The Expansion of the Church: 96–305 AD

The Christians

They gathered in private rooms or small chapels and organized themselves on the model of the synagogue. Each religious community was called an ecclesia—a Greek word used in city-state governments for the assembly of the people. As was customary in the cults of Isis and Mithra, slaves were welcomed into these assemblies with open arms; no effort was made to free them, but they were consoled by the promise of a Kingdom in which all would be free. The first converts were mainly from the proletarian class, though there were also some from the lower middle strata and a few from the wealthy. Nevertheless, contrary to what Celsus claimed, these people were not representatives of “the lowest dregs of society.” Most of them led orderly, hardworking lives, contributed money to missionary efforts, and collected funds for poor Christian communities. Little effort was made to win over the peasants. Their conversion came last, and it is therefore surprising that their name, pagani—originally meaning rural or peasant folk—later came to designate all pre-Christian inhabitants of the Mediterranean countries.

Women were admitted to these religious assemblies and gained some importance in secondary roles, but the Church asked them to become a source of shame to the pagans through a life of humble obedience. Their presence at services without a veil was forbidden, for their hair especially was considered seductive, and even angels might be distracted from worship during the liturgy by the sight of it. Saint Jerome believed it proper for them to cut their hair completely. Christian women were also required to abstain from cosmetics, jewelry, and especially wigs, for in that case the blessing given by the priest would fall upon the dead hair of another person’s head, and it was uncertain whose head was being blessed. Paul had given strict instructions to his communities:

Let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church… For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

This view was similar to that of the Greeks and Jews concerning woman, not the Romans; and it may also have been a reaction against the license of some women who abused their growing freedom. In view of these stern rebukes one may suppose that Christian women, despite not wearing jewelry or perfume and despite the veil, managed to be attractive and exercised their ancient powers in a subtle way. For unmarried or widowed women the Church found many useful tasks. It organized them into groups of “sisters” who participated in administration or charity, and in time various ranks of nuns emerged whose kindliness combined with cheerfulness is the noblest embodiment of the Christian faith.

About the year 160 Lucian described the Christians as “light-headed people indifferent to earthly things and convinced that these things are common property.” A generation later Tertullian declared that “we Christians have all things in common except our wives,” and with his characteristic irony added: “We cut short our sharing precisely where other people establish their sharing.” These statements should not be taken literally; as appears from another passage in Tertullian, this communism meant only that every Christian, according to his means, contributed to the common fund of the religious community. Certainly the expectation that the existing order would soon end made the hand of charity more open. Probably the more mature members had become convinced that they should not allow the final judgment to surprise them in the arms of “Mammon” (the demon of wealth). Some of the first Christians agreed with the Essenes that a rich man who does not share his surplus is a thief. James, “the brother of the Lord,” attacked wealth with sharp, revolutionary words:

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered… and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth… Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

He adds that in that Kingdom the rich man will wither away like grass under the burning sun.

An element of communism also entered into the common meal. Like the Greek and Roman associations that gathered for dinner on suitable occasions, the first Christians often met for the agape or love feast, usually on Saturday evening. This supper began and ended with prayer and the reading of Scripture, and the priest blessed the bread and wine. The believers apparently held that the bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ or symbols of them. Worshipers of Dionysus, Attis, and Mithra also held similar beliefs for feasts in which they partook of the magical embodiment or manifestations of their gods. The final ceremony of the love feast was the “kiss of love.” In some communities this kiss was man to man and woman to woman; in others there was no restriction. Many participants in these pleasant rites found pleasures that had nothing to do with theology; and Tertullian and others condemned these rites because they gave rise to sexual corruption. The Church recommended that the lips should not be opened when kissing and that the act should not be repeated if it gave pleasure. In the third century the love feast gradually disappeared.

Despite such incidental events and the rebukes of some preachers who urged their communities toward moral perfection, the ancient belief may be accepted that the morals of the first Christians were a model reproaching the pagan world. After the weakening of the old faiths removed even the feeble support they had given to moral life, and after the Stoic attempt to establish a natural ethic failed except among a few chosen souls, a new and supernatural ethic undertook, at whatever cost to free and untrammeled reason, the task of taming savage instincts to a stable morality. The hope of a coming Kingdom brought with it belief in a judgment that sees all human actions, is familiar with all thoughts, and cannot be evaded or deceived. To this divine supervision was added a precise mutual surveillance: among these small groups sin could not easily find a hiding place; and the community openly rebuked those members who had violated the new moral law and whose secret had been revealed. For example, abortion and infanticide, which caused a severe decline in the pagan population, were regarded by Christians as crimes equivalent to murder. In many cases Christians took in foundlings, baptized them, and reared them from the common fund. The Church forbade the presence of Christians in theaters and public games and participation in official pagan festivals, but with less success. In general, the Christian faith followed and even intensified the moral rigor of the combative Jews. Celibacy and virginity were recommended as an ideal. Marriage was tolerated only as a means of preventing sexual lapse and as a ridiculous device for continuing the race, but husbands and wives were encouraged to abstain from sexual relations. Divorce was permitted only if a pagan wished to annul marriage with a new convert. Remarriage of widowers or widows was not approved. Same-sex relations were condemned with a severity rare in antiquity. Tertullian says: “In sexual matters the Christian man is content with his wife.”

A large part of these strict rules was based on the near return of Christ. As this hope faded, the cry for relaxation rose again and Christian morals weakened. An anonymous epistle known as the Shepherd of Hermas (c. 110) harshly denounces the reappearance of avarice, dishonesty, cosmetics, dyed hair, painted eyelids, excessive drinking, and adultery among Christians. Nevertheless, the general picture of Christian morals in this period is one of austerity, mutual honesty and sincerity, fidelity in marriage, and a quiet happiness in firm faith. Pliny the Younger was forced to report to Trajan that the Christians led peaceful and exemplary lives. Galen described them as “so advanced in self-discipline… and in their intense desire for moral perfection that they fall short of no true philosopher.” Through belief that the whole of humanity was stained by Adam’s fall and that the world would soon end with a judgment bringing eternal reward or punishment, the sense of guilt acquired new force. Many Christians devoted all their energy to appearing with a pure conscience at this terrifying judgment and saw in every carnal pleasure a satanic snare. They condemned “the world and the flesh” and sought to subdue desire through fasting and other deprivations. They were suspicious of music, white bread, foreign wines, hot baths, or the custom of shaving the beard—which to them seemed a contemptuous slight upon the divine image. Even to an ordinary Christian life took on a darker color than the pagans had given it—except in exceptional cases for appeasing and “averting” the gods of the underworld. All the serious aspects of the Jewish Sabbath were transferred to the Christian Sunday, which replaced it from the second century onward.

On this “Lord’s Day” Christians assembled for their weekly service; their clergy read portions of Scripture, guided them in prayer, and delivered a sermon containing doctrinal instruction, encouragement toward spirituality, and polemic against sects. In the earliest days the members of the community, especially women, were accepted for “prophecy,” meaning that in a state of trance or ecstasy they uttered words whose meaning could be known only through a pious interpretation. When these practices became excessively fervent and disturbed theological principles, the Church first condemned such manifestations and finally suppressed them.

By the end of the second century these weekly rites had taken the form of the Christian Mass. The Mass, part of which was drawn from the worship customary in the Jewish Temple and part from Greek mystery rites of purification, vicarious sacrifice, and participation in the powers of a god victorious over death, gradually became a vast complex. It included prayers, psalms, readings, sermons, responsive hymns, and above all the symbolic sacrificial offering of the “Lamb of God,” which in Christianity replaced the bloody sacrifices of the old faiths. The bread and wine, which in these cults were offerings placed on the altar before the god, were now regarded in this ceremony as something that through the act of consecration by the priest had been changed into the blood and body of Christ and were offered to God as a repetition of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Then, with highly emotional ceremonies, the worshipers partook of the very life and essence of their “Savior.” This was a concept that time had long made acceptable and for which the pagan mind needed no special training. By embodying this concept in the “mystery of the Mass,” Christianity became the last and greatest mystery religion. Its origin was humble and lowly but its development was beautiful; its acceptance was part of the profound wisdom by which the Church adapted itself to the symbols of the age and the needs of the people. No other rite could so deeply touch the heart of a believer who was essentially solitary or so powerfully arm him to face a hostile world.

The eucharist, or “thanksgiving” for the bread and wine, was one of the seven “sacraments” of Christianity—sacred rites regarded as means of obtaining divine grace. Here too the Church used the poetic language of symbols to console and elevate human life and to renew contact with the strengthening power of God at every step of man’s journey. In the first century the rites considered “sacraments” numbered only three: baptism, the sacrificial meal (Communion), and the conferring of holy orders; but the seeds of the other “sacred rites” were already present in the customs of the religious communities. It was apparently the first Christians who added “confirmation” to baptism, by which an apostle or priest breathed the Holy Spirit into the believer. In time this act was separated from baptism and became the “sacrament of confirmation.” When infant baptism gradually replaced adult baptism, people felt the need for a subsequent spiritual purification. Public confession of sin became a private confession before a priest who claimed from the apostles or their successors the bishops the right of “binding and loosing,” that is, imposing penance and granting absolution for sins. The sacrament of penance was a foundation that, because of the ease of forgiveness, was capable of abuse, but it gave the sinner the power of reform and protected troubled souls from the terrors of remorse. In those centuries marriage was still a civil ceremony, but the Church, by requiring its own blessing to be added to marriage, raised it from the level of a temporary contract to the sacred status of an indissoluble covenant. About the year 200 the blessing (laying on of hands) became the sacrament of “holy orders,” by which bishops received the exclusive right to appoint priests capable of correctly performing the sacred rites. Finally the Church extracted from the text of the Epistle of James (5:14) the sacrament of “extreme unction,” by which a priest anointed the extremities and sense organs of a dying Christian and thus cleansed him again from sin and prepared him for meeting God. Judgment on these rites by their literal expressions is unreasonable; as means of encouragement and inspiration to man they were the wisest remedies for the soul.

The funeral rite in the Christian faith was the last and highest honor paid to the life of a Christian. Because the new doctrine proclaimed the resurrection of both body and soul, special attention was paid to the dead. A priest read the office for the dead and every body had an individual grave. About the year 100 the Christians of Rome, following Syrian and Etruscan customs, turned to burying the dead in catacombs—probably not to hide them but for reasons of economy of space and expense. Workers dug long underground passages at different levels and placed the dead in niches arranged one above another along the sides of these passages. Pagans and Jews also followed this method, perhaps because it was more suitable for burial associations. Some of these passages were deliberately made winding, giving rise to the idea that Christians used them as hiding places during times of persecution. After the victory of Christianity the custom of burial in catacombs ended. The catacombs became places of veneration and pilgrimage. In the ninth century these catacombs were closed and forgotten, and in 1578 they were rediscovered purely by chance.

What remains of early Christian art consists mainly of frescoes and reliefs in the catacombs. In these frescoes and reliefs, dating from about 180, symbols appear that later acquired great importance in Christianity: the white dove, representing the soul freed from the prison of this earthly life; the phoenix, rising from the ashes of death; the palm branch, giving the promise of victory; the olive branch, the emblem of peace; and the fish, because the Greek word for it, ichthys, is composed of the initial letters of the phrase: Iesous Christos theou uios Soter (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior). In these frescoes and reliefs the famous subject of the “Good Shepherd” is also found, directly copied from a Tanagra statuette showing Mercury carrying a goat. Occasionally these designs show the grace and beauty customary in the city of Pompeii, such as flowers, vines, and birds painted as decoration on the ceiling of the tomb of Saint Domitilla; but usually their designs are the undistinguished work of minor craftsmen who obscure the clarity of classical lines with Eastern ambiguity. Christianity in these first centuries was so absorbed in thoughts of the afterlife that it had little interest in adorning this world. Christianity followed the Jewish aversion to sculpture, equated image-making with idolatry, and condemned sculpture and painting as often celebrating nudity. Thus, as Christianity spread, the visual arts declined. Mosaic art was more favored; the walls and floors of great churches and baptisteries were covered with intertwined leaves and flowers, the “Lamb of God,” and images of various biblical scenes. Similar scenes were carved in rudimentary, unskilled reliefs on stone sarcophagi. In the same period architects adapted Greek and Roman basilicas to the needs of the Christian faith. Small temples, which were the dwellings of pagan gods, could not serve as models for churches that had to accommodate the entire congregation of believers. The porticoes and wide interior nave of the basilica were more suitable for this purpose, and the sanctuary seemed from the beginning to have been designed as a church altar. In these new places of worship Christian music, with suspicion, inherited the melodies, modes, and scales of Greek music. Many ecclesiastical authorities opposed the singing of women in church or indeed in any other public place; for a woman’s voice might always arouse an impious attraction in the ever-excitable male sex. Nevertheless, religious communities often expressed their hope, praise, and joy through hymns. Music gradually became one of the most beautiful adornments and one of the most exalted servants of the Christian faith.

On the whole, no religion more attractive than Christianity has ever been offered to mankind. It presented itself without restriction to all individuals, all classes, all nations. Unlike Judaism it was not restricted to a particular people, and unlike the official cults of Greece and Rome it was not restricted to the free men of one country. Christianity, by declaring all men heirs to Christ’s victory over death, proclaimed the essential equality of human beings and regarded all earthly distinctions as minor and transitory. For the unfortunate, the wretched, the poor, the discouraged, and the humiliated it brought the new virtue of sympathy and gave them a personality that became their dignity; it gave them the inspiring example of Christ, his story, and his ethics; it illuminated their lives with the hope of a Kingdom soon to come and with the hope of endless happiness beyond the grave. Even to the greatest sinners it offered the promise of forgiveness and full acceptance into the community of the saved. To minds tormented by the insoluble problems of origin and destiny, of evil and suffering, it brought a system of divinely revealed doctrine that even the simplest soul could find intellectual peace in. To men and women imprisoned in daily poverty and hardship it gave the chant of the sacred rites and the Mass—ceremonies that turned every noteworthy event of life into a scene in the thrilling drama between God and man. In the spiritual vacuum of the dying pagan world, in the coldness of the Stoic ethic and the corruption of Epicurean hedonism, in a world sick with bestial violence, cruelty, oppression, and sexual chaos, in an empire at peace that apparently no longer needed manly virtues or gods of war, it spread a new ethic based on brotherhood, kindness, courtesy, and peace.

The new faith, thus adapted to human aspirations, spread with great speed. Almost every convert, with the zeal of a revolutionary, became a missionary of the faith. Roads, rivers, coasts, trade routes, and the facilities of the empire marked the path of the Church’s growth: in the East from Jerusalem to Damascus, Edessa, Dura, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon; in the South from Bostra and Petra to Arabia; in the West from Syria to Egypt; in the North from Antioch to Asia Minor and Armenia; from the Aegean from Ephesus and Troas to Corinth and Thessalonica; from the Via Egnatia to Dyrrhachium; from the Adriatic to Brundisium, or from Scylla and Charybdis to Puteoli and Rome; from Sicily and Egypt to North Africa; from the Mediterranean or the Alps to Spain and Gaul, and from there to Britain: gradually the cross followed the axe and the Roman eagles opened the way for Christ. In those centuries Asia Minor was the stronghold of Christianity. By the year 300 the majority of the inhabitants of Ephesus and Smyrna were already Christian. The new faith also flourished in North Africa: Carthage and Hippo became the main centers of Christian learning and debate; the major Latin Fathers of the Church, such as Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, arose there; and the Latin text of the Mass and the first Latin translation of the New Testament took shape there. In Rome the Christian community at the end of the third century numbered about one hundred thousand. The Christians of Rome could give financial help to other religious communities. Rome had long claimed the first place for its bishop. On the whole it may be said that about the year 300 one-fourth of the population in the East and one-twentieth in the West were Christian. Tertullian around the year 200 says: “The people declare that we [Christians] are filling the country. People of every age, rank, and position are turning to us. Our origin is only from yesterday, yet we have already filled the world.”

Clash of Ideas

Given the multiplicity of relatively independent Christian centers subject to different traditions and environments, it would have been surprising if diverse customs, rites, and beliefs had not developed. Especially in Greek Christianity, because of the metaphysical and dialectical habits of the Greek spirit, heresies were bound to arise. Christianity is intelligible only in the light of these heresies, for although it overcame them, it took something of their color and shape.

One faith united the scattered religious communities: that Christ is the Son of God, that he will return to establish his Kingdom on earth, and that all who believe in him will be rewarded on the Day of the Last Judgment. But Christians differed among themselves about the history of his return. When Nero died and Titus destroyed the Temple, and again when Hadrian ruined Jerusalem, many Christians welcomed these calamities as signs of Christ’s return. When, at the end of the second century, disorder threatened the empire, Tertullian and others thought the end of the world was imminent. A Syrian bishop led his flock into the desert to meet Christ halfway, and a bishop of Pontus upset the lives of his followers by announcing that Christ would return in that very year. No such signs appeared, and Christ did not manifest himself. Wiser Christians sought to soothe the people’s despair with a new interpretation of the history of his return. In an epistle attributed to Barnabas it is said that Christ will come in a thousand years. More cautious persons said he would come when the “generation” or race of the Jews had completely perished, or when the “gospel” had been preached to all the Gentiles; or, as is written in the Gospel of John, Christ would send the Holy Spirit or Paraclete in his place. Finally the Kingdom was transferred from earth to heaven and from our life to a paradise beyond the grave. Even the belief in a thousand years—that is, the return of Jesus after a thousand years—was condemned by the Church and finally rejected. Belief in the return had established Christianity; hope of paradise preserved it.

The followers of Christ, in the first three centuries, held a hundred different opinions except on the basic principles and were divided according to these opinions. If we try to describe in detail the variety of religious beliefs that attempted to conquer the developing Church and failed, and which the Church was forced one after another to condemn as heresies and dangerous deviations that would destroy the Church, we would be mistaken in the function of history, which is to illuminate the present through the past. Gnosticism—the acquisition of godlike knowledge (“gnosis”) by secret and mysterious means—was less a heresy than a rival of Christianity. This movement existed before Christianity and had already proclaimed theories about the “Soter” or Savior before the birth of Christ. Simon the Samaritan magician, whom Peter rejected for buying and selling spiritual mysteries, was probably the author of the “Great Announcement” that gathered a mass of Eastern ideas around the complex stages of the mind’s ascent to the divine understanding of all things. In Alexandria the Orphic, Neo-Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonic traditions, combined with Philo’s philosophy of the “Logos,” stimulated Basilides (c. 117), Valentinus (c. 160), and others to construct vast systems of divine emanations and embodied “aeons.” Bardesanes in Edessa, by describing these aeons in prose and verse, created the literary Syriac language (c. 200). In Gaul Marcus the Gnostic proposed to reveal to women the mysteries of their guardian angels; what he revealed was flattering and pleasing to women, and in return he accepted their rewards.

The greatest heretic of antiquity was not completely Gnostic but was influenced by its mythology. About 140 Marcion, a wealthy young man from Sinope, came to Rome with the intention of completing Paul’s work of separating Christianity from Judaism. Marcion said that Christ in the Gospels described his Father as a comforting, forgiving, and merciful God. But the Yahweh of the “Old Testament” is a harsh God with inflexible justice and the god of oppression and war. This Yahweh cannot be the Father of the gentle Christ. Marcion said which god could possibly condemn all humanity to misery for eating one apple, or for desiring to know a woman, or for loving her? Yahweh exists and is the creator of the world, but it is he who made man’s flesh and bones from matter and for this reason the human spirit is imprisoned in an evil body. To redeem him, a greater God sent his Son to earth. Christ appeared at the age of thirty in a phantom and unreal body and by his death secured for the good a purely spiritual resurrection. Marcion said that the good are those who, following Paul, renounce the Jewish Law, reject the Hebrew Scriptures, despise marriage and carnal pleasures, and overcome the flesh with severe asceticism. To promote his views Marcion published a “New Testament” consisting of the “Gospel of Luke” and the letters of Paul. The Church excommunicated him and returned the large sum he had offered the Church upon his arrival.

While the Gnostic sects and the followers of Marcion spread rapidly in East and West, a new heretic appeared in Moesia. About 156 Montanus denounced the growing worldliness of Christians and the autocracy of bishops in the Church; he demanded a return to the simplicity and asceticism of the first Christians and the re-establishment of the right of prophecy, or inspired speech, for members of the religious communities. Two women named Priscilla and Maximilla were captivated by his words, fell into a state of religious ecstasy, and their utterances became the living voice of this sect. Montanus himself prophesied with such eloquent ecstasy that his Phrygian disciples—with the same religious fervor that had once created Dionysus—greeted him as the promised Paraclete of Christ. He announced that the Kingdom of Heaven was near and that the New Jerusalem mentioned in the “Book of Revelation” would soon descend from heaven in a nearby plain. He attracted so many people to that place that several cities were emptied of inhabitants. As in the earliest days of Christianity, marriage and family were neglected. Property was held in common, and a harsh and dry asceticism anxiously prepared souls for Christ. When (c. 190) the Roman proconsul Antonius began persecuting Christians in Asia Minor, hundreds of Montanus’s followers, eager for paradise, gathered before his headquarters and demanded martyrdom. Antonius found no room to imprison so many people; he executed some, but sent most away with these words: “You wretches! If you want death, are there not ropes and precipices?” The Church rejected Montanism as heresy, and in the sixth century Justinian ordered the sect to be destroyed. Some adherents of this faith gathered in their churches, set them on fire, and burned themselves alive in them.

There was no end to smaller heresies: the Encratites abstained from meat, wine, and sexual relations; the “Abstinents” practiced asceticism and regarded marriage as a sin; the Docetists believed that Christ’s body was only a phantom and had no human flesh; the Theodotians considered him only a man; the Adoptionists and the followers of Paul of Samosata thought that Christ was born a man but attained divinity through moral perfection. The Modalists, followers of Sabellius, and the Monarchianists saw the Father and the Son as one person. The Monophysites attributed one nature to the two; and the Monothelites one will. Finally the Church, through the superiority of its organization, firmness in preserving its faith, and better understanding of human methods and needs, triumphed over all these movements.

In the third century a new danger arose in the East. At the coronation of Shapur I in 242, a young Persian mystic named Mani from Ctesiphon proclaimed himself the Christ and said that the true God had sent him to earth to reform the religious and moral life of mankind. Mani, drawing upon Zoroastrianism, the Mithraic cult, Judaism, and Gnosticism, divided the world into two rival realms: the realm of darkness and the realm of light. The earth belonged to the realm of darkness and the devil had created man. Nevertheless, angels of the God of Light had secretly placed elements of light in man—namely spirit, intelligence, and reason. Mani said that even woman has a spark of light in her being; but woman is the devil’s masterpiece and his chief agent for inciting man to sin. If a man abstains from sexual relations, idolatry, and devilish deeds, if he leads an ascetic life, is a vegetarian, and fasts, the luminous elements in his being will overcome his satanic impulses and, like beneficent light, bring about his salvation. After thirty years of successful preaching, Mani was crucified at the instigation of the Magi and his skin, stuffed with straw, was hung from one of the gates of Susa. The martyrdoms that befell the followers of this faith fanned the fire of its zeal. Manichaeism spread in Western Asia and North Africa, attracted Augustine for ten years, survived the persecutions of Diocletian and the Islamic conquests; and survived half-alive for a thousand years until the coming of Genghis Khan.

The old religions still claimed to embrace the majority of the empire’s population. The Jewish faith gathered its exiled and impoverished people in its scattered synagogues and poured its asceticism and piety into the Talmuds. The Syrians continued to worship their Baals under Greek names, and the Egyptian priests preserved their animal-shaped gods. Cybele, Isis, and Mithra still had followers until the end of the fourth century. In the time of Aurelian a transformed form of Mithraism spread throughout the Roman world. Vows and offerings were still made to the classical gods in the temples, initiates still went to Eleusis, and citizens throughout the empire eagerly performed the rites of emperor-worship. But the classical cults had lost their vitality. They no longer, except sporadically, aroused the fervent devotion that is the life of a religion. It was not that the Greeks and Romans had abandoned these cults, which had once been so popular with them and so interwoven with piety, but that they had lost the zest for life, and by limiting their families to an extreme degree, by falling into physical exhaustion, and by enduring devastating wars their numbers had been so reduced that their temples were losing their nurturers in proportion to the ruin of the fields.

About 178, while Marcus Aurelius was fighting the Marcomanni on the Danube, pagan religion made a vigorous effort to defend itself against Christianity. We know of this only through Origen’s work Against Celsus and the quotations it contains from Celsus’s book The True Word. This second Celsus was more a worldly nobleman than a profound philosopher; he felt that the civilization he enjoyed was bound up with the ancient Roman faith, and therefore decided to defend the Roman cult by attacking Christianity, which was then its greatest enemy. He studied the new religion so thoroughly that the learned Origen was astonished at his knowledge. Celsus attacked the credibility of the sacred writings, the character of Yahweh, the importance of Christ’s miracles, and the contradiction between Christ’s death and his omnipotent divinity. He ridiculed the Christian belief in the final conflagration of the world, the Last Judgment, and the bodily resurrection:

It is foolish to suppose that when God, like a cook, kindles a fire, all mankind except the Christians will be roasted—not only those who are alive at that time but also those who have long been dead, rising with the same bodies they formerly had. This is really the hope of worms!… Only fools, ignoramuses, and blockheads—slaves, women, and children—can be persuaded by Christians; only cotton-carders, cobblers, fullers, the most uneducated people in the world, and the most vulgar… or madmen whom the gods have abandoned.

Celsus was horrified by the spread of Christianity and by its contemptuous hostility toward pagans and service in the army and the state. How could the empire defend itself against the barbarians pressing on its borders if its people sank into a philosophy so pacifistic? He thought that a good citizen of a country should behave according to the religion of his fatherland and his time, without openly criticizing its unreasonable parts, which are of little importance. What matters is a unifying faith based on spiritual character and patriotic sincerity. Then, forgetting the insults he had given the Christians, he calls them to return to the ancient gods, to worship the genius of the emperor who protects the state, and to participate in the defense of the endangered country: no one paid serious attention to him. No mention of him is made in pagan literature. Had Origen not undertaken to refute his ideas, he would have been consigned to oblivion. Constantine was wiser than Celsus and recognized that a dying faith could not save Rome.

Plotinus

Moreover, Celsus was living outside his own time. He asked people to adopt the method of noble skeptics, while they wanted to escape from a society that condemned so many of them to slavery into a mystical world that made every human being a god. Awareness of the super-sensory forces that are the foundation of religion was in general triumphing over the materialism and fatalism of a prouder age. Philosophy too was abandoning the interpretation of sensory experience that belongs to the realm of science and was devoting itself to the study of the invisible world. The Neo-Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists expanded Pythagoras’s theory of reincarnation and Plato’s ideas about the divine Ideas into an asceticism whose aim was to vivify spiritual understanding by weakening the bodily senses and to ascend again through purification of the soul from the levels from which the soul had descended to incarnate in man.

Plotinus raised this mystical theosophy to its peak. Born in 203 in Lycopolis, he was counted among the Copts of Egypt but had a Roman name and Greek education. At twenty-eight he turned to philosophy. Finding no satisfaction, he went from teacher to teacher until he finally found the man he sought in Alexandria. This was Ammonius Saccas, who had left Christianity for paganism and wished to reconcile Christianity and Platonic philosophy, as his pupil Origen later did. After studying with Ammonius for ten years, Plotinus joined an army preparing to go to Iran, hoping to become directly acquainted with the wisdom of the Magi and the Brahmins. He reached Mesopotamia and from there returned again to Antioch. In 244 he went to Rome and remained there until his death. Plotinus’s school of philosophy became so famous that the emperor Gallienus made him his companion and offered to help him found in Campania a city of the ideal called Platonopolis (the city of Plato) and administer it according to the principles of Plato’s Republic. Gallienus later changed his mind—perhaps to prevent Plotinus’s failure and disgrace.

Plotinus lived the life of a saint amid the luxury of Rome and revived the good name of philosophy. In reality he paid so little attention to his body that Porphyry says: “He was ashamed that his soul had a body.” He refused to sit for a portrait so that an image of him might be made, saying that his body was the least important part of his existence—an indication that art should seek the soul rather than the body. He ate no meat and was content with little bread; he was simple in his habits and kind in his behavior. He avoided all sexual relations but did not condemn them. His humility was worthy of a man who saw the part in the light of the whole. When Origen attended his lecture, the master blushed and wanted to end the lesson, saying: “When the speaker sees that he has nothing to teach the listeners, his natural power is taken from him.” He was not an eloquent speaker, but the purity of his devotion to the subject and his absolute sincerity compensated for the lack of rhetorical skill. Reluctantly, and only in his later years, he consented to put the principles of his doctrine into writing. He never revised his first outpourings from the pen, and despite Porphyry’s editing the Enneads remain among the most disorganized and difficult texts of Greek philosophy.

Plotinus was an idealist who accepted the existence of matter only out of courtesy but said that matter in itself is a formless possibility of form. Every form that matter takes is due to an inner force or soul (psyche). Nature is the sum of forces or souls that create all forms in the world. A lower reality cannot produce a higher reality. On the contrary, the higher being, that is, the soul, produces the lower being, that is, form, which is embodied as body. The growth of a human individual—from the initial stages of conception in the mother’s womb, the gradual formation of organs, and finally emergence as an adult being—is the work of the psyche or vital principle within him. It is the strivings and desires of the soul that gradually shape the body. Everything has a soul, a force within that brings about the destined form. Matter is evil only insofar as it has not received form; it is a stalled growth and development, and in evil the possibility of good is latent.

We know matter only through perception—sensation, understanding, and thought. What we call matter (as Hume later said) is only a bundle of perceptions. In the best case it is a hypothetical and deceptive something that affects the ends of our nerves. (The same thing that John Stuart Mill called a “permanent possibility of sensation.”) Perceptions are not material. The concept of extension in space does not apply to them. The capacity to have perceptions and to use them is the encompassing mind; and this is the culmination of the human trinity—soul, spirit, and mind. The mind is determined insofar as it is subject to sensation; it is free insofar as it is the highest form of the creative and shaping soul.

The body is both the instrument of the soul and its prison. The soul knows that it is a reality higher than the body. It feels its kinship with a wider soul—the vital creative force of the cosmos—and in intellectual perfection it longs to reunite with this higher spiritual reality from which it seems to have been separated by a catastrophe and divine disfavor in the beginning of time and to have fallen into the earthly world. In this respect Plotinus logically yields to a Gnosticism that he wishes to reject and describes the descent of the soul from various levels of heaven to incarnation in the human body. In general he prefers the Hindu concept that the soul ascends from lower to higher levels, or conversely descends from higher to lower; this ascent or descent, which is the different forms of life, occurs according to the virtues or vices of the soul in each reincarnation. Plotinus sometimes, out of humor, shows himself a Pythagorean and says: those who have loved music too much will become songbirds in the next reincarnation, and philosophers who think too much will become eagles. The more developed the soul is, the more eagerly it seeks its divine origin—like a child separated from its parents or a wanderer longing to return home. Whenever the soul can practice virtue or feel true love or devote itself to the Muses, or engage in pure philosophy, it will find the ladder by which it descended and with it will unite with its God. So let the soul be purified, let it eagerly desire the invisible essence, let it leave this world in the realm of thought; may it suddenly, in a moment when all the noises of the senses are silent, in a moment when matter no longer knocks at the gates of the mind, feel itself absorbed into the ocean of being and united with the ultimate spiritual reality. (Thoreau writes of one of his aimless walks by Walden Pond: “Sometimes I ceased to live and my being began.”) Plotinus says:

When this state occurs the soul sees God as far as is lawful… It will also perceive itself as radiant and full of light; or rather it will find itself in a state of pure light, lightened, nimble, and in the process of becoming God.

But what is God? “The One” is also a trinity: the trinity of Unity (hen), Intellect (nous), and Soul (psyche). “Beyond being, the One exists”: amid the apparent confusion caused by the multiplicity of this world a unifying life flows. We know nothing of God except that he exists. Any positive attribute or distinguishing pronoun that we apply to him imposes a limit upon him that is unworthy of him. We can only say that he is the One, the First Principle, and the absolute Good. From this First Principle proceeds the cosmic Intellect, which corresponds to Plato’s Ideas, to the shaping forms and laws governing things; these are, so to speak, the thoughts of God, the reason of the One, and the order and organization of the world. Although these Ideas are permanent and matter is only a bed of transient forms, the only true or permanent reality is the Ideas—but Unity and Intellect, though they sustain the world, do not create it. This act is performed by the third person of the divine trinity, that is, the life-giving principle with which everything is filled and which gives things power and destined form. Everything, from particles to planets, possesses an energizing soul that is itself part of the world soul. Every “atman” is a “Brahman.” The individual soul exists only as a life-giving force or eternal energy and not as a distinct character. Immortality does not mean the survival of personality but the absorption of the soul into things that have no death.

Virtue is the movement of the soul toward God. Contrary to what Plato and Aristotle thought, beauty is not merely harmony and proportion but the living soul of the invisible divinity present in things; beauty is the supremacy of soul over body, of form over matter, and of mind over things. And art is the transfer of this spiritual beauty to another medium. The soul can be trained to go beyond the search for beauty in material or human forms and to seek it in the hidden soul of nature and in its laws, in science and in the precise order that science reveals, and finally in the divine unity that binds all things of existence together and turns them into a perfect and wonderful harmony. In short, beauty and virtue are one; and this unity and harmony of the part with the whole is the goal.

Enter into yourself and see. If you do not find yourself beautiful, act as a sculptor does… He cuts away here, smoothes there, makes one line clearer, another purer, until he gives his work a lovable appearance. Do you likewise. Cut away what is superfluous, straighten what is crooked… and do not cease chiseling your statue until you see… the perfect beauty in the holy sanctuary.

The same spiritual atmosphere that is felt in contemporary Christianity governs this philosophy—the turning of sensitive minds from civic interests to religion, the flight from the state to God. It was no accident that Plotinus and Origen were fellow students and friends, and that Clement of Alexandria, the founder of Christian Platonic philosophy, worked in Alexandria. Plotinus is the last great pagan philosopher; like Epictetus and Aurelius he was a Christian without Christ. Christianity later accepted almost all his ideas and many passages in the works of Saint Augustine reflect the ecstatic state of this lofty mystic. Through Philo, John, Plotinus, and Augustine, Plato triumphed over Aristotle and entered the profoundest theology of the Church. The gulf between philosophy and religion disappeared and reason was content to become the servant of theology for a thousand years.

The Defenders of the Faith

The Church now enjoyed the support of some of the most distinguished scholars of the empire. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, became the powerful head of the “Fathers of the Church” after the Apostles; these men gave philosophy to Christianity and demolished its enemies with the help of argument. Justin the Samaritan, because he refused to renounce his faith, was condemned to be food for wild beasts (108). On the way to Rome he wrote several letters whose fervor mixed with asceticism reveals the stubborn spirit with which Christians went to meet death:

I warn all men that I die willingly for God, and I do not wish anyone to prevent this. My request is that you show me no unreasonable kindness. Let the beasts devour me. By this means I can attain to God. It is better to incite the wild beasts to become my tomb and to leave no trace of my body so that when I fall asleep I may trouble no one… I am desirous of the beasts that have been prepared for me… If I can thereby be united with Jesus Christ, let them burn me, crucify me, face the wild beasts to tear me apart, crush my bones, separate me joint from joint, and destroy my body; I accept these cruel torments of the devil.

Quadratus, Athenagoras, and many others wrote “apologies” in defense of Christianity that were usually addressed to the emperor. Minucius Felix conducts an almost Ciceronian dialogue in which one of his characters, Caecilius, defends paganism with ability, but another character, Octavius, answers him so courteously that Caecilius is almost persuaded to embrace the Christian faith. Justin the Samaritan, who came to Rome in the time of Antoninus, founded a school of Christian philosophy there and in two eloquent apologies tried to persuade the emperor and “Verissimus the philosopher” that the Christians were loyal citizens, paid their taxes on time, and could be useful supporters of the country if they were treated kindly. For several years he taught without hindrance, but his sharp speech made enemies for him. In 166 a rival philosopher induced the authorities to arrest him with six of his followers and hang them all. Twenty years later Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, provided a powerful weapon for the unity of the Church by writing the treatise Against Heresies, which struck a blow at all heretics. Irenaeus says that the only means to prevent Christianity from dividing into a thousand sects is for all Christians to follow with humility only one doctrinal authority—from the decrees of the councils of bishops of the Church.

In this period the boldest champion of Christianity was Quintus Septimius Tertullian of Carthage. He was born in that city in 160; he was the son of a Roman centurion and studied rhetoric in the same school where Apuleius had been trained. He then practiced law in Rome for several years. In mid-life he turned to the Christian faith, married a Christian woman, renounced all pagan pleasures, and, according to Saint Jerome, rose to the priesthood. All the tricks and cleverness he had learned in rhetoric and as a defense lawyer he thereafter placed with the zeal of a new convert at the service of Christianity. Greek Christianity was based on theology, metaphysics, and mysticism. Tertullian founded Latin Christianity on ethics, law, and practice. He had the force and fire of Cicero and the dry, ironic sharpness of Juvenal, and sometimes in the sharpness and bite of his phrases he rivaled Tacitus. Irenaeus had written his works in Greek. With Minucius and Tertullian Christian literature in the West became Latin, and Latin literature became Christian.

In 197, when the Roman judges in Carthage were trying Christians on the charge of disloyalty to the country, Tertullian addressed an imaginary court in his most eloquent work, the Apologeticus. In this work he assures the Romans that the Christians “always pray for all emperors, for… the safety of the imperial house from danger, for brave armies, for a loyal senate, for a world at peace and quiet.” He celebrates the greatness of unity and points to its signs in the works of pre-Christian writers. With passionate phrases he cries: “Behold the testimony of the soul that has a Christian nature!” A year later, while with astonishing speed turning from defense to fierce attack, he published the treatise On the Spectacles, which gives a scathing description of Roman shows as strongholds of immorality and theaters as the height of inhumanity toward human beings. He concludes with a bitter threat:

There will be other spectacles on the last and eternal day of judgment… Then the whole of this ancient world and its generations will burn in a fire without measure. What a great spectacle that day will be! How I shall be amazed, laughing, rejoicing, and delighted when I see so many kings who were thought to be going to heaven wailing in the depths of darkness, and judges who insulted the name of Jesus burning in flames hotter than those they themselves kindled against the Christians! The wise and philosophers blushing before their disciples and becoming fuel for the fire!… And I shall see the tragic actors whose voices will be heard more than ever in their own tragedy, actors whose limbs will be softened and lightened in the fire, and charioteers reddening on wheels of fire!

Such a violent and morbid imagination is no guarantee of firm conviction. As Tertullian grew older, the same energy he had devoted to pleasure in his youth he now devoted with equal intensity to rejecting every comfort except the consolation of faith and hope. He addressed woman with the harshest expressions and called her “the door through which the devil enters” and said: “It was because of your sin that Christ died.” He who had once loved philosophy and written works like On the Soul and reconciled Stoic metaphysics with Christianity now rejected every independent argument from revelation and took pleasure in the incredibility of his own belief: “The Son of God died: this is credible precisely because it is absurd. He was buried and rose again: this is certain because it is impossible.” At the age of fifty-eight Tertullian fell into a morbid scrupulosity and left the orthodox Church, on the pretext that it was too contaminated with worldly affairs, and turned to the doctrines of the Montanists, believing that this sect carried out the teachings of Christ more strictly. He condemned all Christians who became soldiers, actors, or government employees, as well as all fathers and mothers who did not force their daughters to wear the veil, and all bishops who accepted repentant sinners for Communion. Finally he called the pope the “shepherd of adulterers.”

Nevertheless, despite him the Church was advancing in Africa. Capable and sincere bishops like Cyprian made the see of Carthage almost as rich and influential as that of Rome. In Egypt the spread of the Church was slower, and little trace remains in history of its earliest stages. At the end of the second century there is sudden talk of the “Catechetical School” of Alexandria, which united Christianity with Greek philosophy and gave the Church two great Fathers. Both Clement and Origen were versed in pagan literature and loved it in their own way. Had the spirit of these two prevailed, so destructive a gulf would not have opened between classical culture and Christianity.

When Origen Adamantius was seventeen years old (202) his father was arrested and condemned to death as a Christian. The son wanted to join his father in prison and be martyred with him; when his mother could not dissuade him by any means, she hid his clothes. Origen wrote encouraging letters to his father and sent him the message: “Take care not to change your mind for our sake.” His father’s head was cut off, and thereafter the son had to support his mother and six younger brothers and sisters. Having witnessed the martyrdom of many, he developed a stronger inclination toward asceticism and led a pious life. He fasted a great deal, slept little and on the bare ground, wore no shoes, and endured cold and nakedness. Finally, under the influence of a literal interpretation of Matthew 19:12, he castrated himself. In 203 he succeeded Clement as head of the Catechetical School. Although he was only eighteen, his learning and eloquence attracted many pagan and Christian students, and his fame spread among Christians.

Some ancients estimated the number of “his books” at about six thousand. Certainly many of them were short treatises. Nevertheless Jerome asks: “Which of us could possibly read everything he wrote?” Origen’s love for the Bible, part of which he had memorized as a child and made part of his memory, led him to spend twenty years of his life with a group of stenographers and copyists comparing the Hebrew text of the Old Testament with a Greek transcription of its pronunciation and with the Greek translations of the Septuagint, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. By comparing these translations and various emendations and using his knowledge of Hebrew, Origen presented the Church with a revised text of the “Septuagint.” He did not consider this sufficient and to complete it added commentaries, sometimes lengthy, on each of the books of the Torah. In the miscellaneous work On First Principles he prepared a detailed, systematic, and philosophical account of the whole body of Christian doctrine. In the separate treatise he set out to prove all the unchangeable principles of Christianity on the basis of the writings of pagan philosophers. To facilitate this work he used the allegorical method by which pagan philosophers had reconciled Homer’s writings with reason and by which Philo had reconciled Judaism with Greek philosophy. Origen believed that the literal meaning of the Bible contained two deeper series of meanings: a moral meaning and a spiritual meaning, which only a few specially trained individuals could penetrate. He considered the literal truth of Genesis doubtful: he rejected the unseemly appearances of Yahweh’s relations with Israel as mere symbols and regarded stories like that of the devil taking Jesus to the top of a high mountain to offer him the kingdoms of the world as legends. In his opinion the stories of the Bible had been composed to convey a spiritual truth. He asked:

Who with insight can suppose that there was a first, second, and third day, and evening and morning, without sun, moon, and stars? What foolish man can believe that God, like a farmer, planted a garden in Eden and planted the tree of life in it… so that whoever tasted the fruit of this tree would live?

The further Origen goes, the clearer it becomes that he is a Stoic, Neo-Pythagorean, Platonist, and Gnostic who is determined to be a Christian. The expectation that he would renounce the faith for which he had written a thousand works and sacrificed his manhood was unfounded. Like Plotinus he had been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish his philosophy from theirs. Origen’s God is not Yahweh but the first principle of all things. Christ is not the human figure described in the New Testament but the Logos or the mind that organizes the world. This Christ was created by God (the Father) and is subordinate to him. In Origen’s philosophy, as in Plotinus’s, the soul passes through a series of stages and incarnations before entering the body. After death it also passes through similar states until it reaches union with God. Even the purest spirits undergo a period of purgatory; but finally all souls will be saved. After the “final conflagration” there will be another world with its long history; then another world and so on to infinity… Each of these worlds is more perfect than the previous one, and the whole long sequence gradually carries out the plan of God.

It is not surprising that Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, should have felt doubt and suspicion toward this distinguished philosopher who was the ornament of his see and corresponded with emperors. He refused to confer the priesthood on Origen, saying that because he had castrated himself he was unfit. But when Origen traveled to the Middle East, two Palestinian bishops conferred the title of priest on him. Demetrius protested that his rights had thus been violated. He convened an assembly of the clergy of his diocese. This assembly annulled Origen’s appointment and exiled him from Alexandria. Origen went to Caesarea and continued teaching there. There he wrote his famous defense of Christianity, Against Celsus, in 248. His great spirit accepted the force of Celsus’s arguments but replied that for every difficulty and objection in the Christian faith there are many things in paganism that are far more improbable. He did not conclude that both theories are unreasonable but believed that the Christian faith gives man a truer guide to life that a dying faith based on idolatry cannot inspire.

In 250 Decius extended the persecution to Caesarea. Origen, who was then sixty-five years old, was arrested and bound to the torture post. They put chains on him and placed an iron collar around his neck and he remained in prison for several days. But Decius’s death brought about his release. He did not live more than three years after that. The torture had a fatal effect on a body already weakened by severe asceticism and mortification. He died as poor as he had begun to teach, and at his death he was the most famous Christian of his time. When his heresies were no longer a secret among a few scholars but became public, the Church found it necessary to withdraw his authority. Pope Anastasius in 400 condemned his “heretical opinions” and the Council of Constantinople in 553 declared him a heretic. Nevertheless, for centuries almost all Christian scholars studied his works and were influenced by him. His defense of Christianity had more effect on pagan thinkers than any of the earlier “apologies.” After Origen Christianity was no longer merely a consoling faith; it had become a complete philosophy with the texture of the Bible but proud of being based on reason.

The Organization of Power

Perhaps the Church can be excused for condemning Origen: his principles of allegorical interpretation not only permitted the proof of any proposition but at one stroke set aside all the stories of the Bible and the earthly life of Jesus; and indeed, while he was increasing the task of defending the faith, he re-established individual judgment. The Church, which in the face of the hostility of a powerful state felt the need for unity, could not without risk allow itself to be divided into seventy-two sects by every current of thought or by unbelieving heretics or ecstatic prophets or prominent followers. Celsus himself had mockingly pointed out that “the Christians have split into several opposing factions, for each individual wishes to have a group of his own.” About the year 187 Irenaeus drew up a list of twenty kinds of Christianity. Around the year 384 Stephen mentioned eighty sects in Christianity. Foreign ideas constantly infiltrated the Christian faith and believers left its ranks to join new sects. The Church, feeling that the period of its youthful trials was ending and that its period of maturity and ripeness was approaching, now had to define its categories and declare the conditions for membership in itself, and it seemed necessary to take three difficult steps: to codify the foundations of the law on the basis of Scripture; to explain the doctrine of Christianity; and to organize the power of the Church.

In second-century Christian literature there were many epistles, scriptures, revelations, and “acts.” Christians did not agree in rejecting or accepting them as authorized interpretations of Christian beliefs. The churches of the West accepted the “Revelation of John”; the churches of the East completely rejected it. Conversely, they accepted the Hebrew “Gospel” and the “Epistle of James,” which were rejected in the West. Clement of Alexandria refers to the epistles from the end of the first century under the title “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles” as a sacred writing. Marcion, by publishing a version of the “New Testament,” forced the Church’s hand. We do not know when the books of the present “New Testament” were recognized as canonical, that is, authentic or inspired. We can only say that according to a Latin fragment discovered by Muratori in 1740 and known by his name, which is generally dated about the year 180, the canon was already established at that time.

In the second century councils or assemblies of the clergy were held with increasing frequency. In the third century these assemblies were composed only of bishops and at the end of this century they were recognized as the final judges of “Catholic,” that is, universal, Christian doctrine. Belief in orthodoxy triumphed over heresy because it met the need for a definite creed that could moderate disputes and calm doubts, and because the power of the Church supported it.

The question of organization depended on determining the center of this power. After the weakening of the mother church in Jerusalem, it appears that the local religious communities—except when they were established and supported by other communities—had independent power. Of course the see of the church of Rome claimed that Peter had founded it and appealed to these words of Jesus: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter” (in Aramaic Cephas, in Greek Petros), “and upon this rock” (in Aramaic cephas, and in Greek petra) “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The authenticity of this passage has been questioned and it has been regarded as an interpolation and a pun that only Shakespeare could have used. But it seems true that if Peter did not create the Christian community in Rome, he at least preached there and appointed its bishop. Irenaeus writes in 187 that Peter “committed the episcopal office to Linus.” Tertullian in 200 confirms this account, and Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, the great rival of Rome, in 252 urges all Christians to accept the primacy of Rome.

The first occupants of the “see of Peter” left no trace in history. Pope Clement I apparently is the author of a letter written about 96 to the church of Corinth urging its members to maintain harmony and good order among themselves. In this letter, which belongs to only one generation after the death of Peter, the bishop of Rome speaks to the Christians of a distant religious community with a kind of authority and command. Other bishops, while recognizing the “primacy” of the bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, always declared that they did not have the right to disregard their decisions. The churches of the East celebrated Easter on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, regardless of which day of the week it fell on. The churches of the West transferred the feast to the following Sunday. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who visited Rome about 156, tried to persuade Anicetus, bishop of Rome, to adopt the Eastern custom also in the West; he was unsuccessful. On his return he rejected the pope’s proposal that the Eastern churches adopt the Western custom. In 190 Pope Victor repeated Anicetus’s request, but this time as a command. The bishops of Palestine obeyed, but the bishops of Asia Minor refused. Victor wrote letters to the Christian communities and excommunicated the rebellious churches. Many bishops, even in the West, protested against such a severe measure and apparently Victor did not insist.

His successor, Zephyrinus (202–218), “was a simple and unlettered man.” He promoted a man named Callistus, whose intelligence and cleverness were less a cause of criticism than his morals, to the rank of archdeacon to help in the administration of the rapidly expanding diocese of Rome. According to his enemies, Callistus had first been a slave, then a banker (money-changer). He had embezzled funds entrusted to him and been condemned to hard labor; after his release he had stirred up a riot in a synagogue and been condemned to work in the mines of Sardinia. Then, by secretly inserting his name on the list of pardoned prisoners, he had escaped; he had lived in Antium for ten years with difficulty in peace. When Zephyrinus made Callistus the custodian of the popes’ tomb, this man transferred it to the Appian Way, in a catacomb that bears his name. After Zephyrinus’s death Callistus was chosen pope. Then Hippolytus and several other priests accused him of being unworthy of this office and set up a rival church and papacy (218). Doctrinal differences intensified the schism. Callistus held that those who after baptism committed a mortal sin (such as adultery, murder, apostasy) and repented could be received again into the Church. Hippolytus regarded this leniency as destructive; he wrote a “Refutation of All Heresies” aimed especially at this heresy. Callistus excommunicated him and strengthened the Church with management and competence and greatly extended the supreme power of the center of Rome to all Christians.

Hippolytus’s schism ended in 235. But in the time of Pope Cornelius (251–253) Hippolytus’s heresy was revived by two priests—Novatus in Carthage and Novatian in Rome. These two founded schismatic churches whose purpose was the relentless expulsion of those who after baptism committed sin. The Council of Carthage under the leadership of Cyprian and the Council of Rome under the presidency of Cornelius both excommunicated the two groups. Cyprian’s request for support from Cornelius strengthened the papal office; but when Pope Stephen I (254–257) decreed that converts who had belonged to heretical sects did not need baptism, Cyprian, through an assembly of African bishops, rejected this decision. Stephen I in turn, like a new Cato, in a Carthaginian ecclesiastical war excommunicated them. His untimely death seemed to occur by divine providence to calm this conflict and prevent the schism of the powerful African Church.

The Church of Rome, despite advances and retreats, added to its powers almost every ten years. Its wealth and public charities raised its prestige. It was consulted by the Christian world on every important matter. It took the initiative in rejecting and combating heresies and in defining the canon of Scripture. It had no scholars and could not compete with men like Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian. It was more attached to organization than to theory; it built and governed and left speaking and writing to others. Cyprian rebelled, but it was he himself who in a work entitled On the Unity of the Catholic Church accepted that the “see of Peter” should be the center of the highest Christian authority and proclaimed to the world the principles of cohesion, unity of opinion, and steadfastness that are the essence of the Catholic Church and the cause of its stability. By the middle of the third century the position and resources of the papal office were so strong that Decius said he would rather have a rival emperor in Rome than a pope; naturally the capital of the empire became the capital of the Church.

If Judea had given morals and Greece theology to Christianity, Rome gave it organization. These, together with the twelve rival cults it had absorbed, entered into the composition of the Christian faith. It was not that the Church merely accepted some of the rites and forms of religion that had been customary in Rome before Christ, but also the girdle and other garments of pagan priests, the use of incense and holy water for purification, wax candles and perpetual light burning before the altar, the veneration of saints, basilica architecture, Roman law as the foundation of canon law, the title Pontifex Maximus for the pope, and, in the fourth century, the Latin language as the authentic and enduring language of the Catholic liturgy. More important than all these was the gift of Rome: a vast system of government that, at a time when worldly power was declining, became the foundation of the Church’s spiritual government. It was not long before the bishops became more the source of order and the center of power in the cities than the Roman governors; the metropolitans or archbishops, though they did not take the place of the provincial governors, became their supporters, and the assembly of bishops replaced the provincial council. The Christian Church took the place of the Roman state; it conquered the provinces, adorned the capital, and established discipline and unity from border to border. Rome died with the birth of the Church. The Church reached maturity by inheriting and accepting Rome’s responsibility.