by missionaries from the East; but it is at least equally probable that the young minister from Asia Minor was in Rome before he passed to the more distant Gaul; and it is certain that he is the first father who speaks of the superior importance of the Church of the Italian metropolis. His testimony to the position which it occupied about eighty years after the death of the Apostle John shews clearly that it stood already at the head of the Western Churches. The Church of Rome, says he, is "very great and very ancient, and known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul." * "To this Church in which Catholics † have always preserved apostolic tradition, every Catholic Church should, because it is more potentially apostolical, repair." § The term Catholic, which occurs for the first time in a document written about this period, was probably coined at Rome, and implied, as already intimated, that the individual so designated was in communion with the bishop. The presiding pastors in the great city began now, in token of fraternity and recognition, to send the Eucharist to their brethren elsewhere by trusty messengers, and thus the name was soon extended to all who maintained ecclesiastical relations with these leading ministers. Sectaries were almost always the minority; and in many places, where We here see how a father who wrote so soon after the apostolic age, blunders egregiously respecting the history of the Apostolic Church. + So I understand "his qui sunt undique." See Wordsworth's "Hippolytus," p. 200. We have thus a remarkable proof that the word catholic was not in use when Irenæus wrote, for he here expresses the idea by a circumlocution. "Propter potentiorem principalitatem." § Irenæus iii. 3. See on this passage Gieseler, by Cunningham, i. 97, note. See also Period II. sec. iii. chap. viii. The circular letter relating to the martyrdom of Polycarp quoted in Euseb. iv. 15. It was probably written a considerable time after the death of the martyr, as it speaks of the way in which his memory was cherished when it was drawn up. § 19. As it uses the word catholic it must have been written after the appearance of the work of Irenæus. Irenæus quoted in Euseb. v. 24. See Period II. sec. iii. chap. viii. Christianity was planted, they were utterly unknown. The orthodox might, therefore, not inappropriately be styled members of the Catholic or general Church, inasmuch as they formed the bulk of the Christian population, and were to be found wherever the new religion had made converts. And though the heretics pleaded tradition in support of their peculiar dogmas, it was clear that their statements could not stand the test of examination. Irenæus, in the work from which the words just quoted are extracted, very fairly argues that no such traditions as those propagated by the sectaries were to be found in the most ancient and respectable Churches. No Christian community in Western Europe could claim higher antiquity than that of Rome; and as it had been taught by Paul and Peter, none could be supposed to be better acquainted with the original gospel. Because of its extent it already required a larger staff of ministers than perhaps any other Church; and thus there were a greater number of individuals to quicken and correct each other's recollections. It might be accordingly inferred that the traditions of surrounding Christian societies, if true, should correspond to those of Rome; as the great metropolitan Church might, for various reasons, be said to be more potentially primitive or apostolical, and as its traditions might be expected to be particularly accurate. The doctrines of the heretics, which were completely opposed to the testimony of this important witness, should be discarded as entirely destitute of authority. We can only conjecture the route by which Irenæus travelled to the south of France when he first set out from Asia Minor; but we have direct evidence that he had paid a visit to the capital shortly before he wrote this memorable eulogium on the Roman Church. About the close of the dreadful persecution endured in A.D. 177 by the Christians of Lyons and Vienne, he had been commissioned to repair to Italy with a view to a settlement of the disputes created by the appearance of the Montanists. As he was furnished with very complimentary credentials, we may presume that he was handsomely treated by his friends in the metropolis; and if he returned home laden with presents to disciples whose sufferings had recently so deeply moved the sympathy of their brethren, it is not strange that he gracefully seized an opportunity of extolling the Church to which he owed such obligations. His account of its greatness is obviously the inflated language of a panegyrist; but in due time its hyperbolic statements received a still more extravagant interpretation; and, on the authority of this ancient father, the Church of Rome was pompously announced as the mistress and the mother of all Churches. It has been mentioned in a former chaptert that the celebrated Marcia who, until shortly before his death, possessed almost absolute control over the Emperor Commodus, made a profession of the faith. Her example, no doubt, encouraged other personages of distinction to connect themselves with the Roman Church; and, through the medium of these members of his flock, the bishop Eleutherius must have had an influence such as none of his predecessors possessed. It is beyond doubt that Marcia, after consulting with Victor, the successor of Eleutherius, induced the Emperor to perform acts of kindness to some of her coreligionists. The favour of the court seems to have puffed up the spirit of this naturally haughty churchman; and though, as we have seen, there is cause to suspect that certain ecclesiastical movements in the chief city had long before excited much ill-suppressed dissatisfaction, the Christian commonwealth was now startled for the first time by a very flagrant exhibition of the arrogance of a Roman We have an extract from them in Euseb. v. 4. + Period II. sec. i. chap. ii. p. 296. Hippolytus," Refut. Om. Hæres." book ix. * prelate. Because the Churches of Asia Minor celebrated the Paschal feast in a way different from that observed in the metropolis,† Victor cut them off from his communion. But this attempt of the bishop of the great city to act as lord over God's heritage was premature. Other churches condemned the rashness of his procedure; his refusal to hold fellowship with the Asiatic Christians threatened only to isolate himself; and he seems to have soon found it expedient to cultivate more pacific councils. At this time the jurisdiction of Victor did not properly extend beyond the few ministers and congregations to be found in the imperial city. A quarter of a century afterwards even the bishop of Portus, a seaport town at the mouth of the Tiber about fifteen miles distant from the capital, acknowledged no allegiance to the Roman prelate.‡ The boldness of Victor in pronouncing so many foreign brethren unworthy of Catholic communion may at first, therefore, appear unaccountable. But it is probable that he acted, in this instance, in conjunction with many other pastors. Among the Churches of Gentile origin there was a deep prejudice against what was considered the judaizing of the Asiatic Christians in relation to the Paschal festival, and a strong impression that the character of the Church was compromised by any very marked diversity in its religious observances. There is, however, little reason to doubt that Victor was to some extent prompted by motives of a different complexion. Fifty years before, the remarkable * This probably occurred early in the reign of Septimius Severus, who at first is said to have been very favourable to the Church. Shortly before, many in Rome of great wealth and eminent station had become Christians.Euseb. v. c. 21. + See a more minute account of this controversy in Period II. sec. iii. chap. xii. This is evident from the fact that Hippolytus is scarcely willing to recognise some of the Roman bishops, his contemporaries. But meanwhile both parties probably belonged to the same synod. Hippolytus seems to have been the leader of a formidable opposition. words addressed to the apostle of the circumcision-"Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church" were interpreted at Rome in the way in which they are now understood commonly by Protestants; for the brother of the Roman bishop Pius,† writing about A.D. 150, teaches that the Rock on which the Church is built is the Son of God; but ingenuity was already beginning to discover another exposition, and the growing importance of the Roman bishopric suggested the startling thought that the Church was built on Peter!§ The name of the Galilean fisherman was already connected with the see of Victor; and it was thus easy for ambition or flattery to draw the inference that Victor himself was in some way the heir and representative of the great apostle. The doctrine that the bishop was necessary as the centre of Catholic unity had already gained currency; and if a centre of unity for the whole Church was also indispensable, who had a better claim to the pre-eminence than the successor of Peter? When Victor fulminated his sentence of excommunication against the Asiatic Christians he probably acted under the partial * Matt. xvi. 18. + See the Muratorian fragment in Bunsen's "Analecta Ante-Nicæna,” i. 154, 155. This, according to Bunsen, is a fragment of a work of Hegesippus, and written about A.D. 165. Hippolytus, i. 314. "Hermæ Pastor," lib. iii. simil. ix. § 12-14. "Petra hæc . . . . Filius Dei est. . . . Quid est deinde hæc turris? Haec, inquit, ecclesia est. Demonstra mihi quare non in terra ædificatur hæc turris, sed supra petram.” § Tertullian, "De Præscrip." xxii. "Latuit aliquid Petrum ædificandæ ecclesiæ petram dictum?" Tertullian here speaks of the doctrine as already current. Even after he became a Montanist, he still adhered to the same interpretation-" Petrum solum invenio maritum, per socrum; monogamum præsumo per ecclesiam, quæ super illum ædificata omnem gradum ordinis sui de monogamis erat collocatura."-De Monogamia, c. viii. Again, in another Montanist tract, he says-"Qualis es, evertens atque commutans manifestam domini intentionem personaliter hoc Petro conferentem? Super te, inquit, ædificabo ecclesiam meam."-De Pudicitia, c. xxi. See also "De Præscrip." c, xxii. According to Origen every believer, as well as Peter, is the foundation of the Church. "Contra Celsum," vi. 77. See also "Comment. in Matthæum xii.,” Opera, tom. iii. p. 524, 526. |