against the cruel custom of shows of gladiators; for, when the Athenians, who were in the habit of exhibiting these shows, invited him to their assembly, he answered, that he could not enter a place stained with so much human blood, and that he wondered the goddess did not leave their city. When the president of the Eleusinian mysteries refused to initiate Apollonius of Tyana, it is difficult to determine whether the Hierophant was really in carnest, and thought Apollonius an enchanter who used forbidden arts, or whether he was not rather jealous of the great influence opposed to priestcraft, which Apollonius exercised on the people, and to such a degree, that many considered intercourse with him of far more consequence than initiation into the mysteries. The concluding formula of all the prayers of Apollonius, which he recommended also to others who would pray, although opposed to the notions of those who think the heart of the supplicant of no consequence in prayer, yet shews wherein was his greatest deficiency, a deficiency which might well prove to him the source of most of his self-delusions, I mean the prayer: "Give me, ye gods, that which I deserve"-doints μoi тà öçeñóμera: the direct contrary to the prayer, " Forgive us our debts!"''

Now we must confess that all this appears to us inexpressibly weak. On no subject whatever, connected with history, either sacred or profane, does there rest more complete uncertainty, than on the very existence of this Apollonius; and whoever may have read Leslie's preface to his "Short and easy Method with the Deists," will have small difficulty in coming to the same conclusion with that profound inquirer. Some very learned men,' he says, have, not without reason, doubted whether ever there was such a man.' Yet, concerning this individual, whose very personality is apocryphal, and the story of whose life is an unbroken series of absurdities and impostures, does Neander sustain the hypothesis, that he was a divinely inspired teacher of men. Happily, there is not enough of this waywardness in the volume before us, to impair its general excellence.

6

.*

The first section of the "History" relates to the propagation of Christianity and the persecution of its disciples. This part of the work is ably executed, and supplies much elucidation of the various motives and pretexts which led to the fierce antipathy cherished by the Romans against the religio nova, illicita. In fact, had it been sought to invent a series of propositions which should most effectually do violence to the prejudices of men of all classes, nothing could have been devised which should have answered the purpose more directly, than the great truths of Christianity. Their profession was nothing less than the crimen majestatis, and they who avowed it were denounced as irreligiosi in Cæsares, hostes Cæsarum, hostes populi Romani. High

* See also Lardner's Works, Vol. VII.

pp. 484-489;

508 et seq..

and low, the court, the priest, the army, and the rabble, all felt it a common cause. The Atheists' became the vulgar designation of the worshippers of the true God. The most odions crimes were imputed to them, and universally credited; slaves were admitted as their delators, and every public calamity was attributed to their impiety: non pluit Deus, duc ad Chris'tianos." All these circumstances are illustrated with great clearness, and the conduct of the successive emperors towards the rising sect, is analysed with much skill. But we have been most especially interested by the second section; and it is precisely here that we begin to enjoy the advantage, such as it is, of the Translator's annotations, in their most liberal distribution. Some of them furnish rather whimsical exhibitions of a polemic in distress, and provoke one strangely to offer a little friendly assistance in the way of comment; but we resist the temptation, and pass on to graver matter. Neander commences his view of the Apostolic institute, by affirming that

The formation of the Christian Church, being derived from the peculiarities of Christianity, must essentially differ from that of all other religious unions. A class of priests who were to guide all other men, under an assumption of their incompetence in religious matters, whose business it was exclusively to provide for the satisfaction of the religious wants of the rest of mankind, and to form a link between them and God and godly things; such a class of priests could find no place in Christianity.'

6

The interests of the whole Church of God, as also the wellbeing of distinct communities, were committed by Christ and his apostles, not to a separate and privileged order, but to Christians as such; and to maintain and promote them, was 'the nearest duty of every individual Christian'. All were to act in their respective capacities, and according to their various gifts of instruction, or prophecy, or administration, but with equal honour, supplying one another's deficiencies'. None, save women, were prohibited from speaking in the church. Primum', says Hilary, omnes docebant et omnes baptizabant, ut cresceret plebs et multiplicaretur, omnibus inter initia concessum est, et eran*gelizare et baptizare et Scripturas explorare.' But, although all Christians are invested with the same priestly calling and the same priestly right', provision was made for regular government and administration. That government was not monarchical, vesting all power in one centre, and thus attenuating the great bond of union, the feeling of mutual dependence; but the administration of the churches was committed to a council of elders.

These presbyters or bishops' (Neander has previously shewn that the names are convertible) had the superintendence over the whole church, the conduct of all its common affairs. But the office of teacher

was not exclusively assigned to them; for, as we have above observed, all Christians had the right to pour out their hearts before their brethren in the assemblies of the church, and to speak for their edification. At the same time, it does not follow that all the members of the church were destined to the ordinary office of teaching. There is a great distinction between a regular capability of teaching, always under the control of him who possessed it, and an outpouring (like prophecy or the gift of tongues) proceeding from a sudden inspiration, and accompanied with a peculiar and elevated, but transient state of mind; and the latter might very probably descend from above on all vital Christians in those first times of extraordinary excitement, when the divine life first entered into the limits of this earthly world.'

These illustrations are followed out at some length and with excellent discrimination; but we must quit them for a different branch of the inquiry,—the deterioration of church-discipline in the times immediately succeeding the apostolic age. The change mainly affected three points.

The difference between bishops and presbyters, and the development of the monarchico-episcopal government.

The difference between spiritual persons and the laity, and the formation of a caste of priests, in contradiction to the evangelic notion of the Christian priesthood. And,

The multiplication of Church officers.

With regard to the first, we are without precise and perfect information as to the manner in which this change took place in individual cases; but nevertheless it is a thing which analogy will make quite clear on a general view. It was natural that, as the presbyters formed a deliberative assembly, it should soon happen, that one among them obtained the pre-eminence. This might be so managed that a certain succession took place, according to which the presidency should change, and pass from one to the other. It is possible, that in many places such an arrangement took place; and yet we find no historical trace of any thing of the kind; but then, as we have above remarked, there is, on the other hand, no trace to be found, by which we should conclude that the office of the president of the college of presbyters was distinguished by any peculiar name. However it may appear with regard to this point, what we find in the second century leads us to conclude, that immediately after the apostolic age, the standing office of president of the presbyters must have been formed; to whom, inasmuch as he had especially the oversight of every thing, was the name of 'Eixos given, and he was thereby distinguished from the rest of the presbyters. This name was then, at last, exclusively applied to this president, while the name of presbyter remained common to all: for the bishops, as the presiding presbyters, had as yet no other official character than that of presbyters; they were only primi inter pares. This relation of the bishops to the presbyters, we see continuing even to the end of the second century. Irenæus, therefore, uses the name of bishop' and 'presbyter' sometimes as wholly synonymous, and at other times he distinguishes the bishop as the president of the pres

byters. Even Terminals the leaders of the Christian churches by the me general name of sexures, we be omprehends in that meme bici bisaręs and presbyters, although that father was very partealer does the cference between besorge and prescyters. Indeed, is many respects. Tertain stands at the line of demarcation between the ud and the new time of the Christian Church.”

One effect of the persecutions was, to give further ascendancy to these presiding presbyters, who were generally chosen, it is procatie, for their energy and decision of character, and thence not averse from the assumption of a power which might enable them to act with more efficiency in critical circumstances. Cy prian may be taken as the representative of this class. He is represented by Neander as having acted, without any premeditated plan. in the spirit of a whole party, and of a whole ecclesiastical disposition that existed in his time.

He acted as the representant of the episcopal system, the struggle of wixh against the presbyterian system had gained strength during the wise progress of the Church. The ovatcntion of the presbyte rian parties assing one another, might have become utterly prejudicial to discipline and order in the Church; the victory of the episogal system especially pronated unity, order, and quiet in the Churches; but then, on the other hand, it was prejudicial to the free development of habits of life befitting the Church; and the formation of a priesthood, which is quite foreign to the Gospel economy, was not a linde farthered by it. Thus, this change of the original form of the Christian Church stands in close connection with another change, which takes still deeper root; the formation of a caste of priests in the Christian Church. The more a Christian Church answered its proper destination, and orresponded to its true model, the more must it be shewn in the mutual relations of all its members, that all, taught, led, and fled, by the One, ali, drawing from the same fountain, and mutually imparting, as equal members of the one body, stand in reciprocal relation to each other; and the less, therefore, can any difference exist among them, between some to give and others to receive, teachers and learners, guides and those who let themselves be guided,as we find it was in the early churches."

Our readers will be, by this time, in possession of the general spirit and character of Neander's work; and here we must take leave of the Author with the further remark, that the third Section, on Christian Life and Worship, is not less distinguished by learning, right feeling, and acute reasoning, than are the preceding portions of the volume. The second volume of the translation was to have been published in the course of the last year, but it has not yet come to our hands. We hope that no punetilios or misgivings have interfered with its due progress, since we are looking for the opportunity it will afford us, of touching upon two or three important points which we have now been obliged to pass by.

Art. II. 1. The Dogmas of the Constitution. Four Lectures, being the First, Tenth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth, of a Course on the Theory and Practice of the Constitution, delivered at King's College, London, in the Commencement Term of that Institution. By J. J. Park, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, the Professor of English Law and Jurisprudence. 8vo. pp. xxvi. 150. London, 1832. 2. North American Review. No. LXXIV. Jan. 1832. Art. Reform in England.

NOT quite a twelvemonth ago, we were led to undertake the somewhat arduous task of expounding Mr. Coleridge's views of the British Constitution as an idea;- an idea arising out of 'the idea of a State',- an archetypal idea, the 'final criterion by 'which all particular frames of government must be tried', but to which existing institutions and forms of polity can only approximate.* We objected at the time against the learned Writer's phraseology, that, instead of terming this Idea the Constitution, it would have been more consonant with the proprieties of ordinary language, to designate it as the informing principle or genius of our constitutional forms. We remarked, that the British Constitution is not a mere ens rationale, but an historical entity, existing in the palpable shape of Institutional law, as a concrete, and therefore actual, not merely an abstract and final Idea. And to this actual constitution belong, we added, 'what are regarded as things unconstitutional'; meaning, that the theory and the practice, the Idea and the fact, are in some respects at variance. But the actual constitution, however the ellipsis may be supplied,-whether it be the constitution of the monarchy itself, of the administrative government, of the legislature, or of the whole fabric of our institutions, laws, and prescriptive usages, (and it may have each variety of meaning,)—the actual constitution, we then considered, and still regard, as consisting of things as at present constituted; not as they were constituted fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago, not as they ought to be constituted, but as they are. Just as a man's constitution, whatever be his age, or whatever his state of health, is not what he brought with him into the world, but what he has made it or suffered it to become.

But this, we are aware, is not the technical import of the word as employed by writers upon the British Constitution; nor is it what is understood by those parties, on the one hand, who talk loudest of the dangers of the Constitution, or those, on the other, who clamour for its restoration. They mean so many different things, that it becomes difficult to fix any meaning upon the Pro

Eclectic for July 1831. Art. I.