§ 67. Division of Divine Service. The Disciplina Arcani.
RICHARD ROTHE: De Disciplinae Arcani, quae dicitur, in Ecclesia Christ. Origine. Heidelb. 1841; and his art. on the subject in the first ed. of Herzog (vol. I. 469–477).
C. A. GERH. VON ZEZSCHWITZ: System der christl. kirchlichen Katechetik. Leipz. 1863, vol. I. p. 154–227. See also his art. in the second ed. of Herzog, I. 637–645 (abridged in Schaff’s "Rel. Enc.").
G. NATH. BONWETSCH (of Dorpat): Wesen, Entstehunq und Fortgang der Arkandisciplin, in Kahnis’ "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1873, pp. 203 sqq.
J. P. LUNDY: Monumental Christianity. N. York, 1876, p. 62–86.
Comp. also A. W. HADDAN in Smith & Cheetham, I. 564–566; WANDINGER, in Wetzer & Welte, new ed. vol. I. (1882), 1234–1238. Older dissertations on the subject by SCHELSTRATE (1678), MEIER (1679), TENZELL (1863), SCHOLLINER (1756), LIENHARDT (1829), TOKLOT(1836), FROMMANN (1833), SIEGEL (1836, I. 506 sqq.).
The public service was divided from. the middle of the second century down to the close of the fifth, into the worship of the catechumens,391 and the worship of the faithful.392 The former consisted of scripture reading, preaching, prayer, and song, and was open to the unbaptized and persons under penance. The latter consisted of the holy communion, with its liturgical appendages; none but the proper members of the church could attend it; and before it began, all catechumens and unbelievers left the assembly at the order of the deacon,393 and the doors were closed or guarded.
The earliest witness for this strict separation is Tertullian, who reproaches the heretics with allowing the baptized and the unbaptized to attend the same prayers, and casting the holy even before the heathens.394 He demands, that believers, catechumens, and heathens should occupy separate places in public worship. The Alexandrian divines furnished a theoretical ground for this practice by their doctrine of a secret tradition for the esoteric. Besides the communion, the sacrament of baptism, with its accompanying confession, was likewise treated as a mystery for the initiated,395 and withdrawn from the view of Jews and heathens.
We have here the beginnings of the Christian mystery-worship, or what has been called since 1679 "the Secret Discipline," (Disciplina Arcani), which is presented in its full development in the liturgies of the fourth century, but disappeared from the Latin church after the sixth century, with the dissolution of heathenism and the universal introduction of infant baptism.
The Secret Discipline had reference chiefly to the celebration of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, but included also the baptismal symbol, the Lord’s Prayer, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and other fathers make a distinction between lower or elementary (exoteric) and higher or deeper (esoteric) doctrines, and state that the latter are withheld from the uninitiated out of reverence and to avoid giving offence to the weak and the heathen. This mysterious reticence, however, does not justify the inference that the Secret Discipline included transubstantiation, purgatory, and other Roman dogmas which are not expressly taught in the writings of the fathers. The argument from silence is set aside by positive proof to the contrary.396 Modern Roman archaeologists have pressed the whole symbolism of the Catacombs into the service of the Secret Discipline, but without due regard to the age of those symbolical representations.
The origin of the Secret Discipline has been traced by some to the apostolic age, on the ground of the distinction made between "milk for babes" and "strong meat" for those "of full age," and between speaking to "carnal" and to "spiritual" hearers.397 But this distinction has no reference to public worship, and Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, addressed to a heathen emperor, describes the celebration of baptism and the eucharist without the least reserve. Others derive the institution from the sacerdotal and hierarchical spirit which appeared in the latter part of the second century, and which no doubt favored and strengthened it;398 still others, from the Greek and Roman mystery worship, which would best explain many expressions and formulas, together with all sorts of unscriptural pedantries connected with these mysteries.399 Yet the first motive must be sought rather in an opposition to heathenism; to wit, in the feeling of the necessity of guarding the sacred transactions of Christianity, the embodiment of its deepest truths, against profanation in the midst of a hostile world, according to Matt. 7:6; especially when after Hadrian, perhaps even from the time of Nero, those transactions came to be so shamefully misunderstood and slandered. To this must be added a proper regard for modesty and decency in the administration of adult baptism by immersion. Finally—and this is the chief cause—the institution of the order of catechumens led to a distinction of half-Christians and full-Christians, exoteric and esoteric, and this distinction gradually became established in the liturgy. The secret discipline was therefore a temporary, educational and liturgical expedient of the ante-Nicene age. The catechumenate and the division of the acts of worship grew together and declined to, together. With the disappearance of adult catechumens, or with the general use of infant baptism and the union of church and state, disappeared also the secret discipline in the sixth century: "cessante causa cessat effectus."
The Eastern church, however, has retained in her liturgies to this day the ancient form for the dismission of catechumens, the special prayers for them, the designation of the sacraments as "mysteries," and the partial celebration of the mass behind the veil; though she also has for centuries had no catechumens in the old sense of the word, that is, adult heathen or Jewish disciples preparing for baptism, except in rare cases of exception, or on missionary ground.
§ 68. Celebration of the Eucharist.
The celebration of the Eucharist or holy communion with appropriate prayers of the faithful was the culmination of Christian worship.400 Justin Martyr gives us the following description, which still bespeaks the primitive simplicity:401 "After the prayers [of the catechumen worship] we greet one another with the brotherly kiss. Then bread and a cup with water and wine are handed to the president (bishop) of the brethren. He receives them, and offers praise, glory, and thanks to the Father of all, through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, for these his gifts. When he has ended the prayers and thanksgiving, the whole congregation responds: ’Amen.’ For ’Amen’ in the Hebrew tongue means: ’Be it so.’ Upon this the deacons, as we call them, give to each of those present some of the blessed bread,402 and of the wine mingled with water, and carry it to the absent in their dwellings. This food is called with us the eucharist, of which none can partake, but the believing and baptized, who live according to the commands of Christ. For we use these not as common bread and common drink; but like as Jesus Christ our Redeemer was made flesh through the word of God, and took upon him flesh and blood for our redemption; so we are taught, that the nourishment blessed by the word of prayer, by which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation (assimilation), is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus."
Then he relates the institution from the Gospels, and mentions the customary collections for the poor.
We are not warranted in carrying back to this period the full liturgical service, which we find prevailing with striking uniformity in essentials, though with many variations in minor points, in all quarters of the church in the Nicene age. A certain simplicity and freedom characterized the period before us. Even the so-called Clementine liturgy, in the eighth book of the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, was probably not composed and written out in this form before the fourth century. There is no trace of written liturgies during the Diocletian persecution. But the germs (late from the second century. The oldest eucharistic prayers have recently come to light in the Didache ,which contains three thanksgivings, for the, cup, the broken and for all mercies. (chs. 9 and 10.)
From scattered statements of the ante-Nicene fathers we may gather the following view of the eucharistic service as it may have stood in the middle of the third century, if not earlier.
The communion was a regular and the most solemn part of the Sunday worship; or it was the worship of God in the stricter sense, in which none but full members of the church could engage. In many places and by many Christians it was celebrated even daily, after apostolic precedent, and according to the very common mystical interpretation of the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer.403 The service began, after the dismission of the catechumens, with the kiss of peace, given by the men to men, and by the women to women, in token of mutual recognition as members of one redeemed family in the midst of a heartless and loveless world. It was based upon apostolic precedent, and is characteristic of the childlike simplicity, and love and joy of the early Christians.404 The service proper consisted of two principal acts: the oblation,405 or presenting of the offerings of the congregation by the deacons for the ordinance itself, and for the benefit of the clergy and the poor; and the communion, or partaking of the consecrated elements. In the oblation the congregation at the same time presented itself as a living thank-offering; as in the communion it appropriated anew in faith the sacrifice of Christ, and united itself anew with its Head. Both acts were accompanied and consecrated by prayer and songs of praise.
In the prayers we must distinguish, first, the general thanksgiving (the eucharist in the strictest sense of the word) for all the natural and spiritual gifts of God, commonly ending with the seraphic hymn, Isa. 6:3; secondly, the prayer of consecration, or the invocation of the Holy Spirit406 upon the people and the elements, usually accompanied by the recital of the words of institution and the Lord’s Prayer; and finally, the general intercessions for all classes, especially for the believers, on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for the salvation of the world. The length and order of the prayers, however, were not uniform; nor the position of the Lord’s Prayer, which sometimes took the place of the prayer of consecration, being reserved for the prominent part of the service. Pope Gregory I. says that it "was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the oblation only by the Lord’s Prayer." The congregation responded from time to time, according to the ancient Jewish and the apostolic usage, with an audible "Amen, "or "Kyrie eleison." The "Sursum corda," also, as an incitement to devotion, with the response, "Habemus ad Dominum," appears at least as early as Cyprian’s time, who expressly alludes to it, and in all the ancient liturgies. The prayers were spoken, not read from a book. But extemporaneous prayer naturally assumes a fixed form by constant repetition.
The elements were common or leavened bread407 (except among the Ebionites, who, like the later Roman church from the seventh century, used unleavened bread), and wine mingled with water. This mixing was a general custom in antiquity, but came now to have various mystical meanings attached to it. The elements were placed in the hands (not in the mouth) of each communicant by the clergy who were present, or, according to Justin, by the deacons alone, amid singing of psalms by the congregation (Psalm 34), with the words: "The body of Christ;" "The blood of Christ, the cup of life;" to each of which the recipient responded "Amen."408 The whole congregation thus received the elements, standing in the act.409 Thanksgiving and benediction concluded the celebration.
After the public service the deacons carried the consecrated elements to the sick and to the confessors in prison. Many took portions of the bread home with them, to use in the family at morning prayer. This domestic communion was practised particularly in North Africa, and furnishes the first example of a communio sub una specie. In the same country, in Cyprian’s time, we find the custom of infant communion (administered with wine alone), which was justified from John 6:53, and has continued in the Greek (and Russian) church to this day, though irreconcilable with the apostle’s requisition of a preparatory examination (1 Cor. 11:28).
At first the communion was joined with a LOVE FEAST, and was then celebrated in the evening, in memory of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. But so early as the beginning of the second century these two exercises were separated, and the communion was placed in the morning, the love feast in the evening, except on certain days of special observance.410 Tertullian gives a detailed description of the Agape in refutation of the shameless calumnies of the heathens.411 But the growth of the churches and the rise of manifold abuses led to the gradual disuse, and in the fourth century even to the formal prohibition of the Agape, which belonged in fact only to the childhood and first love of the church. It was a family feast, where rich and poor, master and slave met on the same footing, partaking of a simple meal, hearing reports from distant congregations, contributing to the necessities of suffering brethren, and encouraging each other in their daily duties and trials. Augustin describes his mother Monica as going to these feasts with a basket full of provisions and distributing them.
The communion service has undergone many changes in the course of time, but still substantially survives with all its primitive vitality and solemnity in all churches of Christendom,—a perpetual memorial of Christ’s atoning sacrifice and saving love to the human race. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are institutions which proclaim from day to day the historic Christ, and can never be superseded by contrivances of human ingenuity and wisdom.
§ 69. The Doctrine of the Eucharist.
Literature. See the works quoted, vol. I. 472, by WATERLAND (Episc. d. 1740), DÖLLINGER (R. Cath., 1826; since 1870 Old Cath.), EBRARD (Calvinistic, 1845), NEVIN (Calvinistic, 1846), KAHNIS (Luth. 1851, but changed his view in his Dogmatik), E. B. PUSEY (high Anglic., 1855),RÜCKERT (Rationalistic, 1856), VOGAN (high Anglic., 1871), HARRISON (Evang. Angl., 1871), STANLEY (Broad Church Episc., 1881), GUDE (Lutheran, 1887).
On the Eucharistic doctrine of Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, there are also special treatises by THIERSCH (1841), SEMISCH (1842), ENGELHARDT (1842), BAUR (1839 and 1857), STEITZ (1864), and others.
HÖFLING: Die Lehre der ältesten Kirche vom Opfer im Leben und Cultus der Christen. Erlangen, 1851.
Dean STANLEY: The Eucharistic Sacrifice. In "Christian Institutions" (N. Y. 1881) p. 73 sqq.
The doctrine concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained indefinite and obscure. The ancient church made more account of the worthy participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She looked upon it as the holiest mystery of the Christian worship, and accordingly celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and blood. It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic discussion of this subject.
1. THE EUCHARIST AS A SACRAMENT.
The Didache of the Apostles contains eucharistic prayers, but no theory of the eucharist. Ignatius speaks of this sacrament in two passages, only by way of allusion, but in very strong, mystical terms, calling it the flesh of our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, and the consecrated bread a medicine of immortality and an antidote of spiritual death.412 This view, closely connected with his high-churchly tendency in general, no doubt involves belief in the real presence, and ascribes to the holy Supper an effect on spirit and body at once, with reference to the future resurrection, but is still somewhat obscure, and rather an expression of elevated feeling than a logical definition.
The same may be said of Justin Martyr, when he compares the descent of Christ into the consecrated elements to his incarnation for our redemption. 413
Irenaeus says repeatedly, in combating the Gnostic Docetism,414 that broad and wine in the sacrament become, by the presence of the Word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the body and blood of Christ and that the receiving of there strengthens soul and body (the germ of the resurrection body) unto eternal life. Yet this would hardly warrant our ascribing either transubstantiation or consubstantiation to Irenaeus. For in another place he calls the bread and wine, after consecration, "antitypes," implying the continued distinction of their substance from the body and blood of Christ.415 This expression in itself, indeed, might be understood as merely contrasting here the upper, as the substance, with the Old Testament passover, its type; as Peter calls baptism the antitype of the saving water of the flood.416 But the connection, and the usus loquendi of the earlier Greek fathers, require us to take the term antitype, a the sense of type, or, more precisely, as the antithesis of archetype. The broad and wine represent and exhibit the body and blood of Christ as the archetype, and correspond to them, as a copy to the original. In exactly the same sense it is said in Heb. 9:24—comp. 8:5—that the earthly sanctuary is the antitype, that is the copy, of the heavenly archetype. Other Greek fathers also, down to the fifth century, and especially the author of the Apostolical Constitutions, call the consecrated elements "antitypes" (sometimes, like Theodoretus, "types") of the body and blood of Christ.417
A different view, approaching nearer the Calvinistic or Reformed, we meet with among the African fathers. Tertullian makes the words of institution: Hoc est corpus meum, equivalent to: figura corporis mei, to prove, in opposition to Marcion’s docetism, the reality of the body of Jesus—a mere phantom being capable of no emblematic representation418 This involves, at all events, an essential distinction between the consecrated elements and the body and blood of Christ in the Supper. Yet Tertullian must not be understood as teaching a merely symbolical presence of Christ; for in other places he speaks, according to his general realistic turn, in almost materialistic language of an eating of the body of Christ, and extends the participation even to the body of the receiver.419 Cyprian likewise appears to favor a symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, yet not so clearly. The idea of the real presence would have much better suited his sacerdotal conception of the ministry. In the customary mixing of the wine with water he sees a type of the union of Christ with his church,420 and, on the authority of John 6:53, holds the communion of the Supper indispensable to salvation. The idea of a sacrifice comes out very boldly in Cyprian.
The Alexandrians are here, as usual, decidedly spiritualistic. Clement twice expressly calls the wine a symbol or an allegory of the blood of Christ, and says, that the communicant receives not the physical, but the spiritual blood, the life, of Christ; as, indeed, the blood is the life of the body. Origen distinguishes still more definitely the earthly elements from the heavenly bread of life, and makes it the whole design of the supper to feed the soul with the divine word.421 Applying his unsound allegorical method here, he makes the bread represent the Old Testament, the wine the New, and the breaking of the bread the multiplication of the divine word! But these were rather private views for the initiated, and can hardly be taken as presenting the doctrine of the Alexandrian church.
We have, therefore, among the ante-Nicene fathers, three different views, an Oriental, a North-African, and an Alexandrian. The first view, that of Ignatius and Irenaeus, agrees most nearly with the mystical character of the celebration of the eucharist, and with the catholicizing features of the age.
2. THE EUCHARIST AS A SACRIFICE.
This point is very important in relation to the doctrine, and still more important in relation to the cultus and life, of the ancient church. The Lord’s Supper was universally regarded not only as a sacrament, but also as a sacrifice,422 the true and eternal sacrifice of the new covenant, superseding all the provisional and typical sacrifices of the old; taking the place particularly of the passover, or the feast of the typical redemption from Egypt. This eucharistic sacrifice, however, the ante-Nicene fathers conceived not as an unbloody repetition of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but simply as a commemoration and renewed appropriation of that atonement, and, above all, a thank-offering of the whole church for all the favors of God in creation and redemption. Hence the current name itself—eucharist; which denoted in the first place the prayer of thanksgiving, but afterwards the whole rite.423
The consecrated elements were regarded in a twofold light, as representing at once the natural and the spiritual gifts of God, which culminated in the self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Hence the eucharistic prayer, like that connected with the typical passover, related at the same time to creation and redemption, which were the more closely joined in the mind of the church for their dualistic separation by the Gnostics. The earthly gifts of broad and wine were taken as types and pledges of the heavenly gifts of the same God, who has both created and redeemed the world.
Upon this followed the idea of the self-sacrifice of the worshipper himself, the sacrifice of renewed self-consecration to Christ in return for his sacrifice on the cross, and also the sacrifice of charity to the poor. Down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the eucharistic elements were presented as a thank-offering by the members of the congregation themselves, and the remnants went to the clergy and he poor. In these gifts the people yielded themselves as a priestly race and a living thank-offering to God, to whom they owed all the blessings alike of providence and of grace. In later times the priest alone offered the sacrifice. But even the Roman Missal retains a recollection of the ancient custom in the plural form, "We offer," and in the sentence: "All you, both brethren and sisters, pray that my sacrifice and your sacrifice, which is equally yours as well as mine, may be meat for the Lord."
This subjective offering of the whole congregation on the ground of the objective atoning sacrifice of Christ is the real centre of the ancient Christian worship, and particularly of the communion. It thus differed both from the later Catholic mass, which has changed the thank-offering into a sin-offering, the congregational offering into a priest offering; and from the common Protestant cultus, which, in opposition to the Roman mass, has almost entirely banished the idea of sacrifice from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except in the customary offerings for the poor.
The writers of the second century keep strictly within the limits of the notion of a congregational thank-offering. Thus Justin says expressly, prayers and thanksgivings alone are the true and acceptable sacrifices, which the Christians offer. Irenaeus has been brought as a witness for the Roman doctrine, only on the ground of a false reading.424 The African fathers, in the third century, who elsewhere incline to the symbolical interpretation of the words of institution, are the first to approach on this point the later Roman Catholic idea of a sin-offering; especially Cyprian, the steadfast advocate of priesthood and of episcopal authority.425 The ideas of priesthood, sacrifice, and altar, are intimately connected, and a Judaizing or paganizing conception of one must extend to all.
§ 70. The Celebration of Baptism.
The Lit. see in vol. I. § 54, p. 465 sq., especially WALL and HÖFLING. On the archaeology of baptism see BINGHAM’S Antiquities, AUGUSTI’S Denkwürdigkeiten, the first vol. of BINTERIM, and the art. Baptism in SMITH and CHEETHAM, I. 155–172. Also SCHAFF, on the Didache(1885), p. 29–56. For pictorial illustrations see the monumental works of Cav. DE ROSSI, GARRUCCI, ROLLER, on the catacombs, and SCHAFF, l.c.
The "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (ch. 7,) enjoins baptism, after catechetical instruction, in these words: "Baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost in living (running) water. But if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
Justin Martyr gives the following account of baptism:426 "Those who are convinced of the truth of our doctrine, and have promised to live according to it, are exhorted to prayer, fasting and repentance for past sins; we praying and fasting with them. Then they are led by its to a place where is water, and in this way they are regenerated, as we also have been regenerated; that is, they receive the water-bath in the name of God, the Father and Ruler of all, and of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost. For Christ says: Except ye be born again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. (John 3:5) Thus, from children of necessity and ignorance, we become children of choice and of wisdom, and partakers of the forgiveness of former sins .... The baptismal bath is called also illumination (fwtismov") because those who receive it are enlightened in the understanding."
This account may be completed by the following particulars from Tertullian and later writers.
Before the act the candidate was required in a solemn vow to renounce the service of the devil, that is, all evil,427 give himself to Christ, and confess the sum of the apostolic faith in God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.428 The Apostles’ Creed, therefore, is properly the baptismal symbol, as it grew, in fact, out of the baptismal formula.
This act of turning front sin and turning to God, or of repentance and faith, on the part of the candidate, was followed by an appropriate prayer of the minister, and then by the baptism itself into the triune name, with three successive immersions in which the deacons and deaconesses assisted. The immersion in thrice dipping the head of the candidate who stood nude in the water.429 Single immersion seems to have been introduced by Eunomius about 360, but was condemned on pain of degradation, yet it reappeared afterwards in Spain, and Pope Gregory I. declared both forms valid, the trine immersion as setting forth the Trinity, the single immersion the Unity of the Godhead.430 The Eastern church, however, still adheres strictly to the trine immersion.431 Baptism by pouring water from a shell or vessel or from the hand on the head of the candidate very early occurs also and was probably considered equivalent to immersion.432 The Didache allows pouring in cases of scarcity of water. But afterwards this mode was applied only to infirm or sick persons; hence called clinical baptism.433 The validity of this baptism was even doubted by many in the third century; and Cyprian wrote in its defence, taking the ground that the mode of application of water was a matter of minor importance, provided that faith was present in the recipient and ministrant.434 According to ecclesiastical law clinical baptism at least incapacitated for the clerical office.435 Yet the Roman bishop Fabian ordained Novatian a presbyter, though he had been baptized on a sickbed by aspersion.436
Thanksgiving, benediction, and the brotherly kiss concluded the sacred ceremony.
Besides these essential elements of the baptismal rite, we find, so early as the third century, several other subordinate usages, which have indeed a beautiful symbolical meaning, but, like all redundancies, could easily obscure the original simplicity of this sacrament, as it appears in Justin Martyr’s description. Among these appendages are the signing of the cross on the forehead and breast of the subject, as a soldier of Christ under the banner of the cross; giving him milk and honey (also salt) in token of sonship with God, and citizenship in the heavenly Canaan; also the unction of the head, the lighted taper, and the white robe.
Exorcism, or the expulsion of the devil, which is not to be confounded with the essential formula of renunciation, was probably practised at first only in special cases, as of demoniacal possession. But after the council of Carthage, A.D. 256, we find it a regular part of the ceremony of baptism, preceding the baptism proper, and in some eases, it would seem, several times repeated during the course of catechetical instruction. To understand fully this custom, we should remember that the early church derived the whole system of heathen idolatry, which it justly abhorred as one of the greatest crimes,437 from the agency of Satan. The heathen deities, although they had been eminent men during their lives, were, as to their animating principle, identified with demons—either fallen angels or their progeny. These demons, as we may infer from many passages of Justin, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and others, were believed to traverse the air, to wander over the earth, to deceive and torment the race, to take possession of men, to encourage sacrifices, to lurk in statues, to speak through the oracles, to direct the flights of birds, to work the illusions of enchantment and necromancy, to delude the senses by false miracles, to incite persecution against Christianity, and, in fact, to sustain the whole fabric of heathenism with all its errors and vices. But even these evil spirits were Subject to the powerful name of Jesus. Tertullian openly challenges the pagan adversaries to bring demoniacs before the tribunals, and affirms that the spirits which possessed them, would bear witness to the truth of Christianity.
The institution of sponsors,438, first mentioned by Tertullian, arose no doubt from infant baptism, and was designed to secure Christian training, without thereby excusing Christian parents from their duty.
Baptism might be administered at any time, but was commonly connected with Easter and Pentecost, and in the East with Epiphany also, to give it the greater solemnity. The favorite hour was midnight lit up by torches. The men were baptized first, the women afterwards. During the week following, the neophytes wore white garments as symbols of their purity.
Separate chapels for baptism, or BAPTISTERIES, occur first in the fourth century, and many of them still remain in Southern Europe. Baptism might be performed in any place, where, as Justin says, "water was." Yet Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, and the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, require the element to be previously consecrated, that it may become the vehicle of the purifying energy of the Spirit. This corresponded to the consecration of the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, and involved no transformation of the substance.
§ 71. The Doctrine of Baptism.
This ordinance was regarded in the ancient church as the sacrament of the new birth or regeneration, and as the solemn rite of initiation into the Christian Church, admitting to all her benefits and committing to all her obligations. It was supposed to be preceded, in the case of adults, by instruction on the part of the church, and by repentance and faith (i.e. conversion) on the part of the candidate, and to complete and seal the spiritual process of regeneration, the old man being buried, and the new man arising from the watery grave. Its effect consists in the forgiveness of sins and the communication of the Holy Spirit. Justin calls baptism "the water-bath for the forgiveness of sins and regeneration," and "the bath of conversion and the knowledge of God." It is often called also illumination, spiritual circumcision, anointing, sealing, gift of grace, symbol of redemption, death of sins, &c.439 Tertullian describes its effect thus: "When the soul comes to faith, and becomes transformed through regeneration by water and power from above, it discovers, after the veil of the old corruption is taken away, its whole light. It is received into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; and the soul, which unites itself to the Holy Spirit, is followed by the body." He already leans towards the notion of a magical operation of the baptismal water. Yet the subjective condition of repentance and faith was universally required. Baptism was not only an act of God, but at the same time the most solemn surrender of man to God, a vow for life and death, to live henceforth only to Christ and his people. The keeping of this vow was the condition of continuance in the church; the breaking of it must be followed either by repentance or excommunication.
From John 3:5 and Mark 16:16, Tertullian and other fathers argued the necessity of baptism to salvation. Clement of Alexandria supposed, with the Roman Hermas and others, that even the saints of the Old Testament were baptized in Hades by Christ or the apostles. But exception was made in favor of the bloody baptism of martyrdom as compensating the want of baptism with water; and this would lead to the evangelical principle, that not the omission, but only the contempt of the sacrament is damning.440
The effect of baptism, however, was thought to extend only to sins committed before receiving it. Hence the frequent postponement of the sacrament,441 which Tertullian very earnestly recommends, though he censures it when accompanied with moral levity and presumption.442 Many, like Constantine the Great, put it off to the bed of sickness and of death. They preferred the risk of dying unbaptized to that of forfeiting forever the baptismal grace. Death-bed baptisms were then what death-bed repentances are now.
But then the question arose, how the forgiveness of sins committed after baptism could be obtained? This is the starting point of the Roman doctrine of the sacrament of penance. Tertullian443 and Cyprian444 were the first to suggest that satisfaction must be made for such sins by self-imposed penitential exercises and good works) such as prayers and almsgiving. Tertullian held seven gross sins, which he denoted mortal sins, to be unpardonable after baptism, and to be left to the uncovenanted mercies of God; but the Catholic church took a milder view, and even received back the adulterers and apostates on their public repentance.
NOTES
In reviewing the patristic doctrine of baptism which was sanctioned by the Greek and Roman, and, with some important modifications, also by the Lutheran and Anglican churches, we should remember that during the first three centuries, and even in the age of Constantine, adult baptism was the rule, and that the actual conversion of the candidate was required as a condition before administering the sacrament (as is still the case on missionary ground). Hence in preceding catechetical instruction, the renunciation of the devil, and the profession of faith. But when the same high view is applied without qualification to infant baptism, we are confronted at once with the difficulty that infants cannot comply with this condition. They may be regenerated (this being an act of God), but they cannot be converted, i.e. they cannot repent and believe, nor do they need repentance, having not yet committed any actual transgression. Infant baptism is an act of consecration, and looks to subsequent instruction and personal conversion, as a condition to full membership of the church. Hence confirmation came in as a supplement to infant baptism.
The strict Roman Catholic dogma, first clearly enunciated by St. Augustin though with reluctant heart and in the mildest form, assigns all unbaptized infants to hell on the round of Adam’s sin and the absolute necessity of baptism for salvation. A dogma horribile, but falsum. Christ, who is the truth, blessed unbaptized infants, and declared: "To such belongs again kingdom of heaven. The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX.) still teaches against the Anabaptists: quod baptismus sit necessarius ad salutem," but the leading Lutheran divines reduce the absolute necessity of baptism to a relative or ordinary necessity; and the Reformed churches, under the influence of Calvin’s teaching went further by making salvation depend upon divine election, not upon the sacrament, and now generally hold to the salvation of all infants dying in infancy. The Second Scotch Confession (A.D. 1580) was the first to declare its abhorrence of "the cruel [popish] judgment against infants departing without the sacrament," and the doctrine of "the absolute necessity of baptism."
§ 72. Catechetical Instruction and Confirmation.
LITERATURE.
I. CYRIL (Kurivllo") of Jerusalem (315–386): Eighteen Catechetical Lectures, addressed to Catechumens (Kathchvsei" fwtizomevnwn), and Five Mystigogical Lectures, addressed to the newly baptized. Best ed. byTouttée, § 1720, reprinted in Migne’s Patrol. Gr. vol. 33.
AUGUSTIN (d. 430): De Catechizandis Rudibus.
II. BINGHAM: Antiquities, X. 2.
ZEZSCHWITZ (Tüb.): System der christl. Kirchl. Katechetik. Leipzig, vol. I. 1863; vol. II. in 2 Parts, 1869 and 1872.
JOH. MAYER (R.C.): Geschichte des Katechumenats, and der Katechese, in den ersten sechs Jahrh. Kempten, 1866.
A. WEISS (R.C.): Die altkirchliche Pädagogik dargestelit in Katecumenat und Katechese der ersten sechs Jahrh. Freiburg, 1869.
FR. X. FUNK (R. C): Die Katechumenats-classen des christl. Alterthums, in the Tübing. "Theol. Quartalschrift," Tüb. 1883, p. 41–77.
1. THE CATECHUMENATE or preparation for baptism was a very important institution of the early church. It dates substantially from apostolic times. Theophilus was "instructed" in the main facts of the gospel history; and Apollos was "instructed" in the way of the Lord.445 As the church was set in the midst of a heathen world, and addressed herself in her missionary preaching in the first instance to the adult generation, she saw the necessity of preparing the susceptible for baptism by special instruction under teachers called "catechists," who were generally presbyters and deacons.446 The catechumenate preceded baptism (of adults); whereas, at a later period, after the general introduction of infant baptism, it followed. It was, on the one hand, a bulwark of the church against unworthy members; on the other, a bridge from the world to the church, a Christian novitiate, to lead beginners forward to maturity. The catechumens or hearers447 were regarded not as unbelievers, but as half-Christians, and were accordingly allowed to attend all the exercises of worship, except the celebration of the sacraments. They embraced people of all ranks, ages, and grades of culture, even philosophers, statesmen, and rhetoricians,—Justin, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, who all embraced Christianity in their adult years.
The Didache contains in the first six chapters, a high-toned moral catechism preparatory to baptism, based chiefly on the Sermon on the Mount.
There was but one or at most two classes of Catechumens. The usual division into three (or four) classes rests on confusion with the classes of Penitents.448
The catechetical school of Alexandria was particularly renowned for its highly learned character.
The duration of this catechetical instruction was fixed sometimes at two years449 sometimes at three,450 but might be shortened according to circumstances. Persons of decent moral character and general intelligence were admitted to baptism without delay. The Councils allow immediate admission in cases of sickness.
2. CONFIRMATION451 was originally closely connected with baptism, as its positive complement, and was performed by the imposition of hands, and the anointing of several parts of the body with fragrant balsam-oil, the chrism, as it was called. These acts were the medium of the communication of the Holy Spirit, and of consecration to the spiritual priesthood. Later, however, it came to be separated from baptism, especially in the case of infants, and to be regarded as a sacrament by itself. Cyprian is the first to distinguish the baptism with water and the baptism with the Spirit as two sacraments; yet this term, sacrament, was used as yet very indefinitely, and applied to all sacred doctrines and rites.
The Western church, after the third century, restricted the power of confirmation to bishops, on the authority of Acts 8:17; they alone, as the successors of the apostles, being able to impart the Holy Ghost. The Greek church extended this function to priests and deacons. The Anglican church retains the Latin practice. Confirmation or some form of solemn reception into full communion on personal profession of faith, after proper instruction, was regarded as a necessary supplement to infant baptism, and afterwards as a special sacrament.
§ 73. Infant Baptism.
On INFANT BAPTISM comp. Just. M.: Dial. c. Tryph. Jud. c. 43. IREN.: Adv. Haer. II. 22, § 4, compared with III. 17, § 1, and other passages. TERTUL.: De Baptismo, c. 18. CYPR.: Epist. LIX. ad Fidum. CLEM. ALEX.: Paedag. III. 217. ORIG.: Com. in Rom. V. Opp. IV. 565, and Homil. XIV. in Luc.
See Lit. in vol. I. 463sq., especially WALL. Comp. also W. R. POWERS: Irenaeus and Infant Baptism, in the "Am. Presb. and Theol. Rev." N. Y. 1867, pp. 239–267.
While the church was still a missionary institution in the midst of a heathen world, infant baptism was overshadowed by the baptism of adult proselytes; as, in the following periods, upon the union of church and state, the order was reversed. At that time, too, there could, of course, be no such thing, even on the part of Christian parents, as a compulsory baptism, which dates from Justinian’s reign, and which inevitably leads to the profanation of the sacrament. Constantine sat among the fathers at the great Council of Nicaea, and gave legal effect to its decrees, and yet put off his baptism to his deathbed. The cases of Gregory of Nazianzum, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustin, who had mothers of exemplary piety, and yet were not baptized before early manhood, show sufficiently that considerable freedom prevailed in this respect even in the Nicene and post-Nicene ages. Gregory of Nazianzum gives the advice to put off the baptism of children, where there is no danger of death, to their third year.452
At the same time it seems an almost certain fact, though by many disputed, that, with the baptism of converts, the optional baptism of the children of Christian parents in established congregations, comes down from the apostolic age.453 Pious parents would naturally feel a desire to consecrate their offspring from the very beginning to the service of the Redeemer, and find a precedent in the ordinance of circumcision. This desire would be strengthened in cases of sickness by the prevailing notion of the necessity of baptism for salvation. Among the fathers, Tertullian himself not excepted—for he combats only its expediency—there is not a single voice against the lawfulness and the apostolic origin of infant baptism. No time can be fixed at which it was first introduced. Tertullian suggests, that it was usually based on the invitation of Christ: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." The usage of sponsors, to which Tertullian himself bears witness, although he disapproves of it, and still more, the almost equally ancient abuse of infant communion, imply the existence of infant baptism. Heretics also practised it, and were not censured for it.
The apostolic fathers make, indeed, no mention of it. But their silence proves nothing; for they hardly touch upon baptism at all, except Hermas, and he declares it necessary to salvation, even for the patriarchs in Hades (therefore, as we may well infer, for children also). Justin Martyr expressly teaches the capacity of all men for spiritual circumcision by baptism; and his "all" can with the less propriety be limited, since he is here speaking to a Jew.454 He also says that many old men and women of sixty and seventy years of age have been from childhood disciples of Christ.455 Polycarp was eighty-six years a Christian, and must have been baptized in early youth. According to Irenaeus, his pupil and a faithful bearer of Johannean tradition, Christ passed through all the stages of life, to sanctify them all, and came to redeem, through himself, "all who through him are born again unto God, sucklings, children, boys, youths, and adults."456 This profound view seems to involve an acknowledgment not only of the idea of infant baptism, but also of the practice of it; for in the mind of Irenaeus and the ancient church baptism and regeneration were intimately connected and almost identified.457 In an infant, in fact, any regeneration but through baptism cannot be easily conceived. A moral and spiritual regeneration, as distinct from sacramental, would imply conversion, and this is a conscious act of the will, an exercise of repentance and faith, of which the infant is not capable.
In the churches of Egypt infant baptism must have been practised from the first. For, aside from some not very clear expressions of Clement of Alexandria, Origen distinctly derives it from the tradition of the apostles; and through his journeys in the East and West he was well acquainted with the practice of the church in his time.458
The only opponent of infant baptism among the fathers is the eccentric and schismatic Tertullian, of North Africa. He condemns the hastening of the innocent age to the forgiveness of sins, and intrusting it with divine gifts, while we would not commit to it earthly property.459 Whoever considers the solemnity of baptism, will shrink more from the receiving, than from the postponement of it. But the very manner of Tertullian’s opposition proves as much in favor of infant baptism as against it. He meets it not as an innovation, but as a prevalent custom; and he meets it not with exegetical nor historical arguments, but only with considerations of religious prudence. His opposition to it is founded on his view of the regenerating effect of baptism, and of the impossibility of having mortal sins forgiven in the church after baptism; this ordinance cannot be repeated, and washes out only the guilt contracted before its reception. On the same ground he advises healthy adults, especially the unmarried, to postpone this sacrament until they shall be no longer in danger of forfeiting forever the grace of baptism by committing adultery, murder, apostasy, or any other of the seven crimes which he calls mortal sins. On the same principle his advice applies only to healthy children, not to sickly ones, if we consider that he held baptism to be the indispensable condition of forgiveness of sins, and taught the doctrine of hereditary sin. With him this position resulted from moral earnestness, and a lively sense of the great solemnity of the baptismal vow. But many put off baptism to their death-bed, in moral levity and presumption, that they might sin as long as they could.
Tertullian’s opposition, moreover, had no influence, at least no theoretical influence, even in North Africa. His disciple Cyprian differed from him wholly. In his day it was no question, whether the children of Christian parents might and should be baptized—on this all were agreed,—but whether they might be baptized so early as the second or third day after birth, or, according to the precedent of the Jewish circumcision, on the eighth day. Cyprian, and a council of sixty-six bishops held at Carthage in 253 under his lead, decided for the earlier time, yet without condemning the delay.460 It was in a measure the same view of the almost magical effect of the baptismal water, and of its absolute necessity to salvation, which led Cyprian to hasten, and Tertullian to postpone the holy ordinance; one looking more at the beneficent effect of the sacrament in regard to past sins, the other at the danger of sins to come.
§ 74. Heretical Baptism.
On HERETICAL BAPTISM comp. EUSEBIUS: H.E. VII. 3–5. CYPRIAN: Epist. LXX.-LXXVI. The Acts of the Councils of Carthage, A.D. 255 and 256, and the anonymous tract, De Rebaptismate, among CYPRIAN’S works, and in ROUTH’S Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. v. 283–328.
HEFELE: Conciliengeschichte, I. 117–132 (second ed.).
G. E. STEITZ: Ketzertaufe, in Herzog, rev. ed., VII. 652–661.
Heretical baptism was, in the third century, the subject of a violent controversy, important also for its bearing on the question of the authority of the Roman see.
Cyprian, whose Epistles afford the clearest information on this subject, followed Tertullian461 in rejecting baptism by heretics as an inoperative mock-baptism, and demanded that all heretics coming over to the Catholic church be baptized (he would not say re-baptized). His position here was due to his high-church exclusiveness and his horror of schism. As the one Catholic church is the sole repository of all grace, there can be no forgiveness of sins, no regeneration or communication of the Spirit, no salvation, and therefore no valid sacraments, out of her bosom. So far he had logical consistency on his side. But, on the other hand, he departed from the objective view of the church, as the Donatists afterwards did, in making the efficacy of the sacrament depend on the subjective holiness of the priest. "How can one consecrate water," he asks, "who is himself unholy, and has not the Holy Spirit?" He was followed by the North African church, which, in several councils at Carthage in the years 255–6, rejected heretical baptism; and by the church of Asia Minor, which had already acted on this view, and now, in the person of the Cappadocian bishop Firmilian, a disciple and admirer of the great Origen, vigorously defended it against Rome, using language which is entirely inconsistent with the claims of the papacy.462
The Roman bishop Stephen (253–257) appeared for the opposite doctrine, on the ground of the ancient practice of his church.463 He offered no argument, but spoke with the consciousness of authority, and followed a catholic instinct. He laid chief stress on the objective nature of the sacrament, the virtue of which depended neither on the officiating priest, nor on the receiver, but solely on the institution of Christ. Hence he considered heretical baptism valid, provided only it was administered with intention to baptize and in the right form, to wit, in the name of the Trinity, or even of Christ alone; so that heretics coming into the church needed only confirmation or the ratification of baptism by the Holy Ghost. "Heresy," says he, "produces children and exposes them; and the church takes up the exposed children, and nourishes them as her own, though she herself has not brought them forth."
The doctrine of Cyprian was the more consistent from the hierarchical point of view; that of Stephen, from the sacramental. The former was more logical, the latter more practical and charitable. The one preserved the principle of the exclusiveness of the church; the other, that of the objective force of the sacrament, even to the borders of the opus operatum theory. Both were under the direction of the same churchly spirit, and the same hatred of heretics; but the Roman doctrine is after all a happy inconsistency of liberality, an inroad upon the principle of absolute exclusiveness, an involuntary concession, that baptism, and with it the remission of sin and regeneration, therefore salvation, are possible outside of Roman Catholicism.464
The controversy itself was conducted with great warmth. Stephen, though advocating the liberal view, showed the genuine papal arrogance and intolerance. He would not even admit to his presence the deputies of Cyprian, who brought him the decree of the African synod, and he called this bishop, who in every respect excelled Stephen, and whom the Roman church now venerates as one of her greatest saints, a false Christ and false apostle.465 He broke off all intercourse with the African church, as he had already with the Asiatic. But Cyprian and Firmilian, nothing daunted, vindicated with great boldness, the latter also with bitter vehemence, their different view, and continued in it to their death. The Alexandrian bishop Dionysius endeavored to reconcile the two parties, but with little success. The Valerian persecution, which soon ensued, and the martyrdom of Stephen (257) and of Cyprian (258), suppressed this internal discord.
In the course of the fourth century, however, the Roman theory gradually gained on the other, received the sanction of the oecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, was adopted in North Africa during the Donatistic controversies, by a Synod of Carthage, 348, defended by the powerful dialectics of St. Augustin against the Donatists, and was afterwards confirmed by the Council of Trent with an anathema on the opposite view.
NOTE.
The Council of Trent declares (Sessio Sept., March 3, 1547, canon 4): "If any one says that the baptism, which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church doth, is not true baptism: let him be anathema." The Greek church likewise forbids the repetition of baptism which has been performed in the name of the Holy Trinity, but requires trine immersion. See the Orthodox Conf. Quaest. CII. (in Schaff’s Creeds II. 376), and the Russian Catch. (II. 493), which says: "Baptism, is spiritual birth: a man is born but once, therefore he is also baptized but once." But the same Catechism declares "trine immersion" to be "most essential in the administration of baptism"(II. 491).
The Roman church, following the teaching of St. Augustin, bases upon the validity of heretical and schismatical baptism even a certain legal claim on all baptized persons, as virtually belonging to her communion, and a right to the forcible conversion of heretics under favorable circumstances.466But as there may be some doubt about the orthodox form and intention of heretical baptism in the mind of the convert (e.g. if he be a Unitarian), the same church allows a conditional rebaptism with the formula: "If thou art not yet baptized, I baptize thee," etc.
Evangelical creeds put their recognition of Roman Catholic or any other Christian baptism not so much on the theory of the objective virtue of the sacrament, as on a more comprehensive and liberal conception of the church. Where Christ is, there is the church, and there are true ordinances. The Baptists alone, among Protestants, deny the validity of any other baptism but by immersion (in this respect resembling the Greek church), but are very far on that account from denying the Christian status of other denominations, since baptism with them is only a sign (not a means) of regeneration or conversion, which precedes the rite and is independent of it.
* Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997. This material has been carefully compared, corrected¸ and emended (according to the 1910 edition of Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible Society, Dallas, TX, 1998.
290 Chorus, bh'ma. The two are sometimes identified, sometimes distinguished, the bema being the sanctuary proper for the celebration of the holy mysteries, the choir the remaining part of the chancel for the clergy; while the nave was for the laity.
291 [Ambwn, suggestus, pulpitum.
292 Travpeza, mensa sacra; also ara, altare.
293 jEkklhsiva, ejkklhsiasthvrion, kuriakav, oi\ko" qeou',, ecclesia, dominica, domus Dei, templum. The names for a church building in the Teutonic and Slavonic languages (Kirche, Church, Kerk, Kyrka, Tserkoff, etc.) are derived from the Greek kuriakhv, kuriakovn, (belonging to the Lord, the Lord’s house), through the medium of the Gothic; the names in the Romanic languages (Chiesa, Igreja, Eglise, etc.) from the Latin ecclesia, although this is also from the Greek, and meant originally assembly (either a local congregation, or the whole body of Christians). Churches erected specially in honor of martyrs were called martyria, memoriae, tropaea, tituli.
294 In ecclcsima, in domum Dei venire
295 Tovpo",anda]qroisma tw'n ejklektw'n
296 De Mort. Persec. c. 12. The Chronicle of Edessa (in Assem. Bibl Orient. XI. 397) mentions the destruction of Christian temples A.D. 292.
297 Hist. Ecel. X. 4. Eusebius also describes, in rhetorical exaggeration and looseness, the churches built by Constantine in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople (Vita Const. 1. III. 50; IV. 58, 59). See De Vogüe, Eglises de la terre-sainte, Hübsch, l.c., , -tnd Smith & Cheetliam, I. 368 sqq.
298 II. 57, ed. Ueltzen, p. 66 sqq.
299 The original designations of the Christian Sabbath or weekly rest-day are: hJ miva ormiva sabbavtwn, the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 21:1; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2), and hJ hJmevra kuriakhv, the Lord’s Day, which first occurs in Rev. 1:10, then in Ignatius and the fathers. The Latins render it Dominicus or Dominica dies. Barnabas calls it the eighth day, in contrast to the Jewish Sabbath. After Constantine the Jewish term Sabbath and the heathen term Sunday (hJmevra tou' hJlivou, dies Solis)were used also. In the edict of Gratian, A.D. 386, two are combined: "Solis die, quem Dominicum rite` dixere majores." On the Continent of Europe Sunday has ruled out Sabbath completely; while in England, Scotland, and the United States Sabbath is used as often as the other or oftener in religious literature. The difference is characteristic of the difference in the Continental and the Anglo-American observance of the Lord’s Day.
300 Ep., c. 15: "We celebrate the eighth day with joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead, and, after having appeared [to his disciple, ;], ascended to heaven." It does not follow from this that Barnabas put the ascension of Christ likewise on Sunday.
301 Ep. ad Magnes. c. 8, 9.
303 "Stato die, ’ in his letter to Trajan, Ep. X. 97. This " stated day, "on which the Christian, in Bithynia assembled before day-light to sing hymns to Christ as a God, and to bind themselves by a sacramentum, must be the Lord’s Day.
304 Ch. 14: Kuriakh; kurivou, pleonastic. The adjective in Rev. 1:10.
305 Ep. ad Magna. c. 8, 9 in the shorter Greek recension (wanting in the Syriac edition).
306 Cap. 15. This Epistle is altogether too fierce in its polemics against Judaism to be the production of the apostolic Barnabas.
307 Dial c. TryPh. M. 19, 27 (Tom. I. P. II. p. 68, 90, in the third ed. of Otto).
308 Dial. 12 (II, p. 46):sabbativzein uJma'" (so Otto reads, but hJma'" would be better) oJ kaino;" novmo" dia; panto;" (belong to sabbativzein)ejqevlei. Comp. Tertullian, Contra Jud. c. 4: "Unde nos intelligimis magis, sabbatizare nos ab omni opere servili semper debere, et non tantum septimo quoque die, sed per omne tempus."
309 Apol. I. 67 (I. p. 161):Th;n de; tou' hJlivou hJmevran koinh'/ pavnte" th;n sunevleusin poiouvmeqa, ejpeidh; prwvth ejsti;n hJmevra, ejn h|/ oJ qeo;" to; skovto" kai; th;n u{lhn trevya" , kovsmon ejpoivhse, kai; jIhsou'" Cristo;" oJ hJmevtero" swth;r th'/ auth'/ hJmevra/ ejk nekrw'n ajnevsth. k.t.l.
310 Eusebius, H. E. IV. 23.
311 Peri; kuriakh'" lovgo". Euseb. IV. 26.
312 In one of his fragments peri; tou' pavsca, and by his part in the Quartadecimanian controversy, which turned on the yearly celebration of the Christian Passover, but implied universal agreement as to the weekly celebration of the Resurrection. Comp. Hessey, Bampton Lectures on Sunday. London, 1860, p. 373.
314 De Orat. c. 23: "Nos vero sicut accepimus, solo die Dominicae Resurrectionis non ab isto tantum [the bowing of the knee], sed omni anxietatis habitu et officio cavere debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quem diabolo locum demus." Other passages of Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alex., and Origen see in Hessey, l.c., pp. 375 ff.
316 Feria sexta, hJ paraskeuhv
317 Dies stationum of the milites Christi.
319 Pascha, pavsca, is not from the verb pavscein, to, suffer (though often con founded with it and with the Latin passio by the Father, who were ignorant of Hebrew), but from the Hebrew js'K, the Chaldee ah;s]K' , (Comp. the verb js'K; to pass over, to spare). See Ex. chg. 12 and 13; Lev. 23:4–9; Num. ch. 9. It has three meanings in the Sept. and the N. T. 1) the paschal festival, called "the feast of unleavened bread," and lasting from the fourteenth to the twentieth of Nisan, in commemoration of the sparing of the first-born and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt; 2) the paschal lamb which was slain between the two evenings. (3-5 P. M.) on the 14th of Nisan; 3) the paschal supper on the evening- of the same day, which marked the beginning of the 15th of Nisan, or the first day of the festival. In the first sense it corresponds to the Christian Easter-festival, as the type corresponds to the substance. Nevertheless the translation Easter for Passover in the English version, Acts 12:4, is a strange anachronism (corrected in the Revision).
320 Easter is the resurrection festival which follow., ; the Passover proper, but is included in the same festive week. The English Easter (Anglo-Saxon easter, eastran, German Ostern) is connected with East and sunrise, and is akin to hjwv", oriens, aurora (comp. Jac. Grimm’s Deutsche Mythol.1835, p. 181 and 349, and Skeat’s Etym. Dict. E. Lang. sub Easter). The comparison of sunrise and the natural spring with the new moral creation in the resurrection of Christ, and the transfer of the celebration of Ostara, the old German divinity of the rising, health-bringing light, to the Christian Easter festival, was easy and natural, because all nature is a symbol of spirit, and the heathen myths are dim presentiments and carnal anticipations of Christian truths.
321 To; mevga savbbaton, to; a{gion savbbaton , Sabbatum magnum.
322 Pannucivde",vigiae paschae, Easter Eve. Good Friday and Easter Eve were a continuous fast, which was prolonged till midnight or cock-crow. See Tertull. Ad uxoR. II. 4; Euseb. H. E. VI. 34; Apost. ConSt. V. 18; VII. 23.
323 Various names: pavsca staurwvsimou (as distinct from p. ajnastavsimou).hJmevra staurou', paraskeuh; megavlh or ajgiva, parasceue, feria sexta major, Good Friday, Charfreitag (fromcavri" or from carus, dear). But the celebration seems not to, have been universal; for Augustin says in his letter Ad Januar., that he did not consider this day holy. See Siegel, Handbuch der christl. Kirchl. Alterthümer, I. 374 sqq.
324 From Palm Sunday to Easter Eve. JEbdoma;" megavlh, or tou' pavsca, hebdomas magna, hebdomas nigra (in opposition to dominica in albis), hebdomas crux, Chaiwoche.
325 Irenaeus, in his letter to Victor of Rome (Euseb. V. 24): "Not only is the dispute respecting the day, but also respecting the manner of fasting. For some think that the v ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of forty hours night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it, is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us, who perhaps not having ruled with sufficient strictness, established the practice that arose from their simplicity and ignorance."
327 Matt. 4:2; comp. Ex. 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8.
328 See note at the end of the section.
329 So Renan regards the controversy, Marc-Aurèle, p. 194, as a conflict between two kinds of Christianity. "le christianisme qui s’envisageait comme une suite du judaisme," and "le christianisme qui s’envisageait comme la destruction du judaisme."
330 By Mosheim (De rebus christ. ante Const. M Com., p. 435 sqq.) and Neander (in the first edition of his Church Hist., 1. 518, but not in the second I. 512, Germ. ed., I. 298 in Torrey’s translation). There is no trace of such a Jewish custom on the part of the Quartadecimani. This is admitted by Hefele (I. 87), who formerly held to three parties in this controversy; but there were only two.
331 The celebration of the eucharist is not expressly mentioned by Eusebius, but may be inferred. He says (H. E. V. 23): "The churches of all Asia, guided by older tradition (wJ"ejk paradovsew"ajrcaiotevra", older than that of Rome), thought that they were bound to keep the fourteenth day of the moon, on (or at the time of) the feast of the Saviour’s Passover (ejpi; th'"tou' swthrivou pavsca ejorth'"), that day on which the Jews were commanded to kill the paschal lamb; it being incumbent on them by all means to regulate the close of the fast by that day on whatever day of the week it might happen to fall."
332 Justin M. Dial.c.111; Iren. Adv. Haer. II. 22, 3; Tert. De Bapt. 19; Origen, In Matth.; Epiph. Haer. XLII. St. Paul first declared Christ to be our passover (1 Cor. 5:7), and yet his companion Luke, with whom his own account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper agrees, represents Christ’s passover meal as takin, place on the 14th.
333 The id v=14, quarta decima. See Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23:5, where this day is prescribed for the celebration of the Passover. Hence Tessareskaidekati'taiQuartodecimani, more correctly Quartadecimani. This sectarian name occurs in the canons of the councils of Laodicea, 364, Constantinople, 381, etc.
334 Philosph. or Refutat. of all Haeres. VIII. 18.
335 So also Renan regards it, L’égl. Chrét., p. 445sq., but he brings it, like Baur, in conflict with the chronology of the fourth Gospel. He traces the Roman custom from the pontificate of Xystus and Telesphorus, A.D. 120.
336 Renan (l.c., p. 447) conjectures that Trenaeus and Florinus accompanied Polycarp on that journey to Rome. Neander and others give a wrong date, 162. Polycarp died in 155, see § 19, p. 51, The pontificate of Anicetus began in 154 or before.
337 In a fragment of a letter to the Roman bishop Victor, preserved by Eusebius, H. E. V. c. 24 (ed. Heinichen, I. 253).
338 kai; peri; a{llwn tinw'n mikra; scovnte" (ore[conte")pro;" ajllhvlou"
339 mh; threi'n, i.e. the fourteenth of Nisan, as appears from the connection and from ch. 23. The threi'n consisted mainly in fasting, and probably also the celebration of the eucharist in the evening. It was a technical term for legal observances, Comp. John 9:16.
341 With the exception of a few fragments in the Chrenicon Paschale.
342 Eusebius spells his name jApolinavrio" (IV. 21 and 26, 27, ree Heinichen’s ed.), and so do Photius, and the Chron. Pachale in most MSS. But the Latins spell his name Apollinaris. He lived under Marcus Aurelius (161-180), was an apologist and opponent of Montanism which flourished especially in Phrygia, and must not be confounded with one of the two Apollinarius or Apollinaris, father and son, of Laodicea in Syria, who flourished in the fourth century.
343 Ed. Dindorf I. 13; in Routh’s Reliquiae Sacrae I.p. 160. Quoted and discussed by Milligan,l.c. p. 109 sq.
344 If this is the genuine Quartadecimanian view, it proves conclusively that it agreed with the Synoptic chronology as to the day of Christ’s death, and that Weitzel and Steitz are wrong on this point.
345 Since according to the view of Apolinarius, Christ as the true fulfillment of the law, must have died on the 14th, the day of the legal passover.
346 This seems to be the meaning of stasiavzein dokei', kat j aujtouv", ta; eujaggevlia,inter se pugnare, etc. On the assumption namely that John fixes the detail of Christ on the fourteenth of Nisan, which, however, is a point in dispute. The opponents who started from the chronology of the Synoptists, could retort this objections.
347 The same argument is urged in the fragments of Hippolytus in the Chronicon Paschale. But that Jesus was the true Paschal Lamb is a doctrine in which all the churches were agreed.
348 So Baur (p. 163 sq.) and the Tübingen School rightly maintain.
349 As Weitzel, Steitz, and Lechler assume in opposition to Baur.
350 In the passage of the Philosoph. above quoted and in the fragments of the Paschal Chronicle.
351 Epiphanius, it is true, distinguishes different opinions among the Quartadecimanians (Haer. L. cap. 1-3 Contra Quartadecimanas), but be makes no mention of the practice of eating a Paschal lamb, or of any difference in this chronology of the death of Christ.
352 Eusebius, H. E., V. 23-25.
353 Megavla stoicei'a in the sense of stars used Ep. ad Diog. 7; Justin Dial.c. 23 (ta; oujravnia stoicei'a).
354 oJ ejpi; to; sth'qo" tou' kurivou ajnapeswvn. Comp. John 1. 3: 25; 21: 20, This designation, as Renan admits Marc-Aurèle, p. 196, note 2), implies that Polycrates acknowledged the Gospel of John as genuine.
355 to; pevtalon.On this singular expression, which is probably figurative for priestly holiness, see vol. 1. p. 431, note 1.
356 Euseb. V. 24 (ed. Heinichen, 1. p. 250 sqq).
357 He is probably the author of the pseudo-Cypranic homily against dice players (De Aleatoribus), which assumes the tone of the papal encyclical.
358 In the third fragment discovered by Pfaff, probably from his book against Blastus. See Opera. ad. Stieren, I. 887.
359 In the Synodical letter which the fathers of Nicaea addressed to the churches of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis (Socrates, H. E. l.c. 9), it is said: "We have also gratifying intelligence to communicate to you relating to the unity of judgment on the subject of the most holy feast of Easter; ...that all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept this festival at the same time as the Jews, will henceforth conform to the Romans and to us, and to all who from the earliest time have observed our period of celebrating Easter." Eusebius; reports (Vita Const. III. 19) that especially the province of Asia acknowledged the decree. He thinks that only God and the emperor Constantine could remove this, ; evil of two conflicting celebrations of Easter.
360 Pentekosthv (hJmevra), Quinquagesima, is the fiftieth day after the Passover Sabbath, see vol. I. 225 sqq. It is used by the fathers; in it wider sense for the whole period of fifty days, from Easter to Whitsunday, and in a narrower sense for the single festival of Whitsunday.
361 De Idol. c. 12; Comp. De Bapt. c. 19; Const. Apost. V. 20.
362 In this sense Pentecoste is first used by the Council of Elvira (Granada) A.D. 306, can. 43. The week following was afterwards called Hebdomadas Spiritus Sancti.
363 hJ ejpifavneia, ta; epifavnia, hJ qeofavneia, hJmevra tw'n fwvtwn: Epiphania, Theophania, Dies Luminum, Festura Trium Regum, etc. The feast is first mentioned by Clement of Alex. as the annual commemoration of the. baptism of Christ by the Gnostic sect of the Basilidians (Strom. I. 21). Neander supposes that they derived it from the Jewish Christians in Palestine. Chrysostom often alludes to it.
364 Augustin, Serm. 202, § 2.
365 Matt. 2:11. The first indistinct trace, perhaps, is in Tertullian, Adv., Jud. c. 9: "Nam at Magos reges fere habuit Oriens." The apocryphal Gospels of the infancy give us no fiction on that point.
366 Comp. §17, p. 46, and G. Boissier, De l’authenticité de la lettre de Pline au sujet des Chrétiens, in the "Revue Archéol., " 1876, p. 114-125.
367 "Quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, Carmenque, Christo, Deo, dicere secum invicem."
368 Apol. l.c. 65-67 (Opera, ed. Otto III. Tom. I. P. I. 177-188). The passage quoted is from ch. 67.
369 th'/ tou' JHlivou legomevnh/ hJmevra/
371 JO proestwv", the presiding presbyter or bisbop.
372 ·Th;n nouqesivan kai; paravklhsin.
373 Eujca;" pevmpomen, preces emittimus.
375 {Osh duvnami" aujtw'/ , that is probably pro viribus, quantum potest; or like Tertullian’s "de pectore", and" ex proprio ingenio."Others translate wrongly: totis viribus, with all his might, or with a clear, load voice. Comp. Otto, l.c. 187. The passages, however, in no case contain any opposition to forms of prayer which were certainly in use already at the time, and familiar Without book to every worshipper; above all the Lord’s Prayer. The whole liturgical literature of the fourth and fifth centuries presupposes a much, older liturgics tradition. The prayers in the eighth, book of the Apost. Constitutions are probably among the oldest Portions of the work.
376 Cap. 13. Justin himself wrote a book entitled vyavlth".
377 See the passages quoted by Otto, l.c. 184 sq.
378 B. VIII. 3 sqq. Also VII. 33 sqq. See translation in the "Ante-Nicene Library, " vol. XVII., P. II. 191 sqq. and 212 sqq.
380 The Ep. of Clemens in the Codex Alexandrinus (A); Barnabas and Hermas in the Cod. Sinaiticus.
381 Jomiliva, lovgo", sermo, tractatus.
382 § 19, ajnaginwvskw uJmi'n. But the homily may have first been delivered extempore, and taken down by short-hand writers (tacugravfoi, notarii). See Lightfoot, p. 306.
383 Ed. by Bryennios (1875), and in the Patr. Apost. ed. by de Gebhardt and Harnack, I. 111-143. A good translation by Lightfoot, S. Clement of Rome, Appendix, 380-390. Lightfoot says: "If the first Epistle of Clement is the earliest foreshadowing of a Christian liturgy, the so called Second Epistle is the first example of a Christian homily." He thinks that the author was a bishop; Harnack, that be was a layman, as be seems to distinguish himself from the presbyters. Lightfoot assigns him to Corinth, and explains in this way the fact that the homily was bound tip with the letter of Clement to the Corinthians; while Harnack ably maintain, the Roman origin from the time and circle of Hermas. Bryennios ascribe, ; it to Clement of Rome (which is quite impossible), Hilgenfeld to Clement of Alexandria (which is equally impossible).
384 Ad Cor. ch. 59-61, discovered and first published by Bryennios, 1875. We give Clement’s prayer below, p. 228 sq. The prayers if the Didache(chs.9 and 10), brought to light by Bryennios, 1883, are still older, and breathe the spirit of primitive simplicity. See § 68.
385 See vol. III. 517 sqq., and add to the literature there, quoted, PROBSt (R.C.), Die Liturgie der 3 ersten Jahrh., Tüb., 1870; C. A. HAMMOND, Ancient Liturgies (with introduction, notes, and liturgical glossary), Oxford and Lond., 1878.
386 Ap. Const., Bk. VIII., also in the liturgical collections of Daniel, Neale, Hammond, etc.
387 Const. Apost. lib. VII. 47. Also in Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnol., tom. III, p. 4, where it is called u{mno" eJwqinov"(as in Cod. Alex.), and commences: Dovxa ejn uJyivstoi" qew'/. Comp. Tom. II. 268 sqq. It is also called hymnus angelicus while the Ter Sanctus (from Isa. 6:3) came afterwards to be distinguished as hymnus seraphicus. Daniel ascribes the former to the third century, Routh to the second. It is found with slight variations at the end of the Alexandrian Codex of the Bible (in the British Museum), and in the Zurich Psalter reprinted by Tischendorf in his Monumenta Sacra. The Latin form is usually traced to Hilary of Poictiers in the fourth century.
388 Daniel, l.c. vol. III. p. 5. Comp. in part Const. Ap. VIII. 37. The u{mno" eJaperinov"or u{mno" tou' lucnikou', commences:
Fw'" iJlaro;n aJgiva" dovch"
jAqanavtou patro;" oujranivou.
389 In Euseb. H. E. V. 28.
390 In the Paedag. III. 12 (p. 311 ed. Pott.); also in Daniel’s Thesaurus hymnologicus III. p. 3 and 4. Daniel calls it "vetustissimus hymnus ecclesiae", but the Gloria in Excelsis may dispute this claim. The poem has been often translated into Cierinan, by Münter (in Rambach’s Anthologie christl. Gesänge, I. p, 35); Dorner (Christologie, I. 293); Fortlage (Gesänge christl. Vorzeit, 1844, p. 38); and in rhyme by Hagenbach (Die K. G. der 3 ersten Jahrh. p. 222 sq.). An English translation may be found in Mrs. Charles: The Voice of Christian Life, in Song, N. York, 1858, p. 44 sq., and a closer one in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library, " vol. V. p. 343 sq.
391 Leitourgiva tw'n kathcoumevnwn, Missa Catechumenorum. The name missa (from which our mass is derived) occurs first in Augustin and in the acts of the council of Carthage, A.D. 398. it arose from the formula of dismission at the close of each part of the service, and is equivalent to missio, dismissio. Augustin (Serm. 49, c. 8): "Take notice, after the sermon the dismissal (missa) of the catechumens takes place; the faithful will remain." Afterwards missa came to designate exclusively the communion service. In the Greek church leitourgiva or litourgiva, service, is the precise equivalent for missa.
392 Leitourgiva tw'n pistw'n, Missa Fidelium.
393 Mhv ti" tw'n kathcoumevnwn, mhv ti" tw'n ajkrowmevnwn, mhv ti" ajpivstwn, mhv ti" eJterodovxwn, "Let none of the catechumens, let none of the hearers, let none of the unbelievers, let none of the heterodox, stay here." Const. Apost. viii. 12. Comp. Chrysostom Hom. in Matt. xxiii.
394 De PraescR. Haer. C. 41: "Quis catechimenus, quis fidelis, incertum est" that is, among the heretics); "pariter adeunt, pariter orant, etiam ethnici, si supervenerint; sanctum canibus et porcis, margaritas, licet non veras " (since they have no proper sacraments), "jactabunt." But this does not apply to all heretics, least of all to the Manichaeans, who carried the notion of mystery in the sacrament much further than the Catholics.
395 Muvhtoi, initiati = pistoiv, fideles.
396 The learned Jesuit Emanuel von Scheistrate first used this argument in Antiquitas illustrate (Antw. 1678), and De Disciplina Arcani (Rom. 1685); but he was refuted by the Lutheran W. Ernst Tentzel, in his Dissert. de Disc. Arcani, Lips. 1683 and 1692. Tentzel, Casaubon, Bingham, Rothe, and Zetzschwitz are wrong, however, in confining the Disc. Arc. to the ritual and excluding the dogma. See especially Cyril of Jerus. Katech, XVI. 26; XVIIL 32, 33.
397 Heb. 5:12-14; 1 Cor. 3:1, 2. So some fathers who carry the Disc. Arc. back to the Lord’s command, Matt. 7:6, and in recent times Credner (1844), and Wandinger (in the new ed. of Wetzer and Welte, I. 1237). St. Paul, 1 Cor. 14:23-25, implies the presence of strangers in the public services, but not necesarily during the communion.
398 So Bonwetsch, l.c., versus Rothe and Zetzchwitz.
399 The correspondence is very apparent in the ecclesiastical use of such terms as musthvrion, suvmbolon, muvhsi", mustagwgei''n, kavqarsi" , teleiwvsi", fwtismov"(of baptism), etc. On the Greek, and especially the Eleusinian cultus of mysteries, Comp. Lobeck, Aglaophanus, Königsberg, 1829; several articles of Preller in Pauly’s Realencyklop. der Alterthumswissenschaft III. 83 sqq., V. 311 sqq., Zetzs chwitz, l.c. 156 sqq., and Lübker’s Reallex. des class. Alterthums. 5th ed. by Erler (1877), p. 762. Lobeck has refuted the older view of Warburton and Creuzer, that a secret wisdom, and especially the traditions of a primitive revelation, were propagated in the Greek mysteries.
400 Names:eujcaristiva, koinwniva, eucharistia, communio, communicatio, etc.
402 Eujcaristhqevnto" a[rtou
403 Cyprian speaks of daily sacrifice, ;. Ep. 54: "Sacerdotes qui Sacrificia Dei quotidie celebramus." So Ambrose, Ep. 14 ad Marcell., and the oldest liturgical works. But that the observance was various, is certified by Augustin, among others. Ep. 118 ad Januar. c. 2: "Alii quotidie communicant corpori et sanguini Dominico; alii certis diebus accipiunt; alibi nullus dies intermittitur quo non offeratur; alibi sabbato tantum et dominico; alibi tantum dominico." St. Basil says (Ep. 289): ’We commune four times in the week, on the Lord’s Day, the fourth day, the preparation day [Friday], and the Sabbath. "Chrysostom complains of the small number of communicants at the daily sacrifice.
404 Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14. The Kiss of Peace continued in the Latin church till the end of the thirteenth century, and was then transferred to the close of the service or exchanged for a mere form of words: Pax tibi et ecclesiae. In the Russian church the clergy kiss each other during the recital of the Nicene Creed to show the nominal union of orthodoxy and charity (so often divided). In the Coptic church the primitive custom is still in force, and in some small Protestant sects it has been revived.
406 jEpivklhsi" tou' Pn. JAg. Irenaeus derives this invocatio Spiritus S., as well as the oblation and the thanksgiving, from apostolic instruction. See the 2nd fragment, in Stieren, I. 854. It appears in all the Greek liturgies. In the Liturgia Jacobi it reads thus:Kai; ejxapovsteilon ejf j hJma'" kai; ejpi; ta; proskeivmena dw'ra tau'ta to; Pneu'mav sou to; panavgion, to; kuvrion kai; zwopoiovn ... i{na ... ajgiavsh/ kaiv poihvsh/ to;n me;n a[rton tou'ton sw'ma a{gion tou' Cristou; sou', kai; to; pothvrion tou'to ai\ma tivmion tou' Cr. sou', i{na gevnhtai pa'si toi'" ejx auJtw'n metalambavnousin eij" a{fesin aJmartiw'n kai; eij" zwh;n aijwvnion, eij" aJgiasmo;n yucw'n kai; swmavtwn, eij" kartoforivan e[rgwn ajgaqw'n.
407 Koino;" a[rto", says; Justin, while in view of its sacred import be calls it also uncommon bread and drink. The use of leavened or unleavened bread became afterwards, as is well known, a point of controversy between the Roman and Greek churches.
408 This simplest form of distribution, "Sw'ma Cristou'," and "Ai[ma Cr., pothvrion zwh'"" occurs in the Clementine liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, VIII. 13, and seems to be the oldest. The Didache gives no form of distribution.
409 The standing posture of the congregation during the principal prayers, and in the communion itself, seems to have been at first universal. For this was, indeed, the custom always on the day of the resurrection in distinction from Friday ("stantes oramus, quod est signunt resurrectionis," says Augustin) besides, the communion was, in the highest sense, a ceremony of festivity and joy; and finally, Justin expressly observes: "Then we all stand up to prayer." After the twelfth century, kneeling in receiving the elements became general, and passed from the Catholic church into the Lutheran and Anglican, while most of the Reformed churches; returned to the original custom of standing. Sitting in the communion was first introduced after the Reformation by the Presbyterian church of Scotland, and is very common in the United States the deacons or elders banding the bread and cup to the communicants in their pews. A curious circumstance is the sitting posture of the Pope in the communion, which Dean Stanley regards as a relic of the reclining or recumbent posture of the primitive disciples. See his Christ. Instit. p. 250 sqq.
410 On Maundy-Thursday, according, to Augustin’s testimony, the communion continued to be celebrated in the evening, "tanquam ad insigniorem commemorationem." So on high feasts, as Christmas night, Epiphany, and Easter Eve, and in fasting seasons. See Ambrose, Serm. viii. in Ps. 118.
411 Apol. c.39: "About the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made. Our feast explains itself by its name. The Greeks call it love. Whatever it costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good things of the feast we benefit the needy, not as it is with you, do parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful treatment-but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly. If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste. They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one of their auditors. After the washing of hands and the bringing in of lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing-a proof of the measure of our drinking. As the feast commenced with prayer, so with prayer it closed. We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of roamers, nor to break out into licentious acts, but to have aq ruucli care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet." (Translation from the "Ante-Nicene Library ").
412 Ad Smyrn. c. 7; against the Docetists, who deny th;n eujcaristivan savrka ei\nai tou' swth'ro" hJmw'n jL.Cr., k.t.l. and Ad Ephes. C. 20: {O" (sc. a{rto")e[stin favrmakon ajqanisiva" , a[ntivdoto" tou' mh; ajpoqanei'n, ajlla; zh'/n eJn jIhsou' Cristw' dia; pantov" . Both passages are wanting in the Syriac version. But the first is cited by Theodoret, Dial. III. p. 231, and must therefore have been known even in the Syrian church in his time.
413 Apol. I. 66 (I. 182, third ed. of Otto). Here also occurs already the term metabolhv, which some Roman controversialists use at once as an argument for transubstantiation. Justin says: jEx h|" (i.e.trofh'")ai|ma kai; savrke" kata; metabolh;n trevfontai hJmw'n, ex quo alimento sanguis et carnes nostae per mutationem aluntur. But according to the context, this denotes by no means a transmutation of the elements, but either the assimilation of them to the body of the receiver, or the operation of them upon the body, with reference to the future resurrection. Comp. John 6:54 sqq., and like passages in Ignatius and Irenaeus.
414 Adv. haer. IV. 18, and passim.
415 In the second of the Fragments discovered by Pfaff (Opp. Tren. ed Stieren, vol. I. p. 855), which Maffei and other Roman divines have unwarrantably declared spurious. It is there said that the Christians, after the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice, call upon the Holy Ghost, o{pw" ajpofhvnh/ th;n qusivan tauvthn kai; to;n a[rton sw'ma tou' Cristou', kai; to; pothvrion to; ai|ma tou' Cr., i{na oij metalabovnte" tou'twn tw'n ajntituvpwn, th'" ajfevsew" tw'n aJmartiw'n kai; zwh'" aijwnivou tuvcwsin.
417 Const. Apost. l. V. c. 14Ta; ajntivtupa musthvria tou' timivou swvmato" aujtou' kai; ai{mato". So VI. 30, and in a eucharistic prayer, VII. 25. Other passages of the Greek fathers see in Stieren, l.c. p. 884 sq. Comp. also Bleek’s learned remarks in his large Com. on Heb. 8:5, and 9:24.
418 Adv. Marc. IV. 40; and likewise III. 19. This interpretation is plainly very near that of Œcolampadius, who puts the figure in the predicate, and who attached no small weight to Tertullian’s authority. But the Zwinglian view, which puts the figure in theejsti. instead of the predicate, appears also in Tertullian, Adv. Marc. I. 14, in the words: "Panem qui ipsum corpus suum repraesentat." The two interpretations are only grammatical modifications of the same symbolical theory.
419 De Resur. Carnis, c. 8."Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo saginetur." De Pudic. c. 9, he refers the fatted calf, in the parable of the prodigal son, to the Lord’s Supper, and says: "Opimitate Dominici corporis vescitur, eucharistia scilicet."De Orat. c. 6: "Quod et corpus Christi in pane censetur," which should probably be translated: is to be understood by the bread (not contained in the bread).
420 For this reason he considers the mixing essential. Epist. 63 (ed. Bal.) c. 13: "Si vinum tantum quis offerat, sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis; si vero aqua sit sola, plebs incipit esse sine Christo. Quando autem utrumque miscetur et adunatione confusa sibi invicem copitlatur, tunc sacramentum spirituale et cœleste perficitur."
421 Comment. ser. in Matt. c. 85 (III. 898): "Panis iste, quem Dem Verbum [Logos] corpus suum esse fatetur, verbum est nutritorium animarum, verbum de Deo Verbo procedens, et panis de pani cœlesti ... Non enim panem illum visibilem, quem tenebat in manibus, corpus situm dicebat Deus Verbum, sed verbum, in cuius mysterio est panis ille frangendus." Then the same of the wine. Origen evidently goes no higher than the Zwinglian theory, while Clement approaches the Calvinistic view of a spiritual real fruition of Christ’s life in the Eucharist.
422 Prosforav, qusiva, oblatio, sacrificium.
423 So among the Jews the cup of wine at the paschal supper was called "the cup of blessing,"pothvrion eulogiva" = eujcaristiva" , Comp. 1 Cor. 10:16.
424 Adv. Haer. IV. c. 18, §. 4: "Verbum [the Logos] quod offertur Deo;" instead of which should be read, according to other manuscripts: "Verbum per quod offertur,"—which suits the connexion much better. Comp. IV. 17, § 6: "Per Jes. Christum offert ecclesia." Stieren reads "Verbum quod," but refers it not to Christ, but to the word of the prayer. The passage is, at all events, too obscure and too isolated to build a dogma upon.
425 Epist. 63 ad Council. c. 14: "Si Jesus Christus, Dominus et Deus noster, ipse est summus sacerdos Dei Patris et sacrificium Patri seipsum primus obtulit et hoc fieri in sui commemorationem praecepit: utique ille sacerdos vice Christi vere fungitur, gui id, quod Christus fecit, imitatur et sacrificium verum et plenum tunc offert."
426 Apol. I., c. 61 (I. 164 ed. Otto).
427 Abrenunciatio diaboti. Tertullian: "Renunciare diabolo et pompae et angelis ejus." Const. Apost.: jApotavssomai tw/' Satana/' kai; toi'" e[rgoi" aujtou' kai; tai;" pompai'" aujtou', kai; tai'" latreivai" aujtou', kai; pa'si toi'" uJp j aujtovn This renunciation of the devil was made, at least in the fourth century, as we learn from Cyril of Jerusalem, in the vestibule of the baptistery, with the face towards the west, and the hand raised in the repelling posture, as if Satan were present (wJ" parovnti ajpotavssesqe Satana/'), and was sometimes accompanied with exsufflations, or other signs of expulsion of the evil spirit.
428 JOmolovghsi", professio. The creed was either said by the catechumen after The priest, or confessed in answer to questions, and with the face turned eastwards towards the light.
429 See the authorities (Quoted in Smith and Cheetham, I. 161, and more fully in Augusti.. l.c."Ter mergitamur, " says Tertullian. Immersion was very natural in Southern climates. The baptisteries of the Nicene age, of which many remain in Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe, were built for immersion, and all Oriental churches still adhere to this mode. Garrucci (Storia della Arte Cristiana, I. 27) says: "Antichissimo e solenne fu il rito d’ immergere la persona nell’ acqua, e tre volte anche it capo, al pronunziare del ministro i tre nomi." Schultze (Die Katacomben, p. 136): "Die Taufdarstellungen vorkonstantinischer Zeit, deren Zahl sich auf drei beläuft, zeigen sämmtlich erwachsene Täuflinge, in zvei FälIen Knabent von etwa zwölf Jahren, im dritten Falle einen Jüngling. Der Act wird durch Untertauchen vollzogen." Dean Stanley delights in pictorial exaggeration of the baptismal immersion in patristic times as contrasted with modern sprinkling. "Baptism," he says, "was not only a bath, but a plunge—an entire submersion in the deep water, a leap as into the rolling sea or the rushing river, where for the moment the waves close over the bather’s head, and he emerges again as from a momentary grave; or it was a shock of a shower-bath—the rush of water passed over the whole person from capacious vessels, so as to wrap the recipient as within the veil of a splashing cataract. This was the part of the ceremony on which the Apostles laid so much stress. It was to them like a burial of the old former self and the rising up again of the new self."Christian Institutions, (1881), p. 9. See Schaff, l.c. p. 41 sqq.
430 Ep. I. 41 in reply to Leander, bishop of Hispala. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., Tom. IV., f. 615, ed. Migne) quotes this letter with approval, but gives the preference to trina immersio, as expressing "triduum sepulturus Christi et etiam Trinitas personarum."
431 The Russian Orthodox Catechism defines baptism as "a sacrament, in which a man who believes, having his body thrice plunged in water in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, dies to the carnal life of sin, and is born again of the Holy Ghost to a life spiritual and holy." In the case of infants the act is usually completed by pouring water over the head, the rest of the body being, immersed. So I was informed by a Greek priest.
432 Pouring or affusion is the present practice of the Roman Catholic church. It is first found on pictures in the Roman catacombs, one of which De Rossi assigns to the second century (in the cemetry of Calixtus). "It is remarkable that in almost all the earliest representations of baptism that have been preserved to us, this [the pouring of water from vessels over the body] is the special act represented." Marriott in Smith and Cheetham, I. 168. But the art of painting can only represent a part of the act, not the whole process; in all the Catacomb pictures the candidate stands with the feet in water, and is undressed as for immersion, total or partial.
433 "Baptismus clinicorum" (klinikoiv, from klvivnhbed) Clinicus or grabbatarius designated one who was baptized on the sick bed.
434 Ep. 69 (al. 75), ad Magnum. He answered the question as best be could in the absence of any ecclesiastical decision at that time. This Epistle, next to Tertullian’s opposition to infant baptism, is the oldest document in the controversial baptismal literature. Cyprian quotes (ch. 12) several passages from the O.T. where "sprinkling" is spoken of as an act of cleansing (Ez. 36:25, 26; Num. 8:5–7; 19:8–13), and then concludes: "Whence it appears that sprinkling also of water prevails equally with the salutary washing (adspersionem quoque aquae instar salutaris lavacri obtinere); and that when this is done in the church where the faith both of the receiver and the giver is sound (ubi sit et accipieatis et dantis fides integra), all things hold and may be consummated and perfected by the majesty of the Lord and by the truth of faith." But in the same Ep., Cyprian denies the validity of heretical and schismatic baptism in any form. See below, §74.
435 The twelfth canon of the Council of Neo-Caesarea (after 314) ordains: "Whosoever has received clinical baptism cannot be promoted to the priesthood, because his [profession of] faith was not from free choice, but from necessity (ejx ajnavgkh" ,fear of death), unless he, excel afterwards in zeal and faith, or there is a deficiency of [able] men." This canon passed into the Corpus jur. can. c. 1 Dist. 57. See Hefele, Conciliengesch, I. 249 (2nd ed.).
436 Pouring and sprinkling were still exceptional in the ninth century according to Walafrid Strabo (De Rel. Eccl., c. 26), but they made gradual progress with the spread of infant baptism, as the most convenient mode, especially in Northern climates, and came into common use in the West at the end of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) says, that although it may be safer to baptize by immersion, yet pouring and sprinkling are also allowable (Summa Theol. P. III. Qu. LXVI. De Rapt. art. 7: in Migne’s ed. Tom. IV. fol. 614): "Si totum corpus aquâ non possit perfundi propter aquae paucitatem, vel propter aliquam aliam causam, opportet caput perfundere, in quo manifestatur principium animalis vitae. In Ireland aspersion seems to have been practiced very early along with immersion." Trine immersion, with the alternative of aspersion, is ordered in the earliest extant Irish Baptismal Office, in the composition of which, however, Roman influence is strongly marked." F. E. Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of the CeItic Church, Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1881, p. 65. Prof. Norman Fox and other Baptist writer., ;, think that " neither infant baptism nor the use of pouring and sprinkling for baptism would ever have been thought of but for the superstitious idea that baptism was necessary to salvation."But this idea prevailed among the fathers and in the Greek church fully as much as in the Roman, while it is rejected in most Protestant churches where sprinkling is practiced.
Luther sought to restore immersion, but without effect. Calvin took a similar view of the subject as Thomas Aquinas, but he went farther and declared the mode of application to be a matter of indifference, Inst. IV. ch. 15, §19: " Whether the person who is baptized be wholly immersed (mergatur totus)and whether thrice or once, or whether water be only poured (infusa)or sprinkled upon him (aspergatur), is of no importance (minimum refert): but this should be left free to the churches according to the difference of countries. Yet the very word baptize signifies to immerse (mergere); and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church." Most Protestants agree with Calvin, except the Baptists, who revived the ancient practice, but only in part (single instead of trine immersion), and without the patristic ideas of baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, and the necessity of baptism for salvation. They regard baptism as a mere symbol which exhibits the fact that regeneration and conversion have already taken place.
437 Tertullian calls it "principals crimen generis humani" (De idol. c. 1), and Cyprian, "summum delictum" (Ep. x.).
438 jAnavdocoi, sponsores, fideijussores.
439 The patristic terms for baptism expressive of doctrine are ajnagevnnhsi", paliggenesiva(and loutro;n paliggenesiva" ,Tit. 3:5), qeogevnesi"regeneratio, secunda or spiritualis nativitas, renascentia; also fwtismov" , fwvtisma, illuminatio, sfragiv",signaculum, seal, muvhsi", mustagwgiva, initiation into the mysteries (the sacraments). The sign was almost identified with the thing itself.
440 "Non defectus (or privatio), sed contemtus sacramenti damnat." This leaves the door open for the salvation of Quakers, unbaptized children, and elect heathen who die with a desire for salvation.
441 Procrastinatio baptismi.
442 So the author of the Apost. Constit., VI. 15, disapproves those who say: o{tio{tan teleutw', baptivzomai, i{na mh; aJmarthvsw kai; rJupanw' to; bavptisma.
444 De Opere et Eleemosynis.
445 Luke 1:4 (kathchvqh") Acts 18:25 (kathchmevno"); Comp. Rom. 2:18; 1 Cor.14:19; Gal. 6:6; Heb. 5:12. The verb kathcevw means 1) to resound; 2) to teach by word of mouth; 3) in Christian writers, to instruct in the elements of religion.
446 Kathchtaiv, doctores audientium. The term designates a function, not a special office or class.
447 Kathcouvmenoi, jakroataiv, auditores, audientes.
448 jAkrowvmenoi, or audientes; gonuklivnonte", or genuflectentes; and fwtizovmenoi, or competentes. So Ducange, Augusti, Neander, Höfling, Hefele (in the first ed. of his Conciliengesch., but modified in the second, vol. I. 246, 249), Zezschwitz, Herzog, and many others. Bona and Bingham add even a fourth class (ejxwqouvmenoi). But this artificial classification (as Dr. Funk has shown, l.c.) arose from a misunderstanding of the fifth canon of Neocaesarea (between 314 and 325), which mentions one govnu klivnwn, but as representing a class of penitents, not of catechumens. Suicer, Mayer, and Weiss assume but two classes, audientes and competentes. Funk maintains that the candidates for baptism (fwtizovmenoi, companies or electi baptizandi) were already numbered among the faithful (fideles), and that there was only one class of catechumens.
449 Conc. of Elvira, can. 42
450 Const. Apost. VIII. 32.
451 Sfragiv", crivsma, confirmatio obsignatio, signaculum.
453 Comp. I. 469 sq. The fact is not capable of positive proof, but rests on strong probabilities. The Baptists deny it. So does Neander, but lie approves the practice of infant baptism as springing from the spirit of Christianity.
455 Apol. l.c. 15 (Otto 1. 48): oiJ ejk paivdwn ejmaqhteuvqhsan tw'/ Cristw'/
456 Adv. Haer. II. 22, § 4: "Omnes venit per semetipsum salvare; omnes, inquam qui per cum renascuntur in Deum, infantes et parvulos et pueros et juvenes et seniores. Ideo per omnem venit aetatem, et infantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes; in parvulis parvulus, sanctificans hanc ipsam habentes aetatem; simul et exemplunt illis pietatis effectus et justitae et subjectionis, in juvenibus juvenis," etc. Neander, in discussing this passage remarks, that" from this idea, founded on what is inmost in Christianity, becoming prominent in the feeling of Christians, resulted the practice of infant baptism" (I. 312, Boston ed.)
457 Irenaeus speaks of "the washing of regeneration, " and of the "baptism of regeneration unto God,"to; bavptisma th'" eij" qeo;n ajnagennhvsew" (Adv. Haer. l.c. 21, § 1); he identifies the apostolic commission to baptize with the potestas regenerationis in Deum (III. 17, § 1); he says that Christ descending into Hades, regenerated the ancient patriarchs (III. c. 22, § 4; "in sinum suum recipiens pristinos patres regeneravit eos in vitam Dei"), by which he probably meant baptism (according to the fancy of Hermas, Clement of Alex., and others). Compare an examination of the various passages of Irenaeus in the article by Powers, who comes to the conclusion (l.c. p. 267) that " Irenaeus everywhere implies baptism in the regeneration he so often names."
458 In Ep. ad Rom. (Opera, vol. IV. col. 1047 ed. Migne; or IV. 565 ed. Delarue): "Pro hoc et Ecclesia ab apostolis traditionem suscepit, etiam parvulis baptismum dare." In Levit. Hom. VIII. (II. 496 in Migne), he says that "secundum Ecclesiae observantiam" baptism was given also to children (etiam parvulis). Comp. his Com. in Matt. XV. (III. 1268 sqq.) where he seems to infer this custom from the example of Christ blessing little children. That Origen himself was baptized in childhood (185 or soon after), is nowhere expressly stated in his works (as far as I know), but may be inferred as probable from his descent of, and early religious instruction, by Christian parents (reported by Euseb H. E. VI. 19: tw'/jOrigevnei ta; th'" kata; Cristo;n didaskaliva" ejk progovnwn ejswvzeto), in connection with the Egyptian custom. Comp. Redepenning, Origenes, I. 49. It would certainly be more difficult to prove that be was not baptized in infancy. He could easily make room for infant baptism in his theological system, which involved the Platonic idea of a prehistoric fall of the individual soul. But the Cyprianic and Augustinian theology connected it with the historic fall of Adam, and the consequent hereditary depravity and guilt.
459 ’Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem peccatorum?" The" innocens" here is to be taken only in a relative sense; for Tertullian in other plain teaches a vitium originis, or hereditary sin and guilt, although not as distinctly and clearly as Augustin
460 A later council of Carthage of the year 418 went further and decreed: "item placuit, ut quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat ... anathema sit."
461 De Bapt. c. 15. Comp. also Clement of Alex., Strom. I. 375.
462 See p. 162. Some Roman divines (Molkenkuhr and Tizzani, as quoted by Hefele, p. 121) thought that such an irreverent Epistle as that of Firmilian (the 75th among Cyprian’s Epp.) cannot be historical, and that the whole story of the controversy between Pope Stephen and St. Cyprian must be a fabrication! Dogma versus facts
463 According to Hippolytus (Philosoph.), the rebaptism of heretics was unknown before Callistus, A.D. 218-223. Cyprian does not deny the antiquity of the Roman customs but pleads that truth is better than custom ("quasi consuetudo major sit veritate"). Hefele, 1. p. 121. The Epistles of Stephen are lost, and we must learn his position from his opponents.
464 Unless it be maintained that the baptismal grace, if received outside of the Catholic communion, is of no use, but rather increases the guilt (like the knowledge of the heathen), and become, ; available only by the subjective conversion and regular confirmation of the heretic. This was the view of Augustin; see Steitz, l. c., p. 655 sq.
465 "Pseudochristum, pseudoapostolum, et dolosum operarium." Firmil. Ad Cyp. toward, ; the end (Ep. 75). Hefele (I. 120) calls this unchristian intolerance of Stephen very mildly "eine grosse Unfreundlichkeit."
466 Augustin thus misinterpreted the "Coge intrare,"Luke 14:22, 23, as justifying persecution (Ep. ad Bonifac., c. 6). If the holy bishop of Hippo had foreseen the fearful consequences of his exegesis, be would have shrunk from it in horror.
Posted via email from Classic Christian Digest