the New People were teachers;" possessors of "powers -men, perhaps, whose eloquence of speech and prayer exercised a magnetic influence over the hearers; healerspersons whose sympathy and resource specially fitted them to nurse the sick; helpers and counsellors, whose advice guided the conference of committees and emergency meetings; and speakers of "tongues "-whose wild raptures, though incomprehensible to themselves and to their hearers, roused deep emotion in the assemblies, and made the simple people imagine themselves as listening to the very language of heaven. The evidence of the Didache on these subjects is confused, and we have to bear in mind that this production is a Jewish document overlaid with Christian additions. Its references to Apostles and prophets bespeak a period of the simplest manners and organisation. The title itself, "The Teaching (Didache) of the Apostles," denotes the moral maxims and commandments which travelling Jewish teachers taught on their religious tours before the Christian gospel was preached. "Every apostle who comes to you," says the Didache (xi.), “let him be received as the Lord; but he shall not remain except for one day; if, however, there be need, then the next day; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet. But when the apostle departs, let him take nothing except bread enough till he lodge again; but if he ask money, he is a false prophet." Evidently, there is here no allusion to the twelve apostles of Christian tradition. These wandering friars, or poor preachers, were numerous enough to render it advisable to caution pious but unwary folk against being imposed upon. Where a prophet preached with unmistakable sincerity his audiences were forbidden to criticise; but they could easily test a preacher by his conduct. Even if he should do eccentric things, which would be unseemly for others to imitate, the fact should cause no scandal so long as he acted with a view to expounding the "cosmic mystery (or divine relations) of the Church.* At the same time, whatever might be a prophet's pretensions, his asking for money or any other gift would at once rule him out of the ranks of the genuine preachers. In a subsequent chapter of the Didache a paragraph appears, which somewhat sur

* J. R. Harris, in his edition of the "Teaching."

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prises the reader by coming back to the topic of leaders (xv.): "Now appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek and not avaricious, and upright, and proud; for they, too, render you the service of the prophets and teachers. Therefore neglect them not ; for they are the ones who are honoured of you, together with the prophets and teachers." Whatever we may think of the genuineness of this passage, it confronts us with the names of two fresh orders of officials-the "episkopos " and the "diakonos." We have already noted that "episkopos. was a title current among the pagan Greeks. Only one letter of Paul mentions "bishops," and then merely in the opening address.* The other New Testament references to bishops belong to much later dates, and serve only to indicate that, with the lapse of years, the office of the episkopos had grown in importance and esteem; and even then the bishops were very little distinguished, if at all, from the "presbyters."+ The function of the bishop included the distribution of the alms collected by the society of which he acted as overseer, provision for orphans and widows, and the entertaining of the Saints who, by reason of trade or driven by ill-usage, journeyed from town to town, or from one country to another. Even so far down, however, as the time of Justin Martyr we find the leader of the meeting for receiving the Eucharist called simply "the president of the brethren;" and when the devotions concluded, the charitable peasants and artisans and merchants crowded round "the president" with their gifts for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger (Apology, 65, 67). Naturally the president needed assistance as the societies of the Saints grew in number and extent; and for this purpose 66 deacons or ministers were appointed. Paul writes of himself and Apollos and other propagandists as "deacons," and their preaching-work as a "diaconate." The deacons, as Justin Martyr tells us, handed round the holy cakes and wine at the Supper, and carried alms to the houses of the

* Phil. i. I. Good reasons exist for regarding the Epistles i. and ii. Timothy, and Titus (which speak of bishops), as not the work of Paul. + H. Cox's "First Century," chap. xiii.; Smith's Dictionary of the Bible;" Kurtz's "Church History," vol. i., sect. 17.

Hatch's "Influence," ii..

66

needy. Women, such as

Phoebe the deaconess, aided in these errands of mercy. When ritual developed among the Christian societies, it became the custom to appoint deacons by a public and solemn laying-on of hands.

We may pause for a moment to look back upon the figures-shadowy at the best-of the New People who created the Christian gospel. We observe dimly the emergence of a sect who gradually broke away from Jewish orthodoxy and the traditions of the Hebrew Torah; who gathered adherents from the lowly classes, from rustics, craftsmen, fishermen, and the like; who, as the Saints, the Elect, as Minæans, Nazarenes, Baptists, and Ebionites, formed small revivalist clubs and associations; who assembled in retired chambers for prayer, praise, preaching, the utterance of tongues," the partaking of a fraternal meal; who baptised converts; who counted the Kyriac or First-day holy; who provided by common subscription for the widows and fatherless and destitute members of their community; and who looked up with affection and respect, but without exaggerated reverence, to the apostles and prophets who tramped from place to place, teaching a simple ethic and an undogmatic religion. Their moral and religious ideas we must draw from the New Testament and other literature.

Before dealing with the personality and writings of Paul and the gospel-history of Jesus, we may glance at the biography of a notorious prophet whose career throws a singular sidelight on the religious conditions amid which the faith of the New People arose and extended.

5. Apollonius of Tyana.-In the sixth century B.C. the teacher Pythagoras travelled to Egypt and elsewhere in search of religious, ethical, and scientific knowledge, preached a gospel of plain living and deep contemplation,, and founded a moral settlement or church in Southern Italy. His followers had a passion for arithmetic and geometry; in numbers they read the keys of the universe; they believed in the transmigration of the soul from body to body until it attained holiness; they taught reverence towards gods and parents, justice, gentleness, temperance, prayer, careful self-examination, and simplicity of food, dress, and habits. His philosophy, modified by mystical

doctrines drawn from such writers as Plato, found disciples, at the beginning of the Christian era, in the Neo-Pythagoreans, or New Pythagoreans. Of these Apollonius furnishes a remarkable type. The true personality of Apol lonius has to be sifted out from the romantic biography written by Philostratus at the opening of the third century, C.E., for the amusement of the Empress Julia, wife of Severus. The story had a certain amount of reality for its basis; the rest is legend. Born at Tyana, in Cappadocia, and schooled at Tarsus on the banks of the placid Cydnus, he, as a youth, spent much time at the temple of Esculapius, at Ægæ near Tarsus. Thither crowds of maimed and diseased folk streamed for aid and healing from the priests, who used the divine oracle as a means of medical advice. Perhaps the scenes he witnessed suggested the value of an ascetic life. He ate only fruit and vegetables, abjured wine, went barefoot, clothed himself in linen, bathed often in cold water, and let his hair hang long over his shoulders. "I shall live," he said, "after the manner of Pythagoras." Each morning he made obeisance to the rising sun. Five years (such was the Pythagorean rule) he passed in silence. Sometimes he would push in among the vulgar throng at a circus or pantomime, and, with stern uplifted hand, awe the mob into stillness. Once this dumb monitor found a city in tears because of a famine. Learning that the dearth was produced by a few dealers hoarding up the corn, he wrote publicly on a tablet: "Apollonius to the monopolisers of corn in Aspendus, greeting: The earth is the common mother of all, for she is just. You are unjust, for you have made her only the mother of yourselves; and if you will not cease from acting thus, I will not suffer you to remain upon her." The terrified dealers filled the market with grain, and the city rejoiced. With Greek priests he discoursed on the nature of God. To the disciples of more barbaric religions he gave hints for the refinement of their worship. His language was lofty and emphatic; he did not argue; he spoke as with authority. With seven disciples he set out for the East, and, at Nineveh, met Damis, who companied with him during a great part of his career. He learned the art of augury, or foretelling the future by inspection of the entrails of birds. Even the language of birds he acquired—a legendary detail which may point to

his quick observation of the animal world. From the splendours of the King of Babylon's court he journeyed on to India, where he conversed with the sages, or Brahmans. The narratives of his eastern travels are adorned with anecdotes of the marvellous, and with lively dialogues with native princes and philosophers. Of all this nothing may be true except that Apollonius travelled in the east, and that he derived some of his speculations from Indian and Zoroastrian sources. We have already seen that some such influence had leavened the doctrines of the Jewish Essenes.* On his return to the west he continued to make tours from Ephesus to Troy, from Troy to Greece, Crete, Rome, etc. At Athens, being suspected of strange and magical doctrines, he was forbidden to take part in the Mysteries. Popular folly credited him with supernatural powers. He drove the plague from Ephesus. A dead bride was raised from her bier by his whisper. He expelled a demon from an effeminate and giggling fop, the evil spirit breaking out into imprecations before the fixed glance of the prophet, and then, on its expulsion, smashing a statue to pieces amid the shouts of the awe-struck people. With his pretensions to wonder-working Apollonius joined a shrewd manner of address. When the citizens of Smyrna suffered from dissension, Apollonius counselled them to try the effect of "discordant concord;" in other words, to use argument and discussion only as a means of arriving at harmonious action, as in a ship where the crew performed various duties with the common object of navigating the vessel smoothly. At Alexandria he met the new-made emperor Vespasian, who revered him as an oracle and astrologer. The populace showed him extreme respect, though he roundly rebuked them for their turbulence and quarrels at the horse-races, just as, at Athens, he had reproached the people for crowding to see the combats of paid gladiators, and refused to enter the theatre, saying the place was impure and polluted with blood. A voyage up the Nile gives the biographer a pretence for introducing a number of dubious travellers' tales. On a charge of sedition the Emperor Domitian lodged Apollonius in a Roman gaol. From the public tribunal he "vanished," so says the

* Vol. ii., sect. 22.