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