UNION
135
UNION
assent to their teaching and a hke obedience to their
commands from their disciples, who just by this
means were held together in the unity of the one
undivided and indivisible Church which the Apostles
had founded. The following texts may be consulted
on this point, but it is not necessary for our present
purpose to do more than refer to them: Acts, xv, 28;
Rom., i, 5; xv, 18, 19; xvi, 19, 26; I Cor., iv,
17-21; v, l-5;x\; 11;II Cor.,iii, 5,9;x,5,8;xiii,2, 10;
Eph., ii, 20;iv,4-6, 11, 12; I Thess., ii, 13;iv, 1,2, 3,8;
IIThess.,i, 7-10; ii, 15; iii, 6, 14;I Tim., i, 20;iii, 1.5;
II Tim., ii, 2; Tit., ii, 15; Heb., xiii, 7-9; I John, iv,
6; III John, 10; Jude, 17, 20. We must not. however,
pass over St. Paul's jubilant description of this unity
in his Epistle to the Ephesians, standing out so con-
spicuously as it does in the New-Testament WTitings,
to convince us of its deep significance, its all-pene-
trating character, and the firm foundations on which
it was set: "One body, one Spirit, one Hope, one
Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of
us all. Who is over all and through us all, and in ua
all." Such was the spectacle of Christian unity born
of the Apostolic preaching which presented itself to
the eyes of the enraptured Apostle some thirty years
from the time when St. Peter preached his first sermon
on the day of Pentecost.
C. As ResiKled by the Earliest Heretics. — To claim this wonderful unity as distinctive of the followers of Jesus Christ in the Apostolic days is not to forget that there were sad exceptions to the general rule. There were indeed no rival communions then which, whilst claiming to be Christian, were maintained in formal opposition to the Church of the Apostles. It is expressly stated by Tertuliian (Adv. Marcion., IV, v) that the Marcionites, in the middle of the second century, were the first who, when expelled from the Church Catholic, created an opposition Church for the expression of their peculiar views. Before that time the dissentients contented themselves with forming parties and schools of thought, and of this mode of separation, which sufficed to put men outside the Church, we find clear traces in the New-Testament writings together with predictions that the evil thus originating would become more pronounced in after times. Men of what would nowadays be called independent temperament were dissatisfied with the Apostles' teaching in some particulars, and refused to accept it without further warrant than the mere "word of an Apostle". Thus we may gather from the Epistle to the Galatians that, in spite of the deci- sion of the Council of Jerusalem, there continued to be a party which insisted that the observance of the Jewish Law was obligatory on Gentile Christians, and from the Epistle to the Colossians that there was likewise a Jewish party, probably of Hellenistic origin, which mingled insistence on Jewish legalities with a superstitious worship of the angels (Col., ii, 18). At Ephesus we may detect the adepts of an incipient Gnosticism in St. Paul's warnings against giving heed to "fables and endless genealogies" (I Tim., i, 4) and against "profane and vain babblings and opposi- tions of 'gnosis ' falsely so-called" (I Tim., vi, 20). HyTnenaus and .\lexander are mentioned by name as denying the resurrection of the flesh at the last dav (II Tim., ii, IS. Cf. I Cor., x\', 12). St. John, in the Apocalypse (ii, 6, 15), teUs us of the Nicolaites who seem to have fallen into some kind of Oriental admix- ture of immorahty with worship, and in his second Epistle (verse 7. Cf. I John, iv, 2) he warns his readers that many "deceivers are entered into the world " who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which the church historians refer to the Docctism of Cerinthus.
Our modern admirers of comprehensive Churches would regard the coexistence side by side of the.se beliefs with those of the Apostles as a healthy sign of mental activity in those early Christian communities,
and it is instructive to compare such modern judg-
ments with those of the Apostles, because the com-
parison enables us to realize better how strong was the
feeling of the latter as to the essential importance of
basing unity of communion on adherence to the
Apostles' doctrine, and as to the exceeding sinfulness
of dissenting from it. Thus St. Paul calls these alien
doctrines "old wives' fables" (I Tim., iv, 7), "doc-
trines of de\dls" (ibid., 2), and "profanities the
preaching of which will spread and devour like gan-
grene" (II Tim., ii, 17). St. Peter calls them
"fables skilfuDy made up" (II Peter, i, 16), and, in a
passage where the word heresy under Christian influ-
ences has already acquired its traditional meaning,
"damnable heresies", or "heresies leading to damna-
tion" (ibid., ii, 1). The preachers of these heresies
St. Paul calls "men of corrupt minds" (I Tim., vi, 5),
who "speak falsehood in their hj-pocrisy, and have
consciences seared with a red-hot iron" (I Tim., iv, 2).
St. Peter calls them "false teachers who deny the
Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves
speedy damnation" (II Peter, ii, 1), and St. John
calls them "antichrists" (II John, 7; I John, ii, 18;
iv, 3). Moreover, so far from wishing to tolerate such
persons in the Church, St. Paul warns the faithful to
avoid them (Rom., xvi, 17), calls upon those who are
set over Churches to cast out the recalcitrant heretic,
as one who is "subverted and self -condemned" (Tit.,
iii, 10, 11), and, in a particular in.stance, tells St.
Timothy that he has "delivered" two such heretics
"to Sat an "^that is, cast them out of the Church — ■
"that they may learn not to blaspheme" (I Tim., i,
20). Finally, St. John is most severe towards the
Christians of Pergamos for neglecting to expel from
their midst the two classes of heretics whom he de-
scribes (Apoc, ii, 14, 15).
Summary. — In short, according to the teaching and record of the Scriptures, the Church is one every- where with a oneness which is desired by Christ on its own account as befitting the obedient children of one God, one Lord, and one Spirit, and likewise as the necessary outcome of faithful adherence on the part of its members to the concordant teaching of those whom He appointed to be its rulers, and whom the Holy Spirit preserves in all truth. StiU, inasmuch as each is left free to accept or reject this one teaching, this wholesome doctrine, there were, side by side with the general body of the true believers, some appar- ently small groups who held alien doctrines, for which they had been rejected from the communion of the one Church, and these were regarded a.s having placed themselves outside the pale of salvation. 'There is not a trace, however, of any third class, separated from the communion of their brethren, but still regarded as members of the true Church.
II. Unitt in the Early Church. — In the writings of the early Fathers, which contain their testimony to the nature of the Church as it existed in their days, we find the same formative principles which moulded its origins continuing to determine the character of its structure and the distinctive spirit of its members. The Church is now widely spread through the known regions of the world, hut it is still, as in the days of St^ Paul, everjTvhere one and the same, aU its mem- bers in whatever place being united in the profession of the same faith, in the participation of the same sacraments, and in obedience to pastors who them- selves form one corporate body and are united by the bond of an intimate solidarity. We learn, too, from these contemporary witnesses that the principle of this remarkable unity is still that of a strict adherence to the Apostles' doctrine, but here a new element from (he nature of the case comes in. The Apostles no longer live to proclaim their doctrine; it can be obtained, however, with perfect security from the ApostoUc tradition. In other words, it has been handed down incorrupt by oral transmission through
