hurches. Christ prayed for the unity of His
• Wliile this article is in the press, another very important oontribution to the literature of the subject has appeared in Hort' s Christian Ecelesia, 1887.
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future believers ( Jn 17^- ^), that they might be one, cf. Jn 1(J" '(Dther sheep have I wfiich are not of this fold : them also 1 must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and they shall become one Hock, one shei>herd.' And imder the training of His apostles the local communities, wherever situated, regarded themselves as members of one body. Each was a Church of God (1 Co 1-, 1 Th 2", 2 Th l-") in Jesus Christ (Ro 16", Gall*'). All bolieversare 'brethren' and fellow -saints without respect of nation or rank. On this feature of the Christian teaching St. Paul dwells most strongly, both as regards the individual Christians (e.g. 1 Co 12) and the indi- vidual communities (e.g. Eph 2="- •!'• '- '"). What, then, were the grounds on which this consciousness of unity were based ?
1. Strongest of all was the identity of relation between all believers and the Persons of the Holy Trinity (Eph 4*). By baptism all entered into a corporate society (Ac 2^', Gal 3-''), and that society is the 'body of Christ' (1 Co 12"). Faith has cleansed all from their former sins, has recon- ciled all to God, united all to Christ, and procured for each the presence of the Holy Ghost and His gifts within him. Every Christian has been called with the same calling to the same faith, enters by the same baptism into unity with the siime Christ, receives the gifts of the same Spirit, owns the same Lord, worships the same God the Father, and is filled with the same hopes (Eph 4'"'). This is far more than a mere unity of belief : it is the conscious- ness of a common spiritual power (Eph 1'°) working mightily and manifestly in each one. Hand in hand with it follows its |)ractical result in
2. PartirijKitivn of a common Life. — The adoption of Christianity, which snapped so many of the old social ties both for Jew and for heathen, at the same time opened to the convert conditions and precepts of life for the most part new to ancient ideals. The hatred of the Jews and the conteiujit of the Gentiles, which drove the Christians into one another's arms, at the same time accentuated the division which separated them from the rest of the world. Common unpopularity made them feel their own unity. This alVected primarily the single community, but in a lesser degree the whole Church. Within the community the persecuted Christians found an ideal of conduct which drew them together with the ties of brotherhood (6.oe\<l>ol). The first Christian community started with the principles of a family life, and when the practical conditions of these early days died out, the idea of the ' household of faith ' still remained active. It expressed itself in the common worship and in the common daily life which we have described aliove. The sketch of that life, as we have given it, is in many respects an ideal. It is drawn not only from the statements, but al.so from the injunctions of NT, and thurefoio we must not suppose that it was always faithfully carried out. In fact, comiilaints of failings, and even cases of serious wickedness (esp. 1 Co S'"-), prove that it was not so. But it was an authoritative ideal, and an ideal the acceptance of which ini|>lied a great separation from the heathen world, and was there- fore one of the most potent factors in contirming the consciousness of Christian unity.
We have described the basis of Christian unity tttider the two headings of a common belief and a common life. It remains to see how this was strengthened by more personal means. These were (a) a ciimvum ijuvemmcnt. To its founder a Church naturally looked for guidance in the creation of its first institutions. But beyond its respect to the founder was the universal respect due to the
f)ro]ihet, and above all to the ajio.stle. And the atter stood at the head of the Clnirch government because he had derived his teaching from the Lord
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directly. We have, then, in the apostolic fjovern- ment of the Church the rule of a uniteil band which traced ita authority back to (jhrist. In spite of ditferences due to individual character and scope of work, the apostolic teaching agreed in its main outlines, so tliat the Church can be said to have been under the |;overninent of one common principle. (A) The intercourse beliveen Churches. There e.xists no higher proof of the facilities afforded by the Roman government for travel and intercourse, than the evidence to be seen in NT of the close relations which the early Churches kept up with one another. (See esp. on this subject Th. Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Lebcn der altcn Kirche.) This intercourse was kept up mainly by those who were travelling for the Church or on private business. Amongst the first class, of course, the apostles stand out most prominently, b\it only second to the extent of their ioumeyings comes that of their helpers and attendants. The prophets, too, were great travellers {e.g. Ac 11" etc.). As conspicuous examples of the extent of private travels we may point to the wanderings of Aquila and Priscilla, whom we find first in Italy (Ac 18'), then in succession at Corinth (ib.), Ephesus (18'«, 1 Co 16'"), Rome (?) (Ro 16'), Ephesus (2 Ti 4'») ; or those of Onesiphorus (2 Ti !"• l*) ; or the journeys involved in the collection and delivery of the Gentile collection for the poor of Judaja {e.g. Ac IP", 1 Co 16', 2 Co 8"- "), and the carriage of the apostles" letters. And besides the wander- ings of official or well-known Christians, it must be remembered that there was a constant stream of other Christians moving from place to place on private business, who attached themselves to the community, and found in it a welcome and hospi- tality until they passed on farther (cf. Did. 12 ; 1 Ti 5", He 13-). Intercourse by letter was also very frequent. A fruitful cause of this corre- spondence was the practice of furnishing travellers with letters of recommendation {trvarartKal ^i- (TToXai ; cf. Ac 18=', 2 Co 3'). We have instances of other correspondence in the letter of the Jerusalem Church to that of Antioch (Ac 15^), and the letter of the Roman to the Corinthian Church (Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Cor.).