distinctive appellations from the leading Apostles-St. Peter and St. Paul. Peter, though he had been taught by special revelation that, under the Gospel dispensation, there was to be no difference between Jew and Gentile, was by no means, as the narrative in Gal. ii. 11. 14. proves, able at once to subdue his Jewish prejudices, and enter fully into the universal spirit of Christianity. From his greater veneration, therefore, for the Mosaic law, as well as from his being especially the Apostle of the circumcision, the Jewish Christians, particularly that section of them which was most zealous for the law, adopted, however unwarrantably, his name as the watchword of their party. What the views of this party in general were is easily gathered from St. Paul's epistles. It has been already observed, that the first Jewish converts were far from conceiving that in becoming Christians they were ceasing to be Jews: the historical connexion between Judaism and Christianity forbad such a notion. The same Old Testament Scriptures, to which the Apostles appealed as furnishing the evidence of prophecy for Christianity, declared also the divine origin of the Mosaic institutions; which, therefore, as long as no divine intimation of their having been abrogated was given, the Jewish Christians naturally conceived to be still in force. The moderate section of this party was content that the law should be considered binding only upon believers of the circumcision, the Gentile converts being exempted from the necessity of observing it; but the more zealous among them entertained views which were directly opposed to the fundamental principles of the Gospel. These latter held that the ceremonial law was obligatory not only upon the Jewish, but upon the Gentile converts; and made submission to the rite of circumcision an essential condition of salvation. Their first appearance was at Antioch; their proceedings in which place gave occasion to the Apostolic council at Jerusalem. By the decision of this council, which released the Gentile Christians from the obligation of the legal ordinances, the Judaizing teachers were for a time silenced; but the dispute soon broke out again, and with increased virulence. Nor was it confined, as before, to certain localities; in every church, in which, on account of its mixed composition, they found a Jewish element to work upon, the zealots of the law endeavoured to propagate their tenets, and, as we learn from the epistles to the Galatians and Colossians, with considerable success. As might be expected, St. Paul, their chief antagonist, was regarded by them with aversion and dread; and it became part of their plan of

operation to institute unfavourable comparisons between him and the Apostles who had seen Christ in the flesh, with the view of throwing doubt upon the reality of his apostolic mission.*

Among the Christians of purely heathen origin, the peculiar type of sentiment just mentioned could not, of course, gain a footing. Unfettered by Jewish associations, they threw themselves, without an effort, into their great teacher's views; for their former polytheism had never had any real hold upon their minds. But, as one extreme usually calls forth an opposite one, the enmity of the ultra-Jewish party towards St. Paul and his doctrine appears to have produced, among the Gentile converts, a counter-movement, which exhibited itself in the formation of a party, adopting the name of the Apostle of the Gentiles as its watchword, and professing to attach peculiar weight to his opinions. What the dogmatical tendencies of this party were we are not distinctly informed; but we may presume that, as their opponents unduly magnified the authority of the Mosaic law, they, on the contrary, displayed a tendency to depreciate the Old Testament Scriptures, and to sever Christianity from its historical basis-the institutions of Moses. Their practical error consisted in a want of due consideration for the scruples of their weaker brethren, whom they were too often inclined to regard with contempt, and to offend by an inconsiderate use of their Christian liberty.+

This was the state of things towards the latter part of the Apostle Paul's career; and it threatened serious consequences to Christianity. In most of the considerable churches two parties existed side by side, which, from the zeal with which they maintained and propagated their peculiar opinions, must necessarily have lost sight, more and more, of the great truths which they held in common, and assumed a hostile attitude towards each other. The result, which there was too much reason to apprehend, was an open schism with all its attendant evils. On the one hand, the churches which were composed exclusively, or prin cipally, of converted heathens would gradually lose their feeling of Christian fellowship with those in which Jewish converts predominated, and especially with the churches of Palestine; while the latter would be in danger of openly relapsing into Judaism. That this latter was no imaginary danger is evident from the epistle to the Hebrews, in which the persons addressed appear as wavering in their allegiance to Christ, even to the extent of no

See 1 Cor. ix. ; 2 Cor. x. and xi.

† See Rom. c. 14.; 1 Cor. viii.

*

longer frequenting the public assemblies of the Church, and which was written with the view of proving to them that the shadows of the law had their completion and fulfilment in the verities of the Gospel.

But, besides the danger of schism, there was another which, at the period of which we are speaking, threatened the Church, viz. the outbreak of that prolific swarm of heresies which appeared almost simultaneously with the preaching of the Gospel, and which left no doctrine of Christianity unassailed. Many of these early heresies are alluded to by St. Paul; and, from the general characteristics which he assigns to them, we gather that they were, for the most part, different forms of Gnosticism, the fruitful parent, in that age, of anti-Christian error. The heresi archs pretended to possess an esoteric version of the Gospel, more profound than that which the Apostles preached in public: they adopted the doctrine of the inherent evil of matter, and inculcated a severe asceticism, which, however, was not found incompatible with gross practical immorality. Some affirmed that there was no resurrection of the body; others that it had already taken place; while a third party denied the proper humanity, of our Lord. When, even during the lifetime of the Apostles, tares of this kind had become visible among the wheat, what might not be expected to take place when their personal superintendence was withdrawn? In fact, St. Paul, when taking leave of the elders of the Ephesian church, expresses his forebodings that his departure from amongst them would be the signal for an unusual manifestation of heresy, even among the very presbyters whom he was addressing.

The pastoral epistles of this Apostle, written at the close of his ministry, betray a vivid sense of the dangers which, from both the sources just mentioned, threatened the interests of Christ's kingdom. Soon afterwards both he and the Apostle Peter were removed from the scene of their earthly labours;-a circumstance which, by depriving the Church of the two leading members of the apostolic college, rendered the aspect of things still more gloomy. It was at this time, according to the most probable conjecture which we can form, that, with the view of meeting the impending mischiefs before they came to a head, the surviving Apostles added to the previously existing orders of the Christian ministry that of the episcopate. The original government by a college of elders, suited as it was to the infancy of the Church,

* Heb. x. 25.

could no longer cope successfully with the difficulties occasioned by the waning of the "first love" of Christians, the dissensions of rival parties, and the advance of heresy. A stronger external bond of union had become indispensable: more of form, and outward regimen, was needed to fix and preserve what remained of the spirit; chrystallisation was the natural consequence of the cooling of the internal heat of the mass. The less lively the sense which Christians retained of their spiritual unity in Christ, the more did they need to be reminded of it by a visible symbol thereof: the greater the danger of the apostolic doctrine being lost amidst the corruptions of heresy, the greater the necessity of its being connected with an objective, historical, basis. To understand fully the advantages which heresy possessed in that age, we must remember that as yet the sacred writings had not been collected, much less the canon of Scripture fixed; so that an appeal to the written testimony of the Apostles in refutation of the pretensions of the false teachers, was by no means so easy then as it is now. The pressing wants of the Church, in the points just mentioned, suggested of themselves the nature of the remedy to be provided. The new institution must be such as, by the force of a central authority, to silence, or mitigate, the dissensions of the presbyters, and gather the orthodox believers in each church round a visible centre; and it must be fitted to be an organ of communication between the several churches of Christendom: thus, on the one hand, schismatical tendencies would be repressed, and, on the other, a fence would be raised against the incursions of heresy. For Christian doctrine being the common property of all Christian churches, what was held by all commended itself as the original deposit of the Apostles; and this being ascertained by a comparison of the doctrine taught in each, the aberrations of any particular party, or church, would become apparent. Heresy being the natural attendant upon isolation, the natural corrective of it is inter-communion of all the parts of the body with each other. Both these requirements are found united in the episcopate, according to the idea of it presented in the writings of the early fathers. Regarded from their point of view, the bishop of each church constitutes the visible centre and type of unity, round whom the faithful are congregated in indissoluble union (plebs pastori adunata); at the same time, his office is ecumenical, and he serves as the formal channel of intercourse between his own church and the other Christian societies throughout the world. By an office of this kind the rapidly approaching failure of the personal superintendence of the Apos

tles, who, collectively, had hitherto formed a common bond of union to the churches of Christ, would be in some measure compensated, and the evils likely to ensue from their removal averted, as far as human means could avert them; and, accordingly, it is probable that soon after (A. D. 70), the surviving Apostles enlarged the polity of the Church by the establishment of the episcopate. As has been already remarked, the destruction of the temple, which took place about that period, by effectually severing the link which existed between the Jewish converts and their unbelieving brethren, rendered the introduction of the episcopal element a matter of easy accomplishment. The Judaizing party, so long as it could point to the continued existence of the legal institutions, had a pretext for refusing to coalesce heartily with their Christian brethren, who denied the obligation of the law; but the final cessation of the temple services removed this obstacle, and, by drawing the bonds of union closer among all, of whatever party, who sincerely professed the name of Christ, opened a way for the new institution. To this period, also, is probably to be assigned the first appearance of that fundamental error which speedily pervaded the whole Church, viz. the identification of the Christian ministry with the Levitical priesthood, the bishop corresponding to the high priest, the presbyters to the common priests, and the deacons to the Levites; and (as a necessary consequence) the transformation of the Eucharist into a real sacrifice. As long as the Jewish institutions were in existence, neither of the chief parties which divided the Church would be likely to adopt such a view; not the followers of St. Paul, because they were strongly opposed to everything connected with Judaism; not the Christians of Jewish origin, because, as long as the temple stood, they regarded their churches in the light of Christian synagogues, and, in the mind of a Jew, no association existed between the synagogue and the ideas of priesthood and sacrifice. But when the temple services ceased, these restrain ing causes would no longer operate: the Christians of heathen origin would naturally lose much of their jealousy of Jewish customs; while the Jewish converts, the sacrificial part of the Mosaic economy being now at an end, would be tempted to reproduce it under the Gospel; and thus, probably, sprang up a notion which soon led to the substitution of another Gospel for that originally delivered, and the practical results of which are recorded in the history of Romanism in every age.*

• For a full account of the state of the Church towards the close of the apostolic age, seo