198

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSS.

ment, it would require considerably more to-day than a sky miracle, a sword in the hand, and a conquering army at the Malvian Bridge to give him membership 'in good standing' in the Baptist Church recently established at Rome. It is said that the cross in the heavens was attended with the inscription: By this sign conquer!' What, and whom? His own sin? His own soul? It seems not. But rather Maxentius and Rome and a throne. At the beginning Jesus had made himself king in Zion, to disallow all imperialism there; and did he now rise from his throne to hang his cross of peace an ensign of blood in the firmament, and to indicate that he turned over his universal lordship to an unregenerated heathen? This cross story needs thorough revision.

Common sense and the after life of Constantine rather say, that he kenned this cross in the clouds with the eye of a politician and statesman. The 'eagle' soared high that day, but he saw the beam of the cross soaring above the head of the Roman bird. Clear-headed and far-sighted, he read the meaning of that noiseless agency, which had quietly struggled for three hundred years to open a new history in the world. Other eyes besides his were turned in the same direction. The men clothed in purple had blindly sacrificed nameless thousands of their purest, wisest and most patriotic subjects to dumb idols. The gods had kept the Empire in a perpetual broil, and had often murdered his predecessors, before the crown had made a dint upon their brows. Constantine was not so blind to the real cross that he needed a miraculous phantom in the skies to interpret for him the signs of the times. He was cool, ambitious, practical; and knew what the principles of patient integrity must do in a new government, which, through the cross, had well nigh overthrown all the powers of the old government. The new idea of Calvary had awakened a new enthusiasm in man, had created a new order of patriotism, and he saw that the Via Dolorosa had become the Roman highway to unity, elevation, solidity. Long after this he came to embrace Jesus in person; for as age came and life was about to close, he sought and received baptism at the hands of Eusebius, the Bishop of Nicomedia, in the baptistery of the church known as Martyrium Christi. He expressed the hope 'To have been made partaker of the salutary grace in the river Jordan;' but his violent illness cut off that hope, and left him unable to take the long journey to the sacred river. He died on the 23d of May, A. D. 337, in great peace, at the age of sixty-four, about one month after his immersion. He had delayed this act of obedience to Christ under the absurd notion of his times, that baptism would cleanse away the sins of a life-time at once. Before his immersion he laid aside his purple robes and never donned them again; but from that day wore the white garment of newly immersed believers, until he exchanged it for the shroud in death.2

Spain, in the Western Empire, felt little of the Diocletian persecution which convulsed the eastern division, and how did the Spanish Christians use their exemption from suffering? Chiefly in the attempt to consolidate the new system of

corporate unity, in place of the isolation of Apostolic Church independency. With this end in view, we find nineteen bishops, twenty-six presbyters and many deacons, holding the Council of Elvira (Eleberis) in the retired district of Bætica, under the lead of Hosius, the great Bishop of Cordova. He was a man of genius and power, born to rule. At Nicæa he took the second seat, Constantine filling the first, but at Elvira, A. D. 305-306, he was the guiding spirit. His prime idea was to put Christianity on a surer footing, by first consolidating it into a catholic body, and then uniting it closer to the national life. This synod was professedly called to restore order in the Churches of Spain, by deciding what to do with those who had ‘lapsed' from the faith, and to settle other questions of morality and discipline. Its tone and temper were supposed to be in sympathy with Novatian; but Hosius adroitly turned it, not to reconcile the Churches one to another, but to unite the Afterward he was very influential in the private councils of Constantine, and served as his diplomatic agent on many occasions.

Church with the State.

Under the frame-work of the new policy, this Spanish Convention of independent assemblies was to issue a general code of decrees which should bind them by concert of action, as if they were one congregation. In this way an organic union could reach the 'heretics' and 'rural' pastors, could bring them under subjection to the bishops of large cities; and so at one stroke they could keep the Church pure and strong. This was Spanish Catholicity in its infancy. Then, if one nation might have a Church, why not each nation, and if each, why could not all nations form one general Church? This proposed purification of the Church suited the Novatians exactly, but they did not dream that they were weaving meshes for their own feet in this Synod. With all the simplicity of their hearts they united in the XXIVth decree, which demanded that a man who had been baptized in one province should not enter the ministry in another, a long step toward a diocesan system. Heresy was put also on the same basis with deadly sin, and wrong in the laity was to be condoned with a leniency which did not apply to pastors. This claimed preeminent sanctity for the clergy, and conciliated the people to the innovation. The special privileges to the people, however, were attended with larger distinctions of rank amongst the clergy, and the bishop began to assume new functions over his brethren. Others might baptize, but in every case the convert must be brought to the bishop to be confirmed. The XLIId article enjoined two years of probation before a catechumen could be baptized. Non-communion at the Lord's Table became a retributive act, making exclusion therefrom penal, and men were excommunicated for a given time, from one to ten years. Christ intended his ordinances as a trowel to build up the Churches, they used them as a sword to cut them down in arbitrary retribution. First they made baptism a magical rite to save from sin, then they withheld it as a penance for sins committed, as in the case of Constantine, who had long been a catechumen. The Supper had been the first festival of joy to the convert on entering the Church; now its refusal to him was to shut the gate of

6

heaven in his face forever, even in some cases when he was penitent. This Synod decreed that any one who, after faith in the baptism of salvation, shall fall into idolatry, or falsely accuse a bishop, priest or deacon, shall not receive communion even to death.' This is what is meant by the Church 'arming itself with sacraAnd so the Lord's ordinance of thanksgiving and commemoration of the sacrifice of Jesus, 'armed' the Church to punish any one who was absent from the Church for three Sundays with the penalty of denial to the Supper itself.

The whole trend of the Synod was to make the ministry an aristocracy, by building up sacerdotalism; and to this end it was considerate of the dead, while it was harsh toward the living. The XXXIVth article provided that, 'Tapers shall not be lighted in the cemetery during the day, for the spirits of the saints must not be disquieted.' Great homage was paid to the martyrs. One good thing was done, however. Baptism had been attended with gifts and offerings from the candidate, a practice which had grown into a regular tax exacted of all who were immersed. The XLVIIIth article forbade this tax, also the custom of washing his feet after the anointing with oil.

During the reign of Constantine the Empire was rocked by theological contest, his Christian subjects being divided by bitter animosity; the Arian division raged in the East, the Donatist in the West. He saw that this must be healed, for political reasons, if for no other. The DONATIST agitation arose in North Africa, A. D. 311, in what are now known as the Barbary States; but it centered in Carthage, Numidia and the Mauritanias. Its field covered nearly seven degrees of north latitude, immense centers of commerce and influence, soils and climates; marking a stretch of land nearly 2,000 miles long by about 300 wide, reaching from Egypt to the Atlantic, and fringing the Atlas mountains, the Mediterranean and the desert. The Punic wars had raged there under Hannibal and Africanus, and the contestants inherited all that was brave and fiery in Phoenicia, Carthage and Utica. Still warm with this enterprising blood, such a people were not likely to surrender their Church independency, and take the yoke of the Councils of the Catholic Church without a struggle. Constantine's hands were full. Besides, a deep sigh had long filled the Christian atmosphere for a return to Gospel simplicity, and the late persecution opened the way for its free expression. In this region the inner independency of the Churches had been more firmly maintained than in many other places, and the late encroachments upon it had aroused the Churches to a determined defense. Merivale says of the Donatists: They represented the broad principle of the Montanists and the Novatians, that the true Church of Christ is the assembly of really pious persons only, and admits of no merely nominal membership.' They dreaded any form of un-Christian membership which eats out the spiritual fellowship of a Gospel Church.

This is more strictly true of their later history, after they had entirely shaken off the Catholic notion that unity is of more consequence than purity, and so that a

spiritual regeneration was the prime qualification for membership in the Churches of Christ. They had come to charge the Catholic with being a fallen Church, because it had become lax in its morals, tolerating open and notorious sin, and regarding visible unity as a higher attribute of Church-life than personal purity. Yet notwithstanding this, Parmenian, one of their greatest writers, preached baptisınal regeneration as strongly as any of the men of his times.

Jerome, Augustine and others class the Donatists with the Novatians, as to general aim and purpose, and Augustine sneers at them as 'spotless saints.' Kurtz represents them as holding that Church and State should stand apart, and Walsh asserts that Constantine had condemned them in his decrees, before they appealed to him for the trial of their case. But still the fact stands, that in their controversy with the Catholics they sought his decision. There has been much dispute about their views of infant baptism, and many affirm that they were anti-pedobaptists, notably amongst these Guy de Bres, who said: "That they demanded that baptized infants ought to be baptized again as adults. Although this controversy was not general at this time, yet as it was somewhat rife in Africa, it is quite likely that they took this position, as they took their rise there; and Augustine's letters against them imply the same. They certainly rebaptized those who came to them from other communions, but Dr. Owen thinks only because the impurity of other Churches rendered their baptism null; while Long says that they refused to baptize infants. It is commonly conceded that Augustine wrote a separate work against them on infant baptism, which has not come down to us. If he did, the fair inference would be that they rejected that doctrine.

Still, as is usual with all true reformers, they were reluctant to break up old ties, and a petty, party strife must needs bring on a collision between them and their opponents. Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage, manfully opposed the mania which led thousands to court martyrdom in order to take the martyr's crown; because he thought it savored more of suicide than of enforced sacrifice for Christ. But he died in 311, and Cæcilianus, who was of the same opinion, was elected to fill his place, with which election a majority were dissatisfied. Others were displeased because he had been ordained by Felix, who was charged with giving up the Bible to be burnt, and a division took place in the Church. The retiring party. first elected Majorinus their bishop, who soon died, and after him Donatus of Casa Nigræ (that is, of the Black Huts). This party increased greatly, and was read out of the Catholic body, Constantine taking sides against them. At this point they fell into the great and strange blunder of appealing to the Emperor to redress their grievances. Nothing could have been more stupid or inconsistent. They were struggling for a pure Church against the laxness of the Catholic party, the head of which party was himself unbaptized and a semi-heathen; asking him to make the Church at Carthage and elsewhere pure by the exercise of his political power! The proposition itself put the knife to the throat of their own principles,

202

CESAR ACCEPTS THE APPEAL.

by tendering an alliance of the Church with the State, in disregard of its Gospel constitution. Nor can this folly be extenuated; they knew enough to seek a pure Church for Christ, and should have sought that blessing according to his known will. Nominally they held to the entire separation of the Church from the State, and that persecution for religious opinion was an oppression of a free conscience; yet, when they fell into disputes with their opponents they were the first to appeal to the civil authority to settle them.

Here, then, with all the goodness, zeal and manliness of the Donatists, they had the folly to invoke the secular power to settle a purely religious dispute between Christians. Yet it is but just to say that, so far as is known, this is an isolated act in their history, and not one of a number in the same line. Bitterly they repented of their folly. Their appeal to Cæsar' was sent in a sealed package of papers, in a leather bag, inscribed: Statement of the Catholic Church, presented by those in communion with Majorinus, in proof of the crimes of Cæcilian.' Their petition closed with the words:

'We address ourselves to you, most excellent Prince, because you are of a righteous parentage, and the son of a father who did not persecute us, as did his colleagues the other Emperors. Since, therefore, the regions of Gaul have not fallen into the sin of surrendering the Scriptures, and, since there are disputes between us and other prelates of Africa, we supplicate your Piety, that our cause may be submitted to judges chosen from Gaul.' 6

Under the old faith, as Pontifex Maximus, the Emperor was the judge in all religious affairs, and so his 'Piety' was now ready to oblige them, and he called a Council at Rome, October, A. D. 313, of over thirty bishops, who decided against the Donatists. They asked him for a second hearing, and he called the Council of Arles, 314, composed of more than two hundred bishops from Gaul, Brittany, Germany, Spain and Africa. In his letter to this body he says that they should not have called on him to judge in such difficulties, and charged them with Acting like the heathen in calling upon him to settle their religious disputes.' When writing of the same Council to Celsus, Vicar of Africa, he says that he felt strictly bound to fulfill the duties of a prince, and extirpate all the errors which the rashness of man has introduced, and to establish union and concord amongst the faithful.' But in his letter to the Prefect Ablavius he puts his duty in a stronger light, thus: 'I do not believe that it is permitted us to tolerate these divisions and disputes, which may draw down the wrath of God, not only upon the Commonwealth, but also upon myself, whom his divine will has charged with the care and management of all things upon earth.'

The Council of Arles decided against the Donatists, when they suddenly awoke to their mistake in staining one of the cardinal truths in Church liberty; for the Emperor enforced the decision with the secular arm. Accounting the Donatists enemies of the State, he deprived them of their churches, confiscated their property,