THE CHURCH AND HEATHENISM.
By I. E. Kimball
Second and Third Centuries.
It is almost an impossibility to accurately describe the church of this period, because, first, the church varied vastly in conditions. In some provinces a considerable degree of purity was maintained; in other places, there was a degree of grossness, sensuality, and prodigality in the adoption of heathen custom of which we moderns can scarcely conceive. Secondly, because the extant writings are few, clipped, mutilated, forged, and so rendered very untrustworthy. Certain "apostolic fathers" are supposed to have lived and to have written immediately after the close of the Bible canon, that is, before the year 150 A.D., as Clement, Hermes, Polycarp, Papias, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Justin. Then followed Dionysius, Melito, Irenæus, Clement, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, bringing us to the year 250 or later. As far as we are able to glean the truth from the above writers, we see the church involved in heathenism and partaking largely of the spirit and the practices of the Gentiles. Gibbon says: "She (the church) soon found herself overwhelmed by the increased multitudes that from all the various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of Christ." The effect of this is described by Hegesippus, the earliest church historian, as quoted, I believe, by Eusebius. Speaking of disturbances and wranglings over the election of the bishop, he said: "Each [was] for himself, and apart from the rest; hence come false christs, false prophets, false apostles, rupturing the unity of the church by deceitful doctrines, against God and against his Christ." "The church continued until the sacred choir of the apostles became extinct as a pure and uncorrupt virgin. The generation that had been privileged to hear their inspired wisdom passed. Then also the combinations of impious error arose, by the fraud and delusion of false teachers." An eloquent modern historian thus summarizes the facts: "By the promulgation of Christianity during the first hundred years after the death of the apostles, a visible and hopeful impression was made upon the sentiments and practices of perhaps half the community in all the countries around the Mediterranean. Superstition and fanaticism then gained an ascendency, superseding everywhere—a few spots excepted—the doctrine and morality of Christ." We may get some understanding of the doctrine and morality which exhibited themselves in the church at this time by consulting the "fathers" above named. The especial manifestations of God's Spirit ceased. There was wrangling and jangling in the churches such that the heathen taunted them with their strifes. So we read from "Clement's Remonstrances with the Corinthians":— "The base and inglorious have arisen against the honorable and the glorious, the foolish against the wise, the young against the old. Wherefore are these quarrels, passions, and dissensions, amounting to actual wars among you? Wherefore do ye thus tear asunder and divide the body of Christ? . . . Your controversies have perverted many, have thrown many into dejection, many into doubt, and all of us into affliction." This Clement is said to have been ordained over the Roman Church by the apostle Peter. It is a notable fact, expressed by nearly every historian of these times, that the same implacable, unmerciful spirit which was in the breath of the heathen seems to have characterized the Christians in their contentions with each other. We may mourn that it was so. Doubtless there were exemplary Christians, but certainly those were not Christians who could yield to passions so violent as to cause many to be murdered in the streets, and even the sanctuary itself to be thus defiled, in consequence of the election or installment of a bishop. But that we may more clearly understand the rapid decline of the church in faith and morals, let us glance at the condition of the Gentile nations. The heathen law, generally speaking, made no pretensions to a divine origin. It was believed, indeed, to have been codified under the favor and guidance of the deities. The Roman emperors were empowered by the Senate and people "to adopt any measure pertaining to the common interest, or to the majesty of private and public, human and divine affairs." The emperor was himself very literally a god. Sacrifices were to be offered monthly upon his altar (Virgil). "To-day I've seen the gods," said the barbarians. The Romans sincerely believed in a deity, actually walking the earth and conversant among men, and it would be difficult to find more sincere homage than that tendered the Roman emperors by the people of the provinces. All men were accustomed to bow in abject obedience to the authority of man in religious matters; we shall see how this affected the church. But man's religion gave no expression to what we denominate holiness or sin. These ideas could not be expressed in either of the classic languages of antiquity. The majesty of the civil law was indeed something won6derful, but there was no conception of sin or holiness apart from this, and the law rarely trenched upon human vices. Virtue, temperance, continence, were practiced merely for the sake of honor and personal aggrandizement, nothing more. In Sparta the children were taught to lie, to steal, and, more than all, to kill. Murder is the science and the art of all heathenism. Gladiators slain, 10,000 in a day (as under Trajan), gave to Rome her happiest holiday. Any people might lawfully be invaded and enslaved, and in everything that pertained to civil law the slave was not recognized as having an existence. Such was the brutality of the most enlightened nations. The astute Stoic and more flexible epicurean allowed Sodomy and incest as "things indifferent." Revenge was "lawful and commendable." There was sensual gratification to the uttermost. Concubinage, a sort of secondary marriage with a woman of lower caste, was sanctioned and regulated by the law, and continued from the days of Augustus till the tenth century and later. And, moreover, the law against adultery in no way touched upon illicit connections with slaves or prostitutes. Venus, the goddess of lust, was worshiped, and open community life seems to have been largely the custom. Religion abounded, but it was a mere ceremonial which in no way restrained public or private immoralities. The priests were not interested in those things, but they rather led on, the foremost of all, in the profane orgies and libidinous gratifications. The women were quite commonly but slaves. Even Plato taught that lying was preferable to truth at times. Prayers were offered for the death of a rich relative or for some licentious gratification, but there was no such thing as seeking for holiness of heart. Then, too, there were doctrinal conceptions of course altogether opposed to Bible truth, of which we will hereafter speak. Such was the heathenism into which the church by gradual stages blended. With such abounding iniquity, of which we even yet have but a small conception, we cannot wonder that a vicious intermixture of heathenism and Christianity should have come about. Here is Hadrian's picture of the Egyptian people, sketched about A.D. 125:— "They are volatile, changing with every moment's rumor. They who worship Serapis are Christians, and they who call themselves the bishops of Christ are the votaries of Serapis. They have one and the same God, and that is none at all, though worshiped by Christian, Jew, and all men." Themistius, of a later date at the accession of Jovian, spoke in the same way, as quoted by Gibbon:— "Both religions have been alternately disgraced by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes of those votaries of the reigning purple who could pass without a reason and without a blush from the church to the temple, and from the altar of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians."