Chapter 9
V. Part I. the great divisions we have already seen that there existed as there could not but exist where there was active life various schools of thought within the church men apprehended variously the same great cardinal truth but differences such as those of the alexandrians and the africans were perfectly compatible with the recognition of the common faith some teachers however either exaggerated a particular tenet so as to deform the proportion of the faith or refused to receive some truth essential to christianity There were Jews, very zealous for the law, who were for retaining the legal observances of the Mosaic Code, and even for enforcing them upon converts from the Gentiles.
There were Martionites, who exalted the teaching of St. Paul to the utter disparegment of everything belonging to the Jews. There were Montanists, who were for maintaining the freedom of prophetic gifts and a higher and purer standard of life in the Church. even to the loss of ecclesiastical unity. There was Gnosticism, the general name given to a number of systems, which claimed to supersede at once Politeism, Judaism, and Christianity,
and to provide adequate explanations of the mysteries of the universe. And there was Monichiaism, which resolved the moral and spiritual phenomena of the world into the war of the opposing principles of good and evil. And in the midst of the storm occasioned by these winds of doctrine, the Church became more and more conscious, that if she found it upon a rock, that there was a basis of Catholic truth, which remained altogether unaffected by heresies and schools of thought. 1. Were the Jew and the Gentile mingled freely in Christian worship, the truth, that in Christ was neither Jew nor Greek, must gradually have asserted itself.
But in Jerusalem there was little or nothing of such influence. There all alike were Jewish converts, all reverencing Moses under the shadow of the temple. But before Jerusalem fell and the temple was razed to the ground, the Christians, heeding their Lord's words, fled from the doomed city and reconstituted the church of the circumcision at Pella, a city of the Decapolis. And we find a little body of Nazarenes, dwelling in Pella and its neighborhood, as late as the close of the fourth century. These held themselves bound by the Mosaic law, but did not refuse communion with the Gentiles.
according to some authorities they had not risen to the full apprehension of the dignity of the person of christ yet jeremy who must have known them seemed to regard them as separated from catholic christendom chiefly by their retention of the jewish law these simple folk were we may say inheritors of the spirit of st james the lord's brother and the same spirit pervades the principal literary production of the narzerine school the testaments of the twelve patriarchs which to a strong israelite feeling unites the fullest recognition of the gentile churches our lord is represented as the renovator of the law the imagery and illustrations are all hebrew certain virtues are strongly commended and certain vices strongly denounced according to a hebrew standard many incidents in the lives of the patriarchs are derived from some unknown legendary hebrew source yet the admission of the gentiles into the privileges of the convenant is a constant theme of thanksgiving with the writer
but a much larger body than the nazarenes the ebionites not content with observing the mosaic law themselves maintained that it was binding on all christians and regarded as impure all who did not conform they regarded jesus as the messiah while they denied his divinity they rejected the authority of st paul and may in truth be regarded as the successors of the false brethren who docked his steps and opposed his doctrine these whom we may call for distinction pharisaic are the ebionites of irenius and hippolytus the other and more widely spread type of ebionism agreeing in general with the opinions of the phrasaic ebionites added to them new elements of mysticism and asceticism derived probably from contact with the essenes this is the ebionism of epiphanius these ebionites like the rest were zealous for the law but the law must be adapted to their peculiar tenets bloody sacrifices they looked upon with horror and the prophets they utterly rejected they laid great stress on certain peculiar observances especially lustral washings and abstinence from flesh and wine
they maintained that the word or wisdom of god had been incarnate more than once and that thus there had been more christ than one of whom adam was the first and jesus the last christianity in fact was regarded by them merely as the restoration of the primeval religion in other words of pure mosaism before it had been corrupted by foreign accretions these ascetic ebionites bear a strong resemblance to the judaic sectaries who disturbed the peace of the church at colossae in the days of st paul they were eager to spread their faith and displayed great literary activity they may be traced in many different parts of the empire and produced a great number of books which have not been without influence on christian tradition though the works themselves have for the most part perished there are still extant the clementines the homilies and recognitions attributed to clement of rome and a few fragments of the book of el
of these the homilies were written probably in the latter half of the second century the recognitions known only in the free latin version of rufinus somewhat later in the homil simon magus the antithesis of simon peter is the impersonation of heresy various traits are accumulated in his person and some of these are manifestly derived from st paul in the recognitions the animus of the writer against the apostle of the gentiles is much less strongly marked the book of el-kassai the hidden power professes to be written in the third year of trajan an epoch corresponding remarkably with that mentioned by heges at the time of the great outbreak of heresies whatever its date it maintains like the rest of the ebionite writings the perpetual obligation of the jewish law and the purely human nature of christ both this book and the clementines have a strongly gnostic tinge the system of the clementine writings makes christianity itself little else than a purification and renewal of primeval judaism
judaism and its latest development christianity stand together in opposition to heathenism the main intention of the works in question seems in truth to have been to unite the judaic and anti-judaic parties in the church against pagan tenets whether in the church or in the world which surrounded it we have here no separation of a demiurgus from the most high god the one god is all in all god created the universe through the wisdom the operative hand which is with him christ and satan are respectively the right hand and the left hand of god with the one he brings to death with the other gives life to christ is made subject the world to come to the devil who was not created evil but became bad by a mixture of extraneous elements is made subject this present world man as made at first in the image of god rejoiced in the revelation of god made through the prophets of truth this line of true prophets began in adam and when at the instigation of the devil the woman had brought confusion into the primeval revelation was renewed in moses
when the mosaic law began to lose its force and purity it was renewed in christ who is the son of god in a sense in which that title could not be given to adam or to moses if not one with god in the christian sense in this system the way of salvation begins with the calling from god through which man comes to know the true prophet in him he must have faith and in his name receive baptism thence he advances to gnosis the knowledge of the true nature of god and his perfect righteousness of the immortality of the soul of man as the judgment to come this gnosis gives man power to fulfil the law which is conceived as a series of positive ordinances a rigorous asceticism is required involving the utmost possible abstinence from the things of earth especially from flesh and from wine but the judaic spirit of the system appears strongly in its commendation of marriage two if the system represented by the clementines tended to exalt judaism even at the expense of christianity that of marcion exalted the teaching of st paul at the expense not only of judaism but of other christian teachers
st paul alone he recognizes as the apostle the one depository of the truth as it is in jesus his object throughout is to make the sharpest and most absolute separation between divine pauline christianity and the not merely inferior but hostile systems which preceded it the law is with him mere hardness and sternness the gospel an absolutely new revelation of god for which nothing in the previous history of the world had prepared the way it is a sunrise without a dawn in marcion's system all things are sudden which in god's providence require a long development john comes suddenly christ comes suddenly he is always bringing into prominence the antithesis of law and gospel righteousness and mercy fear and love as to his personal history we learn that marcion was the son of a bishop of sinope by whom it is said that he was excommunicated for some juvenile excesses he found his way about the middle of the second century to rome where he was also rejected by the church and where with the help of a syrian gnostic named serdon he seems to have thought out his system
he assumed three primal powers the supreme deity or good god the righteous demiurgus or creator and matter with its ruler the evil one the demiurgus putting forth the best of his limited powers created a world of the same nature as himself in which he chose the jews to be his own people and gave them merely the covenant of salvation by works thus provided they struggled but feebly against the power of evil until at last the good god of his great love towards mankind sent his son christ clothed in a body of no earthly mould yet capable of doing and suffering to reveal his hitherto unknown being and nature he was at first taken for the messia of the jews deity but when he preached the gospel of the good god demiurgus in wrath caused him to be crucified he died however only a seeming death they who believe in christ and lead a holy life out of love to god shall attain to bliss in the heavenly kingdom the rest belong to the realm of demiurgus and after his just condemnation
are destined to receive according to their works either an inferior happiness or utter reprobation in one respect only does marcion give hope for the heathen world the christ after his seeming death descended into hell ad inferos and saved those of the old world whether heathens or jews who believed on him marcion's teaching professed to be founded on the very words of holy scripture but the canon of scripture which he acknowledged consisted only of ten epistles of st paul the pastorals being rejected and a gospel bearing the name of st luke st paul's disciple in the epistles it does not seem probable that he altered the words of the venerated master whose doctrine he claimed to have restored but the gospel which he used certainly differed from the canonical gospel according to st luke though it may be doubted whether marcion himself introduced all the variations which were found in it he passed his days in eager contention against what he thought the prevalent judaism of the church
and in organizing the societies of those whom he hold his comrades in hate and persecution and the discipline of these societies however different from that of the church was by no means lax if his teaching was antinomium in its opposition to the jewish law he still inculcated an asceticism springing from the genuine devotion of the inner man to god those who did not rise to this asceticism and those who were married he retained in the ranks of the catechumens but to these he gave the privilege of being present at all the rites of the church the gospel was for all not merely for an inner circle of disciples like the catholics he baptized with water he anointed with oil he gave milk and honey to the neophytes and bread to the communicants in the eucharist but wine was absent his disciples used neither wine nor flesh a second and even a third baptism was permitted and it is not improbable that for those who departed unbaptized a vicarious baptism was performed
women were permitted to administer the baptismal rite his pupil apelles taught that there was but one primal power the good god he it was who created the intermediate being who made the world the imperfections of which arise from lack of power in him who made it then intervened the being who spake in a flame of fire to moses from whose inspiration sprang the old testament at the prayer of the world creator the good god sent his christ into the world he appeared lived wrought and suffered in a real body not of sinful flesh but compounded direct from the pure elements without spot of sin and resolved at death into the elements again in his later days apelles seems to have given heed to the utterances of a possessed maiden philomena and to have more and more renounced gnosticism and approach to the catholic faith in his disputation with rodon he declared that all would be saved who placed their hope on the crucified provided that they were found in good works
the marcionites maintained themselves as a distinct society as late as the sixth century split however by many schisms and perverted by the speculations of adherents from various gnostic sects an inscription which once stood over the doorway of the marcionite meeting-house of the year six hundred thirty of the era of the solace a d three hundred eighteen three hundred nineteen was found a few years ago in a syrian village three there has always existed in the church more or less openly an opposition between established routine and the freer manifestation of religious emotion in the church of the second century the more ardent spirits began to feel that the love of many had waxed gold the expectation of the coming of christ was less vivid the standard of christian life was lower plain living and high thinking had declined faith in the perpetual activity of the prophetic and other gifts of the spirit was no longer as it had once been the great animating principle of the church
a church in which the sternest morality was not insisted upon seemed to them no true branch of the church of christ the true church is where the spirit is not necessarily wherever the ecclesiastical organization is complete with such as these the divine in breathing the personal ecstasy of the prophet lifted him high above those whose authority depended upon mere ecclesiastical appointment such as these felt it a matter of life and death to maintain primitive christianity as they conceived it against the increasing wordliness of the church on the one hand and its gnostic departures from the simplicity of christian doctrine on the other their feelings generally and especially the desire to maintain the gifts of prophecy within the church found expression in the voice of montanus a mysian who about the year one hundred and thirty began to claim to have received prophetic powers and a new revelation his enemies said that he even claimed to be the paraclete all that can be said of him with certainty is that he attracted to himself a large number of disciples including several women of high social position
among whom the most conspicuous were maximilla and priscilla or as she is sometimes called these two constantly appear as his companions and are sharing in his spiritual gifts of the other women whose utterances were received as divine revelation the only names that have come down to us are those of the martyrs perpetua and felicitas the montanists maintained as earlier teachers had done the perpetuity and necessity of the gifts of prophecy and vision they received the whole of the christian scriptures there was no heresy in their views with regard to the father the son and the holy spirit they held very earnest and very precise opinions as to the speedy coming of the lord and are said to have expected the descent of the new jerusalem at a village in phrygia pepuza whence they are not unfrequently called strangely enough while insisting on the ever-present guidance of the holy spirit they laid down precepts on permitted food and permitted acts which approached judaic legalism
their fasts were more numerous and more severe than those observed by the church in general marriage was permitted though the married were clearly placed on a lower level than the unmarried and probably remained in the ranks of the catechumens second marriages were utterly condemned as indeed they had often been condemned before time in the church with regard to sin after baptism the spirit declared through the new prophets the church has power to remit sin but i will not do it lest others offend martyrdom was by no means to be avoided by flight but it was meritorious only if endured in faith and out of pure submission to god's will the one visible church of christ included all who had been duly baptized yet many of its members were merely physical or natural men the spiritual or pneumatic were those alone who accepted the higher teaching of the spirit by the mouth of his prophets and each one of these was endued with a spiritual priesthood some peculiar rites were attributed to them that woman prophesied in the churches is admitted on all hands
but there is no reason to believe that this prophesying took place during divine service or that woman took any share in celebrating the mysteries the unmarried women were closely veiled in the churches it is not wholly improbable that the montanists performed vicarious baptism on behalf of those who had died unbaptized such deaths were likely to be frequent in a society which detained the majority of its members in a long it is said that they used cheese in the eucharist but this may probably have been as an offering rather than as a part of the actual eucharistic celebration that some disorder took place in their assemblies is probable enough there have perhaps never been assemblies of ecstatics and visionaries which have not fallen into occasional improprieties but it is impossible to accept as true the charges of child murder and of horrible food given in their secret rites charges precisely similar to those of the heathen against the whole body of christians which were circulated in the later age
it is impossible to believe that tertullian and perpetua belonged to society capable of horrible crime in its secret assemblies teachings such as that of the montanists naturally spread rapidly among the excitable people of phrygia the church in that region was alarmed councils of the faithful were held in which their tenets were condemned and themselves excommunicated tidings of the proceedings in asia soon reached the asiatic colony in southern gaul and the confessors yet in vance under stress of persecution brought letters in the interests of peace both to the brethren in asia and phrygia and to elodhurus bishop of rome one bishop of rome either a loiterus or victor acknowledged the prophetic gifts of montanus prisca and maximilla and gave peace to the churches of asia and phrygia but praxeas by misrepresenting the prophets induced him to recall the letters of peace which he had issued and to withdraw his recognition montanism had probably at one time many adherents in italy
but it was in africa that it won its most important conquest tertullian who gave to its cause all the warmth of his african nature and the skill of a practised advocate no other of the sects of the ancient church has the advantage of presenting itself to later times as pictured by its greatest convert a provincial council at iconium in the first half of the third century declared montanist baptism invalid thus branding montanism as a sect separate from the church shortly afterwards stephen bishop of rome recognized it as valid nicae passed the question over in silence the synod of laodicea in the latter part of the third century enacted that the phrygians should be catechized and baptized ere they were admitted to the church and the occumenal council of constantinople even more strongly
that the montanists here called phrygians should be received into the church in precisely the same manner in which pagans were received montanism was found worthy of notice even as late as the legislation of justinian in the sixth century and probably its later manifestations when it was a mere despised sect cast discredit on its earlier and purer time but it was already practically extinct in the latter part of the fourth century when as epiphanius tells us it could point to no prophet its real work was done in the protest which it made against spiritual deadness in the church in the second and third centuries chapter five part one
