RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church, The Christian
now essentially and without distinction the rulers of the church, endued with divine authority. The government of the whole church belonged to the episcopate as a whole. Such strong statements appear as " the bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop," " the church is a people united with the priest," " he can not have God as father who has not the church as mother." The last was uttered against Novatianism, 4 The *° whose members Cyprian denied the Cyprianic possibility of salvation on the ground Episcopate, of their schism, and the validity of whose baptism he refused to admit. In regard to the conception of priesthood, which for him was centered in the bishop, it is observed that in the Lord's Supper the priest stood in the place of Christ, did what Christ did, offered the body of Christ (see Mass). Even if all his expressions, like those of Augustine, can not be taken in the sense in which the later Catholic Church would understand them, they still lead up to the highest function attributed by the latter to its priests.
But Catholicism owes to Augustine the most and the deepest of the statements which express its mind on the subject of the church. Their occasion was a new separatist movement in favor of enforced sanctity, that of the Donatists. Augustine had a deep and vivid conception of the inner, spiritual being of the church, of the operation of the Spirit of God in it and in its members, of Christ living in it and them, of all-pervading and all-uniting love. Consequently it was not a mere controversial argument against the Donatists when he distinguished in his doctrine of the church as the body of Christ between " the true body of the Lord " and a " confused " or " pretended " one, a distinction misinterpreted by his opponents as though he believed in 5 Views churches. According to his view of '^^ grace, it is entirely a matter of the Augustine. ^''^^ grace of God who among the members of the visible church is a member of the true body; and those who are predestined, even though they are outside the visible unity, yet belong to the invisible church. Still, it is the will of God to bring these into external communion, and participation in the blessings of salvation and real Christian love are possible only within this. He did not lay as much stress as Cyprian upon the divine right of the episcopate; but this was admitted by his opponents and by himself, and against the Manicheans he did appeal to the " succession of bishops " in the apostolic sees. The question then arose which of the two organizations, both provided with sacraments, priesthood, and episcopate, and both appealing to apostolic tradition, was the true Catholic Church. Augustine answered it by saying that the church had spread, according to the purpose of Christ, throughout the whole earth; and thus only that communion from which the Donatists had severed themselves could claim the title of Catholic— assuredly not their small sect , confined to a few districts in Africa. He made the belief of the individual Christian depend upon the authority 01 the church as catholic in this sense of the word, God having confirmed it " partly by miracles, III.-6
partly by the multitude of adherents"; indeed, he went so far as to say " I could not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the church catholic had not forced me." How the authoritative judgment of this Catholic Church upon questions of doctrine and the Christian life was to be expressed Augustine did not definitely state; he regarded the Church as represented in its episcopate, but did not name any constituted organ for a declaration of the truth by this episcopate as a unit.
Besides Augustine's statements, there is another important definition in the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins, which is in substantial agreement with them. According to him, there is a " test of universal understanding," by which we are bound to believe quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est. Here, instead of an authority of the Church as one whole, an overwhelming majority must suffice, which comes more definitely to a majority of the " sacerdotal orders " and " rulers." Vincent contemplated further definition of the traditional doctrine; and this led to the questions how such a consensus is to be attained in order to assure people of the truth of such later definitions, and how far what is supposed to have been contained implicitly in the original deposit may be elevated to the rank of an article of faith. The Church as itself an object of faith requiring formal recognition was made a part of the formula of the African baptismal confession, and directly introduced into the Constantinopolitan supplement to the Nicene Creed (381), " in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church," and into the Apostles' Creed.
2. Later (or Roman) Catholicism in East and West: The foregoing has traced the development of the idea of one. holy, catholic, and apostolic church, with its priesthood and episcopate, which was common to both Eastern and Western Christianity. But the East laid much less stress upon the sacerdotal and episcopal office as a system of government analogous to the legal discipline of the state; and it is noteworthy that both the schisms which arose out of questions relating to such organization (Novatianism and Donatism) were of Western origin. The Greek Church 1. Eastern dwelt more on the idea of communion
Church with the Incarnate Savior in devout Mystical, contemplation and knowledge, and upon the representation of the work of redemption in the rich mysteries of the liturgy. Thus the priestly and episcopal organization never attained an established external unity for the whole church; and, without objection from the East, the " one Catholic Church " developed there into a number of communities belonging to various states or countries and closely allied in their supreme government with the secular polity. To the Roman claims it opposed the idea of Christ as the sole head of the Church; and it developed no infallible organ for the decision of questions of faith. The possibility of development of the original sacred deposit, as maintained by Vincent of Lerins, was no longer strongly affirmed, and ultimately stagnation overtook any attempt at dogmatic inquiry.
In the West, on the other hand, the definite or-
Church, The Christian