terms were unknown.* Impressed by the earnest appeals of a preacher, and eagerly desiring to enlist himself among the Elect, the convert would confess belief in the new doctrine, and, being led to a pool or stream, dip himself in the water, and emerge a disciple, a Saint, a sinner cleansed. Simplicity marked the rite in the early days of Christianity. A crowd of listeners to a fervid address, such as Peter's, could, on the same day, testify their faith by undergoing the sacred ceremony. A travelling eunuch, meeting a Christian missionary, became a convert to the gospel, and, in the wayside pool, washed away the errors and ignorance of the past. No special officer administered the rite. Paul laid no stress upon the privilege of baptising; he thanked God he had baptised very few of the Corinthian Saints; for, he added: "Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the gospel." Yet he had a clear enough idea of the meaning of the baptismal water. When, he says, İsrael left Egypt, they were baptised into their new life by passing under the divine overshadowing cloud, and through the Red Sea; and in the dipping of the Christian under water, and the re-arising, he saw a symbol of burial of the old nature and birth of the new. The followers of John the Baptist often disciplined themselves by fasting. At an early date fasting preceded baptism. Here are the directions for the ceremony laid down by the Didache (vii.): "Now, concerning baptism, thus baptise ye: having first uttered all these things [i.e., moral exhortations], baptise into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if thou hast not living water, baptise in other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptiser and the baptised fast, and whatever others can; but the baptised thou shalt command to fast for one or two days before."+

Of course prayer formed a strong feature in the religion of the New People. While the Lord's Prayer was soon

* Hatch's "Influence," lect. x.

Suspicion lies upon this passage as being wholly or partly an interpolation in the original version of the Didache. The same remark applies to the paragraph in the Didache on the Eucharist.

adopted into the Christian system of worship, it may not have had a Christian origin. This prayer occurs in the Didache, and the Didache was, in all likelihood, a Jewish document to begin with. "Nor pray ye," says the Didache (viii.), "like the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in the gospel [these words may be Christian additions], thus pray: Our Father," etc. At the close of the prayer the writer enjoins : "Three times in the day pray ye thus ;" and we call to mind that prayer thrice daily was an ancient Jewish custom, and is referred to in the legend of Daniel. A brief examination of the prayer betrays the fact that it contains no reference to important Christian doctrines, such as the Atonement, or the Messiahship of Jesus, or the Resurrection, etc. We suspect that the people who first used it had as yet worked out no clear doctrines on these points. Neither does the prayer bear marks of devotion to Hebrew ritual. Undoubtedly it comprised phrases and ideas which were household words to the Jews of the first century. Let us observe some of the elements of the prayer :- -"Our Father who art in Heaven." A passage in the Talmud runs: "On whom do we rest? On our Father who is in heaven." Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come. A Jewish prayer known as the "Kaddish" was the most ancient piece of devotion used in the synagogue. It was couched in the Aramaic language, and might only be recited in public. It began as follows:- "May his great name be extolled and hallowed in the world, which he created according to his will. May he cause his kingdom to come," etc. further on in the same supplication, the words occur: "May the prayers and desires of Israel be received before their Father who is in heaven."* It is believed that the present Greek form of the Lord's prayer was translated from an Aramaic original.† Give us this day our daily bread. To the great Rabbi Hillel is attributed the saying: "Blessed be God every day for the daily bread which he giveth us." Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. This is a distinct echo of Ecclus. xxviii. 2: 66 Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done unto thee, so shall

* H. Cox's "First Century of Christianity," chap. xx.

And,

+ See F. H. Chase's “Lord's Prayer in the Early Church," Introduction.

thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest." The doxology, "Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever," does not find a place in Matthew's gospel (Revised Version), though the Didache has these words: "Thine is the power and the glory forever." Such upliftings of praise often gave a joyous tone to old Hebrew psalms, as in 1 Chron. xxix. II: "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty."* Whatever may be the precise history of the prayer, it stands as a token of the simple, unlearned, and earnest mode by which the New People approached their Father, God.

The Saints observed sacred days. Paul, indeed, felt no such reverence, and poured reproach upon the Galatians who took pious note of days, and months, and seasons, and years. But he could not help recognising differences of opinion among the brethren, and he tried to make peace among the Roman saints by permitting each man to do as he pleased. "One man,' ," he wrote (Rom. xiv. 5, 6),

"esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord." In other words, it was of no practical importance. The Gospel anecdotes of the behaviour of Jesus on the Sabbath point in the same direction of liberalism. A movement arose among the New People in favour of keeping another day holy besides the Sabbath. They chose the First Day, or Kyriac, or Lord's Day. One of the early church historians blamed the Ebionites for a double observance of the Sabbath and of the First Day as holy.† For many years Christian sects disputed whether the Sabbath should be kept as a day of tranquillity and abstention from labour. Some made it a day of festival after the manner of the orthodox Hebrews. Others showed their dislike of the old convention by fasting on the Seventh Day. Others would fast on neither day. The New Testament manifestly points to a growing custom of meeting on the Kyriac for the breaking of "the bread" or collecting subscriptions for

The prayer is discussed in a paper in the National Reformer, September 27th, 1891.

+ Bingham's "Antiquities," vol. vii., chapter on the Sabbath.

the poor. But it can be positively said that no word in the New Testament indicates that the Saints regarded the First Day as a new form of the Sabbath.* When we turn to the Didache (xiv.) we find the following reference: "On the Kyriac do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions, in order that your sacrifice may be pure. But every one that hath controversy with his friend, let him not come together with you until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: At every place and time bring me a pure sacrifice; for a great King am I, saith the Lord, and my name is marvellous among the nations." These last words allude to the Yahveh, or Lord, of the Old Testament, for the text quoted comes from Malachi i. 11-14: "In every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts......for I am a great King." One cannot, then, safely assert that the Kyriac had any original connection with the Christ of the Gospels. It is true that the passage just quoted speaks of "The Kyriac of the Lord" as if a Christian scribe, rewriting the document, and thinking the "Kyriac❞ too indefinite a term, had altered it into "the Kyriac of the Lord," or "the Lord's Day of the Lord," an expression which verges on the absurd. The idea forces itself upon us that the Lord's Day was sacred among the New People before they had sharply outlined their Christian gospel. Later on Pliny the magistrate told the Emperor Trajan (98-117 C.E.) that it was the custom of the Christians to meet together early in the morning before it was light on a certain fixed day ("stato die"), and sing hymns to Christ as their God, and bind themselves with a sacrament to do no evil, and afterwards to partake of a common feast. And, still later, the so-called apostolic father, "Barnabas " (xv.), gave a new turn to the Lord's Day when he argued that, the old Hebrew Seventh Day being set aside, the Eighth Day assumed a peculiar sacredness both as a festival and as a commemoration of the rising of Jesus from the tomb. "Wherefore,"

he says, "we keep the Eighth Day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead." In the

* H. Cox's "First Century," chap. xvii.

etc.

middle of the second century Justin Martyr's Apology (I., chap. lxvii.) tells of a new development. "On the day called Sun-day (hemera tou Heliou)," he relates of the Christians, "all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits," And elsewhere he seeks to fasten a badge of inferiority on the Sabbath day by hinting that it, like other institutions, was enjoined by way of discipline for an unrighteous people. And Tertullian,† after mentioning that the Christians were accused of sun-worship, and admitting that the suspicion might appear plausible in consequence of their turning eastwards in prayer, points out that, while they did, indeed, devote Sun-day to rejoicing, it was from a far different reason than sun-worship.

From rites and observances we turn to the Officers of the new religion. So soon as the New People began to create their humble societies the need was felt for directors and officers. In pagan associations and institutions they could notice many models, such as the "epimeletes" (the superintendent of Mysteries, or administrator of charitable funds), or the "episkopos" (treasurer of a temple or a society, etc.). Highest in respect stood the Apostles, or commissioners. The term betokened among the Jews such men as were officially despatched abroad by the Hebrew authorities, especially those who collected money from the scattered Jewish settlements for the service of the Temple.§ The New Testament varies in its use of the word. It is applied to the twelve missionaries (by the first three Gospels, but not by the fourth), to Barnabas, and other persons who did not belong to the twelve; and, by Paul, to certain fellow Christians whom he speaks of as "the apostles of the churches "i.e., delegates from Christian societies (2 Cor. viii. 23). By "prophet " Paul understood an edifier, a consoler, who sought to calm and strengthen the souls of the Saints amid their daily worries and cares, and, perhaps, their dangers. Other leaders who figured in the meetings of

* 66 Dialogue with Trypho," xxi.

+ Apology, xvi.

E. Hatch's "Organisation of the Early Christian Churches," ii. § Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible."

For Paul's views of the functions of church leaders, etc.,

I Cor. xii., xiv.

see