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Bible Dictionaries
Church
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The history of the Church in the Apostolic Age may be treated under the following heads; (1) Sources, (2) Importance, (3) Name, (4) Origin, (5) Growth, (6) Conflict between Jewish and Gentile elements, (7) Character, (8) Relation to the State and other systems.
1. Sources.-Our sources of information are not nearly so full as we might wish, but some of them are excellent; and, although we are obliged to leave several important questions open, yet criticism enables us to secure solid and sure results. Our earliest sources are the Epistles of St. Paul, and the large majority of those which bear his name are now firmly established as his. Doubts still exist with regard to the Pastoral Epistles, but it is generally admitted that they contain portions which are by the Apostle, and at any rate they are evidence as to a period closely connected with his age. Hebrews, whoever wrote it, is evidence respecting a similar period. With the possible exception of 2 Peter, all the other Epistles and the Apocalypse are sources. More full of information than the Pauline Epistles, though later in date, is the Book of Acts, now firmly established as the work of St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul. Those who fully admit this differ considerably in their estimate of the value of Acts as a historical document, but the trend of criticism is in the direction of a high estimate rather than of a low one. Microscopic investigation and a number of recent discoveries show how accurate a writer St. Luke generally is. We have to lament tantalizing omissions much more often than to suspect serious inaccuracies. The Gospels give some help; for what they record explains many features in the Epistles and Acts.
Outside the NT, but within the 1st cent., we have the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians and the Epistle of Barnabas, one representing Gentile and the other Jewish Christianity. Within the first three decades of the 2nd cent., we have the writings of three men whose lives overlapped those of some of the Apostles-Ignatius, Polycarp, and Papias; and to the same period probably belongs the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve. Something of considerable value may also be obtained from two writers near the middle of the 2nd cent.-Hermas and Justin Martyr; and even so late as the last quarter of the cent. we can find apostolic traditions of great value in the writings of Irenaeus. From outside the Christian Church we have good material, especially respecting the great crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, from the Jewish writer, Josephus; and also some important statements from the heathen writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, who were contemporary with Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp.
2. Importance.-The importance of the history of the Apostolic Church is very great, but it is sometimes misunderstood. The sources mentioned above tell us something about the beliefs, organization, and ritual of the first Christians; and they are all very simple. It is sometimes supposed that if we take these simple elements and close our eyes to later developments, we get the essence of Christianity, free from unessential forms, and that this constitutes the importance of the primitive Church. It is the model to which all Church reformers ought to look, with a view to restoring its simplicity. Two considerations show that this estimate is erroneous. Essence without form is unattainable. The Apostolic Church had forms which were the outcome of the conditions in which the Church existed. Some of those conditions changed very quickly, and the forms changed also. The restoration of the simplicity of the primitive forms will have little value or vitality unless we also restore the primitive conditions, and that is impossible. Secondly, the sources do not tell us the whole truth. On some important points we can obtain nothing better than degrees of probability because the evidence is so inadequate; on other points there is no evidence, and we have to fall back on pure conjecture. If it had been intended that all subsequent ages should take the Apostolic Church as a model, then we might reasonably expect that a complete description of it would have been preserved. A sketch which has to be gathered piecemeal from different sources, and which, when put together, is incomplete both in outline and in contents, cannot be made an authoritative example. ‘Christianity is not an archaeological puzzle’ (J. H. Ropes, Apostolic Age, London, 1906, p. 20).
Nevertheless, the importance of this age is real and great, (a) The spiritual essence of Christianity may be said to consist in the inner relation of each soul to God, to His Christ, and to His Spirit, and in the inner and outer relations of all believers to one another. In the first age of the Church this essence existed in such simple vigour that it gave reality and life to forms which had not yet had time to become mistaken for essentials. About the simplicity of these beginnings there is no doubt; it is an established fact; but that does not prove that this primitive simplicity is a binding authority for all ages. (b) This ago produced the NT-the group of writings which has had greater influence for good than any which the world has ever known: a group of writings which reflects the ideas and habits of that age and must be interpreted by a knowledge of those ideas and habits. (c) This age exhibits the first effects which the gospel produced upon Jew and Gentile-two very different soils, which might bear very different fruits. (d) It is the first stage in the complex development of the Church and the churches; and in order to understand that development, we must study its beginnings.
3. Name.-The name ‘Church’ is in itself strong evidence of the connexion between the Old Covenant and the New. In the OT, two different words are used to denote gatherings of the chosen people or their representatives-‘çdhâh (Revised Version ‘congregation’) and qâhâl (Revised Version ‘assembly’). In the Septuagint , συναγωγή is the usual translation of ‘çdhâh, while qâhâl is commonly rendered ἐκκλησία. Both qâhâl and ἐκκλησία by their derivation indicate calling or summoning to a place of meeting; but ‘there is no foundation for the widely spread notion that ἐκκλησία means a people or a number of individual men called out of the world or mankind’ (F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, London, 1897, p. 5). Qâhâl or ἐκκλησία is the more sacred term; it denotes the people in relation to Jahweh, especially in public worship. Perhaps for this very reason the less sacred term συναγωγή was more commonly used by the Jews in our Lord’s time, and probably influenced the first believers in adopting ἐκκλησία for Christian use. συναγωγή quickly went out of use for a Christian assembly (James 2:2), except in sects which were more Jewish than Christian. Owing to the growing hostility of the Jews, it came to indicate opposition to the Church (Revelation 2:9; Revelation 3:9). ἐκκλησία, therefore, at once suggests the new people of God, the new Israel.
We do not know who so happily adopted the word for Christian use. It is not impossible that Christ Himself may have used it, for He sometimes spoke Greek. He used it or its equivalent in a Christian sense (Matthew 16:18); but Matthew 18:17, though capable of being transferred to Christians, must at the time when it was spoken have meant a Jewish assembly. St. Paul probably found the word already in use, and outside the Gospels it is very frequent in the NT. We find three uses of the term: the general body of believers (Acts 5:11; Acts 9:31; Acts 12:1); the believers in a certain place (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2 Thessalonians 1:1); an assembly for public worship (1 Corinthians 11:18; 1 Corinthians 14:19; 1 Corinthians 14:35). It had already become a technical term with strongly religious associations, which were partly borrowed from a Jewish ideal, but had been so enriched and transfigured as to indicate a body that was entirely new. The Jewish idea of a chosen people in relation to God received a fuller meaning, and to this was added the idea of a chosen people in relation to the Incarnate and Risen Son of God and to the Spirit of God. ἐκκλησία is nowhere used of heathen religious assemblies.
4. Origin.-Whether or no the Christian community owes its name of ‘Church’ (ἐκκλησία) to Christ, beyond reasonable doubt it owes its origin to Him. It is a strange misreading of plain facts to elevate St. Paul into the founder of the Christian Church. The theory that in Christianity, as in some other religions, there was a gradual deification of the founder, continues to be advocated, but it will not bear serious investigation. If St. Paul originated Christianity, who originated St. Paul? What was it that turned Saul the persecutor of the Church into Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ? It was the indelible conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, and that He had risen from the dead and conversed with him on the road to Damascus, that converted and ever afterwards controlled St. Paul. The conviction that the Messiah had been crucified, and had risen, and was now the Lord in heaven, was reached very quickly and surely by large numbers, who had good opportunities of ascertaining the truth and staked everything on the result. This conviction was based upon the experiences of those who were quite certain that the Risen Christ had appeared to them and conversed with them. Those appearances were realities, however we may explain them; they are among those things which prove themselves by their otherwise inexplicable results; and the convictions which they produced remain undestroyed and indestructible. It was upon them that the Apostolic Church was built. From the Risen Christ it had received the amazing commission to go forth and conquer the world; about that there was no doubt among those who joyously undertook this stupendous work. The apostles must have known whether Christ intended them to form a Church; and their view of His intention is shown by the fact that, immediately after His withdrawal from their sight, they set to work to construct one. If the new religion was to conquer the world, it must be both individualistic and social; it must provide for communion between each soul and God, and also for communion between its adherents. In other words, there must be a Church. Christ showed how this was to be done. He was not content with being an itinerant teacher, preaching to casual audiences. He selected a few disciples and trained them to be His helpers and His successors. It is manifest that He intended them to found a society; for although He gave few rules for its organization, yet He instituted two rites, one for admission to it and one for its preservation (W. Hobhouse, The Church and the World [Bampton Lectures, London, 1910], p. 17ff.). ‘An isolated Christian’ is a contradiction, for every Christian is a member of Christ’s Body. In reference to the world Christians are ‘saints’ (ἅγιοι); in reference to one another they are ‘brethren’; in reference to Christ they are ‘members.’ In the original constitution of the human body God placed differently endowed members, and He has done the same in the original constitution of the Church (1 Corinthians 12:28). Both are in origin Divine, the product of the creative action of Father, Son, and Spirit.
5. Growth.-The growth of the Apostolic Church was very rapid. The first missionary efforts of the original believers were confined to Jerusalem and its immediate neighbourhood, and the converts were Palestinian or Hellenistic Jews who were living or sojourning in or near the capital. At first the Hellenists were in a minority, but this soon ceased to be the case. Persecution caused flight from Jerusalem, and then missionary effort was extended to Jews of the Dispersion and to Gentiles. At Antioch in Syria the momentous change was made to a mixed congregation containing both Jews and Christians. Then what had seemed even to the Jews themselves to be a mere Jewish sect became a universal Church (Acts 11:19-26). As soon as it was seen that Judaism, in spite of all its OT glories, would never become a universal religion, missions to the heathen became a necessity. The first missionaries to the Gentiles, the men who took this momentous step of bringing the gospel to pagans, are for the most part unknown to us. Who won the first Gentile converts at Antioch? Who first took Christianity to Rome? Whoever they were, there had been a long and complex preparation for their work, which goes a considerable way towards explaining its success. This indeed was to be hoped for in accordance with Christ’s command (Matthew 28:18, Luke 24:47) and St. Peter’s Pentecostal promise ‘to all that are afar off’ (Acts 2:39); but we can see some of the details which helped fulfilment.
The only thing which adequately explains the great expansion of Christianity in the 1st cent. is the fact of its Divine origin; but there were a number of causes which favoured its spread and more than counteracted the active opposition and other difficulties with which it had to contend.
(a) The dispersion of the Jews in civilized countries secured a knowledge of monotheism and a sound moral code.
(b) Roman law had become almost co-extensive with the civilized world. Tribal and national ideas, often irrational and debasing, had given place to principles of natural right and justice, Roman law, like the Mosaic Law, was a παιδαγωγός to lead men to Christ.
(c) The splendid organization of the Roman Empire gave great facilities for travel and correspondence.
(d) The dissolution of nationalities by Roman conquests prepared men’s minds for a religion which was not national but universal; and it is not impossible, in spite of the horror which the writer of the Apocalypse exhibits towards the worship of the Emperor, that that worship, which was nominally universal, sometimes prepared people for a worship of the Power to which they owed existence, and not merely fitful security and peace.
(e) The Macedonian conquest had made men familiar with a type of civilization which seemed to be adaptable to the whole world, and had supplied a language which was still more adaptable. Greek was everywhere spoken in large towns, and in them converts were most likely to be found. Through the Septuagint , Greek was a Jewish as well as a pagan instrument of thought, and had become very flexible and simple, capable of expressing new ideas, and yet easily intelligible to plain men. Greek was the language of culture and of commerce even in Rome. It was also the sacred language of the world-wide worship of Isis. Hardly at any other period has the civilized world had a nearer approach to a universal language. The retention of a Greek liturgy in the Church of Rome for two centuries was due partly to the fact that the first missionaries taught in Greek and that the Greek Bible was used; partly to the desire to preserve the unity of the Church throughout the Empire. Its abandonment by the Roman Church prepared the way for the estrangement between East and West.
(f) There was a wide-spread sense of moral corruption and spiritual need. ‘A great religious longing swept over the length and breadth of the empire. The scepticism of the age of enlightenment had become bankrupt’ (E. v. Dobschütz, Apostol. Age, Eng. translation , London, 1909, p. 39). The prevalent religions and philosophies had stimulated longings which they could not satisfy. Speculations about conscience, sin, and judgment to come, about the efficacy of sacrifices, and the possibility of forgiveness and of life after death, had prepared men for what Christianity had to offer. Even if the gospel had not been given, some religious change would have come. The gospel often awakened spiritual aspirations; more often it found them awake and satisfied them. It satisfied them because it possessed the characteristics of a universal religion-incomparable sublimity of doctrine, inexhaustible adaptability, and an origin that was recognizable as Divine. The Jew might be won by the conviction that the law was transfigured in the gospel and that prophecy was fulfilled in Christ and His Church. St. Peter began his Pentecostal address to the assembled Jews by pointing out that the outpouring of the Spirit was a fulfilment of Jewish prophecy (Joel 2:28-31) and an inauguration of ‘the last days,’ which were to precede the coming of the Messiah in glory. But to the Gentile these considerations were not impressive. The great pagan world had to be won by the actual contents of Christianity, which were seen to be better than those of any religion that the world had thus far known. They were not only new, but ‘with authority’; and they stood the test of experience by bearing the wear and tear of life. Christianity was at once a mirror and a ‘mystery’; it reflected life so clearly and it suggested something much higher. It was a marvel of simplicity and richness. It was so plain that it could be told in a few words which might change the whole life. It was so varied and subtle that it could tax all the intellectual powers and excite the strongest feelings.
When the proconsul Saturninus said to the Scillitan Martyrs, ‘we also are religious people, and our religion is simple,’ one of the Christians, replied, ‘If you will grant me a quiet hearing, I will tell you the mystery of simplicity’ (Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs [Texts and Studies i. 2, 1891, p. 112]; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:7).
The number of Christians at the close of the 1st cent. is very uncertain. We read of a good many centres throughout the Empire; but we know little about the size of each of these local churches. In some the numbers were probably small. In Palestine they were numerous (Acts 21:20).
(g) The zeal and ability of the first missionaries were very great. We know the names of comparatively few of them, but we know some of the results of their work. The extension of the Church in the 2nd cent. is proof of the good work done in the 1st. In accordance with Christ’s directions (Mark 6:7; cf. Luke 10:1), these missionaries commonly worked in pairs (H. Latham, Pastor Pastorum, Cambridge, 1890, p. 296f.). St. Paul as a general rule had one companion, and probably seldom more; and his ability in planning missions is conspicuous. He selected Roman colonies, whore, as a Roman citizen, he would have rights, and where he would be likely to find Jews, and men of other religions, trading under the protection of Rome. A synagogue was at first the usual starting-point for a Christian mission. But very soon the Jews became too hostile; so far from listening to the preachers, they stirred up the heathen against them (T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, London, 1909, ch. vi.).
It is impossible to say which of the forces which characterized Christianity contributed most to its success: its preaching of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, its lofty monotheism, its hope of immortality, its doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, its practical benevolence, its inward cohesion and unity. Each of these told, and we may be sure that their combined effect was great.
6. Conflict between Jewish and Gentile elements.-It is remarkable how soon this conflict in the Apostolic Church began. Not long after Christianity was born, it was severed from the nation which gave it birth, and, since the final destruction of Jerusalem, it has only in rare cases found a secure hold on Jewish soil. But it is not a just statement of the case to say that the Gentile Church first stripped Judaism of everything, the Scriptures included, and then left it by the wayside half dead; or that the daughter first robbed her mother, and then repudiated her. That is an inversion of the truth; it was the mother who drove out the daughter and then persistently blackened her character. As to the Scriptures, there has been no robbery, for both have possessed them. But the daughter has put them to far better account and has increased their value tenfold. Christianity did not come forward at first as a new religion aiming at ousting the Jews. Its Founder was the Jewish Messiah, the fulfilment of OT prophecies. It was the Jews who forced the opposition. The relation of Judaism to Christianity was, almost from the first, a hostile one. And, as it was the energetic Jew of Tarsus who led the first persecution of the Christians, so it was the Apostle of the Gentiles who caused the final separation of the Church from the Synagogue. In the Fourth Gospel, ‘the Jews’ are the opponents of the Christ. In the Apocalypse, they are ‘the synagogue of Satan’ (Revelation 2:9; Revelation 3:9; cf. Didache, 8). Barnabas goes still further: the Jews have never been in covenant with God (iv. 6-9, xiv. 1); the Jews are the sinners (xii. 10). Judaism is obsolete: the Christian Church has taken its place and succeeded to all its privileges, Hence the lofty enthusiasm of the first Christians, whose language often assumes a rhythmic strain when the Church is spoken of (Ephesians 4:4, Colossians 1:18, 1 Timothy 3:15, Hebrews 12:22, 1 Peter 2:9, Matthew 16:18). It was through the Christian Church that God filled the world with His Spirit; to it belonged the glorious future and the final triumph; for by it the religion of an exclusive nation had been transformed into a religion for the whole world.
It was inevitable that the Jews should resent such claims on the part of Christians, and especially of Gentile Christians; and the resentment became furious hostility when they saw the rapidity with which Christians made converts as compared with their own slowness in making proselytes here and there. Until the Maccabaean princes used force, not many had been made. Since then, religious aspirations had combined with interested motives to bring adherents to Judaism, and it was from these more serious proselytes that the Christian missionaries obtained much help. Under their roof both Jews and Gentiles could meet to hear the word of God (Acts 18:7). Christianity could offer to a dissatisfied and earnest pagan all that Judaism could offer and a great deal more. Such inquirers after truth now ceased to seek admission to the Synagogue and joined the Church, and the downfall of Jerusalem accelerated this chance. The Jewish war of a.d. 66-70 was regarded by the Christians as a judgment for the murder of the Messiah, and also for the more recent murder in 62 of the Messiah’s brother, James the Just. That catastrophe destroyed both the centre of Jewish worship and also the Jews themselves as a nation. The loss of the Temple was to some extent mitigated by the system of synagogues, which had long been established. But that destruction, both in its immediate effect and in its far-reaching consequences, marks a crisis which has few parallels in history. Christianity felt both. The destruction of Jerusalem left the Gentile Churches, and especially the Church of Rome, without a rival, for the Jewish Church of Jerusalem sank into obscurity, and never recovered; nor did any other community of Jewish Christiana take its place. When a Christian community arose once more in the restored Jerusalem, it was a Gentile Church. Jewish Christianity was far on the road towards extinction. The Judaizing Christians persisted in regarding Judaism as the Divinely appointed universal religion, of which Christianity was only a special offshoot endowed with new powers. The Pauline view involved the hateful admission that the OT dispensation was relative and transitory. The Judaizers could not see that Christianity, although founded on the OT and realizing an OT ideal which had been seen but not reached by the prophets, was now independent of Judaism. Judaizing was a passing malady in the life of the Church, and had little influence on ecclesiastical development. The Judaizing Christians either gave up their Judaism or ceased to be Christian.
The Tübingen theory that the leading fact in the Apostolic Church was a struggle between St. Paul and the Twelve has been illuminating, but closer study of the evidence has shown that it is untenable. There were some differences, but there was no hostility, between St. Paul and the Twelve. The hostility was between St. Paul and the Judaizers, who claimed to represent the Twelve. It is possible that some of these Judaizing teachers had seen Christ during His ministry, and therefore said that they had a better right to the title of ‘apostle’ than he had. In the mis-called ‘Apostolic Council’ at Jerusalem, which was really a conference of apostles, elder brethren, and the whole Church of Jerusalem (Acts 15:6; Acts 15:12; Acts 15:22-23), there was no conflict between the Twelve and St. Paul. St. Paul’s rebuke to St. Peter at Antioch (Galatians 2:11-14) is no evidence of a difference of principle between them. St. Peter is blamed, not for having erroneous convictions, but for being unfaithful to true ones. He and St. Paul were entirely agreed that there was no need to make Gentile converts conform to the Mosaic Law; but St. Peter had been willing to make unworthy concessions to the prejudices of Jewish converts who were fresh from headquarters, by ceasing to eat with Gentile converts. He had perhaps argued that, as it was impossible to please both parties, it was better, for the moment, to keep on good terms with people from Jerusalem. He temporized in order to please the Judaizers.
‘But what it amounted to was that multitudes of baptized Gentile Christians, hitherto treated on terms of perfect equality, were now to be practically exhibited as unfit company for the circumcised Apostles of the Lord who died for them.… Such conduct, though in form it was not an expulsion of the Gentile converts, but only a self-withdrawal from their company, was in effect a summons to them to become Jews if they wished to remain in the fullest sense Christians. St. Paul does not tell us how the dispute ended: but he continued on excellent terms with the Jerusalem Apostles’ (F. J. A. Hort. Judaistic Christianity, Cambridge, 1894, pp. 78, 79).
The leading facts in the history of the Apostolic Church are-the freedom won for Gentile converts, the consequent expansion of Christianity and Christendom, and the transfer of the Christian centre from Palestine to Europe. When the Apostolic Age began, the Church was overwhelmingly Jewish; before it ended, the Church was overwhelmingly Gentile. Owing mainly to the influence of St. Paul-‘a Hebrew of Hebrews’-whose Jewish birth and training moulded his thoughts and language, but never induced him to sacrifice the freedom of the gospel to the bondage of the law, the break with Judaism became absolute, and, as Gentile converts increased, the restrictions of Judaism were almost forgotten. The Judaizing Christians, especially after the second destruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian, drew further and further away from the Church, and ceased to influence its development.
7. Character.-The character of the Apostolic Church is not one that can be sketched in a few strokes. Simple as it was in form, it had varied and delicate characteristics. By its foundation in Jerusalem, which even the heathen regarded as no mean city, Christianity became, what it continued to be in the main for some centuries, a city-religion, a religion nearly all the adherents of which lived in large centres of population. It was in such centres that the first missionaries worked. For eighteen years or more (Galatians 1:18; Galatians 2:1) Jerusalem continued to be the headquarters of at least some of the Twelve; but even before the conversion of St. Paul there were Christians at Samaria (Acts 8:14), Damascus (9:19), and Antioch (11:20), which soon eclipsed Jerusalem as the Christian metropolis.
It has been pointed out already that the Church is necessarily social in character; and it resembles other societies, especially those which have a political or moral aim, in requiring self-denying loyalty from its members. But it differs from other societies in claiming to be universal. The morality which it inculcates is not for any one nation or class, but for the whole of mankind. In the very small amount of legislation which Christ promulgated, He made it quite clear that in the Kingdom social interests are to prevail rather than private interests; and also that all men have a right to enter the society and ought to be invited to join it. The Church, therefore, is a commonwealth open to all the world. Every human being may find a place in it; and all those who belong to it will find that they have entered a vast family, in which all the members are brethren and have the obligations of brethren to promote one another’s well-being both of body and soul. This form of a free brotherhood was essential to a universal religion; and the proof of its superiority to other brotherhoods lay in its being suitable to all sorts and conditions of men. It prescribed conduct which can be recognized as binding on all; and, far more fully than any other system, it supplied to all what the soul of each individual craved. The name ‘disciples’ did not last long as a name for all Christians; the name ‘brethren’ took its place. St. Paul does not speak of Christians as ‘disciples’; that word came to be restricted to those who had been the personal disciples of Christ. He speaks of them as ‘brethren,’ a term in harmony with the Christians’ ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ an enthusiasm which set no bounds to its affection, but gave to every individual, however degraded, full recognition. The mere fact of being a baptized believer gave an absolute claim to loving consideration from all the rest. This brotherhood of Christians was easily recognized by the heathen.
Lucian (Death of Peregrinus Proteus) says: ‘It was imposed upon them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers from the moment that they are converted.… An adroit, unscrupulous fellow, who has seen the world, has only to get among these simple souls, and his fortune is soon made.’ By pretending to be a ‘brother’ he can get anything out of them.
There is a stronger bond thou that of belonging to one and the same society, commonwealth, and brotherhood. Seeing that the brotherhood implies that the Father of the family is God, there would seem to be nothing stronger than that. And yet there is: Christians are members of one Body, the Body of Christ, which is inspired by one Spirit. Just as no one did so much as St. Paul to free the new society from its cramping and stifling connexion with Judaism, so no one did so much as he to develop the idea of a free Christian Church, and of the relation of the Spirit to it. The local ἐκκλησία of believers is a temple in which God dwells by His Spirit; it is Christ’s Body, of which all become members by being baptized in one Spirit. No differences of rank or of spiritual endowments can destroy this fundamental unity, any more than the unity of a building or of the human body is destroyed by the complexity of its structure. In Ephesians, the Apostle looks forward to an ἐκκλησία, not local, but including all Christians that anywhere exist. The same Spirit dwells in each soul and makes the multitude of the faithful, irrespective of locality or condition, to be one (see Swete, The Holy Spirit in the NT, London, 1909, p. 308). From the ideal point of view, there is only one Church, which is imperfectly, but effectively, represented and realized in the numerous organizations in Christendom. Not that Christendom is the whole of which they are the constituent parts-that is a way of looking at it which is not found in the Apostolic Church, and it may easily be misleading. The more accurate view is to regard each member of a Christian organization as a member of the universal Church. The Church consists of duly qualified individuals; the intermediate groups may be convenient or inevitable, but they are not essential.
Separate organizations, or local churches, came into existence because bodies of Christians arose at different plates and increased. These bodies were independent, no one local church being in subjection to another. The congregations at Ephesus, Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth, etc., were independent of one another and of the earlier churches of Antioch and Jerusalem. Their chief bond of union was that of the gospel and of membership in Christ. Besides this, the churches just named had the tie of being the product of one and the same founder; and, as children of the same spiritual father, they were in a special sense ‘brethren,’ St. Paul appeals to this fact and to their relationship to other churches. But, although he teaches that a church in need has claims upon the liberality of other churches, he nowhere gives one church authority over others. Nevertheless, even in apostolic times, congregations in the same district appear to have been regarded as connected groups, and it is possible that the congregation in the provincial capital had some sort of initiative in virtue of the importance of the city where they dwelt. Thus, we have ‘the churches of Galatia; (1 Corinthians 16:1, Galatians 1:1), ‘the churches of Asia’ (1 Corinthians 16:19), ‘the churches of Judaea ’ (Galatians 1:22), ‘the seven churches of Asia’ (Revelation 1:4). In this way there arose between the local city church and the universal Church an organization which may he called the provincial Church (A. Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, Eng. translation , London, 1910, p. 160).
Besides these close ties of relationship and membership, the first Christians were held together by unity of creed. It is true that primitive Christianity was an enthusiasm rather than a creed; but there was a creed. It may be summed up in two strong convictions, one negative and the other positive. The negative one united the Christians with the Jews; the positive one was the chief cause of separation between the two. Both Jew and Christian declared with equal emphasis that the gods of the heathen were no-gods (Deuteronomy 32:17, 1 Corinthians 10:20): they were Shçdim, nullities. But the Divine nature of the Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Son of God was what the Christian affirmed as confidently and constantly as the Jew denied it. Here no compromise was possible. The Divinity of the Crucified, which is such a difficulty to modern thought, appears to have caused little difficulty to the first Christians. It has been suggested that familiarity with polytheistic ideas helped them to believe in the Divinity of the Son. Possibly; but, on the other hand, their rejection of polytheism was absolute, and they died rather than make concessions. Heathen philosophers, who saw that polytheism was irrational, had a colourless theism which could make compromises with popular misbeliefs. Thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch could talk indifferently of God and gods, of the Divine Being and the deities; but for the early Christians that was impossible. They were not theologians, and they had only the rudiments of a creed; but they were quite clear about the necessity of worshipping God and His Christ, and about the folly and wickedness of worshipping men or idols. Hence, with all their simplicity of doctrine they had deep convictions which formed a strong bond of union. The heathen mysteries had something of the same kind.
P. Gardner has pointed out three common characteristics, all of which bring them into line with Christianity: rites of purification, rites of communion with some deity, and means of securing happiness in the other world. He holds that the Christian mystery of which St. Paul speaks is ‘the existence or a spiritual bond holding together a society in union with a spiritual lord with whom the society had communion, and from whom they received in the present life safety from sin and defilement, and in the world to come life everlasting’ (The Religious Experience of St. Paul, London, 1911, p. 79).
8. Relation to the State and other systems.-The question of the relation of the Church to the State was only beginning to arise towards the end of the apostolic period. The Church was developing its organization for its own purposes, without thinking of producing a power which might rival and oppose the State. The State had not yet become aware of any Christian organization, and it dealt with Christians as eccentrics, who sometimes became a public nuisance. The Jews were tolerated, less because they were not offensive to the Roman Government than because it was inexpedient to persecute them; and so long as Christians were regarded as a Jewish sect, they shared the immunity of the Jews and were generally unmolested. When the difference between Jews and Christians became manifest-and the Jews often pointed it out-Christians were persecuted whenever the temper of the magistrates or of the mob made it expedient to persecute. The State was intolerant on principle; it allowed no other corporation either inside or outside itself. While it freely permitted a variety of cults, it insisted on every citizen taking part in the State religion, especially in the worship of the Emperor. It was here that the Church came into complete and deadly collision with the Roman Empire, as the Apocalypse again and again shows. Nero was not fond of being styled a god; it seemed to imply that he was about to be translated from earth by death, and he preferred popularity during this life to worship after it was over. Domitian had no such feeling. He was not popular, and could not make himself so; but he could make his subjects worship him; and in the provinces, especially in the province of Asia, where Emperors were not often seen, but where the benefits of good government were felt, subjects were very willing to render Divine honours to the power that blessed them. Domitian began the formal letters which his procurators had to issue for him with the words: ‘Our Lord and God orders this to be done’ (Suet. Dom. 13). Festivals for the worship of the Emperor were often held by the magistrates at places in which there were Christians, e.g. at Ephesus, Sardis, Smyrna, and Philadelphia; and to refuse to take part in them was rebellion against the Government and blasphemy against the Augustus. Some magistrates were friendly, like the Asiarchs towards St. Paul (Acts 19:31), but the possibilities of persecution for refusing to worship the Emperor or the local deities were so great that we may suspect that many attacks on Christians took place about which history records nothing (Swete, Apocalypse, London, 1907, Introd. ch. vii.; J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i. vol. i. [1890] p. 104).
Even if this danger had not existed, the mere fact that the Church was a self-governing body, within the State-imperium in imperio-but not of it, was enough to bring it into collision with the Government. The attitude of the Church was as loyal as was possible. The apostles respected the civil power, even when represented by a Nero, as a Divinely appointed instrument for the preservation of order; but they could not allow it to interfere with their duty to Him who had ordained both the civil power and the Church. The Church was no leveller or democrat in the modern sense of those terms. Rulers are to be respected by subjects, masters by slaves, husbands by wives, and parents by children. St. Paul does not teach the fallacy that all men are equal; he teaches that in spiritual things all souls have equal value. As regards the things of this life, all men are brethren, and in this he went far beyond Stoicism; even now, perhaps, we have not yet grasped the full significance of his teaching. To both the Government and the governed the Christians were an enigma. They seemed to regard suffering as a dreadful thing, for they were always striving to relieve it; and yet to disregard it entirely, for they were always willing to endure it. In an age in which there were no charitable institutions, the whole congregation was a free institution for dispensing practical help; and yet, when their cult was in question, they scorned pain and misery. They fought against involuntary poverty as an evil, and yet declared that voluntary poverty was a blessing. And there was another paradox-Christianity was at once the most comprehensive and the most exclusive of all religions. All were invited to enter, because the yoke was so easy; and all were warned to count the cost, because the responsibilities were so great. Converts were told that they must begin by taking up the cross and that they must abjure the world. In practice, the severance between the Church and the world was not insisted upon (1 Corinthians 6:10): it was a difference of thought and life rather than of social intercourse. Many Christians mixed freely with heathens, and many heathens came sometimes to Christian services, without any thought of seeking baptism. Some heathens thought that the Way was good, but that there were other ways which were equally good. The mixture of Church and world began very early.
Among rival religious systems, none was more dangerous to the success of Christianity than Mithra-worship. Except in the form of ‘Mysteries,’ the old Greek religion had not much power; its gods and goddesses were openly ridiculed. But Mithraism was full of life; it could excite not only powerful emotions but moral aspirations as well. It inculcated courage and purity, and it taught the doctrine of rewards and penalties here and hereafter. Mithra would come one day from heaven, and there would be a general resurrection, after which the wicked world would be destroyed by fire and the good would receive immortality. Some Church teachers regarded it as a gross caricature of Christianity. As a missionary religion, it had the advantage of being able to make terms with paganism; its adherents had no objection to idolatrous rites, and therefore never came into collision with the Government. It probably gained thousands who might otherwise have accepted the gospel. The elastic simplicity and freedom of primitive Christianity exposed the Apostolic Church to perils of another kind. The troubles of Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Montanism grew out of the contact of Christianity with Greek and Oriental systems of religion and philosophy, whose ideas found entrance into Christianity and were sometimes an enrichment and sometimes a corruption of it. The balance was on the side of gain. The gospel continued to supply the plain man with a simple rule of life, and it began to supply the philosopher with inexhaustible material for thought. This is a permanent cause of success.
Literature.-In addition to the important works cited above, see W. W. Shirley, The Church in the Apostolic Age, Oxford, 1867; P. Schaff, Apostolic Christianity, Edinburgh, 1883, vol. ii.; A. Harnack, Sources of the Apostolic Canons, Eng. translation , London, 1895; C. v. Weizsäcker, The Apostolic Age2, Eng. translation , W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire6, London, 1900, St. Paul the Traveller6, do. 1902, Letters to the Seven Churches, do. 1904, Pictures of the Apostolic Church, do. 1910; C. Bigg, The Origins of Christianity, do. 1909; H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church Hist., do. 1909; L. Duchesne, Early Hist. of the Christian Church, Eng. translation , do. 1909-1912.
Alfred Plummer.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Church'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/c/church.html. 1906-1918.
