the Christian victims of the persecution under Nero must have been from the lowest classes, or the emperor would not have dared treat them as he did. The Christian church at first, then, was "largely composed of slaves and low people." In the early church, as Harnack writes, "the lower classes, slaves, freedmen, and laborers, very largely predominated. Celsus and Caecilius distinctly assert this, and the apologists admit the fact. Even the officials of the Christian church frequently belonged to the lowest class."

But while Christianity began its history in the lower social strata, there is a noticeable change in the composition of the church, even during the New Testament period. This fact will occupy us in the following chapter.

1 McGiffert, History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age (New York, 1900), p. 629; cf. p. 267. Cf. Orr, Early Progress of Christianity (New York, 1899), chap. ii.

2

Rainy, The Ancient Catholic Church (New York, 1902), p. 10.

3 Harnack, Christianity in the First Three Centuries (London, 1908), Vol. II, pp. 33, 34. Cf. Dobschütz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church (London, 1904), p. 303. The question of the actual relation between Jesus and the upper classes of his day is here taken up without reference to what Jesus may or may not have said on the abstract subject of wealth. The evidence indicates a state of sharp tension between Jesus and the upper classes of his own times. We agree with the position taken in the following works on the relation of Jesus to the social classes: Mathews, The Social Teaching of Jesus, (New York, 1902), pp. 136 f. and 170 f.; Cone, Rich and Poor in the New Testament (New York, 1902), passim; Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York, 1907), pp. 74–92. But we dissent from Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question (New York, 1900), pp. 183-225.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, did not continue the emphasis upon class-relations between rich and poor.-When we leave the Gospels, and enter the Pauline Epistles, a change of atmosphere is at once evident. Paul was laboring to advance the religion of the Bible in the world at large, among all nationalities. In order to achieve this end, it was absolutely impossible for his ministry to take the same form as did the ministry of Jesus. This is clear. Jesus was the first person in human history to embody the idea of the Redeeming God of Israel in a human life. He was thus an example, or pattern, to be followed by others. In order to extend the religion of the Bible on the lines laid down by Jesus, it is necessary first of all to explain the person and work of Jesus-in short, to "preach Christ." Now, Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, was the first person to preach Christ to those who were “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel"; and, in his way, he was just as important to the spread of Bible religion as Jesus himself. Jesus, of course, did not have to preach in the way that Paul did. For while Jesus declared the gospel of God in his own life, Paul could preach that gospel only by first preaching Christ. Paul had to create enthusiasm for Jesus among the gentiles; he had to labor until Christ was "formed" in them. This is the fundamental ground of difference between the Gospels and the Epistles.

The contrast which thus emerges between the preaching of Paul and that of Jesus brings with it important consequences for the sociological study of the Bible: If Paul were to do his work among the gentiles, he could not go about opposing the rich and favoring the poor, as Jesus did. Paul's object was to create Christ in the hearts of men, and then let the spirit of

Jesus do its work. If Paul had raised the question of rich and poor in the way his Master did, he would have met the fate of Jesus; and the dissemination of the gospel would have come to an end. It is not likely that all these aspects of the situation were clearly present in the mind of Paul; but they are nevertheless the considerations that governed the spread of Bible religion. Paul acted in the line of least resistance; and his course was guided by the instinct of genius.

Paul interpreted the gospel as a message for all men, and the church as a home for all social classes.-Paul took the standpoint that a religion which proclaimed "the brotherhood of man" must open the door of the church to rich and poor alike. All who received Christ could come in, Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, male and female: all were one "body" in Christ (I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). This doctrine had important consequences which Paul did not foresee.

As we have already observed, Christianity appealed at the start to the humbler social classes, rather than to the mighty. The apostolic church evidently drew a large part of its membership from the slaves and the poor freemen with which the Roman empire abounded. Various passages testify to the anxiety with which Paul and other New Testament writers endeavored to keep Christian slaves in order. In one place we read: "Slaves, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your lords, . .. knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be a slave or a freeman" (Eph. 6:5, 8). In other

...

The King James Bible uses the word "servant" for the term here given as "slave." On the other hand, as the scholars who produced the Revised Bible say in the "margin," the word which their seventeenth-century predecessors translated "servant" is more accurately rendered "bondservant." It is clear that the passage here quoted should commence with such a term in order to agree with its conclusion, which even the King James translators could not avoid rendering "bond or free." Allowance ought perhaps to be made in their favor, in view of the fact that the word "servant" carried a lower social implication in the seventeenth century than it does now; but there is no excuse for using their translation at the present time.

passages we read: "Slaves, obey in all things them that are your lords according to the flesh" (Col. 3:22). "Let as many as are slaves under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor" (I Tim. 6:1). "Exhort slaves to be in subjection to their own masters, and to be well pleasing in all things, not gainsaying, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity" (Titus 2:9). In the Epistle to Philemon, we see Paul sending a fugitive Christian slave back to his owner, saying that he thought the slave had wronged his master by running away. Another testimony to the presence of the poor in the early church is found in the anxiety for collections of money, to relieve them. Paul says that at the end of the famous "Jerusalem Conference," the apostles Peter, James, and John gave him the hand of fellowship, that Paul should go to the gentiles and they to the Jews, adding "only they would that we should remember the poor, which very thing I was also zealous to do" (Gal. 2:10). The collections taken were not to be used for the poor in general, outside the church, but for them that were of "the household of faith."

But while the church consisted at first mainly of poor freemen and slaves, it included a growing proportion of more fortunate people-wealthy slaveholders and landowners. The master Philemon, to whom Paul sent back the runaway slave, was a beloved fellow-worker in the gospel, and a member of a church that met in his own house. The little churches that met in private residences welcomed into their brotherhood persons like Philemon, who contributed from their wealth to the needs of the new religious movement. A number of passages in the New Testament bear witness to the increase of wealthy members in the church. Christian slaveholders, like Philemon, are spoken of when Christian slaves are exhorted not to despise "believing masters" (I Tim. 6:2). Christian masters are commanded to treat their slaves well (Eph. 6:9). In one passage we read: "Lords, render unto your slaves that

which is just and equal" (Col. 4:1). Thus it is clear that the upper classes began to join the church in growing numbers. Before the close of the first century, one of the writers of the New Testament thought it well to sound a note of warning against the favor shown by the church to the wealthy. His writing has come down to us under the title the General Epistle of James; and it was issued late in the century, perhaps about 90 A.D.1 His words on the subject of social classes are as follows:

My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . with respect of persons. For if there come into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there come in also a poor man in vile clothing; and ye have regard to him that weareth the fine clothing, and say, Sit thou here in a good place; and ye say to the poor man, stand thou there, or sit under my footstool; are ye not divided among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him? But ye have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag you before the judgment-seats? (Jas. 2:1-6).

But while the tendency thus indicated began to be noticed even in the first century, we learn from the writings of the church Fathers that even in the second century the church continued to be, in the main, a lower-class institution. The apologetic, or defensive, Christian writers of the second century endeavored to attract the upper classes, who possessed wealth and culture.3

The third century marked the steadily decreasing influence of the lower class in church life, and a corresponding growth of aristocratic tendencies in the Christian fold. The rich increased their offerings, and began to leave property to the church by will. Gifts and legacies at first assumed the form

1 Bacon, Introduction to the New Testament (New York, 1902), p. 165.

2 Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine (New York, 1899), p. 52.

3 Rainy, The Ancient Catholic Church (New York, 1902), p. 90.