Baus, Karl. From the Apostolic Community to Constantine // History of the Church. Ed.H.Jedin, J.Dolan. Vol. I.

Content

CHAPTER 25

The Holiness of the Christian and his Church

THE faithful of early Christian times had to conduct their religious life on the foundation of a baptismal spirituality and "preserve the seal of baptism". This implied a lofty awareness of the obligation of all the baptized to holiness in a holy Church. Despite their vivid knowledge of this duty, and despite all efforts to conform to it, the ideal was never carried out by all members of the various communities, and the writings of the apostolic and sub-apostolic age in particular reveal with perfect clarity that at no period in the young Church was there complete absence of sin. Paul himself had to excommunicate an incestuous person from the church at Corinth (1 Cor 5:1-13), and on frequent other occasions had to reprimand individual members of a community for sinful behaviour (Eph 4:17-31; 1 Cor 6). The author of the Apocalypse deplored grave faults in the communities of Asia Minor (Apoc 1-3). Clement of Rome had to exhort the Corinthian community not only to avoid as possible dangers but to give up as deplorable realities a whole series of grave failings such as sedition, covetousness, licentiousness, fraud, and envy. Similar or identical sins are implied in the community of Philippi by the letter of Polycarp of Smyrna, and the so-called Second Letter of Clement. About the middle of the second century the Shepherd of Hermas drew a grave picture of the failure of many Christians of the Roman community, in which there were adulterers, swindlers, drunkards, covetous people, and the like. Then the third century sources make it plain that with the growth in size of the individual congregations, the number of those increased within them who did not succeed in avoiding sin even in its most serious forms. The ideal of a holy Church all of whose members persevered in the grace of baptism until death, remained a high aim which was never achieved.

This undeniable situation created a serious problem for the individual Christian, the single community, and the Church as a whole. Had the Christian who lost baptismal grace forfeited salvation for ever, had he definitely left the Church, or was there still a way for him to "recover the (lost) seal of baptism"? Were some sins perhaps of such gravity that no penance, however strict, could atone for them? Were they unforgivable, and did they make return to the Church's society for ever impossible?

The discussions about the possibility of a penance which atones for sins committed and gives back participation in the life of the ecclesiastical community, accompany the Church, it might be said, from her very first hour, and in the third century they reached an almost dramatic culmination. The struggle for the holiness of Christians and the sanctity of their Church assumed concentrated form in the question of penance and, in the controversies about penance, became a factor of the first importance in the Church's own life. This is reflected, too, in ecclesiastical history research. Until now it has not been possible to reach generally accepted conclusions, since both the complicated condition of the sources and the close involvement of the problem of penance with the concept of the Church made objective decision difficult. To understand the questions regarding penance in the third century, it is necessary to have an acquaintance with previous developments; a brief sketch of these must, therefore, be given first.

Jesus' preaching indubitably demanded an absolutely radical renunciation of evil (Lk 9: 62; 14: 25), and also judged the situation of someone who has relapsed as graver than that of someone who has not yet been converted (Mt 13:3 if.). On the other hand, he knew the sinfulness of his closest followers and did not exclude even the disciples who were unfaithful to him from reconciliation and from responsibility for important tasks in the basileia of God. God's readiness to forgive a sinner many times, is the basis for the precept that they must be equally ready to go on forgiving their brethren (Mt 18:22; 6:12; 7:11). "With the conferring of the power of binding and loosing on the apostles as bearers of authority, the Church was appointed to pass judgment on the faithful who sinned, that is to say, to expel them from the community or to free them from the bond again, and forgive them their sins (Mt 18:15if.; Jn 20: 21 ff.). That authority was given without restriction; no sin was excepted as unforgivable, and so no sinner was excluded permanently from the Church unless he hardened himself impenitently in the "sin against the Holy Spirit" (Mt 12:31 ff.). St Paul acted in accordance with this when he "delivered to Satan" the incestuous sinner of Corinth, excluded him from the sacramental company of the faithful, "excommunicated" him (1 Cor 5:3ff.). In accord with such individual measures, Paul expects that members of the community who have sinned grievously by lewdness and debauchery will be converted (2 Cor. 12:21). In other New Testament writings, too, the view prevails that every sinner can obtain forgiveness again if he does penance (Jas 1:21; 5:19ff.; 2 Pet 3:9; 1 Jn 2:1 ff.). Only if he refuses penance and atonement does his fault become for him "the sin unto death" (1 Jn 5:16). The prayer of the sinner, and that of the community praying for him, open the way to forgiveness (1 Jn 5:14ff.; Jas 5:14ff.); the community of the faithful occupies itself with the sinner who is doing penance, and who makes his confession before it (1 Jn 1:9). The Apocalypse admonishes bishops not to tolerate idolatry and licentiousness in their communities, but also recognizes that God himself can still bring the worst sinner to penance (Apoc 2:2; 2:14ff.; 2:20-3).
This New Testament conviction of the possibility of penance and reconciliation of the sinner with God and with the community of the faithful, also persisted in the sub-apostolic period. Its writers suffer intensely when they see that the ideal of a society of brethren sanctified by baptism is thoroughly disgraced by some, but they all issue an urgent summons to penance, which will restore salvation to each. By such penance they meant genuine conversion, that is, renunciation of sin and a return to obedience to God's commandments. This is expressed in prayer of repentance, fasting, and alms-giving,® and an integral part of it consists in confession of sinfulness before God and the community of the brethren. In the sub-apostolic period, too, penance was always something that concerned the community. The authorities attended to ecclesiastical discipline and excommunicated the obstinate sinner, that is, they excluded him from participation in religious life and broke off all association with him "until he did penance". During the sinner's "time of excommunication", the community tried to help him by its impetrative prayers. The judgment as to when the sinner had, through penance, sufficiently atoned for his fault, was clearly a matter for the Church authorities. Their favourable judgment brought him pardon and re-incorporation into the religious life of the ecclesiastical community, which was convinced that he had thereby obtained pardon also from God.

Penance in the Shepherd of Hermas

Gaps occur even in the rather occasional remarks regarding penance which we can find in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. They give no details about the duration of penitential excommunication, nor about its enforcement and control, nor about the procedures of release and reception. Yet they clearly reveal the fundamental affirmation of the possibility of doing penance for all sins without exception. In this context it is difficult to understand the attitude of some with respect to Hermas, the author of the Shepherd. They have assigned the author of this mid-second century work as the first Christian who attempted to break a previously strict practice of denying any possibility of penance to a Christian who had placed himself outside the Christian community by grave sins committed after baptism. Hermas is said to have proclaimed a single opportunity of penance after baptism, and this has been construed as a display of Christendom's deviation from the original ideal of a Church of the saints. It is further said that the disastrous consequences of Hermas' proceeding are not mitigated even by an attitude regarding these possibilities of penance as an exceptional measure. This is considered to be similar to the jubilee of the Old Testament, which by its very nature had time limits set to it. Such an interpretation of the purpose of the Hermas document is certainly favoured to some extent by its literary genre. Hermas chose the form of an apocalypse in order to preach his conception of penance in visions and parables; consequently his basic purpose only reveals itself on closer examination and even this leaves an obscure and contradictory residue.

Hermas receives the new revelation about penance in his second vision; his former ideas regarding the question can therefore be gleaned from his statements that are prior to this event. In the first vision he states without reservation that his children are written again in the books of life "when they do penance from the bottom of their hearts"; yet these had lapsed from the faith and had denounced their parents as well.14 Only those who refused penance, or undertook it merely in appearance, could not reckon on forgiveness.15 The revelation imparted to Hermas receives a new element with the announcement that the previous possibility of penance has a time limit set to it; it lasts until a certain day with a single possibility of penance for sins committed after bapism. The end of the world, heralded by an imminent persecution16 is approaching and no further chance is available for subsequent sins. The modification in the time available for penance is, therefore, given eschatological grounds. In support of the thesis that Hermas here proclaims, for the first time in the history of the Church, a fundamentally new possibility of penance after baptism, reference has been made in the first place to his conversation with the Shepherd to whom Hermas submits his doubts. Here: "some teachers" are said to hold the view that only the penance afforded at baptism and with baptism brings remission (?ccpe<ri<;) of sins and that no further possibility of penance exists. The "Shepherd" confirms the correctness of this view; he says that anyone who has received forgiveness of sins by baptism ought really (eSei) not sin any more; the mercy of God, however, grants to those who have fallen again through human weakness a single, last penance.17 Whether these teachers should be regarded as the spokesmen of a minority inclining to rigorism, or as the representatives of a catechetical practice which unswervingly proclaimed the ideals of a baptismal spirituality and the preservation of baptismal grace,18 may remain an open question. It remains established in any case that a majority, including Hermas himself, were aware of a possibility of penance subsequent to baptism. As compared to the repeatedly proclaimed demand

with the notable qualification that Hermas is said to be here opposing a rigorist trend in the Roman community.

14 Hermas, Past. Vis. 1, 3, 2; 2, 2, 2-A.
15
16 Past. Vis. 1, 4, 2; Sim. 8, 6, 4; 8, 7, 2; 9, 26, 3.
17
18 Past. Vis. 2, 2, 5; 2, 3, 4; 3, 5, 5; 3, 8, 8 f.; Sim. 9, 9, 4. " Past. Mand. 4, 3, 1-7.
19
18 Cf. K. Rahner in ZKJh 77 (1955), 398 f.

***** iivMii^j 1)11. U1MJ11AIN AiNU nn tHUKLH

for the realization of the baptismal ideal in daily life it was less emphatically stressed and, according to the "Shepherd's" words, was only to be preached with great discretion, out of regard for the newly baptized.18 Hermas is obviously disturbed and anxious over the possibility that penance after baptism might contain some element of uncertainty; it might, for example, be prevented by some unforeseen circumstance. In the mind of the faithful its efficacy must have probably seemed less certain when compared with the radical effect of baptism. The Shepherd's answer gives Hermas confidence again, and makes him hope that his children, and all who are willing to make use of the proffered second chance of penance will obtain forgiveness even though a time limit is set. While Hermas unquestionably states that there is only one possibility of post-baptismal penance, the reason given is not that there is simply no more time left for penance after the proclamation of his revelation. Rather it is explained as being something that is unrepeatable in principle, probably on the idea that just as there is only one baptism which confers forgiveness, so there is only one penance which blots out post-baptismal sins. Furthermore, Hermas is convinced that the penance of someone who has relapsed a second time could not have been an irrevocable rejection of evil; it could not therefore have been genuine penance; and God could not have thereby granted forgiveness. The principle of the singleness of paenitentia secunda is clearly formulated for the first time by Hermas and remained in force for a long time.

Among penitential practices for the sinner, Hermas reckons confession of sins, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and the humility with which he takes all these exercises upon himself. When the atonement is complete, that is to say, when it corresponds to the measure of guilt, its double effect supervenes: it brings forgiveness of sins, and healing, while restoring life to the soul, the seal of baptism that had been lost. Hermas makes it clear by his image of the tower, which is symbol of the Church, that penance is not only a matter between God and the sinner, but involves the Church. The sinners stand outside this tower, some near and others farther from it. Anyone not in the tower is excluded from the community of the Church; anyone who is no longer taken into the tower is lost. As, however, it is the Church which excludes, which, in the sense of that time, excommunicates the adulterer or the man who has relapsed into idolatry,23 all who stand outside the tower are persons who have been so excommunicated by her. Reception again into the tower presupposes an examination on whether the excommunication penance can be regarded as sufficient or "completed". Such an examination was, of course, the prerogative of the Church authorities who either kept the sinner back at a "lesser place" or, granting him complete reconciliation, let him back into the tower again, received him once more into the community of salvation of the Church. It is to be noted that Hermas' intention was not to completely describe the ecclesiastical penance of his time, but rather simply to preach penance.

Tertullian's Two Views of Penance
The increased membership of the communities, especially in the phase of intense growth that characterized the latter half of the second century, involved more frequent cases of failure in Christian life and so heightened the importance of the question of penance. Even if convinced in principle that a second penance was not to be refused to such sinners, it was possible in the practice of penitential discipline to choose stricter or milder forms according to whether emphasis was placed on the Christian ideal of holiness or on the Christian motive of mercy. Both tendencies could be represented in the same community and both are perceptible here and there in the sources, too. When Dionysius of Corinth, about 170, requires that all "who repent of some fall, error or even a heresy", are to be received again, he not only expresses the generally recognized view, but also clearly opposes a tendency of another kind. A rigoristic trend emerged in Phrygian Montanism. At first this appeared to be a protest against the excessively lax view and manner of life of many Christians, but later revealed itself as an extremist movement whose first prophet Montanus upheld the thesis: "Potest ecclesia donare delicta, sed non faciam, ne et alii delinquant." "The Church can forgive sins, but I shall not, lest others fall away." This amounted to demanding that for the sake of discipline in its communities, the Church should refuse sinners the possibility of penance, the granting of which she was in principle admitted to possess. The initial success of Montanism shows that this demand met with a certain amount of sympathy, because it was apparently trying to achieve an uncompromisingly high ideal of holiness. The question of penance became a prime problem at one stroke when Tertullian by his adherence to Montanism made this demand his own. He proclaimed it with all the subtlety of his intellect and the pitiless rigour of his will. However, as a member of the Catholic community of Carthage, he had previously expounded the traditional view of the question of penance in his own work. The twofold position he adopted offers an exceptional opportunity of investigating the problem more closely through comparison.

When Tertullian wrote his monograph On Penance in the first years of the third century, the existence of the possibility of a single penance for the baptized was something of which he had no doubt whatever.90 God knows the perils to which the Christian is exposed, even after baptism, and which are due to the malice of the devil. For those who fall victims, God has "established the second penance in order to open the door to those who knock, but only once, because it is already the second time, but not again any more, because the next time is already too late." As opposed to this, Tertullian quite unmistakably expresses his real ideal and in doing so reminds us by the very words he uses of the same attitude in Hermas. He speaks of the possibility of this penance only against his will because it might easily mislead some into far too careless an attitude towards sin. Tertullian also clearly reveals that the loss of baptismal grace was felt to be a very grave failure in the Catholic community, so that some almost lost the heart to make a new beginning and in a sort of despair were no longer willing to undertake the second penance. It is to them that his admonition was addressed: "It certainly ought to be hard for us to sin a second time but to do penance a second time ought not to daunt us." It is of special importance for judging Tertullian's later attitude to observe that in his Catholic days he maintained the universality of penance and excepted no sin as unforgivable. Moreover, only grave sins are in question as matter for penance — penance is of course intended to restore the lost grace of baptism — and he names a few incidentally, not in the sense of an exhaustive catalogue or list, such as "to succumb to carnal lust or the allurements of the world, to deny the faith for fear of the secular power, to stray from the right path as the result of false teachings".35 In another passage he mentions lust (stuprum), eating of idol-offerings, and heresy (perversa docerej.36

A radical change in Tertullian's view about penance is revealed in De pudicitia, a later open polemic in which he now denies the Church any right to forgive grave sins and reserves this to the spirituals of the Montanist movement which he had joined in the meantime. In the very introduction a Catholic bishop is sharply attacked for publishing a definite edict saying "I also forgive the sins of adultery and fornication for those who have done penance." It was tempting to see in this bishop the then leader of the Roman community, because the expression pontifex maximus and episcopus episcoporum, by which Tertullian refers to him, at first sight seemed to point to Rome. But the alleged identification of the bishop under attack with Callistus or Zephyrinus of Rome cannot be maintained because Tertullian himself excludes it by saying later that this bishop presumptuously asserted that the power granted to Peter of binding and loosing had passed to every church, "which is related to Peter". That can only mean that Tertullian's opponent was a (North African) bishop who saw the power of binding and loosing present in every church that was in communion with Peter. This interpretation gains considerably in weight from a remark of Cyprian's that some African bishops had earlier refused penance to adulterers; Tertullian's African opponent was defending the view opposed to theirs.

By praising himself for his unashamed renunciation of his earlier error, namely the Catholic teaching, Tertullian himself says with all desirable clarity that the attitude expressed in De pudicitia regarding penance represents something new. This obliged him, it is true, to reinterpret his earlier scriptural proofs of the universality of ecclesiastical penance by a display of what can only be called exegetical acrobatics. What is fundamentally new is his division of sins into remissible and irremissible, among which those of idolatry, adultery, and murder play a special part. It is not really admissible to speak of a triad of capital sins in Tertullian, for he mentions other unforgivable sins as well as the three above named, even though he tried to adduce special reasons for these three from the decalogue and the apostolic decree in Acts.43 To prove the irremissibility of certain sins by the Church, Tertullian appeals to the fact that they would not be forgiven by God either, but he has to contradict himself by saying, in another passage, that forgiveness of these sins must be left to God. It is not that the three capital sins were treated as unforgivable in the Church's penitential discipline before Tertullian's Montanist period, for in that case he could not have passed them over in silence in his work De paenitentia. The triad is rather to be considered a construction of Tertullian which he thought to use effectively in his polemical writings against the Catholic Church.

In his monograph on penance and in some parts of the Montanist polemic, Tertullian becomes the first Christian writer to provide enough detail about the penitential procedure for a clear picture of its operation to be obtained. The first stage was an external action that Tertullian liked to call by the Greek term exhomologesis, confession.48 The sinner had openly to admit (publicatio sui) that he was in a condition that forced him to perform the official penance. How this public confession was actually carried out in fact is not really clear. When penance for notorious faults was involved, the summons to do penance probably came from the church authorities themselves, who in particularly serious cases could on their own initiative inflict exclusion from the ecclesiastical community, that is, excommunication. The question is more difficult in regard to secret grievous sins, for which the same duty of penance certainly existed as for those publicly known. Various considerations suggest that, in this case, the sinner himself spoke to the leader of the community. For, in the first place, he himself might be in doubt whether his sin necessitated his doing penance at all. Then, too, the gravity of the works of penance which was required, and particularly their duration, depended on the gravity of the sins committed; their allocation presupposes adequate confession by the sinner to the church authority. This explains Tertullian's emphatic admonition to undertake penance whatever the very understandable obstacles in the soul; for after all it was better for the sinner to be publicly absolved than to remain hidden in damnation.48
Performance of public penance began with exclusion from participation in the eucharistic service and the prayer of the community; the penitent now no longer possessed communicatio ecclesiastica.49 This act, which belonged to the head of the community, was not identical with the present canonical procedure of excommunication. It consisted rather of installation in the status of penitent, who thereby stood "outside the church" (extra ecclesiam stareJ.50 The sinner could prepare for the beginning of public penance by private works of penance. Tertullian is the first to speak of these in some detail;51 in addition to continual prayer in a contrite frame of mind, he mentions fasting intended to increase the efficacy of that prayer, the wearing of sackcloth and ashes as an expression of a penitential spirit, and restrictions in care for the body. The sinner performed public penance in two stages. First he stood at the entrance to the church (pro foribus ecclesiae or in vestibulo), probably in penitential clothes; clerics and laity passed by him and on his knees he asked for the help of their prayers and for readmittance into their society.52 The second stage restored entry to the inside of the church itself, where the penitent again had to implore the impetratory prayer of the congregation and the restoration of his former membership.53 Such penance extended over a considerable space of time, which varied according to the gravity of the fault, and probably according to the contrite attitude of the penitent; lifelong penance does not seem to have been imposed in Tertullian's time.64

To the first act of excommunication at the beginning of the penance there corresponded the act of reconciliation at the end through which the bishop granted pardon (venia) and "restoration" (restitutio). The outward form in which this took place cannot be clearly gathered from Tertullian, but most probably it corresponded to the rite customary in Cyprian's time: imposition of hands in conjunction with a prayer.83 Although Tertullian does not go into detail about the act of reconciliation performed by the bishop until the De pudicitia, this certainly existed already in his pre-Montanist days. A second penance intended to restore the grace of baptism56 loses its meaning if there is not at the end of it a recognizable concluding action which incorporates the penitent into the community again, granting him what he has requested so imploringly. That this act was definitely performed by the bishop of the community is demonstrated in the fact of Tertullian's polemic against the bishop of the Catholic Church who claimed to pardon sins of adultery. But the community, too, was drawn into the process of reconciliation by its impetratory prayer for the penitent, which can certainly be understood in a deeper sense of collaboration. The absolution and reception again of a sinner into the sacramental community can be felt as a special concern of the Christ-society, without any claim being made thereby to share the

M De pud. 1, 21.

51 De paen. 9-10.
52
53 De pud. 1, 21; 9, 4 and 6; 4, 5; 7,10; De paen. 10, 5-6.
54
55 De pud. 13, 7; 18, 13. 64 De paen. 7, 11; 12, 7.
56
55 Cyprian, De laps. 16; Ep. 15, 1; 16, 2; 18, 1; 20, 3 etc.

66 De paen. 7, 11; and on this, see K. Rahner, Festschrift K. Adam (1952), 149 ff.

sacramental authority of the bishop. The reconciliation pronounced and accomplished by the bishop gave back to the former sinner pax with his Church, and conferred and guaranteed at the same time, reconciliation with God, just as baptism as first penance blotted out sins and gave the grace of being a child of God. This reconciliation was guaranteed on the one hand by the power of the impetratory prayer of the Church, which is at the same time the prayer of Christ, and therefore infallible, and on the other hand, it was vouched for by the authority of the Church to forgive sins as God's representative. In respect to this last assurance, appeal was made on the Catholic side to Matthew 18:18. Immoderate and lacking in objectivity as the Montanist Tertullian's controversy about penance and penitential discipline was in regard to the Catholic Church, it nevertheless had positive effects. It caused the Catholics to rethink the biblical and theological foundations of the customary practice of penance and very likely prompted a more precise formulation of these in their preaching. Tertullian was not able to win a large or lasting following in Carthage and North Africa.

More serious consequences for ecclesiastical unity seemed at first to portend from a controversy about the practice of penance that broke out almost at the same time in Rome. In this dispute the learned priest Hippolytus sharply opposed the Roman bishop Callistus (217-22) and it is clear that it had no intrinsic connexion with the African disputes. Hippolytus here appears as the representative of a rigorist trend such as had perhaps already existed in the Rome of Hermas' time. He accused Callistus of general laxity in administering ecclesiastical discipline and alleged a few examples. Callistus allowed a bishop to remain in office even if he were guilty of grave offences; all clerical appointments were open to men who had married twice or even three times; clerics who married were not guilty of sin; and finally Callistus declared that marriages between free women and men of lower rank, not excluding slaves, were valid, although these were forbidden by Roman law. Hippolytus summed up his indictment in the reproach that even as the member of a sect he would be free from charge for his sins, provided he joined the "school of Callistus".81 It is evident that the actual question of penance was not at issue here. Callistus issued no regulation introducing innovations in penitential practice or even any conceding for the first time in contrast to earlier custom the possibility of penance for adulterers. It certainly was neither a matter of remissible and irremissible sins nor one of the Church's authority to forgive sins, as it was with Tertullian. Callistus plainly held to the general customary doctrine and practice of penance which based the view that there are good and bad in the Church on the parable of the tares among the wheat. Hippolytus himself admitted that Callistus had the majority of the Catholics of Rome on his side. And even Hippolytus himself cannot be described as an adherent of the opinion that some sinners cannot be forgiven; perhaps he was only demanding stricter and perhaps even lifelong penance for some offences. In fact, if the author of the Philosophoumena is identical with the Hippolytus of the Apostolic Tradition, he conceded in principle that a bishop had authority to absolve from every sin.62 And the practice of reconciling a heretic after he had performed public penance, was already in existence even under Callistus' predecessor Zephyrinus (199-217). This is proved by the account handed down by Eusebius regarding the confessor of the faith, Natalis, who after rigorous penance was received once more into the community of the Church by the Roman bishop.63 Hippolytus' followers were only a minority which formed a "school" of their own in Rome, but with apparently no adherents outside the city and which disintegrated when Hippolytus died, if it had not done so already.

Penitential Discipline in North Africa in Cyprian's Time

Renewed discussion of the question of penance in North Africa and subsequently in Rome was occasioned by the course taken by the Decian persecution which was so deplorable for the Church as a whole. By the end of it, the large numbers of lapsed forced the Church's leaders to review the previous penitential practice, at least in certain respects. This phase of early Christian controversies about penance is of the greatest consequences for the history of the Church, because it substantially threatened ecclesiastical unity and led in actual fact to divisions which culminated in the extensive anti-Church of the Novatians.

Bishop Cyprian of Carthage saw himself faced with a new situation when news came to him where he was hiding from the pagan authorities, not only of the large numbers who had lapsed during the persecution, but also about a serious breach of the penitential discipline which had previously been under his own firm control. Some priests were receiving into the Church again those who had fallen, without requiring any work of penance from them at all. Many of the lapsed produced "letters of peace" (libelli pads), which had been issued to them by martyrs before their death,

" See the prayer of consecration of the bishop in Trad, apost. 3. " Euseb. HE 5, 28, 8-12.

or by confessors of the faith, and in which prompt or immediate granting of their readmission to the community of the Church was recommended. Cyprian at once forbade his priests under pain of deprivation of office, to receive the lapsed again; he informed the confessors that he could only regard their letters of peace as a recommendation to the Church authorities; they did not represent an ecclesiastical decision having force of law. When more news arrived about growing unrest in his flock, he gave his clergy instructions to grant ecclesiastical pax at once to lapsed persons who were on their death-bed, if they could produce letters of peace from martyrs, but to other dying persons only if they had previously given proofs of genuine willingness to do penance; he would make further regulations for the rest of the lapsed after his return to Carthage.64 Some of the lapsed immediately accepted these measures of Cyprian and declared themselves willing to do penance, although they were in possession of letters of peace. Others, however, revolted and wrote to Cyprian that they had already been given back their peace with the Church by a martyr. Cyprian ironically described these proceedings by saying that the lapsed behaved as though they were the Church65 and it was his place to graciously request from them their admission into the Church. A cleric called Felicissimus soon put himself at the head of this group. In Cyprian's absence and without his knowledge he had been appointed deacon of the Carthaginian community by the priest Novatus. He was joined by a few other clerics who were already opposed to Cyprian on other grounds. They won over a considerable part of the community, regarded themselves as the rightful Catholic community of Carthage, and developed an intense propaganda against Cyprian.66

This was the situation that Cyprian met when he returned to Carthage at Easter in 251. He soon published his work On the Lapsed, which gives an instructive description of the general situation of the North African Church before and after the Decian persecution. In this work Cyprian once again expounded his standpoint in the matter of penance; he opposed strongly the lax practice of his opponents and demanded serious and comprehensive penance from the lapsed as a condition for their reception67. The opposition group now provided themselves with their own episcopal leader in the person of the priest Fortunatus and also endeavoured, through a delegation to Rome, to obtain recognition from Pope Cornelius. The latter, however, repulsed them and informed Cyprian of his attitude68.

w Cyprian, Ep. 1; 15; 16; 18 and 19.

•s Ep. 33 and 35, especially 33, 1.

" Ibid., 41, 1 ff.; 42 and 43, 1-7; 52, 3.

" De laps. 15 and 16.

" Ep. 59, 1, 9, 16.

authorities would alone handle the penitential discipline for the lapsed. At a synod summoned by him and attended by numerous African bishops in the year 251, serious penance was unanimously required from all the lapsed, but with special treatment prescribed for the libellatici and the sacrificati; the former could quickly obtain the pax after a careful examination of each individual case; the sacrificati, however, who had been guilty of downright denial of their faith by a complete performance of the pagan sacrifice, were only to be received again when in danger of death. But anyone who thus far had not shown himself ready to undertake penance should be excluded from peace with the Church even when in danger of death, because clearly no will to do penance was present at all. Cyprian justified the milder treatment of the libellatici by the much lesser gravity of their offence.68

When a new persecution threatened under Emperor Gallus and seemed likely to surpass the Decian persecution in intensity, a second synod in Carthage in 252 again dealt with penitenial discipline for the lapsed. It was decided, in view of the grave situation, to concede to all the lapsed admission to the peace of the Church if they had begun their works of penance from the very day they lapsed. This decision was justified by the considerations: that peacetime practice could not be maintained now, that all now needed strengthening by the Church, and that it was impossible to debar from the Blood of Christ those who were expected and required to shed their blood for Christ. It was indicated that only those were capable of accepting martyrdom whom the Church had armed for that struggle, and that the Holy Spirit could only speak through those who had received the Spirit of the Father through peace with the Church.70 As the persecution of Gallus, however, did not assume the proportions that had been feared, the argument about penance for the lapsi was settled by the victory of Cyprian's views, which the North African bishops made their own. The opposition group round Felicissimus and Fortunatus likewise lost its importance, so that soon after the Second Synod of Carthage, peace was to all intents and purposes restored in Cyprian's community.

This sketch of the course of the North African dispute about penance shows clearly that discussion extended to two definite questions: first whether the restoration of peace with the Church was possible without performance of works of penance, and secondly, if a decision about it belonged to the Church's leaders or whether a testimonial from martyrs or confessors of the faith possessed binding force over ecclesiastical authority. Cyprian's opponents advocated a relaxation or even abolition

Cf. the account of this to Bishop Antonianus, Ep. 55, 6; 55, 13-16; 55, 23. 70 Ibid. 57.

ot the previous stricter practice and, as opposed to this, Cyprian defended the maintenance of a full performance of penance and its control by church authority. His attitude in no respect reveals any break with an earlier severer practice of a kind which rejected the possibility of atonement by public canonical penance for the sin of apostasy; in other words the remissibility or the irremissibility of this sin was not the subject of this controversy at all. The possibility of admission to penance, or of definitive reception into the church community again, was in fact presupposed by both parties. After initial hesitation, Cyprian allowed himself to be won over to a milder handling of penitential practice on one point only: he was persuaded to grant reconciliation to the dying even though they had not yet carried out the customary penance, the only qualifying condition being the possession of a letter of peace from a martyr or a confessor of the faith.

As regards the outer form of the institution or liturgy of penance, the following can be gathered from Cyprian's writings. The first act was the paenitentiam agere or satisfacere of the sinner, his works of penance, that is, prayer, fasting, wearing penitential clothes, almsgiving, and other such works of self-denial. But these acts were not placed at the private discretion of the penitent; they were carried out with the knowledge of the Church who supported them with her prayer and determined their duration. The second stage was the exhomologesis, the part of the penance which took place in the presence of the community. It consisted in the request of the penitent to the bishop, clergy, and congregation, that they should receive him back into the community of the Church and grant him reconciliation. Whether this happened only once or more often, cannot be determined with certainty. It nevertheless presupposed a non-public admission of guilt to the head of the community (the bishop), which Cyprian terms confessio. Cyprian's exhomologesis is misunderstood when it is regarded as special form of penance. The "real ecclesiastical penance" was different from excommunication penance or "full penance" and is said to have developed from the exhomologesis. The third and final act was reconciliation proper and took place through imposition of hands by the bishop. It is first mentioned for the Latin church by Cyprian but it was a long-established rite and one that was, of course, in use even earlier in the East. The bishop accomplished the act of reconciliation by reason of the power of binding and loosing committed to him. The community took part in the judgment which decided whether reconciliation was to be granted, but no details are given about this collaboration. Reconciliation, when accomplished, restored to the penitent communicatio with the Church, he again received the pax ecclesiae. He was thereby permitted to take part once more in the eucharistic service and to receive the Eucharist. Furthermore Cyprian was convinced that the pax accorded by the Church was also ultimately significant for salvation, for by it the former penitent was again incorporated into the community of the Church in which alone it is possible to work out one's salvation.81

The Roman Controversy on Penance and the Schism of Novatian

While Cyprian had to oppose a tendency to laxity in the imposition of penance on the part of his own clergy in North Africa, Rome was faced about the middle of the century, by a rigorist movement which derived particularly effective and dangerous impetus from the personality of the man who led it and gave to it theological foundation. In striking similarity to Tertullian, the Roman priest Novatian also originally upheld the traditional teaching on penance but soon proclaimed an extremely rigoristic view though for reasons different than those which motivated the African. In particular he rejected any reception of the lapsed into the Church's community as incompatible with her holiness. The Roman attitude on the reconciliation of the lapsed was expressed even before Novatian's time in a letter which some priests of that church had addressed to Cyprian; they had demanded even more definitely than the African bishop that sick persons among the lapsed who repented of their fault and desired reconciliation should be "helped".82 This view was at first held by Novatian, too. As secretary of the Roman college of priests while the see was vacant in the years 250-1, he had had to deal with correspondence to churches abroad, and his elegant pen was able to express it eloquently and attractively. When (he wrote to Cyprian) humanly speaking, the death of one of the lapsed seemed imminent, he should with appropriate prudence be "helped", provided he had already performed works of penance publicly, had repeatedly expressed abhorrence for his defection and had demonstrated his sorrow by his tears.S;i There was agreement between Rome and Carthage on another point, too. Just as Cyprian was to undertake a definite settlement of the question of penance upon his return to Carthage, so too a final decision would be

..^U.LU WR INT LHKLB 1 IAN ANU HIS CHURCH

given in Rome when the community again had a bishop. In connexion with this, a principle of Roman practice in questions of law and faith which was to play an outstanding part in the dispute about heretical baptism and later on, was here formulated for the first time: nihil innovan- dum, they would hold fast to tradition. This letter of Novatian's also contains an interesting detail in that the Roman confessors of the faith unlike their friends in Carthage, refused to issue letters of peace to the lapsed, and were resolute opponents of any relaxation of previous practice in ecclesiastical discipline; they consequently disapproved the vehement demand of the African lapsi for immediate reconciliation. To grant it to them too quickly would be to act like a doctor who only closes a wound without giving it time to heal and so only makes the illness worse. When Novatian also observes that the apostasy had assumed such proportions in the whole Church that a final settlement ought only to be made by common consultation of bishops, priests, deacons, and the laity who had stood firm, he seemed to have a Roman synod in mind.89 A further letter to Cyprian, the style of which likewise identifies Novatian as the author, sharply criticized the lapsed in Carthage who were not willing to wait for Cyprian's* return and who despite their serious offence, demanded the pax with the Church and even asserted it had already been granted them by heaven. It was high time the letter states that they did true penance, proved the genuineness of their contrition, and brought down God's mercy on themselves by humble submission.87 Neither of Novatian's two letters justifies the view that in the Roman church until then, no forgiveness had been granted for the sin of denial of the faith; on the contrary, reception of the lapsed into the Church is also presupposed by Novatian when he says at one point that prayer should be made that the penance of the lapsed might obtain forgiveness for them and at another point, that a humble attitude on the part of the fallen would facilitate their request for readmission.88 Two observations still spring to the mind of one who reads the masterly formulation provided in these two letters of Novatian. Whilst merciful love is always perceptible in Cyprian's whole outlook on the fallen, it is quite lacking in Novatian; he is cold, almost harsh towards them and appeals with an undertone of pride to the glorious Roman tradition.88 It is also difficult to avoid the impression that his suggestion that a settlement of the whole question of penance for the lapsed could only be undertaken after the election of a new Roman bishop, was not given without a certain reservation. Was he perhaps to be the man to whom this task would fall?

The change in Novatian's attitude on penance occurred when the election of a successor to Pope Fabian, possible with the end of the Decian persecution, elevated not him but Cornelius as Bishop of Rome. The picture that Cornelius draws of his opponent in a letter to Fabius of Antioch96 is certainly distorted by personal resentment, but it is confirmed in many factual details by the correspondence of Cyprian, who was levelheaded and not easily given to exaggeration, and by other sources. Novatian had himself set up as a rival bishop in Rome with the assistance of the priest Novatus from Carthage91 and tried to win more supporters with the slogan that the readmission of the lapsed into communion with the Church was to be refused on principle. A Roman synod of sixty bishops and numerous other clerics excommunicated Novatian and confirmed by synodal decree the previous Roman practice of admitting apostates to penance.92 Novatian, however, immediately set about building an opposition church everywhere in East and West. He moved energetically and with undeniable skill in propaganda, taking the organization of the universal Church as a model.93 In Rome and Italy the success of his endeavours was certainly small, for the prompt action of Cornelius in calling the Roman synod clarified the situation. According to Cornelius' ironical account, Novatian adjured and implored his followers to remain faithful to him, even when he was administering the Eucharist to them, but their numbers continued to shrink.94 His propaganda took no root in North Africa either, because Cyprian had the situation well in hand there and probably also because the conversion of the leader of the lax party, Novatus, to the opposite camp did not particularly recommend the Novatian movement. Nevertheless, Novatian's letters designed to win over African bishops actually had a certain effect, as the case of Bishop Antonianus shows. He had resisted Novatian from the start, but when he received a letter from him, became hesitant nevertheless and turned to Cyprian for enlightenment. Cyprian's answer is available in a long letter that develops his whole conception of the doctrine of penance.95 Cyprian also gave Pope Cornelius his support in the struggle against Novatianism by a brisk exchange of letters with Rome and succeeded in inducing some of Novatian's followers to rejoin the legitimate bishop of Rome.96

In other regions the successes of Novatian propaganda were more considerable. In Gaul, Bishop Marcian of Aries joined the movement and pitilessly refused reconciliation to the lapsed, even on their death-bed, so

00 Euseb. HE 6, 43, 5 S. 91 Cyprian, Ep. 52, 2. " Euseb. HE 6, 43, 2. 9S According to Cyprian, Ep. 73, 2, he imitated this.

94 Euseb. HE 6, 43, 18, 19.
95
96 Ep. 55, which has already been quoted several times.
97
98 Ep. 44-54.
99
that many of them died in despair. Cyprian took up the case and requested Pope Stephen (254-7) in a special letter, to excommunicate Marcian and to give the church in Southern Gaul a new leader.'7 Signs of Novatian infiltration into Spain also exist but were not really perceptible until later. Bishop Pacian of Barcelona (t before 329), still remembered a document shown to him by a Novatian, Simpronianus, containing the assertions, "After baptism there is no penance any more; the Church cannot forgive any mortal sin and she destroys herself when she admits sinners."98 That might very well be a sequel to the Novatian doctrine of penance. This likelihood is increased by the many decrees of the Synod of Elvira, which by their rigorist tendency show a sympathy of this kind existing very early in Spain.

What influence Novatian and his doctrine had on many distant communities in the East is notable; it found supporters particularly in Syria and Palestine, in the Asia Minor provinces of Bithynia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Cicilia, and even in Armenia and Mesopotamia. Novatian took part personally in propaganda in the East by writing letters to leading bishops. There is for instance a letter to Dionysius of Alexandria, in which he seeks to justify his step in founding a church of his own. Dionysius' reply to Novatian has been preserved. The Bishop of Alexandria adjures him insistently to desist from his project, to urge his followers to return to Catholic unity and so at least to save his own soul.99 A particular danger of the inroad of Novatian influence existed in Fabius of Antioch who had a tendency to rigorist views and consequently "was rather inclined to schism" as Eusebius put it. Dionysius of Alexandria, however, succeeded in keeping him to the traditional conception by expounding the doctrine of penance in detail and by providing examples from real life which showed the longing of the lapsed for reconciliation.100 Eusebius transmits a few valuable indications about the extent of Dionysius' correspondence for he still had access to it.101 From one of these letters it appeared that Novatian's schism threatened so strongly to consolidate itself in the East that the leading bishops in Cicilia, Cappadocia, and Palestine wanted to discuss the whole question in a synod at Antioch and had invited Dionysius to it.102 The latter contributed substantially, by his vigorous work of making the issues clear through letter-writing, to halting the Novatian movement. But he was certainly mistaken about the measure of his success when he later reported to Pope Stephen that peace was restored to the Church in the East, that "the innovation of Novatus" (= Novatian) had been "rejected", and that there was everywhere great

•7 Ep. 68, 1-3.

88 Pacianus, Ep. ad Sympronianum 3, 1.

88 In Euseb. HE 6, 45. 100 Ibid. 6, 44, 1-6. 101 Ibid. 6, 44-6. Ibid. 6, 43, 3.

joy over the restoration of unity.108 Novatianism still persisted for a long time in the East, even if only in small sectarian communities which went further than the rigorism of their first founder and pretentiously called themselves Cathars, the church of the pure.

Doctrine and Practice of Penance in the East in the Third Century
A sketch of the doctrine and practice of penance current in the eastern regions to which Christianity had spread, may well begin with a reference to Irenaeus of Lyons, who came from Asia Minor. He, too, was one of those who still represented the strict ideal of holiness inherited from the beginnings of the Church, and who would have refused readmission into the Church to those who had incurred the guilt of serious offences. Irenaeus himself was particularly imbued with the thought that the likeness to God given to man by redemption, obliges him to a perfectly holy and sinless life.108 Because Christians had been given such high graces, they must be subjected to a much stricter judgment than the men of the Old Testament, and consequently, after their baptism, ought to be on their guard against any sin, because the death of Christ is not efficacious for them a second time. On the question whether there is any salvation at all for a sinner after baptism, Irenaeus makes no pronouncement, but on another occasion he expresses perfectly clearly the possibility of such penance; he believes that God gives his peace and friendship to those "who do penance and are converted"; only those who persist in apostasy impenitently are eternally lost.108 Particularly important is a remark in the so-called "rule of faith" of Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1, 10, 1), that summary of ancient belief inherited from the apostles,10' where it is said that God will "graciously grant life to those who persevere in his love — some from the beginning, some since penance — will grant them incorruptibility and surround them with eternal glory". It follows from this, that the conviction that men could regain the love of God by penance even after baptism, has always belonged to the belief of the Church.110 To designate this penance, Irenaeus commonly uses the expression exhomologesis;111 he is in fact silent about a reconciliation of the penitents but this follows indirectly from his belief in the efficacity of penance. That penance after baptism is a concern of the Church, is clear from his observation that priests had the duty of watching over the moral life of Christians and, when necessary, of expelling a sinner from the Church.112

The position of the Alexandrian teachers on penance and penitential discipline is characterized by the fact that it is lacking in the polemic note of the controversies of the Latin West; their statements were not formulated in the heat of argument against hostile views. Clement's conception of penance is, in the first place, marked by his idea of purification, which was influenced by Plato; in accordance with it, he represents liberation from sin as a rather long process, but one that is not possible without penance.113 What is also striking, is his considerable agreement with Hermas' doctrine on the subject. Like him, he stresses that the ideal of Christian life is to avoid all offences after the great forgiveness of sins in baptism;114 God knows human weakness and grants the possibility of a second, but single, penance; this cannot be repeated because renewed penances would show that no serious penitential attitude of mind was present.115 Clement views the effect of penance in a similar way to Hermas; it confers indeed, like baptism, forgiveness of sins, but not solely as a gift of divine pardon, and only after previous painful purification consisting of prayer, fasting, and works of brotherly love.118 To penance there belongs, too, a confession of guilt, but details about the course of this exhomologesis are not given.117 No fault is considered irremissible, as what he has to say about the woman taken in adultery, the good thief, and heretics, shows.118 Like Irenaeus, Clement does not speak of a reconciliation, but that for him, too, penance ended with readmission into the Church, follows from his story of the young man who had fallen into error and whom the apostle John "brought into the Church" again after long prayer and fasting.119 Clement is the first writer who recommends for the penitent a sort of spiritual guide, whose help by prayer and admonitions would be of great profit to him.120 Such spiritual directors are, in addition to the Church authorities, the perfect Christians, the

"2 Ibid. 4, 26, 2, 3; 4, 27, 4.

1,5 Quis div. salv. 40, 3-6; 42, 14, 15; Strom. 7, 10, 56.

114 Strom. 56, 1.
115
116 Ibid. 2, 13, 56ff.; 2, 13, 59.
117
"«Ibid. 2, 12, 55, 6; 2, 70, 3; Quis div. salv. 40, 1; 42, 14, 15; Strom. 2, 15, 71. 1,7 Strom. 2, 59, 3.

118 Ibid. 2, 23, 147; Quis salv. 38, 4-39, 2; 42, 7; Strom. 7, 16, 102.

Quis div. salv. 40, 1. A temporary exclusion from the Church is indicated by Strom. 7, 16, 102, 4; see on this A. Mihat in VigCbr 8 (1954), 232. >so Quis div. salv. 31, 1; 41, 1-6; Strom. 7, 12, 79.

Gnostics, and the poor of the community. The efficacy of their help by prayer and mortification is founded on their personal perfection.121 In this way, Clement introduces the pneumatic (Spirit-endowed) spiritual guide into the penitential practice of the Eastern Church, in which he was to play an outstanding role after the rise of monasticism.

Like Clement, Origen was less interested in the concrete details of penitential practice than in its theoretical basis, which, however, he does not expound systematically, either. His high esteem for baptism and the effects of its grace made him painfully aware of the gross contradiction to the ideal patent in the daily life of many Christians. Sin after baptism in all classes, in all the grades of the hierarchy, as well as in all its forms, was for him an undeniable fact. Lighter sins, of course, do not lead to the loss of the grace of baptism and consequently do not exclude from the sacramental community life of the Church. But the sinner's grave offences bring death to his soul and place him in a condition worse than that before his baptism; such a sin can no longer be wiped out by grace, as in baptism, there is only forgiveness through an appropriate penance of atonement.122 The model of this penance was given in the punishment imposed by Paul on the incestuous Corinthian which was designed "for his salvation on the day of judgment".123 Origen, therefore, taught the possibility of forgiveness of sins after baptism by penance even in fact for those grave faults which he counts among the deadly sins, such as idolatry, adultery, unchastity, murder, or other serious offences.121 He only excepts from forgiveness the sin of impenitence, which by its nature is an unreadiness to do penance;125 penance for grave sins cannot be repeated.128

Origen makes many remarks which indicate that the Church authorities were involved in the accomplishment of penance; he compares them with doctors to whom one must show the wounds so that they might apply the correct remedy.127 An important part is played for him by admonitory reprimand, correptio. Its severest form is excommunication, and Origen sternly blames those in authority in the Church who through cowardice omit to impose it where necessary.128 Even though he also demands that penance should not be so hard as to discourage the sinner, its duration is nevertheless greater than that of preparation for baptism. A novelty in

121 Eclog. proph. 15, 2.
122
123 In Joann. comm. 2, 11; 15, 15; Exhort mart. 30; In Exod. horn. 6, 9; In Lev. horn. 11, 2.
124
125 In Lev. horn. 14, 4.
126
12< In loann. comm. 19, 4; De or. 28, 9, 10. 121 In loann. comm. 19, 13. 128 In Lev. hom. 15, 2.

127 In loann. hom. 37, 1, 1.
128
129 In Lev. hom. 3, 2; In Iesu Nave hom. 7, 6.
Origen is the remark that reconciled Christians could no longer be admitted to office in the Church. The sinner has to open himself by confession to the bishop as the physician of souls, and the bishop will also determine whether the character of the sin makes public penance necessary at all. In his discussion of the spiritual director, Origen goes further along the road indicated by Clement; the guide must not be a priest, and he can be of particular help to the sinner in the blotting out of lesser offences, if he takes part in the penitential performance of works and prayer voluntarily undertaken. Sharp disapproval is shown to some priests who claimed to be able to forgive sins as grievous as idolatry, adultery, and unchastity "by their prayer". In Origcn's perspective, that can only mean that these clerics ascribed efficacy for forgiveness, even for such serious offences, presumptuously to their personal care for the sinner by way of correptio, instead of requiring of him the acceptance of public canonical penance. In no way can the remark be interpreted in the sense that Origen taught certain capital sins to be ecclesiastically irremissible.

Even more definitely than Clement, Origen maintains the thesis that the priest's power of remission is bound up with his personal perfection. He attributes the power of forgiveness even to ordinary Christians who have attained a high degree of personal perfection. That, however, does not mean that someone not a priest could accomplish ecclesiastical reconciliation, for Origen reserves this, as well as excommunication, to the bishops. But it remains true that the Alexandrian theologians attributed quite special value to the collaboration of a perfect Christian in the performance of penance. With Origen, this view is connected with the importance that he ascribes to the "saints" in the life of the Church; just as the sin of one of her members always affects the whole Church, so, too, she is involved as a whole in reparation. The reincorporation into the Church that follows on reconciliation has a salutary effect, because the salvation of the individual and his membership of the Church are inseparably bound up with one another.134 Consequently, the act of reincorporation must in fact also effect forgiveness of sins, even if, for Origen, this effect is not as predominant among his interests as desire to emphasize the task of the spiritual physician of the soul in the process of freeing the penitent from

Particularly informative on the penitential liturgy in the East is the Syrian Didascalia, the composition of which can be assigned to the first decades of the third century. This is especially true since alleged anti- Novatian features cannot definitely be established in it or in any case can be regarded as later additions.135 It emphasizes most persistently the duty incumbent on the bishop of care for sinners; to him also belongs the occasionally indispensable exclusion of an obstinate offender from the ecclesiastical community, which should be carried out without respect for persons, without favouritism. The bishop's authority in the whole matter of penance is founded on the power of binding and loosing committed to him.136 The measures he takes in regard to the sinner have always a double aim; they should strengthen the community of the faithful in what is good, while giving the sinner hope of forgiveness. The bishop should act on the model of the Good Shepherd, who is forgiving sins and imparting peace through him.137 No fault, however grave, is excluded from the bishop's power to forgive.138 According to the Didascalia, the process of penance takes more or less the following course: when the bishop has heard of a sinner in his flock, he takes him to task, reproaches him sharply with his faults and then excludes him from taking part in the common life of the Church; members of the community, too, castigate his sinful behaviour.139 After a certain time, however, they intercede with the bishop for him, especially through the deacons; the bishop assures himself of the genuine quality of the sinner's repentance and, with renewed admonitions and advice, imposes on him a penance, in which fasting occupies a special place, proportionate to his guilt.140 With the acceptance of this penance imposed by the bishop, the "liturgical" phase of the sinner's penitential course begins and this lasts until the act of reconciliation proper. The Didascalia warns the bishop when a sinner is denounced by members of his flock, not only to check conscientiously the foundation of the accusation but also to consider the motives of such denunciations.141 During the official period of penance the sinner is admitted to the readings and the sermon; consequently the excommunication is already in a sense mitigated.144 Full reconciliation is only granted with the imposition of hands by the bishop which takes place to the accompaniment of prayer by the congregation; it makes the sinner a member of the Church again

153 Cf. P. Galtier, "La date de la Didascalie des apotres" in Aux origines du sacrement

de penitence (Rome 1951), 189-221.

"«Didasc. 2, 20, 3—4; 2, 8, 4; 2, 10; 2, 11, 1-2; 2, 18, 2.

157 Ibid. 2, 15, 8; 2, 20, 9.

188 Ibid. 2, 22-23, 1; 2, 24, 3.

Ibid. 2, 16, 1-2.

140 Ibid.
141
142 Ibid. 2, 37, 4-5. 148 Ibid. 2, 39, 6; 2, 41, 1.
and restores to him the Holy Spirit, lost by sin. A special reference is here made to the parallel giving of the Spirit by baptism.113 The ecclesiastical nature of penance is made clearer in the Didascalia than anywhere else, for it is linked with the episcopal head of the community. Consequently the sacramental character of the forgiveness of sin, conferred by him, is apparent too.

A special feature of the doctrine of the Didascalia on penance must also be particularly noticed; it is nowhere said that the post-baptismal penance, described at such length and with such care, was unique and unrepeatable. That is striking in a work that so often emphasizes the remissibility of sins committed after baptism. The Didascalia seems rather to presuppose that penance can be repeated after a reconciliation has already taken place, because it does not concede this in one particular case, that of an informer who lapses. Yet it could have simply appealed here to the principle that penance is only possible once; in fact, however, it adduces the reasons for this case at length and in detail, giving different grounds.144 The supposition that the Didascalia recognized the possibility of repeated penance and reconciliation after baptism, is strengthened by a further observation, that between the practice of canonical penance in the Didascalia and the practice of excommunication from the synagogue there are so many striking parallels,145 that some features in the Didascalia account are only intelligible as a slightly developed continuation of the synagogue custom. But in this, every excommunication could be lifted repeatedly. If we add that the Apostolic Constitutions, which also originated in Syrian territory, likewise do not recognize ecclesiastical penance as occurring only once,148 the conclusion becomes inescapable that the single unrepeatable canonical penance was not everywhere current in the East, and that this cannot simply be held to have been the original practice. In the West, as has been shown above, it appears for the first time with Hermas, and pastoral reasons are given for it. If he was the very first to introduce it, perhaps as a concession to a rigorist trend, this would permit the whole attitude of the Church to penance before his time to be characterized as a period of greater mildness, and the assumption of a contrary development from an original strictness to a growing laxity, would be shown to be erroneous.

With a single exception other accounts from the East regarding the question of penance give no new information at variance with the picture that has been drawn.147 Origen's pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus, mentions

Ibid. 2, 41, 1. "«Ibid. 2, 43, 1-4.

"» Cf. K. Rahner in ZKTh 72 (1950), 278 ff. "8 Const. Apost. 2, 40, 1.

147 On the view of Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, see above, p. 337.
the division of penitents into various classes as an arrangement established long since, but the terminology he uses was, it seems, not yet fixed. Some consider the classes of the "hearers" and "fallen" as definitely attested, others think that those of the "weepers" and "bystanders" are, too. The synods of the fourth century gradually gathered penitential regulations into canons and so formed the transition to the juridically formulated canonical penance of succeeding generations.

Disputes Concerning Penance after the Persecution of Diocletian

The Diocletian persecution again made the question of the treatment of apostates a topical one. For this time, too, in various regions the Church had to deplore lapsi, even though, as will presently be shown, the whole outcome on this occasion was far from being as deplorable for her as it had been during and after the wave of attack under Decius. As regards Rome, the fact of disputes about the question of penance under Pope Eusebius (310) is established, but the circumstances remain obscure. An inscription dedicated by Pope Damasus (366-84) to his predecessor Eusebius, says that the latter had required the fallen to do penance, but had met with contradiction over this from a certain Heraclius, who "forbade" penance to the lapsi. The text does not permit us to attribute with certainty to Heraclius one of the two possible extreme positions, the rigorist view, which refused penance to the apostates or the laxist view, which demanded their reception without penance, though the first is more likely. According to Damasus, the discussion of these matters led to serious unrest and to a split in the community; the dispute brought about the intervention of the emperor, Maxentius, who banished the leaders of the two parties, Bishop Eusebius and Heraclius. On the other hand, a connexion between the disputes about penance under Eusebius' predecessor, Marcellinus (296-304), and the Diocletian persecution, can no longer be maintained. Marcellinus, too, Damasus reports in another epigram, required the performance of penance from the fallen and had met with strong opposition over this. As Marcellinus did not live to see the beginning of the Diocletian persecution, the offences of these lapsi cannot be determined more precisely.
The controversy connected with the Diocletian persecution in North Africa cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as a dispute about penance. Many Christians had submitted to Diocletian's demand that they should hand over their holy books, and were regarded as traditores. The consecrations of bishops who were traditores were held by a rigorist section to be invalid. When in 311 the newly-elected bishop of Carthage, Caecilian, was consecrated by an alleged traditor, Bishop Felix of Aptungi, the violent Donatist conflict burst out. An account of this belongs, however, to the history of the fourth century.

The problem of the lapsi occupied the Alexandrian church, too, when the Diocletian persecution abated, and its bishop, Petrus, laid down in an epistula canonica the principles on which penitential practices were there to be determined. These canons which are still extant, show no real development in penitential practice since Origen, but they reveal a warm sympathy for the fate of the fallen. Bishop Petrus, however, is also named as one of the leaders of the two parties which opposed one another over the question of penance in an early phase of the so-called Meletian schism in Egypt. The leader of the other group was Meletius himself who, according to the admittedly late account of Epiphanius, firmly opposed, with numerous confessors, the readmission of the lapsed. The question of penance was, however, not the starting-point of this division in the Egyptian church; it was provoked rather by Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, in the Thebaid, who encroached upon the bishop of Alexandria's rights of consecration. Meletius, however, used the question of penance to win supporters in the struggle against the bishop of the Egyptian capital and to give the churches dependent on himself a distinctive and effective slogan. After a few years the question of penance ceased to be topical in the Meletian disorders and Meletius' supporters soon joined the Arians and made common cause with them against Athanasius.

After the revolutionary change under Constantine, the controversies about the problem of penance ceased. It is the lasting merit of the Church of the third century, in the often intense struggles for a right understanding of Christian penance in the face of the rigorism that kept flaring up again and again, to have defended the spirit of compassionate understanding for the sinner which the founder of the Church had preached, and yet to have prevented the incursion of lax tendencies into Christian penitential discipline.

CHAPTER 26

The Development of the Church's Constitution in the Third Century

THE third century led in many ways to a further development of the Church's constitution. In addition to the three grades of the ministry in the second century, new lower clerical grades develop, the episcopal office is increasingly consolidated and gains in prestige, the organization of the various individual communities becomes more complex, and in the East, in particular, ecclesiastical provinces take form; the system of synods receives new and intense impetus, and finally, the pre-eminent position of the Roman church and its bishop grows unmistakably stronger by recognition and by contradiction. The sum of these developments in the Church's constitution confirms that here, too, Christianity had grown from its origins into the "great Church" of early Christian times.

The Clergy

The existing orders of bishop, presbyter, and deacon remained unchanged in intrinsic significance, of course, but in many ways were more sharply differentiated, and to some extent, too, underwent an extension in the scope of their functions. The conditions for admission to a particular ministry were further developed, and for the office of bishop a deeper theological grounding was attempted. This strongly emphasizes the evergrowing importance of the bishops for the life of the Church as a whole in the third century. The various problems within the Church, such as the defence against Gnosticism and Montanism, the greater demands made on the authorities by the various waves of persecution, the elucidation of the question of penance, and the struggle against threats of schism, display a monarchical episcopate functioning fully in the third century and in unquestionable possession of the plenary powers that its ministry conferred. The bishop was now the undisputed leader of the ecclesiastical community in all the expressions of its life; he proclaims the faith to it by preaching, and is ever vigilant for the purity of the faith, the correct performance of the liturgy, especially in baptism and the celebration of the Eucharist; he is the guardian of Church discipline and responsible for the observance of the Christian ideal of life by his flock. He guides its works of charity from day to day, and organizes its relief measures in times of need and crisis. He represents his community in its relation with other local churches or at the synodal assemblies of church leaders of a province, which were now becoming important, or at even larger regional assemblies. In this way the bishop became an important link between the individual community and the Church as a whole, and an effective furtherer of Church unity.

It is understandable that theological reflection, too, turned more and more to an office in the Church, the holder of which occupied so central a position in Church life and in the minds of the faithful. A deeper grasp was sought of its nature and basis, with a consequent emphasis on the duties that such an office imposes. Origen, more than any other writer of the third century, concerned himself with the ecclesiastical ministry. He met many of its representatives during his lifetime and in his maturity was himself ordained priest. Not for a moment did he doubt the right and justification of the ministry. The bishop's authority is founded on our Lord's words conferring the power of the keys on Peter; consequently, it is God who calls a man to such an office, and the choice should always be left to God when it is a question of appointing a new bishop in a community. The holder of this office has the task of leading men to the kingdom of God, consequently, he should be a model of every virtue. He has to preach the word of God, therefore he must read and meditate the Holy Scriptures, not preaching his own ideas, but what the Holy Spirit has taught him. He has to accomplish liturgical worship and he should only raise in prayer hands that are undefiled. Origen evidently holds the view that the efficacy of priestly authority is bound up with the personal holiness of the man who bears it. Hence his unmistakably sharp judgment on the clergy of his time, when he compared the reality with the ideal held out to them. The Church which ought to be the temple of God and the house of prayer, had become a den of thieves; bishops, priests, and deacons were full of avarice, ambitious of power, ignorant and even irreligious; ambitious men intrigued for these offices which had become a traffic and which were transmitted from unworthy occupants to unworthy successors. In the choice of a new bishop, therefore, the community should be present and take care that the man chosen is outstanding by reason of his learning, holiness, and virtue.
In the West, it was Cyprian who, a few years after Origen, was the first Latin writer to try to determine the nature and function of the office of bishop in the Church. There can be only one bishop in the local church, who is its judge, and takes the place of Christ.8 The bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; anyone who is not with the bishop, is not in the Church, either.9 The Church, by the will of her founder, is an episcopal Church; "it is built up on the bishops and is ruled by them as overseers."10 At his election, God in some way expresses his consent, and consequently, the bishop is responsible to God alone.11 But the responsibility is not limited to his own community; it extends to the whole Church. Origen, too, emphasized that a bishop is called to the service of the whole Church.12 With Cyprian, this responsibility is expressed in the serious concern of the bishop for maintenance of ecclesiastical unity.13 He links the idea of succession with the office of bishop by saying that it is founded on our Lord's words to Peter (Mt 16:18), and from there proceed the ordination of bishops and the organization of the Church through the changes and succeeding course of time.14 According to Cyprian, Bishop Stephen of Rome, too, claims to have the see of Peter per successionem.15

On account of the importance of the office of bishop, the appointment of a man to the position had to be ensured by a sound method of choice. Like Origen, Cyprian, too, expects the community to collaborate in it. This was required because the congregation would be acquainted with a candidate who was a member of it, and be able to form a judgment of his manner of life.16 The bishops of the province were to play a decisive part in the choice, too, and its validity depended on their consent, which included a judgment about the legitimacy of the way in which the election had been carried out.17 The right of consecrating the chosen candidate also belonged to these bishops; the Canons of Hippolytus had already recognized this.18 When it is stated, with a certain emphasis, that the bishop to be consecrated must have been chosen by the whole people, that must be understood in a way that does not exclude the collaboration of neighbouring bishops.19 Cyprian regards the method of election observed in North Africa as a divine tradition and apostolic custom, and one that was widespread.20

9 Ep. 66, 8.
10
11 Ep. 33, 1: "... (ut) ecclesia super episcopos constituatur et omnis actus ecclesiae per eosdem praepositos gubernetur."
12
13 Ep. 59, 5; 55, 21; 69, 17; 72, 3.
14
18 In Cant. comm. 3: "qui vocatur ad episcopatum, non ad principatum vocatur, sed ad servitium totius ecclesiae." " Ep. 73, 26.

14 Ep. 33, 1: "inde per temporum et successionum vices episcoporum ordinatio et ecclesiae ratio decurrit." ls Ep. 75, 17.

" Ep. 67, 5; 59, 5 (populi sufjragium); 55, 8.

17 Ep. 67, 5 (episcoporum indicium); 59, 5 (coepiscoporum consensus).
18
19 Ibid. 67, 5 and Trad, apost. 2 (26, Botte).
20
21 Cf. K. Muller in ZNW 28 (1929), 276-8.
22
10 Ep. 67, 5: "traditio divina et apostolica observatio."

The Syrian Didascalia indicates in a very special way the pre-eminent position of the bishop in his community and pays homage to his dignity by the most laudatory expressions; he takes God's place in the community, he is the image of God and the mediator between him and the faithful. In his office as preacher, he is "the mouth of God", encouraging righteousness, urging on to good works, enthusiastically extolling God's benefits, but speaking, too, of the future wrath at God's judgment. The Didascalia speaks more insistently than any other pre-Constantinian work of the qualities required by the episcopate and the shortcomings that would exclude one from it. The first requirement is close familiarity with Holy Scripture, of which the bishop must be the interpreter. A wider intellectual formation is desirable, but is not an indispensable condition. As all his conduct is to be a model to his flock, he must fulfill the highest demands on moral qualities and character. Guarantees of this are more likely to be provided by a certain maturity in age and so the bishop chosen should be fifty years old if possible, and in the case of a younger candidate, his real suitability should be determined by conscientious investigation. Access to episcopal office was barred to a man who had been married more than once; the manner of life of the wife and children had to be in harmony with the high dignity of the head of the family. The presbyters or priests occupy, generally speaking, in the Didascalia, the position that the Letters of St Ignatius of Antioch had already assigned to them; they are the advisers and associates of the bishops, and collaborate particularly in judicial proceedings against a Christian, but have no claim to share by right the gifts of the community. The third century, however, also saw signs of increasing importance in the office of priest, at least in some of the regions to which Christianity had spread. This was connected with growing numbers of Christians in country districts for whom no bishop, but only a presbyter, could be appointed as leader of the community. This was certainly the case in Egypt after the middle of the century as Dionysius of Alexandria testifies. It can scarcely be doubted that a village presbyter, appointed to such small communities, had also the right of celebrating the Eucharist. An extension of priestly faculties was also granted in times of need, such as persecutions, when the bishop, through arrest or flight, could no longer personally care for his flock. A letter of Cyprian is instructive here, which empowered presbyters and deacons in times of special peril through sickness, to hear the confessions of the lapsed and to reconcile them.2* Finally, the growth of priestly functions was due to the growth in this century of large Christian communities, often with several thousand members in the more important towns of the Roman Empire such as Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, and Antioch. The frequent mention of priests at the administration of baptism in the rite described by Hippolytus, is just as noticeable in this respect as the emphasis on the part they played in the ordination of new priests, on whom they laid hands with the bishop.30 In Rome, the setting up of the titali as actual pastoral districts31 gave a more independent position to the priests to whom they were entrusted than was possible in smaller communities. The care of Christians in the countryside around Alexandria by travelling priests (rapioSeoTai) 32 at the beginning of the fourth century, already points clearly to the incipient development that led to the "parish", which likewise was to give the presbyter a new and wider sphere of activities, and so bring increased importance to his office.

In the daily life of an average Christian community, the presbyters, however, were still less prominent than the deacons. As the chief official assistants of their bishops, especially for the care of the poor, and in the administration of funds, they came into more frequent contact with individual members of the congregation and so, as the Didascalia says, were the bishop's "ear and mouth, heart and soul".33 As the deacon had to keep the bishop informed about all that happened in the community, discussions of its affairs gave him, by the nature of things, much influence. The Didascalia considers that the well-being of the community depended on harmonious collaboration between bishop and deacon.34

The growing needs of the communities in the third century finally led to the development of further grades in the series of clerical ministries which, however, all remained below the rank of deacon. They are listed in the catalogue of the Roman clergy which Bishop Cornelius drew up in a letter to Fabius of Antioch.35 According to this, there were seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two exorcists, lectors, and doorkeepers, in the Church's service. The holders of these offices mostly

" Ep. 18, 1.

30 Trad, apost. 8; 21 (37, 49-51 Bone).
31
32 See below, page 380.
33
34 Euseb. HE 8, 13, 7; Epist. episc. Aegypt. in PG 10, 1566.
35
36 Didasc. 2, 44, 4.
37
38 Ibid, and 3, 13, 7.
39
40 Euseb. HE 6. 43, 11; they are also all mentioned, with the exception of the ostiarius, by Cyprian.
figured in a liturgical role, others had special tasks in connexion with corporate works of mercy, such as care for those mentally ill and for epileptics. The exorcists had charge of this latter task, whilst the sub- deacons are to be regarded as direct assistants of the deacons, with the acolytes, in turn, as helpers of the subdeacons. The most frequently mentioned office among the minor orders is that of the lector,36 whose duty was to read aloud at divine service; this presupposed a certain education in the man entrusted with it, and gave special prestige. The doorkeeper looked after the entrances to the place of divine worship, and kept out unauthorized persons.

Appointment to these offices, as to those of priest and deacon, belonged exclusively to the bishop who, of course, could consult his flock about suitable candidates. The bishop handed the lector the book of readings when he was inducted into his office, but as the Traditio apostolica emphasizes, he received no ordination. The subdeacon was not ordained by imposition of hands, either.37

The beginnings of the so-called "irregularities", or canonical impediments are already clearly perceptible in the third century. As has already been said, anyone who had once been obliged to perform public canonical penance was incapable of receiving holy orders; similarly, baptism received in sickness (baptismus clinicorum), which was considered to show a lack of courage to confess the faith, excluded from ecclesiastical office; finally, voluntary self-mutilation was regarded an an impediment to orders, though in Origen's time this was not yet generally recognized.

As the bishop and deacons were completely occupied with their duties, in the larger communities, it was the obligation of the faithful to see to their upkeep; this was a charge on the general gifts of the faithful for the whole needs of the Church.38 The other clerics were dependent on private means, or on their income from a profession in civil life. Cyprian even had to complain of the excessive acquisitiveness of some bishops, and the Synod of Elvira was obliged to lay down quite definite regulations about the clergy's commercial transactions.39

Little information is available about the training of the clergy for its religious and ecclesiastical tasks at this period; it was not yet subject to fixed rules laid down by the Church authorities. Consequently, the cleric obtained his theological knowledge first of all in the lessons of the catechumenate and further by private study, sometimes, perhaps, with a learned Christian teacher, who after the fashion of the philosophers of

*• Tertullian De Praescr. 41 mentions it; the East at first only had the grade of lector, reader (?vaYvcianr)!;).

" Trad, apost. 12 and 14 (43 Botte). 88 Didasc. 2, 25,4 and 14. 39 Cyprian, De laps. 6; Synod. Illib. can. 19.

antiquity, now also gave lessons in the "philosophy" of Christianity. Knowledge of liturgical functions was provided by direct participation in the prayer and worship of his church. The growing variety of ecclesiastical orders provided the possibility of being tested in a lower grade, and of gradually acquiring deeper religious knowledge and increasing familiarity with the tasks of a higher office.40

The Bishop and his Church

The growth of the Christian communities in the third century and the development of their organization which this involved, has already been pointed out several times. The elaboration of divine worship in the liturgy of baptism and the celebration of the Eucharist, and the creation of more grades in the ministry, are among the most significant phenomena of this kind. In this connexion, we have still to speak specifically about the position of the individual church under its bishop as the holder of ecclesiastical property. This, particularly in the large town communities of the third century, was becoming of considerable importance. The gifts of the faithful which were expended on the manifold activities of the local church, were collected in a common fund which probably became a permanent institution quite early.41 In Tertullian's time, these gifts had assumed the character of a voluntary monthly personal contribution, the proceeds of which were placed in the community chest (areaj.42 In this way, the local churches everywhere acquired property and funds, the control and administration of which ultimately belonged to their bishops. As well as contributions in money and things in daily use (foodstuffs and clothes), there soon came gifts of houses and land, so that even before Constantine's time, the property of the church communities consisted of money and real estate.4' The existence of this church property was not unknown to the civil authorities; Tertullian and Origen, of course, discussed quite openly the problems connected with it. Since this property was not touched by the State, except in the abnormal circumstances of various particular persecutions, this presupposes the recognition of the individual communities as the legal owners in civil law.44 The decrees of

40 On this, see Harnack Miss 860-6.
41
42 Ignatius of Antioch was already familiar with it: Ad Polyc. 4, 3; and so was Justin, for Apol. 67, 12 implies its existence.
43
44 Apol. 39; the common chest of Alexandria was called y^aaixonov, cf. Origen, In Matth. comm. 11,9.
45
45 Cf. Tertullian, Ad Scap. 3; Origen, In Lev. hom. 11, 1; Cyprian, De op. et eleem., passim. On the property of the Roman church in houses and cemeteries, cf. Liber pontif. 26; Euseb. HE 4, 23, 10; for Antioch, ibid. 7, 30, 7.

44 Cf. G. Kruger, Die Rechtsstellung der vorkonstantinisdien Kirche (Stuttgart 1935, reprinted Amsterdam 1961), 191-226.

the State authorities after the end of the Diocletian persecution, which provided for the return of the confiscated property to the various Christian communities as its legal owners, similarly indicate that the capacity of the churches to own property was recognized by the State in the third century. This development, too, shows clearly that the Church of the third century had grown into a condition and circumstances which plainly distinguish it from the preceding period, and justify the designation "great church" of early Christian times.

Another development in the sphere of organization was also important for many episcopal churches. They grew not only in numbers, but also in geographical extent. When, in Egypt, there were churches in the country which were served either by a resident priest or by a cleric from the bishop's centre, it followed that as the communities came into existence, they did not automatically receive a bishop as their head, but remained subject to the bishop of the nearest larger community. In that way a development began in the third century which led in the direction of a bishop's centre, it followed that as the communities came into existence, A reshaping of organization was taking place which led to two new forms: a bigger episcopal diocese comprising several Christian communities in town and country, but with only one bishop at their head, and a Christian community which received a pastor of its own for its immediate religious needs; he however, whether priest, or, as in a few places, chorepiscopus, was always subject to the bishop.

Forms of Organization Larger than the Local Community

The coming into existence of the "great church" is made very tangibly clear by the association of the various individual communities under their bishops into a higher structure, the church province. The rise of this was determined particularly by two factors. One of these followed from the method of the early Christian mission which first tried to gain a footing in populous towns, which would mean the provincial capitals in the Roman Empire, and attempted to found its first communities there. Normally, the evangelization of further larger centres in the province would begin from the bishop's community in the provincial capital, and the new churches that had come about in that way naturally maintained close relations with the mother-church. Consequently, all the daughter communities founded by a central episcopal church were bound together by mutual ties. In this association a certain leading role naturally fell to the bishop of the mother-church, and from the fourth century, this was expressed by the title "metropolitan". But more decisive than the link created by such missions, was the formation of ecclesiastical provinces by the establishment of synods which, from the end of the second century, brought together the bishops of specific regions to discuss important Church affairs. The question of the date of Easter, and the Montanist movement, are mentioned as motives for such meetings which, of course, were not limited to the bishops of particular political provinces, but extended beyond these. In this way, a synod on the occasion of the Easter controversy brought together the bishops of Caesarea in Palestine, Aelia, Ptolemais, and Tyre, whose sees, in fact, lay in two provinces, namely, Syria and Palestine. These bishops also kept in touch with the bishop of Alexandria and came to an agreement with him about the date of Easter. In the same way, bishops from various civil provinces such as Cappadocia, Galatia, Cicilia, and others, took part in the middle of the third century in the Synod of Iconium in Asia Minor. In any case, such synods were a regular custom in the East at the beginning of the third century, while in North Africa they were still unknown, as appears from a remark of Tertullian which also shows that such synodal assemblies were felt to be an important and impressive outward manifestation of Christianity. It is clear from the list of those who took part in the Council of Nicaea that, at least in the East, the association of the local churches into church provinces was later adapted to the frontiers of the political provinces, for the list follows the order of the latter. The same Council took for granted the existence of the ecclesiastical provinces by assigning to all the bishops of a province the right to install a bishop in his diocese and reserving the right of confirming this to the metropolitan of the province. In the Latin "West, the tendency for wider associations of this kind only appeared later, and then assumed different forms. What happened was not really the formation of several ecclesiastical provinces in the proper sense, as in the East, but directly a supra-provincial association of all the episcopal sees in North Africa on the one hand and of central and southern Italy on the other. The leadership of these forms of organization fell to the bishops of Rome and Carthage, particular weight attaching to the fact that the communities of these great cities had been the starting- points in the christianization of the territories of which they were now the

IJ-ifc utvtLWMENT Ot THE CHURCH S CONSTITUTION

ecclesiastical leaders. When the Bishop of Carthage summoned synods in the third century, his invitation was addressed to the bishops of all the civil provinces in North Africa, and was so accepted.53 Similarly, the synods held by the Roman bishops of the third century brought together all the bishops there were in Italy at that time. Consequently, Rome and Carthage were ecclesiastical administrative centres of a rank far superior to that of a mere ecclesiastical metropolis. Two such higher centres also became increasingly prominent in the third century East, Antioch and Alexandria. In Antioch, synods met which were attended by the bishops of all Syria and of eastern Asia Minor, like the one planned in 251 against Novatianism,54 or those of the years 264-8, which were particularly concerned with the case of Paul of Samosata.55 The missionary interests of the Antioch bishops extended further than the territory of a church province, too, as their concern about Cicilia or Osrhoene shows.56 The same applies to the episcopal see of the Egyptian capital, whose occupant controlled the affairs of the episcopate of the Lybian Pentapolis, although this belonged administratively to Crete. Here, too, the third century development was confirmed by the Council of Nicaea:57 all the bishoprics of Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis were made subject to the bishop of Alexandria, and at the same time, express reference was also made to the similar pre-eminence of Rome. Antioch had similar rights, obviously in the sphere of the political diocese of Oriens. In this way, the occupants of these two eastern episcopal sees were recognized as a sort of higher metropolitans, and so the foundation was laid for the development of later patriarchates. There is only a hint in Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea that similar tendencies were showing themselves in other places. It is only Canon 2 of the Council of Constantinople (381), that makes it clear that the bishops of Ephesus, Heracleia, and Caesarea were also trying to obtain such supra-metropolitan rights for the political dioceses of Asia, Thrace, and Pontus — without, in the long run, succeeding.

The Pre-eminent Position of Rome and its Bishop

The preceeding account has repeatedly had occasion to indicate the special influence which the Roman community exercised on questions and events that exceeded the sphere of interest of an average episcopal community.

Similarly, too, there was perceptible the echo of a claim to a pre-eminent position, of a kind that revealed special recognition and regard for the Roman community within the Church as a whole. In that way a development was powerfully pursuing its course, the bases of which were clearly visible in the sub-apostolic period.58 The features already indicated must now be brought together into a unified view with other facts and statements of ecclesiastical writers that have not yet been mentioned.

In the description of the Church's fight to defend herself against Gnosticism, the importance which Irenaeus of Lyons attributed to apostolic tradition for the recognition of true doctrine has already been mentioned.59 Now it must be particularly stressed that he ascribed very high value to the Roman church for the ascertaining of apostolic tradition. This latter can, indeed, be established, he maintains, in every church whose bishops can be derived in a genuine series of succession from the apostles.60 But it is sufficient to prove this succession in the "greatest and oldest church known to all", that of Rome; for "it was founded and built by the two glorious apostles Peter and Paul" and its list of bishops proves that in it, "the apostolic tradition and preaching of the faith" has come down to our time.61 Here, therefore, a special pre-eminence of Rome is linked with the fact that its church rests on the most distinguished apostolic foundations and has always remained true to the doctrine of the apostles. Consequently, anyone seeking the truth, will find it in Rome; all the Gnostic founders of sects can be refuted by the traditional truth found in Rome. The relevance of the Roman church to the discovery of truth, which is already expressed very strikingly in all this, would certainly gain even more weight if the statement of Irenaeus which has been discussed for centuries62 without yet receiving an absolutely satisfactory interpretation, could also be quite certainly taken as referring to the Roman church and to it alone. This reference, however, is neither imperatively demanded by the context, nor is it free from serious philological difficulties. Irenaeus' line of thought is, plainly, as follows: The apostolic

BB See above, chapter 10, p. 152. M See above, chapter 15, p. 197. 60 Adv. haer. 3, 3, 1. 41 Ibid. 3, 3, 2.

62 Cf. the survey of the various attempts at interpretation in L. Spikowski, La doctrine de l'eglise dans s. Irenee (Strasbourg 1926), 146-55.

45 Adv. haer. 3, 3, 3: "ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potiorem (al. potentiorem) principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis traditio (For with such a church, on account of the greater authority of its origin, every church must agree, that is to say, all the faithful everywhere, in which (church) the tradition which is from the apostles has always been preserved by these who are everywhere)."

Mi». 1/I.ifcwuiij:iii vjr mi'. Lnun^n O ^.UnSULUllVJlN

tradition is found with certainty in the communities which rest on a directly apostolic foundation; there are several of these and each of them has a stronger power, grounded in its (apostolic) origin, for the ascertaining of truth, than any other Christian community whatever. But Rome stands out even from this series of apostolic foundations, because, as is everywhere recognized, Peter and Paul were its founders. Then Irenaeus summarizes; with such a church of apostolic foundation every individual church must agree, because precisely such a church has always preserved the apostolic tradition. One of these churches is the Roman church; which is even in a particularly favourable position for establishing the apostolic tradition, but not exclusively so.

The Jewish Christian Hegesippus, living about the same time as Irenaeus, showed an interest for the succession of Roman bishops, deriving from similar motives. In his fight against the Gnostic heresy, he sought to ascertain the tradition of belief in the more important Christian communities of his time. Where he found a tradition transmitted from bishop to bishop (SiaSo^v)), that for him was a proof of the authenticity of its doctrine. His journey to the various churches led him to Rome, where he convinced himself of the existence of such a diadoche right down to the last bishop, Eleutherius. Here, too, a specific importance is attributed to the Roman church for a knowledge of apostolic tradition purely preserved. Tertullian, likewise, names Rome, and Smyrna in addition as examples of a church which could trace back to an apostle the list of its bishops in succession.

Consciousness of a pre-eminent position of the Roman church in determining apostolic tradition, was also the basis of the attitude of the

Roman Bishop Victor (189-98) in the dispute about the keeping of Easter.67 He appealed to apostolic tradition to justify the Roman practice of keeping Easter on the Sunday after 14 Nisan. He then demanded quite definitely that the churches of Asia Minor should also follow this custom, threatening in the event of a refusal the most serious of measures, that is, exclusion from the ecclesiastical community, because he regarded the Asia Minor practice as heterodox.68 A claim by Rome to leadership is here j

apparent which goes far beyond the pre-eminence attributed to it as the guardian of apostolic tradition. It is only explained by the Roman bishop's awareness of his ability to intervene authoritatively in the affairs of even distant churches. Victor did not state the source of this awareness in his own case. In any event, his instruction69 that synods were to be held about the matter was followed even by the bishops of Asia Minor, although they held different views from Rome. The majority of the synods decided on the Roman custom. Opposition to the Roman demand was raised by Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus and his fellow bishops, because they also believed themselves bound to an apostolic tradition. When Polycrates in his answer to Pope Victor, emphatically recalled the great figures of the Asiatic church of the past, this suggests that Victor had supported the Roman claim on the foundation of its church by Peter and Paul; but that Victor also felt himself to be the guardian of orthodoxy, is proved by his excommunicating the Monarchian Theodotus. A few decades later, Sabellius was excommunicated for heresy by the Roman Bishop Callistus.70

An unmistakable expression of the bishop of Rome's awareness that he occupied a special position within the Church as a whole, is encountered in various measures of a disciplinary nature taken by Pope Stephen (254-7). Two Spanish bishops, Basilides of Emerita and Martialis of Asturica, had got sacrifice certificates in the Decian persecution and on account of this and other transgressions, had been deposed.71 Basilides went to Rome and obtained, by false representation of the case, as Cyprian emphasizes,72 his own rehabilitation and that of his colleague. Two things are notable about this incident. A Spanish bishop had recourse to Rome because he was convinced that it was the place to which he could appeal against the decision of a Spanish synod, and that there, a disciplinary case of this sort could be dealt with and decided with legal authority. Even more significant is the case that has already been mentioned, that of Bishop

67 See above, chapter 23, p. 271, with the references in the notes.

69 Euseb. HE 5, 24, 9, •» Ibid. 5, 24, 8.
70
71 Ibid. 5, 28, 6 and Hippolytus, Rejut. 9, 12. Both matters can of course be regarded as internal affairs of the Roman community.
72
73 See the whole Ep. 76 of Cyprian.
74
71 Ep. 67, 5.

Marcion of Aries, a convinced follower of Novatian, who allowed the lapsed in his community to die without reconciliation, despite their readiness to repent. This time, it was Cyprian of Carthage who turned to Pope Stephen in a very significant letter that demanded from him decisive action against Marcion, that is to say, his deposition and the appointment of a new head of the community, whose name was to be sent to the African episcopate so that they might know with whom they were to maintain fellowship. The whole tenor of the letter implies the view that the Aries case concerned the pope alone, and could only definitively be decided by him, and that Rome could determine authoritatively who was to be granted ecclesiastical fellowship and who was not. The same conviction was current in Gaul, because Cyprian's letter was sent as a result of steps taken by Faustinus, the bishop of Lyons.

This public recognition of the pre-eminent position of the Roman bishop by Cyprian, at least as regards Spain and Gaul, is rather surprising when it is compared with his theoretical standpoint and attitude to Rome in the dispute about baptism by heretics. It is true that in Cyprian's writings there are statements about the Roman church which at first sight seem to amount to recognition of a special authority of Rome. In one of his letters to Pope Cornelius he denounces the conduct of that section of his clergy that was opposed to him, in sending representatives to Rome in order to win over its bishop to their side. They brought letters "to the chair of Peter and to the chief church, from which the unity of the bishops took its rise". The Roman see is elsewhere called by him "the place of Peter". In his work On the Unity of the Church, Cyprian speaks about the foundation of the Church, which he considers is expressed in our Lord's words at Matthew 16:18. By designating Peter as the rock, Christ proclaimed that he "is building the Church on one man, that the origin of unity derives from one".78 The other apostles were, to be sure, equal to Peter in dignity and power, but the beginning of unity is identified with Peter. Apparently favourable to the primacy, too, is the version of the fourth chapter of this work that is found in some manuscripts, where we read: "Is anyone who leaves the see of Peter, on which the Church is founded, still convinced that he is within the Church?" and: "Certainly the others were what Peter was, but Petro primatus datur and so one

Church and one cathedra is manifest." It can be considered probable that these sentences, which bear the unmistakable stamp of Cyprian's style, were to be read in the "first edition" of his work and were only suppressed when it was revised at the time of the dispute about heretical baptism; there is no need to assume any later interpolation from some Roman partisan. But closer analysis of Cyprian's linguistic usage obliges us to abandon these texts as conclusive proofs that the idea of the Roman primacy existed in the mind of the North African bishop. Cyprian is here still simply expressing a chronological pre-eminence of Peter over the other apostles in the conferring of the power of binding and loosing, for they, of course, according to his own words, possessed the same plenary power as he. Consequently, all the bishops possess, even now, one and the same equal episcopal office. In the cathedra Petri, Cyprian sees the well- spring of ecclesiastical unity, which has its beginning in Peter. Cyprian does not, however, voice the consequence that this well-spring even now, in his own day, has this function of bringing about unity, in the cathedra of the Bishop of Rome. He does not seem to draw it in his own mind, either, for he maintains most emphatically the thesis that bishops are responsible to God alone for the administration of their bishoprics. What Cyprian thought in an actual concrete situation about the right of a Roman bishop to issue binding ordinances with decisive authority for the Church as a whole is shown by the test case of the dispute about heretical baptism which may appropriately be described at this point.

The Controversy about Heretical Baptism

The Christian communities first encountered the problem of heretical baptism when heretical (or schismatical) groups of some size formed, and when members of these wanted to enter the Catholic Church. When it was a case of persons who had been pagans, and who had received baptism in the heretical community, the question arose whether the baptism that had been conferred on them was to be considered valid. The same reply was not given in all the Christian communities. In North Africa, Tertullian's treatise on baptism contains a first standpoint rejecting validity. A synod about 220, under Bishop Agrippinus of Carthage, maintained a similar view.85 In the East (especially in Asia Minor), there was a widespread practice of baptizing again on reception into the Church, persons baptized in heresy. Firmilian of Caesarea himself took part in a synod in Iconium (not earlier than 230), at which bishops from Galatia, Cicilia, and other neighbouring provinces, decided they would continue to rebaptize Montanists at their reception.84 The Alexandrian theologians were also critical of the baptism of heretics, even if they did not make a clear pronouncement about its validity.85 It is true that the Alexandrian church under Bishop Dionysius took up the same position as Rome, where persons baptized in an heretical sect were received into the Roman community merely by imposition of hands. The different estimation of heretical baptism and the resulting difference of treatment of those who had received it, could plainly have existed side by side for decades in the Church without one side having felt the practice of the other to be intolerable. But shortly after the middle of the third century a serious clash occurred over the matter, when the various views found unyielding defenders in Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen of Rome. An African bishop, Magnus, had submitted the inquiry to Cyprian whether "those who came from Novatian" had to be baptized again in the Catholic Church. Cyprian's comprehensive answer is clear; baptism is entrusted to the Catholic Church alone and her baptism alone is valid; anyone who has not got the Holy Spirit cannot confer that Spirit.80 Cyprian submitted a similar inquiry from eighteen Numidian bishops to a synod in 255 and it came to the same conclusion.87 But according to Cyprian "a few colleagues" were still in doubt whether the African practice were the correct one; in a letter that Cyprian wrote after the synod, a tone of irritation with them is unmistakable. There is also a certain sting in it against Rome; for Cyprian attacks the thesis that in such questions appeal should not simply be made to tradition, but that rational reflection should be allowed to have its say; Peter, whom the Lord chose first, did not make any arrogant claims on that account, and did not presumptously occupy the first place (primatus).89 A synod considered the question again early in 256 and Cyprian wrote at its request to Pope Stephen, enclosing the resolutions of the previous year's synod as well as his previous correspondence on the subject. The whole file clearly showed that Cyprian regarded the Roman custom, and the view of the validity of heretical

M Cyprian, Ep. 73, 3; 71, 4.

84 Firmilian in Cyprian, Ep. 75, 7; a synod with the same result took place about this time in Synada, cf. Euseb. HE 7, 7, 5.
85
86 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1, 19; Origen, In loann. comm. 6, 25. 88 Ep. 69, 1 and 2 and passim.
87
87 Cf. Ep. 70. 88 Ep. 71, 3.

baptism on which it rested, as a grave dogmatic error, but, with remarkable lack of logic, he wrote that he did not want to impose his view on anyone, as each bishop was free to administer his own flock. He added with heavy irony that there were, of course, people who, in their stubbornness, were not to be dissuaded once a decision had been made.

Pope Stephen's answer to this letter has not survived, but a clear echo of it is found in Cyprian's correspondence. One of his letters describes it as "uninformed and written without due reflection", and Stephen's standpoint is termed an error. Cyprian was particularly up in arms over the principle with which the Roman bishop justified his standpoint. "No innovation, but stand by tradition", because in intention it stamped Cyprian as an innovator. Furthermore, he considered that Stephen's letter had also contained some "haughty matters, beside the point". The letter of Firmilian of Caesarea, preserved among Cyprian's correspondence, throws welcome light on the meaning of these remarks. Cyprian was informed that Pope Stephen's initiative in the matter of heretical baptism was not limited to North Africa. A letter had been sent from Rome to the churches of Asia Minor too, demanding that they should abandon their practice of rebaptism, and threatening excommunication. Cyprian's deacon, Rogatianus, conveyed to Firmilian a report from his bishop about the previous course of the discussion in North Africa. The detailed answer of the Cappadocian bishop shows how deeply concerned they were in Asia Minor over Stephen's action; all the blame for the split was placed on him, and Firmilian compared him with Judas. It is also said that Stephen, in his folly, "glories in his position as a bishop and claims to hold succession of Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church rest". This makes it clear that Stephen was appealing to Matthew 16:18 and claiming for himself, as Peter's successor, Peter's position in the Church. Previous Roman bishops' awareness of a pre-eminence belonging to them in the Church as a whole, which had already been present earlier was, as a matter of fact, now for the first time given a formal basis in that biblical text which in future was to be increasingly regarded as the decisive attestation of the Roman primacy. The two leading bishops of North

Africa and Asia Minor did not bow to Stephen's claim. Cyprian had his position confirmed again at a third synod in September 256, in which eighty-seven bishops took part from the three provinces of Africa proconsularis, Mauritania, and Numidia, — not actually comprising the majority of the approximately two hundred bishops who there were at that time.96 The episcopal delegation sent to Rome with the resolutions of the synod was not even received by Stephen, and he went so far as to give instructions that it was not to be received in the church community there either.97 That meant a breach with the church of North Africa led by Cyprian. It was the most important demonstration of Rome's position of pre-eminence yet undertaken by one of its bishops, and Stephen undertook it, even at the cost of a rupture, in the consciousness of occupying and of having to fulfill the office and function of Peter in the Church as a whole. It is not surprising that this claim met with resistance. Just as in the history of the Church, Rome's task of leadership only became more clearly manifest in situations which demanded its active exercise, such situations becoming gradually more frequent with the Church's growth; so also from an historical point of view the idea of the Primacy had to develop and became clearer through a process of some length. Cyprian of Carthage, in his striving for an understanding of Matthew 16:18, is an example of a transitional stage in the process of clarification. It seems much more worthy of note that in the face of such contradiction the idea of the primacy prevailed and held its ground.

The question of heretical baptism did not, however, lead to a division of long duration in the early Christian Church. The two leaders of the opposed views in the West, died shortly after one another, Pope Stephen in 257 and Bishop Cyprian as a martyr on 14 September 258. Their followers were not so personally involved in the dispute and at first let it rest, one side tolerating the practice followed by the other. In the East, the zealous Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria endeavoured to mediate between the two camps; six letters on the matter went to Rome. A brief reference in one of these letters, written "imploringly", to Pope Stephen, praises the unity of all Eastern bishops in repulsing Novatianism.98 His implication is clear: ought it not to be possible to avoid a schism in the discussion about heretical baptism, too? Dionysius appealed in the same sense99 to Stephen's successor, Sixtus (257-8). Under Sixtus' successor, Dionysius (260-8), the conflict between Rome and the bishops of Asia Minor seems to have been settled. In the West, after a first approach at the Synod of Aries,100 a final clarification was achieved by the dogmatic work of Augustine, in the sense of the Roman view and practice.

" See Sent, episcop. 87 de haer. baptiz. proem. ,7 Ep. 75, 25. M Euseb. HE 7, 5, 1-2. " Ibid. 7, 5, 3; 7, 9, 1 and 6. 100 Can. 8 (314).

1HB INNLK CONSOLIDA I lOM Of Itlt UHUKtn

The Alexandrian Bishop Dionysius, who was so zealously concerned with peace in the Church, experienced personally, however, that the Roman bishop demanded an account of anyone who put forward false or misleading views in matters of faith, when, in about 260, in controversy with the Patripassians, he used insufficiently precise formulas regarding the distinction between Father and Son. The Bishop of Rome not only required of him a precise exposition of his views but directly addressed himself to Dionysius' flock and warned them of teachers who threatened to falsify the previous teaching of the Church about the Trinity. Here too, the intervention of Rome, even against a bishop of such undeniable merit as Dionysius of Alexandria, demonstrates that its bishop knew he was responsible for safeguarding right belief in the whole Church.

The pre-eminence of the Roman position also received spontaneous recognition. The lyrical homage of the Christian Aberkios of Phrygia to the Church of Rome dates from the early third century. He is sent to Rome by a holy shepherdess in order to see a realm, a queen in golden robe and golden shoes and a people possessing a shining seal. Here poetic expression is given to the power of attraction radiating from this •Christian community in the West even as far as the eastern provinces of the empire. Origen, too, saw Rome, and not a word from him or any other "pilgrim to Rome" of the time, indicates that it was the fame or the prestige of the imperial capital, as such, that drew them to it. What Origen says can certainly be considered as representative of many: "I wanted to see the ancient church of the Romans." The visits, delegations and letters which came to Rome, and which have been so often mentioned above, frequently had only one purpose, that of obtaining from this Church and this bishop a recognition and confirmation of their aims or views. They testify thereby to the existence of a widespread conviction that both possessed a unique position.

This is also manifest in a final, very significant fact; the language of Christian symbols seized on the theme in order to express a reality in its own way or to make it accessible in a new form. The very expressive and widespread symbol of the ship of the Church was developed into the picture of the Church as Peter's ship. It is encountered in the texts of the early third century, in the letter of the pseudo-Clement to the apostle

iiii^ wii» i vyi inu vuuiv^u j UV/i^^iii w nuix

James, which introduces the Clementine Recognitions and is probably of Roman origin.105 Here Peter admonishes the hesitant Clement, to whom he entrusts his see, not to fail in service to the faithful who are in danger on their voyage through this life. The owner of this ship is God, its helmsman-pilot Christ, the bishop stands in the bows, the passengers are the brotherhood of believers; the bishop has the hardest task, he must vigilantly listen to the words of the helmsman (Christ) and repeat his orders clearly. Consequently, all the brethren must obey the bishop, who "presides in truth", for the cathedra Christi is entrusted to him.100 With astonishing sureness here, conviction about the position of the Roman bishop has been transposed into the language of symbolism; he is the second pilot of the ship of the Church, over which he has full official authority. The T^poxaOyiiiivT] tv)? ?yam)? (presiding by love) of the Letter to the Romans of Ignatius of Antioch has become the 7rpoxa0??w5/ivo<; aXvjOeia«; (having the presidency of truth) and he has to preach the truth of him whose chair he occupies. Novatian, too, emphasized, not without self-satisfaction, in the letter which he wrote to Cyprian when the see was vacant in 250-1, that the Roman church held the wheel of the ship of the Church in firm hands. The greatest hour of the symbol of the navictila Petri was only to come in the post-Constantinian and early medieval period, when it was given an ecclesiastico-political interpretation, but its symbolism is theologically richer in the Clementine Recognitions.

Devotion to the Church in the Third Century

The previous chapters have attempted to portray all the important expression of the life of the Church as a whole in early Christian times. The reality revealed by this picture is manifold and full of contrasts, like everything which is living. A final feature has to be added to the picture. This Church is not only an object of knowledge, is not only given its theological basis and affirmed with understanding, its very reality is taken up into the affections of the faithful, felt as a gift of grace. Just as there was a spirituality of baptism and martyrdom, there was a spirituality centred on the Church.

This was given most profound expression by the application of one of the fundamental words of humanity to the Church, which was loved as the "mother" of the faithful. This name was prepared for by the personification of "faith" as a maternal figure in Polycarp of Smyrna107 and by Hermas, to whom the Church appeared as a revered woman.108 The

«On this cf. H. Rahner in ZKTh 69 (1947), 6. 108 Ps-Clement, Recogn. 14-17.

107 Phil. 3, 2 alluding to Gal. 4:26. Cf. also Acta ss. Iustini et sociorum 4, 8.
108
109 Pastor Vis. 2, 1, 3; 2, 4, 1; 3, 9,1.
110
Christians of Lyons were the first to apply the name "mother" to the Church, like an expression that had long been familiar to them; the martyrs of the year 177 were the children born of her who went home in peace to God without saddening their mother. According to Irenaeus, the heretics have no share in the spirit of truth; they are not at the breast of Mother Church who, at the same time, is the Bride of Christ. The catechists, in preparing for baptism, clearly liked to represent the Church to the catechumens as a mother who bears her children in baptism and then feeds and guards them. Tertullian speaks with deep feeling, especially in his pastoral writings, of domina mater ecclesia who, with motherly care, looks after those who are imprisoned, and whose children, after baptism, recite the Our Father as their first prayer in common with their brethren, "in their mother's house", whilst the heretics have no mother. The same note of deep feeling is found in the terminology of the Alexandrians; for Clement, the Church is the Virgin Mother who calls her children to herself and feeds them on sacred milk. Origen sees her both as sponsa Christi and as mother of the nations; bitter sorrow is caused her by impenitence and attachment to evil.116 The term mater ecclesia has become a real expression of filial love and piety in the writings of Cyprian, who sings the joy this mother feels about her virginal children and bi"ave confessors; but he also knows the tears which she sheds for the lapsed.116 More than any other writer of the third century, he evokes the picture of this mother when the unity of the Church is threatened by schism. His urgently repeated appeals to the faithful to preserve their unity at all costs culminate in one of his most celebrated sayings: "That man cannot have God as his Father who has not the Church as his Mother."117 In a mystical vision, Methodius of Olympus sees the Church like a richly jewelled queen with her place at the right hand of the bridegroom.118 For her sake, the Logos left the Father and was united to her when she was born from the wound in his side. The newly-baptized are conceived in the embrace between Logos and Church; born again, from her, to an eternal life and accompanied by her maternal care throughout life, to perfection.119

inc. Lfc vi ui inc. a uuwi 111 u 11U11.

As well as this picture of the Church as Mother, which appealed most directly to the feelings of the faithful, early Christian preaching made use of other images, too, in order to make clear to the hearers the reality of the Church and impress it on their hearts. So, according to Hippolytus, the Church is "God's spiritual garden with Christ as its ground", with an inexhaustible stream of water, from which the four rivers of Paradise flow, the four Gospels which announce the Lord to the world.120 Origen compares the Church with Paradise in which the newly-baptized fulfill the works of the Spirit.121 The Johannine parable of the vine and the branches (Jn 15:1-7), must have proved particularly rich as a catechetical theme; it is applied to the Church by the Fathers repeatedly with far- ranging symbolism.122 All these metaphors were of a kind to give the Church distinctive emotional associations in the mind of her members and to make the Church dear to them in a sense of very real affection.

A widespread devotion to the Church of this kind in the third century is like the spirituality of baptism and martyrdom spoken of above, an important factor in the history of the Church, and must not be passed over unnoticed. Even if the depth and extent of its influence is often difficult to measure and determine, there is no doubt of its presence; it gave the consciousness of the Church in the third century a characteristic stamp, and may be regarded as one of the sources from which the early Christian Church as a whole drew some of its vitality.

CHAPTER 27

The Extent of Christianity prior to the Diocletian Persecution

RUNNING parallel to the rich development of life within the Church, in literature and liturgy, organization and the practice of spirituality, was a growth in numbers which gave Christianity at this period, even when viewed from outside, the character of a "great Church". The inner strengthening of the Church in this century created the conditions for her decisive missionary success in the world of Hellenic civilization right up to the beginning of the Diocletian persecution. This eminently important process in the history of the Church was influenced not only by such conditions, but also by the conjunction of further favourable factors of varying importance in their actual impact.

In the first place, the two long periods of peace in the third century must be mentioned. They offered the Church, to an extent unknown before, missionary possibilities of making herself known, and they were only disturbed by a few waves of relatively brief persecution. These chances were used variously in the different geographical territories of the Empire and on its frontiers. Moreover, the drive of Christianity towards expansion was furthered by developments in the paganism of antiquity itself. The crisis of the ancient world in the third century consisted not only of the threatening decay of the Roman Empire, but was also, and equally, of a crisis in the existing religious and cultural forces. Under the emperor of the Syrian dynasty, the Roman State religion abandoned what had been its traditional foundations. New cults from the East gained increasingly larger followings even in the Latin world, until finally emperor Caracalla gave entry to their divinities into the Roman temples; the Baal of Emesa, the Sun-God of Palmyra, Egyptian Sarapis and Persian Mithras burst the framework of the ancient Roman religion, and robbed it of its exclusiveness. In its place appeared a wide-ranging syncretism which, to be sure, aimed at offering something for every religious inquirer, but was itself poor in religious substance and consequently represented, in fact, a weakening of earlier religious forces. Christianity could advance into this increasing vacuum, and with its claim to offer, in the midst of this religious confusion, both absolute truth and what was "new" and full of promise for the future, found a ready hearing among the pagan population. The Christian preaching of the age not only presented this claim with firm assurance of victory, but increasingly found for it a distinguished form in speech and writing which won the respect of the cultivated pagans. At the beginning of the third century the Alexandrian teachers Clement and Origen dared to attempt to win to Christianity not only cultivated people but culture itself. On the foundation of Christian revelation, they set up a new ideal of culture to which, they were convinced, the future belonged; and they were liberal enough to incorporate in this ideal those elements of pagan education and culture which did not contradict the fundamental truths of the gospel. In East and West, Origen gained an outstanding reputation and became an attractive force with far-reaching influence. Towards the end of the century there grew up in Antioch the second intellectual centre of

Christianity in the East; it influenced the Syrian hinterland as much as Alexandria did Egypt. In the West, also, Christianity produced writers of quality and reputation who are a striking testimony to the higher standards of Christian literary production. This rich increase in credit and prestige brought Christianity an ever-growing number of adherents from the pagan upper class. Under the Syrian emperors, under Philippus Arabs and Gallienus, there were Christians in influential positions at the imperial court, and an increasing number of bishops sprang from the educated classes. Certainly the majority of the pagan population still met the appeal of the new religion with refusal and, especially in leading circles, so did the "conservatives" who instinctively defended existing intellectual and cultural property. But at the beginning of the fourth century, a minority of such strength and quality professed the new religion, that its resistance could not be broken by the last onslaught under Diocletian.

The East

At the beginning of the third century commenced that rise of the Christian world of Alexandria which made the Church there the intellectual centre of eastern Christianity. Origen's activity as a teacher brought many Gnostics and pagans under its spell; his later friend and patron Ambrose is the best-known example of a learned convert made by him and he was followed by many others. Naturally the Alexandrian community also formed the missionary centre from which sprang attempts to christianize the inhabitants of the Egyptian countryside and neighbouring peoples. The expansion of Christianity into the countryside is increasingly attested by the numerous finds of papyri in Egyptian territory containing biblical fragments, especially St Paul's Epistles, the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of St John and the Acts of the Apostles, of which more than twenty can be assigned with some certainty to the third century. The Decian persecution revealed the existence of many Christians in towns and villages even outside Alexandria, and the mention of various bishops shows the growth of hierarchically organized churches which may be presumed to have existed in most provincial centres. Dionysius, the leading bishop of Egypt about the middle of the century, visited several Christian communities in Fayum which clearly had a considerable number of members. When during the persecution of Decius, he himself had to go into exile, he and his companions used the opportunity to act as missionaries to the pagans of their place of exile. A papyrus written about the year 300 speaks of two Christian churches in Oxyrhynchus, one in the north, the other in the south of the town. Naturally the Greek- speaking missionaries first addressed themselves to the Greek element in the Egyptian population, but by the middle of the century, there is also evidence that members of the Coptic-speaking part of the nation were being converted to Christianity. The beginnings of Egyptian monasticism stretch as far back as the third century and its early eremitical phase had its first famous representative in St Anthony, who was a Copt. By the beginning of the fourth century certainly, a considerable minority of the population of Egypt was Christian.

The Christian world of Northern Arabia, which became more prominent in the third century, followed the lines of the Alexandrian centre, though whether these relations had their foundations in missionary work from Alexandria, must remain an open question. Origen was held in high regard by the Christians of the province of Arabia; its governor wrote a letter to Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria asking him to send Origen to him so that he might learn about Christianity. Origen answered the request, and care for the Church's doctrine frequently led him to the capital of the Arabian province of Bostra, where about 240, he took part in two synods. This was plainly done at the instance of Bishop Beryllus, the leader of the Arab Christians, who was also active as a writer. The recently discovered script of a religious discussion of Origen with Bishop Hieraclides, in the presence of several bishops, regarding the question of the Trinity, probably took place in a church in Arabia. The later occupants of the episcopal sees of Arabia whose existence is attested here, took part in the Council of Nicaea. It is impossible to determine to what race the Christians in Arabia at this period belonged.

The motherland of Christianity, Palestine, lagged behind the more rapid development of Egypt in the third century. The country people still to a large extent shut themselves off from Christian belief and the faithful were mainly to be found among the Greek population of the cities. About twenty names of towns or villages with Christian groups or communities are known from pre-Constantinian times and sixteen of their bishops took part in the Council of Nicaea. In his report about the Palestinian victims of the Diocletian persecution, Eusebius quotes almost exclusively Greek names for the martyrs, whose relatively small numbers are an index of the extent to which Christianity had spread. The Christians of Jerusalem did not achieve the importance which one would have expected from its ancient Christian tradition, though pilgrimages of Christians from other parts of the Empire16 which sprang up in the third century, contributed to a revival and increase of its prestige. Among its bishops, Alexander was prominent; he showed his interest in theological learning by establishing a library,17 probably inspired by the example of Alexandria; he held the teachers Pantaenus and Clement in high esteem, and was on terms of friendship with Origen.18 The leadership of Palestine in ecclesiastical affairs had been taken over at an early date by the bishops of the provincial capital, Caesarea, and they represented this church province at the synods of Antioch. The Christian community of Caesarea also became the theological and intellectual centre when Origen, after leaving Alexandria in 230, finally settled here, and with strong support from Bishop Theoctistus, was able to pursue his work. The renown of the Alexandrian, and his manifold activity as a teacher so contributed to the successful development of Christianity in this Palestinian town, that about the year 300, even the pagan part of its population was not ill-disposed.19

An essentially similar situation was to be found in Phoenicia which already belonged to the greater Syrian area. Here, too, conversions to Christianity at first were confined chiefly to the coastal towns where there were more Greeks, while the mission had scarcely any success in the countryside. In the interior, the great pagan centres of worship of the Sun-god in Emesa, Heliopolis, and Palmyra, occupied a dominant position which made entry for Christian teaching difficult. Syrian national susceptibilities played their part here, causing Christianity, represented by Greeks, to be judged unfavourably. In the towns of Damascus and Paneas there were Christians, because in these towns Hellenism was stronger. In the third century, as a consequence, the coastal towns of Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Byblos, and Tripoli remained the centres from which Christianity spread, and of these Tyre took the lead about 250. In this town, Origen died and was buried and Tyre also had the most martyrs in the persecution of the fourth century.20

14 Euseb. Demonstr. evang. 6, 18, 23.

17 Euseb. HE 6, 20.
18
19 Euseb. HE 6, 14, 8. " Harnack Miss, 647.
20
" Euseb. HE 8, 7, 1; 8, 13, 3; De mart. Palaes. 5, 1; 7, 1.

int 11N1NER VjUlNOUljlUAllUlS W I' 1 ill.

In Coelesyria proper, the rise of the Christian church of Antioch, already so marked in the second century, continued. Within its walls the synods met, from the middle of the third century onwards, attended by bishops from a wide area and naturally presided over by the Antiochan bishop. When the Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, himself stood before such a synod accused of Christological heresies,21 it became clear that this episcopal see already possessed considerable political importance even at that time. And it is very clear that the see of Antioch, as well as that of Rome, was no longer a matter of indifference to the civil government, from the fact that the case of Bishop Paul was even brought before the emperor Aurelian, his decision being sought, and given, regarding the ownership of the bishop's residence in the Syrian capital.22 Towards the end of the third century, Antioch also became a centre of theological learning for the East, though at a certain distance behind Alexandria. Christian teachers of repute in Antioch at that time were the priests Malchion and Dorotheus23 but above all Lucian, later a martyr (in 311),24 who laid the foundations of the Antioch theological school. The Christian church in Antioch also became a missionary centre which not only worked at christianizing the immediate surroundings, but was also engaged in spreading Christian faith in more distant regions, such as the centre of Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Persia. In the Syrian hinterland, the missionary efforts of Antioch encountered those of Edessa. Success here was considerable in the third century, for twenty bishops from Coelesyria came to the Council of Nicaea, most of them probably from larger towns, but there were also two chorepiscopi who spoke on behalf of the Christian mission in the country.25 A certain index of the intensity of this, is given by Eusebius' remark that the prisons in Syria after the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution in 303, "were everywhere filled with bishops, priests, deacons, lectors, and exorcists".26 In Osrhoene, Christianity made such strides in the capital, Edessa, in the third century, that it could be considered a Christian town at the beginning of the fourth27 and the centre of the Syrian Christian world. The beginnings of a Christian school in Edessa probably also extend into the third century.28 The mission to the countryside started from Edessa, and by 260 it counted several communities with bishops.29 At the same

1 TRXJCI ^AIBN I WI- VIJLLMJ 1 INIXI 1 A XIUW 1 ./VV

time, Christianity advanced in adjacent Mesopotamia, to the East. On its borders, the garrison town of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates had a Christian community at the beginning of the third century. The rooms set aside for worship in a private house rebuilt for this purpose have actually been discovered. A fragment of the Greek Diatessaron of Tatian, also discovered in Dura-Europos, shows how widely this was known.80 The existence of other churches in Mesopotamia is attested by a reference by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria.31 In the third century, too, there also arose the bishopric of Nisibis, which was later an intellectual centre of Syrian Christianity, and that of Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the Euphrates, the future ecclesiastical metropolis of the region.32.

Nearby Persia was opened in the third century as a new missionary territory for the Christian religion. Individual missionaries were able to penetrate into the Persian highlands from the Adiabene district. Political causes then led to the settlement of larger groups of Syrian Christians in the Persian empire; about the middle of the century (252), the incursions of the Sassanid rulers into Roman territory began, as a consequence of which numerous Syrian Christians were deported into the interior of Persia where they were given the opportunity for forming settlements of their own. In the organization of their church life and the practice of divine worship, Shapur I left them complete freedom, and so there sprang up, in addition to the purely Persian Christian communities, those which had exclusively Syrian members. As one of the Persian invasions had reached Antioch, there were Greek Christians among the prisoners too, and these had a place of worship of their own in Rev- Ardashir, later the seat of the Persian archbishops.33 When the revolutionary change in policy regarding the Church, which occurred in the Roman Empire under Constantine, became known to the Christians of Persia, their sympathies were, understandably, on the side of the now Christian empire; this led to a change in the attitude of the Sassanids to Christianity and prepared the way for the harsh persecution which under King Shapur II in the fourth century was to cost the young Persian Church a heavy toll of vicitims.

In view of the strength of that Christianity, it would be quite within the realm of possibility for east Syrian or Persian missionaries to have penetrated into western India at this time. The St Thomas Christians of south-west India, of course, regard the apostle Thomas as their first missionary, but the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, on which they have to base that belief, is not a very sound source. When Origen mentions India on one occasion, he still regards it as a pagan country. Arnobius the elder, however, clearly assumes the existence of individual Christians about the year 300 and the well-organized Christian communities attested by Cosmas Indicopleustes about 525 in Malabar, in the region of present-day Bombay, and in Ceylon, oblige us to assume a fairly long missionary development with its beginnings in the fourth or fifth century. That again suggests the possibility of evangelization by Persian Christians who had fled east from Persia under persecution and this conjecture is supported by the later dependence of the Indian Christians on Seleucia- Ctesiphon.

The region of Asia Minor maintained throughout the third century the lead in christianization which it had gained by the end of the second over other parts of the East. The province of Cicilia, the geographical link between west Syria and Asia Minor preserved, however, a marked orientation towards Antioch. The Pauline origin of the church of the city of Tarsus gave it special rank and caused it to become the metropolitan see of the province. Dionysius of Alexandria is probably referring to the metropolitan dignity of the Bishop of Tarsus when he gives Hellenus of Tarsus precedence over the other bishops of Cicilia. Examples of churches with bishops were those of Epiphania and Neronias, whose leaders were represented at the Synod of Ancyra in 314, and seven more were named as taking part in Nicaea, among them was a chorepis- copus, evidence that Christians in the countryside were already also joined into communities. Of the provinces of Asia Minor, Cappadocia and Pontus are prominent, both on account of the prestige of their metropolitans and their strong missionary interest. Firmilian of Caesarea was the recognized leader of the Cappadocian episcopate at their annual meetings and an enthusiastic admirer of Origen, whom he invited to his diocese.41 He corresponded with Cyprian of Carthage on the question of heretical baptism and so is already a pointer to the later theological standing of Caesarea.42 A considerable number of martyrs also contributed to its renown. At the end of the period of persecution the Christians were already in a majority in Cappadocia.

The Pontic regions, lying to the North of Cappadocia, were also a fertile mission field in the third century. Here, of course, there were certainly considerable Christian communities quite early, such as Amastris, Synope, Pompeiopolis, soon joined by the important Amaseia which was the metropolis as early as 240. The missionary, however, who succeeded in winning even the majority of the country population to Christianity, was Gregory Thaumaturgus. He received his theological formation with Origen and, after his return home, was consecrated bishop of his native town, Neo-Caesarea, by the Bishop of Amaseia. In his activity a well- thought-out missionary plan can be detected. After the Decian persecution he travelled systematically through the country districts, acquired precise knowledge of the strength of paganism and the religious customs of the people, and framed his missionary method accordingly. He succeeded in shaking the confidence felt by the people in the pagan priesthood and drew them to Christianity by an impressive liturgy. He seized on the liking of the population for festivals and celebrations in the course of the years, by giving these a Christian content and making festivities in honour of the martyrs the culminating points of the year. By his work, paganism was considerably overcome, though the task of deepening Christian belief remained for the later bishops of Pontus, as can be seen from the discussions of a Synod of Neo-Caesarea between 314 and 325 which dealt in detail with the discipline of the churches of Pontus. By that time, however, Pontus could be considered a country which, to a large extent, had accepted the Christian faith.

The evangelization of Armenia was essentially influenced by the neighbouring regions of Pontus and Cappadocia in the west and Osrhoene in the south-east, and this had consequences of various kinds for the Armenian Church. The first missionaries probably came from the South, from the Edessa area, preached in the province of Sophene in Lesser Armenia, and used Syriac as the language of the liturgy. It was probably here in the south-east that Meruzanes was a bishop; Dionysius of Alexandria addressed a letter to him about penance. The decisive impulse for the complete conversion of the country came, however, from Cappadocia. The Armenian, Gregory, had fled there when, in his country, struggles were taking place between the Persian Sassanids, the rulers of Palmyra, and finally, Rome. Gregory became acquainted with Christianity in Caesarea and was baptized there (c A.D. 285-90). After his return he became the great missionary of his nation, which, on this account, honoured him with the title of "The Illuminator". In his work of conversion he had the full support of his king, Trdat II, who with the upper classes of the country, embraced the Christian faith. The acceptance of Christianity by the Armenians assumed a political complexion when this was presented as a national alternative to the Persian religion previously imposed upon them. After overcoming the resistance of the pagan priests, Christianity became the State religion and the Church was richly endowed with the former temple treasure. The religious centre was Ashtishtat where the chief pagan shrine had stood and Bagravan was another important see. The influence of Cappadocia remained because Gregory and his immediate successors recognized Caesarea as a kind of higher metropolitan see. In his missionary methods Gregory the Illuminator seems to have imitated Gregory Thaumaturgus of Pontus, for he, too, zealously encouraged veneration of the martyrs and replaced pagan centres and seasons of worship by Christian churches at those places and by festivals in memory of Christian saints. The report of the forty martyrs of Sebaste shows that Christianity, by 300, had already a strong hold in the country districts of Armenia, too. Some of the village communities had a bishop at their head, others only priests and deacons. The last great persecution fell in Armenia on a country that was, in its majority, Christian, so that the fight of Maximinus Daia against the Christians was felt as an attack upon the whole nation. It was only in post-Constantinian times that evangelization of Georgia began on any considerable scale, but Christianity may well have become known there in individual cases through the busy trade that existed with the west of Asia Minor.

Although there is scarcely any question in the sources of any marked clash between paganism and Christianity in the western provinces of Asia Minor in the third century, nevertheless at this period, particularly in the towns, the Christian religion had achieved the position of an important minority. This much is clear from the situation that the Roman authorities discovered everywhere when they tried to put into effect Diocletian's religious edicts and the ordinances of Maximinus Daia or Licinius. In Nicomedia itself, where the persecution began, there were many Christians in high State positions, and even at court. This corresponded to their numerical strength in the administrative centre; there were similar strong communities in the Bithynian towns of Nicaea, Chalcedon, Prusa and others, as the presence of their bishops at the Council of Nicaea shows: and further expansion in the country is indicated by the existence of two chorepiscopi. A similar picture emerges for the provinces of Galatia, Phrygia and Pisidia; for their bishops met in synods in Iconium and Synnada at the time of the dispute about heretical baptism. Ancyra, the metropolis of Galatia, had quite a considerable synod in 314; its proceedings are extant. Laodicea, the metropolitan see of Phrygia possessed a celebrated martyr in Bishop Sagaris and the number of bishops of this province at Nicaea was considerable (eight). In Phrygia the wealth of Christian inscriptions from pre-Constantinian times is very striking, and neighbouring Pisidia is also distinguished by them; there, the best known sees were Iconium and Laodicea and nine others whose holders figure on the list at Nicaea. Least information is available in the sources for the provinces in the south of Asia Minor, Lycia, Pamphilia, and Isauria, although once again the presence of twenty-five bishops from these areas at Nicaea proves the intensive missionary work of the previous century. The same is true of the west coast of Asia Minor where as well as the famous names of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Sardes, Thyatira, and Miletus, a large number of other towns having churches ruled by bishops must be listed.

The impression of a far-advanced christianization of Asia Minor given by this survey of individual regions and provinces, is confirmed by a quantity of reports and indications referring to the whole of this territory. It is clear that, with the exception of the short Decian persecution, almost unrestricted freedom was available here throughout the third century for the preaching of the Christian faith. This is shown by the numerous epitaphs, even from smaller places in Asia Minor, upon which the Christian faith of the dead could be openly expressed. Similarly, the building of Christian places of worship seems to have encountered no difficulties; a little town like Amaseia in Pontus had several churches in the time of Licinius and would scarcely be unique in this respect. In many provinces, for instance in Phrygia and the neighbouring regions, a high degree of christianization had already been reached by the middle of the century, for Dionysius of Alexandria terms the communities of these areas "the most populous churches".57 Lucian of Antioch no doubt had such conditions in Asia Minor in his mind, when, in a discourse in Nicomedia, he said that "whole towns" had accepted the truth of the gospel.58 In the Diocletian persecution a town of the province of Phrygia was burnt down because the whole of it was Christian.59 Finally, Maximinus Daia when considering Asia Minor, justified his measures against the Christians on the grounds that "almost all" would be converted to that religion.00 The high percentage of bishops from Asia Minor present at Nicaea (and yet a number of absences must be reckoned with), shows too, that Christianity had here already given itself a thoroughly systematic organization, such as was required for the pastoral care of such a numerous following in the churches of both town and country.

The sources contain only sparse material, until the fourth century, on the progress of Christianity on the Greek islands. Certainly it was only by chance that no bishop from Crete took part in the Council of Nicaea, as of course the existence of churches with bishops in Cnossos and Gortyna, as early as 170, is proved by the correspondence of Dionysius of Corinth.61 On the other hand, the Christian communities of the islands of Corcyra, Cos, Lemnos, and Rhodes, had sent representatives. Christianity can also presumably be taken to have existed before 300 on the island of Patmos with its rich traditions. Cyprus was represented at Nicaea by the bishops of Salamis, Paphos, and Trimithus;62 here the proximity of Antioch had plainly been favourable to more rapid development. Finally Christianity before the Council of Nicaea had also found entry into the Greek settlements on the northern coasts of the Black Sea and in the Crimean peninsula, for the two bishops, Theophilus of Gothia and Cadmus of Bosphorus, who are known to have taken part in the Council, came from that area. Christianity had also been spread even among the Goths north of the Black Sea by Cappadocian prisoners of war who had been taken there in 258, after an attack on Asia Minor.63

The Greek mainland could not, about the year 300 rival either the intensity or extent of evangelization as it existed on the west coast of Asia Minor or in Bithynia, although stronger missionary activity might have been expected from towns of Pauline tradition. Something of the kind is perceptible in Corinth,64 which concerned itself with the christianization of the Peloponnesus. The latter possessed, in the third century,

57 In Euseb. HE 7, 7, 5. 58 In Rufin. HE 9, 6. 59 Euseb. HE 8, 11, 1. M Ibid. 9, 9 a, 1.

" Ibid. 4, 23, 5, 7-8. 82 Hamack Miss 786, 677. «Ibid. 797. w Cf. the letter of Dionysius of Corinth to the church of Lacedaemon: Euseb. HE 4, 22, 2.

several Christian communities, for "the bishops of Achaea" championed Origen in 231. Corinth, as the ecclesiastical metropolis, also possessed preeminence over Athens which preserved even into the fourth century the character of a pagan city and a centre of secular learning. It is not really clear why Origen twice stayed in Athens. He praised the order and peace of its church which, he said, contrasted with the noisy assemblies of the Athenian people.65 Further north, the island of Euboea and the towns of Thebes, Larissa, and, of course, Thessalonica, had episcopal churches whose leaders were present at Nicaea in 325.66

The West

It was only gradually that the romanized Balkans with their Danubian provinces and the adjacent Noricum became receptive to the message of the gospel.67 Reports about missionary activity by disciples of the apostles in these areas are legendary, but are supposed with no reliable evidence. Traces of Christianity can be found for Noricum, at the very earliest, in the second half of the third century; influence from Aquileia must be presumed for this. About the year A.D. 304 Florian became a martyr at Lauriacum (Lorch). It is only reports of the martyrdom of Christians in the Diocletian persecution that show that Christian faith had penetrated various Balkan areas by the beginning of the fourth century. For the provinces of Moesia and Pannonia the number of martyrs is in fact relatively high; among them were the bishops of Siscia, Sirmium, and Pettau; in Durostorum (Moesia) the soldier Dacius was executed, and a remarkable report of his trial and death is extant. The list of those present at Nicaea mentions, as well as those named above, the episcopal sees of Dacus, in the province of Dardania, Marcianopolis in Moesia and Serdica in Dacia. In addition, there are about twelve other places where Christian churches may be presumed to have existed but, with one exception, they are only towns. It was in these that the Christian faith first won large numbers of adherents, and the evangelization of the country people remained a task for the fourth and fifth centuries.

In Italy the third century signified a period of strong external and inner growth for the Christian community of the capital, Rome; the number of its members was increasing considerably, its internal organization was developing and becoming firmer and its prestige within Christianity as a whole was continually increasing. When Pope Callistus declared at the beginning of the third century that marriages between slaves and Roman matrons would be regarded as valid by the Church, it can be inferred that Christianity had also penetrated the upper classes. About the middle of the century, the total number of all Christians in Rome had increased so considerably that their pastoral needs could no longer be attended to from one church centre; a division into seven pastoral districts proved necessary, and was probably implemented under Pope Fabian. Eusebius provides very precise and significant figures regarding the strength of the clergy of the city of Rome under Pope Cornelius (251-3). The total of 154 clerics included 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 hypodeacons, 42 acolytes, and also 52 exorcists, lectors, and doorkeepers. The numbers of widows and poor people cared for by the community at that time was more than 1,500. Even if the percentage of those dependent on ecclesiastical charity is put rather high, a total number of Christians of some 10,000 must probably be inferred from all this.

In the second half of the century the administrative development was continued by the introduction and arrangement of what were later known as the titular churches; various districts of Rome now received a domus ecclesiae: a fairly large private house obtained by the community. As well as rooms for the clergy of the district these also provided rooms for divine worship and other pastoral purposes. The titular churches formed, with the cemeteries, the properties which were given back to the Church after the Diocletian persecution. It is also clear that the proportion of Christians in the total population of Rome at the beginning of the fourth century was very considerable from the attitude of Emperor Maxentius, who, though a pagan himself, deliberately refrained from any persecution, because he did not wish to turn the strong group of Christians into political opponents at home. Finally, the often-quoted remark of Cyprian that Emperor Decius had said that he was less concerned over the news of the revolt of a rival emperor than by the election of a new bishop in Rome, indicates the great prestige of the Roman bishop, but also, indirectly, implies the importance of the Roman Christian community in the middle of the third century.

Doubtless many a missionary campaign was undertaken by this strong and eminent church to win to Christianity the immediate and also more

— -* W» «nuv/U 1 A<Ut «SWW

distant surroundings of the capital. Unfortunately the details are lacking that would permit a more detailed account of the course of evangelization of central and southern Italy. Its success is shown by the controversy connected with Novatian's step in trying, after his separation from the great Church, to set up an ecclesiastical organization of his own for his followers. He had himself consecrated by three bishops as their leader and these three had been fetched from Italy, that is to say, in this case, from the country. Pope Cornelius gave new leaders to the churches of these bishops and then summoned a synod to Rome in which sixty Italian bishops took part, with numerous presbyters and deacons. Cornelius, in his report to Bishop Fabius of Antioch, provided a register containing the names of the bishops and their sees which included the name and see of the bishops who were prevented from taking part in the Roman synod, but who had written to disapprove of Novatian's proceedings. Unfortunately, this double list of bishops, which might have given information about the distribution of Christian churches in central and southern Italy, has not been preserved. If, however, as well as the sixty participants in the Roman synod and the bishops who were prevented from attending, the episcopal supporters of Novatian are also counted, the number of Christian communities in Italy about the year 250 must easily have amounted to a hundred. The signatures of those taking part in the Synods in Rome in 313 and Aries in 314 mention eight of these sees by name. About fifty other place-names can be inferred from reports of martyrdoms and archaeological finds as being probable locations of Christian communities even before Constantine's time.76 The country population of central and southern Italy, of course, had not been effectively reached by the Christian mission at the beginning of the Peace of the Church. A surprisingly low level of christianization is also displayed by the provinces of upper and northern Italy; these obviously at that time were not envisaged in Rome's missionary interests. Particularly the Tyrrhenian side of Northern Italy seems to have remained completely devoid of Christian influence before the fourth century. One of the oldest churches in Aemilia must have been Ravenna, whose list of bishops goes back to the third century. Close to it in age Rimini, Cesena, and probably Bologna, too, may have been pre-Constantinian churches.78 The martyrdom of Antoninus indicates that there was a Christian community in Piacenza at that time.79 In Venetia, Aquileia was an important early Christian centre which certainly had a bishop as its head in the second half of the third century.
Its fourth bishop, Theodore, and his deacon, Agathon, took part in the Synod of Aries in 314 and he was also the builder of the first Christian basilica in his city.60 From here, Christianity could easily penetrate to Verona and Brescia, both of which received their first bishops in the third century. The presence of Christians in Padua before Constantine's time may be considered probable. Perhaps even older than that of Aquileia is the Christian community of Milan, capital of the province of Transpadana. Its bishop, Merocles, who took part in the two Synods of Rome, 313, and Aries, 314, appears sixth among the bishops of Milan, so the see must have dated from the first half of the third century. The local martyrs, Felix, Nabor, and Victor, were the glory of Christian Milan in the fourth century. It is doubtful whether Christians can be presumed to have existed in nearby Bergamo before Constantine. The sources give no indication about Christians in the country districts of any of these provinces before this time and the country people, in fact, were only won over to Christian belief in the fourth and fifth centuries, by apostolic bishops of the towns.

The large islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Sardinia and Sicily, however, lay within the sphere of Rome's interest. There is reason to suppose that Christianity came to Sardinia through Roman Christians who had been condemned to forced labour in the mines there. The first bishop of the island whose name is known, is Quintatius of Calaris (Cagliari) who, with his priest, Ammonius, took part in the Synod of Aries. In the interior of the island, paganism certainly persisted for a long time. During the Decian persecution, the Roman clergy were in correspondence with Christians of Sicily. Syracuse on the east coast, with its rich traditions, is a Christian centre whose catacombs date back to the third century and whose bishop, Chrestus, was invited by Constantine to the Synod of Aries.8a

The third century represents for the Church of North Africa the decisive period of its pre-Constantinian growth, when Christianity was embraced by practically a majority in the towns. Tertullian's writings in many respects reflect the vitality and vigour with which evangelization was carried on at the beginning of the century. The report of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity gives a striking impression of the eager life of the church of Carthage, whose members belonged to every social class. The persecution under Scapula, in 211, involved Christians of the provinces of Byzacena and Mauretania. Particularly significant for the expansion of Christian communities throughout North Africa are the growing numbers of bishops who took part in the synods, which were particularly frequent there. Bishop Agrippinus (218-22) already had seventy bishops around him at a synod in Carthage, including some from Numidia, and at a synod in Lambaesis about 240, their number had already risen to ninety. Finally, the transactions of the synod of 256 not only record the attitude adopted to heretical baptism by the eighty-seven bishops who took part but also give the names of their sees. According to this, Africa pro- consularis had the greatest proportion of bishoprics; they were also numerous in Numidia though much rarer in Mauretania and Tripolitania. The correspondence and other writings of Cyprian are a mine of information regarding the size and variety of the community of Carthage, the capital, with its numerous and strongly organized clergy, and regarding the differing quality of the members of the church, a terrifyingly large part of whom gave way in the Decian persecution, while others bravely bore noble testimony to their belief. At the summit of this great community Cyprian himself ruled as a conscientious pastor and also as the sovereign head of African Christendom. By his character and personality, he put in the shade every provincial governor in the North Africa of his time and publicly and eminently illustrated the validity of the faith he represented.

The Christian religion was able, by the end of the period of persecution, to conquer for itself the majority of North African towns through its great prestige and through the impetus gained by its relatively rapid expansion.83 Shortly before, the most distinguished representatives of pagan literature, the Africans Arnobius and Lactantius, had accepted the Christian faith. In the Diocletian persecution apostasy and fidelity seemed to have more or less balanced; it became clear that such a proportion of the population of the urban settlements had decided for Christianity that it was no longer to be defeated. The Donatist controversy gives the impression of there being two denominations of one Christian people, for whom paganism had come to be a long-past episode of history. Nevertheless, the African Church still had a great missionary task before it, that of winning, as well as the romanized population, the Punic element of the nation and then the Berber tribes in south and west on the fringes of the North African mountains, so intensively to Christianity, that in times of persecution and tribulation they could preserve it independently. It will have to be shown later that neglect of this double task was one of the reasons why Christianity could not survive the Islamic invasion to any notable extent.

Information about the progress of Christian expansion in the Spanish provinces in the third century is not exactly abundant. There is an important letter of Cyprian's which indicates that in his time there were organized churches with bishops in various places in Spain, though he only names four of them, Leon, Astorga, Merida, and Saragossa. Cyprian also knew that these Spanish bishops met in synods but no missionary is named as preaching the faith there and no church from which he was sent. A certain link of Spanish Christianity with Rome can, perhaps, be inferred from the fact that one of these bishops appealed to the Bishop of Rome against the verdict of a synod. The reports of Christian martyrdoms indicate the existence of Christian groups, apart from those in the towns already mentioned, in Tarragona, Cordova, Calahorra, Alcala, Sagunto, and Astigi. Particularly informative for our purpose are the transactions of a synod which took place immediately before the beginning of the period of peace, in the town of Elvira (Granada) in the South of Spain; we have already frequently quoted them. Twenty-three churches of the province of Baetica (Andalusia) were represented by their bishops or other clerics; the representatives of fourteen other churches came from the province of Tarragona, eight of them from the frontier region of Baetica and two from the province of Lusitania. From the home towns of those who took part in the synod, it seems clear that the south-east of Spain had been most affected by evangelization, which had been stronger there than towards the Atlantic coast, the west or the north-west of the country. The tenor of the decisions of the Synod of Elvira provides a welcome measure of the effectiveness of previous missionary work in the Spanish provinces. This must be described as alarmingly slight, even if it is taken into account that the resolutions of such congresses generally do not stress the good features of religious life. Freedom from pagan customs and superstition was far from attainment, relations between Christian masters and their slaves showed little Christian spirit, attendance at church left much to be desired, all ranks of the clergy failed morally, and sexual

THE EXTENT OF CHRISTIANITY ABOUT A.D. 300

transgressions were widespread. The impression given in this case is not that a new worldly trend had begun in previously excellent communities, but that there had been a serious lack of the intensive missionary endeavour necessary to inculcate into persons, who had, perhaps, been converted all too rapidly, a Christianity which permeated all sections of life. This is confirmed, in particular, by the fact that the attempt was made to remedy the faults that existed by stern, punitive measures.88 The mission in Spain before Constantine's time, was not yet able to give the Church any bishop or writer of rank, and a broad field still lay open for missionary consolidation.

In Gaul, Christianity won most of its new adherents in the third century in the south-east, along the Rhone. As well as Lyons, other bishoprics existed as early as 200 but their names are not known. Aries is first mentioned in a reference by Cyprian,89 and it soon became important. Its bishop, Marcion, took part in the Roman Synod of 313; and in 314 the town was appointed by Constantine himself as the place where the bishops' conference should meet to discuss the Donatist problem. At this, the Provincia Narbonensis was represented by five other bishops, whilst from Aquitania another three bishops were present, but from the province of Lyons, only two.100 In short, christianization was progressively less westwards; missionary work only started there on a larger scale in the fourth century. In the province of Belgica, Trier (Treves) became a bishopric in the second half of the century;101 its third bishop, Agricius, was also at Aries in 314. The fact that there were Christians at the court of Con- stantius Chlorus in Trier,102 is more an indication of the emperor's tolerance than of the size of the Christian community. The growth of the latter became more rapid only during Constantine's reign as sole emperor, when the previous place of worship had to be replaced by a bigger church. For the whole of the rest of the province of Belgica, there is no information about Christian missionary activity, so that before Constantine, there cannot have been any successful work here.

It is true that Irenaeus already speaks of churches even in the province of Germania;103 if he was thinking of organized communities under bishops, only the Roman centres such as Cologne and Mainz could be meant. Only in Cologne, however, is an episcopal church definitely known to have existed before Constantine's time; its leader, Maternus, was invited

98 On this see J. Grotz, Die Entwicklung des Bufistufenwesens in der vornicanischen Kirche (Freiburg i. Br. 1955), 414-27. " Ep. 68, 1.

100 Cf. Map 4 in F. van der Meer - C. Mohrmann, op. cit. 10.
101
102 M. Schuler in Trierer Zeitschrift 6 (1931), 80-103. 101 Euseb. Vita Const. 1, 16.
103
105 Adv. haer. 1, 10, 2.
to the Synods of Rome and Aries. Farther down the Rhine, excavations in Xanten, which was then Colonia Traiana, have revealed a martyr's shrine and consequently proved the existence of Christians before Constantine's time, at least in this settlement on the lower Rhine. Christians can also be presumed, with some reason, to have existed in Germania inferior, in Tongern, for the town was the seat of a bishopric in the first half of the fourth century, under Bishop Servatius. In South Germany, Christians are found only in Augsburg, where the martyrdom of St Afra is recorded.

The first certain evidence of the presence of Christians in the British Isles is the account of the martyrdom of St Alban of Verulam, but this cannot be supposed to have occurred during the Diocletian persecution because Constantius Chlorus did not permit the edict against the Christians to be put into effect in the territories he governed. The same applies to to the deaths for the faith of the martyrs Julius and Aron in Legionum urbs (Caerleon), farther west. However, Britian was represented by the bishops of London, York, and, probably, Colchester at the Synod of Aries, so that, after all, communities of some size must have developed before the peace of Constantine began. But the real work of conversion, with marked success, only started here, too, in the following century.

The attempt has been made to estimate in figures the results of Christian missionary work at the beginning of the fourth century, and it has been thought that, out of a total population in the Roman Empire at that time of about 50 millions, there must be assumed to have been at least 7 million Christians, that is to say, nearly fifteen per cent. As, however, the proportion of Christians was not uniform everywhere in the Empire, these figures have only a limited value. More important is the knowledge that christianization in many areas, such as Asia Minor, and the regions of Edessa and Armenia, had affected half the population, while in other provinces of the Empire, such as Egypt, along the Syrian coast, in Africa proconsularis, and in the capital Rome and its immediate surroundings, such a large minority held the new faith that the decisive missionary advance of the Christian religion had in fact been made successfully in various parts of the Empire. The fact was also important that in other areas, such as Phoenicia, Greece, the Balkan provinces, southern Gaul and southern Spain, as well as in northern Italy, so many missionary bases

THE EXTENT OF CHRISTIANITY ABOUT A.D. 300

had been won, that further development would proceed there with comparable success. It was only in a few frontier districts in the East, on the north and west coasts of the Black Sea, in the Alps, in the Germanic provinces, along the Atlantic coast of Europe, and in the British Isles, that the Christian mission was still in its infancy. Anyone who surveyed this situation as a whole, at the beginning of the fourth century, and assessed it, could without great difficulty be certain that the advance of the movement of Christian belief was no longer to be stopped by the methods of a State persecution. The young Emperor Constantine drew the conclusion from such a realization.

The question might be raised: what intensity and depth actually had Christian missionary work in the course of the third century? Two phases may be distinguished in it; the long period of peace in the first half on the century had, of course, brought the Church notable outward gains, but the direct effect of the wave of persecution under Decian showed that it was not consolidated by corresponding religious growth in depth. The enormously large number of apostasies in Egypt, Asia, North Africa, and Rome made it unmistakably clear that admission to the Church had been granted far too optimistically and readily, when a more rigorous catechumenate would have been justified. Some lessons were obviously drawn from this during the second period of peace after the collapse of the Decian persecution. The last persecution, under Diocletian, showed a far more favourable balance sheet; and so more attention was given to deepening the effects of missionary work.

When it is remembered that the missionary activity of the pre-Constan- tinian Church was chiefly concerned with people who belonged to a relatively high civilization, with rich forms of religion and a multifarious variety of cults, it must be admitted that the results as a whole were outstanding. Comparison with the relatively slight success of Christian missions with culturally advanced nations of modern times, such as Japan, or the upper classes in India, turns out entirely to the advantage of the early Christian Church. The missionary task imposed by the founder of the Christian religion had been taken up enthusiastically by its adherents and, despite tribulations, sometimes of the most grievous kind, it was prosecuted with ever renewed energy. In the third century, the thought of missionary obligation fully prevailed in the doctrine of ecclesiastical writers. Hippolytus expressly points out that the gospel in the first place must be preached to the whole world.109 Origen expresses similar thoughts, and he was convinced that the unified Roman Empire was the providential condition for the rapid diffusion of the gospel.110 He knew the figure of the regular missionary, wandering not only from town to town but

">» In Dan. comm. 4, 17. 110 Contra Cels. 8, 72; 2, 30.

from village to village and from place to place, to win new believers in the Lord, receiving hospitality from well-to-do Christian men and women but taking with him on his missionary journeys only as much as he actually needed to live.111 Individual Christians often felt obliged to missionary work in their sphere of life, soldier and merchant, slave and Christian at court, women and confessors in prison. The Christian writer, too, was conscious of his missionary task.112 All contributed their share, so that a numerically large and internally strongly consolidated early Christian Church could undergo the supreme test of the Diocletian persecution.

i" Ibid. 3, 9.

118 Clement of Alex., Stromata, 1, 1.