ately. St. Paul, a
little later, was not afraid, in excommunicating a fornicator, "to
deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Excommunication was held to
be equivalent to a sentence of death. The apostles were believed to be
invested with supernatural powers. In pronouncing such condemnations,
they thought that their anathemas could not fail but be effectual. The
terrible impression which their excommunications produced, and the
hatred manifested by the brethren against all the members thus cut off,
were sufficient, in fact, in many cases, to bring about death, or at
least to compel the culprit to expatriate himself. Accounts like those
of the death of Ananias and Sapphira did not excite any scruple. The
idea of the civil power was so foreign to all that world placed without
the pale of the Roman law, people were so persuaded that the Church was
a complete society, sufficient in itself, that no person saw, in a
miracle leading to death or the mutilation of an individual, an outrage
punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and faith covered all, excused
everything. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims laid
up in store for the future is readily perceived. The Church is armed
with a sword; excommunication is a sentence of death. There was
henceforth in the world a power outside that of the State, which
disposed of the life of citizens.

Peter had among the apostles a certain precedence, derived directly from
his zeal and his activity. In these first years he was hardly ever
separate from John, son of Zebedee. They went almost always together,
and their amity was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James,
the brother of the Lord, almost equalled them in authority, at least
among a fraction of the Church.

It is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no
speculative theology. Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all
metaphysics. He had only one dogma, his own divine Sonship and the
divinity of his mission. The whole symbol of the primitive Church might
be embraced in one line: "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." This
belief rested upon a peremptory argument--the fact of the resurrection,
of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. To attest the
resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being
specially imposed upon them. It was, however, very soon put forth that
the Maste