Further, to go back to St. Matthew, this Evangelist tells us, in a most impressive passage intimately connected with the plan of his Gospel, that Christ made provision for unity of action among His Apostles by appointing one of them to be the leader of his brethren, and assigning to him a unique relation to the spiritual building He was raising. "And I say to thee that thou art Peter [i.e. the Rock], and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (xvi, 18, 19). St. Luke (22:31-32) has words spoken in the supper-room which imply this previous appointment of St. Peter, by describing in other terms the same firm support which it would be his to communicate to the faith of the Church. "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail, and do thou when thou art converted" (or it may mean, "do thou in thy turn") "confirm thy brethren." St. John, whose Gospel follows a different course from the Synoptics, and seems to select for narration previously unrecorded deeds and words of Christ which cast a fuller light on what the others had given, tells of Jesus Christ's final reiteration of the commission to St. Peter rendered necessary perhaps to reassure him after his fall and deep repentance, and entrusting him anew with the supreme pastoral charge of the entire flock. "Simon, Son of John, lovest thou me more than these . . . feed My lambs . . . be the shepherd of my sheep" (21:15-17). To St. John, too, we are indebted for our knowledge of a fact which accords well with the words, "Lo, I am with you always", reported by St. Matthew; for he testifies that on the occasion of the Last Supper Jesus Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, and "will bear testimony of me" (15:26) and "will lead you into all truth" (16:13); also that on the same occasion He prayed an effectual prayer for His disciples and "those who through their word should come to believe in him, that they all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art one in me, and I am one in Thee, so that they may be one in us, and thus the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (17:20-23). Were we arguing with the Rationalistic critics we should have to meet their refusal to grant the authenticity of much that is in these passages, but the question of reunion is practical only for those who accept fully and in all respects the authority of the canonical Scriptures. If, then, we take these passages together as utterances of the same Divine voice, reaching us through these different channels, the conclusion is irresistible that the Church was founded by Christ on the principle of a revelation to which, as attested by the word of God, unquestioning assent is due from all to whom it is addressed; on the principle of an authority communicated by Christ to chosen representatives whom He set as teachers of the world, and to whom He requires that the world should render the obedience of faith; and on the principle of a single religious communion, under the rule of these teachers and their duly appointed successors, admission to which is through the gate of baptism and adherence to which is imposed on all under the most solemn sanctions. For: In the Acts and the Epistles we have a record of the way in which the Apostles understood their commission, and it is obvious that the two things correspond. After receiving the promised gift of the Spirit, the Apostles go forth confidently and commence their preaching. Peter is their leader and, in those early days, so far their spokesman as for the moment to throw his fellow-Apostles almost entirely into the shade. Even St. John, great as he was, and, as we may gather from a comparison of the writings of the two, greatly St. Peter's intellectual superior, accompanies him as a silent companion, thus illustrating the completeness of the union that bound together the Apostolic band. In his preaching St. Peter follows an easily recognizable plan. First he seeks to accredit himself and his colleagues by appealing to the character of their Master, Whose life had been led before the eyes of the people of Jerusalem. He was Jesus of Nazareth, "a man approved by God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God wrought through him in the midst of you" (Acts 2:22), One, therefore, to Whose teaching the people were bound to attend and Whose representatives they were bound to receive. It was true that He who had thus been approved by God among them had afterwards fallen into the hands of wicked men who had taken and slain Him, thereby appearing to show signs of weakness hard to reconcile with such stupendous claims. But the Twelve, who were now addressing the people, were also known to them as having each and all been the companions of the Lord Jesus all the time He went in and out from the Baptism of John (Acts 1:21-22); and these could testify from their own immediate experience that what had befallen their Master, so far from being a real sign of weakness, had been ordained for His glorification "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God", Who, after thus permitting His Son's death for our sakes, had "raised him up" from the dead, whereof they, the Apostles, were the witnesses (Acts 2:33), as they were also of His subsequent Ascension. Having thus declared and authenticated their commission, and having received a further confirmation of it by the miracles wrought through their intercession (Acts 4:10, 29, 30; 5:12, 16), which made a, deep impression on the people, they take up a position of the utmost authority (Acts 5:32), proclaim their Master's teaching, and, on the faith of their sole word, demand credence for it and obedience to its requirements. "Therefore let the House of Israel know that God hath made this same Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:36, 38). Thus did they teach and claim to be believed, and thus did they call upon their hearers to enter the nascent Church by Baptism and to place themselves as disciples under the Apostolic instruction and rule. And this is what the hearers did in large numbers. On the day of Pentecost itself there were added to the Church, we are told, three thousand souls (ibid., 11, 41), a number which a few days later, after another discourse from St. Peter, swelled into five thousand, and from thence the multitude steadily grew, not only in Jerusalem but in Judæa, and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth (iv, 4). In strict conformity with the words of Christ (make disciples of all nations. . . . He that believeth and is baptized shall he saved), those who thus join themselves to the Apostles are described invariably as "believers" (pistoi, Acts 10:45), or again as "disciples" (mathetai, Acts 9:1; 11:26; 16:1), or in other places as "those who are being saved" (sozomenoi, Acts 2:47; 1 Corinthians 1:18). On these principles the Church was founded, and from these principles unity of faith and communion resulted. "They continued", we read, "steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and communion, and in the breaking of bread and in prayer" (Acts 11:42); and again "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul" (iv, 32). Later indeed disputes arose and led to critical situations. That was to be expected, for human minds necessarily approach subjects that challenge their attention from the standpoint of their own antecedents, which means that their judgments are apt to be one-sided and to differ. But the point to note is that in those times the authority of the Apostles was universally recognized as competent to decide such controversies and to require obedience to its decrees. Accordingly, they were controversies which led to no breach of communion, but rather to a strengthening of the bonds of communion by eliciting clearer statements of the truths to which all believers were committed by their faith. One instance of a controversy thus happily terminated we have in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts. It is a valuable illustration of what has been said, for it was settled by the authority of the Apostles, who met together to consider it, and ended by affirming the equality of Jews and Gentiles in the Christian Church, together with the non-necessity of circumcision as a condition of participating in ifs full benefits; and by recommending to the Gentile converts a certain (apparently temporary) concession to Jewish feelings which might soften the difficulties of their mutual intercourse. "It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us" (xv, 28) was the ground on which those Apostles claimed obedience to their decree, thereby setting a type of procedure and language which subsequent rulers of the Church have consistently followed. From the second part of the Acts and from the remaining books of the New Testament we have the means of ascertaining how St. Paul and the other Apostles conceived of their mission and authority. It is clear that they, too, regarded themselves as clothed by Jesus Christ with authority both to teach and to rule, that they, too, expected and received in every place a like assent to their teaching and a like obedience to their commands from their disciples, who just by this means were held together in the unity of the one undivided and indivisible Church which the Apostles had founded. The following texts may be consulted on this point, but it is not necessary for our present purpose to do more than refer to them: Acts 15:28; Romans 1:5, 15:18-19 and 16:19-26; 1 Corinthians 4:17-21; 5:1-5; 15:11; 2 Corinthians 3:5-9; 10:5-8; 13:2-10; Ephesians 2:20; 4:4-6, 11, 12; 1 Thessalonians 2:13 and 4:1-8; 2 Timothy 2:2; Titus 2:15; Hebrews 13:7-9; 1 John 4:6; 3 John 10; Jude 17-20. We must not, however, pass over St. Paul's jubilant description of this unity in his Epistle to the Ephesians, standing out so conspicuously as it does in the New-Testament writings, to convince us of its deep significance, its all-penetrating character, and the firm foundations on which it was set: "One body, one Spirit, one Hope, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, Who is over all and through us all, and in us all." Such was the spectacle of Christian unity born of the Apostolic preaching which presented itself to the eyes of the enraptured Apostle some thirty years from the time when St. Peter preached his first sermon on the day of Pentecost. To claim this wonderful unity as distinctive of the followers of Jesus Christ in the Apostolic days is not to forget that there were sad exceptions to the general rule. There were indeed no rival communions then which, whilst claiming to be Christian, were maintained in formal opposition to the Church of the Apostles. It is expressly stated by Tertullian (Adv. Marcion., IV, v) that the Marcionites, in the middle of the second century, were the first who, when expelled from the Church Catholic, created an opposition Church for the expression of their peculiar views. Before that time the dissentients contented themselves with forming parties and schools of thought, and of this mode of separation, which sufficed to put men outside the Church, we find clear traces in the New-Testament writings together with predictions that the evil thus originating would become more pronounced in after times. Men of what would nowadays be called independent temperament were dissatisfied with the Apostles' teaching in some particulars, and refused to accept it without further warrant than the mere "word of an Apostle." Thus we may gather from the Epistle to the Galatians that, in spite of the decision of the Council of Jerusalem, there continued to be a party which insisted that the observance of the Jewish Law was obligatory on Gentile Christians, and from the Epistle to the Colossians that there was likewise a Jewish party, probably of Hellenistic origin, which mingled insistence on Jewish legalities with a superstitious worship of the angels (Colossians 2:18). At Ephesus we may detect the adepts of an incipient Gnosticism in St. Paul's warnings against giving heed to "fables and endless genealogies" (1 Timothy 1:4) and against "profane and vain babblings and oppositions of 'gnosis' falsely so-called" (1 Timothy 6:20). Hymenæus and Alexander are mentioned by name as denying the resurrection of the flesh at the last day (2 Timothy 2:18. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:12). St. John, in the Apocalypse (ii, 6, 15), tells us of the Nicolaites who seem to have fallen into some kind of Oriental admixture of immorality with worship, and in his second Epistle (verse 7. Cf. 1 John 4:2) he warns his readers that many "deceivers are entered into the world" who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which the church historians refer to the Docetism of Cerinthus. Our modern admirers of comprehensive Churches would regard the coexistence side by side of these beliefs with those of the Apostles as a healthy sign of mental activity in those early Christian communities, and it is instructive to compare such modern judgments with those of the Apostles, because the comparison enables us to realize better how strong was the feeling of the latter as to the essential importance of basing unity of communion on adherence to the Apostles' doctrine, and as to the exceeding sinfulness of dissenting from it. Thus St. Paul calls these alien doctrines "old wives' fables" (1 Timothy 4:7), "doctrines of devils" (ibid., 2), and "profanities the preaching of which will spread and devour like gangrene" (2 Timothy 2:17). St. Peter calls them "fables skillfully made up" (2 Peter 1:16), and, in a passage where the word heresy under Christian influences has already acquired its traditional meaning, "damnable heresies", or "heresies leading to damnation" (ibid., ii, 1). The preachers of these heresies St. Paul calls "men of corrupt minds" (1 Timothy 6:5), who "speak falsehood in their hypocrisy, and have consciences seared with a red-hot iron" (1 Timothy 4:2). St. Peter calls them "false teachers who deny the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves speedy damnation" (2 Peter 2:1), and St. John calls them "antichrists" (2 John 7; 1 John 2:18; 4:3). Moreover, so far from wishing to tolerate such persons in the Church, St. Paul warns the faithful to avoid them (Romans 16:17), calls upon those who are set over Churches to cast out the recalcitrant heretic, as one who is "subverted and self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11), and, in a particular instance, tells St. Timothy that he has "delivered" two such heretics "to Satan" that is, cast them out of the Church "that they may learn not to blaspheme" (1 Timothy 1:20). Finally, St. John is most severe towards the Christians of Pergamos for neglecting to expel from their midst the two classes of heretics whom he describes (Revelation 11, 14, 15). In short, according to the teaching and record of the Scriptures, the Church is one everywhere with a oneness which is desired by Christ on its own account as befitting the obedient children of one God, one Lord, and one Spirit, and likewise as the necessary outcome of faithful adherence on the part of its members to the concordant teaching of those whom He appointed to be its rulers, and whom the Holy Spirit preserves in all truth. Still, inasmuch as each is left free to accept or reject this one teaching, this wholesome doctrine, there were, side by side with the general body of the true believers, some apparently small groups who held alien doctrines, for which they had been rejected from the communion of the one Church and these were regarded as having placed themselves outside the pale of salvation. There is not a trace, however, of any third class, separated from the communion of their brethren, but still regarded as members of the true Church. In the writings of the early Fathers, which contain their testimony to the nature of the Church as it existed in their days, we find the same formative principles which moulded its origins continuing to determine the character of its structure and the distinctive spirit of its members. The Church is now widely spread through the known regions of the world, but it is still, as in the days of St. Paul, everywhere one and the same, all its members in whatever place being united in the profession of the same faith, in the participation of the same sacraments, and in obedience to pastors who themselves form one corporate body and are united by the bond of an intimate solidarity. We learn, too, from these contemporary witnesses that the principle of this remarkable unity is still that of a strict adherence to the Apostles' doctrine, but here a new element from the nature of the case comes in. The Apostles no longer live to proclaim their doctrine; It can be obtained, however, with perfect security from the Apostolic tradition. In other words, it has been banded down incorrupt by oral transmission through the lines of bishops who are the duly appointed successors of the Apostles, and who, like them, are guarded in their teaching by the assistance of the Holy Ghost. Thus the word tradition now comes into prominence, and, just as St. Paul said to Timothy, "keep the deposit" (1 Timothy 6:20), that is the sacred doctrine committed to him by the Apostle as a sacred trust, so the Fathers of the Church say "keep the tradition." This is ever their first and most decisive test of sound doctrine, not what recommends itself to the reason of the individual or his party, but what is sanctioned by the Apostolical tradition; and for the ascertaining of this tradition the Fathers of the second and third centuries refer the searcher to the Churches founded immediately by the Apostles, and before all others to the Church of Rome. We learn, moreover, from these early witnesses, that this Church of Rome, in proportion as the ecclesiastical system passed out of the state of embryo to that of full formation, became more and more explicitly recognized as the see which had inherited the prerogatives of Blessed Peter, and was, therefore, the authority which in all cases of controversy must ultimately decide what was in accordance with the tradition, and in all questions of jurisdiction and discipline was the visible head, communion with which was communion with the one and indivisible Church. As these points of ecclesiastical history are discussed elsewhere, we need not demonstrate them by bringing forward the copious Patristic testimonies which may be found in any good treatise on the Church. We may, however, usefully quote, not so much in proof as in illustration of what is said, a passage or two from St. Irenæus's treatise "Adversus hæreses", he being the earliest of the Fathers from whom we have extant a treatise of any fullness, and this particular treatise dealing with just the points with which we are concerned. "The Church which is now planted throughout the whole inhabited globe, indeed even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples that faith which is in one God, the Father omnipotent who made Heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in it; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who was incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Ghost. . . . Having received this preaching, and this faith, as we have said, the Church, though spread throughout the whole world, preserves it with the utmost care and diligence, just as if she dwelt in one house, and believes these truths just as if she had but one and the same soul and heart, and preaches them and teaches them and hands them down [tradit] just as if she had but one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are diverse, the force and meaning of the tradition is everywhere the same. Nor do the Churches which are in Germany believe differently or pass down a different tradition, as neither again do the Churches in Spain or Gaul or in the East, or in Egypt or Africa, or those situated in the middle of the earth [that is the Churches of Palestine]. But as the sun, which is God's creature, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so too does the preaching of the truth shine everywhere and illuminate all men who desire to come to the knowledge of the truth. And neither do those of the Church's rulers who are powerful in speech add to this tradition for no one is above the [great] teacher nor do those who are infirm in speech subtract from it. For since the Faith is one and the same, neither does he who can say more add to it, nor he who can say less diminish it" (Against Heresies I.10.2). This striking passage shows not merely how complete was the unity of faith throughout the world in those days, but how this unity of faith was the response to the unity of the doctrine everywhere preached, to the unity of the tradition everywhere handed down. Elsewhere St. Irenæus testifies to the source of this uniform tradition, and what was understood to be the safeguard of its purity. In the first three chapters of his third book he is criticizing the heretics of his time and the inconsistency of their methods; and in so doing sets forth by way of contrast the method of the Church. "When you refute them out of Scripture", he says "they accuse the Scriptures themselves of errors, of lack of authority, of contradictory statements, and deny that the truth can be gathered from them save by those who know the tradition." By "tradition", however, they mean a fictitious esoteric tradition which they claim to have received, "sometimes from Valentinus, sometimes from Marcion, sometimes from Basilides, or anyone else who is in opposition." "When in your turn you appeal to the tradition that has come down from the Apostles through the succession of the presbyters in the Churches, they reply that they are wiser than the presbyters and even than the Apostles themselves, and know the uncorrupted truth." To this Irenæus observes that "it is difficult to bring to repentance a soul captured by error, but that if is not altogether impossible to escape error by setting truth by the side of it." He then proceeds to state where the true tradition can be found: "The tradition of the Apostles has been made manifest throughout the world, and can be found in every Church by those who wish to know the truth. We can number, too, the bishops who were appointed by the Apostles in the Churches and their successors down to our own day, none of whom knew of or taught the doctrines which these men madly teach. Yet, if the Apostles had known of these secret mysteries and used to teach them secretly, without the knowledge of others, to the perfect, they would have taught them to those chiefly to whom they confided the Churches themselves. For they desired that those whom they left behind them as successors, by delivering over to them their own office of teaching, should be most perfect and blameless, inasmuch as, if they acted rightly, much good, but if they fell away the gravest calamity, would ensue." To exemplify this method of referring to the tradition of the Churches, he applies it to three of the Churches: Rome, Smyrna, and Ephesus, setting that of Rome In the first place, as having a tradition with which those of the other Churches are necessarily in accord. The passage is well known, but for its Intimate hearing on our present subject we may transcribe it. "But as it would take too long in a volume like the present to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we confound all those who, in any way, whether through self-will, or vain glory, or blindness, or evil-mindedness, invent false doctrines, by directing them to the greatest and most ancient Church well known to all, which was founded and established at Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, and to the tradition it has received from the Apostles and the faith it has announced to men, both of which have come down to us through the succession of the Bishops. For to this Church, on account of its greater authority", the Greek text being defective here, it is impossible to say exactly what Greek word lies behind the Latin principalitas, but the context indicates "authority" as giving the intended sense "it is necessary that every Church that is, the faithful from all parts should have recourse as to that in which the Apostolic tradition is ever preserved by those" if we follow Dom Morin's highly probable correction of an apparently defective reading "who are set over it." One more quotation from St. Irenæus we must permit ourselves, as it evidences so clearly the feeling of this Father and his contemporaries as to the relative conditions of those who were in the one Church or without it: "For in the Church God has set Apostles, prophets, and doctors, together with all the other operations of the Spirit, in which those have no share who do not fly to the Church, but deprive themselves of life by their evil opinions and evil deeds. For where the Church is there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is there is the Church and all grace, but the Spirit is truth. Wherefore those who have no part in it neither receive the life-giving nutriment from the breasts of their mother, nor drink of the most pure spring that flows from the Body of Christ; but such people dig for themselves broken cisterns out of earthly trenches, and drink out of the filth putrid water, flying from the faith of the Church lest they should be converted, rejecting the Spirit that they may not be instructed. Being alienated from the truth by just consequence, they are rolled and tossed about by every error, holding at one time one opinion, at another another in regard to the same subject, never having any fixed and stable judgments, caring more to cavil about words than to be disciples of the truth. For they are not built upon one rock, but upon the stone-strewn sand; and hence invent many gods, and plead ever in excuse that they are seeking, but, being blind, never succeed in finding" (ibid., III, xxiv). A modern reader of St. Irenæus's "Adversus hæreses" might be inclined to object that the heretics of those days held doctrines so preposterous that his severe language about them is intelligible without our having to suppose that he would have judged with similar severity doctrines opposed to the tradition which could claim to rest upon a more rational basis. But his principle of the authority of the tradition is manifestly intended to have universal application, and may be safely taken as supplying the test by which this typical Father of the second century would, were he living now, judge of the modern systems in conflict with the Church's tradition. The notable heresies that originated in the first four Christian centuries have long since expired. Gnosticism in its various forms occasioned serious trouble to the Apologists of the second century, but scarcely survived into the third. Montanism and Novatianism are not much heard of after the third century, and Donatism, which arose in Africa in 311, perished in the general ruin of African Christianity caused by the Vandal invasion in 429. Manichæism came forward in the third century, but is not much heard of after the sixth, and Pelagianism, which arose at the very end of the fourth century, though for the time it provoked an acute crisis, received a crushing blow at the Council of Ephesus (431) and disappeared altogether after the Council of Orange in 529. Arianism arose at the beginning of the fourth century and, in spite of its condemnation at Nicæa, in 325, was kept alive both in its pure form and in its diluted form of Semi-Arianism by the active support of two emperors. From the time of the First Council of Constantinople (381) it disappeared from the territories of the Empire, but received a new lease of life among the northern tribes, the Goths, Lombards, Burgundians, Vandals, etc. This was due to the preaching of Ulfilas, a bishop of Arian views, who was sent from Constantinople in 341 to evangelize the Visigoths. From the Visigoths it spread to the kindred tribes and became their national religion, until 586, when, with the conversion of Reccared, their king, and of the Spanish Visigoths, the last remnants of this particular heresy perished. As these ancient heresies no longer exist, they do not concern the practical problem of reunion which is before us in the present age. But it is instructive to note that the principles they embodied are the very same which, taking other forms, have invariably motived the long series of revolts against the authority of the Catholic Church. Thus regarded, we may divide them into five classes. First there are certain intellectual difficulties which have always puzzled the human mind. The difficulty of explaining the derivation of the finite from the infinite, and the difficulty of explaining the coexistence of evil with good in the physical and moral universe, motived the strange speculations of the Gnostics and the simpler but not less inconsistent theory of the Manichæans. The difficulty of harmonizing the mystery of the Trinity, and that of the Incarnation, with the conceptions of natural reason motived the heresies of the Patripassians, the Sabellians, the Macedonians, and the Arians, and again the difficulty of conceiving the supernatural or justifying the idea of inherited sin motived the Pelagian denial of these doctrines. A second source of heresies has been the outburst of strong religious emotions, usually based on fancied visions to which, as being direct communications from on high, it was claimed that the traditional teaching of the Church must give way. Montanism, that earliest example of what are now glorified as "religions of the Spirit", was the most striking example of this class. Thirdly, the chafing under the rule of authority, with the desire to pursue personal ambitions, is discernible in the origins of Novatianism and Donatism, whose founders, although they alleged on the flimsiest grounds that the rulers they wished to displace had been irregularly appointed, must be held to have acted primarily from the desire to exalt themselves, even at the risk of dividing the Christian community. In the fourth place comes the principle of nationalism, that is of nationalistic exclusivism, in those who ally themselves with a separatist movement not from any conviction personally formed of the justice of the arguments on its behalf, but because its leaders have contrived to present it to them as a means of emphasizing their national feeling. This has always proved a potent instrument in the hands of heretical leaders, and we have early examples of it in the way in which Donatism presented itself as the religion of the Africans, and Arianism as the religion of the Goths. A last class of motives which has often worked for separation is to be sought in the disposition of temporal rulers to intrude into the administration of the ecclesiastical province and mould ecclesiastical arrangements into forms that may assist their own political schemes. We have an example of this evil in the conduct of the Emperors Constantius and Valens, who so disastrously fostered the Arian heresy. To all these false principles the orthodox Fathers opposed, in the first place, the authority of the tradition that had come down from the Apostles, though not refusing to meet the heresiarchs on their own ground also, and refute them by argument, as many beautiful treatises testify. Besides these notable heresies of the early centuries, which fixed the type, as it were, for all future divisions, Monothelitism in the seventh century, Iconoclasm in the eighth, together with the heresies of the Waldensians, Albigensians, Wycliffites, and Hussites of the medieval period, introduced strife and division into Christendom for periods shorter or longer. As, however, they too are extinct, it is enough just to refer to their existence, and we may pass on to the still-enduring separatist Churches of the East of which the most ancient is the Nestorian. The distinctive doctrine of the Nestorians is that which, as held by Nestorius, was condemned in the Council of Ephesus, in 431. It is the doctrine that in Christ there are not only two natures but also two persons, the Divine person, Who is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and the human person, Who was born of the Virgin Mary; and that the union between these two persons is not physical but moral, the Divine person having chosen the human person to be in a unique manner His dwelling-place and instrument. As Nestorius, after his condemnation, was first imprisoned in his former monastery at Antioch and then banished to the Greater Oasis in Upper Egypt, his personal influence over his disciples ceased. But his doctrine was undoubtedly derived from his former master, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and, as Theodore's memory was cherished as that of the greatest theological light of Syria, the condemned doctrine found many friends in the Eastern Patriarchate, and was taken up with special zeal at Edessa. From thence it spread to the neighbouring kingdom of Persia, where it was welcomed and protected by the Persian king as tending to emancipate his Christian subjects from Byzantine influence. Shortly afterwards the prevailing sentiment at Antioch became Monophysite, and the Nestorians of the patriarchate had to take refuge in Persia, with the result that the subsequent development of the heresy had its centre of propagation in the Persian town of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, where was its metropolitan see. These Nestorians had a fine missionary spirit, and evangelized many countries in the Far East, some even reaching China, and others founding those Christian communities on the Malabar Coast of India called the Thomas Christians, or Christians of St. Thomas. This Nestorian Church reached its highest pitch of prosperity in the eleventh century, but the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries involved its adherents in ruin and the great mass of their posterity became absorbed in the general Mohammedan population. They are now represented by a small body, who dwell on the borders of Lake Urumiyah in Kurdistan and in the neighbouring highlands. They are not a very civilized race and probably know little of the doctrine which was the original cause of their secession, or know it only as the patriotic watchword of their race. A still smaller body of Catholics of the same spiritual ancestry and the same liturgical rite are called Chaldees and live in the Euphrates and Tigris valley. In 1870 their catholicos seceded on a purely personal matter, and induced his people to refuse acceptance of the Vatican decrees. They returned to unity seven years later, but the episode seems to show that their faith is not very firm. The Monophysite schism had still more serious consequences. Its distinctive doctrine is associated with the name of Eutyches, former archimandrite of a monastery near Constantinople, and Dioscorus, the nephew of St. Cyril and his successor in the patriarchal See of Alexandria. This doctrine, which was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, contrasted with Nestorianism by running to the opposite extreme. It maintained that in Christ there is not only a single personality, but also only a single nature. "Of two natures but not in two natures" was its phrase; for the Monophysites were zealous upholders of the decrees of Ephesus, and affirmed that Mary was the Theotokos, from whom her Son received a perfect human nature; but they maintained that the effect of the union was that the Divine naturAs understood by the apostles and their disciples
As resisted by the earliest heretics
Summary
Unity in the early Church
Divisions of Christendom and their causes
Extinct schisms
Nestorianism
Monophysitism
Union of Christendom
Group of Brands
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