CHAPTER III. FALSE BRETHREN AND FALSE PRINCIPLES IN THE CHURCH: SPIRIT AND CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIANS. SOME have an idea that the saintship of the early Christians was of a type altogether unique and transcendental. In primitive times the Spirit was, no doubt, poured out in rich effusion, and the subjects of His grace, when contrasted with the heathen around them, often exhibited most attractively the beauty of holiness; but the same Spirit still dwells in the hearts of the faithful, and He is now as able, as He ever was, to enlighten and to save. As man, wherever he exists, possesses substantially the same organic conformation, so the true children of God, to whatever generation they belong, have the same divine lineaments. The age of miracles has passed away, but the reign of grace continues, and, at the present day, there may, perhaps, be found amongst the members of the Church as noble examples of vital godliness as in the first or second century. There was a traitor among the Twelve, and it is apparent from the New Testament that, in the Apostolic Church, there were not a few unworthy members. "Many walk," says Paul, "of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things."* In the second and third * Phil. iii. 18, 19. centuries the number of such false brethren did not diminish. To those who are ignorant of its saving power, Christianity may commend itself, by its external evidences, as a revelation from God; and many, who are not prepared to submit to its authority, may seek admission to its privileges. The superficial character of much of the evangelism now current appeared in times of persecution; for, on the first appearance of danger, multitudes abjured the gospel, and returned to the heathen superstitions. It is, besides, a fact which cannot be disputed that, in the third century, the more zealous champions of the faith felt it necessary to denounce the secularity of many of the ministers of the Church. Before the Decian persecution not a few of the bishops were mere worldlings, and such was their zeal for money-making, that they left their parishes neglected, and travelled to remote districts where, at certain seasons of the year, they might carry on a profitable traffic. If we are to believe the testimony of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the period, crimes were then perpetrated to which it would be difficult to find anything like parallels in the darkest pages of the history of modern Christianity. The chief pastor of the largest Church in the Proconsular Africa tells, for instance, of one of his own presbyters who robbed orphans and defrauded widows, who permitted his father to die of hunger and treated his pregnant wife with horrid brutality. Another ecclesiastic, of still higher position, speaks of three bishops in his neighbourhood who engaged, when intoxicated, in the solemn rite of ordination. Such excesses were indignantly condemned by all right-hearted disciples, but the fact, that those to whom they were imputed were not destitute of partisans, supplies clear yet * Cyprian, "De Lapsis,” p. 374. + Cyprian, “ Ad Cornelium," epist. xlix. p. 143. of his deacons with fraud, extortion, and adultery. Cornelius of Rome in Euseb. vi. 43. Cyprian also charges one melancholy proof that neither the Christian people nor the Christian ministry, even in the third century, possessed an unsullied reputation. Meanwhile the introduction of a false standard of piety created much mischief. It had long been received as a maxim, among certain classes of philosophers, that bodily abstinence is necessary to those who would attain more exalted wisdom; and the Gentile theology, especially in Egypt and the East, had endorsed the principle. It was not without advocates among the Jews, as is apparent from the discipline of the Essenes and the Therapeutæ. At an early period its influence was felt within the pale of the Church, and before the termination of the second century, individual members here and there were to be found who eschewed certain kinds of food and abstained from marriage. The pagan literati, who now joined the disciples in considerable numbers, did much to promote the credit of this adulterated Christianity. Its votaries, who were designated ascetics and philosophers,t did not withdraw themselves from the world, but, whilst adhering to their own regimen, still remained mindful of their social obligations. Their self-imposed mortification soon found admirers, and an opinion gradually gained ground that these abstinent disciples cultivated a higher form of piety. The adherents of the new discipline silently increased, and by the middle of the third century, a class of females who led a single life, and who, by way of distinction, were called virgins, were in some places regarded by the other Church members with special veneration. Among the clergy also celibacy was now considered a mark of superior holiness. § But, in various * See Eusebius, v. 3, vi. 9. + See Neander's "Antignostikus," part ii. sect. ii. at the end. It appears that the Christian ascetics adopted the dress of the pagan philosophers. Cyprian, "De Habitu Virginum," pp. 354, 361. § Still, in the time of Origen, the sons of bishops, presbyters, and deacons valued themselves upon their parentage.-Origen in "Matthæum" xv. opera, places, pietism about this time assumed a form which disgusted all persons of sober judgment and ordinary discretion. The unmarried clergy and the virgins deemed it right to cultivate the communion of saints after a new fashion, alleging that, in each other's society, they enjoyed peculiar advantages for spiritual improvement. It was not, therefore, uncommon to find a single ecclesiastic and one of the sisterhood of virgins dwelling in the same house and sharing the same bed! * All the while the parties repudiated the imputation of any improper intercourse, but in some cases the proofs of profligacy were too plain to be concealed, and common sense refused to credit the pretensions of such an absurd and suspicious spiritualism. The ecclesiastical authorities felt it necessary to interfere, and compel the professed virgins and the single clergy to abstain from a degree of intimacy which was unquestionably not free from the appearance of evil. About the time that the advocates of "whatsoever things are of good report" were protesting against the improprieties of these spiritual brethren and sisters, Paul and Antony, the fathers and founders of Monachism, commenced to live as hermits. Paul was a native of Egypt, and the heir of a considerable fortune; but, driven at first by persecution from the abodes of men, he ultimately adopted the desert as the place of his chosen residence. Antony, in another part of the same country, guided by a mistaken spirit of self-renunciation, divested himself of all his property; and also retired into a wilderness. The biographies of these two well-meaning but weak-minded vision tom. iii. p. 690. Even Cyprian bears honourable testimony to certain married presbyters. See "Epist." xxxv. p. 111. See also "Epist." xviii. p. 67. Cyprian himself was indebted for his conversion to an eminent presbyter, named Cæcilius, who had a wife and children. "Life of Cyprian," by Pontius the Deacon, § 5. * Cyprian, "Epist." Ixii. p. 219. Concerning the Subintroductæ, see also the letter relating to Paul of Samosata in Euseb. vii. 30. aries, which have been written by two of the most eminent divines of the fourth century,* are very humiliating memorials of folly and fanaticism. These solitaries spent each a long life in a cave, macerating the body with fasting, and occupying the mind with the reveries of a morbid imagination. In an age of growing superstition their dreamy pietism was mistaken by many for sanctity of uncommon excellence; and the admiration bestowed on them, tempted others, in the beginning of the following century, to imitate their example. Soon afterwards, societies of these sons of the desert were established; and, in the course of a few years, a taste for the monastic life spread, like wild-fire, over the whole Church. It is a curious fact that the figure of the instrument of torture on which our Lord was put to death, occupied a prominent place among the symbols of the ancient heathen worship. From the most remote antiquity the cross was venerated in Egypt and Syria; it was held in equal honour by the Buddhists of the East; † and, what is still more extraordinary, when the Spaniards first visited America, the well-known sign was found among the objects of worship in the idol temples of Anahuac. It is also remarkable that, about the commencement of our era, the pagans were wont *Jerome and Athanasius. + See Medhurst's "China," p. 217. The symbol of the cross was engraved on the walls of the temple of Serapis. "When the temple of Serapis was torn down and laid bare," says Socrates, "there were found in it, engraven on stones, certain characters, which they call hieroglyphics, having the forms of Both the Christians and Pagans on seeing them, thought they had reference to their respective religions." "Ecc. Hist." v. 17. crosses. Prescott, "Conquest of Mexico," iii. 338-340. See also note, p. 340. Sir Robert Ker Porter mentions a block of stone found among the ruins of Susa, having, on one side, inscriptions in the cuneiform character; and, on another, hieroglyphical figures with a cross in the corner. See his "Travels," vol. ii. p. 415. Among the ancient pagans, the cross was the symbol of eternal life, or divinity. On medals and monuments of a date far anterior to Christianity, it is found in the hands of statues of victory and of figures of monarchs. See also Tertullian, "Apol." c. 16. |