Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
Of the way in which the world was thus evangelised we have an instance
recorded by Photius, who says that Caius, a grave and learned priest of
the Roman Church, was ordained by Pope Zephyrinus (who sat from 202 to
218), Bishop of the Nations, that is, without designation of any
particular diocese, as if anointed and crowned for a kingdom, which by
his valour and wisdom he was to obtain for himself. In this way the Roman
Pontiffs consecrated a great number of bishops, whom they sent to bring
the provinces under the yoke of the faith, as recorded above by St.
Innocent.[70] But it is to be noted that those who were thus sent out
during two centuries from the first age were not elected by the people of
the several churches which they founded. They came to them by authority
from without—the authority of the Apostles and the Apostolic See,
mediately or immediately. In the cases just mentioned the mission was
immediate: in other cases, where it was derived from some Patriarchal See
or from a metropolis, it still descended from that original mission of
the Apostles, and the distribution of authority made by Peter at their
head.
For the whole of this mission there is one great type and source; our
Lord at the head of His Apostles is the prelude to the bishop in the
midst of his presbytery. He repeats Himself in every diocese, the first
and everlasting Bishop, whose heirs spread throughout the world. All is
from above.
But each bishop's chair thus established is a centre of dogmatic truth
and of moral force. The government extending thus over the whole Church
is a mean between autonomy and centralisation. "The bishop is contained
in the Church, and the Church in the bishop:" it is "a flock united to
its pastor." This is its local character: a most living authority, and a
most careful representation of those governed. What it is in reference to
the like authority planted elsewhere, we shall see presently.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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