1.
Such, then, is the testimony borne in various ways by Origen,
Eusebius, and Cyril, by Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, to the
immemorial reception among Christians of those doctrines and practices
which the private judgment of this age considers to be unscriptural. I
have been going about from one page to another of the records of those
early times, prying and extravagating beyond the beaten paths of
orthodoxy, for the chance of detecting some sort of testimony in favour
of our opponents. With this object I have fallen upon the writers
aforesaid; and, since they have been more or less accused of
heterodoxy, I thought there was at least a chance of their subserving
the cause of Protestantism, which the Catholic Fathers certainly do not
subserve; but they, though differing from each other most materially,
and some of them differing from the Church, do not any one of them
approximate to the tone or language of the movement of 1517. Every
additional instance of this kind does but go indirectly to corroborate
the testimony of the Catholic Church.
It is natural and becoming in all of us to make a brave struggle for
life; but I do not think it will avail the Protestant who attempts it
in the medium of ecclesiastical history. He will find himself in an
element in which he cannot breathe. The problem before him is to draw a
line between the periods of purity and alleged corruption, such, as to
have all the Apostles on one side, and all the Fathers on the other;
which may insinuate and meander through the dove-tailings and
inosculations of historical facts, and cut clean between St. John and
St Ignatius, St. Paul and St. Clement; to take up a position within the
shelter of the book of Acts, yet safe from the range of all other
extant documents besides, And at any rate, whether he succeeds or not,
so much he must grant, that if such a system of doctrine as he would
now introduce ever existed in early times, it has been clean swept away
as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without memorial; by a
deluge coming in a night, and utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and
hurrying off every vestige of what it found in the Church, before
cock-crowing; so that “when they rose in the morning” her true seed
“were all dead corpses”—nay, dead and buried—and without grave-stone.
“The waters went over them; there was not one of them left; they sunk
like lead in the mighty waters.” Strange antitype, indeed, to the early
fortunes of Israel!—then the enemy was drowned, and “Israel saw them
dead upon the sea-shore.” But now, it would seem, water proceeded as a
flood “out of the serpent's mouth,” and covered all the witnesses, so
that not even their dead bodies “lay in the streets of the great city.”
Let him take which of his doctrines he will,—his peculiar view of
self-righteousness, of formality, of superstition; his notion of faith,
or of spirituality in religious worship; his denial of the virtue of
the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or of the visible
Church; or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the Scriptures as the
one appointed instrument of religious teaching; and let him consider
how far Antiquity, as it has come down to us, will countenance him in
it. No; he must allow that the alleged deluge has done its work; yes,
and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been swallowed up in the
earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless.
2.
Representations such as these have been met by saying that the
extant records of Primitive Christianity are scanty, and that, for
what we know, what is not extant, had it survived, would have told
a different tale. But the hypothesis that history might contain
facts which it does not contain, is no positive evidence for the
truth of those facts; and this is the present question; what is the
positive evidence that the Church ever believed or taught a Gospel
substantially different from that which her extant documents contain?
All the evidence that is extant, be it much or be it little, is on our
side: Protestants have none. Is none better than some? Scarcity of
records—granting for argument's sake there is scarcity—may be taken
to account for Protestants having no evidence; it will not account for
our having some, for our having all that is to be had; it cannot become
a positive evidence in their behalf. That records are few, does not
show that they are of none account.
Accordingly, Protestants had better let alone facts; they are wisest
when they maintain that the Apostolic system of the Church was
certainly lost;—lost, when they know not, how they know not, without
assignable instruments, but by a great revolution lost—of that
there can be no doubt; and then challenge us to prove it was not so.
“Prove,” they seem to say, “if you can, that the real and very truth is
not so entirely hid in primitive history as to leave not a particle of
evidence betraying it. This is the very thing which misleads you, that
all the arguments are in your favour. Is it not possible that an error
has got the place of the truth, and has destroyed all the evidence but
what witnesses on its side? Is it not possible that all the Churches
should everywhere have given up and stifled the scheme of doctrine they
received from the Apostles, and have substituted another for it? Of
course it is; it is plain to common sense it may be so. Well, we say,
what may be, is; this is our great principle: we say that
the Apostles considered episcopacy an indifferent matter, though
Ignatius says it is essential. We say that the table is not an altar,
though Ignatius says it is. We say there is no priest's office under
the Gospel, though Clement affirms it. We say that baptism is not an
enlightening, though Justin takes it for granted. We say that heresy is
scarcely a misfortune, though Ignatius accounts it a deadly sin; and
all this, because it is our right, and our duty, to interpret Scripture
in our own way. We uphold the pure unmutilated Scripture; the Bible,
and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants; the Bible and our
own sense of the Bible. We claim a sort of parliamentary privilege to
interpret laws in our own way, and not to suffer an appeal to any court
beyond ourselves. We know, and we view it with consternation, that all
Antiquity runs counter to our interpretation; and therefore, alas, the
Church was corrupt from very early times indeed. But mind, we
hold all this in a truly Catholic spirit, not in bigotry. We allow in
others the right of private judgment, and confess that we, as others,
are fallible men. We confess facts are against us; we do but claim the
liberty of theorizing in spite of them. Far be it from us to say that
we are certainly right; we only say that the whole early Church was
certainly wrong. We do not impose our belief on any one; we only say
that those who take the contrary side are Papists, firebrands,
persecutors, madmen, zealots, bigots, and an insult to the nineteenth
century.”
To such an argument, I am aware, it avails little to oppose
historical evidence, of whatever kind. It sets out by protesting
against all evidence, however early and consistent, as the testimony of
fallible men; yet at least, the imagination is affected by an array of
facts; and I am not unwilling to appeal to the imagination of those who
refuse to let me address their reason. With this view I have been
inquiring into certain early works, which, or the authors of which,
were held in suspicion, or even condemned by the ruling authorities of
the day, to see if any vestige of an hypothetical Protestantism could
be discovered in them; and, since they make no sign, I will now
interrogate a very different class of witnesses. The consent of Fathers
is one kind of testimony to Apostolical Truth; the protest of heretics
is another; now I will come, thirdly, to received usage. To give an
instance of the last mentioned argument, I shall appeal to the
Apostolical Canons, though a reference to them will involve me in an
inquiry, interesting indeed to the student, but somewhat dry to the
general reader.
3.
These Canons, well known to Antiquity, were at one time supposed to
be, strictly speaking, Apostolical, and published before A.D. 50. On
the other hand, it has been contended that they are later than A.D.
450, and the work of some heretics. Our own divines take a middle
course, considering them as published before A.D. 325, having been
digested by Catholic authorities in the course of the two preceding
centuries, or at the end of the second, and received and used in most
parts of Christendom. This judgment has since been acquiesced in by the
theological world, so far as this—to suppose the matter and the
enactments of the Canons to be of the highest antiquity, even though
the edition which we possess was not published so early as Bishop
Beveridge, for instance, supposes. At the same time it is acknowledged
by all parties, that they, as well as some other early documents, have
suffered from interpolation, and perhaps by an heretical hand.
They are in number eighty-five,[372] of which the first fifty are
considered of superior authority to the remaining thirty-five. What has
been conjectured to be their origin will explain the distinction. It
was the custom of the early Church, as is well known, to settle in
Council such points in her discipline, ordinances, and worship, as the
Apostles had not prescribed in Scripture, as the occasion arose, after
the pattern of their own proceedings in the fifteenth chapter of the
Acts; and this, as far as might be, after their unwritten directions,
or after their practice, or at least, after their mind, or as it is
called in Scripture, their “minding” or “spirit.” Thus she decided upon
the question of Easter, upon that of heretical baptism, and the like.
And, after that same precedent in the Acts, she recorded her decisions
in formal decrees, and “delivered them for to keep” through the cities
in which her members were found. The Canons in question are supposed to
be some of these decrees, of which, first and nearest to the Apostles'
times, or in the time of their immediate successors, were published
fifty; and in the following age, thirty-five more, which had been
enacted in the interval. They claim, then, to be, first, the recorded
judgment of great portions of the Ante-Nicene Church, chiefly in the
eastern provinces, upon certain matters in dispute, and to be of
authority so far as that Church may be considered a representative of
the mind of the Apostles; next, they profess to embody in themselves
positive decisions and injunctions of the Apostles, though without
clearly discriminating how much is thus directly Apostolical, and how
much not. I will here attempt to state some of the considerations which
show both their antiquity and their authority, and will afterwards use
them for the purpose which has led me to mention them.
4.
1. In the first place, it would seem quite certain that, as, on the
one hand, Councils were held in the primitive Church, so, on the other,
those Councils enacted certain Canons. When, then, a Collection
presents itself professing to consist of the Ante-Nicene Canons, there
is nothing at all to startle us; it only professes to set before us
that which we know anyhow must have existed. We may conjecture, if we
please, that the fact that there were Canons may have suggested and
encouraged a counterfeit. Certainly; but though the fact that there
were Canons will account for a counterfeit, it will not account for
those original Canons being lost; on the contrary, what is known to
have once existed as a rule of conduct, is likely to continue in
existence, except under particular circumstances. Which of the two this
existing Collection is, the genuine or the counterfeit, must depend on
other considerations; but if these considerations be in favour of its
genuineness, then this antecedent probability will be an important
confirmation.
Canons, I say, must have existed, whether these be the real ones or
no; and the circumstance that there were real ones existing must have
tended to make it difficult to substitute others. It would be no easy
thing in our own Church to pass off another set of Articles for the
Thirty-nine, and to obliterate the genuine. Canons are public property,
and have to be acted upon by large bodies. Accordingly, as might be
expected, the Nicene Council, when enacting Canons of its own, refers
to certain Canons as already existing, and speaks of them in that
familiar and indirect way which would be natural under the
circumstances, just as we speak of our Rubrics or Articles. The Fathers
of that Council mention certain descriptions of persons whom “the
Canon admits into holy orders;” they determine that a certain rule
shall be in force, “according to the Canon which says so and so;” they
speak of a transgression of the Canon, and proceed to explain and
enforce it. Nor is the Nicene the only Council which recognizes the
existence of certain Canons, or rules, by which the Church was at that
time bound. The Councils of Antioch, Gangra, Constantinople, and
Carthage, in the same century, do so likewise; so do individual
Fathers, Alexander, Athanasius, Basil, Julius, and others.
Now here we have lighted upon an important circumstance, whatever
becomes of the particular Collection of Canons before us. It seems that
at the Nicene Council, only two centuries and a quarter after St.
John's death, about the distance of time at which we live from the
Hampton Court Conference, all Christendom confessed that from time
immemorial it had been guided by certain ecclesiastical rules, which it
considered of authority, which it did not ascribe to any particular
persons or synods (a sign of great antiquity), and which writers of the
day assigned to the Apostles. I suppose we know pretty well, at this
day, what the customs of our Church have been since James the First's
time, or since the Reformation; and if respectable writers at present
were to state some of them,—for instance, that it is and has been the
rule of our Church that the king should name the bishops, that
Convocation should not sit without his leave, or that Easter should be
kept according to the Roman rule,—we should think foreigners very
unreasonable who doubted their word. Now, in the case before us, we
find the Church Catholic, the first time it had ever met together since
the Apostles' days, speaking as a matter of course of the rules to
which it had ever been accustomed to defer.
If we knew no more than this, and did not know what the rules were;
or if, knowing what they were, we yet decided, as we well might, that
the particular rules are not of continual obligation; still, the very
circumstance that there were rules from time immemorial would be
a great fact in the history of Christianity. But we do know, from the
works of the Fathers, the subjects of these Canons, and that to
the number of thirty or forty of them; so that we might form a code, as
far as it goes, of primitive discipline, quite independent of the
particular Collection which is under discussion. However, it is
remarkable that all of these thirty or forty are found in this
Collection, being altogether nearly half the whole number, so that the
only question is, whether the rest are of that value which we know
belongs to a great proportion of them. It is worth noticing, that no
Ecclesiastical Canon is mentioned in the historical documents of the
primitive era which is not found in this Collection, for it shows that,
whoever compiled it, the work was done with considerable care. The
opponents to its genuineness bring, indeed, several exceptions, as they
wish to consider them; but these admit of so satisfactory an
explanation as to illustrate the proverb, that exceptio probat
regulam.
Before going on to consider the whole Collection, let us see in what
terms the ancient writers speak of those particular Canons to which
they actually refer.
(1.) Athanasius speaks as follows:—“Canons and forms,” he says,
when describing the extraordinary violences of the Arians, “were not
given to the Churches in this day, but were handed down from our
fathers well and securely. Nor, again, has the faith had its beginning
in this day, but has passed on even to us from the Lord through His
disciples. Rouse yourselves, then, my brethren, to prevent that from
perishing unawares in the present day which has been observed in the
Churches from ancient times down to us, and ourselves from
incurring a responsibility in what has been intrusted to us.”—Ep.
Encycl. 1. It is remarkable, in this extract, that St. Athanasius
accurately distinguishes between the Faith which came from Christ, and
the Canons received from the Fathers of old time: which is just the
distinction which our divines are accustomed to make.
(2) Again: the Arians, by simoniacal dealings with the civil power,
had placed Gregory in the see of Alexandria. Athanasius observes upon
this:—“Such conduct is both a violation of the Ecclesiastical
Canons, and forces the heathen to blaspheme, as if appointments
were made, not by Divine ordinance, but by merchandise and secular
influence.”—Ibid. 2.
(3) Arsenius, bishop of Hypsela, who had been involved in the
Meletian[373] schism, and had acted in a hostile way towards
Athanasius, at length reconciled himself to the Church. In his letter
to Athanasius he promises “to be obedient to the Ecclesiastical
Canon, according to ancient usage, and never to put forth any
regulation, whether about bishops or any other public ecclesiastical
matter, without the sanction of his metropolitan, but to submit to
all the established Canons.”—Apol. contr. Arian. 69.
(4) In like manner, St. Basil, after speaking of certain crimes for
which a deacon should be reduced to lay communion, proceeds, “for it
is an ancient Canon, that they who lose their degree should be
subjected to this kind of punishment only.”—Ep. 188. Again: “
The Canon altogether excludes from the ministry those who have been
twice married.”
(5) When Arius and his abettors were excommunicated by Alexander of
Alexandria, they betook themselves to Palestine, and were re-admitted
into the Church by the bishops of that country. On this, Alexander
observes as follows:—“A very heavy imputation, doubtless, lies upon
such of my brethren as have ventured on this act, in that it is a
violation of the Apostolical Canon.”—Theod. Hist. i. 4.
(6) When Eusebius declined being translated from the see of Cæsarea
to Antioch, Constantine complimented him on his “observance of the
commandments of God, the Apostolical Canon, and the rule of the
Church,”—Vit. Constant. iii. 61,—which last seems to mean the
regulation passed at Nicæa.
(7) In like manner, Julius, bishop of Rome, speaks of a violation of
“the Apostles' Canons;” and a Council held at Constantinople,
A.D. 394, which was attended by Gregory Nyssen, Amphilochius, and
Flavian, of a determination of “the Apostolical Canons.”
It will be observed that in some of these instances the Canons are
spoken of in the plural, when the particular infraction which occasions
their mention relates only to one of them. This shows they were
collected into a code, if, indeed, that need be proved; for, in truth,
that various Canons should exist, and be in force, and yet not be put
together, is just as unlikely as that no collection should be made of
the statutes passed in a session of Parliament.
With this historical information about the existence, authority, and
subject-matter of certain Canons in the Church from time immemorial, we
should come to many anti-Protestant conclusions, even if the particular
code we possess turned out to have no intrinsic authority. And now let
us see how the matter stands on this point as regards this code of
eighty-five Canons.
5.
2. If this Collection existed as a Collection in the time of
the above writers and Councils, then, considering they allude to nearly
half its Canons, and that no Canons are anywhere producible which are
not in it, and that they do seem to allude to a Collection, and that no
other Collection is producible, we certainly could not avoid the
conclusion that they referred to it, and that, therefore, in
quoting parts of it they sanction the whole. If no book is to be
accounted genuine except such parts of it as happen to be expressly
cited by other writers,—if it may not be regarded as a whole, and what
is actually cited made to bear up and carry with it what is not
cited,—no ancient book extant can be proved to be genuine. We believe
Virgil's Æneid to be Virgil's, because we know he wrote an Æneid, and
because particular passages which we find in it, and in no other book,
are contained, under the name of Virgil, in subsequent writers or in
criticisms, or in accounts of it. We do not divide it into rhapsodies,
because it only exists in fragments in the testimony of later
literature. For the same reason, if the Canons before us can be shown
to have existed as one book in Athanasius's time, it is natural to
conceive that they are the very book to which he and others refer. All
depends on this. If the Collection was made after his time, of course
he referred to some other; but if it existed in his time, it is more
natural to suppose that there was one Collection than two distinct
ones, so similar, especially since history is silent about there being
two.
However, I conceive it is not worth while to insist upon so early a
formation of the existing Collection. Whether it existed in
Athanasius's time, or was formed afterwards, and formed by friend or
foe, heretic or Catholic, seems to me immaterial, as I shall by-and-by
show. First, however, I will state, as candidly as I can, the arguments
for and against its antiquity as a Collection.
Now there can be no doubt that the early Canons were formed into one
body; moreover, certain early writers speak of them under the name of
“the Apostles' Canons,” and “Apostolical Canons.” So far I have already
said. Now, certain collectors of Canons, of A.D. (more or less) 550,
and they no common authorities, also speak of “the Apostolical Canons,”
and incorporate them into their own larger collections; and these which
they speak of are the very body of Canons which we now possess under
the name. We know it, for the digest of these collectors is preserved.
No reason can be assigned why they should not be speaking of the
same Collection which Gregory Nyssen and Amphilochius speak of, who
lived a century and a half before them; no reason, again, why Nyssen
and Amphilochius should not mean the same as Athanasius and Julius, who
lived fifty to seventy years earlier than themselves. The writers of
A.D. 550 might be just as certain that they and St. Athanasius quoted
the same work, as we, at this day, that our copy of it is the same as
Beveridge's, Pearson's, or Ussher's.
The authorities at the specified date (A.D. 550) are
three—Dionysius Exiguus, John of Antioch, patriarch of Constantinople,
and the Emperor Justinian. The learning of Justinian is well known, not
to mention that he speaks the opinion of the ecclesiastical lawyers of
his age. As to John of Antioch and Dionysius, since their names are not
so familiar to most of us, it may be advisable to say thus much—that
John had been a lawyer, and was well versed both in civil and
ecclesiastical matters,—hence he has the title of Scholasticus; while
Dionysius is the framer of the Christian era, as we still reckon it.
They both made Collections of the Canons of the Church, the latter in
Latin, and they both include the Apostolical Canons, as we have them,
in their editions; with this difference, however (which does not at
present concern us), that Dionysius published but the first fifty,
while John of Antioch enumerates the whole eighty-five.
Such is the main argument for the existence of our Collection at the
end of the third century; viz., that, whereas a Collection of
Apostolic Canons is acknowledged at that date, this Collection
is acknowledged by competent authorities to be that Apostolic record at
the end of the fifth. However, when we inspect the language which
Dionysius uses concerning them, in his prefatory epistle, we shall find
something which requires explanation. His words are these, addressed to
Stephen, bishop of Salona:—“We have, in the first place, translated
from the Greek what are called the Canons of the Apostles; which, as
we wish to apprise your holiness, have not gained an easy credit from
very many persons. At the same time, some of the decrees of the
[Roman] pontiffs, at a later date, seem to be taken from these very
Canons.” Here Dionysius must only mean, that they were not received as
Apostolic; for that they were received, or at least nearly half of
them, is, as I have said, an historical fact, whatever becomes of the
Collection as a Collection. He must mean that a claim had been advanced
that they were to be received as part of the apostolic depositum
; and he must be denying that they had more than ecclesiastical
authority. The distinction between divine and ecclesiastical
injunctions requires little explanation: the latter are imposed by the
Church for the sake of decency and order, as a matter of expedience,
safety, propriety, or piety. Such is the rule among ourselves, that
dissenting teachers conforming must remain silent three years before
they can be ordained; or that a certain form of prayer should be
prescribed for universal use in public service. On the other hand, the
appointment of the Sacraments is apostolic and divine. So, again, that
no one can be a bishop unless consecrated by a bishop, is apostolic;
that three bishops are necessary in consecration, is ecclesiastical;
and, though ordinarily an imperative rule, yet, under circumstances,
admits of dispensation. Or again, it has, for instance, in this day
been debated whether the sanctification of the Lord's-day is a divine
or an ecclesiastical appointment. Dionysius, then, in the above
extract, means nothing more than to deny that the Apostles enacted
these Canons; or, again, that they enacted them as Apostles; and
he goes on to say that the Popes had acknowledged the ecclesiastical
authority of some of them by embodying them in their decrees. At the
same time, his language certainly seems to show as much as this, and it
is confirmed by that of other writers, that the Latin Church, though
using them separately as authority, did not receive them as a
Collection with the implicit deference which they met with in the East;
indeed, the last thirty-five, though two of them were cited at Nicæa,
and one at Constantinople, A.D. 394, seem to have been in inferior
account. The Canons of the General Councils took their place, and the
Decrees of the Popes.
6.
This, then, seems to be the state of the case as regards the
Collection or Edition of Canons, whether fifty or eighty-five, which is
under consideration. Speaking, not of the Canons themselves, but of
this particular edition of them, I thus conclude about it—that,
whether it was made at the end of the third century, or later, there is
no sufficient proof that it was strictly of authority; but that it is
not very material that it should be proved to be of authority, nay, or
even to have been made in early times. Give us the Canons themselves,
and we shall be able to prove the point for which I am adducing them,
even though they were not at first formed into a collection. They are,
one by one, witnesses to us of a state of things.
Indeed, it must be confessed, that probability is against this
Collection having ever been regarded as an authority by the ancient
Church. It was an anonymous Collection; and, as being anonymous,
seemed to have no claim upon Christians. They would consider that a
collection or body of Canons could only be imposed by a Council;
and since the Council could not be produced which imposed this in
particular, they had no reason to admit it. They might have been in the
practice of acting upon this Canon, and that, and the third, and so on
to the eighty-fifth, from time immemorial, and that as Canons, not as
mere customs, and might confess the obligation of each: and yet might
say, “We never looked upon them as a code,” which should be
something complete and limited to itself. The true sanction of each was
the immemorial observance of each, not its place in the Collection,
which implied a competent framer. Moreover, in proportion as General
Councils were held, and enacted Canons, so did the vague title of mere
usage, without definite sanction, become less influential, and the
ancient Canons fell into disregard. And what made this still more
natural was the circumstance that the Nicene Council did re-enact a
considerable number of those which it found existing. It substituted
then a definite authority, which, in after ages, would be much more
intelligible than what would have by that time become a mere matter of
obscure antiquity. Nor did it tend to restore their authority, when
their advocates, feeling the difficulty of their case, referred the
Collection to the Apostles themselves: first, because this assertion
could not be maintained; next, because, if it could, it would have
seemingly deprived the Church of the privilege of making Canons. It
would have made those usages divine which had ever been accounted only
ecclesiastical. It would have raised the question whether, under such
circumstances, the Church had more right to add to the code of really
Apostolic Canons than to Scripture; discipline, as well as doctrine,
would have been given by direct revelation, and have been included in
the fundamentals of religion.
If, however, all this be so, it follows that we are not at liberty
to argue, from one part of this Collection having been received, that
therefore every other was also; as if it were one authoritative work.
No number of individual Canons being proved to be of the first age will
tend to prove that the remainder are of the same. It is true; and I do
not think it worth while to contest the point. For argument-sake I will
grant that the bond, which ties them into one, is not of the most
trustworthy and authoritative description, and will proceed to show
that even those Canons which are not formally quoted by early writers
ought to be received as the rules of the Ante-Nicene Church,
independently of their being found in one compilation.
7.
3. I have already said that nearly half of the Canons, as they stand
in the Collection, are quoted as Canons by early writers, and thus
placed beyond all question, as remains of the Ante-Nicene period: the
following arguments may be offered in behalf of the rest:—
(1) They are otherwise known to express usages or opinions
of the Ante-Nicene centuries. The simple question is, whether they had
been reflected on, recognized, converted into principles, enacted,
obeyed; whether they were the unconscious and unanimous result of the
one Christian spirit[374] in every place, or were formal determinations
from authority claiming obedience. This being the case, there is very
little worth disputing about; for (whether we regard them as being
religious practices or as religious antiquities) if uniform custom was
in favour of them, it does not matter whether they were enacted or not.
If they were not, their universal observance is a still greater
evidence of their extreme antiquity, which, in that case, can be hardly
short of the Apostolic age; and we shall refer to them in the existing
Collection, merely for the sake of convenience, as being brought
together in a short compass.
Nay, a still more serious conclusion will follow, from supposing
them not to be enactments—much more serious than any I am disposed to
draw. If it be maintained that these observances, though such, did not
arise from injunctions on the part of the Church, then, it might be
argued, the Church has no power over them. As not having imposed, she
cannot abrogate, suspend, or modify them. They must be referred to a
higher source, even to the inspired Apostles; and their authority is
not ecclesiastical, but divine. We are almost forced, then, to consider
them as enactments, even when they are not recognized by ancient
writers as such, lest we should increase the authority of some of them
more than seems consistent with their subject-matter.
Again, if such Canons as are not appealed to by ancient writers are
nevertheless allowed to have been really enacted, on the ground of our
finding historically that usage corresponds to them; it may so be that
others, about which the usage is not so clearly known, are real Canons
also. There is a chance of their being genuine; for why, in
drawing the line, should we decide by the mere accident of the usage
admitting or not admitting of clear historical proof?
(2) Again, all these Canons, or at least the first fifty, are
composed in uniform style; there is no reason, as far as the internal
evidence goes, why one should be more primitive than another, and many,
we know, were certainly in force as Canons from the earliest times.
(3) This argument becomes much more cogent when we consider what
that style is. It carries with it evident marks of primitive
simplicity, some of which I shall instance. The first remark which
would be made on reading them relates to their brevity, the breadth of
the rules which they lay down, and their plain and unartificial mode of
stating them. An instance of this, among others which might be taken,
is supplied by a comparison of the 7th of them with one of a number of
Canons passed at Antioch by a Council held A. D. 341, and apparently
using the Apostolical Canons as a basis for its own. The following,
read with the words in brackets, agrees, with but slight exceptions,
with the Antiochene Canon, and, without them, with the Apostolical:—
“All who come [to church] and hear the [holy] Scriptures read, but
do not remain to prayer [with the people,] and [refuse] the holy
communion [of the Eucharist, these] must be put out of the Church, as
disorderly, [until, by confession, and by showing fruits of penitence,
and by entreaty, they are able to gain forgiveness.”]
(4) Now this contrast, if pursued, will serve to illustrate the
antiquity of the Apostolical Canons in several ways, besides the
evidence deducible from the simplicity of their structure. Thus the
word “metropolitan” is introduced into the thirty-fifth Canon of
Antioch; no such word occurs in the Apostolical Canon from which it is
apparently formed. There it is simply said, “the principal bishop;” or,
literally, the primus. This accords with the historical fact, that the
word metropolitan was not introduced till the fourth century. The same
remark might be made on the word “province,” which occurs in the Canon
of Antioch, not in the other. This contrast is strikingly brought out
in two other Canons, which correspond in the two Collections. Both
treat of the possessions of the Church; but the Apostolical Canon says
simply, “the interests of the Church,” “the goods of the Church;” but
the Antiochene, composed after Christianity had been acknowledged by
the civil power, speaks of “the revenue of the Church,” and “the
produce of the land.”
Again, when attempts have been made to show that certain words are
contained in the Canons before us which were not in use in the
Ante-Nicene times, they have in every case failed in the result, which
surely may be considered as a positive evidence in favour of their
genuineness. For instance, the word “clergy,” for the ministerial body,
which is found in the Apostolical Canons, is also used by Origen,
Tertullian, and Cyprian. The word “reader,” for an inferior order in
the clergy, is used by Cornelius, bishop of Rome; nay, by Justin
Martyr. “Altar,” which is used in the Canons, is the only word used for
the Lord's table by St. Cyprian, and, before him, by Tertullian and
Ignatius. “Sacrifice” and “oblation,” for the consecrated elements,
found in the Canons, are also found in Clement of Rome, Justin Irenæus,
and Tertullian.
This negative evidence of genuineness extends to other points, and
surely is of no inconsiderable weight. We know how difficult it is so
to word a forgery as to avoid all detection from incongruities of time,
place, and the like. A forgery, indeed, it is hardly possible to
suppose this Collection to be, both because great part of it is known
to be genuine, and because no assignable object would be answered by
it; but let us imagine the compiler hastily took up with erroneous
traditions, or recent enactments, and joined them to the rest. Is it
possible to conceive, under such circumstances, that there would be no
anachronisms or other means of detection? And if there are none such,
and much more if the compiler, who lived perhaps as early as the fourth
century, found none such (supposing we may assume him willing and
qualified to judge of them), nay, if Dionysius Exiguus found none such,
what reasons have we for denying that they are the produce of those
early times to which they claim to belong? Yet so it is; neither rite,
nor heresy, nor observance, nor phrase, is found in them which is
foreign to the Ante-Nicene period. Indeed, the only reason one or two
persons have thrown suspicion on them has been an unwillingness on
their part to admit episcopacy, which the Canons assert; a necessity
which led the same parties to deny the genuineness of St. Ignatius'
epistles.[375]
(5) I will make one more remark:—First, these Canons come to us,
not from Rome, but from the East, and were in a great measure
neglected, or at least superseded in the Church, after Constantine's
day, especially in the West, where Rome had sway; these do not embody
what are called “Romish corruptions.” Next, there is ground for
suspecting that the Collection or Edition which we have was made by
heretics, probably Arians, though they have not meddled with the main
contents of them. Thus, while the neglect of them in later times
separates them from Romanism, the assent of the Arians is a second
witness, in addition to their recognition by the first centuries, in
evidence of their Apostolical origin. Those first centuries observe
them; contemporary heretics respect them; only later and corrupt times
pass them by. May they not be taken as a fair portrait, as far as they
go, of the doctrines and customs of Primitive Christianity?
8.
I do wish out-and-out Protestants would seriously lay to heart where
they stand when they would write a history of Christianity. Are there
any traces of Luther before Luther? Is there anything to show that what
they call the religion of the Bible was ever professed by any persons,
Christians, Jews, or heathen? Again, are there any traces in history of
a process of change in Christian belief and practice, so serious, or so
violent, as to answer to the notion of a great corruption or perversion
of the Primitive Religion? Was there ever a time, what was the time,
when Christianity was not that which Protestants protest against, as if
formal, unspiritual, self-righteous, superstitious, and unevangelic? If
that time cannot be pointed out, is not “the Religion of Protestants” a
matter, not of past historical fact, but of modern private judgment?
Have they anything to say in defence of their idea of the Christianity
of the first centuries, except that that view of it is necessary to
their being Protestants. “Christians,” they seem to say, “must
have been in those early times different from what the record of those
times shows them to have been, and they must, as time went on, have
fallen from that faith and that worship which they had at first, though
history is quite silent on the subject, or else Protestantism,
which is the apple of our eye, is not true. We are driven to
hypothetical facts, or else we cannot reconcile with each other
phenomena so discordant as those which are presented by ancient times
and our own. We claim to substitute à priori reasoning for
historical investigation, by the right of self-defence and the duty of
self-preservation.”
I have urged this point in various ways, and now I am showing the
light which the Canons of the Apostles throw upon it. There is no
reasonable doubt that they represent to us, on the whole, and as far as
they go, the outward face of Christianity in the first centuries;—now
will the Protestant venture to say that he recognizes in it any
likeness of his own Religion? First, let him consider what is conveyed
in the very idea of Ecclesiastical Canons? This: that Christians could
not worship according to their fancy, but must think and pray by rule,
by a set of rules issuing from a body of men, the Bishops, over whom
the laity had no power whatever. If any men at any time have been
priest-ridden, such was the condition of those early Christians. And
then again, what becomes of the Protestant's watchword, “the Bible, the
whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible,” if a set of Canons might
lawfully be placed upon their shoulders, as if a second rule of faith,
to the utter exclusion of all free-and-easy religion? and what room was
there for private judgment, if they had to obey the bidding of certain
fallible men? and what is to be done with the great principle, “Unity,
not Uniformity,” if Canons are to be recognized, which command
uniformity as well as unity?
So much at first sight; but when we go on to examine what these
Canons actually contain, their incompatibility with the fundamental
principles of Protestantism becomes still more patent. I will set down
some instances in proof of this. Thus, we gather from the Canons the
following facts about Primitive Christianity:—viz., that,
1. There was a hierarchy of ordained ministers, consisting of the
three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
2. Their names were entered on a formal roll or catalogue.
3. There were inferior orders, such as readers and chanters.
4. Those who had entered into the sacred orders might not afterwards
marry.
5. There were local dioceses, each ruled by a Bishop.
6. To him and him only was committed the care of souls in his
diocese.
7. Each Bishop confined himself to his own diocese.
8. No secular influence was allowed to interfere with the
appointment of Bishops.
9. The Bishops formed one legislative body, and met in Council twice
a year, for the consideration of dogmatic questions and points in
controversy.
10. One of them had the precedence over the rest, and took the lead;
and, as the priests and people in each diocese obeyed their Bishop, so
in more general matters the Bishops deferred to their Primus.
11. Easter and Pentecost were great feasts, and certain other days
feasts also. There was a Lent Fast; also a Fast on Easter Eve; and on
Wednesdays and Fridays.
12. The state of celibacy was recognized.
13. Places of worship were holy.
14. There was in their churches an altar, and an altar service.
15. There was a sacrifice in their worship, of which the materials
were bread and wine.
16. There were oblations also of fruits of the earth, in connection
with the sacrifice.
17. There were gold and silver vessels in the rite, and these were
consecrated.
18. There were sacred lamps, fed with olive oil, and incense during
the holy rite.
19. Baptism was administered in the name of Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.
20. Excommunication was inflicted on Christians who disgraced their
profession.
21. No one might pray, even in private, with excommunicated persons,
except at the cost of being excommunicated himself.
22. No one might pray with heretics, or enter their churches, or
acknowledge their baptism, or priesthood.
9.
These rules furnish us with large portions, and the more important,
of the outline of the religion of their times; and are not only
definitive in themselves, but give us the means of completing those
parts of it which are not found in them. Considered, then, as a living
body, the primitive Christian community was distinguished by its high
sacerdotal, ceremonial, mystical character. Which among modern
religious bodies was it like? Was it like the Wesleyans? was it like
the Society of Friends? was it like the Scotch Kirk? was it like any
Protestant denomination at all? Fancy any model Protestant of this day
in a state of things so different from his own! With his religious
societies for the Church, with his committees, boards, and platforms
instead of Bishops, his Record and Patriot newspapers
instead of Councils, his concerts for prayer instead of anathemas on
heresy and schism, his spoutings at public meetings for exorcisms, his
fourths of October for festivals of the Martyrs, his glorious memories
for commemorations of the dead, his niggard vestry allowances for gold
and silver vessels, his gas and stoves for wax and oil, his
denunciations of self-righteousness for fasting and celibacy, and his
exercise of private judgment for submission to authority—would he have
a chance of finding himself at home in a Christianity such as this? is
it his own Christianity?
* * * * *
I end, then, as I began:—If Protestantism is another name for
Christianity, then the Martyrs and Bishops of the early Church, the men
who taught the nations, the men who converted the Roman Empire, had
themselves to be taught, themselves to be converted. Shall we side with
the first age of Christianity, or with the last?
FOOTNOTES:
[372] This account is for the most part taken from Bishops Beveridge
and Pearson.
[373] The Egyptian Meletius, from which this schism has its name,
must not be confounded with Meletius of Antioch.
[374] The [Greek: ekklêsiastikon phronêma].
[375] Vid. the parallel case of the Ignatian Epistles in the
Author's Essays, vol. i, p. 266.