the development itself, which was not
legitimised by the commandments till a later period, and that often in a
somewhat lame fashion. We may perhaps say that the development which
made the bishops and elders priests altered the inward form of the
Church in a more radical fashion than any other. "Gnosticism," which the
Church had repudiated in the second century, became part of her own
system in the third. As her integrity had been made dependent on
inalienable objective standards, the adoption even of this greatest
innovation, which indeed was in complete harmony with the secular
element within her, was an elementary necessity. In regard to every
sphere of Church life, and hence also in respect to the development of
dogma[266] and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, the priesthood
proved of the highest significance. The clerical exposition of the
sacred books, with its frightful ideas, found its earliest advocate in
Cyprian and had thus a most skilful champion at the very first.[267]

II. SACRIFICE. In Book I., chap. III., Sec. 7, we have already shown what a
wide field the idea of sacrifice occupied in primitive Christendom, and
how it was specially connected with the celebration of the Lord's
Supper. The latter was regarded as the pure (i.e., to be presented with
a pure heart), bloodless thank offering of which Malachi had prophesied
in I. 11. Priesthood and sacrifice, however, are mutually conditioned.
The alteration of the concept "priest" necessarily led to a simultaneous
and corresponding change in the idea of sacrifice, just as, conversely,
the latter reacted on the former.[268] In Irenaeus and Tertullian the old
conception of sacrifice, viz., that prayers are the Christian sacrifice
and that the disposition of the believer hallows his whole life even as
it does his offering, and forms a well-pleasing sacrifice to God,
remains essentially unchanged. In particular, there is no evidence of
any alteration in the notion of sacrifice connected with the Lord's
Supper.[269] But nevertheless we can already trace a certain degree of
modification in Tertullian. Not only does he give fasting, voluntary
celibacy, martyrdom, etc., special prominence among the sacrificial acts
of a Christian life, and extol their religious value--as had already
been done before; but he also attributes a God-propitiating significance
to these performances, and plainly designates them as "merita"
("promereri deum"). To the best of my beli