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
We have seen Adam in Paradise created in the full maturity of intellect
and will, and placed at the head of a double order of things, of civil
and of spiritual authority. We have now to consider that greater One whom
Adam prefigured, and who, coming forth from the tomb, assumed forthwith
that double headship. When the great act of His pontificate had been
accomplished in giving up His Body to death for the sins of the world,
and its efficacy acknowledged by His resurrection, He declared to His
Apostles "that all power had been given to Him in heaven and upon earth."
This all-power in heaven and on earth, given to the God-man as the fruit
of His incarnation and the reward of His sacrifice, divides itself into
two—temporal and spiritual. The first is that by which He disposes of all
persons and all events. This power He has not delegated to any one in
chief, but keeps it in His own hands. Yet it is a part of this power of
which it is said, "By me kings reign, and princes decree justice." The
whole civil sovereignty is founded on an apportionment to it of the
divine sovereignty for the maintenance of human society. A part of the
second or Spiritual Power He delegated to St. Peter in chief, and to the
Apostles, with St. Peter at their head. Out of this all-power He set up
and sent forth in them a royal priesthood to proclaim and maintain the
truth which He had come to declare to the world; that is to say, He took
His own priesthood and put it upon them, investing it with a reproductive
ordering and maintaining power in His spiritual kingdom. To it He
attached the gift of truth, that is, of communicating, unfolding,
guarding, the whole body of doctrine which He came upon earth to declare;
and in it He placed the jurisdiction which is necessary to the priesthood
in order to exert itself in offering the sacrifice and in dispensing the
sacraments which He instituted, and in guarding the truth with which
they are bound up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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