the Temple, and solicitous for their fate, came on pilgrimages in extraordinary numbers from all quarters.1

2

While the city was compassed about by enemies from without, confusion and carnage reigned within its walls. The Christians, warned by the words of Christ, "When you shall see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its destruction is at hand," fled the city, and took refuge at Pella, in Peraea. The Jews, though recognizing in their present disasters the literal fulfillment of our Lord's prediction,3 still exhibited a stubborn obstinacy that neither the horrors of a civil war nor the ravages of famine, of which Maria, the despairing daughter of Eleazar, was a terrible example, could subdue. Robbed of all her possessions by the brutal soldiery of Simon, and dying with a tender infant at her breasts, to which she could no longer supply nourishment, she yielded to an unnatural impulse, and taking the babe she had brought forth in pain and cherished with love, putting it upon a fire, roasted it, and having eaten a portion herself, gave the remainder to a crowd of starving soldiers who stood near, saying, "This is my child; take and eat of it: I, too, have eaten. Have you a heart more tender and compassionate than a woman or more loving than a mother?"

The news of this deed of horror spread rapidly through the city, and reached even the Roman camp. To such distress were the fated inhabitants reduced that, as Daniel had foretold, overwhelmed by their appalling misfortunes, they left off daily sacrifices about the middle of the last week of the siege.

But it seemed as if nothing could subdue the obstinacy of the Jews. Neither their present calamities nor the prophetic words of our Savior, "Blessed are the barren in those days, and those who bear not children, and whose breasts do not

1According to Jos. Flav. de Bell. Jud. VI. 9, the assembled multitude num. bered 2,700,000. Tacit. hist. V. 13, gives 600,000.

2 Feuerlein, De Christianorum Migratione in Oppidum Pellam, etc. Jenae, 1694.

3 Matt. xxiv.; Luke xxi. 6 et sq.

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give suck," were sufficient to bring them to their senses. The Romans, victorious in arms, and recoiling with horror from these scenes of misery, resolved to put an end to them by the total destruction of the city. The circumstances attending its fall were terrible in the extreme, and when a Roman soldier applied a firebrand to the Temple,1 the grief and dismay of the inhabitants knew no bounds. According to Josephus, upward of a million of souls perished during the six months of the siege.

The unfortunate Jews, having lost their national independence, were now forced to disperse among the nations of the earth, without the comfort of a promise that they should one day again return-without prophet or king, sacrifice or altar, sanctuary or hope. The scepter had passed from them forever; and, to add to their misery, they were still forced by the Roman government to pay the capitation tax, though the Temple was now a heap of smoldering ruins.

It is rather a strange coincidence that just eight months 2 before the fall of Jerusalem, a Roman had also been instrumental in the burning of the capitol, with its temple of Jupiter and shrines of Juno and Minerva.3

The fact that the triumphal arch of Titus, the conqueror of the Jews, and the one commemorating the victory of Constantine the Great over Maxentius, the champion of the Pagans, are the best preserved monuments of ancient Rome, while the Colosseum, the very symbol of Paganism, is a broken ruin, is not without its significance, and may give rise to an instructive train of thought.

The time was now at hand for the Church to put forth her inherent energy and power.

1Aug. 10, A. D. 70.

2 Dec. 19, A. D. 69.

3 Döllinger, The Jew and the Gentile, pp. 733 and 851-855.

CHAPTER III.

FORM AND CONSTITUTION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

+Petavius, de hierarch. eccl. libb. V.; in his theol. dogm., ed. Venet. 1757, T. VI., p. 52–209; in other edit., T. IV. Scholliner. de hier. ecclesiae diss., Ratisb. 1757, 4to. Moehler, the unity of the Church, Tueb. (1825), 1843. Dr. Sylvius (Ginzel), Gospel and Church, Ratisbon. 1843. Against: Rothe, First Beginnings of the Christian Church, Wittenb. 1837. Ritchl, Origin of the Old Catholic Church, Bonn (1850), 1857, and others. Hergenroether, de eccles. Cathol. primordiis recentiorum Protestantium systemata expenduntur, dissertatio, Ratisb. 1851.

As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you. John xx. 21.

§ 52. Clergy and Laity.

The Church, even in the days of the Apostles, was not a disorganized body without connection and adjustment of parts, but from the very beginning bore about her the tokens of order and unity (cf. § 39). While Christ sojourned on earth with His Apostles, their relation to each other was that of master and servant,' and this formed the basis at a later period of the division of the Church's members into teachers and people, rulers and subjects, and clergy and laity. For as it was the will of Christ that His work, the salvation of the man, should continue after He had returned to His Father, it was necessary that the Church, as His representative, should possess the three great prerogatives of the Redeemer Himself, of prophet or teacher, priest, and king or pastor.

Christ, with this object in view, gave the Apostles a commission to teach,2 not as men liable to err, but as teachers sent of God, and strong in the strength of his infallible Spirit. A corresponding commission was given to the laity to hear and learn, believe and obey,3 to the end that they too might grow strong in faith and be endued with knowledge from on high.

1John xiii. 14, 16, xv. 15.

2 Matt. xxviii. 18-20; Mark xvi.15.

3 John x. 26, 27; Luke x. 16.

41 Tim. iii. 15; Eph. iv. 11–14.

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Christ had wrought many miracles in proof of His own teaching, and He conferred the same power upon His Apostles, that they might preach the Gospel2 with greater efficacy and their words bear with them the divine sanction.

As the God-man, the great High-priest, according to the order of Melchisedec, had offered Himself once a willing victim on Golgotha, to make atonement for the sins of men,3 He desired that there should be a perpetual commemoration made of this sacrifice upon the altars of His Church, and commissioned His Apostles to see that His will should be carried out.

They received the commission at the Last Supper, when Christ, taking bread and wine, changed them into His own Body and Blood, gave of these to eat and to drink to His Apostles, and commanded them to continue to do the same in remembrance of Him. They also received the power to forgive sins.5

4

But the idea of Christianity included, besides sacrifices and the remission of sins, the sanctification of souls and intercession with God, and hence the Apostles became ministers of the Sacraments, and were placed in the Church of God as mediators between Him and His people. There could be no question of their fitness for the last office, for Christ Himself had taught them how and in what spirit to pray.

Finally Christ gave His Apostles the power of the keys, and commissioned them to govern and direct His Church. This grant of governing power was in the case of Simon surrounded with circumstances of peculiar significance. Our Lord, upon His first meeting him, addressed him as Peter, or the Rock, and said that upon this Rock He would build His Church; and thus, with Peter as their Head, the

8

1 John v. 36, x. 38, xv. 24.

2 Matt. x. 1-8; Mark xvi. 17-20; John xiv. 12; cf. Acts ii. and 1 Cor. xii.

3 Heb. ii. 17, vii. 17, ix. 28, x. 10.

4 Matt. xxvi. 26 sq.; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. ii. 23, 26.

5 John xx. 19-23.

6 Luke v. 16, vi. 12, ix. 18, xi. 1 sq.

7 John i. 42.

8 Matt. xvi. 18, 19.

1

other Apostles participated in the pastoral care of the flock of Christ. Christ, on another occasion, confirmed the right of authoritative jurisdiction to the Apostolic college in language still more emphatic than that used in making the first grant. "As the Father hath sent Me," said He, "I also send you;" and, "He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me." And hence St. Paul says, "Let a man so look upon us as the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.” 3

The seal was set to their authority when the Holy Ghost, who had on another occasion descended in the form of a dove, came upon them in the shape of fiery tongues.

4

The distinction between teacher and people, ruler and subject, existing in the Old Law, which Christ came not to destroy but to complete, was made more clear and pointed by the grant of governing authority committed to the Apostles; and the introduction of the division between the clergy (xkỹpog) and the laity (λaós) into the Christian Church is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans i. 1, and also in the Acts xiii. 2, where there is question of setting apart (àçopigen) Paul and Barnabas for the ministry of the Gospel. And another proof to the same effect is that the grace and power of priesthood were conferred by prayer and the laying on of hands.c

St. Clement, a Father of the Apostolic age, draws a very rigorous distinction between the clergy and the laity in point

5 The word cleric occurs in the Old Test., where, in the division of Canaan, the tribe of Levi, taking God for its portion, received no share of land (кλñpoç). Propterea vocantur Clerici, says Jerome, vel quia de sorte sunt Domini, vel quia ipse Dominus sors, i. e. pars clericorum est: qui autem vel ipse pars Domini est, vel Dominum partem habet, talem se exhibere debet, ut et ipse possideat Dominum et possideatur a Domino; quodsi quidpiam aliud habuerit praeter Dominum pars ejus non erit Dominus. (Ep. ad Nepotian. Cf. Ps. xv. 5: Dominus pars haereditatis meae et calicis mei.) The people belonging to the Church, but subordinate to the clergy, were called laics, from λaós, people. Acts xi. 6, xiii. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6.