Part 27 (1/2)
The Churchs cultus and sacramental system developed rapidly in the third century. The beginnings of the administration of the sacraments according to prescribed forms are to be traced to the Didache and Justin Martyr (see above, 13, 14). At the beginning of the third century baptism was already accompanied by a series of subsidiary rites, and the eucharist was regarded as a sacrifice, the benefit of which might be directed toward specific ends. The further development was chiefly in connection with the eucharist, which effected in turn the conception of the hierarchy (see below, 50). Baptism was regarded as conferring complete remission of previous sins; subsequent sins were atoned for in the penitential discipline (see above, 42). As for the eucharist, the conception of the sacrifice which appears in the Didache, an offering of praise and thanksgiving, gradually gives place to a sacrifice which in some way partakes of the nature of Christs sacrificial death upon the cross. At the same time, the elements are more and more completely identified with the body and blood of Christ, and the nature of the presence of Christ is conceived under quasi-physical categories. As representatives of the lines of development, Tertullian, at the beginning of the century, and Cyprian, at the middle, may be taken. That a similar development took place in the East is evident, not only from the references to the same in the writings of Origen and others, but also from the appearance in the next century of elaborate services, or liturgies, as well as the doctrinal statements of writers generally.
(_a_) Tertullian, _De Corona_, 3. (MSL, 2:98.)
The ceremonies connected with baptism.
And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through this line when we have an ancient practice which by antic.i.p.ation has settled the state of the question? If no pa.s.sage of Scripture has prescribed it, a.s.suredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use if it has not first been handed down? Even in pleading tradition written authority, you say, must be demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the church and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we renounce the devil, and his pomp, and his angels.
Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then, when we are taken up (as new-born children), we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey; and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also in congregations, before daybreak, and from the hands of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and by all. On the anniversary day we make offerings for the dead as birthday honors. We consider fasting on the Lords Day to be unlawful, as also to wors.h.i.+p kneeling. We rejoice in the same privilege from Easter to Pentecost. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and going out, when we put on our shoes, at the bath, at table, on lighting the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign [_i.e._, of the cross].
(_b_) Tertullian, _De Baptismo_, 5-8. (MSL, 1:1314.)
The whole pa.s.sage should be read as showing clearly that Tertullian recognized the similarity between Christian baptism and heathen purifying was.h.i.+ngs, but referred the effects of the heathen rites to evil powers, quite in harmony with the Christian admission of the reality of heathen divinities as evil powers and heathen exorcisms as wrought by the aid of evil spirits.
Ch. 5. Thus man will be restored by G.o.d to His likeness, for he formerly had been after the image of G.o.d; the image is counted being in His form [_in effigie_], the likeness in His eternity [_in ternitate_]. For he receives that Spirit of G.o.d which he had then received from His afflatus, but afterward lost through sin.
Ch. 6. Not that in the waters we obtain the Holy Spirit, but in the water, under (the witness of angels) we are cleansed and prepared for the Holy Spirit.
Ch. 7. After this, when we have issued from the font, we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction according to the ancient discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood men were accustomed to be anointed with oil from a horn, wherefore Aaron was anointed by Moses. Thus, too, in our case the unction runs carnally, but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself is carnal, in that we are plunged in the water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.
Ch. 8. In the next place, the hand is laid upon us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction. But this, as well as the former, is derived from the old sacramental rite in which Jacob blessed his grandsons born of Joseph, Ephraim, and Mana.s.ses; with his hands laid on them and interchanged, and indeed so transversely slanted the one over the other that, by delineating Christ, they even portended the future benediction in Christ. [_Cf._ Gen. 48:13 _f._]
(_c_) Cyprian, _Ep. ad Ccilium, Ep. 63_, 13-17. (MSL, 4:395.)
The eucharist.
Thascius Ccilius Cypria.n.u.s, bishop of Carthage, was born about 200, and became bishop in 248 or 249. His doctrinal position is a development of that of Tertullian, beside whom he may be placed as one of the founders of the characteristic theology of North Africa. His discussion of the place and authority of the bishop in the ecclesiastical system was of fundamental importance in the development of the theory of the hierarchy, though it may be questioned whether his particular theory of the relation of the bishops to each other ever was realized in the Church. For his course during the Decian persecution see 45, 46. He died about 258, in the persecution under Valerian.
In the epistle from which the following extract is taken Cyprian writes to Ccilius to point out that it is wrong to use merely water in the eucharist, and that wine mixed with water should be used, for in all respects we do exactly what Christ did at the Last Supper when he inst.i.tuted the eucharist. In the course of the letter, which is of some length, Cyprian takes occasion to set forth his conception of the eucharistic sacrifice, which is a distinct advance upon Tertullian. The date of the letter is about 253.
Ch. 13. Because Christ bore us all, in that He also bore our sins, we see that in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when in the cup the water is mingled with the wine the people is made one with Christ, and the a.s.sembly of believers is a.s.sociated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes; which a.s.sociation and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled in the Lords cup that that mixture cannot be separated any more. Whence, moreover, nothing can separate the Churchthat is, the people established in the Church, faithfully and firmly continuing in that in which they have believedfrom Christ in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup water alone should not be offered to the Lord, even as wine alone should not be offered. For if wine only is offered, the blood of Christ begins to be without us.(77) But if the water alone be offered, the people begin to be without Christ, but when both are mingled and are joined to each other by an intermixed union, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is completed. Thus the cup of the Lord is not, indeed, water alone, nor wine alone, nor unless each be mingled with the other; just as, on the other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone, nor unless both should be united and joined together and compacted into the ma.s.s of one bread: in which sacrament our people are shown to be one; so that in like manner as many grains are collected and ground and mixed together into one ma.s.s and made one bread, so in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body with which our number is joined and united.
Ch. 14. There is, then, no reason, dearest brother, for any one to think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, who in times past have thought that water alone should be offered in the cup of the Lord.
For we must inquire whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered none is to be followed but Christ, we ought certainly to obey and do what Christ did, and what He commanded to be done, since He himself says in the Gospel: If ye do whatsoever I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but friends [John 15:14 _f._].
If Jesus Christ, our Lord and G.o.d, is Himself the chief priest of G.o.d the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly acts in the place of Christ who imitates what Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church of G.o.d to G.o.d the Father when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ himself to have offered.
Ch. 15. But the discipline of all religion and truth is overturned unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully observed; unless, indeed, any one should fear in the morning sacrifices lest the taste of wine should be redolent of the blood of Christ.(78) Therefore, thus the brotherhood is beginning to be kept back from the pa.s.sion of Christ in persecutions by learning in the offerings to be disturbed concerning His blood and His blood-shedding. But how can we shed our blood for Christ who blush to drink the blood of Christ?
Ch. 16. Does any one perchance flatter himself with this reflectionthat, although in the morning water alone is seen to be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer the mingled cup? But when we sup, we cannot call the people together for our banquet that we may celebrate the truth of the sacrament in the presence of the entire brotherhood. But still it was not in the morning, but after supper that the Lord offered the mingled cup.