he laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown
to the Greeks and Romans. [127] The former of these appellations
comprehended the body of the Christian people; the latter, according to
the signification of the word, was appropriated to the chosen portion
that had been set apart for the service of religion; a celebrated order
of men, which has furnished the most important, though not always the
most edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostilities
sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but their zeal and
activity were united in the common cause, and the love of power, which
(under the most artful disguises) could insinuate itself into the
breasts of bishops and martyrs, animated them to increase the number of
their subjects, and to enlarge the limits of the Christian empire. They
were destitute of any temporal force, and they were for a long
time discouraged and oppressed, rather than assisted, by the civil
magistrate; but they had acquired, and they employed within their own
society, the two most efficacious instruments of government, rewards and
punishments; the former derived from the pious liberality, the latter
from the devout apprehensions, of the faithful.

[Footnote 127: For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p. 141.
Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of Clerus and Iaicus
was established before the time of Tertullian.]

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.--Part VII

I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the imagination
of Plato, [128] and which subsisted in some degree among the austere sect
of the Essenians, [129] was adopted for a short time in the primitive
church. The fervor of the first proselytes prompted them to sell those
worldly possessions, which they despised, to lay the price of them at
the feet of the apostles, and to content themselves with receiving an
equal share out of the general distribution. [130] The progress of the
Christian religion relaxed, and gradually abolished, this generous
institution, which, in hands less pure than those of the apostles, would
too soon have been corrupted and abused by the returning selfishness
of human nature; and the converts who embraced the new religion were
permitted to retain the possession of their patrimony, to receive
legacies and inheritances, and to increase their separate property
by all the lawful means of trade and industry. Instead of an absolute
sacrifice, a m