All that happened subsequently—the mighty organizing work of great masters of charity, such as Basil of Cappadocian Cæsarea, and later of members of the monastic orders—was simply the development, the expansion, the application to individual needs of the primitive ordinances of the first days which we have been sketching out,—ordinances all founded upon the advice, the injunctions, the commands which we find in early Christian writings such as the Didaché, the 1st Epistle of Clement of Rome, the Apology of Aristides, the Shepherd of Hermas, the writings of Justin Martyr and Minucius Felix, and a very little later in the more elaborate works of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, and repeated in the first half of the third century by eminent teachers such as Origen and Cyprian of Carthage; all primarily based more or less exactly upon the words of the Lord Jesus and of His own immediate disciples.
In the primitive assemblies of the Christian Brotherhood these things formed the groundwork of the instructions and exhortations of the teachers and preachers, and were united with the dogma of the Atonement, with the tidings of immortality, the promises of bliss and eternal peace in the life beyond the grave.
Entering into one of these early assemblies held in an upper chamber or courtyard of a wealthy Christian brother, or in one of those dark and gloomy chambers of the catacombs, “we step,” as it has been well said, “into a whole world of sympathy and of love.”
VI
DIFFICULTIES IN ORDINARY LIFE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
But the rapt moments enjoyed by the men and women who met together in these primitive assemblies soon passed. The perfect realization of brotherhood, the sharing in the mystic Eucharist, the fervent prayers, the dwelling on the sunlit words of their Divine Master, the earnest and pressing injunctions to be generous in charity and almsgiving for the benefit of the forlorn and sick in their company, the feeling that the unseen presence of the Lord was all the while in their midst,—all these things contributed to the joy and gladness which permeated each little assembly; every one who assisted at one of these meetings could whisper in his or her heart the words of the “apostle” on the Mount of Transfiguration—“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
But when the gathering dispersed, a reaction must have quickly set in. From that atmosphere of sympathy, of love and hope, they passed at once into the cold, hard, busy world—into family life—into the workshop, the study, the barrack, and the Forum—all coloured with—permeated by that system of gross and actual idolatry which entered into every home, every trade and profession of the Roman Empire. What was to be their conduct? how were Christians to behave in a world wholly given up to an idolatry they knew was false, and utterly hateful to the Lord whose presence they had just left?
The difficulties of a believer’s life in the early Christian centuries must have been terrible; and it must be borne in mind that these difficulties were not occasional, but of daily, almost of hourly occurrence. To enumerate a few:
1. In the family, in domestic life. Consider the position of a Christian slave—of a son or daughter—of a wife—in a pagan family. What scenes of strain and estrangement if one member was a Christian and the household generally clung to the old Roman religion! The son or daughter might wish to be Christ’s disciple, and yet shrink from “hating father and mother, brothers and sisters.” What constant contests would the Christian have to endure—what bitter reproaches—what perpetual danger of giving way and so endangering the immortal soul! What share could the Christian member of a pagan family take in the ordinary business and pleasures of the everyday existence, to say nothing of the extreme peril to which a member of the sect would be constantly subject of being denounced as a Christian to the authorities, who were often too ready to listen to the informer?