Note 145 — Chapter I

Footnote 145:

(return)

Zahn remarks (Ignatius, v. A. p. VII.): "I do not believe it to be the business of that province of historical investigation which is dependent on the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers as main sources, to explain the origin of the universal Church in any sense of the term; for that Church existed before Clement and Hermas, before Ignatius and Polycarp. But an explanatory answer is needed for the question, by what means did the consciousness of the 'universal Church' so little favoured by outer circumstances, maintain itself unbroken in the post-Apostolic communities?" This way of stating it obscures, at least, the problem which here lies before us, for it does not take account of the changes which the idea "universal Church" underwent up to the middle of the third century—besides, we do not find the title before Ignatius. In so far as the "universal Church" is set forth as an earthly power recognisable in a doctrine or in political forms, the question as to the origin of the idea is not only allowable, but must be regarded as one of the most important. On the earliest conception of the "Ecclesia" and its realisation, see the fine investigations of Sohm "Kirchenrecht," I. p. i ff., which, however, suffer from being a little overdriven.