violence led him at last into being the founder of a schismatical body. He is addressing Constantius the emperor out of his place of exile in Palestine and speaking of his nobler friend Athanasius.1

'You persecute the man,' he says, 'whom you ought to listen to. While he is still alive, you send to succeed him that George who is your partner in heresy, when, even if Athanasius had been set free from the body, it was not lawful for you to send any one, but it was and is in God's hand to appoint whom he thought proper as bishop of His people, and that through His servants the catholic bishops. For no man can be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost to govern God's people, save he whom God has chosen, and on whom hands have have been laid by the catholic bishops, just as, when Moses was dead, we find his successor Joshua, the son of Nun, filled with the Holy Ghost; because, says Scripture, Moses had laid his hands upon him."

ter, Jerome,

360-400.

Now we approach an interesting class of writers Ambrosias who represent a tendency in the western Church to etc., c. A.D. minimize the position of the episcopate. There is, first, the author of the Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles who is commonly called Ambrosiaster and who wrote in Damasus' episcopate at Rome.3 Whoever he was, he was a man of mental power and

1 Whether he was himself ever actually separated from the Church is doubtful; see Dict. Chr. Biog. s.v. LUCIFER. His writings date from his exile.

2 de S. Athan. 1. 9: 'Persequeris eum per quem te audire praeceperit Dominus; agente eo in rebus humanis cohaereticum tuum Georgium mittis successorem, cum tametsi fuisset liberatus iam Athanasius ex corpore, tibi non licuerit mittere, sed fuerit ac sit in Dei manu quem fuisset dignatus populo suo antistitem instituere per servos videlicet suos, hoc est catholicos episcopos. Neque enim posset impleri virtute Spiritus sancti ad Dei gubernandum populum nisi is quem Deus allegisset cuique manus per catholicos episcopos fuisset imposita, sicut defuncto Moyse impletum Spiritu sancto invenimus successorem eius Iseum Naue. Loquitur scriptura sancta dicens: Et Iseus filius Naue impletus est spiritu intelligentiae; imposuerat enim Moyses manum super eum: et audierunt eum filii Israel et fecerunt secundum quod mandavit Dominus Moysi. Conspicis ordinationi Dei te obviam isse contra Dei faciendo voluntatem, temet mucrone gladii tui iugulatum, siquidem non licuerit ordinari, nisi fuisset defunctus Athanasius, et defuncto Athanasio catholicus debuerit per catholicos ordinari episcopos.'

3 'Cuius [ecclesiae] hodie rector est Damasus (in 1 Tim. iii. 14). We may assume that St. Augustin is right in calling him Hilary (see for evidence Dict. Chr. Biog. s.v. AMBROSIASTER). It is however hardly possible that he can be Hilary, the Sardinian deacon, associated with Lucifer in his embassage to Constantius in A.D. 354, and subsequently a 'Luciferian. Not so much (a) because St. Augustin calls him 'sanctus,' for Jerome calls Lucifer 'beatus' and 'bonus pastor' even when

spiritual insight—' brief in words, but weighty in matter,' and one must add, of a rather sharply critical spirit. Secondly, we have the author of some Questions on the Old and New Testament, once ascribed to Augustin - probably a Roman writer of the same epoch as the commentator, or it may even be the same person.1 Thirdly, there is Jerome, who expresses the same sentiments as the other two writers, but at a later date, apparently when he had become thoroughly disgusted with the Church at Rome, and had changed his earlier tone towards it and its clergy.2 It must be added that Jerome's sentiments passed into the writings of some later western authors.8

he is deploring his grave mistake (adv. Lucifer. 20-though, be it remembered, St. Augustin borrows considerably from this little treatise in his argument against the Donatists and in it Hilary is pilloried with all the power of Jerome's sarcasm)— not so much, however, on this account as (6) because the commentary on 1 Cor. i. 12-16 is not the work of one who followed Lucifer, a rigorous anabaptist (adv. Lucifer. 26), and (c) because he acknowledges Damasus as bishop. But we have not the means of saying how much the Commentaries may have been interpolated or when.

1 He wrote at Rome (Qu. cxv; cf. his polemic against Roman deacons in Qu. ci; the 'we' who are opposed to the Romans in Qu. lxxxiv are probably the Christians -see Langen Gesch. der Röm. Kirche i. p. 600) about 300 years after the destruc. tion of Jerusalem under Vespasian (Qu. xliv) i.e. A.D. 370-380. He was seemingly a priest sacerdos Dei et praepositus plebis' (Qu. cxx); and we gather that he was a presbyter from his polemics against deacons and depreciation of bishops (Qu. ci). This, however, does not give us any ground for saying that he belonged to the Luciferian party. The same tone meets us in Jerome. Dom Morin holds him to be certainly the same man as 'Ambrosiaster,' Rev. d'hist. et de lit. relig. Tom. iv p. 98.

2 In Jerome's earlier years his tone is papal, e.g. in his letters to Damasus from the East A.D. 375-380 (Epp. xv, xvi). Afterwards, disgusted with Roman manners and disappointed of the Roman episcopate, he broke with the Church there A.D. 385, and his abusive tone about the Roman clergy is subsequent to this date, e.g. Ep. lii ad Nepotian. is after A.D. 393. His Commentaries on the New Testament which contain the passages minimizing the episcopal office by comparison with the presbyterate, date A.D. 386-392. His letter to Evangelus (Ep. cxlvi) is marked by its hostile tone towards Rome to belong to the period subsequent at any rate to A.D. 385, and Ep. Ixix ad Oceanum is about A.D. 400.

3 See App. Note F. 'S. Hieronymi sententia,' says Morinus (de S. Ord. p. iii. ex. iii. 2. 19), 'universae ecclesiae Latinae acceptissima fuit et immerito a multis theologis cum gravi censura repudiata: imprudentes enim cum S. Hieronymo universam prope ecclesiam Latinam condemnarunt.'

writers

dotal;

What then is it that these writers teach about These last the ministry? First, it must be said that they in (a) are sacer. no way minimize the sacerdotal character of the ministry. Jerome indeed sometimes appears as an extreme sacerdotalist; and if the unknown Commentator is not that, at least he gives us a substantial view of the priestly function. 'Layings-on of hands [i.e. ordinations],' he says, 'are mystical words, by which the selected man is confirmed for his work, receiving authority, so that he should venture in the Lord's place to offer sacrifice to God.' 'That,' says St. Jerome, 'can be no Church which has no priest.'1

of

their day,

Next, none of these writers disputes the present (6) do not dispute the authority of the threefold ministry or the limitation exclusive to bishops of the power of ordination. They do not bishops in maintain that, even in the extremest circumstances, a presbyter a presbyter of the existing Churchcould validly ordain. Thus the Commentator is emphatic 'that none of the clergy, who has not been ordained to it, should take to himself any office which he knows not to have been intrusted or granted to him' (in spite, that is, of what may have been the primitive practice). 'It never was lawful or permitted,' he says again, 'that an inferior should ordain a superior, for nobody gives what he has not received.' 'All orders are in the bishop'; 'the 'dignity of all ordinations is in the bishop.' 'What does a bishop do,' says St. Jerome, even when he is minimizing the episcopate, 'that a presbyter does not do, except ordination?' The bishop and the presbyter are to one another as the high priest and

priest of the old covenant.

Once more, they do not regard the present three- or since the

1 For all quotations from these writers see App. Note F.

Apostles:

only they maintain

that presby

ters were at first

also bishops,

and some.

mize the

subsequent difference.

fold arrangement of the ministry as an innovation of the postapostolic Church, so that it should lack the authority of the Apostles. The present constitution represents their ordering. Nay, according to the Commentator, it represents more: 'because all things are from one God the Father, He hath decreed that each Church should he presided over by one bishop.'

Jerome, however, seems to hold that, while Christ instituted only one priestly office, it was the exigencies of church life which led to its being sub-divided under apostolic sanction into the presbyterate and the episcopate. At any rate, whether the distinction was ordained by Christ Himself' or of apostolic authority, these writers were agreed that (as the names 'bishop' and 'presbyter' are used in the New Testament of the same officers) the presbyters originally were also bishops, and it was because of the dangers of rivalry and division which threatened this arrangement from the first that it was determined that in future only one person should have the authority and name of the episcopate, the rest receiving only the commission of presbyters.1 How much truth there is in this view is not now in question. They thought also that this original identity

what mini- of the presbyterate and episcopate had left its mark on the subsequent constitution of the Church in such sense that presbyters and bishops still share a common priesthood, and that (waiving the question of confirmation 2) there is nothing which is reserved

1 Jerome affirmed, as has been said, that the old constitution had in a measure been maintained at Alexandria down to the third century.

2 The western councils strictly limit to bishops the consecration of the chrism. St. Jerome makes no remark on the subject where he is speaking controversially on the subject of bishops, but he assumes (adv. Lucifer. 9) the limitation of confirmation to bishops in a sense which implies that under no circumstances, not even of imminent death, could a presbyter confirm. At Alexandria, say the Commentator

to a bishop except the function of ordination.1 Jerome used this view with powerful effect to exalt the priesthood of the presbyter, as against the arrogance of Roman deacons on the one hand, and on the other against the overweening self-assertion of bishops. It was a bad custom, he thought, which prevailed in some Churches, that presbyters should not be allowed to preach in the presence of bishops.2 Their exalted dignity is a thorn in Jerome's side; 'as if they were placed in some lofty watch-tower, they scarcely deign to look at us mortals or to speak to their fellow-servants.' A priest should indeed 'be subject to his bishop [pontifex] as to his spiritual father, but bishops should know that they are priests, not lords, and if they wish their clergy to treat them as bishops, they must give them their proper honour.'4 This is the animus in Jerome's

theory.5

Now when we have clearly considered this view, we shall see surely that it is not what it is sometimes represented as being. It is not a 'presbyterian view. It does indeed carry with it the conception of the great church order being the priesthood; it emphasizes that the distinction of presbyter and bishop is nothing compared to the distinction of deacon and priest. Moreover, it involves a certain tentativeness in the process by which the Apostles are held to have established the church ministry; it

and the author of the Quaestiones, a presbyter confirms (consignat or consecrat) if the bishop be absent, i.e. he uses the chrism which the bishop only can consecrate. See p. 125 n.2.

1 Cf. Chrysostom (on p. 147 n.1) and Canons of Hippolytus (p. 136).

2 Ep. lii. ad Nepot. 7: 'Pessimae consuetudinis est in quibusdam ecclesiis tacere presbyteros et praesentibus episcopis non loqui.' 4 Ep. lii. 7.

3 in Gal. iv. 13.

5'S. Hieronymus in aestu contentionis indulgere solet exaggerationibus rhetorici '(Morinus).

L