Even in the first century brief writings, gospels, epistles, and apocalypses, had been drawn up for the edification of the congregation, but, being regarded as memorabilia to keep the truth in remembrance and in a measure as a gift of the Holy Ghost, they differed in plan and style from what was known as “literature.” Now, however, works began to be composed in which Christianity was endued with the garment of literature. Between the years 140 and 170 the smaller Christian party which is known as the Gnostic party all at once began to avail itself of every literary form, scientific monograph, commentary, systematic statement, scientific dialogue, didactic epistle, polemic, historical description, the novel, the tale, the ode, the hymn, etc. The great church, less apt and more cautious, gave place to this development slowly and hesitatingly. She was fully conscious of her responsibility; she was not blind to the lurking danger—the danger, that is, of the profanation of religion; nevertheless she gradually admitted one literary form after another, until, at the beginning of the third century, she also had a Christian literature, with every means of expression that Greek art and learning had created at command. But the fact that she was thus equipped with literary forms could not but have some bearing on the relations between state and church, for no state can persist in regarding a movement which has taken literature into its service as a negligible quantity. Through the medium of literature it influences all political conditions, and in so far as the state itself is the exponent of culture, and not merely of law and authority, such a spiritual movement becomes a part of it by the mere fact of its literary existence.
(5) Though public worship is essentially esoteric and the private concern of any particular religion, yet we must here take its development into consideration. As long as Christian worship consisted only in homely prayers, rude psalmody, and preaching, and in the simple celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, it differed so widely from other forms of worship that the adversaries of Christianity did not regard it as worship at all. A few Greeks, it is true, were impressed by this purely spiritual worship, but the great multitude despised it. They saw no images, and consequently concluded that the Christians were “atheists”; they saw no priests, and felt that their worship lacked legitimate authority, solemnity, and dignity; they saw no sacrifice, and consequently doubted its efficacy with the Deity. Many of them held that the Christians had other religious services which they carefully concealed from other men, and that there they exhibited the secret “Sacra,” held wild orgies, and feasted at horrible banquets. There were, as a matter of fact, a few small Christian communities which practised evil rites in secret. But it is unlikely that these constituted the starting-point of the vile aspersions cast upon all Christians; they arose rather from the evil tendency, prevalent in all ages, to regard adherents of an alien faith as persons of evil life and to say the worst that can be said concerning both them and their assemblies. The populace takes every religion which differs from its own and which it does not understand for devil worship.
This view of Christian worship underwent no great change in the second century, but towards the end of that period the preliminary signs of change set in, and the development of Christian worship met the change halfway. Three great alterations were made in the services, and brought it nearer to the comprehension of the Græco-Roman mind: (1) after circa 190 a separate class of priests arose (under that title) in the Christian church; (2) the Lord’s Supper was elaborated into a solemn sacrificial rite; (3) the Lord’s Supper and certain other acts of public worship were invested with the glamour of mysteries. By these developments, which are to be accounted for by the unconscious influence of the world around, Christian worship approximated to the ceremonials of the Greeks and Romans. The absence of image worship, it is true, still marked the distinction between them, but there was no lack of pictures of saints and symbols of holy things. Already there began to grow up about the sacramental elements, the water of baptism, the sign of the cross, etc., a superstition second to none of the fancies of the heathen, and the sensuous element steadily encroached upon the spiritual. These changes were likewise bound to exercise a certain though indirect influence on the relations between state and church, the Christian religion adapted itself to conditions in which it could act upon the widest possible circle, and in the process modified the exclusiveness it had resolved to maintain.
(6) But perhaps the point best worth noticing is the way in which, in spite of persecution, the Christian estimate of the state grew more favourable in the course of the second century—not indeed in the whole body, by a long way, but among the most influential teachers. It is true that the suspicion that the Roman Empire was the kingdom of antichrist never wholly died away, and that it still came to the surface occasionally; but a succession of admirable emperors—Trajan, Hadrian, Pius, and Marcus Aurelius—made a profound impression upon Christians, and the world-wide monarchy of which Augustus had laid the foundations bore the aspect of peace, and hence of a fulfilment of the divine will. Justin was convinced—as was even Tertullian—that the “good” emperors could not have been and were not unfriendly to Christians; both believed that none but the wicked were really the adversaries of the Christian religion, and that nothing but better information was required to make the emperors extend toleration to their faith. It is possible that even Luke had a dim sense of a certain solidarity between the empire and Christianity, between Augustus and Christ; the apologists of the age of the Antonines were more decided in their utterances, the most decided of all being Bishop Melito of Sardis. In the Apology for Christianity which he dedicates to Marcus Aurelius, he writes:
“This our philosophy did indeed first flourish among an alien people. But when it began to prosper in the provinces of thy empire under the rule of thy mighty predecessor Augustus it brought a rich blessing upon thy empire in singular wise. For from that time forth the Roman Empire hath ever increased in greatness and glory, whereof thou art and wilt be the desired ruler, even as thy son also, if thou wilt protect this philosophy which began under Augustus and hath grown with the growth of the empire, and which thy forefathers likewise held in honour among other religions. And the strongest proof that our religion hath arisen together with the monarchy so happily begun and for the benefit of the same is supplied by the fact that since the reign of Augustus the latter hath been smitten by no calamity, but on the contrary, all things have but augmented the fame and glory thereof, according to the desires of all men. The only emperors who, led away by malicious men, strove to cry down our religion were Nero and Domitian, and from their time forward calumnious falsehoods concerning the Christians have been propagated abroad by the evil custom of the common people, who believe all rumours without examination.”
We read these words with amazement, for they imply nothing less than an assertion that the empire and the Christian religion are fellow-institutions. God himself, so this bishop teaches, joined them together, for he has brought them into being at the same time as brethren, as it were; and to Christianity is due the greatness and glory of the monarchy! True, we must not forget that these are the words of an apologist, and of an Asiatic apologist to boot—and emperor worship flourished in Asia more than elsewhere; but the fact that he should have gone so far in his bold and flattering historical speculation is in the highest degree remarkable. “God,” “Saviour,” “Prince of Peace,” were titles bestowed upon the emperor in Asia, and his appearance was there spoken of as an epiphany of the Deity. Hence Melito deduced the conclusion that a “pre-established harmony” existed between the emperor and Christ, to whom these same titles were applied. His “philosophy of history” was an augury of the future.
We have seen that down to the reign of the emperor Alexander Severus the church approximated to the state along every line of development; but in practical life the two were still remote from each other. The state firmly upheld the opinion that it was impossible, on principle, to extend toleration to the intolerant Christian religion—though many governors and some emperors tolerated it tacitly; while the church was still far from taking Melito’s idea seriously.
III
In the seventy years that elapsed between the death of the emperor Alexander Severus and the rise of Constantine, the affairs of the church continued to develop in the same direction as they had taken during the preceding century. This I shall again proceed to prove from (1) its constitution, (2) life, (3) doctrine, (4) literature, (5) worship, and (6) its estimate of the state.
(1) The political organisation of the church attained its complete development, and the result was a structure so stable, homogeneous, and comprehensive that no other association within the empire could vie with it. While the framework of the state grew looser and looser, and the several parts began to exhibit symptoms of falling apart, the edifice of the church grew steadily firmer and stronger. The bishops, as successors of the Apostles, everywhere concentrated the power in their own hands and suppressed all other forms of authority; the church became an episcopal church. But the bishops were not only united among themselves by provincial synods, they kept up an active and intimate correspondence throughout the whole empire by means of letters and emissaries, and even at this time all matters of importance were settled by common consent. If we take the provincial synods as corresponding to the diets of the provinces, the organisation of the church had advanced a step beyond the latter. As early as the second half of the third century synods were held at Rome to which bishops came from every part of Italy, and sixty years before the Council of Nicæa a synod sat at Antioch to which bishops flocked from all the countries between the Halys and the Nile. Thus the episcopal confederation which ruled the Christian communities was a state within a state. The fact could not be hidden from the chiefs of the state. Under Maximinus Thrax the bishops had borne the brunt of persecution; Decius is reported to have said that he could sooner endure a rival emperor in Rome than a Christian bishop; and the persecutions of Gallus, Valerian, Diocletian, Galerius, and Maximinus Daza were directed in the first instance against the bishops. Gallienus and Aurelian addressed letters to the bishops, the former to those of Egypt, the latter to those of Syria, and thus made it plain that they were well aware of the authoritative position of the bishops in the churches.