In reflecting on the history thus sketched out, the thought occurs how completely the ideal of Pope St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Irenæus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Epiphanius, and St. Leo, nay, not their ideal only, but that spiritual kingdom which they described as they saw before their eyes, would have been overthrown, if there were substituted for it a number of bishops scattered through the world in a variety of temporal kingdoms, some holding one part and some another part of an original revelation, with a multitude of discrepancies, and all deriving their authority to exercise their mandate from the several temporal powers to which they were civilly subject. The wonder which these Fathers one and all testify in gazing upon a divine Church would have passed into disgust and derision for an institution over which "the gates of hell" had prevailed by destroying its spiritual independence together with its doctrinal unity. Let us proceed to examine how these two were both maintained, penetrating the divine work so far as to reach that intimate union which made one substance of outward regimen and inward belief by the force of an indissoluble life; for if the Episcopate had been a mere government, it would have had neither such unity nor such vitality, nor have been capable of supporting the Church's fabric. FOOTNOTES: [41] Contra Hæreses, 3, 3. [42] For the date of the epistle, as at the end of the century, see the arguments in the Prolegomena, pp. 22, 23, of Funk's "Opera Patrum Apostolicorum." [43] St. Clement to the Corinthians, 37 and following sections, in which I follow generally Dr. Lightfoot's translation, with a few changes. [44] Ὁ Δεσπότης. [45] προσφορὰς καὶ λειτουργίας, sacrificial terms, belonging to the Holy Eucharist. [46] τὴν λειτουργίαν αὐτῶν. [47] On this passage Bianchi, "Della Potestà e della Politia della Chiesa," vol. iii. p. 158, remarks: "In oltre era noto a San Girolamo il senso della Chiesa intorno all' ecclesiastica gerarchia d' ordine, che ella ne' tre gradi de' Vescovi, de' Preti, e de' Ministri, ovvero de' Diaconi, sotto il cui nome altri Ministri inferiori si comprendono, discendeva dal Vecchio Testamento, e da origine divina, cioè dall' ordine stabilito da Dio nel sommo Sacerdote, ne' Sacerdoti inferiori, e ne' Leviti: i quali gradi diversi nella potestà componevano la gerarchia della vecchia Chiesa." St. Jerome himself says, Ep. 101 ad Evangelum: "Et ut sciamus traditiones Apostolicas sumptas de V. Testamento, quod Aaron et filii ejus atque Levitæ in templo fuerunt, hoc sibi Episcopi et Presbyteri, et Diaconi vindicent in Ecclesia." [48] καθίοτανον τὰς ἀπαρχὰς αύτῶν, δοκιμάσαντες τῷ πνεύματι, εἰς ἐπισκόπους καὶ διακόνους τῶν μελλόντων πιστεύειν. [49] τῆς λειτουργίας—ἐπισκοπῆς ἀποβαλεῖν. [50] Sections 58, 59. [51] Section 63. [52] Luke x. 16.