EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. LOJ:,DON ! PRINTED BY WBST, NBWMAN AND CO., HATTON GARDBN, E.C. .l\fm;aic of I->erpetua in the Archbishop's Palace, Ravenna. Copied from the oriyinal by Ed1card Backhou.se. EARLY CHURCH HISTOliY 6to tbt :llltatb of Ql;onstantittt. COMPILED BY THE LATE EDWARD BACKHOUSE. EDITED AND ENLARGED BY CHARLES TYLOR. WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE BY DR. HODGKIN. ~birh CIDhition. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & Co., LIMITED. 1892. Christus Verita.tem se non Consuetudin£m cognominavit.-TERTULLIAN. Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas errori est.-CYPRIAN. It may be that suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men, than the hot pursuit of controversies, wherein they that are most fervent to dispute be not always the most able to determine. But who are on his side, and who against Him, our Lord in his good time shall reveal.-H0OKER. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE first issue hiwing been exhausted in less than eighteen months, a second edition is now presented to the reader. The whole work has been revised with much care, many parts have been amplified, and some have been recast. Acknowledgments are due fur sug­ gestions to several friendly reviewers in the current periodicals. The chief new feature in the present edition is the introduction of the Teaching of the Tirelve Apostles, a treatise of the Primitive Church recently discovered at Constantinople, and published whilst our History was passing through the press. The treatise will be found entire, with some introductory remarks, at page 134, where it forms an Appendix to Part I. The interval which elapsed between the close of the New Testa­ ment and the rise of a Church literature sufficient for the con­ struction of history, must of necessity be to us for the most part a silent period. From the bright flood of morning light which is shed upon the Apostolic age we pass into a dim twilight, broken only by occasional gleams casting but an uncertain ray upon the Church's progress. To these scanty sources of historic light, the Teaching of the Tweh·e Apostles is a very welcome addition. It bears witness to the change which during this silrnt period was advancing over the Church. The worship, the services, the ministers, were losing the simplicity of earlier day@, and assuming that ritualistic and priestly character which we find, not indeed fully developed, yet unmistake­ ably present, in the pages of Jmtin Martyr, of Irenmus, and of Tertullian. In the Teaching of the Tweli-e Apostles we view the Church in a transition state, when the seeds of some corruptions are already manifest, but ,much of the primitive simplicity is still retained. V vi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The period indicat1:d above was one of the utmost importance in the Church's life. Peter and Paul were martyred about A,D. 67, and except in Proconsular Asia, where John's life was prolonged for another generation, this date may be said to have closed the Apostolic age. Justin Martyr's First Apology is referred to about the year 148, and his martyrdom to 165; Irenoous became bishop of Lyons 177, and died 202 ; the aonversion of Tertullian is placed about 185, and his death in the year 220. These datEs give us two distinct epochs, separated by an interval of about a century more or less-ample time for abuses and superstitions to find their way into the Church. How rapid the growth of error was even in the Apostle Paul's lifetime, in the Churches founded by himself, is manifest in his epistles-for example, that to Galatians. We ven­ ture to think that if the influence and bearing of this silent period succeeding the age of the Apostles were more fully recognised by Church historians and critics, some of the strictures on the present work would not have been written; The primitive stage of Christianity is no fiction, nor is it in any wise invalidated by the existence or ritualism a century after the close of the New Testament. BRIGHTON, 5th Jlfo., 1885. [NoTE.-ln his comment on the ancient homily, formerly known as the Second Epistle of Clement of Rome, Bishop Lightfoot says: "Whether we re­ gard the exposition of doctrine, or the polemic against false teachers, or the state of Christian Society, or the relation to the Sciiptnral Canon, we cannot but feel that we are confronted with a state of things separated by a wide inter­ val from the epoch of Irenieus and Clement of Alexandria," p. 312.] PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. IN this edition it is rnught lo place the work within the reach of many to whom price is an object. The original text., as enlarged in the Second Edition, is retained entire. All but one of the Chromo-lithographs are reproduced, together with several of the Photographs and all the Woodcuts. A few additions and correc­ tions ha.ve been made, which are marked thus: [ J The Editor has much pleasure in tendering hi,s warm thanks to those friends who have, in various ways, aided him in his work, amongst whom he would name William Beck and Thomas Hodgkin. He has also received valuable literary aid in the two previous editions from R. Hingston Fox. BRIGHTON, 8th JJio., 1892. EDWARD BACKHOUSE .£tat 68. BIOGRAPHICAL PREF ACE. As the following work may come into the hands of some who were not personally acquainted with its Author, it is necessary to devote a few pages to a sketch of his life and character. Those who knew EDWARD BACKHOUSE, of Sunderland, will never forget either the man or that fresh and vigorous Christianity which was the key-note of his life. But for the sake of others an attempt must be made to give an outline, however imperfectly, of the manner in which he " served his own generation by the will of God before he fell asleep and was laid with bis fathers." He was the son of Edward and Mary Backhouse, and was born at Darlington in 1808. A resident from early boyhood at Sunder­ land, of which place be became one of the foremost citizens, he was thoroughly identified in his interests with the busy, stirring life of the North of England. He was not himself, however, actively engaged in commerce. Although a partner in collieries, and in the extensive banking business with which the name of his family lias been so long connected, he took little, if any, share in the practical management of these businesses, having desired from the time of his early manhood to keep his hands free for philanthropic and religious work. He was an eager and diligent student of natural hislory, a frequent traveller, and a landscape painter of consider­ able lllerit. Though not cultivating the graces of a professed or11t01", he wuld &lways be relied on to make a plain, vigorous, straightforward speech, with a heartiness which never failed to win the ear of a popular assembly. He was a rather keen, but not bitter politician, on the Liberal side, but never sought a seat in Parliament, whither be could certainly have gone as representative of Sunderland if be had desired to do so. His whole life was coloured by his enthusiastic adoption of the ix X BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. principles of that portion of the Christian Church to which his ancestors for many generations had belonged- the Society of Friends. During a considerable part of his life he occupied a conspicuous position as a minister among them. It is generally known that in their body there are no paid religious ministers, but the work of preaching and of pastoral visitation is discharged by such members of the Society as may feel themselves commissioned by the Unseen Head of the Church to undertake it. After one of these volunteers has preached in the " meetings for worship " for a while, if his services meet with the approval of the congregation, it is the custom to " acknowledge " him. Ministers thus acknow­ ledged acquire a certain official position, but still are in no sense a clergy distinct from the laity around them, but only members of the body, whose gift happens to be of a kind which brings them into somewhat greater prominence than their brethren. Edward Backhonse used to refer his own conversion to the thirtieth year of his age. His life had been always pure and un­ blameable according to man's judgment. After this time it became more conspicuously devoted to the service of Christ; yet it was not till fourteen years after this time that he commenced work as a minister. In the interval his religious labours were chiefly of the kind which Friends call "eldership," and which consists in accompanying the ministers on their missionary journeys, advising them as to their spiritual course, and discriminating between the ministers whose gifts claim encouragement and eventual recogni­ tion, and those who seem to have mistaken their vocation. It was during this period of his life that he was in a remarkable manner preserved from death by shipwreck In 1842 he had arranged to accompany h.is uncle, William Backhouse, on a visit to the little congregations of Friends in Norway. A few days before the time fixed for their departure, William Backhonse stood up to preach in the meeting-house at Darlington; before he had uttered a word he fell back senseless, and expired upon the spot. The event was of course felt as a great shock by all his relatives, in­ cluding his nephew and intended companion; but when tidings came that the steamer in which they were to have sailed, and which started on her voyage on the very day of his uncle's funeral, had foundered at sea, and that all on board had perished, he saw that his own life had been as it were given back to him in the course of God's Providence, and felt himself more than ever bound to use it in the service of Christ.