The Catholic church was founded from the first by Christ on St. Peter alone, that, with all the equality of power among the apostles, unity might still be kept prominent as essential to her being. She has ever since remained one, in unbroken episcopal succession; as there is only one sun, though his rays are everywhere diffused. Try once to separate the ray from the sun; the unity of the light allows no division. Break the branch from the tree; it can produce no fruit. Cut off the brook from the fountain; it dries up. Out of this empirical orthodox church, episcopally organized and centralized in Rome, Cyprian can imagine no Christianity at all; [240] 40 not only among the Gnostics and other radical heretics, but even among the Novatians, who varied from the Catholics in no essential point of doctrine, and only elected an opposition bishop in the interest of their rigorous penitential discipline. Whoever separates himself from the catholic church is a foreigner, a profane person, an enemy, condemns himself, and must be shunned. No one can have God for his father, who has not the church for his mother. [241] 41 As well might one out of the ark of Noah have escaped the flood, as one out of the church be saved; [242] 42 because she alone is the bearer of the Holy Spirit and of all grace.
In the controversy on heretical baptism, Cyprian carried out the principle of exclusiveness even more consistently than the Roman church. For he entirely rejected such baptism, while Stephen held it valid, and thus had to concede, in strict consistency, the possibility of regeneration, and hence of salvation, outside the Catholic church. Here is a point where even the Roman system, generally so consistent, has a loophole of liberality, and practically gives up her theoretical principle of exclusiveness. But in carrying out this principle, even in persistent opposition to the pope, in whom he saw the successor of Peter and the visible centre of unity, Cyprian plainly denied the supremacy of Roman jurisdiction and the existence of an infallible tribunal for the settlement of doctrinal controversies and protested against identifying the church in general with the church of Rome. And if he had the right of such protest in favor of strict exclusiveness, should not the Greek church, and above all the Evangelical, much rather have the right of protest against the Roman exclusiveness, and in favor of a more free and comprehensive conception of the church?
We may freely acknowledge the profound and beautiful truth at the bottom of this old catholic doctrine of the church, and the historical importance of it for that period of persecution, as well as for the great missionary work among the barbarians of the middle ages; but we cannot ignore the fact that the doctrine rested in part on a fallacy, which, in course of time, after the union of the church with the state, or, in other words, with the world, became more and more glaring, and provoked an internal protest of ever-growing force. It blindly identified the spiritual unity of the church with unity of organization, insisted on outward uniformity at the expense of free development, and confounded the faulty empirical church, or a temporary phase of the development of Christianity, with the ideal and eternal kingdom of Christ, which will not be perfect in its manifestation until the glorious second coming of its Head. The Scriptural principle "Out of Christ there is no salvation," was contracted and restricted to the Cyprianic principle: "Out of the (visible) church there is no salvation;" and from this there was only one step to the fundamental error of Romanism: "Out of the Roman Church there is no salvation."
No effort after outward unity could prevent the distinction of all Oriental and Occidental church from showing itself at this early period, in language, customs, and theology;--a distinction which afterwards led to a schism to this day unhealed.
It may well be questioned whether our Lord intended an outward visible unity of the church in the present order of things. He promised that there should be "one flock one shepherd," but not "one fold." [243] 43 There may be one flock, and yet many folds or church organizations. In the sacerdotal prayer, our Lord says not one word about church, bishops or popes, but dwells upon that spiritual unity which reflects the harmony between the eternal Father and the eternal Son. "The true communion of Christian men--'the communion of saints' upon which all churches are built--is not the common performance of external acts, but a communion of soul with soul and of the soul with Christ. It is a consequence of the nature which God has given us that an external organization should help our communion with one another: it is a consequence both of our twofold nature, and of Christ's appointment that external acts should help our communion with Him. But subtler, deeper, diviner than anything of which external things can be either the symbol or the bond is that inner reality and essence of union--that interpenetrating community of thought and character--which St. Paul speaks of as the 'unity of the Spirit,' and which in the sublimest of sublime books, in the most sacred words, is likened to the oneness of the Son with the Father and of the Father with the Son." [244] 44
[232] 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).
[233] Credo ecclesiam; yet not in (eis) ecclesiam, as in the case of the Divine persons
[234] Communio sanctorum. This clause, however, is not found in the original Creed of the Roman church before the fifth century.
[235] athropon eis enosin katertismenon.
[236] Ad Smyrn. c. 8.
[237] ·Ad Ephes. c. 5. Ad Trall. c.7. Ad Philad. c. 3, etc
[238] 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."
[239] Hom. 3 in Josuam, c. 5. "Extra hanc domum, id est extra ecclesiam, nemo salvatur."
[240] "Christianus non est, qui in Christi ecclesia non est."
[241] "Habere non potest Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam non habet matrem."
[242] "Extra ecclesia nulla salus." Yet he nowhere says "extra Romanam nulla salus."
[243] John 10:16. It was a characteristic, we may say, an ominous mistake of the Latin Vulgate to render poimne by ovile (confounding it with aule). The Authorized Version has copied the mischievous blunder ("one fold"), but the Revision of 1881 has corrected it.
[244] Hatch, l.c. p. 187 sq.