The proper aspect to view the Church in is a matter of so much practical
importance at all times, that it can never be uninteresting to know the
light in which it was regarded in the subapostolical age, of which Irenæus
is a very unobjectionable evidence.
We shall find then that this writer considered the Church to be an
ascertainable society, planted first at Jerusalem(160), and thence spread
to the limits of the habitable globe(161); planted by the Apostles, and
kept up by and in the elders or bishops their successors(162). It is,
however, divided into separate Churches, which are to regard that of
Jerusalem as their mother Church(163). The whole Church, moreover, is to
its individual members as a mother to her children(164): she is appointed
for the quickening of creation(165), and in her is the way of life(166),
which those who keep aloof from her do not possess(167); in her is the
Holy Spirit, which is not to be found out of her(168). She possesses the
adoption and inheritance of Abraham, and her members are consequently the
seed of Abraham(169). Being thus appointed for the quickening of the
world, by being the way of life to its members, she has for that purpose
received the faith from the Apostles, which it is her business to
distribute to her children(170). She is therefore the appointed preacher
of the faith, or the truth, which is not variable and changeable, but one,
and only one(171); not merely a quality infused into the heart, but a form
of truths embodied or summed up in words, and delivered to her members
when they are initiated into her(172). Her ancient system is therefore the
guide to truth(173), and those who wish to know it must have recourse to
her, and be brought up in her bosom(174). Her testimony, moreover, is
confirmed by the Apostles and Prophets(175), whose writings are kept in
the custody of her elders(176), with which, moreover, those must expect to
be fed who come to her(177). She has succeeded to the office of the
ancient Jewish Church of being the great witness of the unity of the
Godhead(178).
To show that she is commissioned from above, she wrought continual
miracles for the good of the world by prayer and invocation of the name of
Jesus(179); she even raised the dead by means of fasting and prayer(180);
and she alone produced persons who sealed their own sincerity and the
truth of their faith by their blood(181).
Finally, although not exempt from weakness, and capable of losing whole
members, she, as a body, remains imperishable(182).
It is remarkable how strictly this notion of an external, visible,
ascertainable body, consisting of individuals, and under the government of
individual officers, having a personal succession in distinct
localities(183), is in accordance with the doctrine of the Church of
England; and how totally opposed it is to the notions held amongst
dissenters, and by individuals within the Church in modern times.
According to Irenæus, moreover, the different classes of sectaries would
be regarded as having neither spiritual life nor the Holy Spirit, _except_
so far as they might be supposed to be in communion with the body governed
by elders or bishops descended from the Apostles. If in any way or to any
degree they can be supposed to be in communion with them, to that extent
they would be thought to have the Holy Ghost, and to be in the way of
life, but no further. I am not now discussing whether he was right or
wrong; I am merely pointing out the contrariety between his views of the
Church and those which appear to be most popular at present. I doubt if
most Protestants would not pronounce his doctrine to be gross bigotry; for
very many of those who would go so far with him as to acknowledge the
Church to be a visible society, would be very far from restricting the
grace of the Holy Spirit to the communion of the bishops in succession
from the Apostles.
I must, however, direct more particular attention to one part of his
system which did not require to be brought out prominently. We have seen
that he thought it possible for the Church to lose whole members. In fact,
although he thought that the truth was kept up by the succession of
bishops _throughout the Church_, and that it was a mark of truth to be so
kept up, he still believed that presbyters or bishops might, through
pride, or other evil motives, make schisms in the Church(184); and he
taught that those were to be adhered to who, with the succession, keep the
Apostles’ doctrine, and lead good lives(185); implying, of course, that
some who were in the succession might depart from the Apostles’ doctrine.
The succession was not, therefore, in his opinion, an infallible test of
truth in the individual Church. Any individual Church, or even a
considerable number or collection of Churches, might fall into heresy, and
thus become cut off from the Church; but it is evident that he did not
think this possible to happen to the great body of the Church.
It is manifest from this that he thought the private Christian must
sometimes pass judgment upon his bishop, and might be called upon to
separate from him, and to adhere to those who were more orthodox. In what
cases this was requisite, or what was to be the extent of the alienation,
he does not give any hint; but this clearly establishes that he thought
private judgment upon religious controversy to be sometimes a duty: for
without the exercise of private judgment upon the part of the layman, it
would be in some cases impossible for him to show his preference for those
bishops who adhered to the Apostles’ doctrine.
We find no trace in Irenæus of any authority in the Church of Rome to
decide controversies for the rest of the Church. On the contrary, he
taught Christians to have recourse to any ancient apostolical Church, or
rather collection of Churches(186), if they wished to ascertain the
traditional system of the Church. He indeed quotes that Church as being in
his time a more important witness to the truth than any other individual
Church, because, through the continual concourse of Christians thither, in
consequence of its more powerful pre‐eminence, the traditions of the
universal Church were there collected as it were into a focus(187); but,
as I have pointed out elsewhere(188), he recognises no authority in that
Church to _claim_ to decide controversies. With him it is not any
individual Church that is commissioned to preserve the truth, not even the
Church of Jerusalem, which he calls the mother of all Churches (a title
which has been since arrogated by the Roman Church), but the Catholic
Church, truly so called, by the mouth of her pastors throughout the world;
for although he mentions the pre‐eminence of the Church of Rome in his day
as a matter of _fact_, he does not state it to be a matter of _right_; nor
does he ground any thing upon it but the further fact that it followed, of
course, that Christians resorted to it from all quarters, as they did
afterwards to Constantinople. He gives no hint as to the source of that
pre‐eminence, other than its having been settled by the _two_ Apostles St.
Peter and _St. Paul_, and honoured with being the scene of their
martyrdom(189). And his appeal to it he builds, not on any authority
residing in it, but upon the fact that _at that time_ the confluence from
all parts of the Church caused the tradition of the whole Church to be
best preserved there, as was afterwards the case at Constantinople, and
has since been no where. So that his appeal to Rome is not in fact an
appeal to that Church, but to the Church universal; and since Rome has
ceased to be the place of resort to the universal Church, the ground for
appealing to her has ceased likewise.
On the subject of the Bishops of the primitive Church several questions
have arisen, and it is of course highly desirable to know whether Irenæus
furnishes any evidence on either side of them. It is not to be expected
that we can discuss any of them _fully_ by the aid of any single writer;
but such indications as we meet with may with propriety be drawn out.
That which first demands our notice is whether Bishops existed, as a
distinct order from Presbyters, from the beginning.
Now Irenæus does undoubtedly call the same persons by the _name_ of
Bishops and Presbyters interchangeably. But it has been long ago pointed
out that the circumstance of the same _name_ being borne by persons
holding two different offices, proves nothing. It is unsafe to infer from
the circumstance that _bishops_ are called _presbyters_, or _presbyters
bishops_, that therefore there was not a permanent officer set over the
other presbyters, and endued with functions which they could not exercise,
although not at first distinguished by a specific name.
On the other hand, we learn from him that there were to be found in every
part of the Christian world bishops or presbyters placed at the head of
Churches, which from their importance, must have had other presbyters in
them, and which we know from other sources to have had other presbyters in
them; that there was only one of these at one and the same time; that they
were intrusted with the government of the Churches, and called the Bishops
of those Churches; that the authority of the office was handed down from
individual to individual; and that the individuals who filled this office,
and by consequence the office itself, were appointed by inspired
apostles(190). All these facts are irreconcileable with the hypothesis
that all presbyters were equal in authority and function.
The question whether these bishops and presbyters might not have been
simply pastors of independent congregations, is answered by finding that
they had other presbyters under them, (as Irenæus under Pothinus, and
Florinus and Blastus under the Bishops of Rome,) and _that_ in places such
as Rome, where there were probably more congregations than one.
There is nothing in Irenæus to favour the idea that the subject‐presbyters
were not properly clergymen; on the contrary, the letter of the martyrs to
Eleutherius would appear to speak of Irenæus as a clergyman, when we at
the same time know him to have been a presbyter: and it does appear in the
highest degree improbable that the flourishing Church of Rome, which we
know to have been the place of residence of two Apostles at once, should
have been left, down to Irenæus’s time, with only a single clergyman in
it, which must have been the case upon this theory; to say nothing of
Smyrna, which, according to the same scheme, must have been left destitute
of spiritual superintendence during Polycarp’s visit to Rome, which S.
Irenæus has recorded.
But granting the _existence_ of Bishops such as we have them now, and
their appointment by Apostles, another question arises, first suggested,
so far as we know, by S. Jerome, whether the powers now exclusively
reserved to Bishops, such as ordination and government, were so
exclusively delegated to them by the Apostles, as that those powers
exercised by other presbyters are invalid. The question does not appear to
have occurred to Irenæus: but we have no hint in him of other presbyters
having the same authority as the bishops of the Churches; on the other
hand, he expressly states that the Apostles committed the Churches to the
government and teaching of individual bishops or presbyters in each,
_making them their successors, and giving them their own office_(191). And
the very circumstance of their committing the Churches to those
individuals did (by what appears to me inevitable consequence) exclude all
others from _the same place_ to which those individuals were appointed,
and constitute them an order by themselves. And that the universal Church
understood the appointment in that sense is proved by the fact, recorded
by Irenæus, that the succession of authority was kept up in individuals
down to his time; the evident implication being that it was so in all
Churches.
The evidence, therefore, supplied by Irenæus, although not enabling us,
_by itself_, to discuss the whole question fully, is in support of the
discipline of the Church of England, which refuses to recognize the
ordinations of any but bishops, properly so called, and having their
authority in succession from the Apostles(192).