If we put together that large mass of teaching above described, which consisted in the government everywhere set up by the Apostles, in the sacraments which they carried into effect according to their Lord's instructions, in the worship which they established, in the life of faith, the daily discipline of which they set on foot, with that written mass of documents of which by the end of the first century the Church was in possession, we can form an approximate notion of the written and unwritten tradition which it was her abiding office to expound. That which is primary and essential,[144] the very substance of God's institution, is the perpetual succession of living men from the Apostles. All the rest are means by which that succession acts. These means the providence of God has placed round His own central creation. Such means are the word contained in the Divine Scriptures, the word contained in sacraments, the word contained in worship, the word contained in the most various ecclesiastical monuments, which exhibit the consent and definitive judgment of the successors of the Apostles in past time. These were the various means which the apostolic succession itself used, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to maintain and expound and preserve from error that whole tradition of the truth which Christ in the beginning committed to it. But the subject requires further illustration. FOOTNOTES: [110] Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, Θεοῦ Υιὸς, Σωτήρ = Ἰχθύς. [111] Zach. vi. 13. [112] τό ἄμαχον γένος, St. Chrys., above quoted. [113] See Hagemann, Die römische Kirche, p. 558. [114] Bianchi, vol. iii. pp. 120, 121. [115] Aug. l. iv. De Bapt. c. Donat. cap. ult. (B. 120 note). [116] Innocent. Ep. 18, c. 1. [117] S. Greg. I., 1. 6, Ep. 39; 8, Ep. 35. [118] Bianchi, 3, 137. [119] Bianchi, 3, 136. [120] The Council of Antioch, in the year 341, almost repeats this canon, and lays it down as of universal application. [121] Bianchi, 3, 132. [122] The following paragraph is a translation from Cardinal Hergenröther's History, vol. i. pp. 196, 197, sec. 228. [123] Bianchi, 3, 468; quoting the constitution of Pope John XXII. [124] Bianchi, 3, 440. The word _Sacerdos_ is here used as the proper appellation of the bishop in his diocese by Cyprian, Ep. 57, according to the usage in the third century, as the word _Ecclesia_ indicates the diocese; the argument being that if complete obedience were rendered to the bishop in the diocese, there would be complete peace in the whole Church ruled by the Collegium of Bishops. [125] This paragraph translated from Bianchi, 3, 445. [126] Bianchi, 3, 457, 458; St. Augustine in Ps. cxviii. [127] Bianchi, 3, 474, 475. [128] Bianchi, 3, 444; Apostol. Canon, 66 and 74. [129] Bianchi, 3, 500, translated. [130] Bianchi, 3, 485, translated. [131] 1 Cor. ix. 14. [132] Bianchi, 3, 526, 527. [133] 1 Cor. xvi. 1. [134] Bianchi, 3, 536, translated. [135] 1 Cor. xi. 22. [136] An incident mentioned of Alexander Severus.