The Great Apostasy Part 6

described by Plato.

13. The Platonic conception of the G.o.dhead as consisting of the Deity and the Logos, was enlarged in accordance with Christian tenets to embrace three members, the Holy Ghost being the third. Thence arose bitter and lasting dissension as to the relative powers of each member of the Trinity, particularly the position and authority of the Logos or Son. The many disputes incident to the admixture of Platonic theory with Christian doctrine continued through the centuries, and in a sense may be said to trouble the minds of men even in this modern age.

14. It is wholly beyond our purpose to cla.s.sify or describe the hybrid offspring resulting from the unnatural union of pagan philosophy and Christian truth; nor shall we attempt to follow in detail the dissensions and quarrels on theological points and questions of doctrine. Our purpose is achieved when by statement of fact and citation of authority, the reality of the apostasy is established. We shall consider therefore only the most important of the dissensions by which the Church was troubled.--(See Note 4, end of chapter.)

15. About the middle of the third century, Sibellius, a presbyter or bishop of the church in Africa, strongly advocated the doctrine of "trinity in unity" as characterizing the G.o.dhead. He claimed that the divine nature of Christ was no distinct nor personal attribute of the man Jesus, but merely a portion of the divine energy, an emanation from the Father, with which the Son was temporarily endowed; and that in like manner the Holy Ghost was a part of the divine Father. These views were as vigorously opposed by some as defended by others, and the disagreement was rife when Constantine so suddenly changed the status of the Church, and brought to its support the power of the state. Early in the fourth century the dispute a.s.sumed a threatening aspect in a bitter contention between Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, one of the subordinate officers of the same church.

Alexander proclaimed that the Son was in all respects the equal of the Father, and also of the same substance or essence. Arius insisted that the Son had been created by the Father, and therefore could not be co-eternal with His divine Parent; that the Son was the agent through whom the will of the Father was executed, and that for this reason also the Son was inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity. In like manner the Holy Ghost was inferior to the other members of the G.o.dhead.

16. Arianism, as the doctrine came to be known, was preached with vigor and denounced with energy; and the dissension thus occasioned threatened to rend the Church to its foundation. At last the emperor, Constantine, was forced to intervene in an effort to establish peace among his contending churchmen. He summoned a council of church dignitaries which a.s.sembled in the year 325, and which is known from its place of session as the Council of Nice. This council condemned the doctrine of Arius, and p.r.o.nounced sentence of banishment against its author. What was declared to be the orthodox doctrine of the universal or Catholic church respecting the G.o.dhead was promulgated as follows:

17. "We believe in one G.o.d, the Father, Almighty, the maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, begotten of the Father, only begotten, (that is) of the substance of the Father; G.o.d of G.o.d, Light of Light; Very G.o.d of Very G.o.d; begotten not made; of the same substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, that are in heaven and that are in earth: who for us men, and for our salvation, descended and was incarnate, and became man; suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into the heavens and will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit. But those who say there was a time when he [the Son] was not, and that he was not before he was begotten, and that he was made out of nothing, or affirm that he is of any other substance or essence, or that the Son of G.o.d was created, and mutable, or changeable, the Catholic Church doth p.r.o.nounce accursed."

18. This is the generally accepted version of the Nicene Creed as originally promulgated. In form it was somewhat modified, though left practically unchanged as to essentials, by the council held at Constantinople half a century later. What is regarded as a restatement of the Nicene Creed has been attributed to Athanasius, one of the chief opponents of Arianism, though his right to be considered the author is questioned by many and emphatically denied by some authorities on ecclesiastical history. Nevertheless, the statement referred to has found a place in literature as the "Creed of Athanasius," and whether rightly or wrongly named it persists as a declaration of belief professed by some Christian sects today. It has a present place in the prescribed ritual of the Church of England. The "Creed of Athanasius" reads as follows:

19. "We worship one G.o.d in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the G.o.dhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated; but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is G.o.d, the Son is G.o.d, and the Holy Ghost is G.o.d, and yet they are not three G.o.ds but one G.o.d."

20. The Council of Nice is known in ecclesiastical history as one of the most famous and important gatherings ever a.s.sembled as an official body concerned with church administration. Not only was the Arian dispute disposed of, so far as ecclesiastical decree could dispose of a question vitally affecting the individual conscience, but many other subjects of controversy were similarly quieted for the time. Thus the long-standing dispute as to the time of celebrating Easter was settled by vote, as was also the question agitated by Novatus and his followers--as to the propriety of re-admitting repentant apostates to the Church; and the schism caused by Meletius, a bishop of Upper Africa, who had refused to recognize the superior authority of the bishop of Alexandria. From the number and diversity of the questions brought before the Nicene Council for adjudication, we may safely conclude that the newly enthroned Church was not characterized by unity of purpose nor harmony of action. However, compared with the bitter contentions that follow, the dissensions in the reign of Constantine were but as the beginnings of trouble.

21. The moral effect of the potent spirit of apostasy operating through the first three centuries of the Church's existence and nourished by the contributions of heathen philosophy, proved, as was inevitable, highly injurious and evil. Some of the most pernicious of these effects it becomes our duty to consider.

22. _Perverted Views of Life_. One of the heresies of early origin and rapid growth in the Church was the doctrine of antagonism between body and spirit, whereby the former was regarded as an incubus and a curse.

From what has been said this will be recognized as one of the perversions derived from the alliance of Gnosticism with Christianity.

A result of this grafting in of heathen doctrines was an abundant growth of hermit practices, by which men sought to weaken, torture, and subdue their bodies, that their spirits or "souls" might gain greater freedom. Many who adopted this unnatural view of human existence retired to the solitude of the desert, and there spent their time in practices of stern self-denial and in acts of frenzied self-torture. Others shut themselves up as voluntary prisoners, seeking glory in privation and self-imposed penance. It was this unnatural view of life that gave rise to the several orders of recluses, hermits and monks.

23. Think you not that the Savior had such practices in mind, when, warning the disciples of the false claims to sanct.i.ty that would characterize the times then soon to follow, He said: "Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold he (Christ) is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not."--(Matt.

24:26.)

24. When the Church came into the favor of the state under Constantine in the fourth century, there sprang up many orders of recluses who "maintained that communion with G.o.d was to be sought by mortifying sense, by withdrawing the mind from all external objects, by macerating the body with hunger and labor, and by a holy sort of indolence, which confined all the activity of the soul to a lazy contemplation of things spiritual and external." Mosheim, the author just quoted, continues: "The Christian church would never have been disgraced by this cruel and unsocial enthusiasm, nor would any have been subjected to those keen torments of mind and body to which it gave rise, had not many Christians been unwarily caught by the specious appearance and the pompous sound of that maxim of the ancient philosophy: 'That in order to the attainment of true felicity and communion with G.o.d, it was necessary that the soul should be separated from the body, even here below; and that the body was to be macerated and mortified for this purpose.'"--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. IV, Part II, ch. 3:12, 13.)

25. The fruit of this ill-sowing was the growth of numerous orders of monks, and the maintenance of monasteries. Celibacy was taught as a virtue, and came to be made a requirement of the clergy, as it is in the Roman Catholic church to-day. An unmarried clergy, deprived of the elevating influences of home life, fell into many excesses, and the corruption of the priests has been a theme of reproach throughout the centuries. "The Lord G.o.d said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him,"--(Gen. 2:18.) and again, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."--(Verse 24.) His inspired apostle proclaimed: "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."--(I Cor. 11:11.

Compare I Tim. 4:3.) Nevertheless an apostate church decrees that its ministers shall be forbidden to follow the law of G.o.d.

26. _Disregard for Truth_. As early as the fourth century, certain pernicious doctrines embodying a disregard for truth gained currency in the Church. Thus, it was taught "that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by that means the interests of the church might be promoted."--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. IV, Part II, ch. 3:16.) Needless to say, sins other than those of falsehood and deceit were justified when committed in the supposed interests of church advancement, and crime was condoned under the specious excuse that the end justifies the means. Many of the fables and fict.i.tious stories relating to the lives of Christ and the apostles, as also the spurious accounts of supernatural visitations and wonderful miracles, in which the literature of the early centuries abound, are traceable to this infamous doctrine that lies are acceptable unto G.o.d if perpetrated in a cause that man calls good.--(See Note 5, end of chapter.)

NOTES.

1. _The Nicolaitanes_. This sect is mentioned specifically in the divine communication wherein John the Revelator was instructed to write to the churches of Asia (Rev. 2:6, 15); and the reference proves the abhorrence with which the Lord regarded the teachings and practices of the cult. The attempt to corrupt Christianity by the introduction of Nicolaitan ceremonies was a real danger threatening the Church. The following extract from Smith's Bible Dictionary is instructive:

"The sect itself comes before us as presenting the ultimate phase of a great controversy, which threatened at one time to destroy the unity of the Church, and afterward to taint its purity. The controversy itself was inevitable as soon as the Gentiles were admitted in any large numbers into the Church of Christ. Were the new converts to be brought into subjugation to the whole Mosaic law? The apostles and elders at Jerusalem met the question calmly and wisely. The burden of the Law was not to be imposed on the Gentile disciples. They were to abstain, among other things, from 'meats offered to idols,' and from 'fornication' (Acts 15:20, 29), and this decree was welcomed as the great charter of the Church's freedom. Strange as the close union of the moral and positive commands may seem to us, it did not seem so to the synod at Jerusalem. The two sins were very closely allied, often even in the closest proximity of time and place. The messages to the churches of Asia, and the later Apostolic Epistles (II Peter, and Jude,) indicate that the two evils appeared at that period also in close alliance. The teachers of the Church branded them with a name that expressed their true character. The men who did and taught such things were followers of Balaam (II Peter 2:15; Jude II.) They, like the false prophet of Pethor, united brave words with evil deeds. In a time of persecution, when the eating or not eating of things sacrificed to idols was more than ever a crucial test of faithfulness, they persuaded men more than ever that it was a thing indifferent (Rev. 2:13, 14). This was bad enough, but there was a yet worse evil.

Mingling themselves in the orgies of idolatrous feasts, they brought the impurities of those feasts into the meetings of the Christian Church. And all this was done, it must be remembered, not simply as an indulgence of appet.i.te, but as part of a system supported by a 'doctrine,' accompanied by the boast of a prophetic illumination (II Peter 2:1)."

2. _Imitation of Heathen Mysteries, and the Result_. The worship of G.o.d by the early Christians was decried and ridiculed because of its simplicity and the absence of mystic ceremonies. True, the zeal of persecutors soon made necessary a prudent secrecy in religious service and worshipping a.s.semblies, but aside from such necessity, there was a voluntary effort to feign a secrecy that was uncalled for. On this point Gibbon remarks as follows: "The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued from choice.

By imitating the awful secrecy of the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred inst.i.tutions more respectable in the eyes of the pagan world.

But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtle policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was concluded that they only concealed what they would have blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of human kind, who practiced in their dark recesses every abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who solicited the favor of their unknown G.o.d by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society."-- (Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. XVI.)

3. _Ebionites and Gnostics._ "Beside the general design of fixing on a perpetual basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theologian [St. John] a particular intention to confute two opposing heresies, which disturbed the peace of the primitive Church.

I. The faith of the Ebionites, perhaps of the Nazarenes, was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed to His person and to His future reign all the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. Some of them might confess that He was born of a virgin; but they obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine perfections of the Logos, or Son of G.o.d, which are so clearly defined in the Gospel of St. John. * * * II. The Gnostics, who were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, deviated into the contrary extreme, and betrayed the human while they a.s.serted the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the brightest Aeon or Emanation of Deity, might a.s.sume the outward shape and visible appearance of a mortal; but they vainly pretended that the imperfections of matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance. While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, and the Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis that, instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, he had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of His enemies and of His disciples, and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, who seemed to expire on the Cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead."--(Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. XXI.)

4. _Admixture of Pagan Doctrines With Christianity_. The following statements by modern writers as to the effect of pagan "philosophy" on the Church are worthy of attention. Summarizing conditions prevailing in the latter part of the second century, Milner says: "We have hitherto found it no hard matter to discover, in the teachers and writers of Christianity, the vital doctrines of Christ. We shall now perceive that the most precious truths of the gospel begin to be less attended to, and less brought to view. Even Justin Martyr, before the period of eclectic corruption, by his fondness for Plato, adulterated the gospel in some degree, as we have observed particularly in the article of free will. Tatian, his scholar, went bolder lengths, and deserved the name of heretic. He dealt largely in the merits of continence and chast.i.ty; and these virtues, pushed into extravagant excesses, under the notion of superior purity, became great engines of self-righteousness and superst.i.tion; obscured men's views of the faith of Christ, and darkened the whole face of Christianity. Under the fostering hand of Ammonius and his followers, this fict.i.tious holiness disguised under the appearance of eminent sanct.i.ty, was formed into a system; and it soon began to generate the worst of evils. * * * St.

Paul's caution against philosophy and vain deceit, it appears, was now fatally neglected by the Christians. False humility, 'Will-worship,'

curious and proud refinements, bodily austerities mixed with high, self-righteous pretensions, ignorance of Christ and of the true life of faith in Him, miserably superseded by ceremonies and superst.i.tions,--all these things are divinely delineated in the second chapter to the Colossians; and, so far as words can do it, the true defense against them is powerfully described and enforced."--(Milner, "Church History," Cent. II, ch. 9.)

"The schisms and commotions that arose in the church, from a mixture of the oriental and Egyptian philosophy with the Christian religion were, in the second century, increased by those Grecian philosophers who embraced the doctrine of Christ. The Christian doctrine, concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the two natures united in our blessed Savior, were by no means reconcilable with the tenets of the sages and doctors of Greece, who therefore endeavored to explain them in such a manner as to render them comprehensible.

Praxeas, a man of genius and learning, began to propagate these explications at Rome, and was severely persecuted for the errors they contained. He denied any real distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and maintained that the Father, sole Creator of all things, had united to Himself the human nature of Christ. Hence his followers were called Monarchians, because of their denying a plurality of persons in the Deity; and also Patropa.s.sians, because, according to Tertullian's account, they believed that the Father was so intimately united with the man Christ, His Son, that He suffered with Him the anguish of an afflicted life and the torments of an ignominious death. However ready many may have been to embrace this erroneous doctrine, it does not appear that this sect formed to themselves a separate place of worship, or removed themselves from the ordinary a.s.semblies of Christians."--(Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 5:20.)

5. _Spurious Writings in the Apostolic Period_. "Not long after Christ's ascension into heaven, several histories of His life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superst.i.tion and ignorance. Nor was this all: productions appeared which were imposed upon the world by fraudulent men, as the writings of the holy apostles. These apocryphal and spurious writings must have produced a sad confusion, and rendered both the history and the doctrine of Christ uncertain, had not the rulers of the church used all possible care and diligence in separating the books that were truly apostolical and divine from all that spurious trash."--(Mosheim, "Ecclesiastical History," Cent. I, Part II, ch. 2:17.)

CHAPTER VIII.

**Internal Causes.--Continued**.

1. As one of the effective causes leading to the apostasy of the Primitive Church we have specified: _Unauthorized additions to the ceremonies of the Church, and the introduction of vital changes in essential ordinances_.

2. The ridicule heaped upon the early Church by the pagans on account of the simplicity of Christian worship has already received mention.

This cause of reproach was none the less emphasized by Judaistic critics, to whom rituals and ceremony, formalism and prescribed rites, figured as essentials of religion. Very early in its history, the Church manifested a tendency to supplant the pristine simplicity of its worship by elaborate ceremonies, patterned after Judaistic ritual and heathen idolatries.

3. As to such innovations, Mosheim writes as follows, with reference to conditions existing in the second century: "There is no inst.i.tution so pure and excellent which the corruption and folly of man will not in time alter for the worse, and load with additions foreign to its nature and original design. Such in a particular manner was the fate of Christianity. In this century many unnecessary rites and ceremonies were added to the Christian worship, the introduction of which was extremely offensive to wise and good men. These changes, while they destroyed the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, were naturally pleasing to the gross mult.i.tude, who are more delighted with the pomp and splendor of external inst.i.tutions than with the native charms of rational and solid piety, and who generally give little attention to any objects but those which strike their outward senses."--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4.) The author just cited explains that the bishops of that day increased the ceremonies and sought to give them splendor "by way of accommodation to the infirmities and prejudices of both Jews and heathen."--(See Note 1, end of chapter.)

4. To more effectually reconcile the gospel requirements with Jewish prejudice, which still clung to the letter of the Mosaic law, the officers of the Church in the first and second centuries took to themselves the ancient t.i.tles; thus, bishops styled themselves chief priests, and deacons, Levites. "In like manner," says Mosheim, "the comparison of the Christian _oblation_ with the Jewish _victim_ and _sacrifice_, produced a mult.i.tude of unnecessary rites, and was the occasion of introducing that erroneous notion of the _eucharist_, which represents it as a real sacrifice, and not merely as a commemoration of that great offering that was once made upon the cross for the sins of mortals."--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4:4.)

5. In the fourth century we find the Church still more hopelessly committed to formalism and superst.i.tion. The decent respect with which the remains of the early martyrs had been honored degenerated or grew into a superst.i.tious reverence amounting to worship. This practice was allowed in deference to the heathen adoration paid to deified heroes.

Pilgrimages to the tombs of martyrs became common as an outward form of religious devotion; and the ashes of martyrs as well as dust and earth brought from places said to have been made holy by some uncommon occurrence were sold as sovereign remedies against disease and as means of protection against the a.s.saults of malignant spirits.

6. The form of public worship was so changed during the second and third centuries as to bear little resemblance to the simplicity and earnestness of that of the early congregations. Philosophic discourses took the place of fervent testimony bearing and the arts of the rhetorician and controversial debater supplanted the true eloquence of religious conviction. Applause was allowed and expected as evidence of the preacher's popularity. The burning incense, at first abhorred by Christian a.s.semblies because of its pagan origin and heathen significance, had become common in the Church before the end of the third century.

7. In the fourth century the adoration of images, pictures, and effigies, had been given a place in the so-called Christian worship; and the practice became general in the century following. An effort to check the abuses arising from this idolatrous practice in the eighth century, actually led to civil war.--(See Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.,"

Cent. VIII, Part II, ch. 3:9, 10.)

8. In considering such evidences of pagan ceremonial and superst.i.tious rites taking the place of the simple procedure incident to genuine worship characteristic of the Church in the days of its integrity, who can question the solemn and awful fact of actual apostasy?--(See Note 2, end of chapter.) But more important yet, more significant still than mere additions to the ritualistic ceremonial, are the perversions and changes introduced into the most sacred and essential ordinances of Christ's Church. As it is common with ecclesiastical authorities to consider the most essential ordinances of the gospel originally established by Christ and maintained by His apostles, as comprising baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's supper, we shall examine into these alone as examples of the unauthorized alterations now under consideration. In this restriction of our ill.u.s.trative examples we do not admit that baptism and the sacrament named were the only ordinances characterizing the Church; indeed, there is abundant proof to the contrary. Thus, the authoritative imposition of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost in the case of baptized believers was equally essential with baptism itself,--(See Acts 8:5-8, 12, 14-17; also 19:1-7; see also 2:38; Matt. 3:11; and Mark 1:8.) and was a.s.suredly regarded as a vital ordinance from the first.--(See Matt.

3:11.) Furthermore, ordination in the priesthood, whereby men were commissioned by divine authority was indispensable to the maintenance of an organized Church. The examples selected, however, will be sufficient for the purposes of our present inquiry.

**The Ordinance of Baptism Changed**.

9. First, then, as to baptism,--in what did the ordinance originally consist, as to purpose and mode of administration, and what changes did it undergo in the course of progressive apostasy through which the Church pa.s.sed? That baptism is essential to salvation calls for no demonstration here; this has been generally held by the Christian Church in both ancient and modern times.--(For a concise treatment of this subject, see the author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 6:8-29.) The purpose of baptism was and is the obtaining of a remission of sins; compliance with the requirement has been from the first the sole means of securing admission to the Church of Christ.--(See Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3; also Acts 2:38; I Peter 3:21; and Acts 22:16. Compare II Nephi 31:17.)

10. In the early Church, baptism was administered on profession of faith and evidence of repentance, and was performed by immersion--(See Note 3, end of chapter) at the hands of one invested with the requisite authority of priesthood. There was no delay in administering the ordinance after the eligibility of the candidate had been shown.

As instances we may cite the promptness with which baptism was administered to the believers on that eventful day of Pentecost;-- (Acts 2:37-41) the baptism administered by Philip to the Ethiopian convert immediately following due profession of faith;--(Acts 8:26-39) the undelayed baptism of devout Cornelius and his family;--(Acts 10:47, 48) and the speedy baptism of the converted jailer by Paul, his prisoner.--(Acts 16:31-33.)

11. In the second century, however, priestly mandate had restricted the baptismal ordinance to the times of the two Church festivals, Easter and Whitsuntide, the first being the anniversary of Christ's resurrection, and the second the time of Pentecostal celebration. A long and tedious course of preparation was required of the candidate before his eligibility was admitted; during this time he was known as a _catechumen_, or novice in training. According to some authorities a three years' course of preparation was required in all but exceptional cases.--(Schlegel, Book VIII, ch. 32.)

12. During the second century the baptismal symbolism of a new birth was emphasized by many additions to the ordinance; thus the newly baptized were treated as infants and were fed milk and honey in token of their immaturity. As baptism was construed to be a ceremony of liberation from the slavery of Satan, certain formulas used in the freeing of slaves were added. Anointing with oil was also made a part of the ceremony. In the third century the simple ordinance of baptism was further enc.u.mbered and perverted by the ministrations of an exorcist. This official indulged in "menacing and formidable shouts and declamation" whereby the demons or evil spirits with which the candidate was supposed to be afflicted were to be driven away. "The driving out of this demon was now considered as an essential preparation for baptism, after the administration of which the candidates returned home, adorned with crowns, and arrayed in white garments, as sacred emblems,--the former of their victory over sin and the world; the latter of their inward purity and innocence."-- (Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. III, part II, ch. 4:4.) It is not difficult to see in this superst.i.tious ceremony the evidence of pagan adulteration of the Christian religion. In the fourth century it became the practice to place salt in the mouth of the newly baptized member, as a symbol of purification, and the actual baptism was both preceded and followed by an anointing with oil.

13. The form or mode of baptism also underwent a radical change during the first half of the third century,--a change whereby its essential symbolism was destroyed. Immersion,--(See Note 3, end of chapter) typifying death followed by resurrection, was no longer deemed an essential feature, and sprinkling with water was allowed in place thereof. No less an authority than Cyprian, the learned bishop of Carthage, advocated the propriety of sprinkling in lieu of immersion in cases of physical weakness; and the practice thus started, later became general. The first instance of record is that of Novatus, a heretic who requested baptism when he thought death was near.--(As to the scriptural doctrine of baptism, the mode of its administration and the symbolism thereof, see the author's "Articles of Faith," Lecture 7.)