§ 52. List of the Roman Bishops and Roman Emperors during the First Three Centuries.
From the lists of Eusebius (till Silvester), Jaffé (Regesta), Potthast (Bibliotheca Hist. Medii Aevi), Lipsius and others compared. See a continuation of the list in my History of Mediaeval Christianity, p. 205 sqq.
Date
Popes
Emperors
Date
Augustus
27 b.c.
Tiberius
a.d. 14-37
Caligula
67-41
Claudius
41-54
? 42-67
Petrus-Apostolus
(63-64)
Nero
54-68
? 67-79
Linus-Presbyter
Galba
Otho
68-69
Vitellius
69 -69
? 79-91
Cletus or Anacletus
Titus
79-81
Domitian
81-96
? 91-100
Clemens I
Nerva
96-98
Trajan
98-117
? 100-109
Evaristus
? 109-119
Alexander I
Hadrian
117-138
? 119-128
Xystus or Sixtus I
? 128-139
Telesphorus (Martyr)
Antoninus Pius
138-161
? 139-142
Hyginus
? 142-154
Pius I
? 154-168
Anicetus
Marcus Aurelius
161-180
? 168-176
Soter
? 177- 190
Eleutherus
Commodus
180-190
? 190-202
Victor I
Pertinax
190-191
Didius Julianus
191-192
Niger
192-193
Septimius Severus
193-211
202-218
Zephyrinus
Caracalla
211-217
Geta (d. 212)
211-217
M.Opilius Macrinus
217-218
218-223
Callistus, or Calixtus I
Heliogabalus
218-222
(Hippolytus,Antipope)
? 223-230
Urbanus I
Alexander Severus
222-235
? 230-235
Pontianus (resigned in exile)
235-236
Anterus
Maximin I (the Thracian)
235-237
236-250
Fabianus, Martyr
The two Gordians: Maximus Pupienus, Balbinus
237-238
Gordian, the Younger
238-244
Philip
244-249
250-251
The See vacant till March, 251
Decius
249-251
? 251-252
Cornelius (in exile)
Gallus
251-252
? 251
(Novatianus, Antipope)
252-253
Lucius I
Volusian
252-253
? 253-257
Stephanus I
Aemilian
253-268
Valerian
256-259
Gallienus
259-268
? 257-258
Xystus (Sixtus) II
Till July 21, 259
The See vacant
259-269
Dionysius
Claudius II
268-270
269-274
Felix I
Aurelian
270-275
275-283
Eutychianus
Tacitus
275-276
Probus
276-282
283-296
Gajus (Caius)
Carus
282-284
Carinus
284-286
Numerian
Diocletian (d. 313 )
284-305
Maximian joint Emp. with Diocletian
286-305
296-304
Marcellinus
Constantius (d. 306)
304 or 307
304-307
The See vacant
Galerius (d. 311)
Licinius (d. 323)
Maximin II (Daza)
308-309
Constantine the Great,
309-323
Galerius (d. 311),
308-309
Marcellus
Licinius (d.323),
309-310
Eusebius, d. Sept. 26 (?) 309
Maximin (d. 313),
Maxentius (d. 312),
309-310
The See Vacant
reigning jointly.
311-314
Miltiades (Melchiades)
314-335 Silvester I.
Constantine the Great,
323-337
sole ruler.
The whole number of popes, from the Apostle Peter to Leo XIII. (1878) is two hundred and sixty-three. This would allow about seven years on an average to each papal reign. The traditional twenty-five years of Peter were considered the maximum which none of his successors was permitted to reach, except Pius IX., the first infallible pope, who reigned twenty-seven years (1846-1878). The average term of office of the archbishops of Canterbury is fourteen years.
§ 53. The Catholic Unity.
J. A. Möhler (R.C.): Die Einheit der Kirche oder das Princip des Katholicismus. Tübingen 1825. Full of Catholic enthusiasm for the unity of the church.
R. Rothe: Die Anfänge der christl. Kirche. Wittenb. 1837 (pp. 553-711). A Protestant counterpart of Möhler's book.
Huther.: Cyprian's Lehre von der Einheit der Kirche. Hamb. 1839.
J. W. Nevin: Cyprian; four articles in the "Mercersburg Review," 1852. Comp. Varien's strictures on these articles in the same "Review" for 1853, p. 555 sqq.
Joh. Peters (Ultramontane): Die Lehre des heil. Cyprianvon der Einheit der Kirche gegenüber den beiden Schismen in Carthago und Rom. Luxemb. 1870.
Jos. H. Reinkens (Old Cath. Bishop): Die Lehre des heil. Cyprianvon der Einheit er Kirche. Würzburg, 1873.
Comp. also Hartel's ed. of Cyprian's Opera (3 Parts, Vienna, 1868-'71), and the monographs on Cyprian by Rettberg (1831), Peters (1877), Fechtrup (1878), and O. Ritschl (1883).
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; [232] 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, [233] 33 presupposing and necessarily, following faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and as a holy fellowship, [234] 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 holos, 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 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. [235] 35 He also is the first to use the term "catholic" in the ecclesiastical sense, when he says: [236] 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. [237] 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." [238] 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.
4. Even Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, with all their spiritualistic and idealizing turn of mind, are no exception here. The latter, in the words: "Out of the church no man can be saved," [239] 39 brings out the principle of the catholic exclusiveness as unequivocally as Cyprian. Yet we find in him, together with very severe judgments of heretics, mild and tolerant expressions also; and he even supposes, on the ground of Rom. 2:6 sqq., that in the future life honest Jews and heathens will attain a suitable reward, a low grade of blessedness, though not the "life everlasting" in the proper sense. In a later age he was himself condemned as a heretic.
Of other Greek divines of the third century, Methodius in particular, an opponent of Origen, takes high views of the church, and in his Symposion poetically describes it as "the garden of God in the beauty of eternal spring, shining in the richest splendor of immortalizing fruits and flowers;" as the virginal, unspotted, ever young and beautiful royal bride of the divine Logos.
5. Finally, Cyprian, in his Epistles, and most of all in his classical tract: De Unitate Eccelesiae, written in the year 251, amidst the distractions of the Novatian schism, and not without an intermixture of hierarchical pride and party spirit, has most distinctly and most forcibly developed the old catholic doctrine of the church, her unity, universality, and exclusiveness. He is the typical champion of visible, tangible church unity, and would have made a better pope than any pope before Leo I.; yet after all he was anti-papal and anti-Roman when he differed from the pope. Augustin felt this inconsistency, and thought that he had wiped it out by the blood of his martyrdom. But he never gave any sign of repentance. His views are briefly as follows: