We read these words with amazement, for they imply nothing less than an assertion that the empire and the Christian religion are fellow-institutions. God himself, so this bishop teaches, joined them together, for he has brought them into being at the same time as brethren, as it were; and to Christianity is due the greatness and glory of the monarchy! True, we must not forget that these are the words of an apologist, and of an Asiatic apologist to boot—and emperor worship flourished in Asia more than elsewhere; but the fact that he should have gone so far in his bold and flattering historical speculation is in the highest degree remarkable. “God,” “Saviour,” “Prince of Peace,” were titles bestowed upon the emperor in Asia, and his appearance was there spoken of as an epiphany of the Deity. Hence Melito deduced the conclusion that a “pre-established harmony” existed between the emperor and Christ, to whom these same titles were applied. His “philosophy of history” was an augury of the future.
We have seen that down to the reign of the emperor Alexander Severus the church approximated to the state along every line of development; but in practical life the two were still remote from each other. The state firmly upheld the opinion that it was impossible, on principle, to extend toleration to the intolerant Christian religion—though many governors and some emperors tolerated it tacitly; while the church was still far from taking Melito’s idea seriously.
III
In the seventy years that elapsed between the death of the emperor Alexander Severus and the rise of Constantine, the affairs of the church continued to develop in the same direction as they had taken during the preceding century. This I shall again proceed to prove from (1) its constitution, (2) life, (3) doctrine, (4) literature, (5) worship, and (6) its estimate of the state.
(1) The political organisation of the church attained its complete development, and the result was a structure so stable, homogeneous, and comprehensive that no other association within the empire could vie with it. While the framework of the state grew looser and looser, and the several parts began to exhibit symptoms of falling apart, the edifice of the church grew steadily firmer and stronger. The bishops, as successors of the Apostles, everywhere concentrated the power in their own hands and suppressed all other forms of authority; the church became an episcopal church. But the bishops were not only united among themselves by provincial synods, they kept up an active and intimate correspondence throughout the whole empire by means of letters and emissaries, and even at this time all matters of importance were settled by common consent. If we take the provincial synods as corresponding to the diets of the provinces, the organisation of the church had advanced a step beyond the latter. As early as the second half of the third century synods were held at Rome to which bishops came from every part of Italy, and sixty years before the Council of Nicæa a synod sat at Antioch to which bishops flocked from all the countries between the Halys and the Nile. Thus the episcopal confederation which ruled the Christian communities was a state within a state. The fact could not be hidden from the chiefs of the state. Under Maximinus Thrax the bishops had borne the brunt of persecution; Decius is reported to have said that he could sooner endure a rival emperor in Rome than a Christian bishop; and the persecutions of Gallus, Valerian, Diocletian, Galerius, and Maximinus Daza were directed in the first instance against the bishops. Gallienus and Aurelian addressed letters to the bishops, the former to those of Egypt, the latter to those of Syria, and thus made it plain that they were well aware of the authoritative position of the bishops in the churches.
More than this, Aurelian appreciated the value of the episcopate which had Rome for its centre as a conservative and patriotic element in the state; for when a quarrel was raging at Antioch as to the ecclesiastical party to which the church buildings, and consequently the church property, belonged of right, he ignored the theoretical disqualifications of the church before the law and decided that possession was due to that party which was “in epistolary correspondence with the bishops of Italy and the city of Rome.” That is to say, he was already using the church to reinforce the Roman spirit in the East. But what warrant had he to interfere? Thus much: the disputant parties in the church had themselves applied to him to decide their quarrel. Thus, forty years before the time of Constantine the church had appealed to the emperor to arbitrate in a question of canon law, and the emperor had practically acknowledged the existence of the church and its value as a pillar of imperial authority.
If, in addition to this, we consider that the church already possessed buildings, land, and property in every province of the empire; that the clergy, in the large towns, at least, were very numerous and represented a strictly organised scale of hierarchical degrees; that by their assistance the bishops directed and superintended all the affairs of the communities in even the most trivial details; that each community was likewise an effective organisation for the relief of the poor; and, finally, that in many provinces the country districts were overspread by a close network of provincial bishoprics and parishes, we shall no longer be surprised that even the emperor Alexander regarded the system of church government with envious eyes.
The civil and military system of the empire was falling into decay, the legions were permanent centres of revolution, the generals born pretenders; but the milites Christi were everywhere united in compact squadrons, and, though many internal dissensions might prevail amongst these troops, they confronted the state as a single army. The state had no other alternative than to try and destroy this army, as Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, and Maximinus Daza would fain have done, or to enter into alliance with it, as Constantine did. After the middle of the third century a policy of laissez-aller or weak toleration was an impossibility. The church seems also to have been numerically strong—though this is a point which has not been exhaustively examined as yet. As early as the year 251 the Roman bishop Cornelius wrote: “Besides the one bishop, there are at Rome forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, lectors, and ostiarii, and more than fifteen hundred widows and needy persons, all of whom are maintained by the grace and goodness of the Lord.”
(2) During the last decades of the third century Christian life underwent a virtual amalgamation with that of the world. The Christian who desired to live a life apart from the world became a member of a distinct class, the ascetics, or withdrew into the desert; the rest—i.e., the vast majority, had come to terms with the world. There was no class, from senators to artisans, in which Christians were not to be found, and in each class they fulfilled the obligations of their station. They were, indeed, bound to eschew certain callings (e.g., municipal appointments, which were all too closely bound up with “idolatry,” the theatrical profession, etc.), but the admonitions and penalties which were promulgated and denounced against the infringement of these prohibitions show that they were not always regarded. Certain facts, such as that, in the year 255, a Christian bishop in Spain was at the same time a member of a pagan society and had his children interred in the burying-ground of the said society; that a Syrian presbyter was director of the imperial purple-dye factory at Tyre; that a metropolitan bishop of Antioch was a ducenarius; that not a few of the clergy engaged in trade and travelled to the annual fairs—give us a clear insight into the amalgamation of Christian life with the life of the world. And it is very significant that Origen, in his pamphlet against Celsus, draws a comparison between Christian and municipal communities in order to commend the moral advantage of the former, and merely demands an admission of their superiority. That is, he insists on a difference of degree only, and refrains from contrasting the Christian communities with the municipal communities, like light with darkness.