The Historians' History of the World 06

But statutory organisation was not confined to the individual community; the various communities of one province joined in closer bonds and formed a larger confederation. Provincial synods arose, corresponding to the diet of the provinces, met once or twice a year, and dealt with matters of common interest under the direction of a president (the metropolitan). But even this association did not suffice. From the very beginning Christians were conscious of belonging to one great and holy fellowship, to one universal brotherhood. Conceived of, in the first instance, as something ideal and supernatural, it had nevertheless been held with strong and lively convictions, and at this stage the attempt was made to realise it upon earth. The outward conditions were in its favour; Christian doctrine had assumed many forms, a large number of which appeared very questionable in the eyes of the bishops and the majority of the church, and they consequently desired to define their own position in contradistinction to these “pseudo-Christians.” Hence after the end of the second century a great number of communities in the West and East joined to form a single confederation, and presently asserted that only those who belonged to this confederation, the one Holy Catholic church, were real Christians. At the beginning of the third century there was no longer only a heavenly church,—the children of God scattered throughout the world and waiting for the revelation of the kingdom of which they were citizens,—but a visible church extending from the Euphrates to Spain, resting upon fixed laws and ordinances, and thus constituting a political organisation within boundaries that coincided roughly with the frontiers of the Roman Empire.

By this development the church approximated to the state—as its rival in the first instance, it is true; but rivals may become friends. The decisive factor was that Christianity had assumed definite political form.

(2) The Christian life was to be “unspotted from the world.” Most Christians of primitive times interpreted this to mean that they should have as little as possible to do with “the world.” Nor was this a difficult matter, for the greater number of them were people in humble life whose conduct was subject to little outward control if only they performed the hard work required of them. Few of them were “in society”; and hence it was of no consequence what religion they professed or what manner of life they led.

By degrees, however, the situation changed, and the labours of missionaries drew men of all ranks into the church. As early as the reign of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, Christians were numerous in every class, even among officials and scholars and men of rank and wealth. The question of the attitude one should assume towards the world, which had hitherto been a difficult problem only in individual cases, now became pressing to the whole community. In addition to this the state police and the public (especially the mob) took far more heed of Christianity than before. Any man who made an open confession of Christianity exposed himself to great danger, nay, to death itself. What was the church to do? Should she say to the faithful: “You must confess your faith under all circumstances, and avoid all contact, even the most superficial, with idolatry”? The consequences were obvious: the soldier would be bound to leave his colours, for they bore a heathen emblem; the magistrate to resign his office, for he could not protest against the worship of the emperor; the teacher to cease to teach, for he could not avoid mythological subjects; the tiler to abandon his handicraft, since he could not work on the roof of a temple; the goldsmith, the joiner, the merchant—they all ran the risk of abetting idolatry. The austere members of the communities did actually insist that every Christian ought to renounce his calling if it rendered him liable to the risk of the remotest contact with idolatry. Tertullian explicitly makes this demand in his pamphlet, De Idololatria, nor did he suffer himself to be confounded by the retort: “We shall die of starvation.”—“Who is he that hath promised ye shall live?”