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 LIBRA 
 
THE ORGANIZATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES 
 
OXFORD: 
 
 BY B. PICKAED HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STACY, 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
THE ORGANIZATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Christian 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES 
 
 Delivered before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1880 
 
 On the Foundation of the late Kev. John Hampton, M.A. 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY 
 
 EDWIN HATCH, M.A. 
 
 VICE-PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY HALL 
 AND GRINFIELD LECTUR^B-ibl-aHe.^SEPTUAGINT, OXFORD 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCtXXXlI 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 EEV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 - " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
 " Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of 
 " Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the 
 " said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and 
 " purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and 
 " appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- 
 " ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, 
 " issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, 
 " and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- 
 " mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser- 
 " mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and 
 " to be performed in the manner following : 
 
 " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in 
 " Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads 
 " of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining 
 " to the Printing- House, between the hours of ten in the 
 " morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity 
 " Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox- 
 " ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent 
 " Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. 
 
Vi EXTEACT FROM CANON BAMPTON's WILL. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
 " Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Sub- 
 " jects to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to 
 " confute all heretics and schismatics upon the divine au- 
 " thority of the holy Scriptures upon the authority of the 
 " writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and prac- 
 " tice of the primitive Church upon the Divinity of our Lord 
 " and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Divinity of the Holy 
 " Ghost upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre- 
 " bended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. 
 
 " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- 
 " ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months 
 " after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the 
 " Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of 
 " every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of 
 " Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; 
 " and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the 
 " revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the 
 " Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be 
 " paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are 
 " printed. 
 
 t( Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali- 
 " fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath 
 " taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the 
 " two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the 
 u same . person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser- 
 " mons twice." 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 THE author of the following Lectures is very sensible of 
 the complexity of the facts with which he has had to deal, 
 and of the importance of the issues which he has raised. 
 Nor is he so confident in his own powers of historical analysis 
 as to think that the conclusions at which he has arrived 
 will be in every case the ultimate verdict of those who are 
 competent to decide upon the evidence. The only title to 
 attention which he ventures to urge is that he has en- 
 deavoured faithfully to collect, sift, and compare the avail- 
 able evidence, and to draw the conclusions to which that 
 evidence seems to point, without reference to other hypotheses, 
 however venerable from their antiquity, or however widely 
 diffused in the Christian world. And the only claim which 
 he makes from those who pass judgment upon his conclusions 
 is, that which is in fact the postulate of all historical en- 
 quiry, that such judgments shall be formed with reference 
 to the evidence, and not with reference to current or counter 
 hypotheses. 
 
 Of that evidence only a small portion could, in most cases, 
 be given in the notes. The author has for the most part 
 confined himself, in those notes, to mentioning facts which, 
 as far as he is aware, have not hitherto been collected, or the 
 bearings of which upon ecclesiastical history have not been 
 appreciated, and to stating the patristic or other authorities 
 for facts which are likely to be unfamiliar to those who have 
 not made ecclesiastical history their study. Where the evi- 
 dence is fully and accurately stated in other works, he has 
 
viii Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 thought it sufficient to refer to those works ; in the notes to 
 the last lecture he has been indebted for some facts of me- 
 diaeval history to the valuable, but as yet unfinished, work 
 of Professor Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und 
 Protestanten in Deutschland; and in some cases he has 
 thought it sufficient to refer to, instead of partially reprinting, 
 his own contributions to the second volume of the Dictionary 
 of Christian Antiquities. But he has not attempted to give 
 the bibliography of any portion of the subject, partly because 
 to have done so completely would have extended the volume 
 to an inconvenient length, and partly also because he wishes 
 to avoid even the semblance of sharing in the prevalent con- 
 fusion of idea between the knowledge of a subject in itself 
 and an acquaintance with the books which have been written 
 about it. 
 
 The author takes this opportunity of expressing his obli- 
 gations to the friends who on one or two points outside the 
 range of his own studies have corrected his imperfect infor- 
 mation, and to the officers of the Bodleian Library for their 
 special and courteous attention. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 January 26, 1881. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IT has been a satisfaction to the author in preparing a 
 Second Edition of these Lectures, to know that their general 
 conclusions have approved themselves to a large number of 
 competent scholars, and that the main currents of contempo- 
 rary investigation flow in the same direction. 
 
 But an opinion has been expressed, by some of his English 
 critics, that the Lectures would more properly have com- 
 menced with a discussion of the ecclesiastical polity of the 
 New Testament : this opinion has sometimes been expressed 
 in a spirit so friendly to the author's general aim, that he 
 feels bound to state explicitly his reasons for differing from it. 
 
 i. In the first place, the author considers that some of his 
 critics have failed to appreciate the distinction between the 
 purpose which the Christian ministry was designed to fulfil, 
 and the history of its development. The two questions are 
 separable : the investigation of the former of them belongs to 
 the theologian, and constitutes a part of the general enquiry 
 into Christian doctrine, of which Holy Scripture is the neces- 
 sary basis : that of the latter belongs to the historian, who is 
 at liberty to determine for himself the limits of the subject 
 with which he undertakes to deal. But it was to the latter 
 question that the author purposely and explicitly confined him- 
 self ; and admitting that ' there are many points at which the 
 history of organization links itself almost inextricably with 
 the history of doctrine,' he nevertheless endeavoured ' to keep 
 a fixed attention upon the immediate point in hand, apart 
 from its innumerable side-issues and its far-reaching rela- 
 tions ' (p. 23). 
 
x Preface to the Second Edition. 
 
 2. In the second place, the author considers that some of 
 his critics have not given adequate attention to the grounds 
 which he urged (pp. 20, 21) for investigating the actual history 
 of early Christian organization before investigating either 
 the divine purpose as revealed, or the initial history as re- 
 corded, in the New Testament. He adheres to the opinion 
 which was expressed more than two centuries ago by a divine 
 whom almost all sections of the English Church have agreed 
 to praise, that the New Testament does not lay down any 
 form of church government (Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, 
 Bk. iii. passim) ; and he draws the corollary from this proposi- 
 tion, that the evidence afforded by the New Testament on the 
 point must be supplemented by other evidence before it can 
 be properly understood, or, in other words, that the history of 
 what God has actually done is the best commentary on the 
 revelation of what He intended. In this view the course which 
 the author has adopted is not only legitimate but necessary. 
 
 3. In the third place, the author considers that some of his 
 critics have not sufficiently estimated the difficulties which 
 attend New Testament exegesis, or the complexity of the 
 questions which have to be determined before that exegesis 
 can properly be begun. To the great majority of persons 
 who use the New Testament the meaning of the passages 
 which bear upon church government seems to be quite clear : 
 each person feels confident of the accuracy of his own inter- 
 pretation ; and yet interpretations differ so widely that an 
 investigation which would either account for or reconcile 
 them must be elaborate and consequently long. It would 
 have been as useless as it would have been presumptuous for 
 a University Lecturer simply to have stated his own view 
 without also stating the grounds upon which he held it, and 
 which induced him to reject other interpretations in its favour. 
 Nor could the question of interpretation have properly been 
 approached without a discussion of many preliminary ques- 
 tions which, in England at least, have not yet reached the 
 

 Preface to the Second Edition. x'i 
 
 point at which discussion becomes profitable. Such questions, 
 to mention only one or two out of a large number, as, Did 
 the original Roman community consist mainly of Jewish or of 
 Gentile converts? What is the relation of the ^/meis sections 
 of the Acts of the Apostles to the rest of the book 1 To what 
 extent are the Pastoral Epistles antithetical to Gnosticism? 
 are questions upon which many persons are so imperfectly in- 
 formed that they would not even have been able to see, without 
 explanation, the bearings of the answers to them upon the main 
 question, viz. To what state or states of circumstances are the 
 facts of the New Testament history which bear upon church 
 government relative ? In short, the discussion of the ecclesi- 
 astical polity of the New Testament could not have been 
 made, as some of the author's critics think that it might have 
 been made, merely an introduction to the general subject with 
 which these Lectures deal : it would have required a special 
 course of its own. The author believes that the result of such 
 a discussion would be strongly to corroborate the conclusions 
 which he has drawn from later evidence : and he is confirmed 
 in this belief by the fact that the two books of recent date 
 which are in most striking harmony with his general conclu- 
 sions are simply commentaries, the one upon the First Epistle 
 to the Corinthians, the other upon the Pastoral Epistles 1 . 
 
 One of the author's critics, Mr. Gore, the Vice-Principal of 
 Cuddesdon Theological College, has not only found fault with 
 him for beginning where the New Testament ends, but, re- 
 garding these Lectures as a polemical treatise, has assailed 
 them with a vigour which, if the logical force of an argu- 
 ment were in the ratio of the rhetorical force of the sentences 
 in which it is expressed, would have gained a conspicuous 
 
 1 G. Heinrici Erklarung der Eorinthierbriefe, Leipzig, 1879 (the same writer 
 has given the same results in several shorter essays, of which the last and most 
 important is entitled Zum genossenschaftlichen Character der paulinischen Chris- 
 ten gemeind 'en in the Studien und Kritlken for 1881, pp. 505-525) : H. J. Holtzmann 
 Die Pastoralbriefe, Leipzig, 1880. 
 
xii Preface to the Second Edition. 
 
 victory 1 . As it is, the result of the attack is very gratifying 
 to the author, from the presumption which it affords that his 
 general conclusions can only be impugned, from Mr. Gore's 
 point of view, by the free use of unproved assumptions. 
 
 For although it is indisputable that our Lord founded a 
 Church, it is an unproved assumption that that Church is an 
 aggregation of visible and organized societies: and although 
 it is clear that our Lord instituted the rite of Christian bap- 
 tism, it is an unproved assumption that baptism was at the 
 outset, as it has become since, not merely a sign of disciple- 
 ship, but also ' a ceremony of initiation into a divine society:' 
 and although it is true that our Lord gave to his disciples 
 the power of forgiving sins, it is an unproved assumption that 
 He thereby ' instituted a perpetual ministry,' or empowered 
 them to transmit to other persons the same awful prerogative. 
 
 No doubt the Augustinian theory of the nature of the 
 Church, which underlies these assumptions, has long been 
 prevalent, and has been accepted by a large number of per- 
 sons : but these facts do not place that theory beyond dispute, 
 or entitle a disputant tacitly to assume its truth. And no 
 doubt also, if that theory be true, the subject with which these 
 Lectures deal has an importance which otherwise does not 
 attach to it. For if the Church of which St. Paul speaks as 
 the body of Christ, ' the fulness of Him which filleth all in 
 all,' be really, as the Augustinian theory assumes it to be, a 
 visible society or aggregation of societies, then it is a tenable 
 proposition that * the Christian ministry is an essential, 
 primary, and authoritative element of the organism of the 
 Christian life, as it came from the Divine Founder' (Mr. Gore, 
 p. 22) : whereas, on the other hand, if it be synonymous with 
 ' the elect,' ' they that be saved,' then Hooker's contention 
 seems to follow that, 'so far forth as the Church is the 
 mystical body of Christ, and His invisible spouse, it needeth 
 
 1 The Church and the Ministry : a Review of the Rev. E. Hatch's Bampton 
 Lectures, by the Rev. C. Gore. Kivingtons, 1882. 
 
Preface to the Second Edition. xiii 
 
 no external polity' (Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, Bk. iii. 
 ii. 14). 
 
 But without appearing to recognize the fact, or at least, 
 without pointing out to his readers, that his chief difference 
 with the author is a difference of opinion on this main issue, 
 and that unless the Augustinian theory be accepted, most of 
 his arguments fall to the ground, Mr. Gore proceeds to criti- 
 cize these Lectures from the Augustinian point of view. He 
 begins indeed by asserting that he accepts the author's method, 
 and that he wishes only to answer the question which the 
 author proposed, viz. What does the existing evidence teach 
 as to the early history of ecclesiastical organization ? but he 
 silently, and perhaps unconsciously, devotes the rest of his 
 Review to the consideration of a very different question, viz. 
 How far can the existing evidence be interpreted on the 
 Augustinian theory? And at the close of his Review he 
 speaks of his method, in contrast to the author's, as reading 
 Church History with * the sympathy of historic insight/ or 
 1 grasping the unifying principle of a great institution,' and 
 then * working outwards from within' (p. 66). 
 
 The task which Mr. Gore thus sets before himself is not one 
 of great difficulty. It chiefly requires a certain dexterity in 
 the art of translating the language of ancient authors into the 
 phraseology of a particular school, and a free play of the 
 imagination in supplying gaps in the evidence. Adopting the 
 former of these methods, Mr. Gore reads into Clement of 
 Rome the proposition that ' the sacrificial life of the Church 
 centres round the Eucharist' (p. 32): he speaks of the mode 
 of appointment to ecclesiastical office which is described in 
 the Apostolic Constitutions, as ' a sacrament conferring grace 
 of orders' (p. 37): he paraphrases the simple proposal of the 
 Catholic party in Africa to unite with the Donatists in the 
 matter of church government as a ' treatment of Donatist 
 orders as sacramentally valid, though invalid canonically in 
 the method of their conferment ' (p. 43). Adopting the second 
 
xiv Preface to the Second Edition. 
 
 method, Mr. Gore supplies the missing evidence for a supposed 
 necessary element in admission to ecclesiastical office by say- 
 ing that it is not mentioned ' for the very reason that no one 
 doubted its presence' (p. 38), or ' their actual consecration is 
 of course implied' (p. 43): he accounts for the total absence of 
 any evidence of the early existence of bishops at Corinth by 
 saying that ' the Episcopate was in a less developed form in 
 Rome and Corinth than at Antioch and Ephesus at that date ' 
 (p. 55) : he explains the significant silence of the Apostolical 
 Fathers as to ' grace of orders ' by arguing that ' their belief 
 in the authority of divine order is equivalent to a belief in 
 special graces attaching to special offices' (p. 41): and he 
 accounts for the absence of ' episcopal consecration ' in the 
 case of the bishop of Alexandria by imagining that the ' prin- 
 ciple of delegation ' comes in, and that the Alexandrian pres- 
 byters had received a special ' commission ' to ordain (p. 58 : 
 the Canonists would have cut short Mr. Gore's ingenious sup- 
 position with the dictum ' Nemo alteri dare potest nisi quod 
 ipse habet': most of them held that not even the Vicar of 
 Christ could commission a presbyter to ordain a bishop). 
 
 The author would not have felt any call to notice argu- 
 ments which, although put forth by one whose zeal for Chris- 
 tian truth is evidently not inferior to his own, are not likely 
 to commend themselves to minds which are not already 
 possessed with the Augustinian theory, if it had not been for 
 the fact, which Mr. Gore mentions, that in preparing them he 
 has been assisted by ' suggestions and references supplied by 
 various friends,' and especially by ' some MS. notes ' of a dis- 
 tinguished Professor (Preface, p. vi). A similar reason induces 
 the author to notice the opinion which Mr. Gore expresses, and 
 which has also been expressed by other persons, that the sub- 
 ject of these Lectures does not come within the terms of Canon 
 Bampton's Will. Looking exclusively, as these critics have 
 done, to one of the clauses of that Will, they maintain that 
 
Preface to the Second Edition. xv 
 
 a course of Bampton Lectures should be always either po- 
 lemical or apologetic. It is clear to any one who reads the 
 alternative clauses of the Will that this is not the case : but 
 even if it were so, the author maintains, in opposition to his 
 critics, that the establishment of the conclusions which he has 
 drawn from the facts of early ecclesiastical history would 
 serve in no small degree as a contribution to Christian Apolo- 
 getics. For believing, as he does, that 'The Analogy of 
 Keligion, natural and revealed, to the constitution and course 
 of Nature ' furnishes an argument which in the present temper 
 of men's minds is of especial force, he considers it to be an 
 important part of that argument to show that the constitution 
 of the Christian Churches has followed the general order of . 
 God's dealings with mankind. And believing, as he does, 
 that between the second century and the nineteenth there are 
 many points of close resemblance, and that, in the one as in 
 the other, civilization has created more miseries than it knows 
 how to cure, he considers it important to recall attention to 
 the fact that Christianity has elements which satisfy not only 
 the spiritual but also the social needs of men 1 . And be- 
 lieving, moreover, as he does, that an exaggerated concep- 
 tion of the place and functions of the Christian ministry has 
 operated, more than any other single cause, to alienate the 
 minds of men from the faith of Christ, he considers it to be a 
 useful service to show, as these Lectures endeavour to show 
 from the history of its growth, that beneath Christian organiza- 
 tion lie not the shifting sands of a thaumaturgic mysticism, but 
 the firm foundations of a reasoned and reasoning expediency. > 
 
 1 The author is confirmed in this view by the important review of his Lectures 
 in the first number of the new Italian literary periodical La Cullura, Home, 1881, 
 which deals with them almost exclusively in their bearings upon modern social 
 problems. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 April 26, 1882. 
 

 UNIVERSITY, 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 THE METHOD OF STUDY. 
 
 The present Lectures are an attempt to apply to a particular group 
 of historical phenomena the methods which have been fruitful of 
 results in other fields of history : the preliminary assumption being 
 made that, as matter of historical research, the facts of ecclesiastical 
 history do not differ in kind from the facts of civil history pp. 1-3 
 
 But it will be fitting, before applying those methods to new subject- 
 matter, to consider the special difficulties of that subject-matter, and 
 thereby, incidentally, to ascertain some of the causes which have led 
 to existing divergences of opinion . . . . . p. 3 
 
 The first step in all historical enquiries is to test the documents 
 which contain the evidence, with the view of ascertaining whether 
 they are what they profess to be, and if they are not, what is their 
 >robable origin and their date. In the present enquiry the difficulty 
 rises both from the great extent of the documents, and from the 
 st that the best literary criticism has not yet been applied to 
 lore than a few groups of them pp. 3-5 
 
 II. The second step in such enquiries is to weigh the value of the 
 evidence. In the present enquiry the difficulties vary with the 
 nature of the documents : 
 
 b 
 
xviii Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 (1) In patristic literature there is (i) the difficulty which arises 
 from the fact that late Latin and Greek are very imperfectly 
 known, (ii) that which arises (a) from the tendency to con- 
 found the theological or homiletic value of a Father with his 
 value as a witness to fact, (6) from the tendency to ignore the 
 question of his probable means of observation . . pp. 5-7 
 
 (2) In conciliar literature there is the difficulty which arises, in 
 all but the (Ecumenical Councils, from the question of the 
 extent to which a canon of a local council proves the existence 
 of a general rule. This difficulty js increased by the fact of 
 the distinctions between the various local councils having been 
 to a great extent obliterated by their incorporation in the code 
 of Canon Law ....... pp. 7~9 
 
 And in regard to all the evidence, whether patristic, or conciliar, or 
 otherwise, there are two primary distinctions the ignoring of which 
 has contributed more than any other single cause to the existing 
 divergences of opinion : these are 
 
 (1) The distinction of time. The period which Christian history 
 covers is so large a portion of the whole field of recorded 
 history that in a survey of it the wide differences between 
 one century and another are apt to be overlooked : and yet 
 until the exact historical surroundings of a given fact are 
 known, its significance cannot be known . . pp. 9-11 
 
 (2) The distinction of locality. The space over which Christianity 
 has extended has been the whole civilized world, with its great 
 varieties of race and national character: the significance of 
 a fact varies widely according as it belongs to one country 
 or another ....... pp. 1112 
 
 III. These are the preliminary steps : they are followed by the com- 
 parison of the facts, so ascertained and so localized, with other facts } 
 with the view of ascertaining their causes : nor is such an enquiry 
 barred pp. 12-14 
 
 This comparison is made on two principles : 
 
 (i) Any given group of facts has to be compared with preceding 
 and succeeding facts of the same kind, with the view of finding 
 out the law of their sequence. The main difficulty of that 
 process in the present enquiry arises from the fact of the per- 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xix 
 
 manence of words, and the more or less unconscious assumption 
 that their connotation has also been constant . pp. 15-16 
 
 (2) Any given group of facts has to be compared with the sum of 
 contemporary facts, with the view of finding out resemblances, 
 and then proceeding to the enquiry how far similar facts are 
 the result of the same causes .... pp. 16-17 
 
 In regard to this last point the contention may be made that such 
 a comparison will not hold, because the phenomena of Christian 
 history are unique . . . . . . . . p. 17 
 
 It is true that they are of transcendent interest and importance : but 
 if they, or any part of them, can be accounted for by causes which 
 are known to have operated in the production of similar phenomena, 
 under similar conditions of society, the presumption, in the absence 
 of positive evidence to the contrary, will be in favour of those who 
 infer an identity of cause ...... pp. 17-19 
 
 It may be contended, again, that such an explanation of the phenomena 
 of Christian history, or any part of them, is inconsistent with a belief 
 in their divine origin . . . . . . . p. 1 9 
 
 On the other hand, in the greatest things as in the least God works by 
 an economy of causes : and the belief that existing forces of society 
 operated in the organization of the Church, so far from being incon- 
 sistent with, is rather confirmatory of, the belief that that organiza- 
 tion was of His ordering ...... pp. 19-20 
 
 Such are the methods of the enquiry. In applying them it is proposed 
 to begin at the beginning and to investigate each group of facts in 
 the order of time. It is not proposed to discuss the ecclesiastical 
 polity of the New Testament, (i) because that polity seems, merely 
 as a question of exegesis, to 'admit of various constructions, (2) be- 
 cause the purpose of God will be more certainly gathered from 
 the investigation of what He has caused to be. But commencing 
 where the New Testament ends, the steps in the formation of that 
 great confederation of Christian societies which is found in exist- 
 ence in the Middle Ages will be successively traced and accounted 
 for . . . . . . . . . . pp. 20-23 
 
 (In all this, it must be carefully borne in mind, the subject-matter 
 under consideration will be not Christian doctrine, but only the 
 framework of tbe Christian societies) . . . . pp. 23-25 
 
 b 2 
 
xx Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 BISHOPS AND DEACONS. 
 
 There was a general tendency in the early centuries of the Christian 
 era towards the formation of associations, and especially of religious 
 associations ... . . pp. 26-28 
 
 It was consequently natural that the early converts to Christianity 
 should combine together: the tendency to do so was fostered by 
 the Apostles and their successors, and at last, though not at first, 
 became universal . . . . . . . pp. 29-30 
 
 There were many points in which these Christian communities re- 
 sembled contemporary associations : outward observers sometimes 
 placed them in the same category : the question arises, What, qua 
 associations, was their point of difference? . . . pp. 30-32 
 
 The answer will be found in a consideration of the circumstances of 
 the times : they were times of great social strain : almost all the 
 elements of an unsound state of society were present : the final 
 decay was- later : but in the meantime the pressure of poverty was 
 severe. Societies like the Christian societies, in which almsgiving 
 was a primary duty, and which brought into the Graeco-Roman 
 world that regard for the poor which had been prominent in 
 Judaism, were thus at once differentiated by the element of philan- 
 thropy . . pp. 32-36 
 
 The importance of the philanthropic element in the Christian societies 
 gave a corresponding importance to the administrative officers, by 
 whom funds were received and alms dispensed : in other associations 
 such officers were called cVtpc^qrat, or cTrio-KOTrot : it is therefore 
 natural to find that one of these names was adopted for the corre- 
 sponding officers of the Christian societies . . pp. 36-39 
 
 But how was it that this came to be the name not of a body of officers, 
 but of a single officer ? The question is a double one : it resolves 
 itself into the questions (i) How was it that a single officer came to 
 exist? (2) How was it that when such an officer came to exist the 
 special name which clung to him was that of eVi'ovcorros ] . p. 39 
 
 The first of these questions will be answered in Lecture IV: the 
 second is answered here. 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxi 
 
 The answer seems to lie in the fact that the offerings of the early 
 Christians were made publicly to the president in the assembly, who 
 was also primarily responsible for their distribution. The place 
 which the president occupied in the eye of the assembly was chiefly 
 that of an administrator : and the name which was chiefly applied 
 to him was relative thereto ..... pp. 40-42 
 
 This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the importance of the 
 functions of the president as chief administrator increased largely as 
 the Christian societies grew. In an age of poverty Christians were 
 exceptionally poor: and not only the numbers but the kinds of 
 persons for whom the Christian societies undertook to provide mul- 
 tiplied as years went on. The bishop had to provide not only for 
 the destitute, but also for the confessors in prison, for widows and 
 virgins, for the church officers, and above all for strangers on their 
 travels ......... pp. 42-46 
 
 It is further confirmed 
 
 (1) By the fact that so many of the abuses of the episcopal office 
 against which provision is made in civil and canon law are 
 relative to his administration of church funds. 
 
 (2) By the fact that the current conceptions of the office which 
 are expressed in literature are also in no small degree relative 
 to administration ...... pp. 46-48 
 
 It is probable that in the first instance the administrative officers of 
 the Christian societies constituted a single class. But very early in 
 Christian history a division of labour became necessary pp. 48-49 
 
 The nature of this division is shown by the testimony of Justin Martyr, 
 Poly carp, and the Clementines : the bishops were assisted by officers 
 entitled * deacons/ who were in regard to almsgiving the actual 
 officers of distribution, and in regard to discipline the officers of 
 enquiry . . . pp. 49-5 
 
 In course of time the functions of the deacons were altered by the 
 operation of two causes 
 
 (1) The rise of the conception of an analogy between the Christian 
 and the Mosaic dispensations, in which the deacons were regarded 
 as corresponding to the Levites, and in which consequently their 
 subordination to presbyters was accentuated . . p. 52 
 
 (2) The larger scale on 'which the Christian societies came to 
 
xxii Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 exist, and the consequent substitution of institutions for per- 
 sonal relief by a church officer . . . . p. 52 
 But the primitive theory of their close relation to the bishop survives 
 in the position of the archdeacon P- 54 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 PEESBYTEES. 
 
 The system of government by heads of families, or the seniors of a 
 tribe, is found to have been in existence in many parts of the world, 
 and especially in Palestine pp. 56-57 
 
 The administration of justice and of local affairs was there in the hands 
 of the ' elders' of the several localities, who formed a ' synedrion ' or 
 local court pp. 57-58 
 
 The institution of these local courts was so intimately interwoven with 
 Jewish life, that the Jews carried it with them into the countries of 
 the dispersion, where the Roman government allowed them to retain, 
 to a great extent, their own internal administration . pp. 58-60 
 
 There was thus in the Jewish communities, not only in Palestine but 
 outside it, to which in the first instance the Apostles addressed them- 
 selves, a council of elders. And since the several communities were 
 independent of each other, there was no reason why, when a com- 
 munity had as a whole accepted Christianity, its internal organiza- 
 tion should be changed : there is consequently a presumption that 
 the Judaeo-Christian communities continued to be governed by 
 councils of elders ....... pp. 60-62 
 
 But assuming this to be true of Christian communities which had 
 originally been Jewish, or in which Jewish influence predominated, 
 how are we to account for the existence of a similar institution in 
 communities which were wholly or chiefly Gentile ? . . p. 62 
 
 The answer is that such an institution was in entire harmony with 
 contemporary circumstances : government by a council, and that a 
 council of elders, is found also in the contemporary Gentile world. 
 
 (i) Government by a senate or council was universal in the 
 Roman municipalities, and in the associations with which the 
 

 
 Synopsis of Contents. xxiii 
 
 Christian churches have, in other respects, so many points of 
 
 contact pp. 62-63.*' 
 
 (2) The respect for seniority was great, and in some cases out of 
 the larger body of a senate or council special powers were given 
 to a committee of seniors, whose members bore the same name 
 as the Jewish ' elders ' pp. 63-66 
 
 The elements of the institution of a council of elders being thus found 
 in the Gentile world, it is not necessary to account for the existence 
 of the presbyterate in Gentile Churches by the hypothesis of a direct 
 transfer from Jewish Churches ..... pp. 6667 
 
 At the same time the influence of the Jewish Churches wa^ strong 
 enough to cause that out of the various names which originally 
 attached to the governing council that of ' presbyter ' alone survived, 
 and that out of the various functions which they originally dis- 
 charged those which survived were those which had been the chief 
 functions of the Jewish 'synedria' .... pp. 67-68 
 
 For the Christian councils 
 
 (1) Exercised discipline, and that in a stricter way than the 
 Jewish councils had done, inasmuch as the Christian standard 
 of morality was higher ..... pp. 69-72 
 
 (2) Exercised consensual jurisdiction between Christian and 
 Christian, as the Jewish councils had done between Jew and 
 Jew. And to this jurisdiction the members of the Churches 
 were urged to submit on the authority of our Lord Him- 
 self . pp. 72-73 
 
 These functions of the primitive council of presbyters have necessarily 
 been modified in the lapse of time, and chiefly by two circum- 
 stances : 
 
 (1) The discipline which was possible in a small community was 
 impossible in a larger : and in the stern fight for Christian 
 doctrine a lessening stress came to be laid upon Christian 
 morality pp. 73~74 
 
 (2) The recognition of Christianity by the State (a) narrowed 
 the border-line between the Church and the world, (b) tended 
 to limit ecclesiastical jurisdiction . . . pp. 75~77 
 
 In the meantime other functions which were once in the background 
 have become prominent : they owe that prominence to the fact that 
 
xxiv Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 whereas in primitive times a presbyter was a member of a council, 
 acting with others, he has come, as a rule, to act alone. These 
 functions are 
 
 (1) ' The ministry of the word/ which in early days was not neces- 
 sarily the function of a presbyter at all . pp. 77-78 
 
 (2) ' The ministry of the sacraments,' which has arisen from the 
 disappearance of the primitive theory that each community 
 should be complete in itself, and the consequent practice of 
 placing a single presbyter, rather than a bishop with his council 
 of presbyters, at the head of a detached community pp. 79-81 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF THE BISHOP. 
 
 The earliest references to church officers speak of them in the plural : 
 in the course of the second century one of them is mentioned 
 separately, and evidently stands to the rest in a relation of priority 
 of rank . . . . . . . . . . p. 83 
 
 I How is this fact to be accounted for ? 
 There are two antecedent probabilities : 
 
 (1) In contemporary associations, both public and private, the 
 institution of a president was universal : it is therefore ante- 
 cedently probable that the Christian societies, which in their 
 organization had so many features in common with those associa- 
 tions, would be borne along with this general drift pp. 8486 
 
 (2) In the Christian societies themselves the institution of a 
 president or chairman of the administrative body tended, as 
 time went on, to become a practical necessity . pp. 86-87 
 
 There are also two groups of known causes : 
 
 (1) In some cases a single officer had been designated by the Apo- 
 stles, in others the personal influence of an officer had procured 
 for him a position of exceptional predominance . pp. 87-88 
 
 (2) The theory of the nature of church government which pre- 
 vailed in the second century was that it was a temporary ex- 
 
 \ J preesion of the government which would exist when the Lord 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxv 
 
 returned : on this theory a president, who should sit in the 
 place of the absent Lord, was an indispensable element in the 
 constitution of a Christian society . . . pp. 88-90 
 
 II. These probabilities and facts seem adequate to account for the 
 institution of a president : but they are not adequate to account for 
 the special relation of supremacy in which the president ultimately 
 came to stand to the rest of the body of officers . . pp. 90-9 1 
 
 The causes of that supremacy will be found in the relations of Chris- 
 tianity to contemporary thought. The contact of Christianity with 
 the Jewish school of philosophy which had its chief centre at Alex- 
 andria had created, within Christianity itself, a school of thinkers 
 which claimed the right to almost unlimited speculation pp. 91-94 
 
 This forced the consideration of the problem, "What was the intellectual 
 basis upon which those communities should exist? . pp. 94-95 
 
 The solution of this problem was found in the theory that Apostolic 
 doctrine, which, though in different senses, all sections of Christians 
 accepted as the basis of union, was neither vague nor esoteric, that 
 it had been definitely preserved in the churches which the Apostles 
 had founded, and that in those churches there was no important 
 variety of opinion respecting it "^^^ . \^<o>$i^ . . pp. 96-97 
 
 Of this * fides apostolica ' the bishops of the Apostolic Churches, like 
 the heads of the Rabbinical schools, were the especial conservators : 
 hence they had an exceptional position of supremacy as being the 
 centres at once of Christian truth and of Christian unity pp. 97-99 
 
 (This is substantially the view of St. Jerome) . . . . p. 99 
 
 III. The position which the president thus acquired through the 
 necessity for unity of doctrine was consolidated by the necessity for 
 unity of discipline. The question of the readmission of the ' lapsed/ 
 and the laxity and variety of the modes in which, at first, they were 
 readmitted, forced upon the churches the recognition of a uniform 
 rule. This uniformity was secured by requiring all readmissions to 
 have the approval of the president .... pp. 100-103 
 
 Two results flowed from the recognition of the bishop's supremacy: 
 (i) It became a rule that there should be only one bishop in a 
 city. The recognition of the rule dates from the third century, 
 and was a result of the controversy between the two parties in 
 
xx vi Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 the Church of Rome, each of which elected its own hishop. 
 Cyprian's opposition was successful : he contended that after the 
 legitimate election of one bishop, the election of another bishop 
 by another section of the community was void . pp. 103-106 
 (2) The earlier conception of the bishop as occupying the place of 
 Christ gave place to the conception that he occupied the place 
 of an Apostle : and stress came to be laid upon the fact that in 
 some churches successive bishops had occupied in unbroken 
 continuity the seat which once an Apostle bad filled. A later 
 expansion of the conception, which has survived until modern 
 times, regarded such bishops as having succeeded not only to 
 the seat which an Apostle filled, but also to the powers which 
 an Apostle possessed ..... pp. 106-109 
 
 But in spite of the great development of the supremacy of the bishop, 
 the original theory of his relation to the council of presbyters did 
 not wholly pass away. It was the theory of church writers that 
 he had only priority of rank : it was the rule of Councils that he 
 must not act without his clergy: and it was in accordance with 
 these views that the early churches were constructed pp. 109-111 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 CLEEGY AND LAITY. 
 
 What was, in primitive times, the relation between church officers 
 and ordinary members'? The answer to this question may be 
 
 gathered from two groups of facts : / 
 
 ."jyjiiYftv "- 
 
 (1) (a) The collective terms for church officers, (b) the abstract 
 
 terms for their office, (c) the extant testimony as to the relations 
 between the two classes, 
 
 (2) The fact that all the particular designations of church officers 
 were in use in contemporary organizations, 
 
 lead to the inference that not only was the relation one of presi- 
 dency or leadership, but also that the presidency or leadership was 
 the same in kind as that of non-Christian associations pp. 113-114 
 
 But may there not have been other relations, and had not the officers 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxvii 
 
 certain functions which an ordinary member could in no case 
 discharge] pp. 114-116 
 
 On the contrary, the existing evidence tends to show that laymen, no 
 less than officers, could, upon occasion, 
 
 (1) teach or preach . . . . . . . p. 116 
 
 (2) baptize p. 117 
 
 (3) celebrate the Eucharist . . . . . . p. 118 
 
 (4) exercise discipline . . . . . . . p. 119 
 
 The inference is that although the officers had, as such, a prior right, 
 they had not an exclusive right, to the performance of any ecclesi- 
 astical function . . . . . . pp. 120-121 
 
 This inference is in harmony (i) with the fact that in these early days 
 the standard of membership of a Christian community was higher 
 than it has since been, (2) with the wider and perhaps exceptional 
 diffusion of ' spiritual gifts.' It was not until the communities grew 
 in size that the position of their officers began to acquire its subse- 
 quent importance, or that the idea arose of their possessing exclusive 
 powers ......... pp. I2i 122 
 
 Against this increase in their importance and this claim to exclusive 
 powers, there came a great reaction. The Montanists reasserted the 
 pre-eminence of spiritual gifts over official rule, and the equality of 
 all Christians, except so far as the well-ordering of the community 
 required a division of functions .... pp. 122-125 
 
 The reaction failed : but the fact of its existence is an important cor- 
 roboration of the inference which is drawn from more direct evidence 
 that the original conception of ecclesiastical office was that only of 
 priority of order, and that its most exact metaphorical expression 
 is that which underlies the word ' Pastor' . . pp. 125-127 
 
 Nor did that original conception pass away all at once : the final 
 exclusion of ordinary members from those functions which have 
 in later times been exclusively claimed by church officers was 
 gradual ........ pp. 127-128 
 
 But, if all this be true, what was meant by ' ordination ' ? The answer 
 to this question may be gathered from several kinds of evidence : 
 (i) All the words which are used for ordination connote either 
 simple appointment or accession to rank . . . p. 129 
 
xxviii Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 (2) They are all in use to express appointment to civil 
 office p. 129 
 
 (3) The elements of appointment to ecclesiastical office are also 
 the elements of appointment to civil office. . . p. 129 
 
 (4) The modes of the one varied concomitantly with the modes 
 of the other p. 1 30 
 
 (5) The modes of admission to ecclesiastical office were also the 
 modes of admission to civil office . . . pp. 131-132 
 
 The inference is that ordination meant appointment and admission to 
 office, and that it was conceived as being of the same nature with 
 appointment and admission to civil office. . . . p. 132 
 
 But if this was the meaning of ordination in general, what was the 
 meaning of the rite of imposition of hands 1 
 
 Two kinds of consideration must be taken into account : 
 
 (1) The fact that the rite was not a universal, and that con- 
 sequently it could not have been a necessary, element in 
 ordination ....... pp. 133-134 
 
 (2) The facts (a) that it was in use among the Jews on various 
 occasions, some of which were more secular than sacred, 
 (b) that early writers regard the rite, not as being in itself a 
 means of the communication of special powers, but as a symbol 
 or accompaniment of prayer .... pp. 134-135 
 
 The inference is that the existence of this rite does not establish a 
 presumption that ordination was conceived to confer exclusive 
 spiritual powers . . . . . . . . p. 135 
 
 But it may be urged that nothing has been adduced which is incon- 
 sistent with such a presumption. On the other hand, such a pre- 
 sumption seems to be excluded by two considerations : 
 
 (1) The fact of silence : no writer of the first two centuries, in 
 writing of church officers, either states or implies that they had 
 such exclusive powers . . . . . . p. 136 
 
 (2) The facility with which ordinations were made and un- 
 made pp. 137-138 
 
 The result of the enquiry into the nature of ordination thus confirms 
 the inference which was drawn from the enquiry into the nature of 
 ecclesiastical office in itself ..... pp. 138-139 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxix 
 
 But in course of time various causes operated to produce a change in 
 the conception of ecclesiastical office : these causes were, mainly, 
 
 (1) The prevalence of infant baptism, which opened the doors of 
 the Church to those who were not Christians by conviction, and 
 introduced a difference between the moral standard of ordinary 
 members and that of church officers . . . . p. 139 
 
 (2) The intensity of the statement of order, which, especially in 
 the dfip.ay of the Empire, tended to exaggerate the importance 
 of all office, whether ecclesiastical or civil . pp. 140141 
 
 (3) The growth of a belief that the Christian ministry had suc- 
 ceeded to the place, and revived the attributes, of the Le, vitical 
 priesthood ....... pp. 141-142 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE CLEKGY AS A SEPARATE CLASS. 
 
 The fourth century is important in the history of Christian organiza- 
 tion as being the period in which church officers lost their primitive 
 character and became a separate class . . . pp. 143-144 
 
 For this change there were two chief causes, (i) the recognition of 
 Christianity by the State, (2) the influence of Monasticism. 
 
 I. The recognition of Christianity by the State. 
 
 This affected Church officers chiefly in two ways : 
 
 (1) The State gave them a distinct civil status : since 
 
 (a) It gave them an immunity from ordinary public burdens, 
 especially from the discharge of those municipal duties 
 which formed an oppressive and unequal tax upon all who 
 were possessed of real property : the considerable effect of 
 this immunity is shown by the measures which were taken 
 to limit the extent of its operation: . . pp. 144-148 
 
 (6) It gave them an exemption from the ordinary jurisdic- 
 tion of the civil courts .... pp. 148-150 
 
 (2) The State tended to give them social independence, by alter- 
 ing their original dependence upon voluntary offerings or upon 
 
xxx Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 their own exertions as traders or artisans : it affected this by 
 
 two means: pp. 150-152 
 
 (a) It allowed the Churches to acquire and hold property : 
 
 and the extent to which this operated is shown by the 
 
 existence of restraining enactments . . pp. 152-153 
 
 (6) It endowed church officers with money, and the Churches 
 
 themselves with buildings and lands . . pp. 153-154 
 
 II. TJie influence of Monasticism. 
 
 Monasticism is the combination of two elements, (i) asceticism, (2) 
 total or partial isolation from the world . ' . . . p. 155 
 
 (1) Asceticism belongs to the beginnings of Christianity: but 
 for three centuries it was exceptional and for the most part 
 dormant ....... pp. 155-156 
 
 (2) Isolation, whether total or partial, from society, was already 
 a prevailing tendency in the non-Christian religions of Egypt and 
 India, and its prevalence in the Church has sometimes been as- 
 cribed to a direct influence of one or other of them pp. 156-158 
 
 But it is more natural to ascribe that prevalence to causes 
 within Christianity itself which were especially operative in the 
 fourth century ...... pp. 159-161 
 
 The effect of Monasticism upon church officers was to compel them to 
 live a more or less ascetic life, and thereby to create for them a 
 code of morals different from that which was allowable to ordinary 
 members ........ pp. 161-162 
 
 They soon became the objects of exceptional legislation, especially in 
 regard to (i) marriage, (2) social life . . . . p. 162 
 
 These two groups of concurrent causes, the influence of the State and 
 of Monasticism, seem adequate to account for the change which 
 passed over the relations of Church officers to the rest of the com- 
 munity : and the operation of these causes was intensified by the 
 decay and fall of the Roman Empire . . . pp. 163-164 
 
 In some parts of the West the primitive church officers had never 
 been known : and the separation of officers of the later types from 
 the rest of the community was further marked by two circum- 
 stances ......... pp. 164-165 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxxi 
 
 (1) The tonsure, the importance of which is shown in the early dis- 
 putes between the Romish and the British Churches pp. 165-166 
 
 (2) The practice of living together in dfilgy-houses, which tended 
 still more to isolate them from ordinary society pp. 166-167 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 COUNCILS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 The practice of meeting in representative assemblies which had 
 a semi-religious character, prevailed in most provinces of the 
 Empire . . . . . . . . . . p. 169 
 
 In the course of the second century a similar practice began to prevail 
 among the Christian communities . . . . . p. 170 
 
 At first the meetings were held irregularly and informally : the results 
 of their deliberations were expressed in a resolution, or in a letter 
 to another church, but they had no binding force upon a dissentient 
 minority pp. 170-172 
 
 But when Christianity was recognized by the State, it being obviously 
 to the advantage of the State that the Christian societies should be 
 homogeneous, the principle of meeting in common assembly for the 
 framing of common rules was adopted by Constantine, who sum- 
 moned representatives of all the Churches of Christendom to a meet- 
 ing at Aries . . . . . . . . p. 1 7 2 
 
 The resolutions of this meeting, being accepted by the great majority 
 of churches, became the basis of a confederation . . p. 1 7 3 
 
 The organization of the confederation followed strictly the organization 
 of the Empire : the churches of each province formed a unity, with 
 its provincial officers and its regular provincial assemblies : and 
 when from time to time questions were raised which affected the 
 whole body of churches, there were representative assemblies of the 
 whole body of churches, whose resolutions affected the entire con- 
 federation . . . . . . . pp. 174-175 
 
 So far, the confederation was the voluntary act of the churches which 
 composed it : its existence strengthened not only the power of the 
 majority of churches over a minority, but also the power of single 
 
xxxii Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 churches over recalcitrant members : for it enforced a rule that 
 exclusion from one church should imply exclusion from all the 
 confederate churches, and ultimately from all Christian society 
 
 pp. 175-178 
 
 But though this rule was a powerful instrument, it would probably 
 not have been sufficient to ensure uniformity, unless the State had 
 interfered, because the dissentient minorities of single churches, or 
 a dissentient minority of the churches of a province, might have 
 formed fresh combinations. In one case this was actually done : 
 the puritan party in Africa, differing from the majority on a 
 point not of belief but of practice, formed an association of their 
 own . . . . . . . . . pp. 178-179 
 
 But the State interposed : three measures were sufficient to render the 
 independent existence of minorities impossible : 
 
 (1) The State recognized the decisions of the representative 
 assemblies of the confederated churches . . . p. 180 
 
 (2) It recognized the validity of deposition from office, or exclu- 
 sion from membership of the confederated churches . p. 180 
 
 (3) It prohibited the formation of new associations outside the 
 confederated churches . . . . . . p. 180 
 
 In this way, by the help of the State, the confederation became a great 
 unity, which survived the power that had welded it together, and 
 which was conceived as being the visible realization of the ideal 
 Church : and to it, accordingly, were applied the metaphors in which 
 the Church of Christ had been pictured . . . pp. 182-184 
 
 But it is doubtful whether this assumption of the identity of the con- 
 federation with the Church of which the New Testament had spoken 
 can be justified : 
 
 (1) From the absence of proof that the unity of organization was 
 ever in fact realized, and from the presumption to the contrary 
 which is afforded by the acknowledged independence of certain 
 churches pp. 185-186 
 
 (2) From the absence of proof that the terms of the confederation 
 were ever settled, and that intercommunion ever changed its 
 character of a voluntary and revocable agreement . p. 1 86 
 
 (3) From the absence of proof that the unity of the Church was 
 ever meant to be a unity of organization, and from the pre- 
 

 Synopsis of Contents. xxxiii 
 
 Bumption to the contrary which is afforded by the fact that the 
 primitive conceptions of unity were different . . p. 186 
 
 (a) In the first period the basis of Christian union was a 
 changed life p. 187 
 
 (b) In the second period the basis of Christian union was 
 the acceptance of the Catholic tradition of Apostolic 
 teaching p. 188 
 
 (c) In the third period the two former bases were held to be 
 insufficient : a Christian must be a member of one of the 
 confederated societies . . . . . p. 188 
 
 The ultimate prevalence of the conception of the identity of the mass 
 of confederated churches with the Church of Christ was in fact the 
 result of a long struggle, in which the State took part and in which 
 also the defeated party were crushed less by argument than by the 
 operation of penal laws ...... pp. 189-191 
 
 The question must be considered to be still open, At what point, if 
 any, did the original voluntary intercommunion become an indis- 
 soluble bond 1 p. 1 9 1 
 
 And beyond it is the still wider question, How far is external associa- 
 tion necessary 1 . . . . . . . pp. 192-193 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE PARISH AND THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 The links which connect the primitive with the modern organization 
 of the Christian Churches are mainly the Parish and the Cathedral. 
 
 I. The Parish. 
 
 The theory of the primitive organization was that each community 
 
 was complete in itself: but this theory was modified in various 
 
 ways by various groups of circumstances . . . . p. 195 
 
 (i) In the great cities where a single building was not large 
 
 enough for the whole community, instead of multiplying 
 
 organizations, one or more presbyters were detached from the 
 
 central organization to preside over congregations, meeting 
 
 separately for purposes of worship. At Rome the theoretical 
 
 c 
 
xxxiv Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 unity of organization was still further preserved by having only 
 one consecration of the Eucharistic elements . pp. 195-196 
 
 (2) In suburban or rural districts there was the same variety in 
 the ecclesiastical as in the civil organization, (a) Sometimes 
 the communities of such districts had a complete and inde- 
 pendent organization: but the officers of such organizations 
 were regarded as being of lower rank than corresponding 
 officers in the cities. (There was an attempt in the eighth 
 century to revive this system in the West, but it did not long 
 succeed.) (6) Sometimes such communities were regarded as 
 being under the direct control . of a city community : an 
 example of this is Alexandria and its dependent district of 
 Mareotis . . . . . . . pp. 196-199 
 
 (3) In some parts of the East the communities were so small and 
 scattered that, although they had presbyters and deacons of 
 their own, their bishop was itinerant . . . p. 199 
 
 (4) In the great estates the free coalescence of Christians into 
 communities was probably rendered difficult by the nature of 
 the relation of the coloni to the owner. The owners probably 
 appointed officers at their own discretion : but the State inter- 
 fered to compel them to require the approval of a neighbouring 
 bishop pp. 200-201 
 
 (5) In Spain and Gaul the original Churches were probably con- 
 fined to the Roman municipalities : the greater part of the 
 country was divided into districts of which those municipalities 
 were the administrative centres. "When the Celts who occu- 
 pied these districts began to be converted, the primitive or- 
 ganization was not altered : the newly -formed communities 
 were for ecclesiastical purposes, as the districts in which 
 they were formed had been for judicial purposes, regarded 
 as being under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the central 
 municipality ....... pp. 201-202 
 
 It is mainly to this last system that the modern parish owes its origin. 
 At first the officers of these outlying communities were only tem- 
 porarily detached, and were liable to recall. Endowments not only 
 made them permanent but also threatened to make them inde- 
 pendent. But the Carolingian legislation restored the jurisdiction 
 and authority of the bishop ...... 203-205 
 
Synopsis of Contents. xxxv 
 
 II. The Cathedral. 
 
 The bishop's church long preserved its original constitution. Its 
 worship was conducted, and its affairs administered, by the bishop, 
 advised by his council of presbyters and assisted by the deacons. 
 This type is still preserved at Home, although the proper places 
 of the city clergy are occupied by dignitaries from all parts of 
 Christendom pp. 205-206 
 
 But the original constitution of the bishop's church was modified by 
 the practice of the clergy living together in the bishop's house. In 
 course of time the clergy so living together, who had been 
 originally dependent on allowances made by the bishop from the 
 ordinary church offerings, came (a) to have funds of their own, and 
 ultimately to form an independent corporation (6) to live under a 
 semi-monastic rule of life ..... pp. 206-210 
 
 The theory that all the presbyters under the bishop's control, whether 
 they ministered in the bishop's church or in detached churches, 
 formed part of his council, still remained : but although the de- 
 tached clergy were still bound at certain periods to take their 
 places in that council, the detachment became so great that at last 
 the ' chapter ' of the cathedral took the place and functions of the 
 original council pp. 210-211 
 
 The difference between the parochial and cathedral clergy was still 
 further widened by the separate organization of the former under 
 their own archpresbyters and archdeacons : and the organization 
 which was so formed has lasted until modern times . pp. 2 1 1-2 1 3 
 
 The main propositions in which the foregoing Lectures may be 
 summed up are 
 
 (1) That the development of the organization of the Christian 
 Churches was gradual, 
 
 (2) That the elements of which that organization was composed 
 were already existing in human society . . . p. 213 
 
 In other words, the Lectures tend to establish the view that in the 
 organization of the Christian Church, as in the formation of the 
 natural world, Grod has been pleased to act by an economy of slowly- 
 operating causes. Nor is it legitimate to allow an a priori theory 
 
xxxvi Synopsis of Contents. 
 
 of what He was likely to do to override the conclusions which follow 
 from an examination of what He has actually done . pp. 213-216 
 
 The establishment of this view would diminish the importance of some 
 past and existing controversies respecting ecclesiastical organization. 
 Those controversies have usually turned on the minor premiss of 
 the main argument, i. e. on the question whether this or that insti- 
 tution is or is not primitive. But the point at issue is rather the 
 major premiss, i.e. the question whether all that was primitive 
 was intended to be permanent .... pp. 2 1 6-2 1 7 
 
 To this latter question the probable answer is negative : in ecclesi- 
 astical, as in all organizations whether natural or social, though the 
 type remains, the form changes : fixity of form from age to age is 
 impossible. Form there must be; but the Christian Church has 
 shown at once its vitality and its divinity by readjusting its form 
 in successive ages ....... pp. 218-219 
 
 That form was originally a democracy: circumstances compelled it to 
 become a monarchy : and possibly the limit of its modifications is not 
 yet reached : the circumstances of the present time differ so widely 
 from all that have preceded as to suggest the question whether the 
 constitution which was good for the past will be, without modifica- 
 tion, good also for the future ..... pp. 219-222 
 
v^,;- *'\ 
 'UNIVERSITY] 
 
 1 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY: THE METHOD OF STUDY. 
 
 I PRorosE in these Lectures to examine the history 
 of the organization of the Christian Churches from the 
 times of the Apostles until the fall of the Western 
 Empire. How that organization began, and what\ 
 causes gave it shape, are questions of extreme ob- 
 scurity: and in the uncertainty of many of the data 
 upon which the answers have to be based, some of the 
 answers themselves must be more or less problematical. 
 Nor is it easy to enter upon the consideration of these 
 questions with an unbiassed judgment, because the fierce 
 heats of the controversies which once raged round them 
 have not even now sufficiently cooled down to enable 
 the data to be dealt with, as we should deal with data 
 that were wholly new, by the simple canons of either 
 logical inference or literary criticism. Nor should I 
 feel justified in approaching a subject which is in itself 
 so complicated, and which before now has divided 
 kingdoms, and overthrown dynasties, and sent theo- 
 logians to the stake, if it were not for the strong 
 conviction that the time has come at which the area 
 
 B 
 
2 Introductory : [LECT. 
 
 of disputable points may be lessened by the discovery 
 of new facts and the use of a more certain method of 
 enquiry. 
 
 For we have seen the growth in our own day, and to 
 no slight extent in our own community, of a method of 
 treating historical questions which, if it does not abolish 
 controversy, at least limits it. We have seen the growth 
 of a method which deals with the facts of history by 
 processes analogous to those which have been applied 
 with surpassing success to the phenomena of the phy- 
 sical world, and which have there vindicated their 
 accuracy as methods of research by proving to be 
 methods of discovery. We have seen the growth, in 
 short, of historical science. We have seen the growth, 
 as the result of the pursuit and application of that 
 science, of a habit of mind which stands in the same 
 kind of relation to the facts of history as the habit of 
 mind of a practised judge in relation to evidence in a 
 court of law, and which estimates the several items not 
 by some roughly generalized rule, but in the subtle 
 balances of a matured experience. We have seen the 
 growth, in short, not only of historical science, but also 
 of the historical temper. 
 
 Hitherto tjiat science and that temper have been 
 applied almost exclusively, in this country at least, to 
 the facts of civil history : but if we assume, as I pro- 
 pose to assume, that at least for purposes of study 
 the facts of ecclesiastical history, being recorded in the 
 same language, and in similar documents, and under 
 the same general conditions of authorship, belong to 
 the same category as the facts of civil history, it is 
 
i.] The Method of Study. 3 
 
 not too much to maintain the existence of a pre- 
 sumption that the application of historical science and 
 the historical temper to a field of historical phenomena 
 which they have hitherto left comparatively unexplored, 
 may be followed by new results. 
 
 I propose therefore, in dealing with the great ques- 
 tions which I have indicated, to deal with them by the 
 help of modern methods. It is not necessary for me to 
 vindicate those methods. On the comparatively neutral 
 ground of civil history scholars are virtually agreed as 
 to the kind of evidence for which they should look, and 
 as to the manner in which they should deal with it. 
 On the assumption which I have made that the phe- 
 nomena are cognate, the methods will presumably be 
 cognate also. 
 
 But since every field of research has its special dif- 
 ficulties, and since this particular field has been often 
 traversed, and since, moreover, the chief ground for 
 challenging the verdict which more than one generation 
 has passed upon the facts, is that the method of study 
 has been imperfect, it seems appropriate, before we 
 begin the detailed consideration of the subject, to 
 consider what are the special difficulties which we 
 must expect to encounter, and what have been the 
 chief causes which have led to the existing divergences 
 of opinion. 
 
 The first step in historical science is the testing of 
 the documents which contain the evidence. In some 
 fields of historical enquiry the difficulty of that step 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Introductory : [LECT. 
 
 lies in the scantiness of the evidence : in the present 
 enquiry, on the other hand, the difficulty arises from 
 its extent. We find ourselves at the outset face to 
 face with a mass of literature which has come to us 
 in many forms and through many channels, under 
 varying conditions of authentication, and with varying 
 claims to attention. It is as impossible to accept each 
 document for what it purports to be, as it would be 
 impossible to accept en Hoc the historical literature of 
 England. There are forgeries and counter-forgeries : 
 there are documents of great value which we can only 
 put together from the chance quotations of an oppo- 
 nent : there are anonymous works which the enthusiasm 
 of a later age has fastened upon some great name : 
 there are books which were the growth of successive 
 generations, and which the last reviser recast and 
 unified, so that the separation of the new from the 
 old is as difficult as it would be to rebuild an ancient 
 tower from its chipped and battered stones after they 
 have been worked into the structure of a modern 
 wall. Upon this vast accumulation of centuries of 
 busy thought and changing circumstances, of vigorous 
 polemic and sometimes blind belief, literary criticism 
 has barely begun its work. There are vast tracts of 
 ecclesiastical literature which are like vast tracts of 
 unexplored morass : because, although patches of solid 
 ground exist here and there, there is hardly a moment 
 of our passage through them at which we may not 
 find ourselves sinking in the mire. And yet there 
 is scarcely a single item in the whole complex mass 
 which we can afford to lose. A document which is 
 
i.] The Method of Study. 5 
 
 proved to be spurious is not thereby proved to be 
 valueless. That at which a historian has to look is 
 not so much authorship as date. The Apostolical 
 Constitutions, for example, are no more the work of 
 the Apostles than is the Apostles' Creed, and yet they 
 are the most valuable evidence that we possess of the 
 internal life of the Eastern Churches from the third 
 century to the fifth. The Isidorian Decretals are known 
 to be mostly forgeries, and yet they throw a flood of 
 light upon the state of the Church in the Frankish 
 domain in the middle of the ninth century. 
 
 This testing of evidence is followed by the weighing 
 of evidence : in other words, assuming that we have 
 found out who the witnesses are, the next point is to 
 estimate the value of what they say. And here we 
 are encircled by a new class of difficulties. The in- 
 ternal evidence for the history of the organization of 
 Christianity ranges itself into two classes patristic 
 literature and conciliar literature. For some periods, 
 and in some cases, patristie literature is our only guide. 
 The interest of that literature is so great as almost to 
 fascinate us. Much of it was written by men whose 
 saintly lives and spiritual insight seem to place them 
 upon a higher level than that upon which we ordinarily 
 move. We listen to them, as it were, with bated 
 breath, and their words seem almost to fall from the 
 lips of inspired evangelists. But for the purposes of 
 constitutional history, and when investigating ques- 
 tions not of doctrine but of fact, we have to make a 
 clear distinction between their value as theologians 
 and their value as witnesses. We have to scan what 
 
6 Introductory : [LECT. 
 
 they say with a close scrutiny. There is the initial 
 and preliminary difficulty of finding out exactly what 
 they mean. The science of patristic philology has 
 hardly yet begun to exist. The words are for the 
 most part familiar enough to a Greek or Latin 
 student ; but the meaning which attaches to those 
 words is often very remote from that which seems to 
 lie on the surface. And assuming that we understand 
 their meaning, we have to make what scientific ob- 
 servers call the ' personal equation/ We have to 
 realize to ourselves their personal character, their 
 varying natures passionate and impressionable, ima- 
 ginative and mystical, cool-headed and practical. We 
 have to place ourselves in the midst of the circum- 
 stances which surrounded them their struggles for 
 existence or for independence, the rush and storm of 
 their controversies, the flatteries of their friends, and 
 the calumnies of their opponents. We have to re- 
 member that they were all of them advocates, and 
 many of them partizans. And even when, after sub- 
 tracting from what they say that which belongs not 
 to the witness but to the advocate or the partizan, we 
 come upon a statement which cannot reasonably be 
 questioned, we have to consider their nearness in time 
 to the fact which they attest. In ecclesiastical as in 
 civil history the lapse of a generation, though it does 
 not invalidate testimony, compels us to distinguish 
 carefully between what the .witnesses know of their 
 own knowledge and what they know only at second- 
 hand. W T hen they state what is clearly not of their 
 own knowledge we have to consider what were their 
 
i.] The Method of Study. 7 
 
 probable sources of information, or whether what they 
 state is a conjecture. 
 
 But wherever it is possible, we have to base our 
 inferences not upon the Fathers, but upon the Councils. 
 Just as the historian of the constitution of our own 
 country looks primarily to the Statute-book, so the his- 
 torian of the constitution of the Church looks primarily 
 to the decrees of Councils. But though in passing 
 from patristic to conciliar literature, we pass to firmer 
 ground, we by no means emerge from cloudland into 
 light. We are confronted at the outset by a difficulty 
 which has probably done more to produce erroneous 
 views as to the history of ecclesiastical organization 
 than all other causes put together. Comparatively early 
 in the history of the Church the decrees of Councils 
 were gathered together into collections. Almost every 
 great group of Churches had its own collection of rules. 
 About the beginning of the fifth century in the East, 
 and about the end of the same century in the West, the 
 provincial collections were merged into general codes. 
 In these general codes the decrees of local as well as 
 of oecumenical councils had a place. Side by side with 
 the decrees of the great parliaments of Nicaea and 
 Chalcedon were placed the resolutions of obscure pro- 
 vincial assemblies, which were essentially local and 
 temporary, which had originally no validity outside 
 the limits of their provinces, and which until exhumed 
 by the care of the antiquary were unknown to the 
 greater part of Christendom. In addition to this, 
 almost all the collections were singularly imperfect. 
 From at least the beginning of the fourth century 
 
8 Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 provincial assemblies were held, often year by year, 
 over a large part of the Christian world. A complete 
 collection of the resolutions of such assemblies would 
 have enabled us to frame a complete history of the 
 organization of the several provinces. But when only 
 one assembly in fifty has left a record, a factitious im- 
 portance attaches to those which remain. The pre- 
 valence of the ideas or usages which they adopted 
 tends to be greatly exaggerated. It is as though only 
 a few fossils remained of a great geological epoch: 
 valuable as such fossils would be, they would yet be 
 misleading, because they would tend to be regarded 
 as typical, whereas they might be only unimportant 
 specimens of the fauna and flora of their time. 
 
 This difficulty of the heterogeneity and imperfection 
 of the collections has been increased to an almost in- 
 calculable degree by the fact that these collections 
 came in time to be regarded as a legal code, and to 
 have the authority of legislative enactments. They 
 constitute the nucleus of what is known as Canon 
 Law. The various items of which they were com- 
 posed were regarded as standing upon the same level. 
 The distinctions of place and time which existed 
 between those items were practically ignored. For 
 having, as they had, the force of law, the duty of a 
 canonist was not to investigate their origin, but to 
 interpret their meaning. And consequently since 
 Canon Law has had, and has still, an important and 
 recognized place in European jurisprudence, there has 
 been a tendency on the part of ecclesiastical historians 
 to regard concilia! 1 enactments as a canonist would 
 
I.] The Method of Study. 9 
 
 regard them. Since the clauses of the code were of 
 equal, or nearly equal, value as laws, they came to be 
 regarded as being of equal, or nearly equal, value as 
 facts : and hence it has come to pass that over the 
 enormous varieties of constitution which have prevailed 
 in different ages, and in different parts of Christendom, 
 there has been spread the hypothesis of an ideal uni- 
 formity, which covers them as the whitewash covers 
 frescoes of various ages and by various masters upon 
 a cathedral wall. 
 
 But the virtue of a canonist is the vice of a 
 historian. Historical science, like all science, is the 
 making of distinctions ; and its primary distinctions 
 are those of time and space. 
 
 These distinctions are even more important in the 
 subject which lies before us than they are in the 
 secular history of either mediaeval or modern times, 
 on account of the magnitude of the scale upon which 
 Christianity has existed. For the history of Chris- 
 tianity covers more than three-fourths of the whole 
 period of the recorded history of the Western world. 
 It goes back year by year, decade by decade, century 
 by century, for more than fifty generations. If we 
 compare what we are and what w^e believe, the in- 
 stitutions under which we live, the literature which 
 we prize, the ideas for which we contend, in this 
 present year, with the beliefs, the institutions, the 
 literature, the prevalent ideas, of a hundred years ago, 
 we shall begin to realize the difference between one 
 century and another of these eighteen centuries of 
 Christian history. The special difficulty of studying 
 
io Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 any such period of history arises from the fact that 
 the centuries which are remote from our own seem, 
 in the long perspective, to be almost indistinguishable. 
 It is as though we stood upon some commanding 
 height in a country of mountains and valleys, and as 
 we saw fold over fold of the purple hills recede farther 
 and fainter into the distant haze, failed to realize that 
 between each of those far faint lines were valleys filled 
 with busy industries, or, it might be, breadths of pas- 
 ture land, or, it might be, only 'the torrent-sounding 
 depths of deep ravines. So the far centuries of Chris- 
 tian history recede until they are lost in the sun-lit 
 haze of its dawn. Between the third century and the 
 fourth, for example, or between the fourth and the 
 fifth, there seems to all but the scholars who have 
 trod the ground to be an hardly appreciable difference. 
 If a writer quotes in the same breath Eusebius and 
 Sozomen, or St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Leo the 
 Great, he seems to many persons to be quoting coeval 
 or nearly coeval authorities. And yet in fact between 
 each of these authorities there is an interval of a 
 hundred years of life and movement, of great religious 
 controversies, of important ecclesiastical changes. The 
 point is not merely one of accuracy of date ; it is 
 rather that usages and events have at one time as 
 compared with another a widely varying significance. 
 For different centuries have been marked in eccle- 
 siastical as in social history by great differences in 
 the drift and tendency of ideas. Our many-sided 
 human nature tends to develop itself by the exag- 
 gerated growth of one side at a time: and this ten- 
 
L] The Method of Study. \ i 
 
 dency exhibits itself in great secular movements such 
 as were, for example, the great movement of the fourth 
 century in the direction of monasticism, or the great 
 movement of the sixteenth century in the direction 
 of simplicity of worship. Now a usage or an event 
 which is of great significance at one stage of such 
 a movement may be of slight importance at another. 
 In the constitutional history of our own country, for 
 example, no one would fail to see the importance of 
 noting whether the Toleration Act was passed in the 
 reign of William and Mary, or in the reign of Elizabeth : 
 and similarly, in the constitutional history of Chris- 
 tianity, until we are able to see the surroundings of 
 any given fact we may wholly mistake its value. 
 
 Nor are these distinctions of time the only ones of 
 which we have to take accurate note. We have also 
 to recognize distinctions of place. In the constitu- 
 tional history of our own country we at once recognize 
 the importance of distinguishing between the local 
 usages, for example, of Wales and those of the Scotch 
 Lowlands ; and we should at once reject as absurd any 
 attempt to erect such usages into universal rules of 
 the British constitution. But in the case of the Chris- 
 tian Church, the magnitude of the scale upon which 
 it has existed makes the adequate recognition of the 
 distinction vastly more important. The Church has 
 been spread not only over eighteen centuries of time, 
 but over the greater part of the civilized world, over 
 countries peopled by different races, with different 
 institutions, varying widely in intellectual and moral 
 force, in the arts of civilized life, and in the institutions 
 
1 2 Introductory : [LEUT. 
 
 of social order. Even in those early centuries with 
 which alone I propose to deal, it existed among a 
 placid peasantry on the grey slopes of the Batanean 
 hills, in villages which were always scattered, and 
 which, as the great highways of Roman commerce 
 closed, gradually decayed into a silent death. It 
 existed in the thriving municipalities of Gaul, where 
 rhetoric and philosophy flourished, where the civil law 
 was studied and practised by skilled jurists, and where 
 the elaborate framework of the municipal institutions 
 of the Empire was strong enough to withstand the 
 tempest of Teutonic invasion. It existed in the rude 
 septs of Ireland, where Koman organization was prac- 
 tically unknown. It existed also in the busy com- 
 mercial centres of Africa, where the competition of life 
 was keen and the sense of individuality strong. It 
 is obvious that we cannot ignore these distinctions, 
 and regard a rule which was good for and valid in 
 one country as having been equally good for and valid 
 in another country. In other words, what is true of 
 distinctions of time is true also of distinctions of place ; 
 we cannot determine the value of any item of evidence 
 until we have localized it. 
 
 I have dwelt upon these distinctions at what may 
 have seemed an unnecessary length because, as I 
 ventured to indicate at the outset, no small part of 
 the differences of opinion which have arisen respecting 
 the course of Christian history may be traced to an 
 inadequate appreciation of their importance. There is 
 a kind of glamour attaching to ecclesiastical literature 
 
i.] The Method of Study. |U NI V E B S I T Y ' 
 
 X^ C A OIP < K. 
 
 from the spell of which few of us are wholly eman- 
 cipated. A quotation from an ancient Father, OT from" 
 an early Council, is to many persons an end of all 
 controversy. But it is a primary duty of the historian 
 to go behind the quotation, to enquire into its precise 
 meaning and its precise value, and to endeavour to 
 fit it into its exact place in the vast mosaic of Chris- 
 tian history. 
 
 So far as we have yet gone, so far, that is to say, 
 as in any particular case we have tested the evidence 
 and estimated its value, and assigned it to its proper 
 country and its proper time, we are in the position 
 of a palaeontologist who, wishing to study certain 
 fossils, ascertains which is a comparatively easy task 
 that they are fossils and not forgeries, and then pro- 
 ceeds to ascertain the precise stratum and the precise 
 locality of each of them. 
 
 But just as neither a palaeontologist, nor any one 
 else who applies himself to the systematic study of 
 any phenomena, is content with however precise a 
 verification and localization of facts, but is led on by 
 an inevitable bent of his nature to compare one group 
 of facts with another, to find out the law of their 
 sequence, and to reach at length, if he can, the common 
 causes of all of them, so our work is only begun when 
 we have ascertained what the facts are and what is 
 the precise place of each of them in the strata of 
 Christian history. We are impelled to proceed to 
 enquire into the probable causes of these phenomena. 
 There may be those to whom the answer to any such 
 
14 Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 enquiry seems easy and obvious. Just as in the early 
 days of the physical science to which I have alluded, 
 there were some pious persons who, not being yet 
 ripe for that larger conception of creation which is 
 gradually opening up to us, explained the appearance 
 of fossils in this place or in that by an inscrutable fiat 
 of the divine will, which had determined that fossils 
 should be and fossils were : so it is possible that 
 there may be persons still living to whom it is a 
 sufficient explanation of the facts of Christian organiza- 
 tion to say that God so willed them. 
 
 But most of us cannot be so easily satisfied, nor can 
 we believe that enquiry is barred. In this, as in other 
 fields which lie open to our view, we cannot resist, nor 
 do we see any ground of either reason or revelation for 
 attempting to resist, the enquiry into sequences and 
 causes. We go on from the ascertainment of facts to 
 the framing of inductions in reference to those facts. 
 
 Now there are two, and only two, ways in which 
 any phenomena, which have existed through successive 
 periods of time, can be legitimately viewed for the 
 purposes of such inductions. They may be treated 
 by comparison of the whole of the phenomena which 
 coexist at any one time : and they may be treated 
 by tracing each group through its successive periods 
 of existence. The palaeontologist, for example, makes 
 his inferences partly by putting together all that he 
 can find about the fauna and flora of each stratum, and 
 partly by tracing each type of animal or plant through 
 successive strata, so as to arrive at a conclusion re- 
 specting the order and succession of life upon the earth. 
 
I.] The Method of Study. 15 
 
 It is so in the enquiry which lies before us. 
 
 In the first place, we have to view the facts in their 
 relation to preceding and succeeding facts of the same 
 kind ; in other words, as constituting a series. We 
 cannot, of course, assume at the outset that that series 
 is progressive : but neither on the other hand can we 
 assume that the links which compose it are of precisely 
 the same kind throughout. The danger to which in- 
 ferences of this kind are exposed arises more from the 
 latter assumption than from the former. If we deal 
 with an institution or an office which has wholly passed 
 away like the Athenian /3oiA>J or the Roman praetor- 
 ship we endeavour to form an idea of the functions 
 of that institution or of that office simply by putting 
 together Whatever we can find out from contemporary 
 evidence. But if we are dealing with an institution 
 which, under whatever modifications, has remained to 
 the present day, we tend almost inevitably to carry 
 back with us into past times those conceptions of it 
 which we have derived from our modern experience) 
 The tendency is assisted by a fact of language whicn\ 
 cannot be too steadily borne in mind. By the slow 
 and silent alchemy of time institutions change : but, 
 while institutions change, the words which designate 
 them frequently remain permanent. We consequently 
 tend to make the more or less unconscious assumption 
 that the same word designated in past times what 
 it designates now. Whereas what we have in fact to 
 do with every name which we meet with in ancient 
 records, is to treat it altogether independently of the 
 accident that it has remained to our own times. In 
 
1 6 Introductory : [LECT. 
 
 other words, instead of reading the series of historical 
 facts reversely, and interpreting each factor of the 
 series as we go backwards by what we know of its 
 modern use, we have to begin at the beginning, and 
 find out by careful induction what the function of the 
 institution or the office was at the earliest period at 
 which we find it, and, as we trace it through suc- 
 ceeding centuries, add on step by step the new elements 
 which attached themselves to it, until we reach, and so 
 account for, the meaning which it bears now. 
 
 In the second place, we have to view the facts of 
 ecclesiastical organization at any given time in their 
 relation to all the other ascertainable facts of that 
 time. To a certain extent that comparison is so in- 
 evitable that all writers on the subject of* Christian 
 organization have made it. It is inevitable for the 
 reason that, with probably no single exception, the 
 names of Christian institutions and Christian officers 
 are shared by them in common with institutions and 
 officers outside Christianity. It follows, from the mere 
 conditions of the case, that those names were given by 
 virtue of some resemblance in the Christian institutions 
 and officers to institutions and officers which bore the 
 same names already. These resemblances have always 
 been admitted, and have to some extent long been in- 
 vestigated. But evidence which has not been thoroughly 
 investigated until recent years, and evidence which has 
 only within recent years come to light especially in 
 the unimpeachable form of inscriptions has shown 
 that the resemblances are not merely general but 
 minute. The points of comparison which have been 
 
I.] The Method of Study. 17 
 
 hitherto known have to be supplemented by a large 
 number of other points, in which the close relation 
 between Christian and non-Christian organizations has 
 hitherto been hardly suspected. The importance of 
 such a comparison lies in the fact that we cannot avoid 
 going on to the further question, how far the similar 
 phenomena are the product of the same causes. If we 
 find in the Roman Empire civil societies with organiza- 
 tions analogous to those of the Christian societies, civil 
 officers with the same names and similar functions to 
 those of ecclesiastical officers, the question arises and 
 must be answered, whether the causes which are suf- 
 ficient to account for them in the one case are not 
 equally sufficient to account for them in the other. 
 
 It has been contended, and it will no doubt continue 
 to be contended, that the phenomena of ecclesiastical 
 history are unique, and that an attempted comparison 
 between them and the phenomena of civil history is 
 vitiated at the outset by the fact that the resemblances 
 are accidental and superficial, and that the two groups 
 of phenomena are in reality incommensurable. 
 
 And no doubt those phenomena are so transcendent 
 in their interest, and so stupendous in their importance, 
 that few of us can fail to have a profound, if not an 
 absorbing, sympathy with the sublime exaggeration 
 which characterizes many descriptions of them. We, 
 like the inspired dreamer of earlier days, can see the 
 new City of God coming down bodily from the sky, 
 invisible to the carnal sight, but to the eye of faith the 
 only reality in a world of shadows. We can conceive, 
 
 c 
 
1 8 Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 as ancient lovers of symbols often conceived, that no 
 earthly mother gave birth to the spouse of Christ, but 
 that, as Eve was taken from the side of the First Adam, 
 so from the side of the Second Adam there sprang into 
 instantaneous and immortal life the Virgin 'without 
 spot or blemish ' who should be His mystic Bride x . 
 
 But when we descend from poetry to fact, from the 
 dreams of inspired and saintly dreamers to the life of 
 incident and circumstance which history records, and in 
 which we ordinarily dwell, then, if the evidence shows, 
 as I believe it to show, that not only did the elements 
 of the Christian societies exist, but that also the forces 
 which welded them together and gave them shape are 
 adequately explained by existing forces of human 
 society, the argument from analogy becomes so strong 
 that, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, it 
 is impossible to resist the inference that in the divine 
 economy which governs human life, as it governs the 
 courses of the stars, by the fewest causes and the 
 simplest means, the Christian societies, and the con- 
 federation of those societies which we commonly speak 
 of in a single phrase as "the visible Church of Christ," 
 were formed without any special interposition of that 
 mysterious and extraordinary action of the divine voli- 
 tion, which, for want of a better term, we speak of as 
 ' supernatural/ The inference is a presumption and 
 not a demonstration. It is of the same kind as all 
 inferences except those of the purely ideal sciences. 
 
 1 E. g. TertulL De Anima, 43 ; Ada, Petri et Pauli, 29, ap. Tischendorf, Acta, 
 Apostolorum Apocrypha, p. 12. The symbolism probably accounts for the frequency 
 with which the creation of Eve is represented in early Christian art. 
 
I.] The Method of Study. 19 
 
 But it is strong enough to throw the onus of proof not 
 upon those who make, but upon those who deny it. 
 For those who infer from a group of resembling facts a 
 relation of identity in kind, have a presumption in their 
 favour which is not enjoyed by those who infer from 
 those facts a relation of difference. 
 
 There are some, no doubt, who will think that to 
 account for the organization of the Church in this way 
 is to detract from the nobility of its birth, or from the 
 divinity of its life. There are some who can see a 
 divinity in the thunder-peal, which they cannot see in 
 the serenity of a summer noon, or in the growth of the 
 flowers of spring. But I would ask those who think 
 so to look for a moment at that other monument of 
 divine power, and manifestation of divine life, which 
 we bear about with us at every moment. Out of the 
 dust of the earth, if we listen to the Hebrew poet who 
 first sang the inspired song of Genesis ; out of earlier 
 types of organized beings, if we listen to those who 
 tell us or think that they tell us the story of the 
 earth from the records which the earth contains : but, 
 in either view, from antecedent and lower forms, came 
 into being these human bodies with their marvellous 
 complexity of structure, with their almost boundless 
 capacity of various effort, with their almost infinitely 
 far-reaching faculty of observation. And so, it may 
 be nor is it a derogation from its grandeur to say 
 that it was out of antecedent and, if you will, lower 
 forms, out of existing elements of human institutions, 
 by the action of existing forces of human society, 
 swayed as you will by the breathing of the Divine 
 
 C 2 
 
2O Introductory : [LECT. 
 
 Breath, controlled as you will by the Providence which 
 holds in its hand the wayward wills of men no less 
 than the courses of the stars, but still out of elements, 
 and by the action of forces, analogous to those which 
 have resulted in other institutions of society, and other 
 forms of government, came into being that widest and 
 strongest and most enduring of institutions which bears 
 the sacred name of the Holy Catholic Church. The 
 divinity which clings to it is the divinity of order. It 
 takes its place in that infinite series of phenomena of 
 which we ourselves are part. It is not outside the 
 universe of Law, but within it. It is divine, as the 
 solar system is divine, because both the one and the 
 other are expressions and results of those vast laws 
 of the divine economy by which the physical and the 
 moral world alike move their movement and live their 
 life. 
 
 It is by these methods, and with, as I believe, these 
 general results, that I propose to consider the early 
 organization of the visible Church of Christ. 
 
 I propose to begin at the beginning, and to take into 
 consideration as we go on the conditions of the society 
 in which the Christian communities grew as well as 
 the facts of their growth. 
 
 But I do not propose to occupy your time by a 
 preliminary discussion of the ecclesiastical polity of the 
 New Testament, because I believe that that polity will 
 be best understood by the light of subsequent history. 
 At the time when the majority of the sacred books 
 were written that polity was in a fluid state. It had 
 
i.] The Method of Study. 21 
 
 not yet congealed into a fixed form. It seems, as far 
 as can be gathered from the simple interpretation of the 
 text, without the interpretation which history has given 
 it, to have been capable of taking several other forms than 
 that which, in the divine economy, ultimately established 
 itself. It has the elements of an ecclesiastical monarchy 
 in the position which is assigned to the Apostles. It 
 has the elements of an ecclesiastical oligarchy in the 
 fact that the rulers of the Church are almost always 
 spoken of in the plural. It has the elements of an 
 ecclesiastical democracy in the fact, among others, that 
 the appeal which St. Paul makes to the Corinthians on 
 a question of ecclesiastical discipline is made neither to 
 bishops nor to presbyters, but to the community at 
 large. It offers a sanction to episcopacy in the fact 
 that bishops are expressly mentioned and their qualifi- 
 cations described : it offers a sanction to presbyterianism 
 in the fact that the mention of bishops is excluded from 
 all but one group of Epistles. It supports the proposi- 
 tion that the Church should have a government in the 
 injunctions which it gives to obey those who rule. It 
 supports on the other hand the claim of the Montanists 
 of early days, and the Puritans of later days, in the 
 preeminence which it assigns to spiritual gifts. 
 
 Which of these many elements, and what fusion of 
 them, was destined in the divine order to prevail, must 
 be determined, not so much by exegesis, as by history. 
 That history will unfold itself before us in subsequent 
 lectures. /^We shall see those to whom the Word 
 Life was preached gradually coalescing into societies. 
 We shall see those societies organizing themselves as 
 
22 Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 charitable associations in the midst of great poverty and 
 depression 2 . We shall see them organizing themselves 
 as disciplinary associations, held together by the force 
 of a strong moral law, in the midst of social disorder 
 and laxity 3 . We shall see them passing from a con- 
 dition of oligarchy or democracy to that of virtual 
 monarchy 4 . We shall see the individual communities 
 ultimately confederated together into a world-wide as- 
 sociation 5 . We shall see that world- wide association 
 and its separate components recognized by the State, 
 and trace the effect upon it of the close neighbourhood 
 and the supporting arm of the civil power 6 . We shall 
 see its officers gradually formed into a class standing 
 apart from the mass of the Christian community, 
 invested with attributes of special sanctity, and living, 
 or supposed to live, by a higher rule of life than that 
 of those to whom they ministered 7 . We shall see the 
 heads of the separate organizations exercising juris- 
 diction outside their proper communities over adjacent 
 and outlying communities, so as to establish a relation 
 of subordination between the latter and the former 8 . 
 We shall pause at length upon the threshold of that 
 period, alike of glory and of shame, when this grand 
 confederation of Christian societies, arrogating to itself 
 the name of that Catholic Church the belief in which 
 is part of all Christian creeds, became the greatest 
 corporation upon earth, stronger than the Roman Em- 
 pire itself in its moral influence upon civilized society 
 and hardly inferior to it in political power, sitting like 
 
 2 Lecture II. 3 Lecture III. * Lecture IV. 5 Lecture VII. 
 
 Lecture VI. 7 Lectures V and VI. Lecture VIII. 
 

 i.] The Method of Study. 23 
 
 a queen upon her throne, with her feet upon the necks 
 of kings, and using the majesty of her sublime con- 
 solations, and the prestige of her long traditions, and 
 the wealth of her splendid charities, to enslave rather 
 than to free the world. 
 
 But upon a subject on which misconception is so \ 
 easy and so prevalent, it seems necessary to add one / 
 word more, and to draw your attention explicitly and 
 once for all to that which I have implied throughout, 
 A that the subject which lies before us is not the 
 Christian faith, but the organization of the Christian 
 Churches. In whatever I may have to say about the 
 latter, I do not propose to touch the former. With 
 doctrine, and with the beliefs which underlie doctrine, 
 we shall have in these lectures no direct concern. 
 Out of the tangled mass of truths and tendencies, of 
 institutions and practices, which make up what we 
 sometimes speak of collectively as Christianity, I shall 
 endeavour to extricate a single thread, and to deal 
 with it as far as possible in isolation. It is true that, 
 except in the purely ideal sciences of metaphysics 
 and geometry, the perfect isolation of any subject is 
 impossible. It is true that there are many points at 
 which the history of organization links itself almost 
 inextricably with the history of doctrine. But I will 
 ask those who listen to me to put upon themselves 
 the same intellectual self-restraint which I endeavour 
 to put upon myself, and to keep a fixed attention 
 upon the immediate point in hand, apart from its 
 innumerable side-issues and its far-reaching relations. 
 
24 Introductory: [LECT. 
 
 No doubt for all our self-restraint there will loom out 
 before us continually as we go on the majestic vision 
 of that stupendous work which these organizations 
 have effected, and are effecting, in the midst of human 
 society. We shall be like a student who makes it 
 his temporary task to explore some great historic 
 cathedral with a view only to its architecture. At 
 every step he treads on hallowed ground. On every 
 side are the memorials of saintly lives, and heroic deeds, 
 and immortal genius. From their silent tombs there 
 seem to rise up the shadows of the holy dead, gazing 
 at him with their beatified faces, and stretching out 
 hands of ghostly fellowship. He is tempted at every 
 moment to throw aside his study, and to yield to 
 the fascination of the place, and to gain some new 
 hope for his own sad life from the weird and whis- 
 pered tale of what they did and suffered for Christ 
 and for the world. But his present concern is with 
 the architecture, and the soft and solemn voices that 
 bid him linger in sympathy or in dream fall upon 
 deafened ears. 
 
 And so, in the Lectures that will follow, it will not 
 be in forgetfulness, but only because their limits are 
 too brief for even the single subject which they pro- 
 pose to compass, that we shall turn our eyes from 
 the saintly souls of these early centuries, and from 
 the sublime truths they taught, to consider only the 
 framework of that vast society to which they and 
 we alike belong, that society into which for eighteen 
 centuries have been gathered the holiest and the 
 noblest of our race, that society which links together 
 
I.] 
 
 The Method of Study. 
 
 the ages by the mystic tie of spiritual communion, 
 that society which, though to some men it has seemed 
 a crushing despotism, has been to you and me and 
 the world at large a beneficence and a salvation. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 BISHOPS AND DEACONS. 
 
 AMONG the many parallels which can be drawn 
 between the first centuries of the Christian era and 
 our own times, there is probably none more striking 
 than that of their common tendency towards the forma- 
 tion of associations. There were then, as now, associa- 
 tions for almost innumerable purposes in almost all 
 parts of the Empire. There were trade guilds and 
 dramatic guilds; there were athletic clubs, and burial 
 clubs, and dining clubs ; there were friendly societies, 
 and literary societies, and financial societies : if we 
 omit those special products of our own time, natural 
 science and social science, there was scarcely an object 
 for which men combine now for which they did not 
 combine then 1 . 
 
 1 Associations occupy a much larger place in epigraphical monuments than in 
 literary history: of the kinds mentioned above, i. trade-guilds are found among 
 almost every kind of workmen and in almost every town of the Empire of which 
 inscriptions remain ; e. g. among the raftsmen at Geneva (Mommsen, Inscriptions 
 Confoederationis Helveticae, No. 75), among the wool-carders of Ephesus (Wood, 
 Discoveries at Ephesus, Append, viii. No. 4), among the litter-bearers of a remote 
 colony in Wallachia (Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. iii. No. 1438), and among the shoe- 
 makers of a market-town in Spain (ibid. vol. ii. No. 2818) ; ii. dramatic guilds, in 
 
Bishops and Deacons. 27 
 
 There was more than one attempt at repression. The 
 State feared lest the honeycombing of the Empire by 
 organizations which in their nature were private, and 
 so tended to be secret, might be a source of political 
 danger : but the drift of the great currents of society 
 towards association was too strong for even the Empire 
 to resist 2 . 
 
 The most important among them were the religious 
 associations. Almost all associations seem to have had 
 a religious element : they were under the protection of 
 
 e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, Inscriptions Grecques et Latines, vol. iii. Nos. 1336, 
 1619 (cf. Foucart, De Collegiis scenicorum artificum apud Graecos, Paris, 1873 ; 
 Liiders, Die dionysischen Kiinstler, Berlin, 1873): iii. athletic clubs, in e.g. Corpus 
 Imcr. Graec. Nos. 349, 5804, Wilmanns, No. 2202 (cf. Herzog, Gallia Narbonensis, 
 p. 247): iv. burial clubs, in e.g. Orelli-Henzen, No. 6086 = Wilmanns, No. 319 (cf. 
 Boissier, Etudes sur quelques colleges funeraires remains in the Revue ArcTieologique, 
 1872, vol. xxiii, p. 82; De Rossi, I collegii funeraticii famigliari e loro denomina- 
 zioni in the Commentationes philologicae in honorem Th. Mommsenii, p. 705) : v. 
 dining clubs, in e.g. Orelli, No. 4073 ; Tertullian, Apol. 39 : vi. friendly societies, in 
 e.g. Le Bas et Waddington, vol. iii. No. 1687; Plin. Epist. 10. 94; Renier, Inscrip- 
 tions d'Algerie, No. 60, 70 = Wilmanns, Exempla Inscr. Lat. Nos. 1481, 1482 : vii. 
 literary societies, in e.g. Orelli, No. 4069 = Wilmanns, No. 2112: viii. financial 
 societies, in e.g. Wilmanns, No. 2181 (cp. the well-known 'societates publicano- 
 rum'). The * Ambubaiarum collegia ' of Hor. Serm. I. 2. i, and the ' latronis colle- 
 gium' of Apul. Metam. 7. 137 may be caricatures: but the extent of the tendency 
 is shown b} T the fact that sometimes the slaves on an estate (Corpus Inscr. 
 Lat. vol. vi. No. 404), or even in a household (Orelli, No. 2414), formed an asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 2 The repression began under the Republic, Cic. in Pison. 4 (cf. Asconius ad 
 loc. ap. M. T. Cic. Scliol. ed. Orelli, p. 7); Jos. Ant. 14. 10. 8; Suet. Caes. 42, and 
 was continued by Augustus, Suet. Octav. 32, and others, e.g. by Trajan, Plin. 
 Epist. 10. 34 (43). The allegation that they tended to become political clubs is 
 supported by the inscriptions on the walls of Pompeii, Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. iv. 
 Nos. 202, 710, 787. For the question of the precise amount of legality which they 
 had under the Empire, see Huschke in the Zeitschrift f. geschicht. Eechtswissen- 
 schaft, Bd. xii, pp. 207, sqq. ; Mommsen, ibid. Bd. xv, p. 353 sqq. ; Loning, 
 Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenreehts, Bd. i. pp. 202 sqq. ; and especially Cohn, Zum 
 romischen Vereinsrecht, Berlin, 1873. Alexander Severus seems to have been the 
 first Emperor who saw in them a conservative rather than a revolutionary force, 
 and encouraged instead of repressing them, Lamprid. Alex. Sev. c. 33. 
 
28 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 a tutelary divinity, in the same way as at the present 
 day similar associations on the continent of Europe 
 invoke the name of a patron saint 3 : and their meetings 
 were sometimes called by a name which was afterwards 
 consecrated to Christian uses that of a 'sacred synod 4 / 
 But in a considerable proportion of them religion was, 
 beyond this, the basis and bond of union. Inside the 
 religion of the State, and tolerated by it, were many 
 forms of religion and many modes of worship. Then, 
 as now, many men had two religions, that which they 
 professed and that which they believed : for the former 
 there were temples and State officials and public sacri- 
 fices ; for the latter there were associations : and in 
 these associations, as is shown from extant inscriptions, 
 divinities whom the State ignored had their priests, 
 their chapels, and their ritual 5 . 
 
 3 Of the Latin associations some were under the protection of one or more of 
 the greater gods: e.g. most of the trades-unions at Rome claimed the patronage 
 of Minerva, Ovid, Fast. iii. 819-832, the physicians of Turin that of Aesculapius 
 and Hygia, Corpus Inscr. Lot. vol. v. No. 6970: others had a 'genius' of their 
 own, e.g. ibid. vol. iii. 1424, vol. v. No. 7595- Some associations, in even closer 
 correspondence with modern confraternities, had their banners for fete-days and 
 processions, ' Vexilla collegiorum,' Vopisc. Aurel. 36; Gallien. 3; Eumen. in Grout. 
 Act. 8 : and the lodge-room or guild-hall, schola, of almost all associations seems to 
 have had a chapel, templum, or at least an altar, ara, e.g. Corp. Inscr. Led. vol. iii. 
 No. 633, vol. v. No. 7906 : the fact is the more noteworthy because De Rossi (Bul- 
 letino di Arch. Christ. 1864, ann. ii. p. 60, Roma Sotteranea, vol. iii. p. 475) main- 
 tains that some of the primitive churches were scholae. For the Greek associ- 
 ations see e.g. Schomann, Griech. Alterthumer, Bd. i. 3* Aufl. pp. 541-6, who 
 rightly says that the religious element was invariable. 
 
 4 The expression lepcL avvoSos for an association, or its meeting, is found, e.g. in 
 Le Bas et Waddington, vol. iii. No. 1336, 1619; Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 4315 n. 
 
 6 The data for the above statements will be found, for the Greek religious asso- 
 ciations in the inscriptions collected by Foucart, Des Associations religieuses chez 
 les Grecs, Paris, 1873: for the Latin associations in Wilmanns, Exempla Inscrip- 
 tionum Latinarum (see the Index in vol. ii. pp. 631 sqq.). Other inscriptions, 
 and further details, will be found in Mommsen, De Collegiis et Sododiciis Ro- 
 manorum, Kiel, 1843; Wescher, Revue Archevlogique, vol. x, 1864, p. 160, vol. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 29 
 
 When the truths of Christianity were first preached, 
 especially in the larger towns of the Eoman Empire, 
 the aggregation of those who accepted those truths 
 into societies was thus not an isolated phenomenon. 
 Such an aggregation does not appear to have invariably 
 followed belief. There were many who stood apart : 
 and there were many reasons for their doing so. The 
 rule of Christian life was severe. It involved a sharp se- 
 paration from the common pursuits of ordinary society ; 
 it sometimes involved also a snapping asunder of the 
 ties of family and home. A man might wish to be 
 Christ's disciple, and yet shrink from * hating father 
 and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and 
 sisters, yea and his own life also.' We consequently 
 find that the union of believers in associations had to 
 be preached, if not as an article of the Christian faith, 
 at least as an element of Christian practice. The Epistle 
 to the Hebrews urges this especially on the ground 
 that the * day ' was approaching 6 . The Epistle of St. 
 Jude condemns those 'who separate themselves/ and 
 charges them with walking ' after their own ungodly 
 lusts V The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of those who 
 were sound in the faith and yet ' lived with the Gentiles 
 and did not cleave to the saints V The Epistle of 
 Barnabas exhorts Christians not to withdraw them- 
 selves and live lives apart, but to meet together and 
 
 xii, 1865, P- 2I 4> v l- x "i 1866, p. 245 ; Boissieu, Inscriptions antiques de Lyon, 
 PP- 373 ^qq- > Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. ii. pp. 267 sqq. ; Duruy, His- 
 toire des Romains, vol. v. pp. 149 sqq. ; Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, 
 Bd. iii. pp. 76, 131 sqq. 
 
 6 Heb. x. 25. 7 St. Jude 19. 
 
 8 Herm. Sim. 9. 26. 3 : so in effect 8. 8. i ; 8. 9. I ; 9. 20. 2 ; Vis. 3. 6. a. 
 
30 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 consult about common interests 9 . The Epistles of Igna- 
 tius make the exhortation to association especially 
 prominent. The chief purpose of those much con- 
 troverted, and most valuable, monuments of early 
 Christianity seems to be not, as has sometimes been 
 supposed, to exalt the episcopate at the expense of the 
 presbyterate, but, accepting the episcopate as an estab- 
 lished institution in the Asiatic Churches, to urge those 
 who called themselves Christians to become, or to con- 
 tinue to be, or to be more zealously than before, mem- 
 bers of the associations of which the bishops were the 
 head 10 . After the sub-apostolic age these exhortations 
 cease. The tendency to association had become a fixed 
 habit. The Christian communities multiplied, and per- 
 secution forged for them a stronger bond of unity. But 
 to the eye of the outside observer they were in the same 
 category as the associations which already existed. They 
 had the same names for their meetings, and some of the 
 same names for their officers 11 . The basis of association, 
 in the one case as the other, was the profession of a com- 
 
 9 Barn. 4. 10. 
 
 10 It is clear from the letters to the communities at Ephesus (c. 5, 3), at Magnesia 
 (cc. 4. 7, i), at Tralles (cc. 2. 7), at Philadelphia (cc. 3. 7), and at Smyrna (c. 7, 2), 
 that there were Christians in those cities who did not come to the general assembly 
 or recognize the authority of the bishop, presbyters, and deacons : it is also clear 
 from Ephes. 20. 2, Philad. 4, Smyrn. 7. 2, that this separation from the assembly 
 and its officers went to the extent of having separate eucharists : it is consequently 
 clear that attachment to the organization of which the bishop was the head was 
 not yet universally recognized as a primary duty of the Christian life. 
 
 11 fKK\t]oia is used of the meeting of an association in e. g. Le Bas et Waddington, 
 vol. iii. No. 1381, 1382 ; Le Bas, vol. iv. No. 1915 = Corp. Inscr. Graec. No. 2271 : 
 so ffwaycayrj, Corp. Inscr. Graec. No. 2448, 3069 ; Wescher, Revue Archeologique, 
 1865, vol. xii. p. 216: so avvodos, Corpus. Inscr. Graec. Nos. 126, 3067, 3069; 
 Le Bas et Waddington, Nos. 1143, 1336, 1619 : so rb KOIVOV, which is in ordinary 
 use for the general body of an association, is used, e.g. in Eueeb. H. E. 6. 19. 16 ; 
 7. 32. 27, for the general body of a church. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 31 
 
 mon religion. The members, in the one case as in the 
 other, contributed to or received from a common fund 12 , 
 and in many cases, if not universally, shared in a com- 
 mon meal 13 . Admission was open, in the one case as in 
 the other, not only to free-born citizens, but to women 
 and strangers, to freedmen and slaves u . Consequently 
 when a Koman governor found the Christian communi- 
 ties existing in his province he brought them under 
 the general law which was applicable to such associa- 
 tions 15 ; and the Greek satirist of the second century 
 
 12 The contribution to a common fund was of the essence of a Greek Zpavos (cf. 
 Harpocrat. s. v. fpaviarrjs) : it was payable every month, and was strictly exacted 
 (Corpus Inscr. Attic, vol. ii. Nos. 610, 630 ; cf. Foucart, pp. 42, 599). In the 
 Koman 'collegia tenuiorum' monthly contributions were also of the essence (' sti- 
 pem menstruam conferre,' Digest, xlvii. 22. i ; cf. Mommsen, De Collegiis, p. 87 ; 
 Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw. Bd. iii. 139). The fund so formed was the common 
 property of the\^issociation, and a member who left under compulsion could claim 
 his share (Digest. Hkid.). The funds of both Greek and Koman associations were 
 frequently increased Dy benefactions. 
 
 * 1S The institution of a common meal seems also to have been general : in the 
 Greek 'associations it is implied in the constant provision for a sacrifice at the stated 
 meetings : in the Latin associations regulations respecting it are given at length in 
 the extant bylaws (which are printed in e.g. Orelli-Henzen, Nos. 4947, 6086 ; Wil- 
 manns, Nos. 318, 319). Philo says that at Alexandria the associations, under the 
 pretext of religion, were merely convivial meetings (in Flaccum, ii. pp. 518, 537) : 
 and Varro complains that college-dinners sent up the prices of provisions at Rome 
 (De Re Rustica, iii. 2. 16). Josephus, Ant. 14. 10. 8, describes the exemption of the 
 Jewish communities at Rome from the general suppression of unauthorized societies 
 by Julius Caesar, by saying povovs rovrovs ovtc (Ku\vff*v oiJre xP'n^ aTa twtytpw 
 oijTt ovvScurva iroiftv. 
 
 14 The evidence for the admission of these classes into the Greek associations is 
 collected by Foucart, pp. 6 sqq. For the Latin associations the proofs are, e. g. I . 
 that in the album of a college of the Cultores Silvani at Philippi, almost all the 
 names are those of freedmen or slaves (Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. iii. No. 633) : ii. 
 the dictum of the jurist Marcian ' servos quoque licet in collegio tenuiorum recipi 
 volentibus dominis' (Digest, xlvii. 22. 3, 2). On one other important point the 
 evidence is too scanty to enable a general statement to be made : but in one of the 
 few extant codes of bylaws, the association requires its officers to test a candidate 
 for admission as to whether he is ' chaste, and pious, and good ' (Corp. Inscr. Graec. 
 No. 1 26 = Foucart, No. 20, who reads ayvos for ayios). 
 
 15 Plin. Epist. 10. 96 (97). 7. 
 
32 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 invented for their bishop that which would have been 
 an appropriate title for their head 16 . 
 
 What then, if we look at these Christian communities 
 simply on their human side as organizations in the 
 midst of human society, was their point of peculiarity 
 and difference 1 
 
 Before I attempt to answer this question I will ask 
 you to consider briefly the circumstances of the society 
 in which those communities existed. 
 
 The economical condition of the Eoman Empire 
 during the early centuries of the Christian era was 
 for the most part one of intense strain 17 . The great 
 political disruptions which preceded the creation of the 
 Empire, and the great political dissensions which ac : 
 companied its consolidation, left their inevitable result 
 in a disturbance, which proved to be permanent, of the 
 social equilibrium. Hardly any of the elements of an 
 unsound state of society were absent. Large tracts of 
 
 16 Lucian, De M orte Peregrini, n, referring expressly to Christians, though pro- 
 bably not expressly to either Ignatius or Poly carp (cf. Keim, Celsus, p. 145 ; Zahn, 
 Ignatius von Antiochien, p. 517), speaks of the head of the community as Oiaffapxqs 
 Kal {vvayorfcvs (the former of these words is a substitute, which does not occur 
 elsewhere, for apxtOiaairrj^, Corpus Inscr. Grace. No. 2271, standing to it in the 
 relation of tricliniarchus, Petron. Satyr. 22, to ap\irp'iK\ivo3 St. John 2. 8 : it implies 
 that the Christian communities, like those of the Jews at Rome, Jos. Ant. 14. 10. 
 8, and of the Essenes, Philo, ii. 458 ed. Mang., were regarded as Qiaooi). 
 
 17 The evidence as to the internal state of the Koman Empire during the second 
 and third centuries has not hitherto been collected, and is too extensive to be com- 
 pressed into a note : some of it, and sufficient to corroborate the statements made 
 above, will be found in Herzberg, Die Geschichte Griechenland unter der Herrschaft 
 der Homer, Bd. ii. 189-210; Finlay, History of Greece, ed. Tozer, vol. i. chap, i ; 
 Mommsen, Ueber den Verfall des romischen Miinzwesens in der Kaiserzeit, in the 
 Berichte der konigl. sdchsischen Gesellsch. der Wissenschqft, phil-hist. Classe, 1850, 
 Bd. ii. esp. pp. 229, sqq. ; Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, Abschn. 
 iii, v, vii; Duruy, Histoire des JKomains, vol. vi. pp. 284-317. 
 
ii.] Bisops and Deacons. 
 
 country had gone out of cultivation. The capi 
 should have rendered them productive was employed 
 to a great extent not in agriculture but in luxury. 
 The absentee landlords of the great estates wasted their 
 substance in the encouragement of a debased Art, in 
 demoralizing largesses, and in the vanishing parade of 
 official rank. .. The smaller landowners were crushed by 
 the weight of an unequal and oppressive taxation. 
 Wealth tended to accumulate in fewer hands, and the 
 lines which separated the poor from the rich became 
 more and more sharply defined, until the old distinction 
 between citizen and foreigner, or citizen and freedman, 
 was merged in a new distinction between the better 
 classes and the lower classes 18 . The municipalities vied 
 with one another in the erection of the massive build- 
 ings whose ruins survive not only to tell the traveller or 
 the historian of a departed greatness, but also to point 
 the moral of the economist as to the results of wasteful 
 expenditure. In order to pay for them they sometimes 
 ran heavily into debt : sometimes they endeavoured to 
 make the future pay for the present by borrowing at 
 usurious interest : sometimes they debased the coinage. 
 So great was the mischief that the emperors were often 
 obliged to send commissioners with extraordinary 
 powers to rearrange municipal finances, and that at last 
 they asserted the right of veto upon projected public 
 works, and took the coinage into their own hands 19 . 
 
 18 ' Honestiores ' and ' humiliores : ' on this distinction see Duruy, Mtmoires de 
 I'Acad&nie des Inscriptions, Tom. xxix. pp. 253, sqq. (reprinted as an appendix to 
 vol. v. of his Histoire des Eomains). 
 
 19 For the curatores or \oytffrai see Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw. Bd. i. 358, 
 487 : for the veto on public works see Macer in the Digest. L 10. 3, i, and 
 
 D 
 
34 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 But this action on the part of the emperors was 
 palliative and not remedial. It may have postponed, 
 but it did not avert, the final decay. In the meantime, 
 in the age which preceded the final decay, the pressure 
 of poverty was severely felt. There was not that kind 
 of distress which is caused by a great famine or a great 
 pestilence : but there was that terrible tension of the 
 fibres of the social organism which many of us can see 
 in our own society. It was the crisis of the economical 
 history of the Western world. There grew and multi- 
 plied a new class in Graeco-Koman society the class 
 of paupers. And out of the growth of a new class 
 was developed a new virtue the virtue of active 
 philanthropy, the tendency to help the poor. Large 
 sums were bequeathed to be expended in annual doles 
 of food. The emperor Trajan had established in Italy a 
 great system for the maintenance and education of 
 children 20 . Rich men and municipalities and succeeding 
 emperors followed his example. The instinct of benevo- 
 
 Ulpian, ibid. I. 16. 7 I : for the abolition of the local mints see Mommsen, 
 Geschichte des rom. Miinzwesens, pp. 728, 831. 
 
 20 The institution of ' alimenta,' which was begun by Nerva (Aurel. Viet. Epit. 
 12), was extended and organized by Trajan. The bronze tablets containing the 
 regulations, and a list of the investments, for two districts of Italy, which were 
 discovered near Piacenza in 1747, and near Benevento in 1831, have been printed, 
 e.g. by Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. No. 1354; Wilmanns, No. 2844, 2845; 
 Haenel, Corpus Legum, pp. 69-70, (cf. Desjardins, De Tabulis alimentariis, Paris, 
 1854; Henzen, Tabula alimentaria Baebianorum, Home, 1845; Borghesi, (Euvres, 
 vol. iv. 119, 269; and, on the system of administration, Mommsen, Rom. 
 Staatsrecht, Bd. ii. p. 998). The extent to which the example of the Emperors 
 was followed by private persons is shown, not only by numerous extant inscrip- 
 tions, but also by the fact that Severus and Caraoalla discontinued the exemp- 
 tion of such endowments from the operations of the Lex Falcidia, and required 
 them to be administered by the provincial governor(Marcian in Digest. Lib. xxxv. 
 3. 89). 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 35 
 
 lence was fairly roused 21 . And yet to the mass of men 
 life was hardly worth living. It tended to become a 
 despair. 
 
 Such was the state of society when those who ac- 
 cepted Christian teaching began to be drawn together 
 into communities. They were so drawn together in 
 the first instance, no doubt, by the force of a great 
 spiritual emotion, the sense of sin, the belief in a 
 Eedeemer, the hope of the life to come. But when 
 drawn together they ' had all things common/ The 
 world and all that was in it were destined soon to pass 
 away. ' The Lord was at hand.' * In the meantime 
 they were ' members one of another/ The duty of 
 those who had ' this world's goods ' to help those who 
 were in need was primary, absolute, incontrovertible. 
 The teaching of our Lord Himself had been a teach- 
 ing of entire self-sacrifice. ' Sell that thou hast and 
 give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven 22 .' And the teaching of the earliest Christian 
 homily which has come down to us elevates almsgiving 
 to the chief place in Christian practice : * Fasting is 
 better than prayer, almsgiving is better than fasting : 
 blessed is the man who is found perfect therein, for 
 almsgiving lightens the weight of sin 23 .' 
 
 21 Cf. Corpus Inscr. Grace. No. 3545, for the almost Christian sentiment tv 0iy 
 KCL\OV fpyov fv fj.6vov cviroua. 
 
 22 St. Matt. 19. 21. 
 
 23 2 Clem. Kom. 16, apparently following Tobit xii. 8, 9. Similar sentiments are 
 not infrequent in patristic literature: e.g. Lactant. Inst. 6. 12, 'magna est miseri- 
 cordiae merces cui Deus pollicetur peccata se omnia remissuruin;' S. Chrys. Horn. 
 6 in Tit. c. 3, Opp. ed. Migne xi. 698, avrrj tyapiuuthv karri ruv fjfifTfpcav dfiapriuv. 
 Const. Apost. 7. 12, tav exU s &<* T&V x fl P^ v ffov $ 
 
 ffov t\frjfioavvais 70^ Kal mffrtfftv diroKaOaipovrai 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 It was in this point that the Christian communities 
 were unlike the other associations which surrounded 
 them. Other associations were charitable : but whereas 
 in them charity was an accident, in the Christian associa- 
 tions it was of the essence 24 . They gave to the religious 
 revival which almost always accompanies a period of 
 social strain the special direction of philanthropy. They 
 brought into the European world that regard for the 
 poor which had been for several centuries the burden 
 of Jewish hymns. They fused the Ebionism of Palestine 
 with the practical organization of Graeco-Roman civili- 
 zation. 
 
 I have dwelt at length upon the circumstances under 
 which the early Christian communities grew, because 
 those circumstances seem to account for, and to explain, 
 that which it is our more immediate task to examine 
 the form which the organization of those communities 
 took, and the titles which their officers bore. 
 
 It is clear from the nature of the case that in com- 
 munities which grew up under such circumstances, and 
 in which the eleemosynary element was so prominent, 
 the officer of administration and finance must have had 
 an important place. 
 
 If we turn to the contemporary non-Christian as- 
 sociations of Asia Minor and Syria to the nearest 
 neighbours, that is to say, of the Christian organizations 
 we find that the officers of administration and finance 
 were chiefly known by one or other of two names, not 
 
 2t Cf. St. Chrys. Horn. 32 in Hebr. c. xii. Opp. ed. Migne, vol. xii. 224 
 OVTOJ \apaKTijpiffTtKov "X-piffTiavov us t\frjfJLoavvij. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 
 
 
 U-ML* ^ 
 
 far distant from one another in either form or meaning. 
 The one of these was eTn/xeA^f-^-which has this ad- 
 ditional interest, that it was the designation of the 
 chief officers of the Essenes 25 : the other was the name 
 which became so strongly impressed on the officers of 
 the Christian societies as to have held its place until 
 modern times, and which in almost all countries of both 
 East arid West has preserved its form through all the 
 vicissitudes of its meaning the Greek eTnWoTro?, the 
 English bishop 26 . There is this further point to be noted 
 in reference to these names, that they were used not 
 only in private associations, but also in municipalities 27 : 
 
 25 'EiripfXrjTTjs, which has undoubtedly a large contemporary use in the general 
 sense of ' commissioner ' or ' superintendent,' is used specially of the administra- 
 tive officers of a religious association; in e.g. Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 119, 120 
 ( = Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part i. No. 21), 3438, 5892 : 
 and of the officers of the Essenes, Josephus, B. J. 2. 8. 5, 6. It is also used of the 
 officer of a temple, Le Bas et Waddington, Nos. 45960, 5892 (of the temple of 
 the colony of Gazaeans at Portus Trajani) : of the financial officer of the mysteries 
 at Andania in Messenia. Le Bas, vol. ii. ed. Foucart, No. 326 a : and of the ad- 
 ministrator of charitable funds at Delphi, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique, 
 1^81, pp. 164, 170. 
 
 26 'EiriffKoiros is used of the financial officer of an association in the Theran in- 
 scription published by Wescher, Revue Archeologique, 1866, vol. 13, p. 246 
 djroSf^afjifvos rav ftrayycXiav TO fi[^v ap]yvptov tySavfiaai TOS iTrter/fojVos] Aicava 
 KOI MeA.7rnw. ' It is resolved that the fwicKoiroi Dion and Meleippus shall accept 
 the offer and invest the money.' It is used of the financial officers of a temple in 
 several inscriptions which have been found in the Hauran, e. g. in that which was 
 first printed by Mr. Porter in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 
 and Ser. vol. v. p. 248, by Wetzstein in the AbhandL der Berlin. Akad. 1863, No. 47, 
 and by Le Bas et Waddington, No. 1990 (the inscription belongs to Christian times, 
 but its Pagan character is shown by the preliminary formula 'AyaOy Ivxy). 
 
 27 'EirtfifXijT'fjs is used of a municipal officer, e. g. at Sparta (in the time of 
 Hadrian), Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 1241, at Amyclae, ibid. No. 1338, at Coronea, 
 No. 1258 : iiriffKoiros at Erythrae, ibid. No. 73 ; Kirchhoff, Corpus Inscr. Att. vol. i. 
 No. 10. The former was the title of the special officer who was sent by the 
 Spartans to subject states, the latter that of the officer so sent by the Athenians : 
 cf. Boeckh, C. I. G., vol. i. p. 611 b. ; Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British 
 Museum, Part i. No. 3. It may be further noted that in the Revised Version ' 
 of the Old Testament, which was published by Symmachus at the end of the second 
 
38 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 and that they were there applied not only to permanent 
 or quasi-permanent officers, but also to the governing 
 body, or a committee of the governing body, when 
 entrusted with the administration of funds for any 
 special purpose. The (BovXevral of a city or a division, 
 or a committee of them, were for the time being, in 
 relation to such administration, eTr/^eX^ra/ or eirivKOTroi 28 . 
 Now in the Christian communities there appears to 
 have been from very early times a body of officers : 
 it must be inferred from the identity of the names 
 which were employed that those officers were in relation 
 to the Christian communities what the senate was in 
 relation to a municipality, and what the committee was 
 in reference to an association. They were known collec- 
 tively by a name which is common in both relations 
 that of ordo 29 : .they were known individually as well 
 
 century A.D., fmffKotrovs is substituted for the roita.p-^a.'s of the LXX., in Gen. 41. 
 34, to designate the special commissioners who were sent to administer that part 
 of the state revenue which consisted in a double tithe of corn : this application of 
 the word coincides with that which is mentioned by the Roman jurist Charisius, 
 Dig. 50. 4. 1 8, 'episcopi qui praesunt pani et caeteris venalibus rebus quae 
 civitatum populis ad quotidianum victum usui sunt.' Both these facts serve to 
 confirm the general view of the functions of the Christian liriaKoiroi, as such, which 
 is advanced in the text. 
 
 28 E.g. Le Bas et Waddington, No. 2309, 2310, at Soada in Batanea, \maKo- 
 wovvTow povXtvT&v <f>v\r)$ "BiTatrjvSiv, ' the councillors of the tribe of the Bitaeeni 
 acting as fwiaKoirot : ' ibid. No. 2412 e = Wetzstein, No. 184, at Kanata in the 
 Hauran, (iriaKoirovvros PovXevrov, 'the councillor acting as t itioK OTTOS :' similarly 
 ibid. No. 2072 at Philippopolis in Batanea, tirifjLtXoviJLfVfav . . . ffovXevruv, 'the 
 councillors acting as l^eAT/Tat'.' (A third word of equivalent meaning is some- 
 times found, irpovoijTrjs, e. g. ibid. No. 2413 c = Wetzstein, No. 1 77, at Agraba in the 
 Hauran: ibid. No. 1^4 d = Wetzstein No. 53, at Ayoun.) 
 
 29 Ordo is of frequent occurrence in inscriptions: (i) for a municipal senate, e. g. 
 Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. No. 1115 ; Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. ii. No. 1956 : (2) 
 for the committee of an association, e.g. Orelli, No. 2417, 4iO4 = Wilmanns, Nos. 
 320, 1743. In relation to the Christian communities it is used in contrast, as in 
 the Latin collegia, to plebs, i. e. the mass of ordinary members, sometimes by 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 39 
 
 as collectively by a name , which was common to the 
 members of the Jewish o-wedpia and to the members 
 of the Greek yepova-lai of Asia Minor that of Trpear- 
 fiurepoi 30 : they were also known for I shall here 
 assume what the weight of evidence has rendered 
 practically indisputable by the name eTrlo-KOTroi 31 > In 
 their general capacity as a governing body they were 
 known by names which were in current use for a 
 governing body: in their special capacity as adminis- 
 trators of Church funds they were known by a name 
 which was in current use for such administrators. 
 
 I propose in a future Lecture to enter into the 
 question of the causes which led to that great change 
 in Christian organization by which the functions of 
 this original plurality of probably coordinate officers 
 came practically to pass into the hands of a single 
 officer. I propose now to suggest reasons for the fact 
 that this single officer came in time to monopolize 
 the name which had hitherto been shared by the 
 members of the governing body in common, and which 
 had reference to financial and administrative functions 
 rather than to his position as president: in other 
 words, to answ r er the question, why was the single 
 head of the Christian communities called, at first com- 
 monly and at last exclusively, by the name bishop ? 
 
 itself, Tertull. De Exhort. Castit. c. 7, sometimes with a defining epithet, ' ordo 
 ecclesiasticus,' id. De Monog. c. n. 
 
 30 See below, Lecture III, Note 25. 
 
 sl For a clear summary of the evidence on this point see Bishop Lightfoot, 
 St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, ed. 3, pp. 93 sqq., and Gebhardt and Har- 
 nack's note to i Clem. Rom. i. 3, in their Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, ed. alt. 
 fasc. i. p. 5. The admissions of both mediaeval and modern writers of almost all 
 schools of theological opinion have practically removed this from the list of disputed 
 questions. 
 
40 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 The key to the answer to this question seems to 
 be furnished by the fact, which we learn first from 
 Justin Martyr, that the offerings of Christians were 
 made, not privately but publicly, and not directly to 
 those who had need, but to the presiding officer in the 
 general assembly 32 . The presiding officer who received 
 them solemnly dedicated them to God, and uttered 
 over them, in the name of the assembly, words of 
 thanksgiving and benediction. Part of them were at 
 once distributed among those who were present, part 
 of them were reserved for distribution afterwards, 
 whether to the Church officers or to the poor. In 
 a significant and graphic phrase, some of the sub- 
 apostolic writers cah 1 the widows and orphans and 
 
 32 The offerings were of two kinds, but both were made to the presiding officer, 
 and both solemnly dedicated, i. The offerings which were made by those who 
 were present at the eucharistic service, some of which were consumed at the time, 
 others carried home, others taken to those who were absent, and others sent in 
 token of goodwill to foreign churches (St. Justin M. Apol. I. 65. 67 ; St. Iren. ap. 
 Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 17, cf. Vales, ad loc.', Tertull. Apol. 30, ad Uxor. 2. 5, de 
 Oral. 19; St. Cyprian. De Lapsis, 26, p. 256; Cone. Laod. c. 14). At first these 
 offerings seem to have been of various kinds : but afterwards a rule was made 
 limiting them to bread and wine, or corn and grapes (Can. Apost. 3) : and, still 
 later, those which were not consumed at the .time were divided infixed proportions 
 among the clergy (Const. Apost. 8. 30). The practice of making them personally to 
 the president or bishop lingered longer in the West than in the East, as is shown 
 by the earliest form of the Ordo Romanus (printed in Hittorp, De divinis Catholicae 
 Ecclesiae Officiis, Cologne, 1568, p. 17; Mabillon, Mm. Ital. vol. ii. p. 10, cf. ibid. 
 Comm. Praev. pp. xliv-xlvii., and for the probable date, Merkel in the Theolo- 
 gische Quartalschrift, 1862, vol. xliv. p. 59^, in which the bishop goes round the 
 church to receive the offerings, followed by acolytes with a linen sheet for carrying 
 the collected loaves, and by a deacon with a bowl, into which the flasks of wine 
 were emptied, i. The freewill offerings for the clergy and the poor were, first as 
 a matter of practice (St. Justin. M. Apol. i. 67), and afterwards as a matter of rule 
 (Const. Apost. 2. 25), made not directly to the intended recipients but to the bishop, 
 and by him solemnly offered to God (ibid. 2. 25. 34 : cf. Cone. Gangr. c. 7, 8, which 
 anathematizes any one who makes his offerings to any one but the bishop or his 
 commissary) . 
 

 ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 41 
 
 poor of the Christian communities a Ovanacrrnptov an 
 altar of sacrifice 33 . They were in the new economy 
 what the great altar of the Temple Court had been 
 in the older economy. Just as the new Temple of 
 God was the temple of the regenerate soul, so the 
 new altar of God was the altar of human need. That 
 which was given to ' the least of the little ones' was 
 given also to God. 
 
 When the president became a single permanent 
 officer he was, as before, the person into whose hands 
 the offerings were committed and who was primarily 
 responsible for their distribution. He thus became 
 the centre round whom the vast system of Christian 
 charity revolved. His functions as supreme almoner 
 tended to overshadow his functions as president of the 
 council. The names which were relative to his func- 
 tions as president, though they never completely passed 
 away, fell gradually into disuse. The title which 
 clung to him was that which was relative to his 
 administration of the funds, e7r/<T/co7ro? or bishop. In 
 the same way his functions were chiefly known by 
 names which were relative to his administration 
 oiKovofjLta, SiaKovla^. They were the analogue in the 
 Church of the administrative services which citizens 
 rendered to the State, and were called by the same 
 name, \eirovpyla 35 . And sometimes by a metaphor 
 
 33 St. Polycarp, ad Phil. 4 ; Const. Apost. 2. 26 ; 4. 3 ; pseudo-Ignat. ad Tars. 
 9 ; cf. Tertull. ad Uxor. i. 7. 
 
 34 Olieovofjiia is used of a bishop's administration, e. g. Euseb. H. E. 4. 4 ; 
 Kovia, St. Ignat. ad Philad. 1, Epist. Eccles. Vienn. et Lugd. ap. Euseb. H. E. 
 
 5- i- 29- 
 
 35 AciTovpyia of a bishop's administration, e. g. Euseb. H. E. 3. 22 ; 5. 28. 7; 6. 
 H. i ; 6. 29. i. It was the common word for public duties; e. g. for the duty 
 
42 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 which almost startles us by its boldness the bishop is 
 compared to God the Supreme Administrator, 6 Trdi'rwv 
 7T/cr/co7ro9, who gives to every man severally as he has 
 need 36 . 
 
 If we look at the internal economy of the Christian 
 communities during the earlier centuries of their 
 existence, we shall see that the functions of an ad- 
 ministrator were so various in kind and so considerable 
 in amount as to be not inadequate to account for the 
 importance which was attached to them, and that; as 
 years went on, that importance rather increased than 
 diminished. 
 
 The Christian communities grew up, as we have 
 seen, in the midst of poverty. They had a special 
 message to the poor, and the poor naturally flowed 
 into them. And the poverty in the midst of which 
 they grew was intensified by the conditions of their 
 existence. Some of their members were outcasts from 
 their homes : others had been compelled by the stern 
 rules of Christian discipline to abandon employments 
 which that discipline forbad 37 . In times of persecution 
 the confessors in prison had to be fed : those whose 
 property had been confiscated had to be supported : 
 those who had been sold into captivity had to be 
 ransomed 38 . Above all there were the widows and 
 
 which at Rhodes the citizens discharged at their own cost, rather than at the cost 
 of the state, of providing for the needy poor, Strab. 2. 14. 5. 
 
 36 St. Ignat. ad Magnes. 3; cf. Philo. i. 449, 454, 457, irartpa ruv 6\wv at 
 crriffKoirov, and the frequent stoical phrase 6 SIOIKUV TO oAa, e. g. Epict. Diss. I. 
 12. 7; 2. 16. 33. M. Anton. 6. 42 ; 10. 25. 
 
 37 Cyprian, Epist. 2. (61) p. 467, ed. Hartel, says that an actor who has been 
 forced to abandon his profession is to^be placed ' inter ceteros qui ecclesiae alimen- 
 tis sustinentur.' 
 
 38 i Clem. Rom. 55. 2 ; Herm. Mand. 8. 10, Sim. 1.8; Dionys. Corinth, ap. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 43 
 
 orphans 39 . In such times as those which we are con- 
 sidering the poverty of widows and orphans is ne- 
 cessarily great, because men have in their lifetime 
 a less than ordinary chance of saving, and after their 
 death their children have a less than ordinary chance 
 of success in the social struggle. But in this respect 
 again the Christian communities tended to intensify 
 the evils w T hich they cured. In the ordinary course 
 of society orphan girls would have married, and many 
 widows would have found for themselves a second home. 
 But there grew up in the Christian communities a 
 tendency, which many of the great preachers fostered, 
 towards perpetual virginity and perpetual widowhood. 
 To marry was indeed not a sin, but it was a confession 
 of weakness : to marry a second time was almost to 
 lapse from grace 40 . The number of virgins and widows 
 for whom the Church had to provide consequently 
 multiplied in an increasing ratio 41 . In addition to these 
 
 Euseb. H. E. 4. 23. 10 ; Clement. Epist. ad Jacob. 9 ; Tertull. Apol. 39, ad 
 Martyr, i ; St. Cyprian. Epist. 7 (36), p. 485, 62 (60), c. 4, p. 700. Const. Apost. 
 4. 9. 5. i. Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 12, caricatures the practice: cf. Libanius, 
 Orat. 16 in Timm., Oral, de Vinctis, ii. 258, 445. So much stress was laid upon 
 it that Ambrose (De Offic. 2. 28) defended, and Justinian (Cod. i. 2. 22) legalized, 
 the sale of the eucharistic vessels in order to obtain the necessary funds. 
 
 89 Herm. Mand. 8. 10, Sim. i. 8 : 5. 3 : 9. 26, 27 ; St. Ignat. ad Smyrn. 6, ad 
 Polyc. 4 ; St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 4 ; St. Justin M. Apol. i. 67 ; Clement. Epist. 
 ad Jacob. 8; Tertull. ad Uxor. 1.8; St. Cyprian, Epist. 7 (36), p. 485 ; Const. Apost. 
 frequently, e.g. 2. 26 : 3, 4, 6, 7, 14; 4, 2, 3, 8 : 8. 29. The claims of women to 
 special provision had been acknowledged by non-Christian communities : e. g. Le 
 Bas et Waddington, Nos. 226, 227, 228 = Corpus Inscr. Gra.ec. Nos. 2886, 2883 c, 
 2885 d, are inscriptions in honour of those who had made distributions rais ! vaov 
 yvvat^l ttal rafs trapOevois. 
 
 <0 Athenag. Deprec. 28 6 dtvrepos j/ya/jos] evirpeir/is Ian notxeia : so in effect 
 Origen, Horn. xvii. in Luc. Tom. iii. p. 953 ed. De la Rue. 
 
 41 In addition to providing for widows who were in need, the Church officers 
 had frequently to take charge of the property of those who had it (e. g. St. Ambros. 
 De Officiis Ministr. ii. 29 : cf. 2 Mace. 3. 10, which shows that Jewish widows had 
 
44 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 were the strangers who passed in a constant stream 
 through the cities of all the great routes of commerce 
 in both East and West. Every one of those strangers 
 who bore the Christian name had therein a claim 
 to hospitality. For Christianity was, and grew because 
 it was, a great fraternity. The name * brother/ by 
 which a Jew addressed his fellow-Jew, came to be 
 the ordinary designation by which a Christian ad- 
 dressed his fellow-Christian 42 . It vividly expressed a 
 real fact. For driven from city to city by persecution, 
 or wandering from country to country an outcast or 
 a refugee, a Christian found, wherever he went, in the 
 community of his fellow-Christians a welcome and 
 hospitality. The practice of hospitality was enjoined 
 as the common virtue of all Christians : in the New 
 Testament itself stress is laid upon it by St. Paul, 
 St. Peter, and St. John 43 . But it was a special virtue 
 
 been in the habit of taking their money to the Temple), or to defend them in the 
 civil courts (e. g. Cone. Sardie. c. 7). The civil and the canon law combined to 
 make the functions which grew out of this an important part of a bishop's duties 
 in later times. 
 
 42 ' Brother,' of one Jew in relation to another, frequently in the Old Testament ; 
 e. g. Deut. 15. 12 : 17. 15 ; cf. Philo, ii. 285 dSeA^oj/ TOV op.6i]>v\ov fi-nev, and Clem. 
 Alex. Strom. 1. 18, p. 473, ed. Pott. : so also in the New Testament, e. g. St. Matth. 
 5. 47 : 1 8. 15. For its use of Christians see e.g. St. Justin M. Apol. I. 65 ; Tertull. 
 Apol. 30; Iren. 2. 31. 2 ; Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. 9, p. 450: cf. Lucian, De Morte 
 Feregrini, 13. The word was also used of the fellow-members of non-Christian 
 associations, e. g. Corpus Inscr. Lot. vol. iii. No. 2509. (But after the Ariaii 
 controversy it was superseded in general use by the word ' fidelis.') 
 
 43 Rom. 12. 13, 'given to hospitality' : Heb. 13. 2, 'Be not forgetful to enter- 
 tain strangers ' : I Pet. 4. 9, ' Use hospitality one to another without grudging ' : 
 3 John 5-7, commends Gaius for his charity to strangers which went forth for 
 His name's sake, ' taking nothing of the Gentiles.' It was a special qualification 
 of a widow, ' if she have lodged strangers,' i Tim. 5. 10. So in sub- Apostolic 
 literature : Clement of Rome, I. c. 2, speaks of the splendid hospitality of the 
 Corinthians, and holds up before them, c. 10-12, for their encouragement, the 
 examples of the hospitality of the patriarchs. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 45 
 
 of the eV/or/coTro?. It was for him not so much a 
 merit as a duty 44 . Travelling brethren, no less than 
 the poor of his own community, were entitled to a 
 share in his distribution of the Church funds 45 . It is 
 natural to find that such a system was abused. The 
 common weaknesses of human nature asserted them- 
 jlves. Even in Apostolic days there were * false 
 *ethren : ' and later on the Apostolical Canons say in 
 reference to the practice that 'many things are done 
 in a spirit of plunder 40 .' But the abuses increased 
 the responsibility and the importance of the bishop. 
 A rule was adopted that although the bodily necessities 
 of travellers might continue to be relieved, no one 
 should be admitted to hospitality, in the fuller sense 
 of earlier times, without a certificate of membership 
 from his own community 47 . The officer who gave this 
 certificate was the e7r/ovco7ro? who, in all probability, 
 also kept the roll : and his responsibility in relation 
 to it became greater when in course of time it became 
 
 ** i Tim. 3. 2 : Titus i. 8 : cf. the description of a good bishop in Herm. Sim. 
 9 27: so e. g. St. August Strm. 355 (De Divers. 49), Opp. ed. Migne, vol v. 1570, 
 4 vidi necesse esse habere episcopum e<hibere humanitatem quiscunque venientibus 
 sive transeuntibus.' 
 
 45 Can. Apost. 41. Conversely, when one church differed with another, its 
 bishop refused to admit the travelling members of that church to communion, and 
 if the difference were considerable he denied them even 'board and lodging' ('tec- 
 turn et hospitium,') as in the case of the difference between the African churches 
 and Stephen of Rome, Epixt. Firmil. ap. St. Cyprian. Op. Epist. 75. 25, p. 826. 
 
 46 Gal. 2. 4: Can. Apost. 33 iro\\ci *yap KO.TCL avvaprray^v ^iverai : see also c. 5 of 
 the Council of Niines in 394, first published from a Cologne MS. by Knust in 
 1839, afterwards by e.g. Hefele, ii. 57 'quia multi sub specie peregrinationis de 
 ecclesiarum conlatione luxoriant.' 
 
 47 The system of giving such letters, which seems to have also prevailed in the 
 philosophical Schools, Epict. Diss. 2. 3. i ; Diog. Laert. 8. 87, dates from Apostolic 
 times, Acts 18. 27 : 2 Cor. 3. i : but it does not seem to have been obligatory earlier 
 than Cone. Antioch. A.D. 341, c. 7, afterwards incorporated in Can. Apost. 12. 33. 
 
46 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 necessary to draw sharper lines of definition round the 
 circle of admissible beliefs. 
 
 In addition to the poor, the widows and orphans, and 
 the travelling brethren, there was the care of such of the 
 church officers as, not having means of their own, were 
 dependent on the Church funds for their subsistence 48 . 
 The roll of these, as of others, was probably kept by 
 the bishop : and in the great cities the number of those 
 who were entered upon it was large even when mea- 
 sured by a modern standard. We have some indication, 
 though a late one, of those numbers in the regulation 
 of the Emperor Justinian which limited the number of 
 officers for the four great churches of Constantinople 
 to 525, and enacted that if the bishop ordained more he 
 should provide for them at his own expense 49 . 
 
 Of this vast system of ecclesiastical administration 
 the eTT/cr/coTTo? was the pivot and the centre. His func- 
 tions in reference to it were of primary importance. 
 He had no doubt other important functions, of which I 
 propose to speak on a future occasion : he was the 
 depositary of doctrine, and he was the president of 
 the courts of discipline. But the primary character of 
 these functions of administration is shown by the fact 
 that the name which was relative to them thrust out 
 all the other names of his office, and that most of the 
 abstract names for his office are names which directly 
 connote administration. 
 
 There are two other considerations which so strongly 
 
 48 E.g. St. Cyprian. Epist. 41 (108), p. 588: Can. Apost-4, Const. Apost. 2. 28. 
 
 49 Justin. Novell. 3, c. I, 2 : the numbers were to be sixty presbyters, a hundred 
 deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, a hundred and ten readers, twenty- 
 four singers, a hundred doorkeepers. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 47 
 
 confirm this view that I regret that the necessary limits 
 of a lecture prevent me from doing more than indicating 
 them. 
 
 1. In the first place, there is the argument from the 
 abuses of the office. Just as in the science of physiology 
 the nature of the functions of an organ is often shown 
 by its lesions, so the nature of the functions of an 
 office is often shown by its abuses. But the larger 
 proportion of all the abuses of the episcopal office which 
 are provided against in both civil and canon law are 
 relative to the administration of the Church funds 50 . 
 
 2. In the second place, there is the argument from 
 current conceptions of the nature of the office. No 
 small part of the eulogies upon bishops, whether by 
 
 50 The offerings were in early times at the free disposal of the church officers : 
 and scandals appear very early, e. g. in the case of the presbyter Valens, at 
 Philippi (Polycarp, ad Phil. 1 1), and of the deacons mentioned by Hernias (Sim. 9. 
 26) : cf. Origen, Horn. 16 in Matth. c. 22, vol. iii. p. 752. In the fourth century, 
 when administration had come to be centred in the bishops, the Apostolical Con- 
 stitutions remind them that though there is no human check, they are responsible to 
 God (Const. Apost. 2. 24) : the Council of Antioch, c. 25, the Apostolical Canons, 
 c. 38-41, the African Code, c. 33, the code known as ' Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua 1 
 ( = 4 Cone. Garth.) c. 31, 32, all find it necessary to remind the bishop that he 
 is a trustee for the poor, and that he is not at liberty to enrich himself or his 
 family out of the church funds. In time two checks were devised : (i) the bishop 
 was compelled to appoint a steward (oiKovopos), Cone. Chalc. c. 26, so that the 
 administration of the funds should not be without a witness, and the property of 
 the church be scattered : (2) the offerings were divided in the West according 
 to a recognized scale, which, however, varied in different churches and at different 
 times: Cone. Aurel. A.D. 511, c. 14, 15; 2 Cone. Brae. A.D. 563, c. 7; St. Greg. 
 TSL.Epist. 4. 12 ; 12. 31; Cone. Emerit. A.D. 666, c. 14; ps.-Gelas. Epist. adEpisc. 
 Lucan. c. 27, ap. Hinschius, Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 650, which embodied 
 the ultimate rule of the canon law. In the civil law, the chief enactments are 
 those of Justinian, Cod. i. 2. 14 ; i. 3. 4; 2. 8. 7, and especially Novell. 3. 69, 
 which requires that none but childless persons shall be appointed, to prevent the 
 alienation of church property in favour of a bishop's children. (For a convenient 
 and trustworthy modern account of the bishop's relation to the administration 
 of Church funds see Loning, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. pp. 
 234-25 1 -) 
 
48 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 contemporary writers, or by their biographers, or upon 
 their epitaphs, are relative to their care of the distressed, 
 and to their protectorate of the widow and orphan 51 . 
 They are summed up in the emphatic declaration of 
 St. Jerome : * The glory of a bishop is to relieve the 
 poverty of the poor 52 / 
 
 There was probably a time in the history of the 
 Christian Church at which these functions of admin- 
 istration were the functions of a single class of officers. 
 The conception of the nature of Church office which is 
 found in the New Testament is divisible into two 
 parts that of presidency and that of ministry. But 
 
 51 In lives of bishops, e. g. St. Pontii Vita S. Cyprian, c. 6 ; Hymnus in Natale 
 S. Zenon., Proleg. ad Op. ed. Ball. p. cxciv ; St. Paulin. Vita S. Ambros. c. 30 ; Possid. 
 Vita 8. Augustin. c. 23: Uranii Epist. de obitu 8. Paulin. Nolan, c. 6, 7; Ve- 
 nant. Fortun. Vit. S. German. Paris, c. 74 ; Joann. Diac. Vita S. Greg. M. ii. 55, 
 57; Pauli Emerit. De Vita Pair am Emerit. c. 8 (ap. Migne, Pair. Lat. vol. Ixxx. 
 135) ; Anon. Vita S. Desider. Cadurc. c. 9 (ap. Migne, vol. Ixxxvii. 227) ; Anon. 
 Vita 8. Elig. ii. 25 (ap. Dachery, Spicilegium, vol. ii. 113), where the people are 
 represented as crying out at his funeral, ' Eligi, dulcedo tu pauperum, fortitude 
 debilium, tu protector et impar egentium consolator : quis post te eleemosynara 
 sicut tu dabit largara: vel quis nostri erit protector sicut tu, bone pastor ?' On 
 epitaphs, e.g. ap. De Rossi, Bulletino di Arch. Christiana, 1864, p. 55 ' Haec mihi 
 cura fuit nudos vestire petentes, Fundere pauperibus quidquid concesserat annus : ' 
 St. Tetricus of Dijon, ap. Le Blant, Inscriptions Chretiennes de la Gaule, No. 3, 
 ' Esca inopum, tutor viduarum, cura minorum, Omnibus officiis omnia pastor eras : ' 
 a bishop of Gaeta, circ. A.D. 529, ap. Mommsen, Inscr. Eegni Neapolitani, No. 
 4138 ' Hospitibus gratus se ipsum donavit egenis, Illosque eloquio hos satiavit 
 ope.' 
 
 52 St. Hieron. Epist. 52 (2) ad Nepot. c. 6. vol. i. p. 261, ed. Vail. A third con- 
 sideration may probably be added to the above, viz. that the Gnostics seem to have 
 had no organized system of philanthropy : (as a corollary of this, they, with the 
 exception of the Marcionites, did not apply to their officers the name of either 
 bishop or deacon : cf. (Munter) Versuch uber die Jcirchl. Alterthumer der Gnosti- 
 ker, p. 1 2 : for their actual organization, see a recent treatise by Koffmane, Die 
 Gnosis nach Hirer Tendenz und Organization, Breslau, 1881). The contrast between 
 orthodox and heterodox teachers in respect of philanthropy is probably made first 
 by St. Ignat. ad Smyrn. 6. 2. 
 
II.] Bishops and Deacons. 49 
 
 the two parts are not yet divided : the favourite terms 
 by which St. Paul designates himself and his work 
 are those of ' minister ' and * ministry 53 .' But very soon 
 a division of labour became imperative. Early in the 
 history of the community at Jerusalem ' seven men of 
 honest report' had been appointed to relieve the Apostles 
 of the 'business' of serving tables. No title is given 
 to these men : their work, like the work of Matthias, 
 or the work of Archippus, is spoken of as a ' ministry :' 
 but they themselves are only 'the seven 5 V But they 
 served as the prototype of a class of officers who were 
 soon forced into existence, and who have since been 
 permanent in the Christian Churches. For before the 
 Apostolic age had passed we find not one class of 
 officers but two. The one was that of which I have 
 already spoken the eTrio-KOTrot : the other was that of 
 the ministers or Sidicovoi. The two classes are in 
 close relation : they are for the most part spoken of 
 together : in the Pastoral Epistles the qualifications of 
 the one are difficult to distinguish from the quali- 
 fications of the other : and it is not until we pass from 
 the Apostolic age to that which succeeded it, that the 
 nature of the division of labour between them becomes 
 clearly defined. 
 
 The landmarks amid a sea of floating evidence are 
 Justin Martyr and Polycarp in the middle of the second 
 
 53 AI&KOVOS, Statcovta, Rom. n. 13 ; i Cor. 3. 5; 2 Cor. 3. 6; 4. I ; 6. 3, 4 ; II. 
 8, 23; Ephes. 3. 7; Col. i. 23, 25. 
 
 54 Acts 6. 3, 'seven men of honest report/ ib. 21. 8, 'one of the seven:' Staieovta 
 is used of ' the daily ministration' ib. 6. i, and of ' the ministry of the word' 
 ib. 6. 4, cf. SiaKovctv rpavefais, ' to serve tables,' ib. 6. 2 : it is also used, with 
 
 of the office of Matthias, ib. 2. 25, and of Archippus, Col. 4. 17. 
 
 5 
 
5O Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 century, and the Clementines at the beginning of the 
 third. 
 
 1. In the general meetings of the community, as 
 they are described by Justin Martyr, the offerings 
 were received and blessed by one officer, but they 
 were distributed among the people by others 55 . The 
 name which those who distributed bore (Sidicovot) was 
 not only a common name for those who served at table, 
 but seems to have been specially applied to those 
 who at a religious festival distributed the meat of the 
 sacrifice among the festival company 56 . In this respect 
 the deacons held a place which they have never lost : 
 in all Churches which have been conservative of ritual, 
 those who assist the presiding officer at the Eucharist 
 are known whatever be their actual status, archbishop, 
 bishop, or presbyter as deacon and sub-deacon. 
 
 2. Outside the general meetings, as we gather from 
 clear statements of the Clementines, the division of 
 labour was closely analogous. The alms for the relief 
 of those who were in distress were in the hands of the 
 bishop : but the officers who actually sought them out 
 and relieved their necessities were the deacons 57 . 
 
 3. But both the Clementines and the letter of Poly- 
 carp show, what must also be inferred from the Pastoral 
 Epistles, that the deacons shared with the bishop and 
 his council the duties not only of administration but of 
 
 55 Justin M. Apol. T. 55, 57. 
 
 56 An inscription at Anactorium (Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 1793 6. add.) gives a 
 list of the officers of a festival : they are the IfpoOvrrjs, who sacrificed the victims, 
 the payfipos, who cooked or carried the portions that were to be eaten, the Stan ovos, 
 who distributed the flesh, the dpxioivoxoos, who distributed the wine. Deacons and 
 deaconesses are also found as officers of a temple at Metropolis, in Lydia, C. I. G. 
 No. 3037. 
 
 57 Clement, Epist. ad Jacob. 5, Horn. 3. 67 : cf. Const. Apost. 3. 19. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 51 
 
 discipline. Of the nature of that discipline something 
 will be said in the succeeding Lecture : the relation of 
 the deacons to it was analogous to their relation to ad- 
 ministration : in the latter sphere of action the bishop 
 was in the position of a chairman and treasurer, the 
 deacons in that of outdoor relieving officers : in the 
 former the bishop and his council were in the position 
 of superintendents and judges, the deacons in that of 
 officers of enquiry 58 . 
 
 Between these two classes of officers the relation was 
 necessarily one of subordination: though the subor- 
 dination was by no means so great as it afterwards 
 
 58 St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 5 6/j.oicas Sia/covoi d^fj-irroi Karfvuiriov avrov rfjs 
 SiKaioavvrjs, us eov Kal Xpiffrov SHZKOVOI Kal OVK dvOpuiruv pi) Sia0o\ot, fj.r) 8i\oyoi, 
 atfuXapyvpoi, lyrcpaTfis irepi iravTa, vff-n\ayx voi > iiripc\tis, iropevopfvoi Kara rrflf 
 aXrjQfiav rov Kvpiov &s eyevfro Siaxovos iravrcav. These characteristics, which 
 closely resemble those given in i Tim. 3. 8-1 2, clearly imply disciplinary duties : 
 the deacons are to be ' blameless,' in order that they may be themselves, like the 
 bishops, free from the faults which they are to note in others ; they are to be ' not 
 slanderers, nor double-tongued,' because they stood in the relation of accusers. 
 Their functions in this respect are clearly stated in the Clementines, Epist. ad 
 Jacob. 12 : they are to be the bishop's 'eyes,' reporting to him any one who seems 
 to be in danger of sinning, ' in order that being admonished by the president he 
 may perhaps not accomplish his sin:' ibid. Horn. 3. 67, they are to go about 
 among the brethren and report to the bishop about the souls as well as the bodies 
 of the brethren. Similarly in the Apostolical Constitutions, e.g. 3. 19, 'you 
 deacons ought to keep watch over all who require watching, and also in the case 
 of those who are in distress, and to report to your bishop:' the lighter cases the 
 deacon might, on the deputation of the bishop, decide by himself, ibid. 2. 44. 
 The existence of disciplinary powers on the part of the deacons is also clearly im- 
 plied in St. Cyprian, Epist. 14 (5), p. 512, ed. Hartel, 16 (9), p. 520 ; 17 (n), p. 
 522: they might in certain cases readmit penitents, ibid. 18 (12), p. 524. There 
 is the same combination of functions in the Damasine inscription on a Roman 
 archdeacon, ' primus levitarum,' which has recently been brought to light again by 
 De Rossi (Roma Sotteranea, vol. Hi. p. 242) : 
 
 *Non ilium sublimis honor non extulit ordo 
 
 Edomuit rigidos plus pietate magis, 
 Justiciae cultor, vitae servator honestae, 
 Pauperibus dives, sed sibi pauper erat.' 
 
 E 2 
 
 
52 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 became 59 . For in course of time while, on the one 
 hand, the status of the bishop was raised by causes 
 which will be explained in a subsequent Lecture, the 
 status of the deacons, on the other hand, came to be 
 affected by two circumstances : in the first place, when 
 the analogy between the Christian ministry and the 
 Mosaic priesthood asserted itself, the deacons were 
 regarded as corresponding to the Levites, and as being 
 thereby subordinate to bishops and presbyters, in the 
 same way as Levites had been to priests : in the second 
 place, the increase of the scale upon which the Christian 
 Churches existed, and the increase, which was in a still 
 greater proportion, of the number of those for whom 
 the Christian Churches undertook to provide, brought 
 about a change, which has since become permanent, in 
 the mode of relieving the distressed. In primitive 
 times every case of poverty or suffering had been sepa- 
 rately known to the bishop, and personally relieved by 
 the deacon ; in later times grew up the system of insti- 
 
 59 The Apostolical Constitutions, 2. 30, compare the relation to that which 
 existed between Moses and Aaron. At Eome, when a bishop was in peril of im- 
 mediate martyrdom, it was to a deacon, and not to his council of presbyters, that 
 he committed the church funds : o Cornelius to Stephen, Liber Pontificalia, Vit. 
 S. Cornel, p. 22 : Lucius to the same Stephen, ibid., Vit. 8. Lucii. p. 23 : Stephen 
 himself to Sixtus, ibid., Vit. S. Steph. p. 24. Hence when Sixtus was martyred, 
 the civil authorities naturally supposed his deacon Laurence to be in possession of 
 the church funds, and arrested him with the view of compelling him to surrender 
 them (S. Ambros. de Offic. ii. 41). And, also at Rome, it was. so much the custom 
 that a deacon, and not a presbyter, should be elected bishop that in the blank 
 forms of the certificates of election which are given in the Liber Diurnus, ii. 3, 4, 
 pp. 14, 17, ed. Gam., the word ' archidiaconum ' is inserted after the blank which 
 is left for the name of the newly-elected bishop : there is a curious illustration of 
 the same fact in the reason which Eulogius of Alexandria (ap. Phot. Biblioth. 
 Cod. 280, Migne, Patr. Gr. vol. civ. 354) gives for the opposition of Novatian to 
 Cornelius, viz. that Cornelius had ordained him as presbyter, and thereby taken 
 away his legitimate expectation of succession to the bishopric. 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 53 
 
 tutions. The sick Christian, at least in the great cities, 
 was no longer visited by the deacon bringing him from 
 the church his share in the church offerings : the whole 
 body of the sick poor were gathered together into 
 hospitals : orphans were gathered into orphan-homes : 
 infants into infant-asylums : the aged into almshouses : 
 the poor into poor-houses : and strangers into guest- 
 houses 60 . Each of these institutions was managed 'by 
 its appropriate officers 61 . The deacons do not appear 
 
 are mentioned in Pallad., Vit. S. Chrysost., c. 5, Justin. Cod. 1.2. 
 15 : first established in the West by Fabiola according to St. Hieron. Epist. 77 (30) 
 ad Ocean, vol. i. 461, ed. Vail. : opfpavorpoQcia, Cod. Justin. Cod., 1.2. 19 ; Novell. 
 17.1 : Leo, Novell. 84: PpeQorpocpeia., Justin. Cod. I. 2. 19, 22 ; Novell. 7. i: yepov- 
 roKOfieia, Justin. Cod. I. 2. 19: Novell. 7. I: irrwxor potpeia, -nTcaxeia, St. Basil. 
 Epist. 142 (374), c. 8, p. 235 ; St. Greg. Naz., Epist. 211, vol. n, p. 176, ed. Ben. ; 
 Sozom. H. E. 4. 20; Cone. Clialc. c. 8 ; Justin. Cod. i. 2. 15, i. a. 19, i. 2. 33, 7 ; 
 ez/o5oxera St. Chrys. Horn. 45 in Act. Apost. c. 4, Op. ed. Migne, vol. ix. 319; 
 Epiph. Haeres. 75, p. 905; Justin. Cod. i. 2. 15, 19, 22, 33, Novell. 59. 3, 131. 
 10 ; Theodoret. H. E. 5. 19 ; St. Augustin. Tract. 97 in Joann. c. 4, Op. ed. 
 Migne, vol. iii. 1879 ; St. Hieron. Epist. 66 (26) in Pammach. c. 1 1, Op. vol. i. 401. 
 For the splendid foundation of Basil, see St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 43 in laudem Basil. M. 
 c. 63, Op. vol. i. 816 ; Sozom. H. E. 6. 34 : and for the imitation of the Christian 
 practice by Julian, see his Epist. 49 : Sozom. 5.16. 
 
 61 We find mention of voffofcopoi, optyavorpotyoi, Ppe<poTpo<poi, yepovroKOfjioi, 
 TTTcaxorpofpot, and e/o8oxot in connexion with the several institutions mentioned 
 in the preceding note : some of these officers were bishops (Sozom. H. E. 6. 34), 
 some presbyters (S. Greg. Naz. Epist. 211: it is probable from Pallad. Lausiac. c. 
 i, that at Alexandria this was always the case), some monks or laymen (Justin. 
 Cod. i. 3. 33, 7). There is no trace in the East of any special connexion with 
 the diaconate. In Italy, on the contrary, similar institutions were originally called 
 diaconiae, which are found not only at Rome, but also at Pesaro (St. Greg. Max. 
 Epist. 5. 28, vol. ii. 756) and at Naples (ibid. 10. 21, vol. ii. p. 1054: the use of 
 the word in Cassian. Collat. xxi. I, 8 in the history of the Egyptian monk Theonas 
 is probably an accommodation to Western usage). Mabillon (Mu#. Ital. vol. ii. 
 Comm. praev. p. xvii) advances the probable view that at Rome there was one of 
 these diaconiae in each of the seven ecclesiastical districts, and that it was originally 
 under the charge of the deacon of that district (see infra, Lect. VIII) : but it is 
 clear from the Liber Pontificalia (Vit. Greg. IV, p. 464, Vit. Steph. II, p. 229), that 
 by the time of those popes the diaconiae had come to be rather churches than 
 poor-houses : and it also appears from the Ordo Romanics I (ap. Mabillon, Mus. 
 Ital. vol. ii. p. 7) that the ' pater diaconiae ' might be not even a clerk. 
 
54 Bishops and Deacons. [LECT. 
 
 to have had any special relations to them in the East, 
 nor permanently in the West. Their outdoor work 
 was thus narrowed ; they gradually lost their ancient 
 share in discipline ; and the main conception of their 
 functions which came to exist was that they were 
 subordinate officers of public worship. But they were 
 still conceived, as they had been conceived in primitive 
 times, to be in a closer relation to bishops than to 
 presbyters : and when, like each of the other grades of 
 officers, they came to form a college, with a president, 
 or archdeacon, at its head, that officer was conceived 
 to be, in an especial sense, the bishop's assistant in 
 ecclesiastical administration, and, sometimes, to be next 
 to him in rank. These functions and this status were 
 so important that in time, though probably not until 
 the ninth century, it was found inconvenient to limit 
 them to deacons, and the earlier rule, which enacted 
 that an archdeacon on becoming a presbyter ceased to 
 be an archdeacon, fell into disuse. But the presbyter- 
 archdeacon of later times has preserved in some im- 
 portant respects the original conception of the deacon's 
 office, and is still, as in primitive days, the bishop's 
 ' eye ' and ' heart/ 
 
 Such, in respect of their primary functions, were the 
 bishops and deacons of the early Churches, and such, 
 in outline, were the relations of the early Churches 
 to the social strain in the midst of which they grew. 
 It is the task rather of the economist than of the 
 historian to enquire how far the Christian Churches 
 themselves increased the evils which they tended to 
 
ii.] Bishops and Deacons. 55 
 
 cure, and how far the vast system of organized men- 
 dicity which they fostered was an inevitable result 
 of the conditions of society, or the spurious offspring 
 of a deceived philanthropy. This enquiry has not yet 
 been made by scientific investigators. But it may be 
 permitted so far to anticipate their verdict as to advance 
 the assertion that the apparent and admitted evils 
 which were wrought were counterbalanced, even from 
 the economical point of view, by the forces which 
 Christian organization kept in motion. Those forces 
 have been among the strongest conservative forces of 
 society. They have arrested decay. They have pre- 
 vented the disintegration, and possibly the disin- 
 tegration by a vast and ruinous convulsion, of the 
 social fabric. Of those forces the primitive bishops 
 and deacons were the channels and the ministers. 
 They shone through the darkness of social distress as 
 lights of solace and of sympathy. They bridged over 
 the widening interval between class and class. They 
 lessened to the individual soul the weight of that awful 
 sadness of which, then as now, to the mass of men, life 
 was the synonym and the sum. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 PRESBYTERS. 
 
 THE patriarchal state of society, in which families 
 lived apart, and the head of the family was its ad- 
 ministrator and judge, was succeeded in many parts of 
 the world by the communal system, in which the 
 government of an aggregation of families was in the 
 hands of a council of heads of families the elders of 
 the commune. And just as the patriarchal system 
 survived through many modifications of social circum- 
 stances, as an underlying theory of domestic govern- 
 ment which has not wholly passed away even from 
 modern society, so the communal system survived 
 through many varieties of political organization as a 
 system of local administration. 
 
 It is found, for example, on the banks of the Nile : 
 long after Egypt had been so far Hellenized that 
 official documents were drawn up in Greek, we find 
 from an extant papyrus that the presence of the elder 
 of a village is necessary to the validity of an adminis- 
 trative act 1 . It is found also in Palestine, and its 
 
 1 Leemans, Papyri Graeci Mus. Ant. pull. Lugduni-Batavi, Leyden, 1 843, p. 3 : 
 Corpus Inscr. Graec. vol. iii. p. 294: possibly the same officers may be intended in 
 the Theban inscription, (7. /. G. No. 4717. 
 
..fpt LIB* 
 
 X^ V OK THE ' *' 
 
 Presbyters. ((UNIVERSITY 
 
 presence there had so important a 1 
 early organization of the Christian ChurcTielr~as 
 render some account of it a necessary preliminary to 
 the further consideration of that organization. 
 
 It is recognized both in the Mosaic legislation and 
 throughout the Old Testament history. It is the elders 
 of a city who are to deliver up a wilful murderer to the 
 avenger of blood : and it is into their ears that an un- 
 witting homicide is to declare his cause 2 . It was the 
 elders of the city who thrust out Jephthah as ' the son 
 of a strange, woman ' from his father's house 3 . It was 
 before the elders of the city sitting in the city gate 
 that the kinsman refused, and Boaz took, the redemp- 
 tion of Elimelech's inheritance 4 . It was to the elders 
 of Jezreel that Jezebel wrote and procured the condem- 
 nation of Naboth for blasphemy 5 . It was also to the 
 elders of Jezreel that Jehu wrote to cause the slaying 
 of Ahab's sons 6 . The elders of those early times were 
 probably like the sheykhs who have continued to the 
 present day both among the Bedouins of the desert and 
 in the settled villages of the Arabian peninsula. Their 
 tenure of office rested rather upon general consent than 
 upon formal appointment, and the limits of their 
 authority were but loosely defined. But in the interval 
 between the close of the Old Testament and the be- 
 ginning of the New, a more definite form seems to have 
 been given to this primitive institution. It may be 
 gathered from the Talmud that out of the elders or 
 chief men of every community a certain number had 
 
 3 Deut. 19. 12; Jos. 20. 4. 8 Judges n. 5, 7. 
 
 * Ruth 4. 2. 5 I Kings 21. 8. 6 2 Kings 10. i. 
 
58 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 come to be officially recognized, and that definite rules 
 were laid down for their action. Side by side with the 
 synagogue of a town, but distinct from it, was the 
 crweSpiov or local court. The former was the general 
 assembly or * congregation ' of the people : the latter 
 was the * seat 5 of the elders. The two institutions were 
 so far in harmony with one another that the meetings 
 of the local court were held in the synagogue, and that 
 in the meetings of the synagogue for its own proper 
 purposes the elders of the local courts had seats of 
 honour the TrpwroKaOeSpias which our Lord describes the 
 Pharisees as coveting 7 : and hence the word synagogue 
 is sometimes used where the word synedrion would be 
 more exact: but the distinction between the two is 
 clearly established and is of great importance 8 . 
 
 So firm was the hold which this system obtained 
 upon the Jews that they carried it with them into the 
 countries of the dispersion. In those countries they 
 lived apart from the rest of the community. Then, 
 as now, they were a separate class. They preserved, 
 and were so far privileged as to be allowed to 
 preserve, not only their own usages and their own 
 forms of worship, but also their own administration 9 . 
 
 7 St. Matth. 23. 6 ; St. Mark 12. 39 ; St. Luke ir. 43 ; 20. 46. 
 
 8 F r the Rabbinical and other authorities for the above statements see Herzfeld, 
 Geschichte des Volkes Jisrael, 2 te Aufl. Bd. ii. pp. 391 sqq.; Leyrer in Herzog, Real- 
 Encyclopadie, B. vv. Synagogen der Judcn and Synedrium ; Derenbourjr, Essai sur 
 THistoire et Geographic de la Palestine, c. 6 ; Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums, erste 
 Abth. pp. 270 287; Schiirer, Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte, pp. 
 402-418, 468-471 ; Hausrath, Neutestamentlihe Zeitgeschichte (Eng. Trans, vol. 
 i. pp. 83 sqq.). 
 
 9 Strabo, ap. Joseph. Ant. 14. 7. 2, says that at Gyrene there were four divisions 
 of the population, citizens, farmers, metoeci, and Jews : Philo, ii. 568, speaks of the 
 Jews as forming a separate colony in the Trastevere at Home. In each colony they 
 
in.] Presbyters. 59 
 
 At Alexandria, for example, they had their own governor 
 and council 10 : and at Rome the recent discovery of the 
 Jewish cemeteries on the Appian Way enables us to 
 gather from the unimpeachable records of inscriptions 
 a detailed account which singularly confirms what is 
 more vaguely known from other sources of their in- 
 ternal organization n . 
 
 It seems certain upon the evidence that in these 
 Jewish communities, to which in the first instance the 
 Apostles naturally addressed themselves, there existed 
 a governing body of elders whose functions were partly 
 administrative and partly disciplinary. With worship 
 and with teaching they appear to have had no direct 
 concern. For those purposes, so far as they required 
 officers, another set of officers existed; In other words, 
 the same community met, probably in the same place, 
 
 were subdivided into smaller communities, 'synagogues,' which were recognized by 
 the State under the 6rdinary designation of Oiaaoi, or religious associations, and 
 allowed by Julius Caesar to exist when similar associations were dissolved (Jos. Ant. 
 14. 10. 8). In the same way other Semitic settlers preserved their nationality and 
 their religion by forming associations : the Syrians at Puteoli had a subvention from 
 Tyre, like an English chaplaincy abroad, Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 5853, cf. Monim- 
 sen in the Berichte der konigl. sacks. Gesellschaft der Wissensch. phil. hist. Klasse, 
 1850, Bd. ii. p. 57: so, also at Puteoli, the settlers from Berytus, Mommsen, Inscr. 
 JRegn. Neap. 2488, 2476, Wilmanns, 2002, 2003: so the Syrians at Malaga, Corpus 
 Inscr, Lat. vol. ii. p. 252 : so the Gazaeans at Portus Trajani, C. I. G. No. 5892 : 
 so the Tyrians at Delos, ibid. No. 2271. 
 
 10 Strabo, ap. Joseph. Ant. 14. 7. 2 (writing of the Jews of Alexandria), KaOiararai 
 ft ai 6vapxrjs ainwv fis Stoiieci rd ZOvos teal Staira Kpifffts teal avp,&o\aiojv eirifi(\eiTai 
 Kal TrpoaTayndrcuv us av iroXtTfias apxuv avrorfXovs. (On the title Alabarch, which 
 is sometimes, erroneously, given to the Jewish ethnarch, see Schurer, Die Ala- 
 barchen in Aegypten in the Zeitschrift f. u-issenschaftl. Theologie, 1875, Bd. xviii. 
 pp. 13 sqq.) 
 
 1 These inscriptions, with some others, have been collected and published (chiefly 
 after Garrucci) by Schurer, Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der 
 Kaiserzeit, Leipsig, 1879. Some of them will also be found in the Corpus Inscr. 
 Graec. Nos. 9902-9910. 
 
60 Presbyters. [LE< 
 
 in two capacities and with a double organization, 
 the sabbath there was an assembly presided over b] 
 the ap-xio-vvdywyos or apyjLcrvvd'ywyoi for the purpose of 
 prayer and the reading of the Scriptures and exhorta- 
 tion : on two other days of the week there was an. 
 assembly presided over by the yepowidpyris or apyovre? or 
 Trpea-fivrepoi for the ordinary purposes of a local court 12 . 
 Each community, whether assembling for the one class 
 of purposes or the other, appears to have been in most 
 cases independent. At Alexandria, where the State 
 gave the Jewish colony exceptional privileges, the 
 separate synagogues seem to have been all subject to 
 the ethnarch : but at Rome arid elsewhere there are 
 no signs of their having been linked together by any 
 stronger tie than the fellowship of a common creed and 
 a common isolation from the Gentiles 13 . 
 
 Consequently, when the majority of the members of 
 a Jewish community were convinced that Jesus was 
 the Christ, there was nothing to interrupt the current 
 of their former common life. There was no need for 
 secession, for schism, for a change in the organization. 
 The old form of worship and the old modes of govern- 
 ment could still go on. The weekly commemoration 
 of the Resurrection supplemented, but did not supersede, 
 the ancient sabbath. The reading of the life of Christ 
 and of the letters of Apostles supplemented, but did 
 
 12 ' Apxiavvayaryos (apxwv rrjs awaycayfjs St. Luke 8. 41) in the singular, St. Mark 
 5- 35. 3 6 > 3 8 5 St. Luke 8. 49; 13. 14; Acts 18. 8, 17: in the plural, St. Mark 5. 
 22; Acts 13. 15; Mischna Jotna 7. I, Sola 7. 7; St. Justin M. Dial. c. Tryph. 
 137 ; Acta Pilati I. ap. Tischendorf, Evang. Apocryph. p. 221, 270; 'St. Epiphan. 
 Haeres. 30. 11. 18 ; Cod. Theodos. 16. 8. 4, 13, 14. 
 
 13 See Schiirer, Die Gemeindeverfassung, etc. pp. 18-24. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 6 1 
 
 not supersede, the ancient lessons from the prophets, 
 and the ancient singing of the psalms 14 . The community 
 as a whole was known by the same name which had 
 designated the purely Jewish community. It was still 
 a TrapoiKia a colony living as strangers and pilgrims 
 in the midst of an alien society : and even when the 
 sense of alienation lessened, the word was retained, 
 though it was used in a new relation to signify that 
 upon earth none of us has an abiding city 15 . The same 
 names were in use for the court of administration and 
 for the members of that court 16 : and even the weekly 
 
 14 The Apostolical Constitutions (2. 57) direct the reading of two lessons from the 
 historical books of the 0. T. and from the prophets, the antiphonal singing of the 
 Psalins of David, and the reading of the Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the 
 Gospels : cf. Justin. M. Apol. i. 67. 
 
 15 Uapoinia, irapoiKos, and irapoifcciv are used in the sense of ' sojourning,' or ' a 
 colony of sojourners ' in the LXX. : e. g. Gen. 37. I KarcpKft Sc 'Ia#o>j8 li> TTJ 777 ov 
 ira.p<yKT)0(v 6 7raTj)p avrov, " Jacob dwelt as an inhabitant in the land where his 
 father had dwelt as a sojourner :' E/ra 8. 35 viol rfjs irapoircias, of those who had 
 returned from the captivity. So in the N. T. Acts 7. 29 ; Ephes. 2. 19 ; Heb. n. 
 9, and in early patristic Greek, e. g. I Clem. Kom. inscr. ; Polycarp, Epist. ad Phil. 
 inscr., Epist. Eccles. Smyrn. ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 15. 3. The relation to contem- 
 porary and civil society which this implies is important : cf. Origen, c. Cels. 8 17 /ms 
 fv tKaarr) iro\(i a\\o Gvarqua irarpiSos KTiffOtv \6ycp &eov kiriarap-fvoi : and Le 
 Blant, Le Detachment de la Patrie in the Comptes rendus de V Academic des Inscrip- 
 tions, 1872, Tom. i. p. 388. In the other sense mentioned above the words are 
 also found in early times, e.g. 2 Clem. E. 5. i ; Testam. xii. Patr. Levi n ; and in 
 later times they are sometimes found on tombstones, C. I. G. 9474, 9683. 
 
 16 ^vvfSpiov is used, i. of the Jewish local councils and of the chief council at 
 Jerusalem, St. Matt. 10. 17 ; 26. 59 ; St. Mark 13. 9 ; Joseph. Ant. 14. 9. 3 ; 15. 
 6. 2 ; 20. 9. 6 ; Mischna Sanhedrim, i : ii. of the Christian councils, St. Ignat. 
 ad Philad. 8. i ; ad Magnes. 6. i ; ad! Trail. 3. i, and by the Fathers of the 
 fifth and sixth centuries, e.g. St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 42. n. vol. i. p. 756; St. Basil. 
 M. Epist. 28, vol. iv. p. 107, ed. Ben. Upea&vrlpiov is similarly used,!, of the Jewish 
 councils, St. Luke 22. 26 ; Acts 22. 5 : ii. of the Christian councils, I Tim. 4. 14, 
 and frequently in Ignatius and later writers. TIpeafivTepoi is used of the members 
 of thfi Jewish councils in e.g. Judith 6. 16, 21 ; 7. 23; I Mace. I. 26 : it is not 
 found in the Jewish inscriptions which are collected by Schiirer : but it occurs 
 in those of the catacombs at Venosa which are printed by Ascoli, Iscrizioni di 
 antichi Sepolcri Giudaici, IV. A. No. 17 in the Atti del IVcongressointernazionale 
 degli Orientalisti, vol. i. p. 292, Florence, 1880 (since printed separately). 
 
62 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 court-days remained the same 17 . There is no trace of 
 a break in the continuity : and there is consequently a 
 strong presumption, which subsequent history confirms, 
 that the officers who continued to bear the same names 
 in the same community exercised functions closely 
 analogous to those which they had exercised before ; 
 in other words, that the elders of the Jewish commu- 
 nities which had become Christian were, like the elders 
 of the Jewish communities which remained Jewish, 
 officers of administration and of discipline. 
 
 / The origin of the presbyterate in those Christian 
 communities which had been Jewish is thus at once 
 natural and simple : its origin in those communities of 
 which the members or a majority of the members were 
 Gentiles is equally natural, though rather more complex. 
 Two elements have to be accounted for: (i) the fact of 
 government by a council or committee, (2) the fact 
 that the members of such council or committee were 
 known by a name which implies seniority. 
 
 (i) In regard to the first of these elements, the 
 evidence shows that government by a council or com- 
 mittee was all but universal in the organizations with 
 which Christianity came into contact. The communal 
 idea which underlay the local government of Palestine 
 
 17 The weekly court-days of the local synedria were Monday and Thursday (Bab. 
 Talmud, Bdba Kamma 82 a, Mischna KetUuboth i. i, Jerus. Talmud, Megilla, 
 iv. i), which were perhaps chosen as being also the usual market-days. There is 
 a further point of similarity in the fact that the minimum number of presby- 
 ters in a church was originally two, forming with the bishop a court of three: 
 Ambrosiast. in Epist. i ad Tim. c. 3, w. 12, 13, vol. ii p. 295 ' aliquantos presbyteros 
 (esse oportet) ut bini sint per ecclesias et unus in civitate episcopus.' So also the 
 minimum number of the members of a local synedrium was three, of whom one 
 was the president (Bab. Talmud, Sanhedrin i). 
 
in.] Presbyters. 63 
 
 had in fact survived in the Graeco-Boman world. Every 
 municipality of the Empire was managed by its curia 
 or seriate 18 . Every one of the associations, political or 
 religious, with which the Empire swarmed had its 
 committee of officers 19 . It was therefore antecedently 
 probable, even apart from Jewish influence, that when 
 the Gentiles who had embraced Christianity began to 
 be sufficiently numerous in a city to require some kind 
 of organization, that organization should take the pre- 
 vailing form ; that it should be not wholly, if at all, 
 monarchical, nor wholly, though essentially, democra- 
 tical, but that there should be a permanent executive 
 consisting of a plurality of persons. It was as natural 
 that this should be so as that the management of a 
 new society in our own day should be entrusted not 
 wholly to an irresponsible chairman or president, nor 
 on the other hand to periodical meetings of the whole 
 body of members, but to a council or committee. And 
 this we find to have been the case. The names of the 
 governing body varied : but they all imply presidency 
 or government, and they are always used in the 
 plural 20 . 
 
 (2) In regard to the second element, we find the idea 
 of respect for seniority in many places and in many 
 forms. So strong was this idea that the terms which 
 
 18 I. e. all provincial municipalities in the West were organized on the model of 
 Rome, and those of the East on that, which in this respect did not differ from 
 Rome, of Athens or of Sparta : for the details see Marquardt, Romische Staats- 
 werwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 501, 518. 
 
 19 This statement is in fact a corollary from the preceding one : the associations 
 were organized on the model of the states within which they existed. 
 
 20 See below, Lecture V. 
 
64 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 were relative to it were often used as terms of respect 
 without reference to age. In the philosophical schools 
 the professor was sometimes called 6 irpea-^vrepo^ 1 . In 
 the ascetic communities of Egypt and Palestine respect 
 for seniority was strongly marked, not only in the 
 common usages of life, but also and especially in the 
 assemblies where the members sat in ranks, the 
 younger beneath the elder, and where it was the task 
 of the eldest and most experienced to discourse about 
 divine things 22 . Within the Christian communities 
 themselves respect for seniority was preached from the 
 first as an element of Christian order 23 . Both in the 
 ' Epistles of the New Testament, and in the extra- 
 canonical Epistle of Clement of Home, the submission 
 of the younger to the elder is enjoined, and the idea of 
 age and the idea of rank so pass into one another as to 
 make it sometimes difficult to determine which of the 
 wo was the more prominent in the writer's mind 24 . 
 
 21 Schweighaiiser ad Epictet. Diss. i. 9. 10. 
 
 22 Philo, ii. 458, says of the Essenes that at their weekly meetings they sat 
 according to age, the younger below the elder, and, ii. 476, that the eldest and 
 most experienced discoursed: elsewhere, ii. 481, he explains that the word 'elder' 
 was used in reference not to length of years, but to mental and moral develop- 
 ment. 
 
 23 It seems probable that, in at least some Christian communities in the earliest 
 stages of their existence, the word elder was used in its proper rather than in its 
 acquired meaning, and that the governing body, i.e. the elders in the official sense, 
 consisted of a section of the elders in the natural sense. Hence the defining 
 phrases in I Tim. 5. 17, 'that rule well,' and in Herm. Vis. 2. 4, 'that preside 
 over the Church,' mark off not so much senior from junior members of the com- 
 munity, as those elders who formed part of the governing body from those who 
 did not. 
 
 24 See e.g. I Pet. 5. 1-4 : I Clem. Kom. 1.3: 3. 3 : 21.6: so in Clem. Alex. ii. 
 p. 958, ed. Pott, (quoted by Euseb. H. E. 3. 23), irpta^vrepos at the beginning of 
 the narrative is equivalent to irpcapvTT)* later on, and both are interchanged with 
 f-niaKoiros. The MSS. sometimes interchange v pea &VT epos and irpeafivTijs, e.g. in 
 Theodotion's text of the story of Susanna. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 65 
 
 There was thus an antecedent probability, apart from 
 Jewish influence, not only that the Christian com- 
 munities, when organized, would be governed by a 
 council, but also that in the appointment of the 
 members of such a council seniority would be a prime 
 qualification. And this we find to have been in fact 
 the case. Out of the several names which the members 
 of the Christian councils bore one ultimately survived 
 the rest : they continue to be known to modern times 
 as ' presbyters/ 
 
 There is a remarkable contemporary parallel to this 
 drift of Christian organization, which both confirms the 
 antecedent probability and illustrates the fact. It is 
 well known that the councils or senates of the Greek 
 cities, though they sometimes still retained the name 
 yepovo-ta, had come, like other senates, to be councils of 
 'old men 7 only in name. But it appears from some 
 inscriptions which have been found within recent years 
 that there was in some states of Asia Minor a tendency 
 to revert to the original theory of a senate. The yepova-ta 
 was distinct from the /BovXj 25 : the evidence points to 
 the inference that the yepouarla was the committee of 
 the /3oi/A*7, standing to it in something like the same 
 relation as that in which the Cabinet stands to the 
 Privy Council in England 26 , and that the members of 
 
 K This is proved by the fact of their being mentioned separately, e.g. at Strato- 
 nicea in Caria, 6 Srjpos teal 17 &ov\i) KOI fj ffpovaia, Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 2724, 
 at Aphrodisias, ibid. No. 2775, at Nysa, ibid. No. 2944, at Ephesus, Wood, Dis- 
 covo-ies at Ephesus, Append, vi. p. 36. The presiding officers are also mentioned 
 separately, e.g. at Branchidae, f3ov\apx<>s KcA irpoffTaTrjs yepovffias, C. I. G. No. 2881. 
 
 26 This is an inference from the fact that at Ephesus the if>ri<pi<T(M of the -yepovaia 
 and tiriK\ijToi was laid before the &OV\TJ and passed, in the same way as at Athens 
 the Trpo&ovtevfM of the &ov\r] itself was laid before the (KK\7]<ria: irepl uv of veanroiai 
 
 F 
 
66 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 the yepovarla bore the same name as the members of 
 the committee of the Christian Churches that of 
 
 Trpea-pvrepoi 27 . 
 
 If we put the evidence together, it will appear 
 probable that the presbyterate in the Gentile Churches 
 had a spontaneous and independent origin. This hy- 
 pothesis accounts for the fact which is not easily ex- 
 plained on the hypothesis of the direct transference 
 of the Jewish office to the Gentile communities, namely, 
 that the members of the governing council were known 
 by various names, and that the names which were 
 in use for the Jewish officers did not at once uniformly 
 
 Kal oiKovprjTcs Karaffradevres StcA.ex^o'ai' TTJ ftovXrj KOI TO" i[/7)(pifffjia ijveyKav rrjs 
 yepovaias Kal raiv ciriK\r]T<uv virty EvQpoviov iroXiTfias, 8e56x8cu ry @ov\fi . . . Wood, 
 Discoveries at Ephesus, Append, ii. p. 29. The existence of such a committee is 
 rendered probable by the unwieldy size of most Eastern councils : e. g. Josephus, 
 Ant. 13. 13. 3, mentions 500 ftovtevrai at Gaza, and, B. J. 2. 21. 9, 600 at Tibe- 
 rias : Libanius, in the fourth century, speaks of the municipal council of Antioch 
 in times before his own as having consisted of 600 members (Op. vol. i. p. 182, ii. 
 pp. 527, 528 ed. Beisk.), and this was also the normal number at Cyzicus (Bockh 
 in Corpus Inscr. Graec. vol. ii. p. 920). But whether the precise relation of the 
 yepovffia to the @ov\rj be that which is stated above, or not, the general propo- 
 sition, that there was a tendency to give the elder members of a community or 
 municipality a separate and integral share in its administration, is sufficiently 
 shown by the fact, which is stated in the preceding note, that the yepovffia is co- 
 ordinated with the &ov\ii and the Sfj/xoy, in certain municipal acts, e.g. C. I. 6. 
 Nos. 2814, 2820, 3417, 3462, and also by the distinction which is made between ol 
 yfpovTts (17 ytpovaia) and ol vtoi, e.g. Dio Chrys. Orat. 34, vol. ii. p. 27, ed. Dind., 
 C. I. G. Nos. 2781, 2930. So in Africa the old Boman distinction between 
 'seniores' and 'juniores ' was retained or revived, Benier, Inscr. Remains cTAlge'rie, 
 Nos. 91, 1525, 3096, Wilmanns, Nos. 139, 1401. 
 
 27 This is an inference from the fact that ij yepovcria and 01 irpeafivTcpoi are evi- 
 dently used as interchangeable terms, and both distinguished from 17 &ov\r), at 
 Philadelphia, Corpus Inscr. Graec. Nos. 3417, 3422, and at Ephesus, Wood, Dis- 
 coveries at Ephesus, Append, vi. pp. 10, 24, 66, Append, vii. p. 6. But of Trpeff- 
 fivrepoi is sometimes used to designate the members of a ycpovata even when there 
 is no evidence of a distinction between it and the 0ov\rj : e. g. of the members of 
 the senate at Borne, Sozomen, H. E. t. 3, and of the irpffffivTiK6v at Chios, 
 
 C. I. G. N08. 2220, 2221. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 67 
 
 prevail. But when, in the course of the second cen- 
 tury, the distinction between the Christian communities 
 which had once been Jewish and those which were 
 originally Gentile tended to pass away, the Jewish 
 conception of the nature of the governing council un- 
 doubtedly became dominant. 
 
 It is clear from the exhortation of Polycarp to the 
 presbyters of Philippi that those presbyters had the 
 supreme oversight of all matters of administration 28 . 
 It was their duty to visit the sick, to provide for 
 the widows and orphans and poor, to turn back those 
 who had gone astray from the error of their ways, 
 to sit in merciful judgment upon those who had com- 
 mitted wrong. Nor does it appear that any of these 
 duties ever wholly ceased to be the duties of the 
 presbyterate. The presbyters were, in theory, the 
 council of the bishop, even after the bishop had as- 
 serted a virtual autocracy 29 . 
 
 But it is equally clear that out of these varied 
 duties those which came to be in practice the chief 
 or only duties of the Christian councils were those 
 which had been the chief duties of the Jewish synedria. 
 The building in which they assembled came to be 
 called a basilica or court-house : the part of it in which 
 they sat was a tribunal or judgment-seat 30 : they were 
 chiefly courts of discipline. 
 
 28 St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 6, Kal ol trpeafivrfpoi 8 evan\a.fxyoi, els 
 
 &Hf\ovvTs xnp ' 5 % optyavov ^ trevrjTos .... aTrexoftevot irdat)S opyrjs, irpoffuiro\r)if/ias, 
 Kpiaeas ddiicov, p.aKpdv ovrfs irdo~r)s <f>i\apyvpias, pr) rax^ois Triffrfvovres Kara TWOS, /<) 
 dTToro/tot kv Kpiafi, etSoTts ort TrdvTfs 6<f)fi\fTai toft-tv dfiaprias. 
 
 29 See below, Lecture IV. p. 107. 
 
 80 For the use of basilica in relation to the early Christian churches see De Rossi, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 Now there were two ways in which the Jewish 
 synedria exercised authority. They had jurisdiction, 
 on the one hand, in breaches of the ecclesiastical law, 
 and on the other hand between man and man in cases 
 of wrong. They had in their several localities the 
 same powers which for graver cases and for national 
 rather than local questions were possessed by the 
 central court the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem 31 . 
 They could enforce their decisions by the moral 
 punishment of excommunication, and by the physical 
 coercion of scourging and imprisonment. Outside 
 Palestine the same kinds of authority remained 32 : al- 
 though as their jurisdiction was consensual and not 
 of legal force the ultima ratio was exclusion from the 
 community or excommunication. But it is remarkable 
 as a proof not only of the existence of these Jewish 
 courts, but of their permanence, that at the end of the 
 fourth century the Christian emperors Arcadius and 
 Honorius, following the general tradition of imperial 
 policy, gave to them the protection of the state, and 
 
 Boma Sotteranea, Tom. iii. p. 461 : for the use of Pfjpa, or ' tribunal,' in the same 
 relation see De Rossi, ibid. iii. 486. But the important and exhaustive review, 
 both of the facts of the case and of previous theories of the origin of the name, 
 which has been given since these Lectures were written by F. X. Kraus in his 
 Real-Encyclopddie der christlichen Alterthumer, 8. v., compels me to modify the 
 view which ie implied in the text, that ' court-house ' was the only meaning of 
 basilica when the name was applied to the Christian churches. 
 
 31 The respective jurisdictions of the local councils and of the central council 
 at Jerusalem are defined in Mischna Sanhedrin i, 2 (translated into Latin in 
 Ugolini, Thesaurus, vol. xxv). 
 
 32 The existence of Jewish courts in the midst of Gentile communities is shown, 
 e.g. at Sardis, Jos. Ant. 14. 10. 17, at Alexandria, Strab. ap. Jos. Ant. 14. 7. 2, and 
 is probably implied at Corinth in the expression oif/rOe avroi, Acts 18. 15: that 
 they had a certain power of coercion is implied in Acts 9. 22 : 22. 19 : 26. n. Cf. 
 Origen, ad African. 14. vol. i. p. 28. ed. De la Rue. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 69 
 
 required provincial judges to carry out their de- 
 cisions 33 . 
 
 The main functions of the Christian council of pres- 
 byters were closely analogous. 
 
 i. They exercised discipline. There was indeed this 
 difference between Christian and Jewish discipline that 
 it was of a severer kind. It is difficult for us in 
 modern times, with the widely different views which we 
 have come to hold as to the relation of Church govern- 
 meDt to social life, to understand how large a part 
 discipline filled in the communities of primitive times. 
 Those communities were what they were mainly by 
 the strictness of their discipline. The tie of a common 
 belief was looser than the tie of a common ideal and 
 a common practice. The creed was as yet vague :: 
 the moral code was clear. For the kingdom of God 
 was come which was a kingdom of righteousness. 
 Each organized gathering of believers seemed to itself 
 to be the visible realization of that Holy City of 
 which the greatest of Hebrew poets had sung and which 
 the divinest of Christian seers had seen. Between 
 that City of God, and the diseased and decaying 
 society which surrounded it, there was a perpetual 
 and sharp antithesis 34 . And that antithesis was the 
 
 33 Cod. Theodos. 2. I. 10, which however shows not only that the jurisdiction 
 was consensual, but also that it had come to be confined, if not originally confined, 
 to civil matters, ' si qui per compromissum ad similitudinem arbitrorum apud 
 Judaeos vel patriarchas ex consensu partium in civili duntaxat negotio putaverint 
 litigandum, sortiri eorum judicium judicio publico non vetentur : eorum etiam 
 sententias provinciarum judices exsequantur tanquam ex sententia cognitoris arbi- 
 tri fuerint attributi.' See also Lb'ning, Gesch. d. deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. 296. 
 
 84 Cf. e. g. 2 Clem. Rom. 6. 3 lanv 5e OVTOS 6 aiuiv /cal 6 plXXuv dvo cx^P ' 1 ' OVTOS 
 al tyOopav ftal (pi\apyvpiav KOU. dirarrjv, fKfivos 5c TOVTOIS anoraafftrai. 
 
70 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 sharper because the one and the other were in close 
 and daily contact. The profound moral reaction which 
 had set in was in itself not confined to Christianity. 
 The spirit of asceticism was, so to speak, in the air, 
 and other ascetic communities had been formed C5 . But 
 those ascetic communities had solved the difficulties 
 of the world by withdrawing from it. They would 
 not face ordinary society. They lived as the Christian 
 ascetics lived in aftertime, when the level of Christian 
 life was lower, apart from ordinary men in the solitude 
 of the wilderness. The Christian communities on the 
 other hand were in the world. Their members were 
 brought face to face day by day with the seething 
 mass of corruption from which divine grace had 
 rescued them 36 . The very fact that they could not 
 share the common sins of their neighbours exposed 
 them to the ready taunt that their garb of superior 
 sanctity was but a cloke for still darker forms of 
 wickedness. In the midst of ' a crooked and perverse 
 nation ' they could only hold their own by the 
 extreme of circumspection. Moral purity was not so 
 much a virtue at which they were bound to aim as 
 the very condition of their existence. If the salt of 
 the earth should lose its savour, wherewith should it 
 be salted ? If the lights of the world were dimmed, 
 who should rekindle their flame ? And of this moral 
 purity the officers of each community were the 
 custodians. They ' watched for souls as those that 
 
 : < 5 See below, Lecture VI. 
 
 26 The point of view of the early Christians is here assumed : but it is probable 
 th.'it their opinion of the vices of contemporary society, as represented by the 
 Apologists, was exaggerated. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 7 1 
 
 must give account.' Week after week, and in some 
 cases, as the Jewish synagogues had done, on two days 
 in a week, the assembly met not only for prayer but 
 for discipline 37 . ' We come together/ says Tertullian, 
 4 to call the sacred writings to remembrance, if so 
 be that the character of the present times compel us 
 either to use admonition or recollection in anything. 
 In any case, by these holy words we feed our faith, 
 raise our hopes, establish our confidence ; nor do we 
 the- less strengthen our discipline by inculcating pre- 
 cepts. For our judgment also cometh with great 
 weight, as of men well assured that they are under 
 the eye of God : and it is a very grave forestalling 
 of the judgment to come if any shall have so offended 
 as to be put out of the communion of prayer, of the 
 solemn assembly, and of all holy fellowship. The most 
 approved elders preside 38 .' And about the same time 
 Origen, refuting a calumnious statement of Celsus^in 
 reference to the indiscriminate, character of the Chris- 
 tian congregations, says/ ''There, are men appointed 
 among us to examine closely into the lives and cha- 
 racters of those who come to us, that they may prevent 
 those who do what is forbidden from entering our 
 common assembly, and that by receiving those who 
 do otherwise they may make them better day by day 39 J. 
 And in similar way the Clementines put these 
 into the mouth of St. Peter : ' Do ye as elders of tl 
 Church adorn with discipline the bride of Christ and 
 by the bride of Christ I mean the whole assembly of 
 the Church in moral purity : for if she be found pure 
 
 87 See above, note 18. 38 Tertull. ApoL 39. 89 Origen, c. Cels. 3. 51. 
 
72 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 by the bridegroom King, she herself will attain the 
 height of honour, and ye, as guests at the marriage- 
 feast, will gain great delights : but if she be found to 
 have sinned, she herself will be cast out, and ye will 
 suffer punishment because, it may be, the sin has 
 happened through your neglect 40 / 
 
 2. The Christian like the Jewish presbyters exer- 
 cised a consensual jurisdiction in matters of dispute 
 between Christian and Christian. It was only when 
 a severer punishment was necessary than such a con- 
 sensual jurisdiction admitted that any Gentile court 
 had been allowed to interfere between Jew and Jew 41 . 
 And the recognition of such a jurisdiction became for 
 the Christian an obligation, because it seemed to rest 
 on a divine command. In one of the only two passages 
 in which our Lord uses the w r ord Church, He uses it in 
 this relation : ' If thy brother shall trespass against 
 thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him 
 alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy 
 brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with 
 thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or 
 three witnesses every word may be established. And 
 if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church :w 
 but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto 
 thee as an heathen man and a publican 42 .' And hardly 
 had the organization of the Christian communities 
 begun before St. Paul looked upon it as an intolerable 
 
 40 Clementin. Epist. Clem, ad Jacob, c. 7. 
 
 41 Mekhiltha and Midrash Thanhitma ad Exod. 21. i : Mischna Gittin 9. 10. 
 
 42 St. Matth. 18. 15-17 (but it is an open question whether our Lord refers to 
 the contemporary Jewish, or to the future Christian, eccle&ia) : the other passage 
 in which our Lord uses the word church is ib. 16. 19. 
 

 in.] Presbyters. 73 
 
 scandal that ' brother goeth to law with brother, and 
 that before the unbelievers.' He deprecates litigation 
 of any kind : the Christian rule was a rule not of liti- 
 gation but of forgiveness : but if litigation became 
 inevitable he asks indignantly, 'Dare any of you, 
 having a matter against another, go to law before the 
 unjust and not before the saints 43 ? ' In those early 
 days it may have been the case that the assembly 
 itself, or persons chosen by the assembly, acted as 
 arbitrators : and to this St. Paul's words point : ' If 
 then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this 
 life, set them to j udge who are least esteemed in the 
 Church 44 .' But when the organization of the churches 
 was more complete it is clear that the jurisdiction 
 belonged to the council of presbyters. * Let not those 
 who have disputes/ say the Clementines, ' go to law 
 before the civil powers, but let them by all means be 
 reconciled by the elders of the Church, and let them 
 readily yield to their decision 45 .' 
 
 These two great functions of the early council of 
 presbyters have been modified in many important par- 
 ticulars as the circumstances under which the Church 
 itself has existed have themselves undergone material 
 change. 
 
 i. In the first place, the relations of the Church to 
 discipline were of necessity altered when the Church 
 began to fill a larger place in history. That which 
 had been possible in a small community became im- 
 
 43 i Cor. 6. i. Cf. 5. 12. " i Cor. 6. 4. 
 
 45 Clement. Epist. Clem, ad Jacob. 10. 
 
74 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 possible in a larger. The stern self-restraint which 
 had linked men arm to arm in the grim struggle for 
 existence relaxed its tension. The close supervision 
 with which the officers of the Church had watched 
 the failings and backslidings of their small communities 
 could exist no longer in a vast and complex society. 
 And again : the transition of any community from 
 a state of repression to a state of supremacy tends 
 to change the character of the offences of which it 
 takes cognizance. It accentuates the organization. It 
 elevates the by-laws to a new prominence. It makes 
 offence against those by-laws important. And we have 
 but to compare the early monument which is known 
 as the Constitutions of Clement 46 with the post-Con- 
 stantinian code which is known as the Apostolical 
 Canons 47 , to see how wide was the chasm which in the 
 Christian Church severed the ethics of the age of 
 struggle from the ethics of the age of supremacy. 
 And again : Christianity had no sooner become the 
 religion of the Roman world, than it found itself 
 swung round and round in a vast eddying swirl 
 of intellectual currents doubts and half-beliefs and 
 rationalizings of divine truths through which it was 
 almost impossible to steer. Those times of intense 
 
 w This work is printed under the title AI 5ia.Ta.yal al Std ~K\r)fj,(VTos KOI /tavovts 
 (KKX-rjaiaaTiKol rwv ayiwv atroOToXiav printed by Bickell, Geschichte des Kirchenrechts, 
 Bd. i . Theil. I : Lagarde, Juris Ecclesiastic* reliquiae, pp. 74 sqq. : Pitra, Juris 
 Eccle&iastici Graecorum hist, et mon. vol. i. pp. 77 sqq. : and under the title ' Ju- 
 dicium Petri ' by Hilgenfeld, Novum Testamentum extra canonem receptum, Fasc. 
 iv. to which reference may be made for a clear, though not conclusive, discussion 
 of its origin. 
 
 47 The date of the Apostolical Canons, at least in their present form, is very 
 uncertain : but since they embody decrees of councils of the fourth century, espe- 
 cially those of the Council of Antioch, they must at least be post-Constantinian. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 75 
 
 crisis were no times for scanning too narrowly the 
 characters of those who manned the ship. There was 
 no condonation of flagrant and open sin : but at the 
 same time soundness in the faith may have covered 
 many a minor fault, and unsoundness in the faith was 
 not atoned for by the highest Christian virtue. In 
 the meanwhile a new code of Christian morality 
 was being formed. The ascetic communities laid an 
 abnormal stress upon certain special forms of virtue 
 and the corresponding special forms of vice. They 
 dreamed in their seclusion of all imaginable sins : and 
 the coup de grace to the earlier Christian morality was 
 given when the ghastly catalogues of those imagined 
 possibilities of sin, each with its specific penalty, came 
 to be looked upon as the code of Christian morals and 
 the rule of Christian life 48 . 
 
 2. In the second place, the recognition of Chris- 
 tianity by the State tended to narrow the broad 
 border-line between the Church and the world. The 
 fact that the Christians were no longer a TrapoiKia, a 
 colony of strangers in a strange land, that the local 
 judges were Christian, and that the emperors who 
 were the ultimate court of appeal were also Christian, 
 diminished the force of the reason for submitting dis- 
 putes ' in things pertaining to this life ' to the Church 
 officers. The consensual jurisdiction of the Church 
 courts came to be limited to disputes in which Church 
 
 48 The reference is to the books known as ' Penitentials,' the most important of 
 which will be found in Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der abendlandische 
 Kirche, Halle, 1851 ; Kunstmann, Die lateinische Pdnitentialbiicher der Angel- 
 sachsen, Mainz, 1844 ; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, 
 vol. iii. 
 
76 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 officers were themselves concerned. That jurisdiction 
 was recognized by the State, but it was viewed with 
 a jealous eye. Out of it grew that long line of contests 
 between State and Church with which many of us are 
 familiar, but which passes far beyond the limits of the 
 present subject the Church constantly claiming and 
 the State constantly endeavouring to limit this ec- 
 clesiastical and consensual jurisdiction 49 . Inside these 
 contests was another struggle the struggle on the 
 part of the bishops to act as sole judges, without the 
 crvveSpiov or * consilium * of presbyters, of which in early 
 times they had been merely the presidents. But there 
 are at least two significant indications that the original 
 conception of the presbyterate never wholly passed 
 away: the one is the fact that in all the Ordinals of 
 the Latin Church, in both the prayers and the addresses 
 to the people at the ordination of presbyters, Church 
 government is a leading element in the conception 
 of the presbyter's office 50 ; the other is the fact that, 
 after the parochial system had come to prevail, the 
 
 49 See below, Lecture VI. 
 
 50 The chief petition of the prayer entitled ' consecratio,' the importance of which 
 may be inferred not only from its place in the service, but also from the fact of its 
 having lasted, with only slight verbal changes, from the time of the earliest sur- 
 viving Sacramentaries until now, is as follows : ' Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Pater, 
 in hos faraulos tuos presbyterii dignitatem : innova in visceribus eorum spiritum 
 sanctitatis ; ut acceptum a te, Deus, secundi meriti munus obtineant, censuramque 
 morum exemplo suae conversations insinuent. Sint providi cooperatores ordinis 
 nostri ; eluceat in eis totius forma justitiae ut bonam rationem dispensationis sibi 
 creditae reddituri aeternae beatitudinis praemia consequantur.' (The text here 
 given is that of the modern Roman Pontifical : the text of the Leonine and Gelasian 
 Sacramentaries will be found in Muratori, Liturgia Romano, Vetus, vol. i. pp. 425, 
 513.) The form of the address to the people, or to the ordinands, has passed 
 through several changes : but even the latest form, that of the modern Pontifical, 
 preserves the early statement that the presbyters are appointed to help the bishop 
 as the seventy elders were appointed to help Moses. 
 
p\ 
 \ 
 
 in.] Presbyters. (UNIVERSJTY 
 
 \\ / 
 
 presbyter who was put in charge of a pa^^^ro^^^^ 
 to be sent not to teach but to rule (' ad regendum ') ; 
 the conception of his office which underlies this ex- 
 pression is preserved to us even in modern times in 
 the familiar title of ' Rector 51 .' 
 
 In the meantime, other functions which in early times 
 were in the background came to the front. It will no 
 doubt have been observed that the functions which 
 have been described are all such as could be exercised 
 by and were appropriate to a college or council of 
 officers 52 . What powers, if any, were possessed by a 
 single presbyter acting alone there is no evidence to 
 show. But by one of those slow and silent revolutions 
 which the lapse of many centuries brings about in 
 political as well as in religious communities, the ancient 
 conception of the office, as essentially disciplinary and 
 collegiate, has been superseded by a conception of it in 
 which not only is a single presbyter competent to dis- 
 charge all a presbyter's functions, but in which also 
 those functions are primarily not those of discipline, but 
 c the ministration of the Word and Sacraments 53 / 
 
 i. In regard to the first of these functions it is clear 
 
 51 E.g. Cone. Cabill. A.D. 649, c. 5, Statt. Eccles. Antiq. ( = 4 Cone. Carth.) c. 
 36 : so also when a parish priest resigns his office he is said ' ab ordine et titulo et 
 regimine plebis se exuere,' Cone. Remens. A.D. 874, c. I. The title ' Ecclesiae rector ' 
 seems first to occur in the ninth Council of Toledo, A.D. 655, c. 2. 
 
 58 The minimum number of presbyters appears to have been two, forming with 
 the bishop a court of three, which was the minimum number of a Jewish ffvveSpiov 
 (Talmud Bab. Sanhedrin 2). See above, note 18. 
 
 53 It is probable that even in the Jewish communities the distinction between 
 the presbyters and the dpxiffvvdyoayot, i. e. between the ffvveSpiov and the avvaytuyri, 
 became gradually obliterated : since in Justinian. Novell. 146. i, the names appear 
 to be identified, nap avrois apx^pfpfKirat % Trpcapvrfpoi TVXOV fj StSdcr/wzAot vpoaayo- 
 
78 Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 that the presbyters of the primitive Churches did 
 not necessarily teach. They were not debarred from 
 teaching, but if they taught as well as ruled they 
 combined two offices 54 . In the numerous references to 
 presbyters in sub-apostolic literature there is not one 
 to their being teachers, even where such a reference 
 might have been expected, as for example in the 
 enumeration of the duties of presbyters which is given 
 by Polycarp in the form of an exhortation to fulfil 
 them 65 . But the Clementine literature of the beginning 
 of the third century makes the distinction, that whereas 
 the bishops are to teach doctrine, the presbyters are to 
 teach morals : in other words, they might inculcate 
 what they were bound to require 56 . About the same 
 time in the memoirs of two African martyrs, and 
 later in the same century in a letter of Cyprian, we 
 find the recognition of the combination of the two 
 functions in the phrase ' presbyteri doctores 57 : ' still 
 later, St. Chrysostom makes it evident that the func- 
 tions were still separable when he says that baptism 
 was in his time entrusted to the less intelligent pres- 
 byters, the word of teaching to the wiser 68 . 
 
 64 This is a clear inference from I Tim. 5. 17: so iroifjievfs are distinct from 5i5ci- 
 OKoXoi in Ephes. 4. n, and eirioitoiroi (probably identical with irpeoftvTepoi) from 
 Si8affiea\oi in Herm. Vis. 3. 5. I : so also irpfaftvTtpoi and StS&aieaXoi are mentioned 
 separately in Hippol. ap. S. Epiphan. Haeres. 42. 2, and in Euseb. H. E. 7. 24. 6. 
 
 55 St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. 7. The ' Constitutions of Clement ' distinctly con- 
 template the existence of an unlettered presbyter (Atar. K\i;/i. c. 16). 
 
 56 Clementin. Horn. 3. 65 : cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. I. p. 829, ed. Pott, rty p.lv 
 0e\Ti<uTiKr)v ol irpea(3vTepoi ak^ovaiv lx6va T^V 5 virrjpeTiK^jv ol tii&itovoi. 
 
 87 St. Cyprian. Epist. 29 (24) p. 548, ed. Hart. : Ada SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis, 
 ap. Ruinart, Ada Martyrum Sincera, c. 13, p. 99. Even in the time of St. Augustine 
 it was irregular for a presbyter to preach in the presence of a bishop : Possid. Vita 
 8. August, c. 5. 
 
 58 St. Chrys. Horn. 3 in Epist. i ad Corinth, c. 3, Op. vol. x. p. 19, ed. Montf. 
 
in.] Presbyters. 79 
 
 2. In regard to the second of these functions, the 
 theory upon which the public worship of the primitive 
 Churches proceeded was that each community was 
 complete in itself, and that in every act of public 
 worship every element of the community was present. 
 When the episcopal system had established itself, there 
 was a bishop wherever in later times there would have 
 been a parish church. From the small province of 
 proconsular Asia, which was about the size of Lin- 
 colnshire, 42 bishops were present at an early council 59 : 
 in the only half-converted province of North Africa 470 
 episcopal towns are known by name 60 . It is therefore- 
 reasonable to expect that the bishop, as the chief officer 
 of the community, presided whenever the community 
 met together. The offerings at the Eucharist were 
 made to him : they were distributed by the deacons : 
 in the account of the Eucharist which is given by 
 Justin Martyr the presbyters have no place at all 61 : 
 and in the later and more elaborate ritual which is 
 preserved in the Apostolical Constitutions their place 
 is altogether insignificant 62 . They probably had no 
 more than the place which the Jewish presbyters had 
 in the synagogue seats of honour and dignity, but no 
 official part in the service. 
 
 59 The reference is not to the earlier but to the later (i. e. post-Diocletian) Asia 
 Proconsulates : in this province Hierocles, Synecdemus, p. 658, mentions in all 42 
 towns ; of these 32 are represented by their bishops in the subscriptions to the 
 Council of Ephesus, and 39 in those to the Council of Chalcedon, ap. Mansi, Con- 
 cilia, vol. iv. pp. 130, 2007, 1710 : cf. Kuhn, Die stadtische u. burgerliche Verfassung 
 des romtschen Reichs, 2 er Theil, p. 276. 
 
 60 Kuhn, ibid. p. 436 ; Gams, Series Episcoporum, p. 463. 
 
 61 St. Justin M. Apol. i. 67. 
 83 Const. Apost. viii. 1-14. 
 
8o Presbyters. [LECT. 
 
 But in course of time, under the influence of altered 
 circumstances, the original system underwent a great 
 change. There grew up the system of forming smaller 
 communities within the territory of a city, or in out- 
 lying country places, which though separate in locality 
 were still one in theory with the original community, 
 and which were under the supervision of its bishop 
 and council. From among the presbyters of that 
 original community one or more was detached to take 
 the oversight of the new congregation 63 . The func- 
 tions of such a presbyter were for a long time narrowly 
 limited. Baptism by a presbyter, and the celebration 
 of the Eucharist by a presbyter, had no doubt been 
 valid from the very first. But as a matter of Church 
 order a presbyter could baptize only in emergencies : 
 and it is not certain that he had an original right of 
 celebrating the Eucharist 64 . As years went on, as the 
 number of bishops was diminished and the number of 
 detached congregations multiplied, the functions of the 
 presbyters of such congregations became more and more 
 independent. Their right to teach and their right 
 to celebrate the Eucharist became ordinary and un- 
 questioned : but one familiar instance shows that the 
 primitive theory has never wholly passed away : the 
 bishops of the Western Church have preserved to the 
 
 63 See below, Lecture VIII. 
 
 64 See the passages of Tertullian quoted in Lecture V. notes 22, 23 : they are con- 
 firmed, in regard to baptism, by St. Hieron. Dial. c. Lucifer. 9, Op. ed. Migne, vol. 
 ii. 164, 'inde [i.e. from the necessity of unity] venit ut sine chrismate et episcopi 
 jussione neque presbyter neque diaconus jus habeat baptizandi : quod frequenter, 
 si tamen necessitas cogit, scimus etiam licere laicis:' and in regard to the Eucharist 
 by St. Ignat. ad Smyrn.'S. I, l/fetVq /3/3cua (vxapiffria fjyeiaOu, $ viro rbv kmaKO-aov 
 ovffa, f) $ CLVTOS 
 
in.] Presbyters. 8 1 
 
 present day their share in the complex ceremonies of 
 baptism : no baptism is theoretically complete until a 
 bishop has taken that part in it which once followed 
 immediately upon immersion, but which has now come 
 to have the semblance of a separate rite, and is known 
 as Confirmation 65 . 
 
 The change has been inevitable. The functions of 
 the primitive presbyters are relative to a state of 
 society which has long since passed away. The peni- 
 tential system, which has been sometimes regarded as 
 its modern counterpart, arose out of different circum- 
 stances, and involves a different principle. Between 
 the chiffonnier of the conscience, raking among the 
 garbage of diseased thoughts and despicable actions, 
 and the primitive college of disciplinary officers, there 
 is barely the resemblance of a grotesque caricature. 
 The counterpart, if counterpart be sought, must be 
 found rather in the officers of those smaller bodies 
 which have from time to time sprung up witbin the 
 wide area of Christianity, and which have failed within 
 even their own narrow limits as soon as the enthusiasm 
 of their first founders has been crystallized into written 
 rules of discipline. For in modern times, though the 
 
 " The separation of the two chief elements of the baptismal rite, immersion and 
 imposition of hands, had already begun to prevail in the West in the time of 
 Jerome ; but the latter was reserved for the bishop as a mark of respect to his 
 dignity, and not as of necessity : ' ad honorem potius sacerdotii quam ad legem 
 necessitatis ' (St. Hieron. Dial. c. Lucifer, c. 9, Op. ed. Vail. vol. ii. 181.); when, 
 in the controversy between the Eastern and Western Churches in the ninth cen- 
 tury, the Latin theologians had to defend the separate existence of ' confirmation ' 
 by arguments, they were not able to cite early authorities (see e.g. the treatise 
 of Aeneas of Paris in Dachery, Spicilegium, vol. i. p. 141). 
 
 G 
 
82 Presbyters. 
 
 mainsprings of human conduct may have remained the 
 same, the conception of the nature of morality, and of 
 the forces which act upon conduct, has undergone 
 significant change. We have come again to the con- 
 viction, which is not new but old, that the virtues 
 which can be rewarded, and the vices which can be 
 punished, by external discipline are not, as a rule, the 
 virtues and the vices that make or mar the soul. The 
 inner world of moral action knows no other tribunal 
 than that of the conscience : and the education of the 
 conscience, which is another phrase for moral growth, is 
 the result of many internal forces and not least of all 
 of that force which the humblest of the Church's 
 ministers may set in motion, .when he holds up before 
 the souls of men that ideal of a divine Life which 
 was once an incarnate reality, and which is not now a 
 vanished dream. 
 
 
LECTURE IT. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF THE BISHOP. 
 
 WITH the exception which is probably rather 
 apparent than real of two passages in the Pastoral 
 Epistles, all general references to Church officers in 
 Apostolic and sub- Apostolic literature speak of them in 
 the plural 1 . The names by which they are designated 
 are various but interchangeable : and their variety is 
 probably to be explained by the fact that the same 
 officers, or officers having equivalent rank, had various 
 functions. 
 
 But in the course of the second century, although, 
 for the most part, the same names continue to be 
 used in the plural, one of them is appropriated to a 
 single officer, who evidently stands above the rest, 
 and in any enumeration of Church officers is mentioned 
 separately. 
 
 I have already suggested reasons for the fact that 
 this single officer had, as his ordinary designation, 
 one rather than another of the names by which Church 
 
 1 The exceptions are i Tim. 3. 2 ; Tit. i. 7 : they are probably apparent rather 
 than real because the article is probably generic : but the question of its precise 
 significance has an important bearing on the wider question of the date of the 
 Epistles. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 officers had been known. I approach to-day the more 
 difficult question how it was that such a supremacy 
 came to exist. 1 approach this question with the 
 greater diffidence because a hypothesis has long been 
 current which does not admit of direct refutation, and 
 which assigns the origin of this quasi-monarchical 
 government to an institution of either our Lord 
 Himself or the Apostles acting under His express 
 directions^ But in spite of the venerable names by 
 which for many centuries, and in many Churches, this 
 hypothesis has been maintained, and in spite also of 
 the disadvantage under which any one labours who 
 declines the short and easy road which it seems to 
 offer, and winds his way through a dense undergrowth 
 of intricate facts, it is impossible, at least for some 
 of us, to accept the belief that the episcopate forms 
 an exception to the general course of the divine 
 government of the world, and to refrain from proceed- 
 ing to the enquiry whether any causes were in 
 operation which are adequate to account for its 
 supremacy, without resorting to the hypothesis of a 
 special and extraordinary institution. 
 
 I will ask you to look at two groups of facts : on 
 the one hand the organization of contemporary associa- 
 tions, on the other the internal condition of the 
 Christian communities themselves. 
 
 i. If we look at contemporary organizations, we find 
 that the tendency towards the institution of a president 
 was almost, if not altogether, universal. The evidence 
 for the existence of this tendency does not consist of 
 

 iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 85 
 
 a few facts, such as in a large mass of historical 
 records may be collected together in support of almost 
 any hypothesis : it is considerable in amount, it is 
 various in character, it has no important exceptions. 
 Whether we look at the municipal councils, at the 
 private associations, religious and secular, with which 
 the East was honeycombed, at the provincial assem- 
 blies, at the boards of magistrates, at the administra- 
 tive councils of the Jews both in Palestine and in the 
 countries of the dispersion, or at the committees of 
 the municipal councils whose members sometimes bore 
 in common with the Christian and the Jewish councils 
 the name of ' elders' (Trpca-fivrepoi), we find in every 
 case evidence of the existence of a presiding officer 2 . 
 
 2 The following are instances : i. in the municipal councils there was a ftov\apxos 
 at Termessus, Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 2264, at Branchidae, ibid. No. 2881, 
 at Aphrodisias, ibid. No. 2811, at Thyatira, ibid. No. 3494: a irpeafivs at 
 Sparta, Le Bas, Voyage Archfologique, 2 Ae partie, ed. Foucart, No. 173 a: ii. in 
 the private associations, there was an apxifpwiffrTjs at Athens, C. I. G. No. 126 
 (= Corpus Inscr. Att. vol. iii. No. 23), an dpxi9ta.aiTT)s at Delos, ibid. No. 2271, a 
 npo(TTaTr]s TTJS ovvoSov, ibid. No. 4893 in Upper Egypt : iii. in the provincial assem- 
 blies the president took his name from the province, e.g. Svptapx 7 ?* of the president 
 of the KOIVOV of Syria, Cod. Justin. 5. 27. I, TliOvviapxTjs of that of Bithynia, Le 
 Bas et Waddington, No. 1142 (cf. Marquardt, Eomische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. 
 p. 374, who gives a complete list of such presidents and identifies the office with 
 that of apxiepevs: so Kuhn, Verfassung d. rom. Eeichs, i er Th. pp. 106 sqq.) : iv. 
 in boards of magistrates there was a irpeafivs TTJS awapxias and also a irptajlvs ruv 
 e<f>6pcav at Sparta, in imperial times, and the board is sometimes spoken of as ol ire pi 
 rbv Sfiva, C. I. G. 1241, 1249, 1268, 1326, 1347, 1375 (cf. Bockh's note, ibid. vol. i. 
 p. 610) : v. in the Jewish councils there was a fepovGiapxys at Rome, C. I. G. 
 9902, and in Campania, Mommsen, Inscr. Regn. Neap. No. 2555 (cf. Schiirer, Die 
 Gemeindeverfassung d. Juden in Rom, p. 18) : vi. in the committees of municipal 
 councils there was an dpxtirpvTavis at Miletus and at Branchidae, C. I. G. Nos. 
 2878, 2881 : an dpxtirp60ov\os at Termessus, ibid. No. 4364 : and the office is 
 implied in the expression apavra rov irpfafivTiitov at Chios and at Sinope, ibid. 
 Nos. 2220, 2221, 4157. It may be added to what is stated above that in Egypt, 
 from the time of the Macedonian kings, every class of functionaries, small and 
 great, seems to have been organized on the basis of subordination to a chief officer : 
 for some instances see Bockh in the Corpus Inscr. Graec. vol. iii. p. 305. 
 
86 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 Now although the existence of such a general drift 
 in contemporary organizations by no means proves that 
 the Christian communities were borne along with it, 
 still it establishes a basis of probability for the in- 
 ference that communities which were so largely in 
 harmony with those organizations in other respects, 
 were in harmony with them also in this. The in- 
 ference is strengthened by the fact that the localities 
 in which there is the earliest contemporary evidence 
 for the existence of a president, are also the localities 
 in which the evidence for tbe existence of a president 
 in other organizations is most complete. Both the one 
 and the other are chiefly found in the great cities, 
 and in the East even more than in the West. So 
 strong is the inference when the facts are closely 
 examined, that if we did not know as a matter of 
 history that the Christian Churches did come to have 
 a single head, it would be as necessary to account for 
 the non-existence of such a head, as it would .be in 
 modern times to account for the singularity of a newly- 
 formed group of associations which had neither presi- 
 dent, nor governor, nor chairman. 
 
 2. If we look at the internal condition of the 
 Christian communities, we shall see that several causes 
 were at work to foster that which, if it be not inherent 
 in all societies, was at any rate the dominant tendency 
 of all societies at the time. Whether we look at 
 them in their eleemosynary character as communities 
 in which the widows and poor were supported from 
 a common fund, or in their disciplinary character as 
 communities which were bound together by the tie of 
 
iv.] The Sitpremacy of the Bishop. 87 
 
 a holy life and in which moral offences were strictly 
 judged, or in their character as communities which 
 met together for public worship and required in such 
 public worship some rule and leadership, in any of 
 these characters there would be, as time went on, a 
 convenience which in large communities would almost 
 amount to a necessity, for a centralized administration 
 for at least a chairman of the governing body. 
 
 There are, besides these antecedent probabilities, two 
 other groups of causes which operated in the same 
 direction. 
 
 i. In the first place, there were some cases in which 
 an Apostle had been supreme during his lifetime, and in 
 which the tradition of personal supremacy may be sup- 
 posed to have lingered after his death : there were 
 others in which the oversight of a community had 
 been specially entrusted by an Apostle to some one 
 officer : there were others in which special powers or 
 special merits gave to some one man a predominant 
 influence. It is, indeed, wholly uncertain how far 
 such cases are typical : and there is a probability that, 
 where such supremacy existed, it was personal rather 
 than official, inasmuch as those who exercised it do 
 not appear to have had as such any distinguishing 
 appellation. In later times they were entitled 'bishops:' 
 the Clementines speak of James, ' the Lord's brother/ 
 as 'archbishop' and 'bishop of bishops 3 :' the sub- 
 scriptions of some versions and late MSS. of the Pas- 
 
 3 Clementin. Eecog. I. 73 'Jacobus archiepiscopus ' (so in later times, e.g. Cone. 
 Epb.es. c. 30 'IO.K&00V diroffToXov ical d/>xi7rt<r<$7rov) : Epist. Clem, ad Jacob, inscr. 
 
 'Ia.KUjpa> T< Kvpi<p KOI (iriffKoirow 
 
88 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 toral Epistles speak of Timothy and Titus as ' bishops ' 
 respectively of Ephesus and Crete 4 : but there is no 
 early evidence of the use of these titles in this relation 5 : 
 and on the other hand Irenaeus calls Polycarp indif- 
 ferently ' bishop ' and ' presbyter 6 : ' and, what is even 
 more significant, in a formal letter to the head of the 
 Roman Church, in which, from the circumstances of 
 the case, he would be least likely to omit any form 
 of either right or courtesy, he speaks of his predecessors 
 by name as * presbyters V 
 
 2. In the second place, there is clear proof of the 
 existence of a theory of the nature of ecclesiastical 
 organization which, from the fact of its persistent 
 survival after a counter-theory had taken its place, 
 may be supposed to have had a strong hold upon the 
 communities among which it existed. To the writer 
 
 4 The earliest MS. which does so is probably the Codex Coislensis of the sixth 
 century : the version which does so is the Peschito : the statement which contains 
 the word is omitted in the greater MSS. and in the early Latin versions. 
 
 5 The earliest use of the word with a definite reference to an individual is the 
 inscription of the letter of Ignatius to Polycarp, 'lyvanos, 6 leal (o<popos, TloXv/capira) 
 (mffK6iTcv (KK\T)0ias ^vpvaicav : but the absence of the definite article, and the 
 inscription of Polycarp's own letter, Ho\v/eapiros KO! ol avv avra> irptff&vTfpoi, are 
 inconsistent with the hypothesis that the word was already specially appropriated 
 to the head of the community. The next earliest use of the word is probably also 
 in reference to Polycarp in the letter of Polycrates to Victor, ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 
 24. It is worthy of note, i. that these earliest uses are in reference to officers of 
 the Asiatic Churches, i. e. in the neighbourhood of communities in which eiriaieoiros 
 was already a title of certain secular officers (see Lecture II, notes 26, 28) : ii. that 
 Hegesippus does not give any title to the heads of the Roman church. 
 
 6 St. Iren. Epist. ad Florin, ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 20. 7 6 fia/cdpios fcal diroffTo\iKos 
 vptff&vTfpos : adv. Haeres. 3. 3. 4 vrro rwv aitooroKuv Karaa-raOtls .... tiri- 
 ffKoiros. 
 
 7 St. Iren. Epist. adVictor. ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 14 of npb ^oaTrjpos irpeffftvrfpoi 
 of irpoaravres TTJS fKK\rjaias %s ov vvv acpTjyfj, 'AV'IKIJTOV \fyofjifv KOU Tltov K.r.X. So 
 late as the third century, the extant epitaphs of Roman bishops do not give the title 
 episcopus : De Rossi, Bvlletino di Archeologia Christ, ann. ii. 1864, p. 50. 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 89 
 
 of the Ignatian Epistles each organized community of 
 Christians is a perfect reflex of the whole Church of 
 God. It is a pure theocracy. In our Lord's own 
 lifetime He Himself had been the visible head of that 
 Kingdom of Heaven which He preached : His Apostles 
 had stood round Him as His ministers the twelve 
 heads and patriarchs of the tribes of the new Israel : 
 the rest of the disciples the new people of God had 
 listened and obeyed. So it was still: the bishop sat 
 in the Lord's place : the presbyters were what the 
 Apostles had been : it was for the rest of the com- 
 munity to listen and to obey 8 . Upon this theory of 
 ecclesiastical organization the existence of a president 
 was a necessity : and the theory seems to go back 
 to the very beginnings of the Christian societies. For 
 in those beginnings the Kingdom of God was realized 
 in a concrete sense as the Kingdom of David. In the 
 infant community at Jerusalem after the Lord had 
 been * taken up,' James, as being His kinsman and the 
 next earthly representative of the royal house, presided 
 in His stead 9 : on the death of James another ' brother ' 
 was appointed to succeed him 10 : other kinsmen of 
 the Lord, as being His kinsmen, presided in other 
 Churches n : and so the idea that the new Kingdom of 
 David should have at its head one of David's line, until 
 the Messiah should return to reign, remained as a fun- 
 
 8 St. Ignat. ad Magn. 6. i. 
 
 9 Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 2. 23. 4 : Clem. Alex. ibid. 2. I. 3, p. 1005, ed. Pott. 
 
 10 Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 3. 32 (of Symeon), 'as being a descendant of 
 David and a Christian : ' id. ap. Euseb. H . E. 4. 2 2 ' Symeon the son of Clopas 
 is appointed bishop, whom all proposed as being the next cousin of the Lord : ' so 
 ibid. 3. n. 
 
 11 Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 3. 20. 32. 
 
9O The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 damental idea of Judaeo-Christian organization, until 
 the long-delayed Parousia seemed almost to vanisli in 
 the far horizon of the unrealized future, and the de- 
 solation of the royal city began to turn men's thoughts 
 from Jerusalem to Kome 12 . 
 
 These facts, and these general considerations of pro- 
 bability, seem adequate to account for the fact that 
 the Christian communities were borne along with the 
 general drift of contemporary organizations, and that 
 the council of presbyters had a permanent president 13 . 
 They also seem to account for the fact that the func- 
 tions of that council of presbyters, as described by 
 Clement and Polycarp, are the same in kind as the 
 functions of the bishop as described in the Ignatian 
 Epistles. But they are all compatible with the view 
 
 12 The importance to the Christian Church of the fall of Jerusalem (for the com- 
 pleteness of which see especially Aristo ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 6. 3, St. Hieron. Comm. 
 in Sophon. c. i. 15, vol. vi. p. 692, ed. Vail., St. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 6, c. 18, vol. 
 i. p. 191, ed. Ben.) was to some extent recognized by Jerome (Epist. 120 ad Hedib. 
 c. 8, vol. i. p. 27), and has frequently been pointed out by modern writers, e.g. 
 Gfrorer, Allgemeine Kirchengeschichte, Bd. i. p. 253, Rothe, Vorlesungen uber Kir- 
 chengesckichte, ed. Weingarten, Bd. i. pp. 75 sqq. 
 
 13 It is not meant to be implied that, even after the episcopal system had be- 
 come firmly established, the bishop was himself always a presbyter : it is clear 
 not only that there was an absence of the later rule which required a bishop to be 
 elected from the body of presbyters (see above, Lecture II, note 59), or to be 
 formally admitted to the presbyterate before being invested with the episcopate, 
 but also that a man might be appointed bishop at an earlier age than was allow- 
 able for a presbyter : this is the point of Jerome's argument against John of 
 Jerusalem (Epist. 82. (62), vol. i. p. 516, ed. Vail.) : and there is probably a 
 reference to it in the disputed phrase vecarepav ratv of St. Ignat. ad Magn. 3. i 
 (cf. Zahn's philological arguments in his Ignatius von Antiochien, pp. 305 sqq.). 
 The distinction between administrative officers and the members of a deliberative 
 assembly was familiar to the Roman world : in the municipal councils the ad- 
 ministrative officers not only had a seat but presided : but they were only ex officio 
 members of those councils, and at the next revision of the roll, after the expiration 
 of their term of office, they might be excluded (cf. Marquardt, Romische Staatsver- 
 waltung, Bd. i. pp. 503 sqq.). 
 

 iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 91 
 
 that the early bishop stood to the presbyters in the 
 relation of a dean to the canons of a cathedral, or 
 of the chairman to the ordinary members of a com- 
 mittee. They do not account for the fact that the 
 bishops of the third and subsequent centuries claimed 
 for themselves exceptional powers, and that the rela- 
 tion of primacy ultimately changed into a relation 
 of supremacy. 
 
 The causes of that important change seem to lie 
 in a wholly different set of facts, into which it is ne- 
 cessary to enter at somewhat greater length. 
 
 Before the close of the Apostolic age Christianity 
 had come into contact with various large tendencies 
 of contemporary thought. Its first contact was with 
 the great school of fantastic syncretism which had 
 grown up within Judaism itself, and which has left 
 a considerable monument in the works of Philo. To 
 that school all facts past and present were an allegory. 
 Nothing was what it seemed to be, but was the symbol 
 of the unapparent. The history of the Old Testament 
 was sublimated into a history of the emancipation of 
 reason from passion. If Abel was described as a keeper 
 of sheep, the meaning was that moral wisdom keeps 
 the irrational impulses under control 14 . If Israel was 
 described as warring against Amalek, the meaning was 
 that when reason lifts itself up away from earth, as 
 Moses lifted up his hands, it is strengthened by the 
 vision of God 15 . If Abraham was described as migrating 
 from Chaldaea to Canaan, the meaning was that wisdom 
 
 Philo, i. p. 1 70, ed. Maug. 1B Ibid. p. 1 24. 
 
 
92 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 leaves the prejudices and crude ideas of its original 
 state, and seeks a new home among the realities of 
 abstract thought 16 . To those who thought thus, the 
 records of the Gospels were so much new matter for 
 allegorical interpretation. To the lower intelligence, 
 to the eye of sense, Christ was a Person who had 
 lived and died and ascended : and the Christian com- 
 munities were the visible assemblies of His followers : 
 and the Christian virtues were certain habits of mind 
 which showed themselves in deeds. But to the spiritual 
 mind, to the eye of reason, all these things were like the 
 phantasmagoria of the mysteries. The recorded deeds 
 of Christ were the clash and play of mighty spiritual 
 forces : the Christian Church was an emanation from 
 God : the Christian virtues were phases of intellectual 
 enlightenment which had but slender, if any, links with 
 deeds done in the flesh. Before long the circle widened 
 in which Christian ideas were rationalized. Chris- 
 tianity found itself in contact not merely with mys- 
 teries but with metaphysics. But they were the meta- 
 physics of ' wonderland/ Abstract conceptions seemed 
 to take bodily shape, and to form strange marriages, 
 and to pass in and out of one another like the dissolving 
 scenery of a dream. There grew up a new mythology, 
 in which Zeus arid Aphrodite, Isis and Osiris, were 
 replaced by Depth and Silence, Wisdom and Power. 
 Christianity ceased to be a religion arid became a 
 theosophy. It ceased to be a doctrine and became 
 
 16 Philo, i. pp. 436, 437, ed. Mang. For the best modern accounts of this 
 allegorizing tendency see Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria, Jena, 1875, pp. 160 sqq., 
 Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, Bd. iii., 3* Aufl., Leipsig, 1878, pp. 406 sqq. 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 93 
 
 a Platonic poem. It ceased to be a rule of life and 
 became a system of the universe. It was transferred 
 from the world of human action in which it had seemed 
 to have its birth into a supersensuous world of unim- 
 aginable vastness, and its truths were no longer fixed 
 facts of faith and life, but the gorgeous, and shift- 
 ing, and unsubstantial pageantry of the clouds of an 
 autumn sky 17 . 
 
 The transfer seems to us as paradoxical as the 
 attempt of some philosophers of our own day to con- 
 struct a Church Catholic, with a priesthood and a 
 ritual, upon the basis of a negation of the religious 
 idea. But it was an age of paradoxes : and for a time 
 the paradox seemed likely to triumph. The contact 
 
 17 The evidence for the opinions of the various schools of Gnostics has mostly to 
 be gathered from the quotations of their writings by their opponents, especially 
 Irenaeus and Hippolytus : the only complete Gnostic treatise which has come down 
 to modern times is a late Valentinian work entitled Titans 2o0t'a, of which the 
 Coptic text, with a Latin translation, was published by Schwartz and Petermann 
 in 1851. The modern literature of the subject is extensive: the first clear view 
 was given by Baur, Die christliche Gnosis, and GescMchte der christlicken Kirche, 
 Bd. i. (Eng. Trans, published in the Theological Translation Fund Library, 1878, 
 pp. 184 sqq.) : the best general view is that of Lipsius in Ersch and Gruber's 
 Allgem. Encyclopddie, s. v. Gnosticismus, vol. Ixxi. pp. 230 sqq. (since printed 
 separately) : accurate shorter summaries, with valuable bibliographical references, 
 will be found in Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic (Eng. Trans, 
 in the Theological and Philosophical Library, vol. i. pp. 280-290), and in Jacobi's 
 revised article, s. v. Gnosis, in the second edition of Herzog's Real- Encyclopddie, 
 Bd. v. The general view which is implied above, that a sufficient explanation 
 of Gnosticism is found in the contact of Judaism and Christianity with Greek 
 philosophy, is supported by a recent interesting essay by Joel, Blicke in die 
 JReligionsgeschichte, Excurs. ii., Die Gnosis, Breslau, 1880. But two short essays 
 (Weingarten, Die Umwandlung der urspriinglichen chriatlichen Gemeindeorgan- 
 isation zur Icatliolischen Kirche in von Sybel's BistorischeZeitschrift,~Bd. xlv., 1881, 
 pp. 441 sqq, and Koffmane, Die Gnosis, Breslau, 1881), which have appeared since 
 these Lectures were published, promise to give in some respects a new direction 
 to the study of the subject, by connecting Gnosticism with the Greek mysteries, 
 and by showing that the Gnostic, like the Christian societies, had a practical rather 
 than a philosophical aim. 
 
94 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 of Christianity with philosophy raised, in short, a pro- 
 blem which was not less fundamental in its bearing 
 upon Christian organization than it was in its bearing 
 upon Christian teaching. It was admitted on all sides 
 that Christianity had its starting-point in certain facts 
 and certain sayings : but if any and every interpre- 
 tation of those facts and those sayings was possible, 
 if any system of philosophy might be taught into 
 which the words which expressed them could be woven, 
 it is clear that there could be but little cohesion 
 between the members of its communities. It was 
 practically impossible to form, at least on any con- 
 siderable scale, an association which should have for 
 its intellectual basis free speculation about the un- 
 knowable, and for its moral basis a creed which should 
 embrace all possible varieties from the extreme of 
 asceticism to absolute indifference 18 . The problem 
 arose and pressed for an answer What should be the 
 basis of Christian union \ But the problem was for 
 a time insoluble. For there was no standard and no 
 court of appeal. It was useless to argue from the 
 Scriptures that this or that system of philosophy was 
 inconsistent with them, because one of the chief ques- 
 tions to be determined was whether the Scriptures 
 did or did not admit of allegorical or philosophical 
 interpretation. In our own day, it is true, the answer 
 
 18 Gnostic morality, like the morality of all systems which press to an extreme 
 the antithesis between the material and the spiritual elements of human nature, 
 necessarily took a double direction : on the one hand it tended to repress the 
 material element and so became ascetic (an extreme which is found in the Encra- 
 titae), on the other it tended to regard the material element as indifferent and so 
 became antinomian (an extreme which is found in the Antitactae). 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 95 
 
 to such a question seems easy : but in those days the 
 temper of many men was towards allegorizing, and 
 mysticism was a prevailing attitude of mind. If 
 Homer could furnish texts and proofs for Platonic 
 lectures, the Gospels could furnish texts and proofs 
 for Gnostic sermons. So hopeless was this kind of 
 controversy that Tertullian deprecates it : ' incerta est 
 victoria aut par incertae 19 .' It was equally useless to 
 appeal to a rule of faith to the rudimentary form 
 of creed which entered into the ritual of baptism : 
 for those who admitted a rule of faith claimed the 
 same liberty in its interpretation which they claimed 
 in the interpretation of the Scriptures: Carpocrates, 
 Basilides, and Valentinus all traced back their opinions 
 to an esoteric and transmitted teaching, which was 
 both more valuable than any written formula, and 
 more authoritative 20 . 
 
 19 Tertull. De Praescr. Haeret. 19. 
 
 30 There were three main points at issue : i. the determination of the canon of 
 the Christian Scriptures : Basilides (Origen, Horn. I in Luc. vol. iii. p. 933, ed. De 
 La Rue : Apelles (St. Hieron. Prolog, in Matt. vol. vii. p. 3, ed. Vail.) : Valentinus 
 St. Iren. 3. n. 9): Marcion (Tertull. adv. Marcion., passim), all admitted some 
 Gospel or other, but not, at least in their integrity, our canonical Gospels : ii. the 
 determination of the terms of the 'regula fidei:' Marcion (Tertull. adv. Marcion. 
 1. 1), and other Gnostics (St. Iren. 3. u. 3) had their 'regulae fidei' (that of Apelles 
 is preserved by Hippolytus, 7. 9), which differed not only from the orthodox rule 
 but from one another (St. Iren. i. 21. 5, Tert. De Praescr. Haeret. 42) : iii. the de- 
 termination of the true and the false tradition of Apostolic teaching : Carpocrates 
 (St. Iren. i. 25. 5) : Basilides (St. Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. 17, p. 900, ed. Pott.) : the 
 Valentinians (Ptolemaeus, Epist. ad Floram, ap. S. Epiphan. Haeres. 33. 7), and 
 others (St. Iren. 3. 2. i : Anon. ap. Euseb.B". E. 5. 28. 3 : Justin M. c. Tryph. 48 : 
 Tertull. adv. Prax. 3 : see especially nicms 2o</>to, p. I, which makes great account f 
 of the teaching of Christ after His resurrection), maintained that what they 
 taught had been transmitted to them from the Apostles. The difficulty of this 
 latter controversy was even greater than that of the other two, because the prin- 
 ciple of an esoteric, and therefore unverifiable, yvuxrts was admitted by some orthodox 
 writers, especially by Clement of Alexandria (cf. e.g. Dahne, De yvdaoei dementis 
 Alexandrini, Leipsig, 1831). 
 
96 The S^tpremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 The crisis was one the gravity of which it would 
 be difficult to overestimate. There have been crises 
 since in the history of Christianity, but there is none 
 which equals in importance this upon the issue of 
 which it depended, for all time to come, whether 
 Christianity should be regarded as a body of revealed 
 doctrine, or the caput mortuum of a hundred philo- 
 sophies whether the basis of Christian organization 
 should be a definite and definitely interpreted creed, 
 or a chaos of speculations. But great crises give birth 
 to great conceptions. There is a kind of unconscious 
 logic in the minds of masses of men, when great 
 questions are abroad, which some one thinker throws 
 into form. The form which the ' common sense,' so to 
 speak, of Christendom took upon this great question 
 is one which is so familiar to us that we find it difficult 
 to go back to a time when it was not yet in being. 
 Its first elaboration and setting forth was due to one 
 man's genius. With great rhetorical force and dia- 
 lectical subtlety, Irenaeus, the bishop of the chief 
 Christian Church in Gaul, maintained that the standard 
 of Christian teaching was the teaching of the Churches 
 which the Apostles had founded, which teaching he 
 held to be on all essential points the same 21 . He main- 
 tained the existence, and he asserted the authority, of 
 a fides catholica the general belief of the Christian 
 Churches which was also the fides apostolica the 
 belief which the Apostles had taught 22 . To that fides 
 
 21 The argument runs through the whole of the treatise ; reference may be made 
 especially to Bk. 3. 2 : 4. 26. 
 
 22 The phrases ' fides catholica ' and ' fides apostolica ' are probably later than 
 Irenaeus : but they came to be adopted as the technical expressions for that for 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 97 
 
 catholica et apostolica all individual opinions and in- 
 terpretations were to be referred : such as were in 
 conformity with it were to be received as Christian, 
 such as differed from it were aipemcai not the general 
 or traditional belief of the Christian Churches, but 
 the belief of only a sect or party. In this view, which 
 was already in the air, the Christian world gradually 
 acquiesced : henceforth there was a standard of appeal : 
 henceforth there was a definite basis of union. 
 
 Thus were the Christian communities saved from 
 disintegration. Upon the basis of a Catholic and Apo- 
 stolic faith was built the sublime superstructure of a 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church 23 . But in the building 
 of that superstructure there arose a concurrent and not 
 less important question, how was the teaching of the 
 Churches to be known, and who were its conservators 1 
 Already in the Eabbinical schools stress had been laid 
 upon the fact that there had been a succession of 
 JRabbis from Moses downwards, who had handed OIL 
 from generation to generation the sacred deposit of 
 divine truth 24 . It might reasonably be supposed that 
 in the Christian Churches there had been a similar tra- 
 
 which he contended. The former of the two phrases seems to be first used in the 
 martyrologies : 'catholica fides et religio,' Mart. Pion. 18, ap. Ruinart, p. 137: 
 'fides catholica/ Mart. Epipod. et Alex. 3, ap. Ruinart, p. 149 : cf. Gorres in the 
 Zeitschrift f. wissenschqftl. Theologte, 1879, Bd. xxii. p. 74 sqq. 
 
 23 The phrase ij icaOoXiKT) (KicXrjaia. occurs first in St. Ignat. ad Smyrn. 8. 2, 
 though probably in a different sense from that which it afterwards acquired ; it is 
 also found in Mart. Polyc. 19. 2, and in the Muratorian Fragment, lines 61, 66. 
 It is not found in Irenaeus, though equivalent phrases are frequent, but it is found 
 in both Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria : see Harnack on the Symbolum, 
 Ecclesiae Romanae in Gebhardt and H.'s Patrum Apost. Op. ed. ii. part i. fasc. 2, 
 p. 141 : and Keim, Aus dem Urchristenthum,p. 115. 
 
 81 Pirqe Aboth, e. g. I. I (ed. Taylor, cf. Excursus, ii. p. 124). 
 
 H 
 
98 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 dition from one generation of officers to another : that, 
 in other words, the Apostles had definitely taught those 
 whom they had appointed, or recognized, as officers, 
 and what had been so taught had been preserved by 
 those who had succeeded those officers. But those 
 officers were in all, or, if not in all, at least in a great 
 majority of Churches, more than one in number : and 
 it is evident, from the nature of the case, that there 
 was an element of danger in thus entrusting the sacred 
 deposit of Apostolic teaching in each community to a 
 plurality of persons, and that as the number of officers 
 multiplied in a community the danger would be pro- 
 portionately greater. The necessity for unity was 
 supreme : and the unity in each community must be 
 absolute. But such an absolute unity could only be 
 secured when the teacher was a single person. That 
 single person was naturally the president of the com- 
 munity. Consequently in the Clementines, for the 
 first time, the president of the community is regarded 
 in the light of the custodian of the rule of faith 
 in express distinction from the presbyters who are 
 entrusted only with that which is relative to their 
 main functions the teaching of the maxims of Chris- 
 tian morality 25 . The point was not at once universally 
 conceded ; but in the course of the third century it 
 seems to have won its way to general recognition. 
 The supremacy of the bishop and unity of doctrine 
 were conceived as going hand in hand : the bishop was 
 conceived as having what Irenaeus calls the ' charisma 
 veritatis 26 ; ' the bishop's seat was conceived as being, 
 
 25 Clementin. Recog. 3. 65. 26 St. Iren. 4. 26. a. 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 99 
 
 27 
 
 what St. Augustine calls it, the ' cathedra unitatis 
 and round the episcopal office revolved the whole vast 
 system, not only of Christian administration and Chris- 
 tian organization, but also of Christian doctrine. 
 
 If I may now recall your attention to the problem 
 which was originally proposed, I venture to think that 
 adequate causes have been found not only for the 
 existence of a president, but also for his supremacy, 
 without resorting to what is not a known fact, but only 
 a counter-hypothesis the hypothesis of a special insti- 
 tution. The episcopate grew by the force of circum- 
 stances, in the order of Providence, to satisfy a felt 
 need. It is pertinent to add that this view as to the 
 chief cause which operated to produce it has not the 
 merit or demerit of novelty. Although the view must 
 rest upon its own inherent probability as a complete 
 explanation of the known facts of the case, it has the 
 support of the earliest and greatest of ecclesiastical 
 antiquaries. St. Jerome, arguing against the growing 
 tendency to exalt the diaconate at the expense of the 
 presbyterate. maintains that the Churches were origin- 
 ally governed by a plurality of presbyters, but that in 
 course of time one was elected to preside over the rest 
 as a remedy against division, lest different presbyters, 
 having different views of doctrine, should, by each of 
 them drawing a portion of the community to himself, 
 cause divisions in it 28 . 
 
 27 St. August. Epist. 105 (166) c. 5, Op. ed. Migne, vol. ii. 403, 'neque enim 
 sua sunt quae dicunt sed Dei qui in cathedra unitatis doctrinam posuit veritatis ; ' 
 so in the Clementines Peter entrusts to Clement rty Ipty ruv \6yoav tcaetdpav, and 
 afterwards speaks of him as TOV d\r)0ias -npoKaOftfuevov, Epist. Clem, ad Jacob, c. 2. 
 
 28 St. Hieron. Epist. 146 (85) ad Evang. vol. i. p. 1082, ed. Vail. : so also Dial. c. 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 The supremacy of a single officer which was thus 
 forced upon the Churches by the necessity for unity 
 of doctrine, was consolidated by the necessity for unity 
 of discipline. 
 
 Early in the third century rose the question of 
 readmission to membership of those who had fallen 
 into grievous sin, or who had shrunk from martyrdom. 
 For many years there had been comparative peace. 
 In those years the gates of the Church had been opened 
 wider than before. The sterner discipline had been 
 relaxed. Christianity was not illegal, and was tending 
 to become fashionable. On a sudden the flames of 
 persecution shot fiercely forth again. The professors 
 of Christian philosophy defended the policy of sub- 
 mission on the theological ground that Christ did not 
 call on all men to be partakers of His sufferings in 
 the flesh 29 . The fashionable church-goers accepted the 
 easy terms which the state offered to those who were 
 willing to acknowledge the state religion. Those who 
 did not actually offer incense on heathen altars made 
 friends with the police, purchased false certificates of 
 having complied with the law, or bribed the officers of 
 the courts to strike their names out of the cause-list 30 . 
 
 Lucif. c. 9, vol. ii. p. 181 'Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate pendet, 
 cui si non exsors quaedara et ab omnibus detur potestas, tot in ecclesiis efficientur 
 schismata quot sacerdotes : ' cf. Comni. in Ep. ad Tit. c. i. vol. vii. p. 694. 
 
 29 The Gnostic schools, with the exception of the Marcionites (Euseb. U. E. 4. 
 15. 46 : 5. 16. 21 : 7. 12 : De Mart. Pal. 10. 2), discouraged martyrdom on both 
 the ground mentioned above and other grounds: see e.g. Heracleon ap. Clem. Al. 
 Strom. 4. 9. p. 595, ed. Pott. : Origen, Horn, in EzecJi. 3. vol. iii. p. 366 : St. Iren. 
 i. 24. 6 : 3. 1 8. 5 : Tertull. Scorpiace passim. 
 
 30 Tertull. De Fuga, in Persec. 12 'Tu autem pro eo pacisceris cum delatore vel 
 milite vel furunculo aliquo praeside : ' ibid. 13 'nescio dolendum an erubescendum 
 sit cum inmatricibus beneficiariorum [i.e. court officers] et curiosiorum [i.e. detec- 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 101 
 
 When the persecution was over, many of the * lapsed,' 
 as they were called, wished to come back again. The 
 path had become easy : for martyrdom was a new 
 beatitude 31 . The baptism of blood seemed to have 
 vicarious merit : and even those who stood upon the 
 lower steps of that sure stairway into heaven seemed 
 entitled to claim some remission of the sins of a weaker 
 brother 32 . The privilege, like the ' indulgences ' of the 
 Koman Church in later times, was singularly abused. 
 Some of those who had undergone the bare minimum 
 of imprisonment which entitled them to be ranked as 
 confessors gave * libelli/ or certificates of exemption, by 
 wholesale. At one time, as we learn from Cyprian, the 
 confessors in a body gave them to the whole body of 
 the lapsed 33 . The scandal of the practice was increased 
 by an innovation upon the mode of readmission. In 
 earlier days each separate case came for judgment before 
 the whole Church. The certificate of a confessor was 
 of the nature of an appeal which the Church might 
 
 live police] inter tabernarios et lenios et fures balneorum et aleones et lenones, 
 Christian! quoque vectigales continentur.' For the 'libelli,' or false certificates, 
 cf. e.g. St. Cyprian, Epist. 30 (31), c. 3, p. 550 : De Lapsis, 27, p. 256. 
 
 31 Cf. e.g. Origen. Exhortatio ad Marty rium, Op. ed. De la Rue, i. 274 sqq. : 
 the treatise De Laude Martyrii, sometimes, erroneously, ascribed to Cyprian and 
 printed with his works (ed. Hartel, Appendix, pp. 26 sqq.) : and the expressions 
 of martyrs themselves in e.g. St. Cyprian. Epist. 31 (26), c. 3, p. 559. It was 
 regarded as cleansing a man from sin (e.g. Clem. Alex. Strom. 4. 9, p. 597), as 
 the true ' cup of salvation ' (Origen. Exhort, ad Mart. 28), and as opening heaven 
 ('sanguini nostro patet coelum . . . et inter omnium gloriam pulchrior sanguinis 
 titulus est et integrior corona signatur,' Auct. De Laude Mart. 9). 
 
 32 Cf. Origen. Exhort, ad Mart. 30 vol. I. p. 293 ; 50 vol. I. p. 309, where the 
 sufferings of martyrs are represented as having, though in a less degree, the same 
 kind of efficacy as the sufferings of Christ : Tertull. De Pudic. 22. represents 
 ' moechi ' and ' fornicatores ' as going to one who has been recently imprisoned, ' ex 
 consensione (al. confessione) vincula induit adhuc mollia,' to obtain his intercession. 
 
 33 St. Cyprian. Epist. 23 (16), p. 536 : so Epist. 20 (14), p. 528, ' thousands of cer- 
 tificates were given every day.' 
 
IO2 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 upon occasion reject 34 . But persecution sometimes ren- 
 dered it impossible for the Church to be gathered 
 together. The Church-officers took it upon themselves 
 to act for the general body. They readmitted the 
 lapsed without consulting the assembly 35 . That which 
 had begun in a time of emergency tended to become 
 a rule in a time of peace. The sterner sort looked 
 on with dismay. The pure spouse of Christ was in 
 peril of her virginity. The Churches for which some 
 of them had sacrificed all they had were beginning 
 to be filled with the weak brethren who had preferred 
 dishonour to death. They were like Noah's ark, into 
 which unclean as well as clean had entered 36 . There 
 was a long and determined controversy. The extreme 
 party maintained that under no circumstances was one 
 who had lapsed to be readmitted 37 . At one time this 
 view tended to prevail : but, as in almost all contro- 
 versies, that which did prevail was the spirit of com- 
 promise. It was agreed on all sides that readmissions 
 must not be indiscriminate : if the earlier usage of 
 
 34 This is implied in St. Cyprian. Epist. 36 (30), p. 574: 15 (10), p. 513: 17 
 (n), p. 521 : 43 (40), p. 592 : but the form of the appeal which Celerinus makes 
 to Lucianus, ibid. 21 (20), p. 532, implies that there was also a tendency to treat 
 the martyrs' certificate as a final remission. 
 
 33 This is shown by the strong remonstrances of Cyprian against the practice : 
 e.g. Epist. 15 (10), p. 514: 16(9), p. 517: 17 (ii), p. 522: 41 (38), p. 588: 59 
 (55), p. 682 : 61 (58), p. 730. 
 
 86 St. Hippol. Mefut. omn. Haeres. 9. 12. p. 460, ed. Dunck. et Schneid. 
 
 37 There was at first the compromise that although one who had ' lapsed ' should 
 be excluded from communion during his active lifetime, he might be readmitted at 
 the point of death : but at last the party at Eome, of which Novatian was the head, 
 refused even this concession (St. Cyprian. Epist. 55 (56), 57 (54) : Euseb. H. E. 6. 
 43, and, withdrawing from the main body, formed new societies on a stricter basis, 
 whose members were known as Kadapoi, or ' Puritans : ' (St. Hieron. Comm. in Osee 
 lib. iii. c. 14, vol. vi. p. 156, ed. Vail. ; see below, note 41.) 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 103 
 
 submitting each case to the tribunal of the whole 
 assembly were impossible, at any rate individual pres- 
 byters and deacons must not act without the knowledge 
 and approval of the president 38 . The rule was in many 
 cases resisted : it frequently required formal reenact- 
 ment 39 : but it ultimately became so general that the 
 bishops came to claim the right of readmitting peni- 
 tents, not in their capacity as presidents of the com- 
 munity, but as an inherent function of the episcopate. 
 
 In this way it was that the supremacy of the bishops, 
 which had been founded on the necessity for unity of 
 doctrine, was consolidated by the necessity for unity 
 of discipline. 
 
 It was a natural effect of the same causes, and it 
 forms an additional proof of their existence, that a 
 rule should grow up that there should be only one 
 bishop in a community. The rule was not firmly 
 established until the third century. Its general recog- 
 nition was the outcome of the dispute between Cyprian 
 and Novatian. That dispute was one of the collateral 
 results of the controversy, of which I have just now 
 been speaking, in reference to the readmission of the 
 lapsed. Novatian was the head of the puritan party 
 
 38 Not only a uniform tradition of doctrine, but also a uniform tradition of 
 discipline, was better preserved by a single person than by a plurality of persons. 
 The bishop was the depositary of the traditionary rules of discipline : and it is on 
 this fact that the Clementines base his special relation to it : Clementin. Epist. ad 
 Jacob. 2 8r]fffi 6 8fi StOrjvai KO! \vfffi 6 8f \v6fjvai us rfjs (KK\i)0ias flSus 
 Kavova : so ibid. 4 us Sioiierjaiv (KK\<rias -nap' Ipov fj.fj,aOr}Kuis. 
 
 39 E.g. in the Spanish Councils of Elvira, c. 32, 2 Seville, c. 9, the Gallican Coun- 
 cils of Orange, c. i, 2 Aries, c. 26, the African Councils, 2 Carth. c. 3, 4, 3 Carth. c. 
 32 : but the Greek rule, according to the Poenitentiale Theodori, 2. 3. 8, ed. Haddan 
 and Stubbs' Councils artd Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii. p. 188, allowed a pres- 
 byter to act without a bishop. 
 
IO4 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 in Rome. He was a theologian whose orthodoxy is 
 expressly admitted by Cyprian himself, and who had 
 done good service 40 . When, after a vacancy of some 
 duration in the Koman episcopate, a bishop was elected 
 who belonged to the anti- puritan party, and who 
 formally accepted the principle that in the Church 
 there must be a mingling of good and bad, the puritan 
 party resolved to have a bishop of their own, and 
 elected Novatian. All the elements of a valid election 
 were present. Under ordinary circumstances, or in 
 a newly organized community, the election would have 
 been unchallenged. There was only one point in which 
 it was exceptional. That exceptional point was that 
 Rome already possessed a complete organization. The 
 question arose whether it was competent, under any 
 circumstances, for a new organization to be established 
 side by side with an existing organization in the same 
 city. The question does not seem to have been raised 
 before : and in Asia Minor, in Syria, arid in Africa 
 Novatian's election was for a time held to be valid 41 . 
 
 40 He had been the organ of the Roman Church in writing to Cyprian the letter 
 which is printed among those of Cyprian, Epist. 30 (31), p. 549 : Jerome, De 
 Viris Illustr. c. 70, vol. ii. p. 837, cf. Contra Eufin. ii. 19, ibid. p. 513, mentions 
 several works of his of which some are still extant and will be found in Gallandi, 
 Biblioth. V. P. vol. iii. and Migne Patrol. Lat. vol. iii. Two recent Jesuit writers, 
 Armellini and Grisar (both quoted by J ngmann, Dissertationes selectae in His- 
 torian, JScclesiasticam, Ratisbon, 1880, vol. i. p. 175, 258, who does not agree with 
 them), have endeavoured to show that he was the author of the Philosophumena 
 (more commonly, but without certain ground, assigned to Hippolytus). His ortho- 
 doxy is admitted in detail by Cyprian, Epist. 69 (76) c. 7, p. 756. 
 
 41 Novatian seems to have written an encyclical letter announcing both his elec- 
 tion and his policy on the question of the readmission of the lapsed (Socrat. H. E. 
 4. 28). In Asia Minor some churches sided with him strongly and permanently 
 (Socrat. ibid. : Sozom. H. E 6. 24). In Syria he would probably have been for- 
 mally recognized by a council at Antioch, but for the death of Fabius (this is 
 implied by Euseb. H. E. 6. 46) : that he was not without adherents in Africa is 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the BisMJ N 3 105 
 
 T11E 
 
 But, with the far-sightedness of a grea 
 
 Cyprian saw the bearings of the question on Christian 
 organization. He used the whole weight of his in- 
 fluence, and the whole force of his vehement rhetoric, 
 to maintain that, the election of Cornelius having been 
 valid, the election of Novatian was null. The con- 
 troversy was keen, but in the end the views of Cyprian 
 prevailed. The necessity for unity outweighed all 
 other considerations. Henceforth, whoever in any city 
 claimed to be a member of the Christian Church must 
 belong to the established organization of that city. 
 The seamless coat of Christ must not be rent, As 
 there was one God, and one Christ, and one Holy 
 Spirit, so there could be but one bishop 42 . The attempt 
 to form two communities side by side put its authors 
 outside the pale of the Church Catholic: o-^V/xa, like 
 was a word of bad repute : the keystone 
 
 shown, e.g. by Cyprian's letter to Antonianus, Epist. 55 (52), p. 625. The recent 
 recovery (by de Rossi, early in 1881) of a fragment of the Damasine epitaph of 
 Hippolytus, 
 
 Hippolytus fertur premerent cum jussa tyranni 
 
 Presbyter in sci ma semper mansisse JVbvati 
 
 (the recovered fragment consists of the words in italics : see Funk in the Theo- 
 logische Quart alschrift, vol. Ixiii. 1881, p. 641) has again brought into prominence 
 the important fact that one who was 'in the very first rank of theologians in the 
 ante-Nicene times' (Card. Newman, Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, p. 221, 
 ed. 1874) was an adherent, possibly a bishop, of the Puritan party : and there are 
 many indications, in spite of the comparative silence of church writers, that so far 
 from Cyprian and Cornelius having gained a complete and immediate victory, the 
 secession lasted for several centuries : the Council of Nicaea, c. 8, made a com- 
 promise with those of their officers who wished to return to the main body : and as 
 late as the end of the sixth century, Eulogius of Alexandria found it necessary to 
 write a treatise against them, of which some fragments still remain : see Photius, 
 Bibliotheca, Codd. 182, 280, Migne, Patrol. Gr. vol. ciii. p. 531, vol. civ. pp. 
 326 sqq. 
 42 Epist. Cornelii, ap. St. Cypr. Epist. 46 (49), p. 611. 
 
io6 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 of Christian organization was fitted firmly into its 
 place : the free right of association existed no longer. 
 
 One other result flowed from this conception of the 
 bishop as the embodiment of unity of doctrine and 
 unity of discipline, which also helps to confirm the 
 view that the prevalence of that conception was the 
 main cause of his supremacy. 
 
 The earliest theory of the relation of the bishop to 
 the community was, as we have already seen 43 , that the 
 bishop stood in the place of the unseen Lord, entrusted 
 with the oversight of his Master's household until 
 He should return from that far country into which 
 He had gone. This view is found in the Ignatian 
 Epistles, in the Clementines, and in the Apostolical 
 Constitutions 44 . In none of these cases is there any 
 ambiguity of expression. The bishop is in the place 
 of God, or of Christ : the presbyters are in the place 
 of the Apostles. But gradually another theory inter- 
 weaves itself with this and ultimately takes its place. 
 It was a not unnatural inference from the belief that 
 the bishop was the custodian and conservator of Apo- 
 stolic teaching that he, rather than the presbyters,, 
 took the Apostles' place. The bishops had succeeded 
 the Apostles in the presidency of the several Churches 
 by what Firmilian calls an ordinatio vicaria* 5 one 
 
 43 See above, p. 88. 
 
 44 Clementin. 3. 60 eirl rrjs X/norou Ka9f8pas KaOeaOfis : 3. 70 Opuvov ovv Xpiarov 
 Tiftrjafre : Const. Apost. 2. 26 o yap tiriffKoiros irporcaOf^faBaj V^ILWV us &fov dta rtn- 
 fjLr}p.fvos : Dionys. Areop. Eccles. Hierarch., possibly by an intrusion into the Church 
 of Gnostic tradition, uses of fleociScfs iepoTeXearai, 6 6fotSr)s ifpapxys, passim, of 
 bishops. St. Cyprian. Epist. 59 (55), c. 5, p. 672 ' unus in ecclesia ad tempus 
 sacerdos et ad tempus judex vice Christi.' 
 
 45 Epist. Firmilian, ap. St. Cyprian, Ep. 75, c. 16, p. 281. The word ordinatio 
 
iv.] The Siipremacy of the Bishop. 107 
 
 officer being appointed in another's place, as governor 
 succeeded governor in a Eoman province, or as chan- 
 cellor succeeds chancellor in our own University 46 . 
 When discipline as well as doctrine found its centre 
 in the bishops, it began to be argued that they had 
 succeeded not only to the seats which the Apostles 
 had filled, but also to the powers which the Apostles 
 possessed 47 . It began to be urged that the powers, 
 
 is properly used of civil appointments, e. g. in Suet. Dom. c. 4 of the appointment 
 of the governors of Egypt : so also, as late as the time of the Emperor Anastasius, 
 of military appointments, in an inscription at Bostra, Le Bas et Waddington, 
 No. 1906. 
 
 46 There is neither proof nor presumption that the word SiaSoxn, which is ordi- 
 narily used, e.g. by Eusebius, H. E. i. I and passim, to designate the succession 
 of bishops, is to be taken in any other than the sense which it ordinarily bore. It 
 is used not only by civil historians to designate the succession of civil officers, but 
 also of the succession, i. of the heads of philosophical schools, e. g. Diog. Laert. 
 proem. : ii. of Jewish high priests, Joseph. B. J. 4. 3. 6 : iii. of heretical teachers, 
 e. g. (St. Hippol.) Philos. g. 7, p. 440 : Ptolem. Epist. ad Floram, ap. St. Epiph. 
 Haeres. 33. 7 ': and of Marcionite bishops, Adamant. Dial, de Recta in Deum Fide, i. 
 ap. Append, ad Origen. Op. vol. i. p. 810, ed. De la Rue. 
 
 47 The view that bishops, and not presbyters, are the successors of the Apostles, 
 appears first by implication in the claim of Zephyrinus arid Callistus, during the 
 Montanist controversy, to have the power of absolving penitents from sin (Tertull. 
 DePudic. i : (St. Hippol.) Philos. g. 12. p. 458), which appears to have been based 
 on the assumption of their succession to St. Peter (Tertull. De Pudic. 21, where 
 Zephyrinus is addressed as ' apostolice,' and where, after quoting St. Matt. 16. 18, 
 19, Tertullian proceeds ' idcirco tu praesumis et ad te derivasse solvendi et alligandi 
 potestatem, id est ad omnem ecclesiam Petri propinquam qualis es evertens atque 
 commutans manifestam Domini intentionem personaliter hoc Petro conferentem '). 
 Probably the earliest express statement of it as applicable to all bishops is by an 
 African bishop in the course of the controversy on rebaptism : ' manifesta est sen- 
 ten tia Domini nostri Jesu Christi apostolos suos mittentis et ipsis solis potestatem 
 a patre sibi datam permittentis, quibus nos successimus eadem potestate ecclesiam 
 Domini gubernantes et credentium fidem baptizantes' (Clarus a Mascula in the 
 Sententiae Episcoporum, 79, ap. St. Cyprian. Op. p. 459, ed. Hartel, printed as 
 Concilium Carthag. vii. in Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. iii. p. 130): it is also 
 stated about the same time, though less expressly, by Cyprian himself, Epist. 3 (65) 
 p. 471, and by Firmilian of Caesarea, ap. St. Cyprian. Epist. 75, c. 16, p. 821. A 
 compromise between the two theories of Apostolical succession was sometimes 
 adopted in later times : the metropolitan was regarded as being in the place of 
 
io8 The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 especially the power of * binding and loosing/ which 
 our Lord had conferred on the Apostles, were given 
 to them not personally or as constituting the Church 
 of the time, but in a representative capacity as the 
 first members of a long line of Church officers 48 . 
 Against an early assertion of this view Tertullian 
 raised a vigorous protest : nor did the view win its 
 way to general acceptance until the time of the great 
 Latin theologians of the fifth century. It was a still 
 later development of this view to maintain that the 
 bishops had also succeeded to the power of the Apostles 
 in the conferring of spiritual gifts, and that through 
 them, and through them exclusively, did it please 
 the Holy Spirit to enter into the souls either of 
 individual Christians at confirmation, or of Church 
 officers at ordination 49 . This latest development, which 
 has frequently been confounded with the earlier view, 
 is found in its completest form on the threshold of 
 the middle ages : it was received as a doctrine by the 
 
 Christ and his suffragans sat round him like the Apostles : St. Symeon. Thessal. 
 De sacris Ordinationibus, c. 6. 
 
 48 The contention of Tertullian (as a Montanist) was that the 'power of the 
 keys' was personal to St. Peter (De Pudic. 21, quoted in preceding note). The 
 view of Augustine was that it was given to the Church (St. Aug. De Catech. Rud. 
 c. 31, Op. ed. Migne, vol. vi. 308 : c. advers. Legis, i. 17. vol. viii. 624 : Tract. 
 50 in 8. Joann. Evang. c. 12, vol. iii. 1763 : De Baptismo c. Donat. 7. 43, vol. ix. 
 2 3 7, from which it appears that what afterwards became the current view was held 
 by the Donatists). But in Jerome the earlier Roman view reappears, and, as before, 
 in express antithesis to Montanism (St. Hieron. Epist. 41 (54), vol. i. p. 189 ' apud 
 nos Apostolorum locum episcopi tenent') : and it was afterwards strengthened by 
 the supposition that our Lord, before His Ascension, formally ordained the Apos- 
 tles to the episcopate by imposition of hands (Quaestiones ex Novo Testamento in the 
 Appendix ad St. August. Op. vol. iii. 2296 ed. Migne). 
 
 49 On the history of this view see G. L. Halm, Die Lehre von den Sakramenten 
 in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwckelung, Breslau, 1864, pp. 192-209. 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. 109 
 
 Council of Paris in A.D. 829 50 ; it forms the basis of 
 several arguments in the pseudo-Isidorian decretals ; 
 it passed at length into the ordinals ; and it still 
 survives. 
 
 The further developments of the supremacy of bishops 
 over presbyters fall for the most part outside the limits 
 of these Lectures. Between the primitive eWcr/co-Tro? and 
 the mediaeval bishop there is so wide an interval that 
 those who are familiar with the picture of the latter 
 may find it difficult to recognize the portrait of the 
 former : at the same time, that interval is not the 
 chasm of an impassable gulf ; it is a space of historical 
 ground every step of which can be traced. 
 
 And it is important to point out that the original 
 conception of the relation of bishops to presbyters 
 never wholly passed away. 
 
 The Church writers of the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Jerome, Hilary the 
 Deacon, expressly state that bishops and presbyters 
 are equal save in the one respect that the former, 
 only have the right of appointing persons to church 
 office 61 . It is maintainable upon the evidence that, even 
 
 50 Cone. Paris, lib. i.e. 27, ap. Mansi, Concilia, vol. xiv. 556 : which was incor- 
 porated by the author of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals as furnishing a strong 
 argument in favour of one of the main contentions of those decretals, viz. that 
 * Chorepiscopi ' were not bishops but presbyters, and that consequently they had 
 not the power of conferring spiritual gifts (Decreta Damasi papae de corepiscopis, 
 ap. Hinschius, Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 513 : Decreta Joannis III Papae, 
 ibid. p. 715). 
 
 51 St. Chrysost. Horn. xi. in Epist. i ad Timoth., Op. ed. Migne, vol. xi. 553 : 
 St. Epiphan. Haeres. 74. 4, p. 906 (who expresses the difference by saying that the 
 order of bishops begets fathers for the Church, i. e. by ordaining officers, that of 
 presbyters begets sons, i. e. by baptizing). St. Hieron. Epist. 146 (85) ad Evunge- 
 
no The Supremacy of the Bishop. [LECT. 
 
 in this one respect, the writers in question write only 
 of the usage of their own times, and that in earlier 
 times the interposition of a bishop was not always re- 
 quired 62 . What the bishop was conceived as having was 
 not peculiarity of function, but priority of rank. His 
 office was designated by terms indicative of such priority 
 Trpoedpia 63 . The presbyters were spoken of 
 
 lum, ' Quid enim facit excepta ordinatione episcopus quod presbyter non faciat ? ' 
 cf. id. Comm. in Epist. ad Tit. c. i : (Ambrosiast.) Comm. in Epist. i, ad Timoih. 
 c. 3, 7, ap. St. Ambros. Op. vol. ii. 295 (the name of Hilary the Deacon is used in 
 the text as a conventional designation of the author of this important commentary, 
 but no hypothesis which has been yet advanced as to its actual authorship can be 
 said to be wholly satisfactory). 
 
 52 Novatus the African presbyter appointed Felicissimus as deacon : and it is to 
 be noted that Cyprian does not question the validity of the appointment, although 
 he strongly objects to its having been made without his knowledge : ' Felicissimum 
 satellitem suum diaconum nee permittente me nee sciente, sua factione et am- 
 bitione constituit,' St. Cyprian, Epist. 52 (49), p. 618 (there is nothing in the con- 
 text to support Tillemont's view that Cyprian uses 'constituit' in the unusual 
 sense of ' procured the appointment '). The contention that the rule of requiring 
 the appointments of Church officers to be made by a bishop grew up as a matter 
 of expediency and good order, and that it did not exist from the first as the result 
 of a peculiar power inherent in the episcopal office, is supported by two other sets 
 of facts : i. Ordination by other than a bishop has been allowed in cases where a 
 bishop was not available : e. g. in the solitudes of Egypt a presbyter, Paphnutius, 
 ordained a monk, Daniel, as successively deacon and priest (Cassian, Collat. 4. i, ap. 
 Migne, Patrol. Lot. vol. xlix. 585) : and the presbyters who were sent as mission- 
 aries to the Teutonic races in the eighth century both ordained presbyters, and 
 exercised other episcopal functions (Anskar. Vit. S. Willehad. c. 5, ap. Pertz, 
 M. H. G. Scriptt. vol. ii. p. 381 ' servus Dei Willehadus per Wigmodiam [Bremen] 
 ecclesias coepit construere ac presbyteros super eas ordinare : ' so Altfrid. Vit. 
 S. Liudger. c. 20, ap. Pertz, ibid. p. 411). ii. Ordination by other than a bishop, 
 with the permission of the Pope, is allowed even by the Schoolmen and Canonists, 
 although the question is discussed among them whether the Pope's licence can 
 extend to the conferring of all orders, or should be limited to orders below the 
 presbyterate (see e.g. St. Thorn. Aquin. In Lib. iv. Sent., dist. 7, qu. 3, art. i, Durand. 
 In Lib. iv. Sent., dist. 7, qu. 4, 4, 21, Bacho, In Lib. iv. Sent., dist. 7. qu. i. art. 4, 
 and for a fuller discussion Baptista Fragoso, De Obligatione Summi Pontificis, 9. 
 149-155, printed in Rocabert, Bibliotheca Maxima Pontifitia, vol. v. p. 159). 
 
 53 Upoaraaia, of a bishop, e. g. Euseb. H. E. 6. 35 (so the state of being without 
 a bishop is airpoaraaia, St. Basil. Epist. 102, p. 197): irpofdpta, e.g. Euseb. H. E. 
 2. 17. 23. (The use of these and similar terms of a bishop must be distinguished 
 
iv.] The Supremacy of the Bishop. in 
 
 by terms which were in use for all councils whether 
 civil or religious, for the assessors of a civil magistrate, 
 for the committee of a charitable association <rwe$ptov t 
 f$ov\fj 3 concilium. The bishop and his council were 
 so far regarded as forming a unity that one of the 
 chief collections of statutes lays down the rule that 
 the judicial action of a bishop without his council was 
 invalid : ' irrita erit sententia episcopi nisi clericorum 
 praesentia confirmetur 5 V The early churches were con- 
 structed, as the Jewish synagogues had been constructed, 
 in accordance with this theory of the nature of the 
 governing body. The great division was not between 
 clergy and laity, but between baptized and unbaptized : 
 the place of the baptized was subdivided by a step or 
 dais : on the dais the deacons stood : in the middle of it 
 was the 'holy table :' at the end was a semicircle of 
 seats for the council, with the seat of the bishop slightly 
 raised above the rest 55 . 
 
 To the dreamy eyes of the mystics of the early 
 centuries these visible churches, dark and small as they 
 were in comparison with the majestic temples of the 
 
 from their earlier use of the whole council of governing officers : e. g. Origen, 
 Comm. in. Matt. torn. xvi. 22, vol. iii. p. 753, ed. De la Eue, ot e 5 rcLs irporroKaO- 
 tSpias irfTTiffTcvfievoi TOV \aov firifffcoirot Kal irpfa&vrcpoi: so probably 
 Herm. Vis. 3. 10. 7 : arid, as late as the end of the fourth century, St. Greg. Naz. 
 Orat. 26 (28) in Seipsum, vol. i. p. 483.) 
 
 54 Statuta Ecde&iae Antiqua (sometimes known as the fourth Council of 
 Carthage), c. 23. 
 
 55 The Opovos or cathedra of the bishop was the special symbol of his presidency : 
 e. g. St. Cyprian, Epist. 3 (65), p. 469 ' pro episcopatus vigore et cathedrae auctori- 
 tate:' so ibid. 17 (n), p. 522 : Euseb. H. E. 2. 23. i: 3. 5. 2 : 4. 23. I, whereas 
 the presbyters were ol 4* TOV Sevrepov Opovov, id. 10. 5. 23. The epitaphs of bishops 
 sometimes describe their tenure of office by sedit,' e. g. the epitaphs of the bishops 
 of Capua, Mommsen, Inscr. Regni Neapolitani, Nos. 3894, 3897. 
 
H2 The Supremacy of the Bishop. 
 
 pagan gods, seemed to be full of a divine light, and 
 expanded to the spiritual sense until they were wide as 
 heaven itself. The order of the Church below typified 
 and realized the order of the Church above. The 
 bishop was like the Eternal Father Himself upon His 
 throne : the presbyters were like the ' four and twenty 
 elders:' the deacons were transfigured into white- 
 winged angels passing to and fro upon the ministry 
 of God 56 . 
 
 The vision was worthy of poets and of saints. To 
 some of us, in these later days, it seems to belong to 
 that vast cavern of the past which is tenanted by the 
 ghost of many a noble poetry and many an ancient 
 faith. And yet, as we emerge, with the sad eyes of vain 
 regret, from that dim world of shadows into the light 
 of this present noon though we see around us no 
 galaxy of white-winged angels, but rather what some 
 think to be the ruins of a creed there is given to us, 
 if only we would know it, a not less divine order and a 
 not less sacred work. 
 
 56 Clem. Alex. Strom. 4. 8, p. 593 C'IKUV 8* rfjs ovpaviov (KK\7)crias % firi-yctos : id. 
 6. 13, p. 793, the ' elders' of the Apocalypse are the heavenly figures of the elders 
 of the church below (this is also implied in the difficult passage of the Aiarayal 
 KXrjUevTos, c. 1 8, where Hilgenf eld's reading seems almost certain). So in Gregory 
 Nazianzen's dream of the church Anastasia at Constantinople the bishop is virfp- 
 Opovos, the presbyters sit on each side of him, the deacons stand 'in shining 
 garments, likenesses of angelic brightness' (St. Greg. Naz. Carm. lib. 2. i. 16, p. 
 844). But in later times the vision of Isaiah or of Ezekiel rather than that of the 
 Apocalypse seems to have presented itself as the heavenly counterpart of the 
 church on earth: the presbyters are conceived as the Cherubim, St. Sophron. 
 Hierosol. Comment Liturg. c. 6, ed. Migne, Patrol. Graec. vol. Ixxxvii. 3986 : 
 Excerpt, e Const. Apost. ap. Pitra, Juris Eccles. Graec. Mon. vol. i. p. 97. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 CLERGY AND LAITY. 
 
 IF we gather together all the words which, during 
 the first two centuries, are used as collective terms 
 for the officers of the Christian communities, we find 
 that they agree in connoting primarily the idea of pre- 
 sidency or leadership 1 . 
 
 If we further gather together the abstract terms 
 which are used, during the same period, for ecclesias- 
 tical office, we find that with the exception of SiaKovla 
 they exhibit the same phenomenon 2 . 
 
 If we further gather together all the passages which 
 speak of the relations of ordinary members of the 
 communities to the officers, we find that they uniformly 
 imply the correlative idea of subjection, and urge the 
 duty of submission, to constituted authority 3 . 
 
 1 The words are ol fjyovpevoi, Heb. 13. 7, 17, 24: I Clem. Rom. I. 3: ol irpo- 
 rryovfjLtvoi, i Clem. Rom. 21. 6: Herm. Vis. 2. 2. 6: 3. 9. 7: ol irpo'io-TafjKvot, ol 
 vpoeoTures, i Thess. 5. 12 : i Tim. 5. 17 : Herm. Vis. 2. 4. 3: Iren. i. 10. 2 : id. 
 ap. Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 14. It has recently been suggested (Holtzmann, Die 
 Pastoralbriefe, p. 201, Weingarten in von Sybel's Historixche Zeitsckrift, Bd. 45, 
 1881, p. 446), that irpotaraaOai may imply a relation like that of the Roman 
 'patronus' (the Greek equivalent of which word is irpoardrrj^. 
 
 2 The words are vpcaroKaOfSpia, Herm. Mand. n. 12 : Clem. Alex. Strom. 6. 13, 
 P- 793 irptoreta, Herm. Sim. 8. 7. 4 : principalis concessio, St. Iren. 4. 26. 3 : 
 Magisterii locus, id. 3. 3. i : ordo, Tertull. De Exhort. Castit. 7, De Monogam. n, 
 De Idol 7. 
 
 8 The passages are Heb. 13. 17: i Pet. 5. 5 : i Clem. Rom. i. 3 : 57. i : 63. i : 
 2 Clem. Rom. 17. 5: St. Ignat. ad Ephes. 2. 2 : 4. i : 20. 2 : ad Magnes. 13. 2 : ad 
 Trail. 2. i, 2 : 13. 2 : ad Philad. 7. i. 
 
 I 
 
H4 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 If therefore the primitive Christian communities 
 were institutions which had entirely passed away, and 
 we were examining their constitution as a piece of 
 ancient history, in the same manner as we examine the 
 constitution of Athens or of Sparta, we should be led 
 to the conclusion that the relation between the officers 
 and the rest of the community was primarily a relation 
 of priority of order. 
 
 If we extend the sphere of our induction, and look 
 at not only the collective but also the particular terms 
 for Church officers in the light of their contemporary 
 use, we further find that none of them were peculiar 
 to the Christian communities, but that they were all 
 common to them with contemporary organizations. 
 Some of them were in use in the imperial adminis- 
 tration, some of them in the municipal corporations, 
 some of them in the voluntary associations 4 . The most 
 common, ordo, was in use in all three relations. 
 
 If, therefore, we could exclude all ideas except those 
 which appear simply upon the evidence, and deal with 
 the facts of Christian organization as we should deal 
 with the facts of any other organization, we should 
 undoubtedly be led to the conclusion that not only 
 was the relation between Church officers and the rest 
 of the community that of presidency or leadership, but 
 that also the presidency or leadership was the same 
 in kind as that of contemporary non-Christian societies. 
 
 But, even if this conclusion were admitted, it would 
 not immediately follow that there were not other re- 
 
 * For (iriaKoiros see Lecture II. notes 26, 27 : for irpeffpvrepos, Lecture III. notes 
 16, 27 : for SICLKOVOS, Lecture II. note 56. 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 115 
 
 lations between the officers and the ordinary members 
 of the Christian communities, which, though less appa- 
 rent were not less important. It might undoubtedly 
 be maintained, at least as a matter of a priori argu- 
 ment, that all this was the shell which enclosed a sacred 
 kernel and kept it safe from profanation, and that 
 underneath the conception of civil government, or side 
 by side with it, there was another conception of the 
 nature of ecclesiastical office which more closely re- 
 sembled the prevalent conception of later times. It is 
 therefore necessary to look not merely at the facts of 
 language, but at the whole available evidence as to 
 the prevailing conception of the nature of Christian 
 organization, and to consider whether upon that evi- 
 dence the argument which must be allowed to be 
 possible a priori is defensible in fact. 
 
 The question is one of such supreme importance in 
 relation to the Christian ministry not only of the 
 period under investigation but also of later times, as 
 to require more than ordinary care. It is, moreover, 
 one which has been so frequently discussed, and upon 
 which the different shades of possible opinion have 
 been maintained with so much zeal, as to demand a 
 special effort on the part of those who approach it 
 to rid themselves of preconceived opinions, and to 
 deal with the facts in the temper not of advocates 
 maintaining a thesis, but of judges reviewing evi- 
 dence and weighing probabilities in an even balance 
 of judgment. 
 
 The question before us may be thus stated : A pre- 
 
 I 2 
 
Ii6 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 sumption having been raised by the terms which were 
 in use for Church office tha,t the conception of such 
 office was one of presidency or leadership, does the 
 existing evidence warrant an inference that Church 
 officers were regarded as possessing other powers than 
 those which naturally attach to presidents and leaders 
 of a community \ 
 
 It will be convenient to take in detail the several 
 functions which in later times have been regarded as 
 the special and peculiar functions of Church officers, 
 and to enquire how far they were regarded as special 
 and peculiar functions in the first two centuries. 
 
 i . In regard to the function of teaching or preaching, 
 it is clear from both the Acts of the Apostles and 
 St. Paul's Epistles that * liberty of prophesying ' pre- 
 vailed in the Apostolic age 5 . It is equally clear that 
 liberty of prophesying existed after the Apostolic age. 
 In the first place, one of the most interesting monu- 
 ments of the second century consists of a sermon or 
 homily which was preached, probably by a layman at 
 Home, a fragment of which has long been known as 
 the Second Epistle of Clement, and the remainder of 
 which has come to light in two forms a Greek MS. 
 and a Syriac translation within the last five years 6 . 
 
 5 Acts 8. 4 : ii. 19-21 : 13. i : I Cor. 14, passim: implied also in James 3. i. 
 
 6 That it is a homily and not a letter is an inference from its tone and manner 
 of address: e.g. c. 19. I 'So then, my brethren and sisters, after the God (f Truth 
 I am reading to you an entreaty to pay heed to what has been written : ' c. 20. 2 
 ' so then, my brethren and sisters, let us believe.' Tliat it was written by a layman 
 is an inference from the antithesis which he makes between himself and his hearers 
 on the one hand, and the presbyters on the other, c. 1 7. 3. 5. That it was preached 
 at Rome is an inference from the general similarity of its doctrine to that of the 
 Shepherd of Hermas. The mention of it as a letter rather than a homily dates from 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 117 
 
 In the second place, the Apostolical Constitutions, 
 which are of even later date, expressly contemplate 
 the existence of preaching by laymen : ' Even if a 
 teacher be a layman, still if he be skilled in the word 
 and reverent in habit, let him teach : for the Scripture 
 says, " They shaU be all taught of God 7 ." ' 
 
 2. In regard to baptism, there is no positive evidence, 
 but there is the argument a fortiori which arises from 
 the fact that even in later times, when the tendency 
 had become strong to restrict the performance of ec- 
 clesiastical functions to Church officers, baptism by an 
 
 a treatise of the fifth century, the Quaestiones et Eesponsiones ad Orthodoxos, c. 74 
 (printed in the works of Justin Martyr, vol. ii. p. 104, ed. Otto) : the reference to 
 a second letter of Clement in Euseb. 3. 38. 4 is vague, nor is there anything in the 
 reference to connect that second letter with the work in question. The complete 
 text was first found by Bryennius in the library of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and 
 published by him at Constantinople in 1875 (since reprinted in the second edition 
 of Gebhardt and Harnack's Patres Apostolici, part I, fasc. I, Leipsic, 1876, and by 
 Bp. Lightfoot, The Epistles of Clement of Rome, London, 1876) : and in 1876 a 
 Syriac version of the complete text was discovered by Mr. Bensley, and is now 
 in the University Library at Cambridge. 
 
 7 Const. Apost. 8. 31 : cf. Ambrosiast. in Ephes. 4. n, 12, ap. St. Ambros. Op. 
 vol. ii. p. 241, who says that in early times 'omnes docebant et omnes baptizabant,' 
 but that afterwards ' coepit alio ordine et providentia gubernari ecclesia, quia si 
 omnes omnia possent, irrationabile esset et vulgaris res et vilissima videretur.' This 
 is, no doubt, only secondary evidence : but it is confirmed, i. by the fact that the 
 exhortations of St. Ignatius against the performance by laymen of other official 
 functions do not extend to preaching : ii. by the fact that in later times the gra- 
 vamen against Origen was not that he had preached as a layman, but that he had 
 done so in the presence of bishops and consequently in violation of church order 
 (Euseb. H. E. 6. 19) : iii. by the fact that, even when ecclesiastical regime was 
 of the strictest, monks, who might be laymen, could preach. The earliest positive 
 prohibitions seem to have been made, expressly in the interest of ecclesiastical 
 order, by Leo the Great, Epist. 1 19 (92) ad Maximum, c. 6, 1 20 (93) ; ad Theodoret. 
 c. 6, ed. Ballerin. pp. 1217, 1227 ; but the ruling enactments of the Canon Law are 
 much later, see the commentators, e.g. Gonzalez on c. 12, X. Cam ex injuncto 
 (v. 7), and c. 15, X. Inter cetera (i. 31), and Fagnani on c. 43, X. Eesponso (v. 39) : 
 these enactments were directed against heretics, and apparently a layman of whom 
 a bishop approved might preach, with his permission, until a contrary decision 
 of the Eoman Curia in 1580. 
 
n8 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 ordinary member of the Church was held to be valid, 
 although if an officer might have been found it was 
 held to be contrary to Church order 8 . 
 
 3. In regard to the Eucharist, the only explicit evi- 
 dence is that of the Ignatian Epistles. The literary 
 questions to which those Epistles have given rise do 
 not affect their value in regard to the question before 
 us. Their evidence remains practically the same 
 whether Ignatius or some one else was their author, 
 and whether the Syriac or the shorter Greek repre- 
 sents the original form. It is clear from them that the 
 Christians of the cities to which they were addressed 
 had held other meetings besides those at which the 
 officers were present : and that in those meetings the 
 bread had been broken and the Eucharist celebrated. 
 The practice is reproved, but the reproof is a gentle 
 one : * Break one bread 9 ; ' 'be careful to have only 
 one Eucharist 10 ; ' * let that be deemed a valid Eucha- 
 rist which is under the superintendence of the bishop 
 or of some one commissioned by him n .' It appears 
 
 8 The earliest authorities for the validity of lay baptism are Tertullian (see below, 
 note 22), the* Council of Elvira in A.D. 305, c. 38, Jerome, Dial. c. Lucif. c. 9: all 
 of which admit, what is sufficient for the question in hand, that there were certain 
 circumstances under which laymen might lawfully baptize. 
 
 9 St. Ignat. ad Ephes. 20. 2 of KO.T dvSpa Koivy Travrfs Iv xapin 
 avvepxeaOf (V fuq, irt'oret KOI Iv'Irjffov Xpiary . . . . eva dprov K \iavTfs. 
 
 10 Id. ad Philad. 4 airov8acT( ovv / evxapicrriq. \prjaQai. 
 
 11 Id. ad Smyrn. 8. i CKCIVT) Pe&aia tiixo-piaria -^yfiffOo} fj virb rov iiriffKoirov 
 
 fj <v av avrbs tmrptifo. The form of expression, 77 virb rov I* ovffa, confirms the 
 inference which is drawn from other evidence that the celebration of the Eucharist 
 was regarded as the act of the whole community, assembled as a corporate whole 
 and expressing itself by the voice of its head : cf. I Clem. Rom. 41 . i 
 , a.5\(f>oi t cv r> ISiy ray pan evxo.piarfiT(u eo3 tv dyaOrj a 
 
 ^I irapf/cfiaivow rbv ajpi<rp.evov rrjs \firovpyias avrov Kavova, iv 
 It must be noted that here, as elsewhere in the Ignatian Epistles, the antithesis is 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 119 
 
 from this that the celebration of the Eucharist without 
 the presence of a Church officer was not of itself in- 
 valid. It is inconceivable that any one who held the 
 view, which has been ordinarily held in later times, 
 that the presence and action of a Church officer are 
 essential to the valid celebration of the Eucharist, would 
 have used the language of mild remonstrance, or would 
 have brought arguments to urge the expediency of 
 submission in this, as in other respects, to constituted 
 authority. 
 
 4. In regard to the exercise of discipline, the earliest 
 evidence is that of the First Epistle to the Corinthians : 
 in it St. Paul addresses the whole community, and 
 urges them to meet together and exercise the power 
 of expulsion in the case of one who was guilty of open 
 sin 12 . The other evidence consists in the Epistles of 
 Clement and of Polycarp. A leading point in the Epistle 
 of Clement is that the officers of the community should 
 be obeyed, and that they should not be lightly removed. 
 In writing it, he, like St. Paul, addresses the whole 
 community. He does not question the right of the 
 community to remove its officers, if it thinks fit ; but 
 he urges that it would not be a proper exercise of 
 that right to remove those who have filled the office 
 worthily 13 . The Epistle of Polycarp is complementary 
 of that of Clement: as the latter urges that worthy 
 
 not between bishops and presbyters, but between the body of Church officers, of 
 which the bishop was the head, and ordinary members. 
 
 12 i Cor. 5. 
 
 13 i Clem. Rom. 44 : cf. ibid. 54 where one whose presence in the Church had 
 been a cause of dissension is supposed to say d-netfu ov fdv 0ov\rj<ree teal iroiw ra 
 
1 20 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 officers should not be removed, the former urges that 
 a presbyter who had been removed should be restored. 
 Polycarp, like Clement, and like St. Paul, addresses 
 the community at large : in doing so he implies that 
 it was with the community that the power of restora- 
 tion lay 14 . 
 
 Whether therefore we look at preaching, at baptism, 
 at the Eucharist, or at discipline, it seems probable 
 that the officers were not conceived as having, as 
 such, exclusive powers. In other words, the existing 
 evidence in regard to the functions of Church officers, 
 so far from establishing, tends to disprove the ex- 
 istence of any conception of the nature of their 
 office, other than that which is gathered from the 
 
 14 St. Polycarp. ad Philipp. n : that cases of discipline were judged by the 
 whole community, assembled under the presidency of its officers, so late as the 
 time of Cyprian is clear from the letter of the Roman Church to him (St. Cyprian. 
 Epist. 30 (31), p. 533) 'conlatione consiliorum cum episcopis, presbyteris, diaconis, 
 confessoribus, pariter ac stantibus [i. e. those who had not ' lapsed '] laicis facta 
 lapsorum tractare;' cf. also Epist. 31 (26), p. 562, 34 (28), p. 570. This is in 
 harmony with the general analogy of the Christian communities to the contem- 
 porary secular communities, in which all matters of importance were decided ' con- 
 ventu pleno : ' see, for the Greek associations, Foucart, Les Associations religieuses, 
 p. 15, and for the Latin associations, Duruy, Histoire des Remains, vol. v. p. 155. 
 In course of time, the Church officers came to act alone in matters of discipline 
 (see supra, p. 102), and, still later, their power so to act was regarded as an in- 
 alienable attribute of the priesthood: but the ancient theory outlived the later 
 practice, and some of the most eminent of the schoolmen, especially Albertus 
 Magnus, maintained that, where a priest was not to be had, a layman might give 
 absolution to a penitent (Albert. M. in Lib. iv. Sent., dist. 1 7, art. 58, Op. ed. 
 Lugd. vol. xxvi. p. 425 : the contrary was maintained by his great disciple, Thomas 
 Aquinas, on the same passage of the Sentences, qu. 3, art. 3; and Gratian, Decret. 
 pars. ii. c. 24, qu. I. 39, goes so far as to reckon absolution among those sacra- 
 ments, the effect of which, when administered by a non-priest, is either null or 
 deadly). In a similar way, though for a different reason (viz. the degeneracy of 
 the priesthood), the ' last of the Greek Fathers,' John of Damascus, considers that 
 the ' power of binding and loosing ' had passed from the ' high-priests ' to ' the elect 
 people of God, I mean the monks ' (S. Joann. Damasc. Epist. de Confessions, n, 
 Op. ed. Le Quien, vol. i. p. 606). 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 121 
 
 terms which were in use to designate such office. 
 It supports the hypothesis that they existed in the 
 Christian societies, as those who bore the same names 
 existed in secular societies, for the general super- 
 intendence of the community and the general control 
 of its affairs, that all things might be done * decently 
 and in order.' 
 
 Such a conclusion may appear strange when viewed 
 by the light of later times, but it is not strange if it 
 is viewed in relation to the circumstances of the first 
 two centuries. In those early days before the doors 
 of admission were thrown wide open, before children 
 were ordinarily baptized and men grew up from their 
 earliest years as members of a Christian society, before 
 Christianity had become a fashionable religion and 
 gathered into its net fish 'of every kind' both good 
 and bad the mere membership of a Christian Church 
 was in itself a strong presumption of the possession 
 of high spiritual qualifications. The Christian was in 
 a sense which has often since been rather a satire than 
 a metaphor, a * member of Christ/ a * king and priest 
 unto God/ The whole body of Christians was upon 
 a level : 'all ye are brethren 15 / The distinctions which 
 St. Paul makes between Christians are based not upon 
 office, but upon varieties of spiritual power. They are 
 caused by the diversity of the operations of the Holy 
 Spirit. They are consequently personal and individual. 
 They do not mark off class from class, but one Chris- 
 tian from another. Some of these spiritual powers 
 
 15 St. Matt. 23. 8. 
 
122 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 are distinguished from others by a greater visible and 
 outward effect : but they are all the same in kind. 
 The gift of ruling is not different in kind from the 
 gift of healing. The expression 'he that ruleth' is 
 coordinate with ' he that exhorteth,' ' he that giveth,' 
 ' he that sheweth mercy 16 / Of one or other of these 
 gifts every Christian was a partaker. There was a 
 vivid sense, which in later times was necessarily weak- 
 ened, that every form of the manifestation of the 
 religious life is a gift of God a yapi<rv.a., or direct 
 operation of the Divine Spirit upon the soul. Now 
 while this sense of the diffusion of spiritual gifts was 
 so vivid, it was impossible that there should be the 
 same sense of distinction between officers and non- 
 officers which afterwards came to exist. Organization 
 was a less important fact than it afterwards became. 
 That which gave organization its importance was the 
 increase in the size of the communities. The need 
 of order thereby became more imperative : the work of 
 administration had to be systematized and centralized : 
 the officers who had the control of order and adminis- 
 tration came inevitably to have a higher relative status 
 than they had had before. There were not only disputes, 
 as we learn from Clement of Kome 17 , about the ap- 
 pointment of officers, but also an exaggeration of the 
 place of order in the Christian economy. The gift of 
 ruling, like Aaron's rod, seemed to swallow up the 
 other gifts. 
 
 Then came a profound reaction. Against the growing 
 tendency towards that state of things which afterwards 
 
 16 Kom. 12. 6, 8. 17 i Clem. Kom. 44. x. 
 

 v.] Clergy and Laity. 123 
 
 firmly established itself, and which ever since has been 
 the normal state of almost all Christian Churches, some 
 communities, first of Asia Minor, then of Africa, then 
 of Italy, raised a vigorous and, for a time, a successful 
 protest. They reasserted the place of spiritual gifts 
 as contrasted with official rule 18 . They maintained that 
 the revelation of Christ through the Spirit was not 
 a temporary phenomenon of Apostolic days, but a 
 constant fact of Christian life. They combined with 
 this the preaching of a higher morality than that 
 which was tending to become current. They were 
 supported in what they did by the greatest theologian 
 of his time, and it is to the writings of that theologian 
 rather than to the vituperative statements of later writers 
 that we must look for a true idea of their purpose. The 
 fact of their having been supported by that theologian 
 is of extreme significance. For Tertullian had done in- 
 calculable service alike in his defence of Christianity 
 against the as yet unconverted world without, and in 
 his refutation of heresies within 19 . To him, almost 
 as much as to Irenseus, were the Churches indebted 
 for the dominance of the fundamental theory that 
 Christian doctrine must be determined by Apostolic 
 
 18 The literature which bears upon Montanism is extensive : most earlier writers 
 (including Schwegler, Der Montanismus, Tubingen, 1841) overlooked its special 
 character as a protest of the * ecclesia spiritus ' against the ' ecclesia numerus 
 episcoporum ' (Tertull. De Pudic. 21): the first enunciation of this special cha- 
 racter is due to Ritschl, Die altkatholische Kirche, pp. 513 sqq., whose view is 
 even more clearly expressed by Rothe, Vorlesnngen, ed. Weingarten, pp. 166 sqq. 
 The valuable treatise of Bonwetsch, Die Geschichte des Montanismus, Erlangen, 
 1 88 1, shows how this negative or controversial character of Montanism grew out 
 of its positive elements (see especially pp. 136-139). 
 
 19 For a good account of Tertullian's services to the Church see Hauck, Tertul- 
 lians Leben und Schriften, Erlangen, 1877, especially c. iii. and iv. 
 
124 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 tradition. So far from being a heretic, he was the 
 champion of the Church against heresy 2o : so far from 
 disfavouring Catholicity, he was its chief living 
 preacher : so far from holding that office was unim- 
 portant, he reproaches heretics with their insufficient 
 recognition of its importance 21 . But the view which 
 he took of the nature of office in the Church was 
 that it does not, as such, confer any powers upon its 
 holders which are not possessed by the other members 
 of the community. As an ordinary rule, he main- 
 tains, the president, and he only, has the function 
 of admitting new members into the community: but 
 if there be emergency, the power descends to other 
 Church officers and laymen 22 . As an ordinary rule, 
 ' it is only,' he says, ' from the hands of our presi- 
 dents that we receive the Eucharist:' but if there 
 be an emergency, a layman may celebrate as well as 
 a bishop 23 . ' That which has constituted the difference 
 between the governing body and the ordinary members 
 is the authority of the Church : ' but * where three 
 Christians are, though they be laymen, there is a 
 Church 24 .' These statements of a great theologian, 
 
 20 His attitude towards heresy may be gathered from a treatise which he wrote 
 when he was himself a Montanist : ' ad officium hereticos compelli, non illici, 
 dignum est : duritia vincenda est non suadenda' (Scorp. i). 
 
 21 Tertull. De Praescript. 41. 
 
 22 De Baptisino, 17 'Dandi [sc. baptismum] quidem habet jus summus sacerdos 
 qui est episcopus: dehinc presbyter! et diaconi, non tamen sine episcopi aucto- 
 ritate propter ecclesiae honorem. Quo salvo pax est. Alioquin etiain laicis 
 jus est.' 
 
 23 De Corona, 4. 
 
 24 De Exhort. Castit. 6 ' Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit eccle- 
 siae auctoritas et honor per ordinis consessum sanctificatus. Adeo ubi ecclesiastic! 
 ordinis non est consessus, et offers et tinguis et sacerdos es tibi solus. Sed ubi 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 125 
 
 in support of a great movement which was all but 
 victorious, cannot be lightly set aside. In theological 
 as in other wars the tendency is to cry ' Yae victis ! ' 
 and to assume that the defeated are always in the 
 wrong. But a careful survey of the evidence leads 
 to the conclusion that, in its view of the relation of 
 ecclesiastical office to the Christian life, the Montanism, 
 as it was called, which Tertullian defended, was theo- 
 retically in the right, though its theory had become in 
 practice impossible. It did not make sufficient allow- 
 ance for changed and changing circumstances. It was 
 a beating of the wings of pietism against the iron bars 
 of organization. It was the first, though not the last, 
 rebellion of the religious sentiment against official 
 religion. 
 
 But the exigencies of organization of necessity pre- 
 vailed : for in ecclesiastical as in other human affairs 
 the ideal yields to the practicable. At the same time, 
 the fact of the existence of Montanism, and of its 
 considerable success, strongly confirms the general 
 inferences which are drawn from other evidence, that 
 Church officers were originally regarded as existing for 
 the good government of the community and for the 
 general management of its affairs : that the difference 
 between Church officers and other baptized persons was 
 one of status and degree : that, quoad the spiritual life, 
 the two classes were on the same footing: and that 
 the functions which the officers performed were such 
 
 tres, ecclesia est, licet laici.' (This number, three, was the legal minimum of a 
 Roman Collegium : Marcell. in Dig. 1. 16. 85 ) 
 
 
126 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 as, apart from the question of order, might be performed 
 by any member of the community. 
 
 The metaphor which seems best to express the relation 
 of the two classes is one which was frequently used, 
 and which has survived until our own times. It is 
 that which is implied in the word ' Pastor/ It came 
 originally from the shepherd life of Eastern and 
 Southern Palestine, where a shepherd wandered with 
 his flocks of almost innumerable sheep over almost 
 boundless tracts of undulating moorland. It passed 
 naturally into Hebrew poetry : and three of the great 
 Hebrew prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, 
 use it constantly for both the ecclesiastical and the 
 civil rulers of the people. It is found in the New 
 Testament : and it is found in almost all early Christian 
 literature 25 . Its fundamental idea is that of ruling 26 : 
 and the Apostolical Constitutions, following chiefly 
 Ezekiel's address to the rulers of his time, show how it 
 was understood in regard to all the various functions of 
 the Christian ministry: the bishop, as a good shepherd, 
 guards the strong, i. e. those who are sound in the faith, 
 heals those who are weak, i.e. those whose faith is 
 
 and its correlatives iroinvrj and iroi/moi/ are found, e. g. (not including 
 passages in which the reference is to the relation between the Church and Christ) 
 i Pet. 5. 2, 3 : Herm. Sim. 6. 1 : St. Ignat. ad Pkilad. 2.1: ad Rom. 9. I : St. Iren. 
 4. 33. i : Clem. Alex. Paed. i. 6, p. 120: Const. Apost. 2. 6, 10, 15, 20. In Latin 
 ' pastor,' e. g. St. Cypr. Epist. 8 (2), p. 486 : 17 (n), p. 522. 
 
 26 Cf. Jeremy Taylor, Episcopacy asserted, Sect. i. 6 'In Scripture and other 
 writers to feed and to govern is all one when the office is either political or econo- 
 mical or ecclesiastical : ' the assertion is capable of being proved by abundant 
 evidence, e.g. Philo, I. 196, ed. Mang. ol 8% -noinaivovrts dpxovrcav KOI rftfuovcov 
 (X ovres Mvaptv: Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 26, p. 421 : St. Greg. Nazianz. Oral. 32, c. 
 10, p. 586 rdis K&V (KK\Tjaiais rb (jitv flvai n -noi^viov T& 5e TroifAfvas oi&pifff /cat 
 TO fjifv apxfiv TU 5e 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 127 
 
 wavering, binds up the wounded, i. e. restores to the 
 flock those whom the sense of sin has smitten with 
 contrition, seeks for those who have gone astray, i. e. 
 brings back to the flock those whom the sense of siri 
 has driven away in despair 27 . 
 
 But although the original conception of ecclesiastical 
 office ultimately passed away, it passed away only by 
 slow degrees. Little by little those members of the 
 Christian Churches who did not hold office were 
 excluded from the performance of almost all ecclesi- 
 astical functions. At first a layman might not preach 
 if a bishop were present : and then not if any Church 
 officer was present: and finally not at all 28 . At 
 first a layman brought his own gifts to the altar 
 and communicated there 29 : and then he could only 
 unless he were an Emperor stand outside the dais 
 
 27 Const. Apost. 2. 20: so St. Cyprian. Epist. 8 (2), p. 486, (we shall be called 
 negligent shepherds because) ' perditum non requisivimus et errantem non correxi- 
 mus et claudum non colligavimus et lactem eorum edebamus et lanis eorum operi- 
 ebamur.' 
 
 28 The ' gravamen ' of Demetrius against Origen was not so much that he had 
 preached, but that he had done so in the presence of bishops (T& irapovTajv tmaico- 
 ir<uv \aiKovs dfuXtiv, Euseb. H. E. 6. 19. 17) : and the Western canon, which was 
 ultimately superseded by the letters of Leo the Great (see above, note 7), concedes 
 the point for which the friends of Origen contended : ' laicus praesentibus clericis 
 nisi ipsis jubentibus, docere non audeat ' (Stat. Eccles. Antiq., = 4 Cone. Garth. 
 c. 98). 
 
 29 For the practice of laymen going to the altar see e. g. St. Dionys. Alexandr. 
 Epist. ad Chrys. ap. Euseb. H. E. 7. 9. 4 : Epist. ad Basilid. ap. Pitra, Jwr. Eccl. 
 Gr. Mon. vol. i. p. 544 : Routh, Eel. Soar. vol. iii. p. 230 : St. Ambros. De Sacram. 
 5. 2, 3, vol. ii. p. 374 : St. Augustin. Epiat. in (122), ad Victorian. Op. ed. Migne, 
 vol. ii. 426. The practice seems to have survived longest at Milan, where, until 
 comparatively late times, the laity went to the altar to make their offerings, retired 
 during the prayer of consecration, a.nd returned to partake of the consecrated ele- 
 ments (Bona, De Rebus Liturgicis, vol. i. p. 184) : it is also found in Gaul in the 
 sixth century (St. Greg. Turon. H. F.$.$'. 10. 8). 
 
128 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 upon which the officers sat or stood : and finally, in 
 the East, he might not even see the celebration of the 
 'mysteries 30 / At first the vote of laymen as well as 
 of officers was taken in cases of discipline, and so late 
 as the fifth century the existence of the disciplinary 
 rights of laymen is shown by the enactment of an 
 African council that a parish must not excommunicate 
 its clergyman 31 : but finally laymen had no place what- 
 ever in the ecclesiastical tribunals. By the force of 
 changing circumstances, and by the growth of new 
 conceptions, the original difference of rank and order 
 became a difference of spiritual power : and a mediaeval 
 theologian, writing of the same officer whom Justin 
 Martyr describes simply as a president, offering prayers 
 and thanksgivings in which the congregation take their 
 part by the utterance of the solemn Amen !, says that 
 ' the orders of the heavenly host, although they enjoy 
 beatitude and want nothing to the sum of felicity, still 
 revere the glory of a priest, wonder at his dignity, 
 yield to him in privilege, honour his power 
 
 32 
 
 The question will naturally arise, If the early con- 
 ception of ecclesiastical office was that to which the 
 evidence points, and which Tertullian states, what was 
 the nature and significance of ordination ? 
 
 The earliest prohibition was a local one, that of the council of Laodicea, c. 19, 
 44 : the first general prohibition was that of the Trullan council, c. 69, which 
 except? kings. The custom of erecting a close screen (ettfofoorao'ts) so as com- 
 pletely to shut out the laity from seeing the altar, probably belongs to a still later 
 period (see Canon Venables in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. 
 Iconostasis). 
 
 31 Cone. Septimunicense ap. Ferrand. Breviatio Canonum, c. 139 'Ut non liceat 
 clericum a populo excommunicari sive praesente sive absente episcopo.' 
 
 32 St. Bernard. Instructio Sacerdotis, c. 9, vol. iii. p. 533. 
 
OF ^]E 
 
 v.] Clergy and Laity. I U N I V E Eo&i T Y 
 
 / 
 
 The answer which, upon the evidence, 
 to this question strongly confirms the conclusion to 
 which the evidence leads upon the question which has 
 been already considered. The evidence is extensive 
 and various, and can only be briefly recapitulated 
 here. 
 
 T. In the first place, all the words which are 
 in use to express appointment to ecclesiastical office 
 connote either simple appointment or accession to 
 rank 33 . 
 
 2. In the second place, all these words were in use 
 to express appointment to civil office. When other 
 ideas than those of civil appointment came beyond 
 question to attach themselves to ecclesiastical appoint- 
 ment other words were used 34 . The absence of such 
 words in the earlier period of itself affords a strong 
 presumption of the absence of the ideas which are 
 relative to them. 
 
 3. In the third place, all the elements of appoint- 
 ment to ecclesiastical office were also the elements of 
 appointment to civil office. Those elements were 
 nomination, election, approval, and the declaration of 
 election by a competent officer. The conditions of 
 ordinary appointment to civil office in the Koman 
 municipalities are known to us from many and unim- 
 
 " The words in use in the first three centuries are \tiporoveTv, KaOiaraveiv, K\rj- 
 povaOai, constituere, ordinare. For instances of their use see my article in the 
 Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. Ordination. 
 
 34 After the first three centuries there were not only other words of the same 
 kind as those mentioned in the preceding note, e. g. irpoe\0eiv, irpodyfa&ai, promo- 
 veri, praeferri, but also xtipoQtTtiaOai, iepdcrOai, consecrari, benedici ; for instances 
 of which, and also for instances of the use of the words in relation to civil appoint- 
 ments, see ibid. 
 
 K 
 
130 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 peachable sources 35 . Those sources show that, though 
 election prevailed, it did not of itself constitute an 
 office, that any one who was so elected had to pass 
 a preliminary examination as to his possession of the 
 required qualifications, that the presiding officer might 
 decline to take account of any one who did not possess 
 those qualifications, and that, according to the constitu- 
 tional fiction which we find in Rome itself, especially 
 during the Republican period, the person appointed 
 is said to be appointed, not by the people who elected, 
 but by the officer who presided at the election 36 . These 
 same conditions were ordinarily necessary at the 
 appointment of all but the lowest grades of ecclesias- 
 tical officers : there was a nomination, an election, an 
 examination into the fitness of the candidate, and the 
 action of a presiding officer 37 . 
 
 4. In the fourth place, the modes in which these 
 elements of election were combined varied in the 
 
 35 In addition to earlier sources, which are best given by Zumpt, Commentationes 
 Epigraphicae, vol. i. p. 4 sqq., we have an almost complete account of the municipal 
 laws of the early Empire relative to elections in the bronze tablets containing the 
 laws of two Spanish towns, Salpensa and Malaga, which were discovered in 1851. 
 They will be found in the Corpus Inscr. Lat. vol. ii. Nos. 1963, 1964, in Haenel, 
 Corpus Legum ante Justinianum latarum, p. 63 : and with an important commen- 
 tary by Mommsen in his essay, Dei Stadtrechte der lateinischen Gemeinden Sal- 
 pensa und Malaca, printed in the Abhandlungen der konigl. sacks Gesellschaft der 
 Wiseenschaft, Bd. iii (the doubts which were at one time raised as to their genuine- 
 ness have been disposed of by Giraud, Les Tables de Salpensa et de Malaga, Paris, 
 1856, and La Lex Malacitana, Paris, 1868). For clear summaries of the existing 
 evidence in relation to municipal elections see Duruy, Histoire des Eomains, vol. v. 
 pp. 107 sqq. : Marquardt, Bomische Staatsrerwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 472 sqq. 
 
 36 ' Creare ' (consulem, praetorem) is strictly used of the action of the presiding 
 officer: the people are said 'jubere,' i. e. to direct the appointment to be made : 
 cf. Mommsen, Romisckes Staatsrecht, Bd. i. pp. 157 sqq. 
 
 37 For the evidence see the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. Ordination, 
 vol. ii. pp. 1504 sqq. 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 131 
 
 Church concomitantly with their variation in the 
 State. In the State, first at Rome, and afterwards, 
 though much later, in the municipalities, election by 
 the people, subject only to the veto of the presiding 
 officer, passed into election by the senate, subject only 
 to a formal approval on the part of the people 38 . In 
 the Church it came to pass that the officers nominated 
 and the people approved : and ultimately, by steps 
 which can be definitely traced, the part of the people 
 was limited to the right of objecting to unsuitable 
 candidates 39 . 
 
 5. In the fifth place, all the modes of admission to 
 ecclesiastical offices were, with one exception, analogous 
 to the modes of admission to civil office. A Koman 
 consul designatus dressed himself in his official dress, 
 went in state to the Capitol, took his seat on the 
 curule chair, and held a formal meeting of the senate : 
 by doing this he became consul de facto. A Koman 
 praetor designatus went to the ordinary court-house, 
 took his seat on the tribunal, heard and decided a 
 fictitious case, and became thereby praetor de facto 40 . 
 There was no formal act of admission : what took place 
 was a usurpatio juris ; a person duly elected simply 
 entered upon his office and was in full possession of it 
 as soon as he had discharged, without let or hindrance, 
 one of its ordinary duties. If we take the earliest 
 
 38 For the evidence see e. g. Mommsen, Eom. Staatsrecht, Bd. ii. 860 sqq. : 
 Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. 474. 
 
 39 See the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, ut supra. 
 
 40 See Mommsen, Horn. Staatsrecht, Bd. i. pp. 502 sqq. On the distinction be- 
 tween this and the ' inauguratio' of a priest see Oldenberg, in the Commentationes 
 Philologae in honorem Tk. Mommseni, Berlin, 1877, p. 161. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 Eastern form of what in later times would have been 
 called the ritual of 4 ordination ' or ' consecration/ that 
 which is given in the eighth book of the Apostolical 
 Constitutions, it is clear that the same theory of ad- 
 mission to office prevailed in the Church. On the 
 morning after his election the bishop is escorted to his 
 chair by the other bishops who took part in the elec- 
 tion, and at once enters on the active duties of a bishop 
 by preaching a sermon and celebrating the Eucharist 41 . 
 That a similar practice prevailed in regard to other 
 Church officers must be inferred from the fact that in 
 some instances it still survives. ' In the chief Western 
 rituals the newly ordained deacon performs the deacon's 
 function of reading the Gospel : in the Eoman ritual 
 the presbyter not only takes his place in the presby- 
 tery but is " concelebrant " with the bishop, i. e. he is 
 associated with him in the celebration of the Eucharist: 
 in the Greek ritual the reader performs his proper 
 function of reading, and the subdeacon who in early 
 times was a kind of under-servant washes the bishop's 
 hands 42 / 
 
 All this, as far as analogy can guide us, is precisely 
 what would have happened if the community, instead 
 of being ecclesiastical, had been civil. The conception 
 of ordination, so far as we can gather either from the 
 words which were used to designate it, or from the 
 elements which entered into it, was that simply of 
 appointment and admission to office. 
 
 But there is one element, which was not present in 
 
 41 Const. Apost. 8. 4-14. (The date of this is at present quite uncertain.) 
 * 2 Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, B. v. Ordination, vol. ii. pp. 1507. 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 133 
 
 admissions to civil office, and to which in later times 
 great importance has been attached the rite of the 
 imposition of hands. It is therefore necessary to con- 
 sider how far the existence of this rite indicates the 
 existence of a different theory. 
 
 Two points have to be considered : first the existence 
 of the rite, and secondly its significance. 
 
 In regard to the first of these points, there is the 
 remarkable fact that the passage of the Apostolical 
 Constitutions which describes with elaborate minuteness 
 the other ceremonies with which a bishop was admitted 
 to office, says nothing of this. It is mentioned that 
 during a prayer after the election the deacons hold the 
 open Gospels over the newly-appointed bishop's head : 
 but of imposition of hands the passage makes no men- 
 tion whatever 43 . Nor is the rite mentioned in the 
 enumeration which Cyprian gives of the elements 
 which had combined to make the election of Cornelius 
 valid : it was of importance to show that no essential 
 particular had been omitted, but he enumerates only 
 the votes of the people, the testimony of the clergy, the 
 consent of the bishops 44 . In entire harmony with this 
 
 43 Const. Apost. 8.4. It has been suggested that imposition of hands is implied 
 in the word x l P 07 'ovovptvov ; but this hypothesis is excluded by the express dis- 
 tinction which is made in the same book, c. 28, between xtiporovtlv, ' to appoint,' 
 which is stated to be a special function of the bishop, and to \fipoOfrtlv, ' to lay 
 hands upon,' which is a function common to the bishop and the presbyters. 
 
 44 St. Cyprian. Epist. 55 (52), p. 629 ' Factw est autem Cornelius episcopus de 
 Dei et Clmsti ejus judicio, de clericorum paene omnium testimonio, de plebis quae 
 tune adfuit sufiragio, et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum virorum collegio, 
 cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus, id est, locus Petri et gradus 
 cathedrae sacerdotalis vacaret.' The small importance which was attached to im- 
 position of hands, when unaccompanied by the other elements of valid appointment, 
 is shown by the manner in which the same persons, Cornelius and Cyprian, speak 
 of a person, Novatian, who had received imposition of hands from three bishops 
 
134 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 is the account which Jerome gives of the admission to 
 office of the bishop of Alexandria: after the election 
 the presbyters conduct the elected bishop to his chair : 
 he is thereupon bishop de facto 45 . 
 
 It follows from this that the rite was not universal : 
 it is impossible that, if it was not universal, it can have 
 been regarded as essential. 
 
 In regard to the second point, there are two kinds of 
 
 without, as was alleged, having been duly elected. Cornelius derides the imposition 
 of hands in such a case as a ' sham : ' clieoviKr} nvl Kal paraia xeipcmQtoiq, ap. 
 Euseb. H. E. 6. 43. Cyprian says that Novatian ' in ecclesia non est nee episcopus 
 computari potest,' Epist. 69, c. 3, p. 752, ed. Hart. The belief of a later generation 
 was that there had been no imposition of hands at all : for Pacian of Barcelona 
 (circ. A. D. 370) speaks of Novatian as one who had taken his seat upon the 
 bishop's throne without any * consecration : ' ' quern consecrante nullo linteata sedes 
 accepit,' Epist ii. ad Sympronianum, c. 3, ap. Migne, Patrol. Lot. vol. xiii. 1059. 
 45 St. Hieron. Epist. 146 (85), ad Evangel, vol. i. p. 1082 ed. Vail. ' Alexandriae 
 a Marco evangelista usque ad Heraclam et Dionysium episcopos presbyteri semper 
 uuum ex se electum in excelsiore gradu collocatum episcopum nominabant, quo- 
 modo si exercitus imperatorem faciat aut diaconi eligant de se quern industrium 
 noverint et archidiaconum vocent' : (in a similar way Synesius, Epist. 67, p. 210, 
 by his use of the phrase airofieTai rt Kal ITTI TOV Op6vov na6iffai, appears to consider 
 the announcement of election, followed by enthronization, as the constitutive ele- 
 ments of the ordination of a bishop). Jerome's account of the Alexandrian rite is 
 adopted as giving the normal mode of ordaining a bishop in ancient times by the 
 author of the important treatise De Divinis Ojficiis, usually, though erroneously, 
 ascribed to Alcuin (Albinus Flaccus), who, after quoting the Roman rite ( = 
 Mabillon's Ordo Romanus viii, in his Mus. Ital. vol. ii. p. 59), in which there is 
 no express mention of imposition of hands, goes on to say of the several ceremonies 
 of holding the Gospels over the ordinand's head, and of the imposition of the hands 
 of the bishops present, * non reperitur in auctoritate veteri neque nova : sed neque 
 in Komana traditione ' (Albin. Flacc. De Div. Offic. c. 37, vol. ii. p. 493, ed. Froben.). 
 The version of the Alexandrian rite, which was given by the patriarch Eutychius 
 in the tenth century, though agreeing in other respects with Jerome, adds that the 
 presbyters laid hands on the newly -elected bishop before conducting him to his 
 chair : (the account of Eutychius was first translated from the Arabic in 1642, 
 under the title Eutychii Aegyptii Ecclesiae suae Origines, by Selden, who drew at- 
 tention to it as a clear instance of presbyterian ordination : a better and fuller 
 translation was made afterwards, in 1658, by Pocock : a reply to Selden was made 
 by the learned Maronite, Abraham Ecchellensis, whose treatise, Eutychius Patri- 
 archa Alexandrinus vindicatus, appeared at Home in 1661, and whose arguments 
 have often reappeared). 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 135 
 
 evidence : that of other applications of the rite, and 
 that of existing statements about it. The rite was 
 Jewish : it was in use among the Jews on various 
 occasions : chiefly in the appointment of members of 
 the local courts, in admitting a scholar to study, and in 
 giving him authority to teach in the ceremony, in 
 other words, which corresponds to our graduation 46 . It 
 was in use in the Christian Church not only in 
 admission to office, but also in the admission of an 
 ordinary member, and in the readmission of a penitent. 
 It was in all cases when used in the Christian Church 
 accompanied with prayer. St. Augustine resolves it 
 into a prayer. 'Quid aliud est manuum impositio quam 
 oratio super hominem 47 ?' The eighth book of the 
 Apostolical Constitutions makes the action which is 
 designated * imposition of hands 7 (xeLpoOearla) an ordin- 
 ary accompaniment of morning and evening prayer 48 . 
 St. Jerome gives as the reason for its use in ordination 
 simply that if a man were ordained by simple declara- 
 tion of appointment, without any ceremony, he might 
 sometimes be ordained clandestinely without his know- 
 ledge 'ne scilicet, ut in quibusdam risimus, vocis im- 
 precatio clandestina clericos ordinet nescientes 49 / 
 
 It can hardly be maintained upon this evidence that 
 
 46 See the rabbinical references in Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et 
 Rabbinicum, p. 1498, ed. 1639 : Morin, De Sacris Ordinationibus, pars iii. c. 14, p. 
 141, ed. 1655 : Seerup. Dissert, de titulo Rabbi in Ugolini's Thesaurus, vol. xxi. 
 p. 1091 : Wiinsche, Neue Beitrage zur Erlauterung der Evangelien aus Talmud u. 
 Midrasch, Gottingen, 1878, p. 477. 
 
 47 St. Augustin. De Baptism, c. Donatist. 3. 16. Op. ed. Migne, vol. ix. p. 149. 
 
 48 Const. Apost. 8. 36, 38. This use of the word probably refers to the bishop's 
 attitude in praying. 
 
 49 St. Hieron. Comm. in hai. lib. xvi. c. 58, v. 10, vol. iv. p. 694. 
 
136 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 the ceremony of imposition of hands establishes a pre- 
 sumption, which is clearly not established by the other 
 elements of ordination, that ordination was conceived 
 in early, as it undoubtedly was conceived in later, times 
 as conferring special and exclusive spiritual powers. 
 
 It may be urged, though this is of course different 
 from maintaining that such a presumption is estab- 
 lished, that there is nothing in all this which is incon- 
 sistent with such a presumption. 
 
 But in a judicial review of evidence it is necessary 
 to consider not only the abstract possibility of a 
 hypothesis which may be advanced, but also the 
 difficulties in the way of accepting it. It is there- 
 fore necessary to point to two sets of facts which 
 appear to exclude the presumption in question. 
 
 i. The first is the fact of silence. The belief in 
 the possession of exceptional spiritual powers is so 
 important a fact that it must needs assert itself. 
 When in later times that belief was undoubtedly en- 
 tertained it shows itself in a great variety of forms : 
 it is frequently stated : it is invariably implied. The 
 fact that the writers of the first two centuries neither 
 state nor imply it seems inexplicable, except upon the 
 supposition that they did not hold it 50 . 
 
 50 Stress has sometimes been laid on the fact that in 2 Tim. I. 6 the imposition 
 of hands is mentioned as the means by which Timothy received a yapiaiin. : but 
 it must be noted (i) that in I Tim. 4. 14, it is spoken of as an accompaniment, not 
 a means, the preposition being f^fra, not 8ia, (2) that the word x<*P lff l* a had a wide 
 latitude of meaning : it was used of every faculty and privilege which a Christian 
 possessed : to be a Christian was itself a x^P^f^i to be orthodox was a xap i P ia > 
 and in the same way to hold office in the Church was a \apiafM. (Const. Apost. 
 8. 2). Its nearest modern equivalent is probably the word ' talent.' 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 137 
 
 2. The second fact is the facility with which 
 ordinations were made and unmade. When, in 
 later times, the belief prevailed that ordination 
 conferred exceptional spiritual powers, it was re- 
 cognized as a necessary corollary of such a belief 
 that the grace of ordination, even if irregularly con- 
 ferred, was inalienable 51 . The non-existence of a belief 
 in the inalienability of orders affords a strong presump- 
 tion that they were not conceived to confer the powers 
 which in later times were believed to attach to them. 
 Besides this, the trifling nature of some of the causes 
 which were regarded as rendering an ordination 
 invalid ab initio, while wholly consistent with the 
 hypothesis that appointment to ecclesiastical office was 
 of the same kind as appointment to civil office, cannot 
 be reconciled with the hypothesis that it was regarded 
 as conferring exceptional and inalienable powers. If 
 the person whom a bishop ordained belonged to 
 
 51 This idea first appears in the course of the Donatist controversy : St. Augus- 
 tine considered ordination to be in this respect analogous to baptism, De Baptism, 
 c. Donatist. i. i. vol. ix. p. 109: Contra Ep. Parnten. 2. 28, vol. ix. p. 70: cf. 
 especially De Bono Conjugali, 24, vol. vi. p. 394 ' quemadinodum si fiat ordinatio 
 cleri ad plebein congregandam, etiamsi plebis congregatio non subsequitur, manet 
 taraen in illis ordinatis sacramentum ordinationis : et si aliqua culpa quisquam ab 
 officio reinoveatur sacramento Domini semel iiuposito non c;irebit, quainvis ad judi- 
 cium permanente.' But the idea was to a great extent dormant until it reappeared 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in connexion with the Scholastic theories 
 of grace: for a convenient modern account of the various ways in which it was 
 then elaborated see Hahn, Die Lehre von den Sakramenten, pp. 298 sqq. The 
 difficulties of reconciling the theory of the character indelebilis of orders with the 
 ancient theory and practice is well illustrated by Card. Hergenrother's essay, Die 
 Reordinationen der alien Klrche, in the Oe*terreichische Vierteljahreifschrift /. 
 Kath. Theologie, Bd. i, 1862, pp. 207 sqq. No writer seems hitherto to have 
 called attention to the important Galatian inscription of A. D. 461, Corp. Inscr. 
 Gra.ec. No. 9259, which speaks of one who filled the office of presbyter twice, (Sis 
 irpfafivrepos) . 
 
138 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 another church 52 , or if the person ordained were not 
 designated to some particular church 53 , or if theordainer 
 and ordained stood in the relation of father and son 54 , 
 the ordination was invalid. These regulations reach a 
 climax in a Gallican council of the fifth century, which 
 enacts that all irregular ordinations are invalid except 
 by arrangement 55 . It is improbable, except upon an 
 extreme theory of the close correspondence between the 
 ' terrestrial and celestial hierarchies/ that the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit should so closely follow the details of 
 ecclesiastical organization as to flow or not to flow, ac- 
 cording as a bishop stood just within or just without 
 the geographical limits of his jurisdiction : it is incon- 
 ceivable, even upon such an extreme theory, that the 
 same mysterious grace should have been supposed to 
 come or go, to remain or to vanish away, according as a 
 person ordained in violation of some local rule did or 
 did not succeed in making his peace with his superiors. 
 The difficulty which these facts present is so obvious 
 that later canonists were compelled to invent a distinc- 
 tion between ' sacramental ' and * canonical ' validity : 
 but even those who uphold that distinction admit that 
 there is no trace of its existence in early times 56 . 
 
 The existing evidence as to the conception which 
 was entertained of the nature of ordination thus con- 
 
 52 Cone. Nicaen. c. 16, aitvpos effrai ^ \fipor ovia : so Cone. Antioch. c. 22, Cone. 
 Sardic. c. 15, i Cone. Arelat. c. 13. 
 
 53 Cone. Chalcedon. c. 6. 
 84 Can. Apost. 76. 
 
 65 i Cone. Turon. A. D. 461, c. 10, ' Ordinationes vero illicitas in irritum devoca- 
 mus nisi satisfactione quae ad pacem pertinent componantur.' 
 
 56 E. g. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte (Eng. Trans.) vol. ii. p. 359 : Hergenrother, ut 
 supra (Note 51), p. 212. 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 139 
 
 firms the inference which follows from the consideration 
 of office in itself. The conception of office was that of 
 order : by virtue of their appointment the officers of 
 the Christian communities were entitled to perform 
 functions which in themselves were the functions of 
 the whole Church or of individual Christians. Ecclesi- 
 astical office existed, no doubt, by divine appointment, 
 but by divine appointment only 'for the edifying and 
 well-governing' of the community. Of the existence 
 of the idea that ecclesiastical office in itself, and not as 
 a matter of ecclesiastical regulation and arrangement, 
 conferred special and exceptional powers, there is 
 neither proof nor reasonable presumption. 
 
 Upon this earlier conception there supervened in 
 the order of Providence and in the slow course of years 
 a most significant change. Into the history of that 
 change it is beyond the plan of these Lectures to enter : 
 but since it has its beginnings even in the period which 
 we are considering, it is necessary briefly to indicate its 
 main causes. 
 
 i. The first of these causes was the wide extension 
 of the limits of Church membership which was caused 
 by the prevalence of infant baptism. In the earliest 
 times the rules of morality which were binding on 
 Church officers were binding also on ordinary members : 
 Tertullian, writing as a Montanist, and endeavouring 
 to keep up the earlier standard, makes the fact that a 
 particular rule as to marriage is binding on presbyters 
 an argument for its being binding also on laymen 57 . 
 
 57 Tertull. De Exhort. Cast. 7 ' vani erimus si putaverimus quod sacerdotibus 
 non liceat laicis licere.' 
 
140 Clergy and Laity. [LECT. 
 
 But when infant baptism became general, and men 
 grew up to be Christians as they grew up to be 
 citizens, the maintenance of the earlier standard be- 
 came impossible in the Church at large. Professing 
 Christians adopted the current morality: they were 
 content to be no worse than their neighbours. But the 
 officers of all communities tend to be conservative, and 
 conservatism was expected of them : that which had 
 been the ideal standard of qualifications for baptism 
 became the ideal standard of qualifications for ordination : 
 and there grew up a distinction between clerical morality 
 and lay morality which has never passed away. 
 
 2. The second cause was the intensity of the senti- 
 ment of order. The conception of civil order under 
 the Imperial regime was very different from the concep- 
 tion of it in modern times, and in Teutonic societies. 
 The tendency of our own society is to have the greatest 
 amount of freedom that is compatible with order : 
 the tendency of the Empire was to have the greatest 
 amount of order that is compatible with freedom. 
 Civil order was conceived to be almost as divine as 
 physical order is conceived to be in our own day. In 
 the State the head of the State seemed as such ^ by 
 virtue of his elevation to have some of the attributes 
 of a divinity: and in the Church the same Apostolical 
 Constitutions which give as the reason why a layman 
 may not celebrate the Eucharist that he has not the 
 necessary dignity (/), call the officer who has that 
 dignity a ' god upon earth 58 .' When, in the decay of 
 
 58 Const. Apost. 3. IO dAA' cure \aitcots firirpeirofjiev iroiftv n TWV IcpariKUv cpyav. 
 .... 8ia ycLp rrjs etrideaecas rwv -^fipfav rov kiriffKoirov 8t'5oTCU 17 roiavrrj dta : ibid. 
 2. 26 of the bishop, OVTOS v^tay tiri'yeios OcZ>s /zero, Qtov. 
 
v.] Clergy and Laity. 141 
 
 the Empire, the ecclesiastical organization was left as 
 the only stable institution, it was almost inevitable that 
 those who preserved the tradition of imperial rule 
 should, by the mere fact of their status, seem to stand 
 upon a platform which was inaccessible to ordinary 
 men. 
 
 3. The third cause was the growth of an analogy 
 between the Christian and the Mosaic dispensations. 
 The existence of such an analogy in the earliest times 
 was precluded by the vividness of the belief in the 
 nearness of the Second Advent. The organization of 
 the Christian churches was a provisional arrangement 
 until 'the Lord should come.' There was a keen 
 controversy whether Christianity was inside or out- 
 side Judaism : but there is no trace of a belief that 
 the ancient organization was to be replaced, through 
 a long vista of centuries to come, by a corresponding 
 organization of the Christian societies. But after 
 the Temple had long been overthrown and its site 
 desecrated after the immediate return of the Messiah 
 to a temporal reign in Judaea had passed from being 
 a living faith to be a distant hope after the Chris- 
 tian Churches had ceased to circle round Jerusalem 
 and had begun to take the form of a new spiritual 
 empire wide as the Roman empire itself, there grew up 
 a conception that the new JEcclesia Dei, whose limits 
 were the world, was the exact counterpart, though on 
 a larger scale, of the old Ecclesia Dei whose limits 
 had been Palestine. With an explanation in the one 
 case which shows that the conception is new, with 
 a hesitating timidity in the other case which shows 
 
142 Clergy and Laity. 
 
 that it had not yet established itself, Tertullian 69 
 and Origen 60 speak of Christian ministers as priests. 
 It was a century and a half after the time of Ter- 
 tullian and Origen before the analogy came to be 
 generally accepted, or before the corollaries which 
 flowed from it found general expression in literature: 
 but, when once established, it became permanent, and 
 in the course of those weary wastes of years which 
 stretch between the ruins of the Empire and the 
 foundation of the modern kingdoms of the West and 
 North it became not only permanent but universal. 
 
 But in earlier times there was a grander faith. For 
 the kingdom of God was a kingdom of priests. Not 
 only the * four and twenty elders 61 ' before the throne, 
 but the innumerable souls of the sanctified upon whom 
 * the second death had 110 power 62 ,' were ' kings and 
 priests unto God/ Only in that high sense was priest- 
 hood predicable of Christian men. For the shadow had 
 passed : the Eeality had come : the one High Priest of 
 Christianity was Christ. 
 
 50 Tertull. De Baptismo, c. 17 'dandi (sc. baptismum) quidem habet jus summus 
 sacerdos qui est episcopus : ' the explanation of the meaning of ' summus sacerdos ' 
 was not needed a century later, e. g. in St. Ambros. Expos, in Psalm, cxviit. c. 23, 
 vol. i. p. 989. 
 
 60 Origen, Comment, in Joann. torn. I. 3. vol. iv. p. 3 ol 5^ ava,Kfifj.voi T$ 6eiy 
 \6yy KOI irpbs HOV-Q TT? Bepairfiq rov (ov yiv6fj.fvoi .... Aevircu Kal tepeis OVK dr6- 
 irois \exO*l ff VTai ' f- St. Augustin. De Civit. Dei, 20. 10, Op. ed. Migne, vii. 676, 
 in reference to Rev. 20. 6, ' non utique de solis episcopis et presbyteris dictum est 
 qui proprie jam vocantur in ecclesia sacerdotes.' 
 
 61 Rev. 5. 10. Rev. 20. 6. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE CLERGY AS A SEPARATE CLASS. 
 
 THE fourth century of our era is not less remarkable 
 in the history of Christian organization than it is in 
 the history of Christian doctrine. At the beginning 
 of that century Christianity was the religion of a 
 persecuted sect : the prisons and the mines were 
 thronged with Christian confessors : the executioner's 
 sword was red with Christian blood l . In a few years 
 it was tolerated and favoured : its adherents held 
 high places in the Empire : its churches rivalled in 
 splendour the temples of the pagan gods 2 . At the 
 
 1 The persecutions of the twelve years immediately preceding the formal tolera- 
 tion of Christianity, A. D. 300-312, were even more severe than those of earlier 
 times: they are described in detail by Eusebius, H. E. Bks. viii. & ix. passim, 
 and by Lactantius, De Mortihus Persecutorum, 11-16, 21-22. The modern litera- 
 ture which relates to them is considerable, and there is a still unsettled controversy 
 as to how far they were based on political and how far on religious grounds : see 
 especially Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen, 2 te AufL, Leipzig, 1880 : 
 Hunziker, Zur Eegierung u. Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus u. seiner 
 Nachfolger, in Max Budinger's Unlersuchungen der romischen Kaisergeschickte, 
 Bd. ii. Leipsig, 1868 : Gorres in Kraus's Real-Encyclopadie, s. v. Christen verfol- 
 gungen : and Mason, The Persecution of Diocletian, Cambridge, 1876 (on which, 
 however, see Harnack, in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1876, pp. 169 sqq.). 
 
 2 For the religious policy of Constantine, and the changes which he effected in 
 the external fortunes of the Christian churches, see Euseb. H. E. 10. 1-6, Vit. 
 Constant. Bks. 2-4 : and, of modern writers, especially Keim, Der Uebertritt 
 Constantins der Grossen zum Christenthum, Zurich, 1862 : Loning, Geschichte des 
 deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i., Strassburg, 1878 : Th. Brieger, Constantin der 
 Grrosse als Religionspolitiker, in his Zeitschrift f. Kirchengeschichte, Bd. iv. 1880-1, 
 pp. 163 sqq. : Duruy, La Politique religieuse de Constantin, in the Comptes Eendus 
 de VAcade'mie des Sciences Morales, 1882, pp. 185 sqq. 
 
144 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 end of the century it was no longer merely tolerated 
 but dominant: it was the religion of the State: and 
 heresy was a political crime 3 . 
 
 It was inevitable that so great a change in its 
 external fortunes should be attended with a great 
 change in its internal organization. The transition 
 from a state of subordination to one of supremacy 
 necessarily affects the conditions under which, in any 
 society, officers hold their office. Their status is altered 
 not only in relation to the world outside but also in 
 relation to their members within. It was so in the 
 Christian societies: at the beginning of the century, 
 in spite of the development of the episcopate, the 
 primitive type still survived : the government of the 
 Churches was in the main a democracy : at the end of 
 the century the primitive type had almost disappeared : 
 the clergy were a separate and governing class. 
 
 I propose in the present Lecture to analyse the 
 complex and heterogeneous causes which operated to 
 produce a change which, in the great mass of Christian 
 communities, has been permanent from that time until 
 now. 
 
 i. In the first place, the State conceded to the officers 
 
 3 The following law of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, in A.-D. 388, Cod. 
 Theodos. 16. 5. 15, is one of many proofs that heresy was treated as an offence not 
 only against the Church, but against the State: 'omnes diversarum perfidarumque 
 sectarum quos in Deum miserae vesania conspirationis exercet nullum usquam 
 sinantur habere conventum, non inire tractatus, non coetus agere secretos, non 
 nefariae praevaricationis altaria manus impiae officiis impudenter tollere, et myste- 
 riorum siinulationem ad injuriam verae religionis aptare. Quod ut congruum 
 eortiatur effectum in specula sublimitas tua fidissimos quosque constituat, qui et 
 cohibere hos possint et deprehensos offerre judiciis, severissimum secundum 
 praeteritas sanctiones et Deo supplicium daturos et legibus.' 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 145 
 
 of the Christian Churches those immunities which were 
 enjoyed by the heathen priesthood and by some of the 
 liberal professions 4 . Hitherto Church officers had been 
 liable to the same public burdens as ordinary citizens. 
 They might be called upon to hold office as municipal 
 magistrates or senators, to act as trustees, to serve in 
 the army. Nor is there any ground for assuming that 
 the discharge of such duties, except where it involved 
 the recognition of the State religion, was regarded as 
 incongruous or derogatory. In some parts of the 
 Empire the question in relation to civil office would 
 rather be speculative than practical the number of 
 Christians who were rich enough to be eligible for office 
 being comparatively few. But in the busy commercial 
 towns of North Africa Christianity gained a hold at 
 a comparatively early stage upon the wealthier as 
 well as upon the poorer classes. The number of 
 Church officers who were liable to public burdens 
 was therefore proportionately larger : and at the same 
 time their duties as Church officers were somewhat 
 greater. It is in North Africa, therefore, that a feeling 
 seems first to have arisen against combining civil with 
 ecclesiastical functions 5 . The ground of objection was 
 not that the two functions were inherently incom- 
 
 * The exempted classes were, with certain limitations as to numbers, chiefly 
 priests, physicians, professors of literature, philosophy, rhetoric, and law : a full 
 account is given by Kuhn, Die stddtische u. burgerliche Verfassung des romischen 
 Reichs, i er Theil, pp. 83-123. 
 
 8 The first trace is in Tertull. De Praescript. c. 41 : and in a later treatise, De 
 Corona Militis, n, he raises the question 'an in totum Christianis militia con- 
 veniat?' but in the Apology, c. 37, 42, he urges the fact of Christians sharing in 
 the ordinary life of citizens and serving in the army, as part of his plea against 
 their being persecuted. 
 
 L 
 
146 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 patible, but rather that the proper discharge of the 
 duties of the one did not leave sufficient leisure for 
 the proper discharge of the duties of the other. ' The 
 ministers of the Church/ says Cyprian, ' ought to serve 
 exclusively the altar and sacrifices, and to give their 
 whole time to supplications and prayers/ Conse- 
 quently, since one Geminius Victor had named a 
 presbyter as his executor, he inflicts upon him, as a 
 deterrent to others, the posthumous punishment of 
 excluding his name from the list of those for the 
 repose of whose souls the Church should pray 6 . And 
 hardly had Christianity been put upon the footing of 
 a recognized religion when Constantine addressed a 
 letter to the proconsul of the African province requiring 
 him to exempt all who were in the ranks of the Chris- 
 tian clergy from the ordinary public burdens 7 . The 
 same exemption was soon granted to the Christians 
 of other provinces 8 . But it was strongly resisted, and 
 required frequent repetition 9 . The opposition to it is not 
 surprising. In our own days, and under our own system 
 
 6 St. Cyprian. Epist. i (66), p. 465. 
 
 7 Constantin. Epist. ad. Anulinunt, ap. Euseb, H. E. 10. 7 : Sozom. 1.9: incor- 
 porated in Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. i. The report of Anulinus, to which Constantine's 
 letter is an answer, is given by St. Augystin. Epist. 88 (68), Op. vol. ii. 302, ed. 
 Migne. 
 
 8 Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 2, A.D. 319. 
 
 9 Laws of Constantine in Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 7, A.D. 330 (= Letter quoted from 
 a MS. of P. Pithou in Baronius ad ann. 316, n. 64) : of Constantius, ibid. 16. 2. 8. 
 A.D. 343 (= with the omission of the last clause Cod. Justin, i. 3. i, cf. Sozom. 
 n. E. 3. 17) : of Constantius and Constans, ibid. 16. 2. 10, A.D. 353 (probably 
 Auctor Vitae Spiridionis, ap. Hanel, Corp. Leg. ante Justinian, lat. p. 209), and i 
 Hid. 16. 2. ii, A.D. 354, ibid. 16. 2. 14, A.D. 357, ibid. 16. 2. 15, A.D. 360 (partly i 
 = Cod. Justin, i. 3. 3) : of Valentinian and Valens, ibid. 16. 2. 19, A.D. 370?: of j 
 Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, ibid. 16. 2. 24, A.D. 377 (partly = Cod. Justin, j 
 I-3-6). 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 147 
 
 of taxation, municipal magistracies and offices are in 
 most instances a coveted honour. They entail upon 
 those who hold them a certain amount of trouble, 
 but not necessarily any considerable expense. But 
 under the vicious system of the later Empire they 
 were an almost intolerable burden. The magistrates 
 were charged with the collection of the revenue, and, 
 the quota of each municipality being fixed, they had 
 to make up the deficit in days in which deficits were 
 chronic out of their private resources 10 . The holding 
 of office consequently involved in some cases an almost 
 ruinous expenditure. It was a heavy and unequal tax 
 upon property. An addition to the number of those 
 who were exempt from it added to its oppressiveness and 
 its inequality. It had also another result, it added to 
 the number of claimants for admission to the privileged 
 class. When the officers of Christian Churches were 
 exempted, many persons whose fortunes were large 
 enough to render them liable to the burden of muni- 
 cipal offices, sought and obtained admission to the 
 ranks of the clergy, with the view of thereby escaping 
 their liability. The exemption had barely been half- 
 a-dozen years in operation before the Emperor found 
 it necessary to guard it with important limitations 11 . 
 
 10 See e. g. Kuhn, Verfassung etc., i r Theil, p. 245 : Walter, Geschichte des 
 romischen RecUs, i er Theil, 396: and especially Eiidiger, De Curialibus Imperii 
 Romanipost Constantinum M., Wratislaw, 1838. 
 
 11 The exemptions were first granted in A. D. 313 : the first law restricting them 
 is now lost, but it is quoted in a law of A. D. 320, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 3 'cum 
 constitutio emissa praecipiat nullum deinceps decurionem vel ex decurione proge- 
 nitum idoneis facultatibus atque obeundis publicis muneribus opportunum ad cleri- 
 eorum nornen obsequiumque confugere, sed eos de cetero in defunctorum duntaxat 
 clericorum loca surrogari qui fortuna tenues neque muneribus civilibus teneantur, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 These limitations were, for the most part, in the 
 direction of prohibiting those who were liable to 
 municipal burdens from being appointed to ecclesias- 
 tical office. As the Church grew in power the limitations 
 were evaded, and several times in the course of the 
 fourth century they had to be repeated 12 : but it is 
 important in relation to the point in hand to notice 
 that, in spite of evident abuses, the exemptions them- 
 selves were never repealed : it is equally important 
 to notice that, although no doubt the exemption was 
 claimed in almost all cases in which it could be 
 claimed, the right to exemption did not constitute 
 ineligibility. It was not until the Council of Chalcedon 
 that the holding of civil office by clerks became an 
 offence against ecclesiastical law 13 : and it was not until 
 eighty years after that Council that the appointment 
 of a civil officer to ecclesiastical office became an offence 
 against civil law 14 . 
 
 2. In the second place, the State granted to the 
 officers of the Christian Church an exemption from 
 the ordinary jurisdiction of the civil courts. It so 
 far recognized the validity of the consensual juris- 
 
 obstricti ... . :' there are similar restrictions in a law of A.D. 326, Cod. Theod. 16. 
 2.6. 
 
 13 Law of Constantius and Constans, A.D. 360, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 15 : of Con- 
 stantius and Julian, A.D. 361, Cod. Theodos. 8. 4. 7 : of Valentinian, Theodosius, 
 and Arcadius, A.D. 398, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 32 : Cod. Justin. I. 3. 12 : cf. Socrates, 
 H. E. 6. 5 : H. E. 8. 7. 
 
 13 Cone. Chalced. A.D. 451, c. 7 TOVS aira kv K\rjpcu Kareikfyfjifvovs rj Kat povaffav- 
 ray wpicra^ev /tfjre tirt ffrpareiav nrjTf ITTI diav KOfffjuttty epxeaflat under penalty of 
 anathema. 
 
 14 Law of Justinian, A.D. 532, Cod. Justin. I. 3. 53 (52) Otairi^ofjifv HTJT( $ou- 
 \evrf)v nrjTf TafUTT]v kviaKOirov f] irpfffftirrcpov TOV \oiirov fiveaOai : so Novell. 123. 
 15, A.D. 546. 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 149 
 
 diction to which the members of Christian societies 
 submitted themselves. That consensual jurisdiction 
 was to some extent recognized for all members. The 
 civil law which recognized associations recognized also 
 the right of such associations to frame and to enforce 
 their own rules. In the Christian societies matters 
 of religious dispute, or offences against religion, might 
 be decided by the individual societies or by the repre- 
 sentative assembly of a province. The limitation to 
 such matters was, in the case of ordinary members, a 
 strict one 15 . The administration of justice would have 
 come to an end if all those who came soon to constitute 
 a preponderating majority of the citizens of the Empire 
 had been exempted from its ordinary operation. But 
 for Church officers the rule went far beyond this. At 
 first the rule that all causes in which officers of the 
 Churches were concerned should be decided by the 
 Churches themselves was permissive 16 . But at last it 
 became compulsory 17 . The right of appeal to the 
 emperor was reserved on the part of the State 18 , but 
 
 15 Law of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian in A. D. 376, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 23 
 ' Qui mos est causarum civilium idem in negotiis ecclesiasticis obtinendus est : 
 ut si qua sunt ex quibusdam dissentionibus levibusque delictis ad religionis obser- 
 vantiam pertinentia, locis suis et a suae dioeceseos synodis audiantur : exceptis quae 
 actio criminalis ab ordinariis extraordinariisque judicibus aut illustribus potestati- 
 bus audienda constituit.' 
 
 16 It is spoken of as a permission and not as an obligation: Sozom. H. E. I. 9. 
 15 TUV 8e liriOKoirQjv kmKoXeiaOai TT)V Kpiffiv crrfrpcif/c TOIS SiKafrpevois fy 0ov- 
 Xcavrai TOVS ITO\ITIKOVS apxovras irapaiTfiaOai. 
 
 " Law of Honorius and Theodosius, A.D. 412, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 41 'clericos 
 nonnisi apud episcopos accusari convenit: ' ibid. 16. 2. 47: but a law of Leo, A.D. 
 459, ap. Theodos. Lector. I. 14 : Niceph. Callist. 15. 22 (Hanel, Corpus Legum, No. 
 1220, p. 259) makes clerks amenable only to ry t-napxy ruv irpaiTupiow. 
 
 18 That the right of appeal existed is shown by the fact that the Council of 
 Antioch, c. 1 1, 12, punished with ecclesiastical penalties a clerk who availed him- 
 
150 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT 
 
 fenced round with conditions on the part of the 
 Churches : and so began that long struggle between 
 civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Church officers, 
 which forms so important an element in medieval 
 history, and which has not altogether ceased in our 
 own times 19 . 
 
 The joint effect of these exemptions from public 
 burdens, and from ordinary courts, was the creation 
 of a class civilly distinct from the rest of the com- 
 munity. This is the first element in the change which 
 we are investigating : the clergy came to have a distinct 
 civil status. 
 
 From the same general causes flowed another result 
 of not less importance. 
 
 The funds of the primitive communities had consisted 
 entirely of voluntary offerings. Of these offerings those 
 officers whose circumstances required it w r ere entitled 
 to a share. They received such a share only on the 
 ground of their poverty. They were, so far, in the 
 position of the widows and orphans and helpless poor. 
 
 self of it: and also by the fact that e.g. Athanasius (Socrat. H. E. I. 33), and 
 Priscillian (Sulp. Sev. Chron. 49, p. 102, ed. Halm) did actually appeal. But, 
 according to the ordinary law, such a right did not exist where the ecclesiastical 
 judge was in the position of an arbitrator, accepted by both parties to a suit : cf. 
 Hebenstreit, Historia Jurisdictionis Ecclesiasticae ex Legibus utriusque Codicis illus- 
 trata, Diss. ii. 26, iii. 6, Lips. 1776: Bethmann-Hollweg, Der romische Civil- 
 prozess, Bd. 3. p. 114, Bonn, 1866. 
 
 " On the Civil Law in respect of ecclesiastical jurisdiction see Fessler, Der 
 kanonisclie Process ... in der vorjustinianischen Periods, Wien, 1860, and the 
 excellent section of Loning's Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. pp. 
 252 -313, 382-409 ; and for an account of the legislation which served as the basis 
 of the later Canon Law on the subject see Dove, De Jurisdictionis Ecclesiasticae . 
 apud Germanos Gallosque Progressu, Berlin, 1855, and Sohm, Die geistliche 
 Oerichtsbarkeit im frdnkischen Reich in the Zeitvchrift fur Kirchenrecht, vol. ix. 
 1870, pp. 193 sqq. 
 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 151 
 
 Like soldiers in the Eoman army, or like slaves in a 
 Roman household, they were entitled to a monthly allow- 
 ance 20 . The amount of that allowance was variable. 
 When the Montanists proposed to pay their clergy 
 a fixed salary the proposal was condemned as a here- 
 tical innovation, alien to Catholic practice 21 . Those who 
 could supplemented their allowances by farming or by 
 trade. There was no sense of incongruity in their 
 doing so. The Apostolical Constitutions repeat with 
 emphasis the apostolical injunction, 'If any would 
 not work, neither should he eat 22 / There is no early 
 trace of the later idea that buying and selling, handicraft 
 and farming, were in themselves inconsistent with the 
 office of a Christian minister. The bishops and pres- 
 byters of those early days kept banks, practised medi- 
 cine, wrought as silversmiths, tended sheep, or sold 
 their goods in open market 23 . They were like the second 
 
 20 'Divisio mensurna,' St. Cyprian. Epist. 34 (28), p. 570, 39 (34), p. 582. 
 
 21 Euseb. H. E. 5. 18. 2: 5. 28. 10: this salary, like the allowances of the 
 Catholic clergy, was to be paid monthly (firjviaTa Srjvapta ffcarov irevTrjKovTa), the 
 point of objection being apparently that it was fixed, and not dependent on the 
 freewill-offerings of the people. 
 
 22 Const. Apost. 2. 62. 
 
 23 This is proved by the existence of both general regulations and particular 
 instances : i. among the former are the enactment of the Civil Law exempting 
 clerks from the trading-tax : * si exiguis admodum mercimoniis tenuem sibi victum 
 vestitumque conquirent ' (Law of Constantius andConstans, A.D. 360, Cod. Theodos. 
 1 6. 2. 15), and the enactments of the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, c. 51 ' clericus 
 quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus artificio victum quaerat;' c. 52 ' clericus victum 
 et vestimentum sibi artificiolo vel agricultura absque officii sui detrimento paret : ' 
 ii. among the latter are the cases of Spiridion who tended sheep in Cyprus, 
 Socrates, H. E. i. 12, of a bishop who was a weaver at Maiuma, Sozom. H. E. 7. 
 28, of one who was a shipbuilder in Campania, S. Greg. M. Epist. 13. 26, vol. ii. 
 p. 1235, of one who practised in the law courts, ibid. 10. 10. vol. ii. p. 1048, of a 
 presbyter who was a silversmith at Ancyra, Corp. Inscr. Oraec. No. 9258 : Basil, 
 Epist. 198 (263), vol. iv. p. 290), speaks of the majority of his clergy as earning 
 their livelihood by sedentary handicrafts (rds eopcuas ruv rt^ywv^), and Epipliauius, 
 
152 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 generation of non-juring bishops a century and a half 
 ago, or like the early preachers of the Wesleyan 
 Methodists. They were men of the world taking part 
 in the ordinary business of life. The point about 
 which the Christian communities were anxious was, 
 not that their officers should cease to trade, but that, 
 in this as in other respects, they should be ensamples 
 to the flock. The chief existing enactments of early 
 local councils on the point are that bishops are not to 
 huckster their goods from market to market, nor are 
 they to use their position to buy cheaper and sell 
 dearer than other people 24 . 
 
 Into this primitive state of things the State intro- 
 duced a change. 
 
 i. It allowed the Churches to hold property 25 . And 
 
 Haeres. 80. 6, p. 1072, speaks of others doing it in order to earn money for the 
 poor : so Gennad. De Script. Eccles. c. 69, of Hilary of Aries. 
 
 24 Cone. Illib. c. 19 'Episcopi presbyteres, et diacones de locis suis negotiandi 
 causa non discedant, nee circumeuntes provincias quaestuosas nundinas sectentur : ' 
 Cone. Tarracon. c. 2 ' Quicumque in clero esse voluerit emendi vilius vel vendendi 
 carius studio non utatur.' 
 
 25 In several cases the Christian communities had held property before the time 
 of Constantino : but they probably did so rather by concession than of right : at 
 the same time it must be admitted that the question of the legal status of the 
 Christian communities in the first three centuries is one of great difficulty : (most 
 of the elements of the solution of the question will be found in Lb'ning, Bd. i. pp. 
 195 sqq., who arrives at a different conclusion from that which is here stated: 
 and in the works mentioned in Lecture II, note 2). They had been formally 
 permitted by Gallienus, Euseb. H. E. 7. 13. 3, to have common cemeteries: and 
 De Rossi in the Bulletino di Arched. Christian. Ann. iii. 1865, pp. 89 (also in 
 the Revue Arckiologique, vol. xiii. 1866, pp. 225 sqq.), maintains that the right 
 existed in relation to cemeteries from the first. But on the other hand, the pro- 
 ceedings in the case of Paul of Samosata seem to show that, at least in some cases, 
 the property was held personally by the bishop : since Paul's opponents, not being 
 able to eject him by the ordinary processes of law, as they could have done if the 
 property had belonged to the community, had to seek the extraordinary interven- 
 tion of Aurelian (Euseb. H. E. 7. 30. 19). Lampridius mentions that in a special 
 case Alexander Severus had allowed the Christians rather than the tavern-keepers 
 
VI.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 153 
 
 hardly had the holding of property become possible 
 before the Church became a kind of universal legatee. 
 The merit of bequeathing property to the Church was 
 preached with so much success that restraining enact- 
 ments became necessary. Just as the State did not 
 abolish, though it found it necessary to limit, its 
 concession of exemption to Church officers, so it pur- 
 sued the policy of limiting rather than of abolishing 
 the right to acquire property 26 . ' I do not complain of 
 the law/ says Jerome, writing on this point, 'but of 
 the causes which have rendered the law necessary 2 V 
 
 2. The enthusiasm, or the policy, of Constantine 
 went considerably beyond this. He ordered that not 
 only the clergy but also the widows and orphans who 
 were on the Church-roll should receive fixed annual 
 allowances 28 : he endowed some Churches with fixed 
 
 to occupy a piece of once public land (Lamprid. Vit. Alex. Sev. 49) : and, the year 
 before the Edict of Milan, Maximinus (Euseb. H. E. 9. 10. 1 1) restored the churches 
 and other property of which the Christians had been deprived : but it does not 
 appear that until that Edict the right of holding property was ordinary and incon- 
 testable. Even then the right was probably limited to the occupation of churches, 
 cemeteries, and other buildings used for worship or cognate purposes : the right 
 of receiving property bequeathed by will for the purpose of endowment was 
 not granted until A. D. 321, by a law which is preserved in Cod. Theodos. 
 16. 2. 4. 
 
 26 The most stringent enactment was that of Valentinian and Valens in A. D. 
 370, Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 20, to the effect that ecclesiastici ' are not even to visit 
 the houses of widows and wards : (it was addressed to Bishop Damasus and read 
 in the Roman churches.) 
 
 27 St. Hieron. Epist. 52 (2), ad Nepotianum, c. 6 'Pudet dicere sacerdotes idolo- 
 rum, mimi, et aurigae, et scorta, haereditates capiunt : solis clericis et monachis 
 hac lege [i.e. the law referred to in the preceding note] prohibetur : et prohibetur 
 non a persecutoribus sed a principibus christianis. Nee de lege conqueritur : sed 
 doleo cur meruerimus hanc legem,' cf. St. Ambros. Epist. 18. 13 : Expos. Evang. 
 sec. IMC. 8. 79, vol. i. p. 1491. 
 
 28 Theodoret. H. E. i. 10 : Incert. Auct. de Constant, ap. Hanel, Corpus Legnm, 
 p. 196 'literas ad provinciarum praesides dedit quibus imperabat ut per singulas 
 urbes virginibus et viduis et aliis qui divino ministerio erant consecrati, annuum 
 
154 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 revenues chargeable upon the lands of the munici- 
 palities 29 : in some cases he gave to churches the rich 
 revenues or the splendid buildings of heathen temples 30 . 
 
 This is the second element in the change : the clergy 
 became not only independent, but in some cases 
 wealthy. In an age of social decay and struggling 
 poverty they had not only enough but to spare. They 
 could afford to lend : and they lent. The frequent 
 repetition in provincial councils of the rule that the 
 clergy should not take interest upon their loans, while 
 it shows that the practice was reprehended, shows also 
 that it existed 31 . 
 
 The effect of the recognition of Christianity by the 
 State was thus not only to create a class civilly distinct 
 from the rest of the community, but also to give that 
 class social independence. In other words, the Chris- 
 tian clergy, in addition to their original prestige as 
 
 f rumentum suppeditaretur : ' cf. Euseb. H. E. 10. 6. Julian not only withdrew 
 the privilege, but also compelled widows and virgins to repay what they had re- 
 ceived from the public funds, Sozom. H, E. 5. 5 : but the privilege was restored 
 by his successor, Theodoret. H. E. 4. 4. 
 
 29 Euseb. Vit. Const. 4. 28 : Sozom. H . E, i. 8. 10 : 5. 5. 3. 
 
 80 Later writers sometimes represented the transfer of temples and their revenues 
 to the Christian churches as having been made on a considerable scale : e. g. Theo- 
 phanes, p. 42, ed. Class. : Niceph. Callist. 7. 46 : Cedren. pp. 478, 498. But al- 
 though instances of such a transfer can be found, e. g. that of the Temple of Mithra 
 at Alexandria, Sozom. H. E. 5. 7, and that which is recorded in an extant inscrip- 
 tion at Zorava in Trachonitis (06o! yeyovev OIKOS TO ruv Saifjiovojv /earaywyiov, Le 
 Bas et Waddington, No. 2498), yet on the other hand the confiscation of temples 
 and their revenues did not become general until the time of Theodosius, and the 
 funds so realized were applied not to Christian, but to imperial and secular pur- 
 poses: this is shown by Cod. Theodos. 16. 10. 19 (law of A. D. 4o8 = Constit. Sir- 
 mond. 12, p. 466, ed. Hanel) 'templorum detrahantur annonae et rem annonariam 
 juvent, expensis devotissimorum militum profuturae : ' so ibid. 16. IO. 20. 
 
 sl Councils of Elvira, c. 20 : Aries, c. 12 : Laodicea.c. 4 : Nicaea, c. 17: i Tours, 
 c. 13: Tarragon, c. 3: 3 Orleans, c. 27: Trull, c. 10: so also the Cod. Eccles. 
 Afric. c. 16 : Can. Apost. 44. 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 155 
 
 office-bearers, had the privileges of a favoured class, and 
 the power of a moneyed class. 
 
 In the meantime, cooperating with these causes, 
 though wholly different from them, was another group 
 of causes which operated in the same general direction. 
 
 The fourth century of our era saw not only the 
 recognition of Christianity by the State as the religion 
 of the State, but also the first great development within 
 Christianity itself of those practices and tendencies 
 which are covered by the general name of Monasticism. 
 Those practices and tendencies consist in the main of 
 two elements asceticism and isolation from the world. 
 Each of these elements has a separate history : the 
 significance of monasticism lies in their combination. 
 
 i. Asceticism belongs to almost the first beginnings 
 of the Christian faith. The teaching of our Lord had 
 been a teaching of self-abnegation : the preaching of 
 more than one Apostle had gone beyond this and had 
 been a preaching of self-mortification. The maxim of 
 the Master had been, ' Sell all that thou hast and give 
 to the poor 32 : ' the maxim of the Apostle was, ' Mortify 
 your members which are upon earth 33 / Those who 
 had begun by giving a literal interpretation to the 
 one 'having all things common 34 ,' proceeded to give 
 a literal interpretation to the other * crucifying the 
 flesh 35 / In other words, the profound reaction against 
 current morality which had already expressed itself in 
 some of the philosophical sects expressed itself within 
 
 32 S. Matt. 19. 21. Col. 3. 5. 
 
 34 Acts 2. 44. 85 Gal. 5. 24 
 
156 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 the limits of Christianity. In our own days, in which 
 the social system has become more settled, and in 
 which the divine influence of the Christian faith has 
 raised even the current standard, it is difficult to 
 realize to ourselves the passionate intensity of that 
 striving after the moral ideal. We know of men 
 struggling for freedom : but in those days they 
 struggled less for freedom than for purity. Such 
 struggles admit of no compromise : for compromise, 
 like diplomacy, finds no place in the melee of the 
 battlefield. And this struggle for moral purity be- 
 came a war d outrance against human nature. At first 
 it was confined to a few : it rather hovered on the 
 outskirts of Christianity than found a recognized place 
 within : it was Judaeo- Christian or Gnostic rather than 
 Catholic : it was rather discouraged than inculcated 
 until, with the sudden rush of a great enthusiasm, it 
 became a force which even the whole weight of the 
 confederated Churches could not resist 36 . 
 
 2. Side by side with it, but for the first three cen- 
 turies confined to a still smaller number of persons 37 , 
 
 36 The tendency towards the laudation of virginity is found in e. g. Herm. Sim. 
 9. 10. ii : St. Justin M. Apol. I. 15 : Athenag. Legal. 32 : Origen, c. Cels. 7. 48 : 
 Tertull. De V eland. Virg. 2, De Exhort. Cast. 21 : St. Cyprian. De Habitu Virg. c. 
 3, p. 189 : De Mortalitate, 26, p. 314 : Epist. 55 (52), c. 20, p. 638, 62 (60), c. 3, 
 p. 699. 
 
 37 There is the instance of Narcissus of Jerusalem, Euseb. H. E. 6. 9. 6, of the 
 fugitives from the Decian persecution mentioned by Dionysius of Alexandria ap. 
 Euseb. H. E. 6. 42. 2, of those with whom 'the great monk ' Antony met before 
 he himself founded the later system of Egyptian monachism, (pseudo-)Athanas. Vit. 
 S. Anton, c. 3, Op. vol. i. p. 634, The fact that in the middle of the fourth cen- 
 tury there was already a irapaSovis dypatyos (Sozom. I. 13) of monastic rules is a 
 further proof of the existence of monks before that time : on the other hand Ter- 
 tullian's protest that the Christians were not ' Brachmanae, Gymnosophistae, silvi- 
 colae, exuleg vitae ' (Apol. 42) shows that the tendency had not become general. 
 
The Clergy as a Separate Class. 157 
 
 was the tendency to live in partial or total isolation 
 from society. 
 
 This, like the ascetic tendency, was not confined to 
 Christianity. It had already taken an important place 
 in the religions of both Egypt and the East. 
 
 In Egypt there had been for several centuries a 
 great monastery of those who were devoted to the 
 worship of the deity whom the Greeks called Serapis. 
 The monks, like Christian monks, lived in a vast 
 common building, which they never left : they might 
 retain a limited control over their property, but they 
 were dead to the world 38 . 
 
 In the greatest of Oriental religions there had also 
 been for many centuries a monastic system, which 
 gained so firm a hold upon the professors of that 
 religion that to the present day, in some countries 
 where Buddhism prevails, every member of the popu- 
 lation, whether he will or no, must at some period of 
 
 38 The institution of monachism in Egypt goes back to remote times : a hiero- 
 glyphic inscription in the Louvre, No. 3465, speaks of an abbess of the nuns of 
 Ammon (Revillout in the Archives des Missions scientifiques et litUraires, 3 me serie, 
 vol. 4, p. 479) : but our chief knowledge of it is derived from the papyri, which 
 exist in considerable numbers, referring to the Serapeum at Memphis. The most 
 important of them are published by Brunet de Presle, Papyrus Grecs du Musee du 
 Louvre et de la BiUiotheque Imperiale, in the Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la 
 Bibliotheque Imperials, vol. xviii. pp. 261 sqq., who has also published an excellent 
 Memoire sur le Serapeum de Memphis in the Memoir es presentes par divers savans 
 a V Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, i re seVie, vol. ii. pp. 552 sqq. (see also 
 Leemans, Papyri Graeci Musei Ant. publ. Lugduni-Batavi, pap. B, p. 9, and Mai, 
 Class. Auct. vol. v. pp. 352, 601). The worship of Serapis was widely spread in both 
 Greece and Italy (see e.g. Herzberg; Die Geschichte Griechenlands unter der Uerr- 
 schaft der Bdmer, Bd. ii. p. 267 : Preller in the Berichte der konigl. sacks. Gesell- 
 schaft d. Wissenschaft, phil. hist, classe, Bd. vi. 1854, pp. 196 sqq. : Boissier, La 
 Religion Eomaine, vol. i. pp. 400 sqq.), and there were associations of Serapis-wor- 
 shippers (e.g. at Athens, a decree of which is to be found in the Corpus Inter. 
 Grace. No. 1 20 = Hicks, Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, part i. No. 
 21), but there are no traces of religious recluses out of Egypt. 
 
158 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 his life adopt the monastic habit, and live, if only for 
 a month or two, in retreat 39 . 
 
 The fact that Christian monasticism first appears 
 in Egypt 40 , where the Serapeum was a familiar object 
 to the inhabitants of Memphis 41 , and also in those 
 extreme parts of Asia Minor which were locally nearest 
 to the Buddhist populations 42 , has led to the supposi- 
 tion that one or other or both of these external causes 
 may account for its introduction into Christianity 43 . 
 
 39 R. S. Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 57. 
 
 40 The early appearance of Monasticism in Egypt is shown not only by the 
 ' Eremitenroman ' (Weingarten, p. 20), entitled Vita S. Antonii, and ascribed to St. 
 Athanasius (Op. vol. i. pp. 630 sqq.), but also by the more important treatise De 
 VitaContemplativa, which is printed among the works of Philo (Op. vol. ii. pp. 471 
 sqq. ed. Mang.). The controversies which have for some time been carried on as 
 to the probable authorship and date of this treatise (of which a short and convenient 
 account will be found in Kuenen, De Godsdienst van Israel, Eng. Trans, vol. iii. pp. 
 217 sqq.) seem to have been set at rest by Lucius, Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung 
 in der Geschichte der AsTcese, Strassburg, 1879, who maintains that it is really an 
 account, written not long before the time of Eusebius, of the communities of Chris- 
 tian ascetics which had already begun to exist in Egypt : (see Hilgenfeld's pane- 
 gyric upon the work in his Zeitschrift f. wissensch. Theologie, Bd. xxiii. 1880, pp. 
 423 sqq.). 
 
 41 The remains of the Serapeum were first explored by Mariette, and have been 
 described in his work entitled Le Serapeum de Memphis, Paris, 1857. 
 
 42 There are some, though not considerable, traces of monasticism in Armenia at 
 the beginning of the fourth century, to which period the foundation of the monas- 
 tery of Etchmiazin is traditionally ascribed : (see the life of St. Gregory the Illumi- 
 nator by Agathangelos, translated in Langlois, Historiens de VArmenie, Paris, 1867, 
 vol. i. p. 181). There are also some, though not considerable, traces of Buddhism 
 having spread as far as Parthia a century and a half earlier than the above-men- 
 tioned date (Max Mtiller, Selected Essays, vol. ii. p. 316). But there is no trace of 
 actual contact between Buddhism and Christianity, nor is there anything in the 
 form of early Armenian monasticism which shows a specially Buddhist impress. 
 
 43 Kaufler in the Zweite Denkschrift der hist.-theol. Gesellschaft zu Leipsig, Leip- 
 sig, 1819 : and Weingarten, in his valuable essay Der Ursprungdes Monchtums, in the 
 Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, Bd. i. 1877, pp. i sqq. (since published separately), 
 trace Christian monachism to Egyptian influences : Hilgenfeld, in his Zeitschrift 
 fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, Bd. xxi. 1878, pp. 147 sqq., lays great stress on 
 Buddhist influences : the general view, which is given above, that both these in- 
 fluences were subordinate in their effects to causes which existed within Chris- 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 159 
 
 But great enthusiasms are never adequately explained 
 by external causes. No torch would have kindled so 
 great a conflagration if the fuel had not been already 
 gathered together for the burning. The causes of the 
 sudden outburst of monasticism in the fourth century 
 must be sought, and can be found, within Christianity 
 itself. They lie in the general conditions of the age. 
 It was an age, in the first place, in which the artificial 
 civilization of the Empire seemed to culminate. That 
 civilization carried in its train a 'craving for artificial 
 luxuries and artificial excitements. Such a craving 
 is never satisfied. It begets a vague restlessness, 
 which in its turn passes into ennui. There are men 
 who stand on the threshold of life who yet are weary 
 of it. There are those who have passed through life 
 and have found it vanity. There are social ambitions 
 which have been disappointed, and political schemes 
 which have been baffled, and moral reformations which 
 have failed, and which have resulted in an exodus 
 of despair. 
 
 Again, it was an age of newly realized religious 
 freedom, in which, after the lapse of half a century, 
 men began to idealize the age which had preceded it. 
 The age of martyrdoms had ceased, but the spirit of 
 the martyrs began to live again. For martyrdom had 
 been in many cases the choice of a sublime enthusiasm. 
 There had been men and women who, so far from 
 shrinking from it, had sought and welcomed the occa- 
 
 tianity itself, has been stated with great force by Keim, Ursprung des Monchwesens 
 in his collection of essays entitled A us dem Urchrisientkum, pp. 204 sqq., Zurich, 
 1878 : see also the excellent lecture of Harnack, Das Monchthum seine Ideale und 
 seine Geschichte, Giessen, 1881. 
 
j6o The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 sion of it 44 . They had ' counted it all joy to suffer for 
 His name's sake.' All this had come to a sudden end. 
 Persecution had ceased. But the idea of the merit 
 of suffering had not ceased. There were those who, 
 if they could not be martyrs in act, would at least be 
 martyrs in will (/maprvpes rfj Trpoaipea-et] 45 . They sought 
 lives of self-mortification. They would themselves tor- 
 ture the flesh which the lictors would no longer scourge. 
 They would construct for themselves the prisons which 
 no longer kept Christian confessors for the lions. 
 
 And again, it was an age in which the antithesis 
 between mind and matter, between the unreal world 
 of sense and the real world of spirit, expressed itself 
 in more than one philosophy and more than one 
 religion. It was the first and fullest bloom in the 
 Western world of that love of haze upon the horizon 
 which, however alien to the modern temper, has almost 
 won its way to a permanent place among human 
 tendencies, and which is known by the name of 
 mysticism. There were men to whom philosophy 
 had ceased to be philosophy, and had become an 
 emotion. There were the pure and passionate souls 
 to whom contact with sin was intolerable, and who 
 fled from a world which they did not know to dream 
 of a world which could be but a dream. There were 
 
 44 For instances see Euseb. De Martyr. Palaestinae, 3. 3: Ada Theodoti, c. 22 in 
 Ruinart, Acta Marty rum sincera, p. 346, Tertull. Ad Scapulam, 5: Le Blant,$wr la 
 Preparation au Martyre dans les premieres sitcles de VEglise, in the Mtmoires de 
 r Academic des Inscriptions, vol. xxviii. I partie, pp. 54 sqq., speaks with both force 
 and truth of ' cette immense soif de mort, cette indomptable passion de souffrir, 
 ressentie par les ames ardentes;' cf. Euseb. If. E. 7. 12, of some martyrs at 
 Csesarea, iroOov fXixopevois ovpaviov. 
 
 45 St. Basil. M. Horn, in XL Martyres, Op. ed. Gam. vol. ii. p. 149. 
 
OF THE -' A 
 
 VL] The Clergy as a Separate Offi F I V I& S I T Y 
 
 _ o:F 
 those to whom life was thought, and thou^ 
 
 contemplation of God, and the contemplation 
 was the love of Him, and the love of Him was absorp- 
 tion in Him as the morning mist floats upwards from 
 some still mountain tarn, and rests for a while in 
 embodied glory in the sunlight, and is lost in the pure 
 infinity of noon. 
 
 To those who have studied the history of great social 
 movements it will not be surprising that these various 
 elements should have combined together, in the course 
 of a single generation, to form an enthusiasm or a 
 fanaticism. The movement began in the East, but it 
 spread rapidly to the West: and wherever, in East 
 or West, the stream of life ran strong, there were 
 crowds of men and women who were ready to forsake 
 all, and follow John the Baptist into the desert rather 
 than Christ into the world. 
 
 Monasticism became henceforward a permanent factor 
 in Christian society. Its first result was to give a 
 new meaning to the antithesis between the Church 
 and the world. That antithesis in its original form 
 was an antithesis between the new chosen people and 
 the Gentiles outside. But monasticism transferred the 
 distinction to the Church itself, between those who 
 stood within the sanctuary and followed 'counsels of 
 perfection/ and those who were content with the 
 average morality of Christian men 46 . The result of 
 
 46 * Religion ' came to mean the monastic life and rule : e. g. I Cone. Aurel. A.D. 
 511, c. ii ; 5 Cone. Paris. A.D. 615, c. 13; 4 Cone. Tolet. A.D. 633, c. 55; loConc. 
 Tolet. A.D. 656, c. 6. ' Secular ' came to mean whatever was outside the monastic 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 this upon ecclesiastical organization was practically 
 to compel the clergy to live what was thought to be 
 the higher that is, the more ascetic life. This result 
 was not effected without resistance. For asceticism had 
 in some cases been the protest of heresy against catho- 
 licity 47 : but when the Arians set themselves to perse- 
 cute monasticism, by a remarkable rebound of feeling, 
 monasticism became a protest of catholicity against 
 Arianism 48 . Henceforth there was for the clergy that 
 which is an infaUible mark of an exceptional status, 
 exceptional legislation. 
 
 That legislation affected chiefly marriage and social 
 life. The legislation which affected marriage varied 
 widely, not only from century to century, but between 
 East and West. In the East the ascetic rule prevailed 
 for bishops 49 : in the West it came ultimately to prevail 
 for all the higher orders of clergy. At first they might 
 not marry after ordination, and then 'they that had 
 wives were to be as though they had none/ and lastly, 
 
 life and rule: and 'conversion' was no longer the turning 'from the power of Satan 
 unto God,' but the adoption of the monastic habit : e. g. Cone. Agath. A.D. 506, c. 
 1 6 ; i Cone. Aurel. A.D. 511, c. 21 ; 4 Cone. Arelat. A.D. 524, c. 2 ; 5 Cone. Aurel. 
 A.D. 529, c. 9 ; 2 Cone. Arvern. A.D. 549, c. 9 : also so ' poenitentia : ' e.}?. a Cone. 
 Arelat. A.D. 451? c. 22. Even Clement of Alexandria had regarded those who 
 lived an ascetic life as ruv tK\KTwv K\(KTOT(poi (Quis. Dives Salv. c. 36, p. 945 
 ed. Pott.). 
 
 47 E. g. in the second century it had prevailed among the Marcionites, who ad- 
 mitted no married person to baptism unless he consented to a divorce, Tertull. Adv. 
 Marc. T. 29 : 5. 7. 
 
 * 8 The violence of the Arian reaction against the Catholic institution of perpetual 
 virginity is shown by e.g. St. Athanas. Epist. Encycl. 3, vol. i. p. 90, ed. Ben.; 
 Socrat. H. E. 2. 28 : St. Hil. Pictav. Ad Constant. Aug. i. 6 : Fragm. Hist. 2.3; 
 3. 9 : St. Greg. Naz. Orat. in laud. Basil. M. c. 46, vol. i. p. 805, Oral. c. Arian. 
 c. 3, vol. i. p. 605 : so also against monks, St. Basil M. Epist. 256 (200), vol. iv. 
 p. 390- 
 
 49 Cone. Trull, c. 48. 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 163 
 
 though not until prevalent practice had rendered a 
 law almost needless, they might not marry at all 50 . 
 
 The legislation which affected social life began by 
 excluding clergy from the amusements of life, and went 
 on gradually to exclude them from its ordinary pursuits, 
 and at last, though not for some centuries, clenched the 
 distinction by requiring them to wear a special dress 51 . 
 
 If we add these various causes together, we shall 
 see that the isolation of the clergy as a separate class 
 of the community became at length inevitable. They 
 had a separate civil status, they had separate emolu- 
 ments, they were subject to special rules of life. The 
 shepherd bishop driving his cattle to their rude pastur- 
 age among the Cyprian hills, the merchant bishop of 
 North Africa, the physician presbyter of Rome, were 
 vanished types whose living examples could be found 
 no more. 
 
 50 The evidence upon which the above paragraph is based is altogether too exten- 
 sive and intricate to admit of being stated within the limits of a note : it will be 
 found at length in the excellent work of J. A. and A. Theiner, Die Einfuhrung der 
 erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den christlichen Geistlichen und ihre Folgen, Altenburg, 
 1828 : for a more concise, but even more scientific, account see Hinschius, Das 
 Eirchenrecht Bd. i. pp. 144-159 : a complete account of the literature of the 
 subject will be found in de Roskova'ny, Coelibatus et Bremarium, Pest, 1861. 
 
 51 There are many injunctions to the clergy in earlier centuries to use modest 
 and becoming dress : but there is probably no direct enactment as to the form of 
 dress which the clergy should wear in ordinary life earlier than the Capitulary of 
 Karloman in 742, c. 7 (Pertz, Legum, vol. i. p. 17, = Cone. German, c. 7, Mansi, 
 Concilia, vol. xii. p. 365), which prohibited clerks from wearing the 'sagum,' or 
 short cloak, and required them to wear the ' casula ' (for the meaning of which see 
 the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v.), and the Capitulary of Pippin two years 
 later (Capit. Suession. A.D. 744, c. 3, Pertz, Legum, vol. i, p. 21) which enacts that 
 ' omnes clerici fornicationem non faciant, et hdbitu laicorum non portent nee apud 
 canes venationes non faciant nee acceptores non portent.' For the disputed ques- 
 tions when and whether church officers had a distinctive dress in church in early 
 times, reference may be made to W. B. Marriott, Vestiariwm Christianum, London, 
 1868, and for a contrary view Hefele, Die liturgischen Getcander in his Beitrdge 
 zur Kirchengeschichte, Archdologie, u. Liturgik, Bd. ii. Freiburg, 1864. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 All this was intensified by the decay and fall of 
 the Koman Empire. When the surging tides of bar- 
 barian invasion swept over Europe, the Christian organi- 
 zation was almost the only institution of the past which 
 survived the flood. It remained as a visible monument 
 of what had been, and, by so remaining, was of itself 
 an antithesis to the present. The chief town of the 
 Eoman province, whatever its status under barbarian 
 rule, was still the bishop's see. The limits of the old 
 ' province/ though the boundary of a new kingdom 
 might bisect them, were still the limits of his diocese. 
 The bishop's tribunal was the only tribunal in which 
 the laws of the Empire could be pleaded in their 
 integrity. The bishop's dress was the ancient robe 
 of a Roman magistrate. The ancient Eoman language 
 which was used in the Church services was a standing 
 protest against the growing degeneracy of the ' vulgar 
 tongue/ These survivals of the old world which was 
 passing away gave to the Christian clergy a still more 
 exceptional position when they went as missionaries 
 into the villages which Roman civilization had hardly 
 reached, or into the remote parts of the Empire where 
 Roman organization had been to the masses of the 
 population only what English rule is to the masses 
 of the population of India. To the 'pagani' of Gaul 
 and Spain, to the Celtic inhabitants of our own islands, 
 and, in rather later times, to the Teutonic races of 
 Central Europe, they were probably never known 
 except as a special class, assuming a special status, 
 living a special life, and invested with special 
 powers. 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 165 
 
 There were two usages which, though they were 
 not without significance even in the seats of the older 
 civilization, became in the great mass of the nations 
 of the West circumstances of great significance. 
 
 i. The first is one which might seem trivial, if we 
 did not bear in mind that a dispute concerning it 
 constituted a principal cause why the British Churches 
 refused to combine with the organization which was 
 introduced into the English kingdoms by Augustine 62 . 
 
 Part of the protest which had been made by early 
 preachers against the current effeminacy had been a 
 protest against the elaborate fashion of dressing the 
 hair 53 . The first book of the Apostolic Constitutions 
 exhorts all Christians to trim their hair becomingly 54 : 
 Clement of Alexandria lays down minute rules in this 
 respect for both men and women 65 ; and Chrysostom 
 repeatedly quotes the Apostolic injunction against 
 * broided hair ' in his appeals to the court-ladies of Con- 
 stantinople 56 . But, as in other cases, that which had 
 been a primitive rule for all Christians became in time 
 a special rule for the clergy. They must not either 
 shave their heads like the priests of Isis 57 , nor let their 
 hair grow long like heathen philosophers. Then came 
 a more exact and stringent rule : they must not only 
 
 52 Bede, H. E. 4. i ; 5. 21; see Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, etc. vol. i. 
 p. 154. 
 
 53 Compare the address of Epictetus to the young rhetorician who came to him 
 irpi(p~f6Tpov f]ffKr)fj,vov rfjv KOfirjv, Diss. 3. I. I. 
 
 54 Const. Apost. i. 3. 
 
 55 Clem. Alex. Paedag. 3. n, p. 290, ed. Pott. 
 
 56 St. Chrys. e. g. Horn. ix. in Ep. ad Rom. vol. ix. 742, Horn, xxvi. in Ep. i. ad 
 Corinth, vol. x. 235, Horn. viii. in Ep. i. ad Tim. vol. xi. 590. 
 
 57 St. Hieron. Comm. in Ezech. lib. 13, c. 44., 
 
1 66 The Clergy as a Separate Class. [LECT. 
 
 trim their hair but trim it in a particular way. The 
 trimming of the hair in this particular way became one 
 of the ceremonies of admission to ecclesiastical office : 
 and, throughout both East and West, clerks became 
 differentiated from laymen by the 'tonsure 58 .' 
 
 2. The second usage is one which was partly primi- 
 tive and partly monastic. 
 
 In the earliest times, the living of all those who 
 shared in the Church offerings at a common table had 
 probably been one of those simple economies by which 
 the resources of the infant Churches had been hus- 
 banded 59 . When, long after this primitive practice had 
 passed away, monasticism asserted its place in Christian 
 life, a pious bishop of the West, Eusebius of Yercelli, 
 began the practice of gathering together his clergy in a 
 common building 60 . St. Augustine followed his example, 
 and instituted in Africa what he calls a kind of par- 
 onomasia, considering the antithesis between monks 
 
 58 The direction of Pope Anicetus (Lib. Pontif. p. 2) and of the Statuta Ecclesiae 
 Antiqua, c. 44, is simply ' clericus nee comam nutriat nee barbam : ' and it is clear 
 that for some time there was a diversity of usage as to the manner in which the 
 hair was trimmed. The earliest direction on this point which has conciliar 
 authority is probably that of the fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, c. 41, 'omnes 
 clerici vel lectores sicut levitae et sacerdotes detonso superius toto capite inferius 
 solam circuli coronam relinquant.' This was known as the ' coronal tonsure : ' its 
 adoption seems to have been at least partly due to mystical reasons, as symbolizing 
 the crown of thorns (see e. g. St. Aldhem. Epist. I, ap. Jaffe", Monumenta Moguntina, 
 p. 27, and pseudo-Alcuin, De Divinis Officiis, c. 35) : but when once adopted it 
 became a badge of orthodoxy, and as such became universal. 
 
 59 Epist. ad Diognet. 5. 7 rpanefav KOLV^V irapariOevTcu d\\' ov Koivrju. The 
 fourth Apostolical Canon directs those offerings which could not properly be 
 placed upon the altar to be taken els olnov for the use of the bishop and clergy. 
 It is conceivable that this OIKOS was a kind of clergy-house, or at least a common 
 refectory. 
 
 90 St. Maxim.; Serm. 23, ap. Muratori, Anecdota Latina, vol. iv. ; St. Ambros. 
 Epist. 63, c. 66, 82, vol. ii. p. 1038. 
 
vi.] The Clergy as a Separate Class. 167 
 
 and clerks, a ' monasterium clericorum 6 V Hence grew 
 the practice, to which I must refer again in a subsequent 
 Lecture 62 , of the clergy living together a practice which 
 in the country districts of the West became as much a 
 practical necessity as it is for the missionaries of our 
 modern Churches to live by themselves in mission- 
 stations. But the practice served still further to em- 
 phasize, especially in those districts, the difference 
 between clergy and laity : for the former not only had 
 a distinctive personal mark, but also lived an isolated 
 life. 
 
 So grew the Christian clergy. They came to be what 
 they were by the inevitable force of circumstances, that 
 is to say, by the gradual evolution of the great scheme 
 of God's government of the world which, though present 
 eternally to His sight, is but slowly unfolded before 
 ours. But of what they came to be it is difficult to speak 
 with a calm' judgment, because the incalculable good 
 which they have wrought in the midst of human society 
 has been tempered with so much of failure and of sin. 
 One point at least, however, seems evident, that that 
 incalculable good has been achieved rather by the 
 human influence which they have exercised than by the 
 superhuman power which they have sometimes claimed. 
 The place which they have filled in human history has 
 been filled not by the wielding of the thunderbolts of 
 heaven, but by the whispering of the still voice which 
 tells the outcast and the sad of divine mercy and divine 
 
 61 St. Augustin. Serm. 355 = 1)6 Divers. 49, Op. ed. Migne, Pair. Lat. vol. v. 
 p. 1570. 
 
 6i See Lecture VIII. 
 
1 68 The Clergy as a Separate Class. 
 
 consolation. And if it be possible to draw from the past 
 an augury of the future, they will have their place in 
 the days that are to come, whether those days be a reign 
 of chaos or a reign of peace, not by living in the isolatio 
 which the decay of the Empire forced upon the clergy o: 
 the middle ages, but by recurring to the earlier type, 
 by being within society itself a leaven of knowledge and 
 of purity, of temperance and of charity. In this way 
 will their influence be as permanent as human need : in 
 this way will they, and not others in their stead, be the 
 channels and the exponents of those spiritual forces 
 which underlie all faiths and all civilizations, which, 
 whoever be their ministers, live in themselves an ever- 
 lasting life, and of which, as of the deepest of human 
 emotions, though the outward form perishes and the 
 earthly voices die, the ' Echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow for ever and for ever.' 
 
 I 
 
 5 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 COUNCILS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 AN important feature of the Eoman imperial admin- 
 istration was the respect which it showed to local 
 liberties. For many important purposes a municipality 
 was independent : the reality, as well as the form, of [ 
 republican government lingered in the towns long after ' 
 it had become extinct at Rome x . For certain other 
 purposes a province was independent: and the form 
 which its independence assumed anticipated in a re- 
 markable way those representative institutions which 
 have sometimes been regarded as the special product 
 of modern times. Every year deputies from the chief 
 towns of a province met together in a deliberative 
 assembly 2 . This assembly had to some extent a re- 
 
 1 This is shown by the general regulations as to municipal administration in the 
 Lex Julia municipalis (Corp. Inscr. Lot. vol. i. No. 206), and in the Lex Malaci- 
 tana (ibid. vol. ii. Nos. 1963, 1964; see supra, Lect. V, note 35). An interesting 
 account of the independent municipal regime of Gaul is given by Fustel de Coulanges, 
 Histoire des Institutions politiques de I'ancienne France, i re partie, pp. 121 sqq., 
 Paris, 1875. 
 
 2 For these provincial councils see Marquardt, De Provinciarum Romanarum 
 Conciliis et Sacerdotibus in the Ephemeris JSpigraphica, vol. i. pp. 200-214, and also 
 his Bomische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 365-377, where references will be found 
 to almost all the existing literature on the subject. It is important to note that 
 they are found in full activity during the imperial period in all the provinces in 
 which Christian councils came to exist : viz. Greece (see, in addition to Marquardt, 
 Herzberg, Geschichte Griechenlands, Bd. ii. 465 ; Dittenberger, Corpus Inscr. A It. 
 vol. iii. No. 1 8) ; Syria (coins of Trajan and Caracalla, Mionet, vol. v. no, 334) ; 
 
1 70 Councils and the Unity of -the Church. [LECT. 
 
 Kgious character. Its meeting-place was the altar of 
 Augustus : its deliberations were preceded by a sacrifice : 
 its president was named High Priest 3 . 
 
 In the course of the second century the custom of 
 meeting in representative assemblies began to prevail 
 among the Christian communities. There were points 
 of practice for example, the time of keeping Easter 
 on which it was desirable to adopt a common line of 
 action 4 : there were questions as to Christian teaching 
 for example, those which grew out of Montanism on 
 which individual Churches were divided, and on which 
 they consequently desired to consult with their neigh- 
 bours 5 : there were questions of discipline which affected 
 more than one community especially the question, 
 which for a time assumed a great importance, as to the 
 terms upon which those who had renounced Christianity 
 under pressure of persecution should be received back 
 again 6 . 
 
 At first these assemblies were more or less informal. 
 Some prominent and influential bishop invited a few 
 neighbouring communities to confer with his own : the 
 
 Asia Minor (Kuhn, Verfassung des rom. Reichs, i. 107 sqq.) ; Africa (Hirschfeld, 
 Annali di instil. Archeol. Bom. vol. xxxviii. 1866, p. 70) ; Spain (Hiibner, Corpus 
 Inscr. Lat.vol. ii. p. 540; Heiines, vol. i. p. in); and Gaul (Boissieu, Inscrip- 
 tions Antiques de Lyon, p. 84). 
 
 3 For this title see the epigraphical evidence collected by Marquardt, Ephem. 
 Epigraph, vol. i. pp. 207-214 ; Rom. Staatsverw. Bd. i. p. 367. 
 
 * Councils were held on this point in Asia Minor before the close of the second 
 century, Euseb. H.E.e>.2^.2. 
 
 5 Councils were held on this point in Asia Minor about A.D. 160-170, Euseb. 
 H. E. 5. 16. 10. 
 
 6 Councils on this point are frequently mentioned in Cyprian : cf. the Sententic 
 Episcoporum de Hereticis baptizandis ap. St. Cyprian. Op. p. 435, ed. Hartel, 
 Epist. 17 (ii), p. 523; 20 (14), p. 529; 32, p. 565 ; 43 (40), p. 592 ; 55 (52), p. 
 626; 56 (53), c. 3, p. 649; 70, p. 766; 71, c. i, p. 771 ; 73, c. i, p. 778. 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 171 
 
 result of the deliberations of such a conference was ex- 
 pressed sometimes in a resolution, sometimes in a letter 
 addressed to other Churches 7 . It was the rule for such 
 letters to be received with respect : for the sense of 
 brotherhood was strong, and the causes of alienation 
 were few. But so far from such letters having any 
 binding force on other Churches, not even the resolutions 
 of the conference were binding on a dissentient minority 
 of its members. Cyprian, in whose days these con- 
 ferences first became important, and who was at the 
 same time the most vigorous of early preachers of 
 catholic unity both of which circumstances would 
 have made him a supporter of their authoritative 
 character if such authoritative character had existed 
 claims in emphatic and explicit terms an absolute in- 
 dependence for each community. Within the limits of 
 his own community a bishop has no superior but God. 
 1 To each shepherd,' he writes, * a portion of the Lord's 
 flock has been assigned, and his account must be 
 rendered to his own Master/ The fact that some 
 bishops refused to readmit to communion those who 
 had committed adultery is no argument, he contends, 
 for the practice of other bishops ; nor is the fact that 
 a number of bishops meeting in council had agreed to 
 
 7 These had been preceded by letters written by one church to another, in its 
 own name and without conference with other churches. That the First Epistle of 
 Clement of Rome is an example of such a letter is shown, chiefly on the evidence 
 afforded by the newly-discovered portion, by Harnack in the Theologische Literatur- 
 zeitung, Bel. iv. 1876, p. 102, and in the prolegomena to the letter in his Patrum 
 Apost. Opera, ed. alt. p. Ixi. Of letters addressed by more than one church to 
 another church or group of churches, examples will be found in the letters of the 
 churches of Vienne and Lyons, Euseb. H. E. 5. I. 2, and of the African to the 
 Spanish churches, St. Cyprian. Epi&t. 67 (68), p. 736. 
 
172 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 admit the lapsed a reason why a bishop who thought 
 otherwise should admit them against his will 8 . 
 
 But no sooner had Christianity been recognized by 
 the State than such conferences tended to multiply, 
 to become not occasional but ordinary, and to pass 
 resolutions which were regarded as binding upon the 
 Churches within the district from which representatives 
 had come, and the acceptance of which was regarded 
 as a condition of intercommunion with the Churches 
 of other provinces. There were strong reasons of 
 imperial policy for fostering this tendency. It was 
 clearly advisable that the institutions to which a new 
 status had been given should be homogeneous. It was 
 clearly contrary to public policy that not only status 
 but also funds should be given to a number of com- 
 munities which had no other principle of cohesion than 
 that of a more or less undefined unity of belief 9 . 
 Consequently, when the vexed question of the ordi- 
 nation of Caeeilian threatened to divide the African 
 Churches, Constantine summoned all the bishops of 
 Christendom each with representative presbyters from 
 
 8 St. Cyprian. Epist. 59 (55), c. 14, p. 683 cum . . . singulis pastoribus portio 
 gregis sit adscripta quam regat unusquisque et gubernet, rationem sui actus Domino 
 redditurus : ' id. Epist. 55 (52), c. 21, p. 639 ' non tamen a coepiscoporum suorum 
 collegio recesserunt aut catholicae ecclesiae unitatem vel duritiae vel censurae suae 
 obstinatione ruperunt, ut quia apud alios adulteris pax dabatur, qui non dabat de 
 ecclesia separaretur : manente concordiae vinculo et perseverante catholicae eccle- 
 siae individuo sacramento actum suum disponit et dirigit unusquisque episcopus 
 rationem propositi sui Domino redditurus.' On this point see the important treatise 
 of Reinkens, Die Lehre des heil. Cyprian von der Einheit der Kirche, Wiirzburg, 
 
 1873- 
 
 9 A law of Constantine in A.D. 326, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. I, confines the privi- 
 leges and immunities which had been granted to Christians to ' catholicae legis ob- 
 bervatoribus.' 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 173 
 
 his Church to a conference or council at Aries 10 . It 
 was an obvious condition of such a conference that 
 its decisions should be binding on those who so far 
 took part in it as to subscribe to its acts. And since 
 those who did so take part in it were the most im- 
 portant bishops in Christendom, a confederation was 
 thereby established, which placed dissentients at a 
 great disadvantage. The main points of agreement 
 which were arrived at in this conference have con- 
 stituted the basis of the confederation of Christian 
 Churches ever since. It was resolved that those 
 who had been appointed to minister in any place 
 should remain in that place and not wander from 
 one place to another n ; that a deacon should not 
 offer the Eucharistic sacrifice 12 ; that bishops should 
 
 10 The mandate of Constantino to the bishop of Syracuse is preserved, doubtless 
 as a typical form, by Euseb. H. E. 10. 5. 21-24 : it gives him the right to convey- 
 ance at the public cost (Srj^offiov 6xni*a)- There is also a letter of Constantine to 
 Aelafius (or Ablabius) the vicar of Africa (ap. Mansi, Concilia ii. 463, and Migne, 
 Patr. Lat. viii. 483) requiring him to give the bishops of both parties tractoriae, 
 which, from the report of the prefects to the successor of Aelafius, appear to have 
 given the right to provisions as well as to conveyance (' angarialem cum annonaria 
 competentia,' ap. St. Augustin. Op. ed. Migne, vol. ix. append, p. 790). 
 
 u i Cone. Arelat. c. 21. 
 
 12 Ibid. c. 1 5, ' de diaconibus quos cognovimus multis locis offerre, placuit minime 
 fieri debere : ' c. 1 8 ' de diaconibus urbicis ut non sibi tantum praesumant sed 
 honore presbyteris reservent, ut sine conscientia ipsorum nihil tale faciat.' It may 
 be inferred from the expression of the Council of Elvira, c. 67 'diaconus regens 
 plebem,' that up to this time a deacon might be the chief or sole officer of a 
 parish, in which capacity he would naturally be the bishop's deputy as president 
 at the Eucharist. That a deacon could so act, as the bishop's deputy, is clear from 
 the words of the deacon Laurence to his bishop Sixtus, ' Experire utrum idoneum 
 ministrum elegeris cui commisisti dominici sanguinis consecrationem ' (St. Ambros. 
 De Offic. i. 41 : many attempts have been made to explain away the force of these 
 words, but it is a significant fact that they are the only part of the account which 
 is omitted by writers of the succeeding generation in whom the sacerdotal idea was 
 stronger, viz. St. Augustin. In Joann. Evang. Tract. 27, c. 12, Op. ed. Migne, 
 vol. iii. 1621, St. Maxim. Taurin. Horn. 74, p. 238). 
 
1 74 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 be appointed ordinarily by eight, but at least by three 
 bishops, and that one bishop should not have the right 
 of appointing another by himself alone 13 . 
 
 Henceforward there were two kinds of meetings or 
 councils. For matters which affected the whole body 
 of Christian Churches there were general assemblies 
 of the bishops and other representative members of 
 all the Churches of the world : for minor matters, such 
 as a controversy between one Church and another, or 
 between the majority of the members of a Church and 
 one of its officers, there were provincial assemblies. 
 These latter were held upon a strictly local basis : 
 they followed the lines of the civil assemblies whose 
 ordinary designation they appropriated. They fol- 
 lowed them also in meeting in the metropolis of the 
 province. The bishop of that metropolis was their 
 ordinary president : in this respect there was a differ- 
 ence between the civil and the ecclesiastical assemblies, 
 for in the former the president was elected from year 
 to year. In this way the bishop of the metropolis came 
 to have a preeminence over the other bishops of a 
 province. By a natural process, just as the vote and 
 sanction of a bishop had become necessary to the 
 validity of the election of a presbyter, so the vote 
 and sanction of a metropolitan became necessary to 
 the validity of the election of a bishop 14 . In time a 
 further advance was made. Just as civil provinces 
 were grouped into dioceses, and the governors of a 
 'province' were subordinated to the governor of a 
 
 13 i Cone. Arelat. c. 20. 
 
 14 Cone. Nicaen. c. 4, 6; Cone. Antioch. c. 19 ; Cone. Laod. c. 12. 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 175 
 
 ' diocese/ so a gradation was recognized between 
 the bishop of the chief city of a province and 
 the bishop of the chief city of a diocese. In both 
 cases the civil names were retained : the former 
 were called metropolitans, the ]atter exarchs or 
 patriarchs 15 . 
 
 It was by these gradual steps that the Christian 
 Churches passed from their original state of indepen- 
 dence into a great confederation. It is important to 
 observe not only the closeness with which that confede- 
 ration followed the lines of the imperial government 
 but also the wholly voluntary nature of the process by 
 which it was formed. There was no attempt at coer- 
 cion. The cause which operated to change its volun- 
 tary character is one which flows from the very nature 
 of association, and which existed in the individual com- 
 munities before confederation began. For it is of the 
 essence of an association that it should have power to 
 frame regulations, not only for the admission, but also 
 for the exclusion, of its members. In the Christian as 
 in the Jewish communities an offending member was 
 liable to be expelled. But the utility of excommunica- 
 tion as a deterrent in the primitive Churches had been 
 weakened by the fact that its operation did not neces- 
 
 15 The equivalence of the title ' exarch ' and ' patriarch ' is shown by a comparison 
 of Cone. Chalc. c. 9 with Justin. Novell. 123, c. 22, and also by the scholium upon 
 the canon of Chalcedon which is printed in Pitra, Jur. Eccles. Graec. Mon. vol. ii. 
 p. 645. For an account of the correspondence between the ecclesiastical and civil 
 divisions see my articles in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. vv. Patriarch, 
 Primate : and for the most complete modern accounts of the constitution and func- 
 tions of the provincial and other councils see Loning, Geschichte des deutschen 
 Kirchenrechts, Bd. i. pp. 362-422, Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht, Bd. iii. 2 te Halfte 
 (1882), p. 325 sqq. 
 
176 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 sarily extend beyond the particular Church of which 
 a man had been a member. If he had been expelled 
 for a moral offence, no doubt the causes which led to 
 his expulsion by one community would prevent his 
 reception into another. But where the ground of 
 expulsion had been the holding of peculiar opinions, 
 or the breach of a local by-law, it might be possible to 
 find some other community which would ignore the one 
 or condone the other. When the Churches of a province, 
 and still more when the Churches of the greater part of 
 the Empire, were linked together by the ties of a con- 
 federation, meeting in common assembly, and agreeing 
 upon a common plan of action, exclusion by a single 
 Church came to mean exclusion from all the confede- 
 rated Churches 16 . This rule was recognised by the 
 Council of Nicaea, which at the same time made pro- 
 vision against an arbitrary exercise of the power of 
 excommunication 17 . But as no penalty was attached 
 to a violation of the rule, it was probably disregarded, 
 for the Council of Antioch, about twenty years later, 
 found it necessary to enact that a church officer who 
 admitted to communion one whom another church had 
 excluded should himself be cut off from communion 18 . 
 This later form of the enactment was repeated in the 
 
 16 The attempt to exclude a group of churches from the general association was 
 first made, but without success, by Victor of Rome in reference to the churches 
 of Asia Minor, on account of the tenacity with which they clung to the Quartode- 
 ciman theory (rrjs 'Aaias irdarjs a/*a rats ofwpois fKK\r)ffiais rcis napoiKias airort^vfiv, 
 waav (TepoSogovffas, rfjs KOivfjs evwfffois irfipdrai, Euseb. H. E. 5. 24. 9 ; cf. Heini- 
 chen's Meletema VIII, in his edition of Eusebius, vol. iii. p. 676, ed. alt.). He suc- 
 ceeded only in that which was within his competence, viz. in excluding them from 
 communion in his own church, Socrat. H. E. 5. 22. 
 
 17 Cone. Nicaen. c. 5. 18 Cone. Antioch. c. 2. 
 
viz.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 177 
 
 code which is known as the Apostolic Canons 19 : and 
 ultimately became the standing rule in both East and 
 West. The observance of the rule was fenced round 
 by the further enactment that no one should be re- 
 ceived into another Church without a letter from the 
 bishop of the Church to which he belonged 20 . In 
 primitive days a Christian who travelled, or who 
 changed his residence from one town to another, was 
 received into communion with but little question : but 
 the interests of social order, no less than of faith, com- 
 pelled a change. Henceforth any one who was formally 
 expelled from his Church was cut off also from all the 
 Churches of the association. Nor was he cut off only 
 from public worship and from participation in the 
 Church offerings. He was denied social intercourse 
 with those who remained faithful : the rigorous com- 
 mand of the Apostle was applied to him, ' with such an 
 one no not to eat 21 .' 
 
 Now as long as Christians were in a great minority, 
 a man might be cut off from social intercourse with 
 them without sustaining any serious social loss. But 
 
 19 Can. Apost. 10. 
 
 20 Cone. Antioch. c. 7; Can. Apost. 12. 33. 
 
 21 2 Cone. Arelat. c. 49, which professes to be based upon earlier regulations, ' si 
 quis a communione sacerdotali fuerit auctoritate suspensus, hunc non solum a cle- 
 ricorum sed etiam a totius populi colloquio atque convivio placuit excludi, donee 
 resipiscens ad eanitatem redire festinet : ' so i Cone. Tolet. c. 15. Under the close 
 union of Church and State in the Frankish domain the law was both more explicit 
 and more effective : ' et ut sciatis qualis sit modus istius excommunicationis, in 
 ecclesiam non debet intrare, nee cum ullo Christiano cibum vel potum sumere, nee 
 ejus munera quisquam accipere debet vel osculum porrigere, nee in oratione se 
 jungere, nee salutare, antequam ab episcopo suo fuerit reconciliatus ' (Pippin, Capit. 
 Vern. duplex, A.D. 755. ap. Pertz, Legum, vol. i. p. 26 = Cone. Vern. ap. Manai, vol. 
 xii. p. 577; cp. Capit. Ticin. A.D. 801, c. 17, ap. Pertz, vol. i. p. 85). 
 
 N 
 
1 78 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 when Christians began to be a majority in all the great 
 centres of population, excommunication became a real 
 deterrent, and consequently a powerful instrument in 
 the hands of those who were desirous of tightening the 
 bonds of association. 
 
 And yet it is doubtful whether it would have been 
 a sufficiently powerful instrument to produce the uni- 
 formity which ultimately prevailed, if the State had not 
 interfered. The associated Churches might have been 
 strong enough to crush isolated individuals, but it may 
 be questioned whether they could have held their 
 ground, without State interference, against whole 
 Churches or a combination of Churches. It might hap- 
 pen that not an individual but a whole community 
 bishops, presbyters, deacons, and people declined to 
 accept the resolutions of a provincial council, and that 
 they were consequently cut off from the association. 
 There was nothing to prevent their continuing to be and 
 to do what they had been and done before. Even before 
 Christianity had been recognized by the State, when 
 Paul of Samosata refused to give up possession of the 
 Church-buildings at Antioch, and claimed still to be the 
 bishop of the Church, there were no means of ejecting 
 him except that of an appeal to the Emperor Aurelian 22 . 
 A number of such Churches might join together and 
 form a rival association. In one important case this 
 was actually done. A number of Churches in Africi 
 held that the associated Churches were too lax in thei] 
 terms of communion. How far they were right in th( 
 particular points which they urged cannot now 
 
 22 See Lecture VI, note 25. 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 179 
 
 told 23 . But the contention was for purity. The seceding 
 Churches were rigorists. Their soundness in the faith 
 was unquestionable 24 . They resolved to meet together 
 as a separate confederation, the basis of which should 
 be a greater purity of life ; and but for the interference 
 of the State they might have lasted as a separate con- 
 federation to the present day. The interference of the 
 State was not so much a favour shown to the bishops 
 who asked for it as a necessary continuation of the 
 policy which Constantine had begun. For as, on the one 
 hand, it was necessary to draw a strict line of demar- 
 cation round the persons by whom the privileges of 
 Christians could be claimed, so, on the other hand, it 
 was impossible for the State to assume the office of 
 determining for itself what was and what was not 
 Christian doctrine. It was enough for the State that 
 
 28 The dispute was in the first instance mainly as to a matter of fact, viz. 
 whether Felix of Aptunga was a 'traditor,' i.e. one who in a time of persecution 
 had delivered up the sacred books to be burnt. The Donatists contended that he 
 was so, and that consequently his ordination of Caecilian was invalid. Out of this 
 arose the wider question, on which the controversy chiefly turned, whether ' the 
 unworthiness of the minister hindered the effect of the sacrament ? ' For a clear, 
 though partial, history of the controversy see F. Ribbeck, Donatus und Augustinws, 
 Elberfeld, 1857. 
 
 24 They probably did no more than continue the stricter African discipline, for 
 which Cyprian had in his time stronglcontended. There had been, in other 
 words, for some time two parties in the African Church, and the dispute between 
 them was brought to a crisis by the Diocletian persecution and a personal ani- 
 mosity towards Caecilian : (this is the view of Eieck, Ueber Entstehung und Berech- 
 tigung des Donatismus im Hinblick auf vencandte Erschdnungen innerhalb der 
 christlichen Kirche, Friedland, 1877, Gymnas-Progr.) The strong contrast between 
 the position of Cyprian, and that of those who, under different auspices or with 
 less force of character, held his views in subsequent times, struck even early 
 writers : ' Et, mira rerum conversio, auctores ejusdem opinionis catholici, con- 
 sectatores vero haeretici judicantur: absolvuntur magistri, condemnantur disci - 
 puli : conscriptores librorum filii regni sunt, adsertores vero gehenna suscipiet.' 
 (St. Vincent. Lirin. Commonitorium, c. 6.) 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 a great confederation of Christian societies existed. 
 With that confederation, and it alone, the State found 
 it expedient to deal. The terms of membership of the 
 confederation must be left to, the confederation itself. 
 Those who were within it, and those only, were 
 Christians and entitled to the privileges of Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The interposition of the State took three forms : 
 
 (1) The State recognized the decisions of Councils 
 i.e. the resolutions of the representative assemblies of 
 the associated Churches as to questions of doctrine 25 . 
 
 (2) The State recognized the validity of sentences of 
 deposition from office, or exclusion from membership of 
 a Church, by a person or body within the Church whose 
 competence was admitted by the associated Churches 26 . 
 
 (3) The State discouraged and ultimately prohibited 
 the formation of new associations outside the general 
 confederation. * Let all heresies,' says a law of Gratian 
 and Valentinian, ' for ever hold their peace : if any one 
 
 25 E.g. Constantino followed up the decision of the Council of Nicaea by 
 decreeing that Arius and his followers should be ' infames,' and that his books 
 should be burnt (Socr. H. E. i. 9 gives the text of the decree). Theodosius 
 punished with confiscation any one who impugned the decision of the Council of 
 Ephesus (Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 66). Valentinian and Marcian affixed penalties in 
 varying degrees to those who refused to accept the decisions of the Council of 
 Chalcedon (Acta Cone. Chalc. ap. Harduin, Concilia, vol. ii. pp. 659, 661 : Zeno and 
 Anastasius formally abrogated the decisions of this Council, but Justin restored 
 their authority : Zonaras, 14. 2, 5 ; Victor Tunn. Chron. ap. Roncall. Vet. Lat. 
 Script. Chron. pars ii. p. 353, Isidor. Chron. ibid. p. 458). 
 
 26 Euseb. Vit. Constant. 4. 27 KCLI rot's rwv cniffKoircav opovs roiis ev avvooois atrotyav- 
 dfvras eir0<ppayi(TO us pf) (tivai TOIS TUV kOvwv apxovfft roi 86avTa irapaXveiv. 
 TTO.VT&S yap efj/cu SIKCLGTOV rovs itpfTs rov Oeov So/ft ftcarcpovs : so Sozom. H. E. I. 
 (in both authors awooois probably includes the ordinary council of a bishop 
 
 his presbyters as well as provincial or other assemblies : cf. Heinichen ad Euseb., 
 I. c.). A deposed clerk was forthwith made liable to the fiscal burdens from which, 
 as a clerk, he had been exempt : (Cod. Theodos. 16. 2. 39. ; Const. Sinnond. c. 6.) 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 181 
 
 entertains an opinion which the Church has condemned 
 let him keep it to himself and not communicate it to 
 another 27 .' 
 
 1/7 The extent to which the State employed coercion to prevent the Christian 
 societies from being disintegrated by heresy or schism will appear from the fol- 
 lowing summary of the penal enactments against various classes of heretics, and 
 ultimately also of schismatics, during the latter part of the fourth, and the begin- 
 ning of the fifth, century. It must be borne in mind that under the name of 
 heresy was included the least deviation from the doctrine of the associated 
 churches ; ' haereticorum vocabulo continentur et latis adversus eos sanctionibus 
 debent succumbere qui vel levi argumento a judicio catholicae religionis et tramite 
 detecti fuerint deviare' (law of Arcadius and Honorius in A.D. 395, Cod. Theodos. 
 1 6. 5. 28). i. The churches and other buildings of heretics were to be confis- 
 cated : laws of Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 372, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 2. 
 A.D. 376. Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 4; of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, 
 A.D. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 8: A.D. 383, ibid. 16. 5. 12; of Arcadius and 
 Honorius, A.D. 396, ibid. 16. 5. 30: A.D. 397, ibid. 16. 5. 33 : A.D. 398, ibid. 16. 
 5. 34: of Honorius and Theodosius, A.D. 408, ibid. 16. 5. 45 : A.D. 415, ibid. 16. 
 
 5. 58 : in some cases their private property was also confiscated, law of Arcadius 
 and Honorius, A.D. 408, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 40. ii. They were not allowed to 
 assemble by laws of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian, and their successors, in A.D. 
 376, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 4: A.D. 379, ibid. 16. 5. 5 : A.D. 381, ibid. 16. 5. 6. (cf. 
 Theodoret, 5. 16; Zonaras, 13. 19) : A.D. 383, ibid. 16. 5. 10, n, 12 (cf. Sozom. 
 H. E. 7. 12): A.D. 388, ibid. 16. 5. 14, 15: A.D. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 19, 20: A.D. 394, 
 ibid. 16. 5. 24: A.D. 395, ibid. 16. 5. 26: A.D. 396, ibid. T6. 5. 30: A.D. 410, ibid. 
 1 6. 5. 51, which first prescribed the penalty of proscription and death to those who 
 ventured to assemble, so in A.D. 415, ibid. 16. 5. 56 : A.D. 412, ibid. 16. 5. 53, which 
 punished with 'deportatio' those who availed themselves of the permission which 
 Jovian had given them to hold assemblies outside the walls of a city: A.D. 415, 
 ibid. 1 6. 5. 57, 58. iii. They were made ' intestabiles,' incapable of bequeathing 
 or receiving money by will, by a law of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius in 
 A.D. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 7 (which is made retrospective), and in A.D. 382, ibid. 
 
 1 6. 5. 9, (which goes so far as to exempt informers from the ordinary penalties of 
 ' delatio'): laws of Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius in A.D. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 
 
 17, 18 : of Arcadius and Honorius in A.D. 395, ibid. 16. 5. 25, and in A.D. 407, ibid. 
 1 6. 5. 40. iv. They or their teachers were banished fr.jm cities by laws of Gratian, 
 Valentinian, and Theodosius, and their successors in J D. 381, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 
 
 6, 7 (cf. Sulp. Sever. Chron. 2. 47) : A.D. 384, ibid. 16. 5. 13: A.D. 389, ibid. 16. 5. 
 19: A.D. 396, ibid. 16. 5. 30, 31, 32: A.D. 398, ibid. 16. 5. 34: A.D. 425, ibid. 16. 
 5. 62 ( = Const. Sirmond. 6), 64. In addition to this they were sometimes branded 
 as 'infames' (Cod. Theod. 16. 5. 54): they were liable to fines (ibid. 16. 5. 21,65), 
 they were excluded from the civil service of the State (ibid. 16. 5. 29, 42), their 
 books were to be sought and burnt (ibid. 16. 5. 34, which makes concealment 
 a capital offence), and provincial judges and governors were fined .unless they carried 
 out the above laws rigidly (ibid. 16. 5. 40, 46). 
 
1 82 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 In this way it was that, by the help of the State, the 
 Christian Churches were consolidated into a great confe- 
 deration. Whatever weakness there was in the bond of 
 a common faith was compensated for by the strength of 
 civil coercion. But that civil coercion was not long 
 needed. For the Church outlived the power which had 
 welded it together. As the forces of the Empire be- 
 came less and less, the forces of the Church became 
 more and more. The Churches preserved that which 
 had been from the first the secret of Imperial strength. 
 For underneath the Empire which changed and passed, 
 beneath the shifting pageantry of Emperors who moved 
 across the stage and were seen no more, was the abid- 
 ing empire of law and administration, which changed 
 only as the deep sea changes beneath the wind-swept 
 waves. That inner empire was continued in the Chris- 
 tian Churches. In the years of transition from the 
 ancient to the modern world, when all civilized society 
 seemed to be disintegrated, the confederation of the 
 Christian Churches, by the very fact of its existence 
 upon the old imperial lines, was not only the most 
 powerful, but the only powerful organization in the 
 civilized world. It was so vast, and so powerful, that 
 it seemed to be, and there were few to question its 
 being, the visible realization of that Kingdom of God 
 which our Lord Himself had preached of that 
 ' Church' which He had purchased with His own blood. 
 There seemed to loom out in all its grandeur before the 
 eyes of men the vision of a vast empire, of which, as of 
 the ancient kingdom of David or of Solomon, the boun- 
 daries could be told and the members enumerated. The 
 
 
VIL] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 183 
 
 metaphors in which the Jewish Rabbis had spoken of 
 the ancient Israel, and the metaphors which had been 
 consecrated by inspired writers to the service of the 
 new Israel, were applied to it. This confederation, and 
 no other, was the ' city of God ;' this, and no other, was 
 the ' body of Christ ;' this, and no other, was the * Holy 
 Catholic Church/ In it were fulfilled the ancient types. 
 It was the Paradise in which the regenerated souls of 
 the new creation might walk, as Adam walked, and eat 
 without the threatening of a curse the fruit of the tree 
 of knowledge 28 . It was the ark of Noah, floating with 
 its rescued multitude of holy souls over the moving 
 waters of this world's troubled sea 29 . It was Solomon's 
 temple whose golden roofs glistened with a divine 
 splendour through the dark world's mists and storms, 
 and whose courts were thronged with the new priests 
 and people of God holding sacred converse, and offering 
 spiritual sacrifices upon its altars 30 . It was the new 
 Jerusalem into which ' the sons of them that had 
 afflicted her ' came bending, and whose ' sun could no 
 more go down 31 / It was the ' fenced garden ' of Solo- 
 mon's Song, and in its midst was a well of living water, 
 of which all who drank were healed of sin 32 . It was 
 
 28 E. g. St. August. De Genesi, lib. xi. c. 25, Op. ed. Migne, vol. iii. p. 442, De 
 Civit. Dei, lib. xiii.c. 21, vol. vii. p. 395.Pseudo-Ambros. In Apocal. Expos, de Vis. 
 tert. c. 6, vol. ii. pars ii. p. 520. 
 
 29 E.g. St. August. In Joann. Tract. 6, c. i. 19, vol. iii. p. 1434, Epist. 187. 
 (57), vol. ii. p. 847, De Catechiz. Rud, c. 32, vol. vi. p. 334: St. Hilar. Pictav. 
 Tract, in Ps. cxlvi. c. 12, vol. i. p. 638, ed. Ben. : St. Maxim. Taurin. Serm. 114, p. 
 641 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. 35, c. 8, vol. i. p. 1 149, Epist. lib. ii. 46, vol. ii. p. 1 133. 
 
 30 E. g. St. Ambros. Expos. Evang. sec. Luc. lib. 2, c. 89, vol. i. p. 1311. 
 
 31 E. g. St. August. De Civit. Dei, lib. 17, c. 16, vol. vii. p. 549 : Prosper. Aquitan. 
 Expos. Psalm, cxxxi. v. 13, p. 483 : St. Hieron. Comm. in Zach. lib 3, c. 14, vol. vi. p. 
 932- 
 
 32 E. g. St. Optat. De Schism. Donat. 2. 13: St. August. De, Baptism, c. Donat. 
 
184 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 like the widow of Sarepta, whose cruse of oil never 
 failed 33 . It was like the Queen of Sheba, always gather- 
 ing some new knowledge, and marvelling at some new 
 wonder, among the treasures of the distant Lord 34 . 
 There was hardly a hero of Hebrew story whose life 
 did not seem to prefigure the fortunes and the one- 
 ness and the glory of this vast organized aggregate 
 of believing souls 35 . 
 
 It is impossible not to sympathize with the poetry 
 and with the hope. 
 
 But if we look more closely at the assumption upon 
 which all this is founded the assumption that the 
 metaphors in which the Church of Christ is described 
 in Scripture are applicable only to this confederation 
 which the State had recognized and consolidated, that 
 whatever is predicated in the New Testament of the 
 Church of Christ is predicated of it, and it only, that 
 
 lib. 5. 27, vol. ix. p. 195, Contra Crescon. lib. 2. 13, vol. ix. p. 477, ibid. lib. 4. 63, 
 vol. ix. p. 590 : St. Maxim. Taurin. Serm. 15, p. 433. 
 
 33 E. g. St. Ambros. De Viduis, c. 3, vol. ii. p. 190 : Caesar. Arelat. Serm. de 
 Elisaeo in Append, ad. St. August. Op. vol. v. Serm. 42, p. 1828: St. Greg. M. 
 Horn, in Ezech. lib. I, horn. 4. 6, vol. i. p. 1194. 
 
 34 E.g. St. Hilar. Pictav. Tract, in Psalm, cxxi. 0.9, Pseudo- August. Serm. 231 
 (253), in Append, ad St. August. Op. vol. v. p. 2172. 
 
 35 E. g. the Church is compared to Eve, as being the ' mater vivorum,' St. 
 August. De Genesi, 2. 24, vol. ii. p. 215, Enarr. in Psalm, cxxvi. c. 8, vol. iv. p. 
 1673 : St. Maxim. Taurin. Horn. 55, p. 172, Serm. 34, p. 486 ; to Sarah, St. Ambros. 
 De Abraham, lib. i. c. 4, vol. i. p. 294 : to Rachel, ' diu sterilis, nunc vero fecunda' 
 St. Hilar. Pictav. Comm. in Matt. c. 1.7, vol. i. p. 672 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. xxx. 
 c. 25, vol. i. p. 988 : to Rebecca, St. Ambros. De Jacob, lib. i, c. 2, vol. i. p. 461 : St. 
 August. Enarr. in Psalm, cxxvi. c. 8, vol. iv. p. 1673 ('quamdiu parturit ecclesia 
 ipsi sunt intus et boni et mali,' as Esau and Jacob struggled in the womb of 
 Rebecca), Serm. 4 (44), c. 1 1, vol. v. p. 39 : St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. xxxv. c. 16, vol. 
 i. p. 1 1 60: to Jephthah's daughter, St. August. Quaest. in Heptateuch, lib. 7, c. 
 51 : to Bathsheba, St. August. In Faust. Manich. 23. 87, vol. viii. p. 459, Cassiodor, 
 Expos, in Psalm. I. ed. Garet, vol. ii. p. 169 : to Esther, St. Hieron. Epist. 53 (103), 
 c. 7, vol. i p. 279 : to Judith, St. Hieron. Epist. 79 (9), vol. i. p. 508. 
 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 185 
 
 this confederation, and no other, is the Church of Christ 
 in its visible and earthly form we shall find that 
 assumption attended with difficulties which do not 
 readily admit of solution. 
 
 (i) In the first place, there is no proof that the con- 
 federation was ever complete in the sense of embracing 
 all the communities to which by common consent the 
 name Christian was in its fullest sense applicable. For 
 the most part the Christian Churches associated them- 
 selves together upon the lines of the Roman Empire 36 : 
 and, so far, just as there were gradations of dioceses, 
 provinces, and municipalities in the one, so were there 
 gradations of exarchs or patriarchs, metropolitans, and 
 bishops in the other. But some churches remained 
 independent. They were not subordinate to any other 
 church. Their bishops had no superior. They were 
 what the Notitiae, or lists of orthodox Churches, call 
 avroKe(j)a\oi 37 . They were in the position which Cyprian 
 
 36 It is important to notice, as corroborating this general view, that when the 
 ecclesiastical organization passed outside the network of the imperial organization, 
 it changed its character : in Ireland, for example, ' the spiritual jurisdiction of the 
 bishops was coextensive with the temporal sway of the chieftain ' (Reeves, Ecclesi- 
 astical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore, Append, p. 303) : the limits of 
 both the one and the other were continually shifting, and dioceses in the ordinary 
 sense did not exist until the Synod of Rath Breasail in A.D. 1141 (ibid. pp. 135, 
 
 139)- 
 
 a7 Nilus Doxapatrius, Notitia Patriarckatuum, ed. Parthey, p. 284, ttoi 8% 
 rives at ov TtXovai viro TWV pcyiffTcav Opovcav uffirep /cal fj vrjffos Kvirpos T) 
 ai>TOKf<pa\os iravTeXws Kal (AT)8evi Qpovca TWV neyiarcav viroKfipevrj d\\' 
 avTfovffios ovoa 8ta TO evpfdfjvai kv avry rov dn6ffTo\ov Bapvdfiav f-^ovra firiarrjOiov 
 TO fcaTo. MdpKov ayiov Evayy\tov : so also of Cyprus in the Notitia compiled by the 
 authority of the Emperor Leo Sapiens, ed. Parthey, p. 93 : and of Armenia, ibid. p. 
 90. In the same way, though the fact is not recognised in the Notitiae, there is 
 no proof whatever either that the early British Churches were subordinate as a 
 whole to any other church, or that their bishops recognised any gradation of rank 
 among themselves. 
 
1 86 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 had in earlier times asserted to be the true position of 
 all bishops : their responsibility was to God alone. 
 
 (2) In the second place, there is no proof that the 
 terms of confederation were ever settled. The fact that 
 the State did not tolerate any Churches which were not 
 recognized by the confederation is not pertinent to the 
 purely ecclesiastical question. There is no proof that 
 it was not possible for any Church to refuse to admit 
 to communion the members of other Churches, with as 
 little formality as it had accepted them. There is no 
 proof that intercommunion ever changed its original 
 character of a voluntary contract a corollary of the 
 goodwill and amity which one Christian community 
 should have towards another so as to become an in- 
 dissoluble bond. It would be a strong assertion to say 
 that God is always on the side of the majority: and 
 that, when the confederation was once formed, whatever 
 the majority of its members resolved upon was binding 
 de jure divino upon the minority. But this is the only 
 tenable position if it be asserted, as it sometimes is 
 asserted, that individual Churches which at any one 
 time sent deputies to the general council of the con- 
 federation, or admitted an appeal to such an assembly, 
 or admitted the other constituent members of such 
 an assembly to Church privileges, thereby forfeited for 
 all time to come their original right to independent 
 action. 
 
 (3) In the third place, there is no proof that the 
 words of Holy Scripture in which the unity of the 
 Church is expressed or implied refer exclusively, or at 
 all, to unity of organization. There is, on the othei 
 

 vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 187 
 
 hand, clear proof that they were in early times applied 
 to another kind of unity. 
 
 There have been in fact three forms which the con- 
 ception of unity has taken. 
 
 In the earliest period the basis of Christian fellowship 
 was a changed life f repentance toward God and faith 
 toward our Lord Jesus Christ 38 / It was the unity of 
 a common relation to a common ideal and a common 
 hope. The contention of those w 7 ho looked upon Chris- 
 tians as a whole was that they were * not under the law 
 but under grace' that they were, as one of the earliest 
 Christian writings phrases it, a rp'nov yevo? neither 
 Jews nor Gentiles, but a class apart 39 . The word 
 * Church ' is used for the aggregate of Christians, * the 
 general assembly of the firstborn,' but the hypothesis of 
 its use for that aggregate conceived as a mass of organ- 
 izations seems to be excluded by its having been said 
 to have existed before the world, and to have been 
 ' manifested in the body of Christ 40 .' 
 
 38 Acts 20. 21. 
 
 39 Kypvyna Tlfrpov ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. 6. 5, p. 650 ; Hilgenfeld, Novum Tes- 
 tamentum extra canonem receptum, Fasc. iv. p. 58 : so Tertull. Scorpiace 10 ' usque 
 quo genus tertium.' This separate existence of Christianity is strongly asserted 
 by St. Ignatius, e. g. Ad Magnes. 9. 10, Ad Philad. 6. 8. 
 
 10 2 Clem. Rom. 14 ' So then, brethren, if we do the will of God our Father, we 
 shall be of the first, the spiritual, Church, which was created before the sun and 
 moon : but if we do not the will of the Lord, we shall fall under the Scripture 
 which says "My house became a den of robbers." So then let us choose to be of 
 the Church of Life, that we may be saved. But I think that ye are not ignorant 
 that the living Church is the Body of Christ : (for the Scripture says, " God made 
 man male and female : " the male is Christ, the female is the Church), and that 
 the Scriptures and the Apostles tell us not only that the Church exists but that it 
 is from above (avwOtv}. For it was spiritual, as also was our Jesus, and was mani- 
 fested in the last days to save us. Now the Church, being spiritual, was mani- 
 fested in the flesh of Christ, showing us that if any of us keep it in the flesh and 
 corrupt it not, he will receive it in the Holy Spirit.' Similarly, Herm. Vis. 2. 4. I 
 
1 88 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 In the second period, the idea of definite belief as 
 a basis of union dominated over that of a holy life 41 . 
 The meshes of the net were found to be too wide. The 
 simple creed of primitive days tended to evaporate into 
 the mists of a speculative theology. It became necessary 
 to define more closely the circle of admissible beliefs. 
 The contention of those who looked upon Christians as 
 a whole was that they were held together by their 
 possession of a true and the only true tradition of 
 Christian teaching. * There is one body of Christ/ 
 says Origen, ' but it has many members : and those 
 members are individual believers 42 .' Not until the 
 dispute between Cyprian and Novatian does the ques- 
 tion appear to have been raised whether those who 
 held the Catholic faith were bound to be members of 
 particular associations, or whether they had the right 
 to form associations for themselves 43 . 
 
 In the third period, insistence on Catholic faith had led 
 to the insistence on Catholic order for without order 
 dogma had no guarantee of permanence. Consequently 
 the idea of unity of organization was superimposed 
 upon that of unity of belief. It was held not to be 
 
 says that the Church ' was created first of all things, and for her sake the world 
 was framed.' 
 
 41 The phrase i) evcaffis rrjs tKK\r)ffias first appears in Hegesippus : but he 
 it in antithesis to alpeatis, and evidently implies that kind of unity which consis 
 in adherence to the Catholic tradition of Apostolic teaching : airb TOVTWV [i. e. 
 heresiarchs whom he had just mentioned] \f/ev86xpioroi, ifxvSoirpocpTJTai, i//fv8ar 
 <TTO\OI, oirivts ff^fpiaavr^v (v<aaiv rrjs (KKXrjaias (pOo pi patois \6yois K<n 
 rov 06o{) ai ward rov Xpiffrov avrov (Hegesipp. ap. Euseb. H. E. 4. 22. 5). 
 the following chapter Eusebius describes the letter of Dionysius of Corinth to 
 Lacedaemonians as opOo8oias Karrj-^riKri, eiprjvris rt KOI evwfffcas 
 
 42 Origen, c. Cels. 6. 48. 
 
 43 See above, Lecture IV, pp. 102-104. 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 189 
 
 enough for a man to be living a good life, and to hold 
 the Catholic faith and to belong to a Christian asso- 
 ciation : that association must be part of a larger 
 confederation, and the sum of such confederations 
 constituted the Catholic Church 44 . 
 
 This last is the form which the conception of unity 
 took in the fourth century, and which to a great extent 
 has been permanent ever since. 
 
 But both in the fourth century, and afterwards, it did 
 not gain its position of dominance without a struggle. 
 The same difficulty presented itself in early times 
 which has presented itself again and again in modern 
 
 44 This view is clearly expressed by the great Latin Fathers : e. g. St. August. 
 De Baptism, c. Donat. lib. 4, c. 18, vol. ix. p. 270 'Constituamus ergo aliquem castum, 
 continentem, non avarum, non idolis servientem, hospitalem indigentibus minis- 
 trantem, non cujusquam inimicum, non contentiosum, patientem, quietum, nullum 
 aemulantem, nulli invidentem, sobrium, frugalem, sed haereticum : nulli utique 
 dubium est propter hoc solum quod haereticus est regnum Dei non possessurum : V 
 id. Serm. ad Caesar. Eccles. plebem, c. 6, vol. ix. p. 695 ' extra ecclesiam catholicam 
 totum potest haberi praeter salutem. Potest habere honorem, potest habere 
 sacramentum, potest cantare Alleluia, potest respondere Amen, potest evangelium 
 tenere, potest in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti fidem et habere et 
 praedicare : sed nusquam nisi in ecclesia catholica salutem potest in venire.' St. Leon. 
 M. Serm. 79 (77), c. 2, vol. i. p. 317 extra ecclesiam catholicam nihil est integrum, 
 nihil castum, dicente Apostolo ' omne quod non est ex fide peccatum est :' cum 
 divisis ab unitate corporis Christi nulla similitudine comparamur, nulla commu- 
 nione miscemur.' St. Greg. M. Moral, lib. 14, c. 5. 5, vol. i. p. 457 'Sanctaautem 
 universalis ecclesia praedicat Deum veraciter nisi intra se coli non posse, asserens 
 quod omnes qui extra ipsam sunt minime salvabuntur.' (It is important to note the 
 wide difference of opinion on this point between the third century and the fifth : 
 Cyprian held, see supra, p. 171, the independence of particular churches : Augustine ( 
 advocated the subordination of particular churches to a confederation. A con- 
 venient modern account of Augustine's theory, which is the more important because 
 it has been the dominant theory on the subject ever since, will be found in two 
 Augustinische Studien by H. Reuter in the Zeitschrift f. kirchl. GeschicJite Bd. iv, 
 1880, (i) Zur Frage nach dem Verhaltniss der Lehre von der Kirche zu der Lehre 
 von der pradestinationischen Gnade, pp. 210 sqq , (2) Die Kirche das Seich Gottes 
 pp. 506 sqq.) 
 
190 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 times. How can an organization be said to be identical 
 with the Church of Christ when some of both its mem- 
 bers and its officers are in reality living unholy lives ? 
 The difficulty first took form in the time of Cyprian, 
 when the puritan party in the Church of Eome declined 
 to recognize the election of Cornelius. It was renewed 
 with a longer and more important struggle in the fourth 
 century by the great section of the African Churches of 
 which I have already spoken, and who were known as 
 Donatists. ' Above all other things,' said the Donatists, 
 ' the Church of Christ should be pure, and we defend 
 its purity 45 / Their opponents, chiefly St. Augustine, 
 pointed to the parable of the wheat and the tares. ' The 
 field is the world,' they said, c and the good and the bad 
 grow together until the harvest/ * The field is the 
 world,' replied the Donatists, 'and not the Church: it is 
 in the world and not in the Church that the good and 
 the bad are to grow together 46 / ' Your Catholic Church,' 
 they said to their opponents, ' is a geographical expres- 
 sion : it means the union of so many societies in so 
 many provinces or in so many nations : our Catholic 
 Church is the union of all those who are Christians in 
 deed as well as in word : it depends not upon inter- 
 communion, but upon the observance of all the divine 
 commands and Sacraments: it is perfect, and it is 
 immaculate 47 / 
 
 45 Gesta Collationis Carthag. iii. c. 258. ed. Dupin, p. 313. 
 
 49 Ibid. p. 314. 
 
 47 Gaudentius, a Donatist Bishop, says in the Gesta Collat. Carthag. iii. c. 102 
 ' Catholicum riomen putant [sc. Catholici] ad provincias vel ad gentes referendum, 
 cum hoc sit catholicum nomen quod sacramentis plenum est, quod perfectum, quod 
 mmaculatum, non ad gentes,' cf. St. Augustin. Epist. 93 (48), Op. ed. Migne, vol. 
 ii. 333 ' Acutum autem aliquid tibi videris dicere cum Catholicae nomen non 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the 
 
 The Donatists were crushed : but they were crushed 
 by the State. They had resisted State interference : 
 Quid Imperatori cum ecclesia? they asked 48 . But the 
 Catholic party had already begun its invocation of the 
 secular power : and the secular power made ecclesias- 
 tical puritanism a capital crime 49 . 
 
 The fame of the great theologian who, with somewhat 
 less of Christian charity than might have been expected 
 from so good a man, opposed the Donatists, and the 
 fact that as a matter of history they ultimately passed 
 out of existence, have caused the name of schism which 
 was given by their opponents to their movement to be 
 unquestioned by most historians. But though they were 
 crushed the question which they raised was not thereby 
 solved At what point did voluntary intercommunion 
 become an indissoluble bond \ In other words, assum- 
 ing that, in the opinion of a Church or group of 
 Churches, the dominant majority of an association to 
 which that Church or group of Churches has hitherto 
 been attached are lax in discipline or unsound in faith, 
 
 totius orbis communione interpretaris sed ex observatione praeceptorum omnium 
 divinorum atque omnium sacramentorum.' At the same time, although the ac- 
 counts which their opponents have transmitted to us may be exaggerated, there 
 can be little doubt that the Donatists counted among their followers many who 
 were far from realizing the ideal purity of their leaders. 
 
 48 The expression is that of the Donatist bishops at the Council of Carthage in 
 A.D. 348 (St. Optat. De Schismat. Donatist. 3. 3, p. 55 : Monumenta Vetera ad Dona- 
 tistarum historiam pertinentia, Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. viii. 776). 
 
 49 After the conference between the Catholic and Donatist bishops in A.D. 411, 
 Marcellinus, the imperial tribune who presided, pronounced his sentence in which 
 he ordered all persons to join in putting down the Donatist assemblies, and the 
 Donatists themselves to hand over their buildings to the Catholics (Sententia Cog- 
 nitoris in the Append, ad Opp. S. Optati, ed. Dupin, p. 325) : as this did not prove 
 to be sufficient it was enacted three years later that the Donatists should lose the 
 privileges of Christians (Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 54), and in the following year that 
 they should be punished with death (Cod. Tbeodos. 16. 5. 56). 
 
1 92 Councils and the Unity of the Church. [LECT. 
 
 do the dissentients cease to be Catholic, or cease to be 
 Christian, when they decline any longer to be bound by 
 the resolutions of the association \ 
 
 And there are some no doubt who will think that 
 even this is but part of a larger question, and that the 
 real point at issue is not so much the terms of associa- 
 tion as its necessity. There are some who will look 
 back with lingering eyes at that earlier time in which 
 there was no formal association of Churches, but only 
 what Tertullian calls the ' communication of peace, the 
 appellation of brotherhood, the token of hospitality, 
 and the tradition of a single creed 50 / There are some 
 who will think that the effect of the enormous power 
 which the Roman Empire in the first instance, and the 
 fall of the Roman Empire in the second instance, gave 
 to the association has been to exaggerate its importance, 
 and to make men forget that there is a deeper unity 
 than that of external form. 
 
 For the true communion of Christian men the 
 ' communion of saints ' upon which all Churches are 
 built is not the common performance of external acts, 
 but a communion of soul with soul and of the soul with 
 Christ. It is a consequence of the nature which God 
 has given us that an external organization should help 
 our communion with one another : it is a consequence 
 both of our twofold nature, and of Christ's appointment 
 that external acts should help our communion with 
 Him. But subtler, deeper, diviner, than anything of 
 which external things can be either the symbol or the 
 
 60 Tertull. De Praescr. Haeret. 20. 
 
vii.] Councils and the Unity of the Church. 193 
 
 bond is that inner reality of essence of union that 
 interpenetrating community of thought and character 
 which St. Paul speaks of as the 'unity of the Spirit,' 
 and which in the sublimest of sublime books, in the 
 most sacred of sacred words, is likened to the oneness 
 of the Son with the Father and of the Father with the 
 Son 51 . 
 
 51 S. John 17. n, 21. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE PARISH AND THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 IN preceding Lectures I have endeavoured to trace 
 the successive steps by which the simple communities 
 of Apostolic times resulted in the vast and complex 
 confederation which we find in existence at the fall of 
 the Western Empire. How that confederation deve- 
 loped into the still more complex system which we find 
 in the Middle Ages, is a problem so intricate, so in- 
 teresting, and in many respects so important, as to 
 deserve more attention than it has hitherto received 
 from those who make historical problems their study. 
 And although the complete solution of that problem 
 is beyond alike my province and my powers, and 
 although in the short compass of a single Lecture 
 I cannot do more than draw the rough outlines of 
 a great picture, yet I cannot so far leave the general 
 subject incomplete as to refrain from pointing out the 
 chief links which connect the organization of the 
 early Churches with the organization of mediaeval, 
 and thereby virtually of modern, times. 
 
 The two chief links are the Parish, and th< 
 Cathedral. 
 
 The Parish, as we see it in Western Christendoi 
 
The Parish and the Cathedral. 195 
 
 owes its origin to several causes, and is the final result 
 of several earlier forms. The TrapoiKia of early days was 
 neither a parish nor a diocese, but the community of 
 Christians living within a city or a district, regarded 
 in relation to the non-Christian population which sur- 
 rounded it *. Every such community seems to have had 
 a complete organization, and there is no trace of the 
 dependence of any one community upon any other. 
 But, as time went on, there were several groups of 
 circumstances which modified in various ways this 
 original completeness and autonomy. 
 
 (i) The first of these circumstances were those of 
 the great cities, in which a single building was not 
 large enough to contain the whole assembly of the 
 faithful. In them the tradition of unity, the analogy 
 of the municipal corporations, and possibly also the 
 personal predominance of the bishop, seem to have 
 prevented the multiplication of organizations. The 
 most important instance is that of Borne, which in this, 
 as in some other respects, preserved for many centuries 
 an exceptional simplicity. For eleemosynary and disci- 
 plinary purposes that city was divided into districts 
 (' regiones '), each of which was entrusted to a deacon, 
 who reported to the bishop the temporal wants, or the 
 moral delinquencies, of those Christians who resided 
 in them 2 . For purposes of worship congregations seem 
 to have been gathered together wherever convenience 
 
 1 See Lecture III, note 15, and my article 'Parish' in the Dictionary of Chris- 
 tian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1554. 
 
 2 Liber Pontificalis, Vit. Caii, p. 29 : Ordo Eomanus I, p. 3, ap. Mabillon, Mus. 
 Ital. vol. ii. Cf. ibid. Comm. praev. in Ord. Rom. p. xvii. See also Gregorovius, 
 Geschichte der Stadt Bom. Bd. i. p. 78, 2** Aufl. : Nardini, Roma Antica, ed. Nibby, 
 vol. i. p. 1 24 sqq. : De Rossi, Roma Sotteranea, vol. iii. p. 515. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 suggested or the law allowed in public buildings, in 
 private houses, and in the catacombs 3 . When the 
 altered relations of Christianity to the State permitted 
 the same congregation to meet regularly in the same 
 place, one or more presbyters seem to have been 
 temporarily or permanently detached from the bishop's 
 council to preside over it : but the theory that the 
 church of the city was one, though locally divided, was 
 preserved by a practice of which there is no clear trace 
 elsewhere. There continued to be, as there had pro- 
 bably been in the infant community of Apostolic days, 
 only one consecration of the Eucharistic elements. The 
 bishop and his clergy consecrated in one of the churches 
 enough bread and wine for all the faithful in the city, 
 and sent the consecrated elements round by the hands 
 of messengers to the several presbyters and congre- 
 gations 4 . In this way they were all literally ' partakers 
 of that one bread,' and so realized with a vividness 
 which later usage weakened that they were ' one body/ 
 (2) Another group of circumstances was that of 
 suburban or rural districts and their outlying hamlets. 
 In the civil government two systems prevailed in such 
 
 3 Cf. De Rossi, Roma Sotteranea, vol. i. pp. 199 sqq., vol. ii. pp. 478 sqq., and 
 Kraus's article in his Real-Encyclopddie, s. v. Basiliken. 
 
 * St. Innocent I. Epist, ad Decent, c. 5 ' De ferraento [sc. the consecrated elements] 
 vero quod die dominico per titulos [sc. the parishes within the city] mittimus 
 superflue nos consulere voluistis quod omnes ecclesiae vestrae intra civitatem sint 
 constitutae. Quarum presbyteri quia die ipso propter plebem sibi creditam nobis- 
 cum convenire non possunt, idcirco fermentum a nobis confectum per acolythos 
 accipiunt ut se a nostra communione maxime ilia die non judicent separates : ' (he 
 goes on to disallow the practice in he case of cemeteries and outlying parishes on 
 the ground that ' non longe portanda sunt sacramenta'). See also Liber Pontif. 
 Vit. Melchiad. p. 33, Vit. Siric. p. 55 : Mabillon, Comm. praev. in Ord. Rom. p. 
 xxxviii. in Mus. Ital. vol. ii : Buna, De Rebus Liturgids vol. ii. p. 205 : Baronius 
 ad ann. 313, xlix. 
 
vin.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 197 
 
 cases : sometimes such districts were within the juris- 
 diction of the magistrates of a neighbouring city 5 , and 
 sometimes they .had magistrates of their own 6 . There 
 were, similarly, two systems of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment. In Syria and some parts of Asia Minor the sub- 
 urban and rural communities seem to have had a com- 
 plete organization : but the bishop of such a community 
 was held not to be of the same rank as the bishop of 
 a city, and had a special name eTnWoTro? TWV aypw, or 
 XcopeTTta-KOTTos 7 . This system gradually fell into disuse, 
 though not complete disuse, in the East, and does not 
 appear to have existed in early times in the West 8 . In 
 the eighth century, however, when there was one of 
 those antiquarian revivals which have taken place from 
 time to time in the history of the Church, it was 
 
 5 The name for the district to which a city formed the centre of administration 
 was 'regio' (Siculus Flaccus, ed. Lachmann, Gromatici, p. 135), ' territorium ' 
 (Digest. 50. 16. 239. 8), Sioixijais (Cic. ad Fam. 13. 53). The two latter names 
 came to be used for the same districts in their ecclesiastical relations to the 
 bishop of the city church : ('territorium' is so used: e.g. 2. Cone. Arelat. c. 23, 
 1 Cone. Aurel. c. 17, 3 Cone. Aurel. c. 18) : 'dioecesis ' was sometimes also used for 
 the district entrusted to a single presbyter the modern ' parish,' ' paroecia (paro- 
 chia),' being used in the wider sense of the bishop's district ; ultimately, however, 
 though not until far on in the middle ages, ' diocese ' came to be generally used in 
 the wider, ' parish. ' in the narrower sense : for some instances of the variations in 
 the use of the terms see Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. ' Parish,' vol. ii. 
 
 P- 1554- 
 
 6 For the details of organization of country districts which were not within the 
 'territorium' of a city see Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. i. pp. 7-17- 
 
 7 First mentioned in Cone. Ancyr. A.D. 314 c. 13, Cone. Neocaes. A.D. 314, c. 14, 
 Cone. Nicaen. c. 8, Cone. Antioch. c. 10. For an important indication of the rela- 
 tion of chorepiscopi to city bishops see Basil's letter to his Chorepiscopi (Epist. 54 
 (181), Op. ed. Ben. vol. iv. p. 148). 
 
 8 Denzinger, Eltus Orientalium, vol. i. p. 121, following J. S. Assemann, Bibl. 
 Oriental, vol. iii. pars ii. p. 829, says that the Maronites have two kinds of chor- 
 episcopi, one being a survival of the ancient rural bishops, the other being equivalent 
 to the city archpresbyters of the Western organization. Among the Nestorians 
 (Denzinger, vol. i. p. 126) the chorepiscopi survive as rural officers, but with the 
 rank and functions only of the rural archpresbyters of the West. 
 
198 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 instituted in the Frankish domain : but some incon- 
 veniences soon arose : the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals 
 made the system a principal object of attack : and 
 in the tenth century it had almost altogether passed 
 away 9 . Of the other system the chief early traces are 
 found in the suburbs of the greater cities, especially 
 Home and Alexandria. At Alexandria, for example, the 
 Christians who lived in the outlying suburbs, and 
 in the adjacent district of Mareotis, were regarded as 
 members of the bishop's church, and, though the several 
 congregations met in separate buildings, they had no 
 separate constitution, but a presbyter was detached 
 from the bishop's church to preside over each of them 10 . 
 They were analogous to the 'chapels of ease' of our 
 own organization. The presbyter who presided was 
 apparently competent, quoad sacra, to perform the 
 
 9 The only mention of chorepiscopi in Western canons before the ninth century 
 is in Cone. Regens. A.D. 439, c. 3, which treats an irregularly ordained bishop as the 
 Council of Nicsea had resolved to treat Novatian bishops : i. e. it gives him the 
 inferior rank of chorepiscopus. But in the eighth century, when, as is evident from 
 the translation of early Eastern canons and their repeated incorporation in the 
 Capitularies, there was a determined effort on the part of some Frankish bishops to 
 revive the early Eastern usages, the office of chorepiscopus was revived. In the 
 following century a strong reaction set in, the chief reason for which was probably 
 the fact that the civil power used the chorepiscopi as a foil against the bishops. 
 Hence the pseudo- Isidore (e. g. Damasi, De vana Corepiscoporum Superstitione 
 ritanda, ed. Hinschius, Decret. pseudo- Isidor. p. 509) set himself to show in 
 vehement language that the chorepiscopi, in spite of their name, were properly 
 not bishops but presbyters, and therefore incompetent to discharge episcopal 
 functions: on the other hand, Hrabanus Maurus defended their episcopal cha- 
 racter (De Chorepiscopis, Opusc. ii. Op. ed. Migne, Pair. Lat. vol. ex. p. 1 195). For 
 the details of the controversy, especially in relation to the Decretals, see Weiszacker, 
 Der Kampf gegen dem Chorepiscopat des frankischen Reichs in neunten Jahrhun- 
 dert, Tubingen 1859 : also an article by the same writer in von Sybel's Historische 
 Zeitschrift for 1860, pp. 42 sqq., and by van Noorden in the same journal for 1862, 
 pp. 311 sqq. 
 
 10 St. Epiphan.^efo. ffaeres. 68. 4: 69. i : Socrat. H. E. i. 27 : Sozom. H.E. I. 
 15 : St. Athanas. Apol. c. Arian. cc. 63, 85, vol. i. pp. 143, 158. 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 199 
 
 functions which in the central church were performed 
 by the bishop : but the high dignity of the bishop of 
 Alexandria, who reflected and rivalled the dignity and 
 jurisdiction of the civil prefect, and for whom no higher 
 title than that of bishop had as yet been found, en- 
 forced a subordination which in a smaller city might 
 have been abnormal, and made the district of which 
 Alexandria was the centre the earliest example of a 
 modern 'diocese/ 
 
 (3) Another group of circumstances was that of 
 the small scattered villages of the East, which were 
 neither in the neighbourhood of a great city nor in 
 themselves sufficiently large to furnish the elements 
 of a complete organization. In them two of the resi- 
 dents seem to have been appointed as presbyters, and 
 two others as deacons 11 , but the bishop was itinerant 
 (TrepioSevrfa), travelling from one community to another 12 . 
 When the later diocesan system came to prevail, the 
 itinerant bishop preserved his designation but lost his 
 functions : the name still lingers in some Eastern 
 Churches, but the functions are only those of a Western 
 ' rural dean 13 / 
 
 11 This is an inference from an existing inscription of A. D. 354 at Eitha (El-hlt) 
 in Batanea (Le Bas et Waddington, Inscriptions Grecques et Latines, vol. iii. No. 
 2124, = Corpus Inscr. Graec. No. 8819), where the clergy consist of two presbyters, 
 one of whom was also archimandrite of the local monastery, and two deacons, one 
 of whom was also oifcovopos or ' bursar.' 
 
 12 UfpioSevrai are mentioned in Cone. Laod. c. 57, which forbids the appoint- 
 ment of any other class of bishops in villages and country districts : in the ency- 
 clical letter of Gennadius of Constantinople, A.D. 459, ap. Mansi, Concilia, vol. vii. 
 911, and in Cod. Justin. I. 3. 42 (41), 9 : also in inscriptions, in the Hauran, Le 
 Bas et Waddington, No. 2011, inPalmyrene, ibid. No. 2633, and in Phrygia, Corpus 
 Inscr. Graec. No. 8822. 
 
 13 They remain among the Jacobite Syrians, the Maronites, and the Nestorians : 
 Denzinger, Ritm Orientalium, vol. i. pp. 118, lai, 126. 
 
2oo The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 (4) Another group of circumstances was that of 
 the great estates, upon which many Christians were 
 resident, but which probably lay outside the jurisdic- 
 tion of the municipal magistrates 14 . The fact that the 
 owner was supreme, and that all others who lived on 
 an estate were either serfs or slaves, probably prevented 
 the free growth of that kind of organization which had 
 come to exist elsewhere. The owner seems to have 
 appointed church officers as he would have appointed 
 farm-bailiffs. He could do so of his own mere motion, 
 without regard to the ecclesiastical organization of 
 any other place, because there was no one whose rights 
 were thereby touched. Dioceses in the later sense of 
 the term did not yet exist, and the system of subor- 
 dinating one community to another had hardly begun. 
 But the system led to abuses, especially when Arian 
 and other non-Catholic opinions were abroad. Some 
 owners appointed to office on their estates persons whose 
 opinions were heretical 15 : a limitation of the rights of 
 owners in this respect became necessary in the interests 
 of orthodoxy: and the imperial legislation, with its 
 usual support of the Catholic party, enacted that any 
 presbyter who was appointed to minister on an estate 
 
 14 For the internal economy of these great estates, which survived the fall of the 
 Empire and formed the most important element in the economical history of 
 Europe during many succeeding centuries, see Savigny, Ueber den romischen 
 Colonat in his Vermischte Schriften, Bd. ii, and Kuhn, Die utadtische und biirgerliche 
 Verfassung des romischen Eeichs, I Theil, pp. 257 eqq. 
 
 15 This is clear from the repeated provisions of the Civil Law for cases in 
 which heretics were allowed or appointed to minister on estates : viz. laws of 
 Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius in A. D. 392, Cod. Theodos. 16. 5. 21 : of 
 Arcadius and Honorius in A. D. 398, ibid. 16. 5. 34, in A. D. 399, ibid. 16. 5. 36, 
 in A.D. 407, ibid. 16. 5. 40: of Honorius and Theodosius in A.D. 414, ibid. 16. 
 5- 54. 6. 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 201 
 
 should first be approved by the bishop of the neigh- 
 bouring city 16 . This enactment seems to have been 
 evaded by ceasing to appoint presbyters. The imperial 
 legislation consequently interfered again, and prohibited 
 laymen from meeting for public worship without the 
 presence of an authorized officer 17 . But, subject to this 
 limitation, the right of an owner to appoint his own 
 church officers remained, and probably constituted the 
 principal source from which has flowed the modern 
 system of patronage 18 . 
 
 (5) The circumstances out of which the modern 
 Parish was more directly produced were those of Gaul 
 and Spain. The original Christians of those great 
 provinces of the West seem to have consisted almost 
 entirely of inhabitants of the Eoman towns. These 
 towns were the civilized centres of semi-civilized 
 districts, and they were seldom situated off the lines 
 of the great military roads. Each of them had a 
 
 16 Justin. Novell. 57, c. 2, A. D. 537. 
 
 17 Ibid. 123, c. 32 : 131, c. 8, A.D. 545. 
 
 18 It is clear, from the repeated enactments on the subject in the Carolingian 
 capitularies, that, in spite of both civil and canon law, laymen frequently appointed 
 and dismissed clerks without reference to a bishop : but the legislation of the 
 Frankish kings, though sometimes at variance with their own practice, was 
 decisive in favour of the rights of bishops, and at the same time guarded that right 
 with the provision that a bishop should not reject a clerk who was presented for 
 approval, except in case of evident scandal : (Karoli M., Edictum pro Episcopis, 
 A.D. 800, ap. Pertz, M. H. G. Legum vol. i. p. 81 : Capit. General. Aquens. A.'D. 802, 
 c. 13, ibid. p. 106: Capit. de Presbyter. A.D. 809, c. 2, ibid. p. 161 : Except. Can. 
 A. D. 813, c. 2, ibid. p. 189 : Hludowic, Capit. Aquisgran. A.D. 817, c. 9, ibid. p. 207 : 
 Constit. Wormat. A.D. 829, c. 15, ibid. p. 337: Constit. Wormal. Petit, c. 12, ibid. 
 p. 340: Capit. Wormat. c. i, ibid. p. 350: Convent. Ticin. I.e. 18, A.D. 850, ibid. 
 P- 399 : Convent. Ticin. II. A.D. 855, ibid. p. 431 : Karoli II. Edict. Pistens. c. 2, 
 A.D. 861, ibid. p. 489). For a sketch of the history of patronage see my article 
 'Patron' in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1575: and 'for a 
 more complete account Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestant n 
 in Deutschland, 3 er Bd. Berlin, 1880. 
 
2O2 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 municipal organization, and each of them had also its 
 place in the perfect framework of the provincial system. 
 So closely did the ecclesiastical organization follow the 
 civil organization, and so firm was its hold upon society, 
 that in the France of the present day, with hardly an 
 exception, there is a bishop wherever there was a 
 Roman municipality, and an archbishop wherever there 
 was a provincial metropolis 19 . As the municipal organ- 
 ization became weak the ecclesiastical organization 
 became strong: Christianity was so enormous a factor 
 in contemporary society, that the bishops gradually 
 took the place of the Roman magistrate and exercised 
 some of the civil jurisdiction which had belonged to 
 him. Consequently, when the native Celts or the 
 newly-settled Teutons began to be converted in large 
 numbers to Christianity, the ' castellum ' or * pagus ' in 
 which they lived, instead of receiving a separate organ- 
 ization with a bishop at its head, was regarded as being 
 under the control of the bishop of the chief town of the 
 civil district within which it was situated. The church 
 officers of such a * castellum ' or ' pagus ' were properly 
 officers of the bishop's church, temporarily detached, 
 
 19 E.g. in the province of Lugdunensis Senonia ( = quarta), Sens, the ancient 
 metropolis, is still an archbishopric, and of the other municipalities which are 
 mentioned in the Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum (of the fourth century A.D. : 
 see Desjardins, Geographie de la Gaule d'apres la Table de Peutinger, p. Ixxx. table 
 iii : Brambach in the Rheinisches Museum, 1868, vol. xxxiii. p. 262 sqq.) : Chartres, 
 Auxerre, Autun, Orleans, and Meaux, are bishoprics, and Paris an archbishopric : 
 (some, probably later, MSS. of the Notitia add Nevers, which became a bishopric 
 in the fifth century : see Brambach, I. c.) : so in the province of Lugdunensis 
 Secunda, Rouen is still an archbishopric, and the other civitates of the ancient 
 province are bishoprics, Bayeux, Avranches, Evreux, Se"ez, Lisieux, and Coutances. 
 Kuhn, Ueber die Entstehung der Stddte der Alien, Leipsig, 1878, p. 439, says that 
 the existence of a bishop in a given city is a proof of its having had municipal 
 independence. 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 203 
 
 but required at certain periods to return and always 
 liable to recall 20 . The important modification of this 
 system by which such church officers became permanent 
 is the result of endowment. For the endowment of a 
 church, in either a small town or a country district, 
 came to be regarded as constituting the duly appointed 
 officers of that church tenants for life : they could not 
 be ejected, except after due process of law, either by 
 their congregations or by the bishop and his council : 
 nor were they any longer dependent upon the bishop for 
 their means of subsistence 21 . At one time the detach- 
 
 20 Cone. Tarracon. A. D. 516, c. 7, requires all parish clergy to return to the 
 bishop's church on Saturday evenings ' quo facilius die dominico solemnitas cum 
 omnium praesentia celebretur:' I Cone. Arvern. A. D. 535, limits this necessary 
 presence in the bishop's church to the clergy of oratories or chapels, and to the 
 greater festivals : Cone. Emerit. A. D. 666, empowers a bishop to recall parish 
 clergy from their parishes and attach them to his cathedral. 
 
 21 Lands were originally given to the church of which a bishop was the imme- 
 diate head, i. e. to what in later times would have been termed a cathedral or 
 a diocese : unlike the ordinary oblations, which were divided in certain propor- 
 tions between the bishop and the clergy, they were in the special disposition of 
 the bishop (i Cone. Aurel. A. D. 511, c. 14: so even of lands specially given for the 
 endowment of parish churches, 3 Cone. Tolet. A. D. 589, c. 19, 4 Cone. Tolet. A. D. 
 ^33' c. 33), and from the point of view of a canonist the origin of ecclesiastical 
 benefices is that ' ipsa bona ecclesiae quasi in quasdam portiones singulis titulis 
 annexas dividi et a communi massa bonorum ecclesiae separari coeperunt ' (Van 
 Espen, Jus. Eccles. Univ. pars ii. Sect. iv. Tit. i. 3). The usufruct of certain of 
 these lands was granted by a bishop to the clergy either of his own church or of 
 detached parishes : provision was made on the part of the church that the ordinary 
 law of prescription should not apply (i Cone. Aurel. c. 23, Cone. Epaon. A. D. 517, 
 c. 1 8), and on the part of the grantees that the grant should not lapse on the death 
 of the grantor (3 Cone. Aurel. A. D. 538, c. 17). How this system, in which the 
 endowments were personal, fused with the system of endowing churches on private 
 property, in which the Popes disallowed permanently-appointed presbyters (St. 
 Greg. M. Epist. i. 12, ad Castor. Arim. 9. 70, and 12. 12, ad Passiv. Firman. 9. 
 84, ad Benen. Tundar.: St. Zachar. Papae, Epist. 8 ad Pippin, c. 15, ap. Codex 
 Carolinus. ed. Jaffe", p. 26, probably quoting pseudo-Pelag. Papae, Epist. ad 
 Eleuther. ap. Holsten. Coll. Rom. vol. i. p. 234), and developed into the later system 
 of ecclesiastical benefices, in which particular lands were assigned in perpetuity 
 to particular churches, and in which also the holder of the benefice was immovable, 
 
2O4 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 ment of such churches and their officers from the 
 bishop threatened to be complete : but the legislation 
 of the Carolingian kings restored the waning jurisdic- 
 tion of the bishops 22 : the bishop of the district within 
 which churches were situated was empowered to visit 
 them and their clergy were compelled to receive him : 
 he was entitled to receive certain specified dues, to 
 enquire into the degree to which the clergy conformed 
 to ecclesiastical rules, to hold courts of discipline, and 
 to perform that part of the baptismal ceremonies which 
 had come to be regarded in the Western Church as his 
 special function 23 . And so grew up those relations 
 
 except upon a sentence of an ecclesiastical court, confirmed by the Roman See, 
 (Decret. Eleuth. c. 2, Hinschius, Decret. Pseudo-Isid. p. 125), is a question of too 
 great intricacy to be discussed here : reference may be made to the general history 
 of 'beneficia' in Roth, Geschickte des Beneficialwesens, Erlangen, 1850, and to 
 Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken u. Protestanten in Deutschland, Berlin, 
 1878, Bd. ii. pp. 293, 366. 
 
 22 This is an inference partly from the fact mentioned above, note 18, that pres- 
 byters were frequently appointed to and ejected from parishes without reference 
 to the bishop, and partly from the repetition, which would have been unnecessary 
 if the rule had been generally acknowledged, of the enactment that presbyters 
 shall be subject to their bishop: e.g. Pippin. Capit. Vern. duplex, A.D. 755, c. 8, 
 Pertz, i. 24 ' ut omnes presbyteri qui in parrochia sunt sub potestate episcopi 
 debt-ant de eorum ordine et nullus presbiter non praesumat in ille parrochia nee 
 baptizare nee missas celebrare sine jussione episcopi in cujus parrochia est : ' so 
 Karlomann, Capit. A.D. 742, c. 3, Pertz, vol. i. p. 17: Pippin, Capit. Suession. c. 
 4, ibid. p. 21 ; Karol. M. Capit. General. A.D. 769, c. 8, ibid. p. 33. So also in the 
 Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, Epist. Clem. I. c. 36, ed. Hinschius, p. 41, and c. 70, 
 ibid. p. 57. 
 
 23 The visitation of detached churches by the bishop wifchin whose district they 
 were situated is found, as early as the fourth century, in e. g. Alexandria (St. 
 Athanas. Apol. c. Arian. c. 65, vol. i. p. 143), and in Gaul (Sulp. Sever. Dial. 2. 3, 
 ed. Halm. p. 183 : Cone. Taurin. A. D. 401, c. 2). The earliest express enactment 
 is probably 2 Cone. Brae. A.D. 572, c. I, which requires bishops to go round their 
 dioceses and examine their clergy ' quomodo ordinem baptismi teneant vel missarum 
 et quaecumque officia quomodo peragantur ;' after which they are to assemble the 
 people and warn them to flee from idols and from mortal sins. The rule is recog- 
 nized and repeated, though different objects are assigned for the visitation, in 4 
 Cone. Tolet. A.D. 633, c. 36, Cone. Emerit. A.D. 666, c. n, Karlomann, Capit. A.D. 
 
vin.] The Parish and the Catfiedral. 205 
 
 between the bishop of the central church and the 
 officers of detached churches which have lasted with- 
 out essential modification until modern times. 
 
 While the parochial system was thus shaping itself 
 the bishop's church preserved the main features of its 
 original constitution. 
 
 In early times, as we have seen, the bishop was not 
 what he has in many respects come to be in later times, 
 in the position of a monarch, but in that of the pre- 
 sident of a council. The presbyters who sat round him, 
 the deacons who stood immediately below him, were 
 integral elements in ecclesiastical administration. With- 
 out the assent of his council he could not legitimately 
 either deal with the church funds, or administer disci- 
 pline, or appoint persons to church office. On the 
 death of a bishop the earliest system of church govern- 
 ment revived : the council administered ecclesiastical 
 affairs with a complete authority 24 . Before the final 
 establishment of the parochial system all the presbyters 
 and deacons over whom the bishop presided were 
 ordinary members of that council. The fact that some 
 of them were temporarily detached to minister in 
 separate churches did not destroy the closeness of their 
 
 742, c. 3, Pertz, vol. i. p. 17, Pippin, Capit. Suession. A.D. 744, c. 4, ibid. p. 21. 
 Karoli M. Capit. General. A.D. 769, c. 7, ibid. p. 32 : but at the same time pro- 
 vision was made against the tendency of bishops to exact excessive fees and to 
 require excessive hospitality ; 2 Cone. Brae. A.D. 572, c. 2, 7 Cone. Tolet. A.D. 646, 
 c. 4, Karoli M. Capit. Langobard. c. 5, Pertz, vol. i. p. no, Karoli II. Synod, ap. 
 Tolos. A D. 844, c. 4, ibid. p. 379, Hludowic, Convent. Ticin. A.D. 855, c. 16, ibid. p. 
 
 432- 
 
 21 This is shown by the action of the presbyters and deacons of Rome on the 
 death of Fabian, and by Cyprian's letter to them (St. Cyprian. Epist. 30 (31), 9 (3), 
 pp. 549, 488, ed. Hartel). 
 
206 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 relation to the original church. When the bishop of 
 Borne came to have a preponderating influence in 
 Western Christendom, his council became so important 
 that some of the greatest dignitaries in Christendom 
 were willing to become, in name at least, parish clergy 
 in Rome, in order to have a voice in it. And hence it 
 is that, in at least the theory of its constitution, the 
 college of Roman parish clergy, who have retained in 
 the name ' Cardinal ' the original designation of the 
 permanent clergy of all parishes, has preserved to this 
 day the outline of the primitive type 25 . 
 
 In the greater part of the rest of Christendom 
 another system grew up inside the primitive system. 
 It arose out of the practice, of which I have already 
 spoken, of the clergy living together in the bishop's 
 house 26 . In Gaul and Spain that practice tended in 
 
 25 The term * cardinalis ' (from which the verb * incardinare ') was transferred 
 from the civil service of the Empire to denote a fixed officer (for its civil use see 
 Booking, Notit. Dignit. Orient, c. 5. 2, vol. i. pp. 24, 205). There is no early evi- 
 dence of its having been originally applied to other than presbyters and deacons : 
 but in the eleventh century it is used of acolytes (Comment. Election. Greg. VII. ap. 
 Jaffe", Monum. Gregor. p. 9), and of the seven bishops of neighbouring sees who 
 officiated by turns in the church of St. John Lateran, and who were consequently 
 ' Ecclesiae Lateranensis cardinales' (St. Petr. Damian. Epist. 2. I, ap. Migne, 
 Patrol. Lai. vol. cxliv. p. 254: the uncertain authority of the Liber Pontificalis, 
 Vit. Steph. III. (IV.) vol. ii. p. 284, assigns an earlier date to the creation of these 
 cardinal bishops). In the letters of Gregory the Great (e. g. lib. I. 15, 79), and 
 elsewhere, the word is in ordinary use for the permanent clergy of a parish, and it 
 is found as a common title in all the great churches of Christendom : e. g. Constan- 
 tinople, Milan, Naples, Cologne, Treves, Compostella, and London (see Muratori, 
 Antiq. Ital. vol. v. p. 163, and Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht, Bd. i. p. 318). The 
 admission of prelates and others from various parts of Christendom to the positions 
 which properly belonged to the actual clergy of the city of Rome dates from the 
 time when the holders of those positions came to have the uncontrolled election of 
 the most important personage in Christendom. The modern restriction of the 
 term to the Roman College dates from 1567, when Pius V formally disallowed its 
 use in any other sense. 
 
 26 See Lecture VI, p. 162. The later canon law based the practice upon a sup- 
 

 vui.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 207 
 
 the sixth and seventh centuries to become general. It 
 was fostered partly by the facilities which it offered 
 for guarding the celibacy of the clergy, and partly by 
 the introduction of that important change by which 
 instead of church officers being freely chosen by the 
 several communities from their adult members, youths 
 were dedicated early in life to the service of the 
 Church. The bishop's house was thus partly a monas- 
 tery, though without a monastic rule, and partly a 
 school at which younger clerks were taught and 
 trained 27 . Those who so lived in it, whether old or 
 young, bore the name which had originally been ap- 
 plied to all who were on the church-roll, and who were 
 in receipt of church-funds that of ' canonici 28 .' In 
 
 posed letter of Clement of Rome (Epist. Clement, quinta, ap. Hinschius, Decretales 
 pseudo-Isid. p. 65). 
 
 27 2 Cone. Tolet. A.D. 531, c. I, 4 Cone. Tolet. A.D. 633, c. 24 : 2 Cone. Vasens. 
 A. D. 529 requires all parish presbyters to receive into their houses and to train the 
 younger clerks. 
 
 28 The word canon was used in the late Latin for the fixed contribution of corn 
 or other produce paid by a province to Rome, e. g. ' Canon Aegypti,' Vopisc. Vit. 
 firm. c. 5, and hence for the total amount of such contributions which was avail- 
 able for distribution in fixed rations among the Roman populace, e. g. Cod. Theodos. 
 14. 15, 2, 6, Lamprid. Vit. Elagdb. c. 27; Spart. Vit. Sever, c. 8. It was conse- 
 quently used to denote the list of persons who were entitled to fixed allowances 
 from the church funds : this list, which was sometimes also called ' matricula ' (e. g. 
 Cone. Agath. A. D. 506, c. 2 ; 4 Cone. Aurel. A. D. 541, c. 1 3 ; Cone. Autissiod. A. D. 5 78, 
 c. 3.) comprehended not only the clergy but also other church officers (e. g. the 
 steward and the ' paramonarius,' Cone. Chalc. c. 2) and the virgins (Socrat. H. E. 
 I. 7> P- 47) probably also the poor, for, although there is no early evidence, the 
 terms ' in matricula positi,' ' matricularii ' (which Chrodegang, Regul. Canon, c. 34 
 uses as a synonym for ' canonici'), are used by a late writer for pensioners who re- 
 ceived regular allowances (pseudo-Testamentum S. Remig. Hem. ap. Flodoard, Hist. 
 Eccles. Sem. I. 18). The derivative ' canonicus ' is only found in use of clerks, but 
 it is used of all orders, e.g. of singers, Cone. Laod. c. 15 ; of readers, a Cone. Turon. 
 A.D. 567, c. 19 ; and of the clergy collectively, 3 Cone. Aurel. A.D. 538,0. n : and 
 there may be a relic of an earlier use in the fact that laymen were sometimes ex 
 qfficio canons, e.g. the Roman Emperor was a canon of St. John Lateran and of 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Count of Anjou was a canon of St. Martin at Tours. At 
 
2o8 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 course of time sums of money were left for the support 
 of the common table : the ' canonic! ' came to have 
 funds apart from the allowances which, in accordance 
 with primitive practice, the bishop made from the 
 general funds of the church 29 : they thus came to be 
 more or less independent of the bishop, and to act for 
 certain purposes without regard to him 30 . In the 
 eighth century the influence of monasticism introduced 
 a new element into the corporate life of the ' canonici.' 
 
 Orleans our Lord Himself was enrolled as ' primus canonicus,' and the ' duplex 
 honor distributionis ' which was assigned to Him was given to the poor (Sausseye, 
 Annales Ecdes. Aurelian. lib. i. c. 13, Paris, 1615). 
 
 29 Those who lived together received ' praebendas,' ' portiones,' which were not 
 sums of money but specified quantities of victuals, from the church offerings. That 
 this continued to be the ordinary rule in the ninth century is shown by the direc- 
 tion of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals (Epist. Urbani prima, c. 3, 6, ed. Hinschius, 
 pp. 144, 145). But in the meantime there had grown up in some dioceses the prac- 
 tice of leaving funds for the support of a common table (Greg. Turon. H. F. 10. 
 31 , of Bishop Baldwin of Tours, * hie instituit mensam canonicorum : ' id. Vit. Pair. 
 c. 9 ' ad convivium mensae canonicae ') : and these funds were administered by the 
 canons themselves (Flodoard, Hist. Ecdes. Rem. 2. n, of St. Eigobert, 'canonicam 
 clericis religionem restituit ac sufficientia victualia constituit et praedia quaedam 
 illis contulit, necnon aerarium commune usibus eorum instituit : ' the earliest au- 
 thentic document is probably the confirmation by Lothair II of the rights which 
 Archbishop Gunthar had granted to the canons of Cologne, quoted from Ennen u. 
 Eckertz, Quellen zwr Geschichte d. Stadt Koln, Bd. i. 447 by Hinschius, Das Kir- 
 chenrecht, Bd. ii. p. 55). It was of course an integral part of the idea of a 'vita 
 communis ' that such funds should be held in common, and this was at first the 
 case, the revenues being divided equally and the number of canons sometimes 
 varying with their amount (see Diirr, De Capit. Glaus, c. 1 1 , in Schmidt, Tkes. Jur. 
 Eccl. iii. 14). But in time there grew up the practice of regarding a particular estate 
 as furnishing the ' praebendam ' or ' victum ' for a particular canonry, and of assign- 
 ing the income and management of the estate to the holder of the canonry, ' non 
 ratione dominii, cum non sint capaces, sed solum ratione administrationis ' (Bar- 
 bosa, De Canonicis, ed. Lugdun. 1634, p. 8) : the earliest instance is probably that 
 of the canons of Cologne whose rights in this respect were confirmed by the Synod 
 which was held there in A. D. 873, Mansi, vol. xvii. p. 275 ; Hinschius, Das Kir- 
 chmrecht, Bd. ii. p. 55. 
 
 30 E. g. they had the right of making statutes (see Hinschius, Bd. ii. p. 131), of 
 exercising a certain limited jurisdiction (ibid. p. 145), and in certain cases of coopting 
 members into their own body (see the confirmation of the rights of the canons by 
 the Synod referred to in the preceding note, quoted ibid. p. 55). 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 209 
 
 Side by side with those who thus lived in the bishop's 
 house, controlled only by the general rules of the 
 Church, were the monks and clergy who lived in 
 monasteries under the stern rule of St. Benedict. The 
 contrast was often so strong that a pious French bishop 
 framed a rule for the ' canonici ' which was almost as 
 strict as the rule for monks 31 . Henceforth, in most 
 Churches of the West, the 'canonici' of the bishop's 
 house became 'regulares/ i.e. canons living under a 
 rule 32 : and about the same time they were divided into 
 
 31 The 'regula canonicorum ' was drawn up by Chrodegang of Metz about A.D. 
 760 (Paul. Diacon. Gesta Episc. Metens. ap. Pertz, M. H. G. Script, vol. ii. p. 268), 
 chiefly on the model of the rule of St. Benedict (see Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutsch- 
 lands, Bd. i. 496) for the clergy of his own church (it will be found in its original 
 form in Mansi, Concilia, vol. xiv. p. 313 ; Walter, Fontes Jur. Eccles. p. 20: a 
 much longer rule which, though attributed to Chrodegang, is evidently of later 
 date, will be found in Mansi, vol. xiv. p. 332 ; D'Achery, Spidlegium, vol. i. p. 
 565 ; Harzheim, Condi. Germ. vol. i. p. 96). But the rule which was most widely 
 adopted was not the rule of Chrodegang, but one based upon it which is commonly 
 ascribed to Amalarius, and which was authorized by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle 
 in A. D. 918 (it will be found in Mansi, vol. xiv. pp. 153 sqq. ; Harzheim, Condi. 
 German, vol. i. p. 430). 
 
 32 There was an attempt in the Frankish domain to make the 'regular' life com- 
 pulsory. Pippin, Capit. Eccles. A. D. 789, c. 72 ' similiter qui ad clericatum acce- 
 dunt quod nos nominamus canonicam vitam, volumus ut illi canonice secundum 
 suam regulam oinnimodis vivant et episcopus eorum regat vitam, sicut abbas cano- 
 nicorum.' There is a series of similar enactments in the following century, Karoli 
 M. Capit. A.D. 802, c. 22, Pertz, vol. i. p. 94 ; Cone. Mogunt. A.D. 813, c. 9, Mansi, 
 vol. xiv. p. 67 ; Cone. Eem. A.D. 813, c 8, ibid. p. 78 ; 6. Cone. Arelat. A.D. 813. 
 c. 6, ibid. p. 60; 3 Cone. Turon. A.D. 813, c. 23, ibid. p. 86; Hludowic, Capit. Aquis- 
 gran. A. D. 817, c. 3, Pertz, vol. i. p. 206 ; Hludowic et Hlothar, Capit. Aquisgran. 
 A. D. 828, ibid. p. 327; Cone. Meld. A. D. 845, c. 53, Mansi, vol. xiv. p. 831 ; Karoli 
 II, Convent. Ticin. II, A. D. 876, c. 8, Pertz, vol. i. p. 531. In some of thesa cases 
 only life in community was enjoined without the mention of a rule: what this ireant 
 is clear from e.g. 3 Cone. Turon. A.D. 813, c. 23 'canonici et clerici civitatum qui in 
 episcopiis conversanfcur consideravimus ut in claustris habitantes,simul omnes in uno 
 dormitorio dormiant, simulque in uno reficiantur refectorio quo facilius possint ad 
 horas canonicas celebrandas occurrere et de vita et conversatione sua admoneri et 
 doceri : victum et vestimentum juxta facultatem episcopi accipiant ne paupertatis 
 occasione compulsi per diversa vagari ac turpibus se irnplicare negotiis cogantur.' 
 
 P 
 
2io The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 two classes, of whom ultimately the senior class, i.e. 
 the presbyters and deacons, alone retained the name 33 . 
 But before two centuries had passed the name was 
 almost all they did retain of the ancient 'vita com- 
 munis.' Living not together but in separate houses, 
 administering each for himself the revenues of his 
 estate, discharging their duties by the agency of * vicars/ 
 and no longer giving their superfluity to the poor, the 
 canons of the middle ages were legitimate objects of 
 satire and of lament 34 . 
 
 The clergy of country parishes and dependent towns 
 were still, in theory, members of the bishop's council : 
 once at least in every year that council had to be 
 gathered together and they were bound to be present 
 at it 35 . But for the most part they were permanently 
 
 33 The distinction between canonid seniores and canonid juniores, i. e. between 
 those who were in major and those who were in minor orders, is found in the 
 Rule of Chrodegang, e. g. c. 23, 29. The former came in time to be called canonid 
 majores, ordinarii, cathedrales, or capitulares : the latter were domicelli, domicel- 
 lares, who were subdivided into emancipali, and non emandpati, according as they 
 had or had not passed through the prescribed course of education. 
 
 34 E. g. Bishop Yves of Chartres says, ' communis vita in omnibus ecclesiis paene 
 defecit ' (D. Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 213, ap. Migne, Patrol. Lat. vol. clxii. p. 2 1 7) : Urban 
 II says, ' prima [sc. vita canonicorum] decalescente fervore fidelium jam paene omnino 
 defluxit' (B.Urban II. Epist. ad Clericos quosdam Regulares, ap. Mansi, Condlia,vo\. 
 xx. p. 713). Peter Damiani (Contra Clericos Regulares proprietaries, vol. iii. p. 483 
 ed. Caiet. ; De Communi Vita Canonicorum, ibid. p. 514) and others (e.g. Gerhoh 
 von Reichersberg, Liber de corrupto Ecclesiae Statu, ap. Baluze, Miscell. vol. ii. p. 
 197) threw the blame on the laxity of the rule itself: and a stricter rule was intro- 
 duced which was drawn from the works of St. Augustine. But, although there was 
 a revival of the asceticism of the older canonical life, it was partial and teinporary : 
 there were indeed many societies of Augustinian, or, as they now came to be ex- 
 clusively called, ' regular ' canons, but the canons of most cathedral chapters were 
 ' secular,' administering their own estates and living not in community but in the 
 world (for instances of fhe adoption of the Augustinian rule in cathedrals see 
 Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht, Bd. iL p. 58). ' 
 
 35 Pippin, Capit. Vern. dupl. A.D. 755, c. 8, Pertz, M. H. G. Legum, vol. i. p. 
 
vm.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 211 
 
 detached : they had no longer any ordinary place in the 
 bishop's church : and they administered their own 
 revenues, reserving for the bishop only a small and 
 specified portion 36 . The ordinary functions of ecclesi- 
 astical administration were discharged by the bishop 
 and the canons of his church : in place of the earlier 
 phrase ' the bishop and presbyters,' we find the phrase 
 ' the bishop and canons :' and it was not the general 
 council of a diocese but the canons of the cathedral 
 church collectively known by the monastic title ' capi- 
 tulum,' or ' chapter ' who administered the affairs of 
 a diocese during a vacancy in the see and elected a new 
 bishop 37 . 
 
 The difference between parochial and cathedral clergy 
 was still further widened when the former were grouped 
 into districts, and when each district came to have its 
 
 25 ' omnes presbyter! ad consilium episcopi conveniant.' In the Modus tenendi 
 Synodos per Angliam, Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv. append, p. 784, a year's suspension 
 is the penalty for non-attendance. 
 
 36 In early times the bishop had the same control over the revenues of detached 
 churches which he had over his own. In the sixth century a Spanish Council first 
 enacted that the bishop's share in the offerings, i. e. one-third, should be devoted 
 in parish churches to repairs and lights (2 Cone. Brae. A. D. 572, c. 2 : so in the 
 following century, Cone. Emerit. A. D. 665, c. 4 ; 16 Cone. Tolet. A. D. 693, c. 5) : 
 and this seems to have become the general rule. But though there is no doubt 
 that the control of church lands and of tithes also passed from the hands of the 
 bishops to that of the incumbents of parishes, the question when it did so belongs 
 to the obscure history of ecclesiastical benefices (see above, note 21), and the facts 
 which bear upon it are too intricate to be given here. 
 
 37 For these and other facts in relation to the early history of cathedral chapters 
 reference may be made to Fermosini, De Potentate capituli sede vacante necnon sede 
 plena el quid possint Episcopi per se aut debeant cum capitulo exequi, Lugdun. 1666 ; 
 Barbosa, De Canonicis et Dignitatibup aliisque beneficiariis eorumque Officiisin choro 
 et capitulo, Lugdun. 1634; Muratori, De Canonicis in his Antiquitates Italicae, vol. 
 v. pp. 183 sqq. The best modern account is that of Hinschius, Da* Kirchenreckt, 
 Bd. ii. pp. 59, 124, 228, 601; see also Richter, Lehrbuch des Ttatholischen u. evan- 
 gelischen Kirchenrechts, ed. Dove, 1880, pp. 440 sqq. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 own organization. Just as the cathedral had its 
 archpresbyter and its archdeacon, so in the districts 
 into which a diocese came to be divided there was 
 a rural archpresbyter and a rural archdeacon 38 . The 
 latter, who had in the meantime ceased to be a 
 deacon, but who, preserving the ancient close con- 
 nexion between the bishop and the deacons, was in 
 a special sense the bishop's deputy, had precedence 
 over the rural archpresbyter, and a jurisdiction, at 
 first delegated and temporary, afterwards ordinary and 
 permanent, over a district in which several archpres- 
 byteries or * rural deaneries ' were comprised 39 . 
 
 38 The division into decaniae (later also archipresbyteratus, capitula ruralia) dates 
 from the middle of the ninth century and was the subject of formal enactments, viz. 
 Karoli II. Synod. ap. Tolos. A.D. 844, c. 3, Pertz, vol. i. 378; Hludowic, Convent. Ticin. 
 A.D. 850, c. 13, Pertz, vol. i. p. 399. Like the dioceses themselves, the deaneries 
 seem, at least in the Frankish domain, to have followed the political subdivisions : 
 see Sohm, Die altdeutsche Reichs-und Gerichts-verfassung, Wiemar, 1871, Bd. i. p. 
 203. The division into archidiaconatus commenced in the tenth century but was 
 not completed until the twelfth (the documents in which Hadrian I is made to 
 confirm the subdivision of the diocese of Strasburg into archdeaconries in A.D. 774 
 are forgeries, Rettberg, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, Bd. ii. pp. 69, 611). Hinschius, 
 Bd. ii. p. 189, refers to Landau, Die Territorien in Bezug aufihre Bildung u. Ent- 
 tvickelung, Gotha, 1854, pp. 387 sqq., for evidence that the archdeaconries, like the 
 other ecclesiastical divisions, followed political lines. 
 
 39 The archdeacon sometimes took precedence of the archpresbyter in a cathe- 
 dral as well as in a diocese: e.g. at Brescia, Ughelli, Italia Sacra, vol. iv. p. 521. 
 The capitular officers of provost and dean were held sometimes by the one 
 sometimes by the other : e. g. the archdeacon was provost in the later version 
 the Rule of Chrodegang (D'Achery, Spicil. vol. i. p. 567), and at Liege, Trev< 
 Mayence, Ratisbon, and elsewhere: he was sometimes dean at Cologne (Enn< 
 u. Eckertz, i. 558, 598), and at Bayeux (Ordericus Vit. iii. 12) : an archpresbyt 
 was provost at Passau (Hansiz, Germania Sacra, vol. i. Coroll. vii), but usually, 
 and at last always, dean (according to the canonists the jurisdiction of the model 
 dean is wholly due to the fact that he is ex officio archpresbyter, Barbosa 
 Canonicis, c. 4. 32, p. 43). The independent jurisdiction of the rural archdeacoi 
 probably dates from the end of the twelfth century : in the course of the followir 
 century their position had become so obnoxious to the bishops, upon whose jui 
 diction they trespassed, as to lead to the appointment of other officers, 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 213 
 
 In this way it is that the organization which existed 
 in the Middle Ages, and which in its essential features 
 has remained to the present day in our own and other 
 Churches, is linked by direct historical continuity with 
 the organization of primitive times. The differences 
 between the two extremes of the series are great : but 
 they were the growth of a thousand years the thousand 
 years of change and storm which elapsed between the 
 sixth century and the sixteenth. 
 
 And here the examination which I proposed at 
 starting comes to an end. 
 
 The main propositions in which the results of that 
 examination may be summed up are two 
 
 (1) That the development of the organization of the 
 Christian Churches was gradual : 
 
 (2) That the elements of which that organization 
 were composed were already existing in human society. 
 
 These propositions are not new: they are so old as 
 to have been, in greater or less degree, accepted by all 
 ecclesiastical historians. For it is admitted by all such 
 historians that at least some of the features of the 
 complete organization did not exist in primitive times, 
 but have been since added. It is also admitted that 
 at least some of the elements of the organization are 
 found outside it, in previously existing institutions. 
 
 But in dealing with them I have arrived at and set 
 forth the view, in regard to the first of them, that the 
 
 principales, vicarii generales, to fill the place, which was once specially that of the 
 archdeacons, of the bishop's agents and intermediaries (see Hinschius, Bd. ii. pp. 
 J 95 sqq- J Richter, ed. Dove, p. 453). 
 
214 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 development was slower than has sometimes been sup- 
 posed, and, in regard to the second, that not only some 
 but all the elements of the organization can be traced 
 to external sources. The difference between this view 
 and the common view is one of degree and not of kind. 
 The one no less than the other assumes the organ- 
 ization of the Church to be divine : but while the one 
 accounts for certain phenomena of ecclesiastical history 
 by a special and extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit, 
 the other is rather in harmony with the belief that God 
 acts in the realm of grace, as He acts in the realm of 
 nature, by the mediation of general and far-reaching 
 laws. It appears necessary to point out the existence 
 of this relation between the two views of which I have 
 spoken, because there is a confusion in the minds of 
 some persons between the fact of divine operation and 
 the mode of that operation, and a complete identification 
 of the fact with some particular mode, which causes 
 them to regard the questioning of that mode as equi- 
 valent to a questioning of the fact itself. But although 
 it appears necessary to point this out, there is the less 
 reason for enlarging upon it, because few of those who 
 are here will have forgotten the subtle force with which 
 the great living Father of modern Oxford theology, 
 speaking in this place through the mouth of its great- 
 est preacher, exposed the similar confusion of thought 
 which exists in many minds in regard to the history 
 of the Creation 40 . What the theologian says to the man 
 
 40 The reference is to a sermon which was written by Dr. Pusey, but preached, 
 on account of Dr. Pusey's indisposition, by Dr. Liddon, before the University of 
 Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1878; published under the title Un-science, not 
 Science, adverse to Faith, 1 Parker, Oxford, 1878. 
 
VIIL] The Parish and the Cathedral. 215 
 
 of science in regard to that Creation is, ' Nothing that 
 you have proved, or can prove, about the mode in which 
 God made the world, interferes with the truth that He 
 did make it:' and what the theologian says also to the 
 historian is, 'Nothing that you have shown, or can 
 show, about the mode in which the organization of the 
 Church was developed interferes with the truth that 
 God did organize it.' On the other hand, just as the 
 man of science may say in reply, ' I am ready to 
 allow that God made the world, but I claim the 
 right to show, if I can, from the records which the 
 world contains, how and in what order He made 
 it : ' so the historian may say, ' I am ready to allow 
 that the Church is of divine institution : but I claim 
 the right to show, if I can, from the facts of history, 
 how and in what order God instituted it.' In the one 
 case as in the other the appeal lies not to the opinions 
 of eminent persons, but to ascertained and ascertainable 
 facts. The divine plan must be inferred not a priori, 
 from a conception of what He was likely to do, but 
 a posteriori, from the investigation of what He has 
 actually done. And if the timid souls who tremble at 
 every fresh discovery of science, or at every newly- 
 ascertained fact of history, could rise to the larger faith 
 of earlier days, they would see in the close analogy 
 between the development of the Christian societies and 
 the development of the natural world, a corroboration of 
 the belief that the Author of the one is also the Author 
 of the other, and that the one no less than the other 
 belongs not to those things which are rapidly formed 
 and swiftly pass, but to that loftier sphere in 
 
216 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 which, though the development is slow, the result is 
 eternal. 
 
 But as, on the one hand, the view that the frame- 
 work of the Christian societies was slowly developed 
 out of existing elements, so far from being inconsistent 
 with, is rather confirmatory of, the belief in its divine 
 origin : so, on the other hand, it tends to diminish the 
 importance of some of the controversies which have 
 existed respecting it, and which have separated one 
 community of Christians from another. 
 
 On the hypothesis that the constitution of the 
 Christian societies was settled by the Apostles in their 
 lifetime, and that what was so settled was intended to 
 be the form of all Christian societies for all time to come, 
 different groups of Christians have at various times 
 separated themselves from the main body, and claimed, 
 in some cases not without reason, to be recurring to 
 a more primitive type. And those who have opposed 
 them, for the most part accepting the same major pre- 
 miss, have endeavoured to show, by arguments which 
 have sometimes been marked by more of enthusiasm 
 than of either logical force or historical probability, 
 that this or that institution is not new but old. 
 
 But if the ultimate verdict of those who are com- 
 petent to judge be in favour of the general view which 
 has been advanced in these Lectures, the contentions on 
 the one side and on the other, in regard to the minor 
 premisses of the argument, will be beside the point : 
 nothing will be really gained by showing that this or 
 that element of Church government is more primitive 
 than another : nothing will be really lost by the admis- 
 
vui.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 2 1 7 
 
 sion that this or that element in the great aggregate 
 of historical developments is later than another. 
 That for the preservation of which we have to con- 
 tend is not so much ancient form as historical con- 
 tinuity. 
 
 For in reality the preservation of ancient form is 
 impossible. We have received from our fathers the 
 splendid inheritance of a vast and complex civilization 
 a mighty aggregate of beliefs and practices and insti- 
 tutions, which have grown with the world's growth, and 
 shaped themselves to the varying needs of successive 
 generations. It is given to each generation to revise 
 and reform the present : but it is not given to it to 
 bring back the past. The web of history is being 
 woven in the loom of time. The shuttles of incident 
 fly quick, and each of them is irrevocable. We are not, 
 and we cannot be, what our fathers were. We differ 
 from them in ten thousand modes of thought, in ten 
 thousand features of social circumstance. The attempt 
 artificially to restore an ancient institution is futile 
 from the nature of the case, because even if restored 
 it stands alone, out of the relations which once gave 
 it a meaning and a power. In that great product of 
 the laws of God which we call human society, as in 
 that other great product of the laws of God which we 
 call the animal world, the succession of existence is not 
 the succession of identical organisms, but a continuity 
 of species, a unity of type. The type remains, but it 
 embodies itself in changing shapes : and herein the 
 history of the Christian Churches has been in harmony 
 with all else that we know of God's government of 
 
218 The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 the world ; the large variations of form in one age 
 as compared with another tend to show that the form 
 was meant to be elastic, and that the importance 
 which has frequently been attached to fixity of form 
 has been exaggerated. 
 
 That there should be form of some kind is not only 
 inevitable but desirable : it may be admitted to the 
 full that the unity for which our Lord prayed is a 
 ( unity of the Spirit/ a * unity of the faith and of the 
 knowledge of the Son of God/ rather than a unity of 
 organization : and yet it would appear as though, in 
 the divine economy which has made human nature 
 what it is, it were owing in no small degree to the fact 
 of its organization that Christianity fills the place which 
 it does fill in the history of the world. 
 
 But the fact of the necessity and desirability of form 
 is no proof of the necessity and desirability of this 
 or that particular form. Nor is the fact that a parti- 
 cular form was good for a particular age a proof that it 
 is also good for another age. The history of the organ- 
 ization of Christianity has been in reality the history 
 of successive readjustments of form to altered circum- 
 stances. Its power of readjustment has been at once 
 a mark of its divinity and a secret of its strength. 
 Nor, if we look at it merely in its human aspect, is 
 there any sublimer spectacle in all the vast landscape 
 of history than this Tree of God, striking its roots 
 deeper and deeper into the deep strata of human life, 
 changing from age to age the fashion of its branches, 
 and changing also the hue of its blossom, and assimi- 
 lating to itself all the nurture which comes from the 
 
VIIL] The Parish and the Cathedral. 219 
 
 winds of God that blow and from the dew of heaven 
 that falls. 
 
 In the first ages of its history, while on the one hand 
 it was a great and living faith, so on the other hand it 
 was a vast and organized brotherhood. And, being 
 a brotherhood, it was a democracy : the * multitude 
 which no man could number' stood before the throne 
 of God bound together in an equal union by the tie 
 of a common sonship, a common kingship, and a 
 common priesthood. 
 
 When the Koman Empire fell, and the Western 
 World passed beneath the dominion of the vigorous 
 races who had no long past of organized administra- 
 tion upon which Christian administration could be 
 moulded, democracy gave way to monarchy. Democracy 
 was almost as impossible as it would be to entrust the 
 government of the mission communities of the South 
 Sea Islands to the new converts from Fetichism. 
 
 And now, at the close of the nineteenth century, the 
 Christian societies find themselves surrounded by new 
 conditions. There are new intellectual conditions, and 
 new social conditions. The question which presses for 
 answer, and which will not be evaded, is how much of 
 the form which grew out of, and was good for, earlier 
 and different circumstances, must be retained or 
 abandoned now. The contingency which has to be 
 faced is that the intellectual forces of the civilized 
 world may be arrayed against Christianity as once they 
 were in its favour : and that the social forces which 
 are drawing men into combination may draw them into 
 combinations in which Christianity will have no part. 
 
22O The Parish and the Cathedral. [LECT. 
 
 For these contingencies the Church of Christ is pre- 
 pared. It survived Gnosticism, and it will survive 
 Agnosticism. It survived Polytheism, and it will sur- 
 vive Atheism. It survived the disruption of European 
 society when the Koman Empire fell to pieces, it will 
 survive the possible disruption of European society 
 when, if ever, labour wins its victory over capital, and 
 socialism over aristocracy. But the survival of the 
 Church of Christ that is, of ' the whole congregation 
 of Christian people dispersed throughout the world '- 
 is not necessarily the survival of this or that existing 
 institution. After each of its earlier struggles there 
 was at least this mark of conflict, that there was a re- 
 adaptation of form. The supremacy of the episcopate 
 was the result of the struggle with Gnosticism, the 
 centralization of ecclesiastical government was the out- 
 come of the breaking up of the Empire. And if the 
 secret of the past be the key to the future, the institu- 
 tions of Christianity are destined in the providence 
 of God, in the days that are to come, to shape them- 
 selves in new forms to meet the new needs of men. To 
 the general character of those forms many indications 
 point. It would seem as though, in that vast secular 
 revolution which is accomplishing itself, all organiza- 
 tions, whether ecclesiastical or civil, must be, as the early 
 Churches were, more or less democratical : and the most 
 significant fact of modern Christian history is that, 
 within the last hundred years, many millions of our 
 own race and our own Church, without departing from 
 the ancient faith, have slipped from beneath the inelastic 
 framework of the ancient organization, and formed a 
 
viii.] The Parish and the Cathedral. 221 
 
 group of new societies on the basis of a closer Christian 
 brotherhood and an almost absolute democracy. 
 
 But, whatever be the form in which they are destined 
 to be shaped, the work which the Christian societies, 
 as societies, have to do, in the days that are to come, 
 is not inferior to any work which has lain before them 
 at any epoch of their history. For the air is charged 
 with thunder, and the times that are coming may be 
 times of storm. There are phenomena beneath the 
 surface of society of which it would be hardly possible 
 to overrate the significance. There is a widening sepa- 
 ration of class from class : there is a growing social 
 strain : there is a disturbance of the political equi- 
 librium : there is the rise of an educated proletariat. 
 To the problems which these phenomena suggest 
 Christianity has the key. Its unaccomplished mission 
 is to reconstruct society on the basis of brotherhood. 
 What it has to do it does, and will do, in and through 
 organization. At once profoundly individual and pro- 
 foundly socialistic, its tendency to association is not so 
 much an incident of its history as an essential element 
 of its character. It spiritualizes that ineradicable in- 
 stinct which draws man to man and makes society not 
 a convention but a necessity. But the framing of its 
 organization is left to human hands. To you and me 
 and men like ourselves is committed, in these anxious 
 days, that which is at once an awful responsibility and 
 a splendid destiny to transform this modern world 
 into a Christian society, to change the socialism which 
 is based on the assumption of clashing interests into 
 
222 The Parish and the Cathedral. 
 
 the socialism which is based on the sense of spiritual 
 union, and to gather together the scattered forces of 
 a divided Christendom into a confederation in which 
 organization will be of less account than fellowship 
 with one Spirit and faith in one Lord into a com- 
 munion wide as human life and deep as human need 
 into a Church which shall outshine even the golden 
 glory of its dawn by the splendour of its eternal noon. 
 
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