natural powers and authority. And at the same time the early Christians preserved the historical associations and the social self-consciousness of the Jewish tradition ; they felt themselves to be a true people, ” a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” Such a conception is almost incomprehensible to the modern mind, which has become accustomed to treat religion as a matter for the individual conscience, and it is not surprising that Protestant thinkers, such as Dean Inge, should repudiate the very idea of the existence of an objective supernatural society.* But there is not the shadow of a doubt that the early Christians believed in it with an intense conviction and devotion as the very centre and ground of their faith. To Hermas, the Roman prophet, the Church is the first-born of creatures, and it is for her sake that the world itself was made.+ As Christ is the New Adam the Church is the New Eve, the mother of the new humanity. And this mystical conception of * In Christian Ethics and Modern Problems, p. 138, he quotes a passage from Landor, which perfectly expresses this modern idea of religion as essentially a private matter. ” Religion,” says Landor, ” is too pure for corporations. It is best meditated on in our privacy and best acted on in our ordinary intercourse with mankind.”
But Landor is a Deist rather than a Christian.
+ Hermas, Vision iv., p. 1 ; cf. I I . Clement, xiv., 1, 2.