pecially in its Bpecific desigu of enlightening and quick-
ening the consciences of men as a means of affecting their earthly character and their eternal destiny.
II. Historical Development. -Trior to Christ, preach- ing was hut little more known among the Jews than among the Gentiles. It had been to Borne extent an- ticipated by several of the prophet-, the greatest and last of whom was John the Baptist; hut. from the time that ( 'hrist began hi- public ministry, preaching became common and constant Following our Lord's ascension, the apostolic ministry of preaching was elevated and vitalized by the gift'ofthe Holy Ghost The gift of tongues and the manifestation ol the tongues of tire were alike designed to aid and encourage them in their work of evangelization. Hence, whether in tin- Temple, in BynagOgue8, or in prison-, they preached Christ and him crucified a- the power of ( iod and the \\ isdom of God; and. when scattered abroad by persecution, " they weiu everywhere preaching the Word" (Acts viii. 1 1. It was thus that the Co-pel became rapidly diffused throughout the Roman empire, which, in an important 3- nse, represented -all the world" of that period.
h seems -ale to believe that, had the apostolic zeal and fidelity in preaching been maintained without in- terruption, the triumphs of the Gospel would have been continuous, and perhaps ere this coextensive with the habitable world. But, unfortunately, the 2d and 3d centuries witnessed the introduction into the Church of
' two classes of influences which hail a tendency to reduce the number of preachers and limit the work and influ- ence of preaching. The first was that of asceticism up v.). which, by a powerful hut mistaken impu into deserts and caves, and afterwards into monasteries, thousands of earnest men. whose lives were thus with- drawn from evangelical activity and wasted in penances ami self-torture. The second was that of ceremonialism
J [see Ceremony ]. by which the preaching office was taken away from the majority of the clergy, and for the greater part limited to bishops. Bingham states the limitation in these words:
"Preaching anciently was one of the chief offices of a bishop; insomuch that in the African churches a pres- byter was never known to preach before a bishop in his cathedral church till Austin's time, and St. Austin was the first presbyter in that part of the world that ever was allowed to preach in the presence of his bishop. ... It is true, in the Eastern chnrches presbyters were sometimes allowed to preach in the great church before the bishop ; hut that was not to discharge him id' the duty, for still he preached a sermon at the same time after them. ... In the lev. er elm,, lies of the city and country about, this of- fice was devolved upon presbyters as the bishop's proper assistants; and the deacons, except in the forcinenlioiied cases of reading the homilies of the lathes, and when the presbyter was sick or infirm), were not authorized to perform ii" (AiUiq. Christian Church, l>k. xiv, ch. iv).
Not only was preaching shorn of it- aggressive power by being thus limited and subordinated under the influ- ence of a growing ceremonialism, hut in some places it
wa- for Ion-- periods scandalously neglected. Sozomen, the historian, "relates of the Church of Rome in his time that they had no sermons either by the bishop or any other." Some have thought Sozomen mi-taken: hut ( lassiodorus, who was a senator and consul at Rome, quotes the same out of Sozomen in his Historia Tri- partita, without correction, and further -ays that no one ran produce any sermons preached to the people by any bishop of Rome before those of Lea The revival of preaching by Leo appears to have been hut tempo- rary: for. according to Surius. a Roman writer, it was afterwards discontinued for live hundred year- I till l'iu- Quint us, like another Leo, revived the practice. Not merely at Rome, but through large portions both
of the Latin and Creek church.-, preaching, instead of being a constant custom, was rare and exceptional dur- ing the long period between the 6th and 16th centuries. to he a regular part ofthe services of the Sab- bath, although it was retained a- a pan ofthe ■• re -
nial of ordinations, while on festival days it took the form of panegyrics or eulogies upon the Virgin and the saints.
PREACHING
483
PREACHING
The preaching of the Crusades (q. v.) by Peter the Hermit, St. Bernard, and others, and the organization of the Dominicans (q. v.) as a preaching order of monks, may be considered as exceptional to the usual practice of the mediaeval Church. Some other exceptions, how- ever, of a far better character, and followed by better results, are also to be credited to the Church of the Mid- dle Ages, while on the other hand it was disgraced by Tetzel and others, who used preaching as an agency for the sale of indulgences. But preaching never again be- came general till after the Reformation. It was seized upon by Luther and the other reformers as a means of propagating scriptural truth and exposing the corrupt doctrines and practices which had crept into the Church, and from that time forward preaching became frequent and universal among Protestants. Its influence in the Protestant world has reacted upon Romanism, so that long since, in all Protestant countries, and to some ex- tent elsewhere, preaching has become a regular Sunday service in Roman Catholic churches, performed not only by bishops, but by presbyters and deacons, as well as by monks of several different orders.