APOSTOLIC AND EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

[s. 63] : For the first three centuries of its life, the Christian Church was distinctively a mi ionary church. Its chief purpose was the spread of Christianity. It fought heresy bitterly, but for the great ma of the people, creeds were a secondary consideration. Preaching the Gospel took always the first place. From the paucity of record, apart from the Book of Acts, and some references in the epistles, some have supposed that aside from Paul, Peter and John, and their immediate a ociates, there was little interest either in the Apostolic company or the great ma of believers, in the carrying of the Gospel me age to remote sections. That this is incorrect, is manifest from the advance actually made (see Geography of Mi ions). It is impo ible that a new faith should so rapidly Iiave extended over so wide a territory and against such fearful odds, in comparatively so At the middle short a time without great effort. of the 2d century Justin Martyr wrote: “There is no people, Greek or barbarian or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however igno»ant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons, among prayers and thanksgiving are not offered, in the whom name of the crucified Jesus, to the Father and Creator of all things.” Fifty years later Tertullian in his addre to the heathen said: “We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, its lands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left you only your temples.” Already Abgar, claimed by the Armenians as their first leader in the faith, had been baptized, and even if St. Thomas himself never visited India, a Christian teacher from Alexandria visited Malabar in 190 and not long after it was reported that there were 350 strong churches in that land. Early in the 3d century twenty bishops from the Nile valley attended a council in Alexandria, while Tertullian’s church at Carthage was but the It is to be leader among several in North Africa. remembered also that when Const an tine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, he accepted a situation already of remarkable character. It was no parallel to the conversion of some of the northern nations, where the ruler’s will was all that was needed to insure a change of worship, regardle of a change of thought or of heart. No emperor, however mighty, could have made Rome Christian, had Christianity not already been woven into the very fiber of its national life. In considering how this was brought about the agencies, methods and underlying purpose must be kept in mind. A post olio Agencies: The great agency of the Apostolic Church in the mi ionary enterprise was the rank and file of its membership. During the first three centuries there were very few who like Paul and Barnabas, Silas, Timotheus and a few others, gave themselves to the work of preaching in new countries. Even the great leaders who followed the apostles, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement and others, were not mi ionaries in the sense in which the term is used now. They were all located in the centers, and did valiant work in them, but they were seldom explorers, leaders in the outreaching of the Church. That was chiefly, almost entirely, the work of obscure men, for the most part laymen, and also for the most part not distmctively set apart for the work. The one supreme characteristic of the Apostolic Church in this respect is the mi ionary zeal and activity of the individual members. Women as well as men merchants, miners, sailors, soldiers, craftsmen, voluntarily — made it one of their chief objects, whether at home or abroad, in private or public life, to extend to others the Gospel me age. Then, as in no period since, was it true that every individual Christian was a mi ionary, and it was to this individualistic evangelism that was due the marvelous extension of those three centuries. Methods: In all this, then, there was little organization. Bishops gradually acquired control in their own cities and districts, but all were equal, and there seems to have been no concerted action. Each man, whether in the centers or on the outskirts of the Empire, was free to conduct his dioceses much as he pleased and this freedom extended to the specific action of his individual followers, who were free to teach as they judged best, so long as they kept clear of heresy and made manifest in their lives the principles they profe ed. It was in the combination and accord of precept and practise that lay the great power of that early Church. Yet there was after all a certain method apparThe special efforts ent in this individualism. were made in the great centers, the cities of the Roman Empire, and along the lines of commercial activity. As fast as the community in one place became large enough a leader was found, placed there and expected to see that his diocese grew in numbers and influence. Thus Gregory Thaumaturgus was made bishop of his native city, Neo-Cesarea, in Pontus, when there were about twenty-seven Christians there. At the close of his ministry there were said to be but twenty seven pagans left. With the growth of the Church there developed This is the period of the also the aids to work. — Curet on i an versions the Peshito and Syriac for Syria and Me so pot am i a; the Memphitie, Thebaic and Bashmuric for Egypt and the Upper Nile Valley; the North African and Italian Latin for Carthage and Rome. Alexandria, always a literary center, became, too, the seat of a catechumen’s school, practically a mi ionary college from which trained workers were sent out early to Africa, Europe and Asia. Motive: In the earlier years of this period, the controlling motive in this mi ionary work appears to have been personal loyalty to the Savior and a desire that, as He had been rejected and crucified, so now He might be accepted and enthroned. There was indeed recognition of the need of men, but the impelling impulse was le that than their love for Christ and a desire that Apostolic Arabia He receive full honor. As the work continued the human element became more prominent. The risen Savior out of sight was to a degree replaced by the needy ones in sight. There was a better conception of the object of Christ’s mi ion, in its relation both to the individual soul and to the multitudes who were without God and without hope. Human sympathy a umed a larger, place, and the salvation of men became more distinctively the object and motive of mi ionary labor. With the opening of the 4th century there came a change in almost every respect. The active mi ionary propaganda of the Apostolic Church gave place to an effort to a imilate the great ma of heathenism, which, when Const an dominant faith, tine made Christianity the accepted its forms without entering into its At the same time the loose individualism spirit. of the preceding period was followed by a closer, more compact organization, due partly to the change in political conditions, partly to the nece ity of better supervision to counteract the influences of heathenism, the growth of divergent and heretical creeds, and partly to incursions from The Church had the wild natives of the north. by a sudden bound become a nation, and the simpler forms po ible in a community became inadequate to the new duties and responsibilities. The result, so far as mi ionary work was concerned, was that the Church as a whole ceased to have any special interest in it, the immediate need filling the vision completely. It was the period of the great councils, and, to the leaders and the people generally, the conservation of the faith seemed more e ential than its extension. There were, however, individuals who still felt the burden of the nations, and the incoming of the hordes of East Goths, Vandals and Huns, presented opportunities as well as needs that taxed to the full the fervor of ecclesiastics at home, and such apostles as Ulfilas, Honor at i us and Patrick in Europe, Gregory the Illuminator in Armenia, Frumentius in Africa and the Nestor i an mi ionaries who penetrated to Central and Eastern Asia, but left so little record that their achievements are clouded in obscurity. In agencies, methods and motive the movement changed entirely. The great ma of the Church gradually came to know nothing and care nothing about mi ions; the ecclesiastical leaders for the most part were content with their immediate duties, and individuals commi ioned by the Church but scarcely supported by it were the sole With this period began, too, a move agents. ment toward national rather than individual conversion. Whole communities and even races were brought into the church en ma e. So too, in this period, the motive that became so prominent in the next, of loyalty to and ambition for the Church, began to gain its hold. It was no longer Christ, the Savior of the needy soul, that filled the vision, so much as the “body of Christ,” the Church to be, enlarged, solidified, glorified. In a very real sense, then, the proclamation by Const an tine making Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire was the greatest calamity that ever befell the Christian Church. It practically suffocated the already waning energies, and laid the foundation for that period of inactivity during which the Eastern Church crystallized and the Western developed the ecclesiastical machinery of Papacy. That mi ionary was due to activity did not disappear entirely 46 individuals rather than the Church, as will be evident in the record of the succeeding centuriea until the Reformation, described in the article on Medieval Mi ions. 64