TENDENCIES to ecclesiasticism inherited from the preceding period were re-enforced in this period. As the Church advanced in material resources, and became more like a kingdom of this world, it was but natural that it should magnify its own sovereignty and disparage all hope of salvation outside of its borders. The conditions strongly favored the growth of the very natural impulse to ascribe sole legitimacy to that which has once acquired the ascendency.

An occasion for a specific consideration of the nature of the Christian Church came in particular from the Donatists, a schismatic party of North Africa. They were zealous advocates of a strict discipline, and maintained that purity is an essential characteristic of the Church. This idea they carried so far as to hold that the harboring of unworthy members dissevers from the body of Christ the congregations who tolerate or uphold the abuse, and renders their sacraments null and void. Augustine, who was long and actively engaged in the controversy with the Donatists, allowed the need in general of a strict discipline; but he repudiated the Donatist test of ecclesiastical validity, maintaining that a sudden severance of offenders from Church fellowship is not always expedient; that often the tares must be allowed to grow with the wheat, and that the presence of the unworthy does not unchurch the worthy. The proper tests, as he claimed, are catholicity and apostolic

connections. In other words, the Church which is spread through all lands, and which has remained in communion with the congregations founded by the apostles, is the true Church. Some may be externally connected with this Church who are not truly parts thereof, not members of the body of Christ. These excrescences, however, will be cut off in time, and cannot impair the claims of the Catholic Church to be the one true Church.

Augustine did not hesitate to affirm that union with the Church, as thus defined, is essential to salvation. "Whoso," he writes, "is not in this Church does not now receive the Holy Ghost." (Tract. in Joan., XXXII. 7.) "You were born," he says to the baptized schismatic and heretic, "by the same words, by the same sacrament, but you shall not attain to the same inheritance of eternal life unless you shall have returned to the Catholic Church." (Serm., III.) Speaking of those who, like the Donatists, rashly hurry into schism, he maintains that they, "having most openly placed themselves outside in the plain sacrilege of schism, cannot possibly be saved." (De Baptismo, V. 4.) Leo the Great uses language of similar import. "Extra ecclesiam catholicam," he says, "nihil est integrum, nihil castum.” (Serm., LXXIX.) Gregory the Great declares that there is no true martyrdom outside of Catholic unity; that heretics are unworthy of life, and can in no wise escape the wrath of God unless they come into the Catholic Church. (Moral., XVIII. 26, XX. 7, XXXV. 8.) It should be observed, however, with respect to Augustine, that he did not make actual connection with the Catholic Church absolutely essential to salvation. "If any one," he says, "were compelled by urgent necessity, being unable to find a Catholic from whom to receive baptism, and so, while preserving Catholic peace in his heart, should receive from one outside the pale of Catholic unity the sacrament which he was intending to receive within its pale, this man, should he forthwith depart this life, we deem none other than

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a Catholic." (De Baptismo, I. 2.) To the same effect is the following, regarding unjust excommunication: "If any believer has been wrongfully excommunicated, the sentence will do harm rather to him who pronounces it than to him who suffers the wrong." (Epist. CCL., ad finem.)

The episcopacy was deemed, as in the latter part of the previous period, a principal bond of church unity. The means of giving authoritative expression to the voice of the episcopal body was the ecumenical council. The Roman Bishop held simply the rank of a leading patriarch. While accorded a certain primacy in honor, he was not accorded a constitutional supremacy over the whole Church. This is clearly proved by the record of the ecumenical councils.

That no doctrinal infallibility was imputed to the Bishop of Rome is sufficiently evinced by the fact that the sixth ecumenical council anathematized Honorius I. for espousing the Monothelite heresy, and that, too, without betraying the least consciousness that the honor of the Roman see could be saved by fine-spun distinctions on the phrase ex cathedra. The council evidently regarded him as patronizing heresy in his highest official capacity; and its verdict has been concurred in by the most enlightened scholarship of the Romish Church in recent times. Hefele, for example, prior to the Vatican council of 1870, taught that Honorius ex cathedra sanctioned heresy. (Causa Honorii Papæ.) The anathema against Honorius was repeated by the eighth ecumenical council, and was also sanctioned, more or less explicitly, by a number of the Popes.

By a sacrament was generally understood a holy mystery, a visible rite or transaction, which served as the medium of a secret grace. "These are called sacraments,"

says Augustine, "because in them one thing is seen, another is understood. What is seen has bodily appearance, what is understood has spiritual fruit." (Serm., CCLXXII.) Speaking of the baptismal washing, he remarks, "The word is added to the element, and there results the sacrament, as if itself also a kind of visible word." (Tract. in Joan., LXXX.)

A wide and indefinite range was still given to the term. We find Hilary, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great speaking of the sacrament of the Lord's Passion,-"sacramentum passionis Domini." Leo also styles it a great sacrament that man should be taken by God into the relation of sonship. (Serm., XXVI.) Augustine numbers among sacraments marriage, the Sabbath, circumcision, etc. (De Nupt. et Concup., I. 11; Tract. in Joan., IX. 2, S XX. 2; De Spir. et Lit., L.; Serm., X.) The pseudo Areopagite specifies six Christian mysteries or sacraments, baptism, eucharist, anointing, priestly consecration, dedication to monastic life, and the ceremonial for the dead (an anointing of the body of the deceased). But while baptism and the eucharist did not stand alone as sacraments, a certain pre-eminence was assigned them among sacramental rites.

BAPTISM. — The conditions of the efficacy of baptism in case of adults were understood to be repentance and faith. "Whence has water," asks Augustine, "so great an efficacy as in touching the body to cleanse the soul, save by the operation of the word; and that not because it is uttered, but because it is believed?" (Tract. in Joan., LXXX. 3.) A spirit counter to these conditions, as he plainly states, can nullify the grace of baptism, however legitimately in other respects the rite may be consummated. (De Baptismo, I. 12. Compare Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatech.) In case of infants, the conditions were regarded as adequately met through the sponsors. The faith of the godfather, as Augustine teaches, answers for the infant candidate. "Cre

dit in altero, quia peccavit in altero." (Serm., CCXCIV. Compare De Peccat. Mer. et Remiss., I. 38; Tract. in Joan., LXXX.)

Valid baptism was universally regarded as the rite of regeneration, and as such efficacious for the complete removal of the condemnation coming from foregoing sin, whether original or actual. It was also generally regarded as conducive to a certain inward illumination and renovation. (Eusebius, De Eccl. Theol., I. 8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatech.; Basil, Hom., XIII. 1; Gregory Naz., Orat., XL.; Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunom., II.; Theodoret, Hær. Fab., V. 18; Ambrose, Enar. in Psal., XXXVI. 63; Leo the Great, Serm., VII., XVIII., LXIII.; Gregory the Great, Moral., IV. Præf., IX. 34.) Augustine, who defines the effect of baptism more specifically than was customary, states that, while it wholly removes original sin as a matter of guilt, it does not wholly remove it as a corruption of nature. (De Peccat. Mer. et Remiss., I. 70, II. 4, 9, 44; De Nup. et Concup., I. 28; Contra Duas Epist., I. 27, III. 5.)

Baptism, being a necessary antecedent to church membership, was of course regarded not less than the latter a condition of salvation. Various writers indulge emphatic statements upon its necessity. Leo the Great declares that no one can be released from original sin, except through the sacrament of baptism. (Epist., XV.) "Without the sacrament of regeneration," says Cassianus, "no one can escape eternal death." (Collat., XIII. 19.) "We believe," writes Gennadius, "that to the baptized alone is there a way of salvation. We believe that no catechumen, except the martyr, though dying in good works, can have eternal life." (De Eccl. Dogmat., LXXIV.) Augustine states that no one attains to God without baptism, -"sine baptismo quidem nemo ad Deum pervenit." (Serm., XC.) Fulgentius declares that whoever is not baptized, either in the name of Christ with consecrated water, or with His own