Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/715

CHRISTIANITY 701 presiding elder of the earliest planted or mother church became the perpetual president or overseer of various depen dent congregations. But this is very different from the theory which afterwards became dominant in the church, and fails to account for the origin and almost universal supremacy of episcopacy. Perhaps of all the accounts which have been given of its origin, that which connects it with Moiitauism the disturbances engendered by Montanism is the most and the satisfactory. While the church was governed in the manner Episcopate. j escr ib ec i above, a wave of religious excitement passed over it, connected doubtless in some way with the striking pheno mena of Montanism and the new prophecy, and character ized by an overstrained zeal for enforcing discipline in all cases of departure from a high standard of Christian life. It was the peculiar characteristic of Montanism to set forward its prophets as successors of the apostles, having the same gifts from the Holy Spirit, and sent on a similar message of instruction to the Christian church. They uttered prophecies which were deemed supplementary to the revel ation contained in the Old and New Testaments, and they did not scruple to set aside the authority of the regularly ordained officials of the church in order to execute the behests of a supposed spirit of prophecy. And thus the Christian communities were everywhere burdened by the presence of ignorant intolerant fanatics, who insisted that all their fellows should follow the dictates of their narrow and ignorant conscience, and who backed up this unwar ranted interference with Christian liberty and responsibility by claiming to hold the place and exercise the powers of inspired successors to the apostles. It was at this juncture, according to a not improbable theory, that Cyprian of Carthage was able to popularize and gain acceptance for a theory of Christian organization which had been slowly growing up within the church, and which is now known as Episcopacy. Cyprian, bishop of a church which more than any other had suffered from the consequences of Montanist excesses, was the founder of a revolution of a kind which lias been frequently repeated in the political world. Montanism and its after wave had influenced in an especial way the minor clergy and the more fanatical laity. Cyprian, like many a succeeding absolutist, seems to have subverted the aristocracy of a presbyterate infected with Montanism by persuading the people to make common cause with the bishop. He promised deliverance from arbitrary and unofficial successors of the apostles by boldly setting forth the episcopate as the true successors of the apostles. He transferred, in all sincerity, to the episcopate all the powers and gifts laid claim to by the Montanist prophets, and at the same time showed the people how easy the yoke of a legitimate monarchy was when compared with the lawless rule of a mob of self-anointed tyrants. From Cyprian s time onwards the whole constitution of the church became changed, and the foundations of what ultimately became Ultramontanism were laid. The epis copate claimed and exercised as part of its official duties all those gifts of rule and special inspiration which the Montanist prophets had laid claim to. The bishops laid claim to powers of rule over the Christian community not as chosen representatives of the Christian people, but as the official representatives of the apostles. Thecorrup- It on ty remains to allude briefly to the corruptions of tions of Christianity. It has been already stated that Christianity had a fourfold conflict to maintain with Judaism, Rome, 11 >- Gnosticism, and an enthusiastic and sometimes immoral pietism. If we add to these pagan superstition, we shall have the chief heads of the opposition which Christianity had to encounter. After its triumph these sources of anti- Christian action still remained to be contended against, and became the chief springs of its corruption. The spirit of Judaism, of Roman worldly palicy, of pagan supersti tion, of pagan philosophy, and of immorality entered into Christianity and tended to corrupt it. One of the earliest causes of the corruption of Chris tianity was the attempt to translate the Christian kingdom of God into a visible monarchy in which the saints inherited the earth in a literal way. The Church waa the more tempted to enter into this course during the period of the decay of the Roman empire, when civil authority became very weak and the real rulers were in many cases the principal clergy of the place. The consciousness of power inspired a desire for its insignia, and soon the bishop and superior clergy adorned themselves in the official robes of Rome s municipal and provincial officers. This whole tendency received a great impulse during the period that Rome was abandoned by her emperors, and when the chief citizen in the imperial city was undoubtedly the Christian bishop. How all this tended to corrupt Christianity is very apparent. In the first place it generated the idea that the Christian kingdom is a visible monarchy and that its marks are such as can be seen; and it led Christians to postpone everything to the earthly aggrandizement of the church. It translated spiritual forces into mechanical and physical equivalents. The very term spiritual, which belongs to the affections and emotions and thoughts and will, to the whole inward life, was used to denote whatever belonged to the church or the clergy. Land became spiritual when it passed into the hands of the bishops ; men were spiritual if they were servants of the church ; things were spiritual if they were church property. There resulted, in short, a gradual coarsening of ideas, and all that was most inward, hidden, and sacred was forgotten in the strife for worldly position and power and wealth. On the other hand, this tendency worked a good deal deeper. Worldly men who found their way into the ministry were tempted to favour any kind of superstitious error that tended to bring them profit and power. The people were often dis posed to fancy that the priests could serve God in their stead, and that there were mysteries in religion which the priests understood, but which the laity need not know any thing of and ought not to inquire into. Hence they were ready to follow blindly the guidance of the priests in reli gious matters, just as a man trusts his legal concerns to his lawyer, doing what he directs and not considering it neces sary himself to study law. Ambitious and worldly minded rulers, too, are generally glad to make use of religion as an instrument for securing the submission of the people to tyrannical oppression, and for aiding their ambitious views when they seek to subdue their neighbours under the pretext of propagating the true faith. Then again, this idea tends to breed false views of Christian unity. It leads men to think that they cannot be true Christians unless they belong to one community which is visible and uni versal. And this idea tends to keep up and intensify other errors. For if a man is convinced that all Christians are bound to belong to some one community on earth, he will dread nothing so much as separation from that church, whatever it may be, which he considers as having the best claim to be that one community. Many corruptions of Christianity have been either intro duced or favoured and kept up by moral corruption in the members of a Christian Church. For it belongs to the true gospel to purify and also to elevate the moral character. Hence there is a complete and constant opposition between genuine Christianity and all the evil and base propensities of man s nature. Every kind of depravity or moral defect therefore predisposes men either to reject Christianity altogether, or else to introduce or to accept some erroneous views of it. And there is no kind of religious corruption against which men are usually less on their guard. They

are well aware, indeed that there is a danger of men s