As to sacraments, I am not aware that he speaks of baptism; a passage in the Epistle to the Romans may refer to the Lord’s supper, or not. In Syriac, “I do not desire the food of corruption, neither the desires of this world; the bread of God I seek, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and His blood I seek, which is love incorruptible;” in Greek, “I delight not in the food of corruption, nor in the pleasures of this life; I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born in these last days of the seed of David and Abraham; and the drink of God which I desire is His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.” He had said, my love is crucified. It is hard to say exactly what he means, his language is so outrageously mystical and exaggerated. Thus he talks of being fervent in the blood of God. One thing is clear, that in about fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Clement and Barnabas, episcopacy had got strong hold of some minds. Ignatius seemed to have been inflamed by some divisions or difficulties, if the Greek epistles are genuine; but, while quite orthodox, the small dying remains of the sense of salvation to be found fifty years before were pretty much lost altogether, and the doctrine of the clergy ripened, as constituting the church.
Hermas remains. Here all thought of divine truth is gone, and baptism and nonsensical heresy reign triumphant, with the proof that the system of immoral asceticism was grown up in the professing church, to say nothing of lying visions. He sees a tower, which is the church; but this tower is made up of the apostles, bishops, and doctors and ministers. Then there were those who had suffered for the Lord’s name, and are
