Council against Paulus Samosatemus.
I do not suppose for a moment that Dr. Stanley could care to make a merely technical statement as to the mode in which adhesion was signified to a dogmatic series of propositions. No merely formal position of that kind could serve the argument. The position which he lays down must be that, before the time of Constantine, there was that freedom allowed which is demanded by those who object to Subscription now,—that people were not, in those days, called on to profess their belief in any set of “dogmatical” statements as tests of orthodoxy. If, then, he will look back sixty-six years before the Council of Nicæa, to the Council of Antioch (of which Constantine was quite innocent), against Paul of Samosata, there he will find the copy of a letter from certain orthodox bishops, Hymenæus, Theophilus, Theoctenus, Maximus, Proclus, and Bolanus, setting forth a series of dogmatical propositions, more minute and lengthened than those of Nicæa, and concluding with these words—Ταῦτα ἀπὸ πλείστων ὀλίγα σημειωσάμενοι, Βουλόμεθα μαθεῖν, εἰ τὰ αὐτὰ φρονεῖς ἡμῖν καὶ διδάσκεις, καὶ ὑποσημειώσασθαι σε, εἰ ἀρέσκη, τοῖς προγεγραμμένοις, ῆ οὐ. If he would not write, he must make his mark—give some sign, at all events—whether he “held and taught” as there set forth in writing (προγεγραμμένοις)—yes or no; or submit to lose his office in the Church—(καθαιρεθῆναι.)—Routh’s Rel. ii. p. 465, &c.
Council against Noetus.
A few years earlier, the case of Noetus was treated in a similar way. The assembled Presbyters, after confessing the orthodox faith, cast out the heretic for not submitting to it. The Council of Eliberis, in Spain (before the Nicene Council), put out eighty-one canons, or chapters, of a mixed kind, dogmatical and disciplinary, “et Post Subscriptiones Episcoporum in vetusto codice Urgelensi leguntur sequentes presbyterorum,” &c.—Routh, iv. 44. Doctrine of Novatian severity is there put forth: I refer to it not for any other purpose than to adduce the fact of Subscription—(and Subscription, too, in the presence of the laity),—or at least the fact, that there was no authorized laxity in those days, such as Dr. Stanley’s argument requires.
Discipline in the Church.
And here I would remark, my Lord, on the obvious difference between a state of the Church in which there was a system of Discipline holding together the whole body, and a condition like our own, when Discipline is acknowledged to be extinct among us. When bishops met together periodically, as they then did, to regulate the affairs of the Church,—and stood in mutual awe of each other’s spiritual powers;—when dismissal from Communion was a chastisement shrunk from, by laity and clergy, with terror,—it might have been easy to do without such Subscriptions as now attempt to guard the orthodoxy of our people. So again in the Pre-Reformation Church; the organization of the hierarchy, and the necessary submission of the people, might often render Subscriptions more than superfluous—unintelligible. Let those who would take away the present Subscription to our Prayer-book, restore to us, in a fair measure, the active Discipline of the Apostolic and post Apostolic times, and I for one will thankfully hail the change. But to ask to return to the “first three centuries,”—bristling as they do with canons, synodical and episcopal letters, and declarations,—because a volume was not then presented for the signature of every candidate for Orders,—is as reasonable as it would be to propose now to abolish printing, and go back to the simplicity and “freedom” of oral instruction and the scantiest of manuscript literature. There is no fallacy more glittering, but none more unworthy, illogical, and self-condemning than that of false historical parallel. And I again must ask your Lordship, whether Dr. Stanley’s appeal to the Primitive History has not wholly failed?—I have briefly shown that Constantine was not the originator of Subscriptions to creeds or canons, but that subscribing or professing dogmatic assent was a Christian custom of the earlier ages. It is plain to every one who knows the history, e.g., of a great bishop like St. Cyprian or St. Irenæus, or of a great writer like Tertullian or Origen, that to guard dogmatically against heresy, by every means in their power, was the predominating idea of their whole course, however imperfectly attained; and they would have been utterly astounded if any one had foretold that in a future age of the Church, when all Discipline had been destroyed among Christ’s people, a Professor of History would appeal to their example as a justification of the proposal to excuse all ministers of Christ from signing any Articles of Faith!
Roman Catholic Subscription.
But when we are even told by Dr. Stanley (p. 36, n.) that, “from the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church no declaration of belief is required at their Ordination,” we almost cease to be surprised at his allegations respecting the ante-Nicene age. One would have thought it very little trouble to look into the present Roman Pontifical, and see the service for Ordination of Priests, before making any such statement. Unless Dr. Stanley’s copy is very different from mine—(Antverpiæ Ex-officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1663)—he will read thus:—
“Pontifex, accepta mitra, vertit se ad presbyteros ordinatos qui ante altare coram ipso stantes profitentur Fidem quam prædicaturi sunt, dicentes Credo, &c., &c.”