YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE
CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL
TRANSLATED BY
The Rev. G. C. H. POLLEN, S.J.
[In the Press.
HISTORY OF THE ROMAN
BREVIARY
TRANSLATED BY
The Rev. A. M. Y. BAYLAY, M.A.
FROM THE THIRD FRENCH EDITION
[In preparation.

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.,
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA.

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

Mgr. PIERRE BATIFFOL, Litt.D.

(TRANSLATION BY HENRI L. BRIANCEAU, OF ST. MARY'S SEMINARY,
BALTIMORE, FROM THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION OF "L'EGLISE
NAISSANTE," REVISED BY THE AUTHOR)

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
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Webtmonastbeii, die 1 JunH, 1911

INTEODUCTION
TO THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION (1911).
The subject I am proposing to treat, and which, if God
permit, I intend at some future day to pursue, down to the
epoch of St. Augustine and St. Leo, is the history of the
formation of Catholicism, that is to say, of the Church in so
far as it is a visible, universal society, built upon the frame
work of a rule of faith and a hierarchy.
In the present volume on " Primitive Catholicism," I
study the origins of this formation, taking the time of St.
Cyprian as the term of these origins. It might indeed be
contended that their real term was reached more than half
a century before his time, but his writings and the discus
sions in which he took a leading part, show so clearly that
the doctrines and institutions of Catholicism were then gener
ally accepted, and, on the other hand, the historical con
tinuity that had governed the development of these doctrines
and institutions up to his day, makes itself so sensibly felt
in these same writings, that they complete for us in an admir
able manner the knowledge we are able to acquire of the two
hundred years of previous Christianity.
We must confess, however, that it is not without some
timidity we approach the study of these two centuries of
primitive history, seeing that the documentary evidence,
abundant as it is, gives us but a faint idea of the early Chris
tian life, so varied, so complex, so deep ! How much light
we should be deprived of, had not the Epistles of St.
Ignatius and the Apologies of St. Justin been preserved !

VI INTEODUCTION
On the other hand, how much more light we should haV6,
were the "De Ecclesia" of Melito and the " Memorabiha "
of Hegesippus still extant ! The discovery of the " Didache "
has been a genuine revelation and has obliged scholars to
correct many an inference. So too has the discovery of the
Odes of Solomon. The preservation of the texts, as well as
their loss, is something accidental. For this reason history,
when dealing with centuries concerning which we have few
and scanty documents, is a science of only approximate cor
rectness, always susceptible of revision, except as regards
certain manifest facts, and some general features inferred
from several series of concordant observations. Such is
the condition of primitive ecclesiology. Its history is made
up of a few features which, clearly marked from the be
ginning, acquire with each successive generation a more
vigorous and expressive prominence. Thus for instance,
as early as the Apostolic age, Christianity presents itself as
a corporate religion, a brotherhood which swarms over
the earth without diminishing its cohesion, which everywhere
forms itself into co-operating societies of exactly the same
character. These little Christian communities have the
same faith, the same worship, the same authorities. That
such a phenomenon should constantly recur in Mithraism,
for instance, would not seem strange to us ; but it surprises
us in the case of Christianity, because we are little accus
tomed to look at the latter from this point of view. The
best definition ever given of our religion is that drawn up by
TertuUian, when he writes : " Corpus sumus de conscientia
religionis et disciplinae unitate et spei foedere," meaning to
say that the whole Christian community is this association,
this corpus, and that in each particular Christian community
there is identity of hierarchy as well as of discipline and of
faith. Now this is nothing but concrete, living and histori
cal Catholicism ; and what is true of the Christianity of
Tertullian's time is equally true of the Christianity of St.

INTRODUCTION Vii
Clement's time, and of the Christianity of the earliest ^.
Christian generation. Christianity was born Catholic, for '
there is identity of structure between Apostolic Christianity
and the Christianity of about the year 200. „^
That, between the early days of the Christian community
and the year 200 or 250, there were elements which devel
oped, and that there were also sinkings, so to speak, is be
yond dispute : St. Thomas Aquinas states more than once
that the Minor Orders were implicit in the diaconate, and
were separated from it at the proper moment, which came
comparatively late ; on the other hand, charisms disappeared
at the proper time, prophecy was regulated with religious
care for the discernment of the spirits by which it was in
spired, and in such a manner as to preserve the deposit of
revealed faith, which, after the Apostles, was susceptible of
no new acquisitions, and which was, by divine right, entrusted
to the guardianship of the bishops, the successors of the
Apostles. Heresies, of which we know names and specific '!
doctrines, appeared now and then : but the Church was so ,
constituted that by the very fact of their springing up they ;'
differentiated themselves from her, and only served to give 1
her the opportunity to define herself more firmly and dis- 1
tinctly. BuUt by the Apostles who knew only Jesus and >
Him crucified, the Church knew that only which she heldl
from the Apostles : she was not, in this first period of her
existence, in an amorphous state ; history does not represent j
her as a mere spiritual movement whose institutions and |
doctrines were determined by or even borrowed from the j
civilization through which it passed : she was a Gospel, an i
apostolate, a tradition, a worship, an hierarchical society, j
one Church made up of many Churches, a unity preserved i
by the unity of the cathedra Petri. All this she was con-j'
scious of being. Far from being an ever-advancing and
progressive evolution, she was from her origin a living and
divinely assisted preservation of the gift made by God to

viii INTRODUCTION
men in the Incarnation. All this and only this she con
tinues to be.
In speaking thus I draw the doctrinal conclusions which
form the leading portions of my book, but these conclusions
are only conclusions, and my investigation remains an in
vestigation, and is conducted, as no one has ventured to
deny, in full accordance with the historical method.

* *
*

In the " Theologische Literaturzeitung " for 16 Jan.,
1909, Professor Harnack, has given a notice of " Primitive
Catholicism " which I feel I must transcribe here almost in
its entirety. I could not have wished my essay to receive
more attention and favourable consideration than it has
received in this notice from the most illustrious Protestant
historian of the present time.
"... The author," he writes, "has rendered to his
Church ... a most signal service, for one could not under
take with greater special knowledge of the subject to estab
lish the original identity of Christianity, Catholicism, and
the Eoman primacy. He does not seek to prove his thesis
by means of metahistoric speculation which does not con
cern itself with the chronology of events, but confines him
self to the territory of facts and their consequences, and
seeks to furnish a truly historical demonstration.
" That Roman and Catholic are identical I proved as a
Protestant historian some twenty-two years ago, in my
' History of Dogma,' though with certain reserves which
the author strives, of course, to discard in most cases. In
that work I had likewise endeavoured to prove that, in the
history of the development of Christianity, we must assign
to the rise of the Catholic element an earlier date than Pro
testant historians have generally admitted. Since then this
thesis has been still more strongly accentuated (see the well-
known work of Wernle,^ for instance), and well-informed
' [Wernle'a work may be fouud in an English translation, under the
title, " The Beginnings of Christianity".]

INTRODUCTION ix
Protestant historians of the Church will no longer feel
scandalized at the statement that some of the principal ele
ments of Catholicism go back to the apostolic age and belong
to its very heart. Thus the view of Church history taken
by Catholics would seem to triumph, without their having
themselves done anything to secure their victory.
"Yet, they have hardly any reason — in fact, absolutely
no reason — for crying out victory.
"For, first the chasm that separates Jesus from the
Apostles has not yet been bridged over, nor can it be.
Secondly, the same must be said in regard to the movements
which were beginning or ending in their time. Thirdly,
the value, the sphere of action, and the hierarchy of the
factors at work within the complex organism of Christian
thought and the forms of ecclesiastical life were constantly
changing until by the third century the dominant note of
these factors became displaced. Fourthly and lastly, an
abnormal element which was active in the beginning, later
on died away, namely the element of the immediate sub
jection to the Divine {irvevfia), and the element of individual
liberty which resulted therefrom. As a consequence of all
this, the Church underwent unceasing and essential changes
in spite of her continuity : changes the successive stages of
which began about the years 30, 60, 90, 130, 160, and 190.
" But the facts recalled in the third and in the fourth
place are such that one may be unacquainted with them and
yet not be taxed with ignorance, in the ordinary sense
of the word. They are imponderables that cannot be re
ferred to definite and special sources. As to the chasm that
separates the Apostles from all that, during their lifetime,
made its appearance in the Church, it can be filled up by
invoking their authority which extended to all ; and as to the
conformity between Jesus and the Apostles, the old arsenal
of exegesis can seem to account for it in a satisfactory
manner. Hence it is possible to establish, by impressionist

X INTRODUCTION
arguments, that the Catholic concept of the infant Church
is historically the true one, i.e. that Christianity, Cathoh-
cism, and Eomanism are, in the light of history, perfectly
identical. This is what Batiffol has done, by availing him
self of the best results of Protestant scholarship in this
direction, and by using them in a calm and scientific ex
position, with that solid competence which is his character
istic and which has made his name so well known.
"" "In this exposition there are few inaccuracies, in the
worst sense of the term (except in what he says of Jesus).
But, in tracing the line of historical development, he has, at
every stage, overlooked the slight deviations which, taken
together, cause most momentous changes of direction. We
have thus, instead of a curve, a straight line which, with
such a method, it would be easy to prolong even to the
Catholicism of the ' Syllabus ' and of the EncycHcal letter
of 1907. To the exulting words of the introduction, pro
claiming that Catholicism is still to-day what it was in the
first century, and that Protestantism, on the contrary ' may
claim to be a modern ideology, but has in its essence
nothing in common with the Infant Church,' we may op
pose the following historical estimate : The Catholicism of
the year 250 — to say nothing of the year 1908 — possesses,
in common with primitive Christianity, a number of ele
ments which are all lacking in Protestantism. But these
elements have gradually acquired in CathoUcism a value, a
sphere of action, a proportion that greatly differ from what
they had at the beginning, and have changed the essence of
piety and the life of religion to such an extent that Roman
Catholicism can justly claim to he an ancient state with an
ancient ideology, and yet in its essence it has little in com
mon with infant Christianity.
"However, I would earnestly recommend those Protest
ants who are interested in the history of the Church, not
to overlook this work, but to study it thoroughly, to draw

INTRODUCTION Xi
from it all that it can give, and carefully to notice, page
after page, the various places where Batiffol has failed to
observe, in tracing out the line of evolution, this or that
small break. For instance, it is easy — and I must say, it is"
most important — to prove that, even in the first letter of
Clement, there is a very big dose of Eoman Catholicism;
but it is at least equally important to show clearly in what
Christianity as set forth and described by Clement differs
from Cyprian's Catholicism. -The chasm between them is
almost immeasurable, and yet Batiffol tells us nothing about
it, whilst — of course — he does not fail to emphasize the
points on which both agree. The eyes of this investigator
— great as is his courage and honesty — are ' held ' so
that he does not see what there is to see. While it is his
earnest wish that the study of history should give us a
yearning for unity and the intuition of the true faith, we
may express the more reasonable and perhaps more hopeful
wish, that he may learn to perceive the shades of thought
and of discipline, to notice the differences, and to sum up
the total effect in which they issue.
" The author's researches are partly carried on in the
form of a dialogue with me, because, on many points, I am
closer to him than most Protestant historians, and also be
cause, on other points, I stand particularly in his way. I
thank him for his high appreciation of my works, and I need
not assure him that I shall make a thorough and detailed
examination of all these topics. I am very sorry that the
new edition of my ' History of Dogma ' is already in the
press, and that I am unable there to discuss the matter with
him." In the Preface to my third French edition, I had occa
sion to define my attitude towards this criticism of Professor
Harnack's, which marks out so neatly and so courteously our
reciprocal positions. If I return to this same passage now
it is because the views it expresses have undergone fresh

xii INTRODUCTION
developments in a recent book by the same author, " Ent-
stehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und des
Kirchenrechts in den zwei ersten Jahrhunderten ".^
* *
*
In this new book Professor Harnack adheres to the con
tention which underlies his "What is Christianity?" namely
that between Jesus and His Apostles a deep ditch runs, to
fill up which, though the task is in reality impossible, an
attempt has been made by casting in arguments drawn from
"the antiquated arsenal of exegetics". It will not be ex
pected of me that I should speak of the value of exegetics
with such detachment. But in regard to this particular
point I desire to indicate the kind of value which, as it ap
pears to me, any one endowed with the true instinct of a
historian must needs attach to the texts which Professor
Harnack sacrifices, and the considerations he neglects.
In the first place, he conceives that the famous text in
Matthew xvi. 18-19 is condemned " by all the rules of his
torical criticism" (" Entstehung," p. 3). To me, on the
contrary, this text appears to be in the strictest relation
with the plan of the first Gospel, and I note that criticism
is inclining to recognize, much more categorically than it
would have ventured to do as late as ten years ago, the
" ecclesiastical " character of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and
/the interest it takes in the eKKXrja-la, in an ixxXn^a-la
(which is taught, and is governed by those who teach it,
' above all by the Apostle Peter. The promise made by
Jesus to Peter (Matt. xvi. 18-19) is not then an intrusive
text, introduced into the narrative of Matthew surreptiti
ously, as an after-thought, and at a very late date, as Dr.
Eesch contended ; it is in close harmony with the spirit of
the first Gospel, as has been argued by no one better than
^ Leipzig, 1910. An English translation of this work has sinoe ap
peared under the title of " The Constitution and Law of the Church in
the First Two Centuries '. Translated by F. L. Pogson, M.A., edited by
H. D. A. Major, M.A.

INTRODUCTION Xlll
by Dr. Wellhausen, unless it be Dr. Jiilicher.^ The fact is
the first Gospel is by no means a document of uncertain
origin. Professor Harnack this time has shown better
than any one else that it has Palestine for its near
horizon, that it is the work of the Palestinian Church now
liberated from the Law and favourable to converts not of
Jewish race, that it is a community-book, a " Gemeinde-
buch " ; that it keeps the community in the foreground,
and might well be called the first liturgical book of the
Christian Church, drawn up for it in the days when it had
but recently disengaged itself from its Judeo-Christian
bonds.^ But if so, are we not entitled to infer that the
promise of Jesus to Peter, through its incorporation in St.
Matthew's Gospel, is attested as belonging to the Jerusalem
tradition which went back to the first Christian generation ?
And if so, its claim to be historical, instead of having against
it, "all the rules of historical criticism," has, in reality,
nothing against it save that it oversteps the limits of what
a certain system of exegetics, if it is to hold its ground, is
able to accept in the contents of the recorded teaching of
Jesus. Secondly, Professor Harnack insists that, when we have
set aside Matt. xvi. 18-19 as unhistorical, there renlains no
other direct external bond to connect Jesus with the
Church, however we may strive to magnify the inappreci
able by pleading the highly embryonic condition of the
Church in the first hour of its existence. We must reply,
however, that at least one other fact remains which Profes
sor Harnack has acknowledged to be undeniable, namely
'J. Wellhausen, " Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien" (Berlin,
1909), p. 70. A. JiJLiOHBR, "Einleitung in das Neue Testament," Tu
bingen, 1906), p. 265 : " He [the author of the first Gospel] has written a
Catholic Gospel and it is its genuine Catholic character which gained for
it the first place among the Gospels. ... In it the fundamental elements
of ancient Catholicism are ready prepared."
"A. Haknaok, "Lukas der Arzt" (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 118-20.
" Neue Untersuchungen " (Leipzig 1911), p. 94.

xiv INTRODUCTION
that the disciples of Jesus and the men who beUeved in
Him were those who formed the Church, and further that
the " Twelve " had been appointed by Jesus to propagate
His teaching and to be one day the judges of the " twelve
tribes ". There remains too another fact equally undeni
able, namely, the place held by Peter amongst the Twelve.
Professor Harnack has observed that, in a purely Messianic
perspective, there could have been no room for a chief
among the Twelve, and this observation is just ; but from
the time when Jesus was still with His disciples, Peter was
the first, and was spokesman for the rest ; he was "an der
Spitze," at the head. Again, just as in the Palestinian en
vironment in which the Gospel of St. Matthew was edited,
it was held to be certain that Jesus at Csesarea Philippi
had designated Peter as the rock on which He would buQd
His Church, so in the Johannine environment it was held to
be certain that the risen Christ had entrusted His flock to
him that he might be its Pastor. Peter then had a unique
office. Professor Harnack reproaches the " Protestant exe-
getists and historians for their disposition to underestimate
the importance of the place held by Peter among the
Apostles and in the primitive community" ("Entstehung,"
p. 6), but does he not himself underestimate it when he
endeavours to explain this place of precedence by the natural
quaUties which can be ascribed to St. Peter ? Again, in
the Christian community of the Apostolic age Professor
Harnack finds that there must have been the foUowing
elements working — something of the communism of the
Quakers, and of a " mild pneumatic anarchism," but
likewise, as a counter-force, the Jewish spirit of order, of
magistracy, of law, which was then all-potent, together with
the ideal of the Kingdom of God which was striving for
realization. By way of hypothesis, let us suppose that this
was so. But Professor Harnack concedes to us that, in
addition to the authority of the Old Testament from which

INTRODUCTION xv
this Jewish spirit was derived, there was potent also " the
authority of the words of the Lord " which was the source
of the maxims of the Christian life. This is most true, but 1
it is not all, and Professor Harnack further concedes to us
that there was another and last element " the prerogative of
the Twelve and the infallible authority (thanks to the
abiding aid of the Holy Spirit) of the community ". These
were " the absolute authorities which rigidly limited and
curbed the liberty of the individual," and assured the
"conformity" of all ("Entstehung," p. 18). This conces
sion is of capital importance, but we must insist on its
going a step further. How could the prerogative of the
Twelve have succeeded in establishing its own authority as
an intermediary between authorities so holy and absolute,
had it not been based on a commission emanating from ,
Christ in person? _j
In this way then we can connect the Church with Christ
through the Apostles. The theory on which we rest may
be "an old theory " but none the less it is valid, and Pro
fessor Harnack appears to have nothing better to substitute
in its place than a peculiarly fragile modernity, for such
surely is his theory that the Church came to its birth
" automatically," being born of " the fraternal community of
men who through Jesus had found God, of men who felt
themselves to be led by the Spirit of God, and who, faithful
to the theocratic ideal of the Jews, beUeved in its realization
through Jesus " (" Entstehung," p. 3). It is surely astonish
ing that these disciples of the first hour should have had a
rehgious conscience so modern as to impel them " to find
God through Jesus " (it is Eitschl's formula) ,'^ seeing that, as
Jews and children of Abraham, they needed no longer to
find God, but only to find the Messiah. How too could
their expectation of the realization of the kingdom, even
^ W. Sanday, " Christologies Ancient and Modern" (Oxford, 1910),
p. 82.

xvi INTRODUCTION
when eked out by the charismatic inspiration of individuals
among them, give birth " automatically " to a society ? But
the real fact is these disciples believed that Jesus was the
Messiah, the Son of God; and straightway they were in
possession of a truth which caused their Judaism to strain
and burst the bonds of its older organization, like new wine
in an old bottle. It was this truth which was the immedi
ate cause that created the fraternity which separated them
from the other Jews, and rendered them indifferent to the
privilege of being Jews ; and it was in this truth and this fra
ternity that they found an authority in which that of Christ
was continued, namely, that of the Apostles appointed by
Christ. Thus from the very outset of its historical existence,
Christianity was a formed faith, a visible society, a Uving
authority. *
Of these three terms, to which for the purposes of the
present discussion we may limit the description of CathoU
cism, at all events in the abstract, the second is firmly
maintained by Professor Harnack against Professor Sohm.
I have explained in my book (pp. 130, 143 and foil.) the
position taken up by this eminent jurist in his " Kirchen-
recht" (1892). Professor Harnack ("Entstehung," p. 122)
does not hesitate to say that " next to the Catholic theory,
that of Professor Sohm is the most coherent that has been
propounded " as a solution of the problem of the Church's
origins. Professor Sohm, I should add, has quite recently
resumed his advocacy of this theory in a new essay .^
Professor Sohm's theory is a curious product of the
Lutheran and juristic minds in combination. As a jurist
he cannot but represent to himself Catholicism as a legal
organism, the legitimacy of which is guaranteed by its his-
iR. Sohm, " Wesen und Ursprung des Katholizismus ". Abhand-
lungen der Philol. Histor. Klasse d. K. Sachs. Gesellsoh. d. Wiss. B. 27,
H. 3 (1909).

INTRODUCTION xvii
torical continuity, which continuity, however, he assures us,
is verified only in the Eoman Catholic Church. Professor
Sohm deduces the whole of Catholicism from one initial
postulate, just as one deduces each separate corollary from
one and the same theorem — for every jurist is in his way a
geometrician. As a Lutheran, he postulates as the initial
fact from which this logical development has issued a certain
state of mental confusion which was not deliberate but arose
inadvertently and inevitably. Primitive Christianity (" Ur-
christentum ") could not fail to transform itself into Catho
licism because it was not as yet in a condition to distinguish
between the body mystical of Christ and the corpus or " em
pirical " association of the faithful among themselves. It
had only one word, the word ecclesia, to denominate the in
visible Church of faith, and that legal and contingent in
stitution which is the visible Church. This supposed
confusion involves that Christianity, though it passed thus
quickly into Catholicism, was not Catholic at the very first ;
but, strange to say, when this confusion had arisen, "it was
necessary to wait till Luther came, before the distinction,
lost sight of so soon after the beginning, between the invis
ible and visible Church could be recovered."
Let us come, however, to a summary of the facts, to see
how Professor Sohm presents them. The faith of the first
believers, whether they were dispersed over the world, or
resident in the same city, or gathered together in the same
house, had, we are assured, its expression in the maxim :
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them ". Initial Christendom
had no other conception of the Church than this, and that
is why it knew only of the Church and not of the Christian
community. But soon the presence of the Spirit of Christ
begins to manifest itself by means of charismata : the Spirit
inspires, the Spirit speaks, the faithful are taught and led
by the Spirit, and he who has received the charisma of the

xvin INTRODUCTION
Spirit becomes the presbyter. It is then that for the first
time the mutual interpenetration of the Spirit and the com
munity reveals itself, and we touch upon the identification of
the invisible with the visible. The order of legality is
about to appear. The reUgious gatherings in which Chris
tians came together " for the word " were delivered over to
a " pneumatic anarchy " ; but the gatherings in which they
celebrated the Eucharist required that order should be
observed, and hence that there should be a president, and
ministers, and that there should be an investiture of offices :
in short the life of the community required a hierarchy.
As soon as this investiture came to be regarded as giving
" the Spirit," Catholicism was born ; and this development
was completed at the time when the " Prima Clementis "
was written.
We perceive that for Professor Sohm the " Church "
cannot rightly claim to be more than a purely reUgious,
spiritual entity, a soul without a body ; in proportion as it
takes to itself a body it tends to become CathoUc. There is
this of piquancy in the theory that the larger the part in
history it accords to " Catholicism," the more it requires of
Lutheranism to liberalize and enfeeble itself. But there is
also this of error in it that it represents the first Christian
meetings as displays of " pneumatic anarchy " ; for I have
shown in my book (pp. 28-30) what part the outpourings of
the Spirit took in that earliest phase of Christian Ufe, and I
have shown that the charismatic element appears invariably
as one that is subordinated ; and Professor Harnack has
likewise said : " The reception of a charisma exempted no
one from the necessity of having his mandate recognized
and controlled by the community " (" Entstehung," p. 19).
It is a further error in Professor Sohm's theory that it
{allows no place for the prerogative of the Apostles. The
'common life, he acknowledges, required a hierarchy, but
what caused this common Ufe to spring up ? Was it not the

INTRODUCTION xix
fruit of the apostolic preaching? And was the Apostolate a
charisma, and did it tolerate anarchy ? All primitive history .
answers, No. The gravest, however, of the errors into '
which Professor Sohm faUs is that of supposing initial Chris
tianity to have been a soul without a body. Professor Har
nack fastens on this error with a sharpness which is not
undeserved : Sohm, he says, may profess what faith he
pleases in regard to this point, but as for the Church of the
first hour being what he imagines, we can only say, No it
was not : had that Church been deprived of every terrestrial
element, what else could it have been " save a mere idea, the
object of the faith of each separate Christian in isolation from
all the others" ("Entstehung," p. 148). The reader who
wiU refer to my book (pp. 146, 151) will find that I have
not been more severe than Professor Harnack in my criticism
of this theory of the priority of the invisible Church, classical
as it has been up to the present day in the schools of Pro
testant scholasticism. But what an accession of force this
criticism now receives under the pen of Professor Harnack !
The invisible Church, he writes, is nothing more than a
numerus praedestinaiorum et credentium, the units of which
are nothing for one another, more than are parallel lines
which only meet at infinity. He who speaks of a Church,
speaks of an assemblage, an assemblage of the called and
the chosen, and this implies " something of a social char
acter, which is already a present reality on earth, for on
earth the called are the Church of God, and only in this
character have they intercourse with one another ". In fact,
the word of Christ : " Where two or three are gathered to-:
gether in my name there am I in the midst of them," turns ;
against Professor Sohm, since it promises that Christ will be,
wherever there is a concrete society, even if it be one of only;
two or three of His disciples ; it is an invitation to join such
societies. Hence "to associate is for those who bear the
name of Christ not a secondary or unessential feature in the
b*

XX mTRODUOTION
idea of the Church, it is a feature essentially involved in the
idea itself which is only realized through the fact of the
faithful thus associating themselves " ("Entstehung," p. 149).
The Church is essentially visible and social.
Primitive Christendom is then a visible society, as Pro
fessor Harnack agrees with me in maintaining. Moreover,
this visible society bears in its womb a living authority ; a
living authority, that is, by contrast with a written author
ity. This living authority, if we are to believe Professor
Sohm, is nothing more than the outcome of an evolution of
charismata ; the gifts of the Spirit are transformed eventu
ally into "liturgies," in the Greek sense of the term, that
is, into local and permanent liturgies which become offices
for life. The " Prima Clementis " reveals to us the evolution
at this stage. But here again Professor Harnack is before
us in his criticism. The " Prima Clementis " marks a very
instructive moment in the development of the hierarchy,
but it reveals to us " nothing which is essentiaUy new ". It
claims an ecclesiastical right which is not of human origin
but divine, since it declares that the office of the iinaKo-n-ri is
for life, in virtue of the divine will and the divine revelation.
But in this respect the " Prima Clementis " does not differ
from the decree of the Apostles in Acts xv. (" Entstehung,"
p. 159). In reality, concludes Professor Harnack, " the
divine origin of ecclesiastical right is as old as the Church
itself" (p. 161). I take note of this concession without
however wishing to exaggerate its bearing ; for this divine
right which Professor Harnack opposes to Professor Sohm
has over the human and contingent right imagined by the
latter no other advantage than that of historical priority.
Professor Harnack makes it as ancient as the Church, and
makes " the Church " congenital with primitive Christianity,
and this is a great advance on his part. Nevertheless this
right which he claims to call divine springs, if thus con
ceived, only from the requirements of Christendom regarded

INTRODUCTION xxi
as a visible society, and it springs from it merely as a legal
and formal element that is necessarily postulated by the
Christian life which has to propagate and establish itself.
It is divine for this sole. reason that the new religion is
theocratic. Thus, ultimately. Professor Harnack does not,
any more than Professor Sohm, stand for the doctrine of
any such juridical organisation as the Christian life has
required, as is clear from the formal assent he gives to this
proposition which he quotes from Professor Sohm : " The
natural desire of man is to externalize his religion " (p.
177). Man by his nature demands a law, an authority,
and by demanding it he has created it ; such is the sense in
which Professor Harnack speaks of divine right.^ We,
however, cannot but observe how full is the evidence that
the Church from the first hour was a society under a
government. It was not governed by any mere abstract
authority ; or by the imperious requirements of charismata,
which were variable, obscure, intermittent, always needing
to be verified, quickly discredited ; nor by any statute
spontaneously elaborated and embodying the experience of
all the Churches, for such experience would have produced
^ Professor Harnack has written elsewhere in the same book : " The
Reformation [of the sixteenth century] not only destroyed the ecclesi
astical constitution ('Kirchenverfassung') of the Middle Ages, but also
broke off all connexion with the ' Kirchenverfassung ' of the second and
first centuries ". He adds: " The people of West Europe are still either
Catholic or Protestant. Tertium adhuc non datur. It is Luther who
created for them this alternative, and it is an alternative which concerns
us more than all the philosophical and scientific culture of the present
time, or all its technical applications. The people are, however, on the
look out for a tertmm genus Ecclesiae under which they may find shelter
for their higher life " ("Entstehung," p. 120). It is indeed interesting
to have from Professor Harnack this acknowledgment of the bankruptcy
of the Reformation in regard to all its historical and religious pretensions,
and this appeal from it to an unlimited modernism. For it is just what I
myself said (Fourth French Edit. p. xiii) when I wrote the words against
which Professor Harnack has protested : " This being the historical con
ception of the Church, Protestantism may claim to be a modern ideology,
but it has in its essence nothing in common with the Infant Church ".
But I have no wish to insist on these considerations.

XXll INTRODUCTION
only a universal variation ; but by a living authority emanat
ing we know from what quarter, and alone able to
explain the unity of the institutions founded and the credit
they enjoyed. The " Prima Clementis " declares all this in
plain terms, and what else is the " Decree of the Apostles "
save the most striking manifestation of the existence of this
authority, and of the lawfulness of its claims ?
The prerogative of the Apostles is then the true key to
the question of the origin of the Church : by this preroga
tive is explained the initial fact that Christianity is a society
and not a mere preaching, a society ordered and governed
/and not a " charismatic anarchy " ; by this prerogative is ex-
, plained the fact that the preaching of the Gospel was fixed
\ and defined as a "rule of faith " and as an " Apostolic tradi-
l tion ". The second century did not create doctrinal state
ments at the bidding of its needs ; it only acquired a clearer
understanding of those doctrines, of which the " presbyters "
had preserved the remembrance. What Professor Sohm
holds to have been an initial confusion, and Professor Har
nack holds to have been an initial logic, we hold to have
been a thing intended. Let the reader decide which of these
three theories is most in accordance with the facts.
In treating of the Infant Church I have spoken of the
rule of faith only in so far as it is of the nature of a rule,
without touching on its contents, on the doctrines which the
faith affirms, that being a subject the study of which
belongs properly to the history of dogma. I do not over
look that in those histories of dogma which are the most
widely circulated, " CathoUcism " is described as the faith
which found expression at the end of the second century,
in a form which Professor Harnack is pleased to regard as
the outcome of HeUenistic syncretism (" Entstehung," p.
184). I have not touched on this discussion, my purpose
being to treat not of the object of this official ecclesiastical
teaching, but of its essential character and origin. Pro-

INTRODUCTION xxiil
lessor Harnack, on the other hand, prefers to consider
Catholicism under the former of these aspects. Let
me take note, however, that, in his sketch of the main
outhnes of Tertullian's doctrine, which he takes as the ex
pression of this Catholicism, he does not hesitate to write :
" AU these points of doctrine, as we can prove texts in
hand, manifest their presence already in the first century
and in the writings of the New Testament : the only differ
ence is that some of them manifest it more distinctly,
others more faintly. . . . Catholicism is thus, if we in-
¦clude in it its embryonic phases, as ancient as the Church
itself." ("Entstehung," p. 182). I repeat that the question
treated in this passage is as to the contents of the rule of
faith ; moreover, affirmations of this kind when made by
Professor Harnack are never unaccompanied by revisions
and attenuations which must not be disregarded. If,
however, we call attention to these particular affirmations,
it is because they have their bearing on my own present
thesis of the continuity and tenacity of the rule of faith in
the Infant Church.
Paris, 15 March, 1911.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE
Introduction to the Fitth Fbench Edition (1911) . . . . v
CHAPTEE I.
THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CHRISTIANITY.
I. Had the Judaism of the Dispersion any tendency to become a Church ? —
Legal and social status of the Dispersion — Eeligious and national
institutions — Jewish heUeuization, nothing apart from the religious
aud national life — Proselytism aims at imposing circumcision, and uu-
oircumcized proselytes do not belong to God's people — In what way the
body of proselytes paved the way for Christianity .... 1
II. Political oonfusion of Christianity with Judaism — In the year 64 this
confusion comes to an end — Testimony of Tacitus — Christianity is
legally forbidden — Pliny aud Trajan — Nero, the first to interdict Chris
tianity : testimony of TertuUian aud of Suetonius . . . .17
III. Christianity, no mere spiritual movement — Subordination of the out
pourings of the Spirit, i.e. of charisms, to the good order of the com
munities and to the received faith — Christianity, no mere brotherhood
of love and of mutual aid — Christianity, a religion of cities — -Chris
tianity, not a religion of coUeges — Christianity, a religio illicita and
a corpus or association  28
CHAPTEE II.
THE INFANT CHUECH.
I. The apostolate of the first Christian generation, not an institution
borrowed from Judaism — Various meanings of the word Apostle — The
apostolate, not a charism — Notion of the apostolate, in St. Paul — ^The
Apostles of the circumcized — The Twelve — There are not three con
tradictory notions of the apostolate — The apostolate, a principle of
unity and authority laid down by Christ Himself . . . .37
II. Churches and the Church in the first Christian generation — The earliest
missions to the Gentiles — ^The decree of the Apostles — ^Peter and Paul
at Antioch, and the principle of the unity of the new people in Jesus
Christ .  55
Christianity, not a " wisdom," but a catechesis — Notion of the de
posit of faith, and of the Apostle as pledge for the divine authority of
the Gospel — The initiation, baptism in the name of Christ — Worship
in common, Sunday synaxis, Eucharist — Mutual supervision, expul
sion of the sinner — Those who preside  64

xxvi TABLE OF CONTENTS PA6B
The assembly of the faithful cf the same city, called a Church —
The Churches of Christ— The Church of God— The Church, Christ's
mystical body — The tertium genus inaugurated upon earth by Chris
tianity  69
BxouBsus A.
The Church in the Gospel, value of Matt. xvi. 18-19 ... .75
CHAPTEE III.
THE INFANT' CHURCH (oosininED).
I. The second Christian generation — The Pauline Epistles of the captivity
¦ — The saints, the episcopi, and the deacons of Philippi — Ecclesiology
of the " Didachfe — Ecclesiology of the " Prima Petri " — St. Paul's last
instructions, ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles — Johannine ecclesi
ology  97
II. The Epistle of St. Clement of Eome — Transformation of the notion of
charism — Discipline by means of authority — The received faith — The
canon of tradition — The hierarchy — The intervention of Eome at
Corinth — Criticism of Sohm's theory  122
III. The Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch— Discipline — The hierarchy —
The unity of each Church — Heresy — The " dogmas " of the Lord and
of the Apostles — The bishop makes the unity of each Church — Jesus
makes the unity of the " Catholic Church " — The primacy of the Eoman
Church  ... 131
Conclusion, the Infant Church is Catholic  142
EXCUEBUS B.
Critical examination of Protestant theories on the formation of Catholi
cism   143
CHAPTEE IV. .
THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.EUS.
The ecolesiologioal principles of Irenseus, not his creation . . . 164
I. St. Polyearp of Smyrna : discipline and tradition — Solidarity of Churches
— Irenseus and Polyearp — Anicetus and Polyearp — The Mart-yrium
Polycarpi and the word " Catholic " — Papias : his notion of tradition
—Hegesippus : succession of bishops, the justification of the tradition
— Catholicity of tradition — Aberoius : the same criterion of faith —
Pantsenus and the presbyters, on the true tradition — Is the epilogue of
the Epistle to Diognetus by Pantronus? — The Secunda Clementis
and the " Pneumatic " Church — Dionysius of Corinth and the Eoman
Church- Ecclesiology of the " Shepherd " of Hermas — St. Justin : the
deposit of faith, apostolic tradition, heresies — The catholicity of the
Church — Christendom, as seen by Celsus : heresies and the " great
Church " — Synthesis of the preceding testimonies . . . .164
II. Importance of the ecclesiology of St. Ireneaus — Catholicity and unanimity
of Christendom — Souroes of unanimity: the Prophets, the Lord, the
Apostles — The succession of bishops authenticates the tradition of the
Apostles— The Holy Ghost and the indefeotibility of the Chnrch— The
primacy of the Eoman Cburoh — Criticisms of Gnosticism : it is a re
action against the existing Church — Synthesis of the principles of
Irenseus  I97

TABLE OF CONTENTS xxvii PAGE
in. Contemporary facts — The Church and the spirit of prophecy — In what
way Montanism is a novelty — How it is eliminated without any general
crisis — The question of Easter — Conflict between Pope Victor and
Polycrates of Ephesus — ^Nature of Victor's intervention . . . 217
Catholic and Eoman, a criticism of Harnack .... . 228
BxcnRsus C.
Marcionism and Catholicism  230
Excursus D.
The end of Judseo-Christianity ...  238
CHAPTEE V.
THE CASE OF CLEMENT OP ALEXANDRIA.
Clement's so-called characteristic  246
Clement and the apostolic canon of the New Testament — Clement and the
ecclesiastical canon of faith — The tradition of the Apostles, through
the presbyters — Apostolicity of the episcopate — Presbyters, deacons
and laity — The bishop's supremacy — The Church, a condition of sal
vation  247
Unity and catholicity of the Church — Economy of Clement's doctrine ;
philosophy, faith, gnosis — Faith rests on authority and on tradition —
Heresies are many, various, new — Clement does not depart from thj
common tradition ....  254
CHAPTEE VI.
TERTULLIAN'S VAEIATIONS.
Tradition in TertuUian  264
I. The treatise on prescription — Animosity against philosophy — The rule of
faith — It is justified by tradition — Tradition is apostolic — Heresies are
subsequent to the Apostles — The praescriptio longi temporis — Ter
tullian's argument, properly speaking, an argument of discussion, not
of prescription — Bearing of Tertullian's discussion — Detailed features
of TertuUian's ecclesiology — The hierarchical Church , . . . 264
n. The evolution of TertuUian — Opposition between tradition and truth —
The working of the Spirit in the Church — Revelation continued by the
new prophecy — Eome condemns this principle — TertuUian's revolt —
His invective against the hierarchy and against Callistus — New and
anarchical character of Tertullian's paradox — TertuUian's final iso
lation   281
CHAPTEE vn.
ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY.
Doctrine, in Origen  295
The Church, a close society — The Church, a society in which there is a
hierarchy — The bishop's supremacy — His eminent dignity — Duties of
the clergy and their remissness — Origen's error regarding the subordina
tion of the power of Orders to the holiness of the minister . . . 298

xxvin TABLE OP CONTENTS PAGE
The ecclesiastical doctrine is apostolic tradition— Canon of Holy Scripture-
Baptismal symbol — Living magisterium — Function of the doctores
Ecclesiae — Heretics or heterodox condemned in the name of tradition
— Eefuted by the teaching of the doctores— 'Bisho-ps, judges of doc
trine  319
Why Origen says " the Churches " rather than " the Church " — Analogy
between the Church and the city— Visible unity of all the Churches —
Origen and St. Peter's primacy — The Eoman primacy . . .322
Shortcomings of Origen's ecclesiology . . ¦ . 329
CHAPTEE vm.
ST. CYPEIAN AND EOME.
Tradition in St. Cyprian . .  332
I. Ecclesiastical organization in Cyprian's time — The plebs and the ordo —
The bishop, successor of the Apostles ; his election and supreme power
— Offiee of priests and deacons — Lectorate and minor orders — Main
tenance of the clergy — Share of the plebs in the govemment of the
Church — The Church, a social community — Excommunication of the
disobedient and of sinners — Provincial councils — Had Carthage the
primacy in Africa? — Eelations between the Churches of the whole
world — Unity of the whole episcopate — Is the hierarchical conception
of the Church peculiar to Cyprian ?  833
II. No reconciliation of the lapsi, without the bishop — The bishop, the
foundation of his Church — Outside the Church, no reconciliation, no
sacrifice, no priesthood — Eevolt of FeUcissimus at Carthage, and of
Novatian at Eome — The Council of Carthage (May, 251) condemns
FeUcissimus — Cyprian writes the " De Unitate ecclesiae," against
Novatian and the Eoman schism — Analysis of the treatise — The
Church, a condition for the vaUdity of the sacramental powers — The
promise made by Christ to St. Peter — Imperfection of Cyprian's
ecclesiology  350
The two editions of the " De Unitate ecclesiae "  366
III. FeUcissimus appeals to Rome — Cyprian's protest — Claim of the CouncU
of Africa to supreme power in Africa — The case of the Spanish bishops
— The subordination of the power of Orders to the holiness of the
minister — The case of Mareianus of Aries — Cyprian's unexpected re
course to Rome — GaUicanism and Donatism in germ, in the doctrine
of the Africans  373
IV. The baptismal controversy — Cyprian's position : outside the Church, no
baptism, because outside the Church, no Holy Ghost — SimUar decision
of the Council of Carthage of 255 and 256 — Rome declares against
Carthage — Pope Stephen's letter : reassertion of the Eoman primacy,
and of the validity ex opere operato of baptism — Protest of the Council
of Carthage, iu September 256 — Eome lays the subject before the Ca
tholic world — Firmilian unites with Cyprian against Pope Stephen —
PirmiUan's ecclesiology — Death of Cyprian and of Stephen — Principles
raised by the baptismal controversy — Cyprian's contradictions : tra
ditional character of Eome  381
General conclusions . .  .403

CHAPTEE I.
THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM.
I.
Primitive Catholicism first impresses the historian as a dis
persion of local churches, united by the identity of their
faith and the solidarity, spiritual and social, which binds them
all together. Considered under this aspect, it has consider
able resemblance to that Judaism from which it detached
itself in the course of the first century. The latter has even
been looked upon as a sort of pre-existing Church, for critics
who are averse to recognizing any ecclesiastical elements in
the Christianity of the Apostolic Age, willingly speak of the
" Jewish Church ". It is one of the themes of Bousset's
brilliant book on the reUgion of Judaism in New Testament
times.^ Bousset has, it seems, already somewhat modified
his views on the subject.^ But whether or not the Judaism
which was contemporaneous with the Gospel was a rough
draft of the Church realized in Christianity, it is not
without interest to compare the two. The study of those
features in which they are alike, as well as those in which
they differ, wUl conduce to a better understanding of the
peculiar and original character of the new Dispersion.
* *
The geographical expansion of Judaism has been brought
into full light by recent critical studies. Palestine was now
entirely judaized though this had been brought about only
in the period of the Hasmonsean restoration, when Idumsea,
Persea, and Galilee were annexed tg Judaea. But long be-
'W. Bousset, "Die Religion des Judentums in Neutestamentlichen
Zeitalter " (Berlin, 1903).
' In the second edition of his book (Berlin, 1906). See the Preface,
p. vii.

2 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
fore the Hasmonsan rule, the Jews had found their way
into every part of the Hellenic world.
This spread of Judaism in tbe Greek cities began at
the time of Alexander, and reached its climax in the age of
Julius Csesar and of Augustus : the time of Herod's rule was
its Golden Age. There were Jewries in all the Eoman pro
vinces washed by the Mediterranean and by the Black Sea;
some could be found m Mesopotamia, Arabia, Babylonia,
Media, so that, towards the year 140 e.g., a Jewish poet
could write of his race this emphatic, but truthful verse:
" Every land and every sea is filled with thee ! " ^
More than once scholars have drawn up statistics of this
Jewish expansion by noting carefully the traces of the then
existing Jewries of the Dispersion, as revealed both by the
texts of written works and by those of inscriptions.^ A
study of these statistics shows that the expansion of Judaism
does not exactly coincide with the earliest expansion of
Christianity. The centres are, indeed, the same for both :
Antioch, Damascus, Smyrna, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens,
Corinth, Alexandria, Eome ; and how could it be otherwise ?
But there were regions where Judaism was aheady established
— at Palmyra, Nisibis, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, on the shores of
the Black Sea, in the interior and in the southern part of
Egypt, and in Eoman Africa — but where Christiaiuty did
not at first find a home.
A second point to be borne in mind is the numerical
importance of the Jewries of the Dispersion, especiaUy in
Syria and in Egypt, in the provinces of Asia Minor, and va
Eome. It has been calculated that in the time of Philo the
Jews made up a seventh of the whole population of Egypt ;
this writer estimates at one milUon the number of the Jews
then dweUing in Egypt. During the reign of Tiberius,
under pretext of forcing them into military service, some
i"Orac. Sibyll." III. 271: nao-a Se yam a-idev vrXiJpTjr xai irSo-o
daXaa-a-a. Kautzsch, " Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des A. T."
Tom. ii. (Ttibingen, 1900), p. 190. Cf. P&re Lagrange, "Le Messian-
isme chez les Juifs " (Paris, 1909), pp. 273-84.
^E. SCHUEHR, "Geschichte des jtidischen Volkes," vol. m." pp. 2-70.
See too, art. " Diaspora" in the extra volume of Hastings' " Dictionary
of the Bible". Harnack, "Mission und Ausbreitung des Christen-
tums," second edition (1906), vol. i. pp. 1-16.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 3
4000 Jews were banished from Eome to Sardinia : a fact
from which we may conclude that the Jewish colony of
Eome counted at least 10,000 men, besides the women and
the children. According to Harnack's calculations, the Jews
formed above 7 per cent of the whole population of the
Eoman Empire under Augustus. This numerical considera
tion, conjectural though it ig, might account for the rapid
expansion of Christianity in the Empire, if Christianity
had spread easily and exclusively in the Jewries. But it
is beyond dispute that, even as early as the year 64, the
imperial legislation distinguished the Christians from the
Jews ; and this makes it clear that the Christians as a whole
were no longer Jews by race, whilst it was on account of
their race that the Jews formed a people apart.
Indeed, a third well-ascertained historical fact is that
the Jewish population could not be absorbed or assimilated
by the nations in whose midst it settled and grew. Several
centuries before, Aman had said to Assuerus ; " There is a
single people scattered and living apart from the other races
in aU the provinces of thy kingdom, and their laws differ
from those of every race. And it is not expedient for the
King to tolerate them." ^ The Jewish race was bound to a
faith the rigorous prescriptions of which tended to isolate it :
it forbade all part in idolatrous worship, " gens contumelia
numinum insignis," in the words of Pliny ; ^ it forbade
mixed marriages; it forbade Jews to frequent theatres,
circuses, gymnasia, baths, to sit down at the same table
as a Pagan, to enter miUtary service, or to take charge
of public affairs. The Jews enjoyed many important legal
privileges pertaining to the free exercise of their religion :
they could meet in their synagogues, they could have their
own judges who would pronounce according to their Law ;
they could keep the Sabbath and practise circumcision;^
but all these privileges made their isolation the greater.
FinaUy, Antisemitism, which was even then abroad, and dis
played itself in sarcasms, often in massacres or proscriptions,
1 Esther m. 8. ^ "Hist. Nat." xin. 4, 46.
3 On the legal status of Judaism, see Schuree, vol. ni. pp. 56-78.
Cf. V. Chapot, " La province romaine proconsulaire d'Asie " (Paris, 1904),
pp. 182-6. 1*

4 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
set the seal on their exclusion. From whatever point of
view they may be considered, the Jews, by reason of their
race, formed a city within the city. "The Jews," says
Strabo, "have places assigned them in Egypt, wherein they
dwell apart; the quarter specially allotted to this nation at
Alexandria is a large part of the city. There is also
an ethnarch allowed them, who governs the nation, admin
isters justice for them, supervises their contracts, and sees
to the observance of their laws, just as if he were the
ruler of an independent city." ^ The title ethnos or laos,
the Jews actually claim in some inscriptions as the official
name of their communities of Smyrna, and of Hierapolis,
for instance.^ This thorough penetration of the race by its faith is
a phenomenon of which Bousset does not seem to realize
the full importance. In his eyes, the facts which char
acterize the transformation of Judaism into the Church are
these : first, the dissociation of religion from the national
life ; next, the fact that this dissociation does not result in
the establishment of pure individualism, but in the rise
of community forms which are religious without beiag
national; thirdly, the fact that these community forms over
flow the boundaries of the nation. " It is only when these
three symptoms manifest themselves that we can rightly
speak of a tendency towards the formation of a Church." '
There seems to be in this statement some confusion be
tween autonomy and national life. Under the Hasmonsean
rule, the Jews enjoyed a kind of autonomy, which consisted
in their being governed by princes of their own blood and
faith ; for them, these were the conditions of political legi
timacy. But their national life was not bound up with these
conditions; for according to the remark of the historian
^Strabo, quoted by Josephus, " Antiq.," xiv. 7. 2. Th. Rbinach,
"Textes d'auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaisme " (Paris, 1895),
p. 92. Notice, in the " Papyrus of Alexandria," published by Brunei de
Prbslbs, how the Jews of Alexandria complain before a Roman emperor
(Commodus ? 181 ?) that their "king " had been ill-treated. This king
of the Jews is a mere ethnarch. Rbinach, p. 226.
" Schurer, vol. iii.^ pp. 14 and 17.
8 Bousset, "Religion des Judentums (1903)," p. 55. Harnack's
" Dogmengeschichte," vol. i.* (1897), pp, 53-56.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 5
Josephus,^ the special characteristic of the Jewish people
lay in the fact that its national constitution was neither
monarchical nor oligarchical nor democratic, but theocratic.
We must add, that this theocracy was not of necessity ex
ercised by a prince, nor by an established and traditional
body of priests ; the Law alone was supreme ; it alone ex
ercised and expressed God's sovereignty ; and since, leaving
aside the case of individual defections, nothing whatever
could part the Jews from the Law of God which ruled in its
least detail their private, social, and religious life, it follows
that there was for the Jews no possibiUty of separating their
religion from their national life, to whatever corner of the
world this life might immigrate.^
That the Jews emigrated so easily, and that, when once
they had emigrated, they settled down and multiplied so fast
without ever becoming absorbed by the surrounding popula
tion, is to be explained by the fact that, turning their back on
any claim to political existence, they found everywhere what
they sought — the possibility of living their own national life,
i.e. a life in keeping with the institutions given by God to
His people.
Unlike the Greeks, the Jews were, as a nation, the least
liable to individualism. The more their religion isolated
them from the nations in whose midst they dwelt, the
more did it join them together among themselves : " Quia
apud ipsos fides obstinata," Tacitus writes, " misericordia
in proTTiptu, sed adversus OTnnes alios hostile odiuTn."
Everywhere treated with contempt, or threatened, they met
together in separate quarters, so as more effectively to de
fend themselves and to help one another. They had their
own synagogues where they met on the Sabbath. They had
their own cemeteries where they were buried side by side.
In this way corporate institutions unforeseen by the Law
forced themselves upon the Jews. Eightly do scholars
' "Contra Apion." n. 164-5 ; Bousset, p. 71.
^ As to the supremacy of the Law, see Schurer, vol. ii.^ pp. 305-12.
' Tacit. " Histor. " v. 5. Compare the text of Philostratus in the Life
of Apollonius of Tyana, v. 33 (Rbinach, p. 176), and that of Quintilian,
"Instit. Orat.," iir. 7 (Reinach, p. 284). The same thought is found in St.
Paul, I Thess. ii. 15.

6 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
speak in this connexion of the synagogue service — any syna
gogue was also called " a prayer " (irpoa-evx-n), — a service
made up of prayer and teaching, a comparatively late institu
tion, since it dated only from the second century B.C., and
yet an institution necessary for the existence of Jewries both
in Palestine and among the Dispersion. Every synagogue
was ruled by a president {apxt'O-vvdycojo';) , whose duty it was to
preside over the prayer, reading, and ministry of preaching:
a presidency which did not imply any priestly dignity. The
ruler of the synagogue was assisted by a servant, called hazan,
whose help was merely material. The ruler had charge
only of the religious services and was not the leader of the
Jewry. In every Jewry there were two kinds of existence,
the one religious, the other social : they interpenetrated each
other to such an extent that the term synagogue had actu
ally become synonymous with that of nation {e6vo<;, KaroiKui).
Hence in every synagogue there was a deliberative assembly
of the ancients {TrpeajSvTepot). These were men of note to
whom authority had been entrusted by the community itself :
they formed a board of temporal administration and of
judicature ; they were the archons of the Jewry {a,pxovTe<;,
jepovre?). In large cities like Eome (Alexandria apparently
had a very exceptional organization) there were many syna
gogues ; and each formed a distinct Jewry, with its own
presbyteral board, its own chief presbyter, its own archons.^
These institutions were fashioned after the model of the
communal institutions of the Greek cities. Taken together,
synagogue and presbyteral board were inseparable institu
tions, at once religious and national, that had grown out of
the special conditions in which Jewish life was placed in the
Dispersion. ? *
Ever since it had spread in the midst ol^Hellenic civiUza
tion, and especially in Alexandria, Judaism ha^ been con
strained to present itself as a " wisdom " (o-o(^ta)^~ST>4s to
be able to defend itself and to find a place for itself. The
Jewish wisdom could claim to be more ancient than ais
other wisdom. The synchronisms of Greek and Jewis
' SchOreb, vol. III.' pp. 44-51.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 7
history laid the first foundations of universal history, and in
this universal history everything contributed to set forth
the wonderful antiquity of the Jewish people and its part in
the rise of civiUzation. The contradictions of Greek philo
sophy and the absurdities of Greek paganism furnished the
advantage of a striking contrast to the unity, purity and
solidity of the Jewish faith, which, considered in its essential
contents — ^its monotheism and its ethics — could claim to be
the primitive and normal wisdom of mankind. In the eyes
of unbiassed Greeks, the Jews were a " race of philosophers ".^
For three centuries, a school of Jewish thinkers — most unlike
the Pharisees of Jerusalem — devoted the best efforts of their
minds to this hellenization, to this uruversalizing of Judaism.^
The Hebrew Bible, which until then had been a closed and
inaccessible book for the Greeks, was translated into Greek
during the third century. This was indeed a great novelty,
which was held in the utmost abhorrence by the fanatic
Zealots, nor did the version succeed in obtaining their ap
proval even when it was supported by the legend of the
Pseudo-Aristeas. But on the other hand, what a wonderful
source of new ideas it proved for the Greeks ! The HeUen-
izing Jewish exegetes rivaUed one another in exploiting it by
interpreting it. During the second century, Aristobulus, one
of the Alexandrian commentators and philosophers, gave cur
rency to the idea that the leading masters of Greek philosophy,
Heraclitus, Pythagoras and others, were merely the disciples
of Moses : a suggestion which was destined to appeal rather
too much to Clement of Alexandria. This was, according
to Bousset, the fundamental dogma of Judaism thus heUenized :
and to confirm it, Jewish scholars attributed to Orpheus,
Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, ..Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
. . . many apocryphal or adulterated texts, in which these
poets were made to agree with Moses, for the greater glory
of Judaism. AUegorism, applied to the Biblical narratives,
' Rbinach, p. 8, text of " Porphyry " quoting Theophrastus (3rd
cent. B.C.) ; p. 40, text of Hermippos of Smyrna (same cent.). Cf.
Varro, quoted by St. Augustine, " De Civ. Dei," iv. 31 (Reinaoh, p.
242). Origen, "Contra Celsum," iv. 51.
^ Schurer, vol. in.' pp. 304 and ff. P. Wbndland, "Die helleni-
stich-rHmische Kultur" (Tubingen, 1907), pp. 109 and foil.

8 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
completed this work of heUenization. Those interpreters
who still clung to the literal sense were " fiiKpoTroXirai "
("citizens of smaU countries"), smaU countries being much
given to myth-making : the aUegorizing Jews, on the con
trary, like the Stoics, were "citizens of the world". "One
word sums up Philo's purpose, when he uses the aUegorical
method : the universalization of the Jewish Law." ^ And
Philo, who is a contemporary of Jesus, Philo who is an en-
cyclopaadist, represents this new Judaism at its best.
There was in Judaism another, deeper tendency: the
tendency more and more to minimize the part of worship.
It would be a .mistake to look upon this as a result of hel
lenization. It is beyond question that the worship mono
polized by the Temple, became every day less and less
attractive, in proportion as the religious service conducted in
' the synagogues became the true aliment of Jewish piety.
However, with this phenomenon hellenization had nothing
to do, for piety without altars was against the tendency of
the Greek mind : it had arisen out of the historical con
ditions in which the Jews had been placed at the time when
the Temple was in ruins, out of the fact of the -Dispersion
itself, and also from the very ancient and most reUgious
sentiment that mercy is better than sacrifice. Nor was the
unpopularity of the priests of Jerusalem a consequence of
hellenization — but the reaction of Pharisaism with its politi
cal and doctrinal grievances against the Sadducees, who had
then full control of the Priesthood. On the other hand,
whilst the Temple and the Priesthood gradually lost their in
fluence and eventually disappeared — a disappearance which
did not at all shake the faith of Judaism — the personal
duties imposed by the Law, such as circumcision, kept
all their hold, nor were they affected in any way by heUeni
zation, even though the latter tried to discover an allegorical
meaning for them.^ In this way hellenization shows what
"it truly was, a philosophy of religion within religion itself.
Pharisaic Judaism claimed to be in possession of the
key of knowledge and of the chair of Moses : it rested its
'E. Briiihier, "Les idSes philosophiques et religieuses de Philon
d'Alexandrie " (Paris, 1908), p. 65.
2 Bousset, p. 110.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 9
claim on a tradition, which, by means of a continuous suc
cession, was traced back to Moses himself, through Josue,
the Ancients, the Prophets, the Great Synagogue and its
latest representatives, among whom Simon the Just, his dis
ciple Antigonus of Socho, and later on Hillel and Shammai,
were to be numbered. This was the essence of Eabbinism :
it stood by a tradition untouched by speculation or criticism |
or increment, and hence without life, and yet not without
an imposing and respectable authority, which no Jew ever
dreamt of disobeying, so severely might the disobedient be
dealt with ! ^
HeUenized Judaism had none of these features ; and,
even though it had also a theology, theologians, and a theo
logical literature, yet that theology had not the authoritative
character of the Palestinian theology ; on the contrary it
was a kind of private concern, and, in this respect, did not
differ from popular Greek phflosophy : it was something
spontaneous, brought about by the need of defining the
Jewish position in presence of HeUenism ; it was an argu
mentative defence of that position, and the apologists had
become the inteUectual leaders of the Dispersion, even though
they had been invested with no other authority than that
conferred on them by the confidence of general opinion. As \
regards authority, Aristobulus and Philo cannot be compared
with HiUel and Shammai, stiU less with MeUto and St.
Irenseus : we can compare them at most with St. Justin,
who was a philosopher and a layman.
We may then rightly conclude that heUenization was an
inteUectual current in Judaism, caused by Hellenic civiliza
tion, but that this current did not amount to a schism apart
from the national and religious life of the Jews of the
Dispersion. * *
*
1 See the prayer against heretics, the Birhath ha-Minim, in the
Shmone Esre, i.e. the daily prayer of the pious Jews, of which the re
daction may date from the year 80-100. Schurer, vol. ii." p. 961.
Lagrange, " Messianisme," p. 294, and Honnicke, "Das Judenchristen-
tum" (Berlin, 1908), p. 381. Regarding the "dogma of 'tradition," as it
is called by Bousset, see Bousset, pp. 133-6, and Lagrange, pp. 137-47.
On the heretics of the Synagogue, Friedlander, " Synagoge und Kirche
in ihren Anfangen " (Berlin, 1908), pp. 64-78.

10 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
There still remains proselytism: does it not represent
a peculiar Jewish status distinct from Jewish national life ?
At the most prosperous period of the Dispersion, the
proselytes, i.e. the Gentiles who embraced the Jewish
faith, constituted in every Jewry an important element.
For the Jew had but to read the Prophets, to perceive
that in his Law he could find the light that was to
enlighten the Gentile world. Conscious as he was of the
superiority of his Law, he looked upon the conversion of
a Greek to Judaism as a recognition of this superiority.
Hence both Pharisees and Hellenists rivaUed each other
in propagandism. " Thou who art called a Jew and restest
in the Law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest His
will, and approvest the more profitable things, being in
structed by the Law; thou who art confident that thou
thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in
darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants,
having the form of knowledge and of truth in the Law ; thou
therefore that teachest another, teachest not thyself ! . . .
Thou that abhorrest idols committest sacrilege ! Thou that
makest thy boast of the Law, by transgression of the Law
dishonourest God ! " ^ Although less than the number of
I those who had been initiated into the worship of Isis or of
! Mithra, the number of proselytes was very great. These
i proselytes, it is true, constituted a more or less fluctuating
and .uncertain category : for, as we know from Josephus
himself, many did not persevere. Nevertheless, there were
proselytes in every synagogue. When St. Paul at Antioch
of Pisidia calls his hearers : " Children of the stock of
Abraham, and whosoever among you fear God," let us bear
in mind that these (po^ovfievoi rbv 6e6v are proselytes.^
The author of the Acts also gives them the synonymous
title of ae^6fj,evoi [rbv deov] , which is found quite often in the
inscriptions.^ 1 Rom. II. 17-23.
^ Acts XIII. 16, 26, 43, 50. See also Acts x. 2, 22, xvi. 14, xvn. 4, 17,
XVIII. 7. Cf. A. Deissmann, " Licht vom Osten " (Tubingen, 1908), p. 326.
' Schurer, vol. iii. pp. 115, 124. See also J. L^vi, " Le prosflyt-
isme juif " in the " Revue des Etudes juives," vol. l. (1905) and vol.
Li. (1906).

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 11
These pagans converted to the fear of Yahweh were
not indeed proselytes in the rabbinical sense of the term.
The latter, few in number it is believed, were those who
had submitted to circumcision and strictly kept the Law.
They were in fact incorporated into the Jewish people.
" Yea, I testify to every man that receiveth circumcision
that he is a debtor to do the whole Law," St. Paul pays to
the Galatians. 1 These converts who have been circumcised
and who live up to their faith, are the "proselytes of right
eousness," the only genuine proselytes, the only ones who
are admitted "under the wings of the Shechina! " ^
To be incorporated into the people of Israel, such prose- y
lytes had to submit to circumcision, to offer sacrifice in the ,
Temple, and to pass through a kind of baptism. It goes i
without saying that circumcision was only for men, and that
the obligation to sacrifice ceased altogether, after the ruin of
the Temple. But what was this baptism?^
We must confess that the texts in which it is mentioned
enter into few details and are not always very reliable. See-
berg brings forward a description of the proselyte's initiation
taken from the treatise Jebanfioth of the Talmud which dates,
at the earliest, from the third century of our era. He cites
also another description taken from the treatise Gerim,, and
dating from the second half of the second century. These
two descriptions agree : in both the candidate has to answer
some questions regarding the status and condition of the
Jews, which he is about to embrace ; after his answers, he is
'Gal. V. 3. Schurer, vol. iii. pp. 127-8 opposes the view which
identifies the o-e^o^evoi with the " proselytes of the gate ". The " prose
lytes of the gate " are the pagans who dwell within the confines of Israel
and who must observe those precepts of the Law which regard the Gentile
world. Then, too, the expression " proselytes of the gate ' ' is comparatively
recent : it is not found in the Rabbinical literature before the thirteenth
century. ' B. Meinertz, "Jesus und die Heidenmission " (MUnster, 1908), pp.
42, 43. ' Regarding the baptism administered by John the Baptist, Origen
writes : " Christus a loanne baptizatus refertur, non eo baptismate quod
in Christo est, sed eo quod in lege est" ("Comment in Rom." v. 8).
The ablutions performed by the Jews were also called "baptisms ''. Cf.
Luke, XI. 38, and Grenpell-Hunt, " Fragment of an Uncanonical Gospel "
(Oxford, 1908), pp. 15-17.

12 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
circumcised, then immediately passes through a bath, which
is styled by the treatise Oerim " a bath of levitical cleansing,"
or "a bath of cleansing". In the treatise Jebamoth, there
are recorded the answers of E. Eliezer and of E. Josua, two
rabbis who lived about the year a.d. 100. The former says :
" A proselyte, who is circumcised but not baptized, is already
a proselyte, for we know regarding our fathers, that they
were circumcised, but not that they were baptized." The
latter says : " Whoever is baptized, but not circumcised^ is
already a proselyte, for we know regarding our mothers,
that they were baptized, but not circumcised." The wise
.|men conclude : " Any one who is baptized, but not circum
cised, and any one who is circumcised, but not baptized, is
not a proselyte, so long as he is not circumcised and bap
tized ".1
Those sayings of E. Eliezer and of E. Josua seem to
imply that this " baptism " was not a very ancient institu
tion, since E. Eliezer aUeges that his " fathers " were only
circumcised. The solution given by the " wise men " is a
conciliatory solution, a compromise between the practice of
baptism and the rejection of baptism. Would it not seem that
the dispute about the necessity of baptism took place at the
time of E. Eliezer and of E. Josua, i.e. toward the year 100 ?
! A fact of capital importance in this connexion is the silence
\ of Philo and of Josephus:^ from it we may conclude that
baptism had not in their times the importance which it ac
quired later on owing perhaps to the rivalry of Christianity
and of Mithraism.
' A. Sebberg, " Das Evangelium Christi " (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 98-101.
W. Brandt, "Die judischen Baptismen" (Giessen, 1910), pp. 57-62 and
Schurer, vol. m. p. 129 and ff.
^ A text of Arrian (about 150), " Dissert. Epicteti," n. 9, is quoted
(Rbinach, p. 155) : orav 8' avaka^nTo rrddos to tov ^e^afijiivov Ra\ fiprjiiivov,
TOTc Ka\ fo-TL TW'ovn KOI KoXfiTai 'lovSalos. " But if any one adopts the
mode of life required of one who has been baptized and elected, then is
he really s Jew and entitled to be called such." Reotach remarks that
the exact meaning of this phrase is disputed ; and he is inclined to think
that in it there is a confusion between the Jews and the Christians.
A verse of the " Oraoula Sibyll ina," (iv. 165) is also quoted as referring to
the Jewish baptism ; but it is rather vague. Still more so is the allusion
of tho Epistle of Barnabas (xi. I). Cf. Lagrange, " Messianisme," p. 281.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 13
In reality, a pagan became a Jew only through circum-
cision.i But baptism was also necessary. He who received
circumcision was stiU legaUy impure, until he was baptized,
even were he born of Jewish parents. This resulted from
his having been uncircumcised. There is a rabbinical
answer ^ to the foUowing case : supposing a Gentile is cir
cumcised on the eve of the Passover, may he eat the Pasch
on the morrow ? Yes, the school of Shammai answers : he
takes the bath and he eats the Pasch. No, the school of
HUIel replies, for whoever has just come forth from the
state of incircumcision is like one who comes forth from the
grave : which means that he is unclean for seven days
(Num. XIX. 16). In the eyes of a Jew, a pagan was un
clean : therefore, before circumcision could incorporate him
into God's people, he must needs be purified by means of an
ablution. Since, then, these proselytes, now become Jews, and Jews
most faithful to the religious practices of Judaism, these
proselytes of righteousness, are incorporated into the Jewish
people and are no longer distinct from it, we cannot say
that they form a church : as yet we have only a people.
* *
*
Shall we find an incipient church in the group of those
who are proselytes in the broader sense of the word, i.e.
those who are not circumcised, and who do not practise the
Law in aU its strictness?
Here, Jewish propagandism found a powerful help in
heUenization, which set forth Judaism as the most ancient
of all systems of wisdom, cared but little for worship and
ritual, and professed what was essential in the Jewish faith —
monotheism and moral righteousness. In this the religious-
minded Greek found a justification of his own revolts against
mythology and polytheism: "ludaei m,ente sola unuTuque
numen intellegunt. . . . Igitur nulla simulacra urbibus
suis nedum teTnplis sistunt : non regibus haec adulatio, non
Caesaribus honor." ^ Considered merely in these essential
' Cf . Petronius (a contemporary of Nero), quoted by Reinach, p. 266.
' Schurer, vol. in. p. 131, note 86.
' Tacit. " Hist." v. 5.

14 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
teachings, Judaism gave more than philosophy, for while it
was phUosophical it did not cease to be a religion. It had
the attractiveness of a negation although it remained a
positive faith. Judaism has been compared by some to the
oriental worships, those of Isis, of Sabazios, and of Mithra,
for instance, which recruited so many foUowers in the Greek
and Eoman world ; but the comparison is hardly appropriate :
it would be much nearer to the truth, to say that Judaism
was a reaction against these licentious and mythological
worships, against these worships replete with pompous cere
monies and displays that appealed to the senses. As con
ceived and propounded by its hellenizing apologists, Judaism
was far more like Stoicism, but a Stoicism imbued with the
idea of God and bound to certain observances without which
there can be no external religion.
According to the historian Josephus, the Sabbath-rest
was everywhere observed by some, both in Greek cities and
among the barbarians : this he says was also the case with
fasting and precepts regarding food.^ This penetration of
heathen environments by Jewish customs, is described in
the passage of Seneca quoted by St. Augustine : " Cwm in
terim, usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetude convaluit,
ut per OTnnes iam, terras recepta sit, victi victoribus leges
dederunt. . . . RU tamen causas ritus sui noverunt : vnaior
pars populi facit quod cur facial ignorat." ^
From this it may be inferred that, in the eyes both of
Josephus and of Seneca, it is a question of a mere "infiltra
tion" of the Jewish customs into Greek, barbarian, or
Eoman surroundings. On the other hand, what we are in
quiring after is a real adhesion to Judaism as characterizing
this broader species of proselytism.
One case of this kind we find in Juvenal: the case of a
Eoman who keeps the Sabbath and abstains from pork : this
Eoman is a c^o/Sou/ievo? toi/ Oeov : he is called inetuens by
Juvenal. The son of this m,etuens embraces Judaism. He
has himself circumcised, he gives up Eoman ways altogether,
1 " Contra Apion." ii. p. 282. Of. the texts of TibuUus and Ovid,
quoted by Reinach, pp. 247-9, Fribdlandbr, pp. 34-5, Lagrange, p. 276.
2 Seneca, apud Augustine, "De Civ. Dei," vi. II (Reinach, p. 262).
Cf. Tbrtullian, "Ad Nation." i. 13.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 15
and knows no other law than that of the Jews : he hates
any one who is not a Jew.
Non monstrare vias eadem njsi sacra colenti !
This son is a true proselyte of righteousness, duly incorpo
rated into the Jewish people, whereas his father was a Jew but
vaguely .1 A similar contrast can be seen in the history of
the conversion of the king of Adiabene, Izatis.^ At the
preaching of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, Izatis be
comes converted to the Jewish faith and wishes to be cir
cumcised. But Ananias teUs him that to observe God's
commandments is more important than to be circumcised,
and that even without that ceremony one can be a good
Jew. Some time later, a Galilsean Jew, named Eleazar,
finding the king reading the Pentateuch, shows him, by texts,
that he cannot observe the Law unless he be circumcised.
Izatis yields to Eleazar's persuasions and is circumcised.
At Csesarea, we find Cornelius, a centurion of the cohort
ItaUca, who is not a Jew, since he is engaged in the mihtary
service. However, he is " a religious man and fearing God "
(€va-ej3r]i; koI <^o^ovfievo<i tov Oeov), with all his house, giving
much alms to the people, and always praying to God. He is
a just man, and " one that feareth God (St/eato? koL (jjo^ovfievo^
TOV Oeov), and having good testimony from aU the nation of
the Jews at Csesarea " (tou eOvovg t&v 'lovSaicov) : when he
is visited by the Apostle St. Peter, he invites to his house,
"his kinsmen and special friends".^ When Peter goes back
to Jerusalem, some will upbraid him vehemently for having
entered the house of one who does not belong to God's
people and is unclean : " Thou didst go into men uncircum
cised, and didst eat with them ! " *
These are three striking and typical instances of proselyt
ism in the broad sense, as opposed to the proselytism of
righteousness ; the person attached to Judaism in this sense
1 Juvenal, "Sat." xvi. 96-106 (Reinach, pp. 292-3). Lagrange,
p. 278. "Joseph. "Antiq." xx. 2, 4. Schurer, vol. iii. p. 119. La
grange, p. 280.
» Acts X. 2, 22, 24.
< Acts XI. 1,3. Compare Sdbton. "Domitian," 12 (Reinach, p.
333).

16 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
is not circumcised and does not keep the Law in its rigour,
but he professes monotheism and is pious, i.e. has nothing
to do with heathenism, fulfils the moral precepts of the
Law, and observes some of its prohibitions. Still, well as
he may be disposed towards the Jews, and well as the Jews
may be disposed towards him, he remains an unclean ahen.
This kind of interdict ceases only when he accepts circum
cision and the whole Law.
Shall we look upon this floating contingent — which after
all is not acknowledged by Judaism — as a spiritual society, as
a church? This multitude, which so rouses our sympathy,
was, in the eyes of authentic Judaism, ahen and unclean.
Shall we identify it with Judaism and call it a Jewish
Church ? To do so would be a mere abuse of words.
* *
*
Hence, what is true is most probably this. Historical
i Judaism, that best typified by the Pharisees, was based on
the idea of a People and on that of the Law : a man either
was or was not a child of Abraham, either did or did not
observe the Law of God, the whole Law.
HeUenized Judaism had indeed the intuition of a re
ligious universalism : but it conceived it less as a reformed
faith than as a defence of the traditional faith, an argu
ment that was meant to command the respect of the Greeks.
As some one has fitly observed, heUenized Judaism defended
its religion by means of Hellenism, whilst Pharisaism de
fended its religion against Hellenism. HeUenized Judaism
did not broaden the idea of a People of God any more than
it restricted the function of the Law ; whilst proselytism
was an application of that apologetical idea and hke it
ended in imposing circumcision. Any one who did not
ultimately submit to the latter, was an " allophyUan," an
unclean person, because the People of God and its Law were
supreme. Proselytism was destined to survive the ruin of Jerusalem
only by a few years. The recoUections of it that survived
in the Talmudic tradition are not unlike the recollections
which Conservatives preserve of those Liberal tendencies
and movements which they had once feared would succeed.
E. Helbo, a Palestinian rabbi of the third century, writes:

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 17
" Proselytes are as painful for Israel as is leprosy for the
skin," ^ and Helbo's view was not solitary.
At the same time it cannot be doubted that these
proselytes who were drawn to Judaism by its teaching about
God and its ethical doctrine, formed a class well prepared —
although they were not the only class so prepared — and
disposed to esteem the Church: the Puritan exclusivism
of Judaism contributed to make the Church the more desir
able, precisely because it was not itself a Church.
n.
Tacitus has gathered and summed up in a few lines the
history of the beginnings of Christianity: " Auctor nominis
eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pen
tium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat ; repressaque in prae-
sens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non Tnodo per
ludaeam, originem eius mali, sed per Urbem etiam,, quo
cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confiuunt celebran-
turque ".^ Christus, after whom the Christians are caUed,
was condemned to death, under Tiberius, by the procurator
Pontius PUate. Eepressed then, this execrable superstition
was again overflowing — about the year 64, under Nero — not
only in Judsea where it had arisen, but in Eome itself,
where all forms of wickedness and infamy flow in and find
adepts. We cannot take in its strict meaning this statement of
Tacitus, who, because of his great artistic taste, is always to
be suspect of artificial composition and presentation. In
this particular instance, he describes the facts as though, from
the death of Jesus to the burning of Eome in 64, Chris
tianity had passed through a protracted period in which it
was apparently crushed, and then, a short while before the
year 64, had suddenly begun to expand, not only in Judsea
but even at Eome. That Christianity suddenly expanded,
is not correct; what is correct is that, towards the year 64, ^
Christianity appeared as distinct from Judaism.
Eoman legislation did not allow freedom of worship.
1 Livi, vol. LI. pp. 1 and 5. Lagrange, p. 270.
2 Tacit. " Annal." xv. 44.
2

18 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
TertuUian mentions an ancient law, " vetus decretum," which
forbade the Emperor to sanction the worship of any god,
without the previous assent of the Senate : ^ he may allude
to the law quoted by Cicero : " Separatim nemo habessit
deos ; neve novas sive advenas, nisipublice adscitos privatim
colunto".^ Hence even domestic worship was subject to
the interdiction. Still great was the practical tolerance
shown, less prompted by irreligion than by the fear of
angering unknown divinities by the Ul-treatment of their
followers. But Christianity could not expect that tolerance,
precisely because the heathen looked upon the new reUgion
as a kind of atheism.^ The profession of Christianity was
long an heroic risk as much as it was an act of faith, and
we cannot properly understand the special character of the
Christianity of the first three centuries unless we see in it
an exhortation to martyrdom.* But, before the year 64, it
/spread under the shadow of the laws that protected Juda
ism, with which so far it had been confounded.
As a proof of the primitive confusion of Judaism with
Christianity, we may mention a fact related as follows by
Suetonius in his " Vita Claudii " : " ludaeos impvdsore
Chresto adsidue tumuUuantes Roma expulit "J" This state
ment of Suetonius is confirmed by the Acts of the Apostles
(XVIII. 2). On leaving Athens, St. Paul arrives at Corinth,
and there he " finds a certain Jew named Aquila, a native
of Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife PrisciUa,
because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from
RoTne". The expulsion of the Jews from Eome may have
dated from tbe year 51 or 52. The assertion of Suetonius
is obscure only as regards the mention of the instigator,
named Chrestus. Some have proposed to take these words
^Tertull. " Apolog." 5. Cf. Acts xvi. 21.
' CiCBRO, "De legib." il 8. The religious policy of the Romans is
strikingly expressed in a speech attributed to Maecenas when addressing
Augustus, in Dion Cassius, "Hist, roman." m. 36 (Dion wrote about
the year 240). Cf. G. Boissier, "La religion romaine," vol. i. p.
347. ^ " Martyr. Polycarpi," 9 : Christians are insulted with the cry,
" Away with the atheists ! "
"Harnack, "Die Mission und Ausbreitung," vol. i p 404
"SuBTON. "Claud." 25.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 19
literally, and have conjectured that some person of the
name of Chrestus — a name which was quite common among
slaves or freedmen — had perhaps raised a riot among the
Jews, his co-religionists.^ Others incUne to believe that
Suetonius mistook the name Chrestus for Christus — as a
matter of fact, TertuUian charges the Eomans with pro
nouncing wrongly Chrestianus."^ Some controversies prob
ably arose in the Jewries of Eome, about " the author of
the" Christian "name," controversies like those which, as
we know from the book of the Acts, the introduction of
Christianity caused in all the Jewries.^
If then, as is generally held, the Eoman Jewries were
deeply disturbed by the introduction of Christianity, im-
pulsore Chresto, the fact that Claudius re-established order,
by banishing the Jews from Eome — and with them the
Christians, like Aquila and Priscilla — proves that the Eoman
police had not as yet come to distinguish the Christians
from the Jews or was unwilling to take cognizance of what
distinguished them. Viewed in the same light, what oc
curred at Corinth at the same time or shortly after, is most
significant. When St. Paul was dragged by the ruler of the
synagogue and by the Jewish Zealots before the proconsul —
Annaeus Novatus Gallio, the brother of Seneca — and was
charged with being an apostate from the Law, the proconsul
said: "Jews, these are questions about your own Law,
' Reinach, " Textes," p. 329. True, X/dtjotos is not an uncommon
name in the Greek onomasticon. But, were this the name of some obscure
personage, Suetonius would probably have written, " impulsore Chresto
quodam," or omitted it altogether. Cf. Philip, i. 15-18 : tov Xpia-rov
KTjpva-a-ova-Lv. . . . Xpicrrbs Karayye'KKcTai. T'he jeu de mots (xpiaros — xP')'"'°^)
is found again in St. Justin, " Apol." 41 ; in Theophilus, " Ad Autolyc."
I. 1 : perhaps already in 1 Petr. ii. 2, 3.
^Tbrtull. "Apol." 3: "... perperam Chrestianus pronuntiatur a
vobis, nam nee nominis certa est notitia penes vos. ..." In the text
of Tacitus, "quos vulgus christianos adpellabat," a recent revision of the
manuscript shows that we must read chrestianos (Harnack, "Mission,"
vol. I. p. 348). Tacitus meant to say that the common people said
chrestiani, but the founder of the sect was called Christus.
^Acts XXV. 19. EusEB. "H. E." u. 17. 1, records a legendary
rumour according to which, in the time of Claudius, Philo, then in Rome,
had an interview with St. Peter who was preaching the gospel to the
Romans. 2 *

20 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
look to them yourselves ; I am not minded to be a judge in
these matters "f
On the contrary, some ten years later, the separation of
the Jews from the Christians had taken place; and this
tends to show, on the one hand, that most of the recruits
of Christianity were no longer of Jewish birth, and, on the
other, that the Jews themselves had not only obtained the
repeal of the edict of expulsion, enacted against them at
Eome by Claudius, but had even profited by Nero's favour
to forestall any return ot the confusion which had caused
them so much trouble. How clear the distinction had be
come we may see from the events of the year 64.
On July 19, a.d. 64, a fire broke out in the neighbour
hood of the Great Circus, at Eome : for six days and seven
nights, it raged in the Velabrum, the Forum, and a part of
the Palatine ; then it started again at the other end of the
city, and within the space of three days laid waste the
Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Campus Martins. Out of
the fourteen sections of the city, only four were spared,
among them those (the Capena Gate and the Trastevere)
where the Jewish element was predominant. In their in
tense excitement, the people accused Nero of setting fire
to Eom^ in order to have an opportunity of remodelUng the
plan of the city. Anxious to put an end to these rumours,
the Emperor " announced as the true culprits and visited
with the most cruel punishments those who were caUed Chris
tians by the mob and are hated for their moral enormities ".^
Even though they suffered least from the fire, the Jews
were not suspected for an instant of having started it ; but
the accusation fell on the Christians : * they were, then,
notoriously and personally distinct from the Jews. Some
Christians were seized, and unhesitatingly confessed they
were Christians; then, a very large multitude of the dis-
1 Acts xvm. 12-17. Cf. xxiii. 29. In Acts xxiv. 5, the rhetorician
TertuUos denounces to Felix the Apostle Paul as the leader of "the
seditious sect of the Nazarenes ". For him Christianity is but a Jewish
sect. "Tacit. " Annal." xv. 44.
5 Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. pp. 51, 400, surmises that Nero
punished the Christian community at the instigation of the Jews.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 21
ciples of Christ was gradually found : " Igitur primum cor-
repti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens,
haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam odio humani
generis coniuncti sunt".^ This name Christian is not un
known to the rabble : they are those " quos per flagitia in-
visos vulgus Chrestianos adpellabat ". Theirs is an odious
name, associated with wicked and infamous deeds : the de
finite complaints made against it do not recall the popular
grievances against the Jews. We no longer hear of a race
which is hated and persecuted, and which can easily be re
cognized because of its peculiar customs and physiognomy ;
but of a worship which is owned {fatebantur) or denounced
(indicio). The Christians are an immense and defenceless
multitude ; while the Jews live apart, and their race is both
a sign by which they can be recognized and a title to pro
tection. Tacitus, who wrote about the year 115, had for
the chief source of his narrative of Nero's reign, a history,
now lost, of that reign, composed by Cluvius Eufus in the
time of Galba and of Vespasian, i.e. between the years 68
and 79.^ The testimony of Tacitus receives a confirmation
from the authority of its source.
The same testimony is also confirmed by a passage
that many believe to be taken from the lost fragment
of the "History" of Tacitus — which is found in the
"Chronicle" of Sulpitius Severus. In a meeting held on
August 9, 70, the eve of the burning of the Temple of Jeru
salem, Titus puts the question whether or not the Temple
is to be destroyed : several of his officers agree with him in
considering the destruction expedient, in order more com
pletely to do away with the religion both of the Jews and
of the Christians ; " Quo plenius ludaeorum et Christian-
orum religio tolleretur : quippe has religiones, licet con-
trarias sibi, iisdem tamen ab auctoribus profectas :
Christianas ex ludaeis extitisse : radice sublata, stirpem
facile perituramo".^ Here we have another and stUl more
explicit affirmation both of the Jewish origin of Christianity,
^The current text is convicti. But (on the authority of the MS.
" Mediceus ") the reading coniuncti is preferred.
"P. Fabia, " Les sources de Taoite" (Paris, 1893), p. 403.
^SuLP. Sever. " Chron." u. 30 (Reinach, p. 325).

22 PRLMITIVE CATHOLICISM
and of the distinction and opposition between the two re
ligions. We may go even further ; this distinction was not only
known to all ; it was, we think, as early as the year 64
sanctioned by law.^ * *
*
Certain it is that, at the beginning of the second century,
the profession of Christianity was forbidden by the Eoman
legislation, as is well known from the correspondence between
Pliny the Younger and Trajan. Pliny was the imperial
legate in the province of Bithynia and Pontus, from the
autumn of the year 111 to the spring of the year 113.
Scarcely had he arrived in his province, when he had to take
cognizance of prosecutions against the Christians. Strangely
enough, although he had been a lawyer, a praetor, and a
consul, he does not seem to have as yet had occasion to
meet, or to undertake, prosecutions of this kind. This fact
goes to show that prosecutions of Christians are local and
intermittent. At all events, in Bithyrua and Pontus, they
have started, and a great many persons are actually
threatened. " For many of every age, of every rank,
and of both sexes, are being summoned before the tri
bunals or will be in the future. The contagion of this
superstition has indeed affected not only the cities, but
the village and country districts." Pliny has questioned the
accused, and had two deaconesses put to the torture : he
has found no crime whatever, " nothing but an evil, unre
strained superstition." This superstition, which is com
bined with a great deal of probity, the legate feels much
inclined not to punish, either because he regards it as quite
inoffensive, or because he thinks that it will be more
' Of. C. Callewaert's articles on the beginnings of the persecuting
legislation in the "Revue d'hist. eccl." of Louvain, vol. ii. (1901) and
vol. III. (1902), in the "Revue des questions historiques," vol. lxxiv.
(1903) and vol. lxxvi. (1904). The view by which I abide, and which
is the same as that of Callewaert, I have already defended in the " Revue
Biblique," vol. in. (1894), pp. 503-21. This is also the opinion of A.
D'ALi;s, "Theologie de TertuUien " (Paris, 1905), pp. 381-8. A. Pieper,
" Ohristentum, romisches Kaisertum und heidnisches Staat" (Miinster,
1907). The opposite view (Mommsen, Le Blant, Boissier) is adopted by
Harnack, art. " Christenverfolgungen " in Hauck's " Realenoyklopadie "•

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 23
easUy suppressed if severity is not used. What, then, we
ask, obUges him to use severity if not some law forbidding
to profess this superstition ? ^ In short we must recognize
here, the traces of a legislation which forbids Christianity :
"... Those who have been brought before me as Chris
tians I asked whether they were Christians ; a second and
a third time, and with threats of punishment, I questioned
those who confessed ; I ordered those who were obstinate
to be executed." Hence, to own to be a Christian is to own
to a capital crime : this Pliny goes on to state stiU more
distinctly. He feels concerned about the rigorous character of the
measure he has to apply. He does not know "whether
any allowance is to be made for age, or whether the treat
ment of the weaker should not differ from that of the
stronger ; whether pardon is to be granted in case of re
pentance, or whether he who has once been a Christian
should gain nothing by having ceased to be one ; whether
the name itself without the proof of crimes, or the crimes
inseparably connected with the name, are to be punished".^
' Pliny, "Epistul." x. 98. The authenticity of the text is beyond
dispute. Harnack, " Chronologie," vol. i, p. 256.
^ The Christians accused by Pliny allege in their defence that their
misdemeanour or their mistake is a mere offence of unlawful association :
"... quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque
Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque Sacramento non in scelus
aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent,
ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent : quibus peractis
morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum,
promiscuum tamen et innoxium ; quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum
meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram ". Observe
that the Christians confess they are bound by an oath (this is the classical
meaning of the term used by Pliny), an oath like that by which soldiers
were bound to military service. Thus do they understand it themselves
(2 Tim. II. 4 ; Ignat. "Polyearp." 6). Later on Tbrtullian, " Martyr."
3, says : " Vooati sumus ad militiam Dei vivi iam tunc cum in sacramenti
verba respondimus ". So conscious are the Christians of being an associa
tion that, as soon as the edict against the hetaeriae is published, the less
courageous turn their back on Christianity. Again it may be noticed that
the oath by which Christians are bound obliges them to abstain from
those sins which in Tertullian's age were called mortal. Also we may
remark that the Christian worship is essentially social : conve-inre, carm,en
dice-re secum invicem, coeundi ad cibum. That cibus is the Eucharist.

24 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hence the law condemns the name itself: the only question
that arises is as to whether the law aims at the name apart
from any crime, or at the crimes that are imputed to the
name ; and if this question arises, it is simply because as
yet the law makes no distinction.
Pliny hesitates to apply so simple a law, just as under
the French Directory (1795-99) some officials hesitated at
times to apply the laws of the Convention (1792-95) against
those priests who had refused to accept, under oath, the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Yet PUny does apply the
law. "Those who denied that they were or had been
Christians, ought, I thought, to be dismissed when they re
peated after me a prayer to the gods and made supplication
with incense and wine to your image — which 1 had ordered
to be brought in for the purpose, together with the statues
of the gods — and when besides they cursed Christus, not one
of which things, they say, those who are really Christians
can be compelled to do". This is a mere test and a way of
administering the oath to the accused who are examined :
they are to be considered guilty not of having refused to offer
incense and wine to the statues of the gods and of the
Emperor, but of being Christians, since any one who cannot
be prevailed upon to perform those idolatrous practices
shows by that very fact that he is a Christian. The legate
is bent, not on making the Christians pay to the Emperor
and to the gods the worship due to them, but on making
them give up Christianity. " It seems possible," he says,
" to stay the infection of this superstition and apply to it
a remedy. It is already reported that the temples, which
had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented
again, that the sacred rites, which had been neglected for a
long time, have begun to be restored, and that the flesh of
the victims, for which till now there was scarcely a purchaser,
is sold. From which one may readily judge what a number
of men can be reclaimed, if repentance is permitted." Pliny
would willingly do his best to prevent the evil, instead of
punishing it with severity : an existing law forbids him to
tolerate it. He will endeavour indeed to bring back by
means of kindness those who are undecided ; but at the

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 25
same time he wUl subdue the stubborn by the application
of the law.^
This is what Trajan answers : " You have followed the
right course, my Secundus, in conducting the cases of those
who were accused before you as Christians, for no general
rule can be laid down. They ought not to be sought out
(Conquirendi non sunt) ; if they are brought before you and
convicted they ought to be punished ; provided that he who
denies that he is a Christian and proves this by making
supplication to our gods, however much he may have been
under suspicion in the past, secures pardon on repent
ance." By this rescript Trajan does not make the law: he
merely comments upon it. " Conquirendi non sunt," the
Emperor says : this is the mitigation he introduces into the
existing legislation. " Puniendi sunt, si defer antur et
arguantur " : this is the purport of the legislation itself.
Christianity is tolerated, as seventeen centuries later, during
the French revolution, the ministry of the "refractory"
priests was to be tolerated ; but, in case bf a denunciation,
the law, to which appeal is made, must of necessity punish.
Such is, in the hands of Trajan, the deadly inheritance of
the Neronian legislation.^
It is, then, to Nero that we must ascribe the commence
ment of the legislation against Christianity. Some critics
do not regard this as certain. " There must . . . have been
[before Trajan] a definite moment when the supreme authority
in such matters decided that to be a Christian was a penal
offence. At what time did this occur? It is very difficult
to ascertain. Before Trajan, two persecutions are generally
supposed to have taken place, that of Nero and that of
1 The idea of crimes connected with the name, which originated in
the most atrocious slanders regarding the Christian worship (infanticide,
anthropophagy, incest) was destined to continue for many years. Origen
speaks of some of his pagan contemporaries, who, in their abhorrence for
the bad reputation of Christians, made it a point of self-respect not to ad
dress any one of them (" Contra Celsum," vi. 27).
^ See the earliest commentary on Trajan's rescript, in Teeiull.
"Apolog." 2. Compare ClemeSt of Alex. "Stromat." vi. 18 (P.G. v.
IX. col. 400 c) : rrjv fip,mpav diSaa-KoKiav exroTe a-vv /cat t^ irpayrr) KarayyeKla
KoKvova-iv 6/ioB /Sao-tXetj koi ripavvoi k.t.X. : " Our religion, on its very first
proclamation, was prohibited both by kings and tyrants".

26 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Domitian. But the details recorded of these persecutions—
the martyrdom of Eoman Christians falsely charged with the
conflagration in 64, and the death of a certain number of
men of high rank, whom Domitian put out of the way
as atheists — are isolated occurrences easily accounted for
quite apart from any official prohibition of Christianity,
and may have taken place before the existence of any pro
scriptive law. They do not therefore throw much light on
the question." ^ We shaU not then infer anything either
from these facts, or from the vague and uncertainly dated
text found in the Prima Petri (iv. 15). But the following
is a more conclusive argument.
The recollection of the Christians for many years after
the event was that Nero had intended not only to do away
with the Apostles Peter and Paul and punish severely the
faithful of Eome, but to annihilate Christianity altogether
by making its profession a capital crime. This recollection
is recorded by Sulpitius Severus and by Orosius,^ and still
more clearly by TertuUian. Twice this last writer recalls
that Nero condemned the Christian name: '-^Principe
Augusta hoc nomen ortum est. Tiberio disciplina eius
inluxit. Sub Nerane damnatia invaluit. . . . Quales simus
damnator ipse demonstravit. . . . Et tamen permansit
erasis omnibus hoc solum institutum neronianum." ' And
under Tertullian's pen the word institutum means law.
At all events, it is a question of a lasting and prohibitive
measure : damnatio permansit. In another text, TertuUian
reminds his reader that it is Nero who enacted the law that
forbids Christianity : " Cansulite comm,entarias vestros. Elie
reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum Tnaxime
Ramae arientem caesariana gladio ferocisse. Sed tali de-
dicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriam,ur." * The
^ Duchesne, " Histoire ancienne de I'Eglise," vol. i. p. 106.
^Sulp. Sev. "Chron." u. 28. Oros. "Hist." vn. 7. The same
recollection is also found in the " Ascensio Isaiae," iv. 2-3 (ed. R. H.
Charles, London, 1900, pp. 24-6) ; but this passage does not belong to the
primitive text of this apocryphal writing, so we had better not use it.
Schurer, vol. in. p. 282.
sTertull. "Ad Nation." i. 7.
-^ Tbrtull. " Apolog." 5. In " Scorpiace," 15, he takes up the same
thought : " Et si fidem commentarii voluerit haereticus, instrumenta im-

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 27
word commentarii designates the imperial archives.^ In
other places, he speaks more simply of the Vitae Caesarum,
probably those composed by Suetonius. Even granting
that there is some rhetorical exaggeration in these refer
ences, it is beyond doubt that TertuUian alludes here to
a bloody and legal persecution, emanating from the Em
peror's authority. The same fact is still more distinctly
affirmed by anotjher document, in fact the oldest document
in our possession, that of Suetonius.
Suetonius who wrote in the year 120 ; Suetonius who
is not one of those historians who, like Tacitus, are also
psychologists and tragedians, rich in divinations and artistic
devices, but one who records events with the artless ac
curacy and realism of a table of contents ; Suetonius who
frequently seems to take special pains to mention the im
portant decisions of Emperors, magistrates, and the Senate,
in enumerations that are like titles of laws filed one after
the other and are probably borrowed literaUy from the
"Acta diurna populi" ; Suetonius does not connect the
proceedings undertaken against Christians with the fire of
the year 64. Moreover he relates that the Christians were
condemned to die, " because they followed a new and vici
ous superstition," a statement which is clearly not a mere
literary divination, but tells of a particular kind of legal
offence. This statement is found in one of those enumera
tions of laws so frequent in Suetonius. The law it pre
supposes is not referred to as a proof of Nero's cruelty, but
as one of the few beneficial laws enacted by that prince,
rigorous or new laws which are a credit to his rule. They
are such as tend to suppress abuses or to preserve public
morality: laws against luxury, against taverns, against
Christians, against coachmen, against actors, against forgers.
. . . This amounts to an assertion that a special law
placed Christianity under the ban ; —
" Multa sub eo [Nerone] et animadversa severe et coercita
nee minus instituta : adhibitus sumptibus modus ; publicae
caenae ad sportulas redactae ; interdictum ne quid in
peril loquentur, ut lapides lerusalem. Vitas Caesarum legimus : orientem
fidem Romae primus Nero cruentavit."
^ Fabia, pp. 321-6. These archives were kept secret.

28 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
papinis cacti praeter legumina aut halera veniret, cum antea
nullum non obsonii genus prop oner etur ; adflicti suppliciis
christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac malefica ;
vetiti quadrigariorum lusus, quibus inveterata Hcentia
passim vagantibus fallere ac furari per iocum jus erat ;
pantomimorum factiones cum ipsis simul relegatae; ad
versus falsarios. . . ."^
This being said, we may now conclude as follows : —
From the events of the year 64 it is evident that
Christianity is at this time publicly recognized as distinct
from Judaism, and that it has not only ceased to be pro
tected by the laws which still protect Judaism — " sub um-
br acuta insignissim,ae religionis, certe licitae " ^ — but comes
also under a legal prohibition aimed directly at it, and
enacted by Nero. This prohibitive legislation determined,
we may say, the civil status of Christianity.
III.
Since, even as early as the first Christian generation,
Christianity separated itself from Judaism, it could no longer
depend on unity of race as a foundation for its own unity ;
nor could it establish its unity on the observance of a Law
which, in the eyes of Christians, had come to an end. Is
it destined, then, to be made up of a widely-dispersed and
uncertain multitude of recruits held together by no common
bond, Uke the class of proselytes known as " those who feared
God ". If so, Christianity would have been but as the dust,
as incapable of perpetuity as the work of those missionary
philosophers who, like the Cynics, were prolific in all the
Greek cities and in Eome.^
The result would have been similar, had the Christianity
of the first generation been a "spiritual" movement, such
as Montanism was to be later.
It is well known that there was, in the earliest Christian
1 SuBTON. " Nero," 16. = Tbrtull. " Apologet." 21.
^ See Origen, "Contra Gels." in. 50, where both Origen and Celsus
mention those propagandists whom one could meet in every public square.
On the philosophical propagandism among the people, cf . Wbndland, p.
39 and foil.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 29
communities, an extraordinary and exceptionally abundant
outpouring of "charisms" (this is the term used by St.
Paul), charisms *3ue to an inspiration which was at times
truly supernatural, at other times supernatural only in appear
ance. They are met with in many pages of the Acts : the
Spirit gives commands ; the Spirit foretells the future ; the
Spirit manifests itself in visions, dreams, ecstasies, prayers,
and songs ; the Spirit diffuses itself in gifts that are strange,
even at times disordered and inexplicable, as the gift of
tongues, for instance. Looking back on the past, the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews pictured to himself the early
preaching of Christianity, as based indeed on the testimony
of those who had heard the Lord, but also on the co-opera
tion of " God bearing them witness by signs and wonders,
and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost
according to His own will".^
However, a fact equally unquestionable is that Chris
tianity was constituted in such a way that of itself it reacted
against the excessive sway of those charisms.^ St. Paul, I
who undoubtedly believed in the co-operation of the Spirit
with his apostolic work, and in the real action of the Spirit
in charisms, does not look upon these manifestations of
the Spirit as supreme and exempt from all supervision ; on
the contrary, he holds them to be subordinated to two
principles: first the received and authentic faith, and then
the edification of the community. " But though we, or an
angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema"
(Gal. I. 8).^ "Wherefore I give you to understand, that no
^ Heb. II. 3, 4. On the charisms of the Apostolic age, the reader may
consult with profit F. Prat, " Theologie de Saint Paul " (Paris, 1908),
pp. 182-4. As to the historical distinction between the charism and the
ministry, in the first century, cf. H. Brudbbs, "Die Verfassung der
Kirche bis zum Jahre 175 nach Chr." (Mainz, 1904), pp. 62-103.
2 Cf. H. GuNKEL, "Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes " (Gottingen,
1899), pp. 66-71, and Harnack, " Mission," vol. i. pp. 172-176.— The
charism which plays a predominant part during the first two Christian
generations, is that of prophecy. But the more important that part be
comes, the more manifest also becomes the authority by which it is ruled
and overshadowed. ' In classical Greek, the word ava6rip,a signifies an offering dedicated
to a god, to a temple. Later on— and then it was written avadepu-it

\

30 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
man speaking by the spirit of God, saith Anathema to Jesus "
(1 Cor. XII. 3). Here we may recall the whole instruc
tion of St. Paul to the Corinthians regarding the gifts of
the Spirit and the use to be made of them (1 Cor. xii. 1-
XIV. 40). He exhorts the Christians of Corinth to aspire
after charisms^ the gifts of the Sjpirit, "but especially that
of prophecy ". " He is afraid of the disordered character and
of the unintelligible manifestations of the " glossolalia," i.e.
the gift of tongues. The prophet speaks to men, is under
stood by them, gives them edification, encouragement,
consolation, whilst the Christian who speaks by tongues is
understood by no one. In his good sense, the Apostle feels
but little interested in those fruitless displays : —
XIV. 6. " But now, brethren, if I come to you, speaking with tongues,
what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either in revelation, or in
knowledge, or in prophecy, or in doctrine ? 7. Even things without life
that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of
sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped ? 9. For if the
trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle ?
... 10. However many kinds of tongues there may be in this world,
none ot them consist of unintelligible sounds. . . . 14. For if I pray in
. tongues, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is without fruit. . . .
^8. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all. 19. But ia
the church 1 had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I
may instruct others also, than ten thousand words in tongues. . . .
23. If therefore the whole church come together into one place, and all
speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned or unbelieving persons,
will they not say that you are mad ? . . . 26. How is it then, brethren ?
When you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, or a doctrine,
or a revelation, or a tongue, or an interpretation, but let all things be
done to edification. . . . 37. If any seemito be a prophet, or spiritual,
let him know the things that I write to you, that they are the command
ments of the Lord."
In presence of the outpourings of the Spirit, the right-
is proclaimed of an authority whose mission it is to preserve
signified in current Greek, especially in that used for inscriptions, what
is consecrated to the infernal gods, therefore what is under a curse. The
LXX uses the word to express the Hebrew herem, that which is cursed
and doomed to be suppressed or exterminated. In this way the word,
anathema, definitely acquired its historical meaning of cursed, rejected,
vowed to destruction. E. Buonaiuti, " Saggi di filologia e storia del
N. T." (Roma, 1910), pp. 105-108, and Deissmann, p. 60.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 31
the received order and faith, the Lord's commands, the
teaching of the Apostle, the edification of the Church:
"God is not a God of disorder". AU this is decisively
affirmed long before the rise of Montanism.
* *
Hi-
Christianity, then, was not a mere religion of extra
ordinary ways, nor was it exclusively a religion of charity.
We must, indeed, attach a great importance to the social
solidarity which it established among all its members. The
love and aid which a Jew was sure to find in every Jewry,
Christianity assured to the Christian ; and of all the words
of the Gospel, few have come home more forcibly to the
Christian heart than the logion ; "I was hungry, and
you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to
drink : I was a stranger, and you took me in : naked, and
you covered me : sick, and you visited me : I was in prison,
and you came to me" (Matt. xxv. 35-6). Nothing in
Christianity impressed the pagans more than the loye^P
Christians for one another ; and it has been justly remarked
that the tendency towards association has not been in the
history of Christianity a fortuitous occurrence but an essen
tial element, for from the very start Christianity has been a ,
^^brotherhood.^ J^'rom Judaism it inherited a religious esteem for alms- ~
giving. The history of Tabitha in the Acts (ix. 86-43)
seems a Christian replica of the history of Tobias and a
commentary on the words: Eleemosyna a onorte liberal
(Tob. IV. 11, XII. 9). In this spirit of alms-giving, there is
not even a shadow of communism, since it is desirable that
every Claristian should have something to give that he may
have the merit, the spiritual profit and the joy, of giving
(Acts XX. 33-5). _
Alms-giving, which by its own innate law must extend
first of aU to feUow-Christians (Gal. vi. 10), is practised in
^1 Thess. IV. 9-10 ; Rom. xii. 10-13. The communism of the early
Christians, concerning which so much has been written, never existed in
the Gentile, nor even in the Jewish Christian communities : alms-giving
always remained free, and property personal. Harnack, " Mission,"
vol. I. p. 131, note, and E. voN Dobschutz, " Probleme des apostolisohen
Zeitalters " (Leipzig, 1904), p. 39.

32 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
two ways : by hospitality ((jaXo^evla) , which consists in wel
coming a travelling brother,^ and readiness to join in gener
ous contributions for common purposes (Koivavla). By
means of a regular organization of alms-giving, help is given
to the poor members of the local community, and also to
missionaries. The expenses of religious propaganda are
met iu the same way. Even remote commumties receive
aid in their times of distress. Every Christian community
seems to have a common chest, to which each one of the
faithful brings every Sunday the offering he is able to make
(1 Cor. XVI. 1, 2). For instance, the community of Philippi
in Macedonia, can keep for the use of St. Paul, then in
Eome, a sort of current account from which he can draw
according to his needs (Philip. IV. 15-16). Such is the duty
of rich communities : " Be instant in prayer," writes St.
Paul, " contributing to the necessities of the saints, ever
anxious to give hospitality." ^ The Christians of Jerusalem
who are extremely poor are helped by voluntary collections
made for them in all the wealthy communities of the Gentile
world.^ Between the various communities there is a constant
exchange of guests, of missionaries, of aids, of counsels of
edification, and of affectionate control. The foUowing
words of Harnack, which refer directly to the data supplied
by the Ignatian Epistles, are equally true of Christianity as
manifested in the Pauline Epistles : " What a continuity
of intercourse there is between the churches ! What one
ness of soul ! What brotherly solicitude ! Financial sup
port retires into the background here. The foreground of
the picture is filled by proofs of that personal soUdarity by
means of which whole churches are bound together . . .
aid one another, console and strengthen one another, and-
share their sorrows and their joys. Here we come upon a
whole world of solidarity and mutual love," *
^ Rom. XVI. 1-2, 23.
2 Rom. XII. 13. Cf. Heb. xui. 2-3, 16 ; I Pet. iv. 8-9.
' Rom. XV. 25-8 ; 2 Cor. vm. 1-ix. 15 ; Gal. ii. 10 ; Acts xi. 27-30.
At Jerusalem, wealth was in the hands of the Sadducees, and Christianity
made its recruits chiefly from among the poorest classes.
* Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 165 and ff.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 33
Most certainly, early Christianity was all that, and by it
was able to win many souls ; but Christians were brothers I
because of their faith, and there is no brotherhood save in
the fellowship of the same faith ; hence this brotherhood is
an appUcation, not a principle. Indeed, no one would ever
think of recognizing in mere altruism the generating prin
ciple of the new religion and of its unity.
* *
*
Must we seek that principle in the stable community-
organization which Christianity assumed from the begin
ning? The more fully historians came to know of the
organization of the pagan collegia, the more did they
incline to look upon each Christian community as an associ
ation founded after the collegiate model.^ Would not such
an assimilation help to account for the formation of Christi
anity into a Church?
This hypothesis has lost prestige in proportion as the
ascertainable facts have been more carefully studied, for it
has become evident that Christianity was a religion, not of
coUeges, but of cities.^ As early as the first generation,
wherever it is established, for instance in large cities like
Antioch and Eome, it forms neither separate synagogues
like those of the Jews of Eome, nor autonomous colleges,
like the pagan collegia : its followers have for their meet
ing-place the house of such or such a Christian. All the
Christians of the city, however large it may be, make up but
one and the same confraternity or eKKKrjcria which is called
after the city. Whilst the worship of Mithra grows in the
way of chapels or confraternities, which divide into separate
confraternities when the number of the worshippers of the
god increases, the law of Christianity on the contrary — a
law that holds, long before the principle of the monarchical
episcopate reveals itself as everywhere in vigour — is thatl
there is but one church in each city, and that no church in ,
any part of the world is isolated from the other churches.
"Hatch, "The Organization of the Early Christian Churches"
(London, 1888), pp. 26 and foil.
"Harnack, "Mission," vol. ii. p. 278. R. Knopf, " Nachapostol-
ioher Zeitalter " (Tubingen, 1905), p. 61.
3

34 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
This twofold fact cannot be accounted for by the social or
ganization of the collegia.
We must observe too that Christianity detached itself from
the Jewries, and the Jewries had a community-organization
which was not at all like the organization of collegia : the
former existed in virtue of a legal status different from the
legal status of the latter.^ Had it been necessary for the
Christian communities to seek recognition as collegia they
would have been too late, and their legaUzation would have
been impossible.
The question has arisen as regards the legal status of
ecclesiastical property in the third century : at that time,
churches possessed cemeteries and places of worship — a pro
prietorship acknowledged certainly as early as the time of
Alexander Severus (A.d. 222-35), perhaps even as early as
the end of the second century. " The common people were
allowed to associate, in order to provide for themselves decent
burial: these associations were allowed to coUect monthly
subscriptions, to hold property, and to have religious meet
ings ; they were represented by an actor, or syndic, an
official authorized to act in their name. Inscriptions prove
that these clubs abounded throughout the empire. Why
should not the Christian societies have been admitted to
these privileges?"^ De Eossi endeavoured to explain by
such an adaptation of Christianity to the legislation regarding
collegia funeraticia, the character of ecclesiastical property
during the third century. However, this theory of De
Eossi's has not been generally accepted, even for the third
century when the legislation concerning the collegia had
become more lenient. For how could Christianity, which
was a religion, have concealed itself under the fictitious
name of small funeral collegia ? Who could have been de
ceived by the device? How could it have been possible for
the Christian worship, with its meetings held every Sunday
and often during the week, to be protected by a legislation
which allowed the coUeges to meet only once a month?
'Josephus, "Antiq." xiv. 10, 8: Csesar forbids the colleges called
also B'laoroi, and allows the synagogues.
2 Duchesne, "Histoire Ancienne," vol. i. pp. 383-4. Cf. Girard,
" Textes de droit romain " (Paris, 1895), pp. 775-9.

THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 35
How could Christians, who were admitted to communion in
any church they visited, have compUed with a legislation
which forbade any one to belong to more than one such
college?"! The theory is stiU less probable for the first two cen
turies, for then the legislation for the collegia was extremely
severe, treating the formation of a collegium illicitum as
a crime,^ and recognizing as lawful only a college sanctioned
by the Emperor or the Senate.^ Did any Christian com
munity ever ask this authorization ? It is hard to see how
it could have done so, since Christianity was precluded from
the possibility of being authorized as a college, by the very
fact that it was prohibited as a religion, religio illicita.
iMarcian, "Institution." lib. m. (" Digest. " lib. xlvii. tit. xxn.
fr. 1) : " Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidibus provinciarum, ne
patiantur esse collegia sodalicia, neve milites collegia in castris habeant.
Sed permittitur tenuioribus stipem menstruam conferre, dum tamen
semel in mense coeant, ne sub praetextu huiusmodi illicitum collegium
coeat. Quod non tantum in Urbe, sed et in Italia et in provinciis locum
habere divus quoque Severus rescripsit. Sed religionis causa coire non
prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatus consultum, quo
illicita collegia arcentur. Non licet autem amplius quam unum collegium
licitum habere, ut est constitutum et a divis fratribus : et si quis in duobus
fuerit, rescriptum est eligere eum oportere in quo magis esse velit . . ."
(0. Lenel, " luris oonsultorum reliquiae," v. i. (Leipzig, 1889), p. 194).
"Ulpian, "De ofiBcio proconsul." lib. vi. ("Digest." lib. XLVii. tit.
XXII. fr. 2) : " Quisquis illicitum collegium usurpaverit, ea poena tenetur,
qua tenentur qui hominibus armatis loca publica vel templa occupasse
iudicati sunt " (Lenel, v. rr. p. 972).
3 Gaius, " Edictum provinciale," lib. in. (" Digest. " lib in. tit. iv.
fr. 1) : " Neque societas neque collegium neque huiusmodi corpus passim
omnibus habere conceditur : nam et legibus et senatus consultis et prin
cipalibus constitutionibus ea res coercetur. Panels admodum in causis
concessa sunt huiusmodi corpora : ut ecce vectigalium publicorum sociis
permissum est corpus habere, vel aurifodinarum, vel argentifodinarum et
salinarum. Item collegia Romae certa sunt, quorum corpus senatus
consultis atque constitutionibus principalibus confirmatum est, veluti
pistorum et quorundam aliorum, et naviculariorum, qui et in provinciis
sunt. Quibus autem permissum est corpus habere collegii societatis sive
cuiusque alterius eorum nomine, proprium est ad exemplum rei publicae
habere res communes, arcam communem et actorem sive syndicum, per
quem tamquam in re publica, quod communiter agi fierique oporteat,
agatur fiat. ..." (Lenel, v. i. p. 194).— Cf. Sueton. " Caes." 42:
"Cuncta collegia praeter antiquitus constituta distraxit." "Aug." 32 :
" Collegia praeter antiqua et legitima dissolvit."
3*

36 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hence we may conclude that a Christian community
was not a college, and that Christianity was not a federation
of coUeges. Christianity was in the Eoman sense of the word
a religio. But it was of the essence of such a religio to be
a social bond uniting its members. Using the word corpus
which was the legal term to designate an association,
TertuUian writes, about the year 200 : " Corpus sumus
de conscientia religionis, et disciplinae unitate, et spei
foedere ".^
The divine originality of Christianity consists in the
fact that it inaugurated in the world — not a charismatic or
prophetic movement, still less a movement of eschatological
suspense and anxiety — not a brotherhood, with reciprocity
of aid and affection, superior to any exclusivism due to
diversity of race — but, in Tertullian's appropriate words, a
religious revelation, a rule of conduct, a covenant of hopes:
all this held and lived in common by the " faithful,"
the " brethren," the " elect " of each church and of aU the
churches. At its rise this corpus had no legal existence;
when the law began to notice it, it was to proscribe it as a
capital crime. Yet it did not then dissolve: it resisted and
kept united, in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This is
the Catholic phenomenon, the true principle of which we
have to discover.
'"Apologet." 39. Compare Origen, "Contra Celsum," i. I:
Celsus charges the Christians with forming secret and unlawful associa
tions : for, he says, associations which are conformable to the law are
public : those which are kept secret are such as the law proscribes : avvdriKas
KpvPdrjv Trpbs dXXijXous nowvpivav xP^ariavSiv irapa to. vcvopj,<Tp4va, ori Tav
a-vvdrjKav ai pAv elai (jjavepai, Sa-ai Kara vopovs yiyvovrai, al Se dtjjaveis, oirai
n-apa ra vevopiirpeva avvrckovvTai. Celsus wrote about the year 180. In
the " Octavius " of Minutius Felix, Christianity is denounced by the
opponent as a, f actio illicita, a prof ana coniuratio, an eruenda et execranda
consensio (" Octav." 8-9). We find always the idea of association and
of conspiracy.

CHAPTEE II.
THE INFANT CHURCH.

The word aTroa-roXo? belongs to classical Greek, where, taken
as a substantive, it means a messenger, missus.^ The
word is found only once in the LXX (1 Kings xiv. 6). On
the contrary, it is used frequently in the New Testament.^
This already suggests the distinctly Christian character of
the Apostolate as an institution.
Judaism had indeed its apostles ; but it would be a
mistake to identify them, as regards their functions, with
those known to primitive Christianity. The Jewish aTrocrroXT;
is a late institution, unknown both to Josephus and to the
ancient rabbinical sources. It seems to have arisen after the
destruction of the Temple, and in connexion with that
Jewish patriarchate which, at labneh, served for many years
as a centre of national and religious life for Judaism.^ We
are told by Eusebius of Csesarea that the Jews were wont
to call airoardXai the messengers they sent out to carry
to those addressed the circular letters of their authorities,
i.e. — in this case — of the patriarchate of labneh ; of course,
this attestation refers only to the time of Eusebius.* How
ever, Eusebius affirms, in the same passage, that he has
' G. Dittenbergeb, " Sylloge iascriptionum graecarum " (Leipzig,
1901), vol. III. p. 170, index, at the word aTrdoroXos.
^ Lightfoot, " Galat." (1887), p. 94, remarks that the word dirdcn-oXos
is found in the New Testament seventy-nine times, of which sixty-eight are
in St. Paul and in St. Luke.
3 Schurer, vol. m. p. 77.
^EusEB. "In Is." xviii. 1. A similar attestation is found in St.
Epiph. " Haer." xxx. 4, 11 ; in the Theodosian code, xvi. 8, 14 ; in St.
Jerome, "In Gal." i. 1. 37

38 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
found " in the writings of the ancients," that at the begin
ning of Christianity " the priests and ancients of the people of
the Jews, who dwelt in Jerusalem, drew up and despatched
letters to the Jews throughout every country, slandering
the doctrine of Christ as a new-fangled heresy which was
hostile to God. . . . Then: airoa-ToXot, conveying letters
written on papyrus, spread themselves over the earth mis
representing what was said of our Saviour." ^ This state
ment, taken from " the writings of the ancients," seems
to be borrowed by Eusebius from St. Justin, who, in the
" Dialogue with the Jew Trypho " alludes three times to
the "chosen men sent from Jerusalem to all countries,
to say that a godless heresy, termed the Christian, had
lately sprung up," and also to the " chosen men commis
sioned and sent throughout the whole world to announce
that an atheistical heresy in opposition to the Law had been
spread by one Jesus, a deceiver from Galilee, whose body,
after He had been crucified, His disciples stole by night from
the tomb in which He was laid . . . and they now deceive
mankind, saying that He has risen from the dead, and as
cended into Heaven."^ Justin's statement is, apparently, a
supposition suggested by the narrative of the action taken
by the chief priests and the Pharisees to urge Pilate to guard
Jesus' tomb ; ^ hence it has not the value of a fact.
It is beyond question, however, that the Judaism con
temporaneous with the Gospel and wAh. the earliest preach
ing of Christianity had also a kind of apostles. Jerusalem
communicated with the Jewries of the Dispersion by means
of letters and messengers. On his arrival at Eome as a
prisoner, St. Paul calls together the chief men of the Jews
to justify himself before them. They answer him in these
words: "We neither received letters concerning thee from
Judsea, neither did any of the brethren that came hither, re
late or speak any evil of thee. But we desire to hear of thee
what thou thinkest : for as concerning this sect, we know
that it is gainsay ed everywhere" (Acts xxviii. 21-2). We
must suppose, then, that the Jews might have received some
official letter denouncing Paul to them. The custom of the
' EusEB. I.e. 2 Justin, "Dialog." xvn. and cviii. 2.
s Matt. XXVII. 62-6.

THE INFANT CHURCH 39
Jews in such cases was well known to Paul, who formerly
had gone to the High Priest and asked him for letters to
the synagogues of Damascus. " Saul as yet breathing out
threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,
went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to
Damascus, to the synagogues : that if he found any men and
women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jeru
salem." 1 Saul had asked and obtained a mission from the
Jerusalem authorities ; he was, then, a kind of delegate
commissioned by the High Priest, and was, in this sense, a
Jewish ttTToo-ToXo?. However, in relating the incident the
author of Acts does not use the word aTroo-roXos; and,
granting that at certain epochs similar missions were often
entrusted by the Jerusalem authorities to Jews who were
thus sent to some of the jevsT:ies of the Dispersion, we must
not forget that these missions were only temporary and oc
casional. Hence, dissenting from Harnack,^ we believe that the
apostolate of the first Christian generation was not an in
stitution borrowed from Judaism. Let us try then to fix
with more precision what this first Christian generation
meant by the name. * *
*
In the first place, the name has a general meaning, in
which it signifies simply a " messenger ". The PhUippians
have sent help to St. Paul by the hands of Epaphroditus :
St. Paul sends Epaphroditus back to. PhiUppi, the bearer of
the Epistle to the PhUippians : "I have thought it neces
sary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and feUow-
labourer and fellow-soldier, but your apostle and minister to
my wants" (PhU. ii. 25).
Paul writes to the Corinthians that he sends them
Titus, and with Titus two other brethren : " Titus is my
companion and fellow-labourer towards you ; as to (the two
others) our brethren, they are apostles of the churches " (2
Cor. VIII. 23). In these two instances, the word apostle
1 Acts IX. 1-2. The text implies that there are several synagogues
at Damascus. Cf. xxii. 5, xxvl 9-12.
2 "Mission," vol. i. pp. 274-277.

40 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
seems to have only the meaning of messenger, or of servant.^
With that meaning in his mind, St. John puts on the
Saviour's lips these words: "The servant is not greater
than his lord ; nor an aTroo-roXos greater than he that sent
him" (John xiii. 16).
In the second place, the word apostle, whilst stUl re
maining a common name, gradually tends towards its his
torical meaning, through the expression "apostle of Jesus
Christ," an expression of which St. Paul is fond. It is the
title with which he accompanies his name at the beginning
of most of his Epistles : " Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
caUed by the will of God " (1 Cor. i. 1) ; " Paul, an apostle
of Christ Jesus, by the vnU of God" (2 Cor. i. 1 ; Eph. i. 1).
So too in the Pastoral Epistles. On the other hand,
when Paul places in the subscription of some epistle, to
gether with his own name, the names of some of his co
workers, he is careful not to give them a title which is not
theirs. He writes at the beginning of the Epistle to the
PhUippians : " Paul and Timothy, the servants of Christ
Jesus " (Phil. I. 1) ; to the Colossians : " Paul, an apostle
of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy [his]
brother" (Col. i. 1); to the Thessalonians: "Paul and Syl
vanus and Timothy " only (1 and 2 Thess. i. 1) ; to the
Corinthians: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will
of God, and Timothy [his] brother" (2 Cor. i. 1). Unlike
the appeUation " servant of Christ," the appellation " apostle
of Christ " does not signify a moral quality, but an excep
tional mission.
However, Paul does not claim for himself alone this
quality of Christ's apostle : he recognizes it in others, " the
other Apostles," among whom he reckons "the brethren of
the Lord and Cephas" and also Barnabas (1 Cor. ix. 6-7).
On the contrary, Timothy is nowhere called an Apostle ; nor
is Apollos, nor — although the contrary has been maintained
— Sylvanus. As to Andronicus and Junias (Eom. xvi. 7),
there is some doubt : " Salute Andronicus and Junias, my
^ See Acts xv. 22 -3, in which Barsabas and Silas are thus despatched
to Antioch by the church of Jerusalem. See also their letter (vv. 23-9).
The case of Tychicus is exactly the same, in Eph. vi. 21-2. Cf . Schurer,
vol. m. p. 77.

THE INFANT CHURCH 41
kinsmen and fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the
Apostles {i-jriarjfioi iv rots a7rocrToXot9) , who also were in Christ
before me ". We are inclined to believe, with Lightfoot and
Harnack,^ that Andronicus and Junias, who had been con
verted before Paul, and were consequently of the number of
the earliest Christians, missionaries to the Dispersion who
had been imprisoned for a while — where we cannot deter
mine — as St. Paul had been many a time (2 Cor. xi. 23)
were of the nuinber of the Apostles, rather than "of note
in the eyes of the Apostles".
From this some have inferred that, for St. Paul, the
number of the Apostles may have been quite large : an in
ference which St. Paul himself insinuates. " God indeed,"
he writes to the Corinthians, "hath set some in the church,
first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors, then those
who have the gift of miracles, the graces of healing, of help
ing, of governing, of speaking divers tongues. Are all
apostles ? Are all prophets ? Are all doctors ? Are all
workers of miracles?" (1 Cor. xii. 28-30). Itis Christ,
he says elsewhere, who has " made some apostles, and some
prophets, and other some evangelists and other some pastors
and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying
of the body of Christ" (Eph. iv. 11-12).
Let us accept the hypothesis that there were many
apostles, as there were many prophets and teachers and
thaumaturgi, during the earliest Christian generation.^ Does
it follow that the apostolate is a mere charism, an individual
gift of the Spirit ? Such, we are told, is St. Paul's concep
tion of the apostolate, but, if such is the case, in what does
an apostle differ from a prophet? Whence comes to the
apostle that constant pre-eminence which St. Paul ascribes
'LiGnTPOOT, "Galatians," p. 96. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p.
269. It is true that the question whether Junias is the name of a man or
of a woman, may be raised. Sandat — Hbadlam, " Romans " (1895),
p. 242. Zahn, " Einleitung in das N. T." vol. i. (Leipzig, 1906), p. 297.
" Cf. Origen, " In Num. homil. xxvii." 11 : " Visus, inquit [Paulus],
est iUis undecim, deinde apparuit et omnibus apostolis. In quo ostendit
esse et alios apostolos, exceptis illis duodecim." He speaks similarly in
Comment, in Rom. x. 21, as regards Andronicus and Junias. In
Irbn^us (" Haer." ii. 21, 1) and in Tbrtullian (" Marcion." rv. 24), the
seventy disciples are called "apostles "

42 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
to him in the hierarchy described in the passages we have
just quoted ? Some recent critics have spoken of what they
call "a Pauline apostolate," an immediate personal caU,
proceeding from God, assigning a special missionary field
and bestowing spiritual autonomy within that field : ^ but
there is nothing to justify such a notion in the Epistles of
St. Paul. Moreover, even supposiag this definition to be
grounded on history, why did not this apostolate endure?
Why did no one inherit such a spiritual office, since
prophets, and prophetesses too, had successors, at least for a
while? And how can we help supposing that the pre
eminence of the apostolate, which no one inherited, was due
to a circumstance of fact which could not recur?
*
This St. Paul can teach us better than any one else;
for he had to defend his apostolic character against stubborn
and bitter adversaries, who pursued him almost wherever
he went — at Antioch, in Galatia, especially at Corinth, to
contest his claim to the name and quality of apostle. From
this fact alone we may gather how great was the importance
attached to this name and quality.
Those who made it their business thus to harass St.
Paul are emissaries who have come from Judsea ; they are
emissaries, i.e. undoubtedly aTroo-roXot — in the sense we de
scribed above when we spoke of the d-n-oa-To'kov t&v iKKXrjo-i&j)^ —
that is, emissaries accredited by some letter of the " Saints"
who resided there, in Judsea (2 Cor. in. 1). Paul looks
upon them as apostles who have received their mission from
men (Gal. i. 1) whereas he, Paul, does not hold his mission
from men. Hence the name, false apostles, which he gives
them. " Such are false apostles, deceitful workmen, dis
guising themselves as the apostles of Christ. And no
wonder : for even Satan himself disguiseth himself as an
angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers
{BtaKovot avTov) be disguised as the ministers of justice:
whose end shall be according to their works " (2 Cor. xi.
13-15). But these emissaries claim to speak in the name of real
> H. MoNNiBR, "La notion de I'apostolat, des origines k Ir^nte"
(Paris, 1903), p. 35.

THE INFANT? CHURCH 43
Apostles, those who are at Jerusalem, and Paul, accused of
usurping the apostolate, thus defends himself.
(1 Cor. XV.) " 1. Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel
which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you
stand ; 2. By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner
I preached unto you. ... 3. For I delivered unto you first of all, which
I also received : how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip
tures : 4. And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day
according to the scriptures : 5. And that he was seen by Cephas ; and after
that by the twelve. 6. Then was he seen by more than five hundred brethren
at once : of whom the greater part remain untU this present, and some
are fallen asleep. 7. After that he was seen by James, then by all the
apostles. 8. And last of all he was seen also by me, as by one bom out of
due time. 9. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy
to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10. But
by the grace of God, I am what I am ; and his grace in me hath not been
void, but I have laboured more abundantly than all they : yet not I, but
the grace of God with me."
Since an apostle is above all a missionary of the Gospel,
St. Paul proves the authenticity of his apostolate first by the
authenticity of the Gospel he has preached : he has taught
what he had learnt. The authenticity of his apostolate is
proved next by the help God has given him. For certainly
Paul is, in every way, the least of the Apostles, and in his
humUity he insists strongly on this, the better to bring out
the efficacy of the grace that has worked through him: a
Christian community, like that of Corinth, which he has
founded and in which God has sanctioned his work by the
outpouring of His graces, becomes an empirical justification
of the apostle's apostolate. "Do we need (as some do)
epistles of commendation to you, or from you? You are
our epistle, written in our hearts, which is known and read
by all men: You are an epistle of Christ, written through
our ministry not with ink, but with the spirit of the living
God" (2 Cor. iii. 1-3).
In the third place, the authenticity of Paul's apostolate
is proved by the fact of his having seen the Lord. The
Apostle attaches an exceptional importance to this fact, for it
constitutes a prerogative he shares in common with those
Apostles with whom his enemies contrast him, those Apostles
who are at Jerusalem. " I think that I am in nothing less
than the great apostles" (xi. 5). What! the Apostles of

44 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Jerusalem claim to be, or are considered, Apostles after
whom there can be none other {virepXlav diroa-roXoi) I
"They are Hebrews: so am I. They are Israelites: so
am I. They are the seed of Abraham : so am I. They are
the ministers of Christ: (I speak as one less wise), Iam
more" (xi. 22-3). Then Paul enumerates all the trials of
his apostolate in the GentUe world, and concludes: "I
have no way come short of them that are above measure
apostles: although I be nothing" (xii. 11). Elsewhere
taking up the defence of Barnabas as well as his own, he
writes : " Have we not the right to take with us a sister, as
well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the
Lord, and Cephas?" (1 Cor. ix. 5). Again {id. 1-3), in his
own name: "Am not I free? Am not I an Apostle?
Have not I seen Jesus our Lord ? Are not you my work
in the Lord? And if unto others I be not an apostle, but
yet to you I am. For you are the seal of my apostleship
in the Lord. My defence with them that reproach me in
this." Here Paul comes back to the proof he has already
given : the faithful he has converted are a proof that he is
an apostle ; however, this is only an accessory argument,
since he recalls in the first place that he has seen the
Lord: "Am not I an apostle? Have not I seen Christ
Jesus?"! However, this eloquent self-defence of St. Paul is chiefly
an answer to the charges of his opponents ; so far it does
not touch the fundamental point, namely, what constitutes
an apostle. Neither the purity of his doctrine, nor the ac
tivity and fruitfulness of his preaching, however miraculous it
may be, suffice to make his apostolate an office of a higher
order, distinct in itself, for instance, from the office of Timothy
or of Apollos. Likewise to have seen Jesus is not the exclu
sive privilege of the Apostles, since the risen Lord appeared
" on a single occasion to more than five hundred brethren,
^ Since Paul draws an argument from his having seen Christ, we may
infer that his opponents urged that the genuine Apostles had seen Christ,
nay, had lived with Him. Thus the following words of the Epistle to the
Galatians (ii. 6) may be accounted for : " But of them who seemed to
be something (what they were some time, it is nothing to me, God ao-
cepteth not the person of man) ..." Weizsackeb, "Das apostolische
Zeitalter," p. 52. Lightfoot, " Galat." p. 108.

THE INFANT CHURCH 45
of whom the greater part remain until this present," but
whom Paul nowhere calls apostles.
In fact, " an apostle of Christ," in the sense in which^!
Paul claims the quality for himself, signifies "a messenger ,
of Christ, one sent by Christ," just as "an apostle of the '
Churches" signifies "one who is sent by the Churches ". j
Paul speaks of the d-n-oa-ToXoi Xpia-Tov (2 Cor. xi. 13), as he^
does of the airoa-ToXoi, t&v eKKXrjo-i&v {id. VIII. 23). Since in
order to be accredited the apostles of the churches have a
letter from the church that sends them, the airoaToXo^
XpiaTov could be accredited only by a letter from Christ ;
but, as that condition cannot be fulfilled, recourse is had to
something equivalent, and this is why Paul can say to the
Corinthians : " You are my epistle from Christ ". To be sent
by Christ implies that one has seen Christ, not in the third
heaven, if one should be rapt thither, but upon earth, and
just as the witnesses of His resurrection saw Him. This
is why St. Paul is the last of the Apostles, being the last
who saw the Lord. After Paul there will be no other
apostle. Finally, and above all, to be sent by Christ implies
that one has received upon earth a mission from Christ in
person; this is the real root of the apostolate. Paul can
proclaim himself "an apostle, not of men, neither by man,
but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him
from the dead" (Gal. i. 1), solely because only those are
Christ's apostles who are chosen and sent by Christ :
" It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb,
and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I
.might preach him among the Gentiles ; " and forthwith Paul
started for Arabia : " Immediately I condescended not to
flesh and blood. Neither went I to Jerusalem to the
apostles who were before me " {id. 16-17). Paul received
his mission directly from God through Jesus Christ : "By
whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith in all nations for his name ".^ It is in this full
sense that Paul is an apostle : not a mere apostle, but " an
^ Rom. I. 5 : St oS i\a^op.€V X'^P'-" ""' airotrToXriv. Rom. I. 1 : kKtjtos
d-rrooToXos. In 2 Cor. v. 20, Paul calls himself Christ's legate: vrrep
XpuTTov irpca-fievopev (Cf. Eph. VI. 20). In the east, the Emperor's legate
was called wpco-^euT-ijs. Deissmann, p. 273.

46 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
apostle of Christ," personally called and sent by Christ in
person.' *
This first conclusion is now made good : Paul is the
last of the Apostles, because he is the last to whom the
risen Christ showed Himself : of all the other Apostles Paul
can say they were Apostles before him. He is " the one
born out of due time " ; stiU he belongs to the same family
as the others (1 Cor. xv. 8).
Another conclusion which must be looked upon as cer
tain is that St. Paul is convinced he has received from God
the mission to be the Apostle of the Gentile world, whUst
the other Apostles, the Apostles before him, are sent to the
circumcised. This is proved most clearly from the well-
known passage of the epistle to the Galatians (ii. 1-14).
For fourteen years Paul has preached among the pagans,
in Syria and in Cilicia : during all that time he has remained
"unknown to the churches of Judsea, which are in Christ"
(I. 22). Acting upon a revelation, he goes to Jerusalem,
there to explain the Gospel he preaches to the pagans,
that he may be able to give an assurance that there are not
two Gospels, and that the purity of his Gospel evinces the
authenticity of his apostolate. For this object it was quite
important that he should meet the Apostles of the circum
cision and confer with them. This Gospel, he writes, " I
conferred with those who seemed to be something ".^ Had
they disowned Paul, a deadly blow would have been dealt to
his apostolate, and for those last fourteen years he would
have "run in vain" (ii. 2): which plainly shows that the
apostolate is not a charism that finds in itself its ovsm justi
fication. "But," Paul goes on, "to me they that seemed to
be something added nothing. Contrariwise, when they
' Acts xxn. 21, XXVL 16-18.
' Gal. II. 2 : toIs Sokovo-iv. Cf. Gal. ll. 9, o! Sokovvtcs (ttvXoi ftvai.
These men of note, these pillars, are Peter, James and John. This de
signation alludes to the exceptional authority ascribed to them by the
Judaizers. Prat, p. 227. There is not even a shadow of depreciation in
his way of speaking. Lightfoot, in loc, quotes the historian Hero-
dian (2nd century) : r^r a-vyKXrjTov fiovXrjs tovs Sokovvtos koI rjXiKia crtpvo-
tAtovs, the members of the Senate, who were held in esteem, and were the
most venerable for their age.

THE INFANT CHURCH 47
had seen that to me was committed the gospel of the uncir-
cumcision, as to Peter was that of the circumcision : (for
he who had made Peter the apostle of the circumcision made
me also the apostle of the Gentiles). And when they had
recognized the grace that was given to me, James and
Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and
Barnabas the right hands of fellowship : that we should go
unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision." '
Hence, as St. Paul sees it, on one side is the apostolate
to the heathen, entrusted to him and Barnabas ; on the other,
is the apostolate to the circumcised, entrusted to the Apostles
who have preceded him in the missionary field. Here he
gives us names : and first of all, James, Peter and John, who
are considered pillars among those prominent men. Peter
is an apostle : this quality St. Paul has just ascribed to him.^
James also is an apostle, according to the testimony of St.
Paul who, speaking of his first visit to Jerusalem, which took
place three years after his conversion and fourteen years
before that mentioned above, writes as follows : "I went to
Jerusalem to see Cephas, and I tarried with him fifteen days.
But other of the apostles I saw none; saving James the
brother of the Lord."^ The expression used by St. Paul
makes it quite certain that Janies is one of the Apostles.
Let us bear in raind that this James, called " the brother of
the Lord," is not the son of Zebedee and brother of St.
John. Nor perhaps is he the James, son of Alphseus,* who,
together with the son of Zebedee, is of the number of the
Twelve, chosen by Jesus. At all events, at the time the
two visits were made by Paul to Jerusalem, this James is,
^Gal. II. 8-9. Cf. Harnack, "Die Apostelgesohichte " (Leipzig,
1908), p. 15.
^ Gal. II. 8. Peter is always called Cephas by Paul (Gal. ii. 14 ;
1 Cor. I. 12, in. 22, ix. 6, xv. 5) except in Gal. n. 7-8. As to the
"pillars" see 1 Tim. m. 15 and Apoc. m. 12. Cf. "I Clem." v. 2,
where Peter and Paul are called ol pAyiaroi koI StKoioraTot aruXoi. Cf.
Funk's note, " Patres apostolici," Vol. P (Tubingen, 1901), p. 105.
2 Gal. 1.18-19.
* This is a disputed point. Tillemont, " Hist, eccl." vol. i. p. 618-
21. DoM Chapman, "The Brethren of the Lord," in the " Journal of
Theological Studies," vol. vil (1906), p. 422. M. Meinertz, "Der
Jacobusbrief und sein Verfasser " (Freiburg, 1905), p. 5.

48 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
like Peter, a person of the first rank, and owes his preemin
ence to the fact that after His resurrection Jesus appeared
to him individually, as He did to Peter — as we know from
St. Paul's testimony in the enumeration of the apparitions:
" After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles "
(1 Cor. XV. 7).
However, the number of apostles is so far undetermined.
In aU the Pauline Epistles, there is but one passage in
which St. Paul speaks of the Twelve : " He was seen by
Cephas, and after that bythe twelve" (1 Cor. xv. 5). This
passage, the critical value of which there is no reason to call
in doubt, would suffice to prove that, for St. Paul, "the
Twelve " is a number consecrated by the current tradition,
the more so that, strictly speaking, Paul ought to have said
here "the Eleven," instead of "the Twelve": in fact, the
Vulgate has translated here ScoBeKa by undecim.
In St. John's Gospel the Twelve are referred to as form
ing the group of disciples of Jesus who are most faith
fully attached to Him. St. John does not tell us of their
collective calling and choice, nor give their twelve names:
indeed, he never gives them the name of apostles.' Still,
St. John testifies that Jesus chose them : " Have not I
chosen you twelve? and one of you is a devil. Now he
meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon : for this same was
about to betray him, he who was one of the twelve " (John
VI. 70-1). Again he mentions St. Thomas : " Now Thomas,
one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them
when Jesus came" (xx. 24). It is not expressly stated that
at the last supper Jesus had the Twelve near Him ; but Peter,
Thomas, Philip, Jude, Judas and the beloved disciple are
mentioned as being present. Besides, the discourse after the
supper is unquestionably a kind of investiture and glorification
of the Twelve — " You have not chosen me : but I have chosen
1 In Apoc. XXL 14, mention is made of the city and of its wall with
twelve foundations, on which the " twelve names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb " are inscribed. Of. also Apoc. xviii. 20, where the Saiata,
the Apostles and the Prophets are reckoned among the blessed inhabi
tants of Heaven. In Apoc. ii. 2, the church of Ephesus is congratu
lated on having " tried them who say they are apostles ". St. John does
not seem to have had in his mind other Apostles than the Twelve. In the
Johannine Epistles, the Apostles are not mentioned at all.

THE INFANT CHURCH 49
you ; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should
bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain ". Then, ad
dressing His Father He says : " While I was with them, I
kept them in thy name. Those whom Thou gavest me have
I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition"
(XVII. 12). "As Thou hast sent Me (a7r6o-TetXa9) into the
world, I also have sent {direareiXa) them into the world "
(XVII. 18).
According to some, this discourse refers, not to the
Twelve, but to the disciples in the broader sense of the
word, and is addressed to all the beUevers of subsequent ages ;
and the conclusion is drawn that the idea of an Apostolic
College is altogether foreign to the fourth Gospel. We be
lieve, on the contrary, that aU the features we have just
noticed refer directly to the Twelve, the Twelve whom Jesus
chose, whom He established, among whom Judas alone was
unfaithful, whom He Himself sent in His name into the
world. The idea of apostolate (the term itself all but
appears) is here substantially the same as in St. Paul, with
the difference, however, that it applies, apparently, only to
the Twelve. As to the believers, they are in the back
ground, and appear only under the shadow of the Twelve,
whose converts they are: "Not for them only do I pray,
but for them also who through their word shall believe in
me" (XVII. 20).
In St. Mark's Gospel, the Twelve alone are mentioned.
The Twelve are called Apostles only once, on their return
from the mission entrusted to them by Jesus during the
Galilean ministry: "Then he called the twelve, and began
to send {d-jroa-TeXXeLv) them two and two . . . " (vi. 7).
They come back to the Master: "The apostles (aTroo-roXot)
retuming to Jesus, related to Him all things that they had
done and taught " (vi. 30). However, it seems possible
that in this passage — the only one of its kind — the word
aTToaToXo^ has no other meaning than that of the verb
diroa-TeXXeiv. In St. Matthew's Gospel, mention is made
only of the Twelve, the " twelve disciples ".
It is conceded that this constant agreement of the testi
monies which speak of the Twelve, makes it certain that
Jesus Himself really chose twelve disciples, in view of the
4

50 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
preaching of the Gospel, even as early as the GaUlean
ministry.! gut it is claimed that the idea of the apostolate
underwent a process of transformation, in three successive
stages : a primitive idea, a Pauline idea, and a Catholic idea.
This view deserves a careful examination.
* *
*
It is certain that Jesus chose twelve of His disciples and
associated them by a very special tie with His person and
work. They are His witnesses, and this is why, on the day
of judgment, they, the Twelve, are to sit on twelve seats, and
judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28), to which
they will have announced the Gospel of Christ. Is there a
real connexion between that number — twelve — of the dis
ciples who were especially chosen, and the number of the
tribes, as though Jesus had wished to restrict to Israel the
new missionary work ? This is a question to be considered
later on : we need only say here, that at the beginning a
special importance was attached to the number twelve, an
importance which afterwards passed out of notice.
It is a fact, that in the first days of Christianity, twelve
is a number which the eleven are anxious to preserve.
Of the disciples who have accompanied the Twelve aU the
time the Lord Jesus lived with them, from His baptism at
the hands of John to His ascension into heaven, one is to be
chosen, to be " a witness of His resurrection " (Acts i. 21-2).
By these words the Twelve are defined : they are the wit
nesses of the resurrection of Jesus, after having been the
companions of His public ministry. However, the definition
is not yet complete. One feature remains to be added. The
Twelve have been chosen by the Saviour Himself. Is the
twelfth, who is to be elected instead of Judas, to be the
choice of the Saviour also ? The narrative of the Acts gives
us the answer : " They presented two, Joseph, called Barsabas,
who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And praying
they said : Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men,
shew whether of these two Thou hast chosen, to take
the place of the ministry and apostleship, from which Judas
^ Wbizsackbr, p. 584. P. Webnlb, "Die Anfange unserer Religion"
(Tlibingen, 1901), p. 71. Harnack, " Mission," vol. i. p. 268. LoisY,
" :^vangiles synoptiques " (Ceflfonds, 1907), vol. i. p. 208-9.

THE INFANT CHURCH 51
hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own
place. And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon
Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." ^
Matthias received no imposition of hands : he is chosen by
Jesus Himself, whose choice is held to be manifested by the
drawing of lots.
An exceptional authority remained in the hands of the
Twelve, who abode at Jerusalem, in the beginning at least
and for several years — twelve years, later tradition will say.
Weizsacker, who has studied their position with great
care and miuuteness, observes, first, that the Twelve seem
to have exercised the right of supervision not only over the
Jerusalem community, but over all the communities in
general, and secondly that the Twelve appear, not as a
college or as a corporation, but as individuals.^
At the same time, missionaries go out from the company
of the Twelve to announce the Gospel to the world. The
seven elected to help the Twelve (Acts v. 1-6) are HeUenist
Jews, and no longer " Hebrews," like the Twelve : Stephen,
one of the seven, dies before becoming a missionary, but
Philip does become one, and is called "an evangelist".'
As to Barnabas and Paul, who are " Hebrews," they wiU be
called Apostles, and will be missionaries. Paul's apostolate
was certainly called in question by Judaizers who found
some support at Jerusalem: yet, the same men did not
question the apostolate of Barnabas : they questioned Paul's
right to the quality of an Apostle, yet did not reproach him
for not being one of the Twelve. Hence they conceived the
idea of the apostolate just as he did himself, since the
dispute did not turn on the idea itself, but on the right of
' Acts I. 23-6 : dvdSci^ov ov e^eXe^a . . . Xa^eiv tov to-itov Trjs Sianovias
TavTrjs <ai d-rro(rroXfjs. Notice the use of the word tottoj. Compare that
of the word x"/>'s ™ Gal. ii. 9. As to the meaning of the word SuiKovia,
see below, p. 99.
2 Weizsacker, p. 585.
3 Later on, the term " evangelist " was applied to the authors of the
Gospels. But, in its original meaning, it designated a missionary who was
not an Apostle. See Eph. iv. 11, and 2 Tim. iv. 5. This word is found
neither in the " Didachfe," nor in the Apostolic Fathers. In the second
century, however, Pantsenus, who had preached in the Indies, is still
called " an evangelist ". Euseb. " H. E." v. 10, 2 and 3.
4 *

52 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
St. Paul to claim it for himself. We conclude, then, that
the apostolate of the Twelve is not opposed to the apostolate
of Paul, as an antithesis of which the two terms exclude
each other. There are the Apostles, " all the apostles "
(1 Cor. XV. 7), who receive their mission from the risen
Christ, and of these Paul is the last : there are also the
Twelve (1 Cor. xv. 5), who are of the nuinber of " aU
the apostles," biit who were the subjects of a previous
choice made by Jesus during His ministry, and for a pur
pose which was at first co-ordinated exclusively with that
ministry. What is called the "Catholic" idea of the apostolate
resulted, according to the scholars already mentioned, from
the oblivion into which the memory of aU apostles other
than the Twelve eventually fell, these latter coming to be
looked upon as exclusively the founders of the Church. It
is true that at a very early date, the Twelve only are
spoken of: the Apocalypse, for instance, reckons only "the
twelve apostles of the Lamb" (xxi. 14). The title chosen
by the Didache is : " The Lord's teaching through the
twelve Apostles to the Nations". The expression "the
twelve Apostles " is a synthetic expression rather than a
strict enumeration: writers speak of "the Twelve," without
on that account excluding from the apostolate Paul and
Barnabas,! and regardless of the fact that the "Twelve"
were actually fourteen. Again, in the same sense it was
possible to say that the Twelve had preached the Gospel
to all nations, which was true to some extent only; but
by a simpUfication that is not unprecedented, and stiU less
untruthful, the Twelve have been credited with a work of
preaching which has in fact been the coUective work of
apostles whose number was perhaps far greater. We may
remember the calling of the seventy-two disciples, in St.
Luke (X. 1-17). * *
*
At all events, whether we think of the Twelve, as they
must have been thought of in some primitive circles of
Judaizing tendency, with some sort of implicit reference to
• Babnab. " Epistula," v. 9 and vm. 3.

THE INFANT CHURCH 53
the twelve tribes ; i or of the " Apostles of Christ," as St.
Paul preferred to say, with reference to " all the apostles," the
Twelve included ; or of the " Twelve Apostles," as Christians
said later on, by way of synthesis, we find ourselves face to
face, in early Christianity, with a rallying-centre, a principle
of unity and authority,^ a principle laid down by Jesus
Himself. Visible communities can be ruled only by a living
authority : a written or traditional law is sure to give rise to
controversies, discords, separations.'
In these first years of Christianity, when everything is
oral, the " apostles of Christ " are, as it were, the authentic
word, the word which justifies faith : the teaching of Jesus,
and therefore His person, have for guarantee the testimony
of the apostle. Even though the Christians of Corinth
might have "ten thousand instructors in Christ," they have
but one Apostle, who has begotten them in Jesus Christ
through the Gospel (1 Cor. iv. 15). Timothy wiU go to
Corinth to remind the Corinthians of the way in which Paul
" teaches in every church " (id. 17). " If any seem to be a
prophet or rich in spiritual gifts, let him know the things
that I v?rite to you, that they are the commandments of
the Lord" (1 Cor. xiv. 37). " If I come again, I will not
spare, since you seek a proof that Christ speaketh in me."*
Does this look like a religion of private judgment ?
The Apostles have, during their lifetime and whilst
founding the Churches, an authority which, in so far as
they attest the word of the Lord, can be best compared with
the authority of Holy Writ ; an authority which in so far
1 " Evangel. Ebionit." (Nestle, "N.T. Supplem." p. 175). Hbn-
NECKE, " Neutestamentliche Apokryphen " (1904), p. 27.
^Weizsacker, pp. 588-90, 597 brings out this view most clearly,
whilst Harnack, on the contrary, " Dogmengeschichte," vol. i. p. 94,
sets it aside. F. LooFS, " Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte "
(Halle, 1906), pp. 72, 78, deals more fairly with the question.
2 Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," vol. i. p. 380: "A living com
munity cannot be ruled by an oral tradition and written word, but only
by persons ; for the letter wiU always separate and split up "- Harnack,
who makes this concession for the time of St. Cyprian, ought a fortiori to
make it for the first Christian generation, when the N.T. was still in fieri,
* 2 Cor. xni. 2-3. Cf. 1 Cor. v. 4-5.

54 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
as it attaches to the counsels or lights they give on their
own inspiration, can be likened to that of the Lord by
Whom they are sent. " If any man seem to be contentious,
we have no such custom, nor the churches of God " (1 Cor.
XI. 16). In expressing himself thus, St. Paul gives consist
ency to a principle of authority which is evidently received
in all the Christian communities, even in those of which he
has not been the first Apostle — the Church of Eome, for in
stance (Eom. VI. 17). There resides in the hands of the
Apostles an authority without which the genesis of the New
Testament cannot be accounted for ; ^ and which alone ex
plains the idea of deposit of faith, of rule of faith, of tradition,
of magisterium, of hierarchy.
Judging merely from what we have seen so far, do we
not recognize, in the texts and facts of the Apostolic age,
the historical part played by the apostolate, a part which,
under the influence of a subconscious prejudice, most con
temporary critics seem to agree in minimizing? These
aUow, with M. Sohm,^ that the Christian community-organiza
tion is what they call a primitive creation of the Christian
spirit, yet contend that the formation of this commimity-
system had its centre in every local Church, in the episcopate,
first plural soon monarchical, which imparted a constitution
to every Christian community. These statutory and juridical
forms of the first Christian communities are, however, in
their eyes, merely exterior and disciplinary : they control the
conduct and government of the community, they are super
imposed, as it were, from without, they have a poUtical
character in the broad sense, or, to speak more simply, a
practical character. The plural episcopate thus represented
becomes a kind of spontaneous association for worship!
On the other hand, faith and teaching — so we are told — were
founded on the charism, on the gift of the Spirit, and are
1 This is well shown by JOlichbr, " Einleitung in das N.T." (Leipzig,
1894), pp. 283-6.
^ " Kirchenrecht," pp. 4-15. Likewise Hatch, " Organization," pp. 32,
foil. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 376, says far more truly : "Any
estimate of the origin of the Church's organization must be based upon the
Apostles and their missionary labours ". And yet, some fifteen lines be
low, the same historian denounces what he calls "the magical conception
of the apostolate ",

THE INFANT CHURCH 55
in no way connected with administration, until the day
when, charisms having ceased, the function of teaching be
comes identified vnth that of ruling and both are placed in
the hinds of the bishop. All this historical reconstruction
might have some verisimilitude, were it not for the fact that
the earliest Christian generation was both taught and ruled
by the apostolate. n.
The Jews were the sons of Abraham ; of all nations, they
were the nation chosen by God, they were the elect and
holy race, the Lord's inheritance. The Lord had done for
Israel what He had done for no other people : with her He
had made a covenant ; to her He had given a holy Law ; in
her behalf He had wrought many wonders through the
course of ages. Now Christianity takes the place of Israel,
and, in the order of faith, it too has become a people, " a
chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a
people purchased by God''.^ There is, by God's choice, the
substitution of one people for another ; and the historical
novelty consists in the formation of this new people, whose
unity is both visible like that of Judaism, and at the same
time spiritual, unlike that of carnal Judaism.
Here we discern, in its native state, no longer the
principle of authority which we have recognized in the
apostolate, but the idea and the reality of a society, which
is at once visible and invisible, taking the place of the idea
and the reality of a people interrelated by flesh and blood.
In its beginnings Christianity did not separate from
Judaism ex abrupto. The Christianity preached to the
Jews could hardly escape being Jewish in observance and
in spirit, because of the tenacity of the Jewish faith, and
of its religious attachment to the Law: the greatest peril
to which the Gospel was exposed was the risk of being re
absorbed by Judaism. But Divine Providence averted this.
We remember how, after the death of St. Stephen, be
cause of the persecution raised against them, the disciples
dispersed, and how the Gospel was thus carried into
1 1 Pet. II. 9 : an allusion to Exod. xix. 5-6.

56 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch: the disciples "spoke the word
to none, but to the Jews only" (Acts xi. 19). However,
some were found — and these were of Cyrene and of Cyprus
— who, " when they were come to Antioch, spoke also to
the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the
Lord was with them, and a great number beheving was
converted to the Lord ". Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem
to Antioch that he might work in the new missionary field,
where he was joined, towards the year 42, by Paul who
came from Tarsus : " they conversed there in the church a
whole year; and they taught a great multitude, so that at
Antioch the disciples were first named Christians ".^
This name did not originate with the faithful themselves,
who caUed one another only "disciples" or "brethren".
It is reaUy remarkable that, for a long time, they did not
adopt the name " Christians " : it is only found twice in the
New Testament, and in both passages it is put on the lips
of pagans who of course do not share in the behef of the
faithful.^ The name was coined by the Greeks, to designate
a class of people who, evidently, could be styled Jews no
longer, and it indicates the special feature in these non- Jews,
which was known to be the most characteristic of their sect,
their faith in Christ, their faith in Jesus recognized as the
Messias. We must also observe in this passage of the Acts that,
' Acts XI. 20-6. The Jews had at first called the disciples of Jesus
"Nazarenes," "Galileans," and perhaps too, the " poor" (Ebionim), a
name suggested by some words of Jesus. Epictetus and the Emperor
Julian use the term " Galileans ". Even as late as the fourth century,
the Jews made use of the term Nazarenes. Jesus gave the name of
" disciples " to His followers, and it is most strange that that name was
strictly applied only to the immediate disciples of Jesus. The three
appellatives adopted by the Christians were "saints," "brethren" and
" church ". Harnack, " Mission," vol. i. p. 334-339.
^1 Pet. IV. 16 and Acts xxvi. 28, besides Acts xi. 26. We may
recall the texts of Tacitus and of Pliny. St. Ignatius of Antioch was the
first Ohristian author who used the word xp'oriavdr, and he was the first
author who ever used the word xP'-'Ttavurpos. The word -xpumavos is
of Latin origin : cf. r]pabiavol (Mark in. 6) and Katarapiavoi (Deissmann,
p. 276). Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 345, note I, suggests that the
word xp'cnavds was probably coined by the Roman magistrates of Anti
och. At all events, the Jews would not have called the faithful xp^oriavoi
i.e. " followers of the Messias ".

THE INFANT CHURCH 67
when those disciples of Cyprus and Cyrene had preached the
Lord Jesus to the Greeks of Antioch, and the number of the
Greeks who turn to the Lord had become great, the rumour
of these events comes " to the ears of the church which was
at Jerusalem," and from Jerusalem, Barnabas is sent to
Antioch. Thus the church of Jerusalem does not intend to
leave to itself and without an apostle the new and unexpected
community. Barnabas, an apostle of the church of Jeru
salem, takes Paul with him, and introduces him to the
Antiochene mission.
In another passage of the Acts (xiii. 1-2), we find a list
of those who seem to have been then the pillars of that Chris
tian community of Antioch : first Barnabas ; Paul, the last ;
between them, a Simeon, a Manahen, two Jewish names;
and a Christian of Cyrene, named Lucius. The success of
their common missionary-work tends to expand. Hence
Barnabas is to depart, with Paul for his companion : first
they are to go to Cyprus, then they are to bring the Gospel
to Antioch of Pisidia, to Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. After
this apostolic expedition, which lasts four or five years (about
45 to 49), Barnabas and Paul return to Antioch, where
"having assembled the church, they relate what great things
God had done for them, and how He had opened the door of
faith to the Gentiles. And they abide no small time with
the disciples at Antioch" (Acts xi. v. 26-7).
The sending of Barnabas and Paul to Cyprus, Lyca-
onia, and Pisidia, as well as their missionary work in those
places, was assuredly prompted and inspired by the same
principle that gave birth to the Christian commumty of
Antioch : that is, the admittance of the uncircumcised to the
faith and — to speak still more accurately — to the faith unac
companied by any observance of the Jewish Law. On this
principle of preaching the Gospel to the Greeks Barna
bas and Paul agree. It is not likely that the Church of
Jerusalem, of which Barnabas was the apostle, did not
know what the "Gospel" of Paul was; nor is it possible
that, on such an essential point, there was disagreement
between Barnabas and Paul. Hence the Christianity of
the uncircumcised did not expand more or less surreptitiously,
but with the knowledge of the Church of Jerusalem, and

58 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
with its encouragement,! and through the agency of one of
its own apostles, Barnabas. These inferences the sequel of
events will confirm.
Suddenly there was a crisis. Some, " coming down
from Judea," arrived at Antioch, and, Uke Eleazar in the
story of the king of Adiabene, began to say to these Greeks
who had become Christians : " Except you be circumcised
according to the Law of Moses, you cannot be saved " (Acts
XV. 2). Great indeed must have been the authority of those
men " coming from Judea," who appealed more or less
legitimately to the " pillars " of Jerusalem ; for their unex
pected declarations deeply disturbed the Christian community
of Antioch, nor did all the credit of Barnabas and Paul suf
fice to counter -balance their influence. " When Paul and
Barnabas had no small contest with them, it was determined
that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of their side,
should go up to the apostles and elders to Jerusalem, about
this question" (Acts xv. 2). It was indeed a most solemn
and momentous question, for it was no less than that of
deciding if Christianity was to become a mere extension of
Judaism, a proselytizing movement ending in circumcision,
or the rise of a new people?
Paul and Barnabas left for Jerusalem, accompanied by
Titus: this was probably about the year 50, some twenty
years after the Saviour's Passion.^
St. Paul has recorded these incidents in the Epistle to
the Galatians. He was induced by a revelation, he says, to
go up to Jerusalem, there to explain to those of Jerusalem
the Gospel he was preaching to the Gentiles. We may
see in these words a sign that Paul joined of his own ac
cord Barnabas and those who were sent to Jerusalem by the
Antiochian community : he intended to defend his Gospel
himself. Does faith in Christ suffice to justify of itself
^ Cf. Gal. I. 21-4. The antimontanistic writer, Apollonius (about
197), relates that the Saviour had told the Apostles to wait twelve years
before leaving Jerusalem. Eusbb. "H. E." v. 18, 14. The same episode
was also found in the Krjpvypa nirpov, from which Apollonius may have
borrowed his narrative. Dobschutz, "Das Kerygma Petri" (Leipzig,
1893), p. 22.
- Acts XV. 4-29. Cf . Gal. ii. 2-10. For the discussion of the various
problems that relate to the " council of Jerusalem " see Prat, pp. 69-80.

THE INFANT CHURCH 59
alone, without the observance of the Law ? This was the
whole question. And, Paul goes on, " Titus, who went
with me, being a Greek, was not compelled to be circum
cised. And this because of false brethren unawares brought
in, who came in privately to spy our liberty, which we have
in Cheist Jesus, that they might bring us into servitude.
To whom we yielded not by subjection, no not for an hour,
that the truth of the gospel might continue with you "
(Gal. II. 3-5).
The minority, whom Paul styles " false brethren " is
an anonymous group, which appears here for the first time
in the history of the infant Church. In reality it belongs
to Jerusalem ; but the influence of its members is far-reach
ing, since it caused a crisis in Antioch, and later on rendered
necessary St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. Paul calls
these people " false brethren, brought in unawares " ; and
thereby casts a ray of light on the history of the Church of
Jerusalem, a history otherwise so obscure from the time
of Herod Agrippa's persecution, when Peter is thrown into
prison and James beheaded (Acts xii. 1-24). Apparently
since then some members had been added to the Jerusalem
community who formed in its bosom a new element, mem
bers who had come from Pharisaism and remained strongly
attached to the Law. They are diametrically opposed to
St. Paul, who, likewise a convert from Pharisaism, preaches
the abrogation of the Law through faith. That he
styles them false brethren should cause no wonder : in his
eyes, they have come into the Church, to spy her out and be
tray her ; they have taken the best means they could devise
to check and suppress the preaching of the Gospel to the
GentUes, by their appeal to the mother Church, that of
Jerusalem. "It is manifest that the men of this party had
only just joined the Church. It is impossible that they can
have belonged to it at any time during the period in which
the Jewish Churches looked with satisfaction on Paul's
work in Syria, Cjrprus and Cilicia. And it is also manifest
that they joined with the fixed intention never, even as
Christians, to abandon any part of the Law. The char
acter of the mother Church was thus completely changed." !
' Wbi?sackbr, p. 154.

60 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
But the " pillars," that is James, Peter, and John, to
whom Paul has privately explained his Gospel, "they who
are held to be something," as he says of them, decided that
nothing should be imposed on the uncircumcised converts.
The Zealots of the Jewish party would have been content
with the circumcision of Titus : not even that single con
cession is made to them, out of respect for the principle up
held by Paul. " We did not consent to yield to them, no
not for an hour."! James, Cephas, and John "gave Bar
nabas and me the right hands of fellowship, that we should
go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision"
(Gal. II. 9).
These last words reveal a dualism destined to last for
many years, on one side the ecclesia ex Judoeis and on the
other the ecclesia ex gentibus. However, we caimot include
in the former that anonymous minority which had vainly
endeavoured, at Jerusalem, to force on the Gentile converts
circumcision and, along with it, the whole Law. This
latter element is of Pharisaic origin^ and spirit; it will
continue in the mother Church for a while, then disappear,
either by returning to Judaism or merging in the Judseo-
Christian churches. On the other hand, the true ecclesia
ex Judoeis consists of Christians of Jewish race, who after
embracing Christianity continue to observe the Law, but
without imposing it on the pagans who submit to the
Gospel, or ceasing on that account to maintain friendly
relations with them. This is the sentiment expressed
and upheld by St. James in the narrative of the Acts.'
James advocates a compromise, which consists in getting
the uncircumcised Christians to accept the obligations
imposed in Leviticus on the foreigners who have settled
in. Israel : namely to abstain from things offered to idols,
from what is strangled, from blood, from fornication.
This compromise has for its purpose to solve the practical
' Gal. II. 5 : ois ouSe npos &pav ft^apfv rrj vn-ora-yfj. This "we desig
nates Paul and Barnabas. For the justification of the reading oh ovU
(two words that are missing in the so-called Western texts), see Liqht-
Fooi's note in " Galat." in loco, and Zahn, "Der Brief des Paulus an die
Galater ausgelegt " (Leipzig, 1905), p. 88.
¦¦* Acts XV. 5. » Acts XV. 12-21.

THE INFANT CHURCH 61
difficulty of bringing together into one and the same Chris
tian community both those who are Jews and those who
are not Jews, Jews who believe in the enduring character
of the Law, and non-Jews who believe that the Law has
been abrogated. That it was a real difficulty was soon to
be revealed only too clearly by the conflict between Peter and
Paul at Antioch.! rpj^g ecclesia ex gentibus, on the contrary,
was formed of non-Jewish Christians, in whose estimation
the Law had come to an end, as may an institution which,
although truly divine, is, by the divine intention itself, meant
to last only for a time. Man is justified by faith in Jesus
Christ, not by the observances or works of the Law. Hence,
in Jesus "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncir-
cumcision, but to be a new creature is everything. Peace
and mercy upon all who shall follow this rule, and upon the
Israel of God."^ This which is the argument of the
Epistle Paul sent to the Galatians some six or seven years
later, was, long before that Epistle, one of the fundamental
principles of St. Paul's Gospel.
However, we must not call this "Paulinism," for the
principle involved was held by St. Peter as well as by St.
Paul. As a matter of fact, Peter went to Antioch, and there
" before that some came from James, he did eat with the
[converted] Gentiles : but when they were come, he withdrew
and separated himself, fearing them who were of the cir
cumcision. . . ."
The schism was there.^ " As to me," Paul says, " when
I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the
gospel, I said to Cephas before them all : If thou, being a
Jew, Uvest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the
Jews do, how dost thou compel the GentUes to hve as do
^ The reader may observe that the decree of the " Council of Jeru
salem " (Acts XV. 23-9) regarding forbidden food has left no trace at all
either in ecclesiastical customs or in ecclesiastical writings, as though it
had never been applied. At some time or other the text itself was altered
that it might be harmonized with ecclesiastical practice. G. Rbsch,
"Das Aposteldekret " (Leipzig, 1905), p. 151 and foil. H. Coppietbrs,
"Le d^cret des apotres " (Revue biblique, 1907), p. 55 foil.
2 Gal. VI. 15, 16. Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 19.
" Weizsacker, p. 159.

62 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the Jews ? We " — i.e. Peter and Paul and likewise Barnabas,
and " the other Jews," converted at Antioch — " we by nature
are Jews, and not sinners from among the Gentiles. But
knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law,
but by the faith of Jesus Cheist ; we also believe in Cheist
Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and
not by the works of the law." ! Hence, according to Paul's
testimony, Peter is prepared to live after the fashion of the
Gentiles, and to give up the obligations of the Law : a Jew
by birth, he professes, like Paul, that faith in Christ suffices
for justification. Paul reminds him of it, so as to convince
him that his present conduct is simply. a contradiction; and
although no word is said to that effect in Paul's narrative, we
cannot doubt that Peter came back immediately to " the
truth of the Gospel ".
The principle which Paul calls " the truth of the Gospel,"
not of his Gospel, but of the Gospel in itseff: the principle
that man is justified by faith in Christ, and that the observ
ances and works of the Law henceforth count for nothing
— is one which, as was acknowledged quite plainly by the
"Council" of Jerusalem, applies to the Gentile converts;
but it applies equally well to the converts from Judaism,
and in this respect the Council of Jerusalem implied more
than it expressed.^ Paul is determined that this truth of the
Gospel shall be fully brought out so that there may be
neither speculative equivocation nor practical hesitation.
Theoretically, Peter agrees with Paul ; practically, he becomes
inconsistent by hesitating to give up the observance of the
Law: " Conversationis fuit vitium, nan praedicationis,"
1 Gal. II. 12-16. Prat, p. 229 : " With all ancient ecclesiastical writers
and many modern interpreters we admit that the whole passage [vv. 15-21]
belongs to the discourse addressed by St. Paul to St. Peter before the
faithful of Antioch. The beginning (Nos natura Judaei, etc) is certainly
addressed to St. Peter, not to the Galatians: and there is no reason, no
indication whatever, that justifies us in maintaining that the interlocutors
change in what follows." Besides, I believe that the passage Nos natura
Judaei, etc. is addressed not only to Peter, but likewise to the Jewish con
verts of Antioch, designated in vv. 13-14 : " To his (Cephas) dissimula
tion the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them
into that dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly
unto the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas before them all. . . ."
' Weizsacker, p. 163.

THE INFANT CHURCH 63
says TertuUian of Peter's conduct.! A self-contradiction,
we should say ; a piece of hypocrisy, says St. Paul, some
what angrily,^ in terms that recall the severe words of Jesus
against the Pharisees ; a fault on the part of Peter, on the
part of the Jews of Antioch who follow his example, and like
wise on the part of Barnabas ; a fault prompted by the fear
of "those of the circumcision". This amounts to saying
that so far the Jewish converts of Antioch had practised a
Christianity that was openly and completely free from any
Jewish observance.
"They of the circumcision" who have just overawed
Peter, will go still further and declare that in giving up the
works of the Law, and associating freely with the Gentiles,
a Jew like Paul is " a sinner from among the Gentiles, a
prevaricator ". And Paul is glad to see them so confidently
push their arguments to the logical conclusion. There
fore one must choose, says Paul: either the Law, or
Christ, for Christ suffices. "I live, now not I; but Christ
liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh, 1 live in
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered
himself for me. ... If justice be by the Law, then Christ
died in vain" (Gal. ii. 20-21). He who uses this language
is rot a Greek converted to the Gospel, but a convert from
Pharisaism; it is Paul, and what he says here, he says in
Peter's name too. The discourse which Paul addresses here
to Peter is not a thesis which he proves from the Bible, but
an appeal to the latter's religion : an appeal which reveals
the deepest motives of the faith of the two great Apostles,
the faith which from the time of their first interview bound
them together for ever. " Paul was a Jew by birth as well
as Peter. Both were convinced that they belonged to the
privileged people of God, and were separated from the Gen
tUes by the Law which regarded them as just and the Gen
tiles as sinners. And yet both had come to believe that
' " De Praescr." 23.
" Gal. II. 13 : a-vvvireKpLdrjo-av aira [Peter] koi oi Xotjroi lovSatoi [the
Antiochian Jews], Scrre xal Bapvdfias a-vva-n-fjxdri avrav rfj v-n-OKpiarn. We
may recall that the word " hypocrite " is used in the Gospel, to designate
the Pharisees, Matt. vi. 2, 5, 16, etc. ; Luke, vi. 42 and x. 11, 56. Cf.
"Didaoh^," vm. 1 and 2.

64 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
their Law did not justify them before God, and that there
was only one way to justification, namely, faith in Christ,
which faith freed them from the obligation of the Law."
Faith, then, takes the place of the Law, and establishes a
vital union between all those in whom, through faith, Christ
is living. Peter's practical hesitation at Antioch raises the
question of the unity of the Church : Paul's decision solves
the question in the sense of a unity, based not on con
descension or political sagacity, but directly and solely on
faith in Christ and His supernatural life in us.!
* *
*
Christianity does not spread like the philosophy of a
school nor like a "wisdom" after the fashion in which
Judaism recruited its proselytes among the Greeks.^ Un
doubtedly it is a theodicy and a code of ethics : it proclaims
the unity of God and repudiates idolatry altogether. The
day is gone by for dumb idols (1 Cor. xii. 2) and for a polythe
ism which is after all mere atheism (1 Thess. iv. 5). But
Christianity is above all a " catechesis " that takes the form
of articles of faith and of precepts of authority.
" We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and
that there is no God, but one. For although there be
many that are called gods, yet to us there is but one
God, the Father" (1 Cor. vm. 4-6), "the living and true
God" (1 Thess. i. 9). Likewise pagan corruption must
come to an end: "Do not err: neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor hers
with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
railers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.
And such some of you were: but you are washed, but
you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our
Lord Jesus Cheist, and the Spirit of our God " (1 Cor. vi.
9-11). These are so many principles of theodicy and of
ethics, which, in our logic, are the premises of faith ; but a
missionary like Paul, even when preaching in a city like
' Weizsacker, p. 160-1, who demonstrates very well the community
of faith between the two great Apostles.
'^ This does not mean of course that St. Paul's Epistles do not con
tain the fundamental principles of theodicy and of ethics. Rom. i. 20-32 ;
II. 14-16.

THE INFANT CHURCH 65
Corinth, does not think of proving them first by means of
reason, nor are his converts reluctant to receive them merely
on his word. Paul teaches what he has learned ; and what
he tells them his converts must preserve just as they have
been taught. The idea of the deposit of faith is active here.
"Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel
which I preached to you, which also you have received, and
wherein you stand ; by which also you are saved, if you hold
it fast after what manner I preached it unto you" (1 Cor.
XV. 1, 2). The whole of that Gospel may be reduced, in a
sense, to one dogmatic fact : " Before all I delivered unto you
that which I also received: how that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures". Jesus is the Messias,
His death is our redemption : this had been announced by
the Jewish Scriptures. But Christ, who was dead, also
"rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and
he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the Twelve. . . .
Last of all, he was seen also by me" {id. 4-7). The
Scriptures which announced Christ are our first motive
of credibility. The testimony of the Apostles who saw the
risen Christ is another motive.! " For both the Jews
require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-
block, and unto the Gentiles, foolishness, but unto them
that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. i. 22-4).
"If then any be in Christ he is a new creature. The
old things are passed away, behold all things are made
new. But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to
himself by Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of re
conciliation. For God indeed was in Christ reconciling the
world to hvmself not imputing ta men their sins, and putting
on our lips the word of reconciliation. For Christ there
fore we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us "
(2 Cor. v. 17-20).
1 There is a third motive of credibility, viz. the miracles with which
the preaching of the Gospel is accompanied, and the most sensible of these
miracles is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those who are converted.
Cf. Rom. XV. 18-19 ; Gal. iii. 5 ; 1 Thess. i. 5.
5

66 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Eeduced to the affirmation of these supernatural realities,
the Gospel is a mystery accepted on God's authority. " We
were approved by God that the gospel should be committed
to us. . . . We preached among you the gospel of God.
. . . We also give thanks to God without ceasing, because
that when you had received of us the word of God which we
taught you, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it
is indeed) the word of God." ! The Apostle is the missionary
and still more the warrant for the divine authority of the
Gospel. " How shall they believe him, of whom they have
not heard ? And how shall they hear without a preacher ?
And how shall they preach unless they be sent ? " ^
The Gospel is a divine message to which the faithful
give their aissent by an act which is an act of obedi
ence : ^ every thought must submit to the yoke of Christ,
and the Apostle will unhesitatingly punish aU disobedience.
" Thanks be to God," says Paul to the Eomans, "that, after
being the servants of sin, you have obeyed from the heart
unto that form of doctrine, which has been delivered to
you ".* The Eomans had not been evangelized by Paul
personally ; nevertheless Paul is most sure of the identity
of the Gospel they have received with the Gospel he
preaches. The Gospel is both the preaching of what Christ is, and
the preaching of the word of Christ: " Faith then eometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." ^ Paul
knows but the "testimony of God," i.e. Jesus and Him
crucified.'' The object of faith is just as definite as the
1 1 Thess. IL 4, 9, 13. Cf . 2 Cor. n. 17 ; Rom. l 9.
^ Rom. X. 14, 15 : Has dKoia-aa-Lv ;(o)ptr Kripva-a-ovros, Trws Se nrjpv^atnv
iav prj dTroaraXaia-iv ; Notice the words Krjpv-ypa and aTrooroXij. Cf. Rom.
I. 5 : d-TrooToX-rjv els vnaKofjv Trlareios, the apostolate to bring about the
obedience of faith.
^ 2 Cor. X. 6, 7 : alxp-aXcoTi^ovTes nav v6r)pa els rfjv v-n-aKofiv tov XpioToO.
*Rom. VI. 17 : VTrr]Kor)a-aTe eK KapSias els ov TrapeSoSrjTe tv-ttov Si.Sa)fis.
(Cf. 'Col. II. 7 : PePaiovpevoi Trj wlarei Kada>s eSiSdxdrjTe). Notice the terms
irapdSoa-is and SiSa;(ij.
^ Rom. X. 17 : 1? ttIotis e^ aKofjs, 17 3e aKof) Sta prjparos Xpicrrov. (We
must read Xpiarov and not Beov). Cf. 1 Pet. I. 25 : 7-0 pfjpa [tov Kvpiov]
TO eiayyeXurdev els vpds.
" 1 Cor. II. 1-2. JtJLiCHBR, " Einleitung," pp. 279-80.

THE INFANT CHURCH 67
Divine authority on which it rests, and the Apostolic au
thority by which it is announced. * *
*
The Gospel does not require a merely subjective and
speculative assent, faith must pass into action. When Paul
says to the pagan converts at Corinth : Such sinners you
used to be, but " you are washed, you are sanctified, you
are justified in the name of our. Lord Jesus Christ, and the
Spirit of our God (1 Cor. vi. 11), the word d-n-eXovaaaOe
reminds us of the baptism administered in the name of
Christ and accompanied with the outpouring of the Spirit.!
Some more precise indications are found elsewhere. Paul
has been told of the disputes that divide the Church
of Corinth: some claim they belong to Paul, others to
Apollos, others to Cephas, others to Christ. Why these
parties ? " Is Christ divided ? Was Paul then crucified
for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I give God thanks that I baptized none of you but Crispus
and Cains, lest any should say that you were baptized in my
name."^ Baptism is not a symbolical ablution or a legal
cleansing: it confers on the faithful a new and lasting
state: "As many of you as have been baptized in Christ
have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek ; there
is neither bond nor free ; there is neither male nor female ;
for you are aU one in Christ Jesus." ^
As the Jewish communities meet on the Sabbath-day
for the synagogue services, so also the Christian commu
nities meet together : every week there is a special day set
apart for those meetings (1 Cor. xvi. 2). A meeting — prob
ably that same weekly meeting — has for its purpose the
celebration of the Eucharist, the blessing of the chalice and
the breaking of the bread (1 Cor. x. 16). They speak of
1 Cf. 2 Cor. I. 22. It is interesting to compare this passage with
Heb. VI. 1-2, and note the successive actions that are there enumerated :
in the first place moral conversion, then faith in God, then the " doc
trine of baptisms," the imposition of hands, the resurrection of the
dead, and the last judgment. As to the meaning of verse 2, cf. West
cott, "Hebrews" (1892), p. 145.
2 1 Cor. L 13-15. Cf. 1 Cor. iv. 1.
3 Gal. m. 27-9. Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 13.
5*

68 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
gathering together to eat, i.e. to eat the meal of the Lord.!
This common celebration of the Eucharist is the centre of
the new religious life; it is the sensible expression of its
unity: communion in Christ's body, communion in His
blood: "As there is but one bread, we being many are one
body, all that partake of one bread ".^
This common worship is accompanied by a kind of
common sharing of souls. This we have aheady seen in
the case of the charisms, one of the criteria of which is the
good they bring to the community, and the edification they
give. The faithful are welded together by this new
solidarity which consists in separating themselves morally
from the pagan world by which they are surrounded; a
solidarity which requires them also to cease to hold com
munion with any brother who does not comply with the
duties of a Christian life. If you had to flee from forni
cators and from idolaters, "you must needs go out of
this world," says Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. v. 10).
But you must part from any one bearing the name of
Christian, who "is a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of
idols, or a raUer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with
such an one do not so much as eat ". As to those who
are not Christians, you may abstain from judging then con
duct : " What have I to do to judge them that are vnthout?
Do not you judge them that are within ? For them that
are without, God will judge. Put away the evil one from
among yourselves."^
The faithful constitute then a society apart ; they Uve
together in habitual contact, like members of one family,
so that Paul can vreite to those of Corinth : " I fear lest
perhaps when I come, I shall not find you such as I would
1 1 Cor. XI. 33 and xl 20.
^ 1 Cor. X. 17. E. von Dobschutz, ' ' Die urchristlichen Gemeinden "
(Leipzig, 1902), p. 20.
3 1 Cor. V. 11-13. Cf. 2 Thess. m. 6, where the command is given
to separate from any brother who lives irregularly and "not according
to the instructions received from us " (pfj Kara rrjv -n-apaSoa-w fjv napeXd^oa-av
nap' rjpav). The TrapdSoa-ts they have received from Paul holds good for
thei Thessalonians : " If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note
that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be asharaed "
(id. 14).

THE INFANT CHURCH 69 '
. . . lest perhaps contentions, rivalries, animosities, dissen
sions, detractions, whisperings, swellings, troubles be
among you" (2 Cor. xii. 20). If disputes regarding their
temporal welfare arise among them, Paul entreats them
earnestly to come to a friendly settlement by themselves,
and not to have recourse to the pagan magistrates (1 Cor.
VI. 1-6). The faithful watch and protect one another.
They supervise one another, even as regards what is served
at table, we might say ; since even in those domestic details a
Christian must carefully abstain from scandalizing his
brethren. " Let not then your good be evil spoken of. . . .
Let us follow after the things that are of peace ; and keep
the things that are of edification one towards another.
Destroy not the work of God for meat" (Eom. xiv. 15-20).
As they watch one another, so also they admonish one
another. "I myself also," says St. Paul to the Eomans,
" am assured of you . . . that you are able to admonish
one another {vovOerelv)" (Eom. xv. 14). Fraternal correc
tion becomes an element of anarchy unless some authority
intervenes to keep it within proper bounds ; and that
authority is vested in others, besides the Apostle himself:
" We beseech you, brethren, to consider those who labour
among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish
you ; that you esteem them more abundantly in charity for
their work's sake." ! * *
*
Among the Jewries, the word a-wa'^co'yri designates the
assembling together of the Jews, and thence, in a broader
sense, the local community and the place where its
members assemble.^ Christians have no special buildings
for their religious meetings, they assemble where they can,
as the guests of this or of that Christian who can place a
large haU at their disposal. Neither do they use the word
irpoaevxn '^^ tbe word avva^wyrj to designate the place where
they worship ; they use the word iKKXrja-ia. This last
word happens to belong both to the terminology of the LXX
^ 1 Thess. V. 12-13 : epcoTmpev Se vpas, dSeXrjjol, elSivat tovs KoinavTas
iv vplv Ka\ irpo'iaTapevovs vpSov iv KVpta Koi vovdeTovvras vpas. Cf. 2 Thess.
m. 14-15. " Schurer, vol. il p. 432.

70 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
which uses it as equivalent to avvw^w-ir), and to the most
classical Greek, in which it designates the plenary delibera
tive assembly of all the free citizens of a city. A popular
assembly, like that of the people of Ephesus in a theatre, is an
itcKXriaia, ; i.e. a meeting, a convocation?- But this meeting
is truly an expression of unity: "You come together
into one place " for the Eucharist, says St. Paul ; ^ and in
the same sense: "When the whole church comes together
into one place " ? In many passages St. Paul calls the
faithful gathered together by the name eKKXijaia : the prophet
who prophesies is a source of edification for the church, that
is, the faithful who are present (1 Cor. xiv. 4) ; the Christian
who speaks in unintelligible tongues holds an inferior rank, as
compared with the Apostle who only says five words to the
faithful who are present, that is, to the church (xiv. 19).;
when the church assembles in the same place, if all the
faithful speak in tongues, the unconverted GentUe "who
comes in " will look upon them as out of their senses (xrv.
23). Women must remain silent in the meetings of the
faithful, that is, in the churches (xiv. 34) ; for it is unbe
coming for a woman to speak in such a meeting, that is in
the church (xiv. 35).
Taken in a wider sense, the word eKKXr^aia comes to de
signate, not only the .actual meeting together, but the people
who habitually meet together in some particular place. Paul,
writing from Ephesus to the Corinthians, says : " AquUa and
Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church
(eKKX-rja-la) that is in their house" (1 Cor. xvi. 19). Like
wise, in the Epistle to the Eomans, he says ; " Salute
' Acts xix. 32, 39, 41. Dittenberger, "Sylloge," vol. m. pp. 140-7,
the index at the word eKKXi/crta. Glotz, art. " Ekklesia " in Darembebg's
dictionary. Sohm, "Kirchenrecht," p. 16 and foil. Harnack, "Lukas
der Arzt" (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 25-6.
^ 1 Cor. XI. 20 : o-vvepxopivcov vpav els to avro.
' 1 Cor. XIV. 23 : idv a~vveX6-ri 17 iKKXrjiria oXr) iirX to avTO . . . The
Church, then, is above all a concrete and localized thing, not a trans
cendent and heavenly entity. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 343,
grants that the term eKKXrjala was not invented by Paul, but by the
Palestinian communities : Paul found it already in use. The Latin-
speaking Christians will adopt it, without translatmg it. Deissmann,
pp. 76-7.

THE INFANT CHURCH 71
PrisciUa and AquUa . . . and the iK/cXTja-la which is in their
house" (Eom. xvi. 5).!
In a still wider sense, the word eKKXTja-ia is used later on
to designate the whole number of the faithful of one and
the same city, as may be judged from the inscriptions of the
Pauline Epistles. " Paul ... to the church of the Thes
salonians, in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ "
(1 Thess. I. 1). "Paul ... to the church of the Thes
salonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ"
(2 Thess. I. 1). "Paul ... to the church of God that is
at Corinth" (1 Cor. i. 1). "Paul ... to the church of
God that is at Corinth, with all the saints that are in all
Achaia" (2 Cor. i. 1). Paul does not speak of the church
of Achaia. The church being a local community, St. Paul
speaks of churches, in the plural, to designate several distinct
communities. Nowhere are we told of the churches of
Corinth or of the churches of Thessalonica. On the other
hand, the Epistle to the Galatians is addressed to "the
churches of Galatia" (Gal. i. 2). In the same Epistle,
mention is made of the "churches of Judsea, that are in
Christ " (Gal. i. 22). In the two Epistles to the Corinthians,
the Apostle speaks of the "churches of Galatia" (1 Cor.
XVI. 1) ; of the " churches of Asia " {id. 19), of the " churches
of Macedonia" (2 Cor. vm. 2). He speaks also, in the
same sense, of " churches " in the plural, without designating
the provinces. He says to the Corinthians : " What is there
that you have had less than the other churches?" (2 Cor.
XII. 13). "Shall I recall too my daily cares, the solicitude
for all the churches ? " (xi. 28) ; and to the Eomans : " Salute
Priscilla and Aquila ... to whom not I only give thanks,
but also all the churches of the Gentiles" (Eom. xvi. 3-4).
"AU the churches of Christ salute you" (Eom. xvi. 16).
Nor should we look for another meaning in the ex
pression Church of God used elsewhere by St. Paul:
"Brethren," he writes to the Thessalonians, "you are be
come followers of the churches of God which are in Judsea,
1 Cf. "Acta S. lustini martyris," 2 : " Quaesivit praefectus, quem in
locum Christiani convenirent. Cui respondit lustinus, eo unumquemque
convenire quo vellet ac posset. An, inquit, existimas omnes nos in
eumdem locum convenire solitos ? Minime res ita se habet."

r

72 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
in Christ Jesus : for you also have suffered the same things
from your own countrymen, even as they have from the
Jews ' (1 Thess. ii. 14). Again to the Thessalonians : "We
ourselves glory in you in the churches of God " (2 Thess. i.
4) ; and, to the Corinthians: "If any man seem to be con
tentious, we have no such custom, nor the churches of God "
(1 Cor. XI. 16). In all these passages the expression " church
of God" is equivalent to the single word church. Thus
St. Paul writes in the inscription of the first Epistle to the
Corinthians : "... to the church of God that is at Corinth"
(1 Cor. I. 1). There is in this expression, together with
the idea of belonging to God, a certain shade of nobility and
sanctity, which recalls the intensive use of the divine name
in Hebrew, where a thing is called " of God," because it is
eminent in its own kind.
The word Church has so far a merely local and empirical
meaning; and it is easy to prove that this meaning is
either the primary meaning or at least the first of aU deri
vative meanings ; and that the word is not, as some would
have it, before all a title of honour, not to say an oratorical
expression, chosen by the first Christian generation to de
signate, not the local community, but the whole number of
the faithful dispersed all over the world, the invisible Church.
We believe, on the contrary, that the Christian language
proceeded rather from the concrete to the abstract, and that
the word Church, after designating, like the word synagogue,
a local reality, came to express another reality, another
unity, which faith perceived with perfect consciousness;
and this other meaning of the word Church is met with in
the great Pauline epistles.
Paul says to the Galatians : " You have heard of my
conversation in time past in the Jews' religion : how that
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted
it" (Gal. I. 13) ; to the Corinthians: "I am not worthy to
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of
God " (1 Cor. XV. 9). When using this language, he has
in view not a local church, the church of Jerusalem or that
of Damascus, but the Church in the abstract, that which
will be called later on the ".Christian name". However, in
the eyes of St. Paul, this abstraction is also a living reality.

I ai
[tl

THE INFANT CHURCH 73
which his faith shows to be just as living as Israel or the
Greek world. He writes to the Corinthians: "Be without
offence to the Jews or to the Gentiles, or to the Church
of God" (1 Cor. X. 32). The Church of God is the new
people which has been created in Jesus Christ : " Neither cir
cumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but to be
a new creature. And whosoever shall follow this canon,
peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God " !
by contrast with Israel according to the flesh.
We have now discovered the unity of unities, the
foundation of that world-wide unity: namely in this that
justification is both individual and collective : that through
baptism we are grafted on the same tree.^ This is why
" we being many, are one body in Christ, and each and all
members of one another ".^
As the body is one and has several members, and as all
the members of the body, in spite of their number, form
but one body, so it is with Christ ; for we were all baptized
into one spirit, to form but one body, whether we be Jews
or Gentiles, slaves or freemen, and all we have drunk of the
same spirit . . . You are the body of Christ and his
members.* The local Church is indeed the body of Christ ;
still, all the churches are not so many bodies of Christ, for
Christ is one and undivided : and therefore all the churches
^ Gal. VI. 16. The word Kavdav here appears for the first time in
Christian terminology : it belongs to the LXX (Judith xiii. 6 and Job
XXXVIII. 5) where it has the classical meaning of stafi', then of metre, or
measure. In 2 Cor. x. 13, it has still the sense of metre. In Gal. vi. 16,
it signifies imperative rule, and thus we come to the meaning sanctioned
by Christian terminology. Cf . T. Zahn, ' ' Grundriss der Geschichte des
N.T. Kanons " (Leipzig, 1901), pp. 1-7.
2 Rom. VI. 5 : a-vp(f>vTot yeyovapev. Paul takes up again this com
parison and develops it in the quasi-parable of the wild olive-tree grafted
on the cultivated olive-tree in Rom. xi. 17-24.
^ Rom. XII. 5 : ol n-oXXoi ev crSipd iapev iv Xpiara, to Se Ka6 els
dXXrjXav piXrj. Cf. 1 Cor. I. 9 : iKXfj6r)Te els KOiviaviav tov viov avTOV Irja-ov
XptOTOV, TOV Kvptov fjpav. Gal. III. 28 : wavres vpels eis iare ev Xpta-ra
'l-ijo-ov. * 1 Cor. XII. 12-13 : nadd-n-ep to aSipa ev iariv koi ^eXi; -noXXd i'xei,
¦irdvTa Se to. peXr) tov a-apjiToSi rroXXd ovra pv ea-Tiv aSipa, ovras Kat 6 XptcTTOs.
Then comes what may be called the parable of the members 'and of the
body, applied to the distribution of the charisms, and ending (v. 27) with
the aflSrmation : vpels Se io-re a-S>pa Xpta-rov Kat peXij ex pipovs.

74 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
under heaven are grafted on Christ and are one because He
is one. * *
*
Harnack has called the attention of scholars to this
primitive conception, namely that the Christians as Chris
tians are conscious of being a tertium, genus, a new race, a
race apart.! jg jjq|; ^his conception already found in the
great Pauline Epistles? For Paul, as for any convinced
Pharisee, mankind is divided into two races, the Jews and
the Greeks, and to Greeks are assimilated those whom the
Greeks caU Barbarians. Now Paul affirms that "there is
no distinction between the Jew and the Greek : for the
same Lord is over all, rich unto all that caU upon him,"
and that every one who invokes Him shaU be saved (Eom.
X. 12). The privilege bestowed upon Israel on account of
her race and of her Law is proclaimed to have come to an
end: "the faith in the truth" and "the sanctificatlon of
the spirit," procured by "the preaching of the Gospel" (2
Thess. II. 13) constitute a people, "the seed of Abraham,"^
which is no longer Greek or Jewish and is most plainly
distinct both from the Jews and from the Greeks.^ A
problem now arises, which is a stumbling-block for some,
the problem of the reprobation of the Jews.* Separated
from the Jews because they reject the Jewish Law, from
the Greeks because they reject the heathen gods, the
Christians form dispersed communities, that have been
founded by the Apostles, and are bound together through
' This point is urged especially in the Krjpvypa UeTpov (Clbm.
" Stromat." vi. 5 ; Dobschutz, "Kerygma Petri," p. 21) : rdydp eXXrivav
Ka\ lovSatcov ndXatd, vpels Se ol natvas avTov Tptrca yeVet <ye^6pevot Xpturtavot.
Cf. also Aristid. "Apolog." 2 (ed. Robinson, p. 100) and Tbrtull.
"Scorp." 10, "Ad Nation." 1, 8. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 232,
shows that the expression tertium genus was first a sarcastic insult
cast at the Christians by the pagans. The Christians took it up and
accepted it as a characteristic designation of the new people which
they were. For them the word ytvor expressed an aspect of the Church
of God. 2 Gal. III. 29.
^ Cf. 1 Cor. X. 32, already quoted : " Be without ofience to the Jews
and to the Gentiles, and to the Church of God ".
¦* That is the problem taken up by St. Paul in Rom. ix.-xi.

THE INFANT CHURCH 75
a spiritual and visible union. They claim for their dis
persed members the name of " Church of God," long before
accepting the name of Christians given them by the Greeks.
ExcuEsus A.
The Church in the Gospel. Value of Matt. xvi. 18-19.
Nowadays scholars are willing to grant that the notion
of a Church— the "master-piece in the Catholic system,"
indeed " Catholicism itself " — is in germ in the first Chris
tian communities. In the previous pages, we trust to have
shown the well-founded character of this assertion, and
even of a less restricted assertion. But once this historical
fact has been granted, the same scholars go on to say that,
" If the founder of the Christian religion deemed belief in
the Gospel and life in accordance with it to be compatible
with membership of the synagogue and observance of the
Jewish Law, the same could not have been incompatible
with membership of the Catholic Church".! Thus to
formulate the question, is to put it badly, for Catholicism is
not the Law, the Synagogue, and Pharisaism : Jesus may
disovyn all that past, and yet not disown, ipso facta, and in
anticipation, the Church, unless indeed the Gospel is a kind
of elusive essence, as is claimed by some contemporary
idealists ; or a kind of gross eschatology, as is claimed by
others. Hence the question before us is whether the idea of
the Church belongs to the Gospel of Jesus or is foreign to it.

* *
*

Jesus, we are told, preached the near coming of the
Kingdom of God ; His conception of it was purely apoca
lyptic : how then could He have come to conceive of a religious
society constituted so as to abide ? The notion of an earthly
society, that would be neither the Kingdom of God, nor the
people of Israel, but would take the place of both, is out
side the perspective of Jesus, who ever preached only the
Kingdom, and its imminent catastrophic advent. Hence
He determined nothing and said nothing about an earthly
institution destined to replace the Jewish dispensation.
'Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," vol. i. p. 306.

76 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" Men could speak of the Church, only after the Church
had come into existence, i.e. after the Jewish people, as a
whole, had refused to listen to the Apostolic preaching, and
the Christian groups had become more and more strongly
and definitely organized outside the religious organization of
Israel. . . . Instead of the expected kingdom, the Church
came, and the idea of the Church was substituted by the
force of events for the idea of the kingdom."!
In the first place, then, we are confronted with a critical
systematization of the teaching of Jesus, and in this system-
atization no room is left for the idea of the Church.
But, first of all, this systematization is itself far from certain.
As a matter of fact, we must deny that the idea of the
kingdom was exclusively apocalyptic. I know full well
that in doing so we oppose what is considered in some
quarters, an intangible dogma: nevertheless, we prefer to
abide by the view of those who look upon the Gospel idea
of the kingdom as something other than an apocalyptic idea,
and as I have written a whole book in defence of this
view, I may be excused from reopening the discussion
here.^ In the second place the idea of the kingdom, as sup
plied by the Gospel, is distinct from the idea of the Church.
For Jesus Himself, and in accordance with His ovpn state
ments, the evangelical preaching of the Kingdom has not
the gift of conquering all those to whom it is addressed:
there are some who reject it, by reason of their unbehef ;
there are others who are not worthy of it ; there are dogs,
to whom we must not give what is holy, swine before whom
we must not cast pearls, "your pearls, lest perhaps they
trample them under their feet, and, turning upon you, they
tear you " (Matt. vii. 6). There are houses and cities against
which the disciples are told to shake off the dust from their
sandals, because those houses and cities have not received
them (Mark VI. 11). There are hearers who understand
the message of Jesus, and others who do not : " To you it is
lA. LoiST, "Les EvangUes Synoptiques," vol. n. p. 9. Cf. W.
Sandat, "The Life of Christ in recent Research" (Oxford, 1907),
pp. 76-89. ^ Cf. my " Enseignement de J^sus " (Paris, 1905).

THE INFANT CHURCH 77
given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God : but to
them that are without, all things are parables " (Mark iv.
11). Therefore even here below those who know the King
dom are distinguished from those who are outside.
Those who know the Kingdom form, round Jesus, a
group that is very small in the beginning. Jesus looks upon
His followers as a flock, of which He is the Shepherd : and
what a small flock it is ! " Fear not, little flock, for it hath
pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom " (Luke xii.
32). The figure of the flock recaUs that of the chickens
gathered under the vnngs of the hen (Luke xiii. 34). This
latter comparison is quite in the manner of the parables of
Jesus, and bears on its very face the surest signs of authen
ticity. Jesus announces beforehand that His passion will
scandalize His disciples, and disperse the sheep of the flock
whose shepherd He is. "I will strike the shepherd, and
the sheep shall be dispersed" (Mark xiv. 27), He says, ap
plying to Himself a word of the prophet Zacharias, the
flock is distinct from the Kingdom.
But the flock seems to be the beginning of a Church7
The Gospel has never been a bodiless spirit : its first fol
lowers were visible and made up a group. Even granting *
that Catholic historians may at times be suspected of dis
covering too early the first outlines of ecclesiology, are not
Protestant historians, like Harnack, open to the charge of
a constant tendency to postpone the time when they actu
ally appear ? Harnack is willing to concede that the earliest
Christian community, that which was formed at Jerusalem,
was a " community of brothers " for a " common worship
of God; " but in all that he sees only " a mysterious shadow
of the heavenly Church " : ! why does he disjoin the fact of
this common brotherhood and religion from the idea of
the Church save because he desires, almost in spite of
himself, to preserve the Protestant dogma of the Church's
invisibility? Elsewhere,^ the same historian notes the_/
formation of a society, but only outside " the inner circle of
the Apostles, the band of twelve whom Jesus had gathered
around Him ". Why does he separate this formed and visible
1 "Das Wesen des Christentums " (1908), p. 132.
'' Ibid. p. 96. Cf. " Mission," vol. i. p. 32.

78 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
society from the group of the Twelve, when it is most certain
that the Twelve were the centre around which it was formed ?
We are told that Jesus alone was the Master, and the dis
ciples alone the disciples, and that Jesus had not founded the
group of the Twelve as a " union for the service of God ".
But this is mere quibbUng, for, in fact, the Twelve who are
disciples of the Master, are distinguished from the other
disciples, and are already a "union" so truly that, immedi
ately after the departure of the Master, all the disciples raUy
around them, as a centre, unhesitatingly and unquestioningly.
Harnack acknowledges that this "was the germ from which
all subsequent developments sprang". But did not that
"germ" exist before it began to germinate?
Loisy has seen the realities of the case more distinctly
than Harnack. The infant " society " at its birth is to
be identified with the Twelve and the faithful disciples.
To whatever minimum some may reduce it, it remains a
group and a group distinct from the world by which it is
encompassed. It is a " circumscribed group, perfectly re
cognizable, a very centralized, even a hierarchical fraternity.
Jesus is the centre and the chief, the incontestable author
ity. Around Him the disciples are not a confused mass ;
the Saviour has distinguished among them the Twelve,
and has associated these, directly and effectively, v?ith His
own ministry; even among the Twelve there is one who
stands first, not only by the priority of his conversion or
the ardour of his zeal, but by a kind of designation by the
Master, accepted by the apostolic community. ... It was
an actual situation, apparently created by the missionary
journeys of the Galilean ministry, but also evidently received
and ratified by Jesus some time before the Passion. . . .
The Church was born and endured through the development
of an organization of which the outline is traced in the
Gospel." !
Whilst Harnack dissociates the Church from the Gospel,
Loisy replaces the Church in the Gospel, but connects
the fact of the Chm-ch with the idea of the eschatological
Kingdom. " Jesus," he writes, " provided for the diffusion
of the Gospel for the time then present." But why does
1 " L'Evangile et I'Eglise " (1902), p. 90 and foil.

THE INFANT CHURCH 79
Loisy add : " He thus prepared the Kingdom to come.
Neither the society round Him, nor the Kingdom, was an
invisible, impalpable reality, a society of souls, but a
society of men who were the bearers of the Gospel, and
were to become the Kingdom " ? Loisy assumes the im
minent and catastrophic advent of the Kingdom, and there
fore looks upon the society of the disciples gathered by
Jesus around His person as an " inauguration of the King
dom," which is soon to appear in all its glory. This, he
thioks, was a tragic illusion of the Galilean prophet. The
announced Kingdom did not come; but the society of the
disciples to whom it had been announced, and who continued
for many years to expect it, was perpetuated through this
very expectation. The society of expectant disciples was
the Church. We on the contrary who deny that the King
dom preached by Jesus was to be realized forthwith and
under apocalyptic forms, we who hold that the very complex
notion of the Kingdom implies above all, as regards man
kind here below, an inner and spiritual advent, and a
glorious advent only in the next life, combine together —
without confusing them — the idea of the Church and the
idea of the inner advent. No one will venture to say that
in the words : " Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased
your Father to give you the kingdom," the flock and the
Kingdom are but one and the same reality. To this faith
ful flock the kingdom of the Father is promised in heaven ;
here below, this faithful flock is the group of souls that
have obtained the precious stone of the interior kingdom ;
but here below, this flock is also a visible collectivity, al
though one can never be sure that there is an equation
in it between the number of those who are seen, and the
number of those who are justified by God.
* *
When we have dismissed the hypothesis of those critics
who maintain that Jesus thought the end of the world at
hand, we can easily deal with their further difficulty that
Jesus could not foresee the Church, since He foresaw no
future for anything in this world. Let us note, however,
the many corrections, required by the facts themselves,
which are called for by such a broad assertion.

80 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Conversion, as well as salvation, is doubtless personal,
but perseverance is collective : " FoUow me " is a caU
addressed by Jesus many a time and to many a disciple,!
and that the disciples foUow Jesus, is granted by those
whose views we are now discussing; but they refuse to
see in this any other social bond than attachment to the
person of the Master. Why, then, is it that, after the
Master is gone, the social bond continues to subsist ?
The intention of the Saviour as regards the lasting, spirit
ual, and visible bond that was to hold together His disciples
after He had gone back to His Father, is defined in some
Gospel texts, which — as was to be expected — are most
fiercely called in question. Let us note the texts of
the fourth Gospel in which the Saviour commands His
disciples to serve one another, after the example He sets
them by washing their feet (John xiii. 14-16, 34-5); or
again the comparison He draws between the vine and the
branches, as an analogy to the life the Master shares v?ith
His disciples (xv. 5-7) ; the parable of the Good Shepherd
(X. 14-16) ; the prayer after the last supper, especially the
passage where Jesus begs that His disciples may be one
(XVII. 6-26). The historical character of the Johannine texts
is, we know, rejected as a whole ; but is this a reason for
setting them aside altogether and passing by even the ana
logy between the texts we have just recalled and the
ecclesiology of the great Pauline Epistles ? The writers
from whose opinion we differ are willing to grant that the
fourth Gospel is full of echoes of the Synoptics : why not
then take into account the words ascribed to Jesus:
" Simon, son of John . . . feed my lambs . . . feed my
sheep" (XXI. 15-17) ? Commenting on this passage, Loisy
has observed that the designation of the Apostle by his full
name, " Simon, son of John," marked the solemn character
of the scene and recalled the apostrophe : " Blessed art thou,
Simon, son of Jona," in St. Matthew's Gospel (xvi. 17).
He observes, too, that in contents as well as in form, this
passage is parallel to the "Thou art Peter" of St. Matthew
' Matt. VIII. 22, XVI. 24, xix. 21 ; Mark, n. 14, x. 21 ; Luke v.
27 ; John XII. 26, xxi. 22. Cf. Matt. vm. 19, xix. 28 ; Luke ix. 67,
61, etc.

THE INFANT CHURCH 81
(XVI. 18), and to the " Confirm thy brethren" of St. Luke
(xxii. 32). "We have here," he says, " three echoes of the
same tradition, equally faithful as to its substance".! In
all sincerity, I must confess that such a distinction between
substance and (I suppose) accidents is not very satisfac
tory in the present case. But had this distinction a basis
{dato, non concesso), we shoidd have here a new attestation
of a synoptic tradition favourable to the conception of the
flock led by its shepherd, a conception which, as we have
aheady seen, is the conception of ecclesiology.
The synoptic gospels must be assigned to an earlier date
than the Gospel of St. John, and this includes St. Matthew.
In my opinion this last-mentioned Gospel was vyritten about
the year 70. But however that may be, and even if the
critics pronounce so early a date to be inadmissible, the
features they recognize in this Gospel remain to be accounted
for. " The horizon of Matthew," says Harnack, "is that of
Palestine, and this gospel is the work of the Palestinian
Church which it exhibits as emancipated from the law, and
in friendship with the Gentiles. Most probably it is the
work of the Hellenistic part of the original Christian com
munity, and was intended for the Jews of the Dispersion,
described in Acts vi., who lived at Jerusalem and in due
course formed themselves into little circles in and around the
original Christian community. . . . That the Gospel of St.
Matthew speedily forced the two other synoptic gospels into
the background, even in the Gentile Church, is a well-known
fact." Harnack seeks for the reason of this fact and finds that
it is because the Gospel of St. Matthew is a powerful vindi
cation of Christianity against the objections of the Jews,
because it has an interest in the teaching of Jesus for its
ovni sake, and in general because it instructs and proves, and
aU through keeps the Church {Gemeinde) well in the fore-
!A. Loisy, "Le quatrieme Evangile " (Paris, 1903), p. 941. Loisy
does not indeed look upon chapter xxi. as authentic ; he regards it as a
supplement, the style of which imitates skilfully that of the fourth
Gospel. Its unknown redactor, he says, had to take into account " the
Roman tradition and the feeling that Peter's primacy continued in the
Church of Rome" (p. 943). See the answer to this objection in A.
Julicher, " Einleitung " (1894), p. 245 and foil. Calmbs, " Evang. selon
saint Jean " (Paris, 1904), pp. 466-73. 6

82 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
ground. This is in truth a characteristic feature of Matthew,
and Harnack estimates it aright when he notes that the
Gospel of Matthew is impersonal, and was compiled to be a
sort of Church-book {Gemeindebuch) and is in many respects
the "first liturgical book of the Christian Church, in the
first place of the Church of Palestine ".! Thus in Harnack's
judgment the Gospel of St. Matthew belonged to the earliest
Christian community at Jerusalem, and was in some sort its
Church-book. To these inferences Julicher, who dates this Gospel at
about the year 100, adds others stiU more interesting inas
much as in our opinion they hold good quite independ
ently of the question of date. Julicher vprites of the author
of our Gospel : " He has vpritten a Catholic Gospel, and
its truly Catholic temper has gained for it the first place
among the Gospels". It is he who makes the Christ
say " Baptize them . . . and teach them to observe all
that I have commanded you". "In his eyes the com
munity, that is, the Church, forms the highest disciplin
ary authority, as the administrator of the heavenly gifts
of grace, and it is already determined who is to rule and
make laws within its jurisdiction ; according to his principles
primitive Catholicism is aheady determined in its funda
mental features." ^ These observations are very instructive
when one reflects that this truly Catholic Gospel was the
Church-book, of the .Hellenistic party in the original Christian
community at Jerusalem.
And to their inferences Julicher adds further confirma
tion, when he says of this Gospel: "Its standpoint is not
that of Paul, or that of Peter, or that of James, but that of
the Church, whose building he alone triumphantly predicts
in XVI. 18 ". This Gospel has exercised an extraordinary
influence on the Church, because it is the work of a time
" when the partition walls between the Brethren in Judasa
and the Brethren without had finally fallen in, and because
it is the work of a man who, whilst as a writer he attained
the standard set in Matthew xiii. 52, bore in himself the
spirit of the growing Universal Church, and knew how to
1 A. Harnack, "Lukas der Arzt" (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 118-20.
^ JOlichbr, " Einleitung," p. 265.

THE INFANT CHURCH 83
write, vTithout succumbing to party spirit, a Catholic Gospel,
that is to say, one intended and fitted for all classes of
believers ".
It was necessary to cite these estimates of the character
of St. Matthew's Gospel, in order that we might with
Harnack demonstrate its Palestinian character and with
Jiihcher its sunultaneous "Catholic" character; as also to
show that a passage Uke that on the building of the Church
(XVI. 18) is entirely in keeping with the fundamental
tendency of this Gospel.
We must, moreover, further cite Wellhausen who says :
"It is commonly and justly noted as distinctive of Matthew
that he shows special interest in the eKKX-rja-ta, which he
alone brings forward, and that in two places. Indeed, it is
not only in those two places where he calls it by its accepted
name, that he refers to it, for he has the reaUty itself in
mind in all his parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Church is in his eyes the seed-plot on earth which
attaches to the Kingdom of Heaven. It has, in the strict
CathoUc sense, worthy and unworthy members ; the sifting
and parting of which God allows to be delayed until the
day of the Last Judgment, when the Kingdom of Heaven
will pass from its preliminary to its definitive phase. A
member who has been drawn away from the community (by
seducers, -yfrevBoTrpocfyrJTai, aKavBaXa) must not be aUowed to
depart uncared for, but must be won back by every means
possible ; only when all friendly representation has failed of
their effect, must recourse be had to excommunication (xvm.
10-17). The heads of the organization are the Teachers,
and before all others Peter. As administrator of the King
dom of Heaven, that is, of the community, he bears the
keys, the insignia of the master of the house. He has also
another power, which is not in essential connexion with the
power of the keys, the power to bind and loose ; that is, the
power to determine what shall be forbidden or permitted,
what shall count or not, and likewise the teaching authority,
which, it is true, has to do with practical, not theoretical
matters." !
' J. Wellhausen, " Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien " (Ber
lin, 1909), p. 70. 6 *

84 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
We may come now to the most famous of all these texts.
" Thou art Peter : and upon this rock I wiU build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I
will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be
bound also in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on
earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven " (Matt. xvi. 18-19).
Against this text it is urged that it is not found in the
parallel passages of Mark and Luke, and this cannot be
denied ; that it belongs therefore neither to the tradition re
presented by Mark, where Mark is reproduced by Matthew
and Luke, nor to those logia unused by Mark, which were
used by Matthew and Luke, and this is possible. But
neither of these two observations can justify the supposition
that this particular logion " Thou art Peter (Eock)," the only
one of its kind, is less authentic than any other similarly
isolated logion, to be found either in St. Matthew or in
St. Luke.i ! Rbsch, " Aussercanonische Paralleltexte zu den EvangeUen,"
vol. I. (Leipzig, 1893), p. 185, admits the authenticity of Matt, xvl 17,
which is found in St. Justin (" Dial." c. 4), and to which he thinks
St. Paul alludes in Gal. i. 16-17. He thinks these words of the "Saviom-
to St. Peter ("Beatus es, Simon Bariona") belong to the primitive
Gospel (" Urevangelium ") ; that v. 19b (" Quaecumque ligaveris ") is a
doublet of Matt. xvin. 18 ; and that v. 19a (" Tibi dabo claves . . . ") is
authentic, but addressed, not to Peter only, but to all the Apostles. We
need not remark that these two judgments are mere conjectures. There
remains v. 18. M. Resch is sure that it was lacking in the primitive
form of Matthew's Gospel : another pure conjecture, for there is in the
MSS. no trace whatever of any hesitancy. M. Resch is sure that v. 18,
as we have it now, was unknown all through the second century, and
that it is not quoted, for instance, by Irenseus, or by Clement of
Alexandria (this may be disputed, as regards Irenseus). We grant
that this silence is worth careful notice, but it is no more conclusive
than any other argument ex silentio. Again M. Rbsch is sure that the
earliest explicit quotation of this text that we know of, is found in
TertuUian ("De pudioit." 22) and in Origen (ap. Euseb. "H. E." vi. 25,
8. Also " In Exod. hom. v." 4). But this shows that the text already be
longed to the tradition of both Latin and Greek MSS. The alleged trace
of the text in the " Homil. Clementinae " is doubtful (" Bpist. Clem, ad
Jacob." and "Homil. xvn." 19). Even if it were not, no conclusion
could be drawn, since the "Hom. Clem." and the "Recogn." are both
now dated from the fourth century.

THE INFANT CHURCH 85
This declaration of Jesus to His Apostle is made towards
the end of the Gahlean ministry ; the place where it is made
was in the country of Csesarea Philippi, where the Master is
then alone with His disciples. As they go along, Jesus asks
them: " Whom do men say that I am ? " They answer that
some look upon Him as John the Baptist, others as Elias,
others as one of the prophets. "And you?" Jesus asks.
Peter answers : " Thou art the Christ," to which Jesus re
plies : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and
blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in
heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter. . . ." We
may observe that here St. Matthew gives the Apostle's name
in its Aramaic form : Simon Bariona (Slfimv Bapimva), Simon,
son of Jona or Jonas. When it has to recall the same ex
pression, the fourth Gospel uses a Graecized form Hifimv
'Imdvov (John xxi. 15, 16, 17). We must not faU to
notice in this second reading a mark of St. Matthew's
priority, and of the primitive character of the oral tradition
which he used.^
The Father has revealed to Simon that Jesus is the
Messias. " And I say to thee, . . ." continues Jesus,
contrasting His own words with what the Father has re
vealed directly to Peter, " And I say to thee, that thou art
Peter ; and upon this rock I will build ..." Jesus plays
upon the Aramaic name Peter, but the play disappears both
in Greek and in Latin : an excellent proof that the word
was originally spoken in Aramaic, which was Jesus's mother-
tongue: "Thou art Kepha and upon this hepha I will
buUd . . .".^ Jesus says : " Thou art Peter [Eock] (crii el
ij. Wellhausen, "Das Evangelium Matthaei " (Berlin, 1904), p.
83 : " Jona is Jona and no abbreviation of Johanan, and Matthew is in the
right, not only against the Hebrew Gospel, a late compilation, but also
against the fourth Gospel ".
"^ Recall John i. 42 : "Thou art Simon, the son of Jona : thou shalt
be called Cephas (which is interpreted Peter) ". Cf. J. Hart, " Cephas
and Christ," in the "Journal of Theol. Studies," vol. rx. (1907), p. 32 :
" The actual word Cepha is not common in the oldest Targums in the
sense of Rook. But the Targum of Onkelos employs it in a very pro
minent and important passage as the equivalent of the 8ela or Rock, from
which Moses drew water for the children of Israel. ... On the other
hand, Cepha is used of a precious stone in the Targum of Proverbs, and
this sense of stone seems to predominate in Palestinian Aramaic."

86 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
IIeTpo<i) and I will build upon this rock " {kuX iirl ravr-rj rfj
Trerpa oIkoBo/m^o-co) : Jesus points to this rock, it is present,
it can be seen : this rock cannot then be understood as re
ferring to Christ, still less to the faith of Peter.! "Upon
this rock I will build . . ." might be a reminiscence of
Isaias (xxviii. 16) : " Behold I have laid a stone in the
foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious
stone, a stone firmly set . . . ". Again in Isaias (li. 1),
Abraham is likened to the rock out of which Israel has been
hewn. A still more exact analogy might be found in the
short parable, recorded by St. Matthew (vii. 24-7) and St.
Luke (VI. 48-9), of the man who built his house upon a
rock, whom Jesus contrasts with the other man who buUt
his house upon the sand. A flood came, and the house
built upon the sand was carried away by the waters, whUst
the other remained unshaken, because it was founded upon
a rock. Here, as in the declaration of Jesus to Simon, the
rock is called irerpa.
" Upon this rock I will build my Church," says Jesus :
in this passage, three words can give rise to a plausible ob
jection, one which has become classical among contemporary
Protestant critics. They claim that the notion of the
eKKXTja-la is a Pauline creation; and they remind us that
St. Paul speaks, not of the eKKXrjala tov xpto-rov, but of the
eKKXTjcrCa tov Oeov. The expression ta build applied to an
i/cicXrja-ia, is also a Pauline expression.^ Hence the logion
ascribed to Jesus by St. Matthew bears the stamp of an
origin many years after the preaching of the Gospel.
This objection is far from decisive : for, in the first
place, the word itself, i/cKXTjo-ta, is not a Pauline creation,
since eKKXrjaoa is also found in the LXX, where like the syn
onymous word a-vvayooyij it designates the assembly of the
Jews of one locality.^ The ecclesiastes is one who addresses
' These two interpretations have their history, which is summed up
by J. TuRMEL, "Hist, de la thdol. posit." vol. ii. (Paris, 1906), pp.
152-71. n Cor. in. 10-17 ; Eph. n. 19-22.
^Moreover the word ekkXi/o-io is found once again in St. Matthew:
" If thy brother shall ofiEend against thee, go and rebuke him between
thee and him alone. . . . And if he will not hear thee, take with thee
one or two more. . . . And if he will not hear them, tell the church.

THE INFANT CHURCH 87
a Jewish assembly of that time. In Stephen's discourse
(Acts VII. 38), the word eKKXrja-ia is taken in the meaning
of the LXX and is used to designate the people of Israel
gathered around Moses in the wUderness. It is used like
wise by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to
signify the assembly of the just of Israel in the heavenly
Jerusalem (Heb. xii. 23).! rp^ ^^^-j^ ^.^ eKKXrjaia may be a
bold image which St. Paul developed and brought into
common use. But, in the logion of St. Matthew, it is
couched in a most simple form and is introduced natmally
by the context : a rock is chosen to build upon, nothing can
prevail against what is built on that rock. We are still far
from St. Paul's developments about the " upbuilding," and
this is rather a mark of archaism. There remains another
difficulty : that Christ says My Church, an expression which
has no analogy in the New Testament. I confess that I
should feel more disturbed if some analogies were found
there ; for if this logion were of recent origin, should we not
find in it something of the language of the Pauline Epistles
and of the Acts? Since the expression eKKXrjata tov Oeov
was alone used ^ at the time when St. Matthew's Gospel was
And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and
publican" (Matt. xvm. 15-17). In this text the word ex xXi/o-ia does not
necessarily designate the Christian community : the progression clearly
marked in that logion — first one, then two, finally all — shows quite clearly
that the idea in view is of number alone. Hence iKKXrja-ia designates
here the collection of the people of one and the same city, according to
the meaning in which this word is taken in the Psalms. Ps. xxi. 23,
26, xxxrv. 18, xxxix. 10, cvi. 32, etc.
^ Wellhausen notes (p. 84) that the word eKKXTja-ia was borrowed by
the Christians from the Jews, and that the Aramaic word corresponding
to it designates the Jewish as well as the Christian community : " The
Aramaic primitive word k'nischta designates the Jewish as well as the
Christian community ". This remark (as against Schurer, Sohm, and the
whole Protestant school) is of the greatest importance. Wellhausen adds
that the Christians of Palestine used indiscriminately the word k'nischta
to designate either the synagogue or the Church ; the word edta is not
Palestinian, but Syriac. " The Syrians say edta for the Christians, and
k'nuschta for the Jews. But with them too the distinction is not
ancient." If that is the case, the verbal opposition between the word
iKKXt]a-ia and the word avvayayrj is not strictly primitive and the idea
alone counts.
2 Cf . however, Rom. xvi. 16.

88 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
drawn up, why was Christ made to say here, t^v eKKXr^aiav
fjbov ? It may assist us to answer if we compare the expres
sion " my Church" with this other passage recorded by St.
Matthew only: "All things are delivered to me by my
Father. . . . Come to me, all you that labour. . . . Take
up my yoke upon you, and learn of me .... For my
yoke is sweet and my burden light."! We may compare
also this other passage likewise recorded only by St. Matthew
(xvm. 20) : " Where there are two or three gathered to
gether in my name, there I am in the midst of them," and
also this given both by St. Matthew and St. Luke : "Jeru
salem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered
together thy children".^ Jesus is the one who calls,' who
gathers, who wishes that all should come to Him and be
with Him, who imposes a yoke similar indeed to that of the
Law, but far more light and easy. He is also the one who
can destroy God's temple and rebuild it three days after.
Are not these so many analogues to the expression ; "I vrUl
build my Church"?*
A still more specious objection urged against us is the
following. Not only its form, it. is said, but the spirit which
animates this logion, is of a much later date than the preach
ing of Jesus. It appears to be the earliest testimony to the
pretensions of the Eoman Church to the hegemony of aU the
churches, an anticipation of the state of things which came

! Matt. XI. 27-30. The Son of Man speaks of His kingdom which is
God's kingdom, and that precisely in St. Matthew (xm. 41 and xvl 28),
a remark made by Wellhausen, p. 84.
2 Matt. XXIII. 37 {iTTia-vvayayelv), Luke, xni. 34 {iTrtmivd^at). Com
pare the net that gathers in {avvayayova-r)) all kind of fishes (Matt. xin.
47). Matt. XII. 30 : o /i^ uvvdyav per ipov. We may notice that trvvdyeiv
has the same root as a-vva^ts and a-uvayayr).
= Cf. Mark ii. 17 ; Matt. ix. 13 ; Luke iv. 16 ; Matt. xxii. 9.
Holtzmann, "Neut. Theologie," vol. i. p. 211, likens ekkXtjtoi to ex/cXijo-ta.
Of. Matt. XXII. 14 : iroXXoi ela-iv kXjjtoi.
^ The verbal boldness with which St. Paul speaks of building up the
Chm-ch, can be more naturally accounted for if he is alluding to some
Word of Jesus, that was known to the faithful. Hort, " The Christian
Ecclesia" (London, 1897), p. 9. J. Wordsworth, "Unity and Fellow
ship" (London, 1910), p. 76.

THE INFANT CHURCH 89
to be realized in the Church, and co-eval with that realiza
tion.! Is not this a case of proving too much and so proving
nothing? Holtzmann and Loisy place the composition of
the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the year 100 :
can they find, at that date, even a single expression analogous
to what they call the Eoman hegemony ? If they could it
would be no difficulty for us theologians, who believe in the .
Divine right of the Eoman primacy ; but it is a most serious
difficulty for those critics who do not believe in that Divine
right. To them we may justly say that the Flavian age is
altogether too early for the state of things which you think
occasioned the composition of that logion, and those critics
are more consistent who maintain that it was interpolated
into St. Matthew towards the end of the second century, at
the time of Pope Victor, it may be, if not later. Then, on
the supposition of Holtzmann and Loisy that the composi
tion of the Gospel according to St. Matthew synchronized
with the " work of building the Church," how account for
the fact that this work has left in the final redaction of that
Gospel so few and suchi faint traces of itself? If that
redaction belonged really to the epoch of Clement of Eome
and of Ignatius, should we not find in it some echo of the
language of these two great leaders ? Should we discover
in the Gospel according to St. Matthew no other infiltration
of the ecclesiastical spirit and of the Eoman tendency than
this declaration of the Saviour to Peter ?
" Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates
of hell [Hades] shall not prevail against it." Hell is the
abode of Satan the enemy of God, of Satan the tempter of
Jesus in the wilderness, of Satan who makes Judas into a son
of perdition. Paul heard Jesus say: "I send thee to the
Gentiles to open their eyes, that they may be converted from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God"
(Acts XXVI. 18). "The God of peace wiU speedily crush
Satan under your feet," says St. Paul to the Eomans (xvi.
20), and Jesus in St. Luke (xxu. 31) says to Peter:
'Loisy, " Evang. synopt." vol. ii. p. 10. Holtzmann, " Neut. Theo
logie," vol. I. p. 210. J. Weiss, "Schriften des N.T." (Gottingen, 1907),
vol. I. p. 344.

90 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you
that he may sift you as wheat". However, the "gates of
Hades" do not signify exclusively Satan and his power:
they signify also death. (1 Sap. xvi. 13 ; 3 Mac. v. 51.
Cf. Job XXXVIII. 17 ; Ps. ix. 3, cvii. 18.) A promise of
immortality is made here to the Church : the gates of
Hades shall never close upon her, as they do upon the
dead, of whom the prophet Jonas said : " The bars of the
earth have shut me up for ever" (Jonas ii. 7).
Peter, is the foundation stone, but here is another image
of his function ; Christ will give him the keys of the King
dom of Heaven. This image of the keys may be understood
in the sense that Peter is to be the one who opens to the
Church the gates of the Kingdom, whilst the gates of Hades
are powerless against her. The distinction between the
Kingdom and the Church is here affirmed again. The keys
signify the power of the chief steward : Isaias makes Yahweh
address Eliacim in these words : " I will lay the key of the
house of David upon his shoulder : and he shall open, and
none shall shut : and he shall shut, and none shall open ".!
Peter has authority over the Kingdom : he can receive Cor
nelius into it, as well as give over to Satan Ananias and
Sapphira. Peter opens and closes the entrance to the king
dom of heaven, he is its steward here below.^
Jesus adds: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth,
it shall be bound also in heaven. . . ." These words, to bind
and to loose, belong to the rabbinical language, in which
'Isa. XXII. 22. Cf. Apoc. in. 7-8, where it is Jesus who carries
the key of David. Compare Apoc. i. 18 : "I am the first, and the
last, and alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever,
and have the keys of death and of Hades." Cf. Apoc. xx. 13, 14, and
Heb. II. 14. Kautzsch, " Die Pseudepigraphen," p. 455. In the Apoca
lypse of Baruch xi. 1, the archangel Michael is the key-bearer to the
Kingdom of Heaven. G. Dalman, "Die Worte Jesu," vol. i. (Leipzig,
1898), p. 176. He who has the keys is not the janitor but the major-
domo who is put over all that belongs to the king.
' The keys are given to Peter. The interpretation according to which
they are given to the Church, has also a history (see Turmbl, "op. cit."
pp. 177-85), but no critical value. Dalman, p. 177. "Thus Peter has,
Matt. XVI. 19, the keys of the heavenly kingdom, and in his character ot
key-bearer is invested with full powers as the steward of God on earth,"

THE INFANT CHURCH 91
they mean respectively to forbid and to allow, in the sense
in which a rabbi either forbids or allows an action, according
as it is, in his eyes, in harmony with the Law or against it ;
in the sense in which we read in the Mishna that the
rigorist Shammai binds and the more accommodating HiUel
looses.! Jesus had denounced the Pharisees who "bind
heavy burdens" to the shoulders of those who hsten to
them (Matt, xxiii. 2-4), whUst He, on the contrary, so often
loosed His disciples from these Pharisaic rigours. That
power to bind and to loose, which was exercised by Jesus,
is given to Peter, and in Heaven God will sanction his deci
sions. The same thought is also found in another declara
tion of Jesus, which is addressed this time not to Peter,
but to all the disciples together : " Amen I say to you, what
soever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in
heaven ; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be
loosed also in heaven" (Matt. xvm. 18). However the
power to bind and to loose designates not only a function
discharged by casuists in the interpretation of a written
law: it implies also a legislative and judicial power, and
an authority to remit sins.
The text of Christ's declaration to Peter makes one
solid whole : Peter is he who binds and looses, as Jesus binds
and looses, as the Apostles bind and loose ; he is the foanda-
tion, as Jesus is, and as the Apostles are also ; but besides
all that, he holds the primacy, and he alone is the one
who has the keys of the kingdom, since he alone is the
chief steward.^
These are figures, but they are figures which the history
of the days that immediately follow the Saviour's passion
^ Dalman, p. 175-176.
^Faithful to his theory of anticipation, Loisy writes as follows
(" Evang. synopt. " vol. n. p. 13) : " It is not without reason that the
Catholic tradition has based on this text the dogma of the Roman primacy.
The consciousness of that primacy inspires throughout the development
of Matthew, which has in view not only the historical person of Simon, but
also the traditional succession of Simon Peter." We should remember
Loisy's point of view. The same theory is in J. Weiss, vol. i. p. 345.
P. Wbrnle, " Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu " (Halle, 1904), p. 75 : "The
Catholics have been entirely justified in coining the word Roman-
Catholic".

92 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
exhibit as passing into realities: the shepherd has been
stricken, the sheep have taken to flight, then suddenly they
gather together again ; and gather around Peter, who first
saw the risen Christ.! jj jg j^gt because Peter is called
Cephas that he becomes the rock on which rest the disciples
now rallied and strengthened, those disciples once so anxious
to know who was the first and the greatest among them?
If Peter is the rock and the chief steward, it is because of a
previously established economy, which alone can have laid
that foundation of authority and of union.
* *
*
We have not yet finished with the difficulties raised by
present-day critics against the " ecclesiastical thesis ". Har
nack, who deserves credit for refusing to look upon the
message of Jesus as strictly eschatological, does not grant,
however, that He foresaw the calling of the Gentiles or spoke
of anything more than the salvation of Israel. The love of
God and of men which was at the heart of the Gospel, was,
he contends, so intense and living that it impeUed the
Apostles to undertake the conquest of the world, though
about this their Master had been altogether silent.^
Any one who has made up his mind to defend this
portion must set aside the testimony of the fourth Gospel,
which is thoroughly saturated with universaUsm.' The
Word came into the world which He had made; He came
consequently unto His own, and men did not receive Him,
but to all those who did receive Him He gave the power to
become sons of God (John i. 10-12). The incarnation of
the Word has for its end the adoption of mankind by God.
St. Paul was not more universalist when he said that God
1 The decisive part Peter plays soon after the Passion, in rallying the
disciples and in bringing into existence the first of all the churches, the
mother church, is luminously demonstrated by Weizsacker, p. 12 and foil.
" Peter was unquestionably the first man in the Primitive Church "- At
the time of his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul cared very little about see
ing any one but Peter. " The importance of Peter had been already
recognized by the Master Himself, by whom he had already been
distinguished beyond all his companions."
"Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 31 and foU. See on this point
M. Mbinbrtz, " Jesus und die Heidenmission " (Munster, 1908).
' See especially John i. 29, x. 16, xn. 20.

THE INFANT CHURCH 93
was in Christ and in Him reconcUed "the world" unto
Himself (2 Cor. v. 19). The critics of whom we are speak
ing dismiss also the testimony of St. Matthew: "Going
therefore teach ye aU nations" (xxviii. 19), and that of St.
Mark : " Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel
to every creature" (xvi. 15), as well as that of St. Luke, in
whose Gospel the risen Christ commands that " penance
and the remission of sins be preached in his name unto all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (xxiv. 47). This grand
act of opening the Gentile world to the apostleship of His
disciples, which is imputed to Jesus in the New Testament,
expressed, we are told, the faith of the second Christian
generation, "the faith estimating, some fifty years after
the Saviour's death, the development of the Gospel work".!
The Gospels themselves are invoked to prove that Jesus
had only Israel in mind. At the head of the commands
given by .Jesus to His missionaries, Matthew places this :
" Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the cities
of the Samaritans enter ye not : but go ye rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. x. 5) ; and a few lines
below: "When they shall persecute you in one city, flee
into another. Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all
the cities of Israel, tiU the Son of Man come " (x. 23) ; and
elsewhere : " You shall sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel " (xix. 28). Harnack infers from these texts
that the evangelization of the Gentiles is beyond the horizon
of Jesus. There are other texts, however, that suggest a
contrary inference. In St. Matthew, Jesus foretells to His
disciples that they shall be "hated by all nations" (xxiv. 9),
and that " this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in
the whole world, for a testimony to all nations " (xxiv. 14).
In St. Mark, He speaks in a similar tone : " You shall stand
before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto
them". But "first," before the advent of the Son of Man,
" the Gospel must be preached to all nations " (Mark xiii.
9-10). In St. Mark also, Jesus praises the woman who at
Bethany poured over His feet a vessel of perfume. " Amen
I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in
^ Loisy, "Evang. Synop." vol. xl pp. 775-6. Meinertz, p. Ill
aud foil.

94 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be
told for a memorial of her" (xiv. 9).
In this conflict of texts that are thus pitted one against
the other, is it not wiser to seek a broader basis for the judg
ment we have to pass ?
A sure element of solution is given us by the narrative
of the cure of the centurion's son at Capharnaum. This
centurion is not a Jew, since he is a soldier. But Jesus
grants his request, because of his faith which He admired :
"I have not found so great faith in Israel " (Matt. vm. 10 ;
Luke VII. 9). St. Matthew adds: "And I say to you that
many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom
of Heaven" (vm. 11). Why should not Jesus have spoken
in that manner ? Had not the Baptist said before : " Think
not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our
father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones
to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt. iii. 9). Similar
affirmations in regard to the calling of the Gentiles to salva
tion may be found in every page of the prophets ; the post-
exilian Messianism is filled with them, alone they account
for proselytism.! jf Jesus is the Messias and knows He is
the Messias, why, contrary to the Scriptures, should He
have excluded the Gentiles?
Again, did Jesus, in the course of His preaching, find
no occasion to proclaim Israel's obduracy? Like John the
Baptist, did He not affirm, many a time, that the axe was
laid to the root of the tree I Who then in default of Israel
shall inherit the kingdom ? Henceforth the preaching of the
Gospel appears subject to no restriction ; and such does it appear
in the parable of the sower, in which the sower starts to sow,
without asking himself whether the land is Jewish or not.
" The good ground that received the seed, this is he that
heareth the word and understandeth " (Matt. xiii. 23). In
the parable of the cockles, " He that soweth the good seed is
the Son of Man, and the field is the world " (Matt. xiii. 37).^
^Holtzmann, "Neut. Theologie," vol. i. p. 73. Lagrange, "Mes
sianisme," pp. 268, 285. Meinertz, p. 17 and foil.
2 As to the parables that may be understood of the Church, the
reader may consult Dom G. Dolan, "The Church in the Parables," in
A. H. Mathew's "Ecclesia or the Church of Christ" (London, 1906),
pp. 1-19.

THE INFANT CHURCH 95
From these two observations we may infer that, in the
Messianic plan of Jesus, the Gospel is not restricted to Israel,
especially to that Israel which rebels against Him : Israel's
privilege consists only in this that the Gospel message is
brought to it first, according to the words of Jesus to the
Canansean woman : " Suffer first the children to be filled "
(Mark vii. 27). The preaching of Jesus Himself is in fact
confined to Galilee and to Jerusalem. He knows He has
been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. xv.
24) and to them only. This is why the sheep of Israel
appear alone in the foreground of the Gospel. But this
does not exclude a background, that of the Gentile world.
The scruples which the Apostles will experience later on as
to " passing over to the Gentiles " may be easily accounted
for by the extreme boldness which such a step implies on
the part of a Jew ; but they are based on no word of the
Master. On the contrary, even vrithout having recourse to
this or that parable, as to the parables of the wicked husband
man or of those who were invited to the wedding, or deducing
from them that the Saviour had in view the rejection of
Israel and the calling of the Gentiles, it suffices for us to
affirm that the Gospel is not conditioned by any idea of race ;
every man is our neighbour ; the disciples are the children
of the Father who is in Heaven, and who " maketh His sun
to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just
and the unjust " (Matt. v. 45).
We conclude, then, that the message of Jesus is limited
neither as regards time by the belief in the near advent of
the end of all things, nor as regards mankind by the exclu
sion of the Gentiles. As to the notion of the Church, it is
implied in the separation which Jesus marks so distinctly
between those who follow Him and those who do not, the
former becoming the flock of which He is the shepherd.
The essential character of this flock is not that of an enthu
siastic and individualistic Christianity without bond or rule ;
this is rendered quite clear by the grant of powers made by the
Saviour to His Apostles, and first of all to Peter, their leader.!
' In the " Zeitschrift fiir die neutestam. Wissenschaft," 1907, pp. 163-
89, M. j. Kreyenbuhl has made strenuous attempts to prove that Matt.
XVI. 17-19 is a reply made by the mother-Church of Jerusalem to the ac-

96 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
count they had received of the Antiochian conflict, as given in St. Paul's
Epistle to the Galatians, Gal. ii. 2-10. The Tu es Petrus, thus understood,
was the charter of the legitimacy of the mother-Church ! Peter repre
sented the Church of Jerusalem and her rights against St. Paul's pre
tensions. According to the same writer, the scene which is reported
as having taken place at Csesarea PhUippi is not at all historical, though
the narrative belongs to the collection of those logia which — as he thinks
— formed the Gospel of the mother-Church. This narrative began to
spread abroad, probably soon after the date of the Epistle to the Galatians
— hence after the year 50 — but certainly before the destruction of Jeru
salem in the year 70. I should not have even mentioned this paradoxical
view, which is not to be taken seriously, were it not the symptom of a
reaction against the view — just as paradoxical — of M. Resch.

CHAPTEE III.
THE INFANT CHURCH (continued).
We have discovered in a number of texts anterior to St.
Paul's captivity, the existence of a Christian community
separated from Judaism and made up of converts, most of
whom do not come from Judaism and have neither its
culture nor its spirit. This Eoman-Hellenic community
of Christians is Catholicism already realized. Its character
istic features, which we have found clearly manifested in
those sources, exhibit themselves, as we are about to see,
with still greater precision and completeness in a series of
testimonies which begin with the Epistles of St. Paul's
captivity (57-62 a.d.), and come to a close with the Epistles
of St. Ignatius of Antioch (about 110).

The distinction, clearly made in the first Epistle to the
Thessalonians between the governing church and the church
that is governed (1 Thess. v. 13) is marked in the Epistle
to the PhUippians with an unexpected precision. We read
in the inscription of the Epistle : " Paul and Timothy, the
servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus,
who are at Philippi, and to the bishops and deacons, grace
and peace " !
For the first time there appears in the Christian litera-
' Phil. I : Traa-tv toIs dytots . . . rols ova-tv iv ^iXm-jrots a-vv eirtaKO-
rrots Koi Sia/cdi/ow. The predicate ayiot applied to the Christians is
borrowed from the Old Testament, according to which Israel is a holy
nation, and the Israelites are saints, because they belong to God (Exod. xix.
6 ; Deut. vn. 6, etc.). Up to the middle of the second century the faith
ful call themselves S,ytoi ; later on this appellation is reserved to the
Church. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. pp. 340. Kattenbusch, vol.
n. p. 695. 97 7

98 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
ture the name of the office that succeeds to the office of the
Apostolate ; if the community of the saints of Philippi has
its servants, Btdicovoi,^ it has especiaUy its eTria-KOTroi, a
name which implies some primacy.^ Saints, episcopi and
deacons form, all together, one and the same iKfcXTjo-la
(Philip. IV. 15). Paul entreats them to have but one mind,
one love, one soul;^ and to guard against the false apostles
who would compel them to be circumcised,* for " we are the
true circumcision, who in spirit serve God, and glory in
Christ Jesus, not having confidence in the flesh" (in. 2-3).
He encourages them to be without blame in the midst of a
perverse and corrupt generation, where they shine as torches,
since they "hold the word of hfe" (ii. 15-16).
To judge only from the few texts at our disposal, we
might say that the formation of the hierarchy shows itself
at Philippi more advanced than elsewhere. But no local
circumstance accounts for this development, which is soon
to manifest itself the same everywhere.
The Epistle to the Colossians and that to the Ephesians
show that the churches of Asia are organized hke those of
Macedonia and of Achaia.* The name " Church " serves to
' Rom. XVI. 1. Paul had already mentioned a deaconess at Cenchrese,
near Corinth. Lightfoot, "Ohristian Ministry," pp. 16-17. Lightfoot
shows (p. 14) that the function of the Christian Siaxovos does not originate
in that of the hazan or servant of the synagogue, but is an oiBce alto
gether new. The hazan was the beadle of the synagogue, and also the
schoolmaster who taught the children how to read. Cf. A. Robinson,
art. "Deacon and Deaconess," in the "Encyc. Biblica ".
^Prat, pp. 488-94. Like the word ekkXijo-m, the word eViVkottos is
common to Christian terminology and to the terminology of the Greek
civil institutions. But the Christian oflBoe was not derived from its
Greek analogue. Cf. (against Hatch and Harnack) A. Robinson, art.
" Bishop " in the " Encyc. Biblica ".
Philip. II. 2 : to avro ippovrfre, ttjv avTfjv dydirriv exovres, otjvx/'ux'",
TO ev fppovoSvTes.
* Philip, ni. 2 : "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers and of
their mutilation ". Cf. Gal. v. 12. We flnd in both Epistles the same
adversaries of St. Paul, also the same tone in St. Paul's expressions : he
retorts against them the insults they fling at Christians who, like all
Gentiles, are for them mere dogs, i.e. an impure set of men (compare iu
Matt. XV. 22 and foil, the episode of the Canansean woman).
"About the authenticity of these two Epistles, cf. T. K. Abbott,
"Ephesians and Colossians" (Edinburgh and New York, 1897), intro
duction.

THE INFANT CHURCH 99
designate the assembly of the faithful of one and the same
city, Laodicea for instance : " Salute the brethren who are
at Laodicea," Paul vprites to the Colossians, "and Nymphas,
and the church that is in his house. When this epistle
shall have been read with you, cause that it be read also in
the church of Laodicea" (Col. iv. 15-16). Paul speaks-of
psalms and canticles which the faithful sing together ; he
wishes that the faithful of Colossae should mutually teach
and admonish one another ; ! he exhorts them to act with
wisdom towards those who are outside the Church (ot ef«,
IV. 5). The Church of Colossse has been evangelized, not by Paul,
but by Epaphras, who has also devoted himself unsparingly
to the churches of Laodicea and of Hierapolis (Col. iv. 13) :
Paul calls Epaphras the BtdKovo<; tov xpt'^rov, but here the
word BtdKovo<i signifies probably simply missionary.^ The
Colossians must abide in the faith they have received, in the
faith as it has been taught them.' Let them beware lest
any one lead them astray " by philosophy and vain deceit,
according to the tradition of men, according to the elements
of the world", and not according to Christ" (ii. 8).
In this severe formula is comprised all that Paul deems
the contrary of the truth according to Christ which he
preaches and which Epaphras also preaches ; for he is sure
he has regarding the Gospel the same ideas as Epaphras.
The " elements of the world " are the popular errors of the
Gentiles; the "empty and deceitful philosophy" designates
here some beginning of Gnosticism ; the " tradition of
men " {irapdBoai^ t&v dvOpmirwv) means the teachers of this
philosophy. It is easy to infer from these data that the
errors against which St. Paul warns the Colossians belong
to some Judseo-Greek syncretism, of an ascetical and specu-
! Col. m. 16 ; Eph. v. 19.
^Col. I. 7. Paul gives himself the title of StdKovos (Col. ii. 23), and
he gives it also to Tychicus (Eph. vi. 21).
'Col. II. 7: as TrapeXd^ere . . . ko^ws iStddx^r/re . This is the notion
of the Trapddoais, which is fundamental with St. Paul. Cf. Col. i. 7 (xadas
ipadere diro, E-rra(f>pd). 1 Cor. XI. 2 (Kada>s wapeSioKa vplv ras napaSoaets
Karixere). 1 Thess. IV. 1 ; 1 Cor. XV. 1, 2, XI. 23 ; Gal. i. 9, 12 ; Phil.
IV. 9.

100 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
lative kind.' " If you be dead with Christ from the ele
ments of this world, why do you subject yourselves to or
dinances, as living in the world?" Some fasten upon you
precepts of abstinence, which have indeed some appearance
of wisdom, of humility, of contempt of the body, but they are
in truth, " precepts and teachings of men "? The Gospel on
the contrary is a precept and teaching of God.
It is in Christ you have believed, Paul says to the
Ephesians, " after you had heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation : in whom also believing you were
signed with the holy spirit of promise, who is the pledge of
our inheritance " (Eph. i. 13). We find always the same
method : the preaching of the Gospel, the birth of faith in
the faithful, baptism, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
Through baptism, the faithful rise from the death of sin to a
life which is the life of Christ. The Gospel is the Gospel of
salvation, since weare saved through faith (ii. 8). Formerly
the faithful of Ephesus to whom Paul writes, and likewise
all the faithful of Asia to whom his Epistle is addressed,
" were called uncircumcision by that which is called circum
cision " ; for they were " aliens from the conversation of
Israel"; they were "without hope and vrithout God {dOeot)
in this world." ^ But now, they are "made nigh by the
'Lightfoot, "Colossians," pp. 71-111, and Prat, pp. 391-98, in
their estimate of this first apparition of Gnosticism in the field of Christian
propaganda, consider that Gnosticism was independent of Christianity and
preceded it ; it had attempted to build up Jewish syncretisms, before it
attempted to do the same for Christianity. W. Bousset, " Hauptprobleme
der Gnosis " (Gottingen, 1907), pp. 5-7.
^ Col. n. 20 : el d-!7eddveTe avv Xpiarm diro tSiv arotxetav tov Koa-pov,
Tt i>s (avTes Koa-pa Soypan^ea-de ; . . . 22, Kara TaivrdXpaTa Kat SiSaiTKaXlas
tS>v dv6po>Tra>v. F. CuMONX, " Les religions orientales dans le paganisme
romain " (Paris, 1906), p. 248. " All writers agree with Firmicus Maternus
in acknowledging that heathens worshipped the elements. This word
meant not only the four simple substances whose opposition and various
combinations produce the phenomena of the material world, but also the
stars and, as a whole, the principles of all heavenly and earthly bodies."
However, F. Prat, p. 252, remarks that for St. Paul (Gal. iv. 3, 9;
Col. II. 8, 20) the " elements of the world " signify elementary doctrines,
like the alphabet (crroi;(Eia) which is taught to children.
' The word a6eos is not found in the LXX and is found nowhere but
here in the whole New Testament. St. Paul means that the Gentiles,

THE INFANT CHURCH 101
blood of Jesus Christ," for Christ has overthrown the wall
of separation that was raised between the circumcised and
the uncircumcised : " He hath made both peoples one. . . .
He makes the two in Himself into a new man. . . . He
reconciles both to God in one body by the cross." The same
peace is brought to the uncircumcised who were afar, and
to the circumcised who were near : henceforth both have
access to the Father "in one and' the same Spirit". The
uncircumcised are no longer strangers and pilgrims, but
citizens of one and the same city, members of the house of
God, " built upon the foundation of the apostles and pro
phets, Jesus Cheist himself being the chief-corner stone :
in whom aU the builfling, being framed together, groweth
up into an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also
are built together into an habitation of God in Spirit." '
This elaborate phrase reminds us of the words of Psalm
CXVII. 22, about the stone rejected by the builders, which
afterwards became the corner stone of the structure : an
image preserved in a logion of Christ.^ A building is
being raised, of which Jesus is the corner stone, and the
Apostles and Prophets of the Gospel, the foundation. The
faithful are built on this foundation, eTroiKoBofiTjOivTe';, they
are bound together in the building ervvoiKoBofiela-Oe,^ and the
whole edifice is "a holy temple in the Lord," a dwelling of
who adore the " elements," do not know God. Harnack, " Der Vorwurf
des Atheismus " (1905), pp. 3-4.
1 Eph. II. 11-22. The uncircumcisediwere excluded from rrjs noXtTetas
TOV 'la-parjX, they were ^evot as regards the people of God ; Christ has
made to. dp(l)6Tepa ev ; Christ has created tovs Silo iv aira els eva Kaivov
avBpairov, a man made up of body and of spirit : he reconciles to God
Toiis dpcpoTepovs ev evi aapan, which body is His own. Both have access
to God, iv ivl TTveipan. Henceforth there are no more" ^e'vot, no more
ndpotKot, but only a-vv-n-oXlrat. It should be noticed how the two n^otions,
the notion of a visible city and that of a mystical body, penetrate each
other. As to the right of citizenship and the foreigners dwelling in
Greek cities, cf. Chapot, " Prov. d'Asie," p. 148 and foil.
^ Mark. xn. 10 ; Matt. xxi. 42 ; Luke xx. 17. Cf. Acts iv. 11 and
1 Pet. II. 7.
'-' Of. Heb. in. 6 : xp»«""Af . . . ov oIkos ia-pev fjpels. The author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews means that henceforth the Christians are, to
the exclusion of the Jews, the house of God, the people of God. For St.
Paul, the new house of God is still being built ; this is the meaning of
the word ohoSopf], in contrast with oIkos.

102 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
God in spirit. The image conveyed by the word olKoBop,-!]
which loses its peculiar force in the Latin word aeddficatio,
is very dear to St. Paul, who uses it in its full meaning : he
writes to the Eomans that the fact of his having preached
the Gospel everywhere, from Jerusalem to Elyricum, without
having ever visited them, is to be accounted for by his set
purpose to preach the Gospel where the name of Christ had
not been as yet invoked, " lest I should build upon another
man's foundation" (Eom. xv. 20). Paul applies the image
of oiKoBofi-i] not to the conversion or progress of each one of
the faithful individually but to the collective buUding up or
" edification," such as is the founding of a church, its in
struction and correction, and still more to the growth of faith
in the whole world.
A building, a city — these are imperfect analogies, since
the Apostle wishes to portray the organic and Uving unity
of a people whose members do not form a race joined to
gether by ties of flesh and blood. Paul has in view the
unity of the Spirit who lives in every Christian : nor
does that content him, and he makes bold to conceive the
unity as one of body, the faithful being only the members
of the body, and the body being Christ Himself.! Through
the faith they receive, and through baptism, circumcised and
imcircumcised form together one single body, one and the
same new man : Jews and Greeks become " members of the
same body" {crva-a-mfj,a, Eph. iii. 6).
This body, which is the Church, has Jesus Christ for its
head.2 Paul analyses the image he has thus conceived. He
knows, and he has told the Colossians (Col. ii. 19), that the
body receives from the head its normal increase by means of
the bonds and joints through which it is united to the head.
Writing to the Ephesians (Eph. iv. 15-6), he insists on this
thought, that from the head the body receives its harmony,
1 This image of the body of Christ, applied to the Church, had
already been used by St. Paul. Rom. xn. 4-5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 27.
^Eph. I. 22-3: avr^v eSaxev KecjidXfiv virep ndvra Trj iKKXria-ia, rjns
ia-rXv TO awpa avrov, ri -TrXijpctipa tov rd iravra iv nda-tv TrXijpovpevov. For
the meaning of this difiicult text, see Prat, p. 422. God gave Clu:ist as
the supreme head {ii-n-ep irdvra) to the Church which is His body, the com
plement of Him who is fully completed in all His members.

THE INFANT CHURCH 103
its organic unity and energy, and its growth. Thus the
faithful must grow up " in Him who is the head, even Christ ".
And here is another point of view. The man and the
woman united in wedlock are two in one flesh : but the hus
band is the head of the woman, and likewise " Christ is the
head of the Church, whose Saviour He is ".! Thus the
Church comes to be personified : she is, as it were, the
spouse of Christ. " Christ loved the Church, and delivered
himself up for it ; that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by
the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle,
or any such thing, but that it should be ' holy and without
blemish." ^ This Church, this mystical body, this mystical
Christ, is not a being subsisting apart from the members of
which it is made up : it is a number which increases day by
day, unit by unit : hence the part of the Word and that of
Baptism. Still, taken as a whole, this number is something
that is one and organized ; something that is living and
visible, like a spouse ; indeed, something that is sanctified
and glorious and indefectible, like a holy and spotless
spouse. Unity and newness, and all this both mystical and tang
ible. " Lie not one to another : stripping yourselves of the
old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who
is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him
that created him ; where there is neither Gentile nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond
nor free. But Christ is aU, and in all." ^ Elsewhere Paul had
^ Eph. V. 23 : dvr)p itrnv KecjjaXrj rrjs yvvatKos as Kal 6 Xptarbs Ke(jiaXfi
TTJs iKKX-rja-ias, avTOS a-arrjp tov aaparos.
^ Eph. V. 25-7 : Iva avTTjv dytdcrj) Ka6apta-as ra Xovrpa tov vSaros iv
pripart . . . 'Iva y dyta koi apapos. The meaning of the word prjpaTt is
rather obscure. Some commentators understand it of the baptismal for
mula. Many see in it an allusion to the preaching of the Gospel, by
which faith is begotten in our souls. In support of this latter view,
which we think preferable, see Rom. x. 17.
^ The mention of the " Scythians " marks the belief which even
at this early date obtained, that Christianity had already been preached
everywhere. This is an important point, for it shows that the notion
of Catholicity is very closely connected with the notion of Gospel, of
KTjpvypa : the Gospel is for all mankind, and all mankind has already
heard it. Col. I. 6 : to evayyeXiov to -jrapov els vpas KoBas Kal iv iravTt ra

104 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
already made a distinction between the interior and the ex
terior man : the former being renewed day after day, whilst
the latter falls away daily : to be a Scythian or a Greek or a
Jew, is something exterior : but one and the same inner char
acter unites those separated, dissimilar, and hostile peoples :
it reconciles them and binds them all together. " Be care
ful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ; one
body and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and father of all, who is above all, [working] through
all, [dwelling] in all," ! i.e. all those who have been reconcUed
to Him through Jesus Christ.
In his "History of Dogma," Harnack has these
words : " The mere fact that from nearly the beginning
of Christendom, its members reflected and speculated not
only about God and Christ, but also about the Church,
teaches us how profoundly the Christian consciousness was
convinced that the Christians were a new people, the people
of God ". Harnack prefers, it is true, to postpone this
conscious recognition to the time of the Epistle of St.
Clement of Eome and of the Epistle of St. Polyearp of
Smyrna : but we have just learnt from St. Paul that, before
the year 60, i.e. before the dying out of the first Christian
generation, the Christians knew that they formed a body :
their "speculations" then concerning that Divine creation
which they believed the Church to be, had already forced
themselves upon them. " These speculations of the earliest
period of Gentile Christianity about Christ and the Church,
as inseparable correlative ideas, are of the greatest import
ance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in them,
but rather are the outcome of the Apostolic tradition."^
The Church that is the object of those speculations, is
not the heavenly Church, nor merely the "mystical body".
Harnack is in error when, under the pretext that " on earth,
the members of the Church are dispersed rather than united,"
Koapff. Id. 23 : TO evayyeXiov to KtjpvxBev iv naa^ rfj KTttrei ttj viro tov
ovpav6v. The same thought is found in 1 Tim. in. 6, and still better in
Apoc. VII. 9.
' Eph. IV. 3-6. See the whole excellent chapter in Prat, pp. 417-33,
" I'Eglise, corps mystique du Christ ".
^"Dogmengeschichte," vol. i. p. 144.

THE INFANT CHURCH 105
he affirms that the unity of the Church was not visible upon
earth ; and that it existed only in as far as it was to be one
day effected "in the Kingdom of Christ".!
To these statements of Harnack's we may reply that the
Jews of the Dispersion, even though dispersed, still belonged
to one visible Israel. Do not the texts we have adduced
show that the unity of the dispersed Christians is just as
real as that of the Jews? If it is spiritual in its source
.1 which is faith, salvation, the Spirit, it is visible in its
^ members, who are baptized with a visible baptism, grouped
into visible communities, and communities united with one
another so as to form one race (761/0?), as manifest to the
world as the Greek or the Jewish race. As to the heavenly
Church, she is just as distinct from the visible Christian
community, as the Jewish people was from the heavenly
Jerusalem. * *
*
Let us suspend for a while the study of the Pauline
Epistles to make a study of the Didache. This does not
mean that, in our estimation, this document must be dated
from about the year 60, although we believe, with Funk,
that it certainly belongs to the last decades of the first Chris
tian century. But it testifies to thoughts and institutions
that are unquestionably primitive, and the general view it
gives us is complete enough to explain and set in their proper
place the fragmentary details we may gather later on. 2
We shall be near the truth in supposing that the document
in question draws its inspiration, at least in its ethical part,
from that Jevyish moralism of which the Epistle of St. James
is so remarkable an echo — a spiritual condition very similar
to that of the class of proselytes called (po^ovfievoi tov Oeov.
No mention is made of " wisdom," any more than in the
Epistle of St. James; or of the "Law," but much of the
'As regards the heavenly Church or the heavenly Jerusalem, cf.
"Apoc." XXI. 2 and Swete's note, " Apoc." in loc. The Jews, although
they were an earthly nation, expected nevertheless the heavenly Jeru
salem : "IVEsdr."x. 27; "Apoc. Baruch," iv. 3; " Orac. SibyU. " v.
420, etc.
" Bardenhewer, " Geschichte der altk. Litteratur," vol. l (Freiburg,
1902), pp. 78-80. H. Hemmer, "Doctrine des apotres" (Paris, 1907),
pp. XXVI. -xxxv.

106 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" fear of God ". The Christian must teach " the fear of God "
to his children, from their infancy (Did. iv. 9). He must
avoid giving orders with sharpness to his servants " who
hope in the same God," lest, through ill-usage, he may turn
them away from "fearing God" (iv. 10). These precepts,
which are Jewish in spirit and in expression, may have been
taken from a kind of ethical catechism used by the prose
lytes. On this Jewish moralism is superimposed a Christianity
that has none of that charismatic enthusiasm which, judg
ing from a few texts, we might think was the predomi
nant, and all-compelling feature of primitive Christian com
munities : on the contrary, this Christianity is made up
entirely of distinct and peremptory precepts based on the
word of the Lord : " Your prayers and ahns and aU your
deeds so do, as ye have it in the Gospel of our Lord " (xv.
4). " Do thou in no wise forsake the commandments of
the Lord ; but thou shalt keep what thou hast received,
neither adding thereto nor taking away therefrom " (iv. 13).
Individual inspiration — even should it come from the Holy
Ghost — is subordinated to commands that have been handed
down, received, and established, and are supreme. " Who
soever . . . eometh and teacheth you all these things that
have been said here, receive him ; whoso teacheth a different
and destructive doctrine, receive him not " (xi. 1-2). There
was then a BiBa-xij, a teaching, already determined and de
fined, a teaching which admitted of no opposition.!
Whilst the Epistle of St. James is addressed " to the
twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion," the " Didachfe " is
addressed to the Gentiles. But this " Didach^ " is the
"Didach^ " of the Lord, i.e. of Jesus Christ, and the twelve
Apostles are entrusted with its announcement. The office
assigned to the Apostles is that of announcing and attesting
the doctrine of Him who alone teaches. The Twelve are con
sidered no longer as sent to the twelve tribes : their message
is for the eOvrj whom St. Paul had formerly reserved to him
self, when leaving the circumcised to the care of the Twelve.
'DobschOtz, p. 196 and foil., p. 205 and foil., draws the reader's
attention to these "Catholicising" tendencies: it is true he assigns to
the " Didach^ "and to the Pastoral Epistles a later date than we do.

THE INFANT CHURCH 107
The centre of gravity of Christianity is thus displaced :
nevertheless, the principle of authority remains the same.
Again, the "Didache" bears witness tothe fact that
' Christianity is not only an ethical rule and a religious faith,
but also an organized worship : it has its stated fasts on
Wednesdays and Fridays: "Let not your fasts be with the
hypocrites ; for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays "
(VIII. 1), which amounts to saying. Do not fast on the
same days as the Jews, and shows how deep was the separa
tion between the Christians and the Jews. The "Didach^ "
continues in the same strain: " Neither pray as the hypo
crites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel " (vm. 2) ;
then it gives the text of the Lord's Prayer, which Christians
are expected to say three times a day. Elsewhere (vii. 1-4)
the " Didache " describes the rite of the baptism " into the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ".
Further on (ix. 1-x. 7) it gives a description of the Eucharist
in which those alone must be allowed to share " who have
been baptized into the name of Jesus " (ix. 5). The Euchar
ist is celebrated in common, every Sunday (xiv. 1). It sets
before us then a reserved and sacramental worship, in which
no one is allowed to take part, save after an initiation which
is also sacramental.
Moreover, some features stand out which were merely in-
^ dicated in the Pauline Epistles of the Captivity. The chief
of these is the local and settled hierarchy, in contrast with
[the itinerant missionaries : "Appoint, therefore, for your-
\selves, episcopi and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek,
land not lovers of money, sincere and proved ; for they render
Ito you the service of prophets and teachers".!
The community raises, by way of election, some of its
members to the episcopate and to the diaconate. The
' " Didachfe," xv. 1 : XeipoTovrjO-aTe ovv eavrols i-frta-Konovs Kal StaKOvovs
d^tovs TOV Kvpiov . . . vplv yap XeiTOvpyovat Kal avTol Trjv Xetrovpytav tSiv
TTpocfjrjTav Kal StSaa-KdXav. — The verb x^'poi""""'' is not synonymous with
xelpas i-n-iTidevat, and means to choose with raised hands, to appoint by
suffrage. The word Xetrovpyta has the indefinite meaning of service,
munus : Philip, il 25 ; Heb. vm. 2 ; Rom. xiii. 6 and xv. 16. It denotes
alsothe priestly service in the temple : Luke i. 23 ; Heb. vm. 6, ix. 21.
Regarding the civil oflices of Greek cities, called also liturgies, cf . Chapot,
" Province d'Asie," p. 265 and foil.

108 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
community elects : hence it is not a supernatural charism
that designates and invests ; nay, the community is not in
vited to take into account such extraordinary gifts of the
Spirit, since the "Didache" enjoins the faithful to prize
chiefly the moral attainments of those they choose, their
kindness, sincerity, disinterestedness: they must be BeSo-
Ki/j.aa-fievoi, i.e. men whose worth is vouched for by the judg
ment of all, as is observed in the election of the magistrates of
Greek cities. The community elects those chosen, for itself
{eavTOK), for its local service, and not for a universal ministry.
It chooses the episcopi and the deacons, first for the liturgical
ministry previously described, the breaking of bread, cele
brated on Sunday. The close connexion between that
ministration and the election of episcopi and deacons is
signified, as Funk justly remarked, by the conjunction ow
which joins together the two developments.!
Before becoming a tradition that is maintained, Chris
tianity is a " word " that is propagated. How invoke him in
whom one does not as yet believe ; and how believe in him
of whom one has not as yet heard? "Eemember your
prelates, who have spoken the word of God to you," says the
Epistle to the Hebrews ^ ; and the " Didach^ " : " My child,
him that speaketh to thee the word of God remember night
and day ; and thou shalt honour him as the Lord ; for where
the word of the Lord is uttered, there is the Lord " (iv. 1).
Making its own these words of the " Didachfe," the Epistle
of Barnabas will say later on : " Thou shalt love, as the
apple of thine eye, every one that speaketh to thee the
word of the Lord ".^ When enumerating in the Epistle to
the Ephesians the various offices God had given to the
Church, St. Paul had already mentioned the Apostles,
' " Didache," xi. 11, contains a rather obscure passage : " Every pro
phet proved true, doing [what he does] unto the mystery of the Church
in the world (Troimv els pvarrjptov Koa-piKov cKieXijcrmr), yet not teaching
others to do what he himself doeth, shall not be judged by you, for it is
for God to judge him : for so did also the ancient prophets ".
Scholars have framed many bewildering hypotheses as to the meaning of
this cosmic mystery of the Church. H. Wbinel, ' ' Die Wirkungen des
Geistes und der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter " (Freiburg, 1899),
pp. 131-8. Funk, " PP. apostol." v. 1, p. 28. Hemmer, p. xcvii.-xcrs,
" Heb. xm. 7. ^ Barnab. " Epistula," xix. 9,

THE INFANT CHURCH 109
prophets, evangelists, and also the pastors and the teachers.!
The "Didachfe" witnesses to that sharing by the "pastors"
in the doctrinal government of the Church : "Despise not "
the episcopi, and the deacons, " for they are your honoured
ones, like the prophets and teachers " (xv. 2).
According to Harnack, the preaching of the Lord's
word is, in the " Didach^," the exclusive function of the
itinerant missionaries (Apostles, prophets, and teachers) : he
recalls the indubitable fact that, unlike the episcopi and the
deacons, these missionaries were not chosen by the local
churches : ^ but perhaps he ,has failed to give its full value
to the fact that, in the " Didache," the local church is the
judge of the credit to be given to these itinerant mission
aries. We have already seen how St. Paul subordinated the
charisms first to the received faith, and then to the edifica
tion of the community : an even stricter subordination is im
posed by the "Didache" on the ministry of these itinerant
preachers. Whoever comes and teaches a doctrine that
differs from the received faith, must not be listened to (xi. 2) :
" whoever comes : " he is, then, a missionary from the outside,
and the community judges him from his words. The com
munity has become a true and self-sufficing home : these
missionaries must be welcomed, but only for a short while
and when on their way. Apostles and prophets are received
" as the Lord " (xx. 4) ; but if an apostle delays more than
two days, " he is a false prophet " (xi. 5) ; and if, on leaving,
he asks for money, "he is a false prophet " (xi. 6), for " not
every one that speaketh in the spirit is a prophet, but only if
he hold the ways of the Lord : therefore by their ways shall
the false prophet and the real prophet be known" (xi. 8).
! Eph. IV. 11 : eSaKev Toils pAv dTtoaroXovs, tovs Se jrpotjiriTas, tovs Se
evayyeXtards, Toiis Se rroipevas Kal SiSaa-KaXovs. There is, in this text, a
significant grouping. In the first place St. Paul puts the Apostles and
the prophets (just as in Eph. ii. 20, where the Apostles and prophets are
called the foundations of the Church). In the second place, he places to
gether pastors and teachers. Between the first and the second group
come the " evangelists ". Here, then, the teachers seem to be subject to
the pastors. Pastors and teachers together make up the local hierarchy.
Cf. 1 Pet. V. 2 ; 1 Tim. in. 2 : Sel tov i-Kia-KOTrov . . . SiSaKTtKov [elvai] ;
Tit. I. 9.
2 " Mission,'' vol. i. p. 280.

110 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
The "Didachfe" insists on the marks by means of which
true prophets will be distinguished from the false, as though
each church were daily exposed to the danger of being over
reached and imposed upon, as in St. Jerome's time good
Christians might be fleeced by the wayfaring monks, called
Remoboth. The " Didache " could not have affirmed more
strongly the supremacy of the local church and of those
who preside over it.
This, then, is the Christianity of the "Didache" — a
Christianity of community life and institutions, autonomous
and authoritative — similar to the Christianity revealed to us
by the documents of the first generation. The settled hier
archy is established everywhere, the wayfaring missionaries
are subordinated to it, the great Apostles have disappeared,
the prophets are about to disappear. Still those missionaries
who for many years moved about from one church to the
other,! -^ere providential agents for the establishment of
that unity which bound all the churches together, that unity
the doctrinal character of which St. Paul had so forcibly ex
pounded. Thus, though the "Didache" is, on this subject
of Christian imity, less explicit than St. Paul, with whose
teaching it does not seem to have been at all acquainted, it
has the same sense of unity. In its vocabulary, the word
eKKX7)a-La denotes the assembly of the faithful gathered for
prayer (iv. 14), and also denotes the new people which the
Gospel has brought forth into this world, and which shaU be
one day firmly established in God's kingdom as in its pro
mised land. " Even as this broken bread was scattered over
the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let
Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth
into Thy Kingdom."^ "Eemember, Lord, Thy Church, to
deliver it from evil and make it perfect in Thy love, and to
gather it from the four winds, to be sanctified in Thy King
dom which Thou hast prepared for it."^ The Christian
1 Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. pp. 286.
^ Did. IX. 4 : avvaxOfjTa aov rj iKKXrjaia (itto tS>v irepdrav Tijs y^s.
^Did. X. 5 : a-vva^ov avTrjv d-irb t5>v reatrdpav dvepav. Cf. the Jewish
prayers for the return of the Jews of the Dispersion to Jerusalem.
" Psalm. Salom." vm. 34. These few words of the " Didach^ " show how
deeply those Christians realized the spread of Christianity all over the

THE INFANT CHURCH 111
community, now spread aU over the world, shaU be one day
united in the kingdom of the Father : then and only then
shaU the unity be perfect ; but even now, upon earth, Chris
tians are penetrated by the deepest sense of that unity of
unities. * *
*
Far better than the "Didache," the first of the two
Epistles that bear the name of St. Peter gives us approxi
mately the date of its own origin, for it was written during
a time of persecution whichi may be identified with that
undertaken by Nero.!
The Epistle is addressed to Christians who are not of
Jewish birth (ii. 10) and who dweU dispersed amongst the
GentUes (ii. 12).^ "Have your conversation good among
the Gentiles : that, whereas they speak against you as evil
doers, they may by the good works, which they shall behold
in you, glorify God in the day of visitation" (ii. 12). The
wiU of God is that by their conduct the faithful should
silence the foolish men who misjudge them (ii. 15).
" Have a good conscience, that, whereas they speak evil of
world known to them, and this deep realization is met with in many
other texts. Cf. Hermas, "Simil." vm. 3: " This great tree that casts
its shadow over plains and mountains, and all the earth, is the law of
God that was given to the whole world (SoBels els SXov tov Koa-pov), and
this law is the Son of God proclaimed to the ends of the earth " {Krjpvx6els
els TO. nepara ttjs yrjs). The same thought is found in "Sim." ix. 17.
Later on, St. Ignatius also speaks of the bishops who are established Kara
Ta irepara. The uncanonical ending of St. Mark's Gospel says that Jesus
sent through the Apostles the message {Kripvypa) oi salvation "from the
Bast to the West " (diro dvaToXrjs koI axpi Svaetas).
1 Regarding the authenticity and date of St. Peter's first Epistle, cf.
Bigg, " Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude " (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 1-87.
Cf. Harnack, " Chronologie," vol. i. pp. 454-5.
^ The word iKKXrjcria is not used in the address, which speaks of the
elect of Jesus Christ, of the "Dispersion" in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa-
docia and Bithynia. To my knowledge, this is the only instance of the
Christian use of the word "Dispersion ". The Epistle would seem to be
afraid to draw the reader's attention to local churches. Likewise, in the
subscription (v. 13), we read : "The elect that is in Babylon," instead
of the Church of Rome. The "Prima Petri" does not use the word
iKKXtjo-ta even once. On the identity of Babylon with Rome see H.
GuNKEL in J. Weiss, "Schriften des N.T." (Gottingen, 1908), vol. ii.
p. 571.

112 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
you, they may be ashamed who falsely accuse your good
conversation in Christ" (iii. 16). It is precisely on account
of their quality and name of Christians that the faithful are
misjudged and slandered (iv. 16).
Their unity, then, is manifest, and this unity is the
unity of their faith and of their brotherhood. " You have
purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto un
feigned love of the brethren, love then one another from the
heart fervently, being begotten again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth
and abideth for ever " (i. 22-3). The faithful are as new
born children (ii. 2). Jesus is for them "the living stone,"
and they are themselves " as living stones, built up into a
spiritual house ".!
Many comparisons are used, which have for their pur
pose to describe the organic unity of Christians, but none
describes it better than that of the chosen people. " For
you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
purchased people : that you may declare his virtues, who
hath called you put of darkness into his marvellous light"
(II. 9). In the midst of the unbelieving world and in con
trast with blind Judaism, Christians have shared in the
light : they are brothers, and therefore they form one family,
one race ; but it is a race of election, one freely chosen by
God ; they are a priestly and kingly gens ; they are a holy
eOvo<i ; being converts from Gentilism, they are a new people
of God.^ They are a flock which was vsdthout a shepherd,
and which has now come back to Him who is the shepherd
and the "episcopus" of souls, i.e. to Christ.' When using
these words, the Epistle has in view the faithful spread all
over the world, not a special local community. God is
^1 Pet. II. 4-5 : XiBot (avres olKoSopela-de oikos TTvevpanKOs.
^ 1 Pet. II. 9 : vpels Se yevos eKXexTov (Isa. XLIII. 20), |8oo-iXeioi> lepdrevpa
(Exod. XIX. 6), edvos dytov (ibid,). Xaos els -n-epi-iroiija-tv (Isa. yt.ttt. 21). In
Exod. loc. cit. the people of Israel is called a people of priests, a title
of honour and of grace ; and yet Israel has besides a special priesthood.
' 1 Pet. II. 25 : ^re yap as npo^ara nXavapevot, dXX' i7re(rrpd^r)Te vvv
ini TOV TTOipeva Kal i-rria-KOirov rav \jrvxav ipav. Cf. Ezech. XXXIV. 11, 12.
Of. " Oracula Sibyllina " the fragment cited by Theophilus, " Ad Autolyc."
II. 36 : oil TpipeT ovSe (^o^ela-Qe 6eov tov iiria-Koirov vpav — v^itjTOV yva(m)V
naveno-TTTiqv pdpTvpa -iravTav.

THE INFANT CHURCH 113
the shepherd : the name episcopus, given to Him, is a re
miniscence of Ezekiel and also an allusion to the office of
the episcopus in every church.
Like St. Paul in his great Epistles, the "Prima Petri"
describes admirably both the newness and the unity of the
Christian people ; like St. Paul also, it does not forget the
gifts of the Spirit who works in this new people. " As
every man hath received grace, ministering the same one
to another : as good stewards of the manifold grace of God "
(IV. 10). As in St. Paul, the charism is granted by God for
the welfare of the community. However the " Prima Petri "
seems to look upon it as an office, we might say as a grace
attached to a function. Charisms are distributed to those
who announce the word of the Lord, and to those who serve.
" If any man speak, let him speak as the logia of God " {id.)
i.e. he who teaches must teach only what is from God, and
not what is from man, or what comes from his own fancy.
" If any man minister, let him minister as of the strength
which God supplieth." We shaU not force the terms of this
antithesis, so as to see deacons in those who serve, and episcopi
in those who speak ; but on the other hand, we must at least
grant that there are, in the local church, men filled with grace,
whose mission it is to instruct that special Christian com
munity and minister to its various needs.
Elsewhere the "Prima Petri" speaks more clearly on
the same topic. " The elders therefore among' you I exhort "
(v. 1). Then it continues, in words which show that these
presbyters are, by their office, the leaders of the community :
" Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of
it not by constraint, but willingly according to God : not for
filthy lucre's sake, but voluntarily ; neither as lording it over
the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the
heart. And when the prince of pastors shall appear, you
shaU receive a never-fading crown of glory." ^ Here the
foldis the local church, and has immediate pastors, who are
caUed, in the Epistle, ,pxeshyters. Christ is their invisible
leader and chief pastor {apxiTToLfiriv) . They rule and ad-
^ 1 Pet. V. 2-4 : irotpdvare to iv vplv nolpvtov tov deov, . . . Tviroi
yivopevot tov irotpviov. Cf. Heb. xm. 20. The expression dpxt-noiprjv is
well known and denotes a leader of shepherds. Deissmann, p. 65.
8

114 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
minister: hence they may be tempted to be domineering,
harsh, and self-seeking. * *
*
If we have put off tiU now the study of the Pastoral
Epistles, it is not because we doubt their authenticity : we
believe they are the work of St. Paul, and the various ob
jections, some, not insignificant, raised against their Pauline
origin especially on account of their style, do not seem to
us decisive.! They belong to an horizon different from that
of the great Epistles of Paul and from that of the Epistles
of the captivity : they constitute by themselves an homo
geneous, distinct, and late group ; they are subsequent to all
that we know, from other sources, of the Apostle's life and
belong to the last days of his life ; but they are his work.
Unlike the " Didache," the Pastoral Epistles are not a
didactic treatise on ecclesiastical life : they are completely
or almost completely silent on several points, for instance on
Christian worship. They dwell at length on some special
, features, as though their purpose were to emphasize some
(truth which it was opportune to emphasize at that parti-
; cular time.
In the first place, Paul insists on the authoritative
character of faith. " O Timothy, guard the deposit," " guard
the good deposit," ^ for the Gospel is a deposit which — from
this definition itself — must suffer neither diminution nor
addition. "Abide thou in those things which thou hast
learned, and which have been committed to thee, knowing of
whom thou hast learned them."' This refers to the doc
trine the Apostle taught him : Paul does not hesitate to deem
it just as sacred as " the holy Scriptures " which Timothy has
known ever since his infancy (2 Tim. iii. 15). " The things
which thou hast heard of me before many witnesses, the same
commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others
also"* (2 Tim. ii. 2).
!See the discussion in F. Prat, pp. 455-69.
' 1 Tim. VI. 20 : Trjv napaOrjKtjv (j)vXa^ov. 2 Tim. I. 14 : ttjv KaXrjv
napaOrjKrjv (j)vXa^ov Sta nvevptaros dytov tov ivoiKovvros iv -qplv.
' 2 Tim. III. 14 : peve ev oh epiades Kai iinaTadrjs, elSas napd rlvav epades.
* Tit. III. 9-11 : papas ^tiTfja-eis Kal yeveaXoyias Kal eptv Kal paxas vopiKas
(disputes about the Law) . . . aipertKbv avBpamov perd piav koi Sevrepav
vovdea-iav TrapaiTov. The word aipea-ts is found both in the LXX and in

THE INFANT CHURCH 115
In fact, the Church, to whose welfare Timothy devotes
his efforts, is open to the danger of being invaded by false
teachers, who are now so numerous: like those condemned
by the Epistle to the Colossians, these errors savour of some
Judseo-Greek syncretism, a kind of pre-Christian Gnosticism.
"Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions,
and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable
and vain. A man that is a heretic, after the first and second
admonition avoid ; knowing that he that is such a one is
subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his ovm judg
ment ".! It is useless and unreasonable to argue with these
mischief makers : they must be sUenced.^ Authority protects
and defends the deposit of faith, by casting out of the Church
classical Greek : it means " choice," and by extension " an opinion freely
chosen," and hence — in a sense which implies no depreciation — a
"school," or a "party". Thus the historian Josephus speaks of the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, as being three Jewish alpea-ets.
" Antiquit.'' xm. 5, 9. This is also the meaning of the word iii St. Luke
(Acts V. 17, XV. 5, XXIV. 5, 14, xxviii. 22). In St. Paul's Epistles, it
signifies a culpable dissent, a schism (Gal. v. 20 ; 1 Cor. XL 19). In
this connexion Julicher remarks (in his art. on " Heresy " in the
" Encycl. Biblica ") that Christianity has so thoroughly adopted for her
motto, " Tou are one in Christ Jesus," that henceforth any tendency to
wards individualism is looked upon with aversion, and heresy, which would
be for a Greek philosopher a symptom of life, is for St. Paul a downright
disorder. This is also the meaning of the word aipertKos in Tit. m. 10
which appears there for the first time and is found neither in the LXX
nor in classical Greek. We must not fail to notice in this instance how
the evolution of the meaning of the word implies the history of an institu
tion. ' Tit. I. 10-11 ; paTaioXoyot Kal (jypeva-rraTai, paXiara oi ck neptrop^s, ovs
Sel iTTioTopi^eiv. Cf. 1 Tim. I. 3-4.
2 1 Tim. I. 19 : -rrepl rrjv ¦n-tartv ivavdyrjaav. The Apostle designates
by name two of them, Hymeneus and Alexander, whom he has "de
hvered up to Satan ". Cf. 1 Cor. v. 5. To deliver up to Satan means to
expel from the Church of God : for to the Church of God the " synagogue
of Satan " is opposed (cf. John vm. 44, and e.specially Apoc. ii. 9, 13, in.
9). The Jews also used at times to expel persons from their synagogues
(Luke VI. 22 ; John ix. 22, xn. 42, xvi. 2). Satan's power over the
present age is affirmed by the uncanonical ending of St. Mark, as
given in Freer's MS. : the Apostles say to Jesus : " This world of wicked
ness and unbelief is under the control of Satan." Jesus answers : " The
years of the power of Satan have come to a close." Lagrange, "Evangile
selon Saint Maro" (Paris, 1911), p. 438.
8 *

116 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
those Christians who " have made shipwreck in the faith ".
If any one teaches another doctrine,! jf j^g ^Qgg ^q^; adhere
to the wholesome words of Oar Lord Jesus Christ and to
those lessons that are according to godliness, he is blind.
"Speak thou the things that become sound doctrine ".^
This wholesome teaching is in ali cases " the doctrine of
God our Saviour" (Tit. ii. 10).
The Epistle to Titus denounces the perverse teachers,
" disobedient and vain talkers " who are found especially
among " them of the circumcision," and who by a crafty and
deceitful propagandism " teach the things which they ought
not".^ The Pastoral Epistles speak of the "circumcised"
as the " Didach^ " speaks of the " hypocrites " ; they make no
mention of false apostles or of false prophets, or of Christians
speaking in the name of the Spirit : they refer only to
teachers who betray the wholesome teaching.* This teach
ing is the teaching of Jesus Christ, and the authority for its
preservation belongs to the Apostle who VTrites the Epistle,
to the evangelist, his disciple, to whom the Epistle is ad
dressed, and to trustworthy men trained and taught by the
disciple. The Church, " the house of God," is the " piUar
and ground of the truth ".^
Here then again we find, together with sound teaching,
the hierarchy.
Like the " Didache," the Pastoral Epistles show us the
hierarchy of episcopi and deacons established. The Epistle
to the PhUippians had spoken of the Episcopate as of a
plural episcopate ; the Epistle to Titus alludes to that
^ 1 Tim. VI. 3 : et tis erepoStSaa-KaXel Kal prj npoa-epxeTat vyiatvova-tv
Xdyois TOIS TOV Kvpiov Kal ttj Kar evae^eiav StSaa-KoXia. . . . On erepoSiSaa-
KaXelv, see 1 Tira. i. 3. Compare the whole Epistle of St. Jude.
' Tit. II. 1 : XaXft & npe-iret rfj vytaivoiari StSaa-KoKia. Notice the per
sistence with which ithe Pastoral Epistles oppose the wholesome and
saving doctrine to that which is corrupt : 2 Tim. u. 17 ; 1 Tim. vl 4 ;
Tit. I. 15.
3 Tit. I. 11 : SiSdo-KOVTes & pfi Sel.
* 2 Tim. IV. 3 : rrjS vyiaivova-ijs SiSaarKoXias ouk dve^ovrai, dXXd eavrols
i-rrta-apeva-ovatv StSaa-KdXovs.
' 1 Tim. III. 15 ; iv o'Ua 6eov . . . iJTis iarlv iKKXrjcria 6eov ffiiror,
orCXoy Kal eSpalapa Ttjs dXrideias. HoLTZMANN, ' ' Neutestamentliche
Theologie," vol. ii. pp. 276-8, insists strongly on the "ecclesiasticism"
of all these features.

THE INFANT CHURCH 117
plural government in the foUowing words : "For this cause
I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the
things that are wanting, and shouldest establish presbyters
in every city, as I have also appointed thee ".! These pres
byters are at the head of the local church, to govern and in
struct it : " Let the presbyters that rule well be esteemed
worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the
teaching of the word " (1 Tim. v. 17).
A word, which designates this stationary hierarchy, ap
pears here for the first time, ¦n-pea^vTepim (1 Tim. iv. 14|.
This college of presbyters is the depositary of a power
which can be likened to no other than that of Orders. To
Timothy it is said: "Neglect not the grace [charism] that
is in thee, which was given thee by prophetic designation
with imposition of hands of the Trpea-^vTepcov".^ That pro
phecy intervened to point out Timothy to the Apostle and to
the presbyters,^ is not to be wondered at. As to the laying
on of hands, it is a gesture of blessing, borrowed from the
earUest history of Judaism.* By charism, here, a spiritual
^Tit. I. 5. Theodore of Mopsuestia, "In epistul. B. Pauli com
mentarii," ed. SwBTE (1882), vol. ii. p. 121, recalls that at the begin
ning the offlce of presbyters and that of episcopi were one and the same,
and that the office which later on became the episcopate was then exer
cised in every province and for the whole province, by an "apostle," as
for instance, Titus in Crete, Timothy in Asia : the Apostle alone had the
right to ordain. This theory of Theodore seems a mere exegetical hypo
thesis, framed for the purpose of accounting for the ministry of Timothy
and Titus ; it places between the missionary-staff and the local hierarchy,
a provincial hierarchy, all the churches of one province, Gaul, for instance,
being considered subject to one bishop. On these words of Theodore,
Mgr. Duchesne, " Pastes ^piscopaux de I'anc. Gaule," vol. i. (1894), p. 36
and foil., relies as accounting for the late formation of episcopal dioceses
in Gaul. We believe with Harnack, " Mission," vol. i. p. 376, that
Theodore's generalization as regarding the apostle-bishop of a province (in
contrast with a city) is a fancy, whatever the particular case of Gaul may be.
' 1 Tim. IV. 14 : pfi dp4Xei tov ev aoi x'^P'-^'P-"-'''"^ ° i^°^V ""'" ^'" '"^^
7rpo(j)riTeias perd i-KiBeareas Toav ;(€if)£w tov npea-^vrepiov. The expression
in-idea-ts rav xeipav is found again in Heb. vi. 2. See the note ol Westcott,
in loc. The action of laying on hands, as signifying only an inde-
termmate blessing, is necessarily accompanied by some determining and
specifying word.
3 This is the meaning suggested by 1 Tim. i. 18. Cf . Acts xm. 1-3.
* Cf. Tbrtull. " De Baptismo," 8 : " Manus imponitur per benedic-
tionem advooans et invitans Spiritum sanctum. . . . Sed est hoc quoque

118 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
gift, a TTvevfjta, is meant, but it is a gift that remains within
the subject who has received it, and is conferred by the
Apostle and the presbyters. Timothy on whom it has been
conferred can in his turn confer it to others.!
Deacons are to be chosen for the purity and gravity of
their lives, and for their disinterestedness ; as we know al
ready from the " Didach^," they must be tried before being
chosen {BoKi/Ma^eaOaaav irpSiTov). They must have shown
that they ruled their children and their home well (1 Tim.
III. 8-13). The episcopus — and we must notice that, whereas
the Epistle speaks of deacons in the plural, it speaks of the
episcopus in the singular — must be blameless and enjoy the
respect even of those outside the fold {diro twv e^coOev) ; he
must be hospitable and able to teach {id. 2) ; he must be
free from the love of money ; besides he must have given
proof that he has governed his house properly and can
command the obedience of his children, for " if a man know
not how to rule his own house, how shaU he have a care of
the Church of God?"^
The Pastoral Epistles are the work of an Apostle of
Christ, who, seeing his end approaching, confirms the in
stitutions established in Churches like those of Crete and of
Asia : the institutions now estabUshed have then been sanc
tioned by apostolic authority. The Apostle, as we have said,
feels that his course is run (2 Tim. iv. 7) : he gives his last
instructions to his disciple whom he calls an evangelist {ib.
5) ; but, on his death, this disciple is to be replaced only by
the presbyterium of every Church. Whatever may be the
de veteri sacramento quo nepotes suos ex loseph Ephraim et Manassem
lacob capitibus impositis et intermutatis manibus benedixerit." The
same meaning is ascribed to the laying on of hands, as a gesture, by
Clement oe Alex. "Paedagog." in. 11 ("P.G." vol. vm. col. 637, B.) ;
and by the Gnostic Isidore, quoted in " Stromat." m. I (Col. 1101).
1 1 Tim. V. 22 : x^'pas raxeas /iT/Sevl e-rriTidei. C. GoRE, " The Ministry
of the Christian Church " (London, 1889), p. 250, says : " It is only a very
arbitrary criticism which can fail to see here . . . the permanent process
of ordination with which we are familiar in later Church history, ths^t con
ception of the bestowal in ordination of a special 'charisma,' which at
once carries with it the idea of a ' permanent character, 'land that distinction
of clergy and laity whioh is involved in the possession of a definite spirit
ual grace and power by those who have been ordained."
^ I Tim, III. 4-5. The same teaching is found iu Tit. i. 5-9.

THE INFANT CHURCH 119
relation existing then between the presbyterium and the
episcopate, and leaving aside liturgical functions, the epis
copate is an office of temporal administration and of teaching.
The Church has receipts and expenses (1 Tim. v. 16) : the
episcopus must prove himself a good steward. Discipline
must obtain in the Church : the episcopus must prove him
self also a good educator. Above all, the deposit of the faith
that has been received must be upheld and defended : the
episcopus is expected to be an effective teacher who watches
over his flock and carefully preserves the trust committed to
him.! * *
*
The Johannine Apocalypse is the work of a prophet, to
whom the God of the prophetic spirits has sent His angel, to
show His servants what must come to pass shortly (xxii. 6).
John has heard and seen, and the angel who has shown him
all things says to him : "I am thy fellow-servant {a-uvBovXo<;)
and the servant of thy brethren the prophets" (xxii. 9).
However, judging from the tone of the rebukes and threats
he feels able to address to the seven Churches, this prophet
must stand in authority far above those prophets whom the
"Didache" has represented as journeying from one Church
tb the other, and depending on the judgment which each
Church passed"tipon them..
The letter to the seven Churches attests the autonomy
of each of those seven Churches. Such is the case, for in
stance, vrith the Church of Ephesus, which the prophet con
gratulates on hating "them that are evil" and on having
tried "them who say they are apostles, and are not," for
! It is interesting to see how the critics who question the authenticity
of the Pastoral Epistles, insist on those features in them which make
up what Holtzmann calls "a moderately Catholic Paulinism" and "a
sort of ecclesiasticism in fieri"- Cf. Von Soden, in the " Handcom-
mentar" (Freiburg, 1891), vol. m. pp. 162-7. (Von Soden dates the
Pastoral Epistles from Domitian's age, about 81-96, at the earliest.) In
concluding his analysis of the Pastoral Epistles, Holtzmann, "Neut.
¦ Theologie," vol. ii. p. 280, finds in them the idea of tradition, the idea
of a visible Church in which the good and the bad are mingled together,
the idea of the Church as a teaching authority and intermediary between
Christ and each of the faithful, and the Church considered as an object
of faith : in a word " die ganze Katholicitat in nuce " : It is not for us to
contradict him.

120 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the Church of Ephesus found them to be liars (ii. 2). This
reminds us of the rules laid down by the " Didache ". This
Church hates the Nicolaites (ii. 6), whereas the Church of
Pergamus shows indulgence to those who hold the doctrine
of Balaam (ii. 14) and the doctrine of the Nicolaites (ii. 15).
As to the Church of Thyatira, she suffers the woman Jezabel,
who claims to be a prophetess, to teach (ii. 20) : blessed are
those of Thyatira, who do not share this doctrine, and have
not known the depths of Satan (ii. 24) as these false doctors
are wont to say.! rpj^g prophet says to the angel of the
Church of Sardis : "Be watchful and strengthen those who
remain . . . that are ready to die. . . . Have in mind in
what manner thou hast received and heard ; keep and do
penance" (in. 2-3). Balaam and Jezabel are symbolical
names that stand for errors similar to, if not identical with,
those of the Nicolaites. Error has made its way into these
inexperienced and impressionable communities : and error
is a kind of fornication which the Son of God holds in ab
horrence and will chastise, " and all the churches shall know
that I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts" (ii. 28).
Perishing churches may be reformed by such extraordinary
interventions of the Spirit, but an everyday government does
not last in that way. The Johannine Epistles follow, more
closely than the Apocalyse, the principles and method of the
Pastoral Epistles. We find in them, together with the
hatred of error, the affirmation of the primacy of the teach
ing received "from the beginning" (2 John 5) ; for "many
seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh : this is the seducer and
the Antichrist" {ib. 7). How can any one possess God,
unless he abides by the doctrine of Christ?^ "If any man
come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not
into the house, nor say to him, God speed you" {ib. 10).
" As for you, let that which you have heard from the be-
^ An allusion to some fanciful speculations of the Nicolaites. Of.
1 Oor. II. 10, in which the Spirit is said to search ' ' the deep things of God,"
and Iren. "Haer." ii. 21, 2, where we are told that some Gnostics
endeavour to fathom "profunda Bythi",
^ 2 John 9 : pevav iv ttj StSaxfj tov Xptarov. On this Holtzmann
writes : ' ' Verse 9 is perfect evidence that the teaching of the Church
was law to the author" (" Handcommentar," vol. iv. p. 242).

THE INFANT CHURCH 121
ginning, abide in you : if that abide in you which you have
heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the Son,
and in the Father.' . . . These things have I vTritten to
you, concerning them that seduce you" (1 John ii. 24-6).
The received doctrine is made up of Christ's commands :
" He who saith that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his
commandments, is a liar ".! We found similar advice in
the "Didache". "Believe not every spirit, but try the
spirits " to see " if they be of God, because many false
prophets are gone out into the world" {ib. iv. 1).
The " Tertia loannis " testifies plainly to an authority
which is exercised to protect the local Church against the
spread of error. The Ancient {irpea-^vTepo^) , as the author
of the " Tertia loannis " styles himself (and this is none
other than St. John), tells a Christian named Gaius of the
joy"he experienced when some " brethren " came and gave
testimony "in presence of the Church" (the Church in
whose midst the Ancient dwells) to the charity Gaius has
shown "to the brethren, and especially to the strangers".
The Ancient encourages Gaius to continue to provide for the
travelling expenses of these itinerants, "since they went out
for the name, taking nothing of the heathen".^ These are
genuine missionaries sent by John the Apostle and by his
Church. These missionaries, however, have not been every
where so cordiaUy received : from some Church, other than
that of Gaius, they have been sent away. That Church
has at its .head a Christian named Diotrephes. The An
cient had previously written, not to Diotrephes, but to the
local Church: Diotrephes who is fond of pre-eminence (o
(piXoirpwTevcov avraiv), answered in the name of the Church,
refusing to receive the brethren recommended by the
Ancient, forbidding any one of the faithful to receive them,
and expelling them from the Church. " For this cause, if
I come, I will bring to his remembrance his works which
he doth, prating against us with wicked words." ^
^ 1 John n. 4 : o Xc'ymi' o« eyvaKa avrov. These words seem to
allude to some pseudo-apostles. Cf. Apoc. ii. 2.
^3 John 5, 6. The words virep tov dvoparos i^X6av signify that
these brethren travel for the name, i.e. for the name of Jesus. Lagrange,
" Messianisme,'' p. 145, note 2.
' 3 John 9-12 : eypa\jfd ti (rather than eypa\ffa av) rrj ckkX^o-io k.t.X.

122 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
We must not overemphasize the words: "Diotrephes
doth not receive us," as though Diotrephes did not acknow
ledge the authority of the Ancient, and had broken with
him ; since the Ancient proposes to come in person and to
speak unsparingly to Diotrephes. Eather, we may suppose
that, because of the intense opposition to itinerant begging
propagandists,- Diotrephes had not received even those itiner
ants who came recommended by a note from the Apostle :
but Diotrephes doubtless had some right to speak in the
name of the community. Ecclesiastical tradition loved to
picture to itself the Apostle John surrounded by bishops he
had placed in those Churches of which he was the founder.!
Diotrephes is thus the first monarchical bishop whose name
has come down to us, and the Protestant critics are very
willing to set him against the Apostle : he stands for the
hierarchy, the Apostle for the Spirit; the former wUl do
away with the latter. ... It would be more historical to
ask oneself, not whether the pre-eminence of Diotrephes was
the result of a usurpation, but whether his conduct was not
that of a tactless person.

II.
With St. Clement's Epistle we might bring to a close the
study of the Apostolic ecclesiology, for this epistle is, in a
sense, the term of the development of institutions and
1 Clbm. or Alex, quoted by Eusbb. "H. E. " m. 28, 6 (according
to the " Quis dives salvetur," 42). Compare the statement of the Mu-
ratorianum : John wrote the fourth Gospel " cohortantibus condiscipulis
et episcopis suis " ; and still better TertuUian, "Adversus Marcionem,"
IV. 5: "Habemuset loannis alumnas ecclesias. Nam etsi Apocalypsim
eius Marcion respuit, ordo tamen episcoporum ad originem recensus, in
loannem stabiti auctorem ". TertuUian seemingly thinks that the ordo
episcoporum was inaugurated in Asia by the Apostle John. On the other
hand, we know (" Exhort, castit." 7) that he looked upon the distinction
between the plebs and the ordo as a creation of the Church. As regards
the difficult problem whether the angel of each of the seven Churches
is its bishop, see Swbtb, " Apocalypse," pp. 21-2, and Lightfoot, " Christ.
Ministry," p. 29. The last writer suggests an analogy between the
" angels " of the Churches in the Apocalypse, and the " princes " in the
prophecy of Daniel (x. 13, 20, 1).

THE INFANT CHURCH 123
ideas, to which the Apostolic documents cited bear witness ; !
it is besides the epiphany of the Eoman primacy.
First of aU, the notion of charism, which was so impor
tant some fifty years before, seems now to have vanished
entirely and the word "charism" is about to assume a new
meaning, that of the condition assigned by God to every
man according to his social standing. Every Christian must
be imited with all his brethren by the bond of sohdarity, and
submit to his neighbour "according to the charism ap
pointed to him" by God. What does this mean? He
who is strong must strengthen him who is weak, and he who
is weak must honour him who is strong. The rich must
be generous, the poor must pray to God in behalf of the
rich.^ Hence strength is a charism, and so also is weakness :
and likewise richness and poverty : as well as wisdom and
humility and continence.
Secondly, we find no longer any trace of itinerant mis
sionaries. The " Prima Clementis " speaks of prophets, it is
true, but these are Elias, Eliseus and Ezekiel.' No mention
is made of the word teacher {BiBda-KaXo<;) , nor of the word
evangelist. The only Apostles are the great Apostles, like
Peter and Paul.
The " Prima Clementis " does not merely re-echo the
authoritative formulae of St. Paul, of the " Didachfe," of the
" Prima Petri " and of the Johannine texts : from beginning
to end, it proclaims unity through authority. As it was
written to a Church that had fallen a prey to anarchy, we
easUy understand why it insists on the necessity of obedience :
still, it insists upon obedience in such a way that unity
through authority quickly appears to be the fundamental prin
ciple of its ecclesiology. The word " unanimity " {ofiovota)
comes often from the pen of St. Clement ; so also do the
words and images which convey the idea of discipline and of
obedience. !The inscription does not run in Clement's name: 'H iKKXrjo-ia tov
6eov r\ TTapoiKOva-a 'Paprjv TJj eKKXrja-ia TOt) Beov rfj -TrapoiKOva-r; Kopivdov. . . .
One Church, one city, but this Church is a foreigner in this city. Re
garding the meaning of the word rrdpoiKos — a domiciled foreigner — cf.
Chapot, p. 179, and in Dittenberger, " Sylloge," vol. m. p. 178,
the iudex at the words TrdpoiKoi and napoiKea.
n Clem. XXXVIIL 1-2. 'xvn. 1, xliii. I.

124 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Like the "Didache," and the Apocalypse, Clement sees
the Christian community spread through the whole world :
as yet he does not know the word " catholic," but he does
know that Paul preached righteousness to oXov tov koo-jmov
(V. 7) and that the elect are ev 6Xa> ra K6crf,bq) (lix. 2).
The faithful are a people, an eOvo^, which God has
chosen to Himself in the midst of nations, a select share
that God has taken, a holy portion He has reserved to Him
self: hence let them perform the works of holiness and
adhere closely to those to whom the grace is granted by
God, let them " clothe themselves in unanimity".! "Let
our conscience then gather us together in unanimity in the
same place, and let us cry unto God with one voice." ^
The Ignatian epistles will not insist more vigorously on
the unity which must reign in the Christian community.
The "Prima Clementis" likens ecclesiastical discipline to
military discipline. "Let us mark the soldiers that are en
listed under our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how sub
missively, they execute the orders given them. AU are not
eparchs, or rulers of thousands, or rulers of hundreds, or
rulers of fifties, and so forth : but each man in his ovm
rank executeth the orders given by the king and his chief
officers." ^ The " Prima Clementis " takes up a comparison
we have seen already in St. Paul's Epistle to the Eomans
and in his first Epistle to the Corinthians : the faithful are
^ XXIX. 1-3, xxx. 3: ivSva-apeda ttjv opovotav.
^ XXXIV. 7 : Kal fjpels ovv iv opovoia ini to avTO avvaxBevres rfj avveiSri-
aet, as evos aroparos ^orja-apev. This is an allusion to the liturgical chants
and acclamations. The expression ini to avrd avvaxSevres, whioh we
shall find again in St. Ignatius, had been already used by St. Paul ; the
word a-vvetS-fjo-et may be compared with the expression "conscientia
religionis" of TertuUian.
'^ XXXVII. 2-3 : Karavorja-apev Toiis (TTparevopevovs toIs f/yovpevois rjpav
. . . eKaa-TOs iv rm ISia rdypari ra iniTao-a-opeva vnb tov ^aa-tXeas Kal
r/yovpevav intreXei. The chiliarchs, etc., are a reminiscence of Exod.
XVIII. 21. A " chiliarch" is like a tribune, a " hecatontarch," like a cent
urion. The Roman army had no grade corresponding to that of a "pen-
tecontarch ''. An " eparch " is a civil " praefectus ". We find at an early
date Christians using with special fondness those mUitary comparisons.
Of. 2 Cor. X. 3-6 ; Eph. vl 10-18 ; Phil. n. 25. In the Pastoral Epistles,
Christian life is represented as a period of military service, and the Chris
tian as a soldier (1 Tim. i. 18 ; 2 Tim. ii. 3). St. Ignatius, and after him
TertuUian and Cyprian, dwell on this comparison,

THE INFANT CHURCH 125
not only a people, an assembly, an army; they are a body,!
which is the body of Christ : " Wherefore do we tear and
rend asunder the members of Christ?" (xlvi. 7). The
Church is also a flock : " Let the flock of Christ be at peace
under the presbyters " who rule over it.^ All these images
are aheady familiar to us, but we have to see what definite
and precise ideas they express.
Unity is procured by the religious training given by the
presbyters to the faithful : the word iraiBeia is . almost as
famUiar to our author as 6p.6voia. " Let us reverence our
rulers," he vyrites, " let us honour our elders, let us instruct
oiir young men in the lesson of the fear of God, let us
form our women towards that which is good."* Here it is
question only of moral training, but the same formation wiU
apply to the mind and to the character, in order that ec
clesiastical unity may be obtained. " Let us accept discip
line, whereat no man ought to be vexed . . . the admonition
{vovOeTTjaK) which we give one to another is good and use
ful " (LVI. 2). "Submit yourselves unto the presbyters,
and receive discipline unto repentance. . . . Learn to sub
mit yourselves. ... It is better for you to be found little
but of good repute in the flock of Christ, than to be had in
exceeding honour and yet be cast out of the hope of Christ." *
In other words : outside the fold no hope, outside the
Church no salvation.
This disciphne has for its matter the Lord's commands
and the received faith. " Let the commandments and or
dinances of the Lord be written on the tables of your heart "
(II. 8). Woe to him who does not walk "in the ordinances
of the commandments " of Christ.'^ Let us remember the
"words of the Lord Jesus" and be "obedient to His hal-
' XXXVII. 5, XXXVIII. 1. We may recall what has been said above
of the Latin word corpus as being the legal term for designating an
association. ^LIV. 2. Cf. XVI. 1, XLIV. 3, LVII. 2.
° XXI. 6. The npoqyo-tipevot are the rulers of the church, the npea-^-vre-
pot are the Christians who are advanced in age or of old standing, in con
trast with the young, vearepot.
*LVii. 1-2. Here again the npea-^vrepot are the elders, in contrast
with the vearepot. In this passage Clement follows 1 Pet. v. 5.
^ III. 4 : ev Tols vopipois rav npoaraypdrav avrov.

126 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
lowed words".! jjg ^jjat hath love fulfils "the command
ments of Christ " ^ As true as God lives, and as the
Lord Jesus lives, and as the Holy Ghost lives, he who
fulfils humbly and perseveringly "the ordinances and com
mandments given by God " will be sure of a place among
those souls that are saved by Jesus Christ.' When preach
ing union to the faithful of Corinth, the author of the
Epistle does not at all doubt that his admonitions wUl be
heard, because the Corinthians are men of good faith who
have pondered " the oracles of the teaching of God ".* The
words used to designate this teaching are as definite as
can be desired. The Epistle does not speak of a " spirit,"
but of logia — a word which suggests the idea of precise and
without doubt written precepts. Then, too, the idea of Holy
Writ is affirmed by the " Prima Clementis" in the most ex
plicit terms : " You know," we read in the Epistle, " and you
i know well, the sacred Scriptures and you have searched into
the logia of God ".^ Whatever the contents of these sacred
Scriptures may be, whatever place the New Testament may
have in them, this is a law which will enable the presbyters
to judge rightly. Then, conjointly, we have the word rule
itself {/cavcov) pronounced : and this word he does not apply
to Holy Writ exclusively, but to aU that belongs to the re
ceived faith : " Let us forsake idle and vain thoughts ; and
let us conform to the glorious and venerable canon which
has been handed down to us ".®
The "Prima Clementis" does not need to apply this
principle of the canon to any doctrinal matter against
heretics. It has to consider the hierarchical order, only inas
much as it is the institution of Christ Himself. " We ought
to do all things in order, whatever the master has commanded
' XIII. 1, 3. Cf. XX. 1-10.
^ XLIX. 1. Ta TOV XptOTOV napayyeXpara, Cf . L. 5.
^ LVIII. 2 : Ta vn6 TOV Beov SeSopeva SiKaiaptara koi npoardypara.
* LXII. 3 : ra \6yta ttjs natSeias tov 6eov. Cf. Heb. XII. 6-9.
° LIII. 1 : iepas ypa(j>ds, Xdyta tov 6eoii. Cf . XLV. 2.
^ VII. 2 : eXBapev ini tov ei/KXerj Kal a-epvov ttjs napaSoareas rfpav Kavova.
The word Kavav which we had already found in 2 Cor. x. 13 and Gal.
VL 16, reappears : here it signifies a binding rule, having authority.
Clement uses it in two other passages ; I, 3 {iv ry Kavovi Ttjs virorayijs) and
XLI. 1.

THE INFANT CHURCH 127
us to perform at the appointed seasons."! This is an al
lusion to the Christian worship. Here, as in the " Didachfe,"
the aUusion to Christian worship brings up the thought
of the Levitical worship. "Now the offerings and minis
trations He commanded to be performed with care, not ac
cording to pleasure 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." He
has determined the function of the high-priest, the place
assigned to the priests, and the offices of the Levites : there
are prescriptions for the man of the people, the layman, i.e.
for the Israelite who does not belong to the tribe of Levi
and to the priestly family.^ This is simple allegory,
Levitism being the type of the order which, according to
the " Prima Clementis," must prevail in the Christian liturgy.
There is a dispute as to whether the high-priest {dp-x^iepe-u';)
typifies here the bishop, or whether he typifies Christ : this
much is certain, that the priests (te/jet?) typify the presbyters,
and the Levites, the deacons. At aU events, the Christian
worship is in the hands of a hierarchy distinct from the
people: there are clerics and there are laymen. "Let each
one of us, brethren, keep to his own order . . . not trans
gressing the appointed rule of his office."*
We have aheady seen in the " Prima Clementis " a de
cidedly Eoman image of that hierarchy : the Christians com
pared to an army serving under a certain number of officers,
each soldier at his post and fulfilling, according to his grade,
the commands of the basileus and of the officers. Here the
basileus is Christ, and the officers {-^yovfievoi) are the pres
byters. We must note that the basileus gives orders, and
' XL. 1 ; ndvTO rd^et noielv 6(f)etXopev otra 6 SeanoTTjs intreXeiv eKeXevaev
Kara Katpoiis reraypevovs.
^XL. 2-5: ™ yap dpxtepel tSiat Xetrovpyiai SeSopevat elaiv, Kal Tols
lepevfTiv XStos 6 roiros tt poareTaKTat, Kal Xevtrats IStai SiaKOvtat iniKeivrat, 6
XaiKor avdpanos k.t.X. As to the meaning of dpxtepeis see Lightfoot,
" Clement,'' vol. ii. p. 123. We should notice the use of the word tottoj.
The word XdiKos which is not found in the LXX, appears here for the
first time in the ecclesiastical language.
^ XLI. 1 : eKaaros fjpav, dSeXcj)oi, iv ra ISia rdypart, . . . pfj napeK^atvav
TOV apta-pevov rijs Xetrovpyias avrov Kavova.

128 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
so also do the officers.! Whence do the presbyters derive this
right to command, and this authority which is added to the
authority of the received precepts ? The " Prima Clementis "
ai|swers that Christ was sent by God, and the Apostles by
Je^ks Christ. TertuUian will express the idea in no more
striftqig terms a century later : " Ecclesia ab apostolis, apostoli
a Christo, Christus a Deo ".
In fact the " Prima Clementis" adds that, after receiving
the instructions of the risen Saviour, the Apostles parted
company to preach God's kingdom ; they preached it in prov
inces and cities, where they established the " first-fruits,"
i.e. the first converts of those provinces and cities, in the
functions of episcopi and deacons, to minister to those
who were to join the Church later on (xlii. 1-4).
Thus the hierarchy was based on the immediate authority
of the Apostles. When the " first-fruits," or &:st episcopi
commissioned by the Apostles, in due course die, their office
will be taken up and exercised by new episcopi, men who
will command the esteem of all : for these new episcopi will
have been invested with their office, if not by the Apostles
themselves, at least by the episcopi chosen by the Apostles,
the consent of the whole Church being required.^ In other
words, unlike the magistracies of Greek cities, the episcopal
^ XXXVII. 2 : ra iniracraopeva vnb tov ^aaiXas Kal rav Tjyovpevav.
These terms also express Clement's loyal fidelity to the Emperor and the
magistrates. In this respect the early Christian community had two
sentiments : on one hand, the sentiment which is expressed in St. John's
Apocalypse and looks upon the Empire as a manifestation of Anticlirist ;
on the other hand, the sentiment of loyalty, wiiich impels to render to
Csesar the things that are Csesar's. Leaving aside the obscure text ot
2 Thess. II. 6, 7, St. Paul expressed most decidedly the sentiment of
loyalty, Rom. xm. 1-7 and Tit. iil 1 ; likewise St. Peter, 1 Pet. ii. 13-
14, 17. In return for this sentiment, the Christians, like the Jews, ex
pect from the Empire nothing but justice and security : they dare not
hope it to embrace the Gospel.
"xiiv. 2-3. In these passages we may find an allusion to the
collegiate episcopate, and also the manner of election. Trustworthy men
are chosen {SeSoKipaa-pivoi). They are invested by the Apostles, or, it the
Apostles are dead, by the episcopi or presbyters instituted by the
Apostles ; they are invested with the consent of the local Church. Tois
oiji' KaraoTaOivTas in' iKeivav (the Apostles) 7^ pera^ii vCJ)' erepav eKXarftpav
dvSpav, a-vvevSoKtia-da-qs Ttjs iKKXtjo-tas irda-rjs ; the local Church brings
merely its consent to their investiture.

THE INFANT CHURCH 129
authority, together vnth the powers which constitute it, is
not derived from the vote of the members of the assembly ;
it is not a power delegated by that assembly : it is an office,
or XeiTovpjia which those invested with it pass on to their
successors as an inheritance transmissible from han4 to
hand : in one word it is the hierarchy. '•
This is the principle in the name of which the "Prima
Clementis " reproves the scandal given by the Church of
Corinth. For as to the presbyters who fulfil blamelessly
their function, " we consider that it is unjust to depose
them" (XLIV. 3). It is indeed an abominable scandal, a
scandal unworthy of Christianity, that in a Church as old
and as firmly established as that of Corinth, a cabal should
have been formed, for the sake of one or two personages,
against the presbyters, or rulers of the Church (xlvii. 6).
This rebellion is wicked and hateful: "It will be no light
sin in us, if we turn out of their episcopal charge those
who have offered the gifts blamelessly and holily ".! These
few words imply that, in case of a serious grievance, the
community may deprive of the episcopal function one who
has been invested with it. Apart from such cases, the office
cannot be taken away, and is held for hfe (xliv. 5-6).
The practical conclusion of the Epistle is that there were
sent from Eome to Corinth "faithful and prudent men,"
men of mature age and well known, ever since their youth,
for the gravity of their lives : " They shall be witnesses be
tween you and us," in other words, they shall express to
the Corinthians the sentiments of the Eomans, and give
them Clement's letter. " This we have done that you may
know that we have had, and still have, every solicitude that
you should be speedily at peace " (lxiii. 3-4). Whether the
Eoman Church had been asked by some Corinthians to inter
vene, the Epistle does not say; if the presbyters deprived of
their office through the revolt of the Corinthians did, in fact,
appeal to Eome, it may have been tactful on Clement's
part not to mention it. If that did happen, we have here
^ XLIV. 4 : dpapTia ov piKpa fjplv ea-rat, idv tovs dpepnras koi oa-tas npotr-
eveyK6vTas to Sapa, r^s inta-Konrjs dno^dXapev. Here again we find the
priestly character of the episcopate affirmed and the episcopate included
in the presbyterate, according to the meaning we have fixed elsewhere,
9

130 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
a most remarkable appeal to Eome, the first that history re
cords. But it may be that Eome was reliably informed by
public rumour of the scandal which had arisen at Corinth,
and that her intervention was spontaneous (xlvii. 7). On
this latter supposition, we realize the more distinctly how
unprecedented is the intestine revolution that has taken place
at Corinth, and also how Eome is already conscious " of poss
essing a supreme and exceptional authority," which she wiU
not cease to claim in subsequent ages, and which, as early
as this first intervention, is religiously obeyed by Corinth.!
Sohm, who has recognized the importance of the testi
mony which the Epistle of St. Clement of Eome bears to
the history of Catholicism and of the Eoman primacy,
sees in it the manifesto of ecclesiastical law, of that famous
"Kirchenrecht" which is, in his eyes, the framework of
Catholicism. The fundamental idea of Catholicism, he says,
is that the visible Church governed by the bishops and by
the Pope is identical with Christendom, i.e. the Church of
Christ. Why ? Because Christendom has received from God
Himself a definite legal constitution ; in other words, be
cause there is a divine law. And this doctrine finds its first
expression in St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians. Be
fore Clement there was nothing similar, so that one may
justly say that Clement's letter put an end to the primitive
condition of Christianity, and brought about " the most mo
mentous accident in the whole evolution of the Church ".2
This view contains an important element of truth, in
regard to which it describes accurately the teaching of the
"Prima Clementis". Certainly, the "Prima Clementis"
proclaims the divine right of the hierarchy founded by the
Apostles ; certainly, this divine law of the hierarchy is con
stitutive of Catholicism. But did the " Prima Clementis "
create thus entirely the divine right of the hierarchy on the
occasion of the incident of Corinth, or was not the divine
right aheady contained in the existing institutions and in
the conception which all Christians had of those institu-
' Duchesne, " Eglises separ^es," p. 126. We may remark too that
the Apostle John, who was still living at Ephesus, did not intervene,
although communications between Ephesus and Corinth were much more
natural than between Corinth and Rome.
" Sohm, " Kirchenrecht," p. 160.

THE INFANT CHURCH 131
tions ? Sohm claims that, till the time of Clement's
Epistle, Christendom in its enthusiastic faith, knew no
power save that of Love and of the Spirit:! j^^^; ^;jjig ^g
romancing ! When he has to explain the intervention of
Clement and of his legal mind in the midst of such a chaos,
Sohm talks of the decrease of faith, of the necessity of regu
lating the eucharistic worship and the management of
finance : " Practical considerations inspired the letter of
Clement and brought about later on the triumph of his
ideas". Catholicism is the fatal product of the decrease of
faith and of the multiplication of sins : we have it on the
authority of a Protestant professor. III.
The " Prima Clementis " is the expression of an ecclesi
ology that is more than merely Eoman and legal. Great as the
distance may be between the man of law and tradition who
wrote the " Prima Clementis," and the emotional and mystical
author of the Ignatian Epistles, it is not paradoxical to affirm
that St. Clement of Eome and St. Ignatius of Antioch
agree essentially in their conception of the Church.
A first feature common to both is this : St. Ignatius
knows nothing of those itinerant missionaries who, prompted
by the Spirit, were still going around from one Church to
another, when the " Didache " was composed. There is a
constant correspondence going on between the Churches ;
and this mutual intercourse by means of letters and mes
sengers is regulated and, we may say, official. For in
stance, Ignatius begs Polyearp, the Bishop of Smyrna, to
assemble the faithful of Smyrna and choose a messenger to
go to Antioch and tell the Christians of that city how grate
ful Ignatius is to the Smyrnians.^ Again Ignatius asks
•Sohm, "Kirchenrecht," pp. 162-3. Harnack, "Entstehung und
Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts in den zwei
ersten Jahrhunderten " (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 121-86, has a pungent criti
cism of what elsewhere he calls Sohm's " Anabaptist thesis ". Of. also
the criticism of Sohm's view by Paul Fournier in the " Nouvelle Revue
historique du droit," vol. xvm. (1894), pp. 286-95.
''"Polyc." VII. 2 : npenei avp^ovXiov dyayelv deonpeiretrraTOv Kal x^^-
porovtja-ai rtva. The verb ;(«poroj'erj' always signifies to elect ; and this is
why Ignatius here calls the church wpBoiXtov.
9*

132 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Polyearp to write to the neighbouring churches to entreat
each of them to send, if possible, a messenger to convey to
their destination Polycarp's letters to his bereaved flock.
"I salute him who from Smyrna shall be appointed to go
to Syria."!
V The insistence of the " Prima Clementis " on the neces
sity of obedience to the established hierarchy on the part of
the faithful might be accounted for by the state of anarchy
into which the Corinthian Church had accidentaUy faUen.
On the contrary, what imparts to this insistence its true signi
ficance, is the fact that the Ignatian Epistles repeat it, with
a similar emphasis and when addressing aU the Churches,
in the manifest assumption that the principle is fundamental.
The word o/movolu is just as frequently used by Ignatius as by
Clement ; so also is the word v-n-oTdcrcretv in the same sense of
submission and obedience. Everywhere we find a constituted
hierarchy, with the bishop as supreme, a presbyterium of
priests, and deacons.^ " Let aU the faithful respect the
deacons as [they do] Jesus Christ," since Jesus Christ be
came wiUingly the servant of His ovtu disciples ; let them
"respect the bishop as the image of the Father, and the
priests as the council of God and the coUege of the
Apostles : apart from these " — the bishop, the presbyterium,
the deacons—" there is no Church ".^ Could the hierarchical
idea of the Church be more strongly expressed ?
Unlike Clement, Ignatius does not treat its ApostoUc
institution as the sole reason for the submission of the
faithful to the hierarchy ; * he desires that we should also
see in it the divine authority it represents. Ignatius is a
mystic in whose eyes the bishop is the grace of God, and
the presbyterium the law of Jesus Christ ; God is pre-emi-
1 "Polyc." vni. 1-2. Cf. Polycarp, "Philip." xm., xiv.
^TixERONT, "Hist, des dogmes" (Paris, 1905), vol. l p. 140. De
Gbnouillao, "L'Eglise chr. au temps de S. Ignace " (Paris, 1907), p. 137
and foil. "" Trail.'' III. 1 :~x'*'P''5 ''¦'"^'>"' "K^'!'''"' "^ KoXelrat. Cf. "Smyrn."
vm. 1. "Ad Polycaip." vi. 1. Ct. Poltcarp. " Philip." v. 3.
* "Trail." VII. 1 : tovto Se earat vplv pij (fivatovpevois Kal oucth' dxi»-
pioTots 'itjo-ov XptOTOV Kal TOV inta-Konov Kal rav Staraypurav Tav diToiTToKav.
Lightfoot, "Ignatius" (1889), vol. ii. p. 169, finds in this passage a
reference to the institution of episcopacy.

THE INFANT CHURCH 133
nently the bishop, the invisible bishop who manifests him
self through and in the visible bishop.! The faithful must
submit to the bishop, as Jesus Christ submitted to His
Father, and as the Apostles submitted to Christ, to the
Father, and to the Spirit ; ^ they must submit to the pres
byterium as to Christ's Apostles.* To describe that discipline,
Ignatius uses the comparison already used by St. Clement,
that of the military discipline : let there be no deserter among
the faithful enlisted in the service of Christ.* He also uses
the comparison of the choral unison which we found in St.
Clement : the presbyterium is attuned to the bishop like the
strings of a lyre : the whole Church sings together and in
unison, as a choir, forming but one voice.* The faithful are
united to their bishop by a bond which is not human but
spiritual, the same bond as unites the Church to Jesus
Christ, "that all things may be harmonious in unity ".^
The faithful are the members of Christ. Hence they should
remain in "blameless unity, that they may also be partakers
of God ".¦'
The inscription of every one of the Ignatian Epistles
bears testimony that the Church, the local and self-govern-
iag Church, is, in the eyes of Ignatius, a moral, predestined,
sanctified thing, of which, prompted by his spirit of faith,
l^e sings' the praises in truly lyric tones. The Church
" which is in Ephesus " is " blessed through the greatness
of God in all plenitude"; she is "predestined before aU
ages ". The Church " which is at IMagnesia, on the
Meander," is "blessed through the grace of God the Father
in Jesus our Saviour ". The Church " which is at Tralles
of Asia "is "beloved of God," she is holy, chosen, worthy
of God. The Church " which is at Philadelphia of Asia " is
established in the concord of God, she exults in the Saviour's
passion and overflows with God's mercy that is in her. The
'"Magn." n. and m. ; cf. "Polyc." inscr. and vm. 3, on the
episcopate of God.
2 " Magn." xm. 2. » " Trail." ii. 2.
^ " Polycarp," Vl. 2 : dpea-Kere a arparevea-de, d<p' o5 ra o-^avta
Kopta-ea-de, ptjTts vpav Secreprap evpedtj. The reader will notice the Latin-
isms borrowed from military language.
= "Eph."iv. «"Eph."v. 1. '"Eph." IV. 2.

134 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Church " which is at Smyrna of Asia " is full of grace, and
beloved of God, and fertile in holiness. Ignatius lyrically
personifies each Church to impress vividly on the faithful
that, if they wish to abide by the law given them by God,
they must unceasingly adhere to their respective Churches,
and therefore to their respective bishops, in constant
fidelity. Again, this personification proves how perceptible is this
unity in every Church : could St. Ignatius speak as he does,
were each city divided into dissenting and rival commu
nities ? It proves also the mutual agreement among them
selves of all these various Christian cities; could Ignatius
write to all of them with this confidence, were he not sure
that their sentiments were in harmony with his? These
Christian communities, it is true, are threatened with error :
but what is so remarkable is that these errors, far from ob
taining a lasting abode in the heart of the community,
succeed only in separating from the community any one who
embraces them. Docetism, which reduces Christ to a divine
phantom, is the error denounced by St. Ignatius as an actual
danger : " Be ye deaf," he writes, " when any man speaketh
to you of Jesus Christ as though He were not of the race of
David or the Son of Mary, as though He had not truly
eaten or drunk or suffered, as though He had not died
or descended into hell, or been raised from the dead : the
Christians who speak thus are unbehevers {ainiTToi) , and
godless {dOeoi) : avoid them ".! The Christians of Ephesus
are praised because they " all live according to truth, and
no heresy hath a home among them ".^ " Truth " is to be
understood here, it would seem, in the sense of the rule of
faith. A division, a heresy, is the contrary of the truth received
by all. Whoever strives to sow an "evil doctrine" is re
jected, driven away as a mad dog that is beyond cure.^ The
Philadelphians must beware of weeds which are not culti
vated by Jesus Christ, which have not been planted by the
Father.* Whoever does not speak of Jesus Christ as the
Church does, must be looked upon as dead: an allusion

X tt

Trail." ix.-x. " Smyrn." iv. 2 " Eph." vi. 2.
3 " Eph." VII. 1 and ix. 1. •¦ " Philad." m. 1. Cf. vi. 1-2.

THE INFANT CHURCH 135
perhaps to the custom of the philosophical schools of ancient
Greece, in which the term "dead" was applied to those
scholars who broke with the dogmas of their school.! _ _
At all events the Churches which Ignatius has in view,
effectively defend themselves against the inroads of Docet
ism: and this actual condition of things explains why ad
hesion to the visible Church is a guarantee that one is in
possession of the truth.
As unity, however mysticaUy it may be understood and
preached, is not of self-evident necessity, St. Ignatius must
broach a theory which can justify it. Here, as for the whole
religion, faith has preceded theory, and theory — as it ever
happens — has been made necessary by heresy. Ignatius
writes to the Philadelphians as foUows : —
" [vii.] Even though certain persons desired to deceive
me after the flesh, yet the Spirit is not deceived, being from
God : for it knows whence it comes and where it goes, and
it searches out the hidden things. I cried out, when I was
among you; I spake with a loud voice, with God's own
voice, Give heed to the bishops and presbytery and deacons.
Howbeit they suspected me of saying this because I knew
beforehand of the schism of certain persons. But He in
whom I am bound is my witness that I learned it not from
flesh of man ; it was the Spirit who spake in this vdse ; Do
nothing without the bishop ; keep your flesh as a temple of
God ; cherish union ; shun divisions ; be imitators of Jesus
Christ, as He Himself also was of His Father.
" [VIII.] I did therefore my own part, as a man who is
on the side of unity. Where there is division and anger,
there God abides not. Now the Lord forgives aU men
when they repent, if repenting they return to the unity of
God and to the communion of th6 bishop : I have faith in
the grace of Jesus Christ, who shaU strike off every fetter
from us ; and I entreat you. Do nothing in a spirit of
factiousness, but in accordance with the teaching of Christ.
For L heard certain persons saying, ' If I find not this doc-
1" Philad." VL 1. Cf. the note of Funk on that passage. "PP.
apostol." (1901), vol. I. p. 269, where he quotes Clement of Alexandria
and Didymus.

136 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
trine of faith in the archives, in the Gospel,! i believe it not '.
And when I said to them ' It is written,' they answered me,
'That is the question'. But as for me, my archives are
Jesus Christ, the invisible archives are His Cross, His
Death, His Eesurrection, and faith through Him ; wherein
I desire to be justified through your prayers."
Here we find St. Ignatius contending with Christians
whose minds are being wrought on by heresy. Ignatius
has repeated his maxim, which is always the same : Love
- unity, do nothing without the bishop. At Philadelphia the
faithful did not think this was a principle, they saw in it a
lesson given for the benefit of some who were then breaking
with the bishop and with unity. Without doubt his warn
ing was timely, but Ignatius was not thinking of that ;
what he was saying at Philadelphia he had said everywhere.
But, at Philadelphia, the faithful, who have been led away
by Docetism, reason out their error and lay down this prin
ciple : Unless we find in the archives, i.e. in the Gospel, the
article of faith on which we disagree, we shall not beheve.
By " archives " we must understand here, not the Old
Testament, as Lightfoot thought, but simply, with Funk
and Zahn, every collection of authentic documents, like those
preserved in public archives : the coUection appealed to by
these controversialists is the Gospel. We believe, they say,
only. what is written.
Those few words of the Epistle to the Philadelphians indi
cate the antithesis between Holy Writ and the hierarchical
authority, and even at an early date, heretics are found who
appeal to what is written for the purpose of justifying them
selves. Taken in itself, the appeal to Scripture could be no
surprise for Ignatius, since he cannot but admit the authority
of a Sacred Writing. Did he not say to the Magnesians :
" Do your diligence that you be confirmed in the maxims of
the Lord and of the Apostles".^ The word maxims is
1 About the text of this passage see the note of Funk, " PP. apostol."
vol. I. p. 270. Concerning the dpxela, i.e. the archives of Greek cities,
Chapot, p. 245-8.
" " Magn." XIII. 1 : a-novSd^ere ovv ^e^aiaOtjvat iv rols Soypaaiv toC kv-
ptov Koi Tmi/ aTTooToXoH'. The word Sdyfia signifies primarily any decision
or decree that has force of law in a Greek city. See in Dittenberger,

THE INFANT CHURCH 137
not an appropriate translation of the Greek word Boyfiara,
which expresses the idea of a command or a decision emanat
ing from an unquestioned authority, and, as such, obligatory.
If the Lord and the Apostles have left to Christians "dog
mas " of this kind, any writing that contains these " dog
mas" is invested with an authority equal to that of the
Lord and of the Apostles ; this is the principle itself of the
New Testament regarded as a canon.! Ignatius accepts the
principle that we must believe what is written, and, address
ing the DocetsB against whom he is arguing, he says to
them : What is written testifies against you ; to which the
Docetae reply : This is precisely the point. Here we are in
a circle. We should like to see St. Ignatius state more distinctly.,
that Scripture is not self-sufficing and that the written faith
is not the whole faith. He insinuates it when he writes :
" For me, my archives are Jesus Christ . . . and faith
through Him." The authoritative faith is that faith to
which the Church as such gives testimony. . . . But the
affirmation of Ignatius has not that distinctness vpith which
Irenseus and TertuUian will speak later on.
To be complete, however, we must call attention to the
importance attached by St. Ignatius to the authority of the
Apostles. The " Prima Clementis " had already pointed to
the Apostles as clothed with the power of Jesus for the es
tabUshment of the Church all over the world. As we have
just seen, St. Ignatius places the "dogmas" of the Apostles
on the same level with those of the Lord. He speaks of
the Gospel as a real presence of Christ, and, in the same
sentence, refers to the Apostles as the first presbyterium of
the Church.^ He likens the Apostles to the prophets of the
"Sylloge insoriptionum graecarum," vol. in. p. 173, the index at the word
Soypa. Naturally those Soypara are preserved in the public archives of
the city. ' Cf. " Philad." V. 1 : npoa-^vyav rw evayyeXia . . . Kal rols dnoaroXots
. . . Kal, TOVS npotjjrjTas Se dyanapev k.t.X., and LiGHTPOOT'S note in loc. : I
cannot give here the explanations and remarks which would be required in
a history of the formation of the canon of the New Testament. I have
studied the conclusions of Zahn in an article in the "Revue Biblique," vol.
XII. (1903), pp. 10-26, 226-33. For a criticism of Harnack's theory see
W. Sandat, "Inspiration" (London, 1893), pp. 1-69.
2 "Philad." V. 1.

138 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Old Covenant who also, in a certain way, announced the
Gospel.! He places the authority of the Apostles far above
that which he, a bishop and a martyr, may have : " I did
not think myself competent for this, that being a prisoner
I should order you as though I were an Apostle." ^ He ex
cuses himself from writing to the Eomans : " I do not en
join you, as Peter and Paul did : they were Apostles ".^
The authority of the Apostles was evidently privileged and
incommunicable, and it has not ceased to attach to the de
cisions that emanated from them, and the teachings given by
them. Thus unity is based on Divine right. Ignatius looks upon
it as so manifestly the economy intended and actually estab
lished by God and by the Lord, that he adds nothing more
for its justification. He sees unity realized in every Church,
he sees it realized no less perfectly throughout the world
in that unity which binds together all the Churches in one,
through the unity of their faith. The Lord, in whom we
believe " with immovable faith," was born of the Virgin
Mary, baptized by John, nailed to the cross under Pontius
PUate, rose again "that He might set up a standard
unto all the ages for His saints and faithful people, whether
among Jews or among Gentiles, in the one body of His
Church." * This standard is the cross. In the Church it is
set up for ever, in order to gather Jews and pagans into
1" Philad." V. 2.
^ " Trail." ni. 3 : ovk . . . as dnoaroXos vplv Starda-frapat. (I sum
marize the text.) Compare Acts xvi. 4, and Ignatius himseK, "Eph." in.
1 : oil Starda-a-opat vplv as &v ti. The word Starayij means a medical pre
scription, but also an imperial decision. Deissmann, pp. 56-7.
'"Rom." IV. 3 : ovx as Hirpos koI IlaOXoy Stardaaopai vplv, cKflvoi
dnoaroXot, iya KardKptTos. Cf. "Eph." m. 1. Ignatius could not speak
thus of St. Peter and St. Paul, unless these two Apostles were connected
with the Roman Church by historical circumstances and had really given
commands to the Romans.
* " Smyrn." I. 2 : Iva apt) a-va-a-tjpov els roiis alavas Sta rtjs dvaardaeas ets
TO-vs dytovs Kal ntarovs avrov, circ iv 'lovSatots eXre iv edveo-tv, iv evi aapart
Trjs eKKXtja-ias avrov. The Church is the Church of Jesus Christ : this may
be an allusion to Matt. xvi. 18. It is a body : a thought borrowed from
Col. I. 18 and Eph. ii. 16, etc. Elsewhere (" Eph." xvii. 1) Ignatius ex
plains that Christ was allegorically anointed with perfumes, to impart
incorruptibility {di^idaparia) to the Church.

THE INFANT CHURCH 139
one calling, which makes them — the faithful and the saints —
one body. The same sentiment is expressed by Ignatius in
his letter to the Christians of Smyrna. " Wheresoever the
bishop shall appear," he writes, "there let the body [of
the faithful] be; even as where Jesus Christ is, there is
the Catholic Church." ! In other words the bishop consti
tutes the unity of the local Church and Jesus Christ the
unity of all the local Churches spread throughout the world,
the unity of all the dispersed bishops. " For Jesus Christ,"
St. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians, " is the mind of the
Father, even as the bishops that are settled in the farthest
parts [of the world] are the mind of Jesus Christ."^
This is not the first time that we find in a Christian
writer a sense of the actual unity of the Church in her geo
graphical expansion, but for the first time in Christian litera
ture, we find here the name " Catholic Church " pronounced.^
Unhke the controversialists who wUl presently arise, Ignatius
does not oppose the universal Church to the dissenting con
venticles ; his purpose is to contrast the local churches vrith
' " Smyrn." vm. 2 : ottou av fi Xptarbs 'itjaovs, eKelr/ KaBoXtKtj eKKXtja-ta.
Funk : " Revera ecclesiis singulis universa ecclesia opponitur, et ut epis
copus iUarum (visibile), sic Christus harum (invisibile) caput declaratur."
Lightfoot: "The bishop is the centre of each individual Church, as
Jesus Christ is the centre of the universal Church."
^"EpKT" in. ^ oi eTTiVncoTroi, oi Kara ra nepara optadevTes, iv 'itjaov
Xptarm'yv'ap-if ela-tv. The geographical meaning of Kard rd nepara (cf.
Ignat. "Rom." vi. 1) is beyond dispute.
'The word KaOoXiKos is met with neither in the LXX nor in the
New Testament. It belongs to classical Greek, but there it seems used
only in philosophical language to designate a universal proposition : thus
we are told that Zeno the Stoic had written a treatise about Universals,
KadoXiKo.. We shall find the word used with the same meaning in Clement
of Alexandria and in Origen. Quintilian writes: " Mihi semper moris
fuit quam minime alligare me ad praecepta quae KadoXtKd vocitant, id est
(ut dicamus quomodo possumus) universalia vel perpetualia ". "Inst.
orat." n. 13, 14. The word ko^oXikos signifies universal, in expressions
like "universal history," for instance in Poltbius, " Hist." vm. 4, 11 :
rrjs KaBoXiKijs Kal Koivrjs iaropias. St. Justin applies it to the resurrection
of the dead: ^ KadoXiKri avdorao-ts "Dial." 82; so also Theophilus of
Antioch, " Autol." i. 13. In Philo, KaBoXtKds signifies general, in contrast
with pitrticular, "Vita Mosis," ii. 32 (ed. Cohn, vol. iv. p. 212). Cf.
Lightfoot, "Ignatius," vol. ii. p. 310, and BIattenbusch, "Apostol.
Symbol." vol. ii. pp. 920-2.

140 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the universal Church. Yet he brings out distinctly the idea
of that Church which despite the multiplicity of its parts is
one, and gives her the name she will bear in history.!
A last point will complete the ecclesiology of Ignatius.
Did he ascribe to the Church spread throughout the world,
any one localized centre of attraction ? Did it enter into
his mind that the Church of Eome was vested vyith a
primacy over the other churches? The passage in view
of which these questions arise, is the address of his Epistle
to the Eomans. While the addresses of the other Epistles
are marked by an emphasis which is to say the least,
decidedly Asiatic, the address of the Epistle to the
Eomans has far more of this emphasis than any other.
"Ignatius ... (it reads) to the Church that hath found
mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of
Jesus Christ His only Son ; to the Church that is beloved
and enhghtened through the wUl of Him who wills all
things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ, our
God ; [to the Church] also that presides in the place of the
region of the Eomans, worthy of God, worthy of honour,
worthy of benediction, worthy of praise, worthy of being
heard, worthy and chaste, and presiding over love, pos
sessing the law of Christ, and bearing the Father's name,
which Church I salute in the name of Jesus Christ. . . ."^
This magnificent array of words is a primary witness that
St. Ignatius pays more honour to the Church of Eome than
to the other Churches to which he v^rites.
Some claim to find a stiU surer evidence of this pre
eminence of Eome in the fact that " she has the presidency
'It is noticeable how Harnack ("Dogmengeschichte," vol. i*, p.
406), Sohm ("Kirchenrecht," p. 197), and Kattenbusch (p. 922) strive to
lessen the importance of this fact.
^ " Rom. " inscr. : . . . ^rw Kal npoKaBrirat ev i-ottoj ;(o)piot) 'Vapatav
. . . , Kot npoKa6t)pevr) ttjs dydnrjs. Cf. Funk's commentary in his edition,
and his essay ("Der Primat der romischen Kirche nach Ignatius und
Irenaus") in his " Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen,'' vol. i. (Pader-
born, 1897), pp. 2-12. A. Harnack, " Das Zeugnis des Ignatius iiber das
Ansehen der romischen Gemeinde," in the " Sitzungsberichte " of the
Academy of Berlin, 1896, pp. 111-31. Dom Chapman, " S. Ignace
d'Antioche et I'Eglise romaine," in the "Revue bdnedictine," vol. xm.
(1896;, pp. 385-400.

THE INFANT CHURCH 141
in the place of the region of the Eomans ". Funk grants
without difficulty that to say iv tott^ 'xatpiov 'Pwfjbaiwv for " at
Eome," is peculiar : but does not the style of Ignatius offer
many instances of such affectation? In case, then, Ignatius
meant to say simply, " at Eome," the verb TrpoKdOrjTai, will
be construed absolutely: the Church presides, and it pre
sides at Eome.!
But what is the nature of this pre-eminence? Accord
ing to Harnack, the expression TrpoKaOrjfievr] Trj<; dydTr7]<; gives
us the meaning of the enigma : the Eoman Church is the
most charitable, generous, helpful of all the Churches, and
this is why she is called the "president of love ". Funk,
on the contrary, observes that -TrpoKaOrifievi) cannot be con
strued save vnth the name of a place or of a collectivity :
we read irpoKaOrjfievr] Tfji; dvaToXrjs, and m-poicaOrifjAvr] T779
olicovfievt}<; ; hence the word which here is joined to irpoKa-
OrjfjLevT], should designate, not a virtue, but a collectivity.
Now, in several passages, Ignatius uses the word djd-n-r] as
synonymous with iKKXrja-la : ^ he says " the love of the
Ephesians," for "the Church of Ephesus". Since, then, a
local Church may be called dyd-n-T), why should not the same
word designate the universal Church ? So Funk contends.
His argument — I need not observe — establishes a possibility
rather than a conclusion; and he himself holds that the
pre-eminence of the Eoman Church is affirmed less by the
expression TrpoKuOrjfievr] T-fj<; dyd-Trr]'} than by the word irpoKd-
OrjTai. With Funk, we may regard as certain that St. Ignatius
believed in that pre-eminence, confirmed as we are in
that view by other data of the Epistle of Ignatius to the
Eomans. We have aheady noted the reverence with which
the Bishop of Antioch addresses the Church that has heard the
! Cf. Ignat. "Magn."vi. 1: npoKaStipivov tov inta-K6nov = t'he hisho})
who presides. Lightfoot recalls "Apostol. Constit." 11. 26 : 6 yap inia--
Konos npoKade^eaBa v/ioji' as deov d^ia Tertptjpevos.
^ " Trail." XIII. 1 : dydntj ^pvpvaiav koa. '"Ecfiea-tav . " Rom.'' ix. 3 : 17
dydni] raj/ eKKXtjortav . "Philad." XI. 2 : t; dydntj rSi/ dSeXtfiav rav iv
TpadSt. Cf. " Smyrn." xii. 1. Perhaps this special use of the word
dydnt) might be compared with that of the word Spovota, when designating
the confederation of several cities, as was the case in Asia, for instance.
Chapot, " Province d'Asie," p. 346.

142 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Apostles Peter and Paul.! jn the inscription of the Epistle,
he praises the Christians of Eome for being faithful to all
that is commanded by Christ, and for being filled whoUy
with the grace of God, and " clear from every foreign stain ".«
He congratulates them on having " instructed others," and
he adds: "My desire is that those lessons may be held
firm which you teach and enjoin ".^
Since the Eomans have taught " others," those others
represent churches other than that of Eome : churches that
come to Eome to ask, or receive from Eome without asking,
the lessons of the Apostolic commands which Eome preserves
more safely than other churches.
Between the captivity of St. Paul and that of St. Ignatius,
the space of half a century intervenes, in the course of which
the essential features of ecclesiology have been revealed to us.
The preaching of the Gospel and the faith it creates
give birth to communities in the whole world. Christian life
i'*'Bom."iv.3.
''"'Rom." mserrdTtoStvXia-pevots {iiteiaHy, filtered. Of. "Philad." in. 1)
dnb navrbs aXXorpiov xpaparos. LiGHTFOOT, in loc. : " The xpS/ia refers to
the colouring matter which pollutes the purity of the water "-
° "Rom." III. 1 : aXXovs iStSd^are, iya Se diXa tva KaKelva /3f'/3ata t) a
pa6r]TevovTes ivTeXXeaSe. According to LiGHTFOOT and FuNK, this may be
an allusion to the " Prima Clementis ". Cf . the els ras e^a ndXets of Hermas
("Vis." II. 4). "She presides in the country of the Romans. . . .
Here there is no question of the bishops, but of the Church. Over what
did the Roman Church preside ? Was it merely over some other Churches,
or dioceses, within a limited area 1 Ignatius had no idea of a limitation
of that kind. . . . The most natural interpretation of such language is that
the Roman Church presides over all the Churches. . . . And be it observed
that Ignatius speaks with a thorough knowledge of the matter ; he knows
the past of the Church of Rome, he even makes allusion to some of her
attitudes and acts, the remembrance of which is lost : ' You have never
deceived any one ; you have taught others. My desire is that aH that is
prescribed by your teaching should remain uncontested.' Of what teach
ing, of what prescriptions, is there question here ? Does he mean the
' Prima Clementis ' ? Or the ' Shepherd of Hermas ' ? The simplest
thing is to admit that there were other acts and other documents, the
memory of which was fresh in the time of Ignatius, but which have since
perished and been forgotten. In any case, the manner in which he speaks
of the authority of the Roman Church in matters of doctriae, and of the
prescriptions sent by her to other Churches, is well worthy of attention."
Duchesne, "Eglises separfees,'' pp. 127-9.

THE INFANT CHURCH 143
is an intercommunion {Kotvcovla) of souls, of belief, of worship.
Everywhere the apostolate has been succeeded by a settled
hierarchy the various degrees of which become gradually
more and more defined, the whole being recognized as
an institution of Divine right, invested with supernatural
powers. The idea of the faith which is everywhere pre
valent, is an authoritative conception, for faith is a com
mand or a teaching of God, of the Lord, accepted on the
testimony of the Apostles : ! and is preserved as a deposit.
Christians must shun empty talkers, seducers, and false
prophets, useless and foolish questions, traditions of men,
unauthorized observances ; the false teacher and his pro
ducts must be placed under the ban, he must be silenced,
driven away : he is a heretic. There is but one Church for
every city. The Churches are linked by the bond of solidar
ity. United together by means of constant intercourse, they
are conscious of their unity in their dispersion, for they
realize their conformity of faith, and the charity which pre
vails among them: since each of them is autonomous,
their unity is a kind of confederacy, a confederacy which is
daily expressed in facts. The primacy of Eome is affirmed.
The faith, which is one, just as the Lord is one, gathers the
dispersed faithful and their Churches into a still deeper unity,
that of the supernatural Ufe, which is common to all the
faithful, in Christ and in the Spirit : the Church of Churches
is mysticaUy the body of Christ, of which the faithful are
the individual members. There is circuminsession of the
visible and of the invisible : where the bishop is, there the
local Church is, and where the Catholic Church is, there Jesus
Christ is. ExcuESUS B.
A Critical Examination of Protestant Theories on the
Formation of Catholicism.
The " formation of Catholicism " is an historical prob
lem that has been raised by criticism only in our own
' Julicher, " Einleitung," p. 285, goes so far as to say that the words
of Serapion, bishop of Antioch (about the year 200) : " We accept Peter
and the other Apostles as we do the Lord " (dnoSex6pe6a as Xptarov,
Eusbb. " H. B." vi. 12, 3), might have been pronounced a hundred years
earlier, for even then Christians embodied all truth in the Apostles.

144 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
times.! The Catholic controversialists of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were satisfied with a demonstration of
the marks of the Church, especiaUy her apostolicity : in his
"Symbolik" (1832) Moehler appeals to the fact of her
immemorial possession, and the testimony she bears to her
self. Neander (1842) was, according to Eitschl, the first to
introduce the historical method into the investigation of the
origins of this " creation" — for such " Catholic Christianity "
was in his eyes. After Neander, the same problem was
taken up by Baur (1853) in the palmy days of the Tubingen
school. Later on, and in a spirit of reaction against the
Tubingen thesis, comes Eitschl himself, in the second edition
of his "Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche" (1857).
The problem of the Church came into the foreground vrith
this monograph of Eitschl's which, however, Harnack con
siders "really too narrow" ; and it is dealt with as of prime
importance in Harnack's " Dogmengeschichte " (1885).
Meanwhile in his " Apostolisches Zeitalter" (1886) Weiz
sacker ascribed to the first century the fundamental priu-
ciples of the Church system, thereby reacting against the
system of Harnack, which was still too narrow and mechanical.
In his "Kirchenrecht," (1892) Sohm, whose special interest
was in determining the origin and grovrth of ecclesiastical
law, lent the weight of his authority to this reaction. In
his researches into the history of the Apostles' Creed (1894-
1900) Kattenbusch contributes to restore the historical idea
of tradition. Lastly, we cannot omit to mention Zahn's
works and controversies regarding the history of the Canon.
We are here in presence of a phenomenon like that signalized
by Harnack in his criticism of the sources, when he used
the now famous formula : " We are moving back towards
the tradition ".^
If it is true that in history, reality is often reached only
by means of successive approximations, it may be that dur
ing the last fifty years critical scholars outside the Catholic
1 Father Christian Pesch, " Praelectiones Dogmaticae," vol. i.
(Freiburg, 1894), pp. 178-80, is, as far as I know, the first and only schol
astic theologian who has mentioned and discussed the theories of Ritschl,
Harnack and Hatch.
' " Chronologie," vol. L p. x.

THE INFANT CHURCH 145
fold have gradually come nearer to a more comprehensive
view, and one nearer to our traditional beliefs. However,
even now, is there not too much of the spirit of system and
— to say the word — of Protestant prejudice in their conten
tions? The best exposition of the views now current
among Protestant historians, has been given in French by
A. Sabatier : ! to his work we shall have recourse, in the
desire to present these views with as much objectivity as
possible. We will reserve our criticisms till we have before
us this system as a whole. * *
1. In the first place this school contends that the idea of
' a Church is foreign to the Gospel of Jesus.
2. In the earliest stage the Christian communities — for
from the very beginning Christians grouped themselves in
communities — are aU characterized by the same faith in the
near return of Christ, and the obsession of this firm truth
keeps out all thought of a lasting establishment.
3. Living in this feverish expectation of the "parousia,"
the early Christian communities in that first hour of their
existence need no disciphne. " The individual gifts (charisms)
apportioned by the Spirit to divers members of the com
munity met all needs. The Spirit, acting in each believer,
thus determines vocations, and portions out to one and
another, according to their faculties or zeal, ministries and
offices which appear to be only provisional." Hence, in
the beginning all the members of the community are
equal; then, a distinction is made among them, based on
^ [This is also the opinion of Dom 0. Butler : "In my judgment,
the importance of Sabatier's book for Catholics lies in this, that it sets
forth more powerfully and with more clear-cut precision than any other
book known to me, the real difficulties and the fundamental problems
in the domain of history which apologists of Catholicism have at the
present to face " (" Hibbert Journal," April, 1906, p. 482). Sabatier's
book has been translated into English, under the title " Religions of
Authority," New York, 1904. — T.] Consult also Harnack's "Kirche
und Staat bis zur Griindung der Staatkirche " in the book " Die christ-
liche Religion " (Berlin, 1906), pp. 129-60, of the collection of Hlnnbberg,
"Die Cultur der Gegenwart ". See also Sohmiedbl, art. "Ministry"
(1902) in Cheyne's " Enoyclopsedia Biblica," and the bibliography that
accompanies the article. 10

146 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit ; later on, the charism
becomes "a permanent ecclesiastical function". Under or
side by side with the Apostles, prophets and teachers, " who
hold their vocation directly from God alone, and who are
essentially itinerants," every community chooses for itself
presbyters or elders, episcopi and deacons : thus there arises,
on lines paraUel to "the nomad apostolate, a settled system
of ecclesiastical functionaries, which is destined httle by little
to replace and absorb it." !
4. However, "the evolution of every organism is
governed by a directing idea, which is, as it were, its ideal
and hidden soul. This idea is no more wanting here than
elsewhere." Sabatier does not say that this directing idea
can be detected in the Judaeo-Christian communities. He
finds it only in the communities founded by St. Paul, which,
he says, " had from the beginning a vivid consciousness of
their spiritual unity," so that " above the particular and local
Churches," there appears "the idea of the Church of God or
of Christ, one and universal". This unity is in no way
external or visible : it is a communion of souls, the mystical
body of which the invisible Christ is the head. It is not
founded on unity of government, or on a certain number of
rites or even of dogmas : it is purely moral. The Church
is the holy bride of Christ : she awaits her spouse who is
soon to come down from Heaven. " This Pauline notion of
the Church of Christ, like all the Apostle's theology, is
essentially ideaUst and transcendent " ; none the less we
must "recognize here the great idea which was to preside
over the evolution of the Christian communities, and cul
minate in the constitution of the Catholic Church ".^
5. That the Pauline conception of the Church as Christ's
mystical body had this influence on the genesis of Catholi
cism, must be accounted for by the success of St. Paul's
missions in the territories of the Eoman Empire, and by
the ruin of Jerusalem in the year 70. From that mo
ment, " the centre of gravity of the nascent Christianity
was for ever displaced ". After vainly attempting to impede
! Sabatier, pp. 60, 61. Cf. Sohm, pp. 22-8.
" Sabatier, pp. 61-3. Cf. Sohm, pp. 16-22. Harnack, "Dogmeng."
vol. iS p. 98.

THE INFANT CHURCH 147
Christian missionary work among the pagans, the Judseo-
Christian party which, in Sabatier's eyes, represents " primi
tive orthodoxy," declines and finally dies away. The mass
of the new converts from paganism take up a middle position
" between the theology of Paul which they were incapable of
comprehending," and the severe demands of the Judaizers
which they thoroughly disliked. " Thus was formed a sort
of elementary and neutral doctrine, half Greek rational wisdom
and haU Israelite tradition : " such was the theology of the
Apostolic Fathers, " the first basis of Catholic doctrine ".!
6. These Graeco-Eoman Christian communities needed
a centre around which they might group. Eome was there.
" The capital of the Empire was marked in advance to be
come the capital of Christianity." This was a social fact
which could not be disregarded. Hence " in the formation
of the Catholic Church the genius of Eome exercised a de
cisive influence," for this genius, which is neither speculative
nor mystical, is the genius of law and government.^
7. The Pauhne conception of the Church as Christ's
mystical body is, then, the idea which, when translated into
facts, gives birth to Catholicism. This evolution can be
noticed already in the Pastoral Epistles, which, we are
told, mark the transition, in the first years of the second
century, from the Apostolic communities in which charis
matic inspiration was predominant to the Catholic Church
which is about to appear. It is, indeed, about this time,
in the beginning of the second century, that the name
Catholic Church, "destined to so great a fortune," is
uttered for the first time by St. Ignatius in his Epistle to
the Smyrnians. As yet it is merely a " general expression,"
designating " the great Church," the whole community of the
faithful, in opposition to the sects, heresies, and schools that
swarm on all sides. This indefinite mass will become an
organized and conscious society, only when two elements
have been introduced into the dispersed and confused Chris
tian community : a statutory rule of faith accepted by all the
^Sabatier, p. 68. Cf. Harnack "Dogmeng." vol. iS pp. 239-48.
2 Sabatier, p. 69. Cf. Renan, "Lectures on the Influence of
Rome on Christianity " (1880), especially the third and fourth lectures.
Harnack, " Kirche und Staat," p. 138. " Mission," vol. i. p. 398.
10 *

148 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Churches as the expression of Apostolic tradition, and an
episcopal government powerful enough to reduce the whole
to unity. " The double crisis of Gnosticism and Montanism
which broke out between a.d. 130 and 150, and lasted
nearly a century, furnished both." !
This decisive crisis took place during the period 150-80,
under the reigns of Antoninus and of Marcus Aurelius. " In
the vat into which the whole vintage had been gathered a
fermentation was going on, an intense ebullition, the rapid
decomposition of the old elements and the slow recomposition
of a new system : it was this which constituted the crisis out
ofwhich the Catholic theory of the Church issued."^ Eome
realized the danger to which the still shapeless Christianity of
the second century was exposed, on the left from Gnosticism,
which was an inroad of the Greek spirit of speculation into
Christianity and an attempt to merge Christiaiuty in the
general philosophy of the time ; and on the right from Mon
tanism, which was a revival of the "prophetic spirit" with
its charisms, its ethical rigorism, and its preaching of the
approaching " parousia ".
8. Eome warded off the danger from the left by ac
crediting a rule of faith, which she drew up " by adding a
few clear and well-defined propositions to the formula of
baptism " : it was thus the so-called Creed of the Apostles
originated at Eome betweenthe years 150 and 160, "the
first and the venerable monument of Catholic orthodoxy,"
which the Eoman Church was soon to pass on rapidly to the
other Churches.^
9. The danger from the right lasted longer ; in the
end, however, the bishops got the better of the prophets
and of the private inspiration of the faithful. The result of
this victory was that henceforth the Holy Ghost must use as
its authentic organ the hierarchy alone. Eome crowned the
victory by creating the theory of Apostolic succession, which
has become the foundation of the authority of the bishops.*
! Sabatier, p. 72. This is the leading contention of Ritschl, "Ent
stehung," p. 271 and foil. Harnack, "Kirche und Staat," p. 136, and for
the development of these views "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 337 and foil.
2 Sabatier, p. 76.
* Sabatier, p. 79. Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 354 and foil.
¦* Sabatier, p. 82. Harnack, " Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 399 and foU.

THE INFANT CHURCH 149

* *
*

We may now take up in succession the various points
of this theory.
1. The contention that the idea of a Church is foreign
to the Gospel of Jesus, and even irreconcilable with it,
is held in Protestant circles to be certain and ahnost be
yond dispute. We shall not waste time on this point, as
we have already given our reasons for discovering in the
teaching of Jesus the point where the Church comes in.
2. The critics in question suppose that the early Chris
tian communities were not concemed to establish a lasting
organization, their horizon being limited by their expectation
of the near "parousia".
Here we detect the inner and radical inconsistency of the
theory which claims to reduce the teaching of Jesus to a
strictly eschatological message, for had the message of Jesus
been only that, it could not have lived. It could hardly have
taken root save in a Jewish soU saturated with pharisaic and
apocalyptic teachings ; and certainly it could not have out
lived the disappointment which must necessarily have ac
companied the indefinite postponement of the "parousia".
With far more historical sense, Eenan wrote : " If founded
upon a belief in the end of the world which the years as
they rolled by must convince of error, the Galilean congrega
tion could only have ended by breaking up into anarchy ".!
If, then, this handful of Galileans did not sink into its
eschatology as into a grave, it is because eschatology was
not the sole object of their faith, or even an essential
feature in it. Harnack had forestalled Sabatier's error,
when he laid dovpn as a principle that the Gospel was more
than an apocalyptic message which had issued from the Old
Testament, that it was " a new thing," namely " the crea-
\i tion of a universalist religion founded on that of the Old
Testament," ^ and founded, we wUl add, on the person of
Christ. If such was the horizon of the Gospel, can we say that
the first Christian communities did not think of any lasting
organization? How did the first of these communities
' " Marc Aurfele," p. 407- ' " Dogmeng." vol. iS p. 48.

150 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
begin to form other communities? Could it have formed
otliers if it had not felt compelled to carry on an unlimited
propagandism? Is not this propagation of the faith a first
indication of the action of an apostolate, of that apostolate
which Sabatier hardly mentions, but which was aheady the
Church? 3. We are told that the Christian communities, in their
earliest stage, hypnotized by their expectation of the " paro
usia," were subject to no action but that of the Spirit ; that
charisms seized on the first disciples, and the diversity of
charisms gave rise to the first elements of organization.
Here again Eenan's judgment is better. He writes :
" Free prophecy, the charisms, the speaking with tongues,
and individual inspiration — this was more than was necessary
to reduce the whole movement to the proportions of an
ephemeral dissenting-sect, such as one sees so much of ia
America and in England. Individual inspiration creates, but
destroys at once what it has created. After Uberty, rule is
necessary." He continues: "The work of Jesus may be
considered saved on the day on which it was admitted that
the Church had a direct power — a power representing that
of Jesus. The Church from that moment dominated the
individual, and drove him if need were from her midst.
Soon the Church, a body unstable and changing, was personi
fied in the elders, the powers of the Church became the
powers of a clergy, who were the dispensers of all graces,
the intermediaries between God and the believer. Inspira
tion passes from the individual to the community. The
Church has become everything in Christianity; one step
more, and the bishop becomes everything in the Church." !
In these few lines Eenan has weU expressed the power-
lessness of private inspiration to bring forth anything but
anarchy. Starting from this psychological fact, we first ask
Sabatier and Sohm : Why did not anarchy actuaUy result ?
Then we ask Eenan : Was it really only when the work of
Jesus was jeopardized through the outpouring and contagious
spread of charisms, that discipline arose to save His work?
To unruly charisms, Eenan opposes in each community the
ancients or presbyters ; but if their office did not come to
' " Marc AurMe," p. 408.

THE INFANT CHURCH 151
these ancients and presbyters in virtue of some higher privi
lege, whence and how did they get the power they exer
cised over the charisms themselves ? Order could never have
issued out of charismatic anarchy, had not some authority
existed previously to the outpouring of the charisms — an au
thority which can only be that of the apostolate, continuing
the authority of the Master.
To say that every permanent ecclesiastical function is
a charism which fixed and imposed itself, seems a mere
¦conjecture as gratuitous as it is improbable ; for the earliest
permanent ecclesiastical function which history records is
that of presbyters and of ancients — to which no charism
corresponds — and the same remark can be made of the
episcopi and the deacons. The traditional view which
derives episcopacy, not from any transformation of unknown
charisms, but from the powers of the apostolate, is much
more plausible; and accounts far more easily for the fact
that in aU Christian communities episcopacy was set on the
same foundations. Is it not mocking us with words to tell
us that this uniformity of development is explicable as " a
case of the sport of general laws which rule social pheno
mena of this order"?!
4. Sabatier had no trouble to find in St. Paul the
idea of the Church as the mystical body of Christ: and
he claims it as the leading idea which guided the evolu
tion of the various Christian communities and led it ulti
mately to Catholicism. Sabatier, who has an eclectic
method, may have borrowed this particular element in his
theory from Sohm, in whose judgment the word iKKXr/a-ia
was first used to designate Christendom in general, the new
people of God made up of the Christians spread all over the
! We do not, however, intend to deny the influence exercised on the
growth of the organization of Churches, (1) by the institutions which pre
vailed in Jewries and which a religion, born in the midst of Judaism,
could not ignore, (2) by the conditions of life and thought, which necessarily
dominated the followers of a religion so essentially social as Christianity.
Mgr. Duchesne, " Origines du culte " (1898), pp. 7-10, has assigned their
proper share to these two historical elements. On the contrary, Harnack,
"Kirche und Staat," p. 132, makes them too preponderant. We must say
the same of the supposed influence of municipal institutions ; these were
never directly imitated by the churches, Duchesne, p. 12.

152 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
world ; or he may have borrowed it from Harnack who sees
in the spiritual unity of Christians, separated from the Jevpish
people and henceforth constituting the true Israel, an affir
mation of faith that was present to the consciousness of
Christians, and was operative from the very beginniag.!
Were this the case, the idea of the Church of God would not
be exclusively Pauline ; it would attach to Christianity from
the very fact that, by separating itself from Judaism, it be
came denationalized.
We may here call attention to the embarrassment of
those critics who, adhering exclusively to the idea of an
invisible Church, strive to account for its formation. Ac
cording to Sabatier, it is a Pauline creation ; according to
Harnack, it is the necessary conclusion to which the Chris
tian consciousness came in its search for an ideal unity that
could replace the racial unity of the people of God. Har
nack's hypothesis seems very frail, for one does not see why
it was necessary for the Gentile converts to substitute for
the racial unity of the people of God of which they had had
no experience, an ideal unity which nothing in them de
manded. We should prefer to say with Sabatier that the
communities founded by St. Paul, being "chUdren of the
same father," were bound together by "very close family
ties". But did they really owe these ties to the fact that
they had been founded by St. Paul? Had the Churches
never known any other missionary than St. Paul? Was he
a stranger to the Eomans, whom he had not yet visited
when he wrote to them his Epistle? No, a bond did
truly unite the Pauline communities, but that bond did
1 " Kirchenrecht," pp. 16-22 ; " Dogmeng." vol. i\ pp. 51, 89. True,
Harnack declares later (p. 489) that " it was not theories that created the
empiric unity of the Chuiches, for theories were incapable of overcoming
the elementary causes of difference that could not fail to operate as soon
as Christianity became naturalized in the various provinces and towns of
the Empire ". Hence he ascribes the unity of Christendom to the
"unity which the Empire possessed in Rome " To this must be added
the peculiar character of the Roman Church, which was at the same
time Greek and Latin, which was rich and zealous, and "displayed much
solicitude for all Christendom ". All these causes contributed to " convert
the Christian communities into a real confederation 'under the primacy
of the Roman community ".

THE INFANT CHURCH 153
riot depend on St. Paul, who was not an Apostle to lend
himself to ideas of this kind : "Is Christ divided ? Was
Paul then crucified for you ? or were you baptized in the
name of Paul?" (1 Cor. i. 13).
The faithful did not retain the name of "disciples,"
which had been borne by the sole disciples of the one
Master : they took that of " brethren " (aSeX^ot), which, as
has been rightly pointed out by Weizsacker, well expresses
their consciousness of the bond that united all together in
Jesus Christ.! The universality of the use of the name
" brethren " witnesses to a fundamental article of faith, the
faith in a new birth which made the Christian who had it
not merely the citizen of a heavenly and future city, but the
brother of existing brethren, and therefore the member of
an earthly community which is primarily the local Church.
Since the faithful were equally brethren, from whatever place
they came, all these communities bore a name that was the
same everywhere, eKKXrjcria, a name just as concrete as that
of " synagogue," to which it was opposed. The conscious
ness of their fraternity and their continual social experience
of it, however dispersed they might be, showed clearly to
these " brethren " that their communities were united by a
bond resembling that by which they were united individu
ally. The Churches of the various provinces were thought
of in groups: Christians spoke of the Churches of Judasa,
of Achaia, of Galatia, and thus came very naturaUy and
gradually to conceive of a Church of all the Churches, the
Church of all the " brethren " spread over the whole world. ^
^ Weizsacker, pp. 35-38 ; cf. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. pp. 336-47.
^ In his "Mission," vol. i. p. 362 and foil., Harnack, treating of the
formation by communities and of its part in the spread of Christianity,
reaches the same conclusion as ourselves. Christian preaching, he writes,
" from the very outset worked through a community, and had for its aim
to form a union of believers ". This union would have remained merely
ideal, and would not have been easily eff'ective, had it not been allied
with a local organization. " Christianity from the first borrowed this
organization from Judaism, from the synagogue ; the first Apostles and
the brothers of Jesus laid the foundation. Designed to be essentially a
brotherhood, and springing out of the synagogue, each Christian com
munity developed a local organization which was twice as strong as that of
Judaism " Later (p. 364) Harnack recalls the features of this community
idea, so marked in the Pauline Epistles, and writes: "Paul's Epistles

154 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Thus the "great idea" is not restricted to the Pauline
missions; it lies at the very heart of all the commu
nities that came into existence whether on Gentile or on
Jewish soil.
5. The fall of Jerusalem, in the year 70, did not in
fluence the Gentile communities, because Jerusalem had no
important place in their faith. Nowhere in fact do we find
any trace of emotion aroused in the souls of Christians by
this great catastrophe.
The fall of Jerusalem could have influenced only that
Judaeo-Christianity whose emissaries had so often thwarted
the preaching of St. Paul ; but, before the year 70, even
before the year 64, the separation of Christianity from
Judaism had become an actual fact. This separation, which
amounted to a sharp and final rupture, had been the end
of Judseo-Christianity, in so far as it was a Jewish propa
gandism in the Gentile communities. It survived in the
"Ebionite" or "Nazarene " communities, who were separ
ated from the rest of the world by their religious tongue, as
may be inferred from the " Gospel according to the Hebrews ".
Nor can these Ebionites be said to represent "primitive
orthodoxy," since they, who believed in Christ, practised
circumcision : they were orthodox neither as Jews, nor as
Christians. The part Baur ascribed to them in the genesis
of Catholicism appears more and more unreal, a mere fancy
excogitated to meet the requirements of an hyperhistorical
speculation. " The question is whether this Jewish Christi-
prove how vigorously and unweariedly he taught these lessons, and it is
perhaps the weightiest feature both in Christianity and in the work of
Paul that, so far from being overpowered, the impulse towards association
was most powerfully intensified by the individualism which here attained
its zenith." Speaking of Clement and Ignatius (p. 366), "Never," he
says, "has the absolute subordination of Christians to the local com
munity been more peremptorily demanded, or the position of the local
community itself more eloquently assigned, than in these primitive
documents ". Lastly, as regards the monarchical episcopate (p. 369),
" Ignatius had already compared the position of the bishop in the local
Church with that of God in the Church collective. ... As the ofiice
grew to maturity, it seemed like an original creation ; although it had
only drawn to itself from all quarters the powers and the forms already
existing". Except for a few details, all this fourth chapter of the third
book witnesses to the Catholic idea of Christian origins.

THE INFANT CHURCH 155
anity as a whole, or in certain of its tendencies, was any
factor at aU in the development of Christianity into Catholi
cism. This question is to be answered in the negative, quite
as much in view of the history of dogma as in view of the
political history of the Church. From the standpoint of
the universal history of Christianity, these Jewish Christian
communities appear as atrophied organs which now and
again, as objects of curiosity, engaged the attention of the
main body of Christendom in the Bast, but could not exert
any important influence on it, just because they were a
purely national party."!
The faU of Jerusalem, then, did not displace the centre
of gravity of Christianity, because Christianity was, even
then, external to Judaism, and because, at the time of St.
Paul's missions, Judseo-Christianity had been set aside in
most of the Gentile communities. Can we say, however,
that these Gentile communities adopted a neutral doctrine,
partly Jewish, partly Greek, which was unable to assimilate
St. Paul's theology ? We recognize here the old antithesis
of the Tlibingen school, which was bent on opposing Judseo-
Christianity to Paulinism, and on disengaging from this
conflict a neutral element which was to be the doctrine of
the future.
As a matter of fact, GentUe Christianity took its position
as early as the first generation outside Judseo-Christian in
fluence. Nor is the freedom of Gentile Christianity from
aU connexion with the Jewish people and its law due to St.
Paul alone : whilst he did perhaps more than any one else
to bring about this result, others, too, worked for it effectively.
Christian communities just as free from Judaism as the
Corinthian community — for instance, the community of
Alexandria and that of Eome — did not have St. Paul for their
founder. If, then, "Paulinism" means primarily the de-
nationaUzation of Christianity, "Paulinism" is everywhere.
These Gentile Christians could not be converted, nor
could they afterwards keep the faith, unless that faith were
simple, and, as it were, rudimentary. This, St. Paul was
not the last to realize : his catechesis is easily found, even
! Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i^ p. 313. Cf. Honnicke, "Das
Judenohristentum," p. 368, who holds the same opinion as Harnack.

156 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
in the most difficult epistles.^ In this catechesis, the
mystery of Jesus continues to hold a central place, and how
could it be othervrise ? On the other hand, this presentation
of the faith is something popular, neutral, Greek — it matters
not how you qualify it, but it is noteworthy that this ele
ment, far from being foreign to Paul's preaching, actually
belongs to it. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
who has some hard truths to explain to his readers, com
plains that they are slow to understand, and that he is still
obliged to give them only milk, as to children, instead of
the strong food of strong men (Heb. v. 11-13). St. Paul
speaks in like manner to his converts at Corinth (1 Cor.
III. 1-2).We may conclude that in this way a faith came to pre
vail, which was not a reaction against Judseo-Christianity,
or against Paulinism, but was the direct outcome of the
preaching of Christianity in the GentUe world, and is found
in no small measure in the Epistles of St. Paul himseU.
True, this faith, like the Gospel itself, had its roots in the
tradition of Israel, and it meant to preserve the Old Testa
ment. The Greek mind influenced it by means of the
language which it lent to it. However, we cannot, properly
speaking, caU this a middle position, for it was truly a
common faith, a kind of Christian Kotvf) BtdXeicTO';, elemen
tary and simplified, bound, like any doctrine which was to
spread, to adopt formulas that could be easUy transported
from place to place in the minds of the hearers. This the
ology, this " first basis of Catholic doctrine," the Apostolic
Fathers did not create, for it was substantially and from the
beginning the catechesis given to the GentUe converts : it
was the Christian faith presented in a missionary form.^
6. Grseco-Eoman Christianity needed a centre. Eome,
we are told, became the capital of Christendom, because she
was already the capital of the Emphe ; then Eome stamped
Grseco-Eoman Christianity with the impress of her genius of
government. Eoman imperialism took the place of Jewish
'Prat, pp. 81-3. Cf. Weizsacker, vol. i. pp. 92-102 and 634-37.
who explains the chief topics of St. Paul's preaching to the Gentiles.
^Seethe similar remarks of Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. pp.319-
25 and "Lukas der Arzt, p. 101.

THE INFANT CHURCH 157
nationalism which had been set aside. This was a new factor
in Catholicism, in the first and second centuries, for, in the
third century, Eome would have no longer been able to ex
ercise that influence. " That extraordinary city was at the
culminating point of its grandeur ; nothing aUowed one to
foresee the events which, in the third century, would cause
it to degenerate and become nothing more than the capital
of the West. Greek was at least as much spoken there as
Latin, and the great future secession of the East could not
be guessed." !
To this view of the part taken by Eome in the genesis
of Catholicism, Eenan was the first to ascribe historical
importance. To the scandal of German Protestantism, it
has been strongly advocated by Harnack.^ It has been
insisted on stiU more systematically by Sohm. We who
believe in the providential character of this co-operation of
Eome in the part to be played by the Cathedra Petri, shall
not be so ungracious as to contest it ; we take exception
only to the terms of civil government used to describe it,
and to the tendency to transform into a generative cause
what is only a circumstance.
7. We may notice that Protestant critics have already,
however much against their will, transported to the heart of
the Apostolic age some of the factors in the " formation of
Catholicism". This is a consequence of the retrogression
which has gradually taken place, since the days of Baur,
Eitschl and Eenan, in the study of some questions closely
connected with that of the "formation of Catholicism" —
such as, above all others, the question of the origin of
episcopacy, and also that of the authenticity of the Ignatian
! Renan, "Marc Aurele,'' p. 69.
^In his well-known Excursus "Catholic and Roman," "Dogmeng."
vol. i^, pp. 480-96. Sohm, p. 157 and foil. It must not be forgotten
that the insistency with which these critics exalt Roman hegemony
is but a new form of prejudice. Feeling the theory which explains
Catholicism as a realization of the invisible Church to be insufficient,
they have devised the complementary theory, which explains it as an
imperialization of ecclesiastical Hfe. Cf. two pages of far greater histori
cal exactness in Mgr. Duchesne, "Hist. Anc," vol. l pp. 536-38, and
the criticism of Harnack's Excursus by Dom Chapman, "The Catholicity
of the Church," in Mathew, " Ecclesia," pp. 82-8.

158 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Epistles.! Were the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles,
still so much contested, generaUy admitted, as is the authen
ticity of the Ignatian Epistles, the displacing of the question
would be still more perceptible, and the importance of what
some critics are pleased to call the crisis of the second
century would be very considerably diminished.
For this crisis, which is said to have occurred in the
years 150-80, would not have the importance which, since
Eitschl, a certain number of critics ascribe to it, except for
the two results which are attributed to it : the formation of
a statutory faith everywhere the same, and the formation
of an episcopal govemment everywhere supreme. But do
these two institutions really issue from the reaction against
Gnosticism and Montanism?
Harnack, who, in this particular case deserves credit for
introducing into the doctrinal history of the first two cen
turies a sociological consideration which is new, and which
enables him better to understand, from an historical point of
view, the formation of Christianity into a Church, has not
failed to recognize that, as early as the period 30-130, every
Christian community has its unity secured by the existence
of a collective worship, of collective funds, and of officers
entrusted with worship, discipline, and charitable works.
I fear indeed that he does not recognize in those early com
munities any other features than such as they have in
! One cannot help smiling over the long resistance made by Protes
tant critics to the claims to authenticity of the seven Ignatian Epistles. In
1835, Baur thought they had been composed at Rome towards the middle
of the second century by some forger, on behalf of episcopacy. In 1850,
and still later in 1857, Ritschl postponed their composition to the fourth
century, and held to be authentic only the three Epistles to Polycarp, to
the Ephesians, and to the Romans, in the Syriac version — an abbreviated
and rather tame document, edited by Cureton in 1845. As late as 1877,
Renan regarded as authentic the Epistle to the Romans alone. Finally,
after dating them from the time of Hadrian or Antoninus, Harnack,
who admits the authenticity of the seven Epistles, assigns them to their
true period, the age of Trajan. We may notice here the vicious circle :
Renan deems the ecclesiology of the Ignatian Epistles too mature to be
long to the beginning of the second century. "All this," he says, " be
longs, not to the beginning, but to the end of the second century."
Compare with this systematic postponement Lightfoot's luminous re
marks, " Christian Ministry," pp. 145-8.

THE INFANT CHURCH 159
common with the Evangelical communities of the kingdom
of Prussia. At all events, after thus proclaiming the char
acteristic unity of every community, he signalizes what he
calls "the beginnings of interecclesiastical dispositions,"
which unite the widely dispersed communities by means of
collections and letters, as well as of hospitality offered to
traveUing brethren; and which "secure in all important
questions the solidarity of the evolution ". And he adds :
"A single centre of unity, such as Judaism had as long as
the temple was standing, the earliest Christianity had
not ; but it did have several centres, among which at a very
early date Eome was the most important.!
Hence, long before the year 150, long before the crisis
caused by Gnosticism and Montanism, there existed an inter
ecclesiastical bond, there existed influential rallying centres,
there existed among the Churches a good understanding
which " secured a common process of evolution in all im
portant matters ". Harnack assures us that, in the year
220, there existed a Church not merely ideal and spiritual,
i.e. invisible, but one which from the Euphrates to Spain,
was visibly constituted, forming a genuine political organism.^
That is true, but it is not enough. If from the year 220 this
historical reality is henceforth undeniable, how can one say
that it is new? Is there no continuity between the state
of things which is perfectly manifest in the year 220 (and as
much might be said of the year 180), and the state of things
revealed by the Ignatian Epistles and by the " Prima Cle
mentis"? True, the characteristic features became gradu
ally more and more pronounced, but if, during the second
century. Gnosticism is driven out from the Churches ; if it
succeeds, wherever it appears, only in organizing itself into
dissenting conventicles or into schools ; if it is everywhere
looked upon and treated as heresy, is not this a proof that
the Churches are already constituted on the basis of a most
solid faith under the rule of episcopi who justify their name
by their vigilance, and are bound together by a solidarity
which has already become a confederacy.^
' " Kirche und Staat," p. 136. ^ Ibid. p. 141.
^ See the Excursus in Harnack's " Mission," vol. i. pp. 373-97, " Ec
clesiastical Organization and the Episcopate, from Pius to Constantine ".

160 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hence an attentive historical study discovers in the Chris
tianity anterior to the so-called crisis of Gnosticism some
thing other than an amorphous religion ; the energies that
were thought to have originated after the year 150, are seen
to have been at work as early as the first three Christian
generations ; and far from appearing as the result of an anti-
Gnostic reaction, they manifest themselves as forces which
prevent Gnosticism from finding a home in the Churches.
8. There remains the assertion which ascribes to Eome
the editing of "the Apostles' Creed". This symbol is
certainly the baptismal symbol of the Eoman Church.
From its literary history we may infer that, at Eome, it is
at least coeval with Irenasus, Marcion, and Justin, but every
thing leads us to believe that it is very much older. It is
not correct to say that this Eoman text was, in some way,
imposed by Eome on all the Churches towards the end of
the second century. In the time of TertuUian Christian
Africa had this creed in common with Eome, but we cannot
affirm the same of the Greek Churches, where the direct in
fluence of the " Apostles' Creed " cannot be detected before
the Council of Nicsea. It may be doubted whether, before
this Council, the Oriental Churches had any liturgical formu
lary of their faith. The history of the Eoman symbol may
be summed up in these few propositions ; and it suffices
to show that this symbol did not play the dominating part
ascribed to it by Sabatier.!
The author states and shows that "the tendency of early Christianity to
form complete, independent communities, under episcopal govemment,
was extremely strong " (p. 389). When a locality had no bishop, it was
because the number of Christians was insignificant (p. 391). The
hypothesis that, wherever during the third century there are found com
munities without a bishop, they represent a survival of the primitive or
ganization, is not only improbable, but erroneous (p. 397).
^ For a fuller historical exposition of this point, I take the liberty to
refer the reader to my article "Apotres (Symbole des)" in Vacani's
" Dictionnaire de theologie " Kattenbusch, " Das Apostolische Symbol,
seine Entstehung ..." (1894-1900), who has published what I believe to
be the profoundest study of the history of the Roman symbol — a study
which is not exempt, however, from many a foregone conclusion — has con
tributed to a very large extent to overthrow the classical Protestant theorem.
Kattenbusch thinks that the Roman symbol (R) was composed at Rome
about the year 100. In the West, as early as the second century, R was

THE INFANT CHURCH 161
If we look upon it as a " monument of Catholic orthodoxy,"
should we at any rate consider it to be the earliest mani
festation and the oldest monument of that orthodoxy, a
document composed under the influence of an arbitrary and
pre-arranged eclecticism? The hypothesis is that previ
ously the baptismal formula alone existed; that at the time
of the anti-Gnostic crisis, a few clear and decisive articles
were added to it, arid that this short " Syllabus " of the
second century defined the faith when threatened with dis
solution. To this hypothesis we can oppose the text itself of the
" Symbol of the Apostles ". As a matter of fact, it is diffi
cult to find a document that has less the appearance of a
series of anathemas, and conveys less the thought of doc
trinal attack and defence: it shows no anti-Gnostic pre
occupation whatever. Being so elementary in its tenor, how
could it have sufficed to guard the faithful at large against
the Gnostic errors ! In reality, it merely sets forth the
catechetical faith for the benefit of simple-minded Chris
tians, to whom Gnosticism, a learned error, must have been
altogether strange. '
Again, was not the common faith of the Churches suf
ficiently self-conscious to define its own meaning in clear
received both at Rome and in the Churches of Gaul and Africa. As to tha
Churches of Greece (Corinth, Athens, Thessalonica), we know nothing,
owing to the lack of documents ; the same may be said of the provinces of
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Origen
seems to know a symbol similar to R, perhaps R itself, but whether this
symbol was received in Egypt we cannot say. All the Eastern symbols of
the fourth century seem to come from Antioch ; it may be surmised that
R appeared for the first time at Antioch, after the deposition of Paul
of Samosata. In the province of Asia, R was known during the second
half of the second century, perhaps owing to Polycarp (?). See the
conclusions of Kattenbusch, vol. ii. pp. 960-1; substantially similar
are those of Harnack, art. "Apostolisches Symbolum" in Hauck's
" Realenoyklopadie ''. However, we must distinguish the strictly so-called
baptismal symbol from the regula fidei or Kavav eKKXtjataa-TiKos — so often
appealed to by ecclesiastical writers, for instance Irenseus, TertuUian,
Clement, Origen — which represents a more complete and detailed body of
doctrines than the liturgical profession of faith. On this point, which
is disputed among Protestant critics (Harnack, Zahn, Kattenbusch,
Kunze), see Loops, pp. 131-2. 11

162 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
and precise articles, before the late epoch (150-60) in which
we are told the " Symbol of the Apostles " was constituted?
The articles of this creed have nothing particularly Eoman
in them, nor do they imply any particular date. They are
found equivalently in the Apologists, like Justin and Aristides,
and also in St. Ignatius. They are found in a scattered
state in the Christian literary remains of the Apostolic age.
Finally, if we merely wish to ascertain if the object of
the faith is determined and traditional, and not amorphous
or plastic, it suffices to reflect that faith is not presented in
the primitive Christian literature as a gnosis which every
Christian frames for himself, but as a BtBax^, a irapdBoa-i';,
a Kavav TTto-Tew?, and other synonymous expressions. Nothing
is more alien to the Christianity of the early ages, than the
idea that the believer remains autonomous in presence of
the faith.!
9. After all that has just been said, it may be unnecessary
to dwell on the share attributed to Montanism in the growth
! For the justification of this statement, it might suffice to refer to
the appendix added by Harnack to Hahn's coUection, " Bibliothek der
Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche," third edition (Breslau,
1897), pp. 364-90.
But it is opportune here to take notice of the theory according to
which, from the beginning, the faith was presented in the shape of a kind
of historical and moral summary : historical as in 1 Cor. xi. 23 and xv. 3,
moral as in 1 Cor. xi. 2 ; a summary of which numerous traces are said
to be discoverable in the New Testament. This theory, which is a
noteworthy advance towards the Catholic principle of tradition, has
been proposed by Weizsacker, " Apost. Zeitalter," p. 594, who dis
covers what he ingeniously caUs a "Christian Halacha," in Rom. vi. 17,
XVI. 17 ; 2 Thess. ii. 14; 1 Cor. iv. 17. Kattenbusch ("Apost. Symb."
vol. II. pp. 335-47, "the New Testament and the Symbol") shares the
same view, and cites (p. 345) one of the earliest articles of Harnack, written
in the same sense. Following in the same direction, Seeberg has endea
voured to reconstruct what he calls the catechism of primitive Christianity
("Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit," Leipzig, 1903). In an essay of
which I know only the title, Wernle had advanced the hypothesis that the
lists of sins, so often found in the New Testament, proceed from a tradi
tional formula (" Der Christ und die Siinde bei Paulus," 1897). G. Rbsch
("Aposteldekret," p. 92 and foil.), takes up Seeberg's hypothesis. Evi
dently the Ritschlian thesis of a kind of doctrinal challenge, formed
artificially during the second half of the second century, is being
abandoned.

THE INFANT CHURCH 163
of Catholicism. Montanism is a late movement : it was
only in the year 177 that it created any stir in Western
Christendom; and, at this date, the authority of bishops
was nowhere disputed. "The Church," says Eenan, "was
aheady too strongly constituted for the undisciplined habits
of the visionaries of Phrygia to do her real harm."! ^g tQ
the attitude of Eome, her resistance to Montanism, so far
from being more ardent than that of other places, was
singularly moderate and hesitating, so much so that the
authorities there came very near to favouring the Phrygian
prophets. To say that Eome saved the hierarchy is an
affirmation which is groundless, and even improbable ; to
say that she crowned the victory, by creating the theory of
Apostolic succession, is to forget that the theory of Apostolic
succession had been formulated by the "Prima Clementis"
some hundred years before.
^"Marc Aurfele,"p. 225.

11

CHAPTEE IV.
THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.<EUS.
About the year 180, Irenseus is the dogmatist who brings to
an end — so we are told in some modern histories of dogmas
— the anti-gnostic and anti-montanist crisis ; he is the first of
the "old Catholic" Fathers; he is the author of the theory
of such victorious principles as the authority of the rule of
faith, the authority of the episcopal succession, the authority
of the confederation of bishops : it is he who synthesizes
Catholicism and imparts to it its definitive and "Eoman"
expression. . . . We hope to show how systematic and
Protestant this presentation is. For us St. Irenseus is an
excellent exponent of the theory of Catholicism ; but there is
hardly a single element of his theory that is not anterior to
his time ; and the principles on which he insists are those
organic principles which, obscurely or explicitly, characterize
Gentile Christianity from the very beginning.
If we study first the forerunners of Irenseus during the
second century and then his contemporaries, we shall easily
see that his principles are not of his own creation. We
shall then endeavour to solve the problem which Harnack
propounds as insoluble, namely, " To what extent were the
principles of Irenseus new, to what extent were the rules
he formulated already received in the Churches, and in
which of them?"! I.
The Epistle to the PhUippians, written by the Bishop
of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, is the only one which has reached
1 "Dogmeng." vol. i''. p. 352. The reader may consult with profit
J. Durell, "The Historic Church: an Essay onthe conception of the
Christian Church and its Ministry in the Sub- Apostolic Age" (Cam
bridge, 1906). 164

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 165
us of those many Epistles! which according to St. Irenseus
he wrote both to individual Christians and " to neighbouring
Churches," to warn some, and strengthen others — a new
index of the constant communications going on between the
Churches during the second century.
Polycarp of Smyrna writes to the PhUippians, i.e. to a
Church of Macedonia. They have asked him to send them
a letter: "You invited me," he can say to them; and he
adds that neither he nor any one else can in any way pre
tend to equal the wisdom of St. Paul who brought them
"the word of truth ".^ All that he can do, is to give ad
vice to the faithful, deacons, and presbyters of Philippi.
These counsels recall those of the Pastoral Epistles, as
weU as those of the Ignatian Epistles: "You must," says
Polycarp, "submit yourselves to the presbyters and deacons
as to God and Christ " (v. 3). They must shun all vain and
empty ^ teaching and the common error: an allusion to
heathenism, and perhaps — already — to Gnosticism. They
must abide steadfast by the Lord's commands and by what
the Lord has taught (ii. 1-3). They must forsake any one
who "will not confess the testimony of the Cross": words
that refer certainly to the same Docetism as that opposed
by St. Ignatius. " For every one who will not confess that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is an antichrist . . . and
whosoever shall pervert the logia of the Lord to his own
lusts, and say that there is neither resurrection nor judg
ment, that man is the first born of Satan." ^ Here we find
what we had already found in St. Ignatius : heretics
exploiting the Gospel records and interpreting them in the
sense of their errors. "Wherefore, let us forsake the vain
doing of the many and their false teachings, and turn unto
the word which was delivered unto us from the beginning.*
'Euseb. "H. E." v. 20, 8. Polycarp's Epistle to the PhiUppians
was written not long after the death of St. Ignatius, which took place
under Trajan, within the period 107-17.
^Poltcarp, " Philip." m. 1-2.
^ " PhiUp." VII. 1. With these last words compare the fact recorded
of the Apostle St. John by St. Irenseus, who got it from St. Polycarp,
concerning the meeting of Cerinthus and St. John, " H. E." iii. 28, 6.
¦* "PhiUp." VII. 2 : ini rbv e| dpxtjs rjpiv napaSoBivra Xciyoi/ intarpe-
-fjrapev.

166 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Let us . . . serve the Lord with fear and all reverence, as
He Himself gave commandment, as did also the Apostles
who preached the Gospel to us, and the prophets who
proclaimed beforehand the coming of our Lord."!
The Bishop of Smyrna answers directly the argument
urged against St. Ignatius by the Docetse of Philadelphia.
That appeal may be made to the Lord's logia, these great
bishops are most willing to grant ; but there must be no
commentary, no dialectical explanation ; the doctrine received
from the first must be held. The faith which is the true
faith and claims our assent is that preached by the Lord and
by the Apostles, and announced by >the prophets of Israel.
Faith is based upon the "sacred Writings,"^ i.e. upon the
Old Testament, and the authentic teaching of the Lord and
of the Apostles, such as it has been transmitted from the
beginning. Polycarp died on 23 February, 155; it cannot then be
said that the rule of faith outlined in this Epistle even
before the year 120 — viz. the submission of the faithful to
the presbyters in every Church, fidelity to the teaching im
parted from the beginning by the Apostles who evangehzed
the Churches — was first propounded between the years 150
and 180, in the heat of the fight of the Churches against
Gnosticism. An incident told of St. Polycarp by St. Irenseus witnesses
to the identity of the attitude of these two Bishops and the
identity of their method. Writing to a Eoman presbyter,
Florinus, who has been seduced by the Gnosticism of Val-
entinus, St. Irenseus rebukes him for his errors : ' " These
opinions,* 0 Florinus, I speak with assurance, are not sound
' "Philip." VI. 3 : Kadas airbs ivereiXaro, Kal oi eiiayyeXtadpevot ijpds
dnoaToXot, Kal oi npo<ptJTat k.t.X. Cf. IX. 1 : IlavXa Kal rols Xottrols
dnoaroXots. ' " Philip." XII. 1 : KaXas yeyvpvaapevot iare iv rals iepals ypa(f)als.
sIrbn. ap. Euseb. " H. E." v. 20, 4-7.
¦* Soypara. Here the word 8oy/iara is taken in the sense of opinion,
like the distinctive views or opinions of the various schools of philosophy.
On the sense attached by the Greeks to the word " dogma " see E. Hatch,
"The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church"
(London, 1890), p. 120. In classical Greek, the word Soypara may be
translated placita philosophorum. We may say it is synonymous with

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 167
in doctrine. These opinions disagree with the Church, and
lead to the greatest impiety those who accept them. These
opinions, not even the heretics outside of the Church have
ever dared to express. These opinions, the presbyters, who
were before us, and who were companions of the Apostles,
did not deliver to thee.
" For when I was a boy, in lower Asia, where you were
conspicuous by reason of your employment at the court, I
used to see you by the side of Polycarp,! endeavouring to
gain his approbation. I remember the events of that time
more clearly than those of more recent years. For what we
learn in our boyhood grows with our minds, and becomes a
part of them ; so that I am able to describe the very place
m which the blessed Polycarp sat as he discoursed, his gait, his
physiognomy, his manner of life, his features, his discourses to
those present, and the accounts which he gave of his inter
course with John and with the others who had seen the
Lord. And all that he heard from them concerning the
Lord, and concerning His miracles and His teaching, having
received them from eye-witnesses of the Word of life, Poly
carp related in harmony with the Scriptures.
" These things, thanks to the mercy of God, I listened to
attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my
heart. And continuaUy, through God's grace, I recall them
faithfuUy. And I am able to bear witness before God that,
if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such
thing [as your doctrines], he would have cried out, and
stopped his ears, and, as was his custom, would have ex
claimed, 0 good God, unto what times hast thou kept me
alpea-is. It means also a decree, an edict, enacted by the public author
ities ; and this meaning it has in the New Testament (Luke ii. 1 ;
Acts XVII. 7). It is synonymous with Sidraypa (Heb. XI. 23). We
find it thus understood by St. Paul (Eph. ii. 15 ; Col. ii. 14. Cf. Acts
XVI. 4).
' The words iv rfj ^aa-iXtK^ avX^ present an enigma whieh as yet has
not been explained. Hadrian visited Asia in 122 and in 129, and L. Verus
in 162. We know of no other stay of any Emperor in Asia, and these dates
hardly fit in with Polycarp's age. Lightfoot suggests that it may be an
allusion to the court of the proconsul of Asia. This, about 136, was T.
AureUus Fulvus who later on became Emperor under the name of An
toninus Pius (Lightfoot, " Ignatius," vol. i. p. 448).

168 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
that I should endure these things ? And he would have fled
from the place where he had heard such words."
The language of St. Irenseus is his own ; but the lan
guage he ascribes to St. Polycarp is like it, in its apostolic
candour. Polycarp would close his ears to the Gnostic
novelties, because his faith had for its criterion the teaching
given from the beginning by the Apostles and the others
who had seen the Lord. Papias, a companion of Polycarp,
will uphold the same criterion in the same terms. This
appeal to the Apostles' authority was by no means a con
troversial expedient : it appertains to the faith of those
venerable ancients, who can speak of the Apostles as old
men speak of the by-gone generation which witnessed their
own youth.
As regards the solidarity of the various Churches, St.
Polycarp's Epistle to the Phihppians gives an excellent testi
mony. Polycarp sends his Epistle to Philippi through a
Christian named Crescens, who, after staying for a whUe at
Smyrna, leaves for Macedonia with his sister ; the Bishop of
Smyrna recommends both to the kindness of the Church of
Philippi.' This is a mere exercise of interecclesiastical
hospitality; what foUows is more significant. "I was ex
ceedingly grieved about Valens, who was aforetime made a
presbyter among you, because he so misunderstands the office
which was given unto him. I warn you therefore that you
refrain from covetousness, and that you be pure and faithful.
Eefrain from all evil. He who cannot govern himself in
these things, how doth he instruct others? "^
The Bishop of Smyrna, then, has been told of the ac
cusations brought by the PhUippians against one of their
presbyters (perhaps their bishop) : he intervenes and re
proves the culprit, as though he had authority to do so.
The trials of a particular Church are known to distant
Churches, and the Churches admonish one another in a
brotherly spirit. May we not assume that what takes place
in questions of conduct and of discipline occurs likewise in
matters of faith ?
'"Philip," XIV.
''Id. XI. 1-2. Polycarp says that Valens dyvoel rbv Sodevra aira
T6nov. The word rdnos designates the rank in the hierarchy. Light
foot, " Ignatius," vol. n. p. 333.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 16Q
Most assuredly, and the more so that in this regard uni
versal attention is at its highest pitch : as much is said by
the Pastoral Epistles and those of Ignatius. In confirmation,
we can cite a passage from the Epistle of St. Irenseus to
Pope Victor: the letter dates from the time of the Paschal
controversy, i.e. from about the year 190, but it mentions
a fact about St. Polycarp which must be assigned to the
time when St. Anicetus presided over the Eoman Church,
that is, to the year 155 or a httle before.
Polycarp came to Eome, Irenseus relates,! un^er Anicetus,
and they had some little difficulties, but soon came to an
understanding. On the subject of Easter, neither made any
concession to the other, but they did not cease to live in
peace. Anicetus was unable to persuade Polycarp to give
up a custom which he held from John, the Lord's disciple,
and from the other Apostles. Nor could Polycarp persuade
Anicetus to discard what he called the tradition of the pres
byters who had preceded him in the Eoman Church.
So, the Bishop of Smyrna goes to Eome, at a time when
the controversy vdth the Marcionites and the Valentinians
is raging, as we learn from another passage ; ^ the Bishop
of Smyrna is welcomed as a brother, and to do him greater
honour, the Bishop of Eome makes him celebrate the
Eucharist in his stead ; a fact that shows most plainly the
iatercommunion of the Churches. However, the Bishop of
Smyrna and the Bishop of Eome are anxious to settle a few
points on which they disagree ; for solidarity is not merely
mutual kindliness or the common breaking of the same
eucharistic bread, it demands also community of faith and
practice. Anicetus and Polycarp come to an understanding
on certain contested points; distant as Smyrna is from
Eome, the two Bishops wish that there should be between
the two Churches a community of decisions. On the more
important question of the date of Easter, they cannot agree,
but let us note their respective motives ; Polycarp appeals to
the authority of the Apostles, and especially to that of St.
John; Anicetus appeals to the tradition of the presbyters
who have preceded him. In this instance Polycarp shows
ilREN. ap. Euseb. "H. E." v. 24, 16.
^Iren. "Adv. haer." in. 3.

170 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
himself to be such as he had already manifested himself
some thirty or forty years before, in his Epistle to the
PhUippians ; his criterion of truth has remained the same.
As to Anicetus, he has no other criterion than that of
Polycarp, or rather Anicetus accepts the criterion of Polycarp
and completes it by taking into account the continuity of
the tradition of presbyters more ancient than himself — and
this is to invoke the principle of Apostohc succession. Nor
can it be said that this way of arguing was devised for the
sake of the cause they had to defend against Gnosticism,
since in the case before us, two bishops appeal to it, as to
the only justification they can give each other of the special
tradition of their respective Churches.
We cannot leave Smyrna without mentioning the Epistle
of " the Church of God that sojourneth at Smyrna to the
Church of God that sojourneth at PhUomelium " in Phrygia,
— which contains the narrative of the martyrdom of St. Poly
carp. The copy addressed to the Christians of PhUomelium
is conveyed to them by a Christian named Marcion : they are
asked to transmit the Epistle to the more distant brethren.
Hence the Epistle wiU pass round from one Church to the
other, and graduaUy the copies wiU increase in number and
reach the farthest Churches. This is why we read in the
inscription of the letter that it is addressed "to aU the
[Churches] of the holy and cathoUc Church, sojourning in
every place".! ijij^jg circulation of an Epistle coming from
Smyrna proves that the "interecclesiastical confederacy" is
a concrete reality.
This reality is designated by the word kuOoXiki]. St.
Ignatius had first applied the term tcaOoXiK-rj to the Church
and given to it its concrete and geographical meaning. The
compiler of the Epistle from the Smyrnians now vnrites, not
in the inscription of the letter, but in the narrative itself:
"When at length he brought his prayer to an end, after
remembering all who at any time had lived near him,
small and great, high and low, and all the (catholic) Church
' " Martyrium Polycarpi," inscr. (Funk, " Patr. apost." i. 314) : n-ao-ais
rals .Kara ndvra rdnov rtjS dyi'as Kal KadoXtKtjs iKKXrja-ias napotKiats. We
must bear in mind that the expression " Catholic Church," was used first
by Ignatius writing to the Smyrnians.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 171
[spread] throughout the world. . . ." ! The writer's aim is
to show the worldwide embrace of the charity of the
martyred Bishop : the Church for which he prays is not his
Church of Smyrna, but the Church Catholic, inasmuch as it
comprises the Churches scattered aU over the world.
Funk maintains that the compiler of the Epistle of the
Smyrnians knew also the secondary meaning of the term
KaOoXiKT) : "In the number of these elect was the glorious
martyr Polycarp, who was an apostolic and prophetic teacher
in our own times, a bishop of the Catholic Church which is
in Smyrna." ^ In this passage, KaOoXncrj is. Funk thinks, a
term signifying orthodoxy, and for the first time in the texts
of ancient Christian literature that have come down to us,
the word has this meaning.^ * *
*
According to the testimony of St. Irenseus, Papias was
the famUiar friend of St. Polycarp at Smyrna. Eusebius
says he was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. Eusebius,
who had his treatise in five books, entitled " Expositions of
the Logia of the Lord," has preserved for us its title and a
few too short quotations : the treatise, a refutation of Gnosti
cism, is referred by Funk to about the year 130.
The title itself reveals the author's method : having to
'"Martyr." VIII. 1: koI ndatjs ttjs Kara rijj» otKovpevtfv KadoXtKTJs
eKKXtja-tas. Also, XIX. 2 : ['Itja-ovv Xpta-rbv^ -rrotpeva ttjs Kara ttjv olKovpevtjV
KaBoXtKTjs iKKXtja-tas.
''"Martyr." xvi. 2 : StSda-KaXos dnoaroXtKbs koI npocfirirtKos yevopevos,
en-iV/coTTos rijs iv Sp-vpvtj ko^oXik^s iKKXTjaias. On the strength of one
Greek MS. and of the old Latin version, Lightfoot reads dylas instead of
KoddXtKtjs. We leave aside Harnack, who thinks that the word KadoXiKTj in
the " Martyrium " is everywhere an interpolation. Kattenbusch is unde
cided. Zahn shares Funk's opinion and sees in the expression a touch of
irony against the "ecclesiolse hsereticorum". Besides, Lightfoot owns
that the presence of the word KadoXiKt] as a qualification of orthodoxy,
would not at all tell against the authenticity of the document, for at the
time of Polycarp's martyrdom, there were heretical communities, for in
stance, those of the Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionites, etc. ; and
Christians had to use an epithet as a sign of distinction. When it be
comes opportune, each formula appears somewhere.
* The Passion of St. Pionius, of Smyrna, cannot be brought forward
here, for St. Pionius was martyred, not in the time of Marcus Aurelius,
but in the year 250.

172 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
refute Gnosticism, he takes for his basis the logia or sayings
of the Lord. In this term we must not see an allusion to
the sources of the Synoptics, for these sources had long since
dried up ; in the Churches, the fundamental authority is the
word of the Lord, and their endeavour is to understand it
aright, unlike the Gnostics who disfigure it, either by explain
ing it in their own way, or by substituting for it apocryphal
sayings : their teaching is a novelty to which genuine Chris
tians wiU oppose the teaching of the ancients, who have
known the Apostles and received from them the authentic
truth, that which was taught by Christ.
"I shaU not hesitate, in order to guarantee the truth of
my own interpretations, to add to them whatsoever things I
have at any time learned carefuUy from the presbyters and
carefuUy remembered. For I did not, Uke the multitude,
take pleasure in those that speak much, but in those that
teach the truth ; not in those that relate strange command
ments {dXXoTpla'i ivToXdi;), but in those that dehver the
commandments given by the Lord to the faith, which springs
from the Truth itself. If, then, any one came, who had
been a follower of the elders, I asked them what the elders
had said — what Andrew or what Peter said, or what PhiUp,
or Thomas said, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other
of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the
presbyter John say. ... I did not think that what was
to be gotten from books would profit me as much as what
came from a living voice." !
To the " babblers " Papias opposes the ancients who
teach what is true; he opposes to strange precepts those
which are authentic, those given to the faith by the Lord
Himself, and here the faith means the coUective and traditional
faith. To verify with greater security these authentic pre-
iPAP. ap. Eusbb. "H.E."iii. 39, 3-4. See a commentary on this
fragment in Funk, "Patr. apostol." vol. i. p. 352. With Funk I believe
that the word npea-jSvrepot designates here the Apostles and disciples, such
as Aristion and the other John. As regards the dXXorpiat ivroXai, com
pare the words of a presbyter quoted by St. Irenseus (iil 17, 4) : " . . .
sicut quidam dixit superior nobis de omnibus qui quolibet modo depra-
vant quae sunt Dei et adulterant veritatem : In Dei lacte gypsum male
miscetur." The " Muratorianum " says later on in the same sense : " Fel
cum melle misceri non congruit ".

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 173
cepts. Christians must inquire about what was said by the
Apostles, Andrew or Peter, PhUip or Thomas, James or
John, and by the disciples of the Apostles, such as Aristion
and John the presbyter. What is contained in books, for in
stance in the books of Gnostics, does not at all compare with
what has been said by the living voice of those primitive vrit
nesses. Thus, Eusebius concludes, " Papias confesses that
he received the words of the Apostles from those that foUowed
them ". Again, Papias declares he has personally heard
Aristion and John the presbyter. " He mentions them fre
quently by name, and gives their traditions {irapaBoaei'i) in
his writings ".! The method foUowed by Papias is that
which opposes tradition to gnosis, and justifies tradition by
deriving it from the Apostles and from the Lord.
Unhke Polycarp and Papias, Hegesippus is not a bishop :
Eusebius classes him with Justin as he is entitled to do
by the fact that both Hegesippus and Justin were born in
Palestine, and that Hegesippus, who was Justin's contempor
ary, sojourned in Eome at the time Justin taught there.
Pg,pias had gone to Jerusalem to inquire into the most au
thentic canon of the Old Testament : a like desire of investi
gation led Hegesippus from one Church to the other, and,
according to the testimony of Eusebius,^ he relates in the
fifth book of his treatise, how he consulted many bishops
until he reached Eome, and how he gathered from all of them
the same teaching.
Acting thus, Hegesippus was doing what was required
for the purpose of his treatise, which, as we know from
Eusebius, was to find out " the true tradition of Apostolic
doctrine ".^
Thus, Hegesippus arrives at Corinth, when Primus is
' Eusbb. ihid. 7. Cf. 14. In the Krjpvypa Tlerpov, which dates from
the age of Papias, the Apostle Peter is made to say : " Having leamed
holily and religiously what we entrust to you, you wiU observe it and ofi'er
up to God through Christ the new worship " : moTe koI vpels oa-ias Kal StKaias
pavOdvovres a napaSiSopev vplv, (pvXda-crea-de Kaivas rbv 6ebv Sid tov Xpiarov
a-e^opevot (ed. DoBSCHUTZ, p. 21).
2 Eusbb. " H. E." iv. 22, 1 : SifXol as nXeia-rois ima-Konois a-vppt^eiv
dnoStjpiav a-reiXapevos pexpl 'Papr/s, Kal o)j on T^v avrT/v napa wavrav
napeiXrjcjiev StSao-KaXiav .
' Eusbb. iv. 8, 2 : rfiv dnXavr; napdSoa-tv tov dnouToXiKov KrjpiypaTos.

174 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
bishop of this city : during a somewhat prolonged stay he
converses with the Bishop ; he ascertains that the Church of
Corinth is faithful to the sound doctrine ; with the
Corinthians he rejoices over the purity of their faith.!
Hegesippus next passes from Corinth to Eome; there also
he inquires about the faith, and in a few words he teUs us
his method: he does not content himself vrith ascertain
ing that the faith is pure, he takes pains to ascertain also
that it comes down from the Apostles through a continuous
and well-authenticated succession. This is why he said of
the Corinthian Church that it " continued in the true faith
until Primus," which does not mean that since Primus it
had departed from the true faith, but, as we may conjecture,
that he himself had been able to foUow the succession from
Primus back to Paul the Apostle. At Eome, Hegesippus
writes, I verified the " succession down to Anicetus," i.e. by
ascending from Anicetus to the Apostles ; and, he adds, " in
every succession, and in every city that is held which is
preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord".^
We find then here a twofold criterion of the sound faith
affirmed : that the faith is the same in aU the Churches, and
that it comes from the Apostles.
The Churches do not come together or dehberate to lay
down a profession of faith that may be henceforth common
to aU ; but men acting in their own name, travelling from
one Church to the other, witness that, as a matter of fact,
the faith is everywhere the same and that it is traceable
back to the Apostles themselves, through a succession which
can be everywhere ascertained. Hegesippus is no theorist
as to the nature of catholicity and of apostohcity; he is a
witness thereof, because cathoUcity and apostoUcity were
contained in the facts, before becoming arguments.
Hegesippus speaks of the Church of Jerusalem, where
he applies himself to find out the StaSo%j/: James the Just
' HbgeSIPP. ap. Euseb. iv. 22, 2 : inepevev i) iKKXria-ia fj KopivBiav iv
Ta op6a Xoya . . . and a few lines further : o-vvavendrjpev iv rm 6p6a Xoya.
^ Ibid. 3 : iv 'Paprj StaSoxfiv inoitjadprjv pexpis 'AvtKrjTov . . . ev eKOfrru
Se StaSoxtj Kal iv eKaartj 7r(5\et ovras exei as 6 vopos KT^pvaaet koi oi npofjjrjrai
Kal 6 Kvptos. For the justification of the expression StaSox^jv inoitjadprjv
see Lightfoot, " Clement," vol. i. pp. 325-33.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 175
is the first Unk, and after him Simeon, son of Clopas, is
made bishop. But chafing at not having obtained the
episcopal dignity, Thebutis begins to corrupt the people :
a work of corruption that was derived from the seven Jewish
sects! Q^t Qf -vvhich arose the Christian sects, named the
Simonians, the Cleobians, the Dositheans, the Menandrians
and Marcianists and Carpocratians, Valentinians, Basilidians
and Saturnilians which "introduced each privately and separ
ately its own pecuUar opinion. These were the false Christs,
false Prophets, false Apostles, who divided the unity of the
Church by corrupt doctrines against God and against His
Christ."^ This genealogy of the Gnosticism of the great
Gnostics, Valentinus and Basilides, is very ingenious : it is
clear that Hegesippus intends to compromise them by thus
ascribing to them undesirable ancestors. This disreputable
genealogy is to contrast with the sound StaSo^T/, that which
has for its ancestor the first authentic bishop, successor of
the Apostles.
Another contrast : James was faithful to Christ's teaching
so also, we may infer, was Simeon ; " then they called the
Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain doc
trine " ^ but as soon as men like Thebutis break with the
BiaBoxn there follows the corruption of the truth; each goes
his own way and thinks as he pleases : Christ, the Prophets,
the Apostles, the three foundations of the faith, are hence
forth shaken ; the unity of the Church no longer exists.
* *
*
A similar testimony is given by Abercius in the well-
known inscription which he composed for his tomb and of
which, by rare good fortune, we still possess boththe text
and the marble slab itself.* This text served as model for
' Hegesippus gives their names : Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists,
Masbotheans, Samaritans, Sadducees and Pharisees.
^Ibid. 5-6: eKaaros IStas Kal erepotas IS'tav So^av napeiatfydyoaav.
'Atto Tovrav ^evSoxptaroi, ¦\JAevSonpo(j>tJTat, -^evSanoaroXot, otnves epepiaav Tt]v
evaa-tv Ttjs eKKXtia-ias. We may notice the expression, " The unity of the
Church ".
^ Ibid. 4: iKaXow rr\v iKKXtjo-iav napdivov, ovna yap e^Bapro aKoals
paratats. * See our article " Abercius " in the " Dictionnaire de Theologie ".

176 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
a Christian inscription, found at Keleudrss in Phrygia, of
which the original has likewise come down to us and is
assigned to the year 216 ; from which scholars infer that
the inscription of Abercius, composed at Hieropolis, in
Phrygia, dates at the latest from the first years of the third
century. The Bishop of Hieropolis, Abercius, was seventy-
two years old when he had his inscription engraved ; hence
he must have been born about the year 130. He is a con
temporary of Hegesippus, Melito, and Papias. "Iam,"
says Abercius, " the disciple of a holy shepherd who feeds his
sheep upon the hills and plains, and who has great eyes
which see all." We may recall the Epistle of the Smyrnians,
about the year 155, in whioh Jesus is called "the shepherd
of the Catholic Church [spread] throughout the world " ;
and the " Shepherd " of Hermas, which speaks of the large
tree that covers with its shade the whole earth, "plains and
hills ".!
Abercius continues : "He taught me the faithful letters "
{<^pdp,p,aTa TTKyrd). Josephus often caUs the Jewish Bible
iepa <^pdp,p,aTa, and the same expression is frequently appUed
in the Pastoral Epistles to Holy Writ in general.^ As to
the word Trto-To?, it is distinctly Christian.
"He it is," the inscription continues, he the pure shep
herd, " who sent me to Rome to see the sovereign queen,
clad in a golden robe, and with golden shoes." Abercius,
then, made the journey to Eome like Polycarp and Hege
sippus, prompted as they were by the thought of his faith.
For him Eome is the queen city : St. Justin had aheady
spoken of the honours paid to Simon the Samaritan iv t§
TToXet, vjjLwv ^acriXiBi 'Pd)fi-r].^ Eome's sovereignty shines
'Cf. "Oracula SibyU." fragm. {id. Gefi'cken, p. 228): navroKparap
doparos opapevos avrbs anavra. "Martyr. Polycarp." xis. 2. Hbbm.
"Simil." VIII. 3, 2.
^ 2 Tim. IIL 15 : dnb ^pecpovs lepd ypdppara otSas. The Imperial
letters also were called iepd ypdpptara. Deissmann, p. 274.
"Justin, " I. Apolog." xxvl 2. The expression iv t^ ^aa-tXiSt 'Papr;
was commonly used. I notice it three times in the weU-known inscription
of Pozzuoli, which dates from the year 174 a. d. : B5ckh, " C. I. G." n. 5853.
Compare the text of the " Acta Pauli " (an Asia Minor text of about the
year 180), on the Christian community of Rome, which outdoes in number
all other communities and has no equal. Harnack, " Analecta zur
altesten Geschichte des Christentums in Rom." (Leipzig, 1905), p. 6.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 177
forth in her sumptuous dress : a golden robe and golden
shoes.! " There I saw a peaple who had a gleaming seal."
This people is the Christian people. The word a^payK, which
we translate "seal" signifies hterally the signet-ring that
authenticates a signature, a letter.^ By extension, it desig
nates the mark put on goods or on beasts, by which they
may be recognized.^ During the second century, the Gnostic
Theodotus writes in a fragment that has been preserved :
" Irrational animals testify by the sphragis of their owner to
whom they respectively belong, and it is by the testimony of
the sphragis that the owner claims them ".* Figuratively
taken, the sphragis is the baptism every Christian receives
as an imprint by means of which the Divine Shepherd re
cognizes His sheep.
This baptized people Abercius has met with wherever he
has gone, and he has observed everywhere that these same
baptized men and women have in common vnth him the same
faith and the same worship. " There I saw a people who
had a gleaming seal.^ I also saw the plains of Syria and
all the cities and Nisibis, beyond the Euphrates. Everywhere
I found fellow-believers. I had Paul for . . . (here one word
has been lost) . Everywhere was faith my guide, amd every
where it gave me for food a fish from the spring, the great, the
! Origen, " Selecta in psalm, xlv." 10: Kal vvv piv tj iKKXrjo-ia toC
Beov Sidxpva-a exei ipdrta. It is disputed whether the queen spoken of by
Abercius is Rome or the Roman Church. De Rossi, Duchesne, and Light
foot think that the Roman Church is meant. Db Rossi, " Inscriptiones,"
vol. n. p. XIX.
2 As regards the a-(j}payts thus understood, see the curious text of
Clement, " Paedagog." m. 11 ("P. G." vol. vm. col. 633 a.).
' A commercial papyrus from Fayoum, of the end of the second cen
tury A.D., speaks of or(j)paylSa int^aXXetv eKdara ova, to mark all asses with
a mark of property, that they may be recognized. A. Deissmann, " Neue
Bibelstudien " (Marburg, 1897), p- 66.
4 " Excerpta Theodot." 86 ('' P- G. " vol. ix. p. 698). Of. Origen,
" Comment, in loan." i. 2. Compare what is said by Celsus in Origen,
" Contra Celsum," VI. 27, nepl Tijr KaXovpevrjS napa rols ex KXijcriao-riKOt?
a-(l>paylSos. "In the "Acta PhUippi," 144 (ed. Bonnet, p. 86), the Apostle thus
addresses Christ in a prayer : "EvSva-dv pe riiv (jyareivtiv a-ov a-(j)paylSa ttjv
ndvTore Xdpnovaav. 12

178 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
pu/re, which a spotless virgin caught ; she ever puts it before,
her friends to eat : she has also delicious wine, and she offers
wine mixed with water together with bread. . . . Let every
one wha understands this pray for Abercius." !
The faith of Abercius makes him welcome everywhere,
for everywhere his faith is professed ; and that faith gives
him the right to be everywhere admitted to communion ; faith
and worship cannot be disjoined. We may recaU Polycarp
admitted to communion at Eome, like aU the faithful of the
Quartodeciman Churches who visit Eome. The fish is Jesus
Christ, according to the weU-known symbolism of the ich-
thus. As to the spotless virgin who has caught the Divine
fish. Catholics agree in seeing in her the Virgin Mary, instead
of the Church.^ The union of aU Christians throughout the
whole world is the result of faith and of worship, which bind
them one to another and make them all friends, initiated, and
guests at a common meal. After their death, the prayers
of those who remain accompany them beyond the grave.
* *
*
We have not as yet taken Egypt into our inquhy, and
except for the Epistle of Barnabas this country is altogether
silent. The first author whose voice is heard in the second
half of the second century is Pantsenus, of whom Clement
of Alexandria was the disciple : this makes him a contemporary
of Justin and Hegesippus. He is in fact represented as an
ancient who knew those who had seen the Apostles.^
! Tai5T-' 6 voav eij^atr vnep 'A^epKiov ttSs 6 a-vvaS6s. The word avva&os
is to be translated " concenter " or "he who sings with me " : we might see
here an allusion to the Christian worship ; at least it is easy to recognize
the prayer for the dead.
^ Compare Aristid. ' ' Apolog. " 15 (ed. Robisson, p. 110) : oi xptartavol
yeveaXoyovvrat dnb rov Kvpiov 'Itjo-ov Xptarov, ovros ... ex napBevov dyios
yevvtjBeis k.t.X.
SPAMPHIL. ap. Phot. " Cod." 118 : Udvratvov tSv re tovs dnoaroXovs
eapaKirav dKpoda-aa-Bat, ov ptjv dXXd Kai nvav avrav iKetvav SiaKovaat. We
do not know what Apostles Pantsenus may have met. However— and
this confirms the attribution to Pantsenus of the epilogue of the Epistle to
Diognetus— we shall hear presently the author of that epUogue state that
he is "a disciple of the Apostles ". We may observe, however, that Cle
ment of Alexandria gives the name Apostles to disciples of the Apostles :
thus he calls Clement of Rome an Apostle. "Stromat." iv. 17 (" P. G."
vol. VIII. col. 1312).

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 179
Clement set a very high value on having been a disciple
of Pantsenus and also of some others — ancients like the
latter: one of whom he had met ia Achaia, another in
Southern Italy, a third in Coele-Syria, a fourth in Palestine ;
but to Clement, Pantsenus was the dearest of aU. " I found
him concealed in Egypt," he says, " and having found him
I sought for no other. This veritable Sicilian bee ran over
the meadows and gathered from the flowers of Prophets and
Apostles wherevyith to form in the souls of his hearers, as in
a sacred hive, pure combs not of honey but of knowledge
and hght." This brief indication betokens already the
method Clement rejoiced to find used by those masters of
old, but he insists : these ancients, he says, " preserved the
true tradition of the blessed doctrine," that of the Saviour,
and they ." derived it directly from the holy Apostles Peter,
James, John and Paul ".!
Has any writing of Pantsenus come down to us ?
Anastasius Sinaita mentions four authors " old and prior
to the Councils," who, he says, applied to Christ and to the
Church the whole Hexaemeron. These four authors were
Ammonius, Clement of Alexandria, Pantsenus of Alexandria,
and, the oldest of the four, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis. In
another passage, Anastasius relates that these interpreters
" appUed to the Church what is said of the paradise " in
Genesis.^ Now the text of the Epistle to Diognetus ends with a
fragment, which, according to all critics, does not make one
whole with the Epistle, and is entirely foreign to it, both in
substance and in style : Lightfoot has suggested it might be
the work of Pantsenus : ^ a tempting conjecture, on condition
that one looks upon it as a mere conjecture. Those two
!Clem. "Strom." i. 1 ("P. G." vol. vra. col. 700): rfjv dXT,69i rJjs
paKapias aa^ovres SiSaa-KoXias napdSoaiv, evBvs dnb IHrpov re Kal Iokoj/Sov,
'ladvvov re Kal IlavXov rav dyiav dnocrroXav.
¦¦'Anasias. in "P. G." vol. lxxxix. pp. 860, 962. FuNK,"Patres
Apost.'' I. 364. As regards Ammonius of Thmuis (third century), Har
nack, " Chronol." vol. n. p. 81.
'LiGHiEOOT, "Apostolic Fathers, Ep. to Diogn." (1891), p. 488. In
the "Theolog. Quartalschrift," vol. lxxxvul (1906), p. 28-36, di Pauli
(after Bunsen, Draseke, Bonwetsch) ascribes — wrongly, I think — the
fragment to Hippolytus. Cf . Harnack, op. cit. p. 232.
12*

180 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
pages are written in a most affected, and even rhythmic
style ; and what Clement has just said of Pantasnus and his
admiration for him, leads one to think that the latter's style
had not the rude simplicity of that of Papias. From
quotations made by St. Irenseus, we have some verses of
presbyters of the second century, which show that those
early writers did not shrink from making use of prosodical
forms. " I do not speak of strange things, nor do I aim at any
thing inconsistent with right reason ; but having been a
disciple of the Apostles, I am become a teacher of the
Gentiles." The unknown author addresses converts from
paganism, and represents himself as a disciple of the
Apostles, probably in contrast with the Gnostics, whose
teachings are foreign and absurd. He is a StSacr/caXo?, a
word that recaUs the Alexandrian BiBaa-KaXelov, of which
Pantsenus was the first master, according to Eusebius.! Our
author continues : "I give faithfuUy what I have received
{to, TrapaSoOevra) to those that become disciples of the truth ;
for who that is rightly taught {opOax; BiBa-xOet';) , and is be
coming a friend to the Word, would not seek to know accur
ately the things which the Word taught directly to His
Disciples?" Christian wisdom, then, consists in knovnng
that which has been taught by Christ Himself to His disciples,
and has been faithfully transmitted from hand to hand by
tradition. " The Father sent the Word, that He might
manifest Himself to the world ; and the Word, being despised
by the (Jewish) people, was preached {KT/pvxOel'i) by the
Apostles, and believed by the GentUes. Through Him the
Church is rich." The Gentile world has received from the
Apostles the message destined for it ; the Son is thus be
gotten in the hearts of the Saints, and the Church holds
Him as a treasure. " The fear of the Law is chanted, the
grace of the Prophets is known, the faith of the Gospels is
established, the tradition of the Apostles is preserved, and
the grace of the Church exults." ^ Christ immanent in the
1 Eusbb. " H. E." v. 10, 4.
^ " Ep. ad Diogn." xi. 6 : eira (/)oj3os vopov SSerat koi npo(j>rirdv x^P'^
•yivoxrKfTai, Kal evayyeXiav niarts ISpvrat, Kal dnotrroXav napdSoats ^vXaa--
a-erai, koi iKKXt/aias X"P'-^ (TKipra. With the word aSerat compare the word

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 181
Church is manifested therein through the Law, the Prophets,
the Gospels, the Apostles, the Apostolic tradition.
The Gentiles who became converts have a share in this
treasure. "You are made a paradise of delight, cause to
spring up in yourselves a tree bearing all kinds of fruits. . . .
For in this place the tree of knowledge and the tree of life
have been planted ; but it is not the tree of knowledge that
destroys — it is disobedience that destroys. For what is
written is not obscure, how God from the beginning planted
the tree of knowledge and the tree of life in the midst of
paradise, revealing through knowledge the way to life. . . ."
The Gentiles are ushered into paradise and led to the two
trees God has planted there ; or stiU better those two trees
are planted in them and bear fruits, "which the serpent
cannot reach ". Then follows a rather obscure statement,
which refers perhaps to the Church : " Eve is not corrupted,
but she is called a virgin".! Christ is the new Adam, and
the Church, his helpmate, is Eve, who remains for ever a
virgin. He whom Clement of Alexandria likened to a Sicilian
bee may have expressed his thoughts in this poetic style, so
fuU of Johannine and Pauline reminiscences ; and, if these
two pages are the work of Pantsenus, we have in their re
semblance to Clement's own writings a concrete piece of
evidence of the mental affinity between master and disciple,
and an explanation of Clement's admiration. In this passage,
moreover, we should then find a confirmation of the state
ment of Anastasius Sinaita, that Pantsenus applies to the
Church what is said, in Genesis, of the earthly paradise.

The instruction in the form of a homUy, which has been
preserved under the name of " Second Epistle of Clement to
the Corinthians," is neither an epistle, nor by Clement of
Eome, but may be an instruction addressed to the Corinthians
avvaSos in the inscription of Abercius. We find always the same insist
ence on singing, in connexion with the Church.
! Id. XII. 8 : ov8e ECa (pBeiperat, dXXd napBevos niareverat. Recall
what Hegesippus says of the virginity of the Church.

182 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
and composed at Corinth. With Funk, we may date it at
about the year 150.!
The author of the " Secunda Clementis " is not a con
troversialist ; indefinite indeed are the anti-gnostic features
which some scholars have thought to find in his work.
He describes the Christian community he addresses, as
subject to the authority of the presbyters (xvii. 3 and 5) :
a teaching and disciplinary authority. The written authority
is that of the precepts of Jesus Christ (xvii. 3 and 6) : these
must be kept "that all [the faithful] having the same
mind may be gathered together unto life" (xvn. 3). Else
where the author speaks of God's logia, which are for Chris
tians the rule of conduct (xm. 3). One becomes a Christian
through Baptism — an imprint that must be kept spotless ;
for any one who does not preserve it, there is in store, a fire
that shall never cease : ^ the community of the faithful is,
thus, a community of the clean : a rigorist and encratistic
inspiration animates the " Secunda Clementis " and connects
it with the great ethical current of second century Christi
anity. " In doing the will of the Father, in keeping the
flesh pure, and observing the commandments of the Lord,
we shall receive life eternal (vm. 4). If we do the wiU
of God our Father, we shall be of the Church, which is
first, which is spiritual, which was created before the sun and
the moon." ^
This thought has no affinity with the exegesis which
applied to the Church what is said of the paradise in Genesis ;
it belongs to an order of speculation which we shall find
^ This date and origin are conjectural. Against Harnack, who deems
it a Roman production and even the work of Pope Soter (about 170),
Bartlet inclines towards an Alexandrian origin, of about the year 140.
" Zeitschrift fur die neut. Wissenschaft," 1906, p. 123 and foU. Har
nack, "Chronol." vol. i. p. 448. Funk, "Patr. Apostol." vol. l p. Iii.
" 2 Clem." VI. 9 : idv ptj rtipTjO-apev ro ^dnrta-pa dyvbv koi dptavrov.
. . . VII. 6 : rav pfj Trjptjo-dvTav rfjv erc^paylSa . . . vm. 6 : -njprjaare Tr\v
adpKa dyvfjv Kal Tqv a-(f)paylSa aaniXov.
'xiv. 1 : iaopeBa « rrjs iKKXTjaias rijs npaTrjs, t^s nvevpMTiKTJs, ttjs npb
tjXiov Kal a-eXtjvijs eKTta-pivris. FuNK, loc. cit. : " Auctor potius ante quam
post medium saeculum (II) se vixisse indicare videtur, quoniam quae
c. xiv. de ecclesia spirituali leguntur, postquam Gnostici errores suos per
totum orbem disperserunt, haud facile dici poterant."

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 183
again in Hermas, and which, in some Gnostics, ends in
making the Church an aeon ; it affirms the pre-existence of
the Church as a dogma similar to that of Christ's pre-exist
ence. The Jews likewise speculated about the heavenly
Jerusalem, that which the author of the Apocalypse beholds
" coming down out of Heaven from God, having the glory
of God" (XXI. 10-11). The idea of the pre-existence of the
Church is dependent on these speculations about the
heavenly Jerusalem.
The pneumatic Church, is the earliest in the sense that
she has preceded the Jewish people : as is plainly stated
elsewhere by the " Secunda Clementis," the opposition be
tween the two is the same as between Sara and Agar.!
" Let us choose rather to be of the Church of Life, that
we may be saved. For I do not suppose you are ignorant
that the living Church is the body of Christ ; for the Scrip
ture saith, God made man, male and female. The male is
Christ, and the female is the Church. And the books of
the Prophets and the Apostles plainly declare that the
Church is not of to-day, but hath been from the beginning :
for she was spiritual, as our Jesus also was spiritual, but
was manifested in these last days that she might save us.
Now the Church, which is spiritual, was manifested in the
flesh of Christ, thereby showing us that, if any of us guard
her in the flesh and defile her not, he shall receive her again
in the Holy Spirit : for this flesh is the antitype of the
spirit. No man, therefore, when he hath defiled the antitype,
shall receive the reality. Listen then, brethren; Guard
ye the flesh, that you may partake of the spirit. But if
we say that our flesh is the Church and the spirit of Christ,
then he that hath soUed the flesh hath soiled the Church,
and such an one, therefore, shall not partake of the spirit,
which is Christ" (xrv. 1-5).
These mystical considerations are subordinate to the
encratism of our author : the law of Christians consists
in keeping their bodies spotless, in order not to lose the
imprint of baptism, and to be able to obtain life everlasting.
Through baptism and through the preservation of the bap-
! " II Clem." II. 1: a-reipa Ijv t/ iKKXt]a-ia tjpav npb tov SoBrjvat avrfj
TeKva, K.T.X. Cf. Justin, " Apolog." i. 53.

184 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
tismal imprint, Christians belong to the Church of life
{iKKXrjULa T-fjv ^ffli}?), the hving Church {eKKXrjaia ^Sxra), the
same which St. Paul (Eph. i. 22*3) calls the body of Christ,
the same which is united to Christ, as the husband to the
wife, as we read also in St. Paul (Eph. v. 31-2), the same
that was created pneumatic at the beginning of aU things,
the same that became manifest in Christ's flesh.
In these lofty reflections on the supernatural life, the
Church is no longer anything visible and social : she is the
life, she is the Spirit, she is Christ in so far as Christ is
Spirit. Still she is distinct from Christ, just as the wife is
distinct from the husband.
Let us leave this mysticism. Eusebius has had in his
hands a coUection of letters of Dionysius, who was bishop of
Corinth when Soter was bishop of Eome (166-75), letters
addressed to churches and caUed by Eusebius " CathoUc
epistles ".! The expression " cathoUc " seems to be used here
in the meaning it has when it designates the " CathoUc
Epistles " of the New Testament : it means that these Epistles
are addressed to all the Churches, at the same time as to some
particular Church. Eusebius mentions a letter to the Lace
daemonians, which is a "catechism of the orthodox faith
and a treatise on peace and unity " ; one to the Athenians,
on the remissness of their faith ; one to the Christians of
Nicomedia, in which he strenuously opposes the heresy of
Marcion, and defends "the canon of the truth"; one to
"the Church that sojourns in Gortyna " and to the other
communities of Crete, in which he forewarns them against
any kind of intercourse with the heretics ; one to " the
Church that sojourns in Amastris, and to those in Pontus " ;
and one to the Christians of Cnosos. In the same collec
tion was contained the answer of Pinytos, bishop of Cnosos,
in which he begs Dionysius to write again to his Church, so
grateful is it for the benefits derived from his first letter.
We can see from this by what relations the Churches
were bound together ; also how the monarchical episcopate
was vigorous in every church; how gladly the bishops
^ Euseb. " H. E. " IV. 23, 1 : KaBoXiKals npbs rds iKKXtjaias iniarroXals.
Cf. Ignat. "Ad Polycarp." vm. 1.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 185
helped and counselled one another, always bent on arousing
everywhere an attachment to unity, to the sound faith, to
the canon of truth, and to the hatred of heresy.
Eusebius knew also another Epistle of Dionysius, sent
to the Eomans or rather " to Soter, who was their bishop at
that time". In it the Eoman Church is warmly praised for
her boundless charity, that extends to all the churches.
" From the beginning," Dionysius writes to the Eomans,
" it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in
various ways, and to send succours {i<f}6Bta) to the Churches
in all the cities [of the earth].! i^ tj^^yg relieving the want
of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the
mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning,
you Eomans, keep up the hereditary custom of the Eomans,
which your blessed Bishop Soter has not only maintained,
but has added to, by furnishing an abundance of supplies
to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with
blessed words, as a loving father does with his chUdren." ^
The fame of the Eoman charity dates "from the be
ginning," which refers to the time when St. Paul had
already praised the Eomans for their faith " spoken of in the
whole world " (Eom. i. 7) and had experienced himself the
heartiness of their welcome (Acts xxviii. 15). This charity
has not grown cold in the course of time : it is known to all
the brethren, and has extended to all the Churches both
through material helps and the kind reception which the
Christians of aU the Churches are assured of finding at Eome.
* *
*
Like the unknov^n author of the " Secunda Clementis,"
' In Greek : eKKXr^a-iais noKXals rals Kara ndaav ttoXij'. The text may
be amended. I follow the common reading. From the beginning there were
in the Roman Church some of the faithful who belonged to the most aristo
cratic and wealthy families, and at times the amount of their wealth was
very considerable. Regarding this peculiar feature of the Roman Church,
see Harnack, " Mission," vol. ii. pp. 26-38.
' Euseb. ibid. 10. This letter of Dionysius was an answer to a letter
of Soter. The former alludes to the letter (now lost) of Soter : "To-day
we have kept the Lord's holy day, in which we have read your epistle :
... we shall continue to read it always as an admonition (vouSfrfTo-^m),
together with the former epistle, which was written to us through Clem
ent" {ibid. 11). An allusion to the " Prima Clementis ".

186 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hermas is not directly a controversial writer ; but he knows
that some hypocrites have done their best to spread among
the faithful strange and foolish teachings, which he holds in
abhorrence ! These hypocrites must be driven" away ; there
is no place for them in the symbolic building, the Church,
which is being built ; they are the stones that are cast
aside. " In this way, will the Church of God be purified
. . . after it has rejected the wicked, and the hypocrites,
and the blasphemers. . . . After these have been cast out,
the Church of God will be one body, one mind, one spirit,
one love : and then the Son of God wiU be exceeding glad,
and will rejoice among them [the clean], because He has
received His people pure ".^ Unity of thought, of faith, of
love, is, then, the law of the Church. But whether that
Church is the concrete Church here below or the unseen
Church in Heaven, Hermas does not state.
He sees in a vision twelve mountains, the figure of men
"who inhabit the whole world, and to whom the Son of
God was preached by the Apostles ". AU the nations " that
dwell under heaven," have, then, heard the message. The
men " who have received the sphragis have one thought,
one mind, one faith, one love".^ These are of course the
faithful who are still here below, subject to be tempted to
sin and error. Hermas pays more attention to sin than to
error : the Lord says to him : " Keep thy flesh pure and
stainless, that the Spirit which inhabits it may bear witness
to it, and it may be justified. ... If you defile your
flesh, you will also defile the Holy Spirit ; if you defile the
Spirit you vnll not live." * This life begins for the Christian
even in this world, and it continues "with the Saints of
God " and His Angels in Heaven.^ The Church, the com
munion of the Saints, is, then, earthly and heavenly at the
same time.
'HerM. "Sim. VIII." 6, 5: vnoKptral StSaxds ^evas eia(pepovTes . • •
rals StSaxals rals papals neiBovres.
'"'Sim. IX." 18, 3-4: dnoPXTjB^vai tovs novr/povs koi vnoKpirds koi
^Xaa<ptjpovs . . . — earat tj iKKXtjala rov Beov ev aapa, pla fppovtjais, €if vovs,
pla ntarts, pla dydntj.
^ " Sim. IX." 17, 4 : Xafiovres ovv rtjv <T(l>paylSa piav ^povtjatv eaxov k<"
eva vovv, Kat pia niarts avrav iyevero koi pia dydntj.
^"Sim. v."7, 1-3. '"Vis. III." 8, 8. " Sim." ix. 25, 2.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 187
She is a creation in view of which God has created
everything else.! j^ most handsome youth appears to
Hermas and addresses him in these words: "Who do you
think this aged woman is from whom you received the
book ? The Sibyl ? No, it is the Church." " Why then is
she an aged woman?" Hermas asks. "Because," the
youth answers, " she was created first of all, and for her
sake was the world made." ^
Although she is that spiritual creation, the Church never
theless is constituted in local and visible Churches, that are
subject to rule. The aged woman, the image of the unseen
Church, has given a book to Hermas that he may hand it
over to the presbyters. Hermas has been commissioned to
carry it to Clement — who in the mind of the author of the
" Shepherd," is Clement of Eome — and then, Clement must
send the book " to foreign cities ".^ Hermas will read it
publicly in the city of Eome where he dwells " with the
presbyters who preside over the church ".*
These reflections on the Church spiritual are superadded
then to the fact of the existence of the local churches, and,
though they are probably connected with the teaching of the
Epistle to the Ephesians, they occur so rarely that we can
hardly say that they had any influence on the ecclesiastical
organization. We should have a far better expression of the thoughts
of the Eoman Church in the work of Justin, had this work
been preserved entire, and especially had we still in our
hands that " Syntagma adversus omnes hsereses," which we
know only from its title. St. Irenseus quotes Justin against
i"Vis. i."l-6. 2 "Vis. n." 4, 1. Cf. "Vis. iii." 3, 5.
'Mgr. Duchesne, "Eglises S^parees," p. 130, remarks that, besides
the writings that were rightly or wrongly called after some Apostle, the
"Prima Clementis " and the " Shepherd," two Roman compositions, were
the only works that had a place, during the second century, in the canon
of some Churches.
* " Vis. II." 4 : nepy^et ovv KXij/xt/i els ras e^a noXeis, aii Se dvayvaat] els
rairtjv rtjv TrdXtw perd rav npea^vrepav tSv npoiarapevav rijs iKKXtjaias (cf.
" Vis. III." 5). Hermas alludes elsewhere (" Vis. iii." 9) with some slight
tinge of criticism rols npaqyovpevois rijj iKKXtjaias Kal rols nparoKaBeSpirais.
There are rivalries for the first place in the churches: "Sim." vm. 7;
" Vis. II." 4, III. 1. We must not forget that Hermas is a "prophet".

188 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Marcion ; ! TertuUian quotes him, together with Irenseus
and Miltiades, against Valentinus and the Valentinians : and
he represents them all three as the contemporaries of those
heresiarchs whom they fought in books written with vigour
{instructissimis voluminibus) : he declares that his greatest
wish is to become their equal.^ Scholars think that the
authors of works against heresy, beginning with Irenseus and
TertuUian, most probably knew and used many a time the
" Syntagma " of St. Justin, which must have been the earUest
sample of this kind of literature. Most probably too, Justin's
criteria are the same with those which Irenseus will develop
some twenty-five years later. As ground for these supposi
tions, we have the indications we can find in the two "Apo
logies " and in the "Dialogue with the Jew Trypho ".
Justin is an apologist, in the "Apologies " as weU as in
the "Dialogue"; there appears in him the duahsm of the
believer who affirms the articles of his faith, and the apologist
who justifies them by means of reasons ; for the truth of
the articles of faith is such as can be perceived by reason.^
But when it is a question of estabhshing the foundations
of the articles of his faith, Justin is in perfect accord with
Polycarp, Papias, and Hegesippus — as Irenseus later on will
be with him — in proclaiming as a principle that faith is a
teaching received as an inheritance and faithfuUy trans
mitted : that it is a deposit. The plea of the presbyters
of Smyrna opposing to the novelties of Noetus, the rule, " We
declare what we have learned," is aheady found in Justin.^
Among many others, there are two terms that he uses
with noticeable frequency : the word BiBax-q and the word
irapdBoaK, the latter being the sequel and the guarantee
of the former.^
Now the BiBax-i] is the teaching of the Prophets, of
1 "Adv. hser." iv. 6, 4. " " Adv. Valentinian. " 5.
3 Jusinf , ' ' Apolog. L " 23 : to dXTjBes Xeyopev. Cf. 43 : dXtjBes 0570001-
vopeBa . . . as SeiKvvaiv 6 dXTjBijs Xdyor. Celsus will entitle his criticism
of Christianity a True Discourse.
¦* " Apolog. I." 13 : as eStSdxBtjijLev Xeyovres . . . — 14 : ravra SfSiSoy-
peBa Kal SiSdaKopev. HiPPOLTT. " Contra haer. Noet." 1 ("P. G." vol. x.
p. 805) : ravra Xeyopev a ipddopev. The condemnation of Noetus at
Smyrna occurred about the year 180.
»" Apolog. l" 39.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.^EUS 189
Christ, and of the Apostles. " These teachings, which we
have received from Christ and from the Prophets, His pre
decessors, are the only true teachings, as contrasted with the
fables of the Greeks." i " The doctrine which we have re
ceived from the Apostles " has the same authority ; ^ for it
is by the Apostles that Christ's doctrine was preached to the
Gentile world : " From Jerusalem there went out into the
world twelve men in nuinber, and they simple persons, and
unskiUed in speaking ; but through the power of God they
declared to every race of men that they were sent by Christ
to teach aU men the word of God ".^
The conviction which we have noted in Abercius and in
Hegesippus is again expressed here, the conviction that
the BtBax-n spread all over the world is everywhere identical
with itself. On stepping from his baptismal bath, the newly
baptized Christian is led "where those who are called
brethren are assembled together " ; prayers are offered up to
God by aU those who are present, for the assembly present,
for the newly baptized brother, for " all others everywhere,"
i.e. for the " brethren " dispersed in the whole world and
wherever they are, in order that to aU Christians " who have
learned the truth " God may grant that they keep what is
prescribed to them.* The liturgy which opens with this
prayer ends with the eucharist of which no one is aUowed
to partake " but he who believes in the truth of our doc
trines, and has been baptised ; and who so lives, as Christ
has directed ".^
In opposition to the truth which we have received from
Christ through the Apostles and which we preserve with
' " Apolog. I." 23. Cf. 53 : tovs dnb navrbs eBvovs dvBpanovs Sta r^s
napa tSi/ dnoaroXav avrov StSax^s neia-Bivras.
^ "Apolog. I." 61 : KalXoyov napa t£j' dnoaroXav ipdBopev rovrov. —
66 : iStSdxBtjpev, Ol yap dnoaroXot ovras napeSaKav. — 67 : rols anoaroXots
iSiSa^e ravra dnep vplv dveSaKapev.
^ "Apolog. I." 23 : onoaa Xeyopev paBovres napa rov Xpiarov Koi t£v
npoeXBovrav avrov npoipt/rav. ' ' Apolog. " II. 2 : TrjV anb toO Xptarov SiSaxtjv.
' ' Dialog. " CXIX. 6 : rtj ipavtj rov Beov rtj Sta re r5i' dnoaroXav toO Xpiarov
XaXtjBeiaTj, ndXiv Kal rfj Sta rav npocpTjrav KtjpvxBetari.
^ " Apolog. I. " 65 : KOivdsevxdsvnep . . . aXXav navraxov ndvrav . . .
anas Kara^iaBapev ra dXr/Bij paBovres . . . koi (j)vXaKes rSv ivreraXpevav
fvpeBfjvai. * "Apolog. I." 66 : . . . as 6 Xptarbs napeSaKev.

190 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
fideUty, error has multiplied, stirred up by the devils, ever
since the day they saw that Christ "was believed in by
every nation " ; the devils have thus raised up Simon and
Menander, both from Samaria, both of them magicians.
Simon accompanied by a harlot, named Helen, came under
Claudius to Eome, where a statue was erected to him as to
a god. Menander took up his abode at Antioch, where
some of his disciples are still to be found. Marcion, a
native of Pontus, is stiU teaching : with the help of the
devils, he has made his foUowers deny God, the creator of
the world, and believe in a superior God. The heretics
are called Christians, but for the same reason that all philo
sophers are called philosophers, in spite of the variety of the
doctrines they profess.! Heresy — so we may infer from
this description — can be recognized by its inspiration, which
comes from the demons : hence come those impieties, those
blasphemies and scandals, by which it is accompanied; it
is preached by men who are well knovyn, who have nothing
at all of the mission of the Apostles, who are magicians like
Simon and Menander, or sophists hke Marcion. The
heretics, disciples of these heresiarchs, bear the name of
Christians : but, in contrast with the unity of faith of the
genuine Christians, what characterizes the heretics is the
diversity of their opinions ; and in this they are like philo
sophers who follow but their own sense. " However," Justin
concludes, "I have composed a treatise against aU the
heretics that have existed, which, if you wish to peruse it, I
wUl present to you."^
' " Apolog. I." 26 : ndvres oi dnb rovrav oppapevot xpi-artavol KaXoiv-
rat, ov rpdnov Kat ov Koivav ovrwi' Soypdrav rols (^tXo(ro0otff ro iniKoKovpevov
ovopa rtjs cj>tXoao(j)ias Koii'di' iartv. The word dogma is still used here in
its philosophical sense.
" " Apolog. I." 26. The same argument, drawn from the disagreement
of heretics among themselves, is made use of by Rhodon, a native of Asia,
who had come to Rome like Justin, and there became Tatian's disciple.
Eusebius places Rhodon in the time of the Emperor Commodus (180-92).
See the fragment in which Rhodon expresses his mind regarding these
contradictions of the heretics, and particularly of Apelles and Marcion ;
EusBB. "H. E." V. 13, 2-4. This argument used by apologists like
Justin and Rhodon is the same that is used by apologists like Tatian
against the pagan philosophers whose contradictions they denounce. M.
Puech has shown that in this respect our apologists — whilst using them

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENJEUS 191
In his two Apologies, addressed, as was said before, to the
pubhc at large — to the Prince, the Senate, and pagan public
opinion — Justin appeals only to arguments resting on equity,
on reason, or on fact : there was no motive for recaUing then
that Christianity formed an association within the Eoman
Empire ; even the word Church is not mentioned. The
"Dialogue with Trypho the Jew," which is posterior to the
first Apology and destined for Christian or Jewish readers, is
more explicit.
When the prophet Malachy announces that everywhere,
in the midst of all nations, a clean oblation is offered up to
God, Justin shows to the Jew Trypho that in this passage
Malachy foretold Gentile Christianity. For, he says, it is
a fact that Judaism is not spread all over the world, from
the rising of the sun down to its setting, and that there are
still many peoples in whose midst no Jew has as yet taken
up his abode, whilst " there is not any one race of men,
barbarian or Greek, nay, of those who hve in chariots, or
without houses, or shepherds in tents, among whom prayers
and eucharists are not celebrated in the name of the cruci
fied Jesus ".! Again, dealing with the prophecy of Michseas,
that a time would come when the law would go forth from
Jerusalem, and the word of the Lord would subdue the far
distant nations, put an end to wars, and change swords into
ploughshares, and when every man would sit in peace under
his own vine, Justin shows that this time has actually come
since the Apostles have carried the Gospel from Jerusalem
to the Gentiles in the whole world ; and that nothing, not
even bloody persecution, is able to dismay the Christians.
" The vine which is planted by Christ our God and Saviour
is His people." ^
The catholicity of the Christian faith (the word
KuOoXiKo^ has not this meaning in St. Justin) is geographi
cal, concrete and i conspicuous.^ Though thus dispersed,
for an opposite purpose — had undergone the infiuence of the pagan
nporpenriKol \6yot, for instance of that of Posidonius. PuECH, " Re
cherches sur le discours aux Grecs de Tatian " (Paris, 1903), p. 41. On
the contrary, the proof from tradition is distinctly ecclesiastical.
'"Dialog." CXVII. 5. ^ Ibid. ex. 4.
'Cf. "Dialogue," cxrx. 4.

192 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Christianity possesses a unity which is just as real. " Those
who believe in Christ are one soul, one synagogue, one
church," this is why — in the text of the Psahn Audifilia et
vide, et inclina aurem tuam,, et obliviscere populum tuum
— the word of God addresses as " His daughter, the Church
that is born of and partakes of His name, for we are all
called Christians." ! That Justin uses indiscriminately the
words synagogue and church, need cause us no great surprise :
for he is disputing with a Jew, and in speaking of the Chris
tian people which in God's plan takes the place of the Jewish
people, he intends to make use of general designations only :
in the present discussion, " Church " has no other meaning
than that given to the word by the LXX. But, at bottom,
Justin has in view the Church, that which stands over against
the Synagogue, and elsewhere he clearly asserts this opposi
tion, saying that Jacob is the figure of Christ, inas
much as Jacob served Laban for his two daughters and was
deceived as regards the former. Lia is the figure of " your
people and synagogue," Justin says to Trypho, " and Eachel
is our Church".^
But here an objection can be raised : Among those who
bear the name of Christians, are there not many heretics ?
Justin realized probably far more than Trypho, the bitter
ness of this scandal : men bold enough to " affirm them
selves to be Christians and confess Jesus, who was crucified,
to be both Lord and Christ," and at the same time " teaching
not His doctrine, but such as proceeds from the spirits of
error ".^ Justin appeals to the "true and pure teaching
of Jesus Christ " ; he recaUs that the Saviour foretold what is
taking place now : that failse prophets will come in the
clothing of sheep who inwardly are raveiung wolves, pseudo-
Christs, pseudo-apostles, seducers of the faithful.
Here we find again the trUogy of the Prophets, of Christ
and of the Apostles, as the foundation of the pure and authen-
! " Dialog." LXin. 5 ; on rols els avrov ntarevovaiv mf ouo-i pia ^XV
Kal pia avvayay^ Kal pia iKKXtjaia, 6 Xoyos tov Beov [etpjjTat] as Svyarpl rfj
iKKXtiaia rfj i^ avrov ovoparos yevopivj) kcii peraaxovaji rov dvoparos avToi
{xptartavol ydp ndvres KoXoipeBa).
^ Ibid. CXXXIV. 2 : Aeia pev 6 Xabs vpav Kal f/ avvayayi), 'PaxriX Se ^
iKKXrjaia tjpav.
3 Ibid. xxxv. 2.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENiEUS 193
tic faith. Outside this foundation, there is nothing but
blasphemy and error. " There both are and have been,
many who have presented themselves in the name of Jesus,
and taught men to speak and act atheistically and blasphem
ously, but they are known among us by the name of those
by whom the doctrine and opinion peculiar to them was first
taught. . . . Some are called Marcionites, some Valen
tinians, some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians ; and others
by other names, each deriving his name from the creator of
his heresy, just as each of those who consider themselves
phUosophers . . . bears the name of the father of the philo
sophy he foUows." ! This is the argument outlined already
in the first Apology ; ^ heresy is inspired by the devils and
brings forth blasphemies ; it originates with men who, like
the philosophers, follow their own judgment, and therefore
forfeit the right to be called Christians.
* *
*
To the preceding testimonies, which set before us the
Church as seen from within, we may join that of the pagan
Celsus, who, although he was an outsider, had made himself
weU acquainted with all that appertained to Christianity,
because, as a philosopher and as a controversialist, he was
anxious to speak with knowledge (a boast which he often
made) of what he was opposing.
Celsus is a Greek, but most probably a Greek of Eome ;
and his book was written, probably, at Eome during the last
years of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, between the years
177-80, in the period when Commodus shared the imperial
dignity.^ Despite Origen's opinion that he is an Epicurean,
we believe that Celsus is a Platonist: he is a religious
pagan, as was possible for a man with Platonic tendencies,
who, associating the established religion with his love of the
Eoman greatness, is anxious to preserve it, provided it be
interpreted in an allegorical sense, according to a method
not unlike that employed by the symbolo-fideism of our day.
Eeligion of this sort does but render him the more hostUe
1 " Dialog." xxxv. 6. ^ " Apolog." i. 26.
'Cf. Neumann, art. "Celsus" in Hauck's " Realenoyklopadie "-
StUl we must not overlook Funk's hesitations, "Die Zeit des fVahren
WoHes von Celsus," in his " Kirch. Abhandl," vol. il. (1899), pp. 152-61,
13

194 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
to Christianity, which he undertakes to criticize thoroughly,
in his " True Discourse ".
In what pertains to Christianity he does not avoid a
certain number of mistakes to which Origen, according to re
cognized tactics of war, does not fail to call due attention;
yet he does show a wonderful erudition. He has traveUed
in Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt. He quotes the Old Testa
ment, the Book of Henoch, and the SibyUine oracles : he
knows the four canonical Gospels, and also other texts from
which " he draws against Jesus and against us objections
he could not draw from our Gospels ".! It is not proved that
he was acquainted with the Acts of the Apostles ; but he
knows St. Paul's ideas, although it is uncertain whether
he had read his Epistles. Celsus distinguishes between the
authentic Gospel texts, and those which "certain Christian
believers (like persons who in a fit of drunkenness mutilate
themselves), have corrupted from their original integrity
three times, four times, and even more, so that they might
be able to answer objections " : words that doubtless refer to
the Marcionites.^ That Celsus was acquainted vyith the
work of St. Justin, we cannot affirm. On the other hand,
he does know the "Dialogue" — now lost — "of Jason and
Papiscus," which he says, " is rather pitiable and detestable
than ridiculous ".^ He has perused many Marcionite and
Gnostic writings. After having consulted such disparate
sources of information, it is very strange that Celsus should
have had a normal view of Christianity, one which reaUy
corresponds with Catholic institutions as they were towards
the middle of the second century.
Celsus does not denounce Christianity primarily as a
superstition contrary to the naturalism which he believes
to be the truth, but as an unlawful association. Christians,
he says, enter among themselves into secret agreements that
are I contrary to the laws, and these agreements, which con
stitute the mutual love of Christians, are made in view of
the common danger, and are more binding than sacred oaths
(I. 1) . Their whole worship is secret, for in case they are
denounced, death is their punishment (i. 3). Well and good,
'Origen, " Contra Cels.'' ii. 74.
2 " Contra Cels. " n. 27, s jUd, iv. 52.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRBN^US 195
were their doctrine reasonable ; but they accept without any
reason " dogmas " that are simply absurd. " Certain persons
among them," Celsus writes, " who do not wish either to give
or receive a reason for their belief, keep repeating : ' Do not
examine, but believe!' and 'Your faith will save you!'"
Celsus affirms that they say : " In this life wisdom is bad,
but foolishness is a good thing ".!
He knows well that among Christians there are found
honourable, gentle and cultivated men — "capable of com
prehending allegories," he says :^ however, most Christians
are simple and uneducated (i. 27). Of these simple people
he draws a kind of sketch, in which, under his caricature of
their characteristics, we detect a reality which we are not
surprised to meet : the pathetic missionary spirit of those
" workers in wool and leather, fullers, and persons of the
most ignorant sort, who nevertheless are zealous in bringing
women and children to their faith (iii. 55). The instruction
required by these lowly clients is furnished by presbyters
who are hardly less ignorant than themselves, says Celsus.^
At the beginiung of Christianity, Christians were few
and had only one mind ; but as they spread and became a
multitude, they ceased to agree and branched off into many
sects, "each wishing to have his own party" (iii. 10).
Those who separate from the " multitude " anathematize one
' " Contra Cels.'' I. 9 : (ftr/al Se nvas prjSe ^ovXopevovs SiSovm fj Xap-
^aveiv Xoyov nepl Ziv ntare-vovai, xpijaSat ra " pt) i^era^e dXXd niarevaov,"
Kal " T) niarts aov aaaet ae " Kai (j>tjaiv avrovs Xeyetv " kokoi/ fj iv ra Koapa
aotjiia, dyaBbv Se jj papia ". Cf. ibid. 12.
2 On aUegory, especiaUy among the Stoics, as a method of interpreting
religious myths, cf . P. Decharme, " La critique des traditions religieuses
chez les Grecs " (Paris, 1904), p. 270 and foU.
' " Contra Cels." vi. 40. Cf. in. 72 and 77. As regards the spread
of Christia,nity among the educated classes, see Harnack, "Mission,"
vol. I. pp. 408-18. Catholicism opposed authority to criticism and to
Gnostic speculation. A "philosopher" like Justin was rather an ex
ception ; and such a man had very little influence on the cultivated pagans
of his time. Celsus does not know him at all. In spite of Origen and his
disciples, Christianity found its opponent in " the ancient learning,"
and in what may be called the higher education of the old world.
CuMONT, "Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain," p. 324,
thinks that untU the end of the fifth century the higher education re
mained in the hands of the heathen. 13*

196 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
another, and continue to have only the name in common, if
it can be said that they have anything at all in common.!
Celsus mentions successively the Simonians (the disciples of
Simon Magus), the Carpocratians, whom he knows only by
name, the Marcionites, whom, on the contrary, he seems to
have met and questioned (v. 62). All these factions, he
continues, fiercely tear one another.^ In Phoenicia and
Palestine, he has come across prophets and prophetesses,
visionaries who are the forerunners of the Montanists.^
Did we pay attention only to these features, we might
believe that Christianity was then in a state of universal
disunion. But we must not forget that Celsus beheld it
first united in a charity that seemed to him like a covenant
of mutual defence, or that he himself has noted dovTu that
those sects were separate factions which had almost nothing
in common. There are then two Christian bodies opposing
each other, the one united — the other disunited ; and it is
in the same light that, somewhat later, St. Irenseus describes
heresies. Even Celsus clearly realizes that the Christian
body, that which has not gone off into schism, forms a
visible unity, based on the unity of faith, between aU the
members of which there is perfect solidarity : he defines this
unity by a striking epithet: "the great Church."*
* *
*
If we now attempt to extract from the preceding analysis
the leading ideas, we may say in the first place, that Chris
tianity is regarded with insistence as a real and visible col
lectivity, spread like a race over the whole world (Hermas,
Abercius, Justin) ; that, among aU the dispersed groups or
communities of which it is made up, there is cohesion and
exchange, in other words an inter-ecclesiastical bond which
is felt by all (Polycarp, the Smyrnians, Abercius, Dionysius of
^ " Contra Cels." m. 12 : vnb nXtjBovs ndXtv Stiord/xcvoi.
" Ibid. V. 63 and 64. ' Jbid. vii. 9 and vm. 45.
-^ Ibid. V. 59 : aa(f>as ye rav dnb peydXtjs iKKXtjaias tovto SpoXoyoivrav
K.T.X. Here it is question of the faith regarding creation and the work of
the six days, common to the Christians and to the Jews, probably in con
trast with the Marcionites. Compare v. 61 : ri roiiro (jjepet eyKXrjpa rols
dnb T^s iKKXtjaias, ots dnb rov nX-fjBovs avopaaev 6 KeXaos ; he opposes
the great Church (to ttX^^os) to the Ebionites.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 197
Corinth, Celsus) ; that especially, in all that pertains to the
faith, there exists an agreement which is likewise felt by all
(Hegesippus, Abercius, Dionysius, Hermas, Justin, Celsus) ;
so that at first sight the heretics appear as strangers (Papias,
Pantsenus, Hermas, Celsus).
This concord of the Churches in their faith results from
the fact that the faith is regarded as a divine teaching,
first received and then faithfully transmitted as a deposit :
it is the Lord's teaching (Polycarp, Papias), or, more pre
cisely, the teaching of the Lord, of the Prophets, of the
Apostles (Polycarp, Papias, Hegesippus, Pantsenus, Justin),
a teaching propagated and vouched for by the Apostles (Poly
carp, Papias, Hegesippus, Pantsenus, Justin), received and
handed down by the presbyters (Polycarp, Anicetus, Papias,
Pantsenus), the transmission of which has been made concrete
in the succession of bishops (Hegesippus) to whom the faith
ful must submit (Polycarp, " Secunda Clementis," Dionysius,
Hermas) .
It is this unity of faith — Catholic faith. Apostolic faith —
which they were wont to contrast with the heresies : but the
unity lies far deeper, for it embraces the whole ecclesiastical
life, liturgy and discipline, in subjection to the authority of
the hierarchy (Polycarp, Hegesippus, Abercius, Dionysius,
Hermas, Justin).
Eome is a centre in which the faith of all the faithful
(Polycarp, Abercius, Hegesippus, Dionysius) is concerned.
The heretics can appeal only to the man after whom
they have been called (Hegesippus, Justin) : their systems
are unreasonable and contradict one another (Hegesippus,
Pantsenus, Justin, Celsus).
The idea of the unseen or pneumatic Church, pre-exist
ing ever since the beginning of the world, is one that is
developed only by the author of the "Secunda Clementis"
and by Hermas. II.
St. Irenseus, a native of Asia, lived as a youth at Smyrna
under the eyes of St. Polycarp, in the midst of the presbyters
who, like Polycarp, have " conversed with St. John and
the other witnesses of the Saviour"; and he must have

198 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
spent in Asia more than the years of his youth. Towards
the year 155, he is in Eome, at the time when St. Justin is
teaching there. When the persecution of Marcus Aurelius
breaks out, the Church of Lyons, to whose presbyteriv/m
Irenseus belongs, sends him to Eome as the bearer of a letter
from the confessors of Lyons to Pope Eleutherius. On his
return from Eome, he is made Bishop of Lyons (177-8). It
is at Lyons that Irenseus composes his great work in five
books against the Gnostics : the first three books date from
the time of Pope Eleutherius, probably from the period
180-9 ; the last two were composed during the time of Pope
Victor (189-98). This great work is not a Tlepl eKKXrjtria'i,
the title of a book, now lost, by Melito, Bishop of Sardis ;
but, whilst refuting the Gnostic error, it expounds the theory
of the Church and of her doctrinal function with such fullness
and firmness that the third book is a veritable treatise on
the Church, and the oldest in existence.!
* *
The first point we notice in the ecclesiology of Irenseus
is the importance he ascribes to the diffusion of Christianity
and to the unity of faith maintained in this dispersion.
True, this point is not new ; but under the pen of Irenseus
it attains to the value of an argument, and no one before
him had set it forth with such eloquence.
The Church, dispersed all over the world and reaching
its utmost boundaries, has one and the same rule of faith,
of which Irenseus mentions successively the various articles :
one God, Father Almighty ; one Jesus Christ, son of God,
become man for our salvation; the Holy Ghost, which
announced through the Prophets the designs of God ; the
incarnation, virginal conception, passion, resurrection and
ascension of the weU-beloved Jesus Christ our Lord, His
future return for the restoration of all things and for the
bodily resurrection of mankind.
' To the treatise " Adversus hsereses " we must add the small treatise
in Armenian recently found, Eir iniSet^tv rov dnoaroXiKov Ktjpvyparos, and
published in 1907 : K. Ter Mekerttsohian andE. Ter Minassiantz, "Des
heU. Irenaus Schrift zum Erweise der apostolisohen Verkiindigung (Leip
zig, 1907). The " Demonstratio " (as we shall call it), is subsequent to the
"Adv. hser." to which it refers the reader (ch. 99).

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 199
This is the rule or canon of the faith that is professed
everywhere,! as though the Church, spread in the vast uni
verse, dwelt in but one house. Each one of the faithful, on
the day of baptism, binds himself to profess this faith ;^
and thus the Church has but one heart, one soul, one voice,
one mouth. There are many languages, indeed, in the world,
but the tradition is one. Churches have been founded in
Germany, but their faith does not differ from ours ; the same
is to be said of the Churches in Spain and in Gaul, in the
East and in Egypt, in Libya and in Judsea.^ Just as the
sun, God's creature, is the same for the whole universe, so
too the preaching of the truth is the Light that shines every
where and enlightens all those who are willing to know it.
The most eloquent bishops — for the bishops are at the head of
the Churches, " praesunt ecclesiis," — can teach nothing
else, nor can the least important among them lessen it in
any way : * so is it in the Church which is established every-
^ " Haer." i. 10, 1 : " Ecclesia enim per universum orbem usque ad
fines terrae disseminata, et ab apostolis et a discipuUs eorum acoepit eam
fidem quae est unum Deum, patrem omnipotentem. ..." For the
paraUel passages in Irenseus, cf. Hahn, " Bibliothek der Symbole," pp.
6-8. Add " Demonstr." 6.
^ " Haer." i. 9, 4 : "Regulam veritatis immobilem (Kavova rijs dXtj-
Beias aKXtvfj) . . . , quam per baptismum accepit [quisque]. " Cf. m. 11,
1 ; 15, 1, and " Demonstr." 6. The expression regula fidei or Kavav rijs
dXtjBeias does not strictly and always designate the baptismal symbol, but
the faith common to aU the Churches, the tradition. For Irenseus, cf .
the remarks of Kattenbusch, vol. ii. p. 31 and foil. Of. Voigt, " Eine
verschoUene Urkunde des antimontanistischen Kampfes " (Leipzig, 1891),
pp. 185-207. 'Irenseus does not use the word Judsea ; he says : at Kara peaa
TOU Koapov. Christians thought that Judsea and Jerusalem were at the
centre of the world.
^ " Haer." i. 10, 2 : " Hanc praedicationem cum acceperit et hanc
fidem, quemadmodum praediximus, Ecclesia, et quidem in universum
mundum disseminata, diligenter custodit, quasi unam domum inhabitans,
et simUiter credit lis, videlicet quasi unam animam habens et unum cor,
et consonanter haec praedioat et docet et tradit quasi unum possidens os.
Nam etsi in mundo loquelae dissimiles sunt, sed tamen virtus traditionis
una et eadem est. Et neque hae quae in Germania sunt fundatae ec
clesiae alitor credunt aut alitor tradunt, neque hae quae in Hibbris sunt,
neque hae quae in Cbltis, neque hae quae in Oribnte, neque hae quae
in .iEgypto, neque hae quae in Libta, neque hae quae in medio mundi
constitutae : sed sicut sol, creatura Dei, in universe mundo unus et idem

200 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
where : " Ea quae est in quoquo loco Ecclesia universa ". !
If the word "catholic" is missing both in the vocabulary of
Irenseus and in that of his Latin translator, he has the
thing.^ * *
*
Unity and Catholicity are merely human facts, unless the
faith has its source in the teaching of the Prophets, of the
Lord, and of the Apostles. Irenseus sets in strong relief
this trilogy, so often pointed out by others before him.-'* By
Prophets, he means also the Law, " legislatianis minis-
tratio " ; as to the Apostles, he distinguishes between their
preaching, which was oral, and their " dictatio," the testa
ment which they dictated. " Quoniam autem dictis nostris
consonat praedicatio apostolorum, et Domini magisterium, et
prophetarum annuntiatio, et apostolorum dictatio, et legisla-
tionis ministratio, unum eumdemque omnium Deum Patrem
fundantium. . . ." *
The only true and vivifying faith is that which the
Church has received from the Apostles and now distributes
est, sic et lumen, praedicatio veritatis, ubique lucet et Uluminat omnes
homines qui volunt ad cognitionem veritatis venire. Et neque is qui
valde praevalet in sermone ex lis qui praesunt ecclesiis, alia quam haec
sunt dicet, . . . neque infirmus in dicendo deminorabit traditionem." —
See also "Haer." n. 31, 2, iii. 4, 1, m. 11, 8, v. 20, 1-2 and "De
monstr. "98.
1 "Haer." n. 31, 2. Cf. " Demonstr." 98.
2 Harnack, "Dogmeng.'' vol. i. p. 371. However, Irenseus writes
("Haer." in. 11, 8): inetS-tj reaaapa KXijiara rov Koapov iv a iapev elaL,
Kal reaaapa KaBoXtKa nvevpara. The Latin translator says: "Quatuor
principales spiiitus ".
^ " Haer." il 2, 6 : " Iam quidem ostendimus unum esse Deum : ex
ipsis autem apostolis et ex Domini sermonibus adhuc ostendemus. Quale
enim est, prophetarum et Domini et apostolorum reUnquentes nos voces,
attendere his [ = haereticis'] nihil sani dicentibus ? " in. 9, 1: " Ostenso
hoc igitur plane . . . neminem alteram . . . Deum, neque prophetas,
neque apostolos, neque Dominum Christum, confessum esse." in. 17, 4:
" Spiritu . . . uno et eodem existente, sicut et ipse Dominus testatur,
et apostoli confitentur, et prophetae annuntiant."
^ [ii. 35, 4]. A favourite expression of Iren»us. Cf. ii. 30, 9 :
" Deus . . . quem et Lex annuntiat, quem prophetae praeconant, quem
Christus revelat, quem Apostoli tradunt, quem Ecclesia credit." This
insistence in bringing together the Old and the New Testament is motived
apparently by his purpose of refuting Marcionism.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN..S;US 201
to her children ; for the Lord has given His Gospel to His
Apostles : " Qui vos audit me audit, qui vos contemnit me
contemnit et eum qui misit me ". Hence the mission of the
Apostles as teachers cannot be questioned : from them we
obtain the truth, i.e. the doctrine of the Son of God.!
In the case of the Gospels, one sees at once the import
ance Irenseus attaches to the fact that they were composed
by the Apostles or by writers whose authority is vouched
for by the Apostles. Matthew and John were Apostles :
John composed his Gospel during his stay at Ephesus;
Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, at the time when
Peter and Paul " Romae euangelizarent et fundarent Eccle-
siam ". Mark was one of Peter's disciples, and his inter
preter ; he has put down in writing what Peter preached.
Luke was of the number of Paul's companions, and he in like
manner has written down the Gospel preached by Paul (iii.
1, 1). This short hterary history of the Gospel is a justifica
tion of their Apostolic authority.^
Irenseus, who like his contemporaries, has a pronounced
taste for symbohsm, finds a connexion between the four
Gospels and the expansion of the Church over the whole
world. As there are four vdnds of heaven, so there are four
Gospels : ^ these four Gospels are the four pillars of the
Church, which has for her foundation the spirit that inspired
the Gospel ; this Spirit breathes life into mankind by means
of the Church.
The unwritten teaching of the Apostles has for its wit
ness the teaching of the "presbyters," i.e. of the immediate
! " Haer." in. praef. : " Dominus omnium dedit apostolis suis potes-
tatem euangeUi, per quos et veritatem, hoc est Dei filu doctrinam, cog-
novimus." Cf. m. 1, 1, and "Demonstr." 41.
' This authentication of the four Gospels is not peculiar to Irenseus :
it is found already in Papias, ap. Eusbb. "H. E." m. 39, 15-16, also in
Clement of Alexandria, who did not know Irenseus. "Hypotyp." ap.
Euseb. " H. E." n. 15. Likewise, in the "Muratorianum". We have
here, togetlier with a valuable tradition, a thesis of apologetics.
^ " Haer." iii. 11, 8 : " Quoniam quatuor regiones mundi sunt in
quo sumus, et quatuor principales spiritus, et disseminata est Ecclesia
super omnem terram, columna autem et firmamentum Ecclesiae est
euangelium et spiritus vitae, consequens est quatuor habere eam col-
umnas, undique flantes incorruptibilitatem et vivificantes homines."

202 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
disciples of the Apostles.! Thus, as to the question whether
the ministry of Jesus lasted only one year, as is supposed by
the Valentinian Ptolemy, we must believe the Gospel and the
"presbyters," who tell us that Jesus was baptized when he
was about 30 years old, and was still teaching at the age of
about 50. By Trpea-^vrepoi or seniores Irenseus designates
here the elders who have known St. John in Asia and who
witness that such was truly on this point the teaching of
the Apostle, the Lord's disciple.^ But the word " presbyters "
has a wider meaning, for it designates also those who in
the Church are the depositaries both of the living authority
and of the doctrine inherited from the Apostles.
[IV. 32, 1.] "Omnis sermo ei constabit, si et scripturas
diligenter legerit apud eos qui in Ecclesia sunt presbyteri
apud quos est apostolica doctrina, quemadmodum demons-
travimus." Any one, provided he be even sUghtly attentive, can
behold in every Church the transmission of the Apostolic
doctrine, authenticated by the actual bishops who date back
from the Apostles through a continuous and ascertainable
succession. [III. 3, 1.] " Traditionem' itaque apostolorum in toto
mundo manifestatam, in omni ecclesia adest respicere om
nibus qui vera velint videre : et habemus aimumerare eos
qui ab apostolis instituti sunt episcopi, et successores eorum
usque ad nos. . . ."
The Apostles are the " dodecastylum firmamentum Ec
clesiae," a foundation laid by Christ Himself.^ It behoves us
to adhere to their legitimate successors, who preserve their
doctrine, and who have received together with the order of
1 " Demonstr." 3 : " Der Glaube ist es nun, der dies in uns veran-
lasst, wie die Aeltesten, die Schviler der Apostel, uns iiberUefert haben ".
^"Haer." ii. 22, 5 : " . . . Sicut euangelium et omnes seniores
testantur, qui in Asia apud loannem discipulum Domini convenerunt, id
ipsum tradidisse eis loannem. Permansit autem cum eis [loanties] usque
ad Traiani tempora. Quidam autem eorum non solum loannem, sed et
alios apostolos viderunt, et haec eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de
huiusmodi relatione. Quibus magis oportet credi ? Utrumne his talibus,
an Ptolemaeo, qui apostolos nunquam vidit, vestigium autem apostoli ne
in somniis quidem assecutus est ? "
3 "Haer." IV. 21, 3.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 203
the presbyterate the secure charism of truth.! There is no
truth outside the teaching of the Apostles, no teaching of the
Apostles outside Catholicism, no Catholicism outside the epis
copal succession.
It would be too long to enumerate the episcopal lists of
aU the Churches, writes Irenseus ; ^ it will suffice to recall the
hst of a Church which is the greatest, most ancient and
best knovm of aU Churches, that founded by the two glorious
Apostles, Peter and Paul, the Church of Eome. For, after
founding and organizing this Church, the Blessed Apostles
left its government in the hands of Linus who was succeeded
by Anacletus. The third to receive the episcopate after the
Apostles was Clement, who had seen the Apostles and con
versed with them, who had heard the very sound of their
preaching, and himself beheld their tradition. After Clement
came Evaristus, then Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus who
died a martyr, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, and Soter; the
twelfth successor of the Apostles, Eleutherius, is now the
^ " Haer." iv. 26, 2 : " Eis qui in Ecclesia sunt presbyteris obaudire
oportet, his qui successionem habent ab apostolis, . . . qui cum episco-
patus successione charisma veritatis certum . . . acceperunt ; reliquos
vero qui absistunt a principali successione et quocunque loco coUigunt,
suspectos habere, vel quasi haereticos et malae sententiae, vel quasi
scindentes et elatos et sibi placentes." Ibid. 4: " Ab omnibus igitur
taUbus absistere oportet, adhaerere vero his qui et apostolorum, sicut
praediximus, doctrinam custodiunt, et cum presbyterii ordine sermonem
sanum. ..." Ibid. 5 : " Ubi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt, ibi
discere oportet veritatem, apud quos est ea quae ab apostolis Ecclesiae suc-
cessio. ..."
The remarkable expression " charisma veritatis certum " has a parallel
in the preface of the " PhUosophoumena " (" P. G." vol. xvi. p. 3020).
Gnostic errors will be refuted by the Holy Spirit which is transmitted in
the Church, which the Apostles first received, which they imparted to the
faithful, and which we, their successors, possess together with their priest
hood and their magisterium, since we are thfe guardians of the Church :
Tavra Se erepos ovk iXey^ei ^ rb ev iKKXtja'ia napaSoBev aytov nvevpa, ov
TUT^ovTEs, nporepoi ot dnoaroXot pereSoaav rols opBas nentarevKoatv, hv rjpets
StdSoxoi Tvyxdvovres Ttjs re avrrjs ;(dptTor perexovres apxiepareias re Kat
SiSaaKaXias Kal (ppovpol rtjs iKKXtjaias XeXoyiapevot.
^ " Haer." in. 3, 2-3. Irenseus probably means to say that this was
done elsewhere and by some one else, and we naturally think of Hege
sippus.

204 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Eoman episcopus.^ This succession is the channel through
which the tradition of the Church and the message of truth
have come down to us.
After this appeal to the testimony of the Eoman Church,
which he has some reason to know well and some reason
to esteem more highly than any other Church, Irenseus
cites the Church of Smyrna, where in his youth, he knew
St. Polycarp, who had been taught by the Apostles and had
conversed with the immediate witnesses of the Lord : Poly
carp, he says, professed to teach what he held from the
Apostles, as is witnessed by the Churches of Asia and by
the bishops who have succeeded Polycarp in the see of
Smyrna. What has been thus established concerning Eome
and Smyrna may be generalized. We must conclude then
that the Church has authority because she preserves the
authentic heritage of the faith of the Apostles.
[III. 4, 1.] "Tantae igitur ostensiones cum sint, non
oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem, quam facUe est
ab Ecclesia sumere, cum apostoli, quasi in depositorium dives,
plenissime in eam contulerint omnia quae sint veritatis. . . .
Et si de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset, nonne
oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere ecclesias, in quibus
apostoli conversati sunt, et ab eis de praesenti quaestione
sumere quod certum et re liquidum est? "
* *
*
The Church is " the Church of God ".^ She is a body
of which the Word is the head, as the Father is the head of
^ Regarding the origin of this Roman chronology, see the note in
Duchesne, "Histoire ancienne,'' t. i, p. 92. Even supposing that the
Roman episcopal list was drawn up at Rome by Hegesippus, in the time
of Anicetus, towards the year 160, and that for this point Irenseus de
pends on Hegesippus, this episcopal list is equally valuable. For a good
discussion of Harnack's paradox about the late (under Anicetus ?) estab
lishment of the monarchical episcopate at Rome, cf. J. Turmel, "Hist.
du dogme de la papaute " (Paris, 1908) who concludes in the same sense
as Mgr. Duchesne and H. BShmbr, "Zur altromischen Bischofsliste,"
in the "Zeitschrift fiir die neut. Wissenschaft, 1906," pp. 333-9. See
also MiCHiELS, " Origine de I'episcopat," pp. 306-36 aud Dom J. Chapman,
" La chronologie des premiferes listes ^piscopales de Rome," inthe " Revue
benedictine," xvra. (1901), pp. 399-417, xxx. (1902), pp. 13-37 and 145-70.
^" Haer." I. 6,3, and 13, 5.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 205
Christ : the Holy Ghost is in each one of her members.!
There is, then, between the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost,
and the faithful of the Church, such real and unseen com
munication that what St. Paul writes of the Church invisible
is true of the Church visible. The Church visible is that
through which we belong to the invisible Church, and we
belong to the Church visible through our adhesion to the
Apostolic teaching continued by the bishops of the Catholic
world : " Agnitio vera est apostolorum doctrina, et antiquus
Ecclesiae status in universe nnundo, et character corporis
Christi, secundum successiones episcoporum, quibus illi
[apostoli] eam quae in unoquoque loco est ecclesiam tradi-
derunt".^ The Catholic Church is something organic,
TO dpxO'tov ri}? iKKXr)aia<; avaTrip,a, and, thus it has the
character of Christ's body. Schism is a sin which on the
day of the last judgment the Holy Ghost will judge most
severely : woe to any one who sacrifices unity ! woe to him
who rends Christ's glorious body ! The Spirit will judge all
those who are outside truth, i.e. outside the Church.^
The Spirit aids the Church. If the preaching of the
latter is so constant, it is because the Spirit of God renews
its youth, as an exquisite deposit preserved in a goodly
vessel, and the Spirit of God keeps the vessel itself from be
coming old.* The Spirit is the gift made by God to His
Church, just as God imparted breath to Adam, His creature,
in order that that breath might vivify his members.
i"Haer." v. 18, 2.
^ Ibid. IV. 33, 8. In Greek : yvaats dXtjBtjs fj rav dnoaroXav
SiSaxij, Kal rb dpxalov rijs iKKXtjaias avartjpa Kara navrbs ToC Koapov.
Origen, " Contra Cels." iii. 7 and 31, speaks in the same sense of the
avaraats of Christians. He admires their incredible organization :
napaSo^as avardvras xptartavovs. Jd. viii. 47. SoHM (" Kirchenrecht, "
p. 202), translates avarrjpa " die Korperschaft, die organisierte Gesamtheit
der Ekklesia " See his note on this text.
^ " Haer." IV. 33, 7 : " [Spiritus Dei] iudicabit . . . eos qui schismata
operantur, qui sunt inanes, non habentes Dei dilectionem suamque
utUitatem potius considerantes quam unitatem Ecclesiae, et propter
modicas ei quasUbet causas magnum et gloriosum corpus Christi conscin-
dunt et dividunt et quantum in ipsis est interficiunt. . . . Iudicabit
autem et omnes eos qui sunt extra veritatem, id est qui sunt extra
Ecclesiam." " Haer.," m. 24, 1.

206 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
"In ea! disposita est communicatio Christi, id est
Spiritus sanctus, arrha incorruptelae et confirmatio fidei
nostrae et scala ascensionis ad Deum. In ecclesia enim, in-
quit, paswit Deus apostolos, prophetas, doctores [1 Cor. xii.
28], et universam reliquam operationem Spiritus, cuius non
sunt participes omnes qui non currunt ad Ecclesiam, sed
semetipsos fraudant a vita per sententiam malam et opera
tionem pessimam. Ubi enim Ecclesia ibi et Spiritus Dei,
et ubi Spiritus Dei illic Ecclesia et omnis gratia: Spiritus
autem Veritas. Quapropter qui non participant eum, neque
a mammillis matris nutriuntur in vitam, neque percipiunt
de corpore Christi procedentem nitidissimum fontem".^
What Christ gives us through the Church is the Holy
Ghost, which is for us a pledge of incorruptibility, the con
firmation of our faith, the ladder by which we ascend to God.
Outside the Church, there can be no share in the Spirit ;
but where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God.
Where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and the
Spirit is Truth.
In Irenseus, we find none of the apocalyptic views of
Hermas or of the " Secunda Clementis ".^ The Church isa
number ; she is a people ; she is a church of churches, that
is as visible as the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was
changed, and, notwithstanding all kinds of trials, remains
incorruptible, the true salt of the earth, still better, a living
statue whose limbs grow again after they have been lopped
off.* 1 The text reads in co, (Massuet). I read in ea, referring ea to the
Church. 2 "Haer." in. 24, L Cf. n. 32, 4.
3Cf. "Demonstr." 26, and "Haer." iv. 8, i. and v. 20, 2. No pre-
existence, only figures are affirmed.
^"Haer." v. 34, 3: "Quoniam autem repromissiones non solum
prophetis et patribus, sed ecclesus ex gentibus coadunatis annuntiabuntur,
quas et insulas nuncupat spiritus, et quod in medio turbulae sint consti
tutae, et tempestatem blasphemiarum sufferant, et salutaris portus pericli-
tantibus existant, et refugium sunt eorum qui altitudinem ament et bythum
id est profundum erroris conantur effugere." Instead of ame-nt, we should
like to read amentiae. This comparison of churches to islands that pos
sess safe havens is also found in Theophilus op Antioch "Ad Autolyc,"
H. 14.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 207
[iv. 31, 3.] "Et cum haec fierent, uxor remansit* in
Sodomis, iam non caro corruptibilis, sed statua salis semper
manens, et, per naturalia ea quae sunt consuetudinis hominis,
ostendens quoniam et Ecclesia quae est sal terrae subrehcta
est in confinio terrae patiens quae sunt humana; et, dum
saepe auferuntur ab ea membra Integra, perseverat statua
salis, quod est firmamentum fidei, firmans et praemittens
fiUos ad patrem ipsorum." !
Let us not pass without due attention over these few
Unes of uninviting Latin ; and let us be grateful to one who,
though born in Asia, was a citizen of Lyon, for discovering
this expressive symbol of the stability, the miraculous and
indefectible life of the Church. * *
*
A last element in which the ecclesiology of Irenseus
agrees with that of his predecessors is in the place he as
signs to the Eoman Church.
As we have seen already, he gives her the name of
"maxim,ae, et antiquissimae, et oinnibus cognitae, a glorio-
sissimis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo Romae fundatae et
constitutae ecclesiae".^ The same thought he expresses in
words that are still more emphatic and well known. ^
[ill. 3, 2.] "Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potentio-
rem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam,
hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his
qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis tra-
ditio. The original Greek text of this phrase is missing; so
that we have here only a translation with the risk of its
' Irenseus is alluding to the Haggadic legend according to which the
statue of Lot's wife had its periods like a Uving woman, and its members
grew again after being broken.
2 "Haer." IIL 3, 2.
^Cf. Funk, " Der Primat der rom. K. nach Ignatius und Irenaus,"
in his "Kircheng. Abhandlungen," vol. i. pp. 12-23. Harnack, "Das
Zeugniss des I. iiber das Ansehen der rom. K." in the " Sitzungsberichte "
of the Berlin Academy, 1893, pp. 939-55. Dom Chapman, ' ' Le temoignage
de S. I. en favour de la primaute romaine," "Revue benedictine," vol.
XII. (1895), pp. 49-64. Dom Morin, "Une erreur de copiste dans le
texte d'lrenfe sur I'eglise romaine," " RevnQ bened." vol. xxv, (1908),
pp. 515-20.

208 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
being more or less inexact in its renderings, a risk not
lessened by the fact that this Latin translation is quite old,
dating perhaps from the time of TertuUian.!
Ad hanc ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam.
The necessity of which St. Irenseus speaks is that of a logical
conclusion.^ He does not mean that every Church must
agree with the Eoman Church merely in the sense that every
Church, in as far as it preserves the Apostolic tradition in
tact, will agree ipso facte with the Eoman Church; for, by
this interpretation, we take all the strength out of such
a strong expression as convenire ad, which suggests the idea
of an active step taken to find the truth.^
Omnem ecclesiam,, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles.
The expression hoc est ushers in an explanatory peri
phrasis, and we naturally expect that Irenseus should pro
nounce the word " catholic " : but strange as that omission
may appear, the word " catholic," — as has been aheady noted
— is not found in the terminology of Irenseus. The faithful
will come to Eome from every place, undique, an aUusion to
the Christians who, from aU the Churches of the world, direct
their steps towards Eome, like Polycarp, Abercius, Ireneeus
himself, and so many others during the second century.*
Omnem ecclesiam, . . . in qua. Every Church vnU agree
with the Eoman Church, every Church in which. . . . Har
nack, Mgr. Duchesne and Funk think that in qua refers, not
to the Eoman Church, as has been long thought, but to the
' H. Jordan, ' ' Das Alter der lat. Uebers. des Hauptwerkes des
Ir." (Leipzig, 1908), p. 60, ascribes it to the latter part of the fourth
century. ^ Compare " Haer." v. 20, 1 : " Neoessitatem ergo habent praedicti
haeretici," and v. 30, 1 : eneira . . . ipneaetv dvdyKtj.
3 Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 488, after observing that Poly
carp deemed it most important to agree with Anicetus, and for that purpose
made his journey to Rome ; adds : " It was not Anicetus who came to
Polycarp, but Polycarp to Anicetus. This is also the meaning we attach
to convenire ad (avvrpexeiv). We may recall in. 4, 1 : "Si de aliqua
modica quaestione disceptatio esset, nonne oporteret in antiquissimas
recurrere ecclesias, in quibus apostoli conversati sunt ? "
-^ About these pilgrims of the second century, like St. Justin,
Rhodon, Tatian, Irenfeus, Abercius, Polycarp, Hegesippus, TertuUian,
etc., cf. C. P. 0 ASP ARI, " Quellen zur Geschichte des Tauf symbols," vol. m.
(Christiania, 1875), pp. 336-48, and HaRnac^, " Mission," vol. i. pp. 311-12.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 209
Churches other than that of Eome. It seems to me that
Dom Morin's correction authorises us to understand in qua
as referring to the Eoman Church.!
In qua semper ab his qui {sunt undique] conservata est
ea quae est ab apostolis traditio. Dom Morin has luminously
shown that sunt undique is due to a copyist's error : these
two words have been substituted for other words that desig
nated the leaders of the Churches {praesunt ecclesiis ?) or
rather the presbyters who have presided at Eome (prcesident) .
Propter potentiorem principalitatem. The adjective
used in the comparative implies that the principalitas is
an attribute that belongs, not exclusively, but pre-eminently
to the Eoman Church. What is, then, this principalitas
which other Churches possess ? We must carefully abstain
from ascribing to the word a meaning that would not be in
keeping with the argument of St. Irenseus. Hence we shall
not translate it by •n-parela because that word does not take
with it any comparative ; ^ nor by ¦f]<yefwvia because that is
a term which Irenseus uses always in a genealogical sense ; ^
nor by -n-XripcDfia, which the translator of Irenseus renders at
times by principalitas, but which, properly speaking, desig
nates the Gnostic pleroma.* Some have suggested the word
avOevTua, in this sense that the Eoman Church is more
authentic than any other Apostolic Church, since it was
founded by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul. To
this origin she owes her iKavooTepav avOevTiav, which requires
that all Churches shall go to her and take their pattern from
her.^ At all events, the authority which Irenseus sees in the
'Compare "Haer." iii. 3, 1: "Traditionem apostolorum in toto
mundo manifestatam, in omni ecclesia adest respicere ". Here we have
again the expression omnis ecclesia, synonymous with unaquaeque ecclesia.
^ "Haer." iv. 38, 3 : "Principalitatem habet in omnibus Deus quon
iam et solus infectus et prior omnium " {nparevei iv ndaiv 6 Beds).
''Thus, Adam is the head of mankind, he is the "principalis plas
matic". "Haer." v. 14, 1 and 2. Likewise iii. 11, 8 : " Primum animal
principale " {nparov Zmoi' tjyepoviKov).
' " Haer." iv. 35, 2 and 4. Cf. i. 26, 1, and 31, 1.
^ The word aidevria signifies also power, domination, and in 1 Tim.
II. 12, avBevrelv is used in that remarkable sense. Of. Deissmann, " Licht
vom Osten," p. 56. 14

210 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Catholic Church as such, and inasmuch as she is the safe de
positary of the tradition that goes back to the Apostles,
he sees still more manifestly in the Eoman Church. He
has said: " Oportet confugere ad Ecclesiam,," meaning the
Church which is "in universe mundo," and which preserves
"firmam ab apostolis traditionem ".! He says in like
words : " Necesse est ad hanc ecclesiam [romanam] conven
ire omnem ecclesiam". "It would be difficult," Mgr. Du
chesne writes, "to meet with a clearer assertion, (1) of
unity of doctrine in the universal Church, (2) of the unique
importance of the Church of Eome, as witness, guardian
and organ of the Apostolic tradition, (3) of her superior
pre-eminence over the whole of Christianity." ^
* *
*
The Church being for Irenseus the institution, of
historical fact and divine right, which we have just de
scribed, heresy is at once characterized. The Church did
not organize and, as it were, arm herseU, by way of reaction
against Gnosticism. It is much more in keeping vrith facts
to say that Gnosticism was a formation incompatible with
the Church, which sprang from a reaction against the
Church. Indeed, if we set aside the popular and extravagant
forms ^ it assumed here and there, Gnosticism is, historically,
an attempt on the part of intellectual Christians, some of
them of an exceptional vigour of mind, to assert their right
to speculate, to systematize, and to dogmatize, in the proper
sense of that word, after the fashion of the pagan schools
of philosophy. It is easy to realize that such a claim offends
against the very notion of the faith received as a deposit,
and the Gnostics themselves declare emphatically that it
is so. The teaching of the Church, they say, is for the
simpliciores only, to which Irenseus replies that, whilst that
is perfectly true, yet it is far better for any one to be simple
and unlearned, provided he be near God through charity,
1 " Haer." v. 20, 2. = " Eglises S^par^es," p. 119.
*In connexion with the Ophians (or Ophites), Origen, "Contra
Cels.'' VI. 28, charges Celsus with taking for a Christian sect an aggrega
tion of people who had nothing at all in common with Christianity (cf.
Clement, "Stromat.'' iii. 2).

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 211
than to know much and blaspheme God as do the Gnostics.!
We have then before us the antithesis of two methods, one
secular, the other ecclesiastical, and we find in Gnosticism a
criticism of Catholicism.
The Valentinians feel pity for the adherents of the
Church : they treat the Catholics as common people and
"ecclesiastics"; and yet they do their best to seduce those
simpliciores, by clothing their ideas in ecclesiastical language,
" nostrum, tractatum," says Irenseus, for there is such a
language. If difficulties are raised against their tenets, if
any one dares to contradict their statements, they resume
their supercilious demeanour and declare that Catholics do
not understand the truth, that they have received none of
the higher seeds of the "Mother," and are mere psychics.^
The Gnostics are the perfect, the seeds of election : the
Catholics are illiterate and ignorant. To the psychics ^
belongs the naked faith ; to the perfect, the perfect Gnosis.*
'"Haer."' ii. 26, 1: " MeUus est ergo et utilius idiotas et parum
scientes existere, et per charitatem proximum fieri Deo, quam putare
multum scire et multa expertos in suum Deum blasphemes inveniri ".
' " Haer." ni. 15, 2 : "Hi enim [qui a Valentino sunt] ad multitu-
dinem — propter eos qui sunt ab Ecclesia, quos communes ecclesiasticos
ipsi dicunt — inferunt sermones per quos capiunt simpliciores et alliciunt
eos, simulantes nostrum tractatum. . . . Et si aliquis quidem ex his qui
audiunt eos quaerat solutiones vel contradicat eis, hunc quasi non capien-
tem veritatem, et non habentem de superioribus a matre sua semen afflr-
mantes, in totum nihU dicunt ei, mediarum partium dicentes esse ilium,
hoc est psychicorum. " Notice the word communes (koivoI) taken as
synonymous with KoBoXiKoi. Cf. Kattenbusch, vol. ii. p. 924.
^The adjective " psychic " is taken from St. Paul, I Cor. ii. 14. In
Jude 19, it is applied to the raan who is not spiritual : ^vxikoI
nvevpa ptj exo''"s- The distinction was common in Greek Judaism. Cf.
Fribdlandbr, " Synagoge und Kirche," p. 74.
*"Haer." i. 6, 4: "Nos quidem, qui per timorem Dei timemus
etiam usque in mentibus nostris et sermonibus peccare, arguunt quasi
idiotas et nihil scientes, semetipsos extoUunt, perfectos vocantes et semina
electionis." Ibid. 2: " Erudiuntur psychica (id est animalia) psychici
(id est animales) homines, qui per operationem et fidem nudam firmantur,
et non perfectam agnitionem [ = yvaatv] habent. Esse autem hos nos,
qui sumus ab Ecclesia, dicunt." In confirmation of these words of
Ireneeus, see the same distinction between psychics and pneumatics in
Heracleon cited by Origen, "Comment, in loann." xiil. 16 and 50 ;
it was known also to Celsus, " Contra Cels." v. 61.
14*

212 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
On the contrary, judged from the Catholic standpoint,
the Gnostics are like Greek sophists, ever seeking after
novelties.! Among them, there is no standard of truth, and,
as each one makes his own doctrine for himself, they re
semble the pagan schools of philosophy: " Et contr avia
sibimet dogmata statuentes, sicut et gentilium philoso
phorum quaestiones " ? If this method is to be adopted, man
will continue seeking, ever seeking, and never finding, since
he has discarded of his own accord the true " inventionis dis
ciplina ".^ Doctrinal inconstancy is the lot of Gnostics :
they are sophists doomed for ever to variations of every sort,
tossed about by the waves of their errors, having no rock
whereon to rest their edifice, nothing but moving sand.*
Irenseus already outlines the history of variations.
When reminded of the authority of Holy Writ, they
find Holy Writ at fault in one way or another. Its text
is uncertain, or the book quoted against them does not
belong to the true canon, or Scripture contradicts Scripture,
or in fine no one who is ignorant of the tradition can find
out the truth. We have here an echo of the controversies
stirred up by the Gnostic leaders as to the text and the
canon, especially in the field of exegesis where they were
so prolific ; above aU we have here a proof that a certain
number of Gnostics came to acknowledge the principle that
the letter is not self-sufficing, and that oral tradition does
complete it and must do so.^ But, whereas CathoUcs, when
speaking of tradition, know well that there is but one
tradition, viz. that of which the presbyters impersonally
! " Haer." i. 11, 5. Cf. i. 18, 1, n. 17, 10, iv. 2, 2, v. 20, 2.
"Ibid. IL 27, 1. "Ibid. 27, 2. Cf. i. 21 ; 5, 31, 3.
» Ibid. in. 24, 2 : " AUenati a veritate, digne in omni volutantur
errore, fluctuati ab eo, alitor atque aUter per tempora de eisdem sentientes,
et nunquam sententiam stabilitam habentes, sophistae verborum magis
volentes esse quam discipuli veritatis. Non enim sunt f undati super unam
petram, sed super arenam habentem in seipsa lapides multos." Cf. n.
17, 10. The words " fundati super unam petram " may have been a re
miniscence of Matt. XVI. 18.
" " Haer. " in. 2, 1 : "Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur, in accusa-
tionem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi non recte habeant,
neque sint ex auctoritate, et quia varie sint dictae, et quia non possit ex
his inveniri Veritas ab his qui nesciant traditionem. Non enim per litteras
traditam illam, sed per vivam vocem ". Cf. i. 8, 1.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.^US 213
preserve the deposit, every heretic presents his own fancies
under the cover of the tradition to which he appeals ; and
truth can no longer be recognized, if to-day we must re
cognize its presence in the system of Cerinthus, to-morrow
in that of Valentinus, next in that of Basilides or of Marcion,
aU of which contradict one another.! For can we imagine
a truth that varies ?
The Gnostics answer that these variations are stages on
the way towards the definitive truth, which was neither
possessed by the Apostles nor taught by the Lord. Hence
no appeal should be made to the tradition that goes back
to the Apostles and is authoritatively preserved in the
Churches through the succession of bishops or presbyters ;
for a Gnostic, after he has found the pure truth and
reached the mystery that as yet had remained concealed, is
more enhghtened than the presbyters, or even than the
Apostles themselves.^
This infatuated individualism, this reliance on human
gnosis, this pretension to knowledge greater than that of the
Apostles, is, from the ecclesiastical standpoint, ludicrous
presumption.^ Irenseus feels the more justified in denounc
ing it, because he can oppose to the variations of the Gnostics
the perpetuity and unity of the faith of the Church, as a
sign of truth.* Moreover, by its sophistical method, by its
' " Haer." m. 2, 1. Cf. iii. 16, 9, and 16, 4. We have already
noticed this argument in St. Justin, and noted with Puech that it was
borrowed from the Greek schools of philosophy.
""'Haer." III. 2, 2: "Cum autem ad eam iterum traditionem quae
est ab apostolis, quae per successionem presbyterorum in ecclesiis custo-
ditur, provocamus eos, adversantur traditioni, dicentes se non solum pres
byteris, sed etiam apostolis existentes sapientiores, sinceram invenisse
veritatem . . . et indubitate et intaminate et sincere absconditum scire
mysterium. . . . Evenit itaque neque scripturis iam, neque traditioni
consentire eos."
'See "Haer." in. 15, 2, in which the sarcastic remarks of Irenseus
prelude Tertullian's irony.
* " Haer." iii. 12, 7 : " Imperfectus igitur secundum hos [= haereticos]
Petrus, imperfecti autem et reliqui apostoli, et oportebit eos reviviscentes
horum fieri discipulos ut et ipsi perfecti fiant. Sed hoc quidem ridiculum
est. Arguuntur vero isti [= haeretici], non quidem apostolorum, sed suae
malae sententiae esse discipuli. Propter hoc autem et variae sententiae
sunt uniuscuiusque eorum recipientis errorem quemadmodum capiebat.

214 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
unrestrained criticism of the preaching of the Prophets, of
the teaching of the Lord, and of the tradition of the Apostles,
by its constant manipulation of the Scriptures, and its utter
disregard for the deposit preserved by the presbyters, Gnos
ticism proclaims itself an emancipation of the mind, an in
tellectual secularization.! It prompts its followers to have
recourse to the religious wisdom of Homer, and, after the
heathen fashion, to crown the images of Jesus, Pythagoras,
Plato, and Aristotle.^ Harnack declares rightly that, taking
it as a whole, Gnosticism is " Greek society under a Christian
name".^ Still more precisely, is it a form of Christianity
which indulges in all the syncreticisms against which
Catholicism guards itself.
At the same time, and because the Church is from the
beginning a close union of souls and of churches in one and
the same authoritative faith. Gnosticism, by the very fact of
pretending to revise the faith, places itself beyond the pale
of the established unity. Once the bond is broken, heresy
ceases to be able ever to bring about a lasting unity ; it can
but found schools. " There can be no doubt that the Gnostic
propaganda was seriously hindered by that inability to organ
ize and govern Churches which is characteristic of all
philosophic systems of religion. The Gnostic organization
of schools and mysteries was not able to contend vnth the
Ecclesia vero per universum mundum ab apostolis firmum habens initium,
in una et eadem de Deo et de filio eius perseverat sententia." Cf. in. 12,
12 and i. 13, 6.
! " Haer." iv. 1, 1 : " Manifesto falsa ostenduntur ea quae dicunt
circumventores et perversissimi sophistae, . . . et perversi grammatici,
. . . doctrinam quidem Christi praetermittentes, et a semetipsis autem falsa
divinantes, adversus universam Dei dispositionem argumentantur. " Cf.
II. 14. 2 "Haer." i. 9, 4. Cf. iv. 33,3: "Accusabit autem eos Homerus
proprius ipsorum propheta, a quo eruditi talia invenerunt." See the
curious passage, i. 25, 6, in which Irenseus upbraids the Gnostics — those
of the school of Carpocrates — for having portraits of Jesus, which they
say, were made by Pilate (dicentis formam Christi factam a Pilato,
illo in tempore quo fuit Jesus cum hominibus) : these portraits they
crown; "Et has coronant, et proponunt eas cum imaginibus mundi
philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Pythagorae et Platonis et Aristotelis
et reliquorum, et reliquam observationem circa eas similiter ut gentes
faciunt." '-' "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 250, note. Loops, "Leitfaden," p. 105.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 215
episcopal organization of the Catholic communities ".!
Wherever it appears, Gnosticism is a seceder : it detaches it
self of its own accord. Hence we must say, not that the
Church organizes herself to ward off Gnosticism, but rather
that the Church is so constituted that Gnosticism cannot
originate or abide freely and openly within her pale.
In fact, if we set aside the Marcionites, who, alone among
the heretics of that period, possessed for many years Churches
of their own, the Gnostics thought only of having disciples.
Eesuming an argument formerly used by Hegesippus and
by St. Justin, Irenseus draws up the genealogy, the BiaBoxv>
of the heretics. This argument was doubtless the counterpart
of that which Catholics drewfrom the BtaBox-n, or the Apostolic
succession of the bishops, and it was not without a touch
of irony that orthodox vwiters connected the heretics with
Simon Magus.^ Nevertheless these genealogical lists of
heretics — setting aside the legendary elements they contain
— show how anxious the Gnostics were to appeal to some
master, prompted however to this by a sentiment that was
in no way ecclesiastical, but had come from the schools of
sophists.^ As to the Church, the Gnostics not only depart from it,
they also disfigure the idea of it. For them, the Church is
an seon. The first principle discernible in the pleroma is the
couple of Abyss and Silence, which brings forth the couple of
InteUigence and Truth, which brings forth that of the Word
and of Life, a third couple which in its turn brings forth that
of Man and of the Church. From this ogdoad proceed the
other seons, and at last Jesus, who alone will manifest Him
self outside the invisible pleroma.* For some Gnostics, it is
true, Adam is an image of the seon Man, and likewise the
visible Church is an image of the seon Church : ^ for others,
1 Harnack, Ibid. p. 278. Sohm affirms on the contrary that the
heretics are Christianity not yet catholicized and represent the "old
style " in face of CathoUcism then in the period of its formation.
" Kirchenrecht," p. 188-90. Always the same a priori assumption.
^ " Haer." i. 27, 4. ' Clement, " Stromat." l 14.
* " Haer." i. 1, 1-2. Cf. 11, 1, and also " PhUosophoumena," vi. 30,
43, 46, 51, 53, x. 13.
^ "Haer." I. 5, 6 : iKKXtjaiav etvai Xeyovaiv dvrirvnov rrjs ava iKKXtjaias.
Origen, " Comment, in loan." x. 21 (" P. G." vol. xiv. p. 376), mentions

216 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the union of the Father, the Son, and the Christ (the last is
the son of the Father and of the Son) is the true and holy
Church ; ! for others, the seon Church is the archetype of the
Virgin, the mother of Jesus, by the operation of the Virtus
altissimi, which is the seon Man joined in the pleroma with
the seon Church. * *
*
So much for the fanciful speculations of the Gnostics.
We must now come back to Irenseus who looks upon
Christendom as a Church of churches spread all over the
immense world, but united together by one and the same
faith. This faith is based upon the Old Testament, the Lord,
and the Apostles ; the authenticity of the actual faith is
guaranteed by the fact that the presbyters received it from
the Apostles, and the bishops then hving from the presbyters
whom they have replaced through a succession that can be
ascertained everywhere. The bishops possess the heritage
of revealed truth.
The Church of churches is the Body of Christ. Where-
ever the visible and hierarchical Church is, there is the Spirit
of God. The Church assisted by the Spirit is indefectible.
The Church of Eome, the most illustrious of aU, is that
by which all others must be ruled, on account of her
potentior principalitas.
Heresy is illegitimate, because of its origin, its sophistical
method, its variations, and its feebleness.
Irenaeus's conception of Catholicism may be summed up
in these leading ideas ; but, as we have shown, this con-
Heracleon's view about the resurrection which is to take place in three
days : the resurrection of matter on the first day, the psychic resurrection
of the second day, the pneumatic resurrection on the third. The thurd
day is that of the resurrection of the Church. This resurrection is prepar
ing. Cf . id. xm. 11 and 50. St. Hippolytus speaks of a three-fold Church
imagined by some Gnostics (Naassenians) : the angelic, the psychic, and
the material Church. "Philosophoum." v. 6. Cf. " Excerpt. Theodot."
21, 42, 56-9.
' " Haer.'' i. 30, 2 : "Esse autem hanc et veram et sanctam Eccle
siam". Cf. ibid. 15, 3. Regarding the seon Church, cf. Tbrtull. "Adv.
Valentinianos," 25, 28,39; "Praescr." 33; Origen, "Contra Cels." vl
.34, 35. " Excerpt. Theodot." 13, 17, 26, 33, 40, 41.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENJEUS 217
ception of Catholicism does not date from Irenseus, nor is
the institution thus described the product of the reaction of
Christianity against Gnosticism.
HI.
It remains for us to group around the name of Irenseus
certain facts that will show that Catholicism is to be found,
not merely in the books of certain controversialists, but
chiefly in the Ufe of the Christian community. Of these
facts, the first is Montanism.
We must begin by remarking that Montanism is a
movement which was localized in Phrygia; it was an il-
luminist movement : the Paraclete speaks in the new pro
phets, Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and announces the
end of the world ; the heavenly Jerusalem is shortly to appear
in the clouds, and come down to Phrygia, in a plain near
Pepuza. Large crowds of Christians, both in Phrygia and
in Asia, come eagerly to Pepuza, to hear the Paraclete.
The memory of those prophecies will continue for many
years to agitate the land of Phrygia : even in the time of
St. Epiphanius, there were still some " Cataphrygians," and
a local worship, of a most eccentric kind, which, every year,
brought to Pepuza many pilgrims.
We must observe in the second place that, in so far as
it is a kind of prophetic reawakening, Montanism is not an
unexpected phenomenon. The belief in the persistency of
prophetical charisms within the Church was in no way ille
gitimate : Christians were on their guard against false pro
phets, it is true, but they believed in prophets, and were
convinced that true prophets were able to speak under the
genuine inspiration of the Divine Spirit.! rpj^e " extra
ordinary ways " have always been part of God's action in
His Church.
' See in H. Wbinel, "Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister "
(Freiburg, 1899), p. 71 and foil., an attempt at classifying the operations
ascribed to the Spirit, during the post-apostolic age and during the
second century. This work has at least the merit of showing the con
tinuance of the 'action of the Spirit and of the "extraordinary ways''
in the Christian community, before the rise of Montanism. The sub
ject deserves to be taken up.

218 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hermas was, in his way, a prophet ; he relates the
allegorical visions he beholds, and the words he hears from
the Lord and from the Angels. In one of his visions, he
sees men sitting on a bench, and one man alone sitting on
a chair : the former are some of the faithful ; the latter is
a pseudo-prophet, who has no share in the power of the
Divine Spirit, a magician filled with the spirit of the devil.
ISTow this pseudo-prophet is not, as one might be tempted to
think, a Gnostic teacher : he is a wandering Christian, an
alms-collector, a half-witted impostor.! Nevertheless he
deceives the good souls whom the " Didachfe " had aheady
warned against these suspicious mendicants : " How, then.
Lord," Hermas asks, " wUl a man know how to distinguish
the true prophet from the false prophet?" The Lord an
swers : " You v?ill recognize the man who has the Divine
Spirit by his conduct". The genuine prophet does not
answer when he is questioned ; he speaks when God vnUs
it. When he who has the spirit of God comes iato the
assembly of the just who have the faith of the Spirit of
God, and when all pray the Lord together, then it is that
the angel of the prophetic Spirit that stands by him fills
this man, who then speaks to the assembly of the brethren
according as the Lord vtUIs.^ Hermas writes before the rise
of Montanism in Phrygia, and therefore cannot allude here
to the Montanist prophets.
! " Mandat. xi." 1-4. Compare Celsus in " Contra Celsum," vn. 9.
^Ibid. 7-9. These last words of the "Shepherd" have been
found in one of the " Oxyrhynchus Papyri " (Part I, London, 1898)
of Grenpbll and Hunt, accompanied with the foUowing remark : To ydp
npo<pTjrtKbv nvevpa rb aaparel6v iartv rijs n po(l)tjTiKTjs rd^eas, o iartv to aapa
TTJS aapKbs 'itjaov Xptarov, rb piyev rtj dvBpanortjrt Sta 'Capias. The
npofjitjriKtj rd^ts or ordo propheticus is the human body of Jesus Christ ;
the prophetic Spirit is the aaparelov or essence of the npo^tjriKTj rd^ts.
Harnack considers this papyrus to be a remnant of a book or prophecy
(of Melito ?) and the irpot^ijTtK?; rd^ts to be a kind of ordo propheticus
distinct from what St. Cyprian calls ordo sacerdotalis. See " Sitzungs
berichte " of the Berlin Academy, 1898, pp. 516-20, and De Labbiolle
" La polemique antimontaniste," in " Revue d'hist. et de litt. relig." 1906,
pp. 104-5. From this it would follow that the Pneumatics or Spirituals,
are the true body of Christ. Later on we shall find in Origen an echo of
this teaching, which shows how Christians even then were uncertain as
to the relations between the Church and the Spirit.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 219
St. Justin speaks of prophetic charisms as of a Divine
gift which is continued in the Church, at a time when for
long past the Jews have ceased to have any prophets.!
On the authority of a venerable presbyter whom he
does not name, St. Irenseus denounces as false prophets
those who are bold and unrestrained. Evidently Irenseus
judges prophecy just as Hermas did, and his criterion is
the same, viz. chiefly moral.^ " We hear many brethren
in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through
the Spirit of God speak all kinds of languages, and bring
to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men,
and declare the mysteries of God." ^ These, he goes on
to say, are called by the Apostle "spiritual men," for " they
partake of the Spirit, the Spirit alone, and are not moved by
the fraud of the flesh ".* Irenseus speaks as though these
prophets were his contemporaries.^
Bishops, then, were not uneasy at the continuation of
prophetical charisms. As in the time of St. Paul, a prophet
was judged first by his holiness of life, and then — but just
as much — by his submission to the hierarchy. Eecall the
respect shown by Hermas for the Eoman presbyters. It
was no novelty the Montanists proclaimed when they said :
" There must be charisms in the Church, and these must
be received "." The novelty of the Montanists lay in their
claiming to impose their ov^m peculiar revelations as a supple-
1 " Dialog." Lxxxn. 1. ^ " Haer." i. 13, 3-4. ^Ibid. v. 6, 1.
*Ibid. cf. Pseudo- Clement, "De virginit." i. 11. Gaius quoted by
Euseb. " H. E." m. 28, 2, and 31, 4.
^ For an instance of this, see what Irenseus says of the confessor Attains
and of his revelations, in the letter of the Lyonnese martyrs. St.
Ignatius too has supernatural revelations. The Alexandrian Apelles, one
of Marcion's disciples at Rome, publishes a book containing the (f>avepaaeis,
i.e. the visions of a Roman prophetess, called Philumena. " PhUosophou
mena," X. 20. At the time of Pope CalUstus, the Syrian Alcibiades
circulates at Rome the so-caUed book of Elchasai, which seems to be a sort
of counterpart of the " Shepherd " of Hermas, and claims to be a revela
tion that was given in the third year of Trajan (an. 100). "PhUosophou
mena," IX. 13.
^ Epiph. " Haer." xlviil 2. In this chapter (xLVin. 1-13) Epiphanius
draws his information from a Roman document, of the time of Pope
Callistus, and according to some (Voigt, Rolpps), the work of St.
Hippolytus.

220 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
ment to the deposit of faith, and in their striving to obtain
credit for them by means of suspicious ecstasies and con
vulsions. The author referred to as the Anonymous Antimori-
tanist of Eusebius (an author who wrote about the years
192-3) describes the raptures of Montanus in these terms:
" Agitated by the spirits suddenly he became as one pos
sessed and seized with a false ecstasy, and in his transports
took to uttering inarticulate sounds and strange words, and
to prophesy in a manner contrary to the constant custom
of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.
. . . The devil stirred up besides two women, and fiUed
them with the spirit of lies, so that they talked unintelUgibly,
irrationally, and extravagantly, like the person aheady
mentioned."! By these transports, in which the so-called
prophet lost consciousness and spoke as though he were the
Spirit itself,^ the Phrygian fanatics tended far more to dis
credit every kind of prophetic charism, than to obtain credit
for their own prophecy. The way of the Spirit as it had
been " handed dovra by tradition from the begiDning " was
not recognizable in those phenomena.
Hence from the very beginning Montanism was re
garded with too much suspicion by the good sense of most of
the faithful, for it to be capable of creating a general crisis
motived by the antagonism between prophecy and hier
archy.^ We know of no synods of bishops held in Asia, for the
purpose of pronouncing on Montanism. All that we know
is that Serapion, who was Bishop of Antioch from about the
^ Euseb. "H. E." v. 16, 7-9. Renan, "Marc AurMe," p. 212:
" There was mixed with it also an orgiastic or corybantic element, pecuUar
to the country, and entirely foreign to the orderly methods of ecclesiastical
prophecy, which were already subject to a tradition." One cannot with
out a smile find this same writer saying a Uttle before "Mediocrity
founded authority. Catholicism began. . . . This was the first victory
of the Episcopate, and perhaps the most important, for it was obtained
over a sincere piety ".
''See the oracles quoted by Epiphan. xlvui. 4.
¦'Euseb. " H. E." v. 16, 17, quotes an oracle of Maximilla, whioh
attests perhaps a spontaneous reaction brought on by her prophetism :
" I am driven away from the sheep like a wolf. I am not a wolf. I am
word and spirit and power."

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 221
year 190 to about the year 211, declares that "the new
prophecy is rejected by all the brotherhood throughout the
world " ; i and that in confirmation of his words, he quotes
a vreiting against the Montanists, composed by ApoUinaris,
Bishop of HierapoUs in Phrygia, and some letters of different
bishops, two of whom belong to Thracia.
All Christendom arrayed itself silently against Montanism,
in a reaction which was spontaneous and in which charity
lost nothing. Witness the letter of the Lyonnese " to the
brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, who hold the same
faith," in the year 177. " It was at the time," says Euse
bius, "when the foUowers of Montanus, Alcibiades, and
Theodotus in Phrygia were first giving circulation to their
opinions on prophecy^ . . . and as dissension arose con
cerning them, the brethren in Gaul expressed their ovra
prudent and most orthodox judgment " in the form of
several letters sent by the martyrs who were still in prison,
" to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, and also to
Eleutherius, who was then Bishop of Eome, to procure the
peace of the Churches ".^
From the fact that Eusebius, who had read these letters,
caUs the judgment they passed on Montaiusm a " prudent
and most orthodox judgment," we may infer that it fully
agreed with the opinion that prevailed at Eome and in all
Christendom. The decision that had to be taken was com
plex : the principle of the supernatural working of the Spirit
had to be safe-guarded ; but it had also to be properly defined.
Christians turned their eyes towards Eome. Is it not
to Eome, asks Harnack, that Irenseus addresses the expres
sion of his views about the " new prophecy " ? And is it
not to Eome that Praxeas comes from Asia, to lodge a protest
against the representations of Irenseus?* Again we must
1 Euseb. " H. E." v. 19, 2 : napd ndatj rfj iv Koapa dSeX(li6-rrjTt.
2 Apollonius, the anti-Montanist writer, quoted by Eusebius
("H. E." v. 18, 5) relates that a Montanist martyr, Themiso, "dared
m imitation of the Apostle to write a certain Catholic Epistle," in which he
"blasphemed against the Lord and the Apostles and the Holy Church "
{KaBoXtKtjV rtva avvra^dpevos intaroXriv),
'Euseb. "H. E." v. 3, 4.
^ Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i'', p. 489. Bonwetsch, art. " Montan-
ismus," in Hauck's " Realencykl." p. 425.

222 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
observe with Harnack, it was not Eoman Montanists who
were here concerned, but the Montanists of Phrygia and
Asia who were soliciting recognition for their own persons
and the principle of the " new prophecy " : to the judg
ment of Eome, then, they must have attached an excep
tionally great importance, since they were so anxious to
win over to their side her potentior principalitas.
* *
*
When we come to TertuUian, we shall see Eome decide
on the question of the prophecy ; but before leaving Irenseus
we have still to speak of another fact that throws much light
on his ecclesiology, the fact of the Easter controversy.
Churches disputed among themselves as to the proper
time for celebrating the feast of Easter. The Churches
of the province of Asia, proconsular Asia, kept it, like the
Jews, on the fourteenth of the first Jewish month, i.e. on the
fourteenth of Nisan, on whatever day of the week that date
might fall ; at Eome, on the contrary, and in most other
places, it was kept always on the Sunday following the four
teenth of Nisan. For the Asiatics, the feast of Easter
marked the anniversary of Christ's death ; for the others, the
anniversary of His resurrection.
The disagreement was very conspicuous, and the solid
arity between the various Churches was such a daUy reality
that the religious authorities were necessarily anxious to do
away with this disagreement. As we have seen, Polycarp, the
Bishop of Smyrna, went to Eome to come to an understand
ing with Pope Anicetus ; but Anicetus did not yield to the
Asiatics, nor did Polycarp adopt the Eoman custom. Even
after this, however, essential agreement continued to subsist
between the disputants. In the year 167, the Easter ques
tion having arisen at Laodicea, on what precise occasion we
do not know, ApoUinaris, Bishop of HieraopUs, and MeUto,
Bishop of Sardis, intervened for the purpose of defending the
Asiatic or Quartodeciman custom ; whence we may infer that
the Church of Laodicea had been asked to give it up.! About
the year 191, Pope Victor, whether of his own accord, or at
the request of some Church, directly intervened in Asia.
' Laodicea of Phrygia, Sardis and Hierapolis belong to the province
of Asia.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 223
He wrote to the Bishop of Ephesus, asking him to
assemble the Asiatic bishops, in order that they might settle
the Easter controversy and adopt the universal custom.
Polycrates wrote back a refusal based on considerations
which are easily recognizable as the counterpart of those
probably appealed to by the Bishop of Eome. Eome had
-.^doubtless made appeal to the Apostolic tradition, and to
the Apostles Peter and Paul, whose tombs were in her
territory, and to presbyters like Clement : to this Ephesus
replied:! "It is we, who are faithful to tradition, neither
adding nor taking away from it. For in Asia these great
bases are resting in peace. . . ."^ Among them are Philip,
one of the twelve Apostles, who is buried at Hierapolis, and
his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter, who lived
in the Holy Spirit, and now rests at Ephesus ; and, moreover,
John, who was both a martyr and a teacher {BiBdaKaXo^) ,
who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest
wore the TreraXov : ^ who is buried at Ephesus. And there is
Polycarp in Smyrna, who was a bishop and a martyr ; and
Thraseas, bishop and martyr of Eumenia, who is buried at
Smyrna. Why need I mention the bishop and martyr
Sagaris who is buried at Laodicea, or the blessed Papirius,
or Melito, the holy eunuch, who lived altogether in the Holy
Spirit,* who lies in Sardis? . . . All these kept the
Passover on the fourteenth day, according to the Gospel,
making no innovation, but following the rule of faith. ^ And
I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the
tradition of my relatives, some of whom have been my
^ Eusbb. "H. E." v. 24, 1-8.
'^ In Greek : peydXa arotxela. We have already met this word
(above, p. 102) which signifies " elements ". It might be better translated
here by " lights " or "stars ".
2 The neraXov (LXX) is the golden plate worn by Aaron on the fore
head : Exod. XXVIII. 32, xxix. 6 ; Lev. vm. 9. In his translation of
Eusebius, Rufinus writes : " . . . fuit summus sacerdos et pontificale
neraXov gessit ".
* In Greek : rbv iv dyia nvevpart ndvra noXtrevadpevov . The reader
wiU remark that Melito, who, unlike Polycarp, Thraseas and Sagaris, is
not a martyr, is praised for his continence and as a " spiritual"
' In Greek : Kara rb evayyeXiov, ptjSev napeK^aivovres, dXXd Kara rbv
Kavova rijs niareas dKoXovBovvres.

224 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
masters ; for seven of my relatives were bishops ; and I am
the eighth. . . .
I, therefore, brethren,! who have lived sixty-five years in
the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the
world, 2 and have gone through the whole of Holy Scripture,
shall not lose my head, for I am not affrighted by terrifying
words. For those greater than I have said: "We ought to
obey God rather than man.^ I could mention the bishops
who were present, whom I summoned at your desire, whose
names, should I write them, would constitute a great multi
tude. And they, notwithstanding my littleness, gave their
adhesion to the letter, knowing that I do not bear my gray
hairs in vain, but have always governed my life by the Lord
Jesus." The Bishop of Ephesus and the Asiatic Bishops, then, in
meeting at Ephesus, complied vyith the demand of the Bishop
of Eome. There is in the words of the Bishop of Ephesus
nothing to suggest that such meetings were a usual occur
rence ; the contrary rather is implied : Polycrates makes ex
cuses for gathering the Bishops of Asia around his humble
person, by saying that Eome desired that they should be
assembled. Had the Asiatic Churches been accustomed for a
long while to meet in a synod, and to form a confederacy
after the type of the Koivbv 'Aa-iw;,^ Polycrates would not have
used such timid language. And then, Polycrates seems to
ask, are these meetings called for ? The tradition is faith
fully preserved, free both from addition and from diminution ;
Christians believe and live in harmony vdth the Gospel, with
out making any innovations, but following scrupulously what
the presbyters, the immediate disciples of the Apostles, taught
and practised — they live " according to the rule of faith," for
^ We have not the address of the epistle. Eusebius only says that it
is sent " to Victor and to the Church of the Romans "
-^ In Greek : avp^e^XtjKas rols dnb rijs oiKovjxevtjs dSeX^ols. Compare
the inscription of Abercius and the "eos qui sunt undique fideles "of
Irenseus. ^Acts V. 29.
^ V. Chapot, " La province d'Asie," pp. 529-32, and Db Gbnouillao,
pp. 43-6, have well shown (against Monceaux) that there is no real analogy
between the solidarity of the Churches, even those of the same province,
and the Kotvd or leagues of Asiatic or Syrian cities.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 225
Christianity is no uncertain and changing religion, it is a
canon and a canon that is the same everywhere : this Poly
crates knows weU, for, the Christian faith being spread all
over the earth, he has been in relation with the brethren of
the whole world.
The argument of Polycrates . is the same as that of
Irenseus. It is that used by Polycarp before Pope Anicetus :
viz. the argument of Apostolic tradition, authenticating the
faith actually held. Unfortunately, there is, in the present
case, a conflict between two customs both of which are
authenticated by an Apostolic tradition. Which of the two
wiU be victorious?
Threats do not suffice to frighten me, the Bishop of
Ephesus says. From this we may infer that he has been
called upon to give up the Asiatic custom ; and as it seems
quite clear that Eome alone intervened — since it is Eome
alone that Ephesus answers and resists — ^we see the authority
Eome exercises in this conflict. Eenan has said rather ap
propriately in reference to this case : " The Papacy was born
and well born ".
About the same time. Pope Victor vrrote to all the
Churches. Whether this step was taken by Eome before
her intervention at Ephesus or after the latter's reply, cannot
be clearly made out from the narrative of Eusebius. Euseb
ius found in the official records the letters by which the
bishops, after meeting together in synods, declare the ecclesi
astical faith that connected the feast of Easter with Sunday.!
If the synod of the Asiatic Bishops was held at Ephesus on
Pope Victor's demand, we may suppose that the other synods
were held in compliance with a similar demand, especially if
they were to deal with the subject on which the Bishops of
! In their synodal epistle, the Bishops of Palestine declare they write,
so as to be in no wise responsible for the error of those who think wrongly,
and they affirm that the practice of the Sunday celebration of Easter is a
" tradition which has come to them in succession from th6 Apostles " (ex
StaSoxijs Tfflj' dTrooToXa)!' napdSoais). At the same time, they beg those ad
dressed to send a copy of their epistle to all the Churches : rijs imaroX^s
tjpav neipdBtjre Kara ndaav iKKXtjaiav dvriypacpa Sianep^aaBat. We may
remember the words of Irenseus : " Necesse est omnem convenire
ecclesiam." Rome appears here as the acknowledged centre of inter
ecclesiastical relations : and this is attested bythe Bishops of Palestine.
15

226 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Asia had been asked to deliberate, the Sunday celebration of
Easter. Eome on this occasion gives an order to all the
bishops of the Christian world, and the order is compUed
with everywhere.
Eusebius mentions the synodal letter of the bishops of
the province of Pontus (around Amastris) ; that of the
Churches of Osroene (around Edessa) ; that of the Churches
of Gaul (around Lyons) ; that of the Bishop of Corinth ;
that of the synod of Palestine (Jerusalem, Csesarea, Tyre
. . . ) ; but he mentions neither Antioch nor Alexandria.
The synodal epistle of Palestine tells us that the Bishops of
Palestine observe Easter on Sunday, after the example of
Alexandria, which every year makes the date of the celebra
tion known to them by means of a letter.! At no other
time has cohesion appeared so fully. Catholicity too was
born, and well born.
His position strengthened by this cohesion and also by
the universal acknowledgment of the genuineness and au
thority of the Sunday custom. Pope Victor thought it
necessary to take a still bolder step : viz. that of doing away
VTith non-conformism, by separating from the Church aU the
Asiatic Churches.^ Probably he had previously threatened
the Bishop of Ephesus with this measure as within the range
of possibility : now that the latter resisted, Victor passed
from warning to actual deed. He vwote to all the Churches,
declaring that the brethren of Asia vsathout exception were
outside the pale of Catholic communion.^
1 Euseb. " H. E." v. 25.
"Ibid. 24, 9 : BiKrap . . . artjXiTevei ye Sta ypappdrav, dKOtvavtjTovs
ndvras dpStjv toiis eKelae dvaKTjpvrrav dSeXipovs. The verb artjXtreva, to
write down on a stele, designates the public act of proscription.
^Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 489, remarks that it is a ques
tion, not merely of the communion of the Roman Church, but of the
communion of the Catholic Church. In fact, how could we account
for the remonstrances of Irenaaus and of the other great bishops, were
this the case of a rupture between Rome only and Christian Asia ? Pope
Victor acted about the year 190, just as Pope Stephen did some sixty years
later : this Eusebius clearly realized (v. 24, 9) : Victor, he says, attempts
to separate at once all the Churches of Asia from the common unity {riis
Kotvijs evaaeas), and by letters declares them cut ofi' {dKotvavtirovs). He
attempts (netpdrat) : which means that he asks all the Churches to associ
ate themselves to the excommunication he prorjounces,

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENJEUS 227
As Eusebius relates, this measure did not please all the
bishops, from which we may reasonably conjecture that it
did please some of them, and obtain their approval. But
there were also found other bishops who took exception to
the severity of the Bishop of Eome and reminded him of
peace, union, and charity ; there were most emphatic protests
of which Eusebius saw the text itself. When we come to
the third century, we shall find that, then too, such remon
strances were admissible in the Christian community.
Irenseus sent to Victor a letter, of which a celebrated frag
ment has been preserved by Eusebius : in this document the
Bishop of Lyons represents to the Bishop of Eome that the
observance of the Easter solemnity on Sunday is not a custom
of such importance that refusal to conform to it should be
regarded as a reason sufficient to justify expelling any one
body of Christians. He adds that Victor's predecessors had
taken this view of the matter, judging that " both those who
observed and those who did not, were in agreement with the
whole Church ".! Irenseus wrote in the same sense to most
of the bishops, and ultimately won universal assent. Eome
had gained her point on the question of principle, and did
not insist on her disciplinary measure.
But how remarkable it is that, about the year 190, the
Bishop of Eome should excommunicate, in a kind of peremp
tory edict, the Churches of the provinces of Asia, Churches
Apostolic and venerable, with the Bishop of Ephesus for
their spokesman ! The Bishop of Eome condemns their
observance of Easter as a usage that is against the Canon
of the Apostolic faith, and he cuts them off, not from the
Eoman, but from the Catholic communion. He is conscious,
then, that such a sentence on his part is legitimate. Iren-
^ " H. E." V. 24, 18 : ndatjs rrjs iKKXtjaias etptjvtjv ixovrav Kal Tmv
Ttjpovvrav koi tSv pij rrjpovvrav. Here again Irenseus does not use the
word " cathoUc ". On the other hand, we find it used with remarkable
insistence in the Canon of Muratori, a Roman document of the period
190-200. " Una per omnem orbem terrae ecclesia diflfusa esse dinoscitur
..." The "Pastoral Epistles" "in honorem ecclesiae cathoUcae, in
ordhiationem ecclesiasticae disciplinae, sanctificatae sunt ". A certain
epistle, wrongly ascribed to Paul, and actually composed by the Marcion
ites, " in cathoUcam ecclesiam recipi non potest ". Jude and 1-2 John,
" in catholica habentur ". Zahn, " Grundriss," pp. 75-9.
16*

228 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
sens protests against the excommunication of the Asiatics, it
is true, but he does not dream of questioning Victor's power
to pronounce this excommunication. " What term are we
to use if we are forbidden to designate as ' Head of the
Church ' one who is the depositary of such authority? "i

In this exposition, we have not gone beyond the age of
Irenseus : nor do we need to go beyond it, or foUow the de
velopment of Christianity down to the second hah of the
third century, merely to prove that — within the boundaries
of the Empire, and apart from any Judaeo-Christian com
munities that may still exist here and there — " Christianity
has an undivided history ".^ It is acknowledged that it has
reached by this time a form of government common to all
the Churches, and to that solidarity between aU the Churches
which is, we are told, " CathoUcism as we conceive of it
to-day". Yet those who make this acknowledgment assume to
wards us, Catholics of to-day, a triumphant attitude, and
exclaim : What you look upon as the providential develop
ment of principles essentiaUy inherent in Christianity, is
only a secularizing of Christianity, its adaptation to the Ufe
of the Empire, a Christian imperialism := " Eoman," politi
cally understood, is truly synonymous with " Catholic," and
the best proof of this is furnished by the fact that, about the
year 190, the Eoman Church had definitively acquired aU
the elements that are fundamental in Catholicism*, Has
she not her rule of faith — the Apostles' Creed ? Has she not
a definite and settled canon of the New Testament? Has
she not, the first of all the Churches, drawn up the list of
her bishops, reaching back to the Apostles? Do not the
dispersed Churches communicate with one another through
the medium of Eome ? And has not the Church of Eome
become the rule for all the Churches, precisely because she
is at Eome ?
This imperialist conception of Catholicism would be very
specious, were it not open to an objection the gravity of
'Duchesne, " Eglises Separees," p. 144.
" Harnack, " Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 480.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.^US 229
which Harnack has not concealed, viz. : that the develop
ment effected by the Eoman Church within herself took
place simultaneously in the Churches of all the provinces :
in some provinces reaching its term sooner than at Eome ;
in others, later.
Moreover, even as early as the time of the Easter contro
versy, there are Churches beyond the boundaries of the Empire,
in the Kingdom of Edessa ; and, the King of Edessa being a
Christian, Christianity is there for the first time in history a
State religion. And yet, what is said of the Churches that
are in Gaul is said also of the Churches that are in Osroene.
Though they are Syriac in language, they hold epistolary
relations with the Bishop of Eome, they place in his hands
the official attestation of their Easter custom, which is the
same as that followed in Palestine, in Syria, and at Eome.
The Syriac Catholicism of the kingdom of Edessa proves
that Catholicism is not mere "Eoman-ism" {roinanitas) .^
To the hypothesis of the rise of Catholicism at the
1 Euseb. "H. E." v. 23, 3. Burkitt, "Early Christianity outside
the Roman Empire " (Cambridge, 1899), p. 11. The kingdom of Edessa
was not made a part of the Roman province of Mesopotamia till the year
216. Harnack, " Mission," vol. n. p. 119, contends that the primitive
Christianity of Edessa is represented historically by Tatian, " the Assyrian,"
and Bardesanes, of whom neither was " Catholic," but rather, " measured
by the doctrinal standards of the Catholic confederation, both were mild
heretics ". It is only at the beginning of the third century — we are told —
that the Church of Edessa accepted Catholic Christianity, by receiving
from Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, (190-211), a Bishop, named Palut, who
thus became the first CathoUc Bishop of Edessa, but not its first Bishop.
To this we may reply that Tatian is more of a Greek, and that the theatre
of his literary activity was first Rome, and then Antioch (Bardenhewer,
vol. I. p. 245). Edessa and Syriac Christianity are indebted to him for
the " Diatessaron," which CathoUcs received without reluctance (Harnack,
loc. cit.). As to Bardesanes, we cannot set aside the testimony of Euseb
ius (" H. E." IV. 30), who represents him as a Valentinian who had re
tracted his erroneous views, and as a controversialist who opposed Mar
cionism and the other heresies. Eusebius relates also that the writings of
Bardesanes were translated into Greek. In the eyes of Eusebius Bar
desanes does not seem to have been more of a heretic than Origen, and
this was doubtless the common impression until the time of St. Ephrem
and St. Epiphanius. Besides, neither Bardesanes, nor Tatian held the
episcopal dignity in Osroene. — -Of. Tixbroni, "Les Origines de I'Eglise
d'Bdesse " (Paris, 1888), pp. 9-19.

230 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
centre of the Empire and of its expansion through the
whole Empire by way of conquest, we oppose then the fact
that the constitutive elements of Catholicism are found
everywhere throughout Christendom, and that, in proportion
as historical examination can observe it, their development
is everywhere spontaneous, not forced on from vnthout.
The only recorded case of compulsion is that of Pope
Victor's endeavour to force conformity on the Asiatic
Churches in the observance of Easter, and, as a matter of
fact, the Churches of Asia did not at the time yield to the
constraint, although gradually and silently they came over
to the Catholic practice.
This is the illuminating phenomenon: the symbol of
faith, the episcopate, the canon of the New Testament, the
Eoman primacy — institutions which are represented as so
many coups d'itat secretly perpetrated by the Eoman Church
— appear to the historian as principles laid down from the
first and developing with the continuity and harmony char
acteristic of the growth of an organism, which, once it is
created, grows and expands according to its law.
EXCUBSUS C.
Marcionism and Catholicism.
" The S3rrian charlatans ceased not to propagate their
oriental Gnosticism, with its strangely-named seons and the
Semitic glitter of its magic. In Alexandria subtle spirits
tricked out these absurdities in philosophic garb to suit the
local taste. But neither achieved more than the foundation
of some lodges of initiates of higher or lower degree. Mean
time, a man arose who set himself to extract from this
jargon a few simple notions in harmony with those of or
dinary men, as the basis for a rehgion which should be
Christian, of course, but new, anti- Jev^ish, and dualist ; and
should no longer find expression in secret confraternities,
but in a Church. This man was Marcion." !
Marcion was born at Sinope, a port on the Black
Sea. He was the son of a bishop and possessed a hand-
' Duchesne, " Histoire Ancienne," t. I, p. 182.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 231
some fortune. According to a narrative, borrowed probably
from St. Hippolytus, he was excommunicated at Sinope for
seducing a young girl. " Marcion, ponticus genere, episcopi
filius, propter stuprum cuiusdam virginis ab ecclesiae com-
municatiene abiectus."^ Mgr. Duchesne remarks on this
that neither St. Irenseus, nor TertuUian, neither of whom
was very tender towards Marcion, seems to be aware of
this imputation, which, therefore, is hardly probable. We
may conjecture then that the story is a kind of anticipation
of Marcion's heresy ? The virgin defiled by Marcion was the
Ecclesia virgo.
On leaving Sinope, Marcion went to Eome : he was one
of those many Christians whom Eome drew to herself, be
cause she was a unique centre, alike for the upholders of the
tradition and for agitators.
It is not very probable that on his way to Eome he passed
through the city of Smyrna, and that it was at this time that
he had the interview with Polycarp recorded by St. Irenseus :
when Marcion asked the venerable old Bishop if he recog
nized him, and Polycarp is reported to have replied : "I
recognize the first-born of Satan ".^ Marcion would have
been, already, were the story true of that time, an open
heretic, and it would be hard to understand his receiving at
Eome the kind welcome we are told he did. We cannot
suppose that Eome was either unacquainted with the feel
ings of the Church of Smyrna or — which is still more
improbable — was incautious as regards errors that filled
Polycarp with indignation. It is more probable that Mar
cion and Polycarp met at Eome, towards the years 154-5,
when the latter came to visit Anicetus.
Marcion arrived at Eome at the time when Valentinus
also was there ; both, TertuUian affirms, were as yet Catho
lics : " Constat illes . . . in CathoUcae prime doctrinam
credidisse apud ecclesiam romanensem, sub episcopatu Eleu-
therii benedicti, donee ob inquietam semper [eorum] curio-
sitatem, qua fratres quoque vitiabant, scTnel et iterum
eiecti." ^ Marcion professed then the teaching of the
'(Pseudo) Tertulllsln, " Praesc." 51. Epiphan. " Haer." xlii. 1.
^Iren. "Haer." iil 3.
'Tbbiull. "Praescr." 30. Together with the "Muratorianum"
quoted above (p. 227), this text of TertuUian is the oldest witness we

232 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" CathoUca " and he belonged to that " Catholica " in the
ranks of the Eoman Church. He even presented the
Eoman Church with a sum of 200,000 sesterces, which it
gave back to him on the day he was excommunicated.!
Later on TertuUian will emphasize the fact that Marcion
was at first, and in the strictest sense, a Catholic, the better
to show that he changed when becoming a heretic : "Mar
cion Deum quem invenerat extincto lumine fidei suae
amisit : non negabunt discipuli eius primam illius fidem
nobisGum fuisse, ipsius litteris testibus":^ words which
allude to a written profession of faith, given by Marcion in
the form of a letter to the authorities of the Eoman Church,
which from the first probably was somewhat uneasy about
the purity of his faith.
Marcion broke with the Eoman Church in the year 144.
This rupture must be understood of a sentence of excom
munication pronounced by the Eoman Church, and even, it
seems, of a double sentence : one by which he was caUed
upon to recant his errors ; the other, by which he was cast
out "in perpetuum discidium" : the same procedure was
pursued in Eome, at the same time, against Valentinus.^
From this we may infer that, in the year 144, the authorities
of the Eoman Church were not taken unawares in presence
of such doctrinal errors as those of Valentinus and Marcion,
and that, to suppress these errors, they had not to resort to
an hitherto unused procedure.
The novelty of Marcionism, when once it was cast out
from the Catholic Church, lay in its constituting itself in
churches : the Donatists in the fourth century, and the
Novatians in the third, will follow the same pohcy: the
have to the use of the word Catholica as a substantive synonymous with
Ecclesia catholica. This use does not appear among the Greeks ; among
the Latins it ceases after the seventh century. It has been found 240
times in the works of St. Augustine, who opposes the " Catholica " to
the " pars Donati," the Donatist schism (cf. Dom Rottmanner, " Catho
lica," in the " Revue benedictine," 1900, pp. 1-9).
1 Tbrtull. " Praescr." 30. Two hundred thousand sesterces are
equivalent to about $8000 or SIO,000 (£1600 or £2000).
2 "Adv. Marcion." Ll.
" "Praescr." 30. As to the date, "Adv. Marcion." i. 19, and Kbugee,
art. " Marcion," p. 268, in Hauck's "Realencykl."

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 233
Marcionites were the first to adopt it. In this they differ
from the Gnostic schools : ! the Valentinians, for instance, are
characterised by TertuUian as a " frequentissimum, plane col
legium inter haereticos " .^ TertuUian writes coMegi'ittm. In
another passage, he speaks of heretics in the following re
markable terms, every one of which expresses, by way of
contrast, a special attribute of the Church: " Plerique nee
ecclesias habent, sine matre, sine sede, orbi fide, exterres, sine
tare vagantur ; " ' but this description does not apply to the
Marcionites : " Faciunt favos et vespae, faciunt ecclesias et
Marcionitae," says TertuUian.*
It is most interesting to observe that Marcionism starts
from Eome as from a centre of propagandism, and that, less
than half a century later, it has spread through the whole Em
pire, so great evidently were at that time the facilities for such
an expansion of ideas and of sects : the " great Church " must
have been most closely united and most solidly founded, to
remain stable in the midst of that quicksand. In fact, less
than ten years after the rupture between Marcion and the
Eoman Church, St. Justin in his first Apology (in the year
150 or very soon after) says : "A certain Marcion, of Pontus,
is even now teaching his disciples to believe in another God
! Clement of Al. cites a "homily" of Valentinus, "Stromat." iv.
13 ("P. G." vol. vm. p. 1296) and vl 6 (vol. ix. p. 276). In the
latter quotation, Valentinus speaks of "the Church of God," which he
caUs "the people of the Beloved, the people loved [of Christ] and loving
Him ". The homily was entitled Ilepl (ftiXav, " On Friends ". The word
^iXoi was often used to designate the members of the same philosophical
school : Valentinus probably took it in that sense. Harnack, " Mission,"
vol I. p. 354.
2 "Adv. Valent." 1. See St. Ambrose's Letter XL, 16, on the
affiiir of CaUinicum (in Osroene), where some monks, molested by the
Valentinians of the place, burned, in the year 388, the sanctuary of
the sect. 3 "Praescr." 42.
*"Adv. Marcion." iv. 5: "Habet plane et illud [Euangelium] ec
clesias, sed suas, tam posteras quam adulteras . . . Marcione scilicet
conditore vel aliquo de Marcionis examine. Faciunt favos," etc. Clement
is perhaps alluding to the Marcionites, in a passage where he reproves the
heretics who reject the prophecies of the Old Testament from "their
Church," just as naughty chUdren drive away their teacher. " Stromat."
vn. 16 (" P. G." vol. IX. p. 537 A.).

234 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
greater than the Creator. He, with the assistance of the
devils, has persuaded many persons of every nation to blas
pheme and deny God, the Creator of this universe. . . .
Many believe this man to be the only one who possesses the
truth, and deride us."! Towards the end of the second
century, in almost all the provinces we find the leaders of
Christian thought engaged in fighting Marcionism : witness
St. Irenseus at Lyons, TertuUian at Carthage, the Mura
torianum, Hippolytus and Ehodon at Eome, Clement at
Alexandria, Theophilus at Antioch, Bardesanes at Edessa,
Dionysius at Corinth, Philip of Gortyna in Crete. At the
close of the fourth century, St. Epiphanius speaks of
Marcionism as still existing at Eome and in Italy, in Egypt
and in Palestine, in Arabia and in Syria, in Cyprus, in the
Thebaid, in Persia, and elsewhere : during the fifth century
Theodoret ¦ mentions some viUages in his diocese of Cyrus
that are composed exclusively of Marcionites.^
In common with Montanism, Novatianism, as weU as
Donatism, Marcionism claims to be a Church more exacting
than the " great Church ". As early as the end of the second
century, it claims to have more martyrs than the great
Church.^ For Marcion, continency is an absolutely neces
sary condition for Christian life and salvation, baptism is only
for those who renounce matrimony.* Hence baptism com
mits to a life of continency any one who receives it, unless
it be deferred to the approach of death. The Marcionites
must abstain from meat : fish and vegetables only shall be
their food, " sanctior cibus ".* The word sanctitas expresses
the obligatory state of a Christian, in the system of Mar
cion, " sanctissimus magister," as TertuUian styles him
ironicaUy.^ In short Marcionism takes the course common
1 " Apol." I. 26. ' Harnack, " Mission," vol. n. p. 265.
3 Eusbb. " H. E." v. 16, 21. The testimony is taken from the
work of the anonymous anti-Montanist, who wrote about the years 192-3.
For the Montanists also claimed to have more martyrs than any other
religious organization, and they saw in it "a sure evidence of the
power of the prophetic spirit," which they claimed for their sect. TMs
is a primitive form of the argument di'awn from the constancy of the
martyrs. ^Tertull. "Adv. Marcion." l. 29, and iv. 11.
° " Adv. Marcion." i. 14. ^ Ibid. i. 28, 29 and passim.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 235
to all forms of Puritanism by pretending to be a reaction
against the laxity of the Church, and to surpass it in moral
value. Marcion is not an enthusiast, a "pneumatic," or, strictly
speaking, a Gnostic ; he is a reformer who sets himself the
task of dispassionately reforming the existing Church in her
morals, as we have just seen, and in her faith, as we are
about to see.
His method consists in clinging to St. Paul's teaching,
which he sets against the teaching of the other Apostles.
Thus he attacks the authority of the Twelve, whom he
considers to be prevaricators and dissemblers, condemned by
St. Paul himself.! But to repudiate the authority of the
Apostles (other than Paul) is to undermine the historical and
dogmatic foundation of the great Church, and this Marcion
probably realizes ; the Apostles are for him judaizers whom he
rejects. TertuUian arrays against Marcion the faith and
the institutions that still endure in the Churches founded by
Paul, in the Church of Eome founded both by Peter and
Paul, in the Churches founded by John, from which Marcion
has himself taken something, since the ordo episcoporum
was inaugurated by John : now all those Churches, says
TertuUian, are unanimous against Marcion : " Dice apud
illas, nee solas iatn apostolicas, sed apud universas quae
illis de societate sacramenti confoederantur. . . ."^ The
paradoxical thought of isolating Paul from Peter and from
the other Apostles is peculiar to Marcion, and on him rests
the responsibility for the innovation.
This exclusive and violent Paulinism leads Marcion to a
kind of Christianity which has for its base the rejection of
the Old Testament. But for any one to speak of the Old
Testament is to imply that there is a New Testament.
Marcion makes the latter consist of the Gospel of St. Luke
(though mutilated and revised), of the Pauline Epistles (except
the Pastoral Epistles), and of his own work on the contradic
tions between the New and the Old Testament, entitled
" Antitheses ". This book "proprium et principale opus est
Marcionis nee poterunt negare discipuli eius, quod in summo
^ " Adv. Marcion." iv. 3. Of. " Praescr." 22 and 32.
^ " Adv. Marcion." iv. 5.

236 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
instrwmento habent, quo denique initiantur et indurantv/r in
hanc haeresim ".! The Marcionites have but one testament
{instrumentum) . They use Marcion's "Antitheses" as a
book of initiation. Here again Marcion innovates : first, in
repudiating the Jewish Bible which had always been received
in the Church without dispute ; and secondly, in placing his
"Antitheses" on the same footing as one of the Gospels
and as the Pauline Epistles. Some scholars would have us
believe that the drawing up a canon of the New Testament
was also an innovation, and that, before Marcion, the great
Church had no such canon : I have shovm elsewhere that this
supposition is improbable.^ TertuUian had already said as
much when he affirmed that by framing a canon of his own,
Marcion had set himself up for the censor and reformer of the
ecclesiastical canon already received: " Utique non potuisset
[Marcion] arguere nisi quod invenerat." ^
Just as the Marcionites have an instrumentum, i.e. au
thoritative Scriptures, so they have a rule of faith. We have
already noted that they have Baptism, the Eucharist, and
episcopacy ; * and that Marcion's work is the book quo in
itiantur. Marcion's theodicy consists in opposing the God
of the Old Testament to the God of the New, the Creator
to the Father, and in introducing what TertuUian caUs
" ex diversitate sententiarum utriusque testamenti diversi-
tatem deorum ". In Marcion's Christology, Christ is
represented as the manifestation of the good God : " Jmmo,
inquiunt Marcionitae, Deus nester . . . per semetipsum
revelatus est in Christo lesu . . . Anno XV Tiberii, Christus
! " Adv. Marcion." r. 19.
" "Revue biblique," vol. xn. (1903), pp. 25-6, after Zahn, "Grund
riss," pp. 27-9.
' " Adv. Marcion." iv. 4 : " Itaque dum emendat, utrumque confirmat ;
et nostrum anterius, id emendans quod invenit ; et id posterius, quod de
nostri emendatione constituens suum et novum fecit " Cf. " Praescr."
30 : " Si Marcion Novum Testamentum a Vetere separavit, posterior est
eo quod separavit, quia separare non posset nisi quod unitum fuit.
Unitum ergo antequam separaretur, postea separatum, posteriorem
ostendit separatorem ".
" Must we apply to the Marcionites what TertuUian says in
"Praescr." 41, about the disorder that prevails in heretical churches?
As to episcopacy among the Valentinians, cf. " PhUosophoumena," vi. 41.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENJEUS 237
lesus de caelo manare dignatus est, Spiritus salutaris ".
No conception, no birth, no infancy : Christ comes down
from Heaven suddenly, as He will return thither. Docetism
is the true doctrine ; and yet redemption by the cross is
equaUy real. But what is all this save a correction of the
ecclesiastical rule of faith ? " Aiunt enim [Marcionitae]
Marcionem nen tam innovasse regulam . . . quam retro
adulteratam recurasse." ^ TertuUian does not fail to re
mind Marcion that he began by giving up the Catholic truth
which he used to hold, as is proved from the letter sent to Eome
by Marcion himself : " Quid nunc si negaverint Marcionitae
primam apud nos fidem eius, adversus epistulam quoque
ipsius ?"^
Let us recall now, the converging developments by
which the Eitschlian school explains the formation of Catholic
Christianity — a definition of Christianity held for Apostolic ;
a baptismal formulary of faith, accepted as a rule of faith,
likewise regarded as Apostolic; a coUection of Apostolic
vyritings, placed on the same level as the Old Testament ; a
monarchical episcopate, everywhere instituted and proclaimed
to be Apostohc, bishops regarded as the successors of the
Apostles — all these data are found in Marcionism.
The conclusion to be drawn from those weU-ascertained
facts is that Marcionism is a Catholicism without a hall-mark.^
Catholicism was not formed in opposition to Marcion
ism, it existed before Marcionism, with the characteristic
elements we have just mentioned ; after seceding from it,
Marcionism could not make any stand at all nor endure,
vnthout framing for itself a regula fidei, a canon, a mon
archical episcopate, all based on the authority of an Apostle ;
1 " Adv. Marcion." i. 19-20. " Ibid. iv. 4.
' A "reformed " Catholicism, Harnack would say, but he has realized
this feature of Marcionism, a feature which, once admitted, becomes for
the Ritschlian theory an unanswerable difficulty. "Dogmeng."' vol. i^
p. 305 : " That Marcion was conscious of being a reformer, and that he
was recognized to be such in his Church is still not understood, although
it is clearly involved in the nature of his enterprise and the facts con
nected with it ". Again {ibid. p. 340) : " In the formation of the Mar
cionite Church, we have . . . the attempt to create a close oecumenical
communion, based solely on religion. The Marcionite Church therefore
had a founder, the Catholic Church has none."

238 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
namely, Paul. Moreover, as Marcionism had to face this
crushing objection, that, from time immemorial, the great
Church had rested on another faith, it had to extol Marcion,
and even equal him with St. Paul, naming after him the
Christianity which he had reformed, and giving him a
throne in Heaven at the left hand of God.! Truly, we have
in Marcionism " the attempt to create a close oecumeni
cal communion " : but why is this attempt dated, and why
is it called after Marcion, whilst Catholicism has no date,
and bears no one's name ?
Excursus D.
The End of Judcee- Christianity.
To be complete, a sketch of the historical development
of the " great Church " must teU what became of Jewish
Christianity, of Judseo-Christianity, as it is called.
It has been rightly observed that Judseo-Christianity
is a most inappropriate term, if it is meant to imply that
the Christianity of the GentUes had nothing in common
with Judaism; for first it kept the Old Testament, and
secondly, though it declared itself freed from the Law by
the Gospel, it claimed not less confidently to be the true
Israel, the heir of all the promises, a true Israel from which
the Jews were by no means excluded, provided they beHeved
in Christ Jesus. To oppose Judseo-Christianity to Catholi
cism is therefore an historical absurdity ; a point which has
been very distinctly brought out by the discovery of the
" DidachS ". The term, Judseo-Christianity, strictly speak
ing, apphes only to those Christians, born in Judaism, who
looked upon the Law as still binding, and who therefore
found themselves engaged in an irreconcilable conflict not
only with St. Paul, but with all Christianity.^
' This was actually done : " Alii enim aiunt, hoc quod scriptum est,
sedere a dextris salvatoris et sinistris, de Paulo et de Marcione dici, quod
Paulus sedet a dextris, Marcion sedet a sinistris ". Origen, " In Luc.
Homil." XXV. In the "Praef. arab. ad Concil. Nic," we read that the
Marcionites call Marcion "principem apostolorum " Krueger, p. 273.
2 Harnack, " Dogmeng. " vol. i^ p. 310. Cf. Honnicke, "Juden
ohristentum," pp. 367-77.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.<EUS 239
Although these Jewish Christians belong to the earliest
Christian community, and the mother-church, yet, far from
representing the oldest orthodoxy, they represent the oldest
error, and far from having ever exercised over the formation
of Catholicism that decisive influence which Baur ascribed
to them, they were graduaUy isolated by Catholicism, and
reduced to insignificance.
St. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians of the " Churches
of Judsea," testifying that they have suffered at the hands
of those Jews who put to death the Lord Jesus, and " who
forbid us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved "
(1 Thess. II. 14-16). The Acts of the Apostles teU us of
Christian communities in Galilee, in Samaria, and on the
coast. Those " Churches of Judsea," praised by St. Paul and
persecuted by the Jews, were not of the same spirit as the
Judseo-Christians who opposed the Apostle. Hence, even
as early as the Apostohc age, two elements are combating
each other in the "Churches of Judsea" — one judaizing,
the other universalistic.
The fact has been often recalled that, when inter
preting the number of the elect of Israel, as given by the
Apocalypse (vii. 4), Origen sets aside the idea that those
144,000 elect may represent the Judseo-Christians ; to him
that number seems altogether too high. " Origen wrote
after two centuries of Christianity, and hence his estimate
would cover five or six generations. He cannot then have
thought the Judseo-Christians very numerous." ! This would
be a very smaU number of Christians for the country that
had seen the rise of the Gospel, had we not reasons for
supposing that the " Churches of Judsea," which did not
come to an end in the disasters of the Jewish wars, had
become heUenized, long before the time of Origen.
Eusebius has preserved a list of the former Bishops of
Jerusalem who he says succeeded one another until the
revolt of the Jews in the year 132. "The first two," Mgr.
Duchesne writes, " are James and Simeon, who bring us
dovm to A.D. 107 ; the remaining thirteen Bishops have
therefore to be got into twenty-five years. This is a large
' Duchesne, " Hist, anc." t. i, p. 127, Origen's text is found in his
" Comment, in loan." l 1.

240 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
number. But if we accept the list and the time-limits
given by Eusebius, the natural explanation is that the Ust
includes the Bishops, not only of Pella [where the Church of
Jerusalem had taken refuge, in the year 70], but of some
other colonies from the primitive Church of Jerusalem." !
Hegesippus, who lived at the same time as Irenseus, re
lates that, under Simeon's episcopate, the Church of Jerusa
lem was preyed upon by heresies, which were started by a
certain Thebutis, "because he was not made bishop ".^
This Thebutis brings us back to the time of St. Ignatius of
Antioch : at Pella as at Antioch, the episcopate, the mon
archical episcopate, was in existence at that time.
About the year 190, at the time of the Easter contro
versy, the Bishops of Palestine meet in a synod, at Pope
Victor's request : their synodal answer witnesses to the fact
that they do not follow the Quartodeciman practice, but the
Sunday practice which was received at Eome and every
where else except in Asia. This Palestinian synod is pre
sided over by Theophilus, Bishop of Csesarea, and by
Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, and attended — as we know
from Eusebius — by Cassius, Bishop of Tyre, and Clarus, Bishop
of Ptolemais. None of these names are Jevnsh. In their
letter to Victor, the Palestinian Bishops state that they are
in relation with the Church of Alexandria, for every year
they concert with her as to the determination of the date of
Easter. And they ask that their letter may be communicated
by Eome to all Christendom, Kara irda-av iKKXrjo-lav.^ Hence,
at the close of the second century, the " Churches of Judssa,"
as well as those of Gaul, are in close union vrith the " Catho
lica ". This conclusion can be confirmed by other and
more ancient facts.
' Duchesne, op. cit. p. 120. Harnack, " Mission," vol. i. p. 387.
Honnicke, pp. 106-7. As to the part played in those Churches by
members of the family of Jesus, cf . Duchesne, ibid, and Knopf, " Nacha-
post. Zeitalter," pp. 25-8. In this part, nothing reminds us of a
Califate. "Hbgesip. ap. Euseb. " H. E." iv. 22, 5.
' Euseb. " H. E." v. 23, 25. The same historian, ibid. iv. 11, 2,
tells us, in connexion with a fact belonging to the years 212-3, of the
bishops of the churches in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem (Harnack,
" Mission," vol. n. p. 85) being convened for the election of the Bishop
of Jerusalem.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 241
At Pella was born Aristo, who, between the years
135-175, wrote the famous "Dialogue of Jason and Papis
cus," after the manner of Justin's " Dialogue with the
Jew Trypho ". In Aristo's dialogue, as in that of Justin, a
Jew disputes with a Christian about Christianity and finally
surrenders to his arguments. Was Aristo a Judseo-Christian,
as Harnack thinks, or a Greek-Christian, as Zahn would
have it ? We cannot say. That he wrote his " Dialogue "
at Pella, is likewise uncertain. At all events, the " Dialogue "
was read everywhere in Greek: Celsus attacks it with
violence ; Origen, who upholds it against the criticisms of
Celsus, praises it without any restriction, which he would
not have done had the dialogue disagreed with his
faith.! Hegesippus, writes Mgr. Duchesne, "was himself a
Judseo-Christian. This was the impression of Eusebius,
who had read all he wrote ; and it is confirmed by his use
of the Gospel of the Hebrews, by his language which
abounds in Hebrew words, and by his familiarity with the
history of the Church of Jerusalem." But if he was by
birth a Judseo-Christian or even a Jew, Hegesippus had
become a thorough Catholic : "he did not feel out of his
element among the Corinthian or Eoman Christians. He
investigated their episcopal successions, and the way by which
they preserved primitive traditions. According to him, all
their customs were in accordance with what the Law, the
Prophets and the Lord had taught." If to this, we add his
utter dislike for the heretics who " divided the unity of the
Church," ^ we must confess that his are not the sentiments
of a dissident.
Were there truly Judseo-Christians dissenting from the
"great Church"? Yes, and in two ways.
There remained groups of Christians, who were Jews by
birth and Jews by circumcision ; and these groups were un
able to subsist, save by admitting into their ranks only
such as were circumcised. As we learn from St. Justin who
'Origen, "Contra. Cels." iv. 52. Bardenhewer, vol. i. p.
187. ^Hegbsip. apud Eusbb. "H. E." iv. 22, 5: ipeptaav rijv evaatv rijt
eKKXtjaias. 16

242 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
had good opportunities of knowing them,! ^j^gy jjyg^ g^f^jgj, ^j^g
Jewish fashion. Their propaganda amounted to nothing
among the Jews, or among the Gentiles either. These
groups soon found themselves reduced to members who were
exclusively " Hebrews " and whom both their legalism and
their language kept apart from other men. By the force
of circumstances, it came to pass that, as they were strangers
to all that was written in Greek, they were familiar only
with the Aramsean Gospel, which they had used from time
immemorial, the "Gospel of the Hebrews," as it was caUed
among the Greeks : a Gospel more or less independent of
the Synoptics, and adapted to the tradition peculiar to these
" Hebrews ". Unlike the groups that bear the name of
Cerinthus and Carpocrates, these " Hebrew " Christians did
not form a heresy, but a remnant. Their communities be
came more and more isolated both from Christianity and
from Judaism, and they passed into obscurity and disap
peared in the beginning of the fifth century.^
There existed, during the fourth century, another form
of Judseo-Christianity, not confined to some "Hebrew"
villages of Palestine, but widely spread. It is found at
Alexandria, for instance, and also at Eome. It was for this
class of Judseo-Christians that the Gospel of the Hebrews was
translated into Greek ; it may be too that the Greek Logia,
! Justin, " Dialog." XLvn. 2-5. It is recorded of Septimius Severus that,
on his way through Palestine in the year 202, he took measures against
the Jews and against the Christians. Spartian. " Sever." 17 : "In
itinere Palaestinis plurima lura fundavit : ludaeos fieri sub gravi poena
vetuit, idem etiam de christianis sanxit ". As far as I know, it has not
as yet been observed that the said edict is directed against circumcision
as well among the Christians as among the Jews. If this is so, it must
have had specially in view the Judseo-Christian community of Palestine,
since, among the Christians, the practice of circumcision was confined to
Judseo-Christians. 2 EpiPHAjsf. " Haer. " xxix. 7, and the other texts brought together by
Harnack, " Mission," vol. n. p. 81 and foil. St. Jerome, "Epistulse"
LXXXIX. speaks of them as an heretical sect opposed to orthodox
Judaism : " Inter ludaeos haeresis est quae dicitur Minaeorum et a
Pharisaeis nunc usque damnatur. . . ." But it may be that here St.
Jerome was misled by the anathema against heretics, Minim, contained
in the daily prayer of the Jews, the Shmone Esre. Lagrange, " Messian
isme," p. 294. Honnicke, p. 386.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENiEUS 243
found within these last years in Egypt belonged to it. Sjmi-
machus, who in the time of Marcus Aurelius (161-180)
translated into Greek the Hebrew books of the Old Testa
ment, was a native of Samaria and a Judseo-Christian.
He published a commentary on the " Gospel of the
Hebrews," in which he endeavoured to justify the fea
tures in that Gospel which are distinctly judaizing.! This
Judseo-Christianity is -a, reaction against Marcionism : we
know that its adherents rejected all that came from St.
Paul. On the other hand, it accepted several apocryphal
wrritings, the titles of some of which we know — for instance
the " Gospel of the Twelve Apostles," ^ and those IHrpov
KTjpvy/jMTa, to which St. Peter's Epistle to St. James, found
at the beginning of the " Clementine Homilies," formed
the preface.^ The details contained in this epistle, as we
shall see presently, are very interesting.
The Apostle Peter, who is regarded as the Prince of the
Apostles, knowing that he is soon to die, sends to James,
! Eusbb. " H. E." vi. 17. Bardenhewer, vol. i. p. 349.
" Origen, " In Luc. homil. i."
^The Clementine apocryphal writings are no longer credited with
having exercised the influence ascribed to them in the palmy days of Baur
and of the Tubingen school . In his " Die Pseudoclementinen Homilien und
Rekognitionen " (Leipzig, 1904), H. Waiiz arrives at the conclusion, that
the document on which the " Homilies " and the " Recognitions " are based
is inspired with a "syncretist, though catholic" tendency, and connected
with Rome : together with the Epistle of Clement which forms its pre
face, it was composed between the years 220 and 230. It has various
sources, notably the Ktjpvypara Herpov and the Upd^ets nirpov. These
'Kijp-uypara 'Herpov (which are quite distinct from the Ktjpvypa Herpov) are
a revised edition, made about the end of the second century or beginning of
the third, of some older Judseo-Christian Ktjpvypara nirpov, savouring of
Gnosticism, to which Peter's letter to James belongs : these latter were
probably composed at Csesaraea soon after the year 135 in Judseo-Christian
surroundings. The "Homilies" and "Recognitions," in their actual
state, are subsequent to the Council of Nicsea, though previous to the
year 400. Mgr. Duchesne, "The Early History of the Church," pp.
95-6, accepts the conclusions of Waitz, and believes that in "Recogn."
and " Hom. " there are traces ofthe Lucianist or Arian school. Dom
Chapman, " On the Date of the Clementines," in the " Zeitschrift fiir die
Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft," 1908, pp. 21-34, even thinks that the
document which is at the basis of the " Recogn." and of the " Hom." was
composed about the year 330, in Palestine or in Syria.
16*

244 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" bishop of the Holy Church," the book of his Kripvy/xara,
i.e. of his teachings. Peter recommends James to make the
book of the Krjpvy/iara knowm only to men whose worthiness
has been tried, just as Moses " gave his chair to the seventy "
elders he had chosen. This policy of Moses has had for its
result, that the Jews have unanimously kept "the canon
of the [Divine] monarchy and of the life [according to the
Law]," and that even now they have no other thoughts than
those sanctioned by Holy Writ, They are educated in ac
cordance with the canon transmitted to them : ! they allow
no one to teach before he has learned how to use the
Scriptures; for them there is but one God, one law, one
hope. So must it be with us.
Hence James is to give Peter's Kripvyfiara as Moses gave
his own Krjpvj/Mara to the seventy : otherwise, the teaching
will degenerate into mere opinions. " This I know not
in my quality as a prophet, but I see aheady this evU be
ginning to sprout." For some Gentiles have already rejected
my teaching, which is in keeping with the Law, whUst others
strive by means of interpretation so to alter it " as to destroy
the Law ". God forbid I for such a thing were to act
against God who gave us His Law by Moses, and against
Our Lord who proclaims that the heavens and the earth
shall pass away, but that one jot or one tittle shaU in no
wise fall from the Law. But if, while I am still alive, they
dare thus to make me say what I did not say, what wiU it
be after I am gone ?
Let James — Peter insists for the last time — give the
Kr]pvyp,aTa only to trustworthy men, able to keep the Law
faithfully, able to transmit everywhere the canon of truth,^
doing their best to explain everything according to our
tradition,^ not according to their ignorance or their own
devisings. This epistle shows the importance attached by Judaso-
Christians to the Apostles, above all to Peter. Peter stands
for Moses, as James for Aaron. Just as Moses chose
seventy elders from whom the "tradition of the ancients"
' Kara rbv napaSoBevra avrols Kavova.
" navraxij rbv rrjs dXtjBeias Kavova napaSwatv.
' npbs Ttjv napdSoatv fjpav.

THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 245
originates, so also James will entrust the teaching of Peter
to reliable men who wiU establish the tradition of the
Apostles, and that tradition will preserve the canon of truth.
Woe to those who shall be bold enough to reject the Law,
and to explain in a different sense the teaching of the
Apostles ! . James, who is a bishop of the holy Church,
must be on the watch.
The severe expressions contained in this epistle of St.
Peter to St. James, whether they are aimed at Marcion or
at St. Paul, proceed from a conception of the canon of truth,
of the authority of the Apostolic tradition, of the part of
episcopacy and of the presbyters, which, whilst striving to
shield itself behind Moses and the ancients, coincides with
the "Catholic" conception.

CHAPTEE V.
THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.
"It is very remarkable," writes Harnack, "that the theory
of the bishop's power to determine the truth of ecclesiasti
cal Christianity is completely unknowm to Clement of
Alexandria. We have not the slightest evidence that he
had any conception of a hierarchical antiheretical Church;
he seldom mentions the ecclesiastical offices (stUl less the
bishops), who do not belong to his conception of the
Church. . . . On the other hand, according to Clement, the
true Gnostic has an office like that of the Apostles. . . .
Clement could not have expressed himself in this way if the
office of bishop had at that time been as much esteemed in
the Alexandrian Church of which he was a presbyter, as it
was at Eome and in the other Churches of the West. Ac
cording to Clement, the Gnostic as a teacher, has the same
importance as a bishop in the West. . . . Origen, has
fundamentally the same conception as Clement. But
numerous passages in his works, and above all his ovm
history, show that in his day the episcopate had become
stronger in Alexandria also, and claimed the same attributes
and rights as in the West. . . . Clement represents an
earlier stage, whereas by Origen's time the transformation
has been completed. Wherever this happened, the theory
that the monarchical episcopate was based on ApostoUc
institution was the natural result." !
Clement of Alexandria is a contemporary of Irenseus and
of TertuUian. Like many other Greek Christians of the
! " Dogmeng." vol. iS p. 403. Loops, " Leitfaden," p. 167, adopts the
theory of Harnack. For a less absolute judgment, cf. Hort and Mayor,
"Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, Book VII" (London, 1902), pp.
xxii- xlvii (against Harnack and Hatch). 246

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 247
second century, he has travelled a great deal : he has visited
Italy, Greece, the East, Palestine; he settles down for a
whUe, probably about the year 180, at Alexandria, and there
he resides until the year 202 or 203, when he retires per
haps to Jerusalem. Hence, Clement's ecclesiology does not
represent that of Alexandria and of the Alexandrians only,
and his testimony — if it be what Harnack claims it is — would
also express the mind of Greek Christendom; and yet we
have seen that the latter, with Dionysius of Corinth and
Hegesippus, held the common view.
But Harnack's judgment in the present instance seem's to
us more marked by tendency than any other : Clement, we
venture to say, is both an orthodox Gnostic and an orthodox
traditionalist, and, once this dualism is admitted, it becomes
easy to discover in his traditional orthodoxy the very same
characteristics as we have found in that of Irenseus ; only
we must first extract them from the intolerable diffuseness
of his writings which have been preserved, and from the
scanty information that can be obtained regarding those of
them which have been lost. * *
*
Clement's " Hypotyposes," a work as important as his
" Stromata," was a doctrinal exposition based on the Scrip
tures of the Old and the New Testament, including besides,
as Eusebius tells us, some books the canonicity of which
is disputed, such as the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle of Bar
nabas, the " other Catholic Epistles," the Apocalypse of Peter
and the Epistle to the Hebrews which Clement ascribes to
St. Paul. The "Hypotyposes" contained, it is thought, a
defence of the canon of the New Testament : in which
Clement strove to prove the Apostolic authenticity of the
Epistle to the Hebrews,! a,n(j gave an account of the origin
of the second Gospel which connected it through Mark
with the Apostle Peter who sanctioned that Gospel with
his Apostolic authority, "for reading in the Churches".^
Eusebius observes that Papias uses the same argument.
' Euseb. " H. E.," vi. 14, 1.
"Ibid. II. 15, 2. After these declarations, we faU to understand
how some critics can suggest that Clement was unacquainted with the
canon of the New Testament (in the sense of Irenseus, TertuUian, and the

248 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Clement states that he has these reminiscences con
cerning the origin of the New Testament from " the tradi
tion of the presbyters of old," and in giving his authority
for what he relates concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews
he uses the formula so dear to Irenseus : "as the blessed
presbyter used to say".! Here we have an indication of
Clement's method in these matters of tradition, and of the
reverence he pays to the sayings of the presbyters. Ac
cording to Eusebius, Clement says in his work Ilepl toD
¦n-daxa that he has been constrained by his hearers to
write down the traditions gathered from the ancient pres
byters, among whom he reckons Melito, Irenseus, and some
others.2 Later on, Alexander of Jerusalem wUl give
Clement himself the title of "blessed presbyter".^
At the request of Alexander of Jerusalem, Clement
composed a work, of which the title alone has been pre
served : Kavav iKKX7)aia<rTCKb<; rj Trpo? lovBa't^ovTa^. This
might seem to be a treatise against the Quartodecimans,
but Clement had already written a treatise about the Passover,
Jerusalem had accepted the principle of keeping that feast
on Sunday, and the Easter-controversy was over when Alex
ander had Clement with him at Jerusalem : so many reasons
for believing that the treatise in question was not directed
against the Quartodecimans. It was directed then against
the Judseo-Christians ; and from this it may be inferred that
the "ecclesiastical canon " which it defends is the ecclesias-
" Muratorianum "), and that not until the time of Origen did Alexandria
reach the point which Rome had reached some forty years before. The
discussion (Zahn, Harnack) on the canon of the New Testament as ac
cepted by Clement, is summed up by Bardenhewer, vol. ii. pp. 59-61.
Cf. Zahn, "Grundriss," pp. 41-4. The demonstration would be more
conclusive if the hypothesis of Dom Chapman, who suggests we should
look upon the " Muratorianum " as a fragment of the " Hypotyposes,''
were accepted. Chapman, " L'auteur du canon Muratorien," in the
' ' Revue benedictine," 1904, pp. 240-64. But, to my mind, that view is not
probable. ^ Eusbb. vi. 14, 4.
" Ibid. VI. 13, 9 : as ervxe napd r^i' dpxaiav npea^vrepav aKtjKoas
napaSoaeis. ^Ibid. VI. 11, 6. The sayings ascribed to the presbyters by Irenseus
and by others have been collected by various scholars, particularly by
Funk, "Patres Apostol." vol. n. pp. 301-14,

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 249
tical rule and standard of faith, as demanding, not a literal,
but a spiritual interpretation of the Sacred Writings.! The
expression itself, " ecclesiastical canon," already reveals an
idea of the Church which connects Clement with all the
presbyters we know of.
Besides, the idea of ecclesiastical rule or canon is familiar
to Clement. Some heretics refuse to make use of wine in
the eucharist, and " take for the offering bread and water,
contrary to the canon of the Church ".^ Hence, as regards
the Sacraments, the canon of the Church must be followed,
and heretics are condemned by the very fact that they trans
gress this canon. Clement then recognizes the antithesis
between the canon and heresy. Elsewhere he writes : " We
must never, as do those who embrace the heresies, do
violence to the truth or defraud the canon of the Church ".^
What is this ecclesiastical canon? It is, answers
Clement, "the concord and harmony of the Law and the
Prophets [on the one side], and of the Testament delivered
in accordance with the presence of the Lord";* in other
words, to use the well-known trilogy, it is the harmony of the
Prophets, the Lord and the Apostles : perhaps an allusion to
the contradictions denounced by Marcion. "Liars, then,
are . . . those who, by forsaking the fundamental doctrines
reject the Lord, as far as in them lies, and corrupt the true
teaching of the Lord; who discuss and teach the Scrip
tures in a manner unworthy of God and of the Lord : for
the deposit we have to render to God, according to the
'Kattenbusch, vol. ii. p. 176.
2 "Stromat." i. 10 (Migne, "P. G." vol. vra. p. 813): pij Kard rbv
Kavova rijs iKKXtjaias.
'" Stromat. " VII. 16 (ix. 545): ov xPV nore, KaBdnep oi ras aipeaets
/ieriovTts notovai, jiotxe-vetv rijv dXtjBeiav ovSe pijv KXenretv rbv Kavova rijs
eKKXtjaias. We may recall the rigorous character of the penitential dis
cipline against fornication and "defrauding". On the fundamental
purpose of the Kavav iKKXrjaiaartKos or Kavav rijs iKKXrjaias in Clement's
writings, cf. Kattenbusch, vol. ii. pp. 110-29.
'' " Stromat." VI. 15 (ix. 349 A) : Kavav Se eKKXtjataariKbs tj avvaSia
Kal ij avfufiavia voftov re Kal npo(^tjTav rrj Kard rtjv tov Kvptov napovatav
napaSiSopevtj StadijKtj. See also "Stromat." VI. 11 (309 C), in which the
" ecclesiastical symphony " is described as the accord of the Prophets, the
Apostles and the Gospel.

250 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
teaching of the Lord by His Apostles, is the understand
ing and practice of the religious tradition."! Preach on
the housetops," the Saviour said: i.e. "explain the Scrip
tures according to the canon of the truth "? Still more
accurately : " [He who wishes to be saved] must believe
. . . the disciples of God, and trust in God, in the
Prophets, the Gospels, the Apostolic words "? The
" canon of the truth " is the same as " the canon of the
tradition" or the "canon of the Church": it is a fixed and
exclusive doctrine, and not merely the symbol used in the
baptismal liturgy, which is only a catechetical formula and
summary of that teaching.
Clement comments as follows on the narrative of the
vessel of perfume poured on the Saviour's feet : —
" This mxiy be a sym,bol of the Lord's teaching, and of
His passion. For the feet anointed with that fragrant
ointment signify the divine instruction which travels glori
ously to the ends ef the earth. . . . And if I seem not to
insist too much, the feet ef the Lord which were anointed
with this myrrh are the Apostles whe have, according to the
prophecy of the fragrant unction, received the Holy Ghost.
The Apostles, therefore, whe travelled over the world and
preached the Gospel, are, allegorically, the feet of the Lord." *
The preaching of the Gospel to the whole world is then
the work of the Apostles.^ Prophecy was full of " gnosis,"
'" Stromat." VI. 15 (843 B) : -irevarai . . . ot elsraKvpimTaranapa-rrin-
Tovres . . . dnoarepovvres Se rov Kvpiov rijv dXtjBij SiSaaKcAiav . . .
'n.apaBtjKtj . . . tj Kara rrjv rov Kvp'tov SiSaaKoXiav Sta roiv anoaroXav avrav,
rijs Beoae^ovs napaSoaeas avveais.
"Ibid. (C) : Kara rbv ttjs dXtjBeias Kavova Staaa(j>ovvTes rds ypa^as,
" Stromat." I. 1 (vill. 704 C) : Kara rbv rijs napaSoaeas Kavova.
'"Quis div. salv." 42 (ix. 652 A): npo<j)t)Teiais, evayyeXiois, Xoyois
dnoaroXtKols. ' " Stromat." n. 8 (viii. 465). Of. " Stromat." vn. 12 (lx. 501 0).
The Holy Ghost bestowed on the Apostles, continues to work in the
Church. If the " Excerpta ex scriptis Theodoti " are extracts made hy
Clement intermingled with his remarks, we may consult " Excerpt.'
24 (ix. 672), where the author affirms the presence and working of the
Spirit in the Church, of that same Spirit which worked through the
Prophets of the Old Testament. Compare " Eclog. prophet." 23 (ix. 708).
^ Clement quotes often the Ktjpvypa nirpov, an apocryphal work
which, according to some critics, was composed in Egypt in the first

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 251
of that " gnosis," which was revealed through the Lord to
the Apostles, " James, Peter, John, Paul," ! and which has
reached us from the Apostles, handed down unwritten, by a
succession limited to a few individuals.^ In these obscure
words, Clement designates the teaching of presbyters hke
Mehto and Irenseus, or better still of Pantsenus and the others
spoken of at the begiiming of the "Stromata". "They
preserved," he v?rites, " the tradition of the blessed doctrine
[of Christ], received directly from the holy Apostles, Peter,
James, John and Paul." ^
The teaching of the presbyters derives its authority from
the apostles who have left it as an inheritance that has
come dowm to us by succession {Kara Bi,aBoxd<;). We must
grant that in this passage it is not, strictly speaking, the
succession of the bishops in general which is referred to ; for,
unlike Melito and Irenseus, neither Pantasnus nor Clement
himself is a bishop. But Clement justifies the teaching of
the presbyters — whom he does not distinguish from the
quarter of the second century. Now this K-tjpvypa had already insisted on
the fundamental part played by th» Apostles : it gave the instructions
of the Saviour concerning the preaching of the Gospel ; the Apostles were
told to preach it to Israel first, and to devote twelve years to that work :
after these twelve years, they were to tum to the Gentile world.
" Stromat." vi. 5. Clement may have taken from the same source what
he says of the preaching of the Apostles, of all the Apostles, in Limbo.
Ibid. 6 (rx. 268 A). At all events it is from this source he borrowed
the discourse of the risen Saviour to the Twelve. Ibid. (269 C). These
texts may be found in Dobschutz, " Kerygma Petri," pp. 22-3.
^ " Stromat." vi. 8 (ix. 289 C).
" Ibid. 7 (284 A) : 17 yvaais Se avrtj, tj Kara SiaSoxds els oXiyovs Kal t-Sv
dnoaroXav dypd<f)as napaSoBelaa, KareX-rjXvBev. Cf . ' ' Excerpt. Theodot.
66 (IX. 689), and " Eclog. prophet." 59 (728).
' " Stromat." I. 1 (vm. 700) : rtjv dXtjBlj rijs paKapias aa^ovres SiSaa
KaXias napdSoaiv, evBiis dnb nirpov k.t.X. Ab to Peter's primacy over the
other Apostles, we may recall what Clement writes in the VIHth book
of his " Hypotyposes " : " Christ is said to have baptized Peter alone ;
and Peter, Andrew ; and Andrew, James and John ; and they, the rest."
"P. G." vol. rs. col. 745 C (taken from the "Spiritual Meadow").
Elsewhere Clement caUs Peter " the chosen, the pre-eminent, the first of
the disciples (o nparos rav paBtjrav), for whom alone, along with Himself,
the Saviour paid tribute." "Quis div. salv." 21. In the book of
"Hypotyposes," Clement thinks he knows that the Cephas St. Paul
withstood to the face was not the Apostle Peter, but one of the seventy
disciples. Eusbb. " H. E." i. 12, 2.

252 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
bishops — by the same consideration as Irenseus, Hegesippus,
Papias, and Polycarp employed to justify the teaching of the
bishops and the faith of the churches.!
The Episcopate, which is distinct from the Apostolate,
dates back from the Apostles : " Peter and James and John,
after the ascension of our Saviour, even though preferred by our
Lord, strove not after honour, but chose James the Just, to be
Bishop of Jerusalem." ^ Alluding to a phrase in the Pastoral
Epistles (1 Tim. iii. 4, 5), Clement writes: "Bishops, says
[St. Paul], must be appointed, who know, after [ruling]
their own house, how to rule the whole Church ; " ^ for the
Church is both ruling and ruled. On one side is the people.^
On the other are the pastors of this people, the " heads of
the Churches," including under this name of heads both
bishops and priests : " We who preside over the Churches are
shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you are
the sheep."'
" Such an one is truly a presbyter of the Church, and a
true minister {deacon) ef the will of God, if he de and teach
what is the Lord's : and he is deemed righteous not as being
elected by men or because he is a presbyter, but is enrolled in
the presbyterate because he is righteous. And even if here
upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will sit
on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the people, as John
says in the Apocalypse. . . . For the order [which we see here
below] in the Church, of bishops, priests, deacons, is, in my
opinion, an imitation of the angelic glory, and of that
economy which, the Scriptures say, awaits these who, follow
ing the footsteps ef the Apostles, have lived in perfection of
righteousness according to the Gospel. For these taken up in
1 As to the " presbyters " in Clement (cf. " Eclog. prophet." 27 (ix.
712) and 56 (724).
" Quoted from the sixth both of the " Hypotyposes,'' by Eusbb.
"H. E."n. 1, 3.
^ " Stromat." in. 12 (vil. 1180 A) : rov iSiov o'ikov koI rijs iKKXtjaias
dndatjs npotaraaBai. Cf. ibid. 18 (1212 B).
^Ibid. I. 1 (vm. 692 B). Cf. "Stromat." in. 12 (vm. 1189 C) :
npea^vrepos, SidKovos, Xa'tKos.
" "Peedagog." I. 6 (vill. 293 D) : e'ire noipives iapev oi tSj' iKKX-ijaimv
npoTjyovpevot, Kar elKova tou dyaBov noipevos, rd Se npo^ara rjjiels (so
Staehlin). Sylburg suggests that we should read vpels.

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 253
the clouds, the Apostle writes, will first minister as deacons,
then be classed in the presbyterate, by promotion ef glory (fer
glory differs from glory), till they grow into a perfect man." ^
The absence of distinction which Clement apparently
leaves between the priests and the bishop is most worthy of
notice: the presbyterium is an honour, a glory to which
they are raised together : ^ the bishop is the presbyter to
whom the rrpaTOKaOeBpla has been granted. Elsewhere,
however, the distinction between the various degrees of the
hierarchy is clearly stated. "Innumerable commands . . .
are written in the Holy Bible," says Clement,^ "appertaining
to chosen persons, some to presbyters, some to bishops,
some to deacons, others to widows."
In the beautiful story of St. John, found at the end
of the " Quis dives salvetur," the Apostle is represented as
visiting a Church near Ephesus, which he had probably
founded. At the head of that Church there is one, and only
one " episcopus " to whom the Apostle entrusts the youth
he has brought to the faith. The bishop instructs the young
man and finally baptizes him. After the new Christian has
been perverted and has gone away, John arrives and asks
what has become of him : "0 bishop, restore to us the
deposit which I and the Saviour committed to thee in the
presence of the Church over which thou dost preside " (ri}?
eKKXr)a-[a<; rj<; TrpoKaOe^fi) . All the Churches in Clement's
time were certainly organized after the model of that Johan
nine Church.
Baptism imparts the forgiveness of sins and the know
ledge of God. The catechesis is the foundation of faith.*
' "Stromat.'' VI. 13 (ix. 238) : . . . ovxvn' dvBpanav x^i-porovovpevos,
oiiS' Sri npea^vrepos, SiKaios vopi^opevos, dXX' on SIkoios iv npea^vrepia
Kardkeyopevos • k&v ivravBa ini yfjs nparoKaBeSpia pij rtprjBrj k.t.X. — ai ivravBa
Kara rtjv iKKXtjaiav npoKonal iniaKonav, npea^vrepav, SiaKOvav, piptjpara
ayy eXiKijs Sd^jjj k.t.X.
"Ibid. VII. 1 (ix. 405 A), has the same absence of distinction.
'"Paedagog." III. 12 (vm. 677 A) : vnoBiJKat els npoaana iKXeKrd
Stareivovaai, . . . ai pev npeafivrepois, ai Se entaKonots, ai Se SiaKOVotc, aXAat
Xtjpais, nepl S>v aXXos &v eXrj Xfyfiv Katpos.
* Ibid. I. 6 (vm. 296 A) : tj ttiotis els BepeXtov «k Kartjxrjaeas
avvearpappevtj. Cf. "Eclog. prophet." 28 (iX. 713): ovk eari ntarevaat
avev Karrjxrjaeas.

254 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Faith is trained by Baptism and by the Holy Ghost. The
grace of Baptism makes a man entirely different from what
he was before being baptized.! Baptism conferred by the
heretics is not a true, a legitimate baptism : its waters are
like those of a river that loses itself in the sea, together
with all those who give up the solid ground of truth.^
Hence Baptism is truly a new birth, and there is no legiti
mate birth outside the Church, which alone possesses,
together with the truth, the Holy Spirit. Clement de
signates the authentic Christians by this title : " those of
the Church ".^ There are martyrs only for them and
among them. The elect are to be found only vrithin the
bosom of the Church.* God's will is creative, and we caU it
the cosmos : but it wills also the salvation of men, and as
such it is called the Church.^ * *
*
The word Church designates the local Church, properly
speaking the synaxis, i.e. the gathering of the faithful:
ecclesia is used in this sense, just as is the word agora."
The word Church serves also to designate the number of
the elect received into Heaven: "Yea, 0 Instructor [and
Divine Shepherd], lead us [as Thy flock] to Thy holy
mountain the Church, which towers aloft, which is above
the clouds, which touches heaven." ^ This " heavenly
Church," which is unseen and above the earth, is the most
real of aU things ; * it contrasts with the Church upon earth
just as a reality contrasts with its image ; in this case the
image, the shadow, is the visible Church, the Church that is
here below. ^
1 "Psedagog." i. 6 (viii. 285).
" " Stromat." I. 19 (vm. 813 A) : to ^dnrtapa to atperiKbv ovk otKelov
Kalyv-fjaiov vSap. — 6 napeKrpanels ck rijs Kar dXrjBetav eSpatortjros. (These
words recall 1 Tim. m. 15.)
^Ibid. IV. 9 (viiL 1284 B) and 12 (1293 B).
^ " Pffidagog." II. 10 (vm. 529 B).
'^ Ibid. I. 6 (vm. 281 B) : ms to BeXtjpa avrov epyov iari, Kai
toOto Koapos ovopd^erat, ovra koi rb ^ovXrjpa avrov dvBpanav iarl aartjpia,
Kal TOVTO iKKXtjaia KeKXtjrat.
8 Ibid. n. 10 (vra. 512 B) and in. 11 (657, A).
' Ibid. I. 9 (vm. 352 A). s Ibid. n. 1 (viu. 382 A).
'"Stromat." iv. 8 (vill. 1277 B) : eUav rijs ovpaviov iKKXtjaias tj
iniyetos.

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 255
More universal than any philosophy, the word of the
Divine Master " was diffused through the whole world, gaining
over both Greeks and barbarians, in every people and town,
bringing in here an entire city, there whole houses, . . . and
not a few of the philosophers themselves " .! Does not Clement
seem to have in his mind St. Ignatius of Antioch, when he
VTrites : " The altar that is with us here, the terrestrial one,
is the congregation of those who devote themselves to prayer,
having as it were one common voice and one mind. . . .
The Church truly draws but one breath".^ Universality
and unity : these are the two aspects under which Clement
considers the earthly Church ; hence he often uses this ex
pression: "thewhole Church". In the state of marriage,
the husband is the crown of the wife. " And the crown of
the whole Church is Christ."^
This Church, one and universal, hierarchical and apostolic
both in origin and teaching, is for Clement the Uving
and triumphant antithesis of heresy. Clement quotes from
the Epistle to the Ephesians the text in which St. Paul
expresses his sincere wish that the faithful should not be
hke chUdren carried to and fro by surging waves, tossed
to and fro by every wind of doctrine.
" [Paul] says these things for the edification of the body of
Christ who is the head [of the body] and the spouse [of the
Church], the only one perfect in righteousness : and as for us,
we are the children, guarding ourselves against the blasts of
heresies that are filled with infatuation ; not putting eur
trust in those v)he teach us otherwise than our fathers [did],
and being made perfect, when we are the Church, with Christ
for the head ".*
1 " Stromat." vi. 18 (ix. 400 B).
" Ibid. VII. 6 (iX. 444) : eart rb nap' rjplv dvaiaarfjptov ivravBa
TO iniyeiov rb aBpotapa Trnv rals evxals dvaKetpevav, piav aanep 'exov (l>avtjv
rfjv Kotvijv Kal piav yvaptjv. — 'H avpnvota Se ini rrjs iKKXtjaias Xeyerai
Kvpias. ^ " Psedagog." ll. 8 (vii. 480 B) : rijs avpndatjs iKKXtjaias aTe(j)avos 6
Xpiaros. " Stromat." ra. 11 (1173 B) : eXre 6 koB' cKaarov tjpav, to-f koi
dBpoa fj eKKXrjaia. Ib. IV. 8 (1272 A) : 7rao-a 17 iKKXtjaia.
* Ibid. I. 5 (vra. 269 C) : iapev iKKXtjaia. Clement states that
we are perfect, in the order of gnosis, when we are the Church, for there
is no other perfect gnosis than the " ecclesiastical gnosis ".

256 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Elsewhere, commenting on a text of Proverbs, he
writes as foUows : —
" He who relies on falsehoods feeds the winds and pursues
winged birds [Prov. ix. 12]. I do not think that the Logos
says this of philosophy . . . but against the heresies. For
it is added : He forsakes the ways of his own vineyard, and
loses himself in the tracks of his own lands. Such are
[the heresies] which desert the Church that is from, the begin
ning." !
In another place, he speaks as follows of the Church
regarded as the spouse of God : —
"... The wife, i.e. the Church. She must be pure from
all the inner thoughts that are contrary to the truth, and
from all the outer thoughts that assail it. Imean the followers
ef heresies, who would fain persuade her to become adulter
ous and be unfaithful to her only spouse, God Almighty.
The serpent deceived Eve, Eve who was called life : we at
least must net transgress the commands, by allowing our
selves to be deceived by the active perfidy of heresies." ^
Again he writes from a more philosophical point of
view : —
" Now, since there are three states of the soul — ignorance,
opinion, knowledge — those who are in ignorance are the
nations, those in knowledge the true Church, and those in
opinion the heretics. . . .
" We have learned that pleasure, which is attributed
to the nations, is one thing ; and wrath, which is supreme
among the heretical sects, is another; and joy, which is
characteristic of the Church, another ; and delight, which is
to be assigned to the true Gnostic, another." ^
Therefore, when compared with heresies, the Church is
the lawful, the chaste, the faithful spouse : heresies assail
her from the outside. The Church is the truth: heresies
are the opinion that changes like the wind.
' " Stromat." I. 19 (vm. 812 C) : rds aipeaets inippani^et . . . airai
Se elaiv at rijv i^ dpxijs anoXeinovaat iKKXtjaiav.
" Ibid. III. 12 (vm. 1180 B) : rav re e^aBev neipa^ovrav, roureari
Trnv rds aipeaets fifridj/TCOi'.
^Ibid. VII. 16 (ix. 540) : oi iv rtj^iniarijpti rj iKKXtjaia rj dXtjBtjs,
oi Se iv olijaei oJ Kard TUf aipeaets.

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 257
" Is the demonstration needed ? It is necessary to come
to the questions [raised by heretics], and to dem,onstrate
from the Scriptures themselves how the heresies failed, and
how in the truth alone and in the ancient Church is both the
most exact gnosis and the truly best ' heresy ' (i.e. choice). . . .
" We know that heresies are necessarily so called because
they are opposed to the truth ; from which truth the sophists
[for such are the heretics) have, to the misfortune of men,
taken certain elements and mingled them with inventions and
artifices of their own ; and having dene this they glory in
being a school rather than a Church." !
Clement's method becomes more explicit : the Church
represents knowledge {e7riaT'i]fj,rj) , as opposed to mere opinion.
Clement strives to show it by means of a discussion, in which
he is willing to take the same ground as his opponents :
and so prove to them that the most accurate gnosis is the
traditional teaching, and that of all " heresies " the one we
should " choose " is orthodoxy. Clement's attitude is novel
and bold : but these concessions made to heresy, and, after
all, to the ever-recurring demands of controversy, are a mere
tactical expedient, which detracts in no degree from the
rightful claims of the " old Church," presided over by the
presbyters, to possess the deposit of the revealed faith.
We insist purposely on the anti-heretical character of
Clement's ecclesiology, for the Protestant authors of histories
of dogma take delight in denying it that character. In their
eyes, TertuUian and Irenseus are Catholics, because they re
quire an external standard of faith, and their Christianity is
essentiaUy a system of doctrinal enactments ; but Clement
is a Protestant, or at least — for those who hesitate to use
this term — a mystic : " Clement's Christianity is the Spirit,
which inspires him, guides him, and mostly determines his
choice of the various elements which he borrows from
Philosophy." 2 Thus is found at Alexandria, towards the
year 200, the "religion of the Spirit" and Liberal Pro-
!" Stromat." VII. 15 (iX. 528): iv povtj rfj dXrjBeia koI rrj dpxaia
iKKXtjaia 17 re dKpi^eardrrj yvaats Kal tj ra ovri dpiartj yvaais ¦ avxovat
npotaraaBai Starpt^ijs pdXXov fj iKKXtjaias.
" E. DB Faye, " Clement d'Alexandrie " (Paris, 1898), p. 298 and foU.
The same view is taken by C. Bigg, "The Christian Platonists of
Alexandria " (Oxford, 1886), especially p. 101.
17

258 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
testantism, in contrast with Catholicism which, about the
same time, triumphantly prevails at Carthage, Eome and
Lyons. This theory disturbs the equilibrium of Clement's doctrine.
For him, revelation and philosophy are co-ordinated under
three terms : the first is philosophy, whose mission it is to
purify the soul, to elevate it moraUy, thus to prepare
it for the reception of faith ; the second is faith itself ; the
third is gnosis, that gnosis which truth builds up on the
foundation of faith.! This distinction is of the greatest im
portance. What motive have we for saying that Clement
discards the central term, faith, for the profit of the two
others ? For that Clement receives that faith in no other
way than TertuUian and Irenseus, we have aheady shown,
and we shall prove it still more conclusively.
" Those who attack grave questions will inevitably fall
into grave errors unless they receive from the Truth itself ihe
rule of the truth. Such people, in consequence of falling
away from, the right path, err in many points ; as you might
expect from their not having the criterion by which to judge
what is true and what false. . . .
" As if a m,an should, like those drugged by Circe, become
an animal, so, he, who has spurned the ecclesiastical tradi
tion, and embraced the opinions of heretical men, has ceased
to be a man of God and te remain faithful to the Lord. . . .
For we have, as the source ef doctrine, the Lord, who by the
Prophets, the Gospel, and the blessed Apostles, 'in diverse
manners and sundry times' [Heb. i. 1] leads us from the
beginning of the gnosis to the end. But if one should sup
pose that another principle was required, then no longer
could the principle be truly kept sound. . . . The Scripture
and voice of the Lord, such is our criterion in the discovery
of the things [ef gnosis]. . . . The principle is above all
discussion." ^
^ " Stromat." vn. 3 (ix. 424 C) : (ptXoaocjiia fj eXXtjviKtj olov npoKoBaipei
Kal npoeBiret rijv -^vxijv els napaSoxijv niareas, i<l> tj ttjv yvaaiv inoiKoSopei
rj dXrjBeia. On this co-ordination of faith and of gnosis with philosophy,
cf. Bardenhewer, vol. ii. pp. 56-8.
-'Ibid. VIL 16 (ix. 532). In view of these texts, Harnack
("Dogmeng,'' i^, 413) grants that "the empirical conception of the

THE CASE OP CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 259
Clement does not speak here of philosophical pro-
psedeutics : he speaks of the faith, and of the gnosis that is
built on the faith. Now, as that gnosis is also claimed by
the heretics, what is the difference between the heretical and
the ecclesiastical gnosis ? The heretics have no respect for the
canon of truth, they have no criterion of truth, because they
repudiate the ecclesiastical tradition {¦n-apdBoat'; iicKXrjffiaa--
TiK-rj). What is meant by this tradition? It is the Trto-rt?,
which here Clement calls dpx-n '¦ it is the teaching of the
Prophets, of the Gospel, of the Apostles ; or again, it is the
Scripture and voice of the Lord. Faith, or revelation is,
then, the starting-point of reflexion, of speculation, in a word
of the gnosis, which is our work, our contribution, our in
vention (eupeo-t?). In this work of discovery, Greek philo
sophy may have a legitimate place and function ; ! far from
being for the Christian a cause of the loss of his faith, it will
strengthen his faith : " We shall not be torn away by it from
the roots of our faith . . . but rather, if we may so say, we
shall find in it a fuller protection and a kind of exercise which
furnishes a demonstration of our faith ".2 Still, we must not
forget that, for Clement, this exegetical and theological
superstructure rests on the faith contained in the ecclesiasti
cal tradition. Christ's teaching is truly the only and neces
sary foundation,^ and no other gnosis than that which
Clement calls eKKXrjaiaa-riKf) yvma-v; can be accepted.*
" For us, then, he alone is a gnostic, who has grown eld
Church, which regards her as the institution in possession of the true
doctrine, was . . . completely adopted by Clement " : " but," he adds,
" Clement employed it simply in polemics and not in positive teach
ings "- I hope to show that this is not a true account of Clement's
thought. ^" Stromat." i. 1 (vra. 705) and 20i(816-7).
" Ibid. I. 2 (viii. 709 B) : avyyvpvaaiav rtva niareas dnoSeiK-
TlKtJV. 3 Cf. " Cohort, ad Gent." 11 (vni. 228 and foil.).
^"Stromat." vii. 16 (ix. 544 A). How can Harnack say {loe. cit.)
that Clement ascribes to his own gnosis a value independent of the
Catholic Church ? The same erroneous view is found in Loops (op. cit.
p. 171), who draws attention to the contrast between " the inner freedom
of the personal Christianity " of Clement, and the great ecclesiasticism
(" Kirchlichkeit ") of Origen, his disciple. 17*

260 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
in [the study of] the Sacred Scriptures, maintaining the apos
tolic and ecclesiastic rectitude of doctrines." !
Can we wish for a declaration that could be more in
keeping with the thought of Irenseus and could reassure us
better as to the nature of Clement's " gnosticism " ? Still
we will cite another. The heretics, Clement writes, make a
wrong use of the Divine discourses of Holy Writ, and thus
neither enter into the kingdom of Heaven nor let others
reach the truth.
" Not having the key of entrance, but a false and (as the
common phrase expresses it) counterfeit key, they do not enter
in as we enter in, by drawing aside the curtain,^ that is, the
tradition of the Lord, but by making an opening in the side,
piercing clandestinely through the wall ef the Church, and
stepping over the truth, they constitute themselves the mysta-
gogues of the souls of the impious.
" For that the human assemblies which they hold are
posterior to the Catholic Church,^ requires net many words
te show. The teaching of Our Lord during His presence
[upon earth], beginning with Augustus and Tiberius, was
completed in the middle of the reign of Tiberius [14-37] : the
teaching of the Apostles of the Lord, embracing the ministry
of Paul, ends under Nero [54-68]. It was at the earliest in
the times of Hadrian [117-138], that those who invented the
heresies arose, and they continued te the time of Antoninus
the elder [138-161], as fer instance, did Basilides, though
he claims for his master Glaucias, a pretended interpreter
ef Peter, as [these heretics] boast ; likewise tee Valentinus,
who, they allege, was a disciple of Theodas, a self-styled
pupil of Paul ; so also Marcion . . .*
! " Stromat.'' vn. 16 : rtjv anoaroXiKijv Kal iKKXrjaiaariKijv aa^iov
opBoTopiav Tcov Soypdrav.
" Sta rijs ToO Kvpiov napaSoaeas eXatpev.
^ on perayevearepas TJj? Ka^oXtK^ff iKKXtjaias rds dvBpanivas avvtjXvaets
nenoitjKaatv. ^ Three lines follow on the text of which editors do not agree. Hort
and Mayor substitute "Mark" for "Marcion," and propose to read:
" Mark the evangelist was more ancient than Glaucias and Theudas, so-
called disciples of the Apostles. He was more ancient even than Simon,
who most assuredly heard Peter." This Simon (Magus) was the first
heretic.

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 261
" Such being the case, it is evident that these later heresies
and [with still greater reason] those subsequent to them in
time, are novelties and corruptions as compared with the
eldest and truest Church.^
"From what has been said, it is my opinion that the
true Church, that which is really ancient, is one, and that in
it those who are truly just are enrolled ; since for the very
reason that God is one, and the Lord one, that which is
in the highest degree venerable is lauded because it is
single, imitating in this its source which is one. The
Church then is associated to the nature of unity which
they [i.e. the heretics] strive to divide into many heresies."^
" Therefore, in substance, in idea, in principle, in pre
eminence, we sa-y that the ancient and catholic Church ^ is
alone, in the unity of the one faith, which is according to the
Testaments. . . . The preeminence ef the Church, as well as
the principle of its constitution, is in this oneness,^ and it sur
passes all things else, and has nothing like or equal to itself.
"As te the heresies, seme bear a person's name, as those
which are called after Valentinus, after Marcion, after
Basilides although they boast ef possessing the teaching of
Matthias ; ^ for as the teaching of all the Apostles was one,
so also the tradition [of that teaching] is one. Some take
their designation from, a place, as the Peratici ; seme, from,
a race, as the Phrygians; some, from, a virtue, as the
Encratites ; and seme, from, their peculiar dogmas, as the
Docetae. . . ." ^
The opposition between the Church and the heresies
' rijs npoyeveardrtjs Kal dXtjBeardrtjs iKKXtjaias.
" The Greek text is as follows : ipavepbv olpat yeyevijadai, piav eivat
rijv dXtjBrj iKKXtjaiav, rijv ra oi/Tt dpxaiav • ... To aKpas Ti/iiof koto rtjv
/idvooo-tj/ inaivelrai, piptjpa ov dpxijs rijs ptds ¦ Tfj youi' ToO evbs <f>vaet avyKXtf-
povrai iKKXtjaia ij pia, fjv els jroWaj Kararipveiv ^id^ovrat aipeaets.
^ povtjv eivat (jiapev rijv dpxaiav Kal KaBoXiK-^v iKKXtjaiav.
'^rj i^oxi] rijs iKKXtjaias, KaBdnep jj dpxtj Trjs avardaeas, Kara rijv povdSa
iari. 5 Clement alludes to the napaSoaets, wrongly ascribed to St. Matthias.
This apocryphal writing, which dates from the first quarter of the second
century and was held in great esteem by the school of Basilides, is often
quoted by Clement. Prbuschen, " Antilegomena," pp. 13, 15.
" " Stromat." vii. 17. Hort and Mayor, pp. 188-90.

262 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
can hardly be more strongly emphasized. Against the
many heresies that strive to oppose her, the Church stands
one,! because of her very constitution, her principle, her
origin, the idea of her divine founder. Against the heresies,
all of recent formation, the Church stands, the first-born,
ancient, true, worthy of respect, holy, to whom alone the
just belong, as to her alone belongs the teaching of the
Apostles, of all the Apostles, in an authentic tradition.
One, holy, apostolic, she is besides catholic : this last word,
which is missing in Irenseus, is actually uttered by Clement.^
She is also, we may add, the Mother Church.
" 0 mysterious wonder ! One is the Father of the uni
verse, one the Spirit Who is everywhere, and one is the only
virgin mother. I love te call the Church by this name, . . .
pure as a virgin, leving as a mother." ^
Utterances of mystical enthusiasm are these, it is true,
like those of St. Ignatius of Antioch ; but they have an
object as directly perceptible as the heresies, since their pur
pose is to proclaim more emphatically the contrast between the
unity of the Church, on one hand, and the multiplicity of
heresies, on the other. We readily grant that, unhke
Irenseus, Clement does not dwell on the bonds that bind
together all the members of this large body ; still it remains
beyond dispute that the Catholic Church, as conceived and
described by Clement, possesses a rule of faith, a standard
of liturgy, a canon of the Scriptures, a common tradition.
Again if in this empiric Catholicism, episcopacy is not as
clearly brought forward as it is in the writings of Irenseus,
it is well for us to remember that no more stress is placed
on the various churches, those single units whose total sum
makes up empiric Catholicism. Yet, they do exist, as so
many individuals, and their individual unity has for its guar-
^ The reader will find a remarkable development of this idea of the
unity ot the Church in " Psedagog." i. 4 (vm. 260) and in "Stromat."
III. 11 (vra. 1172). Hence it is not possible to share Harnack's view,
" Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 412, and say that Clement changes his concep
tion of the Church, beginning with chapter 15 of " Stromat." vii. The
" Stromata " (about 208-11) was the latest work of Clement.
" Kattenbusch, vol. n. p. 926, does his utmost to explain the word
KadoXiKtj in the sense of toC Beov.
'-' " Paedagog." i. 6 (vra. 300 B).

THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 263
antee the monarchical episcopate which, like the churches
themselves, owes its origin to the Apostles. Abundant as
may be the share assigned, in those of Clement's works
that have reached us, to philosophical propsedeutics, on one
hand, and to ecclesiastical gnosis, on the other, the framework
of the faith is the same for him as for Irenseus ; his Church
is both hierarchical and anti-heretical.
Perhaps, after the perusal of the previous pages, some
may hesitate to say with Mr. Bigg: "No echo of the strife
which was raging at his time for the triumph of the hier
archy penetrated the tranquil seclusion in which Clement
lectured and composed. He reflects with calm fidelity the
image of the bygone times in which he had himself been
reared. His heart is wdth the republic ; he is the Samuel
of the new monarchy."!
!BiGG, " Christian Platonists," pp. 100-1. For a more complete de
scription of the episcopal regime at the time of Clement, we might refer to
what is known, especially through Eusebius, " H. E." vi. 12, of Serapion,
who was Bishop of Antioch between the years 190 and 211. We might
also recall two most striking incidents related by Hippolytus in the
" Comment, on Daniel," xvm. and xix. (" Hippolytus W^erke," vol. i. 1,
pp. 230-4). These facts, the first of which refers to a Bishop of Syria,
the second, to a Bishop of Pontus, show that in each Church the bishop
was everything, and that, if he had a rather limited measure of common-
sense, he could draw all his Church after him into such extravagances as
those described by Hippolytus. The " Commentary on Daniel " was
written in the year 204, and therefore dates exactly from Clement's epoch.

CHAPTEE VI
TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS.
To TertuUian, a Carthaginian by birth, Eusebius gives the
title of " Eoman," and most rightly so, for the great African
is just as much a " Eoman " as Irenseus. Born about the
year 160, he was in his maturity when he embraced Chris
tianity (about the year 195). He became at once a priest of
Carthage. An apologist after the manner of Justin and
Irenseus, he was for a short while the spokesman both of
Latin and of Greek Christendom, for he wrrites both Latin
and Greek ; he is, with a brilliancy of his own, eristicus et
ardens vir,^ tradition personified.^ Then he passes over to
the party of the "new prophecy," rebels against Eome, and
ends his days in isolation and obscurity.
Had TertuUian died before embracing the Montanist
error, his ecclesiology would hardly differ from that of
Irenseus, whose important treatise " Contra Haereses " he cer
tainly knew and turned to account. But TertulUan did not
remain a Catholic : he attempted to harmonize the principle
of the rule of faith based on tradition, with the principle of
individual prophetical inspiration. His Catholicism, in his
best days, confirms the notion of Catholicism presented to
us by Irenseus ; his semi-Montanism and his open Montan
ism confirm the same notion, but by way of contrast.
This we shall see by studying, first, the " De Praescrip-
tione haereticorum " (composed about the year 200).

Since Christianity consists in unity through conformity
to a rule of faith, no wonder that the existence of "non-con-
^ The words are from St. Jerome, " Epistul." lxxxiv. 2.
" On this point (against Harnack), cf. Bardenhewer, vol. ii. pp.
.340 and 362. 264

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 265
formists" becomes a scandal: "Plerique hoc ipse scandali-
zantur quod tantum haereses valeant ". They are too many
and too important. They succeed in winning to their
errors some of the faithful who were known to be prudent
and approved : here a bishop, there a deacon, elsewhere a
doctor, even a martyr.! TertuUian grants the facts, but
desires that no one should be moved by them. For we
must not judge the faith, he says, by the persons who betray
it : the vpind carries off the chaff ; the corn that remains is
the purer for it. Was not the Lord Himself abandoned and
betrayed ? And St. Paul ? Did not the Lord foretell that
there would arise false prophets, false apostles, antichrists?
Did not the Apostle Paul warn us against heresies ? Let no
one, therefore, be troubled by this flood of heresies, since
they have been announced beforehand.^
Then, TertuUian goes to the heart of his inquisition :
he criticises the heresy which he is opposing, i.e. learned
Gnosticism, and brings against it the reproach already
brought against it by Irenseus and Clement of Alexandria :
viz. that it is a mere web of secular sophistry.^ The
Gnostic errors, " natae de ingenie sapientiae saecularis,"
are a rash interpretation of the Divine Nature and of the In
carnation. They draw their inspiration from philosophy :
Valentinus borrowed from the Platonists, Marcion from the
Stoics and Epicureans. Heretics and philosophers discuss
the same topics : the origin of evil, the origin of man, the
'"Praescr." 3 : "Quid ergo, si episcopus, si diaconus, si vidua, si
virgo, si doctor, si etiam martyr lapsus a regula fuerit, ideo haereses veri
tatem videbuntur obtinere ? "
" Ibid. 1-6.
" The same argument will later on be taken up by St. Hippolytus,
quoted by Euseb. " H. E." v. 28. The view that the various Gnostic
errors are borrowings from Greek philosophy, is driven home by the
"PhUosophoumena " (particularly in the Vllth book), according to which
BasUides was perverted by Aristotle, Valentinus by Plato and Pythagoras,
Marcion by Bmpedocles, and so too the other leaders of Gnosticism.
TertuUian and Hippolytus meant to react, in this way, against the in
dulgent attitude whioh the Greek apologists who had preceded them, and
perhaps, too, the Hellenistic Jews, had adopted towards the Greek
wisdom.

266 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
origin of God. Their method, the method of them all, is
that of Aristotle, that " miserable Aristotle ".!
Of what avail is all this philosophy ? Against its seduc
tions St. Paul has forewarned us ; and the Apostle knew
well this human wisdom " affectatricem et interpolatrieem
veritatis," he had seen it at work at Athens.^ We have
nothing in common with it.
" Viderint qui stoicum et platonicum et dialecticum
christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus non
est, post Christum lesum, ; nee inquisitione, post evangelium.
Cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra credere : hoc enim
prius credimus, non esse quod ultra credere deheamus."^
Irenseus does not think differently, when, as against the
Gnostics who aim at perfect knowledge and despise the
simple-mindedness of the "Psychics," he stands for simple
faith and affirms its claims. A typical African, TertuUian
presents this thought in an absolute and somewhat aggres
sive form. He thinks it quite useless on the part of some
to bring against him the words of the Gospel : " Seek and
ye shall find," for no one seeks, unless he has not aheady
' " Praescr." 7 : " Miserum Aristotelem, qui UUs dialecticam iostituit,
artificem struendi et destruendi, versipellem in sententus, coactam in coni-
ecturis, duram in argumentis, operariam contentionum, molestam etiam
sibi ipsi, omnia retractantem, ne quid omnino tractaverit ! . . . Quid
ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis ? Quid Academiae et Ecclesiae ? Quid
haereticis et christianis ? " Compare the interesting Greek fragment of
the nepl iKKXtjaias, ascribed to Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia ( -h 302) dis
covered and published by G. Mbrcati, ' ' Note di letteratura biblica e cris-
tiana antica " (Rome, 1901), pp. 95-8. This fragment reminds us far more
of Irenseus and of TertuUian than of Origen. It begins as follows : " As
there is one God, one Son of God, one Holy Ghost, so also God created one
man, one cosmos only, and there is one Catholic and Apostolic Church, and
one baptism for the whole cosmos. Mia roivw KaBoXtKtj koI dnoaroXiKii iK
KXtjaia eart KaB' oXtjs ohovpevtjs, which continues to preserve to this day the
faith she received from the Apostles. She is called Catholic, because she is
spread all over the world. . . . But heresies have received [their teaching]
neither fiom the Apostles, nor from the disciples of the Apostles, nor
from the bishops, successors of the Apostles, . . . nor are they established
everywhere, nor are their churches called Catholic." Then the author
shows that those heresies originated with the Sadducees, or Simon, etc.,
and all the heresiarchs borrowed their doctrines from the philosophers,
especially from Plato, Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus.
" Cf. " De Anima," 3. ^ " Praescr." 7.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 267
found ; and we who have found the faith, have but one
thing left : viz. to preserve it. Even supposing we had
still something to seek after, should we apply for infor
mation to the heretics, in whose systems everything is
either foreigner opposed to "our truth," our regula fidei t ^
TertuUian gives in his own style the articles of this regula
fidei, the baptismal symbol received at Carthage.^ This, he
continues, was the rule established by Christ, a rule that
raises no questions save those which are put forth by
heretics and form the very essence of their heresy. Let
us leave this rule intact, and preserve its order and wording.
Or, if you fimd in it anything equivocal or obscure, consult
some one in the Church, who is learned and experienced, so
that he may seek with you the light you need. But to
remain in ignorance is still better.^
However heretics may and actually do object that, after
all, the regula fidei is not everything, since there are also
the Scriptures, that are sources of faith ; and so, they base
their disputes on the Scriptures. But, replies TertuUian,
this is precisely what we must not allow them to do : first,
because the Apostle Paul forbids us to have any discussion
with heretics ; secondly, because, with the heretics of to-day,
no one knows what Scriptures they accept, what text they
read, what interpretation they give : you will gain nothing
at aU from discussion, and the faithful, whom you intend to
enUghten by disputing before them with the heretics, will
go away more uncertain than before. It is most unprofit
able to discuss the contents of the Scriptures, " in quibus
aut nulla, aut incerta victoria est, aut par incertae ". One
question only must be asked : to whom does the deposit of
faith belong, to whom does the deposit of the Scriptures
belong ? *
1 " Praescr. " 12 : " Nemo inde instrui potest, unde destruitur : nemo
ab eo illuminatur a quo contenebratur. Quaeramus ergo in nostro, et a
nostris, et de nostro, idque dumtaxat quod salva regula fidei potest in
quaestionem devenire ".
" Ibid. 13. Concerning the value of this text, as representing the
symbol of Carthage, cf. D'AlJjs, "Theologie de TertulUen" (Paris, 1905),
pp. 256-7, and K. Adam, "Der Kirchenbegrifl' TertulUans " (Paderborn,
1907), pp. 38-40.
^Ibid.U. Cf. " De Anima," 2. "JSid 15-19.

268 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
The answer to the question thus put must be an answer
of fact; for it is of no importance to have proved first
what Jesus is in relation to God. This alone is of import
ance : that, when here below, Jesus taught ; that, among His
disciples, He chose twelve men, whom He destined to be
the teachers of nations and whom He sent to the nations,
to instruct them, and baptize them in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. These Apostles
preached the faith of Jesus first in Judsea, where they also
founded Churches ; then they went to the nations, and
preached to them the same doctrine and founded Churches
in every city ; later on, from these Churches established by
the Apostles the other Churches received the germ of faith
and the seed of doctrine ; and this is also done every day by
the Churches that are being founded in our midst: and
therefore they too are called Apostolic, because they are the
offspring of the Apostolic Churches. So, there is a first
Church founded by the Apostles, from which all others
have sprung.!
Here TertuUian does but develop the argument of apo
stolic succession, as he found it in the works of Ireuffius:
what the Apostles preached, they held from Christ ; and our
Churches are Apostolic in their origin. In other words : the
1 " Praescr." 20 : "Apostoli . . . primo per ludaeam contestata fide
in lesum Christum et ecclesiis institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti, eam-
dem doctrinam eiusdem fidei nationibus promulgaverunt, et proinde
ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, a quibus traducem
fidei et semina doctrinae ceterae exinde ecclesiae mutuatae sunt et cotidie
mutuantur ut ecclesiae fiant, ac per hoc et ipsae apostolicae deputantur
ut soboles apostolicarum ecclesiarum. Omne genus ad originem suam
censeatur necesse est. Itaque tot ac tantae ecclesiae, una est ilia ab
apostolis prima ex qua omnes. Sic omnes prima et apostolicae, dum una
omnes probant unitatem, dum est illis communicatio pacis, et appellatio
fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitaUtatis. Quae iura non aUa ratio
regit quam eiusdem sacramenti una traditio. "Praescr." 21: "Constat
omnem doctrinam quae cum illis ecclesiis apostolicis, matricibus et
originalibus fidei, conspiret veritati deputandam, id sine dubio tenentem
quod ecclesiae ab apostolis, apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo accepit ;
omnem vero doctrinam de mendacio praeiudicandam, quae sapiat contra
veritatem ecclesiarum et apostolorum et Christi et Dei ".

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 269
Churches, being Apostolic, bear witness to the Apostles, just
as the Apostles bear witness to Christ.!
TertuUian has to answer the difficulties which the
heretics (in this case, the Marcionites) are wont to urge
against this familiar argument. Two hypotheses can be
made : according to the first, the Apostles did not know
everything, and hence in Scripture and by means of Scrip
ture, we may reach depths which they failed to fathom ; ac
cording to the second, they did not teach everybody all that
they knew, and consequently there may be an esoteric tradi
tion, more profound than the tradition of the Apostolic
Churches. TertuUian accepts neither hypothesis. How could we
ever believe that Christ concealed anything pertaining to the
faith from those He was constituting the teachers of man
kind? For instance, how could Peter, who was to be the
corner-stone of the Church, have been ignorant of anything
in the domain of faith ?^ Again, the hypothesis of a secret
teaching which the Apostles entrusted only to a few privi
leged persons, is just as improbable. Nor can it be said,
either, that the Churches may have misunderstood what was
taught them by the Apostles.^
TertuUian is not loth to grant that particular Churches
may fall into error and need correction : St. Paul styled the
Galatians foolish, and the Corinthians carnal. Yet, St. Paul
praised the faith and knowledge of other Churches, that are
now in perfect harmony with those he formerly corrected :
1 In the " De Virg. vel." 2, TertuUian, when a Montanist, will say :
" Sed eas ego ecclesias proposui, quas et ipsi apostoli vel apostolici viri
condiderunt, et puto ante quosdam " TertuUian writes thus against
some Catholics who, like him, were appealing to the authority of the
Churches founded by Apostles : he recalls that he had invoked this
authority before they did : an allusion to the passage of the " De Praesc."
we have just quoted. We may look upon these " quosdam," as certain
Roman clerics, as is suggested by Harnack, "Dogmeng.'' vol. i*, p. 490,
161, and E. Rolpfs, " Urkunden aus dem antimontanistischen Kampfe
des Abendlandes " (Leipzig, 1895), p. 44.
^ " Praescr." 22 : " Latuit aliquid Petrum aedificandae Ecclesiae pet
ram dictum, claves regni caelorum consecutum, et solvendi et alligandi
in caelis et in terris potestatem ? "
3 Ibid. 27.

270 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" Hodie cum illis correptis unius institutionis iura mis-
cent"-^ Shall we say that all the Churches have erred?
Shall we suppose that the Holy Ghost, whom Christ was to
send as the teacher of truth, had no regard for any Church,
and that He, the Vicar of Christ, failed in His duty and left
the Churches to think and believe whatever they pleased,
and otherwise than He Himself was preaching by the
Apostles? 2
Unanimity of belief, combined with faith in the guidance
of the Holy Ghost, is, then, a first proof of the authenticity
of tradition.^ This tradition is more ancient than any heresy what
ever.* This tradition was in possession long before men
spoke of Marcion the Stoic, or of Valentinus the Platonist.^
Apelles is even more recent, since Marcion was his master.
Nigidius, Hermogenes, and a host of others are still living.
As is self-evident, merely from a chronological point of view,
that comes from the Lord and is true which is older in tradi
tion, whereas what appeared later is strange and false.^
The priority of the ecclesiastical tradition is vouched for
by the fact that the Apostolic Churches prove they truly come
down from the Apostles : Smyrna claims Polycarp who was
put there by John, Eome claims Clement who was put there
by Peter ; so also for the other Churches.'^ Let the heretics
1 "Praescr." 27.
" Ibid. 28 : NuUam [ecclesiam] respexerit Spiritus sanctus, uti eam
in veritatem deduceret [" loan." xiv. 26], ad hoc missus a Christo, ad
hoc postulatus de patre, ut esset doctor veritatis ["loan." xv. 26]. Neg-
lexerit officium Dei vUlicus, Christi vicarius, sinens ecclesias alitor interim
intellegere, alitor credere, quam ipse per apostolos praedicabat."
3 Ibid. 28 : " NuUus inter multos eventus unus est exitus :
variasse debuerat error doctrinae ecclesiarum. Ceterum quod apud
multos unum invenitur, non est erratum, sed traditum."
*Ibid. 29.
^ Ibid. 30. The same considerations are urged in the '' Adv.
Marcion." i. 19. And we have seen the same argument developed by
Clement of Alexandria.
" Ibid. 31 : " Ita ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse dominioum
et verum, quod sit prius traditum ; id autem extraneum et falsum,
quod sit posterius immissum ".
' Ibid. 32 : " Edant ergo [haeretici] origines ecclesiarum suarum,
evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio de-

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 271
show such a BmBox-h if they can ! If, however, apostolic
ancestors must at any cost be found for them, they are to be
found in the fomenters of errors, condemned by the Apostles
themselves : the Sadducees, Ebion, Simon, the Nicolaites :
this is the genealogy of heresies and of their adulterous doc
trines.! If they are bent on crushing us, let them bring
forward against us the proof we bring forward against them,
let them show that our Catholic faith is a heresy. But this,
they cannot do, for it is a fact that we have our priority ;
that we have been in occupation since the Apostles, and, that
far from condemning us, the Apostles confirm us in our pro
perty. " Posterior nostra res non est, immo omnibus prior
est: hoc erit testimonium veritatis ubique occupantis princi-
patum. Ab apostohs utique non damnatur, immo defenditur :
hoc erit indicium proprietatis." ^
TertuUian concludes as follows : —
" Si haec ita se habent ut Veritas nobis adiudicetur qui-
cumque in ea regula incedimus quam Ecclesia ab apostolis,
apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo tradidit, constat ratio pro
positi nostri definientis non esse admittendos haereticos ad
ineundam de scripturis provocationem."^
The " De Praescriptione " closes with a few thoughts that
are disconnected with the argument we have been using, but
deserve notice, because they recall the similar thoughts which
we have found in Irenseus. Heretics, says TertuUian, have
no other inspiration than that of Satan. The lack of ecclesi
astical discipline, which prevails among them, is beyond be
hef ; a like disorder prevaUs in their preaching. They are
not unwiUing to associate with astrologers, philosophers . . .
and charlatans. How severely God will deal, on the day of
judgment, with these adulterers ! " Quid dicent qui illam
currentem, ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis vel apostolicis
viris qui tamen cum apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem et ante-
cessorem. Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos deferunt
..." Compare chapter 36, in which TertuUian comes back to this apos
tolicity of the great Churches, especially of the Roman Church ; we shall
quote it later. The same thoughts are found in " Adv. Marc." i. 21, in.,
IV. 5. ' " Praescr. " 33-4. " Ibid. 35. ^ Ibid. 37-

272 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
stupraverint adulterio haeretico virginem traditam a
Christo?"^ * *
*
To estimate aright the argument we have been analyzing,
we must first determine how far it depends on the juridical
theory of prescription.
Prescription, as described in our modern legal codes, is
but one kind of prescription in general, as the latter is under
stood in the language of Eoman Law. For, by prescription,
the Eomans meant any mode of procedure resorted to by one
of the parties for stopping at once the opponent's action, and
duly recorded by the prsetor in the formula that was delivered
to the judges : briefly, prescription was any plea of exception.
There can be, of course, various pleas of exception : as regards
ownership, for instance, a plea of exception may consist in
invoking actual occupancy as a title that bars any action to
recover, after the lapse of a certain number of years : this is
called praescriptio longi temporis.'^ Prescription thus based
on occupancy, is an exception which appears comparatively
late ; Gaius is unacquainted with it ; we find it mentioned for
the first time in a rescript of 29 December, 199 a.d. ; and
the first law that makes it of general observance is enacted
by Theodosius II in the year 424.^ It is hardly probable
that TertuUian applied to theological questions a device of
legal procedure, which, towards the year 200, was so new
and so little known ; he used the juridical term, praescriptio,
most probably, in its oldest meaning, to designate an argu
ment disputing the presuppositions of the main point, inter
posed to make the discussion of the latter nugatory.
' " Praescr." 41-4. We do not need to say that chaps. 43-53 are no
part of Tertullian's work, and are not found in the best MSS., for instance
in the " Codex Agobardinus " (Paris, lat. 1622). They form a " LibeUus
adversus omnes haereticos " or descriptive catalogue of heresies, which
dates probably from the first half of the third century.
= Db Savigny, "Traite de droit romain" (French transL, Paris,
1846), vol. V. p. 284 and foU. ; F. Girard, " Manuel el^mentaire de droit
romain," fourth edit. (Paris, 1906), p. 299 ; P. Monceaux, " Hist. litt. de
I'Atrique chre't." vol. i. (Paris, 1901), p. 304.
" Savignt, p. 293. See the rescript of Severus and Caracalla, dated
29 December, 199, in Girard, " Textes de Droit romain," p. 187. P- de
Labriolle, " L' Argument de Prescription," in " Revue d'Hist. et de
Littr. relig. '^ vol. xi. (1906), p. 431.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 273
In fact, if we read attentively the " De Praescriptione
haereticorum," we easily perceive that TertuUian's argument
on the previous question is just the argument from tradition.
In reality — to quote Monceaux' appropriate remark — " his
proof is the proof from tradition, to which the defenders of
Catholicism have always appealed. The Greek controversial
ists of the second century had aheady fought Gnostic specula
tions in the name of the teaching of the Apostles, regularly
handed down from generation to generation, and kept intact
in the one doctrine of the Church. But here, as in all his
apologetic works, TertuUian strengthens the method by the
rigour of his argumentation, and extends considerably its
bearing, by applying to the controversy the procedure of juris
prudence." ! I may be allowed to change slightly the last
words of Monceaux' sentence : TertuUian has a logical rigour
of argumentation which neither Irenseus nor any one else
possessed before him : and augments not its significance but
its force by giving it an appearance of novelty through the
application to controversy of the language of the forum.^
Let us reconstitute Tertullian's argument. The authentic
faith is that which is contained in the regula fidei common
to aU the churches : hence this rule of faith must be pre
ferred to any opposite contention which the heretics may
claim to justify either by Scripture or by philosophy.
This TertuUian proves first by means of a principle we
have aheady met vfith in Irenseus, the authentic tradition
is that which does not vary. This principle he expresses
in epigrammatic form : " Quod apud multos unum, in
venitur, non est erratum, sed traditum ". TertuUian does
not lay stress on perpetuity in time, he appeals to the
subsisting unanimity only, and, as he is opposing living
heretics, he does not speak precisely of unanimity, but of a
faith common to many, " apud multos unum ". Later on,
Vincent of Lerins vdU not preserve, in his over-rigid canon,
the shades of meaning so carefully respected here by TertuUian.
Secondly, TertulUan invokes another argument in proof of the
agreement of the actual teaching of the churches with the
! Monceaux, vol. i. p. 331 ; De Labriolle, "TertulUen, De Praescr."
(Paris, 1907), p. XXV.
^See especially "Praescr." 73. 18

274 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
teaching of the Apostles : the aid of the Holy Spirit was pro
mised by the Saviour to the disciples who beUeved in Him,
until the end of the ages : if all the churches had erred, what
had become of that aid ? ! Thirdly — and this is strictly the
argument of the Apostolic succession, the one which Irenseus
has so fully developed — TertuUian appeals to the fact that
all the great Churches are Apostolic in their origin, and there
fore the tradition common to those Churches is also Apostolic.
On this theme TertuUian writes an eloquent page, which
manifestly draws its inspiration from the work of St. Irenseus.^
TertuUian then does not appeal to the praescriptio longi
temporis.^ He uses, it is tme, the following expressions
which have been misunderstood : " Mea est pessessio, elim
possideo " ; but he does not appeal to this actual and ancient
possession, as entitling him to dismiss the claims of heretics ;
for he adds immediately : " Habee origines firmas, ab ipsis
auctoribus quorum fuit res : ego sum haeres apostolorum.
Sicut caverunt testamento sue, sicut fidei commiserunt,
sicut adiuraverunt, ita teneo ". * The property is proved to
^ Adam, "Kirchenbegrifl'," p. 34, distinguishes, as we do, the three
proofs of TertulUan : the first and the third rest on facts, the second rests
on a doctrine of faith, I mean, the aid of the Holy Ghost : a proof touched
upon already by Irenseus (iii. 24, 1). Later on Novatian also will intist
on the aid given to the Church by the Spirit ("De Trinitate," 29):
" Unus et idem Spiritus qui in prophetis et apostolis, nisi quoniam ibi ad
momentum, hie semper. . . . Hie est qui ipsorum [= discipulorum] ani-
mos mentesque firmavit, qui euangelica sacramenta distinxit, qui in ipsis
illuminator rerum divinarum fuit. . . . Hie est qui prophetas in ecclesia
constituit, magistros erudit, linguas dirigit, virtutes et sanitates facit . . .
quaeque alia sunt charismatum dona componit et digerit. . . . Hie est
qui operatur ex aquis secundam nativitatem, semen quoddam divini
generis. . . . Hie est qui . . . sectas repellit, regulam veritatis expedit,
haereticos revincit, improbos foras expuit, euangelia custodit. ... In
hoc Spiritu positus nemo . . . alia et sacrilega decreta constituit. . . .
[Hie] ecclesiam incorruptam et inviolatam perpetuse virginitatis sanotitate
custodit." " "Praescr." 36 ; Iren. ra. 3.
^Nor does he make such an appeal in the other books where he
" prescribes" against heretics. Those texts are given by De Labriolle
in the article quoted, pp. 425-7. "Adv. Marc." i, 1, 9,21, 22; in, 1,
,3, IV. 4, 5, 10,38, V. 19; "Adv. Hermog." 1; "Adv. Pi-axean," 2;
" De Carne Christi," 2.
¦¦" Praescr." 37. Cf. "Scorpiace," 9: " haereditarii discipuU et
apostolici seminis frutices ".

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 275
be legitimately in the hands of its actual occupant by the
very titles which prescription if unsupported would have
to supply : for the occupant affirms that he holds his pro
perty on the title of inheritance and he produces the will :
he shows that there is a legacy, and thus gives a full and
direct proof of his right of property, a proof which a prae
scriptio longi temporis would have rendered unnecessary.
Thus presented, the argument from tradition demon
strates the legitimacy of the inherited faith : any doctrine
contrary to that regula fidei is rightly condemned by the
bare fact that it arose later than the doctrine that is Apostolic.
We have thus against heresy a praescriptio novitatis which
is a corollary of the positive and direct authentication of the
Apostolic faith, already given.! ^\^q controversialists of the
seventeenth century, who held in such honour the argument
from prescription — as it is generally called — can claim Ter
tulUan as their forerunner, inasmuch as he opposed to the
heretics this praescriptio novitatis.^
However, he realized that the authentication of the regula
fidei by the tradition is a general proof that does not dispense
from a careful study of the various circumstances and details :
as also that the praescriptio novitatis dismisses at once the
claims of heretics, but does not dispense with the necessity
of solving their objections. This TertulUan wisely and frankly
acknowledges at the close of the " De Praescriptione," where
he sums up his whole argument thus : " Sed nunc quidem
generaliter actum est a nobis adversus omnes haereses ".
He has shovra how, in the name of the praescriptio novitatis
— a corollary of the thesis on the apostolicity of the rule of
faith — we must refuse to dispute with heretics about the
Scriptures ; but he adds presently : If God in His grace per
mit, " etiam specialiter quibusdam respendebimus ".' Ire
nseus followed the same method. Like him, TertulUan will
make a thorough criticism of Marcionism, and write against
^Against TertuUian, after he became a Montanist, Catholics wUl
urge precisely that prescription of novelty : ' ' Novitatem igitur abiectant
. . ." "De Jejunio," 1. The treatise "De Jejunio " was composed
after the year 213.
^Pesch, "Prael. dogm." vol. i. p. 246; Bardenhewer, vol. ii.
p. 360. 3 "Praescr. "44. 18*

276 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hermogenes, against the followers of Apelles and Valentinus,
against Praxeas. Truth is that which is a primerdio ; heresy
is that which is recent; hence without undertaking any
further detailed examination, " sine retractatu dectrinarvm,"
we reject heresy straight off. However, this method, when
applied to religious questions, and when applied exclusively
and always to those questions, tends to inspire a legitimate
distrust.! Although the novelty of a doctrine suffices to
judge it, yet, if we wish effectively to forewarn the minds of
men against its surprises, and to avoid the appearance of
condemning it without adequate knowledge, we must examine
it in detail.^
The " De Praescriptione haereticorum " has the merit of
setting in the clearest light the truth that the Church is
above all a society whose teaching is authoritative and whose
authority is apostolic.
On this point TertuUian is absolutely at one with Irenseus
and Clement of Alexandria. But with what force and in-
cisiveness he can express his thoughts I He sets before us
the Apostles journeying through the world, and announcuig
to the nations the same doctrine of the same faith : " In orbem
profecti, eamdem doctrinam eiusdem fidei nationibus pro
mulgaverunt". In each city a Church is founded; but all
these Churches are knit together by the bond of their
common Apostolic origin. Hence their abiding unity : how
ever numerous they are, however great, " they all bear
witness to their unity by their peaceful inter-communion,
their sense of brotherhood, their interchange of hospitality —
rights which no other law sustains save the one tradition of
the self -same faith." ^
But neglecting the polemical standpoint, which for tac
tical reasons TertuUian assumes in the " De Praescriptione,"
let us study his conception of the living teaching authority :
1" Adv. Marcion." i. 1.
"" Adv. Praxean," 2^ "... id esse verum quodcunque primum, id
esse adulterum quodcunque posterius. Sed salva ista praescriptione,
ubique tamen propter instructionem et munitionem quorundam dandus
est etiam retractatibus locus, vel ne videatur unaquaeque perversitas
non examinata, sed praeiudicata damnari."
3 "Praescr." 20.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 277
" Go through the Apostolic Churches, in which the very seats
of the Apostles, at this very day, preside in their place. . . .
Art thou near Achaia ? Thou hast Corinth. If thou art not
far from Macedonia, thou hast Philippi, thou hast Thes
salonica. If thou canst travel in Asia, thou hast Ephesus.
But if thou art near to Italy, thou hast Eome, where we also
have an authority close at hand. Happy Church on which
the Apostles poured out all their doctrine, together with
their blood : where Peter had a like passion with the Lord ;
where Paul was crowned with a death like that of John [the
Baptist] ; where the Apostle John was plunged into boUing
oil, and suffered nothing ! . . . Let us see what she [Eome]
has learned, what taught, what she has certified in common
with the Churches of Africa. She acknowledges one only
God, the Creator of the universe ; Christ Jesus the Son
of God the Creator, born of the Virgin Mary ; the resurrec
tion of the flesh. She joins the Law and the Prophets
with the Gospels and thence drinks in her faith. That
faith she seals with the water, clothes with the Holy Spirit,
feeds with the Eucharist ; she exhorts to martyrdom ; and
she receives no one save in accordance with this rule:
" adversus hanc institutienem, nem,inem, recipit".^ Speak
ing of all the Churches, TertulUan had already said : " Unius
institutionis iura miscent".^
Baptism is the Sacrament through which we become
Christians : we are fishes after the pattern of Jesus, our
' " Praescr.'' 36. This is the well-known passage : " Si Italiae ad-
iaces, habes Romam unde nobis quoque auctoritas praesto est. Ista quam
felix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apostoli cum sanguine suo profuderunt,
ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus loannis exitu coro-
natur. . . . Videamus quid didicerit, quid docuerit, quid cum africanis
quoque ecclesiis oontestetur." Compare "Adv. Marcion." iv. 5, where
TertuUian speaks of the Romans to whom " euangelium et Petrus et Paulus
sanguine quoque suo signatum reliquerunt. " D'Ales, "TertulUen," p.
216 : " TertulUan did not speak as plainly [as Irenseus] of the nature of
the prerogatives vested in the see of Rome. However, he emphasizes the
primacy of Peter. He speaks of Peter as the foundation of the Church,
the depositary of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and as the one to
whom has been awarded full power to bind and to loose. . . [The
Church of Rome] is the mother of the African Churches ; she appears as
the centre of unity by her doctrine and action."
" " Praescr." 27.

278 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
symbolical IX6TS, and, like fishes, we are born in water.!
Baptism is conferred by means of a formula the few words
of which when pronounced suffice to work the stupendous
miracle of regeneration.^ These few words consist in the
invocation of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost
(" De Bapt." 6). TertuUian affirms that the formula of
Baptism implies by logical connexion the mention of the
Church: " . . . Necessario adicitur Ecclesiae mentio,
quoniam ubi tres, id est Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus,
ibi Ecclesia, quae trium corpus est " (ibid.). He has said else
where that to invoke the Father, in the Lord's prayer, is to
invoke also the Son, and not to forget the Mother: "Ne
mater quidem Ecclesia praeteritur : si quidem in Filio et
Patre mater recegnoscitur, de qua constat et patris et filii
nomen ".^ According to TertuUian, one is baptized implicitly
in Ecclesiam. After the immersion, the new Christian is anointed:
" Egressi de lavacro perungimur" ("De Bapt." 7). He
then receives the imposition of hands ; and at the same time
the Holy Ghost, eamestly entreated to come down, descends
on the body which has been cleansed and blessed (8). After
this rite, he is admitted to pray with those who now are his
brethren. TertuUian sets before our eyes the newly bap
tized coming out of baptism and praying for the first time
in the Church : " . . . primas manus apud Matrem cum
fratribus aperitis" (20). Outside the Church there is no
baptism ; for there is but one Baptism, just as there is but
one Church, and one Christ. Heretics have not the same
Christ as we have, nor the same baptism. How could there
be two Christs, or two baptisms ? " [Baptismum,] cum rite
non habeant, sine dubio non habent." * In their counter-
1 " De Baptismo," 1.
" Ibid. 2 : " homo in aquam demissus et inter pauca verba tinctus ".
'¦' Ibid. 6. See Lupton's note, " TertuU. De Bapt." (Cambridge, 1908),
p. 19. " De Orat. " 2. — On the Church as our mother, see " Adv. Marcion."
II. 4, m. 24, IV. 11, V. 4 ; " De Bapt." 20 ; " De Monog." 6 and 7 ; "Ad
Mart." 1.— On the Church as associated with the three Persons of the
Trinity, see Hippolyt. " Contra Noet." 18. On this point, at least with
TertuUian, a strange and somewhat obscure conception prevailed.
^ Ibid. 15 : " Sed de isto plenius iam nobis in graeco digestum
est "- This is an allusion to the Greek edition of the " De Baptismo "
previously issued by TertulUan.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 279
feit and weak faith, heretics baptize " in iudicium," whilst,
in their genuine faith, true Christians baptize " in salutem "
(10). " Dandi quidem habet ins summus sacerdos, qui est
episcopus. Dehinc presbyteri et diaconi, non tamen sine
episcopi auctoritate, propter Ecclesiae honorem. Quo salvo,
salva pax est. Alioquin etiam laicis ins est. . . . Sed quanto
magis laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incumbit,
cum ea maioribus competat, ne sibi assumant dicatum epis
copis officium. Episcopatus aemulatio schismatum mater
est" (" De Baptismo," 17).
The Church is a hierarchical society : the laity are sub
ordinate to the deacons and to the priests ; and these, to the
bishop : all — the laity as well as the minores, i.e. deacons
and priests — must respect the bishop.! Only on these con
ditions can peace and unity be preserved. Woe to the priests
who usurp the episcopal office, for these rivahies give rise to
deplorable schisms. The bishop is vested with the sove
reignty of authority and order : he may be rightly called a
" summus sacerdos " : a title given formerly only to the
Jewish High Priest at Jerusalem. The fhst bishops were
established by the Apostles.^ In each Church, none are pro
moted to the "ordo ecclesiasticus " ^ without receiving the
testimony of all : " Praesident probati quique seniores, hono
rem istum non pretio, sed testimonie adepti : neque enim
pretio ulla res Dei constat".^ If convicted of a grave fault,
a presbyter may be deposed.^ Presbyters alone — to the ex
clusion of laymen — may exercise, in union with the bishop,
the " sacerdotalia munera " : ^ viz. teach, baptize and cele-
1 Cf. " De Praescr." 42 : " [Haeretici] nee suis praesidibus reveren-
tiam noverunt. . . . Schisma est unitas ipsis."
""'De Praescr." 32. Cf. " De Fuga," 13; "Adv. Marcion."
IV. 5. ^I find the expression ordo ecclesiasticus in the " De idolol." 7.
True, in this passage, TertuUian, still Catholic, expresses his indignation
at the fact that Christians not thoroughly converted are received among
the clergy : " Adleguntur in ordinem ecclesiasticum artifices idol-
orum ! "
*" Apol." 39.
= "De Bapt." 17 : "Sciant in Asia presbyterum, . . . convictum
atque confessum, . . . loco decessisse ". Cf. "Ad Uxor." i. 7-
*"' Praescr." 4L

280 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
brate the Eucharist.! The presbyters, the bishop being with
them, are the intercessors to whom the penitent goes, kneel
ing before them as a suppliant soliciting forgiveness.^ To the
bishop belongs the right of pardoning those penitents whose
sins can be remitted.^ If the sinner's offence is so great that
it requires expulsion from the Church, the sentence is given
by the bishop after mature examination : " Nam et iudicatur
magno cum pondere, . . . si quis ita deliquerit ut a com-
municatione erationis et conventus et omnis sancti com-
mercii relegetur ".*
Heresies necessarily cut themselves off from this com
munity of life and doctrine ; they are the bitter wUd olive-
tree that springs from the kernel of the olive ; or again, the
barren and useless wild fig-tree, that springs from the seed
of the fig : though they spring from our stock, they are not
of our family,^ and we must break with them, just as we
do vrith public sinners.^ "Haeretici nullum habent con
sortium nostrae disciplinae, ques extranees utique testatur
ipsa ademptie cemmunicationis" ."^ The right to teach,
which belongs to the bishop and to his presbyterium, involves,
as its complement, the right to condemn error and proscribe
the heretic.
These, then, are the ideas of TertulUan, the Catholic.
Yet the same impetuous dialectician, who has so forcibly in-
1 " Virg. vel." 9 : " Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui [1 Cor.
xiv. 34], sed nee docere, nee tinguere, neo offerre, nee uUius viriUs muneris
nedum sacerdotalis officii sortem sibi vindicare ".
^DePaenit."9 : "... presbyteris advolvi et caris Dei adgeniculari ".
Cf. "De Pudicit." 13. This attitude of suppliants had given rise to a
peculiar calumny, of which some use may be made for the history of the
penitential discipline. Harnack, "Mission," vol. i. p. 410.
^ " De Pudicit. " 18: ". . . levioribus delictis, veniam ab episcopo
consequi poterit"- The sins that are not leviora are enumerated by
TertuUian, whilst still a Catholic, in " De Idololatria," 1 ; " De Bapt." 4 ;
" Apolog. " 2 and 11 : " De Spectac. " 3 and 20. Cf. D'Ales, " TertuUien,"
pp. 272-5. <¦ "Apol. "39. To pronounce excommunication is "in praesidentis
officio " " De Pudicit. " xiv. 16.
'¦'"Praescr." 36.
8 " De Jejun." 1 : " . . . dum quaque ex parte anathema audiamusi
qui alitor adnuntiamus ".
'"De Bapt." 15.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 281
sisted that the mark of Catholicism is above all " eiusdem
sacramenti una traditio," came to plead on behalf of private
inspiration and individual charisms. II.
The work " De Virginibus velandis " was composed be
tween the years 208 and 211, when TertuUian had not yet
broken with the Church. The occasion that gave rise to this
short treatise is in appearance insignificant, but the funda
mental issue it raises is identical with that raised in the
Paschal controversy. Between two Biblical interpretations,
tradition decides ; but in case two traditions conflict, how is
the question to be settled ? We must choose, he says, be
tween two customs. According to one custom, virgins have
to wear a veil ; according to the other, they are not obliged
to wear it : the former custom prevails in many Churches of
Greece, and the latter, in the Churches founded by the
Apostles or their immediate disciples. We cannot say that
this latter custom is " foreign," since those are not " foreigners
with whom we are in the communion of peace and brother
hood " : their faith is our faith : we are aU but one and the
same Church.!
We must not forget that there is custom and custom.
A custom may arise from ignorance or from simple-minded
ness, then obtain recognition through the duration of time
{per successionem), and afterwards be unlawfuUy arrayed
against truth. Christ said : " I am the truth ". He did not
say: "I am the custom". The rule of faith, alone, can
neither change nor be improved.^ Whilst on the one hand,
this rule of faith must be kept as inviolable as a law, on the
other hand, aU that pertains to discipline and Christian life
i"D6 Virgin. veland."2: "... non extraneorum, cum quibus
scilicet communicamus ins pacis et nomen fraternitatis. Una nobis et
iUis fides unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem lavacri sacramenta. Semel
dixerim, una Ecclesia sumus.'' Cf. "Praescr." 20. The Church founded
by the Apostles which TertulUan has in mind, is surely the Roman
Church. "Ibid. 1: "Haeresim non tam novitas quam Veritas revincit:
quodcumque adversus veritatem sapit, hoc erit haeresis, etiam vetus
consuetude". We are rather far from the " praescriptio novitatis ".

282 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
admits of corrections and innovations, inasmuch as it is the
mission of Divine grace to labour for the progress of souls to
the end of time ; ! for, just as Satan is constantly working
and daily adding to the mass of wickedness, so too the work
of God never stops, or ceases to advance, the more so that
the Lord has sent the Paraclete, in order that He might
enlighten human infirmity which could not comprehend all
at once, and in order that the same Paraclete, being Christ's
vicar, might graduaUy perfect disciphne.^ Hence, TertuUian
acknowledges, side by side with the intangible faith, an
unceasing action of the Spirit.
" Quae est ergo Paracleti administratio nisi haec, quod
disciplina dirigitur, quod Scripturae revelantur, quod inteUec-
tus reformatur, quod ad meliora proficitur?" ("De Virgin.
vel." 1)
These expressions contain certain obscurities which we
must clear up. The work of the Holy Ghost here referred
to, is not that which He did before the coming of Christ, but
that which He does now when, being sent by the glorified
Christ, He supplies His place in the Church. By this Holy
Spirit, Christian life is daily ruled and reformed : for has
not TertuUian just told us that all pertaining to discipline
may be corrected and improved ? By the Spirit the mind,
too, may be enlightened and corrected, as well as the con
duct. By the Spirit also, through an action intermediate
between these two, " Scripturce revelantur," Scriptures
(manifestly such as are new and inspired), are revealed.^
Hence revelation is not as yet concluded, it still continues,
daily growing richer as a tree which daily expands. But
revelation continues within the sphere of discipline and of
Christian life, not in that of belief, since the rule of faith
^ "De Virgin, veland." 1 : "Hac lege fidei manente, cetera iam dis
ciplinae et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante
scilicet et profioiente usque in finem gratia Dei ".
" Ibid. : " . . . cum propterea Paracletum miserit Dominus, ut quo
niam humana mediocritas omnia semel capere non poterat, paulatim
dirigeretur et ordinaretur et ad perfectum perduceretur disciplina ab illo
vicario Domini Spiritu sancto ".
'"'Quae est ergo Paracleti administratio nisi haec, quod disciplina
dirigitur, quod Scripturae revelantur, quod intellectus reformatur, quod
ad meliora proficitur ? " Cf. " De Monogam." 4.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 283
remains such as it was established by Christ. Hence we
can say that righteousness was first rudimentary ; then the
Law and the Prophets brought it to a sort of childhood ; the
Gospel to youth ; and the Paraclete brings it to maturity.
" Nunc per Paracletum componitur in maturitatem : hie
erit solus a Christo magister et dicendus et verendus. Non
enim ab se loquitur, sed quae mandantur a Christo. Hie
solus antecessor, quia solus post Christum. Hunc qui rece-
perunt, veritatem consuetudini anteponunt. Hunc qui au
dierunt usque nunc, non olim, prophetantem, virgines
contegunt." !
In this question of discipline — viz. whether or not young
women have to be veiled — TertulUan opposes to the custom
of the Apostolic Churches the truth revealed by the new
prophets, through the Spirit, who does not speak of Him
self, but announces what Christ gives Him to announce
(John XVI. 13), and is also the only Master whom Christ
gives us to recognize and revere.
In the " De Anima" (208-211), we have the description
of a scene of prophetism, that takes place at Carthage, in the
open Church and before the clergy. A Christian lady of the
city, the recipient of the charisms of revelation, passes into
this extraordinary state, generally on Sundays whilst the
hturgical synaxis is going on : she converses then with the
angels, nay, at times, with the Lord Himself ; she sees or
hears mysteries. The matter of her visions relates to the
liturgy: lessons, psalmody, homilies, prayers. One day,
TertulUan relates, he and others had discoursed about the
soul, whilst this Christian woman was rapt in spirit. When
the synaxis was over and the people had been dismissed,
she was asked what she had seen " Nam et diligentissirae
digeruntur,ut etiam prebentur,"^ — and she answered that
1 " De Virgin, vel." 1. The expression " hie solus antecessor " alludes
to the fact that Catholics bring forward the authority of the presbyters
and bishops of old: "Tempora et antecessores opponunt" (" De Virg.
vel." 2). "Sed nee inter consuetudines dispicere voluerunt illi sanctis
simi antecessores " (ibid. 3). TertuUian has become entirely averse to any
mention of the traditional magisterium : his chief thought is now of the
Spirit, and the Spirit alone.
" The prophetic texts quoted by TertuUian may be found in D'Ales,
"TertuUien," p. 452.

284 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
she had seen a soul in bodily shape. TertulUan has no
doubt whatever that this is a supernatural revelation fuUy
guaranteed.! This revelation regarding the nature of the soul proves
that the Paraclete cannot limit His action to disciphne alone,
and that, notwithstanding TertuUian's previous assertions,
it extends even to matters of doctrine, as had aheady been
sufficiently suggested by the visions of Perpetua and
Saturus, which are preserved in the " Passio " of St.
Perpetua and of St. Felicitas, which dates from the year 203.
In this way will be formed a new variety of Gnosticism,
claiming to be inspired by the Paraclete : " He [the Holy
Ghost] has accordingly now dispersed aU the equivocations
of the past, and the pretended parables, by a full and clear
explanation of all the mysteries, through the new prophecy,
which descends in copious streams from the Paraclete."^
So speaks TertuUian, during the years 208-211.
The Church had disowned the energumens, Montanus
and his two prophetesses : but a decision has yet to be taken
concerning prophetism itself, and its claim to be a continua
tion of revelation. It seems that this question remained
long unanswered. Certainly, even before the year 218,
TertulUan speaks with harshness of those Christians who do
not accept the new prophecy : he caUs them psychici,^ whUst
he calls spiritales, those who acknowledge the charism of
the Spirit — in allusion to the text of St. Paul, who affirms
that the carnal man does not receive what is from the
Spirit of God. In the year 211, in the "De Corona," he
adopts an insulting tone : he maintains that his opponents
i"De Anima," 9.
""Be Resurr. carnis," 63. The text of the " Passio '' of St. Per
petua and St. Felicitas may be found in Migne, " P. L. " vol. m. pp. 13-
60, and in Robinson, "The Passion of St. Perpetua" (Cambridge, 1891).
The original text is the Latin, but its author is not TertuUian. At the
time of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua and her companions, there is
evidently, in the Christian community of Carthage, an intense outburst
of the spirit of vision and revelation ; but we cannot say that Montanism
strictly so called had a share in this extraordinary phenomenon.
'"'Adv. Marcion." iv. 22 (about the year 207-208). "Adv.
Praxean," 1: "Et nos quidem postea agnitio Paracleti et defensio dis-
iunxit a psychicis ".

TERTULLLA.N'S VARIATIONS 285
are retrograding towards apostasy. " Clearly nothing re
mains but that those should refuse martyrdom also, who
have rejected the prophecies of the same Holy Spirit " that
makes martyrs.! Hence we cannot say that the formal
condemnation of the prophecies must have taken place at
the beginning of the year 213, between the composition of
the treatise " Ad Scapulam " and that of the treatise " De
Fuga " : this condemnation is a weU-ascertained fact, but ex
cept that it occurred about the year 210, no precise date
can be given.
St. Jerome wrote that TertuUian had been goaded into
Montanism by the harsh proceedings of the Eoman ec
clesiastics: " Invidia et contumeliis clericorum Remanae
ecclesicB ad Montani dogma delapsus".^ Although when
speaking of the Eoman ecclesiastics Jerome is always under
suspicion of not being impartial, he can hardly have made
this statement without some ground, and it may have been
suggested by the reading of Tertullian's now lost treatise
"De Extasi," written after the year 213. Were that so,
it would furnish a proof that the new prophecy was con
demned by the Eoman Church.
As a matter of fact, the Eoman authorities had been on
their guard for a long time against the new prophets, an
attitude in which they were in perfect agreement with the
tradition. If Pope Eleutherius hesitated for a moment to
repudiate the prophecies of Montanus, Priscilla and Maxi-
miUa, when reminded of the sentiments of the Eoman
bishops, his predecessors, he determined to issue his con
demnation.^ The "Muratorianum" forbids the "Shep
herd " of Hermas to be read at the pubhc readings of the
Church, because he cannot be reckoned among the Prophets,
whose number is complete, "... neque inter prophetas
i"De Corona," 1.
^ "De Viris ini." 59. The reader may remember that Hippolytus,
a Roman ecclesiastic, composed a Ilepi p^apio-^iaTov dnoaroXiKij napdSoais.
It is believed that in the " De Monogamia," TertulUan opposes St. Hip
polytus. Rolpfs, "Urkunden," p. 69.
'Tbrtull. " Adv. Praxean," 1 : "... praedecessorum eius auctori-
tates defendendo " We have already seen (p. 283) the importance that
was attached to the "antecessores". By auctoritates, decisions, docu
ments may be meant.

286 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
completos nwmero, neque inter apostolos ".! These words
suggest that the " prophetical" question was no longer as to
the character of the prophecies of Montanus and others, but
as to whether or not the BibUcal Canon was closed. About
the year 200, the Churches felt they could not hesitate to
give an affirmative answer ; and probably there came from
Eome a solemn judgment, of which we have an echo in the
" Muratorianum " : private revelations — such as those con
tained in the " Shepherd " of Hermas, which was held in
great esteem in Eome — might preserve their private value,
but Scripture alone was canonical. The severe measures of
the Eoman Church against the new prophecy so dear to
TertuUian, were doubtless adopted by the other Churches,
particularly in Africa : thus we may account for the insult
ing allusions to the hierarchy which TertulUan will hence
forth aUow himself to make.

Is it lawful to flee in the time of persecution, he asks
in the " De Fuga ". For the " spiritual," this question
raises no difficulty whatever : he does not flee. Nor does
it trouble the Catholics, either : they flee, so cold and frivol
ous is their faith ! Their leaders can teach them only how
to retreat : " Their leaders themselves — I mean the very
deacons, and presbyters, and bishops — take to flight ".^ Do
you feel any scruples? "So much the worse for you, if,
by not accepting the Paraclete, the guide to all truth, you
have become embarrassed in regard to other questions." '
You have thrust aside the Paraclete, and received instead a
most worldly spirit : " Apparently, the Apostles founded
and with so much foresight organized the episcopate, that
' Zahn, " Grundriss," p. 78. Compare " PhUosophoumena," vm.
19. " " De Fuga," 11 : "Sed cum ipsi auotores, id est ipsi diaconi, pres
byteri et episcopi fugiunt, quomodo laicus intellegere poterit. ... Cf.
" De Corona," 1 : "Novi et pastores eorum, in pace leones, in praelio
cervos ".
" Jbid. 1 : "... Paracletum non recipiendo deductorera omnis veri
tatis " Cf. 14: "Paracletus necessarius deductor omnium veritatum
. . . quem qui non receperunt," etc. "De Jejun." 10: " Paracleto
duce universae veritatis ".

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 287
bishops might be able to enjoy in security the revenues of
their kingdom under pretext of administering it".!
The very violence of these attacks attests the strength of
the episcopal authority. Henceforth the bishops gather to
gether in councils, at least in Greek-speaking countries, to
deliberate in common about the interests of the Church at
large.^ As we shall see presently, the African bishops will
not delay to do likewise. The whole ecclesiastical discip
line, and even more so the teaching and safe-keeping of the
doctrine, is in the hands of the bishops.''' Because the bishops
have not accepted the " new prophecy," TertuUian will not
forgive them. The " Psychics," he writes, strive to set bounds
to the divine action itself: " Palos terminates figitis Deo " .'^
He sees in the episcopal authority both a restraining power,
against which he rebels, and a relaxing power, which pro
vokes his indignation. The Apostle forbids bishops to enter
into a second marriage, and behold among the Psychics,
bishops take another wife: " Quot et digami praesident
apud vos, insultantes utique apostolo !" The Holy Ghost
had clearly foreseen that one day bishops would exclaim :
" Omnia licent episcopis ".^
These last words prepare us for the outbursts which
! " De Fuga," 13 : " Hanc episcopatui formam Apostoli providentius
condiderunt, ut regno suo securi frui possent sub obtentu procurandi."
" " De Jejun." 13 : " Aguntur per Graecias ilia certis in locis concilia
ex universis ecclesiis per quae et altiora quaeque in commune tractantur,
et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis christiani magna veneratione cele-
bratur ".
* Witness the excommunication pronounced against Theodotus by
Pope Victor, and known to us through the testimony of St. Hippolytus,
in Eusbb. " H. E." v. 28, 9 : dcjiopiaBevros r^siKOtvavias vnb BiKTopos rov rore
iniaKonov. Cf. "Philosophoum." vn. 25.
¦"'De Jejun." 11. Rolfps, " Urkunden," pp. 42-9, surmises that in
the " De Jejunio," TertuUian is answering a written work, perhaps a kind
of edict, that emanated from the Roman Church and had been issued by
Pope CaUistus. This document condemned the fasts and abstinences im
posed by the rigorists of the time, whether Marcionites or Montanists.
In pp. 31-5, Rolflfs attempts to reconstruct the document from the allu
sions of the "De Jejunio". We may note this Roman declaration:
" constituta sunt soUemnia huic fidei [ieiunia] scripturis vel more maiorum,
nihilque observationis amplius adiciendum ob illicitum innovationis "
[" De Jejun." 13]. Compare Pope Stephen's " Nihil innovetur ".
'^ " De Monog." 12. Cf. " De Pudicit." i. 15.

288 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
brought TertuUian's career to a close, the " De Pudicitia "
(between the years 217-222). The circumstances under
which that pamphlet was published are so well known that
we need not record them here. It is enough to say that it
is aimed directly at the Eoman Bishop, Pope Callistus. In
order the better to proclaim the primacy of the Spirit, Ter
tulUan assails the most Apostolic of all Churches, that to
which he had paid, hke Irenseus, so glorious a tribute. " I
hear that an edict has been brought to the knowledge of the
faithful and a peremptory one too. The ' Pontifex Maximus '
— otherwise called the bishop of bishops — proclaims : ' I re
mit, to such as have done penance, the sins both of adultery
and of fornication '. . . . And where shaU this act of liber
ality be posted up? On the gates of the abodes of evil?
No ; in the Church itself this edict is read, in the Church
itself it is pronounced ; and the Church is a virgin ! Far,
far from Christ's spouse be such a proclamation ! She, the
true, the chaste, the holy, must keep even her ears free from
pollution. She has none to whom she can promise such
pardons ; she will not promise them." ! The Spouse of
Christ is summoned, so to speak, by TertuUian to choose
between the rigorism of the new prophecy and the laxism
proclaimed by the bishop of bishops.^
!"De Pudicit." I. 6-9.
" Without wishing to return to an historical problem which has been
treated elsewhere (" Etudes d'Hist. et de Theolog. posit. lere S6rie," fifth
edit., 1907, p. 327 and foU.), we may repeat that this rigorism is not a Mon
tanist innovation. At the time of CaUistus, and even against CalUstus him
self, the same rigorism is defended at Rome, by Hippolytus, as a discipline
not open to discussion. See the passage of the " PhUosophoumena," vi.
41, relative to the sacrament of redemption {dnoXirpaais), by which the
heretics deceive the simple in persuading them " that, even after they
have been baptized, they may receive again the forgiveness " of their sins.
See ibid. ix. 15, the formula of the so-caUed Elchasaite baptism brought
to Rome by the Syrian Alcibiades, at the time of CaUistus or shortly
after, and what Hippolytus teUs us {ibid. 13) of that baptism which it was
contended could be administered to Christians, already baptized, who had
sinned. To this testimony of Hippolytus we may add that of Clement of
Alexandria, " Stromat." n. 13, commenting upon the work of Hermas.
On Irenseus, as expressing the same view, cf. H. Koch, " Die Siinden-
vergebung bei Irenaus " in the " Zeitschrift fiir die neut. Wissenschaft,"
1908, pp. 35-46.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 289
The episcopal authority, that of Eome, is then directly
attacked by TertuUian. The act promulgated by that
authority he caUs an edict, to assimilate it ironicaUy with
the act of a secular magistrate, i.e. of the praetor in previous
times, of the Emperor, now.! Then to give a new point to
his irony, TertuUian calls the Eoman decision an " edictum
peremptorium," one of those fundamental judgments which
close a trial and put an end to all controversy.^ The indul
gent step taken by Callistus he styles " liberalitas," a word
commonly used to signify an imperial favour: "Liberalitas
praestantissimorum imperatorum . . ." he writes in
another passage.^ He pushes his irony so far as to imagine
that the edict, in regular form, begins with this declaration :
"Pontifex maximus, quod est episcopus episcoporum,
edicit. . . ." It is thus that imperial edicts were worded
in the first person, in contrast with the laws which ran in the
third person of the imperative.* TertulUan caUs the Bishop
of Eome Pontifex maximus — a title which was then a pagan
title and remained so until the reign of Gratian, in the fourth
century.^ In a word, TertulUan strives, with insolent sar
casm, to impart to the decision of the Bishop of Eome, a
secular and even an imperial tone and character.
It may be asked what could the decision of a bishop who is
not the Bishop of Carthage matter to this Carthaginian
priest ? But it is this which makes Tertullian's pamphlet
the more significant. For if he is so stirred by the edict of
the Bishop of Eome, is not this a proof that such an edict
^Tbrtull. "De Bapt." 11 : "Imperator proposuit edictum" See
E. RoLFPS, "Das Indulgenz-Edict des rom. Bischofs Kallist" (Leipzig,
1893), p. 20 ; De Labriolle, " TertulUen, De Paenitentia " (Paris, 1906),
pp. xxii-xxiii. ^"Digest.'' V. 1, 70: "Quod inde hoc nomen sumpsit quod peri-
meret disceptationem, hoc est ultra non pateretur adversarium ter-
giversari ".
8 "De Corona," 1.
^Girard, "Textes," p. 173: "Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus Ger-
manicus pontifex maximus . . . dicit. . . ." Cf. Deissmann, p. 49.
Tertullian's tone inclines us to think that the formula " Ego et moe-
chiae " etc. is not given in its authentic terms.
"See Tbrtull. " De Monog." 17: "Pontifex Maximus et Flami-
nica. . . -"; Boucni-LBCLBRCQ, art. "Pontifices," p. 578, in the "Dic
tion, des Antiq." of Darembbbg and Saglio.
19

290 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
is of a nature to make itself felt in aU the Churches ? The
" potentior principalitas " enters as a factor into the settle
ment of an important question : one may even gather that
the Bishop of Eome has asserted the right and acted on it.
TertuUian calls him " episcopus episcoporum," ^ either be
cause the Bishop of Eome had taken this title, which is
doubtful, or, which is more probable, because the wording of
his edict alluded to the primacy of his see.
Tertullian's invectives are directed against the Eoman
primacy : GaUicanism was bom in Africa ! They are also,
and even more, directed against the whole episcopal hier
archy. Or rather, TertulUan makes a distinction between
what he calls discipline and what he caUs power : discipline
is something external, like politics, whilst power is some
thing supernatural. "What is power? It is the Spirit,
and the Spirit is God. Callistus claims the power of for
giving sins : well and good, if those sins were sins committed
' D'Ales, " TertulUen," p. 217, thinks that Callistus did not assume
the title, episcopus episcoporum. — In the "De Pudic." xm. 7, TertuUian
calls CaUistus " benedictus Papa " ; but at thattime the appeUation papa
was given to bishops, and expressed the filial deference of those who used
it. The earliest indication found at Rome of its being appUed to the
Bishop of Rome is an inscription which dates from the time of Pope Mar-
cellinus ( H- 304) : "Cubiculum . . . iussu p[a]p[ae] sui Marcellini diaconus
iste Severus fecit. ..." Db Rossi, " Inscriptiones Christ. Urbis Romae,''
vol. I. p. CXV. Untu then, no Bishop of Rome is addressed as papa,
and yet we have many letters sent to the bishops of Rome. We may
be referred to the letter of the martyrs of Lyons to Eleutherius, whom
they style ndrep ''EXevBepe (EusEB. " H. E. " V. 4, 2). But it is true also
that, in writing to St. Cyprian, the Roman clergy calls him pope {inter
CvpRiANi, " Epistul." xxx. inscr. and 16, xxxi., xxxvi.) ; and so do the
Carthaginian confessors of the faith (" Epistul." xxm.). The Roman
clergy writes to that of Carthage : "Didicimus secessisse benedictum
papatem Cyprianum . . ." ("Epistul." vm. 1). St. Augustine is often
addressed as papa by his correspondents. St. Jerome gives this title to
such bishops as St. Epiphanius, John of Jerusalem, Theophilus of Alex
andria, St. Athanasius, Chromatins of Aquileia, but also to the Bishops
of Rome, Anastasius and Damasus for instance. As early as the time of
St. Cyprian, the Bishop of Alexandria is called pope, as Ukewise the Bishop
of Carthage (see Euseb. " H. E." vn. 7, 4 : toC paKapiov ndna ijpav "HpoKXa,
in a letter of his successor, Dionysius). Cf. Benson, pp. 29-31, Deissmann,
pp. 138 and 150, and Buonaiuti, "Saggi di filologia e storia" (Roma,
1910), pp. 237-45.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 291
against Callistus ; but how can CaUistus forgive sins com
mitted against God? If the Apostles remitted such sins,
they did it, not in virtue of discipline, but in virtue of their
power " {ex potestate) .
"Exhibe igitur et nunc mihi, apostolice, prophetica ex-
empla et agnoscam divinitatem, et vindica tibi delictorum
eiusmodi remittendorum potestatem. Quod si disciplinae
solius officia sortitus es, nee imperio praesidere, sed ministerio,
quis aut quantus es indulgere ? " ^
Is not the bishop, then, the heir of the supernatural
powers granted by God to the prophets and to the Apostles ?
Not at aU, replies TertuUian : his only business is to see
that discipline be observed. But, says CaUistus, the Church
has the power {potestas) of forgiving sins. Certainly, answers
TertuUian, and our new prophecy proclaims that power.
" De tua nunc sententia quaero, unde hoc ius ecclesiae usurpes.
Si quia dixerit Petro Dominus : Super hanc petram aedifi-
cabo ecclesiam meam, tibi dabo claves regni caelestis, vel
Quaecunque alligaveris vel solveris in terra erunt alligata
vel soluta in caelis, idcirco praesumis et ad te derivasse sol
vendi et alligandi potestatem, id est ad omnem ecclesiam
Petri propinquam?^ Qualis es, evertens atque commutans
manifestam Domini intentionem personaliter hoc Petro con-
ferentem? "^
How can CaUistus be bold enough to claim for himself
the power of the Church? Is it because of the words said
to Peter? By what right does Callistus misinterpret the
plain intention of the Saviour, who, when He addressed
' "De Pudicitia," xxi. 5-6. We have seen elsewhere the title dnoa-
ToXiKos applied to the immediate disciples of the Apostles, to St. Polycarp
for instance (Euseb. " H. E." in. 36, 10).
" From this we may infer that, in order to justify his claim to the
power of the keys. Pope CaUistus appealed to Matt. xvi. 18-19, "the
first instance of the kind recorded in history," as Harnack observes
("Dogmeng." vol. i'', p. 492). Granted, but TertulUan does not question
the fact that the Church is founded on St. Peter, he concedes that point :
"Omnis ecclesia Petri propinqua," words to be translated: "Every
church is connected with Peter" instead of: "Every church which is
connected with Peter," as de Labriolle takes it. TertuUian refuses to
admit that the power of keys passed over to any church, as such.
' " De Pudicit." xxi. 9-10. 19*

292 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Peter, manifestly meant to grant him a privilege that was
to be personal and for him only ? "I wiU give to thee the
keys," not to the Church. The keys are the symbol of St.
Peter's Apostolic ministry,! as recorded in the book of the
Acts. What, then, is the power granted by Christ to the
Church, to every Church?
"Quid nunc et ad Ecclesiam, et quidem tuam, psychice ?
Secundum enim Petri personam spiritalibus potestas ista
conveniet : aut apostolo aut prophetae. Nam et ipsa Ec
clesia proprie et principaliter ipse est Spiritus, in quo est
trinitas unius divinitatis, Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanc
tus. Illam ecclesiam congregat, quam Dominus in tribug
posuit. Atque ita exinde etiam numerus omnis, qui in hanc
fidem conspiraverint, ecclesia ab auctore et consecratore cen-
setur. Et ideo Ecclesia quidem delicta donabit, sed Ecclesia
Spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non Ecclesia numerus
episcoporum.^ Christ conferred on Peter and the Apostles the power
of forgiving sins, when He gave them the Holy Ghost:
" Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall for
give. . . ." Hence that potestas belongs to any one who
has received the Holy Ghost, it belongs to aU the Spirituals,
i.e. to the Apostles, and after them, to the prophets. It
belongs also, and equally well, to the Church, since (a re
miniscence of Irenseus) where the Church is, there is also
the Spirit ; but the ministers of the Spirit are the Spirituals
only, and not those who are merely invested with such or
such a disciplinary function, like bishops.^
We grant that " exceptional historical importance at
taches to " these statements of TertuUian ; * but we cannot
1 " De Pudicit." xxi. 11-15. " Ibid. 16-17.
" If this is the case, the distinction between the laity and the hier
archy is of merely ecclesiastical origin : as a matter of fact, TertulUan will
boldly declare, later on, that the priesthood belongs to all, and that, in
the absence of a priest, a layman can validly celebrate the Eucharist, just
as weU as he does Baptism. Of. " De Exhort. Castit." 7 ; " De Monog."
7 and 12; "De Pudic." 21. It may be remembered that TertuUian,
speaking of the heretics, had once said, with indignation : " Laicis sacer
dotalia munera iniungunti " " Praescr." 41.
^Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 403.

TERTULLIAN'S VARIATIONS 293
see in them, as some would have us do, a proof of the evo
lution of the episcopate in Tertullian's age, and of audacious
pretensions set up by the Bishop of Eome. It is TertuUian
who is the revolutionary.
For, in the first place, he reduces episcopacy to a mere
function of disciphne, of police. In the second place — and
this he does even in his Catholic works — he extols the rule
of faith, as though it could be preserved without the help of
a onagisterium : unlike Irenseus who insisted on the Apostolic
magisterium, and on the charism of truth entrusted to bishops,
TertuUian comes, ultimately, to proclaim the Paraclete as
"solus a Christo magister et dicendus et verendus"; and
¦this substitution is a novelty, since — as we have seen all
through the history of the early Church, even at its very
beginning — the teaching function of presbyters and of bishops
was essentiaUy connected with their office. In the third place,
TertuUian distinguishes in the Church an imperium and a
ministerium : bishops are servants, the imperium belongs
to the Spirit, so that, the Spirit governing the Church, the
episcopate has hardly any place left for it in the Church — ¦
which is surely a paradox. In the fourth place, TertuUian
denies to the episcopate any potestas inherited from the
Apostles : in his eyes, any potestas is a spiritual gift of the
Paraclete. This is another paradox in view of the affirma
tions of the "Pastoral Epistles," the "Didache," and the
letters of Clement of Eome and St. Ignatius on the powers
of Order, which are also essential to the hierarchy. Fifthly,
TertuUian will not admit that a Church is realized, so to
speak, in its bishop : for him the bishop does not make the
unity of his Church, the Spirit alone makes the Church :
" non Ecclesia nunfieras episcoporum '' : another paradox for
those who bear in mind how often the opposite is affirmed
in the texts anterior to TertuUian.!
! Harnack, loc. cit., in his endeavour to prove that the episcopal
prestige grew exceedingly during the first third of the third century, re
fers us to the edict of persecution of Maximinus in 235, directed not
against all Christians indiscriminately, but only against bishops, as alone
answerable for the new religion (Euseb. " H. B." vi. 28). Harnack for
gets the bishops who suffered during the second century — St. Ignatius
and St. Polycarp for instance ; he forgets that scene of Polycarp's martyr
dom, when the heathen populace of Smyrna ask for Polycarp by name

294 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
It is very easy, indeed, to choose between CaUistus and
TertuUian: CaUistus introduces no new notion of the
Church, when he proclaims the notion of an ecclesiastical
hierarchy, in which each bishop is the head of his own
Church, and the Church is the numerus episcoporum.
Novelty is on the side of TertuUian who, to find a place for
the " new prophecy " in the long-established and traditional
ecclesiastical system, overturns it aU, and demands that the
" spirituals " shall take precedence of the clergy, and the
Spirit alone be permitted to speak and rule. Tertullian's
contemporaries must certainly have looked upon this chimera
as preposterous.
(" Martyr. Polyc." 3) and that other scene, when, on seeing Polycarp in
chains, the same populace exclaim : " This is the teacher of Asia, the
father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods, he who has been
teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods ". The prestige of
the Bishop of Smyrna, in the year 155, seems to be just as great as that
of the Bishop of Carthage a century later.

CHAPTEE VH.
ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY.
When, from Christians like Irenseus and TertuUian, we
come to Origen, we feel ourselves in a different atmosphere.
We are witnessing the growth of Hellenic culture in Chris
tianity. Clement had opened out the way upon which Origen now
enters with such distinction. "Greek philosophy," says
Origen, has its falsehoods, and also some elements of truth
"not to be lightly esteemed": St. Paul had already "seen
a certain grandeur in the words of the world's wisdom".!
On the other band, the Word of Jesus has spread all over
the inhabited world ; it has conquered kings and leaders of
armies, archons of cities, soldiers and citizens: no obstacle
has been able to check its advance, for it is the word of
God, more powerful than all its opponents, more powerful
than Greeks and barbarians : it has converted to the religion
that is according to God thousands and thousands of souls.
It is no wonder that, among all these converts, the simple
and uneducated should exceed in number the learned. But
from this to infer — as Celsus does — that a doctrine within
the reach of every human soul is a doctrine fit only for the
simple, and that just because of its simplicity it is not cap
able of being justified by reason, is to insult it gratuitously.^
1 Origen, "Contra Celsum," praef. l 5 ("P. G." vol. xi. col. 648).
"Ibid. I. 27 ("P. G." XI. 712) : . . . o'ierai eivat IStwriKrjv Kal Sid rb
IStariKov Kal ovSapas iv Xdyois Svvarov, JStwrwi' povav Kparijaaaav. Irenseus
had already noted that this was one of the charges brought by the Gnostic
leaders against the Church. Clement of Alexandria mentions it also as a
reproach addressed to Christianity by the sophists of his time. ' ' Stromata, "
I. 3("P. G." VIII. 712). Evidently it was a common thing in the cultivated
circles of the time to jeer at the intellectual shortcomings of the Christians ;
295

296 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
The proof of this is in the fact that, if any one comes to us
from the Greek "dogmas" and schools of learning, he per
ceives not only that our faith is true, but also — which is
still better— that it is susceptible of a " Greek demonstra
tion ". " It must be said, however," Origen adds immedi
ately, " that our faith has a demonstration of its own, more
divine than any established by Greek dialectics " : viz. a
demonstration by means of prophecies and miracles.!
Dialectics will cure learned men of their errors. Hence we
say to no one, not even to the simple : " ' See that none of
you lay hold of knowledge ' ; nor do we say that ' knowledge
is an evil ' ; nor are we mad enough to say that ' knowledge
causes men to lose their sanity of mind '. We would not
even say that any one ever perished through wisdom ; we
give instruction, but we never say : ' Beheve me,' but :
' Believe the God of aU things, and believe Jesus the giver
of instruction concerning Him'."^
This is indeed a new language — absolutely new, and bold
in its novelty. Origen is not afraid to speak of science and
dialectics and philosophy, even of gnosis — and let us not for
get that Greek philosophy was the encyclopsedia of the time
for all schools and scholars indiscriminately. Origen, self-
taught, eclectic, claims for Christianity the right to make
use of this intellectual storehouse for its own benefit. He
writes : " AU that the sons [disciples] of the philosophers are
wont to say about geometry and music, grammar, rhetoric
and astronomy, as natural attendants on phUosophy, we say
about philosophy itself, in its relation to Christianity."^
(to pdp^apov iv natSeia, are the words of Clement). Cf. "Stromat." n. 2
("P. G." vm. 940). '
^ " Contra Cels." I. 2 (xi. 656) : XeKriov on iari tis oikeio dnoSet^is toC
Xoyou, Beiorepa napd rijv dnb SiaXeKTiKtjs eXXtjvtKTjv. Origen speaks of a
Christian dnb eXXtjviKav Soypdrav Kal yvpvaaiav iXBav.
" Ibid. III. 75 (xi. 1020) : oi Xeyopev, opdre pij nore rts vpav intarrjptjs
iniXd^tjrat, ovSe (jydaKopev art kokov iartv entarrjptj oiiSe peprjvapev tv
einapev OTi yvaais a<^dXXet tovs dvBpanovs k.t.X. Cf. ibid. 47 and 48
(xi. 981). The same is said by Clement, " Stromat." vi. 10 (ix. 301).
' " Epistula ad Gregor." 1 (xi. 88). The same idea is in Clement,
"Stromata," i. 2. At Rome, on the contrary, the former attitude still pre
vails about the same time. We must remember how Hippolytus (Euseb.
" H. E." V. 28), lUce TertulUan, is shocked that some should admire Aristotle
and use the syllogism.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 297
The inspiration manifested in these thoughts reminds us
of that which gave birth to the Jewish Alexandrian hterature,
and to the movement of Hellenistic-Jewish thought to which
Philo belongs. Still, we must be careful not to overlook the
deep-rooted and firm tradition in the midst of which this new
spirit makes its appearance. It has been said that " if all
appearances are not deceptive, the Alexandrian Church . . .
was, up to the time of Septimius Severus, pursuing a path of
development which, left to itself, would not have led to
Catholicism, but, in the most favourable circumstances, to a
parallel form ".! Unfortunately, history records little about
the Church of Alexandria in the first two centuries ; but, as
soon as it does record something, through the writings of
Clement and Origen, we see Catholicism established at Alex
andria on the same foundations as elsewhere : why then
maintain that this Alexandrian Catholicism was something
new,^ something that began only in the first half of the
'Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i\ p. 481.
" Harnack, ibid. , quotes but one fact in support of his supposition.
Eusebius ("H. E." vi. 2, 13-14) relates that Origen, who happened to
be in very poor circumstances, was given hospitality by a lady of rank in
Alexandria, who " lodged and entertained in her house, besides Origen,
then a young man, a famous heretic ". The latter, whose name was Paul,
came from Antioch. Harnack, whom we have just quoted, continues as
follows : "The lectures on doctrine delivered by this heretic and the
conventicles over which he presided were attended by a pvptov nXijBos ov
(iovo)/ a'tperiKav dXXd Kal ijperipav [a large crowd, not only of heretics, but
of our own people also]. This is a valuable piece of information which
reveals to us a state of things in Alexandria that would have been im
possible in Rome at the same period." No, we may reply, this piece of
information attests merely the well-known levity of the "respectable
people " of Alexandria, who were attracted by the eloquence of this heretic.
As to the question of orthodoxy, we see, from the sequel of the narrative,
that it existed at Alexandria just as at Rome. In point of fact — to quote
the words of Eusebius — " Origen could never be induced to join with him
[Paul] in prayer ; for, although then a boy, he held the rule of the Church
{ovSe nanore npovrpdntj Kard rijv e-uxi}V avra avarrjvat, cjivXdrrav i^ert natSbs
Kawdi/a iKKXtjaias), and abominated, as he somewhere expresses it, heretical
teachings {^eXvrropevos re, as avra pijpari (prtjai nov avros, rds Twi/ a'tpeaeav
StSaaKoX'ias). This detail of Origen's childhood (he was born about the
year 182) shows that, before the end of the second century, the genuine
Christians of Alexandria would suff'er no compromise in what belongs to
the ecclesiastical rule of faith. See the similar declarations of Dionysius,
Bishop of Alexandria, Euseb. "H. E." vii. 7.

298 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
third century ? Let us not separate the Hellenic spirit of
our Alexandrian doctors from their CathoUcism and from
what gives them their fitting place in the Kotvr) evmai'i, in
that ecclesiastical unity of which we shaU find aU the dis
tinctive features in the works of Origen.
* *
*
As a matter of fact, in the eyes of Origen, the Church is
not a school open to aU, and thus differs from the schools of
phUosophy where "the philosophers discuss in pubUc and
do not pick and choose their hearers, but he who likes stands
and listens." Far from it I For the Christians try, as far
as possible, " the souls of those who wish to become their
hearers " : they previously instruct them in private, and
only when they deem them sufficiently prepared do they
bring them into their assembly {ek to kolvov), although even
then they distinguish between the true disciples and those
who have not yet received the sign of purification : for it is
thus that Origen, speaking to Celsus, designates baptism.!
Among the Christians there are special officers whose duty
it is to make inquiries into the conduct of applicants for
initiation, to set aside men of irregular lives, and to make
the good stiU better. " The practice of the Christians is the
same with those [of their brethren] who sin, especiaUy vnth
the unchaste : they exclude them from their assembly." ^
The Pythagoreans erect cenotaphs to those who have given
up their phUosophy, because they treat them as dead ; " but
the Christians lament as dead those who have been van
quished by impurity or any other sin, because they are lost
and dead to God ; but (if they manifest a true conversion)
they receive them back as risen from the dead, though after
a longer probation than in the case of those who are admitted
for the first time ; yet never do they admit to any charge or
authority in the Church of God those who, after once pro
fessing the Gospel, have lapsed and fallen." ^
This does not mean, however, that the Church consists
! " Contra Cels." m. 51 (xi. 988) : rb avp^oXov rov dnoKeKoBapBat.
" Ibid. : ovs dneXavvovai tou Koivov.
^Ibid. : els oiSepiav dpxijv Kal npoaraaiav rrjs Xeyopevijs iKKXtjaias toC
Beov KaraXeyovres. . . . On the holiness of the Church, see " De Orat."
20 (XI. 477).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 299
of saints only. The Church is a treasure-house that con
tains vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath, a granary
where straw and wheat are gathered in together, a net
that brings to the surface fishes that must be cast aside
and fishes that are exceUent.! The Christian community
as a whole has become exceedingly lukewarm, nor must
we judge it from the increasing number of its crowds.
Where are the martyrs of old ? Formerly, when returning
from the cemeteries whither we had taken the bodies of our
martyrs, " from the whole assembly no lament arose ". Cate
chumens were instructed by the sight itself of the sufferings
of the martyrs or of the death of the confessors. " Few
indeed were the faithful then, but they were truly faithful."
Now that we are so many, the word of Jesus is proved to
be true, which says : " Many are called, few are chosen " ?
Many who are indifferent are now found in our midst,
mingled with the sinners. The faithful no longer come
punctually to the liturgical synaxes : hardly do they come
even on feast days, and when they do come, it is not so
much to hear the word, as for the sake of diversion, and of
the spectacle.^
The ecclesiastical ordo comprises three degrees:* the
deacons, the priests, the bishop. While the obligation of
each towards the Church is grave, the bishop's obligation
1 " In lerem. HomU." xx. 3 (xm. 536).
" Ibid. rv. 3 {xni. 289). As to the wonderful multiplication of Chris
tians as early as the end of the second century, see the sarcastic com
ment of Celsus, in " Contra Celsum," iv. 23 (xi. 1060).
' " In Genes. Homil." x. 1 (xn. 215) : " Vix festis diebus ad ecclesiam
proceditis, et hoc non tam desiderio verbi, quam studio solemnitatis et
pubUcae quodammodo remissionis obtentu. Quid igitur ego faciam, cui
dispensatio verbi credita est ? "
^ In this study of Greek ecclesiology during the first half of the
third century, I shall not use the so-called Canons of Hippolytus or the
document designated generally by German scholars the " Aegyptische
Kirchenordnung." Most critics believe with Funk (against Achelis and
Harnack) that these two documents depend on the " Apostolic Constitu
tions," which must belong to about the year 400. Nor shall I appeal,
either, to the "DidascaUa apostolorum," although it may be ascribed
very probably to the third century, probably to the second half of the
third century. (Whether it comes from Antioch or from Jerusalem, is
uncertain.)

300 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
is graver than that of any other, and he wiU be held ac
countable by the " Saviour of the whole Church ".! The
bishop has sovereignty over both the priests and the faith
ful.^ He must be severe, and woe to his sheep, if he is
over lenient towards sinners, if he is afraid of what they
may say, if he hesitates to rebuke them, and, if need be, to
banish them from the Church.
"Dum uni parcunt, universae ecclesiae moliuntur interi-
tum. Quae ista bonitas? quae ista misericordia est, uni
parcere et omnes in discrimen adducere ? PoUuitur enim ex
uno peccatore populus. Sicut ex una ove morbida grex
universus inficitur, sic etiam uno vel fornicante, vel aliud
quodcumque sceleris committente, plebs universa poUuitur.
Et ideo observemus nos invicem et uniuscuiusque conversatio
nota sit, maxime sacerdotibus et ministris. Nee putent se
recte dicere : Quid hoc ad me spectat si alius male agit ? . . .
Tale ergo est quod [dicunt] ii qui ecclesiis praesunt, non
cogi tantes quia unum corpus sumus omnes qui credimus,
unum deum habentes qui nos in unitate constringit et
continet, Christum, cuius corporis tu qui ecclesiae praesides
oculus es, propterea utique ut omnia circumspicias, omnia
circumlustres, etiam ventura praevideas. Pastor es, vides
oviculas Domini ignaras periculi ferri ad praecipitia et per
praerupta pendere, non occurris? non revocas? non saltern
voce cohibes et correptionis clam ore deterres?"^
The Church, then, is a tangible unity : she is a body of
which the bishop is the eye, and the right hand : he is
eTTto-KOTTo? that he may watch, he is a pastor, he must be
zealous and vigUant especiaUy as regards sinners. This is
the counterpart to the diatribes of TertuUian, the Montanist.
There is for the sinner a hard and toilsome penance, in
which he waters his couch with his tears and is not ashamed
to make his sin known to the bishop.* After the manner of
1 "De Orat." 28 (xl 524) : . . . o<j)eiXTj, koI eripa StaKovov, Kal aXXtj
npeafSvripov, Kal iniaKonov Se o(f>etXij ^apvrdrrj earlv dnatrovpevtj vnb ToC
rijs BXrjs iKKXtjaias aarijpos {ita KoETSCHAu).
" " In lerem. HomU." xi. 3 (xra. 369) : 6 rijv ndvrav rjpav iyKexei-
piapevos apxijv avrijv rijv iKKXtjaiaartKtjv.
^ " In Ies. Nave Homil." vn. 6 (xn. 862).
¦• "In Levit. Homil." n. 4 (xn. 448) : " . . . Non erubescit sacer-
doti Domini indicare peccatum suum "

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 301
the high priest of old, as prescribed in Leviticus, it belongs
to the bishop to offer up to God the sacrifice of propitiation
for the sin.! gg ]ja,s the power to exclude the sinner
from the Church : "Si quis nostrum peccaverit abiectus est,
etiamsi non abiciatur ab episcopo, sive quod lateat, sive
quod interdum ad gratiam iudicetur, eiectus est tamen ipsa
conscientia peccati ".^ In aUusion to the words in which
St. Paul declares that he delivers over to Satan the incestuous
Ohristian of Corinth, Origen observes that the Apostles are
not the only ones who have this power, since a like punish
ment can be inflicted "per eos qui ecclesiae praesident
et potestatem habent nen solum solvendi, sed et ligandi." ^
For "in ecclesiis Christi consuetude tenuit talis, ut qui
manifesti sunt in magnis delictis eiciantur ab oratione
communi ".*
The mission of every Christian is, indeed, to bring all
mankind to the kingdom of God ; but this is preeminently
the mission of the bishops, priests and deacons : " Maa;im&
hoc faciunt qui videntur in ecclesia clariores, quales sunt
episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi," and this duty they fulfil, by
leading a life of virtue. Evil-living pastors, mercenaries,
tum away from the kingdom those who were advancing
towards it, particularly when they excommunicate unjustly,
through jealousy or anger, members who are at times much
better than they, and who can oppose only patience to these
tyrannical deeds.^
'"In Levit. Homil." v. 4 (454): " Discant sacerdotes Domini qui
ecclesiis praesunt quia pars eis data est cum his quorum delicta repropiti-
avermt". Cf. ibid. vi. 12 (464-5).
"Ibid. XIL 6 (542). Cf. xiv. 2 (553) : "Peccavit aliquis fidelium :
iste etiamsi nondum abiciatur per episcopi sententiam, iam tamen per
ipsum peccatum quod admisit eiectus est ; et quamvis intret ecclesiam
tamen eiectus est, et foris est, segregatus a consortio et unanimitate
fidelium. Cf. ibid. 3 (556): "Interdum fit ut aliquis non recto iudicio
eorum qui praesunt ecclesiae depellatur, et foras mittatur.'' Cf. "In
lerem. HomU." vn. 3. (xm. 333) ; ibid. xn. 5 (385).
' " In Judic. HomU." n. 5 (xn. 961).
*"In Matt. Comment, ser." 89 (xin. 1740). Cf. "In Levit.
HomU." xrv. 2 (xn. 553).
'^ Ibid. 14 (xm. 1620) : " . . . maxime quando . . . non propter pec-
cata quae faciunt excommunicant quosdam, sed propter aliquem zelum et
contentionem . . . , vincentes sua patientia et longanimitate tyrannides
eorum."

302 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Let bishops be on their guard not to misuse their dis
cretionary authority of cutting off a Christian from com
munion, depriving him of the bread and of the chahce,
excluding him from the house of God which is the Church,!
and banishing him from the Church his fatherland. ^
The bishop has the administration of charity ; he is the
innkeeper to whom the good Samaritan gives two pence,
that the wounded man whom he has picked up on the way
may have aU the necessary care.^ Whoever is caUed to the
episcopate " non ad principatum vacatur, sed ad servitutem
totius ecclesiae ".* Woe to him if, prompted by the love
of riches, he takes for himself the gifts offered to God,* and
the money contributed by the faithful for the needs of the
poor, and the support of the clergy.*
Origen shows us the seat apart of the bishop and of
his priests, and below them the deacons standing, ready
1 " Comment, in loan." xxviii. 4 (xiv. 688): ou navrl KaBrjKet pij
Xpi}aBat T(^ dpra Kat pij nivetv iK tou nortjp'tov, Kctt ptj noppa eivat rov otKov
Beov Kal rijs iKKXtjaias.
" "In Psalm, xxxvii. HomU." i. 6 (xn. 1380) : "Iste si decidat de
patria Sua, id est de ecclesia, in insulam quamdam atque in horrentes sco-
pulos quae peccati sedes est propellatur ".
3 "Comment, in Rom." ix. 31 (xiv. 1231): "... stabulario .
qui ecclesiae praeest".
¦> " In Is. HomU." vi. 1 (xm. 239).
5" Comment, in Rom." n. 11 (xiv. 897) : " Quod si, ut nonnunquam
fieri solet, munera oblata Deo et stipem in usus pauperum datam, ad rop-
pria lucra converterit. . . ." Concerning the charitable services rendered
by the Church see " Comment, in Rom." ix. 2 (xiv. 1212). " Comment.
in Matt.'' XI. 9 (xm. 932) : rb rijs iKKXtjaias yXaaaoKopov. "In Levit.
Homil." IV. 6 (xn. 431) : " Vota et munera quae in ecclesiis Dei ad usus
sanctorum, et ministerium sacerdotum, vel quae ob neoessitatem pau
perum, a devotis et religiosis mentibus offeruntur". 3y vota we must
understand here what the faithful vow to give to the Church, as is ex
plained in "HomU." XI. 1 {ibid. 531). Clement of Alexandria intimates
that some became Christians, because once in the ranks of the Christian
community they were sure to be safe from destitution, Christianity being
a powerful charitable institution. "Stromat.'' i. 1 ("P. G." vol. vm.
col. 693 A.).
8 " In Num. HomU." xi. 2 (xn. 644). To the bishop also belongs the
administration of the ecclesiastical property, which then consisted of the
Christian cemeteries. Cf. "PhUosophoumena," ix. 12 ("P. G." xvl
3383).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 303
to minister at the divine service.! We are seated higher
than you, it is true — says Origen to his hearers — and
some of the faithful aim at reaching the same degree, but
do not beUeve that it suffices to belong to the clergy to be
saved : many even among the priests lose their own souls,
and many of the laity will be happier ; for what truly matters,
is not to have one's seat in the presbyterium, but to live
worthy of that station. ^
The prince (o -^yovp.evo';) , for " this name, I believe, should
be given to him who in the Churches is caUed bishop " ; the
prince must be the servant of servants, according to the
command left us by the Word of God. On the contrary,
we so act " that at times we exceed in pride the wicked
princes of the nations, and we all but surround ourselves,
like kings, wdth bodyguards. We are formidable, inaccessible,
especiaUy to the poor. When some one comes to us and
makes a request, we are more haughty than are the most
cruel tyrants and princes towards their supplicants. This
can be seen in many famous Churches, chiefly in those of
the largest cities." ^
Those who prove themselves unworthy of ecclesiastical
dignities, can certainly be deprived of them. A Church is
like a city, which can strike the name of a decurion off the
roU of its Curia, just as it can condemn to exile such or such
! " In Cantic." n. (xm. 107) : " Vidit et sedem puerorum eius. Eccle
siasticum puto ordinem dicit, qui in episcopatus vel presbyterii sedibus
habetur. Vidit et ordinationes sive stationes ministrorum eius. Diacon-
orum, ut mihi videtur, ordinem memorat astantium divino ministerio."
""In lerem. Homil." XI. 3: SoKoijpev etvat dnb KXijpov rivbs npoKa-
Be^opevoi vpav. ... To a<peXavv ovk avrb rb KaBe^eaBai iv npea^vrepia
earlv, dXXd rb ^tovv d^ias rov ronov. . . . nXelov iya dnairovpat napa rov
SiaKoi/of, nXelov 6 SidKovos napd rbv XaiKov. As to the meaning of the
word TojTor, cf. ap. Eusbb. " H. E." vl 11, 3, the letter of Alexander,
Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Christians of Arsinoe.
3 " Comment, in Matt." xvl 8 (xm. 1393). Of. " In Matt. Comment."
ser. 61 (xm. 1695). In these words, which are particularly harsh, some
have seen an acrimonious allusion to the Roman Church : a view which,
it is almost unnecessary to say, has not failed to obtain the full approval
of the Old Catholics, of Langen for instance. The bishops of Alexandria
and the bishops of Antioch might lay themselves open, just as well, to
sunilar criticisms ; consider, for instance, the formal charges of pride made
agauist Paul of Samosata.

304 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
of its citizens : " Infamia est apopulo Dei et ecclesia separari :
dedecus est in ecclesia surgere de consessu presbyterii, proiici
de diaconatus gradu "}
The people have the right to assist at the election of
their bishop, for they should convince themselves on that day,
that the most learned and holy candidate is chosen.^ We
know, from other sources, that the neighbouring bishops
take part in the election of a new bishop.^
Between the ordo, which consists of the bishop, priests
and deacons on the one hand, and of the people, which con
sists of the faithful {iriaToi) and the catechumens on the
other, Origen does not mention any clerics as intermediaries.*
He speaks of virgins and of abstinents,* and gives us to under
stand that virginity and asceticism are a profession.* He
speaks of widows, and also of virgins, as dedicated to the
service of the Church, like the priests, the deacons, and
the bishop.'^ Origen protests against a protracted stay in
the ranks of the catechumens,* for, in truth, whoever is
born again through divine baptism is introduced into Para
dise, i.e. into the Church.^
Whenever he is led to speak of the clergy of his age,
Origen is extremely severe. A pessimistic preacher, he does
not fear to denounce the faults of the clergy even before
the assembly of the faithful. He compares them to the
Pharisees who love to be caUed Eabbis and claim the first
'"In Ezech. Homil." x. 1 (xm. 740) : "Poteris inteUegere quod
dicitur, si consideraveris quae cotidie in civitatibus fiunt. Inhonoratio
civi est de patria sua exulare, et infamia decurioni eradi de albo
curiae. ..."
2 "In Levit. Homil." vi. 3 (xn. 469): " Requiritur in ordinando
sacerdote et praesentia populi. . . . Ille eUgitur ad sacerdotium, et hoc
adstante populo ".
3 Euseb. " H. E." vi. 11, 2, where the bishops whose dioceses are
near Jerusalem choose a coadjutor for the aged Bishop of Jerusalem,
Narcissus .
^ " In lerem. HomU." xiv. 4.
" " Comment, in Rom." i. 2 (xiv. 841). Cf. ix. 1 (1205).
« " Contra Celsum," v. 49 (xi. 1257).
' " Comment, in Rom." vm. 10 (1189).
8 " In Jes. Nave HomU. " ix. 9 (xm. 878). Cf . ' ' Comment, in Rom."
I. 13 (xiv. 900). " In Luc. Homil." vii. (xn. 1819).
» " In Genes. Selecta " (xn. 100).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 305
seats. Avaricious and hypocritical men intrigue to become
deacons ; when they have become deacons, they fight among
themselves to get the first seats, those of the priests ; and
when they are priests, they cabal to be made bishops. How
far they are from the manners of the early Church, " caelestes
primitivorum ecclesias ! " ! Then the arrogance of their re
latives becomes simply unbearable, for great is their pride if
they should have for father or grandfather one " who has
been honoured in the Church with the precedency of the
episcopal throne, or with the dignity of the presbyterate, or
of the diaconate ".^ In the temple of Jerusalem, which is
also the Church, seUers are always to be found, " who have
need of Jesus to scourge them and overturn their tables ".^
The worst Temple- vendors are those bishops and priests who,
on election days, seU the Churches to men that are unworthy.*
These ecclesiastical elections seem to be a stone of scandal
to Origen : he thinks of the Apostles, who, for the choice of
Matthias, leave the whole matter in the hands of God, by
prayer and by the drawing of lots; and yet they are the
Apostles, " qui utique multo sapientiores erant quam, ii qui
nunc episcopes vel presbyteres vel diaconos ordinant ".^
Even Moses did not take upon himself to appoint his suc
cessor ; and stUl he had sons and nephews : a striking example
for the ecclesiaru/m principes, which should deter them from
appointing in their wiUs their rela.tives for their successors
and making the ecclesiastical dignity an inheritance ; a strik
ing example for the people also, who often think they may
intervene in the appointment of the bishop, by their repeated
outcries — outcries that are dictated by venality or by passion.^
' "Ll Matt. Comment." ser. 11 (xm. 1616).
""Comment, in Matt." xv. 26 (xm. 1329): indv rvxji narpdatv
enavyelv Kal npoydvois npoeSpias ij^tapevots iv rfj iKKXtjaia iniaKontKov Bpdvov
tj npeafivrepiov rtprjs rj StaKovias els rbv Xabv rov Beov.
' " Comment, in loan." x. 16 (xiv. 348). Cf. for the same compari
son m "Comment, in Matt." xvi. 22 (xm. 1448). As to the expulsion
of scandalous bishops, see " In Exod. Homil." x. 4 (xn. 373).
*" Comment, in Matt." xvi. 22 (xm. 1452): ot rds nparoKadeSpias
nentarevjievot rod Xaov inia-Konoi Kal npeafivrepot, Kal aanepel aTroStSd/zei'Oi
oXas iKKXtjaias dis ov XPV koi KaBiardvres <n>s oil Sel apxovras.
^ "In Ies. Nave HomU." xxm. 2 (xn. 935).
" " In Num. HomU. " xxn. 4 (xn. 744) : " Discant Ecclesiae principes
successores sibi non eos qui consanguinitate generis iuncti sunt, nee qui
20

S06 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Do we not see, in some Churches, piety treated as an
article of trade, and the Gospel, as a means of getting rich ?
If Jesus wept over Jerusalem, how much greater reason wiU
He have to weep over the Church, the house of prayer,
which luxury and lucre have made a den of thieves — " and
would to God that it were not the leaders of the people who
have done it ! " !
Origen's severity towards the clergy finds its explana
tion in the high idea he has of their eminent and divinely
appointed function. For, if the Church is an edifice,
the bishops and priests are its roof, made of cedar and
cypress : but cypresses are hardy and sweet-smeUing trees,
and cedars are incorruptible and sweet-smeUing also: a
symbol of the virtue and knowledge which priests and
bishops should possess.^ If men demand of the clergy that it
should judge itself first, it is because it has a mission to judge
the people : " Thinkest thou . . . that thou shalt escape
the judgment of God ? " says St. Paul, not to the princes of
this earth, nor to the kings of this world, but to the leaders
and princes of the Churches, i.e. to bishops, priests, and
deacons ; to these he says that they must not think they
will escape the judgment of God, if they do themselves
what they judge and condemn others for doing." ^ Othoniel
was made judge over Israel because the Holy Spirit was
with him and because he judged Israel through the Holy
Spirit : " Sunt ergo omnium hodie ecclesiarum quae sunt
sub caelo quamplurimi indices, quibus iudicium non solum
rerum gestarum datum est sed et animarum : verum nescio
si qui tales Ecclesiae iudices sunt quos dignos faciei Deus
carnis propinquitate sociantur, testamento signare, neque haereditarium
tradere Ecclesiae principatum ".
! " Comment, in Matt." xvl 21 (xm. 1445).
" " In Cantic. lib." in. (xm. 149). Cf. " In Genes. HomU." xvn. 6
(xm. 259).
^ " Comment, in Rom." ii. 2 (xiv. 873) : " Ekjclesiarum rectoribus et
principibus loquitur, his videlicet qui indicant eos qui intus sunt, id est
episcopis vel presbyteris et diaconibus . . . si ea committant ipsi de
quibus alios indicant et condemnant. "In Ezech. hom." v. 4: "Quid
mihi prodest quia prior sedeo in cathedra resupinus, honorem maioris ac-
cipio, nee possum habere dignitate mea opera oondigna ? "

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 307
Spiritu sancto repleri." ! Let the Pontiff follow the ex
ample of Moses and Aaron, and not leave the Lord's taber
nacle. Let the Pontiff meditate on Holy Scripture and in
struct the people. Let him teach what he has learned from
God, and received from the Holy Ghost .^
Origen — we may notice — asks that the bishops may be
worthy to be fiUed with the Holy Ghost. Here we come to
a very special point of doctrine, to which Origen returns
several times. The Churches are too wealthy and ecclesiasti
cal dignities too greedily sought after, for hypocrisy not to
be constantly on the increase : —
" Sunt quidam et martyrii simulatores ; quidam autem
episcopatus, vel presbyteratus, vel diaconatus, vel ecclesias
ticae scientiae et doctrinae, tantum personas et ostentationem
virtutum habentes, vere autem sunt inimici earumdem vir-
tutum quas simulant." ^
We can just understand how there can be fictitious
martyrs ; but how can true bishops simulate the episcopate,
true priests, the priesthood, and true deacons, the diaconate?
They merely play a part, Origen tells us, they dislike the
virtues they simulate : is it because their unworthiness might
deprive them of the powers of their order ?
Elsewhere, when speaking of the power of sanctificatlon,
attached to " the word of God and prayer," Origen uses the
foUowing expressions, that remind us of the sacramental
hturgy :—
" Sanctificantur per verbum Dei et oratienem [1 Tim.
! " In ludic. HomU." m. 3 (xn. 964). Cf. "Oracula SibyUina," ii.
264.7. ^ "In Levit. Homil.'' vn. 2 (xn. 478). The points just noted may
be compared with the following affirmations of Harnack : "The hier
archy has still no significance in Clement's ecclesiology. Origen entirely
agrees with Clement on this point. He also starts with the theory that
the Church is essentially a heavenly Communion and a holy communion
of believers, and he keeps this idea constantly before him. Again, like
Clement, he cannot, when opposing heretics, refrain from identifying the
Catholic Church, in so far as it is the Church of the true doctrine, with
this iavisible Church. But, also Uke Clement, he is far from having a
hierarchical [conception of the Church]. "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 414.
See also Bigg, " Christian Platonists," p. 213.
^ "In Matt. Comment." ser. 24 (xm. 1629).
20*

308 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
II. 5]. . . . Per orationem autem non cuiuscunque sanctifi
cantur, sed eorum qui levant puras manus sine ira et dis-
ceptatione [1 Tim. iv. 8].^
Does this mean — we ask again — that the impurity of
the hands and hearts of priests and bishops renders ineffectual
the Sacraments they administer? Cannot the Donatists
claim Origen as one of their forerunners ? ^ Before answer
ing this question, we had better read with care his com
mentary on the Tibi dabo claves regni caelorum.
This promise was made to Peter, "and to every one
who is Peter ".^ " He is worthy to receive the keys . . .
who is so fortified against the gates of Hades that they do
not prevail against him," that he "may open these gates to
those who have been conquered by them ". The Lord
" gives to those who are not conquered by the gates of Hades
as many keys as there are virtues ".
" But as those who claim the dignity af the episcopate *
base their claim like Peter on these words, so as to say that
they have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven from
the Saviour, and that things bound by them,, that is to say,
condemned by them,, are also bound in heaven, and that those
which have obtained remission from them are also loosed in
heaven ^ — we must say that they speak truly if they do the
deeds on account of which it was said to Peter : " Thou art
Peter " ; and if they are such that upon them the Church is
built by Christ, and to them with good reason this word can
be referred. For the gates ef Hades ought not to prevail
against him who wishes to bind or to loose. But if he is
bound himself with the bonds of his sins, te no purpose does
he bind er loose." ^
Does not this amount to saying that, if the bishop is a
! " Comment, in Rom." ix. 42 (xiv. 1249).
2HuET, " Origeniana," qu. xiv. (xvn. 1075).
'"Comment, in Matt." xn. 14 (xn. 1012) : XeXeKrat tu nirpa koi
navrl nirpa k.t.X.
* Ibid. (1013) : ol rbv tottov Tijs intaKonijs iKSiKoUvres.
- Ibid. : rd vn avrav &(j)eaiv eiXtjtfioTa. The word acjieatv implies that
it is a question of sins.
" Ibid. : el Se aeipals tSv dpaprtjpdrav avroxj ea^tyKrat pdrtjv Kal Seapei
Kal Xvei.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 309
sinner, he cannot exercise effectually as regards sinners the
power of the keys ? ! * *
*
The Church possesses the right faith.^ The heretics bear
the name of Christians, and boast of imparting a doctrine of
which they say the men of the Church are ignorant {quae
latere ab ecclesiasticis dicunt) : but reaUy they are thieves
and adulterers — thieves who steal the vessels of the temple,
adulterers who defile with their errors the chaste dogmas
of the Church {casta et honesta Ecclesiae dogmata).^ We
strive to understand Holy Writ, not like BasiUdes, whom
we abandon to his ungodliness, but " secundum pietatem ec-
clesiastici dogmatis" .* We perform the baptismal liturgy
"secundum typum ecclesiis traditum ".* We think " secun
dum doctrinam ecclesiasticam ".^ The true prophets of
Christ are the teachers who " ecclesiastice decent verbu/m ".''
Elsewhere Origen speaks of the Krjpvyjxa iKKXr)<TiaaT{,Kov?
He says of the articles of faith : " Est et illud definitum in

1 See in " De Orat." 28 (xl 528), another confirmation of this infer
ence. He alone can forgive the sins committed against God, who is " in
spired by Jesus like the Apostles " {ipnvevaBels vnb rov 'Itjaov as oi dnoa
roXot — an aUusion to " Joan." xx. 23 : Accipite Spiritum sanctum, quorum
remiseritis, etc.), and proves by his works that he has received the Holy
Ghost, and has become spiritual {as xapijaasrb nvevpa rb aytov koI yevopevos
nvevpartKos). The power to forgive sins committed against God belongs
"to the Apostles and to the pontiffs, similar to the Apostles, according to
the pattern of the great Pontiff" — an allusion to Heb. v. 1. Then follows
the weU-known passage where Origen is astonished that some bishops claim
the right to remit sins of idolatry, fornication and adultery. Cf. "In
Psalm." xxxviL " HomU." i. 1 (xn. 1369 and 1371).
"" " Comment, in Rom." i. 19 (xiv. 870).
^Ibid. II. 11 (898). The same thought is found in Clement, " Stro
mat." VU. 16, quoted above. We must take into account the gravity of
theft and adultery as estimated by the penitential discipline of those
days. * Ibid. V. 1 (1015). Kattenbusch, vol. n. pp. 134 and foil, on the
place of the regula fidei in Origen.
"Ibid. V. 8 (1038). Cf. "In Epistul. ad Tit." fragm. (1300) : " ecclesi-
astica regula". "Comment, in loan." xin. 16 (xiv. 421): Kavav rrjs
iKKXtjaias. Kattenbusch, vol. n. p. 143.
«"In Matt. Comment." ser. 137 (xin. 1787).
' Ibid. 47 (1669). s " Periarchon," iii. 1, 1 (xi. 249).

310 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
ecclesiastica praedicatione . . ."! This praedicatio, this
Ktjpvyfia, is the teaching which, through the succession of the
bishops by whom it is preserved, comes down from the
Apostles. Of this official teaching Origen gives the foUowing
definition which is at the beginning of the " Periarchon " but
which we might think was taken from Irenseus : " Cum multi
sint qui se putant sentire quae Christi sunt, et nonnuUi eorum
diversa a prioribus sentiant — servetur ecclesiastica praedicatio
per successionis ordinem ab apostolis tradita et usque ad
praesens in ecclesiis permanens. lUa sola credenda est
Veritas quae in nuUo ab ecclesiastica et apostoUca discordat
traditione."^ Of each of the articles, on which the praedicatio eccles
iastica is plainly affirmative, one may say : " . . . de quo
totius Ecclesiae una sententia est." ^ Of a dogma, such as
that of the resurrection of the body, Origen declares that it
is rb /3ovX7)p,a tjj9 iKKXrjaia'; tov Xpiaroii,^ inasmuch as it is
like a law or a decree of the ^ovX-q of a large city. The
unity of faith makes the unity of Christendom, of that people
''qui in sacramentis Christi cenfoederatus est".^
In all the expressions we have accentuated, the Church
appears as the depositary of revealed truth : ecclesiastical
' " Periarchon,'' i. 1, 5 (118). The same expressions occm- in nn.
6 and 7.
"Ibid. I. 1, 2 (xi. 116). Cf. ibid. n. 11, '3 (345): "... secundum
apostolorum sensum ". "In Genes. Homil." i. 6 (xn. 151): "Christus
... ex cuius lumine illuminata Ecclesia, ipsa etiam lux mundi efficitur
. . . Christus quidem lux est apostolorum, apostoli vero lux mundi,
ipsi enim sunt . . . vera Ecclesia." " Selecta in psalm.'' cxxvi. (xii. 1641) :
rbv otKOV roij Beov, ovra iKKXtjaiav avrov, ol olKoSopovvres dnoOToXot Xptarov
Kal oi reraypevoi vn' avrov StSdaKaXoi, o-v jidrtjv iKoniaaav . . . Kal aXXas Se
OtKOV olKoSojwvatv oil /xeTO Kvpiov oi eTepoSo^oi, rijv iKKXtjaiav novtjpevopivav
. . . 'Opoias Kal 'lovSalot. We may notice in this last text an anti
climax dear to Origen : the ecclesiastic, the heterodox, the Jew.
^Ibid. 1, 8 (119). Cf. ibid. 7, 1 (171): "... secundum dogma
nostrum id est Ecclesiae fidem." " In Genes. Homil." m. 2 (xn. 176) :
" Alienum hoc est ab Ecclesiae fide." "In Levit. Homil." xv. 2 (xii.
560) : " . . . fidei, quae muro ecclesiastici et apostolici dogmatis cincta
est ". " In Num. Homil." xxv. 4 (xn. 768) : "Quis non animetur pug-
nare pro Ecclesia et resistere adversum inimicos veritatis, eos scilicet
qui dogmata Ecclesiae oppugnare decent ? "
" " Contra Cels." v. 22 (xi. 1216).
" " In Num. Homil." xvi. 9 (xn. 701).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 311
preaching is synonymous with authentic faith, and the
actual ecclesiastical preaching finds its justification in the
fact that it is the tradition of the Apostles, transmitted
in a direct line as an inheritance. This is also the theory
of Irenseus, and even of the Greek writers of the second
century, prior to Irenseus.!
The canon of the Scriptures is that which the Church
guarantees. Thus, whilst the heresies have so many Gospels,
the Church has four Gospels only. Origen knows indeed
the " Gospel according to the Egyptians," a " Gospel of
the Twelve Apostles," a " Gospel according to St. Thomas,"
a " Gospel according to St. Matthias," and the gospel which
Basilides was bold enough to compose and to which he gave his
own name. But there are only four approved Gospels :
"quatuor tantum euangelia sunt probata, e quibus sub
persona Domini et Salvatoris nostri proferenda sunt dog
mata." Of all the gospels that are in circulation, " nihil
aliud probamus, nisi quod Ecclesia".-'
Holy Scripture, is contained both in the Old and in the
New Testament, and cornes to an end with the books of the
Apostles, after which there is no more Scripture. To the
canon now closed the Church adds nothing, not even a
prophecy, but in this heretics do not imitate her : " Sola
Ecclesia neque subtrahit . . . neque addit quasi prophetiam
! " The theory that the bishops are successors of the Apostles, and
possess an apostolic office, may be considered a Western one which was
veiy slowly and gradually adopted in the East. ... It is very important
to note that the theory of the bishop's office in determining the truth
of ecclesiastical Christianity is completely unknown to Clement of
Alexandria. . . . Origen in the main still held the same view as his
predecessor. But numerous passages of his works and above all his
own history show that in his day the episcopate had become very strong
in Alexandria also, and had begun to claim the same attributes and rights
as in the West. . . . Clement represents an earlier stage, whereas by
Origen's time the revolution has been completed. " Harnack, ' ' Dogmeng."
vol. i^, p. 403. We can now judge how far the facts agree with these
statements. ^"In Luc. HomU." l (xm. 1803). Cf. "In Matt. Comment." ser.
28 (1638) : "... ecclesiarum canonem non requirentes " On the
weU-defined character of Origen's Biblical Canon, see Bardenhewer, vol.
n. p. 122 (against Koetschau).

312 PRIMITFVE CATHOLICISM
aliud aliquid ".! These words contain an allusion to
Montanism,^ and are similar in tone to those of the " Mura
torianum " on the same subject.
The Scriptures, on condition they are explained, not in
the materiality of their literal sense, but in their spiritual
sense, are not composed of human words, written as they
have been for Jesus Christ through the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost and at the command of the Father : they have
been given and entrusted to us in order to confirm those who
observe " the standard of the heavenly Church of Jesus
Christ according to the succession of the Apostles ".^
The elements of faith are comprised in the baptismal
symbol.* The words of Deuteronomy Aegyptius tertia gen
er atiene intrabit in ecclesiam Dei (Deut. xxm. 8) must be
understood of the Christian who believes in the Trinity:
" Credo propter fidem Patris et Filii et Spirit-us saTicti,
in quam credit omnis qui sociatur Ecclesiae Dei, tertiam
generationem mystice dictam ".^ The cords that uphold the
veil of the tabernacle represent the same baptismal faith :
"Funis enim triplex non rumpitur, quae est Trinitatis
fides, ex qua dependet et per quam sustinetur omnis Ec
clesia".^ On several occasions Origen speaks so precisely
of the baptismal symbol, that we can recognize its structure
and reconstitute the tenor of the symbol to which he is
i"In Mat. Comment." ser. 47 (xm. 1668). Cf. ibid. 28 (1637):
" Nemo uti debet ad confirmationem dogmatum Ubris qui sunt extra
canonizatas scripturas". Ibid. 46 (1667): " Canoiucas scripturas in
quibus omnis christianus consentit et credit ".
" See how severely Origen judges Montanism, " In Mat. Comment.''
ser. 28 (1637), and " In Epist. ad PhUem." fragm. (xrv. 1306).
^ " Periarchon," iv. 9 (360) : toC Kavovos rrjs 'irjaov XpioroG koto
SiaSoxijv rav dnoaroXav ovpaviov iKKXtjaias. The adjective ovpdi'toj must
be understood here in the sense of divine, and not as the antithesis ot
• earthly, iniyetos.
* As to the existence of a baptismal symbol at Alexandria, see the
testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusbb. " H. E." vn. 8 ; where
the Bishop upbraids Novatian for denying the profession of faith that
is made before Baptism. To Xovrpbv to dytov koI rfjv re npb dvrov niartv
Kat opoXoyiav. The symbol of Origen is given in Hahn, "Symbole,"
pp. 11-13. " " In Levit. HomU." v. 3 (xn. 452).
" " In Exod. HomU." ix. 3 (xn. 365).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 313
aUuding. At the same time he shows how the articles
which compose it suffice to condemn the heretics of his time.!
God has provided his Church with a living magisterium,
which not only teaches the ecclesiastical canon of faith, but
also strives to fathom it and to go beyond it. " Let us ob
serve," says Origen, " that the holy Apostles delivered them
selves wdth the utmost clearness on those articles which they
beUeved to be necessary to every one, even when preaching
the faith of Christ to those who seemed somewhat dull in
understanding the things of God ; leaving, however, the
deep-laid causes to be explored by those who had received
from the Holy Spirit the exceUent gifts of speech, of wisdom,
and of knowledge : while on other subjects they merely stated
the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the cause
and manner or origin of their being ; in order that the more
zealous lovers of study and wisdom, might in times to come
have a subject on which to exercise their talents, with profit." ^
Origen thus lays down the principle of the distinction of the
two domains — that of revelation, and that of theology under
stood in the scholastic sense. He distinguishes with no less
precision the domain of rational philosophy, the investiga
tion of which logicaUy precedes the Christian's study of the
Scriptures,^ and the domain of mystery which in its sub-
limer regions exceeds the capacity of every created intelli
gence.* These distinctions made, Origen does not suffer opponents
like Celsus to charge Christianity with being the religion of
the ignorant. And were it so, he adds, "I shaU answer that
I endeavour to improve [and enlighten the ignorant] to the
best of my ability, although I do not admit that the Chris
tian community consists only of them. For I seek in
preference those who are clever and acute, who are able
to comprehend the meaning of the hard sayings, and to see
clearly into the obscurities of the Law, and Prophecies, and
Gospels.^ ! " Comment, in loan." xxxii. 9 (xiv. 784).
" " Periarchon," i. 3 (xi. 116).
"Ibid. I. 3, 1 (147). ^ Ibid. n. 6, 2 (211).
" " Contra Cels." m. 74 (xi. 1016). Cf. m. 52-3 (989) and vi. 1
(1289).

314 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Contrary to what Celsus affirms, there is nothing hidden
or secret in the ecclesiastical teaching : from the very begin
ning we teach those who come to us to despise idols, and we
lead them on to worship God, the only Creator; then, by
means of the prophecies, we show them that He who had
been foretold actuaUy came, according to the testimony of
the Gospels and of the Apostolic writings.! rpjjg people are
initiated into the baptismal rudiments, but such knowledge
is not imparted to those who do not belong to the Church.
At the summit of the ladder, there are the truths reserved to
God : these are above our senses, and surpass our understand
ing ; we had better say nothing of them rather than express
them inaccurately. Between these two degrees, " sunt et
alia Ecclesiae dogmata ad quae possunt pervenire etiam
levitae, sed inferiera sunt ab his quae sacerdotibus adire
concessum est ".^ Strictly speaking, this distinction is forced ;
yet it agrees well with Origen's idea of doctrine and its
distribution. A part of the doctrine is for the simple and
the multitude ; another part is for the enlightened, the per
fect, the saints, the disciples to whom Jesus disclosed the
meaning of His parables.^ * *
*
The disciples come to the Divine Master and ask Him
explanations ; we must do likewise : if we have a question
to propose, let us go to one of those teachers God has estab
lished in the Church.*
The office of doctors in the Church — an office which is
" the ministry " of the ecclesiastical word — is that on which
Origen most insists. The doctor must not only aim at cor
recting the morals of the Christian people, he must also deal
out, as it were, the science of Christianity, pour out the con
solation of the Scriptures, explain the mysteries, and attain
1 " Contra Cels." ra. 15 (940).
2 " In Levit. HomU." v. 3 (xn. 452).
3 Ibid. V. 6 (441). Bigg, pp. 141 and foil., shows how much is exclus
ively Alexandrian and hardly Christian in this theory of a knowledge more
sublime, and drawn from the use of allegory, side by side with the know
ledge possessed by ordinary believers.
¦*" Comment, in Matt." xm. 45 (xni. 1132): nvi t£v vnb roi Beov
reraypivav iv rfj iKKXtjaia SiSaaKdXav.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 315
to a more penetrating knowledge.! The function of teaching
the catechumens belongs to the doctor ecclesiae.^ The bishop
in his Church is preeminently this doctor ecclesiae, but the
priests also share in his office : Origen, for instance, presents
himself as a doctor ecclesiae.^ We should note the precise
meaning of the expression and also the special stress Origen
lays on it : the doctor ecclesice is not he who teaches in the
Church, but he who teaches the Church.*
Holy Scripture can be compared to the loaves which Jesus
multiphed when breaking them. Doctors, like Origen, break
a few loaves only, . and multitudes are satiated : but these
loaves must be broken, i.e. the letter of Holy Scripture must
be discussed minutely. Let every one follow the doctors'
example : —
" Tenta ergo et tu, o auditor, habere proprium puteum
et proprium f on tem, ut et tu, cum apprehenderis librum
Scripturarum, incipias etiam ex proprio sensu proferre ali
quem inteUectum, et, secundum ea quae in ecclesia didicisti,
tenta et tu bibere de fonte ingenii tui. Est intra te natura
aquae vivae, sunt venae perennes, et irrigua fluenta rationa-
bilis sensus, si modo non sint terra et ruderibus oppleta." ^
No one, before Origen, had urged his feUow-Christians,
with such noble earnestness, to the acquisition of culture,
to intellectual effort, to the spread of knowledge within the
Church ; but he always subordinated this expansion of in
teUectual inquiry to the control of the praedicatio ecclesi
astica. The Passover was not eaten by those who did not
belong to Israel : unless they were circumcised, the slaves
whom a Jew had bought, or who were born in his house,
could not share in the family Passover. These prescriptions
are to be understood allegorically of our different kinds of
' " In Exod. HomU." xm. 4 (xn. 392). " Comment, in Rom." ra.
2 (xiv. 929).
^"Comment, in Rom." n. 11 (xiv. 897) : " . eo usque pervenit
ut etiam dux et doctor ecclesiae sit ad illuminandos eos qui in scientia
caeci sunt et instruendos parvulos in Christo ". This refers to the bishop.
'"'In Ezech. Homil." n. 2 (xm. 682) : " Nee quia adversum me aliqua
dicuntur, qui videor doctor esse ecclesiae, debeo tacere."
^"Comment, in Rom." ix. 2 (xiv. 1209): "in verbo Dei ecclesiam
docentibus adesse gratiam. . . ." Ibid. x. 7 (1262): "ecclesias docere ".
' " In Gen. HomU." xii. 5 (xn. 229).

316 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
knowledge : one kind is born, so to speak, in our house, and
is the fruit of our own minds ; the other has been acquired
and has come from the outside : both must be circumcised,
for no stranger has a right to the Passover; and by a
stranger must be understood any one who professes a
strange dogma.!
No one has spoken of Greek culture in more glowing
terms than Origen ; but how he contrasts it with the truth
concealed in the God-inspired Scriptures I The ingot of
gold which the Hebrew Achan seizes for himseK, against
Josue's command, in the sack of Jericho, is an appropriate
symbol of the artful resources of philosophers and orators,
and of the "perversa dogmata" to which they can so suc
cessfully impart a seductive appearance. If you steal away
this ingot of gold and hide it under your tent, " si intro-
duxeris in cor tuum ea quae ab eis asseruntur, pollues
omnem Ecclesiam Domini. Hoc fecit infelix Valentinus,
et Basilides, hoc fecit et Marcion haereticus : furati sunt
isti linguas aureas de lericho, et philosophorum nobis non
rectas in ecclesias introducere conati sunt sectas, et polluere
onrinem Ecclesiam Domini." ^
Since the Church possesses the true faith, one word
suffices to give heretics their right name : they are the
erepoBo^oi, those who think differently from the Church.
Origen has a predilection for this expressive term, which, in
his vocabulary, is opposed to eKKXr^aiaiTTiKo';?
Every day the heretics are busy in attacking the ecclesi
astical faith, "inquirentes quom,ode dogmata veritatis in-
fringant ; " they devote to this task all the keenness of their
minds and aU their leaming, " perspicaces et argumentosi
sunt in falsa scientia " . Such is Marcion, such BasiUdes,
! " Selecta in Exod." (xn. 285).
' " In Ies. Nave HomU." vu. 7 (xn. 863). A simUar reflection is found
in St. Hippolytus, " PhUosophoumena," preface of Book I.
'"In Luc. HomU.'' xvi. (xm. 1841) : " Ego vero quia opto esse ec
clesiasticus, et non ab haeresiarcha aliquo sed a Christi vocabulo nuncupari
[christianus] " Cf . " In Matt. Comment." ser. 33 (xm. 1643) : " Utinam
soli qui extra Ecclesiam sunt seducerentur. . . . Nunc autem ipsi qui
profitentur se ecclesiasticos esse de necessarus quibusque capitulis faUuntur
etseducuntur." Cf. " Contra Cels." vi. 3? (xi. 1353) : ol dnb rfjs iKKXtjaias.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 317
such Valentinus, " vel ceteri auctores pravorum, dogmatum ".!
Except Marcion, none of them founded any Church ; they left
only schools after them, " schola Valentini et Basilidis ".^
Whereas the Church is the house of God, built up by the
" ecclesiastici qui in Ecclesia sunt magistri," the schools
of heretics are simply abodes of evil : " Haeretici aedificant
lupanar in omni via, utputa magister de officina Valentini,
magister de coetu Basilidis, magister de tabernaculo Mar
cionis ".^ Very noticeable is the sarcastic force of these
last words, which remind us of Tertullian's utterances.
Whenever, says Origen, the heretics propose a discus
sion concerning the canonical Scriptures, those which are
unanimously received by every Christian, we may exam
ine their varied assertions : " Sed nos illis credere non de-
bemus, nee exire a prima et ecclesiastica traditione, nee aliter
credere nisi quemadmodum per successionem Ecclesiae Dei
tradiderunt nobis ".* Such is the tradition, which dates
from the very beginning, and which the Churches have
preserved, authenticating it by the succession of their re
spective bishops. Moreover, this tradition is the same
everywhere : " Veritas enim similis est fulguri egredienti ab
Oriente, et apparenti usque ad Occidentem, qualis est Veritas
Ecclesiae Dei : ab ea enim sola sonus in omnem terram
exivit ".^ To what heresy can this criterion apply ? To the
teaching of Marcion, to the " traditiones Valentini," to the
longa fabulesitas of Basilides, or to ApeUes who contradicts
St Paul ?«
1 " Comment, in Rom. " vm. 8 (xiv. 1181). " In Levit. HomU." iv.
5 (xn. 438).
"Ibid. vm. 11 (xiv. 1191). Cf. "Periarchon," n. 5 (xl 220).
' " In Ezech. HomU." vm. 2 (xra. 730). The Latin translation is
by St. Jerome. In other passages Origen expresses himself just as
vigorously on the same subject. " Periarchon," n. 9, 6 (xi. 230) ; ibid.
10, 2 {ibid. 234).
¦> " In Matt. Comment. " ser. 46 (xm. 1667). ' Ibid.
^Ibid. Cf." In Levit. Homil." vn. 4 (xn. 484): "... christianis
quibus apostolicorum dictorum chara esse debet auctoritas. Si quis vero
arrogantia tumidus apostolica dicta contemnit aut spernit, ipse viderit.
Mihi autem, sicut Deo et Domino nostro lesu Christo, ita et apostolis eius
adhaerere bonum est, et ex divinis scripturis secundum ipsorum traditionem
inteUegentiam capere ". See the most complete description of the heresies
denounced by Origen, of " In Epistul. ad Tit." (xiv. 1903).

318 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Hence the teaching of heretics can be compared most
appropriately to counterfeit money : —
" Ego puto quod Valentini sermo humana pecunia est et
reproba, et Marcionis et BasUidis pecunia humana est et
reproba, et omnium haereticorum sermo non est probata
pecunia, nee dominicam integre in se habet figuram, sed
adulteram, quae, ut ita dicam, extra monetam ita figurata
est quia extra Ecclesiam composita est." !
A general prescription does not suffice ; the ecclesiastical
teacher must face error, as it is in itself, take its own ground,
use against it its own arguments and refute it by its own
methods. " Under the pretence of higher vpisdom, the
heterodox assaU the holy Church of God^ and multiply
works in which they offer explanations of the EvangeUcal
and Apostolic precepts ; if we keep silence and do not oppose
to them the saving and tme doctrines, these teachers will
get hold of souls, who hunger after the food which preserves,
but go after food that is forbidden, and is, in fact, unclean
and abominable. It appears to me, therefore, to be neces
sary that one who is able to defend, vpithout altering it in
any way, the doctrine of the Church, and to refute those
dealers in knowledge falsely so-caUed {¦\jrevB(ovv/j,ov yvSxnv)
should take his stand against heretics and their lies, and
oppose to them the sublimity of the EvangeUcal message
{rb uT^o? TOV eiiayyeXiKoit KrjpvyfiaTos:) , the harmonious

i"In Psalm." xxxvi; "HomU." in. 11 (xn. 1347)- Origen uses
another comparison, "Comment, in Rom." x. 5 (xiv. 1256): "Sicut
piratae solent in mari in locis vadosis occultisque scopulis, per obscurum
noctis lumen accendere, quo navigantes sub spe confugiendi ad portum
salutis, ad naufragia perditionis invitent : ita et istud lumen falsae sapi
entiae vel falsae fidei [haereticorum] a principibus mundi et spiritibus aeris
huius accenditur, non per quod evadant, sed per quod pereant homines
mundi huius fluctus et vitae pelagus navigantes". The translation of
this passage is by Rufinus. Elsewhere Origen compares heresies to the
gates of hell that shall not prevail against the Church : ckootos rav erepo-
Sd^av Kal yevvtjadvrav slz-evSavvpov rtva yvaaiv, ^KoSoptjaev aSov nvXrjv,
aXXtjv pev MapKiav, Kal BaaiXiStjs ciXXtjv, Kal OvaXevrlvos aXXtjv. "Com
ment, in Matt." xn. 12 (xm. 1008).
" " Comment, in loan." n. (xiv. 196) : viv Se npoipdaet yvmo-ems inavt-
arapevav rav erepoSd^av rfj dyia tov Beov iKKXtjaia k.t.X. Note in passing
the expression, " the holy Church ".

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 319
plentitude of the doctrines, common to the Old and New
Testament." !
WiU the magisterium of the doctores ecclesiae suffice
to guard the Church against the onsets of heresy? Is
truth always so evident, that it forces conviction, and that
every controversy comes to an end ? Here Origen's optim
ism and his ingenuous confidence in his methods betrays
itself. " Qui scripturam legit et aliter quam scripta est accipit,
Scripturam mendaciter videt. Qui vero audit Scripturam
ut se veritatis inteUectus habet et sic eam interpretatur,
videt veritatem." ^
These two axioms are very candid. How much more
cautious is the distrust felt by Irenseus and TertuUian !
And Origen himself adds immediately : —
"Audi haereticos, quomodo traditiones apostolorum ha
bere se dicant. Audi falsos magistros, quomodo affirmant
doctrinam suam Domini esse doctrinam, sensum suum con-
gruere sensui prophetarum, et dicunt : Haec dicit Dominus." ^
What does this mean, except that those whom Origen
treats here as heretics and false teachers appeal in vindication
of their teaching to the criterion of Irenseus — to the agree
ment of their teaching with the Apostolic tradition, the
authority of the Prophets, the Lord and the Apostles ? A
doctor ecclesiae may be found to show these false teachers
that they are in error : but who will prove that he himself
is not mistaken ?
" Orate pro nobis ut sermones nostri non sint falsi. Licet
quidam homines ignorantia iudicii eos asserant falsos, Dom
inus non dicat, et recte nobiscum agetur. Si vero, miUe
hominum eos dixerint veros, iudicio porro Dei fuerint falsi,
quid mihi proderit? Dicunt et Marcionitae magistri sui
veros esse sermones ; dicunt et Valentini robustissimam
! " Comment, in loan." I.e. Compare " Periarchon," n. 3 (xi. 201) :
"Sed quoniam solent interdum huius haeresis assertores per deceptiosa
quaedam sophismata simpliciorum quorumque corda decipere, absurdum
non puto si etiam ea quae in assertionibus suis proferre solent, propo-
nentes subreptionem eorum ac mendacia, confutemus "
" " In Ezech. HomU." n. 5 (xm. 686).
* Ibid. Cf. " Homil." vn. 4 {ibid. 730).

320 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
sectam ! qui fabularum eius commenta suscipiunt. Quae
utilitas, quia plurimi Ecclesiae haeretica pravitate decepti in
eorum conspiravere sententiam? Hoc est quod quaeritur,
ut Dominus sermonum meorum testis assistat, ut ipse com-
probet quae dicuntur sanctarum testimonio Scripturarum."^
Origen appeals to an authoritative judgment of God,
which he identifies with the testimony of Scripture : always
the same circle. Yet Origen knows weU, that when doubt
is so wide-spread, the decisive pronouncement in the last
resort belongs to authority — in this case to the authority
of bishops. This he does not say with aU desirable explicit-
ness ; but he does say it, nevertheless : witness, for in
stance, his comment on the Biblical passage that refers to
the censers of Core, Dathan and Abiron — censers which Moses
had beaten into plates and fastened to the altar of holocausts,
after the death of the three rebels. See how he expresses
himseU : —
" Si apud homines hodie iudicaretur haec causa, et apud
ecclesiarum principes haberetur examen de iis, verbi causa,
qui diversa ab ecclesiis docentes divinae vindictae pertulerint
ultionem, nonne iudicarent ut si quid locuti sunt, si quid
docuerunt, si quid etiam scriptum reUquerunt, universa pariter
cum ipsorum cineribus deperirent ? Sed non sunt indicia
Dei sicut indicia nostra." ^
Take the case of a Christian who teaches heterodox
doctrines both by preaching and by writing : he is con
demned, and by whom ? By God Himself, for here Origen
speaks expressly of the " divinae vindictae ultio " of the
" iudicia Dei," just as he had spoken before of the same
" iudicium Dei ". This divine judgment precedes the exam
ination made by the leaders of the Churches, and directs
their decision ; it has motived it : they determine and apply
the divine teaching of the Scriptures. The brass-censers
of Core, Dathan, and Abiron typify Holy Scripture ; this
is why Moses fastens them to the altar of holocausts, as
God's property. But to the heretics belongs the fire burn
ing in the censers, i.e. the interpretations that disagree with
' The text of this Latin translation — the work of St. Jerome — is too
elliptical not to be faulty.
" " In Ezech. HomU." n. 5. « " In Num. Homil." ix. 1 (xii. 624).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 321
the thoughts of God and are against the truth — an incense
which the Lord rejects.
" Et ideo forma ecclesiarum sacerdotibus datur, ut, si
quando tale aliquid fuerit exortum, ea quidem quae a veritate
aliena sunt ab Ecclesia Dei penitus abstrudantur." !
To the bishops then it belongs to guard Scripture against
the erroneous meanings which the heretics, such as Marcion,
BasUides, and their feUows, strive to put upon it : to elimin
ate error is in itself progress made towards truth.
" Si doctrina ecclesiastica simplex esset, et nuUis intrinse-
cus haereticorum dogmatum assertionibus cingeretur, non
poterat tam clara et tam examinata videri fides nostra. Sed
idcirco doctrinam catholicam contradicentium obsidet oppug-
natio, ut fides nostra non otio torpescat, sed exercitiis
ehmetur." ^
The theory of the development of dogma, as understood
by Bossuet, is outlined in these few profound and accurate
words. Yet we must not forget Origen's purpose : he wishes
here to show that the supervision of this dogmatic work is a
part of the office of the bishops, which is typified by the
pontificate of Moses. The Churches are ruled by the bishops
in what pertains to conduct and discipline ; ^ by them also
are they governed in what pertains to doctrine.*
! " In Num. Homil." ix. 1 (xn. 624), " forma " has here the sense of
norm. " Ibid. This Latin translation is due to Rufinus. I should like to be
sure that the word catholicam comes from Origen, who uses generally the
word ecclesiasticam. At all events, the thought expressed here by Origen
was familiar to the school of Alexandria. Cf. Clement, "Stromat." i.
2(vin. 709 B.).
^ There is a strict analogy between the practical and the intel
lectual order, between conduct and belief, as was observed by Origen
himself. " In Matt. Comment." ser. 33 (xm. 1644) : " Malum est inven-
ire aUquem secundum mores vitae errantem, multo autem peius arbitror
esse in dogmatibus aberrare et non^ secundum verissimam regulam Scrip
turarum sentire. Quoniam si in peccatis mortalibus puniendi sumus, am
plius propter dogmata falsa peccantes." Cf. " In Psalm xxxvii. Homil."
L 1 (xn. 371) : " Necesse est eum qui peccat argui. . . . Nos qui episcopi
arguentis iracundiam ferre non possumus. . . ."
* Cf. " In Num. HomU." xn. 2 (xn. 660). Speaking of the Apostles,
whom he caUs kings, Origen writes : " Si reges a regendo dicuntur, omnes
utique qui ecclesias Dei regunt reges merito appellabuntur, multo autem
21

322 PRBIITIVB CATHOLICISM
This divine right of bishops is daUy exercised : witness
the case of Origen himself, and that of his contemporary
BeryUus, Bishop of Bostra.' CouncUs of bishops are, in the
time of Origen, a definitely and firmly established institution
both in Egypt and in the East. TertuUian had aheady
mentioned the " concilia ex universis ecclesiis " which were
wont to be held "per Graecias," i.e. in the Greek-speaking
countries.^ * *
*
In the course of the preceding pages, it wiU have been
noticed that Origen constantly and with a certain insistence
uses the expression "the Churches". We in our tum
must insist on this peculiar expression.
Origen looks upon Christendom chiefly as a number of
scattered Churches. In order to conquer the wdckedness of
the evil spirits, God planned that, all over the inhabited
world. Churches should be founded, which should contrast,
by the pure lives of their members, with what Origen calls
the " churches of superstition, intemperance and wicked
ness ". The Churches of God, taught by Christ, when com
pared with the neighbouring churches of pagans, shine truly
like stars in the world.^ The interesting feature of this text
is that the term "Church" is applied by Origen to pagan
cities. No doubt Origen remembered that the word iKKXrjirla
has in Greek an exclusively political meaning and designates
the deliberative assembly of the citizens of a city, hke
rectius illi qui et illos ipsos dictis atque scriptis suis regunt a quibus re-
guntur ecclesiae."
^ Hepele, " Hist, des Conciles " (Farnborough edit.), vol. i. pp.
156-64. '¦'Tbrtull. "De leiun." 13. Cf. Firmilian, inter Cypriani, "Epis
tul." LXXV. 4 : " Qua ex causa necessario apud nos fit ut per singulos
annos seniores et praepositi in unum conveniamus ad disponenda ea quae
curae nostrae commissa sunt, ut si qua graviora sunt communi consilio
dirigantur." Harnack, "Geschichte des altchrist litt.," in "Ueberliet-
erung," pp. 797-800.
^"Contra Cels." in. 29 (xi. 957): . . . inoirjae navraxov rrjs oIkov-
pevtjs . . . yeveaBat navraxov iKKXtjaias di'TtjroXiTeuofiei'ar iKKXtjaiats Sei-
aiSaipovav Kal dKoXdarav Kal dSiKav. Totavra ydp rd navraxoiJ woXiTevofiei'a
iv rals iKKXtjaiats rav ndXeav nXijBrj. Ai Se toC Beov Xpiara paBtjrevBelaat
eKKXtjatat, avve^era^opevat rats hv napoiKovat Sijpav eKKXtjaiais, as <j)aaTtjpis
elaiv iv ra Koapa.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 323
Ephesus, for instance ; but, did he not also conceive of a
Christian Church as formed after the type of a city ?
The Church of God, which is at Athens, he says, is meek
and stable, whereas the iKKXrja'ua of the Athenians is turbu
lent, and is not at all to be compared with the Church of God
in that city. We may say the same thing of the Church of
God at Corinth and of the assembly of the Corinthian people
or demos ; and also of the Church of God at Alexandria and
of the assembly of the Alexandrian demos. Let us admire
Him, he continues, who not only conceived the design, but
also was able to secure in aU places the establishment of
Churches of God side by side with the Churches of the
people in each city.!
In like manner also, if you compare the council or ^ovXrj
of the Church of God with the ^ovX-rj in any city, you will
find among the counciUors of the Church some who are
worthy to administer the city of God,^ whilst nowhere do the
councillors of cities justify by their virtues the authority they
enjoy over their feUow-citizens. Compare for yourself the
archon of each Church with the archon of the city, and you
wall notice that our archons in the Church of God, imperfect
as they may be at times, are far superior in their moral
worth.^ In all this, Origen develops the analogy between
the Church and the city : the presbyterium becomes a
councU ; the bishop, an archon ; the local Church, a "^ city
of God," a "nation according to God".*
The whole world is thus filled with Churches.^
1 "Contra Cels." m. 30 (957).
" Ibid. . rives rijs iKKXtjaias ^ovXevral a^toi etatv, e'iris iarlv iv t<5 navrl
TToXis ToO Beov, iv eKeivtj noXireveaBai. — Note in passing the expression
" city of God " It is an expression which is found already in the
"Shepherd" of Hermas ("Sim."i. ), but there it designates Heaven in
contrast with the earth.
^Ibid. (960) : apxovra iKKXtjaias eKaartjs noXeas apxovrt Trnv ev rfj TrdXft
auyKpireov k.t.X.
* Ibid. vm. 75 (xi. 1629) : ijpels iv eKdartj aXXo avarrjpa narpiSos
KTtaBev Xoyo) Beoi intardpevoi. . . . Further on : el KoXas apxovatv oi
apxovres ev rtj iKKXtjaia, rijs Kara Beov narpiSos, Xtyeo Se rijs iKKXi^aias,
Xeyopevoi npoardrat k.t.X.
" " Selecta in Psalm." xxxii. 8 (xi. 1305) : ndaa rj yrj Xpiarov iKKXtj
aiats nenXtjparo. "In Cantic. Lib." n. (xm. 110) : "Ecclesiae innumerae
sunt quae per orbem terrae dUFusae sunt". "In Ezech. Homil." iv. 1
21 *

324 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
The Churches spread through the whole world form
a mystic unity : they are, in Origen's crude words, " the
entire body of the synagogues of the Church ; " ! likewise
he speaks of those who " inhabit the ecumenicity of the
Church of God ".^ He also says more felicitously that "the
Church is the cosmos of the cosmos ".^ Taking up a thought
dear to St. Paul, Origen speaks of the Church as the body of
Christ : " The holy Scriptures declare the whole Church of
God to be the body of Christ, animated by the Son of God ".*
Thus understood, the Church is like a house — a house
to which we may apply allegoricaUy the command of Moses
regarding the Pasch : "In una demo comedetur ". In this
respect, Origen contrasts the Church wdth the Synagogue.'
One must not seek to eat the word of God both in the
Church and in the synagogue of the Jews, nor may one par
take of it both in the Church and in the synagogue of the
heretics. "Eealize, then, that the Church is the only
house : never eat the Paschal lamb outside the Church."
The precept of Moses in its aUegorical meaning is for you :
(iv. 698): "Quando terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius
Dei consensit religionem? Quando terra Maurorum? Quando totus
semel orbis? Nunc vero propter ecclesias quae mundi Umites tenent,
universa terra cum laetitia clamat ad Dominum." — On the diffusion of
Christianity all over the world, Origen is less positive in another text.
"In Matt. Comment." ser. 39 (xm. 1655). In this passage, he states
that as yet the Gospel has not been brought to the Ethiopians, or to
India., Britain, Germany, or among the Dacians, the Sarmatians and the
Scythians. ! "Comment, in Matt." xm. 24 (xm. 1157).
" " Selecta in Psalm. " xxxn. 8 (xn. 1305). The adjective " cathoUc,"
applied to the Church, is found, as far as I know, chiefly in the Latin
translations of Origen, and there it does not seem to have been necessarily
taken from the original. Origen uses the word KaBoXtKos to designate
what is general or universal ; a universal proposition is catholic ; God's
benefits also are catholic, i.e. universal.
8 " Comment, in loan." vi. 38 (xiv. 301).
* " Contra Cels." vi. 48 (xi. 1378) : aapa Xptarov (jiaaiv etvat oi Beloi
Xoyot, vnb rov vioij rov Beov ^vxovpevov, rijv ndaav rov Beov iKKXtjaiav. Cf.
ibid. 79 (1417).
""In Genes. HomU." xn. 3 (xn. 226). "In Exod. Homil." n. 4
{ibid. 309). " In Cantic. Homil." ii. 3 (xra. 49). " In lerem. HomU." ix.
3 {ibid. 352).

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 325
" Non efferetis e domo de carnibus foras ". The ecclesiastical
word must not be carried outside the Church : "I mean it
must not be carried into the synagogue of the Jews or of
the heretics".!
Elsewhere Origen compares the Church to the ark of
Noe : as there was but one ark, this aUegory must be under
stood of the universal Church.^ When He foretold that He
would rebuUd the temple in three days, the Saviour had in
mind His real and historical body ; but He thought also of
His mystical body which is the Church and which he will
raise up on the last day with aU the Saints who compose it.'
There is one Church upon earth, and there is one Church in
Heaven.* The Church upon earth rules the world.'
The Church is the spouse spoken of in the Canticle :
"Ego Ecclesia, ego sponsa, ego sine n-iacula, plurimarum
custos sum posita vinearum," ^ and the bridegroom repUes to
her : " Tanto melior es omnibus filiabus, tu sponsa, tu
ecclesiastica anima, omnibus animabus quae non sunt ec
clesiasticae "!' Strengthened by the grace of Him who was
crucified for her, the Church is a virgin and virgins are her
glory: "Ecclesia Christi . . . virge sponsa Christi castis et
pudicis virginibus floret ".^ She is also a mother, the
mother of aU the children whom she brings forth to Christ :
"Utinam, essetis gaudium matris Ecclesiae".^ This per
sonification of the Church upon earth, is an expression of
her unity.Can the unity of the universal Church be inferred from
i"In Genes. Homil. cit." Cf. "Select, in Psalm." cxvin. 85
(1602). " " In Genes. HomU." n. 3-6 (167 and foU.).
' " Comment, in loan." x. 20 (xiv. 372).
' "In Num. HomU." ra. 3 (xn. 596).
^"Selecta in Psalm." xxrs. (xn. 1296). The Church is the Lord's
mountain. TojJtco ra Spei Kpdros dnb rov narpbs iv rfj evSoKia avrov eari
^e^alas SoBev, Kparel Se ij iKKXtjaia ^aatXevavaa rav Xoinav ini -ftjs Kat
Xpiara avpf^aatXevovaa.
"'" In Cantic. Homil." I. 7 (xin. 45). Cf. "In. Cantic." Lib. iv. {ibid.
187) : "Possunt diversae ecclesiae quae per orbem terrae habentur vites
dici florentes vel vineae."
'"Ll Cantic. HomU. cit." 10 (46).
« "In Genes. HomU." ra. 6 (xn. 181). Cf. " HomU." xvn. 2 (254).
"Ibid. " Homil." X. 1 (215).

326 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the promise made by the Saviour to St. Peter? Origen
understands this promise literaUy : " Peter is the one on
whom is built the Church of Christ, against which the gates
of HeU shall not prevail ".^ And elsewhere : " Vide magno
illi Ecclesiae fundamento et petrae solidissimae super quam
Christus fundavit Ecclesiam, quid dicatur a Domino:
Modicae fidei quare dubitasti V ^ Above the other Apostles
Peter enjoys prerogatives that are given by the Saviour Him
self, and place between him and his coUeagues a difference of
excellence.' We should Uke to see Origen giving some
firmer indication of the dogmatic and juridical meaning of
this primacy, something more definite regarding its perpetu
ity, a perpetuity which was so sensibly felt, as we shaU see,
in the events of his time. But if, unhke Irenseus, Origen
is not an exponent of the doctrine of the primacy, must he
be deemed an exponent of the doctrine of the equahty of
Churches ? A passage in his commentary on St. Matthew
has been thought to favour this supposition.
If the light which the Heavenly Father has bestowed
upon our hearts prompts us to say to Christ : " Thou art
Christ, the Son of the living God," if we say so, not in
fluenced at aU by flesh and blood, we too may become what
Peter was, to whom Christ said : " Blessed art thou ; " * and
to us also Christ may say : " Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my Church ". For every disciple of Christ
is a rock, and upon every such rock is buUt the ecclesiastical
teaching and the life in accordance with it ; whoever has
this teaching and this life realized in him, has the Church
built by God also realized in him.
Continuing his commentary, Origen answers an objec
tion which he foresees might be raised : " If you suppose,"
he says, " that upon this one Peter alone the whole Church
is built by God, what wdll you say about John the son of
thunder or about each one of the Apostles? " '
^" Comment, in loan." xv. 3 (xiv. 188).
" " In Exod. HomU." v. 4 (xn. 329).
' " Comment, in Matt." xra. 31 (xra. 1180).
« Ibid. XII. 10 (xra. 997).
" Ibid. 11 {ibid. 1000) : el Se ini rbv eva iKelvov nirpov vopi^eis vnb rov
Beov olKoSopelaBai rijv ndaav iKKXtjaiav judvof. . . . Notice the precision

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 327
Some have surmised that in this, and in a few other
texts, Origen was aiming a silent, though real blow at the
Eoman Church and her policy of capturing the ecclesiastical
primacy, which, we are told, she was slowly pursuing,! I
do not beheve that such a thought is in any way in Origen's
mind ; he seems rather to be occupied exclusively with the
moral application he can make of the text " Thou art Peter ".
This moral application requires that the promise be in no
way personal to the Apostle Peter ; hence he forces the text
in this direction. " ShaU we dare to say," he exclaims,
"that against Peter alone the gates of Hades shaU not
prevaU, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles
and the perfect?" No indeed I But Origen notices neither
the sophism into which he actually faUs, nor the violence
he does to the literal meaning of his text. To be Peter
is to be one of those living stones on which the Church
is buUt : " AU bear the surname of ' rock ' who are the imi
tators of Christ " ? It is a striking example of the freedom
with which Origen sacrifices the literal meaning of Holy
Scripture. What may be said, as we have seen, of the episcopal
authority, must be said of the Eoman primacy also : it is
found chiefly in the facts : it is a fact that Origen, who in
his youth had visited many Churches, deems it an honour to
have visited the Eoman Church, " desiring, as he himself
says, to see the very ancient Church of the Eomans,"'
which he did in the time of Pope Zephyrinus (about the year
210). It is a fact also, that having drawn upon himself, at
Alexandria, the anger and jealousy of Demetrius, the Bishop,
the latter forbade him to teach and deposed him from the
priesthood ; causing this sentence to be passed on him by
the Bishops of Egypt, assembled at Alexandria, and then
of Origen's words : That Peter, who has just answered Jesus and whom
Jesus is actuaUy addressing. As to the prerogatives of John and of the
other Apostles, compare the text of St. Cyprian, "Hoc erant ceteri
apostoU," etc., to be given later on (p. 368).
! Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 490.
Loc. cit. : napavvpoi nirpas ndvres oi ptptjral Xptarov.
* Quoted by Euseb. " H. E." vi. 14, 10 : ei^dpevos rijv dpxatordrtjv
'Papaiav iKKXtjaiav ISelv. Cf. "Contra Oels." VI. 24 (xi. 1328), where
Origen alludes to his foreign travels.

328 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
pubUshing it to aU the Bishops of Christendom : ! Demetrius
obtains the adhesion of the bishops he approached, except
those of Palestine, Arabia, Phenicia and Achaia ; but the ad
hesion he receives from Eome is especiaUy mentioned. Again,
it is a fact that, to defend his orthodoxy, Origen sends letters
to most of the bishops, among whom Eusebius cites first
the Bishop of Eome, Fabian ^ : which makes Harnack say
that " in Origen's case, the voice of Eome seems to have
been of special importance." If we pass beyond the time
of Origen and come to the affair of Paul of Samosata, the
sentence of deposition pronounced against the latter by the
council that had assembled at Antioch, is notified to the
bishops of " the whole Catholic Church under heaven," and,
as Harnack observes again, the Eoman bishop Dionysius is
mentioned first in the address.' Lastly, it is a fact, and
one far more significant, that the Bishop of Alexandria him
self, Dionysius, is denounced to his namesake, Dionysius,
Bishop of Eome, as having expressed himself faultUy on the
Trinity : a council at Eome deliberates on the matter, and
the Bishop of Eome sends to Alexandria in his name and in
that of the council, a letter in which, whUst mentioning no
one in particular, he condemns the ModaUstic errors and
conjointly Subordinationism. At the same time (in a special
letter), the Bishop of Eome invites Dionysius of Alexandria,
to explain his meaning : which the latter does by sending to
Eome an Apology in four books.* In reference to this,
^ Euseb. "H. E." vi. 8, 4 : rols dvd rijv olKOvjUvrjv intaKonots Karaypa-
4>etv. Cf. ibid. 23, 4.
" Ibid. 36, 4.
3 " Dogmeng." vol. i^, p. 493, according to Eusbb. " H. E." vn. 30, 2 :
Aiovvaia (Rome) Kal Ma^ipa (Alexandria) koI rfjs Kara rrjv olKOvpevtjv naai
avXXeirovpyols rjpav iniaKonots Kal npea^vrepots Kai StaKovois Kal ndatj rij
inb rbv ovpavbv KaBoXiK^ iKKXtjaia. The episode belongs to the year 267
or 268. To understand why Rome and Alexandria are mentioned in the
address drawn up at Antioch, one must remember that Rome and Alex
andria were looked upon by the Greeks at the time of the Empire as the
two metropolitan cities of the world.
"Athanas. "DeSent. Dionys." 6. In his " Epistula ad Antioch-
enos " (Jaffi5, 186), Pope Julius rebukes the Eusebians, for having judged
St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, before consulting the Bishop of
Rome as is customary : this is an allusion to the precedent of Dionysius,
in the third century.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 329
Harnack observes that this procedure, the denunciation to
Eome, the judgment of Eome, the intervention of Eome at
Alexandria, the justification of Alexandria at Eome, gives
rise to no objection at Alexandria, where Christians' evidently
regard the Eoman Church as primarily charged with the duty
of watching over " the strict observance of the conditions of
the general ecclesiastical confederation," ! or still better — as
we might say — of watching over the preservation of the
Cathbhc faith. * *
*
Origen is above all a teacher ; and attaches the chief
value to Christian doctrine, the unanimous acceptance of
which is, in his eyes, well secured by the defeat of the
Gnostics, by the solidity of the rule of ecclesiastical faith, by
the security he finds in his theological method. Such a
conception was good for the Greeks, whose fondness for
exegesis and dialectics led them to believe that exegesis and
dialectics suffice to secure the unity of the Church. Do we
not find in the one-sidedness of this conception the germ, as
it were, of the future of Greek Christendom, with its contro
versies, its councUs, its schism that obstinately continues to
assume the title of orthodoxy ?
Again, Origen faUed to study ecclesiology in itself. The
Church is not in the number of the subjects of which he
speaks ex professo in the "Periarchon". There he treats of
the divine unity, of the last things, even of tradition and of
^Harnack, loc. cit. We may note, with the same writer, that
Rome was by no means unconcerned with the life of the Churches in this
part of the orbis romanus. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of the
material help contributed many a time by the Church of Rome to the
Churches of Syria and of Arabia. Euseb. "H. E." vii. 5, 2. We may
recall too that, when Paul of Samosata, after his deposition, had tried to
maintain his ground at Antioch, the Emperor Aurelian, who is approached
by the Antiochians — the first iostance of an appeal to the imperial interven
tion to settle an ecclesiastical dispute — rules that the legitimate bishop is
the one who is acknowledged by the bishops of Italy, and the bishop of
Rome. Euseb. " H. E." vil 30, 19. The faot is the more significant be
cause Rome had not intervened in the procedure against Paul of Samosata,
and the sentence of deposition had been given only by the bishops of
Asia Minor and of Syria, who had assembled at Antioch. Did Paul,
after his condemnation, appeal to Rome, or was Aurelian's decision sug
gested to him by the orthodox of Antioch ?

330 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
the rule of faith, but not of the Church : a strange omission,
which was to persist in Greek dogmatics — for instance, in
the " Catechetical Discourse " of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and
especiaUy in the work of St. John Damascene — an omission
which was to be reproduced in scholastic theology.
But before parting with Origen, let us note in his
writings an intuition of another order. The Church is
one aU over the world, and they only are Christians, who
" belong to the Church which takes its name from Christ ".!
Now, between Judaism and Christianity there is this far-
reaching difference that the former had a Law which was
suited to the Jews and to the Jews only, and which, therefore,
could not be universal ; the latter, on the contrary, has re
ceived a new legislation, which can adapt itseU to human
life wherever it is led.^ Even where Christians refuse to
enter the army, what civic spirit is superior to theirs ! By
their moral worth they are the good citizens ; they serve the
prince by their prayers. Separated from pagans by their
faith, they contribute to the public welfare by their righteous
ness and the asceticism they profess.' What would happen,
if all Eomans embraced Christianity ? Origen asks himself
this question which Celsus had first asked in sarcasm.
Origen is enchanted at the vision of peace and unanimity
it presents : no more wars, no more enemies, since God
can protect His people. Does He not put an end to per
secutions, when it pleases Him to do so? Through the
conversion of the Eomans, God would estabhsh His king
dom upon earth, the Church would become the kingdom of
God substituted for the Eoman Empire and identified with
1 " Contra. Cels." vm. 16 (xi. 1540).
" Ibid. IV. 22 (1060) : vdpovs Katvovs koI dppo^ovras rfj navraxov
KaBearaatj noXireia.
^ Ibid. VIII. 79 (1628) : avpnovoOpev rols koivoIs npdypaatv k.t.X, The
whole page is worth reading. — This idea is not new, for it was an apolo
getic theme touched upon by Justin ("Apol." i. 12) and developed by
Melito (Euseb. " H. E." iv. 26) in a remarkable page of his Apology
addressed to Marcus Aurelius. On the contrary, 'TertuUian, under the
influence of Stoicism, regarded the State as something Christians had
better not take into account: "Nulla magis res nobis aliena quam
publica : unam omnium rempublicam agnoscimus, mundum." " Apolog.''
38.

ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 331
mankind, she would be the " city of God ". Before faUing
from the Ups of St. Augustine, these words faU from the
lips of Origen : the idea belongs to Plato, to Philo, and to
the Stoics, just as much as to Origen himself ; but in
expressing it as a hope, as a myth, Origen has an intuition
in advance of his time, of the policy of Theodosius and the
union between the Church and the Empire.

CHAPTEE vm.
ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME.
CvPEiAN was martyred on 14 September, 258. He had
been made Bishop of Carthage in the year 248 or 249. He
was involved, during his episcopate, which lasted hardly ten
years, in important ecclesiastical controversies, for the his
tory of which we have many documents : thanks to Cyprian
and to the disputes of his time, much light is thrown on
ecclesiology. Two preliminary observations must be made if we
would avoid misconceiving the part played by Cyprian in
the history of the treatise on the Church.
In the first place, he is both a briUiant Latin writer,
and a bishop in the noblest sense of the term. His " genius "
is not that of an original theorist : it is easy to see that the
ideas he develops are borrowed from the Cathohc works of
TertuUian ; ! and certainly there must be some tmth in the
legend that every day he caused the works of TertuUian to
be brought to him, saying : " Da magistrum, ". It is true
that he does not once mention TertuUian ; and this shows
that the ideas he takes from him, from TertuUian as a Ca
tholic, are the received ideas in Africa in the first half of the
third century.
In the second place, Cyprian is not — as he has been re
presented at times — a man of one idea. The idea of the
Church and of her unity does not explain aU his work.
In this respect Mohler is wrong in comparing him with St.
Ignatius of Antioch. He is stiU less — in spite of what 0.
Eitschl suggests — a vacillating publicist who had no other
doctrine than that which was imposed on him from day to
1 This is noticed by St. Jerome, " Epistulae," lxxxiv. 2 : " Cyprianus
TertuUiano magistro utitur, ut eius scripta probant ".
332

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 333
day by his ecclesiastical policy. But it must be granted
that having, like Bossuet fourteen centuries later, to con
tend with the equivocation inherent in episcopalianism,
he died before he could entirely free himself from its
entanglements. Let us try first to ascertain from St. Cyprian what were
the leading features of the hierarchical system in his time.

The first and most conspicuous feature that we find
is that the Church is constituted like a city. The faithful
form a coUectivity which bears the old Eoman name of
plebs : the deacon Pontius gives the name of plebeius to
Cyprian, before his elevation to the presbyterate.! The term
ordo or clerus is complementary to the term plebs.^
The ordo in the Church is made up of the bishop, the
priests, and the deacons. In the plebs, there is no distinc
tion of ranks : the Edict of Valerian, which opens the perse
cution of 257, commands the magistrates to prosecute the
bishops, the priests and the deacons, and then to despoil
of their goods those Christians who are senatores, egregii
viri, equites romani ; ' these civil distinctions have not
entered into the ecclesiastical language.
When Cyprian writes to a Church, he addresses the
bishop alone : Cyprianus Cornelio fratri, Cyprianus luba-
iano fratri. If the see is vacant, he writes to the clergy :
Cyprianus presbyteris et diaconis Romae consistentibus.
When he happens to be separated from his Church, and
^PoNT. "Vita Cypriani" (Hartel, vol. in. p. xc and foil.) 3. Cf.
" Epistulae," li. 1 : " Clerus et plebs, fraternitas omnis ".
'Cyprian, "Epistulae," LIX. 19 : "... florentissimo illic [at Rome]
clero tecum [the Pope] praesidenti et sanctissimae atque amplissimae plebi.
. . ." The terms ordo and plebs belong to the language of TertuUian
" Monog." 11 and 12 ; " Exhort castit." 7. Compare " Epistulae," xl., in
which Cyprian notifies to his clergy and to his people at Carthage that
the priest Numidicus henceforth "adscribatur presbyterorum cartha-
giniensium numero et nobiscum sedeat in clero '' and that he will " in
consessus nostri honore florere ". Cf. " Epistulae," Lix. 18 ; "... in
cleri nostri sacrum venerandumque congestum ".
^"Epistulae," lxxx. 1.

334 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
in flight, Cyprian writes : Cyprianus presbyteris et diaconis
et plebi universae. If he addresses exclusively either his
clergy or his people : Cyprianus presbyteris et diaconis or
Cyprianus plebi universae, respectively.
Although there is an ordo in every Church, there is
also everywhere a monarchical episcopate. Episcopacy is the
" Sacerdotii sublime fastigium " ; the bishop is, in his Church,
the supreme sacerdos, as weU as the supreme judex ; and he
is sacerdos and judex in Christ's place and stead.-" Go to
*" the assembly of the faithful, and there only two personaUties
at first appear to you : the bishop and the people.^
Generally no one is elected bishop, unless he has gone
through the different grades of the hierarchy and the different
offices of the Church.' The election of the bishop does not
take place without the suffrage of the faithful of the Church
that is to be provided for, and without the votes of the
clergy.* The bishops take part in the election, on them
it depends, and from them it receives its validity.^ By
! "Epistulae," lix. 5 : "Unus in ecclesia ad tempus sacerdos etad
tempus index vice Christi cogitatur " TertuUian treated the bishop
as "^ summus sacerdos " (" De Bapt." 17) ; Cyprian says " unus sacerdos ".
It may be that, by this shade of thought, Cyprian means to reprove the
theory of TertuUian — when a Montanist — as to the priesthood of the
laity. " Ibid. LViii. 4 : " CoUectam fraternitatem, tractantes episcopos ".
' Ibid. LV. 8 : " Non iste [Cornelius] ad episcopatum subito per
venit, sed per omnia ecclesiastica officia promotus, et in divinis admini-
strationibus Dominum saepe promeritus, ad sacerdotii sublime fastigium
cunctis religionis gradibus ascendit ".
^Ibid: " Factus est Cornelius episcopus . . . de clericorum paene
omnium testimonio, de plebis quae tunc adfuit suflEragio. " The bio
grapher of Alexander Severus writes in the Augustan history as foUows :
" Ubi aliquos voluisset . . . rectores provincUs dare . . . nomina
eorum proponebat, hortans populum ut, si quis quid haberet criminis,
probaret manifestis rebus ; si non probasset, subiret poenam capitis ; dioe-
batque grave esse, cum id Christiani et ludaei facerent in praedicandis
sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus, qui
bus et fortunae hominum committerentur et capita. " "Alexand. Sev."
45. — It is not at all certain that the members of the Jewish sanhedrim
were thus elected, but the assertion is true of the sacerdotes among
Christians — i.e. of the bishops — and, in fact, of the whole Christian ordo.
^ Ibid. : " Et factus est episcopus a plurimis coUegis nostris qui
tunc in urbe Roma aderant. " — When defending his own election before

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 335
the bishops, we must understand the bishops of the province,
and not aU of them, but those only who can come, in most
cases those who are nearest. Such is the Apostolic rule
foUowed from time immemorial in Africa and in all — or
to speak more correctly — in almost all the provinces.!
When the election is over, the bishops who are present
lay their hands upon the candidate, to " confer upon him
the episcopate ".^ The bishops are the successors of the
Apostles. The words spoken by Christ to His Apostles :
" Qui vos audit me audit," are true of the bishops, for they
were said for the legitimate bishops, " qui apostolis vicaria
ordinatione succedunt".^
Pope Cornelius against the charges of FeUcissimus, Cyprian recalls
that his election was made " post populi suffiragium, post coepiscoporum
consensum " ; but he says also : " post divinum iudicium ". "Epistulae,"
LIX. 5. Cyprian does not conceive of any one being made a bishop, without
the divine judgment. He often recurred to this orthodox idea of the
faith which confirms the divine right of every bishop.
* " Epistulae," lxvii. 5 : " Diligenter de traditione divina et apostolica
observatione servandum est et tenendum, quod apud nos quoque et fere
per provinoias universas tenetur, ut ad ordinationes rite celebrandas ad
eam plebem cui praepositus ordinatur episcopi eiusdem provinciae proximi
quique conveniant, et episcopus deligatur plebe praesente, quae singulorum
vitam plenissime novit." — The restriction fere per provincias universas may
refer to the very exceptional case of Alexandria. We see at Rome Pope
Cornelius himself assign bishops to three churches of Italy whose former
bishops had been deposed. Euseb. "H. E." vl 43, 10.
" Cf. the letter of Cornelius (Euseb. loc. cit.) in which he relates
how Novatian, after bringing to Rome under false pretences three
poor Italian bishops, "rustics," constrained them to lay their hands
upon him. This was done at the tenth hour (four p.m.) and the un
fortunate bishops were drunk : MeTo jSias ijvdyKaaev etKoviKtj tivi koI
paraia xetpentBeaia intaKonijv avra Soivai. It may be inferred from this
that, even then, three bishops had to be present for an episcopal
consecration. Notice the expression : ;(etpen't5eo-i'a iniaKonijv Soivat : the
bishops give through the imposition of hands the episcopate they possess
themselves. Notice, too, that the three heretical bishops are represented
by Cornelius as having performed an invalid ordination {paraia).
"Ibid. LXVI. 4. Cf. " Sententiae episcoporum," 79 (Hartel, i. 459) :
" Manifesta est sententia Domini nostri lesu Christi apostolos suos mit-
tentis et ipsis solds potestatem a patre sibi datam permittentis, quibus
nos successimus eadem potestate Ecclesiam Domini gubernantes et creden
tium fidem baptizantes." (Sententia of Clarus, bishop of Mascula). In
this document the bishops of Africa affirm that they possess that divine
potestas which was denied to them by TertuUian, when a Montanist.

336 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
The priests are somewhat like mute personages, who
foUow the bishop and second him, but have no history of
their own, except when they rebel, which they do at times,
as did Novatus at Carthage and Novatian at Eome.! The
deacons are more prominent, and stand more apart; but
they hold an inferior rank which demands of them subor
dination : St. Cyprian urges them to remember that the
Lord Himself chose the Apostles, i.e. the bishops, whUst the
deacons were instituted by the Apostles, to be the ministers
of the Apostles and of the Church.^
The priests have for their office to offer up the Holy
Sacrifice where the bishop himself does not celebrate.'
When away from Carthage, Cyprian expects that his
priests, and his deacons also, wiU fulfil the office which he,
their bishop, is unable to fulfil. " Officium meum vestra
diligentia repraesentet." * This delegation of the episcopal
office is confined to the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, to
Baptism and the reconciliation of sinners in extremis, to
preaching and almsgiving. A function which ordinarUy
devolves on the priests is that of teaching the catechumens :
the priests who perform this duty are caUed presbyteri doc
tores or doctores audientium, the audientes being the cate-
! " Epistulae," xvi. 1 : " . . . quando aliqui de presbyteris, nee euangehi
nee loci sui memores, sed neque . . . nunc sibi praepositum episcopum co-
gitantes, quod nunquam omnino sub ante cesser ibus factum est, cum con
tumelia et contemptu praepositi, totum sibi vindicent ! " — The priests are
called by the bishop his compresb-yteri ; — an appellation which recalls the
time when the episcopus was the first among the presbyters. But like
wise the bishop calls other bishops compresb-yteri. These two archaic ex
pressions are worthy of notice.
" Ibid. III. 3 : " Meminisse diaconi debent quoniam apostolos, id
est episcopos et praepositos, Dominus elegit, diaconos autem post ascen-
sum Domini in caelos apostoli sibi constituerunt episcopatus sui et ec
clesiae ministros." — Cyprian confounds the institution of the bishops with
that of the Apostles : a confusion which is also met with in Theodore of
Mopsuestia, and in Theodoret. Lightfoot, " Christian Ministry," p. 23.
-^Ibid. XVI. 4: "Interim prohibeantur ofi'erre " Cf. "Epistulae,
LXI. 3: ". . . cum episcopo presbyteri sacerdotaU honore coniuncti'
The idea of priesthood is connected with that of sacrifice {offerre). Ter
tulUan, when a Catholic, expressed both ideas with force (Adam, p.
102), and in this respect Cyprian is no innovator.
*Ibid. XII. 1. Cf. V. 1 : " Fungemini illic etvestris partibusetmeis,
ut nihil vel ad disciplinam, vel ad diligentiam desit ".

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 337
chumens.^ Pontius relates that Cyprian was taught the
true religion and converted by the priest Csecilian ; ^ besides,
he teUs us that Cyprian himself, when he was a priest, was
charitable towards the widows ; that whoever needed light
found it through him ; that whoever was weak found in him
a support ; and that whoever sought the help of a strong
hand could rely upon his. The rhetoric of these expressions
may be poor but under them we can read that the priestly
ministrations embrace the service of widows, the service of
the catechesis, and probably also the service of penitence,
that is of the penitence of individual and private persons.'
From a letter of Pope Cornelius to the Bishop of An
tioch, Fabius, we leam that in the year 251 the Eoman
Church had forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-
deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, lectors or
ostiarii, taken aU together, and that it supported more than
fifteen hundred vyidows and destitute persons.* The people
were innumerable, says Cornelius. We do not know how
many ecclesiastics there were in Carthage at the time of
Cyprian. We do know, however, that, besides the priests and
the deacons, the Carthaginian Church has also, Uke the Church
of Eome, subdeacons {hypodiaconi) ,^ acolytes {acolythi),^
exorcists,^ and lectors. No mention is made of ostiarii or
porters. No one of these clerics is raised to his office without
the approval of the clergy and of the people.
! "Epistulae," xxix. and xvhl 2. See also ixxm. 3. TertuUian,
when a Catholic, had said that the bishops, priests, and deacons alone have
the right to teach: "Nisi episcopi iam, aut presbyteri aut diaconi, vo-
cantur discentes ". " De Bapt." 17.
" " Vita Cypriani," 4.
"Ibid. 3 : "Domus eius patuit cuicumque venienti : nulla vidua re-
vocata sinu vacuo, nuUus indigens lumine non illo comite directus est,
nuUus debilis gressu non illo baculo vectus est, nuUus nudus auxilio de
potentioris manu non illo tutore protectus est ". But we must not over
strain these expressions.
* Eusbb. " H. E." vi. 43, 11-12. Renan, "Marc Aurfele," p. 451,
estimates that the Christians of Rome must have been from thirty to
forty thousand in number.
° " Epistulae," xxix., xxxiv. 4, lxxviii., lxxix. etc.
" Ibid, vn., XXXIV. 4, xlv. 4, xlix. 3, etc.
''Ibid. xxm. The exorcists have for their function to exorcise,
before baptism, those who are possessed. See " Epistulae," lxix. 15.
22

338 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
> As regards the lectorate, one should read the thirty-eighth
letter of Cyprian, a beautiful and expressive letter, in which
he teUs the clergy and the plebs of Carthage — from whom
he is stiU exUed — of his having raised to the lectorate the
young martyr AureUus. Cyprian begins by excusing himself
for not having taken beforehand the advice of his clergy
or asked the assent of his people.! g^^ jja,d not AureUus
the divine suffrage of his martyrdom ? Aurelius is a mere
youth : worthy as he is on account of his courage to be pro
moted to some higher rank of the clergy, he shaU start in
the lectorate.
"... Interim placuit ut ab officio lectionis incipiat, quia
et nihil magis congruit voci quae Deum gloriosa praedicatione
confessa est quam celebrandis divinis lectionibus personare,
post verba sublimia quae Christi martyrium prolocuta sunt
euangelium Christi legere unde martyres fiunt, ad pulpitum
post catastam venire. . . . Hunc igitur a me et a coUegis
qui praesentes aderant ordinatum sciatis." ^
Aurelius, then, who, as a martyr, went to the catasta,
i.e. the rack, wiU come, as a lector, to the pulpitum, i.e.
to the desk. He wiU read in the liturgical meetings the
Gospel, the divine words. The lectores are once caUed by
Cyprian " lectores doctorum audientium " : a title which
implies that they are attached to the priests who teach the
catechumens.' The members of the clergy being vowed to the service
of things divine and spiritual, owe their service to the
Church, to the altar, and to prayer ; hence they are forbidden
to accept functions which are purely secular and civU.*
! "Epistulae," xxxviii. 1 . "In ordinationibus clericis, solemus vos
ante consulere et mores ac merita singulorum communi consilio ponder-
are." " Ibid. 2. Compare the thirty-ninth Letter.
"Ibid. XXIX. : " . . . Quando . . . cum presbyteris doctoribus lec
tores diligenter probaremus, Optatum inter lectores doctorum audientium
constituimus. " O. Ritschl, " Cyprian von Karthago " (Gottingen, 1885),
p. 233. The theory which represents the "lectores" as the last "pro
phets " hardly deserves any mention.
^ We may infer that the temptation to undertake such functions was
great for the bishops in those ages, and that often in their anxiety to pro
vide for a poor Church they were drawn into the world of business.

ST. CYPRlANfAND ROME 339
Geminius Victor, Bishop of Furni, near Carthage, appointed
in his wiU the priest Geminius Faustinus administrator of
the goods he had left at his death ; but Cyprian intervened
vnth the reminder that no cleric can be named a guardian
or executor. He justifies this prohibition by the condition
in which the tribe of Levi had been placed by the Old
Law : as they were bound to the service of the Temple, the
members of this tribe were to live on the tithes given to
them by the other tribes which owned the land : aU which,
he says, " was done by the authority of God who would not
aUow the Levites to be drawn off in any way from His
service". The decree forbidding ecclesiastics to be guardians
or executors was enacted by the bishops previously to Cyp
rian's election {episcopi antecessores nostri censuerunt) with
the sanction that any one who, in his will, failed to observe
it, should not be entitled, after his death, to have the Holy
Sacrifice offered up for his soul, or his name pronounced
in the memento of the Mass. Since, then, the Bishop
Geminius Victor has not complied with the rule laid down
by the bishops {formam nuper in concilio a sacerdotibus
datam), Cyprian forbids the Holy Sacrifice to be offered up
for him, or his name to be mentioned in the prayers of
the Church, " ut sacerdetu/m, decretum, religiose ac necessarie
factum, servetur a nobis: " bishops ought to be the first to
obey episcopal decisions.!
This thirty-ninth Letter supplies us with interesting de
taUs concerning the remuneration of the clergy by the Church.
Celerinus, who has been made a lector by St. Cyprian, is,
Uke Aurelius, a martyr: although both are only lectors,
Cyprian has conferred on them what he caUs the "presbyterii
honorem," which means that, even though they are not
priests, they are to sit in the consessus, i.e. on the bench of the
priests, and participate in the same distributions {sportulae)
as the priests, and share the monthly aUowances {divisiones)
Cyprian, "De lapsis," 6: "Episcopi plurimi quos et hortamento esse
oportet ceteris et exemplo, divina procuratione contempta, procuratores
regum saecularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe deserta, per alienas pro
vincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas aucupari, esuri-
entibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largiter velie, fundos
insidiosis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus foenus augere."
! "Epistulae," I. 1-2. 22*

340 PRBIITIVE CATHOLICISM
in equal quantities : " . . . ut et sportulis idem cum pres
byteris honorentur, ut divisiones mensurnas aequatis quan-
titatibus partiantur, sessuri nobiscum." !
The subordination of the plebs to the ordo is not such as
to exclude the laity from aU share in the government of the
local Church. And, in what pertains to the welfare of the
community, this right of the laity is upheld with a scrupulous
deference both by Cyprian and by Pope CorneUus. Thus,
for instance, in the eyes of Cyprian the reconciliation of
the lapsi, who had faUen during the persecution of Decius,
is a matter on which the whole Church should be consulted,
according to the rule that questions of common interest
relating to the government of the Church must be exa
mined by all in common.^ Even supposing that this rule
was not everywhere observed, we know at least that Cyprian
resolved to foUow it, when he became Bishop of Carthage.
In matters which concern the whole Church, Cyprian is
unwiUing to pronounce sentence untU he has first taken
the advice of his clergy — i.e. of the priests and deacons, and
obtained the assent of the plebs.^
As we have seen, the plebs also takes part in the
election of the bishop — a real part, but one which tends to
become chiefly negative : the plebs might oppose the choice
which, probably is most often made without its participation ;
but this suffices to make it responsible for the actual choice
and enables Cyprian to say that the plebs holds "potestatem
vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi ".*
! "Epistulae,'' XXXIX. 5. Compare "Epistulae," xli. 2 : "... utcum
ecclesia matre remanerent et stipendia eius episcopo dispensante percipe-
rent ". The sportulae were certainly the shares in the offerings in kiud
made by the faithful. Eusebius, " H. E." v. 28, 10, relates that the
heretical bishop Natalies received 150 denarii a month for his salary. Cf.
Tbrtull. " De leiunio," 13 : " Episcopi universae plebi mandare ieiunia
adsolent, non dico de industria stipium conferendarum, ut vestrae cap-
turae est. ..."
2 "Epistulae," xiv. 1.
" Ibid. Cf. " Epistulae,'' xxxiv. 4. Sohm, p. 234, draws attention to
the shade of difference between consilium and consensus : the bishop asks
the priests their consilium, and the people its consensus. " The pUhs
says only. Aye."
'^ Ibid. LXViL 3. Cf. XLIX. 1. See in the "Passio Montani," 24
(" Acta Sanctorum Februarii," vol. iii. p. 446), the speech of the martyr

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 341
The Church continues to be what she was from the
beginning: a social brotherhood, securing its members from
misery and neglect. Cyprian bids Eucratius, the Bishop
of a smaU Church (that of Thenae, it seems) not to allow
a comedian — who had become a convert — to continue to
give lessons for the stage ; if the poor fellow gives as an
excuse that his profession is, for him, the only way to get a
living, the Bishop may place him among those Christians
who receive their maintenance from the , Church ; and, if
the Church of Thenae cannot afford to feed all its poor, the
Bishop of Thenae may send the comedian to Carthage,
where he will be fed and clothed.! ^-^^ jj^g yg^y iigight of
the Decian persecution, Cyprian, absent from Carthage,
writes to his clergy, priests and deacons, and begs them
not to discontinue the aids they are wont to grant to the
widows, the sick, aU the poor, and also to indigent traveUers.
Cyprian has left a certain sum of money in the hands of
one of his priests, and, fearing that this amount is already
exhausted, he sends another sum, by an acolyte.^ Some
Churches of Numidia have suffered from the inroads of the
Berbers ; a great many Christians have been taken prisoners.
The Numidian bishops appeal to the charity of the Church
of Carthage, for means to redeem the captives. We stiU
possess the letter in which Cyprian thanks the Bishops of
these sorely-tried Churches for having given him the oppor
tunity to help them in their distress : a collection has been
made at Carthage among the clergy and faithful ; conse
quently, Cyprian sends to the Bishops of Numidia a sum
Plavianus, suggesting to the faithful that they should choose the priest
Lucianus to replace Cyprian who has just departed from this life.
! " Epistulae," n. 2 : " Quod si illic ecclesia non sufficit ut laboranti-
bus praestet alimenta, poterit se ad nos transferre, et hie quod sibi ad
victum atque ad vestitum necessarium fuerit accipere ".
"Ibid. vn. 1': "Viduarum et infirmorum et omnium pauperum
curam peto diligenter habeatis. Sed et peregrinis si qui indigentes
fuerint sumptus suggeratis de quantitate mea propria quam apud Rogati-
anum compresbyterum nostrum dimisi. Quae quantitas ne forte iam
universa erogata sit, misi eidem per Naricum acoluthum aliam portionem,
ut largius et promptius circa laborantes fiat operatic. " He gives similar
instructions in " Epistulse," v. 1. Likewise in " Epistulae," xm. 6 (in the
variant reading of the " Codex remensis ").

342 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
of money that reaches quite 100,000 sesterces,! and he
gives the names of the donors, that they may be remem
bered in the prayers of the Churches they have assisted.
The brotherly union of the members of the Church con
tinues even in death. The faithful are buried together in
the same cemeteries. It is for a Christian an act of impiety
to accept the posthumous hospitality of a pagan sepulchre,
and to be willing to sleep in the midst of dead who did not
profess the Christian faith.^ * *
*
Membership of the Church of Carthage (and the same
is true of all Churches) may be forfeited, for the bishop, the
head and the foundation of the Church, may break off relations
with a member when he judges it necessary : the ancient
city exiled, the bishop excommunicates, and it is he who
grants ecclesiastical communion. Here the word communion
must be understood in its most comprehensive meaning,
for it implies, together with the participation in the Sacred
Mysteries, the fact of belonging to the Christian community
— to its spiritual brotherhood and to its material sohdarity.'
When excommunicating FeUcissimus, Cyprian confines him
self to these words : " Abstentum se a nobis sciat " ; and he
^ " Epistulae," lxii. 4 . " Misimus autem sestertia centum miUa num-
morum, quae istic in ecclesia cui de Domini indulgentia praesumus cleri
et plebis apud nos consistentis coUatione coUecta sunt, quae vos UUc pro
vestra diligentia dispensabitis ". 100,000 sesterces amount to about 4000
or 5000 dollars or £800 or £1000.
"Ibid. LXVII. 6: " MartiaUs praeter gentilium turpia et lutulenta
convivia in coUegio diu frequentata, et filios in eodem coUegio exterarum
gentium more apud profana sepulcra depositos et alienigenis consepultos
..." MartiaUs is the Spanish Bishop of whom we shaU speak later
(p. 375). " Ibid. LV. 24 : " Quisque ille est et qualiscumque est, christianus
non est qui in Christi ecclesia non est. lactet se Ucet et philosophiam
vel eloquentiam suam superbis vooibus praedicet, qui nee fraternam carit-
atem nee ecclesiasticam unitatem tenuit, etiam quod prius fuerat amisit. "
Cyprian speaks here of Novatian, a declared heretic. To ,those who are
excommunicated he applies in all its rigour the saying : " Outside the Church
no salvation : " " Superbi et contumaces necantur, dum de ecclesia eiciun-
tur : neque enim vivere foris possunt, cum domus Dei una sit et nemini
salus esse nisi in ecclesia possit. " " Epistulae," iv. 4. This fourth epistle
was written previously to the Novatian crisis.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 343
adds that such wiU be also the punishment of any one who
joins FeUcissimus : " Quisque se conspirationi et factioni
eius adiunxerit sciat se in ecclesia nobiscum communica-
turum non esse ".! There is still extant, in Cyprian's corre
spondence, the sort of official document by which the priests
of Carthage announce the excommunication of FeUcissimus
and of six of his foUowers.^ The excommunication is pre
ceded by an inquiry, which is conducted by the bishop
and his presbyterium : the sentence given by the bishop is
notified to the people.'
The reconcUiation of the excommunicated is a public act,
of which we find a moving description in the letter sent to
Cyprian by Pope Cornelius. The case was that of a priest,
Maximus, and two Eoman confessors, Urbanus and Sidonius,
who abandon the schism of Novatian and come back to the
Catholic Church. Cornelius has them first questioned by
some priests, in order to test their sincerity. A report is
made to Cornelius, who orders that the presbyterium be
convoked. Five bishops from elsewhere, then present in
Eome, take part as by right in the deliberation of the pres
byterium. This deliberation seems to take place privately,
and each one of the consultors gives his opinion, which is
immediately put down in writing. Then the three culprits
are brought before the presbyterium : together with them
come many of the faithful to plead in their behalf. Maxi
mus, Urbanus and Sidonius begin to speak: they recant
their error and protest that, in their hearts, they have never
ceased to be attached to the true Church : " Cor nostrum
! "Epistulae," XLL 2. Cf. XLin. 7 : "Si quis ... in Felicissimi et
sateUitum eius partes concesserit et se haereticae factioni coniunxerit,
sciat se postea ad ecclesiam redire et cum episcopis et plebe Christi com-
municare non posse. "
"Ibid. XLU. : " Abstinuimus a communicatione Felicissimum et Au-
gendum, item Repostum de extorribus et Irenem Rutilorum et Paulam
sarcinatricem. . . . Item abstinuimus Sophronium et ipsum de extorribus
SoUassum budinarium."
"Ibid. XLL 2: "[FeUcissimus] abstentum se a nobis sciat, quando
ad fraudes eius et rapinas quas dilucida veritate cognovimus, adulterii
etiam crimen accedit, quod fratres nostri graves viri deprehendisse se
nuntiaverunt. " The letter is sent by Cyprian, not to his people, but
to his priests. Compare Tbrtull. "Apologet." 39: "Iudicatur magno
cum pondere , , . Praesident probati quique seniores,"

344 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
semper in ecclesia fuit," and that there ought to be only one
bishop in the Catholic Church, unv/m, episcopum in Catholica
esse debere". Then Cornelius pronounces the restoration
of the priest Maximus to his priestly dignity, and that of
the two confessors to their place in the Church, " cum
ingenti populi suffragio ".! We have here the fuU formal
ities of a judgment.
This procedure is not, strictly speaking, the same as that
apphed to penitents, although there is a great simUarity be
tween the two. The sins committed after baptism, can be
forgiven, through the mercy of God: God, who conferred
innocence upon us in baptism, did not intend to bind us by
precept to an innocence beyond our reach; He permits
us to expiate our faults by almsgiving.^ However, there are
some especiaUy grievous sins that cannot be thus expiated
privately : such are adultery, apostasy, and homicide.' The
lapsi, for instance, wiU be obUged to atone for their apos
tasy by penance, and to perform their penance before the
whole Church. Only then wiU they be aUowed to receive
the imposition of the hands of the bishop in sign of peace and
reconcihation ; after which they may approach Holy Com
munion.* Here then we have again a previous trial, a pubhc
penance, and a public sentence of reconcihation.
! " Epistulse," XLIX. 1-3 : " Omni actu ad me perlato placuit contrahi
presbyterium. Adfuerant etiam episcopi quinque, qui et eo die praesentes
fuerunt. . . . Sententiae nostras placuit in notitiam perferri, quas et
subiectas leges. His ita gestis in presbyterium venerunt Maximus, Ur
banus, Sidonius et plerique fratres qui eis se adiunxerant, summis precibus
desiderantes ut . . . Quorum voluntate cognita magnus fraternitatis
concursus factus. . . . Quapropter iussimus ..." Compare the pro
cedure of the judgment by which St. Cyprian is condemned to death by
the proconsul : " Acta proconsularia," 3-4 (Hartbl, vol. m. p. cxii).
" " De Opere et Eleem." 11 and 14.
3 " De Bono patientiae," 14 : " Adulterium, fraus, homicidium mortale
crimen est." In the time of St. Cyprian, the ecclesiastical discipUne,
which had become more lenient as regards the sins of lust and the sin of
apostasy, was still unbendiag as regards murder. See Cyprian, "De
dominica oratione," 24: "Qui fratrem suum odit homicida est, nee
ad regnum pervenit aut cum Deo vivit homicida. . . . Quale delictum
est quod nee baptismo sanguinis potest ablui, quale crimen est quod
martyr io non potest expiari ! "
^"De Lapsis," 16: No lapsus must be admitted to Communion
"... ante expiata delicta, ante exomologesim factam criminis, ante

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 345
The bishop reconcUes others, but he himself cannot be
reconciled ; if he has to do penance, he must resign the
episcopate and henceforth cannot rise above lay communion.!
The custom of assembling in council the bishops of
the same region is already ancient. Cyprian tells us of
a bishop of Lambesa, Privatus, who " ante multos fere
annos" was condemned for many grievous faults by the
judgment of ninety bishops.^ Later on we shaU see Cyprian
invoke the decision given by a councU of Carthage, about
the year 220, which was attended by seventy-one bishops
belonging to two provinces — proconsular Africa and Nu
midia.' By provinces, we must understand imperial pro
vinces, for at this time ecclesiastical provinces are not yet in
existence.* At the Council of Carthage in the year 256,
there are present eighty-seven bishops from three provinces
pm'gatam conscientiam sacrificio et manu sacerdotis, ante offensam placa-
tam indignantis Domini et minantis". On the share of the people in
the judgment of the reconcUiation of the lapsi, see "Epistulae," lix. 15,
and LXIV. 1.
1 " Epistulae," LV. 11, lxv. 2, Lxvn. 6, lxxil 2. Cf. Euseb. "H. E."
VL 43, 10 (letter of CorneUus).
''ibid. LIX. 10. StUl, the expression "ante multos annos " cannot
designate a very remote epoch. Privatus appeals to the councU of Carth
age of the year 252. The sentence by which he had been deposed had
been sanctioned by Pope Fabian (236-50), when Donatus (t 249), Cyprian's
predecessor, was Bishop of Carthage. Benson, "Cyprian" (London,
1897), p. 227.
"Ibid. LXxnL 1. We learn from the letter of Pope Cornelius to
Fabius that the Council of Rome, which condemns Novatian, is attended
by sixty Italian bishops, and by " a great many more presbyters and dea
cons ". Eusbb. " H. E." vi. 43, 2.
* Ibid. XLvm. 3. Cf. Duchesne, "Origines du culte chr^t," p. 13
and foU. "Hist, anc." vol. l pp. 526-7: "Nowhere, before Dio
cletian, certainly not in the West, is there in the grouping of churches
the least indication of a desire to reproduce the lines of the imperial pro
vinces. The Bishop of Carthage, or at least his Council, presides over all
the African provinces — the Pro-consular, Numidian and Mauritanian [both
Caesariensis and Tingitana]. Italy depends entirely on the See of Rome ;
the See of Alexandria is the ecclesiastical centre for both Egypt and Cyren-
aica, although in civil affairs these countries had separate administrators.
Here, the connexions between the churches had nothing to do with the
connexions of the civil administration, but arose solely out of the circum
stances of their evangelization,' which again depended on geographical
conditions."

346 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
— proconsular Africa, Numidia ^nd Mauritania. An official
record of the sessions of these assemblies is drawn up : the
sententiae episcoporum ^ of the Council of the year 256 are
the oldest Latin specimen we have of such acts.
The decrees passed by a council are regarded as authori
tative : the bishops themselves are not above the laws
they have made in council. As we have seen, Cyprian
recaUed this principle, when the will of Geminius Victor,
Bishop of Furni, came before him. The Council of
Africa, presided over by Cyprian, cites the same principle
against Therapius, Bishop of BuUa, who, by reconciling one
of his priests before submitting him to a sufficiently long
penance, had not complied with the rule laid down by the
Council of the year 251 : " Quae res nos satis movit, recessum
esse a decreti nostri auctoritate " ?
The bishops, then, are amenable to a councU and can
be deposed by it, as was the case with Privatus of Lambesa.
The Council of Africa meets at Carthage generaUy twice a
year, in the spring and in the autumn. Laymen take no
part in councUs.
Cyprian, who frequently and emphaticaUy proclaims that
aU bishops are equal, none the less exercises a real primacy,
not only over proconsular Africa, but also over aU Christian
Africa, as far as the shores of the Atlantic. The CouncU
of Africa assembles at Carthage, and he truly presides over
it. Even outside its sessions he has authority to act in its
name and carry out its decrees ; he speaks in its name to the
Bishops of Africa and to those of foreign lands.'
For, beyond the boundaries of Africa, there is the orbvs.
The relations, by means both of messengers and of letters,
which unite Carthage with Eome and Eome with Carthage,
show the profound solidarity which binds the two Churches
together : they hold themselves bound to observe the same
rules of conduct and to maintain a like discipline. This is a
thought prompted by charity, and likewise by their sense of
duty. Cyprian writes to the Eoman clergy : " Et dilectio
^ Hartel, vol. i. p. 435 and foil.
" " Epistulae," lxiv. 1. Cf. ibid. 2.
s Monceaux, vol. ii. p. 13. Ritschl, p. 228. Harnack, "Mis
sion," vol. I. pp. 394-5.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 347
communis et ratio exposcit, nihil censcientiae vestrae sub-
trahere de his quae apud nos geruntur ut sit nobis circa
utilitatem ecclesiasticae administrationis commune con
silium ".! The clergy of Eome (the see was then vacant
and Cornelius had not yet been elected) answers in terms of
higher import : " Omnes enim nos decet pro corpore totius
Ecclesiae, cuius per varias quasque provincias m,embra
digesta sunt, excubare ".2
A bishop, like that of Eome, on being elected, never
faUs to announce his election to a see like that of Carthage.
This is not a recent custom, and Cyprian refers to it, as a
rule that is generaUy observed. When he begs Cornelius to
send him the testimony of the bishops who took part in his
election to the see of Eome, he protests that he does not forget
the established custom : " Nen veteres mores obliti novum
aliquid quaerebamus, nam satis erat ut\te episcopum factis
litteris nuntiares".^ Another of St. Cyprian's letters inti
mates that the election of Cornelius has been notified to
aU the bishops of the Christian world, and that all have
recognized it.*
As soon as the affair of FeUcissimus breaks out at
Carthage, Cyprian takes care to send to Pope Cornelius
aU the documents that refer to it, and begs the Pope
to let the clergy and faithful of Eome read the letter
which he, Cyprian, has written on the subject to the clergy
and faithful of Carthage — in order that every one may be
' " Epistulae," xxxv.
"Ibid. XXXVL 4. The case referred to is that of Privatus, of
Lambesis. By " omnes nos " the Roman clergy mean the heads of the
Churches. See " Epistulae," vm. 3, a letter of the Roman clergy, during
the vacancy of the see, to the clergy of Carthage, Cyprian having then
fled : " Salutant vos fratres qui sunt in vinculis (notice the importance of
confessors) et presbyteri et tota ecclesia, quae et ipsa cum summa solUcitu-
dine excubat pro omnibus qui invocant nomen Domini. " The solicitude
with whioh the clergy of Rome watches over all the Churches, must not
be overlooked. "Ibid. XLV. 3.
*Ibid. LV. 8: ". . . coepiscoporum testimonio quorum numerus
universus per totum mundum concordi unanimitate consensit ". We
recaU the words of TertuUian, then a Montanist : " Non Ecclesia
numerus episcoporum ". " De Pudicit." xxl

348 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
well acquainted with the whole affair, " ut tam, istic quam
illic circa omnia per nos fraternitas instruatur "} Cyprian
receives and communicates to his Church the letter in which
Cornehus announces his election : he has received at the
same time a memorial (librum) sent by Novatian's party,
which is a formal requisition against CorneUus. Cyprian
does not communicate this libel to his Church, but asks
Cornehus for information which wiU enable him to refute it.
He informs by letters aU the African bishops of the legiti
macy of the election of Cornelius, in order — as he himself
writes to CorneUus — -" ut te universi cellegae nostri et co-mm-u-
nicationem tuam id est cathoUcae ecclesiae unitatem pariter
et caritatem probarent firmiter ac tenerent".^
On his part, Cornelius complains that the foUowers of
Novatian have appealed to all the churches ; " ' and he in
forms the churches — we know that he does so for that
of Carthage — of the incidents and vicissitudes of the
schism.* Would that such accounts were always simple
and true I But there are already in the Church informers
and mischief-makers : witness the letter in which Cyprian
complains that some have spoken at Eome of the conduct
of the Bishop of Carthage " without due sincerity and
fidelity ".^
AU the Churches being dispersed over the world, but
bound together through their bishops, there is but one Church,
as there is but one episcopate : the unity of the episcopate
manifests the unity of the Church. It is a unity that is
everywhere cemented, " connexam et ubique conjunctam
CathoUcae ecclesiae unitatem".^ "For us," vmtes Cyprian
^ " Epistulae," xlv. 4. "Ibid. XLvm. 3.
-Ibid. XLIX. 1 : " . . . quod per omnes ecclesias Utterae calumniis
et maledictis plenae eorum nomine frequentes missae fuissent, et paene
omnes ecclesias perturbassent ". Cf. "Epistulae," lv. 5: " . . . quae
litterae per totum mundum missae sunt et in notitiam ecclesiis omnibus
et universis fratribus perlatae ".
* Ibid. L.
<> Ibid. XX. 1: "Quoniam comperi, fratres carissimi, minus sun-
pliciter et minus fideliter vobis renuntiari quae hie a nobis et gesta
sunt et geruntur. ..."
"¦ Ibid. IV. 24 : " Cum sit a Christo una Ecclesia per totum mun
dum in multa membra divisa, item episcopatus unus episcoporum multo-

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 349
to Pope Cornelius, " the Church is one, we have but one
soul and this concord is indivisible : Na/m cum nobis
et ecclesia una sit, et mens iuncta, et individua con-
cordia ".! One and the same faith, one and the same tradi
tion is observed by the dispersed bishops : " . . . episcopos
plurimos ecclesiis dominicis in toto mundo divina dignatione
praepositos euangelicae veritatis ac dominicae traditionis
tenere rationem, nee ab eo quod Christus m,agister et prae-
cepit et gessit humana et novella institutione decedere ".^
This — we are told — is truly the hierarchical idea of
the Church, and this idea is wrought out by St. Cyprian !
The Catholicism of Irenseus and of TertuUian rested on a
doctrinal basis, that of Cyprian rests on a hierarchical
basis. But we are constrained to recognize that the hier
archical idea of tbe Church is found already in Irenseus and
TertuUian, and that, in the East, in the first half of the third
century, it is already embodied in the facts.' Decidedly
Cyprian cannot be claimed as the originator of the hier
archical idea.
What had stiU to be made clear in Cyprian's time, was
neither the apostolicity of the faith common to aU the
Churches, nor the divine right of the episcopate, nor even
the unity, so conspicuous to all, of the universal episcopate.
But, at a critical moment, when this unity was about to
be menaced from within, it was necessary to familiarize
the Christian people with the inner law of their nature, to
explain how the Holy Ghost co-operates in its preservation,
and how the see of Peter is not only the source, but also
the perpetual guarantee of its endurance; in a word, it
was necessary to formulate the divine constitution of
Cathohcism. The glory of such a demonstration all but feU to
Cyprian's treatise " De Unitate ecclesiae ".
rum concordi numerositate diffiisus. ..." Observe the words : concors
numerositas. ! " Epistulse," LX. 1. "Ibid. LXin. 1.
= Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 416. Cf. Loofs, p. 204.

350 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM II.
Cyprian had ruled the Church of Carthage for about a
year when the persecution of Decius broke out, in the autumn
of the year 249. The bishop left Carthage and found a safe
place of refuge, from whence he remained in daily intercourse
with his Church, whose chief trial was caused not so much
by the number of her martyrs, as by the number of her
children who feU away — the lapsi.^ In the height of the
persecution, at the time when the number of apostasies was
multiplying, Cyprian, still in his shelter, was asked by four
priests of Carthage to authorize them to reconcUe the lapsi,
without previous penance, solely on the presentation of a letter
from some martyr or confessor of the faith. This request
raised the question whether an apostate could be recon
ciled to the Church. It seems clear that Cyprian and his
clergy inclined unanimously towards indulgence in this
respect, but the request raised the less-expected question
whether a martyr could, by pleading in behaK of one who had
lapsed, exempt him from the expiatory exercises of penance
and, in effect, declare him absolved from his sin, leaving to
the priests merely to ratify this absolution by admitting him
to communion. The martyrs were thus assuming a power re
served to the bishop, and Cyprian refused to grant the request
of the four Carthaginian priests, declaring that he intended to
postpone the study of the case untU his retum, when he
could consult with his clergy and people.^
But some priests — probably those who had written to St.
Cyprian — ignored Cyprian's decision, and did not hesitate to
admit the lapsi to communion, without delay, vdthout pen
ance, on the mere sight of a letter from a martyr.' Those
of the clergy who remained faithful in this time of confusion,
! See " Etudes d'hist. et de th^ol. positive, Ifere s&ie," pp. Ill and
foil. , " La orise novatienne ".
" " Epistulae," xiv. 4. This pretension on the part of the martyrs is
explained by the prevalent belief that the Holy Ghost granted a special
help to the martyrs ; the Holy Ghost was in them. The pretension of the
Carthaginian martyrs is in line with Origen's theory of the power of the
" spirituals ".
" Ibid. XV. 1.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 351
begged Cyprian to interfere. The latter thought best to
give a provisional answer : those lapsi who had received
from some martyr a letter of intercession, might be reconciled
by the priests, but only if they were in danger of death :
otherwise, they must await the return of Cyprian.!
The Bishop of Carthage communicated his decision to
many bishops, his colleagues, who answered that his feeling
was theirs, and that it was in conformity with the Catholic
faith,^ which, placed in the hands of the bishops the power
to reconcUe as weU as the power to baptize. The See of
Eome was vacant, since the death of Pope Fabian, on
20 January, 250. The clergy, who administered the Church,
were inclined to rigorism and blamed Cyprian for what was
caUed " his flight," but they agreed with him that it was
better to take no decision on the subject until peace was
restored.' They had vpritten a letter in this sense to the
bishops of Sicily ; and they had come to an agreement with
other bishops, some from near at hand, some from far oft'
regions: "... cum, quibusdam episcopis vicinis nobis et
adpropinquantibus et quos ex aliis provinciis lenge positis
persecutionis istius ardor eiecerat, ante censtitutionem
episcopi nihil innovandum putavimus ".* There also, then,
only such of the lapsi as were in danger of death might be
reconcUed ; the others must wait in suspense.
Cyprian does not aUow his priests to take any decision
vnthout him ; the priests of Eome declare their unwiUing
ness to take any decision, as long as no bishop presides over
them : is not this a strong affirmation of the bishop's right,
both at Carthage and at Eome ? The Novatian crisis, we
are told, led St. Cyprian to define the Church as a com
munity ruled by its bishop, whereas until then he had con
ceived it to be a consortium of the bishop, the clergy and the
laity .^ But from these declarations, Eoman and African, which
! " Epistulae, " xix. 2. " Ibid. xxv.
"Ibid. xxx. 5. ^Ibid. 8.
» Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 417. In this passage Harnack
contends that the texts in which Cyprian regards the Church as " con
stituta in episcopo et in clero et in omnibus credentibus " date from an
earUer period, and represent "the old idea on the subject''. On the
contrary Cyprian writes in " Epistulae," xxxm. 1 : "... quando ecclesia

352 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
are previous to the appearance of Novatian, we see that the
Church is constituted hierarchicaUy, and that the supreme
power is truly in the hands of the bishop. Of the in
stitutions that are then in existence Eome affirms aheady
her "Nihil innovandum,".
The bishop is the foundation of his Church : such is the
leading idea of the thirty-third letter of St. Cyprian — a first
draft of the " De Unitate ". The lapsi who have dared to
send me a letter in the name of the Church, " ecclesiae no
mine," are indeed bold, he says. Perhaps they would hke to
be taken for the Church, " ecclesiam se volunt esse ". . . .
But a choice must be made between the bishop whose wiU
is that the lapsi should wait, and those lapsi who defy the
bishop's authority : on whom, then, is the Church founded ?
" Dominus noster, cuius praecepta metuere et servare de-
bemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens
in euangelio loquitur et dicit Petro : Ego tibi dico quia tu es
Petrus, et super islam petram aedificabo ecclesiam Tneam, et
pertae inferorum non vincent eam, et tibi dabo claves regni
caeloru/m, et quae ligaveris super terram erunt ligata et in
caelis, et quaecumque solveris super terram erunt soluta et
in caelis. Inde per temporum et successionum vices epis
coporum ordinatio et ecclesiae ratio decurrit ut ecclesia super
episcopos constituatur et omnis actus ecclesiae per eosdem
praepositos gubernetur." !
Cyprian vindicates, in the name of the Gospel, the bishop's
dignity {honor) : the Church is founded on the bishops,
each Church is ruled by its bishop, and this divine constitu
tion rests on the words of Christ to St. Peter. The words
. y^u es Petrus established the episcopacy, since the power in
stituted in Peter's person has passed on to the bishops, as
in episcopo et clero et in omnibus stantibus sit constituta, absit . . . ut
ecclesia esse dicatur lapsorum numerus ". He means that the Church
is made up of the bishops, the clergy and the faithful who have not
faUen away, in contrast with the lapsi, who pretend to lay down the law.
But he does not mean that the Church is built upon the faithful as weU
as upon the bishops and the clergy : neither before Cyprian's time nor in
his writings was there any question about the subordination of the plebs
to the ordo, within the unity of each Church. It is enough to recaU
Origen. 1 " Epistulae," xxxm. 1. Cf. Lxvi. 8.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 353
an inheritance, "per successionum vices ". In virtue of this
inherited power, the bishop presides over the whole activity
of his Church. Therefore, no one can be a minister of re
concihation without his approval and against his will.
These declarations of principle did not suffice to restore
order and bring back to their duty the rebellious priests.
Cyprian felt compelled to threaten the recalcitrants with ex
clusion from his communion.!
Apparently these threats did not produce the result
Cyprian expected, for a short time after, he had to excom
municate the prime mover in the rebellion of the lapsi, FeU
cissimus. From Cyprian's forty-first Letter we learn that
FeUcissimus was accused of misappropriating funds and was
suspected of adultery : these charges were apparently to be
investigated after Cyprian's return, in the presence of the
council of Carthage.^ But the notorious scandal was the
revolt of FeUcissimus against Cyprian : FeUcissimus had on
his side a certain number of the faithful (portionem plebis) ;
and strong in their support, the more so that he was pleading
their cause, he had done his utmost to thwart the endeavours
of the priests whom Cyprian had appointed to bring back
the lapsi to the path of duty, declaring that those who
obeyed Cyprian's commands would by that very fact break
with him — FeUcissimus: "secum in morte non communi-
carent".^ In his folly, FeUcissimus went so far as to
excommunicate without hope of forgiveness those who
abandoned his party and submitted to Cyprian.*
In acting as he did, FeUcissimus, it is true, betrayed the
! " Epistulae," xxxiv. 3 : " Interea si quis immoderatus et praeceps
sive de nostris presbyteris vel diaconis sive de peregrinis ausus fuerit ante
sententiam nostram communicare cum lapsis, a communicatione nostra
arceatur, apud omnes nos causam dicturus temeritatis suae, quando in
unum permittente Domiao convenerimus."
"Ibid. XLI. 2: "Quae omnia cognoscemus, quando in unum cum
collegis pluribus permittente Domino convenerimus ".
"Ibid. 1.
* Ibid. 2 : "... accipiat sententiam quam prior dixit, ut abstentum
se a nobis sciat ". Although separated at this time from his clergy and
his people, Cyprian pronounces the excommunication of FeUcissimus
in words which affirm the principle of episcopal supremacy. However,
Cyprian does not pronounce excommunication without hope of forgiveness.
23

354 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
nature of his ulterior designs. The election of Cyprian to the
See of Carthage had not been made without opposition ; and
the opponents sided with FeUcissimus. Cyprian could
boldly denounce in this rebeUion what he caUs the " antiqua
ilia contra episcopatum, meum venena," and " veterem contra
nos impugnationem ".! But he does not waste time on these
designs of FeUcissimus and of the few Carthaginian priests
who belong to his party ; he desires to have the case Umited
to the question of the lapsi and to the indisputable principle
that dominates the whole controversy ; to reconcUe the lapsi
without demanding penance of them, is to oppose the Gos
pel ; it is " ecclesiae pudicitiam corrumpere et veritatem
euangelicam violare " ? Then, what kind of reconciliation
can be given by priests who are outside the Church ? Here
Cyprian comes to another argument which we shaU meet
again in the " De Unitate," viz. that outside the Church
there is neither sacrifice, nor priesthood, nor reconciliation.'
The faction of the lapsi hoped for the support of Eome
and especiaUy of the bishop who must soon be elected. One
of the rebellious priests of Carthage was despatched to Eome
to work for the election of a Pope who would break vnth
Cyprian and acknowledge the rival whom the party of
FeUcissimus was doubtless preparing to set up against him.*
Their intrigues faUed. The election of the Eoman Bishop
took place towards the middle of March, and the priest
Cornelius, who had nothing to do with these quarrels, was
chosen. The Eoman faction, which this choice discon
certed, first murmured, then passed to deeds, and, not
withstanding the legitimacy of the election of Cornehus,
elected his unfortunate competitor, the Eoman priest No
vatian. St. Cyprian could not hesitate : the election of CorneUus
!" Epistulae," XLin. 1. "Ibid.^.
"Ibid. 5 : "Pacem nunc offerunt qui ipsi non habent pacem, neo
ecclesiam lapses reducere et revocare permittunt qui de ecclesia recesser-
unt. Deus unus est, et Christus unus et una ecclesia, et cathedra una
super Petrum Domini voce fundata. Aliud altare constitui, aut sacer
dotium novum fieri, praeter unum altare et unum sacerdotium non
potest ".
* Duchesne, " Hist, anc," vol. i. pp. 407-8.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 355
was recognized as legitimate, and that of Novatian as having
been made in spite of and against the legitimate Church,
"contra ecclesiam catholicam;"^ and, as some emissaries
from Novatian were trying to make partisans among the
Christians of Carthage, Cyprian broke off communion with
them and immediately reported the fact to Pope Cornelius.
At the same time, two African bishops were sent to Eome
to aid in destroying the schism and bringing back the
Eomans who were making it, to the unity of the Church
which at Eome was alone Catholic, "ut ad cathoUcae
ecclesiae unitatem scissi corporis membra componerent ".^
Cyprian deemed it his duty to work with aU his might for
the restoration of unity at Eome. He writes to Cornelius : —
" Hoc enim vel maxime, frater, et laboramus et laborare
debemus ut unitatem a Domino et per apostolos nobis suc-
cessoribus traditam quantum possumus obtinere curemus, et
quod in nobis est balabundas et errantes oves, quas quo-
rumdam pervicax factio et haeretica temptatio a matre se-
cemit, in ecclesia coUigamus." '
When writing thus on the subject of the Eoman schism,
St. Cyprian was repeating the arguments he had formerly
employed when dealing with the faction of Fehcissimus at
Carthage. Unity must above all prevail in every Church,
because Christ desired unity, and unity is an inheritance
transmitted by the Apostles to the bishops, their successors.
We shaU meet with these arguments again in the " De
Unitate ".
Besides writing to Pope Cornelius, Cyprian vrrites to
the confessors who form Novatian's party at Eome a letter
in which he praises the courage they exhibited in the time
of persecution, and recognizes the sincerity of the scruples
which led them to believe that the lapsi ought not to
be reconciled ; but he reminds them that attachment to the
unity of their Church is also a duty, and that they are in
excusable for having set up a bishop against the legitimate
bishop. By thus acting, they have run counter to the order
estabUshed by God, to the law of the Gospel, " contra institu
tionis cathoUcae unitatem, '' : in consenting to have a bishop
! " Epistulae," xliv. 1. " Ibid. xlv. 1. ^ Ibid. 3.
23*

356 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
other than the one already recognized, they have consented
to have a church other than the Church, and such conduct
is sacrilegious and unlawful.! Cornelius having announced
"to Cyprian the return of some of the confessors to the legiti
mate Church, the latter replies expressing his joy that they
should " unitatis ac veritatis demicilium repetisse," and break
off with the "proditores fidei et ecclesiae cathoUcae im-
pugnatores ".^ Some of the Christians of Carthage whom
those "proditores fidei" had won over, also come back to
the true Church. The light has entered aU hearts, "et
ecclesia cathoUca una esse nee scindi nee dividi posse mon-
strata est ".'
When the persecution came to an end, Cyprian caUed
the Council of Carthage, in May 251. The Council had first
to judge Fehcissimus. It is probable that Cyprian took no
part in this judgment, in which he was the accuser : the
sentence was passed by his colleagues, who transmitted it
immediately to Pope Cornelius.* The priests who were at
the head of the faction of the Carthaginian lapsi were con
demned, as well as FeUcissimus, whom they had made their
deacon,^ a fact which shows their desire to organize them
selves into a separate church. Moreover Novatus, the most
compromised of all the priests of the party of Carthaginian
^ " Epistulae," XLVI. 1 : " . . . contra institutionis cathoUcae unitatem
alium episcopum fieri consensisse, id est, quod nee fas est nee licet fieri,
ecclesiam alteram institui. "
" Ibid. LI. 1.
"Ibid. 2. We must, i however, clear up a point which might be mis
interpreted. The unity insisted on by Cyprian is the unity in each
church. The term " ecclesia catholica '' refers, here, not to the whole
Church, but to each particular church. Cornelius writes to Fabius
(Eusbb. " H. E." vl 43, 11): eva iniaKonov Sel etvat iv KaBoXtKtj
eKKXtjaia. Assuredly Cornelius did not mean to teU the Bishop of Antioch
that there can be but one bishop in the whole catholic world. The Roman
confessors who submit to Cornelius ("Epistulae," xlix. 2) say : "Nos Cor-
nelium episcopum sanctissimae cathoUcae ecclesiae electum a Deo scimus
. . . nee ignoramus unum episcopum in catholica esse debere." See for
the same use of the term ' ' Epistulae," xlv. 1. Hence the meaning of the
word "catholic" is determined by the extension of the word "church".
This observation is very important.
¦* Ibid. XLV. 4. Regarding Cyprian's absence from the trial of
FeUcissimus, cf. Benson, pp. 132-3.
» Ibid. LH. 2.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 357
lapsi, anticipating the condemnation which" they saw was
inevitable, had gone to Eome, and had there been one
of the instigators of Novatian's election.! At Carthage,
then, even before the Council had condemned the schismatical
faction, the cause of unity had triumphed.
The treatise " De Unitate ecclesiae " was published at
this precise juncture, when, after the restoration of order at
Carthage, the case of Novatian had yet to be settled at
Eome. The supposition has been made that the treatise
" De Unitate " was read in the Council of Carthage, in May,
251 ; this has been inferred from the following words of St.
Cyprian : " Quam unitatem tenere firmiter et vindicare de
bemus, maxime episcopi qui in ecclesia praesidemus ".^
The hypothesis is plausible, on condition that we do not
exclude from this first hearing of the " De Unitate " either
the clergy or the people of Carthage.' At aU events the
" De Unitate " was not concerned with the case of FeUcis
simus, on which Cyprian had fuUy expressed his mind be
fore the CouncU met and in deciding which he had taken no
part during the Council, as we have already seen. But wfe
have also seen that emissaries from Novatian had done their
utmost at Carthage to recruit adherents for their cause ;
that Cyprian had excommunicated them and had sent to
Eome two African bishops, to aid Cornelius in reducing
the schism of Novatian : it is not surprising, then, that he
should have wished to render further aid by composing a
treatise on the principles of Church unity as held at Carthage ;
such a book would enlighten the Carthaginians if they needed
enUghtenment ; it would be stiU more appreciated by the
Eomans, for whom especiaUy it was written.
*
1 " Epistulae," lii. 2 : " Idem est Novatus, qui apud nos primum dis-
cordiae incendium seminavit, qui quosdam istic ex fratribus ab episcopo
segregavit. . . . Ipse est qui FeUcissimum sateUitem suum diaconum nee
permittente me . . . constituit''. Novatus goes to Rome, and " quoniam
pro magnitudine sua debeat Carthaginem Roma praecedere, illic maiora et
graviora commisit : qui istic adversus ecclesiam diaconum fecerat, illic
episcopum fecit "
" "De Unit." 5. Benson, p. 181.
^ " Epistulae," LIV. 4 : "... libellis quos hie nuper legeram ". That
letter, sent to Maximus and to the Roman confessors who had given up
Novatian's schism, is, as it were, the dedication of the " De Unitate ".

358 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Let us now examine the argument of the " Pe Unitate
ecqlesiae ".
"The~3uty of every Christian is to defend himself against
the ever-changing wiles of the devU. Formerly, the enemy
made use of idolatry to seduce men : now that the idols are
given up, their temples abandoned, and the Christians are
increasing in number, he has recourse to a new device and,
under the cover of the Christian name, seeks to seduce
unwary Christians, by fomenting schisms and heresies.
What can we oppose to this artifice of the devil ? A funda
mental principle, that of ecclesiastical unity ("Unit." 1-3).
For those who defer to the teaching of the Divine Master
it is easy to establish this principle.
" Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum : Ego tibi dico, inquit,
quia tu es Petrus et super istam petram aedificabo ecclesiam
meam, et portae inferorum non vincent eam. Dabo tibi
claves regni caelorum : et quae ligaveris super terram erunt
ligata et in caelis, et quaecumque solveris super terram
erunt soluta et in caelis." Super unum ecclesiam aedificat
("Unit." 4).
Thus the Lord has built His Church upon one sole Apostle.
Does this mean that this Apostle enjoys a privUege which the
other Apostles have not received? No indeed, Cyprian
somewhat hastily answers, since after His resurrection,
Christ gives to aU His Apostles the same powers, " apostolis
omnibus parem potestatem," when He sends them as He
was sent by His Father, and gives them the Holy Ghost
with the power of forgiving sins (John xx. 21). However
numerous the Apostles, however numerous the bishops who
have succeeded them, unity begets unity.
"... tamen ut unitatem manifestaret, unitatis eiusdem
originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit. Hoc
erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio
praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate pro-
ficiscitur, ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur" ("Unit." 4).
Hence, in the eyes of Cyprian, Christ's words to Peter
mean only that each church is one, since the first of all the
churches, that founded by Christ on Peter, is one.!
^ Cyprian frequently returns to the same contention, that Christ
founds the Church on Peter, and every church reproduces this primordial

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 359
As a fact, the Church has spread aU over the world,
without loss of unity, even as a tree whose boughs are
many, and as a river that diffuses its waters : do not break
a branch from the tree, for once broken it can live no
longer ; do not separate the stream from its source, for it will
dry up. The episcopate is one, all the bishops.hold it severally
and_con jointly : " Episcopatus unus est, cuius a singulis in
solidum'pars tenetur" (" Unit." 5).
The Church is the spouse of Christ, a chaste spouse,
having but one home and one chamber : whoever is not with
her, is with an adulteress. Such a one is a bastard who has
not God for his father, since he has not the Church for his
mother. "Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam
non habet matrem." The Church is the ark of Noe outside
which all perish. Whoever is not with Christ is against
Him: he who does not gather with Christ, scatters, and
therefore " Qui alibi praeter ecclesiam colligit Christi ec
clesiam spargit" ("Unit." 6). St. Cyprian accumulates
the figures which seem to him apt to inculcate this unity.
The seamless coat of Christ is for him a new " unitatis
sacramentum" ("Unit." 7). So too is the privilege granted
by Josue to the house of Eahab and the command to eat
the paschal lamb " in una domo ". The word of Christ
"unus grex et unus pastor" (John x. 16) affords a further
argument to the same effect ("Unit." 8).
Whoever separates himself from the Church forfeits aU
the blessings of which she is the source. In their fruitless
usurpations, they make themselves bishops, but they are not
unity. "Epistulae," lis. 7 and 14, lxvl 8, lxxi. 3, Lxxn. 7. Cf.
Benson, pp. 197-9. Speaking of St. Peter, and alluding to the fact that
he was married, TertulUan had already said : " Petrum solum invenio
maritum, propter socrum : monogamum praesumo, per Ecclesiam, quae
super Ulum aedificata omnem gradum ordinis sui de monogamis erat col-
locatura". "De Monog." 8. This is a Montanistic treatise. TertuUian
interprets the Super hanc petram aedificabo, as referring to the Apostle
Peter : the Church is built upon Peter, retrospectively. The close con
nexion between the interpretation of Cyprian and that of TertuUian will
be noticed. D'Ales, " TertuUien," p. 216. Regarding the various mean
ings given by the Fathers to the Tu es Petrus, see Launoi, " Opera omnia,"
vol. V. (1731), pp. 99-124 (letter of 1661) ; but we must bear in mind
Launoi's Galilean and quasi-anarchistic spirit.

360 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
bishops : " Nemine episcopatum dante episcopi sibi nomen
adsumunt " (" Unit." 10) . The baptism conferred outside the
Church is no baptism : " Non abluuntu/r illic hovmnes sed
potius sordidantur, nee purgantur delicta, sed immo cumu-
lantur " (" Unit." 11) . Let not seceders think they can defend
themselves by means of texts ; let them not say that, in the
words of Christ, wherever two or three are gathered together
in His name, He is with them. When He spoke thus, Christ
was referring exclusively to His faithful foUowers and to His
Church: "Dominus de ecclesia sum loquitur et ad hos qui
sunt in ecclesia loquitur " ("Unit." 12). Onthe contrary,
to these unworthy Christians who leave the Church, He
said that when any one comes to pray he must cast aside
all resentment against his neighbour ; now, what kind
of prayer, what kind of sacrifice can such enemies of
brotherly peace offer up ? " Quae sacrificia celebrare se
credunt aemuli sacerdotum? Secum esse Christum, cum
collecti fuerint opinantur, qui extra Christi ecclesiam
celliguntur ? " ("Unit." 13). Not even by martyrdom can
their lack of brotherly charity be expiated : " Inexpiabilis
et gravis culpa discerdiae nee passione purgatur : esse
martyr non potest qui in ecclesia non est" {" Unit." 14).
St. Cyprian concentrates aU his aversion for seceders into
the foUowing passage : —
" Aversandus est talis atque fugiendus quisque fuerit ab
ecclesia separatus. Perversus est huiusmodi et peccat et
est a semetipso damnatus. An esse sibi cum Christo vide
tur qui adversum sacerdotes Christi facit, qui se a cleri eius
et plebis societate secernit? Arma Uie contra ecclesiam
portat, contra Dei dispositionem repugnat. Hostis altaris,
adversus sacrificium Christi rebeUis, pro fide perfidus, pro
religione sacrilegus, inobsequens servus, filius impius, frater
inimicus, contemptis episcopis et Dei sacerdotibus derelictis,
constituere audet aUud altare, precem alteram inlicitis voci-
bus facere, dominicae hostiae veritatem per falsa sacrificia
profanare, nee scire quoniam qui contra ordinationem Dei
nititur ob temeritatis audaciam divina animadversione punitur
("Unit." 17).
The abettors of schisms, who must be compared to Core,
Dathan and Abiron, can offer no excuse ; they are stiU more

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 361
blameworthy if they are men who, in the time of persecu
tion, were courageous confessors ("Unit." 18-22). Hence
the faithful must leave these culprits to their fate : " Unus
Deus est, et Christus unus, et una ecclesia eius, et fides una,
et plebs una in selidam corporis unitatem, concordiae glutino
copulata : scindi unitas non potest, nee corpus unum, dis-
cidio compaginis separari" ("Unit." 23).
The aUusion to the confessors who have done their duty
during the persecution does not of course refer to the party
of the Carthaginian lapsi; it refers to the Eoman con
fessors, such as Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, Macarius, who
have come back to the lawful Church, and it is, besides,
a dexterous and honourable invitation extended to the other
confessors, who, influenced by their rigorism, stiU adhere to
Novatian. It is easy to recognize Novatian and the rigorist
priests by whom he is surrounded, in those " ministros
iustitiae" who preach " desperationem sub obtentu spei"
("Unit." 3).
Of all the arguments marshalled by Cyprian, there is
not one which does not directly aim at Novatian as the chief
abettor of schism : " nemine episcopatum dante episcopi
sibi nomen adsumunt ".! The controversial and occasional
character of the " De Unitate " may help to excuse the
weakness of some of its reasonings, which are more oratori
cal than conclusive. But when we have set aside considera
tions of this nature, we find that Cyprian bases the unity of
the Church on two foundations.
The first is Christ's address to St. Peter.
The second is that the blessings imparted by Christ,
especially baptism, the priesthood and the altar, belong to
the legitimate Church and to no other. The principle laid
down hCTe~by St. Cyprian will give rise later to the baptismal
controversy, and we shall then have occasion to examine it
more thoroughly. For the present we need only note that
in the "De Unitate " this principle is strongly insisted on.
Whoever is outside the Church is condemned by the words of
the Saviour: " Qui non mecum colligit spargit" (Matt. xii.
30). Outside the Church, no baptism: "Non abluuntur
'"De Unit." 10 ; Benson, p. 181. Tillemont, vol. iv. p. 105, had
aheady surmised that Cyprian had in view Novatian, and not FeUcissimus.

362 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
illic homines " ; outside the Church, no sacrifice : " Falsa
sacrificia" ; outside the Church, no episcopate: "Episcopi
nomen " ; we may add : outside the Church, no martyrs.
The words of Christ to Peter furnish an argument which
St. Cyprian has used in letters written before the "De
Unitate ". We have found it in the thirty-third Letter, sent
to the lapsi of Carthage : where Cyprian finds in the words
of Christ to St. Peter the institution of the episcopal dignity
and the principle itself of the Church,! for the Church rests
on the bishops. We have found it in the forty- third
Letter, directed to aU the faithful of Carthage : where
Cyprian finds in the same words of Christ to St. Peter the
affirmation that there is but one cathedra in each Church.
We have found it in the forty-fifth Letter, addressed to
Pope Cornehus: where Cyprian speaks of the unity that
comes from Christ and comes from Christ to the bishops
through the Apostles whose successors they are.^
^ "Epistulae," xxxm. 1 : "Dominus noster, cuius praecepta metuere
et servare debemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens
in euangelio loquitur et dicit Petro. ..." Cyprian dweUs much on this
point, perhaps because he means to refute Tertullian's theory regarding
the merely ecclesiastical origin of the hierarchy (" Exhort, castit." 7).
" The author of the " De Aleatoribus " wUl later on take up the same
argument. These are the words in which he, a bishop, speaks of his dig
nity : " Quoniam in nobis divina et paterna pietas apostolatus ducatum
contulit, et vicariam Domini sedem caelesti dignatione ordinavit, et
origiaem authentici apostolatus super quem Christus fundavit ecclesiam
in superiore nostro portamus, accepta simul potestate solvendi ac Ugandi
et curatione peccata dimittendi . . ." "De Aleat." 1 (Hartel, vol. m.
p. 93). To us bishops God has entrusted the " leadership of the aposto
late " ; we hold the "vicarious seat of the Lord," i.e. we sit in the Church
in the Lord's stead ; "we bear in our ancestor," the Apostle Peter, the
origin of the authentic apostolate ; on this apostolate Christ has buUt His
Church ; together with Peter we have received the power to bind and to
loose, the charge to remit sins. . . . Taken by itself, this text might seem
to apply only to a Bishop of Rome. But it must be taken together with
other passages of the same treatise, in which the author shows that he is
an ordinary bishop, and then with some texts of Cyprian on the same sub
ject. For Cyprian, Peter was the founder of the Roman Church, but
Peter was first of the Apostles, in whose person Christ had formally
founded that Church from which all other churches are genealogically
derived. The unknown African bishop to whom we owe the "De
Aleatoribus " was an imitator of Cyprian's style, and took from him this
interpretation of the words of Christ to St. Peter. Monceaux, vol. n.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 363
The interpretation which St. Cyprian apphes to the text
Tu es Petrus is based on the principle that what prevails in
the Church of to-day has its reason and its law in what
Christ laid down. We may compare the application of this
principle Cyprian is about to make here with the appUcation
he makes of it elsewhere to the Eucharist : let us come
back, he says in this latter case, " to the root and origin of
the tradition of the Lord," and what Christ did, let us do
with fidehty.! When Christ built His Church, He estab
Ushed it on one man, on Peter, " super unum, aedificat ec
clesiam," : hence a pari every church is built upon one only.
We need not observe that St. Cyprian misunderstands
the bearing of the text, Tu es Petrus : he deprives the words
of Jesus of nearly aU their real and historical meaning.^
The Saviour is made to institute, not a primacy special to
Peter over the whole Church, but the episcopal monarchy in
each Church.
Are we to attribute this unnatural interpretation to an
error of Cyprian regarding the nature of the Church ? If aU
the Apostles received the same powers as Peter, if aU the
Apostles are equal, and Peter is without privilege, all the
bishops are equal, and the see of Peter is without privilege.
Has not the Bishop of Eome " the right to preside in a more
effective manner over the Catholic unity," of which Peter
was the starting-point, "to maintain it and to secure it by
means of a sovereign intervention in the questions of faith
p. 115 : " If we read at the beginning of the ' De Aleat. ' that its author
is the vicar of the Lord, that he is the heir of the authentic apostolate on
which Christ has built the Church, that he. has the power to bind and to
loose, and the mission to forgive sins, this means merely that he is a
bishop. Cyprian and his African colleagues did not speak otherwise
of their own functions." This is in reply to Harnack, who ascribes the
"De Aleat. " to Pope Victor, see Bardenhewer, " Geschichte," vol. n.
p. 447. '" Epistulae,'' LXIII. 1 : "... ad radicem atque originem traditionis
dominicae revertatur. . . . Quando aliquid Deo inspirante et mandante
praecipitur, necesse est domino servus fidelis obtemperet. " Cf. "Epis
tulae," Lxxin. 2 : " Nos autem qui ecclesiae unius caput et radicem tene-
mus. ..." Ibid. 7 : " Petro primum Dominus, super quem aedificavit
ecclesiam et unde unitatis originem instituit et ostendit. ..."
^J. Dblarochblle [?], "L'idee de I'EgUse dans saint Cyprien,"
" Revue d'hist. et de Utt. relig." vol. i. (1896), p. 528.

364 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
and discipline that may arise ? " No, " no more than any
other bishop, at least if we keep to the absolute and theor
etical point of view taken by Cyprian. . . . There is a uni
versal episcopate, which comprises aU the bishops ; there is
no universal bishop. Each bishop is really a centre of the
Church, and the intercommunion of aU the bishops makes
the unity of the whole. ... Of the bishops, the Bishop of
Eome is the one who holds in his hands, so to speak, the
threads of the universal communion ; but he has nothing to
do save to hold them ; it is beyond his province to determine
by himself the conditions of a communion of which he is not
the head but the official representative. Christian unity
has for its intimate cause the Holy Ghost, and for its ex
ternal guarantee the obligation, binding upon aU, not to
abandon, not to divide, not to trouble the Church of
Christ".! It may be said with more fairness that the treatise " De
Unitate ecclesiae " — a controversial work written for a
special occasion — does not set forth a system of the uni
versal Church, in other words, of CathoUcism : it is con
cerned exclusively with this thesis that in every Church
there is room for but one bishop. The title of the treatise
by no means comprises all that the identical title of Bossuet's
sermon comprises. If it is true, as St. Fulgentius testifies,
that Cyprian's treatise was sometimes entitled " De SimpUcit-
ate praelatorum," 2 this latter title, which is less authentic
and less extensive, expressed much better the special point
of view to which Cyprian confined himself.
When we view his treatise in this perspective we under
stand why he devotes his attention exclusively to the one
ness of the cathedra in each church, and insists on it to
such an extent as to seem to forget that the bishop, in each
particular Church, is dependent on Catholicism as a whole :
Cyprian and all the Christians were so clearly reminded of
this by the traditional facts, by the institutions contemporary
' J. Delarochelle, p. 531. Harnack takes the same view in
"Dogmeng." vol. 1^, p. 418; Monceaux, vol. n. p. 338; Lightfoot,
" Christian Ministry," p. 95 ; Turmel, " Hist, du dogme de la papaute,
vol. I. pp. 113 and 134.
" Hartel, vol. i. p. 209.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 365
with Cyprian himself, by the ecclesiastical customs, that he
could afford to pass it over without mention. What would
the councUs, then in universal usage, have meant, if the
bishop was amenable to God alone ? Even supposing that
Cyprian had purposely set aside the traditional Eoman fact,
can we say that he abstained with like deliberation from
speaking of councils ? No : Cyprian simply makes a strained
application of the text Tu es Petrus to the one point he has
in mind ; and this is not the only case in which he sinned
by one-sidedness. As a demonstration of the necessity of unity in each
church Cyprian's treatise was a success : he gained his
point against Novatian, and gained it for all time. What a
usurping bishop, and what an antipope, were in the eyes of
faith, he showed in terms so striking that the principle of
unity can nevermore be caUed in question ; but the principle
of unity applies to the universal Church just as well as to
particular churches. As Bossuet has expressed it in a striking
epigram, " unity is the guardian of unity " ; the unity of the
chair of Peter safeguards both in doctrine and in discipline
the unity of the whole episcopate. In the "De Unitate Ec
clesiae " Cyprian did not reflect on this higher unity ; and
because he confined his attention to each bishop in each
Church, he was led to lose sight of the guidance of the Holy
Ghost promised to aU. Catholic unity thus took on the ap
pearance of a political confederacy, dependent on the ever
unstable good wiU and the ever faUible freedom of individuals.!
1 " These statements (of Cyprian), which savour of episcopalianism,
are surprising, as coming from a man so much in love with unity, who so
weU realized the conditions of good government. They may be ex
plained, not only by the heat of polemics, but also by the influence of
TertulUan, whom St. Cyprian had much studied, and by the fact that he
paid far more attention to the unity of each particular church, of which
the bishop is the centre, than to the unity of the universal Church."
TiXERONT, "Hist, des dogmes," vol. i. p. 387. We find the same judg
ment in D'AlBS, " Question baptismale," pp. 40-41 : " Cyprian held by
every fibre of his soul to the unity of the Church. . . . But of this [uni
versal] unity, and of the prerogatives of St. Peter's successor, he had
a rather unsettled idea. He conceives the episcopal power as an un
divided mass in which every bishop shares according to his needs. . . .
After showing that the Church is one flock, which is fed jointly by aU the
pastors, he does not think of defining the conditions of this unity, and he

366 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
So true is it that all the elements of the constitution of
Catholicism hold together !
ExouESUS E.
The Two Editions of the " De Unitate ecclesiae".
The " De Unitate ecclesiae " gives rise to a last problem —
the problem of the weU-known interpolation, which has been
so long denounced as a hateful papistical forgery, and quite
recently "as a Papal aggression upon history and htera
ture ".!
This interpolation did not appear in the text of the
princeps edition (Eome, 1471), nor in that of the subsequent
editions. It appeared for the first time in the edition of
Paul Manutius (Eome, 1563). It remained in the subse
quent editions of James de Pamele (Antwerp, 1568), of
Eigault (1648), and of Dom Maran (Paris, 1726). On the
other hand, the Anglican edition (Oxford, 1682) eUminated it
with joy. A critical text was at last furnished by the edition
of G. de Hartel (Vienna, 1868). But at the same time it
was discovered that unfortunately the falsification perpetrated
by the Papists did not originate vrith the printed edition
but could be traced far back in the history of the MSS.
First, a family of MSS. — which we will designate by the
relies, for its actual realization, on the spontaneous agreement of all
the individual wiUs in view of the common task, rather than on the central
action of a strong government."
' Benson, p. 219. The dispute has been wonderfuUy cleared up by
DoM Chapman, " Les interpolations dans le traits de S. Cyprien sur
I'unite de I'Eglise," "Revue Benedictine," v. xix. (1902), and v. xx.
(1903). According to Harnack, Dom Chapman has proved indisputably
that the interpolation contains nothing that is not Cyprianic, that it is
specifically Cyprianic, that it is directed against Novatian, that it cannot
be ascribed to an intellectual circle other than that of Cyprian. " Theo
logische Literaturzeitung," 1903, pp. 262-3. G. Eiiiger ("Theolog.
Literaturzeitung," 1909, p. 413) writes : " Richtig ist, dass von Falschung
nicht mehr reden darf ". The objections raised by M. Turmel, " Hist.
du dogme de la papaute," vol. l p. 109, proceed from an insufficient
study of the question. For a continuation of the discussion see H. Koch,
" Cyprian und der ROmische Primat " (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 158-69, and
Dom Chapman's criticism of Koch (Professor Hugo Koch on S. Cyprian)
in " Revue Benedictine," Oct. 1910, pp. 447-64.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 367
letter G — had combined the genuine text and the interpola
tion: the archetypal MS. of that family is a MS. of the
tenth century.! j^ second group {B) of MSS. did not con
tain the interpolation, and this is the text adopted by Hartel
as the genuine text : the MSS. on which it is based date
back v?ith the " Seguierianus " to the sixth or seventh cen
tury .^ A third group of MSS. {A) places the interpolation
and the genuine text one after the other : the MSS. of this
group are primarily represented by a Munich MS. of the
ninth century, and a Troyes MS. of the eighth or ninth
century.' The foUowing is the text G : we italicize the words taken
from the text A : —
-' Et eidem post resurrectienem suam, dicit : Pasce oves
meas. Super ilium unum aedificat ecclesiam suam, et illi
pascendas m,andat oves suas. Et quamvis apostolis omnibus
post resurrectionem suam parem potestatem tribuat et dicat :
Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto vos, accipite Spiritum
sanctum : si cui remiseritis peccata remittentur illi : si cui
tenueritis tenebuntur, tamen ut unitatem manifestaret
unam cathedram constituit, et unitatis eiusdem originem
ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit. Hoc erant
utique et cseteri apostoli quod fuit et Petrus, pari consortio
praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate
proficiscitur, etprimatus Petro datur, ut una ecclesia Christi
et cathedra una monstretur. Et pastores sunt omnes, et
grex unus ostenditur, qui et apostolis om,nibus unanimi
consensione pascatur ; ut Ecclesia Christi una monstretur,
quam unam Ecclesiam etiam in cantico canticorum Spiritus
sanctus ex persona domini designat et dicit ; una est columba
mea, perfecta mea, una est matri suae, electa genitrici suae.
Hanc Ecclesiae unitatem qui non tenet, tenere se fidem
credit? Qui Ecclesiae renititur et resistit, qui cathedram
Petri super quam fundata est ecclesia deserit, in ecclesia se
esse confidit?"
'The MS. Vossius is the MS. Lat. (in 8vo) 7 of the Leyden Univer
sity Library. " The MS. Seguier is the MS. Lat. 10592 of the Paris National
Library. ^Munich 208 and Troyes 581.

368

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

This is the text printed by Paul Manutius at Eome.
The words in italics, writes Benson, are " from the pen of
one who held the cardinal doctrine of the Eoman See," and
the introduction of those words into the text has altogether
misrepresented the thought of Cyprian. However, let ns
continue our inquiry.
We now give in a paraUel the text B and the text A : —

Bt eidem post resurrectionem
dicit : Pasce oves meas.
Super ilium aedificat ecclesiam et
ilU pascendas oves mandat.
Et quamvis apostoUs omnibus parem
tribuat potestatem

B

Super unum aedificat ecclesiam.
Et quamvis apostolis omnibus post
resurrectionem suam parem
potestatem tribuat et dicat :
Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto
vos. Accipite Spiritum sanctum :
si cuius remiseritis peccata, re
mittentur iUi : si cuius tenueritis
tenebuntur, tamen ut unitatem
manifestaret

unam tamen cathedram constituit.

et unitatis originem atque rationem
sua auctoritate disposuit.
Hoc erant utique et ceteri quod fuit
Petrus,

sed primatus Petro datur
et una ecclesia et cathedra una
monstratur.
Et pastores sunt pmnes, sed grex
unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis
omnibus unanimi consensione

pascatur

unitatis eiusdem originem ab uno
incipientem sua auctoritate dis
posuit.
Hoc erant utique et ceteri apostoli
quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio
praediti et honoris et potestatis,
sed exordium ab unitate proficis
citur
ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur.

Quam unam ecclesiam etiam in can
tico canticorum Spiritus sanctus
ex persona Domini designat et
dicit : Una est columba mea, per
fecta mea, una est matri suae,
electa genitrici suae.

ST. CYPRIAJSr AND ROME 369
A. B.
Hanc et PauU unitatem ' qui non Hanc ecclesiae unitatem qui non
tenet, tenere se fidem credit ? tenet, tenere se fidem credit ?
Qui cathedram Petri super quem Qui ecclesiae renititur et resistit,
fundata ecclesia est deserit,
in ecclesia se esse confidit ? in ecclesia se esse confidit ?
Super unum aedificat, etc. Quando et beatus apostolus Paulus
hoc, etc.
If we compare these three texts, we soon become certain
that the text 0 is a skilful combination of A and B. Except
the phrase Quam unam . . . genitrici suae, there is nothing
in C that is not in A and B. The text C is, so to speak, a
harmonizing text.
The text A is what Enghsh critics caU a conflation.
Given two readings for one and the same text, the copyist
may choose the one or the other ; or he may transcribe them
both one after the other. In the present case, the copyist
of the archetypal MS. had before his eyes two paraUel re
dactions of the same passage, and, in order not to have to
make a choice, he merely copied them one after the other.
From this first critical examination we may infer that
what was deemed an " interpolation," i.e. an addition intro
duced violently into the authentic text, is not an interpola
tion, but a variant. Now this variant goes far back into
ecclesiastical antiquity. The twofold redaction preserved in
the text A is given by MSS. (that of Munich and of Troyes)
of which the common archetype may date from the sixth or
the seventh century. Indeed we have guiding-marks that
are stUl more precise : the text C is quoted by Pope Pelagius
H towards the end of the sixth century, and the text A by
Bede in the eighth century.^
Scholars are indebted to Dom Chapman for having
thrown light on the character of this fact, which in itself
had doubtless been previously observed : the text of A con-
' The words " et Pauli " yield no sense, not even if we try to find in
them an aUusion to some text of S. Paul (as Eph. v. 3-5) for unitas Pauli
cannot signify "the unity which Paul preaches". " Et Pauli" must
then be a corruption, doubtless of ecclesiae. Cyprian had just said " una
ecclesia et cathedra una "- He now resumes "... ecclesiae unitatem
qui . . . qui cathedram Petri. . . . "
" Chapman, vol. xix. pp. 249 and 361.
24

370 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
tains not a single word or expression that does not belong
to Cyprian's ordinary language and usage, and is not found
elsewhere in his writings : ! so that we must conclude that
the forger either has contrived to make himself a perfect
facsimile of Cyprian, or else is no other than Cyprian himself.
This latter hypothesis is the more plausible because the au
thor of the text A uses Cyprian's vocabulary with a freedom
that cannot be that of a skilful and leamed imitator, doing a
kind of marquetry work.^ Dom Chapman can, then, con
clude that most probably the text A represents an edition of
the " De Unitate " different from the edition represented by
the text B, both being the work of St. Cyprian.
We have not far to seek, continues Dom Chapman, for
occasions that might have evoked each of these different edi
tions. One or two months after the CouncU of Carthage in
May, 251, Cyprian is told of the return of the Eoman con
fessors to the communion of Cornelius : he had sent them
his forty-sixth epistle to exhort them to return to the true
fold, and now he sends them his fifty-fourth epistle, together
with his two books " De Lapsis " and " De Unitate ". The
"De Lapsis " might enlighten them about the lav^f ulness of
the leniency condemned by Novatian, and the " De Unitate,"
which, according to Dom Chapman, was "written against
FeUcissimus, might be used against any schism whatever."
But Cyprian felt the need of revising the central part of his
fourth chapter, to adapt to Eome what had apphed to Car
thage. How much more forcibly " could he not appeal
to their love of unity, if he showed them that it was not
from an ordinary bishop that they were separating them
selves, but from the see of St. Peter itself ".'
We fuUy accept, with Harnack, Dom Chapman's attribu
tion of both text A and text B to St. Cyprian; we cannot
however agree with him on this point of secondary import
ance, the date of text A. It cannot be that Cyprian sends
to the Eoman confessors the " De Lapsis " and the " De
Unitate," at the same time as his fifty-fourth epistle, since
he says in this very epistle that he had sent them these two
little books before their submission to Cornelius. Eeferring
' Chapman, vol. xrx. pp. 364-73.
"¦ Ibid. vol. XX. p. 48. " Ibid. p. 49.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 371
in this epistle especiaUy to the " De Unitate," he says to
the confessors who have made their peace with the Pope
" [Hunc] libellum magis ac magis nunc vobis placere con
fide : I am sure that this book will be more acceptable to
you now . . . inasmuch as what we have written to you in
words, you fulfil in act, by returning to the Church in the
unity of charity and peace".! Since the "De Unitate" is
now more acceptable to them, we must suppose that they
had received it at a time when it was less acceptable — in
other words, at the time they were still outside unity
and in rebeUion against Cornelius. In fact, in his fifty-fourth
epistle, Cyprian does not say to the Eoman confessors " I
send you " but 1 had sent you : " Lectis quos hie [at Carth
age] nuper [in the Council of May] legeram et ad vos quo
que legendos pro com,muni dilectione transm,iseram ". The
two words legeram and transmiseram suggest the simultane-
ousness of the two actions and lead us to think that Cyprian
had sent the " De Unitate " to the Eoman confessors im
mediately after he had read it in the Council of Carthage.^
The " De Unitate," then — we may conclude — is syn
chronous with the Carthaginian Council of May 251, and is
directed not against schism in general, but against Novatian's
schism at Eome. We may add, with Dom Chapman, that
text A is not any kind of text, but a text that has in view
more directly than text B the faction of the Eoman schis
matics.' ! "Epistulae," LIV. 4.
2 Nor do I think that Dom Chapman has proved that the "De
Unitate " is directed against FeUcissimus. The minute comparison which
Dom Chapman — vol. xx. pp. 30-3 — makes between the "De Unitate"
and the "Epistula," XLni. , seems to me to prove, on the contrary, that
in the arguments common to both writings Novatian is substituted for
FeUcissimus. Thus ("Epistulae," xliii. 5), the phrase "Pacem nunc
offerunt qui ipsi non habent pacem," which is most appropriate when
appUed to the Carthaginian lapsi, is not to be found in the "De Uni
tate " (11), because it does not apply to Novatian's party. But we read
some pages after {ibid. 13) : "Quam sibi igitur pacem promittunt inimici
fratrum ? Quae sacrificia celebrare se credunt aemuli sacerdotum ? "
These words have a quite difi'erent meaning : the "peace " is the liturgical
peace, the " sacrifices " are the schismatic worship, and by " aemuli sacer
dotum " illegitimate bishops are designated.
° Chapman, vol. xx. pp. 40-5. 24*

372 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Text B lays special stress on the powers imparted by the
Saviour to all the Apostles: ". . . et dicat: Sicut misit me
Pater, et ego mitto vos : Accipite Spiritum sanctu/m, si
cuius. . . ." It does not say merely: " Hoc erant utique
ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus " : it dwells upon and enlarges
the affirmation : " Hoc erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod
fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis."
Text B seems to insist on the equality between Peter and the
other Apostles : to all the same honour, the same power. On
the contrary, in text A, the powers of the other Apostles are
not insisted on, but the authority of Peter is emphasized. To
Peter and to Peter alone, it was said : " Pasce oves meas ".
On Peter, Christ builds the Church. To Peter He entrusts
the feeding of His sheep. In the person of Peter, " unam
cathedram constituit ". And the first rank is given to
Peter, "primatus Petro datur". Hence it is manifest that
the Church is one, and that there is only one cathedra.
This unity is more conspicuous at Eome, where the episcopal
cathedra is that of Peter and where Paul came ia person.
Can the Eoman who does not hold this unity " think that
he holds the rule of faith " ? " Hanc . . . unitatem
qui non tenet, tenere se fidem credit?" Can the Eoman
who deserts that cathedra which is peculiarly that of
Peter — that on which the Saviour founded the Church
when He said Tu es Petrus — believe that he is in the
Church ? In other words, to abandon the cathedra of the
bishop is everywhere an impiety but at Eome more so than
anywhere else.
The conclusion we draw from these facts is the same as
Dom Chapman's : text A is Cyprian's (as weU as text B)
and it has in view the party of Novatian at Eome.
But whereas Dom Chapman, thinking that the "De
Unitate " was written against the faction of Fehcissimus,
has concluded that text B represented the original and
the first edition, I believe on the contrary we may safely
affirm, that the "De Unitate" having been originaUy
written against the faction of Novatian the text A re
presents the original and the first edition. B — the so-called
pure text — is a text corrected by St. Cyprian : these cor
rections are the result of a revision made by Cyprian in

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 373
order perhaps to remove from his argument what was too
special to Novatian's case, and thus render its bearing more
universal.

III.

We have seen how entirely Cyprian and Pope Cornelius
agreed, and how, through his work " De Unitate ecclesiae,"
the Bishop of Carthage intended to come to the aid of the
Church of Eome. At this particular moment — just a few
days after the CouncU of Carthage in May, 251 — there arose
a cloud between the two bishops.
Fehcissimus, going to Eome, had lodged with Pope
Cornehus a complaint against the legitimacy of Cyprian's
episcopacy, and Cornelius had thought it his duty to take
the matter into consideration. This we know from the
letter, fuU of dignity, which Cyprian writes to Cornelius to
upbraid him for letting himself be intimidated by factious
spirits. Cyprian in no way blames the Bishop of Eome for
interfering in a matter that pertains to the inner life of the
Carthaginian Church : the principle of the solidarity of the
Churches — a principle so distinctly and authoritatively af
firmed and put into practice by Cyprian — authorized in
his eyes the solicitude of Cornelius. But he complains that
the solicitude of the Bishop of Eome has been aroused by
dishonest intriguers whose complaints deserved no attention.
It was true that the party of Fehcissimus had set up at
Carthage a pseudo-bishop, Fortunatus (one of the Cartha
ginian priests who, as we have seen, had been an agitator
from the beginning) , but this Carthaginian schism was not of
such importance that the Eoman authorities should mind it :
"Non ea res erat quae in notitiam, tuaTui deberet festinato
statim quasi magna aut m,etuenda perferri ". Cyprian says
to the Pope : "... nee de hoc tibi scripseram, quando haec
omnia contemnantur a nobis ".!
If we read attentively Cyprian's able letter, we per
ceive that the solicitude of Cornelius for the church of
' "Epistulae," LIX. 9.

374 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Carthage somewhat troubles him. What has been the
object of those adventurers ? They cross the sea, they ap
peal to the chair of Peter, to that " ecclesia principalis "
whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, and yet
they know weU that the mind of aU the African bishops is
that causes be tried and judged on the spot, that bishops
administer and rule the particular flock assigned to them,
and give to God an account of their stewardship.
" Navigare audent et ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam
principalem ! unde unitas sacerdotaUs exorta est ^ ab schis-
maticis et profanis litteras ferre ? . . . Nam cum statutum
sit ab omnibus nobis, et aequum sit pariter ac iustum, ut
uniuscuiusque causa iUic audiatur ubi est crimen admissum,
et singulis pastoribus portio gregis sit adscripta quam regat
unusquisque et gubernet, rationem sui actus Domino reddit-
urus, oportet utique eos . . . agere UUc causam suam ubi
et accusatores habere et testes sui criminis possint, nisi si
panels desperatis et perditis minor videtur esse auctoritas
episcoporum in Africa constitutorum, qui de ilUs iam iudica-
verunt. . . . Iam causa eoruin cognita est, iam de eis dicta
sententia est, nee censurae congruit sacerdotum mobUis
atque inconstantis animi levitate reprehendi. . . ."'
The case of FeUcissimus has been tried and judged at
Carthage by the bishops of Africa : if the appeal of a few
condemned ecclesiastics can hold in check such a weighty
' These two famous words " ecclesia principalis " refer to the Roman
Church, in which Cyprian recognizes the "Cathedra Petri". We
believe the meaning of the word "principalis" to be the one given
already by Irenseus to principalitas, and by TertuUian to auctoritas
("Praescr." 36).
" Some have seen in these words an indication that the churches of
Africa had been founded by the Roman Church. In reaUty, nothing at
all is known of the origin of the Church of Carthage and of the African
Churches. Duchesne, "Hist, anc." vol. i. p. 392. We believe that
Cyprian is here recaUing an idea on which he is insistent elsewhere,
viz. that the Church built by Jesus on Peter is the Church to which all
the other Churches stand in a filial relationship.
'"Epistulae," lix. 14. The words "minor videtur esse auctoritas
episcoporum in Africa constitutorum " imply that FeUcissimus regards
the authority of Rome as greater than the authority of the African coun
cil, in the sense that an appeal may be made to Rome from a sentence of
the African council.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 375
sentence, it is aU over with the authority of the episcopate :
" Actum est de episcopatus rigore et de ecclesiae gubernandae
sublimi ac divina potestate ".!
In his emotion over a case in which his own action was
caUed in question Cyprian fails to estimate aright the com
petency of Eome. * *
*
" The Council of Africa," Mgr. Duchesne writes, " had
become a regular institution. The letters of St. Cyprian
show that, except in times of persecution, it met at least
once a year, in spring and sometimes also in autumn.
These great periodical assemblies did much to maintain a
uniform discipUne. Their fame spread beyond Africa, and
the reputation of the wise and illustrious man who was their
very life and soul, added to their renown." ^ During the
autumn of the year 254, the request of two Spanish bishops
— the Bishop of Merida {Emerita), and that of Leon and
Astorga {Legio, Asturica), was laid before the Council.
These bishops — Sabinus and Felix — had succeeded respec
tively BasUides and MartiaUs, who had been deposed. But
Basihdes had gone to Eome, and obtained from Pope
Stephen, for himself and probably for MartiaUs also, a sen
tence of restoration. The Council of Africa, before which
the affair was brought, gave it an opposite solution : the
African bishops confirmed the deposition of Basilides and
MartiaUs, and the election of Sabinus and Felix. "It is
hardly possible to decide which was in the right," says Mgr.
Duchesne. We have no Eoman document bearing on the
question, but only the synodal letter of the thirty-seven
African bishops announcing their judgment to the faithful
of the two Spanish Churches.
But, was this a judgment, properly speaking ? In the
case of FeUcissimus, had not Cyprian represented to Pope
Cornelius that such cases must be tried on the spot, that the
witnesses may be heard ? The two Spanish Churches have
! "Epistulae, "lix. 2.
" " Hist, anc." vol. l p. 419. With Benson, Harnack and Duchesne
we suppose that the Spanish aSair was previous to the baptismal contro
versy. But it is not unlikely that even at this date (autumn of the
year 254) there was a rupture between Stephen and Cyprian.

376 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
written to Carthage in behalf of Felix and of Sabinus ; these
two bishops have joined their testimony to that of their two
Churches ; the Bishop of Saragossa, "fidei cultor ac defensor
veritatis," has written in the same sense.! rpjig councU of
Carthage is asked, not exactly to judge, but rather to take
cognizance of the sentence passed already in Spain, and to
recognize the two bishops who, in Spain, are held to be
legitimate. The exceptional interest of the case Ues in the fact that,
Eome having pronounced in the contrary sense, we may
suppose that the two Spanish Churches appealed in good
faith to the Catholic world, beginning with Carthage and the
Council of Africa.
At Carthage, this appeal was taken up with equal good
faith. Cyprian sided with Fehx and Sabinus, because he
deemed it well-established that Basilides and MartiaUs had
been convicted of gravia delicta, and that, consequently,
they could indeed be admitted to penance, but not maintained
or re-established in the priestly order, according to the
previous decisions of the whole episcopate and of Pope Cor
nelius : "... cum iam pridem, nobiscum, et cum omni
bus omnino episcopis in toto mundo constitutis, etiam,
Cornelius collega noster, sacerdos pacificus ac iustus et
martyrio quoque dignatione Domini honoratus decreverit ".^
What has been decreed by the whole episcopate must be
observed. But, we may say, it is hardly probable that Eome
should think of setting aside such a wise and recent
law : Eome then may have had good reasons for thinking
that Basilides and MartiaUs were not guilty of the crimes
with which they were charged. Cyprian knew from his own
experience that local intrigues and factions do not spare even
the members of the episcopate. But no, BasUides had
gone to Eome to plead his innocence, and had deceived Pope
Stephen: " Romam per gens," writes Cyprian, " Stephanum
collegam nostrum lenge positum et gestae rei ac veritatis
ignarum fefellit ".'
Eome was too far off, says Cyprian : but was the whole
episcopate much nearer? we ask.
1 " Epistulae, "LXvn. 6. "Ibid. "Ibid. 5.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 377
To this Cyprian replies that he must abide by the judg
ment of the two Spanish Churches. The plebs, he writes,
that plebs which fears God and obeys the Lord's commands,
must break with its bishop, if he is a sinner, since, after
aU, it has the right to choose worthy bishops and to refuse
those who are unworthy : " Plebs . . . a peccatore prae-
posito separare se debet, nee se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis sacri
ficia miscere, quando ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel
eligendi dignos sacerdotes, vel indignos recusandi ".! But,
if an appeal to Eome imperils authority, is there not also
a danger in granting to the plebs in every Church this right
of deposing unworthy bishops ?
There is something stiU more serious. We begin to
discern in St. Cyprian's doctrine a tendency simUar to that
which we have noticed in Origen : upright and spotless
candidates alone must be raised to the episcopate, because
it must be certain that, when they pray for the people, they
are heard of God.^ The sacrifice offered by a bishop who
is a sinner pollutes the people who partake of that sacrifice.'
In a case which he deemed similar, that of Fortunatianus,
Bishop of Assuras (in Africa) , who had been deposed as a
lapsus and yet persisted in exercising his priestly functions,
Cyprian had declared that his followers must part company
with him : " quando nee oblatio sanctificari illic possit ubi
sanctus Spiritus non sit, nee cuiquam Dom,inus per eius
orationes et preces prosit qui Dominum ipse violavit".^
Cyprian confounds the lawful exercise of Orders with the
power of Orders : a bishop, however great a sinner he may
be, does not forfeit the power to consecrate the Eucharist
and to offer up the sacrifice validly : the Church can take
from him only the right to exercise this power; and
! "Epistulae," Lxvn. 3.
"Ibid. 2 : " In ordinationibus sacerdotum non nisi immaculatos et
integros antistites eligere debemus, qui sancte et digne sacrificia Deo
offerentes audiri in precibus possint quas faciunt pro plebis dominicae
incolumitate. . . . Eos oportet ad sacerdotium Dei deligi quos a Deo
constet audiri. "
"Ibid. 3. Cyprian ("Epistulae," lls. 5) applies to the heretical
bishops the text of Osee : " Sacrificia eorum tamquam panis luctus, omnes
qui ma/nducant ea contaminabuntur ".
*Ibid. LXV. 4.

378 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
such is the doctrine held and professed at Eome, as we
learn from a decision of Pope CalUstus.! Cyprian, on the
contrary, speaks in such a way that it may be inferred
from his language that a bishop who has forfeited the Holy
Ghost through his unworthiness, loses also, as a consequence,
the power of Orders.^ *
Soon after the affair of the two Spanish bishops, Cyprian
received one after the other two letters from the Bishop of
Lyons, Faustinus,' about the refusal of the Bishop of Aries,
Mareianus, to follow the practice sanctioned by the whole
episcopate in the year 251, regarding the reconciliation of the
lapsi : Mareianus clung to the rigorism of Novatian. The
Bishop of Lyons, together with " caeteris coepiscopis nostris
in eadem provincia constitutis," ha,di denounced Mareianus
to Eome at the same time as to Carthage, as a bishop who
departed " a cathoUcae ecclesiae veritate " and " a corporis
nostri et sacerdotii consensione," and embraced " hereticae
praesumptionis durissimami pravitatem ".*
Cyprian must have been somewhat disconcerted on hear
ing of the conduct of the Bishop of Aries, for it was in fla
grant contradiction with his theory that the whole episco
pate was bound together by a cordial understanding. That
pseudo-bishops should be set up at Carthage or at Eome, did
not greatly affect his theory of the Church ; but that a legiti
mate bishop, like Mareianus, and he the bishop of a great see
like Aries, should attempt to disregard a disciplinary measure
which had been adopted hardly four years before by the whole
episcopate, that he should dare thus to insult the episcopal
college, was a clear indication that the unity of unities, as
described by Cyprian, was more precarious than he had
thought. Had he been faithful to the doctrine of his letter to the
Spaniards, Cyprian ought to have written to the plebs of
! "PhUosophoumena," ix. 12.
" On the way in which, because of his speaking thus, the Donatists
used to quote Cyprian in their favour, see Monceaux, vol. ii. p. 465.
" "Epistulae," lxviil 1. This incident occurred probably at the
beginning of the year 255.
*Ibid.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 379
Aries, and invited them to break with such an heretical
bishop as Mareianus. He did nothing of the kind. Or,
again, as, according to his theory, a provincial council judges
supremely the causes arising in its province, he ought to
have written to the Bishop of Lyons and to his coepiscopi,
and exhorted them to excommunicate Mareianus and choose
a successor in his stead. This likewise he failed to do. The
step he decided to take was the one we should least ex
pect of him, seeing the principles he had previously laid
down : he wrote to Pope Stephen and asked him to inter
vene with the bishops of Gaul. " Facere te oportet plenis-
simas litteras ! ad coepiscopos nostros in Gallia constitutos,
ne ultra Marcianum pervicacem et superbum et divinae
pietatis ac fratemae salutis inimicum,^ coUegio nostro insul-
tare patiantur. . . . Quam vanum est, frater carissime, ut
Novatiano nuper retuso et refutato et per totum orbem a
sacerdotibus Dei abstento, nunc adulatores adhuc nobis
patiamur inludere, et de maiestate ac dignitate Ecclesiae
indicare." '
" Dirigantur in provinciam et ad plebem Arelate consis-
tentem a te litterae quibus abstento Marciano alius in loco
eius substituatur." *
! By " plenissimas litteras " we must understand a reasoned and forc
ible letter. It is a literary expression.
" " Salutis inimicum " refers to the rigorism of Mareianus who refuses
to reconcile the lapsi. Cyprian {ibid. 2) speaks of Christians whom
Mareianus annis istis superioribus, had refused to reconcile to the Church
before their death. Hence Mareianus was Bishop of Aries at least as early
as the year 250. This inference tells against the statement of Gregory of
Tours, according to whom St. Trophimus came from Rome to Aries, pre
cisely in the year 250.
"Ibid. 2.
* Ibid. 3. According to Benson, Cyprian begs Stephen to write two
letters : one to the bishops of Gaul, telling them to excommunicate Mar
eianus ; the other, to the plebs of Aries, who will choose a successor to
their excommunicated bishop. Benson, p. 318. But we need not thus
divide the action to be taken : the Pope is to write " in provinciam et ad
plebem consistentem ". The only delicate question is to know who ex
communicates Mareianus. It is Rome, no doubt. Once the sentence is
pronounced at Rome, it wiU be carried out by the bishops of Gaul and
the plebs of Aries, who will choose a bishop for the see which ie treated
as vacant. Cyprian writes: "... litterae quibus abstento Marciano
alius in loco eius substituatur". Harnack ("Dogmeng." vol. i*, p. 494)

380 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" Significa plane nobis quis in locum Marciani Arelate
fuerit substitutus, ut sciamus ad quem fratres nostros diri-
gere et cui scribere debeamus."!
In the body of the letter itself, Cyprian enumerates the
motives that should induce Stephen to intervene: it is
necessary to rescue the souls Mareianus is abandoning and
driving into despair through his rigorism ; it is necessary to
uphold the discipline sanctioned by Pope CorneUus and his
successor Lucius, and, since he is their successor, Stephen
is more bound to see to this than any other bishop. After
such good, but general reasons, why does not Cyprian person
aUy intervene at Aries? Why does he urge the Bishop of
Eome alone to move in the matter? The conduct of the
Bishop of Carthage in this conjuncture is in contradiction
with his previous declarations.
Does not this show that it was the Bishop of Carthage,
and the Council of Carthage which acted under his influence,
that had been innovating, in their previous declarations?
Fehcissimus of Carthage, when he lays before the Eoman
Church the complairit of his party against the legitimacy of
Cyprian's election, attests that in Africa the traditional
Eoman fact is accepted and that it is deemed lawful to ap
peal in a case involving the deposition of bishops to the
judgment of the ecclesia principalis ; BasUides attests the
same when he appeals to the same Eoman Church from the
sentence which had deprived him of the see of Leon, and
MartiaUs of the see of Astorga. The Bishop of Lyons and
the other bishops of Gaul have applied to the Eoman Church
to bring to his senses, or — if need be — to depose the Bishop
of Aries. Cyprian's letter to Stephen, which acquaints us
with this fact, expresses approval of the step taken by the
Gallic episcopate. The Bishop of Lyons is faithful to the
tradition of St. Irenseus, from whom he is separated by hardly
two generations : what we may venture to call the ultra-
montanism of Faustinus, of Basilides, and even of the un-
admits that the Bishop of Rome has over the Bishop of Aries a power
which the bishops of Gaul have not. So too do Sohm (" Kirchenrecht,"
p. 381), and Ritschl (" Cyprian," p. 228).
^"Salutis inimicum". These last words imply that the case of
Mareianus will be satisfactorily judged at Rome.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 381
fortunate FeUcissimus, appears far better authorized to caU
itself traditional Catholicism than is the restless and incon
sistent provincialism of the Africans.
GaUicanism and Donatism — those two grave errors on the
constitution of Catholicism — were, then, involved in these
disputes. An action of Cyprian is about to cause the
controversy to spread to the whole Church, and Eome is
about to speak. We are come to the climax of the early
history of ecclesiology. IV.
Cyprian caused a question to be put to him by Magnus,
a layman of distinction, and he answers in an epistle which
is less a letter than a treatise. Must those heretics who have
received baptism from heretics, be baptized when they come
to the Catholic Church ? Magnus explains that there is no
question of re-baptism, but only whether baptism given by
heretics, and especiaUy by the Novatians, is not to be re
garded as a profane cleansing, whether we are not to hold
that the Church alone imparts vahd baptism. Cyprian
answers : heretics and schismatics have neither the right nor
the power to administer baptism.!
The question had already been under consideration. As
we shaU see, the absolute rejection of heretical baptism had
been pronounced by the Council of Africa some thirty years
before ; a similar decision had been taken by several councils
of Asia Minor, about the same time ; as likewise at Antioch
and in Northern Syria. On the other hand, at Alexandria,
in Palestine, and especiaUy at Eome, it was admitted that
baptism strictly so caUed could not be repeated — indeed in
those quarters, this was deemed a point that did not need
discussion. What was invalid in such cases was the at-
! "Epistulae," LXIX. 1 : ". . . an inter ceteros haereticos eos quoque
qui a Novatiano veniunt post profanum eius lavacrum baptizari et sanctifi
cari in ecclesia catholica legitimo et vero et unico ecclesiae baptismo
oporteat. De qua re . . . dicimus omnes omnino haereticos et schisma-
ticos nihil habere potestatis ac iuris ". This letter dates probably from
the early months of the year 255. See A. D'Ales, "La Question bap
tismale au temps de Saint Cyprien,'' printed separately from the "Revue
des Quest, hist." April, 1907.

382 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
tempt to confer the Holy Ghost through the imposition of
the hands of heretics : this alone, it was maintained, must
be repeated by the bishops in the case of heretics who
wished to enter the Catholic Church.!
Cyprian would not have suggested to Magnus to put the
question to him, had not this disagreement between Eome
and Carthage, on a matter affecting the conditions of salvation,
become a subject of scruples for many of the faithful. It is
this which must account for the care he takes to enlighten
Magnus. He enumerates the Biblical proofs which justify
the African custom. The most conclusive text is unques
tionably the one in which Christ says : "Si ecclesiam con-
tempserit sit tibi tanquam ethnicus et publicanus " (Matt.
XVIII. 17). From this text it may be inferred that heretics
and schismatics are to be treated as pagans and pubhcans,
inasmuch as in their rebeUion against the Church they erect
false altars, appoint unlawful bishops, offer up sacrilegious
sacrifices, and lie in all that they promise.^
Cyprian did not aUow himself to be restricted to the
casuistry of the problem : he saw at once the far-reaching
importance of the controversy that was then beginning.
Whereas, in the "De Unitate," he considered only the
unity in each Church and purposely confined the dispute
within limits, he has now in view only the universal Church.
In fact, there is but one Church, and of this Church it
is said : " Hortus conclusus sorer mea sponsa, fens signatus,
puteus aquae vivae " {Cant. iv. 12) . The Church is this closed
garden, closed against the profane and the strangers. Whoever
is outside cannot approach this sealed spring, this weU of living
water ; those only can baptize with its water, who are with
in the closed garden. The Church is the ark of Noe :
could any one be saved outside the ark ? St. Paul declares
that Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her, that
He might sanctify her, purgans earn, lavacro aquae (Eph.
V. 25-26) ; can any one expect to be cleansed in this bath
outside the Church?'
But, some may object, the faith of the Novatians is the
same as that of the Church. Not at aU, Cyprian answers.
'Duchesne, "Hist, anc," vol. i. p. 422.
2 "Epistulse," LXIX. L Cf. 3-6. , ^ ibid 2.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 383
Their creed is not our creed, or they Ue when they profess
our creed ; for the Church is mentioned in our Creed, but
they have not got the Church ; and forgiveness of sins is
likewise mentioned in it, but they do not believe in this for
giveness through the Church.! As to God the Father,
Christ and the Holy Ghost, in whose name they baptize, we
grant that they beUeve in them : but had not Core, Dathan
and Abiron the same faith as Moses ? StiU, not the less
on that account were they struck by God, although they
were less guUty than Novatian, since they only disputed
the censer with Aaron, whereas Novatian contends for
" cathedram et pri/matwm," the chair and the primacy, and
at the same time claims the privilege of baptizing and
offering up the Holy Sacrifice, " baptizandi atque offerendi
licentiam" {ibid. 8).
We may go stUl further : inasmuch as they disobey the
Church and are stubborn in their disobedience, the heretics
and schismatics show that they have not the Holy Ghost.
Hence, even supposing they could baptize, they could not
give the Holy Ghost. But this is asserting too little : who
ever has not the Holy Ghost cannot even baptize {ib. 10).
For baptism forgives sins, and sins are forgiven only by
those who have the Holy Ghost, according to the text :
"Accipite Spiritum sanctum, si cuius remiseritis peccata,
remittentur ei " (John xx. 22). Now the heretics and schis
matics do not give what they have not: " Cuncti haeretici
et schismatici non dant Spiritum Sanctum ".^ The Church
alone possesses the Holy Ghost.
Cyprian had declared and defended his belief in his
letter to Magnus: he succeeded in getting it approved in
the CouncU of Africa held in the autumn of the year 255.
He himself composed the synodal letter with his own hand.
This document was addressed to eighteen bishops of Numidia
who had, in a letter, laid before the CouncU assembled at
Carthage, the question of the validity of the baptism of
! "Epistulae," lxix. 7. Here he falls into the fallacy of confusing
baptismal and penitential discipline. The mention of the Church in
the baptismal creed is attested by TertuUian and by Marcion. Hahn,
p. 387. "Ibid. IL

384 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
heretics. These Numidian bishops, impressed by the con
trary custom foUowed at Eome, had evidently misgivings
as to the lawfulness of the custom foUowed in Africa.!
At the outset Cyprian states that the Bishops of Numidia,
who have questioned the Council, keep what he caUs " verit
atem et firmitatem, cathoUcae regulae," viz. the principle
that the baptism of heretics is nuU. He urges also an argu
ment not mentioned in his letter to Magnus : namely, that this
principle is not new but had been laid dovra long before by
the Bishops of Africa and had been observed by them.^ This
argument would seem to imply that the bishops of Numidia
had alleged a more ancient custom than the one then pre
vailing. Another argument which is hardly mentioned in the
letter to Magnus, but to which the Council seems to have
attached a decisive importance, is that, among heretics, the
minister of baptism cannot confer it vaUdly, because the
baptismal water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the
bishop : but how could it be cleansed by a minister who is
not clean, and sanctified by a minister who has not the
Holy Ghost?' Again, the baptized neophyte must be
anointed with the oil of chrism sanctified by the bishop upon
the altar : but how could it be sanctified by a minister who
has neither an altar, nor a church, nor a Eucharist? StUl
more precisely : the vaUdity of the sanctificatlon of the oU
and of the bread on the altar depends upon the intervention
of the Holy Spirit : now heretics have not the Holy Spirit.
" Quis autem potest dare quod ipse non habeat, aut quomodo
potest spiritalia gerere qui ipse am,iserit Spiritum sanctum? "*
' " Epistulae," lxx. 1.
"Ibid.: "... sententiam nostram non novam promimus, sed iam
pridem ab antecessoribus nostris statutam et a nobis observatam vobis-
cum. ..." TertulUan, "De Baptismo," 15, upheld the doctrine now
advocated by Cyprian.
"Ibid. 1 : ". . . quomodo autem mundare et sanctificare aquam po
test qui ipse immundus est et apud quem sanctus Spiritus non est?"
Hence Cyprian urges two reasons against the validity of heretical bap
tism : first, the unworthiness of the minister ; secondly, the absence of the
Holy Spirit.
*Ibid. 2. Cf. ibid. 3: " Si autem sanctum Spiritum dare non potest
quia foris constitutus cum sancto Spiritu non est, nee baptizare venientem
potest, quando et baptisma unum sit, et Spiritus sanctus unus, et una

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 385
Notwithstanding the arguments from tradition and from
theological reasons brought forward by Cyprian in its behalf,
the decision of the CouncU of Carthage of the year 255 met
v?ith opposition in Africa. This we see from the letter sent
by Cyprian to a Bishop of Mauritania, Quintus, who had
despatched to Carthage the priest Lucian, in order to learn
what to believe. In reply, Cyprian sends him the synodal
letter of the council of Carthage of the year 255, accompanied
with a short commentary.
The point of fact, to which Cyprian had merely aUuded
in the synodal epistle, is now clearly stated : a Council
of Carthage held under the episcopate of Agrippinus, about
the year 220, was the first council to lay down the principle
that baptism by heretics is always nuU.!
On the other hand, those African bishops who uphold
the validity of the baptism of heretics, oppose to the author
ity of the two Councils of Carthage (the Council of the year
220 and that of the year 255) a custom which they believe
to be ancient : " Dicunt se in hoc veterem censuetudinem
sequi ". Somewhat brusquely Cyprian sets aside this mode
of argument, and, with TertuUian in his mind, ventures to
lay down the principle, " Non est de consuetudine praescri-
bendum,, sed ratione vincendum ".^
ecclesia a Christo Domino nostro super Petrum origine unitatis et ratione
fundata. Ita fit ut cum omnia apud illos inania et falsa sint, nihil eorum
quod iUi gesserint probari a nobis debeat."
!" Epistulae," Lxxi. 4: "Quod quidem et Agrippinus bonae me
moriae vir cum ceteris coepiscopis suis qui iUo tempore in provincia
Africa et Numidia ecclesiam Domini gubernabant statuit, et librata con-
sUU communis examinatione firmavit. Quorum sententiam religiosam et
legitimam, salutarem fidei et ecclesiae cathoUcae congruentem, nos etiam
secuti sumus. '' Cf. " Epistulae," Lxxm. 3 : "... quando anni sint iam
multi et longa aetas, ex quo sub Agrippino," etc.
"Ibid. 2 and 3. Compare the anonymous treatise "De Rebaptis-
mate,'' 1 (Hartel, vol. iii.), which affirms that the Roman custom
is upheld " vetustissima consuetudine ac traditione ecclesiastica," and
" observatione antiquissima ". Ibid. 3 : " Ad quae forte tu, qui novum
quid inducis. ..." Ibid. 6: ["Utile est] tot annorum totque eccle
siarum itemque apostolorum et episcoporum auctoritati cum bona ratione
adquiescere, cum sit maximum incommodum ac dispendium sanctissimae
matris ecclesiae adversus prisca consulta post tot saeculorum tantam
seriem nunc primum repente ac sine ratione insurgere." The treatise
" De Rebaptismate " was written by an African bishop who upheld the
25

386 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
What was the decisive reason for the bishops who hold
that the baptism of heretics is valid ? There is only one
baptism, they say. But Cyprian replies : Of course, there
is only one baptism, and this is why we do not rebaptize,
but baptize ; and if we baptize the heretics that become con
verts, it is because outside the Church no one can baptize,
and because nothing can be received from him who has
nothing to give. How imprudent are those bishops who
honour heretics so far as to acknowledge in them the power
of giving valid baptism, who "set the filthy and profane
washing of heretics above the true and only and lawful
baptism of the Catholic Church, not reflecting that it is
written : " Qui baptizatur a mortuo, quid proficit lavatione
eius?" (Eccli. XXXI. 30)."!
During the early part of the year 256, the discussion
was stiU going on : the Bishop of Carthage had not been
able to overcome the opposition which the African doctrine
encountered even in Africa. The Council held at Carthage,
a short while before Easter, had again to take up the ques
tion. The seventy-one bishops of Africa and Numidia, who
were present, declared their accord with Cyprian and con
firmed the declaration of the Council of the year 255 :
"... Hoc idem denuo sententia nostra fi/rmavimus,
statuentes unum baptisma esse quod sit in ecclesia catholica
constitutum".^ St. Cyprian wrote immediately to Pope Stephen and told
him of this decision, which he thought weU calculated to
strengthen both unity and episcopal authority, the two
principles which lay so close to his heart.
# *
*
On their arrival at Eome, Cyprian's delegates were re
ceived as heretics : they were denied communion and hos
pitality ; Pope Stephen refused even to listen to them. At
Eome, at this time, Cyprian was treated as a false Christ, a
false Apostle, a deceitful worker.'
Roman teaching on baptism : it was composed probably immediately
before the Council of Africa held in September, 256.
1" Epistulae," lxxl 1. "Ibid. Lxxm. 1.
" As to the date of this episode, cf. Duchesne, " Hist, anc," vol. i.
p. 425.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 387
This change of attitude on the part of the Eomans
would be inexplicable, had we not some reason for thinking
that Eome had made a pronouncement a short time before,
and that Cyprian, together with the CouncU of Africa, had
ignored this decision, just as they had done previously in the
case of the two Spanish bishops.! jf gQ^ Cyprian's epistle to
Jubaianus (written in the summer of the year 256) wiU
have been an intended censure of the doctrine as affirmed
by Pope Stephen, especially of the underlying principle to
which Cyprian thus refers : Let not any one, he says, plead
against us, for the circumvention of Christian truth, the
power of the name of Christ, or say : " In nomine Jesu
Christi^ ubicumque et quomodocumque^ gratiam baptismi
sunt consecuti ." *
After speaking with this firmness, Eome could not allow
that the question was still unsettled. Still less could it
permit the Bishop of Carthage to send to Pope Stephen the
foUowing iU-inspired lines : —
"Haec ad conscientiam tuam, frater carissime, et pro
honore communi et pro simplici dUectione pertulimus, cre-
'See "Epistulae," lxxm. 4, an allusion to a (Roman ?) letter, whioh
is no longer extant. Duchesne, op. cit. p. 424. Cyprian answers this
letter in his epistle to Jubaianus.
" By baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, we must understand
baptism given in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost : Pope Stephen could not think of any other rite. In his invective
against Stephen, Firmilian writes: "Illud quoque absurdum quod non
putant [i. e. the Romans] quaerendum esse quis sit ille qui baptizaverit,
eo quod qui baptizatus sit gratiam consequi potuerit invocata trinitate
nominum Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti." "Epistulae," lxxv. 9. Cf.
"Epistulse," LXxm. 18. Compare the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria
to Philemon (Eusbb. "H. E. " vn. 7 : rovrov iya rbv Kavova K.r.X.).
Fbltoe, "Letters of D. of A." (Cambridge, 1904), pp. 53-4.
^ These two words — ubicumque, quomodocvmique, do not imply that
any form suffices, but that any minister, servatis servandis, suffices.
TertuUian ("De Baptismo," 17) teaches that the bishop is the ordinary
minister of baptism, but that in case of necessity baptism can be given by
laymen: "... etiam laicis ius est ; . . . baptismus ab omnibus exerceri
potest ". Pope Stephen abides by this principle, whereas Cyprian disre
gards it.
" " Epistulae," LXXnL 16. Compare " De Rebaptismate," 10 : " Red-
damus et permittamus virtutibus caelestibus vires suas," etc.
25*

388 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
dentes etiam tibi pro religionis tuae et fidei veritate placere
quae et religiosa pariter et vera sunt.
" Ceterum scimus quosdam quod semel inbiberint noUe
deponere nee propositum suum facile mutare, sed salvo inter
coUegas pacis et concordiae vinculo quaedam propria quae
apud se semel sint usurpata retinere. Qua in re nee nos
vim cuiquam facimus, aut legem damns, quando habeat in
ecclesiae administratione voluntatis suae arbitrium liberum
unusquisque praepositus, rationem actus sui Domino reddi-
turus'."! These are painful words, especiaUy in view of the con
tradictions in which we feel that Cyprian is becoming
more and more entangled. He holds, or at least he held but
recently, that the doctrine of the nuUity of heretical
baptism is an article of the " cathoUca regula " ; now he de
clares this article to be one of those on which bishops may
differ among themselves, without detriment to concord. He
disclaims any intention to impose authoritatively anything
on anybody, since every bishop enjoys autonomy in his own
territory and is amenable to God alone for his administration :
it is strange that the Bishop of Carthage should speak thus
after his action in the case of Mareianus of Aries. It is
strange, again, that he should speak of concord which is
above aU things, at the very moment when he claims for
bishops the right to be discordant, and seems to vnthdraw
aU primacy from the Eoman Church.
Stephen answered Cyprian in a letter of which the de
cisive passage alone is extant : —
" Si qui ergo a quacumque haeresi venient ad vos, nihil
innovetur nisi quod traditum est, ut manus iUis imponatur
! ' ' Epistulae, ' ' lxii. 3. Similar insinuations are found in the letter to
Quintus (lxxl 1) : " Quidam de coUegis nostris malunt haereticis honorem
dare quam nobis consentire ". " Nee Petrus, quem primum Dominus
elegit et super quem aedificavit ecclesiam suam, cum secum Paulus de
circumoisione postmodum disceptaret, vindicavit sibi aliquid insolenter
aut adroganter adsumpsit, ut diceret se primatum tenere et obtemperari
a novellis et posteris sibi potius oportere, nee despexit Paulum. ..."
(ibid. 3). These last lines reveal both the authority which Cyprian felt
was armed against him at Rome, and the bitterness he felt about it.
This was in the beginning of the year 256.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 389
in paemtentiam, cum ipsi haeretici proprie alterutrum ad se
venientes non baptizent, sed communicent tantum." !
We may place this sort of edict side by side with that
of CalUstus regarding penance : in both the same authority
speaks in the same style. Unhke CaUistus, this authority
does not now address the Eoman community ; it addresses
the Bishop of Carthage and all the African Bishops, and in
addressing them lays down the law in such terms as to con
vey the impression that it expects, indeed is sure, to be
obeyed. Writing to Stephen, Cyprian had said : " We
neither do violence to any, nor lay down a law — aut legem
damus — since each bishop has, in the government of his
Church, the free control of his will, and owes an account of
his conduct to the Lord only ". In answer to those impru
dent words, Eome intimated to him the law.
It may be that Pope Stephen used harsh words in his
communication to the Bishop of Carthage ; but all we know
of the matter is from Cyprian, who, under the influence of
too human an emotion, may have been led to find every
thing in Pope Stephen's decision " arrogant, irrelevant, con
tradictory, unlearned, short-sighted ".^ Evidently the soul
of Cyprian was more primitive than that of Fenelon ! It
was likely that he would regard Stephen's allusions to the
!" Epistiilae," LXXIV. 1. Cf. Eusbb. " H. E." vn. 3, who gives the
true meaning of the formula, nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est : Mij
Selv re vearepov napd rijv Kparijaaaav dpxijBev napdSoatv eniKatvoropelv .
We must not make any innovation contrary to the tradition which has
been held from the beginning. The same meaning is also assigned by
Vincent of Lerins, "Commonitor." i. 6. The translation given by
Eusebius is preferable to that given by Tillemont and Bossuet, accord
ing to whom, Stephen meant to say that nothing must be repeated except
what tradition declares must be repeated, i.e. not baptism, but the im
position of hands. Compare the " Nihil innovamdum" oi the letter of
the Roman clergy to Cyprian ("Epistulae," xxx. 8) and the " Nihil im-
wouetMr " of Cyprian's letter to his people ("Epistulae," XLin. 3). The
formula '^ Manus illis imponatur in paenitentiam " is understood by St.
Cyprian as though it meant " manum imponere ad accipiendum Spiritum
Sanctum ". " Epistulae," LXxn. 1. It must be confessed, however, that
the formula of Pope Stephen, as we have it in the document above quoted,
is ambiguous. So also is the formula in the " De Rebaptismate," 2-6.
"Ibid. : "Nam inter cetera vel superba, vel ad rem non pertinentia,
vel sibi ipsi contraria, quae imperite atque improvide scripsit. ..."

390 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
traditional Eoman fact as arrogant and out of place ; for to
justify the Eoman custom regarding baptism, Stephen had
cited the Apostles to whom he traced it back.! jjg invoked
the Apostles Peter and Paul, as his surest authorities.^ But
he appealed also td the authority of his own episcopal chair,
not that of his Church merely : an authority he justified by
the fact that, sitting in that chair, he was the heir of St.
Peter. This we learn from Firmilian, who teUs us how vexed
he felt about it : " Atque ego in hac parte iuste indignor ad
hanc tam apertam et manifestam Stephani stultitiam, quod
qui sic de episcopatus sui loco gloriatur' et se successionem
Petri tenere contendit, super quem fundamenta Ecclesiae
coUocata sunt. . . . Stephanus qui per successionem cathe
dram Petri habere se praedicat." *
Pope Stephen, then, affirmed the primacy of the see of
Eome — a primacy dating back to St. Peter and giving to
the Bishop of Eome a right over the other bishops of the
Christian world.
The Council of Africa, which met at Carthage on 1 Sept-
^ This argument of Stephen is known to us through FirmiUan, " Inter
Cypriani Epistul." lxxv. 5 : "Et quidem quantum ad id pertineat quod
Stephanus dixit, quasi apostoli eos qui ab haeresi veniunt baptizari pro-
hibuerint et hoc custodiendum posteris tradiderint, plenissime vos re-
spondistis neminem tam stultum esse qui hoc credat apostolos tradidisse,''
under the pretext that heresies arose a long while after the ApostoUc age.
In his letter to Jubaianus, some time before receiving Stephen's answer,
Cyprian had already refused to accept this argument based on the Apostles,
" Epistulae," Lxxm. 13 : "Nee quisquam dicat : Quod accepimus ab apos
tolis hoc sequimur ". Ibid 9 : " Quod autem quidam dicunt," etc.
^This we know also from Firmilian, lxxv. 6 : " Quod nunc Steph
anus ausus est facere, rumpens adversus vos pacem, quam semper
antecessores eius vobisoum amore et honore mutuo custodierunt, adhuc
etiam intamans Petrum et Paulum beatos apostolos, quasi hoc ipsi tra
diderint. ..."
''A bishop speaks of his rank, locus, that is, in the ordo of the
Church in which he has the primacy, primatum, over the priests, the
deacons, and so on. On the contrary, Stephen glories in the rank of his
episcopate, in comparison to the other bishops : de episcopatus sui loco
gloriatur. This distinction is to be noticed, and agrees well with the claim
to be the bishop of bishops.
¦"'Epistulae," lxxv. 17. We may recaU the allusions of Cyprian
(" Epistulae," lxxi. 3, quoted above) to the humility of Peter who was not
so arrogant as to assume primacy over Paul, and so on.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 391
ember, 256, under the presidency of St. Cyprian, took
upon itself to answer the Bishop of Eome.
On opening the session, Cyprian had three letters
read to the assembled bishops : the letter he had received
from Jubaianus, the letter he had sent to Jubaianus, and the
letter in which Jubaianus thanked Cyprian and declared he
fully accepted the teaching of the Bishop of Carthage as to
the nullity of heretical baptisms. Nothing was read from
the correspondence of Stephen, his name was not even men
tioned ; ! and yet there was no bishop more present than he
to that Council of Africa whose members were greatly
disturbed by the lesson the Bishop of Eome had just given
to the Bishop of Carthage. The deliberation was opened :
in acting as we are doing, Cyprian declared, " we do not
judge any one, or deprive any one of the right of communion,
if he differs from us. For no one of us sets himself up as a
bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror forces his colleagues
to obey; every bishop, in the full use of his liberty and
power, has the right of forming his own judgment, and
can no more be judged by another than he can himself judge
another ". Bishops deliberating in council begin by pro
claiming their individual autonomy, so assured are they of
their unanimity 1 And the Bishop of Eome is forbidden to
make his voice h^ard : " Neque enim quisquam nostrum epis
copum se episcoporum constituit " .' ^ One after the other, the
eighty-seven bishops gave their vote and stated its grounds :
they held no other doctrine than that of Cyprian. One of
' See, however (" Sententiae,'' 8) the sententia of Crescens, Bishop of
Cirta. The Council of 1 September met after Stephen's decree had
reached Carthage. Duchesne, " Hist, anc.'' vol. i. p. 426.
" " Sententiae episcoporum " (inter Cypriani opera, ed. Hartel, vol.
I. p. 435 and foil. ), prologue. The text is as follows : " Superest ut de hac
ipsa re singuli quid sentiamus proferamus, neminem iudicantes aut a
iure communicationis aUquem, si diversum senserit, amoventes. Neque
enim quisquam nostrum episcopum se episcoporum constituit, aut tyran-
nico terrore ad obsequendi neoessitatem coUegas suos adigit, quando habeat
omnis episcopus pro licentia libertatis et potestatis suae arbitrium pro
prium, tamque iudicari ab alio non possit, quam nee ipse possit alteram
indicare. Sed expectemus universi iudicium Domini nostri lesu Christi,
qui unus et solus habet potestatem et praeponendi nos in ecclesiae suae
gubematione, et de actu nostro iudicandi." D'Ales, " Quest, bapt." pp.
26-7, suggests a more favourable interpretation of Cyprian's words.

392 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
them, Zosimus, Bishop of Tharassa, made use of these
words : " Revelatione facta veritatis eedat error veritati, quia
et Petrus quiprius circumcidebat cessit Paulo veritatem prae-
dicanti".^ Eome was summoned to give in.
But, at that very moment. Pope Stephen was forwarding
to aU the churches of Christendom the decision by which he
acknowledged the validity of baptism conferred by heretics.
Eome was sure of obtaining the adhesion of the Alexandrian
Church, whose bishop, Dionysius, seems to have been
sounded by Stephen, even before the Council of Carthage
gave its decision.^ Immediately after the Council, Cyprian
sent one of his deacons to Caesarea of Cappadocia, to win
over to his side Firmilian, the highly respected bishop of
that city. Was the whole episcopal body to be divided into
two hostile camps : on the one side, Eome and Alexandria,
on the other, Africa and Asia Minor? Notwithstanding
some affirmations to the contrary, Eome did not as yet
excommunicate any Church ; but she spoke of severing
relations with the Churches that would not acknowledge the
validity of heretical baptism.' In the name of the Churches
of Cappadocia, Cilicia and Galatia, FirmUian replied to
Cyprian in a letter which had probably been prepared in a
council. This document, which is the more important
because Firmilian was an immediate disciple of Origen, is
from beginning to end such a violent phUippic against Pope
Stephen that we easily understand why formerly the copyists
hesitated to reproduce it in their MSS.*
! "Sententiae," 56. ^ Euseb. "H. E." vn. 2.
2 " Epistulae," lxxiv. 8: "... haereticorum amicus et inimicus
ohristianorum sacerdotes Dei veritatem Christi et ecclesiae unitatem
tuentes abstinendos putat ". Here Cyprian denounces Stephen as having
thought of excommunicating the bishops of the opposition ; but the Pope
did not in fact excommunicate them. This interpretation is confirmed
by a passage of Firmilian's letter (lxxv. 4) and of a letter of Dionysius of
Alexandria (Eusbb. "H. E." vn. 5,4). Benson, p. 354. Duchesne,
"Eglises separees," p. 147. Bardenhewer, vol. n. p. 462. D'Ales,
p. 38. Turmel's arguments to the contrary have not convinced us.
" Hist, du dogme de la pap," vol. i. p. 157.
* As regards the authenticity of Firmilian's epistle, see Barden
hewer, vol. II. p. 271, and Benson, pp. 377-89. Unquestionably Fir
milian took a great deal from the letters Cyprian had sent him, and

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 393
In FirmUian's eyes, the Catholic Church is primarily
hierarchical. How great his error, how exceeding his blind
ness, who says that baptism or forgiveness of sins can be
validly given by heretics. For whoever uses such language,
abandons the foundation of the Church which was set by
Christ on one rock, and forgets that Christ gave the Holy
Ghost to the Apostles only : —
"Potestas ergo peccatorum remittendorum! apostolis data
est, et ecclesiis quas illi a Christo missi constituerunt, et
episcopis qui eis ordinatione vicaria successerunt ".^
The Apostles received from Christ a potestas which they
transmitted to the Churches they established, and to the
bishops who are their successors. Firmilian does not ex
plain and would have found it very hard to explain how a
Church, as such, is the depositary of this power; hence he
adds presently that bishops are the ministers of this potestas,
because they succeed the Apostles and hold their place. We
cannot but be struck with the distinctness with which he
affirms the hierarchical character of the Church and the apos
tolic character of the hierarchy : without the bishop, no bap
tism, no priesthood, no altar, no Church. Firmilian cannot
forgive Pope Stephen the gross error of acknowledging in
heretics and in rebels, like Core, Dathan and Abiron of old,
the power to administer baptism validly, " Maximam gratiae
potestatem," andthe other Sacraments of the Church, " magna
et caelestia ecclesiae munera,"^ of which the hierarchy alone is
the dispenser.
re-echoed, in his reply, the words of the latter : this we learn from Fir-
miUan's own testimony (lxxv. 4).
! FirmiUan thus designates the baptismal forgiveness of sins. Cf.
" Sententiae episcop." 17 (Fortunatus of Thuccaboris).
" " Epistulae," lxxv. 16 : " Qualis error sit et quanta caecitas eius,
qui remissionem peccatorum dicit apud synagogas haereticorum dari posse,
nee permanet in fundamento unius ecclesiae quae semel a Christo super
petram solidata est, hinc intellegi potest quod soli Petro Christus dixerit :
Quaecumque ligaveris, etc. [Matt. xvi. 19], et iterum in euangelio
quando in solos apostolos insufflavit Christus dicens : Accipite spiritum,
etc. [loan. xx. 22]. Potestas ergo . . . successerunt. Hostes autem unius
cathoUcae ecclesiae, in qua nos sumus, et adversarU nostri qui apostolis
successimus, sacerdotia sibi inlicita contra nos vindicantes et altaria pro
fana ponentes, quid aliud sunt quam Core et Dathan et Abiron ? "
" Ibid. 17.

394 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
" Haeretici, si se ab Ecclesia Dei sciderint, nihU habere
potestatis aut gratiae possunt, quando omnis potestas et
gratia in Ecclesia constituta sit, ubi praesident maiores natu
qui et baptizandi et manum imponendi et ordinandi habent
potestatem" (lxxv. 7).
A heretic can neither ordain, nor lay on hands, nor bap
tize, because he is " alienus a spiritali et deifica sanctitate ".
We defined, says FirmiUan, this article of behef against the
heretics a long time ago in a council held at Iconium, which
was attended by the bishops of Phrygia, Galatia, CUicia and
neighbouring regions.!
On what does the unity of the hierarchy depend?
That unity is a fact, FirmiUan knows it weU and his sense of
it is as vivid as Cyprian's own. He rejoices to feel himseU
in communion with the Bishop of Carthage, however distant
from each other they are, " quasi non unam tantum regionem
tenentes, sed in ipsa atque in eadem domo simul vnhabi-
tantes".^ It is a "unanimity of faith and truth," and he
gives thanks for it to God, its author.
" Quod totum hoc fit divina unitate. Nam cum Dominus
unus atque idem sit qui habitat in nobis, coniungit ubique
et copulat suos vinculo unitatis" (lxxv. 3).
Precarious unity I Like Cyprian, Firmilian is pleased
to think that it accommodates itself to differences in aU that
is not essential. He recaUs that there is diversity regarding
the date of Easter " et circa multa alia divinae rei sacra
menta," thus probably designating the liturgy. In several
questions Eome does not agree with Jerusalem : " In ceteris
quoque plurimis provinciis multa pro locorum et hominum
diversitate variantur, nee tamen propter hoc ab ecclesiae
cathoUcae pace atque unitate aliquande discessum est"
(lxxv. 6).
FirmiUan is not concerned about this diversity, so con
vinced is he that unity is secured by truth, truth by tradition,
and tradition by the hierarchy. He does not imagine that
1 " Epistulae," Lxxv. 7. Cf. ibid. 19 : "In Iconio diligentissime trac-
tavimus et confirmavimus repudiandum esse omne omnino baptisma quod
sit extra ecclesiam constitutum ". This Council of Iconium may have
been held about the year 230. Benson, p. 348.
"Ibid. 1.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 395
a judge of disputes can be needed; hence his indignation
on seeing the Bishop of Eome claim to be that judge. Un
kindness, audacity, presumption, bUndness, absurdity, fool
ishness, wrath — this litany of insults hardly suffices for the
Bishop of Csesarea to express his feeling.
" Quin immo tu haereticis omnibus peior es. Nam cum
inde multi cognito errore suo ad te veniant ut Ecclesiae
verum lumen accipiant, tu venientium errores adiuvas, et
obscurato lumine ecclesiasticae veritatis tenebras haereticae
noctis adcumulas " (lxxv. 23).
One asks oneself sadly what became of unity and peace
in the midst of such invectives. The responsibility lies at
the door of the Bishop of Eome, Firmilian declares : "Lites
enim et dissensiones quantas parasti per ecclesias totius
mundi " {ibid. 24) ! To believe FirmUian, Stephen is
alone in his opinion : he cuts himself off from all the other
Churches : he makes himself " a communiane ecclesiasticae
unitatis apostatam" (ibid.) ; he is not afraid " cum tot epis
copis per totumi mundum dissentire" (ibid. 25). Not even
for an instant does the thought come to Firmilian's mind that .
the courage of the Bishop of Eome may spring from his certi
tude that he is standing by the true tradition, and that the
authority as Bishop of bishops which he claims for his in
timation of the truth is the legitimate authority of Peter's
successor. For Stephen to recaU the Eoman primacy is, in
FirmUian's eyes, a mark of pride and a usurpation.
After defining the law, Eome was forbearing enough not
to excommunicate the Churches that questioned its legiti
macy. AU over the East, during the autumn of the year
256, episcopal synods must have been held which concluded
for the nuUity of the baptism of heretics.! TJie rela
tions between Eome and the Churches of Asia Minor were
doubtless suspended, as they were between Eome and the
bishops of Africa. This distressing state of affairs lasted
untu 2 August, 257, when Pope Stephen died. "His suc
cessors," writes Mgr. Duchesne, " though they maintained
the custom of the Eoman Church, and tried to make it pre
vail as far as possible elsewhere, saw no necessity for being
! Euseb. " H. E." -vil 5, 5, the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria to
Pope Xystus (Feltoe, p. 50).

396 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
so rigid with those who differed. Dionysius of Alexandria,
the Irenseus of this new Victor, though in his diocese he ob
served the same custom as Stephen, was not disposed to
follow him in his severity. He had already written, in
this sense, to Stephen himself and to two learned priests of
Eome, Dionysius and Philemon, who naturally agreed with
their Bishop.! After the death of Stephen, the new Pope
Xystus II and his coUeagues made it clear that the Eoman
presbyterium had modified its attitude. Dionysius of Alex
andria, in writing to them, does not disguise his feelings as
to the gravity of the attempt made by the deceased Pope,
or as to the importance of keeping the peace, and respecting
the decisions of largely-attended and important councils.
His words helped to consolidate the unity, already restored
by the mere fact of the change of Popes. Xystus and
Cyprian renewed the relations between Eome and Africa,
which Stephen had broken off. Correspondence with Fir
milian was also resumed. Dionysius, the successor of Xystus,
came to the assistance of the Cappadocian Church in its dis
tress after the invasion of the Persians in 259, and vnth the
alms of Eoman charity, he sent a message of peace. Happy
days, when charity was so fervent, and resentment so short
lived I " 2
Pope Xystus II, whom the Africans greeted as a " good
and peace-making bishop," ' thus calmed down the contro
versy. It had long, however, to wait before the many prob
lems to which it gave rise received their final solution.
Indeed, the final solution came only with the CouncUs of
Trent and the Vatican. * *
*
The baptismal controversy had aroused the discussion of
principles appertaining to the very structure of the Church.
First of these was the principle of the validity of the
sacraments. Outside the Church no sacraments, says
Cyprian. At Eome, on the contrary, it is maintained that
baptism can be had outside the Church, inasmuch as the
grace of baptism is dependent on the rite by which it is ad-
1 Euseb. "H. E." vn. 5, 6. " "Hist, anc." vol. l p. 429.
^PoNT. "Vita Cypriani," 14.

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 397
ministered ; so that, if heretics or schismatics use in the
administration of this rite the ecclesiastical form, they ad
minister validly. Cyprian's doctrine, which rests on theo
logical reasons, is a deduction from the axiom : Outside the
Church no Holy Spirit. Pope Stephen's doctrine does not
deny this axiom ; but it co-ordinates it with another tra
ditional behef — belief in the efficacy ex opere operato of the
baptismal rite. We shall not say that both doctrines are al
most equaUy ancient, since all the lines of evidence converge
to establish the priority of the Eoman doctrine, and the
greater solidity of its basis.!
In the second place, there is the principle of the perpetu
ity of the power of orders. Eome has given her decision
only as regards the validity of the baptism of heretics, and
has not touched on the cognate question whether the power
of orders continues among heretics ; Cyprian comes forward
and boldly decides this question in the negative. Here
again, the teaching of the Bishop of Carthage is a deduction
from the axiom : Outside the Church no Holy Spirit ; whence
he concludes, no priesthood, no sacrifice, no Eucharist. A
logician may go still further and conclude : the power of
orders, then, can be lost, and bishops, invested lawfuUy with
the episcopate, lose the episcopal power of orders, when they
become schismatics, or heretics, or, we may add, public
sinners, or even merely sinners; and thus we drift into
Donatism, Wycliffism, Puritanism. But it wiU be easy for
Eome to ward off these errors which the principle of her
baptismal doctrine already condemns. Like the other axiom
formulated by Cyprian, " Salus extra Ecclesiam nan est," ^
the saying : Outside the Church no Holy Spirit, has its
limitations. But Stephen holds as much as Cyprian that
the Church alone can impart the Holy Ghost, and this is
! D'Ales, pp. 42-4. Cyprian fully realized that he had only theo
logical reasons to set against the tradition appealed to by Pope Stephen.
See his declarations on reason, as opposed to custom ("Epistulae," lxxi.
3), and on the duty to learn (lxxiv. 10) : " Oportet episcopos non tantum
docere, sed et discere, quia et iUe melius docet qui cotidie crescit et pro
ficit discendo meliora " AU this is appaUingly rash and reminds us of
TertuUian, after he became a Montanist.
2" Epistulae," Lxxm. 21.

398 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
why at Eome the laying on of hands ad accipiendum
Spiritum Sanctum, has to be repeated by the bishop.
Third principle : the Catholic Church is one. How can
Harnack say that the " confederation of Churches " was not
fully realized and formulated before the days of Constantine
and under his rdgime ? or again that " the idea of the one
exclusive Church, embracing aU Christians and founded on
the bishops was," in the time of Cyprian, "a mere theory
. . . refuted by the actual circumstances " ? ! For, so far
from Cyprian being in advance of his time when he ex
presses the idea of Catholic unity with so much insistence
and eloquence, his doctrine of the " empiric " cathoUc unity
finds deep echoes everywhere. FirmUian, in the name of
the Churches of Asia Minor and beyond, returns the echo
to the Bishop of Carthage from far distant Csesarea of
Cappadocia ; ^ the same echo reaches Eome from Dionysius
of Alexandria, not without an accent of discreet remon
strance, as though Eome had risked the shattering of that
unity which all conspire to strengthen.
"Know now," he wrote to Pope Stephen, "that the
union is perfect, after having been for a moment com
promised, between all the Churches throughout the East
and beyond ' ; and all the faithful are of one mind. The
bishops everywhere rejoice greatly in the peace which
has been unexpectedly recovered.* Demetrian at Antioch,
Theoctistus at Csesarea, Mazabbanes at .^lia, Marinus at
Tyre, Heliodorus at Laodicea, Helenus at Tarsus and aU
the churches of Cilicia, Firmilian and all Cappadocia, . . .
all Syria and Arabia, to which you daily send succours and
have just sent some, Mesopotamia, Pontus, Bithynia, in
short all everywhere rejoice in unanimity and brotherly love
and return thanks to God.^ Be it remarked, this " unanim-
! " Dogmeng." vol. i\ p. 422. " " Epistulae," lxxv. 1, 3, 24, 25.
" He refers to the reconciUation of the lapsi, and the Novatian schism.
•After the persecution of Decius.
"Euseb. " H. E." vn. 5, 1-2 (Feltoe, p. 44): dydXXiavrai ndvres
navraxov rfj opovoia Kal <f>iXaSeX(j)ia. Cf. the Syriac fragment of the same
letter (Feltoe, p. 47) : "... in order that we may be in agreement one
with another. Churches with Churches, bishops with bishops, priests with
priests "

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 399
ity " is that which had just excluded the Novatians from the
CathoUc communion. When we read one after the other
the " Sententiae " of the eighty-seven bishops assembled for
the council of Africa in the year 256, we realize how pro
found is the sentiment of unity conjoined with an intense
hatred for heresy and schism, in the hearts of the bishops
even of the most insignificant Churches of Numidia and
Mauritania — Mascula, Girba, Buruch, Cuiculum.i
To say that this sentiment resembles imperialism is to
misrepresent it. For the confederation of all the Churches
— visible as it was and hierarchical — presents no analogy
with the Empire, which is not a spontaneous confederation
of cities and municipia. The geographical distribution of
the churches throughout the Empire, their grouping around
the metropolitical churches, is independent of the territorial
divisions of the imperial administration. Besides, in the
East, Catholicism goes beyond the boundaries of the Eoman
Empire. As we have aheady seen, Dionysius of Alexandria
speaks of the churches of Mesopotamia as united with the
op,ovoLa of all the other churches ; some fifty years later,
Eusebius wUl speak of the Christians of Persia, Media and
Parthia ; as early as the end of the second century, Pantsenus
had preached the Gospel in India, which means either South
Arabia, or the kingdom of Axum.^ In this its universal
! See the " Sententiae," 1 (Caecilius of Biltha), 2 (Primus of Misgirpa),
5 (Nemesianus of Thubunas : "haec omnia Ecclesia catholica loquitur
. . . nisi in Ecclesia catholica quae est una salvi esse non possunt "), 10
(Monnulus of Girba : " Ecclesiae cathoUcae matris nostrae Veritas semper
apud nos, fratres, et mansit et manet "), 14 (Theogenes of Hippo : "unum
baptisma quod est in Ecclesia sancta "), 17 (Fortunatus of Thuccaboris),
26 (Pelix of Utina : "sinum matris Ecclesiae"), 27 (Quietus of Buruc :
"... vitali baptismate quod in catholica Ecclesia est"), 33 (Felix of
Bamaccora : " . . . Ecclesiae nostrae adversarii "), 37 (Vincentius of
Thibaris : "Haereticos scimus esse peiores quam ethnicos"), 44 (Pelagia-
nus of Luperciana : "Aut Ecclesia Ecclesia est, aut haeresis Ecclesia
est . . . "), 46 (Felix of Marrazana : "Una fides, unum baptisma, sed
ecclesiae cathoUcae cui soli licet baptizare "), 60 (Rogatianus of Nova :
" Ecclesiam Christus instituit, haeresin diabolus "), 79 (Clarus of Mas
cula). Cf. Monceaux, vol. n. p. 61 and foU.
^Harnack, "Mission," vol. ii. p. 121. Duchesne, "The Chris
tian Missions south of the Roman Empire," in "EgUses separefes," pp.
283-353.

400 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
dispersion, Catholicism is much more like Judaism.! Like
Judaism, like Stoicism, it tends towards a cosmopolitanism.
Who calls himself "catholic" calls himself "universal,"
whoever bears this title is placed, as God is, in a category
where there is no further distinction of kingdoms or races.^
This sentiment, this ecclesiastical sense, this love of un
animity in catholicity, is a historical energy which is in fuU
activity at the time of the baptismal controversy. If the
Christians of subsequent ages forgave St. Cyprian his errors
on many points, it was because no one before him, not even
St. Irenseus, had spoken as he did of the unanimity of the
Church and of concord among bishops. The controversy he
had stirred up concerning the vaUdity of the baptism of
heretics might still remain open, and seem undecided to
many bishops ; but the subordination of such disagreements
to the duty of remaining united, and the reahzation of the
absolutely sacred and imperative character of this duty was
above all — "salva iure communionis diversa sentire" St.
Augustine will say later — was strong enough to end aU con
flicts, in the time of Cyprian as in that of Irenseus. It is
surprising that the Protestant critics take so little notice of
this historical energy which is, not only a great idea — ideas
are cold and silent — but a profound and heartfelt sentiment
springing from the Christian faith.
Hence the baptismal controversy served to manifest in
Catholicism its theoretical and living unity. It recaUed also
its Apostolic, and therefore legitimate, origin. The Eoman
primacy alone seems at first sight to have come out of the
conflict somewhat weakened as compared with what it was
at the end of the second century.
When, indeed, Galileans and Josephists seek some
authority behind which to shield themselves, they may ap
peal to the Bishop of Carthage.' Anglicans and Old Ca-
' We may remember that the Christians appear to the Romans to be
a race, like the Jews. Celsus says Sta rb lovSalav Kal xP'-'mavav yevos.
Origen, "Contra Celsum," iv. 23.
^MiNUT. "Octav." 33.
^Bossuet, "Defensio declar. cleri gallicani," ix. 3-8, especiaUy 4:
" Sancti Stephani papae contra rebaptizationem decretum, tota Sedis
apostolicae auctoritate factum, et tamen concilii generalis sententiam
merito expectatam." Dupin, "De antiqua Ecclesiae disciplina " (Paris,

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 401
tholics wUl vie with one another in citing the unguarded
expressions of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian in their conflict
with Pope Stephen, and in extoUing the irritated independ
ence of these "primitive saints" in their dealings with the
See of Eome.!
But this is to forget that at a more serene epoch Cyprian
had recognized (1) that " a special importance attaches to
the Eoman see, because it is the see of the Apostle to whom
in the first place Christ granted apostolic authority, thereby
to show with unmistakable clearness the unity of this au
thority and the unity of the Church that rests on it ; and
(2) that, in the history of Christian Origins, the Church
of this see was the Mother and root of the Catholic Church
spread over the earth. In a difficult crisis which Cyprian
had to pass through in his diocese [of Carthage] he appealed
to the Eoman Church, to the Bishop of Eome, as if com
munion with this Church was in itself the guarantee of
truth.'.' 2 Conditioned by such a primacy the concordia
episcoporum is no longer GaUicanism. That bishop does
not ignore the traditional Eoman fact, who teUs us that the
Emperor Decius, " tyr annus infestus sacerdotibus," would
have preferred to " hear that a rival claimant to his empire
had been proclaimed at Eome than that a bishop had been
elected there, in the person of Cornelius : ' he does not
ignore the traditional Eoman fact, who speaks on one occa-
1686), p. 344. Febronius, "De Statu Ecclesiae et de legitima Potestate
Romani Pontificis," cap. vi. §9. Dollinger, "La Papautfii" (Paris,
1904), p. 3.
' See Reinkens, "Die Lehre des heiligen Cyprian von der Einheit
der Kirche" (Wurzburg, 1873), pp. 28-48. Langen, "Geschichte der
romischen Ku-che," vol. i. (Bonn, 1881), pp. 333-46. Lighteoot, " Chris
tian Ministry," p. 96. Puller, " The Primitive Saints and the See of
Rome," thkd ed. (London, 1900), pp. 49-72. Gore, " Roman Catholic
Clauns," sixth ed. (London, 1897), pp. 117-9.
"Harnack, "Dogmeng." vol. i\ p. 420. Cf. Loofs, p. 209.
i* Cyprian, "Epistula," lv. 9 : "... sedisse intrepidum Romae in
sacerdotaU cathedra eo tempore cum tyrannus infestus sacerdotibus Dei
. . . multo patientius et tolerabUius levari adversus se aemulum prin
cipem quam constitui Romae Dei sacerdotum ". Harnack, "Mission,"
vol. n. p. 211. Recall too the fact of Aurelian who, at Antioch in
the year 272, makes the bishops of Italy and of Rome the arbiters of
ecclesiastical legitimacy. Eusbb. " H. E." viii. 31.
26

402 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
sion of that " ecclesia principalis unde unitas sacerdotalis
exorta est," and of the see of Eome as the place of Peter,
" locus Petri ". This was the language of tradition : Iren
seus would have recognized in it his own declarations.
Would Pope Victor or Pope CaUistus have thought that
Pope Stephen was introducing a novelty, when, as the vicar
of the Apostle Peter, he claimed to be the bishop of bishops
in the Church of Churphes?

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.
When, on the morrow of the peace of Constantine, the
Fathers of the Church looked back upon the three centuries
it had taken for Christianity to conquer the world, they could
not help seeing evidence of God's intervention in the rapidity
with which this conquest had been effected.
Modern historians have likewise been impressed by this
rapid conquest : " Seventy years after the foundation of the
first Gentile Church in Syrian Antioch," writes one of
these historians, " Pliny wrote to Trajan concerning the
spread of Christianity through remote Bithynia ; where in
his judgment it threatened the stability of the old pagan
cults of the province. Seventy years later still, the paschal
controversy reveals the existence of a Christian federation of
Churches, stretching from Lyons to Edessa, with its head
quarters at Eome. Seventy years later again the Emperor
Decius declared he would sooner see a rival claimant to his
throne spring up at Eome than a new bishop to fiU the see
there that was then vacant. And ere another seventy years
had passed, the cross was attached to the Eoman colours."
Such a conquest of the old world had been attempted by
Judaism. But, as we have learned from Origen, Judaism
was a people by its race and by its law. When they spread
among the heathen the fear and worship of Yahweh, the
Jews continued to affirm that " righteousness " could be
reached only through the perfect observance of the whole
Law, beginning with circumcision : the Greek, to become a
member of God's people, must become a Jew. As to Jewish
HeUenism, it could indeed present itself as a "phUosophy,"
but by that very fact it became a synthesis of incompatibles
without a future.
The true essence of Christianity, its divine originaUty,
manifested itself from its very beginning, in that it was
403 26 *

404 PRIMITIVESCATHOLICISM
neither a " philosophy," nor a people, but a revelation and
a Church. Christianity was the preaching by Jesus of a
kingdom of God, not an apocalyptic kingdom of God, but a
kingdom that was at once interior and transcendent, a king
dom revealed by Jesus and thrown open by Him. Christi
anity was a faith and a life. Jesus was the truth and the
way, and it immediately became manifest that this truth
was from God, and that in this way the disciples walked not
as sheep without a shepherd, but, on the contrary, as a flock
that follows its leader. The disciples were the " caUed "
(kXtitoI), the flock they made up was the eKKXrja-la. After
Jesus had gone back to His Father, there was to be a shep
herd to feed the sheep and the lambs : on Peter the Church
would be built. To the gospel of the kingdom, was added
the gospel of the fold. For the law of God was substituted
the kingdom of God; for the people of God, a people of
" flesh and blood," was substituted a supernatural and social
communion, freed from every idea of race, the visible and
universalist Church of God. All this was announced and
established by Jesus.
Ecclesiology demands of us no sacrifice of soteriology :
we distinguish the kingdom from the Church, we distinguish
the Church from Eedemption. Faith and baptism intro
duced the believer into a supernatural condition which made
him a member of one and the same mystical, invisible body :
he was reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus Christ, he
was cleansed from his sins, he lived less himself than Christ
lived in him, he was a new creature made for life eternal.
But this interior justification would have left the Christian
perfectly isolated in the world, for of itself it did not imply
an exterior socialization, a flock and a shepherd.
The preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles had, on the
other hand, the result of everywhere forming the Chris
tians into visible and organized Christian communities, into
brotherhoods in which there were no more Jews, or Greeks,
Scythians, or slaves, but in which Jesus was aU in all. The
Christians were brothers by a brotherhood which was super
natural indeed, but was also immediately social. Individual
ism was never the law of the Christian religion.
Outside the Apostolic generation and in the course of

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 405
the three first centuries, it is a notable fact that the propa
gation of Christianity was not the work of missionaries. St.
Paul, carrying the Gospel into Cyprus, into Galatia, into
Macedonia, into Achaia, perhaps into Spain, is the Apostle
par excellence, but he will have no imitators in the genera
tions which foUow the ApostoUc generation. The successors
of the Apostles are not missionaries, but the bishops.
Henceforth Christianity advances graduaUy and obscurely,
propagating itself step by step, along the great Eoman ways.
There is, for instance, no historical record of the evangeliza
tion of Eoman Africa, or of that of Great Britain. TertuUian
and Cyprian, who probably remembered the details connected
m.th. the Christian conquest of Africa — details that are un-
knovTn to us — conceived the propagation of Christianity as a
kind of genealogy of Churches, a mother Church bringing
forth other Churches which became her spiritual daughters.
In truth, wherever Christianity established itself definitively,
it established itself in this way : the spread of the Gospel
was a multiplication of Churches, like to the prohfication of
cells. However, the multiplication of Churches, unlike that of
synagogues, was limited : it was subordinate to the law that
there was to be only one Church in each city. Origen will
most justly dwell upon the analogy between the local Church
and the city. If there were for a while and among the
" first fruits " — in the words of St. Paul — domestic Churches,
these temporary institutions, which answered a temporary
need, soon disappear altogether from history. St. Cyprian,
and long before him, St. Ignatius, proclaims the law of the
unity of the Church in each city. AU these local Churches
have the same hierarchical structure : the collectivity of the
faithful, and over them, as a ruling authority, one presby
teriwm, one bishop. Even supposing that it took some time
for the monarchical episcopate — as it is called — to find its
expUcit form, still it remains true that this term was reached
by aU the Churches during the second century. Whatever
analogies may be found between the civil offices in the cities
of the Empire, and the ordo of the Churches, what char
acterizes the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the fact that it is not
an elective and temporary magistracy, but a priesthood for

406 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
life. The hierarchy did not depend on the charisms, or ex
traordinary gifts of the Spirit : it was a power inherited
from the apostolate, a living magisterium which continued
that of the Apostles.
One Church in each city, one bishop in each Church, aU
the Churches joined together by a constant exchange of
guests and letters, of helps and warnings, all forming a
species of confederacy, all firmly rooted in this unity by
their intimate sentiment of unity. Yet it was not these
facts and conditions which produced the unity of hierarchical
structure, or the fundamental unity of faith, worship and
discipline : we do indeed find traces of efforts made to defend
this fourfold unity ; but of efforts made to create it, there is
no trace whatever. The circumstances which since Eitschl
have been cited as having produced it account for it only by
begging the question. On the contrary, that actual condi
tion of the facts is easily explained if each Church, proceed
ing from a mother-Church by spiritual filiation preserved an
inherited tradition which imposed upon her her hierarchy,
faith, liturgy, and discipline.
From aU these characteristic notes, we must conclude
that Christianity spread and established itself as a " religion
of authority ". It was not a contagion of enthusiasm, such
as may be found in certain "revivals," an outpouring of the
gift of the Spirit, of prophecies and extraordinary ways ;
these charismatic manifestations were from the first subject
to strict control, as much as if they had taken place in
Jewish synagogues. The right to heresy existed no more
for the Christian in his Church than for the Jew in his
synagogue. Heretics were separated from the Christian
community, just as public sinners were separated. The
faithful ordered their belief and their conduct according to
what had been received : what was new and not in agree
ment with what had been received, could only be foreign,
and mere " tradition of men ". But there was a tradition of
God. In spite of Eenan's expression, repeated by Harnack,
it was not mediocrity which in Christianity founded author
ity ; it was the Gospel which founded authority. Men be
came converts on hearing the words of the Apostles sent by

GENERAIi CONCLUSIONS 407
Jesus : the words of Jesus and of the Apostles, continuing
the words of the prophets, were the words of God, as his
Law was for a Jew. And as the words of the Lord and of
the Apostles were not at first set down in 'vpriting, tradition
became authoritative before the new Scripture. Thus there
was a sacred inheritance, the content of which was the
message of God. When the presbyters of the second cen
tury said in simple humihty to the heretics, whose subtlety
was on a par with their inventiveness : " We repeat what
we have learned," they expressed the authentic and primitive
conception of the Christian faith — which was never a "religion
of the free spirit," but was carefully preserved as a deposit.
The reUgious map of the old world, could one hope to
delineate it throughout with the degree of completeness
which is possible for some regions, — for the province of Asia,
for instance — would reveal most striking contrasts. The
regional differentiations, which are so conspicuous in the
pagan religions, are also strongly marked in Gnosticism, in
which it is easy to distinguish the Syrian variety from the
Alexandrine, the Asiatic from the Eoman : Gnosticism is
indeed a typical instance of a perpetually changing syncre
tism, assimUating to itself elements as various as are the
countries where it prevails, and the men by whom it is
taught. Montanism itself, although it came comparatively
late and was influenced by the Catholic atmosphere far more
than Gnosticism, is not the same everywhere : the Montan
ism of Phrygia differs from that of Africa.
Christianity, on the contrary, shows itself endowed with
a prodigious homogeneity. Unlike Mithraism, it is not a
reUgion for a special class of men, since it is propagated in
all classes and is embraced by the slave Onesimus as well as
by the ex-consul Flavins Clemens. It is true, most of its
adherents belong to the humble and iUiterate class, to the
tenuAores and simpliciores. In the province of Bithynia,
the refined mind of Pliny sees in these converts of all ages
and conditions, and of both sexes, "nothing, except a de
praved and excessive superstition " ; and this is what it
must have appeared everywhere to men simUarly prejudiced.
The wonder is that, sinking as it did so deeply into the
souls of the pagan multitudes, it did not become corrupt, by

408 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
syncretizing with the errors denounced in the Epistle to the
Colossians, or in the message to the seven Churches, of the
Apocalypse. On the contrary, the greater the danger appears, the
stricter does vigilance make itself felt in every Church. The
Churches are armed and ready to defend the purity of the
faith, just as they are to defend the purity of morals: in
either case, the same strictness ; the virginity of the Church
depends on this two-fold continence. The faith which was
the same everywhere met the Christian to whatever Church
he went, as in the cases of Abercius, Hegesippus and Papias.
In each Church, the ruling authority made each one of the
faithful, not the disciple of a school, but the soldier of an
army ; he was bound by a pledge which was simUar to the
sacramentum or military oath, and he pledged himself both
as to his belief and as to his conduct, of which he must
always be ready to give an account to his Church and to its
rulers. In all this, there is neither constraint nor oppres
sion, for the profound reason that the faith impUed such a
unanimity, and that for a Christian to break away from it
was a sign that he was abandoning faith and truth and
salvation, to become a child of Satan.
This unanimity in each Church and among the Churches
was rendered possible only by the control of an authority
which was in the " presbyters," as they were caUed. The
" presbyters " maintained the inherited tradition, the doc
trinal and ethical catechisms that had been formed from the
beginning, the "dogmas" of the Lord and of the Apostles.
They cared little for the " persuasive words of human vds-
dom " ; they claimed at most to give " interpretations of the
sayings of the Lord ". Papias, amongst others, is a typical
"presbyter" of the second century. When the great
Gnostics, like Valentinus, made their appearance, the " pres
byters," distributed as they were from Edessa to Lyons,
did not need to meet together and concert plans ; for a
long time past the Christian community in every Church
had known how to protect itself against the assaults of " false
knowledge " and the " profane novelties of words ". Had
she not been thus protected, what would have remained
of her even as early as the years 100 or 120?

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 409
About the year 200, this homogeneity of Christianity in
its hierarchical structure, in its faith, in its liturgy, and in
the discipline of its Churches, extended to aU the provinces
of the Eoman Empire, and even went beyond its boundaries
on the East. The Churches and the " presbyters " had
subdued the old world to a faith which, having been carried
and established as far as the extremities of the inhabited
world as then known, rightly deserved the title Catholic,
which it had borne for almost a century. The words of
Paul had been fulfilled : God had chosen the foolish things
of the world that He might confound the wise, and the
weak things of the world that He might confound the
strong. By using the criterion of tradition, and invoking
prescription against novelty, the "presbyters" had preserved
the Churches from the baneful syncretisms that threatened
them at the end of the Apostolic age and during the second
century. The homogeneity itself of the faith of the Churches,
the uninterrupted succession which connected that faith
through the bishops with the Apostles, the assistance of the
Holy Ghost promised by Jesus to the Apostles, these formed
the threefold justification of the claims of Catholicism.
But there were further questions still demanding solution.
Had not the Spirit a mission to suggest new revelations?
Unquestionably another Gospel than that of the Apostles
could not be thought of : but could not some new prophets
arise ? The Churches fixed the canon of the New Testa
ment, by settling the hesitations entertained here and there
about the canonicity of such or such an apostolic or prophetic
book. It shows the rigour with which they proceeded in
this work that a certain number of writings, like the
"Didache" which was highly esteemed at Alexandria, or
the " Shepherd " which was held in great esteem at Eome,
were kept out of the canon. When, in the time of Mon
tanism, some new prophecies claimed credit in the name of
the Spirit, the principle that revelation was closed universally
prevaUed. But at least could not the canon of faith be expounded
by some process of dialectics ? For Irenseus and TertuUian
Greek philosophy was simply a worldly and dangerous
sophistry: the use made of this phUosophy by the great

410 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Gnostics, could not but predispose the Churches against it.
Some apologists, however, like Justin, appealed to it, with
the object of accrediting the Christian faith in the eyes
of the heathen public. Clement of Alexandria and Origen
accepted, and — not without meeting with some opposition —
succeeded in getting the Churches to accept the idea that
philosophical propsedeutics might be a fitting preparation
for the faith, and that the revealed faith might mature
into an ecclesiastical gnosis. PhUosophical apologetics and
deductive theology thus became acclimatized on the Christian
soil, just as later on, in the time of St. Thomas Aquinas,
the Aristotelian philosophy, for which TertuUian has any
thing but words of praise, was to be acclimatized. Chris
tians entered, not without some regret, upon these paths of
discussion. It remained at least beyond question that the
canon of the faith was the standard by which every thought
had to be judged, and that the ecclesiastical gnosis was the
legitimate gnosis.
The ecclesiastical rule of the faith was manifested by
the unanimity of the Churches and of the bishops : that on
which aU Christians agreed in the whole world could not but
be a tradition inherited from the Apostles. The authenticity
of the tradition was confirmed by the fact that in the " prin
cipal" Churches the succession of bishops was connected
with the Apostles who had founded those Churches. Among
these Churches of Apostolic origin, the most Ulustrious was
the one founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul at Eome,
where their tombs were preserved. The Bishop of Eome
was the successor, not of Peter and Paul, but of Peter alone :
he held the place of the latter, he was sitting in his chair.
The witness of the Eoman Church in matters of faith had
as much weight as the witness of the whole CathoUc world.
It was a fact, both in Greek Christendom in the time
of Origen, and in Latin Christendom, that before the age
of Cyprian, bishops were looked upon as the judges of the
faith and the arbiters of controversies, and the Bishop of
Eome was recognized as possessing a sovereignty, which no
other bishop denied him. In the affair of Montanism, both
the opponents of Montanism and the Montanists themselves
asked his decision : in the affair of the Quartodecimans, the

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 411
Bishop of Eome intimated orders to the whole Christian
world. We have for the second century, the testimony of
Ignatius and of Irenseus.
These facts and these texts do not constitute, it is true,
the whole history of the Papacy ; but, as by sudden flashes
they light up the life of the Christian community and re
veal to us the place which the cathedra Petri, as such, held
in that life. The consciousness which Popes like Callistus
and Stephen during the third century, had of this was not
an innovation or a usurpation, but a tradition which had
come down from the promise made to Peter by the Saviour
Himself. The rapidity with which Christianity was propagated
during the first three centuries, and that under the pressure
of the imperial persecutions, is not then the only fact that
should make the historian wonder : the internal and organic
development of Christianity is still more wonderful. Far
from being, as is claimed by Protestant historians, a series of
crises and transformations that could only have brought forth
differentiations and dislocations, Christendom shows itself to
be a catholicity, a unity, a homogeneity ; it is such in the
year 200, and in the year 250, after an existence of two
centuries. The monarchical episcopate has none of the
features of a successful coup d'Etat; the Eoman primacy
has none of the features of a high-handed conquest ; the
unanimity of the Churches has none of the features of a
slow and painful labour, with organized endeavours, suc
cesses, and. reverses. Neither the Eoman Church nor any
other Church was the chief artificer of this unity. The
same must be said of the Eoman primacy : the evidences of
its existence come to us in the form of acknowledgments of
it by others more often than as claims set up by Eome.
After being extolled during the second century, it did not
escape being gainsaid during the third ; and even then — as
when she sent to Corinth the letter of St. Clement — Eome
did not plead her own right which she knew to be divine :
she exercised it. Catholicism grew like a tree (the com
parison goes back to .St. Paul) which expands in keeping
with the law of its nature, under the continued assistance
of God Himself, by whom it had been planted.

412 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM
Many a woodman has impiously raised his axe against
the branches of this great tree ; many a storm has passed
over it, since the times of Clement and of Stephen ; but it
is stiU erect in its rugged strength. Now, as in the days of
Irenseus and Ignatius, the Eoman Church, the heart of
the "great Church" survives uninjured; but how many
Churches have been for centuries separated from her, how
many sheep have been lost ! The historian cannot think
over these losses without emotion, when he remembers the
nascent and conquering catholicity of the first three cen
turies. The present work would not have been written —
especially at the painful hour when I wrote it — did I not be
lieve this history of the origins capable of arousing in the
separated Churches a yearning for unity, and giving to
churchless Christians an intuition of the true faith.

INDEX.

Abbecids (inscription), the Roman
Church in second century, 175-178 ;
" The Spotless Virgin," 177, 178.
Aeschylus, apocryphal texts attributed
to, in interests of Judaism, 7.
Africa, CouncU of (256), 399; proceed
ings of, in election and deposition of
bishops, 375, 376.
African Church, the, excommunicated
by Pope Stephen, 395.
Allegorical method, used by Philo, 8.
Alms-giving, character of, in primitive
Christianity, 31, 32; primitive
Ohristian, an inheritance from
Judaism, 31.
Ananias, conversion of Izatis by, 15.
Anastasius Sinaita, on Pantsenus, 179,
181.
"Anathema," origin of term, 29, 30.
" Angels " of the Seven Churches, 120,
122.
Anicetus, dispute of, with St. Polycarp
on the Easter Question, 169, 170,
222.
Antigonus of Socho and the Pharisaic
Tradition, 9.
Antioch, Council of, condemnation of
Paul of Samosata by, 328 ; ' ' pillars "
of the Ohristian community at, 57.
Apocalypse, the Johannine, 119, 120.
Apostle, Jewish, St. Paul as, 39.
"Apostle," meaning of term, 37, 39;
Pauline use of term, 40, 41.
Apostles, function of, the " Didache "
on, 109.
Apostles, the Jewish, 37-9 ; attempt of,
to undermine Christianity, Euse
bius on, 37, 38 ; St. Justin Martyr
on, 38.
"Apostles," term applied to the
Seventy by St. Irenaeus and Ter
tuUian, 41.
Apostles, the twelve, authority of, St.
Ignatius on, 138 ; decree of in Acts
XV., XX., xxii., 60; equality of, St.
Oyprian on, 358 ; as foundation of
the Church, St. Paul on, 101 ; pre
eminent authority of, in the primi
tive Church, 41, 42, 53, 54 ; and the
Judaizers, 60.

Apostolate, the, Catholic idea o£,
origins of, 52 ; uot a charisma,
xix; distinctly Christian character
as institution of, 37, 39; Harnack
on, 39.
Apostolic Succession, 410 ; St. Oyprian
on, 335.
Apostolic Tradition, 409 ; Clement of
Alexandria on, 251 ; " Epistle to
Diognetus " on, 180, 181 ; Hegesip
pus on, 173, 174 ; appeal of Papias
to, 172, 173.
Aristo's "Dialogue of Jason," 241.
Aristobulus, onthe Greek philosophers
as disciples of Moses, 7.
Arrian, on the conditions of becoming
a proselyte, 12.
Asceticism, Ohristian, Origen on, 304.
"Atheism," Christianity regarded as,
by the Pagans, 18.
Aurelian, the Eoman primacy recog
nized by, 329.
Aurelius the martyr, St. Cyprian on,
338.
Baptism, Christian, formula of, in tbe
"Didache," 107; "Clementis Se
cunda" on, 182-4; forgiveness of
sins after, Hippolytus on, 288 ; St.
Justin Martyr on, 189; nature of,
67 ; ex opere operato efl&caoy of, Pope
Stephen on, 397; as a "seal," 177.
Baptism, heretical : validity of. Pope
Stephen on, 387, 389, 390, 392 ; in
validity of, Council of Carthage on,
381-6 ; St. Cyprian on, 383, 384, 387,
396, 397.
Baptism, Jewish, administered to pro
selytes, 11 ; necessity of, to becom
ing a proselyte, " Jebamoth " on,
12 ; as " a bath of levitical cleans
ing," " Gerim " on, 12.
Bigg, on ecclesiastical attitude of
Clement of Alexandria, 263.
" Binding and loosing," force of terms
in Rabbinical language 90, 91.
Bishop, monarchical, the first known,
122.
Bishop of Borne, the, as Bishop of
Bishops, TertulUan. on, 288, 290 ; as

413

414

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

Pontifex Maximus, TertuUian on,
288, 289.
Bishops. See under " Episcopate "
and " Hierarchy " ; first mention of,
in Ohristian literature, 98 ; councils
of, Origen on powers of, 322, 344-
346 ; dignity of, " De Aleatoribus "
on, 362 ; election of, St. Cyprian on,
335, 347, 348; election of, the
" Didache " on, 107, 108 ; right of
laity to choose, St. Oyprian on, 377 ;
equality of, St. Oyprian on, 362 ; as
guardians of the Deposit of Paith,
vii ; as guardians of Scripture,
Origen on, 321 ; of heretical bodies,
163 ; the Holy Sacrifice offered by,
336 ; Pagan and Christian, their in
dependent origin, 98 ; " Pope," title
given to all, 290; succession of, in
Jerusalem Church, Hegesippus on,
175 ; successors of the Apostles, 393,
405 ; unworthy, power of orders not
lost by — so Pope CaUistus, 378 ; lost
by— so St. Oyprian, 377, 378.
Bishops of Africa, the, St. Cyprian's
primacy over, 345 ; of Jerusalem, the,
Eusebius ou, 239, 240 ; of Palestine,
the, in synod condemn the Quarto
decimans, 240.
Bishops of Eome, the, succession of,
from St. Peter, St. Irenseus on,
203 ; verified by Hegesippus, 174 ;
successors of St. Peter, 411 ; author
ity of, attacked by TertuUian, 288,
289 ; significance of Tertullian's
attack on authority of, 290.
Bousset, on Judaism iu New Testa
ment times, 1 ; on the transforma
tion of Judaism into the Church, 1.
Burial Clubs and Christianity, De
Eossi on, 34.
Callistus Pope, on the Ohristian
Hierarchy, 294 ; on Christ's promise
to St. Peter as justifying the Eoman
Primacy, 291; Tertullian's polemic
against, 288, 290, 291.
Canon of the New Testament, fixed by
the Church, 400.
Canon of the Old Testament, inquiries
of Hegesippus into, 173; inquiries
of Papias into, 173.
Canon, the, principles of^ in " Cle
mentis Prima," 126.
Canon of Scripture, the, Origen on,
311.
Canon of Scripture, Marcion's, 235,
236.
Carthage, Council of, 344, 345, 356,
357, 373, 376 ; on validity of hereti
cal baptism, 381, 383, 384, 386.

Carthage, third Council of, its reply
to Pope Stephen, 391.
Carthaginian Church, the, officials of,
In time of St. Cyprian, 337.
Catholicism, antiquity of, Harnack
on, xxiii; attitude of Hegesippus
towards, 241 ; conception of, St.
Irenseus', 216 ; formation of, accord
ing to Protestant writers generally,
144 ; formation of, Eitschlian theory
of, 237 ; formation of, Sabatier on,
145-63; fundamentals of, acquired
by end of second century, 228 ;
heresy as posterior to, Clement of
Alexandria on, 260, 261 ; imperialist
conception of, 228 ; not of Eoman
origination, 229, 230 ; r61e of Eome
in genesis of, Eenan on, 157.
Catholicism, primitive, more like pri
mitive Christianity thau Protestant
ism, according to Harnack, x ; re
semblance of, to Judaism, 1.
" Catholic," use of term in Classical
and Patristic Literature, 139 ; term
first applied to the Church by St.
Ignatius, 170; identical with
'• Eoman," Harnack on, viii.
Celsus, "True Discourse" of, 193-6;
Origen on, 193 ; on the character of
Christians, 195 ; attack of, on Chris
tians for forming unlawful associa
tions, 36, 194 ; on the unity of the
Church, 196 ; on the Gnostics, 194,
196 ; on the disputable books of
Scripture, 247.
Cemeteries, the faithful buried in the
same, 342.
" Cepha," use of word in the Targums,
Hart on, 85.
Chapman, Dom, on editions of De
Unitate Ecclesice, 371-2.
Charisma, the Apostolate not a, xix ;
of prophecy, prominent in primitive
Christianity, 29.
Charismata, abundance of, in primi
tive Christianity, 29 ; authority of
the Church the outcome of the evo
lution of — so Sohm, XX ; " Cle
mentis Prima" on, 123; criteria of,
68 ; not always due to supernatural
revelation, 29; "Petri Prima" on,
113 ; St. Paul on, 29, 30 ; Renan on,
150 ; Sabatier on, 150, 151 ; pro
phetic, St. 'Justin Martyr on, 219 ;
prophetic, St. Irenseus on, 219.
" Charismatic anarchy," primitive
Christianity not a, xxii.
Charismatic element in the primitive
Church, subordinate to authority,
xviii.
"Christian," origin aud significance

INDEX

415

of name, 56 ; name applied by the
Jews and Pagans, 56.
Christians, the, charged with the
burning of Eome, 20 ; accused of
unnatural crimes by the Pagans,
25 ; mutual love of, the Pagans im
pressed by, 31 ; persecution of,
under Decius, 341, 350, 356; per
secution of, under Domitian, 26 ;
persecution of, under Nero, 17, 20;
persecution of, by Pliny the younger,
22; probity of, iu Bithynia, Pliny
on, 22, 25 ; solidarity and duties of,
St. Paul on, 68, 69 ; "a third race,"
74.
Christianity, apostolic, character of,
vi, vii ; as " pneumatic anar
chism," Harnack on, xiv ; sources
of authority in, Harnack on, xv.
Christianity, beginnings of, Tacitus
on, 17; as a "catechesis," 64;
"born Catholic," vii; social char
acter of, in Bithynia, 23 ; growth of
testimony to the divine character
of, 411 ; definition of, Tertullian's,
vi ; of Edessa, 229 ; as taught by
Jesus, 404 ; Judseo — two kinds dis
tinguished, 242, 243 ; Jewish origin
of, Sulpicius Severus on, 21 ; con
founded with Judaism by the Eoman
State before 64, 3, 18, 19; when
first distinguished from Judaism,
17, 28 ; detachment of, from the
Jewries, 34 ; Jewish tendencies iu
the earhest, 55 ; profession of, when
first forbidden by Eoman legislation,
22, 25; a "religio Olicita," 35, 36;
wide and rapid spread of, in
Bithynia, 22; unity and homo
geneity of, 408, 409.
Christianity, primitive, character of
almsgiving in, 31, 32 ; character of,
36 ; character of, Tacitus on, 17, 20 ;
not a "pneumatic anarchy "^ — ^so
Sohm, xviii; regarded as "athe
ism " by the Pagans, 18 ; a brother
hood from the start, 31 ; abundance
of charismata in, 29 ; not commun
istic, 31 ; and the collegia, difference
between, 33-5 ; local organizations
of, Harnack on, 153.
Church, the, as a social brotherhood
in time of St. Cyprian, 341, 342;
Canon of the New Testament fixed
by, 400 ; character of, Jesus ou the
lasting, visible and spiritual, 80 ;
corruption of morals in, Origen on,
299, 303 ; exercise of excommunica
tion by, Origen on, 298 ; beginnings
of, in the Gospels, Loisy on, 76;
attitude of Gnosticism to, 210, 211 ;

hierarchical basis of, St. Oyprian on,
349 ; origin of idea of, Loisy on, 76 ;
Kingdom of God, not identical with,
76 ; as a living magisterium, Origen
on, 313 ; teaching of St. Matthew on,
Wellhausen on, 83, 87; organiza
tion of, in the sub-apostolic age, 142 ;
organization and worship of, the
"DidacM" on, 107, 110; Origen's
theory of, Harnack on, 307 ; powers
granted by Christ to, Tertullian on,
292 ; as the one ark of salvation, St.
Cyprian on, 359, 382; Synagogue,
the, contrasted with, by Origen, 324 ;
conception of, Tertullian's, 128, 277 ;
testimony of, to herself, Mohler on,
144 ; transformation of Judaism,
iuto, 4; unity and nature of, 405,
406 ; unity of, recognized by Celsus,
196 ; unity of, St. Cyprian on, 348,
355, 358, 359, 363-5; unity of,
Firmilian on, 394; unity of, St.
Ignatius on, 133-5, 138, 139 ; unity
of, St. Irenseus on, 205-7, 216;
unity and nature of, Origen on, 300,
322-5 ; unity and nature of, St.
Paul on, 101, 102 ; unity aud con
stitution of, Petri Prima on, 112,
113 ; source of unity of, Clementis
Prima on, 123, 125 ; unity of, Her
mas on, 186 ; vision of, by Hermas,
186, 187 ; origins of, Sohm's theory,
Harnack on, xvi, xix-xxi.
" Church, concerning the," Greek
fragment entitled, 266.
Church, Jerusalem, the succession of
bishops in, Hegesippus on, 175;
corruption of, by Thebutis, 175, 240.
Church, the Pagan, contrasted with
the Ohristian, by Origen, 323.
Church, Palestinian, the, St. Matthew's
gospel, a work of, xiii, xiv, 81.
Church, primitive, the, character of,
Renan on, 150 ; part played by the
Episcopate in, 54 ; unity and solidar
ity of, Harnack on, 32.
Church, Roman, the, testimony of
Abercius to, 175-8; "boundless
charity of," praised by Dionysius of
Corinth, 185; ofacials of, in 251,
Pope Cornelius on, 337 ; as the test
of orthodoxy, St. Irenaus on, 209,
210 ; St. Peter the founder of, 203,
362; as bond of union for other
churches, St. Irenseus on, 207-10,
216 ; supremacy of, St. Irenseus on,
207-10, 216 ; wealth of, 185.
Church, significance of term in the
LXX, 70, 86 ; in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, 87; in St. Stephen's
speech in the Acts, 87; in the

416

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

"Didaoh^," UO; as used by St,
Paul, 70-3 ; Wellhausen on, 87.
Churches, African, the, excommuni
cated by Pope Stephen, 395.
Churches, Eastern, the, excommuni
cated by Pope Victor, 226, 227.
Churches, Gentile, the organization and
hierarchy of, in first century, 98, 99.
Churches, Seven, the, "Angels" of,
120, 122.
Claudius, expulsion of the Jews from
Rome by, 18.
Clement of Alexandria, date aud life
of, 246, 247; on baptism, 253, 254;
on the unity and universality of the
Church, 255, 261, 262 ; on the visible
and invisible Church, 254 ; nature
of Christianity of, E. de Paye on,
257 ; ecclesiology of, Harnack on,
246, 247 ; ecclesiology and theology
of, 246-63 ; on the Ecclesiastical
Canon, 248-50 ; on the Ecclesiastical
Gnosis, 257, 258, 263 ; Ecclesiastical
and Heretical Gnosis distinguished
by, 259; on the "True Gnostic,"
246, 269, 260; on Ecclesiastical
Tradition, 258, 259 ; ou heresy as
posterior to Catholicism, 260, 261 ;
on the Church as antithesis of
heresy, 255-7 ; on the Church as the
" best heresy," 287 ; on the powers
and functions of the Ohristian
Hierarchy, 251-3 ; Hypotyposes of,
247 ; on Pantsenus, 178, 179, 181 ;
" Blessed Presbyter," title of, 248 ;
on the " Tradition of Presbyters,"
248, 251 ; Stromata of, 250.
Clementine Homilies and Recogni
tions, the, Waitz on source of, 243 ;
date and character of, 243 ; Du
chesne on, 243.
Clergy and laity distinguished iu
" Clementis Prima," 127 ; remun
eration of, by the Church, St.
Oyprian on, 339 ; secular functions
forbidden to, in time of St. Oyprian,
338, 339.
" Collegia," the, Christianity different
from, 33-6; Christianity modelled
after, according to the Pagans, 33 ;
different from the Jewries in legal
status, 34 ; severity of legislation
for, 35.
Cornelius the Centurion, visit of St.
Peter to, 15.
Cornelius, Pope, on the officials of the
Roman Church in 251, 337 ; on the
fraudulent ordination of Novatian,
335.
Oumont, on the Pagan worship of the
" Elements," 100-4.

Deacon, see under " Hierarchy " ;
election of, the " DidacM " on, 107,
108.
Decius, attitude of, towards the
Roman See, 401, 403 ; persecution
of the Christians by, 341, 350, 356.
Deposit of Paith, entrusted by the
Apostles to guardianship of bishops,
vii ; in the Pastoral Epistles, 114,
116, 119.
"Didache," the, date and character
of, 105-7; on the function of
apostles, 109 ; on the formula of
Baptism, 107 ; ou the functions and
powers of the Christian Hierarchy,
107-9; on prophets, 109; on sub
ordination of individual inspiration
to authority, 106.
" Diognetus, Epistle to," author of,
179; theology of, 180, 181; on
Apostolic Tradition, 180, 181.
Dionysius of Alexandria, letter of, to
Pope Stephen, 398 ; on policy of
Pope Stephen, 396.
Dionysius of Corinth, letter of, to
Eusebius, 184.
Diotrephes, first known monarchical
bishop, 122.
Dispersion, Jewish, the, centres of, 2.
" Dispersion," the, sole Ohristian use
of term, 111.
Docetism, condemnation of, by St.
Ignatius, 134.
Dogma, development of, Origen on,
321.
" Dogma," primary significance of
term, 136, 166, 167.
Domitian, persecution of the Chris
tians by, 26.
Duchesne, on Burial-Clubs under the
Empire, 34 ; on authority of the
Roman Church, as taught by St.
Ignatius, 142 ; on the Church, 280 ;
on the semi-canonical authority of
" Clementis Prima," 187 ; on the
Council of Africa, 375 ; on Marcion,
230 ; on the Domitian persecution,
26 ; on the Neronic persecution, 25,
26 ; on " The Shepherd " of Hermas,
187.
Ebiomtes, the, not representative of
primitive orthodoxy, 154.
Edessa, Christianity of, 229.
" Elements of the World," meaning
of Pauline phrase, 100.
" Elements," the. Pagan worship of,
Cumont on, 100-4.
Eliezer, Rabbi, on the conditions of
becoming a proselyte, 12.
Episcopate, the, see under " Bishop "

INDEX

417

and " Hierarchy " ; forfeited by
penance, 345 ; originally plural, 54 ;
identical with the presbyterate,
Theodore of Mopsuestia on, 117 ; in
the primitive Church, Sohm on, 54.
Ethnarch, Jewish, the, in Egypt, func
tions of, 4.
Eucharist, the, celebrated weekly, on
Sunday, 67, 107 ; centre of new re
ligious life, 68 ; use of bread and
water in, by heretics, 249.
Eusebius, on the attempt of the
Jewish apostles to undermine
Christianity, 37, 38 ; on the bishops
of Jerusalem, 239, 240 ; rebuked by
Pope Julian for deposition of Athan
asius, 328 ; on the letters of Diony
sius of Corinth, 184 ; on Montanism,
221 ; on Pantsenus, 180.
" Evangelist," originsil and later mean
ings of term, 51.
Excommunicated, the, reconciliation
of, 343, 344.
Fabian, Bishop of Eome, letter of
Origen to, defending his orthodoxy,
328.
Past Days in the primitive Church,
107.
Felcissimus, the case of, and St.
Cyprian, 353, 354, 356, 373-5.
FirmiUan, on the liierarchical char
acter of the Church, 393 ; on the
unity of the Church, 394 ; invective
of, against the Eoman See, 392-5 ;
on the invalidity of heretical sacra
ments, 393, 394.
Fish, Jesus as the divine, 177, 178, 278.
Florinus, letter of St. Irenseus to, 167.
Fortunatianus, the case of, and St.
Oyprian, 377.
Galilee, when annexed to Judsea, 1.
" Gerim," on the initiation of a prose
lyte, il ; on Baptism as " bath of
levitical cleansing," 12.
" Glossolalia," 80.
Gnosis, Ecclesiastical, Clement of
Alexandria on, 257, 258 ; Ecclesi
astical and Heretical, distinguished
by Clement of Alexandria, 259, 263.
" Gnostic, True," the, Clement of
Alexandria on, 246, 259, 260.
Gnosticism, character of, Harnack on,
214 ; pre-Christian origin of, Light
foot on, 100 ; Hegesippus on, 175 ;
historical significance of, 210 ; at
tacked in the Pastoral Epistles, 115 ;
and the Symbol of the Apostles, 161.
Gnostics, the, appeal to Apostolic
Tradition rejected by, 213, 214;

Catholic attitude towards, 212 ; at
titude of, towards the Church, 210,
211 ; Celsus on, 194, 196 ; doctrines
of, 211-6; St. Irenaus on, 210-3;
St. Justin Martyr on, 190-193;
treatment of the Scriptures by, 212.
Gore, on the "permanent process of
ordination," 118.
Gospel, the, character and credentials
of, St. Paul on, 64, 66.
Gospels, the Pour, origin of, St.
Irenaeus on, 201; Origen on, 311;
universalism in, 92-5.
Hasnack, on sources of authority of
Apostolic Christianity, xv ; on the
Ohristian Apostolate, 39; on the
nature of the earliest Ohristian
community, 77, 78 ; on the relations
of Jewish Ohristian communities to
the Church, 155 ; on local organiza
tions in primitive Christianity, 153 ;
on the charismatic element in
primitive Christianity, xviii; on
the antiquity of Catholicism,
xxiii ; on the author's " Primitive
Catholicism," viii - xi ; on Sohm's
theory of Church Origins, xvi,
xix-xxi ; on the unity and solid
arity of the primitive Church, 32;
on the causes of the unity of the
Church, 152 ; on the ecclesiology of
Clement of Alexandria, 246, 247 ; on
the character of Gnosticism, 214;
on Marcion, 237 ; on the origin and
character of St. Matthew's Gospel,
81, 82 ; on Origen's theory of the
Church, 307 ; on Origen's Doctrine
of Apostolic Succession, 311 ; on the
Eeformation, xxi; on "Eoman"
as identical with "Catholic," viii;
on Eoman Catholicism in Clementis
Prima, xi ; on the causes of Eoman
Primacy, 152; on the relations of
the Eastem Churches with the
Eoman See, 329; on Pope Victor's
excommunication of the Eastern
Churches, 226.
Hasmonseans, the Jews under the, 4.
Hebrews, the Epistle to the, on the
character of the early preaching of
Christianity, 29.
Hebrews, the Gospel of the, 241-3;
commentary of Symmachus on, 243.
Hegesippus, inquiries of, iuto the
"true tradition of Apostolic Doc
trine," 173, 174; inquiries of, into
the Canon of the Old Testament,
173; attitude of, towards Catholi
cism, 241 ; succession of bishops of
Eome verified by, 174; on succes-

27

418

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

sion of bishops in Jerusalem
Church, 175 ; on corruption of
Church of Jerusalem, 175.
Helbo, Eabbi, on proselytes to
Judaism, 17.
Heraclitus, aa a disciple of Moses, 7.
" Heresy," origin and use of term,
115 ; Julicher on term, 115.
Heresy, sources and characteristics of,
TertulUan on, 265-76, 279, 280 ; com
bated iu the Apocalypse, 119, 120;
combated in the Johannine Epistles,
121, 122 ; genealogy of, St. Irenseus
on, 215.
Hermas, as Prophet and Visionary,
218 ; " The Shepherd " of, 186, 187 ;
"The Shepherd" of, forbidden to
be read iu Church, 285, 286; on
pseudo-prophets, 218 ; on the unity
of the Church, 186 ; his vision of the
Church, 186, 187.
" Heterodox," term first applied to
heretics by Origen, 316.
Hierarchical basis of the Church, St.
Oyprian on, 349.
Hierarchical idea, the, recognized by
TertuUian, SS. Oyprian and Iren
seus, 349.
Hierarchy, the Ohristian, functions
and powers of, 299-301, 303, 306,
307; Pope Callistus on, 294; Ole-
meut of Alexandria on, 251-3;
"Clementis Prima" on, 127, 128,
129 ; " Clementis Secunda " on, 182 ;
St. Oyprian on, 333-6, 338-47, 351,
352 ; the " DidacM " on, 107-9 ; the
Ignatian Epistles, 132, 133, 135,
136 ; Lightfoot on, 98 ; the Pastoral
Epistles on, 117, 118, 119; Origen
on, 320, 321 ; Tertullian on, 279,
280 ; source of, 405, 406 ; Tertullian's
attack on, 286-8, 290, 291.
Hillel and the Pharisaic Tradition,
9.
Hillel, School of, on the " uucleau-
ness" of Gentile proselytes, 13:
Hippolytus, on the forgiveness of sins
after Baptism, 288.
Holtzmann, on the date of St. Mat
thew's Gospel, 89 ; on the analysis
of the Pastoral Epistles, 119.
Homer, apocryphal texts attributed to,
in the interests of Judaism, 7.
lDUMa)A, when annexed to Judsea, 1.
Ignatian Epistles, the, v, 131-42;
authenticity of, 158.
Ignatius, St. ou the authority of the
Apostles, 138 ; use of term " Catho
lic" by, 170, 171; on the unity of
the Church, 133-5, 138, 139; con

demnation of Docetism by, 134 ; on
the Eoman Primacy, 140-2.
Irenseus, St., life and teaching of, 199-
210; on Apostolic Tradition, 202,
203 ; on the succession of the bishops
of Eome from St. Peter, 203 ; Pro
testant theory of his role in the
evolution of Catholicism, 164 ; on
prophetic charismata, 219 ; on the
nature of the Church, 205-7, 216;
on the pre-eminence of the Eoman
Church, 207-10, 216; letter of, to
Florinus, 167 ; on origin of the Pour
Gospels, 201 ; ou the Gnostics, 210-
213 ; on the genealogy of heretics,
215 ; intervention of, in the Paschal
Controversy, 227 ; on St. Polycarp's
relations with the Apostles, 204 ; re
lations of, with SS. John the Apostle
aud Polycarp, 167 ; on the Eule of
Paith, 198, 199 ; letter of, to Pope
Victor on the Easter Question, 169,
227 ; Victor's right of excommunica
tion not questioned by, 228.
Izatis, conversion of, 15.
" Jason, Eialogdb of," Aristo's, 241.
" Jebamoth," on the initiation of a
proselyte, 11 ; on the necessity of
baptism to becoming a proselyte,
12.
Jerusalem, destruction of, its influence
on Christianity, 154, 155.
Jewish community in Egypt, poUty of,
Strabo on, 4 ; communities, official
names of, in inscriptions, 4 ; cus
toms, penetration of heathen en
vironments by, 14 ; theocracy,
character of, 5.
Jewries, legal status of, different from
that of the collegia, 34.
Jews, the, non-absorption of, in other
peoples, reason of, 5 ; expulsion of,
from Eome by Claudius, 18 ; expul
sion of, from Eome by Tiberius, 3 ;
under Hasmonsean rule, 4 ; hostility
of, towards characteristic features of
Pagan social life, 3 ; hostility of,
towards foreigners, Tacitus on, 5 ;
attitude of, towards idolatry, Pliny
the Elder on, 3; monotheism and
anti-idolatry of, Tacitus on, 13 ; legal
privileges of, uuder the Empire, 3 ;
aversion of, to mixed marriages, 3 ;
the large numbers of, in Egypt in
time of Philo, 2 ; "a race of philo
sophers," 7.
Johannine Epistles, the, heresy com
bated in, 121, 122.
John the Presbyter, relations of, with
Papias, 173.

INDEX

419

Josephus, on the theocratic character
of the Jewish constitution, 5; on
the wide vogue of the Sabbath in the
Eoman Empire, 14.
Josua, Eabbi, on the conditions of be
coming a proselyte, 12.
Jubaianus, letter of St. Oyprian to, on
invalidity of heretical baptism, 387.
Judseo-Christianity, gradual isolation
of, from Catholicism, 16.
Judaism, golden age of, 2 ; re
semblance of first century, to
primitive Catholicism, 1 ; transfor
mation of, into the Church, Bousset
on, 4 ; date of expansion of, in the
Greek cities, 2; geographical ex
pansion of, in New Testament
times, Bousset on, 1 ; HeUenized, 8,
9; HeUenized and Pharisaic, con
trasted, 16 ; Pharisaic, claims of, 9 ;
as a " wisdom " (cro(p(a), 6.
Judaizers, the, attitude of, towards St.
Paul, 58, 59, 61, 63 ; not synonymous
with Jewish Christians, 60 ; at
tacked in the Pastoral Epistles, 116 ;
St. Paul warns the PhUippians
against, 9.
Jiilicher, on term "heresy," 115; on
character of St. Matthew's Gospel,
xiu, 82.
Julius, Pope, Eusebians rebuked by, for
deposition of Athanasius, 328.
Juvenal, on Eoman proselytes to
Judaism, 14, 15.
Kattenbusch, on date of the Roman
Symbol, 160.
Kingdom of God, the, teaching of
Jesus on, 75-7, 79 ; not identical
with the Church, 76 ; in the Gospels,
character of, Loisy on, 78, 79.
" Kingdom of Heaven, Keys of," force
of the expression, 90.
Kreyenbuhl, on Christ's Promise to St.
Peter, 95, 96.

Laity and Clbeics, distinguished in
"Clementis Prima," 127; rights and
powers of, St. Cyprian ou, 340.
" Laos," Jewish communities called,
in inscriptions, 4.
Lapsi, the, question of, St. Cyprian on,
350-4, 378; refusal of Bishop of
Aries to follow practice of reconcilia
tion of, 378.
Lectorate, the, St. Cyprian on, 338.
Lightfoot, on functions and powers of
the Christian Hierarchy, 98 ; on
authorship of the " Epistle to Diog
netus," 179 ; on the pre-Christian
origin of Gnosticism, 100. 27

Logia, the, Papias on, 172.
Loisy, on the beginnings of the Church
iu the Gospels, 78 ; on the origin of
the idea of the Church, 76; ou the
character of the Kingdom of God in
the Gospels, 78, 79 ; on the non-
authenticity of John xxi, 81 ; ou
date of St. Matthew's Gospel, 89 ;
on Christ's promise to St. Peter
and the Roman Primacy, 91.
Magnus, letter of St. Oyprian to, on
the rebaptism of heretics, 381-3.
Mareianus, the case of, and St.
Oyprian, 378-80.
Marcion, Duchesne on, 230 ; Harnack
on, 237 ; St. Justin Martyr on, 233,
234 ; Tertullian's polemic against,
235-7 ; his Canon of Scripture, 235,
236 ; encounter of, with St. Poly
carp, 231.
Marcionite, the, Rule of Paith, 236.
Marcionites, the, TertuUian ou, 233.
Marriages, mixed, hostility of the Jews
to, 3.
Mithraism, its organizations and
manner of growth contrasted with
those of Christianity, 33.
Mohler, on the Church's testimony to
herself, 144.
Montanism, rise and character of,
163, 217-21; effect of, on Oatho-
licism, 163 ; condemned by the
Eoman Church, 285, 286; con
demned by Serapion, 220, 221 ; op
position of all Christendom to, 221 ;
regional differentiations of, 407 ;
Eusebius on, 221 ; as a revival of
the " Prophetic Spirit," Sabatier
ou, 148 ; as a " spiritual " movement,
28; TertuUian on, 283, 284; con
version of TertulUan to, 264 ; Ter
tullian's reason for embracing, St.
Jerome on, 285.
Montanist, TertuUian as, 286-93.
Montanists, the, appeal of, to Eome
for recognition, 222.
Montanus, disowned by the Church,
284 ; raptures of, described, 220.
Moses, the Greek philosophers as dis
ciples of, 7.

Nebo, persecution of the Christians
by, 17, 20, 25-8: Duchesne on, 25,
26 ; Orosius on, 26 ; Tertullian on,
26, 27 ; reason of, Suetonius on, 27,
28 ; favour of, to the Jews, 20 ; sus
pected of setting fire to Eome, 20.
Novatian Schism, the, Novatian and
Novatus, 356, 357 ; and St. Oyprian,
354-7, 361.

420

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

Oriqbn, on Ohristian Asceticism, 304 ;
on Apostolic Succession, 310, 311 ;
on Baptism, 298, 304 ; on the pre
paration of candidates for Baptism,
298; on the Baptism&l Symbols,
312 ; on the Canon of Scripture,
811 ; on use of term " Catholic,"
324 ; on Catechumens, 298, 304 ; on
Celsus, 193 ; on the Church as a
living magisterium, 313 ; on the
corruption of morals in the Church,
299, 303; on the office of Doctors
in the Church, 314, 315 ; on the dif
ference between the Church and the
philosophical schools, 298 ; on the
Pagan " Church " as contrasted with
the Christian, 323 ; on the Church
as contrasted with the Synagogue,
324 ; on the nature and unity of the
Church, 300, 322-5; on the results
of Ohristianity being embraced by
the Eomans, 330, 331 ; on the Greek
philosophy in relation to Christian
ity, 296 ; Christianity and Judaism
contrasted by, 330 ; Pagan calumnies
against Ohristianity rebutted by,
295, 296; on the universality of
Christianity, 295 : on the refusal of
some Christians to enter Army, 330 ;
ou the high moral character of the
Christians, 330 ; on the development
of Dogma, 321; appeal of, to Ec
clesiastical Tradition and Authority
against heresy, 309-11, 317, 319,
320 ; on the exercise of excommuni
cation by the Church, 298 ; on
Esoteric aud Exoteric Christian
Doctrine, 314 ; letter of, to Fabian,
Bishop of Eome, defending his
orthodoxy, 328 ; on the rational
grounds of Paith, 296 ; on the Pour
Gospels, 311 ; polemic of, against
heretics, 316-21 ; relations of, with
the heretic Paul at Alexandria, 297 ;
on Christ's Promise to St. Peter,
308, 326 ; corruptions of the Ohris
tian Priesthood denounced by, 304,
305 ; deposed from the Priesthood
by Demetrius of Alexandria, 327,
328; on the value of Greek philo
sophy, 295, 314, 315 ; and the Eoman
See, 327-29 ; on the spiritual sense
of Scripture, 312 ; on Virgins, 304.
Orosius, on the Neronic Persecution,
26.
Pantaenus, Anastasius Sinaita on,
179, 181 ; Clement of Alexandria on,
178, 179, 181; Eusebius on, 180;
preacher of the Gospel in Arabia or
India, 399.

Papias, appeal of, to Apostolic Tradi
tion, 172, 173 ; inquiries of, into the
Old Testament Canon, 173 ; rela
tions of, with St. John the Presby
ter, 173 ; on the Logia, 172.
Paschal Controversy, the, 222-7.
Pastoral Epistles, the, authorship and
character of, 114-9; analysis of,
Holtzmann on, 119.
Paul of Samosata, condemned by
council at Antioch, 328 ; deposition
of, intervention of Emperor in, 329.
Paul, St., defence of his apostolic
character by, 42-7; as Jewish
apostle, 39; as Apostle of the Un
circumcision, 47 ; use of term " apos
tle" by, 40, 41; denunciation of
" false apostles " by, 42 ; relations
of, with the Jerusalem apostles, 46,
47 ; on the Apostles as foundation
of the Church, 101 ; on Charismata,
29, 30 ; on the unity of the Church,
67, 73 ; on use of term " Church,"
70-3 ; on the solidarity and duties
of Christians, 67-69, 73; on the
character and credentials of the
Gospel, 64, 66; attitude of the
Judaizers towards, 58, 59, 61, 63 ;
the PhUippians warned against the
Judaizers by, 9 ; teaching of, on
justification, identical with St.
Peter's, 61-4; martyrdom of, at
Eome, 26, 277 ; founder of the
Eoman Church, with St. Peter,
203 ; sole reference of, to " The
Twelve," 48.
Paulinism, approved of and en
couraged by the Jerusalem Apostles,
57, 58.
Pella, Jerusalem Christians flee to,
240.
Penance, public, for grave sins, 344 ;
remission of, by martyrs, 350, 351.
Peraea, wheu annexed to Judsea, 1.
Persecution, of the Christians, by
Decius, 341, 350, 356 ; by Domitian,
26 ; by Nero, 17, 20, 25, 26 ; by Pliny
the Younger, 22-4 ; by Valerian, 257,
333
" Peter, the Preaching of," 243.
Peter, St., as Apostle of the Circumci
sion, 47 ; visit of, to Cornelius, 15 ;
as founder of Eoman Church, with
St. Paul, St. Irenseus on, 203 ; con
nection of, with St. Mark, Clement
of Alexandria on, 247 ; martyrdom
of, at Rome, 26, 277 ; place of,
among the Apostles in the primitive
Ohristian community, Harnack on,
xiv; adhesion of, to St. Paul's
doctrine of justification, 61-4; con-

INDEX

421

ference of, with St. Paul at Jeru
salem, 46, 47 ; prerogatives of,
Origen on, 326, 327; primacy of,
Weizsacker on, 92 ; promise to,
Christ's, xiu, 84-6, 89-91; Harnack
on, xii, xiii ; Kreyenbiihl on, 95,
96 ; Origen on, 308, 326 ; Resch on,
84; Tertullian on, 291, 292, 359;
Wellhausen on, xiii ; as justifying
Roman Primacy, Loisy on, 91 ; as
establishing Episcopacy, St. Cyprian
on, 352, 353 ; chair of, the source of
the unity of the priesthood, St.
Oyprian on, 374 ; the bishops of
Rome successors of, 411 ; apocry
phal epistle of, to St. James, 243-5.
" Petri Prima," date of, Ul ; on
Charismata, 113.
Pharisaic Tradition, the, and its
transmitters, 9.
Philo of Alexandria, use of allegorical
method by, 8 ; as Hellenizer, 8 ;
legendary meeting of, with St. Peter
at Eome, 19.
Pindar, apocryphal texts attributed
to, in interests of Judaism, 7.
Pliny the Elder, on the Jewish attitude
towards idolatry, 3.
Pliny the Younger, correspondence
of, with Trajan on Christianity in
Bithynia, 22-4, 407 ; persecution of
the Bithynian Christians by, 22-4.
Polycarp, St., dispute of, with Anicetus
on the Easter Question, 169, 170,
222 ; relations of, with the Apostles,
St. Irenseus on, 204 ; relations of,
with SS. John the Apostle and
Irenseus, 167; date of martyrdom
of, 166 ; encounter of, with Marcion,
231 ; Epistle of, to the PhUippians,
165, 166, 168.
" Polycarpi, Martyrium," 170.
Polycrates, intervention of, in the
Paschal Controversy, 223-5.
Pontius, on St. Cyprian's conduct as
priest, 337.
Pope {Papa), when first applied to the
Bishop of Eome, 290, 304 ; originaUy
title of all bishops, 290.
Prayer (-^rpoaevx-ii), term applied to a
synagogue, 6.
Presbyterate, the, as identical with the
Episcopate, Theodore of Mopsuestia
on, 117.
Presbyters, College of, 117.
Presbyters of the Synagogue, 6.
Presbyters, see under " Hierarchy."
Presbyters, Tradition of, St. Irenseus
on, 202 ; Papias on, 172.
"Prescription," use of term by
Tertullian, 272.

Priesthood, Jewish, the, full control of,
by the Sadducees, 8.
Prophets, the " Didach6 " on, 109.
Prophets, Pseudo-, Hermas on, 218.
Proselyte, Jewish, conditions of be
coming, 11, 12; initiation of,
" Gerim " on, 11 ; " unclean," 7 days
after circumcision, 13.
Proselytes of the Gate, Schiirer on, 11,
15, 16.
Proselytes of Eighteousness, 11, 13,
15.
Proselytes, Jewish, designation of, in
inscriptions, 10 ; hatred of, for non-
Jews, 15 ; large number of, 10.
Proselytism, Jewish, brief survival of,
after destruction of Jerusalem, 16.
Pythagoras, as a disciple of Moses, 7.
Quartodecimans, the, condemned by
bishops of Palestine in synod, 240 ;
excommunicated by Pope Victor,
226, 227.
Quintus, letter of St. Cyprian to, on
invalidity of heretical baptism, 385,
386.
Rabbinism, the essence of, 9.
Reformation, the, Harnack on, xxi.
Renan, on the nature of the primitive
Church, 150 ; on Charismata, 150 ;
on Rome's r61e in the genesis of
Catholicism, 157.
Resch, on Christ's Promise to St.
Peter, 84.
Ritschlian theory, the, of the forma
tion of Catholicism, 237.
Roman Primacy, recognized by Aure
lian, 329 ;St. Ignatius on, 140-2.
Roman See, the, first record of appeal
to, 130; recognized by St. Oyprian
as mother of the Catholic Church,
401; as the "Place of Peter," St.
Cyprian on, 402 ; special importance
of, recognized by St. Cyprian, 401 ;
attitude of Decius towards, 401, 403 ;
pre-eminence of, shown by the ap
peal of FeUcissimus and Basilides,
380.
Rome, burning of in 64, 17, 20 ; the
Christians charged with, 20.
Eossi, De, on Christianity and the
Burial Clubs, 34.
Rule of Paith, the, St. Irenseus on,
198, 199 ; insufficiency of Scripture
as, St. Ignatius on, 136, 137 ; Mar
cionite, 236 ; TertuUian on, 267, 273,
275, 281, 282.
Sabatiee, on the formation of
Catholicism, 145-63; on Charis-

422

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

mata, 150, 151; his "Religions of
Authority," 145 ; on Montanism as
revival of the " Prophetic Spirit,"
148 ; on the Symbol of the Apostles,
148, 160.
Sabbath, the, wide vogue of, Josephus
on, 14.
Sacrifice, the Holy, offered by bishops
and priests, 336.
Sadducees, the, full control of the
Jewish priesthood by, 8 ; wealth of,
at Jerusalem, 32.
Schiirer, on " Proselytes of the Gate,"
11, 15, 16.
Scripture, disputable books of, Celsus
on, 247 ; insufficiency of, as a Rule
of Paith, St. Ignatius on, 136, 137 ;
heretical appeal to, Tertullian on,
267, 269 ; value of, as compared with
Greek philosophy, Origen on, 314,
315.
Seneca, on the penetration of heathen
environments by Jewish customs,
14.
Septimius Severus, measures of,
against the Jews and the Christians,
242.
Septuagint, the, date of, 7 ; antipathy
of the Zealots to, 7.
Serapion, condemnation of Montanism
by, 220, 221.
Shammai and the Pharisaic Tradition,
9.
Shammai, school of, on lawfulness of
circumcised Gentiles eating the
Pasch, 13.
Simon Magus, St. Justin Martyr on,
190 ; as heresiaroh, Tertullian on,
271; heretics connected with, ac
cording to orthodox writers, 215.
Simon the Just and the Pharisaic
Tradition, 9.
Sohm, on Charismata, xvii, xx;
on Christian origins, xvi-xxi ; on
the part played by the Episcopate
in the primitive Church, 54 ; on
" Clementis Prima," 130.
Sophocles, apocryphal texts attributed
to, in interests of Judaism, 7.
Soter, Pope, charity of, 185.
St. Clement of Rome, " Clementis
Prima," xviii, xx, xxii, 122-31 ;
" Clementis Prima," principles of
canon in, 126 ; " Clementis Prima,"
Roman Catholicism in, Harnack on,
xi ; " Clementis Prima," on Charis
mata, 123 ; " Clementis Secunda,"
181-4; "Clementis Secunda" on
Baptism, 182-4; "Clementis Se
cunda " on the nature of the Church,
183, 184.

St. Oyprian, life, teaching and times
of, 332-66; on almsgiving as ex
piation, 344; on equality of the
Apostles, 358, 364 ; on Apostolic
Succession, 335; on Aurelius the
Martyr, 338 ; on forgiveness of sins
after Baptism, 344 ; on invalidity of
heretical baptism, letter to Jubai
anus, 387, 396, 397 ; on invalidity of
heretical baptism, letter to Bishop
of Numidia, 383, 384 ; on invalidity
of heretical baptism, letter to
Quintus, 385, 386 ; primacy of, over
bishops of Africa, 345 ; on autonomy
of bishops, 388, 389 ; on bishops'
power of excommunication, 342,
343 ; philanthropic work of the
Church in time of, 341, 342 ; on the
unity of the Church, 348, 355, 358,
359, 363-65 ; on the Church as the
one ark of salvation, 359, 382; ou
the remuneration of the clergy by
the Church, 339 ; on the oil of
chrism, 384 ; views of, on Epis
copacy, 365; and the case of FeU
cissimus, 353, 354, 356, 373-5; and
the case of Fortunatianus, 377;
on heretics, 382, 383 ; on ecclesi
astical unity as opposed to heresy,
358 ; letter of, to Magnus on re-
baptism of heretics, 381-3 ; on in
validity of heretical sacraments,
361, 381-6, 388, 391, 396, 397, 400;
on the powers and functions of the
Ohristian Hierarchy, 333-6, 338-47,
351, 352; on the question of the
Lapsi, 340, 350-4, 378 ; on the
Lectorate, 338 ; denunciation of
Mareianus by, 378, 379, 380; and
the case of MartiaUs and Basilides,
375, 376 ; and the Novatian Schism,
354-7, 361 ; on Christ's promise to
St. Peter, as estabUshing Epis
copacy, 352, 353, 358, 361-3, 365;
on St. Peter as founder of the
Roman Church, 362; on St. Peter's
Chair as source of the unity of the
priesthood, 374 ; episcopal autonomy
maintained by, 391 ; conduct of, as
priest, Pontius on, 337 ; on nature
of primacy of the Roman See, 364 ;
on schismatics, 358, 360, 361, 382,
383 ; letters of, to Pope Stephen,
379, 380, 386, 387, 389; reply of
Pope Stephen to, 388, 389; refusal
ot, to Usten to Stephen's delegates,
386 ; " De Unitate " of, its date and
occasion of pubUcation, 357; "De
Unitate " of, its argument, 365 ;
" De Unitate " of, editions of, 366-
72 ; " De Unitate," question of

INDEX

423

interpolations in, 366-72 ; Dom
Chapman on, 371-2.
St. Jerome, on the Judseo-Christian
ity of Palestine, 242 ; on TertuUian's
reasons for embracing Montanism,
285.
St. John the Apostle, relations of, with
SS. Polycarp and Irenseus, 167, 204.
St. Justin Martyr, the Apologies of, v,
188, 191; his "Dialogue with
Trypho," 188, 191, 193; on Apos
tolic Tradition, 189 ; rite of Baptism
described by, 189 ; on prophetic
charismata, 2i9 ; on the attempt of
the Jewish apostles to undermine
Christianity, 38; on the universal
vogue of Christianity, 189 ; on the
Gnostics, 190-3; on Marcion, 233,
234; on Simon Magus, 190; "Syn
tagma " of, 187, 188.
St. Mary, as "the spotless Virgin," in
scription of Abercius on, 177, 1'78.
St. Mark, connection of, with St.
Peter, Clement of Alexandria on,
247.
St. Matthew's Gospel, date of, accord
ing to various authorities, 8i, 82, 89 ;
origin and character of, Harnack on,
81, 82; character of, Julicher on,
xiii, 82 ; ecclesiastical character of,
xii; teaching of, on the Church,
83, 87 ; a work of the Palestinian
Church, xiii, xiv, 81.
Stephen, Pope, on the validity of
heretical baptism, 387, 389, 390,
392 ; ou the ex opere operato efficacy
of Baptism, 397 ; appeal of Basilides
to, 375, 376 ; letter of St. Cyprian to,
380, 386, 387, 389; reply of, to St.
Oyprian, 388, 389; on the Roman
Primacy, 389, 390; reply of third
Council of Carthage to, 391 ; letter
of Dionysius of Alexandria to, 398 ;
policy of, Dionysius of Alexandria
on, 396.
Strabo, on the polity of the Jewish
community in Egypt, 4; on the
functions of the Jewish Ethnarch
iu Egypt, 4.
Suetonius, character of, as historian,
27 ; on the expulsion of the Jews
from Eome by Claudius, 18 ; on the
reasons of the Neronic persecution,
27, 28.
Sulpicius Severus, on the Jewish
origin of Ohristianity, 21 ; on Titus
and the burning of the Temple,
21.
Sunday, celebration of the Eucharist
on 67, 107.
Symbol of the Apostles, the, 160-2;

and Gnosticism, 161; Sabatier on,
148, 160.
Symbol, the Roman, Kattenbusch on
date of, 160.
Symbols of Faith, Eastern and Roman,
160, 161.
Symmachus, commentary of, on the
Gospel of the Hebrews, 243.
" Synagogue," original and derivative
meanings of term, 69.
Synagogue, the, date of introduction,
6 ; hierarchy and polity of, 6 ; called
a " prayer " {trporrevx-h)^ 6 ; presi
dent of, 6 ; presbyters of, 6.
Synagogue, the Great, and Pharisaic
Tradition, 9.
Tacitus, on the character of primitive
Ohristianity, 17, 20; ou Christian
origins, 17 ; on Jewish exclusive-
uess and hostility towards foreigners,
5 ; on Jewish monotheism and anti-
idolatry, 13.
Tertullian, date and Ufe of, 264; on
Apostolic Tradition, 269, 270, 273,
274, 276 ; on Apostolic Succession,
269, 274 ; on Baptism, 277, 278, 387 ;
conversion of, to Montanism, 264 ;
as Montanist, 292, 293 ; polemic of,
against Pope Callistus in " De Pudi
citia," 288, 290, 291 ; his conception
of the Church, 128, 277 ; his defini
tion of Christianity, vi, 36 ; in
debtedness of St. Oyprian to, 332;
ou Ebion as heresiarch, 271 ; on the
resemblance of Gnosticism to Greek
philosophy, 265, 266 ; on the sources
and characteristics of heresy, 265-76,
279, 280 ; on the heretical appeal to
Scripture, 267, 269 ; on the functions
and powers of the Ohristian Hier
archy, 279, 280; attack of, on the
Christian Hierarchy, 286-8, 290, 291 ;
polemic of, against Marcion, 235-7 ;
on the Marcionites, 233 ; on the
Neronic Persecution, 26, 27 ; on St.
Peter, 277 ; on Christ's Promise to
St. Peter, 359 ; " Prescriptione, De "
of, 271-6 ; use of term " prescrip
tion " by, 272 ; on Rome as the
centre of unity, 277 ; on the Rule
of Paith, 267, 273, 275, 281, 282 ; on
Simon Magus as heresiarch, 271 ; on
the Valentinians, 333.
Thebutis, corruption of the Jerusalem
Church by, 175, 240.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, on the iden
tity of the Episcopate and Presby
terate, 117.
Tiberius, expulsion of Jews from Eome
by, 3.

424

PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM

Titus, deliberation of, on the burning
of the Temple, 21.
Toleration, religious, and the Eoman
State, 17, 18.
Trajan, letter of, to Pliny on principles
to be pursued in all measures against
the Christians, 25.
" Trypho, Dialogue with," St. Justin's,
188, 191, 193.
" Twelve, the," in the Acts, 50, 51 ; in
the Apocalypse, 48, 52 ; in the
Gospels, 48-50; St. Paul's sole re
ference to, 48 ; right of supervision
exercised by, Weizsacker on, 51 ;
not exhaustive of number of dis
ciples, 51, 52.
Valentinians, the, Tertullian on, 233.
Valerian, edict of, and persecution of
the Christians by, 257^33.
Victor, Pope, as autlfcr of " De

Aleatoribus," Harnack on, 363 ; ex
communication of the Eastern
Churches by, 226, 227 ; his power of
excommunication not questioned by
St. Irenseus, 228 ; intervention of,
in the Paschal Controversy, 222, 223,
225-7 ; letter of, to Polycrates on
the Paschal Controversy, 223-5.
Waitz, on the source of the Clemen
tines, 243.
Weizsacker, on St. Peter's Primacy,
92 ; on right of supervision exercised
by " The Twelve," 51.
Wellhausen, on the term "Church,"
87 ; on St. Matthew's teaching con
oerning the Church, 83 ; on Christ's
Proniise to St. Peter, xiii.
Xtstus, Pope, renewal of relations
between Rome and Africa by, 396.

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