History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

daily punished. This lot God has assigned to the Christians in the world; and it cannot be taken

from them."

The community of Christians thus from the first felt itself, in distinction from Judaism and

from heathenism, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city of God set on a hill, the

immortal soul in a dying body; and this its impression respecting itself was no proud conceit, but

truth and reality, acting in life and in death, and opening the way through hatred and persecution

even to an outward victory over the world.

The ante-Nicene age has been ever since the Reformation a battle-field between Catholic

and Evangelical historians and polemics, and is claimed by both for their respective creeds. But it

is a sectarian abuse of history to identify the Christianity of this martyr period either with

Catholicism, or with Protestantism. It is rather the common root out of which both have sprung,

Catholicism (Greek and Roman) first, and Protestantism afterwards. It is the natural transition from

the apostolic age to the Nicene age, yet leaving behind many important truths of the former

(especially the Pauline doctrines) which were to be derived and explored in future ages. We can

trace in it the elementary forms of the Catholic creed, organization and worship, and also the germs

of nearly all the corruptions of Greek and Roman Christianity.

In its relation to the secular power, the ante-Nicene church is simply the continuation of the

apostolic period, and has nothing in common either with the hierarchical, or with the Erastian

systems. It was not opposed to the secular government in its proper sphere, but the secular heathenism

of the government was opposed to Christianity. The church was altogether based upon the voluntary

principle, as a self-supporting and self-governing body. In this respect it may be compared to the

church in the United States, but with this essential difference that in America the secular government,

instead of persecuting Christianity, recognizes and protects it by law, and secures to it full freedom

of public worship and in all its activities at home and abroad.

The theology of the second and third centuries was mainly apologetic against the paganism

of Greece and Rome, and polemic against the various forms of the Gnostic heresy. In this conflict

it brings out, with great force and freshness, the principal arguments for the divine origin and

character of the Christian religion and the outlines of the true doctrine of Christ and the holy trinity,

as afterwards more fully developed in the Nicene and post-Nicene ages.

The organization of this period may be termed primitive episcopacy, as distinct from the

apostolic order which preceded, and the metropolitan and patriarchal hierarchy which succeeded

it. In worship it forms likewise the transition from apostolic simplicity to the liturgical and ceremonial

splendor of full-grown Catholicism.

The first half of the second century is comparatively veiled in obscurity, although

considerable light has been shed over it by recent discoveries and investigations. After the death

of John only a few witnesses remain to testify of the wonders of the apostolic days, and their writings

are few in number, short in compass and partly of doubtful origin: a volume of letters and historical

fragments, accounts of martyrdom, the pleadings of two or three apologists; to which must be added

the rude epitaphs, faded pictures, and broken sculptures of the subterranean church in the catacombs.

The men of that generation were more skilled in acting out Christianity in life and death, than in

its literary defence. After the intense commotion of the apostolic age there was a breathing spell,

a season of unpretending but fruitful preparation for a new productive epoch. But the soil of

heathenism had been broken up, and the new seed planted by the hands of the apostles gradually

took root.

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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Then came the great literary conflict of the apologists and doctrinal polemics in the second

half of the same century; and towards the middle of the third the theological schools of Alexandria,

and northern Africa, laying the foundation the one for the theology of the Greek, the other for that

of the Latin church. At the beginning of the fourth century the church east and west was already

so well consolidated in doctrine and discipline that it easily survived the shock of the last and most

terrible persecution, and could enter upon the fruits of its long-continued sufferings and take the

reins of government in the old Roman empire.

CHAPTER I:

SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

§ 3. Literature.

I. Sources.

No statistics or accurate statements, but only scattered hints in

Pliny (107): Ep. x. 96 sq. (the letter to Trajan). Ignatius (about 110): Ad Magnes. c. 10. Ep. ad

Diogn. (about 120) c. 6.

Justin Martyr (about 140): Dial. 117; Apol. I. 53.

Irenaeus (about 170): Adv. Haer. I. 10; III. 3, 4; v. 20, etc.

Tertullian (about 200): Apol. I. 21, 37, 41, 42; Ad Nat. I. 7; Ad Scap. c. 2, 5; Adv. Jud. 7, 12, 13.

Origen (d. 254): Contr. Cels. I, 7, 27; II. 13, 46; III. 10, 30; De Princ. l. IV. c. 1, § 2; Com. in Matth.

p. 857, ed. Delarue.

Eusebius (d. 340): Hist. Eccl III. 1; v. 1; vii, 1; viii. 1, also books ix. and x. RUFINUS: Hist. Eccles.

ix. 6.

Augustin (d. 430): De Civitate Dei. Eng. translation by M. Dods, Edinburgh, 1871; new ed. (in

Schaff’s "Nicene and Post-Nicene Library"), N. York, 1887.

II. Works.

Mich. Le Quien (a learned Dominican, d. 1733): Oriens Christianus. Par. 1740. 3 vols. fol. A

complete ecclesiastical geography of the East, divided into the four patriarchates of

Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Mosheim: Historical Commentaries, etc. (ed. Murdock) I. 259–290.

Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Chap. xv.

A. Beugnot: 

Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en Occident

. Paris 1835, 2 vols. Crowned by the 

Académie des

inscriptions et belles-letters

.

Etienne Chastel: 

Histoire de la destruction du paganisme dans I’ empire d’ Orient

. Paris 1850. Prize essay of the 

Académie

.

Neander: History of the Christian Relig. and Church (trans. of Torrey), I. 68–79

Wiltsch: 

Handbuch der kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik

. Berlin 1846. I. p. 32 sqq.

Chs. Merivale: Conversion of the Roman Empire (Boyle Lectures for 1864), republ. N. York 1865.

Comp. also his History of the Romans under the Empire, which goes from Julius Caesar to

Marcus Aurelius, Lond. & N. York, 7 vols.

Edward A. Freeman: The Historical Geography of Europe. Lond. & N. York 1881. 2 vols. (vol. I.

chs. II. & III. pp. 18–71.)

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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