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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 
 
 YOL. I. 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.. NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
LECTURES 
 
 78 ' 
 
 ON 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 
 
 INCLUDING THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE 
 ENGLISH REFORMATION FROM WICKLIFFE 
 TO THE GREAT REBELLION 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM FITZGERALD, D D. 
 
 I. ATE BISHOP OF KILLALOE AND CLONFERT 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM FITZGERALD, A.M. and JOHN QUARRY, D.D. 
 
 WITH MEMOIR OP THE AUTHOR’S LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY", ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1885 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

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 PREFACE. 
 
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 The following Lectures are published in compliance with a 
 very general desire, often and in various ways expressed 
 during the entire interval that has elapsed since they were 
 delivered. The reasons why the Bishop did not print them 
 himself will be found sufficiently explained in the Memoir 
 prefixed. They are now printed substantially as they were 
 written. In the very few instances in which it was found 
 necessary to make any change beyond the mere correction of 
 clerical errors, or to supply anything not from his own hand, 
 the words substituted or matter added will be found enclosed 
 in brackets. 
 
 References, which were almost invariably omitted by the 
 Bishop himself, have been supplied throughout. In finding 
 them it was needful in a few cases to take advantage of the 
 assistance of learned friends. Due acknowledgment to these 
 will be found at the close of the Appendix. Other explana- 
 tory particulars which will be found in the Memoir, or in 
 notes subjoined to the Lectures themselves, it is not necessary 
 to mention here. 
 
 Ascension Day , 1885. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/lecturesoneccles01fitz_0 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Memoir of the Author 
 
 PAGE 
 
 [7] 
 
 FIRST COURSE. 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 I. Nature, Value, and proper Use of Ecclesiastical 
 
 History 3 
 
 II. Caution required in Judging the State of Opinion in 
 
 any Age from the Works of its Leading Writers, 
 with Illustrations from various Authors . . 25 
 
 III. Mode of Treatment suitable to the Prelections of 
 
 a Professor — Acts of the Apostles . . . . 38 
 
 IV. Neander, and the Gift of Tongues . . . .51 
 
 V. Earliest Relations of the Church to Judaism, and 
 
 its first Constitution 63 
 
 VI. Apostolic Communication of Supernatural Gifts — The 
 
 Samaritans and Simon Magus . . . . 75 
 
 VII. Proper Sense of the Term Development — Calling of 
 
 the Gentiles and Council at Jerusalem . . . 90 
 
 VIII. Relation of the Church to Judaism — Supposed Petrine 
 
 and Pauline Parties 106 
 
 IX. Structure and Constitution of the Apostolic Churches 118 
 
[6] CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 SECOND COURSE. 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 LECTURE PAGE 
 
 I. Scantiness of Information respecting the Period next 
 
 AFTER THE APOSTLES 129 
 
 II. The Apostolical Fathers 136 
 
 III. From Nerva to Commodus — Justin Martyr and the 
 
 Rise of Speculative Theology 153 
 
 i 
 
 IV. Speculative Theology advanced by Justin, Clement, 
 
 and Origen 165 
 
 V. Secrecy respecting Christian Rites in the Early 
 
 Church — Connection with the Pagan Mysteries . 174 
 
 VI. On the Rise and Progress of the Dogma of Transub- 
 
 STANTIATION 186 
 
 VII. Cyprian 200 
 
 VIII. Rise of Asceticism, and the high esteem of Celibacy . 215 
 
 Fragments. — Post-Apostolical Miracles, I. . . 227 
 
 Post-Apostolical Miracles, II. . . . 229 
 
 THIRD COURSE. 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY , WITH 
 REMARKS ON THE MONASTIC ORDERS. 
 
 I. The Theocratic Character of the Empire . . . 235 
 
 II. Original Dignity of the Roman Bishops . . . . 251 
 
BRIEF MEMOIR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THE RIGHT REV. 
 WILLIAM FITZGERALD, D.D. 
 
 LORD BISHOP OP KILLALOE AND CLONFERT. 
 
 By JOHN QUARRY, D.D. 
 
 I. 
 
 Early life till his admission to the Priesthood. 
 
 William FitzGerald, name honoured by all who knew him, 
 and never to be forgotten by those who enjoyed his friendship, 
 was the fourth son and youngest child of Maurice FitzGerald, 
 by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Edward William 
 Burton, of Clifden in the county of Clare. 
 
 Maurice FitzGerald, a surgeon by profession, was a 
 member of a respectable family in the same county ; hence, 
 when the subject of the present memoir after long years 
 became Bishop of Killaloe, he found himself surrounded by 
 numerous estimable families with whom he was connected by 
 kindred and friendship. Towards the close of the last century, 
 Doctor FitzGerald entered into the medical service of the East 
 India Company, and in time obtained a staff appointment in 
 Madras. From this he retired in the year 1808, and on his 
 return lived for some time in England. In the year 1812 he 
 came to Ireland, and resided for some time at Lifford, near 
 the city of Limerick, where his son William was born on 
 December 3, 1814. After that he returned to England, 
 residing principally in London, where his wife, William’s 
 
M 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 mother, died in the year 1821. In the next year Dr. Fitz- 
 Gerald returned to Dublin, and resided there till his death in 
 1838. 
 
 William FitzGerald’s earlier education was conducted 
 entirely at home. To the earnest and zealous care of his 
 brother Edward FitzGerald, who was an accomplished 
 classical scholar, he owed the first foundations of that literary 
 and classical knowledge by which he was in after years so 
 highly distinguished. 
 
 Edward FitzGerald just named became a barrister. It 
 was my good fortune to have met him in society, near the 
 end of my college days. I still retain a vivid remembrance 
 of his rare accomplishments and of the charm of his conversa- 
 tion in social intercourse. He died many years ago. Another 
 of the brothers, who still lives, Francis A. FitzGerald, was a 
 highly distinguished fellow-collegian of mine, though my 
 senior. He was one of my most valued college acquaintances. 
 In after years I have had the privilege of counting him 
 amongst my intimate and most honoured friends. He became 
 a barrister also, in course of time was appointed one of the 
 Barons of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland. This dignified 
 office he filled for many years, until at the close of the year 
 1882, he resigned his seat on the Bench and retired into 
 private life. 
 
 William FitzGerald, after attending a day school in Dublin 
 for a short time, became a pupil of the late Mr. John Turpin, 
 who was at that time the most eminent private classical 
 tutor residing in Trinity College. John Turpin was a most 
 amiable man and a most efficient classical teacher. He 
 is to this day remembered affectionately by the now 
 rapidly diminishing remnant of the crowds of pupils who 
 flocked to his instructions, and who owed to his teaching the 
 highest University distinctions, as well as much of their 
 success in after life. After some years he was appointed 
 Principal of Midleton College in the county of Cork. Midle- 
 ton College is an endowed school founded by the Countess of 
 Orkney in the year 1709, which has up to the present time, 
 with varying fortunes, maintained the character of an impor- 
 
 t 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [ 9 ] 
 
 tant school. Under Mr. Turpin’s superintendence it became 
 very eminent. After some years he was enabled to purchase 
 the handsome estate and residence of Young Grove, in the 
 vicinity of Midleton. Retiring from the school, he devoted 
 himself to country life, and took an active part in the public 
 duties of a country gentleman. When I became Rector of 
 Midleton in 1859 I revived my old college acquaintance with 
 him, and enjoyed for several years, until his death, the privi- 
 lege of his friendship and of his learned conversation. I had 
 the happiness in those days of bringing him and his former 
 pupil, then Bishop of Cork, together in my own house, and very 
 pleasant it was to see the cordiality with which they met. 
 
 When Mr. Turpin went to Midleton College, William 
 FitzGerald went with him, and remained there till he entered 
 as a Pensioner in Trinity College, not long afterwards, in 
 November 1830. 
 
 I am enabled by a friend 1 who was his schoolfellow at 
 Midleton, and afterwards for many years his Vicar-General 
 when he became Bishop of Killaloe, to mention a few particu- 
 lars respecting his ways at that time, when both, from sixteen to 
 seventeen years of age, were preparing for entrance at Trinity 
 College. What he knew of him then, my friend tells me, 
 compared with his after life, verified the saying that ‘ the boy 
 is the father of the man.’ He was then more like a grave 
 studious man than a schoolboy. He was almost clerical in his 
 aspect, took no part in the ordinary amusements of boys, 
 spent his time in reading, prepared his work by himself, and 
 took it up to Mr. Turpin by himself. At the same time he 
 was ever kind and genial to all that sought him. And ‘ when 
 going to rest with the other boys in the common bedroom, 
 he kept them convulsed with laughter at the droll sayings he 
 poured out, as he put on his red nightcap.’ Thus even then 
 he showed the same combination of wit, wisdom, and learn- 
 ing which afterwards made him the loved companion of 
 Archbishop Whately,.and indeed of all that had the privilege 
 of his society. 
 
 When William FitzGerald entered Trinity College his 
 
 1 Rev. Somers H. Payne, of Upton in the county of Cork. 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 college tutor was the eminent and very learned Dr. James 
 Thomas O’Brien, at that time a junior Fellow of Trinity 
 College. J ust then Dr. O’Brien became famous by his volume of 
 Sermons on the doctrine of J ustification by Faith, preached in 
 the College Chapel, some of which I heard before I left college. 
 These sermons were soon out of print, and were not repub- 
 lished till in recent years he reprinted them with some additional 
 notes. Dr. O’Brien became soon Archbishop King’s Lecturer 
 in Divinity in the University of Dublin, and took an active part 
 in raising the Divinity School in Trinity College to the high 
 standard it soon attained. He became in 1841 Dean of Cork, 
 and was made Bishop of Ossory and Ferns in the same year, 
 which See he held till his death in 1874. He was in the main 
 of the Evangelical School, though near the end of his life, 
 
 • when the discussions on the subject of Baptismal Regenera- 
 tion were occupying the General Synod of the Irish Church, 
 he published a highly valuable pamphlet in which he declared 
 his views to have become greatly altered on that subject. 
 Though his pupil, William FitzGerald, did not altogether in 
 after life coincide with some of the special notions of the 
 Evangelical School, he always held Dr. O’Brien in the highest 
 esteem, and valued his great attainments and useful labours. 
 
 When Dr. O’Brien became Archbishop King’s Professor, 
 it was needful that William FitzGerald should be transferred 
 to a new tutor. The well known and very learned Dr. J ames 
 Henthorn Todd had then recently obtained a Fellowship in 
 Trinity College, and William FitzGerald became his pupil. 
 Dr. Todd then was, and continued till his death a few vears 
 ago, one of my most intimate and admired friends. It is 
 needless to mention his eminence as a divine and an antiquary. 
 If his new pupil did not follow him in a High Church 
 
 V 
 
 direction any more than he followed Dr. O’Brien in an op- 
 posite direction, he always retained feelings of affection for 
 him. 
 
 An intimate college friend of Bishop FitzGerald 2 has, in 
 reply to an inquiry of mine, written as follows : — f Your kind 
 letter in reference to the probable publication of the religious- 
 2 Rev. Aubrey Townshend, of Puxton near Bristol. 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [ 11 ] 
 
 literary remains of my most valued and ancient friend, the late 
 Bishop FitzGerald, interests and gratifies me in no ordinary 
 degree. It recalls to me forcibly the ancient time, half a 
 century since, when the departed Bishop was a college student, 
 a little turned twenty, and when the University professors 
 said that his attainments far exceeded theirs. How I did 
 
 i 
 
 enjoy my long country walks with him week after week, 
 when — question him as in my crude ignorance I did on 
 Fathers, Schoolmen, and all manner of out-of-the-way points 
 — he would off-hand tell me all about them, as if on each 
 point he had for the last month read and thought about 
 nothing else.’ 
 
 I subjoin here the higher honours he obtained during his 
 college time : 1833, Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, Greek and Latin 
 verse, * Druidae ; ’ English verse, ‘ Hlgyptus Rediviva ; ’ Prize in 
 Classics ; 1834, Hebrew Prize ; First Honour in Classics ; Vice- 
 Chancellor’s Prize, Latin, ‘ The Late Arctic Expedition ; ’ Greek 
 verse, ‘ Mutat terra vices;’ 1835, Hebrew Prize; Downes’s 
 Prize for Composition; Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, Latin verse, 
 ‘The Embassy of the Gibeonites to Joshua;’ 1836, Vice- 
 Chancellor’s Prize, ‘ The Influence of the Abstract Sciences on 
 the Morals of Mankind,’ English prose ; also, on 6 The Relative 
 Advantages of Public and Private Education ’ in English 
 prose. In 1837, Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, ‘The Influence of 
 Climate on National Character,’ in English prose ; the Pri- 
 mate’s Hebrew Prize, and Downes’s Prize for Composition. 
 
 In the year 1833 FitzGerald obtained a scholarship on the 
 foundation of Trinity College. As this was tenable for five 
 years he continued to reside in college until the expiration of 
 that term in 1838, taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts 
 in 1835. During this residence in college his genius and 
 learning brought him into contact with many men of eminence 
 at that time, as well as with many that afterwards rose to great 
 distinction. And it was during this time of residence in college 
 that his literary activity began. In the year 1837 he printed 
 in the ‘ Dublin Christian Examiner ’ some papers of great 
 weight bearing on the ‘ Tracts for the Times,’ which at that 
 time were in their early vigour. These papers, which attracted 
 
[ 12 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 much notice, will be mentioned again. In the year 1838 he 
 printed in the April number of the 4 British Magazine ’ an 
 extremely learned and remarkable paper on the Epistle of 
 St. Barnabas. This paper, dated January 15, 1838, is worthy 
 of taking its place in the first rank of discussions respecting 
 the ancient ecclesiastical writings, with the history of which 
 he was even then thoroughly familiar. A portion of this 
 paper has been transferred to supply an apparent deficiency 
 in one of the following Lectures, for reasons that will be 
 explained. He also at that time wrote in the 4 Christian 
 Examiner ’ some criticisms on Dr. Wall’s publications on the 
 Ancient Hebrew Orthography. Occupying himself in this 
 way in addition to laborious study, the time passed on until 
 late in the year 1838 he was ordained Deacon for the Curacy 
 of Lakagh in the diocese of Kildare, which he continued to 
 hold for some time. 
 
 In the year 1839 he wrote an essay on 4 Logomachy, or 
 the Abuse of Words.’ Philip Bury Duncan, Fellow of New 
 College, Oxford, had offered a prize of fifty pounds for the best 
 essay on this subject, by a graduate of Trinity College, 
 Dublin, with an additional twenty-five pounds for the publish- 
 ing of the same, if the Senior Fellows of Trinity College, who 
 were to be the judges, thought it worthy of publication. 
 FitzGerald’s essay obtained the prize, and, having been thought 
 worthy of publication, was accordingly printed. This very 
 able, interesting, and remarkable essay first attracted to him 
 the notice of Archbishop Whately, who became his patron in 
 subsequent years, and who for some time availed himself of 
 his service as his private chaplain. And it is worthy of 
 remark, and indeed highly honourable to both, that in this 
 essay the author, a young man having his way to make in 
 the world, should have ventured to controvert an important 
 principle maintained by the Archbishop, his Diocesan, in his 
 well-known work on Logic. The principle was the funda- 
 mental one that 4 Logic is entirely conversant about language.’ 
 The position maintained in the essay was that 4 Logic, if we 
 speak accurately (i.e. the analysis of the reasoning process), 
 has nothing at all to do with words, but is wholly occupied 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
 with purely mental inferences, judgments, and propositions/ 
 This was alleged in reference to a class of sophisms which the 
 essayist maintained to c belong not properly to the cognizance 
 of logic strictly so called, but rather to rhetoric, or some dis- 
 tinct and independent science that should have the nature and 
 use of words for its peculiar province/ In a note subjoined 
 he adverts to what the Archbishop added to the proposition 
 quoted above. ‘ If any process of reasoning can take place, 
 without the employment of language, orally or mentally ( a 
 metaphysical question which I shall not here discuss ), such a 
 process does not come within the province of the science here 
 treated of/ The essayist says on this, 1 Now, it appears to 
 me, that the discussion of the metaphysical question which 
 his Grace declines, is an absolutely necessary preliminary to 
 determining the question, whether logic (ns a science ) is 
 entirely or at all conversant about language. If my former 
 statement be correct, that the whole of reasoning in words 
 depends upon its capacity of being resolved into reasoning in 
 ideas , must it not follow that the science which professes to 
 supply a test of reasoning, by an analysis of the process, 
 ought to contemplate that process in its simple and only 
 certain form ? ’ To this was subjoined an extract from 
 Dr. Thomas Brown. 
 
 It was in the early part of this year 1839, that I for the 
 first time met my long much-loved, intimate, and never to be 
 forgotten friend, at the house of a mutual friend in Dublin. 
 He seemed then a slight, rather retiring young man, with a 
 countenance beaming with intellect. On the Sunday follow- 
 ing the evening I speak of, I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral 
 for the three o’clock service, and went into the vestry of the 
 Dean's Vicar-Choral. Presently FitzGerald came in. He 
 had promised to read the Lessons, but was anxious for some 
 reason to be released from that engagement, and it was 
 arranged that I should take his place. He then mentioned 
 that he had attended that morning at the consecration of the 
 Hon. Dr. Ludlow Tonson for the Bishopric of Killaloe, and 
 he mentioned some awkwardness that had attended the pub- 
 ting of the chimere on the Bishop-elect at the part of the 
 
[ 14 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 service where that is prescribed. Little did it seem to any of 
 us then, that the young deacon who told this anecdote would 
 be the next successor to Dr. Tonson in that See. Least of all, 
 as we shall soon see, could that have seemed a likely event to 
 FitzGerald himself. 
 
 Dr. Ludlow Tonson, who was brother to the then Lord 
 Riversdale, and in time became the last to hold that title in 
 the peerage of Ireland, was the rector of a quiet country 
 parish in the diocese of Cloyne, the duties of which he dis- 
 charged in most exemplary manner. In addition to this he 
 had been for many years the most admired preacher of occas- 
 ional sermons. These he had great powers of getting up 
 and delivering in a style that suited the taste of those days, 
 and which in its way was really highly effective. The mantle 
 of Kirwan had seemed to have fallen upon him. His advo- 
 cacy was sought when some important charity required 
 pecuniary assistance. He had the power of drawing tears 
 from the eyes and money from the pockets of his hearers. 
 And on such occasions it was a common thing for Roman 
 Catholics no less than members of the Established Church to 
 flock to hear him. The Lord-Lieutenant paid a visit to the 
 Earl of Shannon at Castlemartyr. Tonson was invited to meet 
 him, and preached on the Sunday at the parish church, im- 
 pressing the Lord-Lieutenant so much by his oratorical 
 power and the excellence of his sermon, that soon after, when 
 the See of Killaloe became vacant, he was selected for that 
 dignity. He was an excellent man, and filled the office for 
 many years, leaving his own arms impaled with the arms of 
 the See, on the glass in the porch of Clarisford, the palace of 
 the Bishops, where they still remain, and leaving the memory 
 of himself embalmed in the affections of his diocese. 
 
 I observed just now that least of all was FitzGerald him- 
 self likely at that time to have had any presentiment of his 
 promotion to that See or indeed to any Church preferment at 
 all. When the time came that he should obtain Priest s 
 Orders, he found it necessary to review his position preparat- 
 ory to the needful subscription to the formularies of the 
 Church. The stringent terms of ‘ assent and consent ’ then 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [15] 
 
 required, but now wisely relaxed, while readily accepted by 
 the less thoughtful, were calculated to throw an obstacle in the 
 way of those who thoroughly investigated for themselves, and 
 were dominated by a sensitive conscience. What was the 
 precise phase of opinion which made him hesitate it is diffi- 
 cult to say. It was at the time understood that the obstacle 
 lay in the harsh and very rigid terms of the Athanasian Creed, 
 so-called, which defines in a more inflexible way some points 
 left in a less determinate form by the Nicene Fathers and the 
 earlier Creeds. It seems pretty clear that his opinions were 
 not less in accordance with the doctrine of the Church than 
 those of such men as the older Sherlock, or Dr. Samuel 
 Clarke, whose views, though the occasion of much controversy, 
 had been practically tolerated in the Church. However, in 
 FitzGerald’s case the difficulty so far prevailed that he resigned 
 his curacy, and returned to Dublin, where for a few years he 
 devoted himself to thought and to those studies which he 
 had already so eagerly pursued from his earliest years. The 
 reward of this conscientious retirement was found in the firm 
 grasp which he ultimately obtained of all the great verities 
 of the Christian Faith, as received in our Church, to the 
 principles of which in their Scriptural moderation, and the 
 discipline of which in its like moderation, he remained through 
 after life most earnestly attached. Such an attachment is 
 far more to be valued than any conformity resulting from an 
 unwillingness to face difficulties, from a forced suppression of 
 doubt, or from the satisfaction of scruples got over without 
 thorough investigation and honest conviction. 
 
 But besides the thought and study to which he then 
 devoted himself, his pen was kept in exercise in his Master’s 
 service. In the c British Magazine’ is a letter dated Novem- 
 ber 2, 1839, but not printed until March 1840, giving some 
 instances of the use of the term rj Kvpca/cy to denote the 
 Lord’s Day. This letter was copied by Dr. Todd in his 
 ‘ Discourses on the Apocalypse,’ published in 1846. And in 
 a note appended Dr. Todd took exception to the applicability 
 of one of the quotations from Clement of Alexandria, refer- 
 ring to Potter’s note on the passage. But both Potter and 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 a 
 
[ 16 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Dr. Todcl most strangely mistook tlie entire drift of tke pas- 
 sage, and I am persuaded that FitzGerald had taken the right 
 view of it. It is in the ‘ Stromateis,’ VII. p. 733a, of Syl- 
 burg’s edition. I notice this here, because of the uniform 
 accuracy of his quotations on any important point of 
 scholarship. He printed also in these years a review of 
 Strauss’s c Leben Jesu ’ in the 1 Dublin Christian Examiner,’ 
 a ‘ Life of Ussher’ in the ‘ Dublin University Magazine’ of 
 February, April, and August 184T, a review of Taylor’s 
 4 Ancient Christianity ’ in the same of May 1840, and a review 
 of Milman's ‘ History of Christianity ’ in September 1840 ; 
 also in the ‘ Christian Examiner ’ of June and August 1844, 
 a review of Maitland’s ‘ Dark Ages,’ and of Lathbury’s ‘ His- 
 tory of the Non- Jurors ’ in the same of May and July 1845. 
 I am inclined to refer also to this period an unfinished work 
 of great moment on the history of the Ebionites. The MS. 
 of this consists of a discussion of the Nazarene Gospel, which 
 he gave me many years ago, supposing it might be of use to 
 me in some work of mine which I was engaged in at the 
 time, but saying he was not quite sure that he would adhere 
 then to some particulars in it. These were already, when he 
 gave them to me, ‘ yellow leaves,’ as he called them. There 
 are also several chapters, tracing the history down from author 
 to author, full of most curious matter, and discussing the 
 views of writers now seldom noticed. The work is too un- 
 finished to be printed separately, but would find a fitting 
 place as a fragment in a collected edition of the Bishop’s 
 works. 
 
 One thing these papers plainly show is that the writer 
 had not finally accepted the doctrinal statements of our 
 Church in their full integrity, without having first made 
 himself thoroughly familiar with the works of the leading 
 Unitarian writers, from Dan. Zuicker and Crellius to Priestley 
 and Belsham. All his writings exhibit an eminently judicial 
 mind. He fairly distributed praise and blame as it seemed 
 deserved on either side, and was not content to judge the 
 case of one side on the showing of the other. The conclu- 
 sions arrived at by such a mind carry with them a weight 
 
EARLY PERIOD. [17 j 
 
 which the partial judgments of many controversialists fail to 
 bear. 
 
 There were probably some minor writings which it is not 
 easy now to trace. But besides papers in periodical publica- 
 tions he printed some separate volumes. In 1837 he had 
 written the papers in the ‘ Christian Examiner ’ on the ‘ Tracts 
 for the Times,’ which he put together and published in 1839, 
 before he had retired from clerical duty, under the title, 
 £ Episcopacy, Tradition, and Sacraments, with a Postscript on 
 Fundamentals,’ a very striking and remarkable treatise now 
 not to be easily met with. In 1842 he printed c Holy 
 Scripture the Ultimate Buie of Faith to a Christian Man,’ a 
 work also not to be easily met with now. And it was in this 
 period also that he prepared and published his edition of 
 Butler’s t Analogy,’ with a Life of the Author prefixed, notes 
 and various readings. Of this work I may truly say that if 
 he had never published anything else it would have sufficed 
 to establish his character as a profound thinker, entering 
 fully into the spirit of the great Bishop’s immortal work, and 
 adding in the same spirit important elucidations of the argu- 
 ment. The Life prefixed, consisting with its Appendix of 
 104 pages, is admirably written, and contains I suppose all 
 that is to be known of Butler’s personal history. It is en- 
 riched with frequent remarks and discussions on ethical and 
 philosophical questions of the highest order. It is also 
 adorned with several very striking sketches of character, for 
 which the readers of the Lectures now published will per- 
 ceive that he had a very remarkable faculty. In this respect 
 he reminds one of those sketches of character which form the 
 great charm of Lord Clarendon’s historical writings. 
 
 My readers will, I feel assured, be thankful if I present 
 them with a couple of interesting examples of the Notes to 
 this edition of the ‘ Analogy.’ I shall first take one which 
 will give a view of the writer’s conceptions on a very impor- 
 tant particular of practical religion. Butler had remarked, at 
 the close of the fifth chapter of the First Part of the c Analogy,’ 
 that c the manifestation of persons’ characters contributes very 
 much, in various ways, to the carrying on a great part of that 
 
MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
 general course of nature, respecting mankind, which comes 
 under our observation at present.’ In reference to this 
 remark of Butler, FitzGerald appended a note at the foot of 
 page 111, which is as follows : — 
 
 ‘ It may be observed, too, that our outward actions serve 
 to manifest our real characters to ourselves , showing us in a 
 remarkable manner, sometimes that we are better, and often 
 that we are worse than we could have suspected before the 
 trial. The present state of things, therefore, affords a disci- 
 pline corrective of the delusions of melancholy and self-love, 
 by constantly affording us practical means of correcting, by 
 experiment, pur estimate of our own dispositions.’ Besides 
 this note at the foot of the page, there is in the body of the 
 work the note of which I have spoken, headed ‘ Note A.’ It 
 is as follows : — 
 
 4 1 do not know whether Butler was here thinking at all 
 of sudden conversions, and in particular, of death-bed con- 
 versions ; but it may seem that the point here raised by him 
 is essentially involved in the question concerning them. 
 Instantaneous conversion seems to suppose the production in 
 a very short time of a change in the character which, in the 
 ordinary way, could only be produced by habit ; and so to be 
 in morals what creation is in physics. Indeed I am sure — 
 for it is apparent from what they themselves have told us of 
 their experience — that many men whose conversion has ap- 
 peared to themselves and others instantaneous, were really 
 converted gradually ; that the progress of reformation had 
 begun long before the point upon which they fix as the point 
 of transition, and, in several ways, remained very incomplete 
 and unconfirmed long after it. But these men, setting out 
 with the notion that all true conversion must be instan- 
 taneous, pleased themselves by dating their own change from 
 some day or hour, which fixed itself in their minds by some 
 extraordinary occurrence or peculiar liveliness of feeling. 
 This, however, cannot be said in all cases. But, then, it 
 must be observed that there may have been, in many cases, a 
 preparation, in the way of habit, for a total change of life, of 
 which the persons themselves not only were not, but could 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
 not be conscious. It is very hard in our own case, and 
 nearly impossible in the case of others, to determine how 
 far our good or bad conduct depends upon our external cir- 
 cumstances, how far we are in a state to insure the con- 
 tinuance of either upon a change of circumstances. The 
 history of great characters, and almost everybody's obser- 
 vation upon a smaller scale, show that men frequently, 
 upon a change of circumstances, appear on a sudden fit for 
 things which even they themselves had not previously known 
 their capacity of performing. It is not that, properly speak- 
 ing, the change of circumstances made them fit, but that it 
 removed some impediment to the development of a fitness 
 which previously existed unperceived. In the same way, 
 many minds may have been prepared for a conversion to God 
 by a course of gradual but unconscious preparation, which 
 put the mind into such a state that the continuance of its 
 wrong direction depended upon the presence of something 
 capable of being suddenly removed ; and the sudden removal 
 of which, consequently, appeared, both to the persons them- 
 selves and to others, to create a new set of habits in the 
 mind. It is reasonable, I think, to suppose that something 
 of this kind takes place with most good men at death. For 
 we observe many, who are nevertheless sincere Christians, 
 leave the world with habits of virtue apparently formed but 
 imperfectly, and with evil habits still remaining. Neverthe- 
 less the harvest of their virtue may be ripe for the sickle. 
 Almighty God may see, though we cannot, that the imper- 
 fection of their virtue, and the continuance of their vice, are 
 now depending upon the influence of some external circum- 
 stances ; and that such a change of circumstances as death 
 will infallibly and at once give scope to their good principles 
 to develop themselves completely, and remove entirely the 
 sources of their present temptations. I must be permitted 
 to add here some striking remarks, which Mr. Sadleir 3 made 
 
 3 Rev. William Digby Sadleir, Fellow of Trinity College, whose assist- 
 ance in preparing this edition of Butler’s Analogy is acknowledged in the 
 Preface, as well as that of the Rev. Aubrey Townshend, whose letter I have 
 already quoted. 
 
[ 20 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 upon the previous note, when I communicated it to him. 
 “ What you say of the possible effect of death, with good 
 men, in giving scope for the sudden expansion of the various 
 seeds of good principles that have been implanted in them, 
 has often occurred to me, as what may be very analogous to 
 what one reads of the sudden vegetation that takes place in 
 northern latitudes on the removal of the covering of snow 
 from the ground. One goes to bed, we are told, in those 
 regions, with everything looking dreary and desolate as 
 usual, and in the morning all nature is seen to have started 
 up into glad existence and vigorous life. This world being 
 viewed as under the dominion (to such a mysterious extent) 
 of the prince of the power of the air, the removal of the good 
 from it must have some very sudden and extraordinary effect. 
 Isaac Taylor, in his £ Physical Theory of another Life,’ says 
 some very striking things on the corresponding condition of 
 the wicked when removed from a scene where their evil 
 principles are held in considerable check by peculiar provi- 
 dential arrangements.” ’ 
 
 As an example of the manner in which difficulties in 
 Butler’s work are elucidated, I may refer to the note subjoined 
 to a sentence in the ( Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue,’ 
 which has often seemed strange to the readers of Butler. He 
 speaks of the moral faculty 1 whether considered as a senti- 
 ment of the understanding, or a perception of the heart ; or, 
 which seems the truth, as including both.’ To this apparently 
 misplaced assignment of sentiment to the understanding, and 
 perception to the heart, the following note is appended : — 
 
 ‘ Butler’s meaning appears to be, that if it be referred to 
 the understanding, it differs from other acts of the under- 
 standing, in partaking of the nature of feeling ; and that if 
 it be referred to the heart or feelings, it must be allowed to 
 partake of the nature of perception. Compare the language 
 of Adam Smith, in describing the system of Hutcheson. 
 “ This sentiment being of a peculiar nature distinct from every 
 other, and the effect of a particular power of perception , they 
 give it a particular name and call it a moral sense.” — Part VI. 
 chap. iii. p. 536.’ 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
 As we have arrived now at the period when, in 1846, 
 FitzGerald resumed professorial labours, it may not be amiss 
 to give here a few extracts from a volume of very beautiful 
 and instructive Sermons, published in the year 1847, which 
 will serve to exhibit those religious views which he continued 
 through life to hold and exemplify with unswerving consis- 
 tency. 
 
 From the sermon on Phil. ii. 5-11 — £ Let this mind be 
 in you,’ &c., I take the following passage : — 
 
 ‘ In the first place is set before us, Christ’s pre-existent 
 glory. “ He was,” says the Apostle, “ in the form of God.” 
 The form of God is here manifestly opposed to the form of a 
 servant, which He afterwards took upon Him. Now all 
 creatures are God’s servants. The highest honour of the 
 highest angel in the hierarchy of heaven is to be the servant 
 of the Almighty. He, therefore, who was so in the form of 
 God as not to be in the form of a servant, stood himself in no 
 rank of creation, but above it, as its Lord ; and accordingly, 
 the form of God is immediately afterwards explained by “ being 
 equal with God,” — sharing all that limitless power with which 
 the Father wields the universe at His pleasure, — the owner 
 of that frame of nature which the Father created by Him and 
 for Him, the complete and adequate image of all those divine 
 perfections which creature excellence, how high soever, can 
 copy but inadequately ; and all this naturally, as being, in the 
 fullest sense, the Son of God, the brightness of His glory 
 and express image of His person. This equality with God, 
 Christ (the Apostle continues) thought not a robbery. The 
 phrase is somewhat obscure, and perhaps (at least in modern 
 English) not well chosen to express the sense of the original. 
 The meaning is, that He thought it not a thing to be greedily 
 retained, or earnestly insisted upon, — counted it not a prey, 
 as men grasp most tenaciously that which they hold on a 
 precarious title, which has been flung in their way by 
 accident, or which they have wrested to themselves by force 
 or fraud. When this meaning is once suggested to you, you 
 will at once perceive its fitness, and even necessity, from the 
 course and tenor of the context. He thought not being equal 
 
[ 22 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 with God a thing given him as a prey, — a thing to be made 
 much of, and retained tenaciously, — but on the contrary He 
 made himself of no reputation. He chose to appear in a 
 form stripped and empty of all the grandeur which was His 
 by right.’ 
 
 With the foregoing passage may be coupled the following 
 from a sermon on Ps. cx. 1-3 : — 
 
 ‘ The office of King, which Jesus received at His resurrec- 
 tion, was bestowed by the Father, — bestowed as the reward 
 of obedience, and is exercised in subordination to the Father. 
 “ Wherefore ,” says the Apostle (Philip, ii. 9), — that is because 
 he was obedient unto death, — “ God also hath highly exalted 
 him, and given him ” (freely bestowed, i^aplaaro) “ a name 
 which is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every 
 knee should bow, . . . and that every tongue should confess 
 that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” So 
 that the honour rendered to Christ in this capacity is an 
 honour not terminating on Himself, but redounding ultimately 
 to the Father’s glory. And we learn from the same Apostle, 
 in 1 Cor. xv. 28, that even after this prophecy has been most 
 fully satisfied, and all enemies completely subdued, such a 
 subordination shall still continue, and for the same purpose : 
 “ And when all things ” &c. That text is commonly misunder- 
 stood, as if the Son’s subjection were only to begin then ; 
 whereas what the Apostle manifestly means is that it shall 
 continue even then. No one could doubt of its existence 
 before, but the Apostle guards us against supposing that it 
 ceases when all authority and power has been put down under 
 the Son’s sceptre. . . . Christ, then, as Mediator, discharges 
 an office subordinate to the Supreme, and the honour paid to 
 Him in that capacity is consequently a subordinate honour ; 
 but in rendering it we are secured against idolatry, not only 
 by the express command of God requiring us to render it, 
 but by the additional information that Christ is no mere 
 creature, but the eternal Son of God, essentially one with Him 
 whose interpreter and representative He has become. The 
 true security against Socinian abuses of this doctrine of 
 Christ’s subordination to the Father lies not in putting 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [23] 
 
 strained meanings upon those many texts of Scripture which 
 recognise and enforce it, — not in dissembling or keeping back 
 any part of their fair and natural sense, — but in completing 
 the instruction which they give us, by bringing forward the 
 supplemental texts which tell us something more.’ 
 
 From these statements on the supremacy of Christ we 
 may pass to His sacrifice, and our relation to it by faith. 
 From the sermon on the Resurrection preached on Easter 
 Day, 1847, I take the following : — 
 
 ‘ Christ died a sacrifice for our sins. The precise nature 
 of that impediment to immediate forgiveness, which this 
 sacrifice removed, we are nowdiere told, and, I think, cannot 
 possibly discover. It were well if, warned by the silence of 
 revelation, man had learnt the vanity of conjecturing in a 
 region beyond the limits of knowledge. What we are con- 
 cerned to know, and what we do know, is, that, as far as the 
 penalty reaches, we in Him have died to sin. His resurrec- 
 tion is a proof that the mysterious work is finished, the 
 sacrifice accepted, and the pardon secured. We in Him have 
 died to sin that we may live to God. We are discharged from 
 the penalties of sin, we are entitled to the inheritance of 
 everlasting life, and that life consists in a change produced by 
 His power in our souls and bodies, totally freeing our souls 
 from the habits of vice, and our bodies from the accidents of 
 mortality, it is the total renovation of our whole nature, both 
 in soul and body, into Christ’s image. The condition upon 
 which we are thus made partakers of Christ is faith. Trust 
 in Him and in Him alone as the sufficient sacrifice for our 
 iniquities. Trust in what He has done for us, as completely 
 removing the only impediment which ever stood in the way 
 of our free forgiveness ; and consequently trust in God’s 
 mercy and favour as now secured to the uttermost for all 
 penitent and believing sinners. 
 
 ‘ But faith, saving faith, is also trust in Christ as the 
 renewer of our souls to righteousness. It is a great and 
 perilous error to regard that eternal life which Christ has 
 brought us as something wholly future. It is not so : it is 
 something present. We have, says the Apostle, everlasting 
 
[ 24 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 life. ... It is the faith of the cripple, who, trusting to the 
 new power given him, rose u'p and walked. It is not the 
 passive belief that we are helpless in ourselves, it is not even 
 the belief that He is able to help us, it is the active trust in 
 that help ; it is the doing of His will in reliance upon the 
 strength He grants us, it is the working out of our own 
 salvation in fear and trembling, knowing that it is God that 
 worketh in us.’ 
 
 With the foregoing description of saving faith we may 
 couple the following from the sermon on c Delaying Re- 
 pentance : ’ — 
 
 £ I have reserved for the last place the consideration of 
 another more subtle and hardly less pernicious device by 
 which we are sometimes tempted to banish the pain of 
 remorse, without undergoing the trouble of repeutan.ee, 
 which is the groundless presumption that, because perhaps 
 we are now weary of some particular sin, and for the present 
 little disposed to repeat it, we may forthwith appropriate to 
 ourselves the free promises of the gospel, and expel at once 
 those uneasy feelings which God has made the unfailing 
 attendants upon guilt. . . . There is surely a wide difference 
 between the assured sense that our sins have been forgiven 
 (which is a healthy and profitable feeling that all Christians 
 may and ought to attain to), and that forgetfulness of former 
 guilt and present frailty, that carelessness for the past and 
 for the future, which men who have never known one touch 
 of true and genuine repentance at times produce, by hastily 
 appropriating to themselves a message of pardon which was 
 never meant for them, and promises which, in their true 
 meaning, they have no desire to see fulfilled. ... I do not 
 offer you a Saviour who will save you in your sins, but one 
 who, strong as may be your evil habits, is ready to redeem you 
 from their power. You must not wait till you grow better. 
 Seek earnestly to God through Him. There is nothing in 
 heaven or earth or hell, nothing but your own unbelieving 
 and coward heart, to bar your access to the throne of grace. 
 . . . However strong your passions, however deeply rooted 
 your evil habits, the Spirit of Christ is the very power of 
 
EAELY PERIOD. 
 
 [25] 
 
 God, the finger of Omnipotence, the all-prevailing energy of 
 Him who made and governs all things. That Spirit is Christ’s 
 to bestow, and He will bestow it upon all who trust in Him. 
 
 0 turn and seek from Him this best of all gifts ! ’ 
 
 I shall give one more passage, because it brings into pro- 
 minence the work of the Holy Spirit. It is from the sermon 
 on 1 Christ the Second Adam.’ 
 
 ‘ The relationship which we bear to Adam is a fleshly one. 
 It is by natural descent from him that we inherit that mortal, 
 diseased and corrupted frame, from which sin and misery have 
 sprung up among us. But the relationship to Christ is a 
 spiritual relationship. They who through Him, and in Him, 
 are the sons of God, have been born again, not of corruptible 
 seed, but of incorruptible, even of the word of God which 
 liveth and abideth for ever. The connecting link by which 
 the whole family in heaven and earth is united to its new and 
 better head is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God ; an agent 
 who ceaselessly opposes and counteracts that spirit of the 
 world and of the flesh, by which Satan endeavours to turn 
 us away from God. Man in the unassisted powers of his own 
 nature, had proved unequal to the contest. It was necessary 
 that a new and higher power should come to his aid, and 
 work in him and with him, until the victory should be secured. 
 This is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, which, by moulding us into 
 the image of the triumphant second Adam, brings back to us 
 that holiness and happiness which was lost by the calamity of 
 the first.’ 
 
 I have not selected these passages because they are the 
 most striking or remarkable in this interesting and instruc- 
 tive volume of sermons. Indeed tlieir great charm is in the 
 more practical application to the hearts of his hearers. But 
 
 1 have chosen them as exemplifying those views of the funda- 
 mental principles of the gospel which formed the doctrinal 
 basis of the author’s pastoral teaching when he resumed the 
 active labours of the ministry, and continued to guide his 
 future teaching to the end of his life. 
 
 These sermons were preached in the church of Clontarf in 
 the year 1847. He had accepted the Curacy of that parish 
 
[26] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 in the vicinity of Dublin, and on August 22, 1847, he was 
 admitted to Priest’s Orders by Archbishop Whately. About 
 this time also he was married to Anne Frances, daughter of 
 George Stoney, of Oakley Park in the King’s County, and 
 sister of G. Johnstone Stoney, Dr.Sc., F.R.S., well known both 
 at home and abroad for his eminent scientific attainments ; 
 as also of Bindon B. Stoney, LL.D., F.R.S., M.I.C.E., who 
 is the engineer of the port of Dublin, and author of several 
 important works on engineering. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mrs. FitzGerald only began when 
 she came to the palace of St. Finn Barr’s, Cork, on her 
 husband’s appointment to that See in 1857. It was of short 
 duration, as her death took place in 1859. To have enjoyed 
 the friendship and occasional society of this most admirable 
 person is one of the memories that have been fondly cherished 
 by me through later years. That she was an invaluable help 
 to her husband in his literary work is clear. Large portions 
 of his Lectures both on Moral Philosophy and on Ecclesiastical 
 History are in her handwriting. When his hand became 
 weary of tbe pen, she took it and wrote from his dictation. 
 Except for the difference of the handwriting it would be 
 impossible to distinguish the portions written by each, as the 
 Lectures now printed shew. I have reason to know that this 
 co-operation was one of the causes which withheld the Bishop 
 in after years from publishing these Lectures as he had intended. 
 To the unwillingness to revert to writings that were thus 
 associated with happiness too soon for ever at an end was con- 
 joined the labour that it would have cost him in the midst of 
 other duties to supply the needful references which he had 
 almost invariably omitted, and which it has been our task, in 
 such manner as we have been able, to supply. This labour 
 he found impossible, since for many years, as he told me when 
 I urged the publication on him, any continuous literary work 
 made him ill. 
 
 His acceptance of the Curacy of Clontarf brought him into 
 more immediate intercourse with Archbishop Whately, who 
 formed a high estimate of his character and ability, took him 
 into his more intimate friendship, making him in time his 
 
EARLY PERIOD. 
 
 [27] 
 
 chaplain, and then one of his Archdeacons, and giving him 
 such preferments as he held until he was raised to the 
 Episcopal Bench. 
 
 II. 
 
 Ministerial and Professorial Period. 
 
 We now come to a period when the subject of this memoir 
 was to pass from a private student, giving to the world in his 
 occasional writings the fruits of his study, and from the posi- 
 tion of a parish clergyman, to that of a great University 
 teacher, who was for many years to shed lustre on the Univer- 
 sity and to enlighten its more thoughtful students by the 
 brilliancy of his genius, and from the vast stores of his 
 learning. The professorship of Moral Philosophy had been 
 founded in 1837, and was filled until his death in 1848 by 
 William Archer Butler, whose genius is still held in admira- 
 tion and his works in high esteem, both in England and Ire- 
 land. In one of the following Lectures there will be found a 
 beautiful and affecting tribute to his worth. I shall not spoil 
 that by adding anything to it. I shall only say that, though 
 junior to me, he was one of my valued friends in college. 
 We were both members of a Debating Society which met out- 
 side the walls of college. The old famous Historical Society 
 had been suppressed for long years from political causes. 
 Our meetings outside of college were, I believe, an infringe- 
 ment of discipline, but were allowed by a tolerant connivance. 
 Butler was a frequent speaker at those meetings, and gave 
 proof of the fervid imagination and great powers of thought 
 and of eloquence by which he was afterwards distinguished. 
 He was also a great humorist. 
 
 Cum stetit in scena, concurrit dextera laevae. 
 
 Dixit adhuc aliquid ? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo ? 
 
 The answer would be : 
 
 Surripuit plausus facie minitante facetum. 
 
 The fact was, he generally rose to speak when some 
 amusing thought had caught his fancy. This produced on 
 
[28] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 his animated features a play of humorous expression which 
 was greeted by laughter and applause. The payment thus 
 made in advance was well rewarded, and followed by a second 
 recognition. 
 
 When Archer Butler’s premature death rendered the 
 professorship of Moral Philosophy vacant, FitzGerald’s well- 
 known philosophical powers and great acquirements in that 
 line marked him out as the new professor. His Lectures 
 embraced Logic and Metaphysics in addition to the subject of 
 Ethics properly so-called. They are characterised by great 
 eloquence, often by no small amount of humour, but above 
 all by profound thought. Although on these subjects so much 
 has been done since then, and so many new lines of discus- 
 sion have been in late years opened up, more especially since 
 the notion of evolution has been extended from Natural His- 
 tory to Moral Science, or what professes to be science, these 
 Lectures have still their native freshness. Indeed he frequently 
 met by anticipation thoughts that have since assumed a pro- 
 minence that they could not at that time have held. I may 
 say the same of his notes to Butler’s £ Analogy.’ One valu- 
 able series of the Lectures is on the Ethics of Christianity. 
 And a most interesting series on the Ethics of Aristotle has 
 been consolidated to form the Introduction to a selection from 
 the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, which he published 
 with invaluable notes for the use of the students of the Uni- 
 versity in 1850. A few extracts from the Introduction to this 
 book, which, as I have said, embodies a short series of the 
 Lectures, will serve to illustrate his manner of treatment and 
 style in lecturing, as well as one of the leading principles 
 of his philosophy, namely, the existence in man of an innate 
 faculty, the moral sense, by which he distinguishes actions as 
 right or wrong, as by reason he distinguishes them as useful 
 or injurious. 
 
 ‘ There have not been wanting some fanatical decl aimers 
 who have proscribed as unchristian the whole course of classical 
 study pursued in this and other Universities. . . . The answer 
 to this wild rant is easy and direct. If there were nothing 
 else, the Bible itself has made such studies necessary. God, 
 
 J v ' 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [ 29 ] 
 
 whether we like it or not, has been pleased to make His great 
 revelation to mankind in the Greek language ; and competent 
 skill in the criticism of that language can only be acquired 
 by the study of the authors in whom alone it now exists. . . . 
 If any study really needful for acquiring such a knowledge is 
 objectionable, we cannot help that. It is the revealer Him- 
 self that has made it necessary. God has established an 
 intimate connection on every side, between the Scriptures of 
 truth and every department of human science and litera- 
 ture. . . . 
 
 £ Thus does Scripture cross at every turn the walks of 
 human science and human learning ; and however strange, at 
 first sight, may appear the plan which encumbers it with such 
 numerous, such complex, and such difficult studies, yet, upon 
 a nearer view, we shall perceive that this very connection, 
 while it makes continual provision for stimulating the intellect 
 to the search of truth, makes provision also for the continual 
 multiplication of the evidence of the divine origin of the 
 Scriptures. Wherever the Bible has extended its testimony 
 over subjects where human science and learning are competent 
 witnesses also, it has exposed itself to the risk of contra- 
 diction and detection if it be false. . . . No human imposture 
 has ever been able to stand the light of criticism and science, 
 though confining itself to a single subject and extending to 
 very narrow limits. There is no false witness that has not 
 broken down under such a cross-examination as modern criti- 
 cism and science are able to supply. When w r e find, then, 
 such a revelation as that contained in Scripture, not only 
 maintaining its credit under such severe and multiplied tests 
 as are applied to it ; when we find, not only that no engines 
 of critical torture can wring from it such a self-contradiction 
 or inconsistency as shall betray its falsity, but that science 
 and literature continually, as they advance, confirm its testi- 
 mony ; that as fuller light breaks in, difficulties, instead of 
 increasing, diminish ; and that, the more it is brought into 
 symmetry with a book, the latest of whose parts was written 
 nearly eighteen centuries ago ; — when we find thus, that the 
 doctrines and morals of Scripture are a for all time,” and when 
 
[ 30 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 every research into antiquity shows that a book, whose spirit 
 is thus superior to the spirit of its age, was nevertheless 
 composed in the age when it pretends to have been composed ; 
 — we see that the evidence, like the light of revelation, is a 
 growing splendour, which “ shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day.” ’ 
 
 The courageous and unhesitating tone of this passage, 
 from one who thoroughly knew all that criticism had been 
 able to do up to his time, has been largely confirmed by more 
 recent discoveries of ancient historical evidences during an 
 interval of nearly thirty-five years which has been in respect 
 to advancement in the branches of knowledge which bear on 
 the subject equivalent to the preceding century. And if, 
 while modern scientific theories do not really affect the 
 fundamental principles of revealed religion, the real dis- 
 coveries of modern science may require us to modify our 
 interpretation of those parts of Scripture which hover between 
 history and allegory, and plainly in any case embody both, 
 this is only what the most profound of early Christian 
 thinkers had long ago perceived in the light of their own 
 days. The Book is still the book of the learned as well as of 
 the unlearned. 
 
 We may now give some extracts that more immediately 
 concern the subject of Aristotle’s Ethics : — 
 
 ‘ The portions of Aristotle’s Ethics here presented to the 
 reader are essentially descriptive. They are exquisitely 
 finished and exact delineations of that conduct which, as a 
 matter of fact, a well constituted mind approves ; and the 
 whole of Aristotle’s moral system is grounded upon the 
 existence of a principle within us which approves of virtue, 
 and disapproves of vice, as such, and for their own sokes. . . . 
 It will be proper to mark distinctly the point of difference 
 between the system of Aristotle and that of the modern 
 Utilitarians. It is not that Aristotle doubts or denies the 
 tendency of virtuous conduct to produce the greatest attain- 
 able happiness of man, or that a reasonable being requires to 
 be satisfied that, in pursuing virtue, he pursues happiness. 
 But it is that he denies this tendency to produce happiness to 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [31] 
 
 be that which constitutes actions virtuous, or a regard to it 
 the motive from which the virtuous man, as such, acts virtu- 
 ously. The happiness of which he speaks is the happiness 
 which springs from the pursuit of virtue for its own sake. 
 
 . . . The virtuous man is not like the charioteer, whose gaze 
 is ever fixed on the goal ; but rather like the rower, who, 
 struggling with the tide and intent upon his present work, 
 approaches the unseen harbour where he would be. . . . The 
 reality of a moral faculty in man is thus assumed throughout 
 by Aristotle as the basis of his ethical system. He assumes 
 its existence, as a matter of fact, to which every man’s con- 
 sciousness can testify ; and it seems worth observing, that 
 the arguments by which the existence of such a faculty 
 is commonly impugned are essentially sceptical arguments. 
 They are precisely the same kind of arguments as those by 
 which professed sceptics have endeavoured to show (or seem 
 to show) that there is no such thing as a rational faculty. 
 They are generally founded upon the gross insensibility to 
 moral distinctions exhibited by uneducated children or savage 
 nations ; or instances of persons who from various causes 
 have counted those things right which we commonly deem 
 wrong. . . . Crimes, they tell us, have by some been con- 
 sidered virtues, and virtues crimes. Be it so. But then 
 this proves, at any rate, that, however mistaken in the object, 
 these men had the same sentiment of moral approbation and 
 disapprobation as we have, which furnished them with the 
 ideas of right and wrong, specifically distinct from those of 
 prudent, useful, foolish, or pernicious ; that the moral like 
 the rational faculty needs to be educated. . . . Indeed, it is 
 strange to see how this confusion between an innate moral 
 faculty and innate maxims of morality has imposed upon some 
 of the clearest thinkers .' 4 
 
 4 A few sentences from the Life of Butler prefixed to the edition of the 
 * Analogy ’ will shew that the writer was not insensible to the possible sup- 
 position of the derivative nature of conscience and the moral faculty, as 
 maintained by Mackintosh, and brought by modern theories of evolution 
 into greater prominence in more recent times : — 
 
 ‘ There is no family likeness whatever between the moral sense and the 
 modes of pleasure and pain to which its origin is attempted to be traced. 
 
 VOL. I. b 
 
[ 32 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 One extract more from the close of this Introduction will 
 suffice. It will be found to bear significantly upon some 
 modern organisations for promoting virtue, besides its value 
 in a more general way : — 
 
 6 It is much more flattering to a man’s vanity (and there- 
 fore much more agreeable to most persons) to believe that the 
 austerities which his own previous vice and present frailty 
 render necessary are themselves the highest and most perfect 
 virtue ; that living in an hospital is the best indication of 
 health ; and those who make morals for the popular market 
 will, therefore, find it expedient to adopt this false represen- 
 tation. Nor will the popular market fail of being supplied 
 in every age with a morality suitable to the demands of each 
 succeeding generation. It is not in moral science as in phy- 
 sical, where there is boundless room for new accessions, dis- 
 coveries of new facts, generalisations of new laws — without 
 disturbing old foundations. Novelty in ethics must be funda- 
 mental novelty ; and as in matters of social economy, religion 
 and morals, all seem to think themselves capable of judging 
 extempore and without a systematic education, fundamental 
 novelties in ethics may be safely propounded without risk of 
 that universal ridicule with which fundamental novelties in 
 physics would be met. Politics and morals do not stand so 
 completely upon the correct theory of each, but that men may 
 pass for politicians and moralists without being acquainted 
 with it ; r «.nd hence, in- these sciences, old errors continually 
 revive « nd old truths tend to slip out of memory. It is 
 
 It is a sentiment sui generis , and as little indicating, in itself or its accom- 
 paniments, composition, or derivation, as any other principle of our minds. 
 Nor, when we consider how early in life strong traces of its influence may 
 be discovered, will it seem probable to account for its phenomena by such 
 a long and complex process of association as Mackintosh supposes. ... It 
 may give us a theoretic account of the way in which that supremacy [of 
 conscience] is attained. But, if there be, as undoubtedly there is, in the 
 human mind, an indestructible sense of right , no matter how acquired, and 
 if, upon comparing the dictates of our various faculties together, we feel 
 ourselves compelled to pronounce that the dictate of conscience ought to be 
 followed in all cases ; these facts set the doctrine, for all practical purposes, 
 upon so stable a basis, as to need no support from the frail buttresses of 
 speculation.’ (pp xxv.-xxvi.) 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. 
 
 surely a prejudice to think that the moderns must have the 
 same advantage over the ancients in moral as in physical 
 science. In physics, the phenomena were (from a defect of 
 organs of investigation) beyond the reach of the old philo- 
 sophers. So far as sagacity could reach in conjecturing, 
 they guessed rather better than their successors. The guess 
 of Pythagoras was nearer the truth than that of Tycho Brahe. 
 Where they had the materials of knowledge it does not 
 appear that they fell short of us in making use of them. 
 Euclid’s Elements are not yet superseded as an introduction 
 to pure geometry . 
 
 ‘ Now the phenomena of morals were thus within the reach 
 of the ancient Greeks ; — to some extent, no doubt, distorted 
 phenomena, — presented under a false aspect through the 
 peculiar prejudices of the times. But what times are they 
 wherein moral and social phenomena are not thus distorted ? 
 This is a difficulty with which all ages have to contend, our 
 own as well as those preceding us; and since it is unques- 
 tionably easier to appreciate and allow for their prejudices 
 than our own, may it not be advantageous for correcting 
 these latter to survey moral objects through those ancient 
 glasses, which have flaws in them (if you will), but not exactly 
 the same flaws as the modem ? ’ 
 
 Having given these specimens of FitzGerald’s style and 
 manner of treatment and views in the discussions proper to 
 his professorship, we may return to the simple incidents of 
 his personal history. In the year 1848 Professor FitzGerald 
 received from Archbishop Whately his first preferment, the 
 parish of Donoughmore in the county of Wicklow, forming 
 the corps of a prebend of that title in the Cathedral of St, 
 Patrick, Dublin. He was collated on February 16, and 
 installed in the Cathedral on March 9 in that year. He 
 entered at once on the duties of the parish, which was some 
 distance from Dublin, attending to them in person, except 
 during term time while performing the duties of his pro- 
 fessorship. This parish he held until late in the year 1851, 
 when he resigned it for the Vicarage of St. Anne’s in the city 
 of Dublin. 
 
[34] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 In the year 1849 was issued by the Parker Society 
 its edition of ‘ Whitaker’s Disputation on Holy Scripture 
 against Bellarmine and Stapleton,’ translated and illustrated 
 with notes by the Rev. William FitzGerald, A.M., Prebendary 
 of Donoughmore in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, and Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin.’ The 
 Parker Society, whose first publication was issued in 1841, 
 was instituted for the purpose of printing the writings of 
 the principal English Reformers. It was hoped that these 
 writings would form an antidote to the growing influence in 
 a Romeward direction of the ‘ Tracts for the Times,’ and other 
 publications of men of the same school of thought. As long 
 as the works of the English Reformers were only to be found 
 in old and expensive folios, and often only in public libraries, 
 they had the benefit of the maxim 1 Omne ignotum pro mag- 
 nijico .’ When they were consulted, their ponderous style, 
 proper to their time, was found to accord with the ponderous 
 volumes in which they were contained, and they suited well 
 the use to which they were applied, that of documents of 
 historical value. When they came to be circulated in modern 
 form amongst a large number of general readers, they cer- 
 tainly caused no small degree of disappointment. Learned 
 they certainly were in the learning of their time. Heavy 
 they were assuredly from the style prevalent in that day in 
 theological writings, as well as from the Scholastic method in 
 which their subject matter was treated. They had the faults 
 as well as the good qualities of their time ; but transferred 
 to our times, they no doubt were very unattractive to most 
 readers. It was thought also that the editorial work was 
 in several cases entrusted to men whose qualifications for the 
 task were not of a high order. The work of these editors was 
 of course subjected to severe criticism, and many mistakes, 
 sometimes very absurd mistakes, were exposed. The con- 
 sequence of this criticism was that the council found it 
 necessary to look out for editors more competent to the task. 
 Amongst others they obtained the services of Dr. Richard 
 Gibbings and Professor FitzGerald, both of Trinity College, 
 Dublin. The work entrusted to the latter must have imposed 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [35] 
 
 great labour, and was not likely to be rewarded with much 
 fame. Indeed to edit one of the works in this extensive 
 series was to hide one’s candle under a bushel, or to bury the 
 needle of one’s wits in a bundle of hay. Whitaker’s book 
 was really a work of very great learning, according to the 
 lights of that day, and is full of valuable matter. The editor’s 
 work was to translate it from Latin to English, and to subjoin 
 notes when necessary. The notes in this case are highly 
 valuable, consisting of exact copies of the quotations made by 
 the author, amongst which are interspersed numerous brief 
 illustrations and remarks, supplementing the imperfect know- 
 ledge of the time or correcting mistakes. If one will take 
 this work in hand and read the notes appended, referring to 
 the passages in the text to which they apply, he will derive 
 no small amount of instruction, and I may add, occasionally 
 of entertainment. The brevity of these notes will render the 
 needful time and pains but small, while one will gain a 
 tolerable acquaintance with one of the most learned works of 
 the entire series. I subjoin a part of the Preface, as illus- 
 trating the writer’s style in drawing characters : — 
 
 4 It seemed desirable that this, the great work of one of 
 the greatest of our early divines upon the cardinal point of 
 difference between the Churches of the Roman and the 
 Reformed communions, should be comprised in the collection 
 of the Parker Society ; not only on account of its intrinsic 
 merits, but also for its historical value ; as exhibiting the 
 posture of defence assumed by our schools against that 
 change of tactics in the management of this great contro- 
 versy, which is to be dated from the institution of the Society 
 of Jesus. 
 
 ‘ William Whitaker (or Whitacre) was born at Holme, in 
 Lancashire, A.D. 1547, of a good family, nearly related to 
 Alexander Now el, the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s. He 
 was bred at Cambridge, where he soon distinguished him- 
 self, and was in 1579 appointed the Queen’s Professor of 
 Divinity. In 1586, through the influence of Burghley and 
 Whitgift, and in spite of obstinate and powerful opposition, 
 he was made Master of St. John’s College in that University ; 
 
[36] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 soon after which appointment he took the degree of Doctor 
 in Divinity. His delay in assuming the doctorate seems 
 carious, and it was maliciously made the ground of a most 
 unjust imputation of Puritanism. How small was his sym- 
 pathy with the Disciplinarian party, appears from the manner 
 in which he speaks of their great leader, Cartwright, in a 
 letter preserved by Bancroft : “ I have read through a great 
 part of the small book which Cartwright has lately issued. 
 That I might not live, if I ever saw anything more rambling, 
 and almost more puerile. He has indeed a sufficiently grand 
 and novel furniture of words, of matter none at all, as far as 
 I am able to judge. Then he not only thinks perversely of 
 the authority of the prince in sacred and ecclesiastical affairs, 
 but he even deserts to the camp of the Papists ; from whom, 
 however, he wishes to seem to dissent with capital hatred. 
 But he is not only not to be tolerated in this cause, but in 
 others also he borrows weapons from the Papists. In fine, 
 as Jerome said of Ambrose, he sports with words, slumbers 
 in thoughts, and is not worthy to be refuted by any learned 
 man. D 
 
 ; But though far removed from the Disciplinarian tenets of 
 the Puritans, he undoubtedly agreed with them in their hos- 
 tility to the Arminian opinions, which in his time began to 
 
 prevail in the Church of England Whitaker died in 
 
 1595, in the forty-seventh year of his age. He was married 
 and had eight children. It was pleasantly said of him that 
 he gave the world a child and a book every year. Of his 
 children I have nothing to communicate, and his books will 
 speak for themselves. They gained for him in his lifetime a 
 high character and reputation. “ I have,” says the writer of 
 his life in Lupton’s ‘ Protestant Divines,’ “ I have heard it 
 confessed of English Papists themselves, which have been in 
 Italy with Bellarmine himself, that he procured the true 
 portraiture and effigies of this Whitaker to be brought to him, 
 which he kept in his study. For he privately admired this 
 man for his learning and ingenuity ; and being asked by some 
 
 ■> I have translated this letter from the Latin in which it is presented 
 in the Preface. 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [37] 
 
 of Iiis friends, Jesuits, why he would have the picture of that 
 heretic in his presence ? he would answer that ‘ although 
 he was an heretic, and his adversary, yet he was a learned 
 adversary.’ (p. 359.) ” 
 
 6 “ He was,” says Gataker, “ tall of stature and up, ight ; of a 
 grave aspect, with black hair and a ruddy complexion ; a solid 
 judgment, a liberal mind, an affable disposition, a mild, yet 
 no remiss governor ; a contemner of money ; of a moderate 
 diet, a life generally unblameable, and (that which added a 
 lustre to all the rest) amidst all these endowments, and the 
 respects of others (even the greatest) thereby deservedly 
 procured, of a most meek and lowly spirit.” “ Who,” asks 
 Bishop Hall, “ ever saw him without reverence or heard him 
 without wonder ! ” . . . There is a prolixity in Whitaker’s 
 style, which contrasts unfavourably with the compactness of his 
 great antagonist, Bellarmine ; though he trespasses less upon 
 the student’s patience than Stapleton, whose verbose rhetoric 
 made him admired in his own day, and whose subtlety of 
 logic cannot save him from neglect in ours.’ 
 
 In January 1851 appeared the first number of the re- 
 markable series of papers known as the 4 Cautions for the 
 Times.’ These were issued periodically until some time in the 
 year 1853, the last but one being dated April 1853, the last of 
 all having no date. These papers treat of all the religious 
 questions that stirred the public mind at that time ; the Papal 
 Aggression, the controversy with the Church of Rome, the 
 Oxford Tract movement, the objections of sceptics to the 
 Christian religion, forming the principal topics of discussion. 
 They had large circulation at home and in the colonies, and 
 were reprinted in America, and in 1856 were collected and 
 reprinted in a single volume, edited by the Archbishop of 
 Dublin. In the preface the Archbishop said he had received 
 assistance from several friends, but he says, ‘ the share I have 
 myself had in the several parts of it has been very various. 
 To some numbers I have contributed the half or more than 
 half ; to others much less.’ At the same time he had revised 
 them all, and took the whole responsibility on himself. It was 
 then and still is generally supposed that FitzGerald had a 
 
[ 38 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 large share in their preparation. In later years I found him 
 reticent as to his part in their preparation, I think because 
 he seemed always to undervalue his past work. A friend with 
 whom he sometimes corresponded, the Rev. C. H. Davis, 
 of Littleton Drew, near Chippenham, has kindly sent me a 
 letter of October 6, 1859, an extract from which will show to 
 some extent his part in this work. 4 The Archbishop’s work 
 and mine in the 44 Cautions ” are for the most part so blended 
 that it would be as hard to separate them as to strip the em- 
 broidery from Martin’s coat. Some, as No. VII. and XXIX. 
 and No. XXIII., and a few more, are nearly, if not quite all, 
 mine.’ He must have done more which was put into different 
 form by the Archbishop. Thus there exists a MS. of one 
 which certainly was not printed, though the leading ideas and 
 sometimes the words were reproduced. 
 
 A passage in No. XXIX., acknowledged by the Bishop, 
 has a history which I shall give. It illustrates in a remark- 
 able way the impression his sermons made on thoughtful 
 hearers. About five-and-twenty years ago, when he was 
 Bishop of Cork, I took him a paper I had written on the 
 Epistles of St. Peter, which I afterwards printed at his desire 
 in the 4 Journal of Sacred Literature.’ Thinking I might 
 like to see it, he then gave me a sermon he had preached in 
 the Chapel of Trinity College in November 1850, on the same 
 subject as my paper, though pursuing a different line of in- 
 vestigation. This sermon I kept as a prized and cherished 
 memento, until within the last few months I had a letter from 
 Dr. Salmon, the Regius Professor of Divinity, saying that Dr. 
 Gwynn, Archbishop King’s Professor of Divinity, had told him 
 that he had retained a lively remembrance of an important 
 sermon preached by FitzGerald a great many years ago on the 
 genuineness of the Second Epistle of St. Peter, in the College 
 Chapel ; and Dr. Salmon asked me could I help to get him a 
 sight of this sermon ? Of course I was happy to be able to send 
 it to him. But presently I found verified what has often been 
 noticed, that when one lends a book or document that has lain 
 by him untouched for long years, he has scarcely parted with 
 it when lie (inds some unexpected need of referring to it. 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [39] 
 
 Before sending the sermon I read it over again with renewed 
 delight, and in a couple of days, having arrived at this part 
 of the present narrative, I took in hand the 4 Cautions for the 
 Times.’ In the last of these I was struck by observing that 
 the motto prefixed was part of the text of the sermon, 
 2 Peter i. 16 : ‘We have not followed cunningly devised 
 fables ’ etc. Beyond this, however, I noticed nothing remark- 
 able of the same kind, till I got to the latter part of the 
 number, and then I found I was reading what I had read a 
 few days before in the sermon just mentioned, the latter 
 portion being with some slight variations identical with part 
 of the sermon. 
 
 Dr. Salmon expressed, when acknowledging the loan of 
 the sermon I have mentioned, a wish that it might be in- 
 cluded in the present volumes. Instead of that, it will for 
 the present suffice if I give, what my readers will be thankful 
 for, so much of it as is included in the 4 Caution ’ just spoken 
 of. This I do from the MS. itself : — 
 
 4 The text before us,’ viz. 2 Peter i. 16-18, 4 We have not 
 
 followed cunningly devised fables ’ &c 4 shews us that the 
 
 allegation of a mythic origin was a prejudice which Christ- 
 ianity had to meet in the outset, and that it was met and 
 surmounted in the only possible way, by the testimony of 
 eye-witnesses to plain matter of fact, that the basis on which 
 no mythical system ever stood or can stand, was the very 
 basis on which Christianity rested from the beginning. From 
 the very nature of the case, indeed, it could not have been 
 otherwise. If the idea of the facts- — the miraculous facts of 
 Christianity — occurred to the Apostles at all, they must have 
 thought of them as things to be 'proved. They must have 
 felt that their own safety was compromised in the matter, 
 and that however ready themselves to adopt it without proof, 
 the story, e.g ., of Christ’s resurrection, could not be grateful 
 to the priests and people reeking with the blood of a mur- 
 dered Messiah. No mythic legend was ever generated in 
 such circumstances as these. The genuine myth not only 
 seems self-evident to its inventor, but is supposed by himself 
 evident to others. Question it at its rise, or suppose it 
 
[ 40 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 questioned, and you put an end to it at once. If the mind 
 be once arrested between the premises and the conclusion, 
 the fanciful shell which binds them together is broken, and 
 it becomes as impossible to bind them again, as it is to dream 
 when we are awake. Whatever is framed under such con- 
 ditions may be a conjecture, a theory, or an invention, but 
 it cannot be a myth. Still less could a myth have been 
 successfully propagated under the circumstances supposed. 
 The personal character of the great Teacher of Nazareth may 
 have produced as strong impression as you please upon his 
 immediate followers, but to talk of an impression made upon 
 a vast multitude who never could have known him familiarly 
 by a private man who never performed any dazzling exploit, 
 who was crucified, dead, and buried, and whose body lay still 
 in the tomb— an impression so strong as to alter all their 
 strongest national prejudices, revolutionise the faith of their 
 childhood, and make them ready to believe upon no evidence 
 at all that He must have risen from the grave — this is to talk 
 such nonsense as infidelity alone can venture upon talking, 
 when engaged in the desperate task of evading miracles. In 
 the most mythical age that ever was this would have been 
 impossible. It is in the soil of minds unshaken in their 
 belief, and warmed by the sympathetic credulity of those 
 around them, that such plants as these can spring and 
 flourish. Thus the nature of the case, no less than the 
 historic documents, shews plainly that Christianity must have 
 from the first pretended at least to stand upon the ground of 
 testimony. With such pretensions it arose in an enlightened 
 and sceptical age amongst a despised and narrow-minded 
 people, earning hatred and persecution at home by its liberal 
 genius, and contempt abroad by its connection with the 
 country where it was born, but which sought to strangle it 
 in its birth. Emerging from Judasa, and making its way 
 outward through the most polished regions of the globe — 
 Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece, Rome — it attracted notice but to 
 provoke hostility. Successive massacres and attempts at ex- 
 termination prosecuted for years together by the whole power 
 of the Roman Empire it bore without resistance, and drew 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [41] 
 
 fresh strength and vigour from the axe ; but assaults in the 
 way of argument, from whatever quarter, it met and over- 
 turned with argument ; and whether attacked or not was 
 resolutely aggressive. In four centuries it had pervaded the 
 civilised world and made extensive attacks upon barbarism. 
 It had gathered all genius and all learning into itself and 
 made the literature of the world its own. It survived the 
 inundations of the barbarous tribes, .and conquered the world 
 once more by converting its conquerors to the faith. It sur- 
 vived — the one sanctuary of knowledge — an age of barbarism. 
 It survived the restoration of letters. It survived an age of 
 free inquiry, and has long stood its ground in the field of 
 argument, and commanded the intelligent assent of the 
 greatest minds that ever were. It has been the parent of 
 civilisation and the nurse of learning and if light and 
 humanity and freedom are the special boast of modern 
 Europe, it is to Christianity she owes them. Exhibiting in 
 the life of the Redeemer a picture varied and minute of the 
 perfect human united with the Divine— in which from that 
 day to this the mind of man has not been able to find a defi- 
 ciency or detect a blemish — a picture copied from no model 
 and rivalled by no copy — it has satisfied the wants of uni- 
 versal man, and accommodated itself to every period and 
 every clime, and retained through every change that salient 
 spring of life which enables it to throw off corruption, and 
 repair decay, and renew its youth amidst outward hostility 
 and internal divisions. Yet this religion and all its moral 
 miracles — this mighty impulse which no time or space can 
 check or spend — proceeded, we are told, from a mythic 
 legend casually produced in the fancies of some Galilean 
 peasants. The moral world of modern civilisation has sprung 
 from the fortuitous concourse of some atoms of mythology in 
 the brains of unknown somebodies. Credulous as Christians 
 may be thought by their opponents, we profess ourselves too 
 sceptical to receive such an account as this. Nor is it pro- 
 bable indeed that it will long continue popular with any 
 reflecting persons. u Non usque adeo desperandum est de sen- 
 sibus humanis, ut talia persuaderi posse credantur.” Having 
 
[42] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 served its turn, it will be cast aside for some newer theory 
 more suitable to the changing fashion of unbelief.’ 
 
 This sermon was preached on November 24, 1850. The 
 prediction contained in the closing sentences has since been 
 verified by the more recent theories to which scepticism has 
 shifted its ground of attack on the Christian faith. This 
 passage, it will be seen hereafter, had a curious subsequent 
 history. 
 
 In the last of the 1 Cautions for the Times,’ I find the 
 following footnote : ‘ See Historic Doubts relative to Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte , and also Historic Certainties’ The latter of 
 the works thus mentioned, 1 Historic Certainties respecting 
 the early History of America, by Aristarchus Newlight,’ 
 was printed in 1851. A copy of it was given to me by 
 FitzGerald after he became a Bishop, but without any 
 intimation of its authorship. I have no doubt he was the 
 author of this counterpart to the ‘ Historic Doubts,’ by Arch- 
 bishop Whately, and it was probably written by his sugges- 
 tion, though of this I speak only conjecturally. It represents 
 the writer as having got possession of an ancient document 
 which is given in full. This is an account of the French 
 Revolution and the wars of the First Napoleon, drawn up 
 after the manner of the historical books of the Old Testa- 
 ment, proper names of places and persons being represented 
 by ingenious anagrams. This is then discussed after the 
 manner of Strauss and other German sceptics in treating 
 the Scriptural history, the design being to show that the 
 early history of America has been in this document overlaid 
 with mythical stories and narratives of impossible events ; 
 and many learned notes, chiefly etymological, illustrate the 
 way in which these critics treat names in the Scriptural 
 writings. The whole is extremely able and at the same time 
 highly entertaining, though in regard to its public reputation 
 it was, as might have been expected, overshadowed by its 
 already famous predecessor, the ‘ Historic Doubts.’ 
 
 In July 1851 he resigned the prebendal stall and parish 
 of Donoughmore, being promoted by the Archbishop to the 
 Vicarage of St. Anne's in the city of Dublin, rendered vacant 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [43] 
 
 by the promotion of Dr. West, the present Dean of St. 
 Patrick’s, to the Archdeaconry of Dublin, both becoming 
 joint secretaries of the Archbishop. This parish brought 
 him into immediate proximity to the Archbishop, and his 
 preaching in that church drew a large following of thought- 
 ful hearers. Consequent on his more constant intercourse 
 from this time with the Archbishop, there must have been 
 many occasions of high discourse unhappily lost to the 
 world. Two great minds in general accord, but perfectly 
 independent, could not have been much in contact without 
 the occurrence of many scenes of the deepest interest, en- 
 livened by brilliant coruscations of wit, in which faculty both 
 were so great masters. Many pleasant stories and good 
 sayings of both were current in society, and may even still 
 be often heard. It is not my intention to repeat any of them 
 here. The merriment that gives life to conversation is only 
 meant for conversation, and when reduced to writing after- 
 wards is apt to seem flat, unless quickened into new life by 
 the unauthentic additions of the narrator. 
 
 Meanwhile he continued to fulfil the duties of the Pro- 
 fessorship of Moral Philosophy until circumstances called 
 him to another chair. In the year 1850 the Primate, Lord 
 John George Beresford, having given a benefaction for the 
 purpose, a Professorship of Ecclesiastical History was founded 
 in the University of Dublin. The first professor was Dr. 
 Samuel Butcher, a Fellow of Trinity College at that time, 
 afterwards Regius Professor of Divinity, and finally Lord 
 Bishop of Meath. In the year 1852 the Regius Professor, 
 Dr. Singer, was promoted to the Bishopric of Meath, and 
 late in the same year Dr. Butcher was appointed Regius 
 Professor, but did not vacate the chair of Ecclesiastical 
 History until the vacation of the following year. In the 
 meantime, as will be seen from the Introductory Lecture on 
 the English Reformation in these volumes, he asked Fitz- 
 Gerald, now become Dr. FitzGerald, having taken his degree 
 in spring, 1853, to take his place and carry into effect his 
 own design of tracing the rise and progress of the English 
 Reformation. To this request we owe the very valuable 
 
[44] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 series which forms the last in these volumes, but was, at least 
 in part, the first delivered. Later in this year he was himself 
 appointed professor in succession to Dr. Butcher, and in the 
 Michaelmas term delivered his Introductory Lecture on his 
 own account, vacating the chair of Moral Philosophy. The 
 present Lectures were heard by successive classes with pro- 
 found interest, and the impression they made has never faded 
 from the minds of those who attended them ; and ever since 
 it has been the earnest desire, expressed on every hand, that 
 they should be given to the world. The present Bishop of 
 Cork has told me that he, when a student in Trinity College, 
 formed one of a deputation that waited on him to desire their 
 publication, and there can be no doubt that he intended, as 
 he then signified, to comply with this request. The duties 
 on which he entered when he became Bishop of Cork ren- 
 dered that impracticable for a time, and then other causes 
 occasioned the postponement of it, till the declining strength 
 of a constitution always feeble, rendered continuous literary 
 work impossible. I have already intimated that they were 
 partly dictated, and written by the hand of Mrs. FitzGerald. 
 Her death in 1859 made him very unwilling to touch the 
 MSS. After that terrible blow Archbishop Whately strongly 
 urged him to set about the publication. His chaplain, Dr. 
 Webster, writes : ‘ At the close of one letter he said (I think 
 these were his very words), “You know how one that is gone 
 would be glad to see you at the work. Perhaps she could 
 see you — who can tell ? ” ’ If he could have at once set about 
 the task, he might then have accomplished it. The care of a 
 very laborious diocese hindered it then. The speedy removal 
 to Killaloe, with the task it involved of becoming acquainted 
 with a new diocese, caused fresh delay, until at last it became 
 an undertaking for which he felt he had not strength. The 
 exertions which the Disestablishment of the Church of Ire- 
 land made necessary were indeed as much as he was latterly 
 capable of, in addition to his own immediate work at home. 
 And thus it has become our task, to restore those Lectures 
 which had become disarranged, and were partly defective from 
 occasional portions having been transferred to other purposes. 
 
MINISTERIAL AND PROFESSORIAL PERIOD. [45] 
 
 Whatever we have done in this way is explained at the 
 proper places. The manner in which the subject is treated 
 renders them independent of any more recent investigations. 
 They have all the freshness of a new work about them, and 
 might have been written recently with scarcely a variation 
 from their original form and substance. 
 
 In the January of 1854 was issued the first number of the 
 i Irish Church Journal, and Literary and Theological Review,’ 
 continued monthly under this title for two years, and for 
 another year under the altered name of the 6 United Church 
 Journal.’ Of this well-conducted journal Dr. FitzGerald was 
 one of the editors. It may, and no doubt does, contain some 
 anonymous articles from his pen, which I do not attempt to 
 trace. It contained, however, one of the Lectures on Eccle- 
 siastical History in extenso , and portions of two or three others 
 which we have been able to identify and restore to their proper 
 places in these volumes. 
 
 On May 30, 1855, Dr. FitzGerald was collated by Arch- 
 bishop Whately, Archdeacon of Kildare, and this office he 
 held until he was advanced to the Bishopric of Cork, being 
 then succeeded in the Archdeaconry by the eminent Dr. 
 John Gregg, who afterwards succeeded him in the Bishopric 
 of Cork. And in the following June he was installed into the 
 prebendal stall of Timothan in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, thus 
 returning to that Chapter of which he had ceased to be a 
 member when he resigned Donoughmore for the Vicarage of 
 St. Anne’s. Between this date and his advancement to the 
 Bishopric of Cork, he became Incumbent of Monkstown, 
 properly c Hill of the Grange,’ near Dublin. In 1850 he pub- 
 lished a sermon entitled ‘ The Connection of Morality with 
 Religion,’ and in 1855, during the time of the Crimean War, 
 he printed another sermon, 1 National Humiliation a step 
 towards Amendment.’ Thus occupied he pursued his course, 
 until the death of Dr. James Wilson, on January 5, 1857, 
 opened the door for his advancement to a new sphere. Dr. 
 Wilson, who had been himself also a former chaplain to 
 Archbishop Whately, held the Bishopric of Cork, Cloyne, and 
 Ross till the date just mentioned. Lord Carlisle, the Lord- 
 
[46] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Lieutenant, immediately recommended Dr. FitzGerald to the 
 Queen as Dr. Wilson’s successor. He was accordingly raised 
 to that See by patent bearing date February 7, 1857, and 
 on the 8th March following he was consecrated in St. Patrick’s 
 Cathedral, by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishops of 
 Down and Limerick ; he was enthroned in Cloyne Cathedral 
 on March 16, and in Cork Cathedral on March 18. 
 
 From the time already mentioned, when I saw him in the 
 vestry at Sfc. Patrick’s in 1839, I had never come into con- 
 tact with him until just after his consecration. Buried myself 
 in remote country parishes, I very seldom went to Dublin, and 
 when 1 did go it was only for a hurried visit. But just at 
 the time I am now speaking of, I went to Dublin to vote at 
 an election for the members of Parliament for the University, 
 when the Provost of Trinity College, Dr. Richard MacDon- 
 nell, invited me to the Provost’s house to meet my new Bishop. 
 In the course of the evening he took me aside, made me sit 
 by him, and asked me a great many questions about his future 
 diocese. From thence began an intimacy which lasted for 
 more than twenty-six years, kept alive partly by personal 
 intercourse, partly by constant interchange of letters. Of his 
 letters to me during this period I possess a very large number, 
 having always carefully preserved them. They are mainly on 
 subjects connected with our common studies, sometimes on 
 questions of the day, and other incidental and personal 
 matters. They are full of wisdom, learning, and wit. I have 
 not yet brought myself to engage in the work of arranging 
 these letters, striking out what should meet no eye but my 
 own, and dealing with them then as might be thought 
 desirable. That he frequently corresponded with men of 
 eminence and learning I have reason to know from many 
 references to such correspondence in his letters to myself. 
 Whether any of his letters to these correspondents are in 
 existence I have no means of knowing, beyond a few kindly 
 sent me by Mr. Davis already mentioned. 6 
 
 6 If any reader who possesses such letters will entrust them to me, or 
 furnish me with copies, I shall feel truly thankful. 
 
[ 47 ] 
 
 III. 
 
 Period of his Episcopate. 
 
 As soon as ever the necessary repairs of the palace were 
 completed, the Bishop took up his abode in Cork. He brought 
 with him as his chaplain, the Rev. George Webster, who had 
 been a Curate in the diocese of Dublin, and whom he collated 
 soon after to the Chancellorship of the Cathedral of Cork and 
 the Rectory of St. Nicolas in that city, attached thereto. From 
 the first, beyond the official assistance Dr. Webster rendered 
 to the Bishop, he was allowed by him to pursue his own course 
 in other ways with perfect independence. His great and 
 commanding intellect, unceasing energy, and remarkable 
 power of organisation have ever since enabled him to render 
 great and lasting services to the cause of religion and charity. 
 While he has exercised a great influence on the religious 
 feelings of a large section of the community, he has been 
 eminently successful in the establishing of several important 
 institutions, the last being the completion of a residential 
 Hall in proximity to the Queen’s College, for students belong- 
 ing to the Church of Ireland. It seems right to say this much 
 here, as the name of Dr. Webster has been officially associated 
 with that of the Bishop ever since the commencement of his 
 episcopate, not only in Cork but subsequently in Ivillaloe, where 
 to the last he attended the Bishop from time to time, for the 
 more public occasions on which he required the services of a 
 chaplain. 
 
 When the Bishop entered on his work, the first matter of 
 importance that attracted his attention was the great extent 
 to which the country parishes were devoid of glebe-houses, 
 or of residences within them that might be hired. The con- 
 sequence of this was that the incumbents of surrounding 
 parishes took up their residence in the more central country 
 towns. If in this way the parishes were deprived of the 
 actual presence of their incumbents, the towns derived no 
 
 *c 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
[48] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 doubt a great social advantage. It was easier, however, to see 
 the wrong that was thus done to the parishes than to remedy 
 it. As the law then was, the incumbent who wished to build 
 or renew a parochial residence was obliged to advance the entire 
 cost, while the clergy were seldom possessed of considerable 
 private means. Though this money was to be repaid, in whole 
 or in part as the case might be, at the termination of the incum- 
 bency, it was liable at the same time to deductions for dilapi- 
 dations, often serious when the incumbency was prolonged. 
 In the meantime the country towns were very pleasant places 
 of residence. They had most of the advantages to be found 
 in a Cathedral Close, without the disadvantage of too great 
 proximity. The Bishop, both in private and in his primary 
 Charge, endeavoured to correct what was an undoubted abuse, 
 but somewhat more in theory such than in practice. At any 
 rate it made matter of scandal to those who were opposed to 
 the Establishment of the Church. Many will remember a 
 very amusing speech made in the House of Commons a good 
 many years ago by the late Mr. Bernal Osborne, in which he 
 talked of 4 nice agreeable Mallow,’ and made the most ,of the 
 state of things I have mentioned. In his endeavour to cor- 
 rect it, the Bishop never acted in an arbitrary or unreasonable 
 manner. He was in many cases successful ; in others he 
 recognised difficulties that could not be overcome. The slight 
 flutter that this occasioned was soon, over. And though in 
 his whole government of the diocese he acted with firmness, 
 the justice of his administration and the uniform kindliness 
 of his manner and his perfect good temper soon won him the 
 confidence of his clergy. How little arbitrary he was may 
 be judged from the fact that while many of the clergy of that 
 day were strenuously opposed to the system of education sup- 
 ported by the National Board, and the Bishop on the other 
 hand was strongly in favour of it, he never used any compul- 
 sion in this matter, though he might have used a moral com- 
 pulsion if he chose to employ his patronage in forwarding his 
 own views. 
 
 The Bishop’s primary Charge was delivered in October 
 1857. It was afterwards published under the title ‘The 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
 Duties of the Parochial Clergy.’ But apart from this its 
 principal subject matter, it has a special interest from the 
 circumstances of the time. The Indian Mutiny, with all its 
 horrid details, was then occupying the thoughts of all, and 
 the early part of the Charge has some reflections on it which 
 are now full of interest to such as remember those harrowing 
 events. I subjoin therefore a few extracts from it : — 
 
 ‘ Amidst the scene of horrors which has been so suddenly 
 opened to our view, we cannot but derive some comfort from 
 the reflection that the Church, as such, seems wholly clear 
 from the blame of having provoked them by any indiscretion 
 of its ministers. ... At the commencement, indeed, when 
 the dreadful news first broke upon us, there were some, who 
 ought to have known better, who were inclined to throw a 
 great share of the blame upon the operations of our mission- 
 aries. ... In effect, as you know, the present outbreak has 
 not taken place amongst that part of the population of British 
 India to which the missionaries had access, but amongst 
 those who were most jealously guarded from their influence ; 
 and so far as the immediate cause or pretext of the Mutiny 
 was religious at all, it was in no way directly connected with 
 anything that the Church had done, or could do, but with a 
 supposed interference, on the part of the State, with the 
 superstitious laws of caste. . . . The Brahminical and Maho- 
 metan institutions are founded on fables and prejudices that 
 can only subsist in an imperfect state of knowledge and 
 civilisation, and can no more bear the presence of true 
 science and religion than 
 
 Night and all her sickly dews, 
 
 Her forms obscene, and birds of boding cry, 
 
 can abide the presence of the dawn. And it was not un- 
 natural, therefore, that men, whose power and privileges were 
 staked upon the maintenance of such fables and such pre- 
 judices, should, when they thought they had the power, 
 endeavour, as all forms of paganism have always endea- 
 voured, to crush by violence the light that detected their 
 impostures. . . . 
 
[ 50 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ‘ I do hope that it will be found in the issue that He who 
 brings good out of evil, in the counsels of His unerring 
 wisdom will so order matters, that even these horrid cala- 
 mities, that have caused the ears of all that heard the report 
 of them to tingle, will be found to have accomplished a 
 beneficial end — that, cemented even by the innocent blood 
 that has been so ruthlessly shed, a nobler and more enduring 
 edifice of British empire will yet arise in India, and long 
 remain a monument, not only of our power and wealth, but 
 of our wisdom, our justice, and our goodness. . . . 
 
 c For myself I confess that when I speak confidently of 
 the final triumph of truth over all the forms of error and 
 debasement, my confidence is chiefly founded upon the con- 
 viction that the cause of civilisation is indissolubly connected 
 with the cause of Christ and His gospel, for the success of 
 which we have the promise of Him who is the faithful and 
 true Witness, the Yea and the Amen for evermore. 
 
 ‘ If we looked only to experience, however it may be plain 
 that truth has a tendency to triumph (as the planets have a 
 tendency to fly off at a tangent), experience also shows us so 
 many and such unlooked-for checks upon this native tendency 
 of truth, that, in a melancholy hour, one is often tempted to 
 conjecture that the final triumph of truth may be indefinitely 
 delayed. ... At such times especially it is consolatory to 
 remember that, as part of Christ’s Church, we belong to a 
 society which, however States and Empires may flourish or 
 may fade, can never be destroyed, and is sure of ultimate 
 success. ... I have regard not merely to such impediments 
 as are caused by such violence and persecution to the progress 
 of truth, when I speak of the necessity of cultivating in our- 
 selves a calm reliance upon the promise of God as our best 
 reliance under doubtful circumstances, but also to other 
 hindrances which, from time to time, would dishearten the 
 servant of Christ, if he guided himself only by the measures 
 of outward success. There are every now and then apparent 
 flows, as it were, in the tide of human society which might 
 raise unreasonable hopes, and ebbs that might inspire un- 
 reasonable fears, if our eyes were fixed only upon such 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. [51] 
 
 experiences. But he that believeth shall neither make haste 
 nor be ashamed.’ 
 
 I have mentioned the Bishop’s attachment to the principle 
 of undenominational education, as carried into operation by 
 the National Board. Soon after he came to the diocese he 
 drew up, with the assistance of his chaplain, a petition for the 
 establishment of a Model School in Cork under the authority 
 of the Board. With his aid and authority, Dr. Webster, 
 assisted by the late Professor Barry, of the Queen’s College, 
 used untiring efforts, until at last the consent of the Govern- 
 ment was obtained. In due time the building of this school 
 was commenced. It now forms a great ornament of the 
 city, and has long helped to diffuse a larger share of general 
 knowledge than would be attained in local schools, the reli- 
 gious instruction of a large body of children belonging to the 
 Church being constantly, ever since, carefully attended to by 
 Dr. Webster, in whose parish the school was built. 
 
 Before long another effort was made in the same direction, 
 for the forwarding of what was called Intermediate Educa- 
 tion. The Government having provided a sum of 80,000/. 
 for the establishment of schools in Dublin for that purpose, 
 it was thought by the Bishop and others that some aid of this 
 kind should be extended to Cork. With the view of forward- 
 ing this, his chaplain, assisted by Sir Bobert Kane, the 
 President of the Queen’s College, made arrangements for a 
 public meeting in support of that object. The meeting was 
 largely attended, the late Lord Fermoy taking the chair, and 
 the Bishop making an able speech. The project was not 
 favoured by the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, and, no 
 doubt unbidden by them, a large crowd assembled outside 
 the Athenaeum, where the meeting was held. J ust before the 
 proceedings ended I hastened to get out. Immediately on 
 my appearing at the door, I suppose owing to some fancied 
 resemblance, there was a cry, 1 The Bishop, the -Bishop ! ’ I 
 found I had to make my way through a long lane of roughs 
 and viragos, and with the best grace I could to bear their 
 hootings and maledictions. When at last I had emerged 
 from the crowd I remembered the real Bishop, and went into 
 
[ 52 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 the Cork Institution, from which I knew I could get into the 
 Athenaeum by a side door. In this way I brought the 
 Bishop out, the violence being all expended, while the 
 Bishop playfully asked me if 1 accepted the omen ? 7 
 
 There was another irregularity not uncommon at this time, 
 namely, the baptizing of children privately, in cases where it 
 was not necessary. This was occasioned not merely by the 
 common objection so often felt to sponsorship, but also by the 
 peculiar circumstances in which the poorer members of the 
 Church are placed in this country, especially in rural parishes. 
 The Bishop, fully acknowledging the embarrassment which the 
 clergy often felt in such cases, endeavoured to counteract the 
 irregularity ; and with this object in view he drew up in a 
 small form for general circulation an ‘ Address to the Laity,’ 
 in which he pointed out the clergyman’s obligation to observe 
 the law of the Church, and endeavoured to obviate the objec- 
 tions of the people. The Bishop’s efforts in this respect were 
 very successful, the clergy co-operating with him, and the 
 irregularity fell into disuse. Private baptism has since then 
 been limited to cases of urgent necessity. 
 
 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had hitherto 
 received but little support in the diocese. With the exception 
 of three or four clergymen, including myself, the remainder 
 gave their entire support to the Church Missionary Society. 
 -Without desiring to detract from the value of the latter, the 
 Bishop commended the former also, got up a public meeting 
 in support of it, and from thenceforth the Gospel Propagation 
 Society has had a firm footing in the diocese, being strenuously 
 aided by the two Bishops that have since held the See of 
 Cork. In order to promote this object the Bishop preached 
 freely for the Society when asked. For this purpose he 
 came, accompanied by Mrs. FitzGerald, to spend a day at 
 
 7 As a like instance of that playfulness of manner which made his 
 society so charming I may mention that, when the Bishop was staying with 
 me for a few days for diocesan duties in my neighbourhood, coming out after 
 breakfast, a clerical friend seeing the Bishop’s hat on the table in the hall, 
 and not supposing the Bishop was near, made a feint of putting the hat on 
 himself. The Bishop, however, was at his shoulder, and said with a smile, 
 ‘Not yet, F.’ 
 
EPISCOPAL PEJRIOD. 
 
 [53] 
 
 my glebe. I was able to bring together a large congregation 
 from neighbouring parishes, which helped to give an impulse 
 to the Society. In the afternoon of that day I proposed we 
 should visit the very interesting Abbey and Castle of Kilcrea, 
 which were in the parish. We all went first to the Abbey. 
 After seeing that, to avoid a considerable round by the road, 
 we crossed a field adjacent to the Castle. At the other side 
 of the field we found a stream, not very limpid, which was 
 more full than usual. Some four or five feet of water were 
 to be crossed on a round spar from six to eight inches in 
 thickness. I crossed first to help the others. The Bishop 
 hesitated a little. It was not that he could not easily get 
 over ; but he looked gravely at his silk stockings. (He had 
 torn one of his lawn sleeves already on the latch of my 
 vestry-door.) However, he presently made up his mind and 
 got safely across. Several years after, I was staying with him 
 at Kid aloe. He had not then given up the practice of walking 
 out, and we went together by a by-road to look at the remains 
 of a Castle and of a very interesting old Church. After inspect- 
 ing these he proposed we should save the circuitous path we 
 had come, by crossing a field and jumping to the main road. He 
 went first and fell on the road. I hastened to his help, but 
 he said he 1 had not suffered ; the way to escape hurt in falling 
 was to make no effort to recover one’s self, as in such efforts the 
 muscles got strained.’ I afterwards told this privately to one 
 of the family, that if he complained attention should be paid 
 to him. Many years after he asked me if I recollected that 
 occurrence, and said he was never the same since that had 
 happened. I suppose he never told it to anyone else. 
 
 At the same time Mrs. FitzGerald took up with no small 
 success another society, that for Promoting Female Education 
 in the East. The Bishop also threw his influence into the 
 efforts which were set on foot to make the great hospitals more 
 effective. 
 
 In the spring of 1859 the Bishop was in Parliament. 
 Lord Wodehouse having introduced a Bill for legalising mar- 
 riage with the sister of a deceased wife, the Bishop made an 
 able speech in support of the Bill. In this he showed in an 
 
[54] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 unanswerable manner that the prohibition was not founded on 
 any divine command, a position with which I believe most people 
 are now agreed. This being the case, it was in his view only 
 a question of social expediency, and he did not hesitate to 
 maintain that any prohibition not founded on divine authority 
 which limited men’s freedom at the risk of promoting immor- 
 ality was wrong. His opinion on this question, I have reason 
 to think, continued the same to the end. In this I am 
 honestly stating the Bishop’s opinion, apart from my own 
 feeling that the advantages of the repeal of the prohibition 
 would, as things exist in our social habits, at least in this 
 country, be overbalanced by the ills consequent on its repeal. 
 Dr. Phillpotts, the Bishop of Exeter, severely criticised an 
 unauthentic report of the speech in a published letter to the 
 Bishop of Lichfield. The Bishop in consequence in the next 
 year printed the speech from Hansard, and subjoined a few 
 remarks on the Bishop of Exeter’s criticisms which could not 
 have tended to soothe his feelings. A friend already mentioned, 
 the Rev. C. H. Davis, has kindly enabled me to quote a letter 
 of the Bishop’s in reference to this subject : ‘ I hope nobody 
 will say that I approve of such marriages. I have never said 
 a word that can be so construed. But I see no adequate 
 ground for annulling them when contracted. There is very 
 much to be said against all second marriages, — against mar- 
 riages of first cousins (a union greatly to be discouraged), — 
 against marriages of the old and young — yet such marriages 
 are left to the discouragement' of public opinion.’ This letter 
 bears date April 24, 1860. 
 
 In the years 1859-60, a great wave of Revivalism passed 
 over a large part of Ireland, more especially in the North. 
 Efforts were being made to excite a similar movement in Cork. 
 Public meetings for united extemporaneous prayers, offered by 
 anyone who might come forward, under the permission of 
 some unknown committee, were held in a large public room. 
 A few clergymen of the Church attended these meetings, 
 until the Bishop remonstrated with them on the ground of the 
 illegality of their proceeding in that way, and the inconsis- 
 tency of it with the principles of the Church. This re^ 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [55] 
 
 monstrance was received with submission. But it became 
 known soon that a high dignitary, eminently popular, had 
 attended also. The Bishop without hesitation made his dis- 
 approbation of this known to that excellent man, with as much 
 decision as in the case of others. While the clergy readily 
 acquiesced with his wishes, the more enthusiastic of the 
 religious laity murmured greatly, and especially expressed 
 feelings of indignation at the remonstrance with the above- 
 mentioned dignitary. In consequence of this, the Bishop 
 published 1 A Letter to the Laity of Cork in communion with the 
 United Church of England and Ireland.’ This very remark- 
 able and vigorous publication was printed in a local newspaper, 
 and circulated in the form of a pamphlet. In it he defended 
 his own action, set out the legal obligations of the clergy, and 
 insisted on the unadvisableness of public extemporaneous 
 prayer. It was attended with most salutary results; the ex- 
 citement soon gave way to more reasonable views of the 
 matter, the meetings dwindled into insignificance, and the 
 diocese was spared from the extravagant excesses and the 
 subsequent scandals that attended on the movement else- 
 where. A remarkable passage from the ‘ Letter to the Laity ’ 
 just mentioned was quoted in the 4 Edinburgh Review ’ of 
 April 1861, in an article on the ‘ Essays and Reviews.’ The 
 writer of this article took a very different view in many respects 
 from the Bishop as to the nature and tendencies of that 
 collection of Essays. In blaming the English Bishops for 
 being carried away by the panic that work occasioned, the 
 writer said : e We cannot afford that the heads of the clergy 
 should lose any part of their prestige. A Bishop of the 
 Church of England has still a noble part to play. Even 
 within our own memory we have known more than once how 
 one courageous Prelate has broken through the bonds of 
 professional prejudice, and rallied round him the juster and 
 more generous feeling of the Clergy and the Church. 
 “ I would tear the lawn from my shoulders and sink my 
 seal deeper than ever plummet sounded, before I would con- 
 sent to hold rank and wealth on the disgraceful tenure of 
 always swimming with the stream, and never contradicting 
 
[56] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 public opinion.” So on a late occasion an Irish Bishop spoke 
 out his mind in language worthy of himself and of his 
 order.’ 8 
 
 With regard to his view of the illegality of the prayer- 
 meetings, the Bishop says in a letter to Mr. Davis, already 
 quoted : £ As for my view of the law in my “ Letter ”... 
 1 am not singular. Some very eminent Ecclesiastical lawyers 
 in London and here have, of their own accord, told me I was 
 indubitably right. . . . The doctrine of some of the English 
 Bishops, that a man may use any prayers he likes except the 
 Liturgy in an unlicensed room seems to me (with reverence) 
 most amazing. It would be strange to think that the legisla- 
 ture had so much regard for the “ ears ” of the Church 
 “ walls ” and so little for the ears of the Church, i.e. the con- 
 gregation itself.’ 
 
 In a letter of a later date, November 7, 1864, to the same 
 friend, the Bishop says : — 
 
 ‘ Has it not struck you that there is a strong inclination 
 towards a compromise between the Evangelical and High 
 Church parties ? They have both a common ground in 
 emotional religion, and a fondness for irregular movements. 
 And when the gaps have been opened by Home Missionaries, 
 Revivalists, and extemporary services, it is not hard to see 
 that the way is just as open to English Benedictions, Stations 
 for Auricular Confession, and Prayers from the Breviary.’ 
 
 The Bishop followed up this subject with other matters in 
 his Charge to the Clergy at the ensuing visitation, afterwards 
 published under the title of ‘ Thoughts on the present Cir- 
 cumstances of the Church in Ireland.’ Again, in 1861, he 
 published another Charge on £ The Revival of Synods.’ It 
 seemed little likely at that time that this Church was soon to 
 be thrown on its own resources, deprived of the support 
 afforded by the State, and of the secular rank its ministers 
 enjoyed from that connection, but attended with the in- 
 estimable privilege of a duly constituted Synod, invested with 
 legislative powers, by the very provisions and operation of the 
 Act of Disestablishment. 
 
 8 ‘“Letter of Bishop of Cork to his Clergy,” February 7, I860.’ 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
 In the midst of these engagements the Bishop received 
 the heaviest of all domestic afflictions. In the summer of the 
 year 1859 I had sat with some other friends in the drawing- 
 room with Mrs. FitzGerald, then apparently in good health, 
 though immediately expecting to be confined. It was the 
 last time I saw her. The expected event took place within a 
 few days, and all seemed to have gone on as well as possible. 
 A rapid consumption, however, speedily set in, and on 
 October 1 of that year she ceased to live. This blow the 
 Bishop bore with that suppression of outward demonstration 
 of feeling which characterised him through life. The depth 
 of his sorrow was in an inverse proportion to the display of it. 
 Before long he appeared cheerful in society, but those that 
 were intimate with him before and after could perceive to the 
 end of his life that a wound had been inflicted that was never 
 healed. His spontaneous literary activity, so greatly en- 
 couraged and assisted by her, received a lasting check. 
 Henceforth he wrote only When impelled by a sense of duty. 
 Well do I remember in those days how, as I went up to the 
 palace, I could see through the window that he was pacing 
 disconsolately about his study with his hands clasped behind. 
 When I was admitted I found him in his chair, cheerful and 
 ready to talk freely about anything that offered itself. But 
 as I went away I could see that he had immediately resumed 
 his melancholy walk. I think I heard him ever after only 
 twice mention her name. The habitual sprightliness and 
 elan of former years was thenceforth at an end. A calm 
 cheerfulness was its best substitute in after years. 
 
 I said that the passage of the Sermon preached in 
 Trinity College, which was transferred into the last number 
 of the ‘ Cautions for the Times,’ had a subsequent history. 
 In the ‘Quarterly Review’ of October 1859, there ap- 
 peared a very able and striking review of Baden Powell’s 
 ‘ Order of Nature.’ Immediately on its appearance it was 
 instinctively and by common consent ascribed to the Bishop’s 
 pen. Yet there was some perplexity, inasmuch as in the article 
 he was mentioned by name, and some of his writings were 
 highly commended. For this, however, there was the obvious 
 
[58] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 explanation that an editor, who accepts an article to be printed 
 as from himself and not on the writer’s responsibility, was 
 entitled to use, and in this case did use, the acknowledged 
 privilege of making any alterations or additions he thought 
 fit to make. And this was the more likely in the present 
 case as the editor did not know who the writer of the article 
 was. It is in my power to give an exact history of this 
 article. On the appearance of Baden Powell’s work Arch- 
 bishop Whately was desirous that it should be reviewed, but 
 did not wish to do that himself as he was a near relative of 
 the author. He therefore asked the Bishop to write the 
 review, which he did. It was agreed that no indication of 
 the authorship should be given ; the article was copied by 
 Dr. Webster, and sent to the Archbishop. He offered it, as 
 written by an anonymous author, to the ‘ Edinburgh Review,’ 
 the editor of which declined it. It was then offered to the 
 ‘ Quarterly ’ and thankfully accepted, the editor expressing 
 great obligation to the Archbishop for benefit derived by 
 himself from the Archbishop’s writings. Whether by the 
 spontaneous action of the editor, or by the Archbishop’s 
 suggestion, the commendations of the Bishop were inserted, 
 and at the close was added, as a quotation, a portion of 
 the passage just mentioned from the last number of the 
 ‘ Cautions for the Times.’ To this was appended the 
 following note : ‘ This passage, which, for the conden- 
 sation of its wide historic survey, and its vigorous and 
 glowing eloquence, is one of the finest in the whole range of 
 literature, is extracted from No. 29 of the Cautions for the 
 Times , and is known to be from the pen of Dr. FitzGerald, 
 the present Bishop of Cork. Our Church has never wanted 
 able defenders of her faith, but she has never had a more 
 sound divine, a more acute reasoner, or a more powerful 
 writer, than she happily possesses at present in this dis- 
 tinguished Prelate.’ 
 
 In 1860-61 the Bishop contributed to Smith’s ‘Dictionary 
 of the Bible ’ an extensive article on Miracles. This is a 
 contribution of permanent value to the literature of that 
 subject. Also at the request of the Archbishop of York, then 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [59] 
 
 Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol (there was only a See [sea] 
 between them, as the Bishop said), he contributed the very 
 beautiful essay on the Study of the Evidences of Christianity 
 in £ Aids to Faith/ This forms one of the most striking 
 ornaments of that collection, occasioned by the £ Essays and 
 Reviews.’ 9 
 
 In 1861, the Bishop being in Parliament at the time, was 
 invited to preach one of the Sunday evening sermons in 
 St. Paul’s. This he did on February 17. The sermon was 
 printed in a series published under the title of 1 Sermons for 
 the Million,’ the text being St. John xv. 14, 15, c Ye are 
 my friends,’ &c. I take the following extract, as it indi- 
 cates the source of comfort he had himself in his great sorrow : 
 
 ‘ No, my brethren, our Saviour is not a mere sage or hero 
 who has passed personally from the world, and whose work 
 only remains in the effects of that impulse which he has given 
 to the progress of human civilisation. The man Christ J esus is 
 still with us — subject, indeed, no longer to those infirmities of 
 mortal flesh which he bore in the days of his humiliation, but 
 with all the natural human feelings which we trace in the 
 narrative of his life and death. Jesus is still with us, and we 
 are living in our Master’s eye. When broken by sorrow and 
 affliction, He is still with us as with the sisters of Bethany, 
 to sympathise with and to alleviate our troubles. When death 
 lays waste our social comforts, it is still his voice that speaks 
 the words of consolation, “ I am the resurrection and the life, 
 and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” 
 When hurried away by temptations we are about to fling 
 away our grace, it is He who turns upon us still with that 
 same upbraiding look of calm remonstrance which melted 
 Peter’s recreant heart, and called forth bitter but salutary 
 tears. And when humbled to the dust we have sought 
 forgiveness of our betrayed and injured Master, it is He who 
 seals our pardon still with the precious words “ Be of good 
 comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Yes, ever-present 
 
 9 He also printed about this time an Essay on History, delivered as a 
 public lecture. There was another on Erasmus, but I don’t know if it was 
 printed. 
 
[ 60 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Master, Tlion art always with ns ; all power is Tliine ill 
 heaven and earth. In every good feeling within us we 
 experience Thy grace ; in every circumstance without us we 
 trace Thy providence ; Thou art within us and around us, 
 and Thy ways we know not ; Thou art leading us still 
 onwards, and Thy hand is moulding and fashioning our souls 
 for the still fuller enjoyment of Thine everlasting presence.’ 
 
 In this way matters proceeded until the close of the year 
 1861, when Lord Riversdale, the Bishop of Killaloe, already 
 mentioned, died at a very advanced age. By this time the 
 Bishop’s superintendence of the diocese of Cork, conducted 
 with vigour tempered with kindly considerateness, had won 
 the admiration and esteem which it was sure to gain ; and the 
 occurrence of a vacancy on the Bench of Bishops created, as I 
 can safely testify, no small apprehension that we should lose 
 the privilege of having so eminent and valued a Bishop. 
 This apprehension was soon confirmed. The Earl of Carlisle, 
 who was then the Lord-Lieutenant, and who held the Bishop 
 in the highest esteem, lost no time in recommending him to 
 the Queen for promotion to Killaloe, a diocese far better 
 endowed than the See of Cork, which under the operation of 
 the Church Temporalities Acts enjoyed practically no better 
 income than it possesses now under the altered circumstances 
 consequent on the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. It 
 was commonly supposed that the Bishop’s appointment was 
 due to the kindly intervention of Archbishop Whately. But 
 I am enabled to say from a letter of the Bishop himself to 
 the English friend already mentioned, that the Archbishop 
 openly and frequently declared that he had never souglit pre- 
 ferment for himself or any other person whatever from any 
 Government. The Bishop received the appointment to 
 Killaloe without delay, and for many reasons, which he fully 
 explained to me, he felt that he could not decline the offer. 
 He was accordingly enthroned at Killaloe on March 7, 1862, 
 and made immediate preparations for his removal. 
 
 I shall never forget the last night which he spent in the 
 palace at Cork. His family had already left it, and I spent 
 the evening with himself alone in a dismantled room. He 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [61] 
 
 then with much feeling talked over with me the . various 
 events of his episcopate, dwelling especially on particulars 
 in which he had been disappointed with results or thought 
 he might have done better. I cannot pass from this, the 
 close of his stay in Cork, without mentioning that he had in 
 1859 promoted me to the parish of Midleton, and had after- 
 wards offered me another parish, which I had felt it necessary 
 to decline. 
 
 The Bishop was succeeded in Cork by the very eminent 
 popular preacher, and very able and excellent man, Dr. John 
 Gregg. This Prelate, marked by a strong and very original 
 individuality, wisely and successfully guided the diocese 
 through the difficult crisis of the Disestablishment of the 
 Church and its subsequent reorganisation. In addition to 
 these labours he» was able to leave as a monument of his 
 untiring zeal and energy the new Cathedral of Cork, which 
 he lived to see nearly brought to its present state of perfection. 
 There had been originally an ancient Gothic Cathedral, with a 
 round tower adjacent, that had long ceased to exist. This 
 ancient church had been battered during the siege of Cork in 
 the time of James II. It was therefore taken down and a new 
 building erected in the style of a Queen Anne’s parish 
 church, the only part of the old building that was left being 
 a tower, plain in its character but imposing from its height 
 and proportions. On this was put a spire, which from the 
 falling short of resources had been contracted as it was raised 
 in such manner that its sides were bulged with a convexity to 
 the outside producing a strange effect. There was a fine old 
 doorway which had belonged to an ancient Franciscan Abbey, 
 and which is still preserved as an entrance from the church- 
 yard to the Deanery. 
 
 We have now to follow the Bishop to his new diocese. 
 This formerly consisted of two dioceses, each itself an union, 
 namely Killaloe and Kilfenora, now united by the Church 
 Temporalities Act with Clonfert and Kilmacduagh. Killaloe 
 itself, a small town with an ancient Cathedral retaining many 
 interesting features, lies at the south-eastern extremity of 
 this extensive district, just where the grand sheet of water, 
 
[62] MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Lough Derg, is contracted, and resumes the river-form of the 
 Shannon. The episcopal residence is Clarisford, no doubt 
 properly Clare’s ford, as the county of Clare is there severed 
 by the river from Tipperary. This residence is a very fine 
 house, with a handsome demesne, well furnished with ancient 
 timber and beautifully laid out. The ground lies along- 
 side of the river, being separated by a canal which con- 
 nects the navigation of Lough Derg with the navigable 
 part of the river, there being just at this place falls and 
 shallows that for about a mile render the river itself im- 
 practicable for boats. Though Killaloe is at the extremity of 
 the diocese, it is perhaps, by various causes, the most con- 
 venient for the access of those who need to see the Bishop, 
 and for visiting the remoter districts. His time there was 
 at first occupied in making himself acquainted with the 
 whole district, and then fulfilling the customary duties, such 
 as visitations in the several parts of the diocese, at which he 
 delivered Charges, subsequently printed, touching on the more 
 important questions of the day, as they affected the Church. 
 Frequent confirmations were also held. His clergy had free 
 access to him at all times, and if it suited their convenience 
 to stay, were sure of an invitation and welcome to remain for 
 the night. At his Cathedral he preached usually on alternate 
 Sundays, unless when the prebendaries occasionally took their 
 turns. But it is evident that the duties of a Bishop in an 
 entirely rural diocese had not much variety and afforded 
 but little to relate. Such a diocese presented none of those 
 stirring incidents likely to occur in a large city, and was not 
 liable to the sundry causes of religious excitement or discussion 
 which naturally arose in Cork. He was therefore enabled to 
 shew in Killaloe only the more kindly and genial aspects of 
 his character, and had not as in Cork to oppose any popular 
 movements. He therefore immediately won the affections of 
 his clergy and people more fully than it was possible for a 
 new Bishop, a previous stranger to his diocese, and of very 
 independent mind and action, to win immediately in so 
 populous and diversified a community as he presided over in 
 Cork. 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
 Some five or six years passed in this comparative retire- 
 ment until the crash of Disestablishment burst like thunder 
 from a clear sky. He woke up then to the urgency of the 
 occasion, and threw himself into the work of reorganising 
 the bewildered Church. The financial organisation he left 
 to those whose abilities were more suited to such work. 
 But his great knowledge and sound judgment were brought 
 to bear with effect on other arrangements. English readers 
 may be reminded that the Act of Disestablishment in 
 the first instance gave legal authority for the reassembling 
 of the ancient Provincial Synods of Ireland. These accord- 
 ingly were convened, and formed an united Synod held 
 according to precedent in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was 
 felt that the laity should not be excluded from a share in 
 the work that was to be done. The Synod, therefore, which 
 like the English Convocations very imperfectly represented 
 even the clergy, adopted a scheme for electing and assembling 
 a body which was known as the Convention, to which the 
 Synod handed over its powers to frame a constitution for the 
 
 Church. The Convention thus furnished with full autlioritv 
 
 %) 
 
 framed the rules and regulations under which what is now 
 known as the General Synod of the Church of Ireland was to 
 be elected and annually assembled. Having constituted this 
 body, the Convention itself resigned its functions, and the 
 constitutional organisation then came into operation under 
 the Diocesan and General Synods, which have since conducted 
 the affairs of the Church. Many no doubt have wondered 
 that so large a proportion as two to one of lay and clerical 
 members should have been introduced into our Synods. This 
 was not done to give the lay element an undue preponderance, 
 but simply to insure even a very moderate attendance of 
 laymen. It has been found, as was anticipated, that the 
 proportion actually attending is considerably below that of 
 clerical members, and that towards the close of a session the 
 laity are far inferior in numbers to the clergy. Though on an 
 exciting occasion a large preponderance of laymen might be 
 brought together, yet the option of a vote by orders, and in 
 certain more important cases the necessity of a two-thirds 
 
 VOL. i. *d 
 
[64] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 majority of each order, is an effectual check to any radical 
 change or lay predominance. 
 
 As is well known, the first impulse under the feeling of a 
 newly acquired liberty was to effect a revision of the Book of 
 Common Prayer. A long suppressed desire to meet dissenting 
 objections, and to satisfy certain scruples that prevailed in a 
 section of the members of the Church, lay and clerical, now 
 broke out with a fervour that seemed to threaten disastrous 
 changes. There were two ways in which this might have 
 been met. One, adopted by some, was to oppose every change 
 of whatever kind ; the other was to seek by reason, and by 
 moderate concession, to guide the proceedings to a safe and 
 satisfactory result. This latter course the Bishop adopted, 
 and there is no doubt that his wisdom and moderation had a 
 large share in bringing about the conclusion of these discus- 
 sions in a way that has left the Prayer Book for most practical 
 purposes just as it was, and the doctrine taught in the formu- 
 laries wholly unchanged. The first practical step taken in 
 this matter was the appointment in 1871 of a Committee of 
 the General Synod, including all the Bishops, to consider and 
 report on the changes thought most advisable. Different 
 members of this committee wrote papers on the several par- 
 ticulars which commended themselves to their minds, sug- 
 gesting the alterations that seemed to them advisable. These 
 papers were printed for private circulation. I am at present 
 concerned only with those written by the Bishop, and with 
 the changes he would have been disposed to acquiesce in. Of 
 these papers three were written by the Bishop. In the first 
 of them he says : 
 
 ‘ I wish in this paper to make a few remarks per saturam 
 on several proposed alterations in the Prayer Book. (1) In 
 respect to a large class of these I think the reports of the 
 English Bitual Commission will afford us an excellent basis 
 of operations. (2) The present version of the Psalms is un- 
 doubtedly very faulty ; and would appear more so, if it were 
 printed as it stands in the Sealed Books. The genuine read- 
 ing in lxviii. 4 was so monstrously wrong that it was silently 
 corrected in all the copies that had been in use for the last 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [65] 
 
 century.’ 1 After mentioning the objection to a change for 
 musical reasons, he says, ( I hope that it may at some time or 
 other be possible to reconcile the claims of sound and sense,’ 
 and he recommends a communication with the Bible Revi- 
 sion Committee. In (3) he notices the objection to the words, 
 
 ‘ most religious ’ applied to the Sovereign, thinks them not 
 much more objectionable than other ceremonious expressions 
 that pass without objection, and gives in explanation of them 
 a passage from Taylor’s ‘ Holy Living,’ sect. i. c. 3. In (4) 
 he says the Public Baptismal Service is too long, proposes 
 that the two first prayers and the prayer e Almighty and 
 Everlasting God,’ should stand together as alternatives, that 
 the address after the Gospel and the address to the sponsors 
 should be thrown into one ; that the question 1 Wilt thou be 
 baptized in this faith ? ’ and the answer be omitted ; that the 
 answer to the last question should be, c I will, God being my 
 helper,’ as in the form of Adult Baptism. He says he has 
 known some whose objections to the office would have been 
 entirely removed by this change. In (5) he thinks the form of 
 certifying private baptism, 4 that all things were done as 
 they ought to be,’ is too strong, as it does not cover schismatic 
 baptism. In (6) he proposes that Communion should not be 
 separated from Confirmation, but both should be administered 
 at the same time ; and he remarks that the Confirmation 
 Service is not applicable to those baptized in riper years, or 
 baptized without sponsors ; and to satisfy scruples against 
 infant baptism and sponsorial engagements he would sub- 
 stitute the question, ‘ Do you here in the presence of God and 
 of this congregation renew the vow and promise that was 
 made at your baptism, acknowledging yourselves bound to 
 believe and do according to the covenant then made with 
 you ? ’ He would (6) add a rubric that ‘ the persons so con- 
 firmed should tarry and receive the Holy Communion with the 
 Bishop, or at least receive it at the next convenient oppor- 
 tunity.’ And lastly, in (7) he says that 1 John v. 7 should be 
 expunged from the Epistle in which it is now read. 
 
 In regard to the foregoing particulars it is to be added that 
 
 *d 2 
 
 1 ‘ Praise him in, his Name, Yea.’ 
 
[ 66 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 the words in the prayer for Parliament, ‘ most religions and 
 gracious ’ have been removed, and 1 Sovereign Lady the 5 has 
 been substituted. In the certifying of private baptism, the 
 words 1 all is well done and according to due order,’ have been 
 changed into ‘ all that is essential hath been done.’ In the 
 office for Confirmation it is prescribed as follows : — 
 
 ‘ When confirmation is ministered only to those baptized in 
 riper years , the Bishop shall begin the service with this question : 
 
 c Do ye here in the presence of the congregation renew 
 the solemn vow and promise of your baptism ? ’ 
 
 Also for the Epistle of the First Sunday after Easter, con- 
 taining the verse 1 John v. 7, has been substituted 1 Cor. 
 v. 6-8, beginning with 1 Know ye not.’ 
 
 Another paper which the Bishop wrote for the committee 
 was in reference to sponsorial engagements. In this, having 
 adverted to the scruples commonly felt in reference to the 
 obligations incurred by sponsors, he states the different 
 opinions in reference to the same in ancient and modern 
 times, with none of which he felt quite satisfied ; he gives his 
 own view in the following words : — 
 
 ‘ The view which I have always held is this : that while 
 the child is a mere infant, incapable of distinguishing between 
 good and evil, Cod receives him absolutely for Christ’s sake as 
 one of his redeemed creatures, and consequently an heir of 
 everlasting life ; but that after he has come to be capable of 
 faith and repentance, the promise of eternal life will only 
 stand good to him in case of his fulfilling the character of a 
 repentant and believing person ; and that, in order to make it 
 plain to the congregation that baptism is not a magical spell, 
 that will save a man at the end however he may behave him- 
 self, the sponsors come forward (in a dramatic way familiar 
 enough to the ideas of men in old times, and the institution 
 of the civil law) to personate the child, and enter into an 
 engagement on his part, which we hope he will accept here- 
 after, and which he is antecedently bound to accept, because 
 it expresses the duty which all men who are sufficiently in- 
 formed of the Christian revelation owe to God.’ 
 
 A third paper was presented by the Bishop giving a history 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
 of the use of the words £ Receive ye the Holy Ghost ’ &c. in 
 the Ordination of Priests. I give that paper, for its intrinsic 
 value, in full at the close of this memoir. 
 
 The Bishop proposed and carried in the committee a very 
 important variation of the Prayer of Consecration in the Com- 
 munion office, which however, was not afterwards adopted by 
 the General Synod. It was to remove the clause beginning 
 ‘ Hear us, 0 merciful Father,’ from its present place immediately 
 before the words of institution and the manual acts, to a 
 position immediately after these, making only the needful 
 grammatical changes ; and he proposed to make the Lord’s 
 Prayer to precede the distribution of the elements, instead of 
 following that, as at present. Any reasons assigned for this 
 change were only given verbally. A large majority voting 
 for these alterations in the Committee, proves that he gave 
 good reasons for them. It requires only a little liturgical 
 knowledge to perceive what they were. The object certainly 
 was not to make the prayer more adverse than it is at present 
 to the supposition that the elements did not continue to be 
 the 1 creatures of bread and wine ’ after the consecration. For 
 as the prayer stands at present it is clearly expressed that it 
 is as creatures of bread and wine we are to receive them, 
 though to be accompanied by the participation of the most 
 blessed Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ. Excluding 
 therefore that motive, it is to be remembered that the ancient 
 Liturgies always after the words of institution and the manual 
 acts invoke the Holy Spirit to make 2 the bread and wine 
 the Body and Blood of Christ. And the Eastern Church 
 has invariably held that it was in this invocation that the 
 consecration essentially consists. On the other hand the 
 Latin Church, since the doctrine of Transubstantiation was 
 established, has held that this takes place in the pronouncing 
 of the words £ This is my body ’ &c. Such of the Anglican 
 divines as favoured the Eastern view, either absolutely or so 
 far as not to decide the question either way, have supposed 
 that the invocation ‘ Hear us, 0 merciful Father,’ praying that 
 we might receive the creatures of bread and wine according 
 
 2 Or, exhibit, onous ano<privr), Clem. Lit. 
 
[ 68 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 to our Saviour’s holy institution, virtually covered the invoca- 
 tion, as desiring all that is essential. It was no doubt to 
 bring this more prominently into view, and to make it accord 
 with the ancient Liturgies in respect to position, that the 
 Bishop proposed the transposition. As the service now 
 stands, this view of the invocation is obscured by the rubric 
 directing that when it is necessary to consecrate additional 
 elements, this should be done by repeating only the words of 
 institution and the manual acts. Hence to sustain the inter- 
 pretation put on the clause ‘ Hear us, O merciful Father,’ it is 
 necessary, as I have heard the Bishop remark, to understand 
 in saying that part not only the elements actually about to 
 be consecrated, but the species of bread and wine. This diffi- 
 culty might no doubt have been avoided by an alteration of 
 the rubric, so as to begin with the clause 1 Hear us, O merciful 
 Father ’ when fresh elements are to be consecrated. But then 
 the position of the invocation would still not have been in ac- 
 cordance with the ancient usage, while the Bishop’s proposi- 
 tion would have made it so. In all the Liturgies also, even in 
 the Roman Missal, the Lord’s Prayer precedes the distribution. 
 No doubt the clause, ‘ Give us this day our daily bread,’ 
 interpreted, as the words also signify, ‘ our supersubstantial 
 bread,' gave occasion to this position as a preliminary to the 
 reception of the Sacrament. These changes would certainly 
 have made the service more Catholic, though decidedly less 
 Roman Catholic than it is at present, countenancing as it does 
 the Roman view that the words of institution are the full con- 
 secration of the elements. 
 
 In the Bishop’s Charge of 1867, while yet there were only 
 faint murmurs of the change that was coming on the Irish 
 Church, the doctrines and practices of the Ritualistic party 
 were discussed with great learning. I take the following passage 
 from a note on page 34, as it relates to the subject I have been 
 speaking of : ‘It is curious that at the last review of our Prayer 
 Book, our Church seems to have inclined to the Roman practice 
 of referring the act of consecration immediately to the recital 
 of Christ’s words of institution. In this it cannot be denied 
 that we have varied from the general current tradition of the 
 
EPISCOPAL PEKIOD. 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
 Church in earlier times, as attested by the ancient Liturgies 
 and the testimonies of almost all the Fathers. The Roman 
 view (which was elaborated in the shop of the Schoolmen), 
 seems never to have been propounded with authority till Pope 
 Eugenius, in the arrogance of self-conceited dogmatism, 
 thought fit to announce it in the Council of Florence. The 
 Greek Church, however, still holds resolutely by the ancient 
 doctrine. So in the Confessio Orthodoxa, after reciting the 
 Prayer of Invocation it is said Mst<z yap tcl prjpiara ravra fj 
 M.stov(tl(D(tl9 7 rapsvOvs yiverai [For after these words the 
 Transubstantiation immediately takes place], (Kimmel, “ Libri 
 Symbol. Eccles. Orient.” p. 180).’ It is right to add that 
 while the Bishop would have liked to bring our office into 
 conformity with ancient precedents, he adds to the passage 
 just quoted the following : 4 1 do not myself attach much 
 importance to this matter. It appears to me that any form 
 of consecration would be valid which sufficiently expressed 
 the intention of consecrating a sacrament such as Christ 
 instituted. The particular words used by our Lord are 
 diversely reported by the four inspired writers who have 
 recorded them, and the liturgists allow themselves still further, 
 and some very strange liberties.’ 
 
 The first step that was taken in respect to the so-called 
 Athanasian Creed was to omit what were called the damnatory 
 clauses, and a statute to that effect was passed by the General 
 Synod. In defence of this step the Bishop printed ‘ A Letter 
 to the Clergy and Laity ’ of his diocese. In this he says, ‘ I 
 cannot regard the course taken by the Synod as, in itself, the 
 best way of dealing with this difficult matter. I should have 
 greatly preferred that with us, as with the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in America, the Reformed Churches abroad, the 
 Latin and Oriental Churches generally (I believe I may say 
 with all Churches of the world but with those of the British 
 Empire) this Creed should have formed no part, or at least 
 no necessary part of the public Liturgy obligatory upon all 
 its members. But I thought I saw plainly that such a 
 measure could not be carried.’ The measure that had been 
 as 1 said enacted by the Synod was not to come into opera- 
 
[70] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 tion until the final enactment establishing the revised Prayer 
 Book. But in 1877, when the revised Prayer Book was 
 finally adopted, the previous enactment was superseded, and 
 what the Bishop expressed his preference for in this very 
 instructive pamphlet was adopted. The Quicunque Vult 
 remains where it was, but the rubric prescribing its use was 
 removed, as also the directions respecting it in the rubrics 
 preceding the Apostles’ Creed. 
 
 One great object with those who desired changes was to 
 remove from the Baptismal Services the recognition of the 
 regeneration of baptized infants. Through long years this 
 was the subject of protracted discussion. In the end the 
 impossibility of coming to any satisfactory conclusion in the 
 way of altering the Service became apparent. The difficulty 
 was finally solved by leaving the Baptismal offices in this 
 respect intact, but by introducing into the Preface to the 
 new Prayer Book a clause to the following effect : c In the 
 Formularies relating to Baptism we have made no substantial 
 change, though some have desired to alter or omit certain 
 expressions touching which diversities of opinion have pre- 
 vailed among faithful members of our Church. At the same 
 time we desire fully to recognise the liberty of expounding 
 these Formularies hitherto allowed by the general practice of 
 the Church. And concerning those points whereupon such 
 liberty has been allowed, we hereby further declare that no 
 minister of this Church is required to hold or teach any 
 doctrine which has not been clearly determined by the 
 Articles of Religion.’ 
 
 The original draft of the Preface was made by the Bishop, 
 but it underwent so many changes in its progress through 
 committee in the General Synod, that in its present form it 
 can in no wise be reckoned as the Bishop’s composition. It 
 is remarkable that the result of all this discussion has been 
 to raise the tone of feeling in regard to the Services amongst 
 the members of the Synod, many of whom, both lay and 
 clerical, have found the Synod a most profitable school of 
 divinity. As regards the Baptismal offices in particular, 
 though one or two members make it a point of conscience to 
 
EPISCOPAL PEKIOD. 
 
 [71] 
 
 put a notice of motion on the paper every year expressing a 
 desire to make some alteration, it is as much as they can 
 accomplish to obtain a patient hearing. Indeed, I have my- 
 self felt it right to oppose a proposition to hinder all further 
 discussion of this question. I did so on the ground that it 
 was far better to allow those members to relieve their con- 
 sciences by stating their wishes, than to send them away 
 with a sense of injury. It is to be mentioned also, that all 
 changes proposed in the Services of the Church requiring to 
 be approved by a resolution a year before they could be made 
 the subject of enactment, and several such resolutions having 
 been adopted which were not afterwards acted on, after the 
 Prayer Book was finally adopted all such resolutions were 
 solemnly and formally rescinded in globo. In bringing things 
 to this satisfactory conclusion, the Bishop’s wisdom and 
 moderation were eminently useful. He made but rarely 
 anything that could be called a speech. Sitting in a corner 
 out of view, whenever anything occurred to him he came 
 forward, and amidst a general hush and silence, in a few 
 words, listened to with profound attention, he contributed to 
 the solution of the question under discussion. 
 
 Besides the Bishop’s exertions in the Synod itself during 
 these years, in addition to his annual Charges in which he 
 treated of the subjects under discussion, and the £ Letter ’ to 
 his diocese already mentioned, he printed several pamphlets 
 and sermons on the same subjects. Thus in 1871, when the 
 discussions began, he published three sermons c On the Signi- 
 ficance of Christian Baptism.’ These had been preached in 
 his old parish church, St. Anne’s, Dublin, in 1852-3, when 
 the Gorham controversy was agitating men’s minds. In 
 1872 he printed an ordination sermon which he preached in 
 Limerick, entitled the ‘ Ministry of the Forgiveness of Sins.’ 
 In 1873 he published ‘ Remarks on the Hew Proposed 
 Baptismal Rubric, in a Letter to a Friend.’ The friend was 
 of Calvinistic sentiments, and the drift of the 1 Letter ' 
 was to show that, while the Office as it is was in accord- 
 ance with the principles on which Calvin himself and his 
 followers proceeded in this matter, the new proposition would 
 
[72] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 render his position more difficult. And lastly, in 1874, 
 fearing that he should not be able to attend the Synod in 
 that year very constantly, he printed in two parts ‘ Kemarks 
 upon a Proposed Change in the Form of Ordaining a Priest.’ 
 That these writings, learned and moderate and wise, had a 
 large share in the final peaceful settlement of these questions 
 cannot be doubted. 
 
 When matters became thus settled he resumed the quiet 
 pursuits of study and the discharge of the duties of the 
 diocese. The feebleness of his constitution caused him to 
 spend much time in his library, and he seldom went out 
 except for the calls of duty, or a few minutes’ walk in his 
 grounds. But when the Pan- Anglican Synod was assembled 
 in the year 1878 he attended it. On all hands it was said 
 that a speech which he made at it in reference to the sceptical 
 tendencies of the day was most remarkable and important, 
 and made a very deep impression. I tried to get some 
 account of it from him, but all I could extract was that the 
 noise made about it was nonsensical. A report of it exists, 
 but it was not to be made public until presented to the next 
 assemblage of that body. There is a well-known photograph 
 of the assembled Bishops, but though his figure can be 
 pointed out, he took care that his face should be almost 
 entirely hidden. He had a great dislike to having himself 
 photographed. He told me that an artist once applied for 
 permission to take his likeness, but that he sent him word he 
 was not disposed 1 to show him such a countenance . ’ An 
 amateur friend did take a photograph of him once while he 
 was in Cork. It is very like, but faint. None could see his 
 fine and thoughtful face without being impressed by the mind 
 and the goodness it displayed. 
 
 In the autumn of 1883 I spent a week with him. He 
 was then in his usual health and spirits. Being to leave him 
 rather early on the Saturday morning, I sat with him till 
 midnight as usual,' and when taking leave of him, I said that 
 before dinner I had gone round the demesne with a feeling 
 that I should not see it again. This I said only with reference 
 to myself and the uncertainty of life at my age, some five 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [73] 
 
 years greater than liis own. He said we ought not to have 
 presentiments of that kind. I little thought it was to be 
 verified as it soon was. Several letters passed between us 
 afterwards. But in a few weeks I had a letter in which he 
 said he was going next day to Clonfert on diocesan business, 
 and that he never had felt greater aversion to leaving home, 
 and was going with great apprehension. He was taken very 
 ill there, got through his public duty with great difficulty, 
 and had immediately to retire to his room after it. In a day 
 or two he came home somewhat stronger, and went again to 
 Ennis for similar diocesan duty. From that he returned 
 again very ill, but would not take to bed or allow a physician 
 to be brought. The progress of debility, however, was so 
 rapid that medical aid was at last obtained against his wish. 
 His case was soon found hopeless. The spleen was affected 
 and there was a failure of the heart’s action. 
 
 During the Bishop’s illness, Miss Boole 3 kept me con- 
 stantly informed of his state. I extract a few sentences from 
 her letter of November 24, giving me the painful intelligence 
 of the end : ‘ You will guess before opening this letter that 
 the blow has fallen — our ever-kind friend is gone. He 
 died this morning between five and six, very quietly, and 
 apparently without pain. He sank into a faint from which 
 he never rallied. The doctor anticipated that his illness 
 would end suddenly, as there was disease of the heart. W. 
 and A. were with him at the last, and he had no other nurses 
 but his children. . . . Great as our sorrow is, we are all 
 thankful that he did not lie long or become quite helpless 
 and dependent on others, which to his sensitive spirit w T ould 
 have been real suffering. He is happy now with his Saviour 
 whom he so truly loved, and we cannot wish him back again. 
 
 3 This most estimable and highly cultured lady, still living, was sister to 
 the late Professor Boole, whose reputation as a mathematician is still fresh 
 both in this country and abroad, and whose death at middle age several years 
 ago deprived the Queen’s College in Cork of the prestige of a professor 
 so eminent in the scientific world. She was domiciled at Clarisford 
 House for some years after the Bishop went to Killaloe, and in later times 
 occasionally spent some months there, adding not a little to the social 
 charms which rendered my visits so enjoyable. 
 
[ 74 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ... I can understand how deeply you will feel the loss of 
 yonr friend, who I am sure loved yon as much as he loved any 
 one. ... I too have lost a kind friend in him. I can hardly 
 realise that he is gone. God comfort his dear ones ! ’ 
 
 The Bishop’s remains were removed to Cork on November 
 28, and were met at the railway terminus by a large assemblage 
 including the Mayor and leading members of the Corporation, 
 the Bishop of Cork and as many of his clergy as could come 
 together, while a large body from his own diocese accom- 
 panied the mourning party. We proceeded to the Church of 
 St. Nicolas and there deposited the earthly remnant in a 
 vault beside the remains of Mrs. FitzGerald and a child that 
 had died while he was in Cork. These had been originally 
 buried beneath the Cathedral, but on the final closing up of 
 the vaults when the Cathedral was rebuilt, they had been 
 removed to Dr. Webster’s vault beneath his own church. 
 When the Privy Council had prohibited further burials there, 
 the privilege was reserved that the Bishop’s and Dr. Webster’s 
 own remains might be laid there beside the remains of' their 
 respective wives. 
 
 The Bishop was in his figure delicately framed, and some- 
 what over middle stature. He would have looked taller but 
 for an habitual stoop contracted at an early period of his life, 
 which increased as years passed on. His large and finely 
 shaped head indicated the vast mental capacity which he had 
 so studiously cultivated and so diligently employed in his 
 Master’s service. His memory was the most perfect I have 
 ever known, not only in its extent but in its accuracy. 4 And 
 he clearly saw through and through whatever subject pre- 
 sented itself to his consideration. His manners were unde- 
 monstrative, corresponding with his feeble constitution, and 
 he was always reticent about his inner feelings. But one soon 
 perceived the depth and warmth of feelings displayed in acts 
 if not in words ; and his benignant smile left no doubt of the 
 
 4 If I went to him with a difficult question, he would say, ‘ I am sure I 
 don’t know,’ or ‘ I forget,’ and turn to something else. When I got up to 
 leave him, he would recall the question, give me full information, and often 
 add an apt quotation, or the needful references. 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [ 75 ] 
 
 reality of his affection. His purse was freely opened not only 
 for public uses, but for private help to those who needed, and 
 few but the recipients knew the extent and liberality of the 
 assistance thus generously afforded . 5 In society his conversa- 
 tion was the delight of all. He did not, like some noted 
 conversers, usurp a large share of the conversation ; he rather 
 liked to draw out others, and listened to them as a learner. 
 But he was ever ready with a pertinent and instructive 
 remark, or an anecdote, in which kind he abounded, or else 
 some brilliant flash of that wit which made his company so 
 delightful. Unobtrusive always, he always filled the foremost 
 place in every social gathering. Worldly honours he seemed 
 not to care for, and even disliked the title ‘ My lord ’ which 
 belonged to his station. When the Primacy was vacant it 
 was well known that the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Carlisle, 
 wished greatly that he should have been advanced to that 
 dignity. I am sure he was very thankful himself that a dif- 
 ferent choice had been made. He felt that he could be better 
 employed in the quietude of his more retired position, than 
 in a station of greater publicity and the prominence of a more 
 eminent dignity. 
 
 His theological views as far as they affected the ordinary 
 course of the Christian ministry are sufficiently indicated by 
 the extracts from his writings already made in this Memoir. 
 His views in regard to the questions that pertain to the 
 sphere of more recondite theology will be sufficiently seen 
 from the Lectures now published, as well as from some of his 
 previous works. He belonged to no party in the Church, 
 recognised what was right and good in all, and was severed 
 from none by any narrow views or prejudices. So far alone 
 he might be called a Broad Churchman, but only so far. As 
 for that melting away of the great verities of Christianity by 
 the so-called modern Broad Church party, he had no sympathy 
 
 5 A learned clergyman told me recently that when he was a country 
 curate at the time the Bishop was in Cork, he said to him that as a read- 
 ing man he must often be at a loss for books in the country, and that if he 
 would allow it he would send him a supply. In a short time the Bishop 
 sent him a goodly package of useful books suited to his studies. 
 
[76] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 whatever with such systems or modes of treating Christian 
 doctrines. If he did not follow more rigid divines in their 
 systematic and theoretic interpretations of Scriptural state- 
 ments carried beyond what the words of Scripture warrant, 
 he was still more averse to those interpretations which 
 reduced them to a cloudy vagueness which presented nothing 
 to be grasped by the mind but undefined generalities. 
 
 His position as a Churchman will be seen from a letter to 
 the Rev. C. H. Davis, dated August 25, 1861 : — 
 
 £ I am, in my own way, a High Churchman too. I think 
 it is madness to lose sight of the continuity of the Church ; 
 and think only of our little islands and the post-Reformation 
 times. If we had given up Episcopal ordination, we should 
 have cut ourselves off from all the world. Our position is that 
 of a standing testimony that the continuity of the Church 
 can be preserved without giving way to u the tyranny of the 
 Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities.” The 
 Genevan and Scotch Reformations were like the French 
 Revolution in subverting foundations, and like it in being 
 carried out by a reign of terror. I think we are in more 
 danger now than in 1640. You are full of men essentially 
 Dissenters or Romanists. . . . There is a greater danger still 
 behind, and that is of infidelity general among the educated 
 classes. When I look at the platform of the Church as it is, 
 and see what it could be made if its existing institutions 
 were fairly carried out, I wonder that men should neglect 
 this for the sake of agitating about changes. . . . But I am 
 writing at 3 A.M. on Sunday morning.’ 6 
 
 It was no doubt in accordance with the principle of main- 
 taining continuity that he more than once said to me that 
 he thought all the changes from the First Prayer Book of 
 Edward YI. were made for the worse. Of course this was 
 very different from reviving usages after the continuity and 
 the sense of continuity had long been broken in regard to the 
 particulars that had been changed. 
 
 In politics he was not a party-man, but was liberal with 
 
 6 He always sat late at night reading, and there is a tradition of his 
 having been found at times on the sofa in the morning. 
 
EPISCOPAL PERIOD. 
 
 [77] 
 
 a reasoned liberality. If lie might have been called a Whig, 
 he was of a school of Whigs that is now well-nigh extinct. In 
 every sphere of thought or action his mind was eminently 
 judicial, and its moderation was well expressed by the motto 
 he was accustomed at times to write in his books, ‘ iv /asa<p r) 
 apsTr}.’ So also was his habitual devoutness expressed by the 
 ‘ avv ’ which stood at the head of the manuscript of each 
 of the Lectures now published. — J. Q. 
 
 The following is the paper on the Ordination of Priests 
 referred to in p. [66]. 
 
 ORDINATION SERVICE. 
 
 Everyone with the least tincture of ecclesiastical learning is 
 aware that the words in which the order of Priesthood is conferred 
 in our present Prayer Book were never, in any part of the Church, 
 generally held to be strictly essential to valid Ordination. Those 
 words were never, as far as we know, used in any office of the 
 Eastern Church. In the West, the earliest extant office in 
 which they occur is, I believe, a book belonging to the Cathedral 
 of Mayence, of the thirteenth century. 
 
 Pope Eugenius, in his instructions to the Armenians, among 
 the Acts of the Council of Florence, lays it down that the form 
 of the Sacrament of Ordination in the case of a Priest is the 
 words : ‘ Accipe potestatem offerendi sacrificium in ecclesia pro 
 vivis et mortuis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti ; ’ 
 the matter being the delivery of the sacred vessels. Notwith- 
 standing this, Bellarmine and the later authorities seem gene- 
 rally to hold that the matter of the Sacrament is the imposition 
 of hands, and that it and the form are variable by the authority 
 of the Church. 
 
 Whether, even by the authority of the Church, the words 
 Receive the Holy Ghost : whose soever sins,’ &c., have become a 
 necessary part of the form is a question debated in the Roman 
 Schools. There are three impositions of hands in the Roman 
 Ordinal : — (1) An imposition of hands by the Bishop and Priests 
 in silence; (2) An imposition of hands, with a form of bidding 
 
[ 78 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 prayer, by the Bishop and assisting Priests, followed by the very 
 ancient collect ‘ Domine, Sancte Pater,’ &c. ; (8) An imposition 
 of hands by the Bishop alone , with the words ‘ Accipe Spiritum 
 Sanctum : quorum remiseris,’ &c. 
 
 According to Morinus, Orders are conferred by the second 
 imposition of hands ; but Bishop Burnet (in his defence of Re- 
 formed Orders) thinks that in this he is not generally followed by 
 the Roman doctors. But it is hard to reconcile the view of those 
 who would make the last imposition the actual Ordination, with 
 the rubric of the Pontifical, which always calls the candidates, 
 after the delivery of the Vessels, and before this third laying 
 on of hands, Ordinatos Sacer dotes or Presbyteros, and directs 
 them to recite the words of consecration in the Mass which 
 precedes that final imposition, along with the Bishop. Up to 
 the period of the delivery of the Vessels, it always calls them 
 Ordinandos. 
 
 I think it cannot reasonably be doubted that, at the time of 
 the reformation of our Ordinal, the prevailing view in the Roman 
 Schools was that the character of Priesthood was given by the 
 delivery of the Vessels (especially the Cup) and the accompanying- 
 explanatory words. This is the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, 
 and this is the doctrine apparently promulgated, ex cathedra, by 
 Eugenius IV. I do not see, therefore, how it can be supposed 
 that our Reformers gave such a remarkable position to the words, 
 
 ‘ Receive the Holy Ghost, ’ &c., merely in deference to the Roman 
 Pontifical, and to avoid bringing their Orders into question with 
 the Roman Schoolmen. It seems to me much more likely that, 
 in choosing that form, they were guided by their own judgments, 
 and supposed themselves to be following Scripture precedent. 
 They regarded, I suppose, the original words of our Lord as the 
 abiding promise and commission to the Church in all ages, as a 
 spiritually assisted and animated body, to set forth the gospel, 
 through a standing ministry, in the Word and in the Sacraments. 
 For such an interpretation they had certainly abundant counten- 
 ance from the early Christian writers ; and though, after the 
 Innocentian figment of the Sacrament of Penance, later writers 
 had perverted those words into another sense, yet their own use of 
 them seemed sufficiently guarded by the added clause, ‘ Be thou 
 a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and His Sacraments.’ 
 
 ‘ Christ,’ says Archbishop Whitgift, ‘ used these words, “ This is 
 my Body,” in the celebration of His Supper; but there is no 
 special commandment that the minister should use the same ; 
 
ORDINATION SERVICE. 
 
 [79] 
 
 and yet must he use them because Christ used them ; even so, 
 when Christ did ordain His Apostles ministers of the gospel 
 (John xx.), He said unto them “ Receive' the Holy Ghost,” &c., 
 which words, because they contain the principal duty of a minister , 
 and do signify that God doth pour His Spirit upon those whom 
 He calleth to that function, are most aptly also used of the 
 Bishop (who is God’s instrument in that business) in the ordain- 
 ing of ministers. . . . Neither doth the Bishop speak them 
 as though he had authority to give the Holy Ghost, but he 
 speaketh as the words of Christ used in the like action, who 
 (as I said before) doth most certainly give His Holy Spirit to 
 those whom He calleth to the ministry. And surely if any 
 pattern, either in calling or ordaining ministers, is to be followed, 
 this of Christ is to be followed especially. . . . That which you 
 speak of commanding ’ (he refers to the use of the imperative 
 mood) ‘ is a mere cavil : you know in your consciences there is 
 nothing less meant.’ — 1st Wliitgift, p. 490, J\S. 
 
 I see, therefore, no particular reason for thinking that our 
 Reformers were greatly influenced in this by their ignorance of 
 the Greek Formularies. Wliitgift knew, at least, quite well that 
 in the oldest extant Greek Ecclesiastical Formulary no such 
 words as they have adopted occur — the form of Ordination in the 
 Apostolical Constitutions. But they plainly, I think, supposed 
 themselves to have in the New Testament a better precedent 
 than any such Formularies could supply. It must be confessed, 
 however, that there is this objection in some cases to the use of 
 purely Scriptural terms in Church Formularies : that it cannot 
 be done without limiting and fixing those terms to a particular 
 sense, which many may regard as not the natural or divinely 
 intended meaning of them. If all were agreed that the words 
 in John xx. were words of Ordination, expressing a principal 
 function of the ministry in all ages (whatever that function 
 might be), then no hardship would be laid on anyone by their 
 use in conferring Orders, because though different persons would 
 interpret them differently, all would agree in their applicability, 
 (in the true sense, whatever it were,) to the matter in hand. But 
 there certainly is an inconvenience in requiring the use of such 
 words as applied to Ordination in the case of those who regard 
 them as originally applied to a different purpose, and incapable 
 of being applied to this without putting a force upon the expres- 
 sion. For the sake of such persons, I should be well content 
 to agree to some of the changes that have been proposed in the 
 
 VOL. i. e 
 
[ 80 ] 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 form of Ordination, if it can be made to appear that such a 
 change (in our present circumstances) would heal more divisions 
 than it would cause. 
 
 If the Church be right in her interpretation of the words 
 ‘ Whose soever sins ye remit,’ &c., there can be no doubt that her 
 form of Ordination (under whatever evil circumstances it was 
 revived in the tenth century) is an older and more venerable 
 form than the oldest and most venerable of those that can be 
 found in any of the extant ancient offices of either the Eastern 
 or the Western Church. But if the imperative mood in the words 
 ‘ Receive the Holy Ghost,’ only be objected to, I suppose that 
 few would refuse to alter it to a precatory form. As those words 
 stood originally in the Ordinal without qualification, the Bishop 
 was (as we see from Whitgift) regarded as simply reciting the 
 words of Christ. Under the advice of Pearson and Gunning, 
 they were afterwards (in order to conciliate objectors) modified as 
 they now stand, by the addition ‘ for the office and work,’ &c. 
 But that modification made the words seem more the Bishop’s 
 words ; and so, while lessening one objection, increased another. 
 It is one proof out of many of the great difficulty of patching up 
 an old form for a particular purpose, without injuring it. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing remarks that I do not 
 attach much importance to the fear that the mere use of the 
 words ‘ Whose soever sins,’ &c. in the Ordinal is fitted to give 
 countenance to the claim of a judicial power of absolution on the 
 part of the presbyters of the Church. The main question with 
 me depends upon the correct interpretation of the words as 
 originally spoken. If, as originally spoken, they were meant to 
 convey such a power to the Apostles (which I do not believe), 
 I can see no reason for thinking that that power expired with 
 the Apostles, or failed to be transmitted to the Church. 
 
 If, even in the case of the Apostles, those words did not bear 
 any such meaning, how can it be pretended that, as applied to 
 ordinary presbyters, they naturally bear such a sense ? I cannot 
 but fear that the expunging from the Ordinal of "words un- 
 doubtedly Scriptural, and which have been so long in use, 
 because of a misconstruction put (not on our words, but the words 
 of Christ) by a certain party in the Church , will have something 
 of the same look as if we were to expunge the words, ‘ This 
 is my Body,’ from the consecration prayer in the Communion 
 Service, or the words, ‘ born of water and the Holy Ghost,’ 
 from the Baptismal office. 
 
ORDINATION SERVICE. 
 
 [81] 
 
 There is, however (as I have already said), a more legitimate 
 ground of objection to the use of these words on the part of 
 those who may regard them as originally referring to miraculous 
 powers, or to that power of external discipline and government 
 which cannot be said to be vested absolutely in a presbyter. 
 With such persons I do not myself agree. I believe the sense 
 which the Church has put upon these words to be the true sense ; 
 and that the substance of this discourse in John xx. is given in 
 Mark xvi. 14-16, and Luke xxiv. 46-48, and repeated in the 
 discourse reported in Matt, xxviii. 18-20. But I have every 
 respect for those who differ from me ; and I should be very glad 
 to see their scruples eased, if it can be safely done at present ; 
 as I am apt to think could be done safely enough if theirs were 
 the only or the main objections to the use of this form. I do not 
 see that we are called on to make such a serious change as this 
 would be, merely for the sake of making our office more like 
 old forms in the East or West, or both of them. 
 
 Antiquities, when long disused and forgotten, become practi- 
 cally novelties on their restoration. 
 
FIRST COURSE 
 
 Jlposfolical <§f)itrcf) 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 B 
 
LECTUEE L 
 
 NATURE, VALUE , AND PROPER USE OF 
 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I trust that you will readily excuse me if 
 I venture to dispense upon the present occasion with those 
 elaborate apologies and confessions of incompetence which 
 form the usual preface of an inaugural lecture. 
 
 Even in the mouth of those who have 4 honours thrust 
 upon them,’ there is, I am afraid, very little sincerity in these 
 formal sacrifices to Nemesis ; but for me, who have volun- 
 tarily sought the office which I hold, such customary con- 
 fessions of unworthiness, in proportion as they proved my 
 present modesty, would prove also my former impudence, 
 and besides convey a reflection, hardly decent and certainly 
 not grateful, upon the discernment of those by whom I have 
 been appointed. 
 
 If I had not believed myself capable of imparting useful 
 instruction to my auditors, I should never have sought, or 
 consented, to occupy this chair ; nor shall I waste your time 
 and my own in a parade of self-depreciation which ought to 
 show it to be vain for me to lecture or you to listen. My 
 earnest desire is that you and I should both as soon as pos- 
 sible be wholly engrossed with our subject, and forget entirely 
 (or at least as much as we can) the person who discusses it, 
 
 4 A Professor of History,’ says the late Dr. Arnold, c has 
 two principal objects : he must try to acquaint his hearers 
 with the nature and value of the treasure for which they are 
 searching ; and, secondly, he must try to show them the best 
 and speediest method of discovering and extracting it.’ 4 The 
 first of these two things,’ he adds, 4 may be done once for all : 
 
4 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 but the second must be bis habitual employment, the 
 business of his professorial life.’ 
 
 The first of these objects I propose to myself in the pre- 
 sent lecture — so far as ecclesiastical history is concerned ; for 
 the value of history in general is a subject much too extensive 
 for us, and besides belongs more properly to another chair. 
 
 Now the first point which strikes one immediately in 
 reference to the value of ecclesiastical history is that — to a 
 certain extent — a knowledge of it is not only advantageous, 
 but even absolutely necessary. The Christian revelation, as 
 Butler has truly said, may be considered as wholly historical. 
 The very foundations of our faith are laid upon the genuine- 
 ness and authenticity of those documents which deliver that 
 revelation to us ; and the matter of that revelation itself 
 is a history of God’s dealings with mankind, extended over 
 a period of many thousand years, and commencing with the 
 very origin of our species. 
 
 Hence ecclesiastical history occupies a place in reference 
 to theology, which hardly any other kind of history can be 
 said to hold in regard of any other science. To trace, for 
 example, the various steps of progress by which physics and 
 mathematics gradually attained their present position — to 
 mark the stages of successive discoveries — and to acquaint 
 ourselves with the characters, the achievements, and the for- 
 tunes of those by whom the lamp of such sciences was trans- 
 mitted, with ever increasing brilliancy, to our hands — this 
 will, of course, be a pursuit most attractive to minds familiar 
 with those sciences, and one from which they will derive 
 not only entertainment, but many advantages also, and sug- 
 gestions for their own guidance in adding to the discoveries 
 of their predecessors. But then, in reference to those 
 sciences, it cannot be described as absolutely essential. A 
 man may be not only a good, but an excellent mathematician, 
 or astronomer, or chemist, without knowing anything at all 
 of the history of mathematics, or astronomy, or chemistry. 
 How few of the students of Euclid's elements have ever con- 
 cerned themselves to inquire about the biography of the 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY NEEDFUL FOR A DIVINE. 
 
 5 
 
 author — the age in which he lived, or the circumstances 
 
 under which he wrote — whether the work attributed to him 
 
 be reallv his at all — or how far the translation of it in their 
 «/ 
 
 hands represents his genuine text or real meaning ? — and how 
 comparatively unimportant is it that they should concern 
 themselves with such inquiries ! The credit of the writer is 
 no proper element at all in this case for determining the 
 truth of his doctrines, and the force of his demonstrations 
 is just the same whether he wrote in Greek or in English, 
 whether he was the honoured friend of princes or the obscure 
 tenant of a garret in the Mint. The mathematician then 
 may be, and (in one sense) even ought to be, acquainted with 
 the historv of mathematical science : but merelv considered 
 
 V ' v 
 
 as a mathematician, such knowledge is in no way essential to 
 him. The history of mathematical science is no part of mathe- 
 matics. And so of logic and physics in all its branches, and 
 metaphysical and ethical science in like manner. 
 
 But the case is otherwise with Divinity. No man can be 
 a divine at all without being to some extent an ecclesiastical 
 historian ; because, as I have already said, the revelation with 
 which the divine has to deal is itself essentially historical. 
 
 I know that with not a few a contrary impression prevails, 
 A theory already highly popular upon the continent of 
 Europe, is daily gaining converts in England,, according to 
 which the historical facts connected with our religion are 
 only accidentally connected with it, and form no part of its 
 essence. The sublime views, it is said— which the Scriptures 
 open to us of the divine attributes — the pure and elevated 
 morality which they breathe, and, above all, the character of 
 Jesus Christ — considered as the ideal of humanity — the trap 
 type of the godlike in man— these are the substantial realities 
 of the Christian religion, these, whatever becomes of the 
 historical truth of the alleged facts in which thev are em- 
 bodied, prove at once their moral and philosophical truth, which 
 is a thing of infinitely higher value, by an appeal to our con- 
 sciousness, which elicits at once the favourable verdict of a\l 
 our better feelings.. 
 
6 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUPCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 It is not any longer to be dissembled that such notions 
 as these are daily gaining ground — that by some they are 
 received and applauded knowingly and deliberately — and 
 that by others, and that a larger number, they are imbibed 
 thoughtlessly and at unawares, like an unwholesome miasma 
 out of a vapour, from that cloud of misty metaphysical 
 jargon which is stealing over our theological literature — 
 tcXETrrf) hs ts vvktos dfjLeivwv. 
 
 Now I think it would be no peculiarly difficult task to 
 meet the patrons of such views even upon their own high philo- 
 sophical ground. I think it would not be very hard to show 
 that even if we took the known wants of man as the measure 
 of revealed truth, the gospel which these persons preach is 
 inadequate to meet the known wants of man. We require 
 not merely an ideal of human excellence, but to see that 
 ideal realised, and to see further that the issue of that reali- 
 sation has been a triumph over all the ills of life and over 
 all the menaces of death. We require to be shown in fact 
 that man can truly serve God, and that the end of that 
 service is everlasting life. We require a basis of fact, an 
 historical basis, for our religious faith ; and without such a 
 basis that faith is a mere castle in the air, a splendid vision 
 as practically inoperative on the will as an antagonist to the 
 real temptations of everyday life, as every other ideal picture 
 has ever proved. 
 
 But after all, this would be only c answering a fool according 
 to his folly,’ and lest, in doing so, we should incur the danger 
 of which the wise man warns us, and become e like ’ the fool 
 whom we are answering, I think it is much better to begin 
 with protesting at once, and in the strongest manner, against 
 the principle which runs as a concealed major premiss through 
 all this reasoning. We should, I say, begin at once with 
 protesting against the delusive notion that man’s supposed 
 wants or his wishes are to be taken as either the major or the 
 minor limit — or, indeed, as any measure at all — of religious 
 truth. We cannot be justified in assuming that things exist 
 because we seem to ourselves to want, or because we feel that 
 
lkct. i. EVIDENCE OF FACT THE SOLID BASIS OF FAITH. 7 
 
 we earnestly desire, their existence ; nor can we ever be 
 justified in disbelieving or disregarding the existence of things 
 which seem to us superfluous or unpleasant or even noxious, 
 if assured upon good authority that they really exist, and 
 that it is important for us to take notice of their existence. 
 
 That man must, indeed, be a backward scholar in the 
 school of nature who has not learned, even from his own ex- 
 perience, how little human wants and wishes are an evidence 
 that the things wanted, and wished for, really exist. If 
 otherwise, what a different world would it be ! Then should 
 we never have to complain of blighted hope and misplaced 
 confidence, of ill-success in virtuous endeavours, or the dis- 
 appointment of reasonable expectations. 
 
 It is the common delusion of over-sanguine youth to 
 fancy that we shall find in life exactly what we seem to 
 require, and that circumstances will infallibly open for us those 
 opportunities which are most suitable for the display of our 
 talents and the advancement of our fortunes : but how little 
 does stern reality often tally with these golden dreams of the 
 inexperienced imagination ! And shall we go on to the grave 
 trusting these promises of our own fancy which every day is, 
 with continually accumulated evidence, proving to be false ? 
 
 The hoary fool who many days 
 
 Has struggled with perpetual sorrow, 
 
 Renews the game, and fondly lays 
 The desperate bet upon to-morrow ! 
 
 To-morrow comes, ’tis noon, ’tis night — 
 
 This day, like all the others flies — 
 
 Yet on he goes to seek delight 
 To-morrow, till to-night he dies. 
 
 It is not, if we are wise, to our wants and wishes that we 
 trust, in the affairs of this world, as evidence that the means 
 of remedying those wants or gratifying those wishes are in 
 store for us, but to the proper evidence of matters of fact, to 
 our own experience, or to the testimony of others’ experience. 
 And if we would find a solid basis for our religious faith, we 
 must obtain for it also a similar foundation. 
 
8 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 The truth is that we can see beforehand that the wants 
 and wishes of a creature like man are boundless, and in their 
 yery nature incapable of being all gratified. All creatures 
 are necessarily imperfect, and every imperfection is the want 
 of some conceivable good, and every conceivable good is in 
 itself desirable, and may, if we give the reins to desire, be- 
 come the object of our wishes. 
 
 Men would be angels, angels would be gods. 
 
 Nothing short of absolute — of infinite perfection — can possibly 
 supply all wants and gratify all the wishes of an imperfect 
 being who fancies that he has only to wish strongly in order 
 to obtain his object. 
 
 And equally foolish is the notion, that we may safely dis- 
 regard everything the suitability of which to our moral nature 
 we are not able at present to discern from intrinsic evidence. 
 Here again let us have recourse to that analogy which has 
 been truly described by the great master of that argument as 
 ‘ the very guide of life.’ How ill would a child reason who 
 should obstinately neglect every study the use of which he 
 could not himself discern, though assured by his parents 
 and instructors that he would hereafter derive benefit from 
 its pursuit ! And as to the things of another world, are 
 we not all children ? And ere we make up our minds to 
 dismiss as superfluous any truth revealed in Scripture, does 
 it not become us to pause and consider well the step we 
 are taking ? Shall we who know not what an hour may 
 bring forth — we, whose wisest calculations and most sagacious 
 foresight are perpetually baffled and brought to nothing in a 
 moment by the changes and chances of even this short mortal 
 life — shall we presume thus to take our own case into our 
 own hands, and determine for ourselves what is sufficient for 
 us to believe ? The Almighty has taken us under his care. 
 He has promised us an inheritance of which we know little 
 more than that it is a state of eternal holiness and happiness. 
 He has engaged to prepare us for it here ; and, for that purpose, 
 has revealed to us those truths which He saw fitting for our 
 
LKCT. 1. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AN HISTORICAL RELIGION. 
 
 9 
 
 discipline. Can we know so certainly how the character 
 which He requires is to be formed, as to be able to correct 
 the method which He has been pleased to employ ? Do we 
 know our spiritual diseases so well that we can safely reject 
 the remedies which the great Physician has prescribed for 
 them ? Are we, in this our state of infancy, already so per- 
 fectly acquainted with all that is needful for our manhood 
 that we can manage our own education for eternity, and 
 determine the training by which we are to be reared for 
 heaven ? 
 
 A prudent man then, I think, will not only inquire what 
 it is that his heart seems to want, but also how far those 
 wants are, in point of fact, supplied. He will not only con- 
 sider what he wishes to be true, but what he has reasonable 
 evidence for believing to be true. He will treat the truths 
 of religion as matters of fact, and seek for them the appro- 
 priate evidence of matters of fact — that is, in other words, 
 historical evidence. 
 
 A religion disentangled entirely from all historical inquiries, 
 and commending itself immediately to the mind by its mere 
 intrinsic beauty and suitability to man’s wants and wishes, 
 may be a very captivating vision, and seems highly desirable 
 on many accounts ; but it is a gross abuse of words to call 
 such a religion Christianity. Christianity is the religion 
 which was taught by Christ and His Apostles, and it was 
 certainly an historical religion — a religion made up of 
 matters of fact, and propounded upon the evidence of matters 
 of fact, which they came forward to promulgate. £ That 
 which we have heard and seen with our eyes, and our hands 
 have handled of the word of life, declare we unto you ’ is the 
 language which the first preachers of the Gospel always 
 used. And the modern attempt to separate the ideal Christ 
 — the type of the godlike in man — from the historical person 
 is not a whit less opposed to the genius of apostolic religion 
 than was that teaching of the Gnostics against which the 
 last of the Apostles raised His warning voice as the very 
 spirit of Antichrist. The Christ of the ancient Gnostics was 
 
10 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 an impalpable iEon ; the Christ of their successors is some- 
 thing less substantial still — an abstract idea. 
 
 Indeed, whatever may be the case with other religions, the 
 Gospel certainly never made its way by first recommending 
 itself to the conscious wants of mankind. It seemed, on the 
 contrary, to contradict all men’s expectations, to outrage all 
 their cherished feelings, and to cross all their desires. It was 
 £ to the J ews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolish- 
 ness.’ It is not until it is believed and acted on that it 
 gradually changes the temper and frame of the mind into ac- 
 cordance with itself. It is like some of those tonic medicines 
 which at first seem bitter and disagreeable, till the palate is 
 accustomed to their taste, and the stomach braced and 
 strengthened by their wholesome harshness. It is the re- 
 ception of its doctrines that creates those holy wishes and 
 hopes which it will in the end satisfy ; and that our hopes 
 and wishes are really holy we discover by comparing them 
 with a standard which has been first proved divine. Now 
 the facts of the Gospel-narrative are the proper proofs of the 
 divine authority of that standard which the Gospel-teaching 
 supplies. £ These things are written,’ says the Evangelist, 
 speaking of the miracles of Christ, £ that ye might believe 
 that Jesus is the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might 
 have life through His name.’ 
 
 Our Master claims indeed complete submission from his 
 followers, but He first proves to them that it is really God’s 
 voice which speaks by Him. Another course is far more 
 convenient for those who cannot give such proofs as He gave, 
 and who feel themselves unable historically to connect their 
 teaching with His, and yet would fain speak with the like 
 authority. It is convenient for them to deride such evidence 
 as they are unable to produce ; but let us, according to the 
 apostolic warning, £ take heed lest any man deceive us.’ If 
 we once take our own seeming wants and earnest wishes as a 
 proof that what satisfies them must be true, we shall soon 
 frame to ourselves a gospel after our own hearts. The true 
 haven of eternal rest which God has revealed in His Word 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF AN HISTORICAL RELIGION. 
 
 11 
 
 will be hidden from our eves, and we shall steer over a track- 
 less sea in pursuit of an unsubstantial phantom which our 
 own fancy has painted upon the mists raised by our own 
 prejudices. 
 
 It may, indeed, at first sight seem strange that the 
 Christian religion should be thus cumbered as it were with 
 an apparatus of history, and that men should be required to 
 investigate the evidence of past transactions in order to find 
 a firm basis for their faith, instead of merely consulting 
 their hearts and finding an echo there to attest the divinity 
 of its announcements. But in this, as in other cases, we 
 shall find, upon reflection, that what seems the foolishness of 
 God is wiser than men. I am fully satisfied myself that a 
 careful and candid investigation of the evidences upon which 
 the truth of Christianity rests, is an eminently ^practical 
 exercise of the understanding, and brings home, in a way 
 that nothing else can, the great facts of our religion, as facts, 
 to the mind, with a feeling of their reality which the most 
 highly raised efforts of the imagination cannot give them, 
 and thus makes rational, deliberate faith a counterpoise to the 
 engrossing influence of sense. In the affairs of this world 
 we know that realities uniformly address themselves in some 
 shape or other to the judgment, and that those which ex- 
 clusively and immediately address the feelings and the imagi- 
 nation are unreal. If then the objects of religion entered only 
 through this ivory gate of fancy into the mind, a steady 
 practical faith in their reality could hardly be maintained. 
 I say a steady practical faith, for undoubtedly if religion 
 were, as false religion commonly is, a mere affair of feeling 
 divorced from practice, or of practice divorced from motive 
 and reduced to the mechanism of custom, there might be 
 something intelligible in discarding all investigation of 
 evidence. Everyone even superficially acquainted with the 
 structure of the human mind is aware that the feelings may — 
 as in the case of a novel or a play — be deeply interested and 
 strongly excited without anything but at the best a sort of 
 dim and transient belief in the reality of the objects which 
 
12 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 coursE i. 
 
 thus interest and excite them, and that, for such a purpose, 
 scarcely anything more is necessary than that the mind should 
 not for the time attend to their unreality. This I say suffices 
 for mere feeling, but for practice a sane man requires more. 
 He requires evidence as a ground of belief : and even in an 
 insane man, where the fancy has become paramount and 
 established its throne upon the ruins of the understanding, 
 close observers can generally detect a lurking suspicion of 
 the deceitfulness of the mind’s own visions ; an unsteady 
 wavering flickers in the predominating persuasion, which 
 betrays a difference of great importance between rational and 
 irrational belief, a secret sense of insecurity and weakness 
 which makes the mind of the madman — except in some high 
 paroxysm of frenzy — succumb and quail before the calmer 
 presence of a well-regulated intellect. 
 
 But to pursue this part of the subject further might draw 
 me into a metaphysical disquisition not altogether suited to our 
 purpose. It will suffice then to have suggested to your thoughts 
 a matter which I cannot but deem of very great importance. 
 
 But there is another use served by this complication of 
 religion with historical inquiry which it cannot be unsuit- 
 able to notice. It is this, that the essential connection of 
 Christianity with the history of past ages makes a provision 
 for the maintenance and advancement of civilisation in every 
 country in which Christianity prevails. Barbarism is essen- 
 tially that state of mind which is produced by placing it 
 exclusively under the influences of a contracted present 
 sphere of circumstances. It is, as Dr. Johnson justly said, 
 by 1 making the past, the distant, and the future, predomi- 
 nate over the present,’ that we are ‘ advanced in the dignity 
 of thinking beings.’ All history more or less renders this 
 valuable service to the human mind, but I think it can- 
 not be reasonably doubted that Church history in its high- 
 est sense — in that view of it which the Bible presents — the 
 history of the Church of God as one continuous body from 
 the beginning of the world even to the end, is of all others 
 the best fitted to render such a service. The idea of history, 
 
LKCT. I. 
 
 CIVILISATION THEREBY PROMOTED. 
 
 13 
 
 it has been truly said, is that of the biography of a society. 
 There must be, to constitute the narrative properly historical, 
 a unity of action, interest, and purpose among the persons who 
 are the subjects of it. Now whether we consider the length 
 of its duration or the breadth of its extent, the variety of its 
 fortunes or the unity of its purpose, the diversity of its 
 members in age, and character, and language, and manners, 
 and habits of thought, and stages of cultivation, or the close- 
 ness of mutual relation into which all these seemingly 
 scattered persons have been brought, what other society 
 can anywhere be pointed out which can form so noble and 
 so useful a subject for the historian ? It is the conception 
 of the Church which enables the mind not only to combine 
 but to blend together the pastoral simplicity of the primitive 
 times of mankind and the elaborate civilisation of later ages ; 
 to bring into one collection all the characteristics of all the 
 climes and regions of the world ; to bring all specimens of 
 the human family, from the north and from the south, and 
 from the east and from the west, and make them sit down 
 before us in the kingdom of God. Nor have I the least doubt 
 but that the peculiar strength and freedom and versatility of 
 the modern European intellect, is to a great extent — to a 
 much greater extent, indeed, than is commonly supposed — due 
 to that historical character of Christianity which I have been 
 speaking of. No one can read intelligently so much as the 
 prime documents of our faith, even in a vernacular translation, 
 without feeling himself transported into a region where the 
 modes of conception and of expression, the events and the 
 institutions to be met with, are strikingly different from those 
 which surround him with the associations of everyday life, 
 without, in short, finding himself for a time emancipated from 
 the mere influence of the present, and brought under that of the 
 distant and the past. Nor could anything, I suppose, have 
 secured such a potent and salutary influence to history over the 
 human mind as the indissoluble tie by which it is connected 
 with religion. And it is worth observing that Providence has 
 so arranged matters that the Eastern world, to which the lan- 
 
14 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COtJTJSE I. 
 
 guage and habits of thought contained in Scripture are most 
 familiar, seems destined to receive back its lessons modified by 
 the peculiarities of Western civilisation and European teach- 
 ing. In those nations where the language of Christianity 
 was, as it were, a native voice, it produced least influence at 
 first as a source of permanent civilisation. It was the leaven 
 of foreign associations which caused a fermentation in the 
 Western mind, and from the blended mass which was the 
 product of that fermentation it seems intended to pass back 
 again to the realms from which it came in a form fitted to 
 produce there a similar effect. 
 
 Now if what I have been saying on this subject be, in the 
 main, just, you will perceive that, so far as any system has a 
 tendency to break the necessary connection between history 
 and religion, to put asunder what God has joined together, 
 it has in the same degree a tendency to deprive civilisation 
 itself of one of its chief safeguards, to withdraw from effective 
 operation one of the most powerful causes which now stimulate 
 research and bring the minds of the present generation into 
 contact with those of the past. If the mind be referred im- 
 mediately for religious guidance, not to an historical docu- 
 ment of other times, but to the supposed infallible authority 
 of the present Church, or the supposed infallible authority of 
 each man’s fancy or feelings, the influences favourable to 
 barbarism are so far restored, and I think that the visible 
 results of both experiments, so far as either of them has been 
 consistently worked out, are such as to show that a return to 
 barbarism would be their most probable consequence. And 
 hence we may find additional reason for admiring the wisdom 
 of the divine economy, which, in the case of the Jewish and 
 Christian churches alike, withdrew after a while the living 
 voice of inspired guides, and substituted for them as the 
 ultimate basis of faith a written historical record of their 
 teaching ; thus building the Church, as a continuous body, 
 through all ages upon that foundation of the Apostles and 
 Prophets of which Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone. 
 
 From what I have said, you will perhaps sufficiently 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 HOW FAR THIS STUDY INDISPENSABLE. 
 
 15 
 
 gather in what sense and under what limitations I have 
 spoken of history as essential to the Christian religion. But 
 I am anxious to guard against misconception in a matter of 
 vital importance. I recognise, therefore, the study of history 
 as so far only absolutely and precisely necessary and indis- 
 pensable to the divine, as it informs us that there are reliable 
 documents of inspired teaching — points out to us what those 
 documents are — and acquaints us with those circumstances 
 under which they were composed, that are requisite for 
 enabling us to understand their drift and bearing. 
 
 It appears to me that to go farther than this is a pro- 
 cedure which can only be consistently defended on the hypo- 
 thesis of a continuous inspiration of the Church in all ages, 
 making the voice of the Church in each generation as much 
 the voice of the Divine Spirit as that which spoke through the 
 Apostles. Now such an hypothesis as this, while it seems at first 
 sight to give a higher place to ecclesiastical history than that 
 which I assign to it, does in reality end in allowing it no 
 necessary place at all. For on the hypothesis of such a con- 
 tinuous inspiration, the present Church is now the hceres ex 
 asse, the complete inheritor of the full plenitude of apostolic 
 inspiration, and when once this has been admitted, men will 
 readily perceive that the shortest and safest way is to apply 
 immediately for direction to the decisions of the present 
 Church. To these, it will be seen, they must come at last ; 
 and to these therefore they will be, naturally and not unrea- 
 sonably, disposed to go at first. 
 
 The course of the late movement in our own Church is an 
 instructive lesson to us of the danger of thus putting more 
 upon the study of ecclesiastical antiquity than it can reason- 
 ably be made to support. The leaders of that movement began, 
 as you know, with an endeavour to make ecclesiastical history 
 the very rule of faith. You cannot — it was said — take 
 Scripture in any other sense but that which was put upon it 
 in the first three centuries, or the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or 
 seventh, for the limit was rather vague and uncertain. But 
 soon it began to be perceived that the same principle which 
 
16 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 made the first three centuries the sure expositors of the sense 
 of the very first, made also the next three centuries the sure 
 expositors of the sense of their predecessors, and so on in a 
 continual succession, each later generation determining the 
 meaning of its forefathers, till at last the present Church 
 came out, like the sum at the end of a long column of figures, 
 as the adequate representative of all that went before. And 
 accordingly the issue, as you know, has been that a large pro- 
 portion of both leaders and disciples have gone over not 
 only to Romanism, but to that peculiar form of Romanism 
 which avowedly proclaims its contempt for all appeals to the 
 suffrages of antiquity. 
 
 I cannot then so magnify my office as to tell you that you 
 cannot refute the Socinian or the Roman Catholic without a 
 knowledge of the history of the Church in all ages. It seems 
 to me manifest, that, if we can understand by our private 
 judgment the writings of the Fathers of the fourth century, 
 for example, there is nothing to prevent us from understand- 
 ing in precisely the same way and by similar appliances, the 
 writings of the first century, and that, if from a comparison 
 of Socinian or Romish doctrines with the writings of the 
 Apostles a contradiction between those doctrines and those 
 writings is discoverable, the doctrines which contradict the 
 Apostles’ teaching are thereby sufficiently refuted. 
 
 But over and above any doctrines, it may be said, which 
 are clearly opposed to the statements made in Holy Scrip- 
 ture, may there not be others alleged as apostolic, which 
 cannot be brought to such an immediate test by the written 
 word, and which therefore can only be refuted by an appeal 
 to ecclesiastical antiquity ? If it be pretended, as it is, 
 that besides the Scriptures, there are other modes of convey- 
 ing apostolical teaching, and that these have actually brought 
 down to us records of that teaching which are necessary to 
 complete the Christian system, in what way can such an alle- 
 gation be disproved but by an historical inquiry into the 
 evidence of the faot ? 
 
 Now this, I think, is reasonable enough ; but then you 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 NOT A MERE HELP IN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 17 
 
 will observe that it is no objection against anything that I 
 have said. I have distinctly treated as necessary an historical 
 inquiry into this subject. I have said that history is neces- 
 sary and indispensable to inform us that these are reliable 
 documents of inspired teaching, and to point out to us what 
 those documents are. 
 
 Now any trustworthy document of apostolic teaching is a 
 document of inspired teaching, even though the reporter 
 himself were not under the influence of inspiration, and his 
 report consequently not precisely on the same level as those 
 writings which form a portion of the sacred canon. And 
 whether there do exist any such trustworthy reports is not 
 only a most interesting, but a necessary inquiry — necessary, 
 I will not say for the refutation of others, but for the satis- 
 faction of our own minds. 
 
 It is indeed under this aspect that I wish now and always 
 to present this subject to your thoughts. Ecclesiastical 
 history has suffered incalculable injury in times past from 
 being made the mere instrument of polemical warfare, from 
 being treated as an armoury where the champions of opposite 
 parties were to seek for weapons against each other. No one 
 can cast a glance, however cursory, over the great rival works 
 of the Centuriators and of Baronius, without perceiving that 
 they are essentially controversial — that the aim of their respec- 
 tive authors was not simply to bring out the whole truth that 
 could be ascertained respecting the state of the Church in 
 former ages, but to bring out strongly — in the one case what- 
 ever might support, and in the other whatever might oppugn, 
 the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Now I am very far from objecting to controversy in its 
 proper place ; but I object to making Church history a mere 
 instrument of controversy. I wish to borrow no aid from its 
 exciting stimulus in urging you to the pursuit of that know- 
 ledge which it is my duty to help you in acquiring. Such a 
 stimulus may indeed sharpen a man’s sight in detecting some 
 things which bear immediately upon the subjects of the 
 controversies in which he is interested, but it will almost 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 infallibly make him negligent of others which may in them- 
 selves be of equal importance ; and it will hardly fail to make 
 him a prejudiced, and therefore an unfair judge of the weight 
 of evidence. Let us approach the subject of Ecclesiastical 
 history in the calm philosophic spirit of inquirers after truth. 
 Let us pursue the study of it for the satisfaction of our own 
 minds, and after we have thus fully ascertained the facts of 
 history, we may then use them, if we see fit, for the refuta- 
 tion of error in any controversy in which we maybe engaged. 
 But let these two processes — the process of inquiry, and that 
 of religious controversy — be kept as far apart as possible. Far 
 from continually whetting (as it were) our minds with the 
 reflection that the matters under investigation may be used 
 against Romanists or dissenters by us, or are used against us 
 by persons of a different persuasion, let us as much as possible 
 banish these bearings of the subject from our thoughts, and 
 prosecute our studies just as if no such parties had ever 
 existed in the Church. Moz^ Ovrsov rrj ’A Xrjdsla. The 
 cause of our own party and of truth may coincide ; and if 
 so, well and good. Then we shall, by pursuing truth, gain 
 that which serves our party. But it is upon truth, and that 
 only, that our aim should be directed, irrespective of anything 
 which it may either serve or injure. 
 
 For this reason I would not choose, in the case which has 
 suggested these remarks, to content myself with saying that 
 the burden of proving his traditions to be trustworthy rests 
 upon the Romanist ; because I think that the question, upon 
 whom the burden of proof rests, is after all a poor and in- 
 considerable one. If we are searching after truth for the 
 satisfaction of our own minds, we are as much interested as 
 the Romanist in discovering the state of facts. We are not 
 — like an advocate in a court of law — to leave him to make 
 out his case if he can, and concern ourselves only with that 
 of our own Church ; but setting aside all interests of parties 
 and churches altogether, we are to inquire into a matter nearly 
 concerning our own salvation, whether or not there remain, 
 besides the writings inserted in the sacred canon, any trust- 
 
LECT. 1. 
 
 OFTEN A KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 
 
 19 
 
 worthy records of apostolic teaching which enlarge the 
 sphere of doctrine beyond the limits of that canon. To this 
 extent, therefore, a knowledge of Ecclesiastical history must 
 be reckoned among the things indispensably necessary to a 
 divine. 
 
 But besides the useful purpose just spoken of, I mentioned 
 also, you will remember, another which is served by history, 
 and which cannot be served without it. For Ecclesiastical 
 history is often indispensably required to furnish us with a 
 key to the true drift and meaning of the sacred writers them- 
 selves. The writings of the Apostle John are a very striking 
 and familiar instance of the light which is thus thrown upon 
 the page of inspiration by the study of uninspired antiquity ; 
 and no one who is unacquainted with the genius of the 
 earlier forms of Gnosticism can reasonably hope to gain a just 
 and exact notion of the full force of many passages in that 
 Apostle’s discourses. 
 
 That this method of illustration is liable to much abuse, I 
 readily allow. Indeed no sober-minded man who has so much as 
 looked into Hammond's ‘ Commentary on the New Testament,’ 
 can fail to perceive that it is peculiarly liable to abuse. The 
 mind warms in the chase of remote allusions to historical cir- 
 cumstances, and in its excitement is apt to fancy them where 
 they do not exist ; and sometimes the Commentary, instead 
 of illuminating what is dark in the text, is made perversely 
 to obscure what is plain ; as in the example to which I have 
 just referred, in which it is hardly an exaggeration to say that 
 the New Testament becomes a sort of hunting ground for the 
 pursuit of Simon Magus, whose form is made to start out of 
 lurking holes where we never should have expected him, and 
 to flit continually backwards and forwards over the whole field 
 of exposition, hurrying on before the desperate sagacity of the 
 commentator, like an Arimaspian wizard chased hither and 
 thither by a gryphon. But when we have said that this 
 method is liable to great abuse, what have we said more than 
 must be admitted of almost everything that is eminently use- 
 ful ? Optimi cujusque corruptio est pessima. The proper 
 
20 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUECH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 lesson to be derived from a contemplation of such extrava- 
 gances as I have alluded to is, not that we should cast aside 
 so powerful an instrument of exegesis, but that we should be 
 cautious in the application of it. 
 
 There are other points of view also under which the study 
 of the uninspired writers of Christian antiquity may be con- 
 sidered as eminently useful for the interpretation of the sacred 
 volume. The language of the New Testament, we must re- 
 member, was to a great extent the vernacular language of the 
 Greek Fathers, and the writings of those Fathers, considered 
 merely philologically, contribute no mean help to an explana- 
 tion of the idioms of the sacred text. Nor can it be denied 
 that this circumstance gave the Greek Fathers a great advan- 
 tage over us in the study of the New Testament. But from 
 the first apparent amount of that advantage some important 
 deductions must be made. The language of the New Testa- 
 ment is, indeed, Greek, but it is Greek tinged and modified 
 to a very large extent with the peculiarities of the later 
 Hebrew ; and with Hebrew the early Fathers were generally 
 unacquainted. Nor is this all ; 'for unfortunately too many 
 of these writers chose voluntarily upon many occasions to 
 forego even the advantages which they had — to regard the 
 sacred text as a document to be expounded by some other 
 rules than those which they would apply to the uninspired 
 productions of their contemporaries — and from a notion that 
 everything in it was invested with a mystical and enigmatic 
 character, perversely to prefer remote and far-fetched inter- 
 pretations to those which were natural and obvious. Hence 
 it comes to pass that, from an improvement in the principles 
 of exegesis, the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries 
 who can be traced to the school of Antioch are much better 
 direct expositors of the language of Scripture than those who 
 flourished nearer to the times of the sacred writers themselves. 
 
 But there is another point of view also under which the 
 ecclesiastical writers are to be considered, namely, as consign- 
 ing to us the Church’s tradition of apostolic teaching. 
 
 I have already said in reference to this subject that, as the 
 
LT3CT. I. 
 
 TESTIMONY TO THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING. 
 
 21 
 
 writings which, form the canon of the New Testament are 
 undoubtedly better circumstanced documents of such evidence 
 than any other, their meaning, when it is clear and certain, 
 must control all weaker testimony. But this is no reason 
 why other testimony may not in many cases confirm and even 
 fix their meaning. 
 
 Now the testimony to be obtained from other sources is 
 of two kinds. 
 
 First, we have direct references to the witness borne by 
 the immediate successors of the Apostles to the nature of the 
 apostolic teaching as an historical fact. This is peculiarly 
 observable in the early writers against heretics, who were 
 naturally led to take this line by the circumstances of the 
 controversy which they handled. They had to deal with men 
 who pretended a secret esoteric tradition of apostolic oral 
 teaching, controlling the meaning of the apostolic writings; 
 and they met it partly by showing the trustworthiness of those 
 writings directly, and partly by bringing forward other testi- 
 mony in accordance with those writings. In this way the 
 works of the early Fathers furnish us with a large mass of 
 evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the books of 
 the New Testament, of the true historical genius of Christianity, 
 and of the certainty of its main facts, and of the apostolic 
 origin of those doctrines which were denied by the earlier 
 heretics ; in other words, the doctrines noticed in the primi- 
 tive creeds. But beyond these limits this direct testimony 
 does not, I think, much extend itself till we come to times so 
 distant from the apostolic as greatly to weaken its value. 
 
 However, even within these limits it is of great importance. 
 Nor do I think that the modern Apologists have sufficiently 
 attended to its weight. The early creeds, representing, as they 
 do, the testimony of the immediate successors of the Apostles 
 to the nature of their teaching, form an independent source 
 of evidence of the same facts as are delivered down to us in 
 the Gospels, and show that it was as matter of fact that our 
 religion was first promulgated to the world. 
 
 But the next medium of tradition stands at a wider re- 
 
22 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I, 
 
 move from direct historical evidence. I mean when we only 
 ascertain the prevailing state of opinion in some early age of 
 the Church, and thence — upon a presumption of the unbroken 
 continuity of teaching — infer that it correctly represents the 
 prevailing opinion of the apostolic age. For this purpose 
 what are principally relied on are the Liturgies and Conciliar 
 decisions of the early Church. These, no doubt, are highly 
 important documents. But there are some necessary cautions 
 to be attended to in making use of them. 
 
 The Liturgies, we know, were in a state of continual 
 growth by accretion — they were continually receiving fresh 
 and fresh additions — and it is, to say the least, a matter of 
 exceeding great nicety to distinguish their earlier from their 
 later elements. We cannot, therefore, deal with a Liturgy 
 as we would with other documents composed throughout each 
 at one and the same time in all its parts. With such docu- 
 ments, if you establish the antiquity of one part, you establish 
 the antiquity of all, unless strong evidence is produced to 
 prove some particular part an interpolation. But when you 
 know that a document is the growth of many ages, and are 
 uncertain of the date of its various modifications, proving 
 the antiquity of any one part does little more than it does 
 directly ; it hardly affords a presumption of the antiquity of 
 any other given portion. 
 
 Then as to the decisions of Councils, The circumstance 
 that they are Conciliar acts,, the acts of men assembled to- 
 gether, detracts in some respects from their weight as historical 
 evidence of the prevailing state of opinion in the Church. 
 Because we know that when a number of men are brought 
 together, they are brought under the influences of that pecu- 
 liar place where they are collected,, which may be, and in 
 many cases, very different from the prevailing influences dif- 
 fused throughout the Church generally, I cannot now enter 
 at large into this subject. But if you will reflect upon the 
 case of the Council of Trent, or the Assembly of Westminster, 
 or the Long Parliament, you will, I think, acknowledge the 
 justice of my remark. 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 CAUTION IN JUDGING GENERAL OPINION. 
 
 23 
 
 But we remove, it is obvious, still farther from the direct 
 line of historical evidence, when we treat the sentiments of 
 some great Doctor of the Church as the exponent of the 
 general state of opinion in the Church at the time when he 
 flourished. Inquiry will, I think, satisfy all diligent and 
 candid students that there have been great movements in the 
 Church from the primitive time down, having their origin not 
 in pastors of the Church themselves, but in certain movement 
 parties which often rather carried the pastors with them than 
 were set in motion by the authorised guides. The clergy 
 have, in many cases, flung themselves into such movements 
 rather for the sake of retaining their position as leaders 
 than from hearty good-will. Now the most stirring and 
 lively writers of any age are generally found in the ranks of 
 the movement party : since such a movement commonly arises 
 in the way of reaction from disgust at the decay of life in the 
 previous state of things. And when such a movement is 
 successful, when it perpetuates itself as a revolution, then, 
 even though there had been loud and impressive voices uttered 
 against it, they are neglected and forgotten in the next genera- 
 tion, because distasteful to its habit of thinking. They go 
 out of fashion, the old copies of their writings are worn out, 
 and they are not replaced by new ones. And it is in this 
 way, to some extent, I am persuaded, that we must account 
 for some of the astonishing gaps which occur in the succes- 
 sion of patristic writers. 
 
 In order then to make an intelligent use of Christian 
 antiquity as a witness of the teaching of the Church, we must 
 study it not only with diligence, but with discrimination. 
 We must not be content with the mere dry surface of Eccle- 
 siastical history, as if it were a mere detail of events, but 
 must seek to penetrate into the characters and circumstances 
 of the actors. We must not take their opinions as they are 
 commonly reported in manuals drawn up for controversial 
 purposes, where 4 the Fathers ’ are lumped together under 
 one title, as if there were one homogeneous mass of Church 
 teaching, divided indeed for convenience into equal portions. 
 
24 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 CuTJUSK i. 
 
 and ticketed as it were with the separate names of Justin, 
 Cyprian, &c., but one just as good as another, and to be counted 
 rather than weighed ; but we must recognise the differences of 
 schools, of tempers, of ages, in these authors, and remember 
 that it is not enough to know the heavenly source from which 
 the rain descends, without knowing also the state of the 
 reservoirs from which we are to derive it. 
 
 No kind of history has been so unphilosophically written 
 as the history of the Church, and yet no kind of history 
 seems more naturally to invite a philosophical way of treating 
 it. The fortunes of empires may look well enough in the 
 narrative of the mere annalist, because civil society is conver- 
 sant with the interests of the body, which are for the most 
 part so obvious that the measures for their advancement carry 
 their reason with themselves. But Church history is the re- 
 cord of a society the prime badge of which is the faith which 
 it professes, incarnate indeed in the external organisation of 
 a visible society, but still as distinct from that, its outward 
 covering, as the spirit from its fleshly tabernacle. Church 
 history is essentially the history of the human mind as exerted 
 upon those topics which are most worthy of its consideration, 
 the history of man’s opinions concerning the most important 
 and sublime of all subjects, and there is hardly a single 
 stream of thought from any of the thousand fountains of the 
 human intellect that has not at some point or other mingled 
 its waters with the great current of the Christian faith . 1 
 
 * Some passages of this Lecture were with slight alterations drafted by 
 the Bishop into the Essay * On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity,’ 
 contributed by him to Aids to Faith , London, Murray, 1861. The varia- 
 tions being only such as the difference of the occasion suggested, they are 
 not followed above. The Lecture is printed as it was originally written. 
 — Editors. 
 
25 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 CAUTION REQUIRED IN JUDGING THE STATE OF 
 OPINION IN ANY AGE FROM THE WORKS OF ITS 
 LEADING WRITERS, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 
 VARIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I observed at the close of my last lecture 
 that the custom of assuming that the now extant writers of 
 a particular past age are, in their sentiments and opinions, a 
 correct representation of the general tone of sentiment and 
 prevailing cast of opinion among their contemporaries, how- 
 ever common it may be, is not founded in good reason. 
 Common, however, it certainly is, at least in the case of 
 Ecclesiastical history, and the practice of dealing with the 
 Fathers of each century as exponents of the mind of the 
 whole body of orthodox believers in that century — nay, 
 of dealing with any one single Father as if he were ( knight 
 of the shire and represented all ’ his brethren — has grown to 
 be so inveterate, especially in books of controversy upon 
 religious subjects, that when I presume to question its justice, 
 you will at first be apt to think that I am advancing a hardy 
 paradox, which I shall find it very difficult to make good. 
 It may be proper, therefore, to introduce the subject with 
 some general remarks, intended to obviate a prejudice which 
 is likely to meet me at the outset. 
 
 In the first place, then, let me observe that the noisiest 
 and most active party are not always, perhaps not often, 
 the majority. ‘ Do not,’ says Mr. Burke, in a passage which 
 I am sure you all remember — 1 do not, because half a dozen 
 grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their 
 
26 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed 
 beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are 
 silent — do not imagine that those who make the noise are 
 the only inhabitants of the field ; that, of course, they are 
 many in number ; or that, after all, they are other than the 
 little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and trouble- 
 some, insects of the hour.’ This, as you know, is taken from 
 the ‘ Reflections upon the French Revolution ’ ; and the cir- 
 cumstances of that great event furnish as good an illustration 
 as I could desire of the point which I wish to press upon 
 your minds. 
 
 Who are the writers to whom our thoughts immediately 
 revert as the literary representatives of France during that 
 age? Is it not Voltaire, and Rousseau, and Condorcet, and 
 Brissot, the founders of the new morality, and the apostles 
 of the rights of man ? But were these writers really and in 
 truth the representatives of the feelings and convictions of 
 the universal body of the French people in their own time ? 
 On the contrary, you know that in order to subvert the 
 ancient state of things in that kingdom, all the terrible 
 appliances of a Reign of Terror were found necessary. 
 Their pandemonium of a Republic one and indivisible did 
 not rise gently like an exhalation from the harmonious 
 consent of a willing people, 6 to the sound of flutes and soft 
 recorders ’ ; the nation had to be baptized in a deluge of 
 blood before the new heaven and new earth of Rousseau’s 
 millennium could be called into existence, and even then it 
 had but the existence of a moment. It was but Rousseau’s 
 dream, and passed away like the baseless fabric of a vision. 
 The instant that the iron grasp of tyranny was relaxed, the 
 forms of democracy disappeared, and a monarchy, in some 
 shape or other, has from that day to this seemed the per- 
 manent choice of the great body of the French people. 
 
 But in that case the Revolutionists were for a while 
 successful. And this it was which gave their writers the 
 advantage which they possess, of appearing as almost the 
 sole exponents of the mind of their generation. Observe 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 EXAMPLE OF ENGLISH AUTHORS. 
 
 27 
 
 the difference between their case and ours. In the genera- 
 tion before Voltaire, a swarm of infidel writers had arisen in 
 England, and at first appeared to carry everything before 
 them. We see the hopeless way in which Bishop Butler 
 speaks in the preface to his ‘ Analogy,’ as if the cause of 
 Christianity had been almost irrevocably lost in England. 
 Yet it is manifest from after circumstances that the great 
 body of the nation was radically unaffected by them. Who 
 now, exoept some curious antiquarian reader — one in a 
 thousand — knows anything about such writers as Tindal, 
 and Collins, and Chubb, and Morgan, and Coward, or even 
 Bolingbroke as a philosopher, beyond their names and the 
 titles of their works ; and to whom are they indebted for 
 even so much of posthumous fame but to the Christian 
 Apologists who thought them worth the answering ? They 
 live like the worthies of the ‘ Dunciad ’ in the pages of their 
 enemies, or like the heroes of the highway in the chronicles 
 of that public justice which consigned them to the hands of 
 the executioner. 
 
 And this leads me to remark that, for perpetuating the 
 fame of an author and giving him an advantageous position 
 in literary history, the favour of succeeding generations is 
 of much more importance than that of his own. It is those 
 who swim with the flowing tide, though the volume of its 
 current may not be at first the greatest, that will eventually 
 be brought to shore. The writer who represents the feelings 
 and sentiments that are soon destined to prevail, though he 
 has not in his lifetime the majority on his side, will, in a 
 few years afterwards, fill a much more distinguished place 
 in men’s memories than he who spoke the sentiments of a 
 declining majority. If anyone superficially acquainted with 
 our religious literature were asked, what was the prevailing* 
 view of the doctrine of justification in the earlier half of 
 Charles II. ’s reign, would not his mind immediately revert to 
 Bull as the type and the expounder of it ? Yet certain it is 
 that Bull was at first regarded as the bold assertor of a 
 dangerous paradox. We may learn from Nelson’s Life of that 
 
28 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 eminent Prelate, that the publication of his ‘ Harmonia 
 Apostolica ’ produced a general alarm both in the Church 
 and out of it, as if the Church of England and the whole 
 Protestant religion were in danger ; that the Bishops were 
 stirred up to denounce him as a heretic, and that the most 
 tragical outcries were raised, as if by such an hypothesis the 
 whole system of orthodox divinity would be shaken, yea 
 broken to pieces and utterly destroyed ; and that the very 
 foundations both of the law and the gospel were at once 
 undermined and overturned. I am quoting Nelson’s words, 
 gentlemen, you will observe, and passing no judgment what- 
 ever upon the reasonableness of the panic or the justice of 
 these charges. I am concerned only with their existence ; 
 and 1 think I am speaking within bounds when I say that 
 of ten persons who know something of Bull, there is hardly 
 more than one who is aware of the shock which his opinions 
 gave to the public mind when they were originally published. 
 
 But to pass from the religious to the secular history of the 
 same age. What now has become of a whole host of the 
 special favourites of that day, not merely the ‘ mob of 
 gentlemen who writ with ease,’ but those who would have been 
 pointed out to a stranger as the special representatives of 
 English genius in the generation when they flourished — the 
 Ethereges, and the Sedleys, and the Buckinghams, and the 
 Rochesters, and the Tom D’Urfeys. Like Young’s Narcissa, 
 4 they have sparkled, exhaled, and gone ’ — I fear I cannot 
 safely add 1 to heaven.’ Gone however they are, dead and 
 gone, and in hopes of no resurrection. Dryden indeed still 
 remains. But he is to us a very different luminary from what 
 he appeared to the men of his own time. The sparks and 
 crackers and coloured lights which chiefly attracted their 
 attention and set them gaping at him are all extinct. Rant- 
 ing tragedy, tearing a passion to rags, to very tatters ; 
 comedies seasoned with indecency to stimulate a cloyed 
 appetite; farces larded with obscene and impious jests, 
 which once brought down pit, boxes, and gallery in thunders 
 of applause, all these have passed away, not only from the 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 THE SAME WITH ANCIENT WRITERS. 
 
 29 
 
 stage but from the closet, and if Dry den justly enjoys the 
 character of the great high-priest of all the Nine, he owes it 
 to those works in which he sacrificed least to the taste of his 
 contemporaries ; and if he had sternly refused to sacrifice at 
 all, he would have attained a greater as well as a purer repu- 
 tation. He would doubtless have come down to us as the 
 author of some one great original work of permanent interest, 
 nobly planned and nobly executed, as an imperishable monu- 
 ment of his genius. 
 
 But that a ribald king and court 
 Bade him toil on to make them sport, 
 
 Demanded for their niggard pay 
 The service of some looser lay, 
 
 Licentious satire, song and play, 
 
 The world defrauded of each high design, ' 
 
 Profaned the God-given strength and marred the lofty line. 
 
 And is it not conceivable that some centuries hence even 
 this great unequal writer himself may pass into oblivion, and 
 no bard remain to represent the poetry of that age but he who 
 
 Fallen on evil days and evil tongues, 
 
 With dangers and with darkness compassed round, 
 
 sang almost neglected by a public who were entranced with 
 the creaking couplets of such bawlers as Tom D’Urfey and 
 Jj Estrange ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I have taken these well-known modern in- 
 stances for the purpose of preparing you to acknowledge that 
 something of the same kind may have happened in more 
 ancient times, where, because the records of its occurrence 
 are necessarily more scanty and less obvious, we are less apt 
 to reflect upon its possibility. But let me not have a captious 
 hearer who shall complain that I mean to run a parallel in all 
 respects between the venerable Fathers of the Church and all 
 the various personages to whom I have referred in the way of 
 illustration ; that I have called those sacred authorities meagre, 
 noisy, hopping grasshoppers, or put them on a par with 
 Voltaire and Rousseau, and the preachers of the evangel of 
 the rights of man. Nothing can be more unfair, and yet few 
 
30 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUPCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 more common, than such misconstructions as these. It is 
 nearly impossible to bring some people, especially when they 
 are angry and dislike what you are proving by it, to compre- 
 hend the true point of a comparison ; and their mistakes 
 continually remind me of a story I have heard of a devout 
 woman in Scotland, some thirty years ago or thereabouts, when 
 Dr. Chalmers was in the zenith of his fame. Her son was 
 a diligent frequenter of the Doctor’s church, and ever came 
 home with increased admiration of the great preacher’s elo- 
 quence, which he expressed in loud encomiums not at all 
 grateful to the old lady, who felt them as disparagements of 
 the glory of a certain precious Mr. M‘Gufty, whom she had 
 heard in her youth, and always reckoned the paragon of 
 pulpit orators. 
 
 Curiosity, however, at last prevailed over resentment. 
 She resolved to judge for herself ; but lest she should betray 
 to her family any doubt of Mr. M‘Gufty’s unrivalled excel- 
 lence, she stole off to the Tron Church one evening when her 
 son chanced to be detained at home. She returned, however, 
 in such high indignation as made further concealment impos- 
 sible. ‘ There was a great blether,’ she said, c of fine words, 
 and taller English than became a kindly Scot. The chield 
 was talking a great deal about levers too, and sic like. And 
 he called the gospel a great moral lever, which I sair misdoubt 
 has some damnable heresy at the tail of it, for I dinna under- 
 stand what it means.’ Her son was anxious, if possible, to 
 remove her prejudices, and began to explain the primary 
 meaning of the metaphor by taking up the poker to show 
 her what a lever is. But the good woman lost all patience at 
 the very first step of the elucidation. ‘ Good guide us ! what 
 a pass the times have come to, when a minister in the Chair 
 of Verity can make the pure gospel no better than an auld 
 wife’s poker ! ’ 
 
 With this protest against stupid or perverse misconstruc- 
 tions of my honest meaning, I shall proceed to adduce some 
 instances of the general truth I have been illustrating from 
 the case of the ancient ecclesiastical writers. If anyone 
 
T/ECT. IT. 
 
 SHOWN BY JEROME AND JUSTIN. 
 
 31 
 
 were asked whether what is commonly called the doctrine of 
 the Millennium — that is of a personal reign of Christ and 
 his risen saints on earth for a thousand years — were commonly 
 held by the members of the Latin Church towards the close 
 of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century, his 
 thoughts would, I suppose, at first most naturally recur to 
 Jerome and Augustine as the accredited exponents of the 
 sentiments of that age, and, remembering that they re- 
 pudiated such a doctrine, he would be apt, if not specially on 
 his guard, to answer decisively £ No.’ Yet it so happens that 
 one short clause in Jerome’s voluminous notices — a clause 
 that might easily escape the notice of even a diligent student 
 of them — not to speak of such students as are generally met 
 with in these degenerate days — lets us see that such an an- 
 swer would have been over-hasty. ‘ If,’ says Jerome, in his 
 ‘ Commentary on Isaiah ’ — ‘ if we understand the Apocalypse 
 literally, we must Judaise. If spiritually, as it is written, we 
 shall seem to contradict many of the ancients, particularly 
 the Latin, Tertullian, Victorinus, Lactantius, and the Greeks, 
 especially Irenaeus — against whom, Dionysius, Bishop of 
 Alexandria, wrote a curious piece, deriding the fable of a 
 thousand years, the terrestrial Jerusalem adorned with gold 
 and jewels, the rebuilding of the temple, circumcision, mar- 
 riages, banquets, and servitude of the nations, and again 
 after this, wars, armies, triumphs, slaughters of conquered 
 enemies, and the death of the sinner a hundred years old. 
 Him Apollinarius answered in two volumes, whom not only 
 men of his own sect, but most of our own people likewise, 
 follow in this point. So that it is easy to foresee what a 
 multitude of persons I am likely to displease.’ Here, then, 
 is an eminent Doctor of the Church confessing that an 
 opinion which he opposes as not only absurd but Judaical, 
 and which in the next age had taken rank almost with the 
 heresies, was the prevalent opinion among the mass of his con- 
 temporaries. Go now, and infer the general opinion of a par- 
 ticular age from the opinions of its most distinguished Doctors. 
 
 Again, suppose the question were whether Millenarianism 
 
32 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 was the creed of the second century, a person accustomed at 
 once to estimate the general sense of the Church in any 
 generation by that of its most distinguished Doctors, would 
 immediately think of the strong Millenarian teaching of 
 Justin Martyr and Irenasus, and thence conclude that such 
 was also, in their times, the universal judgment of the whole 
 body of believers. But here, too, a few lines suggested by 
 a chance turn in the argument of Justin’s 4 Dialogue with 
 Trypho,’ fortunately remain to show that such an inference 
 would have been rashly made. 4 Tell me,’ asks Trypho, 4 do 
 ye all acknowledge that Jerusalem shall be rebuilt, and 
 expect that your people shall be gathered together and 
 rejoice with our race, and with Christ, and with - the Patri- 
 archs?’ 4 I,’ replies Justin, 4 and many others hold these 
 sentiments, and believe assuredly that thus it will come to 
 pass ; but, on the other hand, I have intimated to you that 
 many Christians of pure and pious disposition do not acknow- 
 ledge the truth of this .’ 1 Now it is true that in this passage 
 * Justin does not tell us what numerical proportion the be- 
 lievers of this doctrine in his day bore to the unbelievers. 
 But if the unbelievers had been only a small minority, I think 
 there can be little doubt but that he would have noticed that 
 circumstance, since his object plainly is, as far as he possibly 
 can, to identify this doctrine with Christianity, and conciliate 
 for it all attainable authority. Since he speaks then only thus 
 vaguely of many on one side, and many on the other, I think 
 the probability is that he regarded Christians as at least 
 pretty equally divided in sentiments upon the subject. Yet 
 of the existence of these rejectors of that doctrine in this 
 age, we have no express notice anywhere but in this single 
 passage, and here only in a line or two, dropped casually in 
 the course of a debate which might well have been carried to 
 a completion without eliciting any such information. If there 
 
 1 Just. Mart., Dial, cum Tryph. lxxx. The author has justly ignored 
 the proposal of Daille, followed by Jos. Mede, to introduce a negative 
 before the words ‘ pure and pious.’ As this interpolation is not required 
 by the context, and is supported by no testimony whatever, it is purely 
 arbitrary anl has not been adopted by the learned. — Editors. 
 
lrct. II, INSTANCED IN TIIE QUESTION OF MONOGAMY. 33 
 
 ever 6 were in this age any writers against the Millennium, 
 they have not come down to us. The Antimillenarians of 
 that age were lordly oxen who chewed the cud and were 
 silent. And yet, as We have seen reason to conclude, they 
 were not few in number. My own judgment is that, though 
 Millenarianism was at its flood in Justin’s time, and at its 
 ebb in Jerome’s, yet probably the number of Millenarians 
 was greater in Jerome’s day than in Justin’s. For there is, 
 you will observe, a wide difference between the tendency of a 
 peculiar opinion to prevail, and the number of its actual 
 recipients at a given time. The growing party may be a 
 very small, and the decaying party a very large one. The 
 number, for instance, of Mohammedans in the world is at 
 present vastly greater than at the death of Mohammed. Yet 
 Mohammedanism was then at its flood, and is now in all 
 probability at its ebb. 
 
 Believe me, then, that it is often a matter of much deli- 
 cacy to determine the exact position of an ecclesiastical 
 writer as an authority for estimating the sentiments of his 
 contemporaries. I mean if one is really seeking after his- 
 toric truth, for as for the noble art of controversy nothing is 
 easier. The simple rule there is, if you dislike his senti- 
 ments, count him but as a single voice ; if he speaks on 
 your side, suppose him the spokesman of an indefinite number. 
 Thus a Father of the Church, like an Arabic numeral, may 
 either stand down in the column of units, or by the addition 
 of as many ciphers as you please, be raised to the value of a 
 million or an octillion. 
 
 Let us take another instance. I might quote for you 
 several passages in which distinguished Christian Apologists, 
 speaking apparently not only for themselves but for the 
 Christian body generally, disclaim the practice of second 
 marriages, and even denounce such unions as only a specious 
 adultery. This, to be sure, is very different from the lan- 
 guage of Paul and of Paul’s Master ; but still, if we had none 
 but these authors remaining to us out of the literature of 
 those times, most persons would be apt to determine that 
 VOL. I. ' D 
 
34 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 their view was the universal sentiment of the Church, which 
 some perhaps would regard as an improved development, and 
 some as a corruption of Christianity. 
 
 But by good fortune the polemical restlessness of Ter- 
 tullian has enabled us to see that in so doing we should reallv 
 be misrepresenting the Church— i.e. if we mean by the 
 Church, not the busiest and cleverest writers, but the great 
 body of believers — that large majority of quiet persons who sel- 
 dom have the opportunity or the wish to figure conspicuously 
 before the literary public. We have among the writings of 
 Tertullian a treatise upon Monogamy which he certainly wrote 
 when under the influence of the Montanistic false prophets. 
 And in this we find him, to our amazement, maintaining 
 the sacred cause of the unlawfulness of second marriages 
 
 to J 
 
 not against heathens, not against heretics, but against the 
 general body of the Catholic Church, at least in Africa, whom 
 he, in his usual complimentary strain, styles the psychical 
 Christians , 2 because they rejected the pretended spiritual re- 
 velations of Montanus and his fanatical companions. Now 
 observe the ground which these poor carnal and imperfect 
 brethren are represented as taking. Their special objection, 
 he tells us, to the claims of these prophets to be the organs 
 of a fresh manifestation of the Paraclete was that the Spirit 
 who spoke in them denounced second marriages as unlawful. 
 This teaching they said could not be true, because it was 
 contrary to that of Paul ; because it was repugnant — mark 
 this especially ! — to Catholic tradition ; because it was at 
 variance with the genius of the gospel dispensation, which 
 is a light yoke and an easy burden . 3 
 
 Now what does Tertullian say in answer to so reasonable 
 a plea ? He does not pretend any express sanction for his 
 doctrine from the Apostles or from Catholic tradition. He 
 only endeavours to make out that the germ of his doctrine 
 was contained in the inculcation of special purity upon 
 Christians by our Lord and His Apostles ; that the forbidding 
 
 2 Tertull., Be Monogam. i. ‘ Hreretici nuptias auferunt, Psychici ingerunt.’ 
 
 3 Tertull., Be Monogain. ii. x. 
 
LteCT. ii. AND BY VARIOUS WRITERS ON THAT SUBJECT. 
 
 35 
 
 of second marriages is, in short, what we should call a de- 
 velopment, preceded by certain anticipations more Or less 
 distinct . 4 
 
 Here then we have the general body of the African 
 Church, at least in Tertullian’s time, rejecting the doctrine of 
 the unlawfulness of second marriages as a doctrine which was 
 so flagrantly unchristian as to convict the Montanistic 
 prophets, and show that they could not be speaking under 
 the influence of the Spirit of God. Yet see what a multi- 
 tude of illustrious and Otherwise orthodox teachers range 
 themselves on the side of Tertullian and Montanus. Athena- 
 goras calls second marriages a more decent form of adulter }^, 5 
 Clemens of Alexandria defines marriage as the first union 
 between man and wife for the procreation of legitimate 
 children , 6 Minucius Felix declares that Christians marry 
 either not at all, or only once , 7 Origen treats second mar- 
 riages as an offence excluding from the kingdom of God, g 
 and so late as the fourth century Basil has no better name 
 for them than mitigated adulteries. ^ 
 
 These are startling phenomena ; and you will be tempted 
 to ask, were then Athenagoras, and Clemens, and Origen, and 
 Basil, Montanists — heretics rejected by the Catholic Church ? 
 Certainly not. But the truth is that Montanism was only one 
 of several irregular discharges of an ascetic and ritualistic spirit 
 in the second and third centuries. Montanism was a kind of 
 unballasted courier balloon, let off to try the currents of the 
 atmosphere, before the great steady development which was 
 coming trusted itself to the winds. It bore the same sort of re* 
 lation to that great movement as Irvingism did to Tractism. 
 Neither the Montanistic nor the Irvingite prophets originated 
 the ideas to which they gave utterance. Both of them caught up 
 the newest, and therefore most stimulating ideas set afloat by a 
 
 4 Tertull., Be M'dnogdm. pdssim. 5 Leg. pro Christ. 33. 
 
 6 Clem. Alex., Strom, ii. p. 421, ed. Sylburg. 
 
 7 Min. Fel., Oct. xxxi. 
 
 8 Orig., Horn, xvit in Lucam, vol. v. p. 151., ed. Lommat^sch : — ‘ Et 
 non ignoramus ut tale conjugium ejiciet nos de regno Dei. . . . Non quo 
 in eternum mittatur incendium, sed quo partem non habeat in regno Dei.' 
 
 9 Cf. Basilii Magni Can. 4. 
 
36 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I, 
 
 movement party in the Church, and uttered them again as 
 the dictates of inspiration. Both were the light frothy 
 waves that ran before an advancing swell, receiving from it 
 what force they had, but having in themselves too little bulk 
 and volume for a steady and regular progress. The Monta- 
 nistic surges broke upon the pebbles, but the great wave 
 behind them came up like a deluge, and passed over the 
 strand and covered all the plains beyond it with its flood. 
 
 This will appear the more evident if we look at some 
 other peculiarities of the Montanistic movement. 
 
 The forbidding of second marriages was not the only 
 mark of falsehood which the Catholic Christians of Africa 
 thought they found in the spiritual utterances of the Montanis- 
 tic prophets. Tertullian, in another treatise of his, lets us still 
 farther into their views. They had been warned, they said, 
 expressly, by Paul, that seducing spirits should be mani- 
 fested in the Church, forbidding to marry and commanding 
 to abstain from meats. And they found both these marks 
 quadrate exactly with the teaching of Montanus’ Paraclete. 
 That teaching not only forbad marriages which Christ had 
 left lawful, but also imposed fastings which he had not 
 imposed. One fast they admitted Christ had imposed as 
 obligatory, that namely from Good Friday afternoon till 
 Easter Sunday morning, the precise period during which the 
 Bridegroom was taken from the Church. But as for fasting 
 upon other occasions, they regarded it as a thing left entirely 
 to each private person’s discretion, to use or not to use as he 
 saw fit. They objected to the Montanists, therefore, as intro- 
 ducing unscriptural and uncatholic novelties ; by imposing 
 other fasts as matter of obligation, by prolonging what were 
 called the Stations — that is, the solemn meetings for special 
 prayer on Wednesdays and Fridays — to the afternoon ; and for 
 practising what were called Xerophagies, that is, abstinences 
 at certain seasons, or during one’s whole life, from all the 
 more succulent and juicy kinds of food, from wine and from 
 the bath — the discipline, in short, of the severer orders of 
 monks. They objected, we learn, to these things as novel- 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 PECULIARITIES GENERALLY REJECTED. 
 
 37 
 
 ties, they objected to them as savouring of heathenism or 
 Judaism, they objected to them as laying a yoke on the 
 necks of the disciples. They said that these were such 
 formal fasts as Isaiah declares the Lord had not chosen ; that 
 Christ Himself had reproved all scrupulosity about meat and 
 drink ; that He had come Himself eating and drinking, so as 
 to be traduced as a gluttonous man and a winebibber ; and 
 that Paul had expressly declared that meat commendeth us 
 not to God, for that neither if we eat are we the better, nor 
 if we eat not the worse. In short, the language which 
 Tertullian ascribes to these old Catholic Christians is precisely 
 the language which you would hear now from any plain 
 common-sense Protestant when objecting to the institutions 
 of the Church of Pome . 1 
 
 1 Tertull. JDe Jejuniis, adv. Psychicos, passim. He calls them, exteriorcs 
 et interiores botuli Psychicorum, i. — Editors. 
 
38 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH 
 
 COUJESE 3 . 
 
 LECTUBE III. 
 
 MODE OF TREATMENT SUITABLE TO THE PRELEC- 
 TIONS OF A PROFESSOR.— ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — At the close of my first lecture I made 
 some remarks upon the peculiar claims which Ecclesiastical 
 history has to a philosophical mode of treatment. 
 
 There was one topic, however, connected with that subject, 
 upon which I had not then time to enter, but which it seems 
 on many accounts proper to take some notice of. It is this ; 
 that in following the fortunes of the Church, we may be sure 
 that we are following the traces of what is really a provi- 
 dential plan for working out the destinies of mankind. In 
 the case of the Church, we are assured of this by distinct 
 revelation. Here the Divine Architect Himself has spoken 
 and called upon us to recognise His operation ; and as each 
 successive scene of the Church’s history opens upon the stage 
 pf this world, it is as if an angelic voice summoned us to 
 ■ come and see.’ B.ut in other cases our ordinary sphere of 
 vision is so narrow, ai}d our knowledge of the relations of 
 things and of the divine purposes is so imperfect, that we 
 pan seldom be very sure, in treating of the facts of mere civil 
 history, how far they really enter into what may be properly 
 called the design of Providence, or form any essential part of 
 the divine plan for the development of the whole human 
 race. Except — to give an instance which may explain my 
 meaning better than any abstract discussion — except for 
 what we know from divine revelation on the subject, who 
 could possibly tell but that all the influence which the Roman 
 Empire has exerted upon European civilisation might not, in 
 
LECT. III. 
 
 EVENTS HOW FAR DESIGNED BY GOD. 
 
 39 
 
 the course of time, be as wholly obliterated, and become as 
 utterly barren of effect upon the ultimate destinies of man- 
 kind, as the institutions (whatever they were) of those great 
 empires which appear once to have flourished in Central 
 America, but which, for all moral purposes of the world’s 
 history, are now as if they had never been ? The Church, 
 and that which is essentially connected with its fortunes, are, 
 as it appears to me, the only set of things in history of which 
 we can be quite sure that they are permanent and necessary 
 parts of the design of Providence in respect of the final 
 destinies of mankind. 
 
 I know that, in speaking of some things as parts of the 
 divine plan and others as extraneous to it, I am speaking a 
 language that will seem harsh to many. There are many 
 who regard all the events of history as equally and in the 
 same sense brought about by the Supreme Governor of all 
 things, and who appear to have persuaded themselves and 
 others that they are proposing not only a sublime but a pious 
 object of contemplation, when they represent Him as delibe- 
 rately planning and producing evil that good may come. 
 
 For myself, I must earnestly profess that I can see nothing 
 either noble or devout in such a speculation. 
 
 In one sense, no doubt, everything may be said to fall 
 under the divine plan, since nothing can happen without the 
 divine permission. 
 
 But it appears to me that we cannot make a single step 
 in the true philosophy of history without recognising a wide 
 distinction between the things permitted and ordained. True 
 philosophy will teach us to perceive and to adore the wisdom 
 and goodness of the divine plan, when we find the frame of 
 things so constituted as that, out of the accidental circum- 
 stances of some evil action permitted, good is educed ; but it 
 will never teach us to count evil, as evil, to be simply necessary 
 for the good of the universe, or as caused by the Author of 
 the universe. 
 
 But in the remarks of many professedly philosophical 
 historians, there is a perpetual confusion between two senses 
 
40 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I, 
 
 in which we speak of the divine will — the will to produce, 
 which is what is properly meant by plan or design, and the 
 will to permit, which is quite another thing. 
 
 To pursue these remarks, however, further at present 
 would occupy too much of our time in preliminary discussion. 
 
 I will rather watch for some other suitable occasion of repeat- 
 ing and illustrating them. 
 
 Meanwhile, I would only add that I should be sorry if, in 
 speaking so much of the philosophy of history, I should be 
 supposed to disparage by such remarks the labours of those 
 useful writers who have addicted themselves more to the 
 collection of documents or the detail of facts. 
 
 In truth, it would have been no slight damage to that 
 very philosophical history which is the boast of modern times, 
 if our predecessors had wholly confined themselves to such a 
 model as the late German writers of history have generally 
 adopted. In the works of those writers you will have 
 observed that particular facts are only noticed so far as they 
 illustrate some great principle or general law, or mark the 
 stages of national progress or declension. The author never 
 loses sight of his grand philosophical aim in order to interest 
 the reader by the mere incidents of his narrative, the grace 
 of description, or the liveliness of anecdote. Whatever he 
 deems to have no immediate reference to the higher ends of 
 history, is totally omitted or slightly glanced at by the way. 
 
 Now it is obvious that, in such a style of composition, the 
 theory which each particular historian forms of the nature 
 of his subject will be the rule by which he will measure the 
 relative importance of facts ; and, even supposing his theory 
 correct, still there is no man whose sagacity does not some- 
 times fail him in estimating the value of facts as confirma- 
 tions or illustrations of that theory. Thus the reader, if he 
 have no other sources of information, is entirely in the hands 
 of such a philosophical historian, and has few or no means of 
 rectifying his mistakes or improving his conclusions. After 
 all that I have said upon a former occasion, you will not, I am 
 sure, understand me to mean by these remarks that the pliilo- 
 
usct. hi. MINUTE DETAILS NOT SUITED TO PRELECTIONS. 41 
 
 sopliic style of history should be proscribed, but only that 
 the humbler labours of the chronicler and the annalist should 
 not be neglected. It is not, I think, too much to say that 
 were it not for the simplicity of that old circumstantial style 
 of narrative — the aim of which was merely to tell facts with- 
 out caring whence they came or whither they were going — 
 the moderns would have had scarcely any substratum whereon 
 to build their most distinguished discoveries in the philosophy 
 of history. 
 
 Do not then, in your haste to obtain a grand philosophic 
 view of past events, neglect a careful, and in itself often joy- 
 less, inquiry into the minute detail of facts. He who is satis- 
 fied merely to erect a showy building, may do so in a very 
 short time with lath, paint, and plaster, on the surface of the 
 ground, but he who would raise a durable and princely edifice 
 must dig a deep foundation, and hew out his columns from 
 the marble quarry, and fetch his gems from the mine, and 
 purge out his metal from the ore. There is no fact, however 
 apparently trivial, that may not, in its proper place, shed an 
 unexpected light upon the most important truths, and the 
 historian who is worthy of the name will endeavour to make 
 himself acquainted, so far as he possibly can, with every known 
 fact relating to the period which he investigates. The prose- 
 cution of such minute inquiries, however, is what must be 
 trusted to your private studies. I have long been convinced, 
 and every day’s experience confirms that conviction, that 
 mere prelections are no fit medium for usefully delivering his- 
 torical details. The time allotted for these lectures would, if 
 they were to be occupied with a continuous narrative, afford 
 no opportunity of giving more than a brief and superficial 
 outline, and even that would be presented to you from this place 
 under most disadvantageous circumstances. You would, with 
 such a method, be dragged here twice a week to listen, for an 
 hour each day, to a meagre summary of things which many of 
 you were previously familiar with, and with which all might 
 make themselves familiar in one quarter of the time, by reading 
 for themselves any ordinary manual. Prelections on such a 
 
42 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 plan were suited to ages and countries in which books were 
 scarce and dear. Under such circumstances oral instruction 
 was indispensable ; the school became the study, and the lecture 
 was slowly enunciated, so as to give the hearer time to commit 
 each sentence to paper as it fell from the lips of the professor. 
 But such a method under our circumstances would be a grie- 
 vous waste both of my time and of yours. Your attending 
 here at all I must regard as a proof that you take some in- 
 terest in the subject ; and the Press affords to those who 
 really wish for such information as I have been speaking of, 
 facilities of obtaining it far greater than can be offered from 
 the professor’s chair. Instead, therefore, of attempting any- 
 thing like a regular continuous narrative of facts, I shall 
 rather make it my business to remark on and criticise those 
 facts, to place such of them as have been commonly mistaken 
 in what seems to me their true light, an I to bring out in the 
 shape of general results whatever they appear to contribute 
 most observable to a knowledge of the character and spirit 
 of the times in which they took place. It is the criticism and 
 philosophy of history which, in my opinion, forms the proper 
 province of a professor in his public lectures, which are then 
 most really useful when they are made to stimulate, to guide, 
 and to assist the hearer in the prosecution of his private 
 studies. You, gentlemen, are not raw schoolboys, brought 
 here to be drilled through an appointed lesson, but men, 
 with intellects already trained by a liberal education to a 
 manly way of viewing things, able and willing to work, and 
 requiring only encouragement and direction to animate and 
 to guide you in working. I have had in my time small 
 classes enough , 1 but a lazy and apathetic class I have never 
 had, and will not now anticipate the occurrence of such a 
 disaster. 
 
 The subject which I propose to treat of during the pre- 
 sent term is the history of the planting and early training 
 of the Church, from the great Pentecost to the death of the 
 Apostle John, an uncertain date, but which may be considered 
 * He was previously Professor of Moral Philosophy. 
 
LECT. III. 
 
 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 43 
 
 as falling somewhere about the third year of Trajan, or the 
 year of Christ 100. 
 
 Upon a great part of this period inspiration sheds a 
 steady light, pure and strong in its lustre, though illuminat- 
 ing only a narrow surface. But towards the close of it that 
 luminary fades rapidly from our view, while yet the feebler 
 orb of uninspired history has hardly shown itself above the 
 horizon. 
 
 Now before considering the events which constitute the 
 history of this period, let us pay some attention to the sources 
 from which our knowledge of those events is derived. 
 
 The grand document of direct information concerning 
 those events is the narrative in which the pen of inspiration 
 has traced the groundwork of the history of the Christian 
 Church — I mean the Acts of the Apostles. Of the author we 
 know hardly more by tradition than his name, his identity 
 with the person mentioned more than once by Paul under the 
 name of Luke, his close connection with that Apostle, 
 his having been a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and 
 his birthplace, namely Antioch in Syria. From joining these 
 circumstances to others derived from other quarters, some 
 have endeavoured by conjecture to arrive probably at a little 
 more. Luke is called by Paul in one place 6 larpos. Now the 
 Romans of the upper classes, it is certain, generally deemed 
 the practice of medicine a thing beneath their dignity, and 
 consequently left that profession very much in the hands of the 
 Liberti. Hence it has been guessed that Luke was a freed- 
 man, and some confirmation of this guess has been derived 
 from the form of his name — Aovkcls , contracted from A ovrc- 
 avos. Such a contraction Lobeck has shown to occur very 
 frequently in the names of slaves. 
 
 I confess that I do not think a great deal can be made out 
 of either of these observations. The first would have been 
 more weighty if Luke had been a Roman. Since he was not, 
 but most probably a Syrian, I do not very clearly perceive its 
 value. It does not appear, I think, that either among the 
 Greeks or Orientals proper, the vocation of a physician wg& 
 
44 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUBCH. 
 
 COURSE 1 . 
 
 generally confined to tlie class of freedmen. Aristotle’s father 
 was a physician, and there is some reason for thinking that 
 Aristotle practised at one time the medical art, nay kept an 
 apothecary’s shop himself. Then as to the form of the name, 
 the reason why such contracted names were commonly 
 given to slaves was because such contracted names were 
 familiar ones. The contraction in short is a colloquialism^ 
 and the delicacy of Attic politeness prevented the use of such 
 familiar designations except where circumstances justified 
 great freedom, as among intimate friends, or in addressing 
 slaves. You remember in Lucian the indignation of the 
 upstart Simon, when called by his former name, and how he 
 treats this as a clipping of his proper title, Simonides. But 
 then, the language of the New Testament and of the early 
 Christian Church was certainly not regulated on the model of 
 Attic fastidiousness. The dialect we hear in this region is that 
 ‘ vernaculus et plebeius sermo ’ to which Lobeck himself ac- 
 knowledges that such contracted forms belong ; and therefore 
 I do not see that the conjecture in question borrows much aid 
 from this additional circumstance brought to confirm it. 
 
 But we should know something more about Luke if 
 another, and very modern conjecture, were well founded, which, 
 however, it is very far from being. 
 
 There is a sort of uncomfortable Malthusian spirit in 
 some critics which prompts them as far as possible to thin 
 the population of history, and in this spirit a late author has 
 endeavoured to prove that Silas and Luke were one and the 
 same person. 
 
 But the grounds alleged for this conclusion, so far as they 
 are correctly stated, tend rather to refute it, and so far as 
 they seem to favour it are mere misrepresentations. Silas it 
 is said, and truly said I believe, is only a contraction of 
 Silvanus, and Silvanus is much the same in sense as Lucanus- 
 Silvanus is formed from Silva, as Lucanus is from Lucus. 
 
 Now this later derivation is rather dubious ; at least if 
 Lucus be ultimately the origin of Lucanus, it is such a remote 
 ancestor that I suspect the connection between them was very 
 
lect. in. ST. LUKE NOT THE SAME PERSON AS SILAS. 
 
 45 
 
 seldom thought of by those who gave or bore the proper name. 
 Lucanus certainly refers proximately to the province of 
 Lucania. But granting that it suggested the thought of 
 Lucus as readily as Silvanus that of Silva, I think this very 
 fact would be destructive of the hypothesis that one and the 
 same person bore commonly these two names. Nothing is 
 more common than that a man should be called in two dif- 
 ferent languages by two names expressing the same idea, but 
 nothing would seem to be more futile than to perplex one’s 
 neighbours by two names of just the same meaning, when 
 one was not the translation of the other. 
 
 Another ground for this unhappy conjecture is the circum- 
 stance that Luke is never mentioned under that name in the 
 Acts of the Apostles. But even supposing that this could 
 prove that he is mentioned under some other name, surely it 
 cannot prove that he is mentioned under that of Silas. And 
 if the author of the Acts had called himself Silas in that 
 work, is it probable that the name Silas should never have 
 appeared in the title ? If Silas or Silvanus be the same 
 person as Luke, Silas or Silvanus would certainly appear to 
 have been that person’s ordinary name, for it occurs much 
 more frequently than Luke in the New Testament. Whence 
 comes it, then, that no trace of such a name appears in the 
 titles of the copies of that very piece in which, according 
 to this hypothesis, he calls himself uniformly by that his best 
 known and ordinary name ? 
 
 Lastly it is said that the writer of the Acts always uses 
 the words i we ’ and £ us ’ when Silas and Paul are together, 
 and never otherwise. Now this is so gross a mistake that it 
 is really amazing to see a diligent student of the New Testa- 
 ment fall into it. 
 
 Silas and Paul are together, you will observe, at chap, xviii. 
 5 ; yet through that and the whole succeeding chapter the 
 form * we,’ which implies the actual presence of the narrator, 
 is never used. It is only at chap. xx. 5 that this form re- 
 appears, when Paul is described as leaving Philippi. And it is 
 remarkable that it is in connection with a visit to Philippi that 
 
46 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE T. 
 
 it first occurs in chap. xvi. 10, and that in that case it is 
 dropped again from the time that Paul and Silas leave 
 Philippi. The first inference from the phenomena of this 
 form would therefore seem to be that the writer of the Acts 
 accompanied Paul and Silas first from Troas to Philippi, re- 
 mained behind them when they left that city, and then was 
 taken up by them again, when upon their returning circuit 
 they passed through Philippi back to Troas. 
 
 I have spent, perhaps, too much time in examining 
 these idle guesses, but I thought it not amiss to warn you 
 thus against a small and half-learned kind of critical ingenuity 
 which is at present too much in vogue, and which, instead of 
 throwing itself out into those unexplored regions where fresh 
 research might gain some solid acquisitions of knowledge, 
 seeks perversely for new discoveries iii places often traversed 
 and found barren of certain data by the greatest scholars. 
 You have met, I dare say, before now with unhappy mathe- 
 maticians who have never got beyond the elements of their 
 science, being detained from farther progress in some limbo of 
 vanity, in endless projects for squaring the circle, trisecting 
 an angle, or demonstrating the fundamental properties of 
 parallel lines. Very similar appears to me the case of those 
 small Biblical critics who deal in such flimsy wares as I have 
 alluded to. Few things are easier than the exercise of in- 
 genuity without solid judgment. But if men will amuse them- 
 selves with such tricks as these, it would be far better to play 
 them upon Horace or Ovid than upon the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 It must be confessed then, that there remain but scanty 
 means of gratifying our natural curiosity concerning the 
 first historian of the Christian Church. But as to those 
 matters which it is really most important for us to know, the 
 trustworthiness, the genuineness and authenticity of his work, 
 this piece has the felicity of being peculiarly well guarded 
 against sceptical objections. Paley’s great original work, the 
 ‘ Horse Paulina?,’ has made us, for these purposes, almost 
 independent of the aid of tradition. 
 
 It has been a favourite subject of inquiry among the 
 
LKCT. III. 
 
 HIS CHOICE OF FACTS. 
 
 47 
 
 German critics, what was the special aim of Luke in com- 
 piling the Acts of the Apostles ? That it is not a full history 
 of the Church is manifest upon a simple inspection ; and hence 
 various conjectures have been hazarded as to the principle 
 which guided him in the selection of circumstances, and a 
 great deal of misspent ingenuity has been wasted in making 
 out for Luke refined and subtle objects which most likely 
 never entered into his mind. The true state of the case 
 seems to me simple enough. He wfished to give Theophilus 
 a short account of what he himself was already best acquainted 
 with, and never intended to sit down to compose at his leisure 
 a just history of all that might be collected. His matter 
 therefore was limited by the amount of accurate and easily 
 producible information which he had by him when he set 
 about his work, and this again was determined by his own 
 personal circumstances. A great deal of the Apostle Paul’s 
 adventures he could relate as an eyewitness, a great deal 
 more he could derive from Paul’s own report of the previous 
 part; he might perhaps know a great deal beside personally, 
 and for the rest, from his familiarity with Paul’s companions, 
 such as Silas and Barnabas, and from his extensive intercourse 
 with the churches generally, he had abundant opportunities 
 of gaining information. It is, I think, idle to inquire what 
 led him in each particular case to make himself acquainted 
 with that rather than others which he had omitted. But if 
 he were, as tradition tells us he was, himself a proselyte, this 
 naturally accounts for his taking a special interest in what- 
 ever concerned them and the Hellenists generally. Nor is it 
 strange that a friend and companion of the great Apostle of 
 the Gentiles should make himself minutely acquainted with 
 that part of the ministry of Peter which formed as it were 
 the prelude to Paul’s labours, and so completely vindicated 
 him from the charge of bringing in novelties into the religion 
 of Christ. 
 
 It has been sometimes asked whence did the sacred writers 
 derive the reports of the speeches and discourses which they 
 deliver to us ? And some have fancied that in the Acts of the 
 
48 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 Apostles these discourses are Luke’s own composition, like the 
 orations so profusely introduced by profane historians. If 
 this were so, we should have in the Evangelist one of the 
 greatest masters of that species of composition that ever 
 lived. For certainly no other historian has ever produced 
 feigned orations so like reality, and so exactly true to the 
 various characters of the speakers, as those which appear in 
 this narrative. It would be strange to find such singular 
 dramatic power and skill in a writer who otherwise shows 
 so little art or high literary ability. But in truth there is 
 no difficulty in the matter. Those amongst the ancients who 
 were anxious to learn, trained and exercised their memory in 
 a way that we are little accustomed to. All of you will re- 
 member that singularly amusing satire of Horace, ‘ Unde 
 et quo Catius ? ’ in which a student of the noble science of 
 gastronomy is introduced as posting from a banquet to commit 
 to writing the report of a long discourse which he has just 
 been listening to, and which he is made to repeat over at 
 length for the benefit of a chance companion. Nor is this 
 only a single instance. A similar incident is over and over 
 again introduced in the dialogues of Plato and of Lucian. 
 Nor can we suppose that those great masters of dramatic 
 propriety would have made such large use of such an expe- 
 dient, if the practice had not been a well-known and familiar 
 one. 
 
 We are not then supposing anything strange or out-of- 
 the-way, but rather what all probability would require us to 
 suppose, when we refer the accounts given in the sacred 
 writings of the discourses of the Apostles and apostolic men 
 to the memoranda of those who actually heard them, and who 
 first committed those discourses to memory, and then imme- 
 diately after to paper. 
 
 As for the person to whom this work and the Gospel of Luke 
 are both dedicated, it is not, to be sure, absolutely necessary 
 to suppose that he was a real historical person ; but then, on the 
 other hand, there seems to be no reason to suppose that he was 
 not; and I think the artlessness and earnest simplicity which 
 
LF-CT. II r. 
 
 HIS REASON FOR WRITING THE ACTS. 
 
 49 
 
 characterise the sacred writers generally, would rather incline 
 us not to think that one of them needlessly affected the tone 
 of a person addressing some distinguished nobleman, merely 
 for the purpose of giving grace to his narrative. 
 
 Hug has, I think, in a satisfactory manner shown it to be 
 most likely that Theophilus was resident at Rome. You will 
 observe that in the account of Paul’s last voyage, in men- 
 tioning places distant from Rome, the Evangelist is careful 
 to subjoin explanations. Thus he tells us, for example, that 
 Phenice was a harbour of Crete, &c., that Myra was a city of 
 Lycia, that the Fair Havens were near Lasea, &c., but when 
 he approaches Rome the places are mentioned as if quite 
 familiar to his hearer, though some of them, as for instance, 
 Puteoli and the Tres Tabernse, would, to anyone that was 
 not a near neighbour, need explanation quite as much as the 
 rest. In fact we know from Josephus, who had to mention 
 some of these same places in his Autobiography, and who 
 writing for Greeks and Orientals found it necessary to sub- 
 join some further description, we know I say from Josephus, 
 that Dicgearchia was the name by which Puteoli was called 
 by the Greeks, and that Puteoli was an exclusively Italian 
 designation of the town. 
 
 Taking it then as most probable that the Book of the 
 Acts was composed primarily for the use of a Roman noble- 
 man — his rank seems indicated by the epithet KpancrTos — 
 resident at Rome, it will further, I think, seem likely that it 
 was drawn up just previous to Paul’s liberation from his first 
 imprisonment, and when Luke was about to start again with 
 his old companion on his second grand missionary expe- 
 dition. 
 
 It would be natural under such circumstances that the 
 Evangelist should wish to put a record of such interest into 
 the hand of a disciple who would value it, and who would 
 then value it the more because about to be deprived of 
 the benefit of oral conference with his teacher. And this 
 will explain why the two years of Paul’s sojourn at Rome 
 are despatched so summarily. Their history was composed 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 of events with which Theophilns was personally acquainted, 
 and therefore he needed no fresh information upon that 
 subject. Of what Paul or Luke said or did at Rome he was 
 perfectly cognisant. What he required was an account of 
 their previous adventures, and that accordingly is supplied. 
 
51 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 NEAN1JER, AND THE GIFT OF TONGUES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I spent some time in my last lecture in 
 endeavouring to explain the nature of that important docu- 
 ment to which chiefly we are indebted for a knowledge of the 
 events immediately succeeding the resurrection of Christ. And, 
 from the account which I then gave, you will not be surprised 
 to find that considerable difficulties attend one in attempting 
 to reduce all the transactions which it records into their exact 
 chronological order. This is a difficulty attending almost all 
 inartificial narratives that extend themselves over any length- 
 ened period of time or cover any great variety of facts, and it 
 is apt to occur in such cases even where the relators are 
 themselves perfectly aware of the true chronology. Indeed 
 it often occurs from this very circumstance, since from this 
 very circumstance (of his own perfect acquaintance with the 
 chronology) it will often happen that the relator will feel no 
 difficulty in a statement which to readers destitute of that 
 information will cause some perplexity. And it is a consider- 
 able cause of perplexity to us, in arranging the narratives of 
 the sacred writers, that these authors have not adhered to any 
 one fixed principle for regulating the order of succession in 
 their histories. Sometimes the suggesting medium which 
 connects two parts of their narrative is the order of time, 
 sometimes it is some likeness in character between two dis- 
 courses or events. Sometimes, after relating a transaction, 
 they turn back abruptly to tell something which accounts for 
 it, or leap forward over a great interval to some of its remote 
 consequences. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 All these are merely the results of an inartificial style, 
 and want of skill in historical composition. They are not, as 
 infidel critics pretend, any mark of the want of real accurate 
 knowledge concerning the facts on the part of relators who 
 tell them thus confusedly. To suppose that accurate know- 
 ledge is the only quality requisite for a good historian, is to 
 make a mistake as great as the vulgar error about rhetoric, 
 supposing that he who thinks clearly will always express him- 
 self clearly. The truth is that some of the clearest thinkers 
 have been some of the most obscure and perplexed writers, 
 not from affectation like Heraclitus, but through not per- 
 ceiving that their own expressions were likely to prove obscure 
 to others. To themselves those expressions were, of course, 
 perfectly intelligible, because they themselves knew the 
 meaning beforehand ; and they did not (which is the foun- 
 dation of the rules of rhetoric) put themselves into the 
 condition of strangers, and divest themselves of all reference 
 to this previous knowledge, in order to bring the general 
 clearness of their language to a fair test. From similar 
 sources arises the perplexity and confusion of a narrative 
 told by one who is not careful to consider the state of mind 
 in which persons previously quite unacquainted with the cir- 
 cumstances of the case would come to the study of his 
 writings. 
 
 In the artificial style of composition, the writer accommo- 
 dates himself to the mind of the readers. In the inartificial, 
 the reader is obliged to accommodate himself as he best can to 
 the mind of the writer, to discover the train of his thoughts 
 and conjecture the principles which suggest their succession. 
 
 Accordingly, such inartificial compositions are a searching 
 test of the fairness, docility, and penetration of a critic. They 
 are a ‘ stone of stumbling and a rock of offence ’ to the hasty, 
 the inconsiderate, and the conceited reader. And so in com- 
 mon life you will observe that a man of excellent sense, who 
 either from rustic bashfulness or want of skill and practice is 
 unable to express his meaning clearly, will be soon set down 
 by many as a fool, but it will be by those who have themselves 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 BOOKS RECOMMENDED, AND HOW FAR. 
 
 53 
 
 least modesty, least patience, and least good sense. Those 
 who are docile enough to attend to him will form a very 
 different opinion. 
 
 I have made these observations for the purpose of pre- 
 paring you to expect some trouble in arranging the facts of 
 the earlier history of the Christian Church, as it is to be 
 gathered from the Acts of the Apostles and the Apostolical 
 Epistles. In doing so, however, you will derive much assistance 
 from the works of Neander and Dr. Burton, from Bishop 
 Pearson’s ‘ Annales Paulini,’ and from his, unfortunately un- 
 finished, Latin Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles, from the 
 ‘ Horae Paulinae ’ of Paley — to which, if you please, you may 
 add ‘ Benson’s History of the first Planting of Christianity,’ 
 Hug’s remarks on the Acts in his valuable Introduction to 
 the New Testament, and a very carefully drawn up summary 
 of most of the discussions of this matter in Kuinoel’s Pro- 
 legomena to the Acts of the Apostles, § 7. This last, indeed, I 
 would recommend you by all means to consult. It is brief, but 
 it contains a vast mass of matter packed into a small compass. 
 
 In referring you, however, to all or to any of these books, 
 you will not, I am sure, so far misunderstand me as to suppose 
 that I mean to approve of them all as in the main perfectly 
 orthodox, or even free from very dangerous errors. It is not 
 the practice of Protestant Universities to treat their students, 
 at least their more advanced students, as mere hothouse 
 plants who are to be carefully guarded, at all risks, against 
 the rude visitings of the least blast of heterodoxy. They look 
 for safety not to the timid precaution of endeavouring to 
 shut out all knowledge of such things, but to the careful 
 training of the mind to endure and resist them. And, there- 
 fore, you will not, I trust, be much surprised or scandalised 
 if in some of the works which I have commended to your 
 perusal, you meet with exceedingly erroneous views upon some 
 highly important subjects. 
 
 In saying this I have especially in my eye Neander’s 
 e History of the Planting and Early Training of the Christian 
 Church,’ and as it so happens that that author’s most notice- 
 
54 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 able error meets one at the very opening of his work, and at 
 the event which I treat as the Epoch of the first period of 
 Christian Ecclesiastical history, it seems natural in speaking 
 of that wonderful event to consider it in connection with 
 Neander’s erroneous conception of it. 
 
 The event of which I speak is the descent of the Holy 
 Spirit at Pentecost upon the assembled disciples, the visible 
 occupation by the Almighty of His new temple wherein God 
 was in very deed to dwell with men and abide with them 
 for ever. Now as it cannot be denied that the permanent 
 presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church is of such a nature 
 as ordinarily to confine itself to inward operations upon the 
 moral faculties of the mind, Neander seems to have framed to 
 himself a theory which excluded all other operations from the 
 immediate working of the Spirit. 
 
 It is not that he doubted or denied the reality of spiritual 
 agency, the existence of a real influence of the Divine Spirit, 
 quite distinct from mere human will and feeling and intellect, 
 but that he was perpetually haunted with a desire to get 
 rid of all kinds of spiritual agency except that one which is 
 normal and constant, the continual invisible working of the 
 Holy Ghost upon the human mind, and to reduce every re- 
 corded effect of the Spirit’s operation to this one law. 
 
 Now such a theory as this it is very difficult to apply 
 consistently to the sacred records. And accordingly Neander 
 is very far from being consistent. On the contrary, his method 
 of dealing with the miracles related in the Acts of the Apostles 
 exhibits a continual struggle between his prejudice in favour 
 of his preconceived theory and his common-sense as an in- 
 terpreter of the text, in which theory and fact are alternately 
 called on to make such enormous sacrifices to one another as 
 to preclude the possibility of any satisfactory compromise. 
 
 In the present instance he has raked together every 
 plausible objection to the obvious and customary explanation 
 of the narrative which his unwearied diligence, and great 
 acuteness, and varied learning could possibly supply ; and yet 
 it is plain that he is neither satisfied with the weight of those 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 NEANDER ON THE GIFT OF TONGUES. 
 
 55 
 
 objections nor with the exposition of the text which he pro- 
 poses to substitute for the common one. His exposition is 
 that the gift of tongues consisted in such a highly raised state 
 of contemplation of the new ideas of Christianity as naturally 
 prompted the disciples to give utterance to their thoughts 
 in new forms of expression and a new religious diction, 
 unusual conceptions demanding unusual combinations of 
 terms and phrases to convey them. I do not think it worth 
 while to spend much time in considering how far it is possible 
 to reconcile such a view with the words of the narrative in 
 the Acts, because it seems to me obvious on a simple in- 
 spection that it is utterly irreconcilable with it. The narrative 
 plainly makes the wonder consist in this, that the Apostles 
 spoke in the native languages of several persons then present, 
 not in a language familiar neither to themselves nor to any- 
 body else. It will be much more profitable therefore to con- 
 sider his objections to the ordinary interpretation, since, if 
 we can answer these, not only his theory, which seeks to save 
 the honour of the inspired text, but those also of the less 
 piously-minded German critics, will be at once set aside. 
 
 1. His first objection is one which peculiarly interests us 
 as students of Ecclesiastical history — that the common view 
 of the gift of tongues was unknown or unsanctioned in the 
 Church until the third century. This he endeavours to prove 
 by the statements of Irenasus and Tertullian. The statement 
 of Irenasus is simply this : c The Apostle calls those perfect 
 who have received the Spirit of God, and speak in all lan- 
 guages as he did, and even as we ourselves have heard many 
 brethren in the Church who had prophetic gifts, and who 
 spake with all kinds of tongues by the Spirit, and who dis- 
 closed the secret thoughts of men when it was expedient, and 
 explained the mysteries of God : such the Apostle calls 
 spiritual, because they partook of the Spirit, not excluding or 
 cutting off the flesh.’ 1 Now what there is in this to exclude 
 the common notion of the gift of tongues I cannot by any 
 effort of my mind discover ; nor can I after many trials piece 
 
 1 Adv. Hcer. v. 6. 
 
56 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 together the remarks which Neander has made upon it into the 
 shape of an intelligible argument. Irenasus is dealing with 
 the Gnostics, and showing that the apostolic notions of per- 
 fection and spirituality were different from theirs ; that ac- 
 cording to the Apostles the body was not treated as something 
 alien from the kingdom of God ; that the title ‘ spiritual ’ did 
 not refer to a man’s own purely spiritual nature, but to his 
 being the subject of the Holy Spirit’s operations, and since 
 it is manifest that the spiritual persons ( 7 rvsvfiaTLKoi) of 
 whom Paul speaks in the First Epistle to the Corinthians had 
 such gifts as tongues and prophecy, and the word of wisdom, 
 he instances these (naturally enough) as some of the respects 
 in which that title was applied to them. 
 
 How then this is made an argument for Neander’s view I 
 feel some difficulty in guessing ; but I feel greatly more diffi- 
 culty in reconciling his treatment of Irenasus in this place 
 with the opinion of his candour which I would fain entertain. 
 For a man so well versed in Christian antiquity must certainly 
 have read the great work of Irenasus through, and having a 
 particular interest in everything in it bearing on the gift of 
 tongues, he could hardly have failed to notice such a 
 passage as that which occurs in lib. iii. c. 19, where 
 Irenasus speaks of the Spirit as coming down at Pentecost 
 upon the disciples with the power of opening an entrance for 
 all nations to the way of life ; whence, says he, c They uttered 
 concordantly in all languages a hymn to God, the Spirit re- 
 ducing distant tribes to unity, and offering up the first-fruits 
 of all nations to the Father.’ I cannot, I say, understand 
 how, with this passage before him, Neander should declare 
 that Irenaeus says nothing of what is commonly meant by the 
 gift of tongues in the miracle of the great Pentecost. It is 
 manifest, I think, from this place that Irenasus ascribed to 
 that miracle just the same signality as by Neander’s confession 
 since the third century has been almost universally ascribed 
 to it — the betokening of the universality of the Christian 
 Church and the sanctification of all languages to the publi- 
 cation of the wonderful works of God. 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 WHY NOT URGED BY APOLOGISTS. 
 
 57 
 
 As for Tertullian, there is nothing at all decisive in the 
 citation from him . 2 But I am ready to own that I think it not 
 at all improbable that he took much the same odd view of the 
 gift of tongues as is now taken by the Irvingites, and for a 
 similar reason. He sought to identify it with the phenomena 
 produced by the enthusiasm of the Montanists with whom 
 he was connected. Their prophets, when wrought up to a 
 high pitch of excitement, uttered (as it is well known that 
 nervously excited patients often will), unintelligible sounds 
 more or less resembling the forms of a language. But the 
 reveries of the Montanists have nothing to do with the 
 current doctrines of the Church on this subject. On the 
 contrary, the contemptuous manner in which the Church 
 writers always speak of these Montanistic exhibitions is a 
 strong proof, as indeed Neander himself allows, that they 
 did not consider such utterances as at all akin to the 
 apostolic gift. 
 
 Nor is there any weight in the objection drawn from the 
 silence of the Apologists, who never appeal to the gift of 
 tongues subsisting in the Church as a miracle capable of con- 
 vincing unbelievers. For, in the first place, Irenseus is the 
 latest author who testifies to its continuance in the Church, 
 and he does not testify to its general continuance. He speaks 
 of it as a thing which he had formerly witnessed, but he says 
 nothing to imply that instances of it could at any time be 
 produced for the satisfaction of gainsayers. I leave out of 
 consideration here Tertullian ; for his Montanistic gift of 
 tongues, though probably common enough, was not of such a 
 nature as to convince an unbeliever. It was rather such as 
 a prudent Apologist would keep in the background when 
 dealing with pagans. And, secondly, even if such a gift of 
 tongues as we suppose was common in the Church in the 
 second century, it was not such a gift as could be readily made 
 a medium of proof; since all that could be shown imme- 
 
 2 Adv. Marc. v. 8. ‘Let him show some psalm, some vision, some 
 prayer, if only spiritual, in ecstasy, that is raving, if any interpretation of 
 a tongue has been added.’ — E ditors. 
 
58 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 diately would be a man speaking several languages, but bow 
 he had acquired the faculty of so speaking would not be 
 at once evident, and among strangers there would always be 
 room for suspecting that he had acquired them by natural 
 means. Healing the sick, or casting out demons, were 
 miracles very differently circumstanced. In the case of these 
 the whole process could be presented under one view, and the 
 very miracle itself, in all its essential circumstances, brought 
 palpably before the spectator. And accordingly, you know, it 
 is to such a kind of experiment that the Christian Apologists 
 do appeal. They invite the heathen to come and see the 
 demons cast out in their presence. But to invite them to 
 come and witness an exercise of the gift of tongues, even 
 supposing it commonly to subsist in their time, would have 
 been a very different thing, because there would be nothing 
 in the mere circumstances of the thing witnessed itself to 
 demonstrate its miraculous character. Whatever was need- 
 ful for that purpose would have to be established by extraneous 
 testimony. Besides which, we must remember that a man 
 must be a linguist himself to be able to decide about even 
 so much as the fact that diverse languages were spoken, 
 whether miraculously or not, in the Church. And a knowledge 
 of foreign languages was not at all a common accomplishment 
 in ancient times. 
 
 On the whole then, I think we can see that so far the 
 Primitive Church affords very small support to Neander’s case 
 against the obvious and usual explanation of this narrative. 
 Let us consider what more he can allege on the same side. 
 
 Ancient tradition, he says, speaks of Mark as the inter- 
 preter of the Apostle Peter, which seems to imply that that 
 Apostle was himself no master of the languages of people 
 among whom he disseminated the gospel. But here again 
 I feel somewhat at a loss to recognise this learned writer’s 
 usual candour. For he surely must have known that the 
 Greek term kpfi rjvsvs or sp/irjvsvTys does not at all necessarily 
 imply a person who translates from one language into another ; 
 £p/ar)V£La is the customary word used by the Greek grammarians 
 
user. iv. ST. PAUL AND THE SPEECH OF LYCAONIA. 
 
 59 
 
 for diction or expression. And sppLrjvevTrjs is applied, not only 
 to an interpreter of language, but to an expressor of thought. 
 Indeed when it is applied to Mark in reference to Peter, it is 
 plainly in the sense of secretary or amanuensis. M dpKOs pusv, 
 says Papias, 3 sppirjvsvTrjs Usrpov ysvo/jLEVO*, ocra Epivrjpiovsvcrsv 
 cucpifitis sypayjrEv. And the drift of the statement plainly is 
 that Mark in his Gospel is to be considered only as express- 
 ing what was delivered to him by Peter. I suppose it is not 
 doubted that Peter knew Greek, and if so, he certainly could 
 not have needed an interpreter, in Neander’s sense of the 
 word, to put his meaning into such Greek as that of Mark’s 
 Gospel. 
 
 Next it is alleged that Paul was ignorant of the Lycaonian 
 dialect ; and this is said to be proved by Acts xiv. 1 1 . But 
 how the passage cited proves the thing for which it is adduced 
 I cannot perceive. The Evangelist in that place merely 
 takes notice that a certain remark was made in the speech of 
 Lycaonia, and from his giving the translation of what was said 
 in Lycaonian, I should rather be tempted to draw the con- 
 clusion that it was understood by the Apostle, since it seems 
 most probable that Luke derived his information about Paul’s 
 adventures from Paul himself. This notice, however, of the 
 Lycaonian dialect is of some importance as showing us how 
 little value really attaches to another objection of Neander’s. 
 ‘ The utility,’ says he, 1 of such a gift of tongues as is com- 
 monly supposed for the spread of divine truth in apostolic 
 times will appear not so great, if we consider that the gospel 
 had its first and chief sphere of action among the nations 
 belonging to the Roman Empire, where the knowledge of the 
 Greek and Latin languages sufficed for this purpose, and that 
 the one or the other of these languages, as it was employed in 
 the intercourse of daily life, could not be altogether strange 
 to the Jews.’ 
 
 Now not to mention that we really do not know how far 
 beyond the limits of the Roman Empire the gospel penetrated 
 in the apostolic times, while there is every reason to believe 
 3 Apud Euseb., Eccl. Hist. iii. 39. 
 
60 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 that to some extent it did so penetrate, the very instance of 
 the Lycaonians shows us what a number of obscure dialects 
 were embraced within those limits, where casting only a super- 
 ficial glance over history we might have thought Greek and 
 Latin were the only languages spoken. Greek perhaps might 
 be as generally spoken through Asia Minor as English was 
 some time ago through Connaught, that is it was the language 
 of the better classes, the language of polite conversation, the 
 language of reading and writing. But so late as the time of 
 Mithridates we know that some hundred different languages 
 were spoken through his dominions alone, and there is no 
 reason to suppose that these had become extinct in the 
 Apostles’ times. In preaching, therefore, the gospel to the 
 poor through such a region as this, a gift of diverse tongues 
 may have been of the greatest value to the first propagators 
 of the Christian religion ; and from the example of this re- 
 gion we may learn to think it likely that elsewhere also, on 
 the confines of Syria, in the upper parts of Egypt, along the 
 shores of North Africa, through Thrace and Illyricum and 
 Gaul, the first heralds of the gospel in apostolic times found 
 abundant room for exercising their divinely infused knowledge. 
 
 But there is the less necessity for dwelling upon this 
 subject as Neander himself acknowledges that, apart from 
 any such purpose, the signality of the gift of tongues as attest- 
 ing the universal aim of a religion designed for all people, would 
 be of itself sufficient to make it credible that such a gift was 
 bestowed. In truth, as Irenasus long since observed , 4 by such 
 a miracle as this the very type of the Church Catholic was 
 placed visibly before men’s eyes, as a multitude collected 
 together out of all nations and kindreds and peoples and 
 tongues, and the Spirit thus made it manifest that in thus 
 taking possession of His temple He was occupying a resi- 
 dence which was co-extensive with all the families of the 
 earth. And this purpose will appear the more considerable 
 if we reflect upon the Jewish prejudice which regarded 
 Hebrew as the only clean language — the sole privileged 
 
 4 Adv. Ilcer. iii. 19; cf. i. 3. 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 CORNELIUS AND DISCIPLES AT EPHESUS. 
 
 61 
 
 medium of divine communication with mankind. Con- 
 sidered in reference to such prejudice the gift of tongues 
 was a protest against that exclusiveness of which the Hebrew 
 language had become, as it were, the symbol. It was a token 
 that the new religion was to accommodate itself to the diver- 
 sities of mankind, and go out and dwell with its various 
 tribes, instead of requiring them to abolish those diversities 
 and conform to one single model. 
 
 • Viewed in this light there is a peculiar propriety in 
 the gift of tongues having been made the sign not only 
 of the indwelling of the Spirit in the Apostles, but of the 
 reception also of the first-fruits of the Gentiles in the 
 case of Cornelius and his family ; nor do I see that in this 
 latter case there is anything of unnatural or affected display 
 in the behaviour of persons, who, becoming suddenly con- 
 scious of a new power, immediately proceed to exercise it. 
 I believe it would be the first impulse of every mind : just as 
 the lame man, who never had walked, when gifted with the 
 requisite strength and agility, stood and walked and leaped, 
 praising God for the new power conferred upon him. Any- 
 one, I believe, on whom a new faculty was conferred would 
 naturally be prompted at once to put its reality and extent 
 to the test of experience — not to mention that when miracu- 
 louslv conferred under such circumstances as attended the 
 case of Cornelius, everyone would understand that it was 
 meant to be a sign not only to himself but to others also — 
 and from that motive, if from no other, would make what 
 Neander is pleased to call a display of it. In the other case 
 to which Neander refers, that in Acts xix., there is no sem- 
 blance even of difficulty in explaining the phenomena : for 
 there it is expressly said that the gifted persons spake with 
 tongues and prophesied, meaning no doubt that they were 
 not only gifted with the new faculty, but directly impelled 
 to use it fluently in devout addresses. For to prophesy — as 
 Neander himself, I think, correctly states — is, in the lan- 
 guage of the New Testament, to speak under the influence of 
 a divine impulse, whatever be the matter suggested, whether a 
 
APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 62 
 
 description of some future event, an impassioned appeal to 
 human auditors, or a prayer or hymn to the Most High. 
 
 Some spiritual gift, it would appear, was generally, and as 
 a matter of course, conferred upon those who had been baptized, 
 through the imposition of the Apostles’ hands, at once as 
 a recognition of their discipleship and as a confirmation of 
 their faith. The instances which have been alleged, and the 
 references in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, lead, I think, 
 to the conclusion that the gift of tongues was one of the most 
 common of the confirming gifts thus bestowed. This may strike 
 us at first sight as rather surprising ; but upon reflection it 
 will appear that hardly any of the gifts was more suitable for 
 this general purpose, since hardly any other of them could 
 have been profusely bestowed without interfering considerably 
 with the ordinary method of God’s providential government. 
 An immense multitude of healers of the sick, or of workers 
 of miracles in the ordinary sense of the word, would plainly 
 have amounted to a general suspension of the ordinary laws 
 of nature, and if those gifts, the word of wisdom and the 
 word of knowledge, had been indiscriminately given to a very 
 large number, besides that such gifts would not have answered 
 the purpose of a miraculous sign, this would have involved a 
 departure from what we know to have been the plan of the 
 Church, according to which the great body of the faithful 
 were much dependent upon the ordinary instruction of their 
 pastors for the attainment of religious knowledge. Such 
 gifts as these were given to the few for the purpose of 
 instructing the many, and if they had been given indis- 
 criminately to the many, this would have been changing the 
 character of the dispensation ; such gifts would have been 
 no longer given as the qualifications of teachers, but for the 
 purpose of removing all distinction between teachers and 
 learners ; that is, in fact, of reversing on a large scale the 
 ordinary law which regulates man’s progress, and according 
 to which that which can be attained by the natural exercise 
 of the understanding is left to be so attained. 
 
63 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 EARLIEST RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH TO 
 JUDAISM, AND ITS FIRST CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I entered, in my last lecture, at consider- 
 able length into an examination of the miraculous circum- 
 stances which attended the first founding of the Christian 
 Church. I should not have felt myself called upon to spend 
 so much time upon that subject, in a course of lectures in 
 which, from the extent and variety of the matter to be handled, 
 economy of time is most important, if it were not that an 
 opportunity was thus afforded me at the very outset, of 
 pointing out and guarding against one of the most consider- 
 able and pervading errors of a work which I had recommended 
 to your perusal. 
 
 I pass on now to consider the state of the newly founded 
 Christian Church in Judasa during the interval which elapsed 
 between the great Pentecost and the calling in of the Gentiles. 
 The first thing which must, I think, strike everyone in con- 
 sidering the picture, or rather the outline of this state, brought 
 before us in the Acts of the Apostles, is the indistinctness of 
 the separation between the Church and the great body of the 
 Jewish commonwealth. At first there are only the rudiments 
 of an ecclesiastical organisation in the Christian society, which 
 are only developed into more definite shape and minuteness 
 as circumstances arise to require that development. It seems 
 manifest that during this interval the Apostles did not deem 
 themselves justified in taking any steps derogatory to the 
 institutions of the Jewish law. Those institutions, originally 
 appointed by the voice of God Himself, as yet stood around 
 
 I 
 
APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 64 
 
 them visibly intact, and retained stili not only the outward 
 form which they had always worn, but the sacred character 
 also with which they had been hitherto invested. At first 
 sight, and to a superficial observer, it might seem that the 
 Christian community was little more than a sect or school in 
 Judaism, scarcely nlore definitely distinguished from the mass 
 of Israelites than the Essenes or the Herodians. The temple 
 was still to the Christian, as it was to the unchristian Jew, the 
 house of prayer, and his attendance in its courts was punctual 
 and exemplary. The public and the private rites of the Mosaic 
 law were still observed with scrupulous exactness ; and not 
 only was this the case, but it is curious to observe further that 
 the peculiarities which distinguished the various schools of 
 Judaism from one another seem to some extent to have 
 prolonged themselves into the Christian body, Christianity 
 running through them as it were a cross-division. Thus 
 we read in the Acts of ‘ believing Pharisees,’ evidently dis- 
 tinguished from other believing Israelites, and who along 
 with faith in the Messiahship of Jesus retained not only the 
 observance of the law as it was really delivered by Moses, 
 but even as it was expounded and augmented by the peculiar 
 traditions of the rabbis of their own school. 
 
 At first sight then, and to a superficial observer, it might, 
 as I said, appear as if the Christians were rather a new sect, 
 or aLp£(TLS embraced within the Jewish Church, than them- 
 selves the great exclusive corporation of the Church of God, 
 the sole inheritor of all the privileges which up to that time 
 had belonged to the whole seed of Israel after the flesh. 
 
 But, even in this the earliest and weakest stage of the 
 Church’s development, a more searching eye would have dis- 
 covered an essential difference between Christianity and the 
 previous sects of Judaism. 
 
 In the first place, the question between the believing 
 and unbelieving Jews was not a mere question as to the 
 authority of this or that teacher, or even this or that pro- 
 phet, but a question of allegiance to the anointed king of the 
 theocracy. Those who acknowledged the claims of Jesus of 
 
I.KCT. V. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY FROM THE FIRST DISTINCT. 
 
 65 
 
 Nazareth acknowledged Him, or at least were distinctly called 
 on by the Apostles to acknowledge Him, as a c Prince and a 
 Saviour,’ as ‘ the Lord exalted at God’s right hand,’ as 4 the 
 prophet like unto Moses, whose rejectors should be cut off 
 from the people,’ as one expected to return and effect that 
 great change of which the prophets had spoken as the re- 
 storation of all things, as one who should make all enemies 
 his footstool, and from whose impending wrath men could 
 only be delivered by publicly acknowledging Him as their 
 sovereign. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that with such a message, how- 
 ever mildly they might put it forward, the Apostles were in 
 fact declaring that the Christian community alone was thence- 
 forward the Israel of God, and that the whole £ untoward 
 generation ’ who rejected the Lord’s Christ were by that very 
 act cut off from being any more His people. 
 
 But, in the second place, the teaching of the Apostles went, 
 even from the first, farther even than this. I think it is clear 
 that from the time of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pen- 
 tecost the Apostles perceived that Christianity was a distinct 
 thing from the law of Moses, and that the institutions of that 
 law, however still obligatory, were not obligatory as any parts 
 of the Christian covenant. Peter, I think, distinctly from the 
 first — almost as distinctly and precisely as Paul afterwards — 
 excludes the ‘ works of the law ’ from a place as conditions of 
 justification. He teaches his hearers to regard Jesus as the 
 bestower of a new spiritual life and a remission of sins which 
 had never been and never could be bestowed by the law, and 
 to regard as the sole conditions for the obtaining this new 
 and special gift, repentance and the inward and outward 
 acknowledgment of the divine authority of the bestower. 
 What the Apostles at this time did not see clearly was the 
 divine intention of offering this grace to any but the previous 
 subjects of the theocracy ; or rather, to speak more correctly, 
 they did not see that the time had come for putting such an 
 intention into execution ; they were waiting for some express 
 intimation of the divine will authorising such a step, not, I 
 VOL. i. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 think, without expectation that it would be given. How else 
 can we explain, without putting an unnatural strain upon the 
 words, the language of Peter in his very first sermon, when 
 he tells his fellow-countrymen that the promise is to them 
 and to their children, and to all £ that are afar off, even as 
 many as the Lord our God shall call ’ ? or how else shall we 
 give its full significance to his language in another very early 
 discourse, in which, after speaking of the promise to Abraham 
 as that of a blessing to all the kindreds of the earth, he adds : 
 ‘to you first, God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him 
 to bless you in turning away every one of you from his 
 iniquities ’ ? 
 
 The question then with the Apostles, I conceive, was not 
 at all whether the Mosaic law was properly speaking any 
 condition of Christian life. For upon this subject they 
 seem to have been quite clearly determined that it was not, 
 and that the sole condition of such life was repentance and 
 faith in Christ ; but the question was, whether any but the 
 previous subjects of the theocracy were at that time capable 
 of having this life offered to and received by them. No man 
 would say that attaining a certain stage of civilisation was, 
 properly speaking, a condition of justification, yet many have 
 doubted whether mere savages are capable of that faith in 
 Christianity which is the true condition of justification. And 
 with this view the language of the brethren who came with 
 Peter to Cornelius, when they saw the Holy Ghost imparted 
 to the Centurion and his family, appears to me remarkably to 
 harmonise. 4 Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted 
 repentance unto life.’ They had no doubt that repentance 
 unto life was the substance of Christianity, and that the bless- 
 ing of the gospel covenant was a peculiar thing, and different 
 from anything contained in the Mosaic covenant ; but what 
 they are surprised at is that this peculiar blessing should have 
 been bestowed upon any who had not previously been cleansed 
 according to the Jewish ritual. They regarded the Mosaic law, 
 in short, not as a part of Christianity, but as still a necessary 
 TrcuSaywybs or preparative to the reception of Christianity. 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 S. PETER AND THE CASE OF CORNELIUS. 
 
 67 
 
 And doubtless what lay at the bottom of this mistake was 
 the fact that they did not see clearly, what Paul’s mind so 
 firmly grasped, the great truth that from the very nature of 
 the Jewish law, its religious obligation necessarily ceased upon 
 the promulgation of Christianity. And accordingly you will 
 observe that it was to the removal of this fundamental error 
 that the vision which prepared Peter for the baptism of 
 Cornelius was addressed. The Apostle is prepared to receive 
 a Gentile into the Church by being informed that upon him- 
 self, though a Jew, the distinction between clean and unclean 
 meats is no longer obligatory. c What God hath cleansed, 
 that call not thou common.’ Yet, even after this great revela- 
 tion, it does not appear that Peter’s mind was fully prepared 
 for the immediate extension of the principle to all its con- 
 sequences — to such consequences as were fully developed in 
 Paul’s ministry — the call of the idolatrous Gentiles, and the 
 gospel’s becoming of itself and immediately the means of 
 ‘ turning men from darkness unto light, and from the power 
 of Satan unto God.’ He does not at first appear to have 
 carried it farther himself than to perceive that the particular 
 class of Gentiles — call them what you will — proselytes of the 
 gate, devout men, pious men, that particular class of Gentiles 
 who reverenced the God of Israel and practised the require- 
 ments of the Mosaic law, were capable of citizenship in the 
 kingdom of heaven. c Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
 respecter of persons, but that, in every nation, he that feareth 
 Him and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.’ And 
 it was plainly, I think, of this class, and of this alone, in- 
 cluding under this notion the Samaritans, that the Gentile 
 Christians were composed until the memorable turning of 
 Paul to the heathen. 
 
 Upon the whole then, I think it must be plain to any 
 candid examiner that though there was much imperfection in 
 the views of the Apostles at first, yet it was the result not so 
 much of any positive error, as of a failing to perceive all the 
 just consequences of a correct principle, already correctly 
 
68 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 apprehended, that the gospel was from the first conceived of 
 as a blessing quite distinct from and superior to anything 
 which came through the law, — and that the teaching of the 
 early founders of the Church in Jerusalem was essentially 
 distinguished from that Ebionite system which regarded 
 Christianity as little more than a purification of Judaism, 
 a clear exposition of the law, and an accomplishing of its 
 proper work. 
 
 The charge against Stephen, we know, was that he had 
 spoken blasphemous things against the Holy Place and 
 against God, and the charge was supported by the allegation of 
 his having taught that Jesus of Nazareth should destroy this 
 place and change the customs which Moses had delivered. 
 
 Now it is true that the witnesses upon this occasion are 
 expressly called c false witnesses ’ ; but I agree with Neander, 
 and indeed I believe with most commentators, in referring 
 this rather to the malicious turn given to his words, as if 
 spoken in contempt of the Mosaic institution, than to the 
 mere matter of the allegation. Nor can I easily explain the 
 drift of Stephen’s own speech (a defence we must remember 
 interrupted by the clamour of his judges, and of which we 
 have as it were only the premises without the conclusion), 
 without supposing that he was preparing to show that a great 
 change of dispensation did not necessarily involve any dis- 
 respect to institutions which would be removed by such a 
 change. I cannot, I say, understand the drift of the long 
 historical detail with which he commences otherwise than as 
 intended to show that these institutions had been themselves 
 originally changes from a former state of things, changes as 
 unexpected and as distasteful as any which he was charged 
 with predicting. 
 
 If this be so, then I desire you further to consider that it 
 was with predicting such changes that Stephen was charged. 
 The alteration of the Mosaic institutions is coupled with the 
 destruction of the Holy Place, and both are spoken of as 
 future. 
 
 Now this I say suggests a view of the relations of Judaism 
 
i ect. v. FIEST CHRISTIANS UNDER TWO DIVINE ECONOMIES. 69 
 
 to Christianity which Stephen may have held, and in which 
 he may not have been so singularly distinguished as some 
 have imagined. The Apostles may have contemplated a 
 change of the institutions of Judaism, but they may have 
 contemplated it as a thing coming, not as having actually 
 arrived. They may have supposed that institutions divinely 
 ordained needed a more distinct and signal divine abrogation 
 than they had yet received. They may have expected that a 
 theocratic constitution visibly set up should be visibly taken 
 down, and thought that while its outward form still remained 
 its obligation still continued. 
 
 Men holding such a view as this would regard themselves 
 as living for the time under two divine economies, distinct 
 in their nature — the one imperfect and incapable of giving 
 life, and destined shortly to be withdrawn, the other per- 
 fect, life-giving, and permanent. The incorporation of the 
 Jewish State, as worshippers of the one God according to the 
 rites of Moses, they would regard as still continuing until 
 the sovereign of the theocracy visibly interposed to annul 
 that incorporation ; and accordingly as citizens of that com- 
 monwealth they would feel themselves under a strict obliga- 
 tion to adhere to all its institutions, but not as members of 
 the Christian Church. That Church would be, in their eyes, 
 a different corporation, established for higher purposes, and 
 capable of a much wider and freer expansion. 
 
 Thus, as I said, from the very first, the Church would 
 wear a very different aspect from that of a mere sect or 
 school of Judaism. And though there were at the com- 
 mencement little more than the rudiments of such an organi- 
 sation as would suit its further development, yet the rudiments 
 of such an organisation there were. There was the germ as 
 well as the principle of life. 
 
 Nor would it be reasonable to expect more. The New 
 Testament, as far as I can understand it, leads us to regard 
 church government not as a thing of which the model, per- 
 fectly defined, was first delivered, and then the Church built 
 up according to that model, but rather as a set of institutions 
 
70 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COUIJSK I. 
 
 growing out of the necessities of a society, according as they 
 occurred, in the course of circumstances. Bishop Horsley, 
 indeed, has an hypothesis (which like many other of his 
 hypotheses rests upon a very frail foundation), that, in the 
 forty days immediately succeeding his resurrection, our Lord 
 was engaged in delivering the rules of church government 
 to his Apostles. I do not well know what can be said in 
 favour of such a notion more than this, that, if our Lord did 
 not then deliver such rules, it is not likely that He ever 
 delivered them. But, as I do not think it likely that He ever 
 delivered them, the argument has but little weight with me, 
 especially as, while I see nothing in favour of such an idea, 1 
 see not a little against it. 
 
 If Christ, for example, had been thus employed, can we 
 doubt but that the filling up of the traitor’s place in the 
 College of Apostles would have been one of the first things 
 mentioned, or that He Himself would have been applied to 
 then to appoint a successor, or that He would have appointed 
 one, or that even if He had declined, He would yet have 
 directed His disciples how to proceed, and that, if so, Peter 
 would, when moving the matter to the rest, have referred to 
 their Master’s own express injunctions ? 
 
 But leaving conjectures and hypotheses to shift for them- 
 selves, let us confine our attention to known facts. They are 
 few indeed, and the information they afford is meagre enough. 
 But then we may be secure in relying upon that information. 
 Now if we consider the circumstances of the primitive body 
 of believers in Jerusalem, we shall see that they yield us 
 light enough to settle, with some degree of probability, some 
 highly important questions which have been raised by in- 
 quirers into Ecclesiastical history. The first thing then that 
 strikes us in this new community is the largeness of the 
 number of persons who were suddenly attached to it. ‘ Then 
 they that gladly received his word,’ says the historian, after 
 relating Peter’s first sermon, £ were baptized, and the same 
 day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.’ 
 At a later period you will remember that James speaks of 
 
LEC’T. V. 
 
 ONE CHURCH, BUT NOT ONE CONGREGATION. 7l 
 
 ‘ myriads ’ of Jews professing the faith of Christ. Now there 
 is no Christian community more distinctly spoken of in the 
 New Testament under the idea of one church than the Chris- 
 tian community in Jerusalem. And combining this circum- 
 stance last mentioned with the account of their numbers to 
 which I have just now referred, we may be led to see clearly 
 what did, and what did not, constitute the idea of a single 
 church in the minds of the apostolic writers. 
 
 It has been supposed, you know, by some, and by some 
 very diligent and acute inquirers into antiquity, that the 
 primitive idea of a single church was that of a single con- 
 gregation, meeting at one time and in one place for the exer- 
 cise of united worship. Now I think that it is impossible to 
 attach this idea to the very first community of Christians that 
 was ever gathered into a church. The theory fails in its very 
 first application to facts. 
 
 It is utterly impossible to believe that so vast a number 
 as were the first body of the disciples, such a number as even 
 three thousand souls, should have found it convenient, or even 
 safe, to meet all together in one place, every first day of the 
 week, for the exercise of united Christian worship. Nor is 
 there the slightest intimation that they did so. It is said in- 
 deed that they continued in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
 ship, and in the breaking of bread and in prayer. But it is 
 not implied by that, that this breaking of bread and prayer 
 took place upon one spot, and in an assembly of the whole 
 body at once. On the contrary, we are expressly told, a little 
 after, that they broke bread in their several houses ; so that 
 the idea which would be really presented to us, would be rather 
 that of a number of small private and almost family assem- 
 blies, in which the Eucharist was not, as in after times, pre- 
 cisely separated from the Agape or friendly meal, designed 
 literally for the refreshment of the body as well as for the 
 cultivation of fraternal feelings, and of which this memorial 
 of their Master formed, as at its first institution, the conclusion ; 
 I say the idea of Christian fellowship would rather be this 
 than that of a single assembly collected at stated intervals 
 
72 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSK I. 
 
 in one place, for the regular performance of united acts of 
 worship. 
 
 The sort of meetings indicated would be rather such as 
 we find spoken of afterwards in chap. xii. 12, where we 
 are told that many were collected in the house of Mark’s 
 mother, engaged in prayer. The unity or fellowship, then, 
 between the whole body did not consist in their forming 
 literally a single congregation, but, as it appears to me, in 
 their forming a single community, that is, in the closeness of 
 their mutual intercourse, in their common dependence upon 
 the same teachers, in their close sense of a common interest, 
 and in their taking measures by their common consent for 
 the spiritual and temporal well-being of each other. 
 
 It does, I think, enter into the Scriptural idea of a single 
 church, that the relationship between the members should be 
 so close as to give them this sort of unity ; to make them 
 one society of members very intimately connected, so as to be 
 able easily to take measures in concert for the maintenance 
 of their common interests. Now how large or how small 
 such a body should be in order to conserve this idea — how 
 closely concentred or how widely diffused — these are plainly 
 things which must depend upon circumstances, and will vary 
 with circumstances ; and therefore I think that it is idle to 
 look for any exact measure of them. Where circumstances 
 facilitate, still more where they seem even to require, a very 
 close connection of a great number of persons, over a con- 
 siderable space, there I can see no reason from Scriptural 
 precedent for denying the possibility of such persons com- 
 posing a single church. And where, on the other hand, 
 outward circumstances of any kind make it difficult for even 
 neighbours in position to maintain that close connection 
 which seems necessary to constitute them one community, 
 there 1 think such circumstances seem to require that they 
 should form themselves into separate churches. 
 
 But much confusion of ideas in this case has arisen, as 
 it appears to me, from the ambiguity of the word i/c/cXyo-ia, 
 which is sometimes taken in a wider, and sometimes in a 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 MANNER OF SETTLING AFFAIRS OF THE CHURCH. 73 
 
 stricter sense. Sometimes it denotes a meeting of persons 
 actually assembled, and sometimes a number of persons who 
 might and did at times assemble together for a common 
 purpose. In this latter sense you know it is applied in the 
 Septuagint very frequently to the assembly or congregation 
 of Israel ; and in this sense I think it is applied to the body 
 of believers in Jerusalem, and in other large cities — not mean- 
 ing that the whole multitude actually met together every 
 Lord’s day for the common celebration of the rites of religion 
 in one place, but that they formed such a community as 
 regulated their own affairs by the general concert of all the 
 members, who, when it was necessary, were invited to de- 
 liberate together. I agree with Mosheim, however, in think- 
 ing it not likely that, in point of fact, the whole body of 
 male adult members often, or perhaps ever, actually assembled 
 together, where the numbers were very great, upon such 
 occasions. Perhaps, as he conjectures, there may have been 
 some rough system of representation. But if so, it must be 
 confessed that there remain in history no traces of such a 
 system. And perhaps there is no necessity for recurring to 
 such a supposition at all. A very slight practical experience 
 of public meetings will suffice to show us that where the 
 number of persons having a right to attend them is very 
 large, the same inconveniences do not follow as we might at 
 first be led to anticipate. A considerable proportion of those 
 who have a right to attend do not attend. There is a prac- 
 tical, though not a formal, delegation of the interests of the 
 community to those who have most zeal and are supposed to 
 have most ability for conducting the matter in hand ; and the 
 whole body are not unreasonably treated as coinciding in the 
 decisions of an assembly consisting perhaps actually of a small 
 portion of it, because that assembly is, in the nature of it, an 
 open assembly, where anyone may, if he choose, come in and 
 object to the decisions. Everyone knows that in general 
 meetings of the citizens of a town, or even the members of a 
 single parish, the difficulty is rather to get together a sufficient 
 number than to prevent too large an assembly ; and even 
 
74 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 where great interest is felt very generally in the objects of 
 such a meeting, the known capacity of the place where it is 
 to be held, the known limits to the powers of the human 
 voice, operate as checks to prevent too great a gathering. 
 (Athens. 1 ) 
 
 Another consideration is that it is not necessary to be 
 supposed that upon these occasions everything was decided 
 on in one assembly. The first meeting, though not composed 
 of the whole body, would afford an opportunity of publication, 
 would make the matter generally known to all interested 
 in it, and thus, by talking over it among themselves, the 
 whole body might quietly have an opportunity of forming 
 their opinions upon it, and letting those opinions be under- 
 stood by each other and by their elders. I am inclined, there- 
 fore, on the whole, to think that in large towns the little 
 c church ’ (ecclesia) had reference rather to a virtual than to 
 an actual assembly of all the members. 
 
 1 This mention of Athens was evidently intended to remind the 
 Lecturer to illustrate what he had been saying by the example of the 
 Athenian Assembly. It was found necessary, in order to secure a good 
 attendance, to make a small payment to those who came, and to impose a 
 fine upon absentees. It was customary also to sweep the Agora with a 
 rope, in order to gather in those who might not escape by running away. 
 (See Smith’s Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant. s.v. ‘Ecclesia,’ p. 441). — Editors. 
 
75 
 
 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 APOSTOLIC COMMUNICATION OF SUPERNATURAL 
 
 GIFTS— THE SAMARITANS AND SIMON MAGUS. 
 
 Gentlemen, — The subject with which we were occupied in 
 the last lecture naturally conducts us to consider that great 
 development of the Church which took place by the calling 
 in of the Gentiles. But before taking up that important 
 topic, there is an intermediate stage of the progress of the 
 gospel which requires to be briefly noticed— I mean the con- 
 version of the Samaritans. When we reflect upon the bitter 
 hostility with which the Jews regarded these — their noncon- 
 formist neighbours — we may be at first a little surprised to 
 observe the readiness with which the church at Jerusalem 
 agreed to receive the Samaritans into the Christian fraternity. 
 Jewish prejudice was in some respects much stronger against 
 the Samaritans than against the Gentiles ; from that well- 
 known tendency of human nature which gave occasion to the 
 old Greek proverb, ‘ that cruel are the wars of brothers.’ 
 
 But we must remember that a special preparation had 
 been made for the case of the Samaritans during the period 
 of our Lord’s own personal ministry. The Apostles could 
 not but remember how freely their Master had conversed with 
 this despised people, and how readily the Samaritans had 
 received and owned Him at a time when the more orthodox 
 part of Israel rejected him, generally with disdain ; they could 
 not but remember the parable in which he had expressly 
 taught them to extend the friendly rights of neighbourhood 
 to these, schismatics as they were ; nor could they have for- 
 gotten the rebuke with which He checked the impetuous zeal 
 
76 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 of J ames and J ohn, when they proposed to call down fire from 
 heaven to punish the heretical obstinacy of men who would 
 lend no aid to pilgrims hastening to Jerusalem. 
 
 Indeed, it is instructive to remark that it was one of these 
 very e sons of thunder ’ who, upon the present occasion, was 
 deputed along with Peter to confirm the Samaritan con- 
 verts. It was now John’s office to call down upon the Sama- 
 ritans a very different fire from that which he had before 
 wished to invoke upon their heads. 
 
 And if we lay out of consideration those irrational pre- 
 judices against the mere race of the Samaritans which our 
 Lord Himself had taken so much pains to extirpate from the 
 disciples’ minds, we shall find that there could remain but 
 little more in the way of obstacle to their reception into 
 communion with the Church. The question of circumcision 
 could not here have place, as the Samaritans were already 
 circumcised. Epiphanius indeed has a story, not easily in- 
 telligible, about the Jews insisting upon a second circumcision 
 in the case of Samaritan proselytes . 1 But this rule, if indeed 
 there ever was such a rule, had reference, I suppose, to later 
 times than those which we are now considering It is con- 
 ceivable that, after the Jewish war, the Samaritans, who were 
 always too apt to comply with heathen prejudices, and who 
 identified themselves with, or separated themselves from, the 
 Jews very much as circumstances rendered it expedient, may 
 have performed this rite in so slight a manner as to make 
 it possible to efface the vestiges of it. Indeed we know that 
 even in the case of Jews themselves this was sometimes pos- 
 sible ; because we know from the express testimony of the 
 Book of Maccabees, from Josephus, from the rabbis, and 
 from the casual reference in Paul’s Epistles, that it was not 
 unfrequently attempted, and with success. But, from this 
 very circumstance, we may conclude that the severe precau- 
 tions against it which now form part of the Jewish ritual had 
 a later origin than the apostolic times; and that, in those 
 times, even a Pharisee would have, without hesitation, recog- 
 nised the Samaritan circumcision as sufficient. 
 
 1 De Menmris et Ponder ib us, xvi. 
 
LKCT. VI. 
 
 RECEPTION OE THE SAMARITANS. 
 
 77 
 
 Then as to the essential points of difference between the 
 Jews and the Samaritans, the very circumstance of conversion 
 to the Christian faith, especially by Jewish teachers, and 
 above all the recognition of the Apostles, who were all Jews, 
 as the accredited expounders of true religion, would amount 
 in themselves to an absolute surrender of heterodoxy on the 
 part of the Samaritans. It would seem as if Christianity, in- 
 stead of recognising a schism by admitting the Samaritans 
 within its pale, was in reality healing one, and accomplishing 
 the prophetic intimation that 1 the envy of Ephraim should 
 depart, that Ephraim should no longer envy Judah, and 
 Judah should no longer vex Ephraim.’ 
 
 Still, however, doubtless the reception of the Samaritans, 
 the extension of the Christian Church into a region which 
 lay so completely out of the pale of orthodox Judaism, was a 
 remarkable breaking down of old barriers, and a preparation 
 for that free recognition of universal brotherhood which the 
 Church was soon to adopt in all its liberality. 
 
 But before quitting this part of the subject, there are 
 two circumstances connected with the narrative of the conver- 
 sion of the Samaritans on which I must say a few words ; 
 because though not bearing directly on our present imme- 
 diate object of tracing the development of the Church into a 
 universal society, they touch very closely upon some other 
 important topics which will meet us hereafter, and claim a 
 fuller consideration. One is the imparting of the Holy Ghost 
 by the imposition of the Apostles’ hands, the other is the cha- 
 racter of Simon Magus. 
 
 In the mission of the two Apostles, Peter and John, to 
 impart the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit to the already 
 baptized converts, divines have generally agreed to recognise 
 indications of a law which ordinarily limited the transmis- 
 sion of such wonderful endowments to the Apostles as the 
 only channels through whom they could be communicated. 
 It is, indeed, I think, not a little remarkable that, notwith- 
 standing the way in which our Lord Himself couples together 
 water and the Holy Spirit, notwithstanding the complete 
 efficacy attributed so often in Scripture to the rite of bap- 
 
78 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 tism as giving the recipients a full title to all the privileges 
 of church membership, the external manifestation of the 
 presence of the Holy Spirit by miraculous powers is never 
 made in or through baptism alone. The Holy Ghost, in this 
 sense, is sometimes given before, and generally after baptism, 
 never in baptism ; and where its bestowal is connected with 
 any. outward rite at ail, it is with the imposition of hands. 
 
 This appears to me to look like a special arrangement for 
 distinguishing the two ideas of the miraculous gifts, and of 
 the sanctifying influence, of the Holy Ghost, and facilitating 
 the ultimate withdrawing of the former without shaking the 
 Church’s faith in the abiding presence of the latter. Had 
 the bestowal of the miraculous gifts been immediately con- 
 nected with the rite of baptism, it seems to me that very 
 great inconveniences would have been the result. They 
 would, I think, in such a case as I have just hinted, have been 
 indissolubly associated in men’s minds with that sanctifying 
 presence of the same Divine Agent, of which baptism is the 
 sacrament ; they would have been deemed the outward tokens, 
 the symptoms as it were, of regeneration. And this would 
 have tended to foster a perilous error while they continued to 
 be given, and to suggest a still more perilous one when they 
 were withdrawn. While they continued to be given in 
 baptism, it could hardly be avoided that men should either 
 regard them as a guarantee that all who received the out- 
 ward and visible sign were partakers of the sanctifying inward 
 grace, or that the sanctifying grace should be wholly lost 
 sight of in its showy external token, and gifts themselves 
 should thus come practically to be regarded as the grace of 
 baptism. And, with such a view taken of them during their 
 continuance, what could have been the effect of their with- 
 drawal but to create a general impression that the Holy 
 Spirit had entirely withdrawn from the Church ? If once 
 intimately associated in men’s minds with a rite of universal 
 necessity and permanent obligation, with a sacrament pro- 
 perly so-called, I think this must have been the inevitable 
 consequence of their withdrawal, whether regarded as the 
 
lect. vi. MIRACULOUS GIFTS IMPARTED ONLY BY APOSTLES. 79 
 
 symptoms of regeneration or as regeneration itself. This 
 marked separation, then, of the visible from the invisible gifts 
 of the Spirit, this attaching of the former to one rite, and 
 the latter to another, was an important safeguard against a 
 dangerous error in the apostolic time, and against perhaps a 
 still more dangerous one in the age immediately succeeding. 
 The disconnection of the miraculous powers from baptism 
 was, as it seems to me, even by itself, a manifest preparation 
 for their withdrawal. 
 
 But this preparation was made more complete and signal 
 by the additional circumstance that the performance of the 
 separate rite by which the miraculous gifts were bestowed 
 was made the exclusive privilege of the Apostles. By this 
 means, not only was the bestowal of the gifts more clearly 
 distinguished from the ordinary and perpetual rites of the 
 Church by being vested in a small order of men, who could 
 not be always and everywhere at hand, but the provision for 
 its withdrawal was brought more plainly under the notice of 
 Christians. The vocation of the Apostles must have been 
 seen from the first to have been peculiar, and not intended to 
 be perpetuated in the full plenitude of its privileges, for it 
 clearly entered into the idea of qualification for the apostolic 
 office, that the person bearing it should be an actual witness 
 of the resurrection, that he should have personally seen the 
 Lord after His resurrection from the dead. ‘ Wherefore,’ 
 says Peter, 1 of these men which have companied with us all 
 the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us 7 
 beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day 
 when He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a 
 witness with us of His resurrection.’ ‘ Am not I also an 
 Apostle,’ says Paul ; ‘ have not I seen Jesus Christ ? ’ 1 Last 
 
 of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.’ 
 Laying these and many other similar passages together, we 
 perceive clearly that it was indispensable for an Apostle that 
 he should have seen Christ after His resurrection, that in 
 every other case but Paul’s the Apostles had the further 
 qualification of having been our Lord’s intimate personal 
 
80 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 companions while He was on earth, and that the dispensing 
 with this latter condition in Paul’s case was regarded as 
 something extraordinary and singular — a privilege and not a 
 precedent — and from these premises it is not difficult to infer 
 that the College of Apostles was not intended to be perpetuated 
 by a continual succession. In confining, then, the regular 
 bestowal of the miraculous gifts to this small number of 
 persons, marked with so peculiar a character, an indication 
 was, as I have said, given from the first of the temporary 
 nature of such endowments in the Church. As other inferior 
 Evangelists pushed on the publication of the gospel in 
 advance of the Apostles, churches would be formed even 
 in their lifetime in possession of all the ordinary means of 
 grace, though for a long time, as appears to have been the 
 case with the church of Rome, destitute of the miraculous 
 gifts, because long unvisited by an Apostle ; and as, one by 
 one, the Apostles retired from the scene, and left no suc- 
 cessors in the plenitude of their office, the channels which fed 
 the stream of miraculous power would be visibly stopped, and 
 the means of perpetuating the supply withdrawn. 
 
 Let me add to the foregoing observations that the cir- 
 cumstance upon which I have been dwelling is one out of a 
 vast number of little traits of genuineness, slight perhaps in 
 themselves, taken separately, but surely not slight in their 
 united mass, which a careful scrutiny will discover in the 
 sacred narrative, and which form a strong argument against 
 the mythic origin of that narrative. A mythic fancy work- 
 ing upon our Lord’s command to baptize all nations, and the 
 accompanying promise that miraculous signs should attend 
 as symptoms (for the word 7 TapaKo\ov 07 jasL seems in 
 such a connection almost a technical term of medicine) 
 — should attend as symptoms those who believed and were 
 baptized, would never have been naturally led to work out 
 such a representation of the phenomena which fulfilled it as 
 we find in the Acts and the Apostolic Epistles. A mythic 
 fancy, working upon the data that baptism made men 
 members of the Church, that the Church was the temple of 
 
LECT. VI. ‘ ACTS ’ WRITTEN BEFORE CESSATION OF GIFTS. 8 1 
 
 the Holy Ghost, and that His presence revealed itself in out- 
 ward miraculous signs, would never have been naturally led 
 to associate these signs with a distinct rite from baptism, but, 
 on the contrary, would naturally have associated them with 
 baptism, and represented them as the regular attendants upon 
 church membership. To account for a departure from this, 
 the natural development of the myth, it may indeed be sup- 
 posed that some such view as that which I have been laying 
 before you modified its natural development, that the framer 
 of it felt that the withdrawal of the gifts was a difficulty to be 
 explained, and therefore shaped his history so as to prepare 
 for it. But had this been the case it is difficult to believe that 
 some consciousness of such a difficulty would not have betrayed 
 itself, and it is incredible that no connection should have been 
 marked between the difficulty and the explanation, or that no 
 traces should remain to betray the fact that the writer or the 
 inventor lived at a time when such miraculous phenomena 
 were no longer existing, or at least claimed as existing, in the 
 Church. The withdrawal of the miraculous gifts, you will 
 remember, is a circumstance not once even hinted at in the 
 Acts, it is a fact which we gather from quite different sources, 
 while the other fact, now under consideration, and which so 
 exactly tallies with it, is brought out quite independently in 
 the natural course of a plain narrative, and in a manner 
 which betrays not the least suspicion of its having this, or 
 indeed any bearing, upon the after-history of the Church. 
 Nor is the limitation of the bestowal of the gifts to the 
 Apostles ever expressly asserted, or pressed in any way on 
 the reader’s notice. It is merely collected from scattered 
 incidents, alluded to as a thing already known, presupposed, 
 and implied, not related. All this is manifestly inconsis- 
 tent with the supposition of its having been imagined for 
 the purpose of accounting for such a difficulty, while, on the 
 other hand, it is just what might be expected in a true nar- 
 rative of real occurrences, written at a time when no such 
 difficulty was felt, because the circumstances which were likely 
 to create it had not yet arisen. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 Let me add, still further, that the arrangement now under 
 consideration seems to me to tell with still greater force 
 against the Rationalists than against the Mythics. If the so- 
 called miraculous gifts were nothing more than the natural 
 results of a certain highly raised state of religious enthusiasm, 
 the vehement gestures and strange utterances which attend a 
 state of mental excitement, or such phenomena, whatever they 
 are, as Neander so obscurely intimates as the results of the 
 new feelings of a Christian, how are we to explain the fact 
 that nothing of this kind appeared, in even one single instance, 
 among the Samaritan converts after their baptism by Philip 
 until the visit of the two Apostles, and that such phenomena 
 did immediately appear when the Apostles laid their hands 
 upon them ? One cannot but pity the manifest perplexity and 
 distress of Neander upon this occasion, and wonder at the 
 desperate expedients which he is content to resort to rather 
 than abandon an absurd and indeed scarce intelligible theory. 
 The facts are against him ; but 1 so much the worse for the 
 facts,’ and finding them obstinate in their refusal to surrender, 
 he cuts them down without mercy, and substitutes in their 
 place a little romance of his own, which as far as I can see 
 has no one merit to recommend it. It is neither probable, 
 nor ingenious, nor amusing. Neander, i., pp. 70, 71. 1 
 
 ’ This passage was probably read at the lecture. A few sentences 
 from it will suffice. ‘ As the ancient prejudice against the despised 
 Samaritans had not quite worn away, and no account had been received 
 that, among the baptized believers, those wonderful works were mani- 
 fested which since the day of Pentecost were considered as necessary 
 concomitants of a reception into the Christian communion, the Apostles 
 Peter and John were sent thither to investigate what had transpired, and, 
 by virtue of their apostolic calling, to complete whatever might be wanting 
 for the establishment of a Christian community. We find in the narrative 
 of the Acts no reason to impute the want of those operations of the Divine 
 Spirit among the Samaritans in any degree to Philip’s being only a deacon, 
 as if he could not found a Christian society, and by preaching the gospel, 
 and by prayer in the name of Christ, produce effects similar to those 
 wrought by the Apostles. . . . The effects to which we refer proceeded from 
 the power of a living consciousness of redemption obtained, and at the 
 commencement of the new spiritual creation were a mark of vital Christianity. 
 
 . . . . But among these Samaritans, the feeling of their religious and 
 moral necessities, which living faith in the Redeemer presupposes and 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 THE OFFER OF SIMON MAGUS. 
 
 83 
 
 Really I should find it more easy to digest some of the 
 legends in the Breviary, than to believe that this was the 
 meaning, or anything like the meaning, of Luke’s narrative. 
 
 Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. 
 
 To suppose that a man of Simon Magus’s temper would 
 have offered hard cash to the Apostles in order to purchase 
 the power of working such effects as Neander thinks the 
 spiritual gifts to have been, is to suppose something vastly im- 
 probable ; but at any rate one thing seems plain in the matter, 
 namely, that the magician imagined the gifts to be properly 
 the result of the imposition of the Apostles’ hands, that the 
 Apostles really conferred them, and that they had the exclu- 
 sive power of conferring them. And to such a proposal the 
 answer of Peter is pertinent, clear, and precise — ‘ Thy money 
 perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God 
 may be purchased with money ! ’ He does not, you perceive, 
 correct Simon’s view of the nature of the power, but only 
 repudiates with indignation the thought of its being pur- 
 chasable. 
 
 unites with, was not yet awakened in consequence of their being drawn 
 aside and disturbed by the influence of Simon. . . . They had not yet 
 attained to the consciousness of a vital communion with the Christ 
 whom Philip preached, nor yet to the consciousness of a personal divine 
 life. ... We have not a full account in the Acts of what was done by 
 Peter and John, but simply the general results. No doubt those Apostles 
 carried on the work of Philip by preaching and prayer .... employing the 
 usual sign of Christian consecration by imposition of hands. Manifestations 
 now followed similar to those on the day of Pentecost. But Simon was 
 naturally incapable of understanding the spiritual connection of those 
 manifestations. . . . Hence he imagined that the Apostles might com- 
 municate these magical powers to him also, by virtue of which all those 
 on whom he laid hands would become filled with divine power, and with 
 this view offered them money. . . . Peter’s terrible rebuke presents him to 
 us as a faithful preacher of the gospel, insisting most impressively on the 
 supreme importance of disposition in everything which is imparted by 
 Christianity, in opposition to the art of magic which disregards the 
 necessary connection of the divine and supernatural with the disposition of 
 the heart. . . . These were Peter’s words ; “ Thy gold etc.,” ’ as quoted in 
 the text. These extracts are taken from the translation published by 
 Clark in 1842, to the pages of which the reference was made in the 
 lecture itself. — Editors. 
 
84 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 But how different is the gloss which Neander seeks to put 
 upon Peter’s reply. 1 These/ says he, 1 were Peter’s words — 
 “ Thy gold perish with thee.” Do not deceive thyself as if with 
 this disposition thou couldst have any part in what is promised 
 to believers.’ 
 
 Really this is not exegesis, but eisegesis. It is not 
 bringing out the writer’s meaning, but bringing in the 
 commentator’s. 
 
 Sometimes, when a meaning is thus unceremoniously 
 introduced, it suits so well with its new company and falls 
 with such natural ease into its usurped place, that one is half- 
 tempted to pardon the intrusion and welcome the stranger 
 as if he were the legitimate guest. 
 
 But this is certainly not the case in the present instance. 
 There might, upon Neander’s theory, be some semblance of 
 pertinency in the reply which he puts into Peter’s mouth, if 
 the magician’s proposal had been to buy the gifts themselves, 
 because these, on Neander’s view, would be the natural results 
 and tokens of a Christian disposition, and therefore incapable 
 of being bought and sold. But it is manifest and confessed 
 that it was not these, but the power of conferring them, that 
 Simon wished to buy. This power therefore it must be which 
 Peter means by the ‘ gift of God ’ ; and if so, it is manifest 
 that, instead of correcting Simon’s notion that the endow- 
 ments in question were really conferred by the Apostles, he 
 admits it, and sanctions what Neander is bound to regard as a 
 mistaken view of the whole transaction. The course of these 
 observations has thus led us to take notice of the remarkable 
 person of whom we have been just speaking, Simon Magus ; 
 but the extent of them has left us little room for enlarging 
 upon his character and history at any great length. 
 
 Simon has not escaped the hands of the Malthusian 
 critics to whom I have already more than once alluded. They 
 have endeavoured to identify him with a Jew of the same 
 name, a sort of pandar of Felix, the governor of Judaea, who, 
 amongst other disreputable acquirements, affected the reputa- 
 tion of skill in magic. 
 
LECT. VI. WITH WHOM IS SIMON TO BE IDENTIFIED. 
 
 85 
 
 Now it is certain that, at the time in question, there was 
 abundance of such dealers in magic throughout Palestine, and 
 it would not at all surprise me to find that at least a dozen of 
 them were Simons. And since we learn from Josephus that 
 Felix ’ convenient assistant in his love intrigues was by birth 
 a Cyprian, a suitable country enough for a man of his turn, 
 while Justin Martyr, himself a Samaritan, assures us that 
 Simon Magus was a fellow-countryman of his own, and even 
 names the obscure village Gittim where this portentous cub 
 was whelped, the two magicians seem to be as plainly distin- 
 guished as any two men of the same trade and same name 
 can be. I know that very high authorities have declared on 
 the other side ; but I cannot see that mere identity of name 
 and profession, in the case of a very common name and very 
 common profession, is any sufficient ground for setting aside 
 the distinct testimony of competent witnesses. 
 
 But how various are the freaks of an over-luxuriant criti- 
 cism ! While some are engaged in thinning the list of vaga- 
 bonds by identifying the Simon of the Acts with the Simon of 
 Josephus, others are resolved to compensate the loss by dis- 
 tinguishing the Simon of the Acts from the Simon of later 
 Ecclesiastical history. This notion, however, has been so 
 decisively refuted by Mosheim, in the second volume of his 
 ‘ Dissertation on Ecclesiastical History ’ that I think it not 
 necessary to dwell upon it at present. 
 
 I have said that there were at this time in Palestine many 
 such magicians as Simon. But I would not be understood to 
 limit the remark to Palestine. The truth is that the Roman 
 world was at this time beginning to be full of them. The 
 age of which we speak was one of those, periodically recurring 
 in the history of mankind, when men, wearied out with mere 
 secular matters on the one hand, and sceptical speculations 
 on the other, fling themselves for relief into a credulous 
 pursuit of the supernatural and extravagant. It was, like 
 our own, an age of quacks. And this you will observe was 
 one of the great difficulties which Christianity had to en- 
 counter, and which it never could have surmounted if its 
 
86 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 character had been the same as that of the thousand forms 
 of imposture by which it was surrounded. The temper 
 of the times might have lent it some support at first ; but 
 such a temper, being really a craving for excitement, is ever 
 fickle and uncertain, and the very opposite of that serious, 
 earnest, single-minded faith which the gospel demanded and 
 received. Had the Apostles been thaumaturgists of the same 
 class as Simon the Samaritan, or Alexander of Aboniteichos, 
 or Apollonius of Tyana, they would have been lost, like 
 them, after a while in the whirling vortex which soon en- 
 gulfs the outworn fashions of a season. The next raree- 
 show of wonders would have drawn away all their admirers 
 to some greater novelty, and left the Christian schools as 
 empty as the deserted walks of the Lyceum. Even as it was 
 there was great danger — from the mere circumstance that 
 both claimed supernatural powers — that the first teachers of 
 them would be confounded with a class of men whom people 
 followed only for a sort of amusement, and upon whose tricks 
 it was soon felt that no stable religious system could be based. 
 Indeed, if we consider it carefully, the Gnostical system is a 
 proof of the strong impression which Christianity very early 
 made as a new influence of extraordinary power, and dis- 
 tinguished in a marked manner from the rival systems which 
 were continually rising and falling around it. Gnosticism 
 was not, properly speaking, a Christian heresy; it was the 
 form which a pre-existing theosophy took in consequence of 
 the new stimulus which Christianity contributed. And it is 
 a remarkable thing, therefore, that such a large number of 
 founders of Gnostical schools should have found themselves 
 coerced into dealing some way or other with the facts of 
 Christianity, and making its phenomena, however mutilated, 
 a portion of the phenomena with which their systems were 
 to deal. Our habitual mode of regarding these men as 
 merely Christian heretics, deprives their testimony of its due 
 weight in this way : — we think of them ordinarily as persons 
 who, having first embraced Christianity, were afterwards led 
 astray by the influence of philosophy. But in many cases 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 GNOSTICISM PRECEDED CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 87 
 
 the converse of this would be the more correct representation. 
 In many cases the Gnostics were philosophers in the first 
 instance, upon whom Christianity came from without, and 
 whom it impelled to feel its force. The extent therefore to 
 which the new principles of Christianity modified in the 
 shape of Gnosticism the prevalent theosophy of this and the 
 succeeding ages, is a clear proof that in Christianity some 
 unusual power was exerted, and that this religion was dis- 
 tinguished in kind among its numerous competitors. Simon 
 himself is, I think, correctly regarded by the Fathers as the 
 very first Gnostic ; he is in this respect a progenitor of 
 Gnosticism, in the sense of having given the first example 
 of it ; though I think it must be conceded that, in their 
 anxiety to make out a discreditable pedigree to the Gnostic 
 teachers, the Fathers have generally ascribed a more extensive 
 direct influence upon his successors to Simon’s teaching than 
 it really exercised. Not, however, that I am at all inclined 
 to sympathise with those who would have us regard the 
 Simon Magus of Ecclesiastical history as almost, if not quite, 
 a mere mythical personage, the hero of a cycle of romantic 
 legends. Doubtless there is a good deal of fable connected 
 with the story of his adventures, but nevertheless I think 
 that the Simon of Ecclesiastical history was a real person and 
 a very considerable person ; and that much of his history is 
 genuine history. The late discovery of the work of Hippolytus 
 — if Hippolytus’ it be — against heresies, is sufficient to show 
 us that the Fathers, in speaking of Simon Magus, had much 
 larger and more correct information to guide them than some 
 supercilious critics of their works were willing to allow. 
 Into this part of the subject, however, I do not intend at 
 present to enter ; what I wish you now to observe is that 
 the case of Simon furnishes us with an illustration of the 
 remarks I have been just making upon the case of Gnostic 
 teachers in general. Simon had come forward as the founder 
 of a philosophico-religious school before he encountered the 
 influences of Christianity, and it seems, as far as we can 
 judge, that the main outlines of his system were the same 
 
88 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 before he incorporated Christian elements into it as they 
 were afterwards. Such a system was not unlikely to originate 
 among Samaritans. The Samaritan faith, as I have already 
 hinted, was a very different thing from that stern fidelity with 
 which the body of the Jewish people adhered to the religion 
 of Moses. The Samaritans’ faith seems rather to have re- 
 sembled the more yielding, imaginative faith of the pagans, 
 preserving in this respect a strong tincture from the spirit of 
 their heathen ancestors. The Samaritan Pentateuch, which, 
 oddly enough, once found so favourable a reception amongst 
 the half-learned Hebrew critics of the last generation, appears 
 to me, and I believe to most competent judges of the present 
 day, a thoroughgoing and unscrupulous recasting of the ori- 
 ginal text to suit the a priori requirements of an imperious 
 but shallow criticism. In the Samaritan Version the hand of 
 the falsifier appears still more undisguisedly, and there is 
 throughout it that continual effort to substitute angelic for 
 Divine agency, which seems to betray the presence of prin- 
 ciples essentially Gnostic, principles which led men to regard 
 the Supreme as a Being entirely withdrawn from the sphere 
 of mundane activity, and to look upon inferior intelligences 
 as the contrivers and managers of the religious dispensations 
 under which mankind had lived. But it is in the strange 
 chronicle which they substituted for all the later part of the 
 sacred canon that the mythical character of the Samaritans 
 is most distinctly revealed, and I question whether, even in 
 the Breviary itself, a stranger heap of legendary trash was 
 ever raked together. In this, however, I may be too severe 
 upon the Samaritans ; and certainly there are legends in the 
 Martyrologies of the Greek and Latin Churches from which 
 even Samaritans might learn some new ideas of the art 
 of lying, even about their own country. You will be glad 
 to be informed, from these veracious sources, that the name 
 of the Samaritan woman with whom Christ conversed was 
 Photina ; that her sons were called Joseph and Victor ; that 
 she had three sisters, Photis, Parasceve, and Cypriaca ; and 
 that she was connected with three illustrious dukes, Sebastian, 
 
LECT. vr. 
 
 THE STORY OF PHOTINA. 
 
 89 
 
 Anatolius, and Photius. She went to Carthage in the reign 
 of Nero, and preached the gospel there ; so that the Church 
 as well as the City of Carthage owes its origin to a lady of not 
 quite unblemished reputation. She had a son who was one 
 of Nero’s generals, who commanded in a distinguished cam- 
 paign against some Spanish insurgents at Braga in Andalusia, 
 and at the same time against the Avari in the east of Europe. 
 This officer was the person who raised the Italian Band 
 of which Cornelius was a centurion, and it was called the 
 Italian Band because composed of Spaniards from the district 
 Italica. Nero it appears tried alternately tortures and bland- 
 ishments to bring over Photina and her family to paganism. 
 The result however was, instead of giving way they succeeded 
 in converting the Emperor’s daughter — a Princess Arethusa 
 concerning whom profane history is silent — one hundred young 
 ladies of the bedchamber, and Lampadius, the state magician, 
 to the Christian faith. These, with the Samaritan family, 
 were ultimately all flayed alive upon March 20, but in what 
 year is not so certain. 2 Gentlemen, you may well smile at 
 such absurdities, but a knowledge of them is not wholly 
 unprofitable. Such as these — so wild, so arbitrary, so full of 
 names unheard of elsewhere, and of customs and ideas 
 remote from the times to which they are attributed — would 
 have been our sacred books also, if like them they had been 
 mythic legends devised in ages distant from the date and 
 scene of the occurrences which they report. 
 
 2 Vide Bollandum in Actis Sanctorum , d. 20 Martii, p. 80, et tom. i. 
 Maii, p. 211. Wolf. Cur. Phil, in Joh. iv. 7 . — Editors. 
 
90 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 LECTUEE VIE 
 
 PROPER SENSE OF THE TERM DEVELOPMENT— CALL- 
 ING OF THE GENTILES AND COUNCIL AT JERU- 
 SALEM. 
 
 Gentlemen, — We digressed so much from our main sub- 
 ject towards tbe close of our last lecture, that, in commencing 
 the present one, I feel it necessary once more to remind you 
 that we are tracing the gradual expansion of the Christian 
 Church through the successive steps by which the wisdom 
 of God saw fit to perfect it. That stage in the progress of 
 this expansion which was reached in the conversion of the 
 Samaritans and their reception by the church of Jerusalem, 
 gave occasion to some remarks upon the transmission of 
 miraculous gifts through the Apostles, and upon the character 
 and circumstances of Simon Magus. These topics, however, 
 were merely incidental to our main subject, and to that I 
 desire, as soon as possible, to return. But before doing so, 
 you must permit me to guard against mistakes by a few pre- 
 liminary observations. 
 
 In treating of the expansion of the Christian Church I 
 have repeatedly called it a ‘ development of Christianity.’ 
 Now development unhappily is one of those good old words 
 which have fallen into suspicion with many from having been 
 found often of late years in bad company. Lest you should 
 suppose, then, that I was insidiously leading you into dangerous 
 ground, I think it expedient not to go farther without show- 
 ing that the developments of which I speak have scarce any- 
 thing in common but the name with those which have latterly 
 brought that name into disrepute among Protestants generally. 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT: W. ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 91 
 
 I should indeed, as I said in my first lecture, desire if 
 possible to forget entirely in the course of these researches 
 all reference to the disputes of the present ; and I confess that 
 the opportunity of doing this to a great extent is one 
 principal charm which the study of the history of past ages 
 has for myself. Others value antiquity only so far as it may 
 be connected with the stirring incidents of modern contro- 
 versy ; and with these students the occurrences and characters 
 of remote times are little better than a masquerade repre- 
 sentation of present persons and events : as Maimbourg wrote 
 a libel on the Jansenists under cover of a c History of the Great 
 Schism of the West,’ and Mitford turned the history of ancient 
 Greece into an oblique satire on the Whigs, and an oblique 
 encomium upon the Tories. ‘ Ego contra, hoc quoque laboris 
 premium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum, quae nostra tot 
 per annos vidit aetas, tantisper, certe dum prisca ilia tota mente 
 repeto, avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, 
 etsi non flectere a vero, solicitum tamen efficere possit.’ 1 
 
 But it is not always possible to indulge ourselves in this 
 way, nor is such an enjoyment quite safe when attended 
 with the danger of important misconceptions. I feel myself 
 therefore occasionally compelled to draw you aside from the 
 mere contemplation of facts, to that of inferences which may 
 be deduced from them. 
 
 In the few remarks which I am about to make, I do not 
 at all intend to enter into the controversy about developments. 
 That controversy has been already fully treated, I may say 
 indeed exhausted, in two well-known works ; the one by Dr. 
 Newman, the other by the late Mr. Archer Butler, a man 
 whose genius will be long admired, not only in this University, 
 whose fostering care he repaid by the lustre which he flung” 
 around her name, but throughout the British churches . 2 To 
 
 1 Liv. Hist. Prasf. 
 
 2 The Bishop here refers to Professor William Archer Butler’s ‘ Letters on 
 Mr. Newman’s Theory of Development,’ first printed in 1845 in the Irish 
 Ecclesiastical Journal , and afterwards published in a separate volume, — a 
 work which attracted great notice at that time, and still retains its high 
 reputation. — Editors. 
 
92 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 these works I would refer you, and if upon being thus re- 
 minded of them, I pause awhile, and suffer the feelings with 
 which I first read them to revive in my mind, it is not for the 
 purpose of adding to the controversy, but because the im- 
 pression comes back on me so forcibly that I find it hard to 
 smother it in silence. 
 
 The contrast between the two writers whom I have just 
 named is indeed striking. 
 
 Both were learned, both expert dialecticians, both masters 
 of no vulgar rhetoric. But the causes in which these potent 
 arms are wielded are not more different than the spirit which 
 actuated the combatants. One heartily believing in the power 
 of reason to elicit truth, and faithfully applying that power 
 to its discovery ; the other avowedly sceptical upon this 
 point, without faith in the efficacy of the instrument which 
 he affects to use, choosing first the object of his belief, and 
 then looking round for topics to vindicate that belief to the 
 intellects of other men. Even at first sight one is struck, 
 as in the comparison of two countenances, with the honesty 
 stamped upon the face of one work, and the duplicity which 
 lurks under the features of the other. 
 
 There is, indeed, something in Dr. Newman’s manner of 
 even approaching a subject, characteristic of the peculiarities 
 of his mind. He seems to labour under a kind of intellectual 
 squint. Partly from nature, and partly from inveterate habit, 
 he seems incapable of taking a straightforward view of any- 
 thing. The mind’s eye glances off at once from a direct 
 survey to the sides of whatever he contemplates, and, losing 
 sight of all that is most obvious to others, lights on some 
 collateral bearing, some chance-relation to accidental cir- 
 cumstances, and fastens there. This sinister power of 
 discovering, and readiness to seize, the wrong handle of every- 
 thing, is, curiously enough, what gives with many his great 
 reputation for depth of thought : just as if a man should gain 
 the character of a great navigator by going from this to 
 Holyhead by the Cape of Good Hope instead of taking the 
 direct course. The deep relations of things are to be sure not 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 DK. NEWMAN ON DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 93 
 
 obvious ; but it is only a confused judgment which thence 
 infers that the unobvious relations of things are profound. 
 A relation wholly casual is often much less obvious than a 
 necessary and essential one, nor is it depth, but a kind of 
 superficial subtlety, which is required for tracing such remote 
 but non-essential relations of things. Now with this sort of 
 superficial subtlety Dr. Newman is largely endowed. And 
 to this invaluable gift of logic, he adds a rhetorical talent 
 most serviceable to a sophist. His wares are all exhibited 
 in a many-coloured and uncertain light which makes it diffi- 
 cult to take any accurate survey of the showy fabrics which 
 the voluble and persuasive dealer displays for your custom, 
 and in this deceitful medium a thousand tricks are played 
 off which it would be no easy task to enumerate. Infinite 
 are the resources of his controversial craft, and everything is 
 continually changing shapes under his magical touch. Some- 
 times a word or two, slipped in at the right place ‘ with 
 careless heed and giddy cunning,’ carries a conclusion far 
 beyond its premises ; sometimes a dazzling illustration so 
 diverts the eye from the point of the question that it is 
 changed upon us in a twinkling before we can look round ; 
 sometimes, where the straight and beaten road leads too 
 plainly to an unwelcome position, the reader is beguiled, on 
 some specious pretext, into a trackless fairyland, and con- 
 ducted up and down its mazes till the safe highway on which 
 he started is forgotten ; while, during the whole process there 
 is such an air of unapproachable sanctity thrown around the 
 performer of this marvellous legerdemain as secures the sym- 
 pathy of the simple, and makes the very suspicion of art appear 
 little short of blasphemy. But I must remember that it is no 
 part of my present task to criticise either Dr. Newman or 
 his opponent. My business now is only to explain the nature 
 of the developments of which I am speaking, and a very 
 few words will suffice for drawing such a well-marked line 
 of distinction between these and the developments which it 
 was Dr. Newman’s aim to establish, as will readily excuse 
 me from meddling further in this much agitated controversy. 
 
94 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 The great development, then, of which I am speaking, is 
 that implied in the reception of the Gentiles into the Church 
 of God. 
 
 Now, in arriving at this conclusion the Apostles did not, 
 as I have already observed, so much work out a new truth 
 as discover a new fact. Never, from the period of the great 
 Pentecost, — never from that period, as I endeavoured to show 
 you in a previous lecture, — had they doubted that the Law 
 made no part of the covenant of salvation, or that faith in J esus 
 Christ was the one condition of that covenant. What they 
 knew not was that the time had arrived when God would 
 confer repentance unto life upon any but previous members 
 of the commonwealth of Israel. And this again seems to 
 have resulted from their ignorance of another fact, that 
 the time had arrived when the strictly religious obligation of 
 the Jewish rites upon the Jews themselves had terminated. 
 
 And secondly, the dissipating of their ignorance on these 
 points was brought about, not by. any process of metaphysi- 
 cally analysing the ideas of the Christian system, or by 
 substituting a refined consideration of what is £ congruous, 
 desirable, pious, decorous, generous ’ for strictly logical infe- 
 rences from them, which are the chief means of Dr. Newman’s 
 development, but by direct and express revelation of the Most 
 High. Peter was not left in that position of somewhat 
 questionable dignity in which Dr. Newman’s theory places his 
 pretended successors, contemplating from a safe eminence the 
 struggles of a vigorous development of doctrine as it sinks or 
 swims amidst the boisterous waves of private judgment, and 
 only then, when by the mere force of argument or sympathy 
 it has gained the reason or the feelings of the universal 
 Church to favour it, — only then, when it has beaten back the 
 billows and securely reached the shore, — stepping forward (like 
 Johnson’s patron) to encumber it with his help and give it 
 a sanction which he could no longer refuse if he would, and 
 which it no longer requires if he did. Peter was enabled 
 to lead, not to follow, the sentiments of the Church. The 
 development we are considering was not first worked out by 
 
LECT. VI t. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT HERE INTENDED. 
 
 95 
 
 the universal mind of the whole body of the Church, and then 
 solemnly sanctioned by its rulers, but it was communicated 
 in the way of direct revelation, first to its guides, and then 
 by their testimony and reasoning commended to the body of 
 believers. An emblematic vision thrice repeated (the repe- 
 tition being probably understood, according to the analogy of 
 Pharaoh’s dream, to intimate the certainty and urgency of 
 the meaning) — an emblematic vision thrice repeated conveyed 
 to Peter the assurance that the partition wall which had 
 hitherto separated Jews and Gentiles was now removed. Nor 
 was he even left to himself iti drawing the obvious inference 
 from such a vision. When the messengers come from Cor- 
 nelius a new inspiration directs him to go with the men, 
 nothing doubting, since they had in reality been sent by 
 heaven ; and when he arrives at the Centurion’s house he learns 
 that a previous independent miraculous vision had warned 
 his host to send for him. Nor is this all. While Peter is 
 executing a mission thus guaranteed by repeated miracles, 
 and before he has completed it, the Holy Spirit descends upon 
 his hearers, manifesting the presence of a divine power by 
 the same extraordinary gifts as had been bestowed upon the 
 Apostles themselves. The sternest Protestant, I think, can 
 hardly object to a development of Christian doctrine thus con- 
 ducted ; and the circumstances of it, instead of encouraging 
 us to mix up our own conclusions about what is fit and 
 decorous with the matter of divine inspiration, seem to me 
 to warn us very significantly of the danger of any such pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 But I have not even yet done with the safeguards pro- 
 vided for ascertaining this great development as a part of the 
 gospel. Previously to this express revelation made to Peter, 
 another Apostle had been called by a wonderful miracle, 
 whose vocation was specially to the Gentiles, and that voca- 
 tion was further attested by other miracles ; by a distinct in- 
 dependent revelation to Ananias marking Paul out as a chosen 
 vessel to bear Christ’s name to the Gentiles, by a second vision 
 
96 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 of Christ in the temple by Paul himself, and by the oracle 
 of the Holy Ghost addressed to the prophets at Antioch. 
 
 Nor is it only by the multitude of these separate inde- 
 pendent revelations that the certainty of this grand develop- 
 ment is guarded ; it is further carefully shielded from every 
 suspicion of having been worked out by mere reasoning in 
 the minds of those to whom the revelation was made, by the 
 peculiar circumstances of the persons selected as the receivers 
 of those revelations. Peter, the very Apostle of the Circum- 
 cision, a pillar of the church in Jerusalem, is the very 
 first person authoritatively to admit with apostolic sanc- 
 tion the uncircumcised to the full privileges of Christian 
 brotherhood. Paul, the pupil of Gamaliel, brought up in the 
 strictest prejudices of Pharisaism, is summoned, in the very 
 act of persecuting the disciples, to the work of converting 
 the outcasts of heathendom, and Ananias, by whom this 
 mission is confirmed, is specially noted to have been 1 a devout 
 man according to the Law.’ What a complexity of confirm- 
 ing circumstances is here ! and how carefully does the true 
 guide of the Church — the illuminating Spirit of truth — pro- 
 vide rational evidence to assure our judgment of the certainty 
 of those developments of which He is really the author ! 
 
 And now — 
 
 csestus artemque repono. 
 
 I have done I hope with polemical theology, and may escape 
 once more into the quiet paths of mere historical research. 
 Let me observe then, by way of transition, that some of 
 the circumstances which I have just been noticing seem to 
 afford a reason for Paul’s making, as he tells us in the Epistle 
 to the Galatians, a journey to Jerusalem three years after his 
 conversion, for the special purpose of seeing Peter, and of 
 seeing him alone. You will observe that, with Neander, I 
 place this visit to Jerusalem after the baptism of Cornelius 
 and his family : and besides the reasons which he alleges for 
 it, it strikes me as not unimportant that, if Paul had been 
 dwelling fifteen days with Peter previous to that event, it is 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 S. PAUL’S FIRST VISIT TO S. PETER. 
 
 97 
 
 scarce credible that the calling of the Gentiles should have 
 come upon him so completely by surprise. It is agreed I 
 believe on all hands, that this visit to Jerusalem is the same 
 as that to which Paul himself refers in Acts xxii. 17-19, and 
 if so we must admit that during this very visit Paul received 
 a second miraculous assurance of his mission to the Gentiles. 
 Is it possible then that, dwelling as he tells us he did, in the 
 same house with Peter, he should not have acquainted him 
 with the most important circumstance connected with him- 
 self, the circumstance with which above all others his own 
 mind must have been filled ? And if he had done so, if Peter 
 had been already aware of the nature of Paul’s mission, and 
 known that God had miraculously raised him up as an Apostle 
 to the Uncircumcision, how can we account for his surprise at 
 receiving a similar mission himself ? 
 
 But if, on the contrary, we admit the order of events 
 which to me seems probable, fresh light will appear to be 
 shed upon the whole narrative. When Paul heard that Peter 
 had been instructed by a vision in the same truth which had 
 been revealed to him, he was naturally anxious to see his 
 partner in this signal grace. The word which he uses larop- 
 rjcrai Ylsrpov is remarkable. It is applied, you know, by the 
 Greek writers to the visits made by travellers to survey 
 remarkable places or become acquainted with distinguished 
 men. And its peculiar force in this place is specially noted 
 by Chrysostom in his commentary upon the passage. Now 
 why was Peter alone such a special object of curiosity to 
 Paul ? Not merely as a pillar of the Church, for so were 
 James and John. Is it not most natural to suppose that it 
 was some share which he had in the same revelation which 
 made Paul so eager to see and to confer with him ? 
 
 But again, we find in Acts xxii. 19, the place to which I 
 just now referred you, the Lord telling Paul that his testimony 
 would not be received in Jerusalem. Now what was it that 
 made his testimony thus peculiarly distasteful ? Not merely 
 that he had been a persecutor of the Church. This might 
 create a prejudice against him at first : but three years had 
 
98 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 now elapsed to prove his sincerity, and the circumstance of 
 his having sought to preach the faith which he once destroyed 
 would now rather tell in his favour. And so it is plain from 
 his reply he was disposed to think himself : 1 Lord, they know 
 that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue those that 
 believe on Thy name, and when the blood of Thy martyr 
 Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting, 
 and kept the raiment of them that slew him.’ There 
 was therefore something peculiarly exasperating in Paul’s 
 testimony, over and above his personal circumstances ; and 
 this I imagine was the peculiar distinctness with which he 
 avowed the catholicity of the gospel offer of salvation. Now 
 you will observe, that immediately on the conversion of 
 Cornelius, the anger of the Pharisaic party, even within the 
 Church, is strongly excited, and though Peter succeeds in 
 allaying it for the present, still it is plain from the after-his- 
 tory, that it is only for a time that it is allayed ; and not long 
 after, without the Church, persecution rouses itself again into 
 renewed activity. No doubt the new phase it was assuming 
 alarmed the zealots for the law, both within and without the 
 Church, and it is manifest to me that, from the time of the 
 actual call of the Gentiles, a reaction even began to take 
 place in favour of a stricter Judaism than had before pre- 
 vailed. As the gospel actually spread among strangers, the 
 question concerning its relation to the law was every day more 
 distinctly forced upon men’s notice, and they were compelled 
 to make their option between recognising the abolition of the 
 Mosaic code, and making Christianity a mere appendage upon 
 Judaism. As long as the universal character of Christianity 
 existed only in posse, not in fact, — as long as practically the 
 gospel was confined to the limits of the commonwealth of 
 Israel, — a Christian Jew might, with a comparatively slight 
 shock to his prejudices, be brought to acknowledge that 
 eternal life was given upon the sole condition of faith in Christ ; 
 since as long as the publication of that faith was confined to 
 the favoured people, there would remain an intelligible purpose 
 in their separate incorporation as a theocratic state. But 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 DISLIKE TO ADMITTING GENTILES. 
 
 99 
 
 when eternal life was being bestowed upon vast multitudes 
 beyond the pale of the Mosaic institutions, the case was 
 altered. The question then immediately arose : ‘ What advan- 
 tage then hath a Jew, and what profit is there in circumcision ? ’ 
 If others could obtain and were obtaining all the blessings of 
 the better covenant without them, were not the ceremonies 
 a mere burdensome yoke imposed upon one section of the 
 Church, and placing it under a manifest disadvantage rather 
 than conferring upon it a higher privilege ? These reflections, 
 I say, would force men upon the issue either of recognising 
 the idea of the total abolition of the law, or of regarding the 
 law as a portion at least of the gospel covenant. And I think 
 it is plain that very soon many began to make a wrong option 
 between these two alternatives ; and it is almost needless 
 to remark that dread of persecution from the Jewish rulers 
 would greatly increase and foster this disposition towards the 
 wrong choice. From the first, the rulers seem to have per- 
 ceived with instinctive sagacity this tendency of Christianity 
 to displace Judaism. There was nothing in their circum- 
 stances to blind them to it, since they regarded the new 
 creed with hostility, and hate itself made them quicksighted 
 to perceive — what the disciples so long could not perceive — 
 its antagonism to institutions which both they and the 
 disciples loved. This tendency, then, in Christianity, from the 
 first filled the rulers with alarm. The most material charge 
 of the witnesses against our Lord was that he had used 
 words which seemed to imply an approaching destruction of 
 the temple. The persecution which arose about Stephen had 
 a like origin. And now upon the public reception of the 
 Gentiles in Jerusalem and Antioch, we find Herod gratifying 
 the Jews by renewed outrages upon the Church. The best 
 way then to conciliate the rulers to Christianity was to deny, 
 or dissemble, or keep out of view, the universal character of 
 Christianity. And hence we may perceive how peculiarly 
 dangerous and distasteful may have been at this juncture the 
 presence of such a man as Paul, 1 speaking openly,’ as Luke 
 
100 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 mentions, ‘ in the name of the Lord, and disputing specially 
 with the Hellenistic Jews. 
 
 Then as to the second visit to Jerusalem mentioned in 
 Gal. ii., I confess that the whole leaning of my mind is in 
 favour of the hypothesis which identifies it with the occur- 
 rence in Acts xi. 27. Almost all the circumstances mentioned 
 square with this, while they are quite unlike those attending 
 his mbassy to the Council, Acts xv. Paul tells us that he 
 went up on occasion of a special revelation — Kara arro- 
 Ka\vy\nv. And this we know he did in the case mentioned in 
 Acts xi. He went in consequence of the revelation of a 
 famine made by Agabus. But in his other visit there is no 
 mention at all of any such thing. His move upon that occa- 
 sion is spoken of as a mere arrangement of the Church at 
 Antioch. Again, in the Epistle to the Galatians Paul describes 
 himself as stating the substance of his preaching privately to 
 them who were of reputation — whom he afterwards denotes 
 by name as James, Cephas, and John. Now this can only be 
 made to square with his attendance on the Council by very 
 great violence. For even though some private conferences 
 may have preceded that public meeting, it would be strange 
 if Paul had mentioned only these, and that in such a manner 
 as seems to exclude others. For I think that Neander’s 
 translation of this passage is utterly intolerable. 1 He supposes 
 that public and private meetings are both mentioned. c 1 
 imparted to them the gospel which I preach.’ This he says 
 is the public announcement ; ‘ but privately to the eminent 
 men ’ — here he finds the private one. Now upon this point I 
 must only beg of you to look at the passage in the Greek, and 
 judge for yourselves whether the words will bear it. This 
 difficulty is indeed a millstone round the neck of all inter- 
 pretations which make this text refer to the Council at J eru- 
 salem. Besides, if this visit were not really the second visit 
 which he made to Jerusalem, we can give no rational account 
 of the Apostle’s drift in mentioning it without sacrificing his 
 character for ingenuousness. His purpose is manifestly to 
 
 1 Planting , i. pp. 120, 1. 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 SECOND VISIT PRIOR TO THE COUNCIL. 
 
 101 
 
 show what little intercourse he had with the Church in Jeru- 
 salem. He had mentioned one short visit, when he saw none 
 of the Apostles but Peter and James. After that, he says, he 
 left the city and was unknown by face to the churches in Judaea ; 
 and then, ‘ fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem.’ 
 
 Now it really does seem to me that this would be con- 
 veying a false impression, if in the meanwhile he had been 
 perfectly well known to the churches in Judaea, — if in the 
 meanwhile he had visited Jerusalem, and seen the Apostles 
 and elders there. Because, when a man’s plain object is to 
 show how little intercourse he had with certain people, 
 and when he lays stress upon the length of the interval 
 between two visits, and is careful to mark the time which 
 elapsed, and the strangeness which existed between himself 
 and another party previously to a certain date, all this seems 
 to convey the impression that he is stating accurately the 
 whole of that intercourse. I think it is material therefore to 
 the correctness of Paul’s or Luke’s statements that we should 
 hold this to have been really his second visit, and that it took 
 place when he went up with the collection from Antioch. And 
 if we admit this, I can see no considerable difficulty. The 
 only difficulty in fact that appears to be very seriously alleged 
 is the chronological one about the fourteen years. But there 
 is some, though I allow slight authority, for reading here four 
 instead of fourteen, and whichever is the true reading, it is 
 confessed on all hands that the chronology of the Acts is ex- 
 ceedingly confused and quite uncertain. I deem it much 
 better therefore to argue from circumstances which we do 
 know pretty certainly, than from a chronology upon which 
 scarce any two persons can be brought to agree. 
 
 But we have been occupied too long with the intricacies 
 of these minute details. Let us take up again the interrupted 
 thread of our narrative. 
 
 It must be evident from what I have already said, that 
 the great danger which now threatened the Church was that 
 of a disruption between the Jewish and the Gentile branches 
 of it. It was to prevent such a disruption that the assembly 
 
102 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 was convened which goes under the name of the Apostolic 
 Council of Jerusalem. 
 
 On the absurdity of regarding this as a General Council I 
 need not enlarge ; but there are many nevertheless who are 
 possessed with the idea that it was convened to decide on a 
 point of faith, and that the Gentile churches submitted to it, 
 through Paul and Barnabas, the decision of the great point 
 whether salvation was through the law or not ? Nothing I 
 conceive can be more alien from the character of Paul than 
 to be any party to such a proceeding. In reality, this was 
 not a point upon which the opinions of the Apostles needed 
 to be collected. They were perfectly known to him already. 
 And even had the whole college dissembled, like Peter at 
 Antioch a little before this Council, the intrepid champion of 
 Gentile liberty would no doubt have remained unshaken. He 
 would have said to the Church : ‘ Though we or an angel 
 from heaven teach any other doctrine than that we have 
 delivered, let him be Anathema ! ’ 
 
 No doubt the giving way of the other Apostles would have 
 been a sad blow to Christian freedom. It might have, and 
 would have, altered the views of many Gentiles, but it could 
 not change the truth of God, or make that which had been 
 revealed to Paul cease to be revelation. 
 
 And if Paul would not on such a point have submitted 
 to the authority of the other Apostles, when opposed to the 
 express revelations made to him and to Peter, still less can we 
 suppose he would have submitted to the judgment of the 
 uninspired elders of Jerusalem. 
 
 Yet the truth is, I think, that the assembly was convened 
 much more with reference to the elders and people than to the 
 Apostles. About the sentiments of the Apostles there was 
 no doubt whatever. The grand thing to be gained was a 
 cordial recognition of the Gentiles by the whole of the prin- 
 cipal church of the Circumcision — the disavowal of the false 
 teachers who had been creating so much dissension — and the 
 arrangement of some lasting plan for peace and goodwill 
 between the Jewish believers and their Gentile neighbours. 
 
LEC’T. VII. 
 
 MEANING OF THE TERM PROSELYTE. 
 
 103 
 
 The plan suggested by James was a mild and prudent 
 one. It was that the Gentile Christians should continue to ob- 
 serve those peculiarities which were all that had been required 
 from Gentile worshippers of the true God by the more moderate 
 Jews even under the law. And as the great body of the 
 converts had already belonged to that class, this was in fact, 
 with respect to most of them, only requiring that they should 
 not change their mode of life upon becoming Christians. 
 
 A most needless and perplexing stir has been made about 
 the name proselytes as applied to such devout Gentiles, and 
 the precise nature of their position. Upon this subject I 
 have great satisfaction in agreeing with Dean Milman’s 
 ‘ History of Christianity to the Extinction of Paganism,’ 
 vol. i. p. 417. 
 
 £ It is disputed whether Cornelius was, in fact, a proselyte 
 of the gate (see, on one side, Lord Barrington’s Works, 
 vol. i. p. 128, and Benson’s “ History of Christianity”; on 
 the other, Kuinoel, in loco). He is called svasPrjs and 
 (popov fjisvos top ©soz/, the usual appellation of proselytes ; he 
 bestowed alms on the Jewish people, he observed the Jewish 
 hours of prayer, he was evidently familiar with the Jewish 
 belief in angels, and not unversed in the Jewish Scriptures. 
 Yet, on the other hand, the objections are not without weight. 
 The whole difficulty appears to arise from not considering how 
 vaguely the term of “ proselyte at the gate ” must, from the 
 nature of things, have been applied, and the different feelings 
 entertained towards such converts by the different classes of 
 the Jews. While the proselytes, properly so called — those 
 who were identified with the Jews by circumcision — were a 
 distinct and definite class, the proselytes of the gate must 
 have comprehended all who made the least advances towards 
 Judaism, from those who regularly attended on the services 
 of the synagogue, and conformed in all respects, except cir- 
 cumcision, with the ceremonial law, down, through the count- 
 less shades of opinion, to those who merely admitted the first 
 principle of Judaism — the unity of God — were occasional 
 attendants in the synagogue, and had only, as it were, ascended 
 
104 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 the first steps on the threshold of conversion. The more 
 rigid Jews looked with jealousy even on the circumcised 
 proselytes ; the terms of admission were made as difficult and 
 repulsive as possible; on the imperfect they looked with 
 still greater suspicion, and were rather jealous, of communi- 
 cating their exclusive privileges than eager to extend the 
 influence of their opinions. But the more liberal must have 
 acted upon different principles ; they must have encouraged 
 the advances of incipient proselytes ; the synagogues were 
 open throughout the Roman Empire, and many who, like 
 Horace, “ went to scoff,” may “ have remained to pray.” As, 
 then, the Christian Apostles always commenced their labours 
 in the synagogue of their countrymen, among all who might 
 assemble there from regular habit or accidental curiosity, 
 they would address heathen minds in every gradation of 
 Jewish belief, from the proselyte who only wanted circum- 
 cision, to the Gentile who had only just begun to discover the 
 superior reasonableness of the Jewish Theism. Hence the 
 step from the conversion of imperfect proselytes to that of 
 real Gentiles must have been imperceptible, or rather, even 
 with the Gentile convert, that which was the first principle 
 of Judaism, the belief in one God, was an indispensable pre- 
 liminary to his admission of Christianity. The one great 
 decisive change was from the decree of the Apostolic Council 
 (Acts xv.), obviously intended for real though imperfect 
 proselytes, to the total abrogation of Judaism by the doctrines 
 of St. Paul.’ 
 
 The last sentence, however, of this striking passage might 
 suggest, I think, an erroneous view. It might suggest the 
 suspicion of some inconsistency between the Apostolic Decree, 
 to which Paul was a consenting party, and Paul’s own doctrine 
 of the total abrogation of the law. Now there is not the 
 shadow of such an inconsistency. Paul had gained his great 
 point, a public declaration of the freedom of the Gentiles 
 from the Mosaic rules. When this was once safe, he was 
 always afterwards just as tender of Jewish scruples as upon 
 this occasion. What he resisted was everything and any- 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC DECREE. 
 
 105 
 
 thing put forward under the idea of a part of the Christian 
 covenant which was not part of* it. When a compromise 
 was demanded upon this ground he would not yield — no, not 
 for an hour. But here all notion of such an obligation was 
 expressly and solemnly disowned. Indeed, as I said, with the 
 great body of the Greek Christians the apostolic decree did but 
 carry out Paul’s well-known rule — that every man should abide 
 in the vocation wherein he was called. They had been already, 
 before their reception into the Church, living in the obser- 
 vance of these rules, and they were not to discontinue them. 
 For everywhere you will observe that Paul is just as anxious 
 to show that uncircumcision is no part of the gospel any more 
 than circumcision, and therefore he would have no man 
 change his mode of life on becoming a Christian, lest it should 
 be supposed that such a change was part of Christianity. 
 
 And for the rest, the decree of the Apostles did but pre- 
 scribe the same rule as Paul himself prescribes in the latter 
 part of his Epistle to the Romans, and in the Epistle to the 
 Corinthians : ‘ If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat 
 no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to 
 offend.’ 
 
106 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO JUDAISM— SUPPOSED 
 PETRINE AND PAULINE PARTIES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — The Gentile Church always looked up to 
 Antioch as its metropolis, until the dignity derived from 
 purely spiritual privileges was eclipsed in men’s eyes by the 
 lustre reflected from secular splendour upon the two rival 
 sees of Old and New Rome. It was here, as the Evangelist 
 reminds us, that the Church assumed a form so markedly dis- 
 tinguished from Judaism as to need and receive a new name 
 among the heathen. 
 
 The very form of the word ‘ Christian ’ seems to assert its 
 Latin origin. It is formed after the analogy of many other 
 names of parties familiar in these times to the Roman ear — 
 Pompeians, Neronians, Caesarians. And it is natural that the 
 Romans, in whose language Christus had no connotation of 
 office or quality, and whose grammar laboured under the defect 
 of having no article, should have been the first to treat that title 
 as a mere proper name. 
 
 There are some half-learned critics indeed who claim for 
 this famous appellation a far nobler origin. They have 
 observed that elsewhere in the New Testament ^pr) fiar l£co 
 denotes the delivery of a divine oracle ; and ^p7jp,aTi^opiac 
 in the passive, the reception of such an oracle, and hence they 
 have inferred that in the present case the name Christian was 
 imposed upon the disciples by divine revelation. 
 
 But I need hardly point out to you the strangeness of this 
 reasoning. The verb here is not passive in voice, and there- 
 fore cannot mean to be the subject of a divine oracle. And 
 
LECT. VIII. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NAME CHRISTIAN. 
 
 107 
 
 it cannot mean to deliver a divine oracle, because that would 
 make nonsense of the passage. The only consistent meaning 
 is that which is given by our translators ; and of that mean- 
 ing innumerable examples might be given out of the classics ; 
 and one very clear one occurs in the Epistle to the Homans, vii. 
 3, /jioi^a\i9 xpriiJLaTLcrsL. ‘ She shall be called an adulteress.’ 
 
 If indeed this title had been conferred upon the members 
 of the Church by divine authority, it is incredible that Luke 
 himself, and the other sacred writers also, should not hence- 
 forward have customarily applied it to them. Whereas it 
 must be unnecessary for me to remind you that in the only 
 other three instances in which the name occurs in the New 
 Testament, it is never applied by Christians to themselves, but 
 always alluded to as a name given to them by unbelievers. 
 Very soon after the close of the inspired canon, however, it 
 did become the customary title of believers, even among 
 believers themselves ; so that in even the earliest succeeding 
 relics of ecclesiastical antiquity, it meets us almost in every 
 page. And this striking circumstance has been very strongly, 
 and I think very fairly, urged by the Archbishop of Dublin 1 
 as an internal evidence of the genuineness of the books of the 
 New Testament. Had they been composed in any later age 
 than that to which they are commonly referred, it is impossible 
 that such a phenomenon should have presented itself. 
 
 Let me here observe by the way, that the criticism of my 
 friend Dr. Dobbin, by which he endeavours to prove that all 
 the Gospels were written before any other books of the New 
 Testament from the fact that our Lord is almost always called 
 Jesus in the Gospels, while elsewhere he is styled commonly 
 the Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, or Christ simply — this argu- 
 ment, I say, does not appear to me equally convincing. 
 
 It appears to me quite natural that the Evangelists’ minds, 
 when relating the circumstances of our Saviour’s life, should 
 have reverted to the posture, so to speak, in which they 
 contemplated those circumstances at the time when they 
 occurred, however distant the period at which they actually 
 
 1 Dr. Whately. 
 
108 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. ' course i. 
 
 , I 
 
 wrote these narratives. The very act of throwing .themselves 
 back into the time when they attended their Master in the 
 flesh, would, as it seems to me, naturally revive the old familiar 
 way of thinking and speaking concerning him. This answer 
 to Dr. Dobbin’s ingenious argument occurred to me imme- 
 diately when he showed me the proof-sheets of his work, and 
 I was long afterwards still more confirmed in the view which 
 I had taken by finding that it occurred, also quite indepen- 
 dently, to the Archbishop and to the late Bishop Oopleston. 
 
 But this is only a remark by the way. What we are to 
 deal with at present is the history before us, which leads us in 
 the next place to a consideration of the spread of the gospel 
 among the heathen, and the formation of churches under Paul’s 
 direction, composed of a mixed body of Jews and Gentiles. 
 I say a mixed body of Jews and Gentiles, for it is worth ob- 
 serving that there is scarcely a single church mentioned, of 
 all that Paul gathered, that can safely be affirmed to have 
 been of purely Gentile composition. And it is further remark- 
 able that down to the date of the very latest of his writings, 
 there seem to remain in almost all these churches ; symptoms, 
 still more or less definitely marked, of the same struggle 
 between the two parties as we have noticed already in 
 Palestine. But the Jewish element seems to have been 
 mixed in very unequal proportions, and in very various forms, 
 through the different churches of his province. The Jewish 
 element appears strongest, and assumes its sternest shape 
 of Pharisaism, in the case of the churches of Galatia. There 
 the Judaisers appear actually on the point of carrying all 
 before them ; and the Apostle feels himself called upon to 
 put forth all his strength in opposing their influence. There 
 is no trace that I can discover in this case of a reactionary 
 feeling, or any tendency towards an undue depressing of the 
 Mosaic dispensation. Next perhaps to this comes the case of 
 the Roman church. But here there is a marked difference. 
 Here we plainly do discover traces of reaction, plain symptoms 
 of no slight struggles between an extreme Gentile and an 
 extreme Jewish party. You will observe how often in his 
 
j jE ct. viii. S. PAUL’S ALLUSIONS TO JEWISH HABITS. 
 
 109 
 
 Epistle to this church, the Apostle stops in the very heat and 
 urgency of his argument against the Jews, to acknowledge 
 and vindicate their just privileges, and the real excellence of 
 the law ; and how he finds it needful to check and reprove 
 the disposition on the part of the Gentiles to insult and glory 
 over 1 the natural branches ’ of the divinely planted ‘ olive 
 tree/ Indeed it is manifest that, in the latter chapters of 
 this Epistle, he is setting himself as earnestly against Gentile 
 intolerance as he had set himself in the earlier ones against 
 Jewish. A Gentile party in the Roman church, it is plain, 
 were inclined to treat with utter contempt, if not with 
 severity, that regard for their national institutions which led 
 the Jewish Christians to retain the observance of the Mosaic 
 holy days as still binding on their consciences, and in some 
 cases to abstain in a heathen city from animal food entirely — 
 like Daniel and his companions in Nebuchadnezzar’s court — 
 lest they should unawares be contaminated by meat imper- 
 fectly bled, or polluted by a previous consecration to some 
 idol-deity. 
 
 In the case of the churches of Ephesus and Colossae the 
 influence of Judaism appears modified into a kind of Essene 
 shape, with a tincture of Greek and Oriental philosophy ; and 
 in the case of the church at Corinth the Jewish element 
 appears to me — contrary to the general opinion — peculiarly 
 weak. In the First Epistle I can scarcely trace its influence 
 anywhere but in the chapter about marriage and in the matter 
 of things offered to idols ; and the repugnance in this latter 
 case to seeming to acknowledge the false deities of heathenism 
 may be traced to feelings not peculiarly Jewish. 
 
 This is a point of some consequence, and therefore you 
 will permit me to enlarge upon it somewhat more fully. 
 
 The peculiarly Jewish prejudice, then, against eating 
 meat offered to idols was founded upon the notion that by 
 its consecration to the idol worship it became unclean — an 
 abominable meat — with a physical contamination adhering 
 to it. And it is plainly against such a notion that Paul is 
 speaking in the Epistle to the Romans, when he corrects 
 
110 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 it by saying, c I know and am persuaded by the Lord 
 Jesns Christ, that there is nothing unclean of itself ; but 
 to him that thinketh anything to be unclean, to him it 
 is unclean.’ But the ground taken in the First Epistle to 
 the Corinthians seems somewhat different. Here the objec- 
 tion felt is not to the impurity of the meat, but to the 
 apparent recognition of the idol implied in partaking of the 
 banquet. And the knowledge which was supposed to remove 
 this objection was not a knowledge of the true Christian 
 notion of clean and unclean, but a knowledge that the idol- 
 deity had no real existence. And if the reading of chapter 
 viii. 7 which Lachmann has adopted be correct, some at 
 least of those who felt the objection most strongly are plainly 
 marked out as Gentiles, not as Jews. The common text is — 
 dAA’ ov/c iv 'iraaiv rj <yvo)GLS' nvss Ss rfj crvvEihrjasi rod 
 slScoXov £(09 aprc cos slScoXodvrov iaOiovcnv * i.e. : c But all 
 have not this knowledge. For some through conscience of 
 the idol to this hour eat it as a thing offered to an idol.’ 
 Lachmann, however, on the testimony of the Alexandrian 
 MS. and several other ancient authorities, for awsth^crst reads 
 avv7]0£ia, which would make the meaning to be, that some 
 through custom or habit of the idol do still eat it as a thing 
 offered to an idol. And I confess that to me not only the 
 external, but the internal evidence also seems strongly to 
 preponderate in favour of this reading. 2 It seems, I think, 
 very much favoured by the words £cc>9 aprt 1 even still ’ 
 — ‘ even to this hour.’ This expression seems manifestly to 
 refer to the continuance of a previous habit ; and almost 
 even of itself implies that the persons spoken of were men 
 who having been long accustomed in their pagan state to 
 consider the partaking of such viands as an act of worship 
 addressed to certain superior powers, could not, even after 
 their conversion, divest their minds of the old familiar asso- 
 ciations. 
 
 I acknowledge indeed that, in a later chapter, he speaks 
 
 2 This reading is adopted in the Revised Version : ‘ Some, being used 
 until now to the idol.’ — Editors. 
 
LEC'T. VIII. 
 
 JEWISH NOTIONS OF CELIBACY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 of taking care to give no offence in respect of these meats to 
 either Jews or Greeks, but then I must be allowed to observe 
 that he is there speaking of unconverted Jews and uncon- 
 verted Greeks, since he expressly distinguishes them from 
 Christians. ‘ Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor yet 
 to the Greeks, nor to the Church of God.’ So that, on the 
 whole, I am not satisfied that we can, at least very distinctly, 
 trace any certain reference to a Judaising party in the 
 church of Corinth throughout the whole of this discussion 
 about things offered in sacrifice to idols. 
 
 Let us look now at the chapter about marriage, 1 Cor. 
 chap. vii. It has been supposed that in the very first 
 verse of this chapter he refers to a dogma of certain Judai- 
 sers who held that celibacy was unlawful, and that every 
 man was bound to marry, which tenet the Apostle contra- 
 dicts by saying that celibacy, like marriage, is fcaXov — a good 
 or lawful thing. And certainly it must be allowed that there 
 is some reason for thinking that some tenet of this kind 
 may have been held by some Judaisers in the apostolic 
 times, since it is distinctly ascribed to some of the Ebionites by 
 Epiphanius. 3 However, I think that this class of the Ebionites 
 were persons whose opinions were modified by influences of 
 much later date ; and that the Clementines, which are also re- 
 ferred to as evidence upon this point, are affected by the same 
 objection. Still it must be granted that Jewish feeling gene- 
 rally ran in a strong current against celibacy. But then I 
 must be permitted to add to this conception, that such was not 
 the current of Jewish feeling only, but of popular feeling gene- 
 rally amongst the Greeks and Romans also. This has been 
 well shown by Dodwell, with his usual profusion of learning, 
 and much more than his usual modicum of good sense, in his 
 Appendix to the sixth chapter of the Second Dissertation of 
 Bishop Pearson on the Succession of the Roman Bishops. 
 And if you will look into the amusing and instructive collec- 
 tions of Stobaeus, you will find that a question about the 
 relative merits of celibacy and the marriage state was just as 
 
 3 Adv. Ebion. ii. 
 
112 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 likely to be suggested from purely Gentile sources as from 
 Jewish ones. Here therefore I can see no certain reference 
 to a Judaising party. But in one part of this chapter at 
 least, I think I do see a reference to Jewish prejudice. It is 
 at verse 14, where he says, c The unbelieving husband is 
 sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified 
 in the husband ; else were your children unclean, but now 
 are they holy.’ If indeed I could put the same construction 
 upon this passage as Neander, 4 even this solitary reference to 
 Judaism would disappear. But to his interpretation I find 
 it impossible to reconcile myself. 
 
 The Apostle, I think, has in his eye a dogma of the 
 Jewish rabbis, who taught that when a Gentile became a 
 proselyte to the law, he became so literally a new person that 
 all his previously subsisting relations of affinity, or even con- 
 sanguinity, to his unbelieving relatives were annulled. His 
 wife was no longer his wife ; his children no longer his 
 children, insomuch that should a daughter born before prose- 
 lytism afterwards herself become a proselyte, the father might 
 marry her without incest. 5 In opposition to this, the Apostle 
 recurs to the first principles of Christian ethics. Holiness 
 and unholiness, purity and impurity, are not physical qualities 
 of external things or persons in relation to us, but exist in 
 the aim or disposition of our own minds towards them. 
 Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if 
 it be received with thanksgiving. Hence in the case of 
 marriage with an unbeliever, this is a true Christian relation- 
 ship to that party who views it in a Christian light. The 
 impure or wrong disposition of the unbelieving mind does not 
 affect that relationship in reference to the believing party, 
 so long as his disposition is pure and right. Otherwise, if 
 holiness were an external relation, we should be compelled to 
 
 4 Planting , vol. i. pp. 192-3. ‘ The Apostle is here treating of the sanctify- 
 ing influence of the communion between parents and children, by which 
 the children of Christian parents would be distinguished from the children 
 of those who were not Christian, and in virtue of which they might in a 
 sense be termed ayi a, in contrast with the a/cdSapra.’ — E ditors. 
 
 s Lightfoot, Hor. Ileb. in Joh iii. 3. 
 
LTCCT. VITI. 
 
 FURTHER SIMILAR REFERENCES. 
 
 113 
 
 follow out the consequences of the Jewish dogma, and hold 
 that the offspring also of such a marriage could stand in no 
 sanctified relation to their parents. 
 
 This seems to me the plain drift of the Apostle’s remarks, 
 and in them 1 recognise an undeniable reference to Jewish 
 prejudices. And another occurs in the eighteenth verse, 
 where he says, ‘ Is anyone called in uncircumcision, let him 
 not become circumcised.’ This, however, is only given as an 
 example of a general rule, and there is nothing to show that 
 the Corinthians needed to have the injunction very earnestly 
 pressed upon them. 
 
 As to the notion that in the fifteenth chapter the Apostle 
 is combating Sadducean prejudices, I think it is scarcely 
 worth refuting. The denial of the resurrection had an ob- 
 vious source in Greek prejudice, as, if we required proof, we 
 might learn from the reception which Paul’s mention of it met 
 at Athens, without searching for this remote one. And a 
 Sadducean source in this case is peculiarly improbable. The 
 Sadducees were a very small party, confined, as far as we can 
 at all perceive, to Palestine, nor is there the least symptom 
 anywhere in the New Testament, or out of it, of any blending 
 whatever, under any circumstances, of Sadducism and Chris- 
 tianity. Many a foul stream ran into the current of Christian 
 doctrine, but this never. 
 
 So much then for the evidence to be brought from the 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians. From the Second perhaps 
 you may be inclined to think that something considerably more 
 weighty may be brought, but on examination I believe it will 
 turn out that even this is not quite decisive. 
 
 If you will examine, for instance, the third chapter care- 
 fully in connection with the preceding and following context, 
 it will appear, I think, that the Apostle is much rather 
 engaged in vindicating himself from the charge of having at 
 any time Judaised and concealed his sentiments, than in 
 guarding his hearers against Judaism. And though it cer- 
 tainly appears from the latter part of the Epistle that some 
 of the false Apostles whom he censures, valued themselves 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 upon their pure Jewish descent, as well as upon their zeal, 
 their sufferings, and their attainments, yet this does not, I 
 think, prove that they were property speaking Judaisers. 
 They might certainty pique themselves upon such an honour 
 without endeavouring to bring the Gentiles under the yoke 
 of Judaism ; and if they had been exerting their influence, 
 which was manifestly great, among the Corinthians for such 
 a purpose, I am at a loss to understand why there should 
 not be, not mere chance allusions only to such a vital matter, 
 but distinct references to it, and strong and earnest argu- 
 ments against it, in these two Epistles as well as in those to 
 the Galatians and the Romans. But this, you know, is so far 
 from being the case, that it is with a totally different class of 
 errors and abuses that the Apostle deals all through these 
 Epistles to the Corinthians. It is with the Greek fondness 
 for eloquence and philosophy, with Greek licentiousness of 
 manners, with Greek fickleness and insubordination, with 
 Greek scepticism, with Greek vanity, that he is continually 
 engaged, not with his old enemies, Pharisaic pride and 
 scrupulosity, and the notion of the eternal obligation of the 
 Mosaic law, and the necessity of circumcision. 
 
 Indeed I cannot but think that what has made the later 
 German critics cling so tenaciously to the idea of a strong 
 Judaising influence in the Church at Corinth, is their feeling it 
 to be indispensable to a favourite theory of theirs, by means 
 of which they imagine they can solve a thousand difficult 
 phenomena in Ecclesiastical history, but which stands upon a 
 very narrow basis of fact. The theory of which I speak is, 
 that there existed in many places two separate communities 
 of Christians, a Petrine and a Pauline, of which the former 
 were zealots for the law, and claimed Peter as the source of 
 their doctrine, the other assertors of Christian liberty, who 
 preserved the tradition of Paul. 
 
 Wonderful things have been done by the help of this 
 theory. Those who hold in their hands this marvellous key can 
 disclose to us at once the true origin of the old story which 
 makes Peter the founder and first Bishop of the Church at 
 
I.KCT. VIII. 
 
 PETRINE AND PAULINE PARTIES. 
 
 115 
 
 Rome. Peter himself, it seems, never was in bodily presence 
 at Rome at all. The story about him is merely a myth 
 founded upon the fact (founded, as we shall presently see, upon 
 little more than nothing), that there was in Rome and else- 
 where a Petrine Judaising Christian community, which 
 looked up to this Apostle as its head. Hence also (they tell 
 us) sprang the Bishop Dionysius’ story of Peter’s having 
 been at Corinth ; 6 and indeed, on these principles, we are not 
 to be surprised at finding Peter possessed of a sort of ubiquity, 
 and at meeting him anywhere or everywhere at one and the 
 same time. Hence also they proceed to account for that odd 
 jumble of so many names into the few first years of the 
 early succession of the See of Rome, which has otherwise 
 a most perplexing look, as if two or three prelates sat in each 
 others’ laps — they account for this, I say, by supposing that 
 the Petrine and Pauline communities of Christian Rome, like 
 the early kingdom of Pagan Rome, had two distinct lines of 
 Bishops presiding over them respectively. Now as I myself 
 am weak enough to be pretty well satisfied that Peter really did 
 visit Rome and die there — as I feel no difficulty in crediting 
 Dionysius’ statement that he really was at Corinth too — and 
 as I think that his immediate successors can be tolerably 
 well made out as it is, and that it would be no great matter 
 if they could not, I feel no pressing need of this theory, and 
 can look at the positive evidence in support of it without any 
 strong prejudice in its favour to cloud my judgment. And 
 scanning that evidence in this dry light, I really am unable 
 to find much more than the single fact, that there was a party 
 in the Church at Corinth which claimed on some grounds or 
 other Peter as their hero. This seems to me all that we are 
 literally told in the Epistles to the Corinthians. Some said 
 1 We are of Paul,’ and some said ‘ We are of Apollos,’ and 
 some said ‘ We are of Cephas,’ and some, ‘ We are of Christ.’ 
 But I can find in these Epistles no light to guide us to the deter- 
 mination of the question, what the sentiments of this Petrine 
 party were, or on what ground they claimed that Apostle as 
 
 8 Euseb., Hist. Eccl. II. xxv. 8. 
 
116 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE t. 
 
 their leader. The only circumstance connected with them 
 that I think can be clearly made out is one inconsistent with 
 the theory now under consideration. I do think that it is 
 clear that they formed no separate community, any more than 
 the party of Paul, of Apollos, or of Christ. All these are 
 spoken of as parties in the Church, not as separate churches. 
 There is not the least trace that I can discover of their having 
 separate meetings or separate officers. On the contrary, Paul’s 
 complaint is that when the Christians of Corinth came together 
 in the church , these parties broke out into disgraceful dissen- 
 sion. But of separate communities there is not a word. 
 
 But whether the Petrine party formed a community or 
 not, we are left, as I said, by these Epistles to mere guess and 
 conjecture for determining their peculiar character. And 
 certainly, I for my part should scarcely have guessed that a 
 high -Judaising party would, out of all the Apostles of the 
 Circumcision, have selected Peter as their hero, because of all 
 the sacred college there were none, except Paul and Barnabas, 
 who had so completely pledged themselves to the cause of 
 Gentile liberty, and so unequivocally rejected the necessity of 
 circumcision as Peter. It must be acknowledged indeed, that 
 when we pass beyond the pages of the sacred volume we do find 
 traces of a certain party among the Ebionites whose favourite 
 hero w T as the Apostle Peter. There is a curious book called the 
 Clementine Homilies, purportiug to be composed by Clement of 
 Rome, but in reality the work of some Jewish forger, which is in 
 point of fact a romance about Peter’s adventures and a pre- 
 tended account of his doctrine and preaching. I cannot find 
 in these Clementines much support for such a Petrine com- 
 munity in the Christian Church as we are seeking for. And 
 as a further proof that Peter was not identified with any strict 
 Pharisaic party, I may add that we have preserved to us some 
 few fragments of another document, professing to give an 
 account of Peter’s preaching, and of considerably greater 
 antiquity that the Clementine Homilies . 7 The character of 
 
 ^ The Prcedicatio Petri , the extracts from which, preserved by Clement 
 of Alexandria, may be found in Grabe, Sjncilegivm , vol. i. pp. 62 sqq . — 
 Editors. 
 
LECT. VIII. 
 
 THE THEOBY HAS NO FOUNDATION. 
 
 117 
 
 this document is decidedly anti- Judaic. Indeed it gives a 
 grossly exaggerated caricature of J udaism. ‘ Do not worship,’ 
 Peter is made to say, < according to the manner of the Jews, 
 for they, supposing that they alone know God, are really 
 ignorant of Him ; adoring angels and archangels, the month 
 and the moon ; and except the moon appear, they do not keep 
 that Sabbath which is called the first, nor the new moon, nor 
 the Passover, nor the Feast, nor the Great Day.’ And in 
 another fragment he is made to refer to the books of 
 Hystaspes and the Sibyl as prophets whom God had raised 
 up amongst the Gentiles. These surely are characters of a 
 work but little suited to the genius of such a party as the 
 German critics imagine the Petrine party to have been. On 
 the whole, then, I think that we seem to know nothing or next 
 to nothing about the Petrine party in the Church at Corinth 
 from the records of the New Testament ; and that if we trust to 
 other indications for collecting their sentiments, we shall be 
 led to ascribe to them a very different character from that of 
 a high Pharisaic faction ; and that consequently this ingenious 
 theory of Petrine and Pauline communities extensively estab- 
 lished in the various churches is, like many others in the same 
 quarter, a theory wholly destitute of foundation. 
 
118 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 C’OUBSE 1. 
 
 LECTUKE IX. 
 
 STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE APOSTOLIC 
 
 CHURCHES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — Before proceeding to trace the mutual rela- 
 tions of the Jewish and Gentile elements of the Christian 
 churches into those obscure and doubtful records which lie 
 without the boundaries of the sacred canon, it will be proper for 
 us to pause a while upon another subject well worthy of our 
 attention, the structure and constitution of the Apostolic 
 churches. Let us devote then the present opportunity to a 
 consideration of what may be gathered of information upon 
 this subject from the Acts and the Epistles. 
 
 The amount of information which any diligence or any 
 sagacity can extract from these sources is indeed not great, 
 and the design of giving us in them any full or accurate ac- 
 count of the primitive polity of the Apostolic churches seems 
 to have formed no part of the plan of the sacred writers, or 
 of the Blessed Spirit under whose influence they wrote, and 
 by whose wisdom their pens were guided. 
 
 It is not my province to enter upon an inquiry into the 
 reasons why this information was withheld, or to draw any 
 theological inferences from so remarkable an omission. There 
 is one point, however, in connection with it to which I may be 
 allowed very briefly to call your attention. The omission of 
 which I am speaking is a plain proof that the canon of the 
 New Testament must have been very early fixed, and that 
 the pieces which compose it were not compiled in after-times 
 out of floating traditions of apostolic doctrine. Had they 
 been so composed there is every reason to think that we 
 
l,ect. ix. APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS AND CANONS. 119 
 
 should never have had to complain of such an omission. Nor 
 are we left to infer this merely from considering what it would 
 be likely that the Church, if compiling such collections, would 
 insert, but we have a still more direct proof in the actual 
 existence of such a document as unbelievers suppose the New 
 Testament to have been — I mean those remarkable pieces, the 
 Constitutions and Canons of the Apostles. A great part of 
 these is no doubt a mere forgery of the fourth century, but 
 no competent critic has ever examined them carefully without 
 arriving, as Bentley did, at the conclusion that much of them 
 is ab ultima antiquitate. I mention Bentley in particular, 
 not only from a due respect for his extraordinary critical 
 sagacity, but because he notoriously and even confessedly 
 undertook the examination of these pieces with a strong pre- 
 judice against them, as an utter fraud from beginning to end, 
 and only made the admission to which I refer after struggling 
 to establish a contrary foregone conclusion. These documents 
 then, as I said, are in reality to a great extent what unbelievers 
 suppose our New Testament Scriptures to have been — fragmen- 
 tary traditions of genuine primitive antiquity wrought up 
 and coloured over and pieced together by a later hand . 1 And 
 if they did indeed in this respect stand on the same level 
 with the New Testament, how comes it that such documents 
 as these form no part of the canon of Scripture, or how 
 comes it that the pieces which do form part of it are of a 
 character so totally and so strikingly different ? 
 
 The unbelieving theory is indeed on all sides refuted, not 
 merely by antecedent probabilities, but by facts. We are not 
 left to conjecture to determine what Christianity and its 
 records would have been under the plastic influence of such 
 causes as this theory assigns for their production. We see in 
 the monuments of the very times to which this theory 
 ascribes the origin of our faith and of its documents, what 
 the real effect of such agencies actually was. We see in the 
 
 1 As now shown by a comparison of the seventh book of the Apostolical 
 Constitutions with the recently discovered Didaclie of the Twelve Apostles. 
 — Editors. 
 
120 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHUKCH. 
 
 CoUESE ]. 
 
 various forms of Ebionism, and in its curious literature, wliat 
 shape Jewish prejudices would have given to Christianity, if 
 it had worked it out from the data of previous Jewish expec- 
 tations combined with the bare elementary historical facts of 
 Christ’s life and death. We see again in Gnosticism what 
 a theology and what ethics Gentile prejudices would have 
 created, because we see what these causes actually did create. 
 And even supposing the problem solved, of how mere human 
 causes produced the general idea of Christian faith, we see 
 in the creeds, in the Apostolical Constitutions, and in the cere- 
 monial disputes and hierarchical liturgy of the early Church, 
 what a form the tradition of the apostolic teaching would 
 have been reproduced in, if the Church itself had been left 
 alone to reproduce it. The rule of the Church’s faith and 
 practice would not have been a few scanty occasional pieces — 
 written as temporary circumstances called them forth by two 
 or three of the Apostles — but precise dogmatic statements of 
 doctrine, precise rules of church government, a regular creed, 
 a regular liturgy, a regular model of ecclesiastical polity, 
 issued by the united authority of the whole sacred college, 
 as a platform for all ages and all climes. The Church would 
 have been represented as issuing forth, like Minerva, fully 
 armed in a panoply of ordinances from her very birth. Now 
 this, I think, is not only not the representation given of the 
 Church in the New Testament, but it is inconsistent with it. 
 We see there, I think manifestly, that the outward structure of 
 the Church was undergoing a process of gradual formation 
 from time to time, that the frame of government was not a 
 mould ready made into which the Church was cast, but the 
 result of occasional measures taken as the necessities of cir- 
 cumstances recjuired their adoption. 
 
 I am speaking now of such ecclesiastical arrangements as 
 were of an ordinary and permanent character, and such I 
 think we have to look for generally in the later times of the 
 Apostolic ministry. Indeed our chief information with respect 
 to them is to be gathered from the three Pastoral Epistles of 
 Paul — those, I mean, addressed to Timothy and Titus. Nor 
 
LECT. IX. 
 
 JAMES ALONE HAD A FIXED SEE. 
 
 121 
 
 need we be at all surprised at this phenomenon. The churches 
 of which we read in the earlier parts of the sacred narrative 
 were under the immediate care of the Apostles themselves, 
 and enjoyed the advantage of frequent personal visitation 
 from them. Thus the care of all the churches which he had 
 founded devolved directly upon Paul himself. Upon every 
 pressing emergency, he gave his orders, either by letter, or by 
 word of mouth upon the very spot ; so that there was then 
 the less need of any perfectly developed internal organisation 
 of government. And this, by the way, appears to be the reason 
 why so many of the ancient churches claimed Apostles as 
 their first Bishops. The truth is that an Apostle was 
 essentially the Bishop of any church while he resided in it ; 
 though, strictly speaking, no Apostle had any peculiar local 
 see except James, the brother of the Lord. To him ecclesi- 
 astical antiquity has with great unanimity ascribed the local 
 superintendence of the Church of Jerusalem : and I think that 
 the notices of his peculiar relation to that church in the New 
 Testament strongly confirm the testimony of the uninspired 
 writers. His case, however, would be no exception to the 
 general rule if, with some eminent critics, we determined that 
 this James was not an Apostle ; but I confess that my mind 
 strongly inclines to the belief that he was. I acknowledge 
 that some of the arguments for his Apostlesliip are not con- 
 clusive. When Paul, for example, says, ‘ Other of the 
 Apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord’s brother,’ I con- 
 fess that this does not necessarily imply that James was an 
 Apostle, according to the idiom of the Greek language, though 
 it would according to the idiom of the English. But though 
 this passage does not imply so much by the mere force of its 
 words, yet I think from a comparison of it with the statement 
 of the same occurrence in the Acts, we may arrive more cer- 
 tainly at that inference. There it is said that Barnabas 
 brought Paul to the Apostles ; the word is in the plural, and 
 the statement cannot be satisfied by a mere introduction to 
 Peter. The truth, I take it, is that James and Peter were 
 the only Apostles then at Jerusalem, the only Apostles to 
 
122 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE I. 
 
 whom Paul could have been just then introduced, and this will 
 sufficiently account for Luke’s saying in a general way that 
 Barnabas brought him to the Apostles ; but I feel myself 
 unable to account for such language if James as well as Peter 
 was not a member of the sacred college. But this matter is 
 too unimportant for us to discuss further at present. If you 
 wish for more information on the subject you will find it, 
 though with some difficulty, in a long, rambling, confused, 
 and indecisive note of Neander’s at p. 5 of the second volume 
 of his history of the Planting, &c. What led me into the 
 discussion was the remark that the Apostles, though not fixed 
 in any one local see, yet discharged essentially the office of a 
 Bishop at first in every one of the churches which they had 
 founded, and of which for some time they seem to have 
 retained the chief administration in their own hands. But 
 besides this very peculiar circumstance of the early Christian 
 communities, we must remember that in other respects also, 
 the extraordinary wants of the infant Church were supplied 
 in an extraordinary manner, by means which were never 
 intended to be permanent, and the analogy of which can 
 seldom be quite safely applied to the case of bodies differently 
 circumstanced. And indeed it is well worth remarking that 
 the only passages in the New Testament which give anything 
 like the semblance of an outline of church offices, anything like 
 the regular platform of an hierarchy, such as 1 Cor. xii. 7-10, 
 28-30, and Ephes. iv. 11-16, are passages which speak of 
 the extraordinary and miraculous institutions of the Apostolic 
 churches. And it is perhaps still better worth observing 
 here, because not so generally noticed, that the latter of these 
 passages, Eph. iv., seems to contain a distinct intimation of 
 the transitory nature of the frame of things to which it 
 refers. 1 He gave,’ the Apostle is made to say in the Autho- 
 rised Version, as it is commonly pointed, ‘ some apostles, and 
 some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and 
 teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
 ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, &c.’ But 
 Bishop Stillingfleet long ago observed that this does not 
 
lbct. ix. CLERGY AND LAITY DISTINCT FROM THE FIRST. 123 
 
 adequately convey the force of the original. The Apostle’s 
 own words are : 7 rpos r ov /caTapTLa/xov twv dyccov sis sp<yoi> 
 Sta/covi'as, i.e. in order to fit or thoroughly equip the saints 
 for a ministerial work, viz. for the edifying of the body of 
 Christ. 
 
 It is therefore not of officers or functions, but of the 
 qualifications — the miraculous qualifications — for such func- 
 tions, that the Apostle is thinking, since it was these, and 
 not the external position which fitted the saints or Christians 
 who received them for their ministerial work ; and the 
 necessity for such an extraordinary supply is plainly traced 
 in the succeeding verses to the weak state of the Church’s 
 childhood, composed as it was in its first formation of a half- 
 instructed multitude of new converts, full of old Pagan or 
 Jewish prejudices and misconceptions, and out of whom, in 
 the ordinary course of things, no sufficient number of well- 
 informed teachers could possibly have been selected. 
 
 From such texts as these I think it would be idle to attempt 
 to gather any correct notion of the permanent institutions of 
 the Apostolic churches. But while I think that, on the one 
 hand, these passages will not bear all the weight which some 
 ardent friends of church government lay upon them, I think 
 on the other, that they are of real importance in serving to 
 explain certain phenomena which have been relied on by 
 indiscreet assertors of lay privileges to show the existence of 
 a state of anarchy in the primitive churches which cannot, I 
 think, be justly imputed to them. Neander, you know, goes 
 the length of maintaining that there was originally no divi- 
 sion in the Christian Church between clergy and laity. But I 
 cannot find that his arguments in favour of this hypothesis 
 have any better foundation than another hypothesis, which 
 again, as far as I can perceive, has no foundation at all, the 
 hypothesis that what are called % aplo-fiara or spiritual gifts 
 were nothing more than men’s natural or acquired abilities 
 turned in a religious direction by the ordinary influence of the 
 Holy Ghost. Coupling this arbitrary definition with the fact 
 that these gifted persons are represented as freely exercising 
 
124 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COUKSE I. 
 
 their gifts in the early churches, he arrives at the conclusion 
 that whoever was qualified, or thought himself qualified, 
 to address the brethren in the public assemblies might do 
 so ; whoever was qualified, or thought himself qualified, to 
 pour forth extempore hymns or prayers might do so ; and 
 I suppose, by parity of reasoning, whoever was qualified, 
 or thought himself qualified, to govern the brethren might 
 do so — or at least might try. For ‘ government’ is clearly 
 treated as a % dpio-fia quite as much as tongues or prophecy. 
 
 Now I wonder that the awkwardness of applying his 
 principle to this latter case did not help to show him the 
 weakness of its application in the others. But it is the less 
 necessary for us to spend time in developing the odd con- 
 sequences which would result from it, as the assumption itself 
 is not only gratuitous but opposed to the entire tenor of 
 Scripture. I am sure that I need not waste words in proving 
 to you that the powers which the gifted persons exercised are 
 treated in the New Testament as not only sanctified but 
 conferred by the Holy Spirit, and as generally conferred too 
 by a stated form and ceremony — the laying on of the Apostles’ 
 hands. The case of such gifted persons therefore is in no 
 way analogous to that of mere laymen. These gifted persons 
 were in a special manner designated by God Himself to the 
 exercise of certain functions ; and their case seems to have as 
 little connection, at least with the case of laymen, in the 
 ordinary state of the Church, as it has with that of clergy in 
 the ordinary state of the Church. 
 
 But if we look at the permanent and ordinary institutions 
 of the Primitive Church we shall find, even in the scanty 
 notices of them which the New Testament affords, substan- 
 tial traces of a marked distinction between the clergy and 
 the laity. We find the Apostles, wherever they gathered 
 a church, ordaining elders, and committing the immediate 
 government of it to them ; subject however, as I. before re- 
 marked, to their own general supervisal and frequent per- 
 soual visitation and interference. And that these elders were 
 not merely extraordinary officers, and that the imposition of 
 
LECT. IX. 
 
 ELDERS TEACHERS AS WELL AS RULERS. 
 
 125 
 
 hands by which they were set apart was not merely, if at all, 
 the conferring of some miraculous gift, becomes plain from 
 the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. There these disciples of 
 the Apostles are directed to follow Paul’s own precedent by 
 ordaining elders, and among the qualifications for the elder- 
 ship miraculous gifts are neither enumerated as previous re- 
 quisites, nor spoken of as to be bestowed in the act of ordi- 
 nation or in any other way. Hence I think we may conclude 
 that the presbyterate was a part of the permanent and 
 ordinary structure of the churches. And if so, it is a matter 
 of great importance to determine the essential nature of that 
 office. 
 
 Some, from the frequent application of such terms as 
 1 rule ’ and 1 govern ’ and c oversee,’ have concluded that it 
 had originally reference merely to discipline ; that the elders of 
 a Christian church were merely a kind of honorary magis- 
 trates, to keep order in the public assemblies, to terminate dis- 
 putes by arbitration, and to reprove those who acted in a 
 manner unworthy of their Christian profession. But to confine 
 the elder’s office to such points as these seems to me inconsis- 
 tent with many plain passages. It seems to me that ‘ teach- 
 ing ’ is plainly covered by the term ‘ ruling ’ when used in 
 this connection, and that even in places where it has been 
 supposed to be expressly distinguished from it. £ Let the 
 elders,’ says Paul, £ who rule well, be counted worthy of double 
 honour, especially they who labour in the word of God and 
 doctrine’ (1 Tim. v. 17). To me the plain meaning of this 
 direction seems to be that special regard should be had to 
 the laborious discharge of that part of an elder’s rule or pre- 
 sidency which consisted in the ministry of the word. The 
 term in the original is irpozaTMTes — oi koXms n rposcrrchres 
 7 rpeafivTspot — and I need not tell you that it is a very large 
 term, commonly applied to the discharge of almost any func- 
 tion which involved a certain distinction in the performer 
 from others. While the text then plainly indicates that the 
 elders had other duties to perform besides teaching, it equally 
 implies, I think, that teaching was part of their irpoaraaia , a 
 
126 
 
 APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE 1. 
 
 portion of their eminent function, and also the most honour- 
 able part of it. So also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, xiii. 7, 
 4 Remember your rulers ( tmv rjyov/jbsvcov) who have spoken 
 unto you the word of the Lord.’ So in 1 Tim. iii. 2, it 
 is required that a presbyter should be SoSa/cri/cos — i.e. both 
 capable of and disposed towards teaching ; and in the Epistle 
 to Titus, i. 9, we have the still more explicit statement that a 
 presbyter should hold firmly by the faithful word according 
 to the apostolic teaching, that he may be able both to give 
 exhortation in sound doctrine, and to convince gainsayers. In 
 a Christian community, indeed, of which the whole basis was 
 religious, the elders would, although copied in name and to 
 some extent in general idea, from the synagogue, assume a 
 different character from the Jewish seniors. The Christian 
 Church was not, like the Jewish, a civil society. It had no 
 municipal officers ; its magistrates were merely religious 
 magistrates. And if their ‘ rule ’ did not extend to the office 
 of instruction, it must have had a very small province indeed. 
 And when we see the manifest anxiety under which the 
 Apostles laboured for the preservation of sound doctrine 
 among the people, and the manifest and foreseen danger of 
 corruption which threatened it, it seems to require something 
 like extreme credulity to believe that the duty of perpetuating 
 and guarding it was not one of the special duties imposed on 
 those to whom they committed the oversight of a church. 2 
 
 2 This Lecture seems to end rather abruptly, and leaves much untold 
 that we may be sure was not overlooked. This is the more evident be- 
 cause in one of the lectures in the succeeding course, there is a reference 
 to matters that would have had their proper place here. We may feel 
 assured that the subject was pursued extemporaneously. Some cause must 
 have hindered the completion of the Lecture in writing. Nothing has 
 been found amongst the Bishop’s papers to supply the deficiency. In the 
 Lecture of the next series where the reference above mentioned occurs, 
 the matter for which the reference was made seems to be sufficiently 
 repeated for the purpose then in view. It was the Bishop’s habit at times 
 to lecture without MS.— Editors. 
 
SECOND COURSE 
 
 ^t)e {fai'lu §t)urcl) 
 

 
 
 
129 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 SCANTINESS OF INFORMATION REGARDING THE 
 PERIOD NEXT AFTER THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — We were occupied during the last term 
 with a review of the history of the Apostolic age, and were 
 engaged in tracing the gradual development of the Church 
 from the form which it wore at first, of a mere school in the 
 Jewish community, into that great Catholic society which 
 knows no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and embraces 
 equally, and on the same terms, ‘ all nations, and kindreds, 
 and peoples, and tongues ’ over the face of the whole earth. 
 
 That great event with which the Apostolic period may, 
 for practical purposes, be considered as closing — the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem by Titus — no doubt contributed greatly to 
 secure to the Christian Church this genuine Catholic cha- 
 racter ; while at the same time it deprived it for a space of 
 that power of combined action which enabled it, during other 
 periods, to play so conspicuous a part upon the stage of the 
 world’s theatre. 
 
 Let me explain somewhat more particularly what I mean 
 by these two statements. 
 
 When we speak of the Church as a catholic society, the 
 term Catholic is, without some further explanation, ambi- 
 guous ; and two persons holding really opposite sentiments 
 may continue for a long time to talk so exactly in the same 
 words as completely to conceal the difference of their opinions. 
 
 In general, any religion may be described as ‘ Catholic ’ 
 which aims at universal reception ; and in this sense Catho- 
 licity is so essential to Christianity that it belongs to it in 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 every form which it has ever worn. There is not, and never 
 has been, any difference at all among professing Christians 
 upon this point. And not only has there never been any such 
 difference among professing Christians, but it is worth re- 
 marking that almost every religion which has sprung up since 
 Christianity, and in countries where Christianity was known, 
 has assumed this pervasive character. This may be considered 
 as one of the many great collateral effects which Christianity 
 has produced in the world, even beyond the limits of its 
 directer influence ; and the religious history of mankind since 
 the preaching of the gospel exhibits in this, as in many other 
 respects, a contrast to the aspect which it presented before 
 that wonderful epoch. 
 
 Mahometanism and Buddhism are not, like the merely local 
 superstitions of ancient paganism, the rites peculiar to some 
 particular family, or tribe, or nation, but extend over whole 
 races of men, and stretch their gigantic arms from kingdom 
 to kingdom to seize distant and mutually independent states 
 in the grasp of their religious institutions. Mahometanism — 
 making allowance for some minor sectarian differences not as 
 great as those which distract Christendom — is one and the 
 same religious system in the territory of the Great Turk, 
 among the tribes of Arabia and of Tartary, in Persia and 
 in Egypt — wherever the faith of Islam has penetrated, from 
 the banks of the Danube to the shores of the Yellow Sea, 
 and from the fastnesses of Bokhara to the inmost recesses 
 of Central Africa. And so of Buddhism; with the same 
 allowance for minor differences, it is unmistakeably one 
 and the same religion in Hindostan and Burmah, in Ceylon 
 and Thibet, among the fierce hordes of the Mongol Tartars, 
 and over the well-cultivated surface of the immense territory 
 of China. 
 
 Catholicity, then, in this sense of the word, is not even 
 peculiar to Christianity [which in this was perhaps anticipated 
 by Buddhism]. Still less does it afford any mark of distinc- 
 tion between professing Christians themselves. But if we 
 consider more attentively the instances of extra-Christian 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 TWO KINDS OF CATHOLICITY. 
 
 131 
 
 religious systems to which I have referred, we shall find, I 
 think, something to help us to that which we are in search of. 
 
 Vast, then, as has been the diffusion of the Mahometan 
 and Buddhist religions, no one, I suppose, in Europe can 
 doubt that there are insuperable barriers to their universal 
 reception. The truth is that, though not so narrowly local 
 as the older forms of paganism, they carry in them neverthe- 
 less the inherent vice of those older forms. The type of that 
 peculiar stage of civilisation which we call the Oriental cha- 
 racter is indelibly imprinted upon their creed and institutions ; 
 and they could not be received in any region of a different 
 character without a total change of national manners and 
 modes of thought. 
 
 It is the peculiar privilege of Christianity, in its native 
 simplicity, that it is not encumbered with any such difficul- 
 ties, but possesses an elastic power of adapting itself to the 
 various distinctions by which the great family of man is 
 parcelled out. 
 
 It is this peculiar catholic character of Christianity which 
 is much obscured whenever that religion has been connected 
 with any fixed local centre upon which all Christian com- 
 munities are supposed to depend. With such a centre it is 
 almost unavoidable that the particular form which Christianity 
 wears in that centre should be considered as its type. The 
 institutions of the central Church will be in such a case in- 
 evitably regarded as the mould in which all others are to be 
 cast ; and an effort will always be made — and even though 
 checked repeatedly, repeatedly renewed — to extend that type 
 universally, and obliterate every distinction at variance with 
 that model. Thus Latin Christianity has become Roman. It 
 is a grand attempt to stamp all nations with the Roman brand, 
 and produce a general uniformity by superinducing upon all 
 Christians the institutions of that particular Church. Hence 
 we see at once why the Latin system has never gained any 
 firm or permanent hold where a national character adverse to 
 the Latin type has been developed. 
 
 No doubt a foresight of the evils which would attend on 
 
132 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 such a centre was one of the reasons for which Providence 
 ordained the destruction of Jerusalem. While that city 
 stood, the Church there formed a sort of local centre to the 
 early churches, with far higher claims than Rome could 
 reasonably pretend to. It was, in reality — what the Church 
 of Rome so falsely and so absurdly calls herself — the mother 
 of all churches, to which all the lines of spiritual descent in 
 other places converged, and in which they met. Jerusalem 
 was the seat of the original Apostles. It was the place in 
 which our Lord’s own ministry had closed, and in which the 
 presence of the Comforter had been first manifested, and it 
 was the golden link of connection between the old and the 
 new dispensations. 
 
 With such advantages as these, it is not wonderful that 
 the Church of J erusalem should have exercised great influence 
 over the whole circle of the Christian community, and there 
 certainly was no small danger that, especially after the guiding 
 hand of the inspired Apostles was withdrawn from this central 
 wheel as it were of the ecclesiastical machine, its movements 
 might have been highly prej udicial to all that depended on it. 
 There was manifest danger that the national peculiarities of 
 the Church of Jerusalem might be impressed upon Christi- 
 anity itself, and a character thus given to the religion which 
 would render it unsuitable to discharge its important function 
 of blending freely with the institutions of all nations and all 
 climes and all ages, in which the true secret of its real strength 
 and permanence lies. 
 
 The almost synchronous events of the removal of the 
 Apostles, and the disruption of the Jewish polity, seem thus 
 to have been so arranged by Providence that the latter to 
 some extent compensated for the former. And just at the 
 time when the Judaising tendency of the Church of Jerusalem 
 was likely to do most mischief, the Roman arms drove it from 
 its metropolis and violently broke up the associations of local 
 dignity to which it owed its influence. 
 
 By these events, however, as I said, the churches were 
 for a certain space deprived of the means of combined action. 
 That central tie of a common government, or at least a common 
 
LECT. T. 
 
 PERIOD OF TRANSITION OBSCURE. 
 
 133 
 
 point of contact, which had been supplied by the Apostles and 
 elders at Jerusalem, was taken from them, and nothing of the 
 same sort substituted in its room. Thus each separate Chris- 
 tian community was thrown upon its own resources for the 
 conservation of the apostolic faith and the working out of 
 such institutions of church order as might suit its own case. 
 Over this period of transition, which immediately succeeds 
 upon the era properly called apostolic, great obscurity hangs. 
 I shall endeavour presently to assign some reasons for that 
 obscurity. But what I wish to remark at present is that the 
 fact of such obscurity, combined with all the antecedent 
 probabilities of the case, and the little that we do know of the 
 history of that interval, seems to make it certain that no great 
 piece of combined action on the part of the whole Church in 
 its federative capacity can have taken place during it. Such 
 an event could not have occurred without impressing some 
 permanent record of its occurrence upon the annals of the 
 time. And therefore, when in the middle of the next century 
 the mist begins to clear off, [and shows us the spectacle of 
 the churches diffused over the whole surface of the Roman 
 Empire, and beyond it, acknowledging everywhere the same 
 essential articles of faith — tracing their religion to the same 
 persons, founding their faith upon the same miraculous facts, 
 appealing unanimously to the same documents as the well- 
 attested records of their founders’ teaching — and practising 
 the same external rites as delivered down to them by those 
 founders, this is very strong and convincing evidence that 
 such an uniform system of belief and practice could not have 
 originated in that short, dark interval. There was in that 
 interval no common authority which could have fixed these 
 things for all the churches diffused over so wide a surface. 
 If there were, whence did it come and whither did it go, that 
 its rise should have been preceded by no indications, and its 
 departure should have taken place without leaving a vestige 
 behind ? It is surely incredible that any such universal em- 
 pire as this should, like Jonah’s gourd, spring up in a night 
 and vanish with the day. But if there was none, then it is 
 plain that the unanimity which meets our view in the second 
 
134 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE TT. 
 
 century was the result of the independent testimony of the 
 several churches, each preserving for itself, by diligent inquiry 
 and examination, the records of the apostolic teaching. It is 
 the uncoerced testimony of a multitude of independent separate' 
 witnesses to the same truth. 
 
 And this you will observe is far more important than any 
 consent produced by the mere influence of a central authority. 
 If, for example, a canon of the New Testament, such as we find 
 generally admitted in the latter part of the second century, 
 had been fixed towards the close of the first by a General 
 Council, this would have worn, in the eyes of inconsiderate 
 spectators, a more imposing aspect than the actual pheno- 
 mena present. But to all right-judging men it would be a 
 less satisfactory kind of evidence. The decision of a Council 
 is, after all, only the decision of the majority there assembled, 
 and in the case of such assemblies there is too often reason 
 to suspect, from the very circumstance of their combined 
 action, that seeming agreement may be obtained by com- 
 promises and mutual concessions. But when a number of 
 scattered communities, without mutual concert, each acting 
 independently of the other, are found to agree in recognising 
 the same books as genuine and authentic, in a matter in 
 which they are deeply interested, and as soon as, all things 
 considered, the genuineness and authenticity of those writings 
 could be clearly and genuinely ascertained, this seems as 
 good evidence of the facts as the nature of human affairs will 
 allow of. 
 
 But whence, it may be asked, the obscurity which con- 
 fessedly hangs over the history of that interval in question, 
 extending from the close of Paul’s ministry to about the 
 middle of the second century ? I cannot pretend wholly to 
 dissipate this difficulty, but I shall perhaps be able to remove 
 some part of it by the following remarks : — 
 
 In the first place then we must remember that the Sun 
 of Inspiration sets in blood. The light of the Scripture- 
 narrative forsakes us just as the Neronian persecution begins. 
 And though it has been questioned how far this was a general 
 persecution, I think that the doubts entertained upon that 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 NOTES FOR THE SEQUEL. 
 
 135 
 
 subject arise partly from the ambiguity of the term ‘ general 
 persecution,’ and partly from want of sufficiently considering 
 the circumstances of the case. If by a c general persecution ’ 
 be meant a systematic attempt, like that of Diocletian, to 
 search after and extirpate the Christians through the whole 
 extent of the Koman Empire. ... 1 
 
 1 This Lecture unhappily breaks off abruptly in the MS. as above. 
 Owing to whatever cause, there is evidence that nothing more was ever 
 written. First, the unfinished paragraph above breaks off in the middle of the 
 first of two leaves of a folded sheet, leaving the remainder of that and the 
 next leaf blank. And in the second place, on the outside of the latter are 
 jotted down the successive points on which the writer intended to dwell, 
 beginning with the subject in which the MS. abruptly ends, viz. ‘ Pers n .’ 
 We may suppose that some pressing avocation obliged him to cease writing, 
 and that these heads of discourse were jotted down as a guide for the extem- 
 poraneous exposition of the sequel. The perusal of these, which are sub- 
 joined, will show the line of thought pursued in a manner sufficiently sug- 
 gestive, but such as to make us the more lament that the Lecture was 
 not written in full. In giving this sketch, some words are introduced 
 in brackets for the sake of clearness : — 
 
 ‘ Pers".’ [Persecution.] 
 
 ‘Tran 8 .’ [Transition.] ‘ Shaking right. Middle ages Corp ns ’ [Plainly 
 a comparison with the way in which the medigeval corporations came to 
 assume a settled form.] 
 
 ‘ Disturbances in churches — Consolidat n of Pastoral power.’ 
 
 ‘Ep. of Clem[ent] ill- [ustrates] both external and internal.’ 
 
 ‘ Immediate successors of great men ’ [plainly, overshadowed.] 
 
 * Authentic docu[ments] eclipsed [those] less so. Boswell.’ 
 
 ‘ Latter [viz., less so] got into hands of heretics — Romances' [These 
 plainly, the simpler forms of such writings as the Clementines, the story of 
 Thecla, and the Apocryphal Gospels.] 
 
 ‘ Comparison of Churches. Heges[ippus], Melito.’ 
 
 ‘ Apost[olical] Conons ’ [Constitutions.] 
 
 ‘ Character of Teachers.’ 
 
 ‘ Cut out by the authors of 2 and 3 centuries.’ 
 
 * Loss of writings of Papias — Hegesipp., &c. Tide turned ag l Millenary 
 opinions.’ 
 
 ‘ Want of schools.’ 
 
 ‘Writers of next centuries produced by schools.’ 
 
 Any reader who would take pains by his own thought, and reference to 
 books, to follow up this suggested programme, with a general idea of the 
 Bishop’s style and manner of treatment, might in some manner present to 
 himself the Lecture as it was delivered in full. The reference to Boswell 
 seems to have been intended to illustrate how authentic documents over- 
 shadow those that are less so, just as Boswell’s Johnson superseded all other 
 attempts to describe the great lexicographer, and threw into almost entire 
 neglect the biographies written by others. — Editors. 
 
136 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 LECTUEE IL 
 
 THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS. 
 
 Gentlemen, — In my last lecture I endeavoured to give 
 some Explanation of a phenomenon which is apt to strike the 
 student of Ecclesiastical history with some surprise — I mean 
 the extreme scantiness of the remaining relics of that im- 
 portant interval which elapsed from the close of the canon of 
 the New Testament to a date near the middle of the second 
 century. 
 
 In the course of the remarks which I made in reference 
 to that subject, I observed that the writers who flourished in 
 that interval stood in the peculiarly disadvantageous position 
 of being overshadowed at once by their immediate pre- 
 decessors and by their immediate successors. Compared with 
 their immediate predecessors indeed — that is with the in- 
 spired authors of the New Testament — the Doctors of any 
 succeeding age in the Church’s annals must have greatly 
 suffered in the contrast. But in order, perhaps, to mark still 
 more strongly that the power with which the first heralds of 
 Christianity published its mysteries was not their own. but 
 ‘ the Spirit ’ of their heavenly Father 1 speaking in them,’ 
 the Providence of God seems so to have ordered matters that 
 the ecclesiastical writers contemporary with the Apostles are 
 almost of all others the most conspicuously unable of them- 
 selves to produce such a literature as we find in the pages of 
 the sacred canon. 
 
 ‘ The first preachers of the gospel,’ says Bishop War- 
 burton, in the admirable Introduction to his ‘ Julian ’ — a 
 work which I would earnestly recommend you not only to read. 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 WARBURTON’S JUDGMENT OF THEM. 
 
 137 
 
 but to study — £ the first preachers of the gospel were the 
 inspired messengers of the word. They committed its dic- 
 tates to writing ; and with that purity, and consequently 
 with that splendour, in which they drew from the fount of 
 truth. Their immediate followers, whom we call the Apostolic 
 Fathers, received at their hands the doctrine of life in all the 
 simplicity of understanding as well as heart. It cannot be 
 said their writings do much honour to the rational sublimity 
 of sacred truth, but then they do not violate its integrity. 
 For false philosophy had not yet made havoc of the faith, 
 though it was then beginning to work. If in their writings 
 we see but little of that manly elegance of reason which makes 
 the Scriptures so truly respectable, it must be allowed how- 
 ever, there is as little of those adulterate ornaments which 
 their successors brought from the brothels of philosophy to 
 adorn the sanctity of religion ; and let me add further, that 
 though the early prospect of things may not be in all respects 
 what one could wish, yet there is one circumstance which 
 does great credit to our holy faith. It is this — that as the 
 integrity and dignity of its simple and perfect nature refused 
 all fellowship with the adulterate arts of Grecian learning, 
 so the admirable display of divine wisdom in disposing 
 the parts and conducting the course of the grand system of 
 Redemption was not to be tolerably apprehended but by an 
 improved and well-disciplined understanding. Both these 
 qualities suited the nobility of its original. It could bear no 
 communion with error, and was as little fitted to consort with 
 ignorance.’ 
 
 The honest and outspoken bluntness of this great prelate’s 
 judgment of writers, who stood as it were within the very 
 halo of a miraculous dispensation, gave some scandal to the 
 admirers of antiquity in his time, and the repetition of it 
 will possibly displease their successors in our own. But it 
 may be worth observing that the peculiar sensitiveness which 
 would exempt the early Doctors of the Church from all un- 
 favourable criticism is itself an innovation. The Fathers them- 
 selves do not seem to have laboured under any such excessive 
 
138 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 delicacy. Eusebius, for example, seems not to bave been de- 
 terred by any peculiar awe from passing judgment as freely 
 upon the productions of the Apostolic age as upon those 
 of the succeeding centuries. His language, in particular 
 with regard to Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis, and the 
 associate of the personal friends of the Apostles, is still more 
 blunt — it is absolutely contemptuous 1 — than that of War- 
 burton. And at a later period Photius, the great eccle- 
 siastical critic, seems even to single out the earliest Fathers as 
 subjects of peculiarly severe criticism . 2 
 
 If anyone differs from the judgment on the merits of the 
 Apostolic Fathers, which I have adopted from Warburton, on 
 the same grounds as any other question of literary merit 
 would be tried, however I may doubt his critical powers, I 
 shall be always ready to confess that be puts the debate on a 
 perfectly fair issue. If anyone contends that the writings of 
 these venerable persons do contain marks of commanding 
 genius, considerable powers of reasoning, great skill in the 
 interpretation of Scripture, deep thought, profound learning, 
 persuasive eloquence, or any other indication of high literary 
 merit, and proceeds to assign those indications upon which he 
 rests his cause, I shall at once acknowledge that he is arguing 
 the question as it ought to be argued ; and I am quite ready 
 to leave the decision of it, upon an examination of the proper 
 evidence, to the world. But it is not fair to stifle evidence 
 by declamation, which, when stripped of figurative embellish- 
 
 1 Hist. Eccl. iii. 39 : ‘ He appears to have been a man of very small 
 intelligence (<rc poSpa cr/uKpbs rbu vov V s ), as far as one can judge from his 
 own discourses.’ — E ditors. 
 
 2 Thus, for instance, speaking of the first Epistle of Clement of Rome, 
 while he describes Clement as ‘ simple and clear in his mauner of ex- 
 pression, and approaching the ecclesiastic and artless style,’ he says he is to 
 be censured in three particulars, namely, that he supposes that other worlds 
 exist beyond the ocean, he uses the example of the Phoenix as if the story 
 respecting that bird was an absolute verity, and having called our Lord 
 Jesus Christ our high priest and president, he has uttered none of the loftier 
 sayings more suitable to his divine nature ; not, however, that he anywhere 
 openly blasphemes in this respect. The reader will see that this is very 
 stingy praise. The testimonies of Photius may be found prefixed to various 
 editions of the ecclesiastical writers. — Editors. 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 THEIR VALUE CHIEFLY HISTORICAL. 
 
 139 
 
 ments and passionate outcries, amounts to little more than 
 this — that, whatever be the evidence of facts, we must always 
 speak of these Fathers as good writers because they are 
 Fathers — i.e. because they have been dead and buried so 
 many centuries ago. If mere lapse of time is to be allowed 
 this canonising effect, it is a consolatory rule for the dnlness 
 of all ages. Let us only have patience, gentlemen, and after 
 many days some stray copy of our now despised lucubrations 
 may turn up in a trunkmaker’s or a grocer’s shop, and we too 
 shall be similarly safe from criticism and take our place as 
 Fathers of the Church. 
 
 But if men are to be debarred from perceiving or owning 
 the defects of the ancient ecclesiastical writers, they should, I 
 think, be equally debarred from perceiving or pointing out 
 their merits. He who pretends to discover in an ancient 
 writer great literary excellence must surely suppose himself 
 able to recognise the want of it, should such a want exist. 
 And therefore the encomiasts of antiquity do really quite as 
 much place themselves in the critical chair — do really quite as 
 much sit in judgment on the authors they commend — as those 
 who venture to censure these authors when they think they 
 perceive that censure is due ; unless, indeed, the laudations 
 bestowed upon the Fathers of the Church are to be deprived 
 of all real value, and considered as mere words of course, like 
 the high-sounding complimentary phrases in which we speak 
 of the best and the worst of princes indiscriminately as 4 most 
 religious and gracious sovereigns.’ 
 
 On the whole, then, I am not ashamed to own my opinion 
 that the writings of the Apostolic Fathers have very little 
 more than the great historic value which their antiquity gives 
 them to make them peculiarly worth preserving ; and if they 
 are to be taken as fair samples of the Christian literature of 
 that interval, I am not surprised that so much of it has been 
 smothered between the works of their inspired predecessors 
 and their accomplished successors. 
 
 In the number of the Apostolic Fathers are commonly 
 counted, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, Barnabas, and 
 
140 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 COURSE IT. 
 
 Hermas. But Hermas, or more properly Hermes, is now, I 
 think, pretty certainly proved to belong to a later period. 
 An ancient writer, supposed to be the Presbyter Caius, a 
 fragment of whom was discovered by Muratori, distinctly 
 confirms the long-suspected statement of the Roman Liber 
 Pontificalis, and identifies him with the Hermes who was 
 brother to Pope Pius I., in the second century . 3 
 
 Of Clement, one Epistle is undoubtedly genuine, but the 
 circumstances connected with it strongly confirm what we 
 have been observing with respect to Apostolic Fathers gener- 
 ally. As far as we know, but one MS. of that Epistle is now 
 extant . 4 It was long supposed to have perished entirely, but 
 in the reign of Charles I. the unfortunate Patriarch of Alex- 
 andria, Cyril Lucar, presented the unfortunate King of 
 England with that celebrated copy of the Greek Scriptures 
 which goes by the name of the Alexandrian MS., and is still 
 preserved in the British Museum. In this MS., at the end of 
 the Books of the New Testament was found, but in a sadly 
 lacerated condition, the long missing first Epistle of Clement 
 to the Corinthians, and a fragment of a second Epistle, like- 
 wise attributed to him, but I think incorrectly. For Eusebius 
 tells us that he could find no ancient testimony in its favour, 
 and Jerome assures us that in his time it was generally re- 
 jected. How far even the first Epistle as it now stands is 
 throughout the genuine work of Clement, is a question not 
 absolutely determined. Many learned men have thought 
 that certain parts of it are interpolations ; and although I 
 am not convinced that they have made out a satisfactory case, 
 yet I do not think that, in expressing their suspicions, they 
 
 3 Pastorem vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Herma 
 conscripsit, sedente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo, fratre ejus. 
 Et ideo legi eum quidem oportet, sed publicare vero in Ecclesia populo, 
 neque inter prophetas completum numero, neque inter Apostolos in finem 
 temporis potest. Galland. Bibl. Vet. Patrum, tom. ii. p. 208. Apud Proleg. 
 Pat. Apost. ed. Hefele. — Editors. 
 
 4 The reader will remember that this was written long before the recent 
 discovery by Archbishop Biyennius of the entire text of Clement’s Epistles, 
 both genuine and supposititious, in the now famous Jerusalem MS. de- 
 posited in the Phanar Library in Constantinople. — Editors. 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 WRITINGS ASCRIBED TO CLEMENT. 
 
 141 
 
 are guilty of such egregious audacity as is sometimes imputed 
 to them. 
 
 Where the MSS. of an old writing are numerous and 
 respectable there is little room for critical conjecture, because 
 one independent copy is a check upon another ; and thus the 
 immense multitude of MSS. and ancient citations of the Books 
 of the New Testament for example, and in a lesser degree of 
 several classic authors, indefinitely removes the possibility of 
 material error or falsification in the text which is the result 
 of a comparison of them. Thus that enormous collection of 
 various readings which has frightened weak heads from the 
 days of Whitby to those of Dr. Nolan , 5 attesting as it does 
 the number and the independence of the copies from which it is 
 drawn, is in reality our great security for the substantial cor- 
 rectness of the general text of the sacred writings. In such a 
 case nothing short of a moral demonstration in the shape of 
 internal evidence should be allowed to set aside the external 
 testimony. But the case is very different when we are trust- 
 ing to a single copy, especially in the work of a writer like 
 Clement, whom literary impostors appear to have very soon 
 begun to consider as given to them for a prey. For, indeed, 
 the number of spurious pieces attributed to this Father is 
 remarkable. Besides the spurious second Epistle, a fragment 
 of which is preserved as his in the very Codex whose authority 
 is treated by some critics as infallible, there are extant in 
 Syriac two other Epistles ascribed to him also, but which are 
 also undoubtedly spurious, though Wetstein, in a paradoxical 
 humour, once took it into his head to maintain their genuine- 
 ness. They are discourses upon Virginity, and were composed 
 probably in the third century. They do not claim in the 
 body of them to be composed by Clement, and it is not im- 
 probable that the prefixing of his name to them was a fraud 
 rather of the bookseller than of the author. 
 
 But the same apology cannot be made for other pieces 
 ascribed to Clement, as for example, the Homilies and Recog- 
 
 5 See Preface to his Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greeh Vulgate 
 or Received Text of the New Testament . — Editors. 
 
142 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 nitions to which I have before more than once referred, and 
 the Apostolic Canons and Constitutions. 
 
 The truth seems to be that, from the scantiness and 
 poverty of the uninspired literary remains of the Apostolic 
 age, the booksellers and bookmakers of the third and fourth 
 centuries began to think that there were a great number of 
 excellent names going to waste. Here, they seem to have 
 thought, on one side are a number of very good names of vener- 
 able writers, with very few and rather insignificant writings ; 
 and here, on the other hand, are many very clever writings 
 without the necessary commodity of good names to recom- 
 mend them. What more natural than to make an exchange 
 so desirable for both parties ? Let the venerable Doctors of 
 antiquity have the credit of our ingenious modern productions, 
 and let the ingenious men of modern times have the advantage 
 of recommending their useful notions under the patronage of 
 those venerable names. Thus the ancients will be highly 
 honoured, the present Church vastly benefited, and, though 
 last not least, a brisk trade driven in these new-old literary 
 wares. 
 
 These remarks derive additional illustration and confirma- 
 tion from the literary history of the writings of Ignatius, 
 another of the Apostolic Fathers. 
 
 For a long time the only jbext of these known to the 
 learned world was that contained in what are called c The 
 Long Epistles of Ignatius.’ But these Long Epistles contained 
 so many indications of a later age than that of the author 
 whom they claimed, that all discerning critics agreed in re- 
 garding them as either wholly spurious or grossly interpolated. 
 After some time, however, in 1646, Isaac Vossius discovered 
 in a MS. at Florence a much shorter text of several of these 
 Epistles, the readings of which were further confirmed by 
 MSS. of Latin versions already brought to light by Archbishop 
 Ussher. This text it was that Bishop Pearson undertook to 
 defend in his immortal work, the ‘ Vindiciae Ignatianas,’ and 
 though he was answered with much learning and acuteness by 
 Larroque, in a book now unfortunately excessively scarce, but 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 DIFFERENT TEXTS OF IGNATIUS. 
 
 143 
 
 which so good a scholar as Dr. Parr thought decisive, his 
 arguments prevailed pretty generally, and especially in 
 Episcopalian churches. Indeed, Mosheim fairly confesses 
 that they would probably have prevailed everywhere if it had 
 not been necessary for the strict Presbyterians to make out a 
 case against these Epistles of Ignatius, so decisive are they in 
 favour of the existence of episcopacy in the Apostolic age. 
 
 With this shorter text, then, we in England and Ireland 
 were generally pretty well content, until, a short while ago, a 
 still shorter one was discovered in some Syriac MSS. in a 
 monastery in the desert of Nitria, the publication of which 
 by Mr. Cureton has excited an angry controversy that is not 
 likely soon to reach an end, and will probably outlast the 
 Russian war, and perhaps the existence of the Ottoman empire. 6 
 Indeed, I think it not at all improbable that we shall soon hear 
 tidings of a fourth text of these marvellous Epistles, for I think 
 I can clearly perceive from the fragments which Mr. Cureton 
 has given from the writings of Severus, Timotheus, and others, 
 that there must have been a somewhat different text from any 
 of the three now known at one time in existence. 
 
 Severus, for example, cites Ignatius as saying, in the Epistle 
 to the Magnesians — c There is one God, who manifested Him- 
 self through Jesus Christ His Son, who is His Word, who pro- 
 ceeded from Silence.’ Now in the Florentine text the passage 
 runs thus: os- hanv avrov X070S* aihcos ov/c airo cri'yrjs 
 7rpos\6cov, i.e. ‘ Who is his eternal Word, not proceeding from 
 Silence.’ Severus’ text, therefore, must have had \6<yos 
 chios instead of X. albios and must have omitted the ov/c. 
 And it is curious to observe that the former of these altera- 
 tions was conjectured by a great conjecture-monger, the 
 younger Crellius, a Socinian writer, in a wild book published 
 by him in the last century, and in which he proposed to get 
 rid of St. John’s testimony to the Deity of Christ by a con- 
 jectural emendation. 
 
 Now though, as we have said, a number of independent 
 MSS. of substantially the same text is a great advantage, yet 
 
 6 Written in 1854 . — Editors. 
 
144 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II, 
 
 three or four totally different texts of professedly the same 
 book is rather too much of a good thing ; especially consider- 
 ing that, between the two shorter ones, it is much easier to 
 see that both are brought into some doubt, than to determine 
 which is preferable to the other. The critic might well 
 be happy with either, but with two such nearly balanced com- 
 petitors for his favour, he is strongly tempted to withhold it 
 from them both. 
 
 Mr. Cureton, with the natural zeal of an editor, argues 
 strongly for the perfect purity of the Syriac text. It is, as I 
 said, shorter in every way than either of the Greek recensions. 
 In the first place it contains but three Epistles — those to Poly- 
 carp, the Ephesians, and the Romans ; and it does not, like 
 the Florentine MS., join confessedly spurious documents along 
 with such as have respectable claims to genuineness. Then 
 the text is characterised by omitting the very passages, or 
 most of them, which seemed suspicious in the Florentine MS. 
 While retaining sufficiently strong testimonies to the Deity of 
 Christ, and to the dignity of the episcopal office, to show that 
 the scribe was not an enemy to either, it does not display that 
 laboured anxiety to accumulate high-sounding statements of 
 them, which had been remarked in the Greek ; and Mr. 
 Cureton observes very acutely that the first author who cites 
 anything as from Ignatius not found in the three Syriac 
 Epistles,, is Athanasius, in a letter 360, i.e. twenty-five years 
 after the Council of Nice. This was not only in the heat of the 
 Arian controversy, but the time also when the question as to 
 the jurisdiction of Bishops began to be stirred by the founder 
 of Presbyterianism, Aerius of Pontus. Hence he conjectures 
 that the Florentine MS. represents a text partly forged and 
 partly interpolated, for the purpose of more completely refut- 
 ing the two heresies of Arianism and Aerianism. And if so, 
 it is curious to observe that one of these heresies at least paid 
 back the orthodox in their own coin. For there can be no 
 reasonable doubt that the Longer Epistles, as they are called, 
 were interpolated by an Arian hand. The main points of Mr. 
 Cureton’s arguments are thus strongly recapitulated by him- 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 CURETON ON THE SYRIAC RECENSION. 
 
 145 
 
 self, and from them you will perceive that his arguments have 
 great force. 
 
 £ First, although there be no direct proof, there is a strong 
 probability that Ignatius’ Epistles were translated into Syriac 
 at a very early period, before corruptions had made their way 
 into the text. Secondly, the MSS. in which this translation is 
 found are very ancient, and were written several centuries 
 before any of the Greek or Latin copies now in existence. 
 Thirdly, all the evidence which has ever been brought forward, 
 either from direct citations or allusions made to him by any 
 author for the first two centuries after his death, apply 
 especially to these three Epistles, and to these only ; and 
 fourthly, they do not contain those passages found in the 
 Greek and Latin copies which, according to the judgment of 
 several learned and able critics, could not have been written 
 by that Apostolic Father, because they bear upon themselves 
 the stamp of facts and opinions which belong to a later period. 
 So that had any person, after the discussions of the Ignatian 
 controversy towards the close of the seventeenth century, been 
 anxious to remodel the text according to the best arguments 
 which had been advanced on both sides, by removing such 
 passages as sound criticism on the one part pronounced to 
 be spurious, and retaining those which learned research on the 
 other upheld to be genuine, he could hardly have failed to 
 reduce these Epistles into nearly the same form as they are 
 found in the Syriac version, transcribed about a thousand 
 years before the controversy began, and now first brought to 
 light, more than a century and a half after it had ceased.’ 
 
 These reasons are doubtless of great weight. But there 
 are nevertheless some things which make me hesitate. That 
 Ignatius actually wrote more letters than the three which the 
 Syriac recension preserves, we know on unquestionable autho- 
 rity — in particular a letter to the church of Tralles which is 
 distinctly alluded to by Eusebius, whose allusion (though he 
 does not quote any sentence out of it) agrees exactly with the 
 Epistle to the Trail esians now extant in the Florentine MS . 7 
 
 7 Eccl. Hist. iii. 36, 5. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COUHSE II. 
 
 Then the references made by later authors are not, I think, to 
 be so wholly disregarded as Mr. Cureton seems practically to 
 think ; and what weighs with me perhaps most of all, is that 
 I find it hard to believe that a forger should have so well 
 imitated the very peculiar style of Ignatius in those Epistles 
 of the shorter copy which Mr. Cureton condemns as spurious, 
 but which are certainly of one and the same character of style 
 as those which he admits to be genuine, and quite dissimilar 
 from those which are universally exploded. That style is, as 
 I said, quite peculiar, and agrees very remarkably with what 
 might be expected from a warm Oriental, not trained in the 
 rules of artificial composition, writing in the near prospect of 
 martyrdom, when his feelings were excited with an ardent 
 enthusiastic zeal, and his whole mind pervaded by strong and 
 agitating emotions, under the influence of which new ideas 
 were suggested every moment with such rapidity, and the 
 thoughts hurried so swiftly from one subject to another, as 
 must needs impart an abruptness to his style and a confused 
 obscurity to his expressions. I remember that once myself, 
 when I was young and inexperienced, and therefore apt to 
 make hypotheses, I had a strong suspicion that the Epistle of 
 Ignatius to the Romans was the only genuine one, and that 
 it suggested the forgery of all the rest. But I soon felt that 
 if one were admitted, the unaffected identity of style would 
 secure all the rest ; and I feel now the same difficulty in the 
 way of an hypothesis which admits only three. 
 
 But if it be granted that the Syriac editor had extant 
 before him seven Epistles of Ignatius, and that out of these 
 he chose only three for copying, this admission will allow the 
 patrons of the Greek Short Epistles to take one step, and that 
 a most important one, towards improving their position and 
 rescuing themselves from Mr. Cureton ’s artillery. It will show 
 plainly that the scribe was, for some reason or other, studious 
 of brevity, and had either no space or no time for making a 
 complete copy. And if it be once granted that he shortened 
 his work by leaving out four whole Epistles, they will contend 
 that it is not unreasonable to suppose further that he made it 
 
lect. ii. BALANCE IN FAVOUR OF THE SYRIAC TEXT. 
 
 147 
 
 shorter still by abridging the remainder. Such abridgments 
 are not, to be sure, very common in the MSS. of important 
 ecclesiastical documents. Interpolations and paraphrases are 
 the more usual phenomena. Still they are not wholly unpre- 
 cedented ; and in profane literature there are many instances. 
 The epitome of Athenasus is one remarkable one ; and you 
 know that the loss of many books of Livy is supposed to have 
 been occasioned by the epitomes having been substituted for 
 them by hasty readers, who loved better to gather up the facts 
 quickly than to dwell upon the graces and embellishments of 
 an eloquently told narrative. Nor, as I said, is ecclesiastical 
 literature without its examples, among which it may not 
 be necessary to name more than the epitome of Lactantius’ 
 £ Institutions. ’ These cases are not, indeed, precisely cases 
 in point. There is a very important difference between them 
 and the one before us. They are instances of epitomes of long 
 treatises, whereas Ignatius’ Epistles, even in the largest re- 
 cension, are but short pieces, and one would expect that a 
 pious purchaser would not be willing to 1 lose one drop of that 
 immortal man,’ especially when the whole of his remains could 
 be so easily contained in a small volume. But then there are 
 a thousand accidents that may have interfered with these 
 pious wishes. The parchment may have come short, or the 
 writer may have been pressed for time. Though still, if these 
 Syriac Epistles be an abridgment, they must be allowed to be 
 an abridgment made with unusual good taste and sagacity, 
 since they omit just the parts that one would wish away, and 
 do this so as rather to improve than injure the connection of 
 the rest. 
 
 On the whole, then, I think it must be allowed that great 
 obscurity hangs over the whole question, but the balance 
 turns rather in favour of the Syriac text. But the fact that 
 this genuine text, if it be genuine, has only now been dis- 
 covered through the medium of a Syriac translation, and that 
 two other texts of these Epistles, and of a multitude of 
 other Epistles falsely ascribed to the same author, have so long 
 been current, illustrates, I think, and confirms remarkably 
 
148 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the observations I made with respect to the Apostolic Fathers 
 in general, and shows what a marked difference was made by 
 the Primitive Church between their writings and those of the 
 canon of the New Testament . 8 
 
 The next piece in the collection of the Apostolic Fathers 
 is the so-called Epistle of Barnabas. It seems in its present 
 form to be a farrago of ancient fragments pieced together ; 
 and the latter part is not only inserted bodily in the Apostolic 
 Constitutions, but is quoted as a separate treatise, under the 
 title of ‘ The Two Ways,’ by ancient writers. The author or 
 compiler of this Epistle or Homily never gives himself the name 
 of Barnabas, nor indeed any name at all. But he is quoted 
 very early under that name by Clement of Alexandria. That 
 he was the Apostle Barnabas few considerate persons will be 
 disposed to allow. Indeed, one single passage in it seems of 
 itself decisive against supposing that this writer was at all, 
 as Barnabas the Apostle must have been, acquainted with 
 Hebrew . 9 The prefixing of the name Barnabas to it may have 
 been a bookseller’s trick, or it may have been a bond fide 
 though erroneous conjecture of the scribe’s, or it may have 
 
 * We have reason to know that, even in later times, the Bishop never 
 felt thoroughly satisfied in regard to this question.— Editors. 
 
 9 There is one famous passage (ix.) which contains an absurdity so gross, 
 that no one who did not regard that Version (the LXX.) with the same reve- 
 rence as the Hebrew text, could possibly have fallen into it : — ‘ Learn then, 
 my child! en, concerning all richly, that Abraham, who first gave us circum- 
 cision, looking forward in the Spirit to his son, circumcised his domestics , 
 taking the mysteries (Soyuara, vid. Casaub c. Bar .,p. 11, Exerc. xvi. 43,) of 
 three letters: for the Scripture says : — “ And Abraham circumcised of his 
 house, ten, and eight, and three hundred men.” What then was the know- 
 ledge given to him ? Learn first of the eighteen, then of the three hundred. 
 Now, as to the ten and eight, I is ten, and H eight. You have IH<rot/s. 
 .... He manifests, then, Jesus in two letters (t. 77 .), and the Cross in one 
 (T). He who hathsetin us the engrafted gift of instruction knoweth that none 
 ever learned a more genuine doctrine from me than this. But I know that 
 you are worthy of it. ... ’ I appeal to the reader whether it is possible 
 for anyone to have made so capital a blunder, who did not regard the 
 Greek text with all that habitual superstitious reverence for its verbal, and 
 even literal inspiration, which the Jews generally felt for the original 
 Hebrew. Another decisive instance is to be' found in his citation of Isaiah 
 xlv. 1, where he reads Kvpicp for Kvpw — a mistake which one who knew the 
 Hebrew could not have fallen into. 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 THE EPISTLE ASCRIBED TO BARNABAS. 
 
 149 
 
 been neither trick nor guess. For surely there were many 
 others in the Church of that name, besides the Apostle . 1 
 
 The ancients generally make the Mark who was the first 
 Bishop of Alexandria, the same with that John Mark who was 
 sister’s son to Barnabas, and pretend that he was ordained by 
 that Apostle, whom the Greek (chiefly Alexandrian) authorities 
 cited by Dr. Cave in his ‘ Apostolici,’ affirm to have come to 
 Alexandria immediately on his departure from Rome. So 
 important, indeed, was this thought, that the forger (an Alex- 
 andrian too) of the Recognitions of Clement was pleased to 
 invent a very full and particular account of his arrival in that 
 city. For we must remember that as the pagan nations were 
 
 1 It is to be remembered that this lecture was delivered long before the 
 recent discovery of the Didache of the Twelve Apostles, by Abp. Bryennius, 
 in the famous Jerusalem MS., which contains also the full text of the two 
 Clementine Epistles, and the entire Greek text of the Barnabas Epistle. 
 The Didache contains ‘ The Two Ways’ embodied in the Epistle, and is itself 
 the basis of the Seventh Book of the Apostolical Constitutions. Abp. 
 Bryennius supposes that the Didache stands between these two documents, 
 having copied from the Epistle, and being itself drafted into the Apostolical 
 Constitutions. But the learned are not yet agreed as to the relation between 
 the Didache and the Barnabas Epistle. It is a question which is entitled to 
 the priority, or whether both have not embodied an already existing docu- 
 ment known as ‘ The Two Ways.’ The MS. of this Lecture breaks off rather 
 abruptly here. We have observed in preparing these Lectures for the press 
 that it was the Bishop’s habit to avail himself of portions of his other 
 writings which answered his purpose, and to transfer passages from these 
 to subsequent uses. We feel convinced, from the incompleteness of the 
 notice of the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas in this Lecture, so far, and from 
 the repetition of the suspicion of a bookseller’s trick in what follows as now 
 printed, that he read this latter part from an earlier writing on the Epistle 
 of Barnabas. In that writing, printed in the British Magazine, vol. xiii., 1838, 
 he maintains with great acuteness and large resources of reading, that 
 the writer of the Epistle was a Jew, thoroughly acquainted with the 
 Alexandrian version of the Old Testament, and familiar with the mys- 
 tical exegesis of Scripture proper to Philo and the Alexandrian school. He 
 shows that it was first quoted and commended by Alexandrian writers, and 
 that the supposition that it was an Alexandrian forgery accounts for its 
 being ascribed to St. Barnabas. The earlier discussion of these particulars 
 is conducted in a manner quite foreign to that pursued in these Lectures. 
 The latter part of it, which we have transcribed, we feel convinced, for the 
 reasons we have assigned, was read as the completion of the Lecture, which 
 would otherwise be manifestly incomplete. The note next preceding 
 this is extracted from the same paper. — Editoiis. 
 
150 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 always ready (as Livy tells us), ‘ consecrare origines suas, et 
 ad Deos referre auctores,’ so the Christian churches prided 
 themselves upon being reputed of apostolical foundation ; and 
 hence it was (as the learned have observed) that any Apostle 
 who so much as visited any of them was presently set down in 
 their catalogue of Bishops ; so that sometimes (as we may see 
 in Valesius’ note on Euseb. ‘ H.E.’ iii. 21) the episcopal see is 
 filled (with a witness) by two prelates at a time. This interest, 
 then, which the Christians of Alexandria felt in St. Barnabas 
 may have given occasion to the ascribing to him what was 
 looked on as so philosophical and mysterious a work ; since it 
 doubtless seemed very desirable that the founder of a church 
 in so literary a place should himself enjoy some literary repu- 
 tation. ‘This,’ says Casaubon, ‘vehemently moves me, that I 
 see in the first times of the Church how many there were who 
 thought it a palmary deed that heavenly truth should be aided 
 by their own figments, in order forsooth that the new teaching 
 might be admitted by the wise men of the nations. These false- 
 hoods they called dutiful, excogitated with a good end ; from 
 which fountain, without doubt, sprung six hundred books, 
 which that and the next age saw published by men not at all 
 bad (for we speak not of the books of heretics), under the name 
 even of the Lord Jesus and of the Apostles and other saints.’ 
 — JExerc. 1, N. x. in Baroni, App. in Annates. Not that I 
 would absolutely determine that the person who originally 
 wrote this Epistle intended to pass it off as St. Barnabas’s, 
 any more than Novatian made his treatise Be Trinitate for 
 the purpose of imposing it on the world as Tertullian’s. It is 
 very probable that it was afterwards ascribed to him by Alexan- 
 drian booksellers, because they thought that they would make 
 more of it when vended under this name than any other. 
 (See S. Hieronymi Apol. ii. c. Euffin. t. ii. p. 322 c.) 
 
 Dr. Bentley, in his 1 Dissertation on Phalaris,’ has opened 
 some of the reasons which made literary frauds so frequent 
 at Alexandria. 1 To forge and counterfeit books,’ says that 
 illustrious critic, 1 and father them upon great names, has 
 been a practice almost as old as letters. But it was then 
 most of all in fashion when the kings of Pergamus and Alex- 
 
LECT. II. BOOKS WERE ASCRIBED TO GREAT NAMES. 151 
 
 andria, rivalling one another in the magnificence and copious- 
 ness of their libraries, gave great rates for any treatises that 
 carried the names of celebrated authors, which was an invita- 
 tion to the scribes and copiers of those times to enhance the 
 price of their wares by ascribing them to men of fame and re- 
 putation,’ &c. (Introduction, p. 10). But, in truth, the root of 
 the matter lay deeper than this learned writer seems to have 
 suspected. For we must remember that Egypt was the great 
 workshop of the system of ancient legislation ; the first prin- 
 ciple of which was, that it is lawful to deceive for the public 
 good. The circumstances of the people afforded their rulers 
 greater advantages for acting fully up to this principle in 
 Egypt than in any other country, so that it became early 
 fixed in the minds of their priesthood and learned men, with 
 a tenacity which it was impossible to disturb. Now then, 
 when the fanatical school of the latter Platonists (whose head- 
 quarters were at Alexandria) sought to resuscitate the carcase 
 of pagan superstition, and give philosophy a fresh hold upon 
 the popular mind by an alliance with religion, there was no 
 more likely method could be devised than of recommending 
 their own doctrines under the venerable names of the ancient 
 sages. Their principles did not stand in their way ; and the 
 mysterious veil under which the old Egyptian learning had 
 lain concealed, as wqII as the destruction of almost all the 
 true records of it in the political misfortunes of the country, 
 gave great facilities for the successful practice of this jugglery. 
 From them the early heretics soon borrowed the trick ; and 
 if some even of the orthodox did not wholly shake off their 
 old pagan principles when they undertook the profession of 
 a holier faith, the misfortune is surely rather to be lamented 
 than wondered at. But whether this Epistle were a pious or 
 an impious fraud — whether it emanated from the indiscreet 
 zeal of some mistaken Christian or the dishonest knavery 
 of some covetous bookseller — I am afraid it is too certain 
 that the Fathers were not much inclined to scrutinise very 
 exactly the true value of an evidence which tended to support 
 any of their favourite opinions. 1 Nec refert,’ says the great 
 Father Pagi, speaking of the fable of Aristeas, c quod sancti 
 
152 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 Patres historiam istam tanquam veram narrationem operibus 
 suis inseruerint ; nam ea utrum esset vera, necne , non erat 
 cur entice inquirer ent, quanclo quidem Graeca LXX seniornm 
 versio, qua tunc ecclesia utebatur adversus Judaeos, qui con- 
 textum Heb. inter disputandum Christianis passim oppone- 
 bant, illius fidem egregie tuebatur ' (cited by Dr. Hody, Praef. 
 in ‘ Lib. de Text. Orig.,’ &c.). So that Clemens, finding this 
 work to abound in that mystical theology which his own 
 prejudices led him to value, did not, we may be sure, think 
 it necessary to examine very accurately into the external 
 proof of its genuineness and authenticity ; though we see that 
 elsewhere, when he is disposed to give a contrary exposition 
 of his own, he does not suffer the authority of an Epistle — 
 which he tells us was written by an Apostle, a man full of 
 the Holy Ghost — to stand in the way of his genius (‘ Paedag/ 
 1. ii. c. 10). 1 Nor is this Epistle of St. Barnabas the only sus- 
 picious book appealed to in the c Stromateis.’ He cites with 
 equal gravity the Sibylline Oracles, the Gospel of the He- 
 brews, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Preaching of St. 
 Peter, the Acts of St. Peter, the story of Aristeas, &c. For 
 we must be careful to distinguish in the writings of the 
 Fathers when they are concerned with the real grounds of 
 their own faith, and when they are only using plausible topics 
 to persuade others. In settling the canon, for instance, upon 
 which they knew the integrity of their whole religion 
 depended, they were, as became them, cautious, deliberate, 
 and discriminating. But in the case of those books that had 
 no claim to such a plaee, and yet might be made use of in 
 their contests with heathens or heretics, the rhetorical nature 
 of their early education, * and the agonistic temper of the 
 times, inclined them sometimes to be less scrupulous. This 
 distinction appears to me of great importance to be observed 
 by anyone who desires to understand the true sentiments and 
 character of the ecclesiastical writers. 
 
 1 I was surprised to find that the Bishop of Lincoln, in his excellent 
 Life of Clement , has not noticed this remarkable inconsistency, when he 
 speaks of Barnabas’ Epistle. 
 
153 
 
 LECTUEE III. 
 
 FROM NERVA TO COMMODUS— JUSTIN MARTYR 7 
 AND THE RISE OF SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. 
 
 Gentlemen, — The period which we now approach opens 
 with that remarkable interval which historians have been 
 accustomed to regard as the halcyon days of the world — * 
 reaching from the accession of Nerva to that of Commodus, 
 in whom the riot and tyranny of the earlier Caesars again 
 broke loose to devastate the empire. In the line of emperors 
 which extends from Tiberius to Domitian, if we except the 
 short and troubled reigns of Vespasian and his son, it might 
 seem as if the Ruler of the Power of Darkness had almost 
 visibly seated himself upon the throne of the world, succes- 
 sively incarnate in a series of monsters, whose one object 
 appeared to be to give full scope to all the vilest and most 
 destructive passions that can agitate the human breast : 
 and during this fearful revel of the demons of prodigality, 
 rapine, lust, and cruelty, set free in their basest, direst, and 
 most detestable forms, the whole framework of society was 
 loosened ; every moral tie which had bound together so 
 strongly the parts of the great Republic, was relaxed, and 
 the vast comp ages which the care of so many centuries had 
 cemented into one mass, seemed to threaten immediate 
 dissolution. 
 
 With the return of a stable government, of public virtue, 
 and of what (when compared with the examples of former 
 princes) might be called private decency, even in the cases of 
 Trajan and Hadrian, and what was real purity of morals in 
 the first two Antonines, men began to feel the sentiments 
 
154 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 which naturally spring up when sober daylight breaks upon 
 them after a night of furious debauchery. Shame at the 
 degradation of the human race was at last awakened. Con- 
 science, which had seemed to have almost lost its place in 
 human nature, made itself felt and heard once more. Un- 
 bridled licentiousness had taken its full swing, and the issue 
 was manifestly seen to be ruin ; and now the conviction was 
 forced upon the general mind that, if that ruin was to be at 
 all averted, it could be averted only by a reformation of 
 morals. But where was the force to be found which could 
 produce such a change ? Never was it more evident, more 
 palpable as it were, than in that age, that men must be born 
 again before they could be capable of good, that a reformation 
 must be preceded by a regeneration of mankind, by the intro- 
 duction of some new vital principle, some new plastic power, 
 capable of remoulding to virtue souls which had been so long 
 steeped in corruption. 
 
 The old Roman morals had their foundation in the severe 
 and thrifty habits of the early Republic, and from an igno- 
 rant, but (among ancient pagans) more than usually serious 
 respect for the ancestral religion. They were the result of 
 severe family discipline and family associations. They were 
 habits carefully formed from the tenderest youth — unin- 
 quiring prejudices which the stern and illiterate statesman or 
 warrior gloried in carrying with him to the grave. Thus, as 
 in the case of what we call £ good old English prejudices/ 
 there was much that was narrow, and even ridiculous, mixed 
 up with what was most truly respectable and salutary in the 
 traditionary morals of ancient Rome. The grand danger of 
 such a mixture is this : that the good for a long time conse- 
 crates the evil in men’s eyes, and prevents them from 
 attempting a separation when it may be made with com- 
 parative security ; and that after the two elements have 
 become indissolubly intertwined, the inherent caducity of evil 
 betrays itself ; the narrow and ridiculous prejudices are ex- 
 ploded, and the sound principle round which they had clung 
 too tenaciously is exploded with them. The morals of the old 
 
LEcr. III. MORAL FAILURE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 155 
 
 Republic quickly disappeared before the approach of luxury 
 and the diffusion of literature. The stream was poisoned in 
 its fountain. The family of the wealthy citizen ceased to be 
 a school of domestic honour and piety. The dissolute young 
 man went forth without principles and without habits of 
 virtue, prepared to drink in an easy philosophy which taught 
 him to laugh at the religion of his forefathers, and dissipated 
 with a breath the mysterious awe with which that religion 
 had invested the institutions of his country. The last feeble 
 champions of the Republic had implicitly themselves con- 
 fessed the system of its morality was effete, by seeking a frail 
 support from the better parts of Greek philosophy ; and when 
 Cato of Utica stabbed himself over the page of Plato, it was 
 as if the despairing genius of old Rome had sought to pro- 
 pitiate, by the blood of its last free citizen, the power by 
 which its enchantments had been dissolved. 
 
 But in truth there was no regenerating principle in any 
 part of the Grecian philosophy. It had already failed to 
 infuse life into the very people with whom it originated, and 
 to whom it was most congenial ; and when transplanted into 
 the Roman soil it seemed even still more visibly stricken with 
 the curse of barrenness. In Greece itself philosophy had 
 never borne any better fruit than the unwholesome one of 
 mere speculation. Tn Rome, at least after Cicero, it did not 
 bear even this. The Grecian plants which Lucretius and 
 Cicero introduced, were unproductive cuttings, brought into 
 an alien climate. They expanded their buds for a single 
 summer into flowers, but they ripened no seeds, nay, struck 
 out no fresh branches. The greatest of the Roman philo- 
 sophical writers were little more than translators from the 
 Greek ; and the Latin mind at its best estate seemed only 
 capable of understanding, scarcely ever of thoroughly relish- 
 ing, and in no instance of adding anything to, the Grecian 
 models. It was before a God that could not help that Cato 
 poured out the vain oblation of the best blood of ancient 
 Rome. 
 
 Indeed, the most sagacious of the Greek philosophers 
 
156 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 themselves seem to have been conscious of the radical impo- 
 tency of their systems to effect any extensive change in the 
 state of mankind ; and the wildness of their devices to remedy 
 this radical weakness of philosophy is the clearest proof that 
 it was by human means irremediable. You have but to look 
 into the last chapter of Aristotle’s 1 Nicomachean Ethics ’ to 
 see evidence of this. The scheme of a just morality, he says, 
 can only be adequately understood and appreciated by those 
 who are already, in practice, moral men. If so, the mass of 
 mankind, who were then certainly not already moral, must be 
 reduced to order by some other lessons than those of a philo- 
 sophic treatise on morality. And how y, r as this to be effected ? 
 Why, by a wise legislation, which should train them to the 
 practice of morality from their earliest youth — such a system 
 as he proceeds to delineate in the £ Politics,’ to which the 
 Ethics were meant to serve as an introduction. But then, by 
 what means were the ignorant and immoral to be persuaded 
 to resign themselves implicitly into the moulding hands of 
 the philosophic legislator ? Here was the grand difficulty. 
 The old legislators had felt it ; and in barbarous times had 
 partially succeeded by the pretence of a divine commission ; 
 and their example had been imitated by Pythagoras, whose 
 thaumaturgic tricks were obviously intended to answer a like 
 purpose. But the time had gone when such tricks could be 
 even partially successful. Aristotle’s shrewdness, if not his 
 love of truth, kept him from the most distant approach to 
 anything of that sort. Plato, I believe, would willingly have 
 made the attempt in his own person if he could. But he was 
 a man personally of too soft and enjoying a temper to pro- 
 secute such a scheme at any time with the requisite energy 
 and sternness. What he could he did. He made the most of 
 the deep impression which the extraordinary character of his 
 master, Socrates, had left on the minds of men, and sought by 
 heightening all that was most extraordinary in that character, 
 by some mythical traits to make it assume a superhuman 
 air ; and feeling that, after all, the coarser and more plebeian 
 features of the blunt moralist of Athens could not be quite 
 
lkct. III. THE STRONG HAND OF POWER INSUFFICIENT. 157 
 
 concealed by an heroic mask, he sought further aid from 
 ancient and strange traditions. He brought, as Xenophon 1 
 complained, the portentous and enigmatic wisdom of Egypt 
 into his doctrine, and sought to identify his system with the 
 legendary remains of the Orphic theology, and the obscure 
 vestiges of a purer mythology which lingered in what were 
 called the Mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri. But this 
 blending of strange elements was made in vain. It was un- 
 congenial with the temper of the times. It shocked and 
 disgusted his philosophic friends, and it produced no effect 
 upon the vulgar. It was dropped entirely by his immediate 
 successors, in whose hands the writings of their master 
 became a mere storehouse of commonplaces for subjects of 
 abstruse disquisition, and among whom the doctrine of Plato 
 lost all traces of a positive system, and his Academy degene- 
 rated into a mere school of scepticism, more or less decently 
 concealed. Still more infelicitous, perhaps, was the attempt 
 of Chrysippus to gain help from the religious element of 
 paganism. In no form could his rugged morality ever be 
 popular, least of all in the grotesque mask of mythology, 
 travestied by forced puns upon names into a cold and puerile 
 system of physics. At any rate this attempt, in such an age, 
 to gain help from the old forms of paganism, was seeking the 
 living among the dead. It was going to borrow authority 
 from that which was itself bankrupt of authority. 
 
 When the traditionary morals, then, of the men of the old 
 Republic were lost in the very vastness of that great empire 
 which they had achieved, there was no germ of life in the 
 wilderness around to supply a healthier progeny in their place. 
 And the issue was that scene of unbridled and universal 
 licentiousness which opened at the death of Augustus, and 
 continued to fill the stage, with scarce a moment’s pause be- 
 tween the acts of its disgraceful tragedy, until the strong 
 hand of Trajan expelled the abominable performers and drew 
 down the curtain. 
 
 1 The author doubtless refers to his Epist. ad JEscliin. apud Euseb. 
 Trap. Evang. xiv. 12. — Editors. 
 
158 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 So much, as I said, the strong hand of power could do. 
 But something more was needed to regenerate society. In 
 mere despair men’s minds reverted to that very scheme of 
 pagan religion which the last age had so contemptnonsly ex- 
 ploded. But something fresh was needed to stimulate it into 
 even the semblance of vitality. Strange rites and new deities 
 were invoked from the East and from the South ; and into the 
 practice of such rites and the worship of such deities, men, 
 from utter weariness of former scepticism, were seen to fling 
 themselves with an eager credulity which trusted at once to 
 the promises of the most worthless impostors. We need but 
 read the * Pseudomantis ’ of Lucian to see remarkable instances 
 of this. Then, too, was first attempted the grand design of 
 which we see so many traces in the writings of Plutarch, after- 
 wards more fully carried out under Julian, of creating a kind 
 of Catholic paganism — grafting a pure teaching of the best 
 philosophic morality upon a combination of all the mythologies 
 of all nations, purged from some of their most monstrous and 
 repulsive peculiarities — invested with mystical explanations 
 that should make them wear something of a respectable 
 appearance, and supplied with a kind of sacred literature in 
 the poems of Homer and Hesiod, elevated to the rank of 
 inspired productions and allegorised into profound and re- 
 condite meanings. 
 
 But these efforts were, as I said, the efforts of despair. 
 They could not be long sustained. In effect, the phenomenon 
 which then presented itself is one which has more than once 
 recurred in history. A system which seems worn out recovers 
 for a while some gloss of interest and novelty by being long 
 laid by. But if really worn out, it recovers it only for a very 
 short time. The thing is soon found to be inherently rotten, 
 and to have been discarded for that very reason. As it was 
 with the revived paganism of Plutarch and Porphyry and 
 Julian, so will it be, I suspect, with that medievalism which 
 our forefathers so long tried, and, having found it intolerable, 
 flung from them, but which we have brought again into a 
 transitory vogue. The lamp in such cases, deprived of the 
 
lect. hi. CHRISTIANITY GAVE NEW LIFE TO THE WORLD. 159 
 
 needful nutriment, shrouds itself in obscurity, and seems ex- 
 tinguished ; but a casual breath may enable it suddenly to 
 call in its parting forces for a last effort — it leaps up into a 
 momentary blaze, and then goes out for ever. 
 
 In the meanwhile, however, God was actually effecting 
 that which man, by his own resources, endeavoured in vain to 
 accomplish. In the Christian Church the spectacle was being 
 exhibited of a religion which brought a new life into the world, 
 and could work a moral regeneration in the mass of mankind. 
 Within the pale of that Church there was, indeed, already 
 much to be deplored, and, as compared with their own ac- 
 knowledged standard, the conduct of many -Christians was 
 grievously defective ; but, as compared with heathen society 
 without that pale, it was like the land of Goshen during the 
 plague of darkness. Light was in the dwellings of the Chris- 
 tians, while on all the dwellings of the pagans there was a 
 thick and palpable gloom. 1 Christians,’ says that very ancient 
 author whose Epistle to Diognetus is commonly printed in the 
 works of Justin Martyr — ‘ Christians are not distinguished 
 from other men by soil, or speech, or political institutions. 
 They do not inhabit cities of their own, nor use any unusual 
 dialect, nor practise any strange mode of life. They have 
 discovered no recondite piece of learning, nor adopted any 
 human opinion, like the sects of philosophy. But dwelling, 
 as it may chance, in Grecian or in barbarian towns, and fol- 
 lowing the customs of the places where they live, they yet 
 display a wondrous and scarcely credible polity to the world. 
 They dwell each man in his own country, yet only as sojourners. 
 They share in all as citizens, and yet suffer all as strangers. 
 They marry like other men, and have children, but they do 
 not expose their offspring. They spread a festive board for 
 their friends, but it is not polluted by debauchery. They are 
 in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They dwell 
 upon earth, but their conversation is in heaven. In a word, 
 what the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. 
 The soul is diffused through all the members, and so are 
 Christians through all your cities. The soul is in the body, 
 
160 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 but not of the body ; so Christians are in the world, but not 
 of the world .’ 2 
 
 The very persecutions which the Church soon incurred 
 seemed to make its peculiar character the more conspicuous, 
 and the more completely to refute the abominable calumnies 
 with which they were attempted to be justified. ‘ I myself,’ 
 says Justin Martyr, ‘ when I was attached to the tenets of 
 Plato, hearing on one side the charges brought against the 
 Christians, but seeing on the other the intrepidity with which 
 they faced death, and whatever else is looked on as most 
 terrible in suffering, considered that it was impossible that 
 these men should be plunged in profligate voluptuousness. 
 A voluptuary, a profligate — one who could count it a good 
 thing to feed on human flesh — how could such an one em- 
 brace death, which would deprive him of all his enjoyments ? 
 Nay, would he not rather seek by all means to prolong his 
 existence, and escape the notice of the magistrate ? Least of 
 all would he openly impeach himself when the consequence 
 would be immediate death .’ 3 
 
 The turn, then, which the course of things had given to 
 many serious minds, of searching for such a power as Chris- 
 tianity actually brought with it, was, I think, a predisposing 
 cause which led many philosophers in the second century to 
 embrace Christianity. Wearied out with seeking in vain for 
 the sparks of truth and righteousness on earth, they were thus 
 made more willing than their predecessors to accept the sacred 
 flame from heaven. For I am speaking now of those who 
 really submitted themselves to the faith of Christ. Others 
 there were — and they were the Gnostics, properly so called — 
 who did but give a wider extension to that scheme of Catholic 
 paganism to which I before referred, enlarging it so as to 
 embrace Christianity, as well as almost all other forms of 
 religion. Of these systems some strange and highly interest- 
 ing fragments are preserved in the work ascribed to Hippolytus, 
 which has been lately published at Oxford, and in which the 
 
 2 Ep. ad Diognet. V. 
 
 3 Apol. ii. 12. 
 
LECT. III. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL: JUSTIN. 
 
 161 
 
 legends of Greece and Egypt are blended in one mass with 
 the Scripture-narratives. But such systems really gained no 
 element of stability from Scripture. On the contrary, having 
 the rod of power in their hands, they wilfully flung it away. 
 The unexampled power of Christianity sprang from its being 
 a religion founded on fact, and capable of being earnestly be- 
 lieved as matter of fact. Such a religion these men trans- 
 formed into a mythology, and fancied that, when thus shorn 
 of its strength, it could still render them a giant’s service. 
 
 But with them I am at present not concerned. I am 
 treating of the philosophic school of divines who arose in the 
 second century within the Church. 
 
 Of these, the earliest of whom we have full materials for 
 making a correct estimate, is Justin Martyr. 
 
 Justin was born at Flavia Neapolis, the present Nablous, 
 in Samaria. In calling himself a Samaritan, however, he must, 
 I think, mean something more than merely that he was 
 born in that country. He plainly, in more passages than one, 
 identifies himself with the Samaritan race, though it is equally 
 plain that his family were not Samaritans by religion. At an 
 early age he seems to have earnestly devoted himself to the 
 pursuit of philosophy ; but even then we can perceive that his 
 aim was not such as would often have been found in the men 
 of the preceding generation. His grand object was to ascer- 
 tain something about God. His first instructor was a Stoic. 
 Such a teacher did not well suit one who was eagerly looking 
 out for a stay beyond himself. ‘ After spending much time 
 with him,’ says Justin, £ when I found that I knew nothing 
 more about the Deity than at first (for my teacher knew 
 nothing himself, and used to say that information on this 
 subject was not at all necessary), I left him.’ He then tried 
 a Peripatetic, but finding him a mere mercenary instructor, 
 he ceased attendance, and betook himself to a Pythagorean. 
 This new instructor, however, required a previous knowledge 
 of music, astronomy, and geometry ; and Justin's heart failed 
 him at the prospect of so tedious a preparation for the study 
 which alone he desired to prosecute. As the next thing, 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II 
 
 therefore, he attached himself to the Platonists ; and amongst 
 these he found much delight in the speculation of pure ideas 
 and incorporeal existence, and fondly promised himself that, 
 by indulging in such abstract contemplation, he might soon 
 attain that actual intuition of the Deity which they held out 
 as the end of their philosophy. For the purpose of hastening 
 on this desirable consummation, he determined to withdraw to 
 a solitary place near the sea, where he might enjoy undisturbed 
 meditation upon these exalted topics. But just as he had 
 reached the spot where he hoped to be quite alone, he was 
 aware of the presence of a venerable old man following him, 
 with whom he fell into conversation, and who turned out to 
 be a Christian. The old man set himself very earnestly to 
 refute the Platonic doctrine that the human soul is of the same 
 substance as the Deity, and endowed with a natural capacity 
 of apprehending the supreme God. ‘ It is in these matters,’ 
 tie urged, 1 as in the case of some object in a distant region 
 totally unlike anything with which we are familiar. We can 
 know nothing of such an object unless we see it ourselves, or 
 learn its description from some one who has. So God knoweth 
 no man but he to whom God has immediately revealed Him- 
 self, or he who has learned from the immediate recipients of 
 such a revelation.’ Justin at first stoutly stood his ground, 
 but he was soon forced to feel that he had met more than his 
 match. One by one his Platonic convictions gave way, and 
 he was prepared to listen eagerly to the announcement with 
 which the old man closed the conversation. I will give it to 
 you in full, for it is a remarkable specimen of the way in 
 which the truth was put before inquirers in those early times. 
 
 1 There were men who existed long before all those who 
 are esteemed philosophers ; they were blessed and just, lovers 
 of God, speaking by the Spirit of God, foretelling things then 
 future but which are now happening — they are called pro- 
 phets. These alone saw the truth, and spake it out to men, 
 slaves neither to human respect, nor fear, nor vainglory, but 
 saying only what they had seen and heard, being full of the 
 Holy Spirit. Their writings still remain, and he who studies 
 
LECT. III. 
 
 HIS SPECULATIVE TENDENCIES. 
 
 1G3 
 
 them and believes them, may thence derive useful information 
 concerning both principles and ends, and such things as a 
 philosopher ought to know. They did not write in the way 
 of logical demonstration, for they were witnesses of the truth, 
 a character far above such reasoning. But the things which 
 have happened and are now happening compel assent to their 
 words. And they also justly challenge belief on account of 
 the miracles which they performed, since they did so, proclaim - 
 ing God the Maker of the Universe, and his Son Christ, which 
 the false prophets, full of a deceiving and unclean spirit, neither 
 did nor do, but only display mighty works to amaze men’s 
 minds and glorify the demons and spirits of error. But do 
 thou pray that the gates of light may be opened to thee. For 
 these things cannot be understood or perceived by anyone 
 but him to whom God and His Christ shall grant the under- 
 standing.’ Here the old man withdrew, and Justin saw him 
 no more. But the issue was that he took his advice, and 
 after further inquiry became a Christian . 4 
 
 An eager desire, as we have seen, of knowledge of the 
 divine nature was the predominating influence which drove 
 him through all the various modes of heathen philosophy to 
 the Christian faith. So we shall not be surprised that the parts 
 of revelation bearing on this subject had a special interest 
 for him. Tt is to be lamented, indeed, that coming to the 
 study of the sacred books with a mind set upon obtaining such 
 speculative scientific information on these subjects as they 
 were never intended to convey, he interpreted with reference 
 to the questions that filled his own thoughts, passages which, 
 upon more reasonable principles of exegesis, would be seen 
 to be wholly unconcerned with those questions ; and mixing 
 up his own philosophical notions with the matter of revelation, 
 he set the perilous example of constructing out of Scrip- 
 ture a theoretic theology. The difference, indeed, between 
 the manner in which the doctrine of the Trinity is handled 
 by Justin, and by the sacred writers and their immediate 
 
 4 Justin gives the entire narrative in the commencing chapters of the 
 Dialogue with Trygsho. — Editors. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 successors, is so great, that some of the early Socinians put 
 forward the monstrous hypothesis that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity was first introduced by Justin. If they had said that 
 the scientific handling of it had been by him first introduced, 
 they would have been nearer to the truth, though even this they 
 could never have proved. But the doctrine and its scientific 
 treatment are two as totally different things as the known 
 phenomena of mind and matter are from the theories which 
 have been framed to harmonise, connect, and account for 
 them. That the so-called scientific treatment of the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity had no existence in the times of the 
 Apostles within the Church, nor probably among the race of 
 Doctors immediately succeeding them, and that the scientific 
 statements of that doctrine were variously modified in after 
 ages, I am quite prepared to grant. But I must shut my 
 eyes to the plainest evidence before I can hold that the doc- 
 trine itself was not taught by the Apostles and by their next 
 
 successors. 
 
165 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY ADVANCED BY JUSTIN , 
 CLEMENT , AAZ) OKI GEN. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I touched at the close of my last lecture 
 upon a most important subject, the rise of speculative 
 theology in the Church, and I now intend to treat it some- 
 what more at large. It is impossible, I think, without a right 
 conception of the true character of this theology to under- 
 stand the after-history of the Church. It was in these early 
 times of which we now treat, that the seeds were sown of 
 those great Trinitarian controversies which have produced 
 such wide and such permanent divisions in the Church. It 
 was then that the foundations were laid of that vast structure 
 which, under the name of Scholastic divinity, afterwards 
 attained to such stupendous dimensions, and engaged in its 
 erection almost the whole intellectual vigour of the middle 
 ages. And finally it is in the speculative theology of the 
 second and third centuries that the Pantheism of modern 
 Germany has found a plea for representing itself as the pure, 
 Catholic, original form of Christianity. It is therefore in 
 every way important that we should understand its true 
 nature and character. You will permit me therefore to 
 occupy you for some time in this investigation, for Ecclesias- 
 tical history, as I understand it, is not a mere detail of trans- 
 actions, a catalogue of Bishops, a record of Councils and their 
 decrees, an inventory of heresies, or a string of biographical 
 notices, but it includes, as one of its most valuable parts, an 
 account of the progress of the human mind working upon 
 some of the deepest questions which have ever engaged it. 
 
166 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 It seems to have been an established maxim with the 
 Grecian philosophers, excepting of course the Cyrenaic and 
 Epicurean schools, that, as the intellect is the highest faculty of 
 uian, so the perfection of the pure intellect is man’s highest 
 aim, the grand purpose which he is destined to fulfil. Even 
 the practical Aristotle, you know, proposes the question 
 whether contemplation or action be the higher life, and 
 solemnly decides it in favour of contemplation ; and he 
 describes the practical understanding as a kind of steward, 
 which, by a prudent management of the inferior concerns of 
 the soul, gains leisure for this master faculty to pursue its 
 elevated meditations . 1 
 
 Now undoubtedly the ideal perfection of the intellect 
 would be a state in which all knowledge would assume the 
 form of one harmonious deductive system, in which all par- 
 ticular cases would appear as instances of one grand general 
 law, itself intuitively evident ; or, in the language of an elder 
 philosophy, we should see all effects in their causes, and all 
 subordinate causes in the great First Cause. 
 
 Hence an attainment of the knowledge of the principles 
 of things, and specially of the first principle, was supposed to 
 be the perfection of man. It was the great aim which 
 thoughtful men proposed to themselves ; and with such 
 views it was not unnatural that they should suppose that 
 when God revealed Himself to man, it would be for the 
 purpose of conferring upon him this, the highest perfection of 
 his nature. 
 
 Hence sprang the notion that the aim of philosophy and 
 Christianity were substantially the same, and hence, though 
 it was not clearly apprehended by the Fathers, would have 
 resulted the inference actually drawn by the Hegelian divines 
 of Germany, that Christianity is a system of pure reason, a 
 system as properly scientific as geometry or any other 
 abstract science. 
 
 Now, the first traces of this speculative theology appear, as 
 I said, in Justin Martyr, and they appear specially in reference 
 
 1 Aristot., Eth. Nic&m. x. 7, 8. 
 
I..ECT. IV. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS. 
 
 167 
 
 to the doctrine of the Trinity, and that, both in respect of the 
 person and of the subject, not unnaturally. 
 
 Justin was a philosopher. The impulse which drove him 
 to philosophy, and through the schools of philosophy to 
 Christianity, was a desire to understand the divine nature. 
 Full of curiosity after speculative knowledge, he came to this 
 divine oracle, and he was not the first nor the last pre- 
 occupied inquirer whom it seemed to answer according to 
 that ‘ which was in his heart.’ 
 
 It was equally natural that he should find the point of 
 contact between Christianity and philosophy in the doctrine 
 of the Logos. This term, which was already a philosophical 
 term, the Apostle John used, for the purpose, as it would 
 seem, of more emphatically contradicting some of the Gnostical 
 misstatements put forward in his day. But though the 
 Apostle, I think, makes it sufficiently evident to every un- 
 prejudiced reader that it is of a manifestation of God for moral 
 and practical purposes that he* is speaking, yet it is easy to 
 understand how, to a mind preoccupied with the notion of 
 the necessity of speculative knowledge, the Apostle’s use of 
 such a term might seem to justify the following out of such a 
 train of thought as it would suggest to a philosophic inquirer. 
 
 The Logos was, according to the philosophy of that day, the 
 true scheme of the universe as it existed in the divine mind. 
 Philo compares it to the plan which an architect forms of an 
 edifice in his own conception before he proceeds to erect it ; 
 and so he says the Supreme Architect had in himself the 
 ideal model of all His works before he created them. These 
 works, therefore, bear two aspects — one in which they are 
 presented to sense, which is a mere imperfect view of pheno- 
 mena ; the other in which they are contemplated by reason 
 in their true essential natures, their mutual relations and 
 dependencies, and their connection with the great First Cause 
 from which they proceed . 2 
 
 This view it seems to have been Justin’s object to accom- 
 
 2 See Phil Jud., de Kosmopceid , pp. 2, 3. Paris, Turneb., 1552. — 
 Editors. 
 
168 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 modate to the requirements of the Christian faith. The plan 
 of the universe, he went on to suppose, thus formed in the 
 divine mind, became, by an effort of God’s will, a distinct 
 Person, endowed with a creative energy to realise itself in the 
 works of nature : and this was the generation of the Word by 
 which it became the living Son of God. The Son of God, 
 therefore, is the Divine Reason itself, subsisting in a distinct 
 Person, yet not so as that the Father ceases to possess it also 
 in Himself. On the contrary, it is, argues Justin, as if one 
 lamp were kindled from another — the flame is imparted from 
 the first to the second, and yet the first not diminished ; or 
 as, when we convey our meaning in words — the meaning is at 
 once in the speaker’s mind, in the word spoken, and in the 
 understanding of the intelligent hearer . 3 
 
 From this conception of the Word, as Reason subsisting 
 at once personally and impersonally, Justin was led into 
 another view of the matter pregnant with suggestions of very 
 dangerous error. Christ, he says, the firstborn of God, was 
 the reason of which the whole human race participated, so 
 that all who lived according to reason (fjLsra \6yov) were 
 Christians, even though they were reputed to be atheists — 
 for instance, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others amongst the 
 Greeks ; — while those who lived contrary to reason were bad 
 men and enemies to Christ. Whatever right opinions the 
 Gentile philosophers entertained respecting the nature of 
 the Deity, the relation in which man stands to him, and the 
 duties arising out of that relation, were to be ascribed to this 
 seed of the Word implanted in their bosoms. But to them 
 was given only a small portion ; the true believer in Christ 
 alone possesses its fulness . 4 
 
 You will easily perceive the construction which may be 
 put upon such a doctrine as this when travestied into the 
 language of modern philosophy. It might be represented, 
 and has been represented, as teaching that Christianity is 
 
 3 Just. Mart., Apol. ii. 6 ; Dial. c. Tryph. 61 , 62, 100, 128, et passim . — 
 
 Editors, 4 Apol. i. 16. 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 169 
 
 nothing different from the perfection of mere human moral 
 philosophy — that Christ is the Word of God because he 
 delivered in its purity that moral doctrine which Gentile sages 
 had only imperfectly attained. But this would be a mere 
 travesty. Justin held that the Word was not only partici- 
 pated in as an illuminating principle by the whole human 
 race, but actually subsisted as a real living Person, substan- 
 tially one with God, in Christ His only-begotten Son. We 
 may call such a doctrine inconsistent and absurd, but it is 
 unfair to represent it as the same with one which directly 
 subverts the very foundations of revealed religion. 
 
 But it is in the Church of Alexandria that the speculative 
 theology makes its most marked appearance in the second 
 century. In that city the philosophy of the Greeks had al- 
 ready connected itself with the earlier revelation of Judaism, 
 and, placed as they were in the very citadel of pagan science, 
 the Christians were under strong temptations to follow the 
 precedent of their Jewish predecessors. To this temptation 
 Pantgenus, commonly reputed the founder of what is called 
 the Catechetical School of Alexandria, appears to have been 
 the first to give way. None of his writings are now extant. 
 We have, however, several of the works of his disciple Cle- 
 mens, who, in his ‘ Stromateis,’ openly declares his intention of 
 delivering Christian doctrine c mingled with the dogmas of 
 philosophy, or rather concealed and hidden in them.’ 5 The 
 Greek philosophy, in its better forms, Clemens regards as, like 
 the law, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ ; and he ex- 
 pressly declares that the philosophers were raised up by God 
 among the heathens for a similar purpose to that of the pro- 
 phets among the Jews . 6 Hence he contends that the student 
 must be trained in the knowledge of philosophy in order to 
 attain an acquaintance with the profound and hidden mean- 
 ing of the Scriptures . 7 That meaning he divided into two 
 parts — the plain and obvious practical part of the gospel, 
 which is common and essential to all Christians, and which 
 
 5 Clem. Alex., Strom, i. p. 278 B, ed. Sylburg. 
 
 * Strom, i. p. 282 C-283 A. 7 Strom, iv. p. 499 A. 
 
170 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 lie calls the faith ; and that peculiar to the more advanced, 
 which he calls knowledge — gnosis . 8 And his description of the 
 perfect man of knowledge is such as almost exceeds belief. 
 A perfect initiate in knowledge, he says, is wholly free from 
 all passions ; it is not enough to say that he has his passions 
 in complete control — he is absolutely without them. He 
 lives in contemplation, and this contemplation is of all truth. 
 To him nothing is unintelligible. He knows all things past, 
 present, and to come ; and from this state of perfection he 
 can never fall ! 9 
 
 Substantially the same view is still more systematically 
 developed by Origen. 
 
 God’s principal scope, according to him, in inspiring 
 Scripture, was to illuminate such as could penetrate through 
 the meaning of the words with a knowledge of those things 
 which relate to men — i.e., to embodied souls. But since a 
 knowledge of this cannot be obtained without a knowledge of 
 God, we must, in this sublime science, allot the first place to 
 questions concerning God, and His only-begotten Son — what 
 is His nature ? in what sense He is the Son of God ? what 
 were the causes of His condescension to human flesh ? next, 
 to questions concerning the nature of human souls, the crea- 
 tion of the world, the fall of angels, the origin of evil, &C . 1 
 
 Such was the primary scope of revelation. The second 
 was to involve these high mysteries in edifying historical 
 narratives and plain discourses, suited to the capacities of 
 those who were not fit to comprehend the sublimer science. 
 
 Christianity was thus made, in fact, a twofold religion, 
 intended for two different classes of persons, and its higher 
 nature was made, agreeably to the philosophic view, to con- 
 sist in the perfection of the intellect by imparting a know- 
 ledge of the highest speculative truth. 
 
 We may remark two most important results of this view 
 of the nature of the Christian revelation. First, it required a 
 
 8 Strom, vii. p. 732 d. This distinction of faith and gnosis, knowledge, 
 runs through the entire work. — Editors. 
 
 a Strom, vi. pp. 649 15, 650. 
 
 1 Orig., Philocal. i. 14, e Be Princij). iv. 14. 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 171 
 
 strained and allegorical interpretation of Scripture. The 
 Bible, according to it, was to be the vehicle of a system of 
 abstract speculative knowledge. This it plainly was not in 
 its outward and literal sense, and consequently it was neces- 
 sary to find for it another and an abstruse one. And for this 
 the way had been prepared both by the pagan and by the 
 Jewish schools ; but in both these instances, it must be ac- 
 knowledged, with far better excuse than in the case of the 
 Christian teachers. The pagans were, in a manner, forced 
 upon this method of explaining their old mytliologic legends 
 by the obvious absurdity of their literal meaning. They had 
 nothing for it but to turn them into allegories. The Alex- 
 andrian Jews, again, whem they endeavoured to represent 
 their religion as a full, and perfect, and Catholic revelation 
 of God to man, found many things in their sacred books 
 which were utterly irreconcilable with such a notion. The 
 Law had conceded many things to the hardness of heart ot 
 an obstinate and self-willed race ; it was a mere imperfect 
 preparatory dispensation which, speaking to children, spoke 
 in the language of children. In order, then, that it should 
 be invested with a character that did not of right belong to 
 it, it was necessary to treat it allegorically, in the method so 
 largely applied by Philo to the history of the Old Testament. 
 Now, the example being thus set by Jews and pagans, it was 
 not strange that it should be followed by the Christians, since 
 in doing so they gained at once two seemingly great advan- 
 tages. 1. As the Old Testament was recognised by the 
 gospel, whatever in the Old Testament appeared at first sight 
 harsh and repulsive — such as the immorality of some of the 
 patriarchs, the sternness, the ritual minuteness, and in some 
 cases the tolerance of evil — in the Mosaic code formed, in the 
 eyes of the pagans, objections equally against Judaism and 
 against Christianity. These objections the allegoric method, 
 already suggested by the practice of both Jews and pagans, 
 afforded them a ready mode of evading. 2. Upon the plea 
 of this necessity it afforded the philosophic divines an oppor- 
 tunity of going further, and magnifying the profound system 
 
172 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COTJUSE II. 
 
 of Scripture by importing into it all the physical and meta- 
 physical lore which they might choose to bring in ; not to 
 mention that it saved them the trouble of seeking to under- 
 stand the literal meaning, which requires far more study 
 and research than to fit an allegory upon the words of a 
 current translation, without regard to the sense of the original, 
 the connection of the discourse, the drift of the writer, or the 
 circumstances of his times. 
 
 The mystical interpretation of Scripture then was a 
 necessary result of this speculative theology, and yet one 
 so much recommended by other circumstances as to keep it 
 in countenance rather than serve as an objection to it. 
 
 Another consequence was what is called the doctrine of 
 reserve, or esoteric and exoteric teaching. This also had 
 been forced upon the pagans by a supposed necessity. They 
 regarded truth and utility as not coincident. The popular 
 religions they viewed as absolutely necessary to keep the 
 vulgar in check, while at the same time they looked upon 
 them as utterly false. Hence they studiously concealed what 
 they deemed the truth on such subjects from all except the 
 more cultivated understandings. This studious concealment 
 was something quite different from not attempting to teach 
 men things which they had no mind to learn, or which they 
 could not at all understand. The teachers of geometry 
 or physical science could not be said to studiously conceal 
 their doctrines from the illiterate. They made no secret 
 whatever of those doctrines ; it was only that the illiterate, 
 while they continued such, could not comprehend them. 
 But it was otherwise with the philosophic doctrines concern- 
 ing the nature of the Deity, for example, and of the human 
 soul. Upon these subjects they spoke one language to the 
 vulgar, and another to the learned. And the language 
 which they held to the learned directly contradicted that 
 which they held to the common people. And thus also it 
 was with the Gnostics. But as there was no such esoteric 
 teaching, directly contradicting the exoteric, in the Church 
 itself, we may naturally ask whence sprang the careful re- 
 
LECT. IV. 
 
 TIT K PRACTICE OF RESERVE. 
 
 173 
 
 serve or concealment of the higher doctrines. It is only a 
 partial answer to this to say that in some cases these higher 
 speculative views really gave scandal to the mass of Christians, 
 and were therefore as little as possible divulged to them. In 
 particular cases this is true. Origen lets us plainly perceive 
 this in many instances, as specially with reference to his 
 views upon the resurrection of the body and the pre- 
 existence of human souls. And Tertullian observes that the 
 simple and unlearned were apt to be shocked at metaphysical 
 statements of the doctrine of the Trinity . 2 But I am con- 
 vinced that this is neither the whole nor the chief account of 
 the matter. Still less do I think that these sublimer doc- 
 trines were concealed for fear of giving offence to the pagans 
 or Jews. In effect they were what were least likely to give 
 offence. The plain literal fact of the gospel, Christ crucified, 
 was to them the great offence — to the Jews a stumbling-block, 
 and to the Greeks foolishness. The true account, I take it, 
 is this ; that first, the concealment which the Greek philo- 
 sophers were forced to practise had indirectly the effect of 
 investing their esoteric teaching with a higher value in men’s 
 eyes than it would otherwise have had. The very difficulty 
 thrown in the way of reaching it made students more eager 
 to reach it, and made those who had obtained it more re- 
 spectable in public estimation. The teachers, by not com- 
 mitting their whole system to writing, but reserving much of 
 it to oral lectures delivered to select auditors, became per- 
 sonally more important than they would otherwise have been, 
 and there was a charm of mystery thrown around their doc- 
 trines which experience proves to be peculiarly attractive to 
 the human mind. Thus the ideas of concealment and pro- 
 fundity became associated in men’s thoughts, and a doctrine 
 which was not studiously kept from the vulgar was looked 
 on as hardly worth knowing. It was therefore, I think, rather 
 for the purpose of recommending their sublime doctrines to 
 the pagans than from fear of giving offence, that the earlier 
 Christian teachers affected this reserve. 
 
 2 Adv. Praxeam, iii. 
 
1 74 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 LECTURE Y. 
 
 SECRECY RESPECTING CHRISTIAN RITES IN THE 
 EARLY CHURCH —CONNECTION WITH THE 
 PAGAN MYSTERIES. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I touched in my last lecture, slightly and 
 by the way, upon a subject which seems to require a more 
 •attentive consideration than we then had time to afford for it 
 — I mean the character of secrecy with which the principal 
 rites of the Church began to be invested during the period of 
 which I have been treating. 
 
 In the earlier portion, indeed, of this period there are no 
 traces of any such studious concealment from unbelievers of 
 the nature of the Church’s rites as we find beginning to prevail 
 in the latter part of it. Whatever secrecy was practised in 
 the actual observance of those rites was, in the earlier times, 
 the mere effect of a dread of persecution, and extended no 
 farther than its cause. The Christians, when in hourly danger 
 of being apprehended by the magistrate or assailed by a 
 turbulent populace, sought — and sought very properly — to 
 escape discovery in their religious assemblies by a careful 
 exclusion of all who could not be safely trusted — by meeting 
 at night or before break of day, and in places as much as 
 possible secluded from observation, and not likely to be visited 
 by strangers, as the Cemeteries and Catacombs, for example. 
 (See Dr. Maitland’s 1 Church in the Catacombs.’) But while 
 the actual celebration of their religious rites had thus, from 
 accidental circumstances, much in common with what were 
 called Mysteries among the pagans, this resemblance was, 
 at the time I now refer to, merely accidental. It was the 
 result, not of their own choice, but of the violence of others. 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 RITES NOT CONCEALED AT FIRST. 
 
 175 
 
 The nature of those rites was so far from being concealed that, 
 on the contrary, we find the early Apologists most anxious to 
 make it generally known, as the best means of dissipating 
 those injurious reports which were industriously circulated of 
 immoral practices in the meetings of the Christians. So Justin 
 (‘Apol.,’ i. 61) describes baptism as follows : ‘ In what manner 
 we have dedicated ourselves to God, being made new through 
 Jesus Christ, we shall explain, in order that we might not 
 seem by omitting this to act dishonestly in our exposition. 
 As many as are persuaded and believe that those things which 
 are taught and alleged by us are true, and profess to be able 
 to live accordingly, are taught to pray, and, fasting, to ask 
 from God forgiveness of their past sins, we praying and fasting 
 with them. Then they are led by us to where there is water, 
 and are regenerated with a kind of regeneration with which 
 we ourselves also were regenerated. For in the name of the 
 Father of all things and Lord God, and of our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, and of a Holy Spirit, they then make their bath in the 
 water. . . . Since, not knowing our first generation, we have 
 been born by necessity . . . and have come into evil habits 
 and wicked rearing, that we should not continue the children 
 of necessity or of ignorance, but of choice and knowledge, and 
 might obtain in the water forgiveness for the sins previously 
 committed, there is named over him that has chosen to be 
 regenerated and repented of his sins, the name of the Father 
 of all things and Lord God ; (pronouncing this alone when 
 bringing to the laver him that is to be washed, for no one 
 can give a name to the ineffable God . . . and this laver is 
 called illumination, as those that learn these things are illu- 
 minated in their minds) ; and in the name of Jesus Christ that 
 was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of a Holy 
 Spirit, that through the prophets proclaimed beforehand all 
 that relates to Jesus, the person that is illuminated is washed.’ 
 And again (64-65) he is equally explicit as regards the Lord’s 
 Supper : £ And after thus washing the person that has been 
 persuaded and given his assent, we bring him to the brethren, 
 so called, where they are assembled together, to make common 
 
176 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 prayers both for themselves and him that has been illuminated, 
 and all others everywhere, with fervency, that, &c. Then 
 there is brought to the president of the brethren bread and a 
 cup of mixed water and wine. And he having received them, 
 sends up praise and glory to the Father of all things through 
 the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And he makes 
 a long thanksgiving for being vouchsafed these things from 
 Him ; and when he has finished the prayers and the thanks- 
 giving, all the people present add a loud assent, saying 
 Amen. Now Amen in the Hebrew language signifies So be it. 
 But the president having given thanks and all the people 
 having audibly assented, those that are called with us deacons 
 give to each of those present to partake of the bread and of 
 the wine and water on which the thanksgiving has been pro- 
 nounced, rod sv'^apLO'TTjO svtos^ and carry away to those not 
 present. And this aliment is called with us Eucharist, of 
 which it is not lawful for any other to partake, save him who 
 believes that the things that have been taught by us are true, 
 and has had himself washed with the laver for forgiveness of 
 sins and unto regeneration, and lives so as Christ hath delivered. 
 For we do not receive these as common bread or a common 
 cup ; but in what manner Jesus Christ our Saviour having 
 been made flesh by God’s word, had both flesh and blood for 
 our salvation, so also we have been taught that the aliment 
 on which thanksgiving has been pronounced by the word of 
 prayer from Him, from whence our blood and flesh are by 
 transmutation nourished, are both flesh and blood of that Jesus 
 that was made flesh.’ And again in 67 : ‘ And on the day 
 called Sunday there is an assembly made of all that abide in 
 towns or country, and the memoirs of the Apostles or writings 
 of the Prophets are read as long as is practicable. And when 
 the reader has ceased, the president by word gives counsel 
 and exhortation to imitate these excellent instructions. Then 
 we all stand up together and offer prayers ; and, as we said 
 before, when we have ceased from the prayer, bread is pre- 
 sented, 7 rpoa^Epsrcu, and wine and water, and the president 
 sends up prayers in like manner and thanksgivings to the best 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 RESERVE UNKNOWN IN JUSTIN’S TIME. 
 
 177 
 
 of his ability, and the people give audible assent, saying Amen. 
 And the distribution and participation of the things on which 
 the thanksgiving was pronounced is made to each, and sent, 
 through the deacons, to those not present.’ 1 (Kaye’s ‘ Justin 
 M.,’ pp. 84-90.) There are several expressions in the account 
 here given of the Sacraments and other rites of the Church, upon 
 which I shall have occasion to remark hereafter. But at present 
 I only quote them for the purpose of showing how unreservedly 
 this primitive Apologist lays bare everything connected with 
 them, the outward symbols and the inward meaning alike* to 
 the uninitiated pagans whom he is addressing. An ecclesias- 
 tical writer some centuries later would have trembled and 
 turned pale with horror at hearing a contemporary thus 
 expose to unbelievers the holiest of the Church’s holy things. 
 He would have stopped his ears and fled from him, as a reli- 
 gious pagan would have shunned the company of a traitor to 
 the sacred silence which guarded the Mysteries of heathenism. 
 
 Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 
 Vulgarit arcanae, sub isdem 
 Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum 
 Solvat phaselon. 
 
 We must conclude, therefore, that in Justin’s time such 
 notions upon this subject as afterwards prevailed were unknown, 
 or at least disregarded, by the general body of Christians, 
 since otherwise we cannot explain how Justin should not only 
 himself have ventured upon such an announcement, but have 
 therefore incurred no censure, nor forfeited the good opinion 
 of his brethren. And this latter circumstance is most 
 material to be observed. For it is impossible to explain 
 the reverence with which Justin is always treated by the suc- 
 ceeding ecclesiastical writers, notwithstanding the great dif- 
 ference of his tone from theirs, without supposing that before 
 they flourished, he had already gained so well known and so 
 
 1 We have introduced these passages as the Bishop evidently meant to 
 read them, having written in the MS., ‘ So Justin, etc.’ We have taken them 
 direct from Justin himself, and not from Bishop Kaye’s work. There 
 is another passage in the A})ology, to which alone the Bishop refers, 
 which he may have read also, but as it is given in the next lecture we need 
 not transcribe it here. — Editors. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 firm a place in the love and admiration of the Church as to 
 make his authority above detraction. As a saint, already in 
 a manner canonised, that was suffered to pass unrebuked, 
 perhaps almost unobserved in him, which in a person of less 
 note, or in a contemporary, would have excited a tempest of 
 indignation. This is the enviable privilege of writers of an 
 established ecclesiastical renown. The mistakes, the false 
 reasoning, the sophistry, the rash opinions, nay, even the im- 
 morality, which are most severely censured in others, are 
 passed lightly over, and, if possible, left wholly unnoticed in 
 them, for no other reason but because they bear the venerable 
 name of Fathers of the Church. And by a strange perversion 
 of the rules of charity, living men who can be personally galled 
 and injured by it are made the mark of unsparing vitupera- 
 tion, while those who can no longer be pleased by our praise 
 nor hurt by our censure, are exempted from even the slightest 
 criticism. 
 
 But to return : since, as we have seen, the custom of 
 involving in secrecy the nature of the Christian rites seems 
 clearly to have formed no original part of the discipline of the 
 Church, it will be interesting and useful to trace the sources 
 from which it arose, and the manner in which it gradually 
 established itself ; more particularly as this instance will 
 reflect light upon many other developments which took place 
 during the same period. 
 
 I have observed already that there was a certain amount 
 of secrecy, not chosen by, but forced upon, the early Chris- 
 tians by the circumstances of their times. Fear, for instance, 
 of the consequences of discovery, in a season of persecution, 
 made it needful for them to guard as far as possible against 
 a discovery by unbelievers of the time and place of their 
 religious assemblies. Hence it became expedient that there 
 should be some private token by which the trustworthy mem- 
 bers of the Church might be easily distinguished, and the 
 need of such a token would, you will observe, outlast the 
 actual prevalence of any one particular persecution. For 
 persecution, local or general, was an evil against which the 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 CAUSES OF THE LATER RESERVE. 
 
 179 
 
 early Church was never secure. As long as theirs continued 
 a religio illicita , unrecognised and therefore forbidden by the 
 law of the Empire, there was no knowing at what moment 
 the rigour of the law might be put in force against them, or 
 the sanguinary violence of the vulgar permitted to assail 
 them with impunity. Hence it was expedient — as a standing 
 precaution — that some mark should be in the possession of 
 the Church for distinguishing its real and faithful members 
 from those who might enter its assemblies only to betray 
 them. Such a mark was the baptismal creed of each Christian 
 community, which was imparted orally to the catechumen, 
 when previously trained and found worthy, and which he was 
 exhorted to retain in his memory as a sacred deposit, and 
 repeat as a symbol, or tessera, or watchword, by which he 
 might be known by his genuine brethren. And the same 
 reason which made it expedient to make the tradition of the 
 creed itself secret, rendered it equally so to exclude strangers 
 from those rites of the Church in which it was recited in the 
 presence of the congregation — that is, Baptism, in which it 
 was professed by the candidate, and the Lord’s Supper. 
 
 Now it requires but a very slight acquaintance with 
 human nature to understand how such a practice, first intro- 
 duced by necessity, should soon have become a matter of 
 choice. A love of this sort of mysterious privilege is a well- 
 known principle, which we see operating around us in our 
 own day among the highest and the lowest of the people. 
 But the circumstances of the times of which I am speaking 
 in these lectures quickened this common principle of our 
 nature at that season into peculiar activity. 
 
 From very early times of the world’s history there seem 
 to have been practised throughout Greece, Egypt, Syria, 
 Asia Minor, Chaldaea, and Persia, certain secret rites of 
 religion, under the name of Mysteries, which were regarded 
 by the people with peculiar veneration. Such were the 
 Mysteries of Cybele, of Hecate, of Ceres, of Bacchus, of 
 Adonis, of Mithras, of Orpheus, and of Isis. These were 
 some of the most considerable ; but besides these, there 
 
 if 2 
 
180 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 seems to have been hardly any more important temple of any 
 god in which the priests did not profess to have in reserve 
 some secret with respect to his history, or the manner of his 
 worship, which they communicated only after a certain period 
 of probation to those whom they affected to consider worthy 
 receivers of it. In effect I believe that in these Mysteries 
 the original conceptions of the various deities, and the primi- 
 tive forms of their legends, were most accurately preserved. 
 In the minds of the mass of the vulgar these conceptions and 
 stories took infinite variations, as they were moulded to this 
 or that shape by the unrestrained operation of a mythical 
 fancy wholly, or nearly wholly, unregulated by any reasonable 
 standard. But in the Mysteries — at least in the more re- 
 spectable of them — the legend was delivered down by the 
 tradition of an order of educated men, with a fixed succession 
 and a limited number, so as that some security was provided 
 against essential change, or at least against merely capricious 
 and inconsistent change. And there is reason to believe 
 that the pagan religion, in its primitive form, resolved itself 
 into the two great sources of emblematic nature-worship 
 and hero-worship — the worship of the various powers of 
 nature, and of dead men deified. Hence we may explain the 
 hints to be met with in ancient writers, which strongly 
 suggest the suspicion that in the more considerable of these 
 Mysteries the deities of paganism were explained to be mere 
 powers of nature, or to have been heroes once living, but now 
 no more, and whose memory was gratefully commemorated 
 in the adoration which seemed to recognise them as gods. 
 Not that all this was delivered in a plain and systematic 
 form, but that as these were in truth the fundamental ideas 
 of much of the old mythology, so a reflecting hearer might 
 without difficulty perceive them under the almost transparent 
 veil of the legend in its simpler original shape, as given in 
 these Mysteries. 1 What,’ says Cicero, in ‘ Tusc.,’ I. c. 12, ‘ is 
 not almost all heaven filled with the human ? If I should 
 search into antiquity, it would be found that even those very 
 gods themselves who are deemed the Dii majorum gentium 
 
LECT. V. 
 
 THE PAGAN MYSTEE1ES. 
 
 181 
 
 had their original here below. Remember, for you are 
 initiated, what you have been taught in the Mysteries, and 
 you will then understand how far this matter may be carried/ 
 ‘ I forbear,’ he makes Cotta say elsewhere, 1 to speak of the 
 sacred and august rites of Eleusis. I pass by Samothraco 
 and the Lemnian Mysteries, which, when explained and 
 reduced to rational principles, seem to disclose rather the 
 nature of things than of the gods.’ 
 
 The legend of Ceres, which was the subject of the Mys- 
 teries of Eleusis, was such as to make those rites peculiarly 
 attractive. It gave a great opportunity to the dramatic 
 genius of the Greeks to gratify man’s natural curiosity by a 
 grand scenic display of the regions beyond the grave and the 
 state of the departed ; and it seems probable that in this, and 
 indeed in almost all the Mysteries, the priests pretended to 
 deliver to the initiated instructions for their safe guidance 
 through those regions when they should come actually to> 
 visit them. I cannot but suspect that the curious funeral 
 papyri now in this library give us some idea of these instruc- 
 tions, containing as they do directions to the deceased as to 
 the manner in which he is to answer the challenges of the 
 guardian demons of the other world. And very similar to 
 these are the Mysteries of the Ophites, preserved by Origen 
 against Celsus, lib. vi. p. 296, ed. Spencer. 
 
 Hence we find that the initiated at Eleusis boasted of 
 having as their peculiar privilege good hope in death, and a 
 knowledge of the means of obtaining a speedy introduction 
 into the realms of light. 
 
 From what I have said, you will readily perceive how far 
 I agree with, and how very much I differ from, the view taken 
 by Bishop Warburton of the nature of these Mysteries. 2 He 
 supposes that they were a deliberate political institution of the 
 magistrate for the purpose of keeping up a sense of religion 
 as connected with morality among the common people, and of 
 providing a rational view of it for the better educated. The 
 lesser, or preparatory Mysteries, he supposes were meant for 
 the crowd, and their object was to impress upon them a vivid 
 2 In Book II., § 4, of the Divine Legation. 
 
182 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH, 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 idea of the rewards and punishments of the next world as a 
 check upon impiety and injustice. The greater Mysteries 
 were, he thinks, designed to let the better orders know the 
 great secret of the unity of God and the falsehood of the 
 popular mythology. 
 
 I cannot enter now into a minute examination of this 
 famous hypothesis. But I will just remark, in passing, that 
 one point- — essential to it, as I conceive — is, throughout his 
 argument, continually assumed, without, as far as I can see — 
 and I have searched for it very diligently — the shadow of a 
 proof. He assumes everywhere— it is, indeed, absolutely 
 necessary for him to assume — that quite a different class of 
 persons were admitted to the greater Mysteries from those 
 invited to the lesser. Now there is not, I think, in all 
 antiquity the least hint of any such distinction. It seems to 
 me to have been an established and regular thing for those 
 who had been one year initiated in the lesser Mysteries to 
 proceed the next year to the greater ; and that no other 
 qualification was demanded to fit them to become candidates 
 for the second privilege than that of having previously enjoyed 
 the first. And it seems to have been considered a disreputable 
 and even criminal thing for any citizen of Attica to abstain, 
 as Socrates and Demonax did, from being initiated in these 
 Mysteries. The truth is, too, that it was only the greater 
 Mysteries which were celebrated at Eleusis. The lesser were 
 solemnised at Agree, on the Ilissus, or, as some say, in Athens 
 itself. And when one bears this in mind, it will be amusing 
 to observe how completely War burton overturns his own 
 hypothesis in the very places where he thinks himself most 
 secure of establishing it. For all the evidence which he 
 brings to prove that a scenic representation of future rewards 
 and punishments formed part of the Mysteries of Eleusis goes, 
 in reality, to show that this scenic representation was part 
 of the greater, not of the lesser Mysteries, as his hypothesis 
 requires hina to maintain. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, certain it is that the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries were the most venerable and most attractive insti- 
 
jlect. v. SACRAMENTS LIKENED TO THE MYSTERIES. 
 
 183 
 
 tution of European paganism ; and when, as I have already 
 noticed in a former lecture, the attempt began to be made in 
 the second century by the philosophers to infuse new life into 
 the moribund carcase of heathen superstition, they naturally 
 cherished these with the greatest solicitude as retaining most 
 sparks of vitality, and as most capable of being restored to effec 
 tual energy. In the time of Hadrian and the Antonines these 
 Mysteries may be said to have been in their greatest splendour, 
 and the Fathers seem plainly to have regarded them as the 
 very citadel of paganism (from that period a purer morality 
 seems to have been infused into them, together with a large ad- 
 mixture of mystical theosophy), and to have directed against 
 them their most spirited attacks. So far all was right. But 
 in an evil hour for Christianity, they conceived the idea of 
 transferring to the Sacraments of our religion the awful 
 charms which made those rites so attractive, and gave them 
 an influence over men’s feelings and imaginations which no 
 one unacquainted with the literature of that age can at all 
 estimate, and which no modern can perhaps adequately esti- 
 mate. They conceived, I say, the idea of opening in the 
 Christian Church rival Mysteries to those in the pagan temple. 
 The points of resemblance between the Mysteries and the 
 Sacraments were sufficiently numerous to facilitate, though 
 not at all to justify, this transference of attributes from the 
 former to the latter. I will give them, as they have been 
 reduced by Dodwell, under seven particulars. 1, The object 
 of the Mysteries, as of the Sacraments, was said to be an union 
 of man with the Deity. 2. Both were intended to lead men 
 to a happy immortality. 3. The Mysteries were generally 
 commemorative of the suffering of some deity, as the wander- 
 ings of Ceres in search of Proserpine, the death of Tammuz 
 or Adonis, the dismemberment of Osiris. 4. The Mysteries, 
 like the Sacraments, were delivered in visible symbols or 
 emblems. 5. And among their figurative rites, washing with 
 water and the eating of bread as a sign of friendship found a 
 place. 6. The Mysteries were preceded by a kind of peniten- 
 tial discipline. And, 7, in them all things were called by new 
 
184 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 and figurative names. So the priestesses of Ceres were called 
 M s\iaaai, the sharers in the Mithraic Mysteries, Lions, 
 the hierophant at Eleusis was styled Demiurgus, and the 
 initiated never afterwards called him by his proper name. 
 Nothing, indeed, can be more harshly figurative, and, as the 
 Greeks themselves would call it, Dithyrambic, than the whole 
 strain of their language when speaking of the Mysteries ; and 
 from the time that the fashion began to prevail of treating the 
 Christian Sacraments in the same manner, we may date the 
 introduction of that extravagant, high-flown rhetoric which 
 ended in the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Indeed, it is 
 worth observing that the passages in the ancient writers of 
 the Church which seem to favour that doctrine are generally 
 taken from their popular discourses, intended for the ears of 
 unbelievers and catechumens, and that the point which they 
 carefully reserve from such persons is not the mysterious and 
 supernatural grace, but the true nature of the emblem by 
 which it was supposed to be represented and conveyed. Thus, 
 for example, Chrysostom, in one of his Orations, speaking of 
 the altar, exclaims, ‘ There lies the Lord’s Body, covered all 
 round by the Holy Spirit. The initiated know the meaning 
 of what I say.’ 3 Here you see that there is no reserve at all 
 about the strongest possible form of the figurative language ; 
 the sign is boldly called by the title of the thing signified. 
 But what is reserved is the real nature of the sign. Still 
 more remarkable, and indeed decisive of the whole question, 
 is a passage from Theodoret which occurs in a dialogue be- 
 tween two interlocutors — Eranistes and Orthodoxus. Era- 
 nistes represents an Eutychian who is endeavouring to prove 
 that the humanity in Christ was swallowed up, as it were, in 
 the divine glory. Orthodoxus endeavours to refute him by 
 pointing out that the symbols in the Eucharist would be un- 
 meaning if there were not a real Body and Blood of which 
 they are the images. This illustration Eranistes endeavours 
 to turn the other way by observing that these symbols un- 
 
 3 Horn, dc Beat. Philog . 3, p. 753, Migne. 
 
LECT. V. THE VISIBLE SIGNS ALONE CONCEALED. 
 
 185 
 
 dergo a change by the benediction of the priest, and he pro- 
 ceeds thus : 
 
 ‘ What do yon call the gift offered before the priest’s invoca- 
 tion ? ’ Orthodoxus replies : ‘ This must not be said openly, for 
 some of the uninitiated may be present.’ c Answer then,’ says 
 Eranistes, c in hidden terms.’ ‘We call it,’ proceeds Ortho- 
 doxus, following his advice, ‘ an aliment made of certain 
 grains.’ c And how do you call the other symbol ? ’ ‘ We 
 
 give it a name that denotes a certain beverage.’ ‘ And after 
 the consecration, what are they called ? ’ 1 The Body and the 
 
 Blood of Christ .’ 4 
 
 Here, then, you see plainly that the figurative, or, as 
 we should call it, mystical name, the Body and Blood of 
 Christ, was precisely the thing that was openly mentioned in 
 the presence of the catechumens. The fact that this Body 
 and Blood were bread and wine was the secret reserved from 
 their knowledge. 
 
 4 Dial. i. Ivimutabilis , p. 53 (24) Migne. 
 
186 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COUIiSE II. 
 
 LECTUEE YI. 
 
 ON THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE DOGMA OF 
 TRANS UB ST ANT I A TION. 
 
 Gentlemen, — In my last lecture I gave you an instance 
 of that accommodation to the habits of thought prevalent in 
 the pagan world which, in the course of four centuries, pro- 
 duced such a remarkable change not only in the outward 
 aspect, but in the inward essential structure of the Christian 
 religion, as held by the great majority of its professors. For, 
 you must remember, that the instance which we were then 
 examining, the investing of the Christian Sacraments with 
 the attributes of the heathen Mysteries, was only one symp- 
 tom of a tendency which grew continually stronger and 
 stronger through each succeeding age, till at last it seemed 
 to threaten an entire perversion of Christianity into a form of 
 paganism. When in tracing the operations of this tendency 
 to accommodation we find, in the fifth century, the saints and 
 angels avowedly put in the place of the heroes and deities 
 whom the heathens worshipped, and men called upon, not so 
 much entirely’ to renounce the service of such false gods, as to 
 transfer their services from one set of gods to another, the 
 discovery of such a development as this ought surely to open 
 our eyes to the nature of that spirit which was working in 
 less revolting forms towards such a consummation, even in the 
 earlier and purer times. 
 
 There is, indeed, no more nice and delicate question in 
 morals than those concerning allowable accommodation to 
 habits of thought and usages closely connected with error and 
 superstition ; but it is one which my present purpose does not 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 CONCESSIONS TO PAGAN PREJUDICE. 
 
 187 
 
 require me to enter into, and which hardly falls within my 
 legitimate province. But I may observe, by the way, that such 
 concessions can seldom be prudently made except for a tem- 
 porary purpose, nor then except when the governing party in 
 the Church are not themselves subject to the weakness which 
 calls for those concessions on the part of others. Accommoda- 
 tion to the weakness of children should be made by those who 
 are not children ; and for the special object of bringing the weak 
 under the influence of new guiding principles which shall in 
 time make them fit and willing to 6 lay aside childish things/ 
 Everything, in most of these cases, depends upon the question 
 whether the Church is in a state of growth or of decay, whether 
 the strong prevailing tendency is towards progress and intel- 
 lectual enlargement, or towards retrogression. The accessions 
 gained by such means may be compared to nutriment, more 
 or less unwholesome according to circumstances, which may 
 be digested and converted into healthy blood by a vigorous 
 constitution, but which will be at once most noxious, and 
 most importunately craved for, when the powers of the 
 stomach languish and become incapable of assimilating the 
 substances demanded by a false appetite. Thus materially 
 the same concessions to Romish taste which were safely made 
 in the early part of Edward VI/s reign, when the ruling ten- 
 dency was towards Protestantism, and the object was to carry 
 on the mass of the people in that direction, were pregnant 
 with danger in Charles I/s, when the current was running 
 strongly the other way. It is one thing to slacken sail for the 
 sake of a tardy companion, when wind and tide are bearing 
 us gallantly forward, and quite another to rest upon our oars, 
 when the elements are conspiring to drive us back. 
 
 Now, in the case of the concessions to pagan prejudice 
 which have suggested these remarks, there were, I fear, 
 hardly any of the securities in existence which render such 
 accommodations safe. It is plain I think that, on the part of 
 the rulers of the Church, they were made not merely to 
 gratify the tastes of others, but also to indulge their own. 
 They were therefore symptoms of a tendency, subsisting in 
 
188 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 tlie very vitals of the Church, in that direction in which the 
 danger of such language and notions and usages lay. They 
 were symptoms of the very disease the existence of which 
 was a proof that -such concessions could not be safely made. 
 
 Perhaps the happiest of all examples of legitimate accom- 
 modation may be derived from the the sacred writers, who 
 often speak of Christian things in language borrowed from 
 the rites of Judaism and Gentilism, but always, I think, in 
 such a manner, and with such a felicitous choice of the 
 point of comparison, as effectually to exclude and rectify the 
 erroneous associations which might be expected to make 
 such allusions dangerous. They allude, for instance, almost 
 as freely as the later ecclesiastical writers, to those Mysteries 
 which were so popular among the Greeks, as finding a sort of 
 counterpart in the Christian religion. But the counterpart 
 to which they point is one very different from that presented 
 by the uninspired teachers of the Church. It is not doctrines 
 reserved now for a particular class of privileged hearers. It 
 is not the symbolic rites and ceremonies of the Church itself. 
 It is not, in short, anything which could possibly tend to intro- 
 duce either class religion or superstition into the Christian 
 community, but the direct opposite and antagonistic idea to 
 them both. They find the true point of comparison in the 
 history of the human race. The mystery of which they 
 speak is that which was hid from ages and generations, but 
 is now made manifest by the open preaching of the word. 
 Figure, and enigma, and dark inuendo, and unexplained rites, 
 and all the curious embroidery of that symbolic veil which 
 covered its import from the uninitiated, they treated as 
 belonging to a previous dispensation. They were themselves 
 hierophants commissioned not to conceal from any, but to 
 make all men see the mystery of God, and therefore using, 
 in the execution of their sacred office, great plainness of 
 speech. All present concealment they renounced as part of 
 the hidden things of dishonesty, and openly published a 
 gospel which was veiled only to those whose eyes were blinded 
 by the god of this world. Thus in the very allusions which 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 APOSTOLIC USE OF JEWISH TERMS. 
 
 189 
 
 they made to the Mysteries of paganism, they contrived to 
 correct in making them, by the point of comparison which 
 they selected, the fundamental error which alone rendered 
 such allusions dangerous. No one could feel the force and 
 justness of the allusion without perceiving at the same time, 
 and in one and the same act of mind, that all concealment 
 had now passed away with respect to the mysteries of Chris- 
 tianity. In a word, in the Apostolic mode of management, it 
 was pagan ideas that were accommodated to Christianity ; in 
 that of the Fathers, it was Christianity that was accommodated 
 to pagan ideas. 
 
 A similar remark will apply to the Apostles’ way of 
 alluding to Jewish conceptions and usages, as compared 
 with that which, in the second century, began to prevail 
 among the ecclesiastical writers. 
 
 At first glance nothing might appear more easy and 
 natural than the transference of the terms proper to the 
 Jewish priests to the Christian ministry, and the transference 
 of the terms proper to the Jewish sacrifices to that solemn 
 rite in which the Church commemorates our Saviour’s death. 
 But deep reflection might perhaps have discovered before- 
 hand — what experience abundantly evinced afterwards — the 
 extreme peril of any such transference. Such names w'ould 
 inevitably have carried with them wrong, and most danger- 
 ously wrong, associations — the old meaning of the name, in- 
 stead of being limited by the known nature of the new office 
 to which it was applied, would have changed men’s conceptions 
 of the nature of that office, would have moulded opinion to 
 itself, and through opinion, governed practice. The Eucharist 
 was a thing capable and apt, with a little encouragement, 
 under the circumstances of the times, to be taken for an ex- 
 piatory sacrifice. The Christian minister was a person, under 
 the same circumstances, capable and apt to be mistaken for 
 a mediating priest. And to have applied such terms to the 
 Sacrament or the minister, in the midst of men familiarised 
 with and prone to form such ideas of both, would have been 
 to lay a snare for the weak and encourage fatal misconceptions. 
 
190 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 How wisely, therefore, did the Apostles guide themselves — 
 or rather how wisely were they guided — in the allusions which 
 they made to the sacrifices and priests of Jews and Gentiles. 
 For the sacrifice and sacrificing priest an exact counterpart is 
 found in the very thing and person that they were designed 
 to represent — the oblation of Christ once offered by Himself 
 in the heavenly sanctuary. And this you will observe, as in 
 a former case, is so far from encouraging any transference 
 of the false ideas to Christianity, that it completely obviates 
 such a transference. By fixing the mind upon a work past 
 and incapable of repetition, the thoughts are shut out from 
 seeking elsewhere for anything of that kind. By raising the 
 mind to an altar, a sacrifice, and a priest in the courts above, 
 we are taught not to look for them in any earthly shrine. 
 
 If, however, as the Socinians pretend, it is merely in the 
 way of accommodation and allusion that our Saviour’s suffer- 
 ings are called a sacrifice, and Himself a priest, we should 
 have small reason to admire the divine wisdom of such con- 
 duct in the Apostles. Upon this representation of the matter, 
 they would have done the very thing which we have been 
 commending them for not doing, and which I think they cer- 
 tainly never did in any other instance. They would have been 
 laying a trap for the unwary : since in speaking thus of what 
 was plainly apt to be taken for a proper sacrifice, to men full 
 of the notions of sacrifice and atonement, and hardly able to 
 conceive the idea of a religion without them, they could 
 scarcely be understood otherwise than as sanctioning what the 
 persons who attribute such behaviour to them regard as a most 
 serious error. This would be, indeed, to find a precedent for the 
 worst extremities of OLKovo/ita and ^zvaKiG-fios in the earliest 
 and most venerable — because inspired — teachers of the Church. 
 
 But where the Apostles really do speak in the way of 
 mere allusion concerning priests and sacrifices under the 
 Christian dispensation, they select the terms of their com- 
 parison in a very different way. To parallel with sacrifices 
 and sacrificing priests, they choose things which are obnoxious 
 to no dangerous misconception. It is of ourselves, our souls 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 THE TRUE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICES. 
 
 191 
 
 and bodies — of our alms, of our thanksgivings and prayers — 
 that they speak as legitimate Christian sacrifices ; and con- 
 sequently of all the faithful alike as the sacrificing priests. 
 Once, indeed, in a highly figurative passage, Paul speaks of 
 himself as exercising, in his ministerial character, a sort of 
 priestly office, Rom. xv. 5-17: ‘Nevertheless, brethren, I 
 have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as 
 putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to 
 me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ 
 to the Gentiles, ministering [Ispovpyovvra, performing the 
 priestly office of] the gospel of God, that the offering up, 
 7 rpoa(f)opd, of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sancti- 
 fied by the Holy Ghost.’ But the point of comparison 
 which he there selects is not the administration of the Sacra- 
 ments, but the preaching of the word. As Christians are 
 a living sacrifice, so he regards himself as bringing such 
 sacrifices to God by converting men to Christianity. This 
 was a figure incapable of being abused, except by gross per- 
 verseness, to the purposes of superstition. Nay, the very 
 circumstance that when searching for something in his office 
 to parallel with that of the Jewish priests, he should delibe- 
 rately pass by the obvious instance of a Christian Sacrament, 
 and choose this remote one, is, perhaps, even a stronger evi- 
 dence of careful evitation of everything that could encourage 
 men to turn that Sacrament into a proper sacrifice, than if he 
 had never spoken of his apostolic office as a priesthood at all. 
 
 I touch these things but slightly, gentlemen, because they 
 are, I doubt not, topics with which you are already familiar, 
 and you will probably be apt rather to blame me for noticing 
 them at all than for noticing them thus briefly. But you 
 may not perhaps be equally familiar with a curious explana- 
 tion of these phenomena which has lately been propounded 
 by Professor Murray, of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in a 
 work which he calls the ‘ Irish Miscellany,’ and which I would 
 strongly recommend to your perusal. 
 
 That the clergy are never called priests, and the Eucharist 
 never called a sacrifice in the New Testament, while at the 
 
192 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 same time these terms are freely and largely applied in that 
 book to other things and persons, has often been relied on by 
 Protestants as strong evidence that the Apostles could not 
 have entertained such conceptions of the clerical office, or the 
 Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, as are now entertained and 
 professed by the Church of Rome. And most Romanists have, 
 I believe, always felt that this emphatic silence of the sacred 
 writers is a difficulty in the way of their system. Nothing, 
 however, according to Dr. Murray, is easier than the solution 
 of this difficulty. The Apostles, according to him, most 
 likely abstained from applying these terms to such subjects, 
 lest it should be supposed that the Church had such sacrifices 
 as the Jews and pagans, namely, beasts literally slain. Now 
 this, I cannot but think, is to suppose the Apostles most 
 superfluously careful against an error most unlikely to arise, 
 and at the same time most heedless against a mistake almost 
 inevitable under such circumstances. 
 
 That the Church had no sacrifices of slain beasts was a 
 thing patent and evident to the senses of all observers ; and 
 no one, without the most careless inattention, could suppose 
 that they had. But then, for the very same reason, it was 
 equally obvious to suppose that they had no expiatory sacri- 
 fices at all. All that can be said to prove the indissoluble 
 connection in men’s minds between slain beasts and expiatory 
 sacrifices goes in reality to show that, where there were no slain 
 animals, there it would not be suspected that there were ex- 
 piatory sacrifices. Now this latter, Professor Murray must own, 
 was at least as dangerous an error as the former, and I will add, 
 far less capable of being silently corrected. The absence of 
 slain beasts in Christian worship was a fact testified by sense. 
 That the Eucharist was an expiatory sacrifice, and the 
 minister a sacrificing priest, was what the churches could not 
 possibly learn except by being told so by the Apostles, i.e. by 
 the Apostles doing the very thing which Dr. Murray tells us 
 they, for excellent reasons, did not do. Aye, it may be said, 
 but they may have told it orally, though there is no trace of 
 it in the Gospels or Epistles. But then, what becomes of the 
 
LECT. VI. WHY EUCHARIST NOT CALLED A SACRIFICE. 1 93 
 
 wise reasons for not telling it at all ? Is there such a mar- 
 vellous charm in oral teaching that the same words are safe 
 and salutary when spoken, but pregnant with a thousand 
 perils when written down ? If so, Jack Cade was to be com- 
 mended for declaring reading and writing capital offences. 
 
 Nay, it may be urged, the. great danger was of leading 
 Jews and pagans into error about the rites of the Church. 
 The Apostles might safely use those names in the ears of 
 the faithful, but they were fearful of publishing them to the 
 world. 
 
 Well ! but was it not for the faithful that the Scriptures 
 were written ? Roman Catholics are never weary of telling 
 us on other occasions, that the Scriptures are the exclusive 
 patrimony of the Church, intended for her and her alone, and 
 not for either heretics or unbelievers. Indeed, if it be once 
 granted that whatever was written in Scripture was published 
 at once, the whole notion of a disciplina arcani vanishes into 
 thin air, since it is undeniable that the very things which 
 the later Church most studiously concealed are there plainly 
 spoken of in the most unreserved manner. But, indeed, turn 
 it how you will, this plea is utterly futile ; since no one could 
 possibly read the Christian Scriptures without perceiving that 
 whatever might have been meant by calling the Eucharist a 
 sacrifice, and the minister a priest, it was not meant that 
 animals were literally slain in the performance of it. And 
 as for utterly careless or utterly stupid readers, they were 
 just as likely to fall into such an error from finding all 
 Christians called priests, and their services called sacrifices. 
 If the mere words were enough to mislead them, in spite of 
 all sense and reason, and if the Apostles had been so ner- 
 vously timid as to shrink from such a danger, then the terms 
 in question would not have occurred in the New Testament 
 at all. 
 
 On the whole, I cannot sincerely compliment Professor 
 Murray upon the felicity of this solution. I think he shows 
 much more wisdom in the other alternative which he proposes 
 in answer to the difficulty, namely, that he cannot tel] why 
 
 VOL. i. o 
 
194 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the Apostles abstained from such applications of these terms. 
 This, I think, is quite fair and reasonable, and to say the 
 truth, I should be very much surprised if any gentlemen who 
 held that the doctrine of the Council of Trent on this subject 
 was the doctrine of the Apostles, could tell why they should 
 have been so delicate about stating it. 
 
 But to return : the notion of the Eucharist’s being an 
 expiatory sacrifice was, indeed, for many centuries after the 
 Apostles a total stranger to the Church. But it cannot be 
 denied that very soon after the Apostles, unskilful transference 
 of the ideas and language of the Old Testament to Christian 
 subjects began to prepare the way for such a notion. In the 
 genuine remains, however, of the Apostolic Fathers there is 
 little of this kind. In the famous passage in Clement’s 
 Epistle, c. 40 et seq ., if it be not interpolated, there is proof 
 of an extremely early instance of such confusion. He appears 
 there to speak of the Christian ministry under the titles of 
 priests and Levites, and runs a kind of parallel between their 
 ministrations and the temple-services. The whole passage, 
 however, is very obscure, and so unlike in its character to 
 the rest of the Epistle, while so like in every respect to the 
 spurious pieces ascribed to Clement, and so easily detached 
 from the context, the coherence of which its removal does 
 not injure, that I confess I entertain strong suspicions of it. 
 Certainly nothing of this sort is to be found in Polycarp or 
 Ignatius. They speak often of Christ as our priest, and his 
 offering as a sacrifice, but while magnifying in no measured 
 terms the dignity of the episcopal and presbyterian offices, 
 and of the Eucharist, they never apply to them such terms 
 as we are considering. Ignatius indeed insists more than 
 once upon there being but ‘ one altar,’ and this has led some 
 to suppose that he regarded the holy table as such. But 
 the context of some of the passages will not allow us to put 
 such a sense upon the term. Take, for example, Eph. v. : 
 ‘ Let no man be deceived ! If he be not within the altar he 
 comes short of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one 
 or two hath such efficacy, how much more that of the bishop 
 
lect. vi. STATEMENTS OF IGNATIUS AND JUSTIN. 
 
 195 
 
 and the whole church.’ To speak of a man’s being within 
 the material table, would plainly be nonsense, and it is most 
 reasonable to suppose that Ignatius considers in these pas- 
 sages the whole congregation, duly united under their bishop 
 and presbyters, as an altar for the divine service, just as Poly- 
 carp in his Epistle (iv.) talks of the widows as being or forming 
 part of the altar. ‘ Let the widows be sound in the faith, 
 knowing that they are an altar of God, and that He diligently 
 inspects His offerings, and that no thought escapes His ob- 
 servation.’ All passages, however, in which such modes of 
 speaking occur in the Greek text of Ignatius are, it is worth 
 observing, entirely omitted in the Syriac. 
 
 As we go down later, however, very curious, what may 
 seem at first sight utterly inconsistent phenomena, begin to 
 appear. On the one side we have, for example, such statements 
 as these of Justin Martyr’s : 1 We have been taught that God 
 has no need of material oblation from men, well knowing 
 that He is the giver of all things ; but we have been taught, 
 and are persuaded, and believe, that He accepts only those who 
 copy his goodness, purity, and righteousness, and benevolence, 
 and whatever else is akin to the divine character. We worship 
 the Maker of the universe, who requires not blood and liba- 
 tions and incense ; to Him we use words of supplication and 
 thanksgiving in all that we present, praising him to the ut- 
 most of our power ; for we think that this honour alone is 
 worthy of Him, not to consume by fire what has been created 
 by him for our nourishment, but to distribute them to our- 
 selves and to those that need them, and in gratitude to Him to 
 offer solemn prayers and hymns by word of mouth, on account 
 of our creation, and the supplies for our well-being, and the 
 qualities of things, and the changes of seasons, and praying 
 to be made again incorruptible through faith in Him .’ 1 And 
 yet, on the other side, notwithstanding such distinct repudia- 
 tions of all material oblation, we find the same Father speaking 
 of the Eucharistic elements as a sacrifice, though never as an 
 expiatory sacrifice. £ The offering,’ says he, : of flour which 
 
 1 Apol. i. 10, 13. 
 
196 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 was commanded to be presented for those who were cleansed 
 of the leprosy was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, which 
 Jesus our Lord commands to be observed in remembrance of 
 the passion which he endured for those whose souls are cleansed 
 from all wickedness, that we may at the same time thank G od 
 for creating all things, and for freeing us from the iniquity 
 wherein we were born. . . . Concerning, then, the sacrifices 
 offered by us in every place, that is the bread of the Eucharist, 
 and the cup of the Eucharist, the prophet speaks, saying 
 that we glorify his name, and you profane it.’ 2 The truth is, 
 that in this wavering and uncertain voice of the earlier 
 Fathers, we may trace the effects of a struggle between the 
 genuine spirit of Christianity and the Sacerdotalism which 
 was beginning to stifle that spirit. J ustin could perceive and 
 feel the nobleness and liberality of that view which regards 
 moral works as the sacrifice to be rendered to Him who should 
 be worshipped in spirit and in truth. But then the tempta- 
 tion to a sacrificial rite was very strong ; the more so as it 
 seemed to promise an abundant store of types and prefigura- 
 tions in the Old Testament. And so, between these two con- 
 trary impulses, it is not strange that he should not always be 
 quite consistent with himself. At times, however, he seeks 
 to harmonise the two ideas by modifying the harshness of 
 such statements as the last which I have quoted. ‘ All, who 
 (offer),’ he says in another place, ‘ in his name the sacri- 
 fices which Jesus Christ enjoined to be made, that is, at 
 the Eucharist of the bread and of the cup, God beforehand 
 testifies to be pleasing to Him .’ 3 And again : ‘ I agree that 
 prayers and thanksgivings, when made by the worthy, are the 
 only sacrifices that are perfect and acceptable to God. For 
 Christians are commanded to make only these at the com- 
 memoration of their dry and moist food, in which they 
 commemorate the suffering which the Son of God underwent 
 on our behalf .’ 4 Here, you see it is no longer the material 
 elements, but the thanksgiving for which they suggest the 
 occasion, that is regarded as properly constituting the sacri- 
 2 JHal. c. Tryph. 41. 3 Ibid. 117. 4 Ibid. 117. 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 VIEWS OF IREN .ZEUS AND CYPRIAN. 
 
 197 
 
 fice of the Eucharist. For the elements are regarded as 
 symbols of two blessings which they serve to recall to our 
 minds. They remind us of the Creator’s bounty in supplying 
 us with dry and moist food. They remind us of the Redeern- 
 er’s love in suffering to deliver us from sin. This, on the 
 whole, I think was Justin’s settled view, and it was always 
 with more or less of figure, and generally under a temptation 
 to catch a stray type from the Old Testament, that he spoke 
 of the bread and wine themselves as the matter of a sacrifice 
 or oblation. 
 
 In Irenaeus we find, as we might expect to find, the idea 
 of a material oblation, but still only an Eucharistical, not a 
 propitiatory sacrifice, more definitely fixed. The bread and 
 wine are considered as the firstfruits of God’s gifts offered up 
 to Him who gives us food. c It is not,’ he says, 1 the genus of 
 oblations that is rejected, but the species. There were sacri- 
 fices among the Jews, there are sacrifices also among us .’ 5 
 
 Justin and Irenasus may, as far as I can see, be fairly 
 taken as exponents of the sense of the ecclesiastical writers of 
 the first three centuries generally upon this subject. The 
 general view of those writers is clearly to recognise none but 
 spiritual and immaterial sacrifices ; but when they approach 
 the question of the Eucharist they seem to waver, and some- 
 times more distinctly take in, and sometimes more distinctly 
 exclude, the elements in treating that Sacrament as an Eucha- 
 ristical oblation. The first writer, and for a long time the 
 only writer, who begins to disclose another view, that of a 
 commemorative sacrifice, is Cyprian, in a passage which is not 
 unreasonably a special favourite with the Romanists. It is 
 in his sixty-third Epistle, in which he undertakes to show 
 that the Sacrament can then only be validly consecrated when 
 there is both wine and water in the cup. Having settled to 
 his own satisfaction the necessity of water to represent the 
 people, as wine represents Christ, he proceeds to show that the 
 essence of the Eucharist requires wine also. Some it appears, 
 and surely a very strange circumstance it is, had introduced 
 
 5 Adv. Hair. iv. 34. 
 
198 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the practice of using only water in the cup. ‘ If Jesus Christ,’ 
 he remarks, ‘ is Himself our High Priest, and Himself first 
 offered Himself, and commanded this to be done in commemo- 
 ration of Him, then certainly that priest truly fills the place 
 of Christ who imitates that which Christ did ; and then offers 
 a full and true sacrifice to God the Father, when he so begins to 
 offer as he sees Christ Himself to have offered.’ Here, how- 
 ever, it is proper to observe that the context of the Epistle 
 makes it plain that, in talking of a full and true sacrifice he 
 is merely opposing those who would mutilate the rite by leav- 
 ing out the wine. Full and true are not expressive of the 
 completeness of the idea of sacrifice in the Eucharist, but 
 are meant to indicate that if any part of Christ’s example is 
 not followed, the Sacrament is mutilated, and the requisite 
 resemblance to the archetype not preserved. Cyprian, in short, 
 in this as in some other cases, is in the hands of the Roman- 
 ists a kicking gun. He does them as much mischief as us. 
 Since, upon his principles, it is plain that to leave out both 
 wine and water in the administration of the Sacrament is as 
 much a departure from Christ’s example as to leave out the 
 wine in the oblation. And then, as for Cyprian’s strong way 
 of saying that Christ offered Himself at the Last Supper, if we 
 look back to the former part of this Epistle, we shall find that 
 the good Father speaks just as boldly of the water being Christ’s 
 people, as of the wine being his blood. ‘ In consecrating,’ 
 says he, £ the cup of the Lord, neither can the water be offered 
 alone, nor the wine alone. For if one offer only the wine, 
 Cnrist begins to be without us. If the water alone, the 
 people begin to be without Christ. But when both are 
 mingled together, then there is a true spiritual Sacrament. 
 When the wine is mingled in the cup with the water, the 
 people are united with Christ.’ This passage, then, when 
 fairly considered, proves no more that Cyprian regarded the 
 wine as transubstantiated into Christ’s blood, than that he 
 regarded the water as transubstantiated into the Christian 
 congregation. No doubt it was symbolically, and under the 
 emblems of bread and wine, that Cyprian regarded Christ as 
 
LECT. VI. 
 
 GROWTH OF THE SACRIFICIAL IDEA. 
 
 199 
 
 offering Himself in the Last Supper. But then this is an 
 advance upon the notion of a mere oblation of bread and wine 
 considered as the firstfruits of our food. It is not, however, 
 an unnatural advance. On a little reflection you will plainly 
 perceive the steps by which it was reached. First there 
 is the idea of the Eucharist as an act of thanksgiving, sug- 
 gested by the double aspect of the bread and wine, as food for 
 our bodily nourishment, and as symbols of that Body and 
 that Blood which were given for our redemption. Then this 
 idea of thanksgiving begins to attach itself to the elements, 
 as themselves an oblation, as symbols under which we represent 
 to God our dependence on and gratitude towards Him. And 
 here for some time the thought lingers only on the oblation 
 of the meat and drink : no doubt because this was all that was 
 suggested by our Saviour’s own example, who gave thanks 
 before He had made either element the symbol of His Body 
 or Blood ; and because thanks offered by him for redemption 
 would be unmeaning. But after a while, the second part of 
 the thanksgiving as naturally suggested to us by the memory 
 of his sacrifice, attaches itself to the elements also ; and then 
 to make a place for an oblation of them under this aspect, the 
 mere Eucharistic view becomes confused with another, that 
 of a scenical representation of the sacrifice of Christ’s Body 
 and Blood. The act of oblation is regarded not merely as a 
 thanksgiving for and acknowledgment of redemption, but as 
 a dramatic representation of the very act of expiatory sacri- 
 fice itself. Here for a time the advance was arrested, but 
 only for a time. Passionate feeling, blind reverence, fervid 
 rhetoric, were destined in due season to conduct it forward to 
 the conception of a proper expiatory sacrifice in the Sacra- 
 ment itself. 
 
200 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COUItSK 11. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 CYPRIAN. 
 
 Gentlemen, — In tracing the gradual development of the 
 doctrine upon the Eucharist, I noticed towards the dose of 
 my last lecture that Cyprian of Carthage, in the third century, 
 appears to have been the first writer who brought prominently 
 forward the notion of a commemorative sacrifice. This was 
 not the only subject, however, upon which that remarkable 
 man influenced in a signal way the general views of the 
 Church ; and the entire history of those times is so intimately 
 connected with him, that I feel myself called upon to pay 
 some special attention to his adventures and his works. 
 
 But before I can be justified in treating him as an authen- 
 tic witness of the transactions of that age or the opinions of 
 his supposed contemporaries, you will perhaps demand that 
 his existence should be proved and the genuineness of his 
 writings vindicated. For, after flourishing for at least more 
 than ten centuries in the odour of sanctity and the universal 
 admiration of the whole learned world, a resolute assailant 
 has lately appeared, Mr. Shepherd of Ludderdown, in his 
 1 History of the Church of Rome to the Episcopate of Damascus,’ 
 who professes to demonstrate that the writings ascribed to 
 him are spurious, and who, if there be weight in his argu- 
 ments, makes it very questionable whether any such prelate 
 ever actually existed. This is the part of that curious work 
 with which I am now specially concerned, but this is only 
 a small specimen of the devastation spread by its author 
 through the regions of ecclesiastical antiquity. I greatly doubt 
 whether since the time of Father Hardouin, the literary public 
 
LEC'T. VII. 
 
 SHEPHERD’S DESTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. 
 
 201 
 
 have ever witnessed such a wholesale massacre of ancient 
 authors ; and a reader who is persuaded by Mr. Shepherd’s 
 arguments must rise, I think, from the perusal of his work 
 with the uncomfortable feeling that, if such a vast number of 
 spurious documents should have so long and so universally 
 imposed upon the world, and passed muster with whole genera- 
 tions of critics of all characters and opinions, the rest of the 
 writings, too, ascribed to those times, and which have not yet 
 been amputated by this ‘ slashing ’ examiner’s ‘ ponderous 
 hook,’ have but slender claims upon our confidence. I confess 
 that if I were prepared to go the whole length of Mr. Shep- 
 herd’s conclusions, I should hardly feel comfortable in retain- 
 ing my present office, and should be tempted to regard what 
 is called early Ecclesiastical history as something very little 
 better than the Golden Legend or the surprising adventures 
 of Amadis de Gaul. Terrible is the havoc which meets one’s 
 eye in almost every page of Mr. Shepherd’s destructive history. 
 
 £ There is, I think,’ he says, ‘ a mystery about the 
 writings of Tertullian; and I have a strong feeling that, 
 among others, the tract 1 De praescriptione hgereticorum ’ was 
 not written by him. Then as to the great sources of history, 
 Eusebius’ History is grossly interpolated ; the History 
 attributed to Theodoret is little else than a repository of 
 spurious writings. That of Socrates was rewritten to suit 
 new views ; that of Sozomen has been seriously tampered 
 with, or is perhaps altogether spurious. That of Sul- 
 picius Severus could not have been written by him, and is 
 almost beneath notice. The treatise of Epiphanius on 
 Heresies is a forgery ; Jerome’s book on Ecclesiastical 
 Writers is a mere album of interpolators. The Epistles 
 of Athanasius are forgeries ; the Epistles of Basil are 
 forgeries ; Gregory Nazianzen’s Autobiography is a forgery ; 
 a very large proportion of the letters ascribed to Jerome 
 were never written by himself.’ But I grow weary of this 
 enumeration, and begin to fear that it would be much easier 
 to give a list of the books which Mr. Shepherd has not assailed, 
 than of those which he has. 
 
202 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 Our present immediate concern is with the history and 
 works of Cyprian ; and against these Mr. Shepherd has 
 arrayed a multitude of internal difficulties, many of which I 
 frankly grant to be real difficulties, and in their way serious 
 ones. But I must maintain that, on the whole, the objections 
 against the story of Cyprian are neither in quantity nor in 
 quality half so strong as those so forcibly urged against the 
 story of Napoleon Bonaparte in the well-known ‘ Historic 
 Doubts ’ with which you are all familiar. 1 Let us look at 
 some of those upon which he chiefly relies. ‘ I wish,’ says he, 
 
 4 the reader to reflect upon the following facts. 1 . That until 
 the middle of the third century there is not the least trace 
 of any intercourse between the bishops &c.’ (p. 127.) 
 
 Now here I may be permitted to observe that Mr. Shep- 
 herd seems to have fallen into the common error of over-eager 
 advocates, and damaged his own case by endeavouring to 
 prove too much. ‘There is not,’ he says, ‘till the middle of 
 the third century the least trace of any intercourse between 
 the Bishops of Rome and Carthage : indeed, we scarcely know 
 anything of either church.’ Now if we had known a great 
 deal about these two churches before the middle of the third 
 century, and yet had discovered no traces of intercourse, 
 this would have been a strong point to make ; but that in 
 the absence or great penury of any historical records of their 
 transactions at all, there appear no signs of such intercourse, 
 does not strike me as any considerable objection. Mr. Shep- 
 herd, large as is his capacity of disbelief, does not quite go 
 the length of denying the existence of large and flourishing 
 churches at Rome and Carthage before the middle of the 
 third century, notwithstanding the paucity of historical re- 
 mains ; nor will he, I suppose, deny that many important 
 transactions may have taken place in them, and even have 
 been recorded in the writings of contemporaries, though 
 the memory of them has not come down to us. His criti- 
 cism has indeed swept away almost all the authors who are 
 commonly supposed to have flourished in the first three cen- 
 1 By Archbishop Whately. — Editors. 
 
LfiCT. VII. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO CYPRIAN’S EPISTLES. 
 
 203 
 
 turies : but he can hardly mean to say that there were no 
 ecclesiastical writings at all then extant. If there were, it 
 is as hard for him as for us to tell precisely what has be- 
 come of them. The truth seems to be that the great fame 
 which Cyprian obtained as an author perpetuated through his 
 writings the memory of the transactions of his time, that those 
 previous to him were lost because not embalmed in any such 
 durable materials, and that until another Doctor of world-wide 
 reputation arises again in the person of Augustine, a similar 
 obscurity shrouds the annals of the North African churches. 
 
 Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
 Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles 
 Urgentur ignotique longa 
 Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. 
 
 As for the abundant means of ready and speedy intercourse 
 between Carthage and Rome, there is, I confess, something 
 surprising about it. But then we must remember the vast 
 traffic carried on between those ports, that North Africa 
 was the granary of the imperial city, and that the Roman 
 nobles had some of their richest farms in that district ; and 
 we know that the passage from Carthage to Puteoli might be 
 accomplished in two days. 
 
 Let us now hear another objection. 
 
 ‘ The next thing 5 &c. (p. 12 8). 2 
 
 This, I think, is very curious. The state of the Church, 
 he says, as portrayed in Cyprian’s letters, is quite different 
 from what appears in Irenseus, Clement, Tertullian, or Origen. 
 Now, according to Mr. Shepherd, Irenaeus and Tertullian have 
 been either forged or interpolated by the same hands as forged 
 Cyprian. It is curious then that they did not make their 
 work more of a piece. I am afraid that by this remark he 
 loses on one side as much as he gains on the other, unless in- 
 deed he says that the subjects treated of in their writings 
 offered no fair opportunity for giving us the picture presented 
 in those of Cyprian. If he says this, I shall allow it to be 
 
 2 It seems unnecessary to extract this and other passages, as their 
 purport is sufficiently indicated in the reply. — Editors. 
 
I 
 
 204 THE EARLY CHURCH. course ii. 
 
 quite reasonable ; but then I must add that it wholly subverts 
 his main argument. For if, as is indeed the fact, the writ- 
 ings of these authors are chiefly occupied with matters not 
 at all relating to the details of church government, what is 
 there surprising in the fact that little of the details of church 
 government can be gathered from them ? If we had any 
 large correspondence about church business previous to the 
 third century, and near the time of Cyprian, and concerning 
 the same churches, and if in that a different picture were 
 presented, there would then indeed be force in this argument. 
 But as it is I can see none. Moral and theological discourses, 
 treatises against Gnostical heresies, homilies, and allegorical 
 Commentaries upon Scripture, are not the proper places to look 
 for a description of the church polity of the times. But the 
 correspondence of a Bishop about the affairs of his diocese — 
 the works of a man eminently formed to be a statesman about 
 matters such as a statesman loves to deal with — these are the 
 place where we might expect to find such notices, and these 
 are the place where we shall actually find them. 
 
 c But,’ pursues Mr. Shepherd, c Cyprian’s writings, and 
 even his name, are unheard of till the fifth century, and per- 
 haps not heard of even then.’ ‘ Indeed ! ’ you will exclaim ; 
 1 is he not noticed by his contemporary Dionysius of Alex- 
 andria, is he not noticed by Eusebius, is he not noticed by 
 Jerome, is he not noticed by Pacian ? ’ 4 Not at all,’ replies 
 
 Mr. Shepherd ; 1 he is so noticed indeed in all the extant 
 MSS. of these writers, but the notices in question are either 
 interpolations in otherwise genuine books, or else passages in 
 books that are mere forgeries, and these interpolations and 
 these forgeries were deliberately made for the purpose of 
 bolstering up the credit of the Cyprianic forgeries.’ 
 
 I cannot expect that you should follow me in a review of 
 the extraordinary evolutions by means of which Mr. Shepherd 
 cuts his way through all these testimonies. Very hot and 
 bloody work it is ; but on a general view of the matter two re- 
 flections naturally arise in the reader’s mind. Where, we may 
 be tempted to ask, in the annals of literary imposture, can a 
 
1ECT. VII. 
 
 THE THEORY REFUTES ITSELF. 
 
 205 
 
 parallel be 'found for such thoroughgoing interpolation and 
 forgery as this, carried on so successfully through such a 
 number of such well-known and famous writings ? First, a 
 whole volume of treatises and letters and synodal documents is 
 forged under the name of Cyprian — forged, as Mr. Shepherd 
 tells us, so coarsely in the conception of them as to betray their 
 spurious origin in every page, and yet so happily m effect as 
 to take in every reader from the tenth century down to the 
 year, whatever it was, in the nineteenth, when the mist cleared 
 away from the eyes of the rector of Ludderdown, and he was 
 enabled, like Ajax, sv ytyvcba/csiv rj/isv 6sov r/Ss /cal avbpa. 
 Then, to recommend these forgeries, a series of other forgeries 
 and interpolations was got up, equally coarse in their execu- 
 tion and yet equally fortunate in their issue ; and yet, strange 
 to say, with such recklessness and such power on the part of 
 the forgers, they never thought of completing their work by 
 filling up the gap between Cyprian and Eusebius, as they 
 might have done just as easily as what they actually did ! 
 They had it seems, these mysterious personages, whoever they 
 were, unlimited command over all the MSS. of the Fathers in 
 all the world ; they were able at their pleasure to poison the 
 fountain of Christian literature in all its streams ; they were 
 deterred by no regard to truth and curbed by no knowledge 
 of the rules of probability, and they could just as easily have 
 given us a history of Church movements before and after 
 Cyprian as during his times ; and yet, though forging many 
 pieces for the previous and immediately succeeding age, they 
 forgot the expediency of keeping their own lies in countenance 
 until they lit upon the ‘ Ecclesiastical History ’ of Eusebius ! 
 
 Ah, Pamphile, 
 
 Tantamne rem tam negligenter ! 
 
 But again, for what end were these vast forging operations 
 carried on, upon a scale thus unparalleled in any other instance, 
 or at least in any instance not adduced by Mr. Shepherd and 
 Father Hardouin, and peculiar to them ? For the purpose, 
 Mr. Shepherd tells us, of asserting the Roman supremacy ; 
 
206 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 and ‘ supposing them to have been written for that purpose,’ 
 adds Mr. Shepherd, £ that object could scarcely have been 
 more skilfully and less obtrusively obtained.’ 
 
 Certainly not less obtrusively ! For indeed such an object 
 is so far from being obtruded on the reader that Protestants 
 have generally supposed the letters of Cyprian to furnish 
 some of the strongest arguments in all antiquity against the 
 Romish supremacy. £ The ancients,’ says Dr. Barrow, ‘ did 
 assert to each bishop a free, absolute, independent authority, 
 subject to none, directed by none, accountable to none on 
 earth, in the administration of affairs properly concerning 
 his particular church. This is most evident in St. Cyprian’s 
 writings.’ And then, after quoting large evidence of this, he 
 proceeds to give the result. 1 He disavoweth the practice of 
 one bishop excluding another from communion for dissent in 
 opinion upon disputable points ; he rejecteth that any man 
 can have to be a bishop of bishops, or superior to all his 
 brethren ; he condemneth the imposing of opinions upon 
 bishops and constraining them to obedience ; he disclaimeth 
 any power in one bishop to judge another ; he asserteth to 
 each bishop a full liberty and power to manage his own con- 
 cerns according to his own discretion ; he affirmeth every bishop 
 to receive his power only from Christ, and to be liable only 
 to his judgment. . . Let any man of sense and honesty read 
 and weigh those passages, . . . then let him, if he can, 
 conceive that all Christian bishops were then held subject to 
 the Pope, or owned such a power due to him who claimeth .’ 3 
 This is Barrow’s account of the matter : and I believe you 
 will readily grant that such advocacy of the papal prerogative 
 is very unobtrusive indeed ! The Pope, I think, might well 
 remonstrate with the forger of these pieces for overdoing his 
 reserve. 
 
 Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, 
 
 But why should you kick me downstairs ? 
 
 Indeed, when you consider that these letters close with 
 
 3 Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy , vol. iii. pp. 103-4, of Hamilton’s 
 edition of Barrow’s Works. — E ditors. 
 
lect. vii. CONTRADICTED BY THE EPISTLES THEMSELVES. 207 
 
 an open and angry quarrel between the Bishop of Carthage 
 and the Bishop of Rome about rebaptizing heretics, and that 
 Cyprian, a canonised saint, is sent to obtain the crown of 
 martyrdom while in flagrant feud with Pope Stephen, and 
 suffered to die without making one sign of repentance, you 
 will be in a condition to do full justice to the unobtrusive 
 character of this writer’s advocacy of Roman usurpation. But 
 when Mr. Shepherd goes on to compliment this supposed 
 forger upon his skill, I feel unable to follow him. Never, I 
 think, was anything managed more unskilfully than the 
 Pope’s cause in this writer’s hands. And, indeed, this com- 
 pliment comes with peculiarly ill grace from Mr. Shepherd. 
 Why, if there be any force at all in Mr. Shepherd’s previous 
 reasoning, this author must have been the most blundering 
 blockhead that fraud ever begot upon stupidity, a forger who 
 can hardly write a page without exposing himself, and yet 
 managing the Pope’s cause so well that it could hardly be 
 done more skilfully. 
 
 Let us look at one of Mr. Shepherd’s choice instances of 
 this skilful management (pp. 136-137). This is unobtrusive 
 suggestion indeed, only equalled by Lord Burghley’s famous 
 shake of the head in the £ Critic.’ The supremacy of the 
 Roman Church is established by a letter in which the chapter 
 of that city tell the Bishop of Carthage that they and he are 
 bound in common to watch over the whole Church, whose mem- 
 bers are distributed through every province. And an appeal 
 to the superior jurisdiction of Rome is left to be gathered 
 from such a letter as this ! What Cyprian really thought of 
 appeals to Rome, or anywhere else, these Epistles leave in 
 no obscurity whatever. £ It is settled,’ he says, £ by all of 
 us, and is consonant to reason and equity, that every man’s 
 cause should be heard in that place where the crime was 
 committed ; and each pastor has a portion of the flock com- 
 mitted to him which he is to rule and govern, as about to 
 give account of his proceedings to God. But a few desperate 
 and profligate men despise the authority of the African 
 Bishops as if it were less than yours.’ This is his language 
 
208 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 to Pope Cornelius . 4 And tliis language Mr. Shepherd believes 
 was put into his month by an advocate of the Pope’s claims, 
 in order to cherish a persuasion that, according to the estab- 
 lished custom of the Church in those days, appeals might 
 legitimately be made from Carthage to Rome. 
 
 Gentlemen, I should not have troubled you with this long 
 discussion of Mr. Shepherd’s work, if it were not that the 
 writer bears a very high character for learning and ability 
 with many competent judges ; and I feared therefore that if 
 I did not notice him at all, you might suppose that I had not 
 considered his arguments, or was wholly ignorant of them, and 
 under this impression might have suspected that in appeal- 
 ing to Cyprian as an historical authority, I was appealing 
 to a witness whom I had no good reason for thinking trust- 
 worthy. I have now given you a specimen of the sort of 
 objections by which the genuineness of the Cyprianic writings 
 is impugned, and having thus put you on your guard against 
 attaching too much weight to Mr. Shepherd’s mere authority, 
 I shall close this prolix controversial introduction, and resume 
 the historical detail which it has unpleasantly interrupted. 
 
 It is remarkable that few great Doctors of any literary 
 celebrity have issued immediately from the Church of Rome 
 itself — meaning by that term not what is denoted by it in 
 modern speech, but what the ancients meant by it — the 
 Church of that particular city. 
 
 I think that there is no reason to doubt that, as far as 
 intellectual formation is concerned, the mind of the Western 
 Church was moulded much more by Carthage than by Rome. 
 From the first, the prelates of the Roman Church seem to 
 have been more men of action than of speculation, and the 
 charter of the old Republic seems to have been transferred to 
 the Church. 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento : 
 
 Hee tibi erunt artes ; 
 
 while it was in North Africa, from the time of Tertullian 
 to Augustine, that what is properly called theology was 
 
 4 Ej). liv. 
 
LECT. VII. FIRST APPEAL TO TRADITION HISTORICAL. 209 
 
 assuming the peculiar aspect which it has ever since worn in 
 the congregations of the Latin communion. Of this illus- 
 trious line of Doctors, not the least remarkable was Thascius 
 Cyprianus. Coming to the episcopate almost immediately from 
 the schools of the rhetors, there are not many traces in his 
 writings of that long and careful meditation on the subjects 
 of divinity which appears in Tertullian and Augustine. It 
 was rather that he seized strongly upon one or two leading 
 ideas, and put them forward with a distinctness and energy 
 which engraved them as it were on the minds of his con- 
 temporaries. And of these the foremost was the conception 
 of the unity of the Church as especially dependent on the 
 sacerdotal order. 
 
 In a former course of lectures 5 I endeavoured to point 
 out how naturally the earlier Fathers were led to insist upon 
 the necessity of adhering firmly to the bishop. The first 
 bishops, as we saw, were those long-tried and well-instructed 
 disciples of theirs, to whom the Apostles themselves had 
 entrusted the government of those churches, in their absence 
 and after their decease, with a charge to deliver on the 
 doctrine which they had received to faithful men as their 
 successors, who in their turn should be able to teach others 
 also. In an age when the Church was full of half-instructed 
 persons, and when the grossest misrepresentations of Christian 
 faith were put forward as the tradition of the Apostles, it 
 was of the last importance to impress upon men’s minds the 
 propriety of adhering to these — the regular witnesses of the 
 Apostles’ teaching — as being themselves the successive depo- 
 sitaries of that teaching. The appeal to episcopal tradition 
 in this case was of a strictly historical character. It was 
 made within a generation or two of the source — it was made 
 with respect to the essential outlines of the faith, and it 
 was made not to the exclusion, but in corroboration of the 
 testimony of Scripture. The argument in this view of it is 
 put very forcibly by Irengeus in his great work against the 
 
 5 See note appended to Lecture IX. of the course on the Apostolic 
 Church. — Editors. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 F 
 
210 
 
 THE vEARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 heretics. But the sharp legal mind of Tertullian carried 
 this argument a degree further. He wished to exclude here- 
 tics from the privilege of appealing to Scripture at all. The 
 tradition of the Apostolic Churches as to the fundamentals 
 of the faith amounted, according to his view of it, to what 
 the Roman lawyers called a prescription. c In these cases,’ 
 says he — i.e. in the case of questions affecting the very essence 
 of the Christian religion, — ‘ we should not appeal to the Scrip- 
 tures, but the first question should be, To whom belongs the 
 faith itself, whose are the Scriptures, from whom, and through 
 whom, and when and to whom was delivered the doctrine by 
 which men become Christians ? . . . Now, as long as our 
 Saviour was on earth He taught either the people publicly or 
 his disciples in private, from whom he selected as his constant 
 companions twelve, destined to be the teachers of the nations. 
 Afterwards the Apostles, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
 published to the world the doctrine which they had received 
 from Him, and so founded churches in every city, from which 
 again other churches borrowed, and are daily borrowing, the 
 derivation of the faith and the seeds of doctrine. And by this 
 means they also will rank as Apostolic, being the offspring of 
 Apostolic Churches. Every family is referred to its source. And 
 so churches thus numerous and thus great are that one Church, 
 the primitive, from the Apostles, from which are all. Thus, 
 all being first and all Apostolic, whilst they are one, all prove 
 unity. There is common friendship and the appellation of 
 brotherhood, and the mutual interchange of hospitality, all 
 which privileges are dependent on the one tradition of the 
 same mystery. Hence I draw this prescriptive plea, that every 
 teaching which agrees with that of the Apostolic Churches, the 
 sources and originals of the faith, is to be accounted true, as 
 holding that which the churches received from the Apostles, 
 the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God.’ 6 
 
 Now this argument of Tertullian’s, you will observe, though 
 
 6 Be Prescript, adv. Hcer. xix.-xxi. This argument of Tertullian has 
 been abridged by a few omissions of sentences not necessary for its purpose. 
 — Editors. 
 
LECT. VII. UNITY OF THE CHURCH IN CYPRIAN’S VIEW. 211 
 
 carried much too far when pressed to an absolute exclusion 
 of appeal to written evidence — that is, to an exclusion of the 
 best evidence accessible — is yet in its nature a strictly historical 
 argument. But in the hands of Cyprian it assumes a some- 
 what different shape, and begins to wear more of what would 
 be called the sacramental character. In Tertullian’s idea the 
 unity of the Church has its foundation in the unity of the 
 faith ; the several churches are one, as a race is one, by having 
 a common origin — the tradition of the Apostolic faith which 
 is whole and entire, one and the same in each. And in the 
 delivery of the faith they are considered as historic witnesses, 
 testifying what they have received. But in Cyprian’s concep- 
 tion of the proper argument of prescription, which he urges 
 not only against heretics but against schismatics also, the 
 point of view is otherwise chosen. The exclusive appeal is, 
 as by Tertullian, by him also made to the Church. But the 
 unity of the Church is by Cyprian reduced not to the unity 
 of the one tradition of doctrine, but to the unity of the epis- 
 copal power. Each church is one by union with one bishop, 
 and the whole body of churches is one because the episcopate 
 itself is one, which each bishop has whole and entire in him- 
 self. This is a mystical and scarce intelligible notion, which 
 is thus propounded by Cyprian : — 
 
 4 Divisions and heresies,’ he says, c arise from this cause, 
 that men do not recur to the original source of truth . 7 If 
 this were done, there would be no need of long discourse or 
 
 arguments. The proof is short and easy. The Lord says to 
 
 *• 
 
 Peter, 4 Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
 Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,’ &c., 
 and again, after His resurrection, 4 Feed my sheep.’ He builds 
 his Church upon one. And although he gives to all his 
 Apostles equal power, and says, 4 As my Father sent me,’ &c., 
 and 4 to whom ye remit,’ &c., yet for a shewing out of unity he 
 
 7 De Unit. Eccl. c. i. ‘Hoceo fit . . . dum adveritatis originem non red- 
 itur, nec caput quEeritur, ncc Magistri cadestis doctrinaservatur.’ The sequel 
 is quoted again in the second lecture of the next course, and we shall append 
 the original of the most important sentences in that place.— E ditors. 
 
212 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 by his authority so ordered it, that the origin of this same 
 unity should begin from one. Doubtless the other Apostles 
 were what Peter was, endowed with equal honour and power, 
 but the beginning is made from unity, that the Church may 
 be exhibited as one. . . . This unity we who preside in the 
 Church should maintain, so as to prove the episcopate to be 
 one and indivisible. The episcopate is one, a part of which 
 is held by each as heir in full of the whole.’ The words in the 
 last sentence are self-contradictory. Cujus a singulis in soli- 
 dum pars tenetur. A man was said to hold in solidum when 
 his right extended over the whole inheritance. But to have 
 partem in solidum seems an expression very remote from com- 
 mon understanding, and I cannot find anything in the com- 
 mentators that satisfactorily clears it up. Most of them affect 
 to understand it, but they certainly do not succeed in explain- 
 ing it to me. I can only guess that, by combining these con- 
 tradictory expressions, Cyprian meant to say that under one 
 view each bishop had the whole episcopate in himself, though, 
 under another view, he had only part. Such should be the 
 concord and harmony of administration by all the bishops, each 
 in his particular sphere having a regard to the interests of 
 all the rest, as to make the whole episcopate but one in its 
 action, as if it were but one and the same bishop, who was 
 acting according to the several circumstances of each portion 
 of the flock in each several diocese. The episcopate is thus 
 in its nature the supreme government of the whole body of 
 Christians ; the particular administration of this in each church 
 is committed to each several bishop, and in this respect it 
 may be said that he has a part. But then in his administra- 
 tion of that part he is interested for, and bound to consult, 
 the good of the whole ; and, as his care is thus universal, he 
 may be said to hold in solidum. 
 
 But further we have seen how Tertullian explains the 
 Apostolicity of the Church. The first churches are Apostoli- 
 cal as having received the faith direct from the Apostles, the 
 others ex traduce as having received it from those primitive 
 foundations. Now, Cyprian appears to have transferred this 
 
LECT. VII. 
 
 WHAT HE ALLOWED TO THE SEE OF HOME. 213 
 
 thought to his own scheme of episcopal unity. Peter was 
 the symbol of unity among the Apostles, and the chair of 
 Peter was in a similar mystical way the symbol of unity among 
 the Apostolic sees. Thus in the famous passage of his fifty - 
 fifth Epistle, he calls the Roman Church the chair of Peter, 
 and the principal Church from which sacerdotal unity took 
 its beginning. But the symbolical primacy which he thus 
 allowed to the Roman see was certainly not greater than that 
 which he allowed to Peter himself ; and that this was little or 
 nothing we have already seen. The other Apostles, you have 
 heard him say, were what Peter was, endowed with the same 
 power and honour. And again, in his seventy-first epistle, 
 Peter, whom the Lord chose first, and on whom He built His 
 Church, never claimed to have the primacy, or to be obeyed 
 by those who were called after him ; and this he gives as 
 a reason why the Bishop of Rome should challenge no such 
 superiority. All, then, that Cyprian seems to have allowed 
 to the Roman see was the honour of being in the suc- 
 cession of its prelates a type or symbol, as Peter himself was, 
 of the unity of the episcopate. But to make this a ground 
 for usurping any authority over other bishops would have 
 been to violate the very symbol which alone constituted its 
 peculiar prerogative. It was the type and symbol of an 
 episcopate free and independent, the full dignity of which 
 was held equally by every bishop, as completely as if he were 
 the only bishop in the world. It could therefore only be by 
 shewing forth such an episcopate as this that the see. of Rome 
 could answer its symbolic purpose. By seeking to domineer 
 over other churches the whole propriety of the symbol would 
 be violated, and quite a different kind of episcopate typified 
 from that which Christ endowed in the person of Peter. 
 
 The truth is that Cyprian’s conception of the unity of the 
 whole Church was very much taken from what he saw before 
 his eyes in the North African Province. All the bishops of 
 that province were of equal power. They had no Metropoli- 
 tan properly so called. But the Bishop of Carthage had a 
 sort of primacy, probably because Carthage had been the 
 
214 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 centre from which the Gospel had spread to the rest. In 
 virtue of this pre-eminence the Bishop of Carthage took the 
 lead in all their proceedings, and was consulted in all weighty 
 matters ; and, when not directly consulted, had a right to inter- 
 pose his advice ; but there lay no appeal to him. He could 
 bind no one by his decision, and everyone was perfectly free 
 to follow his advice or not, just as he saw fit. 
 
 Now, such a federal centre of communication for the 
 whole Church does Cyprian seem to have regarded Rome 
 to be, in virtue of the symbolic character inherited by its 
 bishops from the Apostle Peter — a pre-eminence this which, 
 when kept within such bounds, was not peculiarly dangerous, 
 but which it was very hard indeed to keep within such 
 bounds. 
 
 For the question immediately occurs, Is such a fixed centre 
 necessary to the unity of the Church ? If it be, then plainly 
 the bishop who forms this centre has the ball at his foot. 
 He has only to impose his own conditions, and steadily per- 
 sist in excommunicating all the rest of the world till they are 
 complied with ; and complied with they must be by all who, 
 with Cyprian, regard union with the visible Church as indis- 
 pensably necessary to salvation. 
 
 Now Cyprian’s own conduct makes it evident that he did 
 not regard the centrality of the Roman Church as thus ab- 
 solutely necessary. However high his rhetoric might reach 
 when he was in good humour with the Pope and found him 
 a useful ally against heretics and schismatics, the Pope was 
 soon taught the true value of such compliments when circum- 
 stances changed. 
 
 And, if the honest truth must be owned, I must confess 
 that I fear Cyprian’s early rhetorical education had not im- 
 proved his sincerity. 
 
215 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 RISE OF ASCETICISM AND TIIE II I Oil ESTEEM OF 
 
 CELIBACY . 
 
 Gentlemen, — When we think of the general state of 
 society in the first three centuries of the Christian era, we 
 can imagine the feelings 'with which a convert to the new 
 religion would regard the contrast between his former and 
 his present condition ; between the world in which he had 
 been moving, and the very different sphere into which he 
 was now brought. £ The world ’ and £ the Church ’ would be, 
 to his eye, separated by a boundary whose strongly marked 
 line it was impossible to mistake. On the one side £ the 
 darkness ’ of ignorance, and the £ gross darkness ’ of vice, 
 would be seen like the thick cloud which covered Egypt, 
 spread over the whole surface of society ; while, on the other, 
 like a second Goshen, the Lord had arisen, and His glory 
 had appeared. If we turn our eyes to the picture of those 
 times which their own poets, historians, and even moralists, 
 present to us, we shall perceive at once that error and pro- 
 fligacy had mixed themselves with all the institutions, not 
 only of religion, but of civil polity ; nay, of ordinary business 
 and common daily life. Falsehood and vice had poisoned, as 
 it were, the very atmosphere in which men lived and breathed. 
 They were diffused around men like the air — to use Paul’s 
 strong image — and the prince of the power of that air had 
 made his pernicious energy so felt in every point, that the 
 whole world seemed his, and even visibly marked out as his, 
 by the emblems of his authority planted in every spot, from 
 the throne of the Caesars to the hearth of the humblest 
 peasant. 
 
216 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 c Imagine yourself,’ says Cyprian, addressing a newly 
 baptized convert, £ imagine yourself for a while withdrawn to 
 the lofty top of some high mountain, and view, as from thence, 
 the face of things as they lie beneath you. Turn your eyes 
 all around, and free yourself from contact with the earth, con- 
 template the agitations of this heaving scene of life. Then 
 you will be smitten with pity for the world, and, reminded 
 of your own lot, your gratitude to God, your joy for your 
 own escape, will grow warmer within your breast. Behold 
 the roads beset by robbers, the seas infested with pirates, and 
 war raging everywhere. The whole earth reeks with mutual 
 slaughter. Homicide, which, when committed by individuals 
 is called a crime, is esteemed a virtue when carried on by 
 public sanction ; and the vastness of the scale upon which 
 cruelty is perpetrated gains impunity for all its enormities. 
 
 1 If you turn your glance to the cities, you will see a 
 throng more melancholy to behold than the most desolate 
 wilderness. A gladiatorial show is being prepared, that 
 blood may gratify the appetite of cruel eyes. The body is 
 carefully nourished with the strongest food, the nerves strung, 
 the sinews confirmed, that the wretch may perish a more 
 costly victim. Man is slain for man’s amusement, and the 
 very dexterity of slaying is gained by long practice and pro- 
 fessed as an art. . . . And what a spectacle is that, when 
 those whom no judge has condemned expose themselves to 
 wild beasts ! In the vigour of their age, in the bloom of 
 manly beauty, with comely persons and in rich apparel, 
 decked while still living for a voluntary funeral, the wretched 
 creatures glory in their sufferings. Fathers look on upon the 
 combat of their own sons. The brother is in the arena, and 
 the sister sits by to witness it. Perhaps it is some grand 
 spectacle, and the price of admission has been raised ; yet the 
 mother pays for a place where she may see the agony of her 
 child. 
 
 £ Turn your eyes thence to another, but not less disgrace- 
 ful spectacle. Look at the theatre, and you will behold 
 matter at once of grief and shame. The player’s part is to 
 
LECT. VIII. 
 
 CYPRIAN’S SURVEY OF THE PAGAN WORLD. 217 
 
 revive the memory of ancient crimes, and preserve wicked- 
 ness from being forgotten. Every age is reminded that 
 that which has been done may be done again, and the crimes 
 of former generations become the examples of the present. 
 The indecent gestures of the crimes are a school of vice. 
 The spectator gloats over images which renew the memory 
 of former, or suggest the anticipation of future profligacy. 
 Adultery is learned while it is looked upon. Public authority 
 plays the pandar to vice, and though the matron may have 
 gone chaste to the show, she cannot return chaste. 
 
 4 But oh, if from that lofty watch-tower you could pene- 
 trate into private dwellings, if you could unlock the closed 
 doors of their chambers, and open to the eye the secret 
 recesses of their house, you would see them acting deeds of 
 shame which a modest eye could not even witness, you would 
 see what it is a crime even to look upon ; what these men, 
 blinded with the frenzy of vice, deny that they do, and yet 
 hurry to perpetrate. Here things are done which even the 
 doers regard with disgust. He who is such himself, blames 
 others for being so. The impure upbraids the impure, and 
 fancies that he has escaped a witness, while he bears the 
 most terrible witness in his own bosom. 
 
 ‘ But after the spectacle of roads beset with robbers, of 
 wars scattered over the whole globe, of shows either sanguin- 
 ary or impure, of brutal lusts either openly displayed in the 
 brothels or hidden within the domestic walls, you might 
 think perhaps that the Forum at least was exempt from the 
 general reign of iniquity, free from the assaults of violence 
 and from the contamination of impurity. Thither, then, 
 direct your view. You will see there even more objects of 
 abhorrence, and be glad to avert your eyes from such a scene. 
 There are, indeed, the laws inscribed on brazen tablets, but 
 crime is busy in their presence. The court seems mad with 
 the rage and outcries of contending parties. The spear, the 
 sword, the executioner, are at hand; the gouge, the rack, 
 the furnace ; more instruments of torture than there are 
 limbs in the tortured frame. Who, meanwhile, shall succour 
 
218 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the oppressed ? The patron ? He betrays the cause which 
 he should advocate, and deceives his credulous client. The 
 judge ? His office is a trade, and its gains are from the sale 
 of a verdict. No one fears the laws who has money enough 
 to bribe their ministers.’ 
 
 ‘ The only calm and trustworthy tranquillity, then,’ he goes 
 on to say, 6 the one solid, firm, and perpetual security, is to be 
 found in escaping from these storms of an unquiet world, and 
 casting anchor in the harbour of salvation. It constrains us 
 to love, when we are privileged to know what we shall be, and 
 condemn what we have been. And this, the highest dignity, 
 the greatest power of man, requires not to be won by bribes, 
 or by canvassing, or by force. It is the free and ready gift of 
 God. As freely as the sun diffuses light, the fountain dis- 
 charges its stream, and the cloud pours forth its shower, so 
 freely does the Heavenly Spirit shed its influences. As soon 
 as the soul looking upon heaven has recognised its Maker, 
 rising from the ground and soaring above every earthly power 
 it begins to be what it believes itself to be. Only do thou, 
 whom this heavenly cause has marked as a good soldier in the 
 spiritual camp, do thou keep unblemished the sober discipline 
 of virtue. Be constant in prayer and reading. In prayer 
 converse with God, in reading let Him converse with thee. 
 Roofs fretted with gold, and edifices encrusted with costliest 
 marbles will henceforth seem mean in thine eyes. Thou wilt 
 know that thou thyself art to be decked with richer orna- 
 ments, and that a better house is that which the Lord has 
 occupied as His temple, and in which the Holy Spirit has 
 begun to dwell. This building shall never fall to ruin 
 through time, nor shall its ornaments ever lose their lustre. 
 It remains for ever fresh, with unstained dignity and lasting 
 splendour. It can never be destroyed. It shall only be 
 moulded into a yet more illustrious beauty, when the body 
 shall be again restored, and the whole work of Redemption 
 consummated for ever . 1 
 
 I was unwilling, gentlemen, materially to abridge this 
 
 1 Ejj. i., Ad Donation. 
 
LECT. VIII. 
 
 REVULSION TOWARDS ASCETICISM. 
 
 219 
 
 striking passage, because I was sure that nothing could so 
 well convey to you an idea of the feelings of the early 
 Christians as their own language, and I was glad to have the 
 opportunity of giving you a specimen of that language in the 
 case of Cyprian. I had spoken, you remember, of the influ- 
 ence which his commanding rhetoric gave him in the Church, 
 and I think you will allow that it is not surprising that he 
 who could write thus forcibly should have exercised no slight 
 influence over man’s minds ; and even from this small extract 
 you will judge for yourselves whether a clumsy forger of the 
 fifth or sixth century, when Christianity had been long estab- 
 lished throughout the Roman Empire, would have been likely 
 to have imitated so happily the sentiments natural to a con- 
 vert from Paganism in the third. But these remarks are only 
 by the way. Let me pursue my main subject by observing 
 that the state of society, such as it has been described in the 
 world around, was apt to have a mischievous influence upon 
 Christians in two opposite ways. 
 
 In the first place there was danger of a revulsion towards 
 the extreme of ascetic fanaticism. It is then, we know, 
 when the taint of general corruption has spread itself through 
 all the relations of life, the common business as well as the 
 common pleasures of the world, it is then that he, who would 
 escape c the corruption that is in the world through lust,’ is 
 most of all tempted to confound what is lawful with what 
 is excessive, and to proscribe entirely enjoyments and occu- 
 pations which he sees only perverted and abused. Thus the 
 severer of the early Christians condemned as profane such 
 innocent things as garlands on the head, perfumed ointments, 
 and even the arts of sculpture and painting. Tertullian joins 
 together the two crimes of painting and marrying a second 
 time, in the long list of supposed enormities which he 
 ascribes to Hermogenes : ‘ Pingit illicite, nubit assidue : legem 
 Dei in libidinem defendit, in artem contemnit, bis falsarius et 
 cauterio et stylo .’ 2 And in some respects this thoroughgoing 
 asceticism was an easier thing than more rational temperance. 
 
 2 Ad Her mag. c. i. 
 
220 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 We all know that it is more easy to get a drunkard to abstain 
 entirely than to be merely sober. It is more easy to get the 
 debauchee to retire to a desert or a monastery, 
 
 To leave a world where strong temptations try, 
 
 And, since ’tis hard to combat, learn to fly, 
 
 than to teach him £ to use this world without abusing it.’ 
 
 The truth is that when we draw an arbitrary line of our 
 own we may make it as strong and broadly marked as 
 we please. But the divisions which nature makes between 
 things are not thus strongly defined throughout. Classes of 
 things which in their outer verge, so to speak, are as different 
 as the colours of the rainbow, melt gradually into each other 
 as they approach, till it becomes a matter of much nicety in 
 particular cases to tell where one tods and the other begins. 
 This superior sharpness and precision of definition is the one 
 grand advantage which the artificial classifications in botany, 
 for example, and natural history generally, have over the 
 natural. In any natural classification it seems next to im- 
 possible to find any fixed limit where the line terminating 
 each species can be drawn with certainty, though, taking 
 the classes in the gross or judging of them by their types, 
 no things can be more dissimilar from one another. The 
 same difficulty pursues us in a natural system of morals. The 
 boundaries between right and wrong in general are clear and 
 distinct; but when we descend to particular cases, such is 
 the complexity of human affairs that it often becomes an in- 
 tricate question to disentangle, and a matter of much difficulty 
 to arrive at a clear perception of, what we are absolutely 
 bound to do ; and prudence therefore will often demand that 
 we should hold back from indulgences which we have not 
 certainly discovered to be wrong. 
 
 But besides the greater facility of preserving the limits of 
 an arbitrary line of demarcation, asceticism has this great 
 advantage, that, like vice itself, it gives a particular passion its 
 full swing. The tendency of all our passions is to go beyond 
 the bounds which reason would prescribe. The mere feeling 
 of abhorrence of vice itself cannot adequately distinguish its 
 
LECT. VIII. 
 
 EXCESSIVE ESTEEM OF CELIBACY. 
 
 221 
 
 6wn proper objects. It naturally transfers itself rapidly, like 
 all onr other feelings, from that which is properly vicious to 
 everything associated with what is vicious ; and he who en- 
 deavours to curb and restrain it, must, in doing so, forego for 
 a while the strong aid which such an impulse gives him ; 
 just as he who in a combat seeks to keep his resentment with- 
 in due bounds must forego whatever advantages a blind and 
 indiscriminating fury gives to the savage warrior. Remorse, 
 again, or that self-hatred which we feel when we have done 
 wrong, is in its nature as little capable of setting bounds to 
 itself as anger against our neighbour ; and he who, like some 
 of the ascetic penitents, gives way unreservedly to this im- 
 pulse towards self-punishment will, no doubt, act with an 
 intensity and energy which strong and highly excited feeling 
 always supplies. To act from feeling is in itself easier than to 
 act from reason. Indeed, we are creatures so made that in 
 almost every case we need, at least up to a certain point, the 
 aid of feelings in their own nature irrational. And when these 
 are called in to the aid of virtue, we are apt to forget that 
 such auxiliaries themselves require to be restrained, lest they 
 become too powerful for the safety of that principle in whose 
 cause they were enlisted ; and we are prone to imagine that 
 reason, when she curbs what we commonly regard as the vir- 
 tuous passions, is herself betraying us into vice. For a long 
 time all the danger seems to lie on one side ; we think that we 
 can never get too far from the prevailing vices, and it is only 
 gradually that our eyes are opened by experience to the perils 
 of the opposite extreme. 
 
 We have a striking example of this in the excessive over- 
 valuing of celibacy in the early Church. There is a peculiar 
 sense of shame connected with all the grosser corporeal enjoy- 
 ments, which is very apt to be confounded with a sense of 
 guilt and moral defilement — the more so, as in the case of real 
 crime it mingles itself indissolubly with that sense, and acts, 
 and was doubtless meant to act, strongly as a guard against 
 violations of propriety in cases where some of our most urgent 
 passions impel us towards them. In the old religions, indeed, 
 
222 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the idea of purity as attached to abstinence from sexual 
 intercourse was rather ceremonial than moral. It was a 
 sort of ritual pollution which such indulgences were supposed 
 to produce. The priest and worshipper were obliged to a 
 physical abstinence during the immediate period of their 
 service ; and where such a service was considered as lasting 
 during life, it was often customary to select a person in 
 whom age had extinguished this appetite naturally, or whom 
 drugs or mutilation had rendered incapable of gratifying it. 
 But this coarse view of the honour of abstinence, which con- 
 fined itself only to bodily acts, mingled with another deeply 
 seated in human nature, and which arises from some principle 
 within us, which has been found acting strongly in almost 
 every age and clime — I mean the view of matter as the 
 source of evil, as something tending inherently to vice — and 
 of goodness as consisting in abstraction from all corporeal 
 influences. This view was the popular philosophic one in 
 the times which we are considering, and it had tinged the 
 whole moral language -of that age. The Gnostics eagerly 
 caught it up, and modified Christianity to suit it. And 
 though no one who had any sincere regard to the teaching of 
 the Apostles could possibly entertain such a view in all its 
 speculative distinctness, yet we find it gradually, from a very 
 earily period, insinuating itself into the minds of orthodox 
 believers, and gaining power in each successive century, till 
 at last, in the lips of Jerome and Gregory Nyssene, we can 
 scarcely distinguish the language of the Catholic Christian 
 from that of the Manichean heretic. 
 
 When Paul in some cases prefers the state of celibacy to 
 that of marriage, it is never, you will observe, on the ground 
 of any superior 'purity. It is on the ground of expediency — 
 of exemption from peculiar temptations — of freedom from 
 peculiarly ingrossing cares. The ideas of moral or cere- 
 monial pollution never enter into his conceptions of the 
 marriage union, nor those of any special purity in these 
 respects into the view which he takes of virginity. But the 
 Apostle had scarcely been laid in his grave when very different 
 
lect. viii. ITS GROWTH FROM IGNATIUS TO JEROME. 223 
 
 language began to be ascribed to him. Here is a homily 
 which a legend of the very first century puts into his mouth : 
 
 £ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 
 Blessed are they who have kept the flesh pure, for they shall 
 become the temples of God. Blessed are the bodies and the 
 spirits of the virgins, for they shall please God, and shall not 
 lose the reward of their chastity .’ 3 
 
 Nor is this language confined to such suspicious documents 
 as this. Very soon we begin to discover that such words as 
 purity and chastity have acquired an appropriated sense to vir- 
 ginal purity and virginal chastity. £ If any one,’ says Ignatius 
 ( £ Ad Polyc.’ v.), £ is able to remain in purity (sv dyvzia) to the 
 honour of the Lord of his flesh, let him remain so without 
 boasting.’ £ We see,’ says Justin Martyr — for in each age, as 
 I said, there is an advance in the tone of the teachers of the 
 Church — £ we see men preserving virginity, some during their 
 whole lives, and some for a long period ; so as that, by them, 
 is wholly dissolved the work of marriage which has become 
 sinful by means of lust. And our Lord was for this very 
 reason bom of a Virgin that he might destroy birth by means 
 of licentious desire.’ 4 This surely is very strong language 
 indeed, and we cannot wonder therefore when we find Justin’s 
 disciple Tatian carrying out such views to their full extent, 
 and proscribing marriage altogether as the work of the devil . 5 
 This, however, was to run into direct heresy. The prevailing 
 view in the Church was to regard marriage as a union which 
 might possibly be innocent, but which could only be innocent by 
 such a separation of it from human passion as was practically 
 impossible. The best excuse that Jerome can think of for it is 
 that it is necessary to produce virgins, and that a lower order 
 of Christians is thus needful as breeders to supply the Church 
 with its proper aristocracy. £ Laudo nuptias, laudo conjugium, 
 sed quia mihi virgines generant.’ The unclean beasts, he 
 observes, went by pairs into the Ark, the clean by sevens . 0 
 
 3 Acta Pauli et Theda. 
 
 4 E Prima, Parte Lib. de Resur. Apud Grabe, Sjncil. ii. p. 180. 
 
 5 Fragm. apud Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. p. 460, Sylburg. 
 
 6 Hieronymi Epistolce (ed. Erasm.), Ad Demetrianum , De Custodia 
 
224 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 The odd one I suppose was consecrated to celibacy. But 
 these are the extravagancies of a later age. Let ns pursue 
 our historical deduction. c Having,’ says Athenagoras, * the 
 hope of eternal life, we despise the things of this life and all 
 in which the animal soul takes pleasure. Each of us confines 
 himself to his own wife, and marries, not to satisfy desire, but 
 to beget children. Many of us, both men and women, have 
 grown old in a state of celibacy, through the hope that they 
 shall hereby be the more closely united to God. But if the con- 
 dition of eunuchs and virgins is more acceptable to God, and 
 even thoughts and desires exclude us from His presence ; surely 
 we shall renounce the act when we renounce the very wish.’ 
 ‘ Either we remain single, or contract but one marriage ; for 
 a second marriage is decorous adultery .’ 7 Such was the pre- 
 vailing tone of the Doctors of the Church, whom, as time went 
 on, it would really appear as if nothing but the necessity of 
 keeping up a battle against the Gnostics, induced ever to 
 drop a good word in favour of marriage. It was the necessary 
 result of such views that persons living in religious celibacy 
 acquired a kind of aristocratic rank in the Church as a 
 superior order of Christians. Accordingly we find the virgins 
 already noticed as a peculiar and recognised order in the 
 writings of the Apostolic Fathers. But by the middle of the 
 third century, the writings of Cyprian disclose them to us 
 as flourishing in the possession of the most ample privileges. 
 Even before his time the peculiar honours attached to them 
 had become a temptation and a snare. These religious ladies, 
 it seems, had, with the usual subtlety of female vanity, dis- 
 covered a refined interpretation of Paul’s command, that women 
 should be covered in the congregation. They observed that 
 the letter of the law applied only to yvv cukes — mulieres — i.e. 
 
 Virginitatis, p. 110. The latter sentence is as follows: ‘Animalia qure in 
 Arcam Noe bina inducuntur, immunda sunt. Impar numerus est mundus.’ 
 The homely Saxon word breeders is plainly adopted to represent Jerome’s 
 coarseness. It does not sound more unpleasant to us than his word 
 generant sounded to Latin-speakers, though generate sounds more delicate 
 to us because it is not native English. — Editors. 
 
 7 Leg . pro Christ. 33. 
 
LECT. VIII. THE VANITY OF PROFESSED VIRGINS. 
 
 225 
 
 they contended, to married women. Now, they went on to 
 argue, the Apostle himself lays ft down that there is a dis- 
 tinction between a virgin and a wife. Ms/ispicrrat rj yvvr] /cal 
 7] 7 rdpOsvos — ‘ divisa est mulier et virgo ’ — and therefore the 
 rule proper to the one should not be construed as applying to 
 the other. Hence they claimed the privilege of appearing 
 unveiled in the public assemblies, and displaying freely the 
 beauty of their sacred features and the luxuriance of their 
 holy tresses. This it is which gave rise to Tertullian’s very 
 curious treatise, ‘ De virginibus velandis,’ which incidentally 
 discloses to us a fact which need not at all surprise us. It is 
 this, that though the hateful discipline of irrevocable vows of 
 celibacy had not yet made its way into the Church, yet the 
 very circumstance that the purpose of celibacy was pub- 
 lished, and that the professors of it thereby attained a superior 
 rank and became objects of special admiration, acted like con- 
 straint in all its most odious consequences. What woman who 
 had once taken her place in the holy choir of sacred virgins 
 could ever voluntarily expose herself to derision and contempt 
 by quitting it, and avowing that she preferred what were called 
 the pleasures of the world to such an elevated position as she 
 had once held. The consequences were such as a knowledge of 
 human nature would lead us to anticipate. I dare not trans- 
 late the coarse language of the indignant Presbyter ; but you 
 will gather from it that in too many cases the fear of losing 
 reputation became in these women such an overmastering 
 passion that, rather than avow their weakness, they had re- 
 course to murder in its most hateful and unnatural form, to 
 conceal the evidence of that which nothing but their own 
 obstinate vanity had made criminal. 
 
 I have said that in these times the vow of celibac} r in 
 the later sense of the word was unknown. And accordingly, 
 both Tertullian and Cyprian urge the virgins to marry if 
 they find themselves unable to contain. But after all, was 
 this much more than a cruel mockery ? i The virgins,’ 
 says Cyprian, ( are the brides of Christ ; their bodies are 
 consecrated to Him ; they are the flower of the Church 5 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the more illustrious part of the Lord’s flock ; the more 
 their number is increased, the more the Church’s glory 
 is increased. They are those who have devoted themselves 
 to God, both in flesh and spirit (as if the married had not !) ; 
 they are the participators of a life truly angelical .’ 8 Is it 
 in female nature to abdicate such a position as this, and avail 
 herself of a contemptuous permission to return to the world 
 and withdraw herself from her spiritual bridegroom ? The 
 consequence of the praises lavished upon virginity was that 
 multitudes were drawn in to profess it whose hearts were 
 just as worldly as the profane married women. The virgins 
 were the best dressed and most showy part of the congrega- 
 tion ; the eyes of all were upon them, every heart fluttered 
 at their approach. Living in the midst of the world they 
 found themselves exposed to peculiar dangers ; and the issue 
 was that, as Cyprian passionately exclaims, ‘ The Church has 
 frequently to bemoan the fall of its virgins.’ 9 It could not 
 be otherwise ; but experience had not yet taught men wisdom. 
 The false view of celibacy, which was the root of all these 
 disorders, was still not only kept to, but exaggerated still 
 more and more ; the source of the evil was retained, but 
 desperate efforts were made to repress at least its manifesta- 
 tions. A sterner discipline was introduced. The consecrated 
 maid was called upon to separate herself entirely from the 
 world ; the vow was made irrevocable, and the custody of her 
 person transferred to a jailor. Bolts and bars were called in 
 to preserve these blossoms of the Church’s purity from con- 
 tamination, and it was hoped that by such rigorous methods 
 the glory of religion might be kept unsullied. But alas ! the 
 history of the middle ages is a fearful comment upon the in- 
 sufficiency of all such precautions ; and those who so loudly 
 commend the later nuns in comparison with the primitive 
 virgins, have, I suspect, much to learn of the state of things 
 prior to the Reformation. 
 
 
 8 I)e Hah. Virg. c. i. 
 
 9 Ibid. c. iii. 
 
* 
 
 227 
 
 . FRAGMENTS. 
 
 These two fragments on the post-Apostolical miracles seem to 
 belong to the Course on the Early Church. They do not appear 
 to have been ever completed in a written form. The first ends in 
 the middle of a leaf and was probably finished extemporaneously, 
 the second breaks off in the midst of a sentence ; but nothing 
 further has been discovered amongst the Bishop’s papers. Both 
 are interesting so far as they extend. — Editors. 
 
 POST- APOSTOLICAL MIRACLES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Gentlemen, — The question concerning the continuance 
 of miraculous powers in the early ages of the Primitive Church 
 was at all times a curious, and to some extent an important 
 one ; but it has latterly acquired even fresh interest from 
 accidental circumstances. In the noonday of the nineteenth 
 century, we have ourselves been suddenly overtaken by the 
 phantoms which we had fondly supposed to have passed away 
 with the night of the middle ages — and in the midst of rail- 
 roads and steamboats, and electric telegraphs and trigono- 
 metrical surveys, and the general diffusion of useful and of 
 useless knowledge, in an age when the schoolmaster is 
 abroad, and the schoolboy at home in scientific truths that 
 formerly were known only to the sage — in such an age as this 
 a scene of thaumaturgy has been suddenly opened upon us in 
 common life, which can, I think, be compared to nothing but 
 the odd effect of harlequin’s tricks in a pantomime, when he 
 bounces in upon some quiet citizen in his counting-house or 
 dull farmer’s family in a cottage. Nor is the belief in such 
 marvels confined to the over-ardent and enthusiastic votaries 
 of religion ; it is found as strong, if not stronger, in those 
 who believe in hardly anything else. Not only do we find 
 
 q 2 
 
228 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 the zealots of the Church of Rome coming eagerly forward to 
 espouse and champion all the legends which till lately were 
 deemed some of its worst reproaches ; not only do we find 
 such men ostentatiously proclaiming their faith in dolorous or 
 ecstatic virgins who live and walk on air, in the winking of 
 a Madonna’s image or the melting of a martyr’s blood ; but 
 we find those who eminently pride themselves on being 
 philosophers — those who have scornfully rejected all the 
 evidences of revealed, and even of natural religion — even such 
 men and such women, of terribly strong nerves and adaman- 
 tine intellect, do we find smitten with the contagious taste 
 for the marvellous, and earnestly persuaded of the reality of 
 occurrences, compared with which the miracles of Scripture 
 are but as ordinary events. It seems, in short, at first view 
 a matter of grave doubt whether now, in these the latter 
 times, with all the accumulated experience of five thousand 
 years and more, the world knows anything for certain of the 
 commonest laws by which it is governed. One walks with awe 
 and apprehension amidst the trivial objects of everyday life, 
 as if they had been all touched by an enchanter’s wand and 
 there was no knowing what they might do next. You tremble 
 lest the mute creatures which you have known so long, should 
 of a sudden, like Balaam’s ass, begin to talk to you in notes 
 of solemn warning. You look with dark suspicion at even 
 your household furniture. You cannot tell when the very 
 table at which you eat your meals may break into a contre- 
 dance or enter into a conversation with you ; the bed on 
 which you lie may take you up and walk. You know not 
 whether the knock at your door is a postman or a spirit — a 
 dead letter or a dead friend. You cannot even call your 
 limbs or your very mind your own ; what seem your actions 
 may be the result of the strong volitions of some powerful 
 biologist at the antipodes, who sways you by a spell more 
 potent than that of Michael Scot, who 
 
 When in Salamanca’s cave, 
 
 Him listed his magic wand to wave, 
 
 The bells would ring in Notre Dame. 
 
POST-APOSTOLICAL MIRACLES. 
 
 II. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I observed in my last lecture that the 
 miracles which fall under our notice on the present occasion 
 may be conveniently considered in three general divisions : — 
 1. The miracles of the Apostolic age. 2. The post- Apostolic 
 miracles down to the fourth century. 3. The series of 
 miracles which began in the fourth century. 
 
 These three classes of miracles stand, I think, wholly 
 separate from, and independent of, each other. 
 
 The Apostolic miracles form a series complete in them- 
 selves, with a definitely marked limit. They consist, with 
 one or two exceptions, of cases of the exercise of standing 
 powers or gifts residing in the Apostles themselves, or by them 
 conferred by a regular and well-known rite, the imposition 
 of hands, upon their disciples. This dispensation, therefore, 
 of miracles would naturally terminate with the last of those 
 gifted persons on whom the Apostles themselves had laid their 
 hands ; since it appears plain that, in the law of that dispen- 
 sation, no provision was made for continuing it further, none 
 but the Apostles having the power of bestowing miraculous 
 gifts on their successors. The properly Apostolic miracles, 
 therefore, being a stream derived from fountains that were 
 soon visibly stopped, cannot have long outlasted the sealing 
 of its springs. 
 
 Hence if the post- Apostolic miracles existed at all, as true 
 miracles, we must regard them as a new dispensation, an 
 after gift bestowed by a different law, and confessedly on a 
 smaller scale. They are spoken of by the Fathers of the 
 second and third centuries as vestiges of the Apostolic powers 
 still lingering among a few. Indeed it is not clear but that, 
 in some of the testimonies which I cited for you, some of 
 the miraculous gifts appealed to may have been exercised by 
 men still surviviug, who had derived them from the Apostles. 
 
230 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COURSE II. 
 
 When Irengeus, for example, speaks generally of having heard 
 some gifted brethren speaking in the church in various kinds 
 of tongues, we cannot be sure but that he may allude to 
 the period of his own youth, when he was the friend of 
 Poly carp, and may have had ample opportunities of meeting 
 with several of the immediate disciples of the Apostles. But 
 though this explanation will reach some parts of some of the 
 testimonies, it will not extend to others. And therefore, as 
 I said with respect to the bulk of these phenomena, if we 
 admit them, which I for my part am not disposed to do, as 
 real miracles at all, we must regard them as a second and 
 distinct miraculous dispensation, administered by quite a 
 different law from that which usually regulated those of the 
 Apostolic series . 1 
 
 1 The testimonies mentioned above were no doubt cited in the un- 
 written part of the preceding Lecture. The writers who might have met 
 with the immediate disciples of the Apostles, were Justin Martyr, Theo- 
 philus of Antioch, and Irenseus. Justin, Dial. 82, says: ‘Even to this 
 day prophetic gifts exist among us ; ’ and in 88, ‘ With us you may see both 
 females and males having gifts from the Spirit of God.’ In 39 he says that 
 still daily there were many converted, who receive severally gifts, as they 
 deserve; ‘for one receives a spirit of understanding, another of counsel, 
 another of fortitude, another of healing, another of foreknowledge, another 
 of teaching, another of the fear of God.’ In Apol. II. 6, and elsewhere, 
 he speaks of the expulsion of demons. Theophilus, in II. 8, also alleges 
 the expulsion of demons. Irenseus says, II. 56, that the heretics are ‘ far 
 from raising the dead as our Lord did, and the Apostles by prayer, and many 
 in the brotherhood ; oftentimes, on account of some urgent need, the whole 
 Church, here or there, having begged with much fasting and purity, it has 
 turned back the spirit of the dead, and the man has been granted to the 
 prayers of the saints.’ And in 57 he adds the casting out demons, having 
 visions and foreknowledge, healing the sick by imposition of hands, as 
 well as what he had said of raising the dead. It was impossible to tell the 
 number of gifts which were daily exercised for the benefit of the nations. 
 In V. 6 he says : ‘We hear in the Church many brethren having prophetic 
 gifts, and speaking in all kinds of tongues by the Spirit, and bringing to 
 light the secrets of men to advantage, and expounding the mysteries of 
 God.’ Quadratus, who presented his Apology to Hadrian, was reported, as 
 Eusebius, III. 37, informs us, to have had a prophetic gift. In a passage 
 of his Apology preserved by Eusebius, IV. 3, he says that of those who 
 had been healed by our Lord, and had risen from the dead, some had sur- 
 vived even to his own time. Irenaeus was a young man in Hadrian’s 
 reign. 
 
FRAGMENT II. 
 
 MIRACLES OF LATER TIMES. 
 
 231 
 
 But then, though in the respect that I have indicated — 
 namely, that of not being personally transmitted from the im- 
 position of the Apostles’ hands — the miracles of the second 
 class varied widely from those of the first, yet in another 
 respect, in their general character and aspect, these two 
 classes must be allowed to bear a considerable resemblance to 
 one another. The post-Apostolic miracles are a kind of re- 
 flection of the image of the Apostolic. They consist princi- 
 pally of visions ; of prophetic utterances ; of cures ; and the 
 expulsion of demons. And the cures and the expulsions were,’ 
 so far as we collect in a great penury of circumstantial details, 
 said to be performed in much the same grave and simple way 
 as that in which the Apostles and Apostolic men performed 
 similar wonders, generally by prayer and the mere invoca- 
 tion of the name of Jesus, sometimes accompanied by the use 
 of oil. And so far as they attested anything at all, these 
 miracles seem merely to have attested such important things 
 as the falsity of heathenism, the fundamental truths of 
 Christianity, and the present power of the Great Head 
 and Governor of the Church, in whose name only they were 
 wrought. These, therefore, in their moral character, though 
 not in their law, certainly wear something of the guise of a 
 continuation of the Apostolic miracles, and if not lights 
 kindled from the Apostolic torch, seem at least reflections 
 of it. 
 
 But the case seems widely altered when we come to the 
 third class of which I spoke — the new dispensation of 
 miracles which begins in the fourth century. These resemble 
 the Apostolic neither in their moral character nor in their law. 
 We cannot find in them, any more than in their immediate 
 predecessors, any such law of transmission by personal suc- 
 cession as regulated the gifts of the Apostolic Church; nor in 
 their general aspect and complexion do they bear any family 
 likeness whatever to anything which had previously appeared, 
 except — and this is well worthy of remark — except the pre- 
 tended miracles of heathenism. The unlikeness of these 
 miracles to the Scripture miracles is, indeed, not only admitted 
 
232 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 COUESE 11. 
 
 but largely insisted on by Dr. Newman, their latest and most 
 ingenious advocate, in a striking passage in which he compares 
 the contrast between the two classes to the contrast felt at 
 seeing the savage and grotesque creatures of the desert assem- 
 bled in a menagerie amidst the beautiful and regular forms of 
 civilised life. This, by one of those extraordinary reaches of 
 amusing subtlety in which he delights, he seems to regard 
 as an analogical argument for their being real miracles. For 
 since monkeys and men are made by the same Creator, it is 
 reasonable to suppose, he thinks, that the miracles of the 
 fifth and of the first century were wrought by the same Being . 2 
 It must be allowed, I . . . . 
 
 2 The following sentences from Cardinal Newman’s Essay on Miracles , 
 published separately in 1843, are what the Bishop referred to in the last 
 paragraph of this unhappily incomplete Lecture : — ‘ To persons who have 
 not commonly the opportunity of witnessing for themselves this great 
 variety of the divine works, there is something very strange and startling, 
 it may even be said, unsettling, in the first view of nature as it is. To take, 
 for instance, the case of animal nature, let us consider the effect produced 
 upon the mind on seeing for the first time the many tribes of the animal 
 world, as we find them brought together for the purposes of science or 
 exhibition in our own country. . . . Many persons will be moved in a very 
 singular way on going for the first time, or after some interval, to a 
 menagerie. . . . The mind loses its balance, and it is not too much to say 
 that, in some cases, it even falls into a sort of scepticism,’ p. xlvii. ‘There 
 is far greater difference between the appearance of a horse or an eagle and 
 a monkey, or a lion and a mouse, as they meet our eye, than between the 
 most august of the divine manifestations in Scripture, and the meanest 
 and most fanciful of those legends which we are accustomed without 
 further examination to cast aside,’ p. xlix. — Editors. 
 
THIRD COURSE 
 
 'gUse cm6 progress of tf>c ^apacg 
 
 WITH 
 
 REMARKS OK THE MONASTIC ORDERS 
 
LECTUKE I. 
 
 THE THEOCRATIC CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I propose, during the present term, to draw 
 your attention to the rise and progress of that Papal system, 
 the intolerable abuses of which produced, in the way of re- 
 action, the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Now the Papacy may be considered as having a double 
 antagonism ; one to the liberty of thought and conscience of 
 individuals, the other to its rival, the Imperial power. 
 
 The latter of these antagonisms is, I conceive, the one 
 least perfectly apprehended in general by Protestants ; and 
 yet it is quite impossible to form a correct conception of the 
 true posture of things in former, or even in the present times, 
 without an understanding of its true nature. 
 
 When we commonly think and speak of the struggle 
 between the Popedom and the Empire, we regard and describe 
 it, if I am not much mistaken, precisely as a struggle between 
 the spiritual and the temporal power. Now such a descrip- 
 tion is to a certain extent true, but it is not the whole truth. 
 The Empire was not, I conceive, a merely secular, any more 
 than the Papacy was a merely spiritual power. The Empire 
 had its spiritual aspect, as the Papacy had its temporal aspect. 
 The struggle between them may be described imperfectly in 
 various ways, according to the various points of view from 
 which it is regarded. It may be described as a contest 
 between a temporal and a spiritual power, or as a contest 
 between two temporal or between two spiritual powers. As 
 the Church, on the one side, did not confine itself to merely 
 spiritual weapons, such as anathemas, interdicts, and excom- 
 
236 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course iii. 
 
 munications, but raised armies and fleets in its defence, so 
 the weapons of the Empire were not so merely carnal as we 
 commonly suppose them, but drawn to a great extent from 
 the armoury of religious opinion. Viewed at one moment, 
 when the adverse factions of Guelfs and Ghibellines were 
 making every little state of Italy a battle-field for their 
 armies, the contest might wear the aspect of a mere wrestling 
 for temporal sway between adverse temporal princes. Con- 
 sidered at another, and from an equally partial point of view, 
 we might look upon it as a keen controversy between opposite 
 schools of jurists or divines. And regarded from yet another, 
 we might describe it as a conflict between the priest and the 
 prince ; the forces of this world on one side, and those of the 
 next upon the other. But all these would be sadly imperfect 
 conceptions of the truth. 
 
 It must be granted, indeed, that as time went on, the last 
 of these views became, in the West of Europe, very nearly the 
 correct one. The Empire became every day more and more 
 stripped of its more venerable and spiritual attributes, and 
 stood out more and more distinctly as a mere secular power, 
 uninfluenced by any religious zeal, and aiming at mere 
 temporal ends. But this was not the original idea of the 
 Christian Empire, as it was sought to be realised by Justinian 
 or Charlemagne. If we look around us in the modern world 
 for something like their conception of the Empire, we shall 
 find it in a very conspicuous position in that vast barbaric 
 power which has strangely inherited the traditions of the 
 Christian Empire, and towards which the eyes of all Europe, 
 and I may say of almost all the world, are now directed. I 
 mean the Russian autocracy, in which the Emperor appears 
 so to engross and impersonate all the functions at once of the 
 Church and the Commonwealth, as to remind one of the odd 
 figure that you may see in the title-page of Hobbes’ ‘ Levia- 
 than ’ — a king made up bodily of a multitude of little living 
 men who compose his limbs, and who wields a sword in one 
 hand and a crozier in the other, and is surrounded by all the 
 instruments of power — the cannon and the law, the artillery of 
 
lect. i. CHRISTENDOM AS ONE THEOCRATIC STATE. 
 
 237 
 
 the field and the logic of the Schools, the solemn doctor of 
 the Church and the fierce warrior of the camp. 
 
 In truth, what lies at the bottom equally of the Papal and 
 the Imperial system was the fundamental conception of 
 Christendom as one vast theocratic state, governed in ab- 
 solute unity by one supreme vicegerent of heaven, to whom 
 all other powers were subservient ; and the grand question as 
 between those two systems was, which had the best claim to 
 this transcendent office, the Emperor or the Pope. 
 
 Now, undoubtedly, setting out with the fundamental 
 conception, common to both systems, of Christendom as a great 
 theocratic state, there was much of plausible topics on the 
 surface of the matter to be alleged in favour of the imperial 
 view. It seemed to rise naturally enough out of the old 
 notion of civil society, as in its nature fcvpcov — supreme and 
 all-embracing. If the charge of the magistrate be to provide 
 not merely for man’s physical good, but for his good in 
 general, for his highest perfection, then religion, as well as 
 all other human interests, or rather religion pre-eminently 
 above all other interests, falls within the province of the 
 magistrate, the idea of a Christian Church merges in the idea 
 of a Christian State, and the ministers of religion fall as much 
 under the control of the chief magistrate as the ministers of 
 the law or the police. In all the forms of heathenism the 
 magistrate had held the priesthood in complete subordination ; 
 and though the Church had hitherto stood in marked distinc- 
 tion to this general subservience, that posture of antagonism 
 seemed to have been forced upon it by the circumstance that 
 the magistrate had been hitherto not only an alien but an 
 enemy. As soon as the happy time arrived when Constantine 
 assumed the banner of the Cross, it might appear the fit 
 moment for putting an , end to such an anomaly. And the 
 analogy of the Old Testament might be speciously brought in 
 to justify such an innovation. That analogy had been largely 
 used and generally admitted on many other points in the 
 Church before the fourth century. It had helped to familiarise 
 Christians with the ideas of sacrifices and altars, and Levites 
 
238 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course hi. 
 
 and Priests, under the new dispensation ; and those who had 
 brought already the Christian into so close a resemblance to 
 the Jewish economy, could hardly fail of remembering that, 
 under the law, an undoubted supremacy belonged to the king, 
 as the Lord’s anointed, over all orders of the people — that he 
 was bound to take care that priests as well as judges per- 
 formed duly their respective offices. 
 
 If we turn to the panegyrical oration pronounced by 
 Eusebius upon Constantine, we shall see how far that courtly 
 prelate was disposed to carry the theocratic view of the 
 imperial functions. ‘ Others,’ he tells us, ‘ may set forth the 
 earthly honours of the Emperor, but it is for him to reveal 
 to the duly prepared and worthy of initiation the higher 
 mysteries of the imperial dignity, and from the divine 
 oracles declare the supreme archetypal sovereignty of God, 
 in the first place, and then the express image of it as repre- 
 sented in the imperial power.’ I will not burden your ears 
 with the long and fulsome parallel which he proceeds to run 
 between the monarchy of the Almighty and that of Constan- 
 tine. I doubt whether in all the high-sounding adulation 
 with which the Popes in later ages were addressed, there 
 can be found anything very much beyond the language in 
 which this doubtful catechumen — for at best he was only a 
 catechumen — is belauded to his face by the Bishop of 
 Csesarea. Towards the end of his speech the courtly Bishop 
 rises to the height of ascribing a sort of perpetual inspiration 
 to the Emperor. He speaks of frequent appearances to him 
 of Christ ; of direct suggestion from heaven of his laws, his 
 military arrangements, his diplomacy ; of revelations of the 
 future, and of deep mysteries disclosed such as vulgar auditors 
 could not understand ; and finally, of his being the express 
 character of the Eternal Word of Qod. 'Eusebius indeed 
 seems to have persuaded himself, that in the glorious reign of 
 the first Christian Emperor, the visions of the old prophets 
 had been fulfilled, and Christ and his saints were actually 
 reigning upon the earth. The New Jerusalem of the Apo- 
 calypse was, he thinks, meant as a description of the mag- 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 SUPREMACY OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. 239 
 
 nificent edifices with which Constantine and Helena adorned 
 the sites of our Saviour’s crucifixion and burial ; and all the 
 resources of that wondrously flexible Greek tongue in which 
 he was so fluent, if not so elegant a writer, are exhausted 
 in epithets to extol the prince who had fixed the centre of 
 ecclesiastical unity upon the throne of the Caesars. 
 
 To do Constantine justice, however, it must be allowed 
 that this greatness was, at least in the earlier part of his reign, 
 rather ‘ thrust upon ’ than ambitioned by him. He appears 
 at first to have been rather emulous of a very different posi- 
 tion — that of a friendly, but not exclusively devoted patron 
 of the Christian body ; to have aimed at that sort of lofty 
 superiority with which the old Roman magistrates treated the 
 licitae religiones of the pagan Empire, complying with, and 
 honouring them upon certain public occasions, but making it 
 sufficiently evident that the religions which they thus pro- 
 tected had no strong hold upon their faith or feelings. Con- 
 stantine, in the early part of his reign, realised rather the 
 idea of a prince who supports the Church, and wishes to 
 make it respectable, for political reasons, than of a theocratic 
 sovereign who regards the souls of his subjects as his first 
 and principal charge, and uses his temporal power with a 
 special reference to that. How far his real character changed 
 as he grew older, how far his faith in Christianity really 
 strengthened, how far he really became the ardent devotee 
 which he is sometimes represented as having become, it is 
 exceedingly difficult to determine, because we see his charac- 
 ter through such rolling clouds of palpable adulation on one 
 side, and of gross slander upon the other, as makes it hard to 
 distinguish the true outlines of the object whose shape and 
 dimensions we strive in vain to make an accurate estimate of. 
 
 But his successors were for the most part men who had 
 been trained from their infancy in the belief of the Christian 
 creed ; and under them we find the theocratic idea of the 
 imperial supremacy more fully developed, though under 
 difficulties and encountering impediments to be more dis- 
 tinctly noticed hereafter, till it was completely wrought into 
 
240 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course nr. 
 
 the fabric of the Church in the Eastern world, and assumed 
 that definite form in which it meets us in the legislation of 
 that great systematise^ Justinian. 
 
 ‘ That Justinian,’ says Dean Milman, in his admirable 
 work, the c History of Latin Christianity ’ — ‘ that Justinian 
 is a Christian Emperor appears in the front of his juris- 
 prudence. Before the august temple of the Homan law, 
 there is as it were a vestibule in which the Emperor seats 
 himself as the religious legislator of the world in its new 
 relation towards God. The Christian Emperor treats all 
 mankind as his subjects, in their religious as well as in their 
 civil capacity. The Emperor’s creed, as well as his edicts, 
 are the universal law of the Empire. His code opens with 
 the imperial creed on the Trinity, and the imperial anathema 
 against Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollinaris. Justinian de- 
 clares indeed that he holds the doctrines of the Church of 
 the Apostles and their successors. He recognises the au- 
 thority of the four great Councils. He even acknowledges 
 the supremacy of the Roman Church, and commands all 
 churches to be united to her. At the time of the publication 
 of the Code, John III. was Bishop of Rome ; but he had been 
 appointed under the exarch, his inauguration had submis- 
 sively awaited the Emperor’s approbation. Rome therefore, 
 it was hoped, had become, notwithstanding the rapid advance 
 of the Lombards, an integral, an inseparable part of the 
 Empire. Justinian legislates, therefore, for Rome as for the 
 East. But, though the Emperor condescends thus to justify 
 the orthodoxy of his creed, it is altogether of his absolute, 
 uncontrolled, undisputed will that it is law. It might seem, 
 indeed, that the clergy were the subjects, as first in rank, 
 whose offices, even whose lives, must first be regulated by 
 imperial legislation. 
 
 £ In the following chapters the appointments, the organisa- 
 tion, the subordination, the authority of the ecclesiastical, 
 as of the civil magistrates of the realm, is assumed to 
 emanate from, to be granted, limited, prescribed by, the 
 supreme Emperor. Excommunication is uttered indeed by the 
 
LFCT. I. 
 
 THEOCEACY DEVELOPED BY JUSTINIAN. 
 
 241 
 
 ecclesiastics, but according to the imperial laws and with 
 the imperial warrant. He deigns, indeed, to allow the 
 canons of the Church to be of not less equal authority than 
 his laws : but his laws are divine, and those divine laws all 
 metropolitans, bishops, and clergy are bound to obey, and, 
 if commanded, to publish. The hierarchy is regulated by 
 his ordinance. He enacts the superiority of the metropolitan 
 over the bishop, of the bishop over the abbot, of the abbot 
 over the monk. Distinct imperial laws rule the monasteries. 
 The law prescribes the ordinations of bishops, the persons 
 qualified for ordination, the whole form and process of the 
 holy ceremony. The law admitted no immunities in the 
 clergy for crimes committed against the state or against 
 society. It took upon itself the severe superintendence of 
 clerical morals. . . . The refusal to punish, or the endeavour 
 to conceal offences of this kind, made both the civil officers 
 and ecclesiastics liable to civil as well as to ecclesiastical 
 penalties.’ After enumerating several other instances of the 
 like description, he proceeds : — ‘ Such were the all-compre- 
 hending ecclesiastical laws which the Emperor claimed the 
 power to enact. In many cases he commanded or limited 
 the anathema or the interdict. The obedient world, in- 
 cluding the Church, acknowledged, at least by submissive 
 obedience, this imperial supremacy. It is not until Justinian 
 has thus, as it were, fulfilled his divine mission of legislating 
 for his subjects as Christians, that he assumes .his proper func- 
 tion, his legislation for them as Bomans, and proceeds to his 
 earthly task, the consolidation of the ancient and modern 
 statutes of the Empire .’ 1 
 
 This idea of a theocratic imperial supremacy, thus fully 
 developed and systematised by Justinian, was, as I said, 
 strongly and enduringly wrought into the whole fabric of 
 the Eastern Church and State. But it was not at all con- 
 fined to the East. In a form somewhat less completely 
 developed it was strongly, but not nearly so permanently, im 
 pressed upon the habits of the Western part of Christendom 
 1 History of Latin Christianity , vol. i. pp. 356-358. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 K 
 
242 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course iii. 
 
 also. There, indeed, the whole imperial power, civil as well 
 as ecclesiastical, was, from the tumultuous and revolutionary 
 condition of the times, too often undor an eclipse. But 
 whenever and wherever it, or any spark of it, shone out and 
 revived with any tolerable vigour, in the shape of an energetic 
 Christian kingdom, there and then, for. a long period, the 
 theocratic idea of the imperial or royal supremacy revived 
 with the revival of its civil efficiency. We find it more or 
 less distinctly expressed in the legislation of the Ostrogothic 
 and Lombard princes. We see it in almost the full splendour 
 and magnitude of its orb in the Institutions of Charlemagne, 
 ‘ asserting the same unlimited authority over ecclesiastical 
 and civil affairs, and gathering at Frankfort his clergy round 
 his throne as so many feudal beneficiaries, to pass acts not 
 only without the consent of the Pope, bnt in contravention 
 of his declared opinions.’ We trace it later down more 
 faintly in the semi-sacerdotal character of the sovereign of 
 Spain and the Two Sicilies. We trace it in the laws of our 
 own Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and from their time all through 
 the common law of England, maintaining as it did a con- 
 tinual struggle against Papal encroachments, till at last the 
 Royal supremacy bursts forth with even scorching heat, like 
 a July sun from under a cloud, in the great Tudor dynasty: 
 and at a still more modern epoch we find it threatening for a 
 while a similar outburst in France, in the person of Louis 
 the Fourteenth. 
 
 For more than a century back, however, this high theo- 
 cratic theory of imperial supremacy has passed so completely 
 into practical oblivion in Europe (having been replaced since 
 the English and French Revolutions by a much more prosaic 
 and secular one), that men in our day are too apt to look back 
 upon it with something of contempt as an old-world absurdity 
 hardly worthy of attention. But though few now hold it 
 systematically — few, I mean, out of the Greek or Russo-Greek 
 communion — yet its influence in some vague shape or other 
 is in many ways pretty strong over minds which would reject 
 it in its full development. Nor do I think that as a theory it 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE IMPERIAL THEORY. 
 
 243 
 
 is so utterly inferior in speciousness to the rival theocratic 
 Papal conception, as it is the fashion to consider it. 
 
 Some of the most obvious objections to it cannot, I think, 
 be quite consistently urged by those who hold the Papal 
 theory. 
 
 The most obvious, perhaps, of all such objections is drawn 
 from the alleged absurdity of vesting the supreme spiritual 
 jurisdiction in a temporal prince, perhaps a child, who cannot 
 be, from the nature of his education and other employments, 
 ever expected to be, except in most rare cases, anything like 
 a profound theologian. 
 
 This is, I think, to argue upon a mistake, and in a way 
 that might be very easily retorted. I will not, however, 
 dwell upon the retortion which would, I am sure, immediately 
 occur to any lay inhabitant of the Papal States, and who 
 might urge that if a temporal prince’s secular education and 
 employments made him unfit to be a spiritual sovereign, the 
 spiritual sovereign’s education and employments made him at 
 least equally unfit to be a temporal prince ; and that if, con- 
 fessedly, an Emperor might be in his first, experience showed 
 that a Pope might often be in his second childhood. 
 
 But these sprightly retorts are apt to be rather provoking 
 than convincing. I choose, therefore, in preference to dwell 
 upon the remark that the objection proceeds upon a wrong 
 assumption. The imperial theory does not require its theo- 
 cratic prince to be a profound theologian, any more than it 
 requires him to be a profound lawyer or an expert general. 
 It supposes the supreme spiritual jurisdiction to be vested in 
 him only in the same way as the supreme temporal jurisdic- 
 tion, the legislative and the executive powers, are vested in 
 him. He is, according to it, the head of the law and the head 
 of the army. If, without being a great lawyer, he may be the 
 supreme legislator, and without any knowledge of tactics, the 
 generalissimo of its fleets and armies, why may he not equally 
 be head of the Church without the qualification of any deep 
 theological lore or scholastic acuteness ? In civil affairs the 
 prince consults his experienced statesmen, in military, his 
 
244 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY. course iii. 
 
 skilful officers. When he frames laws he gathers round him 
 his council or parliament ; when he frames canons, his 
 bishops and learned clerks. But the acts which result from 
 such deliberations are still the edicts, or orders, or laws, or 
 canons of the Emperor. 
 
 Indeed scarce any of even the highest assertors of the 
 Papal theory attribute to the Pope any proper personal in- 
 fallibility. It is still of the Pope in cathedra, well informed, 
 proceeding canonically, by and with the advice of his consistory 
 at least (and to this many superadd a General Council and 
 many the assent of the Church diffusive), that they mean to be 
 understood as speaking . 2 
 
 And in truth, some such qualifications as these seem abso- 
 lutely required by plain matter of fact. For, in fact, the 
 number of even respectable divines that have filled the Papal 
 Chair is not great, and the number of profound theologians 
 exceeding small. The Popes do indeed claim to be at once 
 the successors of St. Peter and of St. Paul, the great ruler and 
 the great doctor of the Church. But from a very early period 
 they seem to have been generally content to leave the realisa- 
 tion of the latter character, that of teachers, to the inferior 
 clergy ; so that when we have named Leo the Great and 
 Gregory the Great and Adrian VI., we have nearly exhausted 
 the list of distinguished theologians who have worn the triple 
 crown. The great minds that have led the mind of the 
 Church have seldom been either Popes or Emperors ; and as it 
 seems now to be confessed that the proper function of the Pope 
 is not to excogitate, or prove, or even gain a general reception 
 for developments of doctrine, but only to fiat them when they 
 have been discovered and proved and generally received by 
 others, one does not see quite readily at the first glance why 
 the great seal of the Church might not as well be entrusted 
 to an Emperor as to a Bishop of Rome. ‘ The old man at 
 Rome,’ so Dr. Newman calls somewhat irreverently the great 
 pontiff of his religion, ‘ the old man at Rome ’ owes, we are 
 told, his singular power of procuring unity not to any special 
 2 Written before the Vatican Council. — Editors. 
 
lect. i. DR. NEWMAN ON THE OLD MAN AT ROME. 
 
 245 
 
 acuteness or skill in composing differences, but to an heredi- 
 tary trick of letting differences compose themselves, letting 
 the combatants fight it out till they are both weary of fight- 
 ing, and ready of their own accord to come to terms. How 
 far this ingenious theory is reconcilable to facts, I shall not 
 stop now to inquire. There are, I think, in Ecclesiastical 
 history some awkward phenomena which would seem to in- 
 dicate that the ‘ old man ’ is not quite so patient as he is 
 described, that he has aggravated by inopportune meddling 
 a good many quarrels, though he may have suffered more 
 to heal themselves by letting them alone. But accepting 
 Dr. Newman’s, for the nonce, as a correct account of the 
 matter, one does not see at first sight why this valuable 
 secret should be the exclusive property, like a patent 
 medicine, of any one set of men — why it should not be as 
 good a medicine in the hands of an Emperor as of a Pope, 
 and why the old man of Petersburg should not practise a 
 little in this line as well as the old man at Rome. Indeed, in 
 one point of view it may appear that the less of a theologian, 
 the less even of a believer in any creed, the more perfectly 
 indifferent, the supreme ruler of the Church was, the more 
 likely he would be to like and practise this notable expedient : 
 and some may think that the famous civil ruler Gallio, who 
 cared for none of these things, but left the Jews and Greeks 
 to fight it out till they were tired of it, was an eminent 
 anticipation of the healing government of this old man at 
 Rome. 
 
 Certainly one would think that that person, be he Pope 
 or Emperor, must have a strange estimate of the value of 
 truth, who, conscious of being able if he pleased to define it 
 infallibly upon any important point hotly contested, should 
 purposely abstain from so defining it until the controversy 
 was at an end, and the world reasonably well satisfied without 
 his definition. 
 
 I apprehend that, in point of fact, in both these theories 
 unity and not truth was the uppermost thought in the framers’ 
 minds. And viewing them as plans for the conservation of 
 
246 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY. course in. 
 
 unity, I do think that one advantage must be conceded to the 
 Papal theory . 3 It is this — that the Pope’s direct temporal 
 power is so small and limited, that he will in general be in less 
 danger than the Emperor of relying on it exclusively. He will 
 feel that he is supported almost entirely upon opinion, and 
 that, in every step he takes, he must plant his foot upon the 
 basis of public opinion, or it will go from under him. He will 
 naturally be apprehensive of provoking such a schism as might 
 tear away the principal pillars of his strength and withdraw 
 a large majority of his present subjects from their spiritual 
 allegiance, and hence he will be strongly inclined to make 
 his decisions accord with what he believes to be the prevail- 
 ing current of feeling and belief in the Church. The imperial 
 head, on the contrary, is conscious of wielding directly a vast 
 amount of physical power : and if he chance to have heterodox 
 theological tastes, he may be strongly tempted to effect a 
 religious revolution, and compel by persecution the great 
 body of his subjects to profess some new doctrine to which 
 they are averse. It was upon this rock that so many of the 
 earlier Byzantine Christian Emperors split. In the intoxi- 
 cating pride of material power they endeavoured to bear 
 down the deeply-rooted and permanent religious feelings and 
 convictions of their subjects — as in the attempts to estab- 
 lish Arianism as the faith of the Roman Empire by the sons 
 of Constantine, or the still later attempt to banish images by 
 the Idoloclastic princes. These, however, are rash enterprises, 
 which, supposing the Empire to hold together for a sufficient 
 length of time, would be corrected by experience. It would 
 come to be thoroughly understood that a perfectly intolerable 
 Emperor, like a perfectly intolerable Pope, must be coerced 
 or got rid of in some way. Emperors would discover that 
 orthodoxy was the best policy ; and it would come to be an 
 established hereditary maxim of kingcraft that the prince 
 should be always orthodox, i.e. in accordance with the pre- 
 dominant convictions of the Church which he governs. The 
 
 3 Written before 1860 70. 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 IMPERIAL THEORY IMPOSSIBLE IN THE WEST. 247 
 
 wildest tyrant would discover at last that though his power 
 was called absolute, it had practical though not theoretical 
 limits. He would learn, as the Greek Emperors learned, and 
 as the Czars of Muscovy and the Sultans of Turkey have 
 learned, that to try and change the people’s religion is to 
 change not them but the government. 
 
 But perhaps this circumstance, that the Emperor has so 
 firm an independent basis in his secular authority, may prove 
 dangerous to his spiritual character in another way, i.e., by 
 tempting him to despise and neglect it. An irreligious and 
 profligate Pope, like an irreligious and profligate Emperor, 
 will infallibly despise his own spiritual pretensions ; but he 
 will be infinitely less likely to make an open show of this con- 
 tempt. He cannot plainly give up making such pretensions 
 without distinctly renouncing all pretensions. If he be not a 
 priest, he is nothing. But with the Emperor it will be other- 
 wise ; and a man of any spirit will be naturally desirous of 
 throwing off the mask, and freeing himself from the necessity 
 of keeping up a cold and disgusting system of hypocrisy. 
 However, here also the same checks may act upon the Emperor 
 as upon the Pope, only not so quickly. For long traditional 
 usage in an old monarchy may certainly make the sacred so 
 completely blend and amalgamate with the civil office, that 
 one cannot be abandoned in the eyes of the multitude without 
 an apparent abdication of tlje other. 
 
 But without entering further into the discussion of that 
 question, we may see clearly other causes which made the 
 permanent realisation of the imperial theory impossible in 
 Western Europe. Perhaps the chief of these was the spirit 
 of independent nationality which, upon the ruin of the 
 properly Homan Empire, broke up the whole Occidental part 
 of it into a number of separate states. Now if, along with 
 this disintegration of the body of the old commonwealth, a 
 similar disintegration of the body of that ecclesiastical com- 
 munity which was formed by its influence had contempora- 
 neously taken place, then, although the Emperor might have 
 lost his position as the theocratic sovereign of all Christen- 
 
248 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OE THE PAPACY, course itt. 
 
 dom— -the Commander of the Faithful, the Christian Calif — yet 
 the civil power might have made effectual resistance against 
 the Papacy in the persons of the different princes, each exer- 
 cising a spiritual as well as a temporal supremacy in his own 
 dominions. But, especially within those parts of the Conti- 
 nent which had been thoroughly permeated by the old Homan 
 institutions, this was not possible. Neither the people, the 
 Pope, nor the Emperor were willing that the idea of the old 
 Homan unity should be wholly lost ; and this fixed idea of 
 Western Christendom as one community being presupposed, 
 the Papal scheme had a manifest advantage over the Imperial ; 
 because the Papal supremacy allowed, indeed encouraged and 
 fomented, that separation of Europe into mutually inde- 
 pendent civil states which political circumstances, even 
 without the Pope’s aid, rendered inevitable, while, on the other 
 hand, such a separation was wholly incompatible with the 
 Imperial supremacy. The Imperial supremacy was directly, 
 openly, and essentially an absolute supremacy, temporal and 
 spiritual. It was as chief magistrate, and in that character 
 alone, that the Emperor could claim power in ecclesiastical 
 affairs. It was upon the theory— -a theory which you will find 
 very popularly stated and defended by Hooker in his eighth 
 book of i Ecclesiastical Polity,’ and by the late Dr. Arnold in his 
 Lectures on History, but opposed, and 1 think refuted, by 
 Warburton in his ‘ Alliance,’ and Archbishop Whately in his 
 ‘ Kingdom of Christ ’ — it was upon the theory that Church and 
 State are personally one society under one supreme head, it was 
 upon that theory alone, that the Emperor could claim his 
 theocratic character. If, therefore, the Church throughout 
 Christendom was a society one and indivisible, it is manifest 
 that no magistrate whose civil authority did not extend over 
 all Christendom could consistently claim to be the head of it ; 
 and this constituted, I think, the grand inherent weakness of 
 the Imperial claim. The cement which had bound together 
 the stones of the old Roman Colossus could never be replaced. 
 They might be laid for a while loosely together again, but 
 only to fall in more hopeless ruin under the first vigorous 
 
LECT. I. 
 
 FAILURE OF THE GERMAN EMPERORS. 
 
 249 
 
 shock that assaulted its stability. For a while some energetic 
 sovereign might re-establish something like a universal supre- 
 macy, but the very princes who aided him for a time against 
 the audacious presumption of the Pope, would perceive, at the 
 very moment of success, that they were only building up a 
 worse tyranny than that which they had sought to pull down, 
 and just when he seemed most triumphant would suddenly 
 desert him. The dazzling prize of an universal sway was the 
 meteor that lured on some of the greatest of the German 
 Emperors to their own destruction. Had they been content 
 with less, had they been satisfied to bound their dominion 
 with the Alps, to leave the Pope to struggle as he could with 
 the republics and princes whom his own subtle arts had mul- 
 tiplied and embroiled around him in Italy — had they encou- 
 raged their own native prelates to develop that theory of a 
 national Church which is the only safeguard of a royal supre- 
 macy in modern Europe — they might perhaps have safely 
 disregarded all the thunders and all the lightning of the 
 Vatican. But the image of the Roman Empire was as con- 
 stantly before their eyes as it was before those of their pon- 
 tifical rivals. It was the deceitful Helen whose charms 
 engaged the Empire and the Church in a perpetual conflict. 
 Towards Italy they were ever drawn by a fatal fascination. 
 Towards Italy they marched as conquerors. But every mile 
 they traversed deducted something from their strength. The 
 German Antaeus, as he quitted the solid ground of his native 
 dominion, found his powers abate. Enemies rose in his rear. 
 His own subjects were disgusted at his absence, and his 
 preference of a more favoured region. He was drawn into 
 negotiations with his wary foe. His northern troops found 
 a Capua in every luxurious city they subdued, and if the 
 conquerors returned at all, it was not as conquerors they 
 returned. ‘ So,’ says Dean Milman — relating the expedition 
 of Louis of Bavaria, in 1327 — ‘so set forth another German 
 Emperor, unwarned, apparently ignorant of all former history, 
 to run the same race as his predecessors — a triumphant pas- 
 sage through Italy, a jubilant reception in Rome, a splendid 
 
250 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course hi. 
 
 coronation, the creation of an Antipope ; then dissatisfaction, 
 treachery, revolt among his partisans, soon weary of the exac- 
 tions wrung from them, but which were absolutely necessary 
 to maintain the idle pageant ; his German troops wasting 
 away with their own excesses and the uncongenial climate, 
 and cut off by war and fever; an ignominious retreat quick- 
 ening into flight ; the wonder of mankind sinking at once 
 into contempt — the mockery and scoffing joy of his in- 
 exorable foes.’ 
 
25 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 ORIGINAL DIGNITY OF THE ROMAN BISHOPS— TESTI- 
 MONY OF IREN AE US, TERTULLIAN, AND CYPRIAN 
 
 Gentlemen,— The foundations of the Papacy were laid 
 upon the double ground of the Apostolic origin of the 
 Church, and the civil pre-eminence of the City of Rome. In 
 the first of these respects it stood alone in the West, in the 
 second it stood alone in the world ; and the combination of 
 the two secured to the Roman See a position superior, on the 
 whole, to that which any other bishopric could pretend to. 
 
 Some ardent Protestants have, indeed, been anxious to 
 confine the claims of the Roman See entirely to the civil pre- 
 eminence of the city ; but this, I think, cannot be done 
 without offering such violence to the documents of history as 
 nothing but strong polemical prejudice can reconcile men to. 
 
 It was surely quite natural that in the early age of 
 Christianity the Bishops of those places in which the Apostles 
 had themselves resided and trained churches by their own 
 instruction and example, should be looked up to with peculiar 
 reverence. Those prelates would naturally be respected as 
 the inheritors of the tradition of the Apostles, as men formed 
 in the Apostolic school, and as belonging to a succession 
 upon whom the Apostles, who began it, might be supposed 
 to have stamped their own image. In all doubtful questions, 
 therefore, of doctrine or practice, great weight was allowed, 
 and not unreasonably, to the teaching and customs of those 
 churches which had been founded immediately by Apostles ; 
 and that, at first, as it appears to me, merely upon such in- 
 telligible grounds as I have hinted at, and without any mixture 
 
252 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course hi. 
 
 of mystical or sacramental ideas. Thus, in their controversies 
 with the heretics, we find the Fathers of the second century 
 appealing to the tradition of the Apostolic Churches as a 
 customary and most useful topic of controversy, sometimes 
 to establish the genuineness and authenticity of the New 
 Testament, sometimes to confirm their own exposition of the 
 teaching of Scripture, and sometimes to show that, contrary 
 to and above what was contained in Scripture, the Apostles 
 had delivered down no higher esoteric doctrine to their most 
 favoured disciples. And with such objects in view as these, 
 we find Irenaeus appealing to the testimony of the Church of 
 Rome in a passage with which I dare say controversy has 
 made you all familiar. 4 When the heretics,’ he says, ‘ are 
 refuted out of the Scripture, they turn round and accuse 
 the Scriptures themselves, as if they were not correct or had 
 no authority, and as ambiguously expressed and incapable of 
 being understood, save by those who are acquainted with tra- 
 dition 1 . . . But the true tradition of the Apostles, mani- 
 fested in the whole world, all who wish to see the truth may 
 recognise in the Church ; and we are able to reckon up those 
 who were made Bishops in the Churches by the Apostles, and 
 the whole line of their successors down to ourselves, who never 
 taught or knew anything akin to the wild fancies of these 
 men. And surely, if the Apostles had known any hidden 
 mysteries which they taught the perfect secretly and apart 
 from the rest, those to whom they committed the churches 
 were the most likely to have been made the depositories of 
 that esoteric tradition. For they must have doubtless wished 
 those persons to be thoroughly perfect and without flaw 
 
 1 Adv. Har. iii. 2. ‘ Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur, in accusationem 
 
 convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi non recte habeant, neque sint ex 
 authoritate, et quia varie sint dictas, et quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas 
 ab his, qui nesciant traditionem.’ We have in this extract an instance 
 of the extreme literalness of the Latin translation noticed by the Bishop in 
 the course of his remarks. The clause, ‘ quasi non recte habeant,’ exhibits 
 a frequent usage in regard to the Greek verb fx w > which does not properly 
 belong to the Latin habeo. The meaning is not, ‘ as if they have not the 
 Scriptures in a correct state,’ but, as the Bishop translates in the text, ‘as if 
 they were not correct.’— Editors. 
 
I,ECT II. 
 
 IREN^US ON THE ROMAN CHURCH. 
 
 253 
 
 whom they left as their successors, and appointed as teachers 
 in their own room, and from whose right conduct the greatest 
 advantage would redound, and whose fall would be a public 
 calamity. 
 
 ‘ But since, in such a volume as the present, it would be 
 too long to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, 
 we shall, by exhibiting in the case of the Church founded at 
 Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, a Church 
 of pre-eminent greatness, antiquity, and notoriety — by exhi- 
 biting, I say, the tradition and published faith which this 
 Church has from the Apostles, and which has, by the succes- 
 sion of its Bishops, come down to us, we shall put to shame 
 all those who run into false conclusions, either through self- 
 conceit, or vain glory, or blindness, or vicious prejudices .’ 2 
 And then follows this curious sentence, the just translation of 
 which has been matter of so much angry controversy — ‘ Ad 
 hanc enim ecclesiam, propter potiorem principalitatem, necesse 
 est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, qui sunt undique 
 fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata 
 est ea quge est ab apostolis traditio.’ The most important 
 question here is about the meaning of the clause, ‘ ad hanc 
 
 2 Adv. Hcer. iii. 3. ‘ Traditionem itaque Apostolorum in toto mundo 
 
 manifestatam, in omni Ecclesia adest perspicere omnibus qui vera velint 
 audire, et habemus annumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi 
 in Ecclesiis, et successores eorum usque ad nos, qui nihil tale docuerunt, 
 neque cognoverunt quale ab his deliratur. Etenim si recondita mj^steria 
 scissent Apostoli, quae seorsim et latenter ab reliquis perfectos docebant, his 
 vel maxim e traderent eaquibus etiam ipsas Ecclesias committebant. Valde 
 enim perfectos et irreprehensibiles in omnibus eos volebant esse, quos et 
 successores relinquebant suum ipsorum locum magisterii tradentes, quibus 
 emendate agentibus fieret magna utilitas, lapsis autem summa calamitas. 
 Sed quoniam valde longum est, in hoc tali volumine omnium Ecclesiarum 
 enumerare successiones, maximae, et antiquissimae, et omnibus cognitas, a 
 gloriosissimis duobus Apostolis Petro et Paulo, Rome fundate et consti- 
 tute Ecclesie, earn quam habet ab Apostolis traditionem, et annunciatam 
 hominibus fidem per successiones Episcoporum pervenientem usque ad nos, 
 indicantes, confundimus omnes eos, qui quoquo modo, vel per sui placentiam 
 malam, vel vanam gloriam, vel per cecitatem et malam sententiam, preter- 
 quam oportet colligunt.’ The importance of this subject makes it desirable 
 to give this passage in the original. It is taken from the Edition of 
 Feuardent. — Editors. 
 
254 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY. coukse hi. 
 
 enim ecclesiam, propter potiorem principal itatem necesse est 
 omnem con venire ecclesiam.’ 
 
 The Romanists, of course, seize eagerly upon it as a plain 
 statement of the absolute supremacy of the Church of Rome 
 in defining matters of faith ; and they accordingly under- 
 stand Irenaeus as saying that the whole Church is bound to 
 agree with that of Rome on account of its loftier pre-eminence 
 or principality. 
 
 Now I do not deny that, if this passage stood wholly by 
 itself — as such passages usually stand in the text-books of 
 controversy — such a meaning as this might be attached to 
 the barbarous Latin in which the translator has, I can hardly 
 say e endeavoured to express ’ Irenaeus’ meaning, for that 
 implies some conscientious effort made by the interpreter, 
 and of such efforts I can hardly discover a trace in this 
 version. But such a meaning might be attached to the 
 barbarous Latin into which, unhappily, Irenaeus’ Greek has 
 been here turned for us by some bungling translator. 
 
 But if we enlarge our view a little, and take in a con- 
 sideration of the argument with which this passage stands 
 connected, such a meaning will, to any candid examiner, seem 
 wholly repugnant to the tenor of the context. 
 
 Irengeus, as we have already remarked, is engaged in an 
 historical argument. He is endeavouring to show, from the 
 testimony of their best ascertained successors, that the tra- 
 dition of the Apostles was quite in accordance with their 
 writings, and quite different from the doctrines of the 
 Gnostics. For this purpose he appeals to the succession of 
 the Bishops in the various Apostolic Sees. But as it would 
 be tedious to go through them all, he selects one in particular 
 as a sample of the rest, and he assigns for making this selec- 
 tion, and for considering this Church as a reasonable exponent 
 of the teaching of the others, certain grounds. Now what 
 are those grounds ? Because, say the Romanists, Rome is the 
 sovereign, and all other Churches are at all times bound to 
 conform to her decisions. But did the Valentinians, against 
 whom Irenaeus is writing, admit any such principle as this ? 
 
L.ECT. II. 
 
 THE ROMANISTIC INTERPRETATION. 
 
 255 
 
 No one surely is so mad as to suppose that they did. If 
 Irenaeus was at liberty to assume, in arguing against the 
 Valentinians, that the decision of the Church of Rome in 
 questions of doctrine is final, and that the whole Church, the 
 faithful in every region, are absolutely bound always to 
 conform to that, he certainly took most superfluous pains in 
 composing the elaborate tomes which he has devoted to the 
 refutation of those troublesome heretics. He might have 
 brought the matter bo a short issue. ‘ Petrus locutus est, 
 causa finita est.’ It was quite unnecessary for him, in such 
 a view of the case, to enter into any historical details what- 
 ever with respect to the former belief either of the Roman or 
 of any other Church. If the constitution of the Church require 
 that the decision of the Bishop of Rome for the time being is 
 final, and that the faithful are absolutely bound to acquiesce 
 in that decision whatever it may be ; and if this constitution 
 was fully admitted by the heretics ; then the wonder is that 
 Irenaeus should have introduced such a conclusive argument 
 only here, slightly and by the way, and taken through all 
 the rest of his work such amazing pains to accumulate other 
 arguments which on this view were utterly superfluous. 
 
 Really the language which the Romanist interpretation 
 puts into the good Father’s mouth is such as no man could 
 have used if he were serious. It is what one might expect from 
 Swift in some piece of grave irony, but it is like nothing that 
 any man in his senses ever wrote with any other purpose than 
 to make his readers smile. It is as if an advocate at the bar, in 
 a question of statute-law, were demurely to apologise for not 
 inquiring seriatim what is considered binding in Norfolk and 
 Suffolk, and Lincolnshire and Lancashire, and so on through 
 all the counties of Great Britain, and to regret that, being 
 forced to economise time, he could not entertain the court with 
 the lights to be reflected from such a detailed investigation, 
 but would confine himself at present to the task of showing 
 what was laid down by the Parliament at Westminster, which 
 confessedly had the power of binding all England by its 
 enactments. 
 
256 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course ur. 
 
 But it is unnecessary for me to dwell longer upon the 
 absurdity of supposing that Irenasus could have expected the 
 Valentinans to recognise the principle of implicit submission 
 to the decisions of the Church of Rome. The very existence 
 of the Valentinian heresy in the time of Irenasus is a suffi- 
 cient demonstration that they must have notoriously rejected 
 the authority of the Church of Rome ; unless we adopt an 
 hypothesis infinitely more disparaging to the credit of that 
 Church, and suppose that, down to thee middle of the second 
 century, the Church of Rome had not distinctly condemned 
 the Yalentinians, and that it was a matter of argument, 
 pro and con., to determine what was or was not the judg- 
 ment, not of former prelates, but of the then present Bishop 
 of Rome, upon such a question as that between the Gnostics 
 and the orthodox. I say the then present Bishop of Rome ; 
 for it cannot be too earnestly impressed upon you in con- 
 nection with this passage, that if Irenasus be supposed to 
 argue the necessity for the agreement of all the faithful with 
 the Church of Rome, from the assumption of a supremacy 
 conferred by divine right on that Church, such a necessity 
 is in its nature universal, and holds equally in all times. All 
 that remains is to fix what, at any one time, is the decision 
 of the present ruler of the governing Church at any one time, 
 which for the most can be easily done, except in cases where 
 that ruler purposely evades the appeal. Where he does 
 not ; where the living supreme judge of controversies is ready 
 to hear the case, and pronounce at once a precise and un- 
 equivocal sentence ; there it would be only courting needless 
 difficulty to embarrass one’s self with inquiring into historical 
 evidence respecting the opinions of former prelates. But 
 Irenasus plainly thinks himself bound to make out his case 
 historically. It is not upon the mere ruling of the present 
 Bishop of Rome that he relies, but upon the testimony of the 
 whole line of its successive Bishops, and in particular on the 
 Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which he immediately 
 after proceeds to quote. And this consideration, that his argu- 
 ment all through proceeds upon proper historical testimony, 
 
Ik EOT. II. 
 
 THE TKUE MEANING OF IEEN^US. 
 
 25 7 
 
 and not at all upon mere authority, effectually confutes 
 the only other plea which can be urged by Romanists in 
 defence of their interpretation. 
 
 For, if they should urge that all we have been saying 
 shows only the absurdity of supposing that the Gnostics 
 recognised the supremacy of Rome, but that all that is 
 needful for Irenseus is that the Catholic Church should, 
 whether rightly or wrongly, have admitted that supremacy, 
 since this is all that is necessary for proving that the tradi- 
 tion of Rome is a faithful exponent of the teaching of the 
 Catholic Church — if, I say, such a plea as this be set up, it 
 is easy to answer that nothing could be less suitable to 
 Irenseus’ purpose than to make such a remark as is here sup- 
 posed in pressing an historical argument. The effect of it 
 would in reality be, not to raise the testimony of the Roman 
 Church to an equivalence with that of the whole body of the 
 faithful, but to sink the value of the testimony of the whole 
 body of the faithful, and reduce it to nothing better than the 
 single testimony of the Roman Bishops. If a million of men 
 are previously possessed with a principle, that they must un- 
 hesitatingly and implicitly acquiesce in and subscribe to the 
 decisions of a single person, their acquiescence and subscrip- 
 tion is thenceforth stripped of all pretension to the character 
 of independent and concurrent testimony. The voice of such 
 a body is only the voice of one, with a million echoes. 
 Irenseus would therefore have been manifestly weakening 
 his own argument, and detracting from the weight of the 
 testimony which he was himself about to produce, if in such 
 a connection he had insisted upon the remark that the whole 
 Church felt itself bound to comply with the decisions of the 
 Church of Rome, considered as the mother and mistress of 
 all churches. 
 
 In short, if ‘ con venire ad ’ means,, as perhaps it does, 1 to 
 agree with,’ then, in order to preserve any tolerable coherence 
 of thought and reasoning, the ‘ necesse est ’ must mean some 
 logical , not moral necessity ; and consequently the ‘ potior 
 principalitas ’ to which it refers must denote something 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course nr. 
 
 different from the sovereignty which demands obedience. 
 It is as a sample of proper independent and concurrent 
 evidence that Irenaeus is producing the tradition of the 
 Church of Rome, and he says that the c potior principalitas ’ 
 of that Church is a ground for believing that its tradition 
 fairly represents the independent traditions of the other 
 churches ; so that the ‘ potior principalitas ’ must plainly be 
 something which, without affecting the independence of those 
 traditions, yet makes it reasonably credible that they should 
 harmonise with that of Rome. 
 
 Now we must remember, as we said before, that we are 
 dealing with a most barbarous and bungling version of a 
 Greek text, and not with the very words of Irenaeus himself, 
 and that it is wholly uncertain what the words intended to be 
 represented by ‘ potiorem,’ (or as some read, £ potentiorem) prin- 
 cipalitatem,’ really were. This we do know, that, a little after, 
 this same translator talks of Clement as having written 
 £ potentissimas litteras ’ — an expression which would no doubt 
 have been fastened upon as describing some authoritative 
 rescript or decretal epistle, if the very letter in question were 
 not still extant, and if the Greek text of Irenseus in that 
 passage, fortunately preserved by Eusebius, did not show us 
 that the original words were Lfcavcordrrjv rypacfryv. 
 
 In the place before us, the term translated principalitas 
 was probably ’A p^rj — a word which, as I need not tell you, 
 may denote almost any kind of precedence or pre-eminence 
 whatever. And if we look into the context to discover what 
 sort of apyf\ or pre-eminence Irenaeus here claims for the 
 Church of Rome, we perceive at once quite enough fully to 
 justify his use of such a term. He has just described that 
 Church as ‘ maximae et antiquissimae ’ (which word, by the bye, 
 makes it plain that he is in his own mind comparing it only 
 with the Churches of the West, since no one could be so foolish 
 as to say that Rome was older than the Church of Jerusalem, 
 or that of Antioch or Caesarea or Samaria), — as c maximae et 
 antiquissimae, et omnibus cognitae et a gloriosissimis apostolis 
 Petro et Paulo constitutae.’ Now these four characteristics — 
 
t.'RCT. IT. 
 
 THE ‘POTIOR PRINC1PALITAS ’ OF ROME. 
 
 259 
 
 its greatness, its antiquity, its foundation by the two most 
 illustrious of the Apostles, and its consequent position as a 
 light set on a hill in the eye of the whole world, seem a 
 sufficient dignity to justify the use of the term ’A in 
 reference to them, and, what still more confirms this view, to 
 explain why Irenasus should think such a pre-eminence a good 
 ground for treating the tradition of the Roman Church as 
 a fair exponent of the independent traditions of the other 
 Apostolic Churches. With this Church of Rome, he would 
 say on this view of the case, we must needs infer from the 
 high prerogatives I have enumerated, that the tradition of 
 every church agrees in which the teaching of the Apostles has 
 been preserved pure and uncorrupt. Peter and Paul, the two 
 most illustrious of the Apostles, must surely have known the 
 highest mysteries of the gospel, and would undoubtedly have 
 committed them to the chosen persons whom they selected to 
 take charge of the most considerable of all the churches they 
 founded ; and if the teaching of the successors of those men 
 had varied from theirs, the change would have been observed 
 in the case of a See placed in so conspicuous a position as that 
 of Rome. This may not be as strong an argument as could 
 be wished, but it is certainly an intelligible one, and carries 
 on what we certainly know to be Ireneeus’ train of thought and 
 reasoning in this place with perfect coherence and consistency. 
 
 Before quitting this passage, however, I must remark that 
 a somewhat different turn is generally given to it by Pro- 
 testant commentators. They, I think, for the most part, refer 
 the ‘ potior principalitas ’ or c potentior principalitas ’ to the 
 City, not to the Church, and explain the ‘ convenire ad ’ not 
 of agreement but of personal visitation. In short, they would 
 translate the passage thus : 1 For to this Church, on account 
 of the predominance of the city of Rome, the faithful from 
 all quarters are obliged to repair, and in it consequently the 
 faith delivered down by the Apostles is constantly watched and 
 so preserved by the rest of the Church — that is, by Christians 
 from every part of the world.’ 
 
 It is in favour of this translation, that in describing the 
 
260 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course hi. 
 
 faithful who compose the rest of the Church, we have the 
 word ‘ undique,’ from all quarters, instead of £ ubique,’ in 
 all quarters. But as I have before said, anything which 
 depends upon the diction of the Latin version of Irenaeus 
 depends upon a very frail foundation. And I cannot 
 but think that if Irenseus had been here thinking of the 
 civil pre-eminence of the city of Rome, he would have 
 expressed his meaning more fully, and in a way that would 
 have left traces, even in this barbarous translation. For, to 
 do this translator justice, he never omits a word, except 
 where, as in the case of the article, the nature of the Latin 
 language compels such an omission. Lie translates generally 
 word for word. His only fault being that any word, which 
 ever corresponds to the Greek term, he thinks will answer all 
 purposes and every place. Hence, I think, if Irenaeus had 
 meant to speak of the civil pre-eminence of Rome,- we should 
 have found in the translation — ‘ ad hanc enim ecclesiam 
 propter urbis potentiorem principalitatem necesse est convenire 
 omnern ecclesiam, h.e. eos qui sunt undique fideles.’ 
 
 There can be, however, I think, no reasonable doubt that, 
 whatever objections this explanation is open to, it is open to 
 far less weighty ones than that of the Romanists. If any- 
 thing can be plainly collected from this passage, amidst the 
 barbarisms and ambiguities with which it is now disfigured, 
 it is that the Romish exposition of it is untenable. But it 
 is much easier to see what is not, than what is, the meaning 
 of the contested clauses. Throwing them, however, entirely 
 out of consideration for the present, enough remains in that 
 part about which there is no dispute to illustrate the point 
 in connection with which I at first alleged it, the position of 
 dignity and influence which the Roman Church occupied as the 
 Apostolic Chair of the Western portion of the Roman Empire, 
 and thus, to Gaul and Spain and North Africa, the historical 
 representative of the teaching of its Apostolic founders. 
 
 There is another famous, and indeed parallel passage to 
 this, in Tertullian’s 1 De Prescription. Hasret.’ which sheds 
 additional light upon this view of the case. 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 TERTULLIAN’S VIEW OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 261 
 
 4 If/ says he, 4 thou wouldst exercise to some useful pur- 
 pose thy curiosity in the matter of thy salvation, run through 
 the Apostolic Churches, in which the very chairs of the 
 Apostles are set in their places of pre-eminence, and the 
 authentic letters of the Apostles are recited, calling up the 
 very sound of the voice and mien of the face characteristic of 
 their authors. Is Achaia next thee ? thou hast Corinth. If 
 not far from Macedonia, Philippi and Thessalonica. If Asia, 
 Ephesus. If thou art next to Italy, thou hast Rome, whence 
 we too (he means the Carthaginians) have an authority close 
 at hand. Happy Church, into which the Apostles poured 
 forth their whole teaching with their blood. Where Peter 
 met a death like the Lord’s passion, and Paul an end resem- 
 bling the Baptist’s. Whence John, after coming safely out 
 of a cauldron of burning oil, was banished to an island. Let 
 us see what this Church learned, what she taught, what she 
 exchanged with the Africans ’ (c. 36). 3 
 
 With Tertullian, you see, as with Irenasus, the whole 
 thought is of proper historical evidence, and the foundation 
 of the Roman Church by the Apostles Peter and Paul is 
 referred to only as affording a strong presumption that the 
 teaching of that Church was the tradition handed down from 
 those Apostles through the line of its successive Bishops. 
 The appeal made to Rome is not different in kind from that 
 made to Corinth, or Ephesus, or Philippi, or Smyrna. 
 
 But when we pass on to a somewhat later authority of the 
 
 3 ‘ Age jam qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in negotio salutis tuae, 
 percurre ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc cathedrae Apostolorum 
 suis locis praesidentur, apud quas ipsae authenticae litterae eorum recitantur, 
 sonantes vocem et repraesentantes faciem uniuscuj usque. Proxime est 
 tibi Achaia, habes Corinthum. Si non longe es a Macedonia, habes 
 Philippos, habes Thessalonicenses. Si potes in Asiam tendere, habes Ephe- 
 sum : si autem Italiae adjaces, habes Romam : undequaque auctoritas 
 praesto est. Statu foelix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam Apostoli cum san- 
 guine suo profuderunt : ubi Petrus passione Dominicae adaequatur, ubi 
 Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur, ubi Apostolus Joannes posteaquam in 
 oleum igneum demersus, nihil passus est, in insulam relegatus. Videamus 
 quid dixerit, quid docuerit, quid cum Aphricanis quoque ecclesiis contes» 
 serarit.’ De Prescript, adv. liter, c. 3G, Franek. 1597. — Ed. 
 
262 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY. course jit. 
 
 African Church, Cyprian of Carthage, we find in his earlier 
 writings the first glimpses of a more mysterious dignity invest- 
 ing the person of the Bishop of Rome. In Cyprian’s view, 
 the Bishop of Rome wears, in virtue of his office as the lineal 
 successor to Peter, a sort of sacramental or symbolic character, 
 as typifying the unity of the Episcopate. Peter, according to 
 Cyprian, typified the whole body of the Episcopate. When 
 our Lord promised to build His Church upon him, and to give 
 him the keys of the kingdom, it was to show the absolute unity, 
 the identity of power and office, in all the inheritors of it, that 
 it was first thus given to one single person. In one sense 
 therefore, every Bishop is the successor of Peter, and in every 
 Church the chair of Peter is set up, because Peter thus con- 
 sidered is the very type of the whole Episcopate. But as the 
 Bishops of Rome are peculiarly his successors, therefore Rome 
 may be called eminently — ‘ Petri cathedra, ecclesia principalis, 
 unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est .’ 4 
 
 4 Ep. liv., ad Cornelium. The Bishop had no doubt some of the follow- 
 ing passages also in view in this discussion of Cyprian’s opinions : — Ep. 
 xx vi., Lapsis : ‘ Dominus noster, cujus praecepta et monita observare 
 debemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens in evange- 
 lio loquitur et dicit Petro : Ego tibi dico, etc. . . . Inde per temporum et 
 successionum vices episcoporum ordinatio et ecclesiae ratio decurrit, ut 
 ecclesia super episcopos constituatur, et omnis actus ecclesiae per eosdem 
 praepositos gubernetur.’ Ep. li., ad Antonianum de Cornelio : * Manente 
 concordiae vinculo et perseverante catholicae ecclesiae individuo sacramento, 
 actum suum disponit et dirigit unusquisque episcopus. . . . Cum sit a 
 Christo una ecclesia per totum mundum divisa, item episcopatus unus 
 episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate diffusus.’ Ep. lxix., ad 
 Januarium : ‘ Una ecclesia a Christo Domino super Petrum origine unitatis 
 et ratione fundata.’ De Unitate Ecclesice, cap. ii. : ‘ Loquitur Dominus ad 
 Petrum : Ego tibi dico, etc. Et iterum eidem : Pasce oves meas. Super 
 ilium unum aedificat ecclesiam suam, et illi pascendas mandat oves suas. 
 Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus post resurrectionem suam parem potestatem 
 tribuat et dicat, Sicut misit me Pater, etc., tamen, ut unitatem manifes- 
 taret, unitatis ejusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate dis- 
 posuit. Hoc erant utique et caeteri Apostoli quod f uit Petrus, pari consortio 
 praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur et 
 primatus Petro datur, ut una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una monstretur. 
 Et pastores sunt omnes, et grex unus ostenditur, qui ab Apostolis omnibus 
 unanimi consensione pascatur, ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur. . . . 
 Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur.’ 
 
LECT. II. 
 
 CYPRIAN’S VIEW OF THE ROMAN SEE. 
 
 263 
 
 It is not easy to see what real prerogatives this position, 
 according to Cyprian, conferred upon the Bishop of Rome ; 
 but it seems clear that it could not give that Bishop any 
 greater prerogatives in the College of Bishops, than the 
 singling out of Peter, from whom its dignity was derived, 
 gave to Peter himself in the College of Apostles. And it is 
 quite plain that, according to Cyprian’s view, Peter had no 
 sort of jurisdiction over the rest of his brethren. ‘ Hoc erant,’ 
 he says expressly, — ‘ hoc erant utique et caeteri Apostoli 
 quod fuit Petrus pari consortio prsediti et honoris et potes- 
 tatis.’ If the rest of the Apostles were equal to Peter in 
 honour and power notwithstanding the symbolical character 
 which he bore, we may be sure that the inheritance of that 
 symbolical character conferred upon his successors no pre- 
 eminence in honour or power above the other Bishops of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 Indeed, the more closely we examine Cyprian’s idea, the 
 more it will appear intended logically to exclude all claim of 
 superior jurisdiction on the part of the Bishops of Rome over 
 other prelates ; and that in the most dexterous of all ways, 
 under cover of a compliment. For the essence of their 
 sacramental character was, that they symbolised in a peculiar 
 way the absolute oneness of the episcopal office, which was to 
 be conceived of as whole and entire in every single Bishop — 
 as utterly incapable of degrees of increase or diminution. So 
 that no one Bishop could be more a Bishop than any other. 
 So that a Bishop of Rome who usurped authority over his 
 brethren would be really acting a more manifestly inconsis- 
 tent part than any other prelate in the Church, because he 
 would be flagrantly denying that very truth of the indepen- 
 dence and integrity of the episcopal office, which, as the 
 personal successor of Peter, he in a peculiar manner himself 
 symbolised. 
 
 But if, as seems probable, Cyprian cherished this idea of 
 his under the persuasion of its affording a guarantee for the 
 independence of the Bishops, he was certainly mistaken in 
 that persuasion. He had materially served the cause of 
 
264 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY, course in. 
 
 Roman aggrandisement. The conception of the Bishop of 
 Rome as officially the successor of St. Peter, and as, in virtue 
 of his office, inheriting over and above other Bishops whatever 
 that Apostle had over and above other Apostles, — this was a 
 plain and intelligible notion ; while the airy kind of symbolism 
 in which this pre-eminence was made to consist, and the 
 metaphysical conception of an Episcopate one and indivisible 
 subsisting in its integrity in every Bishop at one and the same 
 time, — these were thoughts too abstract and refined to be 
 ever popular. 
 
 Meanwhile it is certain, I think, that from an early period 
 the Roman Bishops were a succession of men very ready to 
 avail themselves of every opportunity of extending their 
 authority. The Roman character is naturally ambitious, and 
 ambitious men soon began to discover that a Christian Church 
 offered a wide field for the exercise of their powers. A body 
 ramified like the Christian fraternity through all the pro- 
 vinces, and in which the road to a distinguished position of 
 influence was open to all candidates for the favour of the 
 Christian people, by whose suffrages priests and bishops were 
 recommended to their stations, such a body was too considerable 
 an engine not to present temptations to the ambitious mind. 
 
 I know there are many who shrink, as if from some pro- 
 fanity, from the thought of imputing ambition to a martyr 
 Bishop of the second or third centuries ; but this feeling 
 shows, I think, a great ignorance of human nature as well as 
 of Ecclesiastical history. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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