Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom

by T. W. Allies

The fourth, that the power of binding and loosing whatsoever shall be bound or loosed in earth and in heaven is committed to him singly.

The fifth, the power to confirm his brethren, in which name the Apostles are specially indicated, because his own faith shall never fail.

The sixth, the supreme Pastorship of the whole flock of Christ.

Comparing carefully together what is said to the Apostles as a body with what is said to Peter singly, we cannot but be struck with the fact that while they received nothing without him, he received a power including and crowning theirs. The terms of conveyance in the two cases are indeed of similar majesty and simplicity, being the language of God in the sovereign disposition of His gifts; but in the case of Peter there is greater definiteness, and to him our Lord employs constantly the parabolic form of expression, calling him the Rock, giving him the Keys, committing to him singly the binding and loosing, and the confirmation of the brethren, which is the image of a tower or structure held together in one mass, charging him finally with the Pastorship of the flock of Christ. This imagery is capable of wider application than any other form of speaking, and as we know by the instance of the parables, contains in it an amount of instruction which direct language can only convey at a much greater length. None of it is given to any Apostle by himself, except Peter; what the rest receive of it together, as in the case of the power of binding and loosing, first promised and then given to them collectively, is greatly exceeded by what he receives alone. And besides, their commission and his throw light upon each other. The Papacy and the Episcopate are their joint result. Give its full force to the Apostolic commission, and Christ is with the one universal Episcopate all days to the consummation of the world. Give the same full force to the words bestowed upon Peter, and he feeds the flock of Christ until the second coming of the Great Shepherd. Perpetuity enters equally into both.

There is thus accordance in the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles as to the persons to whom transmission of spiritual power in the Church was made. The Gospels and the Acts record in the form of narrative the institution of the divine kingdom from its beginning and before it was carried into effect. But there is another inspired writer who speaks of it incidentally in his Epistles after it had been in operation between twenty and forty years. The eminence of St. Paul as the Preacher of the Gentiles is so great that we may endeavour to put together his testimony concerning the constitution of that Church which he loved so well, and for which he gave his life.

And, first, it is from him we derive that name of the Church which, more perhaps than any other, expresses her nature, and identifies her with our Lord. The Church to St. Paul is “the Body of Christ.” “As the human body,” he says, “is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free; and in one Spirit we have all been made to drink.” “There are,” he says, “diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God who worketh all in all;” and saying this to the Corinthian disciples he well-nigh repeats it to the Roman. To him, therefore, the whole structure of the Church’s government is divine, as drawn from Christ’s Person, as animated by His Spirit, as the work of the Eternal Father in and through the Son whom He has sent, and by the Spirit whom He has also sent. And again, as he thus wrote in the middle of his course to his Corinthian converts, so nearly at the end of it he expressed to the beloved Church of Ephesus, the fruit of so many toils, the same doctrine. This passage is sufficient of itself to give the complete Pauline conception of the Church as it was present to his mind in the whole range of time, stretching from the first to the second coming of our Lord. “I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One Body and one Spirit: as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. But to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ. Wherefore He saith: Ascending on high He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men. Now that He ascended, what is it, but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the Body of Christ: until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ: that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive: but doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole Body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity.”

Are not these words a divine comment from the Apostle himself upon what he means by the Body of Christ? It is no figure of speech, but the grandest reality in the universe. The words contain the beginning, middle, and end of his belief concerning the instrument of our salvation. It is an inspired summary of the record in the Gospels which we have been so long considering. Its compass reaches from the ascension above the heavens to the completion “of the perfect man” in the fulness of the mystical Body, when all the labours and sufferings of earth are at an end. It places the security against error of doctrine, as well as the growth of charity in the working together of one ministry through the whole Church, and through all time, not only drawn from the institution of Christ, but enclosed in the sacred structure of His Body; nor can we conceive of any preaching of the Gospel without a divine mission derived from Christ through this ministry, as he elsewhere wrote to the Roman Church: “How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? or how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?” There is, in his conception, one mission only in the Body of Christ. The splitting of this Body of Christ into two or three parts would be simply the destruction of St. Paul’s conception, not an atom of it would remain. There is, in his conception, but one ministry, in unity and harmony with itself, the guardian and the propagator of the truth—Bishops existing outside this one divine ministry and exercising authority are a complete denial of the whole idea.

It is in exact accordance with these passages that St. Paul, in his pastoral letter to his disciple St. Timotheus, reminds him of the grace of God derived to him by the imposition of the Apostle’s hands, and the hands of the Presbytery. He speaks manifestly of a divine gift descending through the hands of men from Christ, “who, ascending up on high, gave some apostles, some prophets,” and the rest.

Again, it is after a strict and precise charge to St. Timotheus respecting the quality of the persons whom he should choose for the office of the episcopate that St. Paul winds up with the words: “These things I write to thee, hoping that I shall come to thee shortly, but if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” Here then, also, as in the letter to the Ephesians, he describes the divinely appointed ministry as bearing and upholding the truth which it is charged to impart; so that St. Augustine was putting St. Paul’s doctrine forth when he wrote, “I should not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me thereto.”[30] According to St. Paul’s mind, it is the living ministry which carries to the world the knowledge “of the living God,” a knowledge which dwells in “the house of God” alone. Outside the house the truth is corrupted, and the ministry loses its gift.

From the union of these passages, to which many more of like import might be added, we learn that the unity of the Church, in St. Paul’s idea and expression, rests upon the very deepest foundation, the unity of Christ’s Person as receiving a mission from the Father, which He accomplishes in His own Body, and by the working of His Spirit. If the promise to St. Peter and its fulfilment were for a moment put out of sight, yet this divine unity testified in St. Paul’s letters would still remain in all its force, and could not be disregarded without giving up St. Paul’s mind altogether. How can it be accomplished except by means of the promises given and the charge imposed on St. Peter? Thus St. Paul, in testifying directly to the unity, a witness the depth, precision, force, and tenderness of which no one can deny, testifies indirectly to the means by which it is obtained. If there be one ministry discharging in the Body of Christ the functions which St. Paul assigns to it, there must be the organ also by which that ministry remains one. Nor does it follow less that, as the ministry is visible and permanent, so likewise must the organ of its unity be visible and permanent. And if St. John records, in the most emphatic manner, the universal pastorship bestowed on Peter by his Lord, St. Paul sets forth as a reality the unity thus created in a symbol more striking, if possible, than the flock of the One Shepherd, for it is the Body of the One Lord. If the Apostle who lay on our Lord’s breast and heard Him declare Himself to be the good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep, recorded the transmission of that charge to St. Peter under that same figure of the Shepherd in the injunction to feed the lambs and the sheep of Christ, St. Paul, who was carried up to heaven and heard unspeakable words, saw from his prison in Rome, through the whole vast period from our Lord’s first to His second coming, the growth of that sacred Body which was to fill all in all, compacted together of the apostles, doctors, and pastors, whom at the beginning Christ gave, whom He would continue to the end to give; for does it not run, “until we all meet into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ.” In all this St. Paul declares that, so long as the Church is militant, her ministry is the organ of truth, and this because the Church is the Body of Christ.