A history of the Catholic church of Jesus Christ : from the death of Saint John to the middle of the second century

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I. HISTORY OF CLEMENS ROMANUS ..... 1

Chapter II

THE GENUINE AND SUITOSITITIOUS WKITINGS OF ST. CLEMENT.

There are two great principles wliicli can be fairly i^^atliered from St. Clement's First Epistle to the Corintliians. The first is, that he does not deny, but tacitly at least allows, that the Christian ministry of any particular Church is subject to that Church, even to the extent of deprivation. The second is, that bishops and pres])yters are of one and the same order. The first principle is involved in the very arguments, reproofs, and expostulations which he addresses to the laity of Corinth for their illtreatment of their ministers.

When he says,^ ' We do not think it just that those who were set in their place by the Apostles, or presently afterwards by other famous men, with the approval of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly discharged their ministry in the flock of Christ, humbly, peacefully, dihgently, who for a long time have been well reported of by all men, should be removed from their ministry,' he lays down, or rather concedes, a principle. This passage occurs towards the end of the epistle. It is the very point towards which he had been working up throughout. This makes it all the more important. The sedition which the epistle was written to quell was a rising up of the laity of Corinth against their ministers, the bishops or presbyters, and the deacons, and removing them from their station. St. Clement, then, does not, as a later writer would probably have done, write to the diocesan bishop of Corinth, and recommend him to excommunicate the offenders, or to lay the whole Corinthian Church under an interdict, but he writes to the people themselves, and in mild and loving, but very firm words shows them their error, shows them that they were acting in a way displeasing to God.

Let liis whole line of argument be judged fairly and dispassionately, and it will be found to amount to this — ' I do not deny that it is competent to you to remove wicked or unworthy ministers from their office, but your ministers are neither wicked nor unworthy, they are good and holy men, as ye yourselves very well know, and it is for this reason, I say, that you cannot justly deprive them.' St. Clement's method succeeded in a case where the anatliemas which have been employed in later ages would probably have failed, ?s anatliemas usually have fliiled. After the receipt of this letter, we hear nothing more of schism or sedition in the Church of Corinth. And so little were the Corinthians offended by St. Clement's plain speaking, since it was done in love, that his Epistle was read aniong them as holy and inspired Scripture as late as the time of St. Jerome.^

The identity of bishops and presbyters, in St. Clement's view, may be seen fiom various particulars. There is every reason to believe that in no primitive Church was the bishop more than president, or chairman of the College of Presbyters, a Primus inter pares ; but the Coriiitliian Church seems to have been based upon a still more democratic foundation. There is no trace of any permanent president at Corinth for somewhat about a liundred years. St. Clement addresses his epistle simply as, ' From the Church of God, sojourning

' Eus. H. E. iii. 16. See also St. Jerome, De Viris Illustr. c. xv.

at Eome, to the Church of God which sojourneth at Corinth.' Had tliere been a bishop, or even anyone occupying a conspicuous place in the Church, it is only reasonable to suppose that some notice would liave been taken of him, or at the least some allusion made to him. Indeed, the state of things appears to have remained, in St. Clement's time, identically the same with wliat it was when St. Paul addressed both his epistles to the same Church. St. Paul wrote to the Church of God which was at Corinth, and to the saints or believers in Christ there, and in the province of Achaia.

There is, however, one passage of St. Clement's epistle which has been much relied upon by the advocates of diocesan episcopacy, and which deserves a careful examination. It occurs in the 44th chapter,^ and may be translated thus : ' Our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be a strife for the name of Episcopacy. On which account, inasmuch as they were endued with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those previously mentioned, and they presently afterwards gave it in charge, that when they were gone to their rest, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.' It will be observed that tlie pronouns ' they ' and ' their ' in this passage are ambiguous. It is impossible, without a reference to the entire context, to determine their proper significance. For who were the previously mentioned persons whom the Apostles appointed ? The 42nd chapter shows us clearly. ' Wlicn the Apostles of Christ,' it says, ' were preaching in the cities and countries, it was their custom to constitute their first-fruits, after they had tried

them, as bishops and deacons of those which should believe. And this was no new thing. It had been written of old time concerning bishops and deacons. For thus saith the Scripture in a certain place, " I will appoint their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faithfulness.'" ^ With such a passage as this before him, it is difficult to conceive how anyone could ever have even so much as dreamed that Clement of Eome held more than two apostolically appointed orders of the Christian ministry — bishops, including presbyters, and deacons. Not only does he, a contemporary of the Apostles, state what the Apostles did, but he gives it as his opinion that, in thus appointing, two orders, tliey acted in accordance with the divinely inspired prophecies of the Old Testament.

There is one more important passage of St. Clement to be noticed, in which he draws a comparison between the Jewish and the Christian priesthood. Speaking of the former, he says, ' To the High Priest have been assigned his own peculiar ministrations, and to the priests was appointed their proper place, and the Levites discharge their own functions, and laymen are bound by the precepts incumbent upon them.'^ This innocent illustration — for it is nothing more — was subsequently developed, and that in

^ Is. Ix. 17. St. Clement does not follow the LXX in his translation here, but seems to have done what his great master St. Paul did so often, translated the Hebrew for himself. But he appears to have had a somewhat different text from the one we have at present. This passage is one of several, which incline me strongly to the belief that St. Clement was particularly well acquainted with Hebrew. Unless he were, he would scarcely have substituted for the LXX ap^otrar, his own rendering, liaKorovq, of the Hebrew y'^^y The Eng. Vers. ' exactors ' is, in this instance, the best of all.

^ 1 Clem, ad Cor. c. xl. ' Tw yap (jp)(^Lept~i 'iduii XeiTovpyiai ^f lo- /itVai daw, Kul rote lepevai 'lEioc 6 tottoq TrpoCTrfVukrai, icai AeviTciiQ 'ihiai EiUKoyiai iiriKEifrai' 6 Xaii^oQ aydpmnoe toIq Xaikolg npoartTay^uaiv less than two liundred years — if we place, as we fairly may, tlie date of the Apostolic Constitutions at about a.d, 250 — into what can scarcely be described otherwise than a degrading superstition. Still, even then, it is worthy of attention, that the exaltation of bishops, as a prelatic order, had by no means reached its height. For the particular stage of development, upon which we are able to place our finger, when these wrongly called ordinances of the Apostles were compiled, was the period when the episcopal yoke was indeed being securely bound about the necks of the laity ; but presbyters still retained a large measure of their ancient freedom. To give a few instances — the case of a very illiterate bishop is supposed.^ Coercive jurisdiction over his co-presbyters could scarcely be implied. Bishops and deacons are occasionally spoken of in a way which indicates that presbyters were still looked upon as bishops.^ In the strongest language made use of to express episcopal power, the laity alone are regarded as subject to it. There is little or no mention of bishops governing presbyters.^ These writings, then, are somewhat reticent as to the episcopal power over priests. This was a yet further development, the manifestations of which St. Jerome in his day, now and again, so severely rebuked.^ But for

* ii. 10, 2. Cf. also c. 25, 5, and c. 28. * ToIq Bt vpiafivTipoi<:, CiirXrj (Cat avTo'tt; a(popi^iaOu) // fio'tpa, tiQ ■)(^(tpiv Tuty Toi) Kvpiov aTroaruXujyj (tjy KoX Tov TOTTQV (pvXaaaovuiy wc av^ftovXoi rail tTrtacoTou kuI tjJc tVkX^fft'ac artouyog.^ This jiassjjge is important in another way, aa showing that presbyters were still regarded and spoken of in the third century as successors of tlie Apostles, and ' occupying their place in the Church.' When bishops came to be looked upon as exclusively, or even par excellence, successors of the Apostles it ia hard to say exactly, but it was comparatively very late.

3 See esp. ii. cc. U, 15, IG.

* ' Illud etiam dico quod Episcopi saccrdotes se esse novcrint, non dominos.' lie had already spoken in a former epistle to Ileliodorus of tlie apparent absence of power over presbyters, the Constitutions amply compensate the episcopate by endowing it with the most tremendous jurisdiction over the laity. They are to look up to the bishop as to God. He is, ' after God in heaven, to be the layman's god upon earth.' ^ Thus early — that is to say, 150 years after the death of the last Apostle — were the most persistent efforts made to reduce the flock of Christ, which He had freed and ennobled, under a bitter bondage worse than Egyptian slavery.

The Apostolic Constitutions make much, as might be supposed, of the threefold division of the Levitical ministry ; and they assert, in so many words, that the bishop stands in the place of the high priest, the presbyters, of the ordinary priests, whilst the deacons represent the Levites.^ We have already seen that the first germ of

all presbyters as sacerdotes : ' Honorent Clericos quasi clericos ; ut et ipsis a clericis quasi Episcopis honor deferatur. Scitum illud est oratoris Domitii — " Cur ego te habeam ut principem, cum tu non me habeas ut Senatorem ? " Quod Aaron et filios ejus, hoc Episcopum et Presbyteros esse noverimus. Unus Dominus, unum Templum, unum sit etiam Ministerium. Recordemur semper quod Ap. Petrus prrecipiat Sacerdotibus, " Pascite eum, qui in vobis est, gregem. . . . neque ut dominantes in Clerum." Pessimje consuetudinis est in quibusdam ecclesiis tacere Presbyteros, et prajsentibus Episcopis non loqui, quasi aut invideant, aut non dignentur audire.' — Ep. ii. ad Heliod. It is a little curious that in this epistle St. Jerome should translate St. Pet. V. 3, by the stronger expression ' in clerum,' whilst in the Vulg. he only gives * in cleris.'

1 ' Ouroe, i.e. £7r/crk07roc, vjuuiv, SC. airipwj' XaiKiuy, iTriyEioQ QtoQ fxETa. Q(oy.'' — Apost. Const, ii. 26 and 29. * AiaA fi)) kui vfieig rovg fxtrriraQ iiiiSiv rov Xoyov TrpofijTcig eli'ai I'Ofiifnjre, Kal roiig eTriakOKovg wg deevg aeftatrdncreade ; . . . et ovf Ippidt] Mu)v(Tr]g viro Kvpiov deog, kuI n 'Aaptjy irpofi'irriQ, Kal v^'iv o IninKOTrog iig deov reTi^ijabu), Kai 6 diai^orog wg TTpofi'n rjg avTov.' Such passages might be multiplied indefinitely, and are to my mind a full justification for the expression, 'degrading superstition.'

such an idea is to bo found in St. Clement, and that lie uses it merely to illustrate tlie beauty of order as opposed to disorder.

A vast and imposing hierarchical structure has been l)uilt up upon this seeming analogy. But it only requires to examine it to be convinced of the sandy nature of the foimdation on which it rests. It is instructive to notice how, in the Constitutions, page after page is occupied in recapitulating the passages of the Old Testament which enjoin or imply the duty of reverence and obedience to the ancient i)riesthood, as a priesthood^ and then to mark the altogether irrelevant and illogical conclusion, that a like, or even a greater, measure of obedience is to be cliiiined for a bishop, as the Christian high priest.^ But even supposing it to be granted that every bishop stands in the place of the high priest, we are still a long way from the inference that therefore bishops and presbyters are two distinct orders. In a loose manner of speaking, it may be said, of course, that there are three orders — bishops, priests, and deacons; but what the advocates of diocesan episcopacy wish to prove is, that the episcopal order — in other words, the Christian high priests — have alone the power of conferring Orders, that they only can make other bishops and presbyters ; that, in fact, supposing the entire ei)iscopate of the Catholic Church had been cut off in one of the early persecutions, or supposing that they were all gathered together in an Oecumenical Council, and that the city where they were assembled were swallowed up by an earthquake, then in the next generation the

' Sne Lib, ii. ''fie ovv uvk 7\v Hoy dWoyeti}, fit) otra Afu/rrji', vportf} tyKni r<, f; niuxTeXOi'iy t\q to OvfTuifTTi'ipini' uvev rov t(piu)r, twrit) Kn'i vfif'iQ (irtv Toii e-ifTKorrov fitj^tr TToifTrt.' This is a specimen. Every reader will sec that the only logical and relevant conclusion from the premises l:iid down would he, not, * without the Bishop do nothing,' but, ' Do nothing without the Presbyter.'

Catholic Church herself must cease to be. To those who have drunk in draughts of spiritual freedom from the crystal fountain of the living Gospel of Christ, it is indeed hard to think that the Divine Head of the Catholic Church would ever have made her continued existence depend upon any one particular form of external organisation. But whether this be so or not, the analogy of the Levitical priesthood is entirely opposed to such an idea. The Jewish high priest was not a distinct order, consisting of himself alone, for the purpose of making other high priests. In the ordinary course of things there could be but one high priest at a time, or at the most two. And it so happens that we have on record an episode in Israelitish history, when the reigning high priest and his two sons, one of whom would, in due course, have been his successor, all died together without the possibility of their consecrating any one to succeed them. In one day Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were suddenly cut off. It could not require a high priest to consecrate a high priest, for, if it did, who consecrated Eli's successor?^ Thus, so far as this very ancient and much relied upon analogy is concerned, the case for episcopacy breaks down, and the only inference which can be drawn from it is, that it does not require a bishop to consecrate a bishop.

1 1 Sam. iv. 11. ' The two sons of Eli,' apparently his only two, * were slain.' This from the narrative must have happened sometime in the afternoon. Later on, in the evening of the same day, Eli himself, the high priest, fell backward from his seat — Josephus calls it his throne — by the side of the gate of Shiloh, and brake his neck and died. Still later, on the same day, the Avife of Phinehas gave birth to Ichabod. Ichabod had an elder brother called Ahiah or Ahimelech, ■who afterwards became high priest, but a comparison of dates will show that he could not, in all probability, have been old enough to officiiite at the time of his father's death ; and even if he had been, who was his consecrator ?

And yet it would be a mistake to suppose that there is notliiiig in the analogy. There is a distinction which can fairly be drawn between a bishop, technically so called, and a presbyter ; and that distinction may be called, though not in accurate language, a distinction of Order. To place the essence of this distinction between the presbyter as priest and the bishop as high priest, as consisting in the power of the latter alone to make other priests, is not only illogical, but, what is of more consequence, is unsupported by so much as a sliadow of real evidence derived from the history of the Church for two hundred years after the Day of Pentecost.

If we now refer to the Books of Exodus and Leviticus, we sliall find that the distinction between Aaron, the high priest, and his sons, who were the ordmary priests, included two things — a peculiar office or function, namely, tlie entering into the holy of holies within the veil, once in the year, upon the great Day of Atonement ;^ and in receiving a special anointing upon the head with the holy oil,^ in addition to the sprinkling of his garments with oil and blood, which was common to him with all other l)ricsts.^ It is very probable, indeed, that both these

' See the whole of Lev. xvi., especially verse 17.

^ Cf. Lev. viii. 12, 'And he poured of tlie anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him to sanctify him ' — which seems to liave been confined to the high priest — with verse 30, ' And Moses todk of the anointing oil, and of the blood, which was upon the alt.ar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his Fons' garments with him.'

' There was a less important mark of di^^tinction, which it may be well to mention, so as to escape all risk of imputation of unfairness. It was a distinction of dress. (See Lev. viii. 7.) Of Aaron it is said: ' And he put on him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and cldthcd him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ejihod— and he put the breastplate upon him ; and he put the mitre upon his head — also upon the mitre tilings are types, and if so, they have been fulfilled in the Christian Dispensation. The first by Christ entering into heaven, ' the holy place not made with hands,' after He had, as priest and victim both, made the great atonement of the cross, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews shows. But Aaron's second mark of distinction, his special anointing, may have been fulfilled by the placing one of the presbyter-bishops in the seat of honour in the midst of his brethren, so that he became the chairman, or president, the bishop par excellence} This we have

did he put the golden plate, the holy crown.' But of Aaron's sons, it is only said (see verse 13) : ' He put coats upon them, and girded them with girdles, and put bonnets upon them.'

^ In the foregoing remarks, I have merely examined the common theory that every bishop occupies, analogically, the position of the Jewish high priest. The more direct analogy would be, that there should be but one chief bishop or priest in "the Church at any one time, differing from his brethren in rank, not in order. Jealousy of Rome would of course always be likely to stand in the way of such an analogy being very generally recognised. And I am not aware that such an idea was even so much as entertained for the first eight or nine centuries, with one very remarkable exception, which, as far as I know, has hitherto escaped attention. It occurs in Origen, Hom. xvii. in Gen. He is expounding Gen xlix. 10 : ' Non deficiet Princeps, &c., usquoquo veniant ea, quas rcposita sunt ei (vel, ut in aliis exemplaribus habetur, veniat is, cui repositum est), et ipse erit expectatio gentium.' After giving the commonly received explanation about Herod becoming king, who was an alien, Origen proceeds: — 'Si vero quis in omnibus cupiat cursum utriusque expositionisaptare, potest extorquere fortassis, ut etiam de Christo ha;c hoc modo videantur intelligi, quia non deficiet princeps ex Juda, id est, qiii post Resurrectionem Ejus ecclesiarum princeps ordinatur.' (Tom v. of the Winceburgh Ed. p. 290.) The passage is ambiguous enough certainly, and it would prove nothing; but it appears to me to show at least this, that the idea of there being one chief prince or primate of the Catholic Church had crossed Origen's mind. His use of * extorquere ' convinces me that by such prince he did not mean Christ, but an earthly head. Anyhow, in reading Origen, I have often Avondered that the passage should have escaped the notice of both Roman and Protestant controversialists, who may be said to have ransacked heaven and earth for points in favour of their respective systems.

direct evidence to prove was actually the rule of the Church of Alexandria; and when, as we also know, this placing a presbyter in the presidential throne was accompanied by special prayers, and by his being solemnly blessed by his brother presbyters, then the analogy with the Levitical priesthood is so far complete.^

Ordinarily, upon the death of any Jewish high priest, the remaining priests would assemble and consecrate one of their own number to be his successor, by pouring the oil upon his head, and by clothing him with the garments appropriated to the high priest.'^ In cases, indeed, where the high priest resigned his office before his death, he might very probably take part in the consecration of his successor ; but that he should do so, could not, in the very nature of things, have been any necessary part of the ritual. Thus then it is demonstrable that the idea which has gradually grown up, that presbyters camiot be ordained without a bishop, is not only unsupported by the analogy of the Levitical priesthood, but is indeed directly opposed to it. It is not very difficult to trace how this mistaken idea originated and gradually prevailed. In every little town, sometimes even in villages, where there was a Christian community, there were several presbyters. In some of these communities or churches, as early as the times of the Apostles, and probably by about the middle

' The question of the Alexandrine Church will be fully discussed elsewhere.

^ But in tlie case where Aaron was succeeded by his son Eloaznr (see Numb. xx. 20-29), there is no mention of the latter receiving any fresh anoiiiting. Aaron put off the high priest's robes, and El< azar put them on. Nothing more is recorded there as being actually done. But cf. E.x. xxi.x. 29, which would seem fairly to imply that the sjiecial anointing of the head, spoken of in a former note, would ordinarily tiike place. At the same time, in Eleazar's case, it must have been after his father's death.

D

84 HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHUrXTI.

of the second century in all, one of these presbyters was appointed or elected to the office of president, and was sometimes called the bishop. In all solemn functions he ordinarily took a leading part. He gave Baptism at the great festivals of Easter and Whitsuntide ; he celebrated the Holy Eucharist upon the Lord's-day in the assembly of the faithful.^ It was wrong to do anything of importance without his knowledge, a grievous sin to perform any act of spiritual authority in opposition to him — not because the act would thereby be invalid, but because its performance would be an offence against the order and unity and peace of the whole Church.'^ But especially at those times when presbyters, who had been chosen by the people for the ministry of the word and sacraments, were to be ordained, did the office of the bishop-president become of prime dignity and prominence. Then the whole body of the foithful would be gathered together, and the president, surrounded by his fellow-bishops or fellow-presbyters, would, together with them, lay his hands upon the Ordinandi, as they were called, and admit them to the sacred ministry. Upon such occasions we may Avell believe that the president would never, or scarcely ever, be absent ; and thus the opinion would gradually prevail that his presence was essential, not merely to manifest the visible unity of the Church, but to confer that grace of holy

1 See Bingham, Eccles. Ant. b. ii. cap. 3 — where he carries the prerogatives of bishops to the highest possible pitch, making even preaching on the part of a presbyter to be nothing more tljan a delegated function, allowed, or perhaps tolerated rather, by his superior. He gives a great number of valuable references, but chiefly to writers subsequent to 250 a.d. All real students of Ecclcfiiastical History are recommended to examine them carefully for themselves, and it is by no means impossible that they may find them speak to them in a different voice from that which Bingham heard.

2 This seems the fairest and most reasonable interpretation of tlie strong things said by St. Ignatius of Antiocli. Cf. Ep. ad Smyin. cap. viii. with Ep. ad Trail, cap. vii.

TIIK WKITINGS OF ST. CLEMENT. 35

onlcrs wliicli without him ooiikl not be otlierwise obtained.^ Tliere is, however, in tlie good providence of God, not wanting a remarkable token to sliow ua that tliis ne(^e.ssity, so to say, of episcoj)acy was not from the beginning. In all episcopal churclies the practice has ever been, that at the ordination of presbyters, all the priests who are present should lay their hands, at the same time as the bishop, upon the heads of the candidates for the j)riesthood. Very ancient and very wide-spread practices ai-e often far safer guides to the mind of the Catholic Church than dogmas which have too often been evolved by theologians merely from the depths of their own internal consciousness.^ The present is a case in point. No

' We may gather from the present practice of the Wesleyan Methodist Body, with respect to ordination, an intimation of how the idea of the necessity of a bisliop for holy orders to be valid came gradually to prevail. The We^:leyan rule is as follows : — The president and four of the oldest ministers place their hands upon the candidate's head, and the president of the Conference repeats the formula, ' Take thou authority,' &c. Those five, in the name of the Holy Ghost, are supposed to give the external commission to preach and administer the sacraments. If Wesleyan ism were to exist in its present form, and as a separate community for the next 200 or 300 years, and if this were an uncritical age like the three first centuries of Christianity, and if the presidency of the Confirence were to come to be held for life by some minister of very marked superiority for learning or piety, the most iinreflective mind can understand how easily the idea would prevail, that the president's taking part was of the de esse of ordination.

■^ II is not often that perfect j)arallels can be met with, either in the kingdom of nature or the kingdom of grace ; but so far as a parallel can be perfect, it will be found in another practice of the Western Church. It is directed by the Pontificale Komanuni that when, after an ordination, mass is said by the officiating bishop, all tlic newly ordained priests should luiite with him in sjiying the Prayer of Consecration, and in the performance of what are called the manual acts. Whatever may be the exact effect of consecration in the Holy Eucharist, one thing would be conceded by all Churches, whicli is that it n\ust be something in it.<< nature indivisible. The efll-ct must be D 2 really ancient Catholic practice is devoid of some inherent significance. As, therefore, the power conferred by the gift of the Christian priesthood to exercise certain spiritual functions must of its very nature be one and indivisible, it follows, by a clear logical deduction, that if that power can only be conferred by the laying on of the bishop's hands, then tlie imposition of the hands of the presbytei-y can add nothing to the gift, neither can the omission of the laying on of their hands detract in any way from it. And thus we should be forced to the conclusion, that when the Catholic Church ordained or sanctioned this custom, she ordained at the outset, and has gone on for eighteen hundred years giving her approbation to what is nothing better than a vain, empty, meaningless, misleading ceremony. The mind shrinks with horror from any such idea. The truth, therefore, would seem to be, that the most proper way, so far as regards order and seemliness, and the manifestation of the visible unity of the Church, is, that a bishop and his presbyters should unite in ordaining a presbyter ; but that in a case of necessity, ordination by a bishop alone, or by a presbyter alone, would each be equally and therefore perfectly valid ; the grace and the power of holy orders would either way be conferred, and either way must be the same.

Anglican theological writers, who have done at least this service to the cause of the Church's freedom, that they have shown very clearly that the primacy of the absolutely the same, whetli'^r there be ten thousand consecrators or only one. The significance, therefore, of this direction of the Pontifical is obvious enough. It is to exhibit in a visible and practical manner, which everybody can imderstand, the fact that the newly ordained priests have the same power to consecrate the Eucharist which the celebrating bishop who ordained them has. This great principle can be applied, by parity of reasoning, with equal force to ordination itself.