Christian Initiation in the Third Century

Reading N°56 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

In the third century, initiation into the Christian life was by Baptism, preceded by the catechumenate, and immediately followed by Confirmation and participation in the Holy Eucharist. When a pagan, disillusioned from the mysteries of his religion or touched by the courage of the martyrs or by the example of Christian virtues, comes to the bishop to ask for a share in the Christian mysteries, the bishop first makes him undergo a probation, vaguely mentioned by Hermas^[1] and St. Justin,^[2] clearly organized in the time of Tertullian,^[3] and called the catechumenate. For several days, the postulant remains at the entrance to the Christian meeting during the celebration of the mysteries, for, right after the first prayers, the deacons exclude the catechumens. But the Church gives him instruction apart.^[4] She then requires that he "renounce the devil and his pomp and his angels,"^[5] that he prepare for the solemn initiation by prayer, fasting, vigils, and confession of his sins.^[6] Such, at least, was the rule at Carthage, as described by Tertullian. He says that the Church is thus exacting with the candidate for Baptism in order to be assured that he will not fall back into sin once he is baptized.^[7] The Church should be composed only of saints.

3rd century representation of Baptism
Catacomb of Ss. Marcellinus and Peter

Then comes the day of Baptism, "illumination," "reconciliation," "palingenesis" (new birth) as it is called.^[8] Regularly the candidate is dipped three times in the water, in memory of Christ's burial; his threefold coming out of the water symbolizes the mystery of the Resurrection. At each immersion, the name of one of the three divine persons is pronounced.^[9] In case of necessity, however, especially in case of sickness, Baptism was conferred by sprinkling or pouring. Some paintings of the third centtlry depict ceremonies which may go back to the end of the second century, showing the candidate standing in the baptistry, with the water reaching to his knees, and being sprinkled on the head.^[10]

The days especially reserved for the initiation of the catechumens are the Saturday before Easter and the Saturday before Pentecost, but Tertullian declares that, strictly speaking, Baptism may be conferred on any Sunday or even on any ordinary day.^[11]

When the baptismal ceremony is over, the new Christian is clothed in a white garment and introduced into the assembly of the faithful. The bishop, seated, presides at the meeting. The priests, at the bishop's side, and the deacons, whose duty it is to maintain order, are the only ones occupying places of honor. The rich are shoulder to shoulder with the poor, the freemen with the slaves. The newly initiated comes up to the bishop. The head of the Church, by the imposition of hands and anointing with holy chrism, confers on him the Sacrament of Confirmation, which makes him a perfect Christian and is looked upon as the complement of Baptism.^[12]

At length the newly baptized is admitted to participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice. We have already given St. Justin's description of the principal ceremonies of this rite. Passages from Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and the canons of Hippolytus^[13] enable us to complete the picture. From the middle of the second century, the "breaking of bread" is finally separated from the fraternal meal which accompanied it. The sacred function henceforth appears in all the purity of its rite, free from the abuses that so greatly afflicted St. Paul. We can easily imagille the neophyte's feeling when, for the first time, he was present at the mystery so long awaited.

3rd century representation of the Eucharist
Catacomb of Commodilla

A movement among the deacons and inferior ministers is a sign that the sacrifice is about to begin. Some go among the assembled faithful to see that each one stays in his proper place and to direct the liturgical acts; the others place on the altar the bread and the chalices prepared for the sacred repast.

"The Lord be with you all," says the bishop. "And with thy spirit," they respond. "Raise up your hearts," the bishop then says. To which they answer: "They are with the Lord." He continues: "It is fitting and just."

After several prayers, the chief of which is an invocation to the thrice holy God, the bishop, amid profound silence, slowly pronounces over the bread and wine the mysterious words first uttered by the Savior the night before He died. The mystery is consummated. Christ is on the altar, in the midst of His faithful, under the mystical veils of the consecrated elements. Again the prayer begins, more earnestly, addressed to the God here present, though invisible. Suddenly a deacon's voice cries out: "Sancta sanctis" (holy things are for the holy). "Amen," the people respond. The bishop receives communion, then the priests and deacons, and lastly all those present. The bishop lays the consecrated host in the communicant's right hand, which is open and held up by the left hand. The deacon holds the chalice, from which each one drinks directly. At each communion, the bishop says: "The body of Christ," and the deacon: "The blood of Christ." Each communicant responds "Amen."

When the communion is over, the deacon gives the signal for prayer. All pray, sometimes kneeling or even prostrate, in sign of humiliation and penance, sometimes standing up, with arms extended and the hands open like Jesus on the cross, to testify that they are ready to endure every suffering. Says Tertullian:

Thither [toward Heaven] we lift our eyes, with hands outstretched, because free from sin; with head uncovered, for we have nothing whereof to be ashamed. [...] With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose the wild beasts on us - the very attitude of a Christian praying is one of preparation for all punishment.^[14]

Footnotes

[1] Hermas, Visions, III, vii, 3.

[2] First Apology, 61.

[3] De praescr., 41. Tertullian's De poenitentia was addressed to catechumens.

[4] Idem, De baptismo, 1.

[5] Idem, De corona militis, 3.

[6] Idem, De baptismo, 20.

[7] Idem, De poenitentia, 6; De baptismo, 20.

[8] Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, I, 6.

[9] On the triple immersion, see Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 26.

[10] De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, II, 334.

[11] Tertullian, De baptismo, 19.

[12] On Confirmation, see St. Irenaeus, Haereres, IV, xxxviii, 2; Tertullian, De baptismo, 7f; St. Cyprian, Letters, 73. The Sacrament of Confirmation is sometimes called consignatio.

[13] The authority of Tertullian and St. Cyprian is well known. As to the Canons of Hippolytus, Batiffol says, "we possess no more complete and explicit description of the institutions of the early Church: it is a document of the highest rank." (Anciennes littératures chrétiennes, p. 158.) Save for a few easily recognized retouchings, the Canons of Hippolytus agree admirably with whatever we know about the liturgy in use at the beginning of the third century. (Ibid.)

[14] Tertullian, Apol., 30.

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The Hierarchy in the Third Century

Reading N°55 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by
 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

While Christian apologetics was speaking in tones of confidence, the Church was enjoying comparative freedom. The last six years of Emperor Commodus and the first nine years of Septimius Severus were a time of peace. She profited thereby to develop her hierarchical, sacramental, and liturgical institutions, to complete the organization of Church property, to promote the study of theology, and to give a new impulse to her Apostolic expansion. We have now reached the point where we should take a general view of this internal activity of the Church. And then we shall have to resume the story of her struggles against persecution and heresy.

(l. to r.) Priest, Bishop and Deacon
from the Raganaldus Sacramentary, c. AD 845

Tertullian's works show us the Church as an essentially graded society. The laity are subject to the deacons and priests, and all owe obedience to the bishop. No longer is there any mention of the presbyterial council. The monarchical episcopate is established everywhere. The lists of bishops which the historian Hegesippus gives in the middle of the second century leave no doubt on this point. The bishop's authority comes from the fact that he is the depositary of Apostolic authority, handed down to him through an uninterrupted series of bishops connected with the Apostles. Unlike the Apostles, the bishop has a limited territory, first called a "parish," later a "diocese."

The first bishops were chosen and instituted by the Apostles; but at an early date it became the custom to nominate bishops by election. When a see became vacant, the lower clergy of the diocese met and elected one of their number, after obtaining from the people a good testimony in favor of the candidate. Then they presented this candidate to the bishops of the neighborhood, who assembled in the principal city of the vacant diocese to preside at the election and to give canonical institution to the bishop-elect. The documents of the second century and of the early third show us the bishop administering his diocese in complete independence of the lower clergy. Yet in many instances he takes counsel of them and sometimes even asks the advice of the people.

Simple priests and deacons, unlike bishops, are promoted to Orders only upon the good testimony of the people. They can exercise no function without the approval of the bishop who ordained them; in case of serious fault, they can be deposed by the bishop. They are his helpers in the work of instructing the faithful and in the administration of the Sacraments. At the meetings of the Christian community, they take their places around the bishop - as it were, his crown. While the episcopal see is vacant, they assume charge of the administration of the diocese and render an account of their administration to the new bishop.

The duties of deacons are: to preach, baptize, and - under the bishop's control - to administer the property of the Church, to serve the bishop at the altar, to announce the meetings of the faithful, to maintain order, to receive the offerings of the faithful and to divide them among the poor.

Virginity, so earnestly recommended by St. Paul and exemplified by the Savior, His blessed Mother, and the Apostle St. John, is the ideal which the faithful, and especially the clergy, endeavor to approach. But as yet it is not made obligatory upon the clergy by any positive rule. The imperial laws forbidding celibacy placed too great an obstacle in the way of recruiting the clergy if celibacy were made a strict obligation. The only requirement is that, following the precept of the Apostle (1 Corinthians 4:12; 9:7 ff; Acts 20:34) the candidate for the clerical state be not twice married.

***

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The Question of Apologetics and Tertullian

Reading N°54 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by
 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Tertullian

Tertullian, the son of a pagan centurion, was born at Carthage about AD 160. He was carefully educated, made a thorough study of the Greek language and of jurisprudence, and for some years practiced law.^[1] Shortly before AD 197, he was converted to Christianity, and was soon afterwards ordained to the priesthood. He began at once to display an incredible activity against the enemies of the Church.

Tertullian was first of all a polemic. He was possessed of a vigorous mind, a rare scholarship, and perfect mastery of Latin, to which he added new words and phrases. He was quick in repartee and sharp in speech; but his reasoning is more dazzling than reliable, and his arguments are often inspired by passion. In one place he writes:

Unhappily, I am always dominated by the fever of impatience.^[2]

 Like St. Justin, Tertullian experienced the strength and the weakness of many philosophies before settling down in the Christian faith.^[3] But, whereas Justin retained some friendly feeling for the systems he had left, Tertullian never finds enough epithets with which to belabor the pagan philosophers, those mountebanks, those despisers of God and man,^[4] those patriarchs of heretics,^[5] those animals of glory.

A recent historian of Tertullian's philosophy^[6] has been able, by utilizing the researches of Nöldechen and Monceaux, to determine with almost certain assurance the date of the first works of the celebrated African priest. It must have been in AD 197 that he wrote his Ad nationes and his Apologeticus; in AD 197, his Testimony of the Soul; about AD 200, his treatise De praescriptione. The Ad nationes is an apology of the Christian religion addressed to the pagan nations; the Apologeticus is a plea addressed to the provincial magistrates of the Empire; the De praescriptione, his masterpiece, is directed against all heresies. Even in his first works, Tertullian makes known his threefold purpose: to confound paganism, to refute Judaism, and to pursue the last remains of the Gnostic heresy.

Amid incomparable beauties, his apologetic contains regrettable gaps and dubious rashness. When he looks for a sincere testimony about man, we see that he too disdainfully rejects that of philosophy; but with vigor and penetration he analyzes the deep aspirations of what he calls the soul of the artless man.

These testimonies of the soul are simple as true, commonplace as simple, universal as commonplace, natural as universal, divine as natural. [...] That which is derived from God is rather obscured than extinguished. It bears testimony to God [its author] in exclamations such as: 'Good God! God knows!' etc. [...] Therefore, when the soul embraces the faith [...] it beholds the light in all its brightness.^[7]

But it would be wrong to suppose that in proposing a way to lead souls to the faith, Tertullian despises reason. The very center of his whole argument is the divinity of Christ. For this, he appeals to three proofs: the testimony of the Old Testament prophecies, of the Gospel miracles, and of the annals of the early Church. In the paradoxical exaltation of his high-minded fervor, he does indeed boast of the abasements in the Gospel and of the scandal of reason, going so far as to write, if not, "Credo quia absurdum" (I believe, because it is absurd), which is neither his nor St. Augustine's, at least an equivalent phrase, "Credibile est quia ineptum; certum est quia impossibile."^[8] He means that the object of faith is that which reason without revelation would not perceive as something fitting or possible. The fiery apologist is so ardently convinced, and feels his conviction so keenly, that he cannot imagine that the truth, so clear to him, does not appear equally clear to others. Yet he writes this sentence, worthy of a real psychologist:

Faith, destined to a great reward, is acquired only at the price of great labor.^[9]

The superb peroration of Tertullian's Apologeticus will illustrate his animated and captivating eloquence.

Your courts are battlefields where we contest for the truth. Sometimes death ensues. It is our victory over you. Sacrifice, excellent magistrates, sacrifice Christians; the mob will thank you. Torment, torture, condemn, grind; your injustice will reveal our innocence. Therefore does God let you go ahead. When your hand harvests us, we increase; the blood of Christians is a seed (Semen est sanguis christianorum).Your philosophers have made less disciples by their writings than Christians have by their example. People come to us out of curiosity; they join us through conviction; then they long to suffer that they may wash away their sins in their blood; for martyrdom wipes out everything. It is a strange contrast between things divine and things human: when you condemn us, God absolves us.

In his Ad nationes, in the Testimony of the Soul and in the Apologeticus, Tertullian has pagans and Jews in mind; his De praescriptione is addressed to the heretics.

With marvelous penetration, Tertullian conceives two ways of refuting heresies: an analytical method, resting on a detailed discussion of texts and points of doctrine; a synthetic method, settling the question as a whole by the simple establishing of a fact. He later uses the first method in defending the idea of God against the dualism of Marcion and the pantheism of Valentinus and the idea of creation against the doctrine of Hermogenes. But first he wishes to show how all heresy, that is, every doctrine resting on individual choice (hairesis), on unrestrained inquiry, may be averted by a preliminary question. Tertullian makes appeal to his knowledge of the law. He knows that before the courts there are nice points of non-acceptance, of exceptions as the Roman law calls them, among which the principal one is prescription, peremptory exception by which a possessor, under certain conditions, without any other procedure, sets aside any claim of a third party to his property. Tertullian pleads prescription against every heresy, whatever it may be.

He takes his start from a series of undeniable facts, namely, that Christ has entrusted His teaching to His Apostles, that the latter have handed it on to the churches they founded, and that from these Apostolic churches have sprung all the others, like shoots inseparable from their common stock. In other words, the method instituted by Christ for the spread of His teaching is tradition, and the authentic organ of that tradition is the Church, in so far as it is connected with the Apostles by an uninterrupted chain. Hence, no one is allowed to appeal to his own personal interpretation against her. Tertullian says:

Who are you? When and whence did you come? As you are none of mine, what have you to do with that which is mine? Indeed, Marcion, by what right do you hew my wood? By whose permission, Valentinus, are you diverting the streams of my fountain? This is my property. I have long possessed it. I am the heir of the Apostles.^[10]

We can scarcely imagine a more overwhelming fervor. This very fervor does at times speak in rough, bitter tones, in which passion has too great a part. In his De spectaculis, which appeared about AD 200, the "severe African" cannot suppress his satisfaction at the thought of the future punishment of the persecutors.

What a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent of our Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant One. [...] What there excites my admiration? Which sight gives me joy? Which arouses me to exultation? - as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness. [...] Governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ! What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers now covered with shame! Poets also trembling before the judgment-seat of Christ. The tragedians, louder voiced in their own calamity, the play-actors, much more 'dissolute' in the dissolving flame.^[11]

Christian apologetics strikes a gentler note with the Octavius of Minutius Felix and the Epistle to Diognetus.

Was Tertullian's Apologeticus published before or after the Octavius? Critical study has not yet found a definite answer to this question, but it has concluded that the latter work was written in the last years of the second century. It is in the form of a dialogue. Its author, like Tertullian, was a lawyer and perhaps an African. But there is a contrast between the two. Minutius Felix avoids whatever may be offensive to the prejudices of the pagan scholars he is addressing. He lays stress on the depravity of polytheism and clears Christianity of the calumnies heaped upon it. But to establish his arguments, he appeals to the wise men of Greece and Rome rather than to the sacred writers. The mysteries of the Christian faith are left in the background. The author's aim is not to bring his reader into the interior of the temple, but to facilitate the approach to it. Even when most sharply criticizing the pagan horrors, his words breathe a contagious mildness. Its artistic composition and elegant style have given this little dialogue the title of "the pearl of Christian apologetics." The best profane writers of the second century - Frontinus, Aulus Gellius, Apuleius - cannot refuse the author of Octavius a place in the foremost ranks.

The same charm of style and the same gentleness are to be found in another small work, written in Greek, by an unknown author and at a date that can be determined only approximately. Probably it should be put at the close of the second century or, as Zeller and Funk think, in the first years of the third. The work is the Epistle to Diognetus.

The author's principal argument consists in describing the supernatural life led by true Christians, then in showing how the Church, the depositary of the treasure of Revelation and dispenser of grace through the Sacraments, is not merely the divinely organized "economy" for the sanctification of a chosen few, but also, either by the radiant influence of its virtues or by the blessings it draws down upon the world, an instrument of salvation for all mankind. With fine depth of thought, the writer says:

To speak simply, what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. [...] The flesh detests the soul and makes war upon it, because it is prevented by the soul from indulging freely in pleasure; the world for the same reason detests Christians. [...] The soul is confined in the body, and does itself hold the body in check; the Christians are in the world as in a prison, and they restrain the world.^[12]

Footnotes

[1] It is doubtful whether we should attribute to him the passages introduced in the Pandects under the name of Tertullian.

[2] Tertullian, De patientia, Chapter 1.

[3] Apologeticus, 46.

[4] Ad nationes, Book 1, passim.

[5] De anima, 3.

[6] D'Alès, La Théologie de Tertullien.

[7] De anima, 5; 41.

[8] De carne Christi, 5.

[9] Apologeticus, 21.

[10] De praescriptione, 37.

[11] De spectaculis, 30.

[12] Letter to Diognetus, VI, 1, 5-7.

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The Question of Orthodoxy and St. Irenaeus

Reading N°53 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by
 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Pagan philosophy, with its frontal attack upon Christianity, was one of the great dangers of the Church at the close of the second century. The Gnostic sects, employing the outward expressions and the formulas of the Christian spirit, tended to dissolve it; they were a peril no less serious. A new apologist, St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, saw the peril and averted it.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

The priest, who in AD 177 was chosen to succeed the glorious martyr St. Pothinus in the see of Lyons, was born at Smyrna or in the neighborhood of that city about AD 130. The relations which he had in his youth with Polycarp, the illustrious bishop of Smyrna, and with the venerable Papias, his extensive literary culture, and his lofty virtue soon made him conspicuous among the clergy of Lyons. While Pothinus was bishop, the clergy of Lyons sent Irenaeus to Rome to Pope Eleutherius as their representative to treat of important matters, commending him as "zealous for the covenant of Christ."^[1] We know almost nothing of his episcopal ministry or his death. In one passage, St. Jerome gives him the title of "martyr." His death must have taken place during the persecution of Septimius Severus in AD 202. But his strife against false Gnosticism, the chief object of his zeal, would suffice to make him illustrious and venerable among all the bishops of old Gaul; his treatise Against Heresies is an imperishable monument. In this book, the entire heretical movement of the second century lives again before our eyes.

Gnosticism, in passing from the schools of Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus to those of their first disciples, greatly degenerated. Or rather, these latter logically deduced the fatal consequences inherent in the primitive teaching. The fancies of a whimsical metaphysics brought forth the eccentricities of a capricious morality. Secundus, looking for the origin of evil, did not stop with Achamoth; he went back to the very womb of the Pleroma. Marcus introduced into his system the speculations of the Cabbala. The Ophites, in a complicated doctrine that absorbed all the others in the third century, explained the whole system of the world by the conflict between a mysterious serpent (Ophis) and the Creator (Jaldabaoth), so as to bring man nearer to the good and inaccessible God. The Cainites, exalting strength, even in evil, peopled their Olympus with all the scoundrels who had dishonored mankind, from Cain to Judas. Some Gnostics, it is true, tried to stem the movement that was carrying the new sect toward every revolt and depravity. But no great results came of the efforts made in this direction, whether by Ptolemy, a philosopher of clean and exact mind, or by Theodotus and Alexander, whose souls were really enamored of moral purification and asceticism.

The early Fathers, and St. Irenaeus first of all, compare with the masters of Gnosticism a certain man who had started out from an altogether opposite point of view, but then espoused their theories and even claimed to work out a clearer and more exact system from them. This man was Marcion.

Marcion was born at Sinope on the Black Sea. After making a fortune at sea, he came to Rome about AD 140 and presented the Roman Church with a large sum of money, two hundred sesterces. Marcion's first idea was to react against that mixture of Christianity and gross Judaism which the founders of Gnosticism professed.

But since the soundness of his judgment did not equal the warmth of his convictions, his zeal carried him beyond the bounds of moderation and truth. Like Luther, whom he strikingly resembles, he ended by attacking-dogma, on the pretext of wishing to correct an abuse.^[2]

The antithesis which St. Paul points out between the Faith and the Law, between the Old Testament and the New, Marcion considers a radical antagonism. In a book which he published under the title of Antitheses, he says that from this opposition it follows that the God of the Gospel, the Father of mercies, must be the enemy of the God of the Jews, author of the creation and of the Law. Thus, by an altogether different route, Marcion arrives at the dualism of the Gnostics. He says that certainly the purpose of Redemption is to rescue man from the evil work of creation; but the good God who became incarnate, unwilling to owe anything to the Creator, possessed only an appearance of humanity. By this second notion Marcion, after cursing the Creator and the Law, finally evaporates the Gospel history into an absolute Docetism.^[3]

These are the doctrines which the Bishop of Lyons unmasks and refutes. We will not attempt to follow this "very exact inquirer into all doctrines," as Tertullian calls him,^[4] in his inquiries and arguments. In the words of one of his most discerning interpreters, we will give a brief summary of his great treatise. With pliant but close reasoning, Irenaeus shows that the Gnostics are driven to one or other of two final explanations: dualism or pantheism.

He pursued them into these two last entrenchments. You cut God off from the world, he said, or you confuse God with the world; in either case you destroy the true notion of God. If you put creation outside of God, whatever name you give to eternal matter - Void, Chaos, Darkness - is unimportant; you limit the divine Being. This is tantamount to denying Him. There is no use in your saying that the world may have been formed by angels. Either they acted against the will of the supreme God, or according to His command. On the first hypothesis, you accuse God of powerlessness; on the second, in spite of yourselves you are brought to the Christian doctrine, which considers the angels as instruments of the divine will. If, on the contrary, you place creation in God, in such a way that it is reduced to a mere development of His substance, you enter upon a path even more inextricable. In this case, whatever imperfections and defilements there are in creatures become transferred to God Himself, whose substance becomes theirs. You say that the world is the fruit of ignorance and sin, the result of a failing or a fall of the Pleroma, a progressive degeneration of the Being, or, to use your favorite metaphor, a stain on the tunic of God. But do you not see, in this confusion of the Infinite with the finite, it is the divine nature itself that declines, that degenerates, that is stained with vice or imperfection? Could the notion of God be more seriously altered?^[5]

But the holy Bishop is not satisfied with refuting the error. Desirous of giving his readers the rule of faith by which every particular opinion must be judged, he then sets forth the whole Catholic doctrine in a great synthesis. In so doing, St. Irenaeus is not merely an apologist, he is also a theologian: in fact, he may rightly be called the father of Catholic theology.

The rule of faith laid down by St. Irenaeus is clear and sound. Religious truth is found in the tradition of the Church: this is the sum and substance of his doctrine. The genuineness of the faith of the present is proved by the fact that those who now teach it received it from the Apostles. Its absolute infallibility is guaranteed by the indefectible assistance of the Holy Ghost. We quote some of the holy Bishop's own words.

The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples this faith.^[6] [...] This is the unchangeable rule we receive at baptism.^[7] [...] The only true and lifegiving faith, the Church has received from the Apostles and imparted to her sons. For the Lord of all gave to His Apostles the power of the Gospel, through whom also we have known the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son of God; to whom also did the Lord declare: "He that heareth you, heareth Me."^[8] The Church is the Church of God.^[9] Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God.^[10]

And the center of that Church is at Rome, "the very great, the very ancient and universally known Church, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, [...] Rome, whose pastors are connected with the chief of the Apostles by an uninterrupted series of legitimate pontiffs; for it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church on account of its preeminent authority."^[11]

After thus establishing the rule of faith of the Catholic Church, St. Irenaeus, in an ample synthesis, gives the essential content of that faith. The great Bishop's whole theology is inspired by these words of St. John:

This is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.^[12]

Assuredly, it is well to insist upon the infinite distance separating us from God; but in exalting His supreme Essence, we must be careful that we do not make of Him the supreme Impotence and the supreme Indifference. By what right may we deny to the infinite Being the power of producing, outside of Himself, a world which, while not being He, depends upon Him in its operations and ill its substance? We must rather hold to this dogma of creation, which, mysterious though it is, contains the only reasonable solution, because, distinguishing what must be neither separated nor confused, it escapes the two shoals of dualism and pantheism.

But not only did the infinite Being have the power of producing real creatures, He had the power of making Himself known to them, the power of redeeming them from their faults and their wretchedness, the power of raising them even to Himself by a sort of deification. The mediator of all these divine mysteries is Christ. Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God incarnate, truly God and truly man, is the Revealer of God, the Redeemer of man fallen in Adam, and the Deificator of him who abandons himself to His grace. These three ideas sum up the Christology of St. Irenaeus. That revelation, redemption, and deification produce their full effects only after this life, in the kingdom of glory, but in this life, the Eucharist, where God and man meet and unite in an outpouring of unspeakable love, is the divine seal of the work of revelation, redemption, and deification.

Our exposition of St. Irenaeus' teaching would be incomplete if we failed to mention the large place he gives to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the economy of grace. St. Justin had already mentioned her effective and voluntary participation in the work of the Redemption. St. Irenaeus stresses the part taken by her. As St. Paul contrasted the work of the first Adam with that of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, so the Bishop of Lyons contrasts the first Eve, who brought about the fall, with the second Eve, Mary, who saved mankind. He says:

The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. One resisted God's command, the other submitted thereto. Eve heeded the devil's words, Mary gave ear to the voice of the angel. As the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin.^[13]

We cannot overemphasize the importance of the part taken by St. Irenaeus in the history of the Church. This first of Catholic theologians is the last pupil of the immediate disciples of the Apostles. He who made the first systematic synthesis of our faith had still in his ears the last echoes of the Apostolic teaching. His work is a golden ring joining the spirit of the Gospel to the teaching of the Fathers.

Footnotes

[1] Eusebius, H. E., V, iv, 2.

[2] Freppel, Saint Irénée, p. 287.

[3] Ibid., p. 185.

[4] Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos, 5.

[5] Freppel, op. cit., p. 357. The exactness of Freppel's summary may be verified by reading the Adversus haereses, Book 2, Chapter 30.

[6] Haereses, I, x, 1.

[7] Ibidem, I, ix, 4.

[8] Ibidem, III, pref.

[9] Ibidem, I, vi, 3; xiii, 5.

[10] Ibidem, III, i, 1.

[11] Ibidem, III, iii, 2.

[12] John 17:3.

[13] Adversus haereses, III, xxii, 4; V, xix.

***

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The Question of the Eucharist and the Apologetic Writings of St. Justin

Reading N°52 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

St. Justin Martyr

Nearly all scholarly men of the time of Marcus Aurelius were enamored of philosophy. A few apologists there were who thought they could venture to present Christianity as a "new philosophy." But what connection was there between this and the old philosophies? In what was it separated from them? What were its constituent elements and its tenets? Could a synthesis of it be presented that would be understood by a follower of the Greek philosophers? Justin the Philosopher made it his duty to undertake the formidable task of replying to these questions.

Justin was a layman, but he had delved into the teachings of the Church. He even opened a sort of theological school at Rome. His noble attempt at a synthesis is not without inexactitudes and even errors, but this first essay of religious philosophy exercised an immense influence over the minds of his and of the next century.

The publication of Justin's first apology is generally placed at about the year AD 150. The second made its appearance a few years later, about AD 155, and the Dialogue with Trypho some few years after that, about AD 160.

If we separate the philosophic doctrine from what is purely discussion, arguments ad hominem and claims for actual rights, it can be reduced to this: Christianity is the true religion because it is the universal and absolute religion. Although the Word is fully manifested in Christ, yet the ancient world, everywhere and in all ages, possessed the seed of it. The great day of the Incarnation was preceded by a vast and brightening dawn.

As a basis for his contention, Justin takes two sacred sayings. One is from St. Paul:

When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, these having not the law are a law to themselves [...] their conscience bearing witness to them. (Romans 2:14f)

The other is from St. John:

[The Word is] the true light, which enlighteneth every man. (John 1:9)

He says: "All men are partakers of the Divine Word; its seed is implanted in their soul."^[1] "This germinal understanding comes from the Word; by virtue of it the wise men of old were, from time to time, able to teach beautiful truths. [...] For, whatever good the philosophers and lawmakers said, they owed to a partial view or knowledge of the Word. [...] Socrates, for instance, knew Christ in a certain way, because the Word penetrates everything with His influence. [...] Therefore, too, Plato's doctrines are not altogether contrary to those of Christ, although not absolutely like them, as may also be said of the teachings of the Stoics, the poets, and the historians. [...] So we may say that whatever good the ancients had belongs to us, to us Christians. [...] Besides, all who have lived according to the Word are Christians, even though they have been regarded as atheists: such were Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greeks, and, among others, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and Elias, besides many more. [...] As they knew the Word only in part, they did not have that lofty knowledge, free from all blame, which is our portion. Therefore was the Word made man. [...] It is one thing to possess only a seed of the Word; quite another thing is it to possess the Word Himself, who is communicated to us by His grace."^[2]

Freppel, after summing up St. Justin's theory of the Word, says: "Such is that enlightening and fruitful doctrine which at the school of Alexandria will presently open those great vistas into which Clement and Origen will rush with daring and not without some danger. It is a whole programme of Christian philosophy, embracing the theory of human knowledge, the intellectual constitution of the ancient world, and its relations with Christianity."^[3]

Justin considers humanity as a great unit, with its different parts brought together by Christ, who is the center and the soul of it all. Yet he does not hold that natural reason is sufficient for the possession of saving grace, or that it is absolutely sufficient even when aided by interior grace, to the exclusion of any external revelation. No one more forcibly shows the eminent part of external revelation in the genesis of faith than Justin. He even admits a direct influence of the books of Moses upon the teaching of the Greek philosophers and seems to attribute to revealed faith alone whatever truth Hellenic wisdom possessed. In short, his expressions have not all the exactness we might wish. If some of them may be interpreted in the sense of an unorthodox "subjectivism," others seem, on the contrary, to be inspired by a suspect "extrinsicism." In an admirably majestic attempt, Justin wished to include all the objective and subjective elements of a belief to which he clung with loyal submission, without surrendering any of the rights of his philosophic reason. But at times, this proved an impossible task for him, or at least, in the exposition of the Catholic faith he did not find those precise expressions which the Church, aided by the Holy Ghost, was to employ later.

Some defects of expression and of thought, still more striking and no less explicable, are to be noted in Justin's writings when he speaks of the Trinity, the angels, and the end of the world. He clearly teaches the existence of one only God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Neophytes, he says, are baptised in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.

In all the offerings that we make, we bless the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Ghost.^[4]

In these words, Justin merely purposes expressing and professing the faith of the Church, and he is quite orthodox. But when he attempts a philosophical explanation, he, like Hermas, expresses himself in terms which the later decisions of the Church would no longer allow to be used. Between the Father and the Son, he seems to admit a certain subordination, hard to understand, in the perfect unity of will and divine essence. He supposes the angels have an airy body; and he says:

Although many true Christians think otherwise [...] I am assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead that will last a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be rebuilt.^[5]

In other words, he professes Millenarianism as a private opinion.

When Justin speaks as a philosopher, his assertions can be accepted only with reservation. But they should be accepted with the greatest veneration when he speaks as a witness of the faith of the Church. In this capacity, his testimony on the sacrifice of the Eucharist is one of the most precious bequeathed to us by Christian antiquity.

Until his time, the "Discipline of the Secret," as it was later called, did not permit this holiest of mysteries to be divulged. But Justin, considering it necessary to have the pagans see Christianity with its whole economy of doctrines, ceremonies, and moral practices, could not conceal the fact that the Eucharist was the center of all these. Moreover, the people and even the philosophers had too long believed, or pretended to believe, that the Christians' secret was a cloak for some shameful practices. Justin considered that the time had come to disclose everything.

The following are the two famous passages in which the Christian philosopher for the first time reveals to the whole public the sacred ceremonies of the Eucharistic sacrifice:

Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss of peace. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water. And he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being accounted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying "Amen". This word "Amen" answers in the Hebrew language to γένοιτό [so be it]. And when the president has made the eucharist, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us "deacons" give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion. And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called "Gospels", have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread and, when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood." And He gave it to them alone.

This is the apologist's first description of the Mass. But, as though he feared not to have sufficiently described this supreme act of religion, he returns to the subject a few lines further on:

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings with all the earnestness of his soul, and the people assent, saying "Amen". And there is a distribution of the consecrated Eucharist to each, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.^[6]

"In this account," says Freppel, "it is easy to recognize the sacrifice of the Mass in all its essential or integral parts: the offertory, the consecration, and the communion. A single officiant with deacons, the reading of a portion of the Old or New Testament, an exhortation to the people based on the passage read, the offering of bread and wine (with water added) as the matter for use in the sacrifice, thanksgiving offered to God by the presiding officer, and hymns of praise in which the whole assembly joins, a lengthy prayer by the celebrant alone, during which he consecrates the offerings by the Savior's own words, the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, again prayers of thanksgiving interrupted by the people's acclaim, expressing by a word their participation in the act performed by the celebrant, the kiss of peace (a public sign of Christian brotherhood), communion distributed to those present and brought by the deacons to the sick and others who are absent, a collection for the benefit of the poor: this whole picture of the Christian liturgy in the middle of the second century is evidently that of the sacrifice of the Mass as it is celebrated today all over the world. St. Justin's description corresponds point by point with the great central act of Catholic worship. It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive condemnation of Protestantism than this testimony by one of the earliest apologists of the Christian religion."^[7]

We know that Justin's courageous plea did not stop the course of the persecution and did not prevent his own martyrdom. But his work was nonetheless fruitful. Certain calumnies could no longer be repeated against the Christians except by people who were in bad faith. It was thenceforth established that Christian thought could fearlessly enter the domain of philosophy and count for something there.

Footnotes

[1] Second Apology, 8.

[2] First Apology, 46; Second Apology, 8, 16, 13, 14.

[3] Freppel, Les Apologistes chrétiens du IIe siècle, p. 328.

[4] First Apology, 61; cf. Dialogue, 56, 60, 126, 127; First Apology, 13.

[5] Dialogue, 80.

[6] First Apology, 65-67.

[7] Freppel, op. cit., p. 304.

***

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The Question of Penance and the Shepherd of Hermas

Reading N°51 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

During the latter part of the second century, four great problems claimed the attention of those who belonged to the Church and of those who regarded her with religious curiosity from without: a moral problem, a philosophical problem, a dogmatic problem, and an apologetic problem. Hermas, St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian successively broached these four problems.

The Church, expanding among the Gentiles, opened her arms wide to the converts from paganism, to converts whose former life was often voluptuous or frivolous. She thus assimilated elements that were less pure than those of her first days. The virtue of the neophytes was not sustained by the enthusiasm which marked that early period. Less frequent and less powerful were the mystical graces which at first Providence bestowed upon the Christians so lavishly. Christian communities now counted in their ranks some criminals, murderers, adulterers, and apostates. Could such offenses be blotted out by penance?

Two extreme opinions came to light. By an excusable exaggeration, many of the early Christians had imagined that Baptism and the Eucharist conferred a sort of impeccability. Did not God's gift have the power of communicating an incorruptible life? And was it possible that a rational man, permitted to nourish his soul upon his God, would reach such an excess of ingratitude as gravely to offend Him thereafter? Therefore, when these Christians witnessed the first apostasies, they saw only one possible penalty for the abominable defection: exclusion from the Church, malediction, or at least abandonment of the guilty one to God's justice. These Christians took in strict literalness the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

It is impossible for those who were once illuminated [by baptism], have tasted also the heavenly gift [of the Eucharist], and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost [...] and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance. [...] For the earth that drinketh in the rain which cometh often upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God. But that which bringeth forth thorns and briers is reprobate and very near unto a curse, whose end is to be burnt.^[1]

But the harshness of such a solution provoked a radical reaction. Self-styled doctors held that every fault of a Christian should be regarded as indifferent. Did not the disciples of Carpocrates teach that man is saved by faith and charity, and that the rest does not count?^[2] Did not certain Valentinians declare that once anyone has recognized the rights of the Holy Spirit over the spirit, the flesh should be given its rights?^[3] These doctrines, slowly trickling into the mass of the faithful, appeared to many to be the true solution.

As usually happens, the clear declarations and the decisive tone of such teaching made converts among the people, ever ready to prefer a shocking doctrine that is asserted with clearness and force to a prudent doctrine which employs shades of difference in its formulation.

Weak but sincere souls that had yielded to sin, or feared they might yield, suffered unspeakable agony. From what he had seen with his own eyes, St. Irenaeus gives us a picture of those "who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. [...] Some, in a tacit kind of way, despairing of attaining to the life of God, others have apostatized altogether; while others hesitate between the two courses, being neither without nor within."^[4]

Between the years AD 140 and 154, according to the conjectures of the best critics, there appeared at Rome a book that aimed to bring peace to troubled consciences, to refute the two radical doctrines, and to offer a prudent solution to the problem, in conformity with the Gospel spirit of justice and mercy. This book was entitled Poimen (Shepherd), and was written by a brother of Pope Pius I. Its style was simple, figurative, and popular.

The author first relates his own history. He was born in slavery, sold by his master to a Roman matron named Rhode, later freed by her, and then married. He acquired a large fortune in business, but at the same time lost both faith and virtue. Chastised by God, and stripped of his riches, he had, he says, the grace to bow beneath the hand of the Lord who struck him. But, while he was plowing on a small farm, at the gates of the city, an angel of God appeared to him in the form of a shepherd. This angel gave him certain counsels of morality which he was to communicate to his brethren.

These counsels are divided into three books: the book of the Visions, the book of the Similitudes, and the book of the Precepts or Commandments.

Hermas is not a controversialist, but an apologist, in the sense that he wishes to defend the Church and make her loved. What he desires is to confound the hypocrites and the wicked and reject them so that, being thus purified, "the Church of God shall be one body, one mind, one spirit, one faith, one love."^[5] A single inspiration runs through the whole work - to give hope of salvation to the fallen Christian. Its general subject is "the pardon of sins after a sincere repentance." He says:

The Lord bears no malice against those who confess their sins, but is merciful.^[6]

Every fault is remissible, according to Hermas. Neither murder nor adultery nor apostasy - the three sins that some later on wished to exclude from pardon - is reserved. Yet the author attaches two conditions to the pardon: the penitent, once converted, must afflict his soul, humble and purify himself;^[7] the penitent can be converted only once.^[8] Hermas seems to say also that this pardon is only an exceptional grace accorded merely in view of the proximate end of the world.^[9] This moral doctrine of the Shepherd was received in the middle of the second century as a voice of mercy. Today it seems severe. But, to appreciate it, we must put ourselves in spirit in the times when this work appeared.^[10] In a period when martyrdom was threatening every Christian, a popular sermon, as Hermas' book really was, without aiming at too great theological exactness, gave Christians to understand that all were required to possess their soul in readiness for heroism.

Hermas is not theologically precise, either when he speaks of the end of the world, which he supposes to be imminent, or when he discourses on the Trinity, which he seems to grasp but poorly. But he loves and venerates the Church with his whole heart. It is, he says, the first of all creatures; for it the world was made;^[11] it is established upon the Son of God as upon a rock, and belongs to Him as to a master.^[12] And it is a hierarchical church, with its various chiefs, bishops, priests, deacons, apostles or missioners.^[13] Its function is to teach the faithful, to train the elect.^[14] This sole Catholic Church, superposed upon the local churches and including them all, has a supreme head. When the aged woman who stands for the Church appears to Hermas, she hands him a book; and Hermas is directed to bring this book to Clement, the head of the Church of Rome, who will see that it reaches "the cities abroad."

The Shepherd of Hermas spread rapidly among the faithful. Its diffusion is attested by St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, by several Latin versions, and by an Ethiopic version. Some churches even included it, with the Epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, in the canon of their sacred books.

Footnotes

[1] Hebrews 6:4-8.

[2] St. Irenaeus, Haereses, I, xxv, 5.

[3] Ibidem, I, vi, 3.

[4] Ibidem, I, xii, 7.

[5] Hermas, Similtudes, IX, xviii, 4.

[6] Ibidem, IX, xxiii, 4.

[7] Ibidem, IX, xxiii, 5.

[8] Precepts, IV, i, 8; iii, 6.

[9] Visions, I and II; cf. III; Similtudes, VIII, ix, 4.

[10] A. d'Alès ("La discipline pénitentielle d'après Ie Pasteur d'Hermas," in the Recherches de science religieuse, 1911, pp. 105-139, 240-263) says: "Hermas' work is not an official document, but a private document of very great worth, because it naively reflects the preoccupations of the pastors of the Roman Church in the second century, and the expedients of their zeal. [...] We can understand that it was judged inopportune to enumerate, for catechumens, the opportunities they might have for being reconciled to God, should they fall into sin after Baptism. For Christians who have fallen into sin after Baptism, specifically to adulterers and apostates, or idolaters, the Shepherd offers, for one time, on condition of penance being performed, divine pardon, and also - as is evidenced throughout the book - reconciliation with the Church. At the same time, it took pains to warn them that this favor would not be repeated. For those who fell again after a first reconciliation, we cannot see what the Shepherd offered; but doubtless it did not leave them without hope. Whatever the severities of the Shepherd for the δίψυχοι, one thing stands out clearly in the book, namely, that whoever is willing to do penance can again enter into favor with God."

[11] Visions, II, iv, 1. Cf. I, i, 6; III, iii, 3-5.

[12] Similitudes, IX, xii, 1, 7 f.

[13] Visions, II, ii, 6; II, iv, 3; III, v, 1.

[14] Ibidem, III, ix, 7-10.

***

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The Early Apologists: Aristides, Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus

Reading N°50 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by
 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

During the second half of the second century, the Christians did more than simply die with courage. The mere reading of their judicial examinations shows them exercising a confident and spirited effort to convert others. Among them, and besides them, were the apologists -theologians, catechists, not only striving to free Christianity from the charges made against it, but also spreading a knowledge of its harmony, beauty, and moral excellence, showing that it was dissociated from the heretical sects that were compromising it by their evil repute, and promoting its beneficent and sanctifying action. This was the work of a group of educated Christians. The most illustrious were Justin Martyr, the philosophers Aristides, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, and Athenagoras, Irenaeus, the renowned bishop of Lyons, the author of the Shepherd, the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, and that great polemic whose valiant defense of the faith was known to the second century, but who, in the next century, fell into the snares of error - Tertullian.

These defenders of the Christian faith differed in style, temperament, education, and point of view. But they were all moved by the same inspiration. They felt that the struggle taking place between the pagan and the Christian world was not merely a struggle between two contending powers, but a struggle between two contrary systems of thought, two opposing moral attitudes. It was to justify the Christians' thought and moral attitude, to bring them a victory among their contemporaries, that these men wrote and spoke.

St. Aristides of Athens

Aristides was an Athenian philosopher. His plan is simple, but bold. The populace insulted the followers of Christ by calling them atheists; the charge made against them by the courts was that of atheism and impiety. Aristides wishes to prove, as against these charges, that the Christians alone have a correct idea of the Divinity and pay it worthy homage. In the matter of religion, he says, men are divided into four clases: the barbarians, the Greeks, the Jews, and the Christians. The barbarians adore the powers of nature, the sun and the winds. The Greeks have deified the powers and passions of man. The Jews have the worship of higher spirits, angels, but they make the mistake of honoring these more than they do God Himself and of confining themselves too much to wholly external ceremonies. The Christians alone adore God in spirit and in truth by the purity of their faith, but even more by the purity of their lives. The apology of Aristides, like the Didache, ends with a charming picture of the life of the early Christians.

Aristides' apology, which appeared in the reign of Antoninus Pius,^[1] must have made a deep impression on upright souls.^[2] Notwithstanding the gravity of the charges against the false religions, the tone of the work is calm and dignified, respectful toward the philosophers and poets of Greece.

Tatian the Assyrian

Quite otherwise was the apology which the Assyrian philosopher Tatian published soon after. It has been said that Tatian inaugurated the school of virulent apologists.^[3] Bardenhewer says that Tatian everywhere displays a passionate harshness and partiality. He is unwilling to see any good in Hellenic culture. He repeats, without investigation, all the calumnies that were current against the Greek philosophers. What attraction there was in the warmth of his discourse and the strength of his conviction was offset by the repulsion which the bitterness of his attack aroused.^[4] The fiery apologist, precursor of Tertullian, ended, like the latter, by suddenly separating from the Church. About AD 172, he returned to the East and founded the Gnostic sect of the Encratites, who forbade marriage, as also the use of wine and meat, and who, in celebrating the Eucharist, used water in place of wine - whence the name Aquarians which was given to them.

Athenagoras was a Christian philosopher of Athens. He frankly rejected the apologetics of invective and returned to that of simple exposition. He says that "what those need who have a care for truth and their own salvation is the direct exposition of truth."^[5] And he admits that this exposition is able to convert only well-disposed souls.^[6] The apologist enters upon a large number of proofs: the innocence of the Christians, the perfection of their doctrines and moral teaching, the dogmatic and moral inferiority of paganism. He holds that every mind can find in itself traces of knowledge that will make it docile to Christian teaching. Athenagoras is familiar with the Greek poets and frequently quotes them. He is far above Aristides and Tatian in the purity and beauty of his language; but he lacks that powerful originality which assembles arguments into a well-ordered whole and gives them vitality.

Theophilus had been a pagan; he was converted in manhood through the reading of the prophets,^[7] and became bishop of Antioch. He also contrasts the doctrinal perfection and holiness of Christianity with the ignorance, contradictions, and moral inferiority of paganism. But he particularly insists on the dispositions of soul of his opponents. His method is psychological. He writes:

You say to me: 'Show me your God.' I reply: 'Show me what sort of men you are, and I will show you my God. Show me the eyes of your soul, that they are clear-sighted; show me the ears of your heart, that they are able to hear.'^[8]

He says in another place:

No doubt the reason you have such a false notion of God is because you do not practice His service.^[9]

And again:

Formerly I, too, refused to believe. But now, upon better reflection, I believe. [...] In God is my guarantee. If you, too, wish this, submit to God also.^[10]

Theophilus is the first to express by the word Trinity, Trias, the personal distinction of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in God.^[11]

Toward the end of the second century appeared a sharp but very superficial little work of the Christian philosopher Hermias, the Irrisio gentilium philosophorum. We know also the names of three other apologists: Melito, Apollinaris, and Miltiades. Of Melito of Sardis only a few fragments are extant. Of Apollinaris and Miltiades we have nothing. We may well suppose that, like those we have just mentioned, their apologetics consisted of occasional writings, composed hurriedly, as it were in the midst of the strife. With Hermas, St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian, we come to works that are more mature.

Footnotes

[1] Eusebius places this Apology in the time of Hadrian. Until 1889, only an Aramaic fragment of it was known. In that year, Rendel Harris discovered, at the Convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, a Syriac translation of it, which has led scholars to assign its composition to the period of Antoninus.

[2] The Apology of Aristides has left traces in the ancient Aramaic literature. In a somewhat abridged form, it was contained in the famous Life of Barlaam and Joasaph. (See Bardenhewer, Patrology, p. 46.)

[3] Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church, I, 156.

[4] Bardenhewer, op. cit., p. 58.

[5] Athenagoras, De resurrectione, II.

[6] Ibidem, II, i.

[7] Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, I, iv.

[8] Ibidem, II, i.

[9] Ibidem, I, i.

[10] Ibidem, I, xiv.

[11] Ibidem, II, xv. Theophilus calls the three persons: God, the Word, and Wisdom.

***

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The Reign of Commodus and the Martyrs of Scillium

Reading N°49 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

Emperor Commodus (180-192)

The Emperor Commodus was a complete antithesis to his father, Marcus Aurelius. He was without any care for the country, without any policy unless that of all tyrants, which consists in confiscating and proscribing through hatred and fear and avarice. Yet, from this inane and blood-thirsty despot, the Christians suffered less than from his upright and intelligent predecessors. At one time, it would seem that his father's spirit was urging him, that the impulse given by Marcus Aurelius was being continued: the blood of martyrs was poured out copiously. At another time, a gentler influence, that of the Christian servants of his palace or the all-powerful prayer of a beloved woman, inclined his fickle soul toward clemency.

The best known episode of the persecutions that raged in Commodus' reign is that of the Scillitan martyrs. The Acts of these martyrs is rightly reckoned among the earliest and most reliable monuments of Christianity antiquity. From it we quote the following:

On the seventeenth day of July [AD 180], when Speratus, Nartallus, Cittinus, Donata, Secunda, and Vestia were brought into the judgment-hall at Carthage, the proconsul Saturninus said: "Ye can win the indulgence of our lord the Emperor if ye return to a sound mind." 

Speratus: "We have never done ill; but when we have received ill, we have given thanks, because we pay heed to our Emperor." 

The Proconsul: "We, too, are religious, and our religion is simple." 

Speratus: "If thou wilt peaceably lend me thine ears, I will tell thee the mystery of simplicity." 

The Proconsul: "I will not lend my ears to thee when thou beginnest to speak evil things of our sacred rites." 

The Proconsul Saturninus said to the rest: "Be not partakers of this folly." 

Cittinus said: "We have none other to fear except only our Lord God, who is in heaven." 

Speratus said: "I am a Christian." And they all agreed with him. 

The Proconsul: "What are the things in your chest?" 

Speratus: "The books and epistles of Paul, a just man." 

The Proconsul: "Have a delay of thirty days and bethink yourselves." 

Speratus: "I am a Christian." And with him all agreed. 

The Proconsul read out the decree from the tablet: "Speratus, Nartallus, Cittinus, Donata, Vestia, Secunda, and the rest who have confessed that they live according to the Christian rite, [...] it is determined, shall be put to the sword." 

Speratus: "We give thanks to God." 

Nartallus: "Today we are martyrs in Heaven; thanks be to God."^[1]

Among the Christians martyred under Commodus, mention should be made of the philosopher Apollonius, the senator Julius, and a large number of other confessors of the faith.^[2] But the Christians, spreading in increasing numbers through all ranks of society, became numerous at the imperial court. We know, for example, of the aged eunuch Hyacinth, a priest of the Church of Rome. He was the foster-father of that Marcia who was a former slave of a nephew of Marcus Aurelius and entered Commodus' palace as a slave in AD 183, following the confiscation of her master's property. She at once became the favorite of the Emperor, who raised her to the rank and honors of a real wife, except for the title of empress. The tradition is that she greatly favored the Christians and rendered them many kindnesses, inasmuch as she could do anything with Commodus.^[3]

St. Victor (185-199)

The author of the Philosophumena relates that one day Marcia, wishing to perform a good work, sent for Pope Victor and asked him for the names of the martyrs who were laboring in the mines of Sardinia. She then obtained letters of pardon, entrusted them to her old friend, the priest Hyacinth, and gave him full powers for carrying out the pardons.

A modification had taken place in the relations of the Empire and the Church. It was not yet, indeed, an official recognition of Christianity, but the summoning of this Pope to the palace to receive a communication touching his Church, and this commission carried by a Christian priest to the procurator of Sardinia, were events that show the social importance acquired by the Church and the notice which the government authorities were taking of her and of her hierarchical organization.

Footnotes

[1] Leclercq, Les Martyrs, I, 109-111. 

[2] St. Irenaeus, Haereses, IV, 33.

[3] Dion Cassius, Roman History, LXXIII, 4.

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