CHAPTER IV.

TRANSMISSION OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY, AS WITNESSED IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH FROM A.D. 29 TO A.D. 325.

The letter of St. Clement of Rome, 184 Description of this letter by St. Irenæus, 185 St. Clement urges the Roman military discipline as an example for Christian obedience, 186 Minute regulations given by Christ as to religious ordinances, 187 The descent of all spiritual order from above, 188 Example of Moses in establishing the Jewish Pontificate, 189 How the Apostles appointed everywhere Bishops with a rule of succession, 190 St. Clement fills up details omitted in the Gospel record, 190 How he attests the continuation of the Mosaic hierarchy of high priest, priest, and levite in the Christian Church, 191 How he says that Christian ordinances are to be observed more accurately than Mosaic, 193 How the Apostles carried out the descent of power from above, 194 Why St. Clement instances the origin of the Jewish hierarchy, 195 How St. Clement exercises the Primacy, 197 St. Ignatius of Antioch supplements St. Clement of Rome, 200 His statement as to Bishops throughout the world, combined with his statement as to the authority of the local Bishop, 201 The complete testimony of St. Clement and St. Ignatius, 203 The historian Eusebius notes three periods in the first ninety years, 205 Sum of his testimony as to the great Sees and the Episcopate, 206 How Tertullian describes the first propagation of the Church, 211 And how Irenæus, 213 Concordance with the Gospels of these statements of St. Clement, St. Ignatius, Eusebius, St. Irenæus, and Tertullian, 215 Bishops in every city and town of the Empire before the peace of the Church, 216 St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Apostles appointed everywhere local Bishops, 217 The Bishop universally said to wield a government, 218 Bishops sent out from Rome to convert the nations, 219 Episcopal government universal, 220 But the One Episcopate much more than this, 222 St. Cyprian's One Episcopate illustrated by St. Leo the Great, 223 What the One Episcopate adds to the universal establishment of Bishops, 224 The special character of the miracle which St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine proclaimed, 227 St. Augustine's criterion in the fourth century applied to the nineteenth, 229 St. Chrysostom's epitome of the Church's course preceding his time, 230 Christ's special miracle is that He founds the race of Christians, 231 Contrast of the race with that out of which it was formed, 232 The incessant conflict amid which it was done, 233 A reflection upon this picture of the Church, 236