II

THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE TWO

CONCEPTS

THESE two conflicting concepts of The Church have each numerous representatives. We shall first briefly notice those churches which represent the catholic concept. In passing, it is worth while noting that there is no power in this concept, as is sometimes maintained, to preserve a visible unity in The Church of God. The bitterest antagonisms of Christendom have been among catholic churches.

I. The representatives of the catholic concept. (1) Chief among them is the church which calls itself the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. This church claims the two great apostles, Peter and Paul, as its founders. It relies chiefly upon the primacy of Peter among the Twelve for its own primacy and supreme authority. This church fell heir to the power and the glory of the name of Rome, and has perpetuated its world-ruling spirit, and is the legitimate heir of that mighty power which once ruled the world from the city on the seven hills, by the Tiber.

The extinction of the churches of North Africa removed what might have been a rival, as Carthage was to ancient Rome. The practical annihilation of the British churches (See Green's "History of England" and Kurtz, " Church History") and the general accept

ance of the rule of Rome in the North put this church in complete supremacy in all Western Europe, a supremacy it maintained until the great outbreak of the liberal spirit in the sixteenth century, called the Reformation.

(2) Almost equal to Rome in its magnificence and power and rivalling it in its pride and self-sufficiency, is the Holy Oriental Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, commonly called the Greek Church.

This church prides itself on its Apostolic origin, on its preservation of a true succession, on its perpetuation of the original orthodoxy of The Church. It represents itself to be the continuation of the true Christianity. It glories in being of Greek origin. It boasts itself of the use of the apostolic language. Christianity, said Napoleon, was the triumph of Greece over Rome. This church claims to be the continuation of this triumphant Christianity. It is catholic; it has divine authority; it is orthodox; it is apostolic. Its seat of authority was Constantinople, the city built by the far-seeing sagacity of Constantine, which remained the capital of the Roman Empire for a thousand years after Rome fell. It is still the capital of the Greek church. This church exists in two affiliated branches: one under the direction of the œcumenical patriarch at Constantinople; the other under the control of the Holy Synod in Russia.

(3) There are in the East other churches, which claim to represent the catholic concept of The Church. There were Christians in Damascus before Paul was

converted to the Christian faith. Those of "the Way" scattered themselves all over Syria. The East-Syrian or Chaldæan church, later called Nestorian by its enemies, was an extensive congregation of Christians in the second century. Edessa, in Mesopotamia, was the seat of the authority which governed this church. Abgarus VIII (A. D. 176-213) was favourable to the new religion. It spread far over Asia. Its missionaries penetrated into China and went as far south as Ceylon. But it was finally overwhelmed in the Moslem tide which spread over the East. Its destruction was hastened by bitter feuds and contentions. Its clergy was often corrupt. A brief period of prosperity, under the Turkish rulers, favourable to it because this church was antagonistic to that of Constantinople, has been succeeded by a lethargic, unspiritual, deathlike condition.

(4) The Syrian church, in the West, rivals the Chaldæan in antiquity. It also claims Peter as its founder, and certainly with more reason than Rome can show. But, whoever was its founder, it is sunk deep in superstition and its light is buried beneath a mass of ritualism, so that it resembles little that ancient congregation at Antioch which sent forth Paul and Barnabas on the first great missionary tour, and which presented, at the beginning, such a noble example of what the True Church is. It has separated into two divisions: one is that ruled over by the Jacobite patriarch who always bears the name of Ignatius; the other, the Maronite division, since the crusades, has been in nominal union with Rome.