portance to the preparatory evolution of doctrine in those centuries in the statements of subsequent writers.

III. CATHOLICITY AND ORTHODOXY

Standing on the basis of the ancient Ecumenical Councils, the Greek Church has ever named itself the Orthodox Church. The question now arises: Are we entitled to use these definitions of orthodoxy as belonging to Catholic Christianity? May we say that these are simply definitions of that which the Church really believed in the previous centuries, and that they are only a necessary evolution of the sacred deposit of apostolic and Catholic teaching? A careful study of the question makes it evident that, as we distinguish Catholic Christianity as a second stage to New Testament Christianity, so we must distinguish Orthodox Christianity as a third stage in the order of evolution of Christianity. We have no more right to put the definitions of the great Ecumenical Councils back into the Catholic Church of the previous centuries, than we have to put the definitions of the Catholic Church of the second and third centuries back into the New Testament times.

It may, however, be urged that, while this may be true of all the later councils, it cannot be true of the Council of Nicæa; for we must regard that council as giving expression, at the beginning of the fourth century, to the consensus of the Church of the previous century. But we cannot take that position in fact, for the Nicene Council did not define the consensus of Christianity. It made one opinion orthodox and dominant over against a widely prevailing Arianism and Semi-Arianism. If, moreover, we recognise that the first council may define the Catholic Faith by limiting orthodoxy to one of several views hitherto prevailing, and may so divide the Catholic Church into sections, of which only one can be called Catholic, there is no valid reason why we should stop with that council, or indeed with any council, for it establishes the principle that to be and remain Catholic,

one must accept as final the decisions of the Catholic Church on any question, in any and every age until the end of the world. And this is quite easy so soon as the principle is recognised. For we have to bear in mind that the Roman Catholic Church has always claimed in such decisions that it is not really making any new doctrines, but simply defining apostolic Christian doctrine over against errors which have sprung up in contravention to it. If these later definitions of catholic doctrine are to be regarded as really catholic, then as an inevitable consequence catholic and orthodox-Catholic and Roman-become practically convertible terms.

Moreover, we cannot limit Catholicity to dogma, as many vainly suppose. We cannot think ourselves catholic simply because we agree with the Greeks in holding to the definitions of the great Ecumenical Councils. Catholic, as we have seen, covers not only the Faith of the Church, but also, indeed primarily, its institutions and its life. If, indeed, we recognise that there has been a sacred deposit transmitted by tradition in the Church other than Holy Scripture, it is necessary from the very nature of the case to find that deposit more largely in religious institutions and ethical life than in doctrine. If Catholicity is to be extended to the evolution of doctrine, it must also be extended to the evolution of institution, and thus the whole system of mediæval rites and ceremonies, the scholastic sacramental system, and papal organisation, come inevitably into the range of Catholicity as necessary to constitute a truly Catholic Church.

We see all about us men on various steps leading to this goal. Those who insist upon the Nicene Creed as the test may be conceived as on the first step, although many of these are inconsistent enough in that they are not willing to rise to the position of the men of Nicea as to sacrament and ecclesiastical organisation. Many wish to go so far as to comprehend the dogmatic decisions of all the Ecumenical Councils, although they shrink from the religious life and institutions that developed in parallel lines with these dog

mas.

Still others there are, who under the name of Catholic would introduce Augustinianism in whole or in part. Still others would insist upon all the chief dogmas and institutions characteristic of the Western Church before the Reformation, and undo all the work of reform except the single item of separation from the jurisdiction of Rome. But it is difficult to see why any one who has gone so far should not take the final step. For it were mere wantonness to separate from the jurisdiction of Rome and break the geographical unity of the Church for no other motive than ecclesiastical independence. The Reformers were compelled to this separation by great differences of dogma and institution, where, they at least thought, they followed the authority of Holy Scripture and conscience in its convictions, at great cost to themselves. It is mere perversity not to return to Rome if the conscience is convinced that Rome is right in all her great controversies with Protestantism.

It is evident from what has been said that there is not only a confusion in men's minds, through the different interpretations that they give to the name "catholic" and the things they comprehend under it; but there is, indeed, real difficulty in fixing the limits of Catholicity by Historical Criticism. The dust of centuries, the cinders of a multitude of controversies, cover it over. It is not such an easy problem as many imagine.

IV. CATHOLIC AND ROMAN

At this point it is necessary to consider the question discussed so thoroughly by Harnack as to the relation of the terms "Catholic" and "Roman." There can be no doubt that at the close of the third Christian century "Roman" and "Catholic" were so closely allied that they were practically identical. What was it historically that attached the terms "Roman" and "Catholic" so closely together in the second and third centuries? Harnack has given a very able and thorough study of this question, which in all essential par

ticulars must be recognised as historically correct. As he states, all the distinctive elements of Catholicity found their first expression in the Roman church.1

1. The Apostles' Creed is essentially a Roman symbol. 2. It was in Rome that the Canon of Holy Scripture first began to be fixed; and the Roman Canon gradually became the norm for the entire Church.

3. The list of bishops with the doctrine of apostolic succession appears historically first in the Roman church.

4. The Roman constitution became the norm even for Oriental Churches.

5. There can be no doubt that to the Roman church of the second century was assigned in some sense the primacy in the Christian Church. This was due to the fact that it was in the capital of the Roman Empire, that Christians from all parts of the world resorted thither; and it became in this way cosmopolitan, the most truly representative of all churches, the whole Church, as it were, in miniature.

It

Rome was the centre of the struggle of Christianity against imperial Rome, the chief seat of martyrdom. had the unique advantage of the two chief apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, if not as its founders, at least as its chief teachers, sealing their testimony with their blood. It was also in Rome that the chief victories were won over Gnosticism, over Marcion, and later over the Montanists and the Donatists. To Rome all parties appealed for her opinion in matters of controversy. Rome thus became the citadel of genuine Christianity. It was at Rome that the Christian institutions received their richest and strongest development, and the Christian life had the largest scope for its activity in all the various manifestations of holy love, and the severest tests of its reality and power. This primacy, we may say, was universally acknowledged; although especially in the third century when the Roman bishops strained their primacy so as to dictate to other sees, their dictation was on several occasions resented and resisted. Before the close of the

Dogmengeschichte, Bd. I, pp. 362–71.

first century, Clement writes in the name of the Roman church a letter to the church of Corinth and sends representatives to heal its divisions, just as St. Paul had sent Titus on an earlier occasion. Ignatius in his epistle to Rome recognised the Roman church as rpora0nuévn, having the presidency, especially in love. The aged Polycarp does not shrink from a long journey to Rome in order to perfect communion with its bishop. As Harnack says, Anicetus did not go to Polycarp, but Polycarp to him. Irenaeus says:

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness or perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorised meetings; (we do this, I say), by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known church founded and organised at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also (by pointing out) the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with this church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those (faithful men) who exist everywhere. (Adv. Haer., III, iii. 2.)

To go farther would be to needlessly heap up witnesses. As Harnack says:

The proposition, "ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum," and the other, that catholic virtually means Roman Catholic, are gross fictions when devised in honour of the temporary occupant of the Roman see, and detached from the significance of the Eternal City in secular history; but applied to the church of the imperial capital they contain a truth, the denial of which is equivalent to renouncing the attempt to explain the process by which the church was unified and catholicised. (Vol. I, p. 371.)

There can be no doubt that the Roman Catholic Church of our day is the heir by unbroken descent to the Roman Catholic Church of the second century, and that it is justified in using the name "catholic" as the name of the Church,