CHAPTER IV.

THE ACTUAL RELATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE FROM THE DAY OF PENTECOST TO

CONSTANTINE.

_The Transmission of Spiritual Authority as witnessed in the History of

the Church from A.D. 29 to A.D. 325._

It was requisite to draw out the full statement of the transmission of

Spiritual Power, as recorded in the Scriptures of the Church, before

passing to its historical fulfilment. How exactly the fulfilment

corresponded to the promise is attested for us by an unexceptionable

authority, almost at the end of the first century. This witness was given

just before the closing of the Canon of the New Testament itself. It is

to be deplored that almost all the early letters of the Sovereign

Pontiffs have been lost, but one of the first is extant in the letter of

St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthian Church. It belongs to the year 95

or 96, and was written during or immediately after Domitian's

persecution, when St. John the Evangelist was the sole survivor of the

Apostolic College. Its occasion was an attempt to depose the Bishop of

Corinth by a party in that Church. The matter was referred to the Roman

Church, and the Pope gives his judgment in words which we will quote

later. St. Irenæus,[41] about eighty years after this letter was

written, referred to it in these terms: "The blessed Apostles (Peter and

Paul), having founded and built up the (Roman) Church, delivered up the

administration of it to Linus; this is the Linus of whom Paul has made

mention in his letter to Timothy. His successor was Anacletus, and in the

third degree from the Apostles Clement received the bishopric, who had

both seen the blessed Apostles and lived with them, having their

preaching yet sounding in his ears, and their tradition before his eyes;

not alone in this, for there were still many left at that time who had

been taught by the Apostles. In the time then of this Clement, no slight

dissension having arisen among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in

Rome sent a most authoritative letter to the Corinthians, drawing them

together into peace, and renewing their faith, and recording the

tradition recently derived by it from the Apostles."

The nature of the dissension which he sought to appease was a violation

of the due succession in the episcopate. This fact led St. Clement to

give an account of its origin. This account, be it observed, dates

sixty-six years, or just two generations after the Day of Pentecost. It

is an historical narration of what had intervened, exhibiting the manner

in which the Apostles and their immediate successors had understood the

commission given them by our Lord, the terms of which we have just been

considering. There can be nothing more authentic or more valuable than

such a statement coming from such a source. It is a summary at the end

of the first century,[42] giving the order according to which the Church

was propagated, and it has the peculiarity of being issued by the

authority which stood at the head of all.

St. Clement[43] there enjoins obedience within the Christian body,

referring to the discipline of the Roman army, in these terms: "Let us

take service, therefore, brethren, with all earnestness in His faultless

ordinances. Let us mark the soldiers that take service under our rulers,

how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they execute the orders given

them. All are not prefects, nor rulers of thousands, nor rulers of

hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so forth; but each man in his own

rank executeth the order given by the emperor and his commanders. The

great without the small cannot exist, neither the small without the

great. There is a certain mixture in all things, and therein is utility.

Let us take our body as an example. The head without the feet is nothing,

so likewise the feet without the head are nothing; even the smallest

limbs of our body are necessary and useful for the whole body; but all

the members conspire and unite in subjection, that the whole body may be

saved. So, in our case, let the whole body be saved in Christ Jesus, and

let each man be subject unto his neighbour, according as also he was

appointed with his special grace.

"Forasmuch, then, as these things are manifest beforehand, and we have

searched into the depths of the divine knowledge, we ought to do all

things in order, as many as the Master[44] has commanded us to perform at

their appointed seasons. Now the offerings and liturgic[45] acts He

commanded to be performed with care, and not to be done rashly or in

disorder, but at fixed times and seasons. And where and by whom He would

have them performed He himself fixed by His supreme will, that all things

being done with piety, according to His good pleasure, might be

acceptable to His will. They, therefore, that make their offerings at the

appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed; for while they follow the

institutions of the Master they cannot go wrong. For unto the high priest

his proper liturgic acts are assigned, and to the priests their proper

office is appointed, and upon the levites their proper ministrations are

laid. The layman is bound by the layman's ordinances.

"Let each of you, brethren, in his own rank give thanks to God,

maintaining a good conscience, and not transgressing the appointed rule

of his service, but acting with all seemliness. Not in every place,

brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices offered, or the free-will

offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in

Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering is not made in every place,

but before the sanctuary in the court of the altar, and this too through

the high priest and the aforesaid officiants, after that the victim to be

offered has been inspected for blemishes. They then who do anything

contrary to the seemly ordinance of His will receive death as the

penalty. You see, brethren, in proportion as greater knowledge has been

vouchsafed to us, so much the more are we exposed to danger.

"The Apostles evangelised us from the Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ

from God. So then Christ was sent forth by God, and the Apostles by

Christ. Both therefore came of the will of God in the appointed order.

Having therefore received a charge, and having been fully assured through

the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and confirmed in the Word of

God with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth with the good

tidings that the kingdom of God was about to come. So preaching

everywhere from country to country and from town to town, they went on

appointing their first-fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit,

to be bishops and deacons for those that were to believe. And this they

did in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops

and deacons in very ancient times: for thus saith the Scripture in a

certain place, I will appoint their bishops in justice and their deacons

in faith.

"And what marvel if they who were entrusted in Christ with such a work by

God appointed the aforesaid persons, seeing that even the blessed Moses,

who was a faithful servant in all his house, recorded for a sum in the

sacred books all things that were enjoined upon him. And him also the

rest of the prophets followed, bearing joint witness with him unto the

laws that were ordained by him. For he, when jealousy arose concerning

the priesthood, and there was dissension among the tribes which of them

was adorned with the glorious name, commanded the twelve chiefs of the

tribes to bring to him rods inscribed with the name of each tribe. And he

took them and tied them, and sealed them with the signet-rings of the

chiefs of the tribes, and put them away in the tabernacle of the

testimony on the table of God. And having shut the tabernacle, he sealed

the keys, and likewise also the rods. And he said unto them, Brethren,

the tribe whose rod shall bud, this hath God chosen to be priests and

officiants unto Him. Now when morning came, he called together all

Israel, even the six hundred thousand men, and showed the seals to the

chiefs of the tribes, and opened the tabernacle of the testimony, and

drew forth the rods. And the rod of Aaron was found not only with buds,

but also bearing fruit. What think ye, beloved? Did not Moses know

beforehand that this would come to pass? Assuredly he knew it. But that

disorder might not arise in Israel, he did thus, to the end that the Name

of the true and only God might be glorified: to whom be glory for ever

and ever. Amen.

"And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be

strife over the dignity of the episcopate. For this cause, therefore,

having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid

persons, and they established a succession, that if these should fall

asleep, other approved men should succeed to their liturgic function.[46]

Those, therefore, that were appointed by them, or afterward by other men

of repute, with the consent of the whole Church, and who performed their

office blamelessly to the flock of Christ, with lowliness, gentleness,

and a generous spirit, and for a long time have borne a good report with

all, these we judge it not consonant with justice to deprive of their

office. For it will be no light sin in us to deprive of the episcopate

those who offer the gifts blamelessly and holily. Blessed are those

presbyters who have gone before, seeing that their departure was fruitful

and ripe, for they have no fear lest any one should remove them from

their appointed place. For we see that you are displacing certain persons

who were living honourably from the office which they had blamelessly

performed."

St. Clement, in the above passages, states in few but precise words how

the whole Christian ministry was appointed by Christ with the most exact

order. "The Master commanded the offerings and liturgic acts to be

performed with care, and not to be done rashly or in disorder, but at

fixed times and seasons. And where and by whom He would have them

performed He himself fixed by His supreme will, that all things being

done with piety, according to His good pleasure, might be acceptable to

His will." We have seen that only the appointment of the supreme

authority--that of St. Peter and the Apostolic College--is recorded in

the Gospels and Acts. All details are omitted. But this does not mean

that such details were either unimportant or left to be developed

casually. Here it is expressly said that our Lord appointed them all, and

left strict injunctions both as to the persons who should execute them

and the things to be done. And then St. Clement assumes rather than

states--so entirely uncontested and acknowledged seems it to be in his

mind--that the Christian order succeeds the Mosaic in the triple division

of high priest, priest, and levite. "They therefore that make their

offerings at the appointed seasons are acceptable and blessed; for while

they follow the institutions of the Master they cannot go wrong." He

speaks of a present, not a past time; of an actual, not a typical order,

continuing thus: "For unto the high priest his proper liturgic acts are

assigned, and to the priests their proper office is appointed, and upon

the levites their proper ministrations are laid. The layman is bound by

the layman's ordinances. Let each of you, brethren, in his own rank, give

thanks to God, maintaining a good conscience, and not transgressing the

appointed rule of His service, but acting with all seemliness."[47] It

cannot be denied that these are injunctions issued to those to whom he

was speaking. And the tacit appropriation of the Jewish names and offices

to the Christian order, with the injunction of present obedience, all

based upon the direct institution of "the Master," is every way to be

noted. But he proceeds to say that, if the Mosaic services are accurately

performed according to a divine rule, much more should the Christian be.

"Not in every place, brethren, are the continual daily sacrifices

offered, or the free-will offerings, or the sin-offerings, and the

trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem alone. And even there the offering

is not made in every place, but before the sanctuary in the court of the

altar, and this too through the high priest and the aforesaid officiants,

after that the victim to be offered has been inspected for blemishes.

They then who do anything contrary to the seemly ordinance of His will

receive death as the penalty. You see, brethren, in proportion as greater

knowledge has been vouchsafed to us, so much the more are we exposed to

danger."

How, it may be asked, comes it that he mentions the worship at Jerusalem

as going on when the city and temple had been destroyed twenty-five years

before?

I would suggest that St. Clement is considering the whole order of the

Aaronic priesthood and worship as a divine appointment. In this point of

view, it is apart from time, that is, he mentions it ideally as a divine

institution. Moreover, he clearly considers it as carried on in the

Christian ministry, as having found in that ministry its complete

fulfilment. In this aspect it was of no importance that the worship at

Jerusalem, to which he referred, had ceased by a divine judgment to be

any longer in existence. It had fulfilled its work; the blood of bulls

and goats, which typified the most Precious Blood, was offered no more;

but instead the sacrifice to which it had pointed. He quotes it for what

had not passed, the divine institution of a certain order in it. If, for

the violation of this order, death was inflicted, how much more should

those who transgressed the Christian institution, as having been

vouchsafed greater knowledge, be exposed to danger. Moreover, was not the

fact of Jesus being the Christ a basis in St. Clement's mind for the

belief that the Mosaic worship was carried on, with the requisite change,

in the Christian? How deeply lay in his mind the feeling that the

Christian Church was a continuation of the Jewish--the child coming forth

from the embryo of the Jewish womb--is apparent through the whole letter.

The third point, then, which we note is, that the ordinances of Christ,

in all that concerns the priesthood and the rites of His Church, were to

be observed according to the rule which "the Master" Himself had given

even more accurately than the Mosaic ritual, though that also was of

divine institution, had been observed.

In the next section St. Clement states very concisely, but with the

greatest energy, that quality in the transmission of spiritual power on

which we have dwelt in drawing out the scriptural record, that it came

altogether from above, not from below: "The Apostles evangelised us from

the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. So then Christ was sent

forth by God, and the Apostles by Christ. Both, therefore, came of the

will of God in the appointed order. Having then received a charge, and

having been fully assured through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus

Christ, and confirmed in the word of God with full assurance of the Holy

Ghost, they went forth with the good tidings that the kingdom of God was

about to come." As the whole appointment proceeded originally from Christ

to the Apostles, so in the appointments of the Apostles it proceeded from

them to those whom they chose. Authority, therefore, in the kingdom of

Christ, pursued throughout one descent: it came by the mandate of

superiors, not by the election of inferiors. Thus St. Clement restates

the Apostolic mission as recorded by St. John: "As My Father hath sent

Me, I also send you." But he adds a fact to a principle--a fact which,

recording as it does the whole order of the propagation of the faith in

the first two generations from the day of Pentecost, is of the utmost

value. "So preaching everywhere from country to country, and from city to

city, they went on appointing their first-fruits, when they had proved

them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons for those that were to

believe." That is, the Apostles when they came into a town, preaching as

St. Paul and St. Barnabas are described as doing at Iconium, at Lystra,

and at Derbe, were guided by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit in

the choosing of future rulers among those who heard them and listened to

them. These "first-fruits" of their labour they invested with the

episcopal consecration and office, and themselves passing on to other

places, left the bishop and his deacons to form the future people. In the

bishop they planted the root of the complete tree; from his person

radiated the priests and deacons; from his mouth came the tradition of

the divine doctrine, and thenceforth in that place all Christian

ordinances began to exist and to be exercised. The bishop is the

ecclesiastical unit, the father and generator after the pattern of

Christ, whom he represents. The process is entirely different from

another which has often in thought been substituted for it, according to

which an existing number of believers might elect their superiors, and

the ecclesiastical rule be exercised in virtue of a sort of imagined

social compact. But the words of St. Clement are precise in excluding any

such origin of Christian mission: he says that the Apostles appointed

their first-fruits to be bishops and deacons of those who were to

believe, not of those who believed already; they created the ministry,

that the ministry might form the people as yet future.[48] All this, he

adds, was in accordance with ancient prophecy.

He then proceeds to draw attention to the most remarkable origin of the

Jewish hierarchy, in that Moses determined the devolution of the high

priesthood to Aaron by appealing to a miraculous judgment of God in

causing his rod to bear fruit among the rods of the chiefs of the tribes.

In truth, there is no act recorded more strikingly typical of the divine

economy in the mission of our Lord than the creation of the whole Jewish

priesthood in the person of Aaron. In that one act the entire Jewish

ritual, with the doctrine which it upheld and propagated, proceeded by a

divine interference attested in a miracle from above, exactly as in the

Person of our Lord and from His sacrificial act as Redeemer the whole

Christian hierarchy and the doctrine which it upbears came forth from the

God and Father of all. Under this example, and as an instance of power

coming from above, St. Clement places the conduct of the Apostles in

determining the appointment and the succession of rulers in the Church.

"And our Apostles knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would

be strife over the dignity of the episcopate. For this cause, therefore,

having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid

persons, and they established a succession that, if these should fall

asleep, other approved men should succeed to their liturgic function."

Thus before the end of the first century we have a historical statement

of the universal and regular appointment of bishops throughout the world

by the Apostles in consequence of "complete foreknowledge received" from

our Lord Himself. The principle on which they proceeded is clearly

defined; the generation of the Christian people from a hierarchy

existing before itself is marked out. This is said to be in accordance

with ancient prophecy, and follows the great example of God, who created

by the hand of Moses the order of the Aaronic priesthood, the precursor

and preparer of the Christian, in which it was merged, when the High

Priest at length appeared and consummated the act which the whole Jewish

ritual was formed to symbolise.

In all this statement St. Clement not merely confirms the scriptural

record, but he supplies those details which it enveloped in general

heads. Titus and Timotheus are instances of episcopal appointment in the

writings of St. Paul, and the bishops or angels of the seven Churches in

the Apocalypse; but here the appointment is recorded as general, as

everywhere carried out by the Apostles in each city according to the

special instruction of our Lord.

Scarcely less remarkable is the manner in which this Pope, the third from

St. Peter, exercises in the lifetime of St. John the supreme pastoral

office, the creation of which that Apostle has recorded. The question to

be decided is the deposition or the maintenance of the Bishop at Corinth,

and there follows immediately upon the text above cited the act of

authority. "Those, therefore, that were appointed by them or afterward by

other men of repute, with the consent of the whole Church, and who

performed their office blamelessly to the flock of Christ, with

lowliness, gentleness, and a generous spirit, and for a long time have

borne a good report with all, _these we judge it not consonant with

justice to deprive of their office_. For it will be no light sin in us

to deprive of the episcopate[49] those who offer the gifts blamelessly

and holily." He who speaks in this language intimates thereby that he has

power to deprive of the liturgic office, that is, of the episcopate, and

acknowledges that he will have to answer for the exercise of that power.

But further, the sentence thus given he declares to be the sentence of

God Himself. "Receive our counsel, and you shall have no occasion of

regret. For as God liveth, and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth, and the Holy

Spirit, who are the faith and the hope of the elect, so surely shall he

who, with lowliness of mind and instant in gentleness, hath without

regretfulness performed the ordinances and commandments that are given by

God, be enrolled and have a name among the number of them that are saved

through Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory to Him for ever and ever.

Amen. But if certain persons should be disobedient unto the words spoken

by Him through us, let them understand that they will entangle themselves

in no slight transgression and danger; but we shall be guiltless of this

sin."[50] Further on in the letter he continues:--

"Therefore it is right for us to give heed to so great and so many

examples, and to submit the neck, and, occupying the place of obedience,

to take our side with them that are the leaders of our souls, that,

ceasing from this foolish dissension, we may attain to the goal which

lies before us in truthfulness, keeping aloof from every fault. For you

will give us great joy and gladness if you render obedience to the things

written by us through the Holy Spirit, and root out the unrighteous anger

of your jealousy, according to the entreaty which we have made for peace

and concord in this letter."[51]

Let us sum up the force of the words just cited.

St. Clement, after invoking the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity as

witnesses of the judgment he was about to promulgate, declares that "he

who performs without regretfulness the ordinances and commandments that

are given by God" shall "be enrolled and have a name among the number of

them that are saved through Jesus Christ." On the other hand, that those

who are "disobedient unto the words spoken by Him through us" "will

entangle themselves in no slight transgression and danger." He adds,

moreover, "You will give us great joy and gladness if you render

obedience to the things written by us through the Holy Spirit."[51]

From all which we learn that a decision of the Church of Rome, issued by

its Bishop, as to whether the Bishop of Corinth was rightly or wrongly

deposed, is declared, after attestation of the Three Divine Persons to be

among the commandments and ordinances given by God; to be "words spoken

by God through us," that is, the Pope and the Church of Rome; to be

"things written by us through the Holy Spirit," to which absolute

obedience was due, and which could not be neglected "without no slight

transgression and danger." The Pope, moreover, takes upon himself the

power to deprive of the episcopate by issuing a judgment that an actual

possessor of it is in his right, while he says at the same time that it

would be "no light sin in us to deprive him of it unjustly."

It is in every way remarkable that the first pastoral letter of a Pope

which has been preserved to posterity should contain so undeniable an

exercise of his supreme authority. Again, it is another noteworthy matter

that this supreme authority should have been exercised in the lifetime of

the last surviving Apostle, the Beloved Disciple. Further, would it be

possible to apply in a stronger way than St. Clement, issuing an

authoritative judgment, here applies them, those words of our Lord: "He

that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me;

and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me."[52] And again,

"Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Lastly,

it is to be noted that the authority thus exercised concerns not a point

of dogma, but the office of a Bishop; yet disobedience to it is

considered as disobedience to "words spoken by God through us."

The part of St. Clement's letter, which contains the whole judgment thus

commented on, has only been recovered within the last few years.

But that whole view of the constitution of the Church during the first

century which is presented to us in the Epistle of St. Clement is

remarkably corroborated by the letters of his contemporary, St. Ignatius

of Antioch. That fervent confessor of God, passing in chains to

martyrdom, pours forth, as is well known, the deepest fulness of his

heart to the Churches which he visits in his long way of the cross from

Antioch to Rome. The letters are short, the style abrupt, the expressions

only incidental; he had no thought of writing a treatise on the

constitution of the Church. Thus any short quotation is quite inadequate

to render the full witness of the saint. It would be necessary to read

through the whole series in order to feel how incessantly he dwells upon

union with God wrought through obedience to the hierarchy of bishops,

priests, and deacons, which is the test in his mind of love to Christ.

Thus, at the beginning of his letter to the Church of Smyrna, he speaks

of the most blessed Passion of Christ, "a fruit of which are we that He

might set up a token for all ages through His Resurrection to His holy

and faithful ones, whether they be among Jews or Gentiles, in the one

body of His Church."

In his letter to the Church of Ephesus there is a remarkable passage, in

which he joins together the thought of the unity of a particular diocese

with the unity of the bishops throughout the world. "It is fitting that

you should by all means glorify Jesus Christ, who has glorified you, that

by a uniform obedience you may be perfectly joined together and subject

to the bishop, and the presbytery may be in all things sanctified. I do

not command you, as if I were anybody; for though I am bound in the name

of Christ, I am not yet perfected in Him. For now I begin to learn, and

speak to you as my fellow-disciples. For I ought to be confirmed by you

in faith, in admonition, in patience, in long-suffering. But since

charity permits me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore

taken upon me to exhort you that you may run together with the mind of

God. For Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the mind of the Father,

as also the bishops, appointed throughout the earth, are in the mind of

Christ. Whence, also, it becomes you to agree with the mind of the

bishop, as indeed you do. For your illustrious presbytery, worthy of God,

is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to a harp. Hence it

is that, in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung; and

one and all you make up the chorus, that, being harmonious in concord,

taking up the song of God in unity, you may sing with one voice to the

Father through Jesus Christ, that He may both hear you and recognise by

your good deeds that you are members of His Son. It is well for you,

then, to be in blameless unity, that you may in all things partake of

God."

The vivid love and sense of the Church, as the great instrument of unity

wrought by the Passion of Christ in the world, and compacted by the

ministry which He has set up, distinguishes the letter of St. Ignatius as

it does that of St. Paul to the same Ephesian Church, so specially

beloved by the Apostle, and the scene of so many of his labours. But St.

Irenæus[53] tells us that it was also from the bosom of this Church of

Ephesus that the Apostle of love issued the Gospel in which he recorded

for the world the great commission to feed the whole flock of Christ

given to St. Peter on the shore of the lake of Galilee.

Let us add one more passage from the letter to the Trallians. "For when

you are subject to your bishop as to Jesus Christ you seem to me to live

not after the manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ, who died for

us, in order that, believing in His death, you may escape death. It is

therefore necessary that you do nothing without your bishop, but that you

be subject to the presbytery also, as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ,

our hope, in whom if we walk we shall be found. The deacons also, as

being the ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, must be acceptable

to all. For they are not the ministers of meat and drink, but servants of

the Church of God. Wherefore they must avoid all offences as they would

fire. Let all in like manner reverence the deacons as Jesus Christ, and

the bishop as the type of the Father, and the presbyters as God's senate

and the College of Apostles. Without these there is no Church."

These words expressly state the organic unity of a local Church to be the

bishop with his priests and deacons; but he had likewise noted that the

bishops established throughout the earth were together "in the mind of

Christ."

The words of St. Clement the Pope, and St. Ignatius, the bishop of one of

the three original patriarchal Sees, thus complete and corroborate each

other. If we put the passages just cited from the latter with the

statement of the former, that "the Apostles, preaching from country to

country and from city to city, established their first-fruits, after

proving them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of a people that

were to believe," we have a perfect chain let down from above, and

binding the earth in its embrace: God, who sends forth Christ; Christ,

who sends forth the Apostles; the Apostles, who appoint local bishops,

who are the bond to their clergy and people. In the whole of this the

expression of St. Ignatius is verified: "hence in your concord and

harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung." If the bishops throughout the

world were not united with each other in as complete a harmony as the

presbytery with the bishop in a particular diocese, these words would not

be true. But, on the contrary, they are together "in the mind of Christ,"

as He is "the mind of the Father," and they feed not each a separate

flock, but together "the flock of Christ."

But who is the bond of their union? It pleased the Divine Providence

that, even before St. Ignatius wrote, and even in the lifetime of the

Apostle who recorded the commission to feed the whole flock of Christ,

the harmony and obedience of which St. Ignatius spoke should be broken in

a particular diocese, and that St. Peter's third successor should execute

his office and assert the Divine commission by fulfilling it. His conduct

in this marks, by a solemn act, the line between the Apostolate and the

Primacy. That he speaks in the name of the whole Roman Church, as the

voice of a Body, illustrates further the words of St. Ignatius, "Your

presbytery is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to a

harp."[54]

In the testimony of these Apostolic Fathers, each completing the other,

we have not only the local bishop planted as the unit of the Church's

organism in any particular city, but the bishop who sits in the See of

Peter, the tie and bond of his brethren. The harp sounds its notes to

Christ throughout the world.

Another point in which their testimony exactly agrees is, that while St.

Clement speaks of the government of the Church as enacted with even

greater accuracy and enforced with even stronger penalties than the law

of Moses, St. Ignatius takes the strict observance of unity and obedience

to external authority as a perfect test of the inward disposition, a

perfect assurance that those who exercised these virtues were members of

Christ. The temper in which these Fathers write is as far as possible

removed from the notion that Church government was either lax or

uncertain. To them it comes from above, and requires inward obedience, as

the appointment of Christ.

Eusebius, the first historian of the Church, compiling about the year

324 notices of the times before him, with, records at his command which

are no longer extant, describes in the following terms the first period,

that in which the Apostles themselves preached, which we may speak of as

running from the Day of Pentecost to the destruction of Jerusalem:--

"Thus, under a celestial influence and co-operation, the doctrine of the

Saviour, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the whole world.

Presently, in accordance with divine prophecy, the sound of his inspired

Evangelists and Apostles had gone throughout all the earth, and their

words to the end of the world. Throughout every city and village, like a

replenished barn-floor, numerous and populous churches were firmly

established. Those who, in consequence of the delusions that had

descended to them from their ancestors, had been fettered by the ancient

disease of idolatrous superstition, were now liberated by the power of

Christ, through the united force of the teaching and miracles of His

messengers; and, as if delivered from dreadful masters, and emancipated

from the most cruel bondage, they renounced the crowd of deities

introduced by demons, while they confessed the one God, the Creator of

all things. This same God they now also honoured with the rites of a true

piety, under the influence of that inspired and reasonable worship which

had been planted among men by our Saviour."[55]

The next period is distinctly marked by Eusebius as the first succession

from the Apostles. St. Paul,[56] he says, preaching to the Gentiles, laid

the foundations of Churches from Jerusalem in a circle round to

Illyricum; and St. Peter preached to the circumcision in the five

provinces recorded by him in his letter. He continues, "It is not easy to

say how many imitators of these were by them judged worthy to exercise

the pastoral office in the Churches founded by them, except so far as St.

Paul's own words record them. For he had numberless fellow-workers,

fellow-soldiers, as he himself called them, most of whom he has delivered

to immortal memory by mention of them in his letters." Thus Timotheus was

first Bishop of Ephesus; Titus was set over Crete, and expressly enjoined

to appoint bishops in its several cities, for St. Paul draws out what

sort of a character the bishop so appointed should be.[57] "Linus, whom

he mentions being with him at Rome, has already," says Eusebius, "been

named by us as having been first Bishop of the Roman Church after Peter.

But likewise Clement, who was the third appointed Bishop of the Romans,

is recorded by St. Paul as his colleague and fellow-labourer."

In a third passage Eusebius,[58] after speaking of Ignatius "as the

second who received the episcopal succession of St. Peter at Antioch,"

Evodius having been the first, and after quoting at length his letters,

proceeds, "There were many others also noted in the times of these men

who held the first rank of the apostolic succession. These, as the holy

disciples of such men, built up further in every place the foundations of

the Churches which had been laid by the Apostles. They spread the

preaching further abroad and scattered the saving seeds of the kingdom of

heaven far and wide through the breadth of the world. For the most of the

disciples at that time, kindled by a more ardent love of the divine word,

had first fulfilled the Saviour's exhortation by distributing their

substance to the needy. Afterwards, leaving their country, they performed

the work of evangelists, filled with a noble ambition to proclaim Christ

to such as had not yet heard the word of faith, and to deliver to them

the writing of the sacred Gospels. Thus laying merely the foundations of

the faith in new and strange places, and, appointing others to the

pastoral office, they left them to cultivate the new plantation, and

again went on to other places and nations by God's grace and

co-operation. For a great number of marvellous works of power were still

done by them through the Holy Spirit; so that at the first hearing

multitudes of men in a mass received into their souls readily the worship

of the One Creator. As I cannot record by name all those who received the

first succession of the Apostles as pastors and evangelists in the

Churches throughout the world, I will mention those only where tradition

of apostolical doctrine is carried down to us by actual memorials."

The gradations thus marked in the propagation of the gospel are three:

first, that of the Apostles in Judea before their dispersion; secondly,

that of the Apostles with their personal fellow-workers throughout the

world; thirdly, that of the men called Apostolic, because they had lived

in the time of the Apostles without having been their first co-operators,

or, to use the Pauline expression, fellow-soldiers. This carries us over

the ninety years from the Day of Pentecost to the end of Trajan's reign,

during which reign, the time, as Eusebius calls it, of St. Clement of

Rome and of St. Ignatius of Antioch, he notes that there was a specially

abundant outburst of such teachers.

Eusebius bears witness through the whole of his History to the

universality of the episcopal regimen. Likewise he carefully gives the

descent of the three great Sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. He

notes how they took their rise from the person of Peter, who sat at

Antioch himself, who sent his son Mark to Alexandria, and whose coming to

Rome the historian describes in the words following:--

"Immediately in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, the most benign and

man-loving providence of God conducted to Rome Peter, the great and

powerful among the Apostles, who for his virtue was chosen to lead them

all against Simon, the plague of mankind.[59] Peter, like a valiant

commander of God's army, clothed in heavenly panoply, carried from the

East to the West the precious freight of intellectual light, bearing the

proclamation of the heavenly kingdom, to be the sure and saving word of

souls." He records the martyrdom of the two Apostles, Peter and Paul,

together at Rome under Nero, giving for this fact a fourfold testimony;

of historians generally; of their tombs, which were still to be seen at

Rome; of the presbyter Cains, who, at the beginning of the third century,

appealed to the existence of these tombs, the one at the Vatican, the

other on the Ostian Road, as a proof where "the sacred tabernacles of

these Apostles had been deposited;" and lastly, to the letter of

Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth in the middle of the second century, who

spoke of their having both taught the Church of Corinth as well as that

of Rome, and of both having suffered martyrdom together. "These

particulars I have given," says Eusebius, "that the memory of the fact

may be the more confirmed."[60] He gives carefully during two hundred

years the descent of the bishops in these three Sees, and the number of

years they sat--a tacit witness to the eminent rank of the three great

Mother Sees established by Peter in the three chief cities of the Roman

Empire; and an honour which he gives besides only to the Church of

Jerusalem, since all, he says, have ever borne reverence "to the throne

of the Apostle James, the first who received the episcopate of the city

of Jerusalem from the Saviour Himself and the Apostles!"

In another place he writes: "Again, when I consider the power of the

Word, how the most populous churches were constructed by the rudest and

most ignoble disciples of Jesus, not in obscure and unknown places, but

founded in the most conspicuous cities, in very imperial Rome itself, in

Alexandria and Antioch, for all Egypt and Libya, for Europe, and for

Asia,--again I am compelled to search out the reason of this, and to

confess that they could not have succeeded in so audacious an attempt

except by some divine and superhuman power, and the working together with

them of Him who said 'Make disciples all nations in My name.'"[61]

Between St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch at the end of the

first century, and Eusebius at the beginning of the fourth, stands at the

end of the second century the witness of Tertullian. In setting forth the

legal ground of prescription against the heretics of his day, he gives an

account of the original propagation of the divine kingdom, which exactly

tallies with all that precedes. "Christ Jesus our Lord ... had chosen

twelve disciples to be attached to His side, whom He destined to be the

teachers of the nations. Accordingly, after one of these had been struck

off, He commanded the eleven others, on His departure to the Father, to

go and teach all nations, who were to be baptized into the Father, and

into the Son, and into the Holy Ghost. Immediately, therefore, the

Apostles, whom this designation indicates as the Sent, having on the

authority of a prophecy, which occurs in a psalm of David, chosen

Matthias by lot as the twelfth into the place of Judas, obtained the

promised power of the Holy Ghost for the gift of miracles and of

utterance. And after first bearing witness to the faith in Jesus Christ

throughout Judea, and founding Churches, they next went forth into the

world, and preached the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations.

They then, in like manner, founded Churches in every city" (that is, an

episcopal See in each city, without which, as St. Ignatius told us, there

is no Church) "from which all the other Churches, one after another,

derived the tradition of the faith and the seeds of doctrine, and are

every day deriving them that they may become Churches. Indeed it is on

this account only that they are able to deem themselves apostolic, as

being the offspring of Apostolic Churches. Every sort of thing must

necessarily revert to its original for its classification. Therefore the

Churches, though they are so many and so great, comprise but the one

Primitive Church founded by the Apostles, from which they all spring. In

this way all are primitive and all are apostolic, while all together make

up a unity; while they have peaceful communion, and title of brotherhood,

and bond of hospitality, privileges which no other rule directs than the

one tradition of the self-same mystery. From this, then, do we prescribe

the rule that, since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the Apostles to preach,

no other ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ

appointed; for 'no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to

whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.' Nor does the Son seem to have

revealed Him to any other than the Apostles, whom He sent forth to

preach that, of course, which He revealed to them. Now what this was

which they preached--in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to

them--can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no

other way than by those very Churches which the Apostles founded in

person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both by word

of mouth, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their Epistles. If, then,

these things are so, it is in the same decree manifest that all doctrine

which agrees with the Apostolic Churches--those wombs and original

sources of the faith--must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly

containing that which the said Churches received from the Apostles, the

Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God; whereas all doctrine must be

prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the

Churches and Apostles of Christ and God."[62]

But the whole work of St. Irenæus against heresies is based exactly upon

the fact which we are here setting forth. His object was to show that the

true faith was preserved intact in all the Churches of the world by means

of the bishops appointed by the Apostles. Thus he commences his third

book: "For the Lord of all gave to His Apostles the power of the gospel,

through whom we have learnt the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son

of God; to whom the Lord said, 'He who heareth you, heareth Me, and who

despiseth you, despiseth Me, and Him who sent Me.'" ... "For after our

Lord arose from the dead, and they had been clothed with the power of the

Holy Spirit coming down upon them from on high, they were completely

filled and had perfect knowledge: they went forth into the ends of the

world, proclaiming the gospel of good things from God, and announcing

peace from heaven to men, all of them and every one of them possessing

equally the gospel of God." ... "All, therefore, who wish to see the

truth may behold in every Church the tradition of the Apostles, which was

made known through the whole world; and we can number up those who were

appointed by the Apostles bishops in the Churches, and their successors

down to our own times, who have neither taught nor known any such

delirious imagination as theirs." He is speaking of the heresy of

Valentinus. "For had the Apostles known recondite mysteries, which they

were in the habit of teaching separately and secretly from the rest to

the perfect, they would deliver such especially to those to whom they

were intrusting the Churches themselves. For they desired those to be

very perfect and blameless in all things whom they were leaving as their

successors, handing over to them their own place of teaching. For if

these acted faultlessly, the good would be great; whereas if they failed,

the calamity would be complete."

Irenæus sums up all this view in another place, where he says: "True

knowledge is the doctrine of the Apostles, and the ancient compacted

fabric of the Church through the whole world, and the character of the

Body of Christ, according to the succession of bishops, to whom they

delivered that Church which is everywhere."[63]

In what has preceded we have traced carefully the transmission of

spiritual authority, putting together the various intimations respecting

it which are given in the four Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of St.

Paul, and the Apocalypse. From these intimations a most clear and

unambiguous result has been deduced. Then proceeding to historical

proofs, we find the third Pope from St. Peter, at the end of the first

century, in an official document, summing up in words of great precision

what had been the actual course of things in the two generations which

lay between the Day of Pentecost and the time at which he was writing. If

we compare the Gospels which record the institution of the power, and the

history which records its actual beginning and exercise, as thus given by

St. Clement, we find the most exact agreement. Another saint and martyr,

contemporary with St. Clement, and holding by second succession from St.

Peter what became the great patriarchal See of the East, affords the

strongest corroboration to him in the doctrinal statements which are

found interwoven in the letters addressed by him to various churches as

he is carried a prisoner on his way to martyrdom. The first extant

historian, writing in 324, on the eve of the assembling of the first

General Council, testifies throughout the ten books of his work the

universality of the episcopal regimen, and intimates its organic

structure by giving each link in the spiritual descent of the three great

Sees of Peter and of the Church of Jerusalem. Intermediate between these

three authorities, Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, writing seventy years after

St. Clement, and Tertullian, writing thirty years after Irenæus, give

very graphic accounts of the Church in their day, which exactly accord

both with the Pope and Martyr-bishop preceding and the historian

following them. Instead of calling in other witnesses, let us attempt to

give a general view of the Episcopate as it is found when emerging from

the last great persecution, which terminated the first stadium of its

course, and was followed by the peace of the Church, proclaimed by the

Emperor Constantine 283 years after the Day of Pentecost. The whole of

this period marks a time in which the growth of the Church and the form

of her constitution were the result of a power proceeding solely from

within, never favoured by the civil power, often actively persecuted, and

daily in a thousand ways discouraged.

St. Augustine, writing in the year 398, observes precisely of this time,

that is, the year 314, that if the Donatists suspected the judgment of

their African colleagues, there were thousands of bishops beyond the sea

to whom they might have recourse.[64] In his own time he counted 476

Catholic bishoprics in the African provinces. Throughout the Roman Empire

it would seem that, before the peace of the Church, not only every

considerable city, but even small towns, possessed their bishop. St.

Hilary says: "Though there be only one Church in the world, yet every

city has its own Church;" and St. Cyprian and St. Dionysius of Alexandria

assert this of their own time.[65]

The conduct, then, of St. Peter, of St. Paul, and of all the Apostles in

the propagation of the Church, was from the beginning one and uniform,

and impressed itself on the succeeding generations.[66] They founded a

Christian colony on the solid basis of a complete administration, and

establishing their most fervent disciples as the chiefs of that

hierarchic organisation, they left to them the charge of forming new

centres of spiritual life in the cities dependent on those first chosen.

Thus St. Peter chose first Antioch, Queen of the East, the head

afterwards of fifteen ecclesiastical provinces; then Rome, the head of

the whole Empire, of which Pope St. Innocent said, writing in the year

416 to the Bishop of Eugubium, that "it was an acknowledged fact that no

one had established Churches" (by which he means a Bishop's See) "in all

Italy, the Gauls, the Spains, in Africa, in Sicily, and the intervening

islands, except those whom the venerable Apostle Peter or his successors

had appointed bishops."[67]

Thirdly, he chose Alexandria, whose bishops became the head of the three

provinces, Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. But no less St. Paul planted in

Ephesus the Mother Church of the province of Asia (one-twentieth only of

the great country called Asia Minor); in Thessalonica, the metropolis of

Thrace; in Corinth, that of Achaia; he and Barnabas, in Salamis, that of

Cyprus; while he set a disciple to appoint bishops over the whole island

of Crete. These are specimens of the power which was thus established in

every city over the whole world traversed by the Apostles and their

descendants, a power fixed, not transitory; local, not roving. It was an

occupation of each city by the spiritual authority exactly similar in

divine things to the military colonies which Rome planted in its

provinces for the propagation of its temporal sway. It was a corporate

body with a most compact unity, at the head of which, informing and

directing every act, stood the bishop, a name of power and jurisdiction.

Of them St. Paul said, "Obey your prelates, and be subject to them." From

such words the power of government is a clear inference. If the faithful

are obliged to obey the prelates of the Church, these must have authority

to command. Thus St. Gregory of Nazianzum, addressing in the year 373 the

governor of his province, used these words: "The law of Christ subjects

you to my authority and to my tribunal. For we also have a government,

nay, I will add a greater and more perfect government, unless spirit

must yield to flesh, and heavenly things to earthly. I know that you will

accept my freedom of speech, because you are a sheep of my flock, a

sacred sheep of a sacred flock, nurtured by the Great Shepherd."[68]

Elsewhere he calls it "the government which is innocent of blood,"

contrasting it with "the government of the sword and the lash." The Greek

Fathers universally, in explaining the dignity of the episcopate, use

this word government.[69]

Of the way in which the world was thus evangelised we have an instance

recorded by Photius, who says that Caius, a grave and learned priest of

the Roman Church, was ordained by Pope Zephyrinus (who sat from 202 to

218), Bishop of the Nations, that is, without designation of any

particular diocese, as if anointed and crowned for a kingdom, which by

his valour and wisdom he was to obtain for himself. In this way the Roman

Pontiffs consecrated a great number of bishops, whom they sent to bring

the provinces under the yoke of the faith, as recorded above by St.

Innocent.[70] But it is to be noted that those who were thus sent out

during two centuries from the first age were not elected by the people of

the several churches which they founded. They came to them by authority

from without--the authority of the Apostles and the Apostolic See,

mediately or immediately. In the cases just mentioned the mission was

immediate: in other cases, where it was derived from some Patriarchal See

or from a metropolis, it still descended from that original mission of

the Apostles, and the distribution of authority made by Peter at their

head.

For the whole of this mission there is one great type and source; our

Lord at the head of His Apostles is the prelude to the bishop in the

midst of his presbytery. He repeats Himself in every diocese, the first

and everlasting Bishop, whose heirs spread throughout the world. All is

from above.

But each bishop's chair thus established is a centre of dogmatic truth

and of moral force. The government extending thus over the whole Church

is a mean between autonomy and centralisation. "The bishop is contained

in the Church, and the Church in the bishop:" it is "a flock united to

its pastor." This is its local character: a most living authority, and a

most careful representation of those governed. What it is in reference to

the like authority planted elsewhere, we shall see presently.

The bishop, with his presbyterate and diaconate, fitted to him as the

strings to a harp, in the words of St. Ignatius, this was the instrument

by which our Lord chose to take hold of the world. "Many nations of

barbarians," St. Irenæus observes, "believing in Christ, follow the order

of tradition without pen and paper, having salvation written in their

hearts by the Spirit;"[71] but nowhere as to this point of episcopal

regimen did this tradition vary. The Church having traversed the three

centuries, assaulted from within by sects innumerable, and from without

by a hostile Empire, emerges under this government alone. Nowhere was it

without this settled order of the Episcopate. A presbyter not subject to

a bishop, a single church or any number of churches not ruled by a

bishop, these were unknown things. In the sects, indeed, there were all

sorts of disorder and continued changes of government, just as there was

incessant fluctuation of doctrine; the true and only Church showed itself

precisely in this, that it preserved its doctrine and its government

alike unchangeable.

Eusebius observes how "the devices of opponents destroyed each other by

their own violence. New heresies continually rose and fell, one giving

way to the other, and corrupting themselves in a long series of the most

diverse and strange conceptions. But the one Church, proceeding on the

same lines, and in an even tenor, kept upon its path, ever increasing in

brilliancy, and shedding forth upon every race of Greeks and barbarians

the dignity, sincerity, and freedom, the tempered wisdom and purity, of

the divine polity and philosophy;" where it is observable that by the

words polity and philosophy he blends together the form of life and the

truth of doctrine as coinherent with each other.[72]

Thus in less than three centuries the Episcopate was flung as a golden

network over the greatest of the world-empires, and far beyond its

borders. But let us well understand what this means. It does not mean

simply that there were bishops everywhere; that no church existed save

under the rule of a bishop; that there were no presbyterian, still more,

no independent churches. It is a much greater fact which we have to note;

it is that there was "one Episcopate, of which a part was held by each

without division of the whole;" "one Episcopate spread abroad in the

concordant multitude of many bishops."[73] The doctrine of St. Cyprian is

thus set forth by De Marca: "As there is one body of the Church divided

into many members through the whole world, so there is in it one only

Episcopate, spread abroad in the harmony of many bishops. If these be

considered as a body, they hold the entire Episcopate in common. But a

certain portion of the flock has been assigned to each bishop to lead and

direct it singly, but in consonance with the charity and communion due to

the whole body. For if unity be relinquished, the bishop who departs from

the body would dry up as a stream deflecting from its source, and wither

as a branch cut off from the trunk and root. This distribution of

portions, which have been committed to the various bishops, descended

from the apostolic rule. For when the Apostles founded churches, though

they conferred on the ordained bishop by the imposition of their hands

all the power of order and jurisdiction, yet they assigned to him the

place in which he should discharge his office. This has been marked with

great clearness in the 20th chapter of the Acts, where we read that the

Holy Spirit appointed bishops to govern the Church of God. But since the

Church was to be ruled in unity, it was necessary that some mode of

communion between the bishops should be established by the Apostles

according to the example given by Christ in establishing the College of

Apostles, which represented the whole body of the Church."[74] And what

this rule was De Marca proceeds to state in the words of St. Leo the

Great, which, as written in the middle of the fifth century by the

highest authority, will serve better to convey a lucid view of the one

Episcopate than any more modern statement. In the year 446 St. Leo

writes: "It is the connection of the whole body which makes one soundness

and one beauty; and this connection, as it requires unanimity in the

whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these

have a common dignity, yet have they not a general jurisdiction; since

even among the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour,

so was there a certain distinction of power; and the election of all

being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one. From which type

the distinction also among bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a

great disposition that all should not claim to themselves all things, but

that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be

considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the

greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the

direction of the universal Church should converge to the one See of

Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."[75]

It is thus that the Church appeared when it came out of the fire of

persecution and the perpetual conflict with heresies into peace and

recognition by the Civil Power. It was not merely that by an innate

force--which all the Fathers attribute to the gift of the Holy Spirit

dwelling in it--a uniform episcopal government had been established

wherever it extended, but that it was one Episcopate ruling one flock.

Between a bishop viewed as the centre of unity in his own diocese, but

unconnected with other bishops, and independent of them, and an

Episcopate organically one, ruling one flock through the whole world,

there is all the difference which exists between what is human, weak, and

perishable and what is divine, strong, and enduring. In the former case

the bishop's throne would simply be a seat of rivalry, confusion, and

error; in the latter, the union of the body is the test of health, and

makes that divine beauty which our Lord in His prayer for His Church at

the entrance of His Passion contemplated, which He likened even to the

divine unity. This was the vision which lay before St. Cyprian's eyes

when he cried out, "The Spouse of Christ cannot be adulterated; she is

incorrupt and chaste; she has one single home; she guards the sanctity of

one marriage chamber with inviolable modesty. The Lord says, 'I and the

Father are one;' and again, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

it is written, 'These three are one.' Can any one believe that the unity

which springs from the divine strength, which is bound together by

heavenly sacraments, can be broken in the Church and torn asunder by the

collision of opposing wills."[76] But St. Cyprian's safeguard against

this was the one Episcopate, which he views as centred in the See of

Peter, its origin and matrix, and which, two hundred years after him, the

great successor of St. Peter describes in act.

The Fathers regarded the establishment of bishops everywhere as a

wonderful fulfilment of the Psalmist's vision: "Instead of thy fathers,

sons are born to thee: thou shalt make them princes over all the

earth."[77] And, in truth, the uniform planting in every city and town of

a divine government such as we have described, the doing this, moreover,

without favour or protection from the civil power, nay, in spite of its

jealousy, resistance, and persecution, is a wonder of divine power. But

this is only half what was done. This is not yet the One Episcopate, but

there is to be added to it that "Sacrament of unity" whereby every one of

these bishops belonged to an indivisible whole, and fed a portion of the

one "flock of Christ." Bishops, holding each in his own person the

fulness of the priesthood, its generative and ruling power, whether the

number of their people were small or great, whether their presbyters and

deacons were many or few, in these respects equal to each other and

complete in themselves, were in a further point of view members of one

hierarchy, which could no more be multiplied than the Body of Christ or

His Flock. The one Saviour could not have two bodies, nor the one

Shepherd two flocks. Hence, what St. Leo calls "the provision of that

great disposition that all should not claim to themselves all things, but

that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be

considered the first among his brethren;" in which words he marks the

Metropolitan and his suffragans; "and others again seated in the greater

cities should undertake a larger care"--as, for instance, the Bishop of

Antioch, when he had fifteen Metropolitans subject to his chair--"through

whom the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the one See

of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head." What terser and

clearer statement of the actual government of the Church could be given

now, though more than fourteen hundred years have passed since it was

written?

This, then, is the full meaning of the One Episcopate; this is the marvel

superadded to the sons of the Church who are made princes over all the

earth, that they are not individual governors only of a local republic,

but bound together by a manifold subordination, Bishop to Metropolitan,

Metropolitan to Patriarch, Patriarch to Pope. There is the twofold beauty

of unity and order; the first, "sweet and comely as Jerusalem;" the

second, "terrible as an army set in array."

And it may be said that if there be any one feeling which shows itself on

all occasions in the writings of the Fathers, any one conviction which

sways all their arguments, it is the feeling that the flock of Christ is

one and indivisible; that the Episcopate which rules it throughout the

earth is one and indivisible also; and both because the Great Shepherd is

one, and the Father who sent Him is one; as we have heard St. Cyprian in

unsurpassable words declaring sixteen hundred years ago.

We see, then, the two forces of the Primacy and the Episcopate coexist at

the end of this first great stadium of the Church's course, as they

coexisted on the Day of Pentecost. It is precisely when setting forth the

testimony given to the one Christian faith against all heresy by the

churches as established throughout the world, especially those which had

Apostles for founders, that Irenæus, a hundred years after St. Peter's

death, dwelt upon this bond of the one Episcopate, "that necessity by

which, on account of its superior principate, every Church, that is the

faithful everywhere, were bound to agree with the Roman Church."

The two great Fathers, one the glory of the East, as the other of the

West, Chrysostom and Augustine, born within a few years of each in the

middle of the fourth century, and thus placed at a period sufficiently

near, and yet not too near to contemplate the whole course of the Church

during her conflict with the Roman Empire, both speak in numberless

passages and in enthusiastic words of the wonder of the Catholic Church

spread in all lands. The wonder was increased by the existence of

heresies and schisms, which seemed by force of contrast the better to

delineate the form of the one Spouse of Christ. St. Epiphanius and St.

Augustine himself had recorded a number of these when that notable

sentence of the great Father, "The judgment of the whole world is a safe

one," which has passed into a proverb, was pronounced against the

Donatists. What was the marvel which especially convinced their minds and

touched their hearts? The Roman Empire, as they still saw it and lived in

it, was, in fact, a vast confederation of many peoples, lands, and

religions: the only unity which it possessed, amid endless varieties and

contradictions, was that unity of civil government which Roman

discipline, energy, and valour had so long maintained; which, the one of

African the other of Hellenic race, equally felt and appreciated. This is

the greatness especially of the imperial period. Now, springing up in the

midst of this endless variety, this most profuse and party-coloured

polytheism, this antagonism and rivalry of countless races, and no less

in the light of a proud, refined, and most ancient, if also most corrupt,

civilisation, they saw the establishment of one uniform government,

bearing in its bosom one uniform religion, carried on through ten

generations of men, and accomplished after manifold persecutions. They

saw the religion and the government start together from the Person of one

who claimed to be the Son of God, while He certainly died, as a

malefactor would be condemned to die, upon the cross. They saw the

religion and the government carried on in the second degree by twelve

men, poor, illiterate, and powerless. And before their own time their

fathers had told them how the chief of this mighty empire had bowed his

head before the religion and the government springing from One who hung

upon the cross, and in His name taught by the Fisherman and the

Tentmaker. Was it not the One Episcopate with its one doctrine planted in

all these lands, and imposing a uniform rule of life on men and women of

every degree, attested by its hosts of martyrs, the purity of its

virgins, the patience of its people, which seemed to them a miracle, the

force of which they were never tired of proclaiming? That stately fabric

in which doctrine and government permeate each other, "that unity coming

from the strength of God, and seated in heavenly sacraments," was it not

this to which St. Augustine appealed in combating a heresy in the errors

of which he had long been himself ensnared?--an appeal couched in words

the force of which is vastly greater when they can be applied with equal

truth in the nineteenth as in the fourth century. "I am held in the bosom

of the Catholic Church by the agreement of peoples and nations; by the

authority which took its rise in miracles, was nurtured in hope, reached

its growth in charity, is confirmed by antiquity. I am held by the

succession of bishops, down to the actual episcopate, from the very See

of the Apostle Peter, to whom after His resurrection the Lord intrusted

His sheep to be fed. Lastly, I am held by the very name of Catholic,

which, not without reason, among so many heresies that Church alone has

possessed; so that though all heretics would like to be called Catholics,

yet if a stranger ask where the Catholic Church is, no heretic would

venture to show him his own church or house."[78]

These words were written before the end of the fourth century, and

exhibit the aspect in which the Church of Christ presented itself to St.

Augustine. That which he has summed up in a few sentences was drawn out

at somewhat, greater length by St. Chrysostom about ten years before,

when the worn-out religion of paganism was falling to the ground, and the

judgment of Theodosius in levelling heathen temples only expressed the

victory of the Christian society. His words[79] portray so graphically

the several features of that "divine and invincible power" to which he

attributed the growth and expansion of the Church as he beheld it 350

years after the Day of Pentecost, that I will quote them here

notwithstanding their length.[80] He begins with saying: "If a heathen

says to me, How can I know that Christ is God? for this is the first

thing to be established; the rest all follows from it; I will not make my

proof from heaven, or such things. For if I say to him, He made the

heaven, the earth, and the sea; he will not receive it. If I say, He

raised the dead, He healed the blind, He cast out devils; that too he

will not accept. If I say, He promised a kingdom and blessings

unspeakable; if I talk to him of the resurrection, not only will he not

receive it, he will laugh at it. How, then, can we approach him,

especially if he be an ordinary man? How but by those things which both

of us admit without contradiction, of which there is no doubt. What,

then, does he admit Christ to have done which he will not dispute? This,

that He founded the race of Christians. He will not deny that Christ

Himself established the Churches throughout the world." Afterwards he

thus comments on the marvellous fulfilment of our Lord's prophecy on this

subject: "Twelve disciples followed Him; of the Church no one had then

conceived so much as the name, for the synagogue was still flourishing.

When, then, almost the whole world was under the dominion of impiety,

what was His prophecy? 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the

gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Weigh as you please this

word, and you will see the splendour of its truth. For the wonder is, not

that He built it throughout all the world, but made it impregnable, and

that though assaulted by such conflicts. For 'the gates of hell shall not

prevail against it' are dangers which drag down to hell. Now, compare the

distinctness of the prediction with the force of the result; behold words

which have their evidence in facts, and an irresistible power producing

its effects with ease. They are but few words: 'I will build My Church.'

Do not run over them simply, but draw them out in your thoughts. Form a

conception how vast a thing it is to fill the whole world with so many

Churches in a short time; to change so many nations; to persuade

multitudes; to break up hereditary customs; to extirpate rooted habits;

to scatter like dust the tyranny of pleasure, the strength of vice; to

sweep away like smoke _altars of blood_, and temples and idols and

mysteries, and profane festivals, and the impure odours of victims, and

everywhere to raise _unbloody altars_[81] in the country of Romans,

Persians, Scythians, Moors, and Indians, beyond the limits of our own

world. For even the British Islands, lying in the ocean beyond our own

sea, have felt the power of this word; for there too churches and altars

have been erected. The word then uttered by Him has been planted in all

men's souls, is current in all their mouths. The world, which was

overgrown with thorns, has been cleared of them, is become pure arable

soil, has received into it the seeds of piety. It would be a proof of

exceeding greatness, an evidence of divine power, if nobody offered

resistance, in the midst of peace and in the absence of opponents, for so

vast a portion of the earth to be changed in a mass from a long

inveterate bad habit, and to assume another habit far more difficult. It

was not merely custom which offered resistance, but pleasure which held

possession, two tyrannous things. For men were persuaded to reject what

they had inherited from a long succession of ancestors, from

philosophers, and from orators; and not only so, but what was most

difficult, to receive a new habit of life, in which the hardest point of

all was, that it carried with it much endurance. For it led away from

luxury to fasting, from the love of money to poverty, from impurity to

temperance, from anger to meekness, from enviousness to kindliness, from

the broad and wide way to the narrow and straight and rugged way; and

this too the very men who had been nurtured in the former. For it did not

take men of another world and another habit of life, but the very men

who, through their utter corruption, were softer than mire in their old

habit of life; on these it enjoined to tread the narrow and straight way,

in all its roughness and sharpness, and they listened. How many? Not two,

or ten, or twenty, or a hundred, but the vast majority of a world-wide

population. And by whom did the persuasion come? By eleven men without

literature, without station, ineloquent, ignoble, poor, who had no

country, nor abundance of resources, nor bodily strength, nor

distinguished reputation, nor renown of ancestors, nor strength of words,

nor skill in rhetoric, nor eminence of knowledge; fishermen, tentmakers,

foreigners. For they had not even the same language as those they

persuaded, but that strange and outlandish Hebrew tongue. Through them He

built this Church, which stretches from one end of the earth to the

other.

"Nor was this the sole wonder, but there was a further one. These few,

poor, private men, undistinguished, untaught, and unvalued, foreigners

and despised, had the remodelling of the whole world placed in their

hands, and were bidden to change it into a far more difficult condition

of things. Yet this was not to be done in peace, but amid wars of all

kind surrounding them. War was in every nation and every city; nay, they

felt its blast in every house. For this doctrine entering in, and

severing often the child from the father, the daughter-in-law from the

mother-in-law, brother from brother and servant from master, subject from

ruler, husband from wife and wife from husband, and the parent from his

offspring, since conversions did not take place in a mass, produced daily

enmities, perpetual conflicts, a thousand deaths to its bearers, from

whom men turned as common enemies. All persecuted them--emperors, rulers,

private persons, freemen, slaves, cities and their peoples; nor them

alone, but, hardest of all, their neophytes, while they were yet under

instruction. War was waged equally upon the taught and the teachers,

since the doctrine was opposed to imperial commands, to the common habit,

to inherited manners. They were bidden to abstain from idols, to despise

the altars of blood, which their fathers and all their ancestors had

served, to quit impure beliefs, to ridicule festivals and reject

initiations--things to them the most formidable and tremendous, and for

which they would rather have given up their life than choose what the

others said to them, to believe, that is, on the Son of Mary, on One who

stood before the procurator's tribunal, who was spit upon, who suffered

unnumbered horrors, who endured an accursed death, who was buried, who

rose again. But the strange thing of all was this: the sufferings were

manifest to all, the scourging, the blows on the cheek, the spittings on

the face, the strokes from the palms of the hand, the cross, the long

mockery, the being put to scorn by all, the burial granted by favour.

Not so the facts of His Resurrection; for when He rose again He appeared

to them alone. And yet when they told these things they persuaded men,

and so they built up the Church.

"But how did they do this? By the power of Him who commanded it. He

Himself levelled the way for them; He made the difficulties easy. For had

not a divine power given success here, there would not even have been a

beginning, not even the first step. How otherwise was it? He who said,

'Let there be a firmament,' and produced it in fact; 'Let the dry land

appear,' and it came; 'Let the sun shine,' and it shone; He who did all

things with a word planted also these Churches, and the saying, 'I will

build my Church,' produced all these effects. For such are the words of

God, creative words, of creations wonderful and strange....

"Thus, then, they build the universal Church. Yet no workman who was

driven about and hindered could with stone and mortar build a single

wall; but these men erected so vast a number of churches through the

inhabited world while they were being beaten and imprisoned, pursued and

put to flight, banned and scourged, slaughtered, burned, and drowned,

together with their disciples. They built not with stones, but souls, in

the fulness of free choice. How can one compare a mason's work with that

of changing by persuasion a soul wherein demons had so long revelled, so

that from a state of madness it should reach the height of a sound mind.

Yet such was the strength of men who went about all the world naked and

discalced, and with a single coat; for they had fighting with them the

irresistible power of Him who said, 'Upon this rock I will build My

Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Count up the

number of tyrants who were ranged in battle against it from that time,

what persecutions they raised, in what position the faith stood all that

first time when it was newly planted and men's minds were tender.

Heathens were the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caius, Nero, Vespasian,

Titus, and all those who succeeded them down to the time of the blessed

Constantine. All these fought against the Church, some with more, some

with less violence; all of them, however, fought. If some of them

seemed to be quiet, the very fact that those who reigned were conspicuous

for impiety was a cause of warfare against the Church, because those

around them flattered and served them therein. Yet all these snares and

attacks were scattered like spiders' webs, smoke, or dust. For the effect

of their plotting was to produce a great host of martyrs, to unfold the

immortal treasures of the Church, to disclose its pillars and towers.

They, not only by their life but by their death, were the assurance of a

great help to all who came after them.

"Here is the strength of the prediction: the gates of hell shall not

prevail against it. From that which has been trust concerning that which

is to be, and that no one shall overcome the martyrs."

In reflecting on the history thus sketched out, the thought occurs how

completely the ideal of Pope St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Irenæus,

Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Epiphanius,

and St. Leo, nay, not their ideal only, but that spiritual kingdom which

they described as they saw before their eyes, would have been overthrown,

if there were substituted for it a number of bishops scattered through

the world in a variety of temporal kingdoms, some holding one part and

some another part of an original revelation, with a multitude of

discrepancies, and all deriving their authority to exercise their mandate

from the several temporal powers to which they were civilly subject. The

wonder which these Fathers one and all testify in gazing upon a divine

Church would have passed into disgust and derision for an institution

over which "the gates of hell" had prevailed by destroying its spiritual

independence together with its doctrinal unity.

Let us proceed to examine how these two were both maintained, penetrating

the divine work so far as to reach that intimate union which made one

substance of outward regimen and inward belief by the force of an

indissoluble life; for if the Episcopate had been a mere government, it

would have had neither such unity nor such vitality, nor have been

capable of supporting the Church's fabric.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] Contra Hæreses, 3, 3.

[42] For the date of the epistle, as at the end of the century, see the

arguments in the Prolegomena, pp. 22, 23, of Funk's "Opera Patrum

Apostolicorum."

[43] St. Clement to the Corinthians, 37 and following sections, in which I

follow generally Dr. Lightfoot's translation, with a few changes.

[44] Ho Despotês.

[45] prosphoras kai leitourgias, sacrificial terms, belonging to the Holy

Eucharist.

[46] tên leitourgian autôn.

[47] On this passage Bianchi, "Della Potestà e della Politia della Chiesa,"

vol. iii. p. 158, remarks: "In oltre era noto a San Girolamo il senso della

Chiesa intorno all' ecclesiastica gerarchia d' ordine, che ella ne' tre

gradi de' Vescovi, de' Preti, e de' Ministri, ovvero de' Diaconi, sotto il

cui nome altri Ministri inferiori si comprendono, discendeva dal Vecchio

Testamento, e da origine divina, cioè dall' ordine stabilito da Dio nel

sommo Sacerdote, ne' Sacerdoti inferiori, e ne' Leviti: i quali gradi

diversi nella potestà componevano la gerarchia della vecchia Chiesa." St.

Jerome himself says, Ep. 101 ad Evangelum: "Et ut sciamus traditiones

Apostolicas sumptas de V. Testamento, quod Aaron et filii ejus atque Levitæ

in templo fuerunt, hoc sibi Episcopi et Presbyteri, et Diaconi vindicent in

Ecclesia."

[48] kathiotanon tas aparchas autôn, dokimasantes tô pneumati, eis

episkopous kai diakonous tôn mellontôn pisteuein.

[49] tês leitourgias--tês episkopês apobalein.

[50] Sections 58, 59.

[51] Section 63.

[52] Luke x. 16.

[53] Irenæus, iii. 1--epeita Iôannês, ho mathêtês tou Kuriou, ho kai epi to

stêthos autou anapesôn kai autos exedôke to euangelion, en Ephesô tês Asias

diatribôn.

[54] I note this because Dr. Lightfoot, in his recent edition of St.

Clement's complete letter, not knowing how to meet the very strong proof of

the Primacy contained in the newly recovered part, suggests that the

Primacy belonged not to the bishop of the Roman Church, but to the Roman

Church. This is so total a misstatement of the position held by every

bishop in his See as to smack of Presbyterianism. But when he goes on to

attribute the Primacy thus located in the Roman Church to a supposed

superior sanctity residing in the members of that Church, he would seem to

be substituting a pure invention of his own for history.

[55] Eusebius, Hist. 2, 3. The words are so specific that it is desirable

to give the original: kai dêta ana pasas poleis te kai kômas plêthuousês

halônos dikên muriandroi kai pamplêtheis athroôs ekklêsiai sunestêkesan.

The last word indicates the regular formation of a Church, that

hierarchical constitution of the bishop, with his attendant ministry,

without which, in the words of St. Ignatius, ekklêsia ou kaleitai. I have

used Cruse's translation, altering it occasionally.

[56] Lib. iii. 4.

[57] Titus i. 5-9.

[58] Lib. iii. 37.

[59] Eusebius appears to say that the Apostle Peter came to Rome very

shortly after he had discomfited Simon Magus in Samaria. See lib. ii. 14.

[60] Hist. 2, 25.

[61] Eusebius, Hist. 7, 19; and Præp. Evan. lib. 3, towards the end, quoted

by Bianchi, 3, 137.

[62] Tertullian, De Præscriptione Hæreticorum, 20, 21, Dr. Holmes'

translation, with a word or two altered.

[63] Irenæus, 4, 33, 8. The same is set forth with great force in Book 5,

20.

[64] Ep. 43, 11: "Nec in illis solis episcopis Afris erat Ecclesia, ut omne

judicium ecclesiasticum vitasse viderentur qui se judicio eorum præsentari

noluissent. Millia quippe collegarum transmarina restabant, ubi apparebat

eos judicari posse, qui videbantur Afros vel Numidas collegas habere

suspectos."

[65] St. Hilary on Ps. 14, 3; St. Cyprian, Ep. 52.

[66] See Dom Chamard, L'Etablissement du Christianisme, p. 141.

[67] _Sacerdotes_; as ekklêsia means a Bishop's See, so _sacerdotes_ meant

a bishop; that word in the language of the day signified the bishop who

presided in each Church, pre-eminently the _Sacerdos_, as offering the

Sacrifice of the Altar. See Coustant. Rom. Pont. Epist., p. 856.

[68] Orat. 17, 8; Ep. 224, Africano.

[69] archê. Bianchi, 3, 475.

[70] See Bianchi, 3, 484.

[71] Irenæus, 3, 4.

[72] Hist., 4, 7, speaking of the time of Hadrian and the Gnostic heresies.

[73] St. Cyprian, De Unit. Ecc. 4, and Epis. 52.

[74] De Marca, De Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii, lib. 6, 1.

[75] St. Leo I., Ep. 14.

[76] De Unitate Ecclesiæ, 4.

[77] Ps. xliv. 17.

[78] Cont. Epist. Manichæi, 5.

[79] theia tis kai amachos dunamis tou tauta proeipontos kai

telesantos.--St. Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 579.

[80] Against the Jews and Gentiles to demonstrate that Christ is God, tom.

i. p. 558, and pp. 574, 577, 578.

[81] The contrast is marked in the original by totally distinct words,

which the rendering both by the same word _altar_ would efface: 1. bômous,

altars of the religion with bloody sacrifices; 2. thusiastêria, which are

altars whereon the Unbloody Sacrifice is offered.