On the basis of Paul’s
idea of the unity, holiness, and universality of the church, as the mystical
body of Christ; hand in hand with the episcopal system of government; in the form of fact rather
than of dogma; and in perpetual conflict with heathen persecution from without, and heretical and
schismatic tendencies within—arose the idea and the institution of: "the Holy Catholic Church,"
as the Apostles’ Creed has it;
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32
or, in the fuller language of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan, "the
One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church." In both the oecumenical symbols, as even in the more
indefinite creeds of the second and third centuries, on which those symbols are based, the church
appears as an article of faith,
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33
presupposing and necessarily, following faith in the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit; and as a holy fellowship,
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34
within which the various benefits of grace,
from the forgiveness of sins to the life everlasting, are enjoyed.
Nor is any distinction made here between a visible and an invisible church. All catholic
antiquity thought of none but the actual, historical church, and without hesitation applied to this,
while yet in the eyes of the world a small persecuted sect, those four predicates of unity, holiness,
universality, and apostolicity, to which were afterwards added exclusiveness infallibility and
indestructibility. There sometimes occur, indeed, particularly in the Novatian schism, hints of the
incongruity between the empirical reality and the ideal conception of the church; and this incongruity
became still more palpable, in regard to the predicate of holiness, after the abatement of the spiritual
elevation of the apostolic age, the cessation of persecution, and the decay of discipline. But the
unworthiness of individual members and the external servant-form of the church were not allowed
to mislead as to the general objective character, which belonged to her in virtue of her union with
her glorious heavenly Head.
The fathers of our period all saw in the church, though with different degrees of clearness,
a divine, supernatural order of things, in a certain sense the continuation of the life of Christ on
earth, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the sole repository of the powers of divine life, the possessor
and interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, the mother of all the faithful. She is holy because she is
separated from the service of the profane world, is animated by the Holy Spirit, forms her members
to holiness, and exercises strict discipline. She is catholic, that is (according to the precise sense of
,
which denotes not so much numerical totality as wholeness), complete, and alone true, in
distinction from all parties and sects. Catholicity, strictly taken, includes the three marks of
universality, unity, and exclusiveness, and is an essential property of the church as the body and
organ of Christ, who is, in fact, the only Redeemer for all men. Equally inseparable from her is the
predicate of apostolicity, that is, the historical continuity or unbroken succession, which reaches
back through the bishops to the apostles, from the apostles to Christ, and from Christ to God. In
the view of the fathers, every theoretical departure from this empirical, tangible, catholic church
is heresy, that is, arbitrary, subjective, ever changing human opinion; every practical departure, all
disobedience to her rulers is schism, or dismemberment of the body of Christ; either is rebellion
against divine authority, and a heinous, if not the most heinous, sin. No heresy can reach the
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The Church of England retained the term "catholic" in the Creed, and the, ante-papal and anti-papal use of this; term
(=general, universal); while Luther in his Catechism, and the Moravian church (in her liturgy) substituted the word "Christian,"
and surrendered the use of "catholic" to the Roman Catholics. "Roman" is a sectarian term (in opposition to Greek Catholic and
Evangelical Catholic).
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Credo ecclesiam; yet not in (
εἰς) ecclesiam, as in the case of the Divine persons
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Communio sanctorum. This clause, however, is not found in the original Creed of the Roman church before the fifth century.
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Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.
conception of the church, or rightly claim any one of her predicates; it forms at best a sect or party,
and consequently falls within the province and the fate of human and perishing things, while the
church is divine and indestructible.
This is without doubt the view of the ante-Nicene fathers, even of the speculative and
spiritualistic Alexandrians. The most important personages in the development of the doctrine
concerning the church are, again, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and Cyprian. Their whole doctrine of the
episcopate is intimately connected with their doctrine of the catholic unity, and determined by it.
For the episcopate is of value in their eyes only, is the indispensable means of maintaining and
promoting this unity: while they are compelled to regard the bishops of heretics and schismatics
as rebels and antichrists.
1. In the Epistles of Ignatius the unity of the church, in the form and through the medium
of the episcopate, is the fundamental thought and the leading topic of exhortation. The author calls
himself a man prepared for union.
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35 He also is the first to use the term "catholic" in the
ecclesiastical sense, when he says:
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36
"Where Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic church;" that
is, the closely united and full totality of his people. Only in her, according to his view, can we eat
the bread of God; he, who follows a schismatic, inherits not the kingdom of God.
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37
We meet similar views, although not so clearly and strongly stated, in the Roman Clement’s
First Epistle to the Corinthians, in the letter of the church of Smyrna on the martyrdom of Polycarp,
and in the Shepherd of Hermas.
2 Irenaeus speaks much more at large respecting the church. He calls her the haven of rescue,
the way of salvation, the entrance to life, the paradise in this world, of whose trees, to wit, the holy
Scriptures, we may eat, excepting the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which he takes as a type
of heresy. The church is inseparable from the Holy Spirit; it is his home, and indeed his only
dwelling-place on earth. "Where the church is," says he, putting the church first, in the genuine
catholic spirit, "there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is there is all grace."
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38
Only on the bosom of the church, continues he, can we be nursed to life. To her must we flee, to
be made partakers of the Holy Spirit; separation from her is separation from the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit. Heretics, in his view, are enemies of the truth and sons of Satan, and will be swallowed
up by hell, like the company of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Characteristic in this respect is the
well-known legend, which he relates, about the meeting of the apostle John with the Gnostic
Cerinthus, and of Polycarp with Marcion, the "first-born of Satan."
3. Tertullian is the first to make that comparison of the church with Noah’s ark, which has
since become classical in Roman catholic theology; and he likewise attributes heresies to the devil,
without any qualification. But as to schism, he was himself guilty of it since he joined the Montanists
and bitterly opposed the Catholics in questions of discipline. He has therefore no place in the Roman
Catholic list of the patres, but simply of the scriptores ecclesiae.
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ἄθρωπον εἰς ἔνωσιν κατηρτισμένον.
236
Ad Smyrn. c. 8.
237
·Ad Ephes. c. 5. Ad Trall. c.7. Ad Philad. c. 3, etc
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Adv. Haer. iii. 24."Ubi ecclesia ibi et Spiritus Dei, et ubi Spiritus Dei, illic et omnis gratia." Protestantism would say,
conversely, putting the Spirit first: "Ubi Spiritus Dei, ibi ecclesia et omnis gratia."
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Philip Schaff
History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene
Christianity. A.D. 100-325.