did not the apostolic people require a name of their own whereby to mark the unity of those that were uncorrupted?

Therefore our people, when named Catholic, are separated by this title from those denominated heretics."* The Catholic system, being an integral portion of the policy which invested the presiding elder with additional authority, rose contemporaneously with Prelacy. When Gnosticism was spreading so rapidly, and creating so much scandal and confusion, schism upon schism appeared unavoidable. How was the Church to be kept from going to pieces? How could its unity be best conserved? How could it contend most successfully against its subtle and restless disturbers? Such were the problems which now occupied the attention of its leading ministers. It was thought that all these difficulties would be solved by the adoption of the Catholic system. Were the Church, it was said, to place more power in the hands of individuals, and then to consolidate its influence, it could bear down more effectively upon the errorists. Every chief pastor of the Catholic Church was the symbol of the unity of his own ecclesiastical district; and the associated bishops represented the unity of the whole body of the faithful. According to the Catholic system when strictly carried out, every individual excommunicated by one bishop was excommunicated by all, so that when a heresiarch was excluded from fellowship in one city, he could not be received elsewhere. The visible unity of the Church was the great principle which the Catholic system sought to realise. "The Church," says Cyprian, "which is catholic and one, is not separated or divided, but is in truth connected and joined together by the cement of bishops mutually cleaving to each other." +

The funds of the Church were placed very early in the

Pacian, "Epist. to Sympronian," secs. 5 and 8. Pacian is said to have been bishop of Barcelona. He died A.D. 392.

+ Epist. Ixix. 265, 266.

hands of the president of the eldership," and though they may not have been at his absolute disposal, he, no doubt, soon found means of sustaining his authority by means of his monetary influence. But the power which he possessed, as the recognized centre of ecclesiastical unity, to prevent any of his elders or deacons from performing any official act of which he disapproved, constituted one of the essential features of the Catholic system. "The right to administer baptism," says Tertullian, "belongs to the chief priest, that is, the bishop: then to the presbyters and the deacons, † yet not without the authority of the bishop, for the honour of the Church, which being preserved, peace is preserved." ‡ Here, the origin of Catholicism is pretty distinctly indicated; for the prerogatives of the bishop are described, not as matters of divine right, but of ecclesiastical arrangement. They were given to him "for the honour of the Church," that peace might be preserved when heretics began to cause divisions.

Though the bishop could give permission to others to celebrate divine ordinances, he was himself their chief administrator. He was generally the only preacher; he usually dispensed baptism; || and he presided at the observance of the Eucharist. At Rome, where the Catholic system was maintained most scrupulously, his presence seems to have been considered necessary to the due consecration of the elements. Hence, at one time, the sacramental symbols were carried from the cathedral church to

* Justin Martyr, Opera, p. 99.

+ According to the "Apostolic Constitutions" the deacons were not at liberty to baptize. Lib. viii. c. 28.

"De Baptismo," c. 17.

§ Tertullian thus corroborates the testimony of Jerome.

"In the sixth century the clergy of Italy complained to Justinian that, owing to the vacancy of sees, 'an immense multitude of people died without baptism.' Even so late as the time of Hincmar (the ninth century) baptisms were still performed by the bishop, and they alone were considered canonical." -Palmer's Episcopacy Vindicated, p. 35, note.

all the places of Christian worship throughout the city.* With such minute care did the Roman chief pastor endeavour to disseminate the doctrine that whoever was not in communion with the bishop was out of the Church.

The establishment of a close connexion, between certain large Christian associations and the smaller societies around them, constituted the next link in the organization of the Catholic system. These communities, being generally related as mother and daughter churches, were already prepared to adapt themselves to the new type of ecclesiastical polity. The apostles, or their immediate disciples, had founded congregations in most of the great cities of the Empire; and every society thus instituted, now distinguished by the designation of the principalt or apostolic Church, became a centre of ecclesiastical unity. Its presiding minister sent the Eucharist to the teachers of the little flocks in his vicinity, to signify that he acknowledged them as brethren; ‡ and every pastor who thus enjoyed communion with the principal Church was recognized as a Catholic bishop. This parent establishment was considered a bulwark which could protect all the Christian communities surrounding it from heresy, and they were consequently expected to be guided by its traditions. It is manifest," says Tertullian, "that all doctrine, which agrees with these apostolic Churches, THE WOMBS AND ORIGINALS OF THE FAITH, must be accounted true, as without doubt contain

* “It appears to have been the custom at Rome and other places to send from the cathedral church the bread consecrated to the several parish churches."-Stillingfleet's Irenicum, pp. 369, 370. “Thomassinus shews that in the fifth century the presbyters of Rome did not consecrate the Eucharist in their respective churches, but it was sent to them from the principal church.”—Palmer, p. 35, note.

Thus Rome is called the "principal Church" in regard to Carthage. Cyprian, Epist. lv. p. 183.

Tertullian apparently refers to this when he says-"Una omnes probant unitate communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitalitatis."-De Præscrip. c. 20.

§ "Ecclesiis apostolicis matricibus et originalibus fidei.”

ing that which the Churches have received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God: and that all other doctrine must be judged at once to be false, which savours of things contrary to the truth of the Churches, and of the apostles, and of Christ, and of God. . . . . . Go through the apostolic Churches, in which the very seats of the apostles, at this very day, preside over their own places," in which their own authentic writings are read, speaking with the voice of each, and making the face of each present to the eye. Is Achaia near to you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have the Thessalonians. If you can travel into Asia, you have Ephesus. But if you are near to Italy you have Rome, where we also have an authority close at hand."‡

But the Catholic system was not yet complete. In every congregation the bishop or pastor was the centre of unity, and in every district the principal or apostolic Church bound together the smaller Christian societies; but how were the apostolic Churches themselves to be united? This question did not long remain without a solution. §

* "Cathedræ apostolorum suis locis præsident." These words clearly indicate that the Churches founded by the apostles were now recognized as centres of unity for the surrounding Christian communities.

It is worthy of note that, in the second canonical epistle ever written by Paul, he warns this Church of the coming of the Man of Sin. (2 Thess. ii. 3.) It appears from the text that thus early it was identified with the system which resulted in the establishment of the Papacy. It is equally remarkable that the bishop of Thessalonica was the first Papal Vicar ever appointed. See Bower's "History of the Popes," Damasus, thirty-sixth bishop; and Gieseler, i. 264. "De Præscrip." xxi., xxxvi.

§ The tendency of "Church principles" to terminate in the recognition of a universal bishop has appeared in modern as well as in ancient times. “What other step," says a noble author, "remains to stand between those who hold those principles and Rome? Only one: that the priesthood so constituted, invested with such powers, is organized under one head-a Pope. . . . . The space to be traversed in arriving at it is so narrow, and so unimpeded by any positive barrier, either of logic or of feeling, that the slightest influence of sentiment or imagination, of weakness or of superstition, is sufficient to draw men across."-Letter from the Duke of Argyll to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 23. London, Moxon, 1851.

Had the Church of Jerusalem, when the Catholic system was first organized, still occupied its ancient position, it might have established a better title to precedence than any other ecclesiastical community in existence. It had been, beyond all controversy, the mother Church of Christendom. But it had been recently dissolved, and a new society, composed, to a great extent, of new members, was now in process of formation in the new city of Aelia. Meanwhile the Church of Rome had been rapidly acquiring strength, and its connexion with the seat of government pointed it out as the appropriate head of the Catholic confederation. If the greatest convenience of the greatest number of Churches were to be taken into account, it had claims of peculiar potency, for it was easily accessible by sea or land from all parts of the Empire, and it had facilities for keeping up communication with the provinces to which no other society could pretend. Nor were these its only recommendations. It had, as was alleged, been watered by the ministry of two or three of the apostles, so that, even as an apostolic Church, it had high pretensions. In addition to all this, it had, more than once, sustained with extraordinary constancy the first and fiercest brunt of persecution; and if its members had so signalized themselves in the army of martyrs, why should not its bishop lead the van of the Catholic Church? Such considerations urged in favour of a community already distinguished by its wealth, as well as by its charity, were amply sufficient to establish its claim as the centre of Catholic unity. If, as is probable, the arrangement was concocted in Rome itself, they must have been felt to be irresistible. Hence Irenæus, writing about A.D. 180, speaks of it even then as the recognized head of the Churches of the Empire. "To this Church," says he, "because it is more potentially principal,

* Tertullian says that John, as well as Peter and Paul, had been in Rome. "De Præscrip." xxxvi.