Читать книгу Church History (Vol.1-3) - J. H. Kurtz - Страница 42

From the beginning of the 2nd cent. the episcopal constitution was gradually built up, and the superiority of one bishop over the whole body of the other presbyters (§ 17, 6) won by degrees universal acceptance. The hierarchical tendency inherent in it gained fresh impetus from two causes: (1) from the gradual disappearance of the charismatic endowments which had been continued from the Apostolic Age far down into post-Apostolic times, and the disposition of ecclesiastical leaders more and more to monopolise the function of teaching; and (2) from the reassertion of the idea of a special priesthood as a divine institution and the adoption of Old Testament conceptions of church officers. The antithesis of Ordo or κλῆρος (sc. τοῦ θεοῦ) and Plebs or λαός (λαϊκοί) when once expression had been given to it, tended to become even more marked and exclusive. In consequence of the successful extension of the churches the functions, rights and duties of the existing spiritual offices came to be more precisely determined and for the discharge of lower ecclesiastical service new offices were created. Thus arose the partition of the clergy into Ordines majores and Ordines minores. As it was in the provincial capital that common councils were held, which were convened, at first in consequence of the requirements of the hour, afterwards as regular institutions (Provincial Synods), the bishop of the particular capital assumed the president’s chair. Among the metropolitans pre-eminence was claimed by churches founded by Apostles (sedes apostolicæ), especially those of Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Ephesus and Corinth. To the idea of the unity and catholicity of the church, which was maintained and set forth with ever increasing decision, was added the idea of the Apostle Peter being the single individual representative of the church. This latter notion was founded on the misunderstood word of the Lord, Matt. xvi. 18, 19. Rome, as the capital of the world, where Peter and Paul suffered death as martyrs (§ 16, 1), arrogated to itself the name of Chair (Cathedra) of Peter and transferred the idea of the individual representation of the church to its bishops as the supposed successors of Peter.

§ 34.1. The Continuation of Charismatic Endowments into Post-Apostolic Times has, by means of the Apostolic Didache recently rendered accessible to us (§ 30, 7), not only received new confirmation, but their place in the church and their relation to it has been put in a far clearer light. In essential agreement with 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eph. iv. 11 (§ 17, 5), it presents to us the three offices of Apostle, Prophet and Teacher. The Pastors and Teachers of the Epistle to the Ephesians, as well as of the passage from Corinthians, are grouped together in one; and the Evangelists, that is, helpers of the Apostles, appear now after the decease of the original Apostles, as their successors and heirs of their missionary calling under the same title of Apostles. Hermas indeed speaks only of Apostles and Teachers; but he himself appears as a Prophet and so witnesses to the continuance of that office. The place and task of the three offices are still the same as described in § 17, 5 from Eph. iv. 11, 12 and ii. 20. These three were not chosen like the bishops and deacons by the congregations, but appointment and qualifications for office were dependent on a divine call, somewhat like that of Acts xiii. 2–4, or on a charism that had evidently and admittedly been bestowed on them. They are further not permanent officials in particular congregations but travel about in the exercise of their teaching function from church to church. Prophets and Teachers, however, but not Apostles, might settle down permanently in a particular church.—In reference exclusively to the Apostles the Didache teaches as follows: In the case of their visiting an already constituted church they should stay there at furthest only two days and should accept provision only for one day’s journey but upon no account any money (Matt. x. 9, 10). Eusebius too, in his Ch. Hist., iii. 37, tells that after the death of the twelve the gospel was successfully spread abroad in all lands by means of itinerating Apostolic men, whom he designates, however, by the old name of evangelists, and praises them for having according to the command of the Lord (Matt. x. and Luke x.) parted their possessions among the poor, and having adhered strictly to the rule of everywhere laying only the foundations of the faith and leaving the further care of what they had planted to the settled pastors.—The Didache assigns the second place to the Prophets: they too, inasmuch as like the Apostles they are itinerants, are without a fixed residence; but they are distinguished from the latter by having their teaching functions directed not to the founding of a church but only to its edification, and in this respect they are related to the Teachers. Their distinguishing characteristic, however, is the possession of the charism of prophesying in the wider sense, whereas the Teachers’ charism consisted in the λόγος σοφίας and the λόγος γνώσεως (§ 17, 1). When they enter into a church as ἐν πνεύματι λαλοῦντες, that church may not, according to the Didache, in direct opposition to 1 Thess. v. 21; 1 Cor. xii. 10; xiv. 29; 1 John iv. 1, exercise the right of trying their doctrine, for that would be to commit the sin against the Holy Ghost who speaks through them, but the church may inquire of their life, and thus distinguish true prophets from the false. If they wish to settle down in a particular church, that church should make provision for their adequate maintenance by surrendering to them, after the pattern of the Mosaic law, all firstlings of cattle, and first fruits of grain and oil and wine, and also the first portion of their other possessions, “for they are your high priests.” This phrase means either, that for them they are with their prophetic gift what the high priests of the old covenant with their Urim and Thummim were to ancient Israel, or, as Harnack understands it on the basis of chap. x. 7: τοῖς προφήταις ἐπιτρέπετε εὐχαριστεῖν ὅσα θέλουσιν, while ordinary ministers had to confine themselves to the usual formularies, that they were pre-eminently entrusted with the administration of the Lord’s Supper which was the crowning part of the worship. If, however, there were no Prophets present, these first fruits were to be distributed among the poor.—The rank also of Teachers (διδάσκαλοι, Doctores) is still essentially the same as described in § 17, 5. As their constant association with the Apostles and Prophets would lead us to expect, they also were properly itinerant teachers, who like the Prophets had to minister to the establishment of existing churches in the Christian life, in faith and in hope. But when they settled down in a particular church, whether in consequence of that church’s special needs, or with its approval in accordance with their own wish, that church had to provide for their maintenance according to the principle that the labourer is worthy of his reward. The author of the Didache, as appears from the whole tenor of his book, was himself such a teacher. Hermas, who at the same time makes no mention of the Prophets, speaks only twice and that quite incidentally of the Teachers, without indicating particularly their duties and privileges.—The continuance of those three extraordinary offices down to the end of the 2nd cent. was of the utmost importance. The numerous churches scattered throughout all lands had not as yet a firmly established New Testament Canon nor any one general symbol in the form of a confession of faith, and so were without any outward bond of union: but these Teachers, by means of their itinerant mode of life and their authoritative position, which was for the first time clearly demonstrated by Harnack, contributed powerfully to the development of the idea of ecclesiastical unity. According to Harnack, the composition of the so-called Catholic Epistles and similar early Christian literature is to be assigned to them, and in this way he would account for the Apostolic features which are discoverable in these writings. He would not, however, attribute to them the fiction of claiming for their works an Apostolic origin, but supposes that the subsequently added superscriptions and the author’s name in the address rest upon an erroneous tradition.—The gradual disappearance of charismatic offices was mainly the result of the endeavour, that became more and more marked during the 2nd cent., after the adoption of current social usages and institutions, which necessarily led to a repression of the enthusiastic spirit out of which those offices had sprung and which could scarcely reconcile itself with what seemed to it worldly compromises and concessions. The fanatical and eccentric pretension to prophetic gifts in Montanism, with its uncompromising rigour (§ 40) and its withdrawal from church fellowship, gave to these charismatic offices their deadly blow. A further cause of their gradual decay may certainly be found in their relation to the growing episcopal hierarchy. At the time of the Didache, which knows nothing of a subordination of presbyters under the bishop (indeed like Phil. i. 1, it makes no mention of presbyters), this relation was one of thoroughly harmonious co-ordination and co-operation. In the 13th chap. the exhortation is given to choose only faithful and approved men as bishops and deacons, “for they too discharge for you τὴν λειτουργίαν τῶν προφητῶν καὶ διδασκάλων and so they represent along with those the τετιμημένοι among you.” The service of prophets, according to the Didache, was pre-eminently that of the ἀρχιερεῖς and so there was entrusted to them the consecration of the elements in the Lord’s Supper. This service the bishops and deacons discharged, inasmuch as, in addition to their own special duties as presidents of the congregation charged with its administration and discipline, they were required in the absence of prophets to conduct the worship. Then also they had to officiate as Teachers (1 Tim. v. 17) when occasion required and the necessary qualifications were possessed. But this peaceful co-operating of the two orders undoubtedly soon and often gave place to unseemly rivalry, and the hierarchical spirit obtruding itself in the Protepiscopate (§ 17, 6), which first of all reduced its colleagues from their original equality to a position of subordination soon asserted itself over against the extraordinary offices which had held a place co-ordinate with and in the department of doctrine and worship even more authoritative and important than that of the bishops themselves. They were only too readily successful in having their usurpation of their offices recognised as bearing the authority of a divine appointment. These soon completed the theory of the hierarchical and monarchical rank of the clergy and the absurd pretension to having obtained from God the absolute fulness of His Spirit and absolute sovereign power.

§ 34.2. The Development of the Episcopal Hierarchy was the result of an evolution which in existing circumstances was not only natural but almost necessary. In the deliberations and consultations of the college of presbyters constituting the ecclesiastical court, just as in every other such assembly, it must have been the invariable custom to confer upon one of their number, generally the eldest, or at least the one among them most highly esteemed, the presidency, committing to him the duty of the orderly conduct of the debates, as well as the formulating, publishing and enforcing of their decrees. This president must soon have won the pre-eminent authority of a primus inter pares, and have come to be regarded as an ἐπίσκοπος of higher rank. From such a primacy to supremacy, and from that to a monarchical position, the progress was natural and easy. In proportion as the official authority, the ἐπισκοπή, concentrated itself more and more in the president, the official title, ἐπίσκοπος, at first by way of eminence, then absolutely, was appropriated to him. This would be all the more easily effected since, owing to the twofold function of the office (§ 17, 5, 6), he who presided in the administrative council still bore the title of πρεσβύτερος. It was not accomplished, however, without a long continued struggle on the part of the presbyters who were relegated to a subordinate rank, which occasioned keen party contentions and divisions lasting down even into the 3rd century (§ 41). But the need of the churches to have in each one man to direct and control was mightier than this opposition. That need was most keenly felt when the church was threatened with division and dissolution by the spread of heretical and separatist tendencies. The need of a single president in the local churches was specially felt in times of violent persecution, and still more just after the persecution had ceased when multitudes who had fallen away during the days of trial sought to be again restored to the membership of the church (§ 39, 2), in order to secure the reorganization of the institution which, by violence from without and weakness within, had been so sorely rent. Both in the Old and in the New Testament there seemed ground for regarding the order of things that had grown up in the course of time as jure divino and as existing from the beginning. After the idea of a distinct sacerdotal class had again found favour, the distribution of the clergy in the Old Testament into High priest, priests and Levites was supposed to afford an exact analogy to that of the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate. To effect this the charismatic offices of teaching had to be ignored and their divinely ordained functions had to be set aside. It was even supposed that the relative ranks in the offices of the Christian church must be determined by the corresponding orders in the Old Testament. Then in the gospels, it seemed as if the relations of Christ to His disciples corresponded to that of the bishop to the presbyters; and from the Acts of the Apostles the preponderating authority of James at the head of the Jerusalem presbytery or eldership (§ 17, 2) might be used as a witness for the supremacy of the bishop. The oldest and most important contender for the monarchical rank of the bishop is the author of the Ignatian Epistles (§ 30, 5). In every bishop he sees the representative of Christ, and in the college of presbyters the representatives of the Apostles. In the Clementines too the bishop appears as ἐπὶ τῆς Χριστοῦ καθέδρας καθεσθείς. This view also finds expression in the Apostolic Constitutions (2, 26), and even in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (§ 47, 11). Another theory, according to which the bishops are successors of the Apostles and as such heirs of the absolute dominion conferred in Matt. xiv. 18, 19 upon Peter and through him on all the Apostles, sprang up in the West and gained currency by means of Cyprian’s eloquent enunciation of it (§ 34, 7).

§ 34.3. The Regular Ecclesiastical Offices of the Old Catholic Age. The Ordines Majores embraced the Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons. Upon the Bishop, elected by the people and the clergy in common, there devolved in his monarchical position the supreme conduct of all the affairs of the church. The exclusively episcopal privileges were these: the ordination of presbyters and deacons, the absolving of the penitent, according to strict rule also the consecration of the eucharistic elements, in later times also the right of speaking at Synods, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptised. In large cities where a single church was no longer sufficient daughter churches were instituted. Country churches founded outside of the cities were supplied with presbyters and deacons from the city. If they increased in importance, they chose for themselves their own bishop, who remained, however, as Χωρεπίσκοπος dependent upon the city bishop. Thus distinctly official episcopal dioceses came to be formed. And just as the city bishops had a pre-eminence over the country bishops, so also the bishops of the chief cities of provinces soon came as metropolitans to have a pre-eminence over those of other cities. To them was granted the right of calling and presiding at the Synods, and of appointing and ordaining the bishops of their province. The name Metropolitan, however, was first used in the Acts of the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325.—The Presbyters were now only the advisers and assistants of the bishop, whose counsel and help he accepted just in such ways and at such times as seemed to him good. They were employed in the directing of the affairs of the church, in the administration of the sacrament, in preaching and in pastoral work, but only at the bidding or with the express permission of the bishop. During the following period for the first time, when demands had multiplied, and the episcopal authority was no longer in need of being jealously guarded, were their functions enlarged to embrace an independent pastoral care, preaching and dispensation of the sacraments for which they were personally responsible.—In regard to official position the Deacons had a career just the converse of this; for their importance increased just as the range of their official functions was enlarged. Seeing that in the earliest times they had occupied a position subordinate to the presbyter-bishops, they could not be regarded in this way as their rivals; and the development of the proto-presbyterate into a monarchical episcopate was too evidently in their own interests to awaken any opposition on their part. They therefore stood in a far closer relation to the bishops than did the presbyters. They were his confidants, his companions in travel, often also his deputies and representatives at the Synods. To them he committed the distribution of the church’s alms, for which their original charge of the poor qualified them. To these duties were added also many of the parts of divine service; they baptised under the commission of the bishop, obtained and prepared the sacramental elements, handed round the cup, at the close of the service carried to the sick and imprisoned the body and blood of the Lord, intimated the beginning and the close of the various parts of divine service, recited the public prayers, read the gospels, and kept order during worship. Often, too, they preached the sermon. In consequence of the preponderating position given to the Old Testament idea of the priesthood the bishop was compared to the high priest, the presbyters to the priests, and the deacons to the Levites, and so too did they already assume the name, from which the German word “Priester,” English “Priest,” French “Prêtre,” Italian “Prête,” is derived.

Among the Ordines Minores the oldest was the office of Reader, Ἀναγνώστης. In the time of Cyprian this place was heartily accorded to the Confessors. In later times it was usual to begin the clerical career with service in the readership. The duties of this office were the public reading of the longer scripture portions and the custody of the sacred books. Somewhat later than the readership the office of the Subdiaconi, ὑποδιάκονοι was instituted. They were assistants to the Deacons, and as such took first rank among the Ordines Minores, and of these were alone regarded as worthy of ordination. Toward the end of the 3rd century the office of the Cantores, ψαλταί, was instituted for the conducting of the public service of praise. The Acolytes, who are met with in Rome first about the middle of the 3rd century, were those who accompanied the bishop as his servants. The Exorcists discharged the spiritual function of dealing with those possessed of evil spirits, ἐνεργούμενοι, δαιμονιζόμενοι, over whom they had to repeat the public prayers and the formula of exorcism. As there was also an exorcism associated with baptism, the official functions of the exorcists extended to the catechumens. The Ostiarii or Janitores, θυρωροί, πυλωροί, occupied the lowest position.—In the larger churches for the instruction of the catechumens there were special Catechists appointed, Doctores audientium, and where the need was felt, especially in the churches of North Africa speaking the Punic tongue, there were also Interpreters whose duty it was to translate and interpret the scripture lessons. To the Deaconesses, for the most part widows or virgins, was committed the care of the poor and sick, the counselling of inexperienced women and maidens, the general oversight of the female catechumens. They had no clerical character.—The Ordination of the clergy was performed by the laying on of hands. Those were disqualified who had just recently been baptised or had received baptism only during severe illness (Neophyti, Clinici), also all who had been excommunicated and those who had mutilated themselves.—Continuation, § 45, 3.

§ 34.4. Clergy and Laity.—The idea that a priestly mediation between sinful men and a gracious deity was necessary had been so deeply implanted in the religious consciousness of pre-Christian antiquity, pagan as well as Jewish, that a form of public worship without a priesthood seemed almost as inconceivable as a religion without a god. And even though the inspired writings of the New Testament decidedly and expressly taught that the pre-Christian or Old Testament institution of a special human priesthood had been abolished and merged in the one eternal mediation of the exalted Son of God and Son of man, and that there was now a universal spiritual priesthood of all Christians with the right and privilege of drawing near even to the heavenly throne of grace (Heb. iv. 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5, 9; Rev. i. 6), yet, in consequence of the idea of the permanence of Old Testament institutions which prevailed, even in the Post-Apostolic Age, the sacerdotal theory came more and more into favour. This relapse to the Old Testament standpoint was moreover rendered almost inevitable by the contemporary metamorphosis of the ecclesiastical office which existed as the necessary basis of human organisation (§ 17, 4) into a hierarchical organisation resting upon an assumed divine institution. For clericalism, with its claims to be the sole divinely authorised channel for the communication of God’s grace, was the correlate and the indispensable support of hierarchism, with its exclusive claims to legislative, judicial, disciplinary and administrative precedence in the affairs of the church. The reaction which Montanism (§ 40) initiated in the interests of the Christian people against the hierarchical and clerical tendencies spreading throughout the church, was without result owing to its extreme extravagance. Tertullian emphasised indeed very strongly the Apostolic idea of the universal priesthood of all Christians, but in Cyprian this is allowed to fall quite behind the priesthood of the clergy and ultimately came to be quite forgotten.—The Old Catholic Age, however, shows many reminiscences of the original relation of the congregation to the ecclesiastical officers, or as it would now be called, of the laity to the clergy. That the official teaching of religion and preaching in the public assemblies of the church, although as a rule undertaken by the Ordines majores, might even then in special circumstances and with due authorisation be discharged by laymen, was shown by the Catechetical institution at Alexandria and by the case of Origen who when only a Catechist often preached in the church. The Apostolic Constitutions, too, 8, 31, supported the view that laymen, if only they were skilful in the word and of irreproachable lives, should preach by a reference to the promise: “They shall be all taught of God.” The repeated expressions of disapproval of the administration of the eucharist by laymen in the Ignatian Epistles presupposes the frequent occurrence of the practice; Tertullian would allow it in case of necessity, for “Ubi tres, ecclesia est, licet laici.” Likewise in reference to the administration of baptism he teaches that under ordinary circumstances propter ecclesiæ honorem it should be administered only by the bishop and the clergy appointed by him to the work, alioquin (e.g. in times of persecution) etiam laicis jus est. This, too, is the decision of the Council of Elvira in A.D. 306. The report which Cyprian gives of his procedure in regard to the vast number of the Lapsi of his time (§ 39, 2; 41, 2) affords evidence that at least in extraordinary and specially difficult cases of discipline the whole church was consulted. The people’s right to take part in the choice of their minister had not yet been questioned, and their assistance at least in the Synods was never refused.

§ 34.5. The Synods.—The Council of Apostles at Jerusalem (Acts xv.) furnished an example of Synodal deliberation and issuing of decrees. But even in the pagan world such institutions had existed. The old religio-political confederacies in Greece and Asia Minor had indeed since the time of the Roman conquest lost their political significance; but their long accustomed assemblies (κοιναὶ σύνοδοι, Concilia) continued to meet in the capitals of the provinces under the presidency of the Roman governor. The fact that the same nomenclature was adopted seems to show that they were not without formal influence on the origin of the institution of the church synod. The first occasion for such meetings was given by the Montanist movements in Asia Minor (§ 40, 1); and soon thereafter by the controversies about the observance of Easter (§ 37, 2). In the beginning of the 3rd century the Provincial Synods had already assumed the position of fixed and regularly recurring institutions. In the time of Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons took an active part in the Synods alongside of the bishops, and the people generally were not prevented from attending. No decision could be arrived at without the knowledge and the acquiescence of the members of the church. From the time of the Nicene Council, in A.D. 325, the bishops alone had a vote and the presence of the laity was more and more restricted. The decrees of Synods were communicated to distant churches by means of Synodal rescripts, and even in the 3rd century the claim was made in these, in accordance with Acts xv., to the immediate enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.—Continuation, § 43, 2.

§ 34.6. Personal and Epistolary Intercourse.—From the very earliest times the Christian churches of all lands maintained a regular communication with one another through messengers or itinerating brethren. The Teaching of the XII. Apostles furnishes the earliest account of this: Any one who comes from another place in the name of the Lord shall be received as a brother; one who is on his journey, however, shall not accept the hospitality of the church for more than two, or at furthest than three days; but if he chooses to remain in the place, he must engage in work for his own support, in which matter the church will help him; if he will not so conduct himself he is to be sent back as a χριστέμπορος, who has been seeking to make profit out of his profession of Christ. The Didache knows nothing as yet of the letters of authentication among the earlier messengers of the church which soon became necessary and customary. As a guarantee against the abuse of this custom such συστατικαὶ ἐπιστολαί (2 Cor. iii. 1) had come into use even in Tertullian’s time, who speaks of a Contesseratio hospitalitatis, in such a form that they were understood only by the initiated as recognisable tokens of genuineness, and were hence called Litteræ formatæ, or γράμματα τετυπωμένα. The same care was also taken in respect of important epistolary communications from one church to another or to other churches. Among these were included, e.g. the Synodal rescripts, the so-called γράμματα ἐνθρονιστικά by which the newly-chosen bishops intimated their entrance upon office to the other bishops of their district, the Epistolæ festales (paschales) regarding the celebration of a festival, especially the Easter festival (§ 56, 3), communications about important church occurrences, especially about martyrdoms (§ 32, 8), etc. According to Optatus of Mileve (§ 63, 1): “Totus orbis” could boast of “comnmercio formatarum in una communionis societate concordat.”

§ 34.7. The Unity and Catholicity of the Church.—The fact that Christianity was destined to be a religion for the world, which should embrace all peoples and tongues, and should permeate them all with one spirit and unite them under one heavenly head, rested upon the presupposition that the church was one and universal or catholic. The inward unity of the spirit demanded also a corresponding unity in manifestation. It is specially evident from the Teaching of the XII. Apostles that the consciousness of the unity of the church had deeply rooted itself even in the Post-Apostolic Age (§ 20, 1). “The points which according to it prove the unity of Christendom are the following: firstly, the disciplina in accordance with the ethical requirements of the Lord, secondly, baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thirdly, the order of fasting and prayer, especially the regular use of the Lord’s Prayer, and fourthly and lastly, the eucharist, i.e. the sacred meal in partaking of which the church gives thanks to God, the creator of all things, for the revelation imparted to it through Jesus, for faith and knowledge and immortality, and implores the fulfilment of its hope, the overthrow of this world, the coming again of Christ, and reception into the kingdom of God. He who has this doctrine and acts in accordance with it is a ‘Christian,’ belongs to ‘the saints,’ is a ‘brother,’ and ought to be received even as the Lord” (Harnack). The struggle against the Gnostics had the effect of transforming this primitive Christian idea of unity into a consciousness of the necessity of adopting a common doctrinal formula, which again this controversy rendered much more definite and precise, to which a concise popular expression was given in one common Regula fidei (§ 35, 2), and by means of which the specific idea of catholicity was developed (§ 20, 2).—The misleading and dangerous thing about this construction and consolidation of one great Catholic church was that every deviation from external forms in the constitution and worship as well as erroneous doctrine, immorality and apostasy, was regarded as a departing from the one Catholic church, the body of Christ, and consequently, since not only the body was put upon the same level with the head, but even the garment of the body was identified with the body itself, as a separating from the communion of Christ, involving the loss of salvation and eternal blessedness. This notion received a powerful impulse during the 2nd century when the unity of the church was threatened by heresies, sects and divisions. It reached its consummation and won the Magna Charta of its perfect enunciation in Cyprian’s book De Unitate Ecclesiæ. In the monarchical rank of the bishop of each church, as the representative of Christ, over the college of presbyters, as representatives of the Apostles, Ignatius of Antioch sees the guarantee of the church’s unity. According to Cyprian, this unity has its expression in the Apostolate; in the Episcopate it has its support. The promise of Christ, Matt. xvi. 18, is given to Peter, not as the head but as the single representative of the Apostles (John xx. 21). The Apostolic office, with the promise attached to it, passed from the Apostles by means of ordination to the bishops. These, through their monarchical rank, represent continuously for the several churches (Ecclesia est in episcopo), and through their combined action, for the whole of Christendom, the unity of the church; Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulus in solidum, pars tenetur. All the bishops, just as all the Apostles, have perfect parity with one another; pares consortio, jure et honore. Each of them is a successor of Peter and heir of the promise given first to Peter but for all.—He who cuts himself off from the bishops, cuts himself off from the church. Habere non potest Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam non habet matrem. … Extra ecclesiam nulla spes salutis. Alongside of the Apostolic writings, the tradition which prevailed among the Apostolic churches (Sedes apostolicæ) was regarded as a standard of catholicity in constitution, worship and doctrine; indeed, it must even have ranked above the Apostolic writings themselves in settling the question of the New Testament Canon (§ 36, 8), until these had secured general circulation and acceptance.

§ 34.8. The Roman Primacy.—The claims of the Roman bishopric to the primacy over the whole church, which reached its fuller development in the 4th and 5th centuries (§ 46, 7), were founded originally and chiefly on the assertion that the promise of Matt. xvi. 18, 19, was given only and exclusively to the Apostle Peter as the Primate of the Apostles and the head of the church. This assumption overlooked the fact that in Matt. xviii. 18 and John xx. 21 ff., this promise was given with reference to all the Apostles. These claims were further supposed to be supported by the words addressed to Peter, “strengthen thy brethren” (Luke xxii. 31), which seemed to accord to Peter a primacy over his fellow Apostles; and also by the interpretation given of John xxi. 15 ff., where “lambs” were understood of laymen and “sheep” of the Apostles. It was likewise assumed that the bishop of Rome was the successor of Peter, and so the legitimate and only heir of all his prerogatives. The fable of the Roman bishopric of Peter (§ 16, 1) was at an early period unhesitatingly adopted, all the more because no one expected the results which in later times were deduced from a quite different understanding of Matt. xvi. 18. During this whole period such consequences were never dreamt of either by a Roman bishop or by anybody else. Only this was readily admitted at least by the West that Rome was the foremost of all the Apostolic churches, that there the Apostolic tradition had been preserved in its purest form, and that, therefore, its bishops should have a particularly influential voice in all questions that were to be judged of by the whole episcopate, and the Roman bishops were previously content with taking advantage of this concession in the largest measure possible.96