WILLIAM GEORGE'S SONS L
 
 
 ClJ^
 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH : 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
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 THE 
 
 HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 A STUD Y IN THE APOSTLES 1 CREED 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 HENRY BARCLAY SWETE 
 
 D.D., D.LiTT., F.B.A. 
 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 HON. CANON OF ELY J HON. CHAPLAIN TO THE KING 
 
 tv iriZ'/za Kal fv irveiifj.a. 
 Iv rtf tjxarl Tff.pLTraTu>/j.ev, u>s avrbs Am* 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 
 First Edition 1915. 
 Reprinted 1916 (twice), 1919. 
 
 GLASGOW I PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY ^ 
 BY ROBERT MACLBHOSE AND CO. LTD.
 
 ECCLESIAE ANGLICANAE 
 MATRI CARISSIMAE
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 THIS book contains the substance of courses of 
 lectures given at Cambridge in 1913-14 to classes 
 consisting chiefly of candidates for the ministry of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 There are few questions of more practical impor- 
 tance to Christian people, whether clergy or laity, than 
 those which are raised by a study of the character, 
 the work, and the functions of the Catholic Church. 
 Upon the answer which we give to those questions 
 depends our attitude, as individuals, towards the great 
 society of which we are members. It determines for 
 each of us whether he shall march in the war against 
 sin and unbelief as a soldier in the army of Christ, 
 under the command of its officers, conscious of the 
 honour and the joy of serving in the ranks of a 
 trained and disciplined force ; or as an irresponsible 
 adventurer, brave and loyal at heart, but a member 
 of an irregular company, which follows no leaders 
 but such as are chosen by itself. 
 
 The Communion of Saints, to which the second 
 part of this study is devoted, stands first among the
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 four privileges which the Baptismal Creed of the West 
 connects with loyal membership in the Holy Catholic 
 Church. It is perhaps less tangible, and sometimes 
 appeals less readily to the imagination than the other 
 three ; the Forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of 
 the body, and the Life everlasting awaken in the 
 mind and spirit a response more immediate and more 
 distinct than the privilege of fellowship with the other 
 members of the Body of Christ. Moreover, circum- 
 stances have led to a weakening among English 
 Churchmen of the sense of communion with our 
 fellow-Christians. The abandonment of public prayers 
 for the faithful departed, however necessary or ex- 
 pedient that step may have been, could not but tend 
 to lessen the hold of our people upon the oneness in 
 Christ of the living and the dead ; while our present 
 separation from the other historical churches of 
 Christendom has shut the eyes of many to the 
 essential unity of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The purpose of these pages will be answered if 
 they help to revive in any reader a practical faith in 
 the great article of the Creed to which they relate. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, July, 1915.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 i. THE CHURCH AND ITS NOTES PAGE 
 
 'Church' in the New Testament .... i 
 
 The Unity of the Church 1 1 
 
 Its Holiness 23 
 
 Its Catholicity 33 
 
 Its Apostolicity - - - -- - - 4i 
 
 Its Visibility 5 
 
 Its Indefectibility - 55 
 
 ii. THE CHURCH IN ITS LIFE, ORDER, AND FUNCTIONS 
 
 The Life of the Church 64 
 
 Its Order 73 
 
 Its Priesthood --85 
 
 Its Work 93 
 
 Its Teaching - 106 
 
 Its Authority - 1 1 1 
 
 iii. THE CHURCH IN ITS RELATIONS 
 
 To the Individual - 119 
 
 To the Churches 126 
 
 To the World 131 
 
 To the Future Life - - - - - 140
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 II. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 i. MEANING AND HISTORY OF THE PHRASE PAGE 
 
 In Holy Scripture 145 
 
 In early Church writers - - - - - 152 
 
 In the Western Creed 157 
 
 ii. THE COMMUNION OF THE SAINTS WITH GOD 
 
 With the Father - 170 
 
 With the Son 174 
 
 With the Holy Spirit 181 
 
 hi. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS IN THE CHURCH 
 
 MILITANT 
 
 In the Sacraments - - - - - -186 
 
 In the Spiritual Life - - - - - - 192 
 
 In Visible Fellowship - - - -. - - 198 
 
 iv. THE COMMUNION OF LIVING SAINTS WITH THE 
 
 DEPARTED 
 Condition of the Faithful Departed ... 210 
 
 Interchange of Prayer 220 
 
 Invocation of Saints ...... 230 
 
 v. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS IN THE LIFE TO COME 
 
 In the Intermediate State 245 
 
 In the Risen Life ------- 252 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 (A) On Belief in the Church .... 259 
 
 (B) On the place of Sanctorum Communionem in 
 
 the Apostles' Creed - .... 261 
 
 INDEX 
 
 263
 
 I 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH
 
 TE PER ORBEM TERRARUM 
 SANCTA CONFITETUR ECCLESIA
 
 THE CHURCH AND ITS NOTES 
 
 THE great society which the New Testament calls 
 the ' Ecclesia,' the Assembly or Congregation, 1 has 
 been known to Englishmen from Saxon times as the 
 'Church.' 2 The two names offer complementary views 
 of the Christian brotherhood. The Greek word 
 Ecclesia represents it as the congregation of the New 
 Israel ; the English word Church, which means the 
 House of the Lord, suggests a building dedicated to 
 the service of God. Both these conceptions are 
 Biblical, and they meet on the first occasion when 
 the Society is mentioned in the New Testament, 
 
 1 On iKK\i}<rla. see Dj. Hort's Ecclesia, c. I ; Hamilton, People of God, 
 ii. p. 35 ff. 
 
 1 ' Church ' (kirk, Kirche), according to the best authorities, repre- 
 sents TO Kvpiaic6i>, ' the Lord's House,' the normal Greek name for the 
 Church-building from the fourth century onward. Thus the Synod of 
 Neo-Caesarea between 314 and 325 speaks of catechumens as ol 
 elcrepxbfj.fvoi ett ri> KvpiaK6t> (can. 5) and the Synod of Laodicea uses 
 Kvpand as a synonym for tKK\i)<rlai (can. 28). On the later history of 
 the word church, see the New Oxford Dictionary, s.v.
 
 4 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 'I will build my Ecclesia/ our Lord is reported to 
 have said ; 1 the Congregation of His new people is 
 an edifice to be reared by Christ Himself on the 
 rock of an immovable faith. The Epistles retain 
 the double figure ; if ' the saints," i.e. the body of 
 baptized believers, are " the Israel of God," " an elect 
 race," " a holy nation," 2 they are also represented 
 as " built on the foundation of the Apostles and 
 Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner- 
 stone." 3 In Him the whole building grows into 
 a holy temple. The Church is the House of God, a 
 great mansion replete with all things necessary for 
 the Master's use ; a spiritual house built of living 
 stones, designed for holy, priestly service. 4 
 
 Such passages strike the note which is taken up 
 by the English word ' Church ' and its Teutonic 
 cognates. Nevertheless, the dominant conception of 
 the Christian Society in the New Testament is best 
 expressed by Ecclesia, the assembly of all who have 
 been made disciples of Jesus Christ. The word has 
 a significant history. It passed into Christian use 
 from the Greek Old Testament, where from Deuter- 
 onomy onwards, it is the normal rendering of the 
 Hebrew qdhdl? the usual name for the Congregation 
 
 1 Matt. xvi. 18. Gal. vi. 16, i Pet. ii. 9. 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 20 f. 4 i Tim. iii. 15, 2 Tim. ii. 20, I Pet. ii. 5. 
 
 1 In the earlier books owa-ywyij is used for ^v^ ; see Thackeray, 
 Grammar of O. T. Greek, i. p. 14.
 
 'CHURCH' IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 5 
 
 of Israel. No doubt the Greek translators of 
 Deuteronomy and the subsequent books of the canon 
 took over ecdesia from Greek municipal life, in which 
 an important part was played by the popular 
 assembly so named. Moreover, the early and wide 
 acceptance of the word as a name for the Christian 
 brotherhood may well have been due to its familiarity 
 in the cities of Asia Minor, where the earliest 
 Gentile Churches were planted by St Paul. In each 
 of the Greek-speaking cities evangelized by the 
 Apostle there was henceforth, side by side with the 
 assembly of all the citizens which was recognized by 
 the State, an assembly meeting under divine sanc- 
 tion an 'Ecclesia of God,' 1 composed of the citizens 
 of the Divine City resident in the place. Neverthe- 
 less, it was as succeeding to the position and privileges 
 of ancient Israel that the Christian Church received 
 the name Ecclesia. The Christian use of the term 
 was derived from the Greek Old Testament, and not 
 directly from the municipal life of the Greek city-state. 
 Our Lord, as it appears from St Matthew, twice 
 spoke of the future Christian Society as the Ecclesia, 2 
 using probably its Aramaic equivalent. There 
 seems to be no sufficient ground for refusing to 
 believe that He spoke in this way. 3 On the lowest 
 
 1 i Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. I ; I Thess. i. i, ii. 14 ; 2 Thess. i. i, 4. 
 *Matt. ocvi. 18, xviii. 17. Cf. M'Neile, ad loc. 
 ' See Allen on St Matthew, p. 176 ; Stanton, Gospels, ii. p. 348 ff. ; 
 Oxford Synoptic Studies, p. 279 ff.
 
 6 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 possible estimate of His person and character, it is 
 not improbable that He foresaw, as the result of His 
 ministry, a reproduction on wider lines of the Old 
 Testament Congregation of Jahweh, drawn together 
 by their allegiance to Himself; that He contem- 
 plated something of this kind is confirmed by 
 another Matthaean saying, 1 in which the Twelve are 
 represented as the future judges of the tribes of the 
 future Israel. 
 
 May we go a step further, and say that our Lord 
 not only foresaw, but founded the Catholic Church ? 
 If the question means, ' Did He leave behind Him a 
 constitution or even the outline of a constitution 
 for the new Society ? did He deliver instructions 
 relating to the organization, the ministry, the worship 
 of the future Church, a system answering in the 
 smallest degree to the minuteness of the Levitical legis- 
 lation ascribed to Moses ? ' the answer must be that 
 we have no record of any such provision, and no 
 hint that it was made. On the contrary, all that we 
 know of our Lord's purpose and methods would lead 
 us to suppose that no such scheme was in His 
 thoughts. 2 The working out of details was deliber- 
 ately left to the Apostles and to the future Church, 
 taught and guided by the gift of the Spirit of Christ; 
 the Master was content to lay down principles, and 
 to mark out the great lines on which the Kingdom 
 
 1 Matt. xix. 28. * See Pastor pastorum, pp. 222 f., 236 f.
 
 'CHURCH' IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 7 
 
 was to proceed. Yet in another sense the founda- 
 tions of the Church were certainly laid by Jesus 
 Christ during His life on earth. In those years He 
 gathered round Him a body of disciples, and out of 
 the body He formed the nucleus of a ministry ; He 
 instituted, if the Gospels are to be believed, the two 
 great Sacraments, of which the one admits to mem- 
 bership in the Church, and the other forms the chief 
 bond of union between those who already are its 
 members. But the Apostolate and the two Sacra- 
 ments of the Gospel constitute the basis of the entire 
 edifice. This basis was the work of Christ Himself, 
 and not of His Apostles. He " did not encourage 
 His disciples to found societies ; He instituted a 
 society for them to belong to, as the means of 
 belonging to Him." J In this sense, then, unless we 
 are prepared to abandon the whole structure of the 
 Christian tradition as unhistorical, the Church was 
 certainly founded by our Lord while He was yet on 
 earth. 
 
 But if the Church was founded by Christ in 
 person, He continued to build it after His Ascension 
 by the hands of His Spirit. 2 No sooner had the 
 promised Paraclete come, than this process may be 
 
 1 Bp Gore, Ministry of the Church, p. 10. Cf. Ecce Homo, p. 92 : 
 " It was not from accident or for convenience that Christ formed a 
 society ... To organize a society, and to bind the members of it together 
 by the closest ties, were the business of His life." 
 
 1 Acts ii. 41 ff.
 
 8 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 seen at work : men were baptized by thousands 
 and added to the Church, by being made to drink 
 of the one Spirit of Christ ; and the common life 
 that followed bore witness to the reality of their 
 incorporation into the one Body. The community 
 at first regarded itself as numerically one, even when 
 it had extended to localities remote from Jerusalem ; 
 in the best text of Acts ix. 31 we read of " the 
 Church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Sam- 
 aria." 1 It is not until the new movement has passed 
 beyond the limits of Palestine and into Gentile lands 
 that mention is made of a plurality of churches. 
 Antioch, the mother city of Gentile Christianity, had 
 its own local church ; 2 and the Pauline mission 
 planted a church in every city which it visited. 3 
 Thessalonica and Corinth had each its own 'church'; 
 and Galatia, being a province, more than one ; the 
 province of Asia, as we learn from the Apocalypse, 
 a few decades later, had at least seven. 4 Yet the 
 unity of the original design was not lost through 
 this plurality, nor even obscured. Our Lord Him- 
 self, we gather from St Matthew, had contemplated 
 a multiplicity of societies within the unity of the 
 one Body ; if on one occasion He had spoken of the 
 
 1 i) fit? ovv tKK\i)<rla. is the reading of MABC ; a! /j-ev oZv lK/c\7?<r/cu, 
 that of the Received Text, is an obvious correction. 
 * Acts xiii. I. 'Acts xiv. 23, xvi. 5. 
 
 4 I Thess. i. i ; 2 Thess. i. I ; Gal. i. 2 ; Apoc. i. 4.
 
 'CHURCH' IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 9 
 
 Ecclesia as a single edifice, on another He had given 
 the name to each local congregation of believers. 1 
 Each congregation was to be a church in miniature, the 
 representative of the One Body in its own locality ; 
 the Church itself in all localities was to remain one 
 and the same, since it had one Head and one Spirit. 2 
 The members of local Christian societies are also 
 members, through their baptism into Christ, of the 
 great Church which Christ founded and which His 
 Spirit is building in all lands and all ages of the 
 world. 
 
 The Church, as conceived in the New Testament, 
 is necessarily imperfect throughout the whole course 
 of its history ; it is a body not yet grown to maturity, 
 a building which is yet in process of erection. But 
 its perfection is often anticipated by the Apostolic 
 writers, with an idealism which transcends earthly 
 conditions. The Mother of Christians is a ' Jerusalem 
 above/ the true, heavenly Zion, the Ecclesia of the 
 firstborn who are registered in heaven, the Holy 
 City which is seen descending from God out of 
 heaven. Our citizenship is already in heaven, wait- 
 ing to be revealed at the coming of the Lord. 3 The 
 earthly Church is the Church in making, in which 
 
 x ln Matt, xviii. 17 elirov ry 6c/cX7?<rfy clearly refers to the local 
 congregation. " 
 
 2 I Cor. xii. 27 ; Eph. i. 22, iv. 4. 
 
 3 Gal. iv. 26, Phil. iii. 2p f., Heb. xii. 22 f., Apoc. xxi. 10 ff.
 
 io THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 the heavenly ideal realizes itself ever more and more. 
 The goal lies before us as yet ; the ideal has not 
 been attained ; yet the earthly and heavenly are one, 
 and the earthly will one day cast off the limitation 
 of its immaturity, and enter on the inheritance of the 
 Saints in light. 
 
 Meanwhile the Church on earth, as it presented 
 itself to the thought of the Apostolic age, is a 
 historical and visible Society. The Acts, Epistles, 
 and Apocalypse enable us to trace the course of our 
 Lord's great foundation from the day of His depar- 
 ture to the last years of the first century. And it is 
 not a vision or a mere idealism that we see, but the 
 orderly growth of an association of men, women, and 
 children, admitted to membership by a definite and 
 external act, an association existing under the 
 ordinary conditions of life, and gathered in com- 
 munities localized within the cities of the Roman 
 Empire, officered by men appointed by the Apostles 
 or their deputies, united in one great commonwealth 
 by the bonds of a common faith, hope, and love. 
 
 To-day the Christian Society may seem to be 
 further from its ideal than it was in the first age. The 
 Coming of the Lord has long ceased to be expected 
 as an event of the near future, and with the Advent 
 the prospect of the Church attaining her perfection 
 has receded into a remote distance. Moreover, 
 the divisions which St Paul deprecated have been
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: UNITY n 
 
 multiplied to such an extent that the historical Church 
 barely maintains its position as the Church of the 
 majority. Yet the institution which was founded by 
 Jesus Christ, and built up by His Spirit is, after 
 nineteen centuries, alive and at work in the world, 
 and the Lord is still the Supreme Architect of His 
 Ecclesia. 
 
 We ask ourselves how this Divine foundation 
 may be known from the many religious institu- 
 tions of human origin that now claim the name of 
 church. What are the notes of the true Church ? 
 A recent writer 1 has deprecated this enquiry on the 
 ground that it ignores " the possibility that, in a 
 disunited Church, no one division may possess all 
 those characteristics, which are actually indispensable 
 to the life of the whole." If this is possible, the fact 
 sufficiently condemns the divisions that make it so. 
 But it does not relieve us from the duty of discover- 
 ing, if we can, what the indispensable characteristics 
 of the Church as a whole actually are. To that task 
 we shall now apply ourselves. 
 
 i. The first note of the Chuich of Jesus Christ is 
 Unity. The New Testament indeed recognizes, as 
 we have seen, the existence of many ecclesiae as well 
 as of the One Ecclesia ; we read of ' the churches,' 
 and not only of ' the Church.' But the conception 
 
 1 B. H. Streeter, in Restatement and Reunion , p. 150.
 
 12 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 of the One Church is prior to that of the many 
 churches. The One Church is not an agglomeration 
 of the many, but the ideal which reflects itself in 
 the many, and gives them their churchly character 
 and name. 1 
 
 The unity of the Church is the unity of a single 
 organism, the mystical Body of the Christ. " By 
 one spirit were we all baptized into one body" ; "ye 
 are the body of Christ, and severally members 
 thereof." " As many of you as were baptized into 
 Christ did put on Christ " ; " ye are all one man 
 in Christ Jesus." " There is one body, and one 
 Spirit." The One Church is the union, not of all 
 local churches, but of all their members. 2 Baptism 
 admits, not into a particular church, but into union 
 with Christ, and therefore into union with His Body, 
 the universal Ecclesia. 
 
 The unity of the Church, strange' as this may 
 appear, has never found expression in the Western 
 Creeds ; to give it symbolical recognition was the 
 work of Eastern Christianity. As the East confessed 
 One God and One Lord, so it confessed One Church. 3 
 
 I Hort, Ecclesia, p. 168 : "There is no grouping of them [i.e. the 
 local Ecclesiae] into practical wholes or into one great whole. The 
 members which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities, but 
 individual men." 
 
 I 1 Cor. xii. 13, 27 ; Gal. iii. 27 ff. ; Eph. iv. 4. 
 
 * Thus the Constantinopolitan Creed : -iriarevofKv ei's Va 0e6v . . . eli 
 tva. Ki'ynop . . . etV/xiav . . . ^KK\r]fflav.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : UNITY 13 
 
 Local circumstances may perhaps account for this 
 insistence on unity. To the East, with its prevalent 
 dualism and early crop of heresies and schisms, the 
 note of unity was of the first importance ; whereas 
 the West, comparatively free from these dangers, and 
 possessing a strong centre of external coadhesion, had 
 less need to be constantly reminded of the essential 
 oneness 1 of the Body of Christ. So it has come 
 to pass that we Westerns of to-day owe it to an 
 Eastern creed that at the Eucharist we acknowledge 
 the Church to be one. On the other hand, the first 
 formal treatise on the Unity of the Church is due 
 to the Latin West. Cyprian's tract On the Unity of 
 the Catholic Church was called forth by the necessities 
 of a great crisis. 2 At Rome, in a time of persecution, 
 the Christian camp was divided in the face of the 
 enemy ; and Carthage was threatened with a like 
 disaster. Cyprian saw that such offences against the 
 unity of the body were not only injurious to the 
 Church, but fatal to the spiritual life of the separatists. 
 " Break a bough off from a tree, and the fruit upon it 
 will be unable to mature itself ; cut off a stream from 
 the fountainhead, and that stream will presently dry 
 up. There is one Head, one Source, one Mother, 
 
 1 The unity of the Body of Christ is not accidental, but necessary ; 
 cf. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 2 ff. ; Mason, Faith of the 
 Gospel, p. 238. 
 
 8 See Benson, Cyprian, pp. 134 ff., 1 80 ff.
 
 14 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 rich in the successive generations of her offspring ; 
 from her we have our birth, our nourishment, our 
 very breath." * Events proved Cyprian to be right ; 
 Novatianism died hard, but it died in the end, while 
 the Church, from which the Novatianist party broke 
 away, maintained her vitality. 
 
 A unity which is ultimately spiritual is compatible 
 with much variety. As individual members of the 
 Church may differ in character and gifts without 
 prejudice to their life in Christ, so individual churches 
 may differ without losing their essential unity. 
 Diversities of gifts, ministrations, operations are pos- 
 sible, as St Paul has taught us, among those who 
 have the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. 
 Such diversities are not breaches of unity. 2 Even 
 the very serious differences which now divide the 
 historical churches of Christendom differences in 
 doctrine, discipline, and worship, involving for the 
 present loss of intercommunion leave their funda- 
 mental unity unimpaired. The interruption of Chris- 
 tian fellowship between East and West, and, in the 
 West, between the Roman and Anglican churches, 
 is perplexing and deplorable, a gaping wound in the 
 Body of Christ, into which all good Christians will 
 according to their ability pour the oil and wine of 
 prayer and conciliatory effort ; but it does not 
 destroy the inner coherence which comes from the 
 
 1 De unitate, c. 5. 2 I Cor. xii. 4 ff.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: UNITY 15 
 
 possession of the same Creeds, 1 the same great Sacra- 
 ments, the same threefold ministry, the same super- 
 natural life. 
 
 A more difficult problem has been raised by the 
 multiplication of Christian societies, started since the 
 middle of the sixteenth century by leaders who broke 
 away from the communion of the historical Church. 
 Many of these bodies hold the substance of the primi- 
 tive faith, and retain the Sacraments of Baptism and the 
 Eucharist. They baptize into the Name of the Holy 
 Trinity ; they receive, sometimes with a reverence 
 which savours of a superstitious regard for the letter, 
 all the canonical books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments. But they neither possess nor recognize the 
 Episcopate, and with the exception of the Presby- 
 terian bodies, they have abandoned the other orders 
 of the ministry, and the principle of succession. Can 
 it be said that these societies belong to the unity of 
 the Church? 2 that they are 'churches' in the sense in 
 which the local communities planted by the Apostles 
 
 1 See A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, 2J6 : " Subjective unity may be 
 suspended, while objective unity is maintained." 
 
 1 Lindsay (The Church and the Ministry, p. 13 f.) seems to place the 
 unity of the Church in the personal union of its individual members with 
 the Head : "It can never be adequately represented by any outward 
 polity, but must always be, in the first instance, at least, a religious 
 experience. " It would be truer to say that the unity of the Church is an 
 objective fact, which religious experience proves true, but which exists 
 before it is experienced, and rests on the truth that the Church has one 
 Head and one Spirit.
 
 16 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 were churches, i.e. that they represent in their several 
 localities the One Society founded by Jesus Christ ? 
 
 In endeavouring to answer this question care must 
 be taken to distinguish between the relation in which 
 the members of non-episcopal societies stand to the 
 Church, and that which belongs to the societies them- 
 selves. Baptized members of such societies are by 
 virtue of their baptism members of the Body of 
 Christ ; for according to the ruling of the Western 
 Church the act of Baptism, if administered according 
 to Christ's ordinance, is not invalidated by irregu- 
 larities in the status of the minister. 1 But this is not 
 equivalent to an acknowledgement of the claim of 
 these societies to be ' churches ' in the New Testa- 
 ment sense of the word, i.e. local representatives of 
 the One great Christian brotherhood. As a matter 
 of convenience or of courtesy an inexact use of the 
 name may pass unchallenged ; but it is important to 
 note that as a matter of fact the societies known in 
 England as ' the free churches ' have little in common 
 with the local churches of the Apostolic age. The 
 latter, so far as we can gather, were in every case 
 founded and guided by Apostles or Apostles' deputies, 
 or at least by persons in communion with them ; 
 and before the first generation passed away, pro- 
 vision was made for the continuity of the Apostolic 
 
 1 Such is practically the judgement of the Western Council of Aries, 
 A.D, 314 (can. 8).
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : UNITY 17 
 
 ministry. " The Apostles " so writes Clement of 
 Rome 1 before the end of the first century "received 
 the Gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ ; Jesus Christ 
 was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from 
 God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Preaching 
 everywhere in town and country, they appointed the 
 first-fruits of their labours, when they had proved 
 them by the Spirit, as bishops and deacons of those 
 who should believe . . . and afterwards they issued 
 a direction 2 to the intent that when these fell 
 asleep other approved men should succeed to their 
 ministry." Each of the primitive churches thus 
 organized was the sole representative of the Ecclesia 
 in its own locality ; such a spectacle as is now pre- 
 sented in every English town and almost in every 
 English village, of dissident denominations and rival 
 places of worship dividing among them a population 
 baptized into the One Christ, was nowhere to be 
 seen in the first days of Christianity. The Epistles 
 of the New Testament indeed refer frequently to the 
 evils of party spirit within the Church, and even 
 speak of divisions and schisms, which they denounce 
 in no measured terms; 3 but the spirit of disunion had 
 not yet gone to the length of breaking up the assembly 
 
 1 I Cor. cc. 42, 44. 
 
 2 Reading fwivofji^v = (?) tirivo/j.l8a. : the old Latin version has legem. 
 Lightfoot, reading ^Trt/toi'Tji', translates 'continuance.' 
 
 *Cf. e.g. Rom. xvi. 17 f., i Cor. i. 10, Gal. v. 20, Phil. ii. i f., 
 Jude 19. 
 
 I
 
 i8 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 which met to celebrate the Eucharist. 1 If some 
 Christians had begun to absent themselves from the 
 meetings of the brethren, 2 there is no sign that as yet 
 congregation was set up against congregation. Nor, 
 if such a thing had occurred, can it .be conceived that 
 St Paul would have called the separatist congrega- 
 tions ' churches of God." It is not of course to be 
 forgotten that in our case the blame cannot be laid 
 only to the charge of the separatists : the represen- 
 tatives of the historical Church must bear their 
 full share of it. Moreover, the older non-episcopal 
 bodies have rooted themselves so firmly in English 
 soil, and spread so widely, that their members not 
 unnaturally regard their claims as equal to those of 
 the Church, and may be acquitted of any direct or 
 conscious act of schism. Nor ought we to overlook 
 the high moral and spiritual level attained by many 
 of these communities, or. the manifold works of piety 
 and the evidences of personal sanctity which abound 
 in them, or the contributions which they have made 
 to sacred learning, or lastly and chiefly, the splendour 
 of their achievements in the foreign mission field. 
 For all these signs of the working of His Spirit in 
 non-episcopal bodies we thank God, and we recognize 
 those who manifest them as brethren in Christ, whose 
 
 1 At Corinth, for instance, there were ff-xf.ffna.ro. and apparently alptaeit, 
 but the whole church met iv tKK\i)ffl$ for the Agap and Eucharist, 
 
 Heb. x. 25.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : UNITY 19 
 
 faitli and love we desire to follow. But the fact 
 remains that the position occupied by these separatist 
 bodies is not that of the churches described in the 
 New Testament, and would not have been recognized 
 as legitimate by the Christian commonwealth of 
 primitive days. They are voluntary associations of 
 baptized Christians, religious societies which have 
 shewn themselves capable of doing much admirable 
 work ; but they lack the note of unity which charac- 
 terizes the historical Church. ' Churches/ in the 
 strict and Scriptural sense, they are not. 1 
 
 The Church preserves her unity by maintaining 
 continuity in faith and order with the Society which 
 was founded by our Lord and planted in the world 
 by His Apostles. Continuity in order and also, to a 
 great extent, in faith, is maintained through the 
 Episcopate. So far all the historical churches of 
 Christendom are agreed and have been agreed from 
 the second century onwards. The Roman church 
 stands alone in adding a further condition. The 
 Episcopate and the Church itself must have a 
 single visible head. " The Pope," it is claimed, " as 
 
 1 Mr. Streeter {Restatement and Reunion, p. 151. f.) appears to me to 
 confuse the issue when he writes: "Where these the fruit of the 
 Spirit abound in a community, it is surely to run the risk of blas- 
 phemy against the Holy Spirit to deny it to be a veritable branch of 
 the Church of Christ. " That individuals even (if it be so) the majority 
 of individuals in a community bear the fruit of the Spirit is no proof 
 that the community as such is a ' church ' in the New Testament sense 
 of the word.
 
 20 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 successor to Peter, and the true and legitimate Vicar of 
 Christ, presides over the Universal Church, the father 
 and governor of all the faithful." l No equally short 
 proposition ever bristled with a greater number of 
 contentious points. It assumes, in the first place, that 
 our Lord appointed a vicariate on earth, over and 
 above that of the Paraclete who was sent in His 
 name ; and that He made Peter His first vicar, with 
 the power of transmitting the office to his successors. 
 It assumes, further, that the Bishops of Rome are the 
 successors of Peter, not only in the episcopate, but in 
 the vicariate, and are thus governors of the whole 
 Church on earth. To us Anglicans the first of these 
 assumptions appears to rest on a false exegesis, and 
 the second on a historical fiction. It is fully 
 admitted that from early post-apostolic times the 
 Roman church enjoyed an honorary primacy among 
 the churches of the Empire, and more especially in 
 the West, partly as the church of the capital, partly 
 because tradition ascribed its foundation to the two 
 great Apostles, St Peter and St Paul. It was natural 
 and suitable, as Irenaeus points out, that all the 
 churches should forgather to the Roman church in 
 view of its pre-eminence; 2 that Western Christendom 
 
 ^Catech. Rom. II. vii. 25. 
 
 1 Irenaeus, haer. iii. 3. 2 "ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem 
 principalitatem necesse est omnem con venire ecclesiam." On princi- 
 palitas, 'precedency,' 'preeminence,' see Benson, Cyprian, p. 537 ff. 
 Cf. Mr. Turner in Camb. Medieval History, i. p. 172:. "from the
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: UNITY 21 
 
 should look to Rome for leadership, adopt its creed, 
 seek its help, respect its authority. It was however 
 the Roman church rather than the Roman Bishop, 
 the foundation of St Peter and St Paul rather than 
 the successor of St Peter, that received the homage 
 of Christendom in the first three centuries. Even 
 Cyprian, who interprets the Lord's promise to Peter 
 as emphasizing the unity of the Church by basing it 
 on one of the Twelve, 1 and who regards the Roman 
 Bishop as occupying the chair of Peter, shews no 
 disposition to accept the ruling of Rome on a dis- 
 puted point of order; 2 in the judgement of the great 
 African saint, the last word lies not with the Bishop 
 of Rome, but with the Episcopate as a whole. 3 There 
 were not indeed wanting, even before the end of the 
 age of persecution, tokens of a disposition on the 
 part of some of the Roman Bishops to claim powers 
 in excess of the legitimate influence which all were 
 willing to concede to the first see in the Empire ; 
 witness the intolerance of Victor (190-199) and of 
 
 second century onwards a catena of testimony makes and acknowledges 
 the claims of the Roman Church to be, through its connexion with 
 St. Peter and St. Paul, in a special sense the depository and guardian of 
 an Apostolic tradition, a type and model for other churches. " 
 
 1 Cyprian, ep. lix. 14 "ecclesiam principalem, unde unitas sacerdotalis 
 (the one Episcopate) exorta est." Cf. de unit. 4. 
 
 * See e.g. his letter to Stephen (ep. Ixiii. ), noting especially his 
 attitude in the last clause of the letter ( 3) ; and cf. Benson, Cyprian, 
 p. 307 ff. 
 
 Cyprian, de uni/ate, 5.
 
 22 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Stephen (254-257). But it was not till after the 
 conversion of Constantine, the founding of a new 
 capital, and the weakening of the Imperial power in 
 the West, that the Papacy was able to convert its 
 primacy into a supremacy ; and not before the days of 
 Hildebrand and Innocent III. that the Papal supre- 
 macy grew into an autocracy which provoked the 
 reaction that culminated in the great revolt of the 
 sixteenth century. In that revolt not only the supre- 
 macy of Rome vanished in a great part of Western 
 Europe, but by a just nemesis she lost also the 
 primacy which was generally conceded to her in 
 early times. She has consoled herself by declaring 
 all churches which renounce the Roman obedience 
 to be cut off from the unity of the Universal Church. 
 But the sentence has no terrors for those who like 
 ourselves have retained the historic Episcopate and 
 the faith of the ancient Creeds. 
 
 Reunion with Rome on the basis of an acceptance 
 of the Papal pretensions is neither possible nor to be 
 desired. It is the will of the True Pastor of the 
 Universal Church that His flock shall be one, but 
 He does not require that it shall be included in a 
 single fold. 1 Each national church is left free to 
 mould, in non-essentials, the particulars of worship 
 and discipline, in such wise as experience shews to 
 
 1 John x. 1 6 yevf/ffovrai (tla woifj.v>) (one flock), eft iroifify. He does not 
 say y. (da atXy (one fold).
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : HOLINESS 23 
 
 be most edifying to the faithful within its limits. 
 To this extent independence is not only permissible 
 but salutary, and is no detriment to catholic unity. 
 Nevertheless, the restoration of intercommunion 
 between the historical churches is much to be desired. 
 The presentation by a Catholic Christian of com- 
 mendatory letters from his own diocese ought to 
 secure admission to the full privileges of the Church 
 in every other diocese of Christendom. 1 There seems 
 to be no sufficient reason why this primitive order 
 should not eventually be restored. It would be a 
 simple recognition of the essential unity which binds 
 the churches together, notwithstanding great diversi- 
 ties of ritual and doctrine. It would not necessarily 
 involve on either side the acceptance of beliefs or 
 customs which were not held by both in common. 
 There need be no compromise of principle in such an 
 exchange of hospitality. But it would go far towards 
 fulfilling the Lord's prayer that His disciples might 
 be one, so that the world might believe that He was 
 sent by the father. 
 
 2. The One Church is " Holy." Holiness was 
 perhaps the most characteristic note of the Church 
 
 1 Cf. Acts xviii. 27, 2 Cor. Hi. I. The epitaph of Avircius bears 
 witness to this universal intercommunion of Catholics : iritmj irdvrt) dt 
 trpOTJye \ Kal trap^OriKe Tpo<pijv irdvr-r), 'Ix^v dirb irriyijs, \ ira.v/jLfyt0ij t 
 Kadapov, 6f fdpdS-a.ro irapfftvos ayvrj' \ Ko.1 rovrov tirtduice <pi\ois i-ffffeiv Sid 
 Tfa.vr(>3, | olvov xpW'b 1 ' ^XOIKTO, K^pacr/j.a dtSovffa /ter' Aprov (Ramsay, 
 Cities of Fhrygia, ii. p. 723).
 
 24 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 as she presented herself to the thought of the first 
 age. If the exact phrase 'holy Church' is not to 
 be found in the New Testament, the members of 
 the Church are from Acts ix. 13 commonly called 
 " the saints " (i.e. the holy) ; while collectively they 
 are described as a ' holy nation,' a ' holy city,' a 
 ' holy sanctuary.' 1 The sub-apostolic age applied 
 the term to the Ecclesia, whether local or universal. 
 Thus Ignatius writes to " the holy church which 
 is in Tralles"; Hermas in the Shepherd speaks of 
 the Holy Church as the crowning work of God, for 
 the sake of which the /creation was made. 2 At 
 Rome before the middle of the second century the 
 candidate for Baptism confessed his faith in ' the 
 Holy Church.' 3 No other title was given to the 
 Church so widely or at so early a date. 
 
 The holiness of the Christian Church is a note 
 inherited from its predecessor, the Church or congrega- 
 tion of Israel. Israel was called to be a holy nation, 
 and in that sense the whole congregation of the Lord 
 was holy. 4 The Old Testament conception of holi- 
 ness, so far as it can be judged from the etymology 
 of the Hebrew word, is that of separation, aloofness, 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 21, I Pet. ii. 5, Apoc. xxii. 2. 
 Ignatius, Trail. I ; Hermas, vis. i. I, 6; 3, 4. 
 
 *Tertullian, adv. Marc. v. 4 " quae est mater nostra, in quam repro- 
 misimus sanctam ecclesiam." 
 
 *Exod f xix. 5 f., Numb. xvi. 3 ; cf. Deut. vii. 6, xiv. 2, etc.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: HOLINESS 25 
 
 isolation. 1 The God of Israel, in the infinite majesty 
 of His uncreated being, is in a unique sense 'the 
 Holy One' unapproachable, transcending all finite 
 creaturely existences ; the very seraphim round His 
 throne cry " Holy, Holy, Holy," realizing the aweful 
 solitude of the Divine life. In a secondary sense this 
 character belongs to persons and things dedicated to 
 God, and separated from common use to His service. 
 Israel was thus consecrated, made a ' people for God's 
 own possession,' 2 separated from all other peoples by 
 their singular relation to Jahweh. Places where God 
 revealed Himself became "holy ground"; and in like 
 manner we read of " holy bread," " holy flesh," " holy 
 vessels," "holy garments," "holy days." 3 . In the.case 
 of dedicated persons the word came to bear an. ethical 
 sense. It was seen that God's own aloofness rests on 
 the basis of His infinite moral purity, and that men 
 who are engaged in His service must be holy as God 
 is holy. The prophets labour to impress this new 
 ideal upon Israel, and draw pictures of a coming age 
 
 1 See Brown-Driver-Briggs, Lexicon, s.v. ^Jp ; cf. , however, Hort 
 on I Pet. i. 15 : "The meaning does not appear to be 'separate' in 
 the sense of aloofness or remoteness, but rather of eminence or 
 perfection. " 
 
 2 Exod. I.e. Xa6s Treptoi/cnos : cf. I Pet. l.c, X. ei's irepnrolrjfftv. 
 
 3 Cf. Kautzsch, Religion of Israel, in Hastings, B. D. v. p. 682. 
 Kautzsch points out that "the filling up of the concept of 'holy' with 
 moral contents " is most marked when the word is transferred to God. 
 But "expressions about the holiness of God are at first very rare" (cf. 
 Exod. xv. II, Josh. xxiv. 19, I Sam. ii. 20).
 
 26 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 when God will give the nation a new heart and a 
 new spirit, cleansing their sins, and causing them to 
 walk in His statutes and to be His people indeed. 1 
 
 The New Testament carries forward this advance 
 and converts the vision into a reality. The Church 
 inherits the position of the ' holy nation,' and realizes 
 the moral significance of holiness as it could not be 
 realized even by the prophets of the older Israel. 
 The Incarnation, and the relations with God into 
 which it has brought the Church of Christ, have 
 emphasized infinitely the call to sanctity. Those 
 who have been baptized into the Name of the Father 
 and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost are pledged to 
 newness of life by a threefold bond : as the sons of 
 God, as the members of Christ, and as the temples of 
 the Holy Spirit. " Ye shall be perfect," our Lord 
 teaches, " as your heavenly Father is perfect." " As 
 He which hath called you is holy (St Peter exhorts), 
 be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living." 2 
 Further, as the Bride and the Body of the sinless and 
 glorified Christ, the Church must make it her aim to 
 live as He lived on earth, and to attain to the life 
 which He now lives in heaven. 3 Lastly, as a habi- 
 tation of God in the Spirit, the Church is not only 
 called to holiness, but endowed with it ; the Source 
 
 1 Jerem. xxxi. 33, Ezek. xi. igf. * Matt. v. 48, I Pet. i. 15. 
 
 *Cf. Forbes, Nicene Creed, p. 277: " The graces poured forth on the 
 human nature of our Lord are reflected and imaged forth in His Body."
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : HOLINESS 27 
 
 of all spiritual grace, the Power that creates anew 
 the likeness of God in human life, is within her at all 
 times. The compilers of the early creeds rightly 
 made belief in the Holy Church to follow immediately 
 after belief in the Holy Ghost. 1 The holiness of the 
 Christian Church is an infused gift, the fruit of the 
 indwelling of the Spirit of God and of Christ. 
 
 Together with new relations to God, the Church 
 has gained a new conception of the nature of holiness. 
 The idea of separation from the world, through 
 consecration to the service of God, holds its ground ; 
 thus St Paul does not hesitate to say to the 
 Christians in the great heathen city of Corinth, " Be 
 not unequally yoked with unbelievers for what 
 fellowship hath righteousness and iniquity, and what 
 communion hath light with darkness?" 2 Yet the 
 same Apostle .writes elsewhere to the same Church, 
 "If any of them that believe not biddeth you to a 
 feast, and ye are disposed to go, whatever is set 
 before you eat, asking no questions for conscience 
 sake " ; 3 i.e. he permits believers to accept the hospi- 
 tality of unbelievers, and to partake of food which, 
 for all they knew, might have been offered in heathen 
 temples. The separateness of the Church, then, 
 differed widely from the exclusiveness of the syna- 
 gogue. The Church held rigorously aloof from the 
 
 1 On exceptions to this rule see Pearson's note (Art. ix. ad ///.). 
 f 2 Cor. vi. 14. ' I Cor. x. 27.
 
 28 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 vices of heathendom, and from its idolatries, but 
 manifested none of the Pharisaic exclusiveriess which 
 forbade a Jew to associate with men of another race 
 or creed. 1 Tertullian can say to pagan assailants of 
 Christianity, " We live with you side by side ; we 
 share your food, your dress, your institutions." 2 
 Or, as another early Christian writer puts the case : 
 " Christians are not distinguished from the rest of 
 mankind, either in locality or in speech or in customs ; 
 they follow the customs of the place in dress and food 
 and the other arrangements of life." 3 The Church 
 desired to erect no unnecessary barrier between herself 
 and the world ; she knew that the world itself had 
 been redeemed, and that the gates of the kingdom 
 of heaven stood open to men of all nations. Her 
 separateness was due, not, as the heathen supposed, 
 to hatred of mankind, but to hatred of the evil with 
 which heathen society was everywhere permeated. 
 
 The Church, then, was not called to go out of the 
 world, but rather to leaven it by her presence and 
 intervention in its business, its work, and its daily 
 life ; the hermit's cell and the coenobite community 
 were unknown in the earliest days of Christianity. 
 Nevertheless, the early Church lived a life which was 
 not the life of the world, and which involved a 
 
 1 Acts x. 28 AOtfurbv iffnv &v8pl 'lovtialy KO\\S.<r0ai ff vpofffp\eaOat 
 \\o<pv\if3. 
 
 Tertullian, Apol. 26. Ep. ad Diogn. 5.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : HOLINESS 29 
 
 / 
 
 certain remoteness from it. She was intensely con- 
 scious of possessing the Spirit of holiness. " Have 
 we not (so Clement of Rome appeals to the church 
 of Corinth) one Spirit of grace poured out upon us ? " l 
 " I see in you of a truth (so ' Barnabas ' writes to 
 the church of Alexandria) the Spirit poured out from 
 the rich Lord who is its Source." 2 Ignatius likens the 
 members of the Ephesian church to stones used in 
 the building of the Temple of God, hoisted into their 
 place by the Cross and the Spirit. 3 The Holy Spirit 
 that dwells in Christians (Hermas tells the Roman 
 church) is a pure spirit that is saddened and grieved 
 by sin. Individual members of the Church may by 
 their own fault lose the Spirit, but it remains with the 
 Church as a whole, which is therefore permanently 
 holy. 4 
 
 The holiness of the Church is the result of the 
 Incarnation and more directly of the Pentecostal 
 Gift. It consists in the renewal in regenerate man 
 of the Divine Image and Likeness, lost through 
 human sin, restored in the humanity of the Incarnate 
 Son, and imparted by the Spirit of Christ to the 
 members of His mystical Body. The Church is the 
 subject of the process which the New Testament 
 knows as Sanctification, i.e. the gradual infusion into 
 man of the moral nature of God. The seal impressed 
 
 1 Clement, I Cor. 46. Barn. ep. 3. Ign. Eph. 9. 
 
 4 Herm. mand. v. I. 2, 3; x. 2. I, 3 ; 3. I, 2.
 
 30 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 on the members of Christ bears two inscriptions, of 
 which the one that looks manward runs, " Let every 
 one that nameth the Name of the Lord depart from 
 unrighteousness." l The grace of God instructs us 
 that " denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we 
 should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
 present world." 2 To set forward this movement in 
 the world was the purpose of our Lord's First 
 Coming ; to complete and crown it will be the purpose 
 of His Return. " Christ gave Himself for the Church 
 that He might sanctify her " ; He comes again to 
 " present her to Himself a glorious Church, not 
 having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that 
 it should be holy and without blemish." 3 Holiness is 
 at once the present calling of the Church, and her 
 destiny in the ages to come. 
 
 All this may have been in the mind of the men 
 who in the second century confessed their belief 
 in the ' Holy Church.' They believed themselves to 
 belong to a society which was distinguished from 
 every other society in the world by the note of 
 holiness : by belonging to God, and bearing the 
 impress of His likeness. And on the whole they rose 
 to the level of this high calling. The discipline 
 of the early Church was severe ; 4 beside the first 
 
 2 Tim. ii. 19. a Tit. ii. n. Eph. v. 25 ff. 
 
 4 See Journal of Theological Studies, iv. p. 327 ff., where the refer- 
 ences are given in full.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : HOLINESS 31 
 
 remission of sins in Baptism, but one act of penitence 
 and one absolution were allowed by the sterner spirits 
 of the second and third centuries. Tertullian exclaims 
 against the leniency of the Roman Bishop of his 
 time in remitting the grosser sins of the flesh even 
 after penance. Tertullian was a Montanist, it is 
 true, when he wrote this ; but even in his Catholic 
 days he allowed only a " second penitence, a single 
 plank " thrown out to the drowning soul that had lost 
 its baptismal innocence. Hermas of Rome and 
 Clement of Alexandria are nearly of the same mind ; 
 there ought, they say, to be no post-baptismal sins 
 which could call for public confession and absolution. 
 Had not St John taught that " whosoever is begotten 
 of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in 
 him " ? l The Church is the family of God, and sin 
 is alien from its new-born sanctity. 
 
 But if so, were the Donatists right when they 
 maintained that a Church which tolerated the 
 presence of evil men within its borders was not and 
 could not be the true Body of Christ ? 2 Augustine's 
 reply is that by the Lord's command the tares are 
 not to be rooted up now, but left for the day of 
 harvest : that the fishers of men are to gather of 
 every kind, reserving the work of overhauling and 
 
 1 I John iii. 9, v. 18. 
 
 1 See on this subject Trench, Parables, p. 84 flf. ; Robertson, Regnum 
 f)fi, p. 1948".
 
 32 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 separating that which they have taken till the great 
 Draw-net is drawn up on the eternal shore. His 
 answer is open to the retort that in the parable of 
 the Tares the field is the world and not the Church ; 
 and that in the sister parable of the Draw-net the net 
 is the external machinery of the Church, and not its 
 constitution or its life. Nevertheless both parables 
 clearly recognize that the evil will be mingled with 
 the good to the end, and that it is not the Master's 
 will that His Church shall make any attempt on 
 a great scale to separate them in this life. This 
 does not of course rule out the exercise by the 
 Church of a proper discipline in cases of open sin or 
 heresy. The Christian Society must have the right 
 which is inherent in all societies, to purge herself of 
 members who renounce her principles or bring dis- 
 honour upon her by evil living. But our Lord's rule 
 postpones the final judgement to the end ; and mean- 
 while " in the visible Church the evil is ever mingled 
 with the good." l 
 
 The holiness of the Church, however, does not 
 depend upon the completeness of her discipline ; nor 
 is it entirely future. The Church is holy now, because, 
 though she has, and, as long as the world lasts, will 
 have unworthy members, and many of them, yet she 
 already possesses the Spirit and the Sacraments, and 
 is already the Body of the sinless Christ. She is the 
 
 1 Art. xxvi.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : CATHOLICITY 33 
 
 City of God in the making. Her ideal, the Jerusalem 
 above, is holy up to the full measure of imparted 
 holiness ; the city on earth, notwithstanding all im- 
 perfections, is relatively holy, representing to the 
 world the beginnings of the perfect life. 
 
 Many belong to the Church on earth who are not 
 personally holy ; some who are personally holy are 
 not in communion with her. Nevertheless the Church 
 of God, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of the 
 Holy Spirit, must needs be, and alone can be, ' the 
 Holy Church." There is no other society in the 
 world that can claim that great name. 
 
 3. The One Holy Church is Catholic. The word 
 1 catholic ' has na place in the Greek Bible, either 
 in the LXX or in the New Testament. 1 It is freely 
 used, however, in the later Greek generally. His- 
 torians speak of ' catholic,' i.e. universal, history ; 
 philosophers, of a 'catholic proposition' or a 'catholic 
 law.' In Christian writers of the second century we 
 read of the ' catholic,' i.e. the general resurrection ; of 
 the ' catholic ' salvation, i.e. of that which the Church 
 preaches to the whole world. 2 It is therefore no 
 
 1 Ka66\ov appears (e.g. in Amos iii. 3f., Acts iv. 18), but not in 
 relation to the Church. 
 
 8 Ka.6o\iK^ Iffropia occurs in Polybius, KaOoXiicln \6yos in Aristotle, 
 and Ka0o\iK<brepot y6/*oj jn Philo ; Justin has r] KaOoXiirf) dvdffraffis : 
 Clement of Alexandria, 77 icaOoKiKi) fftartipla. The references may be 
 found in Lightfoot, Ignatius, ii. p. 3iof. 
 
 C
 
 34 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 surprise to find Ignatius, 1 early in the second century, 
 applying this adjective to the Church throughout the 
 world, as contrasted with the local Christian com- 
 munities. " Wherever the Bishop appears (he writes 
 to the church in Smyrna), there let the people con- 
 gregate ; just as the Catholic Church is to be found 
 wherever Jesus Christ is " ; i.e. the Bishop is the 
 centre of the local church as Christ Himself is of the 
 whole Church throughout the world. Some forty 
 years after these words were written, when the church 
 of Smyrna sent to all other Christian churches an 
 account of the martyrdom of their Bishop, Polycarp, 
 they addressed it " to all the communities of the 
 holy catholic Church in every place " ; 2 and the 
 word ' catholic ' in this connexion occurs twice 
 again in the same letter. 3 Before the end of the cen- 
 tury, as we learn from the fragment known as the 
 Muratorian canon, this title of the Church had estab- 
 lished itself at Rome ; * and about the same time it 
 is used by Clement of Alexandria, who writes : " It 
 needs no long discourse to prove that the merely 
 
 1 Smym. 8 &TTOV &v (f>avrj 6 tirtffKoiros, tKti rb irX^^os tffru, farirep 
 Kirov &i> g Xpioris 'Iijcrous, ^/cet 17 /ca0o\iK7) ticicXriffla.. 
 
 2 Mart. Polyc. prooem. irdo-au raij /careb irdvTO. r6iroi> -rijs dy/as /coJ 
 
 Kado\i.K : i]S lKK\iiffLas Trapoi/a'cus. 
 
 8 Op. cit. cc. 8, 19. In some texts it stands also in c. 16 ; but there 
 the true reading is probably T^S Iv ^tivpvr) aylat ^/c/cXijo-t'as ; see Light- 
 foot's note ad loc.. 
 
 4 The Latin version of the fragment has ecclcsia catholica, catholica 
 ettlesia, and once simply catholica.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : CATHOLICITY 35 
 
 human societies which they " the heretical sects 
 " have instituted, were later in time than the catholic 
 Church." " The one Church, which they strive to 
 break up into many sects, is bound up with the prin- 
 ciple of unity. We say that the ancient and catholic 
 Church stands alone in essence and idea and principle 
 and preeminence." l 
 
 ' Catholic ' is here evidently contrasted with ' sec- 
 tarian ' or ' heretical/ and in this polemical sense the 
 word is used by other writers of the second and 
 third centuries. It is implied when the Muratorian 
 fragment condemns heretical scriptures on the ground 
 that they "cannot be received in the catholic Church"; 
 and when Tertullian speaks of an alien rule of faith 
 as opposed to that which is promulgated by the 
 " catholic churches." 2 Indeed, this sense is latent 
 whenever a particular church is called ' catholic.' 
 According to one reading of the text the Martyr- 
 dom of Polycarp speaks of the ' catholic church at 
 Smyrna ' ; if the reading is genuine, 3 the meaning 
 can only be ' the church which maintains the catholic 
 tradition and order,' in opposition to the Ebionite 
 and Docetic communities. At a somewhat later 
 time this use of the word predominates. Thus in 
 
 1 Clem. Al. strom. vii. 17, 107. I quote Hort and Mayor's transla- 
 tion (p. i88f.). 
 
 * Tertullian, praescr. 26 (reading catholicae) ; catholice> however, makes 
 sense, and is perhaps to be preferred. 
 
 1 See above, p. 34, note 3.
 
 36 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 the Acts of Pionius, a martyr of the third century, 
 Pionius is asked by the magistrate what his denomi- 
 nation is ; and on replying " I am a Christian," he 
 is asked again, " Of what church ? " to which the 
 martyr answers at once, " Of the catholic church " ; l 
 i.e. of the orthodox Christian society, and not of any 
 of the Christian sects. " When you are in a strange 
 city," is Cyril of Jerusalem's advice to his catechumens, 
 " enquire for the catholic church, and not simply for 
 the church ; since heretics call their meeting places 
 by that name." 2 In the days of Irenaeus members 
 of the Church were known as " churchmen " ; s in 
 the fourth century Augustine speaks of them as 
 ' catholics.' * 
 
 There is an interesting passage in the catechetical 
 lectures of Cyril which recounts the various meanings 
 borne in his time by the word ' catholic ' when used 
 as a title of the Church. " The Church," he writes, 
 " is called catholic because she is throughout the 
 whole world, from one end of the earth to the other ; 
 because she teaches universally and without fail all 
 the doctrines that ought to be brought to the know- 
 ledge of men concerning the visible and invisible, in 
 heaven and on earth ; because she subjugates to her 
 
 1 Ruinart, acta mart. sine. p. 191: 'Quis vocaris?'. .. 'Christi- 
 anas.'. . . ' Cuius ecclesiae?' . . . ' Catholicae. ' 
 
 2 Cyril. Hieros. catech. xviii. 26. 
 
 * Iren. haer. iii. 15. 2 : see Suicer, s.v. tKK\riffia<rTik6s. 
 
 4 He speaks e,g, of catholici boni, mali (quaest. in Matt. ii. ).
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: CATHOLICITY 37 
 
 faith the whole of mankind rulers and their subjects, 
 educated and uneducated alike ; because she is the 
 universal physician and healer of sins of every kind, 
 sins of soul or body, and possesses in herself every 
 form of excellence that can be named, in deeds and 
 words and spiritual gifts of every kind." l Augus- 
 tine's judgement may be added, as that of the 
 greatest of Western doctors : " There are many 
 things (he says) that keep me, for the best of 
 reasons, in the bosom of the Catholic Church ; the 
 consensus of peoples and nations, an authority 
 originally based on miracle, cherished by hopes, 
 enriched by love, confirmed by its antiquity ; the 
 succession of her priests, extending from the chair 
 of St Peter, to whom after the resurrection the Lord 
 committed the care of His flock, down to the episco- 
 pate of the present day. Lastly, there is the very 
 name 'catholic,' to which in the face of so many 
 heresies the Church has held with such good reason 
 that, while all heretics would like to be known as 
 Catholics, none of them would dare to direct to his 
 own meeting-house the stranger who asked him the 
 way to the catholic Church." 2 
 
 Widely as the title was used, tenaciously as it was 
 held by the Church, and full of significance as it was 
 felt to be, it was long before ' catholic ' made its 
 way into the Creed. The Western churches were 
 
 1 Cyril. Hieros. catcch. xviii. 23. * Aug. contra ep. Manichaei, 4.
 
 38 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 content with the simple but instructive phrase ' the 
 Holy Church.' " I believe in the Holy Church " still 
 stood in the North African creed during the lifetime 
 of Augustine. 1 ' Catholic ' appears first about the 
 beginning of the fifth century in the creed of the 
 Dacian bishop, Niceta of Remesiana, 2 whose comment 
 on it runs : " The Church is nothing else than the 
 congregation of all saints. . . . Know that this one 
 Catholic Church is established in all the world." It 
 is found next in Gallican creeds of the sixth century, 
 after which it gradually established itself in all 
 Western creeds. The Eastern creeds employed it 
 at an earlier date : it occurs in the confession of 
 Bishop Alexander of Alexandria ({326), and in the 
 creeds of Cyril of Jerusalem and Epiphanius, and 
 finally in the creed of Constantinople, from which it 
 has passed into the ' Nicene ' creed of the English 
 Order for Holy Communion. 8 
 
 In recent years a considerable controversy has 
 arisen, chiefly among German theologians, with 
 regard to the origin and nature of Catholicism. 
 According to Adolf Harnack Catholicism was " the 
 preaching of the One God and the crucified Lord 
 and Saviour carried over into the Hellenic world of 
 thought, and worked out in a philosophic body of 
 
 1 Hahn, Symbole, 47 ; " vitam aeternam per sanctam ecclesiam" is 
 the Augustinian form. 
 
 1 The original may be found in Dr. Burn's Niceta, p. 48. 
 s Hahn, Symbole, 6i ff. ; 15, 124 IT., 144.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: CATHOLICITY 39 
 
 doctrine." l On the other hand, Rudolf Sohm finds 
 the essence of Catholicism in " making the actual 
 visible Church, regarded as a legal entity, equivalent 
 to the Church of Christ." 2 Both definitions have 
 elements of truth, but neither of them satisfies. On 
 the whole, however, Sohm comes nearer to the facts 
 than Harnack. As Sohm admits, " Catholicism 
 emerged from primitive Christianity as a necessary 
 and logical consequence." 3 Primitive Christianity 
 identified the visible community of the baptized with 
 the Body of Christ, and Catholicism was merely the 
 carrying out of this identification in the thought 
 and life of the historical Church. The origin of 
 Catholicism is therefore to be sought not in the 
 second century but in the first ; not in the writings 
 of Ignatius or Irenaeus, but in the epistles of St Paul 
 and the teaching of Christ Himself. Of course 
 neither the word nor the fully developed system 
 can be found in the New Testament ; but, as Sohm 
 has rightly judged, the later system was but the 
 logical result of principles which the New Testament 
 enshrined. It was inevitable that, as time went on, 
 the organization of the Christian Society should take 
 a larger place in the conception of the Church. 
 Even within the New Testament itself this change 
 
 1 Harnack, Constitution and Law of the ancient Church (Eng. tr.), 
 P- 255- 
 
 1 Op. cit. pp. 181, 242. 8 Op. cit. p. 177.
 
 40 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 may be seen in progress ; the Pastoral Epistles 
 emphasize points of order to an extent which has 
 laid them open to the suspicion of being un-Pauline, 
 at least in their present shape. Similarly, the primi- 
 tive deposit of the faith, when it came into contact 
 with Greek thought, naturally assumed intellectual 
 forms unknown to the Apostolic age, until it became 
 what Harnack characterizes as " a philosophic body 
 of doctrine." But neither of these developements was 
 an essential departure from the original Gospel : both 
 the Catholic order and the Catholic doctrine were 
 due to the working out of principles inherent in 
 Christianity, as it was taught by Christ and His 
 Apostles. 
 
 Catholicism is, in short, the religion of Christ 
 interpreted by the Apostles and their successors. 
 The Catholic Church is the great society which 
 embraces all the baptized, exists through all the ages 
 of the world, and maintains the whole sum of revealed 
 truth and inherited order. Churches are catholic 
 which adhere to the doctrine and discipline of 
 Catholic Christianity. The title cannot be limited 
 to bodies which acknowledge the authority of a 
 central see, nor can it be extended to those which 
 have thrown over the threefold ministry and cut 
 themselves off from the historical Body of Christ. 
 It is equally a prostitution of a noble word when it 
 is made the exclusive property of a particular school
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: APOSTOLICITY 41 
 
 or church or group of churches, and when it is used 
 to describe a medley of denominations which agree 
 only in their rejection of a national Church that 
 stands for the doctrine and order of ancient 
 Christianity. The title ' Catholic ' must be vindi- 
 cated for all churches that retain the great Sacra- 
 ments, the doctrine of the Catholic Creeds, and the 
 succession of the historical Episcopate ; and it must 
 be denied to bodies which, however great their 
 spiritual efficiency, do not fulfil these necessary 
 conditions of genuine catholicity. 1 
 
 4. The One Holy 2 Catholic Church is also Apostolic. 
 This title of the Church, although not included in 
 the Western creed, 3 belongs to the oldest common 
 stock of Christian ideas. 4 " The Church throughout 
 
 1 Cf. Pearson on the Creed, art. ix. ad fin. : "That Church alone 
 which first began at Jerusalem on earth will bring us to the Jerusalem 
 in heaven, and that alone began there which always embraceth the 
 faith once delivered to the saints. Whatsoever Church pretendeth to 
 a new beginning, pretendeth at the same time to a new Churchdom, 
 and whatsoever is so new is none." 
 
 2 The English ' Nicene ' Creed strangely omits ' Holy ' before 
 'Catholic.' Sanctam appears to be absent also from some pre- 
 Reformation copies ; and similarly et apostolicam disappears in the 
 first hand of one MS. of the Gelasian Sacramentary (Heurtley, Creeds 
 of the Western Church, p. 144, note 3; Wilson, Gelasian Sacramentary, 
 PP- 5S> 57)- Such omissions, due to the carelessness of scribes, have 
 of course no doctrinal significance. 
 
 3 The Creed of Beatus of Libana (Hahn, 57) is hardly an exception ; 
 it is marked by many Eastern features. 
 
 4 See Clement of Rome, I Cor. 42.
 
 42 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 the world," writes Irenaeus, " received the faith from 
 the Apostles and their disciples ; " " all who wish to 
 see the truth can find it in the tradition of the 
 Apostles, which is openly professed in every church ;" 
 " the Apostles poured into the Church, as into a rich 
 storehouse, the whole treasury of truth, so that who- 
 soever will, may take from thence a draught of life." l 
 Tertullian challenges the heretical bodies to produce 
 the origin of their ' churches,' to unfold the roll of 
 their lines of bishops, and to shew that they follow a 
 succession unbroken from the first, so that in each 
 case their first bishop received his consecration either 
 from an Apostle or from an Apostolic man. " This 
 is the way," he adds, " in which the apostolic churches 
 bring down their registers ; thus the church of Smyrna 
 points to Polycarp, who was appointed by John, and 
 the church of Rome to Clement, who was ordained 
 by Peter. There are other churches, no doubt, which 
 cannot claim apostolic descent after this manner, 
 and yet, as they agree in the common faith, are 
 none the less accounted apostolical, since in their 
 teaching they are akin to the apostolic foundations. 
 On the other hand, if we examine the origin of the 
 heretical bodies, it will be found to be marked by 
 apostasy rather than by apostolicity." 2 
 
 1 Iren. haer. i. IO. I, iii. 3. I, 4. 
 
 * Tertullian, praescr. 32 ; adv. Marc. iv. 5 "si censum requiras, facilius 
 apostaticum invenies quam apostolicum."
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: APOSTOLICITY 43 
 
 As Harnack points out, 1 it is remarkable that the 
 sarly Church should have attached so much weight 
 to apostolic descent, when we remember that, with 
 the exception of St Peter and St John, none of the 
 Twelve seems to have been in contact with the Gentile 
 churches of the Empire. Only the churches of the 
 province of Asia and those of Antioch and Rome 
 could boast of having received visits from members 
 of the original Apostolate. But the Church realized 
 that the Twelve were the Lord's chosen witnesses, the 
 original nucleus of the Christian society and ministry, 
 sent into the world ,by Christ Himself, as He was 
 sent by the Father ; foundation stones on which the 
 whole future edifice was to rest, even as they them- 
 selves rested on the basal Rock. It was to the 
 Twelve that the deposit of the faith was entrusted 
 by the Lord, and by them that it was passed on to 
 the Church. St Paul indeed claims to have received 
 his Gospel immediately from the Lord ; yet he 
 sought an opportunity of comparing it with that of 
 the other Apostles, and ascertaining that they and he 
 were in substantial agreement. 2 From the Twelve or 
 from St Paul the whole Church derived its faith, 
 and herein the Church was in marked contrast with 
 the heretical sects. In these circumstances it was 
 not unnatural that, in the East more especially, the 
 
 1 History of Dogma (Eng. tr.), i. 160. 
 Gal. i. 1 8, ii. 2.
 
 44 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Catholic churches should glory in their Apostolicity, 
 and confess it in their creeds. 
 
 The Catholic Church is Apostolic in three respects : 
 as planted in the world by the Apostles ; as adhering 
 to the teaching of the Apostles ; as carrying on the 
 succession of Apostolic ministry. 
 
 (l) Before the Ascension our Lord charged the 
 Apostles with the work of preaching the Gospel in 
 Judaea and Samaria and to the uttermost part of the 
 earth. This evangelization of Judaea and Samaria 
 was carried out by the Twelve and their company, as 
 the Acts relate ; the Gentile missions, so far as the 
 West was concerned, fell chiefly into other hands. But 
 the mission of St Paul was undertaken with the full 
 approval of the original Apostolate, and was in fact a 
 fulfilment of a part of their task with which they were 
 themselves not qualified to deal. By agreement and 
 fellowship with St Paul the Twelve " were enabled to 
 feel that they were in effect carrying out through him 
 that extension of their sphere which it is incredible that 
 they should ever have dismissed from their minds." l 
 Thus Gentile Christendom was ultimately of Apostolic 
 planting, even if we limit the Apostolic college to 
 the Twelve. The churches founded by St Paul and 
 his associates were Apostolic foundations, not only 
 because St Paul was an Apostle, but because his work 
 was done with the concurrence of the original Apostles. 
 1 Hort, Ecdesia, p. 88.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: APOSTOLICITY 45 
 
 As Tertullian points out in the passage already 
 quoted, not all the churches of his day owed their 
 origin either to the Twelve or to St Paul. 1 After 
 the end of the Apostolic age, and the passing of all 
 their immediate disciples, new Christian brotherhoods 
 sprang up in regions hitherto unevangelized. The same 
 process is going forward at this present time through 
 the missionary labours of the modern Church. Do 
 these churches partake of the apostolicity which the 
 Creed attributes to the Catholic Church ? The 
 African father answers that they do, if they inherit 
 the Apostolic doctrine. 2 
 
 (2) The earliest converts, it is noted in Acts, 
 " continued stedfastly in the Apostles' teaching." 3 On 
 their teaching and the teaching of St Paul there was 
 built up a tradition, or as the Pastorals put it, a 
 ' deposit ' was formed, which remained as an abiding 
 treasure of the Church. 4 Its substance was known 
 as the ' rule of faith,' 5 and found expression in the 
 early creeds. This Apostolic tradition was held to 
 be preserved with especial purity in churches which 
 
 1 Tertullian, praescr. 20 "pro hoc et ipsae apostolicae deputabuntur ut 
 suboles apostolicarum ecclesiarum." 
 
 1 Ibid, "traducem fidei et semina doctrinae ceterae ecclesiae mutuatae 
 sunt et cottidie mutuantur, ut ecclesiae fiant." 
 
 3 Acts ii. 42. 
 
 4 2 Thess. ii. 15, iii. 6 (irapdSoffa, cf. I Cor. xi. 2, xv. 3); i Tim. 
 vi. 20, 2 Tim. i. 14 (irapad-fiKi)). 
 
 5 The KO.V&V rrjs d\tj0elas (Iren. haer. i. 9. 4), or regula fidei (TerL 
 de veland. virg. i).
 
 46 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 could claim Apostolic founders, and more particularly 
 in the Roman church, which had for its founders 
 both St Peter and St Paul. But, in fact, the whole 
 Catholic Church in all parts of the world possessed 
 one and the same faith of Apostolic origin. The 
 tradition was not simply oral ; it was embodied also 
 in the Apostolic writings, which by the end of the 
 second century had been collected into a New Testa- 
 ment or ' Instrument.' Written or unwritten, the 
 witness of the Apostolic age was the heritage of the 
 Catholic Church ; she claimed all Apostolic teaching 
 as her own, and admitted no other body of truth. 
 
 (3) Besides Apostolic tradition, the Catholic Church 
 possessed also an Apostolic ministry. The orderly 
 devolution of ministerial authority from the Aposto- 
 late is a clearly marked principle of the first age 
 The Seven were chosen by the whole body of the 
 disciples, but on their election they were set before 
 the Apostles, and by them admitted to their office. 
 In the new churches among the Gentiles, elders 
 (presbyters) were appointed by Barnabas and Saul. 
 Later on, at Ephesus and in Crete, in the absence of 
 the Apostle, the ordination of presbyter-bishops and 
 deacons was entrusted by St Paul to his delegates, 
 Timothy and Titus. Timothy himself had received 
 the gift of ministerial grace through the laying on of 
 the Apostle's hands. 1 
 
 1 2 Tim. i. 6.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH: APOSTOLJCITY 47 
 
 The principle of succession was maintained in the 
 sub-apostolic age. We have already seen how 
 Clement of Rome points out to the Corinthians who 
 had deposed their presbyters, that the men had been 
 appointed either by the Apostles, or, according to a 
 provision made by the A postles, " by other men of 
 repute with the consent of the whole church." l The 
 language is not technical, but it sufficiently indicates 
 that some kind of ministerial succession was main- 
 tained after the death of the Apostolic founders and by 
 their desire. As soon as the monarchical episcopate 
 emerges, one of its functions is to secure the main- 
 tenance of this succession. " We can count up," 
 writes Irenaeus, " those who were appointed by the 
 Apostles to be bishops in the several churches, and 
 their successors to our own time" (i.e. to about A.D. 
 1 80). " It would be tedious," he adds, " to count up 
 the successions in all the churches," and so he selects 
 the Roman succession as an example. 2 The moral is : 
 " We must obey the elders in the churches who derive 
 their succession from the Apostles or men who with 
 their succession to the episcopal office have received 
 the sure gift of truth." Those who hold aloof from 
 the succession are to be held suspect. Hippolytus, a 
 
 1 Clem. Rom. I Cor. 42. 
 
 *Iren. haer. iii. 3. 1-3; Tertullian, praescr. 36. Tertullian names 
 Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, as well as Rome, under the head of 
 ecclesiae apostolicae, to any of which an appeal might be made, 
 according to the geographical position of the enquirer.
 
 48 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 junior contemporary and disciple of Irenaeus, attaches 
 the same importance to Apostolical succession ; " the 
 Apostles (he says) imparted the Holy Spirit to men 
 who held the right faith, and we, their successors, 
 have partaken of the same grace, highpriesthood, and 
 office of teaching, and are accounted guardians of 
 the Church." l " Christ," writes Cyprian 2 in the next 
 generation and amid other surroundings, " says to the 
 Apostles, and thereby to all heads of churches who suc- 
 ceed to the Apostles by an ordination which puts them 
 in their place, 3 ' He who heareth you, heareth me, 
 and he who heareth me heareth him that sent me.' " 
 
 Thus, as the Catholic Church was planted by 
 Apostolic hands and inherits Apostolic teaching, her 
 ministry succeeds in an unbroken line to the Apos- 
 tolic office, so far as the latter is perpetuated in the 
 life of later Christendom. This is not to say that the 
 Bishops are in all respects successors of the Apostles, 
 or even that monarchical episcopacy dates back to the 
 lifetime of St John. 4 But a succession of some kind 
 there clearly was from the first, and thus the prin- 
 ciple of continuity was in any case maintained. 5 In 
 
 1 Hippol. haer. i. prooem. * Ep. Ixvi. 4. 
 
 8 Ordinatione vicaria : the same phrase occurs again in ep. Ixxv. 16. 
 
 4 Tertullian maintains this view, for which indeed there is much to be 
 said : adv. Marc. iv. 5 " ordo episcoporum ad originem recensus in 
 loannem stabit auctorem. " 
 
 6 As Bishop Gore points out ( The Church and the Ministry, p. 73), 
 "the apostolic succession has taken shape in a threefold ministry . ,\
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : APOSTOLICITY 49 
 
 other words, the authority to minister in the ancient 
 Church came not from the Church itself, or from 
 Christ acting directly through the Church, but from 
 the Apostles or their delegates or successors, in 
 virtue of Christ's original gift to the Twelve. The 
 people elected their clergy, but the clergy received 
 authority from the hands of those who ultimately 
 derived their commission from the Apostles. Thus 
 in the Catholic Church every ministerial act is linked 
 by historical sequence with the work of the first age, 
 with the ministry of the Twelve and of St Paul, with 
 the ministry of Christ Himself. 
 
 The note of Apostolicity serves to correct an error 
 which may arise from emphasizing too exclusively 
 the note of Catholicity. Catholicity, insisting as it 
 does on the comprehensiveness of the Church, is liable 
 to be misunderstood as if it imposed no restrictions, 
 demanded no conditions of membership. To the 
 modern mind catholicity conveys the impression of a 
 laissez-faire policy which may go so far as to ignore 
 the fundamental difference between truth and error, 
 good order and a dangerous laxity. The addition of 
 ' Apostolic ' to the description of the Church forbids 
 this misuse of the term. The Church of Jesus Christ 
 
 But this is rather the outcome of a principle than itself a principle." 
 The principle is that " ministerial authority depends on continuous 
 transmission from the Apostles, through those to whom the Apostles 
 transmitted the power to transmit " (Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, 
 p. 1 1 6). 
 
 D
 
 50 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 opens the doors to all comers, but all who enter must 
 accept Apostolic doctrine, and submit to Apostolic 
 order and discipline. The comprehensiveness of the 
 Church is conditioned by her resolve to maintain an 
 unbroken connexion with the Christian Society of the 
 Apostolic age. The foundations of the Holy City 
 will always bear the names of the twelve Apostles of 
 the Lamb. 
 
 5. Is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church 
 a visible body ? Or are we to think of her as purely 
 spiritual, consisting of a certain number of elect souls 
 known to God alone? Or are there two Churches, 
 a visible and an invisible, and is it of the former or 
 of the latter that our creeds speak ? 
 
 The answer to these questions is to be found in 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation. 1 As there is One 
 Christ, who is both visible and invisible, 2 the Mystery 
 of godliness manifested in the flesh of our humanity, 
 the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, so His 
 mystical Body the Church is one, invisible on one 
 side of its life, visible on the other. 
 
 The Church is on one, and that the greater, side of 
 her life invisible. As our Lord lived among earthly 
 
 1 The ultimate reason for the visibility of the Church is to be found 
 in the Incarnation ; see Moehler, Symbolism (Eng. tr.), I. c. v. 
 
 1 Cf. Ign. Eph. 7 & larp&s icrnv aapxiicbs ical irvev/jMTiic6i. Ps. 
 Clem. Rom. 2 Cor. 9 XptffT6j 6 Kijpifa o (roweis i?/*as, &v fifr rb TpuTov 
 rvfupa., tytvfro ffd.p.
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : VISIBILITY 51 
 
 surroundings the life of the Eternal Son, in a glory 
 which could be seen only by the faith of the elect, so 
 His Church possesses an invisible life of the Spirit 
 which the world cannot apprehend. Not to speak 
 now of the ideal Church, which is invisible because it 
 exists only in the purpose of God and has not yet been 
 realized, nor again of the vast majority of Christians 
 who have passed from us into the unseen world, the 
 Church on earth is already a spiritual body, possess- 
 ing powers and ' relations which the world regards 
 as negligible because they are invisible, but which in 
 truth constitute ihe.raison d'etre of the visible society. 
 The Visible Church is the manifestation in human 
 life of the spiritual and invisible. She consists of 
 visible members, who are knit together by visible 
 sacraments ; she has a visible ministry ; she is a 
 force in the visible world which meets the eye, and 
 at the same time she belongs to the eternal order of 
 things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard. She 
 exists in the world, and is left in it by the Master's 
 will to be the light of the world, to leaven the whole 
 lump with the leaven of her life in God. 
 
 It was not long before the Church recognized that 
 many of her members were unworthy of the Christian 
 name ; and the number of such members constantly 
 , tended to grow larger as conversions and baptisms 
 were multiplied. Ancient Christian writers shew no 
 disposition to conceal this fact. Augustine, for
 
 52 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 example, 1 distinguishes with almost unnecessary 
 sharpness between the communion of the sacraments 
 and the communion of saints. But neither Augus- 
 tine nor any other teacher of the ancient Catholic 
 Church had recourse to the expedient of dividing the 
 visible Church from the invisible, as if they were two 
 bodies, and not one and the same, viewed from dif- 
 ferent standpoints. Nor did the greater Reformers 
 of the sixteenth century go to this length. The true 
 author of the modern doctrine of the invisibility of the 
 Church appears to have been Zwingli, 2 who has found 
 a large following from the sixteenth century onwards. 
 The idea, however, is at variance not only with the 
 consensus of pre-Reformation teaching, but with the 
 New Testament itself. The Apostolic writings know 
 but one great Christian Society, including all the 
 baptized, good or evil, sincere or insincere, who have 
 not been cut off from the communion of the Church 
 or cut themselves off by open apostasy. The True 
 Vine has branches in it that bear no fruit and are 
 practically dead ; yet until the Husbandman sees fit 
 to take them away, they remain in the Vine. 3 There 
 are not two vines, but one, the Visible Church with 
 its external order and its spiritual life, although of 
 the latter true members alone partake. 
 
 x See Robertson, Regnum Dei, p. I94ff. 
 
 * Robertson, op. fit. p. 354 ff. 
 
 'John xv. 2 trap K\rjjjia. Iv ipol /trj <j>cpov
 
 NOTES OF THE CHURCH : VISIBILITY 53 
 
 The spread of the Zwinglian doctrine of the invisi- 
 bility of the Holy Catholic Church has been fruitful 
 in misconceptions and practical evils. It is largely 
 responsible for the prevalent indifference to the 
 external order, the authority, the discipline, the 
 worship, and the creed of Christendom. It has pro- 
 duced the chaos of undenominationalism, the babel 
 of contending sects, the false individualism in religion 
 which makes every member of Christ a law unto 
 himself, setting up the judgement of the individual or 
 of his party against the rule of faith or the common 
 order of the Church. The dream of an invisible 
 Church on earth consisting only of the elect has in 
 many minds taken the place of the fact of the 
 existence of a great historical society which was 
 instituted by Christ Himself. 
 
 Let it be considered for how much the conception 
 of a Visible Church, the home of an invisible life, 
 actually stands. We say that it has pleased God to 
 carry forward the work of human salvation, which 
 was made possible by the Incarnation of His Son 
 and the coming of His Spirit, through a human 
 Society based upon a nucleus, of disciples who had 
 been chosen and trained for that end by the Incarnate 
 Son Himself. This society received from Jesus Christ 
 authority to baptize and to teach all the nations of 
 the earth, and was assured of His presence with it to 
 the end of time. He gave it power to remit sins
 
 54 
 
 and to retain them ; He gave it, in the person of His 
 Apostle Peter, the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 and the right to bind and to loose, i.e. to form definite 
 judgements in matters relating to doctrine and dis- 
 cipline. 1 All that is done or taught on earth in Christ's 
 Name is, by His commission, to be done and taught 
 by this visible and historically continuous society. 
 To this Society belong the promise and gift of the 
 Spirit, and all the spiritual blessings and privileges 
 of the New Covenant ; it is the new Israel, the holy 
 nation, the royal priesthood, the spiritual House for 
 priestly service, the Church or Congregation of the 
 Living God. There is not the shadow of a reason 
 for ascribing the glorious things which are spoken of 
 the City of God to an invisible body known only to 
 God and distinct from the visible Society. The 
 unworthiness, hypocrisy, insincerity, spiritual deadness 
 of multitudes of Christians, and even at certain 
 epochs of Church history of the great majority (if 
 the fact be so), cannot take from the privileges of the 
 Visible Church, which are secured by Christ's promise 
 to be with her to the world's end. 
 
 To those who believe the Visible Church to be 
 the heir of that promise, nothing which pertains to 
 her order, her ministry, her worship, her life, or her 
 
 1 On 'binding' and 'loosing' (Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18), see John 
 Lightfoot, ad loc. ; Dalman, Words of Christ (Eng. tr.), p. 213 ff., or 
 Allen, St. Matthew, p. 177.
 
 NOTES OF CHIJRCH : INDEFECTIBILITY 55 
 
 work can seem to be of little moment. In a Divine 
 Society even external things are the veil of heavenly 
 realities. To imagine that this conviction leads of 
 itself to externalism and formality is as unintelligent 
 as it is wanting in charity. On the contrary, belief 
 in the Divine Mission and supernatural life of the 
 Visible Church invests all that belongs to her with 
 spiritual significance and power, inspiring us with a 
 new sense of the reality of all acts of Christian 
 worship and fellowship. We awake out of our sleep 
 to exclaim with Jacob, " This is none other but the 
 House of God, and this is the gate of Heaven." 
 
 It is a false spirituality which thinks lightly of the 
 visible order of the Church, on the ground that our 
 Lord desires only the salvation of the individual and 
 the religion of the heart. A true faith in the Master 
 welcomes and follows His method of working, which 
 is to gather individuals into a visible society, in which 
 by His invisible grace they may be educated for the 
 life of the world to come. 
 
 6. The Visible Church of Christ is indefectible. The 
 edifice which our Lord builds on the Rock of truth can- 
 not fall, nor can the building cease until it is complete ; 
 " the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." l 
 
 r lt( A pictorial way of saying, 'The organized processes of evil shall 
 not prevail against the organized society which represents my teaching '" 
 (Allen, op. '/.). But Hades answers to the power of death and 
 destruction rather than to those of moral evil.
 
 56 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Forces of destruction, which sooner or later undermine 
 all human societies, commonwealths, empires, may 
 also attack the Universal Church. But they attack 
 it in vain. The rain descends, the floods come, the 
 winds beat upon the House of God, but it remains 
 unshaken. There are things that cannot be shaken, 
 and the Catholic Church is one of them. 1 
 
 Particular churches share this note of indefectibility 
 so long and in so far as they share the other notes of 
 the One Church. So long, so far as they reflect her 
 unity, her sanctity, her catholicity, her apostolicity, 
 her combination of the visible order with the spiritual 
 life, they are imperishable. On the other hand, if a 
 local church, even a church planted by an Apostle or 
 by the two greatest Apostles, and possessing the suc- 
 cession of the Apostolic ministry, leaves its first love 
 and ceases from its first works, Christ, we know, will 
 move its lamp out of its place ; 2 the light of truth will 
 be transferred to some other region, to a city or a 
 nation bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit. Against 
 such a community the gates of Hades, the forces of 
 disintegration, will prevail, and the whole neighbour- 
 hood may be relinquished for centuries. But though 
 the lamp is removed out of its place, it is not 
 extinguished : the light of the world shines on. 
 
 The indestructibility of the Catholic Church is the 
 indestructibility of goodness and truth, of which she 
 1 Heb. xii. 27 f. *Apoc. ii. 4f.
 
 NOTES OF CHURCH : INDEFECTIBILITY 57 
 
 is the Divinely ordained home and citadel on earth. 
 The Church is " the pillar and base of the truth " l 
 the pillar standing up against the sky, and witnessing 
 to the truth from age to age ; the base or drum 
 which supports the shaft and capital, itself resting on 
 a hidden substructure and upon the rock. Centuries 
 go by, and lesser edifices raised by human hands 
 disappear, giving place to others which in due time 
 will themselves fall into ruins ; but this pillar, capital 
 and shaft and base, is still in its place, and there it 
 will remain while the world lasts. The foundation 
 of God stands to-day where it stood when the New 
 Testament was written ; its witness is still borne 
 and will be borne to the end, in the faith and life of 
 Christendom. 
 
 Does this indefectibility of the Catholic Church 
 imply immunity from error ? is the witness of the 
 Church infallible ? At first sight it might seem as 
 if infallibility were a logical consequence of inde- 
 fectibility. If the Church can depart from the truth 
 when she professes to define it, what safeguard is 
 there against her complete collapse? 
 
 Another promise from Christ supplies the answer. 
 " When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide 
 you into all the truth." 2 To attain to the whole truth 
 is a Divine gift, and this gift is guaranteed to the 
 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 15 ortfXos Kal fdpaiufj.a TT;S dX^tfffas. 
 1 John xvi. 13 odtjyrifffi vpSis els TTJ> a\T)6ti.av iracrav.
 
 58 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Apostles as representing the universal Church. But 
 it is important to observe the terms in which it is 
 conveyed. The Spirit of truth does not communi- 
 cate all the truth at once, nor does He undertake to 
 guard the Church from error during the process of 
 attaining it. It is His to lead, but the Church is 
 responsible for following her Guide ; and it is only as 
 she does this that she escapes error and assimilates 
 truth. Ultimate attainment is assured to her, but 
 not inerrancy in the course of her progress towards it ; 
 there may be many mishaps upon the way through 
 misapprehension or neglect. 
 
 The Church, then, has no right to expect immunity 
 from error. But she may confidently look for Divine 
 guidance when she seeks it, and follows it as it is 
 given. How is this guidance bestowed ? 
 
 The well-known Vincentian canon offers in an 
 epigrammatic form some approach to an answer ; l at 
 least it asserts a principle on which judgements pro- 
 nounced by the Church may be regarded as beyond 
 reasonable doubt. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod 
 ab omnibus : i.e. a doctrine which the Church has 
 accepted in all ages and in all parts of the world, and 
 which has been endorsed by the general consent of 
 Christendom, may be safely assumed to be part of 
 that sum total of truth into which she is being guided 
 by the Spirit of Christ. It may be difficult to find 
 
 1 See Stanton, Authority in Religion, p. 167 f.
 
 NOTES OF CHURCH : INDEFECTIBILITY 59 
 
 instances of this consensus, if Vincent's canon is 
 pressed to the letter ; but the general principle of the 
 rule is sound, and easy of application. Agreement in 
 matters of faith and life, when it has been reached by 
 the great majority of Christian people of all races and 
 ages, can only be explained as due to the action of 
 the One Spirit, who dwells in the One Body of 
 Christ. A truly oecumenical Council, representing all 
 the catholic churches of Christendom, may reasonably 
 expect the guidance of the Holy Spirit ; and to 
 Councils so constituted great deference is due. This 
 was duly recognized by the sixteenth century Re- 
 formers of the English church. 1 Our 2 1 st Article, 
 indeed, says plainly that " General Councils may err," 
 and it is not denied that even in the great Councils of 
 the fourth and fifth centuries unedifying scenes were 
 witnessed, and errors of judgement may have been 
 committed. But the chief theological decisions of 
 these representative assemblies of an undivided 
 Christendom may nevertheless be regarded as the 
 work of the Spirit of truth. They have become 
 part of the Christian heritage ; they satisfy the 
 Christian consciousness, and they correspond with 
 the experience of the whole Church. 
 
 1 Thus the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum (c. 1552), c. i. speaking of 
 Councils, says : " quaedam illorum, qualia sunt praecipua ilia quatuor, 
 Nicaenum, Constantinopolitanum primum, Ephesinum, etChalcedonense, 
 magna cum reverentia complectimur et suscipimus." Cf. Hooker, 
 E.P. i. 40. 14; v. 54. 10.
 
 60 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 No oecumenical Council is possible in a divided 
 Christendom. But the last century witnessed an 
 attempt to bring together under that name represen- 
 tatives of the Roman obedience from all parts of the 
 world, and to use its authority for the setting up of a 
 new criterion of truth. The Roman Catechism, pre- 
 pared in accordance with a decree of the Council of 
 Trent, had been content to say that the " One 
 Church, because governed by the Holy Ghost, cannot 
 err in delivering the discipline of faith and morals." 1 
 This, as we have seen, is in excess of our Lord's 
 promise, which guarantees to the Church no more 
 than a progressive guidance into the whole truth}. 
 But the Vatican Council of 1870 adds that the 
 inerrancy of the Church attaches to certain utterances 
 of its visible head, the Roman Pontiff; 2 when the 
 Pope speaks ex cathedra, i.e. " when in discharge of 
 his office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians he 
 defines, in virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, 
 a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the 
 universal Church, he is, through the Divine assistance 
 promised to him in blessed Peter, endued with that 
 infallibility with which our blessed Redeemer willed 
 that the Church should be furnished in defining 
 doctrines of faith or morals." 
 
 It is well known that this definition was carried 
 
 1 Catech. R. i. x. qu. 17. 
 
 1 Martin, Cone. Vatic, docuinentorum collectio, p. 26.
 
 NOTES OF CHURCH : INDEFECTIBILITY 61 
 
 against the advice of some of the ablest and wisest 
 members of the Roman Episcopate. Moreover, it was 
 carried in a Council which did not represent any 
 communion but that of Rome, and has therefore no 
 binding force in the Catholic Church. Lastly, it is 
 so worded that it may be doubted whether the 
 infallibility claimed for the Pope can ever be 
 exercised. For it is claimed for him only when he 
 speaks as the Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, 
 and it is only such an infallibility as the Redeemer 
 willed to bestow upon the Church. But the great 
 Orthodox Church and the Anglican Church, not to 
 mention the Protestant sects, deny that the Pope is 
 the Pastor and Doctor of all Christians ; and there 
 is no sufficient evidence to shew that our Lord 
 promised infallibility either to Peter or his successors, 
 or even to the whole Church. Thus the new Papal 
 infallibility stands in no relation to the Catholic note 
 of indefectibility. The great oecumenical Councils, 
 and any future truly oecumenical Council, may rightly 
 claim the attention of Christendom ; a purely Roman 
 Council concerns only the Roman communion, and 
 the utterances of a single bishop, even if he claim 
 infallibility, are authoritative only within the limits of 
 his own diocese or province. 
 
 Though the Universal Church cannot fail, it is 
 only in the long run that she is safeguarded from 
 the risk of error. The leading of the Spirit is
 
 62 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 gradual, and there may be many set-backs to progress, 
 and even serious departures from the right way. 
 Councils may err, majorities may vote for that which 
 in the end will prove to be an ignis fatuus. At one 
 dark moment in the fourth century, to use the words 
 of Jerome, " the whole world groaned, and marvelled 
 to find itself Arian." 1 At another, in the first century, 
 St Peter, whose infallibility is thought to have de- 
 scended to the Roman Pontiff, " stood condemned," 
 and received a public reproof from St Paul. 2 It 
 seems that neither the consensus of a particular age, 
 nor the ipse dixit of a supreme Pastor or Doctor, has 
 the promise of inerrancy. The promise of the in- 
 fallible Spirit belongs to the Catholic Church, and 
 not to one age of the Church or to one communion, 
 however ancient or widely spread it may be. 
 
 Yet there is no reason to fear that error will 
 ultimately triumph over truth, or that the Body of 
 Christ will ever fall, as a whole, from- the faith which 
 was once for all delivered to the saints. The 
 intellectual difficulties of our own time will no more 
 prevail against the Church than did the Arianism of 
 the fourth century, at one time sure of its ultimate 
 triumph. The Church is not infallible, but she is 
 
 1 Hieron. dial. adv. Lucif. 19 "tune (i.e. in the year 360) Nicaenae 
 fidei damnatio conclamata est ; ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se 
 csse miratus est." 
 
 Gal. ii. II.
 
 NOTES OF CHURCH: INDEFECTIBILITY 63 
 
 indefectible, because she has to the end the unfailing 
 guidance of the Spirit of truth, even if she does not 
 always follow her Guide. Magna est Veritas, et 
 praevalet. 1 
 
 1 1 Esdras iv. 41 (LXX) yue-ydX?? ^ dX^eto Ka.1 virepiffxi'd. The future 
 tense, commonly adopted in quotations, is without authority either in the 
 Greek or the Latin text.
 
 II 
 
 THE CHURCH IN ITS LIFE, ORDER, 
 AND FUNCTIONS 
 
 i. The Church, as represented in the New Testa- 
 ment, is a living organism : a body permeated in all 
 its limbs by a vital force ; a tree whose branches 
 draw sap from a common root; a house built of living 
 stones. Whatever the image used to describe the 
 Ecclesia, its outstanding feature is vitality. There 
 may be dead members in the body, dead branches in 
 the tree, dead stones in the building ; but their presence 
 is abnormal and temporary. A whole Christian 
 community, the local representative of the Universal 
 Church, may be dead ; yet so long as it still calls 
 itself a ' church,' it bears a name which speaks of 
 life. 1 
 
 The life of the Church is spiritual. When St Peter 
 speaks of the members of the Church as ' living 
 stones,' 2 he is thinking not only of the fact that the 
 
 1 Apoc. iii. 
 
 2 i Pet. ii. 4 : see Dr. Hort's instructive note ad loc.
 
 ITS LIFE 65 
 
 Church is made up of men, women, and children, 
 who possess the gift of physical life, but of the super- 
 natural life which their faith has infused into them. 
 Similarly, when St Paul contrasts the dead victims 
 offered under the Law with the living sacrifices which 
 believers present to God, he does not forget that the 
 bodies of Christians are " those of men to whom 
 newness of spiritual life has been given by union with 
 the risen Christ." 1 The vast majority of the members 
 of Christ have passed out of the present life ; yet they 
 are " alive unto God," and retain their place in the 
 spiritual building. 
 
 The life of the Church proceeds from its living 
 Head, the exalted Christ. " Because I live," He had 
 said on the night before the Passion, "ye shall live 
 also." 2 What is true of the members is true also of 
 the body. From the Head, in St Paul's words, " all 
 thebody, fitly framed and knit together . . . maketh 
 increase of the body unto the building up of itself in 
 love " . . . " increaseth with the increase of God." 3 As 
 each several member of the Church receives spiritual 
 life from the vital energy of Christ, so the Church as 
 
 *Sanday and Headlam on Rom. xii. I. *John xiy. 19. 
 
 *Eph. iv. 1 6, Col. ii. 19. The a<f>al ical fffodfffnoi, "contacts and 
 ligaments," whatever they may be, have only a secondary value ; they 
 "perform their part in making the body one, in keeping it together ; 
 its nourishment, its increasing strength, depend on a something greater ; 
 they wholly derive from the Head " (F. B. Westcott, Letter to Asia, 
 p. 127). 
 
 B
 
 66 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 a whole owes her growth, which is the surest sign 
 of life, to the supply that streams from the ascended 
 Lord. The members of the Body differ in the 
 measure of their appropriation of the supernatural life, 
 and some fail to appropriate it at all ; but the Body 
 can never cease to be in communication with the 
 Head, and thus it continually grows towards the 
 fulness of the mystical Christ. 1 
 
 The spiritual life of the Visible Church is normally 
 conveyed through sacramental channels ; the gift is 
 marked by visible signs. The Incarnation has conse- 
 crated matter, making it the expression and the 
 vehicle of the spiritual. 2 Our ^ Lord in the days of 
 His flesh freely used outward things as signs of His 
 invisible working. He wrought His miracles, not 
 always but perhaps ordinarily, through visible signs ; 
 laying His hands on the sick, touching the lepers, 
 anointing the eyes of the blind with clay made with 
 saliva from His mouth, and bidding the sufferer " go, 
 wash in the pool of Siloam " ; permitting the crowds 
 to touch the border of His garment, with the result 
 that as many as touched were made whole. 3 It may 
 be said that these were helps to faith, and such no 
 doubt they were ; but they were also means in the 
 use of which He willed to communicate the virtue that 
 
 1 Cf. Eph. i. 23, iv. 13. 
 
 *See Bp F. Paget in Lux Mundt, Essay x., and Illingworth, Divine 
 Immanence, c. vi. 
 
 * Mark vi. 5 ; Matt. viii. 3 ; John ix. 7 ; Mark vi. 56.
 
 ITS LIFE 67 
 
 flowed from His incarnate life. Moreover, the Lord 
 encouraged His Apostles to use similar means in His 
 Name, such as anointing the sick with oil, and laying 
 their hands upon them. 1 And both He and they 
 employed visible signs to convey the greatest spiritual 
 gifts. He breathed on them when He gave them the 
 Holy Spirit for the fulfilment of their mission to the 
 world. He lifted up His hands in blessing when He 
 parted from them at the Ascension. He sent the other 
 Paraclete to the Church under the signs of rushing 
 wind, and fire breaking from a common centre and 
 settling on every head. 2 The Apostles laid their hands 
 on the Seven, when they set them apart for the work 
 of their ministry ; and on the baptized, that they 
 might receive the Holy Ghost. 8 Others, not Apostles, 
 used like sacramental signs. The prophets and 
 teachers of the Church at Antioch laid their hands 
 on Barnabas and Saul, before they sent them away 
 to their mission in Gentile lands. In the Jewish 
 Christian communities addressed by St James the 
 elders of the church anointed the sick with oil in the 
 name of the Lord, as the Apostles had done by 
 Christ's command in the villages of Galilee. 4 Gospels, 
 Acts, Epistles shew us the sacramental principle 
 everywhere at work. 
 
 1 Mark v. 30, vi. 13, 'xvi.' 18. 
 
 7 John xx. 22 ; Luke xxiv. 50 ; Acts ii. 2 f. 
 
 * Acts vi. 6, viii. 17, xix. 6. * Acts xiii. 3 ; James v. 14.
 
 In two instances Christ committed to His disciples 
 sacramental institutions which are essential to the 
 life of the Church : the one being the means of 
 admission into the Body of Christ, and the other 
 cementing the fellowship for which the Body 
 exists. 
 
 The life of the Church has its beginning in the 
 Sacrament of Baptism. From one point of view 
 Christian Baptism is a death and burial ; our old 
 man was in this initiatory Sacrament buried with 
 Christ, that the body of sin might be done away. 
 But the baptismal death is immediately followed by 
 the baptismal resurrection ; we rise again with the 
 risen Lord to newness of life. 1 This new life is cor- 
 porate ; " in One Spirit were we all baptized into 
 One Body " ; putting on Christ in Baptism, we are 
 henceforth "one man in Christ Jesus." Baptism is 
 a second birth which admits us into the supernatural 
 life of the Body of Christ. 2 
 
 If the other great Sacrament of the Gospel is less 
 often mentioned in the New Testament, its impor- 
 tance to the life of the Church is certainly not 
 estimated less highly. From the Acts and Epistles 
 we learn incidentally that the chief purpose of the 
 weekly gathering which the Apostolic churches held 
 on the day of the Resurrection was to break the 
 
 1 Rom. vi. 3 ff. ; Col. ii. 12, iii. I. 
 
 * i Cor. xii. 13 ; Gal. iii. 27 f. ; Tit. iii. 5 f.
 
 ITS LIFE 69 
 
 Bread and drink the Cup of the Eucharist. 1 That 
 Bread and that Cup were understood to be a com- 
 munion of the Body and the Blood of the Lord, and 
 the bond of Christian fellowship; " we, who are many 
 are one bread, one body ; for we all partake of the 
 One Bread." 2 How great was the significance of the 
 act of communion is made clear by the solemn words 
 in which St Paul condemns unworthy recipients. 3 
 Yet the full meaning of this Sacrament and its 
 great place in the life of the Church were scarcely 
 realized until the second century began to take stock 
 of its Apostolic heritage. With fuller light on the 
 Incarnation of the Word there came a deeper insight 
 into the mystery of the Bread and Cup of the Lord. 
 Thus Justin, in an apology addressed to a heathen 
 Emperor about the year 150, can boldly say: "As 
 Jesus Christ our Saviour was by the Word of God 
 incarnate, and took flesh and blood for our salvation, 
 so the food which is eucharistically blessed by prayer 
 based on the word that came from Him, is, we have 
 been taught to believe, the flesh and blood of the 
 Incarnate Jesus." 4 Irenaeus propounds a theory cf 
 the Eucharist which is not materially different from 
 Justin's : " bread, which comes from the earth, when 
 it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common 
 
 1 Acts xx. 7 ; I Cor. xi. 20. 2 1 Cor. x. 17. 
 
 3 I Cor. xi. 27 ff. 
 
 4 Justin M. apol. i. 66. On St' evxw \6yov rov wap' avrov, seey. T.S. 
 iii. p. 170, note 2.
 
 70 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 bread, but Eucharist, consisting of two things, an 
 earthly and a heavenly. The earthly elements, 
 receiving the word of God, become the Eucharist, 
 which is the Body and Blood of Christ." " Our 
 bodies, nourished by the Eucharist, though laid in 
 the earth and resolved into it, will rise in due time, 
 the Word of God vouchsafing them a resurrection." * 
 In the familiar phrase of our English Prayerbook, 
 the Body and Blood of the risen Christ, given and 
 received in the Sacrament, preserve the bodies and 
 souls of the faithful unto everlasting life. Not only 
 is the Church here on earth thereby knit together in 
 one communion and fellowship, but the union thus 
 cemented extends into the Resurrection life of the 
 world to come. " He that eateth my flesh and 
 drinketh my blood," the Lord has said, " hath eternal 
 life, and I will raise him up at the last day " ; " as I 
 live because of the Father, so he that eateth me, he 
 also shall live because of me." 2 The words were 
 spoken, of course, with reference to the spiritual or 
 heavenly food, which is received by faith ; but the 
 Eucharist is the appointed means of receiving it. 
 That it is not the exclusive means, the Church of 
 England plainly confesses ; 3 yet the fact remains that 
 the Lord has clearly willed to convey this great gift 
 ordinarily through a sacramental rite. It is Christ 
 
 1 Irenaeus, haer. iv. 18. 5, v. 5. 3. 2 John vi. 54, 57. 
 
 * In the rubric attached to the Communion of the Sick.
 
 ITS LIFE 71 
 
 Himself who points us to this bread and this cup, 
 and says, " This is my body " ; " this is my blood." 
 
 The life of the Visible Church is sacramental, as 
 her visibility demands. It is usual to say that sacra- 
 ments will disappear in a higher state ; and that this 
 is true of our present sacraments may be gathered 
 from the fact that their outward signs belong to the 
 material world, and must vanish with it. But per- 
 haps it is overbold to say that the sacramental 
 principle will no longer operate when that which is 
 perfect is come. For the Incarnate Life, as we believe, 
 knows no end, and the body, under spiritual con- 
 ditions, will find a place in the future life of the saints. 
 In these circumstances it does not seem improbable 
 that effectual signs of grace, such as will appeal to 
 us as we shall then be constituted, may accompany 
 the perpetual flow of the Divine life into the souls 
 and bodies of the blessed. It may be that the 
 imagery of the Apocalypse, so far as it relates to 
 the future life, is not wholly symbolical ; that the 
 glories of the Holy City, with its streets of pure gold, 
 its rivers of the water of life, its tree of life yielding 
 seasonable fruit month by month, the writing of the 
 Divine Name on the foreheads of the victorious, the 
 hidden manna given them to eat, the white stone 
 bearing an inscription that no stranger can read, the 
 new song, sung to harps of God, that none can learn 
 but the redeemed from the earth, and much else
 
 72 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 which it is beyond our present power to interpret, 
 it may be that these or some of these will find their 
 explanation in the things that eye hath not seen nor 
 ear heard, by which our Lord in the great age that 
 is coming will shew His glory and communicate His 
 grace to those who are admitted to be with Him 
 where He is. 
 
 But whether this shall be so or not, whether or 
 not the spiritual life of the future, like that of the 
 present Church, shall be maintained by sacramental 
 signs and acts adapted to the needs of the spiritual 
 body, it is certain that the Church will then as now 
 derive its life from its Incarnate Head. This is the 
 privilege of the Holy Catholic Church ; to her belongs 
 the supernatural life of grace that comes from Jesus 
 Christ. " Where the Church is," as Irenaeus long 
 ago witnessed, " there is the Spirit of God ; and 
 where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and 
 all grace." " All who do not have recourse to the 
 Church are not partakers of the Spirit ; they defraud 
 themselves of life." l Irenaeus was thinking of the 
 Gnostic sects, and his words do not apply to those 
 who hold the faith of the Church, and have been 
 baptized with the baptism of the Spirit, although 
 they do not share with us in the privilege of Catholic 
 fellowship. It is to be thankfully acknowledged that 
 the Holy Spirit works in communities which do not 
 
 1 Iren. haer. iii. 24. I
 
 ITS ORDER 73 
 
 follow the ways of the historical Church. Neverthe- 
 less it is as members by Baptism of the Body of 
 Christ that separated Christians draw from the Head 
 the life of the Spirit, and not as members of non- 
 catholic societies. The One Spirit is, as in the days 
 of Irenaeus, or in the days of St Paul, the gift of 
 Christ to the One Church, and the source of her 
 corporate life. 
 
 2. As a great society the Church demands organi- 
 zation. Life is her first necessity, but order is not 
 far behind. Vitality without order runs to waste, 
 expending itself to little purpose or even with 
 mischievous results. 
 
 In the Body of Christ, as St Paul has warned us, 1 
 there is a variety of functions, and they are divided 
 in an orderly manner among its several parts. All 
 members have not the same duty to perform ; all 
 have been made to drink of the same Spirit, but 
 all have not the same gifts of the Spirit or the 
 same work. Some members of Christ are the feet 
 of the mystical Body, some the hands, some the eyes, 
 some the ears ; while others fulfil more obscure 
 offices, which nevertheless are not less needful to 
 the good estate of the Body. Such distinctions arise 
 partly from a variety of personal gifts, natural or 
 
 1 Rom. xii. 4 ra dt yu^X?; ir&vra. ov rr)v avr^v %x eL TpSftv, " have not 
 the same activity, the same function " ; I Cor. xii. 4 ff.
 
 74 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 spiritual ; partly from official positions. Even in 
 the first age there were Divinely appointed Church 
 officers. God in His providence, Christ by His 
 Spirit, had called some to be Apostles, some prophets, 
 some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. 1 By 
 the middle of the first century there was already in 
 the Church the nucleus of an organized ministry, and 
 a flock to which it ministered ; there were in the 
 Christian Society those who taught and those who 
 learnt, those who ruled and those whose duty it 
 was to obey ; those who were fathers in the House 
 of God, and those who were their children in the 
 faith. 2 
 
 Our Lord, who created the organism, left also a 
 basis for the organization of its life-work. He Heft 
 the Apostolate, trained by the Pastor pastorum, and 
 furnished with the gift of His Spirit ; and He com- 
 mitted to them the whole business of carrying on the 
 evangelization of the world. In that commission 
 the work of providing such organization as might 
 be found necessary was involved. In Acts we see 
 the process going forward : first, the appointment of 
 the Seven to relieve the Twelve of the less spiritual 
 part of their work at Jerusalem : then the rise of the 
 Christian presbyterate, both in Jerusalem, and after- 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 28 ote ftiv tOero 6 Otos KT\. ; Eph. iv. 1 1 avrfa (sc. 
 Xpt<rr6$) fduKev roi>s ntv KT\. 
 
 1 Gal. vi. 5 ; i Thess. v. 10 ; Heb. xii. 7 ; I Tim. iii. 5.
 
 ITS ORDER 75 
 
 wards in the new Gentile churches. 1 In St Paul's list 
 of ministries such local officers are briefly classed as 
 " helps " and " governments," or as " pastors and 
 teachers." 2 They were overshadowed in the first days 
 by the preponderant authority of Apostles, prophets, 
 and evangelists, and other possessors of special 
 gifts. The Didache and the Shepherd shew us these 
 temporary ministries beginning to fall into disrepute, 
 while the local presbyter-bishops and deacons are 
 stepping into their place as worthy of equal honour. 3 
 The local ministry, however, still lacked leadership. 
 In the mother church at Jerusalem, indeed, a leader 
 had been found in James, the Lord's brother ; 4 and 
 in the church at Ephesus and the churches in Crete, 
 St Paul, when a prisoner at Rome, had met the 
 want for the moment by committing quasi-Apostolic 
 authority to Timothy in the one case and Titus 
 in the other. 6 In Asia, later on, St John seems 
 to have found himself confronted by a self-constituted 
 leader, who used his usurped authority to oppose the 
 Apostle and excommunicate his friends. 6 Incidents 
 such as this may have determined John to appoint 
 
 1 Acts vi. 3, xi. 30, xiv. 23. 
 
 2 I Cor. xii. 28 avTi\fin\l/eis, KV/Sepv^treu. Eph. iv. 1 1 rods 
 Kal dtSafficdXovs. 
 
 3 See e.g. Didache, xi. 15 ; Hermas, mand. n. i ff. 
 
 4 Acts xv. 13 ff., xxi. 18; Gal. ii. 9, 12. 
 6 I Tim. i. 3 f., iii. 14 f. ; Tit. i. 5. 
 
 3 John 9 f. 6 QiXoirpuTfuuv airruv AIOT^^IJJ owe
 
 76 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 one of the presbyters in each of the cities in Asia 
 to preside over the local church. Even from the 
 first one of the presbyter-bishops must have presided 
 at the weekly Eucharist, 1 and represented the Church 
 in the distribution of the alms of the brethren, and 
 when it had occasion to correspond with other local 
 churches. 2 From such beginnings the monarchical 
 episcopate probably had its origin in Asia first, and 
 perhaps under St John, unless there is truth in 
 the tradition that at Rome St Peter and St Paul 
 appointed Linus as head of the Christian community 
 in the capital. 8 At first the title ' bishop ' may not 
 have been given exclusively to these local pre- 
 sidents : in the New Testament, certainly, and in 
 other early documents, ' bishop ' and ' presbyter ' 
 appear to be almost convertible terms. 4 But it re- 
 mains true that " from the Apostles' times there have 
 
 1 Cf. Justin M. apol. i. 65 ayxw^percu T<$ irpoeffTurri ruv 
 
 dpros KT\. I prefer this to the view expressed in the text to Dr. 
 Hamilton's contention (People of God, ii. p. 113 ff. ) that the presbyter- 
 bishops were originally appointed for the purpose of presiding at the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 2 Hermas, vis. ii. 4. 3. 
 
 3 Iren. haer. iii. 2. 3 Mv<$ TT)V rijs ^iriffKOTrrjs \firovpytav fvexttpurai'. 
 Yet, since Ignatius, writing to the Roman Church about 116, makes no 
 reference to the Bishop, it is probable that the Roman president did not 
 then exercise a monarchical episcopate or claim the exclusive title of 
 Bishop. Dr. Hamilton (ii. p. 156 ff.) speaks more positively than I am 
 able to do. 
 
 4 In the N.T. " Man OTTOS is not a title, but a description of the 
 Elder's function " (Hort, EceUsia, p. 252).; cf. Acts xx. 17, 28 ; 
 Tit L 5, 7.
 
 ITS ORDER 77 
 
 been these orders of ministers in Christ's Church," J 
 by whatever names they may have been known. 
 And in Asia, at least, the three orders were known 
 by their present names from the time of Ignatius. 
 According to this martyr-bishop of .the early years 
 of the second century, the Bishop not only belongs 
 to an order distinct from that of the Presbyter, but 
 is the source of all ecclesiastical authority. " Let 
 that be held to be a valid Eucharist," he writes, 
 " which is under the Bishop or one to whom he shall 
 commit it." " Apart from the Bishop it is not lawful 
 either to baptize or to hold an agape ; but whatever 
 he shall approve is to be accounted acceptable to 
 God." 2 If members of the other orders, the pres- 
 byterate and diaconate, performed any official function, 
 they did so with the Bishop's consent, and as acting 
 in his stead. This exalted view of the Episcopate 
 may have been at the time limited to the province 
 of Asia ; but before the end of the second century 
 practically every church within the Empire had 
 its bishop, 3 and each bishop was supreme in his 
 own church. The bishop's ' monarchy,' no doubt, 
 was limited and constitutionally exercised ; but a 
 monarchy by this time it certainly was, and no 
 
 1 Preface to the English Ordinal. * Ignatius, 'imyrn. 8. 
 
 3 Lightfoot (Christian Ministry} points out that "episcopacy is so 
 inseparably interwoven with all the traditions and beliefs of men like 
 Irenaeus and Tertullian, that they betray no knowledge of a time when 
 it was not."
 
 78 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 longer a mere presidency in the council of his fellow- 
 presbyters. 
 
 Yet the bishop's authority in the ante-Nicene 
 Church extended no further than the local community 
 over which he presided. Christ, as Ignatius taught, 
 was the Bishop of the Universal Church. 1 It was 
 a reproach to the bishop even of the greatest see 
 in Christendom if he gave himself airs which earned 
 for him the sarcastic title ofpontifex maximus? " None 
 of us," exclaims Cyprian, " sets himself up as a bishop 
 of bishops." 3 Yet the bishops of Christendom were 
 not disconnected units, but formed, according to 
 Cyprian, a college to which appeal might be made 
 in matters of faith and discipline ; the authority of 
 every bishop was perfect in itself and independent, 
 yet the members of the episcopate were not a mere 
 agglomeration of authorities, but, as it were, share- 
 holders in a joint property. The universal episcopate 
 was representative of the universal Church, and capable 
 of dealing, by common action, with the affairs of the 
 Christian Society as a whole. 4 It must be confessed 
 that this ideal has never yet been fully realized, and 
 is perhaps unrealizable. A meeting of the whole 
 
 1 Ignatius, Smyrn. I.e. 
 
 2 Tertullian, de pud. I "pontifex scilicet maximus, quod est episcopus 
 episcoporum." 
 
 Cyprian, sent, episc. prooem. "neque enim quisquam nostrum 
 ' episcopum ' se ' episcoporum ' constituit." 
 
 * Benson, Cyprian, pp. 182, 191.
 
 ITS ORDER 79 
 
 episcopate was impossible so long as the Empire 
 continued to be hostile to the Church, and Cyprian 
 does not suggest it. Meetings of Bishops to take 
 counsel with one another on questions affecting a 
 particular neighbourhood or group of churches were 
 held as early as the second century, and Cyprian 
 made free use of this mode of securing conference 
 and joint action among the Bishops of North Africa, 
 who regarded him as their primate. The conversion 
 of the Empire made oecumenical Councils possible, 
 and with new powers of action there came abundant 
 occasions for using them ; Arianism and Mace- 
 donianism in the fourth century, Nestorianism and 
 Eutychianism in the fifth, raised questions which 
 could be settled only by the authority of the whole 
 Church. Yet the oecumenicity of the Councils which 
 determined them was scarcely more than nominal ; 
 the 3 1 8 bishops assembled at Nicaea fell far short of 
 the whole episcopate; 1 the 150 at Constantinople 
 were exclusively Easterns. 2 Neither then nor since 
 has the Catholic episcopate met in its entirety, and 
 at the present time the divisions of Christendom 
 are a more effectual barrier to the assembling of a 
 really oecumenical Council than the interference of a 
 hostile State was in the age of persecution. 
 
 1 See Ca/nb. Medieval History, i. p. 13. 
 
 *The Council of 381 was "not properly General, but Eastern" 
 (Bright, Age of the Fathers, i. p. 441). Cf. Stanley, Eastern Church, 
 70 : " Not a single Western bishop was present."
 
 8o THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Notwithstanding the inherent spiritual equality 
 and independence of all members of the episcopal 
 order, there have been from early times inequalities 
 of rank within the episcopate. While all bishops 
 are equal in point of order and spiritual power, 1 a 
 special prestige and special privileges attached to the 
 sees of certain great cities. The Council of Nicaea 
 in 325 recognized on the ground of "ancient 
 custom " three virtual patriarchates, at Alexandria, 
 Antioch, and Rome. 2 Of the three, also by custom, 
 Rome stood first, both as the church of the old 
 capital of the Empire and as the foundation of the 
 two greatest Apostles. 3 It is unnecessary to trace the 
 steps by which this ' primacy ' was converted into a 
 supremacy between the fourth and sixth centuries. 
 The change was largely due to the policy of certain 
 great Popes who occupied the Roman see during 
 this period. Men like t)amasus, Leo, Gregory, were 
 not content with primacy. Gregory I. was indeed 
 far from claiming the powers which were claimed by 
 Gregory VII., but he asserted quite unequivocally 
 the spiritual supremacy of Rome. " To St Peter, 
 the prince of the Apostles," he writes, " our Lord 
 
 'Jerome, ep. 146 " ubicumque fuerit episcopus . . . eiusdem meriti, 
 eiusdem est sacerdotii." 
 
 1 Cone. Nicaen. can. 6 ; Bright, Cations of First Foi<r Councils, 
 p. 20 ff. 
 
 8 See Cone. Constantinop. can. 3 ; Cone. Chalced. can. 28, with 
 Blight's notes.
 
 ITS ORDER 81 
 
 committed the care of the whole Church. ... If a bishop 
 is charged with a fault, I know of no bishop who is 
 not subject to the Apostolic chair." l The Vatican 
 Council of 1870 merely gives the logical results of 
 this teaching, when it defines the Pope as " the Head 
 of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all 
 Christians," and adds that all, pastors and faithful 
 alike, are bound to obey his authority. 2 The Council 
 protests that the powers of the supreme Pontiff in 
 no way affect injuriously the jurisdiction of the 
 bishops over their several flocks, but rather sustain 
 and confirm it. But how little the dignity and 
 independence of the Episcopate is, as a matter of 
 fact, sustained and confirmed by the supremacy of 
 the Pope is clear from the next paragraph, in which 
 we read that the Roman Pontiff is supreme judge of 
 the faithful, and that his judgement cannot be re- 
 formed or disputed by any ; that, in effect, there is no 
 appeal from his judgement even to an oecumenical 
 Council. 
 
 It may of course be argued that the supremacy of 
 a single bishop is the natural outcome of episcopacy. 
 If each church must have its own head, why should 
 not the Visible Church as a whole be under one 
 visible Head ? 3 Is not Papal supremacy the natural 
 consequence of episcopal monarchy ? The answer is 
 
 1 See Dudden, Gregory the Great, ii. p. 411. 
 *Conc. Vatic, sen. 4, c. 3. s Catech. Rom. i. 10, 12. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 that the Papacy is so far from crowning and con- 
 summating the edifice of diocesan episcopacy, that in 
 fact it subverts it. It destroys the independence of 
 the diocesan bishop, interfering at every turn with his 
 right to guide and rule his own diocese. Even the 
 metropolitans of the Roman communion are the 
 vassals of the Pope. But subordination to a supreme 
 authority other than that of Christ Himself is fatal to 
 the primitive conception of the episcopal office. 
 Cyprian, who supposed that the Lord founded His 
 Church on Peter in order that it might " begin with 
 unity," saw clearly that a headship attributed to the 
 successor of one among the Apostles would simply 
 break down the whole theory of the unity and the 
 authority which subsisted in the one episcopate ; l and 
 when a Bishop of Rome interfered with the freedom 
 of the North African Church, he resisted his authority 
 and refused to submit. 2 Papal supremacy was cer- 
 tainly not evolved from the Cyprianic doctrine of the 
 episcopate, but in defiance of it. 
 
 Yet if we reject the supremacy of the Pope, while 
 at the same time we recognize the impossibility in 
 present circumstances of convening a truly oecu- 
 menical Council which could represent the judgement 
 of the whole Episcopate, is not this to confess 
 
 1 Benson, Cyprian, 196 f. 
 
 2 Cyprian, ep. Ixxiv. Cf. sent, episc. prooem., where Cyprian lays 
 down the principle that every bishop has "pro licentia libertatis et 
 poteslatis suae arbitrium proprium."
 
 ITS ORDER 83 
 
 that the organization of the Catholic Church is 
 incomplete, and the recovery of her lost unity 
 impracticable ? 
 
 For the time, it must be acknowledged, the vision 
 of a united Christendom has been wrecked by the 
 Papacy. The Papacy is ultimately responsible both 
 for the breaking away of the Orthodox Church from 
 the communion of the West and for the revolution 
 that shattered the unity of the West itself. It may 
 be taken as certain that unity will never be restored 
 on the basis of Papal supremacy. Nor does experi- 
 ence favour any attempt to form a fresh centre of 
 unity. The ancient system of grouping churches in 
 provinces under metropolitical and patriarchal sees has 
 not been found to interfere unduly with the freedom 
 of the diocesan episcopate ; even the creation of fresh 
 - patriarchates may become expedient ; but a Headship 
 of universal Christendom would be equally subversive 
 of peace and liberty whether it had its seat at Con- 
 stantinople or at Canterbury, at Moscow or at Rome. 
 Such an endeavour to give logical completeness to 
 the organization of the Church can only end either 
 in speedy failure or in the creation of a spiritual 
 autocracy. For the present, at least, the hope of an 
 approach to reunion lies not so much in the increase 
 of organization or the remodelling of that which we 
 now possess, as in the informal drawing together of 
 the separated units of Christ's Body. There are
 
 84 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 signs on all hands of such efforts. It is more than 
 possible that one of the results of the present gigantic 
 struggle in Europe may be a distinct advance towards 
 union between the great Russian communion and our 
 own. Within our own borders there has been for 
 some time a growing endeavour among all schools of 
 thought to understand each other's point of view, and 
 to co-operate in the common life of the Church. 
 Outside our communion the gathering of the non- 
 conformist societies under a " Free Church Council," 
 and the reunion, partly accomplished, of the Presby- 
 terian bodies in North Britain, are indications of 
 the same desire to bring scattered forces together. 
 Meanwhile the Anglican Episcopate has formulated 
 the basis of ultimate unity; In the famous Lambeth 
 ' quadrilateral ' l the Bishops have stated clearly and 
 frankly the minimum which the non-episcopal bodies 
 will be asked to accept if at any time they are led 
 to desire federation with the historical Church. 
 
 There is room no doubt for improvement in the 
 organization of our own Church. We need Convo- 
 cations more fully representative of the clergy, and 
 
 1 The name has been given for the sake of brevity to the four 
 articles which the Lambeth Conference of 1888 adopted as "the 
 basis on which approach may be by God's blessing made towards 
 Home Reunion " ; viz. the Holy Scriptures as containing all things 
 necessary to salvation ; the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds ; the two 
 Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself; the Historic Episcopate. 
 The full text of the resolution may be seen in The Lambeth Conferettces 
 (S.P.C.K., 1896), p. 280 f.
 
 ITS PRIESTHOOD 85 
 
 with more liberty of action ; a House of Laymen 
 with power to take its proper part in the business of 
 the Church ; an extended episcopate and restored 
 diaconate ; a priesthood more fully trained and 
 equipped for spiritual work, and better qualified to 
 deal with the intellectual problems of the age. In 
 public worship we want more freedom, more power 
 to adapt our ministrations to the needs of a great 
 Empire and to the circumstances of our mission 
 churches among the heathen. 
 
 But it is possible to exaggerate the importance of 
 organization. Organization is important because the 
 efficiency of the Church, as of every other great 
 society, largely depends upon it. Yet the Church is 
 primarily a spiritual body, and her true life is hid in 
 a sphere which is beyond the reach of external 
 things. The organization of the Church, it is always 
 to be remembered, exists for the sake of her spiritual 
 life, and not her spiritual life for the sake of her 
 organization, however admirable and effective that 
 may be. 
 
 3. The Church, like its prototype, the older Israel, 
 is " a royal priesthood," " a spiritual house designed 
 for holy acts of priestly service." To Israel at Sinai 
 it was said, "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and 
 keep my covenant, ye shall be unto me a kingdom of 
 priests." St Peter claims this promise for the Church,
 
 86 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 and thrice in the Apocalypse St John emphasizes 
 this function of the Christian Ecclesia. " He hath 
 made us to be a kingdom, priests unto his God 
 and Father ; " " thou madest them unto our God a 
 kingdom and priests ; " " they shall be priests of God 
 and of Christ." l 
 
 A sacerdotal character belongs to the whole 
 Body of Christ, pastors and people alike. Its mem- 
 bers have been individually consecrated to the royal 
 priesthood by Baptism and the laying on of hands, 
 by which the Spirit is given for the service of the 
 Christian life. 2 The priesthood of the laity, or t(? 
 speak more correctly, the common priesthood of all 
 believers, laymen or clerics, belongs to the essence of 
 the Christian character. There are, indeed, special 
 priestly offices which distinguish the orders of the 
 Ministry, just as within the priestly nation the tribe 
 of Levi and the family of Aaron were dedicated to 
 the special service of the Tabernacle, which they 
 performed on behalf of their brethren. Each of 
 the " divers orders," which the " Giver of all good 
 gifts " has " appointed in His Church," is conveyed 
 by a fresh laying on of hands, accompanied by fresh 
 gifts of the Spirit. 3 But the orders of the Ministry 
 
 1 Exod. xix. 5 f. ; I Pet. ii. 9 ; Apoc. i. 6, v. 10, xx. 6. 
 
 4 See Bp Chase, Confirmation in the Apostolic Age, p. 1 1 1 f. 
 
 * See the remarks of Dr. Mason, Relation of Confirmation to Baptism, 
 p. 462 : ' ' Each successive laying on of hands conveys from God a 
 fresh development of the Spirit's indwelling forces."
 
 ITS PRIESTHOOD 87 
 
 are extensions or specializations of the common 
 priestly service, rather than a new hierarchy. The 
 whole Church is a hierarchy, divided into orders, 
 to each of which particular duties are allotted. 1 
 
 The work of the common Christian priesthood 
 claims the whole of the baptized life, including all its 
 occupations. This is a principle affirmed by the 
 Apostolic writers with the utmost clearness and 
 emphasis. " I beseech you," St Paul writes to the 
 Romans, " to present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
 holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable 
 service." 2 Nearly every word here is borrowed from 
 the language of the Levitical ritual of sacrifice, which 
 is thus applied to the conduct of the ordinary 
 Christian life. " Whether ye eat or drink," the 
 same Apostle says to the Corinthians, " or what- 
 soever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 3 Here 
 the terms employed are not sacrificial, but the 
 import is the same, viz. that in the Christian body 
 the commonest and least spiritual acts of daily 
 life belong to the service of God. The Christian 
 priesthood exists, as St Peter teaches, for the pur- 
 pose of offering up spiritual sacrifices, the nature 
 of which is sufficiently clear from the words that 
 follow : " that ye may shew forth the excellencies 
 of Him who called you out of darkness into His 
 
 1 Cf. Clem. Rom. I Cor. 40 f. * Rom. xii. i. 
 
 8 I Cor. x. 31.
 
 marvellous light . . ," ; " having your behaviour seemly 
 among the Gentiles, that . . . they may by your good 
 works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of 
 visitation." 1 There is much more to the same effect. 
 It is evident that in the judgement of the Apostle 
 the priestly service of the Church consists largely in 
 the offering to God of all the pursuits of life, and 
 that nothing in the intercourse of Christians with the 
 world or among themselves is too trivial to take its 
 place among the sacrifices which they are bidden to 
 present to the Father through His Son Jesus Christ. 
 Besides this continual but informal exercise of 
 their priesthood, the Christian body is called to 
 perform certain definitely religious acts. The writer 
 to the Hebrews exhorts Christians to " offer up a 
 sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is (he 
 explains), the fruit of lips which make confession to 
 his name " ; adding, " But to do good and to com- 
 municate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is 
 well pleased." 2 Both thanksgiving and almsgiving 
 have a high place assigned to them among the 
 offerings of the Church. These and all other 
 spiritual sacrifices find their chief corporate expres- 
 sion in the Church's commemoration of the Sacrifice 
 of the death of Christ. In the Apostolic Church the 
 Eucharist was celebrated at the weekly gathering of 
 
 1 1 Peter ii. 9, 12. 
 
 Heb. xiii. I5f. ; cf. Westcott's note on Ovffta alvtveus.
 
 ITS PRIESTHOOD 89 
 
 the faithful, 1 which at once looked back to the Lord's 
 Resurrection, and anticipated the final gathering at 
 His Return. 2 At this weekly assembly supplications, 
 prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings were offered ; 3 a 
 common religious meal, known as the Agape", or 
 Love-feast, 4 was shared by all the brethren, and alms 
 were collected for the relief of sick and needy 
 members of the Church. 6 The whole service was 
 crowned, as it appears, by the breaking of the Bread 
 which the Lord had identified with His Body, and 
 the blessing of the Cup which He had called His 
 Blood. To partake of that Bread and that Cup was 
 an act analogous to partaking of sacrifices offered on 
 Jewish and Gentile altars. 6 The next century saw 
 in the Eucharist the pure mincha or meat-offering 
 which, Malachi foretold, should one day be offered 
 by the whole Gentile world. 7 The Eucharist was 
 henceforth pre-eminently the Christian Sacrifice, at 
 
 1 Acts xx. 7 ; I Cor. xi. 20. 
 
 * ^irKTiwa-ywyij is used both of the weekly and the final gathering : 
 Heb. x. 25, 2 Thess. ii. I. 
 
 * I Tim. ii. I ; cf. Justin M. apol. i. 67 6 irpoeorws ei>xas 6/Wws /cat 
 
 4 See on this Keating, Agapi and Eucharist. 
 
 6 Justin, I.e. "See i Cor. x. i8ff. - 
 
 7 Mai. i. n, where the LXX render i"!p by Ovala. A group of early 
 Christian writers, regarding Mai. I.e. as a prophecy of the Eucharist, 
 speak of the latter as the Ovy'ia. Kaffapd of the Church : see Didathe, 14; 
 Justin, dial. 41, 117 ; Irenaeus, iv. 18. I ; Tertullian, adv. Alarc. iii. 22. 
 For further particulars seey. T.S. iii.
 
 90 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 once a symbolical oblation to the Creator of the 
 fruits of the earth, and a memorial of the sacrifice 
 offered on the Cross. In the third century the latter 
 view preponderated, and ' to offer the Sacrifice,' or 
 simply ' to sacrifice,' is Cyprian's normal phrase for 
 the act of celebrating the Eucharist. 1 
 
 With these deeper views of the significance of the 
 Eucharist offering, greater care was bestowed on the 
 liturgical expression of the act. It seems probable 
 that the third century saw the compilation of the 
 oldest of the ' Church Orders ' a series of attempts 
 to provide, among other things, for the orderly cele- 
 bration of the holy mysteries. In the second century 
 Justin describes an order of Eucharistic worship 
 which in its general plan is essentially that of the 
 later liturgies ; but in other respects the service 
 is still of the simplest kind, and the President 
 offers prayers and thanksgivings to the best of 
 his ability ; there are as yet no set forms of 
 prayer even in that most solemn part of the office 
 which is now known as the ' canon.' 2 But in the 
 third and fourth centuries, as the Church Orders 
 shew, Eucharistic devotion was already taking a stereo- 
 typed form ; moreover, certain accessories, such as the 
 wearing of a special dress 3 by the celebrant and his 
 
 1 See Studio. Biblica, iv. p. 266 ff. , and cf. Cypr. ep. Ixiii. 1 7. 
 1 Justin, apoL i. 67 o Trpoeorwj ei)x&s fay Sfoafus avrtfi d 
 Didache^ IO TO 5 irpo<f>T?iTais firirp^Trere fuxapiffTflv &ra OtX 
 * Bp Maclean, Ancient Church Orders, p. 64 f.
 
 ITS PRIESTHOOD 91 
 
 assistants, the use of incense, 1 the ministry of the 
 deacons, are now coming into view ; and we note the 
 extreme care taken that not a crumb of the Eucharistic 
 bread shall fall to the ground. 2 The erection of 
 worthy Church buildings had begun before the last 
 persecution, and it proceeded apace after the con- 
 version of Constantine ; in the great basilicas of 
 imperial Christianity the Eucharistic offering was 
 surrounded by a magnificence which corresponded 
 to the new position of the Christian Church. 3 As 
 time passed on, and in the growing darkness of the 
 early Middle Age lower and less spiritual views pre- 
 vailed, the tendency was to exaggerate the impor- 
 tance of ceremonial, and Art itself suffered through 
 the degradation of worship. A natural reaction 
 brought to us in England the bareness and ugliness 
 of Puritan services, and these conditions were reflected 
 in many of our Anglican churches until the middle 
 of the last century. In our own time the more 
 important of the reforms in ritual inaugurated by 
 the Oxford Tracts have been widely accepted by 
 nearly all schools within the Church of England ; 
 the highest act of Christian worship has recovered 
 among us its old pre-eminence, and we have 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 1 68. 'Eusebius, H.E. viii. i. 
 
 8 Chrysostom e.g. speaks of silver altars and jewelled altar and vessels 
 (Srawley, Early History of the Liturgy, p. 90) ; cf. Lowrie, Christian 
 Art, p. 340 ff. On the Church's use of Art, see Westcott, Epistles of 
 St. John, p. 333 ff., esp. p. 374 f.
 
 92 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 witnessed a welcome return to the seemly order 
 of the ancient worship, and in some respects an 
 advance upon it. Once more the royal priesthood 
 of the Church and the dignity of her great 
 offering are expressed in outward act, so far as 
 external things can express the spiritual and eternal. 
 Our care must now be to preserve a due proportion 
 between these two elements in public worship, using 
 ritual and its accompaniments as means to an end, 
 helps to the realizing of our oneness with the heavenly 
 worship which is behind the veil. In the Apocalypse 
 the courts of the Holy City blaze with monoliths of 
 many colours and vast pearls, and its streets are 
 of pure gold ; yet the inhabitants suffer no distrac- 
 tion from the glories that surround them. " His 
 servants shall do Him service, and they shall see His 
 face, and His Name shall be in their foreheads." * So 
 long as the heart is set on God and on Christ, ritual 
 and other accessories take their proper place in wor- 
 ship, and assist devotion ; but in our present imperfect 
 state encroachments of the material upon the spiritual 
 need to be constantly checked, and the spirituality of 
 worship must be jealously maintained. It is the first 
 condition of acceptable Church worship that it be 
 spiritual ; the second is that in its outward form it be 
 as worthy of the Great Object of worship as circum- 
 stances permit, and as reverence and love can make it. 
 1 Apoc. xxii. 3 f.
 
 ITS WORK 93 
 
 4. The primary work of the Church as a priestly 
 body is worship. Hence the Divine Office or Ser- 
 vice of the Hours was anciently known as the Opus 
 Dei, and the services severally were called Divina 
 operal Yet even in the monastic life it was recog- 
 nized that there was other work to be done for God 
 beyond the observance of the Hours, and provision 
 was made in the monasteries for study and for 
 manual labour in the intervals between the daily 
 offices. It was realized that work of brain and hand, 
 undertaken for the glory of God or the good of men, 
 is a kind of worship laborare est orare and a true 
 part of the sacrifice which it is the privilege of the 
 Church to offer to God through Christ. 
 
 The Church claims for God and consecrates to 
 His service all work in life which is according to 
 His will ; she has a place for every calling which is 
 not in itself evil. " As the Lord hath distributed to 
 each man, as God hath called each, so let him 
 walk." ... " Let each man abide in that calling 
 wherein he was called." 2 Such was St Paul's rule 
 for Christians who lived in the great heathen city of 
 Corinth, whose callings were many, and some of 
 them, no doubt, exposed the faithful to moral danger. 
 His ruling involves the principle that the work of a 
 Christian's life is work for Christ. The very slaves 
 
 I Regula S. Benedicti (ed. Amelli), 13, 22, 48. 
 
 I 1 Cor. vii. 17, 20, 24.
 
 94 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 who were members of the Church were taught that 
 they served the Lord Christ, who has given to 
 every man in His great household work to be done 
 for Him against His return. 1 
 
 There are, however, certain specially Christian 
 forms of work which the New Testament describes 
 as " good " works which indicate beauty or 
 nobility of character, 2 or kindness and goodness of 
 heart. 8 These are prompted by the Spirit of Christ 
 and form the raison d'etre of the new creation. 
 " We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
 for good works." 4 To five of the seven churches of 
 the Apocalypse the message of Christ is, " I know thy 
 works " ; 6 and by their works He judges them, and 
 rewards or warns accordingly. 
 
 The first work of the Catholic Church is self- 
 propagation. The Lord sent her into the world to 
 fill the earth with a spiritual progeny. The handful 
 of disciples whom He left behind Him were to 
 multiply and grow till they overspread the whole 
 of the creation. The mustard seed which He had 
 planted was, by its own inherent life, to grow till it 
 became a tree such that the birds could build their 
 
 1 Col. iii. 24 ; Mark xiii. 34. 
 
 *tpya KO.\& (Matt. v. 16 ; I Tim. v. 10, 25, vi. 18; Tit. ii. 7, 14; 
 I Pet. ii. 12). 
 
 3 tpya dyaffd (Acts ix. 36 ; 2 Cor. ix. 8 ; Eph. ii. IO, Col. i. IO ; 
 I Tim. ii. 10, v. 10, 2 Tim. iii. 17 ; Heb. xiii. 21). 
 
 4 Eph. ii. 10, 6 Apoc. ii. 2, 19, iii. I, 8, 15.
 
 ITS WORK 95 
 
 nests in its branches. The leaven which His Church 
 was to hide in the hearts of men would spread through 
 the lump of human nature till the whole was 
 leavened. Such was to be the history of the King- 
 dom of God, as the principle of the Kingdom worked 
 itself out in the conversion of the world. 1 The dis- 
 ciples whom Jesus had made were in their turn to 
 make others, and these again yet others, till all the 
 nations had been baptized into the threefold Name, 
 and taught to observe all that the Lord had enjoined 
 upon His first followers. From Jerusalem the Twelve 
 or their successors (for a succession is of course 
 implied) were to carry their message to the uttermost 
 part of the earth. 2 Of the ultimate success of this 
 propaganda the Head of the Church entertained no 
 doubt; " this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached 
 in the whole world, for a testimony unto all nations ; 
 and then shall the end come." 3 
 
 This, then, is the work specially committed to the 
 Catholic Church in all successive generations, right 
 up to the time of the consummation. On the whole 
 the Church has recognized her duty in this matter, 
 and has sought to fulfil it. In the Apostolic Church 
 of the first age every believer was a missionary, 
 within the sphere of his own opportunities. There 
 were Apostles and evangelists who gave up their 
 whole time to the work ; but non-official members of 
 1 Matt. xiii. 31 f. "Acts i. 8. 3 Matt. xxiv. 14.
 
 96 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 the brotherhood also, men and women, such as Aquila 
 and Prisca, who travelled on their private business from 
 Rome to Corinth and Ephesus, carried the Gospel 
 from city to city, and were among St Paul's " fellow- 
 workers in Christ." So were many others who, as far 
 as we can judge, had no official position. Women, as 
 well as men, " laboured," and " laboured much in the 
 Lord." l The Church at Philippi once and again sent 
 subsidies to the Apostle which enabled him to con- 
 tinue his work. 2 From the Thessalonian Church 
 " sounded forth the word of the Lord not only in 
 Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place" where 
 their " faith to God ward " was reported. 3 The promise 
 to the Church in Philadelphia, "Behold, I have set before 
 thee an open door," is probably a call to continued 
 evangelistic work in the neighbourhood of that city. 4 
 Everywhere among their heathen neighbours the first 
 converts shone "as lights in the world, holding forth 
 the word of life " ; 5 and it is not impossible that more 
 souls were " added to the Lord " by the spectacle of the 
 Christian life, as it was seen in the young churches, 
 than by the direct labours of a St Paul. 6 A charming 
 story is told by Justin Martyr concerning a stranger 
 who, meeting Justin as he paced the colonnades at 
 Ephesus, accosted him, and in the conversation that 
 
 1 Rom. xvi. 3. * Phil. iv. 1 6. 8 i Thess. i. 8. 
 
 Apoc. iii. 18. 5 Phil. ii. 15. 
 
 See Harnack, Expansion of Christianity (Eng. tr.), i. pp. 458 flf., 
 479 &
 
 ITS WORK 97 
 
 followed drew him on from philosophy to the Gospel, 
 breaking off at last with the words, " Pray above all 
 that the gates of life may be opened to you ; for 
 these things are not to be seen or apprehended by 
 any man unless God and His Christ give him under- 
 standing." l It was thus that the faithful in early times 
 took their part in the missionary work of the Church, 
 eagerly using every opportunity of recommending 
 their faith to all they met. The names of these 
 unofficial evangelists have perished, and were perhaps, 
 as apparently in Justin's case, unknown even to those 
 who were brought by them to Christ ; but their work 
 remains in the mighty edifice which rose on such 
 slender beginnings. 
 
 The Church has never, except for short intervals 
 of deadness or of preoccupation, lost sight of her 
 commission to evangelize the world. The Middle 
 Age was obsessed by questions of dogmatic theology, 
 by ecclesiastical statecraft, and by the preponderance 
 of the ascetic life ; yet the call of the non-Christian 
 lands made itself heard, and was answered by not a 
 few devoted missionaries. 2 Our own island owes its 
 Christianity in the North to Columba and Aidan, 
 and in the South to Gregory and Augustine. From 
 the sixth to the ninth century the Nestorians, 
 
 Austin, dial. 8. 
 
 *The details may be read in Hardwick's Church History (Middle 
 Age), passim. 
 
 G
 
 98 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 separated as they were from the historical Church, 
 were busy with the conversion of the far East. 
 Irish and English missionaries, Columban and 
 Willibrord, and the greater Winfrid, better known 
 as Boniface, planted the Church in Friesland and 
 on the Rhine. The thirteenth century can boast 
 of zealous labours for the conversion of the Moors. 
 In the sixteenth the Reformation rilled Europe with 
 theological battle-cries, which for the time drowned 
 the claims of foreign missions. 1 But the missionary 
 zeal of the reformed reasserted itself in the next 
 century. Under the Long Parliament, in 1649, a 
 corporation was formed for propagating the Gospel 
 among the Indians of New England. 2 The existing 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign 
 parts obtained its charter in 1701 ; the Church 
 Missionary Society for Africa and the East began 
 its career in 1799 ; the Universities' Mission to 
 Central Africa has been at work since 1857. Thus 
 the reproach of neglecting the primary duty of the 
 Church has been rolled away from the Church of 
 England, although even now her labours in the 
 mission field* are not to be compared in volume 
 with those of the Roman Catholic communion or 
 of the Protestant denominations. At present the 
 
 1 Hardwick, Church History (Reformation), p. 399. While England 
 was preoccupied by the Reformation movement, Xavier was doing his 
 wonderful work in India and Japan (1542-1552). 
 
 *See Bp Barry's Hulsean Lecture for 1894-5, P- 2 4 note.
 
 ITS WORK 99 
 
 Church works through societies, and not by corporate 
 action. Yet it is the Church, and not any voluntary 
 society consisting of members of the Church, which 
 is primarily responsible for fulfilling the Lord's com- 
 mission. An effort is now being made to recognize 
 and in part to assume this responsibility on the 
 part of the Church by means of a Central Board 
 of Missions ; but the goal will not be reached until 
 the work of the societies is undertaken by the 
 Church herself, or done in her name and by her 
 authority. 
 
 The missionary work of the Church is still with 
 us and must continue while the world lasts. A 
 future generation may see polytheistic heathenism 
 extinguished ; changes are proceeding in Africa and 
 the far East which point to this conclusion. But 
 that day is remote, and when it has come it will find 
 the Church still struggling with irreligion, vice, and 
 intellectual unbelief. Moreover, polytheism is by 
 no means the only form of error which has to be 
 overcome. Mohammedanism and Buddhism, Con- 
 fucianism and animism, will remain when heathenism 
 is gone, and 'new developements of anti-Christian 
 energy are sure to appear. The Church must there- 
 fore be prepared for a struggle which will last till the 
 Lord comes again. But it is one in which she is 
 assured of the support of her Head, to whom all 
 authority has been given in heaven and on earth,
 
 ioo THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 and who has said, " Lo, I am with you always, even 
 unto the end of the world." l 
 
 Next to the work of propagating the faith, there 
 is laid on the Church the call to " do good toward 
 all men, and especially toward those that are of the 
 household of the faith." 2 
 
 Our Lord on earth " went about doing good." s 
 The Church must imitate her Lord's attitude towards 
 human suffering and need. 
 
 Philanthropy is no longer a peculiarly Christian 
 virtue, having its origin in the revelation which the 
 Gospel made of " the philanthropy of God." * The 
 world has caught the word, and to some extent 
 has copied the practice. There is a non-Christian 
 socialism which seeks to ameliorate the condition 
 of the toiling masses without the aid of religion, out 
 of pure love for humanity. We do not know as yet 
 how far this new philanthropy will go, or how long 
 it will retain what it has borrowed from Christianity. 
 But that philanthropy, in any deeper sense, began 
 with the Church is beyond doubt. When in the 
 fourth century Julian sought to put new life into an 
 expiring paganism, he urged the heathen to practice 
 benevolence by way of competing with Christianity. 
 It is true that the philanthropy of the early Church 
 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 18, 20. *Gal. vi. 10. 
 
 9 5irj\0ei> tvepyeruv (Acts x. 38). 
 
 *?; i}>i\av6puirla TOV ffurijpos y/jiuv ffeov (Tit. iii. 4).
 
 ITS WORK 101 
 
 was chiefly shewn towards members of its own body : 
 it was love of the brethren ' philadelphy,' * if the 
 word may be coined rather than love of the race. 
 The Lord Himself taught that members of the 
 Church had a first claim on the love of their brother- 
 Christians. To help their brethren when in need 
 or distress was to minister to Himself: "I was an 
 hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and 
 ye gave me drink ; naked, and ye clothed me ; I was 
 sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison, and ye 
 came unto me. . . . Inasmuch as ye did it unto one 
 of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto 
 me." 2 If all men are His brethren inasmuch as He 
 is the Son of man, yet the members of His Church 
 are such in a special sense, and have a prior claim. 
 So the early -Christians gave themselves more parti- 
 cularly to the care of the sick and needy among 
 their fellow-Christians. The heathen soon began to 
 take note of the fact. Lucian gives the true reason for 
 this brotherly love: 3 "their first Lawgiver taught them 
 that they were all brethren." Our Lord created the 
 
 1 For <f>i\aSe\(f>ia see Rom. xii. 10 ; I Thess. iv. 9 ; Heb. xiii. I ; 
 I Pet. i. 22. In classical Greek the word seems to be used only for 
 the mutual love of the sons of the same father ; see Hort's note on 
 I Pet. I.e. and his reference to 2 Mace. xv. 14, where <t>i\d8e\<f>os is 
 used in reference to the Jewish brotherhood. 
 
 *Matt. xxv. 35-40. 
 
 'Lucian, PertgHnta t 13 6 vo^toflerT/s 6 wpiros tTreiaev ai/rous wj 
 d.5e\<pol irdvTts (lev d\\r)\wi>.
 
 Christian virtue of ' philadelphy ' by His precept and 
 by His example : " A new commandment I give unto 
 you ... as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
 another. By this shall all men know that ye are 
 my disciples." * Circumstances have changed, and it is 
 now in most cases no longer possible in philanthropic 
 work to distinguish between members of the Church 
 and those that are without. The Church recognizes 
 the brotherhood of man, and takes her full share in 
 works of general philanthropy ; yet " the enthusiasm 
 of humanity " 2 rises in Christian hearts to its highest 
 when they recognize in the suffering brother-man for 
 whom help is asked a fellow-member in the Body 
 of Christ. 
 
 Besides her missionary and philanthropic labours, 
 the Church has no lack of intellectual work. Each 
 age brings its own problems for the Christian 
 intellect to solve. The Apologists of the second 
 century sought for points of contact between Greek 
 philosophy and the Christian faith, in the hope of 
 recommending Christianity to the consideration of 
 the philosophical Emperors. In the next century 
 Origen found occupation for his acute and active 
 mind in the critical study of Holy Scripture. Two 
 centuries later Augustine painted the great picture of 
 
 x john xiii. 34 f. 
 
 *As the author of Ecce Homo has happily called it. Cf. Westcott, 
 The Incarnation in Common Life, especially ch. vii.
 
 ITS WORK 103 
 
 the City of God, in which he represents the Christian 
 .State as working hand in hand with the Church, and 
 thus serving the high ends of the kingdom of heaven. 
 So each age, each century, has contributed something 
 to the intellectual treasures of Christendom. No age 
 has had greater opportunities in this respect than 
 our own. In the criticism and interpretation of Holy 
 Scripture, in the defence of the faith and the adjust- 
 ment of Christian thought to the requirements of 
 present knowledge, in the consideration of the new 
 questions which are continually arising among us, 
 the Church has a task which calls for the best efforts 
 of her trained intellects. Nor is there any lack of a 
 response to these demands. Indeed, what is needed 
 at the present moment is not greater intellectual 
 activity, but greater self-restraint and more patience 
 in investigation ; a wholesome respect for tradi- 
 tional views, and the sobriety of judgement which 
 refuses to publish to the world hasty statements in 
 regard to questions that cannot be settled without 
 long examination, or even until the results have been 
 tested by the experience of more than one genera- 
 tion. The life of the Church is long enough to allow 
 for the postponement of discussions which are not 
 ripe for a decision ; the faith of the Church is not to 
 be abandoned at the call of a single scholar however 
 eminent, nor even of a single age. The impatience 
 of modern thought demands an immediate solution
 
 104 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 of the difficulties it believes itself to have discovered ; 
 the Catholic Church can afford to wait ; perhaps the 
 difficulties exist only in the brain of the present 
 generation, perhaps the lapse of a few years may 
 bring a solution. The modern man has made and 
 will yet make useful contributions to the sum of 
 Christian knowledge. But wisdom will not die with 
 him, and it remains for posterity to review his judge- 
 ments, and to hold fast that which is good. 
 
 Even more important than her intellectual tasks is 
 the spiritual work of the Church. The Church is 
 " a spiritual house," " an habitation of God in the 
 Spirit," a Spirit-bearing body, in which not only the 
 visible and material but the intellectual side of life 
 must be subordinated to the life of the Spirit. Of 
 spiritual life and work in connexion with the indi- 
 vidual this is not the place to speak. But the Church 
 has also spiritual work to do in her corporate 
 capacity. It is her business, to use St Paul's words, . 
 to " make known the manifold wisdom of God to the 
 principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 
 according to the eternal purpose which he purposed 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord." l Such words rise above 
 our comprehension into a sphere of which as yet we 
 know but little ; but they seem to open a vista of 
 other orders of being, to be brought through the 
 Church to a fuller sense of the wisdom of God as 
 
 1 Eph. iii. 10 f.
 
 ITS WORK 105 
 
 shewn in the Incarnation and Sacrifice of our Lord. 
 It is easier to understand how the Church holds forth 
 the word of life l to men in this present world by 
 her example and her influence upon society and upon 
 public opinion, by maintaining high standards of life, 
 and yet higher ideals based upon the example of 
 Christ, and the teaching of His Spirit We have also 
 to take into consideration all that the Church does for 
 the building up of her own members. Never was this 
 spiritual energy more manifest than at the present 
 day ; it is sufficient to name the multiplication of 
 Eucharists, services, and sermons in our churches ; 
 the wide use of retreats, quiet days, conventions, con- 
 ferences, Bible readings, study-circles a plenitude of 
 opportunities which is almost bewildering to those 
 who remember the meagre provision offered to Church 
 people half a century ago. So great is the supply 
 that there is at present some danger of repletion, of 
 spiritual hypertrophy ; men may come to mistake 
 restlessness for life, and the means for the end. 
 But of the activity of the Church in our day there 
 can be no question ; and such activity is to be 
 heartily welcomed as a sign of grace. 
 
 The spiritual work of the Church has for its object 
 
 the glory of God in the manifestation before men and 
 
 angels of the power of the Spirit of Christ. There 
 
 can be no higher aim than this ; and none that is 
 
 1 Phil. ii. 1 6.
 
 io6 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 lower ought to satisfy the aspirations of the Christian 
 body. 
 
 5. Two English books have appeared in recent 
 years bearing the title Ecclesia discens^ the Church 
 as learner. The Church has been, is, and must always 
 be a learner ; what Ignatius said of himself on the 
 way to martyrdom might be said by the whole 
 Christian Society throughout her long history : " now 
 I begin to be a disciple." 2 For the Body of Christ is 
 under the perpetual teaching of the Holy Spirit, and 
 her past progress in the school of Christ is as nothing 
 in comparison to that which lies before her. She 
 learns by her experience, and even by her mistakes ; 
 she learns by the discoveries of physical science, and 
 by literary and historical criticism, so far as criticism 
 has advanced beyond the stage of crude dogmatism 
 or arbitrary guesswork. Above all, she learns from 
 the direct teaching of the Spirit, who is her constant 
 Guide to the ultimate truth. 
 
 It is because the Church is ever learning that she 
 is able to teach. The Ecclesia discens is also and for 
 that very reason the Ecclesia docens. She holds and 
 will always hold among men the teacher's office. 
 The Church is not only the pillar and base of the 
 
 1 See J. H. F. Peile, Ecclesia discens. The earlier book with the 
 same title is by A. W. Hutton (op. cit. p. vi). 
 
 1 Ignatius, Eph. 3 vvv d.px'hv tx& TOV jj.a6ijTfveff0ai : Rom. 5 v\n>
 
 ITS TEACHING 107 
 
 truth, but its living witness before the world. Every 
 Christian, so far as he is taught of the Spirit, knows 
 enough of the truth for his own salvation ; " ye have 
 . an anointing from the Holy One ; ye all know ... ye 
 have no need for any to teach you." * St John does 
 not say that all Christians are qualified to be teachers, 
 but only that they are all taught by the Holy Spirit. 
 Nor does he say that there is no room for a teaching 
 office in the Church since all Christians know 
 through the interior teaching of the Holy Spirit the 
 essential truths of the Gospel. Our Lord, who gives 
 to each believer His Spirit in Baptism and the laying 
 on of hands, gives also to the Church " pastors and 
 teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, unto the 
 work of ministering, unto the building up of the body 
 of Christ." 2 Thus the Church has a teaching ministry 
 of Divine appointment. Moreover, she teaches also 
 by corporate action. The Church of the Apostolic 
 age taught all later ages by establishing a tradition 
 which is the Christian Rule of faith. The New 
 Testament, which is the written repository of that 
 tradition, is the Book of the Church, written by 
 members of the Church, preserved by the 'Church, 
 collected by the Church into a canon. The Church 
 of the second century summed up the Apostolic 
 teaching in the earliest baptismal creeds ; the Church 
 of the fourth century interpreted it for us in the great 
 
 1 1 John ii. 20, 27 (reading irAvres in v. 20). 2 Eph. iv. II f.
 
 io8 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 synodical creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople. Each 
 succeeding age of the Church has added its contri- 
 bution, not indeed to the original deposit itself, but 
 to the right and full understanding of it. 
 
 St Paul's doctrine of the " deposit " l forbids the 
 thought that wholly new truths may be revealed to 
 later ages. The one faith is to be handed on 
 unbroken and intact, as it was "once for all delivered" 2 
 to the first generation by the Spirit of Christ. Yet, 
 as Vincent of Lerins long ago pointed out, the 
 analogy of living organisms leads us to expect 
 growth in the body of truth. 3 No addition can be 
 made to the limbs or joints of the body, but the 
 original frame can be developed in every part. A 
 developement of Christian doctrine in the way of 
 definition or explanation by the authority of the 
 Church is to be looked for from time to time ; but 
 an addition to the Creed of new articles of the faith 
 is unthinkable. The Church can teach only what 
 she has been taught ; she can deliver only that which 
 she has received. But she can teach and deliver it 
 with growing fulness of understanding and explicitness 
 of statement. 
 
 How does the Church, as a body, exercise the 
 teaching office ? 
 
 As the 2Oth Article affirms, "the Church is a witness 
 
 (l Tim. vi. 20, 2 Tim. i. 14). 
 *Jude 3. 'Vincent, Commonit. 2.
 
 ITS TEACHING 109 
 
 and keeper of Holy Writ." It was the Church that 
 determined the canon of the New Testament, and to 
 some extent that of the Old also. She received the 
 Hebrew canon of the Old Testament in the Sep- 
 tuagint version from the Hellenistic Synagogue, but 
 she authorized in addition to it the reading of certain 
 other books which were not in the Hebrew Bible. 
 In the case of the New Testament the decision lay 
 wholly in her hands. That we now read the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews and not the greatly inferior Epistle 
 of Barnabas, the Gospel of St Matthew and not the 
 Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse 
 of St John and not the Apocalypse ascribed to 
 St Peter, is due to the judgement of the Christian 
 Society, not pronounced in an oecumenical Council, 
 but gradually reached through the verdict of Christian 
 experience. l 
 
 And as the Church witnesses to the contents of 
 the canon of Scripture, so also she teaches us its 
 meaning. It is not meant by this that the judgement 
 of the Church supersedes a critical examination of the 
 documents, or the use of the best modern helps to 
 the exegesis of the text ; but that the general consent 
 
 1 See Westcott, On the Canon, p. 12 : " It is thus to the Church that 
 we must look both for the formation and the proof of the Canon. The 
 written Rule of Christendom must rest finally on the general confession 
 of the Church, and not on the independent opinions of her members." 
 Ibid. p. 501 : "The Canon was never referred in the first ages to the 
 authority of Fathers or Councils. "
 
 no THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 of Christendom as to the teaching of Scripture on 
 vital points of doctrine is to be accepted by members 
 of the Church as final, or is to be abandoned only 
 after the fullest examination of all the facts. " The 
 Church hath authority in controversies of faith " ; 
 i.e. an appeal lies from the judgement of individuals, 
 however eminent, to the judgement of the body. The 
 Church is in such matters the authorized teacher of 
 all Christians, it being understood that by the Church 
 in this connexion is meant not any officer or officers 
 of the body, but the body itself, finding a voice in 
 the continuous consent of Christendom. 
 
 Further, the Church teaches by her creeds and 
 definitions of faith. It is from the creeds rather 
 than from the Bible that the majority of Christians 
 derive their knowledge of the essential credenda of 
 their religion. The Creeds embody the substance of 
 the Apostolic tradition, oral and written, and present 
 it in a succinct form, which is committed to memory 
 in childhood, is associated with the most solemn 
 moments of life, and has the prestige of high 
 antiquity. One of our creeds comes to us from the 
 age of persecution ; it is the creed of our Baptism, 
 and is enshrined in the Church Catechism which 
 prepares the young Christian for Confirmation. 
 Another, the so-called Nicene, has been for centuries 
 recited both in East and West at the service of 
 Holy Communion. By these two time-honoured
 
 ITS AUTHORITY in 
 
 documents the Church teaches her members all the 
 essential truths of their faith. 1 
 
 More remotely and indirectly the Church teaches 
 through her Bishops, the official guardians of doctrine, 
 and her parish priests, who are the ordinary instruc- 
 tors of the people committed to their charge. Less 
 formally, but perhaps not less effectively, she teaches 
 through parent, and sponsors, school masters and 
 mistresses, and the conductors of Sunday schools and 
 Bible classes, who, if they are faithful to their trust, 
 regard the religious instruction of their pupils as a 
 solemn duty which they fulfil in the Church's stead. It 
 is no small responsibility to represent in the humblest 
 way the great Christian Society which is used by 
 the Holy Spirit as, under Him, the instructor of 
 all believers. The Spirit and the Bride bear joint 
 witness to the truth, 2 and it is the part of every 
 Christian teacher, whether priest or layman, to share, 
 according to his opportunities, in this world-long 
 work. 
 
 6. Authority 3 was claimed by the Head of the 
 Church, while He was on earth, with great explicitness 
 and in many spheres of action. He declared Himself 
 
 1 See the writer's lecture on 'I he Ancient Creeds in Modern Life 
 (S.P.C.K.), p. Sff- 
 
 * Apoc. xxii. 17 (cf. John xiv. 26 f.). 
 
 * i%ovffia. On auctoritas see the useful remarks in Foundations, 
 p. 366.
 
 ii2 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 to have authority to teach, to forgive sins, to execute 
 judgement His authority extended, He said, over 
 all flesh for the purposes of His mission ; nay, all 
 authority had been given to Him in heaven and on 
 earth. 1 A part of this authority was delegated by 
 Him to the Church ; His disciples were authorized 
 to preach the Gospel, to work miracles of healing, to 
 bind and to loose, to remit sins or to retain them, to 
 baptize, and to teach all the baptized. 2 
 
 Did this delegated authority expire with the first 
 generation or with the Apostolic age ? It is incon- 
 ceivable that it did, if the Church possesses the per- 
 manent 3 gift of the Spirit which was promised to her 
 by Christ, or if it is her mission to carry on the 
 work begun by the Twelve. Such authority, at 
 least, as may be necessary for the fulfilment of her 
 appointed work is guaranteed to her by the Lord's 
 assurance that He will be with her always, even to 
 the consummation of the present order. 4 Authority 
 to evangelize, baptize, and teach ; authority to bind 
 and loose, and to declare the absolution and remis- 
 sion of sins, is as necessary to the Church of our 
 own time as it was to the Church of the first century ; 
 and being so, it is as surely operative now as it was 
 
 'Mark i. 22, 27, ii. 10 ; John v. 27, xvii. 2; Matt, xxviii. 18. 
 2 Mark iii. 14 f. ; John xx. 23; Matt. xvi. 19, xxviii. 19 f. 
 3 fh rbv alwi>a (John xiv. 16). 
 4 u>s TTJS 0-wreXet'as rov a/cD^os (Matt, xxviii. 20).
 
 ITS AUTHORITY 113 
 
 then. The continued presence of Christ with the 
 Church is, in fact, her standing authority to speak and 
 act in His Name. The Spirit of Christ is with us, 
 and His Spirit makes valid every word spoken, every 
 Sacrament ministered, every work of faith and labour 
 of love by which the Church represents Christ to men. 
 The whole work of the Christian ministry is based 
 on this gift of authority. 1 To candidates for the 
 diaconate the ordaining Bishop says, " Take thou 
 authority to execute the office of a deacon in the 
 Church of God " ; to the candidate for the priesthood, 
 " Take thou authority to preach the Word of God 
 and to minister the Holy Sacraments." The Bishop 
 himself has authority given him by the consecrating 
 Bishops, who had themselves received it from 
 others. After ordination the deacon or priest 
 receives his special charge from the hands of the 
 Bishop through licence or institution, as the case may 
 be. Thus, in the Catholic Church, no baptism or 
 confirmation is ministered, no Eucharist celebrated, 
 no absolution given, no sermon preached, no pastoral 
 work done, no Orders conferred, but by authority, 
 which has come mediately through the Bishops, but 
 ultimately from Christ, by His Spirit. So that, as 
 Richard Hooker says, " whether we preach, pray, 
 
 1 See Art. xxiii. : "Those we ought to judge lawfully called and 
 sent which be chosen and called to this work by men who have 
 publick authority given unto them ... to call and send." 
 
 H
 
 ii 4 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 baptize, communicate, condemn, give absolution, or 
 whatsoever, as dispensers of God's mysteries, our 
 words, judgements, acts, deeds, are not our own, but 
 the Holy Ghost's." l The responsibility of doing or 
 leaving undone belongs to the minister, but the 
 power which attends his ministerial words and acts 
 is not his own but Christ's, derived through the Body 
 which bears His Spirit and exercises His authority. 
 
 Further, according to the 2Oth Article, " the 
 Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies." 
 Excepting the two great Sacraments, our Lord, so far 
 as we know, prescribed no rite of general obligation. 
 Two or three rites seem to have been instituted by 
 the Apostles the laying on of hands at ordinations, 
 and on the baptized : perhaps also the anointing of 
 the sick, 2 and the agap. At a later time customs 
 differed in different churches, and while there was 
 general agreement in the order of worship, especially 
 at the Eucharist, the details followed the use of the 
 provincial or national Church, as the case might be. 3 
 Thus it was not altogether a new claim which was 
 put forth by Archbishop Cranmer on behalf of the 
 Church of England, that she was at liberty to frame 
 her own ' use,' and to require her own people to 
 conform to it. " Although (as the Archbishop writes 
 in a note " Of Ceremonies " appended to the Prayer- 
 
 1 Hooker, E.P. v. 77. 8. 2 James v. 14. 
 
 See Duchesne, Christian Worship (Eng. tr. 1910), pp. 23ft., 54 ft".
 
 ITS AUTHORITY 115 
 
 book of I 549) 1 the keeping or omitting of a ceremony 
 (in itself considered) is but a small thing, yet the 
 wilful and contemptuous transgression and breaking 
 of a common order and discipline is no small offence 
 before God. . . . Therefore no man ought to take in 
 hand nor presume to appoint or alter any public or 
 common order in Christ's Church, except he be lawfully 
 called and authorized thereunto." When the Puritans 
 asked why they should thus ' hang their judgement on 
 the Church's sleeve,' Hooker answered, " Because two 
 are better than one ; shall God Himself allow so 
 much authority and power unto every poor family 
 for the ordering of all which are in it ; and the city 
 of the living God, which is His Church, be able 
 neither to command nor yet to forbid anything which 
 the meanest shall in that respect, and for her sole 
 authority's sake, be bound to obey " ? 2 
 
 As in the sixteenth century the English Church, 
 which represents the Catholic Church in this country, 
 had authority to enact a new 'use' for her children, 
 so now in this twentieth century she has authority to 
 revise it. And if the work of revision is brought to 
 a successful end, it will be the duty of all Church- 
 men to accept the revised Book, as their fathers 
 accepted successively the Books of 1549, 1552, and 
 1 66 1, whether the changes which shall be made com- 
 
 1 Removed to its present place (after the Preface) in 155^. 
 1 Hooker, op. cit. v. 8. 2 f.
 
 n6 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 mend themselves to their judgement or no. At the 
 same time there is no reason to doubt that the extreme 
 care which is being taken to prevent hasty and ill- 
 considered action will in the end ensure the willing 
 consent of " all sober, peaceable, and truly conscien- 
 tious sons of the Church of England." l 
 
 Once more, " the Church hath authority in con- 
 troversies of faith." Such controversies for their 
 final settlement demand the authority of the whole 
 Church, acting through an oecumenical Council. At 
 the Reformation the Church in this country was 
 called to deal with an accumulation of doctrines 
 unknown to the ancient undivided Church, and no 
 oecumenical Council was available to which an 
 appeal could be made. In these circumstances the 
 national Church herself undertook the reform of 
 doctrine so far as her own teaching was concerned. 
 But in doing so she was careful to follow the guid- 
 ance of Holy Scripture, to abide by the doctrinal 
 canons of the great Councils of undivided Christendom, 
 and when she departed from the teaching of the 
 Western Church, to do so provisionally, pending the 
 judgement of a future oecumenical Council, if the 
 time should ever come again when such a gathering 
 of all the Bishops of Christendom could be held. 2 
 
 1 Preface of the 1662 Prayerbook. 
 
 8 Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters (Parker Society), 
 pp. 2256., 455; cf. Mason, Church of England and Episcopacy, 
 p. 2f.
 
 ITS AUTHORITY 117 
 
 Meanwhile the Anglican Church claims the right 
 which is claimed also by the Roman See, to erect 
 doctrinal standards for her own children, and to 
 reject any which appear to her to have no authority 
 from Scripture or the consent of Catholic Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 It may be asked how authoritative judgements of 
 this kind, whether they proceed from a particular 
 Church or from the whole Christian body, can be 
 consistent with the right of private judgement. 1 Un- 
 doubtedly the individual is in the last resort the 
 judge of his own intellectual attitude in matters of 
 faith, subject only to the judgement of God. But it 
 is for the Church and not for the individual to decide 
 whether a doctrine is or is not to be held by her 
 members ; and her decision is binding upon them so 
 long as they continue to be such. Individuals who, 
 in the exercise of their personal responsibility, refuse 
 to submit to the ruling of the Church, have their 
 remedy : they can quit her communion, and join or 
 form another society which supports their personal 
 beliefs. Such a step, no doubt, is deplorable, and 
 to be taken only in an extreme case ; and for the 
 layman who is bound merely by the creeds of Baptism 
 and Communion it can rarely if ever be necessary. 
 From the Church's point of view, it is lamentable that 
 
 ] Cf. Stanton, Place of Authority in Religious Belief, p. i88ff. ; 
 Foundations, p. 37 7 (T.
 
 n8 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 separation should ever occur. But it is better for 
 her to suffer an occasional loss of this nature, than to 
 renounce her duty of bearing witness to what she 
 believes to be the truth.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE CHURCH IN ITS RELATIONS 
 
 I. NEITHER the responsibilities nor the privileges of 
 the individual have been overlooked in the economy 
 of the Divine Kingdom. Such sayings of Christ as 
 these : " Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, 
 and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
 Gospel's shall save it " ; " what doth it profit a man 
 to gain the whole world and forfeit his life ? " " him 
 that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out " are 
 clearly individualistic ; and they do not stand by any 
 means alone. Our Lord's whole teaching, and all 
 His dealings with individuals, shew the great value 
 which He attached to every human soul. The "joy 
 in heaven over one sinner that repenteth " reveals 
 the enthusiasm for the salvation of the individual 
 that stirs the higher order from which He came. 1 
 A like regard for individuals appears in the Epistles 
 of the New Testament, although with few exceptions 
 they are addressed to communities. " Who art 
 
 1 Mark viii. 35 f. ; John vi. 37; Luke xv. 7, 10.
 
 120 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 thou that judgest the servant of another ? to his own 
 master he standeth or falleth " ; " each one of us 
 shall give account of himself to God." " Follow after 
 . . . the sanctification without which no man shall see 
 the Lord." " Looking diligently lest there be any man 
 that falleth short of the grace of God." " If any of 
 you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth 
 to all liberally." " Each man is tempted, when he is 
 drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." " Who- 
 soever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten 
 of God " ; " whosoever goeth on and abideth not in 
 the teaching of Christ hath not God ; he that abideth 
 in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and 
 the Son." l Everywhere in the Epistles we meet 
 with the same insistence on personal religion, and 
 the same prominence is given to individual effort 
 and individual liberty of thought and action. 
 
 In what relation does New Testament indi- 
 vidualism stand to the New Testament doctrine of 
 the Church ? Must we confess that we are con- 
 fronted by two inconsistent systems, of which one 
 represents religion as a purely personal matter, a 
 matter between the soul and God, in which the 
 Church cannot intervene ; while the other regards 
 the individual as a member of a great spiritual 
 Society, who receives sanctification and salvation 
 
 1 Rom. xiv. 4, 12 ; Heb. xii. 14 ; James i. 5, 14 ; I John v. I ; 
 2 John 9.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL 121 
 
 through the body and in no other way? Both these 
 views have been maintained, and both appear to find 
 some support in the teaching of our Lord and His 
 Apostles. But it is, in fact, only an exaggerated 
 individualism and an exaggerated collectivism that 
 are incompatible : the individualism and the collec- 
 tivism of the New Testament are not only consistent, 
 but complementary to one another. Christianity has 
 room for both, each in its own place. 
 
 According to the teaching of the New Testament 
 the individual who ' enquires after God,' l and asks 
 what he must do to be saved, must begin by seeking 
 admission into the fellowship of the Christian Society. 2 
 A religious life apart from the communion of the 
 Church was a phenomenon unknown to the Apostolic 
 age, and for which no provision was made. New 
 converts were added to the body by Baptism, and 
 Baptism admits the baptized to a corporate life ; 
 they are " the body of Christ, and severally members 
 thereof." 3 The chief act of Christian worship is a 
 social sacred meal, in which all partake together of 
 one bread and one cup. To be cut off from this 
 act of fellowship was in the view of the early Church 
 the greatest loss that a Christian could suffer, short 
 of final separation from Christ. Early Christian 
 
 VAn brep&rt)ii.a. th 6e(a> precedes baptism in I Pet. iii. 21. 
 Acts ii. 41, 47, v. 14, ix. 18, xvi. 15, 32. 
 I Cor. xii. 27.
 
 122 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 writers, indeed, frequently deny that salvation is to 
 be had outside the Body of Christ. 1 
 
 The individual, then, can no more live his life in 
 Christ apart from the Church than a limb separated 
 from the body can retain its vital power. Yet his 
 individuality is not sacrificed by his being brought 
 into fellowship with the other members of Christ's 
 Body. No abandonment of personal independence is 
 exacted from him, except so far as independence con- 
 flicts with his own interests or with those of the Body. 
 Individual characteristics are strongly marked in the 
 Apostolate, which contained Simon the Rock, and 
 Simon the Zealot ; the sons of Zebedee, characterized 
 by our Lord as " sons of thunder," and Thomas, the 
 despondent and doubting ; Matthew, who passed into 
 Christ's service from the seat of custom, and Judas 
 IscarHot, who had charge of the common purse, and 
 used the contents for his own purposes, yet in whose 
 cold and calculating nature the Lord saw possibili- 
 ties of good work, although they were not realized. 
 There is a similar variety in the gifts of the Spirit : 
 "to each one is given a manifestation of the Spirit for 
 the profit [of the community] : to one . . . the word of 
 wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge ... to 
 another faith . . . and to another gifts of healing ; the 
 
 1 Cf. e.g. Origen, horn, in Jos. Hi. 5 "extra ecclesiam nullus salvatur"; 
 Cyprian, de unit. 6 " habere non potest Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam 
 non habet matrem . . . hanc unitatem qui non tenet . . . vitam non 
 tenet et salutem."
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL 123 
 
 same Spirit dividing to each one severally as he 
 will." J One man is the ear of the Body, another the 
 eye ; some are its hands, others its feet. Were all 
 endowed with the same natural character or the same 
 intellectual or spiritual gifts, the body would be ill 
 equipped for the work of life ; it is by allowing full 
 liberty for the developement of manifold gifts that 
 the service of the Christian Society is fulfilled. 
 
 Nor does the fellowship of the Church override 
 personal responsibility. Each member of the Church 
 is baptized separately, on a personal profession of 
 repentance and faith ; however large the number of 
 candidates presented together at the font, to each of 
 them the words " I baptize thee " (or, in the East, 
 " The servant of God is baptized ") 2 are said indivi- 
 dually, and each is individually immersed or affused 
 in the water. Even in the social sacrament of the 
 Eucharist the Church orders a separate adminis- 
 tration to each communicant Further, and above 
 all, each member of the Church must by the act of 
 his own will turn to God in a life of conversion, with- 
 out which the communion of the Sacraments avails 
 nothing, or rather is a ground of greater condemna- 
 tion if the individual makes no response to the love of 
 God. In the end the Master will render to each man 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 7 ff. 
 
 2 The form of baptism used in the Orthodox Church (/SaTTTtfertu 6 
 6oi>\os TOV Oeov 'j r& 6vofj.a KT\.).
 
 124 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 according as his work is found to be ; l the final 
 reckoning is not with the Church as a whole, but 
 with the individual servant in regard to his personal 
 opportunities and capacities, and his use or misuse 
 of both. 
 
 Meanwhile the individual has a duty to perform 
 towards the Church, and the Church towards the 
 individual. The Church rightly claims from each of 
 her members loyal co-operation, readiness to answer 
 her appeals for service, spiritual patriotism, the sub- 
 mission of private interests to the welfare of the body. 
 Independent action in matters that properly belong 
 to the corporate life, such as any unnecessary refusal 
 to follow the authorized leaders and representatives of 
 the body, any neglect or depreciation of the common 
 order of the Church even in matters which affect only 
 the smaller details of ritual or discipline, constitutes 
 a breach of the duty which is imposed on the 
 individual by the fact of his being a member of the 
 Christian Society. If a baptized Christian refuses to 
 " hear the Church," 2 i.e. if he will not listen to the 
 congregation of Christ's flock speaking through its 
 accredited organs, we know who has said, " Let him 
 be unto thee as the heathen and the publican." The 
 man puts himself outside the Ecclesia by declining 
 
 1 Apoc. xxii. 12. 
 
 *td.v St teal rfy tKK\i)<Tlas irapaKofot} (Matt, xviii. 17). The fKK\rjala 
 is here doubtless the local congregation, but viewed as representing the 
 whole Body of Christ.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL 125 
 
 to listen to her judgement ; by setting up his 
 private judgement against the judgement of the 
 Society in a matter of which the Society is rightly 
 judge. 
 
 On the other hand, the Church has a duty towards 
 each of her members. It is her business to see that 
 he is supplied with the ministry of the word and 
 sacraments and all the other benefits of the pastoral 
 care. This responsibility rests primarily with the 
 Church herself, which, as the mother of Christians, is 
 bound to make provision for the spiritual needs of her 
 children. In practice the work devolves on her officers, 
 the Bishop of the diocese, and the parish priest to whom 
 the care of souls is committed by the Bishop. To these 
 the Lord has given, in the person of St Peter, the 
 solemn charge, " Feed my lambs . . . tend, feed my 
 sheep." l No mere perfunctory performance of statu- 
 tory services in the parish church can be regarded as 
 a fulfilment of that charge, which obviously demands 
 a personal oversight of individuals. Ministering to 
 individual souls is the most difficult and perhaps the 
 most important of the duties of the clergy. They 
 are called to " feed and provide for the Lord's family ; 
 to seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed abroad, 
 and for His children that are in the midst of 
 this naughty world, that they may be saved 
 
 1 {Hume TO. apvia. juov . . . Ttuifiaive . . . potrKe TO. irpofidTid. /J.QV (John 
 xxi. 1 5 ft.).
 
 126 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 through Christ for ever." Heavy, indeed, is the 
 responsibility of the priest if any member of the 
 Church and Congregation which he is caHed to serve 
 shall take any hurt or hindrance by reason of his 
 negligence. For the brother who is neglected by the 
 under-shepherd is one of those for whom the Chief 
 Shepherd died, 1 and the Chief Shepherd will require 
 an account to be rendered to Him of every soul for 
 which He shed His Blood. 
 
 The individual soul is dear to the heart of Christ ; 
 it was for the sake of individuals that He instituted 
 and endowed His Church. The Church must reflect 
 and carry out the mind of Christ. 
 
 2. What is the relation of the Church to the 
 Churches ? The New Testament speaks, as we have 
 seen, of churches as well as of the Church. We read 
 of the churches of the provinces of Asia, Galatia, and 
 Macedonia ; 2 of a church at Corinth, at Cenchreae, at 
 Thessalonica, at Ephesus, 3 as well as of the whole 
 Christian Society regarded as a unit. 4 The distinc- 
 tion between the Church and the churches is latent 
 in our Lord's own references to the Ecclesia ; in 
 
 1 Cf. I Cor. viii. II 6 d5eX06s 5i' Sv X/>ioT6s awtt)avev. 
 *i Cor. xvi. i, 19; Gal. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. viii. i. 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. I ; Rom. xvi. I ; I Thess. i. 1,2 Thess. i I ; 
 Apor. ii. i. 
 
 * Eph. i. 22, iv. 4.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE CHURCHES 127 
 
 the latter part of Acts and in the Epistles 1 it is 
 recognized everywhere. 
 
 At first sight we may be disposed to regard the 
 local churches as parts of the Universal Church ; 
 limbs of the Body, branches of the Vine. But this 
 view does not find support from a nearer examination 
 of the facts. The conception of the One Church is 
 primary, that of the churches secondary. The One 
 Church is not an agglomeration of churches, but the 
 churches are local representatives of the Church. In 
 the words of Dr. Hort, " the members which make 
 up the One Ecclesia are not communities, but indi- 
 vidual men. The One Ecclesia includes all members 
 of all partial Ecclesiae, but its relations to them all 
 [i.e. to all the members of the ecclesiae] are direct, 
 not mediate." 2 Each local church is the Body of 
 Christ in its own locality, not a part of the whole 
 Body ; the Body as a whole consists, not of the sum 
 of the local communities, but of the sum of all their 
 members. 
 
 If this account of the relation of the Ecclesia to 
 the ecclesiae is correct, as it seems to be, the New 
 Testament does not sanction the idea that the 
 Catholic Church is made up of branches, such as 
 the Orthodox branch, the Roman branch, the 
 Anglican branch. It would be truer to say that 
 
 1 Rom. xvi. 4, 16; i Cor. vii. 17, xiv. 33; 2 Cor. viii. i8f., xi. 28. 
 "Hort, Ecclesia, p. i68f.
 
 128 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 in England the Catholic Church is represented by 
 the Anglican communion, in France by the Roman 
 communion, in Russia by the Orthodox. Each of the 
 churches has Christ for its Head and the Spirit for its 
 animating principle, and the members of each are also 
 members of the great Christian brotherhood. The 
 Catholic Church is visible in the local church, which 
 is in fact the Catholic Church of its own locality. 1 
 
 Hence in the primitive Church all the churches 
 were in communion one with the other. A Christian 
 who passed from one province or city to another, 
 whether as the delegate of a local church or on 
 private business, was sure of being admitted to all 
 the privileges of the brotherhood if he could produce 
 credentials of Church membership in his own locality. 
 Thus, when Apollos passed from Ephesus to Corinth 
 he carried with him letters from the Ephesian church 
 which gained him admission into the Corinthian 
 society. Avircius of Hierapolis found himself wel- 
 comed to the communion of churches as far apart 
 as Rome and Nisibis. 2 Polycarp of Smyrna was 
 not only welcomed at Rome, but by invitation of 
 the Roman Bishop he consecrated the Eucharist in 
 the presence of the latter. 3 
 
 1 Lightfoot compares Athanasius, Festal Letters ; ii. 94: "The Catholic 
 Church, which is in every place." 
 
 1 See the text of this epitaph in Ramsay's Cities and Bishoprics of 
 Pkrygia, ii. p. 722 f. 
 
 1 Irenaeus ap. Eus. H. E. v. 24.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE CHURCHES 129 
 
 The circumstances of our own age differ so widely 
 from those of the first two centuries that it is by no 
 means easy to apply to them principles laid down in 
 the Apostolic and early Christian writings. In Eng- 
 land at the present time two ancient churches claim 
 to represent the Catholic Church, and besides these 
 there is a multiplicity of denominations founded sub- 
 sequently to the Reformation which are without the 
 succession. The Roman church in England, although 
 it has the succession, occupies a schism atical position ; 
 its episcopate is not descended from the ancient 
 episcopate of this country, but has been imported 
 from abroad ; it has set up throne against throne, 
 and altar against altar. The Protestant denomina- 
 tions in most cases originated in the private venture 
 of some member of the national church who left her 
 communion or refused her discipline. Thus Inde- 
 pendency began with Robert Brown, the Society of 
 Friends with William Penn, Methodism with John 
 Wesley. 
 
 These non-catholic bodies, it is to be noted, 
 are in the main orthodox, confessing the Holy 
 Trinity as the Church confesses It, believing in the 
 Incarnation and the two natures of our Lord, preach- 
 ing the Atonement, the Resurrection,. and the Ascen- 
 sion, and laying emphasis upon the work of the Holy 
 Spirit. Excepting the Friends, they acknowledge 
 the two great Sacraments of the Gospel, and their
 
 130 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 members are duly baptized and are members, in 
 virtue of their baptism, of the Holy Catholic 
 Church. Their societies are societies of Christian 
 people, their ministers are the recognized officers of 
 Christian societies. It is a welcome sign of some 
 desire to return to primitive models when non-con- 
 formist bodies call themselves churches and Catholics, 
 as they are now disposed to do. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Church stands open for the return 
 of her separated children. When the time comes it 
 may be that a place will be found for the voluntary 
 societies within the ancient fold ; in certain circum- 
 stances it may be possible to give them the Episco- 
 pate, and so to regularize their position. But, in the 
 words of the Lambeth Conference, while "every 
 opportunity should be taken to emphasize the Divine 
 purpose of visible unity among Christians as a part 
 of revelation," " in all partial projects of reunion 
 and intercommunion the final attainment of the 
 Divine purpose should be kept in view " ; and conse- 
 quently "care should be taken to do what will 
 advance the reunion of the whole of Christendom, 
 and to abstain from doing anything that will retard 
 or prevent it." l 
 
 This grave warning, uttered by the Bishops of 
 the whole Anglican communion, reminds us -that 
 what is known as ' Home Reunion ' is a part of a 
 
 1 Lambeth Conference of 1908, Resolution 58 (p. 60).
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE WORLD 131 
 
 much larger problem. As a historical church we 
 have responsibilities which extend far beyond our own 
 shores, and relations with every other Catholic church 
 under heaven. The churches of Russia and Greece, 
 the separated churches of the East, the great Latin 
 communion, the Scandinavian churches, so far as 
 they may claim to be descendants of the ancient 
 churches of those lands we are debtors to them all; 
 we owe it to them not to sacrifice a position which 
 may in the future enable us to mediate between the 
 severed units of Catholic Christendom. It is not less 
 our duty to preserve for our non-episcopal brethren 
 the episcopal succession which at some future time 
 they may learn to value and desire. 1 In ways such 
 as these it may be given to us to assist in open- 
 ing the way to the restoration of the long-lost inter- 
 communion of all Christian people. 
 
 3. " Ye are the salt of the earth ... ye are the light 
 of the world." 2 So the Master taught His first disciples, 
 and His words apply to the Church which has risen 
 on the foundation of the Apostles. The Church has 
 a relation to the world, and responsibilities to dis- 
 charge in connexion with it ; she is called to season 
 human society with the salt of grace, to illuminate it 
 
 1 See Archdeacon Greig's The Church and Nonconformity, pp. 
 I29ff., 146 ff. 
 Matt. v. 13 f.
 
 132 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 with the light of truth. To the Church is committed 
 the Gospel of the Divine love for man, to be pro- 
 claimed by her to all nations for the obedience of 
 faith. 
 
 From one point of view, indeed, the world is a 
 hostile power : a scoffer to be silenced, an enemy to 
 be overthrown. The world is at war with God, and 
 the Church cannot be the friend of God's foe. " The 
 friendship of the world is enmity towards God ; who- 
 soever therefore would be a friend of the world 
 maketh himself an enemy of God." So writes the 
 plain-spoken St James, and St John practically 
 agrees : " Love not the world ... if any man love the 
 world, the love of the Father is not in him ; for all 
 that is in the world ... is not of the Father but is of 
 the world." l Early post-apostolic writers take the 
 same view. In the Shepherd of Hermas the Angel 
 of Repentance says to the Roman Christians of the 
 second century : " Ye who are servants of God dwell 
 in a foreign land, for your city is far from this 
 city. ... As a dweller in a strange land, prepare 
 nothing more for thyself than a competency." 2 So 
 also the anonymous letter to Diognetus : " What the 
 soul is to the body, such are Christians in the world. 
 The soul is diffused through all the members of the 
 body, and Christians are diffused throughout the 
 divers cities of the world. The soul has its abode in 
 
 1 James iv. 4 ; I John ii. 156 * Hermas, sim. I. I, 6.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE WORLD 133 
 
 the body, and yet it is not of the body ; so Christians 
 have their abode in the world, and yet they are not 
 of the world. The flesh hates the soul, and wages 
 war against it ... so the world hates Christians, . . . 
 because they set themselves against it." l One of 
 the earliest forms of Christian devotion prays : 
 " Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from all 
 evil . . . may grace come, and the world pass away." 2 
 This mutual hostility found expression in the 
 persecutions of the first three centuries. 3 The history 
 of the Church before 313 was largely that of a series 
 of conflicts between the Roman Empire and the 
 spiritual forces of Christianity. The Church con- 
 quered ; Constantine's acceptance of the faith was in 
 fact a confession that the world-power had been 
 defeated by the Cross. But the world remained 
 when the Empire succumbed; and took its revenge by 
 partly secularising the Church. " As we read the 
 story (it has been said) we are forced to ask whether 
 it is not true for the Church as well as for the indi- 
 vidual disciple that friendship with the world is 
 enmity with God, and that it is indeed possible for 
 her to gain the whole world and yet lose her own 
 soul." 4 The words need to be guarded, for the Church 
 
 1 ad Diogn. 6. 2 Didache, IO. 
 
 3 See Bp Westcott's Essay, The Church and the World (appended to 
 his commentary on 1-3 John), and his posthumous work, The Two 
 Empires, 
 
 Hobhouse, The Church and the World, p. 125.
 
 134 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 as a whole can never, even in the darkest days, lose the 
 indwelling Spirit of God ; but they point to a real 
 peril which besets particular churches, imperial or 
 national, when they ally themselves with the State 
 under conditions that tend to silence their witness to 
 the truth. The world may be more dangerous under 
 the guise of friendship than as an open enemy ; 
 persecution may be less injurious than outward 
 prosperity. 
 
 Is it then the wisdom of the Church to refuse 
 alliances of any sort with the Christian State? to 
 persist in isolation or antagonism when the State is 
 willing to befriend and protect ? Can she maintain 
 amicable relations with the world-power, and yet 
 preserve her liberty to do her proper work ? 
 
 An answer to this question is attempted by St 
 Augustine in his great treatise on the City of God. 1 
 Augustine sees in the Church and the world two 
 cities or states, the one of God and from heaven, the 
 other earthly and secular, even devilish. Yet distinct 
 and opposite as the two are in origin, aim, and work- 
 ings, each has need of the other ; the earthly needs 
 the moral influence of the heavenly, and the Church, 
 on her side, can hold her property and status only by 
 consent of the secular power. But the debt of the 
 State to the Church far exceeds that of the Church 
 to the State, and the Christian State recognizes this 
 1 Cf. Bp Robertson, Regnum Dei, p. 206 ff.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE WORLD 135 
 
 and is the willing vassal of the City of God. 
 Augustine, in fact, imagines an ideal compact between 
 the two, according to which the Church would be the 
 predominant partner, and the State ultimately be 
 identified with the Church, the world itself becoming 
 in the end, in the words of the Apocalypse, " the 
 Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." l 
 
 Every reader of history is aware of the failure of 
 the attempt made by the Papacy in the eleventh and 
 following centuries to realize this splendid idealism. 
 It failed, because it lost sight of the spiritual nature 
 and mission of the Church, on which Augustine, 
 for all his dreams of a dominant City of God, 
 retained a firm grasp. 2 The same inability to under- 
 stand the spiritual character of the Body of Christ 
 vitiated the opposite policy of Henry VIII. of England, 
 who, while discarding the Papal pretensions, declared 
 himself to be supreme head of the English Church. 
 This title in his hands was no empty phrase : the 
 Henrician Act of Supremacy gave the king power to 
 " visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, 
 and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offences, 
 contempts, and enormities . . . which by any manner 
 spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may law- 
 fully be reformed." 3 Both the title and the authority 
 were dropped in Mary's reign, and though a fresh 
 
 1 Apoc. xi. 1 5. J Cf. Robertson, op. cit. p. 254 ff. 
 
 1 Gee and Hardy, Documents, p. 244.
 
 136 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 Act in 1559 called Elizabeth "Supreme Governor 
 ... in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things," the 
 Queen herself claimed no more than under God 
 to have " the sovereignty and rule of all manner 
 persons born within these her realms, of what estate 
 either ecclesiastical or temporal soever they be " 1 
 a very different thing from the supremacy 
 which Henry had sought to establish. Interpreted in 
 this way, the Royal Supremacy is no more than an 
 assertion of the undoubted right of the Crown to 
 govern all its subjects without appeal to an alien 
 authority such as the Roman See. As the 37th 
 Article explains, the Supremacy involves no inter- 
 ference with the spiritual work of the Church, merely 
 rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and guarding the independence of the English Church 
 against Papal encroachments. 2 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be confessed that the con- 
 nexion of the Church of England with the State 
 since the Reformation has not been altogether favour- 
 able to the former. Under the Stuarts the Church 
 became involved in the unpopularity of the Crown, 
 and when the monarchy fell, she fell with it. With 
 the Monarchy she rose again at the Restoration ; but 
 the taint of Erastianism clung to her, and notwith- 
 
 1 Gee and Hardy, Documents, pp. 439, 449. 
 
 * On the history of the Royal Supremacy, see Makower, Constitutional 
 History of the Church of England (Eng. tr.), p. 251 ff.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE WORLD 137 
 
 standing some recovery of independence under 
 James II., and an outburst of activity in the days of 
 Queen Anne, spiritual lethargy was sadly prevalent 
 in the Established Church until the Evangelical and 
 Tractarian movements brought a revival of earnest 
 religion from opposite standpoints of theological 
 opinion. To-day Erastians are a negligible minority 
 in England, and the Crown uses its supremacy with 
 great moderation and with an obvious desire for the 
 spiritual welfare of the Church. On the other hand, 
 the Church suffers from the heavy hand of a House 
 of Commons 1 which is no longer an assembly of 
 Churchmen, and contains, and probably in future will 
 always contain, bitter enemies of the principle of 
 Establishment. It is not for the Church to promote 
 their ends ; the alliance of Church and State is an 
 ideal which for the sake of the State is to be pre- 
 served even at a considerable sacrifice. But it is 
 conceivable that the time may come when the price 
 demanded for its continuance will be too high, or 
 when the State will renounce its official connexion 
 with the Church. Such a breach between Church 
 and State would be deplorable ; but if it happens, 
 the Church, though at first she staggers under 
 the blow, may after a while grow in spiritual 
 efficiency, as Liberationists predict. But whether 
 she gains or loses, she will continue to be the 
 
 l Hobhouse, op. cit. pp. 291 ff., 3266".
 
 138 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 representative in this country of historical Christianity. 
 Disestablishment and Disendovvment will not touch 
 her claim to the allegiance of all English Christians 
 who wish to belong to the Society which was founded 
 by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Apart from the question of the Church's relation 
 to the State, there is the wider problem of her atti- 
 tude towards the society, the life, and the principles 
 of the world. 
 
 The visible Church is " militant here on earth." 
 This phrase, which was added in I 552 to the bidding 
 of prayer " for the whole state of Christ's Church," is 
 not peculiar to the second Book of Common Prayer. 
 It occurs in pre-Reformation documents from the 
 fourteenth century onwards, 1 and it is used in the 
 Roman Catechism, which says : " The Church mili- 
 tant is the society of all the faithful still living on 
 earth, and is called ' militant ' because she wages per- 
 petual warfare with those implacable enemies, the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil." 2 In such a connexion 
 the world stands clearly for the spirit of the world, 
 i.e. for worldliness. Against this the Church sets up 
 the ' other- worldliness ' of Christ and His Body ; the 
 drawings of a higher order which, answered by the 
 faith and hope of Christians, counteract the attrac- 
 tions of the vain pomp and glory of the world. 
 
 1 Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica, p. 406 f. 
 
 1 Catcchismus Romunus, I. x. 5. Cf. Ambrose, de mysteriis, 2.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE WORLD 139 
 
 It is not then against the outward order of the 
 world, or the business of life that the Church makes 
 war, but against the undue influence of external things 
 upon the human spirit, which was made for God and 
 for the unseen and eternal. The outward order is of 
 God, not less than the spiritual and invisible ; for 
 " every creature of God is good, and nothing to be 
 rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving." l The 
 Church has never consented to a Gnostic or Mani- 
 chean view of the material universe, nor has she ever 
 prescribed the ascetic or coenobitic life for her mem- 
 bers in general. It was the prayer of our Lord for 
 His disciples, not that they should be taken out of 
 the world, but that they should be kept from the 
 evil. 2 The relation of the Church to the world is 
 therefore not one of indiscriminate antagonism. The 
 Christian attitude towards life is not that of sour 
 Pharisaism and a narrow bigotry, but of sympathy 
 with the ills of men and patient labour for their 
 highest good. To evil in every form the Church is 
 an avowed and determined enemy, and she will never 
 rest till it is crushed and destroyed. The world is 
 full of evil, and the evil of the world cannot be over- 
 come without apparent hostility to the world itself. 
 But the Christian Society, like Christ Himself, was not 
 sent to condemn the world but to save it, bringing 
 it back to God through the Gospel of His love. 
 
 1 1 Tim. iv. 4. 2 John xvii. 15.
 
 i 4 o THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 4. The Church militant here on earth will find her 
 consummation in the Church triumphant in heaven. 
 The Body of the victorious Christ must eventually 
 share His triumph. " In the world ye have tribu- 
 lation " such was our Lord's last word to the 
 Eleven on the night before the Passion " but be 
 of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." l " This 
 is the victory that hath overcome the world " so 
 St John comments " even our faith." 2 Since the 
 faith of the Church as a whole is indefectible, her 
 victory is sure. Meanwhile in what relation does the 
 Church militant stand to the victorious' Church of 
 the great future ? 
 
 The relation is that of the imperfect to the per- 
 fect ; of immaturity to ripeness of age in Christ. The 
 Church militant and the Church triumphant are not 
 two Churches, but one and the same body in different 
 stages of growth. The militant finds its completion 
 in the triumphant ; the triumphant is the realization 
 of the ideal which is set before the militant. All 
 the notes of the existing Church will have their place 
 in her eternal state ; all her functions will find their 
 counterpart in her eternal work. But both notes 
 and functions will be under new and final conditions. 
 The Church triumphant, so far as we can conceive it, 
 is the Church sub specie aeternitatis. 
 
 There is a third stage in the evolution of the 
 1 John xvi. 33. 2 i John v. 4.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 141 
 
 Church which stands between the militant and the 
 triumphant. It is known as the Church ' expectant,' 
 and consists of all members of the Church militant 
 who have died in faith and have not as yet been 
 admitted to the beatific Vision. The warfare of 
 such souls is at an end, yet their triumph has not 
 come ; they have conquered, yet they are not 
 crowned, for the crowning of the victors is reserved 
 for Christ's return ; " the Lord the Righteous Judge " 
 shall give the crown of righteousness at that day, 
 " not only to me but also to all who have loved 
 His appearing." l Since St Paul expressly includes 
 himself among those who are then to receive the 
 crown, it would appear that none of the Saints, 
 not even the chiefest Apostles, have as yet passed 
 out of the Church expectant into the Church 
 triumphant. 
 
 The relation of the Church militant to the Church 
 expectant will be considered when we presently come 
 to the second part of this book, which will deal with 
 the Communion of Saints. There is no subject 
 connected with the doctrine of the Church upon 
 which so little light is thrown in the New Testament, 
 and scarce any which has given rise to so much 
 speculation. Here it may suffice to say that our 
 relation to the dead in Christ is not less real than 
 our relation to the living. As physical death cannot 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 8.
 
 142 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 separate any of us from the love of God in Christ, 
 so neither can it break off the fellowship in the 
 Spirit which makes all true members of the Church 
 one. Only our external and visible relations are for 
 the time at an end or, it may be truer to say, 
 suspended : the spiritual unity remains. In this 
 confidence we know that all the successive generations 
 of the faithful who have passed within the veil are 
 bound to us by the ties of a common faith and hope 
 and love. In the Church on earth we " are come 
 ... to the spirits of just men made perfect " ; like a 
 vast cloud they encompass us about, and bear witness 
 to the truth of the Divine promises, and encourage 
 us to run with patience the race that is set before us. 1 
 It may be that invisibly they share our worship and 
 assist us by their intercessions ; while we, for our 
 part, may help them by remembering them in our 
 prayers and thanksgivings. 
 
 The Church militant is perpetually contributing 
 fresh members to the Church expectant ; and when 
 the end comes the Church militant and the Church 
 expectant will together pass into the Church trium- 
 phant. Of all institutions on earth the Church alone 
 seeks perfection with the certainty of ultimately 
 attaining it ; with her alone perfection is not an 
 unrealizable ideal. The imperfections, limitations, and 
 shortcomings of the Catholic Church are temporary ; 
 
 1 Heb. xii. 22, xii. I.
 
 ITS RELATION TO THE FUTURE LIFE 143 
 
 her triumph is eternal. The Divine Society will not 
 only outlive the world, but will not gain her maturity 
 till the world has passed away. The end of the 
 present order will be the beginning of the Church's 
 fuller life.
 
 II 
 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
 
 I 
 
 MEANING AND HISTORY OF THE 
 PHRASE 
 
 I. 'COMMUNION of Saints' is not a Biblical phrase. 
 But both ' communion ' and ' saint ' are Biblical terms, 
 and it will be convenient to begin by examining 
 their use in the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 The Greek word for ' communion ' icoivwvia 
 occurs but four times in the Greek Old Testament 
 and but once in its canonical books. 1 In the New 
 Testament, on the other hand, it is a fairly common 
 word, occurring nineteen times. 2 It connotes fellow- 
 ship, participation, contribution a variety of mean- 
 ings which the Latin Vulgate represents by communio 
 or communicatio^ soae/as, participatio, collatio. A few 
 instances will suffice to illustrate these uses of the 
 word. The converts on the day of Pentecost are 
 
 1 Lev. vi. 2 (LXX) vepl Kahunas (R.V. " of bargain "). The non- 
 canonical passages are Wisdom viii. 18 ; 2 Mace. iv. 6. 
 
 * Acts ii. 42 ; Rom. xv. 26 ; I Cor. i. 9, x. 16 (6fs) ; 2 Cor. vi. 14, 
 viii. 4, ix. 13, xiii. 13; Gal. ii. 9: Phil. i. 5, ii. i, iii. 10 ; Philem. 6; 
 Heb. xiii. 16 ; I John i. 3 (Ms), 6, 7.
 
 148 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 said to have " continued stedfastly in the Apostles' 
 teaching and fellowship." 1 " Ye were called," St Paul 
 writes to the Corinthians, " unto the fellowship ... of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord." The heads of the Jerusalem 
 Church gave to Paul and Barnabas " the right hands 
 of fellowship." In a classical passage St John writes: 
 'jOur fellowship is with the Father and with His 
 Son, Jesus Christ ; " " if we walk in the light we have 
 fellowship one with another." In all these passages 
 personal relations and intercourse are clearly included, 
 whether with God and Christ, or with fellow-Christians. 
 Other passages give the sense of joint-participation, 
 as when St Paul speaks of the communion of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, 2 and of fellowship in 
 service and in suffering. 3 Elsewhere the word signifies 
 a collection to supply the needs of fellow-Christians : 
 " it hath been the good pleasure of Macedonia to 
 make a certain contribution 4 for the poor among the 
 saints at Jerusalem ; " " they glorify God for the 
 liberality of your contribution unto them ; " " to do 
 good and to communicate forget not, 5 fof with such 
 sacrifices God is well pleased." 
 
 1 Acts ii. 42 r-g 5ida\y rcDc diroffr6\uv nai rrj Koti>wia, "and in the 
 fellowship," whether of the Apostles or of the Christian body. See, 
 however, Hort, Ecclesia, p. 44. 
 
 2 I Cor. x. 1 6 Koivuvla. TOV afytaros, TOV crtijuaTos (Vulg. communi- 
 catio sanguiniS) participatio corpotis). 
 
 8 2 Cor. viii. 4 ; Phil. iii. 10. 
 
 4 Rom. xv. 26 (Vulg. co-illation em aliquam facere. ) 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 16 rrjs St euiroiias xai Koivuvlas /ATJ tiri\avOa.i't<r6e.
 
 IN HOLY SCRIPTURE 149 
 
 Of these three senses only the first is possible in 
 the phrase " communion of saints," if by ' saints ' 
 we understand " holy persons." It is permissible to 
 take sanctorum as neuter, and to translate " holy 
 things." But the greatly predominant use of the 
 masculine leaves little doubt that, so far as the usage 
 of the New Testament can guide us, the commo*} 
 rendering is correct, and the communion of saints 
 means the fellowship which holy persons have with 
 one another in the Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But who are the holy persons intended ? In the 
 Old Testament the corresponding word is occasion- 
 ally used for angelic beings, and such is the meaning 
 in the passage quoted from the book of Enoch in 
 the Epistle of Jude, 1 and possibly also in I Thess. 
 iii. I3. 2 But in the great majority of instances the 
 Acts and Epistles use the word ' saint ' in a technical 
 sense. It is one of the names current in the first 
 age for all members of the Church. There were 
 many such names ; they were known also as the 
 4 disciples/ the ' brethren,' the ' believers,' the men of 
 ' the Way,' 3 and in some pagan circles as ' the Chris- 
 tians.' 4 In Acts ' the saints ' has already taken its 
 place among those earlier titles. " I have heard 
 (Ananias says of Saul) how much evil he did to thy 
 
 1 Jude 14. 2 See Dr. Milligan's note ad he. 
 
 3 Cf. Acts ix. 2 iav nvas evpy TTJS 6Sou ovras. 
 Acts xi. 26, xxvi. 28; I Pet. iv. 26.
 
 i$o THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 saints at Jerusalem." Peter, in his visitation of the 
 churches, " came down also to the saints which dwelt 
 at Lydda." " Many of the saints (St Paul confesses 
 before Agrippa) did I shut up in prison." l In the 
 Epistles of St Paul ' saints ' is the prevalent name 
 for the baptized. Apostolic letters are addressed to 
 the ' saints,' i.e. the members of the Christian church 
 in this or that particular city or province ; the local 
 churches are described as " congregations of saints " ; 
 good offices rendered to fellow-Christians .are services 
 offered to " the saints " ; Church widows are eligible 
 for their office if, amongst other deeds of charity, 
 they have "washed the saints' feet"; every individual 
 in a Christian community is a " saint in Christ 
 Jesus." 2 The title is obviously used, not to dis- 
 tinguish between Christians and Christians, but to 
 distinguish Christians of whatever type from non- 
 Christians, the baptized from the unbaptized. Yet 
 the word retains even in this sense an ethical conno- 
 tation which sometimes comes to the surface, and is 
 always present *o the mind of the Apostolic writers. 
 Thus, Christians are exhorted to act " in a manner 
 worthy of the saints," or " as becometh saints " ; and 
 the coupling of aytoi (' holy persons ') with a/xw/xot 
 (' without blemish '), and the assumption that all 
 
 1 Acts ix. 13, 32, 41, xxvi. 10. 
 
 1 2 Cor. i. I ; Eph. i. I ; I Cor. xiv. 33 ; Rom. xv. 25 (cf. I Cor. 
 xvi. i, 15 ; 2 Cor. viii. 4, ix. I, 12) ; I Tim. v. 10; Phil. iv. 21.
 
 IN HOLY SCRIPTURE 151 
 
 saints are " strong to apprehend " the dimensions 
 and "to know the love of Christ," point in the same 
 direction. 1 There is always, in the background of the 
 name, the thought of a high and heavenly calling, of 
 the ideal which is set before the members of Christ, 
 together with a reminder that only those who 
 make this ideal the aim of their lives can ultimately 
 hold the great place which such a title promises. 2 
 
 This deeper content of the word must be kept 
 well in view when we think of the communion of 
 Saints. Christian fellowship is the privilege of all 
 members of the Church, but it is realized only so far 
 as the sacramental consecration of Baptism is fol- 
 lowed by an actual consecration of life. A merely 
 nominal membership in the Body of Christ fails to 
 create the sense of communion ; the bond which 
 draws fellow-Christians together is scarcely stronger 
 than that which unites fellow-Moslems or fellow- 
 Buddhists, unless there goes with it the unfeigned 
 faith which makes the Christian creed the deepest 
 reality in the world. 
 
 The view which would limit sainthood to members 
 of the Church who have left the world, or even to 
 the few among them who have received the honour 
 of canonization, receives no countenance from the 
 New Testament. Those who have died in faith 
 
 1 Rom. xvi. 2 ; Eph. v. 3 ; Col. i. 22 ; Eph. iii. i8f. 
 *See e.g. Apoc. viii. 4, xiv. 12, xix. 8.
 
 152 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 form the great majority of the members of Christ, 
 and they naturally rise to our minds when we think 
 of the communion of saints, and take the largest place 
 In the conception. But the members of the Church 
 who are still on earth are included, for all are 
 consecrated persons, and it is their privilege to share 
 in the fellowship of the Body of Christ. 
 
 2. The phrase 'communion of saints' is as conspicu- 
 ously absent in Christian writings of the early post- 
 apostolic age as it is in the New Testament. Indeed 
 the word KtHvavta seems to have no place in the sub- 
 apostolic fathers or in the apologists of the second cen- 
 tury. It occurs in Irenaeus, 1 but not with reference to 
 Christian fellowship. The Latin fathers of North Africa 
 are the first to use the Latin equivalent communio or 
 communication and also to approach to the conception 
 of a communio sanctorum. Tertullian in his Apology 
 tells the brethren that a member of the Church who 
 commits a gross sin is suspended " from the fellow- 
 ship of prayer and the assembly, and from all sacred 
 intercourse." Heretics, he says elsewhere, are outside 
 the Church, as is attested by their loss of ' com- 
 munion.' z The African author of the Passion of 
 Perpetua and Felicitas says that his purpose in 
 
 1 Irenaeus, haer. i. 14. 2, iv. 31. 4, v. 27. 2. 
 
 'Tertullian, apol. 39; cf. de praescr, 43, de bapt. 15, de pudic.
 
 IN EARLY CHURCH WRITERS 153 
 
 writing these Acts is to enable the readers of the 
 story to have communion with the holy martyrs, and 
 through them with Jesus Christ. 1 In the Epistles of 
 Cyprian communio is frequently used for participation 
 in the Eucharist ; the right to claim sacramental 
 communion is ius communicationis? Cyprian does 
 not seem to have hit upon the phrase sanctorum com- 
 munio, but he has the opposite communio malorum, 
 meaning by it, as the context appears to shew, com- 
 munion with schismatics and heretics. 3 Other Church 
 writers before Augustine speak of the ' communion 
 of the Church,' or ' of the Catholic Church,' or ' of 
 the unity of the Church ' ; 4 while in Augustine and 
 Latin writers later than Augustine we read of the 
 ' communion of the Sacraments,' ' of the faith ' or 
 ' the faithful,' ' of the Apostolic see.' e Augustine also 
 speaks, but very rarely, of the ' communion of saints.' 6 
 He does not seem to have borrowed the phrase from 
 the creed, for it finds no place in the African creed 
 as he cites it ; more probably it was suggested to 
 
 1 Passio Perpet. \ (Texts and Studies, i. 2. p. 62 f. ) : " ut . . . com- 
 munionem habeatis cum sanctis martyribus, et per illos cum Domino 
 Jesu Christo." 
 
 1 See Studio. Biblica, iv. p. 268 f. 3 Cyprian, ep. 69. 9. 
 
 4 Vincent. Lir. iii. 4 ; Hilar. Pict. in Matt. xvi. 34 ; Firmilian ap. 
 Cypr. ep. 75. 24. 
 
 6 Aug. de civit. i. 35 ; Leo M. serai. 42. 5 ; Vincent. Lir. iii. 4 ; Opt. 
 v. 10; Greg. M. ep. 4. 39. 
 
 'Aug. sertn. 214. II ; cf. serm. 52. 6, where he speaks of the "parti 
 cipatio societasque sanctorum."
 
 154 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 him by the analogy of Cyprian's communio ma/orum, 
 or as complementary to his own conception of a 
 communio sacramentorum. " The Church of the 
 living God (he writes) endures the evil in the com- 
 munion of the sacraments, although they must be 
 separated from her in the end, and she is meanwhile 
 parted from them by the difference in standards of 
 conduct." But the communion of saints tolerates 
 no such admixture ; it is the fellowship of the truly 
 holy who are identical with the " number of the 
 elect," and form the core and nucleus of the visible 
 Church. 
 
 Thus the phrase ' communion of saints ' is scarcely 
 to be found before Augustine, and Augustine uses it 
 but once or twice. But the idea which is expressed 
 by it was one of the most primitive and universal of 
 Christian conceptions. From the first the Church 
 was inspired with the consciousness of possessing 
 a common faith and life, common interests, and 
 brotherly love. The mother church at Jerusalem 
 practised at first something which approached to a 
 community of goods ; and though this experiment was 
 not altogether successful, and does not seem to have 
 been extended to other Christian societies, the thought 
 of the Church as a brotherhood, involving new rela- 
 tionships and obligations, was general wherever the 
 faith made its way. The Christians of the sub-apos- 
 tolic age had their limitations and imperfections,
 
 IN EARLY CHURCH WRITERS 155 
 
 but the spirit of fellowship was as strong among them 
 as it had been in Apostolic days. Thus Clement of 
 Rome begins his letter to the church of Corinth by 
 enlarging on the magnificent hospitality of that body 
 to all brother Christians who visited the isthmus ; 
 their " insatiable yearning to do good," their unceasing 
 intercessions for the brotherhood, their tender 
 sympathy with weak or fallen brethren. 1 This note 
 of brotherly love was so strongly marked that it 
 arrested the attention of the heathen. " There are 
 those (Tertullian remarks) who look upon the work 
 of love as a brand which marks Christians with a 
 distinctive character : ' see,' they say, ' how they love 
 one another ' for the heathen themselves hate each 
 other ' and how ready they are to die for one 
 another ' for the heathen are more ready to kill 
 others than to die for them." 2 " As to our calling 
 ourselves ' brethren ' (he adds), Christians have a far 
 better right to use that name than those who claim 
 it on the ground of natural affinity, seeing that 
 Christians acknowledge One God as their Father, and 
 have all drunk into one Spirit of holiness." " They 
 know one another," writes another early apolrgist, 
 " by certain marks and signs, and they love one 
 another almost before they become known." 3 This 
 freemasonry of early Christianity was accompanied by 
 
 1 Clement of Rome, I Cor. if. * Tertullian, apol, 39. 
 
 3 Minucius Felix, 9.
 
 156 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 visible and tangible results. The heathen satirist, 
 Lucian, draws a picture of the attentions paid to an 
 imprisoned Christian by his coreligionists which is 
 meant to be humorous, but is, in fact, a strong 
 testimony to the fervour of early Christian brotherli- 
 ness. One Peregrinus a nom de guerre was caught 
 by the authorities, and flung into gaol ; and from 
 that moment he became an object of unceasing 
 devotion on the part of his fellow-Christians. From 
 early morning the prison doors were beset by friends, 
 who sought access to the prisoner, and ministered to 
 his wants. They brought him dainty food, they 
 read to him out of their sacred books, they spoke of 
 him as a second Socrates ; they bribed the gaoler 
 to let them pass the night with him. 1 
 
 Lucian wrote in Asia Minor, during the second 
 century. From the middle of the third century there 
 comes from Alexandria a moving tale of the de- 
 votion of the Christians of that city to their brethren 
 at a time of pestilence. The passage, which is from 
 the pen of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, deserves 
 to be quoted at length. " Most of the brethren, of 
 their exceeding love and brotherly kindness, did not 
 spare themselves, but visited the sick, regardless of 
 the risk ; diligently waiting upon them, and tending 
 them for Christ's sake, they gladly shared their 
 death. ... In this manner the best of our brethren 
 
 1 Lucian, Peregr. ii. ff. ; cf. Jebb, Essays, p. l86f.
 
 IN EARLY CHURCH WRITERS 157 
 
 left us, and a death of this kind, encountered because 
 of great piety and strong faith, was felt not to fall 
 short of martyrdom. The heathen, on the other 
 hand, drove the sick from them the moment the 
 symptoms appeared, and fled from their dearest, 
 casting them down in the streets when already half- 
 dead ; as for the dead, they threw them out like 
 refuse, without burial, in their endeavour to escape 
 from the contagion." 1 
 
 Such facts tell their own tale. The Church was 
 distinguished from the beginning by the spirit of 
 fellowship, and it can only be regarded as an accident 
 if the phrase which expresses it finds no place either 
 in the New Testament or in early Christian literature. 
 The Communion of Saints was always characteristic 
 of the Christian Society, although it seems to have 
 had no recognized name during the first three 
 centuries. 
 
 3. The Communion of Saints has no place in any 
 of the great Eastern creeds, nor in any Western creed 
 before the second half of the fourth century. All the 
 older forms of the Western creed confess " the Holy 
 Church " without the addition which now follows 
 immediately in the Apostolicum. 
 
 The additional words appear for the first time, as 
 
 1 See Feltoe, Dionysius of Alexandria.) p. 82 ff. ; the passage is cited 
 by Eus. H.E. vii. 22.
 
 158 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 it seems, in a creed which bears the name of Jerome. 1 
 This creed ends : " I believe in the remission of sins 
 in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of 
 Saints, the Resurrection of the flesh unto life ever- 
 lasting." An old Armenian creed contains the words 
 in a similar connexion, 2 and it has been suggested by 
 the eminent patristic scholar, Dom Morin, that they 
 came to the knowledge of Jerome from an Armenian 
 source during the travels in Asia Minor which pre- 
 ceded his settlement in Syria. 3 Morin further suggests 
 that the Armenian Creed derived the words- from 
 Caesarea, whose Bishop, Firmilian, shortly after the 
 middle of the third century, supported Cyprian and 
 the North African Church in their refusal to recognize 
 the validity of schismatical or heretical baptism. To 
 do so would be, in Cyprian's words, to admit into the 
 Church a communio malorum a phrase which might 
 easily have suggested the antithesis, sanctorum com- 
 munio. There is no direct evidence that the latter 
 form of words was used either by Cyprian or by 
 Firmilian ; but it may have originated in this way ; 
 
 1 Printed in Dom Morin's Anecdota Maredsolana, iii. p. 199, under the 
 heading, " De fide Hieronymi presbyteri." The words are: "credo 
 remissionem peccatorum in sancU ecclesia catholica, sanctorum com- 
 munionem, carnis resurrectionem, et vitam aeternam." 
 
 2 A German translation is given by Hahn (p. 155) from Caspari, 
 Quellen, ii. p. II f., which runs : " Wir glauben an die Vergebung der 
 Siinden in der heiligen Kirche, und der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen." 
 
 *Cf. Morin, Sanctorum Comnmnionem (Macon, 1904) a reprint 
 from the Revue d'histoire, ix. (1904), 3.
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 159 
 
 and the conjecture of the learned Benedictine, 
 strengthened by arguments which cannot be repro- 
 duced here, is attractive and not improbable. 
 
 Before the death of Jerome, sanctorum communio 
 had found its way into a European baptismal creed. 
 Niceta, Bishop of Remesiana, in Dacia, who flourished 
 in the early years of the fifth century, wrote a com- 
 mentary on the Creed, from which we gather that the 
 local creed of Baptism contained " the Communion of 
 Saints." l Dom Morin suggests that the words were 
 brought into Dacia by Goths whose forefathers had 
 learnt their Christian faith from captives they had 
 taken in Pontus and Cappadocia during the reigns of 
 Valerian and Gallienus. 2 
 
 However this may have been, the insertion of the 
 words in the creed of Niceta marks the beginning of 
 their symbolical use in the West. They are next 
 found in the creeds of South Gaul, fifty years later. 
 As Dr. Sanday, 3 following Duchesne, has pointed 
 
 1 See A. E. Burn, Niceta, p. 48 : " post confessionem beatae Trinitatis 
 iam profiteris te credere sane/am ecclesiam catholicam ... in hac una 
 ecclesia credis te communionem consecuturum esse sanctorum." 
 
 2 Op. cit. p. 26. 
 
 'Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 91 ff. ; Sanday, mj. T.S. iii. p. 14. 
 Kattenbusch (Apost. Symbol, ii. p. 927 ff. ) holds with less probability 
 that the words travelled in the opposite direction, from Gaul to Dacia. 
 It is true that they already appear in a canon of a Gallican Council, 
 held at Nimes in 394 (Hefele, ii. p. 403) ; but they are not cited there 
 from a creed, and their occurrence only proves that the thought of a 
 communion of saints was already working in the West.
 
 160 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 out, a strong current flowed in those days from the 
 Balkans, through Aquileia to Milan, whence it 
 would pass easily to Lerins. In any case sanctorum 
 communionem follows sanctam ecclesiam catholicam in 
 a series of Gallican creeds from the middle of the 
 fifth century onwards ; in those of Faustus, Bishop 
 of Riez (449-462), and previously Abbot of Lerins, 
 and Caesarius, Bishop of Aries (503-543) j 1 in a 
 creed embodied in a Gallican sermon attributed to 
 St Augustine, 2 and in creed-forms found in the 
 Gallican sacramentaries. 3 From Gaul the new clause 
 passed to Ireland and to Britain ; it appears in the 
 Bangor Antiphonary (cent. VII.) 4 and in the Book of 
 Deer (cent. VIII.) ; an Anglo-Saxon creed of the 
 ninth century shews that it had by that time 
 made its way into Saxon England. 5 At Rome the 
 Gallican form of the Apostles' Creed seems to have 
 come into use under Pope Nicholas I. (858-867); 
 although there were parts of Italy where the old 
 Roman creed, which knew nothing of the Gallican 
 additions, lingered on to the end of cent. XII. 6 
 
 It is more important to discover, if we can, the 
 meaning or meanings attached to the Communion 
 
 1 Hahn, p. 72 f. * Aug. app. serm. 242. s Hahn, pp. 75 f., 78. 
 
 4 Bangor Antiphonary (ed. Warren), p. I9 P ; the form is interesting: 
 " credo . . . sanctam esse ecclesiam catholicam, abremissa peccatorum, 
 sanctorum communionem, carnis resurrectionem ; credo vitam post 
 mortem, et vitam aeternam in gloria Christi." 
 
 * Hahn, p. 86 f. Cf. Burn, Introduction to the Creeds, p. 232 f.
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 161 
 
 of Saints by those who introduced the words into the 
 Creed, or recited it in days when they had not yet 
 been generally adopted. Here we are helped by the 
 comments of early interpreters of the Apostolicum. 
 To begin with Niceta. " What is the Church (he 
 asks) but the congregation of all saints ? From the 
 beginning of the world patriarchs, prophets, apostles, 
 martyrs, and all other righteous men who have lived 
 or are now alive or shall live in time to come, are one 
 Church, since they have been sanctified by one faith 
 and manner of life and sealed by one Spirit and so are 
 made one Body, of which Christ is the Head, as the 
 Scripture teaches. ... In this one Church you believe 
 that you will attain to the Communion of Saints. 
 Know that this one Catholic Church is planted 
 throughout the whole world, and that it is your duty 
 to hold fast to its communion. There are false 
 churches, but you have nothing in common with 
 them ; they have ceased to be holy churches, since 
 they believe and act otherwise than Christ our Lord 
 commanded and the Apostles delivered." * 
 
 Here the Communion of Saints appears to stand 
 for the ultimate fellowship of the blessed, anticipated 
 and partly realized in the fellowship of the Catholic 
 Church on earth. 
 
 A Gallican homily on the Creed attributed to 
 Faustus of Riez limits the Saints to martyrs and 
 
 1 Burn, A'tceta, p. 48 f. 
 L
 
 162 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 other departed Christians of recognized sanctity. 
 The Communion of Saints is contrasted with the 
 Church militant. " The Catholic Church," Faustus 
 preaches, " is the Church diffused by the light of 
 grace throughout the world. . . . Let us believe also 
 in the Communion of Saints ; but let us venerate 
 the Saints ... for God's honour and glory. . . . The 
 Saints receive of His enlightening grace, and His 
 likeness. . . . Let us reverence in the Saints their 
 fear and love of God the merits which are not their 
 own, but which they have been thought worthy to 
 receive for their devotion to Him. They deserve 
 our veneration, inasmuch as their contempt of death 
 teaches us to serve God and to long for the life to 
 come." 1 
 
 Faustus is here clearly endeavouring to defend, 
 and at the same time to safeguard and guide, the 
 growing cult of martyrs, which the Aquitanian priest, 
 Vigilantius, had vainly sought to check. 2 In another 
 Gallican sermon on the Creed the apology degene- 
 rates into intemperate censure of the Vigilantian 
 party. " This clause in the Creed," it says, " puts to 
 shame those who blasphemously deny that the ashes 
 of the Saints are to be had in honour who do 
 
 1 Caspari, Anecdota, p. 338. 
 
 2 Jerome's book against Vigilantius was written in 406, but Vigilantius 
 seems to have lived for many years after it appeared. His views took 
 root in South Gaul, where his early life was passed. Cf. Duchesne, 
 Pastes tpiscepaux, ii. pp. 3, 98.
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 163 
 
 not hold that the glorious memory of the blessed 
 martyrs is to be venerated by doing honour to their 
 shrines. Such persons sin against their Creed, and 
 have lied to Christ at the font." l The new clause, 
 it is clear, was used in South Gaul at this time for a 
 polemical purpose, and the Church suffered loss 
 accordingly ; the conception was narrowed to that 
 of fellowship between the living Church and the 
 comparatively few departed saints who had earned 
 the honour of martyrdom. Even when the words 
 were not employed in the interests of controversy, 
 a more or less restricted meaning was given to them 
 in Gallican expositions of this period. Thus one of 
 these documents defines the Communion of Saints 
 as " the fellowship by which we are bound up with 
 saints who have departed in the faith that we have 
 received " ; 2 while another has the remark that in 
 eternity the gifts of the Spirit, which here differ in 
 different individuals, will be the common property 
 of all, and each of the saints will find his own 
 deficiencies supplied by the virtues of others where 
 the fellowship contemplated is altogether removed to 
 the sphere of the future life. 3 
 
 Other views prevailed elsewhere. Not a few of 
 the interpreters of the Creed took sanctorum as 
 neuter, and by sanctorum communionem understood 
 
 1 Caspari, alte u. neue Quellen, p. 273 f. * Aug. app. serm. 242. 
 * Aug app. serm. 240.
 
 164 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ in 
 the Holy Eucharist. Thus a sermon of the Caro- 
 lingian period explains the words to mean " Holy 
 Communion through the invocation of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in which all the 
 faithful ought to participate every Lord's Day." l 
 In the middle ages the same view is expressed by 
 Abelard, 2 and a Norman-French version of the Creed 
 renders the words " La communiun des seintes 
 choses." 3 But a larger and sounder exposition of the 
 clause is occasionally found. Thus in the beautiful 
 Sarum Order for the Visitation of the Sick, the 
 priest is directed to explain to the dying man the 
 articles of his faith, and when he comes to the Com- 
 munion of Saints, he is to say that the words mean 
 that " all men who live in charity are partakers of 
 all the gifts of grace which are dispensed in the 
 Church, and that all who partake with the righteous 
 in grace while they are here, shall partake in glory 
 in the life to come." * 
 
 Three specimens may be added of interpretations 
 hazarded in English documents of the reign of 
 Henry VIII. The first is from Marshall's Primer 
 
 1 Cited by Morin, p. 8. 
 
 2 Migne, P. L. clxxviii. 629. The words are : " possumus et sanctorum 
 dicere neutraliter, id est, sanctificati panis et vini in sacramentumaltaris." 
 
 1 Heurtley, Harmonia Symbolia, p. 93. This interpretation is still 
 supported by Zahn, Das Apost. Symbolum t p. 88 ff. 
 
 4 Maskell, monumenta ritualia, i. p. 76.
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 165 
 
 of 1534-5, a private venture of no authority, but 
 interesting as setting forth a view which may have 
 been current at that time. " I believe (it says) that in 
 all the world, be it never so great, there is one common 
 Christian Church, which is none other thing but the 
 congregation and communion of holy men, that is, 
 of righteous and faithful men on the earth. ... I 
 believe that in this communion or Christianity all 
 the prayers and good works of this congregation do 
 necessarily help me, weigh on my side, and comfort 
 me in all times of life and death." l The last clause 
 of this explanation is expanded at some length in 
 the official Bishops' Book (The Institution of a 
 Christian Man, 1537) which interprets the "tenth 
 article of the Creed" to mean that "between and among 
 all and singular the Saints, that is to say, the quick 
 and living members of the Catholic Church of Christ, 
 which is His mystical body, there is a perfect com- 
 munion and participation of all and singular the 
 graces of the Holy Ghost, and the spiritual goods 
 and treasure which do belong unto the said whole 
 body, or unto every part or member of the same " ; 
 with much more to the same purpose. 2 The Notes 
 and Observations on the Creed, however, which 
 follow, give a large choice of interpretations : some 
 
 1 Three Primers set forth in the reign of Henry VIII. (Oxford, 1848), 
 
 P- 43- 
 
 2 Formularies of Faith set forth during the reign of Henry VII t, 
 (Oxford, 1856), p. 57.
 
 166 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 regard "the Communion of Saints" as simply 
 explanatory of " the Holy Catholic Church " ; some 
 think of the common utility and profit that members 
 of Christ's Body do receive by the " common merits, 
 sufferings, and prayers of the whole Church." Some, 
 again, take it to refer to the Communion of the 
 Sacraments, while others see in it no more than 
 " the unity which is between Christ and all true 
 Christian men." Lastly, there are those who hold 
 that by this clause is intended " the treasure of the 
 Church," namely, the Holy Spirit and His graces, 
 and all other gifts and blessings which belong to us 
 so long as we belong to the unity of the Catholic 
 Church. 1 
 
 The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any 
 Christian Man, commonly called the King's Book 
 (1543), treads more firmly. "Although (it teaches) 
 this word ' Saints ' in our English tongue signifieth 
 properly them that be departed this life, and be 
 established in glory with Christ, yet the same word 
 ' Saints "... is here extended to signify not only 
 these before mentioned, but also all such as be called 
 into this holy assembly and Church, and be sancti- 
 fied in our Saviour Jesus Christ." As to the word 
 "communion," the Kings Book aHows two inter- 
 pretations: (i) "the utility and profit which all the 
 members of the Church do receive by the merits, 
 1 Op. tit. p. 78 ff.
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 167 
 
 suffrages, and prayers of the Church " ; and (2) " the 
 Sacrament of the Altar, which we must believe 
 to be a real and effectual communion of all 
 saints." l 
 
 Evidently the meaning of this article of the Creed 
 was involved in great uncertainty during Henry's 
 reign. The Book of Common Prayer, as it appeared 
 in 1549, lent its sanction to the broadest view of 
 the words, speaking of the elect as knit together " in 
 one communion and fellowship in the mystical body 
 of Christ our Lord," and defining the mystical body 
 of Christ as " the blessed company of all faithful 
 people." z Both these expressions find a place in 
 our present Prayerbook, and sufficiently convey the 
 judgement of the English Church upon the subject. 
 The Communion of Saints, as understood by our 
 Reformers, is the fellowship which binds together all 
 the members of the Church, living and departed. 
 In the words of Bishop Pearson, the Aquinas of the 
 Anglican Communion, " such persons . . . besides the 
 external fellowship which they have in the Word 
 and Sacraments with all the members of the Church, 
 have an intimate union and conjunction with all the 
 saints on earth, as the living members of Christ ; nor 
 is this union separated by the death of any . . . but 
 
 1 Op. dt. p. 249 f. 
 
 2 Collect for All Saints' Day, and prayer before the Blessing at Holy 
 Communion.
 
 i68 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 they have fellowship with all the saints which . . . have 
 ever departed in the true faith and fear of God." 1 
 
 The Communion of Saints, as an article of the 
 Western Creed, has had a singular history. Sug- 
 gested originally, as we may perhaps assume, by the 
 exigencies of controversy, whether it owed its birth 
 to the Novatianist troubles of the third century, 2 or to 
 the Donatist 3 or the Vigilantian * movement of the 
 fifth, the clause served at first a polemical purpose. 
 But whatever was the occasion which led to the 
 words being inserted in the Western baptismal Creed, 
 and however narrow the sense put upon them when 
 they were first recited at the font, or explained in 
 addresses to catechumens or to the newly baptized, 
 they express one of the most profound convictions 
 of the Christian consciousness, that a spiritual fellow- 
 ship unites all who are in Christ, whether on earth 
 or among the immense majority who have passed 
 into the intermediate state. In our English Church, 
 in any case, it is this great thought which rises to 
 the mind whenever in repeating the creed of our 
 baptism we come to the words, " I believe in ... the 
 Communion of Saints." The phrase is neither 
 
 1 Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, ad loc. 
 
 2 Dom Morin's suggestion (see above, p. 1 58). 
 
 8 So I had suggested in 1894. (The Apostle? Creed: its relation to 
 primitive Christianity, p. 36 f.) 
 
 *So Harnack, Das Apost. Glaubensbekenntniss (1893).
 
 IN THE WESTERN CREED 169 
 
 Biblical nor primitive, and the meaning which it 
 suggested to those who first placed it in the Creed 
 may have been altogether inadequate ; but the words 
 themselves have always held the fuller truth, and to 
 us to-day they convey it afresh as often as we recite 
 the articles of our belief.
 
 II 
 
 THE COMMUNION OF THE SAINTS 
 WITH GOD 
 
 THE communion of saints with their fellow-saints, 
 here or hereafter, rests upon the communion of all 
 saints with God. There is indeed no evidence that 
 fellowship with God was in the minds of those who 
 were responsible for the first appearance of the phrase 
 in writings and creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries; 
 nor has this thought entered largely into the later 
 interpretation of the Creed. 1 But the New Testament 
 clearly teaches that there is an intimate connexion 
 between the fellowship of believers with God, and 
 their fellowship with one another ; and a little con- 
 sideration will shew that this must needs be so. 
 
 i. "Our fellowship," St John writes, "is with the 
 Father." 2 He speaks on behalf of all who had 
 seen and handled the manifestation of God which 
 
 I Pearson, however, with characteristic thoroughness, expounds the 
 Communion of Saints as including communion with the Holy Trinity. 
 
 I 1 John i. 3 i) Koivwvla i) Tjnertpa perk TOU ira/rpfa.
 
 WITH THE FATHER 171 
 
 was made in the Person of Jesus Christ. That 
 manifestation had revealed God as a Father who 
 loves His children, and desires their society. When 
 Christ taught His disciples to say, " Our Father," He 
 taught them that God stands in a fatherly relation 
 to men, and that there is in human nature that 
 which witnesses to this affinity, a sonship which in 
 its measure corresponds with the eternal Sonship 
 that subsists within the Godhead itself. "God," 
 writes the great Athanasius, " did not barely create 
 men, but made them after His own image, giving 
 them a portion of the power of His own Word ; so 
 that possessing a kind of reflexion of the Word 
 (\dyoi), and being made rational (XoyiKoi), they 
 might be able to abide for ever in blessedness, living 
 the true life." And again : " He gave us freely, by 
 the grace of the Word, the power to live a life in 
 correspondence with God." l Of this correspondence 
 with the Divine Nature, fellowship with God is the 
 natural outcome, and the story of Eden apparently 
 represents this fellowship as having been real and 
 intimate before the Fall ; the Lord God is seen 
 walking in the Garden, and His voice is heard calling 
 Adam, 2 as if Adam had been accustomed to receive 
 Divine visits, to meet and converse with the Divine 
 Father. Sin put an end to this free intercourse ; 
 fellowship was interrupted, man driven out of God's 
 
 1 Athan. de incarnationc, 3, 6. *Gen. iii. 8.
 
 172 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 paradise. Yet later chapters of Genesis contain 
 examples of restored conimunion : cases such as 
 those of Abel, to whom and to whose offering the 
 Lord had respect ; l Enoch, who walked with God, 
 and was not, for God took him ; 2 Abraham, who 
 "was called the friend of God," 3 and with reference 
 to whom God said, " Shall I hide from Abraham 
 that which I do ? " 4 These exceptions, and many 
 others in subsequent books of the Old Testament, 
 teach that man's broken communion with the Father 
 of his spirit could in certain circumstances be restored. 
 Moreover, Israel as a whole was the people of God, 
 and in covenant with Him ; 5 and the religion of 
 Israel provided means by which individuals could 
 approach God in acts of worship, by the offering 
 of prescribed sacrifices at the place which God chose 
 to put His Name there ; and there are abundant 
 signs that in the use of such means the devout 
 Israelite was able to attain to something more than 
 a merely ceremonial access. Such Psalms as the 
 63rd, the 73rd, and the I2ist, such prophetic utter- 
 ances as are to be found in both parts of Isaiah, 
 bear witness to the existence in Israel of a fervour of 
 spiritual communion which can hardly be surpassed 
 under the New Covenant 
 
 *Gen. iv. 4. 2 Gen. v. 24. 
 
 *Jas. ii. 23 (see Mayor's note). 4 Gen. xviii. 17. 
 
 Lxod. xix. 5f., xxiv. 7.
 
 WITH THE FATHER 173 
 
 Vet the Divine Father of men had better things 
 in store for His children than a fellowship restricted 
 to a few individuals or a chosen race. " In the 
 fulness of time God sent forth His Son . . . that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons." * Through the 
 Only-begotten Son the adopted sons have free access 
 to the Father. The Father, indeed, remains invisible, 
 dwelling in an inaccessible temple of light. 2 But the 
 invisibility of God is no obstacle to a fellowship which 
 is purely spiritual, and the light which envelopes 
 Him does not prohibit the approach of those who 
 " walk in the light," and whom " the Blood of Jesus 
 His Son cleanses from all sin." 3 Since the Incarnation 
 and the Passion there is a Way to the Father through 
 the Son, Who is the Image of the invisible God, 4 and 
 Who, Himself man, mediates between God and men. 
 
 Fellowship with the Father is thus reopened for 
 all members of the Church. Through the Incarnate 
 we have our access to the Father, admission at all 
 times and in all places to audience with God, and 
 the free right of speech when we are in His Presence. 5 
 The prayers and praises of the Church are normally 
 addressed not to the Son, but to the Father, in 
 accordance with our Lord's own words : " whatsoever 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 4. *l Tim. vi. 16 <u>? olxwv d.irp6ffiT<n>. 
 
 3 1 John i. 7. 4 Col. i. I ?. 
 
 6 Eph. ii. 1 8 ^x /* 6 " TV Tr/Mwa-ywyV V P^ T ^ v war/pa : iii. 12 
 TTJC ira.ppTi\ffla.v Kai Trpocra-yaryV (v TretroiO^fffi SiA TTJJ irlffrewt afrrou.
 
 ye shall ask the Father, he will give it you in 
 my name." 1 The Son is the avenue through which 
 communications pass, but it is to the Father that 
 they are ordinarily addressed. To secure this fellow- 
 ship with the Source of Godhead was the very 
 purpose of the Passion : Christ suffered " that He 
 might bring us to God." 2 
 
 " Our fellowship is with the Father." This privilege 
 belongs to the Church. It was won by the Incarna- 
 tion and the Cross for all mankind, but it is actually 
 possessed only by the Body of Christ, and exercised 
 only by its true members. Men who do not pray or 
 give thanks, who forsake the assembling of themselves 
 together and the great act of Eucharistic worship 
 which Christ commanded, do not realize, or realize 
 only in small part, the communion of the Church 
 with God. Only the saints, those who have been 
 consecrated to the service of the Holy Trinity, and 
 who use their privilege by actually approaching the 
 Father through the Son, both in private and in the 
 congregation, can know the joy and the glory of 
 entering into the holiest of all and speaking with 
 God, as sons with their Father, in the fellowship 
 of prayer and praise. 
 
 2. St John distinguishes between fellowship with 
 the Father and fellowship with the Son ; both, he 
 
 1 John xvi. 23. * I Pet. iii. 1 8.
 
 WITH THE SON 175 
 
 says in effect, are ours. 1 God has called us (St 
 Paul writes) " into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord." 2 
 
 Before the Incarnation the Word, the Eternal 
 Image of God, was already in contact with man, 
 who was made after the Divine Image. In Proverbs 
 the Wisdom of God speaks of her joy in God's 
 habitable earth, and her "delight" being "with the 
 sons of men." 3 The Alexandrian Book of Wisdom 
 plays on the same note : " Wisdom is a spirit that 
 loveth man . . . from generation to generation passing 
 into holy souls, she maketh men friends of God and 
 prophets." 4 So in the prologue to the fourth Gospel 
 the life which was in the Word is said to have been 
 " the light of men," a light " which lighteth every 
 man." There was, however, as yet no response on 
 man's part ; " the light shineth in darkness, and the 
 darkness apprehended it not." " He was in the 
 world, and the world was made by Him, and the 
 world knew Him not ; He came unto His own (TO. 
 ?&a), and they that were His own (oi tStoi) received 
 
 1 1 John i. 3 ptTa TOV irarpos Kal juerct rov vlov : the repetition of the 
 preposition suggests that two forms or aspects of fellowship are 
 contemplated. 
 
 2 I Cor. i. 9. 
 
 3 Prov. viii. 31. The LXX gives a different turn to the words: tv- 
 (v<j>palvTO [Kvpios] rty otKOV/j.tvr]v erwTeX&ras, icai fixppaivero v vioit 
 
 * Wisdom i. 6 <f>t\dv6puirov irveO/uo ffofoas : vii. 27.
 
 176 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 Him not." Not even Israel, the people of God, 
 answered the call of the Word. 1 
 
 The Incarnation opened new communications 
 between the Word and mankind. He " tabernacled 
 among us," 2 taking His part for a time in human 
 history, revealing Himself under the conditions of 
 ordinary human life. And in revealing Himself He 
 revealed God ; men beheld in Him the glory of God, 
 the fulness of grace and truth manifested in the Only- 
 begotten Son. He ' came and spake ' to His own 
 generation in Galilee and at Jerusalem such words as, 
 on the testimony of men who were not His disciples, 
 "never man spake"; He did among them works 
 which "none other did." 3 A few chosen disciples were 
 taken into intimate companionship for a time, but of 
 fellowship in the deeper sense there was little or none 
 until the human life of the Incarnate was transfigured 
 by the Resurrection, and taken up at the Ascension 
 into the invisible world. Spiritual fellowship began 
 when bodily contact ceased : " touch me not," the 
 Lord said to one who would have detained Him 
 after the Resurrection, " for I am not yet ascended 
 unto the Father." 4 Communion .with Jesus Christ 
 began when His Spirit came to abide with His 
 Church for ever. 6 
 
 i. II. 2 John i. 14. 
 
 J John xv. 22, vii. 46, xv. 24. 
 John i. II. 6 John xiv. i6ft
 
 WITH THE SON 177 
 
 This spiritual fellowship with Him is described by 
 our Lord in terms of the vital union which subsists 
 between a tree and its branches : " I am the Vine, 
 ye are the branches ; he that abideth in me, and I in 
 him, the same beareth much fruit." l But He also 
 sees an analogy between His fellowship with the 
 members of His Church and that which exists 
 between the Father and Himself : " That they may 
 all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and 
 I in thee." 2 The analogy is not of course, com- 
 plete ; for the fellowship of the Father and the Son 
 belong to the mystery of the essential oneness 
 of the Divine Persons, whereas the Nature of 
 God and the nature of man, although capable of 
 fellowship, are essentially and infinitely different. 
 Nevertheless " the true unity of believers " is " some- 
 thing far more than a mere moral unity of purpose, 
 feeling, affection ; it is, in some mysterious mode 
 which we cannot distinctly apprehend, a vital unity." 3 
 The fellowship which springs from this unity is an 
 interchange not simply of words or acts or sympathies, 
 but of life : the life of the Incarnate is passed into 
 His Saints, and their life is, in a mystery, merged in 
 His, and identified with it. " I live," St Paul 
 exclaims, " and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in 
 me." 4 The Apostle's frequent use of the formula " in 
 
 1 John xv. 1-3. 2 Johnxvii. 21. 
 
 * Westcott on St John, at/ loc. 4 Gal ii. 20. 
 
 M
 
 178 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 Christ" calls attention to the other side of this 
 mystical union, and offers another view of the 
 fellowship. ' Christ in us ' is the source of all 
 spiritual life : " of his fulness we all received, and 
 grace for grace " ; l each supply of grace infused into 
 us by the Spirit of Christ is the harbinger and fore- 
 runner of another, so long as the union lasts. We 
 are, no less truly, " in Christ," i.e. identified with Him 
 in His incarnate life. Buried into the death of Christ 
 by Baptism, we have also been raised up with Him, 
 and made to sit with Him in the heavenly world. 
 Our fellowship with Him raises us up into the 
 higher life, where He now is. As He is in us 
 here, so we are in Him there ; mystically, we 
 are already in Heaven, since He is there in Whom 
 we live. 2 
 
 Of this supernatural fellowship the Sacrament of 
 the Eucharist is at once the perpetual symbol and an 
 effectual means. Fellowship with Christ depends on 
 the Incarnation and the Passion, considered not as 
 historical events, but as spiritual facts apprehended 
 by faith and love. This is represented in the discourse 
 at Capernaum by the startling words, " Except ye eat 
 the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye 
 have not life in yourselves. ... he that eateth my flesh 
 
 1 John i. 16 x^P lv ( * I ' T ' X^l lTOS > one supply taking the place of another: 
 "grace upon grace." 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 6 ffvf/iyeipev Kal <rweKa.6i<rfv.
 
 WITH THE SON 179 
 
 and drinketh my blood hath eternal life"; he " abideth 
 in me, and I in him." l What the Lord taught at 
 Capernaum a year before the Passion, He embodied 
 on Maundy Thursday in a great permanent rite. But 
 the rite was intended to be far more than a symbolical 
 representation of the teaching ; it was to be also the 
 chief means of giving effect to the doctrine taught. 
 By it our Lord has willed to give His Body and His 
 Blood to all generations of the faithful. " The cup of 
 blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the 
 Blood of Christ ? the bread which we break, is it not 
 a communion of the Body of Christ?" 2 "A com- 
 munion," that is, as the Vulgate explains, a com- 
 munication, a participation ; a means whereby all 
 Christians who receive the Gift worthily, i.e. as Christ 
 willed it to be received, are made joint partakers in 
 all the benefits of the Incarnation and the Passion, 
 and enjoy that intimate fellowship with Him which 
 He calls ' abiding in Him,' and which He reciprocates 
 by abiding in them. In the words of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, 3 " if with a true penitent heart and 
 lively faith we receive that Holy Sacrament . . ,, then 
 
 1 John vi. 53, 56. 
 
 8 I Cor. x. 16 ovyl KOLVUV'IO. furlv TOV aijuaros . . . TOV <rci/iaroy ; Vulg. 
 communicatio sanguinis . . . participatio corporis : the double rendering 
 seems to be arbitrary, since Koivuvia stands twice in the text without 
 variant. Participatio suggests fntro\-ft : cf. v. 17 /uer^xo/"^ Vulg. 
 participamns : on Kowuvla and fitrox^ cf. Brooke on I John i. 3. 
 
 * Exhortation " at the time of the celebration of the Communion."
 
 i8o THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 we dwell in Christ and Christ in us ; we are one 
 with Christ, and Christ with us." 
 
 The Eucharist is the most outstanding means of 
 communion with Christ. Therein He comes to us 
 by a special sacramental presence, of which we are at 
 times conscious as we kneel at the Altar, which our 
 faith apprehends but does not create ; therein also 
 we rise to Him into the heavenly places, where He 
 now is with God. No words in any other Christian 
 rite approach so near to the worship of Heaven as 
 the Ter Sanctus and parts of the Gloria in excelsis ; 
 no other religious act so distinctly proclaims that the 
 Church is in fellowship with her ascended Lord. The 
 very name of 'Holy Communion 1 by which it is known 
 to English Churchmen bears witness to this purpose 
 of the Eucharist. But to say this is not to exclude 
 other opportunities of fellowship, or to tie the grace 
 of Christ, as He has not tied it, to Sacramental 
 Communion. It is possible that the broken prayers 
 of an illiterate believer may place him on a higher 
 level than many reach with the help of the most 
 uplifting of Eucharistic celebrations. And we know 
 that " if by any just impediment a man is hindered 
 from receiving the Sacrament of Christ's Body and 
 Blood," * he may be assured that spiritual communion 
 will suffice. The essential thing is not the external 
 act of Communion, important as that is, but the 
 1 See the third rubric after the Communion of the Sick.
 
 WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 181 
 
 union and fellowship with Himself which the Lord is 
 pleased ordinarily to give through the Sacrament. 
 When these are attained, the purpose of the Sacra- 
 ment, as far as regards the individual Christian, has 
 been fulfilled, even if for reasons beyond human 
 control the Sacrament itself cannot be administered 
 or cannot be received. 
 
 3. Twice in his Epistles St Paul speaks of the 
 communion of the Spirit : in his final prayer for the 
 Corinthian church, " the communion of the Holy 
 Spirit be with you all " ; l and when he pleads with 
 the Philippians, "If there is any communion of the 
 Spirit, . . . fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of the same 
 mind." 2 Both the great English versions use ' com- 
 munion ' in the first'of these passages and 'fellowship' 
 in the second, and the Vulgate makes a similar dis- 
 tinction. 3 The words, in fact, admit in each case of 
 more than one interpretation ; they may signify 
 either joint participation in the Spirit, or fellowship 
 with the Spirit, or again, the fellowship between 
 believers created by their common possession of the 
 One Spirit ; and the context only can determine 
 which of these meaninp r s is to be adopted. In 2 Cor. 
 
 1 2 Cor. xiii. 13 r\ xoivuvia. rod ayiov nvey/*aros /J.era iravruv i'n&v. 
 1 Phil. ii. I el TI.S noivuvia. irvft'ifuiTot. 
 
 3 In 2 Cor. I.e. it has cotmminicatio Sancti Spiritus : in Phil., societal 
 Spiiitus.
 
 1 82 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 xiii. 14 the first of them seems to agree best with 
 the context ; as the grace of Christ and the love of 
 God are blessings which are received from above, so 
 the communion of the Holy Spirit is probably the 
 share of the gift of the Spirit which falls to each of 
 the members of Christ's Body. In Philippians, on 
 the other hand, we are led by the general drift of the 
 passage to think of the fellowship which makes men 
 to be of one mind in God's House, and which the 
 Holy Spirit inspires. But between these two con- 
 ceptions there lies a third the fellowship of the 
 Holy Spirit with the human spirit, which results from 
 the first and leads on to the second. It is, in fact, im- 
 possible to separate the three except in thought, and 
 therefore impossible when one of them is named to 
 rule out the other two ; although one meaning may 
 predominate in one passage and another in another, 
 the senses which are not primary cannot be excluded 
 altogether. To receive the Spirit is to have fellow- 
 ship with the Spirit, and all who have fellowship with 
 the Spirit have fellowship in Him with one another. 
 
 The communion of the Holy Spirit is not to be 
 identified with our fellowship with Christ, although 
 the former is inseparable from the latter. The Son 
 was sent into the world, the Spirit into the heart. 1 
 The fellowship of the Spirit with the human spirit is 
 immediate and direct. He who searches the deep 
 Cf. Gal. iv. 4-6.
 
 WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 183 
 
 things of God 1 enters also into the depths of our inner 
 man. Our bodies become His shrine ; 2 but His 
 presence is out of sight, in the penetralia of our spirits, 
 where He throws His searchlight upon our unspoken 
 thoughts and desires. His purpose is to carry for- 
 ward the work of the Divine philanthropy begun in 
 the Incarnation, to make it bear on the centre of our 
 being, regenerating and renewing the springs of our 
 life, 3 changing our thoughts, shedding abroad within 
 us the love of God, helping our infirmity, making 
 intercession for the saints according to the will of 
 God, sanctifying our whole nature in spirit, soul, and 
 body. 4 But this work of sanctification is not a 
 mechanical process, or an automatic growth ; it is 
 the result of the interaction of the Divine and 
 the human in the inner life of men. It is the 
 outcome of daily fellowship between the Spirit of 
 God and the spirit of man. On the part of the 
 Divine Spirit there is the constant inspiration of good 
 desires, and the infusion of strength sufficient to 
 bring them to good effect ; on the part of the human 
 spirit, the responsive action by which the inspiration 
 is assimilated, and the strength is made the man's very 
 own. 5 In experience it is difficult or even impossible 
 to distinguish the one from the other. Just as ideas 
 
 *l Cor. ii. lof. *l Cor. vi. 19: cf. Hi. 16. 3 Tit. iii. 46. 
 
 4 Rom. viii. 5f-> v. 5, viii. 26 f. ; I Thess. v. 23. 
 
 * Phil. ii. 13 Of 6s ydp eortv 6 ivepy&v tv V/MV KCU r6 flAttr *cai TO i
 
 1 84 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 which we derive from books or from conversation 
 with our fellow-men become in course of time so 
 completely our own, are so identified with the rest of 
 our intellectual property that we can no longer trace 
 them to their source, or even determine whether they 
 are borrowed or original, so it is in the life of the 
 spirit ; our volitions and emotions, our actions and 
 refusals to act, are our own, and yet not our own ; 
 if they are according to the Divine will, they are 
 originally of the Holy Spirit, who co-operates with 
 us in the mystery of grace. This co-operation of 
 God and man enters into every detail of the spiritual 
 life, whether we are conscious of it or not. There 
 may, indeed, be conditions under which the action of 
 the Divine Spirit can be distinctly recognized and 
 His voice heard within. " The Spirit itself (St Paul 
 says) beareth joint witness with our spirit, that we are 
 children of God " ; l together with the faltering, uncer- 
 tain, testimony of our own consciousness there may be . 
 heard from time to time a witness which we know to 
 be Divine. But ordinarily the fellowship is so close, the 
 identification so complete, that the result may be attri- 
 buted with equal correctness to ourselves, as led by the 
 Spirit, or to the Spirit who leads. Thus St Paul can 
 speak indifferently of "the Spirit of adoption whereby 
 we cry, Abba, Father," and of the Spirit as Himself 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 16 o,vrb ri> ToeD/ua ffw/MpTvpfT rif irvevftan ij/.iuiv. Cf. 
 ix. I ffvfi.ft.apTvpovffi}^ fjioi TTJJ ffwfidrifftus /MOV iv Trv
 
 WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 185 
 
 uttering the same filial cry within our hearts. 1 The cry 
 is His, and it is ours : His cry in us, and ours in Him. 
 Thus the communion of the Holy Spirit our 
 fellowship with Him and His with us, is the normal 
 condition of the Christian life, without which there 
 can be no life in Christ which is worthy of the name. 2 
 It is also a fact of Christian experience, although 
 from the nature of the Spirit's operations they can- 
 not usually be distinguished from the thoughts, 
 affections, desires, and actions which He prompts 
 and energizes. No Christian will fail to acknowledge 
 that whatever is good in him is not of himself, but 
 of the Holy Spirit. This is, in fact, to recognize that 
 the Holy Spirit is at work at the springs of his new 
 life ; that he owes to fellowship with the Spirit the 
 whole structure of the new self which is rising up 
 within him his faith, his love, his hope of eternal 
 life. There would be no communion of Saints in 
 the Church of Christ there would be no true Saints to 
 maintain communion with one another if the Church 
 had no Spirit of holiness, or no communion with 
 Him. There could be no fellowship with the Father 
 or with His Son Jesus Christ, if there were no 
 fellowship of the Holy Spirit. " Through the Son we 
 both," Jewish and Gentile believers alike, "have our 
 access in one Spirit unto the Father." 3 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 15 (if $ Kpd.frfj.fv). Gal. iv. 6 
 1 Rom. viii. 9*. 8 Eph. ii. 18.
 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS IN THE 
 CHURCH MILITANT 
 
 I. " THE Communion of Sacraments " the phrase is 
 St Augustine's 1 is not a synonym for the Communion 
 of Saints. The Sacraments, no doubt, are among 
 the chief means and opportunities of fellowship with 
 the Body of Christ ; in the Sacrament of Baptism 
 "we were all made to drink of one Spirit" ; 2 in the 
 Sacrament of the Eucharist " we who are many are 
 one bread, one body." 3 From early times admission 
 to communion has meant admission to partake in the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, and the 
 refusal of that Sacrament to a member of the Church 
 has been understood to be a refusal of Christian 
 fellowship. 4 It is indeed inconceivable that the Com- 
 
 1 Aug. de civit. Dei, i. 35. It occurs also in Augustine's junior con- 
 temporary Leo (serm. 42. 5). 
 
 2 i Cor. xii. 13. ' i Cor. x. 17. 
 
 *Cf. Tert. de bapt. 15 "ademptio communicationis " : Cyprian, 
 e/>. 16 "ad communicationem admittere"; ib. 17 " ad - communicationem 
 venire" (cf. Studio. Biblica, iv. p. 268 f.).
 
 IN THE SACRAMENTS 187 
 
 munion of Saints can exist when the Sacraments 
 which Christ ordained as the symbols and means of 
 Christian unity are deliberately rejected, or when the 
 Church has by a just judgement withheld them. 
 
 Yet participation in the Sacraments does not of 
 itself constitute fellowship with the Saints in the 
 highest sense of the words. For evil men as well as 
 good partake of the Sacraments. " The City of God 
 (writes St Augustine), so long as she sojourns in the 
 world as in a strange land, has with her those who 
 are of the number of her enemies ; they are joined to 
 her for the present in the communion of the Sacra- 
 ments, but they will not be with her in the eternal 
 portion of the saints." l This " external fellowship " 
 is secured to such persons by the Sacraments of 
 which they partake in common with the true mem- 
 bers of the Church ; but in the inner and spiritual 
 fellowship, which is the heart and substance of the 
 Communion of Saints, they have " neither part nor 
 lot." 2 
 
 Yet external communion with the Body of Christ 
 is in itself no light privilege and no small responsi- 
 bility. No baptized man can be as the unbaptized ; 
 he belongs to the family of God, even though he be 
 a disobedient or a prodigal son ; he is a branch in 
 the Vine, though he be dead and barren of fruit. 
 
 1 Aug. I.e. "connexos communione sacramentorum nee secum futures 
 in aeterna sorte sanctorum." 
 * Cf. Acts viii. 21.
 
 i88 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 Nor is Eucharistic communion an empty form in the 
 case of unworthy recipients. Such persons are, 
 according to St Paul, guilty of the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord ; they eat and drink judgement unto 
 themselves if they discern not the Body. 1 Their com- 
 munions do not indeed make them, in any true sense, 
 partakers of Christ ; but they bring them into touch 
 with a tremendous Reality, the Presence of Christ in 
 the Sacrament. If through their sin the Sacra- 
 mental Presence is not beneficial to them, it is 
 hurtful. 2 He who is near Christ is near the fire ; 3 and 
 the fire, if it does not give warmth and life, may 
 burn and consume. Such nearness, such contact, is 
 not fellowship ; it spells death to the unworthy. Yet 
 near they are, even if the Sacraments are to them a 
 savour of death unto death. Moreover, it is never to 
 be forgotten that those who are now joined to the 
 Church only by external fellowship may one day 
 rise to the fellowship of the Spirit. 4 And when this 
 happens, the Sacraments at once recover their proper 
 effects. Repentance and absolution restore the full 
 
 1 i Cor. xi. 27-29. 
 
 2 Aug. in Joann. lr. vi. 15 "et sancta possunt obesse ; in bonis enim 
 sancta ad salutem insunt, in nialis ad iudicium." 
 
 'Origen, horn, in Jerem. iii. "ait autem ipse Salvador, 'Qui iuxta me 
 est iuxta ignem est.'" Didynms, in Ps. Ixxxviii. 816 <$>i\a\v 6 ffurrip' 
 "0 eyyyj >toi; eyyte roO 7rup6s. 
 
 *Aug. de civit. Dei, i. 35 "apud apertissimos adversaries praedes- 
 tinali amici latitant, adhuc ignoti etiam sibi."
 
 IN THE SACRAMENTS 189 
 
 benefits of Baptism ; the prodigal son returning to 
 his Father is at once readmitted to the privileges of 
 home life. The Eucharistic Presence is no longer 
 a consuming fire, but a constant source of refreshing 
 grace. 
 
 To the faithful the Communion of the Sacraments 
 is far more than an external bond. For them the 
 Sacraments of the Gospel fulfil their primary pur- 
 pose, uniting them to God through Christ. Baptism 
 is for them not only a putting on of the profession 
 of Christianity, but, in St Paul's far deeper phrase, a 
 putting on of Christ 1 the solemn, divinely instituted 
 rite in which Christ was " made unto us wisdom and 
 righteousness and sanctification and redemption," 2 and 
 wherein we became " members of Christ, children of 
 God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 Baptism admits into the Christian Society, and so 
 into the fellowship of Christ and His saints^ and 
 the whole life of the baptized, if they respond to 
 their calling, is but the working out of the union 
 with Christ and His Body which Baptism once 'for 
 all sacramentally effected. 
 
 And what the initial Sacrament began, the Sacra- 
 ment of the Eucharist carries on and perfects. The 
 Eucharistic Presence is not vouchsafed primarily for 
 worship, although Christ is to be worshipped whether 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 27 Sffoi jap eh X/wcrrd/' e'/3aTT/(T0jjTe, X/Mcrrij' 
 * I Cor. i. 30 (cf. vi. n).
 
 190 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 in His Sacrament or wheresoever He may be. Still 
 less is its purpose to excite men's fears, and so to 
 keep them from that which is among God's greatest 
 gifts. Rather it was designed to be our chief oppor- 
 tunity of fellowship with the Lord, and with the 
 whole company of His faithful people. It is a com- 
 monplace to say that the Eucharist was originally a 
 social meal. The primitive Church connected it 
 with a love-feast or agape, in which the Lord's last 
 Supper with the Twelve was commemorated on the 
 weekly festival of the Resurrection. The note of 
 fellowship was struck by the very manner in which 
 the Eucharistic gifts were dispensed : all the brethren 
 drank of one cup, all partook of one loaf. 1 The 
 Eucharist, it is true, is very much more than an 
 agape ; as the English Article warns us, it is " not 
 only a sign of the love which Christians ought to 
 have among themselves one to another, but rather it 
 is a Sacrament of our Redemption " 2 a partaking of 
 the Body and Blood which were sacrificed for us. 
 But joint participation in the sacrament of a common 
 redemption cannot but be the means of cementing 
 the deepest and most sacred of all unions a union 
 
 1 The Eastern Churches still use at the Eucharist a cake or small loaf 
 prepared by marks on its surface for subdivision. For an illustration of 
 the Greek oblate, see Neal, Eastern Church, General Introduction, i. 
 p. 342, and for the Coptic, ibid. Patriarchate of Alexandria, ii. p. 342 , 
 and cf. Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica (ed. 2), p. 853. 
 
 2 Art. xxviii.
 
 IN THE SACRAMENTS 191 
 
 between the Head and the members, and consequently 
 between the members themselves, with the fellowship 
 which follows from it. 
 
 The mediaeval system of private masses tended 
 to destroy Eucharistic fellowship by permitting the 
 priest to celebrate by himself alone, without any 
 other communicant. It was to prevent this depar- 
 ture from the original purpose of the Eucharist that 
 the Church of England in 1549 ordained that "the 
 Priest on the weekday shall forbear to celebrate the 
 Communion except he have some that will com- 
 municate with him," and in 1552 laid down the 
 more stringent rule that even in the smallest parish 
 " there shall be no communion except four (or three 
 at the least) communicate with the Priest." l The 
 minimum may be thought too large ; our Lord's 
 " two or three," as well as the practical convenience 
 of the Church, may seem to call for a reduction. 
 But the principle is surely sound ; the plea put 
 forward by the Council of Trent that the priest 
 celebrates " not for himself only, but for all the 
 faithful," 2 does not really meet the Reformers' 
 objection. Fellowship cannot well be vicarious ; 
 the very name of ' Holy Communion ' demands 
 a congregational act, which implies a partaking 
 
 1 See the third rubric at the end of the Order of Holy Communion, 
 and the final rubric after the Communion of the Sick. 
 
 * Cone. Trident, sess. xxii. c. vi. (cited by Scudamore, p. 824).
 
 192 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 in the consecrated food by two persons at the 
 least. 
 
 It cannot be said with justice that the Church of 
 England depreciates in any way the Communion of 
 Sacraments. On the contrary she gives to the Sacra- 
 ments the highest place among acts of external 
 worship ; they are pronounced to be " generally 
 necessary to salvation," i.e. necessary for all sorts and 
 conditions of men ; they are "effectual signs of grace," 
 i.e. they effectuate the action of God's grace which 
 they signify. The communion of sacraments is not 
 equivalent to the communion of saints ; the latter is 
 the larger and greater thing. Nevertheless the Sacra- 
 ments are the divinely appointed means for cement- 
 ing and effecting the communion of saints. No 
 Christian fellowship which ignores this sacramental 
 basis, or seeks to be independent of it, corresponds 
 to the New Testament ideal, or to the experience of 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 2. The external fellowship which is created by 
 participation in the Sacraments is of no little impor- 
 tance as a social, moral, and even a spiritual force. 
 The baptized constitute a great society, distinguished 
 by a common name, possessing common interests, a 
 common history and literature, a common moral code. 
 They are, moreover, the subjects of spiritual influ- 
 ences, whether they respond to them or not, of which
 
 IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 193 
 
 the unbaptized have no experience. A yet closer 
 fellowship binds in one the communicant members of 
 the Church : a fellowship less commonly recognized 
 by the world, but approaching nearer to an interior 
 and spiritual bond. But neither of the two great 
 sacraments, nor any sacramental rite whatever, can of 
 itself admit to the communion of saints in the higher 
 meaning of the words. As contrasted with the 
 communio sacramentorum, the sanctorum communio is 
 a fellowship of spirits which comes from a common 
 fellowship with the Holy Spirit. It belongs to the 
 sphere of the supernatural life which the Holy Spirit 
 infuses into souls that respond to the Sacraments of 
 grace, i.e. that receive and assimilate the grace of 
 the Sacraments. 
 
 This interior life, though poured by the Spirit of 
 Christ into individual souls, is given to them as 
 members of the Church. The Spirit of Christ 
 animates the Body of Christ, and its members receive 
 His indwelling in virtue of their place in His Body. 
 The life of the Spirit, therefore, notwithstanding that 
 it acts upon individuals, is a corporate life, and carries 
 with it corporate privileges and responsibilities. It 
 involves the interdependence of all the living members 
 of the Body, one upon another. They are, in the 
 words of the New Testament, " members one of 
 another." l No one of them is complete without the 
 
 1 Rom. xii. 5 d 
 N
 
 i 9 4 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 rest ; none may say to his fellow-member, however 
 different may be his position in the Body or his 
 capacity or the nature of his work, " I have no need 
 of thee." * An isolated life, self-contained, wholly 
 occupied with personal interests, even though they be 
 the highest interests of the individual soul, is far 
 removed from the life of the Spirit of Christ. The 
 man who endeavours to live his own life in Christ 
 apart from his brethren, and indifferent to their con- 
 cerns, not only falls miserably short of Christian 
 ideals, but is immeasurably the loser by his self- 
 willed independence. Each living member of Christ 
 has indeed his own gift, which it is his duty to culti- 
 vate, and his own work to do ; 2 but for this very 
 reason none is complete in himself, none can dispense 
 with the assistance of those whose gifts and spheres of 
 work are other than his own. This principle operates 
 far beyond the circle of our friends and neighbours ; 
 in ways unknown to us all the members of Christ's 
 Body are necessary to the completeness of the whole, 
 and of each individual as a part of the whole. We 
 can feel that we are richer for the example and work 
 of thousands of saints known to us only by name ; 
 but, in fact, all who have ever lived in faith are a 
 heritage of priceless value, while all who are now so 
 living are contributing 1 to the strength and well- 
 being of the Church, and we have a share in tneir 
 
 1 i Cor. xii. 20 f. 2 I Cor. xii. 7 ff.
 
 IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 195 
 
 labour of love. Thus the Communion of Saints is 
 far-reaching indeed, binding every devout Christian 
 throughout the world, not in sentiment only, but in 
 the actual interchange of a beneficent activity of 
 which we may not be cognizant, but by which never- 
 theless we are helped and carried on towards perfec- 
 tion. The most conspicuous instance is to be found 
 in the use of intercessory prayer, by means of which 
 we can minister to persons whose names, whose very 
 existence, may be unknown to us, and in our turn 
 may receive benefit from those to whom we ourselves 
 are equally unknown. Of this and of other forms 
 which Christian fellowship may take, we shall have 
 more to say presently ; for the moment it is enough 
 to notice the vastness and complexity of the process 
 which the Church calls the Communion of Saints. It 
 is a fellowship as wide as the world, and indeed far 
 wider ; it sets up a channel of communication between 
 Christian souls everywhere, by which all are mutually 
 helped, and the contribution which each brings to the 
 treasury of the Church is made to serve for the 
 building up of the whole Body of Christ. 
 
 The Communion of Saints is an almost automatic 
 effect of the supernatural life which penetrates the 
 living members of the Christian body. Without 
 destroying or crippling individuality, the common 
 life of the Spirit holds and keeps the Body together, 
 in such wise that it acts as one, thinks as one, is of
 
 196 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 one mind and will, so far as it is controlled by the 
 One Spirit. 1 The One Spirit employs three great 
 spiritual forces, faith, hope, and love, each of which 
 makes for fellowship. Any faith which is held in 
 common by a number of adherents is a bond of 
 fellowship among them ; Moslems, e.g. are drawn 
 together by their simple creed, ' God is One, and 
 Mohammed is His Prophet,' and Buddhists by their 
 acceptance of the teaching of Gautama, so that it is 
 no great matter if the Christian creed exercises a like 
 influence over those who hold it, making for friend- 
 ship and fellowship. But Christian faith, where it is 
 genuine, is more than an intellectual assent to the 
 truth of certain credenda ; more even than a whole- 
 hearted acceptance of a common stock of ideas fruit- 
 ful in their effect on conduct and character. It is 
 primarily trust in a Person and loyalty to Him, 2 and 
 it creates an intimate union between believers and 
 Him on whom they believe. This mystical union 
 has no parallel in Islam or in Buddhism ; it is 
 peculiarly Christian, and it forms the basis of a 
 fellowship more complete than any which the other 
 great religions of the world can offer. If to this 
 common faith we add the common hope of eternal 
 life, it is evident that the basis of fellowship is 
 
 1 Rom. xii. 16 r6 avrb fls dXXi^Xovs Qpovovvres : Phil. ii. 2 
 T& & Qpovovvres ; I Pet. iii. 8 irdvTes 6/j.6<f>povet. 
 * St John's and St Paul's iriffTefciv ds
 
 IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 197 
 
 immensely strengthened, since the Christian hope 
 assures us that our life in the Church on earth is pre- 
 paratory to a social life hereafter, when we shall find 
 ourselves in the company of all the saints who have 
 ever lived. Faith and hope bring us to the foot of 
 the spiritual Zion, to the city of the Living God, the 
 heavenly Jerusalem ; l our citizenship is already in 
 heaven, 2 and our intercourse with our brethren in 
 Christ on earth is seen to be the beginning of a 
 communion of saints which will have no end. 
 
 But there is a third factor in the life of the Spirit 
 which makes even more directly for Christian fellow- 
 ship than either faith or hope. Love, in its purest 
 form, is essentially a Christian virtue. Although the 
 Greek word for love (aya-n-rf) is found once or twice 
 in non-Biblical texts, and the thing is simulated or 
 imitated by the world, the Church alone possesses 
 the spiritual grace of love. " Love is of God," the 
 " fruit of the Spirit " which stands first in St Paul's 
 great list. Within the Church love assumes a form 
 peculiarly Christian, which the New Testament knows 
 " as love of the brethren " (<pi\ae\(pici). 3 " By this 
 (said our Lord) shall all men know that ye are my 
 disciples, if ye have love one to another; " " this is my 
 
 1 Heb. xii. 22. 
 
 2 Phil. iii. 2O ijiiwv yap rb iroX/reu/xa tv oi>pa.i>ois uirapxti. 
 *Cf. 2 Pet. i. 7 lv dt r-g cvfftfifiq. TT)I> <j>i\a.df\<plai>, tv di rjj
 
 198 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 commandment, that ye love one another." l In these 
 words our Lord created a new thing in the earth. 
 Philanthropy may exist without any true union of 
 hearts, without any love on the part of the benefactor 
 for the beneficiary, or of the beneficiary for the bene- 
 factor. Brotherly love, on the other hand, is mutual 
 love of the most perfect kind ; the disinterested care 
 of brother for brother, as members of the same family, 
 born of the same Father, brethren of the same Christ. 
 It cuts across the lines of human relationship, following 
 the example of Him Who said " Whosoever shall do 
 the will of God, the same is my brother and sister 
 and mother." 2 Christianity has created a vast 
 brotherhood, and the fellowship which this brother- 
 hood inspires is the true communion of saints. 
 
 3. So far the communion of saints has been 
 regarded as sacramental and supernatural, an activity 
 of the spiritual life. It remains to be seen how this 
 hidden force manifests itself in the visible fellowship 
 of the Church. 
 
 An obvious instance is to be found in the practice 
 of Common Prayer. The Synagogue had its forms of 
 public worship, 3 and our Lord seems to have contem- 
 plated some such order in His new Ecclesia. "If two 
 
 1 John xiii. 35, xv. 12. * Me. iii. 35. 
 
 See Schiirer, Jewish People (Eng. tr. ), II. ii. p. 77 f. ; Oesterley and 
 Box, Synagogue, p. 315 f.
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 199 
 
 of you," He said, " shall agree on earth as touching 
 anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for 
 them of my Father which is in heaven ; for where 
 two or three are gathered together in my name, there 
 am I in the midst of them." l Two acts of fellowship 
 are here involved : ( i ) the meeting together of the 
 disciples of Christ for the purpose of common prayer, 
 and (2) an agreement as to the petitions to be offered 
 at their meeting. The act of meeting in Christ's 
 name is in itself an important witness to the corporate 
 unity of the body, and no Christian is free to neglect 
 it. 2 Further, the purpose of the meeting is to offer 
 petitions upon which those who meet have agreed 
 beforehand. This can be done either by deputing 
 one member of the Church to speak for the rest, or 
 by offering forms of prayer which have been accepted 
 by the Church for common use. The primitive 
 Church followed on the whole the former course; 3 but 
 as time went on, experience shewed that the latter was 
 to be preferred. A form of prayer adopted by a 
 whole community has this advantage amongst others, 
 that it creates a ' symphony ' * in public prayer an 
 
 1 Matt, xviii. 19 f. J Heb. x. 25. 
 
 8 Cf. Didache, c. IO TO Si irpo<prfrais iiriTptirfTf fvxapiffreiv Sffa. 
 6t\ovffu>. Justin, apol. i. 67 6 wpoeoTuis evxas 6/uotco? Kal tv\a.pi<ST[a.s, 
 Sffij 8foa./Ms avr<f, dvairt/jLTTfi. The reader may with advantage refer 
 to Bp Lightfoot's remarks in S. Clement of Rome, i. p. 382 ff., and to 
 Duchesne, Christian Worship (Eng. tr.), p. 50 ff. 
 
 4 Matt. i.e. ai> Svo
 
 agreement not of one congregation only, but of all 
 congregations that use the same form. In the case 
 of the Anglican communion the possession of a Book 
 of Common Prayer links together fellow-churchmen 
 in all parts of the globe ; we know, as we kneel in 
 our churches at home, that the petitions which we 
 offer are ascending to the Throne of Grace from all 
 the churches of our communion in four continents. 
 Each of the great historical Churches preserves a 
 similar consensus in prayer through the use of common 
 forms. The fellowship of common prayer is, how- 
 ever, not to be limited to churches which use liturgical 
 forms. We gladly recognize that it exists essentially 
 among all believers in our Lord, of whatever com- 
 munion they may be, whether they use forms of 
 prayer, or trust to the discretion of the minister 
 appointed to lead their devotions. The essential 
 things in the fellowship of prayer are the faith which 
 brings men together in Christ's Name, and the one- 
 ness of heart and mind which makes them desire the 
 same gifts of grace. In their chief petitions the true 
 disciples of Christ of all Christian communities, and 
 in all ages since the Advent, are substantially agreed. 
 Akin to this consensus in prayer is the fellowship 
 of mutual intercession. No careful reader of St 
 Paul's Epistles will have failed to notice the Apostle's 
 constant reference to the subject of intercessory 
 prayer. To the Romans, whom he had not seen, he
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 201 
 
 writes : " Unceasingly I make mention of you in 
 my prayers " ; to the Ephesians : " I cease not to 
 give thanks for you, making mention of you in my 
 prayers " ; "I bow my knees unto the Father . . . that 
 he would grant you . . . that ye may be strengthened 
 with power through his Spirit " ; to the Philippians : 
 " This I pray, that your love may abound yet more 
 and more " ; to the Colossians : " Since the day we 
 heard it (their love in the Spirit), we do not 
 cease to pray and make request for you " ; to the 
 Thessalonians : " We give thanks to God always for 
 you all, making mention of you in our prayers " ; 
 " we pray always for you, that our God may count 
 you worthy of your calling." l On his own part 
 St Paul desired the prayers of the churches. 2 Nor 
 was this interchange of prayer and thanksgiving to 
 be restricted to persons so closely connected as an 
 Apostle and his converts : " Watching thereunto (he 
 writes to the Ephesians) in all perseverance and 
 supplication for all the saints." 3 Even St James, in 
 many respects the antithesis to St Paul, the stern 
 advocate of practical religion, does not lose sight of 
 the duty of mutual intercession : " confess your sins 
 (he says) one to another, and pray for one another, 
 
 1 Rom. i. 10; Eph. i. 16, iii. 14 ff. ; Phil. i. 9; Col. i. 9; 
 I Thess. i. 2 ; 2 Thess. i. 12. 
 
 Cf. e.g. Eph. vi. 19. 
 
 * Eph. vi. 18. On " fellowship in intercession " see Westcott, 
 Incarnation in Common Life, p. 4 fl.
 
 that ye may be healed." l Intercession, indeed, is not 
 to be made for fellow-Christians only ; since God 
 " willeth that all men should be saved," and Christ, 
 " Himself man, is mediator between God and men," 
 and " gave Himself a ransom for all," it is right that 
 " supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, 
 be made for all men." 2 But in such intercessions 
 there is no fellowship, for those for whom we pray do 
 not and perhaps cannot reciprocate our prayers. On 
 the other hand, when we pray or give thanks for the 
 saints, we may be assured that the saints on their 
 part pray and give thanks for us, if not by name, 
 at least as members of the great brotherhood of 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 The Church has always interceded both for the 
 world, and more especially for those who (in St 
 Paul's words) are " our friends in faith." 3 The 
 earliest Christian letter outside the canon of the 
 New Testament, the Epistle of Clement of Rome, 
 ends with devotions in which Bishop Lightfoot 
 recognized reminiscences of the weekly Eucharistic 
 prayer. 4 A great part of this form is taken up with 
 intercessions, among which are the following prayers 
 for the members of the Church : " Save those among 
 us who are in tribulation ; have mercy on those of 
 
 1 James v. 16. 2 i Tim. ii. iff. 
 
 3 Tit. iii. 15 Tods <pi\ovvTas r)fjiS.s fv Tritrrei. 
 
 4 Clem. R. I Cor. 59 ff. ; cf. Lightfoot, S. Clement of Rome, i. p. 385 ft.
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 203 
 
 low estate, lift up the fallen, shew Thyself to the 
 needy, conduct the wanderers of Thy people ; feed 
 the hungry, release our prisoners, raise up the weak, 
 comfort the feeble-hearted." In the middle of the 
 fourth century a fairly complete liturgy comes to us 
 from an Egyptian diocese ; l a few sentences will shew 
 how powerfully the spirit of intercession moved 
 the Church of Athanasius in those strenuous days of 
 conflict with Arianism. Here is part of his friend 
 Sarapion's Prayer for the Church : " We beseech 
 Thee for all in this church ; be reconciled to all, 
 pardon all, grant to all remission of sins, give them 
 grace to sin no more. Be Thou their wall of defence, 
 and bring to nought every temptation ; have mercy 
 on men and women and little children, and manifest 
 Thyself to all, and let the knowledge of Thee be 
 written in their hearts." A Prayer for the People 
 similarly begs : " Receive us, God of truth, receive this 
 people ; grant them all to prove themselves sincere, 
 to live blamelessly and in purity ; let them attain to 
 the measure of the heavenly, be numbered with the 
 angels, and be all found elect and holy." With a wider 
 outlook the liturgy of the Apostolical Constitutions? 
 
 1 In a service-book attributed to Sarapion, Bishop of Thmuis in 
 the Delta, a contemporary and friend of Athanasius. It may be read 
 in J. T.S. i. pp. 88 ff., 247 ff., or in an English version by Bp John 
 Wordsworth, published by S.P.C.K. 
 
 1 The Greek text may be seen in Brightman's Liturgies, Eastern and 
 Western, vol. i. p. 3 ff.
 
 204 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 also a work of the fourth century, but from the 
 neighbourhood of Antioch, bids, " Let us pray 
 for every Christian soul," and later in the office 
 continues : " We pray thee, O Lord, for Thy holy 
 Catholic Church from one end of the earth to the 
 other, which Thou hast purchased with the precious 
 blood of Thy Christ, that Thou wouldst keep her 
 unshaken and unmoved to the consummation of the 
 world," with much more to the same effect. Every 
 ancient liturgy has its intercession for the sick, the 
 sorrowful, and the tempted members of Christ's 
 Body : so careful was the Church of the early 
 centuries to use the great service of the Eucharist 
 as an opportunity for united intercessory prayer. 
 The English Order of Holy Communion, although 
 since 1552 it departs widely from the ancient 
 liturgies in regard to the scheme of the canon, and 
 has abandoned certain features to which they gave 
 prominence, accepts this principle, placing a prayer 
 for the Church militant in the forefront of the office. 
 And the English Litany, and the Prayer for all 
 conditions of men, provided for use when the Litany 
 is not appointed to be said, carry the note of inter- 
 cession into our daily services when they are said at 
 morning and evening prayer. 
 
 It is not, however, only in common prayer that 
 the communion of saints is manifested. It is shewn 
 not less clearly in the fellowship of Christian work.
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 205 
 
 Such work may take the form of great efforts in 
 which the churches or the members of a particular 
 church unite. In the life of St Paul few incidents 
 are more striking than his enthusiastic pursuit of a 
 scheme for supplying the wants of " the poor among 
 the saints at Jerusalem " l by contributions from the 
 churches he had founded among the Gentiles. His 
 epistles to Corinth and Rome shew how, in the 
 midst of incessant evangelistic labour, and burdened 
 by the care of all the churches, the Apostle carried 
 out this work, risking his life and losing his liberty 
 in the visit to Jerusalem which he undertook for the 
 purpose of handing over the gift to the mother 
 church. Doubtless he was moved by compassion 
 for the poverty of the Christian Jews. But he had 
 other and deeper reasons, as he himself has told us : 
 " the ministration of this service not only filleth up 
 the measure of the wants of the saints, but aboundeth 
 also through many thanksgivings unto God ; seeing 
 that . . . they the saints at Jerusalem glorify God . . . 
 for the liberality of your contributions unto them 
 and unto all, while they themselves also, with suppli- 
 cation on your behalf, long after you, by reason -of 
 the exceeding grace of God in you." 2 The words 
 shew how communion between churches in different 
 localities, and consisting of men of different races, 
 
 1 Rom. xv. 26 roi>y -irruxobs T&V ayluv. 
 
 'See Rom. xv. 25 ff. ; r Cor. xvi. I ; 2 Cor. viii., ix.
 
 206 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 may be promoted by brotherly help in time of need, 
 the material gift calling forth thanksgivings to God, 
 prayer for the benefactors, and warm affection towards 
 them. St Paul may have hoped that even greater 
 things might follow from the offering sent by Gentile 
 Christendom to the relief of the Jerusalem church : 
 that it would put an end to friction between the two 
 divisions of Christ's army, and make Jew and Gentile 
 realize their oneness in Him. If the effort did not 
 yield at Jerusalem all the good he had looked for, 
 its effect on the contributors themselves could only 
 have been good : those who sowed bountifully reaped 
 bountifully in the increase of faith and hope and 
 love. 1 
 
 It was, indeed, one of the fundamental principles 
 of St Paul's Christian ethic, that the wealthy members 
 of the Church must be " ready to distribute, willing 
 to communicate." f There must be ' communication ' 
 both in things spiritual and in the good things of the 
 present life ; those who had the blessings of the 
 Gospel and the Church were bound to extend them 
 to those who had them not ; 3 those who were rich in 
 this world must " remember the poor." 4 The taught 
 were required to impart to their teachers the means 
 
 1 2 Cor. ix. 6. 
 
 1 I Tim. vi. 171. rots ir\ovfflots . . . irapdyye\\e . . . ev/j.fT0.8&TOVs elvai, 
 
 3 Cf. Rom. xv. 27 rot's Trvtv/AaTiKOts avruv iKOivuvrjeav rd 
 
 4 Gal. ii. 9.
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 207 
 
 of subsistence, in return for the saving knowledge 
 received from them. Hospitality to strangers, 
 especially to such as were brethren in Christ, is 
 constantly inculcated : " Let love of the brethren 
 continue " ; " forget not to shew love unto strangers " ; 
 " using hospitality one to another without murmur- 
 ing." l St Peter adds : " As every man hath 
 received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as 
 good stewards of the manifold grace of God " ; 2 where, 
 as the context shews, he is thinking not of material 
 gifts only but of those which are intellectual and 
 spiritual, such as powers of conversation or of public 
 teaching. No gift has been bestowed on any 
 member of the Church solely for his own use or 
 pleasure : all we have is held in trust for the service 
 of our brethren. To act on this principle is to 
 realize, in our own measure, the practical meaning of 
 the communion of Saints. 
 
 Sympathy must go with brotherly action. There 
 is a way of saying, " Be ye warmed and clothed," 3 
 which, though food and clothing are supplied, is far 
 1 Heb. xiii. i ff. 
 
 * I Pet. iv. 9f. On Christian <t>i.\oei>ia see also Rom. xii. 13 ; i Tim. 
 iii. 2 ; and for instances in the Apostolic age cf. Rom. xvi. 23 : TaTos 
 6 tvo$ nov Kal 8\rjs TT?S KK\i)<rlas : 3 John 5 ff. irpoir^\f/as d|lu>? TOV 
 Oeov. The 'send off' of Christian travellers, sometimes with such 
 assistance as they needed for their journey, was, in the circumstances 
 of the primitive Church, an important and valuable form of <j>i\ol-tvia. ; 
 see Acts xv. 3 ; Rom. xv. 24 ; I Cor. xvi. II ; Tit. iii. 13. 
 
 James ii. isf.
 
 208 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 from conducing to Christian fellowship. There is 
 no real fellowship where sympathy is wanting ; the 
 first condition of corporate unity is absent. In a 
 living body " whether one member suffer, all the 
 members suffer with it ; or one member is honoured, 
 all the members rejoice with it." l Our common 
 human nature teaches us to " rejoice with them that 
 rejoice " and " weep with those that weep " ; z our 
 common faith intensifies this natural sympathy wherr 
 the objects of it are our brethren in Christ. 
 
 The Christians of the age of persecution had 
 opportunities of shewing their sympathy with those 
 who suffered for the sake of Christ such as are not 
 often given in these days. "After ye were enlightened," 
 the writer to the Hebrews reminds his first readers, 
 " ye endured a great conflict of sufferings ; partly, being 
 made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflic- 
 tions, and partly, becoming partakers with them that 
 were so used ; for ye both had compassion on them 
 that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of 
 your possessions." 3 Those who shewed sympathy with 
 the prisoners ran the risk of sharing their shame and 
 losses ; but this danger did not deter the new con- 
 verts from fellowship with their brothers who were 
 suffering for the faith. 
 
 *l Cor. xii. 26. z Rom. xii. 15. 
 
 3 Heb. x. 33 f. roOro df, Koivwvol rCiv ovrus a.va.ffTptif>oiJ.tvwv ytrr)- 
 Kal yap rots Seafuois ffvvtira.6qffa.Tt.
 
 IN VISIBLE FELLOWSHIP 209 
 
 But the sympathy which knits Christians together 
 in the communion of Saints does not need the 
 stimulus of persecution or of some great disaster to 
 call it forth. It is something deeper and greater 
 than the words or acts by which it expresses itself 
 when occasion arises. It is the drawing together of 
 hearts that burn with the same fire of love. 1 Those 
 who " love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption " 
 find themselves, in the most essential things of life 
 and thought, one with all others who love Him thus. 
 Differences of race and class and sex, and even of 
 ecclesiastical order, vanish in the presence of this 
 deepest bond of fellowship. " There can be neither 
 Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, 
 there can be no male and female ; for ye all are one 
 man in Christ Jesus." 2 
 
 1 Cf. Col. ii. 2 <rw/3i/3a<7tf&'Tj 4 dydiry. For ffvrpipdfai> cf. Col. 
 ii. 19 ; Eph. iv. 16. 
 
 2 Gal. iii. 28 irdirej y&p tfua It forf.
 
 IV 
 
 THE COMMUNION OF LIVING SAINTS 
 WITH THE DEPARTED 
 
 So far we have considered only the fellowship which 
 exists between members of the Church militant here 
 in earth. But the slightest reflexion will shew that 
 the communion of saints must embrace a far larger 
 area. Spiritual fellowship based upon union with 
 God in Christ cannot be terminated by physical 
 death. If " I am persuaded that neither death nor 
 life . . . shall be able to separate us from the love 
 of God," 1 it is reasonable to believe also that the 
 accident of death cannot separate us from fellowship 
 with those who have gone before. 2 
 
 i. It is clear, however, that if the living still have 
 fellowship with the dead, it must be carried on under 
 conditions widely different from those which attend 
 fellowship with the living. Neither sight nor hearing 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 38 f. 
 
 1 Unless death is followed by a suspension of consciousness ; on 
 this see p. 215.
 
 CONDITION OF THE DEPARTED 211 
 
 assist communion with the departed, and the vast 
 majority of them are absolutely unknown to us even 
 by name. " There be of them that have left a name 
 behind them," but " those which have no memorial " l 
 are incomparably more numerous. Such obstacles 
 to communion, however, are not insuperable ; we 
 know ourselves to be in communion with tens of 
 thousands of living saints who are equally unknown 
 to us. A common faith and hope and love, common 
 sacraments, a common aim in life, the possession 
 of the same Spirit of grace, membership in the same 
 Divine family, draw together Christian people in 
 every part of the globe ; and this experience en- 
 courages the hope that communion with the departed 
 is not hindered by the mere fact that they are beyond 
 sight and hearing, and that even their names, except 
 in the case of a few relations and friends or of the 
 greater Saints, are wholly unknown. A more serious 
 obstacle to fellowship with the dead lies in our 
 ignorance of the conditions under which they live. 
 We cannot realize the order into which they have 
 passed ; it is beyond our cognizance, and very little 
 has been revealed to us about their state, beyond 
 the fact that they exist, are conscious, and are with 
 Christ. 
 
 The New Testament is singularly reticent with 
 regard to the condition of the faithful departed. God, 
 1 Sirach xli v. 8 L
 
 212 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 we know, is " not the God of the dead, but of the 
 living " ; " all," whether alive or dead to men, " live 
 unto him." l The parable of the Rich Man and the 
 Beggar represents the spirits of the righteous as 
 reposing in "Abraham's bosom," i.e. seated at a 
 spiritual banquet next to the father of the faithful ; 2 
 the Lord's answer to the penitent robber designates 
 this place of rest " the paradise," the New Eden, or 
 spiritual garden of delight. 3 Quite in accordance 
 with these hints in the Gospel is St Paul's judgement 
 that to " depart and to be with Christ " is " very far 
 better^ 4 than to live here; and the Apocalyptic voice 
 from heaven, " Write : Blessed are the dead which 
 die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the 
 Spirit, that they may rest from their labours." 5 St 
 Paul's view of the state of the faithful departed may 
 be learnt more fully from 2 Cor. v. i-io a passage 
 which, however, is not free from difficulty. The 
 Apostle speaks, as perhaps he was compelled to 
 speak of such a subject, in figurative language : the 
 present body is " the earthly house of this tabernacle," 
 while the future spiritual body is "our habitation 
 which is from heaven " ; and he clings to the hope 
 that there may be no interval between the putting 
 
 1 Luke xx. 38. ' Luke xvi. 22 f. ; cf. John xiii. 23. 
 
 ' Luke xxiii. 43 fv T$ irapa5ei'<ry. Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 4 JipTrd-yn fh 
 rbv irapdSetffov : Apoc. ii. 7 iv rif irapaSe/iry TOV Oeov. 
 
 4 Phil. i. 23 iro\\tf naXXov xpelffffov. 6 Apoc. xiv. 13.
 
 CONDITION OF THE DEPARTED 213 
 
 off of the one and the putting on of the other, no 
 period of disembodied nakedness ; 1 better, if so it 
 might be, that the spiritual body should be super- 
 imposed on the body of this flesh, that this mortal 
 should be swallowed up by the life to be revealed at 
 the Coming of the Lord. But what if death should 
 come to us before the Parousia, and strip us of the 
 flesh before its place can be taken by the incorruptible? 
 Even in that case our confidence in Christ will not 
 have been misplaced. For death will bring us nearer 
 to Him. Here we are in exile, there we shall be at 
 home. At home in the body, we are absent from 
 the Lord ; absent from the body, we shall be with 
 Him. And of the two states we prefer the latter ; 
 better to be with Christ in the nakedness of the 
 disembodied spirit than to be in the body, but away 
 from Christ 2 
 
 "With the Lord," although not as yet in the com- 
 pleteness of human nature. This is the furthest point 
 to which the New Testament carries its revelations 
 of the state of the dead in Christ. Apostolic thought 
 preferred to dwell on the glorious end which the first 
 generation of Christians regarded as imminent ; it 
 was not before the third or fourth generation, when 
 the ever-growing number of the Christian dead already 
 
 1 2 Cor. v. 3 fl ye Kai tvdvff&iLfvoi 06 yv/nvoi evpe6ri<rl>nf6a.. 
 
 2 Ibid. v. 8 fvdoKovfMev juaXXoy tKOTi^jaai IK rov (rui/uaros /ecu i 
 JTPOJ ritv
 
 2H THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 formed a clear majority of the Church, that the 
 problem of the condition of the departed forced 
 itself on the thought of Christendom. Were the 
 spirits of believers received at death into heaven ? 
 or did they await the resurrection in an intermediate 
 state? This was the first question that demanded 
 an answer ; and the answer was given by the Church 
 of the second century with no uncertain voice. An 
 immediate reception into heaven seemed to carry 
 with it the abandonment of belief in the Resurrection 
 of the body, 1 and it gave to the disciple an advantage 
 which the Master had not claimed ; for did not Christ 
 Himself descend into Hades before He ascended into 
 heaven ? 2 Catholic Christians, therefore, from the time 
 of Justin and Irenaeus thought of the souls of the 
 departed as in an expectant attitude which was neither 
 heaven nor hell ; but while all awaited the final judge- 
 ment, the godly awaited it in a better place, and the 
 unrighteous in a worse. " Souls," so Irenaeus teaches, 
 "depart at death into the place appointed for them 
 of God, and there they abide until the Resurrection, 
 when they will take again their bodies, and rise in 
 the completeness of their nature, as the Lord rose ; 
 and so they will come to the sight of God." 3 In 
 Tertullian, who already shews the Latin tendency 
 to stiffen and crystallize beliefs which were still fluid, 
 
 1 Justin, dial. 80. 'Irenaeus, haer. v. 31. if. 
 
 1 Irenaeus, i.e.
 
 CONDITION OF THE DEPARTED 215 
 
 we arrive at the definite statement that " heaven is 
 open to none, while the earth still stands not to say 
 while it is still shut down upon us ; with the passing 
 away of the world the kingdom of heaven will be 
 thrown open." l 
 
 But if there be an intermediate state (or ' place,' as 
 the early writers usually speak), what is the condition 
 of souls while they are there ? This question also 
 Tertullian essays to answer quite definitely in his 
 treatise On the Soul. " Shall we sleep away our time 
 there ? No ; sleep is a state into which the body 
 falls, but not the soul. Even in life the soul can be 
 active while the body is at rest, can suffer when the 
 body feels no pain, and rejoice while the body 
 suffers. So in the state of the dead ; the soul may 
 be in pain or in joy apart from the body. Hence 
 there is no reason to doubt that future rewards and 
 punishments may begin in the intermediate life 
 though it remains for the risen life to experience 
 them in their fulness." 2 In another book Tertullian 
 adds : " The place of the dead is divided, as in the 
 parable, into two regions remote from one another, 
 Hades and Abraham's Bosom. Abraham's Bosom, 
 the abode of the saintly dead, is not Heaven, but it 
 
 1 Tertullian, de anima 55 " nulli patet caelum terra adhuc salva, 
 ne dixerim clausa ; cum transactione enim mundi reserabuntur regna 
 caelorum." 
 
 * Tert. op. cit. 58.
 
 2i6 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 is far above Hades, an intermediate place of refresh- 
 ment for the spirits of the righteous." 1 To the 
 martyrs Tertullian seems to assign a position of 
 greater nearness to Christ, which he calls Paradise, 
 and identifies with the place " under the altar," 
 where St John saw the souls of those who had died 
 for their faith. He has the hardihood to limit to 
 the martyrs St Paul's utterance on the state of all 
 who die in the Lord : " None when he leaves the 
 body is at once ' at home with the Lord,' unless he 
 enjoys the martyr's privilege." 2 
 
 The Alexandrians both modified and amplified 
 these views. A further question presented itself 
 to their acuter minds. Could it be thought that 
 all the Christian dead enjoy, or enjoy at once, 
 the rest and refreshment of Abraham's Bosom ? 
 Must it not be supposed that for many believers, or 
 rather for the majority of them, some further disci- 
 pline is necessary before they can enter into the joy 
 of the .Lord ? Must not the life after death be for 
 most Christians one of progress rather than of per- 
 fection? "A believer," writes Clement of Alexandria, 
 " even after he has left the world, still has to put off 
 his passions, that he may be able to enter the 
 mansion prepared for him. When through much 
 discipline this has been effected, he passes into a 
 mansion which is better than his first abode, his chief 
 
 1 Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 34. a Tert. de resur. carnis, 43.
 
 CONDITION OF THE DEPARTED 217 
 
 punishment there being the special penitence which 
 he must undergo for sins committed after Baptism." 1 
 In another place Clement speaks of this penitence as 
 a fire, which, however, he is careful to add, is not a 
 material flame ; " the Christian teaching is that the 
 . . . fire sanctifies sinful souls, understanding by ' fire ' 
 not the all-devouring flame of common life, but the 
 discerning flame which passes through the soul that 
 walks through fire." z Origen also speaks of a fire 
 which follows death, and extends it to all, not 
 excluding the very chiefest Apostles, who will, how- 
 ever, pass through it unscathed. 8 " My view (he 
 writes) is that the saints, on departing this life, will 
 have their abode in some place within the earth 
 which Holy Scripture calls Paradise, as in a place of 
 higher education or, if I may so say, a lecture room 
 or school of souls, 4 wherein they will receive instruc- 
 tion on all things that they saw upon earth, and also 
 gain some hints as to things that are to follow, and 
 the future, just as in the present life partial instruc- 
 tions as to the future were conveyed to them 
 through a mirror and in riddles ; these are now more 
 
 . Al. strom. vi. 14 (109). 
 
 2 Clem. Al. strom. vii. 6 (34) irvp ov TO tra/j.<f>a.yov nai fidvavaov, 
 dXXo. TO Qpbvifiov \tyovres, rb duKvo6fj.fi>ov did. if/vx^s TTJJ diepxo/jLivr)s 
 7-6 Tri'p. I quote from Mayor and Ilort's translation. 
 
 *Orig. hom. in Ps. xxxii. (iii. i). 
 
 4 " velut in quodam eruditionis loco et, ut ita dixerim, auditorio 
 vel schola animarum."
 
 218 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 plainly and clearly revealed to the saints in places 
 and at seasons proper for that purpose." He adds 
 the interesting suggestion that " if any one is pure in 
 heart, and purer in mind and .of more practised 
 insight" than his brethren, and so makes a more 
 speedy advance than they, he will mount up quickly 
 to the region of the upper air, and reach the celestial 
 realms, passing through the several halting places, 
 which are called by the Greeks ' spheres,' and in 
 Holy Scripture are known as ' the heavens ' ; and at 
 each of these stages in his journey he will acquire 
 fresh knowledge, learning to see, in the first heaven, 
 what passes in that world, and, in the second, the 
 reason for them ; and thus he will make his way 
 through each of the spheres in order, following the 
 steps of Him Who " passed through the heavens," 
 even Jesus the Son of God. 1 
 
 Origen's contemporary, Hippolytus, describes the 
 state of the dead with a minuteness which approaches 
 to the graphic touch of an apocalyptist. 2 "Hades," 
 he writes, " is a region underground, on which the 
 light of the world shines not. ... It is assigned to 
 souls as a place of custody, over which are set angel 
 guards. The righteous are kept in Hades for the 
 present, but not in the same place as the unrighteous; 
 they are brought to a bright region where from the 
 
 1 Orig. de princ. ii. n. 6. 
 
 *See Lagarde, Hippolyti quae ferunttir, p. 68 f.
 
 CONDITION OF THE DEPARTED 219 
 
 first the just have had their dwelling, and where they 
 
 
 
 ever enjoy the sight of the good things before their 
 eyes, and delight in the expectation of the new 
 wonders that from time to time are coming into sight, 
 of which the last are always greater than those that 
 have gone before. To these souls this place brings 
 no fatigue, no scorching heat, no frost ; no thirst is 
 to be found in it. They see the faces of their 
 fathers in the faith and the righteous ever smiling 
 upon them, as they await the rest which is to 
 follow and their endless resurrection-life in heaven. 
 To this region we give the name of Abraham's 
 Bosom." 
 
 Thus, with much variety of detail, the great Chris- 
 tian teachers of the second and third centuries were 
 generally agreed in regarding the dead in Christ as 
 expecting the Resurrection in a state intermediate 
 between earth and heaven, receiving already in part 
 the reward of their faith, but looking for its com- 
 pletion at the Coming of the Lord. Some of these 
 writers add that Christian souls meanwhile under- 
 go discipline if discipline is necessary, or carry on 
 their education for the higher life, receiving additions 
 to their knowledge ; and as their nature grows and 
 ripens under this process, rising to greater heights, 
 and drawing nearer to the fulness of their joy. If 
 some of these early teachers of the Church repre- 
 sented the discipline of souls under the image of fire,
 
 220 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 it was not the fire of penal suffering j to which the 
 figure pointed, but the refining fire of the Spirit, 
 who would thus continue and complete in the saints 
 the work of purification which He had begun on 
 earth. 
 
 2. Prayer is our chief means of fellowship with 
 fellow-Christians who are separated from us by long 
 distances. Our brethren in other lands across the 
 sea pray for us, and we for them ; and this inter- 
 change of prayer is a bond which links together the 
 members of Christ throughout the world. 
 
 If death does not involve a suspension of conscious 
 life, there seems to be no reason why this kind of 
 fellowship should not exist between the living and 
 the departed. It is natural to suppose that departed 
 Saints remember in their prayers those whom they 
 knew on earth, and that those who are still on earth 
 can return the benefit. 
 
 The belief that the departed pray for their brethren 
 on earth found a place among the Jews of the 
 Maccabean age. In 2 Maccabees Onias is seen with 
 outstretched hands invoking blessings on the Jewish 
 nation ; and the prophet Jeremiah is represented as a 
 " lover of the brethren, who prayeth much for the 
 
 *Cf. Dr. Mason's Purgatory, pp. 1-57, for a sketch of the growth of 
 the mediaeval doctrine of an ignis purgatorius, I am indebted to the 
 same work for several of the references given above.
 
 INTERCHANGE OF PRAYER 221 
 
 people of the Holy City." l The New Testament has 
 no exact counterpart, but the prophet of the 
 Apocalypse sees the souls of the martyrs interceding 
 with God for the speedy punishment of the perse- 
 cutors of the Church. 2 In the ancient Church it was 
 a widespread opinion, if not an article of faith, that 
 the dead in Christ pray for the living. Thus Origen, 
 in his tract On Prayer, writes : " Not only does the 
 Great High Priest pray for those who pray sincerely, 
 but they have also the prayers of the Angels, who 
 rejoice over one sinner that repenteth . . . and of the 
 souls of the Saints who have fallen asleep." 8 
 Elsewhere he says that ' all the friends of God, 
 angels and souls and spirits, favour those who are 
 worthy, and co-operate with those who wish to serve 
 God, and pray with them and share their petitions ; 
 insomuch that we may dare to say that thousands of 
 holy powers, without being bidden, join in the prayers 
 of those who choose the better part.' 4 And again : 
 " It will not be wrong to say that all departed saints, 
 retaining their love for those who are still alive, care 
 for their salvation, and help them by their prayers 
 and intercessions." 5 Indeed, so often does Origen 
 
 1 2 Mace. xv. 12 ff. J Apoc. vi. gff. 
 
 9 Orig. de orat. 1 1 otf /JL&VOS 6 Apxifpebs . owei^eTcu, dXXA ical . . . 
 at TWV irpOK(KOifi,irift{v(in> \f/vx.a.i. 
 
 *Orig. adv. Cels. viii. 64 /j.vpta.L foai &K\T)TOI ffwe^xovrat dvvd/j.eis. 
 5 Orig. in cant, canticorum, 3.
 
 222 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 insist on this point 1 that he may be believed to have 
 found in it one of the chief consolations of his 
 laborious and suffering life. There is a touching letter 
 addressed by Cyprian to Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, 
 at a time when both were expecting martyrdom, in 
 which Cyprian pleads : " If one of us goes before the 
 other, let our love for one another be unbroken, when 
 we are with the Lord ; let our prayers for our 
 brethren and sisters be unceasing." 2 A century and a 
 half later, Jerome, writing against Vigilantius, argues : 
 " If the Apostles and martyrs, while still in the body, 
 were able to pray for one another, when they still had 
 need to take thought for themselves, how much the 
 more must they be able to do this, now that they are 
 crowned with victory and triumphant ? Moses gained 
 forgiveness for 600,000 men ; Stephen, the first 
 martyr, begged forgiveness for his murderers. Can 
 their prayers be less effectual, now that they are with 
 Christ ? " 3 No belief which was not actually an 
 article of the faith was more general or more deeply 
 cherished in ancient Christendom. 
 
 But if departed saints pray for the living, can the 
 living reciprocate their prayers ? Are we at liberty 
 
 1 The passages are collected by Kirsch, Doctrine of the Communion 
 of Saints (Eng. tr.), pp. 54-66. 
 
 2 Cyprian, ep. 60. 5 "si quis istuc nostrum .. . praecesserit, per- 
 severet apud dominum nostra dilectio ; pro fratribus et sororibus 
 nostris apud misericordiam patris non cesset oratio." 
 
 'Jerome, adv. Vigilant. 7.
 
 INTERCHANGE OF PRAYER 223 
 
 to remember the dead before God, as the dead, we 
 believe, remember the living ? Can there be between 
 us the fellowship of reciprocal prayer ? 
 
 The Biblical evidence is slight. According to 
 2 Maccabees, Judas Maccabaeus provided for the 
 offering of sacrifices for the good estate of the souls 
 of certain Jews who had fallen in battle fighting for ' 
 their country, but in life had been guilty of idolatrous 
 practices. " Therein," the writer contends, " Judas did 
 right well and honourably, in that he took thought 
 for a resurrection ; for if he had not expected 
 that those who had fallen would rise again, it 
 would have been superfluous and idle to pray for 
 the dead." l The New Testament contains but one 
 petition for a departed saint, but it is a prayer for 
 his acceptance in the day of Christ, and not for 
 his well-being in the intermediate life. 2 The sub- 
 apostolic writings are altogether silent on the subject. 
 But the question whether the prayers of the living 
 avail for the dead is answered with no uncertain 
 voice by Christian antiquity from the end of the 
 second century onwards. 
 
 As the condition of the faithful departed presented 
 itself to the thought of the ancient Church, prayer on 
 
 1 2 Mace. xii. 43 ff. For present Jewish practice, cf. Oesterley and 
 Box, Synagogue, p. 34of. 
 
 8 2 Tim. i. 18 Stpr) aur^ o Kvptos evpew ?Xeos wapa Kvptov lt> ticelvr 
 TTJ r/Mfyp. Both the passages in which Onesiphorus is mentioned in 
 this Epistle (i. 18, v. 19) seem to presuppose his death.
 
 224 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 their behalf could not be regarded as either useless or 
 superfluous. The departed had " migrated to the 
 Lord," and were with Christ ; and so far they were 
 in a state greatly superior to that of their brethren 
 on earth. But they were still, at least in many 
 cases, undergoing spiritual training and discipline, 
 and there was room in their lives, as there is in 
 ours, for progress both intellectual and spiritual, 
 in knowledge and in holiness ; they had not yet 
 attained to the perfection of the risen saints. It 
 was felt that they needed our prayers, as we 
 need theirs. And so the living Church did not 
 hesitate to pray for her dead members, asking for 
 them such things as were believed to be most 
 necessary for their present happiness and eternal 
 salvation. 
 
 Instances of prayer for the faithful departed 
 occur early in the West. At Rome the catacombs 
 offer numerous examples of inscriptions which invite 
 the prayers of the passers by for the deceased, or in 
 which petitions are directly offered on his behalf. 1 
 Thus one epitaph entreats any of the brethren who 
 read it to ask God to ' take to Himself this pure and 
 innocent soul.' " Remember dear Agatha," another 
 begs, " that Almighty God may keep her for ever." 
 
 1 See Marucchi, Christian Epigraphy (Eng. tr.), p. 156. Cf. the 
 epitaph written for his own tomb by Avircius of Hierapolis, in which 
 he begs, TaC0' o vo>v e#cu0' inrtp aurov rras 6 ffvvydfa.
 
 INTERCHANGE OF PRAYER 225 
 
 Others run : " Jesus, Lord, remember our child " ; 
 " God refresh thy spirit " ; " in peace be thy spirit." 
 These are the simple, unreproved outpourings of 
 Christian hearts, of bereaved husbands and wives, 
 fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, among the 
 Roman laity of the second and third centuries. If 
 we pass from Rome to Carthage, we learn from 
 Tertullian what the official Church was doing about 
 the same time. Between death and burial the 
 presbyter was called in to pray for the departed soul. 1 
 Year by year on the anniversary of death the 
 Eucharist was offered for the deceased. 2 In Ter- 
 tullian's judgement it is an argument against second 
 marriages that the widower must remember in prayer 
 and Eucharist the dead wife as well as the living, 
 and thus " stands before the Lord with as many 
 wives as he prays or offers for." 3 The offering of the 
 Eucharistic sacrifice for the dead is a feature of 
 Christian life which frequently appears in the letters 
 of Cyprian. 4 Whether the intercession for the dead 
 had in his time become a part of the canon of the 
 mass is not so certain ; but early in the fourth 
 century Arnobius speaks of such intercessions as 
 
 1 Tert. de antrna, 5'- 
 
 *Tert. de coron. 3 "oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis, annua 
 die facimus." 
 
 8 Tert. de exh. cast. 51 ; de mono?. 10. 
 See Studio. Biblica, iv. 284 f.
 
 226 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 already holding a fixed place in the public worship 
 of the Western Church. 1 
 
 As to the form of the Eucharistic intercession for 
 the dead, we have no evidence earlier than the middle 
 years of the fourth century. At the Easter of 348 
 Cyril of Jerusalem gave the newly baptized a lecture 
 on the Eucharist, in which he says : " We remember 
 also those that have fallen asleep in times past, 
 patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, that through 
 their prayers and intercessions God may accept our 
 supplications. Then we pray also for the holy 
 fathers and bishops and for all who before our times 
 have fallen asleep, believing that the greatest service 
 will be rendered to the souls for which supplication 
 is offered in the presence of the holy and aweful 
 Sacrifice." 2 An Egyptian contemporary of Cyril, 
 Sarapion of Thmuis, has left us the actual words 
 prescribed, as it seems, for use in his diocese : after 
 the reading of a list of names, the priest says : 
 " Sanctify these souls, for thou knowest all souls ; 
 sanctify all souls that rest in the Lord, and number 
 them with all Thy holy powers, and give them a 
 place and mansion in Thy kingdom." Another 
 
 1 Arnobius, adv. nat. iv. 36 " in quibus [conventiculis] . . . pax cunctis 
 et venia postulatur, adhuc vitam degentibus et resolutis corporum 
 vinctione. " At Rome the memento etiam formed no part of the fixed 
 canon till a later date (Srawley, Early History of the Liturgy, pp. 184, 
 212). 
 
 Cyril. Hieros. catech. myst. v. 9.
 
 INTERCHANGE OF PRAYER 227 
 
 fourth century form, that of the Apostolical Constitu- 
 tions, runs : " We offer to Thee on behalf of all who 
 have pleased Thee well, since the world began : holy 
 patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, 
 bishops, priests, deacons . . . laymen, and all whose 
 names Thou knowest." * 
 
 It will be observed that the 'tone of these early 
 forms is singularly reserved ; there is nothing in 
 them that corresponds to the bold flights of 
 Tertullian, Clement, and Origen. The early Church, 
 in her official utterances, was content to commend 
 her dead to God, in whose sight they were still alive ; 
 if she asked for them any particular gift, it was 
 simply peace or refreshment, or growth in knowledge 
 or in holiness. The later Greek liturgies are some- 
 what more explicit, but still keep clear of the dangers 
 of over-specification. Thus the liturgy of St James 
 prays : " Refresh them Thyself in the land of the 
 living, in Thy Kingdom, in the luxury of Paradise, in 
 the Bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whence 
 pain and grief and sighing have fled away ; where the 
 light of Thy countenance visits them and shines for 
 evermore." 2 Similarly the liturgy of St Mark : 
 " Refresh them in the habitation of Thy saints, 
 granting them the good things that Thou hast 
 promised, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, . . . 
 
 1 Ed. Brightman in J. T.S. i. p. 106. 
 
 * Brightman, Liturgies, Eastern and Western, i. p. 57.
 
 228 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 and count them worthy of the kingdom of heaven." l 
 The Roman Memento etiam, it has been pointed out, is 
 not part of the early Roman canon ; yet its reserve is 
 worthy of the best age: "Remember also, O Lord, 
 Thy servants, men and women, who have gone 
 before us with the seal of faith and sleep of peace. 
 Grant, Lord, we pray Thee, to these and to all who 
 rest in Christ a place of refreshment, light, and 
 peace." 2 
 
 In these Eucharistic prayers for the dead there is 
 nothing to favour the idea which began to possess 
 the Western Church from the time of Augustine, 
 that penal suffering awaits the great majority of 
 Christians in the intermediate state. The word 
 " refreshment " (refrigerium}> which occurs both in 
 epitaphs and in liturgical prayers of an early date, 
 means no more than rest from earthly toil and 
 suffering, or the revival of the spiritual life which 
 follows departure ; or at most, relaxation of the 
 discipline which may be necessary in the case of 
 those who before death have advanced but a little 
 way in the life of God. 3 Purgatorial fire in the later 
 sense is not in view even in liturgies which in their 
 
 1 L.E.W. i. p. 129. 
 
 1 Missalc Romanum of 1474, ed. Lippe, i. p. 208. 
 
 3 Cf. Ronsch, Itala u. Vulgata, pp. 33, 321 f. ; for the use of 
 refrtgerium in the Vulgate see esp. Ps. Ixv. 12 ; Acts iii. 19 (nv 
 &vd\ffvi-it) ; Wisdom iv. 7 (iivi.ira.vffa).
 
 INTERCHANGE OF PRAYER 229 
 
 present form must be much later than the fourth 
 century. 
 
 The Church of England at the Reformation was 
 slow to abandon the public use of prayers for the 
 departed. The Bishops' Book, while warning the 
 people of England against the " abuses which under 
 the name of purgatory have been advanced," says that 
 " it standeth with the very due order of charity that 
 Christian men should pray for the souls departed, 
 and commit them in our prayers to God's mercy " ; 
 and the King's Book follows the same train of 
 thought. 1 Nor does Cranmer seem to have enter- 
 tained any doubt upon the subject so late as 1549, 
 when the first English Order of Holy Communion 
 contained a commendation of the departed to the 
 mercy of God based upon the Memento of the 
 Roman and Sarum canon. Yet in the Second 
 Book of 1552 all prayers for the faithful departed 
 disappeared. 2 Between 1549 and 1552 Bucer's 
 Centura had condemned prayers for the dead, 
 chiefly on the ground that "when prayer is made 
 for the departed that God will grant them His 
 mercy and eternal peace, the vulgar, without excep- 
 tion, think it to mean that the departed still want 
 that peace." It is difficult to disconnect Cranmer's 
 
 1 Formularies of Faith (Oxf. 1856), pp. aiof., 375 f. 
 
 8 In 1662 prayer for the departed reappeared in the very modified 
 form " that with them we may be partakers of Thy heavenly kingdom."
 
 230 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 change of front in this matter from the counsel 
 of this foreign divine ; l but whether through Bucer's 
 influence or not, the fact remains that the ancient 
 prayers for the dead vanished from the English 
 Prayerbook in 1552. An attempt was made in the 
 same year to condemn the practice in the Articles of 
 Religion, but the words were struck out of the draft 
 before it was accepted by Convocation, and they 
 have never been restored. It is thus left open to 
 members of the English Church to exercise their 
 discretion in this matter at their private devotions at- 
 home or in Church, and there is evidence that this 
 liberty has been used by some of the wisest and best 
 sons of the Church from the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century onwards. 2 At the present day it is 
 used by a large minority, or perhaps even a majority 
 of well-instructed Churchmen, who at the same time 
 loyally acquiesce in the exclusion of prayers for the 
 departed from the authorized forms of public worship 
 until such time as it shall please God to restore them 
 to us. 
 
 3. A further question arises in connexion with the 
 communion of the living with the dead in the 
 Church of Christ. If the Saints in Paradise inter- 
 cede for their brethren on earth, may not the Church 
 
 1 Cf. Dowden, Workmanship of the Prayerbook, p. 42. 
 'See Wickham Legg, English Church Life, p. 3l5ff.
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 231 
 
 on earth ask the prayers of those who are with the 
 Lord? 
 
 On this point Scripture is altogether silent, unless 
 the appeal in Benedicite to the " spirits and souls of 
 the righteous )(1 is to be regarded as a true invocation. 
 But the invocation in this case is not a request for 
 prayer, and Benedicite does not belong to the 
 Hebrew canon. Early Christian literature is also 
 silent ; there is no reference to the practice in Justin, 
 Irenaeus, or Tertullian, or in any writer before 
 Origen ; and Origen's witness is at least ambiguous. 2 
 The catacombs, it is true, supply epitaphs in which 
 the prayers of departed relatives and friends are 
 desired ; such words as " pray for thy brothers and 
 comrades," " pray for thy parents . . . for thy chil- 
 dren ... for the pardon of our sins," are not uncom- 
 mon. 8 They express the natural and innocent desire 
 of simple people to be remembered in the prayers of 
 their nearest and dearest, whom they believed to be 
 with Christ. If " the supplication of a righteous 
 man availeth much," 4 and his intercession may be 
 
 1 Dan. iii. 86 (LXX) a passage where sun and moon, cold and heat, 
 the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, are similarly invoked. 
 
 1 In his tract on Prayer (xiv. 6) Origen claims that supplications may 
 be addressed to saints such as Peter and John for their help ; but there 
 is nothing to show that he is thinking of the departed. His phrase 
 &K\rjToi ffwetixovrat (see above, p. 22 1 ) does not encourage this view. 
 
 See Marucchi, Christian Epigraphy (Eng. tr.), p. 151 ft". ; Cabrol, 
 Dictionnaire, iii. 2, col. 2452 ff. 
 
 *James v. 16.
 
 232 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 asked while he is still on earth, there is no prima 
 facie reason why those who believe their departed 
 friends to be within reach of their words should not 
 desire the prayers of those who are with the Lord. 
 
 Nor is it easy to see why objection should be 
 taken to petitions addressed to God that He will be 
 pleased to hear the prayers of the saints at rest for 
 those who are still in the flesh. Such petitions, as 
 we learn from Cyril, had a place in the liturgy of 
 Jerusalem before the middle of the fourth century : 
 " We remember," he tells his neophytes in a passage 
 already quoted, " those who have fallen asleep, that 
 God may through their prayers and intercession 
 receive our supplication." l There is much of this 
 kind in the ancient service books, both of East and 
 West ; and though such petitions may appear to us 
 to occupy too large a space in the unreformed offices, 
 they do not seem to be wrong in principle. Less 
 can be said for the rhetorical appeals to the dead 
 which are found in the homilies of the great Greek 
 preachers of the second half of the fourth century. 
 When (e.g.} Gregory of Nazianzus implores Cyprian 
 to look upon him with favour, to direct his words 
 and his life, and to grant him a fuller understanding 
 of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, 2 we feel that, 
 
 1 Cyril. Hieros. catech. myst. v. 9 STTWS 6 0eis TCUJ ei/x a ' s avrwr /rai 
 irpefffitiats irpocrSf^rjTai r)fj.wv rty 
 'Gregory Naz. or. xxiv. ad fin.
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 233 
 
 apart from the questionable taste of such words, they 
 approach dangerously near to a superstitious cult of 
 a departed saint. 
 
 Such a cult was, in fact, overtaking the Church in 
 the fourth century. The martyrs had begun to 
 receive undue honour. An early and simple piety 
 made the tombs of the martyrs, almost from the 
 first, places of resort for devout Christians ; and at 
 their memoriae, as the tombs were called, the Eucharist 
 was celebrated on the martyrs' natalitia^ the days of 
 their birth by martyrdom into the higher life. When 
 the last persecution was over, the martyrs, to whose 
 ranks no additions could henceforth be made, were 
 regarded with growing veneration, and special efficacy 
 was attributed to their intercession. Even the 
 greatest leaders of the Church did not hesitate to 
 impress upon men's minds the necessity of seeking 
 aid from those who had died for their faith. "When 
 you see that you are under Divine punishment 
 (Chrysostom urges), flee to those friends of God, the 
 martyrs." z In the West Ambrose pleads : " Let us 
 not blush to use the martyrs as intercessors for our 
 frailty, for they know what infirmity means, though 
 they have overcome it." 3 " The Church," says 
 
 *Tert. de corona, 3. Cf. the Martyrdom of Polycarp, 18 ; Cyprian, 
 e P- 39- 3 " martyrum passiones et dies anniversaria commemoratione 
 celebramus. " 
 
 8 Chrysostom, or. adv. Jud. 8. * Ambrose, de viduis, g.
 
 234 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 Augustine, "does not pray for the martyrs, as she 
 does for the rest of the departed, but rather seeks their 
 prayers. Their intercession avails for us because 
 they are with Christ the great Intercessor, and join 
 their prayers to His. Our Lord Jesus Christ inter- 
 cedes for us ; all the martyrs who are with Him 
 intercede for us." J 
 
 Augustine's mind was too acute to overlook 
 the practical difficulty which is raised by invoca- 
 tion. The martyrs may intercede for us, as Origen 
 says, " unbidden " ; but how can we convey to them 
 our desire that they should do so ? We have no 
 certain means of communication with the departed. 
 They are, happily for themselves, removed from the 
 sights and sounds of the world, and if it were not so, 
 there is no guarantee that they can hear petitions 
 offered to them, perhaps simultaneously, in every 
 part of the globe. Augustine is driven to the con- 
 clusion that the desires of the faithful are communi- 
 cated to the martyrs and other departed saints either 
 by the ministry of angels, or by the Holy Spirit ; 
 but he admits that the problem passes his under- 
 standing. 2 From other teachers of the ancient 
 Church more ambitious solutions have come. Jerome 
 supposes that souls which follow the Lamb whither- 
 
 1 Aug. strm. clix. I. 
 
 1 Aug. enchirid. 1 10 ; enarr. in Pss. Ixxxv. ; term. 280 ; dt 
 cura pro morltus, 16-19.
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 235 
 
 soever He goes, acquire a kind of ubiquity. 1 Gregory 
 the Great conjectures that saints who have attained 
 to the beatific vision see in the light of God all 
 things that happen in creation ; " what is there they 
 know not, since they know Him Who knoweth all 
 things ? " 2 This view was adopted by more than one 
 of the great Schoolmen ; thus Peter Lombard writes : 
 " It is not incredible that the souls of the saints, in 
 contemplating the Face of God, understand the 
 things that are done in the outer world, so far as 
 such knowledge is necessary to their joy or to our 
 obtaining of their aid." 3 Aquinas draws the con- 
 clusion that prayer should be addressed only to 
 saints who are already in heaven ; those who are 
 in purgatory do not yet enjoy the vision of God, 
 and therefore are not yet cognizant of the petitions 
 offered to them. This, the logical outcome of 
 Gregory's theory, was also in accordance with the 
 practice which had prevailed throughout the Church 
 for many centuries, of addressing invocations only 
 to the greater saints, of whom it could be said with 
 certainty that they were reigning with Christ in 
 heaven. But the doctrine, as Aquinas states it, has 
 no support either from the New Testament or from 
 
 1 Jerome, adv. Vigilant. 6. "si Agnus ubique, ergo et hi qui cum 
 Agno sunt ubique esse credendi sunt" an amazing logic. 
 
 2 See Dudden, Gregory the Great, ii. p. 370. 
 
 3 Peter Lombard, Sent. iv. dist. 45, 6.
 
 236 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 primitive Christianity. That certain of the saints 
 are already in heaven while the rest remain in an 
 intermediate state of purgatorial discipline is no 
 part of the Apostolic tradition, which represents 
 all who die in the Lord as already with Him, 
 not indeed in their final rest, but awaiting it in 
 Paradise. 
 
 The theory of Invocation, then, as it was main- 
 tained by the great mediaeval divines, rests on 
 unproved assumptions that involve difficulties for 
 which no adequate solution has been found. This 
 is, of course, not fatal to the theory, which may 
 nevertheless be wholly or partly true. We must 
 now retrace our steps, and consider the rise and 
 growth of the practice of Invocation in the public 
 services of the Church. 
 
 In Cyril's account of the fourth century liturgy of 
 Jerusalem a distinction is already drawn, as we have 
 seen, between the greater saints and the rest of the 
 departed ; for the latter prayer is offered, while the 
 former are simply commemorated in the hope that God 
 may hear their intercessions on behalf of the living. 
 This belief in the ' comprecation ' of the living 
 and the departed shews itself in many ancient forms 
 both Eastern and Western, which supplicate the 
 mercy of God on the ground of the prayers and 
 intercessions offered for the suppliants by the Saints, 
 or by the particular Saint who is commemorated at
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 237 
 
 the time. Thus the Liturgy of St James prays, 
 " Remember, O Lord our God, ... all thy Saints from 
 the beginning of the world . . . that standing by Thy 
 aweful tribunal they for their part may recall our sad 
 condition, and we may find grace and mercy before 
 Thee, O Lord, for help in time of need." l Similarly, 
 in the Roman canon the oblation is offered " for all 
 the Saints . . . that they may deign to intercede for 
 us in heaven," and further on, after mention of the 
 Apostles and certain others of the greater Saints, 
 there comes the prayer that God would grant to their 
 merits and prayers that we may in all things be 
 fortified by the aid of His protecting care. 2 Most of 
 the Western collects for Saints' days are constructed 
 on the same principle, asking the Divine mercy and 
 protection in answer to the prayers of the Saint 
 whose festival is being kept. 
 
 So far there is no direct invocation of the Saints 
 who are with God. There seems to be no doubt 
 that invocation in the stricter sense began in the 
 litanies with the simple petition Ora (or orate) pro 
 nobis, repeated by the people after each name or each 
 group of names recited by the priest. The origin of 
 the Western litany has been traced by the greatest of 
 living English liturgical scholars to Constantinople, 8 
 
 1 Brightman, L.E. W. i. p. 57. 
 
 2 Miss. Rom. ed. Lippe, i. pp. 201, 207. 
 *Edo, Bishop, Kyrie eleison, p. 23.
 
 238 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 whence this popular form of devotion came to 
 Rome towards the end of the fifth century. At 
 first the litany consisted solely of the Kyrie eleison, 
 varied with Christe eleison, and repeated in some 
 instances a hundred times. Later on, perhaps shortly 
 before the eighth century, the monotony of the Kyrie 
 was relieved by the introduction of other petitions, 
 followed by the responses Libera nos Domt'ne, Te 
 rogamus, Audi nos, and especially by Ora pro nobis 
 said after the name of some great or locally dis- 
 tinguished saint. There is evidence that in England 
 about the middle of the eighth century the names 
 of Gregory the Great and Augustine of Canterbury 
 were thus recited, 1 and a MS. of the early eighth 
 or late seventh century survives in which Gregory 
 is thus invoked. 2 
 
 Ora pro nobis, then, cannot, so far as our present 
 knowledge goes, be traced further back than the last 
 years of the seventh century. Moreover, the litany 
 of the Saints " at first was a private devotion " rather 
 than an official service of the Church. In the earlier 
 litanies the list of the saints invoked was not long ; 
 the Stowe missal contains thirteen names ; the MS. 
 litany already mentioned, besides Scriptural names, 
 has twenty-eight martyrs and ecclesiastical saints. 
 
 1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. p. 368. 
 
 1 See H. F. Stewart, Doctrina Romanensium, p. 77 f. ; cf. Warren, 
 Bangor Antiphonary, \\. p. 89, where this MS. litany is printed.
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 239 
 
 Later litanies shew a larger number ; the Sarum 
 forms give an average of thirty to forty names ; 
 of the Primer litanies of Henry VIII.'s reign one 
 has sixty, and another eighty-six. 1 
 
 No form of direct invocation addressed to the 
 departed could in itself be more innocent than the 
 Ora pro nobis. There is in the words no worship 
 of the saint addressed nothing more than a simple 
 request for his prayers. If it does not derogate from 
 the sufficiency of our Lord's intercession to ask the 
 prayers of a living friend, on what principle can a 
 request for the prayers of a departed member of 
 Christ be thought to do so? Two considerations, 
 however, place Ora in another light. In the first 
 place, it forms in the litany part of a religious act ; 
 the saints are invoked, not indeed in the same terms 
 as God and Christ there is a marked difference 
 but in the same act of solemn devotion. When to 
 this we add that the cult of the Saints had by the 
 seventh century acquired a dominating influence in 
 the life of the Church, it is evident that the constant 
 invocation of these patrons and advocates of the 
 living in the most popular of liturgical forms could 
 not have failed to turn the thoughts of the unlearned 
 from the ^ One Mediator and to fix them on a host 
 of secondary intercessors. In these circumstances 
 Archbishop Cranmer is hardly to be blamed for 
 
 1 Three Primers (Oxf. 1848), pp. 124 ff., 38* ff.
 
 240 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 having in 1549 removed from the English litany 
 the vestiges of the Ora which had been left there 
 five years before. 1 The first English Prayerbook, 
 while retaining prayers for the departed, abandoned 
 all invocations except those addressed to the Holy 
 Trinity. Further, the English Articles of 1553, while 
 they left without censure the private use of prayers 
 for the dead, though they had been excluded from 
 the English public services in 1552, explicitly con- 
 demned " the doctrine of the school-authors con- 
 cerning the Invocation of Saints." In 1563 "the 
 doctrine of the school-authors" was changed into 
 " the Romish doctrine " (doctrina Romanensium) a 
 circumstance from which it has been inferred that 
 the revisers of that year withdrew the censure pro- 
 nounced in 1552 against the scholastic doctrine of 
 Invocation, condemning only the popular Roman 
 teaching of a later date. But a careful investi- 
 gation of the facts by the late Bishop of Salis- 
 bury (Dr. John Wordsworth) seems to have proved 
 that 'Romish' in the 1563 Article means simply 
 ' as accepted and practised in the Roman com- 
 munion,' and refers, in all probability, to a decree of 
 the Council of Trent passed in 1562, in which the 
 priest is said to implore at mass the patronage of 
 
 ' The English litany of 1544 reduced the invocations to three, 
 addressed severally to St Mary, to the Angels and Archangels, and 
 to the great saints (without specifying any names).
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 241 
 
 the Saints, that they may vouchsafe to intercede for 
 us in heaven. 1 
 
 It would appear, then, that while the Church of 
 England has left the offering of prayers for the 
 departed optional, so far as regards the private 
 devotions of her members, and has not actually 
 forbidden the indirect invocations based on the 
 doctrine of comprecation, she has since 1563 con- 
 demned, root and branch, the practice of directly 
 invoking the Saints. It is, in her judgement, " a fond 
 thing" (res futilis\ "vainly invented and grounded on 
 no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the 
 Word of God " (imo verbo Dei contradicit). ' Futile, ' 
 because there is no solid ground for the belief that 
 the Saints with Christ can hear our requests ; ' repug- 
 nant to the Word of God,' since in practice it cannot 
 be reconciled with the Scriptural doctrine of the sole 
 mediation of Christ 
 
 It must be admitted that in coming to this con- 
 clusion our Church has departed from the later use 
 both of East and West. But the practice of direct 
 invocation cannot be said to be in the strictest sense 
 Catholic ; it does not answer to the Vincentian 
 canon ; it has no root in the Apostolic tradition or 
 in the practice of the Ante-Nicene Church ; it did not 
 take shape in the liturgical services of Christendom 
 
 1 Bp J. Wordsworth, Invocation of Saints and the Twenty-Second 
 Article, p, 36 ff. 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 until the darkness of the earlier Middle Age had 
 begun to settle down upon Europe. Experience has 
 shewn that it has exerted upon churches in which it 
 has prevailed an influence far from salutary. The 
 simple and comparatively innocuous Ora has opened 
 the door to devotions which are practically a return 
 to a form of polytheism. " They say to the Blessed 
 Virgin (writes Bishop Andrewes) not only Ora pro 
 nobis, but Succurre miseris, iuva pusillanimes, refove 
 flebiles, accipe quod offerimus, dona quod rogamus, 
 excusa quod timemus" * It was in vain that the 
 Council of Trent sought to distinguish between 
 prayers offered to the Saints and those offered to 
 God, and to restrain those who exceeded what the 
 theologians held to be the legitimate use of Invoca- 
 tion. The tide of Saint-cultus, and especially of 
 the cult of the Blessed Virgin, has steadily rolled on, 
 until the ancient comprecation and the sober invo- 
 cations of the litanies are left far behind : " no one 
 (writes Dr. Pusey) can look uncontroversially at ... 
 such books as The Glories of Mary or The Month of 
 Mary and say that the character of the modern 
 reliance on and invocation of Saints was that of the 
 ancient Church." - 
 
 No one who realizes the doctrine of the Com- 
 munion of Saints can doubt that the saints in 
 
 1 Andrewes, in A.C. Library, p. 76 ff. 
 
 2 Pusey, Eirenicon, p. 112.
 
 INVOCATION OF SAINTS 243 
 
 Paradise pray for us who are upon earth. To quote 
 Dr. Pusey again, " the intercession of the saints 
 departed and at rest, for us who are still militant, is 
 part of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, 
 and would be a necessary consequence of God-given 
 love, even if it did not appear from Holy Scripture. 
 The contrary is inconceivable. . . . Great indeed is 
 the thought of that glorious company in all their 
 different orders, whether, as the blessed Angels, they 
 never fell, or as the Saints, with whom God has 
 been filling up their broken ranks, they, ' secure 
 of their own salvation, are anxious as to our 
 salvation ' (Cypr. de mortal?). And as the world 
 grows old, and the strife with unbelief becomes 
 more deadly, and perhaps the last conflict is drawing 
 on, year by year the number of those increases 
 who, beholding God, pray for us militant on 
 earth. ' They that be with us are more than they 
 that are against us.' But the truth of the interces- 
 sion of the inhabitants of Heaven is ... distinct from 
 their invocation. Nay it would, in itself, rather 
 seem to supersede it. For we do not ask any one 
 to do what we are quite sure that he does without 
 our asking." 
 
 The intercession of the Saints at rest is a legiti- 
 mate and necessary consequence of the fellowship in 
 prayer which unites the whole body of Christ. The 
 invocation of departed Saints is a practice based
 
 244 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 upon this truth, which is neither primitive nor 
 universal, and which has been found to be dangerous. 
 It is earnestly to be hoped that no false sentiment 
 may lead members of the English Church who 
 realize the need of closer communion with the holy 
 dead to fall back upon so precarious a way of 
 attaining it.
 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS IN THE 
 LIFE TO COME 
 
 HITHERTO we have thought of the Communion of 
 Saints as it exists among members of the Church on 
 earth, or between the living and the dead in Christ. 
 It remains to consider it as it finds a place in the life 
 beyond, in the relations of the departed to the 
 departed, and in the risen life. We begin with the 
 fellowship which departed Saints have one with 
 another in the Church expectant. 
 
 I. In one of the finest passages of Plato's great 
 Apology Socrates is represented as setting forth 
 alternative views of the condition of the dead. 1 To 
 die, he says, is one of two things : either the dead 
 have ceased to exist and have no perception of any- 
 thing, or death is simply the passing of the soul from 
 one sphere of being to another. He urges that in 
 either case to die is gain, for in the one it brings the 
 unbroken rest of an eternal night, while in the other 
 
 1 Plato, apol. 32 (40*).
 
 246 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 it introduces us into a world where we shall find all 
 the dead. And (continues the condemned and dying 
 sage) what greater good can there be than this ? Set 
 free from the false judgements of men, to find your- 
 self among the judges who are said to hold assize in 
 that world, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and others 
 who in their lifetime have attained to righteousness ; 
 to converse with such men as Orpheus and Musaeus, 
 Hesiod and Homer ! For my part (he adds) I 
 would fain die often, if death really brings all this. 
 What a wonderful life it must be where one will 
 meet all the men of old time who have died by 
 unjust sentences ! Who would not welcome the 
 opportunity of putting questions to the hero who led 
 the great army to Troy, or to Ulysses or Sisyphus, 
 or thousands of others who can be interrogated there, 
 both men and women ? No happiness can be com- 
 pared with that of conversing with such souls, and 
 associating with them and asking them questions. 
 
 A Christian Socrates might draw a yet nobler 
 picture of the fellowship of Christian souls in the 
 world of spirits. What must it be to the faithful to 
 meet and hold converse with patriarchs, prophets, 
 apostles, martyrs, saints, whose names are house- 
 hold words in all Christian lands ! What joy to 
 the Christian scholar to find himself in fellowship 
 with Clement and Origen, Cyprian and Augustine, 
 Anselm and Bernard, Eckart and Tauler, Hooker and
 
 IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 247 
 
 Andrewes, John Keble and John Henry Newman, to 
 name only a few of the great saintly intellects that 
 have gone before : to learn from them, to hold com- 
 munion with them, as spirit with spirit, in the sight 
 of the Master of all, in the abode of the just made 
 perfect ? Who would not, as Plato has made 
 Socrates say, die many times over, if death brings us 
 all this ? 
 
 But is such a communion of spirit with spirit 
 possible apart from a bodily organism ? We who 
 have never been " out of the body," cannot imagine 
 intercourse without speech, without tongue or 
 hand or brain ; nor can we understand how indi- 
 viduals can be even identified when they have no 
 bodily forms to distinguish them. Some early 
 Christian writers sought to meet this difficulty by 
 supposing that the soul retains after death some kind 
 of form which recalls the features of the living man. 
 Irenaeus, reminding himself that Lazarus in the 
 parable recognizes the Rich man, considers that the 
 Lord clearly teaches that the soul preserves some 
 imprint of the body with which it was associated in 
 life. 1 From the same parable Tertullian argues that 
 the sufferings of the Rich man in Hades imply 
 corporeity, since an incorporeal existence cannot feel 
 pain. The soul, he concludes, has a corporeity of its 
 
 1 Iren. haer. ii. 34. I " characterem corporis in quo etiam adaptantur 
 custodire eundem."
 
 248 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 own, distinct from the body it has put off; 1 and he 
 finds support for this view in a vision granted to a 
 Montanist prophetess, who saw a spirit clothed in 
 some sort of body, tender and bright and of the hue 
 of the atmosphere, but retaining the human shape. 2 
 This idea has not altogether passed from the modern 
 Church ; so generally sober a theologian as the 
 Danish Bishop Martensen supposes " some inter- 
 mediate kind of corporeity in the realm of the dead"; 3 
 and there are those who imagine that the spiritual 
 body of the Resurrection is assumed immediately 
 after death. 
 
 Such theories cannot be substantiated, and happily 
 are not necessary to a belief in the fellowship of 
 departed souls. Modern research goes to shew that 
 even between those who are still in the body some 
 kind of communication is possible without the aid of 
 the bodily organism. If there is truth in telepathy, 
 neither speech nor the written word is essential to 
 intercourse between mind and mind. And if this is 
 so on occasions in the case of minds which ordinarily 
 work through the organs of the body, it may well be 
 that disembodied spirits possess means of communi- 
 cation which are entirely independent of the senses. 
 
 1 Tert. de resur. carnis, 17 ; de anitfta, 7. The soul, he says, is in a 
 sense corporalis : " habet corpulentiam propriam." 
 2 Tert. de antma, 9. 
 'Martensen, Christian Dogmatics (Eng. tr.), p. 461.
 
 IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 249 
 
 That some means of mutual recognition and fellow- 
 ship are provided for those who are with the Lord 
 can scarcely be doubted by any one who realizes what 
 the alternative must be the isolation of each of the 
 dead in Christ from all his brethren who are with 
 him in the same Presence : the suspension through 
 vast intervals of time of that fellowship which, next 
 to union with Christ, is the most fruitful of all the 
 spiritual blessings of our life on earth. 
 
 Intercourse then between the blessed dead there 
 surely must be, however it may be brought about : 
 exchanges of high thought and purpose, happy 
 memories and glorious hopes. Nor can we doubt 
 that they have a common worship : a worship not 
 limited, as ours must be, by place and time, or 
 accompanied by the accessories which are needful or 
 expedient in our case, such as solemn ceremonial and 
 set forms of prayer and praise, and vocal and instru- 
 mental music, but rising to the throne of God without 
 such aids by the mere force of the union of hearts 
 which are all and always in full accord with each 
 other and with the will of God. The Eucharist as a 
 visible Sacrament has ceased, but its place is taken 
 by the perpetual sacrifice of praise and thanks- 
 giving, and by a permanent spiritual Presence com- 
 pared with which the Eucharistic Presence is but the 
 occasional realization of an invisible Christ. And 
 with common worship they have also (can we doubt
 
 250 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 it ?) common work ; for if " they rest from their 
 labours," yet " their works follow with them." l Toil 
 is at an end, work remains ; and work no longer 
 carried on, as much of the best work on earth must 
 be, in secret, or amongst unsympathetic surroundings, 
 but by the whole conclave, as with one mind and 
 one heart they do the will of God. Such work as 
 they can do must indeed be purely spiritual, but it 
 need not on that account lack reality or greatness. 
 When a Christian worker is taken from us, we are 
 accustomed to say that God has called him to labour 
 in another part of His vineyard ; that he has been 
 moved from a lower ministry to a higher. And this 
 way of speaking, the outcome of a Christian instinct 
 rather than a belief derived from Scripture or tra- 
 dition, is probably not far from the literal truth. It 
 is inconceivable that the Great Master has no work 
 for His servants who have passed through the pre- 
 paratory discipline of life, during the ages which 
 must roll by while they wait for the completion of 
 the number of the elect. What may be the nature 
 of this work of these ministries we cannot even 
 imagine ; but it is such, we may reasonably suppose, 
 as to exercise all the energies of redeemed souls, 
 and to fulfil some important purpose in the Divine 
 economy. It may vary according to the powers and 
 
 1 Apoc. xiv. 13 &va.ira-fi<roi>Ta.i K TWV K^TTWV afouiv' rd. yiip fpya 
 afrruv d.KO\ovOti per' avrav. Cf. the note in my Apocalypse, p. 188.
 
 IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 251 
 
 capacities of individuals, or according to the callings 
 which they followed on earth ; the spiritual sphere 
 may offer opportunities for pursuing, mutatis mutandis, 
 the course which each soul has mainly followed here : 
 the man of affairs, the explorer, the student, the 
 priest, the statesman, may each find some analogous 
 pursuit which will employ in higher fields of work 
 the habits of thought or action acquired during their 
 earthly life. On the other hand it will be seen, as it 
 is not seen here, that these many occupations are the 
 common work of all, that with this diversity of opera- 
 tions there is in all One Spirit, working in all for 
 one great end, the glory of God. The fellowship of 
 work will be realized there as it cannot be in this 
 life. The vast and ever-growing multitude of the 
 holy dead, gathered from every age and country, 
 forms an army of workers who serve the same Master 
 and are conscious of one aim. 
 
 How far the common work and worship of the 
 saints with Christ may affect the wellbeing of souls 
 still on earth we do not know. That we have the 
 benefit of their intercession in a general way cannot 
 be doubted ; but whether they are aware of circum- 
 stances which have arisen since their departure and 
 can therefore pray for us in detail, is at least uncer- 
 tain. Still more open to question is the notion that 
 particular saints act as patrons of individuals or 
 churches. It is at least precarious to build on so
 
 252 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 insecure a foundation, especially if the edifice raised 
 upon it covers a great part of the Christian life. 
 But our refusal to follow Latin Christianity in this 
 line of things ought not to deter us from the 
 endeavour to realize the Communion of Saints which, 
 we have every reason to think, exists among the 
 faithful departed. The life beyond is so near us, 
 so many of our friends are there already, and we 
 ourselves are so soon to cross the border that it is 
 of no little importance to assure ourselves that the 
 fellowship which is begun here is continued there in 
 the intercourse of personal converse, and of common 
 worship and work. 
 
 2. If the faithful departed already possess a fellow- 
 ship such as has been described, what, it may be 
 asked, remains to be realized in the risen life ? What 
 can the Resurrection add to the intercourse of the 
 blessed who are now with Christ, or to their com- 
 munion in worship or in service? 
 
 Eternal life is sometimes represented in the New 
 Testament as a present possession of believers. " He 
 that believeth on the Son hath eternal life " ; or, 
 more concisely, "he that hath the Son hath the 
 life." 1 He already has the Spirit of Christ ; " the body 
 is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because 
 of righteousness." ' 2 This spiritual life survives the 
 
 1 John iii. 36 ; I John v. 12. * Rom. viii. 10.
 
 IN THE RISEN LIFE 253 
 
 shock of physical death, or rather it is quickened, 
 as we believe, by being set free from the burden of 
 the flesh, and by a fuller recognition of the Presence 
 of Christ. A fellowship of departed Saints with 
 each other, a fellowship at once more spiritual than 
 any which we know on earth and more satisfying, 
 follows necessarily from the continuance and increase 
 of their spiritual life. And yet their communion is 
 not complete, for it is spiritual only. Eternal life 
 in its fulness is not theirs as yet ; they still wait, 
 as we do, for the adoption, the redemption of the 
 body. Life is not perfected, fellowship is not fully 
 come, till the whole man, spirit and soul and body, 
 is flooded with the Spirit of the risen and glorified 
 Christ. 
 
 The Apostolic writings, which pass over the state 
 of the Christian dead with a few brief remarks, draw 
 for us a noble picture of the life of the risen Saints. 
 One feature stands out clearly in all New Testament 
 descriptions of the final state : it is a life of fellow- 
 ship. As, in the words of the African baptismal 
 creeds, eternal life comes to us "through the Holy 
 Church," 1 through the faith, the sacraments, the fellow- 
 ship of the great Christian Society ; so its fulness 
 will be attained, not in the solitude and isolation 
 
 1 The African interrogatory at Baptism in Cyprian's time ran : 
 "Credis in vitam aeternam et remissionem peccatorum per sanctam 
 Ecclesiam " ? See Cyprian, ep. 70. 7 ; and cf. Aug. serm. ccxv.
 
 254 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 of the individual soul, but in " the blessed com- 
 pany of all faithful people." The life of the Saints 
 in light is the life of the City of God, not of 
 the desert or the cave. Both St Paul and St 
 John wrote for readers who were accustomed to 
 the Greek conception of the city-state, and both 
 claim it as one which is to find its fulfilment in 
 the future Kingdom of God. " Our mother " is 
 the New Jerusalem which is above ; " our citizen- 
 ship is in Heaven." So St Paul speaks, 1 and St 
 John : " I will write upon him [that overcometh] 
 the name of the city of my God " ; "I saw the 
 Holy City . . . coming down out of heaven from God, 
 made ready as a bride adorned for her husband." 2 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews, which has so much in 
 common with the Pauline Epistles on the one hand 
 and with the Apocalypse on the other, strikes the 
 same note. " Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and 
 unto the City of the living God, the heavenly 
 Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to 
 the general assembly and church of the first-born 
 who are written in heaven." 8 If eternal life is ours 
 here through fellowship with the Holy Church, it 
 will be enjoyed there in the heavenly Church iri the 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 26 ; Phil. iii. 20. * Apoc. iii. 12, xxi. 2. 
 
 s Heb. xii. 22 iravyyvpei ical iKK\i}fflq. irpUTorbiuav. "The word 
 irav-fiyvpis . . . was used specially of the great national assemblies and 
 sacred games of the Greeks" (Westcott, ad loc.).
 
 IN THE RISEN LIFE 255 
 
 society of all the faithful, in the communion of 
 saints. 
 
 Not less significant is the position and the occu- 
 pation assigned to the citizens of the heavenly City. 
 They are a Kingdom, and they are priests. 1 They 
 belong to the greatest of all States, the Kingdom of 
 God ; on the one hand they share the protection 
 and the prestige of the Kingdom, on the other they 
 have their part to take in its corporate life. Each 
 of them has his place to fill in the Divine State. 
 There are hints of a boundless variety of service to 
 be rendered in the common life of Heaven : talents 
 which have been traded with here will be doubled 
 there, doubtless that they may be still further increased 
 by use and be turned to greater profit in the ages to 
 come. Some will " judge angels," or " have authority 
 over the nations " ; others will doubtless serve in 
 humbler capacities, each according to his ability ; 2 
 all alike will work for the common good, and serve 
 one King. Priests, too, they will all be, each of 
 them taking his part in the liturgy of Heaven, 
 singing the ever-new song which they learnt in the 
 Church on earth, worshipping before the heavenly 
 altar, serving God day and night in His temple. 3 
 
 I Apoc. i. 6, v. 10 : fiairiXflav, [nal] lepeis. Cf. Dr. Hort's note on 
 r. Pet. iii. 9. 
 
 I 1 Cor. vi. 3 ; Apoc. ii. 26. Cf. Matt. xxv. 21, 23, and Luke xii. 44. 
 * Apoc. vii. 10, xiv. 3, xv. 2ff., xxii. 3.
 
 256 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 There will be no divorce there, as sometimes there 
 is here, between the secular and the sacred, the 
 work of the heavenly State and the ministries of the 
 heavenly Sanctuary. State and Church will be one 
 at last in the future City of God ; the Kingdom and 
 the Priesthood will be identical in their aims and 
 activities, since all life will be consecrated, and all 
 work a priestly service. 
 
 Here indeed is a Communion of Saints without 
 limit and without end. Moreover, it includes not 
 only the countless multitude of the redeemed from 
 amongst men, 1 but a vast concourse of those higher 
 orders of being of whose presence and co-operation 
 with us we are here but dimly conscious. Even on 
 earth the Church in its highest act of worship 
 associates itself " with angels and archangels and 
 all the company of heaven." More than once in 
 the Apocalypse the Angels are represented as joining 
 with the Church in the worship of heaven. " I heard 
 a voice of many angels round about the throne and 
 the living creatures and the elders ; and the number 
 of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and 
 thousands of thousands." " All the angels were 
 standing round about the throne and about the elders 
 and the four living creatures, and fell before the 
 
 1 Apoc. vii. 9. The numbers given in Apoc. vii. 4, xiv. I, represent 
 the Church on earth at any given time in its earthly career ; it Vi the 
 Church in Heaven which our arithmetic fails to count.
 
 v IN THE RISEN LIFE 257 
 
 throne on their faces and worshipped God." l The 
 earthly communion of saints has grown into a 
 universal fellowship of praise in which saints and 
 angels, and Nature herself, at length delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption, 2 are seen to bear its part. 3 
 Lastly, into this holy fellowship God Himself 
 deigns to enter. Even here our fellowship is not 
 with one another only, but " with the Father and 
 with His Son, Jesus Christ." 4 The Father and the 
 Son have fellowship with the Church in her present 
 imperfect state, through the communion of the Holy 
 Ghost. But greater things are in store for her. 
 " Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He 
 shall dwell with them, and they shall be His people ; 
 and God Himself shall be with them and be their 
 God." fi " If a man love me," our Lord has promised, 
 " my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
 him and make our abode with him." 6 The words 
 fulfil themselves in a measure during life, and still 
 more, it may be believed, after de^th. But it remains 
 for the risen life to consummate that which the 
 indwelling of the Spirit has begun : to convert the 
 abode of God in the soul into a tabernacling of 
 the Divine Presence with redeemed humanity. God 
 with men, God in full and endless fellowship with 
 
 '-Apoc. v. II, vii. ii. 2 Rom. viii. 21. 
 
 8 Apoc. v. 13. *i John i. 3. 
 
 5 Apoc. xxi. 3. 'John xiv. 23.
 
 258 THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
 our race, drawing us all together into union with 
 Himself, into union with one another in Him this 
 is the goal towards which the communion of saints 
 is tending, and which will be reached when that 
 which is perfect is come.
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 (A) ON BELIEF IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 RUFINUS, commenting on the Creed of Aquileia, points out 
 (de Symbolo, 36) that the preposition in is not repeated 
 before sanctum ecclesiam and the remaining clauses of the 
 creed, and endeavours to account for this omission. " Non 
 dixit (he writes) in sanctam ecclesiam ... si enim addidisset 
 in praepositionem, una cum superioribus eademque vis 
 fieret. Nunc autem in illis quidem vocabulis ubi de divinitate 
 ordinatur fides, in Deo Patre dicitur et in Christo Filio eius 
 et in Spiritu sancto; in ceteris vero, ubi non de divinitate 
 sed de creaturis et de mysteriis sermo est, in praepositio 
 non additur ut dicatur in sancta ecclesia, sed sanctam eccle- 
 siam credendam esse, non ut Deum, sed ut ecclesiam Deo 
 congregatam." The distinction is less marked in the 
 Roman creed, where the accusative is used throughout (in 
 Deum, in Christum, in Spiritum sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam, 
 etc.) ; but the criticism of Rufinus is, nevertheless, repeated 
 by writers on the Roman form. 1 
 
 Whether the original framers of the Western Creed in- 
 tended to emphasize the distinction between faith in God 
 and faith in the Church, is open to question. Eastern 
 
 1 Cfc e.g. the pseudo-Augustinian sermon numbered 240 in the 
 Benedictine appendix: "sciendum est quod ecclesiam credere, non 
 tamen in ecclesiam credere, deheamus," etc. 
 
 R2
 
 260 ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 creeds of the fourth century 1 repeat s before p.iav ex^A^o-iav, 
 and a few copies of the Apostles' Creed repeat the pre- 
 position, 2 although others clearly follow the interpretation 
 of Rufinus. 8 
 
 But even if Rufinus's view is not historically or philo- 
 logically sound, it raises a doctrinal question of some 
 importance. Does faith in the Church fall under the same 
 category as faith in God ? ' I believe in God ' means not 
 only 'I believe that there is a God'; but also, 'I have 
 affiance in Him ; I place my trust in His truth and power 
 and mercy.' Can I be said to have a like affiance in the 
 Church ? Or does faith in the Church mean no more than 
 belief in the fact of its existence ? 
 
 To believe in the fact of the Church (credo esse ecclesiam) 
 is doubtless of no small importance to the Christian life, 
 and all Christians are pledged to a faith in the Church 
 which goes thus ,far at the least. He who recites the 
 Apostles' Creed at the font or in the daily services says in 
 effect (to use Bishop Pearson's words) : " I am fully per- 
 suaded, and make a free confession of this, that Christ by 
 the preaching of the Apostles did gather to Himself a 
 Church ... I am assured that there was, hath been hitherto 
 and now is, and hereafter shall be, so long as the sun and 
 the moon endure, a Church of Christ, one and the same." 
 
 But is this all? Let it be remembered that the fact of 
 the Church is not merely a matter of history, but touches 
 closely the life, and enters largely into the experience of all 
 believers. The Church stands to us in the relation of a 
 mother to her children, of an organism to its members, of a 
 State to its subjects; and this relation implies a corre- 
 sponding obligation on our part of filial trust, of sympathetic 
 co-operation, of loyal obedience. I do not owe to the 
 
 1 E.g. those of Cyril and Epiphanius and the Creed known as the 
 Constantinopolitan (or ' Nicene '). 
 3 Hahn, pp. 47, 65, 77. 3 Hahn, pp. 79, 115.
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES 261 
 
 Church the absolute devotion which I owe to God, nor do 
 I repose in her the absolute trust which is His due ; but she 
 rightly claims from me a relative and subordinate homage, 
 and I fall short of my duty and sacrifice my best interests 
 if I withhold this from her. I believe, then, not only that 
 there is a Holy Catholic Church, but I believe in this 
 Church, looking to her for the spiritual gifts of which she is 
 the appointed channel, and seeking in her that fellowship 
 with all saints which is the earnest of the society of Heaven. 
 
 (B) ON THE PLACE OF SANCTORUM COMMUNIONEM 
 IN THE APOSTLES' CREED. 
 
 A naive legend of the sixth or seventh century, not 
 content with attributing to the Apostolic college the later 
 form of the Apostles' Creed, proceeded to allocate each of 
 its articles to a particular Apostle. Two documents printed 
 in the appendix to the Benedictine edition of St Augus- 
 tine's sermons follow this arrangement. It is significant 
 that the allocation is varied at the discretion of the 
 writers ; then in sermon 240 we read, " Matthaeus dixit 
 sanctam ecclesiam catholicam . . . sanctorum communionem" 
 whereas sermon 241 assigns sanctam ecclesiam catholicam to 
 James the son of Alphaeus, and sanctorum communionem to 
 Simon Zelotes. Another Gallican form of the Creed gives 
 sanctam ecclesiam to Simon Zelotes, while the Creed of 
 Pirminius adjudges sanctorum communionem to Judas the 
 son of James. 
 
 It is evident that these allocations are purely arbitrary ; but 
 they are of interest as illustrating the process by which the 
 Creed was divided into articles. Clearly two different views 
 were taken as to the position of sanctorum communionem. 
 According to one view, the new words formed part of the 
 article of belief in the Church ; according to the other, they 
 either stood by themselves as a separate article, or went with
 
 262 ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 the clauses which follow. There is something to be said in 
 favour of each of these groupings ; for connecting sanctorum 
 communionem with remissionem peccatorum an appeal might 
 be made to i John i. 7, where KOIVOWO, is coupled with 
 Kadapurpos, while the sequence sanctam ecdesiam catholicam, 
 sanctontm communionem is justified by the consideration 
 that the Communion of Saints is the purpose and end for 
 which the great Christian Society was founded. The latter 
 connexion has the support of Bishop Pearson, and, on the 
 whole, it seems to have the stronger claim on acceptance. 
 In this book, accordingly, the Holy Catholic Church and 
 the Communion of Saints have been treated as forming 
 together one article of belief.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abraham's bosom, 212 ff. 
 
 Africa, baptismal creed of North, 
 
 253- 
 
 angels our fellows in worship, 256. 
 Apostolical succession, 46 ff. ; Ap. 
 
 tradition, 44 ff. , 107 f. 
 authority, 1 1 1 ff. 
 Avircius, 23 n., 128, 224. 
 
 Baptism, 68, 123, 187, 189. 
 
 Bmedicite, 231. 
 
 'branches' of the Church, I27f. 
 
 canon of Scripture, 109. 
 
 catacombs, 224 f., 231. 
 
 catechumens, 168. 
 
 'catholic,' 33 ff. 
 
 Catholicism, 38 ff. 
 
 ceremonial, 91 f. 
 
 'Church,' if.; 'churches,' 8f., 
 126 ff. 
 
 collection for the saints, 205 f. 
 
 common prayer, I95ff. 
 
 communio, 99 f. ; sacramentorum, 
 153, 186; sanctorum, 157 ff., 
 i6off. 
 
 'communion,' 147 ff., 187; com- 
 munion with God, 170 ff., 257 f. ; 
 'spiritual,' 180. 
 
 comprecation, 236 f. 
 corporeity of souls, 247 f. 
 councils, oecumenical, 59, 79. 
 creeds, the Apostles' and ' Nicene,' 
 iiof. 
 
 ' deposit,' the, 45, 108. 
 Diotrephes, 75. 
 Donatists, the, 31, 168. 
 
 ' Ecclesia,' I f. ; eccl. discens, docens, 
 106. 
 
 English Church, its present wants, 
 84 f. ; early Reformation docu- 
 ments of, 164 ff., 239 n. 
 
 episcopate, rise of tha, 44f., 74 ff. 
 
 Erastianism, I36f. 
 
 Eucharist, the, 68 ff., 88 ff., 121, 
 178 ff., i88ff., 194, 225 ff. 
 
 ' expectant,' the Church, 141 f. 
 
 faith in the Church, 259 ff. 
 
 fires of discipline, 217 ff.; penal, 
 
 220, 228 ff. 
 
 Founder of the Church, the, 6 f. 
 'free churches,' the, i6ff. ; free 
 
 church Council, the, 84. 
 
 Head of the Church, 198".
 
 264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 holiness, 23 ff. 
 hospitality, Christian, 207. 
 
 Incarnation, the, 176. 
 individualism, 1 19 f. 
 infallibility, 57 ff. 
 intellectual difficulties, io2ff. 
 intercession, 200 ff. 
 intermediate state, the, 2140. 
 interpretation of Scripture, 109 ff; 
 
 of ' Communion of Saints,' 
 
 i6iff. 
 
 invisible Church, the, 50 ff. 
 invocation of Saints, 230 ff. 
 
 Lambeth 'quadrilateral,' 84. 
 legendary origin of the Apostles' 
 
 Creed, 261. 
 
 letters, commendatory, 23, 128. 
 life of the Spirit, I93f. ; life 
 
 eternal, 252. 
 
 Litany of the Saints, 237 ff. 
 loyalty to the Church, duty of, 124, 
 
 260 f. 
 Lucian, 101, 156. 
 
 martyrs, cult of, 233 ff. 
 
 memento etiam in the Roman canon, 
 
 225 f. 
 
 memoriae, 233. 
 'militant,' the Church, 133. 
 missions, history of, 97 f. 
 monarchy, episcopal, 77 f. 
 
 Nature our fellow-worshipper, 257. 
 / Niceta, isgff. 
 
 ' near Christ, near the fire,' 188. 
 non- episcopal societies, I5ff., 209. 
 notes of the Church, n ff. 
 
 Onesiphorus, 223. 
 orapro nobis, 237 ff. 
 
 Paradise, 2i6ff. 
 
 patriarchates, 80. 
 
 'penitence,' 31. 
 
 ' philadelphy,' 101, 154 ff., 197. 
 
 philanthropy, looff. 
 
 Plato, the Apology of, 245 ff. 
 
 pontifex maximus, 78. 
 
 prayer, forms of, I99f. 
 
 prayers of departed for living saints, 
 220 ff., 243; of living for de- 
 parted, 222 ff. ; direct prayers 
 for the departed removed 
 from the English service-book, 
 239 f. 
 
 priesthood of the Church, the, 85 ff., 
 
 93 ff- 
 
 private judgement, 1 17 f. 
 propagation of the faith, 94 ff. 
 
 'refreshment,' 228. 
 reunion, 22 ff., I3of. 
 revision of the Prayer-book, 
 ' Romish doctrine,' 240 f. 
 Rufinus on the Creed, 259. 
 rule of iaith, the, 45, 107 
 
 Sacraments, 66 ff. 
 
 St Paul and the Twelve, 44. 
 
 ' saints,' 149 ff. ; saints, the greater, 
 
 236 f. ; how informed as to prayers 
 
 addressed to them, 234 ff. 
 ' sancti ' or ' sancta ' in the Creed, 
 
 163 f. 
 sanctorum communionem, whether 
 
 connected with sanctam ecclesiam, 
 
 261 f.
 
 INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 Sarapion, prayer-book of, 203, 
 
 226. 
 
 sleep of the departed, 215. 
 State and Church, 1346". 
 supremacy, Papal, 80 ff. ; Royal, 
 
 I3S f- 
 
 sympathy, 207 ff. 
 
 telepathy, 248. 
 
 undenominationalism, 53. 
 unity of Church, the, not affirmed in 
 Western Creeds, 12. 
 
 variety of functions in the one 
 
 Church, 73. 
 
 Vatican Council of 1870, the, 81. 
 ' vicar of Christ,' 20 ff. 
 Vigilantius, i63f. 
 Vincentian canon, 58. 
 visible Church, the, 50 ff. 
 
 ' with the Lord,' 212 f. 
 
 work of the Church, priestly, 93 ff. ; 
 
 intellectual, 102 f. ; spiritual, 104 f. 
 world, the, and the Church, 27 f., 
 
 131 ft 
 
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