The Liturgy and Ritual of the Ante-Nicene Church (Warren)

The Liturgy and Ritual of the Ante-Nicene Church (Warren)

continued

Chapter II: Ante-Nicene Ritual

1 WE pass from the evidence which is yielded by Holy Scripture as to the character of the worship and ritual of the Apostolic Church, to describe the liturgy and ritual of the ante-Nicene Church, so far as they can be gathered from the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers or from other genuine documents which may bear upon the subject of a date prior to A.D. 325. But before going into details, we will quote at length some passages of a general character, either describing the worship of the early Christian Church or explaining or defending certain broad features which it possessed. The following description of Christian worship was given by Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, writing to the Emperor Trajan, A.D. 112. Pliny said that he had obtained his information from certain apostates from the Christian faith whom he had examined. 'They asserted that this was the sum and substance of their fault or their error; namely, that they were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day, and singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god, and that they bound themselves by an oath not to the commission of any wicked deed, but that they would abstain from theft, and robbery, and adultery; that they would not break their word; and that they would not withhold a deposit when reclaimed. This done, it was their practice, so they said, to separate, and then to meet together again for a meal, which, however, was of the ordinary kind, and quite harmless. But even from this they had desisted after my edict; in which, in pursuance of your commands, I had forbidden the existence of clubs.'

2 The following description of the Eucharistic Service is given by Justin Martyr, in his First Apology, most probably written and addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius in A.D. 148:—

'Cap. Lxv.

3 'But we [Christians], after we have thus washed him who has been convinced and has assented [to our teaching] lead him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the illuminated [i.e. baptized] person, and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. Bread and a cup of wine mingled with water are then brought to the president of the brethren; 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 counted worthy to receive these things at his hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their consent by saying, "Amen." This word "Amen" answers in the Hebrew language to [the Greek] [i.e. So be it]. And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give each of those present the bread and wine mixed with water, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and they carry away a portion to those who are not present.

Cap. Lxvi.

4 And this food is called among us "the Eucharist," of which no one is allowed to partake but he 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 hath enjoined. For we do not receive these [elements] as common bread and common drink, but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, 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 the word which comes from Him, and from which our blood and flesh are nourished by transmutation, 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 gave thanks, and said, "Do this in remembrance of Me: this is My body;" and that after the same manner He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, "This is My blood," and gave it to them alone. The wicked devils have also imitated this in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For you know, or can learn, that bread and a cup of water are employed with certain incantations in the mystic rites which accompany the initiation of a member.

Cap. Lxvii.

5 And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy, and we always keep together. And we bless the Creator of all things, through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, for all things wherewith we are supplied. And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles [i.e. the Gospels], 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 [the people] to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and offer prayers. And, as we have said before, when we have finished the prayer, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings with all his might, and the people assent, saying, "Amen," and there is a distribution to each, and a participation in the Eucharistic elements, and portions are sent to those who are not present by the deacons. And the well-to-do and the willing give what each person thinks fit, and the collection is deposited with the president, who succours orphans and widows, and those who are in want through sickness or any other cause, and those who are in prison, and the strangers sojourning among us, and, in a word, he takes care of all who are in any need.

6 We all hold our common assembly on Sunday, because it is the first day on which God having wrought a change in darkness and chaos made it cosmos, and because Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified Him on the day before the day of Saturn [Saturday], and on the day after Saturday, which is Sunday, He appeared to His Apostles and disciples, and taught them these things, which we have submitted to you for your consideration.' 7 Such is the description of simple Christian worship just before the middle of the second century. Its very simplicity was sometimes in early days urged as an argument against, or made a ground for, disputing the efficacy of the sacraments of the Christian Church. This is the way in which Tertullian meets the objection in the case of baptism; but the argument would apply equally well in the case of any or all of the sacraments or sacramental ordinances of Christ's Church. He says— 'But how great is the power of perversity in weakening or totally undermining faith, that it should find a ground of attack in those very elements on which that faith rests! There is nothing which so hardens men's minds against accepting the truth as the simplicity of the Divine operations, as seen in action, contrasted with the magnificence of the promised results. Take the case of Baptism. With the greatest simplicity, without parade, without any new or magnificent equipment, without any expense, a man is immersed in the water; a few words are said over him while he is dipped; he emerges very little, if at all, cleaner outwardly than he was before; therefore it is considered incredible that he should have acquired the heirship of eternal life. It would be untrue not to state, on the other hand, in connection with the worship of idols, that it is the solemnity and the secrecy and the expense of the preparations and of the performances which command confidence and submission.

8 Alas for a miserable incredulity which denies to God His own proper attributes—simplicity and power! What then? Is it not a wonderful thing that death should be washed away in the laver [of baptism]? Yes; but so far from not being believed because it is wonderful, it is on that account the more to be believed. For of what sort ought Divine works to be, except works of surpassing wonder? We also ourselves wonder; but we wonder because we believe. Unbelief wonders but does not believe. It wonders at simple rites as if they were empty of power or meaning; it wonders at magnificent rites as impossibilities. Be it as you think, the Divine pronouncement has anticipated both results. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound its wisdom, and what is impossible among men is possible with God. For if God is both wise and powerful, which those who neglect Him do not deny, it is not incongruous that He should lay the foundations of His operation in the opposites of wisdom and power, that is to say, in folly and impossibility, for all virtue originates in those elements from which it is evoked.

9 Throughout this chapter Tertullian is contrasting the simplicity of Christian worship as it existed in his time with the gorgeousness of idolatrous ceremonial. One must allow that after the elaboration of Christian ritual in later ages, this argument lost some of its force; but one must insist, likewise, on the fact that Christian worship in Tertullian's time, with its unctions, its frequent use of the sign of the cross, its prolonged vigils, its midnight Easter celebration of the Eucharist, etc., was elaborateness itself compared with some modern forms of Christian worship. Variety in ritual and in ecclesiastical usage began to be in evidence at a very early date. It was defended by St. Firmilian writing to St. Cyprian, c. 255. He pointed out that those who lived at Rome did not observe in all points their original traditions; that it was useless for the Church of Rome to claim apostolic authority for all its practices, as, for instance, on the question of the proper day for the celebration of Easter; also with regard to many unspecified points of liturgical arrangements, one way prevailed at Jerusalem, another at Rome. In most provinces there were diversities caused by the varieties of locality and of human nature; but the peace and unity of the Catholic Church were never imperilled by this fact.

10 We now pass on from general descriptions to review in detail the particular usages of the primitive Church. § 1. ABSOLUTION.—Imposition of hands was the outward sign which accompanied the formal bestowal of absolution, or the public reconciliation to the Church of one who had lapsed into schism or heresy, or who for some other cause was excommunicate. St. Cyprian says— 'In the case of baptized members of the Church lapsing into heresy, and afterwards recognizing their sin, renouncing their error, and returning to the truth and to their mother, it will be sufficient to use imposition of hands, as a token of the reception of the penitent, that so the shepherd may receive back into the fold, to which it once belonged, the alienated and wandering sheep.' Stephen I., Bishop of Rome, held that in the case of a convert coming over from heresy, re-baptism was unnecessary, and that he need only be received with imposition of hands as a token of penitence.

11 The following passage describes the penitential system of the African Church:— 'In the case of lesser faults, sinners [ordinarily] do penance for a proper period, and then, according to the order of discipline, come to [public] confession, and by the imposition of the hands of bishop and clergy receive the right of communion; but now, in this rough time, with persecution still prevalent, and peace not yet restored to the Church, people are admitted to communion, and the Eucharist is given to them, with no penance yet performed, no confession yet made, and the hands of bishop and clergy not yet laid upon them.' The imposition of hands is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions (but not in the Canons of Hippolytus, xi. 65; xiv. 74; xv. 79), as used in the restoration of an excommunicate person to Church membership. See § 5, p. 82. § 2. BAPTISM.—We will first quote some general descriptions of the administration of baptism before producing evidence in detail on particular points of interest connected with it.

12 The baptism of Xanthippe, in answer to her request to St. Paul, 'Even now hasten to seal me,' is thus described— 'He led her by the hand into the house, and baptized her in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Then taking the bread of the Eucharist, he gave it to her, saying, "Let this be to thee for the remission of sins, and for the renewing of thy soul." Then the blessed Xanthippe, having received the Divine gift of holy baptism, returned to her own home, rejoicing and praising God.' Afterwards the baptism of her husband, Probus, is thus told— 'Rising early in the morning, he went to Paul, and found him baptizing many in the Name of the life-originating Trinity, and said, If I am worthy, my master, to receive baptism, lo! the hour is come. Paul replied to him, My son, behold, the water is ready for the cleansing of those who approach to Christ. Forthwith, then, eagerly stripping off his clothes, Paul holding his hand, he leaped into the water, saying, Jesus Christ, Son of God, and God eternal, may all my sins be done away by this water. And Paul said, We baptize thee in the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and then he made him partake of the Eucharist of Christ.'

13 Later on, Polyxena and Rebecca are described as baptized by the same Trinitarian formula, the former having thus made her request, 'Seal me, as Paul sealeth people, through the laver of regeneration.' In these passages the scriptural titles given to baptism, its administration where water could be found, the administration at once of the Eucharist to the newly baptized, without the mention of any intervening rite corresponding in any way to confirmation, are to be remarked as noteworthy in themselves, and as pointing to an early date for the composition of the story. Baptism by any other formula than in the Name of the Trinity, and especially baptism into the death of the Lord, was forbidden by the Apostolic Canons XLIX., L. These canons are post-Nicene, but they point to some irregular forms of the administration of baptism having sprung up at a very early date. 14 The following account of baptism is given by Justin Martyr in his first Apology:— As many as are persuaded and believe that these things which are taught and said by us are true, and promise that they are able to live thus, are taught to pray and ask God, with fasting, for the forgiveness of their former sins, while we pray and fast with them. Then they are led by us where there is water, and are regenerated after the same manner of regeneration with which we ourselves were regenerated. For they then make their bath in the water, in the Name of God the Father, and Lord of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost. For Christ said, Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, it is manifest to all that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter again into their mothers' wombs. But Esaias the prophet has declared how those who have sinned and repent shall escape from their sins, saying thus: "Wash you, make you clean," etc. . . .

15 We have learned from the Apostles the following reasons for this [rite of baptism]. Since we have received our first birth without our knowledge or consent . . . and have fallen into vicious customs and evil modes of education; therefore, in order that we may not remain children of necessity or of ignorance, but of free-will and understanding, and may obtain forgiveness of sins formerly committed, the Name of God the Father and Lord of all is named in the water over him who chooses to be regenerated and repents for his sins, no other description [of God] being given by him who leads the man to be washed to the laver. This laver is called "illumination," because those who learn these things have their minds illuminated. I should add that the person illuminated washes also in the Name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate; and in the Name of the Holy Ghost, who, through the prophet, proclaimed beforehand all things concerning Jesus.'

16 Then, after three chapters which are devoted to show how Christian baptism was counterfeited by demoniacal agency, Justin Martyr proceeds in the sixty-fifth chapter, which has been printed on page 51— 'But we, after we have thus washed the man who has been convinced and has given his consent [to our teaching], lead him to the place where those who are called brethren are assembled, etc. . . . Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. . . .' Here Justin Martyr passes on to a description of the Eucharist in words already quoted. It is difficult to decide whether the kiss of peace just referred to is the last baptismal or the first Eucharistic action. The kiss of peace occurs at the commencement of the Clementine Liturgy, before the expulsion of the catechumens and others, as well as just before the offertory. Baptism bore many titles. Justin Martyr calls it the 'water of life,' and 'the illumination.' In the Acts of Paul and Thecla it is called 'the seal of Christ;' and in The Shepherd of Hermas, 'the seal of the Son of God.' Tertullian calls it 'the seal of faith,' 'the sacrament of water,' 'the enrolment of God.' It is also called 'the seal of the bath,' and 'the seal of baptism.' St. Clement of Alexandria calls it 'the seal of the Lord,' a title which is also used in the Apostolic Constitutions,' and he also calls it 'grace,' 'illumination,' 'the perfect work,' and 'the bath.'

17 Passing from general descriptions, we find proofs or traces of the following practices existing in ante-Nicene times:— (a) Infant baptism.—This practice is implied in the language of Polycarp to the heathen proconsul. When urged at his trial by the latter to renounce Christ, Polycarp replied— 'Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?' Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, speaks of there being many men and women in existence then (that is, in the middle of the second century) who were made disciples to Christ from their childhood. The childhood of people who were old people, c. A.D. 150, must have extended back to within the lifetime of some of the Apostles. Irenæus used these words— 'Therefore as He [Jesus Christ] was a master, He had also the age of a master; not disdaining or going in a way above human nature; not breaking in His own Person the law which He had set for mankind, but sanctifying every age by the likeness which it has to Him. For He came to save all persons through Himself—all, I say, who through Him are regenerated unto God—infants, and little ones, and boys and youths, and old people. Therefore He went through every age; for infants being made an infant, sanctifying infants; for little ones being made a little one, sanctifying those of that age, and at the same time being made an example to them of godliness, justice, and dutifulness,' etc.

18 Elsewhere he speaks more plainly of 'infants newly-born and spiritually born again.' St. Cyprian pleaded for the baptism of infants at a very early age indeed, while yet only two or three days old, not even advising delay till the eighth day, in accordance with the analogy of circumcision. He argued— 'If adults are admitted to the font, how much more should those be baptized at once who have not sinned, except so far as by natural descent from Adam they have contracted, in the moment of birth, the infection of ancient death, who for this very reason may come more easily to the remission of sins, because it is the sins of another and not their own which are remitted to them.' St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of 'children that are drawn up out of the water.' In the Apostolic Constitutions we find this injunction— 'Baptize your children, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, for He saith, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not."'

19 The testimony of Origen to the practice of infant baptism is repeated and explicit. He says that— 'Baptism is administered even to infants, according to the custom of the Church.' And again that— 'Infants are baptized for the remission of sins. Of whose sins? or at what time have they sinned? or how can any reason exist for the use of the baptismal laver in the case of infants, except in that sense about which we have spoken a short time before? It is because the birth pollution is washed away in baptism that infants are baptized, For except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Elsewhere he calls baptism 'a second circumcision.' Again, after pointing out that according to the Jewish law an offering had to be made for the newborn infant, and after referring to David's assertion, 'Behold, I was shapen in wickedness; and in sin hath my mother conceived me,' Origen proceeds to state that—

20 'For this reason too the Church has received it as a tradition from the Apostles to administer baptism even to infants.' (b) Profession of faith and renunciations.—A profession of faith, which at a very early time assumed the form of a definite creed, was made by candidates for baptism. Justin Martyr says that before men are regenerated they must both profess to believe the truth of those things which they had been taught, and also promise to live answerably to their knowledge. Tertullian uses language which implies that articles relating to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Church, were part of the interrogations at baptism. For the interrogative form of creed provided in the Canons of Hippolytus, see chap. iii. § 6, p. 181. Irenæus speaks of the 'canon of truth which every one received at his baptism.' One of the questions in the African Baptismal Service of the third century was—

21 'Dost thou believe in eternal life, and remission of sins through the holy Church?' This was naturally pressed by St. Cyprian with great force against the validity of heretical baptism. Tertullian also mentions the solemn and triple renunciation of the devil, his pomp, and his angels, as made twice—firstly, on a person's admission to be a catechumen, and, secondly, at his actual baptism. (c) Sponsors, who are necessarily introduced if questions are used at the baptism of infants, are mentioned by Tertullian, who refers to the danger that there was of sponsors failing to fulfil their promises, either by their own death, or through the evil dispositions which might be developed in the person for whom they have acted as sponsors. Throughout this chapter, Tertullian is arguing against the baptism of infants, which was evidently the established church practice at this time. In the Academy of February 15, 1896, Mr. Whitley Stokes turns the argument the other way, and takes the fact that Tertullian argued against it to be a proof that the practice of infant baptism was then a novel introduction, and suggests that it was derived from imitation of the lustral ceremony performed over infants in heathen rites, with which Christianity was now fast coming into contact. This is a most unlikely suggestion, for heathenism was the deadly enemy of Christianity, and its abominations and puerilities had been and were the constant theme of Christian apologists; and in the attitude and temper then existing it is morally impossible that the Christian Church should have adopted a rite from the religion of their persecutors.

22 Sponsors are mentioned in the Canons of Hippolytus. (d) Milk and honey.—Tertullian mentions that on leaving the font the newly baptized tasted a mixture of milk and honey, a piece of symbolism probably suggested by the Old Testament description of the promised land as a land flowing with milk and honey, into which the Israelites entered through the waters of the river Jordan; but the explanation given in the Canons of Hippolytus, where the rite is also enjoined, is that the newly baptized may remember that they have become as little children, whose natural food is milk and honey. St. Clement of Alexandria refers to the same custom in these words— 'As soon as we are born we are nourished with milk, which is the nutriment of the Lord. And when we are born again we are honoured with the hope of rest by the promise of Jerusalem which is above, where it is said to rain milk and honey. For by these material things we are assured of that sacred food.'

23 (e) Sign of the cross and Unction.—The sign of the cross, which was in such general use in the earliest days of Christianity, would naturally be included in the ceremonial of baptism. Tertullian says— 'The flesh is washed that the soul may be rid of its stains; the flesh is anointed that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is sealed (i.e. signed with the cross) that the soul also may be protected; the flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of hands, that the soul may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh is fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soul may be made fat from God.' Elsewhere he says— 'Then when we come out of the bath [of baptism] we are anointed with the holy unction, according to the ancient practice by which men were wont to be anointed for the priesthood with oil poured out of a horn.'

24 How far the anointing and sealing in these passages belong to the Baptismal Service, and how far they belong to the Confirmation Service it is not easy to say. The two rites of baptism and confirmation were administered in close succession, and formed almost one complex rite throughout the ante-Nicene period; in fact, for the first thousand years and more of the Church's existence. It is perhaps with special reference to this use of the sign of the cross that baptism is called 'the seal' or 'the seal of Christ,' as where Thecla is represented as saying to St. Paul— 'Grant me only the seal of Christ, and no temptation shall affect me.' And in the words of Polyxena previously quoted from the Acts of Xanthippe. (f) Immersion.—Baptism by immersion was both the custom and the rule, but the validity of baptism by affusion or aspersion, in the case of sick people, is defended at length by St. Cyprian, who quotes in support of it Num. viii. 7; xix. 18; Ezek. xxxvi. 25, and concludes that a person so baptized is to be reckoned as a legitimate Christian.

25 Cornelius, Bishop of Rome (251-2), records that Novatian had been baptized on a sick-bed by affusion. He does not dispute the validity of such baptism, but he objects to Novatian as not having afterwards complied with Church regulation as to the reception of confirmation from the hands of a bishop. This he calls being signed by the bishop, apparently alluding to the sign of the cross which was made by the bishop on the forehead of each person confirmed. Baptism by affusion had been recognized in the Didaché, in which it was laid down— 'But if thou hast not either, pour water thrice upon the head in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' When St. Fructuosus 'baptized Rogatianus in prison, immersion must have been an impossibility.' Baptismal immersion is specially stated by Tertullian to have been triple. He says— 'We dip not once but three times, at the mention of each of the three Persons of the Trinity.'

26 (g) Unction.—The rite of unction in immediate connection with baptism is mentioned both by Tertullian and St. Cyprian. The former, after describing the actual baptism with water, proceeds thus— 'Then on stepping forth from the font we are anointed with consecrated oil, a custom derived from the old dispensation, in which men used to be anointed priests with oil out of a horn, since the time when Aaron was anointed by Moses; from which he is called "a christ" from the chrism, that is, the unction employed. And this unction gave his name to our Lord, being spiritually performed; because He was anointed with the Spirit by God the Father, as it is said in the Acts: "For of a truth they were gathered together in that state against thy Holy Child whom thou hast anointed." Thus too in our case, though the unction takes place in the flesh, yet it benefits us spiritually; just as in the act of baptism itself the immersion in water is a carnal transaction, but the effect is a spiritual one, namely, the deliverance from our sins.

27 A reference to this unction is to be found in another passage of Tertullian, quoted previously. Elsewhere he mentions after the baptismal washing, 'the oil with which God anoints His people.' St. Cyprian speaks thus of the same unction— 'The man who has been baptized needs also to be anointed, in order that in receiving the chrism, that is, the unction, he may be one of God's anointed ones, and have within himself the grace of Christ. And the oil, moreover, wherewith the baptized are anointed is consecrated upon the altars by the Eucharist; but those who have neither altar nor church could not consecrate the creature of oil. Wherefore, there can be no spiritual unction among heretics, as it is evidently impossible for there to be any consecration of oil or any celebration of the Eucharist among them.' This is not the only unction mentioned in connection with the baptism in the ante-Nicene period. A twofold unction, one before and one after baptism, is prescribed in the Canons of Hippolytus, as well as in the Apostolic Constitutions.

28 (h) Fasting.—Fasting is mentioned in connection with preparation for baptism from the earliest times. In the Didachē there is this direction given— 'Before baptism let him that baptizeth fast, and any others who are able, and thou shalt order him that is baptized to fast a day or two before.' The Canons of Hippolytus order the candidate to fast on the Friday preceding his baptism. This pre-baptismal fast is enforced at great length in the Apostolic Constitutions, where it is somewhat awkwardly connected with, while it is distinguished from, the post-baptismal fast of our Lord. There are frequent allusions to the fast before baptism both in the Clementine Recognitions and in the Clementine Homilies. A reference of Justin Martyr to the same subject has been already quoted. Tertullian states that candidates for baptism should prepare themselves by prayer, fasting, and confession of sin. (i) Time for Baptism.—Tertullian, while allowing that every Lord's day—in fact, every day and every hour—is suitable for the administration of baptism, points out that the festivals, firstly, of Easter, and secondly, of Pentecost, are the most appropriate occasions. To these two seasons the Epiphany was added at a very early date in the East, and it has also been found connected with baptism in certain parts of the West. Its first introduction into Egypt as a baptismal festival was due to the followers of Basilides in the second century.

29 (k) Washing of Feet.—See § 23, p. 165, and chap. i. § 26, p. 48. (l) Consecration of the Water.—The element of water was consecrated for use at baptism, as the elements of bread and wine were consecrated for use in the Eucharist, by words of invocation of the Holy Spirit. Tertullian said— 'The waters are made the sacrament of sanctification by the invocation of God. The Spirit immediately descends from heaven, and resting upon them, sanctifies them by Himself, and they being so sanctified, imbibe the power of sanctification.' St. Cyprian said— 'The water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the priest, that it may have power by baptism to wash away the sins of the person who is baptized.' (m) Minister of Baptism.—The proper minister of baptism, according to Tertullian, is the bishop, but presbyters and deacons, and in case of necessity, laymen, but not women, are permitted to baptize. This was an instance of the exercise of those priestly powers which belong to all the faithful, and about which Irenæus said—

30 'All just men possess the order of the priesthood;' and about which Tertullian asked, referring to Rev. i. 6— 'And are not we laity priests?' The rest of this passage should be studied. Tertullian pushes the doctrine of the priesthood of the laity to its extremest limits in order to press home his Montanistic theory, that as the clergy might not marry twice, no more might the laity. Justin Martyr described all Christians as a true race of priests of God. Origen has a fine passage on the same subject. It is not within the object of these pages to describe the baptismal doctrine of the early Church; but for a clear passage connecting the gift of the Holy Spirit with baptism we would refer our readers to a passage in the writings of Origen. 31 § 3. CHORAL SERVICE.—It would follow naturally from the musical instincts of human nature, as well as from the precedent of the Jewish temple services in the Old Testament, and from the allusions to singing in the New Testament, that the choral element would enter into primitive Christian worship. The analogy of chorus singing in the Greek theatre, as well as of the psalmody in the Jewish temple, would likewise suggest that the singing would be antiphonal in its character. According to a tradition first found in the pages of the historian Socrates, the antiphonal mode of singing originated with St. Ignatius the Martyr, who 'saw a vision of angels, praising the Holy Trinity in antiphonal hymns, and left the fashion of his vision as a custom to the Church in Antioch, whence this custom spread likewise through all the churches.' Yet, as Pliny in his letter to the emperor Trajan describes the Christians of Bithynia as in the habit of singing hymns to Christ as God 'alternately,' it may be inferred that antiphonal singing was already a custom in the Christian Church in the earlier part of the second century, though there is later evidence for the early prevalence of a responsorial mode of chanting or singing as well. Instrumental music was not employed in Divine service, and, as is well known, the conservative Eastern Church has never departed from primitive practice in this respect up to the present day.

32 § 4. CHURCH FURNITURE.—During a great part of the period with which we are concerned, Christians possessed no churches, but met for worship in the privacy of their chambers, or in dens and caves of the earth. Throughout the Roman empire Christianity was for a long time a proscribed religion, and though the penal laws against it were left at times to slumber, they were liable at any time to be evoked and put in force. Hence it was the Christians' object to worship God as unobtrusively as possible, and we are not surprised to find that as, for the most part, there were no Christian churches, so there are but scanty references to Church furniture, or to the ordinary accessories of Divine worship in writers of the first three centuries. Minucius Felix mentions it as a charge made against Christians that they had no churches or altars. It was a cruel charge to be brought against Christianity by its heathen opponents, because, though it was true, yet, so far as it was true, it was due to the persecutions of heathenism, and the necessity of avoiding publicity. However, Minucius Felix defends the non-existence among Christians of churches and altars on other grounds, and in a passage of such spiritual beauty, that we quote it at length—

33 'But do you think that we conceal what we worship if we have not temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when the whole world, fashioned by His work, cannot receive Him? And when I, a man, dwell far and wide shall I shut up the might of so great majesty within one little building? Were it not better that He should be dedicated in our minds, consecrated in our inmost heart? Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, such as He has produced for my use, that I should throw back to Him His own gifts? Is it ungrateful when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a good conscience? Therefore, he who cultivates innocence supplicates God; he who cultivates justice makes offerings to God; he who abstains from fraudulent practices propitiates God; he who snatches men from danger slaughters the most acceptable victim. These are our sacrifices; these are our rites of God's worship; thus, among us, he who is the more just is the more religious.

34 The same charge against Christians is referred to, and is met in a similar manner, in the writings of Arnobius. Yet some buildings set apart for Divine worship must have existed in the third century, when we find St. Cyprian reproaching a rich woman for coming into the Lord's house without a sacrifice. Churches are also mentioned by Tertullian and Origen under the names of 'ecclesia' and 'domus Dei.' Both Eusebius and Optatus refer to the existence of many churches at Rome and elsewhere at the beginning of the fourth century; and Constantine, in his letter to Eusebius on the subject of building Christian churches, refers to the small size and the ruin of previously existing sacred buildings. We now pass to the consideration of certain passages in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, in which the word 'altar' occurs, and which are sometimes quoted in connection with this subject to prove that Christians had altars in the second century.

35 St. Ignatius, writing to the Ephesians, says— (a) 'Let no man be deceived. If any one be not within [the precincts of] the altar, he lacketh the bread of God.' Writing to the Magnesians, he says— (b) 'Hasten to come together all of you as to one temple, even God; as to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with One, and departeth unto One.' Writing to the Trallians, he says— (c) 'He that is within [the precincts of] the altar is clean; he that doeth aught without the bishop, the presbytery, and the deacon, this man is not clean in his conscience.' (d) Writing to the Romans, he says— 'Grant me nothing more than that I may be poured out a libation to God, while there is still an altar ready.' time (De Schismate Donatistarum, lib. ii. cap. 4; P. L., tom. xi. col. 951).

36 (e) Writing to the Philadelphians, he says— 'Be ye careful, therefore, to observe one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup unto union in His blood; there is one altar, as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow-servants), that whatsoever ye do, ye may do it after God.' (f) Polycarp, writing to the Philippians, says— 'Our widows must be sober-minded as touching the faith of the Lord, . . . knowing that they are God's altar, and that all sacrifices are carefully inspected, and that nothing escapeth Him either of their thoughts or intents, or any of the secret things of the heart.' Of these six passages four of them, (b), (c), (d), and (f), are obviously metaphorical. (a) may be literal; but if so the word altar must mean the church, or that portion of the church within which the altar stands. (e) must be classed as metaphorical, but the employment of this metaphor may be taken to prove that the word 'altar' was not unfamiliar to the Christian ear in connection with the Eucharistic service.

37 The word altar (altare) occurs in the following passage of Irenæus, where still the reference may be to the heavenly rather than to the earthly altar :— 'We offer to Him, not as standing in need of an offering, but giving thanks for His rule, and sanctifying His creature. . . . Thus He wills that we accordingly should offer the gift at His altar frequently, without intermission. There is, therefore, an altar in heaven, for thither our prayers and oblations are addressed,' etc. The word 'altar' is used by St. Clement of Alexandria, in a metaphorical sense to denote 'the assembly of worshippers.' In Africa, in the time of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, the word 'altar' in its literal signification had come into established use. Tertullian speaks of 'the altar of God.' St. Cyprian says— 'Another altar cannot be reared, a new priesthood cannot be constituted, beside the one altar, and the one priesthood. He who gathers [people] elsewhere scatters.'

38 And again— 'As if after ministering at the altars (aras) of the devil it were lawful to approach the altar of God.' So he speaks of the altar being placed in the church, of assisting at God's altar, of the sacerdotal order being wholly occupied in serving at the altar and at the sacrifice; of one who is an enemy to the altar, and a rebel against the sacrifice of Christ. Origen also speaks of the altar and its adornment, and of altars. Instances of the use of the word 'table,' or 'holy table,' are rare in ante-Nicene literature, but the two following instances can be adduced from the writings of Dionysius of Alexandria. In a letter addressed to Basilides, he says— 'In former days, as seems most probable, women used to enter the sanctuary and partake of the holy table.' In another letter addressed to Xystus II., Bishop of Rome, he refers to 'one who has heard the words of the Eucharist, and has joined in uttering the "Amen," and has stood by the table, and has extended his hands to receive the holy food,' etc.

39 In the Canons of Hippolytus the bishop communicating the newly baptized is described as 'standing at the table.' There is no direct contemporary evidence as to the material of which the altar or 'holy table' was made; but from later references to the introduction of stone altars, and to the existence of wooden altars in the fourth century, and later, it is evident that the earliest material was wood. The only other article of Church furniture of which we have certain mention is the 'pulpit,' or 'ambo,' from which the gospel was read. Indirectly it may be inferred that a font was employed, when among the works of St. Cyprian we find an African bishop speaking of water consecrated in the church by the prayer (prex) of the priest. § 5. CONFESSION.—There is no trace of private confession to a priest, as a sacramental ordinance of obligation in the ante-Nicene Church, but public confession in the presence of the clergy and of the congregation was part of the disciplinary or penitential system of the early Church, and was in constant practice. The name by which it was known was not 'confessio,' but 'exomologesis,' a word found in the writings of Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and Origen.

40 St. Ignatius speaks of the Lord forgiving all penitent persons if they have recourse to the unity of God and the council of the bishop. Submission to the presbyters is counselled by St. Clement. Tertullian describes the penitent as 'throwing himself on the ground before the presbyters.' The whole passage must be quoted; it will be seen that it is the description of a public and not of a private act. 'This confession is a disciplinary act of great humiliation and prostration of the man; it regulates the dress, the food; it enjoins sackcloth and ashes; it defiles the body with dust, and subdues the spirit with anguish; it bids a man alter his life, and sorrow for past sin; it restricts meat and drink to the greatest simplicity possible; it nourishes prayer by fasting; it inculcates groans and tears and invocations of the Lord God day and night, and teaches the penitent to cast himself at the feet of the presbyters, and to fall on his knees before the beloved of God, and to beg of all the brethren to intercede on his behalf.'

41 Sackcloth and ashes as part of the symbols of penitence are also mentioned by Commodianus. St. Cyprian speaks of confession made before the priests of God, and of remission thus obtained being pleasing in God's sight. Origen's allusions to confession are either expressly or inferentially connected with public discipline. He exhorts sinners— 'Look around diligently for one to whom you should confess your sins; to find a physician learned and merciful, who will judge if the sickness is of such a nature that it ought to be exposed in the meeting of the whole Church.' And again— 'If we reveal our sins not only to God, but also to those who can heal our sins and wounds, our sins will be blotted out by Him who says, "Behold, I will blot out like a cloud." 42 'Consider,' he says, 'what the Holy Scripture teaches us; that we ought not to conceal our sin within our own breast. For, perhaps, as they who are inwardly oppressed with the humour of phlegm or undigested meat, which lies heavy upon the stomach, if they vomit it up, are relieved; so they who have sinned, if they hide and conceal their sin within themselves, are inwardly oppressed, and almost suffocated with the phlegm and humour of sin; but if any one become his own accuser and confess his sin, in so doing he, as it were, vomits up his sin, and digests and removes the cause of his distemper. Only be circumspect in the choice of him to whom it will be fit to confess thy sin. Try first the physician to whom thou art to reveal the cause of thy distemper, and see that he be one who knows how to be weak with him that is weak, and weep with him that weeps; one who understands the discipline of consoling and compassionating; that so, at length, if he shall say anything, who hath first shewed himself to be both a skilful and a merciful physician, and give thee counsel, thou mayest observe and follow it. If he discerns and foresees thy distemper to be such as will need to be declared and cured in the full assembly of the Church, whereby, perhaps, others may be edified, and thou thyself healed, this is to be done with great deliberation, and the prudent advice of such a physician.'

43 This private confession to a presbyter was, then, not with the view to obtaining immediate and private absolution, but with the view of obtaining advice or direction as to whether a person should seek absolution after public confession in the open penitential system of the Church. Quotations both from Tertullian and Origen—especially from the latter, from whose writings more passages bearing on the subject might be culled—must be read with their context, and read as a whole, in order to be understood. If isolated, or read in the light of the practice of later centuries, they might sometimes be supposed to refer to private confession and absolution, whereas they are connected with the ancient public penitential system of the primitive Church. Forgiveness following on 'exomologesis' or confession to God only is described by Origen in Hom. i. in Psalm xxxvi. § 5, tom. ii. p. 659. In the following curious passage Origen enumerates seven different ways as provided in the Gospels for obtaining absolution from sin :—

44 '1. The first is that by which we are baptized for the remission of sins. 2. The second remission is in suffering martyrdom. 3. The third remission is that which is given for almsgiving; for the Saviour says, "But [rather] give alms [of such things as ye have]; and, behold, all things are clean to you." 4. The fourth remission of sins accrues to us in return for our forgiving the sins of our brethren. For thus speaks our Lord and Saviour: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.2 And as he has taught us to say in prayer, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."3 5. The fifth remission of sins takes place when any one converts a sinner from the error of his ways, for thus saith Holy Scripture: "He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save his soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."4

45 6. The sixth remission takes place through abounding love, as the Lord Himself saith, "Verily I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."5 7. There is also still a seventh remission of sins, though hard and laborious, through penitence, when the sinner waters his couch with his tears, and his tears become his meat day and night, and when he is not ashamed to lay bare his sin to the priest of the Lord, and to seek medicine, according to him who saith, "I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so thou forgivest the wickedness of my sin." Wherein is fulfilled too that which James the Apostle saith, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them lay their hands upon him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

46 It is strange that while enumerating the different modes of obtaining remission of sins under the gospel dispensation, Origen should not have added as an eighth mode, the partaking of the Eucharistic cup, of which our Lord said, 'Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' It is also strange that in support of number seven he should not have quoted St. John xx. 23 and St. James v. 16, instead of or in addition to Ps. xxxii. 6 and St. James v. 14, 15. § 6. CONFIRMATION.—During the whole of the period of which we are treating Baptism and Confirmation were closely connected, the latter being always administered immediately after the former, whatever might be the age of the person baptized and confirmed. Origen unites, almost identifies, the two ordinances in the following sentence:—

47 'In the Acts of the Apostles the Holy Spirit was given in baptism through the imposition of the hands of the Apostles.' Hence, it is not always easy to separate baptism from confirmation, or to distinguish the baptismal unction from the unction of confirmation. Indeed, the one unction with chrism of earlier days developed into two unctions in later days; and in still later days an interval of years came to separate the two rites; and the imposition of hands, of which we have clear proof in primitive times, dropped out of use altogether, so far as confirmation is concerned, in both the Western and Eastern Churches. In the Acts of Thomas 'the seal of the bath' is immediately followed by the reception of 'the seal of oil.' The following description of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Communion is taken from the Canons of Hippolytus (Canon xix.) :— §§ 112. The time is to be about cock-crow.

48 113-115. Unvesting of the candidates for baptism. 116-118. Consecration of two oils by the bishop, and the delivery of them to the presbyter, viz. 'the oil of exorcism' and 'the oil of unction or thanksgiving.' 119. The candidate is directed to face westward and to renounce Satan. 120. Unction by the presbyter with the oil of exorcism. 121, 122. The candidate faces eastward, and declares his belief in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 123-133. Then he enters the water, and the presbyter, laying his hand on the candidate's head, immerses him thrice, asking him at each immersion whether he believes in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, successively, the presbyter repeating the formula of baptism at each immersion. 134. Then the presbyter anoints him with the oil of thanksgiving, in the name of the Trinity, and in the form of the cross, on the forehead, mouth, breast, whole body, head, and face.

49 135. The candidate is wiped, clothed, and introduced into the church. 136-139. The bishop lays his hands on the heads of all the recently baptized, with prayer. 139, 140. The bishop signs each of them on the forehead with the sign of the cross, and gives to each the kiss of peace, this mutual salvation passing— V. The Lord be with you. R. And with thy spirit. 141. The kiss of peace is then exchanged between the newly-baptized and all the congregation. 142-147. The bishop then communicates them with the reserved eucharistic elements, separately, using these formulæ of administration. Bishop. This is the body of Christ. R. Amen. Bishop. This is the blood of Christ. R. Amen. 148. The candidates then partake of milk and honey, which have been brought in chalices by the presbyters, or, in their absence, by the deacons. The milk and honey are represented as having a double symbolism; firstly, as teaching the newly baptized that they are babes in Christ; secondly, as typifying the world to come, and the sweetness of all good things.

50 149. They are now designated 'Christiani perfecti'—'perfect Christians.' Tertullian, in his treatise De Baptismo, describes baptism as consisting of three parts: (1) Immersion in water; (2) anointing with oil; (3) imposition of hands. After describing the first part, he proceeds— 51 'Then on stepping forth from the font we are anointed with consecrated oil. This is a custom derived from the Old Testament dispensation, in which men used to be anointed to the priesthood with oil out of a horn, since the time when Aaron was anointed by Moses, from which he is called "a christ," from the chrism, that is, the unction employed; and this unction gave his name to our Lord, being spiritually performed, because he was anointed with the Spirit by God the Father, as it is written in the Acts, "For of a truth against Thy holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, were they gathered together." Thus, in our case also, though the unction takes place in the flesh, the benefit is spiritual, just as in baptism itself the immersion in water is a carnal transaction, but the effect is spiritual, namely, the deliverance from our sins. After that, the hand is laid upon us, invoking and inviting the Holy Ghost. If human skill can bring wind into water, and then by application of hands from above can make the conjunction of those elements breathe out another wind which produces a loud music, shall we say that God is unable in his own organ [i.e. man] by means of holy hands to awaken strains of spiritual sublimity? This rite also comes from the Old Testament dispensation, in which it is recorded how Jacob blessed his grandsons by Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, by placing his hands upon their heads, and at the same time crossing them so as to represent Christ, and to foreshadow the blessing which was to come through Him. Then that most Holy Spirit comes down willingly from the Father upon the bodies which have been cleansed and blessed.

52 Elsewhere Tertullian refers to the same rite in a passage which has been already quoted. St. Clement of Alexandria advances a curious argument against the use of false hair. He condemns it, because when the presbyter lays on his hands [in confirmation] and blesses, he will not be laying his hands upon the woman who is so adorned, but on some one else's hair, and so upon somebody else. St. Cyprian of Carthage frequently and plainly alludes to the imposition of hands. He writes— 'And, therefore, because they (i.e. the Samaritans) received legitimate and ecclesiastical baptism, there was no need for them to be further baptized, but that only was wanting which was done for them by Peter and John, viz. the invoking and the outpouring on them of the Holy Spirit, with prayer on their behalf, and the laying on of hands. This custom is also now observed among ourselves. Those who are baptized in the church are brought to the chief officers of the church, and through our prayers and the imposition of hands receive the Holy Spirit, and are consummated with the sign [or seal] of the Lord' [i.e. the sign of the cross.]

53 Again, arguing that, if the validity of heretical baptism is admitted, the validity of heretical confirmation must be admitted as well, he employs these words— 'If they attribute the effect of baptism to the majesty of the name, so that those who are baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, anywhere and anyhow, are to be considered renewed, and consecrated, why does not the baptized person, in the Name of the same Christ, receive the imposition of hands also there, to the receiving of the Holy Ghost? Why does not the same majesty of the same Name avail in the imposition of hands, which, as they contend, availed in the baptismal consecration?' And so on, pursuing the argument at great length. He also wrote thus to Jubaianus— 'This is our custom now. Those who are baptized in church are brought to the presidents of the church that they may receive the Holy Spirit by our prayer, and by the imposition of our hands, and that they may receive the sign of the Lord.'

54 At the Carthaginian council of eighty-seven bishops, who supported St. Cyprian in his attitude on the question of the re-baptism of heretics, Nemesianus of Thubunæ said— 'Our Lord Christ spoke with His own Divine voice, saying, "Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." This is the Spirit which moved in the beginning over the water. For neither can the Spirit work separately without the water, nor the water without the Spirit. It is, therefore, a wrong interpretation which some give, who say that they ought to receive the Holy Ghost by the imposition of hands, and so be admitted into the Church, when it is manifest that they ought to be born again, by both sacraments of the Catholic Church.' On the same occasion Secundinus of Carpos (or Carpis) said that— 'It is impossible for the Holy Ghost to descend through the imposition of hands alone upon strange children, and the progeny of Antichrist, it being clear that heretics have no baptism.' Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, writing to St. Cyprian in support of the Cyprianic attitude on the subject of the validity of heretical baptism, thus bears witness to the rite of laying on of hands in confirmation in Asia Minor, in the middle of the third century—

55 'Heretics, if they cut themselves off from the Church of God, can have no power or grace at all, since all power and grace is placed in the Church in which elders preside (ubi præsident majores natu), who have the power both of baptizing, and of laying on of hands, and of ordaining. For as a heretic may not ordain, nor lay on hands, so neither may he baptize, nor perform anything in a holy and spiritual manner, since he is an alien from spiritual and Divine holiness. . . . Forasmuch as Stephen [Bishop of Rome, 253–257] and those who think with him contend that remission of sins and the second birth can take place in the baptism of heretics, among whom they themselves confess that there is no Holy Ghost, let them consider and understand that there cannot be any spiritual birth without the Spirit. Accordingly the blessed Apostle Paul baptized again with spiritual baptism those who had been baptized by John before the Holy Ghost was sent by the Lord, and so laid his hand upon them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. . . . Was Paul less great than these bishops of to-day, that they should be able to give the Holy Ghost to heretics who come over by the imposition of hands alone, while Paul was not qualified to give the Holy Ghost to those baptized by John by imposition of hands, without first having also baptized them with the Church's baptism?'

56 'What does Stephen mean by saying that those baptized among heretics have with them the presence and sanctity of Christ? If the Apostle does not lie when he says, "As many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ," then surely he who is baptized into Christ then has put on Christ. But, if he has put on Christ, he could also have received the Holy Ghost, who has been sent by Christ, and it is vain to lay hands upon him on coming over, that he may receive the Spirit, unless Christ and the Spirit can be so divided, as to let heretics have Christ among them, but not the Holy Ghost. 'If baptism outside the church availed in the name of Christ for purifying the man, the laying on of hands might also have availed there in the Name of the same Christ for receiving the Holy Ghost.'

57 The whole letter, which is a long one, should be read. It dates from a time before it was anywhere thought or said 'Roma locuta est, causa est finita,' although in this particular controversy the Roman view, as maintained by Stephen, has justly and universally prevailed over the African view upheld by Cyprian, and over the Asiatic view, agreeing with the African, and upheld by Firmilian. But our purpose in quoting these passages has been to prove that the laying on of hands was the outward sign of confirmation in the African and in the Eastern Church in the middle of the third century. The third Council of Carthage, A.D. 256, distinctly mentions the imposition of hands (in confirmation) as following after baptism, and as connected with the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the synodical letter sent by St. Cyprian and his colleagues from Carthage in the same year, addressed to St. Stephen, Bishop of Rome, they inform him that they have decided that, in the case of converts from heresy, it was not sufficient to receive them by the imposition of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, but that it was necessary that they should receive the baptism of the Church as well.

58 But, as has been already stated, the Roman view and practice prevailed against the practice of the Church of Africa; e.g. we find the Synod of Arles in Gaul, A.D. 314, laying down in its eighth canon that in the case of converts from heresy, if it be proved that they have been baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, they should be received into the Church with the imposition of hands only, that they may receive the Holy Ghost. Origen refers twice to this subject, but both times historically to the practice as recorded in the New Testament. These passages prove that the laying on of hands was sometimes spoken of as part of baptism, sometimes as following after baptism. They do not prove, but they go some way to imply, that the laying on of hands was practised in Egypt in Origen's day; at least, if it had dropped into desuetude, we might have expected some reference to the fact, if not some explanation of the reason. He says—

59 'In the Acts of the Apostles, through the laying on of the apostolic hands, the Holy Ghost was given in baptism.' And again— 'Lastly, it is for this reason that the grace and revelation of the Holy Ghost were delivered through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles after baptism.' We obtain information, incidentally, through Clement of Alexandria, that imposition of hands was practised by the Gnostics, in connection with baptism, in the middle of the second century. Theodotus, the Valentinian, giving a fanciful interpretation of 1 Cor. xv. 29, mentions that the formula which accompanied the imposition of hands in his sect included the phrase 'into angelic redemption.' In the Apostolic Constitutions confirmation is still spoken of under the title of 'the laying on of hands.' We will for once travel beyond our proper time limit to say that the latest Eastern Father who is quoted as testifying to this practice of laying on of hands is St. Athanasius (ob. 373), who says—

60 'Likewise also all the saints having received the Holy Spirit in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, through the laying on of the hands of the priest of God, are restored to that primitive state in which they were before Adam fell.' Western evidence for the practice continues to a much later date—as late as the twelfth century—but with gradually dwindling frequency and force. A passage from St. Jerome is so exactly descriptive of modern Anglican practice that we venture to quote it. It is put into the mouth of an orthodox person disputing with a Luciferian. 'I do not deny that this is the usage of the churches, that the bishop should make excursions to those who have been baptized a long way off in the smaller towns by presbyters and deacons, to lay his hands upon them for the invoking of the Holy Ghost. But if the bishop lays on his hands, he lays them upon those who have been baptized in the right faith.'

61 St. Isidore of Seville entitled a chapter (cap. 26) in his second book on Ecclesiastical Offices 'Of the Imposition of Hands or Confirmation,' and opens it thus— 'But since after baptism the Holy Spirit is given through the bishops along with the imposition of hands,' etc. Evidence for the use of unction in confirmation has been already given in a passage from Tertullian. Elsewhere he says— 'As soon as we are come out of the water we are anointed with the blessed unction, and then we receive imposition of hands, invocating the Holy Spirit by a benediction.' Origen mentions unction when he speaks of 'all those baptized with visible water and visible chrism,' drawing no clear line of demarcation between the unction of baptism and the unction of confirmation. In both the Greek and Roman Churches, while the unction remains, the use of the imposition of hands has disappeared for many centuries.

62 For the use of the sign of the cross in confirmation, see next paragraph. § 7. SIGN OF THE CROSS.—The sign of the cross was in constant use among the early Christians, not only in baptism and confirmation or while praying, but also as an accompaniment of the commonest actions of everyday life. They thought that they saw or could see the sign of the cross almost anywhere and everywhere. Justin Martyr bade people see it in the cross masts of a ship, in the cross handle of a plough, in the shape of tools used by diggers and mechanics, in the shape of the human form as it stands erect with arms extended, and especially in the case of the extended arms of Moses while the Israelites defected the Amalekites. Tertullian describes how 'In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross.'

63 In deprecating mixed marriages, he asks how the Christian wife will be able to escape detection by the heathen husband, when she makes the sign of the cross over her body, or over her bed, or to banish evil thoughts, or when she rises at night to pray. St. Cyprian, speaking of the necessity for the Christian to be armed at all points, says— 'Let thy forehead be protected that the sign of the cross may be preserved intact.' This may be either a general reference to the use of the sign of the cross, or a special reference to its use in confirmation, about which he elsewhere says that— 'Those who are baptized are brought to the bishops (prepositis) of the Church, and obtain the Holy Spirit through our prayer and the imposition of hands, and are consummated by the sign of the Lord.' Minucius Felix says— 'We see the sign of the cross naturally in a ship, borne along with bellying sails; we see it when the ship glides forward with outstretched oars, and when the yard is hoisted; we see it when a pure-hearted man worships God with extended arms.'

64 Origen thought that the shape of the letter tau 'bore a resemblance to the figure of the cross, and that therein was contained a prophecy of the sign which is made by Christians upon the foreheads, for all the faithful make this sign in commencing any undertaking, and especially at the commencement of prayer or of reading Holy Scripture.' In early Acts of the Saints reference is made to the use of this sign in offering prayer; it was made by Thecla on leaving her mother's home. A two-fold symbolism is ascribed to it in the Canons of Hippolytus—firstly, as a sign of conquest over Satan; secondly, as a sign of glorying in our faith. The sign of the cross was, as we have seen, connected with baptism. St. Cyprian speaks of 'those persons who have been regenerated, and signed with the sign of Christ,' and says, 'Let thy brow be fortified [with the cross] that the sign of God [i.e. once imprinted at baptism] may be preserved intact.' It is referred to in the Apostolic Constitutions.

65 Origen represents the devil at the Day of Judgment claiming a man as his own in these words— 'Lo! this man was called a Christian, and was signed on the forehead with the sign of Christ; but he bore my will and my mark in his heart. Behold a man who renounced me and my works at his baptism, but again occupied himself in my works, and obeyed my laws!' § 8. EXORCISM.—No external action is mentioned in the New Testament in connection with the act of exorcising or casting out evil spirits (St. Matt. xii. 27; Acts xix. 13); but the practice of the imposition of hands in connection with it evidently obtained at a very early date. Origen speaks of the imposition of the hands of the exorcists which unclean spirits found heavy upon them. Vincentius of Thibaris mentions the imposition of hands in exorcism as the first rite to be received by a man on his way to become a full Christian. From this we gather that the imposition of hands in exorcism was practised in Africa in the third century.

66 All extant offices of exorcism mention and provide for it; but none of these offices, as we know them, are ante-Nicene. § 9. FASTING.—Fasting on Wednesday and Friday is recognized and ordered in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles— 'But let not your fasts be together with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week; but fast ye on the fourth day [Wednesday], and on the preparation day [Friday].' The same injunction occurs in the Apostolic Constitutions, with a very practical definition of the object of fasting appended to it— 'We enjoin you to fast every fourth day of the week [Wednesday], and every day of the preparation [Friday], and bestow the surplusage of your fast upon the needy.' The custom is mentioned by Tertullian, by St. Clement of Alexandria, and by Origen. In The Shepherd of Hermas the reason for fasting is set forth at greater length—

67 'This fasting,' saith he, 'if the commandments of the Lord are kept, is very good. This, then, is the way that thou shalt keep the fast. First of all, keep thyself from every evil word and every evil device, and purify thy heart from all the vanities of this world. If thou keep these things, thy fast shall be perfect for thee. And thus shalt thou do. Having fulfilled what is written, on that day on which thou fastest, thou shalt taste nothing but bread and water; and from thy meals which thou wouldest have eaten, thou shalt reckon up the amount of that day's expenditure, which thou wouldest have incurred, and shalt give it to a widow, or an orphan, or to one in want, and so shalt thou humble thy soul, that he that received from thy humiliation may satisfy his own soul, and may pray for thee to the Lord. If then thou shalt so accomplish this fast, as I have commanded thee, thy sacrifice shall be acceptable in the sight of God, and this fasting shall be recorded; and the service so performed is beautiful and joyous, and acceptable to the Lord.'

68 The Apology of Aristides contains this passage, among others, which describe the life of the early Christians— 'If there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast two or more days, that they may supply the needy with their necessary food.' An early reference to the strict view of the binding character of the Wednesday and Friday fast, irrespective of eleemosynary considerations or other such purposes, occurs in the Acts of St. Fructuosus. When that saint was on the way to martyrdom, he refused to touch a cup of wine offered him by his friends, because it was only 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, and he would not break the fast which on Wednesday and Friday was protracted till 3 p.m. St. Peter of Alexandria explains the origin of these two fast-days, saying that it was usual to fast on Wednesday 'because of the Jews taking counsel for the betrayal of our Lord,' and on Friday, 'because He then suffered for our sake.'

69 Origen says— 'We have the forty days of Lent (Quadragesimae dies) consecrated to fasting; we have the fourth and sixth days of the week (Wednesday and Friday) on which to keep our solemn fasts.' Lent and Wednesdays and Fridays are mentioned as times of fasting by Tertullian, in the Canons of Hippolytus, and, it may be added, in the later Apostolic Canons, where they are ordered to be observed, both by clergy and laity, under severe penalties. In the second century there was variety of custom with regard to the duration of Lent, some observing it for one day (i.e. Good Friday), some for two days (i.e. Good Friday and Easter Even), some for more days than these two, some for forty days. There are traces of a strict and continuous fast being observed on Good Friday and Easter Even. This was supposed to be literally carrying out our Lord's words, 'But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.' It was a prolonged preparation for the midnight celebration of the Eucharist on Easter Morning. Lactantius speaks of the night of Holy Saturday being passed in watchfulness on account of the Saviour's body coming to life again, and on account of the second coming of our Lord and King. Tertullian refers to the difficulty which would be experienced by a Christian wife in absenting herself all night from her heathen husband on account of the paschal solemnities. The all-night watch on Easter Even is specially mentioned in the Canons of Hippolytus. Zosimus narrates that the feast of the resurrection of the Lord is performed with much watching, for we continue watching for three days and three nights.

70 For fasting as a preparation for the reception of baptism, see p. 72; of the Holy Eucharist, see p. 127. § 10. THE EUCHARIST.—We do not propose to discuss fully the much-debated and difficult question as to the time when the Liturgy of the Christian Church was first committed to writing. But it should be stated that there is not sufficient evidence to prove the existence of any written liturgical books before A.D. 325, and that there are certain facts and statements which tend to disprove, without amounting to positive disproof of their existence. The facts referred to are these— There is no allusion to the surrender, or to any demand for the surrender, of liturgical books during the early persecutions, though the surrender, or the demand for the surrender, of copies of Holy Scripture is frequently mentioned. No appeal is made to the authority of a settled liturgical text during the controversies of the first three centuries.

71 Some phrases used in early descriptions of Christian worship point to the extempore character of the prayers used, e.g. in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles it is said— 'Suffer the prophets to give thanks as much as they will.' Justin Martyr, describing the Eucharistic Service, tells us that— 'Bread and a cup of wine mingled with water are then brought to the president of the brethren; 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 counted worthy to receive these things at his hands.' And in another description he says— 'When we have finished the prayer, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings with all his might.' We have put in italics the phrases which seem to imply, if they do not prove, the use of extempore devotional language.

72 In the Acts of Thomas there is an extremely interesting account of the communion of the newly baptized, the Eucharist being celebrated for that purpose by the Apostle, who is represented as employing words of consecration which are evidently extempore. We append one more passage from a later writer, which has been taken to mean, and which, as far as language goes, may mean, but which does not necessarily mean, that the Liturgy had not yet been written down in the fourth century. St. Basil of Cæsarea (ob. 379) says— 'Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of invocation at the consecration of the bread of the Eucharist, and of the cup of blessing? For we are not content with those mentioned by the Apostle or the Gospel, but we also say some words before them and after them, as being of great force for the purpose of the sacrament, which we have received from unwritten tradition.'

73 Language may, however, have become fixed before it was written. We can trace the 'Sursum corda,' as an integral portion of the Eucharistic Service, as far back as the time of St. Cyprian, who says— The priest, in the preface which is said before the Prayer [of Consecration], prepares the minds of the brethren by saying, Lift up your hearts, that when the people answer, We lift them up unto the Lord, they may be warned that they ought to think of nothing but the Lord.' And more fully still in the Canons of Hippolytus— 'And let the bishop say : The Lord be with you all. Let the people reply : And with thy spirit. Let him say : Lift up your hearts. Let the people reply : We lift them up unto the Lord. The bishop : Let us give thanks unto the Lord. Let the people reply :

74 It is meet and right so to do.' The formulæ of administration mentioned in the same canons are these— This is the body of Christ. ℥. Amen. This is the blood of Christ. ℥. Amen.' In the Egyptian Church Order the formula has become slightly enlarged— 'This is the bread of heaven, the body of Jesus Christ. ℥. Amen. This is the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. ℥. Amen.' Titles of the Service.—(a) The Breaking of Bread. The earliest and scriptural title of this service, 'the breaking of bread,' occurs in a passage of the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Ephesians, in which he bids them— 'Assemble yourselves together in common, every one of you severally, . . . breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ.' And in the following passage in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles—

75 'And on the Lord's day come together, and break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.' In the Acts of Paul and Thecla St. Paul is described, on his arrival at the house of Onesiphorus, as offering prayer, breaking bread, and preaching the word of God. In the Acts of Thomas we find the expression 'breaking the eucharistic bread.' (b) The Eucharist. The word 'Eucharist' is first found as a distinct title of 'Holy Communion' in the writings of St. Ignatius. He says to the Philadelphians— 'Be ye careful, therefore, to observe one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup unto union in His blood; there is one altar, as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery, and the deacons, my fellow-servants), that whatsoever ye do, ye may do it after God.' He thus describes, among other ways, certain heretics in his Epistle to the Smyrnæans—

76 'They abstain from Eucharist and prayer, because they allow not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which flesh suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up.' In the same Epistle he adds— 'Let that be held a valid Eucharist which is under the bishop, or one to whom he shall have given a commission. . . . It is not lawful, apart from the bishop, either to baptize or to hold a love-feast.' A few years afterwards the use of the word 'Eucharist' as a title is definitely fixed by Justin Martyr. After describing the partaking of the consecrated bread and wine and water, he goes on to say— 'And this food we call the Eucharist, which nobody may partake of, except,' etc. St. Irenæus, reproving Victor, Bishop of Rome, who had broken off communion with the bishops of Asia Minor because they kept Easter always on the fourteenth day of the month, whether it was a Sunday or not, claiming to follow the practice of the Apostle St. John, tells him that his predecessors 'sent the Eucharist to the Asiatic bishops,' in accordance with a custom of that time, as a mark of intercommunion between the two Churches. In the same letter he perhaps uses the word 'Eucharist' to denote the whole service, telling Victor that his predecessor, Anicetus, conceded the Eucharist to Polycarp, i.e. permitted Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist at Rome. Elsewhere Irenæus says—

77 'For as the bread from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist,' etc. In the Clementine Homilies the curious expression 'to break the Eucharist' is found. St. Clement of Alexandria says that Melchisedech gave consecrated bread and wine for a type of the Eucharist. Origen says that the symbol of gratitude towards God is that bread which is called the Eucharist. Tertullian and Cyprian both use the word 'Eucharistia.' Tertullian also uses 'gratiarum actio,' or 'giving of thanks,' as its Latin equivalent. In the Acts of Thomas it is called 'the Eucharist of Christ.' It is this widespread and preponderating use of the term 'Eucharistia' in ante-Nicene literature, which has caused us to select the title of 'the Eucharist' as the heading for this section of the second chapter. Among other titles which were given to this sacrament there should be mentioned the following :—

78 (c) Sacrifice, either absolutely by itself, or with some epithet attached to it, e.g. 'the pure sacrifice,' 'the pure and spiritual oblation,' 'the Lord's sacrifice.' At the trial of Apollonius— 'the prefect said to the Christian martyr, "Come and sacrifice to Apollo, and to the other gods, and to the emperor's image." Apollonius replied, "As to my change of mind, and as to the oath, I have given thee answer; but as to sacrifices, I and all Christians offer a bloodless sacrifice to God, Lord of heaven and earth,"' etc. Not that the title of 'sacrifice' was confined to the Eucharist. St. Clement of Alexandria, contrasting the sumptuous sacrifices offered by the heathen to their gods with the sacrifice offered by Christians, identifies the Christian sacrifice with prayer generally; no doubt, not excluding, yet not specially naming, the Eucharistic sacrifice. He says— 'For the sacrifice of the Church is prayer which is offered by holy souls, when the whole mind is opened and offered in sacrifice to God,' etc.

79 (d) The Lord's Feast. (e) The Spiritual and Heavenly Sacrament. The title of , or Viaticum, for a death-bed communion occurs in the thirteenth Canon of the Council of Nice, but we have not found any instance of an Ante-Nicene use of this word with an exclusively or necessarily Eucharistic meaning. Time of Celebration.—The earliest records which we possess of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist outside the pages of Holy Scripture itself, speak of the early, and for the most part of the very early, morning. Pliny in his letter to Trajan, c. A.D. 112, describes Christians as 'persons who met together early in the morning, and bound themselves with a sacrament,' etc. Justin Martyr, though he gives clear information on other points, is silent as to the hour of the day. Tertullian speaks plainly about it. He says— 'The Sacrament of the Eucharist, though it was commanded by our Lord at meal-time and to all, we take in assemblies before daybreak (antelucanis extibus), and from the hands of no others except our presidents.'

80 Again, when dissuading a Christian woman from marriage with a heathen man, he says— 'Your husband will not know what you are tasting secretly before all other food.' He refers also to the custom of a midnight celebration of the Easter Eucharist, the attendance at which will constitute another of the difficulties which await a Christian wife allied to a heathen husband. St. Cyprian thus explains and defends morning as against evening celebrations of the Eucharist. He is answering the argument which might be brought forward, that because Christ instituted the Eucharist after supper, therefore our celebration thereof ought to be after supper likewise, and he says— 'It behoved Christ to offer about eventide, that the hour itself of sacrifice might betoken the setting and evening of the world, as it is written in the Book of Exodus, "And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill in the evening." And again in the Psalms, "Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice." But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.'

81 Tertullian refers to the celebration of the Eucharist in connection with a wedding in these words— 'How may we suffice to describe the happiness of that marriage in which the Church unites, and which the oblation confirms, and the benediction seals?' Frequency of Celebration. The earliest evidence which is forthcoming points to a celebration of the Eucharist on one day in each week, that day being Sunday. The stated day of the week referred to in Pliny's letter to Trajan may be concluded with moral certainty to have been the first day of the week, if we bear Acts xx. 7 in mind, and weigh the fact that we have contemporary or earlier evidence of a definite kind about the Sunday worship of the primitive Church. In the Didache there is this order— 'And on the Lord's day of the Lord come together and break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.'

82 After describing the Eucharistic Service, Justin Martyr mentions Sunday as the day on which all met for worship. In the Acts of Eugenia, which date from the third century, though they have not reached us without later additions, we read how her mother Clodia— on the Lord's day, at the hour of the completion of the sacrament, while she was in church and was offering prayer, gave up her spirit into the hands of Christ, the Lord of all spirits.' Other days which were specially marked by a celebration of the Eucharist, besides Sundays, were the festivals or anniversaries of martyrs; also the two station days in each week, Wednesday and Friday; and probably the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost, known as Quinquagesima, or Pentecostes, or Quinquagesima Paschalis, which Tertullian describes as one continuous festival. According to the Canons of Hippolytus the Eucharist was to be celebrated on Sundays, and on other days when the bishop wished, and also before the commemoration of the dead.

83 But by the beginning of the third century we have evidence that a daily celebration had become, at least in Africa, an established custom. Tertullian, describing a certain class of unworthy clergy, says— 'The Jews once laid their hands on Christ; they daily harass His body. O hands which should be cut off! Let them see to it now whether it was said in a parable, "If thy hand offend thee cut it off." What hands should be cut off more than those in which the body of our Lord receives offence?' He gives a Eucharistic as well as a literal interpretation of the clause in the Lord's Prayer, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' St. Cyprian and other African bishops say in the Synodical Epistle of the Second Council of Carthage in 252— 'As priests who daily celebrate the sacrifices of God, let us prepare [men to become by martyrdom] offerings and victims to God.'

84 St. Cyprian also says— 'A more serious and a more fierce contest awaits them, for which the soldiers of Christ ought to prepare themselves with unsullied faith and stout valour, considering that for this reason they daily drink the chalice of the blood of Christ, that they may have power themselves to shed their blood for Christ.' Commenting on the Lord's Prayer, he says— 'But we pray that this bread may be given to us daily, lest we who are in Christ, and receive the Eucharist daily as the food of salvation, should, while we are kept away and prevented from receiving the heavenly bread through the intervention of some very grave fault, be separated from the body of Christ.' Communion in both kinds.—It is unnecessary to produce evidence to prove the undisputed fact that ordinarily the Eucharistic elements were administered to the communicants in both kinds; but an argument which is based exclusively on the administration of the cup, and which would have to be abandoned or altered in that part of Christendom where the cup is now withheld from all save the celebrant, deserves to be quoted and remembered.

85 In the synodical Epistle addressed to Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, after the second Council of Carthage in 252, St. Cyprian and his colleagues say— 'How do we teach or encourage men to shed their blood in the confession of His Name, if as they are about to start on their warfare we deny to them the blood of Christ? Or how do we fit them to drink the cup of martyrdom if we do not first admit them with the right of communicants, to drink the cup of the Lord in church?' The Prayer of Consecration.—The text of no ante-Nicene Liturgy having come down to us, we do not, and cannot, know with precision the exact formula of consecration, but we can infer something of its character from the titles by which it is described. In the first place, it was a prayer, that is to say, it was not merely a recital of the words of institution, or of any other words in the shape of a formula, incantation, or charm. Origen says—

86 'Let Celsus, then, as an agnostic, tender his thanks to demons; while we, giving thanks to the Maker of the universe, eat also, with prayer and thanksgiving for blessings received, our oblations of bread, which, through the prayer [of consecration, ], becomes a certain holy body, which makes those holy who partake of it with right dispositions.' The nature of this prayer is further defined in a difficult passage which occurs in the earlier writings of Justin Martyr, who says that— 'As Jesus Christ our Saviour was incarnate by the Word of God, and assumed flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been taught that the food, from which our flesh and blood derive nourishment by assimilation, having been blessed [or made the Eucharist] by prayer of the word which is from Him, is both the flesh and blood of that same Jesus who was made flesh.' The expression 'prayer of the word which is from Him' is difficult to interpret. It has by some been taken to refer to the words of institution, by others to mean the Lord's Prayer, by others to mean the invocation of the Holy Ghost. It must remain sufficient here to have pointed out the chief varieties of interpretation, without discussing them at length, or attempting to decide between them.

87 The Latin equivalent of is 'prex' or 'prex Domini,' as in the following passage from St. Cyprian, where 'prex Domini' evidently denotes the Eucharistic consecration prayer, though 'prex' is elsewhere used by St. Cyprian of prayer in a general sense :— 'How does he think that his hand can be transferred to the sacrifice and to the prayer of the Lord, which has been held in captivity to sacrilege and crime?' Another expression for the consecrating formula is 'the Word of God.' Irenæus says— 'When therefore the mixed cup and the natural bread receive the word of God it becomes the Eucharist of the blood and body of Christ.' A more frequent phrase is 'the word of invocation,' or the invocation of God. Irenæus says again— 'As the bread which is from the earth, after receiving the invocation of God upon it, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly, so our bodies after partaking of the Eucharist are no longer destructible, having hope of the resurrection that is for ever.'

88 Describing the proceedings of a certain heretical Marcus, he reports how— 'Pretending to consecrate the Eucharist with a chalice of wine and water mixed, and making the word [or address, ] of the invocation unusually long, he contrived that they should appear purple and red, as though the grace which is from the powers on high dropped its own blood into those chalices at his invocation.' Origen says that it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer. St. Firmilian describes a female religious impostor, who not only baptized people, but also dared to consecrate bread by a not contemptible [form of] invocation, and to pretend to offer the Eucharist. There is a difficult passage in Tertullian, where he connects the words of institution with the prayer of consecration. He says that our Lord— 'Took bread, and distributed it, and made it His body, by saying, "This is My body," that is to say, a figure of My body. But it would not have been a figure unless there had been a true body [for it to be a figure of].'

89 The primitive consecration prayer, then, may be taken to have included an invocation, and the repetition of the words of institution. We do not know, because we are not told in what order they came, or of what words they consisted; but probably the order and the wording are those preserved in the Clementine Liturgy. With regard to words, there is one small point as to which we have information. There was a concluding 'Amen' uttered by the congregation. Tertullian asks how the mouth which has repeated 'Amen' at the holy service can shout approval at a gladiatorial combat. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, describes how the schismatic Novatian, in administering the Eucharist, compelled the communicants to substitute a formula of allegiance to himself for the 'Amen' wont to be said immediately after reception. The Mixed Chalice.—The mixed cup of wine and water is mentioned in Justin Martyr's description of the Eucharistic Service. Irenæus mentions and condemns the Ebionites for rejecting the mixed chalice, and employing water only in the Eucharist, and says that when the mixed cup and broken (MS. , factus) bread receive the word of God, they become the Eucharist of the blood and body of Christ.

90 The mixed cup is mentioned in the epitaph of Abercius (Avircius Marcellus), a supposed successor of Papias in the see of Hierapolis in Phrygia, c. A.D. 160. This epitaph is so important, as well as interesting, and at the same time is so little known, that we do not hesitate to print it in full, appending brief, but not always certain, explanations of difficult phrases in the footnotes. 'The citizen of an elect city, I made this [tomb] in my lifetime, that in due season I might have a resting-place for my body. Abercius by name, I am a disciple of the pure Shepherd, who feedeth His flocks of sheep on mountains and plains, who hath great eyes looking on all sides; for He taught me the faithful writings [of life]. He also sent me to royal Rome to behold it, and to see the golden-robed, golden-sandalled Queen. And there I saw a people bearing the splendid seal, and I saw the plain of Syria, and all the cities, even Nisibis, crossing over the Euphrates. And everywhere I had associates. In company with Paul, I followed, and everywhere Faith led the way, and set before me the Fish from the fountain, mighty and stainless, whom a pure Virgin clasped, and gave this to friends to eat always, having good wine, and giving the mixture with bread. These words I, Abercius, standing by, ordered to be inscribed. In sooth, I was in the course of my seventy-second year. Let every one who considers my meaning and thinks with me pray for Abercius. But no man shall place another tomb above mine. If otherwise, then he shall pay two thousand pieces of gold to the treasury of the Romans, and a thousand pieces of gold to my good fatherland, Hieropolis.'

91 St. Cyprian is positive and vehement on the subject of the mixed chalice. He calls it a tradition from our Lord (Dominica traditio), and urges that we ought to do nothing else than that which in the first instance our Lord did for us, viz. that the cup which is offered in commemoration of Him should be a mixed one. He quotes, in support of it, the text, 'Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the cup which I have mingled.' He then goes on, after adducing an extremely fanciful interpretation of the reason of the mixed chalice, to assert that it is necessary for the validity of the Eucharist, neither water alone nor wine alone being sufficient. He says— 'We see that people are to be understood by the water, and that the blood of Christ is exhibited in the wine. When water is mixed with wine in the chalice, the people is united to Christ and the multitude of believers is coupled and joined to Him in Whom they have believed; while coupling and joining of water and wine is thus made in the cup of the Lord as an inseparable commixture. . . . Thus, in consecrating the chalice of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, just as wine alone cannot be offered. For if any one offer wine only, the blood of Christ begins to be in existence without us. If, however, there be water only, the people begin to be in existence without Christ. But when both are mixed and joined in mutually confused union, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is perfected.'

92 This curious and inconclusive argument occurs in a letter intended to confute a practice introduced by some persons of consecrating water only for the Eucharist. So far as the invalidity of the use of water only is concerned, St. Cyprian has been supported by the voice of the universal Church; so far as the invalidity of the use of wine only is concerned, he has been overruled. Origen stands alone among the Fathers in asserting that our Lord used pure unmixed wine at the Paschal Supper. Mr. F. C. Conybeare thinks that he has got proof that in the primitive Eucharist water only was used; but the passages which he prints and adduces in support of such a view from the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and from the Acts of Callistratus, appear to contain no reference whatever to the Eucharist. One fact may be mentioned with reference to the chalice in early times. Tertullian informs us that it sometimes had the figure of the Good Shepherd painted on it.

93 Reservation. We find traces of this custom for at least three purposes— (a) For sending to the absent, or for the communion of the sick. Justin Martyr, in his account of the Eucharistic service, describes how, after those present had been communicated, the deacons bore away from the church portions of the consecrated elements for those who were absent. (b) For private use. St. Cyprian, writing against the custom of some Christians to frequent heathen games and shows, in spite of the immoralities and indecencies connected with them, denounces the profanity of the Christian worshipper, fresh dismissed from church, hastening at once to the play, and still carrying along with him, in accordance with custom, the Eucharist. It was carried in a small basket or box (arca). St. Cyprian tells a story of a woman who tried to open her box which contained the holy gift of the Lord (sanctum Domini), but who desisted, being terrified by the fire which rose from the box.

94 Tertullian advised scrupulous persons who would not receive at the three p.m. celebration of the Holy Eucharist on fast days, for fear of breaking their fast thereby, to attend the service, but to reserve their portion of the consecrated elements for reception at home in the evening, i.e. till the conclusion of the fast. He dissuades people from mixed marriages, because the heathen husband will get to know what is the food which the Christian wife tastes secretly before any other food, referring evidently to the consecrated portion reserved for consumption at home. (c) For despatch to strangers as a token of amity. We have already referred to the letter from Irenæus to Victor, Bishop of Rome, in which the former tells the latter that his predecessors in the Roman see sent the Eucharist to other bishops who disagreed with them as to the proper day for the observance of Easter; and how Bishop Anicetus and Polycarp, on the occasion of the visit of the latter to Rome, agreed to differ on this point without any breach of intercommunion.

95 Origen, in one passage, lays stress on the fact that at the institution of the Eucharist the bread was given to the disciples for immediate consumption, and not to be reserved for the morrow; but the context shows that he is arguing, not against the reservation of the material elements, but, metaphorically, against anything like staleness in offering the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Mode of Reception.—Many details have not come down to us, but there is trace of a custom at Alexandria—a custom not universally followed even there—of permitting the communicants to approach the holy table, and to take, each for themselves, a portion of the consecrated Eucharist. The same custom seems to be referred to in a letter from Dionysius of Alexandria to Xystus II., Bishop of Rome, preserved by Eusebius. Fasting Reception.—The fasting reception of the Eucharist by the newly baptized is ordered in the Canons of Hippolytus, and also more generally for all the faithful; but in language which half suggests that fasting reception was not then the universal and compulsory rule at all times, but that it was rigidly enforced on Good Friday.

96 'Let not any of the faithful taste anything before he has partaken of the mysteries, especially on the day of the holy fast.' We must again call attention to the passage in which Tertullian warns the Christian wife of a heathen husband that one of the difficulties of her situation will be that her husband will not know, and if he knows will not understand, what it is that she eats secretly before all other food. These are the only references which we have found in ante-Nicene writings to this subject. This is the more remarkable, because there is plentiful evidence for the fasting reception of the other great sacrament of the gospel. Infant Communion.—This is necessarily involved in the fact that infants were baptized, and that baptism was always immediately followed, if possible, by confirmation and first communion. St. Cyprian incidentally refers to the custom in his story about a child, who, unknown to its Christian mother, had been permitted by its nurse to taste food offered to idols, and who afterwards in church frantically refused to taste the contents of the consecrated chalice, and vomited when forced to do so. On the other hand, a passage may be quoted from Origen to prove that infants were not communicants. The reconciliation of the two passages lies in this: infants received the Eucharistic elements, probably, once in close connection with their baptism, but did not become regular communicants till they were more advanced in years.

97 HOLY DAYS. See SAINTS' DAYS. § 11. IMPOSITION OF HANDS.—We find reference to a fourfold usage and meaning of the ceremony of imposition of hands— (a) In Absolution. See p. 56. (b) In Confirmation. See p. 91. (c) In Ordination. See p. 139. (d) In Benediction. Several instances of this occur in the Acts of Thomas, and probably elsewhere. Directions are given in the Apostolic Constitutions. § 12. INCENSE.—There is no evidence for the use of incense in Christian worship during the first three centuries. The offering of incense was so intimately associated with the worship of idols, and with the early persecutions of the Christian religion, that we may well conjecture, though we have no proof, that it was the association of incense with idolatry, and with suffering for the truth, which accounts for its non-use in the earlier days of Christianity. The famous prophecy of Malachi was frequently commented upon in early Christian literature; but though its Eucharistic reference is nearly always maintained, the allusion to incense is either passed over in silence or explained as referring to prayer in connection with Rev. v. 8.

98 The following words, used by Tertullian, may be evidence that incense was not used in Christian worship in his time. He says that— 'as a Christian, he offers to God the rich and better offering which he himself has commanded, namely, prayer proceeding from a chaste body and an innocent mind, inspired by the Holy Spirit; not grains of incense of the value of one as, not the exudations of an Arabian shrub, not two drops of wine,' etc. It is possible that this, being a rhetorical passage, should not be pressed to prove the non-use of incense any more than it can be pressed to prove the non-use of Eucharistic wine. Arnobius speaks of idol-worship and of the use of incense in terms which make it morally certain that he had no knowledge of any custom of using incense in Christian worship. Lactantius, in a very fine passage on 'the true worship and sacrifice due to God,' speaks of the uselessness of external offerings of victims, vestments, gold, silver, incense, etc., in language which seems to imply, though it does not directly state, that none of those things formed part of Christian worship in his time.

99 Incense is first ordered for use in the Apostolic Canons, and in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, both post-Nicene authorities. See List of Authorities, pp. xii, xiv. § 13. KISS OF PEACE.—The kiss of peace (Osculum, Pax) was a recognized Christian custom throughout the period with which we are dealing. In the Passion or Acts of St. Perpetua we are told how the martyrs first kissed each other that they might complete their martyrdom with the solemnity of the kiss. It formed part of the ritual of every Eucharistic celebration, its position being after the dismissal of the Catechumens and before or at the commencement of the Anaphora, or Mass of the Faithful. This is plain from the account of the service given by Justin Martyr, and from the Canons of Hippolytus, as well as from its position in the Clementine Liturgy. Tertullian refers with disapproval to a custom of omitting 'the kiss' on fast-days generally, though he would retain its omission on the greatest of all fast-days, Good Friday.

100 Origen, in his Commentary on the Song of Solomon, refers to that kiss which we give to each other in church at the time of the Mysteries, and in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, said that it was a traditional custom in the Church for brethren to salute each other with the kiss of peace after prayers. But the kiss was not only Eucharistic in its association. It was given at baptism to the newly baptized. Some people shrank from kissing an infant only a few days old, as an impure thing, but St. Cyprian thus argues with them in favour of the baptismal kiss— 'No one ought to shudder at that which God hath condescended to make. For although the infant is still fresh from its birth, yet it is not just that any one should shudder at kissing it, in giving grace and making peace; since in kissing the infant, every one of us ought, for his very religion's sake, to bethink him of the hands of God themselves, still fresh, which in some sort we are kissing in the man lately formed and freshly born, when embracing that which God hath made.'

101 A kiss of peace, which may be described as partly baptismal, partly Eucharistic, is mentioned in the Canons of Hippolytus, where, as the priest gives the kiss to the newly baptized, he says, 'The Lord be with you,' and then the administration of the Holy Eucharist to them forthwith follows. As to the Ordination Service, the Canons of Hippolytus direct that the newly consecrated bishop shall receive the kiss of peace from all. In later times it was ordered that the newly ordained presbyter should receive the kiss from the bishop and the rest of the clergy. Tertullian mentions the kiss at marriage as an old heathen custom, but he does not expressly say whether it was retained or not in the Christian marriage ceremonial of his day. § 14. THE LOVE-FEAST, OR AGAPÉ.—The agapé was a feast or meal, of which in the earliest times all the members of the Christian Church partook in common as a token of brotherhood. It was an ordinary meal of a quasi-religious character.

102 In St. Paul's time, A.D. 57-8, the Eucharist and the agapé were closely connected, the latter apparently preceding the former. This is an inference from Acts xx. 7; and still more from the profane and scandalous behaviour condemned by St. Paul in I Cor. xi. 17-34. The title 'The Lord's Supper,' in I Cor. xi. 20, was originally applied to the combined agapé and Eucharist, and after the two had become dissociated, and after the former had become obsolete, was retained as a title for the Eucharist only. We do not know the exact date at which the dissociation took place. Probably it was very soon after St. Paul's time, and in order to avoid the possibility of such scandals as that which the Apostle had to condemn at Corinth. It is a fair inference, from the language of Pliny's letter to Trajan, that in Bithynia, in A.D. 112, the severance had already taken place, and that the Eucharist was then celebrated by itself at an early hour in the morning. The laws of imperial Rome were very strict against anything in the nature of a sodalitas or guild for social or other non-religious purposes, which involved a number of people meeting together. In order to avoid falling under this law, the agapæ were abandoned in the province of Bithynia-Pontus, ruled over by Pliny, and probably elsewhere as well.

103 It is also inferred that in Justin Martyr's time at Rome (c. A.D. 140) the Eucharist was celebrated by itself at an early hour in the morning. On the other hand, there is an expression in the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnæans which has been taken to imply that the dissociation had not taken place at Antioch or at Smyrna c. A.D. 110. Ignatius tells the Smyrnæans that it is not lawful to baptize or to celebrate the agapé apart from the bishop. There would be incongruity in this juxtaposition unless the other great sacrament was intended or included; and it seems impossible to resist the inference that the Eucharist and love-feast were still so closely united together, that the expression 'to celebrate the agapé' denoted or connoted to celebrate the Eucharist as well. This close connection between the love-feast and the Eucharist makes it sometimes difficult to decide whether passages and expressions in the earliest writings refer to the love-feast separately, or to the Eucharist separately, or to both conjointly. This difficulty arises with regard to the interpretation of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Didaché, which will be quoted at length and described hereafter.

104 The following passage from Tertullian gives a graphic description of the love-feast in the earlier part of the third century:— 105 'Yet about the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made. Our feast explains itself by its name. The Greeks call it love [Agapé]. Whatever it costs our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good things of the feast we benefit the needy. Parasites do not, as with you, aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities, selling themselves for a belly feast to all disgraceful treatment; but, as it is with God Himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly. If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste. They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one of their auditors. After manual ablution, and the bringing in of lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God, either one from the Holy Scriptures or one of his own composing. This is a proof of the measure of our drinking. As the feast commenced with prayer, so it is closed with prayer.

106 We go from it, not like troops of mischief-doers, nor bands of roamers, nor to break out into licentious acts, but to have as much care of our modesty and chastity as if we had been to a school of virtue rather than a banquet. Give the meeting of Christians its due, and hold it unlawful if it is like assemblies of the illicit sort, by all means let it be condemned if any complaint can be validly laid against it, such as is laid against secret factions. But who has ever suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our meetings just what we are when we are separated from each other; we are as a community what we are as individuals; we injure nobody; we trouble nobody. When the upright, when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure assemble in congregation, you ought not to call that "a faction," but "a curia"—that is, "a sacred meeting."

107 St. Clement of Alexandria alludes to the love-feast, warning his readers that the love-feast itself is not charity, but that it is a sign of that social benevolence which willingly imparts to others of its own abundance. In the Canons of Hippolytus it is implied that the regular love-feast will take place on Sunday evening at the time of the lighting of the lamps. Some of the glass cups and plates found in the Roman catacombs, decorated with sacred figures and memorial inscriptions, may be dated back as far as the third century, and were probably in use at agapæ. The love-feast was celebrated by the Christians of the Thebaid on the sabbath (Saturday) as late as the time of Socrates. § 15. MARRIAGE.—From the earliest days marriage has been regarded as a religious act, and solemnized with religious ceremonial. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote— 'It is fitting for men and women who marry to form this union with the approval of the bishop, that their union may be according to the will of God, and not according to the dictates of concupiscence.'

108 We have seen from Tertullian that the marriage itself was accompanied by a celebration of the Eucharist. A marriage so entered upon was regarded as indissoluble, except by death. Even in the case of a wife's unfaithfulness, though the innocent party might obtain a divorce, he might not marry again while his divorced wife was alive. 'What then, sir, say I, shall the husband do, if the wife continue in this case? Let him divorce her, saith he, and let the husband abide alone; but, if after divorcing his wife, he shall marry another, he likewise committeth adultery. If then, sir, say I, after the wife is divorced she repent and desire to return to her own husband, shall she not be received? Certainly, saith he. If the husband receiveth her not, he sinneth and bringeth great sin upon himself; nay, one who hath sinned and repented must be received, yet not often; for there is but one repentance for the servants of God. For the sake of her repentance, therefore, the husband ought not to marry. This is the manner of acting enjoined on husband and wife.

109 As to ceremonial details, we gather that the bride was usually dressed in white and veiled, and that joining of hands and the kiss of peace were part of the Marriage Service. The use of the ring at espousals was a part both of heathen and of Jewish nuptial ceremonial. It is alluded to more than once by Tertullian, who does not, however, expressly state that Christians used it. But St. Clement of Alexandria speaks of its Christian use in his time, saying that the ring is given to the woman, not as an ornament, but as a seal to signify the woman's duty in preserving the goods of her husband, because the care of the house belongs to her. The bride and bridegroom were not crowned. The marriage of the clergy of all grades was recognized throughout the primitive Church. The Apostolic Constitutions ordained that bishops, priests, and deacons should be only married once.

110 § 16. ORDINATION, HOLY ORDERS.—No extant office for the ordination or consecration of bishops, priests, or deacons is ante-Nicene in date; but we find allusions to the imposition of hands as forming the essential external act of ordination in primitive times. Cornelius, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 251–2), writing to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch, describes the consecration of the schismatic Novatian to the episcopate, as performed by three Italian bishops by the imposition of hands. That was evidently regarded as the essential outward sign. Had any other ceremony been regarded as essential we may be sure that Novatian would not have weakened his position by disregarding it, and that its use would have been recorded. In this same letter Cornelius incidentally mentions the number of the Roman clergy in his time. They were—46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 sub-deacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists, readers, and doorkeepers; and there were 1500 widows and distressed persons supported by the Church.

111 In the Canons of Hippolytus the imposition of hands is prescribed at the ordination of bishops, priests, and deacons, without further ceremonial. The following titles are found of persons in various grades of holy orders :— 112 Degree: Bishop. Authority: Patres Apostolici, passim, etc. ; Clementine Homilies, lib. iii. cap. 67, etc. Degree: ". Authority: Clementine Homilies, lib. iii. cap. 72. Degree: ". Authority: Clement of Rome, Ep. to Cor., cap. xxi. ; Shepherd of Hermas, Vision iii. § 9. Degree: ". Authority: Origen, C. Celsum, lib. iii. cap. 30, tom. i. p. 466. Degree: ". Title: . Authority: Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., cap. xl. Degree: ". Title: Episcopus. Authority: Canons of Hippolytus, xxxvi. § 186, p. 112, etc. ; Tertullian, De Prescript. Harct., cap. xvi., etc. ; Cyprian, Ep. 68, etc. Degree: ". Title: Antistes. Authority: Cyprian. See P. L., tom. iv. index. Degree: ". Title: Præpositus. Authority: Firmilian, Ep. ad Cyprianum ; Cyprian, Opera ; P. L., iii. 1158. Degree: ". Title: Pontifex. Authority: Origen, in Levit., Hom. iv. § 6. Degree: ". Title: Sacerdos. Authority: Cyprian most frequently uses this word for episcopus, but sometimes for 'presbyter ;' Canons of Hippolytus, xxxvi. §§ 186–188, p. 112.. Degree: ". Title: Princeps sacerdotum. Authority: Canons of Hippolytus, xxiv. § 200, p. 117. Degree: ". Title: Summus sacerdos. Authority: Tertullian, De Bapt., cap. xvii.. Degree: Priest. Authority: Justin Martyr, Apol., i. cap. 67. Comp. 1 Tim. v. 17. Degree: ". Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., capp. xxi., xlvii., etc. ;

113 Clementine Homilies, lib. iii. cap. 67, etc. | | " | ... ... | Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., cap. xl. ; Ignatius, Ad Philadelph., cap. ix. p. 126 ; Canons of Hippolytus, xxxvii. Degree: Priest. Authority: p. 118, etc.; Polycrates, in Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. v. cap. 24. Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., cap. xlii.; Didaché, cap. xv. Degree: ". Title: Presbyter. Authority: Tertullian, De Prescript. Harct., cap. xli., etc.; Cyprian, Ep., 36, etc.; Origen, In Lib. Jesu Nave, Hom. xvi. § 1. Degree: ". Title: Senior. Authority: Tertullian, Apol., cap. 39; Firmilian, Ep. ad Cyprianum; Origen, In Lib. Jesu Nave, Hom. xvi. § 1. Degree: ". Title: Sacerdos. Authority: Cyprian, Ep. 68, etc.; Origen, in Genesim, Hom. xvi. § 5; Origen, in Levit., Hom. v. § 12, etc. Degree: Deacon. Authority: Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., cap. xlii.; Didaché, cap. xv.; Patres Apostolici, passim. Degree: ". Title: Diaconus. Authority: Tertullian, De Prescript. Harct., cap. xli., etc.; Cyprian, Ep. 68, etc.; Canons of Hippolytus, xxxvii. § 201, p. 118. Degree: ". Title: Levita .. Authority: Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor., cap. xl.; Origen, Hom. ii. In Librum Jesu Nave, § 1; Origen, Hom. xii. in Jeremiam, § 3; Apostol. Constit., lib. ii. cap. 25..

114 § 17. PRAYER.—(a) Attitude. The posture ordinarily assumed by the earliest Christians while engaged in the act of prayer was that of standing. This may be seen in the representations of the orantes in the paintings of the Roman catacombs. The figures are (it is believed always) there depicted as standing, with arms extended outwards and upwards. Minucius Felix saw in these hands extended the sign of the cross. Tertullian condemns the hands extended to a strange heaven and another god. Elsewhere he says— 'Gazing up heavenward, we Christians pray with hands extended because they are innocent; with the head uncovered, because we are not ashamed; finally, without a guide, because we pray from the heart.' The last expression points to the use, but not necessarily to the exclusive use, of extempore prayer. The same practice may be also implied in an expression used by Justin Martyr in his description of Sunday worship in his first Apology.

115 In another place he mentions standing as an attitude for prayer, to be adopted on Sundays and during the period which extends from Easter to Pentecost. So also does Irenæus. St. Peter of Alexandria speaks of standing as the Sunday attitude of prayer. 'We keep the Lord's Day as a day of gladness, because on it he rose again, and on it, according to tradition, we do not even kneel.' St. Cyprian exhorts that 'when we stand to pray, we should watch and join in the prayers with our whole heart.' Origen says beautifully— 'Before a man stretches out his hands to heaven he must lift up his soul heavenward. Before he raises up his eyes he must lift his spirit to God. For there can be no doubt that among a thousand possible positions of the body, outstretched hands and uplifted eyes are to be preferred above all others, so imaging forth in the body those directions of the soul which are fitting in prayer. We are of opinion that this posture should be preferred, where there is nothing to forbid it, for there are certain circumstances, such as sickness, where we may pray even sitting or lying,' etc.

116 But from the first, side by side with standing, kneeling or prostration was also adopted as an attitude of prayer. With the example of our Lord Himself, as well as of St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Paul, on record, independently of the innate appropriateness of such a posture, it could hardly have been otherwise. St. Clement of Rome, in a general exhortation to repentance from schism, says— 'Let us therefore root this out quickly, and let us fall down before the Master, and entreat Him with tears,' etc. When St. Ignatius, before his martyrdom, prayed for all the churches, he is represented to have been joined by all the brethren kneeling. In his first Vision, Hermas thus describes his locality and position— When then I had crossed the river, I came into the level country, and knelt down and began to pray to the Lord and to confess my sins.'

117 Hegesippus relates of St. James the Just, that he used to enter the temple alone, and to be found on his knees, which from continuous kneeling became as callous as the knees of a camel. Tertullian, referring to the miracle of the rain sent in answer to Christian prayers in the case of the Melitine legion in the Marcomannic war, c. 174, asks— 'When have not even droughts been driven away by our kneelings and fastings?' Eusebius, afterwards, in describing that incident, narrates how the Christian soldiers 'put their knees on the ground as our custom is in prayer.' Origen says that the posture of kneeling is necessary in confession of sin to God. 'It should be known that bending of the knees is necessary when any one is about in supplication to confess (accusaturus) his sins before God, that they may be forgiven and that he may be healed from them.'

118 St. Cyprian, on his way to martyrdom, is narrated to have knelt on the ground and prayed. St. Fructuosus and his companions knelt in prayer while they were being burned to death. In the Acts of Paul and Thecla prayer is called a bending of the knees. From these and other passages which might be quoted it appears that the recognized attitude for prayer, liturgically speaking, was standing, but that kneeling was early introduced for penitential, and perhaps ordinary ferial, seasons, and was frequently, though not necessarily always, adopted in private prayer. (b) The eastward position. The eastward position in prayer seems to have been usual from the earliest times. Tertullian refers to the suspicion of the heathen, that the Christians were worshippers of the sun, not only because Sunday (Dies Solis) was their holy day, and because they prayed at sunrise, but also because of their well-known custom of turning to the East in prayer.

119 St. Clement of Alexandria said that— 'Prayers are made looking towards the sunrise in the East, and that because the East is the image of our spiritual nativity, and from thence the light first arises and shines out of darkness, and the day of true knowledge, after the manner of the sun, arises upon those who lie buried in ignorance.' Origen, in his work on Prayer, devotes a short chapter to explaining and defending the eastward position as the usual and most appropriate position for prayer. At an early, but post-Nicene, date the candidate for baptism turned to the East to profess his belief in the Holy Trinity. The Apostolic Constitutions are no doubt referring to a long-established custom when they direct that the whole congregation shall pray eastwards, in churches built eastward, and give various reasons for the direction. (c) Prayer for the dead. With regard to the subject matter of prayer there is only one point as to which it may be desirable to produce evidence, because there has been much popular misapprehension with regard to it. We refer to prayer for the departed. This was a recognized practice from the second century onwards. On this, as on most points, it is impossible, from dearth of material, to produce extra-Scriptural evidence of the first century, either for or against this kind of devotion.

120 The epitaph of Abercius, as has been seen, closes with this request— 'Let every one who considers my meaning, and thinks with me, pray for Abercius.' Tertullian says plainly— 'We offer oblations for the dead on the anniversary of their birth.' Denouncing second marriages, he describes the true Christian widow as one who— 'prays for his [i.e. her husband's] soul, and requests refreshment for him in the meanwhile, and fellowship in the first resurrection, and she offers [sacrifice] on the anniversaries of his falling asleep.' As an argument against being married more than once, he denounces the praying constantly, and annually offering [sacrifice] for two wives. St. Cyprian, in a letter addressed to the clergy and laity of Carthage, announcing the appointment of the confessor Celerinus to the office of reader, reminds them how many martyrs the family of Celerinus had produced, viz. his grandmother Celerina, his uncles Laurentius and Egnatius, the one on his father's side, the other on his mother's side, and then adds—

121 'You remember we always offer sacrifices for them as often as with annual commemoration we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs.' Origen says that— 'We devoutly make memorial [memories] of thy saints, and of our parents and friends, who die in the faith, as well as to rejoice in their refreshment, as to desire for ourselves a pious consummation in the faith.' And again— 'It seems fitting and convenient to make remembrance of the saints in our solemn assemblies, in order that we may benefit ourselves by the recollection of their doings.' In the Canons of Hippolytus it is ordered that— 'If a memorial is celebrated for those who are departed, before people sit down [to the feast], let them partake of the Mysteries, but not on the first day of the week. After the oblation let there be distributed to them the bread of exorcism before they sit down.'

122 Arnobius, referring to the destruction of Christian churches in the Diocletian persecutions, asks— 'What have our conventicles done that they should be ruthlessly destroyed, places in which God most High is prayed to, peace and pardon are asked for all men, for magistrates, armies, kings, friends, and foes, for persons still living, and for persons delivered from the bondage of the flesh?' In the Passion of St. Perpetua that saint in the second vision sees her brother Dinocrates, who had died of gangrene in the face at the age of seven years, in a dark place, dirty and pale, and with the wound still in his face. He is hot and thirsty, and vainly trying to get at the water of a font, the rim of which is above his head. In a later vision she sees him, in answer to her prayers, cleansed, well clad, and refreshed; only the scar of the old wound is to be seen; the rim of the font is lowered to the boy's waist; he gets as much water out of it as he wants, drinking out of a golden goblet which never fails. When his need was thus supplied, he departed from the water to play after the manner of children with great delight. 'Then,' adds Perpetua, 'I understood that he was released from punishment.'

123 In the Acts of Paul and Thecla it is recorded that— 'after the beasts had been shown, Trifina took Thecla home with her, and they went to bed; and behold the daughter of Trifina, who was dead, appeared to her mother and said, "Mother, let the young woman Thecla be reputed by you as your daughter in my stead; and desire her, that she should pray for me, that I may be translated to a place of refreshment."' Thecla complied with the request, and offered this short prayer— 'O Lord God of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ, Son of the most High, grant that her daughter Falconilla may live for ever.' The evidence yielded by early Christian inscriptions in the catacombs is of the same character. Many of them merely state or imply that the soul of the departed Christian is in peace, others are cast in the shape of prayer for the peace and refreshment of the soul of the departed; e.g.—

124 'Hilaris, may you live happily with your friends; may you be refreshed in the peace of God.' Kalemeros, may God refresh thy spirit, together with that of thy sister Hilara.' 'Timothea, mayest thou have eternal light in Christ.' 'Irenæa, mayest thou live in God, Alpha and Omega.' 'Marius Vitellianus to his most faithful wife Primitiva. Hail, innocent soul, dear wife, mayest thou live in Christ.' 'Mayest thou live among the saints in peace.' The names of the departed for whom prayer was specially desired were mentioned by the priest in the course of divine service, being probably placed before him in some convenient form, such as the diptychs of later days. St. Cyprian mentions that at Carthage no one was allowed, on dying, to nominate a cleric as executor or guardian, and that if any one did so, no offering was to be made for him, and no sacrifice celebrated for his repose (pro dormitione ejus).

125 'For that man does not deserve to be named at the altar in the prayer of the priests, who was ready to call away priests and ministers from the altar.' A few lines further on we learn that the particular prayer in which the name of the deceased was mentioned was called 'deprecatio' (aut deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur). This is interesting, because we know that a similar usage Dr. H. M. Luckock's After Death, 8th ed. (London, 1890), p. 94. They are a sample selected out of some six thousand extant epitaphs, about half of which may be ante-Nicene, and many of which might be quoted to the same effect. and a similar use of the term 'deprecatio' prevailed afterwards in both the Gallican and Celtic churches. These prayers for the departed always referred to the peace and happiness of their souls, and contained no reference to the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, which was evolved in later times, and formulated in the Council of Trent.

126 Nor did they imply that the eternal destiny of the soul of man could be altered by human intercession. Such a supposition is rendered impossible by such language as the following:— 'While we are on earth, then, let us repent; for we are clay under the craftsman's hand. For in like manner as the potter, if he is making a vessel, and it get twisted or crushed in his hands, re-shapeth it again; but if he have once put it into the fiery oven, he shall no longer mend it. So also let us, while we are in this world, repent with our whole heart of the evil things which we have done in the flesh, that we may be saved by the Lord, while we have yet time for repentance. For after that we have departed out of the world, we can no more make confession then, or repent any more.'

127 'Once gone forth from hence there is no more place for repentance; no satisfaction can be accomplished. It is here that life is lost or saved; it is here that eternal salvation is provided for by the worship of God, and the fruits of faith.' (d) Prayer to the departed. While there is abundant evidence for the practice of prayer for the departed from the earliest times, there is not a single genuine passage which can be quoted from any ante-Nicene Father in favour of the practice of prayer to the departed. One ambiguous passage is sometimes quoted from Origen, which may quite as well refer to prayer to living saints as to departed saints, and which, we may say, certainly does so in face of the absolute statement made by Origen elsewhere to this effect. 'For every prayer, and supplication, and intercession, and thanksgiving is to be sent up to the supreme God, through the High Priest, who is above all the angels, the living Word and God'

128 Still, departed saints were held by him to be assisting those on earth. He says— 'I think that all those fathers who have fallen asleep before us, are fighting with us and helping us with their prayers.' There are, however, a considerable number of inscriptions in the catacombs, which contain invocations of departed saints. They are mostly post-Nicene in date; but a few may be assigned to the third century, or at least to a date before A.D. 325. Out of the thirty-five dated inscriptions, which are earlier than A.D. 325 (inclusive), only one contains an address to the departed, and that this very simple one— 'Mayest thou live among the saints!' But among undated inscriptions we find such as the following:— 'Matronata Matrona, who lived for a year and fifty-two days. Pray for thy parents!' 'Anatolius made this for his well-deserving son, who lived seven years, seven months, and twenty days. May thy spirit rest well in God. Pray for thy sister.'

129 Are these epitaphs ante-Nicene or post-Nicene? It is impossible to decide. But, whatever their date, they are more like pious ejaculations than formal prayers. They do not involve more than 'ora pro nobis.' They fall far short of the strong appeals made to the departed saints for help of all kinds, and of the extravagant language in which these appeals were, and are frequently clothed, in mediæval and modern times. They are a testimony to the very early date at which a desire to appeal to departed saints began to take possession of men's minds. They are to be regretted, not as demonstrably wrong in themselves, but as unwise in the absence of any revelation as to whether departed saints can or cannot hear and give effect to our prayers to them, and as dangerous in view of the extravagant character which prayer to departed saints assumed in after centuries.

130 (c) Times of prayer. See SAINTS' DAYS (p. 155), SUNDAY (p. 157). As to hours of prayer, there was probably no settled order of services corresponding to the night and day hours of the later Breviaries. The Christian Church was in too inchoate a condition, and too much harassed by heathen persecution, to admit of its elaborating such a scheme of worship as that known to us by the name of the 'Divine Office;' but allusions to prayers in the morning, in the evening, at night, at the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day (i.e. Terce, Sext, and None) are found in the writings of Tertullian, St. Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Even if they refer primarily to private prayer, they foreshadow the Divine Office of later times. Terce, Sext, None, sunset (vespere, , candle-light), midnight, and cock-crow are mentioned in the Canons of Hippolytus. An early daily public service is described in the following canon:—

131 'Let presbyters, subdeacons, and readers, and all the people assemble daily in the church at time of cock-crow (gallicinium), and betake themselves to prayer, to psalms, and to the reading of the Scriptures, according to the command of the Apostles, "Until I come attend to reading." This passage is interesting as proving that the Divine Office was not exclusively monastic in its origin, or intended for the use of the clergy or of the cloister only. Other canons in the same collection are devoted to urging people to frequent the church on all days on which there are prayers, unless business prevents them from hearing the word of God; on those days on which there is not a service in church they are to read the Bible at home. On such days— 'Let the sun in the morning see the Scripture upon thy knees.' § 18. SAINTS' DAYS.—Saints' days, so far as martyrs are concerned, began to be kept at a very early date. In the letter of the Smyrnæans, describing the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, we are told how the Christians, after he had been burned to death, gathered together his bones—

132 'and laid them in a suitable place, where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, for the commemoration of those who have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those who shall do so hereafter.' St. Cyprian enjoins the presbyters and deacons— 'to note down the days of the deaths of the confessors, that the commemoration of them might be celebrated among the memorials of martyrs.' In another place he says— 'We always offer sacrifices for them, as often as we annually celebrate and commemorate the passions and death-days of the martyrs.' In A.D. 258, after the Decian persecution, when St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocæstarea, returned to his diocese, he ordered annual feasts in commemoration of the martyrs who had been faithful unto death. It will be noticed that, although St. Cyprian mentions confessors, yet it is martyrs who are specially referred to in all these cases. The commemoration of martyrs preceded all other commemorations. Those of other classes of saints, confessors, virgins, etc., were added afterwards. Even for the Blessed Virgin Mary no festival or commemoration was appointed in the first three centuries.

133 The following is the list of festivals and fasts enumerated in the Apostolic Constitutions:—Christmas Day; the Epiphany; Lent, consisting of the week before Easter, including Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Even; Easter Day; Low Sunday; the forty days of Eastertide; the Feast of Pentecost, with the week after it; all Sundays in the year; all Saturdays in the year are feasts, except Easter Even; and all Wednesdays and Fridays are fasts. SIGN OF THE CROSS. See § 7, p. 98. § 19. SUNDAY.—St. Ignatius describes Christians as no longer keeping the sabbath (Saturday), but as 'living after the Lord's day,' that is to say, not only observing the first day of the week instead of the seventh, but thereby also showing their belief in a risen Saviour, and their acceptance of all which that belief involves. This is probably the first extra-scriptural allusion to the Christian Sunday. In the Didaché, people are enjoined thus—

134 'And on the Lord's own day, gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.' The same title, , or the Lord's day, for Sunday, occurs in the recently discovered fragment of the Gospel of St. Peter, which probably belongs to the second century. In the Epistle of Barnabas the author writes— 'Wherefore we keep the eighth day as a day of gladness, on which also Jesus rose from the dead, and after He had appeared, ascended into heaven.' Justin Martyr explained the selection of the first day as being that on which God destroyed darkness and chaos, and created the world, and because Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. He also declares Sunday to be the first and chiefest of all days, and refers to circumcision on the eighth day as a type of it.

135 Irenæus, referring to the paschal controversy, in a letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, said that the mystery of the Lord's resurrection ought to be celebrated only on the Lord's day. Origen ingeniously argued that manna was rained down from heaven on the Lord's day, and not on the sabbath day, to show the Jews that even in the time of Moses the former was preferred before the latter. Melito of Sardis wrote a treatise about the Lord's day, which, unfortunately, has not come down to us. St. Clement of Alexandria says that— 'Man thoroughly keeps the command in the Gospel, and makes that day the Lord's day, when he abandons an evil disposition, and assumes that of the gnostic, glorifying the Lord's resurrection in himself.' Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, mentions the Lord's day as holy. Tertullian tells us that it was unlawful to fast on the Lord's day. We have already quoted the prohibition against kneeling on the Lord's day. The attitude of standing in prayer on that day was explained as symbolical of the resurrection, through which, by the grace of Christ, we were saved from sin and death.

136 In the Apostolic Constitutions, after double daily prayer has been ordered, it is added— 'And on the day of our Lord's resurrection, which is the Lord's Day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from the dead. Otherwise what apology will he make to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word concerning the resurrection? On that day we pray, standing thrice, in memory of Him who arose after three days, and on that day there is performed the reading of the prophets, and the preaching of the gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice, and the gift of the holy food.' And again— 'Every sabbath day, excepting one [i.e. Easter Even], and every Lord's day, hold your solemn assemblies and rejoice.' § 20. UNCTION.—Most of what has to be said about Unction has already been said in connection with Baptism and Confirmation. One or two passages of a general character remain to be quoted.

137 Theophilus, sixth or seventh Bishop of Antioch, writing c. 180, thus defends himself against the taunt still levelled against the name of Christian by the heathen— 'When you laugh at me, calling me a Christian, you do not know what you are saying. First, that which is anointed is sweet and serviceable, and ought not to be laughed at. What ship can be serviceable and seaworthy unless it be first anointed? Or what tower or house is sightly or serviceable when it has not been anointed? What man, on entering into this life, or when contending in the games, is not anointed with oil? What work can be comely and sightly if it be not anointed and polished? Then even the air and all that is under heaven is, in a kind of way, anointed with light and spirit, and do you not wish to be anointed with the oil of God? We, therefore, are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.'

138 Origen mentions unction once, but incidentally, and without detail; though it is plain, from the context, that it was post-baptismal— 'If God have washed thee [in baptism], and the word of the law and the unction of the chrism have made thee clean, and then if the grace of baptism have remained uncontaminated in thee,' etc. —in a fine passage comparing the dress and the ornaments of the Levitical priesthood to the virtues which should adorn a Christian. Sometimes unction is metaphorically referred to, as when Tertullian tells the martyrs that Christ their Master has anointed them with His Spirit. We have already seen that there were two separate rites of unction, the one immediately before and preparatory to baptism, the other immediately after baptism, and so closely connected with confirmation, that in the East, at least from the earlier part of the fourth century, it has entirely superseded the action of laying on of hands. In the West, the same supersession was more gradual, and not universal till a much later date. Both baptismal unctions are mentioned in the Canons of Hippolytus. At the second unction with the chrisma, the formula to be used by the presbyter is, 'I anoint thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' They are both described in the Apostolic Constitutions with much fuller detail. There the unction after baptism is called laying on of hands, and is thereby identified with confirmation, and is made an essential complement or accompaniment of baptism.

139 There is no allusion to unction of the sick or extreme unction' in ante-Nicene literature. Origen is sometimes referred to in connection with this subject, but if readers will refer to the passage adduced, they will find a rhetorical sentence in which St. James v. 14 is quoted, but not in such a way as to make it fair or possible to quote Origen as an authority for the practice of unction of the sick. § 21. VESTMENTS.—If we except one recently discovered passage quoted below, there is no evidence that any distinctive kind of dress was worn by the clergy in the first three centuries, either in ordinary life or at any time of their ministrations. On the contrary, there are plain statements in later writers that special vestments were unknown to the primitive Church. We will quote two sentences from mediæval ritualists of recognized authority. Walafrid Strabo, writing in the ninth century, says—

140 'In primitive times priests used to celebrate mass clothed in their ordinary dress, as some of the Orientals are reported to do even to the present day.' Beleth of Paris, writing in the twelfth century, says— 'Formerly the [Eucharistic] Sacrifice was celebrated by the Apostles and by Apostolic men in the primitive Church with vessels of wood, and in common dress.' The earliest reference to a special vestment appears to be in the Canons of Hippolytus, which lay down directions for a white ministerial dress— 'As soon as the bishop wishes to celebrate the mysteries, let the deacons and presbyters come together to him, clad in white vestments more beautiful than all the people, and as splendid as possible. But good work excels all vestments. Let the readers also have festival garments. . . . The readers also are to wear festal dresses.' Afterwards, in the Apostolic Constitutions, the celebrant is described as standing at the altar clad in a shining garment.

141 The golden plate or fillet or mitre which Polycrates informs us was worn by St. John the Divine, and which a later authority, Epiphanius, tells us was worn by St. James the Less, seems to have been something quite exceptional in its character, and cannot be referred to as an instance of settled ministerial dress. Origen has a long disquisition on the vestments of the Jewish priesthood, and with his usual ingenuity calls attention to their counterpart in the various virtues which should adorn and clothe the Christian; but he nowhere makes any allusion to their finding a material counterpart in any article or articles of Christian ministerial dress. The 'poderis,' 'rationale,' and 'tiara sacerdotalis,' mentioned by him in his Commentary on Psalm xxxiv. 2, are, we imagine, Jewish, and not Christian, vestments. There are frequent references to them in the Old Testament. All three words are found as the names of Christian vestments in mediæval writers.

142 § 22. VULGAR TONGUE, USE OF THE.—There is no trace of the use of a dead language in the services of the early Church. It would seem to be inconsistent with the line of argument used by St. Paul in 1 Cor. xiv., as well as with the dictates of common sense. Justin Martyr describes the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian assemblies, and then the founding of a discourse thereon by the president in a way which plainly indicates that all was conducted in intelligible language, and that there was no need of an interpreter. Origen says, in answer to a charge of the unintelligibility of Christian worship brought by Celsus— 'The Grecians use the Greek language in their prayers, and the Romans the Roman, and so every one in his own dialect prays to God, and the God of all languages hears them that pray in all dialects, understanding their different languages as well as if they spake with one tongue.'

143 § 23 (a). WASHING OF HANDS.—The custom of washing the hands before prayer is referred to by Tertullian, who appends a caution when he asks— What is the use of entering on prayer with the hands washed indeed, but with the spirit defiled?' A reference to the ablution of the hands at the love-feast has already been quoted from the same writer. In the Canons of Hippolytus the Christian is directed to wash his hands whenever he prays. Ablution of hands, no doubt, preceded every act of worship, and may have originated in a natural instinct of cleanliness, before it was crystallized into the ceremonial lavabo of later times. (b) WASHING OF FEET.—The washing of feet was ceremonially practised in the week before Easter in the mediæval Church, as it is still practised in some places in imitation of our Lord washing the feet of His Apostles in the upper chamber on the first Maundy Thursday. But there is no evidence for its practice by the earliest Christians. Indeed, Origen, commenting at length on the scriptural feet-washing, as described in St. John's Gospel, decides that it is not to be perpetuated literally.

144 The curious custom of a baptismal pedilavium, or washing of the feet of the newly baptized after their baptism, as found in some of the baptismal offices of Spain, Gaul, Milan, and Ireland, or as referred to in writings or canons connected with those places, may have stretched back into the third century, for we find it prohibited by the 48th Canon of the Council of Elvira, A.D. 306.