Every great religious movement coincides with a new discovery of truth of some kind, and such discoveries induce a new temper. Men inquire more freely and speak more freely the truth they feel. Mistakes are made and a movement begins for "quenching the spirit." But the gains that have been made by the liberated spirits are not lost. Thus the early Christian rose quickly to a sense of the value of woman. Dr Verrall pronounces that "the radical disease, of which, more than of anything else, ancient civilization perished "was" an imperfect ideal of woman."[[65]] In the early church woman did a good many things, which in later days the authorities preferred not to mention. Thekla's name is prominent in early story, and the prophetesses of Phrygia, Prisca and Maximilla, have a place in Church History. They were not popular; but the church was committed to the Gospel of Luke and the ministry of women to the Lord. And whatever the Christian priesthood did or said, Jesus and his followers had set woman on a level with man. "There is neither male nor female." The same freedom of spirit is attested by the way in which pagan prophets and their dupes classed Christians with Epicureans[[66]]—they saw and understood too much. The Christians were the only people (apart from the Jews) who openly denounced the folly of worshipping and deifying Emperors. Even Ignatius, who is most famous for his belief in authority, breaks into independence when men try to make the Gospel dependent on the Old Testament—"for me the documents (tà archeia) are Jesus Christ; my unassailable documents are his cross, and his death and resurrection, and the faith that is through him; in which things I hope with your prayers to be saved."[[67]] "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," as Paul said.
God and immortality were associated in Christian thought. Christians, said a writer using the name of Peter, are to be "partakers of the divine nature." "If the soul," says Tatian, "enters into union with the divine spirit, it is no longer helpless, but ascends to regions whither the spirit guides it; for the dwelling-place of the spirit is above, but the origin of the soul is from beneath."[[68]] "God sent forth to us the Saviour and Prince of immortality, by whom he also made manifest to us the truth and the heavenly life."[[69]] The Christian's life is "hid with Christ in God," and Christ's resurrection is to the early church the pledge of immortality—"we shall be ever with the Lord." For the transmigration of souls and "eternal re-dying," life was substituted.[[70]] "We have believed," said Tatian, "that there will be a resurrection of our bodies, after the consummation of all things—not, as the Stoics dogmatize, that in periodic cycles the same things for ever come into being and pass out of it for no good whatever,—but once for all," and this for judgment. The judge is not Minos nor Rhadamanthus, but "God the maker is the arbiter."[[71]] "They shall see him (Jesus) then on that day," wrote the so-called Barnabas, "wearing the long scarlet robe upon his flesh, and they will say 'Is this not he whom we crucified, whom we spat upon, and rejected?'"[[72]] Persecution tempted the thought of what "that day" would mean for the persecutor. But it was a real concern of the Christian himself. "I myself, utterly sinful, not yet escaped from temptation, but still in the midst of the devil's engines,—I do my diligence to follow after righteousness that I may prevail so far as at least to come near it, fearing the judgment that is to come."[[73]] Immortality and righteousness—the two thoughts go together, and both depend upon Jesus Christ. He is emphatically called "our Hope"—a favourite phrase with Ignatius.[[74]]
Martyrdom and happiness
Some strong hope was needed—some "anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast."[[75]] Death lay in wait for the Christian at every turn, never certain, always probable. The dæmons whom he had renounced took their revenge in exciting his neighbours against him.[[76]] The whim of a mob[[77]] or the cruelty of a governor[[78]] might bring him face to face with death in no man knew what horrible form. One writer spoke of "the burning that came for trial,"[[79]] and the phrase was not exclusively a metaphor. "Away with the atheists—where is Polycarp?" was a sudden shout at Smyrna—the mob already excited with sight of "the right noble Germanicus fighting the wild beasts in a signal way." The old man was sought and found—with the words "God's will be done" upon his lips. He was pressed to curse Christ. "Eighty-six years I have been his slave," he said, "and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"[[80]] The suddenness of these attacks, and the cruelty, were enough to unnerve anyone who was not "built upon the foundation." Nero's treatment of the Christians waked distaste in Rome itself. But it was the martyrdoms that made the church. Stephen's death captured Paul. "I delighted in Plato's teachings," says Justin, "and I heard Christians abused, but I saw they were fearless in the face of death and all the other things men count fearful."[[81]] Tertullian and others with him emphasize that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church." It was the death of Jesus over again—the last word that carried conviction with it.
With "the sentence of death in themselves" the early Christians faced the world, and astonished it by more than their "stubbornness." They were the most essentially happy people of the day—Jesus was their hope, their sufficiency was of God, their names were written in heaven, they were full of love for all men—they had "become little children," as Jesus put it, glad and natural. Jesus had brought them into a new world of possibilities. A conduct that ancient moralists dared not ask, the character of Jesus suggested, and the love of Jesus made actual. "I can do all things," said Paul, "in him that strengtheneth me." They looked to assured victory over evil and they achieved it. "This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith." Very soon a new note is heard in their words. Stoicism was never "essentially musical"; Epictetus announces a hymn to Zeus,[[82]] but he never starts the tune. Over and over again there is a sound of singing in Paul—as in the eighth chapter of the Romans, and the thirteenth of First Corinthians,[[83]] and it repeats itself. "Children of joy" is Barnabas' name for his friends.[[84]] "Doing the will of Christ we shall find rest," wrote the unknown author of "Second Clement."[[85]] "Praising we plough; and singing we sail," wrote the greater Clement.[[86]] "Candidates for angelhood, even here we learn the strain hereafter to be raised to God, the function of our future glory," said Tertullian.[[87]] "Clothe thyself in gladness, that always has grace with God and is welcome to him—and revel in it. For every glad man does what is good, and thinks what is good.... The holy spirit is a glad spirit ... yes, they shall all live to God, who put away sadness from themselves and clothe themselves in all gladness." So said the angel to Hermas,[[88]] and he was right. The holy spirit was a glad spirit, and gladness—joy in the holy spirit—was the secret of Christian morality. Nothing could well be more gay and happy than Clement's Protrepticus. Augustine was attracted to the church because he saw it non dissolute hilaris. Such happiness in men is never without a personal centre, and the church made no secret that this centre was "Jesus Christ, whom you have not seen, but you love him; whom yet you see not, but you believe in him and rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified."[[89]]
Chapter V Footnotes:
[[1]] See Burkitt's Early Eastern Christianity.
[[2]] See Justin, Apology, i, 14, a vivid passage on the change of character that has been wrought in men by the Gospel. Cf. Tert. ad Scap. 2, nec aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum.
[[3]] Ephesians iv, 4.
[[4]] 1 Peter ii, 7.