17 / 470
SUBJECT
OF
THE
TREATISE.
XIII
the
Christian ministry into
a
privileged order, superior in spiritual
dignity to
the
Christian
people,
and
to
exalt the
church
above
the
gospel.
When
we
hear
Cyprian
affirming
that
every bishop
is
in his
own church, for
the
present,
judge
in
Christ's
stead;
and
that
our
Lord
Jesus
Christ,
one
and
only,
has power to prefer us to
the
go-
vernment of
his church
and to
judge
of
our actings
;1when
we
hear
Basil
asserting
that
a
church governor
(xcanyóv¡kevos)
is
neither
more
nor
less
than
one
sustaining
the
person
of
Christ
(öuóev
Ërepov
;ens,
ñ
t
nu
eoirijpos
sareyav
orp6oaorov);5
or
Chrysostom saying,
"
We
have received
the
commission of ambassadors,
and
are
come from
God;
for
this
is
the
dignity of
the
episcopate;
"$
such
magnilo-
quence, however
its terms may
be
interpreted,
too surely indicates
the
direction which
the
stream
was
taking.
A
vague notion,
apparently
countenanced by
some expressions
of
the
early
fathers,' though plainly
at
variance with
the
doctrine of
the
New Testament,
that
the
Christian ministry
was
formed on
the
model
of
the
Aaronic priesthood, may have induced
some,
in
that
infantine
age,
to
yield more
readily
to
these
assumptions.
It
is
needless
to
show
that the
ancient priesthood
was
emblematical,
not
of
the
Christian ministry,
but
of
the
priesthood of
Christ in present-
ing
the
great
oblation by which all
the
sacrificial
types of
the
temple
were fulfilled;
and
of
the
priesthood of
the Christian
people, who
are
enjoined to
"present
their
bodies
a
living
sacrifice,
holy
and
accept-
able
to
God."
But
how sorely
the
advocates
of sacerdotal
power were
put
to
their
shifts
in
attempting
to
bolster
up
their title
is
apparent
from
the
fictions
and
forgeries,
unparalleled in audacity and in
num-
ber, which
they
invented.
We
instance
only
the
counterfeit
epistles
of
the
apostolic
Ignatius,
the
interpolated
works of
Cyprian,
the
ficti-
tious
councils
of
the
church,
and
the
fabulous Apostolical Canons
and
Institutions,
all
of
them
more or
less
tending to
invest
the "clergy"
as
the
officers
or
servants
of
the
church began
to
call themselves)
with
a
power
equivalent to
that
of
their
divine
Master
himself.
The
neces-
sary consequence
of all
this
was
the gradual
depression
of
the
" laity,".
that
is,
the
people
(xaós)
of Christ,
and
the
exclusive claim of
the
clergy
to represent
the church. One
thing
only
was
wanting
to
com-
plete
this
strange perversion
of
Christianity. A priesthood required
some
instrument of mediation; an altar, a
victim,
a
sacrifice,
must
be
found or invented. This
was
done
by converting
the
simple feast of
1
Cypr.,
F.p.
lv.
8
Basil. Const.
Mon., cap.
xxii.
a
Chrysost.
in
Coloss.
Orat. iii.
4
The allusion of
Clemens Romanus,
in his only genuine epistle
to the
Corinthians,
to
the Jewish hierarchy, is
susceptible of
a
sense
very different
from
that
afterwards
as-
signed to
it.