The apostolic age; its life, doctrine, worship and polity . hes,2 as the first centurypassed over into the second. Its relation to Apos-tolic teaching has just been noticed. As regards itsreligious attitude, Lightfoot well remarks that Christianity was not a philosophy with Clement,as it often tended to become in the Gnostics andApologists of the second century. It consisted oftruths which should inspire the conscience and mouldthe life : but we are not led by his language and sen-timents to believe that he put these truths in theirrelations to one another, and viewed them as a con-nected whol
The apostolic age; its life, doctrine, worship and polity . hes,2 as the first centurypassed over into the second. Its relation to Apos-tolic teaching has just been noticed. As regards itsreligious attitude, Lightfoot well remarks that Christianity was not a philosophy with Clement,as it often tended to become in the Gnostics andApologists of the second century. It consisted oftruths which should inspire the conscience and mouldthe life : but we are not led by his language and sen-timents to believe that he put these truths in theirrelations to one another, and viewed them as a con-nected whole. In short, there is no dogmatic systemin Clement : Christianity was as yet in the pre dog-matic or strictly religious phase. 1 At one time it was practically put on a level with the Apos-tolic writings now forming the New Testament, being read inpublic worship in very many churches. 2 It is echoed, for instance, in the letter of Polycarp of Smyrnato Philippi, fifteen or twenty years after. BOOK IV. Church Life and Doctrine. CHAPTER I. Church HE Ecclesia, the visible embodiment ofthe Kingdom of God upon earth, was atfirst conceived as the nucleus of a reno-vated Israel, a community truly sancti-fied to God. Being viewed, then, by Pal-estinian Christians on essentially Jewish lines, itsinstitutions took their first shape under the influenceof that idea. Indeed the Jerusalem Ecclesia neveracted as other than part of existing Israel, the partspecially sanctified by faith in the Messiah who wascoming again to transform Judaism into the King-dom of God in very truth. Thus they simply addedto their old usages connected with Temple and Lawthose of the inner and purer fellowship inspired byJesus their Messiah. This caused some confusion inmany minds as to essentials and non-essentials, thenew realities and what were rapidly becoming mereshadows. The dangers of this indeterminate attitude 459 460 The Apostolic Age. come out clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Butthe new
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