its gaining credit "by degrees, in process of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.1

Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenæus either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."2

Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it.

Again: "The New Testament consists of twentyseven books in all, though of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First of Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one writer during the same period."3

On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The Church at that era decided, not merely bore testimony, but passed a judgment on former testimony,decided that certain books were of authority. We receive that decision as true; that is, we virtually apply to a particular case the doctrine of her infallibility. And in proportion as the cases multiply in which we are obliged to trust her decision, do 2 Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 78. 3 Ibid. p. 80.

1 According to Less.

we approach, in fact, to the belief that she is infallible.

3. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance decreed, that, "though in the primitive Church the Sacrament" of the Eucharist "was received by the faithful under each kind, yet the custom has been reasonably introduced, for the avoiding of certain dangers and scandals, that it should be received by the consecrators under o each kind, and by the laity only under the kind of Bread; since it is most firmly to be believed, and in no wise doubted, that the whole Body and Blood of Christ is truly contained as well under the kind of Bread as under the kind of Wine."

Now the question is, whether the doctrine here laid down, and carried into effect in the usage here sanctioned, was entertained by the early Church, and may be considered a just development of its principles and practices. I answer that, starting with the presumption that the Council is right, which is the point here to be assumed, we shall find quite enough for its defence, and shall be satisfied to decide in the affirmative; we shall readily come to the conclusion that the Communion under either kind is lawful, each kind conveying the full gift of the Sacrament.

For instance, Scripture affords us two instances of what may reasonably be considered the administration of the Bread without the Wine; viz. our Lord's own example towards the two disciples at Emmaus, and St. Paul's conduct at sea during the tempest. Moreover, St. Luke speaks of the first Christians as continuing in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and "in breaking of bread, and in prayer," not mentioning the Cup.

Again, St. Paul says that "whosoever shall eat this Bread or drink this Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." And while he does but say "the Cup of blessing which

M

we bless," without speaking of the communication, he says of the Bread, "which we break;" and proceeds, "We, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one Bread," without mentioning the Cup. And our Lord, in like manner, says absolutely, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."

Many of the types of the Holy Eucharist, as far as they go, tend to the same conclusion; such as the Paschal Lamb, the Manna, the Shewbread, the sacrifices from which the blood was poured out, and the miracle of the loaves, which are figures of the bread alone; while the water from the rock, and the Blood from our Lord's side correspond to the Wine without the Bread. Others are representations of both kinds; as Melchizedek's feast, and Elijah's miracle of the meal and oil.

And, further, it certainly was the custom in the early Church, under circumstances, to communicate in one kind, as we learn from St. Cyprian, St. Dionysius, St. Basil, St. Jerome, and others. For instance, St. Cyprian speaks of the communion of an infant under Wine, and of a woman under Bread; and St. Ambrose speaks of his brother in shipwreck folding the Bread in a handkerchief, and placing it round his neck; and the monks and hermits in the desert can hardly be supposed to have been ordinarily in possession of consecrated Wine as well as Bread. From the following Letter of St. Basil, it appears that, not only the monks, but the whole laity of Egypt ordinarily communicated in Bread only. He seems to have been asked by his correspondent, whether in time of persecution it was lawful, in the absence of priest or deacon, to take the communion "in our own hand," that is, of course, the Bread; he answers that it may be justified by the following parallel cases, in mentioning which he is altogether silent about the Cup. "It is plainly no fault," he says, "for long custom affords instances which sanc

tion it. For all the monks in the desert, where there is no priest, keep the communion at home, and receive (partake) it from themselves (ap' tavrov). In Alexandria too, and in Egypt, each of the laity, for the most part, has the Communion in his house, and, when he will, he receives it from himself. For when once the priest has celebrated the Sacrifice and given it, he who has taken it [away] as a whole together, and then partakes of it daily, reasonably ought to think that he partakes and receives from him who [once] gave it." It should be added, that in the beginning of the Letter he had been led to speak of the communion in both kinds, and says that it is "good and profitable."

Here we have the usage of Pontus, Egypt, Africa, and Milan. Spain may be added, if a late author is right in his view of the meaning of a Spanish Canon; and Syria, as well as Egypt, at least at a later date, since Nicephorus tells us that the Acephali, having no Bishops, kept the Bread which their last priests had consecrated, and dispensed crumbs of it every year at Easter for the purposes of Communion.

But it may be said, that "after all it is so very 1 Ep. 93.

2 Vid. Concil. Bracar. ap. Aguirr. Conc. Hisp. t. ii. p. 676. "That the cup was not administered at the same time is not so clear; but from the tenor of this first Canon in the Acts of the Third Council of Braga, which condemns the notion that the Host should be steeped in the chalice, we have no doubt that the wine was withheld from the laity. Whether certain points of doctrine are or are not found in the Scriptures is no concern of the historian; all that he has to do is religiously to follow his guides, to suppress or distrust nothing through partiality."-Dunham, Hist. of Spain and Port. vol. i. p. 204. If pro complemento communionis in the Canon merely means for the Cup," at least the Cup is spoken of as a complement; the same view is contained in the "confirmation of the Eucharist," as spoken of in St. German's Life. Vid. Lives of Saints, No. 9, p. 28.

3 Niceph. Hist. xviii. 45. Renaudot, however, tells us of two Bishops at the time when the schism was at length healed. Patr. Al. Jac. p. 248. However, these had been consecrated by priests, p. 145.

hazardous and fearful a measure actually to withdraw from Christians one-half of the Sacrament, that, in spite of these precedents, some direct warrant is needed to reconcile the mind to it. There might have been circumstances which led St. Cyprian, or St. Basil, or the Apostolical Christians before them to curtail it, about which we know nothing. It is not therefore safe in us, because it was safe in them." Certainly a warrant is necessary; and just such a warrant is the infallibility of the Church. If we can trust her implicitly, there is nothing in the state of the evidence to form an objection to her decision in this instance, and in proportion as we find we can trust her does our difficulty lessen. Moreover, children, not to say infants, were at one time admitted to the Eucharist, at least to the Cup; on what authority are they now excluded from Cup and Bread also? St. Augustine considered the usage to be of Apostolical origin; and it continued in the West down to the twelfth century; it continues in the East among Greeks, Russo-Greeks, and the various Monophysite Churches to this day, and that on the ground of its almost universality in the primitive Church.1 Is it a less innovation to suspend the Cup, than to cut off children from Communion altogether? Yet we acquiesce in the latter deprivation without a scruple. It is safer to acquiesce with, than without, an authority; safer with the belief that the Church is infallible, than with the belief that she may err.

4. The chief tokens extant of the existence of the Papal authority, in the first three centuries, were cursorily mentioned in the Introductory Chapter. Here, as in other cases, the plan of the work has obliged us to lay down what afterwards we have to take up, and to break into parts what ought to be viewed as a whole.

With a view, then, of furnishing another illustra1 Vid. Bingh. Ant. xv. 4, §7; and Fleury, Hist. xxvi. 50, note g.