to a simultaneous and corresponding change in the idea of sacrifice, just as, conversely, the latter reacted on the former.[268] In Irenæus and Tertullian the old conception of sacrifice, viz., that prayers are the Christian sacrifice and that the disposition of the believer hallows his whole life even as it does his offering, and forms a well-pleasing sacrifice to God, remains essentially unchanged. In particular, there is no evidence of any alteration in the notion of sacrifice connected with the Lord's Supper.[269] But nevertheless we can already trace a certain degree of modification in Tertullian. Not only does he give fasting, voluntary celibacy, martyrdom, etc., special prominence among the sacrificial acts of a Christian life, and extol their religious value—as had already been done before; but he also attributes a God-propitiating significance to these performances, and plainly designates them as "merita" ("promereri deum"). To the best of my belief Tertullian was the first who definitely regarded ascetic performances as propitiatory offerings and ascribed to them the "potestas reconciliandi iratum deum."[270] But he himself was far from using this fatal theory, so often found in his works, to support a lax Church practice that made Christianity consist in outward forms. This result did not come about till the eventful decades, prolific in new developments, that elapsed between the persecutions of Septimius and Decius; and in the West it is again Cyprian who is our earliest witness as to the new view and practice.[271] In the first place, Cyprian was quite familiar with the idea of ascetic propitiations and utilised it in the interest of the Catholicity of the Church; secondly, he propounded a new theory of the offering in the cultus. As far as the first point is concerned, Cyprian's injunctions with regard to it are everywhere based on the understanding that even after baptism no one can be without sin (de op. et cleemos. 3); and also on the firm conviction that this sacrament can only have a retrospective virtue. Hence he concludes that we must appease God, whose wrath has been aroused by sin, through performances of our own, that is, through offerings that bear the character of "satisfactions." In other words we must blot out transgressions by specially meritorious deeds in order thus to escape eternal punishment. These deeds Cyprian terms "merita," which either possess the character of atonements, or, in case there are no sins to be expiated, entitle the Christian to a special reward (merces).[272] But, along with lamentationes and acts of penance, it is principally alms-giving that forms such means of atonement (see de lapsis, 35, 36). In Cyprian's eyes this is already the proper satisfaction; mere prayer, that is, devotional exercises unaccompanied by fasting and alms, being regarded as "bare and unfruitful." In the work "de opere et eleemosynis" which, after a fashion highly characteristic of Cyprian, is made dependent on Sirach and Tobias, he has set forth a detailed theory of what we may call alms-giving as a means of grace in its relation to baptism and salvation.[273] However, this practice can only be viewed as a means of grace in Cyprian's sense in so far as God has accepted it, that is, pointed it out. In itself it is a free human act. After the Decian persecution and the rearrangement of ecclesiastical affairs necessitated by it, works and alms (opera et eleemosynæ) made their way into the absolution system of the Church, and were assigned a permanent place in it. Even the Christian who has forfeited his Church membership by abjuration may ultimately recover it by deeds of sacrifice, of course under the guidance and intercessory coöperation of the Church. The dogmatic dilemma we find here cannot be more clearly characterised than by simply placing the two doctrines professed by Cyprian side by side. These are:—(1) that the sinfulness common to each individual can only be once extirpated by the power of baptism derived from the work of Christ, and (2) that transgressions committed after baptism, inclusive of mortal sins, can and must be expiated solely by spontaneous acts of sacrifice under the guidance of kind mother Church.[274] A Church capable of being permanently satisfied with such doctrines would very soon have lost the last remains of her Christian character. What was wanted was a means of grace, similar to baptism and granted by God through Christ, to which the opera et eleemosynæ are merely to bear the relation of accompanying acts. But Cyprian was no dogmatist and was not able to form a doctrine of the means of grace. He never got beyond his "propitiate God the judge by sacrifices after baptism" ("promereri deum judicem post baptismum sacrificiis"), and merely hinted, in an obscure way, that the absolution of him who has committed a deadly sin after baptism emanates from the same readiness of God to forgive as is expressed in that rite, and that membership in the Church is a condition of absolution. His whole theory as to the legal nature of man's (the Christian's) relationship to God, and the practice, inaugurated by Tertullian, of designating this connection by terms derived from Roman law continued to prevail in the West down to Augustine's time.[275] But, during this whole interval, no book was written by a Western Churchman which made the salvation of the sinful Christian dependent on ascetic offerings of atonement, with so little regard to Christ's grace and the divine factor in the case, as Cyprian's work de opere et eleemosynis.
No less significant is Cyprian's advance as regards the idea of the sacrifice in public worship, and that in three respects. To begin with, Cyprian was the first to associate the specific offering, i.e., the Lord's Supper[276] with the specific priesthood. Secondly, he was the first to designate the passio dominis, nay, the sanguis Christi and the dominica hostia as the object of the eucharistic offering.[277] Thirdly, he expressly represented the celebration of the Lord's Supper as an incorporation of the congregation and its individual members with Christ, and was the first to bear clear testimony as to the special importance attributed to commemoration of the celebrators ("vivi et defuncti"), though no other can be ascertained than a specially strong intercession.[278] But this is really the essential effect of the sacrifice of the supper as regards the celebrators; for however much the conceptions about this ceremony might be heightened, and whatever additions might be made to its ritual, forgiveness of sins in the strict sense could not be associated with it. Cyprian's statement that every celebration of the Lord's Supper is a repetition or imitation of Christ's sacrifice of himself, and that the ceremony has therefore an expiatory value remains a mere assertion, though the Romish Church still continues to repeat this doctrine to the present day. For the idea that partaking of the Lord's Supper cleansed from sin like the mysteries of the Great Mother (magna mater) and Mithras, though naturally suggested by the ceremonial practice, was counteracted by the Church principles of penance and by the doctrine of baptism. As a sacrificial rite the Supper never became a ceremony equivalent in effect to baptism. But no doubt, as far as the popular conception was concerned, the solemn ritual copied from the ancient mysteries could not but attain an indescribably important significance. It is not possible, within the framework of the history of dogma, to describe the development of religious ceremonial in the third century, and to show what a radical alteration took place in men's conceptions with regard to it (cf. for example, Justin with Cyprian). But, in dealing with the history of dogma within this period, we must clearly keep in view the development of the cultus, the new conceptions of the value of ritual, and the reference of ceremonial usages to apostolic tradition; for there was plainly a remodelling of the ritual in imitation of the ancient mysteries and of the heathen sacrificial system, and this fact is admitted by Protestant scholars of all parties. Ceremonial and doctrine may indeed be at variance, for the latter may lag behind the former and vice versa, but they are never subject to entirely different conditions.
III. MEANS OF GRACE, BAPTISM, and EUCHARIST. That which the Western Church of post-Augustinian times calls sacrament in the specific sense of the word (means of grace) was only possessed by the Church of the third century in the form of baptism.[279] In strict theory she still held that the grace once bestowed in this rite could be conferred by no holy ceremony of equal virtue, that is, by no fresh sacrament. The baptised Christian has no means of grace, conferred by Christ, at his disposal, but has his law to fulfil (see, e.g., Iren. IV. 27. 2). But, as soon as the Church began to absolve mortal sinners, she practically possessed in absolution a real means of grace that was equally effective with baptism from the moment that this remission became unlimited in its application.[280] The notions as to this means of grace, however, continued quite uncertain in so far as the thought of God's absolving the sinner through the priest was qualified by the other theory (see above) which asserted that forgiveness was obtained through the penitential acts of transgressors (especially baptism with blood, and next in importance lamentationes, ieiunia, eleemosynæ). In the third century there were manifold holy dispensations of grace by the hands of priests; but there was still no theory which traced the means of grace to the historical work of Christ in the same way that the grace bestowed in baptism was derived from it. From Cyprian's epistles and the anti-Novatian sections in the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions we indeed see that appeal was not unfrequently made to the power of forgiving sins bestowed on the Apostles and to Christ's declaration that he received sinners; but, as the Church had not made up her mind to repeat baptism, so also she had yet no theory that expressly and clearly supplemented this rite by a sacramentum absolutionis. In this respect, as well as in regard to the sacramentum ordinis, first instituted by Augustine, theory remained far behind practice. This was by no means an advantage, for, as a matter of fact, the whole religious ceremonial was already regarded as a system of means of grace. The consciousness of a personal, living connection of the individual with God through Christ had already disappeared, and the hesitation in setting up new means of grace had only the doubtful result of increasing the significance of human acts, such as offerings and satisfactions, to a dangerous extent.
Since the middle of the second century the notions of baptism[281] in the Church have not essentially altered (see Vol. I. p. 206 ff.). The result of baptism was universally considered to be forgiveness of sins, and this pardon was supposed to effect an actual sinlessness which now required to be maintained.[282] We frequently find "deliverance from death," "regeneration of man," "restoration to the image of God," and "obtaining of the Holy Spirit." ("Absolutio mortes," "regeneratio hominis," "restitutio ad similitudinem dei" and "consecutio spiritus sancti") named along with the "remission of sins" and "obtaining of eternal life" ("remissio delictorum" and "consecutio æternitatis"). Examples are to be found in Tertullian[283] adv. Marc. I. 28 and elsewhere; and Cyprian speaks of the "bath of regeneration and sanctification" ("lavacrum regenerationis et sanctificationis"). Moreover, we pretty frequently find rhetorical passages where, on the strength of New Testament texts, all possible blessings are associated with baptism.[284] The constant additions to the baptismal ritual, a process which had begun at a very early period, are partly due to the intention of symbolising these supposedly manifold virtues of baptism,[285] and partly owe their origin to the endeavour to provide the great mystery with fit accompaniments.[286] As yet the separate acts can hardly be proved to have an independent signification.[287] The water was regarded both as the symbol of the purification of the soul and as an efficacious, holy medium of the Spirit (in accordance with Gen. I. 2; water and Spirit are associated with each other, especially in Cyprian's epistles on baptism). He who asserted the latter did not thereby repudiate the former (see Orig. in Joann. Tom. VI. 17, Opp. IV. p. 133).[288] Complete obscurity prevails as to the Church's adoption of the practice of child baptism, which, though it owes its origin to the idea of this ceremony being indispensable to salvation, is nevertheless a proof that the superstitious view of baptism had increased.[289] In the time of Irenæus (II. 22. 4) and Tertullian (de bapt. 18) child baptism had already become very general and was founded on Matt. XIX. 14. We have no testimony regarding it from earlier times; Clement of Alexandria does not yet assume it. Tertullian argued against it not only because he regarded conscious faith as a needful preliminary condition, but also because he thought it advisable to delay baptism (cunctatio baptismi) on account of the responsibility involved in it (pondus baptismi). He says: "It is more advantageous to delay baptism, especially in the case of little children. For why is it necessary for the sponsors" (this is the first mention of "godparents") "also to be thrust into danger?... let the little ones therefore come when they are growing up; let them come when they are learning, when they are taught where they are coming to; let them become Christians when they are able to know Christ. Why does an age of innocence hasten to the remission of sins? People will act more cautiously in worldly affairs, so that one who is not trusted with earthly things is trusted with divine. Whoever understands the responsibility of baptism will fear its attainment more than its delay."[290] To all appearance the practice of immediately baptising the children of Christian families was universally adopted in the Church in the course of the third century. (Origen, Comment, in ep. ad Rom. V. 9, Opp. IV. p. 565, declared child baptism to be a custom handed down by the Apostles.) Grown up people, on the other hand, frequently postponed baptism, but this habit was disapproved.[291]
The Lord's Supper was not only regarded as a sacrifice, but also as a divine gift.[292] The effects of this gift were not theoretically fixed, because these were excluded by the strict scheme[293] of baptismal grace and baptismal obligation. But in practice Christians more and more assumed a real bestowal of heavenly gifts in the holy food, and gave themselves over to superstitious theories. This bestowal was sometimes regarded as a spiritual and sometimes as a bodily self-communication of Christ, that is, as a miraculous implanting of divine life. Here ethical and physical, and again ethical and theoretical features were intermixed with each other. The utterances of the Fathers to which we have access do not allow us to classify these elements here; for to all appearance not a single one clearly distinguished between spiritual and bodily, or ethical and intellectual effects unless he was in principle a spiritualist. But even a writer of this kind had quite as superstitious an idea of the holy elements as the rest. Thus the holy meal was extolled as the communication of incorruption, as a pledge of resurrection, as a medium of the union of the flesh with the Holy Spirit; and again as food of the soul, as the bearer of the Spirit of Christ (the Logos), as the means of strengthening faith and knowledge, as a sanctifying of the whole personality. The thought of the forgiveness of sins fell quite into the background. This ever changing conception, as it seems to us, of the effects of partaking of the Lord's Supper had also a parallel in the notions as to the relation between the visible elements and the body of Christ. So far as we are able to judge no one felt that there was a problem here, no one enquired whether this relation was realistic or symbolical. The symbol is the mystery and the mystery was not conceivable without a symbol. What we now-a-days understand by "symbol" is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time "symbol" denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies; but, on the other hand, according to the ideas of that period, the really heavenly element lay either in or behind the visible form without being identical with it. Accordingly the distinction of a symbolic and realistic conception of the Supper is altogether to be rejected; we could more rightly distinguish between materialistic, dyophysite, and docetic conceptions which, however, are not to be regarded as severally exclusive in the strict sense. In the popular idea the consecrated elements were heavenly fragments of magical virtue (see Cypr., de laps. 25; Euseb., H. E. VI. 44). With these the rank and file of third-century Christians already connected many superstitious notions which the priests tolerated or shared.[294] The antignostic Fathers acknowledged that the consecrated food consisted of two things, an earthly (the elements) and a heavenly (the real body of Christ). They thus saw in the sacrament a guarantee of the union between spirit and flesh, which the Gnostics denied; and a pledge of the resurrection of the flesh nourished by the blood of the Lord (Justin; Iren. IV. 18. 4, 5; V. 2. 2, 3; likewise Tertullian who is erroneously credited with a "symbolical" doctrine[295]). Clement and Origen "spiritualise," because, like Ignatius, they assign a spiritual significance to the flesh and blood of Christ himself (summary of wisdom). To judge from the exceedingly confused passage in Pæd. II. 2, Clement distinguishes a spiritual and a material blood of Christ. Finally, however, he sees in the Eucharist the union of the divine Logos with the human spirit, recognises, like Cyprian at a later period, that the mixture of wine with water in the symbol represents the spiritual process, and lastly does not fail to attribute to the holy food a relationship to the body.[296] It is true that Origen, the great mysteriosophist and theologian of sacrifice, expressed himself in plainly "spiritualistic" fashion; but in his eyes religious mysteries and the whole person of Christ lay in the province of the spirit, and therefore his theory of the Supper is not "symbolical," but conformable to his doctrine of Christ. Besides, Origen was only able to recognise spiritual aids in the sphere of the intellect and the disposition, and in the assistance given to these by man's own free and spontaneous efforts. Eating and drinking and, in general, participation in a ceremonial are from Origen's standpoint completely indifferent matters. The intelligent Christian feeds at all times on the body of Christ, that is, on the Word of God, and thus celebrates a never ending Supper (c. Cels. VIII. 22). Origen, however, was not blind to the fact that his doctrine of the Lord's Supper was just as far removed from the faith of the simple Christian as his doctrinal system generally. Here also, therefore, he accommodated himself to that faith in points where it seemed necessary. This, however, he did not find difficult; for, though with him everything is at bottom "spiritual," he was unwilling to dispense with symbols and mysteries, because he knew that one must be initiated into the spiritual, since one cannot learn it as one learns the lower sciences.[297] But, whether we consider simple believers, the antignostic Fathers or Origen, and, moreover, whether we view the Supper as offering or sacrament, we everywhere observe that the holy ordinance had been entirely diverted from its original purpose and pressed into the service of the spirit of antiquity. In no other point perhaps is the hellenisation of the Gospel so evident as in this. To mention only one other example, this is also shown in the practice of child communion, which, though we first hear of it in Cyprian (Testim. III. 25; de laps. 25), can hardly be of later origin than child baptism. Partaking of the Supper seemed quite as indispensable as baptism, and the child had no less claim than the adult to a magical food from heaven.[298]
In the course of the third century a crass superstition became developed in respect to the conceptions of the Church and the mysteries connected with her. According to this notion we must subject ourselves to the Church and must have ourselves filled with holy consecrations as we are filled with food. But the following chapters will show that this superstition and mystery magic were counterbalanced by a most lively conception of the freedom and responsibility of the individual. Fettered by the bonds of authority and superstition in the sphere of religion, free and self-dependent in the province of morality, this Christianity is characterised by passive submission in the first respect and by complete activity in the second. It may be that exegetical theology can never advance beyond an alternation between these two aspects of the case, and a recognition of their equal claim to consideration; for the religious phenomenon in which they are combined defies any explanation. But religion is in danger of being destroyed when the insufficiency of the understanding is elevated into a convenient principle of theory and life, and when the real mystery of the faith, viz., how one becomes a new man, must accordingly give place to the injunction that we must obediently accept the religious as a consecration, and add to this the zealous endeavour after ascetic virtue. Such, however, has been the character of Catholicism since the third century, and even after Augustine's time it has still remained the same in its practice.