I. The Doctrine of the Church
Doctrines, II, pp. 153–181; Crippen, History of Christian Doctrine, pp. 158–169; Seeberg, History of Doctrine, II, cf. Index.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH AND
THE SACRAMENTS
I. The Doctrine of the Church 1. IN THE PATRISTIC PERIOD. The doctrine of the Church also has its roots in the earliest literature of the Christian era. In the Apostolic
Fathers and in the Apologetes the Church is generally represented as the communio sanctorum, the people of God, which He has chosen for a possession. While it is spoken of as the true Israel, its relation to its historic preparation in Israel was not always well understood. But even in the second century a perceptible change came about in the conception of the Church. The rise of heresies made it necessary to designate some external characteristics by which the true Catholic
Church could be known. The result was that the Church began to be conceived as an external institute, ruled by a bishop as a direct successor of the apostles, and in possession of the true tradition. The idea became prevalent that the universal Church was the historical prius of all local churches. The local churches were not conceived as so many separate units, but as parts of the universal Church with the episcopacy; and they were regarded as true churches only as long as they were loyal and subject to the catholic Church as a whole.
In the sects, however, another tendency manifested itself, namely, to make the holiness of its members the real mark of the true Church. It was represented by Montanism in the middle of the second, by Novatianism in the middle of the third, and by Donatism in the beginning of the fourth century. These sects were born of a reaction against the gradual secularization and the increasing worldliness and corruption of the Church. The Montanist leaders inveighed with
prophetic authority against the laxity and worldliness of the churches, and insisted on ascetic practices. They spoke of gross sins committed after baptism as being unpardonable; but also of the possibility of atoning for mortal sins by martyrdom. The Novatians did not share the prophetic claims of the Montanists, but followed their example in striving for the purity of the Church. They held that the Church had no power to forgive those who had denied the faith during the Decian persecution and sought readmission to the Church. Finding that many bishops readmitted such members, and that the churches in general were lax in discipline, they re-baptized those who joined their circle. The Donatists represented the same tendency during the persecution of Diocletian. They insisted on rigorous ecclesiastical discipline and pure church-membership, rejected unworthy ministers, and protested against State interference in religious matters; but at the same time themselves courted the favour of the emperor.
The Church Fathers took issue with all these sectaries and emphasized ever increasingly the episcopal institution of the Church.
Cyprian, the disciple of Tertullian, has the distinction of being the first to develop the doctrine of the episcopal Church. He regarded the bishops, chosen by the Lord Himself, as the real successors of the apostles, and maintained on the basis of Matt. 16:18, that the Church was founded on the bishops. The bishop was regarded as the absolute lord of the Church. It was up to him to decide who could belong to the Church and who might be restored to its fellowship. He conducted the worship of the Church as a priest of God, and in that capacity offered sacrifices. Cyprian was the first one to teach an actual priesthood of the clergy in virtue of their sacrificial work.
According to him the bishops constituted a college, called the episcopate, and as such represented the unity of the Church. He based the unity of the Church on the unity of the bishops. At the same time he maintained the parity of the bishops and ascribed no primacy to the bishop of Rome. Rebellion against the bishop was regarded as rebellion against God. Anyone who refused to submit to the rightful bishop thereby forfeited his fellowship with the Church
and consequently also his salvation. True members will always obey and remain in the Church, outside of which there is no possibility of being saved. This conception of the Church logically caused Cyprian to deny the validity of baptism administered by heretics. To him it was perfectly evident that one who was himself outside of the Church could not induct others into it. Moreover, he believed that only the leaders who received the Spirit—and He was received only in the Church—could impart the forgiveness of sins. Thus Cyprian was the first to bring out clearly and distinctly the idea of a catholic Church, comprehending all true branches of the Church of Christ, and bound together by a visible and external unity. This is what Cunningham calls "Cyprian's grand contribution to the progress of error and corruption in the Church." Historical Theology I, p. 169.
Augustine moved in the same general circle of thought. It was his struggle with the Donatists that compelled him to reflect more deeply on the essence of the Church. Sad to say, his conception of the Church does not altogether harmonize with his doctrine of sin and grace. As a matter of fact there is a certain dualism in his idea of the Church. On the one hand he is the predestinarian who conceives of the Church as the company of the elect, the communio sanctorum, who have the Spirit of God and are characterized by true love. The really important thing is to belong to the Church so conceived, and not to be in the Church in a merely outward sense and to partake of the sacraments. It is through the intercession of this community that sins are forgiven and that gifts of grace are bestowed. The real unity of the saints and therefore of the Church is an invisible one. At the same time it exists only within the catholic Church, for it is there only that the Spirit works and that true love dwells.
On the other hand he is the Church-man, who holds to the Cyprianic idea of the Church, at least in its general aspects. The true Church is the catholic Church, in which the apostolic authority is continued by episcopal succession. It is spread throughout the world, and outside of it there is no salvation, for it is only within its pale that one is filled with love and receives the Holy Spirit. Its sacraments are not merely
symbols, but are also accompanied with an actual exertion of divine energy. God really forgives sins in baptism, and in the Lord's Supper actually gives spiritual refreshment to the soul. For the present this
Church is a mixed body, in which good and evil members are present, but it is destined for perfect purity in the future.
The Donatists criticized Augustine by saying that he split the Church into two Churches, the mixed Church of the present and the pure
Church of the future in heaven. In answer to them he manitained the purity of the one catholic Church also in the present, but sought it more particularly in the objective institution with its offices, sacraments, and ministrations. In addition to that, however, he also defended a certain subjective purity. While he admitted that good and evil members were commingled in the Church, he held that these two were not in it in exactly the same sense. While the wicked cannot be outwardly excluded, they are nevertheless inwardly separated from the pious: they belong to the house, but are not in the house; they are the evil tumors in the body of Christ that are destined to be sloughed off. Thus Augustine effected in thought the purity which the Donatists sought to realize in actual life.
Another point to be taken into consideration here, is Augustine's doctrine of the Kingdom of God. The earlier Church Fathers used the term "Kingdom of God" to describe the result and goal of the Church's development, that is, as the designation of the eschatological Kingdom. But Augustine says: "The Church is even now the Kingdom of Heaven." By this he means primarily that the saints constitute the Kingdom of God, though he also applies the term to the leaders of the Church collectively. While the Kingdom is essentially identical with the pious and holy, it is also the episcopally organized Church. The contrast between the city of God and the city of the world (or, of the devil) is regarded as equivalent to that between Christianity and heathenism, between the good and the bad
(including angels and devils), between the saints and the wicked even within the Church, between the spiritual and the carnal, between the elect and the non-elect. The evil world is never
represented as equivalent to the State, but since the civitas Dei may be and is frequently conceived as the empirical Church, it is possible that—as is frequently said—he thought of the civitas mundi as finding its concrete embodiment in the State.
Augustine did not effect a true synthesis of his divergent views respecting the Church, and it may well be questioned, whether such a synthesis is possible. Harnack calls attention to the fact that in Augustine "the externa societas sacramentorum, which is communio fidelium et sanctorum, and finally also the numerus praedestinatorum are one and the same Church." Outlines of the History of Dogma, p. 362. Consequently a threefold answer may be given to the question, Who are in the Church? It may be said: (a) all the predestinated, including those who are still unconverted; or (b) all believers, including those who will relapse; or (c) all those who have part in the sacraments. But then the question arises, Which is the true Church, the external communion of the baptized, or the spiritual communion of the elect and the saints, or both, since there is no salvation outside of either? Moreover, how is the Church, as constituted of the number of the elect, related to the Church as the communion of the faithful? They are clearly not identical, for some may be of the faithful who are not of the elect and are finally lost.
And when Augustine says that no one has God for a Father, who does not have the Church, that is the one visible catholic Church, for a mother, the question naturally arises, What about the elect who never join the Church? Again, if the one visible catholic Church is, as he maintains, the true body of Christ, does not this prove the contention of the Donatists that wicked persons and heretics cannot be tolerated in it? Once more, if the Church is founded on the predestinating grace of God, how is it possible that they who have once received the grace of regeneration and the forgiveness of sins in baptism, should lose this again and thus forfeit salvation? And, finally, if God is the only absolute source of all grace and dispenses it in a sovereign way, can it be considered proper to ascribe this power to the visible Church with its sacraments, and to make salvation dependent on membership in that organization? In connection with
this point it may be said that Augustine's predestination views kept him from going as far as some of his contemporaries did in the direction of sacramentalism.
2. IN THE MIDDLE AGES. It is a striking fact that, while the theologians of the Middle Ages have very little to say about the Church, and therefore contribute but few elements to the development of the doctrine of the Church, the Church itself actually developed into a close-knit, compactly organized, and absolute hierarchy. The seeds for this development were found in the writings of Cyprian and in the teachings of Augustine respecting the Church as an external organization. The other and more fundamental idea of the great Church Father, that of the Church as the communio sanctorum, was entirely disregarded and thus remained dormant.
Two ideas became very prominent during the Middle Ages, namely, that of the primacy of Rome, and that of the identity of the Church and the Kingdom of God.
The tradition gained currency in the fourth and fifth centuries that Christ had given Peter an official primacy over the other apostles, and that this apostle had been the first bishop of Rome.
Furthermore, it was asserted that this primacy was passed on to his successors, the bishops of the imperial city. This idea was not only fostered by successive bishops, but also appealed to the popular imagination, because at the fall of the Western Empire it seemed to contain a promise of the renewal, in another form, of the ancient glories of Rome. In the year 533 the Byzantine Emperor Justinian recognized the primacy of the bishop of Rome over the occupants of the other patriarchal sees. Gregory the Great still refused the title
"Universal Bishop", but in 607 it was conferred on his successor, Boniface III, who had no scruples in accepting it. From this time on the spiritual primacy of the succeeding bishops of Rome was generally honoured in the West, though strenuously resisted in the East. It marks the beginning of Popery. The Church thus received an external and visible head, who soon developed into an absolute monarch.
Alongside of this the idea developed that the Catholic Church was the Kingdom of God on earth, and that therefore the Roman bishopric was an earthly kingdom. This notion was greatly encouraged by two notorious forgeries, the "Donation of Constantine" and the "Forged
Decretals", both of which were foisted upon the people in the ninth century to prove that the authority then claimed by the Popes had been conferred upon, and exercised by, their predecessors as early as the third century.
The identification of the visible and organized Church with the Kingdom of God had important and far-reaching consequences. If the Church alone is the Kingdom of God, then all Christian duties and activities must take the form of services rendered to the Church, for Christ speaks of the Kingdom as the highest good and as the goal of all Christian endeavor. Natural and social life thus assumed a onesided churchly character. All that did not come under the control of the Church was considered as purely secular, and its renunciation became a work of special piety. The life of hermits and monks stood out as a grand ideal.
Another result was that an undue significance was ascribed to the outward ordinances of the Church. The Kingdom of God is represented in the New Testament, not only as the aim of the Christian life, but also as the sum-total of Christian blessedness.
Consequently, all the blessings of salvation were thought of as coming to man through the ordinances of the Church. Without their use salvation was considered to be impossible.
And, finally, the identification of the Church and the Kingdom led to the practical secularization of the Church. As an external kingdom the Church felt in duty bound to define and defend its relation to the kingdoms of the world, and gradually began to pay more attention to politics than to the salvation of souls. Worldliness took the place of other-worldliness. It was but natural that the Roman Pontiffs, in view of the superior character of the Kingdom of God and of its allcomprehensive destiny, should seek to realize the ideal of the
Kingdom by demanding of the emperors subjection to the rule of the Church. This was the consuming ambition of such great Popes as Gregory VII (Hildebrand), Innocent III, and Boniface VIII.
It was not until after the Reformation that the Roman Catholic conception of the Church was officially formulated. Yet it is best to call attention to the form it finally assumed at this point, because the idea already found actual embodiment in the Church of Rome before the Reformation, and because the Protestant conception is best understood when seen against the background of the Roman
Catholic idea of the Church. The Council of Trent did not venture upon a discussion of the proper definition of the Church. This was due to the fact that, while the highest officials of the Church desired recognition of the papal system, a great number of the bishops were thoroughly episcopal in their ideas. They were not ready to admit that all ecclesiastical authority belongs primarily to the Pope, and that the bishops derive their authority from him; but held that the bishops derive their authority directly from Christ. This clashing of views made it imprudent to attempt the formulation of a definition of the Church.
The Tridentine Catechism, however, defines the Church as "the body of all the faithful who have lived up to this time on earth, with one invisible head, Christ, and one visible head, the successor of Peter, who occupies the Roman see." Cardinal Bellarmine (1542–1621) surpassed all others of his day in giving a clear representation of the Roman Catholic conception of the Church. According to him the Church is "the company of all who are bound together by the profession of the same Christian faith and by the use of the same sacraments and are under the rule of legitimate pastors and principally Christ's vicar on earth, the Roman Pontiff." The first clause of this definition (profession of the same Christian faith) excludes all unbelievers; the second (use of the same sacraments), catechumens and those that are excommunicated; and the third
(obedience to the Roman Pontiff), all schismatics, such as the Greek Christians.
The following particulars should be noted in connection with the Roman Catholic conception of the Church: a. The visible nature of the Church is strongly emphasized. The ultimate reason for the visibility of the Church is found in the incarnation of the divine Word. The Word did not descend into the souls of men, but appeared as a man among men, and in harmony with this appearance now carries on his work through a visible human medium. The Church can even be regarded as a continuation of the incarnation. Christ Himself provided for the organization of the Church by appointing the apostles and by placing one of them
(Peter) at the head of the apostles. The Popes are the successors of Peter, and the bishops, of the apostles in general. The former possess direct and absolute authority, while the latter have only a limited authority derived from the Popes. b. A very important distinction is made between the teaching church
(ecclesia docens) and the hearing, learning or believing church (ecclesia audiens, discens, or credens). The former consists of the whole clerus with the Pope at its head; the latter, of all the faithful who honour the authority of their lawful pastors. It is primarily to the ecclesia docens that the Roman Catholic ascribes the attributes which he applies to the Church. She is the one only, catholic, apostolic, infallible, and perpetual Church, which denies all others the right of existence, and therefore assumes an intolerant attitude over against them. The ecclesia audiens is altogether dependent on it, and has part in the glorious attributes of the Church only in a derivative manner. c. The Church is made up, like a human person, of body and soul.
The soul of the Church consists at any particular time of "the society of those who are called to the faith of Christ, and who are united to Christ by supernatural gifts and graces." Not all the elect are in the soul of the Church; neither are all those who are in it elect, since there are always some that fall away; and some of those who are not in the body of the Church may be in the soul, such as catechumens
possessing the necessary graces. The body of the Church is the society of those who profess the true faith, whether they be just or sinners. Only baptized persons belong to the Church; but some baptized persons, such as catechumens, do not yet belong to it. d. In the Church Christ distributes the fulness of those graces and blessings which He merited for sinners. He does this exclusively through the agency of the clergy, that is, through the legitimate officers of the Church. Consequently, the institute of the Church logically precedes the organism, the visible Church precedes the invisible. The Church is a mater fidelium before she is a coetus fidelium. The ecclesia docens precedes the ecclesia audiens, and is far superior to it. e. The Church is exclusively an institute of salvation, a saving ark. As such she has three functions: (1) to propagate the true faith by means of the ministry of the Word; (2) to effect sanctification by means of the sacraments; and (3) to govern believers according to ecclesiastical law. But it is only the ecclesia docens that can do all this. Strictly speaking, therefore, she constitutes the Church. She is
(under Christ) the only Mediator of salvation, the depositary and distributor of grace for all men, and the only ark of safety for the entire human race. The order in the work of salvation is, not that God by means of His Word leads men to the Church, but just the reverse, that the Church leads men to the Word and to Christ.
3. DURING AND AFTER THE REFORMATION. The conception of the Church that was born of the Reformation was quite different from that of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther was gradually weaned from the papal conception. The Leipsic disputation opened the way for new ideas on the Church and its authority. a. The Lutheran View. Luther rejected the idea of an infallible
Church, of a special priesthood, and of sacraments that operate in a magical way; and restored to its rightful place the scriptural idea of the priesthood of all believers. He regarded the Church as the
spiritual communion of those who believe in Christ, a communion established and sustained by Christ as its Head. He stressed the oneness of the Church, but distinguished between two aspects of it, the one visible and the other invisible. According to Seeberg Luther was the first to make this distinction. He was careful to point out, however, that these are not two churches, but simply two aspects of the same Church. His insistence on the invisibility of the Church served the purpose of denying that the Church is essentially an external society with a visible head, and of affirming that the essence of the Church is to be found in the sphere of the invisible: in faith, communion with Christ, and in participation in the blessings of salvation through the Holy Spirit.
This same Church, however, becomes visible and can be known, not by the headship of the Pope, nor by the rule of cardinals and bishops, nor by all kinds of external paraphernalia, but by the pure administration of the Word and the sacraments. The really important thing for man is that he belongs to the spiritual or invisible Church; but this is closely connected with membership in the visible Church. Christ gathers the Church by His Spirit, but in doing this binds Himself to the chosen means, the Word and the sacraments. Hence the necessity of an outward ecclesiastical society, which Luther describes as "the number or multitude of the baptized and believing who belong to a priest or bishop, whether in a city, or in a whole land, or in the whole world." He admits that the Church, externally considered, will always harbor a number of hypocritical and wicked members, who do not share in the spiritual exercises of the Church. The Augsburg Confession defines the visible Church as "the congregation of the saints in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered." b. The Anabaptist View. The Anabaptists represent the most extreme reaction against the Roman Catholic externalization of the Church.
While Rome based its Church organization largely on the Old Testament, they denied the identity of the Old Testament Church with that of the New, and insisted on a Church of believers only.
Though children had a place in the Church of the Old Testament, they have no legitimate place in the Church of the New Testament, since they can neither exercise faith nor make a profession of it. In their insistence on the spirituality and holiness of the Church many of them even scorned the visible Church and the means of grace. In distinction from the Lutherans with their territorial system, the Anabaptists demanded the absolute separation of Church and State, some even going to the extreme of saying that a Christian can not be a magistrate, may not swear an oath, nor take part in any war. c. The Reformed View. The Reformed conception of the Church is fundamentally the same as the Lutheran, though differing from it in some relatively important points. Both agree that the real essence of the Church is found in the communio sanctorum as a spiritual entity, that is, in the invisible Church. But while the Lutherans seek the unity and holiness of the Church primarily in the objective ordinances, such as the offices, the Word, and the sacraments, the Reformed find these to a far greater extent in the subjective communion of believers. According to the former the blessings of salvation can be obtained only in and through the Church, since God in dispensing His grace binds Himself absolutely to the ordained means, the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. Some of the Reformed, however, were of the opinion that the possibility of salvation extends beyond the borders of the visible church, and that the Spirit of God is not absolutely bound to the ordinary means of grace, but may work and save "when, where, and how he pleases." Then, too, the Reformed spoke of the invisibility of the Church in more than one sense: (1) as ecclesia universalis, because no one can ever see the Church of all places and all times; (2) as coetus electorum, which will not be completed and visible until the parousia; and (3) as coetus electorum vocatorum, because we are not able to distinguish absolutely the true believers from the false. Finally, the Reformed found the true marks of the Church, not only in the true administration of the Word and the sacraments, but also in the faithful administration of Church
discipline. Besides all these there were also important differences as to the government of the Church. d. Divergent Post-Reformation Views (1) Socinian and Arminian. This altered conception of the Church had important practical consequences. Uniformity made way for multiformity, and this, in turn gave rise to various Confessions. The Reformers sought to maintain the proper connection between the visible and the invisible Church, but history proved this to be very difficult. And churches outside of the Lutheran and Reformed communions often sacrificed the invisible to the visible Church, or vice versa. The Socinians indeed spoke of the invisible Church, but in actual life forgot all about it, since they conceived of the Christian religion simply as an acceptable doctrine. And the Arminians followed suit by denying explicitly that the Church is essentially the invisible communion of the saints and by making it primarily a visible society. Moreover, they robbed the Church of its independence by yielding the right of discipline to the State, retaining for the Church only the right to preach the Gospel and to admonish its members.
(2) Labadist and Methodist. The opposite tendency also manifested itself, namely, to disregard the visible Church. Jean de Labadie founded an "evangelical congregation" at Middelburg in 1669, to which only true believers might belong. Pietism in general insisted strongly on a practical religion. It not only combatted worldliness, but viewed the world itself as an organism of sin, which every
"awakened" Christian must shun, lest he put his soul in jeopardy. At the same time it made people indifferent towards the institutional
Church with its functions and sacraments, and brought them together in conventicles. The real Church was considered everincreasingly in such circles as the communion of those who shared in a special illumination of the Holy Spirit, and who, in virtue of the inner light, also agreed outwardly in their profession and life. This view is also found in some circles of Methodism, the consistent
application of it being seen in the Salvation Army. The converts do not form a church, but a standing army of Jesus Christ, distinguished from the world by a distinctive uniform and a special mode of life.
(3) Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Church moved even farther in the direction of an absolute hierarchy since the days of the Reformation, and became more pronounced in affirming the authority of the Pope. The Gallican Party, of which Bousset was the original leader, maintained for two centuries, in opposition to the Jesuits and the Ultramontane Party, that the Pope may err in his decisions, and is always subordinate to an oecumenical council. This was also the common teaching of a large number of Roman Catholic textbooks. In 1791 fifteen hundred English Catholics signed a statement denying that papal infallibility was a dogma of the Roman
Catholic Church. However, the opposition of the Gallicans was gradually overcome, and in 1870 the Vatican Council declared that "the Roman Pontiff when speaking ex cathedra—that is to say when fulfilling the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority—defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals, de fide vel moribus, as a doctrine to be held by the universal Church, then through the divine assistance which has been promised him in the person of St. Peter he enjoys fully that infallibility which the divine Redeemer wished his Church to have in defining doctrine touching faith and morals; and consequently such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves unchangeable and are not to be changed through approval of the Church." The Germans were not willing to submit to this decision, and therefore constituted themselves the "Old Catholic Church", with Dr. Doellinger, the historian, as leader, and Dr. Reinkens as its first bishop. Over against the Protestants the Roman Catholics continue to glory in their unity, though this is more apparent than real. The Church is not only divided on the question of papal infallibility, but also harbors an ever increasing number of monastic orders, often leading to rivalries and bitter disputes, which show that they stand farther apart than many of the Protestant denominations. Moreover, the Reform, the Losvon-Rome, and the Modernistic movements clearly show that the