&c. The apostles, during the lifetime of Christ, were forbidden to go to the Gentiles (Matt. x.), and the mission they received (Matt. xxviii.) after Christ’s resurrection, not after His ascension, they relinquished to Paul. (Gal. ii. 8, 9.) However, I do not dwell on this, but the assertion of Clement denies the whole ministry and power of the Holy Ghost, as sent down from on high, after Christ’s exaltation, and the truths into which He led the apostles, even the twelve themselves, and which Christ declares they could not bear when He was with them, and into which the Holy Ghost would lead them. So, as to power, too, Luke xxiv. 49.
As to Ignatius, little need be said. In the Syriac epistles there is no allusion to any gospel truth at all; in the shorter Greek ones, generally received till the Syriac were found, we find an allusion to salvation by the fruits of the cross, in that to the Smyrnæans. (i., ii.) But still, as in that to the Ephesians, it is sacramental forgiveness. Chrirt was born and baptized, that through His passion He might sanctify water, to the washing away of sin. He suffered for us that we might be saved. He is sound in the faith, denounces the gnostics and teachers of the Jewish law, but the doctrine of redemption and peace there is not a trace of, nor of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the believer. As to the clergy, the Greek epistles are a tissue of bombastical laudations, declaring that, apart from the bishop, they were without God and away from every blessing. In the Syriac, in the epistle to Polycarp, we have, “Look to the bishop, that God also may look upon you. I will be instead of the souls of those who are subject to the bishop, and the presbyters, and the deacons; with them may I have a portion with God.”
