The Ancient Church: Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution

by W. D. Killen

The Church of the second and third centuries was not agitated by any controversies relative to grace and predestination. Few, probably, were disposed to indulge in speculations on these subjects; and some of the ecclesiastical writers, in the heat of controversial discussion, are occasionally tempted to make use of language which it would be difficult to reconcile with the declarations of the New Testament. All of them, however, either explicitly or virtually, admit the necessity of grace; and some distinctly enunciate the doctrine of election. "We stand in especial need of divine grace, and right instruction, and pure affection," says Clemens Alexandrinus, "and we require that the Father should draw us towards himself." "God, who knows the future as if it was already present, knows the elect according to His purpose even before the creation." [459:1] "Your power to do," says Cyprian, "will be according to the increase of spiritual grace…. What measure we bring thither of faith to hold, so much do we drink in of grace to inundate. Hereby is strength given." [459:2] It is worthy of note that those writers, who speak most decidedly of the freedom of the will, also most distinctly proclaim their faith in the perfection of the Divine Sovereignty. Thus, Justin Martyr urges, as a decisive proof of the impious character of their theology, that the heathen philosophers repudiated the doctrine of a particular providence; [459:3] and all the ancient fathers are ever ready to recognise the superintending guardianship of God in the common affairs of life.

But though the creed of the Church was still to some extent substantially sound, it must be admitted that it was already beginning to suffer much from adulteration. One hundred years after the death of the Apostle John, spiritual darkness was fast settling down upon the Christian community; and the fathers, who flourished towards the commencement of the third century, frequently employ language for which they would have been sternly rebuked, had they lived in the days of the apostles and evangelists. Thus, we find them speaking of "sins cleansed by repentance," [460:1] and of repentance as "the price at which the Lord has determined to grant forgiveness." [460:2] We read of "sins cleansed by alms and faith," [460:3] and of the martyr, by his sufferings, "washing away his own iniquities." [460:4] We are told that by baptism "we are cleansed from all our sins," and "regain that Spirit of God which Adam received at his creation and lost by his transgression." [460:5] "The pertinacious wickedness of the Devil," says Cyprian, "has power up to the saving water, but in baptism he loses all the poison of his wickedness." [460:6] The same writer insists upon the necessity of penance, a species of discipline unknown to the apostolic Church, and denounces, with terrible severity, those who discouraged its performance. "By the deceitfulness of their lies," says he, they interfere, "that satisfaction be not given to God in His anger….. All pains are taken that sins be not expiated by due satisfactions and lamentations, that wounds be not washed clean by tears." [460:7] It may be said that some of these expressions are rhetorical, and that those by whom they were employed did not mean to deny the all-sufficiency of the Great Sacrifice; but had these fathers clearly apprehended the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ, they would have recoiled from the use of language so exceedingly objectionable.

There are many who imagine that, had they lived in the days of Tertullian or of Origen, they would have enjoyed spiritual advantages far higher than any to which they have now access. But a more minute acquaintance with the ecclesiastical history of the third century might convince them that they have no reason to complain of their present privileges. The amount of material light which surrounds us does not depend on our proximity to the sun. When our planet is most remote from its great luminary, we may bask in the splendour of his effulgence; and, when it approaches nearer, we may be involved in thick darkness. So it is with the Church. The amount of our religious knowledge does not depend on our proximity to the days of primitive Christianity. The Bible is the sun of the spiritual firmament; and this divine illuminator, like the glorious orb of day, pours forth its light with equal brilliancy from generation to generation. The Church may retire into "chambers of imagery" erected by her own folly; and there, with the light shut out from her, may sink into a slumber disturbed only, now and then, by some dream of superstition; or, with the light still shining on her, her eye may be dim or disordered, and she may stumble at noonday. But the light is as pure as in the days of the apostles; and, if we have eyes to profit by it, we may "understand more than the ancients." The art of printing has supplied us with facilities for the study of the Scriptures which were denied to the fathers of the second century; and the ecclesiastical documents, relative to that age, which have been transmitted to us from antiquity, contain, perhaps, the greater part of even the traditionary information which was preserved in the Church. If we are only "taught of God," we are in as good a position for acquiring a correct acquaintance with the way of salvation as was Polycarp or Justin Martyr. What an encouragement for every one to pray—"Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me!" [461:11]

SECTION III.

THE WORSHIP AND CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH.

The religion of the primitive Christians must have appeared exceedingly strange to their pagan contemporaries. The heathen worship was little better than a solemn show. Its victims adorned with garlands, its incense and music and lustral water, its priests arrayed in white robes, and its marble temples with gilded roofs, were fitted, rather to fascinate the senses, than to improve the heart or expand the intellect. Even the Jewish ritual, in the days of its glory, must have had a powerful effect on the imagination. As the Israelites assembled from all quarters at their great festivals—as they poured in thousands and tens of thousands into the courts of their ancient sanctuary—as they surveyed the various parts of a structure which was one of the wonders of the world—as they beheld the priests in their holy garments—and as they gazed on the high priest himself, whose forehead glittered with gold whilst his breastplate sparkled with precious stones—they must have felt that they mingled in a scene of extraordinary splendour. But, when Christianity made its appearance in the world, it presented none of these attractions. Its adherents were stigmatized as atheists, [463:1] because they had no altars, no temples, and no sacrifices. They held their meetings in private dwellings; their ministers wore no peculiar dress; and, by all who sought merely the gratification of the eye or of the ear, the simple service in which they engaged must have been considered very bald and uninteresting. But they rejoiced exceedingly in its spiritual character, as they felt that they could thus draw near to God, and hold sweet and refreshing communion with their Father in heaven.

It is probable that, during a considerable part of the second century, the Christians had comparatively few buildings set apart for public worship. At a time when they congregated to celebrate the rites of their religion at night or before break of day, it is not to be supposed that they were anxious to obtrude their conventicles on the notice of their persecutors. But as they increased in numbers, and as the State became somewhat more indulgent, they gradually acquired confidence; and, about the beginning of the third century, the form of their ecclesiastical structures seems to have been already familiar to the eyes of the heathen. [463:2] Shortly after that period, their meeting-houses in Rome were well known; and, in the reign of Alexander Severus, they ventured to dispute with one of the city trades the possession of a piece of ground on which they were desirous to erect a place of worship. [463:3] When the case came for adjudication before the Imperial tribunal, the sovereign decided in their favour, and thus virtually placed them under the shield of his protection. When the Emperor Gallienus, about A.D. 260, issued an edict of toleration, church architecture advanced apace, and many of the old buildings, which were now falling into decay, were superseded by edifices at once more capacious and more tasteful. The Christians at this time began to emulate the magnificence of the heathen temples, and even to ape their arrangements. Thus it is that some of our churches at the present day are nearly fac-similes of the ancient religious edifices of paganism. [464:1]

In addition to the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the worship of the early Church consisted of singing, prayer, reading the Scriptures, and preaching. In the earliest notice of the Christians of the second century which occurs in any pagan writer, their psalmody, with which they commenced their religious services, [464:2] is particularly mentioned; for, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny states that they met together, before the rising of the sun, to "sing hymns to Christ as to a God." It is highly probable that the "hymns" here spoken of were the Psalms of the Old Testament. Many of these inspired effusions celebrate the glories of Immanuel, and as, for obvious reasons, the Messianic Psalms would be used more frequently than any others, it is not strange that the disciples are represented as assembling to sing praise to Christ. But it would appear that the Church at this time was not confined to the ancient Psalter. Hymns of human composition were occasionally employed; [464:3] and one of these, to be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, [464:4] was, perhaps, sung in the early part of the third century by the Christians of the Egyptian capital. Influential bishops sometimes introduced them by their own authority, but the practice was regarded with suspicion, and seems to have been considered irregular. Hence Paul of Samosata, in the Council of Antioch held A.D. 269, was blamed for discontinuing the Psalms formerly used, and for establishing a new and very exceptionable hymnology. [465:1]