The Transformation of Early Christianity from an Eschatological to a Socialized Movement / A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

by Lyford P. Edwards

"But scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its grave the existing order of oppression, when there arises another. Under the new system of suppression the ancient alliance between capital and unproductive labor is reestablished and at once inaugurates a new process better adapted to pervert the egoism of the productive laborers."[8]

The importance of this principle for the understanding of our subject cannot easily be overstated. The socialization of early Christianity proceeded in almost direct ratio to the number of 'unproductive' laborers coming over to it. If Christianity had had in the First Century, such an array of theologians, philosophers, apologists, statesmen, and intellectuals generally, as it had in the Fourth Century, there can be no reasonable doubt that its triumph would have been much more rapid and complete. On the other hand had the Pagan cults been able to show as numerous and as able a body of intellectual defenders in the Fourth Century as in the First, the success of the Church must have been much retarded. The declension of the artistic, literary, and general intellectual level of ancient, pagan civilization during the first three or four centuries of the Christian era is a fact so well known as to call for no remark. What is not perhaps, so well recognized is that during the very time that the pagan world presents an almost incredible degree of intellectual feebleness and sterility, the actual proportion of intellectually able men in society was remarkably great. Rome, never, perhaps in her whole history, had to her credit so many men of statesman-like ability as at the time her empire was falling to pieces. The explanation is simple. The men of genius and ability were no longer interested in the political fortunes of the pagan empire. They had gone over to a new allegiance, and expended in the foundation of the Catholic Church a degree of intelligence and ability which, had it been placed at the service of the Empire, might very conceivably have enabled that Empire to survive to this day.

It is certain that one of the leading causes of the collapse of the pagan cults was their increasing inability to command the support of the intellectual leaders in society, and it is no less true that the increasing success of the Church was to be ascribed to the ever larger number of men of intellectual gifts who enrolled themselves in her support. The fact, of course, is that Christianity offered increasingly an outlet for the expression of abilities and capacities of mind and soul such as no pagan cult could provide. The most superficial comparison of the intellectual forces for and against Christianity in the first century, with the corresponding array in the fourth or fifth centuries is sufficient to show the enormous progress made by the process of socialization in the interval.

Our more particular concern is, however, with the eschatological concepts. A comparison of the supporters and opponents of Chiliasm at different periods brings into clear view the rate of its decline. Without repeating what has been dealt with already,[9] it is sufficient to recall that in the first century Chiliasm had the support of men like St. Paul and the authors of the Gospels and other New Testament books, notably Revelation. Indeed, as far as we can judge, every intellectual leader of the Christian movement for nearly a century supported the apocolyptic concepts. But as time went on the proportionate number and ability of its defenders declines. Finally in the person of Origen in the East and Augustine in the West we find the undisputed intellectual leaders turning the whole intellectual class against it, and so bringing about its overthrow.

Still another sociological principle of high importance because of its pervasiveness and ubiquity is that propounded by Prof. Veblen in what is perhaps the best known of American works on sociology.[10] This principle, which may be summed up by the words Conspicuous Honorific Consumption, is that beliefs and customs, in order to establish themselves and to survive as socially reputable, must involve their holders in purely honorific consumption of time and economic goods. This consumption may be, and in fact very largely is, vicarious. In this case the functionaries of the vicarious extravagance must be distinguished from their masters by the introduction of the element of personal inconvenience into the performance of their functions.

Of the various sociological principles, so far brought to our attention this one of Conspicuous Honorific Consumption gives us what is probably the most useful clew to follow for the understanding of the relatively rapid decline and the immediately subsequent social disrepute of the eschatological elements in early Christianity. No set of theological concepts can be easily imagined which are more antagonistic to the canon of honorific, conspicuous consumption than are the eschatological ones.

But the principle of the reputability of waste is so intercalated into every form of social usage; it plays so large a part in all moral, religious, literary, artistic, political, military, and other judgments, that in a society like that of the Roman Empire where pecuniary emulation and invidious comparison were the forms taken by the 'instinct of workmanship'—the propensity for achievement—no set of beliefs or observances which ran counter to this principle could, in a prolonged contest, stand the smallest chance of success.

In this respect, early Christianity was the more unequal to the struggle in so much as it was the strongest in the cities. The trend of affairs is observable in the Church as early as the appearance of the Epistle of James. Under urban conditions the law of conspicuous consumption works with peculiar power and it tended toward the rapid elimination of those doctrines and observances which operated to keep out of the Church the wealthy, powerful, and fashionable elements of society. Within a relatively short time, by the operation of this principle, the originally respectable doctrine of Millenananism was rendered disreputable and even heretical. It was an important agency in bringing into sharp relief the distinction of clergy and laity, while in the appearance of monasticism we see the working out of this principle among the strongest (theoretical) opponents.

Had Christianity in the beginning found a considerable proportion of its adherents among the laboring classes in the rural regions there can be very little doubt that it would have maintained the purity of its early doctrines for a much more considerable period of time than was actually the case. There is no reason to doubt that, in that event, Chiliastic expectations would have survived in Christian theology far longer than they did. "Among the working classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry in which there is a considerable subdivision of property and whose laws and customs secure to these classes a more or less definite share of the product of their industry, pecuniary emulation tends in a certain measure to such industry and frugality as serve to weaken in some degree the full force of the principle of honorific, and more especially of vicariously honorific wastefulness." That is to say such conditions tend to conservatism in general and possibly to religious conservatism in particular. But for this very reason Christianity made its way only very slowly into the rural regions. In the West, indeed, Chiliasm was already dead before the Church had won any great headway among the agricultural population—which was not until the sixth and seventh centuries. Had Chiliasm been able to hold its own until the conversion of the rural regions, it would certainly have survived there for generations if not centuries—even if it had died out in the urban centers.

In the East, where Christianity made its way among the rural population, at least in some degree, considerably earlier than was the case in the West, Chiliasm did get a hold in certain agricultural regions of Phrygia, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere, and it was in precisely such regions, as we have already seen, that it was held most tenaciously and abandoned most slowly.