A Source Book for Ancient Church History Part 27

The Churchs cultus and sacramental system developed rapidly in the third century. The beginnings of the administration of the sacraments according to prescribed forms are to be traced to the Didache and Justin Martyr (see above, 13, 14). At the beginning of the third century baptism was already accompanied by a series of subsidiary rites, and the eucharist was regarded as a sacrifice, the benefit of which might be directed toward specific ends. The further development was chiefly in connection with the eucharist, which effected in turn the conception of the hierarchy (see below, 50). Baptism was regarded as conferring complete remission of previous sins; subsequent sins were atoned for in the penitential discipline (see above, 42). As for the eucharist, the conception of the sacrifice which appears in the Didache, an offering of praise and thanksgiving, gradually gives place to a sacrifice which in some way partakes of the nature of Christs sacrificial death upon the cross. At the same time, the elements are more and more completely identified with the body and blood of Christ, and the nature of the presence of Christ is conceived under quasi-physical categories. As representatives of the lines of development, Tertullian, at the beginning of the century, and Cyprian, at the middle, may be taken. That a similar development took place in the East is evident, not only from the references to the same in the writings of Origen and others, but also from the appearance in the next century of elaborate services, or liturgies, as well as the doctrinal statements of writers generally.

(_a_) Tertullian, _De Corona_, 3. (MSL, 2:98.)

The ceremonies connected with baptism.

And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through this line when we have an ancient practice which by antic.i.p.ation has settled the state of the question? If no pa.s.sage of Scripture has prescribed it, a.s.suredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use if it has not first been handed down? Even in pleading tradition written authority, you say, must be demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the church and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we renounce the devil, and his pomp, and his angels.

Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then, when we are taken up (as new-born children), we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey; and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also in congregations, before daybreak, and from the hands of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and by all. On the anniversary day we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors. We consider fasting on the Lords Day to be unlawful, as also to worship kneeling. We rejoice in the same privilege from Easter to Pentecost. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and going out, when we put on our shoes, at the bath, at table, on lighting the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [_i.e._, of the cross].

(_b_) Tertullian, _De Baptismo_, 5-8. (MSL, 1:1314.)

The whole pa.s.sage should be read as showing clearly that Tertullian recognized the similarity between Christian baptism and heathen purifying washings, but referred the effects of the heathen rites to evil powers, quite in harmony with the Christian admission of the reality of heathen divinities as evil powers and heathen exorcisms as wrought by the aid of evil spirits.

Ch. 5. Thus man will be restored by G.o.d to His likeness, for he formerly had been after the image of G.o.d; the image is counted being in His form [_in effigie_], the likeness in His eternity [_in ternitate_]. For he receives that Spirit of G.o.d which he had then received from His afflatus, but afterward lost through sin.

Ch. 6. Not that in the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit, but in the water, under (the witness of angels) we are cleansed and prepared for the Holy Spirit.

Ch. 7. After this, when we have issued from the font, we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction according to the ancient discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood men were accustomed to be anointed with oil from a horn, wherefore Aaron was anointed by Moses. Thus, too, in our case the unction runs carnally, but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself is carnal, in that we are plunged in the water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.

Ch. 8. In the next place, the hand is laid upon us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction. But this, as well as the former, is derived from the old sacramental rite in which Jacob blessed his grandsons born of Joseph, Ephraim, and Mana.s.ses; with his hands laid on them and interchanged, and indeed so transversely slanted the one over the other that, by delineating Christ, they even portended the future benediction in Christ. [_Cf._ Gen. 48:13 _f._]

(_c_) Cyprian, _Ep. ad Ccilium, Ep. 63_, 13-17. (MSL, 4:395.)

The eucharist.

Thascius Ccilius Cypria.n.u.s, bishop of Carthage, was born about 200, and became bishop in 248 or 249. His doctrinal position is a development of that of Tertullian, beside whom he may be placed as one of the founders of the characteristic theology of North Africa. His discussion of the place and authority of the bishop in the ecclesiastical system was of fundamental importance in the development of the theory of the hierarchy, though it may be questioned whether his particular theory of the relation of the bishops to each other ever was realized in the Church. For his course during the Decian persecution see 45, 46. He died about 258, in the persecution under Valerian.

In the epistle from which the following extract is taken Cyprian writes to Ccilius to point out that it is wrong to use merely water in the eucharist, and that wine mixed with water should be used, for in all respects we do exactly what Christ did at the Last Supper when he inst.i.tuted the eucharist. In the course of the letter, which is of some length, Cyprian takes occasion to set forth his conception of the eucharistic sacrifice, which is a distinct advance upon Tertullian. The date of the letter is about 253.

Ch. 13. Because Christ bore us all, in that He also bore our sins, we see that in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when in the cup the water is mingled with the wine the people is made one with Christ, and the a.s.sembly of believers is a.s.sociated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes; which a.s.sociation and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled in the Lords cup that that mixture cannot be separated any more. Whence, moreover, nothing can separate the Churchthat is, the people established in the Church, faithfully and firmly continuing in that in which they have believedfrom Christ in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup water alone should not be offered to the Lord, even as wine alone should not be offered. For if wine only is offered, the blood of Christ begins to be without us.(77) But if the water alone be offered, the people begin to be without Christ, but when both are mingled and are joined to each other by an intermixed union, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is completed. Thus the cup of the Lord is not, indeed, water alone, nor wine alone, nor unless each be mingled with the other; just as, on the other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone, nor unless both should be united and joined together and compacted into the ma.s.s of one bread: in which sacrament our people are shown to be one; so that in like manner as many grains are collected and ground and mixed together into one ma.s.s and made one bread, so in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body with which our number is joined and united.

Ch. 14. There is, then, no reason, dearest brother, for any one to think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, who in times past have thought that water alone should be offered in the cup of the Lord.

For we must inquire whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered none is to be followed but Christ, we ought certainly to obey and do what Christ did, and what He commanded to be done, since He himself says in the Gospel: If ye do whatsoever I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but friends [John 15:14 _f._].

If Jesus Christ, our Lord and G.o.d, is Himself the chief priest of G.o.d the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly acts in the place of Christ who imitates what Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church of G.o.d to G.o.d the Father when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ himself to have offered.

Ch. 15. But the discipline of all religion and truth is overturned unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully observed; unless, indeed, any one should fear in the morning sacrifices lest the taste of wine should be redolent of the blood of Christ.(78) Therefore, thus the brotherhood is beginning to be kept back from the pa.s.sion of Christ in persecutions by learning in the offerings to be disturbed concerning His blood and His blood-shedding. But how can we shed our blood for Christ who blush to drink the blood of Christ?

Ch. 16. Does any one perchance flatter himself with this reflectionthat, although in the morning water alone is seen to be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer the mingled cup? But when we sup, we cannot call the people together for our banquet that we may celebrate the truth of the sacrament in the presence of the entire brotherhood. But still it was not in the morning, but after supper that the Lord offered the mingled cup.

Ought we, then, to celebrate the Lords cup after supper, that so by continual repet.i.tion of the Lords Supper we may offer the mingled cup? It was necessary that Christ should offer about the evening of the day, that the very hour of sacrifice might show the setting and the evening of the world as it is written in Exodus: And all the people of the synagogue of the children of Israel shall kill it in the evening.(79) And again in the Psalms: Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.(80) But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.

Ch. 17. And because we make mention of His pa.s.sion in all sacrifices (for the Lords pa.s.sion is the sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do nothing else than what He did. For the Scripture says: For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lords death till He come.(81) As often, therefore, as we offer the cup in commemoration of the Lord and His pa.s.sion, let us do what it is known the Lord did.

50. The Episcopate in the Church

The greatest name connected with the development of the hierarchical conception of the Church in the third century is without question Cyprian (see 49). He developed the conception of the episcopate beyond the point it had reached in the hands of Tertullian, to whom the inst.i.tution was important primarily as a guardian of the deposit of faith and a pledge of the continuity of the Church. In the hands of Cyprian the episcopate became the essential foundation of the Church. According to his theory of the office, every bishop was the peer of every other bishop and had the same duties to his diocese and to the Church as a whole as every other bishop. No bishop had any more than a moral authority over any other. Only the whole body of bishops, or the council, could bring anything more than moral authority to bear upon an offending prelate. The const.i.tution of the council was not as yet defined. In several points the ecclesiastical theories of Cyprian were not followed by the Church as a whole, notably his opinion regarding heretical baptism (see 47), but his main contention as to the importance of the episcopate for the very existence (_esse_), and not the mere welfare (_bene esse_), of the Church was universally accepted. His theory of the equality of all bishops was a survival of an earlier period, and represented little more than his personal ideal. The following sections should also be consulted in this connection.

Additional source material: Cyprian deals with the hierarchical const.i.tution in almost every epistle; see, however, especially the following: 26:1 [33:1], 51:24 [55:24], 54:5 [59:5], 64:3 [3:3], 72:21 [73:21], 74:16 [75:16] (important for the testimony of Firmilian as to the hierarchical ideas in the East). _Serapions Prayer Book_, trans. by J. Wordsworth, 1899.

(_a_) Cyprian, _Epistula 68_, 8 [=66]. (MSL, 4:418.)

Although a rebellious and arrogant mult.i.tude of those who will not obey depart, yet the Church does not depart from Christ; and they are the Church who are a people united to the priest, and the flock which adheres to its pastor. Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop; and that if any one be not with the bishop, he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in vain who creep in, not having peace with G.o.ds priests, and think that they communicate secretly with some; while the Church, which is Catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement of the priests who cohere with one another.

(_b_) Council of Carthage, A. D. 256. (MSL, 3:1092.)

The council of Carthage, in 256, was held, under the presidency of Cyprian, to act on the question of baptism by heretics. See 52.

Eighty-seven bishops were present. The full report of proceedings is to be found in the works of Cyprian. See ANF, V, 565, and Hefele, 6. The theory of Cyprian which is here expressed is that all bishops are equal and independent, as opposed to the Roman position taken by Stephen, and that the individual bishop is responsible only to G.o.d.

Cyprian said: It remains that upon this matter each of us should bring forward what he thinks, judging no man, nor rejecting from the right of communion, if he should think differently. For neither does any one of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terrors does any one compel his colleagues to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power of advancing us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct here.

(_c_) Cyprian, _Epistula_ 67:5. (MSL, 3:1064.)

The following epistle was written to clergy and people in Spain, _i.e._, at Leon, Astorga, and Merida, in regard to the ordination of two bishops, Sabinus and Felix, in place of Basilides and Martial, who had lapsed in the persecution and had been deprived of their sees. The pa.s.sage ill.u.s.trates the methods of election and ordination of bishops, and the failure of Cyprian, with his theory of the episcopate, to recognize in the see of Rome any jurisdiction over other bishops. Its date appears to be about 257.

You must diligently observe and keep the practice delivered from divine tradition and apostolic observance, which is also maintained among us, and throughout almost all the provinces: that for the proper celebration of ordinations all the neighboring bishops of the same province should a.s.semble with that people for which a prelate is ordained. And the bishops should be chosen in the presence of the people, who have most fully known the life of each one, and have looked into the doings of each one as respects his manner of life. And this also, we see, was done by you in the ordination of our colleague Sabinus; so that, by the suffrage of the whole brotherhood, and by the sentence of the bishops who had a.s.sembled in their presence, and who had written letters to you concerning him, the episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands were imposed on him in the place of Basilides. Neither can an ordination properly completed be annulled, so that Basilides, after his crimes had been discovered and his conscience made bare, even by his own confession, might go to Rome and deceive Stephen, our colleague, who was placed at a distance and was ignorant of what had been done, so as to bring it about that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been justly deposed.

51. The Unity of the Church and the See of Rome

In the middle of the third century there were in sharp conflict two distinct and opposed theories of Church unity: the theory that the unity was based upon adherence to and conformity with the see of Peter; and the theory that the episcopate was itself one, and that each bishop shared equally in it. The unity was either in one see or in the less tangible unity of an order of the hierarchy. The former was the theory of the Roman bishops; the latter, the theory of Cyprian of Carthage, and possibly of a number of other ecclesiastics in North Africa and Asia Minor. Formerly polemical theology made the study of this point difficult, at least with anything like impartiality. In the pa.s.sage given below from Cyprians treatise _On the Unity of the Catholic Church_ the text of the Jesuit Father Kirch is followed in the most difficult and interpolated chapter 4.

As Father Kirch gives the text it is perfectly consistent with the theory of Cyprian as he has elsewhere stated it, and that the interpolated text is not. See, however, P. Battifol, _Primitive Catholicism_, Lond., 1911, Excursus E.

Additional source material: _V. supra_, 27; also Mirbt, 56-69. The little treatise _De Aleatoribus_ (MSL, 4: 827), from which Mirbt gives an extract (n. 71), might be cited in this connection, but its force depends upon its origin. It is wholly uncertain that it was written either by a bishop of Rome or in Italy. _Cf._ Bardenhewer. Kirch also gives the text in part, n.

276; for other references, see Kirch.

(_a_) Cyprian, _De Catholic Ecclesi Unitate_, 4, 5. (MSL, 4:513.)