We are a united body. We are bound together by a common religious
conviction, by one and the same divine discipline and by the bond of
common hope. We form a permanent society and come together for communal
gatherings as if forming an army around God and besieging him with our
prayers. This is the kind of force in which God rejoices. We pray also
for the Emperor and for all those who hold responsible offices and
positions of authority. We pray for the postponement of the end. We
gather to bring to mind the contents of the holy Scriptures as often as
the world situation gives us a warning or a reminder. In every case we
nourish faith with holy words, quicken expectation, and strengthen trust.
We reinforce discipline by inculcating our precepts. In these meetings of
our society there is also encouragement, admonition, and divine
correction, for holding judgment is a matter which carries great weight
among us, as it should be among people who are sure of God’s presence.
Thus when someone has sinned so much that he is excluded from the
fellowship of prayer, from the entire sacred intercourse of the
community, it is a deeply moving prelude of the judgment to come.
The most proven men preside; the "elders" as we call them. They have
attained this honor only through their good name, never through the use
of money, for nothing that is of God can be bought for money. Even though
we have a kind of cash box, the money does not come from admission fees,
as when one buys membership or position in a society. That would be like
"buying religion." Rather, every man contributes something once a month,
or whenever he wishes to, and only if he wishes to, and if he can; for no
one is forced, but everyone gives his share freewillingly. These
contributions might be called the deposit funds of fellowship with God as
they are not spent on banquets or drinking parties or on gluttony. Rather
they are used to feed and to bury the poor; for boys and girls without
means and without parents to help them...for shipwrecked sailors; and for
those doing forced labor in the mines, or banished on islands, or in
prison, provided they suffer for the sake of God’s fellowship. That makes
them beneficiaries by virtue of their confession of faith. But even such
acts of great love set a stain on us in the eyes of some people. "Look,"
they say, "how they love each other" (for they hate each other). "See,
how ready they are to die for one another" (for they would sooner kill
each other). Furthermore, they get excited because we are called by the
name of "brothers." I think the only reason for this is that every word
of blood relationship used to express heartfelt affection is hypocrisy
with them. But we are brothers even to you by the law of nature, our
common mother, although you are not true men as long as you are bad
brothers! How much more does it express the truth to call and look upon
those as brothers who have recognized their one father, God, and who have
come, startled and amazed, from the same womb of ignorance to the one
light of truth. But maybe we are not considered quite legitimate because
our brotherliness is not loudly declaimed in a tragedy, or because we are
brothers with regard to our family possessions too, at which point your
brotherliness ceases to exist as a rule.
We who are inwardly bound together in spirit and in soul can have no
hesitation in surrendering our property. We hold everything in common
except our wives. At this point we dissolve our community, and this is
precisely the one point in which the rest of humanity practices
community. Oh, this example of ancient Greek wisdom and Roman dignity!
Procurers both, the philosopher and the government official!
How can anyone be surprised if such a great love as ours comes to
expression in our communal meals! But you slander even our modest meals
as wasteful after you have discredited them as criminal. Investigations
are made only into the Christian banquets. Legally they are not allowed
because they are regarded as unlawful meetings. According to the law such
banquets are to be condemned as soon as anyone files a complaint on the
basis of the paragraphs of the law enacted against secret societies. But
have we ever met to hurt anyone? In our meetings we are the same as when
we are scattered; jointly we are the same as individually. This we are
without damaging or hurting anyone. When upright, good, believing and
pure people join together, that should not be called a secret society,
but a senate. On the contrary, those gatherings should be called secret
societies which conspire to hate good and honest men, which call out for
blood of innocent people. To justify their hate they use as a pretext
their mad and groundless belief that the Christians are the principal
cause of every public disaster and every misfortune of the people. If the
Tiber rises over the city walls, or the other way around, if the Nile
does not flood the fields, if the weather is not favorable, if there is
an earthquake, or if there is a plague, then the cry is immediately
raised, "The Christians to the lions!"
Tertullian, Apology 39, 40, A.D. 198.
Bruderhof Communities wrote:
> The new ones to be accepted are questioned by the teachers about the
> reason for their decision before they hear the Word. Those who bring
> them shall say whether they are ready for it and what their situation
> is...Whoever has a demon needs purification before he takes part in
> the instruction. The professions and trades of those who are going to
> be accepted into the community must be examined. The nature and type
> of each must be established. A pander, one who keeps a brothel, shall
> give it up or be rejected. A sculptor or an artist must be warned not
> to make idolatrous pictures; he shall give it up or be rejected. If
> anyone is an actor or impersonator in the theater, he shall give it up
> or be rejected. A charioteer, an athlete, a gladiator, a trainer of
> gladiators, or one who fights wild beasts or hunts them or holds
> public office at the circus games shall give it up or be rejected. A
> pagan priest or guardian of idols shall give it up or be rejected. A
> military constable must be forbidden to kill. If he is commanded to
> kill in the course of his duty, he must not take this upon himself,
> neither may he swear; if he is not willing to follow these
> instructions, he must be rejected. A proconsul or a civic magistrate
> who wears the purple and governs by the sword, shall give it up or be
> rejected.
>
> Anyone taking part in baptismal instruction, or anyone already
> baptized who wants to become a soldier shall be sent away, for he has
> despised God. A prostitute, a sodomite, one who has mutilated himself
> or who does unmentionable things shall be rejected because he is
> defiled. A magician shall not come up for examination either. An
> enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, a soothsayer, a seducer of the
> people, one who practices magic with pieces of clothing, one who
> speaks in demonic riddles, one who makes amulets: all these shall
> desist or be rejected. The slave who is a concubine and who has reared
> her children and has no relationship except with her master may become
> a hearer. If it is otherwise she must be rejected. Whoever has a
> concubine shall leave her or marry her legally. If he refuses he must
> be rejected. Should we have missed anything here, practical life will
> teach you, for we all have the spirit of God.
>
> Hippolytus, Church Order in The Apostolic Tradition 16; ca. A.D. 218.
>
> Bruderhof wrote:
>
>> Must it not be entirely wrong to accept as good one part of what God
>> has created for men’s use, but to reject another part as useless and
>> superfluous?
>>
>> Letter to Diognetus 4.
>>
>
>
>
>
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