One of the most striking facts about the Brotherhood in the States is that, while the church spirit is unmistakable—as no one who was present at the corporate Communion of 1,300 delegates in October of this year at half-past six in the morning in a great church at Buffalo could possibly doubt—it has successfully avoided becoming either a party society or a society rent by factions.
It is because I believe the witness of this Brotherhood to the true church spirit has already proved invaluable that I venture to dedicate this little exposition of the great book of brotherhood—though without leave granted or asked—to its founder and president.
NOTE E. See pp. 164, 166.
THE CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH (CATHOLIC) IN ST. PAUL
IN ITS RELATION TO LOCAL CHURCHES.
By far the most frequent use of the word 'church' or 'churches' in the New Testament is to designate a local society of Christians or a number of such societies taken together, 'the church at Jerusalem,' 'the church at Antioch,' 'the churches of Galatia,' 'the seven churches which are in Asia,' 'all the churches.' But it is used also for the church as a whole. In fact, before Christ's coming the word in the Greek of the Old Testament had passed from meaning an assembly of the people, as in classical Greek, to meaning the sacred people as a whole[[1]], as St. Stephen uses it in his speech 'The church in the wilderness' (Acts vii. 38). And it is exactly in this sense that it is used by our Lord in St. Matthew, xvi. 18. 'The church' which our Lord there promises to 'build' is the Church of the New Covenant as a whole. We might paraphrase His words (as Dr. Hort suggests[[2]]) 'on this rock I will build my Israel.' Thus there is throughout the Acts and St. Paul's earlier epistles, a tendency to pass from the use of 'church' as a local society to its use as designating the whole body of the faithful. This was but natural seeing that each local society did but represent the one divine society, the church of the Old Covenant, refounded by Christ. See Acts ix. 31: 'The church throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria.' xii. 1: 'Herod the king put forth his hands to afflict certain of the church.' xx. 28: 'The church of God which he purchased with his own blood.' Gal. i. 13: 'I persecuted the church of God.' 1 Cor. xii. 28: 'God hath set some in the church, first apostles,' &c. In this last passage and in St. Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders this general use of the term is unmistakable.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which alone among his epistles St. Paul is writing not about the difficulties or needs of a particular congregation, but about the church in its general conception, this larger use of the term becomes dominant. And the point to be noticed is that the church in general, or catholic church, is conceived of, not as made up of local churches, but as made up of individual members. The local church would be regarded by St. Paul not as one element of a catholic confederacy[[3]], but as the local representative of the one divine and catholic society[[4]]. But the local church is not, according to St. Paul, a completely independent representative of the church as a whole. The apostles, as commissioned witnesses and representatives of Christ, are over all the churches. They, or their recognized associates and delegates, like Barnabas, Timothy and Titus, represent the general church which every local church must, so to speak, reproduce. The apostles therefore, or their representatives, give to each church when it is first founded 'the tradition' of truth and morals which is permanently to mould it; and they maintain the tradition by a more or less constant supervision. Thus they are the force which holds all 'the churches' together on a common basis. 'So ordain I,' says St. Paul, 'in all the churches[[5]].' 'Hold fast the traditions even as I delivered them to you[[6]].' The apostle has, he teaches, an 'authority' commensurate with his 'stewardship[[7]],' an authority 'which the Lord gave for the edification and not the destruction[[8]]' of the Christians, but which at times must take the form of a 'rod' of chastisement[[9]]. The complete doctrinal and moral independence of particular Churches is strongly denied by St. Paul in such phrases as 'Came the word of God unto you alone?' or, 'If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema[[10]].'
Dr. Hort's work on The Christian Ecclesia, in many respects, as would be expected, most admirable, seems to me to minimize quite extraordinarily the apostolic authority. The apostles, he says, were only witnesses of Christ. 'There is no trace in Scripture of a formal commission of authority for government from Christ Himself.' This surprising conclusion is reached by omitting many considerations. Thus in St. Matthew xvi. 19 a definite grant of official authority—as appears in the passage, Is. xxii. 22, on which it is based—is promised to St. Peter, and he is on this occasion, as Dr. Hort himself maintains, the representative of the apostles generally. This stewardship granted to the apostles, to shepherd the flock and feed the household of God, is implied again in St. Luke xii. 42, St. John xxi. 15-17; and it seems to be quite unreasonable to dissociate the authoritative commission to 'absolve and retain,' St. John xx. 20-23, from the apostolic office. Dr. Hort would apparently dissociate such passages as those last referred to from the apostolic office, and assign them to the church as a whole. But how then does he account for the authority inherent in the apostolic office, as it is represented by St. Paul, and in the Acts? St. Paul's conception of the authority of the apostles is barely considered by him; and the authority of the apostolate in the Acts is strangely minimized. Nothing is said of Simon's impression—surely a true one—that the apostles had the 'authority' to convey the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands (viii. 19). Certainly the phrases used toward the churches of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, 'to whom we gave no commandment,' 'it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things,' imply a governmental authority, which, if it is shared by the presbyters, is substantially that of the apostles (Acts xv. 24-28).
Dr. Hort also minimizes greatly the element of official authority which appears almost at once in the church by apostolic appointment and delegation. No doubt there was at first an authority allowed—as must always be allowed—to the acknowledged possessors of extraordinary divine gifts, especially to the 'prophets.' But in the period of St. Paul's later activity, when he is facing the future of the church and has apparently ceased to expect an immediate return of Christ, these special gifts retire into the background, while the ordinary functions of government, and administration of the word and sacraments, remain in the position which they are permanently to occupy in the hands of regularly ordained officers.