I. Clement of Rome’s Letter to the Church at Corinth (c. 96/97). II. Ignatius calls for Unity Consolidated about the Bishopric (110/117). III. Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians (c. 110-135). IV. The "Shepherd" of Hermas: an Apocryphal Apocalypse (c. 115-140). V. The Didache: Purported Teachings of the Twelve Apostles (c. 120-150). VI. The Pseudo Clementine Second Letter: an Early Christian Sermon (c. 130-150). VII. The Epistle to Diognetus: a Christian Apologia (c. 130-180). VIII. Second-Century Christian Worship. IX. Clement of Alexandria (c. 215) and the Instruction of Christ, the True Pedagogue (c. 195, 208/11). X. Hippolytus and the Apostolic Tradition: a Order of Worship (c.217). XI. Origen the Confessor (c. 185-253/54) on Prayer (233/34).

I. Reflections of Popular Hostility to Early Christianity. II. Early Governmental Policy and Sporadic Outbreaks Against Christians. III. Early Christian Martyrs and the Christian Witness. IV. Selected Apologists: The Spokesmen for Christianity in reply to typical charges against it. V. Attacks Against Christians Before the Great Persecutions. VI. The Decian-Valerian Persecution (c. 249-51, 257/59). VII. Persecutions under Diocletian, Galerius, and Maximian (c. 302/303-312). VIII. The Failure of Persecution and the Edicts of Toleration. IX. Constantine’s Favors to Christianity (313-337); Donatism and the Synod of Aries (314). X. The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicaea (325). XI. Athanasius Combats the Arians, Contra Arianos. XII. Athanasius on Incarnation, Redemption and Deification (c. 318). XIII. Typical Decisions and Canons of Early Christian Councils. XIV. The Relation of Spiritual and Temporal Powers after Constantine.

I. Early Heretics and the Challenge to Christian Catholicity. II. The Early Christian Fathers, and Their Confrontation of the Heresies with the Rule of Faith and Tradition. III. Church Historians, Social Critics, and Christian Literati.

I. Worship and the Sacraments from c. 300-500. II. Examples of Music in the Worship of the Early Church. III. Renunciation, Asceticism, and the Beginnings of Monasticism in the East. IV. Monasticism as Spiritual Martyrdom. V. John Cassian (c. 360-c. 435) and the Desert Fathers of the East in Relation to the Cenobitic West. VI. The Rise and Development of Western Cenobitism: the Tradition of Spiritual Regularity and Stabilitas Loci. VII. Monastic Regulae and the Lives of Contemplation and Action in the Mystical Tradition. VIII. Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite: Celestial Hierarchies and Mystical Theology.

I. The Rise of the Bishop of Rome.

Jesus Christ founded the Church. This assertion cannot be contested. How the fact came to be, however, has frequently been the subject of debate. This process of founding and organizing has long fascinated both practicing Christians and secular historians. Quite basic concerns lie obscured beneath more obvious traditions and overt acts of establishment. But Christ was primary in the process, in a way that transcended the obvious statements attributed to him.

Jesus’ basic interest seems to have been the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ concern with the transition from a temporal society to an eternal community took precedence over any social consciousness. He was not committed to the perpetuation of the human social order as he found it. For him, the Kingdom of God came first. This was the primary community. It already existed, and it was revealed forthwith in his appearance as God’s herald, He announced and revealed the "constitution" of this eternal society in the name of God the Father, and it at once became mandatory for all the Son’s followers.

Perhaps the most mysterious thing about the Kingdom was that it was at once a secret to the uninitiated and an open fact to those instructed by its special vocation. This was the ministry to divine ends that was already devolving upon those who accepted Christ’s call to discipleship. Jesus taught a doctrine of last things (or last days, in the sense of the old order) and new times (in terms of the new age already being ushered in), in which the final community was held to be both immanent and actual. The Kingdom was historically present in the midst of men, though its full realization was future to their present comprehension and experience.

The Church arose as a community — a koinonia, or communio of penitents. These penitents freely accepted the divine gift of salvation, which they had in no way earned. The very recognition of unworthiness which all Christ’s followers confessed in common conferred upon them a new kind of justness or Tightness. Those alone were justified who had a full sense of their own unrighteousness. They therefore stood ready to accept redemption out of God’s graciousness. Their distinctive society was not esoteric in the sense of its being a privileged clique. They were simply a grateful people no longer blinded by human striving to the magnanimous operation of this divine action.

The community set up by God and revealed by Christ created from the most ordinary people a society that was an outpost of heaven. It was a koinonia, responding to the eternal fellowship. This community became a social reagent in humanity’s midst. It was engendered by, and answerable to, the will of the Kingdom. The new ecclesiastical community came to think of itself as the servant of the eternal Kingdom in the temporal world. This royal society swept through and beyond the time-span. It both transcended and transformed earthly history and the interim universe. These would finally be superseded and reborn into a new heaven and a new earth.

The nascent Church gradually sensed its dual consecration to eternity and time. It recorded, historically, its dedication to final purposes and the earthly genesis that served them. In a world attuned to Greek cycles (i.e., cycles of recurring, self-contained existence), the Church adopted an increasingly linear view of history. That is, the Church on earth, like humanity itself, had a beginning in time as it would have an end to its historical pilgrimage. Those in the Hebraic-Christian tradition moved from historical beginnings to destined religious ends because of such ends. They knew their way by faith only. They journeyed away from their human beginnings without affection for earthly origins. Unlike purely scientific origins that start from whatever has already been, their beginnings were informed with meaning and power by the ends that had preceded them. Christians had fully societal instincts. They knew the meaning of traditio. In living tradition one passed on to another’s hands what had been placed in his own. Hands joined hands from age to age in vital transmission of what hands must not merely hold, but hold out, or offer. The City of God was heavenly and future to their earthly hope. Yet, in its supreme corporateness, it begot social beings on earth. Its foundations were in heaven, but its citizens to be were commingled with all of humanity. This citizenry of the eternal city (civitas) was not deprived, in the interim, of a living bond with the heavenly koinonia. By faith and in love they passed to the Fatherland (patria) in the tradition of hand-to-hand community, or traditio.

Early in the Church’s record there emerged a common preoccupation with the "cure of souls" (cura animarum) and the "school of souls" (schola animarum). Earliest Christian life was a genuine koinonia or communio. It was a collegium in the sense of a close-knit, interpenetrating community. It was a mystical universitas of head and members. Before collegium and universitas meant academic institutions they referred to social vitalities and traditions. These were first pre-Christian, then Christian corporations. At the outset, Christian communities of souls implied associations of teaching and learning, as well as societies of divine worship. Long before Christians were academically self-conscious they were cast in seminars with the Great Teacher. "Master" and "Disciple" were sacred terms. Theirs was the urgency of breathless expectation, of genuinely Christian hope. The Christian collegium of worship and social response to brothers’ needs became also the koinonia of instruction, of teaching and learning. This tutelage of Kingdom men on earth, by the Kingdom’s servant community in time, registered a desperate need. It was imperative that they know the truth where right doctrine meant eternal beatitude, even as error spelled death to the presence of God and of his people.

Christian manuals of instruction were not marks of luxury, but of survival. Such was the teaching handbook, or enchiridion, called Matthew’s Gospel. Other examples were the evolving "Church Orders," or books of discipline, such as the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions. The catechetical writings and disciplines of the Christian school at Alexandria were also part of this Didascalia. Preaching and teaching, like pastoral care and indoctrination, were solidly allied, though not identical preoccupations of the Church. Martyrs, confessors, and missionaries were developed only through instruction and catechesis. The Christian community was doomed without tradition or transmission. Augustine contended that Christian associations needed their seals as much as the merchant fraternity. The Christian Credo or Symbol was just such an oral badge or seal. In it the Christians’ confession of faith rose up out of memory and reflection. They registered their hearing and doing of the Word as it was preached, taught, and practiced in the community. The increasing spiritual prestige of the teaching authority was only in part an institutionalizing of the Church’s pneumatic life. Here was also a regularizing of spiritual respiration, a committing to the everyday, orderly routine of the living faith and Gospel. Profound instruction was essential to the preaching and teaching community of Origen. It was equally indispensable to the leveling of heresy and the validating of truth in the apostolic tradition of Irenaeus. The early Christian church was a witnessing to the Kingdom through the unity of worship and social ministry, through preaching and teaching. In it, daily work and fiery prophesying were combined; Kerygma (the proclamation of the gospel) and diaconate (a deacon’s official ministry) were mingled. Martyr suffering and going to school under the Master were part of it, too. For those challenged by the sophisticated world and the eclectic seekers after truth, Christ was the true Gnostic as he was the great Pedagogue.

The vicissitudes of Christian householding on earth were many. To be in the Christian tradition was to respond to the Rule of Faith. It was to minister in the "curacy of souls," to serve in the "school of souls." In Ignatius and in Cyprian, the divine hierarchy was held up as the eliciting pattern of Christian polity and ecclesiastical unity on earth. Likewise, in the early Church, the good pastor was the true teacher. The heavenly hierarchy was the solicitous School of Heaven instructing Christians of earth. Borne within it was the model for the analogue of earthly hierarchy. This applied to temporal government, faith, charity, and the hope of life eternal. The centuries themselves could not wholly denature this pristine Christian simplicity. Nothing could quite obliterate the symbols of the Master. Conveyed by them was the iconography of the Saviour, the image writing of his spiritual presence.

The documents of Chapter I confirm the idealistic bent of this early Christian orientation. They also reflect the rough awakening of those who superficially grasped the import of Jesus’ objectives without the full implications of his realistic foresightedness. These later writings, like the canonical literature, show how Christians tried to meet the ultimate demands of their rigorous faith; they also show how they adjusted themselves to daily exigencies among people of quite different views. Following Christ’s admonition to be in the world, but not of it, proved a bruising if exhilarating experience.

The first source reading, though actually anonymous, was early ascribed to one Clement, presumably third bishop of Rome. He was writing to the strife-torn Christians at Corinth. The pneumatic emphasis of early Pauline days was then being challenged by worldly bickerings and the practical demands of common-sense Christians. Already, Roman Christian officialdom was beginning to inject into its fraternal exchanges a tone of commiseration subtly charged with patronizing unction. Perhaps certain ministers had been expelled from their offices. Regularity in worship and the ordered church life so cherished at old Rome had been endangered. As a more sophisticated and well-organized Christian society, the ranking priesthood or hierarchy of the Roman community felt called upon to intervene. They pleaded for the larger Christian unity now being threatened by local schism.

No less impassioned in its plea for unity was the correspondence of Ignatius. This depicted the concern for his flock of a second-century bishop on his way to martyrdom. A brief, violent uprising against Christians in his Episcopal city of Antioch, in Syria, had broken out. He had been condemned to face wild beasts in the Roman arena. He made an expectant martyr’s triumphant tour of certain towns while receiving Christian delegations from others. His coveted crown of martyrdom was about to seal his Christian disciple-ship with sure victory. The unity he was thus about to serve in his death, as in his life, had been customarily aided on the local, congregational level of church organization by placing a bishop at the head. Supporting him was a council of presbyters, or priests, assisted by deacons. This council featured a planned hierarchy, culminating in the so-called monepiscopate. In this hierarchy, or graded priestly rule by earthly officials, the heavenly pattern was to be followed. The bishop, representing God himself, was administrator, liturgical leader, and prophetic teacher. The elders, moreover, represented the apostles. The deacons recalled Christ’s ministry of service. Out of this background Ignatius wrote his moving spiritual will and testament.

Polycarp, later to be encountered in the third section of Chapter II, also placed the daily perplexities of Christian life in relation to ultimate crises and the functions of ordered Christian officialdom. The strange, visionary writings of the "Shepherd" reveal the passionate convictions of one having proved worthy under testing. Fresh trials yet loomed for the Church before Christ’s return to judge mankind at the end of the world. The Church, arrayed as a matron in white, urged the apocalyptist to admonish his own family and all the churches to do penance. Good Christians would be built into that tower which was the Church. Untrue members would be cast aside.

The Didache, traditionally ascribed to the twelve apostles, was in fact a later compilation of pre-Christian and early Christian materials. It preserved the outlines of the Church’s gradual but sure transition from spiritual urgency under minimum organization to a more fixed institutional life of increasing complexity. Portions of the work reflect a time when the monepiscopate was not yet fully established and when gifts of prophecy were still reverenced as the mark of leadership. In the main, this manual of church order seems designed to guide rural churches through the growing perplexities of a more systematized corporate life. The layers of older and newer tradition, in their very syncretizing of disparate times and ideals, witness to the institutionalizing process well under way. The Church’s eschatological passions are forcefully, if not always realistically, coupled with its daily worship, its economic and social pressures, and its ethical demands. Called to mind are the comparably sobering problems and measures of the contemporary "Pastoral Epistles."

Another work attributed to Clement is actually an early Christian homily, or sermon. The ends and methods of indoctrination are instructively, if not always inspiringly, preserved in it. The need for moral purity and stability in the face of persecution is as marked as the emphasis on the coming Kingdom and the Last Judgment. Primitive enthusiasms had sometimes prompted grave irregularities. These were to be countered with disciplined Christian integrity. All must repent and make ready by means of the true spiritual church for the parousia, the imminent return of Christ.

The purported letter to Diognetus seems to have been an authentic Christian expression. It is basically apologetic in the true, positive sense of stating the case for an unaccepted position or group. The distinctive character of Christians in human society is stressed. Christianity is a mystery of transcendent origin. Through it, the fulfillment of the divine purpose is worked out in history. Those not indoctrinated in this salutary mystery cannot discern the divine operation. Christians alone apprehend the secret force generated by God in heaven and revealed by Christ on earth. Here its working goes forward in and through a commonwealth that is on earth, but not of its genius. Yet, the Church is to the world what soul is to the body. Its ultimate purposes bless temporal society.

Early examples of Christian worship are implicit in all these readings. The accounts of Justin and Tertullian, however, are justly famous. Justin was an apologist worthy of the name. He stated the Christian case and made a plea for its toleration. Even more, he pressed the claims of a converter who was, himself, a confessor of the faith and a martyr, or witness, to the true tradition. His Apology constitutes a valuable manual of Christian thought and life in the second century. A native of ancient Schechem and a Gentile, he was well acquainted with Jewish life and ideology. Greek by cultural background, he had been influenced by Platonism. He bowed before the Old Testament prophets as propounded by the Christian church. Herein was the true philosophy he had formerly sought elsewhere. A Christian teacher who had once worn the philosopher’s cloak and the professor’s toga, he described Christian practices in worship as he had participated in them.

Tertullian was born of a pagan centurion father at Carthage. Educated for the law, he was established in his profession before his conversion in 193. By 213 he had left the "great church" to join the company of ascetic Montanist spiritualizers. Their rigorism and pneumatic propensities rebuked the laxity he found all too current in the Christian profession. He lacked Justin’s penchant for philosophy. Actually he thought it the parent of gnostic error. Church and academy were, for him, enemies rather than the friends Clement and Origen of Alexandria held them to be. He is sometimes termed the father of Latin theology, though he was scarcely a speculative theologian. For him Christianity was a divine foolishness not to be reconciled with philosophical systems. Christianity he conceived to be a new law. He entertained a deep sense of sin and the condign need of grace. It was on grace that salvation was based. Tertullian transposed old Latin terms into new Christian meanings. Such words as sacramentum, substantia, traditio, corona, and satisfactio focused a new divine-human encounter, referring now to these concepts in a new social-eternal context. His Apologeticum is outstanding for its critique of pagan and Christian social antithesis. At the heart of this stood his description of the Christian cultus.

Clement and his student Origen grew out of Greek culture and maintained an irenic regard for it to the last. Where Tertullian was intransigent and harsh, Clement was flexible and mild. Modest regard for truth from all quarters and reverence for Christ as the epitome of all knowledge and true gnosis were characteristic of him. Probably born at Athens, he later went to Alexandria, the center of Hellenistic intellectualism. There, he became head of the catechetical school. This made converts ready, by instruction and examination in the Christian scriptures and tradition, for responsible places in the Christian community. He knew the Scriptures and Christian literature well. He was conversant with philosophical lore and classical letters, though not always at first hand. The Christian revelation was held relatable to all true knowledge and pre-Christian philosophy. The philosophy of the Greeks, like the law of the Jews, might lead to Christ. Contrary to the inflated and provincial wisdom of esoteric gnostics, the privilege of the true Christian gnostic was the free search for universal truth in Christ. In him was the epitome of all genuine gnosis, both in elevated thought and wise conduct.

Clement’s attempted harmonization of Christian faith and current philosophy held real dangers. His eulogies in classroom and via public and private example exalted Christ as the true pedagogue of the world and the only effective instructor of the redeemed. The life of natural man was not to be legalistically indicted and vilified. It was, rather, to be ennobled and enjoyed, with the disciplined Christian liberty properly accorded God’s gifts of creation. The Hymn to Christ is possibly the early doxology of the Alexandrian school. Evicted from Alexandria by the imminent persecution of Severus, Clement is traditionally accorded a martyr’s death.

Origen, whose work is to be represented in greater detail later, combined the scholarly catholicity of his teacher Clement with the exacting consecration, though not the censorious rigorism, of Tertullian. The life of prayer and martyrdom which he incited and elicited was the true teacher’s confession. Sought in it was the experience of spiritual perfection exemplified by the ever tutoring, patient, redeeming Christ.

The church order of Hippolytus is a precious deposit from early Christian worship. This good bishop was venerated for learning and eloquence. On one occasion he was supposedly deputized to preach before the erudite, dedicated Origen. Actually elevated at one time as a counter-pope to the Roman bishop, he opposed fearlessly what he regarded as a record of lax ineptitude in the Roman hierarchy. It has been said that in a unique sense he imparted to "the laws and the liturgy of the Eastern Church their permanent form."

Due, dear friends, to the sudden and successive misfortunes and accidents we have encountered, we have, we admit, been rather long in turning our attention to your quarrels. We refer to the abominable and unholy schism, so alien and foreign to those whom God has chosen, which a few impetuous and headstrong fellows have fanned to such a pitch of insanity that your good name, once so famous and dear to us all, has fallen into the gravest ill repute. Has anyone, indeed, stayed with you without attesting the excellence and firmness of your faith? without admiring your sensible and considerate Christian piety? without broadcasting your spirit of unbounded hospitality? without praising your perfect and trustworthy knowledge?

But passing from examples in antiquity, let us come to the heroes nearest our own times. Let us take the noble examples of our own generation. By reason of rivalry and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] were persecuted, and battled to the death. Let us set before our eyes the noble apostles: Peter, who by reason of wicked jealousy, not only once or twice but frequently endured suffering and thus, bearing his witness, went to the glorious place which he merited. By reason of rivalry and contention Paul showed how to win the prize for patient endurance. Seven times he was in chains; he was exiled, stoned, became a herald [of the gospel] in East and West, and won the noble renown which his faith merited. To the whole world he taught righteousness, and reaching the limits of the West he bore his witness before rulers. And so, released from this world, he was taken up into the holy place and became the greatest example of patient endurance.

To these men who lived such holy lives there was joined a great multitude of the elect who by reason of rivalry were the victims of many outrages and tortures and who became outstanding examples among us. By reason of rivalry women were persecuted in the roles of Danaids and Dircae. Victims of dreadful and blasphemous outrages, they ran with sureness the course of faith to the finish, and despite their physical weakness won a notable prize. It was rivalry that estranged wives from their husbands and annulled the saying of our father Adam, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." Rivalry and contention have overthrown great cities and uprooted mighty nations.

Now that this is clear to us and we have peered into the depths of the divine knowledge, we are bound to do in an orderly fashion all that the Master has bidden us to do at the proper times he set. He ordered sacrifices and services to be performed; and required this to be done, not in a careless and disorderly way, but at the times and seasons he fixed. Where he wants them performed, and by whom, he himself fixed by his supreme will, so that everything should be done in a holy way and with his approval, and should be acceptable to his will. Those, therefore, who make their offerings at the time set win his approval and blessing. For they follow the Master’s orders and do no wrong. The high priest is given his particular duties: the priests are assigned their special place, while on the Levites particular tasks are imposed. The layman is bound by the layman’s code.

"Each of us," brothers, "in his own rank" must win God’s approval and have a clear conscience. We must not transgress the rules laid down for our ministry, but must perform it reverently. Not everywhere, brothers, are the different sacrifices — the daily ones, the freewill offerings, and those for sins and trespasses offered, but only in Jerusalem. And even there sacrifices are not made at any point, but only in front of the sanctuary, at the altar, after the high priest and the ministers mentioned have inspected the offering for blemishes. Those, therefore, who act in any way at variance with his will, suffer the penalty of death. You see, brothers, the more knowledge we are given, the greater risks we run.

The apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus, the Christ, was sent from God. Thus Christ is from God and the apostles from Christ. In both instances the orderly procedure depends on God’s will. And so the apostles, after receiving their orders and being fully convinced by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and assured by God’s word, went out in the confidence of the Holy Spirit to preach the good news that God’s Kingdom was about to come. They preached in country and city, and appointed their first converts, after testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this any novelty, for Scripture had mentioned bishops and deacons long before. For this is what Scripture says somewhere: "I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith."

Now our apostles, thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, knew that there was going to be strife over the title of bishop. It was for this reason and because they had been given an accurate knowledge of the future, that they appointed the officers we have mentioned. Furthermore, they later added a codicil to the effect that, should these die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry. In the light of this, we view it as a breach of justice to remove from their ministry those who were appointed either by them [i.e., the apostles] or later on and with the whole church’s consent, by others of the proper standing, and who, long enjoying everybody’s approval, have ministered to Christ’s flock faultlessly, humbly, quietly, and unassumingly. For we shall be guilty of no slight sin if we eject from the episcopate men who have offered the sacrifices with innocence and holiness. Happy, indeed, are those presbyters who have already passed on, and who ended a life of fruitfulness with their task complete. For they need not fear that anyone will remove them from their secure positions. But you, we observe, have removed a number of people, despite their good conduct, from a ministry they have fulfilled with honor and integrity.

If anyone is not inside the sanctuary, he lacks God’s bread. And if the prayer of one or two has great avail, how much more that of the bishop and the total Church. He who fails to join in your worship shows his arrogance by the very fact of becoming a schismatic. It is written, moreover, "God resists the proud." Let us, then, heartily avoid resisting the bishop so that we may be subject to God.

The more anyone sees the bishop modestly silent, the more he should revere him. For everyone the Master of the house sends on his business, we ought to receive as the One who sent him. It is clear, then, that we should regard the bishop as the Lord himself. Indeed, Onesimus spoke very highly of your godly conduct, that you were all living by the truth and harboring no sectarianism. Nay, you heed nobody beyond what he has to say truthfully about Jesus Christ.

I believed, then, that I saw your whole congregation in these people I have mentioned, and I loved you all. Hence I urge you to aim to do everything in godly agreement. Let the bishop preside in God’s place, and the presbyters take the place of the apostolic council, and let the deacons (my special favorites) be entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ who was with the Father from eternity and appeared at the end [of the world].

Well do I realize what a character you have — above reproach and steady under strain. It is not just affected, but it comes naturally to you, as I gathered from Polybius, your bishop. By God’s will and that of Jesus Christ, he came to me in Smyrna, and so heartily congratulated me on being a prisoner for Jesus Christ that in him I saw your whole congregation. I welcomed, then, your godly good will, which reached me by him, and I gave thanks that I found you, as I heard, to be following God.

For when you obey the bishop as if he were Jesus Christ, you are (as I see it) living not in a merely human fashion but in Jesus Christ’s way, who for our sakes suffered death that you might believe in his death and so escape dying yourselves. It is essential, therefore, to act in no way without the bishop, just as you are doing. Rather submit even to the presbytery as to the apostles of Jesus Christ. He is our Hope, and if we live in union with him now, we shall gain eternal life. Those too who are deacons of Jesus Christ’s "mysteries" must give complete satisfaction to everyone. For they do not serve mere food and drink, but minister to God’s Church. They must therefore avoid leaving themselves open to criticism, as they would shun fire.

Correspondingly, everyone must show the deacons respect. They represent Jesus Christ, just as the bishop has the role of the Father, and the presbyters are like God’s council and an apostolic band. You cannot have a church without these. I am sure that you agree with me in this.

In your bishop I received the very model of your love, and I have him with me. His very bearing is a great lesson, while his gentleness is most forceful. I imagine even the godless respect him.

Some there may be who wanted in a human way to mislead me, but the Spirit is not misled, seeing it comes from God. For "it knows whence it comes and whither it goes," and exposes what is secret. When I was with you I cried out, raising my voice — it was God’s voice — "Pay heed to the bishop, the presbytery, and the deacons." Some, it is true, suspected that I spoke thus because I had been told in advance that some of you were schismatics. But I swear by Him for whose cause I am a prisoner, that from no human channels did I learn this. It was the Spirit that kept on preaching in these words: "Do nothing apart from the bishop; keep your bodies as if they were God’s temple; value unity; flee schism; imitate Jesus Christ as he imitated his Father."

Let no one be misled: heavenly beings, the splendor of angels, and principalities, visible and invisible, if they fail to believe in Christ’s blood, they too are doomed. "Let him accept it who can." Let no one’s position swell his head, for faith and love are everything — there is nothing preferable to them.

Pay close attention to those who have wrong notions about the grace of Jesus Christ, which has come to us, and note how at variance they are with God’s mind. They care nothing about love: they have no concern for widows or orphans, for the oppressed, for those in prison or released, for the hungry or the thirsty. They hold aloof from the Eucharist and from services of prayer, because they refuse to admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised [from the dead]. Consequently those who wrangle and dispute God’s gift face death. They would have done better to love and so share in the resurrection. The right thing to do, then, is to avoid such people and to talk about them neither in private nor in public. Rather pay attention to the prophets and above all to the gospel. There we get a clear picture of the Passion and see that the resurrection has really happened.

Flee from schism as the source of mischief. You should all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ did the Father. Follow, too, the presbytery as you would the apostles; and respect the deacons as you would God’s law. Nobody must do anything that has to do with the Church without the bishop’s approval. You should regard that Eucharist as valid which is celebrated either by the bishop or by someone he authorizes. Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. Without the bishop’s supervision, no baptisms or love feasts are permitted. On the other hand, whatever he approves pleases God as well. In that way everything you do will be on the safe side and valid. It is well for us to come to our senses at last, while we still have a chance to repent and turn to God. It is a fine thing to acknowledge God and the bishop. He who pays the bishop honor has been honored by God. But he who acts without the bishop’s knowledge is in the devil’s service.

I write these things about righteousness, brethren, not at my own instance, but because you first invited me to do so. Certainly, neither I nor anyone like me can follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was present among you face to face with the generation of his time, taught you accurately and firmly "the word of truth." Also when absent he wrote you letters that will enable you, if you study them carefully, to grow in the faith delivered to you — "which is a mother of us all," accompanied by hope, and led by love to God and Christ and our neighbor. For if anyone is occupied in these, he has fulfilled the commandment of righteousness; for he who possesses love is far from all sin. But "the love of money is the beginning of all evils." Knowing, therefore, that "we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out," let us arm ourselves "with the weapons of righteousness," and let us first of all teach ourselves to live by the commandment of the Lord.

Then you must teach your wives in the faith delivered to them and in love and purity — to cherish their own husbands in all fidelity, and to love all others equally in all chastity, and to educate their children in the fear of God. And the widows should be discreet in their faith pledged to the Lord, praying unceasingly on behalf of all, refraining from all slander, gossip, false witness, love of money — in fact, from evil of any kind — knowing that they are God’s altar, that everything is examined for blemishes, and nothing escapes him whether of thoughts or sentiments, or any of "the secrets of the heart." Knowing, then, that "God is not mocked," we ought to live worthily of his commandment and glory.

Likewise the deacons should be blameless before his righteousness, as servants of God and Christ and not of men; not slanderers, or double-tongued, not lovers of money, temperate in all matters, compassionate, careful, living according to the truth of the Lord, who became "a servant of all"; to whom, if we are pleasing in the present age, we shall also obtain the age to come, inasmuch as he promised to raise us from the dead. And if we bear our citizenship worthy of him, "we shall also reign with him" — provided, of course, that we have faith.

Similarly also the younger ones must be blameless in all things, especially taking thought of purity and bridling themselves from all evil. It is a fine thing to cut oneself off from the lusts that are in the world, for "every passion of the flesh wages war against the Spirit," and "neither fornicators nor the effeminate nor homosexuals will inherit the Kingdom of God," nor those who do perverse things. Wherefore it is necessary to refrain from all these things, and be obedient to the presbyters and deacons as unto God and Christ. And the young women must live with blameless and pure conscience.

Also the presbyters must be compassionate, merciful to all, turning back those who have gone astray, looking after the sick, not neglecting widow or orphan or one that is poor; but "always taking thought for what is honorable in the sight of God and of men," refraining from all anger, partiality, unjust judgment, keeping far from all love of money, not hastily believing evil of anyone, nor being severe in judgment, knowing that we all owe the debt of sin. If, then, we pray the Lord to forgive us, we ourselves ought also to forgive, for we are before the eyes of the Lord and God, and "everyone shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ and each of us shall give an account of himself." So then let us "serve him with fear and all reverence," as he himself has commanded, and also the apostles who preached the gospel to us and the prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord.

Let us be zealous for that which is good, refraining from occasions of scandal and from false brethren, and those who bear in hypocrisy the name of the Lord, who deceive empty-headed people. For "whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist"; and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross "is of the devil"; and whosoever perverts the sayings of the Lord to suit his own lusts and says there is neither resurrection nor judgment — such a one is the first-born of Satan. Let us, therefore, forsake the vanity of the crowd and their false teachings and turn back to the word delivered to us from the beginning, "watching unto prayer" and continuing steadfast in fasting, beseeching fervently the all-seeing God "to lead us not into temptation," even as the Lord said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Fifteen days after, when I had fasted and prayed much to the Lord, the knowledge of the writing was revealed to me. Now the writing was to this effect: "Your seed, O Hermas, has sinned against God, and they have blasphemed against the Lord, and in their great wickedness they have betrayed their parents, and by their treachery did they not reap profit. And even now they have added to their sins lusts and iniquitous pollutions, and thus their iniquities have been filled up. But make known these words to all your children, and to your wife, who is to be your sister. For she does not restrain her tongue, with which she commits iniquity; but, on hearing these words, she will control herself, and will obtain mercy. For after you have made known to them these words which my Lord has commanded me to reveal to you, then shall they be forgiven all the sins which in former times they committed, and forgiveness will be granted to all the saints who have sinned even to the present day, if they repent with all their heart, and drive all doubts from their minds. For the Lord has sworn by His glory, in regard to His elect, that if any one of them sin after a certain day which has been fixed, he shall not be saved. For the repentance of the righteous has limits. Filled up are the days of repentance to all the saints; but to the heathen, repentance will be possible even to the last day. You will tell, therefore, those who preside over the Church, to direct their ways in righteousness, that they may receive in full the promises with great glory.

Now a revelation was given to me, my brethren, while I slept, by a young man of comely appearance, who said to me, "Who do you think that old woman is from whom you received the book?" And I said, "The Sibyl." "You are in a mistake," says he; "it is not the Sibyl." "Who is it then?" say I. And he said, "It is the Church." And I said to him, "Why then is she an old woman?" "Because," said he, "she was created first of all On this account is she old. And for her sake was the world made." After that I saw a vision in my house, and that old woman came and asked me, if I had yet given the book to the presbyters. And I said that I had not. And then she said, "You have done well, for I have some words to add. But when I finish all the words, all the elect will then become acquainted with them through you. You will write therefore two books, and you will send the one to Clemens and the other to Grapte. And Clemens will send his to foreign countries, for permission has been granted to him to do so. And Grapte will admonish the widows and the orphans. But you will read the words in this city, along with the presbyters who preside over the Church.11

See "that no one leads you astray" from this way of the teaching, since such a one’s teaching is godless.

If you can bear the Lord’s full yoke, you will be perfect. But if you cannot, then do what you can.

Now about food: undertake what you can. But keep strictly away from what is offered to idols, for that implies worshiping dead gods.

Now about baptism: this is how to baptize. Give public instruction on all these points, and then "baptize" in running water, ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." If you do not have running water, baptize in some other. If you cannot in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, then pour water on the head three times "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Before the baptism, moreover, the one who baptizes and the one being baptized must fast, and any others who can. And you must tell the one being baptized to fast for one or two days beforehand.

Your fasts must not be identical with those of the hypocrites. They fast on Mondays and Thursdays; but you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.

You must not pray like the hypocrites, but "pray as follows" as the Lord bid us in his gospel: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; your Kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us today our bread for the morrow; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but save us from the evil one, for yours is the power and the glory forever."

You should pray in this way three times a day.

Now about the Eucharist: This is how to give thanks: First in connection with the cup: "We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child, which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever."

Then in connection with the piece [broken off the loaf]:

"We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever.

"As this piece [of bread] was scattered over the hills and then was brought together and made one, so let your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your Kingdom. For yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever."

You must not let anyone eat or drink of your Eucharist except those baptized in the Lord’s name. For in reference to this the Lord said, "Do not give what is sacred to dogs."

After you have finished your meal, say grace in this way:

"We thank you, holy Father, for your sacred name which you have lodged in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever.

"Almighty Master, you have created everything’ for the sake of your name, and have given men food and drink to enjoy that they may thank you. But to us you have given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Jesus, your child.

"Above all, we thank you that you are mighty. To you be glory forever.

"Remember, Lord, your Church, to save it from all evil and to make it perfect by your love. Make it holy, ‘and gather’ it ‘together from the four winds’ into your Kingdom which you have made ready for it. For yours is the power and the glory forever."

"Let Grace come and let this world pass away."

"Hosanna to the God of David!"

"If anyone is holy, let him come. If not, let him repent."

"Our Lord, come!"

"Amen."

In the case of prophets, however, you should let them give thanks in their own way.

Now, you should welcome anyone who comes your way and teaches you all we have been saying. But if the teacher proves himself a renegade and by teaching otherwise contradicts all this, pay no attention to him. But if his teaching furthers the Lord’s righteousness and knowledge, welcome him as the Lord.

Now about the apostles and prophets: Act in line with the gospel precept. Welcome every apostle on arriving, as if he were the Lord. But he must not stay beyond one day. In case of necessity, however, the next day too. If he stays three days, he is a false prophet. On departing, an apostle must not accept anything save sufficient food to carry him till his next lodging. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.

While a prophet is making ecstatic utterances, you must not test or examine him. For "every sin will be forgiven," but this sin "will not be forgiven." However, not everybody making ecstatic utterances is a prophet, but only if he behaves like the Lord. It is by their conduct that the false prophet and the [true] prophet can be distinguished. For instance, if a prophet marks out a table in the Spirit, he must not eat from it. If he does, he is a false prophet. Again, every prophet who teaches the truth but fails to practice what he preaches is a false prophet. But every attested and genuine prophet who acts with a view to symbolizing the mystery of the Church, and does not teach you to do all he does, must not be judged by you. His judgment rests with God. For the ancient prophets too acted in this way. But if someone says in the Spirit, "Give me money, or something else," you must not heed him. However, if he tells you to give for others in need, no one must condemn him.

Everyone "who comes" to you "in the name of the Lord" must be welcomed. Afterward, when you have tested him, you will find out about him, for you have insight into right and wrong. If it is a traveler who arrives, help him all you can. But he must not stay with you more than two days, or, if necessary, three. If he wants to settle with you and is an artisan, he must work for his living. If, however, he has no trade, use your judgment in taking steps for him to live with you as a Christian without being idle. If he refuses to do this, he is trading on Christ. You must be on your guard against such people.

Every genuine prophet who wants to settle with you "has a right to his support." Similarly, a genuine teacher himself, just like a "workman, has a right to his support." Hence take all the first fruits of vintage and harvest, and of cattle and sheep, and give these first fruits to the prophets. For they are your high priests. If, however, you have no prophet, give them to the poor. If you make bread, take the first fruits and give in accordance with the precept. Similarly, when you open a jar of wine or oil, take the first fruits and give them to the prophets. Indeed, of money, clothes, and of all your possessions, take such first fruits as you think right, and give in accordance with the precept.

On every Lord’s Day — his special day- — come together and break bread and give thanks, first confessing your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. Anyone at variance with his neighbor must not join you, until they are reconciled, lest your sacrifice be defiled. For it was of this sacrifice that the Lord said, "Always and everywhere offer me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is marveled at by the nations."

You must, then, elect for yourselves bishops and deacons who are a credit to the Lord, men who are gentle, generous, faithful, and well tried. For their ministry to you is identical with that of the prophets and teachers. You must not, therefore, despise them, for along with the prophets and teachers they enjoy a place of honor among you.

Furthermore, do not reprove each other angrily, but quietly, as you find it in the gospel. Moreover, if anyone has wronged his neighbor, nobody must speak to him, and he must not hear a word from you, until he repents. Say your prayers, give your charity, and do everything just as you find it in the gospel of our Lord.

"Watch" over your life: do not let "your lamps" go out, and do not keep "your loins ungirded"; but "be ready," for "you do not know the hour when our Lord is coming."

Meet together frequently in your search for what is good for your souls, since "a lifetime of faith will be of no advantage" to you unless you prove perfect at the very last. For in the final days multitudes of false prophets and seducers will appear. Sheep will turn into wolves, and love into hatred. For with the increase of iniquity men will hate, persecute, and betray each other. And then the world deceiver will appear in the guise of God’s Son. He will work "signs and wonders" and the earth will fall into his hands and he will commit outrages such as have never occurred before. Then mankind will come to the fiery trial "and many will fall away" and perish, "but those who persevere" in their faith "will be saved" by the Curse himself. Then "there will appear the signs" of the Truth: first the sign of stretched-out [hands] in heaven, then the sign of "a trumpet’s blast," and thirdly the resurrection of the dead, though not of all the dead, but as it has been said: "The Lord will come and all his saints with him. Then the world will see the Lord coming on the clouds of the sky."

So while we are on earth, let us repent. For we are like clay in a workman’s hands. If a potter makes a vessel and it gets out of shape or breaks in his hands, he molds it over again; but if he has once thrown it into the flames of the furnace, he can do nothing more with it. Similarly, while we are in this world, let us too repent with our whole heart of the evil we have done in the flesh, so that we may be saved by the Lord while we have a chance to repent. For once we have departed this world we can no longer confess there or repent any more. Thus, brothers, by doing the Father’s will and by keeping the flesh pure and by abiding by the Lord’s commands, we shall obtain eternal life. For the Lord says in the Gospel: "If you fail to guard what is small, who will give you what is great? For I tell you that he who is faithful in a very little, is faithful also in much." This, then, is what he means: keep the flesh pure and the seal undefiled, so that we may obtain eternal life.

Moreover, let none of you say that this flesh will not be judged or rise again. Consider this: In what state were you saved? In what state did you regain your sight, if it was not while you were in this flesh? Therefore we should guard the flesh as God’s temple. For just as you were called in the flesh, you will come in the flesh. If Christ the Lord who saved us was made flesh though he was at first spirit, and called us in this way, in the same way we too in this very flesh will receive our reward. Let us, then, love one another, so that we may all come to God’s Kingdom. While we have an opportunity to be healed, let us give ourselves over to God, the physician, and pay him in return. How? By repenting with a sincere heart. For he foreknows everything, and realizes what is in our hearts. Let us then praise him, not with the mouth only, but from the heart, so that he may accept us as sons. For the Lord said, "My brothers are those who do the will of my Father."

So, my brothers, let us do the will of the Father who called us, so that we may have life; and let our preference be the pursuit of virtue. Let us give up vice as the forerunner of our sins, and let us flee impiety, lest evils overtake us. For if we are eager to do good, peace will pursue us. This is the reason men cannot find peace. They give way to human fears, and prefer the pleasures of the present to the promises of the future. For they do not realize what great torment the pleasures of the present bring, and what delight attaches to the promises of the future. If they did these things by themselves, it might be tolerable. But they persist in teaching evil to innocent souls, and do not realize that they and their followers will have their sentence doubled.

Let us therefore serve God with a pure heart and we shall be upright. But if, by not believing in God’s promises, we do not serve him, we shall be wretched. For the word of the prophet says, "Wretched are the double-minded, those who doubt in their soul and say, ‘We have heard these things long ago, even in our fathers’ times, and day after day we have waited and have seen none of them.’ You fools! Compare yourselves to a tree. Take a vine: first it sheds its leaves, then comes a bud, and after this a sour grape, then a ripe bunch. So my people too has had turmoils and troubles; but after that it will receive good things." So, my brothers, we must not be double-minded. Rather must we patiently hold out in hope so that we may also gain our reward. For "he can be trusted who promised" to pay each one the wages due for his work. If, then, we have done what is right in God’s eyes, we shall enter his Kingdom and receive the promises "which ear has not heard or eye seen, or which man’s heart has not entertained."

So, my brothers, by doing the will of God our Father we shall belong to the first Church, the spiritual one, which was created before the sun and the moon. But if we fail to do the Lord’s will, that passage of Scripture will apply to us which says, "My house has become a robber’s den." So, then, we must choose to belong to the Church of life in order to be saved. I do not suppose that you are ignorant that the living "Church is the body of Christ." For Scripture says, "God made man male and female." The male is Christ; the female is the Church. The Bible, moreover, and the Apostles say that the Church is not limited to the present, but existed from the beginning. For it was spiritual, as was our Jesus, and was made manifest in the last days to save us. Indeed, the Church which is spiritual was made manifest in the flesh of Christ, and so indicates to us that if any of us guard it in the flesh and do not corrupt it, he will get it in return by the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is the antitype of the spirit. Consequently, no one who has corrupted the antitype will share in the reality. This, then, is what it means, brothers: Guard the flesh so that you may share in the spirit. Now, if we say that the Church is the flesh and the Christ is the spirit, then he who does violence to the flesh, does violence to the Church. Such a person, then, will not share in the spirit, which is Christ. This flesh is able to share in so great a life and immortality, because the Holy Spirit cleaves to it. Nor can one express or tell "what things the Lord has prepared" for his chosen ones.

So, brothers, since we have been given no small opportunity to repent, let us take the occasion to turn to God who has called us, while we still have One to accept us. For if we renounce these pleasures and master our souls by avoiding their evil lusts, we shall share in Jesus’ mercy. Understand that "the day" of judgment is already "on its way like a furnace ablaze," and "the powers of heaven will dissolve" and the whole earth will be like lead melting in fire. Then men’s secret and overt actions will be made clear. Charity, then, like repentance from sin, is a good thing. But fasting is better than prayer, and charity than both. "Love covers a multitude of sins," and prayer, arising from a good conscience, "rescues from death." Blessed is everyone who abounds in these things, for charity lightens sin.

So my brothers and sisters, after God’s truth I am reading you an exhortation to heed what was there written, so that you may save yourselves and your reader. For compensation I beg you to repent with all your heart, granting yourselves salvation and life. By doing this we will set a goal for all the young who want to be active in the cause of religion and of God’s goodness. We should not, moreover, be so stupid as to be displeased and vexed when anyone admonishes us and converts us from wickedness to righteousness. There are times when we do wrong unconsciously because of the double-mindedness and unbelief in our hearts, and "our understanding is darkened" by empty desires. Let us, then, do what is right so that we may finally be saved. Blessed are they who observe these injunctions; though they suffer briefly in this world, they will gather the immortal fruit of the resurrection. A religious man must not be downcast if he is miserable in the present. A time of blessedness awaits him. He will live again in heaven with his forefathers, and will rejoice in an eternity that knows no sorrow.

But you must not be troubled in mind by the fact that we see the wicked in affluence while God’s slaves are in straitened circumstances. Brothers and sisters, we must have faith. We are engaged in the contest of the living God and are being trained by the present life in order to win laurels in the life to come. None of the upright has obtained his reward quickly, but he waits for it. For were God to give the righteous their reward at once, our training would straightway be in commerce and not in piety, since we would give an appearance of uprightness, when pursuing, not religion, but gain. That is why the divine judgment punishes a spirit which is not upright, and loads it with chains.

"To the only invisible God," the Father of truth, who dispatched to us the Saviour and prince of immortality, through whom he also disclosed to us the truth and the heavenly life — to him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

To His Excellency, Diognetus: I understand, sir, that you are really interested in learning about the religion of the Christians, and that you are making an accurate and careful investigation of the subject. You want to know, for instance, what God they believe in and how they worship him, while at the same time they disregard the world and look down on death, and how it is that they do not treat the divinities of the Greeks as gods at all, although on the other hand they do not follow the superstition of the Jews. You would also like to know the source of the loving affection that they have for each other. You wonder, too, why this new race or way of life has appeared on earth now and not earlier. I certainly welcome this keen interest on your part, and I ask God, who gives us the power to speak and the power to listen, to let me speak in such a way that you may derive the greatest possible benefit from listening, and to enable you to listen to such good effect that I may never have a reason for regretting what I have said. Now, then, clear out all the thoughts that take up your attention, and pack away all the old ways of looking at things that keep deceiving you. You must become like a new man from the beginning, since, as you yourself admit, you are going to listen to a really new message.

Look at the things that you proclaim and think of as gods. See with your outward eyes and with your mind what material they are made of and what form they happen to have. Is not one a stone, like the stones we walk on, and another bronze, no better than the utensils that have been forged for our use? Here is a wooden one, already rotting away, and one made of silver, that needs a watchman to protect it from being stolen.

Yet another one is made of iron, eaten by rust, and another of pottery, no more attractive than something provided for the most ignoble purpose. Were not all these things made out of perishable material? Were they not forged by iron and fire? Surely the stonemason made one of them, and the blacksmith another, the silversmith a third, and the potter a fourth! These things have been molded into their present shapes by the arts of these craftsmen. Before they were shaped, they could just as easily have been given a different form — and would this not be possible even now? Could not vessels like them be made out of the same material, if the same craftsmen happened to be available? Moreover, could not these things that you worship now be made by men into vessels like any others? They are all dumb, after all, and blind. They are without life or feeling or power of movement, all rotting away and decaying. These are the things you call gods, the things you serve. You Gentiles adore these things, and in the end you become like them. That is why you hate the Christians, because they do not believe that these objects are gods. But is it not you yourselves who, when in your own thoughts you suppose that you are praising the gods, are in reality despising them? Surely it is mockery and insult to worship your stone and earthenware gods without bothering to guard them, while you lock up your gods of silver and gold at night, and set guards over them during the day, to keep them from being stolen.

Moreover, if they are not lacking in sensation, you punish them by the very honors you try to pay them, while, if they are senseless, you show them up by the mere act of worshiping them with blood and sacrificial fat. Just picture one of yourselves enduring this kind of thing, or allowing it to be done to him! There is not one man who would willingly tolerate this sort of punishment, because he has feeling and intelligence, but the stone tolerates it, because it has no feeling. Do you not then really disprove its power of feeling? I could say a good deal more about the fact that Christians are not the slaves of gods like these, but if anyone cannot see the force of these arguments, I think that nothing is to be gained by arguing the matter further.

All this being so, I think that you have learned enough to see that Christians are right in holding themselves aloof from the aimlessness and trickery of Greeks and Jews alike, and from the officiousness and noisy conceit of the Jews. But as far as the mystery of the Christians’ own religion is concerned, you cannot expect to learn that from man.

For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are "in the flesh," but they do not live "according to the flesh." They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance. They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life. They are treated by the Jews as foreigners and enemies, and are hunted down by the Greeks; and all the time those who hate them find it impossible to justify their enmity.

To put it simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but does not belong to the body, and Christians dwell in the world, but do not belong to the world. The soul, which is invisible, is kept under guard in the visible body; in the same way, Christians are recognized when they are in the world, but their religion remains unseen. The flesh hates the soul and treats it as an enemy, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is prevented from enjoying its pleasures; so too the world hates Christians, even though it suffers no wrong at their hands, because they range themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members; in the same way, Christians love those who hate them. The soul is shut up in the body, and yet itself holds the body together; while Christians are restrained in the world as in a prison, and yet themselves hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal, is housed in a mortal dwelling; while Christians are settled among corruptible things, to wait for the incorruptibility that will be theirs in heaven. The soul, when faring badly as to food and drink, grows better; so too Christians, when punished, day by day, increase more and more. It is to no less a post than this that God has ordered them, and they must not try to evade it.

As I have indicated, it is not an earthly discovery that was committed to them; it is not a mortal thought that they think of as worth guarding with such care, nor have they been entrusted with the stewardship of merely human mysteries. On the contrary, it was really the Ruler of all, the Creator of all, the invisible God himself, who from heaven established the truth and the holy, incomprehensible word among men, and fixed it firmly in their hearts. Nor, as one might suppose, did he do this by sending to men some subordinate — an angel, or principality, or one of those who administer earthly affairs, or perhaps one of those to whom the government of things in heaven is entrusted. Rather, he sent the Designer and Maker of the universe himself, by whom he created the heavens and confined the sea within its own bounds — him whose hidden purposes all the elements of the world faithfully carry out, him from whom the sun has received the measure of the daily rounds that it must keep, him whom the moon obeys when he commands her to shine by night, and whom the stars obey as they follow the course of the moon. He sent him by whom all things have been set in order and distinguished and placed in subjection — the heavens and the things that are in the heavens, the earth and the things in the earth, the sea and the things in the sea, fire, air, the unfathomed pit, the things in the heights and in the depths and in the realm between; God sent him to men.

Now, did he send him, as a human mind might assume, to rule by tyranny, fear, and terror? Far from it! He sent him out of kindness and gentleness, like a king sending his son who is himself a king. He sent him as God; he sent him as man to men. He willed to save man by persuasion, not by compulsion, for compulsion is not God’s way of working. In sending him, God called men. but did not pursue them; he sent him in love, not in judgment. Yet he will indeed send him someday as our Judge, and who shall stand when he appears? . . .

Do you not see how they are thrown to wild animals to make them deny the Lord, and how- they are not vanquished? Do you not see that the more of them are punished, the more do others increase? These things do not seem to come from a human power; they are a mighty act of God, they are proofs of his presence.

How we dedicated ourselves to God when we were made new through Christ I will explain, since it might seem to be unfair if I left this out from my exposition. Those who are persuaded and believe that the things we teach and say are true, and promise that they can live accordingly, are instructed to pray and beseech God with fasting for the remission of their past sins, while we pray and fast along with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are reborn by the same manner of rebirth by which we ourselves were reborn; for they are then washed in the water in the name of God the Father and Master of all, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. For Christ said, "Unless you are born again you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven." Now it is clear to all that those who have once come into being cannot enter the wombs of those who bore them. But as I quoted before, it was said through the prophet Isaiah how those who have sinned and repent shall escape from their sins. He said this: "Wash yourselves, be clean, take away wickednesses from your souls, learn to do good, give judgment for the orphan and defend the cause of the widow, and come and let us reason together, says the Lord. And though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them as white as wool, and though they be as crimson, I will make them white as snow. If you will not listen to me, the sword will devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." And we learned from the apostles this reason for this [rite]. At our first birth we were born of necessity without our knowledge, from moist seed, by the intercourse of our parents with each other, and grew up in bad habits and wicked behavior. So that we should not remain children of necessity and ignorance, but [become sons] of free choice and knowledge, and obtain remission of the sins we have already committed, there is named at the water, over him who has chosen to be born again and has repented of his sinful acts, the name of God the Father and Master of all. Those who lead to the washing the one who is to be washed call on [God by] this term only. For no one may give a proper name to the ineffable God, and if anyone should dare to say that there is one, he is hopelessly insane. This washing is called illumination, since those who learn these things are illumined within. The illu-minand is also washed in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets foretold everything about Jesus.

We, however, after thus washing the one who has been convinced and signified his assent, lead him to those who are called brethren, where they are assembled. They then earnestly offer common prayers for themselves and the one who has been illuminated and all others everywhere, that we may be made worthy, having learned the truth, to be found in deed good citizens and keepers of what is commanded, so that we may be saved with eternal salvation. On finishing the prayers we greet each other with a kiss. Then bread and a cup of water and mixed wine are brought to the president of the brethren and he, taking them, sends up praise and glory to the Father of the universe through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and offers thanksgiving at some length that we have been deemed worthy to receive these things from him. When he has finished the prayers and the thanksgiving, the whole congregation present assents, saying, "Amen" "Amen" in the Hebrew language means, "So be it." When the president has given thanks and the whole congregation has assented, those whom we call deacons give to each of those present a portion of the consecrated bread and wine and water, and they take it to the absent.

This food we call Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus. For the apostles in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, thus handed down what was commanded them: that Jesus, taking bread and having given thanks, said, "Do this for my memorial, this is my body"; and likewise taking the cup and giving thanks he said, "This is my blood"; and gave it to them alone. This also the wicked demons in imitation handed down as something to be done in the mysteries of Mithra; for bread and a cup of water are brought out in their secret rites of initiation, with certain invocations which you either know or can learn.

After these [services] we constantly remind each other of these things. Those who have more come to the aid of those who lack, and we are constantly together. Over all that we receive we bless the Maker of all things through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. And on the day called Sunday there is a meeting in one place of those who live in cities or the country, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. When the reader has finished, the president in a discourse urges and invites [us] to the imitation of these noble things. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers. And, as said before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is brought, and wine and water, and the president similarly sends up prayers and thanksgivings to the best of his ability, and the congregation assents, saying the Amen; the distribution, and reception of the consecrated [elements] by each one, takes place and they are sent to the absent by the deacons. Those who prosper, and who so wish, contribute, each one as much as he chooses to. What is collected is deposited with the president, and he takes care of orphans and widows, and those who are in want on account of sickness or any other cause, and those who are in bonds, and the strangers who are sojourners among [us], and, briefly, he is the protector of all those in need. We all hold this common gathering on Sunday, since it is the first day, on which God transforming darkness and matter made the universe, and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead on the same day. For they crucified him on the day before Saturday, and on the day after Saturday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them these things which I have passed on to you also for your serious consideration.

I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the peculiarities of the Christian society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged against it, I may point out its positive good. We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation. We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful. However it be in that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate our hope, we make our confidence more stedfast; and no less by inculcations of God’s precepts we confirm good habits. In the same place also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered. For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried on among us, as befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders preside over us, obtaining that honour not by purchase, but by established character. There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasurechest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price. On the monthly day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their confession. But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.

The man of understanding and perspicacity is, then, a Gnostic. . . . But only the doing of good out of love, and for the sake of its own excellence, is to be the Gnostic’s choice. Now, in the person of God it is said to the Lord, "Ask of Me, and I will give the heathen for Thine inheritance;" teaching Him to ask a truly regal request — that is, the salvation of men without price, that we may inherit and possess the Lord. For, on the contrary, to desire knowledge about God for any practical purpose, that this may be done, or that may not be done, is not proper to the Gnostic; but the knowledge itself suffices as the reason for contemplation. For I will dare aver that it is not because he wishes to be saved that he, who devotes himself to knowledge for the sake of the divine science itself, chooses knowledge. For the exertion of the intellect by exercise is prolonged to a perpetual exertion. And the perpetual exertion of the intellect is the essence of an intelligent being, which results from an uninterrupted process of admixture, and remains eternal contemplation, a living substance. Could we, then, suppose any one proposing to the Gnostic whether he would choose the knowledge of God or everlasting salvation; and if these, which are entirely identical, were separable, he would without the least hesitation choose the knowledge of God, deeming that property of faith, which from love ascends to knowledge, desirable, for its own sake. This, then, is the perfect man’s first form of doing good, when it is done not for any advantage in what pertains to him, but because he judges it right to do good; and the energy being vigorously exerted in all things, in the very act becomes good; not, good in some things, and not good in others; but consisting in the habit of doing good, neither for glory, nor, as the philosophers say, for reputation, nor from reward either from men or God; but so as to pass life after the image and likeness of the Lord.

When, then, the heavenly guide, the Word, was inviting men to salvation, the appellation of hortatory was properly applied to Him: his same word was called rousing (the whole from a part). For the whole of piety is hortatory, engendering in the kindred faculty of reason a yearning after true life now and to come. But now, being at once curative and preceptive, following in His own steps, He makes what had been prescribed the subject of persuasion, promising the cure of the passions within us. Let us then designate this Word appropriately by the one name Tutor (or Paedagogue, or Instructor). . . .

There is a wide difference between health and knowledge; for the latter is produced by learning, the former by healing. One, who is ill, will not therefore learn any branch of instruction till he is quite well. For neither to learners nor to the sick is each injunction invariably expressed similarly; but to the former in such a way as to lead to knowledge, and to the latter to health. As, then, for those of us who are diseased in body a physician is required, so also those who are diseased in soul require a paedagogue to cure our maladies; and then a teacher, to train and guide the soul to all requisite knowledge when it is made able to admit the revelation of the Word. Eagerly desiring, then, to perfect us by a gradation conducive to salvation, suited for efficacious discipline, a beautiful arrangement is observed by the all-benignant Word, who first exhorts, then trains, and finally teaches.

Be gracious, O Instructor, to us Thy children, Father, Charioteer of Israel, Son and Father, both in One, O Lord. Grant to us who obey Thy precepts, that we may perfect the likeness of the image, and with all our power know Him who is the good God and not a harsh judge. And do Thou Thyself cause that all of us who have our conversation in Thy peace, who have been translated into Thy commonwealth, having sailed tranquilly over the billows of sin, may be wafted in calm by Thy Holy Spirit, by the ineffable wisdom, by night and day to the perfect day; and giving thanks may praise, and praising thank the Alone Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, Instructor and Teacher, with the Holy Spirit, all in One, in whom is all, for whom all is One, for whom is eternity, whose members we all are, whose glory the aeons are; for the All-good, All-lovely, All-wise, All-just One. To whom be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Bridle of colts untamed,

Over our wills presiding;

Wing of unwandering birds,

Our flight securely guiding. Rudder of youth unbending,

Firm against adverse shock; Shepherd, with wisdom tending

Lambs of the royal flock: Thy simple children bring

In one, that they may sing In solemn lays

Their hymns of praise With guileless lips to Christ their King.

II

King of saints, almighty Word

Of the Father highest Lord;

Wisdom’s head and chief;

Assuagement of all grief;

Lord of all time and space,

Jesus, Saviour of our race;

Shepherd, who dost us keep;

Husbandman, who tillest,

Bit to restrain us, Rudder

To guide us as Thou wiliest;

Of the all-holy flock celestial wing;

Fisher of men, whom Thou to life dost bring;

From evil sea of sin,

And from the billowy strife,

Gathering pure fishes in,

Caught with sweet bait of life:

Lead us, Shepherd of the sheep,

Reason-gifted, holy One;

King of youths, whom Thou dost keep,

So that they pollution shun:

Steps of Christ, celestial Way;

Word eternal, Age unending;

Life that never can decay;

Fount of mercy, virtue-sending;

Life august of those who raise

Unto God their hymn of praise, Jesus Christ!

III

Nourished by the milk of heaven, To our tender palates given;

Milk of wisdom from the breast Of that bride of grace exprest;

By a dewy spirit filled From fair Reason’s breast distilled;

Let us sucklings join to raise With pure lips our hymns of praise

As our grateful offering, Clean and pure, to Christ our King.

Let us, with hearts undefiled, Celebrate the mighty Child.

We, Christ-born, the choir of peace;

We, the people of His love, Let us sing, nor ever cease,

To the God of peace above.

But He is perfected by the washing — of baptism — alone, and is sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? Such is the case. The same also takes place in our case, whose exemplar Christ became. Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. "I," says He, "have said that ye are gods, and all sons of the Highest/’ This work is variously called grace, and illumination, and perfection, and washing: washing, by which we cleanse away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to transgressions are remitted; and illumination, by which that holy light of salvation is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly.

O mystic marvel! The universal Father is one, and one the universal Word; and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere, and one is the only virgin mother. I love to call her the Church. This mother, when alone, had not milk, because alone she was not a woman. But she is once virgin and mother — pure as a virgin, loving as a mother. And calling her children to her, she nurses them with holy milk, viz., with the Word for childhood. Therefore she had not milk; for the milk was this child fair and comely, the body of Christ, which nourishes by the Word the young brood, which the Lord Himself brought forth in throes of the flesh, which the Lord Himself swathed in His precious blood. O amazing birth! O holy swaddling bands! The Word is all to the child, both father and mother, and tutor and nurse. "Eat ye my flesh," He says, "and drink my blood." Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and He offers His flesh and pours forth His blood, and nothing is wanting for the children’s growth. O amazing mystery! We are enjoined to cast off the old and carnal corruption, as also the old nutriment, receiving in exchange another new regimen, that of Christ, receiving Him if we can, to hide Him within; and that, enshrining the Saviour in our souls, we may correct the affections of our flesh.

But you are not inclined to understand it thus, but perchance more generally. Hear it also in the following way. The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit; for the flesh was created by Him. The blood points out to us the Word, for as rich blood

the Word has been infused into life; and the union of both is the Lord, the food of the babes — the Lord who is Spirit and Word. The food — that is, the Lord Jesus — that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh, the heavenly flesh sanctified. The nutriment is the milk of the Father, by which alone we infants are nourished. The Word Himself, then, the beloved One, and our nourisher, hath shed His own blood for us, to save humanity; and by Him, we, believing on God, flee to the Word, "the care-soothing breast" of the Father. And He alone, as is befitting, supplies us children with the milk of love, and those only are truly blessed who suck this breast. Wherefore also Peter says: "Laying therefore aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisy, and envy, and evil speaking, as new-born babes, desire the milk of the word, that ye may grow by it to salvation; if ye have tasted that the Lord is Christ."

1. We have duly completed what needed to be said about "Gifts," describing those gifts which God by His own counsel has bestowed on men, in offering to Himself His image which had gone astray. But now, moved by His love to all His saints, we pass on to our most important theme, "The Tradition," our teacher. And we address the churches, so that they who have been well trained, may, by our instruction, hold fast that tradition which has continued up to now and, knowing it well, may be strengthened. This is needful, because of that lapse or error which recently occurred through ignorance, and because of ignorant men. And [the] Holy Spirit will supply perfect grace to those who believe aright, that they may know how all things should be transmitted and kept by them who rule the church.

2. Let the bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people. When he has been named and shall please all, let him, with the presbytery and such bishops as may be present, assemble with the people on a Sunday. While all give their consent, the bishops shall lay their hands upon him, and the presbytery shall stand by in silence. All indeed shall keep silent, praying in their heart for the descent of the Spirit. Then one of the bishops who are present shall at the request of all, lay his hand on him who is ordained bishop, and shall pray as follows, saying:

3. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who dwellest on high yet hast respect to the lowly, who knowest all things before they come to pass. Thou hast appointed the borders of thy church by the word of thy grace, predestinating from the beginning the righteous race of Abraham. And making them princes and priests, and leaving not thy sanctuary without a ministry, thou hast from the beginning of the world been well pleased to be glorified among those whom thou hast chosen. Pour forth now that power, which is thine, of thy royal Spirit, which thou gavest to thy beloved Servant Jesus Christ, which he bestowed on his holy apostles, who established the church in every place, the church which thou hast sanctified unto unceasing glory and praise of thy name. Thou who knowest the hearts of all, grant to this thy servant, whom thou hast chosen to be bishop, [to feed thy holy flock] and to serve as thy high priest without blame, ministering night and day, to propitiate thy countenance without ceasing and to offer thee the gifts of thy holy church. And by the Spirit of high-priesthood to have authority to remit sins according to thy commandment, to assign the lots according to thy precept, to loose every bond according to the authority which thou gavest to thy apostles, and to please thee in meekness and purity of heart, offering to thee an odour of sweet savour. Through thy Servant Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom be to thee glory, might, honour, with [the] Holy Spirit in [the] holy church, both now and always and world without end. Amen.

4. And when he is made bishop, all shall offer him the kiss of peace, for he has been made worthy. To him then the deacons shall bring the offering, and he, laying his hand upon it, with all the presbytery, shall say as the thanksgiving:

The Lord be with you.

And all shall say

And with thy spirit.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up unto the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord.

It is meet and right.

And then he shall proceed immediately:

We give thee thanks, O God, through thy beloved Servant Jesus Christ, whom at the end of time thou didst send to us a Saviour and Redeemer and the Messenger of thy counsel. Who is thy Word, inseparable from thee; through whom thou didst make all things and in whom thou art well pleased. Whom thou didst send from heaven into the womb of the Virgin, and who, dwelling within her, was made flesh, and was manifested as thy Son, being born of [the] Holy Spirit and the Virgin. Who, fulfilling thy will, and winning for himself a holy people, spread out his hands when he came to suffer, that by his death he might set free them who believed on thee. Who, when he was betrayed to his willing death, that he might bring to nought death, and break the bonds of the devil, and tread hell under foot, and give light to the righteous, and set up a boundary post, and manifest his resurrection, taking bread and giving thanks to thee said: Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you. And likewise also the cup, saying: This is my blood, which is shed for you. As often as ye perform this, perform my memorial.

Having in memory, therefore, his death and resurrection, we offer to thee the bread and the cup, yielding thee thanks, because thou hast counted us worthy to stand before thee and to minister to thee.

And we pray thee that thou wouldest send the Holy Spirit upon the offerings of thy holy church; that thou, gathering them into one, wouldest grant to all thy saints who partake to be filled with [the] Holy Spirit, that their faith may be confirmed in truth, that we may praise and glorify thee. Through the Servant Jesus Christ, through whom be to thee glory and honour, with [the] Holy Spirit in the holy church, both now and always and world without end.

Amen.

5. If anyone offers oil, he shall give thanks as at the offering of the bread and wine, though not with the same words but in the same manner, saying:

That sanctifying this oil, O God, wherewith thou didst anoint kings, priests and prophets, thou wouldest grant health to them who use it and partake of it, so that it may bestow comfort on all who taste it and health on all who use it.

6. Likewise, if anyone offers cheese and olives, let him say thus:

Sanctify this milk that has been united into one mass, and unite us to thy love. Let thy loving kindness ever rest upon this fruit of the olive, which is a type of thy bounty, which thou didst cause to flow from the tree unto life for them who hope on thee.

But at every blessing shall be said:

Glory be to thee. with [the] Holy Spirit in the holy church, both now and always and world without end. [Amen.]

8. But when a presbyter is ordained, the bishop shall lay his hand upon his head, while the presbyters touch him, and he shall say according to those things that were said above, as we have prescribed above concerning the bishop, praying and saying:

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, look upon this thy servant, and grant to him the Spirit of grace and counsel of a presbyter, that he may sustain and govern thy people with a pure heart; as thou didst look upon thy chosen people and didst command Moses that he should choose presbyters, whom thou didst fill with thy Spirit, which thou gavest to thy servant. And now, O Lord, grant that there may be unfailingly preserved amongst us the Spirit of thy grace, and make us worthy that, believing, we may minister to thee in simplicity of heart, praising thee. Through thy Servant Jesus Christ, through whom be to thee glory and honour, with [the] Holy Spirit in the holy church, both now and always and world without end. Amen.

9. But the deacon, when he is ordained, is chosen according to those things that were said above, the bishop alone in like manner laying his hands upon him, as we have prescribed. When the deacon is ordained, this is the reason why the bishop alone shall lay his hands upon him: he is not ordained to the priesthood but to serve the bishop and to carry out the bishop’s commands. He does not take part in the council of the clergy; he is to attend to his own duties and to make known to the bishop such things as are needful. He does not receive that Spirit that is possessed by the presbytery, in which the presbyters share; he receives only what is confided in him under the bishop’s authority.

For this cause the bishop alone shall make a deacon. But on a presbyter, however, the presbyters shall lay their hands because of the common and like Spirit of the clergy. Yet the presbyter has only the power to receive; but he has no power to give. For this reason a presbyter does not ordain the clergy; but at the ordination of a presbyter he seals while the bishop ordains.

Over a deacon, then, he shall say as follows :

O God, who hast created all things and hast ordered them by thy Word, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom thou didst send to minister thy will and to manifest to us thy desire; grant [the] Holy Spirit of grace and care and diligence to this thy servant, whom thou hast chosen to serve the church and to offer in thy holy sanctuary the gifts that are offered to thee by thine appointed high priests, so that serving without blame and with a pure heart he may be counted worthy of this exalted office, by thy goodwill, praising thee continually. Through thy Servant Jesus Christ, through whom be to thee glory and honour, with [the] Holy Spirit, in the holy church, both now and always and world without end. Amen.

10. On a confessor, if he has been in bonds for the name of the Lord, hands shall not be laid for the diaconate or the presbyterate, for he has the honour of the presbyterate by his confession. But if he is to be ordained bishop, hands shall be laid upon him.

But if he is a confessor who was not brought before the authorities nor was punished with bonds nor was shut up in prison, but was insulted (?) casually or privately for the name of the Lord, even though he confessed, hands are to be laid upon him for every office of which he is worthy.

The bishop shall give thanks [in all ordinations] as we have prescribed. It is not, to be sure, necessary for anyone to recite the exact words that we have prescribed, by learning to say them by heart in his thanksgiving to God; but let each one pray according to his ability. If, indeed, he is able to pray competently with an elevated prayer, it is well. But even if he is only moderately able to pray and give praise, no one may forbid him; only let him pray sound in the faith.

11. When a widow is appointed, she shall not be ordained but she shall be appointed by the name. If her husband has been long dead, she may be appointed [without delay]. But if her husband has died recently, she shall not be trusted; even if she is aged she must be tested by time, for often the passions grow old in those who yield to them.

The widow shall be appointed by the word alone, and [so] she shall be associated with the other widows; hands shall not be laid upon her because she does not offer the oblation nor has she a sacred, ministry. Ordination is for the clergy on account of their ministry, but the widow is appointed for prayer, and prayer is the duty of all.

12. The reader is appointed by the bishop’s giving him the book, for he is not ordained.

13. Hands shall not be laid upon a virgin, for it is her purpose alone that makes her a virgin.

14. Hands shall not be laid upon a sub-deacon, but his name shall be mentioned that he may serve the deacon.

15. If anyone says, "I have received the

gift of healing," hands shall not be laid upon him: the deed shall make manifest if he speaks the truth.

Ibid., 2:16-20, trans. Easton, op. cit., pp. 41-45.

16. New converts to the faith, who are to be admitted as hearers of the word, shall first be brought to the teachers before the people assemble. And they shall be examined as to their reason for embracing the faith, and they who bring them shall testify that they are competent to hear the word. Inquiry shall then be made as to the nature of their life; whether a man has a wife or is a slave. If he is the slave of a believer and he has his master’s permission, then let him be received; but if his master does not give him a good character, let him be rejected. If his master is a heathen, let the slave be taught to please his master, that the word be not blasphemed. If a man has a wife or a woman a husband, let the man be instructed to content himself with his wife and the woman to content herself with her husband. But if a man is unmarried, let him be instructed to abstain from impurity, either by lawfully marrying a wife or else by remaining as he is. But if any man is possessed with demons, he shall not be admitted as a hearer until he is cleansed.

Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. If a man is a pander, he must desist or be rejected. If a man is a sculptor or painter, he must be charged not to make idols; if he does not desist he must be rejected. If a man is an actor or pantomimist, he must desist or be rejected. A teacher of young children had best desist, but if he has no other occupation, he may be permitted to continue. A charioteer, likewise, who races or frequents races, must desist or be rejected. A gladiator or a trainer of gladiators, or a huntsman [in the wild-beast shows], or anyone connected with these shows, or a public official in charge of gladiatorial exhibitions must desist or be rejected. A heathen priest or anyone who tends idols must desist or be rejected. A soldier of the civil authority must be taught not to kill men and to refuse to do so if he is commanded, and to refuse to take an oath; if he is unwilling to comply, he must be rejected. A military commander or civic magistrate that wears the purple must resign or be rejected. If a catechumen or a believer seeks to become a soldier, they must be rejected, for they have despised God. A harlot or licentious man or one who has castrated himself, or any other who does things not to be named, must be rejected, for they are defiled. A magician must not [even] be brought for examination. An enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, a soothsayer, a user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, an amulet-maker must desist or be rejected. A concubine, who is a slave and has reared her children and has been faithful to her master alone, may become a hearer; but if she has failed in these matters she must be rejected. If a man has a concubine, he must desist and marry legally; if he is unwilling, he must be rejected.

If, now, we have omitted anything (any trade?), the facts [as they occur] will instruct your mind; for we all have the Spirit of God.

17. Let catechumens spend three years as hearers of the word. But if a man is zealous and perseveres well in the work, it is not the time but his character that is decisive.

18. When the teacher finishes his instruction, the catechumens shall pray by themselves, apart from the believers. And [all] women, whether believers or catechumens, shall stand for their prayers by themselves in a separate part of the church.

And when [the catechumens] finish their prayers, they must not give the kiss of peace, for their kiss is not yet pure. Only believers shall salute one another, but men with men and women with women; a man shall not salute a woman.

And let all the women have their heads covered with an opaque cloth, not with a veil of thin linen, for this is not a true covering.

19. At the close of their prayer, when their instructor lays his hand upon the catechumens, he shall pray and dismiss them; whoever gives the instruction is to do this, whether a cleric or a layman.

If a catechumen should be arrested for the name of the Lord, let him not hesitate about bearing his testimony; for if it should happen that they treat him shamefully and kill him, he will be justified, for he has been baptized in his own blood.

20. They who are to be set apart for baptism shall be chosen after their lives have been examined: whether they have lived soberly, whether they have honoured the widows, whether they have visited the sick, whether they have been active in welldoing. When their sponsors have testified that they have done these things, then let them hear the Gospel. Then from the time that they are separated from the other catechumens, hands shall be laid upon them daily in exorcism and, as the day of their baptism draws near, the bishop himself shall exorcise each one of them that he may be personally assured of their purity. Then, if there is any of them who is not good or pure, he shall be put aside as not having heard the word in faith; for it is never possible for the alien to be concealed.

Then those who are set apart for baptism shall be instructed to bathe and free themselves from impurity and wash themselves on Thursday. If a woman is menstruous, she shall be set aside and baptized on some other day.

They who are to be baptized shall fast on Friday, and on Saturday the bishop shall assemble them and command them to kneel in prayer. And, laying his hand upon them, he shall exorcise all evil spirits to flee away and never to return; when he has done this he shall breathe in their faces, seal their foreheads, ears and noses, and then raise them up. They shall spend all that night in vigil, listening to reading and instruction.

They who are to be baptized shall bring with them no other vessels than the one each will bring for the eucharist; for it is fitting that he who is counted worthy of baptism should bring his offering at that time.

XXXIII, 1. Before bringing this treatise to an end, I think I ought to say something about the subjects of prayer. It seems to me that four subjects, which I have found here and there throughout the Scriptures, may be outlined, and that every one should form his prayer accordingly. The subjects are these. At the beginning and preamble of the prayer, so far as possible, God is to be glorified, through Christ glorified together with him, in the Holy Spirit hymned together with him. And next in order after this each one must offer general thanksgiving including blessings bestowed on many besides himself, together with those he has personally obtained from God. After thanksgiving, it seems to me that he ought to accuse himself bitterly before God of his own sins, and then ask God, first for healing that he may be delivered from the habit that causes him to sin, and secondly for forgiveness of the past. After confession, it seems to me that in the fourth place he should add his request for great and heavenly things, his own and general, and also for his family and his dearest. And finally he should bring his prayer to a close glorifying God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

2. These subjects of prayer, as we said before, we found in one place or another of the Scriptures. The subject concerned with giving glory to God is thus expressed in the one hundred and third Psalm: "O Lord, my God, how greatly art thou magnified! Thou art clothed with praise and majesty; who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain, who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds a place for his feet, who walketh upon the wings of the winds; who maketh winds his messengers, his ministers a flame of fire: who layeth the foundations of the earth to remain stedfast; it shall not be removed for ever and ever. The deep is his covering as a vesture: the waters shall stand upon the mountains. At thy rebuke they shall flee: at the voice of thy thunder they shall be afraid." And the greater part of this Psalm contains a glorification of the Father. And each one can collect many other passages for himself, and he will thus see how widely the subject of glorification is dispersed.

3. As for thanksgiving, this example may be cited from the second [book] of the Kingdoms. After the promises made to David through Nathan, David was astonished at the gifts of God, and is reported to have given thanks for them in these words: "Who am I, O Lord my Lord, and what is my house, that thou lovedst me thus far? And I was made little in thy sight, my Lord, and thou hast spoken concerning the house of thy servant for a long time to come; but this is the law of man, O Lord my Lord. And what can David say more unto thee? And now thou knowest thy servant, O Lord. For thy servant’s sake thou hast done it, and according to thine heart hast tho