Evangelical Revival and Christian Antiquity
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
Evangelical Revival and Christian Antiquity A series of events between 1738 and 1740 propelled John Wesley into the evangelistic ministry that characterized the rest of his life. Late in the spring of 1738 he experienced the "assurance of pardon" stressed by Continental Pietists. He traveled to Germany in midsummer of the same year in order to explore Pietism more directly.
Late in the autumn he spent some time in Oxford considering the Church of England's Articles and Homilies on faith and justification.
He found himself engaged in field-preaching in the spring of 1739, and began to organize societies later in that year. His exclusion from the partly-Moravian Fetter Lane Society in 1740 marked the independence of his own branch of the revival movement.
Although some have represented Wesley as losing his earlier interests in early Christianity after the beginning of the revival, he continued to study and refer to ancient Christian writings, and to call upon them in the work of the revival movement itself." Over one hundred and fifty references to early Christian works can be found in Wesley's writings after 1737, including references to all of the following ancient Christian authors or writings:
Arnobius Ephraem Syrus Augustine Epiphanius the Athanasian Creed Eusebius Athanasius Ignatius of Antioch Athenagoras Jerome Basil Justin al Chrysostom Macarius of Egypt Clement of Alexandria Origen Clement of Rome Polycarp Cyprian Tertullian Dionysius of Alexandria Theophilus of Antioch"
Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite Notably lacking in this period are references to the Apostolic Constitutions or Apostolic Canons. Wesley's readings throughout this period, recorded in his diaries and sometimes in the Journal and letters, show a continuing interest in early Christian life and thought."' On board ship returning from North America, Wesley turned to the works of Cyprian, and found encouragement in them. At the request of a friend in 1740, he read in the Mystical Theology of Dionysius the PseudoAreopagite, and reacted strongly against what he perceived as its quietism. In November of the next year, he was engaged in reading
Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History and the Historiae Ecclesiasticae Compendium ("Compendium of Ecclesiastical History") of Jean Alphonse
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
Turrettini, a Genevan theologian who had rejected the reactionary Calvinism of the Synod of Dort."?
Two works appeared quite early in the years of the revival that indicate Wesley's fondness for the Christian Platonism of Clement of Alexandria.
A poem, "On Clemens Alexandrinus's Description of a Perfect Christian," appeared in John and Charles Wesley's Hymns and Sacred Poems, published in 1739. The poem describes the distance between the state of a human being in pilgrimage and the state of a perfect Christian, then, the power of God to bring human beings to the perfect state. It reflects Clement's description of the Christian
"Gnostic" in book seven of his Stromateis, although it does not reproduce exactly any specific parts of the Stromateis passage." It is unclear whether the poem is to be attributed to John or Charles Wesley, or perhaps even to John Gambold, an Oxford Methodist (and later a Moravian bishop) who wrote some of the poems in the collection and who was attracted to ancient Christian mysticism."
John Wesley's continuing appreciation for Clement's description of the Christian ideal appears in a tract entitled "The Character of a Methodist," published in 1742 in responses to queries about the meaning of the term "Methodist." The tract was intended to display the Methodist ideal (the inscription "Not as though I had already attained" appears below its title) and Wesley acknowledged twenty-five years after its publication that it was based on "the character of a perfect
Christian drawn by Clemens Alexandrinus."" Wesley's "Character of a Methodist" and the passage from book seven of Clement's Stromateis share some common elements: both stress the hope of immortality, prayer without ceasing, love of one's neighbor, obedience to God's commandments, and freedom from worldly desires as characteristics of the ideal Christian (Gnostic or Methodist!). Nevertheless, Wesley's delineation of the model Christian neither follows the order of Clement's, nor uses Clement's precise words to any obvious degree, and Wesley's concern to avoid doctrinal disputation in this treatise stands in contrast to Clement's insistence that the perfection of gnosis included adherence to particular doctrinal assertions. Also, characteristically Clementine emphases such as the Christian's passionlessness and contemplation of the divine find no place in Wesley's work." But even though Wesley's delineation of "The Character of a Methodist" does not follow Clement's Stromateis precisely, it nevertheless represents a case in which Wesley's religious vision was consciously inspired by that of an ancient Christian work.
In the earliest decade of the revival, Wesley had to defend the Methodist movement against frequent charges of "enthusiasm," that is, of unjustified claims to religious inspiration. In his defense of the
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
Methodists' claims to divine "assurance" and inspiration, Wesley sometimes appealed to similar claims made by the early Christians. In his Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (1744), for example,
Wesley had to respond to charges by Richard Smalbroke (1672-1749), an Oxford-educated bishop and scholar of early Christianity who had advised the clergy in his diocese to avoid the "enthusiastic" pretensions of the Methodists. Wesley's Farther Appeal responded by showing that early Christian writers held immediate divine inspiration to be an "ordinary" as well as an "extraordinary" gift of the Holy Spirit."
Similar issues regarding divine inspiration in the ancient church emerged in the period between 1745 and 1747 in Wesley's correspondence with an anonymous Anglican who signed his letters "John
Smith." "Smith," whose identity must in all likelihood remain unknown, picked up on the argument of the Farther Appeal and questioned whether "perceptible inspiration" was as common in the early church as Wesley supposed. Wesley responded that "perceptible inspiration" was "the main doctrine of the Methodists," and pressed his argument that it was the teaching of the early church, backing up his claims with more citations of early Christian authors."
It was at some point during the first decade of the revival—that remarkable and formative period between 1738 and 1748—that Wesley's attitudes toward ordination and episcopacy began to shift corresponding to a change in his understanding of the ancient church.
When exactly is difficult to tell, but it is clear that at some point during the mid-1740s Wesley read both Stillingfleet's Irenicum and King's
Enquiry, and on the basis of these works became convinced that an elder (or presbyter) in the church had an "inherent right" to ordain other elders, though this right should not be exercised except in cases of dire necessity. When in the 1780s Methodists in America needed ordained ministers, Wesley would turn to the new insights he had gained during this period."
By 1748 Wesley's movement had developed most of its characteristic institutions. In that year—ten years after his Aldersgate Street experience—Wesley wrote an apology for the movement in the form of an open letter to the Reverend Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham in Kent. Wesley had made Perronet's acquaintance in 1744 and had come to rely on him as an advisor, one who returned the compliment by encouraging Methodist activities in his own parish. The letter, entitled "A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists," is dated 1748 and was published in January of 1749. It reveals in several particular respects how Wesley understood the distinctive institutions of Methodism as emerging from his vision of the ancient church.
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
Wesley described in this work the "economy" or organization of Methodism. He explained in the beginning of the work that the Methodist institutions described in it were not planned beforehand, but developed in response to the needs of the movement. Nevertheless, Wesley maintained, the early Methodists "generally found, in looking back, something in Christian antiquity likewise, very nearly parallel" to the Methodist institutions.*! In almost every section of the work Wesley pointed to specific parallels between Methodist and ancient Christian institutions: the Methodist societies and ancient catechetical classes; penitent bands and the segregation of penitents in the ancient church, and so on." Thus, as Wesley's movement came to the end of its first decade, the motif of the revival of ancient Christian life, thought, and institutions remained prominent in Wesley's vision.
Christian Antiquity and the Methodist Enterprise The year 1749 represents in many ways a new period for the Methodist movement. It was the year in which, with his own institutions firmly in place, Wesley began to reach out to other Evangelical leaders to secure greater cooperation, and (he hoped) organizational merger. It was also the year when two of his most celebrated
"ecumenical" expressions appeared: his "Letter to a Roman Catholic" and the first volumes of his eclectic Christian Library.*? Wesley's writings and other works in this and the following years also showed Wesley's continuing concerns with the ideal of early Christian life, as he tried to educate and defend his movement. The year began, in fact, with one of Wesley's longest original works—his "Letter to the Reverend Dr. Conyers Middleton"—a work which was wholly concerned with the question of "miraculous powers" in the first Christian centuries and which was written in the light of Methodist challenges to the newly emerging culture of the Enlightenment in England.¥
Beginning in 1749, and continuing for several years after, John Wesley published a series of translations, editions, and abridgements designed especially for Methodist preachers. Many of these were ancient Christian works, or works concerned with Christian antiquity, and it is often possible to see their relevance to the Methodists' challenges to their culture. For instance, in January 1749 Wesley published a new revision of the edition of Claude Fleury's Moeurs des Chrétiens which he had originally prepared in Georgia. This revision is particularly interesting, because it shows a number of deletions—references to ancient penitential discipline and ordinations—which may indicate changing emphases in Wesley's views of ancient Christianity. Wesley
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
must have been at work on his edition of Fleury late in 1748 when he came upon Middleton's Free Inquiry. He was almost certainly also engaged in work on the first volume of his Christian Library, which began with a translation—partly his own work—of the early second century Apostolic Fathers. The period of the Apostolic Fathers was critical to Middleton's argument, and so it is likely that Wesley's immersion in this literature in late 1748 made him feel particularly well prepared to respond to Middleton.® Wesley indicated a high approbation of these works, as his introductory comments (taken over verbatim from the introduction of Archbishop William Wake) indicate, and held them up as models for Christian life and thought.'
The second work contained in the first volume of Wesley's Christian Library was an abridgement of a translation of the fifty "Spiritual
Homilies" attributed to "St. Macarius the Egyptian." The author of the translation, entitled Primitive Morality, is unknown, but it is clear that Wesley worked from this version. The homilies are principally concerned with the Christian's pursuit of "perfection," and thus Wesley's edition of the work shows how he saw early Christian teachings as models for understanding sanctification.®
Much later in the Christian Library—in the twenty-ninth volume, published in 1752—Wesley included an abridgement of Anthony
Horneck's Happy Ascetick, which contained "A Letter to a Person of Quality, concerning the Heavenly Lives of the Primitive Christians."
This letter is itself a summary of a Latin letter dating from 1660, and describes in systematic fashion the virtues of the early Christians, holding them up as models for contemporary Christian life.® Like his edition of Fleury, then, Wesley's edition of this work reflects his views of the particular moral traits and institutions of the first Christian centuries that Wesley held up as models for his generation.
Finally, in the thirty-first volume of his Christian Library (this volume published in 1753) Wesley included an abridgement of Cave's classic work on Primitive Christianity. Cave's work was, in part, based on the 1660 Latin work upon which Horneck's "Letter to a Person of Quality" had been based, and thus adds to the stream of concern with revival of the moral life of the early church that seems to have been so prominent in Wesley's concerns in this period."
Although it did not appear in the Christian Library, Wesley published in 1771 an edition of Johann Lorenz von Mosheim's Ecclesiastical
History. Like the works in the Christian Library, the edition of Mosheim was intended for the instruction of the Methodists, especially for the Methodist lay preachers. Although Wesley's work in editing Mosheim was largely a work of deletion, there are a few added paragraphs (for
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
instance, one on Pelagius) that reveal some particularities of Wesley's views of early Christianity."
In addition to his edited works, Wesley's vision of Christian antiquity is also reflected in the "Address to the Clergy" which he wrote in the middle of the 1750s. His suggestions for reading in the "Address" are reminiscent of Samuel Wesley's advice to younger clergy. He listed particular early Christian writers by a scheme of centuries, and suggested that all Christian clergy should be familiar with their works." The "Address" is particularly interesting since, not being addressed to the Methodist societies or preachers as so many of his works were, it reveals his concerns and hopes for the general welfare of the church—and among his concerns in this regard, his concern for education in the life and thought of Christian antiquity is prominent.
A Sketch of Wesley's Vision of Christian Antiquity If Wesley's edition of Fleury gave a compressed portrait of the vision of the church in antiquity that Wesley held while in Georgia, it is possible to sketch with more detail his understanding of the ancient church, especially in the period between 1749 and the early 1770s, that is, in the middle years of the revival when so many of the editions noted above (including his second edited version of Fleury) were produced. What follows is a composite sketch of the content of John
Wesley's vision of ancient Christianity as he consistently taught it during these three decades.
Consistent with the general church histories he had studied, Wesley understood the early history of Christianity within a framework of centuries or "ages." He used the terms "century" and "age" interchangeably: "With what colour," Wesley asked Conyers Middleton,
"can you assert, that [the miraculous gifts] were less wanted for these ends, in the second and third, than in the Apostolic age?" The structure of his conception of the earliest Christian centuries can be seen in the following paragraph from his sermon "On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel, near the City-Road, London":
This is the religion of the primitive Church, of the whole Church in the purest ages. It is clearly expressed, even in the small remains of Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, and Polycarp; it is seen more at large in the writings of Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Cyprian; and, even in the fourth century, it was found in the works of Chrysostom, Basil, Ephrem Syrus, and Macarius.™
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
Century divisions are clearly marked out in this passage: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp belong to the second century;
Tertullian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian belong to the third; and Chrysostom, Basil, Ephraem Syrus, and [pseudo-]Macarius to the fourth. As the passage suggests, and as the following account shows, Wesley perceived a break in the history of early Christianity in the early fourth century, coinciding with the reign of Constantine. The following account is thus organized to reflect Wesley's conceptions of ancient Christian history before and after Constantine.
Pre-Constantinian Christianity "As the Christian religion is not an invention of men, but the work of God," begins Wesley's translation of Fleury's Moeurs des Chrétiens,
"it received its full perfection in the beginning of it." John Wesley consistently reflected the opinion that Christian faith and morals were purest at their source in Christ, and in the earliest, apostolic community, and declined as the years passed. He believed the earlier Christian writers to have had greater piety and holiness than later ones, and thought that for that reason God had given the earlier Christians more aid in avoiding delusions. Wesley omitted from his edition of Horneck a phrase asserting that the church's "Merits increased with its Years,"%* probably because of his commitment to this general belief in the deterioration of the church.
Wesley ascribed a special excellence to the ages prior to Constantine. The passage from Wesley's sermon "On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel..." given above suggests that Wesley ascribed an exceptional unity and purity to the pre-Constantinian church. He believed that miraculous gifts had continued in the church in this period, and he supposed that for all the saints known from the early centuries, far more remained unknown. He recommended the study of the early Christian writers, whom he held to be
... the most authentic commentators on Scripture, as being both nearest the fountain, and eminently endued with that Spirit by whom all Scripture was given. It will be easily perceived, I speak chiefly of those who wrote before the Council of Nice. But who would not likewise desire to have some acquaintance with those that followed them?"
Wesley frequently recommended "the Ante-Nicene Fathers" or "the writings of the first three centuries," the esteem of which, he claimed,
"never carried any man yet into dangerous errors, nor probably ever will."
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
The First Century. The Roman Empire, states Wesley's version of Fleury, was "the most enlightened that ever it was, as well as the most corrupted" when Christianity came into it." Into this enlightened and corrupted world, the Christian community grew from its base in Jerusalem, "the pattern and mother of all churches . . . taught and governed by the apostles themselves."!" Wesley's vision of first-century
Christianity is largely based on his study of the New Testament. From post-canonical sources, though, he knew the legend of the flight of the Jerusalem church to Pella after the destruction of Jerusalem. He believed, moreover, that the apostles had passed on the leadership of the church to their closest associates, among whom were St. Mark, St.
Clement (of Rome), St. Timothy, St. Titus, St. Luke, and St. Polycarp.
These, in turn, took disciples whom they instructed, and to whom they passed the leadership of the church. His edition of Mosheim recognizes that the "Apostles' Creed" was of later than apostolic origin, and suggests that the Ebionite heresy originated late in the first century.17
The Second Century. Although Wesley knew that some of the Apostolic Fathers' works dated from the first century, his mental framework of early Christian "ages" generally placed them within the second century. He suggested that clergy should read "over and over the golden remains of Clemens Romanus, of Ignatius and Polycarp."
He suggested in the same address that clergy should give "one reading, at least," to Justin Martyr and third-century writers, thus indicating the higher esteem in which Wesley held the Apostolic Fathers.!%
He recognized that even the Apostolic Fathers were liable to "weakness," as exemplified in Clement's use of the legend of the Phoenix, but he insisted that such weaknesses did not mean that Clement or the other Apostolic Fathers were devoid of extraordinary spiritual gifts.
Although Wesley was aware of second-century corruptions in the biblical texts, he held that by the middle of the second century most of the books of the New Testament were read in the churches "as a divine rule of faith and manners.""™ His edition of Cave suggests that the second-century Christians had "fixed places of worship" in homes or cemeteries, although they could not yet undertake the construction of public church buildings.'
John Wesley saw the purity of the second-century church especially in its courage under persecutions and martyrdoms. His editions of various authors include vivid accounts of the persecutions—some delve into gruesome details. Wesley prepared for the Christian Library his own versions of the "Martyrdoms" of Ignatius and Polycarp. He asserted, against Conyers Middleton, that the same conditions which made miraculous gifts necessary in the first century, namely, persecu-
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
tions of the church and the church's propagation of the gospel, continued in the second and third centuries, and so made miraculous gifts necessary in those ages as well.'® He did, however, alter or omit passages from the martyrdom narratives which suggested that the early
Christians were eager for martyrdom, did not attempt to escape martyrdom, or were given a special grace that enabled them to undergo torments without actually feeling them.1%
The Third Century. Wesley regarded the third century as an age in which the primitive purity of the church still shone in many areas, but began to decline in others. He believed that Tertullian, Origen
(sic!), Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian expressed "the religion of the primitive church," and he suggested that clergy should read their works at least once.'" In actual usage, Wesley referred to these authors more than he referred to any others, with the exception of Augustine
(and his references to Augustine were often critical). Nevertheless, Wesley held "that before the end of the third century the Church was greatly degenerated from its first purity," and cited Cyprian as giving evidence of the third-century church's corruptions.!" Where other writers had seen the early church's councils as standards of Christian unity and orthodoxy, Wesley deplored the councils of the third century and later (this in spite of his affirmation of the language of Nicea,
Constantinople, and Chalcedon; see below under "A Pattern for Christian Teachings" in chapter 5). His comment on Baxter's History of the Councils antedates Voltaire's mockery of the ancient councils:
What a company of execrable wretches they have been (one cannot give them a milder title,) who have almost in every age, since St.
Cyprian, taken upon them to govern the Church! How has one Council been perpetually cursing another; and delivering all over to Satan, whether predecessors or contemporaries, who did not implicitly receive their determinations, though generally trifling, sometimes false, and frequently unintelligible or self-contradictory. Surely
Mahometanism was let loose to reform the Christians!!!
But in the next century, as Wesley saw it, the evils present here and there were to grow into a flood that would ravage ancient Christianity to its foundations.
Constantinian and Post-Constantinian Christianity The Constantinian Crisis and Its Effects. Wesley asserted on numerous occasions throughout his life his belief that, with Constantine's supposed conversion to Christianity, the church lost a great deal of its original purity, that the corruptions which had been creeping in drop by drop during the second and third centuries poured in upon
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
the church with a full tide from the beginning of the fourth century, when Constantine called himself a Christian." In opposition to Bishop Thomas Newton of Bristol, whose Dissertations on the Prophecies had identified Constantine's conversion with the advent of the new
Jerusalem foretold in the Revelation, Wesley asserted that "Constantine's calling himself a Christian" was "productive of more evil to the Church than ten persecutions put together."
Wesley believed, in particular, that Constantine's donations of wealth to the church, and his according honor to Christians (especially to the clergy) led to the church's moral decline. The church became intermixed with "paganism," and thus Christians became "lovers of the world, lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."1!3 His edition of Mosheim notes that from the time of Constantine Christians began to utilize philosophy and the liberal arts more than they had done in the past, and that Constantine arrogated to himself the authority to rule the church through ecumenical couneqs
As Wesley saw it, Constantine's taking up the Christian cause had debilitating effects on the church's life. The clergy began to seek wealth and power. Ministerial orders, formerly divided according to a number of functions, were consolidated under the office of bishop.
Church buildings were erected, images were placed in them, and people began to pay homage to the images. Church rituals multiplied beyond their ancient simplicity. The miraculous gifts ceased to be commonly exercised, and only the "dead form" of Christianity remained in most areas.!5
True Christianity after Constantine. Nevertheless, Wesley held that some pockets of true Christianity remained after the age of Constantine. He insisted, for instance, that clergy should have "some acquaintance" with such post-Nicene writers as Chrysostom, Basil,
Jerome, Augustine, "and, above all, the man of a broken heart, Ephraem Syrus.""* In a similar list, Wesley omitted Jerome and Augustine and included Macarius, and in a third list he included only
Ephraem Syrus and Macarius.'!" What is to be especially noted in these lists is the preponderance of Eastern Christian writers. Although
Augustine and Jerome appear on one list, and although Wesley actually cited Augustine more than any other patristic writer, Wesley's comments on Augustine could be extremely negative.® Within the Eastern writers in these lists, he sometimes attached special importance to the ascetics, Ephraem Syrus and Macarius. Although he never made it explicit, Wesley seems to have understood true Christianity after the age of Constantine to lie principally in isolated pockets of Eastern Christendom, and among the ascetics in particular.
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
The overall impression that emerges from this sketch of Wesley's understanding of ancient Christian history is a clear sense of the decline in the purity of the ancient church throughout the first four centuries, with a particularly precipitous decline in the age of Constantine, but with some pockets of pure faith remaining even in the fourth century and beyond. With a degree of caution almost always present, however, Wesley could point to models of corporate and individual life within these centuries as models to be emulated by the Christians of the eighteenth century; models which sometimes affirmed, but which more often challenged, inherited cultural patterns in Wesley's own age.
The Maturing of Wesley's Estimation of Christian Antiquity In the 1770s, the Methodist movement again entered a new phase: the Methodists in England and America, despite Wesley's protestations to the contrary, were becoming very much like a church if they had not already become a de facto church. A significant indication of this new era for the Methodists is the Chapel on City Road in London, for which the cornerstone was laid in 1777. This chapel, unlike earlier
Methodist "preaching houses," was designed for sacramental worship as well as preaching: behind its pulpit was an apse encircling an altar on which the eucharist was to be celebrated. On the occasion of his laying the cornerstone of this chapel, Wesley preached a sermon in which he professed his belief that the Methodist movement represented "the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the primitive church, [and] the religion of the Church of England."! In explaining Methodism's following "the primitive church," Wesley laid out his understanding of the ancient writers in whose works he saw the pure religion of Christian antiquity: Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp in the second century; Tertullian, Origen (yes!), Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian in the third century; Chrysostom, Basil,
Ephraem Syrus, and "Macarius the Egyptian" in the fourth century.!"
The issue of Methodism and its being a "church" was raised especially during and just after the American Revolution, when many
Anglican clergy had left North America. When in 1784 John Wesley decided to ordain elders, consecrate (or "ordain," as he said in his diary) a "superintendent," and devise a Prayer Book for the American
Methodists, he again turned to ancient Christian precedents. The American Methodists, he wrote in a letter to accompany Thomas
Coke, "are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the Primitive Church."!"! In justifying his consecration of Coke, Wesley
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
indicated that it was his reading of King's Enquiry (though, in fact, it may have been Stillingfleet's Irenicum) which had led him to the conclusion that elders have an inherent right to ordain. Coke and Francis
Asbury themselves would point to the precedent of the ancient church of Alexandria, which elected its bishops from among the presbytery, in justification of their assuming episcopal offices.'"
There is some evidence that as Wesley reached his maturer years he began to espouse a more realistic estimate of Christianity in its first centuries. His sermon on "The Mystery of Iniquity" (1783) has six paragraphs devoted to a description of the growth of corruption in the early centuries, focusing on the deterioration of the church in the age of Constantine, although the sermon allows that there were revivals of true religion in the early centuries." Similarly, his sermon "Of Former
Times" (1787) aimed at showing that "the former days" were not necessarily better than the present. In doing so, he again described the growth of corruptions in the early church, especially associated with the period of Constantine.
Two years before his death, however, Wesley again called on an ancient Christian precedent in order to defend Methodist practice. His sermon on "Prophets and Priests" ( or, "The Ministerial Office," 1789) argued in defence of the Methodist lay preachers that laypersons could hold a "prophetic," but not a "priestly," office. He called upon biblical evidence and evidence from the earliest Christian centuries to demonstrate the existence of a prophetic office which, he held, was different from the priestly office. Characteristically, he maintained that it was during the age of Constantine that the prophetic office ceased to be exercised in the church.!* In Wesley's maturer years, then, he developed a somewhat more pessimistic (or realistic) view of the ancient church, coupled with a somewhat more optimistic view of historical progress. Nevertheless, the difference is in emphasis, since his principal conviction of the fall of the church in the age of Constantine remained firmly fixed, and he did not cease to look upon the early centuries as an exemplary period in the life of the Christian community.
Throughout John Wesley's career a concern with "Christian antiquity" in tension with the culture of Wesley's age developed: from his passionate concern in his Oxford and Georgia days for the reinstitution of ancient liturgical practices, to his concern during the revival for the renewal of ancient Christian morality and spirituality, through his later concerns for church structure and institutions patterned after
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY IN THE WILDERNESS
those of the ancient church. In almost every case, however his vision of Christian antiquity may have changed, Wesley characteristically utilized his vision of Christian antiquity in what I have identified as a "programmatic" manner. The next two chapters will lay out this programmatic thrust in a more detailed and analytical fashion.
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Chapter 4
"THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT CHRISTIANS":
CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
ASA
VISION FOR INDIVIDUAL LIFE
The previous chapter has suggested that although Wesley's vision of Christian antiquity shifted throughout his career, his vision was consistently utilized in what we have called a "programmatic" configuration. This chapter will examine this claim in closer detail by focusing on the ways in which Wesley used Christian antiquity as a vision for individual life, with the next chapter focusing on Christian antiquity as a vision for the corporate life of the Christian community.'
Wesley believed that one of the foremost duties of the Christian community was to "describe" and "promise" an ideal of individual
Christian life.? Consistent with this view of the church's task, Wesley set about describing and illustrating this ideal, and in this work his vision of ancient Christian life came to the fore. A large number of his sermons describe this vision for individual life, his letters clarify its meaning for various persons, and his Journal recounts cases of individuals who sought it. Wesley developed a specialized vocabulary for describing this ideal, the stages on one's way to it, and the problems one might face on the way to it: "Christian perfection," "entire sanctification," "assurance of pardon," "the wilderness state," "heaviness through manifold temptations," are among the terms of this vocabulary.'
Wesley stated explicitly his conviction that the lives of the saints throughout the church's history should provide patterns to be imitated by latter-day Christians. In 1771, he wrote to a member of one of the Methodist societies, Mr. Norris observes that no part of history is so profitable as that which relates to the great changes in states and kingdoms; and it is certain no part of Christian history is so profitable as that which re-
JOHN WESLEY AND CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY
lates to great changes wrought in our souls: these, therefore, should be carefully noticed and treasured up for the encouragement of our brethren.'
The "Mr. Norris" referred to in this letter is John Norris of Bemerton, who transmitted to Wesley the Cambridge Platonists' concern with religious experience as a valid source of human knowledge. Wesley again indicated his concern for finding patterns for individual Christian life in Christian history when he criticized Mosheim's treatment of the "Internal State of the Church." He argued that this expression ought to refer not to rites and doctrines, but to the presence or absence of the Holy Spirit in "individual Christians, and the Christian Church in general," and in fact Wesley went so far as to doubt whether
Mosheim was familiar with true, inward Christianity. He faulted Mosheim's account of Christian history because it failed to recount the inward or spiritual depth of the lives of Christians.
Wesley received much of the material about Christian antiquity that he used as patterns for individual Christian life in works that other authors had prepared for this same purpose. His edition of Fleury's Manners of the Ancient Christians asserts in one place,
After the apostles had received the Holy Ghost they were living images of Jesus Christ. And by them all the following servants of Christ were to form their hearts and lives.
And again it states, It is among the first Christians, therefore, that we must look for a pattern of the most perfect life, and by consequence of the most happy, that can be upon earth.'
The use of Christian antiquity as a pattern for individual life asserted in these passages is consistent with Wesley's beliefs about the exceptional virtues of the early Christians, and continues a long tradition of Christian hagiography which had pointed to the saints of the church as illustrative of a Christian vision for individual life.
Like Fleury's book, Cave's Primitive Christianity was also designed by its author to offer the model of the ancient Christians' lives in place of the corrupt lives Cave perceived in his own society:
I had not been long an Observer of the Manners of Men, but I found them generally so Debauched and Vitious, so Corrupt and Contrary to the Rules of this Holy Religion, that if a modest and honest Heathen was to estimate Christianity by the Lives of its Professors, he would certainly Proscribe it as the vilest Religion in the World.'
Cave began to inquire into the lives of the ancient Christians, he explained, and presented their model to his readers in Primitive Christianity.' Similarly, Horneck's "Letter to a Person of Quality, concerning
"THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT CHRISTIANS"
the Heavenly Lives of the Primitive Christians," as its title suggests, amounts to an encomium upon the virtues of the ancient Christians, and urges its readers to imitate them..
The most explicit assertion of Wesley's esteem for Christian antiquity as a vision of the individual Christian life, comes in one of his original works, the conclusion of his "Letter to Conyers Middleton."
After admitting that the ancient Christians exhibited some weaknesses, Wesley wrote,
And yet, I exceedingly reverence [the ancient Christians], as well as their writings, and esteem them very highly in love. I reverence them, because they were Christians, such Christians as are above described. And I reverence their writings, because they describe true, genuine Christianity, and direct us to the strongest evidence of the Christian doctrine. ...
I reverence these ancient Christians (with all their failings) the more, because I see so few Christians now; because I read so little in the writings of later times, and hear so little, of genuine Christianity; and because most of the modern Christians, (so called,) not content with being wholly ignorant of it, are deeply prejudiced against it, calling it enthusiasm, and I know not what.!
This passage merits quotation at length because it reveals at least part of the motivation behind Wesley's lengthy response to Conyers Middleton. Middleton's attack on the ancient Christians' claims to miraculous powers impugned the character of the ancient Christians. Wesley defended their character throughout his response to Middleton, and, in the conclusion quoted here, held them up as models to be emulated by eighteenth-century Christians.
Others of Wesley's works reveal less directly his general use of Christian antiquity as a pattern for individual Christian life. Wesley's
"Character of a Methodist," inspired by Clement of Alexandria's description of the Christian ideal, carries the inscription "Not as though I had already attained,""" thus indicating that the treatise sets out more an ideal than an actual description of a Christian. Similarly, Wesley wrote in closing the preface to the work,
And perhaps some of you who hate what I am called, may love what I am by the grace of God; or rather, what 'I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.'"
Like the inscription, this passage suggests that Wesley used the material in "The Character of a Methodist," inspired as it was by an ancient portrayal of the Christian ideal, as presenting a vision for the lives of modern Christians.
Both in his original works, therefore, and in the works he edited, Wesley consistently and explicitly stated his intention to utilize the