The opinion has been continually expressed that woman owes her present high position to Christianity, and the influences of the Teutonic mind. But an examination of the facts seems to me to show that there was no sign of this revolution in the first three centuries of the Christian era, and that the position of women among Christians was lower, and the notions in regard to them were more degraded than they were in the first. Unquestionably in the Gospels women occupy a prominent position. Many of them followed Christ and ministered to Him. With a woman who had had five husbands and was living with a man not her husband, He holds the most profound conversation, and to her He proclaims the grandest truths of His revelation. And the women of His day and country seem to have had great liberty of movement and action. One of them, described by St. Luke as “a sinner in the city,” finds her way into the house of a Pharisee with whom He was dining, pours a box of ointment on His feet, and washes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head. Christ mingles freely in the marriage festivities where His mother and doubtless other female residents were present. His intercourse with the family of Bethany is of the most unrestrained character, and He talks to both sisters on the highest subjects. And, according to St. John, His first appearance after His resurrection is made to a woman, Mary of Magdala, from whom he had expelled seven demons. But in the Gospels there is no special doctrine propounded in regard to women, and if there is any approach to this, it exhibits great mildness, if we take the story of the woman caught in adultery as genuine. It is when we come to the writings of St. Paul that opinions are pronounced in regard to marriage and the conduct of women, and there can be no doubt that these opinions are of a stern and restrictive nature. The Ebionites[116] explained the Apostle’s conversion by stating that he was, as he himself allowed, a native of Tarsus, that he was not a Jew, but a Greek with a Greek father and a Greek mother; that he went up to Jerusalem and stayed there for some time; that he fell in love with the high priest’s daughter, became in consequence a proselyte, and asked her in marriage, but on being refused he was enraged, and wrote against circumcision, the Sabbath, and the law. Some have thought that there is a bitterness against women in the writings of St Paul, which can be explained only by some such rejection as that related by the Ebionites. Perhaps, also, the character of the women of Tarsus, his native city, may have had an effect upon him. At an early time they were particularly prim and modest. They were in the habit of covering the entire body with clothing, so that no one could see a single part of their face or the rest of their body, and they themselves could see nothing except the road on which they were walking. This habit continued till the time of Dio Chrysostom,[117] who relates the fact. But he regards the habit as a remnant of a chastity which no longer existed. Impurity rushed in upon the women through the ears as well as the eyes, and the most of them became thoroughly licentious and corrupt. “They walk,” he says, “with their faces covered, but with soul uncovered, and indeed wide open.” St. Paul’s words had a great influence on the formation of opinion in regard to women in the ancient Church. They fell in with the tendencies of the times, and were made the groundwork and support of the depreciation of marriage, which became prevalent in the third and fourth centuries of our era.
Christianity also soon brought with it a new state of feeling in regard to questions relating to sex. Acts that had been indifferent before, now became morally wrong, and the Christian writers inquire minutely into points which had not previously been discussed. The Christian writers are particularly frank in their treatment of these questions. Their sense of decency is quite different from that of the moderns, and the consequence is that it is not possible for a modern writer to give a full exposition of their ideas and reasonings.
There are two Christian books belonging, the one to the beginning of the third century, the other to the beginning of the fourth, that make large reference to the duties and position of women. The first is the “Pædagogus,” or Instructor, of Clement of Alexandria. In this work the Alexandrian Father guides the Christian in all the affairs of common life. He exhibits how the Christian ought to behave at meals, what food and drink he ought to take, how long he should sleep, what kind of clothes he ought to wear, how he ought to conduct himself in church, and similar matters. Now in dealing with the duties of women he refuses to employ any euphemism. A spade with him must be a spade or it is a lie. God created man and woman, every part of them, and “no one,” he says, “ought to be ashamed of naming what God was not ashamed to create,” and to go about the bush is to act in disrespect of Him. Besides, he thought it very important that every detail of the Christian life should be directed according to the instructions of Divine Reason, and therefore he would have regarded it a dereliction of duty if he had not discussed all that concerns the functions of women. But the feeling of the present age is for euphemism and concealment, and accordingly when we had to translate Clement’s work into English, in the Ante-Nicene Library, there were portions so completely opposed to modern ideas of decency that we considered it better to present them in a Latin and not an English dress. The same peculiarity characterizes the other work which I mentioned—‘The Banquet of the Ten Virgins,’ by Methodius. In this book ten virgins praise virginity; but the virgins show a remarkably intimate acquaintance with the physiology and aberrations of women. Now in the case of Clement no one can doubt the purity and simplicity of his mind, and his expositions, though they have been denounced by some divines, are absolutely devoid of all pruriency. Perhaps there is a little of the meretricious in the style of the Banquet, for the writer is imitating somewhat unsuccessfully the Banquet of Plato; but the language is entirely consistent with perfect purity, and the difference from our own times is to be attributed to the sentiments of the age, not to a debasement of character.
There is another remark that has to be made before we proceed with our subject. We may have to employ the term Christianity frequently; but a great mistake would be committed if it were assumed that the term has always the same meaning. There is the Christianity of Christ, the Christianity of the first century, the Christianity of Hildebrand, of Luther, and of Calvin. Christianity is different as it appears in different ages and persons. In the early centuries the Christianity of Rome differed from that of Greece and of Africa, and it is not to be assumed that because one Christian writer mentions a practice, that practice was therefore universal in the Church. So when we quote a writer, that writer is of good authority for his own opinion or practice, of tolerably good authority for the doctrine and practice of the Christianity of his own country and age, but more faintly for the Christianity of other countries and ages.
At the time when Christianity dawned on the world women had attained, as we have seen in our chapters on Roman women, great freedom, power, and influence in the Roman Empire. Tradition was in favour of restriction, but by a concurrence of circumstances women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of the old legal forms, and they enjoyed freedom of intercourse in society; they walked and drove in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not conceal their faces, they dined in the company of men, they studied literature and philosophy, they took part in political movements, they were allowed to defend their own law cases if they liked, and they helped their husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of books. One would have imagined that Christianity would have favoured the extension of woman’s freedom. For Christianity itself was one of the most daring revolutions which the world has ever seen. It defied all past customs, it aimed at the overthrow of the religions of the world, it overleapt the barriers of nationality, and it desired to fuse all mankind into one family and one faith. Necessarily, such a movement was accompanied by much excitement and agitation; but when enthusiasm sways any association of men, and they live in a state of ferment, they break in pieces the bonds of custom—those very bonds which most firmly chain women down to a slavish position of routine. Accordingly, at the very first stage women take a prominent part in the spread of Christianity and all the activities of Christians.[118] But in a short time this state of matters ceases in the Church, and women are seen only in two capacities—as martyrs and as deaconesses.
As martyrs they presented a magnificent spectacle of what poor weak woman can dare and do when under the impulse of an inspiring faith. There are especially two genuine Ante-Nicene writings which relate the courage of women under the agonies of trial. The first is the letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and the second narrates the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas in the beginning of the third century. In the letter of the Church of Lyons the most conspicuous woman is a delicate young slave of the name of Blandina, to whom every possible kind of torture was applied, until her body was a mass of deformity, but no word could be wrung out of her in denial of her Lord. “I am a Christian,” she said, “and there is no evil done amongst us.” The torturers, finding her resolution immovable, allowed her a short respite. After an interval of a day or two she was taken to the amphitheatre to be exposed to the wild beasts. She was hung up fastened to a stake in the midst of these animals, but they did not touch her, and she was conveyed back to the noisome and dark dungeons of her prison. Neither wild beast nor prison altered her determination. The magistrates were very anxious that she should recant, and day by day they led her to the scenes of torture, in the hope that she would be frightened by the terrible sufferings which she saw her companions endure, and on each occasion they urged her to swear by the gods. Blandina remained steadfast, and on the last day of the gladiatorial shows she was taken to the amphitheatre. There she was scourged and roasted on a red-hot iron chair, then enclosed in a net and tossed by a bull, and finally stabbed, triumphant in the faith of a glorious resurrection and a blessed union with her Lord.
The martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas was carried out in similar circumstances. Felicitas was a slave. Vivia Perpetua belonged to the higher ranks. She had received a good education, and was married at the time of her apprehension, and had a child at the breast. She was only twenty-two years of age. Her father was still a heathen, and urged her by every possible form of argument and appeal to renounce her faith, but she was firm. She was then cast into a dungeon, and suffered agonies on account of the darkness and separation from her child. But her friends were influential enough to procure an alleviation of her hardships, and she was permitted to have her infant and to receive visits from her Christian brethren. After some days the prisoners were taken to the town hall and tried. Perpetua’s father again assailed her with entreaties to swear by the gods, and so did the Roman procurator. “Spare,” said the latter, “the grey hairs of your father, spare the infancy of your boy, offer sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors.” But Perpetua was unmoved, and to the fatal question “Are you a Christian?” she replied “I am a Christian,” and was condemned to the wild beasts. She returned to her dungeon, there to await the day of the games. On that day the various prisoners were conveyed to the amphitheatre, and when the turn of the young women came, Felicitas and Perpetua were placed in nets and exposed to the attacks of a mad cow. Perpetua was first tossed up in the air and fell on her loins, but was not injured so much as to be unable to help Felicitas when she was crushed to the ground, for she gave her hand to her companion and lifted her up. The savage fury of the populace was appeased for a time, and a demand was made for other combatants. As the evening drew on, all the Christians alive were summoned to receive the final sword-thrust; they kissed each other and then submitted to their fate. Then the writer of the narrative exclaims, “O most brave and blessed martyrs, O truly called and chosen unto the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Every honour was heaped after death on the women who thus suffered for Christ’s sake, and their ashes and other relics were supposed to exercise a sanctifying and miraculous influence; but during their lives it was their duty to stay at home and manage the affairs of their household and not meddle in teaching or any spiritual function.
Let us look now at the organization of the church. Various ideas are entertained in regard to this subject. The view that I take of it is that the organization was the outcome of the necessities of the case directed by the institutions of the age and the place. The idea that regulated the forms of organization was that each member should contribute to the Church, in an orderly way, any gift that God had given him. And, in the first enthusiasm of the Christian movement, women were allowed to do whatever they were fitted to do. Accordingly, we meet in the early Church with prophetesses. Special mention is made of the four daughters of Philip.[119] The women combine with the men in spreading the Gospel. St. Paul calls several of them his fellow-labourers, and one he designates a minister or deaconess (as some have translated it) of the Church in Cenchreæ. But not many generations elapse when all this comes to an end, and we hear only of two classes of women in connexion with the administration of Church affairs. The first is that of widows. The Church supported its own poor, and took upon itself especially the maintenance of widows and orphans. For the widows work was found. Some persons were required to visit sick women, to convey assistance to poor women, and to rear orphan children. Widows were selected for this service, but not all widows. Certain qualifications were deemed essential. The widow must be at least sixty years of age; she must have made up her mind not to marry again, and she must have experience in the nursing of children, so as to give suitable advice to mothers in their distress and difficulties. And, of course, she must have a good character for sobriety, discretion, and piety. In process of time the widows no longer are prominent, and, at length, the institution passes out of sight. A new class arose. This new class received the name of deaconesses. Some have thought that deaconesses existed in the apostolic times, and others have supposed that the office was of early origin but confined to special localities.
It seems to me that the passages on which these opinions have been based do not substantiate a fixed and definite office, but mere casual and sporadic services. It is towards the middle of the third century that in all probability the new order became common in all the Churches of the East, for then the circumstances were such as to demand its existence. First of all widowhood had fallen in the spiritual market and virginity had risen. It was not wrong for the widow to have married, but the act implied a certain weakness and she thereby contracted a stain which rendered her less fit for the service of the Church. Accordingly, even in the time of Tertullian[120], virgins were elected for the duties and called widows. “I know plainly,” he says, “that in a certain place a virgin of less than twenty years of age has been placed in the order of widows.” He himself objects in the strongest manner to this innovation, and speaks of this virgin as a monster—a virgin-widow, and unfit for the work, because she had not had experience in the married life and in the training of children. But the respect for virginity was at that time growing, and other circumstances combined to evoke the new order. To the end of the second century there were no public buildings for Christian worship. The Christians met in private houses, and the tenants of the houses made all the arrangements necessary for the meetings. But when churches began to be built, officials had to look after them, and this duty was assigned to the deacons. In the advance of ascetic ideas, the women sat or stood apart from the men, and entered by a separate door. And at this door stood the deaconess to direct the worshippers to their places, and to see that all behaved quietly and reverently. This was the great work of women in the Church, and in the end became nearly their only work. But they had also to help the deacons in any service which was deemed more suitable for women. Thus, in baptism, the women were immersed, but it was not seemly that all the preparations for the ceremonial should be made by the men, and the dressing and undressing were committed to the care of the deaconess. At the same rite the deacon anointed only the forehead of the Christian woman with oil; the deaconess then anointed her whole body. The deaconess also undertook the work which the widows had done in carrying messages and ministering to the temporal wants of poor women. “Thou shalt send a woman a deaconess, on account of the imaginations of the bad,” is the order given in the Apostolical Constitutions.[121]
The widows had no spiritual function. They were not to teach. How jealous the Church was in this matter is seen from the instructions given to them: “Let the widow,” is the commandment in the Constitutions, “mind nothing but to pray for those that give and for the whole Church, and when she is asked anything by any one let her not easily answer, excepting questions concerning the faith and righteousness and hope in God.... But of the remaining doctrines let her not answer anything rashly, lest by saying anything unlearnedly she should make the word to be blasphemed.” And the occupation of the widow is summed up in these words, “She is to sit at home, sing, pray, read, watch and fast, speak to God continually in songs and hymns.” And if she wishes to go to any one to eat or drink with him, or to receive anything from any one, she must first ask the deacon’s consent, and if she acts without first consulting him she is to be punished with fasting or separated on account of her rashness.[122]
The deaconesses also were prohibited from teaching. They were superior to the widows in the liberty of movement which they had, and the widows were enjoined to be obedient to them; but they had no spiritual function, and while there is no doubt that they were ordained for their service, as the widows also were, they had no sacred character, and could perform no priestly office. To take one instance from Tertullian. In discussing the administration of baptism, he states that the bishop has the right of conferring it first of all, then presbyters and deacons, and then, if none of these are at hand, a layman might administer, but a woman never. Tertullian thus appeals to the Apostle Paul. “For how credible would it seem that he who has not permitted a woman even to learn with over-boldness, should give a female the power of teaching and baptizing. ‘Let them be silent,’ he says, ‘and at home consult their own husbands.’”[123]
In the West it is likely that the Church never assigned any ecclesiastical functions to women, as they were deemed in every respect inferior to men, and it was regarded as dishonourable to a man to receive any instruction, direction, or ecclesiastical blessing from a woman. But it is possible that even in some of the orthodox churches of the East, probably in remote regions, women may have been entrusted with the duty of teaching. In the ‘Testamentum of our Lord,’ recently published by Rahmani, and translated into English by Canon Maclean, “the widows who had front seats” were enjoined to instruct women, to prove deaconesses, and to exercise a general superintendence over the conduct of all the women in the Church.[124] They also seem to be included in the clergy. But this honour shown to women, some scholars deem to be indicative of heresy. Bishop Wordsworth[125] regards it as a proof of semi-Montanism. It is not certain that the Testament was ever used by any part of any Church called orthodox, or that it represents actual institutions, though it is more probable that it did represent the Church order of some small division which considered itself to be among the orthodox.
The entire exclusion of women from every sacred function stands in striking contrast with both heathen and heretical practice. The contrast was present to the minds of the early Christians. “But if,” says the ‘Constitutions,’[126] “we have not permitted them [women] to teach, how will any one allow them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of a priest? For this is one of the ignorant practices of the atheism of the Greeks (Gentiles) to appoint priestesses to the female deities.” Priestesses had a high and honoured position among the Greeks. In early times the Argives dated the events of their history from the priestesses of Hera, and erected statues to them. Equal honours were paid to priestesses of Hera in other Doric states, and to those of Athena Polias, Demeter and Core and many more divinities. These priestesses took part in the celebrations of festivals, and were treated with every mark of respect.[127] In Rome the wife of the Pontifex Maximus took the lead in the worship of Bona Dea, and in the religious rites which specially concerned women. The most honoured priest attached to a particular god in Rome, the Flamen Dialis, must be married, and must resign his office when his wife died, for his wife was also a priestess, and his family were consecrated to the service of the god. And the vestal virgins received every mark of respect that could be bestowed on them, and the amplest liberty. The highest officials made way for them as they passed along the streets, they banqueted with the College of Pontifices, they viewed the games in the company of the Empress, and statues were erected in their honour. The same respect is accorded to women by many of the heretical Christians. Nearly every founder of a sect has a woman to aid him. Simon Magus has his Helene, Montanus his Maximilla, Apelles his Philumene, and so in the case of other sects. One sect[128] belonging to the Montanists deserves special notice for the energy with which it supported the claims of women. It bore various names, such as the Quintiliani, the Pepuziani, the Priscilliani, and the Bread-and-Cheesites because they celebrated their mysteries with bread and cheese. They gave special thanks to Eve because she first ate of the tree of knowledge. They lauded the sister of Moses and the four daughters of Philip, because they asserted the right of women to prophesy—that is, to speak in public the message of God. Frequently in their church seven virgins, clothed in white and bearing torches, stood up and addressed the people, and spoke so eloquently that tears of repentance ran down the cheeks of the audience. In this sect women held the place of bishops and elders and deacons as well as men,[129] and they appealed to St. Paul for their practice: for he says, “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.” It is against this sect that Tertullian, or one assuming his name, launches his thunderbolts. “The very women,” he says, “of these heretics how wanton they are! For they are bold enough to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, it may be even to baptize.”
In describing another sect, Epiphanius states the reasons why women should have no priestly functions. The sect was that of the Collyridians. Epiphanius[130] asserts that there are some who make the Virgin God. “For they relate,” he says, “that some women in Arabia [ἐκεῖσε, not intelligible][131], from the parts of Thrace have introduced this new dogma, so as to offer up a cake (κολλυρίδα) to the name of the Ever-Virgin, and assemble together and attempt—going beyond all bounds—to perpetuate an unlawful and blasphemous deed to the name of the Holy Virgin, and to her name to perform sacrifice through women, which is an action entirely impious and unlawful, alien to the preaching of the Holy Spirit; so that the whole is an energy of the devil, and the teaching of an unclean spirit.” He then mentions[132] that worship was paid in some places to the daughter of Jephtha and the daughter of Pharaoh, and Thermutis, the daughter of Amenoph, the Pharaoh, because she reared Moses. In ‘Haer.’ 79, c. i., he says that those who exalted Mary above humanity are none else than women: “for the race of women is prone to slip, and is unstable and low in their thoughts.” The thought comes from the devil, as formerly the devil inspired Quintilla, Maximilla, and Priscilla. And he proceeds, “For some women, adorning a curicum or four cornered seat, and covering it with a cloth on some special day of the year, place out bread on some days and offer it to the name of Mary; and all of them partake of the bread, as we have already explained partially in the letter which we wrote to Arabia.” He then refutes the heresy, the principal point attacked being that the heretics made women priestesses. No woman was at any time a priestess to God: Eve herself was not; none in the Old Testament, none in the New. No woman was ever made a bishop or presbyter, and a deaconess is not a priestess, but a servant of the Church appointed for special purposes. Christ made none of the women who served Him priestesses—not Salome, not even His mother, nor Martha, nor Mary, &c.
Such, then, was the position which woman occupied in the Church in the course of the first three centuries of Christianity. The highest post to which she rose was to be a doorkeeper and a message-woman, and even these functions were taken away from her during the Middle Ages. Was there a reason for this? Perhaps we may find some clue to this phenomenon in the conceptions which the Fathers of the Church formed of the nature of woman.
It is one of the curious features of early Christianity that it did not discuss some of those social problems which would naturally have suggested themselves. Thus no objection is taken to slavery, though the Therapeutæ had already denounced it as unlawful and inhuman. Christianity proclaimed a gospel of love, which had no limit but that of the human race. And it applied this gospel to all classes. The Christian slave thus became the brother of all members of the community, received kindness from all, and was admitted to equal rights and privileges. But Christianity also enjoined on him submission to the will of his proprietor urging the belief that man is bound to be content with the position in which he is, to bear patiently all the ills of this life in the certain hope of a glorious future. The marriage laws and customs prevalent throughout the Roman world in the first ages of Christianity ought to have created difficulty, but nothing is said of this difficulty. Thus a Christian slave woman was the property of her master, her children were a source of gain to him, and he took entire control over this matter, as over the breeding of cattle. Yet we do not hear of any discussion in regard to this arrangement, nor of any attempt to rescue the slave woman from the treatment to which she must have been subjected. Again, the Roman law recognized marriages only between citizen and citizen; but a very large number of the early Christians had not the rights of citizenship until the beginning of the third century, and if they made associations of the nature of marriage, their children were deemed illegitimate by the civil law. Probably the Church defied the civil law. It became a maxim that Christians were not to go to law with each other, and the Church established laws and a jurisdiction of its own. In the case of marriage this was peculiarly necessary, as the marriage of a believer with an unbeliever caused to the former great inconvenience in carrying out his faith, and, indeed, supplied strong temptations to apostasy. Such marriages were therefore from the first forbidden, on pain of expulsion. It is likely, then, that any Christian man and woman were regarded as duly married, notwithstanding the civil law, if they had got the consent of the bishop; and secret connexions—that is, connexions not first professed in the presence of the Church—were considered akin to vice.
The questions that occupied the Christian mind related rather to the moral character of marriage. These questions were raised first of all by the heretical sects, which applied philosophy to the tenets and practice of the Church. And it is one of the most interesting facts in early Christian history that the Church, in combating these sects, succeeded in defeating them, but always carried off a large portion of their heretical opinions for its own permanent use. The sects may be divided into two classes. Some[133] affirmed that marriage was unnecessary, that full liberty had been conceded to them of indulging the passions, and that, indeed, the way to rise to perfection was by a practical acquaintance with all forms of action possible to man. Others[134] held that marriage was immoral, that the flesh was corrupt, that those who sowed to the flesh must reap corruption, and that in the kingdom of God on earth, as in heaven, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. It is difficult to trust all that is said about these heretical sects—for our accounts are derived from the orthodox alone—and in regard to this matter of marriage the orthodox invariably accuse the heterodox of licentiousness. But there was no class of people who ought to have been more careful in their assertions than the orthodox, as they themselves were accused of the vilest crimes.
It is one of the most striking facts in all history that in the second century the Christians were universally believed by Pagans to be secret conspirators combined for immoral purposes, and at their trials it was sufficient for a man to confess that he was a Christian to be condemned as a licentious villain. The assertions made in regard to them were that they met in secret, that slaughtering an infant they poured his blood into a cup, and that passing this cup round they all drank of it; that then the lights were extinguished, and the men and women proceeded to indiscriminate licentiousness. How could such ideas have arisen? An explanation of this reveals to us marked peculiarities of the early Church in the treatment of women, and may help us to see how the later opinions arose. Christianity came at first in the fervour of an overpowering love—love to God and love to man, irrespective of his race, position, or belief. But this fervour of love directed itself with special force to those who accepted the same faith. They called each other fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters. They were in the habit of assembling before dawn or at night, men and women together, in private houses, to conduct their worship. The assembly consisted of a strange assortment of characters and grades. The Apostle Paul,[135] in writing to the Corinthian Church, says to them: “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor cheats, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor plunderers, shall inherit the Kingdom of God: and these things were some of you.” And there were in the assembly the bond and the free, the rich and the poor, the high and low, but with a large preponderance of the low. It was natural for a heathen to suppose that an assembly composed, as he would consider it, of the dregs of society, and meeting in hours of darkness, had no good object in view. And the account which they themselves gave of their worship sounded to a Pagan equally contemptible. The Christians affirmed that they worshipped a poor carpenter, a son of despised Galilee, the child of a husbandless mother. Then they spoke of eating a body and drinking blood. But perhaps colour was given to the accusation most of all by two institutions which have now passed away, except in the case of one or two small sects.
In the days of the first fervour the Christian brethren set up a plan of voluntary socialism, and wished to have all things in common; but the plan did not work, and they had recourse to a systematic relief of the poor. One feature of this relief was what were called Love-feasts. It was not unusual in ancient times for large bodies of men to dine together, and large dinner-parties were often made up by each man bringing his contribution to the feast. With some such idea as this the Christians met, men and women together, the rich bringing the supplies, and they all dined together. Probably they did this every day at the earliest period, and some think that these meals constituted the celebration of what is called the Lord’s Supper. The love-feasts were unquestionably associated with this institution; but in the course of time they became less frequent, and generally took place after the administration of the Eucharist. They continued till the fifth century at least, and were often held in the churches after churches were erected. These dinners were not always scenes of perfect propriety, as St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians shows, and on some occasions intoxication and riotousness prevailed. These feasts went by the name of Loves, or Love-feasts, as we now translate the word. We need not wonder that Pagans should suspect that the Loves were not of the purest.
Then there was another practice, still more foreign to our Christian ideas. There is no command in the New Testament to keep the Sunday, or to stand or sit at singing, or to repeat the Creed or to keep Good Friday or Christmas, or to do a hundred other things about which Christians have wrangled with all earnestness; but there is a commandment five times repeated in the Apostolic Epistles, and indicative of the strong bond of brotherhood which bound Christian brothers and sisters to each other, to this effect: “Salute the brethren with a holy kiss,” or in another form, “Salute the brethren with a kiss of love.” It is likely that at first this kiss was imparted at every meeting, but gradually it became limited to the great sacramental occasions, such as baptism and the Eucharist. At first, too, and for a considerable time, the Christian brothers and sisters kissed each other. It is easy to see that such a practice would give rise to scandalous reports, and there is evidence in the ecclesiastical writers that the early Christians did not always make it a holy kiss, as it should have been. Athenagoras[136] quotes a saying which he attributes to our Lord, and which evidently deals with an abuse of this practice. It is to this effect: “Whoever kisses a second time, because he has found pleasure in it, commits a sin.” And Clement[137] of Alexandria thus speaks of the matter: “Love is not tested by a kiss, but by kindly feeling. But there are those that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss. For this very thing, the shameless use of the kiss, which ought to be mystic, occasions foul suspicions and evil reports.”
These customs prove that considerable freedom prevailed among the earliest Christians, and doubtless sometimes this freedom was abused. In the very first epoch some of the Corinthian Christians sided with a man who committed incest and persisted in it after rebuke, and the Apostle had to exert himself to the utmost to repress the sympathy and the sin, but the accusations, speaking generally, were hideously false and unfounded. They are of some consequence for our purpose, for they must have acted powerfully on the minds of Christians in inducing them to avoid everything that might furnish even the semblance of justification for them.