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                          CHAPTER XVII

               The Evolution of Christian Doctrine

       The Religion of Jesus -- The Mists of Gnosticism --
      Fights Over Formulae -- The Evolution of Priestcraft

                      THE RELIGION OF JESUS

     THE primary educational need of America is to persuade
believers to examine candidly the bases of their belief. The
amiable counsel which statesmen give, to abandon strife and
cooperate in enjoying the movies, is like a medieval recipe for a
tumor, while the complaints of priests against the stirrers of
sectarian conflict are prompted by a desire to keep their flocks in
ignorance and pursue their secret activities unperceived. Far more
healthful is the open battle. But the first condition of it is to
enable the Fundamentalist to conduct it without rancor, bitterness
or fierceness; because the really fundamental issue is whether what
he takes to be the Word of God is the Word of God.

     He would have us return to "the religion of Jesus," and we
merely ask that we shall be quite sure that what he offers us is
the religion of Jesus. A story is told of a Fundamentalist preacher
assuring an agonized mother that the soul of her dead child would
burn in bell forever because the boy bad not been baptized. It does
not matter whether the story is correct. It represents the actual
belief of millions of Fundamentalist Christians. Well, where did
Jesus say that? He was himself not baptized until he was thirty;
and there is not a word in the Gospels that can be twisted by the
most resolute theologian into a statement that a child, or even an
adult, will be damned if he leaves the, world unbaptized.

     It is an inference, an implication, you say. All men have
incurred the general sentence of damnation for Adam's sin, and the
application to each person of Christ's redemption of the race is
through baptism. Where did Christ say that? We have proof positive
that the formula of baptism at the end of Matthew was fraudulently
added to the Gospel when a priesthood was created; and even in that
passage not one word is said about baptism as a condition of
salvation.

     But let us take a much broader view. The Modernist says that
Jesus "saved" men, or helped them to save themselves, by his moral
teaching and example. The Fundamentalist, scorning what he calls
this modern weakening of the Gospel message, says that Jesus was
God, and had taken flesh and died on a cross chiefly to remove the
primitive curse from the race. With any Fundamentalist who may hold
that men and women of entirely virtuous lives, or who sincerely
repented, would nevertheless have been damned forever because of a
sin committed some thousands of years ago, if Christ had not died,
I should not care to argue. In any case orthodox Christian
teaching, Catholic and Protestant, is that a divine victim was
sacrificed primarily to avert the general condemnation of the race
for Adam's sin.

     Where does Jesus say that? Where does he say that all men are
condemned because of Adam's sin? Where does he say that God alone
could atone for it? Where does he say that that is his purpose?
Where does he say that he is, not the "son of God," but God? Let a

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Fundamentalist go very carefully through the Gospel of Matthew, as
I have (for the hundredth time) just done, without a preacher to
befog him, without any of his literature. He will realize a strange
thing: that it is the Modernist who is nearest to "the word of
God." The Modernist is the real follower of Jesus. The
Fundamentalist is a follower of Paul.

     This distinction is so marked that one of the most notable
theological works of recent times -- Dr. Machen, of the Theological
School at Princeton, thinks it "epoch-making," though he does not
agree with it -- holds simply on a study of the contents of the
Gospels and Epistles themselves, that Paul had never heard of
Jesus! I do not myself agree with this brilliant writer, Bousset.
But the notable point is this: the contrast of the teaching of Paul
with the teaching of Jesus is so glaring that a Christian scholar
of great distinction and authority can hold that Paul never heard
of Jesus. And Fundamentalism is based on Paul.

     Let us look for ourselves to the Gospels for the teaching of
Jesus; and it will suffice to take Matthew, which is understood to
be the most complete record of his words.

     His teaching is almost entirely ethical. There are only just
a few, incidental phrases that can be called theological. Paul was
"the first theologian," as Harnack says. Jesus believes in God, and
says that he must be worshiped in spirit only, not in temples and
synagogues, not with the aid of priests or ministers. This God will
punish sin with eternal torment -- that is to say, personal sins;
Jesus never mentions an inherited sin of Adam -- and reward virtue
with eternal bliss. Jesus believes in devils and angels, which the
Jews had taken over from the Babylonians and Persians. He believes
that the end of the world is near, and that God will then judge all
men for their personal sins.

     No one will question that this is a full summary of the
religious content of ninety-nine percent of the teaching of Jesus
in the Gospel. That alone is significant. if the modern Christian
wants to find support in the Gospels for his beliefs, he has to
search for short and incidental phrases, the meaning of which is
always disputed, and the authenticity generally denied.

     And this evidence of the lateness of the teaching that is
attributed to Jesus is nowhere clearer than in one of the most
famous texts of the New Testament. The writer, obviously a Roman,
actually attributes a pun to the ultra-solemn prophet of Nazareth:
"Thou art Peter [Rock], and upon this rock I will build my church."
The Roman Catholic stakes his faith on that pun; and, if the
Protestant admits that Christ used the words, his answer is
worthless. The word is used again in Matthew xviii, 17, where a man
who has a quarrel with his neighbor must submit it to "the church."

     Jesus certainly never used the word. Apart from his
expectation that the end of the world was at hand, the word had no
meaning, as an institution, at that time; except that to a Greek it
meant the political assembly or convocation. The Greek word put in
the mouth of Jesus is ecclesie. The only Aramaic word corresponding
to this meant the general assembly or convocation of the Jewish


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people. In that sense the word is used by the Greek translators of
the Old Testament (Deut. xxxi, 30 and Ps. xxii, 22). It had no
meaning whatever as a religious institution until decades after the
death of Jesus. In the year 30 A.D. no one on earth would have
known what Jesus meant if he had said that he was going to "found"
an ecclesie, or church, and that the powers of darkness would not
prevail against it, and so on.

     The Gospels are late, and there are still later interpolations
in them. In the circumstances it must seem strange to everyone that
the writers never make Jesus plainly claim that he is God; and I
may add that Paul only does this once, in a disputed passage, and
that other early Christian writings are just as shy of saying in
plain language that Jesus was God.

     You may say that it comes to the same thing when Jesus claims
to be, or at least admits the title, "the Son of God." It is so far
from being the same thing that, if Jesus had plainly stated that he
was God, it would have saved the Church three or four hundred years
of bloody strife. "Son of God" meant to the Jews a man dear to God.
What they regarded as blasphemy was the supposed claim that Jesus
was the, or only, son of God. The English Bible says throughout
"The son of God," but the Greek text of the Bible does not. In most
cases the Greek -- I have it before me -- is simply "son of God,"
without an article. And if in other cases we have the full phrase
"the Son of God" or "Son of Man," who will come one day on the
clouds to judge all men (the most characteristic belief of the
Persians), this is contradicted over and over again by other texts.
"Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God"
(Matthew, xix, 17). "Not as I will, but as thou wilt," Jesus prays
to God (Ibid., xxvi, 39) and "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" (Ibid., xxvii, 46). I could fill a chapter with such
texts.

     The Gospels are a tissue of contradictions on what the
Fundamentalist says is the fundamental point, the divinity of
Christ. The Church flamed with controversy about it. Even the
experts, who carefully analyze the Gospels into their earlier and
later elements, are in hopeless disagreement as to the simple
point, which is at the basis of Christianity, whether or not Jesus
claimed to be God.

     And the second "fundamental" is, as I said, not even obscurely
hinted at in the Gospel. Near the end, in one of the most suspected
passages, Jesus is made to say that his blood is to be shed "for
many, for the remission of sins" (Matthew xxvi, 28). This is so
novel, so much at variance with the whole previous teaching of
Jesus, that we rightly suspect it. But in any case, it is not a
reference to "original sin." There is not a single word in the
Gospel about redemption by atonement as it is taught by both
Catholic and Protestant Churches, and is said to have been the
essential reason for the incarnation! To see if I am not right, I
turn back to the ponderous manual of "Dogmatic Theology" which I
used in college decades ago, and it confirms me. Two vague
references to sin or sins in John (a worthless witness in any case)
are all that can be added to the text I have given. It is Paul, not
Jesus or the Gospel writers, who gave the Church the doctrine of
the atonement. Jesus was the first Modernist. Paul was the first
Fundamentalist.
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     After nineteen hundred years, during one thousand of which the
greater part of the genius of the race was devoted to this work,
the most learned theologians of the world are hopelessly disagreed
as to what Jesus did, what he said, and what he meant. The
cocksureness of each new writer or new school, the confidence in
them of their readers, the way in which a simple Christian tells
you that "this has been explained," or "that apparent contradiction
has been reconciled," are merely amusing. There is no other theme
in the world on which the "experts" have produced a more voluminous
and more contradictory literature than on that which the preacher
calls the simple and sublime message of Jesus to man; and the
confusion is now far worse than ever. I defy any man to indicate
one other point on which the experts have, during the last hundred
years, uttered such an infinite medley of contradictions.

     When we turn from Jesus' elementary creed to Paul, it is like
passing from some pleasant California valley to the cactus-covered
rugged slopes of a Mexican gorge. The two things which even the
Gospel writers, at the end of the first century, never put in the
mouth of Jesus -- the two things which are the real bases of
Christianity, since they explain Christ and the incarnation -- are
precisely the two main themes of Paul. I mean original sin and the
atonement for original sin. Theologians often say that the Church
turned away from Paul in the second century. What an extraordinary
lack of sense of proportion! Paul's three characteristic doctrines
-- original sin, divine atonement for original sin, and the need of
"grace" -- which are not in the Gospels, are the foundations of the
sacerdotal fabric that was raised and also of the doctrinal system
of later Protestantism.

     Why this extraordinary contrast between the Gospels and the
Epistles? As I have already said, modern theologians realize it so
acutely that the latest fashion is to follow Bousset, in his
"Kyrios Christos" (1913), and say that Paul never heard of Jesus,
but got his doctrine of "the Lord" and redemption from Greek and
Mithraic sources. Dr. Machen in his "Origin of Paul's Philosophy"
(1921) tells us that Bousset is forming a new and important school.
Most writers say, however, that the messianic ideas, blended with
Greek ideas, of the Jews scattered over the Mediterranean world
would supply Paul with every element of his gospel. Others. ... In
short, every expert differs from every other expert. Machen's book
is only one more proof of the utter uncertainty and transitoriness
of every theological theory.

                     THE MISTS OF GNOSTICISM

     It seems to me that you must reject the whole of the Epistles
if you doubt whether Paul ever heard of Jesus of Nazareth. Even the
least disputed of them (Romans, Galatians, and I and II
Corinthians) talk of Christ Jesus, who was born of a woman, was
crucified to redeem men from sin, and rose from the dead.

     Paul at first cried blasphemy, but this story of Jesus would,
on reflection, seem increasingly like a realization of his hopes.
If only it were true that, as they claimed, this Jesus had risen
from the dead! If only he would appear to Paul! Then, in some
prolonged fit of brooding and fasting, Paul saw him, as hundreds of


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other saints have done, and it was all over. Paul accepted the
simple religion of Jesus -- God the Father, punisher of sin -- but
it was the death and resurrection that mattered most. Jesus had
been simply a preacher. Paul created the redeemer. He thundered to
the world that Jesus had lifted the primitive curse, and that his
"holy spirit" -- one of the commonest of phrases in those days --
still lived amongst his followers.

     This first statement of Christian theology is -- in spite of
the thousands of books that have been written about it -- fairly
simple. Paul never bothered about the precise relations or natures
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There was one God, and
this God had assumed flesh in a woman's womb, then shed it and gone
back to heaven. His "spirit" or his "grace" now helped men to avoid
personal sins. All that they had to do was to get together in
little groups of churches (ecclesiae or "convocations") to practice
virtue, to hold the commemoration supper, and to await the coming
of the kingdom. There was now no need for circumcision, sacrifices
or synagogues.

     The Epistles, we are told, were written as if Jesus did not
exist. I should say, rather, that the Gospels were written as if
Paul did not exist.

     We shall probably never recover the true history of the
beginning of Christianity, but in the Epistles and Acts we have a
red glow here and there of conflict. Well did Jesus say that he
came to bring into the world, not peace, but a sword. There were at
once a dozen struggles: Peter or Paul, faith or good works,
resurrection or no resurrection, obligation to the Jewish law or
freedom. Christ had forgotten to leave instructions. His Church
settled these dozen fiery controversies only to find itself locked
in a terrific and protracted fight with Gnosticism. It emerged from
that to confront Montanism, and Novatianism, and Ebionitism. After
these came Patripassianism, Adoptionism, Modalism, Sabellianism,
and Arianism. The fierce passions and bloodshed of these struggles
had hardly ceased when Nestorius and Eutychius, Helvidius and
Jovinian, Donatus and Pelagius raised the temperature again. Then
came the Monophysites, the Monothelites ... But the list would be
too long. The battle is as fierce as ever today.

     The struggle with the Gnostics was inevitable and began early.
In Acts (Chap. viii) there is a well-known story of a man in
Samaria who had won a great reputation by "magic," and who offered
the apostles money to teach him their magic. The story is probably
as correct as the description of the Pharisees: a malignant libel.
Simon may very well have been an early Gnostic.

     Just as "Agnostic" means one who does not know (whether there
is a God or not), so "Gnostic" is a man or woman who knows. These
ancient Gnostics are not difficult to understand, for they swarm
today in the more wealthy American cities such as New York,
Chicago, and Los Angeles. They are initiated (generally now at five
or ten dollars a lesson) into some powerful spiritual truths which
are hidden from common people. Impecunious Hindus with glib
tongues, Amerinds even, Theosophists, white Buddhists, Syrian
"fraters," or German transcendentalists gather little groups about


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them and whisper the tremendous news. It is mere verbiage from
beginning to end; but it is supposed to be a superior truth seen by
the intuitions of a few gifted people or revealed from a more lucid
world by spirits. That is Gnosticism. These people know.

     The ancient world was, as we have abundantly seen, like ours
in many respects. A time of remarkable intercommunication of
peoples and dissolution of old creeds had come. Ancient traditions
and revelations were dropping out of fashion. Men of "intuition, of
great "spiritual insight," of religious genius, seers and sages,
had become the oracles. In every city of the Greco-Roman world
little groups gathered to be initiated by some gifted teacher, to
this kind of rubbish, just as they gather in the small rooms of the
Auditorium Building at Chicago today. What sober human reason could
discover was not enough for them. It was the sublime truths (words)
discovered by intuition (imagination) and revelation (fraud) that
they wanted. And they got them: more cheaply in those days.

     Gnosticism was not one philosophy or religion, any more than
the ten contradictory creeds which these modern impostors sell to
their dupes are one religion. But there were, broadly, common
features, and these are all that we can notice here. The chief
common feature was an intense emphasis on the contrast of matter
and spirit, sin and virtue, darkness and light. The Persian
religion was largely responsible for this: but Greek philosophy (in
Plato), late Egyptian mysticism, and Buddhism (which reached nearer
Asia, if not Greece) had the same dualism. The flesh was a
contamination of the spirit which -- poor thing -- had to live in
it for a time. Sin was a defilement for which the soul had to be
purified and redeemed. Baptism (by water, blood, fire, or spirit),
anointings, lustrations, and thrillingly esoteric rites, not to be
revealed to the mob, helped. The world was full of evil spirits and
good spirits (as Egypt, Babylon, and Persia taught), and you could
exorcise these by mystic formulae or even calling them by name.
Simon the Magician adopting Christianity in Samaria is a symbol of
the Gnostic world, which stretched from Rome to Asia Minor,
adopting it and turning it inside out.

     Paul's religion suited these mystics and ascetics. His
contempt of the flesh and glorification of the spirit were common
to them all. His gospel of a redeemer from sin was real "good
tidings" to them. There was obviously a great deal of truth in the
new religion. It might appeal to the poor and to slaves by its
denunciation of wealth and its communism, but it also appealed to
these "intellectuals." Christianity spread through this esoteric
world, and it set out to answer the questions which Paul and the
Gospel writers had left open.

     The Gnostics so hated and despised matter that they did not
believe that God had created it. The Old Testament, which said that
he had, was abandoned. Matter was eternal, in a chaotic state, as
the Babylonians had said. But why did God have anything to do with
the putrid stuff?

     The Gnostics held that a number of finite but divine things
had emanated from God. One of these Aeons, as they were called, had
"fallen" from grace, and this altered the whole economy. God sent


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a great Aeon, the Demiourgos, to put order into the chaos of matter
or "create" the world as we know it. This was the Jehovah of the
Jews. Then he sent an Aeon of the highest rank, Soter (Redeemer),
to save the fallen Aeon and rescue the elements of light, the souls
of men, from their contamination with darkness. This was Christos.

     But how could an Aeon of supreme rank take flesh, with all its
horrors? Most of them said that he merely used a phantasmal body,
not real flesh. The Gospel story was an allegory, they said, from
beginning to end. Christos abandoned his ethereal body before it
was crucified; and most assuredly there was no resurrection of it,
and there would be no resurrection of the flesh for any man.

     I have neither space nor inclination to tell all the variation
of this general body of teaching. Some men of great ability rose in
the Gnostic world, and for a hundred years there was a mighty
struggle. The Church won, but it had contracted not a little of the
Gnostic creed. Ascetical practices (fasting, etc.) and the
inclination to monasticism were fostered by these haters of the
flesh. Ritual and sacramental features were adopted. Baptism became
more important; Jesus nowhere insists on it except in the passage
added at the end of Matthew during the Gnostic struggle. Mystic
ideas or speculations about Christ crept in, as the beginning of
John, the latest Gospel, shows. A definite attitude toward the Old
Testament was assumed. Some sort of canon of scriptures was
adopted, cutting off all but the four familiar Gospels and the
Epistles and Acts. Possibly a creed was drawn up, as we shall see
presently. In any case, the need of authority in the Church was
practically demonstrated, and the position of the bishops (or
"overseers" of the communities) was greatly strengthened. It had
fallen to these to fight and to drive out the "heretics."

     So Christianity in the second century emerged as a Church from
its long conflict. It was a federation, no bishop acknowledging
allegiance to any other bishop. But the bishop had more control of
the "elders" (presbyteroi, presbyters or priests) who had at first,
in a loose sort of way, managed the affairs of each community, and
of the "servants" (diaconoi, deacons) who helped at the meetings.
There was also now much exorcism of devils, sprinkling or baptizing
with water, anointing with oil, and so on. New classes of
assistants arose to share the lot (cleros) of the bishops and
priests; new "clerics" exorcists, readers, doorkeepers, etc.

     There was very little growth in the first two centuries. The
Gospels, as we have them, seem to have been completed in the second
quarter of the second century, but they left doctrinal questions
open. Jesus was the Son of God, and there was also a vague Holy
Spirit; but there was only one God. The Gnostic attempt to define
the relations of these had been so heretical and disturbing that
most Christians were content to leave the matter as it was. The
only addition (in John) was that Jesus had existed as the Logos
"with God" for all eternity. The Jew Philo had spoken of this Logos
or "creative word" of God. But mystics do not require -- if they do
not actually dread -- precise definitions; and the intellectualists
were killed off.




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     The early Christian writers, men of moderate ability like
Clement of Rome, Justin the Apologist and Irenaeus, had been
absorbed in recommending the simple creed to pagans and Jews or
defending it against the Gnostics. They did not enlarge it by
speculations. The so-called Apostles' Creed fairly represents
Christian belief at the end of the second century. No theologian
now supposes that it goes back even to the first century, and in
its actual form it is late. But Kattenbush has traced an ancient
Roman creed to the beginning of the second century, and it is
generally thought to be the one given by Tertullian:

          I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and in Jesus
     Christ, his ONLY son Our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit
     and the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate and
     buried; the third day he rose from the dead. He ascended into
     heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Thence he
     shall come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy
     Spirit, the HOLY CHURCH, the remission of sins, and the
     resurrection of the flesh.

     Apart from the three words I have capitalized, this is just a
simple summary of the religion of the Gospels as we now have them.
Still the Church would not say plainly that Christ was God; and the
statement that he sits at the right hand of God in heaven is an
expression of uncertainty of the subject. But he is now said to be
the "only" son of God. This is an outcome of the Gnostic
controversy. In the second century, in fact, the Ebionites, an
obscure lot who denied the divinity of Christ and the virginity of
Mary, were suppressed. But it is, as I said, virtually stated in
the Gospels and Paul that Christ, "the Lord," is somehow or other
God, and so there is nothing new. The insertion, in fine, of the
Holy Church is a reflection of the new organization necessarily
evolved out of the conflicts. The familiar doctrines of
Christianity had still to be fabricated.

                      FIGHTS OVER FORMULAE

     This vague and unsatisfactory condition of Christian belief
could last only so long as the Church remained without men of high
intellect. Ecclesiastical historians exaggerate the ability of
Justin and Irenaeus and Clement of Rome. They were practical men,
writing for practical purposes. The intellectuals who had joined
the Church had tried to make the Christian story less crude, and
they had been expelled.

     But every thoughtful Christian must have asked himself what
this Father and Son business really meant, if there was only one
God: and as soon as any man of speculative intelligence devoted
himself to the problem, there was a new heresy. Patripassians said
that it was God the Father who suffered on the cross: which the
bishops at once pronounced a shocking heresy. Modalists, looking to
the philosophy of Aristotle, said that the Son was a "mode" of the
Father; and the bishops who probably did not even know what
philosophers meant by a "mode," expelled them, after half a century
of acrid quarreling. Then Jesus must have been "adopted" as a Son,
said others, remembering how nearly every religion had cases of
adoption into the divine family. And the Adoptionists also received


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the order of the boot. All this, by reactions, strengthened the
episcopate, the discipline, the organization, and the terms of
membership of the Church.

     It was near the end of the second century when abler men than
the general rabble of bishops appeared in the Christian Church:
Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria. Only the
least intelligent of the four, Cyprian, has received the halo of
the saint, and his contribution to the development of doctrine is
significant. He was essentially a priest and he glorified his
order. A simple division of labor and respect for the "elders" had
brought about a very slight beginning of authority in the early
communities. The growth of the Church had accentuated this, and the
fight against heresy had raised priests and bishops more and more
to the position of necessary experts. They now "searched the
Scriptures" very zealously, and found that they had "received the
Holy Ghost" and could "bind" or "loose" whatsoever they chose.
Moreover, it was they, as successors of the apostles, who had to
conduct the commemoration-supper, which was fast becoming a
"sacrament," or channel of grace, and a "sacrifice." All this comes
out most clearly in Cyprian's writings. They contributed very
materially to the evolution of priestcraft and sacramentalism.

     The three abler men are all tainted with heresy. Tertullian,
a somber fanatic with a mighty power of scorn, a learned priest of
the African Church, remained a heretic until he died. In view of
the growth of priestcraft there had been a reaction in the second
century. A certain Montanus claimed that he and two lady friends --
almost the only really original feature of the Christian
priestcraft is, from the start, the inevitable lady friend -- had
received the Holy Ghost. He denied that inspiration of this kind
was confined to men in "orders," and there was a terrific fight for
several decades. A large part of the Christian body resented the
growth of the new sacerdotalism and rightly claimed that it had no
basis in the Gospels. They held also that the clergy had no power
to absolve from mortal sins. The sinner must be expelled from the
Church and left to his fate. These deadly thrusts at their
authority and at their ambition to make the Christian body as large
as possible stung the hierarchy, and the fierce battle ended in the
suppression of Montanism and a fresh accentuation of priestly
authority. Hence the work of Cyprian.

     Tertullian remained a Montanist or Puritan until he died. The
gaiety of his early life had led to a morbid reaction, and his zeal
about sin has caused him to give us some piquant pictures of the
state of the Church at the end of the second and the beginning of
the third century. He had a particular scorn of the Roman Church
and the pretensions of its bishop or Pope. He is important mainly
as a critic, an early Protestant, but, incidentally, he adopted a
word of the Gnostics in regard to the relation of Father and Son.
He said that the Son was homo-ousios (of the same substance) with
the Father; and this would presently lead to a far more furious
controversy than ever.

     Clement of Alexandria and Origen (also of Alexandria) were the
first to apply Greek philosophy to the Christian story in a form
which could be generally accepted by the Church. It goes without
saying that they were both, especially the learned Origen,

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heretical. In his early zeal be had naively supposed that the
counsels of Jesus had to be taken literally, and he had castrated
himself. on the authority of Matthew xix, 12. His later method was
simple. Whatever seemed absurd or contradictory or opposed to sound
science in the new faith was to be taken figuratively. He denied
the eternal torment of the wicked and, like every Christian who
knew both his own creed and the general culture of his time, he
held a form of faith like that of the Modernist.

     Origen was deposed, excommunicated, and bitterly persecuted,
so that we cannot attribute to him much influence in developing the
system of doctrine. Clement was more diplomatic, and remained
within the Church. His writings, however, had a narrow circulation
amongst the educated converts of Alexandria, and it is mainly the
practice of applying the ideas of Greek philosophy to a precise
definition of the Christian beliefs that we have to note in these
two writers.

     At first the general belief had been that baptism was the only
sacrament, the only form of remission of sin, and it was deferred
as long as possible so as to leave a few opportunities to human
nature. Mortal sin committed after baptism could not be forgiven.
This condemned the Christian body to be eternally small, and the
clergy accordingly discovered that God, in his great mercy, had
arranged a second escape from hell by giving the priests power to
remit sin. The proof was in various texts of the Gospels about the
keys of heaven, the power to bind and to loose, and so on: texts
which earlier priests had thoughtfully interpolated in the
primitive records of the life of Jesus.

     There was, as I have said, a very wide and strong revolt
against this, and it was still largely held that apostasy during a
persecution could not be forgiven. In face of the general apostasy
in the third century the last trace of the old rigor had to go. All
sins could be forgiven by the priests: a most happy and convenient
discovery, both for the priests and the sinners. The Catholic
doctrine of sacraments and orders was being slowly and shamelessly
developed.

                  THE EVOLUTION OF PRIESTCRAFT

     An odious word, priestcraft. It means, literally, the trade or
skilled work of priests, but, probably through its connection with
priests, the word "craft" has come to have an unpleasant
insinuation. It is, I am told, malicious and untruthful to use it.
And I retort that in the plainest literary and historical sense of
the word what I am going to describe is the evolution of
priestcraft. The "evolution" of Christianity is of the variety that
is now called "creative evolution"; and the creator was the
ambition of the clergy.

     Strictly orthodox people will tell you that Christ left secret
instructions with his apostles how to form and equip his Church
when the time came, and that, after all, the Holy Spirit remained
with them. It is unfortunate that one half of Christendom
interprets these secret instructions and the counsels of the Holy
Ghost in the directly opposite manner to the other half. The


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               THE STORY OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY

Catholic thinks that the plan included the creation of priests,
bishops, archbishops, Popes, the eucharist, the confessional, seven
sacraments, the mass, etc.; the Protestant, who does not seem to
know what the Holy Ghost was about from the third to the sixteenth
century, says that the instructions were precisely to damn and
anathematize all these things.

     Let us use a little common sense. Jesus expected the end of
the world within twenty or thirty years, and he never dreamed about
a "church." Philologists are not agreed as to where the word came
from even, and few now admit that it is a corruption of kuriake,
"the Lord's [house]." There was at first a gathering or meeting,
which is in Greek ecclesie, or in Latin-Greek ecclesia. In time of
peace the Christians built or bought special rooms, Some think that
the meeting-place of the Greek and Roman trade union was the model.
Others think that the court-room or public hall (basitica) was
followed. However that may be, the Christians, seeing that the end
of the world did not come, were forced to have temples like their
religious neighbors.

     By what steps this "church" became a building of the common
religious type, with a severely isolated and consecrated body of
priests offering "sacrifice" at one end of it, no one can tell; but
the idea that this was "according to plan" is absurd.

     Whatever else is obscure, it is plain that in the early Church
there was only one "sacrament"; and that not in the doctrinal
sense, for the Catholic doctrine of sacraments was manufactured
mainly by Augustine. Baptism itself presents no difficulty. It was
common in Judea and in all the ethical religions of the time. All
the other "sacraments" were plainly manufactured by the priests.
Cyprian very effectively began the manufacture of "holy orders."
Extreme Unction and Confirmation crept up to the rank so slowly and
unobtrusively that no one can retrace the evolution. As to
"matrimony," hardly any Catholic doctrine is more audacious. The
Church had no control of marriage until the Middle Ages. It was a
purely human matter. The "seven sacraments" are a discovery of the
Council of Trent in the sixteenth century; and the most resolute
theologian cannot affect to find them before the fifth century.
They are priest-made; and, since they gave enormous power and
wealth to the clergy, they are priestcraft-made.

     The services grew in the same manner. There is no heresy about
the eucharist in early times because there was no eucharist. There
was no "mass." The word is said to come from the closing words in
Latin: "Ite, missa est" ("Clear out: it is all over"). But the
ritual was in Greek, even in Rome, until the end of the third
century. Cyprian had by that time discovered that the offering of
the bread and wine was a "sacrifice," and only a consecrated priest
could offer it. The ritual was, however, probably borrowed for the
most part from the Mithraic mass. Augustine is repeatedly in
difficulties on that point. The Manichees also had a "consecrated
host," and Augustine stoops so low as seriously to repeat the
Christian calumny that, to make their sacrament, the priest had
intercourse with a lady of the congregation and moistened the flour
with the seminal fluid! As I said, the Church covered up its traces
so effectively that we follow its evolution with difficulty.


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     If is clear that every fresh development increased the power
of the clergy, the dependence and subjection of the laity, and it
will be enough to illustrate this from the evolution of the Papacy.

     Of the two titles of the head of the Roman Church, Pope and
Sovereign Pontiff, the first (Papa -- the Roman child's word for
"father") was the common title of all bishops in the first few
centuries and is still a common title in the east: the second is
the title of the head of the Roman (pagan) religion, which the
Bishops of Rome assumed when the Christian emperors discarded it.
That title is a fitting symbol of the paganization of the Church,
the imitation of the pagan priesthoods. But in this particular
development priest was endeavoring to exploit priest, which is a
very different matter from exploiting the laity, and there was a
historic struggle which only ended with the general ruin of Europe.
The Pope became Pope only when there was no other Pope, no strong
bishop, to oppose his claim.

     The evidence of forgery is now so notorious that even the
"Catholic Encyclopedia" has to sacrifice one beloved and profitable
fiction after another. The evidence is hardly less notorious to
historical scholars in regard to the Papacy, but no Catholic
publication would dare to weaken the foundations of that formidable
institution, and so the "Encyclopedia" and all other Catholic works
put before their readers a grossly untruthful account of its
fortunes in the early Church. I have analyzed the evidence in my
"Crises in the History of the Papacy" and, for the chief points, in
my "Popes and Their Church." A slight sketch will suffice here.

     It was not unnatural that in the early Church the episcopal
sees which were supposed to have been directly founded by the
apostles should be regarded as a special distinction. This
sentiment was carefully fostered by the occupants of the sees. It
entitled them to the first place and the most oracular utterance in
assemblies. In their churches, they said, the tradition of the
apostles existed in its purest form. Rome, where the Church was
said to have been founded by Peter and Paul, the two greatest
apostles, was one of these outstanding sees.

     But unfortunately for the ambition of the Roman bishops, there
were other "apostolic sees" in the east, and the occupants watched
their Roman brother as rivals watch an ambitious candidate for the
presidency of the United States. They smiled at his pretensions.
The list of Popes for several centuries does not contain a single
man of any distinction. Half the martyrs of the list are bogus, and
most of the saints got their haloes very cheap. To the Greeks it
was, in spite of the importance of Rome, a sort of colonial
bishopric. There were two million Christians in the east, and not
two hundred thousand in the west. How the eastern churches ever
suffered the adoption of a Gospel in which Rome had interpolated
the priceless pun about Peter, I have never been able to
understand.

     However, when, in 190, the Roman bishop made a first trial of
his wings, be fell to earth very heavily. Pope Victor commanded the
bishops of Asia Minor to celebrate Easter on the same day as the



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               THE STORY OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY

Romans. There you are, says the Catholic writer; Papal supremacy in
the year 190. The Catholic writer never tells the sequel. Catholic
Truth always means the suppression of unpalatable truth. Any person
(who can read Greek, or at least Latin) will find in the
"Ecclesiastical History" of Bishop Eusebius (v, 34) that the
Asiatic bishops told Victor to mind his own business, and, when he
pompously insisted, were very rude to him.

     Some twenty years later the sardonic Tertullian writes that he
hears that some bishop of Rome is calling himself "the Sovereign
Pontiff," and he whips the claim with his scorn. But this
particular Pope, "Saint and Martyr Callistus" -- an ex-slave who
died comfortably in his bed after a very comfortable and by no
means ascetic life -- seems to have confined his ambition to a
region where there was no other cock to fight.

     In 252 "St." Cyprian came up against the Papal ambition; and
Catholic writers proudly tell how this great saint and martyr
acknowledged the Roman claim. He did precisely the opposite. With
all the African bishops at his back he gave the ambitious Pope
Cornelius just the same thrashing as the Asiatic bishops had given
Pope Victor. In letter after letter -- see especially lv and lxvii
in the Migne collection -- he told Rome to mind its own business,
to drop its arrogant and foolish claim, and to see that "each
prelate has the right to follow his own judgment." Pope Stephen
tried to follow up the matter, and the African bishops, meeting in
solemn council, drafted a scalding reply, still extant, which
closes all question of Papal authority in the third century.

     As far as the eastern Churches are concerned I need not labor
the point. They have never acknowledged the Pope's claim. Every
assertion of it was met with scorn from the first. The African
Church remained the only one of importance in the west, outside
Italy, and to its last days it resisted Rome. The Catholic writer
always quotes a supposed saying of St. Augustine, in the Pelagian
controversy: "Rome has spoken: the case is finished." He said
nothing of the kind. It is a complete misrepresentation of his
words, in his 131st sermon: "The decisions of two [African]
councils have been sent to the Apostolic See, and a rescript has
reached us. The case is finished." It is the joint condemnation
which he stresses. And what the Catholic writer never adds, and
usually does not know, is that the African bishops detected the
Pope in the use of forgeries, and told him that they trusted to
hear "no more of his pompousness." When they did hear more of it.
they sent him a scornful letter about his attempt to "introduce the
empty pride of the world into the Church of Christ."

     A few years later, Italy, Spain and Africa were trodden under
the feet of the northern barbarians. The Pope was "head of the
universal Church": that is to say, of the universal ruin west of
the Adriatic Sea. The part of the world which remained more or less
civilized, east of the Adriatic, laughed at the claims of the
Popes. In the west there remained only one strong bishop, Hilary,
and when Pope Leo tried to exert an authority over him, he used,
the Pope himself says (Ep. x, 3) "language which no layman even
should dare to use."



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               THE STORY OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY

     Then the black night of the Middle Ages descended, and Popes
could perform such antics as no leaders of religion have ever
performed in the world before or since. The crop of forgeries grew
thicker every decade. Lives of saints and martyrs appeared, as I
have earlier described, by the thousand. The whole story of the
first four centuries was falsified, and history received an
adulteration from which it has not yet completely recovered.

     Popes went on to aim at kingship as well as spiritual
supremacy. Pope Gregory -- "St. Gregory the Great" -- ruling fifty
thousand grossly ignorant people in the sixth century where the
emperors had, ruled a million, persuaded the "new rich" of Italy
that the end of the world was now really at hand, and they would do
well to enter heaven naked. He thus secured enormous tracts of
Italy for the Papacy. But this was not enough for the Popes of the
eighth century. They forged the most amazing documents that forgers
ever produced, duped even Charlemagne with them, and founded the
Papal States.




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               THE STORY OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
                               by
                          Jpseph McCabe

                              1929





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