That a certain system, called Catholicism, was the
religion of the whole of Christendom, not many centuries after the Christian
era, and continued to be mainly identified with the Gospel, whether with or
without certain additions, at least down to the Reformation, is confessed by
all parties. The point debated between them has reference to the origin of this
system, —when it began, and who began it. Those who maintain its Apostolic
origin, are obliged to grant that it is not directly and explicitly inculcated
in the Apostolic writings themselves. When they turn for aid to the generation
next to the Apostles, they find but few Christian writers at all, and the
information to be derived from them to be partial and meagre. This is their
difficulty, and the difficulty which we purpose here to meet, by considering
how the text of those writers who {223} have come down to us—the Apostolic
Fathers as they are called—is legitimately to be treated, and what light, thus
treated, it throws upon the question which is in dispute between Catholics and
their opponents.
Accordingly, the controversy between those who
appeal to them for and against the Catholic system of doctrine, or any portions
of it, turns upon this issue—whether the Catholic and later statements are due
developments, or but ingenious perversions of those passages from St. Clement
or St. Ignatius.
Ignatius writes in various Epistles as follows:
"There is one physician, both fleshly and
spiritual, born and unborn; God incarnate, true life in death; both of Mary and
of God; first passible, then impassible."—Eph. § 7. "Our God, even
Jesus the Christ, was borne in the womb by Mary according to the {236}
dispensation of God, of the seed of David, and of the Holy
Ghost."— § 18. "Suffer me to copy the passion of my God."—Rom. §
6. "I endure all things, as He who became perfect man enables
me."—Smyrn. § 4. "Study the seasons, await Him who is above all
seasons, independent of time; the Invisible, who for us became visible; the
Impalpable, the Impassible, who for us became passible, who for us endured in
every way."—Pol. § 3. "What availeth it me, if any one praiseth me,
but blasphemeth my Lord, not confessing that He bore flesh."—Smyrn. § 5.
In these extracts there are a number of remarkable
expressions, which the student in Catholic theology alone will recognize, and
he at once, as belonging to that theology, and having a special reference to
the heretical perversions of it. He will enter into, and another might pass
over, such words and phrases as [gennetos kai agennetos],—[en sarki genomenos
theos],—[ek Marias kai ek theou],—[pathetos kai apathes],—[achronos],—[aoratos,
di' hemas oratos],—[teleios anthropos genomenos],—[sarkophoros],—[pathos tou
theou]. He will perceive such expressions to be dogmatic, and will be at home
in them.
For instance, take the words [teleios anthropos],
perfect man. A heresy existed in the beginning of the fourth century, which was
in fact a revival of the Docetæ, in St. John's times, viz., that our Lord was
not really a man as other men are, that He had no intellectual soul, and, as
they went on to say, not even a real body. Such was the tenet of
Apollinarianism; and the Catholics protested against it by maintaining that
Christ was "perfect man." This was their special symbol against the
heresy, as we find it in the Athanasian Creed, "perfect man, subsisting of
a reasonable soul and human flesh."
Take another instance. He speaks of those who
"blaspheme" Christ, "not confessing that He bore flesh"
([sarkophoron]). This word is of a dogmatic character on the very face of the
passage; and it is notoriously such in after-controversy. It is so used by
Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, and in the Confessions of the Emperors
Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian.
Again: Nestorius holding, after the Cerinthians
and other early Gnostics, that the Son of God was distinct from Christ, a man,
as if Christ had a separate existence or personality, the Catholics met the
heresy, among other strong statements, by the phrases that "God was born,
and suffered on the cross," and that the Blessed Virgin was [theotokos],
"the Mother of God."
Another
expression commonly insisted on by the Fathers, in their dogmatic teaching, is
that of the "one" Christ; and that for various doctrinal reasons
which need not be dwelt on here. Not to mention Scripture, we find it in the
Nicene Creed, and still more emphatically in the Athanasian, "who,
although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; one, not by,
etc. ... one altogether, not by, etc. ... God and man is one Christ."
These are various specimens of passages on which
we may rely in proof of the theological or dogmatical character of St.
Ignatius' Christianity, and the drift of that theology.
Let then the following expressions of St. Ignatius
be observed:
"Being followers of God, and rekindling in
the blood of God, ([anazopuresantes en aimati theou],) ye have perfectly
accomplished the work connatural to you ([sungenikon ergon])."—Eph. § 1.
"These are not the planting of the Father: if they were, they would have
appeared to be branches of the Cross, and their fruit would have been
incorruptible; by which, in His passion, He invites you His members. The Head
then cannot be born without the members, God promising a union ([enosin]),
which is Himself."—Trall. § 11. "In which (the Churches) I pray there
may be a union ([enosin]) of flesh and spirit with Jesus Christ, who is our
Life evermore, in faith and in love which surpasseth all things, but, in the
first place, in Jesus and the Father."—Magn. § 1. "Fare ye well in an
unanimity of God, possessing a Spirit Indivisible, which is Jesus
Christ."—Ibid. § 15. "For this cause did the Lord accept ointment
upon His head, that He might breathe incorruption into His Church … Why do we
waste away ([apollumetha]) in folly, not considering the gift ([charisma])
which the Lord hath sent in truth?"—Eph. § 17. "(Christ) was born and
baptized, that by His passion ([toi pathei]) He might purify water."—Ibid.
§ 18. "If any one is able to remain in chastity, to the honour of the
flesh of the Lord, let him remain also in humbleness."—Pol. § 5. "I
have no pleasure in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life; I
would have God's bread, heavenly bread, bread of life, which is flesh of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, who was born afterwards of the seed of David and
Abraham: and I would have God's draught, His blood, which is love
incorruptible, and ever-springing life."—Rom. § 7.
Now it is very remarkable how modern readers
receive such passages. They come to them with low notions, they never suspect
that they allude to anything which they cannot reach, and being unable to
discern any high objects to which such language is appropriate, they pronounce
it hyperbolical, or, as sometimes, a corrupt reading. They seem to put it as a
dilemma, "either we are blind or St. Ignatius speaks beyond his
sense."
Perchance the holy martyr had a range of
conceptions which are as remote from the philosophy of this age, as from the
mental vision of savages. Perchance his words stood for ideas perfectly well
known to him, and recognized by his brethren. If so, it is unjust to him, and
unkind to ourselves, for us, modern divines, to reconcile his words to our own
ignorance, by imputing to him bombast. Now, in the case of St. Ignatius, one
remarkable thing is, that, {247} while to a modern Protestant he is so
unmeaning, a disciple of Irenæus, Athanasius, or Cyril of Alexandria, will be
in no perplexity at all as to what his words mean, but will see at once a
sense, and a deep and sufficient one, in them. If so, thus much would seem to
follow: that, whichever party is the more scriptural, anyhow St. Ignatius, the
disciple and friend of the sacred writers, is on the side of the Catholics, not
of the moderns.
And if the Catholic system, as a system, is
brought so near to the Apostles; if it is proved to have existed as a paramount
thought and a practical principle in the minds of their immediate disciples and
associates, it becomes a very grave question, on this ground alone, waving
altogether the consideration of uninterrupted Catholic consent, and the
significant structure and indirect teaching of Scripture, whether the New
Testament is not to be interpreted in accordance with that system. If indeed
Scripture actually refuses to be so interpreted, then indeed we may be called
on to suspend our judgment; but if only its text is not inconsistent with the
Church system, there is surely greater reason for interpreting it in accordance
with it than not; for it is surely more unaccountable that a new Gospel should
have possessed the Church, and that, in the persons of its highest authorities,
and almost in the lifetime and presence of Apostles, than that their extant
writings should not have upon their surface the whole of Scripture truth. And
thus we take our leave of St. Ignatius.
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