Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/137

 THE CITY OF GOD 101 prophet should be inferred not from what he said, but from the godliness or selfishness of his life. Besides hymn and prayer, preaching and prophecy, cer- tain sacred ceremonies and symbols played a large part in <>arly Christianity. Such were the sign of the The sac- jcross, the name of Jesus, and the mysteries or raments sacraments of baptism with water and the Lord's Supper or Eucharist of bread and wine. By these sacraments divine grace and life were believed to be communicated to the believer. Baptism was believed to cleanse from sin, and many Christians, including later some of the Christian emperors, postponed it until the very end of life in order jthat all their sins might be blotted out. The proper time for baptism, however, was when one entered the Christian life. [Three of the four Gospels represent Jesus, at the Last Sup- per with his disciples before he was crucified, as blessing 3.nd breaking the bread and giving it to them with the kvords, "This is my body," and as then passing the wine ^vith the remark, "This is my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins." This ceremony was continued py the early Christian communities, and the idea came to prevail that the words of Christ were to be taken literally, hhat the bread and wine were his body and blood, by par- iivine Christ. The founding of scattered communities by different wan- dering missionaries, and the freedom at first permitted to revelations, naturally produced much local vari- heres y jince in belief and practice, especially since Christians in different places sometimes retained customs and notions rom the previous religion of their particular locality. As a
 * aking of which the human body became joined with the
 * ' prophets "of airing their supposedly divine Growth of
 * esult heresies sprang up and apocryphal scriptures were
 * omposed which the Church as a whole has rejected. One or

cwo prominent early heresies may be mentioned by way of 'llust ration. Montanism is named from Montanus, an ec- static prophet in Asia Minor about 150 A.D., whose life was f /ery strict and ascetic and who emphasized unduly the