Early Christianity

“ The early Christian saints, bishops, and fathers, confessedly adopted the liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and terms of heathenism; making it their boast, that the pagan religion, properly explained, really was nothing else than Christianity; that the best and wisest of its professors, in all ages, had been Christians all along; that Christianity was but a name more recently acquired to a religion which had previously existed, and had been known to the Greek philosophers, to Plato, Socrates, and Heraclitus ”

“ Whether we have not a similar right to bring to bear on the study of the Gospel narratives the same principles of criticism as guided the early fathers in their construction of the canon, with all the enlightenment which we derive from the subsequent history of Christianity, aided by that of other forms of religious belief. The early Christian fathers were troubled with no doubts as to the reality of miracles in themselves ”

“ Unconsciously men think of the earliest Christianity as being like that which they profess. They measure the early centuries by their own. Their Church, its doctrines, forms, creeds and customs, stands as the representative of all Christianity. It seems like a “rude awakening” to ask men to believe that there is a “pagan residuum” in their faith, or in the customs of their fathers. ”

“ The form under which Christianity now presents itself as an object of study does, in a much greater degree, discourage and prevent speculation and novelty, than it did in the early ages; and in fact, if all the varieties of opinion which have appeared during the eighteen centuries of church history are numbered, a large majority of them will be found to belong to the first three centuries, and to the eastern church. ”

“ As we pointed out in the foregoing essay, while all this voluminous literature throws but an uncertain light upon the life and teachings of the founder of Christianity, it nevertheless furnishes nearly all the data which we could desire for knowing what the early Christians thought of the master of their faith. Having given a brief account of the historic career of Jesus, so far as it can now be determined, we propose here to sketch the rise and progress of Christologic doctrine, in its most striking features, during the first three centuries. ”

“ We have sketched in broad outlines the early beginnings of Christianity, and we have shown how rapidly that difficult and austere conception of the Kingdom of God, which was the central idea of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, was overlaid by a revival of the ancient sacrificial idea, a doctrine more difficult indeed to grasp, but easier to reconcile with the habits and dispositions and acquiescences of everyday life in the Near East. ”

“ In such cradle-lands of Christianity, and among a people that has never swerved from the faith since the early ages of the church, there is what we might term an inherited Catholic instinct, a readiness and a correctness of Catholic thought in religious matters, which those of other lands that received the light of Christianity only at a later period, and consequently have not such a bond of ancestral connection with the Christians of the days of persecution, can only reach by study and cultivated piety. ”

“ The early representatives of Christianity, with a keen-sighted appreciation of the means by which a change of religion is most successfully effected, treated the older conceptions with tolerance, and by doing so made possible the establishment of new ideas in the old heathen setting. ”

“ Here again, as in the early years of the thirteenth century, there came a gentle Reformer of religion, who would use no compulsion but love, who knew how to suffer patiently with his Lord, and whose entire programme was the restoration of primitive Christianity, though of necessity it would be restored, if at all, in terms of the spiritual ideals of the sixteenth century, as the Christianity of St. ”

“ They cared as little for Christ and his religion as the chief priests and elders did; and men that have no religion at all, can be very well pleased to see Christianity run down, and lend a hand to it, if need be, to serve a turn. ”

“ And when we look at the spiritual state of the world at the commencement of the third century, we find that Christianity, having formed and made its place in human society, is penetrating through it more and more in every direction. It is then that we discern the first beginnings of that great spiritual creation, in which Reason has been applied to Faith under the guidance of Authority, which the Christian Church, alone being in possession of these three constituents, could alone produce, and has carried on from that day to this. ”

“ What we have said is but an introduction to a sketch of the great evolution of dogmatic truth through eighteen centuries: but in recording its rise, the secret of its growth, and the source of its strength, it was impossible not to bring out the great fact that Christianity was nothing less than a divine life produced in the world over against the existing heathenism, and laying hold of the whole soul of man, in which, as we have just said, intellect and will are inseparable. ”

“ As Christians they were only to know Christ, and they were not to know him according to the flesh, that is, not as a Jew. So Christianity became at once a catholic religion, consisting in the diffusion of great truths and a divine life. ”

“ The high-water mark of religion in human history is recorded in these writings. To enter into the spirit of these writings is to feel the force of the free, full tides of ethical and spiritual life which rose, as never before nor since, in the dawning day of Christianity. The flow of such a force within the individual soul and through society has been the power of the New Testament in Christendom. ”

“ Yet it may be doubted whether the clouds have rolled completely away, and it is fairly certain that the many learned and able Catholic priests who have done so much to elucidate the origins and tendencies of ancient religions other than their own have until lately avoided the discussion of their relations with the earliest forms of Christianity. ”

“ In the diversity of the Church will be found a more powerful argument for the divine origin of Christianity itself, than in the most perfect unity. It is not, humanly speaking, surprising that a religion should sustain itself from age to age in the same race and country. ”

“ But can the doctrine of man's antiquity be made to harmonize with the essentials of Christianity and the inspiration of the Scriptures? If Christianity be a religion for man, as the present writer believes, we answer emphatically in the affirmative. Not the smallest feature that is essential to make Christianity a religion for man, if it be such, will be imperilled by this or any other well-established doctrine [Pg 385] of science. ”

“ So history seems to indicate, from the times of Theodosius to our own, specially illustrated by the establishment of the different monastic orders, the great awakenings under Luther and Calvin and Knox, the successes of Jesuits and Jansenists, the triumphs of the Puritans, the Quakers, and the Methodists, the rise of Puseyism, or the Church of England. That Christianity remains vital in the world, and makes true advances from generation to generation, can scarcely be questioned. ”

“ I merely wish to lay stress upon the fact that, for one reason and another, Christianity, at least among Protestants, has cast aside, or dropped out, a great part of the ancient practise that, during many centuries, helped it adapt itself to human needs, enabled it to produce heroic and radiant personalities, and shed over it a poetry which it now lacks. ”

“ To men deeply interested in religion, the ground seemed confused and treacherous. There was room, and there was a call, for new effort; but to find the resources for it, it seemed necessary to cut down deep below the level of what even good men accepted as the adequate expression of Christianity, and its fit application to the conditions of the nineteenth century. ”

“ It was not now asked, 'Is this or that mode of Church government most Scriptural?' 'Is this or that form of worship most in accordance with the mind of Christ?' but, 'What is this Scripture to which all appeal?' 'Who is this Christ whom all own as Master?' This is really what is meant, so far as religion is concerned, when it is said that the eighteenth century was the age of reason—alike in the good and in the bad sense of that term. The defenders of Christianity, no less than its assailants, had to prove, above all things, the reasonableness of their position. ”

“ But a thorough acquaintance with the history and moral systems of some of the oriental nations, and the practical lives of piety and self-denial exemplified in their leading men long anterior to the birth of Christ, and long before the name of Christianity was anywhere known, must convince any unprejudiced mind that such a claim is without foundation. ”

“ Here, then, in the third decade of the sixteenth century, when the leaders of the Reformation were using all their powers of dialectic to formulate in new scholastic phrase the sound creed for Protestant Christendom, and while the fierce and decisive battle was being waged over the new form in which the Eucharist must be celebrated, there appeared a little group of men who proposed that Christianity should be conceived and practised as a way of living—nothing more nor less. ”

“ After this long and circuitous digression we may direct our attention now on the specific nature of Christianity as an historical religion, and consider what organization Jesus Christ gave redeemed humanity in the universal church, how he embodied the absolute, universal religion, what means he adopted for achieving the work of the moral regeneration and eternal salvation of mankind. ”

“ In its advance from authority to freedom, the history of Christian theology supplies a parallel to that of science and that of the state. Christianity, based on the claim of its founder to be the Lord and Saviour of men, finds its strongest and most consistent exponent in the Roman Catholic Church. That Church presents its dogmas with absolute claims to truth and infallibility, and demands the complete submission of mind and will, as the representative on earth of the Divine Saviour. ”

“ In him also two natures, the divine and the human, are joined together, in the one person of God the Son. He is appointed King of angels and of men. Afterwards his Incarnation, in a certain sense, is finished, carried out in its fulness, by the formation of the Church, his spouse, who is drawn from his side, opened for us on the cross; and by the incorporation of the faithful into Jesus Christ in the bosom of the Church, Christianity is complete—it lives, it grows, it gives life to the earth, and peoples heaven. ”

“ It is really a request that I should judge Christianity, as a great, ancient, historic system, not by what it has in the main taught and done, but by what a select body of its professors say and do in the present generation. ”

“ Returning, then, to what we have already said regarding the Roman Empire, and seeing how wonderfully God has arranged all things for the establishment of his holy religion, we may form to ourselves an idea how rapidly the truths of Christianity would spread throughout the world. ”

“ The whole of human history before the Christian epoch, in general, and specifically the whole inspired history of patriarchal and Judæan religion, being a record of events looking towards the coming of the Son of God to the earth, the learned professor proceeds logically in making the statements which follow:
“Christianity is the perfect form of religion. In other words, it is the absolute religion, ... the culminating point in the progress of revelation, fulfilling, or filling out to perfection, that which preceded.... In Jesus religion is actually realized in its perfection.... ”

“ But coming to us from the company and with the sanction of Christ risen, it never can be merely like other books. A so-called Christianity, ignoring or playing with Christ's resurrection, and using the Bible as a sort of Homer, may satisfy a class of clever and cultivated persons. It may be to them the parent of high and noble thoughts, and readily lend itself to the service of mankind. But it is well in so serious a matter not to confuse things. This new religion may borrow from Christianity as it may borrow from Plato, or from Buddhism, or Confucianism, or even Islam. ”

“ That you walk worthily, agreeably, suitably, and congruously to those happy circumstances into which the grace of God has brought you, whom he has converted from heathenism to Christianity. Observe, Christians ought to accommodate themselves to the gospel by which they are called, and to the glory to which they are called ”

“ Like unto God, the impassible and unchangeable, Christianity stands unmoved amidst the countless ruins with which you—men—strew the world. Christianity, with its old principles and its youthful aspect, leans on the rock of its own eternity, and gives the lie to the universal law with unassailable and ineffable calm. ”

“ And how did the various religions compare with what we believe to be the true religion--Christianity--in its pure and ennobling truths, its inspiring promises, and its quiet influence in changing and developing character?
I assume that there is no such thing as a progressive Christianity, except in so far as mankind grow in the realization of its lofty principles; that there has not been and will not be any improvement on the ethics and spiritual truths revealed by Jesus the Christ, but that they will remain forever the standard of faith and practice. ”