the marked superiority of similar officials in the Church. Nay, even in the case of "counsellors” and "rulers" in the Church who are, comparatively speaking, very remiss in duty, will be found generally a higher and growing standard of virtue.1 Among Christians, properly so called, wicked persons do not exist. In any case, they do not come to the common prayers, or are excluded if they do come: even for such to intrude secretly is a very rare occurrence.2 This result is accomplished by the measures adopted to secure a high moral standard in the adherents. Philosophers like the Cynics discourse publicly to chance hearers, and do not sift them; any one who wills, stands and listens: it is otherwise with the Christians. "Before they admit any one into their community, they test the souls of those who wish to hear, teach them privately, and only admit them when they have proved by growing consecration their desire to live a better life. Among those admitted are two classes those just introduced who have not yet received the symbol of purification,3 and those who, to the utmost of their ability, have shown that they are resolved only to will and to do that which the Christians approve. To prevent persons of evil character from coming to our common

1 ἐπὶ τῶν σφόδρα ἀποτυγχανομένων βουλευτῶν καὶ ἀρχόντων—iii. 30. 2 iv. 27.

3 οὐδέπω τὸ σύμβολον τοῦ ἀποκεκαθάρθαι ἀνειληφότων—iii. 51.

assemblies, we appoint some whose duty it is to inquire carefully into the lives and ways of those who approach; but those who are free from vice we welcome with our whole heart, and strive day by day to make them better. All that sin, especially The holy school of

1

the licentious, are driven out. the Pythagoreans 1 reckoned as dead those who apostatised, and set up cenotaphs for them; so the Christians look on those who have been mastered by lust or any monstrous sin as dead to God, and mourn for them as dead if they show a noteworthy change of conduct, they regard them as having risen from the dead, and readmit them after a longer interval and at a later period than those admitted at first; but those who lapse are excluded from all rule or office in the Church of God." 2

V. In their doctrine of the resurrection of the body Celsus saw the clearest evidence that the Christians were carnal. It was a hope for worms to cherish, not for men. Such criticism might be applied to some theories of the resurrection, but not to that of Origen. He was equally opposed to the views of those who held there was no resurrection, and of the

simple and flesh-lovers" who fancied that the re

1 τὸ μὲν τῶν Πυθαγορείων σεμνὸν δίδασκαλεῖον—iii. 51.

2 Idem.

3 "Simplices et philosarcas.”—(Letter of Jerome to Pammachius.) Lomm., xvii. 61, 62.

surrection-body would be in all respects the same as the present. A resurrection there must be, as it would be a proof that God was unjust or impotent if the body, which was the partner of the soul in tortures and sufferings, were not to share in the reward: identity there must be, for it would not be fair that one body should suffer and another be crowned.2 But in what consists this identity? It is not the teaching of Scripture that the dead will rise with the same flesh which has undergone no change. for the better.3 St Paul teaches that the body which is sown is not the body that shall be. God gives to each seed its own body, and, from that which is sown and cast naked into the earth, a resurrection, as it were, takes place. "We do not say, then, that the corrupted body will return to its original nature, for the corrupted grain of corn does not return to its original state. But we say that as in the case of the grain of corn a stalk arises, so a certain principle of relation is implanted in the body, and that, from this which is not corrupted, the body will rise in incorruption."6

1 Lomm., xvii. 55.—(Fragment from lost treatise, De Resurrectione, i.)

2 Lomm., xvii. 62.

3 οὔτε μὲν οὖν ἡμεῖς, οὔτε τὰ θεῖα γράμματα αὐταῖς φησι σαρξὶ μηδεμίαν μεταβολὴν ἀνειληφυίαις τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιον—v. 18.

4 1 Cor. xv. 37.

5 ἀπὸ τοῦ σπειρομένου καὶ γυμνοῦ βαλλομένου ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν . . . οἱονεὶ ἀνάστασιν γίγνεσθαι-ν. 18.

6 Λέγομεν γὰρ, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ κόκκου τοῦ σίτου ἐγείρεται στάχυς,

What the nature of this seminal germ is Origen does not distinctly say: it is a substratum which is capable of receiving such qualities as the Creator wills. The resurrection-body will vary according to the deserts of the individual. Origen holds that his theory is not borrowed from the doctrine of metempsychosis;3 that it is in harmony both with the teaching of the Church of Christ and the greatness of the divine promise.*

οὕτω λόγος τις ἔγκειται τῷ σώματι, ἀφ ̓ οὗ μὴ φθειρομένου ἐγείρεται τὸ σῶμα ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳν. 23.

1 iv. 57; v. 19.

2 "Qui beatius hic vixerit, corpus ejus in resurrectione diviniore splendore fulgebit: ... huic vero qui in malitia consumpserit tempus sibi vitæ præsentis indultum, tale dabitur corpus, quod sufficere et perdurare tantummodo possit in pœnis."—Lomm., xvii. 58.

3 vii. 32.

4 v. 22.

263

CHAPTER VI.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE EMPIRE.

CHRISTIANITY came into collision with the State chiefly on two grounds—one external and general, one internal and special. It was an unlawful guild whose members, by refusing to take part in the public sacrifices to and for the emperor, were held to be guilty of treason; and as a religion it was possessed of distinctive and novel characteristics, inasmuch as it was not national in its origin, and was moreover intolerant of all others. A brief survey of the relation of Rome to other religions will help to throw light on these charges.

The introduction of new gods was, during the Republic, and even in the early days of the Empire, regarded with keen jealousy. The worship of foreign gods even in private was forbidden.1 The emperor was not allowed to consecrate a god without the approval of

1 "Separatim nemo habessit deos; neve novos sive advenas nisi publice adscitos privatim colunto."-Cicero, De Leg., ii. 8.