In 1911 the saintly Anglican Bishop of Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, Charles Grafton, published a small book on Church History which he called The Lineage of the American Catholic Church. It was intended for the instruction of the laity of his diocese and it breathes something of the scent of its day. It was written 100 years ago for Americans not exactly facing the societal problems which confront us, but the internal challenges they faced, the struggles of the soul, remain unchanged. The story of the human struggle with sin and holiness is the same in every generation, and make up the history of the Church. In that sense, Bishop Grafton’s book, which we will serialize here for the next few months, is quite up-to-date. More important, history is not merely a recounting of dates and events; it seeks to tell us the meaning of what has happened in the past, in the hopes of illuminating our present. This Bishop Grafton does in a most timely way.

– Fr. Wilcox

Let us begin the lineage of our American Church with some theology.

The Church is the end of God’s original design in creating. God designed the universe that now is, as a preliminary to creating the Church. He created the material universe and man that He might eventually develop out of the existing order of things a new organism. It is the primary purpose and the ultimate object of His creative activity.

Let us next make clear what we mean by the "Church." It is a spiritual organism. Philosophers have believed in a future state of reward and punishment, who have had no conception of the Church as the finally developed end of creation. Many Christians, in like manner, believe in a heaven as a place of reward for good people. They think of it as a place where they may wander about and do much as they will. They have little idea of its awful sanctity, its law of love, its organization as completing the creative purpose. Heaven is not merely a place, but it is also a new state of life. It is a new mode of union with God. It is thus the final development of Creation. Its members form together a spiritual organization.

Again: the Church is not a mere human institution. Some have thought of it as such. To them it belongs to the same class as other human societies. It is like a kind of fraternal society, similar to that of the Masons, Oddfellows, or Knights of Pythias. It is thus a temporary and earthly society, like a political one, or a society having some philanthropic aim. It is simply a man-made association for some religious purposes. It is only to last as long as the world lasts. It is human in its origin, and only for a time. Is not this the popular Protestant idea?

Again: the Church is not simply a divine society. Some, because it was founded on earth by a Divine Founder, conceive of it as such. They moreover, liken it unto an earthly Kingdom, and claim for it a visible, earthly head. This is the Roman idea, and tends to concentrate the view of it to this earth. But the Church of Christ is something more than a divinely founded society. It has a wider than an earthly vision. It consists of all the saints in glory, of the vast body of those in the expectant state, and of the few who form the Church Militant here on earth. All three together form the spiritual organism which is the Church, of which Christ is the Head.

We must thus realize the fact that, out of our temporary probationary state, God is calling and perfecting souls, who, united to Christ, form a great, grand, spiritual organism. It is not a mere organization. Organizations man can make. God only can make an organism. An organism is something that has life in itself, and can communicate life... "At Pentecost, God breathed into the Church the Spirit of Life. It became changed from a lifeless into a living body." Of this spiritual organism which is the Church, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, is the Head, and the Holy Ghost is the Heart. You can conceive of it as a great sphere of light, of which Christ is the sun, and as filled with the Holy Ghost as its atmosphere. Or you may think of it as a temple in which Christ dwells, and of which, united to Him, we are living stones. It is a great and pregnant truth that, what God is to the material universe, namely, the energy immanent within it, Christ, the God-Man, is to the new creation. The Church is thus a living organism, which has life in itself, and can communicate life.

In its final and completed state, when Christ shall come again, the Church will rise into its perfected condition, when all evil and sorrow will for ever cease. Sorrow and sin will be no more.

All the Saints, having attained to the Beatific Vision, will then be from sin by that new and complete union which they share with God in Christ, and in blessedness consequently will ever reign. God came into this world, not to make it the good world, but, out of this world, to make a world that would be good.

This spiritual organism, where the creature endowed with free will, will then be upheld in God, is the final end of creation. It is being formed out of its present preparatory state, and this organism is the Church. It is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, which we profess in the creeds. It is called in Holy Scripture the "Bride of Christ." It is the consummated act of the present creation. It has, too, a future purpose and development. It "will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth;" it is an act, grand, majestic, glorious, worthy of the conception of God!

The Formation of the Church
The Church had its beginning with the Jewish people. God, Who taught mankind through nature and conscience, through poets and philosophers, and holy men and patriarchs, established the ongoing revelation of Himself under Moses in an organized form. This is called the old dispensation. Our Lord, the prophesied end of the old dispensation, came as the completed revelation of God to man. The whole vast universe, with its millions of suns, and the millions of ages in its development, was designed to give honor and dignity to the event. Coming into the universe, it must be at some one point, and this planet furnished the place. Consequently, representatives of all creation, heaven and earth, angels and men, Jews and Gentiles, the animals of the stall, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, were present at the birth of Him Who came that "He might gather together in one all things, in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth."

Christ did not come to destroy the old dispensation, but to fulfill and build upon it. The old was like the six waterpots filled with water, which were to be changed into the wine of the Gospel. God ever thus develops the new order out of the preceding one. Some think that we have little or nothing to do with the Old Testament. But it declares His mind Who changes not. Its moral principles remain the same. The Old Testament reveals also, the principles of worship. It shows how God would be approached by His church. The Jewish dispensation is thus like the bud, of which the Gospel is the full flower.

Among other likenesses, the old and new dispensations had each a special priesthood. The whole of Israel was, we read, a nation of prophets, kings, and priests unto the Lord. The Christian Church was formed in like manner. It was to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood. The distinction between the laity and the clergy, it may be remarked, is not one of kind but of degree. All Christians, baptized and confirmed, partake of Christ’s three offices, and exercise prophetical, priestly, and royal powers. But, just as there was in Israel a special order of priesthood, so it is in the Christian Church. The universal gift does not prejudice the existence of a specially designated one. And so in each dispensation, there is a special order of priesthood, to invade whose rights and powers is to bring upon the invaders for so doing, the condemnation of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.

"When it is understood," said Professor Salmon, "that the scriptural conception of the Church is not that of an aggregate of particles, identical in nature like grains of sand, but of an organized body, the parts of which have differentiated functions, there is no difficulty in receiving the doctrine that the Church is a corporate body, having its rules and officers, and that there are some of its members to whom the special function is assigned of teaching and directing others."

The Church’s Ministry
Non-Catholics object to Episcopal ordination because they have an imperfect grasp of the incarnation. God became Incarnate that, through union with the Incarnate One, here by grace, we should attain in Him hereafter to a union with God in glory. It was therefore necessary there should be both an agent, that is to say, the Holy Spirit, and also a means adapted to our two-fold nature, that is, the sacraments, by which our union with Christ is brought about. The necessity of sacraments implied the further necessity of an authorized ministry to administer them. The mode of ordering and transmission of the ministry is witnessed by the custom of the Spirit-endowed Church. The custom throughout the ages, in the apostolically descended churches, bears witness to the importance of Episcopal ordination. The character of the ministry, as representative of Christ, is witnessed by the mode of His instituting it.

It is thus interesting to see how Christ trained the Apostles, and formed the ministry which was to be the authorized representative of Himself. His public life, we may observe, was divided into three parts. The first, in which He exercised especially His public prophetical ministry, begins with His Sermon on the Mount and ends with the glory of the Mount of Transfiguration, which symbolizes His being the light of the world. The special time of the exercise of His priestly functions begins with the entering into Jerusalem and the offering of Himself in the Last Supper, and terminates with His "It is finished" on the Mount of Calvary. During the great forty days of His resurrection, He is seen in His kingly attitude as Conqueror of Death and Hell, and this period terminates on the Mount of Olives on the day of His glorious Ascension. Now, in each of these periods, He began to associate the Apostles with Himself and His offices, and to commission them. He gave them, in the days when He was teaching, power to teach, and with authority. They are to "bind and loose" by the utterance of the Word, and to declare the coming Kingdom. In the awful period of His priestly action, He associated the Twelve with Himself, and commissioned them as Apostles "to do" or "to offer" the eucharistic sacrifice as a memorial of Himself. In the days of His Resurrection, in the exercise of His kingly sovereignty, He gave mission and jurisdiction to His Apostles throughout the whole world. It was then that He bade them make persons members of the Church by baptism. It was at this time, also, that, breathing on them, He gave them power in His name to remit or retain sins. It was most fitting that this power should be given at this time, because the pardoning power belongs to sovereignty.

But with all this, they were not yet consecrated. Consecration implies a separation of those set aside from all others, and the bestowing on them of a gift. Our Lord, having ascended to the right hand of power, baptizes at Pentecost His whole Church with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, having first dwelt in Christ (being given without measure unto Him), came from Christ, and filled the whole Church. He entered into all its members. The Spirit came from Christ, not as a transitory gift, but as a permanent one. He entered into this organism Christ was forming, never again to leave it. The Holy Spirit gave thereby to each and to all of its members their respective and necessary gifts. He quickened all souls, uniting them to Christ, and empowering all in different degrees in union with Christ’s offices. He gave the Apostles a gift for the exercise of all those functions which they had previously been commissioned by Him to perform. The Apostles became thereby "able ministers of the New Testament," i.e., enabled to do all those things which they had previously been commissioned to do. Their consecration was thus made complete. We thus see how both Christ and the Holy Spirit ever dwell in the Church. Their presence in the Church makes it a living organism. "The Church," as Dr. Moberly says, "is the perpetuity of Christ’s presence. It is the living temple of God Incarnate." The Holy Spirit abides in the Church, uniting its members to Christ and empowering its ministers to perform their respective functions.

This process of commission and consecration to the ministry is emphatically brought out in the case of St. Matthias. The falling away of Judas had made a vacancy in the apostolic band, which was to consist of twelve members. The Apostles not having been themselves consecrated (their consecration was not completed till the day of Pentecost), could not consecrate him. All they could do at that time was to discover by lot whom the Lord had chosen to fill the vacancy. The lot having fallen on Matthias, he was numbered among the eleven. He was thus called and commissioned by Christ through the action of the Apostles. He was not thereby consecrated, he was only numbered with the Apostles. Then, together with the other Apostles, he was consecrated, as they were, by the gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.

The Three Orders
We must now consider the subsequent formation of the three orders of the Ministry, as Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

When we study the New Testament, we see that there were at first two special classes of ministers. There were the "apostles and prophets," upon whose foundations we are told the Church was built. The Apostles specially bore witness to the resurrection and the presence of Christ in the Church, and the prophets to the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. This comes out very beautifully in the calling and consecration of St. Paul. Our Lord, having ascended to the right hand of power, appeared to Saul as he journeyed on the road to Damascus. Christ then called and commissioned Saul, as He had formerly the Apostles during the time of His public ministry. The consecration of the Apostles was completed, as we have seen, at Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost was given them. In like manner the consecration of Saul to the apostleship was subsequently completed. This took place by special order of the Holy Ghost, personally revealing Himself to the prophets at Antioch. Then it was that the Holy Ghost was given to Saul as it had been given to the other Apostles, and he was thus consecrated. He was not, as he said, "an apostle of men," as chosen by them, neither commissioned by man, but by Jesus Christ. He was subsequently gathered into the apostolic fellowship, and was recognized as an Apostle, and his jurisdiction to the Gentiles was assigned him.

The order of the original twelve, in its capacity as a witness of the Resurrection, and the distinctive order of prophets, passed; but our Lord had promised to remain with the apostolic ministry "unto the end of the world." He also promised the Holy Ghost to the Church to be its comforter and guide. Our Lord also had said, "as the Father sent Me, even so send I you." This implies that an authorized ministry should be established. Its members might be discriminated by their gifts and different employments, as stated in Ephesians iv.11: "He gave some, apostles; and some prophets; and some, evangelists; and some pastors and teachers," or, by their separate ranks or orders, a bishops, priests, and deacons. So it came to pass that, forced by the needs of the Church, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the apostolate gathered into union with itself persons clothed with different degrees of ministerial authority. So we find in the Acts the beginning of the order of deacons, who were ordained by the laying-on of the Apostles’ hands. Subsequently a second order, that of "elders," arose, ordained by the laying-on of the hands of Titus and Paul.

And lastly, as the need arose of an order so associated with the Apostles as to possess the power of ordination, we find apostolic delegates, like Timothy and Titus, thus empowered. Thus St. Paul writes to Titus: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city." In this way the Christian ministry was established, and in a permanent form. We find no proof in Holy Scripture of a congregational, or solely presbyterian form of ordination. As, as in the Jewish church we find three orders, high priests, priests, and Levites, so in the Christian, as guided by the Holy Spirit and witnessed by Him in the common consent, we find the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons.

The Christian Priesthood
Again, we find that in the Christian dispensation the priesthood was preserved. It is sometimes said that the word "priest" is not applied to the Christian ministry in the Bible. But this is a mistake. In Isaiah lxvi.21, we find it prophesied in reference to the coming dispensation, that there should be "priests." All nations were the come, "And I will take of them, for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord." Also our Lord Himself is called the High Priest, and "a priest after the order of Melchisedec." He was not, therefore, to be confounded with priests of human of Jewish origin.

For, as it is written in the Hebrews, "If He were on earth, He should not be a priest" at all, i.e., offering gifts according to the law. But as a High Priest, He would have priests under Him, and to them the Church, guided by the Spirit, applied the Greek term À,D,bH and the Latin term "sacerdos." The question, however, must not be determined merely by the terms used, but by the powers given to the Christian ministry. Now we find that the Christian priest has the same powers given him which characterized the Jewish priesthood, and therefore he is a priest in character and office, like those of old.

Like the priesthood of the old dispensation, the Christian priest is to teach, bless, rule, intercede, and offer sacrifice. Was it the duty of the Jewish priest to keep knowledge, and to teach? Concerning the Christian ministry our Lord said, "He that hearest you, heareth Me." Did the Jewish priest exercise ecclesiastical rule? To the Christian priest it is said: "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven."

Had the Jewish priest the power of reconciliation and excommunication? To the Christian priesthood was given the ministry of reconciliation, that "whosesoever sins they remit, they are remitted, and whosesoever sins they retain, they are retained." Could the Jewish priest stand with his censer between the living and the dead, and stay the plague? "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick." Did the priest of the old order bless the people in like manner that the Christian priest blesses in Christ’s name? Was the Jewish priest to offer sacrifice? "We have an altar." An altar involves sacrifice and priesthood, and there the Christian priest offers the sacrifice of the Eucharist to God. The whole Christian Church, and each of its members, is a priesthood, and the clergy, as its representatives, are priests. St. Paul, in Romans xv.16, asserts his priestly office in recognized liturgical words. He speaks (we believe we give a true translation) of "the grace that was given to me of God, that I should be the priest of Jesus Christ unto the Gentiles, ministering the work of a priest in respect of the Gospel of God., that the oblation of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." Our Lord Himself, in bidding the Apostles "do this," or, as the word here in its liturgical context signifies, "offer" this, established the Eucharistic sacrifice. Christ washing the Apostles’ feet was part of the service of priestly ordination, as it was of old. The Lord’s Supper was not thus the establishment merely of a comunion, but a setting forth and a presentation to the Eternal Father of "Our Lord’s death, till He come again."

The Christian ministry was thus made the extension of our Lord’s offices as prophet, priest, and king. Our Lord in this way continues what He began to do, and abides with us, going about, "doing good." The old priesthood was thus not destroyed; it was simply changed. Thus we are told, "the priesthood being changed, there was of necessity a change of the law." There was a new law of life given, because there was a new priesthood. The old was enlarged, elevated, spiritualized.

We gather then from Holy Scripture that the general principle concerning the ministry is that the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, calls or selects those who are to represent it; and Christ, through ordination and consecration, authorizes and bestows His gifts of the Holy Spirit on those who are to represent Him. The received custom in the Church, undisputed for fifteen hundred years, and still held by the larger portion of Christendom, is that the power to ordain lies with the Bishops, as the Apostles’ successors. The theory that it might be given by presbyters, or apart from the apostolically descended ministers, is contrary to the tradition and custom of the Church. And it is to be observed, that by ordination not only is a gift and grace bestowed; but, by being gathered into the Apostolic fellowship, mission and jurisdiction are also given. In this way, the Christian ministry has come to us Anglicans from apostolic times. And so it is declared in the preface to the Ordinal in our Book of Common Prayer, that "from the Apostles’ times, there have been these orders of Ministry in Christ’s Church: Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." Moreover, our Church asserts her belief in the doctrine of the Apostolic succession when she prays, "O Holy Jesus, Who hast . . . promised to be with the ministers of Apostolic succession to the end of the world; Be graciously pleased to bless the ministry and service of him who is now appointed to offer the sacrifice of prayer and praise . . . ." This sacred inheritance entrusted to us by God, is it not our duty to honor, preserve, and guard?

The twelve Apostles first Christ made
His ministers of grace;
And they their hands on others laid,
Ordaining in their place.
So age by age, and year by year,
His grace has never failed,
For still the Holy Church is here,
Though her dear Lord is veiled.

The Apostolic Church
The Apostles, having received orders from our Lord to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, went everywhere, making disciples. The Church was founded on the day of Pentecost, and began at Jerusalem. It shortly took root at Damascus, and at Antioch, and in Syria. In 53 A.D., we find St. Paul arriving at Ephesus, which was the kernel of hellenism. We find him next passing over to Macedonia and Greece. He reached Rome, and finally Spain. In his voyage from Rome to Spain, he probably touched the southern portion of Gaul; and Marseilles became the seed plot for extension of the Gospel. It thus spread into Span, and Gaul, and to the farthest bounds of the West. It was probably carried eastward by St. Thomas and other apostles.

What the teaching of the Apostles was, and what kind of Church government they established, we learn from the New Testament. The Apostles taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the Son of Man. He was the Messiah Who came in fulfillment of prophecy. He was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, dead and buried, rose on the third day, ascended unto the right hand of power, and gave to the Church the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. He was the Lamb of God, the propitiation, the mercy seat, the sin-victim, the At-One-Maker, man’s only Saviour. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and by His stripes we are healed. We are accepted for His sake.

The Apostles did not originate a christology different from that found in the gospels. During Christ’s visible ministry, they had known Him "after the flesh." But when the Holy Ghost filled and illumined them, they saw into the deeper meaning of His life and teaching. They understood the mystery that was hid from ages, and St. Paul and the others, taught by the Holy Ghost, brought it out in their epistles.

It was not by the works of the law that we could be saved, but by being possessed of the "righteousness of God" made ours in Christ by a living, loving faith. We were to be in Him, and so saved by His merits; and He to be in us, and so the new life principle in us. He was the second Adam, the Head of the new regenerate race. And as in the first "Adam all die, even so," that is by actual communication of nature, "in Christ" were all to be "made alive."

The Apostles preached the doctrine of faith and repentance on man’s part, to obtain the benefit of union with Christ; and baptism on Christ’s part, as the instrument effecting that union, and bestowing remission of sins. They declared Christ to be the Head of the Church, which was His "mystical Body." And we were not to be saved as individuals apart from the Church, but in it and as members of it. The Church was the ark into which we were to be gathered. "The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." We find the Apostles establishing the solemn observance of the Lord’s Day, the administration of baptism, the gift of the Spirit in confirmation, the reconciliation by absolution of penitents, and the offering of the Holy Eucharistic sacrifice. They also took order concerning the Church’s worship, its liturgy, its discipline, and the rule of holy living.

The Government of the Church
As to the government of the Church, the Apostles in all probability received directions from the Lord Himself during the forty days, when "He spoke of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." It was but natural that, as the Church grew, its form of government should conform itself to that of the mother Church at Jerusalem. Here we find St. James, the resident local head, surrounded by a band of presbyters and deacons. Wherever the Church went, this came to be the established order of local Church government. It was so established in Asia by St. John, who was the accredited organ for the transmission of the mind of the ascended Lord to His Church on earth.

It is recognized in the Book of Revelation, where we find each local Church under the supervision of its Angel, or Bishop. It was slower in its development in some places, like Alexandria, where it appears that several had the power of ordination. This might have been adopted as a security that the ordaining power should not fail. Here, as at Corinth, the principles of Episcopal government became, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, finally established.

Episcopal ordination thus became the rule of the Church, and continued unbroken for 1,500 years. "History," says Bishop Lightfoot, "seems to show decisively, that before the end of the second century each Church, or organized Christian community, had its three orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; and it seems vain to deny that in the second century the Episcopal orders were firmly and widely established."

Prof. Harnack wrote: "The Epistles show the monarchical Episcopate so firmly rooted, so highly elevated above all other offices, so completely beyond dispute."

Such was the government of the Church. It was not Congregational, nor Presbyterian, nor Papal, but Episcopal. But while each Church had a certain independency, they together submitted themselves to the government of the general Church. The Apostles, exercising a jurisdictional power, sent St. Paul to the Gentiles, and St. Peter to those of the circumcision. The Apostles, as having supreme authority, assembled together in council under the presidency of St. James, with the elders and presbyters at Jerusalem, and decided points of discipline. According to Eusebius, there was a second council after the death of St. James which elected Symeon as his successor. St. Peter claimed and exercised no supreme authority; but the Church was bound together by divine charity and a common faith, and appealed in need to a general council. And this is the present position of Anglicans.

The Worship of the Church
It is not only interesting but useful to learn what we may from our scanty records of the time concerning the worship and general service of the early Church. The Apostles, as Jews, were accustomed to two forms of service – that of the Synagogue and that of the Temple. They differed in kind, the Synagogue service being that of reading from the Scriptures, prayer, exhortation, and praise; and the Temple worship being that of sacrifice. These were the two forms which God from the earliest times had ordained, and which the Apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, were to continue. We find them thus assembling in Solomon’s Porch at the hour of prayer, for their common and united devotional exercises. They assembled daily, probably in the Upper Chamber, for the Holy Eucharist, or Breaking of the Bread. These two forms of service have been continued in the Christian Church, under the two forms of the recitation of the Divine Office, and the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Altar.

As the Holy Communion, when established by our Lord, was preceded by the Paschal Supper, it came about that the Apostles at first connected a social meal, called the Agape or Love Feast, with the Holy Eucharist. But the disorder which arose at Corinth led to St. Paul’s stern rebuke, and his taking "order" as he said, concerning the celebration of the Holy Communion. He did this probably in consultation with the other Apostles. Therefore we find these two services presently separated, and at the end of the first century, according to a well-known letter of Pliny to the Roman Emperor, the Christians assembled early in the morning for the celebration of the Eucharist.

Though for a time the Sabbath was kept along with the Lord’s Day, eventually the first day of the week became the day observed by Christians in obedience to the command to keep one day in seven. As God, through Moses, ordained a day to be kept in commemoration of His work in creation; through the Holy Spirit the Church was guided to keep the first day of the week in commemoration of the beginning of the new Creation. It began by Christ’s rising from the dead. To go back to Saturday, as the Seventh-Day Adventists have done, is to introduce a decadent Jewish order into the Christian religion.

The order of the Eucharistic service is, according to St. Augustine, set forth in 1 Tim. 2:1 (1) "supplications," before the canon; (2) "prayers," especially at the consecration; followed by (3) "intercessions," between the prayers and the blessing; and lastly (4) the "thanksgiving," such as our Gloria in Excelsis at the end. The authority for using forms of prayer had been given by our Lord, when He said, "After this manner pray ye." And that manner was a prescribed form.

Forms of prayer and blessing had been set forth in the old Dispensation also; and early it may have been, that the inspired evangelical hymns of the Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis, began to be used. As Christ, taking part in the Synagogue service prayed for the departed, the Church followed His example. St. Paul remembers Onesiphorus, who had probably passed away, and prays "that God may have mercy on him in that day." The petition in the Lord’s Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come," includes the departed as well as the living here on earth. We know certainly that hymns formed part of the service, for St. Paul speaks of "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," and that the people took a responsive part by joining in the Amen at the Eucharistic prayer.

It is much disputed what kind of bread was used; but it was probably unleavened, as at the time of the Passover all leaven had been put away. It was natural that the mixed chalice should be used; since it was the custom to mix a little water with the cup at the Feast of the Passover. Holy Communion was given in both kinds, as commanded; and the Sacrament was reserved and carried to the absent, unable by illness to attend. Clement of Alexandria makes mention, writing at the end of the second century (A.D. 190), of the blessing of the oil for the anointing of the sick as St. James had ordered.

It is not unlikely that lights as a religious symbol were used, for we find it recorded at the Eucharistic celebration at Troas that "there were many lights." Unless that was some religious or symbolical meaning in this, it is not reasonable to suppose that it would find place in an inspired writing. Lange says: "The word lights includes torches, candles, lanterns, all of which were due to the solemnity of the occasion at Troas. There is nothing to show that the young man who fell down dead was overcome by the lights. The lights, besides being symbolical of Christ as the Light of the World, also connected the celebration with the Last Supper, where lights were a necessity." "The symbolical use of lights prevailed in the Church from very early times." They were used at the Gospel, St. Jerome says, "as the expression and symbol of joy." Silvia, the traveler, tells of the "huge glass candlesticks, the numerous torches, and the infinite luminaries" used in the churches and services on her visit to Jerusalem. It is probable that the vestment which St. Paul left behind at Troas after the celebration, was one used by him in the service. The word used might signify either a vestment of peculiar character or the over-garment which the Apostles would personally wear. It is not, however, likely that St. Paul would leave his outer garment behind when he was about to take a sea voyage, but very naturally, he might have left his Eucharistic vestment, together with the books or parchments needed, in the safe-keeping of Carpus, who was probably the ruler in the Synagogue, to be brought to him by Timothy. The two vestments, alb and chasuble, used by many of our clergy, have probably been derived, not from Jewish or Roman sources, but from the ordinary dress of the Apostles. As such, they bear witness to their Apostolic origin and the continuity of our Church, and should not be a matter of dissension. St. John, Eusebius relates, wore "a sacerdotal plate," certainly some sacerdotal ornament, doubtless a reference, says Lightfoot, "to the metal plate on the High Priest’s mitre." "Possibly this," he observes, "was a mitre." And we find Polycrates saying that St. John was a priest, "wearing the mitre." We find that the sign of the Cross came into use quite early, for Tertullian tells us that "in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign of the Cross."

The ceremony of the kiss of peace was a scriptural injunction. We find that in the Church, the men and the women were divided; the women, sitting on one side by themselves, gave and received a kiss of peace amongst themselves, and the men on the other side would do the same
thing amongst themselves. It is thus observed that the Church’s service was like that of the Old Dispensation, and from the beginning was liturgical, ceremonial, and in a degree choral. The Church was of course hampered during the first three centuries by intermittent persecutions. She had, at times, to hide herself in the Catacombs. But she had church buildings and Bishops’ residences, and was a visible body. We find, for instance, Paul of Samosata, when deposed in 260, refusing to vacate his church or house.

The Church had received moreover from her ascended Lord, through St. John, the details of the heavenly worship, where God is worshiped in spirit and in truth. So, just as in the Old Dispensation, God had taken Moses up into heaven, and Moses established the Jewish worship after the pattern of things he had seen in the Mount, so God, in the New Dispensation, took St. John up into heaven, and the glorious worship he there beheld became the directory of the Apostolic Church. There St. John found "vestments," lights, incense, and choral service; and the Church, when she gained her full freedom, developed her worship and ceremonial after the heavenly pattern. Dr. Bright has forcibly brought home the lesson in his noble poem on Ritual:

When to Thy beloved on Patmos
Through the open door in Heaven,
Visions of the perfect worship,
Saviour! by Thy love were given,
Surely there was truth and spirit,
Surely there a pattern shown
How Thy Church should do her service
When she came before the Throne.
O the censer-bearing Elders,
Crowned with gold and robed in white !
O the Living Creatures’ anthem,
Never resting day or night.
And the thousand choirs of Angels,
With their voices like the sea,
Singing praise to God the Father,
And, O Victim Lamb, to Thee !
‘Tis for Thee we bid the frontal
Its embroidered wealth unfold,
‘Tis for Thee we deck the reredos
With the colours and the gold;
Thine the floral glow and fragrance,
Thine the vesture’s fair array,
Thine the starry lights that glitter
Where Thou dost Thy Light display.
Lord, bring home the glorious lesson
To their hearts, who strangely deem
That an unmajestic worship
Doth Thy Majesty beseem;
Show them more of Thy dear Presence,
Let them, let them come to know
That our King is throned among us,
And His Church is Heaven below.

The Church in Britain
We do not know at what time, or by whom, Christianity was introduced into Britain, any more than we know who carried it to Rome. Doubtless as the disciples were dispersed by persecution and went hither and thither, they told of Christ and proclaimed the Gospel.

There is a beautiful legend of St. Joseph of Arimathea, who was banished from Palestine by the Jews, and who, with twelve companions, came to Britain, bringing with him the Holy Grail. He preached in the Isle of Avalon, where in confirmation of his teaching, he stuck his staff of thorn into the ground, whereupon it blossomed like Aaron’s rod, and grew into a tree. Here the famous church and monastery of Glastonbury were founded. There is another story that Lucius, the British King, sent to Eleuthereus, Bishop of Rome, a letter expressing a desire to be a Christian. This statement has been traced to a fabrication in Rome in the fifth century. For lack of authority, the story has led modern historians to reject it. The Abbé Duchesne says: “This legend had a Roman, not a British, origin, and may probably have been invented in the fifth century.”

There is also a Welsh legend about Bran the Blessed, found in the Welsh Triads, collected in the thirteenth century. It relates how Bran, the father of Caractacus, having ben detained by the Emperor Claudius for seven years at Rome, as a hostage for his son, was there converted by St. Paul, and on his release carried the faith back to Britain, and planted the Church there. Oddly enough, the idea that St. Peter came to Britain has cropped up many times, and in widely different places, an error probably owing to a misapprehension of the fact of the sending of the monk St. Augustine to England by Pope Gregory. This view has even been put forth by a Roman Catholic clergyman of our own day.

We have to be ever on our guard against accepting like untrustworthy legends for, as Professor Collins says, “when there was a demand in the Middle Ages for any conceivable information on any conceivable subject, there was always some one ready to supply it.” However controversialists may have adopted any of these stories, truth bids us not to use them.

The Account of St. Paul
The account of St. Paul visiting Britain has more probability attached to it. Caractacus, the noble British Chief, had been pardoned, and sent by Rome back to his native country to rule over his tribe a s a Roman official. His father Bran, and his son and daughter Lyn and Claudia, were retained in Rome as hostages. They were there at the same time St. Paul was there in residence.

He lived in his own hired house, and made converts among Caesar’s household. In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul makes mention of Linus, Pudens, and Claudia. Is not Linus the same as Lyn? A Claudia is commemorated by the historian Martial as married to Pudens, the son of a Roman senator. It would seem therefore that the Linus and Claudia, mentioned as his converts by St. Paul, were the children of the British chief. Now it is a fair
inference, indeed a certain one, that Lyn and Claudia would urge St. Paul to visit Britain and preach the Gospel to their own people. Certainly, St. Paul would have regarded this as a providential opening, and a call from God. The commission he had received from Christ and the Apostles ran to all the Gentile world. As he was on his way to Spain, why should he not extend his journey to Britain? Lightfoot, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, says St. Paul probably went to Gaul. It would be easy for him then to cross over to Britain. This theory has for its corroboration the statement of St. Clement that “St. Paul is said to have come to the boundary of the West,” or, as it is otherwise translated, “furthest limits of the West.” Now Spain was not a boundary of the Roman Empire, but Britain was. The expression “furthest limits of the West,” is a phrase which in Roman literature of the time was understood to include Britain.

We may agree with Dr. Bright and Professor Collins in holding St. Paul’s visit not to be an ascertained historical fact, but yet hold it to be one of considerable probability. It seems like unto that of St. Peter’s residence at Rome. Our Lord did not bid blessed Peter go to Rome, as He did St. Paul. There is no explicit statement in Scripture that he was ever there. There is no contemporary witness to the fact. There is no clear statement of St. Peter, nothing in contemporary history to confirm it. There is the tradition that he was martyred there, and upon this it is claimed that his body was buried there. So we may accept his having been there as a probable event. It is not, however, an ascertained historical fact, upon which a dogma can rightly be based.

In like manner, may we not hold as probable that St. Paul visited Britain? May we not believe with Irenaeus, who was born in 97, that the Church was extended “by the Apostles to the utmost bounds of the West, and to the Celts”" Gildas, the British historian, after describing the defeat of Boadicea in 61, wrote: “In the meantime, Christ the true Son, for the first time cast His rays on this island.” Eusebius, in his history, says: “Apostles crossed the ocean to those islands which are called British.” Charles Butler, a Roman Catholic wrote: “It is probable that Christianity was disseminated over parts of Britain during the Apostolic age.” Here, a notable scholar, in summing up the authorities, says: “There can be no reasonable ground for doubting that the British Church was not only a very ancient one, but also of Apostolic foundation.”

The Planting of the Church in Britain
It is regarded as probably that either in the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic age, Christianity had entered into Britain. It was certainly there in organized form, by the latter part of the second century. It came, not from Rome, but from Gaul. “In the reign of Marcus Aurelius, about 170, a mission consisting of Bishop Pothinus and a presbyter, Irenaeus, a pupil of St. Polycarp, who had been a pupil of St. John, left Asia Minor. Sailing along the Mediterranean, they came to Marseilles and thence up to the Rhone to the middle of Gaul. There at Vienne, near Lyons, they founded a church. From thence Christianity went, perhaps pushed by persecution, further north, until finally missionaries crossed the Channel and planted the Church in Britain.” Not only is Christianity thus early found in Britain, but it is in its organized form of Episcopal government. The proof of this is that we have the names of three Bishops of Britain who attended the great Council of Arles, called in the year 314 to pass on the Donatist heresy. The records of this Council give the names of these three British Bishops who attended, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius, Bishop of Colonia Londinensium (probably from Caerleon, Wales). These were accompanied by a presbyter, Sacerdos, and a deacon, Arminius. This fact shows that by the beginning of the fourth century, the Church was established in Britain as far north as York, and probably as far west as Caerleon; that it had a diocesan Episcopate, and the three orders of the ministry; that it was in communion with other churches of the Empire; and that it was of sufficient importance to be summoned to a great and important Council. Later on also, in 359, we find British Bishops taking part in the Council of Ariminum. The poverty of these Bishops is expressly mentioned by Sulpicius Severus, who bears witness to the existence and temporal condition of their church. There are also many subordinate evidences of an early existence of the Church in Britain. The remains of an early church building have been discovered at Silchester. Fragments of pottery with the holy sign have been upturned, a coin bearing the Alpha and Omega, and grave-stones with the inscription, “a Christian sleeps below,” have been found. The Church came, as we have seen, from Gaul, not from Rome or directly from an Eastern source.

In 410, a great political event happened. The capture of Rome by Alaric shook the foundations of civilization. “To St. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, the news came like the shock of an earthquake.” He says, “My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I dictate; for she is a captive, that city which outrivalled the world.” To St. Augustine, it was the judgment of God upon “the profligate manners, the effeminacy, and the price of her citizens.” The Roman government was forced, for its own self protection, to withdraw its garrison from Britain, where they had been for nigh four hundred years. The Romans had done much there for civilization, and somewhat for Christianity. Converts had been made, and churches had grown up about their settlements. The literary remains are scanty of this time, but two interesting incidents relating to this period are commonly stated by historians. One of them is of the ennobling heroism of Britain’s first martyr, St. Alban. While Alban was still a heathen, we read that one day there came to his house a priest, whom Alban gave shelter from his persecutors. Alban saw that the stranger was very devout and holy, and marked his spending many hours in prayer. He opened the Gospel to Alban, and led him to believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. But at last the hiding place of the priest was discovered, and the soldiers came and surrounded it. St. Alban, perceiving the danger, dressed himself in the priest’s clothes, so that the soldiers, breaking in, and seeing him in the habit of a priest, seized him and dragged him before the Judge. With fearless courage, Alban declared that he was a Christian.

Though he was tortured to make him deny the Faith, he remained faithful, and was led out to execution. The soldier whose duty it was to execute him was so struck by Alban’s splendid courage that, throwing away his sword, he declared himself also a Christian. It was an instance of the extension of the Faith from one brave heart to another by the power of the Spirit. The great Abbey of St. Albans, lately restored, is a memorial of the heroic devotion of these early Christians. The other instance is that of the Alleluia Battle. In the early days of the fifth century, a momentous theological controversy arose. Pelagius, whose Celtic name was Morgan, went astray by overrating of the power of the human will and denying the necessity of internal grace. The heresy, as all rationalistic speculations are, was attractive to some of the laity. Britain naturally made an appeal to her Mother Church of Gaul for aid in the controversy. The Gallican Church, we read, summoned a synod, which sent to the aid of the Church in Britain two of her greatest Bishops, Germanus and Lupus. The authority for this statement is found in the life of St. Germanus, by Constantius of Lyons, who wrote some sixty years after the decease of St. Germanus, with full access to local information. With respect to this controversy Constantius gives as his authority the action of the synod. His account is copied by the Venerable Bede, who states that the prelates, Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes, were sent over by a synod to uphold in Britain the belief in Divine Grace. Prosper, another writer, says that Germanus was sent by the Bishop of Rome.

But properly the official record of the synod is to be taken as a more reliable evidence than the unsupported and probably hearsay report recorded by Prosper. Possibly the Pope might have sent his blessing to Germanus, but the fact remains that the British Church in its need appealed to Gaul, and not to Rome. This was about the year 429. We are told that at a conference between the Pelagians and the Gallican Bishops, the Gallic party triumphed. After this, the invasion of Picts and Scots followed.

We now come to the Alleluia Battle. Germanus and Lupus, the Gallic Bishops, encouraged the Britons to resist the invaders. They preached the Gospel and brought a large number to Christ and to baptism. Here we quote largely from Professor Bright: “On Easter Eve, the baptisms were administered, the great Feast was celebrated in a church formed out of the boughs of trees, the Brisith host advanced to the battle, the greater part of it fresh from the laver. Their general drew them up as if in ambush, under the rocks of a narrow glen which he had ascertained to lie full in the path of the enemy. As the first ranks of the heathen drew near, expecting an easy triumph, Germanus made the British people shout after him the one sacred joyous words, which they had so lately uttered in their paschal solemnities. Three times he and Lupus intoned it, Allelauia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Their followers with one voice made the sound echo through the valley. It rang from cliff to cliff. It struck the invaders with panic. They fled as if the very skies were crashing over them. The Britons, successful without striking a blow, exulted in a victory won by faith, without bloodshed.” This is the story of the great Alleluia victory.

On the withdrawal of the Romans, the Britons, who had been originally disarmed by their conquerors, and thus rendered unaccustomed to warfare, were left practically defenseless. The country was left open to a great invasion of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, coming from different parts of the continent. The three are commonly spoken of as Anglo-Saxons. The first work of the new invaders was to stamp out with fire and sword every trace of Roman civilization. “They seemed,” says Professor Rollinston, “to have a great aptness for destroying and great slowness in elaborating material civilization.” These heathen Anglo-Saxons, we read, drove away or enslaved the Romanized and Christianized Celts, broke down every vestige of Christian civilization, destroyed the churches, burnt the villas, laid waste many of the towns, and reintroduced a long period of pagan barbarism. We quote from Grant Allen: “These Anglo-Saxons were a horde of barbarous heathen pirates. They massacred or enslaved half the civilized Celtic inhabitants with savage ruthlessness. They let the roads and cities fall into utter disrepair. They stamped out Christianity with fire and sword from end to end of their new domain.” As Gildas the historian, with Celtic fervor, phrases it: “The red tongue of flame licked up the whole land from end to end, till it slaked its horrid thirst in the western ocean.” There is however a difference among scholars today as to the extent of the Saxon destructions. The remains lately found go to show it was not so complete an extermination as has been represented by some historians. The Church, though enfeebled, continued to exist.

The Scottish Church
When we look to the Scottish Church, we find it existing in an early period of the fourth century. Here came St. Ninian, about 397, and “preached the word to the southern Picts.” The work was developed under St. Kentigern, and St. Columba in the latter half of the sixth century. The latter, having done much in Ireland, desire to ”sojourn abroad for Christ’s sake,” and at Whitsuntide, 563, settled at Iona, and there founded that famous missionary monastery. “He was,” says Adamnan, “angelic in aspect, clear in speech, holy in conduct, great in counsel; never did a single hour pass in which he was not engaged in prayer or pious work.” “He was,” writes Bright, “a grand saint, and a man of extraordinary courage, perseverance, energy, and determination, born to guide minds and also to win hearts.” Most have heard the story of his passing when the old monastic horse thrust his head into Columba’s bosom, and the old monk said, “Let him alone, he loves me.” His dying suggestion to his monks was to mutual charity: “But you who must rule after me; remember no deed can last, but only Love.”

Native British Church
At the dawning of the fifth century, the whole of the west coast of England, Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, from Land’s End to the Clyde, was being covered by the native British Church. “At this period,” says Dr. Bright, “the headquarters of the British Church was in Wales.” In the middle of the sixth century, a religious revival took place. The Welsh Episcopacy then became regularly diocesan. It had yearly synods, but it had no Metropolitan. It is of interest to observe how David, commonly known as St. David, when traveling in the Holy Land, in the sixth century, was there consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He became the Archbishop of the See of St. David’s, which subsequently was named after him. In the year 1115 the Welsh Bishops became united with the English Church, under the Archbishop of Canterbury. Eventually the Bishop of Landaff, a successor in this line, united with Laud in his consecrations and thus passed on the ancient British succession from the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Celtic Church
The planting of Christianity in Ireland is obscure. It was carried there probably by Christians from Britain. Palladius, in 431, is spoken of as the first Bishop of the Irish, but he is reported as practically failing in his work. The great name that looms up before us is that of St. Patrick. So many legends have surrounded his life that it is difficult to know what is true. The only reliable sources are a book of Confessions written by him, and some prayers, or hymns. He was of British parentage, his father or grandfather being a clergyman. When a lad, with others, he was stolen and carried away to Ireland. He became a shepherd, and while looking after his sheep, he was drawn to meditation, and “he remembered his own sins and was converted.” A strong desire filled his soul to serve Christ. Escaping from his captivity, he found a way back to his home and native land. But having a call, as he believed, from God, he went back to Ireland, and being ordained, became its missionary. He does not tell us who ordained him. His success is probably exaggerated. Along with St. Patrick, the name of St. Columbanus is prominent. There is no more typical Irish missionary. Bright calls him a “pious, fearless, self-devoted man, with not a little of Celtic passion in his nature.” Having addressed Pope Boniface as “head of all the Churches of Europe, and Pastor of pastors,” he nevertheless lectured him as having appeared to compromise the faith.

One mark of the old Irish Church was its love of teaching and study. Bede remarks upon the open-hearted, generous hospitality extended to English students attracted to Ireland by the fame of its monastic schools. What the old Irish Church lacked conspicuously was organization.

The Episcopal character was bestowed very freely on priests, and the monasteries were ruled over by Abbot-Bishops. A tribal influence affected the Church, and Bishops were often members of some particular family within the tribe. It was at the Synod of Kells that Ireland gained its first hierarchical organization, with four provinces having four Archbishops, a primacy being reserved to Armagh.

It may be noted that the line of Bishops from St. Patrick extended down to the Reformation, when some of the Irish Bishops, whose consecration has never been questioned, conformed to the Anglican Church in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and imparted to Archbishop Laud the Episcopal order. The gradual rechristianizing of the major part of Britain, which came to be called the Heptarchy, we will treat of in a following chapter.

The Character of the Church

We come now to a question whichbe perhaps perplexed by the different estimates put by writers upon the character and standing of the British Celtic Churches. This, we are sorry to say, has come about through the controversial spirit which has influenced the different writers. There is a strong inclination amongst some to magnify the work of the monk Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory in the sixth century, and thus to give to our Anglican Church a Roman origin. There are others who look to the ancient British and Celtic Churches as ancestral parts of our own Communion, and who are led therefore, perhaps, to emphasize their Catholic character and position. Justice and truth, however, bid us hold the scales evenly balanced, and not let our judgment be carried away by partisan prepossessions. The indictment against the British Church, made with considerable heat, is that “the Church was weak, confined to the Roman provinces; and had no strength or character of its own, but was a reflection of its Gallic sister.” “It produced,” it is said, “no writers or scholars. It was lacking in a missionary spirit. It look to Gaul for the saints it would follow and reverence. It was poor, too poor to endow even its own Bishops. It founded no school of theology. It was monastic, and therefore ascetic rather than evangelical.” Gildas the historian, about 564, found fault with the Church, but “made his attack,” says Dr. Bright, “in so unbalanced and vehement a manner that it provokes incredulity by its very violence.” “His description,” writes Professor Zimmer, “is no matter-of-fact account of the British Church, but rather the penitential sermon of a man who delights to paint everything in the blackest colors.”

In considering the change of want of aggressiveness preferred against the early British Church, it must be remembered that the Church labored under great difficulties. She had an internal racial dissension to contend with between the Goidels and the Bythens, two different races inhabiting Britain. The Church also suffered terribly from the invasions of her heathen conquerors. Its members were driven largely into the mountainous country of Cornwall, Wales, and Cumberland, and were necessarily scattered. The Church was indeed very poor. No wonder she did not do an aggressive work amongst the Saxons. The Saxon conquerors were not disposed to accept for teachers a hated race.

To the charge that the Church had no great scholars we would reply that the lack of scholars is no sign of decadence. St. Paul bids St. Timothy entrust the work and government of the Church to faithful men. Scholarship is apt to bring with it a danger. It gives rise to controversies and heresies. It is far better for a Church to be orthodox and faithful than to be noted for its scholarship; and the British and Celtic Churches had the reputation of orthodoxy. St. Chrysostom
bears witness to her unity in the Faith. He says of Britain, “There, too, as in the extreme East, beside the Euxine Sea, in the South, even, men may be heard discoursing words of Scripture, in differing tongues, but not with differing beliefs.”

“Britain,” says St. Jerome, “worships the same Christ, observes the same rule of Faith, as other Christian countries.” Wilfred, who was Roman in his sympathies, asserted that the true Catholic Faith was held by the Irish, the Scottish, and the British, as well as by the Anglo-Saxon Church. In regard to its relation to Europe, Dr. Bright says, “We find it adhering to orthodox doctrine during the great Arian struggle.” Hilary of Poitiers, in 358, congratulated his British brethren on their “freedom from all contagion of this detestable heresy.” In 363 Athanasius could reckon the Britons amongst those loyal to the Catholic Faith.” We have also seen how, with the help of brethren from Gaul, the Celtic Church stemmed the Pelagian heresy. Both the British and Celtic Churches were equally free from the negations of modern Protestantism and the recent additions of Rome. In other words she was orthodox.

The existence of the many monasteries proves also that the Church had a sincere
devotional side. Though the monastic system has been found fault with for being ascetic, yet is counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience were given by our Blessed Lord Himself, Who in His own Person was the best Exemplar of them. The monk took up his life of labor and of prayer. The good monk, perhaps better than any other man, followed the example of the Lord. He became spiritually a man of God, singularly united to Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost. The world looks on, and may approve of the good work he does, but is enfeebled sight does not discern the supernatural spirituality and power of the consecrated life. The existence and development of the many monasteries in Britain at this time bear witness to the life of devotion in the early British Church, which at least equals the devotion of the unpersecuted, comfortable Christianity of the present day.

The prevalence of the monasteries all over the country greatly aided the extension of Christianity. They abounded in good works. “Secure in the peace conferred upon them by religious sanction, the monks became the builders of schools, the clearers of forests, the tillers of heath.” “The reclaiming of the waste land about the marshes,” says Grant Allen, in his work on ancient Britain, “was almost entirely due to monastic bodies. The monks were agriculturists, masons, jewellers, glass-blowers, and scribes. The monasteries became real manufacturing, agricultural, and literary centres. The monks copied illuminated manuscripts, and painted pictures, not without rude merit.” In the Irish monasteries we find them presided over by Abbots in Episcopal orders. “The spread of Christianity,” says Professor Collins, “lay in the formation of monastic societies; and this is the strongest possible evidence of the essential character of an apostolically descended ministry carefully guarded.” The spirit of unworldliness and devotion to Christ and the purity and fervour of these early monks have left their stamp on the whole Church of this period. The British and Celtic Churches, we conclude, were orthodox in Faith, Apostolic in government, and evangelical in spirit. While the British Church established itself in the West, gradually the rest of England was re-converted, and there arose what we might call the Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Church. The story of its conversion we shall state subsequently.

Relation of the Church to Rome 

What, we may ask, was the relation of the British and Celtic Churches to Rome at this time?

They were independent of Rome. Britons undoubtedly looked to Rome as the great capital of the  Empire, and to the Bishop there as the first in Christendom. St. Columbanus speaks of him as the “Head of the Western Church.,” or of the whole Church. He also gives him other titles, couched in  warm and complimentary language. But there is throughout the letters an implied assertion of  exemption from Roman jurisdiction. Evidently he did not regard the Pope as having monarchical  powers or coercive jurisdiction, or as endowed with a gift of infallibility; for the saint does not  hesitate to warn the Bishop of Rome of the “dreadful scandal and calamity it would be to the Church  if he were to fall into error.” He implies thus the possibility of his doing so. He would surely have  repudiated the reported utterance of Pope Pius IX, April 1, 1886, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the  Life.” “They who are with me are with the Church, and they who are not with me are out of the  Church.” 

The Celtic Church, as had been the British, was free from Roman dominion. The case  of Wilfrid is one proof of this. Theodore (664) the Archbishop of Canterbury, had divided the large  See of York. Wilfrid, the Archbishop of York, appealed to Rome. Rome decided in favor of Wilfrid  that he should be reinstated in the undivided See. But Archbishop Theodore ignored the Papal  authority and refused to have Wilfrid reinstated. The great body of the clergy and laity did not stand  with Wilfrid. “To all,” says Dr. Bright, “the See of Peter was a title of August and sacred import. But  they had not as a body, in 678, any notion that gratitude or reverence could bind them to recognize  a systematic interference on the part of Rome in their domestic Church matters, by virtue of which  any national Church decision might at any time be nullified by a court of appeal sitting beyond the  22  Alps.” The aversion to “outlandish” authority rendered them scornfully incredulous as to the  practical exercise of any such power. 

It is not by the sayings of any, even of saints, that the relation between the Church and  Rome is to be known. It can only be determined by the solid evidence of ascertained facts. The  Church stood towards Rome on the same equality as did the Continental Churches. It is said that  St. Patrick had a canon passed in the Irish Church providing in certain cases for an appeal to Rome.  But this St. Patrick legend is an untrustworthy one, and Stubbs and Haddon question the  genuineness of this canon. Moreover, Britain was not controlled by the papacy, for the powers now  exercised by the papacy were then unknown anywhere. The legal opinion of Blackstone is clear  and decided. “The ancient British Church, by whomever planted, was a stranger to Rome and all  its pretended authority.” 

This is proved by the fact that the Bishops of the British Church were not chosen by the  Pope, but she selected and consecrated them; nor were they required to take their jurisdiction from  Rome. The Pope could neither appoint nor remove a Bishop at his own discretion, as he now  claims the right to do. The Archbishop of the Britons was of their own choice. He was not obliged  to receive from Rome the pall, which was in early times a gift of honor when conferred. Down to  the time of Gregory it was considered nothing more than an honorary and complimentary badge.  All executive, legislative, and administrative powers were not, as today, centered in the papacy.  The idea of subjection to any other Bishop or Church than the one of Britain would have  been quite absurd to the British Christians. The name of Holy Jerusalem or of great Rome might  be spoken of with high honor, but that was all. Anything more would have been foreign to their  whole mood of thought. That this was so, comes out very emphatically when Augustine demanded  the submission of the British Bishops to himself. They positively rejected his claims, declaring  allegiance to an Archbishop of their own, the Bishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk. “Be it known unto you,”  they said, “we are subject to the Church of God, and to the Pope of Rome, and to every godly  Christian to love every one. But other obedience than this we do not know due to him whom you  name to be Pope.” This, we think, is sufficient to settle the question of their relation to the papacy.  Warren sums the situation as follows: “There was a vast Celtic communion existing in Great Britain  and Ireland, sending its missions among Teutonic tribes on the Continent, and to distant islands like  Iceland; Catholic in doctrine and practice, with a long roll of saints, every one of note named among  them, like St. Columbanus, taking aline wholly independent of Rome, or like Bishop Colman at the  Synod of Whitby directly in collision with her, a communion having its own Liturgy, its own  translation of the Bible, its own mode of chanting, its own monastic rule, its own cycle for the  calculation of Easter, and presenting both internal and external evidence of complete autonomy.” 

The Celtic Liturgy

It will now be interesting to learn what were the Liturgy and customs of the Celtic Church  at this time; how in some respects she differed from the other branches of the Catholic Church, and  yet in the essential points was the same; and how we, her sons and daughters, in these modern  times, can be sure our Liturgy resembles that of the Celtic period in its first purity and freshness. 

We gather the following from Warren, the learned writer on Celtic Liturgy: “In many respects, the  Celtic Church conformed to the liturgy of the neighboring country of Gaul, which has received its  forms of worship from the East. There were churches, we learn, with bells, and altars of wood or  stone. Their liturgy or altar service was known by the name of “communion eucharistua,” “hostia,  oblatio, sacrificium, beaticum.” The Lord’s Prayer was an essential part of the service, and it is to  be noted that in our Anglican Church no service can be said without it. There were proper prefaces  as with us, and to pray for the dead was a recognized custom. According to the Apostolic custom,  the kiss of peace was given after the prayer of consecration.

The services both at the altar and in  the choir were choral. In Ireland, music was an art every cultivated. In the ancient Irish Church,  a hymn was sung after the prayer of consecration. Unleavened bread was used. Dr. Döllinger  mentions the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist among the peculiarities of the ancient British  Church. The universal custom of the primitive Church to mix a little water with the wine in the  Eucharistic cup obtained in the Celtic Church also. “Frequent mention is made of the use of the  sign of the Cross for various purposes.” That was the sign ordinarily attending the sacerdotal act  of benediction.

Special vestments were in use at the altar. Among them we find noted the  chasuble, the alb, and the maniple. Among the Bishop’s ornaments were a ring, a pectoral cross,  and a pastoral staff. The position of the celebrant was before the altar, and with his back to the  congregation. The communion hymn of the early Irish Church is full of allusions to the reception of the chalice. The act of communion was called, in the rule of the Irish Culdees, “going to the  chalice.”

There were differences between the British Church and the Roman, as we have said, in  respect to the celebration of the time for Easter. There was some difference also in respect to the  administration of Baptism, the wearing of the tonsure, the use of different selections of Scripture in  the Ordinal, and the anointing of the hands of deacons and priests in ordination. 

Thus in doctrine and worship, we see that the Celtic Church in Britain conformed in all  essentials to Holy Scripture and the teaching of Apostolic times, while in several respects it varied  from the Roman practice. The Celtic Church was poor and not aggressive. It had been driven into  a state of isolation. It had suffered from cruel wars. It had, however, kept the Faith, the Apostolic  government, the Priesthood, and it offered a true worship and was kept alive in God’s great  Providence. We may well look to her as our spiritual Mother, with a grateful heart, and be thankful that we have inherited so much from her whose daughters we are.

Formation of the Church of England

Gradually the territory of the heathen invaders who were continually fighting with one another became consolidated at the end of the sixth century into seven kingdoms called the Heptarchy. These were Northumbria, Mercia, East Saxons, West Saxons or Wessex, East Anglia, South Saxons, and Kent. The work of planting Christianity in these seven kingdoms had to begin practically anew. It is to be observed, however, that the old British Church that had fled westward had little to do with this missionary work. It had to be done by others. There were three sources from which devoted missionaries came: from the north, and from the west, and from the continent. Among these we have St. Patrick, Columbanus, Aidan, Augustine, and Paulinus.       

 We will begin the story with the large northeastern kingdom of Northumbria. Paulinus, Queen Ethelburga’s chaplain, obtained permission from King Edwin, who was a heathen, to hold a general conference, in which Paulinus should be allowed to present the claims of the Gospel. There is an interesting account of what occurred. An old chief arose and summed up the issue between the rival faiths in a striking manner. “I will tell you, O King, what methinks man’s life is like. Sometimes when your hall is lit up for supper on a wild winter’s evening, and warmed by a fire in the midst, a sparrow flies in by one door, takes shelter for a little time in the warmth, and then flies out again by another door, and is lost in the stormy darkness. No one in the hall sees the bird before it enters or after it is gone forth, and it is only seen for a little time as it hovers near the blazing hearth. Even so is it, I ween, as to this brief span of our life in this world. What has gone before, what will come after it, of this we know nothing. If the strange teacher can tell us, by all means let him be heard.” This decided the question with the assembly. The pagan high priest himself led the way, and with his own hand desecrated the heathen temple. It was the birthday of the Northumbrian Church.  Then King Penda, a fierce heathen and savage warrior, overthrew the Northumbrians, and Christianity was all but swept away. It was subsequently reconquered by the Britons, and was ruled over by a Christian British king, representing the Christianity of the old British Church. Oswald, the kind, had in 635, in his desire to Christianize his people, sent to a monastery in Iona for a Bishop. The Bishop, however, soon returned from Northumbria, and reported that “He could make nothing of the British. They were hard, untractable, barbarous.” The monk Aidan observed that “the Bishop appeared to have expected too much at first. It would have been better,” he observed, “to have obeyed the Apostolic precept, ‘Treat them as infants in the Faith, and feed them with the milk of easier doctrine.’” “He might,” says Bishop Browne of Bristol, “have been telling us in our day how to deal with some of our people.”                                                                       

 Aidan was seen by the Council to be the man for the task, and was consecrated. He did a very great and noble work. From him we may observe the present Bishops of Durham have succeeded, and now the eighty-fourth Bishop from Aidan sits in that See. Aidan’s manner of life has thus been described by Bede: “He lived as he taught others to live. He neither sought nor loved this world’s goods. He delighted in giving to the poor whatever the king and the great men gave to him. He moved about the country on foot, unless some real necessity compelled him. Whenever he saw wayfarers, he went to them at once. If they were unbelievers, he begged them to receive the Faith, and if they were believers, he strengthened them in the Faith, and urged them by word and deed to alms and good works.” It is related of him that when consulted by a certain priest, Utta, who asked his prayers for a journey, Aidan told him that he would meet with a tremendous storm on his return voyage, and he gave Utta a vessel of blessed oil, bidding him cast it on the waters when the storm came. It feel out as Aidan had said, and it stilled the raging of the storm. Aidan seems thus providentially to have been guided to a modern discovery.                                                                       

Professor Bright says of Aidan that “He set a pattern of ministerial activity, of absolute conspicuous unworldliness, of tenderness to the poor and weak, and boldness in behalf of right before the strong, of thorough-going, intense resolution to carry out in life the moral teaching of Scripture, which Bede, Latin as he was in tone, has described with a loving reverence.” The English Church has always held Aidan in high regard, and looked upon him as one of the great missionaries through whom England received Christianity. He observed the Scotic, or old British, rule for calculating his Easter, which rule was afterwards abandoned at the famous Synod of Whitby in 664, and the Continental custom adopted. At Whitby we come across the Abbess Hilda and the beautiful story of the poet Caedmon. Hilda was a remarkable woman, noted both for her intellectual ability, administrative power, and sanctity. She was at the head of what were practically two monasteries, one of men and one of women. Upon them she impressed her own mind. They bowed to her as their head. She succeeded in establishing a tradition of unanimity and unselfishness. She made her monks give so much time to the study of Scripture, and so much heed to the practice of good works, that Bishops came to think of her house as the best place for supplying competent ordinands. Five of the brethren, whom Bede enumerated as persons of signal worth and holiness, attained the Episcopal dignity.                                                                       

There was one member of the monastery whom his brethren venerated for his specially inspired gift. Caedmon, for such was his name, was a poor and ignorant herdsman. He felt greatly humiliated that he was lacking in the power of song. One night he had a dream. A visitant stood by him, who said to him, “Caedmon, sing me something.” “I cannot sing.” “However, you have got to sing to me.” “What must I sing?” “Sing the Creation.” Solemn and adoring words came to his mind in rhythmic measure. And when the morning came he was able to repeat them. The story came to the Abbess Hilda, who sent for him and tested his gift in various ways, by giving him other portions of Scripture in like manner to paraphrase. She took this poor ignorant herdsboy into the monastery and had him instructed in the Holy Scriptures. Caedmon set everything by his gift to the music of song. Very sweetly, after years of loving service, he passed away. Knowing that his hour was drawing near, he asked for the Housel, or Sacrament. To the brethren present he said, “Are you kindly disposed towards me?” “Surely, and pray you to be so towards us.” “Dear children,” such is the sweet answer, “I am friendly disposed towards all God’s servants.” He then fortified himself with the heavenly viaticum, and feel asleep in Jesus.

Next let us consider the Kingdom of West Saxony, or Wessex, in the south, which was founded by Cerdic about the year 519. It became eventually the most important of all the kingdoms of the Heparchy. It gradually absorbed to itself all the others, and its kings became kings of England. In the times of which we speak W`essex had not become supreme. Ere it became supreme, it was exposed through various wars to fluctuations of territory. The knowledge of Christ came in the time of King Cynegils. Christianity in Wessex had, however, greatly suffered, and it had largely become pagan. About the year 633, a man named Birinus was greatly drawn to preach the Gospel to the heathen in the unvisited parts of Britain. He applied to Pope Honorius, and was sent by him to be consecrated by Astorius, Bishop of Milan. He received from him what we should call a roving commission. He landed, probably, at Porchester in Wessex. He had come in search of a heathen people as yet unvisited by Christian missionaries. He found that the people of Wessex were mostly pagan. It was therefore unnecessary for him to proceed further in pursuance of his design. “He thought it more useful to remain there and preach the word than to go elsewhere.” “It is important to notice that there is no hint that he thought it advisable to refer this complete change of plans to Rome.” Though Honorius had befriended him, the had not come under any commission from Rome.

So he began where he was: first, he taught King Cynegils the Christian creed, and baptized him. Now it was the office of the chief sponsor to receive the newly baptized Christian by giving him his hand as he emerged from the laver of regeneration. This office was performed by the most holy and most victorious King Osward of Northumbria. Here, in a striking form, we have the Northumbrian influence in the conversion of a great Saxon kingdom, eventually the greatest of all. Kent (the home of the Roman mission), had already become divided, and was to divide still more. In the conversion of Wessex we lay out hand upon the Christianizing of the finally dominant kingdom. And while it was done by a Bishop designated from Italy, it was done in disregard of the original mission from Rome. Not only were there no relations between Birinus and the Canterbury or Roman Mission, but the one home influence there was in the conversion of Wessex was that of the most devoted adherent of the Scotic Church.                                                                        

The people of Wessex, influenced by the King’s example, were led to embrace Christianity in considerable numbers, and received Holy Baptism. Oswald, the King of Northumbria, cooperated in the establishment and development of the Church. The two kings built a church dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul at Dorchester, near Oxford. Here Birinus settled himself. He built and dedicated churches; Bede tells us he won many people to the Lord by his pious labors; he died in 650. King Cynegils had passed away seven years previously. He was succeeded by his son Coinwalch. He was a heathen, but after some trouble which involved his leaving his kingdom for a time, he became converted to Christianity. He looked round to find, after the death of Birinus, a Bishop for himself and his people. He was led to select Agilbert. Thus it was from the Scotic Church that the second line of Bishops came. Subsequently, as the king knew no other language, he brought in another Bishop name Wini, who spoke the same language as himself, and was consecrated in Gaul. Agilbert later withdrew, and went to Gaul, his native country, and became Bishop of Parish. He suggested his nephew Eleuthereus as his successor. Coinwalch applied to Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury, to consecrate him, and Theodore did so. We do not give the full details of these changes and nominations, but we insert two conclusions of Bishop Browne upon them. It is noticeable that these Bishops were not either elected by the people or clergy, or nominated from Rome, but were the direct appointees of the king. Nor is there any evidence to be found of the sway of Rome in England. “Coinwalch and Agilbert and Wini behaved as though they had never heard the name of Rome. They might perhaps have behaved better, if they had shown a sense of union and communion with the Patriarch of the West; and if the Patriarch of the West had imagined that it was at all his business, he might perhaps have kept them in better order. That does not touch the historical fact that Rome’s hand was not felt in Wessex, indeed was not stretched out.” Wessex became Christianized, and from it early in the tenth century we have the Sees of Winchester, Cherbourne, Ramsbury, Wells, and Crediton. Later on were developed from it the sees of Exeter, Salisbury, and half of Gloucester and Bristol.      

Coming to East Anglia, or Saxony, we find that King Redwald, during an absence from home, in Kent, embraced Christianity. His conversion however, was not very thorough. For on his return, meeting with the disapproval and opposition of his wife, he compromised his faith by erecting in his temple of worship two altars, one Christian and one heathen. His son Eorpwald, who succeeded him, was a pagan. So the temple remained with its double worship for many years. It came about that in Redwald’s lifetime, Edwin, King of Deira, had been driven from his kingdom by his brother -in-law, Ethelfrith the Ravager. He sought refuge at the Court of Redwald, who generously gave him hospitality. Three times the brother-in-law made offers of money, and each time larger, if he would put Edwin to death. Very wisely, he accompanied his last refusal by mobilizing an army. He did this so quickly that Ethelfrith was taken by surprise. In the battle that ensured he was slain, and also a son of Redwald’s. This loss on his behalf strengthened the tie between Edwin and Redwald. When Edwin subsequently regained his throne, and became a Christian, he sought to repay Redwald’s devotion and loss in his cause. After some years, Redwald being dead, out of gratitude to his memory, Edwin persuaded Eorpwald to abandon his heathenism and with his whole people to receive the Gospel and Sacraments. Bede assigns his work of conversion wholly to Edwin.   

The Division, East and West

Their Doctrine:

In the reply made form Constantinople to the late papal encyclical inviting them to union, the Patriarch, with his Bishops, said that the union of the separated Churches in one rule of faith is a sacred and inward desire of the Holy Catholic Orthodox ans Apostolic Church. Their weighty words are worth considering. They said: The Eastern Church is willing to accept heartily all that the Eastern and Western Churches unanimously professed before the ninth century. If the Westerns prove from the Holy Fathers and the divinely assembled ecumenical councils that the Roman Church ever before the ninth century read into the Creed the addition of the filioque, or accepted the doctrine of purgatorial fires, or sprinkling in baptism instead of immersion, or the Immaculate Conception of the Ever Virgin, or the temporal power, or the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome, we have no more to say. But if, on the contrary, it is plainly demonstrated that the Eastern and Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ holds fast the anciently transmitted doctrines which at the time were professed in common both by the East and West, and that the western Church perverted them by divers innovations, then it is clear that the way to union is by return of the Western Church to the ancient doctrinal and administrative condition of things.”

 The Eastern Church, therefore, holds in accordance with the words of Holy Scripture, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, and not also form the Son, as has been arbitrarily promulgated by the Western Church. She asserts that the ancient practice of baptism was by way of three immersions; that the divine Eucharist was celebrated for more that a thousand years with leavened bread; that following the divine command, “Drink ye all of it,” the Holy Catholic Church had ever given the holy chalice to the laity; that the Apostolic Church, walking according to the divinely inspired interpretation of Holy Scripture and the Apostolic tradition, prayed and invoked the mercy of God for those who had fallen asleep in the Lord, but the papal Church from the twelfth century downward had inverted a multitude of innovations concerning purgatorial fires, and a treasury of merit derived from superabundance of virtues of the saints, and the distribution of them by the Pope to those who need them.

The only holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the seven ecumenical councils teaches that the supernatural Incarnation of the only-begotten Son and Word of God, of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, is alone pure and immaculate; but the papal Church scarcely forty years ago again made an innovation by laying down a novel dogma concerning the immaculate conception of the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, which was unknown to the ancient Church, and strongly opposed at different times, even by the more distinguished among the papal theologians. The Pope in his encyclical, represents the question of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff as the principal and, so to speak, only cause of the decision, and sends us to the sources, that we may make diligence search as to what our forefathers believed, and what the first age of Christianity delivered to us. Having recourse to the Fathers and ecumenical councils of the Church of the first nine centuries, we are fully persuaded that the Bishop of Rome was never considered as the supreme authority and infallible head of the Church, and that every Bishop is head and president of his own particular Church, subject only to the synodical ordinances and decisions of the Church universal as being alone infallible, the Bishop of Rome being in no wise exception from this rule, as Church history shows.

Moreover, the papists themselves know well that the very passage of the Gospel to which the pontiff of Rome refers, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I build My Church,” is, in the first centuries of the Church, interpreted quite differently, in a spirit of orthodoxy, both by tradition and by all divine and sacred Fathers without exception; the fundamental and unshaken rock upon which the Lord has built His own Church, against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail, being understood of Peter’s true confession concerning the Lord, that “He is Christ, the Son of the living God.” Upon this confession and faith the saving preaching of the gospel by all the apostles and their successors rests unshaken. Such, then being the divinely inspired teaching of the Apostles respecting the foundation and Prince of the Church of God, of course the sacred Fathers, who held firmly to the Apostolic traditions, could not have or conceive any idea of an absolute primacy of the Apostle Peter and the Bishops of Rome; nor could they give any other interpretation, totally unknown to the Church, to that passage of the Gospel, but that which was true and right.

The divine Fathers, honouring the Bishop of Rome only as the Bishop of the capital city of the empire, gave him the honourary prerogative of presidency, considering him simply the Bishop first in order, that is, among equals; which prerogative they also assigned afterwards to the Bishop of Constantinople, when that city became the capital of the Roman empire, as the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth ecumenical council at Chalcedon bears witness, saying, among other things, as follows: “We do also determine and decree the same things respecting the prerogatives of the most only Church of the said Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers have rightly given the prerogative to the throne of the elder Rome, because that was the imperial city. And the hundred and fifty most religious Bishops, moved by the same consideration, assigned an equal prerogative to the most holy throne of New Rome.”

From this canon it is very evident that the Bishop of Rome is equal in honour to the Bishop of the Church of Constantinople and to those of other churches, and there is no hint given in any canon or by any Fathers that the Bishop of Rome alone has ever been prince of the universal Church, and the infallible judge of the Bishops of the other independent and self-governing Churches, or the successor of the Apostle Peter and vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.

Each particular self-governing Church, both in the East and West, was totally independent and self-administered in the times of the seven ecumenical councils. And just as the Bishops of the self-governing Churches of the East, so also those of Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain, managed the affairs of their own churches, each by their local synods, the Bishop of Rome having no right to interfere, and he himself also was equally subject and obedient to the decrees of synods. On important questions which needed the sanction of the universal Church, an appeal was made to an ecumenical council, which alone was and is the supreme tribunal in the universal Church. Such was the ancient constitution of the Church.

“During the nine centuries of the Ecumenical Councils the Eastern Orthodox Church never recognized the excessive claims of primacy on the part of the Bishops of Rome, nor consequently did she ever submit herself to them, as Church history plainly bears witness.” “The Orthodox Eastern and Catholic Church of Christ, with the exception of the Son and the Word of God, who was ineffably made man, knows no one that was infallible on earth. Even the Apostle Peter himself, whose successor the Pope thinks himself to be, thrice denied the Lord, and was twice rebuked by the Apostle Paul as not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. Afterwards the Pope Liberius, in the fourth century, subscribed an Arian confession; and likewise Zosimus, in the fifth century, approved an heretical confession, denying original sin. Vigilius, in the sixth century, was condemned for wrong opinions by the fifth council; and Honorius, having fallen into the Monothelite heresy, was condemned in the seventh century by the sixth Ecumenical Council as a heretic, and the Popes who succeeded him acknowledged and accepted his condemnation. “In vain, therefore, does the Bishop of Rome send us to the source that we may seek diligently for what our forefathers believed, and what the first period of Christianity delivered to us. In these sources we, the Orthodox, find the old and divinely transmitted doctrines, to which we carefully hold fast at the present time, and nowhere do we find the innovations which later time brought forth in the West, and which the papal Church, having adopted, retains till this very day. The Orthodox Eastern Church then justly glories in Christ, as being the Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils and the first nine centuries of Christianity, and therefore the holy , Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ, the pillar and ground of truth; but the present Roman Church is the Church of innovation, of the falsification of the writings of the Church Fathers, and of the decrees of the holy councils, for which she has reasonably and justly been disowned, and is still disowned.” The above letter was signed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, along with his comprovincials. There are thus eight points of difference between the Holy Orthodox and Apostolic Church of the East, and Rome. With four of these, we Anglican are at one with the East. We give the Blessed Sacrament in both kinds, condemning Rome’s denying the cup to the laity. We deny the doctrine of a purgatory of penal fire, where the faithful must suffer to satisfy the divine justice, and from which the can be relieved by purchased or gained indulgences.

We agree with the East in refusing to accept the Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We reject the Roman doctrine of papal infallibility, and the Pope’s claim to be absolute monarchial head of the whole Church Militant, endowed with all executive, legislative, and judicial powers. On two points the Anglican Church takes a middle ground: she allows the use of both leavened and unleavened bread; and she provides for immersion in baptism, but allows not sprinkling, but “poring.” The American Church distinctly invokes the Holy Ghost upon the Elements.

The Division, East and West

The real difference between Anglican and Eastern Churches lies in the use of the “Filioque” clause, which we inherited from Rome. The recitation, as it was not in the original Creed, we might, for the sake of intercommunion, explain or omit. It would not hinder our future union with Rome, if that should be ever desirable, for, united to the East, Rome would accept us, as she has the Uniat Churches, wherein the omission has been allowed. It would be a great aid to the cause of Christianity if, by the recognition of each other’s Catholicity, intercommunion might be brought about between the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches. It is a happy sign that Bishop Raphael, head of the Orthodox Syrian Church in the United States, has given permission to his own people, where no priest of their own is present, to be baptized, and the marriage service performed, by an Anglican priest, and the Holy Communion received, under certain circumstances, at his hands. Kozlowski, the late Old Catholic Bishop, announced his willingness to take part in the consecration of an American Bishop of our Church. Prelates of both Churches have exchanged courtesies, recognizing each other’s orders. But before official action can be taken, there must be a more general desire on our part, officially expressed. Very different is the attitude of the Church of Rome form that of the eastern Churches towards us. Rome imperiously demands an absolute submission to her papal claims and modern doctrines. This is on our part an impossibility, as it would be disloyalty to Christ. The East asks only if we hold the same faith. Can we not, ought we not, to lay aside our inherited prepossessions, and respond to the cry for union which comes from the heart of our Lord?

We Anglican ought all to seek and pray for a united Christendom, for its division so greatly hinder the work of the Spirit in the conversion of the world. Two conditions are necessary before it can be accomplished. Our sectarian brethren must get a fuller grasp of the Incarnation, and recover their lost sense of the need of the Priesthood. Their ministers are preachers, who disclaim the idea of there being priests. It cannot then be called illiberal in us to deny to them that which they repudiate for themselves. But priesthood is an essential element in Christianity. When sectarian clergy discover their loss, they will be desirous of Episcopal ordination. The other condition is that which relates to Rome. The Roman Bishops must seek for and recover their full Episcopal powers, now taken away by the Pope. When they have recovered them, the papacy falls, and the way to reunion is opened. If mutual recognition is ever brought about, it will be through Anglicans, the Old Catholics and the Eastern Churches. Therefore the fraternal spirit of the latter should be lovingly responded to. While Rome demands an absolute submission to its monarchial claims and modern doctrines, the east only asks, “DO we hold the same faith? - if so, we are brethren.”

Rise and Development of the Papacy                           

The modern claims of the papacy are something tremendous. Christ, it is said, "founded a visible Church, neither as an aristocracy, nor as a federation, but as an absolute monarchy." We quote from an accredited Roman Catholic authority. The head of the Church, or the Pope, possesses the plentitude of power, including all legislative, judicial, and coercive authority; as supreme pontiff, he is able to make universal law, and to bind the universal Church by himself alone. He is not subject to any, even a General Council. All judicial power rests with him. From his judgment there can be no appeal. He is also possessed of coercive power. The pontiff's power in this respect is independent of every other on earth. He has, moreover, supreme liturgical power. He can aIter thc liturgy at his pleasure, or add to it new devotions. His Episcopal power makes him bishop of the whole world. He has the sole right of appointing Bishops, and of removing them at his wiIl. The jurisdiction of any Bishop may be validly withdrawn by him, without any showing of adequate cause or giving of any valid reason. He is, in other words, the absolute monarch of the Church; and all authority of all kinds is in him. This position he claims as of divine right, as given by Christ to Peter; and through St. Peter's Episcopate at Rome, he claims, it became the endowment of Peter's successor.

The modern papal teaching respecting the papacy is that our Lord first became visibly present on earth by His Incarnation. Secondly, by His invisible Presence in the Holy Eucharist, wherein He is silent but effective. Thirdly, in the person of the Pope at the Vatican, where He is vocal. "The Sovereign Pontiff," says Faber, "is the third Visible Presence of Jesus Christ among us."  In an official document printed by license of Pope Gregory XIII., we find the following, the interpretation being given by a Jesuit father: "To deny that ourLord God the Pope has power to decree as he has decreed, would be deemed heretieal." Again it is stated concerning the Pope, "whom we regard as God, and whom we ought to listen to as though we heard God speaking.” "All the Pope's acts must be considered as God's acts." "The Pope can do all things God can do.” At the Lateran Council, 1512, the Pope was said to be "a second God upon earth.” After this, we think our readers will be inclined to quote II. Thess. ii. 4.

The Scriptural warrant for these tremendous prerogatives is very slender. The three texts cited in support of it are first, that of St. John xxi. 15 and 17, where our Lord bade St. Peter "shepherd the sheep and feed the lambs." The obvious meaning here is that St. Peter, as representative of the Old Dispensation, and the leader among the Apostles, was to lead the sheep belonging to the old Jewish order and the Gentile lambs into the Christian fold. This is what he did. At Pentecost he brought in the Jewish converts, and, subsequently, in the ministration to the Roman Centurion Cornelius, the lambs, or first fruits of the Gentiles. But the command of the Lord gave him no authority over other shepherds. Itwas clearly not only not given, but actually forbidden; for when St. Peter said respecting St. John, "But what shall this man do?” our Lord said, "What is that to thee?" or in plain English, "That is not your business." The second text that the Romans rest on is that of St. Luke xxii. "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” W e must believe that our Lord's prayer was answered; and the way in which it was answercd shows what He prayed for. He did not pray that St. Peter should be possessed of any infallible gift, or that he should not deny the faith, for he did so. When Peter said, "I know not the man," He denied what he had previously confessed, i.e., that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. What our lord prayed for was that, though he should deny the Faith, nevertheless he might not lose his faith in Christ, and fan away from Him. Our Lord prayed that Peter should hold on to his faith in Christ. He did this, and repenting, and being forgiven, he was able to strengthen the faith of his brethren who had not fallen away as deeply as he had. "The applieation of this text to the papal claims is," says Professor Robertson, "a very late after-thought. I know," he says, "of no such use of it earlier than the year 681."

Again, let us take the third text which Romans cite in support of the claims of the Papacy. Our Lord did not say, "Thou art Peter, theRock on which I will build My Church." But on this Rock, this very Rock, I will build it. Now the word "Rock" as used in the Old Testament signifies God. It is reserved to the Almighty. Thus it is written, "W ho is a Rock, save our God?" "God only is my Rock." "Is there a God beside Me? Yea, there is no Rock, I know not any." "Their rock," i.e., the heathen's god, "is not as our Rock." Thus to the mind of the Apostles, the term Rock would refer to God. Therefore when Peter had confessed Christ to be the Son of God, and our Lord had said, "On this Rock I wiII build My Church," the Apostles would naturally understand Christ as referring to Himself. Most of the Fathers, when explicitly interpreting this text, say that the Rock is Christ, or the confession of His divinity. Some few refer it to Peter, but none see in it a gift or office bestowed on him, which he was to transmit to a successor. Launoii, a learned Roman Catholic writer, analyzing the statements of seventy Fathers, cites fortyfour signifying that the Church was founded on the Apostles; sixteen said the Rock was Christ; seventeen that it meant Peter, but none of the latter assigned to Peter an office which was to be passed on to another. The true position of St. Peter is brought out fully in the book, Christian and Catholic, by the author of this work. It may be sufficient here to quote the words written by the late learned Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis, Dr. Kenrick, who in a speech which was to have been delivered before the Vatican Council said that the text in St. Matthew, as interpreted by the Fathers, did not bear out the Roman contention. "If we are bound," he said, "to follow the majority of the Fathers in this thing, then we are bound to hold for certain that by the 'Rock' should be understood the Faith professed by St. Peter, not Peter professing the Faith."                                                                                         

Again: the Apostles must have understood Christ's words correctly, seeing they received "the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth." Now there is one sure test to show in what way the Apostles understood Christ's words. There is no evidence in Holy Scripture that the Apostles understood Christ's words as giving to St. Peter any authority or jurisdiction over themselves. The Lord expressly forbade any such exercise of authority of one over the others, and said, "It shall not be so among you." He placed all the Apostles on an equality, as sitting alike on twelve thrones; each was to be like the other, one of the twelve foundations. Cardinal Newman said "of the first twelve Apostles not one was possessed of universal jurisdiction." Christ was the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building was to be joined in unity. The twelve, all alike, were the foundations united to, or laid on, Him. Christ was also, as He declared, "the Vine"; and the Apostles, including Peter, were only branches. Peter was first, the leader of the original twelve, the foundation layer of the Church, the bringer in of the Jews and Gentiles, but the idea of any supremacy of St. Peter over the other Apostles finds no foundation in Holy Scripture.

 Nor is there any explicit mention in the New Testament that St. Peter was ever at Rome; or that as Bishop of Rome he conveyed any special privilege to a successor. Now the right to convey to another a "privilege" must be explicitly stated in the original grant, and its conveyance proved by explicit testimony. Peter's right to convey to another his special office finds no warrant in Holy Scripture, nor his doing so any proof in history. The lack of sure testimony in Scripture makes it clear that no doctrinal importance can be connected with Peter's being at Rome. It is impossible to think that God would have made our salvation dependent upon our being under the jurisdiction of Rome, and not have certified us in Holy Scripture of the fact of Peter's holding the Episcopal office there. Every historical fact on which Christianity is based and found in the Creed is recorded in Holy Scripture. If St. Peter's being at Rome is one of these essential matters, it should in like manner be found there, otherwise it is obviously to be held not essential, and no doctrine can be based upon it.

Again: not only docs Holy Scripture not place Peter over the other Apostles, but there are many texts in the New Testament, in the Acts and the Epistles, that show that all the Apostles were of equal authority. Bartoli, who after many years of service in the Jesuit order has lately left the Church of Rome, cites some forty texts to this effect." A full list can also be found in Brinckman's Notes on Papal Claims. "The New Testament does not give us," says Professor Robertson, "the slightest hint that the Apostolic Church bequeathed the Papacy to the succeeding age, not a hint that the words, 'Thou art Peter,' fixed the Constitution of tho Church of Christ as a monarchy under a visible Head."

– from The Lineage from Apostolic Times of the American Catholic Church,commonly called the Anglican Church, by the Rt. Rev. Charles C. Grafton, S.T.D.