Part 7 (1/2)
14. Not only was the form of the baptismal rite radically changed, but the application of the ordinance was perverted. The practice of administering baptism to infants was recognized as orthodox in the third century, and was doubtless of earlier origin. In a prolonged disputation as to whether it was safe to postpone the baptism of infants until the eighth day after birth--in deference to the Jewish custom of performing circ.u.mcision on that day--it was gravely decided that such delay would be dangerous, as jeopardizing the future well-being of the child should it die before attaining the age of eight days, and that baptism ought to be administered as soon after birth as possible.--(See Milner, ”Church History,” Cent. III; ch. 13.) A more infamous doctrine than that of the condemnation of unbaptized infants can scarcely be imagined, and a stronger proof of the heresies that had invaded and corrupted the early Church need not be sought.
Such a doctrine is foreign to the gospel and to the Church of Christ, and its adoption as an essential tenet is proof of apostasy.--(For a discussion of infant baptism, see the author's ”Articles of Faith,”
Lecture 6. See Note 4, end of chapter.)
**Changes in the Ordinance of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper**.
15. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper has been regarded as an essential ordinance from the time of its establishment in the Church by Jesus Christ. Yet in spite of its sanct.i.ty it has undergone radical alteration both as to its symbolism and its accepted purpose. The sacrament, as inst.i.tuted by the Savior and as administered during the days of the apostolic ministry, was as simple as it was sacred and solemn. Accompanied by the true spirit of the gospel, its simplicity was sanctifying; as interpreted by the spirit of apostasy its simplicity became a reproach. Hence we find that in the third century, long sacramental prayers were prescribed, and much pomp was introduced. Vessels of gold and silver were used by such congregations as could afford them, and this with ostentatious display. Nonmembers and members ”who were in a penitential state” were excluded from the sacramental service--in imitation of the exclusiveness accompanying heathen mysteries. Disputation and dissension arose as to the proper time of administering the sacrament--morning, noon, or evening; and as to the frequency with which the ordinance should be celebrated.--(See Note 5, end of chapter.)
16. At a later date the doctrine of _Transubstantiation_ was established as an essential tenet of the Roman Church. This briefly summarized, is to the effect that the species--i. e., the bread and wine used in the sacrament--lose their character as mere bread and wine, and become in fact the flesh and blood of the crucified Christ.
The trans.m.u.tation is a.s.sumed to take place in such a mystical way as to delude the senses; and so, though actual flesh and actual blood, the elements still appear to be bread and wine. This view, so strongly defended and earnestly reverenced by orthodox members of the Roman Church, is vehemently denounced by others as ”an absurd tenet,”-- (Milner) and a ”monstrous and unnatural doctrine.”--(Mosheim.)
17. There has been much discussion as to the origin of this doctrine,--(See Note 6, end of chapter.) the Roman Catholics claiming for it a great antiquity, while their opponents insist that it was an innovation of the eighth or ninth century. According to Milner it was openly taught in the ninth century;--(Milner, ”Church History,” Cent.
IX, ch. 1.) was formally established as a dogma of the Church by the Council of Placentia A. D. 1095,--(The same, Cent. XI, ch. 1) and was made an essential article of creed, belief in which was required of all by action of the Roman ecclesiastical court about 1160.--(The same, Cent. XIII, ch. 1.) An official edict of the pope, Innocent III, confirmed the dogma as a binding tenet and requirement of the Church in 1215;--(Mosheim, ”Eccl. Hist.,” Cent. XIII, Part II, ch. 3:2.) and it remains practically in force in the Roman Catholic Church today.
The doctrine was adopted by the Greek Church in the seventeenth century.--(The same. Cent. XVII, Part II, ch. 2:3.)
18. The consecrated emblems, or ”host,” being regarded as the actual flesh and blood of Christ, were adored as of themselves divine. Thus, ”a very pernicious practice of idolatry was connected with the reception of this doctrine. Men fell down before the consecrated host, and wors.h.i.+pped it as G.o.d; and the novelty, absurdity, and impiety of this abomination very much struck the minds of all men who were not dead to a sense of true religion.”--(Milner, ”Church History,” Cent.
XIII, ch. 1.) The ”elevation of the host,”--i. e., the presentation of the consecrated emblems before the congregation for adoration, is a feature of the present day ritual of wors.h.i.+p in the Roman Catholic Church. The celebration of the ma.s.s is taught to be an actual though mystic sacrifice, in which the Son of G.o.d is daily offered up anew as a constantly recurring atonement for the present sins of the a.s.sembled wors.h.i.+ppers. A further perversion of the sacrament occurred in the administration of bread alone, instead of both bread and wine as originally required.
19. Thus was the plain purpose and a.s.sured efficacy of the sacrament hidden beneath a cloud of mystery and ceremonial display. Contrast such with the solemn simplicity of the ordinance as inst.i.tuted by our Lord,--He took bread and wine, blessed them and gave to His disciples and said, ”This do in remembrance of me.”--(Luke 22:19, 20; compare Matt. 26:27, 28.) Of the bread He said, ”This is my body;” of the wine, ”This is my blood;” yet at that time His body was unpierced, His blood was unshed. The disciples ate bread, not flesh of a living man, and drank wine, not blood; and this they were commanded to do in remembrance of Christ.--(For a general treatment of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, see the author's ”Articles of Faith,” Lecture 9.) The perversion of the sacrament is evidence of departure from the spirit of the gospel of Christ, and when made an essential dogma of a church is proof of the apostate condition of that church.
20. Behold, ”_they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant_.”--(See Isaiah 24:4-6.)
NOTES.
1. _Ceremonies Added as a Compromise_. ”Both Jews and heathens were accustomed to a vast variety of pompous and magnificent ceremonies in their religious service. And as they considered these rites as an essential part of religion, it was but natural that they should behold with indifference, and even with contempt, the simplicity of the Christian wors.h.i.+p, which was dest.i.tute of those idle ceremonies that rendered their service so specious and striking. To remove then, in some measure, this prejudice against Christianity, the bishops thought it necessary to increase the number of rites and ceremonies, and thus to render the public wors.h.i.+p more striking to the outward senses. This addition of external rites was also designed to remove the opprobrious calumnies which the Jewish and pagan priests cast upon the Christians on account of the simplicity of their wors.h.i.+p, esteeming them little better than atheists, because they had no temples, altars, victims, priests, nor anything of that external pomp in which the vulgar are so p.r.o.ne to place the essence of religion. The rulers of the Church adopted, therefore, certain external ceremonies, that thus they might captivate the senses of the vulgar, and be able to refute the reproaches of their adversaries.” (Mosheim, ”Ecclesiastical History,”
Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4:2, 3.)
A note appended to the foregoing excerpt by the translator, Dr.
Archibald Maclaine, reads as follows:
”A remarkable pa.s.sage in the life of Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, i. e., the wonder worker, will ill.u.s.trate this point in the clearest manner. The pa.s.sage is as follows: 'When Gregory perceived that the ignorant mult.i.tude persisted in their idolatry, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they enjoyed at the pagan festivals, he granted them a permission to indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, hoping that in process of time, they would return of their own accord to a more virtuous and regular course of life.' There is no sort of doubt, but that by this permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and feast at the tombs of the martyrs upon their respective festivals, and to do everything which the pagans were accustomed to do in their temples during the feasts celebrated in honor of their G.o.ds.”
The Gregory referred to in the note last quoted flourished about the middle of the third century. He acquired the t.i.tle Thaumaturgus from his fame as a worker of miracles, the genuineness of which achievements is disputed by many authorities. He was bishop of New Caesarea, and a man of great influence in the Church. His sanction of ceremonies, patterned after pagan rites, was doubtless of far-reaching effect.
2. _Church Ceremonial in the Fifth Century_. ”The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted, and the Monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to a.s.sist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual wors.h.i.+p of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the Church were thrown open they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion a sacriligious light. If they approached the bal.u.s.trade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavements of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saints, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings. * * * The same uniform original spirit of superst.i.tion might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the services, of mankind; but it must ingeniously be confessed that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superst.i.tions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire; but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.”--(Gibbon, ”Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” ch.
XXVIII.)
3. _Early Form of Christian Baptism_. History furnishes ample proof that in the first century after the death of Christ, baptism was administered solely by immersion. Tertullian thus refers to the immersion ceremony common in his day: ”There is no difference whether one is washed in a sea or in a pool, in a river or in a fountain, in a lake or in a channel; nor is there any difference between those whom John dipped in Jordan, and those whom Peter dipped in the Tiber. * * *
We are immersed in the water.”
Justin Martyr describes the ceremony as practiced by himself. First describing the preparatory examination of the candidate, he proceeds: ”After that they are led by us to where there is water, and are born again in that kind of new birth by which we ourselves were born again.
For in the name of G.o.d, the Father and Lord of all, and of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and of the Holy Spirit, the immersion in water is performed; because the Christ hath also said, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.'”
Bishop Bennet says concerning the practices of the early Christians: ”They led them into the water and laid them down in the water as a man is laid in a grave; and then they said those words, 'I baptize (or wash) thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;' then they raised them up again, and clean garments were put on them; from whence came the phrases of being baptized into Christ's death, of being buried with Him by baptism into death, of our being risen with Christ, and of our putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, of putting off the old man, and putting on the new.”
”That the apostles immersed whom they baptized there is no doubt. * *
* And that the ancient church followed their example is very clearly evinced by innumerable testimonies of the fathers.”--(Vossius.)