Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom

by T. W. Allies

It is obvious that out of this treasure-house of the divine and apostolical tradition came the whole planting and propagation of the Church during that first period which elapsed from the Day of Pentecost to the end of the personal teaching of the Apostles. At first, and for many years, the Gospels were not set forth in a written shape, much less were the other books of the New Testament composed. The writings forming the actual canon were not completed until about the year 98. In this interval the acts and the life of Christ were to be impressed on the world; the character of His people was to be formed upon them; the Christian race was born and passed through more than two generations, and the kingdom of heaven upon earth received its definite shape. The divine and apostolic tradition which came from Christ through living men worked these effects. The principle upon which all rested was personal authority. The historical demonstration of the Apostolic Church in this respect is complete and absolute.

It would seem as if this period were of special importance in enabling us to understand distinctly the nature of the Church’s teaching office. The work then done comprised the whole evangelical announcement, the preaching, that is, of Christ in His kingdom; the establishment of the worship which He had enjoined, the administering not merely the sacrament of baptism, but the other sacraments in their due order, as they touched the several parts of human life, the discipline which regulated the daily course of life, and also the ordering of penance. In the first community set up at Jerusalem all this would take place; it would be repeated at Antioch, at Rome, at Alexandria, at Ephesus, at Corinth, at every place in which the Apostles established bishops. These things, with the almost interminable series of arrangements and actions which they involve, are all contained in the charge given by our Lord to His Apostles, to which we have just referred. This it is “to make disciples of all nations.”

Thus when St. Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, the immediate effect of his word was the reception of about three thousand hearers into the Church. These had at once to be baptized; therefore the form and ceremonies of baptism were ready prepared for them; but their life is immediately described as a steadfast continuance upon the teaching of the Apostles, in the communion of the breaking of bread, which took place day by day, and in prayers.

From the Day of Pentecost, therefore, the Liturgy of the Church, with all the treasure of doctrine and worship which it contains, was in full operation. I have endeavoured above to give a very short sketch of the vast amount of doctrine contained in the Liturgy, which is at the same time an explicit confession of faith, an act of worship, and an exhibition of spiritual rule. Further, it is an act daily repeated throughout the whole Church, in which she testifies her life, and the dwelling of her Lord in her. The testimony thus given of the threefold power of doctrine, worship, and rule is entirely independent of those allusions to it which are afterwards made in the narrative either of the Gospels or of the Apostolic Epistles. For instance, the term “breaking of bread” points indeed unmistakably to the Eucharistic service, but it gives no description of what that service as celebrated was. We gather this from the ancient Liturgies of the East and West which have come down to us, showing a perfect accord in their parts and meaning and general disposition. Vast is the difference between these Liturgies, viewed in their completeness as acts of worship—that is, not merely in their words, which are so grand and spirit-stirring, but likewise in the function visibly carried out by the bishop, his attendant clergy, and the adoring people—between all this, and the allusion made to it in the few passages of the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles. Yet all this existed from the very beginning, and is part of that which St. Peter at the head of the Apostles instituted from the Day of Pentecost. As an act, it is quite independent of any subsequent narrative which records it; but before the end of this first period it was an act which had been carried out daily in a vast number of cities wherein the Church had taken root.

The Eucharistic Liturgy was from the beginning the Church’s explicit and solemn exhibition of her faith in her worship. She kept it strictly for her own people, and did not allow it to be divulged. It was an act expressing Christ visibly in the midst of His Church. The altar was His throne. The chiefs ministrant bore His person, and enacted before the eyes of the observant people the work of Christ’s Incarnation and Redemption, presenting it to God the Father. The rites and ceremonies which accompanied the words removed, for those beholding and participating the mysteries, that obscurity which may belong in matters of faith to mere words. But, moreover, words of singular simplicity and perspicuity were used in describing the acts by which our Lord became man for us and redeemed us. When the attendant deacon[138] gave warning that all should be in fear and trembling, before the commencement of the sacred action, and before the invocation of the Holy Ghost, did not the words themselves signify the expectation of some signal miracle to be wrought by the Divine Omnipotence? When the people heard the celebrant invoking the descent of the Holy Ghost on the gifts lying before him, that by His presence He might make the bread to be the Body of Christ, and the wine and water the Blood of Christ, transmuting them by His divine power,—when the ministers delivered them to each of the faithful, with the words, “the Body of Christ,” “the Blood of Christ,” to which he replied, “Amen,” what merely verbal announcement could equal in force of teaching that visible setting forth of Christ? On one part, it was Christ giving Himself to His people; on the other, a supreme acknowledgment of joy, gratitude, and prostrate homage by His people for the gift.

When the Beloved Disciple, who lay on the Lord’s bosom, had a revelation of what was to happen in the time to come, the vision was presented to him under the form of that worship which Peter first, in the company of his brother Apostles, which the bishop of each city afterwards, surrounded by his ancients and in the presence of the faithful people, celebrated. It seems to be the interior of a church in the apostolic age which we have described, and all the meaning of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, as the witness of creative power and redeeming love, set forth. But it is the Lord Himself, who with the voice of a trumpet proclaimed Himself to be the First and the Last, and charged His Apostle with letters to the Seven Churches, who now says with the same voice, “Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must be done hereafter.” “I looked,” he says, “and behold a door was opened in heaven, and immediately I was in the spirit; and behold there was a throne set in heaven, and upon the throne One sitting. And He that sat was to the sight like the jasper and the sardine-stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four-and-twenty seats; and upon the seats four-and-twenty ancients sitting, clothed in white garments, and on their heads crowns of gold. And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders; and there were seven lamps burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.” Here, in the likeness of an ancient basilica, with the throne of the bishop in the apse, and the seats of his presbyters in a semicircle round him, we have the court of the Almighty set forth, and the ineffable grandeur of the creating God: when “the four living creatures full of eyes gave glory and honour and benediction to Him that sitteth on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four-and-twenty ancients fell down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and adored Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power, because Thou hast created all things, and for Thy will they are (εἰσὶ,) and have been created.”

So far the homage paid to God in the great overwhelming mystery of creation. All things have been made by Him and for Him. But another mystery succeeds: the fall and the redemption of man. “And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof? And no man was able, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the book, nor to look on it. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open the book nor to see it. And one of the ancients said to me, Weep not; behold the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I saw, and behold in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the ancients, a Lamb standing as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne.—And when He had opened the book, the four living creatures and the four-and-twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints; and they sang a new canticle, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to take the book and to open the seals thereof; because Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood, out of every tribe and tongue, and people and nation, and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I beard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the ancients; and the number of them was thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity, and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and benediction. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard all saying, To Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction and honour and glory and power for ever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the four-and-twenty ancients fell down on their faces, and adored Him that liveth for ever and ever.”

We have now added to the throne of the Almighty, in the midst of the four living creatures and the twenty-four crowned elders, “a Lamb standing as it were slain,” who, having received the sealed book from Him that sat upon the throne, becomes Himself the centre of adoration. He takes the place of the altar in the Church, being Himself the altar and the celebrant; He opens the seals of the book which no one in heaven or earth could open but Himself; He rules the evolution of all the events which make up the history of His people; He the victim; He the priest; He the ruler. And under the Eucharist Sacrifice thus exhibited the whole evolution of judgments and victories are drawn out, which ends with “the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband.”

Only this vision of the Beloved Disciple and the feelings which it exhibits would adequately represent that awe and joy, that gratitude and triumph, with which the faithful took part in what the Fathers call “the tremendous and unbloody sacrifice.” And could any Christian of the Apostle’s day read the words of this heavenly vision without recognising in it the very order and arrangement of the great worship which formed then, as it forms now, the central act of united Christian life?

No higher act of authority is even conceivable than that establishment of worship. But this was a worship which the Apostles had received in secret from their Lord, which they did not commit to writing, but carefully imprinted upon the memories of their disciples, which they guarded with the utmost care and jealousy from the knowledge of all until they had first instructed them and then baptized them, the participation in which was the crown of all Christian privileges. Thus they understood what Christ had ordered them to do in commemoration of Himself. They began it at Jerusalem; they carried it with them in their dispersion to all Churches. It is found the same in its principal parts and sequence in all places. The same form was received everywhere solely in virtue of an Apostolic tradition, which originally was not written, but conveyed by word of mouth, and at once and incessantly practised.