CHURCH AND STATE AS SEEN IN THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM. BY T. W. ALLIES, M.A.

AUTHOR OF “PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM, THE RESULT OF A LIFE,” “A LIFE’S DECISION,” “JOURNAL IN FRANCE AND LETTERS FROM ITALY,” “THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM,” ETC. LONDON: BURNS AND OATES. 1882.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PROLOGUE.

PAGE

The Kingdom as Prophesied and as Fulfilled, xix

CHAPTER I.

Relation Between the Civil and the Spiritual Powers from Adam to Christ.

1. The Divine and the Human Society, founded in Adam, refounded in Noah.

The origin of man, of woman, of marriage, and of the human family, 1

Archetypal character of the fact that man is created a Race, 3

Sole creation of Adam in the maturity of thought and speech and the perfection of knowledge, as shown in the naming of creatures, 4

Subsequent building of woman from man, 5

The divine Image and Likeness in the individual man, 5

A further Image of the ever-blessed Trinity in the Race, 6

Indication of the Headship and the Passion of Christ in the original creation, 8

Beauty and splendour of the divine plan, 9

The part in the divine plan which belongs to man’s free-will, 10

The divine treatment of man as a Race not broken by the Fall, 11

Adam after the Fall the head of the civil and the religious order, 12

Bearing of man’s condition before the Fall upon his subsequent state, 13

Adam receives in a great promise a disclosure of the future, 14

He becomes the Teacher and likewise the Priest of his Race, 15

The rite of sacrifice, 15

Triple dignity of Adam in this first society, 16

Man breaks up this society by the misuse of his free-will, 17

Resumption of the unity of the Race and its reparation in Noah, 18

Condition of man, individual and collective, at this new beginning of the race; marriage and sacrifice, 19

Express establishment of civil government by divine authority, 20

Union of religion with civil government from the beginning, 21

Parallel between Adam and Noah, 22

2. The Divine and Human Society in the Dispersion.

Unity of human language withdrawn on account of a great sin, 24

Coeval with which the various nations spring forth out of the one original society, 26

Injury to human society by the degradation of the conception of God, 28

Loss of belief in the divine unity followed by loss of the sense of man’s brotherhood, 29

Proof of this brotherhood recovered by science in the case of the Aryan family of nations, 31

The one universal society becomes many nations at enmity with each other, 32

Their state after a long lapse of time, when their several histories begin, 33

Original goods of the race still remaining—

1. Marriage, 35

2. Religion as centered in the rite of sacrifice, 37

3. Civil government, 38

4. Alliance between government and religion, 41

Cumulative testimony of the four in their contrast with slavery to the unity of man’s Race, as its origin is recorded by Moses, 43

Summary of the course of mankind from the Dispersion to Christ, 44

3. Further Testimony of Law, Government, and Priesthood in the Dispersion.

The fiction of universal savagery, or different races, or simial descent, 45

The author of “Ancient Law” upon original society, 46

Proof from comparative jurisprudence of the patriarchal theory, 47

Law and government in their commencement, 48

Family the ancient unit of society, 49

Universal belief or assumption of blood-relationship, 50

The Roman Patria Potestas a relic of the original rule, 52

Family everything, the individual unknown, 52

Original union of religion with government, 53

Origin of law and property, 54

Summary of the foregoing witness, 55

The Two Powers from the beginning, 56

Degradation of worship and degradation of society in Gentilism, 57

Deification of the State, 58

Which, however, remains a lawful power, 59

The distinction between sacerdotal and civil power in the Roman republic, 60

The power of the Pontifex Maximus united to that of the Principate, 62

The College of Pontifices reversing a tribunitial law, 63

The distinction between Sacerdotal and Civil Power running through all ancient nations, 64

Witness of the heathen priesthood to the unity of man’s Race, 65

The providence of Abraham’s call, 66

Relation of the Two Powers in the Mosaic law, 67

The actual result of the coming of Christ, 68

CHAPTER II.

Relation between the Spiritual and the Civil Powers after Christ.

1. The Spiritual Power in its Source and Nature.

The Spiritual Power not only allied but subordinate to the Civil throughout the Gentile world at the death of Christ, 70

1. Its independence in Israel alone, as acknowledged by the people, a result of the creation of the Aaronic priesthood, 72

Special offices of the High Priest, 73

2. The part of the High Priest through the whole history from Moses to Christ, 75

3. The actual jurisdiction of the High Priest under the Roman Empire, 77

4. The High-priesthood and the system of worship over which it presided viewed as a prophecy and preparation for Christ, 80

Bearing of the High-priesthood to Christ at His coming, 82

The undisputed circumstances of Christ’s death, 83

Extreme antecedent improbability of what followed, 84

Its dependence upon a supernatural and miraculous fact, 85

As the Race springs from Adam in Paradise, so the Spiritual Power from Christ at His Resurrection, 86

The inward cohesion of Priesthood, Teaching, and Jurisdiction, 87

The two forces of the Primacy and the Hierarchy from the beginning, 90

The unity and triplicity of power in the regimen of the Church an image of the Divine Unity and Trinity, 92

2. The Spiritual Power a Complete Society.

The supernatural society exists for a supernatural end, 93

To which the present life is subordinated, 94

And which is beyond the provision of temporal government, 95

Analogy between the Two Powers, 96

Complete philosophical basis on which the Spiritual Power rests, 98

How the inward life which it imparts is united with the Person of Christ, 99

From whom, in worship, belief, and conduct, the Christian people derives, 101

The King and the Kingdom not of this world but in it, fulfilled in thirteen particulars, 103

1. A kingdom ruling all the relations of man Godward, 103

2. Having an end outside this life, 103

3. Deriving all authority from Christ as Apostle and High Priest, 103

4. Producing its people from its King, 103

5. Imparting grace from the King in its sacraments, 104

6. Transmitting the King’s truth by the order of its regimen, 104

7. Having a complete analogy with civil government, 104

8. Fulfilling man’s need of supernatural society, 105

9. Generating an universal law for all relations of public and private life, 105

10. Possessing independence of the Temporal Power, 106

11. Not limited in space, 106

12. Not limited in time, 107

13. A kingdom of charity through union with its King, 107

3. Relation of the Two Powers to each other.

Principles which ruled the relation between the Two Powers before Christ, 108

A new basis given to the Spiritual Power by Christ, from which every relation to the Temporal Power springs, 110

1. All Christians subject to the Spiritual Power, 112

2. And likewise to the Temporal Power as God’s Vicegerent, 112

3. The relation between the Two Powers intended by God is amity, 114

4. A separate action of the Two Powers, without regard to each other, not intended, 115

5. Persecution of the Spiritual by the Temporal not intended, 119

6. Contrast between human kingdoms and the divine kingdom, 120

The end the ground of the subordination of the one to the other, 122

Doctrine of St. Thomas to that effect, 123

The indirect power over temporal things, 124

Sum of the foregoing chapter; Orders of Nature and Grace, 125

Co-operation of the Two Powers as stated by St. Gregory VII., 126

The image of marriage, as describing the ideal relation and the various deflections from it, 128

CHAPTER III.

Transmission of Spiritual Authority from the Person of our Lord to Peter and the Apostles, as set forth in the New Testament.

The Church a kingdom subsisting from age to age by its own force, but its original records to be considered, 131

Institution of the Priesthood; St. Paul’s and St. Luke’s testimony, 132

St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. John, 133

Transmission of Spiritual Power as recorded by St. Matthew, 136

The same according to St. Mark, 138

The same according to St. Luke in his Gospel, 139

And in the Acts, 139

His record of a peculiar promise made to Peter, 141

Conversation which forms his main addition to the narrative, 141

Contrast between Gentile and Christian rule, 143

The kingdom disposed to the Apostles, 144

The confirmation of the brethren, 145

The time of the confirming marked out, 146

St. Luke distinguishes Peter as markedly as St. Matthew and St. John, 148

Testimony of St. John as to the promises made to the Apostles, 149

And as to the universal pastorship bestowed on St. Peter, 152

Two classes of passages, 153

Comparison of the two, 154

And of the testimony of the four Evangelists, 156

Caution that what is recorded is not all that passed, 157

Perfect instruction of the Apostles in the forty days, 158

The powers comprising the Apostolate, 159

The powers bestowed on Peter, 160

Testimony of St. Paul; conception of the Church as the Body of Christ, 161

Of the one ministry by which the Body is compacted together, 162

Of mission from this Body as necessary to every herald of the gospel, 164

Of the grace given by ordination, 165

Mow the unity set forth by St. Paul bears witness to the Primacy of St. Peter, 166

Of the inseparable bond of unity, truth, and government in St. Paul’s mind, 167

Six names by which he designates the principle of his own authority, 168

The great vision of our Lord and His Church in the Apocalypse in accordance with St. Paul and the Evangelists, 171

Four qualities of Spiritual Power in this Scriptural testimony, 175

1. The coming from above, 175

2. Its completeness, 176

3. Its unity, 179

4. Its independence, 181

How the idea of perpetuity pervades all these qualities, 182

CHAPTER IV.

Transmission of Spiritual Authority, as Witnessed in the History of the Church from A.D. 29 to A.D. 325.

The letter of St. Clement of Rome, 184

Description of this letter by St. Irenæus, 185

St. Clement urges the Roman military discipline as an example for Christian obedience, 186

Minute regulations given by Christ as to religious ordinances, 187

The descent of all spiritual order from above, 188

Example of Moses in establishing the Jewish Pontificate, 189

How the Apostles appointed everywhere Bishops with a rule of succession, 190

St. Clement fills up details omitted in the Gospel record, 190

How he attests the continuation of the Mosaic hierarchy of high priest, priest, and levite in the Christian Church, 191

How he says that Christian ordinances are to be observed more accurately than Mosaic, 193

How the Apostles carried out the descent of power from above, 194

Why St. Clement instances the origin of the Jewish hierarchy, 195

How St. Clement exercises the Primacy, 197

St. Ignatius of Antioch supplements St. Clement of Rome, 200

His statement as to Bishops throughout the world, combined with his statement as to the authority of the local Bishop, 201

The complete testimony of St. Clement and St. Ignatius, 203

The historian Eusebius notes three periods in the first ninety years, 205

Sum of his testimony as to the great Sees and the Episcopate, 206

How Tertullian describes the first propagation of the Church, 211

And how Irenæus, 213

Concordance with the Gospels of these statements of St. Clement, St. Ignatius, Eusebius, St. Irenæus, and Tertullian, 215

Bishops in every city and town of the Empire before the peace of the Church, 216

St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles appointed everywhere local Bishops, 217

The Bishop universally said to wield a government, 218

Bishops sent out from Rome to convert the nations, 219

Episcopal government universal, 220

But the One Episcopate much more than this, 222

St. Cyprian’s One Episcopate illustrated by St. Leo the Great, 223

What the One Episcopate adds to the universal establishment of Bishops, 224

The special character of the miracle which St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine proclaimed, 227

St. Augustine’s criterion in the fourth century applied to the nineteenth, 229

St. Chrysostom’s epitome of the Church’s course preceding his time, 230

Christ’s special miracle is that He founds the race of Christians, 231

Contrast of the race with that out of which it was formed, 232

The incessant conflict amid which it was done, 233

A reflection upon this picture of the Church, 236

CHAPTER V.

The One Episcopate Resting upon the One Sacrifice.

St. Clement’s assertion of the care with which our Lord instituted the government of His Church, 238

Christ’s High-priesthood consisting in two acts, 239

1. The assumption of a created nature, 240

2. The offering that nature in sacrifice, 241

His union of these two acts in instituting the Priesthood of His Church, 242

The institution of bloody sacrifice in the world before Christ, 243

Lasaulx’s statement how it enters into all the acts of human life, 245

What the ceremonial of Gentile sacrifice was, 250

Union and correspondence of prayer and sacrifice, 253

The sense of guilt in bloody sacrifice, 254

Bloody sacrifice a positive divine enactment, 254

Statement of St. Augustine to this effect, 255

St. Thomas on sacrifice as offered to God alone, 256

Bloody sacrifice the most characteristic fact of the pre-Christian world, 257

The practice of human sacrifices running through the history of ancient nations, 259

Conclusion as to the divine appointment of sacrifice, 261

The Christian Sacrifice the counterpart of the original institution, 263

And the compendium of the whole dispensation, 265

Containing in itself all the original force of sacrifice, 267

But besides it is guardian of the Divine Unity, 268

And of the Divine Trinity, 268

And of the Incarnation, 269

And of the Redemption, 270

And of the adoption to Sonship, 271

It contains also the fountain of spiritual life, 272

And the source of sanctification, 273

And the medicine of immortality, 274

The presence of Christ’s physical body, St. Chrysostom, 275

The unity of the Christian people its result, St. Augustine, 276

How our Lord impressed His High-priesthood on the world, 276

Jurisdiction necessary to constitute a kingdom, 278

Jurisdiction in the diocese and in the whole Church, 279

The fulfilment of the parable, “I am the true vine,” 280

The Eucharistic Sacrifice the centre of life in the Church during eighteen hundred years, 283

CHAPTER VI.

Independence of the Ante-Nicene Church shown in her Organic Growth.

The Church’s triple independence in government, teaching, and worship as actually carried out, 287

Occasion of the Nicene Council’s convocation, 289

The Emperor thereby recognised the Church as a divine kingdom, 290

This kingdom, as it appeared in A.D. 29 and in A.D. 325, 291

The Emperor also acknowledged the solidarity of the Episcopate, 292

The Christian Council and the Roman Senate, 293

Force of the Council as to the relation between Church and State, 294

A. Independence of the Church’s government shown in five points, 295

1. The ordered gradation of the hierarchy in mother and daughter churches, 296

Recognised as original in the 6th canon of the Council, 297

This principle carried through the whole structure of the Church, 298

Symbolised in the building of the great medieval cathedrals, 301

2. Development of Provincial Councils, 302

3. Action of the Church in hearing and deciding causes, 303

Her proper jurisdiction in the exterior and interior forum, 304

The episcopal magistracy exercised in a fourfold gradation, 306

4. Election of Bishops and the inferior ministers, 307

St. Cyprian’s testimony, 308

Outcome of the three centuries in this respect, 309

The principle upon which all this practice was built, 310

5. Administration of temporal goods, 311

Three states as to these goods in the early Church, 312

Acquisition and usage of temporal goods, 313

Temporal goods in A.D. 29 and in A.D. 325, 315

B. Independence of the Church’s teaching, 316

The first teaching purely oral, based upon authority, 317

Three classes of truths forming the divine and the apostolical tradition, 319

Importance in this period of exclusively oral teaching in exhibiting the Church’s office of teacher, 320

Seen in the rite of baptism, 321

In the Eucharistic Liturgy, 322

Picture of the Eucharistic Sacrifice by an Apostle, 324

Further exhibition in the rite of Ordination, 328

Fullness of the Magisterium expressed in these rites, 329

The Church’s teaching office neither changed nor diminished by the writings of the New Testament, 331

Shown by the nature of the office in itself, 331

By the circumstances under which these writings came, 331

By their internal arrangement, 332

By their own positive testimony, 335

The living personal authority an unchangeable principle, 335

Things in the Church which preceded the publication of the New Testament, 336

The written record of our Lord’s words and acts, 337

The various parts of ecclesiastical tradition, 338

CHAPTER VII.

Independence of the Ante-Nicene Church shown in her mode of Positive Teaching and in her mode of Resisting Error.

Germ of the Church in the missionary circuits of our Lord, 340

The mission carried on by the Apostles, 341

Its two parts: work of positive teaching and defence against error, 343

As to the first—

1. The system of catechesis, 344

2. The employment of a Creed, 347

3. The dispensing of Sacraments, 349

4. The system of Penance, 351

5. The Scriptures carried in the Church’s hand, 352

This mode of promulgation continued during fifteen centuries, 355

Substitution of a private interpretation of Scripture by the individual attempted in the sixteenth century, 356

Summary of the mode in which the Church promulgated the faith, 358

As to the second, the Church’s defence against error lay in the principle of her own authority, 360

The first conflict with unbelieving Judaism, 362

Three incidents of it—

The proclaiming Jesus to be the Christ, 362

The receiving the Gentiles without Circumcision, 363

The protection of being Jews enjoyed by the first preachers of Christ, 364

Gradual severance of the Christian Church from the Synagogue, 369

Circumstances and peculiar difficulties of the Ante-Nicene Church, 371

The first condition of Christians one of simple faith, 376

The two opposed principles of orthodoxy and heresy, 378

Contest between them indicated in the Apostolic writings, 380

Character of the first writings after the Apostles, 381

Christian learning in the second century; conversions of heathens who became Christian apologists, 382

Extension of education given in great catechetical schools, 385

The defence against error lodged in the Magisterium, 387

The Magisterium lies in the Church’s divine government and concrete life, 388

Athanasius as the expounder of it; his fundamental idea, 389

His Statement as to the authority of Scripture, 391

As to the Rule of Faith, 392

As to private judgment, 393

His tests of heresy, 393

Definitions, 394

How the Magisterium embraces Scripture and Tradition, and employs them as a joint rule, 395

Testimony of the Council of Arles to the above principles, 397

And Constantine’s public recognition that the Magisterium of Christ is lodged in the Bishops, 398

CHAPTER VIII.

The Church’s Battle for Independence over against the Roman Empire.

Alliance of the Two Powers in the Roman Empire at the Advent of Christ, 400

The Emperor official guardian of all religions, 401

The Christian religion a singular exception, 403

Its cause the position of Christians towards heathendom, 404

Contradiction in belief, worship, and government, 405

The Christian people as the outcome of these three constituents, 411

The course of the Roman Empire and the Christian Church in three hundred years, 414

The ten persecutions from Nero to Diocletian, 417

The Martyrs champions of a great army, 421

St. Paul’s account of this army’s creation, 422

The wonder of this creation, 424

Supernatural character of the conversion wrought in these times, 426

Accounted for only by the internal action of the Holy Ghost, 427

Power of the κήρυγμα insisted on by Clement of Alexandria, 429

Contrasted by him with the impotence of philosophy, 430

Sufferings which followed on conversion according to Tertullian, 431

Martyrs enduring or God what heroes endured for goods of nature, 432

Origen insists on the divine power shown in converting sinners, 434

On miracles of conversion as greater than bodily miracles, 435

The spread of the Church and the conversion of sinners viewed together, 436

Miracles only could account for the spread of the Church, 437

Statement of Irenæus as to miraculous powers exercised in his time, 438

Athanasius on the cessation of idolatry, oracles, and magic, 440

And on the greatness of the conversion wrought by Christ, 442

The necessity of miracles in proof of our Lord’s mission, 444

The connection between miracles and martyrdom, 445

Parallel between them as to their principle, witness, power, and perpetuity, 449

How the liberty of the Church was gained against the empire, 455

How the Martyrs constructed a basis for civil liberty, 456

The five conflicts of the Church with Judaism, Heresy, Idolatry, Philosophy, and the Roman State, 459