elements of true dignity and excellence, of primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown. Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became. infected in the days of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a sacredness previously unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw the aegis of its protection. over the slave and the oppressed, raising them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it yearned over the suffering and sorrowing every-where, and created a vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco written in blood,*

* The Christian emperors prohibited the branding of felons on the forehead on the ground "that the human countenance, formed after the image of heavenly beauty, should not be defaced." They also exempted widows and orphans from taxation, and contributed to their support.

and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism, polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme majesty of gentleness and ruth.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MINISTRY, RITES, AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

WE gain from the testimony of the Catacombs most important information as to the organization of the church during the early Christian centuries. We see on every side records of an efficient ministry of different grades and dignities, yet wholly unlike that vast hierarchical system which claims to be its lineal descendant. We discern also evidences of a well-ordered administration of the sacraments and ordinances of religion, simple and unadorned, yet instinct with spiritual life and power, compared with which the gorgeous ritual and lifeless pomp of Romanism are more akin, in outward form at least, to the pagan homage of the Bona Dea, or to the mysteries of Mithras, than to Christian. worship. So complete is this testimony as to the ministry and rites of the primitive church, that Dr. Northcote remarks that, “even if all the writings of the Fathers had altogether perished, we might almost reconstruct the whole fabric of the ecclesiastical polity from the scattered notices of these sepulchral inscriptions."

The somewhat complex ecclesiastical organization which we discover was probably a gradual development with the growth of the church, and not in its entirety the creation of the earliest times; the inscriptions referring to the subject, it must be remembered, being all

Northcote's Catacombs, p. 140.

was

*

or chiefly of post-Constantinian origin. The earlier books of the Apostolical Constitutions, which are probably of the second century, say almost nothing about the different grades of the ministry; but in the later ones, probably of the fifth century, a full blown sacerdotalism appears. Cornelius, bishop of Rome in the middle of the third century, records the existence of a graduated clergy like that indicated in the inscriptions of the Catacombs, whose gradations Clement of Alexandria compares to the different ranks of the hierarchy of heaven.† The highest office in the church of the Catacombs that of the bishop-the chief pastor or overseer of the flock of Christ. But this position was rather a preeminence of toil and peril than of dignity and honour. The supreme head of the Roman hierarchy, who lays claim to the attributes of deity himself, and sits in the seat of God as his vicegerent and infallible representative on earth, finds no precedent for his lofty assumptions in his humble predecessors of the primitive ages. These were in reality what he is only in name-servi servorum Dei. Even the title of bishop occurred but seldom. Neither Bosio, Fabretti, Boldetti, nor any other of the early explorers of the Catacombs, found a single example of it. The tomb of the first Roman bishop bore simply the name LINVS. In the so-called "papal

* Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vi, 43. The hierarchical subdivisions in the Greek church are vastly more elaborate. Thus we have the patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop, bishop, proto-presbyter, super-dean, dean, presbyter, proto-deacon, deacon, sub-deacon, and common priest, besides a host of inferior grades.

+ Strom., vi, 13. "The succession of the early Roman bishops," says Stillingfleet, "is as muddy as the Tiber itself."—Irenicum, ii, 7. It is an historical riddle of which it is difficult or impossible to find the solution.

Eusebius gives this very title, mov, to Cyprian, (vii, 3.) They were also called πроεВооι, πроεorús, and præsides, or presidents.

crypt" the title first appears, but in the contracted form, E and EIIC, and without any symbol of superior dignity whatever. The name of a bishop was first made a note of time in the latter part of the fourth century, as in the epigraphic formulæ Sub Liberio Episcopo-Sub Damaso Episcopo-During the episcopate of Liberius, (A. D. 350–366,) of Damasus, (A. D. 366–384.) But this distinction was also conferred on other bishops than those of Rome. Thus, in the year A. D. 397, we find the expression Pascasio Episcopo. Now, as there was no Roman bishop of that name, Pascasius must have presided over some of the adjacent sees, of which we know that there were many independent of Rome.*

* Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, only fifteen miles from Rome, and a saint of the Roman calendar, strongly opposed both Zephyrinus and Callixtus, bishops of Rome. In the fifth century Milan took precedence of Rome, and many other places were of equal dignity. The episcopal office was very different from what is now implied by the name, and its functions varied little from those of the presbyter, save in the general oversight of a comparatively limited diocese. Thus in Northern Africa alone were four hundred and sixty-six bishops, beside sixty-six vacant sees. Clement, bishop of Rome, (Ep. ad Cor., 74,) Justin Martyr, and other early writers, seem to imply that the terms bishop and presbyter were at first permutable. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, addresses his clergy as his co-presbyters-compresbyteros. Jerome, jealous for his order, asserts the original identity of the offices (idem est presbyter qui et episcopus) and the gradual development of episcopal dignity, from custom rather than from primitive appointment, (Comment. in Titum.) Chrysostom asserts the original convertibility of the titles of bishop and presbyter-oi πрeσßúteρoɩ tò παλαιὸν ἐκαλοῦντο ἐπίσκοποι, καὶ οἱ ἐπίσκοποι πρεσβύτεροι.—Homil. i, in Phil., i. Lord King compares the two to the offices of rector and curate, (Prim. Ch., c. 4,) but Bingham's High Church notions led him to magnify the essential difference between the two, (Orig. Eccl., ii, 3.) The bishops were elected by the presbyters and the laity jointly. Eusebius states that Fabian was indicated for the office by the divine portent of a dove descending upon him, (H. E., vi, 29.) They generally attained this dignity not per saltum, but having passed through the inferior grades. Cyprian, however, was but a neophyte,