Cultus. arose at first, without any preconceived plan, from the peculiar nature of the higher life that belonged to all true Christians. There was, however, this difference, that the first Christian community formed as it were one family; the power of the newly awakened feeling of Christian fellowship, the feeling of the common grace of redemption, outweighed all other personal and public feelings, and all other relations were subordinated to this one great relation. But, in later times, the distinction between the church and the family became more marked, and many things which were at first accomplished in the church as a family community, could latterly be duly attended to only in the narrower communion of Christian family life.

The first Christians assembled daily either in the Temple, or in private houses; in the latter case they met in small companies, since their numbers were already too great for one chamber to hold them all. Discourses on the doctrine of salvation were addressed to believers and to those who were just won over to the faith, and prayers were offered up. As the predominant consciousness of the enjoyment of redemption brought under its influence and sanctified the whole of earthly life, nothing earthly could remain untransformed by this relation to a higher state. The daily meal of which believers partook as members of one family was sanctified by it.' They commemorated the last supper of the disciples with Christ, and their brotherly union with one another. At the close of the meal, the president distributed bread and wine to the persons present, as a memorial of Christ's similar distribution to the disciples. Thus every meal was consecrated to the Lord, and, at the same time, was a meal of brotherly love. Hence the designations afterwards chosen were, dɛīπvov Κυρίου and αγάπη.

1 The hypothesis lately revived, that such institutions were borrowed from the Essenes, is so entirely gratuitous as to require no refutation. 2 ln Acts ii. 42, we find the first general account of what passed in the assemblies of the first Christians. Mosheim thinks, since every thing else is mentioned that is found in later meetings of the church, that the Kowvwvia refers to the collections made on these occasions. But the context does not favour the use of the word kovovía in so restricted a signification, which, therefore, if it were the meaning intended, would require a more definite term. See Meyer's Commentary. We may most naturally consider it as referring to the whole of the social Christian intercourse, two principal parts of which were, the common meal

From ancient times an opinion has prevailed, which is apparently favoured by many passages in the Acts, that the spirit of brotherly love impelled the first Christians to renounce all their earthly possessions, and to establish a perfect intercommunity of goods. When, in later times, it was perceived how very much the Christian life had receded from the model of this fellowship of brotherly love, an earnest longing to regain it was awakened, to which we must attribute some attempts to effect what had been realized by the first glow of love in the apostolic times—such were the orders of Monkhood, the Mendicant Friars, the Apostolici, and the Waldenses in the 12th and 13th centuries. At all events, supposing this opinion to be well founded, this practice of the apostolic church ought not to be considered as in a literal sense the ideal for imitation in all succeeding ages; it must have been a deviation from the natural course of social development, such as could agree only with the extraordinary manifestation of the divine life in the human race at that particular period. Only the spirit and disposition here manifested in thus amalgamating the earthly possessions of numbers into one common fund, are the models for the church in its development through all ages. For as Christianity never subverts the existing natural course of development in the human race, but sanctifies it by a new spirit, it necessarily recognises the division of wealth (based on that development), and the inequalities arising from it in the and prayer. Luke mentions prayer last of all, probably because the connexion between the common meal and prayer, which made an essential part of the love-feast, was floating in his mind. Olshausen maintains (see his Commentary, 2d ed. p. 629), that this interpretation is inadmissible, because in this enumeration, every thing relates to divine worship, as may be inferred from the preceding expression didaxh. But this supposition is wanting in proof. According to what we have before remarked, the communion of the church, and of the family, were not at that time separated from one another; no strict line of demarcation was drawn between what belonged to the Christian Cultus in a narrower sense, and what related to the Christian life and communion generally. Nor can the reason alleged by Olshausen be valid, that if my interpretation were correct, the word kowwvía must have been placed first, for it is altogether in order that that should be placed first, which alone refers to the directive functions of the apostles, that then the mention should follow of the reciprocal Christian communion of all the members with one another, and that of this communion two particulars should be especially noticed.

social relations; while it draws from these inequalities materials for the formation and exercise of Christian virtue, and strives to lessen them by the only true and never-failing means,' the power, namely, of love. This, we find, agrees with the practice of the churches subsequently founded by the apostles, and with the directions given by Paul for the exercise of Christian liberality, 2 Cor. viii. 13. Still, if we are disposed to consider this community of goods as only the effect of a peculiar and temporary manifestation of Christian zeal, and foreign to the later development of the church, we shall find many difficulties even in this mode of viewing it. The first Christians formed themselves into no monkish fraternities, nor lived as hermits secluded from the rest of the world, but, as history shows us, continued in the same civil relations as before their conversion; nor have we any proofs that a community of goods was universal for a time, and was then followed by a return to the usual arrangements of society. On the contrary, several circumstances mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, are at variance with the notion of such a relinquishment of private property. Peter said expressly to Ananias that it depended on himself to sell or to keep his land, and that even after the sale, the sum received for it was entirely at his own disposal, Acts v. 4. In the 6th chapter of the Acts, there is an account of a distribution of alms to the widows, but not a word is said of a common stock

1 As the influence which Christianity exercises over mankind is not always accompanied with a clear discernment of its principles, there have been many erroneous tendencies, which, though hostile to Chris tianity, have derived their nourishment from it,-half-truths torn from their connexion with the whole body of revealed truth, and hence misunderstood and misapplied; of this, the St. Simonians furnish an example. They had before them an indistinct conception of the Christian idea of equality; but as it was not understood in the Christian sense, they have attempted to realize it in a different manner. They have striven to accomplish by outward arrangements, what Christianity aims at developing gradually through the mind and disposition, and have thus fallen into absurdities. Christianity tends by the spirit of love to reduce the opposition between the individual and the community, and to produce an harmonious amalgamation of both. St. Simonianism, on the contrary, practically represents the pantheistic tendency, of which the theory is so prevalent in Germany in the present day; it sacrifices the individual to the community, and thus deprives the latter of its true vital importance.

1

for the support of the whole body of believers. We find in Acts xii. 12, that Mary possessed a house at Jerusalem, which we cannot suppose to have been purchased at the general cost. These facts plainiy show, that we are not to imagine, even in this first Christian society, a renunciation of all private property. Therefore, when we are told, "The whole multitude of believers were of one heart and of one soul, and had all things common," &c., it is not to be understood literally, but as a description of that brotherly love which repressed all selfish feelings, and caused the wealthier believers to regard their property as belonging to their needy brethren, so ready were they to share it with them. And when it is added, they sold their possessions, and distribution was made to every man according as he had need," it is to be understood according to what has just been said. A common chest was established, from which the necessities of the poorer members of the church were supplied, and perhaps certain expenses incurred by the whole church, such as the celebration of the Agapæ, were defrayed; and in order to increase their contributions, many persons parted with their estates. Probably, a union of this kind existed among the persons who attended the Saviour, and ministered to his necessities, Luke viii. 3; and a fund for

"that

1 Or we must assume, that as the power of the newly awakened feeling of Christian fellowship overcame every other consideration, and wholly repressed the other social relations that are based on the constitution of human nature, which after a while resumed their rights, and became appropriated as special forms of Christian fellowship, and that as the church and family life were melted into one, it would well agree with the development of a state so natural to the infancy of the church, that by the overpowering feeling of Christian fellowship, all distinction of property should cease, which would be accomplished from an inward impulse without formal consultation or legal prescription. But after experience had shown how untenable such an arrangement was, this original community of goods would gradually lead to the formation of a common fund or chest, which would not interfere with the limits of private pro perty. But in the Acts these two gradations in the social arrangements of the church might not be distinctly marked, nor would it be in our power to trace step by step the process of development. Still, we want sufficient grounds for this assumption. The poverty of the church at Jerusalem has indeed been adduced as an ill consequence of that original community of goods. But this cannot be taken as a sure proof of the fact; for since Christianity at first found acceptance among the poorer classes, and the distress of the people at Jerusalem in those times must have been extreme, it can be explained without having recourse to such a supposition.

similar purposes was afterwards formed by public collections in the apostolic churches.'

This practice of the first Christians, as we have remarked, has been rendered memorable by the fate of Ananias and Sapphira. Their example shows, how far the apostles were from wishing to extort by outward requirements what ought to proceed spontaneously from the power of the Spirit; they looked only for the free actings of a pure disposition. A man named Ananias, and his wife Sapphira, were anxious not to be considered by the apostles and the church as inferior to others in the liberality of their contributions. Probably, a superstitious belief in the merit of good works was mingled with other motives, so that they wished to be at the same time meritorious in God's sight. They could not, however, prevail on themselves to surrender the whole of their property, but brought a part, and pretended that it was the whole. Peter detected the dissimulation and hypocrisy of Ananias, whether by a glance into the secret recesses of his heart, imparted by the immediate influence of God's Spirit, or by a natural sagacity derived from the same source, we cannot decide with certainty from the narrative. Nor is it a question of importance, for who can so exactly draw the line between the divine and the human, in organs animated by the Holy Spirit? The criminality of Ananias did not consist in his not deciding to part with the whole amount of his property; for the words of Peter addressed to him show that no exact measure of giving was prescribed; each one was left to contribute according to his peculiar circumstances, and the degree of love that animated him. But the hypocrisy with which he attempted to make a show of greater love than he actually felt-the falsehood by which, when it took possession of his soul, the Christian life must have been utterly polluted and adulterated-this it was which Peter denounced, as a work of the spirit of Satan, for falsehood is the fountain .of all evil. Peter charged him with lying to the Holy Spirit; with lying not to men but to God; since he must have beheld in the apostles the organs of the Holy Spirit speaking and acting in God's name (that God who was himself present in the assembly of believers, as a witness of his

1 This is confessedly no new view, but one adopted by Heumann, Mosheim, and others before them.