CHAPTER III: SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE AND AUTHORITIES; OR, SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND THE

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE AND AUTHORITIES; OR, SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND THE CHURCH. __________________________________________________________________

The extent and authority of the Catholic authorities were already substantially fixed at the beginning of the fourth century, though their mutual relations and the manner of using them in detail were not.
[393] Among the parties which contended over the correct definition of the dogma of redemption, they had to a certain degree become undoubtedly subjects of controversy. The great opposition between a more liberal theology and pure traditionalism was based upon a difference in the way of looking at the authorities. But this opposition never culminated in a clear contrast of principles. Consequently, theologians had no occasion to frame a special doctrine of the Church and the authorities--Scripture and tradition. The need was not, as in the case of the dogma of redemption, so pressing as to lead men to adopt the perilous and obnoxious course of formulating laws of faith anew. The petty skirmishes, however, with more or less obscure theologians and reformers, who point-blank objected to this or that portion of the traditional basis, did not come before the great tribunal of the Church, and the conflict with Manichæans, Paulicians, Euchites, and Bogomilians, has left no trace in the history of dogma.
[394]

Still, changes took place in the period between Eusebius and Johannes Damascenus. They followed simply the altered requirements of the Church. They gave utterance to the increased traditionalism. Necessity became a virtue, i.e., every new point which was felt to be needed in order to preserve the unity of the Church, or to adapt its institutions to the taste of the time, was inserted in the list of authorities. This method was in vogue even in the third century. It was now only further and further extended. But it is hard to fix its results, since at that time there was no fixity and there could be none, from the nature of the principle that the state of the Church at any time was to be declared as in every respect the traditional one. [395] __________________________________________________________________

[393] See the account given in Vol. II., pp. 18-127, and elsewhere.

[394] The opposition to the Eustathians and Andians (see the Acts of the Synod of Gangra and Epiph. H.70) does not belong to this section; for it arose from a different conception of the obligatoriness of the monk's life on Christians. On the contrary, it is noteworthy that Aërius, once a friend of Eustathius (Epiph. H.75) not only maintained the original identity of bishops and presbyters--that had also been done, and supported from the N. T., by Jerome and the theologians of Antioch--but he made the question an articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiæ. We cannot now determine what motive influenced him. The attack of Marcellus of Ancyra on the foundations of the prevalent theology, and his argument that the dogma was essentially anthropines boules te kai gnomes, are of incomparably greater significance in principle. But his arguments were not understood, and produced no effect. Meanwhile, the basis of the whole structure of the Catholic Church in the East was at no time left unassailed. The Church has never embraced everything which was, and might be, named Christian. After the Marcionites and the older sects had retired from the stage, or had fused with the Manichæans, Paulicians, Euchites, and Bogomilians, etc., came upon the scene. These Churches contested the Catholic foundations as the Marcionites and Manichæans had done; they accepted neither the Catholic Canon, nor the hierarchical order and tradition. They succeeded, in part, in creating lasting, comprehensive, and exclusive systems, and afforded work to Byzantine theologians and politicians for centuries. But important as it is to assert their existence, they have no place in the history of dogma; for at no time had they any influence whatever on the formation of dogma in the East; they have left no effect on the Church. Therefore general Church history has alone to deal with them.

[395] The view held of the apostolate of the twelve first fully reached its Catholic level in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Apostles were (1) missionaries who had traversed the whole world and performed unheard of miracles, (2) the rulers of the Churches, (3) teachers and law-givers in succession to Christ, having given in speech and writing to the least detail all the regulations necessary to the Church for faith and morals, (4) the authors of the order of worship, the liturgy, (5) heroic ascetics and fathers of monachism, (6) though hesitatingly, the mediators of salvation. __________________________________________________________________

1. Holy Scripture. [396]

To the two Testaments a unique authority was ascribed. They were the Holy Scriptures kat' exochen; every doctrine had to be proved out of them, in other words, opinions that held something necessary to faith which did not occur in Scripture, had no absolute validity. Any one who declared that he took his stand on Scripture alone did not assume an uncatholic attitude. This view of the Holy Scriptures presupposed that their extent was strictly defined, and placed beyond all doubt. But this supposition was for centuries contradicted by the actual facts, which, however, were concealed, partly because men neither would nor dared look at them, partly because they really did not see them. The theologians of Antioch, and especially Theodore, criticised on internal and external grounds the contents of the Canon, as these were gradually being fixed; but in doing so even they were guided by an ecclesiastical tradition. Their criticism still had its supporters in the sixth century, and its influence extended not only to Persia, but even, through Junilius, to the West. But neither the spirit of the criticism nor its results ever made any impression whatever on the great Church.
[397]

As regards the O. T., the oldest and most revered of the Greek Fathers followed Melito and Origen, and only recognised the 22-24 books of the Hebrew Canon, [398] according to the others in the Alexandrian Canon only a secondary validity, or none at all. While there was some hesitation about the Book of Esther, and that not only in Antioch, this decision obtained in the Greek Churches, though divergences were not wanting in provincial communities. But it was always in danger of being disregarded, for the sacred books were continually transcribed from the LXX.; and so, as a rule, those writings, excluded in theory, were copied along with the others. The legend of the genesis of the LXX., again, was always highly valued, and it seemed to imply the sacredness of the whole translation. Yet it was only in consequence of the attempts at union with the Roman Church in the Middle Ages, and still more after the ill-fated enterprise of Cyrillus Lucaris (17th century), that the Greek Church was persuaded to give up the Hebrew and adopt the Alexandrian and Roman Canon. But a binding, official declaration never followed; the passiveness and thoughtlessness with which it changed, or upturned its position in so important a question, is extraordinarily characteristic of the modern Græco-Slavic Church. The question is not even yet decided, and there are distinguished Russian theologians, who regard the books of the Hebrew Canon as being alone strictly canonical. They are, however, growing ever fewer. [399] In the Western Church a state of complete uncertainty still prevailed in the fourth century as to the extent of the O. T. But the Latin Bible, complete copies of which may not have been very common, was a translation of the LXX. This fact was more potent than the historical views which found their way into the West from the East, in a disjointed form, and for whose triumph Jerome had laboured. Augustine, who was ignorant of Biblical criticism, held to the current Latin collection (see, e.g., his list in De doct. christ. II., 8), and at the Synods of Hippo, A.D. 393 (can. 36), and Carthage, A.D. 397 (can. 47), the Alexandrian Canon was adopted. The decision that the Roman Church was to be asked for a confirmation of this conclusion does not seem to have been carried out. From that date the Hebrew Canon was departed from in the West, though the view of Athanasius, conveyed to it by Rufinus, and the decision of Jerome, exerted a quiet influence, and even apart from this some uncertainty--e.g., in the case of 4 Esra, the Pastor of Hermas, etc.,--still remained. [400] Cassiodorus seems to have taken a very important part in finally shaping the Latin Bible. But we cannot by any means describe the attitude of the West as uncritical. It only avoided the inconsistency into which scholars had fallen in extolling the LXX. as a divinely composed and authentic work, while they ranked the Hebrew Bible above it.

As regards the N. T., the Alexandrian Church accepted the Western collection in the time of Origen, and in the course of the third century most of the others, though not yet all, [401] seem to have followed its example. In so far as any reflection was given to their historical characteristics, the Scriptures were regarded as Apostolic-catholic, and were acknowledged to contain the real sources of evidence for Christian doctrine. But the principle of apostolicity could not be strictly carried out. In many national Churches apostolic writings were known and revered which were not found in the Western collection, and conversely, it was not always possible to perceive the Apostolic origin and Catholic recognition of a received book. Origen already therefore adopted the idea, consonant to the spirit of antiquity, that the collection embraced those books about whose title a general agreement had prevailed from the earliest times. Canonicity was decided by unanimous testimony. But even this principle did not meet the whole case; Origen himself violated it in forming the group of seven Catholic Epistles. Yet it became the established rule, and put an end to any consideration of the question based on criticism of the facts. Eusebius, who was a very important authority, and who--if we are to understand the passage so--had been commissioned by the Emperor to prepare standard Bibles, followed the view of Origen; yet in the case of one book, the Apocalypse, he expressed his dislike in a way that ran counter to the principle of the Canon. The three, or four, categories, in which he required to arrange the books, show that men were struggling with a difficulty not to be solved in this way, which could only be solved by time with its power to hallow all inconsistencies.
[402] If we collected statistically all the Eastern information we possess concerning the extent of the N. T. from the date of Eusebius up to the destruction of Constantinople--direct and indirect statements by Church Fathers, Synodal decisions, Bible manuscripts and indices from the Churches of various provinces, and especially Syria--we would be forced to the conclusion that complete confusion and uncertainty prevailed. [403] But this view would be erroneous. We have to multiply by hundreds the lists which enumerate 26 (27) books, i.e., the Acknowledged and the Disputed melioris notæ of Eusebius.--Athanasius' Festival Epistle, A.D. 367, was of paramount importance in settling the complete equality of these two classes in the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Constantinople and in the West.--On the other hand, apart from the Syrian Churches, [404] the lists which diverge from the above owe their existence either to a badly applied scholarship, or to individual reminiscences, in rare cases to a divergent usage on the part of provincial Churches. From the end of the fourth century real unanimity prevailed, in the main, as to the contents of the N. T. and the authorship of the separate books, in Constantinople, Asia Minor, Alexandria, and the West. Apart from doubts of long standing, yet ineffectual and isolated, about the Catholic Epistles (and Philemon?), the one exception was John's Revelation, for which Eusebius' verdict was momentous. [405] But even in this case attempts to come to a decision were given up: the book was shelved, and reemerged, from the circles in which it had maintained its ground, without exciting any controversy worth mentioning. The disquieting distinction between Acknowledged and Disputed books, abolished by Athanasius, was but very seldom of any consequence in practice; but scholars still recalled it here and there. When the collection was limited to 26 (27) books, the reading of others in the Church was, from the end of the fourth century, more strictly prohibited. But even at the beginning of the fifth, men in a position to know, like Jerome and Sozomen, can tell us that the prohibition was here and there unknown or disregarded. Some primitive Christian writings were thus in use in the Churches down to the fifth century and later; but the Monophysite Churches preserved, as a monkish protest against the spiritualism of Origen, Jewish Apocalypses revised by Christians and belonging to the earliest period, and the barbarism into which they fell spread a protective covering over these writings. [406]

The details are obscure of the way in which the Western Church obtained the Epistle of James, second Peter, and third John. The Epistle to the Hebrews, not unknown to it from the first, it received in the fourth century as a Pauline composition, from the East, through the famous intermediaries. Those same men did away with all uncertainty at the close of the fourth century on the ground of the decisions given by Eusebius and Athanasius. The 27 books, i.e., the Canon of Athanasius, were alone recognised at the Synods of Hippo and Carthage (397), and this result was confirmed by Augustine's authority (see, e.g., De doctr. christ. II. 8) without any general declaration having been made.
[407] But the sharper the line drawn between the collection and all other writings, the more suspicious must those have appeared whose title could lead, or had once admittedly led, to a claim for recognition as Catholic and Apostolic. The category of "apocryphal" in which they had formerly been placed, solely in order to mark the alleged or real absence of general testimony in their favour, now obtained more and more an additional meaning; they were of unknown origin, or fabricated', and this was often supplemented by the charge of being heretical'. But however great the gulf between the canonical and uncanonical books, it is impossible to conceal the fact that the Church never published a general decision, excluding all doubt, on the extent of the Canon in ancient times. The Canon of Augustine was adopted by Pope Innocent I. (Ep. 6, ch. 7, ad Exsuperium).

With the complete elaboration of the conception of canonical books, every other description applied to them gave way to the idea of their divinity. [408] What could any predicate signify compared with the conviction that they had been composed by the Holy Ghost himself? Therefore the categories of canonical and inspired writings coincided, nay, inspiration in its highest sense was limited to the canonical books. The belief in inspiration was necessarily attended by the duty of pneumatic or allegorical exegesis. This sacred art was then practised by all, who were able thus to disregard the results of any other kind of exposition. The problems which pneumatic exegesis, praised even by cultured Hellenists, [409] had to solve, were mainly the following. It had (1) to demonstrate the agreement between the two Testaments, in other words; to christianise the O. T. completely, to discover prophecy everywhere, to get rid of the literal meaning where it was obnoxious, and to repel Jewish claims; [410] (2) to harmonise the statements of Holy Scripture with the prevailing dogmatics; (3) to furnish every text with a profound meaning, one valuable for the time. Exegesis became a kind of black art, and Augustine was not the only man who was delivered from Manichæan, by Biblical, Alchemy.

But while these tasks were generally fixed, a sure and unvarying method was still wanting. [411] Even the principles of Origen were not strictly retained. [412] On the other hand, the historical antiquarian interest, which he had awakened, in Holy Scripture, continued to exert its influence. It not only lasted up to the fifth century, [413] but it also exerted a critical and restrictive influence on pneumatic exegesis
[414] This was the case among the scholars of Antioch. Diodorus and Theodore tried, following the precedent set by Lucian and Dorotheus, to form an inner connection between the pneumatic and the grammatico-historical exegesis. It cannot be held that this gave rise to a more rational method, or one more tenable from the critical standpoint. Yet in detail they followed sound principles. These again had been already pared down by Chrysostom and Theodoret in favour of the dominant method, but they lasted in the Nestorian Church and its schools as long as science existed there at all, and their influence extended into the West through Junilius. [415]

The West received through Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and Rufinus, the erudite pneumatic method of the Greeks, as practised especially by the Cappadocians. Before this, and for a few decades afterwards, the exegesis of the West was mainly characterised by absence of system; along with reverence for the letter we find all sorts of allegorical explanations, and in turn a predilection for a dramatic close to earthly history. Jerome was far from having fixed exegetic principles, since he allegorised against his better knowledge wherever the orthodox confession required it. In his time Tychonius, a Donatist, drew up for the interpretation of Holy Scripture seven rules which were to remove all difficulties (Augustine, De doctr. christ. III. 30 sq.). [416] These were adopted by Augustine in his work On Christian Science', which, subject as it is to the errors of the age, is a glorious memorial of the great Bishop's love of truth, and evangelical feeling. Of evangelical feeling, in so far as Augustine, in opposition to all biblicism, declared the study of Holy Scripture to be merely the path towards love; he who possessed love, no longer needed the Scripture, he lived with Christ and God; accordingly he had ceased to require separate saving truths', for he lived in truth and love. [417]

But this thought of the book does not give its prevailing colour; this is furnished, on the contrary, by the other ideas that Scripture is the only way by which to come to God and Christ, that it is to be interpreted by the rule of faith, that obscure passages are to be explained by clear ones, and that the literal meaning, where offensive, must yield to the deeper sense. The numerous hermeneutic rules set up by Augustine, [418] which are so many expedients and very like Origen's methodic principles, determined the nature of exegesis in later periods in the West. In connection with whatever else was derived from the East, the view that there was a triple and fourfold meaning in Scripture became a fixed doctrine. [419] The little book by Junilius which contained the Antiochene system of hermeneutics as handed down at Nisibis, although much read, made few changes. But it was exceedingly significant that Augustine, in spite of his view that it was only a means, had placed the Bible on such a pinnacle that all theologians who afterwards took their stand upon it alone as against tradition, were able to appeal to him. As a matter of fact Scripture held quite a different place in the Church life of the West from that in the East: it came more into the foreground. That also is to be explained, above all, by the influence of Augustine, [420] and the deficiency of the West in speculative ability. [421]

As the Church had never published a general decree, exclusive of all doubt, on the extent of Scripture, it had also failed to publish one concerning its characteristics. Freedom from error was generally deduced from inspiration, and it was, as a rule, referred to the very words. But on the other hand, an attempt was made here and there to leave room for the individuality and historical limitation of the authors; minor inconsistencies were not wholly denied (see even Aug., De consensu evang.); and exegesis was often practised as if the strict dogma of inspiration did not exist. [422] A clear idea of the sufficiency of Scripture was certainly not reached; it was maintained in general phrases, and was violated in generalities and in details.
[423] Finally, as regards the relation of the two Testaments to each other, three views existed side by side. The Old Testament was a Christian book as well as the New: it was throughout the record of prophecy: it contained the true creed under certain limitations and imperfections, and led and still leads educationally to Christ. These points of view were adopted alternately as the occasion required. It was recognised that the Jewish nation had possessed a covenant with God, yet the consequences of this were far from being admitted. The same method of employing the Bible was still upheld in apologetic arguments as was followed by the Apologists of the second century.
[424] For the rest, even Cyril of Alexandria still brought "heathen prophecy" to bear in this matter, while in other respects--speaking generally--the assumption of heathen prophets' and inspired philosophers excited suspicion. __________________________________________________________________

[396] See histories of the Canon by Holtzmann, Schmiedel (in Ersch and Gruber "Kanon"); Weiss, Westcott, and especially Zahn. Overbeck, Z. Gesch. des Kanons, 1880. The controversy with the Jews as to the possession and exposition of the O. T. still continued in the Byzantine period; see on this McGiffert, Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew, entitled Antibole Papiskou kai Philonos k.t.l. . . . together with a discussion of Christian polemics against the Jews. New York, 1889.

[397] On the attitude of Theodore and his disciples to the Canon, see the thorough investigations of Kihn (Theodorus von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus, 1880). Theodore rejected from the O. T., Job, the Song of Songs, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Esther, and the inscriptions of the Psalms; see Leontius Byz. Contra Nestor. et Eutych.
L. III., ch. 13-17, Migne T. 86, p. 1365 sq. The fifth Synod expressly condemned Theodore's criticism and interpretation of Job and the Song of Songs, as well as his idea of inspiration in reference to Solomon's writings, and his exposition of some of the Psalms. On Theodore's prestige in Nisibis, see Kihn, p. 333 f.; on Junilius' dependence on him, l. c., 350-382. For the dependence of the Nestorian Canon on Theodore's, see Noeldeke in the Gött. Gel. Anz. 1868, St. 46, p. 1826 and Kihn, l. c., 336.

[398] Authoritative were especially the views of Athanasius, Cyril of Jerus. and Gregory of Nazianzus, who reckoned only 22 Books; see also the sixtieth Canon of the Council of Laodicea (363? inauthentic?).

[399] See Gass, Symbolik der griechischen Kirche, p. 97 ff.; Strack, Kanon des A. T. in Prot. R.-E., Vol. VII. 2, p. 412 ff. The reader is referred to this article and to Introductions to the O. T. for details. Kattenbusch, Confessionskunde I., p. 292.

[400] Gregory I. (Moral XIX. 13) thought it necessary to excuse himself for arguing from Maccabees.

[401] Thus Syrian Churches still used Tatian's Diatessaron in the fourth century; and in a few circles among them there were retained in the Canon, the apocryphal correspondence of the Corinthians and Paul, the two Epp. of Clement, nay, even the Ep. of Clement de virginitate. On the other hand, some books were wanting. Not a few apocryphal writings held an undefined rank in the Syrian Patriarchate. In a word, the old Roman Canon, expanded in the course of the third century in Alexandria, did not get the length of being acknowledged in vast territories of the East proper. In spite of the association of the Apostolic Epistles with the Gospels, the higher rank peculiar to the latter was not done away with as late as the fourth century. Alexander of Alexandria (in Theodoret H. E. I. 4) describes the contents of Holy Scripture briefly as Law, Prophets, and Gospels.'

[402] On the efforts of Eusebius to fix the extent of the N. T., see Texte und Untersuch. zur altchristl. Litteratur-Geschichte, Vol. II. 1, 2, p. 5 ff.

[403] Almost everything which was esteemed in quite different circumstances in the earliest period, is to be again found somewhere or other in the Byzantine age. Most instructive is the history of Clement's Epistles and Hermas. Conversely, the old doubts also remain and even new ones emerge (Philemon, see Jerome in his preface to the Epistle).

[404] The N. T. had a peculiar history in the Syrian Churches, which has not yet been written; see Nestle, Syrische Bibelübersetzungen' in the Prot. R.-E. Vol. XV.; Bäthgen's work on the Syrus Cureton. 1885, and my das N. T. um das Jahr 200' ( 1888). It is more than questionable whether Theodore of Mopsuestia did any independent criticism on the extent of the N. T. He, probably, simply adhered to the Canon of his Church, which then of the Catholic Epistles only admitted 1 Peter and 1 John, and rejected the Apocalypse; see Kihn, l. c., 65 ff. and the Canon of Chrysostom. While the whole Church was substantially agreed about the extent of the N. T., from the end of the fourth century, wide districts in the Patriarchate of Antioch retained their separate traditions. Only we must not forget that the vast majority even of these had accepted the Roman Canon of undisputed books in the second half of the third century. But the agreement went no further; for from the fourth century they would take no more instruction from Alexandria.

[405] For the rest, Weiss has rightly shown (Einleitung in das N. T., p. 98) that the extent to which the Apocalypse was rejected, has been somewhat exaggerated. Extremely noteworthy is the view of Didymus on 2 Peter (Enarrat. in epp. cathol.): "Non est ignorandum præsentem epistolam esse falsatam, quæ licet publicetur non tamen in canone est."

[406] In the Byzantine Church also Apocalypses continued to be read, and new ones were constantly being produced.

[407] See also under this head the verdict, freer because dependent on Theodore, which Junilius passed on the Catholic Epistles. Critical investigations have not yet arrived at a final result regarding the Decretum Gelasii. Augustine himself has not failed, besides, to notice the doubts that existed in his time; see Retractat. II. 4, 2. In his De pecc. mer. I. 27, he still leaves the Ep. to the Hebrews unassigned. In De doctr. christ. II. 8, he writes: "In canonicis autem scripturis ecclesiarum catholicarum quam plurimum auctoritatem sequatur, inter quas sane illæ sint, quæ apostolicas sedes habere et epistolas accipere meruerunt." Accordingly, this principle still holds. "Tenebit igitur hunc modum in scripturis canonicis, ut eas quæ ab omnibus accipiuntur ecclesiis catholicis, præponat eis quas quædam non accipiunt; in iis vero quæ non accipiuntur ab omnibus, præponat eas, quas plures gravioresque accipiunt eis, quas pauciores minorisque auctoritatis ecclesiæ tenent. Si autem alias invenerit a pluribus, alias a gravioribus haberi, quamquam hoc facile inveniri non possit, æqualis tamen auctoritatis eas habendas puto." Since the older copies of the Bible continued to be transcribed, uniformity had not been secured. It is true we no longer possess western Bibles whose contents are limited to the earliest Roman Canon--Gospels, Acts, 13 Pauline Ep., 1 and 2 John, 1 Peter, Jude, Revelation--but we have them with an Ep. to the Laodiceans, the Pastor (though in the O. T.), and even with the apocryphal correspondence of the Corinthians and Paul.

[408] The conception that the canonical books were solemnly set apart, occurs first in Athanasius; the Alexandrians, however, including Origen, had the idea and even the word before him (Orig. Prolog. in Cantic.). Athanasius writes in his Festival Ep. ta kanonizomena kai paradothenta pisteuthenta te theia einai biblia.

[409] The Neoplatonic opponents of the Church were not quite honest, they were rather talking dialektikos, when they objected to the allegorical method of interpreting Holy Scripture. They treated their own sacred writings in exactly the same way.

[410] Sozomen says (H. E. V.22) that the Jews were more readily seduced to heathenism, because they only interpreted Holy Scripture pros rheton, and not pros theorian.

[411] Thus Arians and Orthodox sometimes appealed to the same texts. But the impossibility of drawing up a rule deciding how far the letter of Scripture was authoritative, caused more anxiety. Had God a human form, eyes, or voice; was Paradise situated on the earth; did the dead rise with all their bodily members, even with their hair, etc.?--to all these and a hundred similar questions there was no sure answer, and consequently disputes arose between adherents of one and the same confession. All had to allegorise, and, in turn, all had to take certain texts literally. But what a difference existed between an Epiphanius and a Gregory of Nyssa, and how many shades of belief there were between the crude anthropomorphists and the spiritualists! The latter, as a rule, had reason to dread the arguments, and frequently the fists, of the former; they could not but be anxious about their own orthodoxy, for the old regula was on the side of their opponents, and the most absurd opinion had the prejudice that it was the most pious in its favour. Ultimately, in the course of the fifth century, a sort of common sense established itself, which could be taken as forming, with regard to the anthropomorphists, a middle line between the exegetic methods of Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria, and which had been anticipated by a few Fathers of the fourth century. Yet not many concessions were made to the anthropomorphists. Even Antiochians like Theodore had become suspected of an anthropomorphism incompatible with the honour of God (see Johannes Philoponus, De creat. mundi, I. 22. in Gallandi XII., p. 496). He who did not rise from the turpitudo litteræ ad decorem intelligentiæ spiritalis (Jerome ad Amos. 2) might come under suspicion of heresy. But, on the other hand, the Cappadocians themselves opposed those who allegorised "too much", and thus approximated too closely to heathen philosophers; and after a part of Origen's expositions had passed into the traditional possessions of the Church, the rest was declared heretical. Even before this Epiphanius had written (H. 61, ch. 6): Panta ta theia rhemata ouk allegorias deitai, alla hos echei, echei, theorias de deitai kai aistheseos. Origen's thorough-going principle that "God can say and do nothing, which is not good and just", by which he criticised and occasionally set aside the letter of Scripture, was too bold for the Epigoni with their faith in authority. God had done what Scripture said of him, and what God did was good. This principle not only ruined all lucid science, but also deprived the Church of the intrinsic completeness of her creed. Yet we must not minimise the result of the compromise made in the fourth and fifth centuries, between the literal, allegorical, and typical methods of interpreting Scripture; for it has held its ground up to the present day in a way really identical in all Churches, and it seems to possess no small power to convince.

[412] For Origen's principles see Vol. II., p. 346.

[413] Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome are links in a chain of scholarly tradition and work. The succession, however, marked a descent not only in point of time. The attitude of Jerome and the conflicts in which he was involved show at the same time that the age no longer tolerated independent scholarship in historical criticism. Therefore it ceased after Jerome; such work was confined to registering antiquarian notices, even doubtful ones, which were accepted without reflection, since, having entered into the stock of tradition, they no longer roused criticism.

[414] Besides, when driven by necessity, i.e., when brought face to face with inconvenient passages of Scripture, a way was found out of the difficulty in the demand that the historical occasion of the text must be carefully weighed. Thus Athanasius writes (Orat. c. Arian. I. 54), when setting himself to refute the Scriptural proofs of the Arians, and finding that he is in considerable straits: dei de, hos epi pases theias graphes prosekei poiein kai anankaion estin, houto kai entautha, kath' hon eipen ho apostolos kairon kai to prosopon kai to pragma, dioper egrapse, pistos eklambanein, hina me para tauta e kai par' heteron ti touton agnoon ho anagignoskon exo tes alethines dianoias genetai. The same contention was often upheld in earlier times by Tertullian when driven into a corner by the exegesis of the Marcionites (see De præscr. adv. Marc. II.-V.). The exegetical "principle" of the Fathers gradually became the complexus oppositorum; i.e., when the literal meaning was disturbing, then it was, in the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, (Orat. XXXI. 3): enduma tes asebeias estin he philia tou grammatos: or men spoke of the turpitudo litterræ, the Jewish understanding of Scripture, the necessity of considering historical circumstances or the like. But if "advanced" theologians produced suspected allegorical explanations, then the cry was raised hos echei, echei, Holy Scripture is not to be understood according to Plato, etc.

[415] The distinction between Alexandrian--Origenistic--and Antiochene exegesis does not consist in the representatives of the latter having rejected wholesale the spiritual meaning. They rather recognised it, but they tried to determine it typically from the literal meaning. While the Alexandrians avowedly set aside the literal meaning in many passages, and attached the pneumatic sense to texts by some sort of device, the Antiochenes started from the literal meaning, seeking to discover it by all the means of a sound exegesis, and then showed that the narrative concerned was a skia ton mellonton, a type created by God, which had been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. They set up definite rules for the discovery of the literal meaning as well as for that of the typical and allegorical sense (theoria, not allegoria), which lay not in the words, but the realities, persons, and events designated by the words. The rules are strikingly like those of the Federal theologians--Cocceius--and the school of Hofmann; the method of the author of the Hebrews furnished their model. This procedure had various results. First, the method of Philo and Origen followed by the Alexandrians was strenuously opposed both in independent treatises, and in connection with exegesis. Secondly, an effort was made to give the literal meaning in all cases its due; thus Diodorus says in the Catena of Nicephorus (Leipz. 1772, I. p. 524): tou allegorikou to historikon pleiston hoson protimomen. Thirdly, a real covenant was accordingly recognised between God and the Jewish people, and that nation was accorded its significant place in the history of salvation: the "history of salvation" which thus originated differed essentially from that of Irenæus (see Vol. II., p. 305). Fourthly and finally, the number of directly Messianic passages in the O. T. became extraordinarily limited; while, according to pneumatic exegesis, everything in the O. T. was in a sense directly Messianic, i.e., Christian, the Antiochenes only retained a few such passages. The horizon of O. T. authors was more correctly defined. Theodore decidedly disputed the presence of anything in the O. T. about the Son of God or the Trinity. Further, the Antiochenes distinguished grades of inspiration, namely, the spirit of prophecy, and that of wisdom, and they placed the former far above the latter. Although the advance of this exegesis on the Alexandrian is obvious, yet it is seriously defective in completeness and consistency in method. First, the Antiochenes, in spite of their polemic against the older expositors--Hippolytus, Origen, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Didymus, and Jerome--could not altogether divest themselves of the old principle of the authoritative interpretation of Scripture; "they regarded the old traditional doctrine, the exposition given by the Fathers, and the definitions of Synods, as the standard and touch-stone of agreement with the creed of the Church, and they made of this rule what use they pleased"; from this source their attitude became somewhat uncertain. Secondly, they only rarely succeeded in criticising the literal meaning historically; where they did, they employed rationalistic interpretations, and accordingly their procedure approximated to Origen's. speculative exegesis, yet without following any fixed principle. Thirdly, their typological exegesis also often bordered very closely on the allegorical, and since they assumed a double sense in Scripture, they did not remove, but only disguised, the fundamental error of current exegesis. Fourthly, they could not make clear the difference between the O. T. and the N. T., because, in spite of their assumption of different degrees of inspiration, they placed the O. T. prophets on a level with the Apostles; see Theodore, Comment. on Neh.
I. in Migne, T. LXVI., p. 402: tes autes tou hagiou pneumatos charitos hoi te palai meteichon kai hoi to tes kaines diathekes huperetoumenos musterio. Finally, by assuming directly Messianic passages in the O. T. they gave up their own position, and placed themselves at the mercy of their opponents. See later for the history of the school of Antioch, especially its relation to Aristotle. Diestel, Gesch. des A. T. in der christl. Kirche, p. 126 ff. Fritzsche, de Theod. Mops. vita et scriptis, Halae, 1836. Above all, the works of Kihn, Die Bedeutung der Antioch. Schule a. d. exeget. Gebiete (1866), and Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius als Exegeten (1880), where the older literature is given. Swete, Theodori ep. Mops. in epp. Pauli Comment. Cambridge, 1880, 1881.

[416] These rules are of material importance (for theology). The first treats of the Lord and his body: i.e., we must and may apply the truth concerning the Lord to the Church, and vice versa, since they form one person; only in this way do we frequently get a correct sense. The second deals with the bi-partite body of the Lord: we must carefully consider whether the true or the empirical Church is meant. The third takes up the promises and the law, i.e., the spirit and letter; the fourth treats of genus and species: we must observe the extent to which texts apply; the fifth, of the dates: we must harmonise contradictory dates by a fixed method, and understand certain stereotyped numbers as symbolical. The sixth discusses repetition: i.e., we have frequently to refrain from assuming a chronological order, where such an order appears to exist, and the seventh deals with the devil and his body, i.e., the devil and the godless, many things referring to the latter which are said of the devil and vice versa--see the first rule.

[417] The thought wavers between that of Origen, who also elevates himself above the historical Christ, and the genuinely evangelical idea that the Christian must stop short at "means of salvation"; see De doctr. I. 34: "Nulla res in via (ad deum) tenere nos debet, quando nec ipse dominus, in quantum via nostra esse dignatus est, tenere nos voluerit, sed transire; ne rebus temporalibus, quamvis ab illo pro salute nostra susceptis et gestis, hæreamus infirmiter, sed per eas potius curramus alacriter etc." In ch. 35 love is held up as the exclusive goal: ch. 36 teaches that no one has understood Scripture who has not been led by it to love God and his neighbour; but if he has been led to this love, then he loses nothing by failing to hit on the correct sense of detached texts: in that case he is deceived, but without guilt: "Quisquis in scripturis (I. 37) aliud sentit quam ille qui scripsit, illis non mentientibus fallitur; sed tamen, ut dicere coeperam, si ea sententia fallitur, qua ædificet caritatem, quæ finis præcepti est, ita fallitur ac si quisquam errore deserens viam, eo tamen per agrum pergat, quo etiam via illa perducit." Augustine says indeed (l. c.): "titubabit fides, si divinarum scripturarum vacillat auctoritas," but, on the other hand (I. 39): "Homo, fide, spe et caritate subnixus eaque inconcusse retinens, non indiget scipturis nisi ad alios instruendos. Itaque multi per hæc tria etiam in solitudine sine codicibus vivunt . . . Quibus tamen quasi machinis tanta fidei, spei et caritatis in eis surrexit instructio, ut perfectum aliquid tenentes, ea quæ sunt ex parte non quærant; perfectum sane, quantum in hac vita potest." This forcible way of assigning a practical purpose to the reading of Scripture and the understanding at the root of it, viz., that it was the whole that was of importance, is the opposite of the conception that Scripture embraces innumerable mysteries; but an affinity exists far down between them, inasmuch as Augustine seems to reserve to the monks the state in which Scripture is not required, and he borders on the belief of Origen (I. 34) that the Christ of history belongs to the past for him who lives in love. The whole conception is first found, besides, in the description by the Valentinian school of the perfect Gnostic; see Excerpta ex Theodoto, ch. 27: pou de eti graphes kai matheseos katorthoma te psuche ekeine te kathara genomene, hopou kai axioutai prosopon pros prosopon Theon horan; besides Augustine expressly argued against those who supposed they could dispense with Scripture from the start, and appealed to an inner revelation (see the Præfat. to De doctr. christ.). He puts it beyond doubt that he who uses Scripture must bow to its authority even where he does not understand it.

[418] See the second and especially the third book of the work quoted. The second contains a short and precise review of all branches of knowledge which are collectively perceived to spring from heathenism, and it states which may and must be used by the Christian, and to what extent. The third book contains the hermeneutics proper.

[419] See Eucherius of Lyons, liber formularum spiritalis intelligentiæ ad Veranium filium, in Migne, Ser. lat. T. 50, p. 727. In later times the mnemonic formula was composed:

Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.

[420] The work "On Christian Science" points to Scripture as its sole object, and does not discuss tradition at all. However, the latter receives its due inasmuch as Augustine regards the propositions of the rule of faith--based on the Symbol--as the matters, which constituted the essential contents of Scripture. In this definition we find. the reason why dogmatics never ceased to waver between Scripture and the rule of faith. Yet we know that Augustine was by no means the first to hold this view. Even the writer of the Muratorian fragment and Irenæus knew no better.

[421] Origen taught that Christian science was the science of Scripture; Augustine stands upon his shoulders. But afterwards, in the East, the interest in dogmatic formulas became uppermost, while in the West, the Bible remained pre-eminently the direct source of knowledge of the faith.

[422] Even the men of Antioch, by whom, Chrysostom not excepted, human elements were aknowledged to exist in the Bible, maintained the inspiration of other passages quoad litteram, just like Origen and the Cappadocians. Augustine accepted this freedom from error in its strictest sense; see Ep. 82. 3 (ad Hieron.): "Ego fateor caritati tuæ, solis eis scriptuaram libris, qui iam canonici appellantur, didici hunc timorem honoremque deferre, ut nullum eorum auctorem scribendo aliquid errasse firmissime credam. Ac si aliquid in eis offendero litteris, quod videatur contrarium veritati, nihil aliud quam vel mendosum esse codicem, vel interpretem non assecutum esse quod dictum est, vel me minime intellexisse non ambigam." In his work De consensu evang., which is particularly instructive as regards his whole attitude to Holy Writ, he declares that the Apostles' writings make up sufficiently for the absence of any by our Lord; for the Apostles were the Lord's hands, and had written what he commanded. It is extremely surprising that this being the view taken of the Bible--and even the translation of the LXX. was held to be inspired--yet no one ever ex professo reflected on how the Canon was formed. No miracle was assumed. Even Augustine quite naively stated, sancti et docti homines had formed the N. T. (c. Faustum XXII. 79). Here the authority of the Church comes in.

[423] The early Catholic Fathers had already maintained the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, as well as the necessity of proving everything out of it; see for the latter point Orig. in Jerem., Hom. I. c. 7 (Lomm. XV. p. 115): Marturas dei labein tas graphas. Amarturoi gar hai epibolai hemon kai hai exegeseis apistoi eisin. Cyril of Jerusalem has expressed himself similarly (Cat. 4, 17: Dei gar peri ton theion kai agion tes pisteos musterion mede to tuchon aneu ton theion paradidosthai graphon; kai me haplos pithanotesi kai logon kataskeuais parapheresthai. Mede emoi to tauta soi legonti, haplos pisteuses; ean ten apodeixin ton katangellomenon apo ton theion me labes graphon; He soteria gar haute tes pisteos hemon ouk ex heuresilogias, alla ex apodeixeos ton theion esti graphon); cf. Athanasius (Orat. adv. gentes init.: Autarkeis men eisin hai hagiai kai theopneustoi graphai pros ten tes aletheias apangelian). So also the Antiochenes, moreover Augustine De doctr. II. 9: "In iis quæ aperte in scriptura posita sunt, inveniuntur illa omnia, quæ continent fidem moresque vivendi, spem scilicet et caritatem." Vincent., Commonit. 2.

[424] All the more did the use made of the O. T. for the constitution of the Church differ from the apologetic view. Very many of the regulations of the O. T. ceremonial law came once more to be highly valued by the Church, not as spiritually understood, but as directly applied to ecclesiastical institutions of every sort. __________________________________________________________________

2. Tradition.

The authority of Holy Scripture frequently appears in the Fathers as something wholly abstract and despotic. It contained, in fact, a latent tendency to assert its independence of the conditions out of which it had arisen. But the revolution which was characterised by the isolation of the Bible, its deliverance from the authority of ecclesiastical tradition, and the annihilation of the latter, only took place in the sixteenth century, and even then it was, we know, not completely successful. In ecclesiastical antiquity, on the contrary, the bond was by no means severed which connected Scripture with the maternal organism of the Church. The Church, its doctrine, institutions, and constitution, were held, in and by themselves, to constitute the source of knowledge and the authoritative guarantee of truth. As the holy, Apostolic, and Catholic institution, it possessed nothing whatever untrue or capable of amendment either in its foundations or its development. Everything in it, rather, was apostolic, and the guidance of the Church by the Holy Ghost had preserved this apostolic fabric from any change. This thought was necessarily emphasised more and more strongly in consequence of the development undergone by Church affairs in the fourth and following centuries. Since at the same time, however, the independent authority and the sufficiency of the Bible were also emphasised, there arose difficulties, in part even manifest inconsistencies, which were never removed. [425] But they were not clearly felt, because men always possessed the power, when confronted by inconvenient monitors, to carry through ultimately, whether in the form of dogma, or in that of order, whatever was required. In face of traditions become obsolete an appeal was made to other traditions, or to the Bible; where written testimony was uncertain or awanting, recourse was had to tradition; i.e., that was declared to be tradition which was not to be justified under another title. Hence it is already clear that tradition never was and never could be systematised and catalogued, that an authentic declaration never was and never could be published as to its extent and scope. There was no single deliverance on the application of tradition, which would not, if consistently carried out, have thrown the Church into confusion. If Augustine therefore (De bapt. c. Donat. II.3, 4) declared--certainly against his better knowledge--that canonical Scripture was contained within fixed limits of its own' (scriptura canonica certis suis terminis continetur), yet it never occurred to him or any one else to maintain as much about tradition. The latter was in antiquity a wholly elastic category, as we see when we look at its use in individual cases; in summa it was, however, an extremely rigid and clear notion: meaning simply that the Church was determined, in spite of all changes, to regard itself as the unchangeable creation of the Apostles. It derived its claim to this view partly from the divine promises, partly from the organisation instituted for it, yet without alleging confidently any empirical factor within the Church which should be the bearer of its infallibility. [426] The most important consequences of this view held by the Church regarding itself have been already stated in the second volume; but others came to be added in the post-Constantinian period.

A. The creed of the Church was always held to be the most important part of its tradition. The anti-gnostic formulas which the creed had preserved passed over in the East, along with theorems, half biblical half speculative, and here and there with purely philosophical or polemical discussions, into the Symbols. [427] These Symbols, which had been adopted for use in the Church, were regarded as apostolic testimonies. Their phrasing was not considered in the East to be due to the Apostles, but the honour paid them was justified from the Apostles' preaching. [428] These Symbols of the provincial Churches were supplanted in the period between the first and third (fourth) OEcumenical Councils by the Nicene, or soon thereafter by the so-called Constantinopolitan Symbol. [429] This confession [430] had already been held at Chalcedon to be the creed pure and simple, and it never lost this place of honour. If it had already been constantly assumed that the doctrine of the Church was the theme, or the matter, constituting the real contents of Scripture, then this assumption was now definitely transferred to the Nicene or the Constantinopolitan Symbol. All subsequent dogmatic conclusions were accordingly regarded solely as explanations of this Symbol, [431] which was not maintained, however, to be of Apostolic origin--in its language. Tradition, in the strictest sense of the term, consisted in the contents of the Symbol for the time being. Cyril says of this (Cat. V. 12): In these few paragraphs the whole dogma of the faith (is) comprised' (en oligois tois stichois to pan dogma tes pisteos perilambano'menon). As the Church had obtained in the Nicene Creed a complete and uniform Symbol, the view was transferred to it. There were two sides meanwhile to the relations of Scripture and Symbol. You might not believe the contents of the Symbol unless you could convince yourself of their truth from Scripture; [432] but on the other hand, your interpretation of Scripture had to be regulated by the creed laid down in the Symbol. [433] In the West a unique dignity was retained by the old Roman Symbol (or its parallel forms in the provincial Churches) which was regarded as being composed of twelve articles. From the fourth century at least it was held to be the Apostolic Creed in the strict sense of the term. [434] Its brevity and simplicity long preserved the Roman Church from extravagant theological speculations, but they could not barricade it against the theological development of the East. An industrious attempt was made, or at least professed, to derive the decision of dogmatic questions, as they emerged, from this Apostolic Symbol, and to rest upon it the whole of the ever increasing material of dogmatics. [435] It was only after the beginning of the fifth century that the Constantinopolitan Symbol supplanted the apostolic in Church use in Rome and the West, [436] yet without the latter losing its prestige. This was of course transferred in part to the new Symbol, but the old remained, though latent, in force. [437] The twelve articles the Apostolic Symbol, to be explained by the Constantinopolitan, constituted in the West the ecclesiastical tradition kat' exochen. Justinian's legislation confirmed this conception, though, indeed, that was not needed. [438]

B. At the beginning of the fourth century there already entered into the composition of the Church, not only its creed, but a cultus fixed in its main features; there were further disciplinary and ceremonial provisions--still differing, indeed, in part in the various provincial Churches [439] --and finally, a settled constitution. It was only in a very late period that the notion of apostolicity was applied, in the strict sense, to the whole of these elements; [440] but not only did the foundations of these ordinances come to be characterised as apostolic, but as a rule, and to an increasing extent, everything which there was a desire to assure of permanence. Different methods were adopted, however, of establishing the apostolic character of these institutions. First, it was maintained that regulations observed by the whole Church required no proof that they were Apostolic. [441] Secondly, advantage was taken in the East, of the numerous legends of the Apostles current in the Churches; they began to be used in connection with the government and cultus of the Churches in such a way that definite detailed regulations were attributed to the Apostles, individually or collectively, whenever they were required for the discipline or cultus of the time. [442] Thirdly, men began in the fourth century--not uninfluenced by Clement and Origen--to introduce the notion of a paradosis agarphos (unwritten tradition), in whose wholly undefined contents were even included dogmatic theories which it was not everyone's business to understand; yet it dealt extremely seldom with the trinitarian and Christological catchwords. This idea of an unwritten tradition' crept in in a very real sense; for it conflicted with more than one main point in the fundamental positions of the Church. But it attained high honour, and its existence absolutely became a dogma. But because it really made all else unnecessary and was a dangerous dras tic expediet, it was not defined, nor was its extent ever determined. And it did not banish Scriptural proof or the appeal to familiar and demonstrable tradition. The existence was maintained of a tradition which dispensed with all criteria--and that was what the paradosis agraphos was; but a prudent use was made of it. Unwritten tradition was preferentially applied to the development of ritual and the sacramental performance of the mysteries, while the secret truths of the creed were based exclusively on Scripture and the Councils. [443] But this distinction was not sufficient, nor was it firmly held to be unalterable.

C. All conceptions of the authority of tradition, of which many Fathers--e.g., Cyprian--described Scripture to be the main element,
[444] were based ultimately on the conviction that the Church had been invested with authority through its connection with the Holy Spirit himself. [445] At this point two problems arose, which, though hardly ever clearly formulated, were yet felt, and which attempts were made to solve. I.--By whom and when did the Church speak? II.--How were novelties to be explained in the Church, especially in the sphere of doctrine, if the authority of the Church had its root exclusively in its apostolic character, that is, its ability to preserve the legacy of the Apostles?

As to I. It was a settled doctrine from the third century, that the representation of the Church was vested in the Episcopate, though the strict conception of the latter, as first taught by Cyprian, that it was the main support of the Church, was for a long time not universally held. [446] We find, meanwhile, even, e.g., from the plan of Eusebius' Church History, that the Bishops, the successors of the Apostles, were regarded as guarantors of the legitimacy of the Church. The conception never emerged that the Bishop was infallible as an individual; [447] but a certain inspiration was already--though not without differences of opinion--attributed to the provincial Synods. [448] Constantine was the first to form the idea of a universal Synod, [449] and he also supposed such a body to be under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, and therefore incapable of error. [450] In the course of the fourth century the idea that the Nicene Synod possessed an infallible authority became slowly established; [451] it was transferred in the following centuries to the OEcumenical Synods generally, yet so that one--the second--was only subsequently stamped as OEcumenical. [452] From the sixth century there gradually ceased to be any doubt that the resolutions of OEcumenical Synods possessed an absolute authority.
[453] Whoever rebelled against them refused to admit that the Synods in question were regular, but did not dispute the authority of regular Synods in general. After the seventh Synod it was a settled principle in the orthodox Church of the East that Scripture and the decisions of the seven OEcumenical Councils formed the sources of the knowledge of Christian truth. [454] They were characterised simply as the tradition, nay, men spoke, and not infrequently speak and act up to the present day, as if the Church possessed and required no other sources of knowledge or authorities. As a rule, the paradosis agraphos is not included when Holy Scripture and the seven Councils are spoken of.

This apparently simple, consistent development, seemingly corresponding to all requirements, did not, however, solve all difficulties, either after it had come to an end, or still less during its course. But it had further to reckon with authorities, some of which were of long standing, while others emerged in the contemporary organisation of the Church. What position was to be taken up in doctrinal controversies in which an OEcumenical Synod had not pronounced its decision? Must there not be forthcoming in the Church at any moment a clear testimony to the truth, solving all doubtful questions, and giving forth no uncertain sound? What importance was due to the occupants of the great episcopal chairs, the Bishops of the apostolic communities, and especially of Rome? Decisions were not reached in all these questions, but a certain common sense arose. First, the Church speaks also by a unanimous testimony, audible from the earliest days, and this testimony never has been and never for a moment is, lacking. What has been always, everywhere, and by all, believed is inerrant tradition, even if it has not been solemnly and formally attested, or laid down in primitive authorities. This leads to a procedure similar to that followed by Eusebius in settling the N. T., viz., that the antiquity, unanimous attestation, and catholicity of a doctrine are to be expiscated in order that it may be certified a doctrine of the Church. The notion of antiquity' had now been extended and shifted with the advance of the Church. In the fourth century all the teachers held orthodox before Origen had been regarded as ancient, or vicini apostolorum (neighbours of the Apostles); the latter predicate especially had gradually been extended to the beginning of the third century: men like Irenæus, Apollinaris of Hierapolis and Hippolytus even were called gnorimoi ton apostolon (friends of the Apostles). [455] Then the whole period of the martyrs came to be considered sacred as the ancient time. But the Church was compelled to recognise to an increasing extent, that not much was to be gained for its purposes from its theological witnesses' before Athanasius, from those before as well as after Origen. Their names were still held in sacred memory--with the exception of those who seemed too greatly compromised, or had even fallen into bad odour with their own contemporaries; but their works disappeared more and more, or gave place to forgeries. Accordingly, from the fifth century, Athanasius and orthodox teachers of similar views of the fourth century, appeared as the "Fathers" proper. [456] When controversies arose, and soon even at Synods, the votes of these men were counted. Doctrines were looked on as armed with the testimony of antiquity, when they could be supported from the Fathers from Athanasius to Cyril. Nor were forgeries wanting here. The disciples of Apollinaris of Laodicea practised these frauds to a vast extent, in order to rediscover their master's teaching in antiquity; they were afterwards imitated by others. In any case, the tribunal of the Fathers' remained an uncertain one; great as was the scope assigned to it, its place and value were not dogmatically detailed. It was not even really decided what relation the inspiration of the Councils held to the consensus patrum, [457] (see under). Such a consensus had often enough to be first restored; this was done by exegesis, or even by fabrications, because it was necessary to presuppose it. References of an opposite character remained of no effect; but when needs must a want of accuracy (akribeia) and detached errors were admitted in the case of individual Fathers, without the general conception being modified by these concessions. The Fathers were just read backwards--so to speak--i.e., from the standpoint of the dogma of the time being, and their undeveloped or divergent doctrines were interpreted in accordance with the principle of making the best of everything. [458]

Secondly, a peculiar reverence was inherited from the past for Apostolic Churches or their bishops, entwined with the evidence based on history and dogmatics. Although the theory of Cyprian, which allowed no special importance to the Bishops of Apostolic communities within the general authority of the Episcopate, had weakened this prestige, it still held its ground. Augustine still recalled it in the question of the extent of the Holy Scriptures. [459] But there now grew up, in consequence of the Metropolitan and Patriarchate form of government, a new aristocracy among the Bishops, which received its importance from the size and influence of the episcopal cities. Rome, Alexandria--the founding of whose Church by Mark was undisputed about A.D. 300--and Antioch were not affected by the rivalry involved in this new principle; for in these cases the special connection with the Apostles coincided with the greatness of the city. But the political factor prevailed so strongly that the Chairs of Corinth, Thessalonica, etc., and finally, even that of Ephesus, [460] lost all peculiar prestige--only that of Jerusalem, in spite of the political insignificance of the city, was ranked with those more distinguished
[461] --but Constantinople was added to the list of the outstanding episcopates. In the East this was frankly justified by the political position of the city; [462] but this justification was so far insufficient as the chair, by its co-ordination with the Apostolic sees, participated in the attributes which the latter possessed in virtue of their apostolic character. [463] Such attributes continued to be ascribed to those chairs without it being stated, however, in what they really consisted. They were nothing tangible, and yet they were held to exist. [464] But even in the view of Orientals they belonged in a preëminent degree to Rome. The works of the only western author before Jerome who was also read in the East--i.e., Cyprian--could not fail to heighten the prestige of Rome. [465] But that was already great enough in itself. As the ancient capital of the Empire, as the city of the two chief Apostles, of the Cathedra Petri, as the only apostolic community of the West, that which had done more for the whole Church than any other, Rome even in the East enjoyed a unique prestige. [466] But as early as the fourth century, and certainly from the fifth onwards, Rome. meant the Roman Bishop, with whose spiritual dignity were fused the memories of the ancient city that had ruled the world. These memories overhung the place, after the Emperor had left, and the most of them clung to the Bishop. In the momentous Arian conflict the great Eastern sees, except Alexandria, became compromised or dishonoured; the orthodox Orientals sought and found their support in Rome. [467] The Emperor in Constantinople who brought the great controversy to an end was a Western, full of veneration for Rome. The promotion which he afterwards assigned to Constantinople was no equivalent--at first, at least,--for the advance in political power secured to Rome by the Arian controversy. [468] The role of observer and arbiter, which the Roman Bishop was able to play in the Christological controversies, made it possible for him to maintain for a time the lofty position he had won. [469] (On the aspirations of the Alexandrian Bishops, Athanasius, Peter, etc., and the successful opposition to them by Leo, see chap. IX.) There can be no doubt that even in the eyes of the Orientals there attached to the Roman Bishop a special something, which was wanting to all the rest, a nimbus which conferred upon him a peculiar authority. [470] Yet this nimbus was not sufficiently bright and luminous to bestow upon its possessor an unimpeachable authority; it was rather so nebulous that it was possible to disregard it without running counter to the spirit of the universal Church. And it gradually became fainter. The more completely, after the middle of the fifth century, the internal relations of West and East ceased, and the more strongly the distinctively Byzantine spirit could assert itself in the diminished Church of the East, so the more rapidly declined the prestige of the Roman Bishop. Constantinople put an end to it in its own midst, when the Roman Bishop set up claims which in the fourth and fifth centuries had been palliated by actual circumstances and the necessities of the time, but which 500 years afterwards could not fail to be felt as the intrusion of an alien spirit. [471] Yet, in spite of this, the idea of the unity of the Church still held its ground for a long time. After Synods ceased to be held, the influence of the great Patriarchates throughout the whole Church in the East increased [472] --though, indeed, the orthodox Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, had lost their real importance; and theoretically the dignity of the Roman Bishop as primus inter pares, though not unassailed, was embraced in that of the great Eastern sees. But it was never made clear how far the Patriarchs in their collective capacity really constituted an authority in dogma: there is not even an explicit statement that they did form such an authority. There was an uncertainty of opinion as to their position alongside of and in the OEcumenical Synods. [473] Here also there was an absence of fixed definitions. The Church as it is, with its graduated orders, crowned by the Patriarchs, constituted the tradition and the authority. But the authority of no factor in this system possessed, when isolated, any significance whatever. It might not assert itself at the expense of the rest. Its dignity was founded on its being a part of antiquity.

As to II. This at once involves the answer to the second question (see p. 214). The assumption that the Councils were inspired did not imply any power on their part to deliver new revelations to the Church. On the contrary, they proved their peculiar possession of the Holy Spirit by their unfailing testimony to the ancient doctrinal tradition. [474] But in that case the new formulas created by the Councils could not but cause offence. How far they did is shown by the history of the dogmatic controversies. Above all, the unbiblical catch-word consubstantial' (Homoousios), for a time directly rejected by the Church, only won acceptance under great difficulties, even among those who had little or no objection to the cause it represented. These formulas had to be proved in some way or other to have been anciently held. For Homoousios it was of the highest importance that a Council had made it an accomplished fact. As the word gradually made good its ground, the Council lay far enough in the past to be itself regarded as belonging to antiquity. The evidence was got by reasoning in a circle; the authority of the Council supported the word which was anything but old, but the authority of any Council was dependent on its rejection of all innovations. Numerous passages in the Fathers furnished material in confirmation of the later formulas--which were never, so far as I know, bluntly deduced from unwritten tradition (paradosis agraphos); but a strong preference was shown for understanding them as a repetition of the Nicene Symbol, the explication being disregarded, just as Irenæus in his time had passed off the Symbol unfolded in an antignostic sense, the regula fidei, for the Symbol itself, i.e., for the ancient repository of the truth. In spite of all novelties, it was thus contended that novelties were not forthcoming in the Church. Nay, even the power of the Councils to unfold doctrines authoritatively was not plainly asserted in the East; on the other hand, a Western, Vincentius of Lerinum, did maintain it, and essayed to furnish a theory on the subject. After the uncertainties of the Greeks over the conception of tradition, we really breathe freely when we study the attempt of this man to introduce light and certainty into the question. However, even in the East, the younger generation now and then gave the older Fathers the benefit of looking at their words as having been uttered at a time when dogma was not yet explained, or sharply formulated. Strictly speaking, this expedient was not tenable on Greek ground. Only a very sparing use therefore was made of it there, [475] while the Catholic West employs it to a great extent up to the present day. [476]

The conception of tradition is accordingly quite obscure. The hierarchical element does not in theory play the leading part in it. The apostolical succession has in theory had no such thorough-going importance even in the West for the proof of tradition as one would expect. After the time of the Councils the authority of the Bishops as bearers of tradition was wholly spent on that proof. Yet even that is perhaps saying too much. Everything was really obscure. So far, however, as the Greek Church has not changed since John of Damascus, the Greek has at present a perfectly definite sense of the foundation of religion. Besides Holy Scripture, tradition is the source of knowledge of, the authority for, the truth; and tradition is the Church itself, not, as in the West, governed by Rome, as a sovereign, living power, but in its immovable, thousand-year-old doctrines and orders. Even Scripture is to be explained by the tradition which transmits it, although Scripture is itself to some extent the caput et origo traditionis. But tradition still really presents itself in two forms as it did among the earliest Alexandrians: there is a perfectly official form--now that of the Councils, and one more profound and indefinite--corresponding to the scientific tradition' (paradosis gnostike) of the ancient Alexandrians. __________________________________________________________________

[425] The Orientals, especially the Antiochenes, but Cyril of Jerus. also, adhered more exclusively to Scripture; the Alexandrians, and even the Cappadocians relied more strongly on tradition. Yet the differences are only in degree. At any rate, the difference comes out more strongly on a comparison of Theodoret and Cyril of Alexandria.

[426] Reuter's excellent explanation of Augustine's position (Ztschrft. für K.-Gesch. Vol. VIII., pp. 181 f., 186 f.) was then true of very wide circles: "The Episcopate, and the Roman sedes apostolica, the whole relatively coördinated sedes apostolicæ, the relative and the absolute plenary councils were held to be representations of the (infallible) Church; but not one of these factors, not all of them combined, formed the (infallible) representation of the (infallible) Church. The latter possessed no indubitably sure institution or organs, indubitably representative of it." The decrees of councils were only placed on a complete equality with Scripture in the East, after councils had ceased to be held, and when the latter therefore were seen, like Scripture, in a nimbus of hoary antiquity.

[427] See Vol. II., p. 20 f. and III., pp. 48 ff., 111 ff.

[428] The Symbol of Gregory Thaumaturgus was derived from a special revelation; see Vol. III., p. 115.

[429] There were two symbol-constructing periods in the East before a universal Confession was framed. The former of these embraced A.D. 250-325, the second, A.D. 325 up to the beginning or the middle of the fifth century. In the latter period the attempt was made, either to transform the Nicene Creed into a baptismal Confession, or to displace it by parallel formulas; sometimes the leading words of the Nicene Symbol were inserted in those of the provincial Churches. See on the history of this, the part played by the Bishops of Asia Minor in these developments, and the history of the so-called Constantinop. Symbol, my art. "Konstantinop. Symbol" in Herzog R.-E. 21 Vol. VIII.; Caspari's works, Hort's investigations, Two Dissertations, Cambridge, 1876, and Kattenbusch, Confessionskunde I., p. 252 ff.

[430] It was originally the Baptismal Confession of the Church of Jerusalem, revised soon after the middle of the fourth century, and furnished with a regula fidei concerning the Holy Spirit; it came thus to be honoured first through the authority of Epiphanius, and then through the energy of the Bishop of Constantinople, which also led to its supplanting the Nicene Symbol.

[431] Monophysites and orthodox believers always professed to be able to read their Christological formulas word for word in the Symbol. The Greek Church maintains to the present day that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol contains everything we require to believe.

[432] So, above all, Cyril and the Antiochenes.

[433] No hesitation prevailed in the Church on this point; yet Synods simply forbade certain expositions of Scriptural texts as heretical. The Church alone furnished the gubernaculum interpretationis (see Vincent., Commonit. 2, 41) and that in its concise guide to faith, the Symbol. After the Constantinopolitan Symbol had been placed on an inaccessible height, we no longer find the blunt assertion that the creed is compiled from the Holy Scriptures. But this contention was also historically false. (For it see Cyril, Cat. V. 12): ou gar hos edoxen anthropois sunetethe ta tes Pisteos; all' ek pases graphes ta kairiotata sullechthenta mian anapleroi ten tes Pisteos didaskalian. "Canon" was originally the rule of faith; the Scripture had in truth intervened, yet so that its authority had a support placed still further back, namely, the O. T. and the Lord's sayings.

[434] See my art. "Apostolisches Symbol" in Herzog R.-E. 2 B. I. The opinion that the Apostles had composed the Symbol jointly (Rufinus) cannot be traced earlier than the middle of the fourth century, but it may be much older. Yet we must not date it too soon; for if the Churches of the western provinces had received the Symbol with this legend attached, they would hardly have ventured to propose changes on it. It was certainly not extolled even in Rome in the third century, so exuberantly as it was afterwards by Ambrose.

[435] This point falls to be discussed in the next book. Augustine had to rest his distinctive theology on the Symbol, though the latter was only imperfectly adapted for the purpose.

[436] See my art. on the Constantinop. Symbol, 1. c.

[437] The history of the Apostolic Symbol between the fifth and sixth centuries urgently requires investigation.

[438] Justinian's law-book is headed by the art. "De summa trinitate et de fide catholica et ut nemo de ea publice contendere audeat"; but see also the famous decree of the Emperors, Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius, A.D. 380, with which the law-book begins.

[439] See, e.g., Socrates, H. E. V. 22.

[440] When this occurred a very exact distinction had already been made between faith and disciplinary law. Apostolic faith was something different from and higher than apostolic laws {diataxeis, nomoi, kanones ekklesiastikoi dia ton apostolon}. This corrected the equality apparently attributed to the two branches of tradition by the common predicate "apostolic."

[441] See August., De bapt. c. Donat. II. 7, 12: "Multa, quæ non inveniuntur in litteris apostolorum neque in conciliis posteriorum, et tamen quia per universam custodiuntur ecclesiam, non nisi ab ipsis tradita et commendata creduatur." IV. 24. 31: "Quod universa tenet ecclesia, nec conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate apostolica traditum rectissime creditur." V. 23. 31: "Multa, quæ universa tenet ecclesia et ob hoc ab apostolis præcepta bene creduntur, quamquam scripta non reperiantur."

[442] The Apologists had exhibited Christianity as the worship of God in Spirit and in truth, and as an alliance regulated by equality and fraternity. But there had gradually developed a complicated cultus round the mysteries, and a comprehensive and detailed code of discipline had become necessary. For both of these appeal was made to an increasing extent to apostolic authority. Compare the Apostolic Constitutions, the kanones ekklesastikoi', the Apostolic Canons, in general the mass of material, partly published, partly discussed, by Bickell, Pitra, and Lagarde; further, the designation of the Liturgies of the provincial Churches as by Mark, James, etc. The history, still partly unwritten, of these Eastern forgeries under apostolic names is closely connected with the general history of the legends of the Apostles (see Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgesch.). The O. T. commandments were again introduced into the Church by means of apostolic fictions, until the ancient awe of Moses, the law-giver, was surmounted. After apostolic commandments of this sort had been allowed to spring up luxuriantly for a time, the Church had no little trouble to exorcise the spirits it had conjured. A sifting process began from the sixth century--at least in the Byzantine Church--to which, e.g., the Constitutions fell a victim. In the law books of the Monophysite and Nestorian Churches, much more comprehensive matter had been preserved, under apostolic names, as possessed of the value of law. Yet it did not receive the same honour as the Holy Scriptures. In order to realise the possibility of such an unabashed invention of regulations cloaked with the authority and name of the Apostles, we must remember that, from the second century, writings bearing on discipline were in existence, called didachai or diataxeis ton apostolon, and that these, having no individual impress, were thoroughly adapted for constant remodelling and expansion.

[443] The assumption of a secret apostolic tradition--that is, the paradosis agraphos--first appeared among the Gnostics, i.e., among the first theologians, who had to legitimise as apostolic a world of notions alien to primitive Christianity. It then was found quite logically among the Alexandrians, and from them passed to Eusebius, who not only accepted it (H. E. II. 1, 4), but also vindicated it against Marcellus (lib. I. c. 1): ekklesias tas apo ton theion graphon marturias ex agraphou paradoseos sphragizomenes. But the Cappadocians first established it in their conflict with the Eunomians and Pneumatomachoi, yet the bold use made of it by them in defence of the dogma of the Trinity, was not afterwards parallelled. Basil (De spiritu sancto, 27) referred the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Ghost to the unwritten tradition, placing the latter on an equality with the public tradition; but he endeavoured at the same time to retain the old Alexandrian distinction between kerugma and dogma, dogma being meant to embrace the theological formulation of the faith (ton en te ekklesia pephulagmenon dogmaton kai kerugmaton ta men ek tes engraphou didaskalias echomen, ta de ek tes ton apostolon paradoseos diadothenta hemin en musterio paredexametha aper amphotera ten auten ischun echei pros ten eusebeian . . . allo gar dogma, kai allo kerugma, ta men gar dogmata siopatai, ta de kerugmata demosieuetai). The latter distinction was opposed to the tendency of the age, and remained without effect. (With that which Basil named dogma, the mustike paradosis was identical, of which Pamphilus and Eusebius speak, and by the aid of which they defended the orthodoxy of Origen; see Socrates III. 7.) But it is important that in order to prove the existence of a paradosis agraphos, Basil appeals merely to matters of ritual--signs of the Cross, prayers of consecration, and baptismal rites. To these the unwritten tradition was in later times almost exclusively applied. Gregory of Nazianzus advanced in a different direction from Basil: he admitted to his opponents (Orat. 37) that tradition was defective in reference to the doctrine of the Spirit, but he believed he could assume a progressive development of the truth of revelation. But, as far as I know, he only once expressed himself so imprudently, and he found absolutely no imitators. His attempt only proves the difficulty caused by the defence of the dogma of the Trinity in the fourth century. In Cyril of Jerusalem (see his view so divergent from that of the Cappadocians, Cat. 16, ch. 2) and the older Antiochenes the paradosis agraphos does not occur, but it does in Epiphanius (H. 61, ch. 6: dei kai paradosei kechresthai. ou gar panta apo tes theias graphes dunatai lambanesthai; dio ta men en graphais, ta de en paradosesin paredokan hoi hagioi apostoloi). It is also found in Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and others down to John of Damascus, who says plainly (De fide orthod. IV. ch. 12): agraphos estin he paradosis haute ton apostolon, polla gar agraphos hemin paredosan (see details in Langen, Joh. von Damaskus, 1879, p. 271 ff.). So also the Greek Church of to-day teaches: dioreitai to theion rhema eis te to grapton kai agraphon (see Gass, Symbolik der griech. Kirche, p. 107 ff.) Quotations are especially taken from Pauline texts in which paradoseis occur, and thus a sort of Scriptural proof is led in support of what does not occur in Scripture. The unwritten tradition is hardly again applied to the creed, since it was thought to be sufficiently supported by Scripture and the Symbol. In the West, Augustine was in the same doubtful position, with regard to certain theses which he defended against Donatists and Pelagians, as the Cappadocians were in reference to the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Ghost. Hence he derived, e.g., the doctrine of original sin, which could not be otherwise proved out of tradition, from the rite of exorcism, declaring this to have been an apostolic tradition; (see c. Julian. VI. 5, 11): "Sed etsi nulla ratione indagetur, nullo sermone explicetur, verum tamen est quod antiquitus veraci fide catholica prædicatur et creditur per ecclesiam totam; quæ filios fidelium nec exorcizaret, nec exsufflaret, si non eos de potestate tenebrarum et a principe mortis erueret, etc.). So also he appealed against the Donatists in the controversy as to Baptism by Heretics (against Cyprian's authority) to the unwritten testimony of the whole Church (see note 6, p. 211).

[444] Cyprian calls Scripture "divinæ traditionis caput et origo" (Ep.74, ch. 10). This designation is not common.

[445] The universal conviction is expressed in the famous sentence of Augustine (C. ep. Manich. 6) which he has given in various forms in the Confessions and elsewhere: Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicæ ecclesiæ commoveret auctoritas. Even Cyril of Jerusalem, who has emphasised most strongly the authority of Scripture, could not pass over that of the Church (Cat. IV., ch. 33).

[446] In his studies on Augustine, Reuter has shown that Augustine fell short of Cyprian (see his theses in the Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch., Vol. VIII., p. 184, and the relative discussions in Vol. VII.). In the East the compiler of Apostolic Constitutions took substantially the view of the Episcopate held by Ignatius, but not by Irenæus and Cyprian. Even Chrysostom's work, peri hierosunes, tends in the same direction as the Constitutions. It is very remarkable that Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. XVIII., ch. 27) makes no mention of the hierarchy, but only of the Apostles, prophets, teachers and other office-bearers enumerated in the well-known passage in the Ep. to the Corinthians. That is a memorable archaism; yet see even Vincentius, Commonit. 40. He also says very little about Bishops, and nothing at all about. the apostolic succession.

[447] On the contrary, the fallibility of individual bishops was always admitted from Irenæus down (III. 3, 1): "Valde perfectos et irreprehensibiles in omnibus eos volebant esse (apostoli), quos et successores relinquebant, suum ipsorum locum magisterii tradentes, quibus emendate agentibus fieret magna utilitas, lapsis autem summa calamitas."

[448] Cyprian (Ep. LVII., ch. 5) introduces the decree of the provincial Council of Carthage with the words, "Placuit nobis spiritu sancto suggerente." Acts XV. 28 certainly influenced this phrase. On the other hand, we must not allow it too much weight, for Cyprian often appeals to instructions given to him personally by the Holy Ghost. See also the Votum of Bishop Lucius of Ausafa, No. 73 of the sentent. episcoporum LXXXVII. at the Carthaginian Council: "Secundum motum animi mei et spiritus sancti." The Synod of Arles, A.D. 314, also used the formula, "Placuit ergo, præsente spiritu sancto et angelis eius" (see Mansi, Collect. Concil. II. p. 469, and Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. 2, p. 204); and Constantine wished to have its decision regarded as "cæleste iudicium": this judgment by priests was to have the same honour as if it had been pronounced by the Lord himself (Mansi, 1.c. p. 478). For the rest, we may here recall the fact that he hiera sunodos had long been a technical term in common use among the Greeks (see also "holy senate" in Justin). On the origin of the ecclesiastical Synods see Sohm's excellent discussions in Kirchenrecht. I. p. 247 ff.

[449] This is now almost universally admitted; yet the idea was introduced by the great Oriental Synods in the cases of Novatian and Paul of Samosata, as well as by the Synod of Arles already indeed summoned by Constantine. The latter has been looked on in the West as a General Council for more than a century, and can also be regarded as such in many respects. On the Councils see Hatch's fine lecture in his book "The Social Constitution of Christian Churches," p. 172 f.

[450] See Constantine's letter to the Bishops after the Council of Nicæa (in Theodoret H. E. I. 9 fin): "Whatever is determined in the holy assemblies of the Bishops, may be attributed to the divine will." Further, Socrates H. E. I. 9, who contrasts the recognition by the Emperor of the divine character of the Synod, with the aspersions of Sabinus the Macedonian.

[451] The orthodox party made use of the advantage presented by the decision of a Synod which none could refuse to recognise as a wholly extraordinary event. On the other hand, nothing but such an event could atone for the unusual forms given to the creed, and thus attest a new theory. For in spite of everything which it had been hitherto possible to relate of Synods being under divine leadership, it was a novelty to raise the decision of a Synod to the level of an authority above discussion. Of such a thing even Bishop Julius of Rome, e.g., knew nothing. And it was all the more startling when the decision was supported neither by the letter of Scripture, nor a clear tradition, nor even an analogy of any sort. But this very fact promoted the assumption of an absolute authority,--though not yet in the case of Athanasius (see Gwatkin, Stud. of Arianism, p. 50); a virtue was made of necessity. With the first victory over Arianism, the view arose that the dogma of the Trinity was a certain truth because it had been affirmed at Nicæa by 318 Bishops inspired by the Holy Ghost--thus the Cappadocians, Cyril of Alex. etc. It is, however, extremely paradoxical, that even up to the middle of the fourth century the Eusebians laid greater stress on the authority of Synodical decisions than the orthodox party. In order to get the West to accept the deposition of Athanasius, they continued to appeal to their Antiochene Synod, and declared its decisions to be irreversible. Although their tactics compelled them also to admit the validity of the Nicene Creed, they did so in the hope that after the removal of Athanasius they would be able to carry an interpretation of it suitable to their own views.

[452] The latter fact is admitted also by Hefele (1. c. Vol. I., p. 3). Besides, nothing could be more incorrect than the opinion that the distinction between OEcumenical and other Synods, as regards dogmatics, was established soon after the Nicene Council. The greatest variety of opinion prevailed till past the middle of the fifth century as to what Synods were OEcumenical and might be ranked along with the Nicene. Gregory of Nazianzus we know, e.g., to have spoken very contemptuously of the Constantinopolitan Synod, and, indeed, of Synods in general. Conversely, a certain authority was still ascribed to Provincial Synods in dogmatic questions. Further, there is a passage in Augustine which infers not only a relatively binding authority on the part of Provincial Councils, but also uncertainty as to the absolute authority of General Councils. The passage is extraordinarily characteristic of the unsteadiness of the whole structure of tradition. Meanwhile Reuter (Zeitschr. f. K.-Gesch. VIII. p. 167, 173, 176, 186) has rightly decided that we must keep steadily in view the special circumstances under which Augustine has here written; De bap. c. Donat. II. 3, 4: "Quis nesciat sanctam scripturam canonicam tam veteris quam novi testamenti certis suis terminis contineri, eamque omnibus posterioribus episcoporum litteris ita præponi, ut de illa omnino dubitari et disceptari non possit, utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit, quidquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit: episcoporum autem litteras quæ post confirmatum canonem vel scriptæ sunt vel scribuntur, et per sermonem forte sapientiorem cuiuslibet in ea re peritioris, et per aliorum episcoporum graviorem auctoritatem doctioremque prudentiam et per concilia licere reprehendi, si quid in eis forte a veritate deviatum est: et ipsa concilia quæ per singulas regiones vel provincias fiunt, plenariorum conciliorum auctoritati quæ fiunt ex universo orbe Christiano, sine ullis ambagibus cedere: ipsaque plenaria sæpe priora posterioribus emendari, cum aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat, et cognoscitur quod latebat." Emendari can only mean here actual emendation--not merely explanation, as Catholic historians of dogma have to assume. It is also worthy of note, that Augustine assigned OEcumenical rank to several Synods--e.g., that of Arles--which afterwards were not held to be OEcumenical. On the other hand, it is instructive that he himself did not, like the Orientals, regard the Nicene decree as the foundation of the doctrine of the Trinity; see Reuter's arguments on the relation of the work "De trinitate" to the Nicene Symbol, (Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch. V. p. 375 ff.). The Council of Chalcedon first put an end to dubiety as to the number, and the authority, of OEcumenical Councils in the East (even at the Robber Synod, A.D. 449, only two had been recognised). Up till then the Nicene stood alone on an inaccessible height; moreover, in after times the uniqueness of this Council was still remembered, though others were added beside it. For the rest, Roman Bishops spoke very depreciatorily of, or even refused to recognise, many canons of later councils; so Leo
I. of the third of Constantinople (Ep. 106 [al. 80]), to say nothing of the twenty-eighth of Chalcedon. But Leo did not recognise the second Council as legitimate. Even Felix III. and Gelasius knew only of three OEcumenical Councils. General Synods Leo I. declared to be inspired (see Ep. 114, 2, to the Bishops assembled at Chalcedon); but it is more than questionable whether he therefore held all their resolutions to be absolutely irreversible.

[453] After the Council of Chalcedon, it was, above all, Justinian's legislation which confirmed and popularised, even in the West, the view that there had been four OEumenical Councils: see his edict on the Three Chapters, 131: Hoi hupo ton tessaron sunodon, ton en Nikaia kai Konstantinoupolei, en Epheso kai en Chalkedoni tithentes horoi nomon taxin echetosan kai ta dogmata auton hos hai theopneustoi timasthosan graphai, Accordingly, this development was inaugurated by Constantine and closed by Justinian. After him Gregory I. (Ep. L. I. 25) wrote: "Sicut sancti evangelii quattuor libros, sic quattuor concilia suscipere et venerari me fateor." But this very utterance proves that the West only slowly accepted this whole development; for Gregory leaves out of account the fifth OEcumenical Council held meanwhile. Again, the attitude of the North African Church in the sixth century proves that there the dubiety felt by Augustine had not yet been wholly overcome. But the attempts of the papal theologian Vincenzi to dispute the independent authority of the councils generally--even for the above date--are thoroughly biassed, and carried out with the most daring indifference to historical fact. See his "In St. Gregorii Nyss. et Origenis scripta et doctrinam nova defensio", 5 T., 1865 f. and "De processione spiritus s. ex patre et filio", 1878.

[454] This is taught without any variation by the later so-called Symbols of the Greek Church and the most distinguished theologians up to the present day; see, e.g., Damalas, He orthodoxos pistis, Athens, 1877, p. 3 ff.; oudeis pisteuei eis mian ekklesian ho me homologon hoti tas ekprosopousas tauten oikoumenikas sunodous to pneuma to agion hodegei eis pasan aletheian. kai hoti he ekklesia haute den dunatai na e alle para ten epokodomemenen epi tes mones henopoiou arches ton oikoumenikon sunodon; dioti he arche ton merikon hupochreotikon homologion, hen kathierosan hai loipai ekklesiai, estin he meter tes diaireseos . . . he promnemoneutheisa anagnorisis ton hepta oikoumenikon sunodon esti gegonos historikon, medemian pleon ekklesiastiken anapselaphesin epidechomenon. According to present Greek ideas, the whole period of the Councils belongs to the classical antiquity of the Church; this period has long run its course.

[455] See as to this the introduction to my History of Ancient Christian Literature up to Eusebius, Vol. I. 1893.

[456] Athanasius was not indeed so frequently quoted as one would believe. His works have been comparatively eclipsed by those of the Cappadocians, and the final statement arrived at in the East, A.D. 381, of the dogma of the Trinity was more favourable to them than to Athanasius. The Synod of Constantinople, A.D. 383, (see in loco) furnishes the first example of the authority of the Fathers being made decisive, and of the Scriptures themselves being ignored. But the attempt miscarried at the time.

[457] To the "teachers" the predicate "Theopneustos" was also applied. Thus Athanasius writes (De incarn. verbi 56): Hai graphai men gar dia theologon andron para Theou elalethesan kai egraphesan. hemeis de para ton autais entunchanonton theopneuston didaskalon, ohi kai martures tes Christou theotetos gegonasi, mathontes metadidomen kai te se philomathia. Similarly, though very rhetorically, Arius in his Thalia (Athanas. Orat. c. Arian I. 5): kata pistin eklekton Theou, suneton Theou, paidon hagion, urthotomon, agion Theou pneuma labonton, tade emathon egoge hupo ton sophies metechonton, asteion, theodidakton, kata panta sophon te.

[458] It would take us too far to give detailed instances of the points discussed under this head. We only emphasise the following. (1) The attestation of a doctrine by the Councils was often set side by side with that given by the "Fathers", the "ancient" or "holy doctors", in such a way that the former seemed often to be merely a special case of the latter. And this was quite natural. The Church possessed no continuous testimony in the Councils; from its distinctive character, however, it required one. And this could only be furnished by the unbroken chorus of orthodox doctors. Even taken historically this court of appeal was the older. Irenæus and especially Clemens Alex. had already referred to deceased presbyters as authoritative teachers; and Eusebius' conception of Church History embraced the idea--see preface and outline--that side by side with the successio episcoporum there stood a series of witnesses who, in uninterrupted succession, had declared the true doctrine orally and in writing. (2) No definitions were arrived at of the manner in which the authority of the Bishops was related to that of the doctors. It was possible to shut one's eyes to this question, because in most cases the teachers were also bishops. As a rule, the Greeks spoke not of bishops, but the ancient doctors, when appealing to the witnesses to the truth. It was otherwise with the majority of the Latins after Cyprian (see p. 214). (3) As the usual procedure at the Councils was to set up no doctrinal tenet unless it was believed to have the support of the doctors, and as the claim was made that this course should always be adopted, the idea that the Councils were inspired was already abolished, and they were subordinated to the continuous testimony of the Church (see under). (4) The practice of consulting authorities began at the Ephesian Council; it played a more prominent part in every succeeding Synod. Athanasius and the Arians had undoubtedly disputed before this over passages in the Fathers, but their disputes were of slight importance compared with those that took place afterwards. (5) The notion of ecclesiastical antiquity gradually became more and more comprehensive; meanwhile the real ancient period of Christianity became more obscure, and bit by bit came to be forgotten. After the seventh the whole period of the Councils was looked on as the classical antiquity of the Church. If even in the fourth, nay, up to the middle of the fifth century, Councils were held to be an innovation, their absence was now considered a characteristic of the age of the Epigoni; indeed they were thought to be unnecessary, because everything was already settled. (6) The opinion held by faith that the "Fathers" had decided every disputed point beforehand, was a strong challenge to produce forgeries, and resulted in objective and and subjective falsehood. Caspari (Alte und neue Quellen, etc., 1879) has shown that the followers of Apollinaris were the first to forge on a large scale; but the Acts of Councils, and the examination of writings circulated under the names of celebrated Fathers, show that they had numerous imitators in the ranks of all parties. The practice of compiling collections of extracts, which was so much favoured after the middle of the fifth century, was, besides, especially adapted to conceal forgeries or inaccuracies. (7) But the limits, authority, and character of the Court of Appeal of the "Fathers" were never determined. It was taught that the orthodox Fathers agreed in all matters, nay, this theory was treated as a dogma. Stephen Gobarus' attempt (Photius, Cod.232) to demonstrate the contradictions of the Fathers was felt to be profane, just as Eusebius had condemned as unchurchmanlike the attitude of Marcellus of Ancyra, who had censured the consultation, without independent examination, of the "wisest" Fathers. But even John of Damascus had to admit that Fathers--otherwise orthodox--held divergent opinions on single points (De imag. I. 25), and Photius actually was more than once compelled, in the course of his learned studies, to notice mistakes committed by them (see his Bibliotheca). Therefore the question was never decided who constituted the orthodox Fathers. It became the custom to prefer (Athanasius), Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom, Cyril, and afterwards also John of Damascus. In the fourth century the orthodox were much troubled by the fact that the Synod of Antioch (A.D. 268) rejected, while that of Nicæa accepted, the term Homoousios. The treatment of this difficulty in Athanasius, "De synod." 43 sq., shows that no one had hit on the idea that the later decision made the earlier obsolete. It was rather held on the contrary: hoi prolabontes aphanizousin tous meta tauta genoemnous. Therefore Athanasius sought and found evidences of the word Homoousios before the Samosatian controversy. Ultimately, however, he had to adopt a different treatment of the whole question, i.e., to show that Homoousios had only been rejected at Antioch as against Paul, in order not to admit a contradiction in the chorus of the Fathers. The same difficulty was caused about the middle of the fifth century by the term "duo phuseis;", for it was hard to find an instance of that in antiquity. Of Eutyches the following expression is recorded (Mansi VI., p. 700): to ek duo phuseon henotheison kath' hupostasin gegennesthai ton kurion hemon Iesoun Christon mete memathekenai en tais ekthesesi ton hagion pateron mete katadechesthai, ei tuchoi ti auto toiouto para tinos hupanaginoskesthai, dia to tas theias graphas ameinonas einai tes ton pateron didaskalias. He afterwards disowned this expression as being distorted, his advocate corrected it in his name thus: "The Fathers have spoken in different ways, and I accept everything they say, but not as a rule of faith" (eis kanona de pisteos). That is very instructive. The words excited the greatest consternation in the assembly in which they were uttered, and the speaker felt himself compelled at once to excuse them on the ground of a momentary confusion.

[459] See above, Note 1, p. 198, and compare "De peccator. mer. et remiss." I., 50. Here the auctoritas ecclesiarum orientalium is mentioned (in reference to the Ep. to the Hebrews), and to Augustine this auctoritas was exalted, because Christianity had come from the Apostolic Churches, from the communities to which John and Paul had written, above all, from Jerusalem (unde ipsum evangelium coepit prædicari). The fact that the Donatists had been separated from Apostolic Churches proved to him that they were wrong; see especially the Liber ad Donat. post collat. c. 4, c. 29; also Ep. 52, c. 3 and c. Lib. Petil. l. II., c. 51 (Reuter in the Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch. V., p. 361 ff.). Optatus had already held the same view as Augustine; see the important details "De schism. Donat." II., 6, VI., 3. But even after the middle of the sixth century a Roman Pope, Pelagius I., singled out the fact in praise of Augustine, that he, "mindful of the divine teaching which founded the Church on the Apostolic Chairs, taught that those were schismatics who seceded from the doctrine and communion of these Apostolic Chairs" (Mansi, Concil. IX., p. 716). Pelagius even declared that when doubts as to the faith arose it was necessary to conform to the Apostolic Chairs (l. c. p. 732). This form of expression is all the more remarkable since the Roman Bishops of the fifth century spoke, as a rule, as if the designation sedes apostolica belonged peculiarly to their Chair.

[460] At the transition from the fourth to the fifth century; see Hefele II., pp. 77 ff., 495 f., 528 ff.

[461] See the 7th Canon of Nicæa, and in addition, Hefele's details, Vol. I., p. 403 f.; II., p. 213, Jerusalem was first raised to a Patriarchate at Chalcedon, see Hefele II., pp. 477, 502. Jerusalem became once more the holy city' in the fourth century; see Epiphanius and others.

[462] See the 3rd Canon of Constantinople, Hefele, II., p. 17 f. and the 28th of Chalcedon, Hefele, II., p. 527 f.; to throno tes presbuteras Rhomes dia to basileuein ten polin ekeinen, hoi pateres eikotos apodedokasi ta presbeia, kai to auto skopo kinoumenoi hoi hekaton pentekonta theophilestatoi episkopoi ta isa presbeia apeneiman to tes neas Rhomes hagiotato throno, eulogos krinantes, ten basileia kai sunkleto timetheisan polin kai ton ison apolauousan presbeion te presbutera basilidi Rhome. kai en tois ekklesiastikois, hos ekeinen, megalunesthai pragmasi, deuteran met' ekeinen huparchousan. Constantinople was factitiously promoted to the place of Ephesus by reason of this unexampled act of legitimation. At the Robber Synod, nevertheless, it still held the fifth place. As regards the historical interpretation of the sixth Canon of Nicæa and the third of Constantinople, I agree substantially with the excellent arguments of Kattenbusch (l. c. I., p. 81 ff.); only it must be still more strongly emphasised that the Canons of A.D. 381 bore a clearly marked hostility to Alexandria. Even then it was considered necessary to suppress the authority of the Alexandrian Church, which was on the point of developing into the premier Church of the East.

[463] An energetic protest was admittedly raised, especially by Leo I. and his successors. Leo at the same time also advocated the rights of the Apostolic Churches in general (Ep. 106). We cannot here follow out the controversy, although it reflects the revivification of the Byzantine Church and State, and the attitude of the Roman Bishops, which was purely ecclesiastical, though it did rest on fictions: see Hefele II., pp. 408, 539 ff., 549 ff., and Sohm l. c. I., pp. 377-440. It was not until the fourth Lateran Synod (Can. 5), when a Latin Patriachate existed at Constantinople (1215), that Rome recognised the 28th Canon of Chalcedon.

[464] Although all Bishops were held to be successors of the Apostles, yet Leo I. singles out very distinctly those who had inherited the chairs of the Apostles; see his letter to the Emperor Marcian (Ep. 104).

[465] Not only Eusebius, but also Theodore of Mopsuestia had read Cyprian's Epistles. At the Council of Ephesus evidence taken from him was read; see Vincent, Commonit. 42. Of the Westerns, after Cyprian, Ambrose was especially esteemed in the East. Augustine also possessed a certain authority.

[466] See Vol. II., p. 149 f.

[467] On the authority of the Roman Bishop in the fourth century, see Hauck, Der römische Bischop in 4 Jahrh., 1881; Rade, Damasus, 1881; Langen, Gesch. der römischen Kirche, 2 Vol., 1881, 1885; Sohm, l. c. In what follows we only discuss Rome's prestige in the East. Even Hefele (l. c. I., p. 8) admits that the first eight Synods were not appointed and convoked by the Roman Bishops. His arguments as to the presidency at the Synods are, however, biassed (pp. 29-44). It was at Chalcedon that the legates of the Roman Bishop first occupied a special position. The sixth Canon of Nicæa, when correctly interpreted, gives no preference to Rome, but refers merely to the fact that it was the ecclesiastical metropolis for the Churches of several provinces. It is credible that Julius I. uttered the principle (Socrates H. E. II. 17): me dein para gnomen tou episkopou Rhomes kanonizein tas ekklesias. The peculiar authority of the Roman Chair showed itself in the fourth century in the following facts. First, Constantine transferred to the Roman Bishop the duty of presiding over the commission to examine the case of the Donatists. Secondly, the oppressed adherents of the Nicene Symbol in the East turned to him for protection (see even Langen, l. c. I., p. 425 f.). Thirdly, we have the request of the Eusebians that Julius should decide the dogmatic question; it is true that very soon--when they foresaw their defeat in Rome--they changed their tone. They still conceded a peculiar dignity to Rome; it does not seem to me possible to translate philotimian (Sozom. III. 8) with Langen by "ambition." Yet they pointed out that Rome had received its Christianity from the East, and that it was as little entitled to review the decision of a dogmatic question given in the East, as the Oriental Bishops would have been to take up the Novatian affair after Rome had spoken. (The letter is to be reconstructed from Sozom. III. 8, and Athanas. apolog. c. Arian. 25-35.) Fourthly, we have evidence of Rome's position also in Julius' epistle to the Orientals (Athanas. l. c.); fifthly, in Canons 3 and 5 of the Synod of Sardica; and sixthly, in the request of the Antiochenes, or Jerome, to Damasus, for a decision in the Antiochene schism (Ep. 16).

[468] Damasus' policy did not at once succeed in raising the prestige of the Roman Chair in the East (see Rade, l. c., p, 137 f.), but the manner in which Theodosius I. at first decided the Arian controversy there, did. "Cunctos populos, quos clementiæ nostræ regit temperamentum, in tali volumus religione versari, quam divinum Petrum atostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque ad nunc ab ipso insinuata declarat," etc. Besides, the new style adopted by Damasus in his letter to the Oriental Bishops (Theodoret H. E. V. 10) was not without effect in the East. He calls them my "sons" instead of my "brethren," and he no longer speaks, like other Bishops, as commissioned by the Synod--though the question at issue was a decision of the Synod--or as representing the Western Church. On the contrary, he addresses them in virtue of the authority of his "Apostolic Chair," which he connects solely with Peter and without any reference to Paul. "The first rank is due to the Holy Church, in which the Holy Apostle had his seat, and taught how we should fitly guide the helm which we have undertaken to control." Rade has, besides, here rightly conjectured (p. 136) that Jerome had a share in this letter, which did a great deal to raise the influence of the Roman Chair in the East.

[469] From and after Siricius I., the Roman Bishops maintained that it was their province to care for all Churches (Constant., p. 659. Ep. 6, ch. 1). On the relation of Leo I. to the East, and to the fourth Council, see Langen, l. c. II., pp. 10 f., 50 ff. The phrase "our fatherly solicitude" occurs frequently even in the letters of his predecessors to the East. The appeal of Cyril to Coelestine is very important in its bearing on the dignity of the Roman Chair; compare the language of the Roman legate at the Council of Ephesus (Mansi III., p. 1279 sq.).

[470] In the work "Der Papst und das Concil von Janus" (1869), p. 93, we find this passage. "In the writings of the doctors of the Greek Church, Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil the Great, the two Gregorys, and Epiphanius, not a word is to be found of peculiar prerogatives being assigned to a Roman Bishop. Chrysostom, the most prolific of the Greek Fathers, is absolutely silent on the point, and so also are the two Cyrils. Basil (Opp. ed. Bened. III. 301, Ep. 239 and 214) has expressed his contempt for the writings of the Popes in the strongest terms [in the affairs of Marcellus): these proud and conceited westerns, who would only fortify heresy'; even if their letters descended from heaven, he would not accept them." It is true that, seeing the now wide-spread view of the apostolic succession of all Bishops, the prestige of the Roman Bishop is hardly perceptible in the East at the beginning of the fourth century, and that he had to fight, i.e., to wrest for himself the position which had formerly belonged to the Roman Church. Therefore the testimonies to a special dignity being possessed by the Roman Bishops in the East in the fourth century are in fact comparatively scanty, But they are not wanting--see, e.g., Greg. Naz., Carmen de vita sua T. II., p. 9, and Chrysostom, Ep. ad Innocent I.--and from A.D. 380 this dignity bulked more largely in the eyes of Orientals, though indeed, without receiving a definite and fixed meaning. Very characteristic in this respect are the Church Histories of Socrates and Sozomen, who on this point are free from partiality, and reflect the universal opinion. But it does not occur to them to doubt that the Roman Bishop had a special authority and a unique relation to the whole Church (see, e.g., Socrat. II. 8, 15, 17; Soz. III. 8; also Theodoret's letter to Leo I.). Instructive here are the collections of Leo Allatius and in the Innsbrucker Theol. Ztschr., 1877, p. 662 f.; see also three treatises by the Abbé Martin: "Saint Pierre, sa venue et son martyre à Rome," in the Rev. des quest. historiq., 1873 (principally from oriental sources); "S. Pierre et S. Paul dans l'église Nestorienne," Paris, 1875; "S. Pierre et le Rationalisme devant les églises orientales," Amiens, 1876. These discussions, though in part uncritical, are very full of matter. Matt. XVI. 18, John XXI. 18, were undoubtedly never referred in the East to the primacy of Rome (see Janus, p. 97). Still in any case it is saying too little--even for the period about the year A.D. 380--to remark as Rade does (l. c., p. 137). To the Orientals the Bishop of Rome was like the rest, only, thanks to his situation, the natural representative of the Churches of the western half of the Empire, acting, as it were, as correspondent in the name of the Christians of the West.

[471] The prestige of the Roman Bishop in the East was accordingly on the increase from the beginning of the fourth till the middle of the fifth century, remained at its height till about the time of Justinian, when, however, it lost its practical importance, and then, apart from the events about A.D. 680 and the next decades, slowly declined, yet without ever being wholly destroyed. The Roman Chair was now held to be schismatic; if not that, it would still have been the first. Undoubtedly there was a strong inclination in later times to oppose it by advancing the see of Jerusalem, the seat of James, but it was not possible to gain any confidence in the claim of the latter to the first place. See on the criticism of the papacy by the Greeks, Pichler, Gesch. der kirchl. Trennung zwischen Or. u. Occ., 1864; Hergenröther, Photius, 3 Vols. 1867 ff.; Gass, Symbolik, p. 216 ff.; Kattenbusch, l. c., pp. 79-124. It was a settled doctrine of the Church in the East, that the Church has no visible head.

[472] The terms turannis and dunasteia are first used, so far as I know, in reference to Antioch, i.e., against Paul of Samos. (Eus. H. E. VII. 30), after Origen had already complained of the ambition of the Great Bishops. Socrates has expressed himself very frankly about this matter.

[473] The importance of the four Patriarchs--of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem--was celebrated here and there in lofty expressions; it was especially prominent in the later Symbols, so-called, of the Greek Church (see Gass, l. c., p. 222 f.). Their presence or that of their representative was even held to be absolutely necessary at an OEcumenical Synod; but not only was the extent of their authority never defined, but the essential equality of all Bishops was steadily maintained in the East; and the latest development of the Greek Church, i.e., its disruption into perfectly independent National Churches, has thrown overboard the whole Constitution of the Patriarchate', which in all ages was more a matter of assertion than reality. The Bishop of Alexandria, undoubtedly, nearly succeeded in becoming in the fifth century supreme Bishop of the East, but Leo and Pulcheria overthrew him. Kattenbusch (l. c. p. 357 ff.) furnishes further details as to the "five Patriarchs as symbolical figures." Has the Patriarchate of Rome come to an end in the view of the Greek Church? In the abstract, no; in the concrete, yes.

[474] See above, p. 215 f. Augustine gives utterance to a very remarkable statement in De bapt. c. Donat. II., 4, 5: "Quomodo potuit ista res (the baptism by heretics), tantis altercationum nebulis involuta, ad plenarii concilii luculentam illustrationem confirmationemque perduci, nisi primo diutius per orbis terrarum regiones multis hinc atque hinc disputationibus et collationibus episcoporum pertractata constaret?" Accordingly, only a matter which had already become ripe for decision through frequent deliberations could be submitted to and decided by a Council.

[475] The more common way of putting it in the East was that the writer in question had failed in the necessary "Akribeia" (exactness), i.e., he could, and should, have done it better (see, above all, the views of Photius). But it was rarely admitted that the Church at the time referred to did not yet possess complete akribeia in dogma. But we have further to notice here that a distinction was still drawn both in East and West between questions of faith, in the strict sense of the term, and theological doctrines, and that unity in the former was alone demanded. But as this distinction was in itself obscure, since in fact questions of faith had been transformed into theological and scientific ones, so in the East it became more and more restricted, though it was never wholly effaced. Augustine, besides, still laid great stress on this distinction, and accepted a whole group of theological doctrines in which differences did not endanger unity; the passages are given in Reuter, Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch. V., p. 363 ff. But if "faith" is itself a doctrine, where does it cease and the doctrine begin? Besides the excuse of want of accuracy, which, indeed, involves censure, that haplousteron gegraphenai was asserted. It involved no fault. Thus Athanasius writes (De Synod. 45) of the Fathers who in A.D. 268 rejected the term Homoou'sios at Antioch: peri tes tou huiou theotetos haplousteron graphontes ou kategenonto peri tes tou homousiou akribeias. Precisely in the same way the Homoiousians at Nice excused the Nicene Fathers. Unique, so far as I know, is the statement of Gregory of Naz. (Orat. 31. 28), which is only explicable from the still wholly confused state of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost in his time. "As the O. T. declared the Father clearly, but the Son more vaguely, so the N. T. has revealed the Son, but only suggested the divinity of the Spirit" [compare the contentions of the Montanists]. "Now, however, the Spirit reigns among us, and makes himself more clearly known to us; for it was not advisable to proclaim the divinity of the Son, so long as that of the Father was not recognised, or to impose upon the former--if we may use such a bold expression--that of the Spirit, while it (viz., the divinity of the Son) was not accepted." We may in this passage study the distinction between Gregory the theologian and Athanasius.

[476] So, above all, Augustine, who excused Cyprian in this way, and further, set up the general rule that as long as no unequivocal decisions had been given in a question, the bond of unity was to be maintained among the dissentient Bishops (De bapt. c. Donat. II. 4, 5). Augustine thus admitted that ecclesiastical tradition did not at every moment solve all questions pending in the Church. The Donatist and Pelagian controversy roused Western theologians to reflect on tradition. One fruit of this reflection was the Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lerinum, unique, because it deals professedly with the question of tradition. The arguments are decisive of Western views, but the book did not extend its influence into the East; there the ideas about tradition remained characteristically indefinite. A short analysis of the Commonitorium is necessary. Let it be noticed that it is ultimately aimed at Augustine's doctrine of grace and predestination, but that a large part of the rules are taken from that theologian. After a preface, in which Vincentius remarks that he is only sketching out what he had received from the past, he sets side by side the two foundations of the faith, the divine law (Holy Scripture) and the tradition of the Catholic Church (1). The former is sufficient by itself, but it requires the latter for its correct explanation (2). The latter embraces what had been believed everywhere, at all times, and by all--or, at least, by almost all priests and doctors (3). Accordingly, the following criteria were to be applied: (a) When a section of the Church renounced the communion of the Catholic faith, the Christian followed the great communion; (b) when a heresy threatened danger to the whole Church, he held by antiquity, "which, certainly, could not now be seduced"; (c) when he came upon heresy in antiquity itself, in a few men, or in a city or province, he followed the decision of a General Council; (d) if no such Council had spoken, he examined and compared the orthodox doctors and retained what--not two, or three--but all, had alike taught clearly, frequently, and persistently, in one and the same sense (4). These rules are illustrated by reference to the dangers, which had threatened the Church from Donatism, Arianism, and the Anabaptists (5-10). At this point, however, it is conceded that orthodox teachers might have and had fallen into error on one point; nevertheless they were blessed, but hell received the Epigoni, who, in order to start a heresy, took hold of the writings of one or other of the ancients (as the Donatists did of Cyprian's) which were composed in obscure language, and which, owing to the obscurity prevailing in them, seemed to coincide with their teaching, so that the views brought forward by these heretics bore not to have been maintained for the first time and exclusively by them. Such people were like Ham in uncovering the shame of their father (11). After this excursus the author adduces proofs from Paul Epistles, that changes in the creed, in short, any kind of innovation, constituted the worst evil (12-14). In order to prove and tempt his own, God had permitted teachers belonging to the Church, and therefore not foisted in from without, to essay the setting up of new tenets in the Church; examples are taken from Nestorius, Photinus, and Apollinaris; their heresy is described, and contrasted with the true faith (15-22). But the greatest temptation of the Church was due to the innovations of Origen, who was so famous (23), and of the no less distinguished Tertullian (24). Here follows a detailed practical application; those who have been seduced by the great heretics should unlearn to their salvation, what they have learned to their destruction; they must apprehend as much of the doctrine of the Church as can be grasped by the mind, and believe what they cannot understand; all novelty is wickedness and folly; in making innovations ignorance cloaks itself under the scientific spirit', imbecility under enlightenment', darkness under light'. The pure science of the worship of God is only given in the Catholic, ancient, and harmonious tradition (25-27). Antiquity is really the thorough-going criterion of the truth. This is followed by the second part, which contains the most original matter. It opens with the question whether there is any progress in the Church of Christ in religion. This is answered in the affirmative; the progress is very great'; but it consists in deepening, not in altering. It is organic growth of knowledge both on the part of individuals and the Church (28). In order to illustrate this, use is made figuratively of the growth of the child and plants; religion is fortified with years, expanded with time, and developed more subtly with age; yet everything remains really what it was, no innovation takes place, for a single novelty would destroy everything (29-31). The Church is intent only on clearness, light, a more subtle differentiation and invigoration of doctrine. What then did it ever seek to attain by the decrees of Councils, except that simple belief should become more definite, supine preaching be rendered more urgent, and that a wholly indolent conduct of affairs should give place to a correspondingly anxious performance of duty? "Hoc inquam semper neque quidquam præterea, hæreticorum novitatibus excitata [that then is admitted], conciliorum suorum decretis catholica perfecit ecclesia, nisi ut quod prius a majoribus sola traditione susceperat, hoc deinde posteris etiam per scripturæ chirographum consignaret, magnam rerum summam paucis litteris comprehendendo et plerumque propter intelligentiæ lucem non novum fidei sensum novæ appellationis proprietate signando" (32). As compared with this admission, the author attacks all the more vigorously the wicked verbal innovations' practised by all heretics (33, 34). But it was still more necessary to be on one's guard when heretics appealed to Scripture--as e.g., the Arians did to predicates taken from the Bible against the term Homoousios--for they were the real wolves in sheeps' clothing, sons of the devil, for the devil also quoted the Bible (35-37). All that was necessary to meet their exposition and obtain the correct sense, was simply to apply the criteria given in ch. 4. (38). The last of these was the search for the concordant views of many and great teachers, when a Council had not yet decided the question concerned. Then follows a particular instruction which betrays very clearly the uncertainty of that citerion. It was to be applied, not to every unimportant question, but only, at least for the most part only, in the case of the rule of faith; it was, further, only to be used when heresies had just arisen, "before they had time to falsify the standards of the ancient creed, before they could by a wider diffusion of the poison adulterate the writings of the forefathers. Heresies already circulated and deeply rooted were not to be attacked in this way, because in the long lapse of time they had had sufficient opportunity to purloin the truth" (!!). Christians must try to refute these ancient heresies by the authority of Scripture alone--accordingly the principle of tradition is declared insolvent; or they must simply be avoided as having been already condemned. But even the principle of the consensus of the teachers is to be used with the greatest caution; it is strictly guarded; it is only of weight when, as it were, a whole Council of doctors can be cited (39). But in that case no one is entitled to disregard it, for the ancient doctors are the prophets and teachers' ranked by Paul next to the Apostles, and described by him as presented to the Church by God. He who despises them despises God. We must cling to the agreement of the holy Churches, which are holy because they continue in the communion of the faith (40). In the so-called second Commonitorium (ch. 41-43) there is first a recapitulation in which the sufficiency of Scripture as source of truth is once more emphasised. It is then shown that, at the Council of Ephesus held three years before, no novelty was proposed, but decisions were based on the sayings of the Fathers. The Fathers are named singly whose works were publicly read there (42). Vincentius therefore considered that the authority of the Council consisted wholly in its strict adherence to the testimony of tradition. In the last chapter statements follow to the same effect by the two last Roman Bishops. The authority of the Roman Chair is appended that nothing may seem wanting to completeness'. Perhaps the most notable feature in the whole of Vincentius' exposition is that the Bishops as such--apart from the Council--play absolutely no part, and that, in particular, no reference is made to their Apostolic succession as sharing in the proof of doctrine. The ancient "teachers" are the court of appeal. We see that Cyprian's influence was not so far-reaching, even in the West, as one should have supposed. The proof of tradition was not really based on the hierarchy. __________________________________________________________________

3. The Church. [477]

Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechisms portrays the Church to his disciples as a spiritual communion. But in explaining the predicate catholic' [478] he completely identifies this spiritual communion with the empirical Church. It is called Ekklesia, because it summons all men together, and unites them with one another. This it does at God's command; for after God had rejected the first community as the synagogue of the wicked', because they had crucified the Saviour, he built out of the heathen a second Church, on which his favour rests; that is the Church. of the living God, pillar and foundation of the truth. To it alone belong the predicates one, holy, and catholic; the communities of the Marcionites, Manichæans, and other heretics. are societies of godlessness. The Church, which was formerly barren, is the mother of us all; she is the Bride of Christ. In this second Church God has appointed Apostles, Prophets, and teachers, and miraculous gifts of every kind; he has adorned it with all virtues, proved it to be unconquerable in persecution, and made it an object of veneration even to kings, since its boundaries are wider than those of any secular kingdom. It is called Catholic because it extends over the whole globe, teaches all necessary dogmas to men universally and unceasingly, comprehends and leads to the true worship of God all men without respect of class, is able to cure all sins in soul and body, and possesses in its midst all virtues and all conceivable gifts of grace.
[479]

These utterances of Cyril concerning the Church contain the quintessence of all that has ever been said of it by the Greeks. [480] They have adorned it with all conceivable attributes, applying to it all the O. T. passages descriptive of the people of Israel. [481] They glorified it as the communion of faith and virtue, and as a rule clung to this description of it in their catechetical and homiletical teaching. [482] Indeed, their position was here so far archaic, that they either did not mention the organisation of the Church at all, or--what was even more significant--they named in this connection the Apostles, Prophets, teachers and the rest, in brief, the possessors and gifts of the Spirit (see above in Cyril). We find the same teaching even in John of Damascus, who in his great work on dogma has given no place at all to the Church, [483] and in the later so-called Symbols of the Greek Church. [484] The difficult question, which Origen first discussed, and which Augustine considered so thoroughly in his fight with Donatism--the question about the Church as corpus verum (the true body) and corpus permixtum (the mixed body)--was hardly touched on in the East. [485] When we read Greek statements as to the Church--statements, besides, which are altogether few in number--we not infrequently believe that we are living in the second century, nay, before the Gnostic controversy. We must not perceive in this attitude of the Greek Fathers any sign of exceptional maturity. It was prescribed to them, on the one hand, by natural theology, on the other, by the narrowness of their view of the task of the Church. Redemption through Christ applied in intention to the whole human race, which meanwhile was always simply conceived as the sum of all individuals. In its result, it was limited by the liberty of man to resist salvation through sin. The Church was really, therefore, nothing but the sum of all individual believers in heaven and upon earth. The view that the Church was the mother of believers, a divine creation, the body of Christ, was not properly carried out in dogma. Even the thought that Christ had so assumed human nature that all it experienced in him benefited mankind, was only applied--not to the Church--but to mankind as it existed, and the Eucharist itself did not help the Church to a special place in dogmatics. [486] In spite of the belief in one holy Catholic Church' (pisteuein eis mian hagian katholiken ekklesian) the Church was no dogmatic conception in the strict sense of the term. It did not form a link in the chain of the doctrines of redemption. And that is not surprising. Seeing the form given to the blessing of salvation, a religious conception of the Church could not be obtained. All was contained in the factors, God, mankind, Christ, the mysteries, and the individual.

But occasion was given to draw up definitions of the Church by (1) the
O. T. and the spurious Jewish Church, (2) heresy and the actual organisation of the Church, (3) the administration of the mysteries, (4) and the fight against the Roman claims to the primacy. As regards the first point, all that was necessary had been said in the second and third centuries; there was nothing to add; it was repeated with greater or less animosity to Judaism, whose history appeared sometimes as the mysterious type of the Church, sometimes as its antitype. As to the second and third, there was no doubt that the Church was the true teacher of the truth [487] and the legitimate administrator of the mysteries. [488] It transmitted the mathesis (learning) and it possessed the mysteries. Therefore--and of this there was no doubt--it was essential to her to have the organisation, which was crowned by Bishops and Councils, and priests who should present the sacrifices and judge in God's stead. Bishops and Councils we have spoken of above, the priests and their duties will be discussed in Chap. X. [489] It is remarkable, however, that the latter is brought more to the front than the former. The Pseudo-areopagite was not the first to make his view of the Church depend essentially on the mysteries, and to regard the hierarchy primarily as performers of the sacred rites; he only completed what Ignatius, Clement, the first draft of the Apostolic Constitutions, Chrysostom de sacerdotio, [490] and many others had developed before or contemporaneously with him. The Church had been entrusted to the Bishops, because they constituted the living representation of God on earth, the vicars of Christ, participators in the activity of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the source of all sacraments. They were much less thought of as successors of the Apostles; the Church was the legacy not of the Apostles, but of Christ, and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. [491]

In the polemic against the Roman claims to supremacy, the view was strongly emphasised that Christ is the foundation and sole head of the Church, and this principle was opposed even to an exaggerated estimate of the Apostles in general and Peter in particular.

"He who secedes from the Church, withdraws himself at the same time from the influences of the Holy Spirit, and it is not easy to find a wise man among the heretics"; [492] but on what points the unity of the Church was based has not been made clear. It first appears as if faith and virtue were sufficient, but participation in the mysteries of the Church, and submission to its organisation and tradition were added: indeed these in practice took the first place. Yet the organisation of the Church was not really carried higher than the Bishops, in spite of all the empty words used about the Patriarchs: the Church was orthodox and perfect, because it offered a security in its episcopal and priestly constitution that it was the ancient institution founded by Christ. In this conviction--we can hardly call it a doctrine--the Church became more and more narrow; it made itself a holy piece of antiquity. [493]

But after the close of the fifth century it ceased to be the one Church. Tradition, which had been created to maintain the unity of the Church, served in the end to split it up, because national and local traditions, views, and customs had been received into it to an increasing extent. The great cleavage into Catholic and Novatian Catholic was not yet determined, or supported by national considerations. The division into Græco-Roman Catholicism and Germanic Arianism did owe its duration to opposite national tendencies. On the other hand, the disruption of the Eastern Church into the Byzantine (Roman) and the Oriental (Nestorian-Syrian, Jacobitish-Syrian, Coptic, and Armenian) rested entirely on national antitheses, and, preserved mainly by the monks who, in spite of all their renunciation of the world, have always adopted a National Church attitude, has continued up to the present day. Now, after the schism had further taken place between the Byzantine (Neo-Roman) and the Roman branches, the Church was divided into three (four) great territories distinguished by their nationality: the Germano-Roman West (Rome), the countries on the Ægean sea (Constantinople), and the East split into Nestorianism and Monophysitism. Each had its own peculiar traditions and authorities. The Orientals, though rent asunder and quarrelling with each other, felt that they formed a unity compared with the two other sections, i.e., the "Romans," and could, in reply to the "bragging of the Romans," point to a hundred marks which revealed the superiority of their Churches. They regarded their land as the cradle of the human race, their Church as the primitive home of religion; and if Jerusalem was no longer in their possession, yet they still had the ancient site of Paradise. [494] The Neo-Romans boasted of their Patriarchate, their unchanged faith, and their nation, which took no part in the crucifixion of Christ, in which the Romans and Barbarians had made common cause. The Romans, finally, had the chiefs of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and the Pope, Peter's successor, with the secular power committed to him by Christ and Constantine. The common foundation of these Churches was not solid enough to resist the elements that were dissolving it. Nationality was stronger than religion.

Literature.--Jacobi, Die kirchliche Lehre von der Tradition u. heil. Schrift., Part I., 1847. Holtzmann, Kanon u. Tradition, 1859 (does not discuss to any extent the Church in antiquity). Söder, Der Begriff der Katholicität der Kirche, 1881. Seeberg, Studien zur Geschichte des Begriffs der Kirche, 1885. Kattenbusch, l. c. There is much material in Schwane, also in the writings which passed between Old Catholics and Roman Catholics after A.D. 1869. __________________________________________________________________

[477] Compare the statements of Kattenbusch, l. c., p. 330 ff. The East never arrived at a definite theory of the nature and features of the Church.

[478] On this attribute see Vol. II., p, 75. n. 1. From the middle of the fourth century the clause "kai [eis] mian agian katholiken ekklesian" must have stood in the Symbols of by far the most of the provincial Churches in the East. The eis is to be referred also to the Church.

[479] Cyril, Cat. XVIII., ch. 22-27

[480] For Western doctrines of the Church see the next book. But they are not so different in theory from those of the East as some suppose.

[481] The Greeks spoke not infrequently of the "state" or "city" of God; Origen had already used the term, and it is common in Eusebius. On the other hand, the fine combination "Christ and the Church (as bride)" or "the Church as the body of Christ", which had been at a very early date reduced to the level of a homiletical or rhetorical view, was either thrust into the background, or superseded by the phrase "Christ and the individual soul." At a later date, the proposition, that Christ is the head of the Church, was often asserted against the Latins; but it was not very effective; for, seeing that the Greeks granted that the Church was a visible body in the common sense of the term, their thesis that this visible Church had none but an invisible head was beset with difficulties. Besides, Origen had been attacked as early as about A.D. 300, because he had explained Adam and Eve as referring to Christ and the Church (Socrates H. E. III. 7), though this allegory was supported by a very ancient tradition. Tychonius repeated it.

[482] There are very numerous instances of this, and most of all in the influential Chrysostom. Epiphanius' contention in the Expos. fid. cathol., ch. 3 is worthy of notice: Ho Theos, ho epi panton, hemin Theos huparchei tois ek tes hagias ekklesias gennetheisin. This Jewish Christian regarded the Church as Israel, and its God as the God of Israel; see what follows.

[483] Langen, Joh. Damascenus, p. 299 f.
[484] Gass, l. c., p. 205 f.

[485] It is treated in the later Symbols; see Gass, p. 206 f.

[486] Cyril of Alexandria frequently connects the Church with the incarnation and the Eucharist; but even he has not gone beyond the homiletic and edifying point of view.

[487] Religious truth, however, really embraced all philosophy, see Anastasius Sin., Viæ dux (Migne, Patrol., Vol. 89, p. 76 sq.): Horthodoxia estin apseudes peri Theou kai ktiseos hupolepsis e ennoia peri panton alethes, e doxa ton onton kathaper eisin.

[488] Damalas has given a very pregnant summary of the old Patristic conception He orthodoxos pistis (1877) p. 3: he de pistis haute eis ten mian hagian katholiken kai apostoliken ekklesian esti pepoithesis, hoti haute estin ho phoreus tes theias charitos tes endeiknumenes eis duo tina, proton hoti haute estin ho alathastos didaskalos tes christianikes aletheias kai deuteron ho gnesios ton musterion oikonomos.

[489] See Kattenbusch, l. c., pp. 346 ff., 357 ff., 393 ff.

[490] See Vol. III. 4-6, VI. 4; also the Homily on the day of his ordination as priest, Montfaucon I., p. 436 sq.

[491] Of course the Church was conscious of being, and called itself "apostolic." But it is perhaps not a mere accident that this predicate is not so stereotyped in the Symbols and other official manifestoes as the rest--unity, holiness and catholicity. The otherwise substantially identical expositions by the Greek Fathers of the word "catholic" have been collected by Söder, Der Begriff der Katholicität der Kirche und des Glaubens (1881), pp. 95 ff., 110 ff., 113 f., 115 f. "Catholic" was equivalent to orthodox even before Eusebius, as is shown by the interpolations of the word into the Martyrium Polycarpi. That this word was interpolated I have tried to prove in "The Expositor," 1885, Dec., p. 410 sq. It may be in place here to remark generally that the copyists are least to be trusted in the case of such predicates as were current at a later date--e.g., as regards words like "bearer of God" "Homoousios", "Catholic" etc. The Monophysites especially made great efforts to introduce their catch-words into older writers. Even to-day the Armenians are not to be trusted.

[492] Heretics and Schismatics were more and more identified; see the so-called 6th Canon of Constantinople, A.D. 381 (it really dates from A.D. 382): hairetikous legomen tous te palai tes ekklesias apokeruchthentas kai tous meta tauta huph' hemon anathematisthentas. pros de toutois kai tous ten pistin men ten hugie prospoioumenous homologein, aposchisantas de kai antisunagontas tois kanonikois hemon episkopois.

[493] The question whether the holiness of Christians was founded on being members in the Church--initiation into it--or depended on personal virtue was not decided in the East, but it was never even definitely put. The cause of this vagueness existed ultimately in the obscurity which prevailed among the Greeks in reference to the relation of natural theology and dogma in general; see on this the following chapters.

[494] See, e.g., Elias of Nisibis, Proof of the truth of the faith (Ed. by Horst, 1886, p. 112 ff.). __________________________________________________________________

A.--Presuppositions of the Doctrine of Redemption, or Natural Theology.

"Natural Theology" did not pass through any very thoroughgoing development in the Greek Church; but it reveals differences, according as Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism prevailed. By Natural Theology we are to understand the complex of conceptions that, according to the view then held, formed the self-evident and certain contents of the human mind, which was only held to be more or less darkened (see Chap. II.). These conceptions, however, arose in fact historically, and corresponded to the degree of culture at which the ancient world had arrived, especially through the work of the Greek Philosophers. We can divide them appropriately into doctrines concerning God and concerning man. But changes also took place in proportion to the growing influence exerted on these conceptions by the words of the Bible literally understood. Nevertheless the fundamental features remained in force; yet they were displaced and confused by foreign material during the period from Origen to John of Damascus. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

A.--PRESUPPOSITION OF DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION OR NATURAL THEOLOGY.