Note 168 — Chapter II

Footnote 168:

(return)

Both repeatedly and very decidedly declared that the unity of faith (the rule of faith) is sufficient for the unity of the Church, and that in other things there must be freedom (see above all Tertull., de orat., de bapt., and the Montanist writings). It is all the more worthy of note that, in the case of a question in which indeed the customs of the different countries were exceedingly productive of confusion, but which was certainly not a matter of faith, it was again a bishop of Rome, and that as far back as the 2nd century, who first made the observance of the Roman practice a condition of the unity of the Church and treated nonconformists as heterodox (Victor; see Euseb., H. E. V. 24). On the other hand Irenæus says: 'η διαφωνια της νηστειας την 'ομονοιαν της πιστεως συνιστησι.