CHANGES IN THE FORM AND SPIRIT OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT--CORRUPTION OF THE
POPES.
It is now my purpose to notice those alterations actually made in
the form and spirit of the Christian church government. Necessarily
my reference to these matters must be brief; sufficient only to
demonstrate the fact for which I am contending in these chapters.
I am forced to admit that the description of the church organization in
the New Testament is not all one could wish it to be. Only the faintest
outline may be traced in those documents which all Christians accept as
authority, and as they are fragmentary the description of the church
contained in them is necessarily imperfect.
From what is written it appears that the quorum of the Twelve Apostles
exercised a universal jurisdiction over the church, and a sort of
primacy seems to be accorded to three of their number, Peter, James and
John. Before the crucifixion Jesus also called into existence quorums
of seventies to whom he gave similar powers to those bestowed upon the
Twelve; [1] but for some reason, doubtless the imperfection of the
Christian records, we can learn nothing more of them than is set down
in the tenth chapter of Luke.
After the departure of the resurrected Messiah from his disciples
at Bethany, the apostles, as fast as men were brought to faith and
repentance through their preaching, organized in the various cities
where they labored branches of the church, over which they appointed
elders or bishops to preside; [2] and these evidently were assisted in
their duties by deacons. [3] In an enumeration of the church officers
given by Paul, we have other officers named besides apostles, prophets,
seventies; _viz.,_ evangelists, pastors and teachers. [4]
It is difficult from the New Testament to determine the exact nature
and full extent of the duties of these respective officers in the
church, or their gradation. But that there was a prescribed duty
to each officer, a limit to the authority of each, and a gradation
among them, which made a harmonious whole--a complete ecclesiastical
government, with all the parts properly adjusted and assigned their
respective duties, there can be no question. For Paul likens the church
of Christ to the body of a man, which, though it hath many members,
yet is it one body; and all the members are necessary; one cannot say
to the other, "I have no need of thee." So all these officers in the
church, the apostle argues, are necessary; and as the head in the
natural body cannot say to the foot, "I have no need of thee," neither
in the church can the apostle say to the deacon, "I have no need of
thee;" much less can the deacon say to the apostle, "I have no need of
thee." [5] "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?" he
asks. The implied answer is, No; but, as he elsewhere says, the whole
body--i. e., the church--"is fitly joined together, and compacted by
that which every joint supplieth." [6]
This organization as given by the Master had for its purpose the
perfecting of the saints; the work of the ministry; edifying the body
of Christ; and to prevent the saints being carried about by every wind
of doctrine, by the sleight and cunning of men. [7] The apostle who
thus specifies the purposes of the church organization also intimates
that it was to be perpetuated until the saints all come to the "unity
of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God--unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ." [8]
Furthermore, it is obvious that since the church organization was
given for the purposes above enumerated, so long as there are saints
to be perfected, or a necessity for work in the ministry; so long as
the church needs edifying or the saints guarding from heresy, and the
deceitfulness of false teachers--just so long will this organization of
the church with apostles and prophets, seventies and elders, bishops
and pastors, teachers and deacons be needed; and since the kinds of
work enumerated in the foregoing will always be necessary, we arrive
at the conclusion that the church organization as established by
the apostles was designed to be perpetual. [9] But that it was not
perpetuated is clearly demonstrated by writers of the second century,
who, with the single exception of Clement of Alexandria, who calls
Clement of Rome an "Apostle," recognize no other officers in the
church than bishops, presbyters (elders) and deacons. It is difficult
to account for the sudden loss of so many orders of officers in the
church, unless, indeed, the apostasy for which I contend had made very
great progress as early as the opening of the second century, which, I
believe, was the case.
It appears from a statement of Clement of Rome [10] that persons
selected by the apostles to be bishops, and after the death of the
apostles those selected by other men of repute in the church, were
submitted to the people for their approval, and this was the custom
until the fourth century. It was also the custom of the bishops to
employ the elders as a sort of council; and to call upon the people for
their assent in the important matters of church government. In course
of time, however, early in the fourth century, this respect for the
principle of common consent was lost. The people were first altogether
excluded from a voice in ecclesiastical affairs; and the next step was
to deprive the elders of their former authority. [11] Thus power was
centralized in the hands of the bishops, which enabled them to control
everything at their discretion, and paved the way for those abuses of
power which bear evidence of the awful apostasy of the church.
So far as can be learned from the Christian annals, the churches that
grew up under the preaching of the apostles recognized in that quorum
a general presidency over all the churches established; and in fact
seemed to regard each separate church as but a member of the one great
household of faith. But after the death of the apostles, these several
branches seem to be considered separate and independent organizations,
united in faith and charity, it is true, but in nothing more. There
is no evidence that there was such a thing as subordination among the
churches, or rank among the bishops. As might be expected, however,
there was a peculiar respect paid to the churches founded by the
apostles. Those churches were appealed to in controversies on points
of doctrine, as most likely to know what the apostles taught, but the
appeal had no other significance. This equality of rank among the
bishops, together with the simple form of church government, described
above, was soon changed. The bishops who lived in cities, either by
their own labors or those of the elders associated with them, raised up
new churches in the adjacent villages and hamlets. The bishops of these
rural districts being nominated and ordained by the bishops presiding
in the cities, very naturally felt themselves under the protection and
dependent upon the city bishops. This idea continued to grow until
these bishops of "the suburbs and the fields" were looked upon as a
distinct order of officers, possessing a dignity and authority above
the elders, and yet subordinate to the bishops of the cities who,
wherever they presided over bishops in outlying districts, soon came to
be designated as archbishops.
Gradually, and perhaps almost imperceptibly, the church in the west
in its government followed the civil divisions of the Roman empire.
The bishop of the metropolis of a civil province, in time came to be
regarded as having a general supervision of all the churches in that
province, and soon it became the custom to style them metropolitans.
The bishops of the great cities of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
and Antioch, after the ascension of Constantine, were made to
correspond to the four praetorian prefects created by Constantine in
the civil government; and before the end of the fourth century received
the title of patriarchs. [12] It is also said by Mosheim, though denied
by other writers, that next to the patriarchs were bishops whose
jurisdiction extended over several provinces and corresponded to the
civil exarchs; next came the metropolitan bishops whose jurisdiction,
as already stated, was limited to a single province, and corresponded
to the governor of the provinces. The arch-bishops presided over a
district including several bishoprics within a province; and lastly
came the bishops of churches.
Concurrent with these changes arose the custom, first derived from the
Greeks, of holding provincial councils. The bishops living in a single
province met in council to confer upon mattes of common interest to
their churches. At first the attending bishops looked upon themselves
as merely the representatives of their respective churches, without
further jurisdiction than to discuss and come to agreement on matters
of common concern. But gradually they usurped the power to order by
decree where at first they were wont to advise or entreat. Nor was it
long ere the decrees of these provincial councils were forced upon the
respective churches as laws to be implicitly obeyed.
There was some resistance to this from the lower clergy, but it was
quickly overcome by the activity and ambition of the bishops, who were
only too glad to escape the restraints imposed upon their movements by
the doctrine of common consent. It is said also that as many changes
occurred among the lower order of the clergy as among the bishops.
The elders and deacons aping the conduct of their file leaders became
too proud to attend to the humble duties of their offices, and hence
a number of other officers were added to the church--subdeacons,
acolythi, ostiarii, lectors, exorcists and copiatae [13]--while the
elders and deacons spent much of their time in indolence and pleasure.
If the ambition of rival bishops distracted the church in the second
and third centuries, much more did ambitious prelates--patriarchs
and metropolitans--of the fourth and fifth centuries disturb its
tranquility. They contended about the limits of their respective
jurisdiction with all the bitterness of temporal kings seeking an
enlargement of their dominions. They made conquests and reprisals
upon each other in much the same spirit, and at times were not above
resorting to violence to attain their ends. It soon happened that
the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem sank below their
fellow patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople in wealth and dignity. The
prelates of these latter cities fiercely contended for the title of
universal bishop; and in that contest the bishop of Constantinople was
not always unsuccessful.
Over the protest of Leo the Great, in the fifth century, the council of
Chalcedon decreed that the bishop of "New Rome" ought to enjoy the same
honors and prerogatives with the pontiff of ancient Rome, on account of
the equal rank and dignity of the two cities. In the following century,
encouraged by past successes the bishop of "New Rome,"--John, surnamed
the Faster, because of the austerity of his life, assembled a council
of eastern bishops on his own account, to decide on charges brought
against the patriarch of Antioch. It was on this occasion that he made
such an assumption of the title of acumenical or universal bishop, that
Gregory the Great supposed him to be aiming at a supremacy over all the
Christian churches. In spite of the opposition of Gregory, the Faster,
sustained by the emperor, continued to wear the title, though, it is
said, not in the sense that Gregory supposed. The contest continued
from this time forward with little interruption until that fatal
schism came between the east and the west with which the reader has
already been made acquainted. [14] The patriarchs of New Rome retained
their hold upon the east; but the decay, moral and spiritual, which
blighted those churches steadily went on, until at the last, Mohammedan
civilization displaced Christian civilization. The crescent rose
triumphantly above the cross, and the east sank into a settled gloom
out of which it has not yet been able to rise.
In the west it was otherwise. There all was activity. The Roman
pontiffs not only sent their missionaries to the barbarians to preach
the supremacy of the popes, but the barbarians came to Rome. They came
with arms in their hands and as conquerors, it is true, and in the
closing years of the fifth century obtained an easy victory over the
western division of the empire. But if imperial Rome was vanquished,
there arose above its ruins papal Rome, in majesty no less splendid
than that possessed by imperial Rome in her palmiest days; and in the
course of time the victorious barbarians bowed in as humble submission
to the wand of the popes, as their ancestors had to the eagle-mounted
standard of the emperors. Moreover, the barbarous nations that fell
under the influence of the Roman missionaries were accustomed to hold
their priests in a superstitious reverence. In portions of Western
Europe the Druid priests had reigned over both people and magistrates,
controlling absolutely the jurisdiction of the latter; and, in the
case of the supreme priest, according to some authorities, [15] the
reverence of the barbarians amounted to worship. This reverence,
on their conversion to Christianity, was readily transferred to
the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church; and made possible that
spiritual and temporal despotism before which monarchs trembled and the
world stood in abject fear.
Having traced the rise of the Church of Rome to this point, it yet
remains to say that the corruption of her clergy and members kept pace
with the developing splendor of the hierarchy. The pride, ambition and
wickedness which bishops and other ministers of the church practiced
in the second and third centuries have already been pointed out, and
at the same time it was suggested that in these matters there was not
likely to be any improvement after ease and luxury--ever the panderers
to immorality--had increased the appetite for sensual pleasures and
supplied the means of gratification.
Early in the history of the church the morality of the times not only
excused but justified lying and deceit whenever it was supposed that
the interests of religion could be promoted by it; and hence the
existence of that mass of childish fable and falsehood respecting
the infancy and youth of Messiah, and the wonder-working power of
the relics of the saints and martyrs which has brought the Christian
religion into contempt. Not even the greatest and most pious teachers
of the first five or six centuries are free from this leprosy; [16] and
if such characters as Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, Gregory Nazianzen,
and Jerome are not free from it, how much more may we expect to find it
a vice with men of less reputation!
The attempt to live in a state of celibacy gave rise to many scandals
in the church. Ambitious of a peculiar sanctity, the clergy began
to abstain from marriage, but not from the pleasures supposed to be
peculiar to the married state. It became the custom for the priests
to live with "sub-introduced women," who "passed as sisters of the
priests, the correctness of whose taste was often exemplified by the
remarkable beauty of their sinful partners." [17] It is only fair to
say that a law of Honorius condemned this practice, but it is to be
feared that the only effect of the law upon those undertaking to live
in the unnatural condition which celibacy imposes was merely to drive
the practice from the public gaze.
Of all the writers who have given us a description of the moral
condition of the church in the period of which I write, I think
Salvian, who wrote about the middle of the fifth century, is the most
vivid, and hence I quote in part his arraignment:
"The very church which should be the body to appease the anger of God,
alas! what reigns there but disorders calculated to incense the Most
High? It is more common to meet with Christians who are guilty of the
greatest abominations than with those who are wholly exempt from crime.
So that today it is a sort of sanctity among us to be less vicious
than the generality of Christians. We insult the majesty of the Most
High at the foot of his altars. Men, the most steeped in crime, enter
the holy places without respect for them. True, all men ought to pay
their vows to God, but why should they seek his temples to propitiate
him, only to go forth to provoke him? Why enter the church to deplore
their former sins, and upon going forth--what do I say?--in those very
courts they commit fresh sins, their mouths and their hearts contradict
one another. Their prayers are criminal meditations rather than vows
of expiation. Scarcely is service ended before each returns to his old
practices. Some go to their wine, others to their impurities, still
others to robbing and brigandage, so that we cannot doubt that these
things had been occupying them while they were in the church. Nor is it
the lowest of the people who are thus guilty. There is no rank whatever
in the church which does not commit all sorts of crimes.
"It may be urged that we are better at heart than the barbarians who
oppose us. Suppose this to be granted; we ought to be better than they.
But as a matter of fact, they are more virtuous than we. The mass of
Christians are below the barbarians in probity. True, all kinds of
sins are found among them; but what one is not found among us? The
several nations have their peculiar sin; the Saxons are cruel, the
Franks perfidious; the Gepidae inhuman; the Huns lewd. But we, having
the law of God to restrain us, are given over to all these offenses.
Then, to confine ourselves to the single sin of swearing, can many
be found among the faithful who have not the name of Jesus Christ
constantly upon their lips in support of their perjuries? This practice
coming down from the higher to the lower classes, has so prevailed
that Christians might be deemed pagans. This, although the law of God
expressly forbids to take his name in vain. We read this law; but we
do not practice it; as a consequence the pagans taunt us that we boast
ourselves the sole possessors of God's laws and of the rules of truth
and of what that law enjoins. 'Christians, indeed, to the shame of
Jesus Christ,' say they." [18]
In book VI. on _The Providence of God,_ Salvian continues his
arraignment: "We rush from the churches to the theatres, even in the
midst of our perils. In Carthage the theatres were thronged while the
enemy were before the walls, and the cries of those perishing outside
under the sword mingled with the shouts of the spectators in the
circus. Nor are we better here in Gaul. Treves has been taken four
times, and has only increased in wickedness under her misfortunes. The
same state of things exists in Cologne--deplorable wickedness among
young and old, low and high. The smaller cities have been blind and
insensible to the dangers threatening, until they have overwhelmed
them. It seems to be the destiny of the Roman empire to perish rather
than reform; they must cease to be, in order to cease to be vicious.
A part of the inhabitants of Treves, having escaped from the ruins,
petitions the emperor for--what? A theatre, spectacles, public shows!
A city which thrice overthrown could not correct itself, well deserved
to suffer a fourth destruction. * * * Would that my voice might be
heard by all Romans! I would cry: Let us all blush that today the only
cities where impurity does not reign are those which have submitted to
the barbarians. Think not, then, that they conquer and we yield by the
simple force of nature. Rather let us admit that we succumb through
dissoluteness of our morals, of which our calamities are the just
punishment."
The moral condition of the church did not improve in the sixth nor the
seventh century. It kept getting worse and worse until in the tenth
century those writers most interested in upholding the purity of the
church declare that this was an iron age, barren of all goodness; a
leaden age, abounding in all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable for
the scarcity of writers and men of learning. Christ is represented as
in a very deep sleep, the ship as covered with waves, and there were no
disciples who by their cries might wake him, being themselves asleep.
[19] "Infidel Malice," says Milner, "has with pleasure recorded the
vices and crimes of the popes of this century. Nor is it my intention
to attempt to palliate the account of their wickedness. It was as deep
and atrocious as language can paint; nor can a reasonable man desire
more authentic evidence of history than that which the records both of
civil and ecclesiastical history afford concerning the corruption of
the whole church." [20]
As already remarked, it is the contention of the Roman Catholic Church
that from Peter to Leo XIII. there has been an uninterrupted line
of bishops in the see of Rome who have held divine authority; who
succeeded both to the divine authority and mission of St. Peter; with
power to bind and loose on earth and in heaven; who were, in fact, the
vicars of Christ on earth, presidents of the church universal.
It now becomes my duty to refute that claim and give further proof
of the complete apostasy of the church by presenting the history of
the popes for three hundred years, from the middle of the eighth to
the middle of the eleventh century. I quote the sketch from Draper's
Intellectual Development of Europe:
"On the death of Pope Paul I., who had attained the pontificate
A. D. 757, the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate
Constantine, one of his brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors
subsequently, A. D. 768, choosing Stephen IV., the usurper and his
adherents were severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put
out; the tongue of Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left
in a dungeon to expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope
Adrian seized his successor, Pope Leo III., A. D. 795, in the street,
and forcing him into a neighboring church, attempted to put out his
eyes and cut out his tongue; at a later period this pontiff trying to
suppress a conspiracy to depose him, Rome became a scene of rebellion,
murder and conflagration. His successor, Stephen V., A. D. 816, was
ignominiously driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I., was
accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran
Palace; it was necessary that imperial commissioners should investigate
the matter, but the pope died, after having exculpated himself by
oath before thirty bishops. John VIII., A. D. 872, unable to resist
the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop of
Naples, maintaining a secret alliance with them, received his share
of the plunder they collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he
give him absolution unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and
assassinate others himself. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy
to murder the pope; some of the treasures of the church were seized;
and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys, to admit
the Saracens into the city. Formosus, who had been engaged in these
transactions, and excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of
John, was subsequently elected pope, A. D. 891; he was succeeded by
Boniface VI., A. D. 896, who had been deposed from the diaconate, and
again from the priesthood, for his immoral and lewd life. By Stephen
VII., who followed, the dead body of Formosus was taken from the grave,
clothed in papal habiliaments, propped up in a chair, tried before a
council, and the preposterous and indecent scene completed by cutting
off three of the fingers of the corpse and casting it into the Tiber;
but Stephen himself was destined to exemplify how low the papacy had
fallen; he was thrown into prison and strangled. In the course of five
years from A. D. 896 to A. D. 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo
V., who succeeded in A. D. 904, was in less than two months thrown
into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains, who usurped his
place, and who, in his turn, was shortly expelled from Rome by Sergius
III., who, by the aid of a military force, seized the pontificate, A.
D. 905. This man, according to the testimony of the times, lived in
a criminal intercourse with the celebrated prostitute Theodora, who,
with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, also prostitutes, exercised an
extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared
by John X.: she gave him the first arch-bishopric of Ravenna, and then
translated him to Rome, A. D. 915, as pope. John was not unsuited to
the times; he organized a confederacy which perhaps prevented Rome
from being captured by the Saracens, and the world was astonished and
edified by the appearance of this warlike pontiff at the head of his
troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said, he maintained himself
in the papacy for fourteen years; by the intrigues and hatred of
her daughter, Marozia, he was overthrown. She surprised him in the
Lateran palace; killed his brother Peter before his face; threw him
into prison, where he soon died, smothered, as was asserted, with a
pillow. After a short interval Marozia made her own son pope as John
XI., A. D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but
she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose
brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her sons, Alberic,
so called from his supposed father, jealous of his brother John, cast
him and his mother Marozia into prison. After a time Alberic's son was
elected pope, A. D. 956; he assumed the title of John XII., the amorous
Marozia thus having given a son and a grandson to the papacy. John was
only nineteen years old when he thus became head of Christendom. His
reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that
the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German clergy to interfere.
A synod was summoned for his trial in the Church of St. Peter, before
which it appeared that John had received bribes for the consecration
of bishops, that he had ordained one who was but ten years old, and
had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he was charged
with incest with one of his father's concubines, and with so many
adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out
the eyes of one ecclesiastic and castrated another, both dying in
consequence of their injuries; he was given to drunkenness, gambling,
and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before
the council, he sent word that 'he had gone out hunting;' and to the
fathers who remonstrated with him, he threateningly remarked 'that
Judas, as well as the other disciples, received from his master the
power of binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved traitor
to the common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding
his own neck.' Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII. elected in his
stead, A. D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized
his antagonists, cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, tongue of
others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a
man whose wife he had seduced.
"After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of
succeeding popes; to relate that John XIII. was strangled in prison;
that Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and killed him by
starvation; that John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons
of the castle of St. Angelo; that the corpse of Boniface was dragged
by the populace through the streets. The sentiment of reverence for
the sovereign pontiff, nay, even of respect, had become extinct in
Rome; throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the state of
things that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation
on the intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the Italians their
privilege of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to
his own family. But his kinsman, Gregory V., whom he placed on the
pontifical throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his
excommunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by
them; they were too well acquainted with the true nature of these
terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punishment
awaited the Anti-pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized
him, put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him
through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and
a wine-bladder on his head. It seemed impossible that things could
become worse; yet Rome had still to see Benedict IX., A. D. 1033, a
boy of less than twelve years, raised to the apostolic throne. Of this
pontiff, one of his successors, Victor III., declared that his life was
so shameful, so foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it.
He ruled like a captain of a banditti rather than a prelate. The people
at last, unable to bear his adulteries, homicides and abominations any
longer, rose against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he
put up the papacy to auction. It was bought by a presbyter named John,
who became Gregory V., A. D. 1045."
"More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Savior,
and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the
annals of those times in disgust; well may the heart of the Christian
sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crime; well may he ask,
Were these the viceregents of God upon earth--those who had truly
reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness
cannot pass?" [21]
Is it not difficult to reconcile one's mind to the thought that
these men who ruled the Catholic Church for three centuries were the
viceregents of God on earth? Or that through them a divine authority
and a divine mission has been transmitted to later and happier times?
To do so one would be under the necessity of maintaining that no amount
of immorality, however infamous, can possibly disqualify men from
acting as God's representatives. And such a position would be contrary
to all the evidence of scripture, as well as revolting to sound reason.
Footnotes
1. Compare Luke x with Matt. x.
2. Acts xiv: 23. Acts xx: 17, 28.
3. Phillip i: 1. I Tim. iii. This also is the view of Clement of Rome
who, in writing to the Corinthians in the third century, says of the
apostles: "So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed
their first fruits when they had proved them by the spirit, to be
bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. And this they did do
in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops
and deacons from very ancient times; for thus saith the scriptures in a
certain place: 'I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their
deacons in faith.'"
4. Eph. iv.
5. I Cor. xii.
6. Eph. iv.
7. Eph. iv.
8. "Ibid."
9. In this connection it may be observed that the vacancy in the
quorum of the Twelve, occasioned by the apostasy of Judas, was filled
(Acts i: 24-26). Paul, too, though not in the original Twelve was an
Apostle, and so subscribes himself in nearly all his letters. Clement
of Alexandria, an elder and writer of the second century, calls Clement
of Rome, the "Apostle Clement." Though whether this is meant in a
rather loose sense or because he had been ordained such by one of the
apostles--for he was an associate of both Peter and Paul--does not
appear. (Philip iv: 3.)
10. See epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.
11. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Cent. iv, Bk. ii, Part ii, ch. ii. See also
his remarks on the government of the church in Cent. iii and ii.
12. The bishops of Jerusalem, in the 5th century, also contended for
and at last secured the title of Patriarch. (Mosheim's E. Inst., Cent.
v, Part ii, ch. ii.)
13. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iii, Part ii, ch. ii.
14. See pp. 21, 22.
15. Schlegel among them.
16. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iv, Part ii, ch. ii.
17. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, p. 359. Draper remarks
also that "the children arising from these associations do not appear
to have occasioned any extraordinary scandal."--_Ibid_.
18. The above quotation is taken from the third and fourth books on
"The Providence of God," by Salvian.
19. Such are the representations of Caesar Baronius, a Catholic
historian of the 16th century. He was a candidate for the papacy in
1605, and hence his devotion to the Catholic church cannot be doubted.
20. Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. III, Cent. x, ch. i.
21. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, pp. 378-382.