An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine Part 13

[138:1] [They also had a _cultus_ in themselves, and specially when a greater Presence did _not_ overshadow them. _Vid._ Via Media, vol. ii.

art. iv. 8, note 1.]

[139:1] Exod. x.x.xiii. 10.

[139:2] Dan. x. 5-17.

[141:1] Athan. Orat. i. 42, Oxf. tr.

[141:2] [_Vid. supr._ p. 138, note 8.]

[142:1] Athan. ibid.

[142:2] And so Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine: "The all-holy choir of G.o.d's perpetual virgins, he was used almost to worship (s???), believing that that G.o.d, to whom they had consecrated themselves, was an inhabitant in the souls of such." Vit. Const. iv. 28.

[146:1] Haer. 78, 18.

[148:1] Aug. de Nat. et Grat. 42. Ambros. Ep. 1, 49, -- 2. In Psalm 118, v. 3, de Inst.i.t. Virg. 50. Hier. in Is. xi. 1, contr. Pelag. ii. 4. Nil.

Ep. i. p. 267. Antioch. ap. Cyr. de Rect. Fid. p. 49. Ephr. Opp. Syr. t.

3, p. 607. Max. Hom. 45. Procl. Orat. vi. pp. 225-228, p. 60, p. 179, 180, ed. 1630. Theodot. ap. Amphiloch. pp. 39, &c. Fulgent. Serm. 3, p.

125. Chrysol. Serm. 142. A striking pa.s.sage from another Sermon of the last-mentioned author, on the words "She cast in her mind what manner of salutation," &c., may be added: "Quantus sit Deus satis ignorat ille, qui hujus Virginis mentem non stupet, animum non miratur. Pavet clum, tremunt Angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non sufficit; et una puella sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, oblectat hospitio, ut pacem terris, clis gloriam, salutem perditis, vitam mortuis, terrenis c.u.m clestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei c.u.m carne commercium, pro ipsa domus exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri mercede conquirat," &c. Serm.

140. [St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria sometimes speak, it is true, in a different tone; on this subject vid. "Letter to Dr. Pusey," Note iii., Diff. of Angl. vol. 2.]

[153:1] Pope's Suprem. ed. 1836, pp. 26, 27, 157, 171, 222.

[157:1] ?t?? ?a? p??????ta? ?? t?p? ?????? ??a???.

[158:1] Athan. Hist. Tracts. Oxf. tr. p. 56.

[159:1] Hist. ii. 17.

[159:2] Hist. iii. 10.

[159:3] Theod. Hist. v. 10.

[160:1] Coustant, Epp. Pont. p. 546.

[160:2] In 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.

[160:3] Coustant, p. 624.

[161:1] ii. 3.

[161:2] Coustant, pp. 896, 1064.

[161:3] Ep. 186, 2.

[161:4] De Ingrat. 2. Common. 41.

[162:1] Serm. De Natal. iii. 3.

[162:2] Ibid. v. 4.

[162:3] Ep. ad Eutych. fin.

[162:4] Concil. Hard. t. ii. p. 656.

[164:1] Barrow on the Supremacy, ed. 1836, pp. 263, 331, 384.

PART II.

DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENTS

VIEWED RELATIVELY TO DOCTRINAL

CORRUPTIONS.

CHAPTER V.

GENUINE DEVELOPMENTS CONTRASTED WITH CORRUPTIONS.

I have been engaged in drawing out the positive and direct argument in proof of the intimate connexion, or rather oneness, with primitive Apostolic teaching, of the body of doctrine known at this day by the name of Catholic, and professed substantially both by Eastern and Western Christendom. That faith is undeniably the historical continuation of the religious system, which bore the name of Catholic in the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, in the sixteenth, and so back in every preceding century, till we arrive at the first;--undeniably the successor, the representative, the heir of the religion of Cyprian, Basil, Ambrose and Augustine. The only question that can be raised is whether the said Catholic faith, as now held, is logically, as well as historically, the representative of the ancient faith. This then is the subject, to which I have as yet addressed myself, and I have maintained that modern Catholicism is nothing else but simply the legitimate growth and complement, that is, the natural and necessary development, of the doctrine of the early church, and that its divine authority is included in the divinity of Christianity.

2.

So far I have gone, but an important objection presents itself for distinct consideration. It may be said in answer to me that it is not enough that a certain large system of doctrine, such as that which goes by the name of Catholic, should admit of being referred to beliefs, opinions, and usages which prevailed among the first Christians, in order to my having a logical right to include a reception of the later teaching in the reception of the earlier; that an intellectual development may be in one sense natural, and yet untrue to its original, as diseases come of nature, yet are the destruction, or rather the negation of health; that the causes which stimulate the growth of ideas may also disturb and deform them; and that Christianity might indeed have been intended by its Divine Author for a wide expansion of the ideas proper to it, and yet this great benefit hindered by the evil birth of cognate errors which acted as its counterfeit; in a word, that what I have called developments in the Roman Church are nothing more or less than what used to be called her corruptions; and that new names do not destroy old grievances.

This is what may be said, and I acknowledge its force: it becomes necessary in consequence to a.s.sign certain characteristics of faithful developments, which none but faithful developments have, and the presence of which serves as a test to discriminate between them and corruptions. This I at once proceed to do, and I shall begin by determining what a corruption is, and why it cannot rightly be called, and how it differs from, a development.

3.

To find then what a corruption or perversion of the truth is, let us inquire what the word means, when used literally of material substances.

Now it is plain, first of all, that a corruption is a word attaching to organized matters only; a stone may be crushed to powder, but it cannot be corrupted. Corruption, on the contrary, is the breaking up of life, preparatory to its termination. This resolution of a body into its component parts is the stage before its dissolution; it begins when life has reached its perfection, and it is the sequel, or rather the continuation, of that process towards perfection, being at the same time the reversal and undoing of what went before. Till this point of regression is reached, the body has a function of its own, and a direction and aim in its action, and a nature with laws; these it is now losing, and the traits and tokens of former years; and with them its vigour and powers of nutrition, of a.s.similation, and of self-reparation.

4.

Taking this a.n.a.logy as a guide, I venture to set down seven Notes of varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows:--There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings antic.i.p.ate its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its earlier; if it has a power of a.s.similation and revival, and a vigorous action from first to last. On these tests I shall now enlarge, nearly in the order in which I have enumerated them.

SECTION I.