MASTER NEGA TIVE NO. 92-80630 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by tlie NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code ~ concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: TITLE: ESSAYS OF THE CURCH IN EARLY TIMES PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1921 Restrictions on Use: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROlFORM TARGET ,931.7 :Sw4 i-^^«. ••Mr Sweto, Henry Barclay, 1835-1917 • Essays on the early history of the church and the ministry, b^ yarious^.,writer 8, ed. by H. B. Swete • • . 2d ed. ,. London,^' Macmillan,; 1921^ xxxvi, 446 p. ZZ om^y;^ •\. Ed. after the death of Dr. Swete by C. H. Turner • cf. Preface to the 2d ed. Contents: — Conceptions of the church in early times |.by;j Arthur James Mason.-- The Christian ministry in the ' ,' \ Apostolic and sub-Apostolic ' * \^y^(Cohtinued on next card) | ^3833 •-"V" 11 Master Negative # l2-_£0^3O-i Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE:__;^!l_'rJ22 REDUCTION RATIO: l\.l IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA JI^ ID IIB ^__ ^ DATE FILMED:__07_2£._l2i!.'L.__ INITIALS___^r^A3:i HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODDRIDGE. CT c Association for infomiation and image Management 1 1 00 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1 1 00 Silver Spring, Maryland 2091 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 Inches 1 1 I 5 6 7 8 iliinliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiil 1 1.0 I.I 1.25 9 10 n llllllinlllllllllllllllllll T TTT 1^ 2.8 2.5 |1£ 1^ i 3.2 2.2 Li III 3.6 as, 1 4.0 2.0 IX u „ ■uuu 1.8 1.4 1.6 12 13 14 15 mm lllllllllllllllllllllllllilMlllll TTT T T MPNUFRCTURED TO RUM STflNDRRDS BY fiPPLIED IMRGE, INC. \.7 "3^ ,% LIBRARY - f '- fur tl|f inrrraB? af tt|f CUnrarQ ;|!i!S; ESSAYS ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTRY MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON . BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO ESSAYS ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTRY BY VARIOUS WRITERS EDITED BY H. B. SWETE, D.D. In necessariis unitas ; in non necessariis libertas ; in utrisque caritas SECOND EDITION MACiMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1921 Z-z.- /^ 3fV O COPYRIGHT /"/>*/ Edition 19 1 8. Second Edition 1921. DEDICATED TO HIS GRACE RANDALL LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY •'I t I j CONTENTS Preface to the First Edition . Supplementary Note to the foregoing Preface to the Second Edition ESSAYS Conceptions of the Church in early times . ARTHUR JAMES MASON, D.D., D.Th. (Geneva), Canon of Canterbury ; formerly Lady Margaret's Reader in Divinity ; Honorary Fellow of Pembroke and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. The Christian Ministry in the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic periods , JOSEPH ARMITAGE ROBINSON, D.D., Ph.D. (Gottingen), D.Th. (Halle), F.B.A., Dean of Wells; formerly Norrisian Professor of Divinity; Honorary Fellovir of Christ's College, Cambridge. Apostolic Succession : A. The original con- ception ; B, The problem of non-catholic Orders ...... CUTHBERT HAMILTON TURNER, M.A., D.Litt. (Durham), F.B.A., Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture, and Fellov^r of Magdalen College, Oxford. PAGE ix . xviii . xxi SI 93 vu / Vlll Contents I 6. \ PAGE The Cyprianic 'Doctrine of the Ministry . 215 JOHN HENRY BERNARD, D.D., D.C.L. (Durham), D.D. (Aberdeen), Provost of Trinity College, Dublin i formerly Archbishop of Dublin. EiCrly forms of Ordination . . -263 WALTER HOWARD FRERE, D.D., Superior of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield ; sometime Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. ill I Terms of Communion^ and the Ministration of the Sacraments^ in early times . FRANK EDWARD BRIGHTMAN, M. A., D.D. (Durham), D.Phil. (Louvain), Prebendary of Lincoln, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Indices ...... 313 409 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THE genesis of this volume must first be briefly told. In a sermon preached before the University of Cambridge on January 30, 19 10, Dr J. M. Wilson, Canon of Worcester, made a strong appeal for a fresh examination of the questions which ' gather round the origin and early developement of episcopacy, and the nature and degree of the sanction which it possesses/ *The real point' (Canon Wilson said) * seems to some of us to be to ascertain whether history shows that the Episcopal Churches, Greek, Roman, Anglican, and others, are so exclusively the branches of the Catholic Church that we are debarred by fundamental principles from recognising the non- Episcopal bodies as true branches of the one Catholic Church ; whether men are right in saying, what is sometimes stated, that we alone have a divinely commissioned fellowship, and that others have their ministry and their sacraments from below, that is, from human appointment. Are we justi- fied in claiming exclusive privileges ? — that sacramental grace is only given through Episcopal orders ? Closely connected with this is the history of the prophetic order in the Church of the first two centuries ; a charismatic ministry, performing all the offices of the ministry, in- cluding the celebration of the Eucharist, yet apparently without the sanction of ordination. . . The time, too, would seem to have come for a re-examination of the subject of the Apostolical Succession ; for a statement of the historical evidence for or against the probability of the fact, and the history of the developement of the ix \. \\ 1 \ \ '(\ I ; r/i ' X Preface to the First Edition dogmas connected with it, in their bearing on the grace and powers conferred in ordination and consecration. Some review seems also to be needed as to the early conceptions of ordination and consecration in the Church ; to show whether they did not lay more stress on the pastoral and teaching work of the ministry, and on the continuity of doctrine, and less on its sacramental func- tions and powers, than we now do. Further historical research is believed to have shown that the investiga- tions promoted by the great Oxford Movement of last century, with its appeal to the historic continuity of the Catholic Church, may now be rightly carried back to a still earlier age, and to a still more Apostolic conception of a Christian ministry. . . Few of us know on what grounds and when the separation grew up between the conditions for what is called a valid Baptism and those for a valid Eucharist, and the limitation of the latter to men episcopally ordained.' Canon Wilson's sermon, which was printed in the Guardian^ and afterwards appended to his book on the Origin and aim of the Acts\ attracted the notice of the Primate, who wrote to suggest that a response should be made to the appeal. His Grace expressed the opinion that it would be opportune to collect and state in as precise a form as possible the latest results of scholarly research bearing on the subject. Such a desire, coming from the Archbishop, had the force of a command. It could best be fulfilled, as I thought, in a series of Essays written by representative scholars, whose names would be a guarantee for breadth of knowledge and accuracy in detail ; and an effort was made — successfully, so I rejoice to say — to secure the services of well-known theologians from each of our older Universities. This distribution of the Essays has entailed a long delay in the publication of the book, which I much regret, but which will be pardoned by 1 pp. 107 — 141. Preface to the First Edition XI those who know under what accumulations of literary work our best students lie. Some of the Essays — the first and the second — have been in type for three or four years, while others — the third and the sixth — have but recently reached completion. The last few years, however, have made few appreciable additions to our knowledge of the early history of the Church, so that notwithstanding the delay, the Essays as a whole may be taken to represent the present state of historical knowledge. Each writer, it may be added, is respon- sible only for his own contribution ; but an effort has been made to secure some measure of collaboration by circulating the Essays in proof. A few words may suffice to explain the plan which has been followed in the selection of the subjects and the order of the Essays. Of the very large field which Canon Wilson traverses this volume deals only with a part, namely, the questions relating to Church life and policy on which light is thrown by the history of the first three or four centuries. And in handling these questions, it has seemed best to answer them not seriatim^ but in the form of Essays dealing with the larger topics to which they belong. The questions resolve them- selves into half-a-dozen great subjects of enquiry. These are considered in the following pages after the order which seemed to be most convenient for the purpose of the book. The first two Essays, on early conceptions of the Church, and the primitive Ministry, cover the ground from which have sprung the problems connected with the claims of the Catholic Church and the Episcopate. The third Essay works out at con- siderable length the history of the crucial doctrine of Apostolic Succession, in both its earlier and its later forms, and the kindred subject of non-catholic Orders. In the fourth Essay a summary is given of the great deyelopements in the theory of the Church and the Ministry which are associated with the name of Cyprian. t xu Preface to the First Edition Preface to the First Edition Xlll This is followed by a discussion of the light recently thrown upon the primitive conception of the Ministry by the earliest forms of ordination, preserved in the * Church Orders.' Lastly, the sixth Essay examines with great minuteness the ministration in the ancient Church of the great Sacraments, and the terms of Church membership and lay-communion imposed. Canon Wilson's appeal lay to History, and to History we have gone. Has the hope which inspired the appeal been realised ? The reader will find that few facts emerge from this enquiry, of which no account had been taken previously. Since Lightfoot wrote his classical essay on the Christian Ministry, the only new documents which have thrown important light upon the subject are the Didache^ and certain of the * Church Orders.' The Didache promised much ; but at best it illustrates the practice of some remote church, and its trustworthiness as a historical monument has been called in question by more than one student of Christian origins. The * Church Orders ' have come down to us in a condition which justifies Dr Frere's description of them as a * puzzling heap of literature ' ; yet they offer material for a partial reconstruction of the Ordination services and other rites of the Church in the third and fourth centuries, which brings us some interesting and in- structive results. With these exceptions, the Essays in this book necessarily work over old ground. But the re-examina- tion of the ground is not lost labour. Things new as well as things old are to be found in the familiar field of early Church history, when it is submitted to a fresh scrutiny. Some of the conclusions at which the Essays arrive may be mentioned here, {a) Primitive Christianity recognised no invisible Church on earth as distinct from the visible society of the baptized ^ ; no 1 p. 9 ff. 'V self-governing power in the local congregation apart from the authority of the whole Body of Christ ^ ; no assured gifts of grace outside the Catholic communion 2. (Jk) Bishop Lightfoot's account of the origin of the Episcopate is reaffirmed ^, and the theory of a * charis- matic ' ministry based upon the Didache is found to have no support from the passages in St Paul's Epistles which had been quoted in its favour^, (c) It was the Gnostic peril of the second century which gave prominence to the principle of Apostolic Succession 5. When Gnosticism laid claim to a secret tradition derived from the Apostles, the Catholic Church replied by pointing to churches whose bishops could shew an unbroken succession from Apostolic founders, which guaranteed an unbroken tradition of Apostolic teaching in the Rule of Truth ^. As to the bearing of this principle on the question of the validity of non- Catholic Sacraments we are brought up against a serious difference of opinion*^. Cyprian held the nullity of heretical and schismatical baptism, and, by inference, the nullity of Orders conferred outside the Catholic Church. Augustine, on the other hand, held that the grace of the Sacraments is not nullified by errors either of life or doctrine on the part of the minister, since it is derived from Christ's institution and power, and not from the human agent ; and he included Holy Orders under his canon. This was but the logical result of his principle, but it was long before it gained acceptance in the West. While the West steadily refused to re- baptize heretics and schismatics, many centuries passed before there was any final recognition of the validity of their Orders^, even when the form and matter and general intention were the same as in Catholic ordinations. jk ijt 4e jk * p. 19 ff. ^ p. 96. ^ p. 33 f. " p. lOI ff. I I » p. 87 f. ' p. 144 ff. * p. 65 ff. 8 pp. 145* 170- XIV Preface to the First Edition Preface to the First Edition XV {d) The Cyprianic doctrine of the Ministry marks a developement in more than one direction. The Episco- pate, universally recognised from the time of Irenaeus, has become, in Cyprian's conception, the keystone of Catholic unity^ Supreme in his own Church, the priest and pastor of the flock, the bishop is subject only to Christ : the Church knows no other * Bishop of bishops/ The bishops of the Catholic Church are a collegium which is to the whole Church what the individual bishop is to his own community. The unity of the Episcopate secures the unity of the Church, and this was what our Lord designed to teach by building His Church on one of the Apostles 2. The Roman Church, in Cyprian's judgement, was founded by Peter, and its bishop sat in Peter's chair. But he did not draw the inference that the Roman Church or Bishop is the centre of Catholic unity, which he finds in the voice of the collective Episcopate. * To be Catholic is not necessarily to be Roman ' ; so the teaching of Cyprian on the Church and the Ministry may be briefly sum- marised . {e) The witness of Cyprian is that of a bishop pre-eminent in his own generation, but possessing no claim to represent any Church but that of North Africa. The Church Orders on the other hand reveal a fairly wide circle of Church-opinion in the third and fourth centuries. In them we can mark the develope- ment of the relation between the episcopate and the presbyterate. In the eariier stage the bishop is a presbyter distinguished from other presbyters by his power of ordination^ ; later on, the presbyter takes a distinctly lower position than the bishop, for whom special gifts of the Spirit, such as distinguished the Apostolate, are desired. In the eariiest Order confessors are entitled to rank with presbyters; in the later forms, only the minor orders are open to them^. The permission which the Didache gives to prophets to dispense with the use of liturgical forms at the Eucharist has disappeared from all the Orders but one, and there is no ground for thinking that prophets were ever admitted, like confessors, to the presbyterate without ordination 2. The general conception of Holy Orders conveyed in these early rites of ordination is that the Church in ordaining to any ministry recognises vocation by election, and then solemnly by prayer and laying on of hands invests the man whom God has called with authority to act as her representative, and invokes upon him the special grace which his office requires^. (J) From the early ordination services we turn to the administration of the Sacraments which are necessary for all members of the Church, whether lay or in the clerus. The scrupulous care which was taken to exclude from Baptism adults whose calling or way of life was inconsistent with Christian principles is illustrated at length*. Not less careful was the ancient Church to instruct her catechumens in both the moral and doctrinal sanctions of Christianity 5. The Order of Baptism is next described, including the rite of Confirmation, and the subsequent Communion of the baptized and con- firmed^. The baptism of infants, for which there is clear evidence from the time of Irenaeus, was safe- guarded by sponsorship', ♦ ♦ a|: 4s The scope of these Essays is limited to historical investigation. What the writer of the first Essay has said in his opening paragraph^, with regard to his own particular subject, holds true, mutatis mutandis^ of all the discussions in this book. It does not belong to I p. 242 ff. * p. 276. flf. « p. 245 fE. p. 262. * p, 289. * p. 331 ff. ^ PP- 273, 292 ff. « p. 307 ff. « p. 320 ff. « p. 342 ff. ' p. 352. 8 p. 3. XVI Preface to the First Edition Preface to the First Edition xvu this volume to enquire whether the Christians of the first days were right in the answers which they gave to the problem that lay before them ; * whether time has brought about such changes as make these answers no longer applicable ' ; or * whether we ought to form ' conceptions * quite independent of the ancient theories, and to act freely upon ' them. We are concerned here simply with the statement of facts, and their interpreta- tion. To those who turn to the early history of the Church with the expectation of finding there ready- made solutions of present difficulties, such results as have been specified will be disappointing. Others, who attach little weight to the precedents of early Christi- anity, will be disposed to regard all such enquiries with suspicion, or to put them on one side as irrelevant. The right attitude towards the history of our faith lies between these extremes, consisting neither in a blind acceptance of all that bears the hall-mark of antiquity, nor in the equally fatuous refusal to be guided, where guidance is needed, by ancient precedent. Our ecclesiastical polity, like our national life, is built on precedents, and it is of no little importance that those of the undivided Church should be once more collected and examined, as we stand on the border-line of a new age. How far the history of the ancient Church can be made available for the guidance of the Church as it now exists, is a question on which opinions will differ. Our own Church at the Reformation definitely took her stand upon the principle of a general return to primitive models, appealing to the early centuries against the accretions of Latin Christianity. But it cannot be said that the Anglican Church has con- sistently reverted in all respects to primitive conceptions or to primitive custom. Nor indeed was it to be desired that she should do so. The fetish of primitiveness is scarcely less to be deprecated than the fetish of medi- aevalism ; neither the primitive nor the mediaeval life, if ^ torn away from its original surroundings and transferred to a soil where the conditions are alien from those in which it grew up, is likely to thrive or to bear good fruit. Each age of the Church must live its own life, and deal with its own problems, following to a great extent the lead of circumstances, which offer in fact a Divine guidance for the shaping of its course. Never- theless the study of Church history has a strong claim upon the attention of the ecclesiastical statesman ; the unique position of the Christian Society, as a continuous and progressive organisation under the direction of the Spirit of Christ, gives special importance to prin- ciples and institutions which, taking their beginnings in primitive times, were accepted by the whole Church, or by the Church in the West, down to the sixteenth century. To abandon these would be to sacrifice historical continuity, and to cast doubt upon the presence in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Who came to guide the Body of Christ into all the truth. Such principles, such institutions, belong to the bene esse, if not indeed to the esse, of the Church. What they are, these Essays will, it is hoped, have helped to make plain ; what attitude the Church should take towards bodies of Christian people who have either definitely rejected them, or have drifted away into another line of things, is for those to determine who are called to the harder task of guarding faith and order. To these, our fathers in God, this volume is humbly submitted, in the hope that it may in some measure assist their delibera- tions and thus promote the cause of truth and peace. H. B. S. HiTCHIN, March, 19 17. Ma ii t Supplementary Note XIX SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE Few scholars of our day have laboured more un- tiringly than Dr Swete until a time beyond the ordinary span of human life. The editing of this volume oi Essays was a task very near his heart, and he had watched anxiously for the last six or seven years over its progress and developement. During the winter of 1 9 1 6- 1 7 the material then still outstanding was coming rather rapidly into his hands, and in March he was able to put pen to paper with the preface — not of course quite complete — printed in the foregoing pages. It was the last piece of work that came from him, and it is no unworthy parting message. He had greatly hoped that he was being spared to see the publication of the book, and ex- pressed this belief till within a few days of his death 1. 1 The Bishop of Ely, Dr Chase, kindly allows the following passage to be repeated from the concluding paragraph of his article ' Henry Barclay Swete ' in the Church Quarterly Review for October 191 7 (p. 119). ' When he was eighty years old he resigned his professorship, not be- cause he or indeed others saw signs of failing abihty, but because he felt it to be right. He laid down, as he took up, the burden of great responsi- bilities at the call of duty. He left Cambridge and settled at Hitchin. There he continued his literary activity, especially in connexion with the work of editing a volume of Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry. . . . About Easter his friends were alarmed to hear that he was seriously ill. All through his illness he made a gallant fight, always saying that he " had been spared to finish the Essays." When others saw that his time was short, he still continued to have faith that he would return to Ufe and to the Essays. At last there came an attack of syncope ; but he was not told of the danger. That evening his niece, who so devotedly had shared his life and watched over him for many years, was sitting by him, and he said to her " I am beginning to wonder whether after all I can recover ; what do you think? " She repUed " No, dear, I do not think you can, neither does Dr Cosens." He was silent for a moment and then said a few words as to who should finish the task of editing the Essays. In that sentence he laid down his work and then " stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." ' xviii But when he learnt that it was not to be, he quietly directed the transference of the editorial work into other hands, and on Thursday the loth of May 19 17 he passed away * serene, patient, and conscious to the very end.' In face requiescat. There was little left to be done, and that for the most part of a mechanical or strictly limited kind, in finishing off the editorial work. An attentive reader will notice that in several small matters the Essayists have been each a law to himself : that in citations from the Latin one employs u and another v ; that to one the formula of comparison is cf, and to another cp, ; that one has/", and another sqq, ; that one uses a second s in the genitive of names ending in j, while another avoids it. Ideally, essays contributed to a common stock should follow in such details a single norm ; but, as things turned out, it was thought best to allow each Essayist to adopt on most points his own custom, and only to secure uniformity within each Essay. At the time of Dr Swete's death, the two first Essays had been printed off : the fourth and fifth had for some time been ready for final paging : the third was only just com- pleted. The closing revision of pp. 8 1-304 was carried through in the early summer : the autumn months have been occupied with the last hundred pages, and with the index work. It was felt that the special character of the book demanded an unusually full system of indexing, and it is hoped that the index, in particular, of references to * Ancient authorities ' will illustrate, better than many words could do, the stately proportions of the evidence from ante-Nicene times which lies behind the argument of the Essays. A special acknowledgement is due to the exertions of the authorities and staff of the Cam- bridge University Press who, even in these days of depleted numbers, have never flagged in the care and rapidity of their printing. It goes without saying that the tardy progress of the 62 I XX Supplementary Note volume has been the cause of some injustice to the Essays that were first put into type. Dr Mason's and Dr Robinson's Essays had reached their ultimate form as long ago as before the beginning of the war : Dr Frere's Essay was also by that time in proof, and though it received subsequently a good deal of revision, it was, at the moment when Dom Connolly's vindication of the Hippolytean authorship of the Egyptian Church Order appeared in October 1 9 1 6, too far advanced towards its final stage to admit of more than a summary reference at the conclusion of the Essay. But notwithstanding all imperfections and delays the Essayists, believing that the attempt was worth making to state in positive form, eschewing controversy, what seem to them the results of the re-investigation of the historical evidence, in detail and in mass, trust that their joint effort may contribute something to the nearer attainment of the Truth and Peace which are for all of us the common goal. VERITATEM ET IVDICIVM PACIS IVDICATE IN PORTIS VESTRIS Advent, 191 7. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THIS book was written by scholars for scholars, using that word in its widest sense : and con- sidering that the scheme was conceived and, as we hope, carried out on strictly scientific and historical lines, the Essayists feel that they may rightly congratulate them- selves that it was necessary within eighteen months of its first appearance to commence preparations for a new edition. The whole volume has been carefully revised, though the amount of substantial change is very small. Hardly any errors in statement, and relatively few misprints, have been detected either by the writers themselves or by their reviewers : to the devoted care of the late Bishop Knight (Dr Swete's nephew by marriage) is due the fullest list of errata that has come to hand, and that only just reached double figures. Occasion has been taken to bring the different Essays, on some minute points whether of orthography or of typography, into greater uniformity than before. But it has been possible to keep the indices, a feature of the book which had attracted favourable notice, prac- tically as they stood, and page-references to the first edition will be available unchanged for the second also. Only on two points does it seem necessary to enter into Explanations, and on one of them only because sufficient attention has not always been paid to the definite language of the original preface. In the first place, then, the scope of the volum.e was limited in intention to ante-Nicene times, both in order to keep it within manageable bounds and also in order xxi w IP XXll Preface to the Second Edition to put the earliest evidence in the foreground of vision. It is true that this limitation was not stated by Dr Swete in so many words — his preface speaks in general terms of * the history of the first three or four cen- turies ' — and this reserve may have misled some of our critics, but the relative indefiniteness of his language was probably due to a desire not to emphasize the aberration of the one Essayist who transgressed the limit indicated. The second part of the third Essay does in fact carry down the history a century beyond the Council of Nicaea. This exceptional licence seemed to be justified by the difficulty of writing at all about Apostolic Succession without allusion to the radical change of orientation which St Augustine introduced into the current teaching on this subject in the West, when he divested it of one half of the double aspect in which it presented itself to the earlier Fathers : and if St Augustine was to be introduced at all, it was further necessary to sketch the process of the transition which rendered possible the evolution of his new theory of the relation of the sacraments in general, and especi- ally of the sacrament of ordination, to the Church. But while the third Essay does push matters beyond the norm, it is by exception only, and the common limit is rigorously respected throughout the rest of the book. In the second and fourth Essays the subject-matter carried with it its own limitation. It is otherwise, however, with the other Essays : and of course there would have been some gain if the writer of the first Essay had gone on to trace the later history of the idea of the Church, or if other Essayists had described the developement in the * forms of ordination,' as we get them for instance in the Apostolic Constitutions^ or the ' terms of communion,' as we find them in the period after the Peace of the Church. Nevertheless, apart from any question of space (and the volume might have grown to twice its present size), there is a definite A Preface to the Second Edition xxiii balance of advantage in the severe restraint by which, in the first and last Essays, a limit has been set to the scope of the enquiry. Nothing has been more illumi- nating in the whole volume than the revelation of the unsuspected bulk of ante-Nicene testimony which the sixth Essay brings to bear upon the subjects with which it deals. Had it been mixed up with the more familiar and more abundant evidence of the generations next following, we might still have continued to repeat the parrot cry about the * scanty evidence ' of the first Christian centuries. Therefore when Dr Vernon Bartlet, reviewing our volume in the Journal of Theological Studies (July 1 9 1 9, pp. 357-370), complained of the first Essay that it failed to take the history of the conception of the Church down to St Augustine, his complaint was really directed against the whole scheme of the Essays.^ The authors can make no apology for not doing in this respect more than they set out to do. With regard to the particular subject of the idea of the Church, they believe that it was desirable to emphasize the mass and the homogeneity of primitive witness. So far as apology is needed, it is rather for the latitude allowed to the third Essay and for the consequent unevenness in the outline of their book. ^ ^ • The second point upon which issue must be joined with some of our reviewers is more serious and will require fuller explanation, although uncertainty about our attitude was even more precisely excluded before- hand. Misinterpretations in especial of the first and third Essays (which will be referred to in detail further on) Were based upon misconception of our aim and object. That aim was, from the outset onwards, nothing else than to give a historical account of the evidence upon matters connected with the early de- velopement of the ministry in the Church, as compre- hensive as we could make it of the results of modern f J \.\\ I it XXIV Preface to the Second Edition knowledge and research, and as scientific and impartial as our best efforts could achieve. Dr Swete's preface is reprinted above (pp. ix-xvii), but it may be as well to cite certain sentences from it here, relevant to our present case and conclusive of our original purpose : * The scope of these Essays is limited to historical investigation. What the writer of the first Essay has said in his opening paragraph, with regard to his own particular subject, holds true, mutatis mutandis^ of all the discussions in this book. It does not belong to this volume to enquire whether the Christians of the first days were right in the answers which they gave to the problem that lay before them . . . We are con- cerned here simply with the statement of facts, and their interpretation.' Thus, if Dr Bartlet urges {loc, cit, p. 357) that the first Essay in our volume is ' useless for the purpose in hand ' since it * proves what is not denied by Non- conformist scholars ' — that * the Church was a divine and not a human institution ' is not * doubted by non- Episcopal bodies ' ; * what need to prove that there was no difference made in ancient times between an invisible and a visible Church ? ' — he misconceives the position. His criticisms presuppose a polemical intention in the Essay, and there is none. The inten- tion of the Essay, as stated at the outset, is historical. If the historical facts set forth in it are accepted by Nonconformist scholars as well as by Anglican Church- men, so much the more promising is the outlook for reunion. So far as the Essay was polemical at all, it was directed against the conclusions of Sohm, who proves that what he considers to be the elements of * Catholicism ' were present in apostolic Christianity, but cannot bring himself to believe that they are an integral part of the Apostles' teaching 1. * The substance of the foregoing paragraph has been supplied by Dr Mason. Preface to the Second Edition XXV '<% Dr Bartlet's references to the first Essay were definitely critical : the situation created in regard to the third Essay by a very able and in intention sym- pathetic review in the Times' Literary Supplement for May 30, 1 9 1 8, is of a more difficult and delicate nature, because the reviewer believed that he had found in the volume, and more particularly in the Essay on ' Apostolic Succession,' material for reinforcing his own ideas of the conditions and prospects of Christian Reunion, and cited it freely to that end \ The Essayists were not unaware of modern problems and modern conditions, but they wrote without primary regard to them. They aimed not at urging a cause, but at dis- entangling the evidence of history. The reviewer re- • versed the process, and, writing with direct reference to the question of reunion as it faces us in England at the present time, asked in the first place what was the most hopeful avenue to reunion, and then went on to see what encouragement could be found in the history of Christian antiquity, as recorded in the work of the Essayists, for the line of approach which had commended itself to him as feasible. The distinction which began to be drawn in the third and fourth centuries between heresy and schism, that is to say between separations resting on funda- mental differences as regards Christian doctrine and separations arising over matters of Church order, is emphasized by the reviewer. Where it is a case ot 1 His failure to understand the point of view o^ ^^e third Essay may have been caused in part by the brevity with which the con- duLn of the Essay on p. 196 >vas phrased I^^apPened tha^^^^^^^ TinfP*; fn the Essav (op 1Q7-214) were paged before the final paragrapns Sf the text wer7w^^ for these it had seemed enough to allow ?hree pages but the space turned out to be inadequate and the closing senten^cefsuifered frorS undue compression. , There would indeed app^^^^^ to have been, in the remainder of the Essay, indications of the Essa^sts Une of argument amply sufficient to prevent any reader being misled who did not come to his reading with a judgement already formed : but care has been taken in the new edition to recast some Phf^.f ?f pp 184! 194. 195. 196, so as to obviate, it is hoped, all possibihty of a wrong interpretation. Jl xxvi Preface to the Second Edition separatists of the latter sort he would press not only, with Pope Stephen and the Council of Aries, for the recognition of their baptism but, with St Augustine, for the recognition of their orders. And though of course Augustine was not in fact proposing that any orders should be recognised except orders which had been conferred by laying on of a bishop's hands, the reviewer urges that Augustine's principles carried him really beyond the point at which he actually arrived, and involve, or at any rate justify, a wide extension of the recognition of orders, wherever the preliminary conditions are satisfied of a genuine desire for recon- ciliation with the Church and of the possibility of a reconciliation en masse. If the Church in the course of the early centuries had * the courage, in the face of a new situation, entirely to change its theory and practice,' and * allowed itself to be guided by the higher principles of unity and charity,' why should not we show the same courage and at the call of the same prin- ciples effect in our own theory and practice a new change corresponding to the new need ? The re- viewer does not contemplate any departure from * the rules of episcopacy or episcopal consecration ' as a normal course. But for the purposes of unity he would be willing to recognise the existing orders of any orthodox Nonconformist community that was prepared on such a basis to reunite with the Church of England. This is a perfectly intelligible point of view, and the Essayists have no sort of wish to challenge the re- viewer's right to hold and state it. Their only locus standi is, directly, in regard to the use he makes of their own contributions, and, indirectly, in regard to their interpretation of that period of Christian antiquity of which they treat. To deal indeed fully with the latter aspect of the divergence between him and ourselves would need a treatise : what is to be said on this head must be said briefly and summarily. ii Preface to the Second Edition xxvii The Essayists then attempted to give, and as they hoped succeeded in giving, a representation of the theory and practice of the ancient Church as a whole ; the reviewer on the other hand had to pick and choose out of the material before him, to select something here from St Irenaeus, something there from St Augustine, in order to erect his own edifice, and to throw aside a good deal that would not fit anyhow into the fabric. St Irenaeus no doubt emphasized the bearing of the apostolic succession upon the guardian- ship of the tradition of apostolic doctrine : the re- viewer's purpose being limited to the reunion of such Christian communities as hold fast to orthodox belief, he wishes to adduce Irenaeus' conception of apostolic succession in support of his own programme. But in order to claim St Irenaeus with any effect as an ally, he is bound to assume not merely that Irenaeus did not use, but that under no circumstances could he have used, the appeal to the successions on any other than the doctrinal issue. If there had been separatists in his day who had thrown over episcopacy, Irenaeus could not, if the reviewer's argument is justified, have brought the apostolic successions of the bishops into play against them. Is not this rather a large assumption ? Yet, unless it is made, what becomes of the reviewer's limitation to doctrine of the scope of St Irenaeus' appeal } * The modern view [of the Succession, he tells us] was not held at all.' ' The modern and tractarian theory on the subject has no primitive authority.' Yes, but however true that may be, it is equally true, though it may not be equally palatable, that * the modern view ' has behind it in essentials the authority of St Augustine. The isolation of the test of * validity ' of succession from the test of communion with the Church, and the consequent assertion that orders can be * validly ' transmitted outside the Church, would certainly have 1 1. I; } 4 I 1 iJ xxviii Preface to the Second Edition been inconceivable to St Irenaeus and his contem- poraries ; but it is the fundamental basis of the position of St Augustine, and it is Augustine who is ultimately responsible for such danger as there may be of attribut- ing * magical efficiency ' to the sacrament of ordination. If the answer is made that Augustine himself did not really attribute to it anything of the sort, that is only because he fenced round his theory of the sacraments with two limiting conditions. The sacraments admin- istered in heresy or schism must, to be * valid,' be administered with the same sense of their meaning and the same outline of external rite (including of course the laying on of hands by a bishop) as in the Church. And * valid ' though they be, they convey, apart from the one and only Church, no real sacramental grace. Exactly what the reviewer reproaches * a section of the English Church ' with asserting about the Noncon- formist bodies of our own time, St Augustine asserted about the Donatist body of his day. Only then by a careful selective process can the reviewer appeal in favour of his own position to the doctors of the early Church : and that limitation of his appeal evacuates it, historically, of most of its force. We do not claim that this consideration concludes the whole question. We are well aware that the last word was not said on any subject in the second century, or in the third, or in any other century. But it has seemed to us necessary to make a protest in passing against such minimising of certain aspects of patristic theology as amounts in effect to distorting the picture as a whole. That is all that need be said here on the broad historical ground. We disagree with the interpreta- tion of the evidence that underlies the reviewer's posi- tion, and we think it right to say so ; but he has so far a perfect right to prefer his interpretation to our own. Our further and graver difference with him Preface to the Second Edition xxix concerns his interpretation of our own work. If he has interpreted us (neglecting, as we think, sufficiently clear indications of our true meaning) as in greater agreement with his position than we really are, it is obviously right that we should explain ourselves in this new edition, and re-state in unambiguous terms what it is that we tried to do and what it is that we wanted to say. And on the whole it seems best to do this independently in a preface rather than by altera- tions of the text, both because anything like a revision of an existing text is liable to disturb the balance of expression and thereby to create more misconceptions than it removes, and because we hold, as we have said, that the text as it stands will show, if attentively ex- amined, the very real difference between the reviewer's position and our own. Practically the issue turns on the third Essay. Like the reviewer the writer of that Essay (who, being also the present editor of this volume and writer of this preface, will in the succeeding paragraphs speak for convenience' sake in the first person) was attracted by the topic of Apostolic Succession, and like the reviewer was anxious to lay stress on the distinction between the original form of the doctrine of the Succession and the altered form which it had come to take in the course of the later history, from St Augustine onwards, of the Western Church. With that general object, the essence of the task I set myself to do was to make as luminously clear as I could the processes, and the arguments which at each stage seemed in the eyes of those responsible to justify the processes, by which the earlier idea of Apostolic Succession passed into the later. To the best of my knowledge, no one had ever before really attempted to demonstrate the nexus which joined the end of the developement to its beginning : and in so far as that I ;i II i XXX Preface to the Second Edition i f ■ 1 }\ is so, I hope I may have done a useful bit of original work. I should have defeated my own aim if I had not brought into high relief the contrast between the teaching of St Irenaeus and the teaching of St Augustine, or if I had not done my best to accentuate the circumstances which helped to recommend one step after another of the developement, as well as the logical completeness, in St Augustine's hands, of the final result. Perhaps in endeavouring to account for this or that course of action, or for the shaping of this or that theological position, I have not always been able to avoid the appearance of identifying myself with the hopes and fears, the argument and the action, of the characters in the drama, and have unduly neglected the reverse side of the historian's office in discerning and judging, approving and criticising, the acts and the actors. At least, if so, I erred on the side of self- suppression, and I erred in company with my colleagues in this volume. As regards the first part of the Essay, the general idea of * Apostolic Succession ' which I conceived to underlie the thought of St Irenaeus and his con- temporaries is described on pp. 104-8, and particular passages in justification of the description are cited from him on pp. 122-27. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ indeed occur to me to deal expressly with the sacramental theology of St Irenaeus : it hardly seemed to be in the direct line of the enquiry, nor did I suppose that it would be doubted that he with his contemporaries believed in the grace of Holy Orders. But what I did try to do was to guard by anticipation against any attempt to narrow down the scope of St Irenaeus' appeal ex- clusively to the subject-matter of doctrine. What pre- sented itself to me as crucial in the original conception of the appeal to the Successions was the way in which it was bound up with the idea of the Catholic Church. There was never any doubt (so I read the history) Preface to the Second Edition xxxi about the necessity of episcopal laying on of hands as . one element in the conception of Apostolic Succession: on this head there was no sort of difference between St Irenaeus (p. 107) and St Augustine, any more than about the essentially sacramental character of this laying on of hands, as conveying the gift of the grace of God for the episcopal office : where the difference came in was as to the relation of the succession to the principles of Catholic order. Both fathers would have agreed that none but bishops, themselves ordained by bishops, could be in the suc- cession themselves or provide for its continuance to others : but St Irenaeus and his contemporaries would have added, as a second and no less essential element, that only the bishop of a community of Catholic Christians, only one bishop in each community, could inherit the Succession from the Apostles. In the age of St Irenaeus doctrine was of course the most important issue on which the consensus of the bishops in the Succession, and of the communities represented by them, would be invoked. But though it was to Irenaeus the dominant issue, it was not the only issue ; and to suppose that the argument would not have had the same value in his eyes in other connexions is inconsistent with the implications of the passage quoted on pp. 126, 127. Schismatics are * judged' by the believer no less than heretics : and the writer who completes his summary of a Christian man's faith by mention of the apx^^'f^ov rrj^ i/CKXrjo-ia^; avcrTr]/xa Kara iravTo^i Tov k6