CHAPTER VIII.

A COMPARISON OF THE APOSTOLIC AND POST-APOSTOLIC CHURCHES.

1. The apostolic bishop was a parochial bishop, the pastor of a single church. The post-apostolic bishop came, in the process of time, to be a prelatical or diocesan bishop, the bishop of a diocese.

2. The apostolic church had no patriarchs, or superior metropolitan bishops. The post-apostolic church had the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and of several other archepiscopal sees.

3. The apostolic churches were independent of each other. The post-apostolic churches were subjected to the common government of the hierarchy, and united together under a system of centralization and dependence.

4. The apostolic church councils were congregational and democratic; the people participating in them with their pastors. The post-apostolic councils consisted of bishops only, and were provincial and general.

5. The apostolic presbyters were the same as the bishops. The post-apostolic presbyters were an inferior order of clergy, under the government of the bishops.

6. The apostolic church was independent of the state. The post-apostolic churches admitted the supreme authority of the emperors in many church matters.

7. The apostolic churches had no system of Monachism. The post-apostolic churches established numerous orders of monks and nuns, and, to a great extent, interdicted marriage to the clergy.

8. The apostolic church worshipped God alone. The postapostolic churches adopted the worship of saints and martyrs.

9. The apostolic churches adhered to the sacred Scriptures as their supreme law. The post-apostolic churches nullified the Scriptures by lying traditions and the decisions of councils.

The changes that occurred in the church after the apostles are a remarkable instance of progression. Parochial episcopacy grew into diocesan episcopacy; diocesan episcopacy, into patriarchy, or archepiscopacy; and patriarchy, into Popery, or supreme patriarchy. All were church despotisms.

Which of these systems is entitled to be followed and copied in our times? Shall we follow the apostles, and adopt their polity? Or shall we follow the post-apostolic fathers, and adopt their polity? We cannot follow both.

PART III.

THE PATRIARCHAL AND PAPAL CHURCHES.

DIVISIONΙ.

THE PATRIARCHAL CHURCHES.

CHAPTER I.

THE GREEK CHURCH.

THE Greek church comprehends those Christians in the East who are governed by patriarchs, whose patriarchs are the successors of the ancient patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Constantinople was consecrated by Constantine in 330, on the site of the ancient Byzantium, to be the new Rome, and capital of his empire. It was, from that time till 1453, the residence of the Eastern emperors, and has since been the capital of the Turkish empire. The city has had various fortunes. It has been besieged twenty-four times, and taken

six times.

The second general council, convoked at Constantinople by Theodosius the Great, in A. D. 381, besides condemning the doctrines of the Arians, elevated the bishop of Constantinople to a rank next to the bishop of Rome, and committed the disputes of the inferior bishops to the decision of the emperor.

.

The fourth general council, held at Chalcedon under Marcian, declared in favor of the two natures in Christ, the divine and human, and against the Monophysites, who held to a single complex nature, both human and divine conjoined, and gave to the bishop of Constantinople equal rights and privileges with the bishop of Rome, but allowed the latter precedence of rank.

In 482 the Eastern churches gave in their adhesion to a formula of concord, called the Henoticon, authorized by the Greek Emperor Zeno. In consequence of this, Felix II., bishop of Rome, pronounced a sentence of excommunication against the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, who had been leaders in forming the Henoticon and procuring its adoption by their clergy. A reünion took place in A. D. 519, which continued till 733, when the bishop of Rome published a sentence of excommunication against the Iconoclasts, or image-breakers, in the Greek churches; and in 862 a similar judgment was proclaimed against Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople.

The preservation of the union of the Eastern and Western churches was rendered more difficult than it had formerly been, by the breaking up of the Roman empire, and the formation of new and independent kingdoms in the West.

Photius charges the bishop of Rome with arrogating to himself powers that did not belong to him; with altering the usages of the ancient churches, in forbidding priests to marry, and in several other things, and especially in claiming authority over himself, who was his equal.

The separation was made still wider in 1054, when Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople, charged the Latins with heresy on several accounts; in consequence of which, Pope Leo IX. excommunicated him, with superadded insult and abuse.

From this time, 1054, the separation of the Greek and Latin churches has been complete, though unions have several times been proposed by both parties.

The Greek church deviated less from the usages of the seventh century, in later times, than the Roman Catholics.

At the overthrow of the Greek empire, in 1453, the Greek Christians passed under the dominion of the Turks. The Russians were compelled to adopt the creed of the Greek church by Prince Wladimir, in a. D. 988.

The heads of the Greek church are the patriarch of Constantinople and the emperor of Russia. The patriarchate of Constantinople embraces the older patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, as subordinate provinces. Candidates for these patriarchates are proposed by the patriarch of Constantinople; nor is anything of importance attempted without his permission.

The patriarch of Alexandria resides at Cairo, and presides over the church in Egypt, Nubia, Lybia and part of Arabia. The patriarch of Antioch resides at Damascus, and presides over the church in Syria and the adjacent country.

The patriarch of Jerusalem resides at Jerusalem, and presides over the church in Palestine, and parts of Syria and Arabia. The Eastern patriarchs preside over a poverty-stricken people, and are not themselves supported in any considerable grandeur.

The patriarch of Constantinople is elected by twelve bishops nearest the city of Constantinople, and is confirmed by the Sultan. He summons councils, and by them decides and regulates all ecclesiastical affairs; and, by permission of the Sultan, holds civil courts and tries civil causes among his subjects. His support is derived from contributions imposed on the churches under his government, and is variable.

The Greek church acknowledges the authority of the sacred Scriptures, and the first six general councils. But no private person is allowed to depart, in his expositions of the Scriptures, from the patriarch and higher clergy.

The Greek church is indebted for its present confession of faith to the Russian Greek church. This confession was composed by a Russian Greek bishop, in A. D. 1642, and adopted by the patriarch of Constantinople and his subordinate patriarchs, and also by the independent patriarch of Moscow, in A. D. 1643.