ally in the

sacrament once imposed, though remaining now only to condemn him';1 and the associated principle, transferred from baptism to ordination, that schism and heresy do indeed destroy the spiritual value of sacraments, but not their reality. This latter prin- only participle was not indeed generally admitted in the East. East, nor was it quickly worked out to its results in the West. Still it took root. Leo the Great, for example, pronounces that some uncanonically consecrated bishops are no bishops at all, but 'pseudoepiscopi.' But then he goes on to intimate that, where their ordinations-otherwise vain '-were allowed by the canonical bishop, they could be accepted as 'valid,' showing clearly that, though he did not regard consecration with the proper form as absolutely valid by itself apart from canonical conditions, he yet did regard it as valid in such sense as that church recognition, subsequently given, might impart to it a retrospective validity.

In this uncertain and ambiguous position the matter long remained. 'What is it,' says Morinus, 'to track the controversy [on the validity of heretical or schismatical or simoniacal ordinations] but to exhibit bishops against bishops, councils against

1 de Bono Coniugali 24 [32]: Quemadmodum si fiat ordinatio cleri ad plebem congregandam, etiamsi plebis congregatio non subsequatur, manet tamen in illis ordinatis sacramentum ordinationis: et si aliqua culpa quisquam ab officio removeatur, sacramento Domini semel imposito non carebit, quamvis ad iudicium permanente.'

Not, e.g., by St. Basil. In Ep. clxxxviii. he does not admit the principle of the validity of baptism by sects who are in fundamental heresy on the doctrine of God: nor quite thoroughly as regards the Novatians and Encratites, though some of their ordinations had been allowed. He seems to regard it as a matter depending on the Church's judgment in any case: and so eastern writers subsequently.

Ep. clxvii. ad Rusticum inq. 1: 'Nulla ratio sinit ut inter episcopos habeantur qui nec a clericis sunt electi nec a plebibus sunt expetiti nec a provincialibus episcopis cum metropolitani iudicio consecrati. Unde, cum saepe quaestio de male accepto honore nascatur, quis ambigat nequaquam istis esse tribuendum, quod non docetur fuisse collatum? Si qui autem clerici ab istis pseudoepiscopis in eis ecclesiis ordinati sunt, qui ad proprios episcopos pertinebant, et ordinatio eorum consensu et iudicio praesidentium facta est, potest rata haberi, ita ut in ipsis ecclesiis perseverent: aliter autem vana habenda est creatio, quae nec loco fundata est nec auctore munita.'

M

V. That use

councils, pontiffs against pontiffs, waging a Cadmeian war?'1 The Eastern Church has, in fact, never got beyond the position that the Church has the power to ratify in any particular case, or set of cases, ordinations which in the West would be called per se valid but uncanonical.2

It can hardly be a subject for regret that the Church should have exhibited considerable unwillingness in isolating the consideration of the validity of ordination from its context in the whole question of what constitutes a right relation to the Church. It cannot, however, be denied that the analogy of all sacramental grace forced the Church to distinguish between the gift that is in the man by the laying-on of hands and its reverent or obedient exercise. It must also be borne in mind, especially from the point of view of our present argument, that whatever hesitation was felt in accepting and formulating this principle was due to the high regard in which the ordination gift was held-not to any disparagement of it: so that there was at no time any hesitation in recognising the indelibility of orders, when imparted and exercised in obedience to the Church.

V. It will be noticed that whereas the conception of sacerdotal of the Christian ministry and pastorate of souls dates plied no new back behind our present period into the immemorial

terms im

idea of the

ministry.

past, it is only at the beginning of our period that the title of the Priesthood begins to be applied to it. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria do not speak of the Christian ministers as priests, while Tertullian and Origen do, so that it is only quite at the end of

1 de S. Ord. pars iii. ex. v. 8. 1. See further on the whole subject the exhaustive discussion by Saltet Réordinations (Paris, Lecoffre, 1907).

2 Morinus pars iii. ex. v. 11. 4: His cum praecedentibus comparatis, colligitur Ecclesiam Orientalem varie pro variis temporibus haereticos admisisse. Constat enim quibusdam temporibus, praesertim nascente haeresi, ut via planior ad reditum iis sterneretur, certorum haereticorum ordinationes admisisse; aliis vero eas infirmas et irritas declarasse et iterasse.'

the second century that sacerdotal terms begin to be regularly 1 applied to the clergy.

earlier

The question arises: Does this change of language represent a change of ideas, or merely a readjustment of terms in view of changed circumstances? We cannot argue always or absolutely from a gradual change in language to a change in ideas. For Reasons for instance, we have every reason for supposing that abstinence. the first Christians believed in the Divine Sonship of Christ. A Christian of the first century, with the teaching of the Apostles in his mind, would, we feel no doubt, have sided unambiguously with St. Athanasius and not with Arius; and that not because Athanasius would have persuaded him to give any new honour to Christ, but because he would, when he understood the controversy, have seen what his old faith implied: that it was indeed the teaching of St. John and St. Paul about Christ that He was 'God of God, very God of very God.' But, on the other hand, this faith of the Church could not be expressed so unreservedly in the first age as in later times. Jesus is very God' was not the first truth to put before a Jew, but 'Jesus is the Christ'; this is the substance of the first apostolic preaching as recorded in the Acts the Messianic authority of Christ, not His divine nature. So again 'Jesus is the Son of God' was not the first truth to preach to the heathen with their polytheism and mythology, lest they should only too easily incorporate Him into their Pantheon the basis of monotheism must be firmly laid before the Divine Sonship of Christ can be securely preached.2 There is then a change of terminology which means a change of circumstances

1 Dr. Lightfoot, Dissertation p. 254, thinks Polycrates' description of St. John as 'a priest wearing the mitre-néтaλov' (ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 24. 3) is perhaps the first instance of sacerdotal language being applied to the Christian ministry. But we have the expression in the Didache xiii. 3: they are your high priests.' For the Church Order of Hippolytus see p. 133.

* See St. Paul's first preaching to heathen, Acts xiv. 14-17 and xvii. 22-31.

rather than of ideas. To take another instance from the records of the language of the early Church. The early apologists believed in a Christian sacrifice in the Eucharist; if the sense in which they did so may be discussed, the fact is undoubted. But Justin Martyr, who expresses his appreciation of the eucharistic sacrifice to Trypho the Jew, denies to the heathen emperor that God needs material oblations.1 Athenagoras makes the same denial, and then puts in parenthetically-as it were under his breath'and yet we must offer a bloodless sacrifice and bring before God the spiritual service.' 2 The Christian in fact had, or had not, a sacrifice according as the term was used in one sense or in another. The same seems to have been true of the priesthood. It would only have caused confusion,' Mr. Simcox justly says,3 when "a great company of the priests was obedient to the faith," to have said that St. Barnabas was a priest, when he was in fact a Levite.' The term 'priest' indeed carried with it many associations, Jewish and pagan, which did not belong to Christianity. Outside the Epistle to the Hebrews Christ is not termed a priest, and even there it is said: 'if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law.'4 So, too, it is conceivable that a Christian missionary of our own day might find it necessary, amidst the associations of a pagan priesthood, to emphasize by the avoidance of the term 'priest' the points of difference in the Christian ministry: just as it would have been wiser at times to have produced a monotheistic atmosphere as a preparation for preaching the divinity of Christ.

'Dial. c. Tryph. 117 (cf. 22); Apol. i. 10.

• Legat. 13 : καίτοι προσφέρειν δέον ἀναίμακτον θυσίαν καὶ τὴν λογικὴν προσάγειν λατρείαν. Early Church History p. 59.

Hebr. viii. 4 (R.V.).

But when once the Christian atmosphere has been cleared,-when once the unique high-priesthood of Christ is realized and the communication of that priesthood to the Church, it becomes natural to apply the term 'priest' to the divinely ordained ministers of this priestly congregation. As this special application has been shown in the last chapter (pp. 70-80) to involve no loss of the general conception of the 'high-priestly race,' so also it carries with it no change of ideas about the ministry. The 'bishops' whom Clement of Rome describes as offering the gifts' in the spiritual temple of the Church, under Christ 'the high-priest of our oblations,' may as well as not be called priests. Hippolytus expresses by the term 'the high-priesthood' exactly the same idea of the episcopate as is expressed by Irenaeus without its use.1 Ignatius, who does not call the Christian officers priests, emphasizes their authority more than Origen, who uses the term freely, and not less than Cyprian. There is an overstrained expression of sacerdotal authority in the Apostolical Constitutions, as well as in its source, the third-century Didascalia, but this comes from a slight hardening of Ignatius' teaching and is in no apparent connexion with the change in terms. On the other hand, the Fathers are not, generally speaking, chargeable with a false concep

See App. Note G. It is important to notice the triple derivation of sacerdotal language. There is (1) the idea of the high-priesthood of Truth. The term high-priest is applied thus to the prophet (Didache xiii. 3), or to the bishop as sitting in the chair of the prophetic teacher (Hippolyt. Ref. Omn. Haer. prooem. [p. 348 infra] and the Clementines). There is (2) the idea of the high-priesthood of Sacrifice realized in the Church through the mediation of Christ. This is the idea of priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in Clement of Rome, in Justin Martyr, in Irenaeus; and the term priest came to be applied in this sense to the bishop or presbyter as to him who offers the gifts.' It is noticeable that the unity of prophecy and priesthood underlies the use of the sacerdotal term decтovруcîv To Kupio of the prophets in Acts xiii. 2. There is (3) the idea of the Power of the Keys-the authority to bind and loose in the Christian society-belonging to the bishop alone, as in the Church Order of Hippolytus (see p. 135), or to the bishop with the presbyters, as it is emphasized in the Clementines.

* See passages quoted in the notes to pp. 139, 140 supra.