{a) The famous letter of Pliny to Trajan (A.D. 113?) speaks of having elicited from Christians, who had been examined, that it was their custom on a fixed day to assemble before daylight and sing alternately ' a hymn to Christ as God.'
(6) A remarkable hymn attributed to Clement of Alexandria, intended apparently to be sung by Christian children, in which Christ is addressed throughout and praised as Ruler, Shepherd, and King, is found in his Pcedagogus (iii. 12). Of a slightly later date are such hymns as the Gloria in excelsis and the Hail gladdening Light. Indeed, it seemed to the Church, when confronted by the Arian problem, one of the most convincing proofs of the error of the teaching of Arius, that Christ had always received Divine honours in the Church. (c) The personal nearness of Christ to tbe be- liever during Christian worship was especially associated with tlie Eucharist. To Ignatius, ' the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus Christ,' though the false teachers deny it {Smyr. 6). ' There is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup unto union with His blood ' {Phil. 4). To Justin Martyr, the Eucharist, the conditions of receiving which are belief, baptism, and a life according to the com- mandments of Christ, is not common bread and common drink, but the flesh and blood of the in- carnate Jesus, by which our blood and flesh are nourished (1 Apol. 66). To Irenseus and the Christian Fathers generally, participation in the Eucharist is the actual means whereby Christians share in the life and resurrection of Christ.
{d) The testimonies of the Christian martyrs are most suggestive. Ignatius, brought before the emperor Trajan, calls himself Theophorus, 'Bearer of God,' saying that he bears the Crucified within his breast. Polycarp of Smyrna, when called upon by the pro-consul to revile Christ, confessed in memorable words, ' Fourscore and six years have I served Him, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour ! And the apparently contemporary record of the martyrdom of Polycarp closes with the significant
words : ' The blessed Polycarp was apprehended by Herodes, when Philip of Tralles was high priest, in the proconsuls!) ip of Statins Quadratus, but in the reign of the Eternal King, Jesus Christ.' The martyrs of Lyons and Vienne (177) are spoken of in the contemporary letter which describes their sufferings (Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 1) as 'hastening to Christ ' ; ' through them Christ showed that things Avhich appear mean and obscure and contemptible to men are with God of great glory.' One of them, St. Blandina, ' was clothed with Christ, the mighty and conquering Athlete.' Their patience^ mani- fested 'the measureless mercy of Christ.' And with one and all who suflered, the simple con- fession of the name of Christ seems to have been the strength which sustained them. St. Perpetua, the African martyr (early in the 3rd cent.), was comforted before her suflerings by a vision of Christ as an aged man, a shepherd, sitting in the midst of a spacious garden, who said to her, ' Thou hast done well, my child, in coming.' St. Maxi- mus, who suffered under Decius, declared, ' These are not torments, but anointings which are laid upon us for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ' (Ruinart, Acta Martyriim, p. 204). Phileas of Thmuis, put to death in Diocletian's persecution, said in his last words : ' Now we begin to be dis- ciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, attend to the commandments of the Lord.— Let us call upon Him, the spotless, the infinite One, who sitteth upon the Cherubim, the Maker of all things, who is the Beginning and the End, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen' {ib. p. 521).
4. Interesting light on early Christian feeling is thrown by the funeral inscriptions and symbols of the Catacombs. As a rule, the inscriptions are of extreme brevity. Their leading thought is that dead Christians are with Christ in a continued existence of peace and joy. The aspirations and prayers of their friends on earth go with them, and the departed in turn remember the hying in prayer to Christ, e.g. 'Vivas'; 'Vivas in Deo Christo'; 'In pace''; 'Deus refrigeret spiritum tuum'; 'Quam stabile tibi h«c vita est' (i.e. the life beyond the grave) ; ' Spiritus tuus in pace et in Christo ' ; fivyj^Keade 5^ /cat ri/xuiv iv rals ayiais vfidbv irpevxo-s {Trpoaevxai-s). r rM • ^
5. Most of the early Christian pictures of Christ are merely symbolical, the Lamb and the Fish being the most common. But the earliest personal representation is suggestive ; it is the figure of the Good Shepherd, sometimes bearing the lost sheep on His shoulders, sometimes surrounded by His flock. This tender personal relationship between the soul and the Saviour, or between the Church and her Lord, which stands in such striking con- trast to the trials and suflerings that surrounded the daily life of the Christian in a hostile world, was evidently the aspect which appealed most deeply to the heart of the early believer.
6. the relation of Christ both to His Church and to the world was also set forth impressively in the so-called 'majesties,' with which from the 4th cent, onwards the Christian art began to adorn the churches. In these pictures Christ is represented as reigning now in glory, bearing the symbols ot His royal, prophetic, and priestly offices. It was not merely to an historic Christ that Christians looked back, or a future coming to judgment that they anticipated, though both these conceptions were vividly present in the mmd of the early Church. It was a Christ actually in possession of His Kingdom, even now ruling over the nations, and surrounded by His worshipping saints (who even in this present time shared His throne), that dominated the thought of the early centuries. So in the great mosaics in the Church of St. Cosmas and St. Damian at Rome (6th cent.), the colossal