St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles appointed everywhere local Bishops, 217
The Bishop universally said to wield a government, 218
Bishops sent out from Rome to convert the nations, 219
Episcopal government universal, 220
But the One Episcopate much more than this, 222[Pg xii]
St. Cyprian's One Episcopate illustrated by St. Leo the Great, 223
What the One Episcopate adds to the universal establishment of Bishops, 224
The special character of the miracle which St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine proclaimed, 227
St. Augustine's criterion in the fourth century applied to the nineteenth, 229
St. Chrysostom's epitome of the Church's course preceding his time, 230
Christ's special miracle is that He founds the race of Christians, 231
Contrast of the race with that out of which it was formed, 232
The incessant conflict amid which it was done, 233
A reflection upon this picture of the Church, 236
CHAPTER V.
The One Episcopate Resting upon the One Sacrifice.
St. Clement's assertion of the care with which our Lord instituted the government of His Church, 238
Christ's High-priesthood consisting in two acts, 239
1. The assumption of a created nature, 240
2. The offering that nature in sacrifice, 241
His union of these two acts in instituting the Priesthood of His Church,242
The institution of bloody sacrifice in the world before Christ, 243
Lasaulx's statement how it enters into all the acts of human life, 245
What the ceremonial of Gentile sacrifice was, 250
Union and correspondence of prayer and sacrifice, 253
The sense of guilt in bloody sacrifice, 254
Bloody sacrifice a positive divine enactment, 254
Statement of St. Augustine to this effect, 255
St. Thomas on sacrifice as offered to God alone, 256
Bloody sacrifice the most characteristic fact of the pre-Christian world, 257
The practice of human sacrifices running through the history of ancient nations, 259
Conclusion as to the divine appointment of sacrifice, 261[Pg xiii] The Christian Sacrifice the counterpart of the original institution, 263
And the compendium of the whole dispensation, 265
Containing in itself all the original force of sacrifice, 267
But besides it is guardian of the Divine Unity, 268
And of the Divine Trinity, 268
And of the Incarnation, 269
And of the Redemption, 270
And of the adoption to Sonship, 271
It contains also the fountain of spiritual life, 272
And the source of sanctification, 273
And the medicine of immortality, 274
The presence of Christ's physical body, St. Chrysostom, 275
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The unity of the Christian people its result, St. Augustine, 276
How our Lord impressed His High-priesthood on the world, 276
Jurisdiction necessary to constitute a kingdom, 278
Jurisdiction in the diocese and in the whole Church, 279
The fulfilment of the parable, "I am the true vine," 280
The Eucharistic Sacrifice the centre of life in the Church during eighteen hundred years, 283
CHAPTER VI.
Independence of the Ante-Nicene Church shown in her Organic Growth.
The Church's triple independence in government, teaching, and worship as actually carried out, 287
Occasion of the Nicene Council's convocation, 289
The Emperor thereby recognised the Church as a divine kingdom, 290
This kingdom, as it appeared in A.D. 29 and in A.D. 325, 291
The Emperor also acknowledged the solidarity of the Episcopate, 292
The Christian Council and the Roman Senate, 293
Force of the Council as to the relation between Church and State, 294
A. Independence of the Church's government shown in five points, 295
1. The ordered gradation of the hierarchy in mother and daughter churches, 296
Recognised as original in the 6th canon of the Council, 297
This principle carried through the whole structure of the Church, 298[Pg xiv]
Symbolised in the building of the great medieval cathedrals, 301
2. Development of Provincial Councils, 302
3. Action of the Church in hearing and deciding causes, 303
Her proper jurisdiction in the exterior and interior forum, 304
The episcopal magistracy exercised in a fourfold gradation, 306
4. Election of Bishops and the inferior ministers, 307
St. Cyprian's testimony, 308
Outcome of the three centuries in this respect, 309
The principle upon which all this practice was built,310
5. Administration of temporal goods, 311
Three states as to these goods in the early Church, 312
Acquisition and usage of temporal goods, 313
Temporal goods in A.D. 29 and in A.D. 325, 315
B. Independence of the Church's teaching, 316
The first teaching purely oral, based upon authority,317
Three classes of truths forming the divine and the apostolical tradition, 319
Importance in this period of exclusively oral teaching in exhibiting the Church's office of teacher, 320
Seen in the rite of baptism, 321
In the Eucharistic Liturgy, 322
Picture of the Eucharistic Sacrifice by an Apostle, 324
Further exhibition in the rite of Ordination, 328
Fullness of the Magisterium expressed in these rites, 329
The Church's teaching office neither changed nor diminished by the writings of the New Testament, 331
Shown by the nature of the office in itself, 331
By the circumstances under which these writings came, 331
By their internal arrangement, 332
By their own positive testimony, 335
The living personal authority an unchangeable principle, 335
Things in the Church which preceded the publication of the New Testament, 336
The written record of our Lord's words and acts, 337
The various parts of ecclesiastical tradition, 338
CHAPTER VII.[Pg xv]
Independence of the Ante-Nicene Church shown in her mode of Positive Teaching and in her mode of Resisting Error.
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Germ of the Church in the missionary circuits of our Lord, 340
The mission carried on by