VII. MINISTRY AND RITES OF THE EARLY CHURCH. WE should naturally expect in the burial places of the early Christians, to find some recognition of the different orders of the ministry. Nor in this case are we disappointed. It is generally, it is true, a mere reference, for the inscriptions are too brief to admit of more. Yet these few words confirm the views entertained by the great body of the Christian world with regard to the polity and government of the early Church. We turn first to the office of bishops. On the walls of the Lapidarian Gallery is an epitaph which clearly indicates this rank, by the use of the word Papa or Father, which in that age was applied to the bishops. For instance, in all the epistles addressed by the Roman clergy to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, he is styled "the blessed Father (Papa) Cypri." We know not who the bishop was over whom this inscription was written, yet the reference to a perpetual seat, and the title papa sanctissimus, in the phraseology of that age show episcopal rank. The consulship to which it refers fixes the date at A. D. 392.* PERPETVAM SEDEM NVTRITOR POSSIDES IPSE HIC MERITVS FINEM MAGNIS DEFVNCTE PERICLIS RVINO VVCCSS NONAS NOBEMB. You, our nursing father, occupy a perpetual seat, being dead, and deserving an end of your great dangers. Here happy, you find rest, bowed down with years. Here lies the most holy father, who lived 70 years. Buried on the nones of November, our Lords Arcadius, for the second time, and Flavius Rufinus, being consuls. The following inscription (Arringhi, lib. iii., cap. iii.) records the burial place of one of the second order in the ministry : LOCVS BASILI PRESB ET FELICITATI EIVS SIBI FECERVNT. The burial-place of Basilus the Presbyter, and Felicitas his wife. They made it for themselves. So also this, which we likewise copy from Arringhi : LOCVS VALENTINI PRESB. The place of Valentinian, the presbyter. In another case, there is a reference merely to the pastoral office of the departed :-- ACATIVS PASTOR. Acatius, the pastor. This brief inscription is inscribed upon the tomb of one of the lowest order of the ministry: *Maitland, p. 185. LOCVS EXVPERANTI DIACON. The place of Exuperantius, the deacon. But there were other offices in the early Church, not always included in the ranks of the ministry, but often serving as a preparation for it. Such are the lectors, or readers, whose duty it was to read the Scriptures aloud in the Church. It was an honorable office to which persons of the greatest dignity were sometimes appointed. Thus, Julian, the apostate, was reader in the church at Nicomedia.* They were sometimes admitted to this office by a kind of ordination, as Cyprian speaks of one who had been a confessor, and whom he had "ordained to the office of lector." In some cases, they were appointed at a very early age. Parents dedicated their children to the service of God from their infancy, and they were then trained and disciplined in these inferior offices, to prepare them for higher usefulness in the Church. Repeated instances are given of their being appointed at the age of seven and eight years, and a writer of that day, in describing the barbarity of the Vandals in murdering the clergy of Carthage, addsAmong them were many infant readers."+ At a later period this was altered, when by one of Justinian's Novels, it was "forbidden that any one be ordained reader before he was completely eighteen years old." This explanation will enable us to understand the two following inscriptions, and particularly the * Socrat., lib. iii., c. 1. Bing. Orig. Eccles., lib. iii., c. 5. youthfulness of the lector commemorated in the second. The Velabrum, where he was employed, is the part of Rome in which are situated the arch of Janus, and the Cloaca Maxima. CLAVDIVS· ATTICIA NVS LECTOR ET CLAVDIA FELICISSIMA Claudius Atticianus, the reader, and Claudia Felicissima, his wife. LOCVS AVGVSTI LECTORIS DEBELA BRV DEPSVRICA y XGKALY AVG Y QVE VIXIT ANNOS PMXII CONS SEBERINI. The place of Augustus, lector in the Velabrum, buried in a mound, on the 15th Kalends of August. He lived twelve years more or less. In the consulship of Severinus. Another order in the Church in those days was that of the exorcists. We know, both from Scripture and the writings of the early fathers, that Satan in that age exercised strange influence over the bodies of men, while miraculous power was granted to the members of the Church, to cast him out. At first, it is supposed, this power was possessed by any of the followers of our LORD, as Tertullian challenges the heathen, that "if they would bring any person possessed with a devil into open court before the magistrate, any ordinary Christian should make him confess that he was a devil."* * Apologeticus, cap. 23. |