ART. III.-History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes, to the Pontificate of Nicolas V. By HENRY HART MILMAN, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's. 3 Vols. London, 1854.

WHEN Virgil's ex post facto prophecy of the greatness of Rome* was read at the court of Augustus, it must have seemed to the statesmen and moralists who heard it a truthful description of the past, but a doubtful presage of the future. None felt more keenly than Augustus himself that Rome was decaying. Religious belief was dead: mixed with the creations of irreverent æsthetic Greece, its original simplicity had vanished, and with that its moral power. The ritual worship had become obsolete: even learned Romans walked among their national sanctuaries like foreigners, witnessing ceremonies of which the meaning was forgotten, and hearing liturgies and hymns of which they could hardly understand a word. The free constitution, essentially municipal, and therefore incapable of embracing a world, had been replaced by a despotism, neither restrained by fear of the people, nor ennobled by belief of a mission from God. The stern morality, the pure domestic life, the upright civic justice, the self-sacrificing patriotism, even the physical courage, had died with the religion, and drawing down first the liberty, and then the power, had resulted in a heroic age of vice. Roman vigour seemed to linger only in the armies and the laws; and these too were decaying. Yet within twenty years the spirit was to go forth that was to breathe life into these dry bones. Rome, reinvigorated by Christianity, was to feel once more her office to rule the nations. A new spiritual power was to go forth essentially and characteristically Roman. This power was in after years to subdue, and recruit its armies from, those daring German tribes which the first Rome could never conquer, and by their aid at last extend its empire far beyond the old poetical frontier of the Garamantes and Indians. This second Roman empire, its foundation, rise, conquests, heroes, glory, and decline, is the subject of Dr. Milman's History.

The subject is a very difficult one. In ten centuries, over which this work extends, there lived no great historian, and (with the exception perhaps of Socrates) no calm and truthful observer of his times. Every man was a partisan, and felt bound. to be so. Christendom was at war in a cause, that all protested, and the nobler believed, to be the cause of God. In such a cause it would seem but lukewarmness to pause and examine

* Virg. Æn. vi.

+ Cic. Acad. ii. c. 3.

Two Defects in the Author's Plan.

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the weapons that they used. A heathen or a heretic was the enemy of old; could they doubt any evil, could they believe any good of him? But besides the difficulties caused by honest prejudice, ecclesiastical history has been perplexed by wilful fraud. From the time when (in the second century at latest) the early Christians began, with the best motives, but with the most fatal results, to compose pious romances on the lives of their Founder, or his disciples, to forge legal documents to strengthen the evidence of the truth,† to interpolate the works of famous authors, and to draw from the lips of Pagan sibyls testimonies to the Messiah clearer than those of Jewish prophecy, to the time when revived historical and philological criticism rendered the ablest forgery certain of detection, it is constantly necessary to be on the watch against pious frauds. Thus the ecclesiastical historian has to steer his course, not only through the natural rocks and shoals, but through artificial obstructions placed wilfully in his way. He must allow for prejudices, soften down exaggerations, reject lies, detect forgeries, and be thankful if, after all, there remains to him a residuum of probable truth. Moreover, his predecessors in the task of compiling from the original sources have done more to perplex than to assist him. Every event, every character, every opinion, has been the subject of long, intricate, too often hostile controversy.§

To this difficult task Dr. Milman has applied great care and rare honesty; and the result is a work of real and permanent value. We will, however, reserve our very favourable opinion of his History for the conclusion of our article, when a slight sketch of the subject will have furnished our readers with an idea of the grounds on which it rests. We will take first the more invidious task of noticing what seem to us two defects in his plan.

In the first place, we think that no ecclesiastical history can be complete or satisfactory without at least a sketch, and something approaching to an estimate of the sources from which it is drawn. Dr. Milman disclaims all such dissertations upon history as alien to his aim. He professes to give the result only, and not the process of inquiry. But the subject upon which he writes is one on which no one can submit to receive all his instruction at second hand. We do not read a work in this

*The Apocryphal Gospels: The Clementina: The Apocryphal Acts.-Does not the subscription of Pionius condemn the martyrdom of Polycarp to take its place in the same class!

The Acts of Pilate. The Epistle of Antonius in Justin. Apol. i. 68.

The interpolation of Josephus (Ant. xiii. 3. 3.) in the interest of Christianity :

of Ignatius at least once.

§ Latin Christianity. Preface.

Preface.

department for mere amusement, or admire it only as a work of art, but we study it because we feel that it has a bearing on our own trial with respect to truth. Two faiths still divide Latin Christendom,-one professing to be the Christianity of the New Testament, the other not unwilling to be thought the Christianity of History. Which is to be ours? Which is to be ours? Are we to draw our belief freely with our own lips from the fountain, or receive it, as developed by an external power, under the various influences of the world, and chiefly in the hands of that great nation twice conqueror of the world? Which has the legitimate claim on us-the original documents, or their development in the lapse of time? Serious students read with these questions on their minds; and are anxious to learn what the results of ecclesiastical history are worth, both in themselves, and as compared with those of the Bible. Sufficient answers can only be given by a view of the original materials. Therefore we think that in spite of his plan, Dr. Milman should have given us, and should give in future editions, (which doubtless will be many,) a chapter on the sources; and also that, at the risk of seeming to plagiarize from Gieseler, whose value he so justly recognises, he should have extracted from his original authorities with some of the copiousness of that writer, or at least have referred to them with that frequency which renders Gibbon's notes (when decent) the most interesting part of his book, and so pleasant a relief to his pompous periods.

The second defect that we have to notice is the incompleteness of the commencement. The work begins as a résumé, and retains this character through the greater part of the purely Latin period. The detailed treatment of the first ages of Latin Christianity-of its very birth-epoch, in which the original religion first came in contact with Rome, and was subdued by her imperial spirit, must be sought in another previous work-the "History of Christianity." We fully appreciate the author's motive for this omission: no doubt he disliked to repeat himself. But a history of Latin Christianity ought to exhaust its own special subject: nor can it be considered complete, while it gives only a summary account of that period, in which that phase of religion, of which it treats, was forming itself from Latin institutions, Latin religious ideas, and Latin modes of thought, in the midst of a Latin speaking population, and on native Latin ground.

We shall first direct our reader's attention to this portion of the subject, which seems to us the most important of the whole.

* J. H. Newman. Essay on Development, p. 7.

Second Century-Rome of Justin Martyr.

*

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Amidst the obscurity of early Church history, nowhere more dense than around the birth of the Roman Church, we may detect the fact, and to some extent the process, of a change, as complete and important, yet, at the same time, as speedy and insensible, as ever affected any institution in the world. In the Acts of Justin's Martyrdom (a document undoubtedly very ancient, and from its simplicity, and the absence both of the pathetic and the marvellous, most probably genuine) and the works of that father, we find that the outward form of the Church of Rome, and in a great measure its doctrine, remained in his day (A. D. 150) unaltered since the time when, at the close of the sacred history, we lost sight of Paul. To the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, or the hired house in which Paul taught,† has succeeded a Christian meeting at the house of one Martinus, in whose upper chamber Justin lodged. This was the only meeting in the great city of which the Syrian stranger knew, though he had resided twice at Rome. There could have been no strong and compact ecclesiastical organization in those days, nor could the different congregations have been subject to any superior control. Each brother met his brethren where he pleased,§ and there must have been in the vast city many congregations quite unknown one to another. The internal government of each congregation was already monarchical: the principal functions of divine worship were discharged, and the common funds administered by a permanent officer whom the Christians, when they described their internal economy to those without, called their president or presiding brother:|| but he was not their priest all alike were members of a priestly race; and the idea of the officer of the Church being more priestly than his brethren had not yet appeared at Rome. In the initiatory washing by which the convert was admitted he received the remission of his sins.* It was called his New Birth or his Enlightenment:†† but that enlightenment was not attributed to the magic virtue of the mystic water, but to the instruction which the convert had received; and the need of the new birth was asserted on this singular ground, that since each had been born into the world without his own choice or knowledge, he ought to have the opportunity of being born again by his own choice and will.§§

Rom. xvi. 5.

Acts xxviii. 30.

σuídos. Act. Mart. Justin.

ἢ ἔνθα ἑκάστῳ προαίρεσις καὶ δύναμις ἐστι. Act. Mart. Justin.

[ ὁ προεστώς. Apol. i. 67. τῷ προεστῶτι τῶν ἀδελφῶν. Act. Mart. Justin. 65. Η ἡμεῖς, οἱ .

...

**

πιστεύσαντες . . . ἀρχιεραστικὸν . . γένος ἐσμὲν τοῦ Θεοῦ. C. Tryph.116.

** ἀφέσεώς τε ἁμαρτιῶν . . . τύχωμεν ἐν τῷ ὕδατι. Apol. i. 61.

Η Αναγέννησις . . φωτισμός.

++ ὡς φωτιζομένων τὴν διάνοιαν τῶν ταῦτα μανθανόντων. Apol. i. 61. 28 Apol. 61.

The idea of a sacrificial right had begun slightly, and only slightly, to connect itself with the Lord's Supper; but the objects supposed to be offered were still the prayers and thanksgivings, not yet the bread and wine.* Prayer and thanksgiving were still affirmed to be the only perfect sacrifice. The whole worship was still very simple: and religious teaching occupied in it the chief place.

Exactly one hundred years later we reach the period of the correspondence in which Cyprian of Carthage is the most conspicuous figure. The change is very striking. The churches of Rome and Carthage have become fully organized, each under its bishop. That bishop's seat has become a sacerdotal throne.‡ He bears a title of honour;§ the very one that the earliest documents of the religion might seem to have forbidden. The office is an object of secular ambition : it is a post of danger; but that danger is counterbalanced by the distinction and the power. At Rome the bishop is become the priest of one of the largest sects in the city. He can complacently enumerate his 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 sub-deacons, 42 acolyths, 52 exorcists, readers, and door-keepers,** all dependent on his will. That will is law at home; and he attempts to impose it on other churches beyond his immediate domain. He disposes of vast wealth contributed by the faithful:tt 1500 widows receive from him their daily food. There are already ecclesiastical enactments as foundations of a future canon law.‡‡ The affairs of the see are conducted with business-like regularity. A staff of messengers is maintained to forward his extensive correspondence with near and distant churches. All letters are. answered, copied, and filed with the regularity of an official bureau. §§ The business of the soul is despatched with no less There is one Church, the outward one. It is a

exactness.

* The elements were nevertheless said to be not κοινὸν ἄρτον Οι κοινὸν τῶμα, but Ἰησοῦ σάρκα καὶ αἷμα. See Apol. i. 66.

+ C. Tryph. 117.

Cathedra sacerdotalis.

Matth. xxiii. 9.

"Papa," applied indiscriminately to all the great prelates. This is sufficiently proved by the gross abuse that the candidates shower upon each other, Hippolytus on Callistus, Cornelius on Novatian, Cyprian on Felicissimus. ** Euseb. H. E. vi. 43.

++ Cyprian's gardens, when sold for the benefit of the Church, were repurchased by his people, and presented to him as a testimonial of respect. He sends in one sum 100,000 sesterces (£780) of Church money to redeem captives in Numidia. His last order is to give five guineas (aurei) to his executioner. The Roman Church was in the habit of sending relief to the poorer churches. (Eus. H. E. iv. 23.)

#'Exn2nciactino go. Bunsen's Hippolytus.

$$ Even the curious tickets issued by the martyrs in prison," Admit such a person and all his family to communion,"-are copied; so are private letters bearing on the affairs of the Church, like those of Lucianus and Celerinus.-See Cyprian's Letters.