Note 8 — Chapter V · ORGANIZATION AND ECONOMICS

As our historian recognizes, the Christian movement in the Eastern Empire had from the outset a strong basis in the democratic spirit which it derived alike from Jewish and from Hellenistic example. In the day of universal autocracy, social life lay more and more in the principles of voluntary association; and the first Christian churches were but instances of an impulse seen in operation on all sides. In the Jewish environment, the synagogue; in the Hellenistic the ecclesia or private association, were everywhere in evidence. Greek religious associations—thiasoi, eranoi, orgeones—were but types of the prevailing impetus to find in voluntary organized groups a substitute for the democratic life of the past.8 Whereas the older associations for the promotion of special worships were limited to male free citizens, the new admitted foreigners, slaves, and women. Besides religious associations there were a multitude of others which had the double aspect of clubs and friendly societies; trade guilds existed “among almost every kind of workmen in almost every town in the empire:”9 and burial clubs, dining clubs, financial societies, and friendly societies met other social needs.